WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.380 Well, part of our surprise, honestly, in the metaverse churches is that many of them are 00:00:04.380 --> 00:00:09.200 replicating what could happen in a physical space. Not all of them, but many of them are. 00:00:09.580 --> 00:00:15.480 And it looks like going to church with your avatar. And many of them are auditorium-based. 00:00:15.580 --> 00:00:20.800 You break out into small groups, you're around a round table, you baptize in the pond outside, 00:00:21.100 --> 00:00:27.500 you whatever. But it feels like the liturgy of the physical space church. 00:00:27.500 --> 00:00:32.560 Welcome to the Church Digital Podcast. Through this podcast, we'll talk about the technological 00:00:32.560 --> 00:00:38.620 innovations within the church. But more than tech or tech itself, we'll address deeper questions. 00:00:39.460 --> 00:00:44.320 Is disciple-making possible digitally? How should we approach the digital mission field? 00:00:45.100 --> 00:00:50.660 Can a biblically grounded church operate in digital space? Oh, and where does the metaverse fit into all 00:00:50.660 --> 00:00:55.880 this? Whether you're a big or small church, an established church, or a startup church plant, 00:00:56.620 --> 00:01:01.560 the Church Digital's goal is to help churches like yours learn to be a multiplying church, 00:01:01.680 --> 00:01:07.880 digitally and physically. Our heart? That churches like yours will discover a newfound focus 00:01:07.880 --> 00:01:14.540 on disciple-making that will revolutionize your church. And now, here's your host, Jeff Reed. 00:01:14.680 --> 00:01:21.460 All right. Hey, you got the Church Digital Podcast. This is episode 329. Love this conversation coming 00:01:21.460 --> 00:01:28.020 up. This is one of the top five conversations we had in 2021, coming back around and revisiting it in 00:01:28.020 --> 00:01:33.300 2022, 2023 once again as well. And so definitely excited about getting into this conversation. But 00:01:33.300 --> 00:01:38.520 before we get there, real quick, I want to throw this out on the podcast. We've talked about this. 00:01:38.580 --> 00:01:43.480 There's an incredible opportunity for digital churches, for digital ministry, for metaverse 00:01:43.480 --> 00:01:48.940 churches to connect with new people, different types of people in the digital space. People, 00:01:49.100 --> 00:01:54.860 by the way, who are hungry, spiritually seeking, who are looking to literally have a conversation 00:01:54.860 --> 00:02:00.360 about Jesus digitally. Is this not a great opportunity? Here's what we're doing. We've partnered 00:02:00.360 --> 00:02:07.340 with He Gets Us. It's a He Gets Us. Maybe you've seen the ads on the NFL, on Major League Baseball, 00:02:07.700 --> 00:02:12.400 live events. They've been all over. I've seen billboards. I've seen social media stuff. It's 00:02:12.400 --> 00:02:17.560 been a really interesting opportunity. Our friends over at Glue, a couple other ministry partners 00:02:17.560 --> 00:02:26.440 have started a national ad campaign. He Gets Us. He, Jesus, literally gets you. He understands you. 00:02:26.440 --> 00:02:30.480 He's been through the pain. He's been through the judging. He's been through the humiliation. 00:02:30.980 --> 00:02:35.140 He's been through the hard parts of life that you are struggling with. So quite literally, 00:02:35.800 --> 00:02:41.600 He Gets Us. That's the idea of the ad campaign. And what happens with this ad campaign, it drives 00:02:41.600 --> 00:02:49.120 to a landing page, which connects spiritually exploring, explorers. It connects these people 00:02:49.120 --> 00:02:57.220 to churches like yours. And there is a massive need for churches that are comfortable in digital 00:02:57.220 --> 00:03:03.080 ministry, who can engage with people digitally, who can have digital conversations, who can disciple 00:03:03.080 --> 00:03:08.360 people and maybe even share Jesus without having to say the words, hey, would you like to come to our 00:03:08.360 --> 00:03:14.360 physical building? There's an incredible opportunities for churches like yours to reach people that are 00:03:14.360 --> 00:03:19.800 spiritually seeking. Like you wanted to do ministry digitally. You wanted to prove, hey, there's an 00:03:19.800 --> 00:03:26.740 opportunity to do this digitally. This is literally your opportunity. And oh, by the way, it's free. Through the 00:03:26.740 --> 00:03:32.540 Church Digital, through our partnership with Glue and the donors there, we've been able to offer 12 months for 00:03:32.540 --> 00:03:40.780 free of He Gets Us. That's 12 months of literally people that are spiritually seeking showing up in your inbox for you to 00:03:40.780 --> 00:03:46.620 have a conversation with through your church. I tell you, we'll get into it maybe later, but thechurch.digital 00:03:46.620 --> 00:03:52.400 slash He Gets Us. 12 months for free. Click that link, thechurch.digital 00:03:52.400 --> 00:03:58.660 slash He Gets Us. More information, questions on any of that, hit me up directly. You know where to find 00:03:58.660 --> 00:04:05.940 them. Awesome. I'll give you my cell. 484-324-8724. Okay, commercial was over. That took three minutes. 00:04:06.040 --> 00:04:09.380 Hopefully it was actually trying to get a little shorter, but I don't know. I never know when to shut up. 00:04:09.380 --> 00:04:15.400 So, hey, I'm really excited about this conversation. We're going to bring Jared and Ann Roth into the 00:04:15.400 --> 00:04:22.460 stream. Now, Jared and Ann, I don't want to oversell this, but these may be like if I had fanboys and 00:04:22.460 --> 00:04:28.900 fangirls scattered around the country, it may be these people. I honestly don't know of any larger, 00:04:29.420 --> 00:04:35.320 better, more excited people about what's happening in digital ministry than these two right here. And so, 00:04:35.320 --> 00:04:39.200 Jared and Ann, once again, thank you for being on the show here. 00:04:39.560 --> 00:04:40.260 Oh, our pleasure. 00:04:40.680 --> 00:04:40.980 Yes. 00:04:41.660 --> 00:04:47.680 So, we did a podcast, you know, maybe it was October, November of 2021. We'll throw the link in the 00:04:47.680 --> 00:04:55.360 show notes. But it was centered around the research of digital church and digital ministry. And Jared and 00:04:55.360 --> 00:05:04.820 Ann, they run Sprout Digital, which has been doing a five-year research plan or a research study centered 00:05:04.820 --> 00:05:12.880 around the idea of church in digital space. And so, many of you have actually gotten connected to them 00:05:12.880 --> 00:05:17.900 and many of you have had conversations over the years towards this and have contributed to the 00:05:17.900 --> 00:05:25.220 study. And so, we talked last year about, obviously, part one of the study. And that, I wasn't kidding. 00:05:25.380 --> 00:05:30.540 Like, that was one of the top five most listened to podcasts here with the Church Digital within the 00:05:30.540 --> 00:05:37.640 past year. And so, I'm very excited. I got my hands on part two of the study last night and had 00:05:37.640 --> 00:05:42.880 an opportunity to dig into it before this interview. And there's all sorts of goodness. There's all 00:05:42.880 --> 00:05:48.600 sorts of questions. There's a couple surprises, even for me in this. And so, I cannot wait to dig into 00:05:48.600 --> 00:05:53.940 this. So, Jared and Ann, once again, thanks for jumping on here. Hey, let me just ask this question 00:05:53.940 --> 00:06:00.960 to kick it off. You guys, maybe if you're watching on YouTube, you can see this, but it's a lovely 00:06:00.960 --> 00:06:08.600 looking elderly couple on the team. Okay? Like, this is not the type of audience that I would expect to 00:06:08.600 --> 00:06:13.700 have a conversation centered around digital church. As a matter of fact, they retired recently. And so, 00:06:13.700 --> 00:06:18.540 they're literally retired. They bought an adventure van traveling the country, which is my 00:06:18.600 --> 00:06:24.220 dream. That's my dream retirement job. So, you're living the dream for me. But you're a retired couple 00:06:24.220 --> 00:06:33.300 who's running a five-year study on digital church. Why? What was the drive for you guys to go digital 00:06:33.300 --> 00:06:38.200 and to have this emphasis in ministry? What's the story here? 00:06:38.540 --> 00:06:45.080 Well, I think for Jared and I, we're both futurists. And if you're familiar with Strength Finders 2.0, 00:06:45.080 --> 00:06:51.940 well, and that's dangerous when both after the couple are that way. And so, to be involved in what's God up to 00:06:51.940 --> 00:06:58.600 now? What's He, where's the future moving? And we ask the question, what's the ends of the earth look like 00:06:58.600 --> 00:07:04.960 now? And the ends of the earth is, right now, is digital. It's expanded. It's the new frontier, if you will, 00:07:05.400 --> 00:07:10.700 to reach people, help them find and follow Jesus, which is our lifelong passion through church 00:07:10.700 --> 00:07:18.000 multiplication. And this just happens to be the new space for church multiplication to happen in. 00:07:18.660 --> 00:07:25.380 And yes, those churches, those communities of people happen in a different way, but they are 00:07:25.380 --> 00:07:33.180 just fully churched as well. The other thing is, we love seeing who digital churches are reaching, 00:07:33.560 --> 00:07:40.800 because those who find their social community online are more comfortable associating with 00:07:40.800 --> 00:07:48.140 putting, dipping their toe in the water of checking out a faith community online. And then those who are 00:07:48.140 --> 00:07:54.400 physically unable to be part of some brick and mortar travel there with my physical body and that group 00:07:54.400 --> 00:07:59.840 as well. And then let's just mention gospel closed countries. I mean, we would want to use every means 00:07:59.840 --> 00:08:05.660 at our disposal to reach more people for Jesus. And in gospel closed countries, it's just having a 00:08:05.660 --> 00:08:12.220 phenomenal impact. And so, um, we wanted to do something to help, but we knew it wasn't our space 00:08:12.220 --> 00:08:17.720 because we're not, we're the furthest thing from digital natives, you know, we're those boomers. 