WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.320 at the beginning of the year we spoke to the church and we said we're going to start investing 00:00:04.320 --> 00:00:11.620 into this metaverse concept. We have no idea how it looks like or how it's going to work 00:00:11.620 --> 00:00:17.620 but we're going to start investigating. This year the idea is to start investigating it, 00:00:17.720 --> 00:00:25.060 to start asking the questions, to understand how it works, what can we do because we don't just 00:00:25.060 --> 00:00:31.220 want to take the same service and put it on the metaverse. We're trying to understand the culture 00:00:31.220 --> 00:00:36.120 of the metaverse and do something that is relevant for the metaverse. Welcome to the church digital 00:00:36.120 --> 00:00:41.300 podcast. Through this podcast we'll talk about the technological innovations within the church 00:00:41.300 --> 00:00:47.880 but more than tech for tech itself we'll address deeper questions. Is disciple making possible 00:00:47.880 --> 00:00:53.640 digitally? How should we approach the digital mission field? Can a biblically grounded church 00:00:53.640 --> 00:00:59.800 operate in digital space? Oh and where does the metaverse fit into all this? Whether you're a big 00:00:59.800 --> 00:01:05.520 or small church, an established church, or a startup church plant, the Church Digital's goal is to help 00:01:05.520 --> 00:01:12.800 churches like yours learn to be a multiplying church, digitally and physically. Our heart? That 00:01:12.800 --> 00:01:17.980 churches like yours will discover a newfound focus on disciple making that will revolutionize your 00:01:17.980 --> 00:01:26.220 church. And now here's your host Jeff Reed. Hey all right we got episode 226 here with the church digital 00:01:26.220 --> 00:01:31.580 podcast and and I'm excited about this one. We're bringing in a homer, somebody from the hometown here 00:01:31.580 --> 00:01:36.680 to talk about what they're doing in digital ministry. And so now you remember one of the themes that we're 00:01:36.680 --> 00:01:42.060 hitting uh with the podcast here in the summer is we're really looking at some of the um the global 00:01:42.060 --> 00:01:46.860 approaches and maybe some of the contextualization as we're looking at african-american churches. 00:01:46.860 --> 00:01:52.300 Elle Michelle just did a podcast last week on that with us talking about the african-american 00:01:52.300 --> 00:01:57.820 church and what she's doing through ministry out of uh the Tallahassee north florida area. 00:01:57.820 --> 00:02:02.700 And what's interesting today we're still staying sticking in florida here and we're digging into maybe 00:02:02.700 --> 00:02:09.660 the hispanic church and what it looks like to do hispanic church online and reaching globally a church 00:02:09.660 --> 00:02:14.380 that's reaching some of those those cultures. And so like I always want to put the disclaimer 00:02:14.380 --> 00:02:19.660 here on this dude I'm a white man with a goatee. There's a lot that to be honest I don't 00:02:19.660 --> 00:02:26.780 know and so I'm positioning myself as a listener asking some questions and I always want to be like 00:02:26.780 --> 00:02:31.900 hey yo if I'm offensive in this moment I'm trying to get the apology in advance to know that that's 00:02:31.900 --> 00:02:36.380 not really the heart of what I'm going for and hopefully listening audience you know me at this point 00:02:37.180 --> 00:02:42.620 to be true. So definitely excited about this conversation and I did want to bring into it 00:02:42.620 --> 00:02:48.700 uh Ezekiel Fattori and so Ezekiel hey man thanks for jumping on the podcast here and uh and being 00:02:48.700 --> 00:02:55.660 with us. Hey Jeff thank you so much for having me here I'm so excited so excited. Yeah so Ezekiel is 00:02:55.660 --> 00:03:02.220 with Casa Miami uh which is a church that I've never heard of in my backyard which is awesome I love 00:03:02.220 --> 00:03:08.220 that and so we got connected through some friends over over a new thing and it started talking and I 00:03:08.220 --> 00:03:15.180 just started learning about what uh what uh Casa Miami is doing globally and how they're utilizing 00:03:15.180 --> 00:03:20.540 online it was like oh my gosh I want to I want to unpack more of this I want to I want to learn more 00:03:20.540 --> 00:03:25.340 about what this is happening and maybe some lessons that we can start to apply uh towards digital 00:03:25.340 --> 00:03:30.940 churches and and church online and things like that so hey Ezekiel maybe just to kick us off tell us 00:03:30.940 --> 00:03:35.660 tell us a little bit of your church's story tell us tell us what you guys are about okay the the funny 00:03:35.660 --> 00:03:39.980 thing is when you say we're going to learn about the Hispanic church well you call Hispanic church for 00:03:39.980 --> 00:03:46.460 me it's church period because it's what we do so let's let's see if we can find out what are the 00:03:46.460 --> 00:03:52.300 unique things because it's like riding a bike you know you don't even know what you're doing until 00:03:52.300 --> 00:03:58.460 someone asks you what is it that you're doing it's like I'm not sure so let's see what's going on um 00:03:59.260 --> 00:04:08.620 love it so we've been around for 18 years now my dad and my mom uh funded the church 18 years ago 00:04:09.340 --> 00:04:15.500 then they transitioned the church to me and my wife four years ago my dad passed away three years ago 00:04:15.500 --> 00:04:23.340 and then we rebranded the church it was called casa de jesus casa de jesus and we felt like the 00:04:23.340 --> 00:04:29.660 things we were doing were not matching the the name or the name was not matching the what we were doing 00:04:29.660 --> 00:04:35.980 as a church so we rebranded it as as casa church and we wanted a name that could be pronounced well in 00:04:35.980 --> 00:04:43.500 spanish and well in english anyone can say casa and knows what a casa is so um and from there we've 00:04:43.500 --> 00:04:50.540 been working a lot on connecting with the hispanic culture in miami one thing that happened is during 00:04:50.540 --> 00:05:00.700 covid of course as uh everyone had to close down um for us it wasn't such a hard thing because we had been 00:05:00.700 --> 00:05:10.700 been doing church online for 12 years uh that maybe for the the the american churches that that was 00:05:10.700 --> 00:05:15.500 something normal but not for the hispanic churches when we started 12 years ago people were throwing 00:05:15.500 --> 00:05:22.540 tomatoes at us saying you shouldn't be doing that uh because we need to go to the place until of course 00:05:22.540 --> 00:05:30.220 uh covid happened and everyone moved to online so for us uh it wasn't that hard we were ready for it 00:05:30.940 --> 00:05:36.940 actually helped us have like one focus saying okay this is the thing we have to do we don't we didn't 00:05:36.940 --> 00:05:45.980 have to do the um the the thing with the people in the in the room and then the thing online so we just 00:05:45.980 --> 00:05:55.260 we're doing online and our reach grew like crazy and we went from having maybe 5 000 subscribers on 00:05:55.260 --> 00:06:03.980 our youtube to 75 000 right now um our facebook group a lot um it has like two millions two million 00:06:03.980 --> 00:06:10.940 followers right now and the instagram has 145 000 uh and all that happened during covid 00:06:10.940 --> 00:06:15.900 uh so it's it's been interesting it's been interesting to to be able to connect with so 00:06:15.900 --> 00:06:20.860 many people yeah that those are some ridiculous numbers i know let's let's yeah i mean let's let's 00:06:20.860 --> 00:06:26.460 back up because i want to dig into like two million youtube but um i mean you made the statement 12 00:06:26.460 --> 00:06:31.980 years ago you started doing online and there was there was some pushback against that you know try 00:06:31.980 --> 00:06:37.660 well no you got to be in person towards that what what's the if i can ask like what's the motivation maybe 00:06:37.660 --> 00:06:44.860 12 years ago like is it is it just like the the theology is is very bent towards physical proximity 00:06:45.420 --> 00:06:51.260 uh there wasn't access to the technology it was a lack of understanding towards what relationships 00:06:51.260 --> 00:06:56.940 could be like digitally like walk me through maybe some of that tension that you felt years ago maybe 00:06:56.940 --> 00:07:01.260 some of the tension that you're feeling in covid and do you feel that same tension today i feel there's 00:07:01.260 --> 00:07:08.940 always this tension that if you're not in the room you're a second degree uh member of the church 00:07:09.900 --> 00:07:16.860 and they say if you if we don't see you in the room then there you're not in the room and we started 00:07:16.860 --> 00:07:23.100 pushing a lot through that and we started saying well that's not true like if you're deciding to watch it 00:07:23.100 --> 00:07:29.820 from home it's good it's okay we're not going against it we're just uh understanding it as it is 00:07:30.460 --> 00:07:37.260 and um but i feel yeah i feel they connect theology to it but there's no theology that supports any of 00:07:37.260 --> 00:07:45.020 the technology jesus was always using technology when when he got into a boat and went far from the bay 00:07:45.020 --> 00:07:50.940 he was using the technology he had with the water to connect with his voice so i feel like that's what 00:07:50.940 --> 00:07:56.860 we're trying to do connect with it through the technology also i started i studied advertising 00:07:56.860 --> 00:08:05.020 um i have a bachelor's in advertising and um being able to connect through technology so it's been a 00:08:05.020 --> 00:08:10.540 passion for me so i feel like i didn't know if it was wrong or not what i was doing i just wanted to do 00:08:10.540 --> 00:08:18.620 it we just wanted to jump onto it and there were some churches that were doing it uh on the on the 00:08:18.620 --> 00:08:24.380 american side and we learned from there from them and we said okay let's do it and so now you know 00:08:24.380 --> 00:08:31.500 as a result of covid you've seen some astronomical numbers would you say 145 000 on instagram yes uh 00:08:31.500 --> 00:08:39.660 at two two million on on on youtube i mean like that's on facebook uh like so where who are these 00:08:39.660 --> 00:08:45.180 people do you have any idea where they came from like what what what do you know about these people 00:08:45.180 --> 00:08:49.340 that are that are connecting with your church well we're trying we're trying to learn that actually 00:08:49.340 --> 00:08:57.340 we're we're in the process of of doing a whole market marketing uh study of the people are connecting 00:08:57.340 --> 00:09:03.340 and trying to understand who they are and but of course something that is helping us a lot is the 00:09:03.340 --> 00:09:12.060 small groups we do through zoom every week um between 300 to 500 people connect to our small groups 00:09:13.020 --> 00:09:19.580 from all around the globe and from there we we connect to them and and we're trying to learn who 00:09:19.580 --> 00:09:25.180 they are so so part of your discipleship strategy discovering who these people are getting them in in the 00:09:25.180 --> 00:09:31.580 small groups and where there's you know relational relational connections how how how much of a reach 00:09:31.580 --> 00:09:37.980 are we talking about like are you latin central south america you know what's what is this reach 00:09:37.980 --> 00:09:45.500 thing actually looked at practically uh yeah it's it's south central america it's south south america central 00:09:45.500 --> 00:09:53.980 american america mostly actually uh we just did because we're trying to add the physical part to the 00:09:53.980 --> 00:10:02.060 digital part because we feel we're a um a church that is digital that has uh in-person expressions 00:10:02.060 --> 00:10:08.620 around the globe so we're trying to do pop-up churches wow so we went to argentina on january 00:10:08.620 --> 00:10:16.540 on buenos aires we went to buenos aires um and we opened a registration to be like okay whoever wants 00:10:16.540 --> 00:10:23.340 to come we want to meet you we want to spend some time with you and in argentina 120 people signed up 00:10:23.340 --> 00:10:31.740 to to be there people that we had no idea who they are who they were until that moment um and we just 00:10:31.740 --> 00:10:40.700 came back last week from bogotá colombia and 400 people showed up to the event and we connected to 00:10:40.700 --> 00:10:48.380 them we spent uh two or three hours talking to them and crying listening to the stories on how these 00:10:48.380 --> 00:10:54.940 the there's their lives have been changed and impacted uh for not only the church online but the way we 00:10:54.940 --> 00:11:01.020 see god as well yeah i love the opportunities what you're talking about about how to like reach into 00:11:01.020 --> 00:11:06.380 people get to know them build the relationships change their lives through the relationships 00:11:06.380 --> 00:11:12.860 that are establishing now you said something and i was i wasn't expecting it because it's it's rare 00:11:12.860 --> 00:11:18.060 when i hear it and so i'm going to ask you to unpack this a little bit okay you said that you're 00:11:18.060 --> 00:11:24.780 a digital church that has physical locations as opposed to a physical church that does digital 00:11:25.340 --> 00:11:32.060 ministry i first off thank you that that warms my heart uh but i would love for you to unpack kind 00:11:32.060 --> 00:11:38.300 of what what the story is behind that statement why are you a digital first church as opposed to 00:11:38.300 --> 00:11:43.820 a physical church that's doing an add-on of digital ministry well before coven we were doing both we were 