WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.080 Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Church Digital Podcast. My name is Jeff, and we've got a great 00:00:04.080 --> 00:00:10.180 episode lined up for you today. You are listening to episode 23. We're excited about this one. We've 00:00:10.180 --> 00:00:16.780 got one of my great friends of Church Online coming in today, Tom Pounder. Tom is the online 00:00:16.780 --> 00:00:23.800 pastor over at New Life Christian Church, NLCC, over in Washington, D.C., Virginia area. 00:00:24.460 --> 00:00:29.200 By the way, this is not the first time we've talked about New Life. In an earlier episode, 00:00:29.200 --> 00:00:36.060 we had on Jade Earhart, who is a graphic designer, actually, no, excuse me, video motion 00:00:36.060 --> 00:00:42.640 graphics over at For New Life. And so Jade was talking about his discipleship ministry for video 00:00:42.640 --> 00:00:47.860 gamers utilizing some different online platforms. So if you didn't listen to that episode, definitely 00:00:47.860 --> 00:00:52.160 go back to it. But I'm definitely excited about what's coming up this episode with Tom as we're 00:00:52.160 --> 00:00:58.400 digging into this idea of what exactly a digital missionary is, and more specifically, what 00:00:58.400 --> 00:01:04.080 what it could be. This idea of, hey, we all have a digital presence at some level, and how 00:01:04.080 --> 00:01:11.840 we communicate, how we share, how we can train people to be a disciple who's capable of creating 00:01:11.840 --> 00:01:18.640 a disciple utilizing virtual methods, utilizing digital methods. It was a really interesting 00:01:18.640 --> 00:01:24.400 conversation. Tom and I started on this path a couple weeks ago, and it ended up stopping the 00:01:24.400 --> 00:01:28.880 conversation. It was like, hey, we really need to do this in podcast format. Because a lot of the 00:01:28.880 --> 00:01:33.860 questions that we're asking right now, I'm sure others are listening, are asking, and out there in 00:01:33.860 --> 00:01:38.980 listening audience, as with all our podcasts, we may not have all the answers. But we definitely have 00:01:38.980 --> 00:01:44.320 questions that hopefully will help you dig in while you try to figure out the answers for yourself. 00:01:45.080 --> 00:01:50.760 And so we've got Tom, we've got Ray D'Armas, a guest host coming back in again, online pastor 00:01:50.760 --> 00:01:57.160 from Christ Fellowship Miami. And so love, love having Ray on, as always. A little confession, 00:01:57.160 --> 00:02:04.760 it's been a rough week this week. In the news, time wise, we discovered that Marvel, Disney, 00:02:04.760 --> 00:02:10.440 had a little breakup with Sony, and Spider-Man's no longer in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. 00:02:11.000 --> 00:02:17.880 Not gonna lie, it was a little traumatic time for my kids. Not gonna lie, it was a traumatic time for 00:02:17.880 --> 00:02:25.180 myself. And so, yeah, we talk about it a little bit at the beginning of this podcast. If you're one of 00:02:25.180 --> 00:02:30.520 these people who are like, Jeff, get over it, it's a movie. Here's what I need you to do. I just need to 00:02:30.520 --> 00:02:34.360 take the little scrub bar in the podcast, you know, shove it down maybe three or four minutes. 00:02:34.920 --> 00:02:42.280 You'll be fine. If you're like, I totally hear you. This is bonkers. Spider-Man was a billion 00:02:42.280 --> 00:02:47.160 dollar movie. How can they not do it again? Yeah, I don't know the answer to that. So you'll enjoy 00:02:47.160 --> 00:02:53.480 the next two or three minutes while Ray, while Tom and I lament over the craziness that is that. But I 00:02:53.480 --> 00:02:57.800 do promise you this, that all this talking about the Spider-Man stuff, it's going to tie into the 00:02:57.800 --> 00:03:03.880 podcast because there's a current theme of superhero-ness in the podcast. But even above 00:03:03.880 --> 00:03:11.800 and beyond that, there's this desire of how can we as Christians get connected into the subcultures 00:03:11.800 --> 00:03:19.560 and the subgenres that exist. And even crazy stuff like talking about Spider-Man can be used as a way 00:03:19.560 --> 00:03:26.200 to bring glory to God. So listen to the podcast, dig into it. And yeah, it's a great one. You'll enjoy. 00:03:26.200 --> 00:03:31.560 Hey, everybody. Here you go. We're in the school year now. Yeah. So it's kind of crazy. 00:03:37.560 --> 00:03:43.400 Oh, look. Oh, I'm sorry. How do you really feel, Ray? Just anything you want to like work out? Do we 00:03:43.400 --> 00:03:48.120 need to set up therapy session before you look a little angry? Oh, yes, I am very angry. And let's 00:03:48.120 --> 00:03:54.840 discuss this. Okay. We need to talk to Sony and Disney because I think I've worked all this out. 00:03:54.840 --> 00:03:59.800 And here's my idea. And here's my plan, guys. And you can say I'm nuts. And I'm sure there's 00:03:59.800 --> 00:04:05.000 more money that goes into it. But this is my over simplistic plan to bring Spider-Man back into the 00:04:05.000 --> 00:04:13.240 MCU. We go back to the 5% deal. Okay. Disney gets 5%. Sony gets 95. But Disney gets exclusive streaming 00:04:13.240 --> 00:04:18.360 rights of all Spider-Man movies for Disney+. That's not bad. 00:04:20.280 --> 00:04:24.600 Yeah. I still live in this world where I think it's a marketing ploy. 00:04:24.600 --> 00:04:29.160 Oh, I thought that, too. Because we're going to re-release it into theaters. 00:04:30.120 --> 00:04:37.000 But this works into the story so great. Even if this does blow up, could you just imagine? 00:04:37.560 --> 00:04:44.600 Spider-Man is on the run and disappears off the map for five years. Meanwhile, Sony screws up yet 00:04:44.600 --> 00:04:54.120 another Spider-Man. Five years down the road in the MCU, Peter Parker comes back just in time to mentor the 00:04:54.120 --> 00:05:00.920 Miles Morales figure once Disney actually gets rights to it. I could totally see this working. 00:05:00.920 --> 00:05:05.000 Because the last thing we saw in Far From Home is everybody knows that he killed this guy, 00:05:05.000 --> 00:05:08.680 which he may or may not have. But I could see him being on the run. 00:05:08.680 --> 00:05:18.680 I think this could totally be a piece of the storyline. So stupid otherwise, I don't know what to do. 00:05:19.240 --> 00:05:24.520 Well, and this is where the blame keeps getting shifted back and forth because I understand how 00:05:24.520 --> 00:05:29.720 Sony would look at this and say, "Hey, look, you guys are getting 100% of the marketing or the 00:05:29.720 --> 00:05:38.120 merchandising stuff. We're just getting 95% of the box office stuff." 00:05:38.120 --> 00:05:43.240 I have hopes that this is just early on and it's just going to be worked out. But I mean, 00:05:43.880 --> 00:05:49.960 Sony is just terrible. I got in a little discussion on Twitter last night with, I'm a big Batman fan, 00:05:49.960 --> 00:05:58.280 and there's a guy that I follow all the time. He's called the Jet. And he was saying, "Screw Disney, 00:05:58.280 --> 00:06:04.680 Sony had it right." And he was all angry. And I'm like, "Dude, just chill out. Disney got it right." 00:06:04.680 --> 00:06:07.960 I mean, Sony screwed over Spider-Man so many times. 00:06:08.760 --> 00:06:13.880 It's a miracle that we got Spider-Man in the MCU anyways. We still can't kind of forget about 00:06:13.880 --> 00:06:19.640 that. Like this was kind of a make or break last moment in Civil War where they almost didn't put 00:06:19.640 --> 00:06:22.040 the character in there. They were going to go with a completely different character if they didn't get 00:06:22.040 --> 00:06:30.600 the rights. And so it was kind of "miraculous" that these two companies were able to work together for 00:06:30.600 --> 00:06:36.040 this span of films. And yes, I do think that Sony has treated the character atrociously with the 00:06:36.040 --> 00:06:40.440 exception of the first two "Maguire" movies and "Into the Spider-Verse." 