00:08:18.620 --> 00:08:25.040 So we thought, what could we do? We could do research, um, to help evaluate the early experiences 00:08:25.040 --> 00:08:33.660 of these, um, really pioneers in the space and, and look at their experiments and learn from that. 00:08:33.660 --> 00:08:39.060 And then along the lines of answering that question, given a, given a planter's platform 00:08:39.060 --> 00:08:49.000 and audience, um, what parts of the discipleship pathway are being, um, effectively done? And what could 00:08:49.000 --> 00:08:55.620 be learned from that to help the next round of people who continue to penetrate this digital space 00:08:55.620 --> 00:09:02.780 with communities of faith? So that's our passion in it, always reaching people, the ends of the earth. 00:09:02.780 --> 00:09:10.100 That, that was beautiful. And, and your heart for, for recognizing that, that the people, I think, 00:09:10.240 --> 00:09:16.820 I think you find, you said the words, the people that find social community online and how they 00:09:16.820 --> 00:09:21.880 operate differently, how they function differently. You know, we talk through digital church network 00:09:21.880 --> 00:09:26.600 and the church, we talk a lot about, um, a different type of person we're reaching via 00:09:26.600 --> 00:09:32.600 these digital churches and, and, and Jared and your, your research actually validates a lot of the 00:09:32.600 --> 00:09:39.060 stuff that we've been saying about there being a different function of these people where they're, 00:09:39.180 --> 00:09:44.480 they're looking for different things and they're responding in, in different ways. Uh, and so it was, 00:09:44.480 --> 00:09:50.040 was beautiful. By the way, I should have said this earlier, uh, the report is available for download 00:09:50.040 --> 00:09:58.040 through the church digital right now. Go ahead and go to the church.digital slash sprout S P R O U T. 00:09:58.280 --> 00:10:03.080 We'll put the link in the show notes, of course, but you can grab that report, download it, look at 00:10:03.080 --> 00:10:11.260 it. It's 25 pages of goodness. Um, and so would love for you to go and check that out at the church.digital 00:10:11.260 --> 00:10:17.080 slash sprout. So, okay, we're going to, we're going to go through some highlights. I made some notes on 00:10:17.080 --> 00:10:21.920 my side. There's some questions that I want to ask and dig into here a little bit. First and foremost, 00:10:21.920 --> 00:10:27.960 right off the bat, um, you have four categories of churches. Now I've always said three categories of 00:10:27.960 --> 00:10:33.260 churches. So I'm stretched, you've stretched me a little bit here in this. So you've got, 00:10:33.360 --> 00:10:38.100 you've got metaverse churches, obviously virtual reality in that, which is the bleeding edge tip of 00:10:38.100 --> 00:10:43.360 the spear right now. Uh, you've got, uh, churches that are existing digital churches where the church 00:10:43.360 --> 00:10:49.620 exists primarily as an online entity. You know, we're, we're on the same page there. Um, you've, 00:10:49.700 --> 00:10:55.220 you've got online churches. I I've been credited with saying the word digital a lot, physical churches 00:10:55.220 --> 00:10:59.240 that are doing digital ministry, the combination of that, you know, I actually, I don't, I don't say 00:10:59.240 --> 00:11:03.980 digital that much anymore, but people still make fun of me even years after I've said it for, for, 00:11:03.980 --> 00:11:09.400 for saying that word. Um, but you've got a fourth category that, that was a surprise and would love 00:11:09.400 --> 00:11:16.380 to, to get into this a little bit gaming churches. Like I, I, you know, I knew it was a thing, but I, 00:11:16.380 --> 00:11:21.760 I, it didn't, it didn't seem to me to be the scope maybe that, that you're starting to recognize and dig 00:11:21.760 --> 00:11:26.700 into. So right off the bat, let's talk a little bit here. Uh, gaming churches, uh, what, what are 00:11:26.700 --> 00:11:31.820 gaming churches? What are, what are you seeing? Yeah. Well, we thought that probably, uh, metaverse 00:11:31.820 --> 00:11:39.760 churches were probably, uh, uh, under one large umbrella. Well, the distinctives among the two in 00:11:39.760 --> 00:11:46.200 the study became so obvious that they needed to have separate categories. In fact, uh, we'll talk 00:11:46.200 --> 00:11:51.820 a little bit more later, uh, likely about metaverse churches, but they have far more in common with 00:11:51.820 --> 00:11:59.940 digital churches many times than they do with gaming churches. Uh, gaming churches, um, tend to be 00:11:59.940 --> 00:12:07.240 either on a streaming platform, um, or, uh, and then using a community based platform like discord, 00:12:07.240 --> 00:12:13.520 uh, for their, uh, their conversation and community, uh, or they're actually gamers that are participating 00:12:13.520 --> 00:12:21.400 in the gaming process and engaging people in that process. Both of those are significantly distinct 00:12:21.400 --> 00:12:28.220 from the metaverse church experience. And, uh, the, the people who are there may have some overlap, 00:12:28.220 --> 00:12:35.520 but the experience, uh, and the techniques and the strategy of gaming churches or churches that are 00:12:35.520 --> 00:12:41.400 using gaming platforms, uh, are really quite distinct from what we're discovering in the 00:12:41.400 --> 00:12:48.000 metaverse. Maybe could, could you draw out maybe one or two, um, examples or characteristics that would 00:12:48.000 --> 00:12:52.180 maybe highlight some of that difference? Well, part of our surprise, honestly, in the metaverse 00:12:52.180 --> 00:12:57.720 churches is that many of them are replicating what could happen in a physical space. Not all of them, 00:12:57.720 --> 00:13:03.960 but many of them are, and it looks like going to church with your avatar. And, uh, many of them 00:13:03.960 --> 00:13:09.160 are auditorium based. You break out into small groups, you're around a round table, you baptize 00:13:09.160 --> 00:13:17.000 in the pond outside, you whatever, but it feels like the liturgy of the physical space church. 00:13:17.740 --> 00:13:23.220 There's almost nothing that we have found in the gaming community that follows the liturgy 00:13:23.220 --> 00:13:29.720 of the, uh, the, uh, the physically based church. It's experimental. It's different. Uh, it doesn't 00:13:29.720 --> 00:13:36.820 have the, the, the service kind of format to it. Uh, they're trying to figure out how to do 00:13:36.820 --> 00:13:45.320 ordinances. Uh, it's, it's the wild west more than we anticipated where we anticipated that the wild 00:13:45.320 --> 00:13:50.380 west was more in the metaverse. Yeah, that was a, that's a very good observation right there. I, 00:13:50.380 --> 00:13:55.600 I agree with you. You know, uh, it's funny people are, are so the most controversial thing I feel 00:13:55.600 --> 00:14:01.420 like I've ever said is the idea of church in virtual reality. Like I get 10 X hate comments 00:14:01.420 --> 00:14:06.200 on, on, on, on YouTube. Anytime I talk about anything with the church in virtual reality 00:14:06.200 --> 00:14:11.480 and the, the, the, the, the, the, the theology backing some of those statements is crazy. But, 00:14:11.600 --> 00:14:16.600 but the heart of it is, is when you look at a, at a, what the way that Jason polling, uh, 00:14:16.600 --> 00:14:22.400 the way that, um, uh, Lakeland, uh, the way that, that these churches are, are utilizing 00:14:22.400 --> 00:14:29.640 it. Um, one, one hope, uh, it's, I mean, it's, it's a physical church doing church in virtual 00:14:29.640 --> 00:14:33.980 reality. Like, like the, the only difference is you're not literally breathing air molecules 00:14:33.980 --> 00:14:38.480 together. Like there's, there's no difference in the way this is. And, and yes, it's an edgy 00:14:38.480 --> 00:14:44.500 environment, but it's a, it's a arguably a very grounded ecclesiology because of the physical 00:14:44.500 --> 00:14:46.820 operation, at least interpreted. 00:14:46.820 --> 00:14:51.080 One of the things that brought this obviously to light was the worship experience. So we're 00:14:51.080 --> 00:14:54.900 talking to people in the, the metaverse space and they're saying, yeah, worship works pretty 00:14:54.900 --> 00:15:00.200 well for us, you know? And we're going, what? Worship doesn't work well for anybody in the 00:15:00.200 --> 00:15:04.000 digital space. Well, it's working fine for us in the metaverse space. You talk to people 00:15:04.000 --> 00:15:09.080 in the gaming spaces, uh, they don't even want to talk about music. I mean, that's a non-starter. 00:15:09.220 --> 00:15:13.740 There's no place to go with that, right? That's totally unexplored territory. 