00:11:43.820 --> 00:11:53.420 doing digital and in person during coven we moved to digital and are rich and the people that started 00:11:53.420 --> 00:12:00.140 connecting grew up like crazy so we felt like okay this is what we need to do and i don't know if this 00:12:00.140 --> 00:12:07.740 is the thing that everyone needs to be doing but this is what we know how to do or or this is um 00:12:09.020 --> 00:12:18.380 this is the thing that it's common to us so we started doing it uh and then when people started coming 00:12:18.380 --> 00:12:22.700 back we said okay we're just gonna keep it this way we're gonna keep it as a digital church 00:12:23.740 --> 00:12:32.780 um that has uh in-person expressions so for example people come on a sunday to our what we don't call 00:12:32.780 --> 00:12:39.740 it auditorium anymore we call it studio so they come to our studio it's around for 100 120 people 00:12:40.860 --> 00:12:48.380 uh they come to a studio we do live worship we do we do live preaching and we stay after connecting to 00:12:48.380 --> 00:12:54.300 the people that came in person that it's our in-person expression but of course everything it's uh 00:12:54.300 --> 00:12:59.980 thought out for the people that are watching online i'm all the time looking at a camera well while i'm 00:12:59.980 --> 00:13:06.140 preaching and everyone that talks in the in the room is talking to a camera so the the digital part comes 00:13:06.140 --> 00:13:10.700 first because of course you have 120 people in person but then at the end of the week you're 00:13:10.700 --> 00:13:16.220 gonna have between the uh the people that watch live and the people that watch on demand you're 00:13:16.220 --> 00:13:23.820 gonna have 3 000 to close to five or seven thousand people watching so uh that that's what we're doing 00:13:23.820 --> 00:13:32.620 did you intentionally go after like going global at what point did you because i i mean i'm speculating 00:13:32.620 --> 00:13:37.740 here i'm dreaming here this is your father's church did he have this vision for digital did it just 00:13:37.740 --> 00:13:43.820 magically happened did you intentionally go after digital first like what was that transitionary 00:13:43.820 --> 00:13:50.300 period what did that look like no it was it was actually uh it wasn't easy at all because at the 00:13:50.300 --> 00:13:56.060 same time when my dad was a pastor it was really hard to make him understand that he had to look at the 00:13:56.060 --> 00:14:03.260 camera or why we were putting so many lights and so we were like putting the cameras in the places that 00:14:03.260 --> 00:14:11.740 he was looking at so if he used to we would move his uh his his ipad or his his bible to the the side where 00:14:11.740 --> 00:14:17.980 the camera was so we could have a shot of him looking at the camera of course it wasn't it wasn't easy at 00:14:17.980 --> 00:14:25.900 all uh but we kept pushing we kept pushing is is the the thing that was vibrating for us we had a heart for 00:14:25.900 --> 00:14:32.540 this we had a heart for for all these people we're not thinking about it it was i'm not gonna say that 00:14:32.540 --> 00:14:41.100 i saw it before i knew it no we just started doing it and we and it kept growing and it kept happening 00:14:41.100 --> 00:14:48.380 of course um i love how all the the communication is is changing on in everywhere in everywhere so 00:14:48.380 --> 00:14:57.500 i wanted just to follow it no i i love i love all of this now do you feel that does the hispanic 00:14:57.500 --> 00:15:04.060 culture like you're reaching latin and south america do they do 2022 do they connect with 00:15:04.060 --> 00:15:13.260 digital like are are people in other countries other continents are they open to to receiving to 00:15:13.260 --> 00:15:20.460 being part of a church that operates digitally first like is there tensions what what maybe is some of 00:15:20.460 --> 00:15:24.620 that relationship and some of those early conversations look like with with people 00:15:24.620 --> 00:15:30.460 i had the same question until we came back from colombia last week where people that 00:15:31.900 --> 00:15:36.460 saw us for the first time in person they had been connecting for two years and a half 00:15:37.500 --> 00:15:45.580 so it was 400 people showing up at the place and we stayed we heard two stories of people 00:15:46.940 --> 00:15:53.260 saying it's not only the digital church because it's we know it's not just the medium is the message 00:15:53.260 --> 00:15:59.180 right it's it's a way of seeing church as well it's a way of seeing god as well so people were saying 00:15:59.820 --> 00:16:04.380 the good thing about digital churches i could assist without being judged at all 00:16:06.780 --> 00:16:12.620 for example there was a person that it was a transgender person coming to the place he uh 00:16:12.620 --> 00:16:19.660 he came with his girlfriend and uh people that were gay lesbians uh people from all over the 00:16:20.220 --> 00:16:27.580 the spectrum were there oh another cool thing that happened is many young kids bringing their parents 00:16:28.700 --> 00:16:35.340 to the pop-up so they could show them to say hey you you see this this is making me good and i know it's 00:16:35.340 --> 00:16:40.300 hard for you to understand that i'm not going to an in-person church or i'm not going to your church 00:16:40.300 --> 00:16:46.220 but i'm connecting to this and it was incredible to see the parents after the event 00:16:46.940 --> 00:16:53.900 coming to uh say thank you to us and they had the shirts of the church the church marriage on and 00:16:53.900 --> 00:17:00.540 they were like they were even talking more than their kids to us uh because they were happy for what was happening 00:17:00.540 --> 00:17:08.540 so yeah there's tension of course uh there's tension on on churches that they feel like they're losing 00:17:08.540 --> 00:17:15.900 people uh but at the same time there's a bunch of people that they wouldn't go to an in-person church 00:17:16.460 --> 00:17:21.980 that they wouldn't because they don't feel guilty because they're part of the new generation 00:17:23.180 --> 00:17:31.260 and some they're like um i for my lifestyle for who i am i wouldn't go to an in-person church so 00:17:31.260 --> 00:17:37.660 yeah there is tension but it's uh it's far more better the the good things that are coming with it 00:17:37.660 --> 00:17:41.820 yeah we we feel that i've at least i've seen the same thing with the churches that i've worked with 00:17:41.820 --> 00:17:46.780 that like the digital expressions of church like what what you're doing in in latin and south america 00:17:46.780 --> 00:17:51.420 where they have no physical footprint and even like the studio that you're describing we're really 00:17:51.420 --> 00:17:56.700 describing like more of a digital first mentality and but what we're finding are the churches like that 00:17:57.260 --> 00:18:02.540 are exactly what you're