00:06:40.440 --> 00:06:46.600 This is my prediction. Marvel's going to release a new comic. It's going to be called "Arachnid Boy," 00:06:47.240 --> 00:06:53.720 starring Pieter Parker, who's going to be from Romania, coming in. And he's going to become 00:06:53.720 --> 00:06:57.400 this web-slinging guy that's going to be awesome. No, I'm kidding. It's none of that's going to happen. 00:06:57.400 --> 00:07:00.680 I'm here for Tom Holland, starring in his own movie called "Night Monkey." 00:07:01.240 --> 00:07:04.040 And I'm fine with that. 00:07:04.040 --> 00:07:09.000 Rebranded to "Night Monkey." Let's make that crap happen. 00:07:09.000 --> 00:07:14.600 Yeah, now that Spider-Man's been thrown under the bus by Mysterio, "Night Monkey" can emerge as the 00:07:14.600 --> 00:07:20.520 true hero. This was all Marvel's ploy the entire time. And it's all going to work out just fine. 00:07:20.520 --> 00:07:26.840 Awesome. So we actually have a podcast we need to talk about, although the Spider-Man stuff is very 00:07:26.840 --> 00:07:33.160 fresh on our minds. And so, by the way, listening audience, you can't see this. I literally have a 00:07:33.160 --> 00:07:39.640 Spider-Man fidget cube on my desk. This is what I used to really stress. So we're all feeling this pain 00:07:39.640 --> 00:07:45.880 at home. Peter Parker, Tom Holland, wherever you are, we do love you. But let's dive into the 00:07:45.880 --> 00:07:51.240 Church Online piece, since that's what the listening audience really wants to hear. I wanted to dive into 00:07:51.240 --> 00:07:56.760 something here. Okay, we've got this gathering of people. We've got all these people that are 00:07:56.760 --> 00:08:03.400 watching. What's next? What do you do with them after they're watching? 00:08:03.400 --> 00:08:08.600 Yeah, yeah. So I definitely think, you know, again, when you've got all your people watching 00:08:08.600 --> 00:08:12.920 and streaming online, you want them to take a next step. You don't want them just to watch. 00:08:12.920 --> 00:08:17.640 Just like what you said, you don't want them, if they're attending in person, you don't want them 00:08:17.640 --> 00:08:22.600 just to come to church and then leave. So one of the things we did was we started a bunch of different 00:08:22.600 --> 00:08:27.800 online life groups. And we've been doing that for a few years. But I've been challenged recently because 00:08:27.800 --> 00:08:34.040 I do some different things on because I'm the online campus pastor. I do different things 00:08:35.000 --> 00:08:40.440 online. Like I'll do a family devotional and I'll do a Monday motivational type of 00:08:41.480 --> 00:08:47.320 thing that I post on YouTube and I'll post on Facebook from the online campus. And then I'll share it 00:08:47.320 --> 00:08:53.960 on my on my Facebook page or my Twitter account. And I'll kind of share that as a way to reach out to a 00:08:53.960 --> 00:08:59.400 broader base of people. And then so I was talking to someone who's starting to help me out a little 00:08:59.400 --> 00:09:07.160 bit more with the church online stuff. And he said, well, a lot of people know you, Tom, because of what 00:09:07.160 --> 00:09:13.800 you're doing and sharing and, and doing things, you know, but how, how can we maybe equip and train 00:09:13.800 --> 00:09:20.920 people to, to do exactly what you're doing so that we can reach even more people? And that's when, again, 00:09:20.920 --> 00:09:26.280 this term is not new to, it's not, it's not something I came up with, but it's something that I really 00:09:26.280 --> 00:09:32.200 thought a lot about. Um, and I heard probably a few years ago, this idea of digital missionary, 00:09:32.760 --> 00:09:38.280 like what would it look like maybe for someone to, to take that next step and say, Hey, listen, 00:09:38.280 --> 00:09:44.360 I am a believer. I I've accepted Christ as my Lord and savior. Now, what does it look like for me to reach 00:09:44.360 --> 00:09:51.640 my family or my friends or my coworkers online? How can I use digital tools to do that and be, 00:09:51.640 --> 00:09:56.120 become a missionary online? So that's what, one of the things that I've really started exploring a lot 00:09:56.120 --> 00:10:01.080 about, what would it look like for me to train people to be this digital missionary? What do I 00:10:01.080 --> 00:10:06.440 have to do to equip them? And so that's what I've been really processing a lot lately. 00:10:06.440 --> 00:10:10.280 What would a digital, cause you got first off, what's a digital missionary? And then secondly, 00:10:10.280 --> 00:10:16.360 you know, the training, the duplication parts of it. So like, what's a digital missionary and Ray, 00:10:16.360 --> 00:10:20.520 I feel like we've, we may have touched on this in a past episode, but like, what would a digital 00:10:20.520 --> 00:10:28.920 missionary do? Yeah. Again, I, this is where I don't have all the answers, but here are these 00:10:28.920 --> 00:10:35.640 thoughts that I've been kind of really processing through is I love social media and we all know 00:10:35.640 --> 00:10:43.240 that social media is very toxic at times. You know, Facebook used to be that place where it was 00:10:43.240 --> 00:10:47.320 extremely toxic. And then they kind of clamped down on things and people started leaving Facebook, 00:10:47.320 --> 00:10:54.040 but I've always loved Twitter. Twitter is like my favorite social platform. Well, if you go on 00:10:54.040 --> 00:11:01.000 Twitter, it doesn't take long to realize that Twitter is very toxic too. Anytime a politician will share 00:11:01.000 --> 00:11:06.920 something, you should just read all the comments. There's negativity after negativity after negativity, 00:11:06.920 --> 00:11:11.640 bashing each other. Anytime a celebrity shares something, it's negativity after negativity. 00:11:11.640 --> 00:11:15.800 There's so much negativity. And then I thought, what would it look like for us to be communicators of 00:11:15.800 --> 00:11:22.360 hope? You know, we have hope found in Jesus. So what would it look like then for me to say on my Twitter 00:11:23.640 --> 00:11:30.600 platform, how can I share hope? How can I share the love of Christ to other people? And so it kind of 00:11:30.600 --> 00:11:36.840 really starts off by picking a social platform that you're going to say, I'm going to use this to reach my 00:11:36.840 --> 00:11:43.640 friends, whatever social platform you're at, whether you love Instagram or Facebook or Twitter, whether 00:11:43.640 --> 00:11:47.960 heck even you love Snapchat. I know some people don't like that, but I mean, what are the social 00:11:47.960 --> 00:11:53.400 platforms that you're really involved in and how can you look at that and say, I'm going to minister to 00:11:53.400 --> 00:11:59.560 those friends and family members that I'm friends with there and minister to them today? 00:11:59.560 --> 00:12:06.360 You know, I've been wrestling with a concept of this and it was centered around, it was funny. I even 00:12:06.360 --> 00:12:14.760 tried to launch a small group that would do this. It was an online small group. And the goal was for 00:12:14.760 --> 00:12:25.480 them to start to reach out and make connections with people on social media, like within hashtags, 00:12:25.480 --> 00:12:31.960 even like on the, on the Twitter or the Instagram, because there's, you know, there's a very tight 00:12:31.960 --> 00:12:38.120 community, um, that, that follows a lot of these hashtags. Like, um, I mean, I have, I have exposure 00:12:38.120 --> 00:12:44.440 of this. I run, um, well, not as much as I used to, but, um, when I run, I run under, uh, using my, 00:12:44.440 --> 00:12:51.320 my Nike app, Nike plus, and even just the community that, that is when they run, they utilize the Nike plus 00:12:51.320 --> 00:12:55.880 and, uh, within Twitter and things, and then communicating and celebrating and praising and 00:12:55.880 --> 00:13:05.000 encouraging. Um, it's a very kind of, um, um, welcoming community that's utilizing the Twitter 00:13:05.560 --> 00:13:12.520 following under hashtags. And so it became, uh, really the, the, the question of how can we utilize 00:13:13.160 --> 00:13:19.800 the hashtags and utilize the platform to build these relationships, even just to get them, at least my 