00:15:14.140 --> 00:15:19.540 And, and you're having to work really hard to, to map out, you know, a biblical ecclesiology 00:15:19.540 --> 00:15:26.440 in Roblox or in Minecraft or in Black Desert Online or Final Fantasy. And, you know, some of 00:15:26.440 --> 00:15:33.160 these games, like Roblox, for example, unless it's been added recently, like it's all text-based 00:15:33.160 --> 00:15:38.600 communication. And so you're, you're literally operating in these video games where you can't 00:15:38.600 --> 00:15:44.720 even communicate like audibly. It's, you're interacting with, with a keyboard. And yet there 00:15:44.720 --> 00:15:50.960 are, there are people that are, are being that missionary that are operating, uh, a church in, 00:15:51.020 --> 00:15:59.800 in that space. And so this is, this is, this is beautiful. Um, very, very good. Let's, um, 00:15:59.840 --> 00:16:05.320 let's shift a little bit here. So we talked about gaming. We've talked about metaverse, 00:16:05.320 --> 00:16:12.620 um, digital churches, uh, physical churches doing digital ministry. Did you see any, um, 00:16:13.460 --> 00:16:19.380 was there more of one type or, or another type or were they equally spread? Any characteristics 00:16:19.380 --> 00:16:24.520 overall, maybe looking at all four of them, did any one stand out more than another? 00:16:24.960 --> 00:16:30.160 Well, I think, um, one of the great differences that it was revealed in the first study where we 00:16:30.160 --> 00:16:35.000 intentionally had about half of the churches digital and half digital, but it was, it was 00:16:35.000 --> 00:16:41.420 absolutely reinforced again in this study. There's a huge difference of opinion, uh, about whether or not 00:16:41.420 --> 00:16:48.080 a fully formed disciple can happen in, in, uh, exclusively digital space. Uh, that was obvious. 00:16:48.080 --> 00:16:54.120 The first study, it was, it was 100% digital folks said you have to meet face to face at some point 00:16:54.120 --> 00:16:59.580 to become a fully formed disciple. Uh, 100% of the people in the digital spaces said 00:16:59.580 --> 00:17:05.460 absolutely is not a requirement. So there's really a theological, uh, issue there, uh, comes out of, 00:17:05.560 --> 00:17:10.260 I suppose our bias comes out of our practice, but there's a theological issue about the omnipresence 00:17:10.260 --> 00:17:15.420 of God and the work of the Holy Spirit. That was confirmed in this study where we, we didn't really 00:17:15.420 --> 00:17:20.620 intend to have many physical, physical churches. We did have some, uh, the real expansion of this 00:17:20.620 --> 00:17:27.480 study was to move globally and outside of North America, but this study again confirmed. So let me 00:17:27.480 --> 00:17:34.960 just say that everyone in the digital space says you do not have to ever meet face to face 00:17:34.960 --> 00:17:42.780 to become a fully formed disciple. But we would all agree that if you do meet face to face, there's no 00:17:42.780 --> 00:17:49.820 downside. So it's like, it's not essential, but it probably won't hurt you. Now this is a very 00:17:49.820 --> 00:17:56.440 different point of view than the digital folks. Something interesting. One of the, um, one of the 00:17:56.440 --> 00:18:02.680 planters, um, in this study, um, from another country, uh, she got saved in an Eastern block 00:18:02.680 --> 00:18:10.640 country when it was gospel closed and she got saved and discipled through a, um, series of letters 00:18:10.640 --> 00:18:15.600 that were sent to her very intentionally. An organization was doing this. So she got saved 00:18:15.600 --> 00:18:21.280 and discipled through snail mail. And so she's of course a digital church planter. Cause she said, 00:18:21.760 --> 00:18:30.940 Hey, Paul was the original, um, discipler by mail, the remote discipler. And, um, he managed to do 00:18:30.940 --> 00:18:35.580 this with a lot of churches that he planted by sending letters via couriers of various kinds. 00:18:35.700 --> 00:18:41.840 And she said, uh, my story is I was fully discipled by them. That's how she grew in Christ and became a 00:18:41.840 --> 00:18:49.080 leader and is now deployed as a, as a church planter. So, um, she just found it outrageous to 00:18:49.080 --> 00:18:55.860 not think that you could disciple remotely. Yeah. I mean, the Holy spirit can use letters. The Holy 00:18:55.860 --> 00:19:02.420 spirit uses the Bible. Maybe the Holy spirit can use a digital funnel and some emails and, uh, some, 00:19:02.420 --> 00:19:07.580 some interactions. I mean, we're, we're laughing about this, but what's funny is, uh, you know, 00:19:07.580 --> 00:19:12.780 you say this to some boomers and I have, and you know, I've, I've taken some bullets as a result of 00:19:12.780 --> 00:19:17.620 it. You say this to some millennials and some Gen Z's and if they're like, well, of course, why, 00:19:17.720 --> 00:19:22.900 why wouldn't, because they're more comfortable in that space and they recognize more opportunities 00:19:22.900 --> 00:19:29.440 within that. Um, and the, the controversy of, of digital versus physical digital only versus 00:19:29.440 --> 00:19:34.660 digital complimenting, eventually physical, blah, blah, blah. Like even the people that are in 00:19:34.660 --> 00:19:40.800 these spaces like are constantly having this argument, I, uh, can tell you con constant 00:19:40.800 --> 00:19:47.580 conversations about, am I, am I a pastor running a digital church? Am I a missionary on that's on a 00:19:47.580 --> 00:19:52.560 digital or metaverse movement? Um, like they don't, it's funny. Some of them are like, I've actually 00:19:52.560 --> 00:19:56.520 had this conversation a couple of times where people are like, I don't even care anymore. I'm just going 00:19:56.520 --> 00:20:01.120 to do what God called me to do. And some theologian can tell me 10 years later what I actually am. 00:20:01.120 --> 00:20:06.080 But right now I'm just a guy doing, uh, walking down the road that God has me. And so love the 00:20:06.080 --> 00:20:06.720 heart behind that. 00:20:07.060 --> 00:20:14.540 That's funny because, uh, the people in the study, they did, um, they did not want to be referred to 00:20:14.540 --> 00:20:22.160 as pastors. Yeah. And they wanted to get a community. They formed a community, not a church. And that 00:20:22.160 --> 00:20:28.920 kept, keeps them out of controversies way on that one point. But that, that had most to do with it, 00:20:28.920 --> 00:20:33.960 not because they don't believe they are, but because they found it to be a more agreeable 00:20:33.960 --> 00:20:35.500 terminology to use. 00:20:36.460 --> 00:20:42.680 They're making this research very, very difficult, Jeff. Uh, they won't agree with our, uh, with our, 00:20:42.680 --> 00:20:50.080 um, taxonomy. They, they, they won't agree with, uh, basic categories. They, they won't limit 00:20:50.080 --> 00:20:59.180 themselves to ideas that are represented by historic words. So many of these folks don't want to own that 00:20:59.180 --> 00:21:07.180 they've started a church, but they don't mind if they have, but they don't care to call it that. 00:21:07.680 --> 00:21:13.300 And then we talk about the discipleship pathway. That's not a foreign concept to them, but it has 00:21:13.300 --> 00:21:19.060 not been their focus. They're being themselves led by the spirit in their space, experimenting, 00:21:19.440 --> 00:21:24.820 often pretty comfortable doing a slice of the discipleship pathway that comes out of their 00:21:24.820 --> 00:21:28.920 giftedness rather than, you know, what do we do with these people? Once we get them saved, 00:21:29.260 --> 00:21:35.640 um, don't have well-developed, uh, ecclesiology. What's the nature of a church? You guys can fight 00:21:35.640 --> 00:21:41.660 that out. I'm just doing my thing here, helping people find and follow Jesus. So it's messing with 00:21:41.660 --> 00:21:47.060 the research because, uh, they won't play in our categories, but it is very exciting to see the 00:21:47.060 --> 00:21:53.840 creativity that comes out of not only being relieved from physical structures, but even the language that 00:21:53.840 --> 00:22:00.500 we've used to describe how church is done that they tend not to be very, uh, enthusiastic about 00:22:00.500 --> 00:22:04.660 adopting and identifying with. You know, it's, it's interesting what you're describing right there. 00:22:04.700 --> 00:22:10.580 Actually, there's a pullout quote from, from the report I wanted to dig into. People are always 00:22:10.580 --> 00:22:16.540 trying to fit something in a box. This is a quote from the, from a, from a planter. People are always 00:22:16.540 --> 00:22:22.520 trying to fit something into a box and the Holy spirit doesn't quite fit into a box. Sometimes I love 00:22:22.520 --> 00:22:26.360 that. I actually, I could, I could, within three guesses, I'm willing to bet I can say who said 00:22:26.360 --> 00:22:32.240 that. I've heard that. I've heard that idea so many times. Um, and, but what just brings me to 00:22:32.240 --> 00:22:38.120 this, to this idea, um, you know, often, and I'm guilty of this where, you know, when we talk strategy, 00:22:38.120 --> 00:22:45.660 when we talk mission, um, oftentimes the Holy spirit isn't in our vernacular, not to say that he's, 00:22:45.660 --> 00:22:50.260 he's not referenced or he's, he's not there, but oftentimes I'm guilty of this. I get so focused on the 00:22:50.260 --> 00:22:56.040 strategy to, to, to forget the, the supernatural aspects of what we're doing. How much does the 00:22:56.040 --> 00:23:02.480 Holy spirit, um, was it, was it referenced? What was it a part of as, as you were interviewing these, 00:23:02.480 --> 00:23:09.240 as you were reading some of the, uh, the results from this is, is the Holy spirit found in this 00:23:09.240 --> 00:23:16.300 from a, from a practical standpoint? Yeah. In fact, um, everybody is talking about the Holy spirit 00:23:16.300 --> 00:23:23.420 in the sense of the Holy spirit led us and, uh, to do such and such. They're working off of a Holy 00:23:23.420 --> 00:23:31.400 spirit experimental, um, kind of fluid approach to what they're doing versus a historical let's tweak 00:23:31.400 --> 00:23:36.860 what has been, let's reform what has been. They're not thinking that way or talking that way. They're 00:23:36.860 --> 00:23:41.440 talking, um, this is how the Holy spirit's leading us. I know it hasn't been done this way before, 00:23:41.440 --> 00:23:46.960 but we're just following Jesus, you know, and doing what the Holy spirit shows us to do. Um, 00:23:46.960 --> 00:23:50.860 that's the way the Holy spirit is spoken of in the conversational interviews. 