saying you were reaching a different type of person people that the buildings 00:18:02.540 --> 00:18:07.500 aren't aren't reaching and so often you know when we talk with with physical churches that are doing 00:18:07.500 --> 00:18:12.780 physical churches that are doing digital ministry second you know there's there's this fear of uh 00:18:12.780 --> 00:18:17.580 competing with the physical building and and these people should be in a physical building and so 00:18:17.580 --> 00:18:23.660 we're we're actually i've had a pastor in my life tell me that i should confess my sin uh for pulling 00:18:23.660 --> 00:18:28.380 people out of the bride of christ by helping churches uh you know do online ministry and thanks 00:18:28.380 --> 00:18:33.420 side conversation for for another day he's a friend of mine actually but the the heart of this is is 00:18:33.420 --> 00:18:38.380 that we're finding digital churches digital first churches like yours are are reaching different 00:18:38.380 --> 00:18:43.420 people than the buildings are reaching and so i love i mean i love some of these stories even the 00:18:43.420 --> 00:18:50.140 transgender uh trying to go into a safe environment to ask questions the dialogue like that we hear that 00:18:50.140 --> 00:18:56.220 story time and time again in digital and metaverse church and so that that's super exciting i know 00:18:56.220 --> 00:19:02.700 i'm curious towards this and this may be more of a of a of a miami-based question like so i'm in miami 00:19:02.700 --> 00:19:09.580 um you know like there's it's predominantly hispanic uh the uh by by far that's the stronger 00:19:09.580 --> 00:19:15.580 culture here within the 305 and the 786 uh when you get down to the latin and south america is 00:19:15.580 --> 00:19:23.020 there any contextualization like do we have to worry about um you know different uh different dialects 00:19:23.020 --> 00:19:27.180 different languages different ways to connect with people in different countries like how much adaptation 00:19:27.180 --> 00:19:32.780 do you do well actually i love that miami has so many cultures because 00:19:34.620 --> 00:19:40.220 even inside the hispanic culture you have the argentinians the colombians venezuelans 00:19:40.220 --> 00:19:46.620 and we don't say the same words even there's stuff that i'm from argentina but there are words that i say 00:19:47.420 --> 00:19:53.500 that are like cursing for other hispanics but i'm not cursing in argentinian basically 00:19:54.060 --> 00:19:59.820 so uh but i love that being in miami has helped me understand all those differences 00:20:00.380 --> 00:20:07.260 so believe it or not i've been trained for 18 years on how to preach to colombians argentinians 00:20:07.260 --> 00:20:14.220 venezuelans from puerto rico from cuba i've been talking to them my whole life all my ministry 00:20:14.780 --> 00:20:20.380 so suddenly when we go online we've been doing we've been doing it so i know that someone that 00:20:20.380 --> 00:20:24.700 is listening from colombia is going to understand what i'm saying i know that someone from argentina 00:20:24.700 --> 00:20:29.260 that is listening is going to understand what i'm saying because i i've been i've been trained to to 00:20:29.260 --> 00:20:33.980 see all those differences that's interesting like i there was there was the situation i don't remember 00:20:33.980 --> 00:20:39.260 the two languages here but this is this has been like my fear when i worked and i i let me say this 00:20:39.260 --> 00:20:45.020 at a personal level i have been told not to speak spanish because me speaking spanish offends spanish 00:20:45.020 --> 00:20:49.820 people and so like i know a little bit i've lived here long enough to be able but i've been told don't 00:20:49.820 --> 00:20:55.740 don't even try and so like i'm respectful of the cultures but i don't i don't understand it uh but 00:20:55.740 --> 00:21:01.660 you know there was a situation i can remember this maybe a little too personal but i was i was overseeing 00:21:01.660 --> 00:21:09.980 spanish translation at a uh at a physical church here here in town and um the the the translator 00:21:10.620 --> 00:21:15.020 used the word i don't know the the country but was trying to say the pastor said excited 00:21:15.580 --> 00:21:21.580 and uh and so the translator you know where i'm going the translator didn't say excited he used the 00:21:21.580 --> 00:21:28.700 word that for um you know it's you know excited you know and in the in the type of way that you 00:21:28.700 --> 00:21:34.220 don't want to be excited in church and setting and so it was like oh my gosh it became like this this 00:21:34.220 --> 00:21:40.140 huge controversy what are we doing how are we how are we translating how are we all right so look um 00:21:40.140 --> 00:21:44.700 how how's you because you said something you're like man i grew up here in miami i've been here for 18 00:21:44.700 --> 00:21:50.780 years i know understand all these cultures how do you get there like how do you understand that 00:21:50.780 --> 00:22:00.380 by laughing at yourself by uh talking to your friends by uh lowering your pride or lowering your 00:22:00.380 --> 00:22:06.700 country pride or be like no i'm gonna speak always like as an argentinian or as a cuban or as by lowering 00:22:06.700 --> 00:22:14.300 that and and trying to to love everyone and to say okay if this word offends you i'm gonna find another 00:22:14.300 --> 00:22:21.180 one um if if this that i'm saying you don't understand it then i'm gonna say something else 00:22:21.180 --> 00:22:29.660 so i feel in my case argentinas were so like we're so proud of how we speak who we are 00:22:29.660 --> 00:22:37.180 uh and so i had to work on my ego and say okay i'm gonna learn i'm gonna so every time every time i'm 00:22:37.180 --> 00:22:42.060 i'm with a different culture i start asking questions i start asking questions questions questions 00:22:42.060 --> 00:22:50.060 and my wife she's so big into taking care of that we respect every culture she she's always 00:22:50.060 --> 00:22:56.620 like we gotta be careful we gotta be careful of not offending anyone so i feel that that's been the key 00:22:56.620 --> 00:23:03.420 i i love that positioning yourself as the learner asking questions uh trying to get feedback and 00:23:03.420 --> 00:23:09.820 direction and guidance from from someone position even giving them an opportunity to own what some some of 00:23:09.820 --> 00:23:17.820 that is and and and and of course finding friends that are willing to let you ask questions that maybe are 00:23:17.820 --> 00:23:31.740 uncomfortable uh and for example last two years ago when uh um with the african-american culture 00:23:32.300 --> 00:23:40.140 and everything that started happening um i i i needed to ask so many questions and i didn't want to be 00:23:40.140 --> 00:23:47.180 disrespectful but i needed to ask the questions so i found friends and i said hey i need to ask you 00:23:47.180 --> 00:23:52.140 questions and if something that i'm saying is not right please forgive me but i need to learn i need 00:23:52.140 --> 00:23:59.740 to understand what is it that is going on in your culture and with your people so i can cry with you i can be with 00:23:59.740 --> 00:24:08.460 you so um i feel like having friends that are willing uh for you are willing to be offended 00:24:09.580 --> 00:24:15.580 by your questions and not take it personal and help you grow and learn that that's the key what's the 00:24:15.580 --> 00:24:22.060 percentage of do you because so you've got you know thousands connecting online ridiculous numbers 00:24:22.620 --> 00:24:29.820 and in facebook and youtube like do you have a grasp of how much of that is is us based how much of that 00:24:29.820 --> 00:24:37.580 is is global based have you worked through any of that yet not me but the creative director of the 00:24:37.580 --> 00:24:47.420 church yes and he's working on that but we know that it's it's around 10 or 15 percent on each on each 00:24:47.420 --> 00:24:55.820 part we have we know we have 10 or 15 percent on us then mexico then colombia then argentina 00:24:56.620 --> 00:25:03.340 so it's it's pretty mixed wow okay so so what what i'm hearing is a very spread like you're not 00:25:03.340 --> 00:25:07.820 predominant one or another another that's great because that actually kind of leads i'm going to 00:25:07.820 --> 00:25:13.900 back up to your race how do you address race in that situation like that that's i don't want to say that's a 00:25:13.900 --> 00:25:20.060 u.s centric but it was obviously it was much more of an uh i'm going to use the word explosion it was 00:25:20.060 --> 00:25:25.820 very focused in in the united states a lot of the tension centered around that but your audience is 00:25:25.820 --> 00:25:32.620 global and and may or may not even agree or understand some of these intricacies like what 00:25:32.620 --> 00:25:38.300 we're dealing with on on the race like what what was that for your season for your church well in my case 00:25:39.020 --> 00:25:45.740 i had to take the time to ask the questions to my friends and then communicate to the community 00:25:46.780 --> 00:25:55.900 and try to teach them or or say this is what's going on because uh the issue of race it's always it's 00:25:55.900 --> 00:26:03.100 also very very very bad on on latin america as well even worse maybe i think we're more conscious on united 00:26:03.100 --> 00:26:12.860 states about this issue that it's on latin america so um so all right how we drove through i could have 00:26:12.860 --> 00:26:20.620 not say anything and there was not a problem with it but i felt that it had to be the voice and make 00:26:20.620 --> 00:26:28.140 everyone understand what does how does it feel how does it feel and how the like i try to make it make it 00:26:28.140 --> 00:26:36.540 sense to the people in in in a country what does um what does some of the the technology look at like 00:26:36.540 --> 00:26:43.900 this so like you're if you're equidistant across a lot of these countries um you know i i just i i've 00:26:43.900 --> 00:26:49.340 done mission trips down in latin and south america and i know they're the lack of technology like they 00:26:49.340 --> 00:26:56.620 they landlines are are non-existent actually i went that was funny i went down there maybe in 2018 2017 00:26:56.620 --> 00:27:01.500 thinking oh we're gonna start doing like tv apps and we're gonna push it down there and so i'm trying 00:27:01.500 --> 00:27:07.260 to get apple tvs or roku's and all these things and none of these homes had wi-fi and none of them had 00:27:07.260 --> 00:27:13.420 viable internet in and all the technology was cell phone based and it really it was a i don't know 00:27:13.420 --> 00:27:18.380 there was a challenge as much as an opportunity to pivot but like what are you finding that they're 00:27:18.380 --> 00:27:26.140 utilizing mobile are they utilizing um web like how are they connecting with you well they're mainly 00:27:26.140 --> 00:27:33.340 connecting uh through youtube and yeah it's through mobile and that i feel we try to use as much as we 00:27:33.340 --> 00:27:39.260 can the technology that it's already available yes they have issues there's there are parts and parts 00:27:39.260 --> 00:27:47.100 there are parts in in latin america that have great technology like uh mexico every country has 00:27:47.100 --> 00:27:54.540 sites that are like less privileged than others but you're always gonna find some that they do have 00:27:54.540 --> 00:28:00.620 good connection and and they do connect to the church or we have some cases uh for example i have 00:28:00.620 --> 00:28:08.620 a kid in venezuela that whenever he goes to his friend's house he downloads the youtube video he 00:28:08.620 --> 00:28:15.420 converts it into audio he puts in his he put it he puts it into in his phone and then he listens to it 00:28:15.420 --> 00:28:22.460 and whenever he has wi-fi he sends me a dm through instagram to say hey thank you for the teaching 00:28:22.460 --> 00:28:29.900 but i love when people go as far as doing all that in order to connect but yeah it's always a challenge 00:28:29.900 --> 00:28:36.540 as you're as you're wrestling like how far along are you on the path of this digital strategy 00:28:37.500 --> 00:28:44.220 growing in in the physical like as you're looking at how do you get a youtube user uh and convert that 00:28:44.220 --> 00:28:50.540 into a micro church or a house church or something like that what what are you guys wrestling with on 00:28:50.540 --> 00:28:57.580 that space well first of all in order um we're wrestling with the on how to connect with so many 00:28:57.580 --> 00:29:04.780 people because of course we have yeah three thousand seven thousand views after uh one week 00:29:05.980 --> 00:29:11.020 but as i said we have three three hundred to five hundred people connecting to a small group 00:29:12.060 --> 00:29:19.740 so we're in the whole process of uh creating a crm process while people after connecting or after 00:29:19.740 --> 00:29:26.300 sending their first email we can guide them into a small group and how to make the process uh 00:29:26.300 --> 00:29:30.940 interesting for them so we're we're wrestling with that right now that that is one of the things 00:29:30.940 --> 00:29:38.940 we're trying to to understand how to connect more people from the youtube experience from the live 00:29:38.940 --> 00:29:45.740 experience to a small group and then maybe they show up at a pop-up when we do it at their country 00:29:45.740 --> 00:29:51.660 awesome i talk to me you said pop up a couple times i want to i want to dig deep on that so you're 00:29:51.660 --> 00:29:57.660 just like have have you done any of these kind of describe for me what that process looks like you just 00:29:57.660 --> 00:30:02.780 show up in venezuela and do a service like there's got to be something more to that