00:13:19.800 --> 00:13:25.560 view, to get them to the place of asking spiritual questions. Like, I don't, I don't know that you can 00:13:25.560 --> 00:13:30.280 land a plane and lead somebody completely to Christ and disciple them completely in context of 00:13:30.920 --> 00:13:38.120 social media, like just to, in that, but definitely to, I would suggest maybe to onboard to get them to 00:13:38.120 --> 00:13:44.280 ask spiritual questions and then route them to someplace to, to get that, that next piece. Um, 00:13:44.280 --> 00:13:50.040 yeah, yeah, I, I would agree with you. I love hashtags. Part of the reason why I love Twitter 00:13:50.040 --> 00:13:58.040 is because hashtags are organic and it's free to kind of just roll around and find out who's talking 00:13:58.040 --> 00:14:05.880 about what. Um, again, anytime there's a popular show or a sporting event or a, um, award ceremony, 00:14:05.880 --> 00:14:10.520 there's always a hashtag that you can find out what people are talking about and be a part of that 00:14:10.520 --> 00:14:16.440 conversation. And so I love that idea of using hashtags to engage people in conversations. I'll 00:14:16.440 --> 00:14:23.960 say this, most of my Twitter following is because I used hashtags, um, strategically. I found the 00:14:23.960 --> 00:14:30.120 hashtags that I wanted to look for, like with hashtag Stu Min for all my student ministry friends, 00:14:30.120 --> 00:14:34.760 or hashtag church online for people with church online. I discovered so many people 00:14:35.480 --> 00:14:39.960 through hashtags and we're able to start conversations with them because of that. And 00:14:39.960 --> 00:14:45.960 in the same way you can use hashtags to have conversations with people about real life stuff. 00:14:45.960 --> 00:14:51.080 Like, you know, I love looking up hashtag love and see what people are talking about with love. 00:14:51.080 --> 00:14:56.600 And it's like, if someone says something really interesting, I'll reply to them and, you know, 00:14:56.600 --> 00:15:02.120 share with them an encouragement, not necessarily a spiritual thing at first, but something encouraging 00:15:02.120 --> 00:15:06.360 to encourage them throughout that day. If they're looking for love in all the wrong places. 00:15:06.920 --> 00:15:12.120 So, you know, it's something that I think that's important about this. And, and this is, 00:15:12.920 --> 00:15:17.480 this is such an important conversation, not just for the internet age, but even for folks inside, 00:15:18.200 --> 00:15:22.120 inside a church who don't consider themselves digital representatives or this kind of thing is just 00:15:22.680 --> 00:15:27.800 taking the general interest that you have and engaging in those conversations and being a solid 00:15:27.800 --> 00:15:33.160 believer there, you know, so everybody here in this conversation, you know, or, or all part of a 00:15:33.160 --> 00:15:37.400 subculture that Jeff alluded to earlier, that we're all part of the nerd subculture in the sense of, 00:15:37.400 --> 00:15:42.040 man, we love comic books and we love, you know, comic book movies and we love having that discussion and, 00:15:42.680 --> 00:15:50.360 and literally just even being a solid, encouraging voice in what can be a very toxic space. 00:15:51.880 --> 00:15:58.600 Right. Can bring the gospel in such a great way to a bunch of folks who may never walk through the 00:15:58.600 --> 00:16:03.960 doors of a church or may never engage. And that's just taking a specific interest group and really 00:16:03.960 --> 00:16:09.640 engaging in what would be normal conversation, you know, be fantastic. And, but at the same time, 00:16:10.280 --> 00:16:14.760 really just kind of bring a Christian's voice into it. And I'm not even saying, 00:16:14.760 --> 00:16:19.320 and please, if you're out there and you're one of these advocates, don't engage in a subculture 00:16:19.320 --> 00:16:23.640 that you're not normally part of, like, don't go into, into, you know, the Marvel universe 00:16:23.640 --> 00:16:27.160 subculture on the internet and saying, Hey, we need to bring Bible man into the MCU. 00:16:29.640 --> 00:16:37.480 Don't go doing that. But literally being an active voice and having great conversation, but at the same 00:16:37.480 --> 00:16:42.760 time, being a loving believer, being a solid example, but learning when to interject Jesus 00:16:42.760 --> 00:16:46.600 into the conversation once things start to turn personal and showing love to others. 00:16:48.520 --> 00:16:52.840 Yeah. See, I, I love this. I mean, that's the thing. Like when you think about a missionary, 00:16:53.400 --> 00:16:58.120 you know, we're all called to be missionaries. Christ calls us there, therefore go and make 00:16:58.120 --> 00:17:01.720 disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. And 00:17:01.720 --> 00:17:06.120 surely I'll be with you always at the end of the age. Christ calls us all to do that. So if he's 00:17:06.120 --> 00:17:12.040 calling us all to do that, there's different ways. You don't have to go to the, to the African 00:17:12.040 --> 00:17:18.760 forests or, or, or, or you don't have to go to another country to do that. You can do that all online, 00:17:19.400 --> 00:17:25.000 using the online world because I love this. I say this all the time, but you know, I, I worked with 00:17:25.000 --> 00:17:29.800 Young Life for many years and Young Life always said, go where students are. If you want to find 00:17:29.800 --> 00:17:35.880 where students are at, go where they are and, and find out where they're hanging out with. Well, so many 00:17:35.880 --> 00:17:41.560 people are hanging out in the digital world, in the mobile world right now. It's such a, it's a mission 00:17:41.560 --> 00:17:47.560 field right there. If we learn how to actively share our faith and engage people in casual conversations 00:17:47.560 --> 00:17:51.240 that lead to spiritual conversations. Yeah. And there's, and there's so many different 00:17:51.240 --> 00:17:55.240 forums for Christians to take part in, you know, and so many different interest groups. 00:17:55.240 --> 00:18:00.200 Uh, it's such a fascinating thing how folks can find each other and really become engaged in, 00:18:00.200 --> 00:18:07.240 in a specific community real quick. Um, just last week, my, my garbage disposal was on the fritz. 00:18:07.240 --> 00:18:14.120 And so I was like, okay, I can either pay somebody to fix it or I did. I did. I was like, no, I know how, 00:18:14.120 --> 00:18:17.960 I know I have confidence that I can try something out. Went to YouTube. And the next thing you know, 00:18:17.960 --> 00:18:24.440 I'm part of a community of people who are DIYing stuff at home, you know, and it becomes another 00:18:24.440 --> 00:18:28.760 place for me to engage people, not with the secret intention of, Hey, I'm going to win these people to 00:18:28.760 --> 00:18:33.720 the Christ, but I can be a Christian within this environment. I can cast a more positive view of 00:18:33.720 --> 00:18:39.960 Jesus in the church and there and be a light. And at the same time, hopefully help to engage them in 00:18:39.960 --> 00:18:45.800 some of my interests, a la church, a la God, a la Jesus, that, that would help bring them along into, 00:18:46.360 --> 00:18:51.480 you know, what we believe, which would be great. Where, where does a volunteer, where does an individual 00:18:51.480 --> 00:18:58.440 person engaging in the, in this culture, in a subculture and utilizing the hashtags, 00:18:58.440 --> 00:19:03.240 where are they going to struggle? Like, where is the thing that they're going to fall short with? 00:19:05.400 --> 00:19:10.120 Or can they, can they do that on their own? Like, where's the weakness in this model? 00:19:11.960 --> 00:19:16.600 Well, I think we have to figure out how we can effectively prepare them. I think a lot of 00:19:16.600 --> 00:19:20.920 people are not going to want to do this because they're like, I don't have, I don't have the tools. 