00:23:51.920 --> 00:23:58.840 It's so interesting and related to that as well. Um, the kingdom is talked about probably more than the 00:23:58.840 --> 00:24:07.960 church. Uh, the Holy spirit is talked about more than the models. Um, community is talked about more than 00:24:07.960 --> 00:24:18.560 hierarchy. Uh, roles are described if at all, only in functional terms, she does that. So it really is a 00:24:18.560 --> 00:24:25.300 interesting, um, and, and, you know, I won't get on the soapbox, but I think that this is, uh, truly a 00:24:25.300 --> 00:24:30.480 reformation of the church. And I think it's being reformed in ways that are true to the theology of 00:24:30.480 --> 00:24:36.820 the great reformation of the priesthood of the believer. And it's flat and it's a participatory 00:24:36.820 --> 00:24:44.980 and it's community and it is responsibility and it is gift based. And, and even the language is 00:24:44.980 --> 00:24:49.360 following those practices. Yeah. And you know, it's interesting. A lot of what you're describing 00:24:49.360 --> 00:24:55.040 are cultural shifts that are, that are brought about by metaverse or that are being influenced 00:24:55.040 --> 00:24:59.680 by the metaverse. Uh, but it's interesting, like you have that conversation with Rob Wagner 00:24:59.680 --> 00:25:05.880 over at, uh, you know, Kansas city underground. And he's talking about that, that as well from the, 00:25:05.880 --> 00:25:13.000 the micro church, you know, perspective about that being a new reformation coming in. Uh, I've had the 00:25:13.000 --> 00:25:18.780 conversation recently, um, about there being a relational reformation, uh, about how the 00:25:18.780 --> 00:25:24.500 relationships, uh, the relational approach of, of Christianity and in the heart, that's this 00:25:24.500 --> 00:25:31.480 re-engaging that's covering all the metaverse and digital and micro. And, and it's, it's so 00:25:31.480 --> 00:25:41.160 interesting to see, um, how I, there's a shift coming within the church overall. And maybe even some of 00:25:41.160 --> 00:25:46.900 the, the common ecclesiology, the methodology that's been around for so long, that's been 00:25:46.900 --> 00:25:53.100 established at least here in the West for hundreds of years is, is forcibly getting re-imagined 00:25:53.100 --> 00:26:00.220 and, and we're, we're boiling away maybe some of the, um, extra biblical type of things and, 00:26:00.260 --> 00:26:05.420 and really trying to get down to the heart of, of what God's calling us to through the Bible, 00:26:05.420 --> 00:26:09.280 which kind of leads me into the next question, actually talking about, um, you know, 00:26:09.320 --> 00:26:15.020 we got sermons, you've got musical worship now, you know, metaverse, right? Metaverse, 00:26:15.440 --> 00:26:21.200 physical, not that different. Uh, but you're talking digital churches that are trying to do 00:26:21.200 --> 00:26:26.380 this in a Facebook group or do this on zoom, or you're talking video game churches that are trying 00:26:26.380 --> 00:26:32.760 to do this in, um, you know, like, like I was talking about Roblox or Minecraft or Final Fantasy, 00:26:32.760 --> 00:26:40.040 like you, you're much more limited, uh, with some of that technology on how to replicate some of this 00:26:40.040 --> 00:26:47.120 stuff. So did maybe some examples stand out about how people were re-imagining, uh, some of the 00:26:47.120 --> 00:26:52.920 ecclesiology type things, some of the things that are really quote unquote common in churches today? 00:26:52.920 --> 00:26:57.300 Well, I'm, I'm going to let, and probably a little later in our conversation, talk about kids and youth, 00:26:57.300 --> 00:27:03.400 which is a demographic issue, which is just monster, uh, in the, in the study as well. But, uh, talking 00:27:03.400 --> 00:27:10.720 about the, the elements that we do in community together, uh, absolutely right. Physical church, 00:27:11.380 --> 00:27:16.820 metaverse church, there can be a whole lot of commonality there. Once you move into the other two 00:27:16.820 --> 00:27:29.680 platforms, uh, using worship as the art form to express worship is a non-starter except in other regions of 00:27:29.680 --> 00:27:39.780 the world where music is a regular part of home life. So for example, we discovered in many, uh, African 00:27:39.780 --> 00:27:51.380 cultures, any digital effort to engage people in homes or individually in a corporate worship service 00:27:51.380 --> 00:28:01.080 is fantastically successful because the culture has within it, this regular practice of being engaged in 00:28:01.080 --> 00:28:09.500 singing and, and movement. So you take American culture, uh, the only place that, you know, we stand 00:28:09.500 --> 00:28:17.260 and sing is maybe we stand for the national anthem at a sports event. And maybe we sing happy birthday in an 00:28:17.260 --> 00:28:26.920 embarrassed tone at a restaurant, but we have no cultural overflow for this kind of experience. And so what we've 00:28:26.920 --> 00:28:33.140 discovered in the study, at least the seeds of it, it'll be fun to pursue in the future is that if the culture is a 00:28:33.140 --> 00:28:38.660 singing culture, or if they have some other art form that is regularly done by individuals and small groups, 00:28:39.220 --> 00:28:46.420 tap into that in a digital format and very likely people will enthusiastically participate. 00:28:46.980 --> 00:28:49.820 When it comes to Western culture, uh, at this point, 00:28:49.820 --> 00:28:53.660 we don't have a clue of how to engage people because we've pretty much since the 00:28:53.660 --> 00:29:00.120 Reformation and the evangelical or in the Protestant church, we've limited ourselves to music as the art form that we use to 00:29:00.120 --> 00:29:04.600 express worship. Before the Reformation, there were many art forms that expressed worship. 00:29:05.220 --> 00:29:11.820 And what we may be finding in these digital spaces is the experimentation with other art forms other than music 00:29:11.820 --> 00:29:14.820 that allow people to participate together in worship. 00:29:14.820 --> 00:29:19.140 Okay. So I'm going to, I'm going to follow that up and I'm going to ask you to put on your, 00:29:19.140 --> 00:29:23.900 your former lead pastor hat. Okay. You're a retired lead pastor, among other things, Jared. 00:29:24.580 --> 00:29:33.620 Um, what do we gain by exploring other opportunities for worship as a, maybe you can take physical church, 00:29:33.720 --> 00:29:40.300 digital church context. You, you tell me, but what do we gain by exploring other options, 00:29:40.420 --> 00:29:44.280 other modes and methods of, of worship beyond musical? Do you have an opinion on that? 00:29:44.440 --> 00:29:50.000 Well, just my thought was, if you go back prior to the Reformation, uh, where people were illiterate and, 00:29:50.160 --> 00:29:59.020 uh, everything was used to tell the gospel. So building architecture, the windows in the building, 00:29:59.020 --> 00:30:05.960 uh, icons, if that was the tradition or some other form art forms that were in the building, 00:30:06.020 --> 00:30:20.820 statuary, uh, smells, uh, incense, tastes, uh, physical postures, uh, all lent themselves to 00:30:20.820 --> 00:30:29.040 engage the five physical senses in this worship experience. And the Reformation, uh, emphasized the, 00:30:29.040 --> 00:30:37.780 the preaching and the teaching of scripture supported with singing as the singular art form for corporate 00:30:37.780 --> 00:30:43.980 worship. And I think that in the digital spaces, we're going to discover some cultural expressions 00:30:43.980 --> 00:30:51.780 that are broader than music to express worship that could well be brought back into any other form of 00:30:51.780 --> 00:30:57.200 churches, including physical, and restore the engagement of the whole person through the five 00:30:57.200 --> 00:31:02.820 physical senses instead of what we have now, which is primarily visual and auditory. 00:31:02.820 --> 00:31:09.140 Well said, well said. And it's, I love that we're getting back maybe in worship to the heart, 00:31:09.240 --> 00:31:14.260 the purpose where everything is telling the story, where we're, we're moving beyond just one method and 00:31:14.260 --> 00:31:20.840 mode. We're reaching maybe a different type of person who's wired in, in different ways, um, to, 00:31:20.980 --> 00:31:27.500 to hearing something, you know, I'm, I'm more visible visual, uh, with, with my learning. And so 00:31:27.500 --> 00:31:33.600 for me, you know, even, even in sermons, reading and connecting with a, with a written word is, 00:31:33.600 --> 00:31:40.040 is far more effective than listening to a sermon. And so even a 40 minute sermon for me is a hard 00:31:40.040 --> 00:31:46.860 thing for me to stay engaged in connecting with, but moving, you know, being able to receive teaching, 00:31:46.860 --> 00:31:53.380 reading a book, reading a blog post, reading something like that is, is far more intuitive 00:31:53.380 --> 00:31:58.680 and helpful for me. And so as we're starting to maybe engage different types of people in different 00:31:58.680 --> 00:32:02.940 ways with different methods, it'll be really interesting to see where the church is going to 00:32:02.940 --> 00:32:09.760 end up here as it's starting to explore different modes that are forcibly going to have to do different 00:32:09.760 --> 00:32:16.200 methods to be effective. So two months ago, we were in, um, Switzerland and, uh, in Zurich, 00:32:16.200 --> 00:32:22.640 we went to Zvindli's church building, which of course was a Catholic cathedral before he messed with it. 00:32:23.240 --> 00:32:29.900 And, uh, and then we visited a Catholic cathedral. So what Zvindli, um, Luther and others did, 00:32:29.900 --> 00:32:34.640 of course, was they stripped those cathedrals, including in most cases, destroying this, 00:32:34.640 --> 00:32:41.520 the stained glass. And, uh, today those Protestant cathedrals, former Roman Catholic cathedrals, 00:32:41.520 --> 00:32:48.040 uh, of the Reformation, uh, are now, uh, you know, as ugly as a mud fence. And that's almost literal 00:32:48.040 --> 00:32:56.640 because it's just, it's the stark, cold stone. What was changed, of course, was the, the altar area 00:32:56.640 --> 00:33:01.440 where the Eucharist had been celebrated was stripped down. So now it's this ugly vacant space, 00:33:01.440 --> 00:33:09.920 but there is a massive, massive, uh, raised podium, uh, three-fourths the way up and on the left-hand 00:33:09.920 --> 00:33:16.240 side of the building. So the Reformation, you know, the pendulum swung from all of the other stuff 00:33:16.240 --> 00:33:21.980 back to the preaching of the word. And, uh, my hope is that in this next Reformation, that the 00:33:21.980 --> 00:33:28.580 pendulum will swing back and we'll re-engage in gospel-oriented, righteous, pure practices, 00:33:29.140 --> 00:33:30.180 other worship forms. 