right so we just came 00:30:02.780 --> 00:30:11.020 as i said we just came from bogota colombia okay where we did one um so we opened a registration for 00:30:11.020 --> 00:30:19.900 people to show up we did it at a nightclub in the in the main part of bogota um it was such a beautiful 00:30:19.900 --> 00:30:25.900 place such a cool place and the idea was not to do a service because they listen to us every week 00:30:26.700 --> 00:30:31.660 it was the other way around we wanted to make an event for us to be able to listen to them 00:30:32.380 --> 00:30:39.180 oh that's smart so um it's it's a meet and greet basically it's a it's a place where we can connect 00:30:40.140 --> 00:30:46.700 with uh the people that are connecting to the church it was funny because people were coming 00:30:46.700 --> 00:30:53.900 thinking that it was a service and suddenly they see us not doing a service just we created small groups 00:30:53.900 --> 00:31:00.060 inside of the room and we just go from small groups to small group you know and listening and asking 00:31:00.060 --> 00:31:05.980 them questions and at the same time we make them connect to each other so they create community as 00:31:05.980 --> 00:31:13.260 well so we just did one in bogota as i said 400 people signed up to show up it was crazy we were 00:31:13.260 --> 00:31:18.540 not expecting so many people at all people were standing in the room because we had a room for 00:31:18.540 --> 00:31:26.620 150 people and we were not expecting so many people but it was beautiful so what we did is 00:31:26.620 --> 00:31:32.540 we separated into three days the first day we spend it with the leaders of the community because we know 00:31:33.580 --> 00:31:38.620 we have leaders that are leading small groups or they're serving on the church online so we try to 00:31:38.620 --> 00:31:45.660 dedicate more time to them the second day we do the pop-up itself where everyone comes and then we have 00:31:45.660 --> 00:31:54.220 a last supper as we call it where we bring some of the new leaders and the old leaders into a last 00:31:54.220 --> 00:32:02.300 meeting and we spend time with them the idea would be for next year to start doing in-person small 00:32:02.300 --> 00:32:09.820 groups on those countries so the the end game uh of of gathering people together is to start to 00:32:09.820 --> 00:32:14.940 build some of the relationships physically you're connecting digital people together through starting 00:32:14.940 --> 00:32:21.340 to build physical relationships to hope to do your discipleship system of small groups within the 00:32:21.340 --> 00:32:29.260 physical space so a church in miami is wanting to start physical small groups in bogota colombia 00:32:29.260 --> 00:32:35.260 that's that's what i'm garnering from that yeah you said it so good i need to record that and show 00:32:35.260 --> 00:32:39.900 and show it to my people because you said it better than i that that's awesome however i can help you 00:32:39.900 --> 00:32:46.220 make that happen like that that's intriguing to me but like the when you when you say that to uh to 00:32:46.220 --> 00:32:52.940 people in bogota like do they do they buy that is that something they're they're interested in they went 00:32:52.940 --> 00:32:58.860 crazy no kidding they went crazy when we said that we were going to open small groups in bogota they were 00:32:58.860 --> 00:33:05.500 like finally because we love the digital church we love connecting through zoom but we're kind of 00:33:05.500 --> 00:33:14.700 missing sometimes not every no not every week but sometimes we miss seeing some people so uh we're 00:33:14.700 --> 00:33:23.020 trying to add that in person part not by opening a church or opening a building but uh but by creating 00:33:23.020 --> 00:33:29.580 small groups but still we're going to have the zoom groups as well because people might just don't want 00:33:29.580 --> 00:33:36.540 to go to an in-person group and just stay online and it's fine i love this uh were you who's so in 00:33:36.540 --> 00:33:44.460 bogota colombia i'm curious let's let's unpack this um are you giving people like are you setting up the 00:33:44.460 --> 00:33:50.860 groups for people are you traffic copying people and for bogota from miami are you empowering them to 00:33:51.660 --> 00:33:56.300 create their own groups and recruit their own people to come in like how what does building 00:33:56.300 --> 00:34:01.020 groups look like on another continent well that is a question that we're trying to unpack right now 00:34:01.660 --> 00:34:11.660 because um what happened this time is we as we said we went and we connected with people from our 00:34:11.660 --> 00:34:19.420 congregation that are connecting digitally and they already feel leaders or they behave as leaders maybe 00:34:19.420 --> 00:34:25.900 they're leading a small group one of these small groups on zoom or they're they're co-leading 00:34:25.900 --> 00:34:33.340 one of these small groups on zoom or they're serving as a graphic designer or a host on the youtube 00:34:33.900 --> 00:34:40.460 and they're part of a group as well so we connected to them first and we're trying to empower them to be 00:34:40.460 --> 00:34:46.780 able to open these small groups around the city the idea is to spend these next six months 00:34:47.500 --> 00:34:56.060 giving them the tools and then giving the giving them the the authority to start creating the groups it 00:34:56.060 --> 00:35:03.340 might be a mess it might not go well first and we're willing to take it uh because we feel like the 00:35:03.340 --> 00:35:09.740 church we're doing sometimes it is a mess yeah but we're learning uh and we're not afraid of failing oh my 00:35:09.740 --> 00:35:16.060 gosh and and if it if it does work the upswing of this where you're you're training people giving them 00:35:16.060 --> 00:35:23.260 resources giving them time to develop to catch vision towards creating new physical community 00:35:23.820 --> 00:35:30.780 on another continent like that's that's phenomenal uh it's it's an experiment it could get ugly but hey 00:35:30.780 --> 00:35:39.980 give it a shot see what happens i i love it um tell me how do you um like why bogota what's next on on 00:35:39.980 --> 00:35:46.780 your road map like how aggressive during this experiment period how aggressive are you going to be so uh 00:35:46.780 --> 00:35:57.580 bogota we decided because on our youtube channel our first city on on our um on the insights was uh bogota 00:35:57.580 --> 00:36:06.140 so we said okay let's go there so the second city um it's gonna be lima peru okay and that's gonna 00:36:06.140 --> 00:36:12.060 be on september many people of our community doesn't know this but i'm i'm revealing it to you 00:36:12.060 --> 00:36:18.380 first all right we got an exclusive right here we're going to lima that's awesome uh so we're going 00:36:18.380 --> 00:36:25.340 to lima that's gonna be in september i would love to do at least uh