00:19:20.920 --> 00:19:25.160 I don't know what to do. I don't know how to, how to do this effectively. And then again, 00:19:25.160 --> 00:19:29.640 I think we have a tendency to take things personally sometimes. So we have to take back, 00:19:29.640 --> 00:19:34.120 take a step back and say, we're not, this is not personal. If someone attacks us, you know, 00:19:34.120 --> 00:19:37.480 if there's a troll out there, because we all know that there's tons of online trolls, but 00:19:38.040 --> 00:19:42.840 how can we really prepare them? I think we need to set them up and give them some training and 00:19:42.840 --> 00:19:48.920 equipping them to really learn how to actively share their faith or engage people in conversations 00:19:49.800 --> 00:19:57.560 in a digital world. I think, you know, again, yeah. So I think we, we've got to properly train them. 00:19:58.520 --> 00:20:01.720 Yeah. I think there's an aspect of that, but some of that too. And this is what I, what I've 00:20:01.720 --> 00:20:07.720 appreciated from the way that the teaching style has come from North point. It's, it's building in 00:20:07.720 --> 00:20:13.240 those practical applications of living out their Christianity where they're at. Because once again, 00:20:13.240 --> 00:20:17.160 the conversation takes place so naturally, like sometimes I worry when we say train them on this, 00:20:17.160 --> 00:20:21.800 we're just thinking, Hey, inviting the church, you know, we're going to provide them tools and we're 00:20:21.800 --> 00:20:24.760 going to do that. And all that's great. I'm not saying we shouldn't do that too, 00:20:24.760 --> 00:20:29.560 but really there's a much larger conversation when it comes to evangelism about being relational 00:20:29.560 --> 00:20:33.240 that I think even in forms of our Sunday teaching, as we're talking to our folks, 00:20:33.480 --> 00:20:38.520 you know, like I said, I think Andy has done such a great job. And if you've not read Irresistible 00:20:38.520 --> 00:20:43.000 yet, you need to, I think it's the answer to so many things that are happening right now with 00:20:43.000 --> 00:20:46.520 different folks questioning their faith online and being public with that. I really wish it would 00:20:46.520 --> 00:20:50.120 actually take a peek at this book because I feel like he addresses a lot of those issues. 00:20:50.120 --> 00:20:53.560 But one of the great things about the book that I feel like he addresses is just the fact that 00:20:54.200 --> 00:20:58.520 Christians need to learn how to be loving in these environments and loving those who aren't like 00:20:58.520 --> 00:21:04.680 them, no matter what the situation, whether it's, Hey, look, it's 2020 and we're engaged again online in 00:21:04.680 --> 00:21:08.920 political discussions. Okay. What does it look for me? What does it look like for me to love somebody 00:21:08.920 --> 00:21:14.680 who is not the same political ideology? And how can I carry that out online so that I'm not being a toxic 00:21:14.680 --> 00:21:19.480 voice, but so that I'm being a light so that it could bring them one step closer to Christ. 00:21:20.120 --> 00:21:26.120 We'll include a link to Irresistible in the show notes. It is a great book that hits a lot on that. 00:21:26.120 --> 00:21:32.680 Now, the core of discipleship, at least in Ray, how we've defined discipleship in here is the ability to 00:21:34.680 --> 00:21:39.720 create another disciple. So it's a disciple who's duplicating themselves. In this context of this 00:21:39.720 --> 00:21:47.320 conversation, a digital missionary is someone who is able to lead to Christ and disciple one in a 00:21:47.320 --> 00:21:54.120 standalone environment, um, where we're not necessarily say, you know, just come, come to 00:21:54.120 --> 00:21:59.560 church with me. Now I'm, I'm raising the standard maybe a little bit here. Um, a lot of church onlines 00:21:59.560 --> 00:22:05.000 would, and it's easy to, Hey, you know, ask the spiritual questions and feed it into like a physical 00:22:05.000 --> 00:22:09.480 service or something like that. But just for, you know, argument's sake, let's, let's kind of follow, 00:22:09.480 --> 00:22:15.560 follow this through and say, what if the church isn't resourcing and we're not kind of taking the 00:22:15.560 --> 00:22:23.640 easy way out here? Um, can a person lead another person to Christ on social media, on Twitter? Like, 00:22:23.640 --> 00:22:27.400 is that, is that even possible? What, what would that look like? 00:22:30.600 --> 00:22:35.880 Yeah. I would think you would have to take it. Yes. I think you can begin conversations and then 00:22:35.880 --> 00:22:41.560 you have to go into direct messaging, you know, and DMing them back and forth and talk to them 00:22:41.560 --> 00:22:47.960 about what that looks like. Uh, again, I don't think it would, could happen easily and I've never done 00:22:47.960 --> 00:22:53.160 it myself. Um, so I think it would be something where you would have to really walk through them and 00:22:53.160 --> 00:23:00.600 it would involve more than social media to, to, I think, help someone really discover who God is 00:23:00.600 --> 00:23:02.280 and accept them as their Lord and savior. 00:23:04.440 --> 00:23:09.800 That's good. I actually have a personal example of this. If, if, uh, if I may, um, this, this actually 00:23:09.800 --> 00:23:15.640 happened to me about a month and a half ago, somebody had been engaging with us online. 00:23:16.280 --> 00:23:22.200 They texted me, Hey pastor, things are going on the down and out in my life. I'm having a rough time. 00:23:23.320 --> 00:23:26.920 We began a conversation via text. I asked them via text. Hey, listen, 00:23:27.640 --> 00:23:33.160 have you given your life to Christ? The answer responded back. Boom. No, but I really want to. 00:23:36.120 --> 00:23:42.760 Man, this is powerful. I can lead you right here over text or if you want, we can, we, we can have 00:23:42.760 --> 00:23:47.320 a phone call. Ironically, that person was texting me from a classroom. They were, they were in a 00:23:47.320 --> 00:23:51.720 college classroom. They were like, can I call you as soon as I get out of class? I said, absolutely. 00:23:51.720 --> 00:23:59.720 You can 10, 15 PM. Boom. Phone call hits. I pick it up. Hey, Hey, are you ready to make this decision? 00:23:59.720 --> 00:24:04.200 Yes. We pray right there together. They're over the phone. Now that person's integrated in the 00:24:04.200 --> 00:24:09.720 community, but it was one of those things where it can happen. So I don't want to talk, you know, 00:24:09.720 --> 00:24:13.720 I don't want folks to think, Hey, this is a dream world or, or new stuff, you know, where all this 00:24:13.720 --> 00:24:19.000 is theory. No, no, no. All this stuff can happen. And there are steps that we can take to make it more 00:24:19.000 --> 00:24:22.920 personal. If, you know, if the person we're engaging really wants to take it there. 00:24:25.320 --> 00:24:30.520 So, you know, and then that story is great because it utilizes more, more platforms, 00:24:30.520 --> 00:24:35.400 more method of communication than just, yeah, you probably could have texted somebody. 00:24:36.440 --> 00:24:43.720 You probably could have done it in a DM direct message environment, Facebook messenger type of thing. 00:24:45.320 --> 00:24:53.080 However, you know, a phone call, a zoom, a Google hangout, you know, there, there are methods that 00:24:53.720 --> 00:24:59.640 can help that engagement probably go to a higher level. And so as, as a digital missionary, if, 00:24:59.640 --> 00:25:04.600 if that's a thing, it, there has to be maybe comfortability with multiple platforms and multiple 00:25:04.600 --> 00:25:10.200 ways of communication. Like you, you probably aren't necessarily going to land the plane, 00:25:10.200 --> 00:25:16.200 even with like a hard conversation, um, via, via texting. Texting is an environment, you know, 00:25:16.200 --> 00:25:21.400 text on a page and we know this from email. It's hard to convey emotions. You, sometimes you read 00:25:21.400 --> 00:25:27.320 the wrong emotions in, um, in text, but when you can see the person or when you can hear the voice, 00:25:27.320 --> 00:25:34.120 it's easier to convey and understand that. So, man, I'd suggest as I'm not saying as quick as 00:25:34.120 --> 00:25:41.320 possible, but as a missionary, like I want to build relationships with these people. Ray, you had 00:25:41.320 --> 00:25:44.600 a previous relationship. It sounds like with this, with your example. 