00:33:30.180 --> 00:33:31.700 Well said. That was beautiful. 00:33:31.700 --> 00:33:36.980 That really brings up the other piece that you mentioned in your earlier question, which is 00:33:36.980 --> 00:33:44.840 sermons and how that's being, uh, delivered and, uh, the different approaches that people have 00:33:44.840 --> 00:33:51.740 because gaming is much different than metaverse. But the beauty in metaverse is it can be a more 00:33:51.740 --> 00:33:59.980 immersive experience than in person because they can do, if they're teaching on the deliverance of Israel 00:33:59.980 --> 00:34:06.220 out of Egypt and they want to do the parting of the Red Sea, they can create all that in the metaverse 00:34:06.220 --> 00:34:12.300 and everybody can join them there. And you have this, or, or Joshua and the children of Israel marching 00:34:12.300 --> 00:34:17.980 around Jericho or, you know, you name it, you take all those amazing, uh, historical accounts, 00:34:17.980 --> 00:34:25.500 um, of God's people. You can take people into that setting in the metaverse. So that's a very immersive 00:34:25.500 --> 00:34:31.940 experience of God's word. And then into that, follow that with discussion, et cetera. So that's an exciting 00:34:31.940 --> 00:34:39.460 piece, but over on the gaming side, they're breaking up the lecture on the podium, that practice, right? 00:34:39.460 --> 00:34:45.860 That's a, that's their, um, breakthrough, if you will, or, uh, or their different approach is to 00:34:45.860 --> 00:34:51.760 instead start with discussion, interaction, very unstructured interaction. Then when they move over 00:34:51.760 --> 00:34:57.960 to discord or one of those platforms, then they begin to talk more, maybe a little bit more structured 00:34:57.960 --> 00:35:04.280 to it, but they still keep it very interactive, just like gaming is, you know, so it makes sense. 00:35:04.280 --> 00:35:11.440 Um, but that's also people learn in different ways. So I like seeing how, uh, the sermon is going to be 00:35:11.440 --> 00:35:18.560 delivered because of digital means all the digital means we can deliver God's word in different ways 00:35:18.560 --> 00:35:24.760 that help different people grab hold of it. And so, um, the sermon has definitely changing and will 00:35:24.760 --> 00:35:31.460 continue to mark, I think the delivery of it, um, for people. Yeah. I mean, just even last week, 00:35:31.460 --> 00:35:38.340 uh, I was on, I was having a conversation with a globally recognized, uh, evangelical organization, 00:35:38.340 --> 00:35:44.680 evangelism organization, uh, that's, that's doing excellent work digitally. And I, but I was pitching 00:35:44.680 --> 00:35:51.960 to them this idea of, of doing it a little differently to, to move away from the physical church mindset 00:35:51.960 --> 00:35:58.260 of how people are processing and starting to move towards digital communities and being able to, 00:35:58.260 --> 00:36:07.080 um, um, reinterpret, release, modify, um, some, some of these practices to start to engage, um, with these 00:36:07.080 --> 00:36:13.600 different people than you would typically get in, in, in physical environments. And it's, it's going to 00:36:13.600 --> 00:36:18.900 really be interesting. Uh, I, I believe that, uh, I believe the pendulum, we're talking about the 00:36:18.900 --> 00:36:24.180 pendulum. I believe the pendulum is going to swing that way. Um, it, it will be interesting to see how 00:36:24.180 --> 00:36:30.020 quickly organizations understand how quickly big C church, how quickly individual churches, 00:36:30.020 --> 00:36:35.180 how many are going to be on that, uh, tip of the spear and how many laggards are going to be on, 00:36:35.260 --> 00:36:41.020 on the back end of the innovation, uh, curve. Uh, but we are definitely moving this way. And your, 00:36:41.020 --> 00:36:46.420 your research here is, is a spot on showing that. Well, you know, most of what I hear when, 00:36:46.420 --> 00:36:53.000 when I talk about, um, digital churches, gaming churches, metaverse churches, um, you know, 00:36:53.040 --> 00:36:57.060 we talk about how you try to reach everybody. You're not going to reach anybody. If you try to 00:36:57.060 --> 00:37:02.980 reach all of Facebook, uh, if you take everyone who lives in China and India, you still don't have 00:37:02.980 --> 00:37:08.660 the total number of active Facebook users on the planet. So it's kind of a lot of people. We try to 00:37:08.660 --> 00:37:16.800 narrow it down, develop personas, develop a target audience. Uh, and, and some digital churches are 00:37:16.800 --> 00:37:22.320 very comfortable with that idea. Uh, some, you know, churches I've digital churches I've seen struggle 00:37:22.320 --> 00:37:28.960 because the idea of persona, even with physical churches is, is a very difficult thing. Um, when 00:37:28.960 --> 00:37:34.340 you obviously gamers, you know, you've all almost already have a gaming category that, that are very 00:37:34.340 --> 00:37:40.140 much recognizing that persona. Do you think the idea of personas in general are, are the churches that 00:37:40.140 --> 00:37:45.240 you, that are in this research, are they seeing it? Did some stand out? Were some against that? What, 00:37:45.360 --> 00:37:49.700 what is the idea of the persona? How does that fit, uh, within the research you found? 00:37:50.080 --> 00:37:56.780 First of all, we, yes, we see it in this study. Um, one, and I think that, uh, the leaders of the 00:37:56.780 --> 00:38:04.200 church are beginning to recognize patterns are beginning to emerge in who is, uh, attracted to these 00:38:04.200 --> 00:38:11.140 different digital spaces. So one is introverts. Um, that would be one aspect. Um, secondly is people 00:38:11.140 --> 00:38:18.000 who find their social community, their social space is online already. So this isn't like I'm stepping 00:38:18.000 --> 00:38:24.120 into something new to them. This is a, wow, look who's in the neighborhood, my neighborhood, my space. 00:38:24.120 --> 00:38:30.640 Yeah. So social space and then gospel closed countries. I mean, this one probably moves people 00:38:30.640 --> 00:38:37.040 more than any, but I mean, that's very intentional, uh, because they've proven amazingly effective. 00:38:37.040 --> 00:38:44.600 It's given them another means to reach into the homes, um, in a safe space, uh, to reach people 00:38:44.600 --> 00:38:49.440 in gospel closed countries and then people with physical limitations. But I think going beyond 00:38:49.440 --> 00:38:55.260 physical limitations, let's talk about, uh, people who are on the autism spectrum. Um, for instance, 00:38:55.260 --> 00:39:01.960 that's another, uh, group of people that are being really well served online, they're already spending 00:39:01.960 --> 00:39:08.580 a lot of time online. That's a comfortable space for them. And, um, we've seen this even by exposing 00:39:08.580 --> 00:39:16.580 our church, um, to, uh, the digital space churches. Uh, we showed just a Christmas thank you video from 00:39:16.580 --> 00:39:21.460 one of the churches that we supported. That's all digital. And, um, one of the students who's on the 00:39:21.460 --> 00:39:28.860 autism spectrum, um, immediately went over and became part of that church. And he still comes, he came to our 00:39:28.860 --> 00:39:36.960 physical space, but hanging out youth group and stuff, not so easy for him, but that church fits for him. 00:39:37.900 --> 00:39:45.900 So, um, I think those are, uh, the persona, um, it's, it's broader than that too, but those are the four 00:39:45.900 --> 00:39:51.140 patterns, of course, that we see emerging of who's attracted to it. Jared. 00:39:51.140 --> 00:39:58.340 I think one of the interesting things is that, uh, even, even, uh, strategically oriented church 00:39:58.340 --> 00:40:04.360 planters to these spaces are surprised about who shows up. So they thought they were shooting for a 00:40:04.360 --> 00:40:11.880 target. So for example, uh, the largest U S based digital only church that we're aware of, uh, uses 00:40:11.880 --> 00:40:19.260 Facebook as a platform. And the founder recently told us that about a third of that 17,500 weekly 00:40:19.260 --> 00:40:26.860 attendance population comes from Western Africa. Wow. That was never anticipated. 00:40:27.720 --> 00:40:32.120 And they're 19 to 29 years old. Interesting. And Facebook. 