including the one in lima 00:36:25.980 --> 00:36:33.900 two or three um more before the end of the year um and then continue next year on doing this because 00:36:33.900 --> 00:36:40.140 at the same time we're learning how to do this uh these pop-up churches uh and these pop-up 00:36:40.140 --> 00:36:45.740 opportunities we're trying to learn how to make it make it work you know the thing that i really i like 00:36:45.740 --> 00:36:54.380 about the pop-ups is you've got a viable long-term discipleship plan a strategy on the back on the back 00:36:54.380 --> 00:37:01.820 of it like you're you're not um to be honest like i was expecting you to say yeah and then we're going 00:37:01.820 --> 00:37:08.300 to start doing live services down there we're going to rent a band and pipe in video teaching 00:37:08.300 --> 00:37:13.340 like it was you know my gut was because i've heard churches do this where it's it's more about 00:37:13.340 --> 00:37:19.820 you know creating uh another location for a service but the thing like you're looking at 00:37:19.820 --> 00:37:28.700 at the the discipleship at a a community aspect at far more relationship because you're valuing 00:37:28.700 --> 00:37:34.140 what you do digital at that high level to do the service component the teaching component 00:37:34.140 --> 00:37:38.060 which you're trying to get to as community and that's that's an interesting take on this 00:37:38.060 --> 00:37:44.460 well a friend uh there is a pastor in one of these uh places where we went to do a pop-up he asked me 00:37:44.460 --> 00:37:49.500 hey i need to ask you this are you opening a church in here like are you competing with us 00:37:49.500 --> 00:37:57.100 and i said well you don't understand it we're already here like and we're everywhere we don't 00:37:57.100 --> 00:38:04.460 need to open uh a building or or open the church as it's been to be able to be here we're already here 00:38:04.460 --> 00:38:09.980 we're just trying to connect to the people that are already connecting to us and as we said it would 00:38:09.980 --> 00:38:15.580 be a failure to start saying now we're gonna have church in bogota because we know we already have it 00:38:15.580 --> 00:38:21.340 and people are connecting to the church already and they feel we are their church so we will be telling 00:38:21.340 --> 00:38:27.340 them okay well you will be into it you would be doing it's not being enough and we do feel it's enough 00:38:27.340 --> 00:38:33.180 we do feel people connect they connect with their friends they don't they don't connect live maybe on 00:38:33.180 --> 00:38:39.740 sunday they connect around monday tuesday wednesday thursday uh maybe during the night maybe during the 00:38:39.740 --> 00:38:46.460 morning and then they connect to a small group so they're creating community so uh yeah yeah yeah 00:38:46.460 --> 00:38:52.060 or our plan is not to it's not an what it's called it's not an interest night interest night i think 00:38:52.060 --> 00:38:57.420 they call it when we go to a place and see how many people do they have in order to open a building 00:38:57.420 --> 00:39:05.020 or a church building and no that's not our our idea well and once again if we do something different 00:39:05.020 --> 00:39:10.540 you're going to reach different types of people and so you're you're a walking example of this and so 00:39:10.540 --> 00:39:18.540 you're you're growing from you know massive numbers online starting to uh recruit and build uh micro 00:39:18.540 --> 00:39:23.820 communities or small groups scattered around latin and south america uh you're you're figuring out the 00:39:23.820 --> 00:39:28.860 the the algorithms and continuing to push your uh your message and some of your programming into some 00:39:28.860 --> 00:39:34.620 new areas i don't know what if you put much thought into metaverse and virtual reality kind of what's 00:39:34.620 --> 00:39:39.580 what's next for you what are y'all looking at well we're trying to get into the metaverse thing uh 00:39:39.580 --> 00:39:48.460 because as we said i think we had a um an advantage with the hispanic church because we started doing 00:39:48.460 --> 00:39:56.780 online church 12 years ago and of course it was uh a long process a hard process but when it was time 00:39:56.780 --> 00:40:04.620 for everyone to jump in we had these 10 years of experience so uh this year uh the beginning of the 00:40:04.620 --> 00:40:11.100 year i we spoke to the church and we said we're going to start investing into this metaverse concept 00:40:11.100 --> 00:40:19.020 we have no idea how it looks like uh or how it's gonna work uh but we're gonna start investigating this 00:40:19.020 --> 00:40:25.180 year the idea is to start investigating it to start asking the questions to understand how it works 00:40:25.180 --> 00:40:32.700 what can we do because we don't just want to take the same service and put it on the metaverse 00:40:33.260 --> 00:40:37.980 we're trying to understand the culture of the metaverse and do something that is relevant for the 00:40:37.980 --> 00:40:45.020 venomers matter the metaverse because that that's every medium it's a message on itself so we're trying 00:40:45.020 --> 00:40:51.180 to understand what is the message and how the the medium works in order to to speak to the medium to 00:40:51.180 --> 00:40:56.540 the to the place as it should be that's beautiful and and we're gonna have some fun conversations on the 00:40:56.540 --> 00:41:03.420 side because i i just i've i've got some ideas but the the idea of of of the the medium is is the 00:41:03.420 --> 00:41:10.860 message and understanding that and and tailoring the message differently for the different environments 00:41:10.860 --> 00:41:18.300 that you're in is that's a huge step um and and really i would suggest um it's it's a challenge for 00:41:18.300 --> 00:41:28.300 a lot of churches today um you know omni channel was really popular pre-covid you know get your message 00:41:28.300 --> 00:41:34.860 and get it on every channel possible um and and and pre-covid before the technological shifts that 00:41:34.860 --> 00:41:41.660 happened as a result of covid omni channel may have been the best at strategy at that time but coming 00:41:41.660 --> 00:41:48.380 out of covid where we've seen massive adoption and massive acceleration within these technologies 00:41:48.380 --> 00:41:56.700 what we need to understand is there's more nuance there's more um contextualization within these and and 00:41:56.700 --> 00:42:00.460 like what you're communicating on on youtube it's going to be different than facebook which is going 00:42:00.460 --> 00:42:07.500 to be and and and you know i dare say facebook in you know um well i mean let's even take it out 00:42:07.500 --> 00:42:13.180 of the contextualization uh facebook in uh miami is going to be different than facebook in chicago or 00:42:13.180 --> 00:42:19.580 facebook in los angeles because or mexico city because of the different