00:25:45.240 --> 00:25:50.360 No. And, and that's kind of the interesting person. Yeah. And, and, and I can say that 00:25:50.360 --> 00:25:54.200 that's for sure. It's an anomaly. Like, I don't want to make it, make it sound like, 00:25:54.200 --> 00:25:57.880 Hey guys, revival is happening here. And I'm getting nonstop text messages from people who 00:25:57.880 --> 00:26:02.040 tell me that they need to meet Jesus. My phone's just blowing up right now. That's not happening. 00:26:02.040 --> 00:26:05.560 Like this is an anomaly, but it's an anomaly that I could see taking place, 00:26:05.960 --> 00:26:11.720 taking place more often than not, especially, and this is kind of going back in a few chapters of 00:26:11.720 --> 00:26:16.600 this podcast. It's the discussion we have with DJ Soto in terms of the avatar situation where people, 00:26:16.600 --> 00:26:22.920 people feel more comfortable just kind of unloading between a medium as opposed to in person, 00:26:23.480 --> 00:26:30.760 you know? But this kind of stuff can take place a lot more frequently just because people feel that 00:26:30.760 --> 00:26:36.040 comfort of, man, there's something between us. So I feel like I'm in a digital confession booth. 00:26:37.080 --> 00:26:41.640 There's a wall between us. So I feel like I can be me a little bit more. I can unload some of these 00:26:41.640 --> 00:26:47.400 personal issues. And I feel like I can take a spiritual step with you because there's that line. I mean, 00:26:48.280 --> 00:26:52.440 Jesus said it himself, right? A prophet's not owning his own village, right? And so sometimes 00:26:52.440 --> 00:26:58.520 folks need that wall up between them so that they don't feel like, well, this person knows me at this 00:26:58.520 --> 00:27:02.040 level. Sometimes they need that person, that individual that's like, no, they don't know me 00:27:02.040 --> 00:27:06.760 from scratch. So I feel a little more comfortable with unloading some of these issues to them and 00:27:06.760 --> 00:27:12.680 taking that step with them. You know, it's interesting that, that DJ Soto, um, I got, I've, 00:27:12.680 --> 00:27:19.240 I have personally received more flack over that episode than any other episode we've done. Um, 00:27:19.240 --> 00:27:24.760 just out of the, the, the, I mean, uh, basically I opened the podcast in the opening line. I said, 00:27:24.760 --> 00:27:32.280 uh, just write it down virtual back VR baptisms count that right there, um, just blew, blew people 00:27:32.280 --> 00:27:36.920 up. Like not that doesn't, that doesn't count, you know, it's cause it's, it's a, it's a computer game. 00:27:36.920 --> 00:27:41.640 They didn't, they didn't get real. And I was like, there were people there who saw a witness of 00:27:41.640 --> 00:27:46.520 it. God doesn't look, man looks on the outward appearance. God looks at the heart. Uh, you know, 00:27:46.520 --> 00:27:52.760 but, but like, it's, it's just, it rattles that right. Um, to my system of counting. 00:27:54.520 --> 00:28:00.200 But it's interesting where I think there's, um, a digital missionary is going to kind of struggle 00:28:00.200 --> 00:28:07.880 with this, this idea as well, or, or the concept of creating a digital missionary is, is going to be, 00:28:09.160 --> 00:28:13.080 more difficult. Small group of maybe four or five people that were going through it and asked another 00:28:13.080 --> 00:28:18.680 person to, to lead the small group. And, and, and honestly, like the idea of, I think where that 00:28:18.680 --> 00:28:26.040 group ended up was the idea of creating a disciple was very much understood. The idea of converting that 00:28:26.040 --> 00:28:35.560 discipleship mentality towards the, um, hashtag investing in community, reaching out that, 00:28:35.560 --> 00:28:41.800 that, that, that was a struggle. It was funny. Even after months of, of those conversations and trying, 00:28:41.800 --> 00:28:45.960 like, I just had side conversations with a couple of the people and they were like, we just, 00:28:45.960 --> 00:28:52.040 we just really don't understand, you know, what you want us to, to do. Um, and it's funny, 00:28:52.040 --> 00:28:56.120 like, I still think there's legitimacy and Tom, I love the fact that you're, you're bringing this, 00:28:56.120 --> 00:29:00.360 this around, but it's, it takes, it takes the right person with the right understanding, 00:29:00.360 --> 00:29:05.800 um, with, uh, the right mindset that I'm not going to Jesus juke every person I meet. 00:29:07.240 --> 00:29:13.560 Um, so yeah. What, um, what other hurdles do you think that are out there that, that, uh, 00:29:13.560 --> 00:29:15.080 that we struggle with on this? 00:29:15.080 --> 00:29:20.520 Yeah. Well, that's a good question. I see. And that's the thing I think finding the right person 00:29:20.520 --> 00:29:25.400 and finding the right group of people, I think is really important to do it. But I, I do. I mean, 00:29:25.400 --> 00:29:32.360 if you just even think back from the most simplest terms, I think what we do in our online persona 00:29:33.240 --> 00:29:39.880 can either lead people to Christ or distract people from Christ. Again, you, you, we've seen people, 00:29:39.880 --> 00:29:50.200 we've seen our friends who are, um, who go off on rants and go crazy and, and spew stuff all over on, 00:29:50.200 --> 00:29:56.280 on, uh, social media. It's like, are you using your digital platform, whatever it is to either 00:29:56.280 --> 00:30:02.120 encourage people or discourage people? And so if you're encouraging people, it kind of goes along 00:30:02.120 --> 00:30:06.760 with the same thing of people are going to wonder, okay, why is he like that? Or why is she like that? 00:30:06.760 --> 00:30:13.000 What, what is, why, why are they like that? And it's going to start some conversations. So definitely, 00:30:13.000 --> 00:30:18.200 again, while we don't have all the answers here, I think if you even just think about how can the, 00:30:18.200 --> 00:30:23.480 you know, as Ray was talking about, just how can you be hopeful? How can you be light in this world? 00:30:23.480 --> 00:30:28.600 Again, because the election is going to be coming up very soon. It's already been talking about 00:30:28.600 --> 00:30:36.280 things. Anytime someone says something political, it's just tons of chaos that goes about under it. 00:30:36.280 --> 00:30:41.240 How can you be hope? How can you be light to them? You don't have to have all the answers filled out, 00:30:41.240 --> 00:30:49.000 but again, it could strike some conversations where you can help lead someone down the path to, 00:30:49.000 --> 00:30:53.800 to grow in Christ or hear about Christ in some way using multiple platforms. 00:30:53.800 --> 00:31:00.680 I love that. I just, I wrote it down here where I'm at. What we do with our online persona can either 00:31:00.680 --> 00:31:06.520 lead to Christ or distract from Christ. It was interesting. And I'm going to confess something 00:31:06.520 --> 00:31:12.360 right here. Um, uh, this weekend I got into a Twitter war or excuse me, it was on Facebook, 00:31:13.000 --> 00:31:20.520 um, with three or four pastors, uh, local guys in town. Uh, we, we were having an argument over, 00:31:20.520 --> 00:31:28.360 um, this is, this is going to be so stupid. Uh, it was Nolan's Batman trilogy versus Captain America and MCU trilogy. 