00:40:33.400 --> 00:40:43.760 Yeah. So that's amazing. Started by, um, probably she's a young boomer. So again, you could not have 00:40:43.760 --> 00:40:50.140 put that together in a strategic plan at a, at a bootcamp that you just, you, you don't know. 00:40:50.700 --> 00:40:57.000 Yeah. I think, uh, one of the huge surprises too, I just might mention internationally. And again, 00:40:57.000 --> 00:41:02.920 this research that the excitement for us was to move this globally, uh, where we got to engage, 00:41:02.920 --> 00:41:09.360 uh, churches on all of the continents in the study, um, very different models, um, churches that are 00:41:09.360 --> 00:41:13.300 absolutely massive, but they don't know whether or not to call themselves a church. The largest one 00:41:13.300 --> 00:41:17.980 we encountered, and we got to physically be with the, with the founder of it last week in Minneapolis, 00:41:17.980 --> 00:41:26.980 uh, services weekly 1.6 million former Muslims who have primarily come to faith in Jesus online, 00:41:26.980 --> 00:41:34.380 are discipled online, and then spontaneously churches are being planted out of that. And now those pastors 00:41:34.380 --> 00:41:40.500 of those churches are being resourced. Um, uh, won't tell much more of the story, but he's currently 00:41:40.500 --> 00:41:46.860 based now in Jordan because that's a, an appropriate national platform for him to conduct this ministry. 00:41:46.860 --> 00:41:53.200 But, you know, you hear about a church of 1.6, uh, it's actually a movement of churches, 1.6 million, 00:41:53.200 --> 00:41:59.820 uh, former Muslims. It's, it's just mind boggling, uh, and other similar stories in this space. Uh, 00:41:59.820 --> 00:42:03.960 people started with these visions had, had no idea. They thought they were going to resource a few 00:42:03.960 --> 00:42:08.820 people and had no idea how God was going to just blow it up with, uh, with significance. 00:42:09.240 --> 00:42:14.360 So they look for homes and that's where these, where people have gotten saved. And that's where 00:42:14.360 --> 00:42:20.400 these churches are home churches, again, a safe environment. Um, and they have so far out of that 00:42:20.400 --> 00:42:25.500 1.6 million, that's where they move people in when they get enough people in an area that know Jesus. 00:42:25.860 --> 00:42:29.140 And they have 65 of those home churches now. 00:42:29.460 --> 00:42:32.920 It's, it's incredible to see what's happening globally. Jerry, do you have something else? 00:42:32.960 --> 00:42:33.800 I'm sorry to mean to cut you off. 00:42:33.800 --> 00:42:40.340 Well, just a fun little story. I mean, stories are so powerful, but, um, an older pastor, uh, in, 00:42:40.340 --> 00:42:48.400 uh, in Oslo, Norway, uh, as a young man worked for seven years in a refugee camp in Sudan, 00:42:48.400 --> 00:42:55.120 serving, uh, Ethiopian refugees who were coming across the border in, in the course of the seven 00:42:55.120 --> 00:43:01.000 years, he became fluent in three of the 17, uh, Ethiopian languages. And when he went back to 00:43:01.000 --> 00:43:04.840 Oslo to pastor his, what we would consider a relatively small church, he thought God's made 00:43:04.840 --> 00:43:09.140 me a steward of, of this language ability. I should probably do something about it. And he 00:43:09.140 --> 00:43:14.780 started putting out some resources in the three languages. And, um, uh, the diaspora from 00:43:14.780 --> 00:43:19.440 Ethiopia now has reached literally every nation in the world, possibly with the exception of North 00:43:19.440 --> 00:43:25.020 Korea. And, um, and so I asked him, so how many people access these weekly resources that you're 00:43:25.020 --> 00:43:31.300 putting out? And, uh, he said, well, I really don't, uh, know what the reach is, but, uh, we do know 00:43:31.300 --> 00:43:39.780 that there are 3,300 daily users. And I said, what has happened now out of this movement? And he said, 00:43:39.860 --> 00:43:46.200 well, churches are popping up globally. And again, what happens spontaneously is, as they find a critical 00:43:46.200 --> 00:43:53.140 mass of people, uh, they, they say, Hey, did you know that in this suburb of Toronto, there are, uh, 00:43:53.140 --> 00:43:58.360 you know, 40 of you that are engaged daily? Why don't you find each other and start meeting 00:43:58.360 --> 00:44:02.380 together? And so I said, would you, would you mention some of the churches? And he just started 00:44:02.380 --> 00:44:08.580 in Canada and worked his way down through the U S and he just fired off, uh, you know, multiples of 00:44:08.580 --> 00:44:13.500 churches that are actually now physically meeting that have come out of this movement, people finding 00:44:13.500 --> 00:44:20.220 Christ one at a time, and then finding each other in the community and then forming a, a, a gospel 00:44:20.220 --> 00:44:25.520 community. It's, it's beautiful when you hear stories like this, where, where God is doing things 00:44:25.520 --> 00:44:31.980 digitally globally. Um, and, and it's, and it's a, it makes me wonder what would actually happen here in 00:44:31.980 --> 00:44:37.500 the U S if people, if church leaders weren't saying, but it doesn't work that way. 00:44:38.580 --> 00:44:46.540 I mean, like God's just doing incredible stuff globally. And, and, and just some of these 00:44:46.540 --> 00:44:52.640 stories, 1.4 million, you know, getting, getting connected, seeing digital church movements or even 00:44:52.640 --> 00:44:57.920 movements coming out of that, regardless of the format, digital's re and reinforcing and resourcing 00:44:57.920 --> 00:45:04.020 it. It's just, it's beautiful. Uh, and, and so just plenty of opportunities for, for those of us out 00:45:04.020 --> 00:45:08.480 there with missional imagination, how can we utilize these digital tools? How can we, 00:45:08.580 --> 00:45:13.860 how can we reach these digital communities, these metaverse communities? Um, how can we think 00:45:13.860 --> 00:45:19.000 different to effectively reach a different type of person? Well, let's do this. Let's, let's pivot 00:45:19.000 --> 00:45:25.180 here a little bit. Let's get into, uh, discipleship. I know discipleship, and that's what I love about 00:45:25.180 --> 00:45:30.280 your report. So it's a major component. I mean, it's a, I mean, looking at your page count, probably half 00:45:30.280 --> 00:45:36.060 the thing is, is, is built, is built into discipleship, uh, and from, from the research and some of the 00:45:36.060 --> 00:45:40.940 different takes on it. And so let me ask this, cause obviously we're talking digital, we're talking 00:45:40.940 --> 00:45:46.260 metaverse, we're talking gaming, we're talking physical, uh, discipleship can mean a lot of different 00:45:46.260 --> 00:45:52.480 things. There's lots of different spins and takes. I'm sure on that. Were there constants where there was, 00:45:52.560 --> 00:45:58.140 was there a thread that united all the different takes together? We're laughing because, you know, 00:45:58.360 --> 00:46:04.640 naive us, right? We're researchers. So you have to start out with, with some major topic, 00:46:05.600 --> 00:46:13.400 discipleship pathway, some major point of view, the whole discipleship pathway, some major outcome. 00:46:13.860 --> 00:46:18.240 Let's find models that are effective, right? That's our, that's our research question. 00:46:18.800 --> 00:46:22.840 So we started out with, let's talk about discipleship. Well, nobody wants to talk about 00:46:22.840 --> 00:46:32.500 discipleship. Everyone agrees with it. Everyone's about it. Unanimity around, this is the mission 00:46:32.500 --> 00:46:41.220 and not much interest in just defining it. So really in this, you know, pioneer space, 00:46:41.220 --> 00:46:46.480 what we've discovered is that in most cases, people are being themselves. 00:46:47.680 --> 00:46:53.460 I am gifted this way. I'm going to present myself and my gifts this way in this space. 00:46:54.580 --> 00:46:59.080 So these churches are either really good at evangelism or they're really good at care or 00:46:59.080 --> 00:47:04.140 they're really good at healing or they're really good at, uh, maturity or they're really good at 00:47:04.140 --> 00:47:09.480 developing Bible literacy or they're really good at leader development. But again, our big research 00:47:09.480 --> 00:47:16.140 question across the five years is to see if there's, if we can find best practices, uh, stitch them 00:47:16.140 --> 00:47:21.580 together into prototypes, hopefully have those prototypes tested so that in the future, others 00:47:21.580 --> 00:47:26.660 can have the benefit that we had when we were church planters at 23. Uh, what we had was the benefit 00:47:26.660 --> 00:47:31.500 of others that had made mistakes. And they came back and said, if you want to really help somebody far 00:47:31.500 --> 00:47:38.160 from God, become a fully devoted, mature, multiplying Christian, then you might want to think bigger than 00:47:38.160 --> 00:47:44.840 your own gifts and your own experience. And you might want to have a team that is multi-gifted and a strategy 00:47:44.840 --> 00:47:51.540 that allows you to build on a platform across the whole pathway. And at this point, uh, there are very 00:47:51.540 --> 00:47:56.480 few, uh, there's a couple of churches that believe that they're doing it and they may, so we'll grant 00:47:56.480 --> 00:48:03.360 that. But we can say at this point in our, uh, research, it is very rare to find a church that 00:48:03.360 --> 00:48:08.720 is coming close to the whole discipleship pathway. Everyone supports it, believes in it, isn't very 00:48:08.720 --> 00:48:15.280 interested in defining it, is doing their part. We have a lot, uh, a lot of learning to do to help 00:48:15.280 --> 00:48:19.840 intentional strategic church planters in this space have models that they might consider. 