contextualizations that are there 00:42:19.580 --> 00:42:26.300 which is why actually i love the idea of where you're using digital to reach masses but you're using the 00:42:26.300 --> 00:42:33.180 small groups using the watch parties to break masses down to an individual level you're giving people an 00:42:33.180 --> 00:42:40.060 opportunity to speak to each other to be discipled within their contextualizations um and that's 00:42:40.060 --> 00:42:47.500 something i feel like we we as the church miss we try to keep everything large uh so that we feel good 00:42:47.500 --> 00:42:52.140 about our numbers and i don't want to unpack you know a lot of that but i think that the opportunity to 00:42:52.140 --> 00:43:00.860 break it down small to let digital lead towards small relational opportunities uh is a huge win 00:43:00.860 --> 00:43:07.020 and i'm excited to see where casa miami is going in the near future ezekiel i gotta tell you once again 00:43:07.020 --> 00:43:12.380 you man i i apologize i i'm from miami i've been here a long time and you you kind of slipped in out 00:43:12.380 --> 00:43:18.060 of nowhere and i'm like this is i know this is awesome i love this very very cool we're pretty underground 00:43:18.060 --> 00:43:25.580 we're pretty underground yeah i know but that's been that's been awesome too because as i said we were 00:43:25.580 --> 00:43:32.940 a really small church before kovid we're a pretty much better church after kovid and we learned what 00:43:32.940 --> 00:43:40.780 we had to do i had never had uh 300 people in a room in my life until last week in bogota wow 00:43:41.900 --> 00:43:49.500 so uh the kind of church we're doing it's uh it's much better for us as i said i don't know if it's 00:43:49.500 --> 00:43:56.300 this is for everyone but for us this is what we know this is i don't know how to express it in english 00:43:56.300 --> 00:44:05.500 i'm suffering with it but uh this is the thing that um naturally comes from us this is us basically we 00:44:05.500 --> 00:44:14.060 learn we understood our line and what we could do and we try to follow it um we're trying to be us and 00:44:14.060 --> 00:44:21.660 trying to connect with people like us around the globe and it's been crazy it's been crazy and some 00:44:21.660 --> 00:44:26.780 friends they they asked me how are you doing with your numbers in person and when i say we have we have 00:44:26.780 --> 00:44:33.100 120 people and they're like thank you for being so vulnerable so open like if i'm saying something 00:44:33.100 --> 00:44:41.820 bad i'm like but we're happy with it like again and the place is full we're in the conversations on 00:44:41.820 --> 00:44:49.420 how to open maybe a second service without cameras but again we're thinking do we want to do it do we 00:44:49.420 --> 00:44:56.620 want to spend energy on a second service or we want to spend energy on the metaverse do we want 00:44:56.620 --> 00:45:03.020 to spend energy do we want to burn out our our volunteers in order to open a second service 00:45:03.020 --> 00:45:07.660 or we want to keep it like this that we have a service and then we go home everyone goes to their 00:45:07.660 --> 00:45:14.220 houses they have time with their families because at the same time we're so big on relationships 00:45:14.220 --> 00:45:23.100 after service people stay 30 40 minutes maybe an hour talking at the building on the building to 00:45:23.100 --> 00:45:28.780 other friends they will want to miss that we want to do we want to ruin that and the beautiful thing is 00:45:29.980 --> 00:45:39.180 we went to bogota and the same thing happened the same culture people always stayed talking to other 00:45:39.180 --> 00:45:45.660 friends and other people that they had just met so it does work it does work so we're in that process 00:45:45.660 --> 00:45:50.940 we're trying to understand i tell you what even just trying to understand it's interesting we were 00:45:50.940 --> 00:45:56.700 talking with el michelle last week and she said the same thing about african-american church it's 00:45:56.700 --> 00:46:02.300 standing around after the service it's talking it's it's building those relationships that's why 00:46:02.300 --> 00:46:07.340 physical is so prevalent within african-american and and you're even alluding to it with some of the 00:46:07.340 --> 00:46:13.580 physical stuff that you've you've been talking about here um and so i the real challenge i would think 00:46:13.580 --> 00:46:22.700 for for you and for other digital first churches is how do we capitalize on that how can we create the 00:46:22.700 --> 00:46:28.300 after service lobby environment where they're sitting around and talking they're able to engage in 00:46:28.300 --> 00:46:32.620 dialogue and and i know like our friends over at alter live i don't know if you're familiar with that 00:46:32.620 --> 00:46:38.860 platform but they've done a some big steps in that area uh but i think there's even more opportunities 00:46:38.860 --> 00:46:45.420 to make sure that we're not losing the the commute that relational connection point to get people 00:46:45.420 --> 00:46:51.900 connected and hooked to be to move beyond just content and really start to even engage in building that 00:46:51.900 --> 00:46:57.500 that digital community and so you may have just poked a bear on something right there uh and so this has 00:46:57.500 --> 00:47:02.860 been a great conversation this will be this will be one of of many i i have a feeling i want to check 00:47:02.860 --> 00:47:09.180 back in with you uh further down the road see how how your digital physical is going and see how lima's 00:47:09.180 --> 00:47:18.220 going and and bogota and uh i'm sure many other uh opportunities to kind of build uh these uh physical 00:47:18.220 --> 00:47:25.100 off of digital which is such a brave and i believe blue ocean huge opportunity ahead and so ezekiel 00:47:25.100 --> 00:47:31.340 thank you for the time and uh we'll uh we'll uh we'll put contact info and some other links in the 00:47:31.340 --> 00:47:35.580 show notes for people that are interested and uh definitely looking forward to seeing what god has 00:47:35.580 --> 00:47:40.460 in store for casa miami of course thank you so much jeff and thank you for everything you're doing 00:47:40.460 --> 00:47:46.700 for opening our minds and being in front of everyone doing it doing it first it's helping us 00:47:46.700 --> 00:47:52.140 all to just follow you on what you're doing awesome well hopefully we're following god because if we're 00:47:52.140 --> 00:47:56.860 following me we're all screwed but hey we're gonna we're gonna land the plane for uh for ezekiel this 00:47:56.860 --> 00:48:01.260 is jeff with uh the church digital digital church network leadership network and god knows a whole 00:48:01.260 --> 00:48:05.900 bunch of other fun stuff thanks for uh jumping on the show here we'll see you next time on the pod 00:48:05.900 --> 00:48:06.780 y'all have a good day