00:31:28.360 --> 00:31:35.800 Not, not the overall, not MCU, just the trilogy versus trilogy. And, um, being the guy who hates DC, 00:31:35.800 --> 00:31:43.000 I obviously chose cap. Um, if, um, and my whole point, and they didn't want to bring in the MCU, 00:31:43.000 --> 00:31:48.040 just the three movies. And I'm like, how can you go in two and three winter soldiers, civil war? 00:31:48.040 --> 00:31:53.640 Those are like the two greatest movies ever. Um, anyway, and they, you know, side note, 00:31:53.640 --> 00:31:59.320 DC screwed up the entire thing. They should have built their entire DCEU around Nolan's Batman and 00:31:59.320 --> 00:32:05.160 everything would have been fine. They didn't. And, and there's, okay. So it's, this is way too much 00:32:05.160 --> 00:32:11.160 comics for a church online thing. But what was interesting is, is, um, I got a little pat didn't, 00:32:11.160 --> 00:32:17.880 I didn't feel like I lost my testimony. And as a side, we're all joking around. Like we all know each 00:32:17.880 --> 00:32:23.000 other. It's fine. There wasn't no bloodshed lost over this, but we were, you know, passionately 00:32:23.000 --> 00:32:30.360 arguing. Unfortunately, it was in a public format. And a couple other people kind of jumped in taking 00:32:30.360 --> 00:32:35.720 shots that, and I was like, yeah, that might be a little too aggressive here. A little, little too 00:32:35.720 --> 00:32:42.040 much. It was not the pastors like outside people. And suddenly like I'm getting Facebook message from 00:32:42.040 --> 00:32:46.920 people on the outside. Hey, are you guys okay? Like, I'm, I'm surprised you're fighting with, 00:32:46.920 --> 00:32:52.200 with so-and-so with, with one of these pastors. And I'm like, oh, I'm just joking around. Like I, 00:32:52.200 --> 00:32:57.720 I backed off when it started to get ugly, but the thing was already rolling downhill. Right. It was, 00:32:57.720 --> 00:33:03.400 it was like the boulder was already set. And what started off as, you know, just casually pulling 00:33:03.400 --> 00:33:09.080 each other's chains because one's more of a DC fan and I'm more of a Marvel ended up becoming something 00:33:09.080 --> 00:33:15.800 that, you know, was causing other people to, to, to question. And it's funny. So often we want to be 00:33:16.680 --> 00:33:24.200 casual with our, with our digital persona and, and, um, relational and engaging and, and, and joking 00:33:24.200 --> 00:33:30.920 around with some of this stuff. Right. But sometimes what, what we do is joking around, uh, can go far 00:33:30.920 --> 00:33:37.160 more, uh, can be misinterpreted. You know, it's this whole thing of what we do in text is, is not 00:33:37.160 --> 00:33:43.640 as clearly defined because we can misread emotions into it or somebody else, because it's public can 00:33:43.640 --> 00:33:48.120 take it a whole different direction that we don't, we don't want to. And so if a digital missionary is 00:33:48.120 --> 00:33:54.280 going to do their thing, like they just have to be wary of that, of somebody misreading. 00:33:54.280 --> 00:34:00.120 Absolutely. And the other thing is, is that the digital missionary and all of us should be aware 00:34:00.120 --> 00:34:03.720 that there's such a thing as, and I'm going to, I'm going to kill a lot of you internet trolls with 00:34:03.720 --> 00:34:10.680 this one word, nuance, nuance. Okay. Like there's shades here. And I'm talking about this, not just 00:34:10.680 --> 00:34:16.520 on fun conversations in terms of our comic book or sports hot takes or any of that stuff, but I'm also 00:34:16.520 --> 00:34:21.560 talking about theological stuff as well that we don't have to, that we don't have to say, well, 00:34:21.560 --> 00:34:26.360 take a side right now. And you know, you either love Jesus if you don't repost this or not. And so 00:34:27.240 --> 00:34:33.640 there's a lot of stuff here that I think we need to be very, very careful in terms of how we interact 00:34:33.640 --> 00:34:37.640 with each other and how, and making sure exactly you hit it right on the head there. 00:34:38.440 --> 00:34:41.640 This whole thing of, well, I said it on the internet and everybody knows that doesn't count 00:34:42.120 --> 00:34:45.640 really because a lot of companies will look you up on Facebook and Google and take a look at all 00:34:45.640 --> 00:34:51.000 those hot takes and decide not to hire you based on the fact that you can be so controversial. 00:34:51.960 --> 00:34:57.240 And so that's something to take a consideration in terms of, yes, your online persona matters. 00:34:57.240 --> 00:35:03.560 And yes, people do remember your online persona in public. So don't forget that everything that 00:35:03.560 --> 00:35:10.120 you were saying and representing out there on the internet will reflect on what happens to you offline as well. 00:35:10.120 --> 00:35:15.560 Listen, I post these things all the time when I see them and I post them a lot. I mean, all these 00:35:16.440 --> 00:35:21.960 college kids who had their scholarships rebuked because of something they said online. 00:35:23.000 --> 00:35:29.400 Again, my daughter just went through the whole process. She's on the college dance team and there's 00:35:29.400 --> 00:35:35.480 lists of criteria of all the things they can and cannot post on social media. And again, they kick 00:35:35.480 --> 00:35:41.720 people off all the time based on what you post or don't post. And so, again, who you are, 00:35:42.760 --> 00:35:47.240 you cannot be an online persona and a personal persona, just kind of like what Ray was talking 00:35:47.240 --> 00:35:53.640 about. You are both. And so you have to reflect who you are. You can't have two different personas. 00:35:54.840 --> 00:36:00.760 What's interesting out of this phrase, and it's not where we started, we're all digital missionaries, 00:36:00.760 --> 00:36:02.040 if we like it or not. 00:36:02.040 --> 00:36:02.600 That's right. 00:36:02.600 --> 00:36:08.760 And so the idea of maybe selecting a few and training them on that, that's not where we're 00:36:08.760 --> 00:36:13.960 saying now is that whether we're a physical persona or a digital persona, we are all 00:36:15.720 --> 00:36:22.760 leaking things out of us that will either connect people to Christ or drive away from. 00:36:23.560 --> 00:36:24.360 Absolutely correct. 00:36:25.400 --> 00:36:30.040 Yeah. See, that's the thing. I think there are things that we can do to train people and equip them to be 00:36:30.040 --> 00:36:35.560 digital missionaries. But at the heart of it is, really, it's your heart. Is your heart for Christ, 00:36:35.560 --> 00:36:43.240 and are you really spreading out hope and light to people, or are you looking for opportunities? 00:36:43.880 --> 00:36:49.160 Listen, I know believers who get on social media and just start arguments all the time. I'm like, 00:36:49.160 --> 00:36:54.760 what are you doing? Why are you doing this kind of thing? And it just makes no sense to me, to be honest. 00:36:54.760 --> 00:37:01.080 Right. And especially, and please, a word to all you pastors out there, please do not leverage your 00:37:01.080 --> 00:37:07.480 online platform for your hot takes. Like it is the worst thing for your church, you know? And I know 00:37:07.480 --> 00:37:12.200 you're thinking, well, I need to use my voice for this political thing or for this thing or whatever 00:37:12.200 --> 00:37:16.440 else. And I'm telling you right now, it does more to drive people away than drive people towards, 00:37:16.440 --> 00:37:20.200 on both sides, honestly, because it's either you're setting a bad example for your own people, 00:37:20.200 --> 00:37:24.920 or you're basically shutting out a portion of the congregation that might be interested in visiting 00:37:24.920 --> 00:37:29.960 your church. But all of a sudden, your hot take with little nuance is basically telling them, 00:37:29.960 --> 00:37:30.760 I'm not welcome. 00:37:32.760 --> 00:37:39.640 Yeah. Culture's changed on that. That may have worked 30, 40 years ago when Christian culture was more 00:37:39.640 --> 00:37:45.880 unified. But the diversity, the outspokenness of where we are today, yeah, Ray, you're exactly 00:37:45.880 --> 00:37:51.560 right there. So Tom, man, you said the word training four or five times. 00:37:51.560 --> 00:37:55.720 Well, that's a good thing. I mean, again, I think part of it is when you can do training on, 00:37:55.720 --> 00:38:01.160 hey, do you know your social platform very well? Like the kind of the basics and the gist of how 00:38:01.160 --> 00:38:07.240 you can utilize whatever social platform, whether it's Twitter or Instagram or Facebook, that's some 00:38:07.240 --> 00:38:14.040 digital stuff, how you can use digital tools, you know, like how do you share a YouVersion Bible 00:38:14.600 --> 00:38:19.240 graphic to someone, you know? I mean, it's just, I mean, those are cheesy things that some people are 00:38:19.240 --> 00:38:23.080 going to scoff at, like, oh, that's so easy. But some people don't know how to use that stuff. 