00:48:19.840 --> 00:48:27.220 Is, is, let me follow up on that. Is, is the, is the lack of, is the lack of vision there? Is it a 00:48:27.220 --> 00:48:31.640 lack of resourcing where it's too big? And right now, a lot of these churches are 00:48:31.640 --> 00:48:38.760 bivocationally driven, funding low, and it's not a priority. Like, um, maybe your research shows 00:48:38.760 --> 00:48:43.520 something. Maybe I'm asking you to read between the lines. Like, what are you thinking is, is really 00:48:43.520 --> 00:48:48.500 the why behind that? I think there's a couple. Jared will share some too. One that I would mention is 00:48:48.500 --> 00:48:55.220 just that there's a group within the study subjects that felt that discipleship happens naturally 00:48:55.220 --> 00:49:03.100 without intentional, uh, process that it unfolds. If you are a follower of Jesus and you start 00:49:03.100 --> 00:49:08.700 following him, that's discipleship. So in that group, they're not to the point where, you know, 00:49:08.700 --> 00:49:13.360 the intentional process that they need to implement. Jared, you can speak to some of the other. 00:49:13.360 --> 00:49:18.960 And you know, they may be right. And we may learn something from them that if you follow Jesus in 00:49:18.960 --> 00:49:30.280 community, that's authentic and sustained and, um, and it's refreshing, that may be an organic context 00:49:30.280 --> 00:49:36.520 for discipleship, which really challenges where at least we have been in our thinking, which is 00:49:36.520 --> 00:49:43.140 you create a discipleship pathway, you resource it, you motivate people to go through it. They get 00:49:43.140 --> 00:49:51.120 processed through it. We hope for good outcomes. So, um, we're, we're happy to watch some of these 00:49:51.120 --> 00:49:57.760 organic, casual folks with the philosophy of, if you follow Jesus in authentic community, it's, 00:49:57.840 --> 00:50:02.700 it's going to happen to you. Um, and so, you know, we're interested in that. 00:50:02.700 --> 00:50:08.500 So one of their comments, it's an everyday experience that happens at our table. That's 00:50:08.500 --> 00:50:14.480 what they like to say. Interesting. Now we have others that are, that are intentional and, and 00:50:14.480 --> 00:50:20.240 they will either create in-house resources, or in many cases, they're going to third-party 00:50:20.240 --> 00:50:26.900 resources and going ahead and stitching together a resource-based process that would be common in 00:50:26.900 --> 00:50:29.280 many of our, uh, physical and digital churches. 00:50:29.600 --> 00:50:36.060 When you do look at the Bible, I look, I'll admit, Acts, you do see an, uh, an organic, organic, 00:50:36.420 --> 00:50:43.900 authentic, uh, model. Uh, but you also see God strike down the two people that were not authentic, 00:50:43.900 --> 00:50:52.160 uh, truly, uh, in that moment. And so, look, if, if we want to go there, maybe we should go there, 00:50:52.160 --> 00:50:57.260 but it was funny. A friend of mine tweeted that there was, there was more, um, a friend of mine 00:50:57.260 --> 00:51:02.380 literally tweeted this week off topic completely. I'm sorry. But he tweeted that, uh, there's more 00:51:02.380 --> 00:51:10.060 directive in Acts for the church business meeting than the church sermon. And my, my comment was 00:51:10.060 --> 00:51:15.260 actually, well, if you look at Acts, like two people got struck down at one of those business 00:51:15.260 --> 00:51:20.000 meetings. So like, if you want to go back to that, then maybe that is where you should head. 00:51:20.000 --> 00:51:25.500 But God, God, hope you, God bless you. You need to stay on this side of the equation and not on the 00:51:25.500 --> 00:51:32.660 authentic side. Hey, um, it's, it's interesting. The, the organic, you know, I, I, I work so much 00:51:32.660 --> 00:51:38.280 towards the intentional, uh, discipleship side and, and, and creating the funnels and the intentional 00:51:38.280 --> 00:51:44.440 processes, um, towards that. And so the idea of the organic is like, you know, nails on a chalkboard 00:51:44.440 --> 00:51:48.700 for me. And, and maybe that's God needs to do something into me and I need to be more Holy 00:51:48.700 --> 00:51:54.020 spirit driven and less, um, uh, of, of the other. I get it. I'm, I'm open to that conversation. 00:51:54.400 --> 00:52:00.120 Would, would you say that there was in on the organic, were there any, um, what's the word 00:52:00.120 --> 00:52:06.660 I'm looking for, uh, characteristics or traits or similarities among like those churches that 00:52:06.660 --> 00:52:11.360 are thinking that way, as opposed to the more intentionally driven, is there like another 00:52:11.360 --> 00:52:16.640 focus or characteristic that would unite them or was it pretty equally distributed around? 00:52:16.640 --> 00:52:24.260 Well, we, I wish we could do more psychographics with this group, but by definition, these are 00:52:24.260 --> 00:52:30.880 innovators. Uh, most of them don't even know other people are doing this. You know, the research 00:52:30.880 --> 00:52:36.060 project itself is helping people go, Oh, you mean there's enough people to do research on? Tell me 00:52:36.060 --> 00:52:42.060 about some of these other folks. And Jeff, you, uh, and your network really are giving leadership to 00:52:42.060 --> 00:52:47.460 helping these people discover each other. By and large, they're out there as independent agents 00:52:47.460 --> 00:52:57.480 led by the spirit. They are entrepreneurial, uh, by, uh, by makeup. And they, uh, by the way, 00:52:57.480 --> 00:53:05.060 we've stopped telling them that we're looking for models because they are so far from being the kind 00:53:05.060 --> 00:53:10.520 of personality that's interested in a model. They don't even want to help develop models for other 00:53:10.520 --> 00:53:15.380 people. But we know how things work on the diffusion of innovation scale. You've had the innovators. 00:53:15.760 --> 00:53:21.320 Somebody has to be an early adopter and the early adopters then work with the prototypes of the 00:53:21.320 --> 00:53:27.180 innovators and actually create the models so that the, um, the, uh, the later adopters actually have 00:53:27.180 --> 00:53:32.380 something that they can adopt. So, uh, we look at it through that and these folks are innovators. These 00:53:32.380 --> 00:53:38.860 are odd people by definition, you know, they're just wired different. And because of that, uh, I think 00:53:38.860 --> 00:53:44.100 there's that independence, there's that lack of interest in models, there's a lack of common language, 00:53:44.100 --> 00:53:49.720 uh, and there's not all that much interest about, um, doing the whole thing, right. Uh, it's, 00:53:49.760 --> 00:53:53.560 it's rather about, I'm going to do what I'm called to do and I'm going to do it as well as I can. 00:53:54.180 --> 00:53:59.960 The, there's really two things that we see them share in common in terms of as a whole group. 00:54:00.340 --> 00:54:08.400 One is that they determine their content based on who their audience is. So their content is shaped 00:54:08.400 --> 00:54:15.120 by that, not by some program or somebody else. So, um, whether it's structured or unstructured, 00:54:15.280 --> 00:54:20.400 whether it's formal or informal, all of the content is shaped by who they're trying to reach. And 00:54:20.400 --> 00:54:26.180 secondly, they all agree that discipleship is a group process, non-individualistic process. 00:54:27.020 --> 00:54:32.720 They would all share that. So community process, you could say instead of group, but meaning that. 00:54:33.300 --> 00:54:37.620 Interesting with that, with, uh, the idea of group with discipleship, uh, you know, sometimes I worry 00:54:37.620 --> 00:54:42.100 about, and worry may not be the right word, but the, the self-directed, uh, you know, the automated 00:54:42.100 --> 00:54:48.680 process, but I love, I love that they're seeing a group dynamic or a community dynamic with the, 00:54:48.680 --> 00:54:53.740 the discipleship. Well, Hey, we, we teased it earlier. And so we'd love to spend just a little 00:54:53.740 --> 00:55:02.520 time on it. Uh, kids, uh, students, um, generational, like, uh, is, did we see anything? Did we learn 00:55:02.520 --> 00:55:10.220 anything about kids online or, or a focus towards maybe even a generational model of, of worship? What, 00:55:10.460 --> 00:55:13.020 what were some takeaways maybe as you were digging into that? 00:55:13.440 --> 00:55:18.460 Well, this is probably like, I'm going to address this one first, because this is probably the most 00:55:18.500 --> 00:55:25.920 like disturbing element of digital ministry is that it right now, it's not, um, it doesn't 00:55:25.920 --> 00:55:33.760 encompass youth or children in any of these group expressions. Um, Roblox, um, is being utilized 00:55:33.760 --> 00:55:41.020 by kids. And there have been some all kids churches led by kids. That's awesome. That reaches a child 00:55:41.020 --> 00:55:47.500 since the reason it's disturbing is because children, the, the four 14 window is still true 00:55:47.500 --> 00:55:53.380 between the ages of four and 14 is when most people make their decisions for Christ. So getting 00:55:53.380 --> 00:56:00.080 the gospel to them. And what most of them are saying is youth, this is what in our study, they said 00:56:00.080 --> 00:56:07.100 youth do not want to do online group. They want to be face to face. I don't know how they ascertained 00:56:07.100 --> 00:56:13.020 this, but this is what they believe. I believe that nobody's created anything that youth want to do 00:56:13.020 --> 00:56:19.260 online. That's what I believe about that. And I'm out looking for the first person who'll dive into 00:56:19.260 --> 00:56:25.840 that and make something happen. And then children, same thing. We haven't, um, other than Roblox, 00:56:25.880 --> 00:56:30.560 and that's an amazing effort that some, you know, that a young man made when he was just a kid 00:56:30.560 --> 00:56:38.120 and turned it over to four kids and they've reached a lot of children. But right now the strategy, 00:56:38.340 --> 00:56:45.140 and I've talked face to face with some of these people is just to, uh, do, um, have, uh, their 00:56:45.140 --> 00:56:53.260 online church and equip parents to reach kids. But that doesn't reach a lot of kids because that 00:56:53.260 --> 00:56:59.460 depends on the parent coming to Christ. And that's a whole journey too. And I mean, I would have never 00:56:59.460 --> 00:57:07.460 made it in that journey with my dad taking 30 some years to get saved after I got saved. I always think 00:57:07.460 --> 00:57:14.160 about that when I look at these kids. So to me, this is like the big deal that we have to solve. 