00:38:23.960 --> 00:38:29.800 And so you can do that. How do you, how do you make a video? How do you make a video on your phone 00:38:30.200 --> 00:38:38.680 and share a Bible story? You know, various digital tools that you can use to do that. But then also 00:38:39.400 --> 00:38:47.160 about, hey, how do you share your testimony? Like, do you even know how to share your testimony? 00:38:47.160 --> 00:38:51.960 And kind of walk through that. You know, we've been going through this a lot at our church. You know, 00:38:51.960 --> 00:38:57.560 we call it the three chairs or your elevator story or your two-minute story. Do you know how to 00:38:57.560 --> 00:39:02.120 effectively communicate your story, your transformation in Christ in two minutes or less? 00:39:02.680 --> 00:39:07.080 You know, so that's the kind of training you can do. Do you know how to 00:39:07.080 --> 00:39:12.680 do the bridge illustration to someone if they're going to talk to you about that? Those are some kind 00:39:12.680 --> 00:39:17.000 of trainings that you could kind of definitely cover. Those are things that I'm looking at right 00:39:17.000 --> 00:39:23.320 now. I mean, two parts of that. There is a technical aspects to better use tools and platforms, 00:39:23.320 --> 00:39:31.080 how to create the content to give people the voice. And so the technical aspects are very important. 00:39:31.080 --> 00:39:37.720 But I love what you're talking about helping people discover spiritually, how to share their testimony, 00:39:37.720 --> 00:39:44.520 doing the two-minute testimony. And there's tons of discipleship material out there. You know, 00:39:45.160 --> 00:39:50.360 with First Capital Christian Church, a church anywhere program, back in episode 19, we talked about 00:39:51.480 --> 00:39:58.120 rooted as a 10-week material that would help take people through their discipleship process so that 00:39:58.120 --> 00:40:03.480 they would learn how to create a disciple. Now, with First Capital Christian, they were utilizing it 00:40:03.480 --> 00:40:08.760 for their people to eventually start to launch their micro locations. These, you know, 00:40:08.760 --> 00:40:15.320 basically volunteers were becoming campus pastors of like 15 or 20 people. I would challenge you guys, 00:40:15.320 --> 00:40:20.440 you know, out there who are listening, like, have that same intentionality when you're creating these 00:40:20.440 --> 00:40:26.680 digital disciples. Because what you're doing by doing that is giving them a voice for a much larger 00:40:27.080 --> 00:40:34.520 thing. You're giving them not responsibility over a 15 to 20 person micro location, but you're giving them the 00:40:34.520 --> 00:40:41.240 opportunity to reach their friends and maybe even more at a much larger scale by doing it online. 00:40:42.120 --> 00:40:47.400 You know, and material like that, whether it's the rooted material or four fields or 00:40:47.400 --> 00:40:53.640 Timothy initiative or blah, blah, blah. Ultimately, all these materials are going to help the person 00:40:53.640 --> 00:41:00.280 figure out how to share their testimony, how to share their story, love, um, doing some of that 00:41:00.280 --> 00:41:06.200 intentional discipleship to, to drive, uh, these people, uh, to the place where they can become a 00:41:06.200 --> 00:41:11.880 more effective digital disciple because they already are one. They, they just need help becoming more 00:41:11.880 --> 00:41:15.720 effective in what they're doing. So that's, that's awesome. 00:41:15.720 --> 00:41:20.520 What I want to do is one of the things I've been kind of really processing and kind of 00:41:21.160 --> 00:41:25.720 figuring out is who are my core people at my online campus right now? Who are the core 00:41:25.720 --> 00:41:30.760 people that are, that would consider new life Christian church, our online campus, 00:41:30.760 --> 00:41:36.600 their home church, and are they willing to learn and discover what it means to be a disciple? 00:41:36.600 --> 00:41:41.400 If they're, if they have that desire, I want to work with them. Again, I don't have the answers, 00:41:41.400 --> 00:41:46.840 all the answers, I'm kind of making it up as I go along and using these people as guinea pigs, 00:41:46.840 --> 00:41:54.520 but I really do want to, if they've got a desire to, to use online as a way to, to be light and be hope 00:41:54.520 --> 00:41:59.640 to people, then I want to be able to try to figure out, okay, I need to train and equip them so we can 00:41:59.640 --> 00:42:05.160 reach more people for Christ, not for our campus numbers, but just so we can be light to other people. 00:42:05.160 --> 00:42:12.360 A lot of the conversations that I have with churches today is what's the strategy of church online and 00:42:12.840 --> 00:42:17.960 Church X wants to utilize church online to launch physical campuses. Church Y wants to utilize church 00:42:17.960 --> 00:42:24.600 online for missional aspects broadcasting all over the place. I love this idea of what you're doing 00:42:24.600 --> 00:42:30.840 because the purpose of church online for you, I don't know if this is the entirety, but a piece of it, 00:42:30.840 --> 00:42:37.880 is to create these digital missionaries. And so you've got people that are watching, you want to 00:42:37.880 --> 00:42:44.200 pull them into some sort of a discipleship process, start to engage them, start to meet them, learn more 00:42:44.200 --> 00:42:51.800 about them. But the end game of that is to basically disciple them to this place where they're creating, 00:42:52.360 --> 00:43:00.440 where they're capable of creating, disciples using social media. And so it gives you intentionality of, 00:43:01.000 --> 00:43:06.840 hey, I need to meet this person, not because I just want to invite them into a nebulous online 00:43:06.840 --> 00:43:13.640 group that doesn't have a purpose, but my purpose of engaging with these people drives that further 00:43:13.640 --> 00:43:17.080 along. I mean, and that's, that's one of the things that we were talking about earlier, where 00:43:17.800 --> 00:43:22.120 we've got this, and this is, this is church terms. And so maybe we need to come up with something 00:43:22.120 --> 00:43:28.200 better, but you've got this community of people that, that are following you. And you need to, 00:43:29.080 --> 00:43:36.280 by watching your services through NLCC, the goal would be to kind of meet them and start to pull them 00:43:36.840 --> 00:43:41.960 into the congregation of the church, where they're attending on a more regular basis, where you know 00:43:41.960 --> 00:43:49.000 their names, you know who they are. But the goal of that congregation terms also to disciple them and 00:43:49.000 --> 00:43:55.960 train them to pull them further in until they become capable of this discipleship level, where they're 00:43:55.960 --> 00:44:03.480 now part of your core group that you're sending out digitally to reach. Like, I love this strategy, 00:44:03.480 --> 00:44:10.280 because, A, there's severe purpose to this. The end game is clear. The goal is clear what we want to 00:44:10.280 --> 00:44:16.680 do. But honestly, B, it doesn't cost a lot of money. It's not like we're talking about launching 00:44:16.680 --> 00:44:21.800 micro locations. It's not like we need a mic, a multi-site strategy that's going to launch physical 00:44:21.800 --> 00:44:29.160 campuses. I'm connecting with people virtually who are watching my services, and the end game is to get 00:44:29.160 --> 00:44:36.280 that person to be a disciple in the digital space. Like, that's clear cut, and that's powerful at a viral 00:44:36.280 --> 00:44:44.040 level. I love it. And anybody can do it. Young people, old people, anybody can do it in that digital space. 00:44:46.520 --> 00:44:55.400 Awesome. Last question, because I'm curious with this. How do we meet people? To me, that's the 00:44:55.400 --> 00:45:03.240 hardest question. So you've got X number 100, X number 1000 people watching service. How do you 00:45:03.240 --> 00:45:12.200 actually put names on them and get them driven from the community to where they're kind of isolated, 00:45:12.200 --> 00:45:18.360 nebulous, not named, to more of the congregation where you know who they are? 00:45:18.360 --> 00:45:25.880 Ray, Tom, what do you guys do for that? So for me, it's been engaging in conversations, 00:45:25.880 --> 00:45:31.560 just kind of at a greater scale. So, you know, Tom mentioned Twitter earlier, big fan of Twitter, 00:45:31.560 --> 00:45:37.240 and Twitter moves at the speed of light, in the sense of, you know, it's not yesterday's news. It's 00:45:37.240 --> 00:45:42.760 like five minutes news is old news. It's a constant conversation throughout the day, and new topics to 00:45:42.760 --> 00:45:47.800 be part of, and all sorts of things. And so what you do is you kind of first start with your serious 00:45:47.800 --> 00:45:51.640 influencers. At least this has been a thing for me. You follow them, and then you begin to engage 00:45:51.640 --> 00:45:55.560 in conversations that are happening in their threads. And then the next thing you know, you 00:45:55.560 --> 00:46:01.160 start to become involved in much larger conversations, and folks start following you as they kind of agree 00:46:01.160 --> 00:46:06.280 or disagree with you, but they see that you're involved in conversation. And it starts to become a much, 00:46:06.280 --> 00:46:12.280 much larger conversation as you go along. In Facebook, man, groups has been such a big community 00:46:12.280 --> 00:46:18.840 builder for me. And it's been so helpful for both for my individual learning, coming into the church 00:46:18.840 --> 00:46:23.320 online space, and all this stuff. But then even then, just as a fan of different things, whether 00:46:23.320 --> 00:46:29.560 it's sports, or whether it's comic stuff, or whether it's, you know, sneakers, or whatever else, 00:46:29.560 --> 00:46:34.600 it doesn't matter. There's so many different subgroups for you to be part of. And I've even seen this 00:46:34.600 --> 00:46:39.960 with my wife as well, where, you know, she'll all of a sudden find a teacher who's really funny, 00:46:39.960 --> 00:46:44.680 who loves talking about teacher stuff online that only teachers get. And that's a subculture for 00:46:44.680 --> 00:46:49.000 them. So the next thing you know, she's following, and now she's part of this conversation of teachers 00:46:49.000 --> 00:46:52.920 across the United States and stuff that they do, you know. And sometimes she'll show me and she'll be 00:46:52.920 --> 00:46:57.240 like, "Look at this meme that this person, you know, dropped. Man, that's so true in my classroom." 00:46:57.240 --> 00:47:02.120 It's not relevant to me, but it's funny for her, and it engages her in conversation about something 00:47:02.120 --> 00:47:06.360 that's unique to her, unique to where she's at in life, and she can be part of that conversation. 00:47:06.360 --> 00:47:12.520 So it's a great way to just network across the United States. If you're trying to establish 00:47:12.520 --> 00:47:16.840 a platform and grow a platform, it's a great way for that. But also, if you just want to meet people 00:47:16.840 --> 00:47:21.720 and engage in conversation and share the love of God, it's great for that too. 00:47:24.440 --> 00:47:30.440 That's interesting on the networking. I love that you used that word. And I don't think you meant it that way, 00:47:30.440 --> 00:47:36.760 but just coming as a guy who owns his own business, a lot of it is networking, you know, 00:47:36.760 --> 00:47:41.800 and figuring out how to meet those people. And I, you know, I just had that thought when you said the word. 00:47:41.800 --> 00:47:49.160 It's like, within our churches, we know people that know how to network, how to do that. 00:47:49.160 --> 00:47:56.200 Like, I would challenge y'all who are listening, find those people who know how to network, 00:47:56.200 --> 00:48:02.840 who are those networker types, share with them the problem you're having, and let them take a stab at 00:48:02.840 --> 00:48:09.080 it. Let them see. Like, they may have solutions of ways to tackle this with your specific use case. 00:48:09.080 --> 00:48:16.200 One of the things that I do know, the biggest limitation that I see across the board when talking 00:48:16.200 --> 00:48:23.240 with churches is this, I've got hundreds of people who watch my service every week, and I have no idea who they are. 00:48:24.360 --> 00:48:29.480 And so that's the, and I'm going to use this phrase a lot. It's a limitation of the model. 00:48:29.480 --> 00:48:34.760 The limitation of the model doesn't mean that you scrap the model. The limitation of the model means that 00:48:34.760 --> 00:48:43.320 you work hard to overcome it and try to find the solution to that. So to raise point of using it for networking, 00:48:43.320 --> 00:48:49.240 maybe talking with some other people who are attached or in leadership of the church who can help. 00:48:49.240 --> 00:48:55.480 But there are ways to overcome that. You just need to wrestle with it, experiment it. Because in the 00:48:55.480 --> 00:49:00.920 end game, the purpose isn't to meet who they are. The end game is to disciple them and become a digital 00:49:00.920 --> 00:49:08.120 missionary. And that right there, the goal of the digital missionaries is worth whatever cost we have 00:49:08.120 --> 00:49:13.560 to do to meet these people where they are right now virtually. Sure. Well, man, this has been a great 00:49:13.560 --> 00:49:22.040 podcast. I love this time. It's always awesome hanging out with with Tom. And so, hey, Ray, any thoughts as 00:49:22.040 --> 00:49:28.120 we're landing the plane? Go be a digital missionary. No excuses. Just try something. Try something. You know, 00:49:28.120 --> 00:49:33.000 you're already doing it, whether you like it or not, like we established earlier. So why not do it on purpose? 00:49:33.000 --> 00:49:38.520 Awesome. Tom, any thoughts from you before we wrap up? 00:49:38.520 --> 00:49:46.520 Yeah. I mean, just again, be that light, be that hope to people, be that someone who uses social media 00:49:46.520 --> 00:49:51.320 to draw people to Christ. I think the more you can do that, I've had some great conversations, 00:49:51.880 --> 00:49:57.720 and I know other people can have them as well. It's all your mindset of when you get on social media, 00:49:57.720 --> 00:50:04.840 what are you trying to do and how I can use that to share about the love of Christ in a non-threatening 00:50:04.840 --> 00:50:13.240 way. So I think it's great. Church, our job is not to create attenders. Our job is to create 00:50:13.240 --> 00:50:17.960 missionaries. I don't think attenders is actually written in the Bible. I could be wrong. You could find 00:50:17.960 --> 00:50:23.400 it, but maybe. I'm pretty sure it's not. There's a dad joke about all of them being in one accord 00:50:23.400 --> 00:50:29.960 somewhere in there. So it's fine. All right. That's awesome. So get out there and let's create 00:50:29.960 --> 00:50:36.440 disciples physically as well as digitally. So questions? Of course, let us know. Tom, 00:50:36.440 --> 00:50:42.760 just in wrapping, where can people find you on social media? Yeah, my favorite is Twitter. So you can just 00:50:42.760 --> 00:50:54.680 look up at TAPounder, and I'm there all the time. Awesome. And Digital Bootcamp on Facebook and YM. 00:50:55.160 --> 00:51:02.280 Man, this guy's literally all over the place. So hit him up on, he's so humble. He's like laughing it 00:51:02.280 --> 00:51:07.960 off. But the guy creates content like nothing, and he's got several roles. And literally, I have no idea 00:51:07.960 --> 00:51:13.080 how he does everything he does, but he does it so well. So Tom, thank you for being on here. Hit 00:51:13.080 --> 00:51:17.240 him up on TAPounder, or hit me up, and I'll tell you everything that he does, and we'll get you 00:51:17.240 --> 00:51:21.960 connected. For Ray, for Tom, this is Jeff with the Church Digital Podcast. Love having you on, 00:51:21.960 --> 00:51:23.720 and we'll see you next time. Thanks, everybody.