00:57:14.620 --> 00:57:20.360 Um, and we need to get more creative about it. So I'm, I'm looking for that personal creative 00:57:20.360 --> 00:57:26.780 a place. And I know metaverse, they're experimenting a little by creating these side rooms with kids. 00:57:27.860 --> 00:57:34.120 I don't know why that wouldn't work more, but all that to say that everybody agrees that they're not 00:57:34.120 --> 00:57:38.400 doing kids and youth in any effective way. 00:57:38.860 --> 00:57:46.360 It's a systemic issue. Uh, in addition to cultural, uh, what we've done, uh, my theory about the physical 00:57:46.360 --> 00:57:53.560 church is that we've used the educational model. So, uh, we feel like the whole family in this perfect 00:57:53.560 --> 00:57:58.060 world is going to church, but they go to the same building and then we separate people and we graduate 00:57:58.060 --> 00:58:05.420 them out by age. And so we use the educate, uh, public education model to educate people at church. 00:58:05.660 --> 00:58:10.840 And by the way, as long as public education, uh, is in a building and graduate students out by 00:58:10.840 --> 00:58:15.520 classroom, physical churches will still have a huge cultural place. It's one reason they're going to be 00:58:15.520 --> 00:58:19.620 around for decades and decades because we use the educational model for the church model. 00:58:19.940 --> 00:58:25.480 But when you move into digital spaces, the family is by definition divided up across different digital 00:58:25.480 --> 00:58:33.460 platforms. So no digital platform attracts the entire family. And as a result of that, uh, to try to do 00:58:33.460 --> 00:58:41.080 church in a digital platform for a family, uh, simply systemically does is a non-starter. So it's going to 00:58:41.080 --> 00:58:48.620 require amazing creativity and multiple platforms to, uh, integrate a family of two or three generations 00:58:48.620 --> 00:58:55.460 into a full orb, uh, expression of church and, uh, experiments to this point, uh, haven't been all 00:58:55.460 --> 00:59:00.660 that promising. Yeah, there's, there's definitely an opportunity to solve this problem. Um, you know, 00:59:00.780 --> 00:59:08.800 and I agree with you. I, I, I think the lack of, uh, an answer is we just, we haven't had enough 00:59:08.800 --> 00:59:14.720 creativity in the space yet. I know when, when I've had these conversations, people are trying to take 00:59:14.720 --> 00:59:20.700 their physical kids church service and do it digitally. And like the paradigm is that, and well, Jeff, 00:59:20.760 --> 00:59:26.520 nobody likes to, to watch, uh, nobody likes, uh, you know, uh, church online. I was like, nobody likes 00:59:26.520 --> 00:59:33.560 zoom and you're trying to get these kids into zoom and zoom for them is school in COVID season. You don't 00:59:33.560 --> 00:59:37.520 want to go to school. You're, you're just, you're, you're not, you're, you're, you're putting yourself 00:59:37.520 --> 00:59:41.920 in a box and, and evidently, according to somebody, the Holy spirit's bigger than the box. And so we 00:59:41.920 --> 00:59:48.840 need to be thinking bigger with this. And so I definitely, um, I definitely would encourage some 00:59:48.840 --> 00:59:52.420 more. And there, there are some people I will, I don't want to get into it, but there's some people 00:59:52.420 --> 00:59:57.820 pulling some interesting threads right now. And, and, and I hope somebody comes up with, uh, some 00:59:57.820 --> 01:00:02.440 solutions because, you know, we need more ands in the world. And evidently, and wouldn't have got, 01:00:02.440 --> 01:00:08.280 wouldn't have accepted Christ, uh, if not for, uh, what had happened in her life. And so we need 01:00:08.280 --> 01:00:14.220 more people to reach more and more ands. So let's, uh, let's, let's do that. Um, I tell you what, 01:00:14.240 --> 01:00:18.460 this has been a great conversation and a great time. I just, I mean, I love you guys. Love hanging 01:00:18.460 --> 01:00:22.700 out with you. Can I tell you what we're going to do next, Jeff, before we go? I want to hear it. 01:00:22.780 --> 01:00:28.640 Oh, it's so exciting because this month, this research starts project. Number three starts this month. 01:00:28.860 --> 01:00:35.160 It is very different. Uh, to this point, we've been using grounded theory. It's been, uh, interview 01:00:35.160 --> 01:00:42.400 based. Uh, we've coded transcripts. We've, uh, let themes emerge. We are entirely shifting. This 01:00:42.400 --> 01:00:53.580 third project is back to us based. It is primarily about Gen Z. It is, uh, going to be survey based. 01:00:54.120 --> 01:01:03.580 We're going to professionally interview 1000 Gen Zers, 13 to 20. Then we're going to take 01:01:03.580 --> 01:01:10.520 representative, but smaller population groups of the three older generations, millennial X and boomer, 01:01:10.520 --> 01:01:16.420 so that we can contrast and compare the four generations. But what we want to ask the Gen Z 01:01:16.420 --> 01:01:23.740 are two questions. Really, we want to get to how do you currently use and want to use digital 01:01:23.740 --> 01:01:28.300 and what are your faith aspirations? 01:01:29.940 --> 01:01:37.720 And we hope to infer what kind of churches might be planted in the future for Gen Z 01:01:37.720 --> 01:01:44.200 and how that contrasts with the other three generations. That will be done by the end of 01:01:44.200 --> 01:01:49.680 January. So stay tuned, man, that that's crazy. If it's from an outside, if somebody wanted to get 01:01:49.680 --> 01:01:54.420 involved or wanted more information on that, is anything public on that yet, or is it stay tuned? 01:01:54.780 --> 01:01:59.540 Uh, nothing's public yet, but if anyone reached out to us, we would certainly engage a conversation. 01:01:59.620 --> 01:02:05.820 Very cool. So I'll, we'll include link in the show notes, obviously for, for Jared and Anne, and that was an inside scoop. 01:02:05.960 --> 01:02:14.180 You, man, you, you got to hear it here first on the church digital podcast. And so, um, definitely have, have loved this conversation. 01:02:14.180 --> 01:02:23.400 Remember you can get download, uh, the, uh, the report 2022, uh, from the church.digital slash sprout. 01:02:23.400 --> 01:02:34.140 We'll have it on the website there, the church.digital slash sprout. Jared and Anne, uh, the ultimate supporters of the church digital and digital churches out there. 01:02:34.360 --> 01:02:41.500 Thank you for doing what you're doing for the kingdom and, uh, enjoy retirement life as I'm sure you will continue to do. 01:02:41.600 --> 01:02:45.680 Check out the links in the show notes. Uh, as we're landing the plate, Jared and Anne, any closing thoughts? 01:02:45.680 --> 01:02:55.980 I just want to tell a story from yesterday. I was with an 18 year old. He is the son of one of the people we sent out, uh, from our church. 01:02:56.440 --> 01:03:07.000 And, um, we were getting an update on his life and he's an incredible gamer and he is getting a scholarship from a Christian college university. 01:03:07.000 --> 01:03:13.880 I should say, um, because of his gaming, that's how he's winning the scholarship. 01:03:14.360 --> 01:03:21.340 And he wants to be a nurse, but this is a gaming scholarship because the university is trying to connect with males. 01:03:21.680 --> 01:03:25.840 Well, um, we didn't say that to him, but we knew that would be part of their strategy. 01:03:26.540 --> 01:03:30.260 But, um, here's the deal. I found out how much he does gaming. 01:03:30.260 --> 01:03:35.000 And I said, you could be a digital missionary. Have you ever heard of that? 01:03:35.200 --> 01:03:39.440 And I told him about gaming and I connected him to a gaming church planter. 01:03:40.020 --> 01:03:42.560 And, um, he says, I'm going to check that out. 01:03:42.560 --> 01:03:50.080 And he says, I never imagined I could do that because they're not, that church isn't as, uh, in touch with digital. 01:03:50.280 --> 01:03:59.340 Yeah. So, um, yeah. So he's, he's going to go check it out and I'm going to follow up with him. 01:03:59.620 --> 01:04:03.080 Who knows? He could be one of those breakthroughs for students. 01:04:03.540 --> 01:04:10.060 Yeah. There's, there's a, a, so much opportunity out there and we need, we need more people thinking outside the box. 01:04:10.060 --> 01:04:22.060 And so Jared and Ann, thank you very much for, for what you've done for the kingdom and continue to do supporting and championing the idea of digital metaverse gaming and even digital, sorry, digital, digital churches. 01:04:22.340 --> 01:04:23.740 Uh, but we're going to land a plane. 01:04:23.740 --> 01:04:27.840 And so Jared and Ann, thanks for the time here, uh, for Jared and Ann. 01:04:27.960 --> 01:04:32.860 This is Jeff with the Church Digital, Digital Church Network and so much other, so much other fun stuff. 01:04:33.060 --> 01:04:34.900 Thanks for joining me on the podcast here. 01:04:35.180 --> 01:04:36.100 We'll see you next time on the show. 01:04:36.320 --> 01:04:36.740 Y'all have a good day.