WEBVTT 00:00:00.040 --> 00:00:03.460 You see, there's an opportunity for a digital missionary to be humble in posture 00:00:03.460 --> 00:00:09.100 and to be able to listen to the people that we need to listen to. 00:00:09.900 --> 00:00:12.860 Digitally in a metaverse, you know this, it's better to ask questions than make statements. 00:00:13.260 --> 00:00:15.140 It's better to use question marks than periods. 00:00:15.340 --> 00:00:17.940 And for the love of all, don't use an exclamation mark. 00:00:18.180 --> 00:00:20.940 Gee, I could have went strong there, but don't use an exclamation mark. 00:00:21.300 --> 00:00:21.860 Keep it calm. 00:00:22.920 --> 00:00:27.680 The fact is, is that many times when we as Christians were guilty of not listening, 00:00:27.680 --> 00:00:30.100 but waiting patiently for our turn to speak. 00:00:31.620 --> 00:00:34.340 And if we're really going to discover the people that we're reaching to, 00:00:34.800 --> 00:00:36.280 we need to build that credibility. 00:00:36.560 --> 00:00:39.300 And if all we're doing is telling them what to do, that's not building credibility. 00:00:39.840 --> 00:00:41.360 Welcome to the Church Digital Podcast. 00:00:42.060 --> 00:00:46.140 Through this podcast, we'll talk about the technological innovations within the church. 00:00:46.460 --> 00:00:50.620 But more than tech for tech itself, we'll address deeper questions. 00:00:51.460 --> 00:00:53.340 Is disciple making possible digitally? 00:00:54.280 --> 00:00:56.340 How should we approach the digital mission field? 00:00:57.040 --> 00:00:59.880 Can a biblically grounded church operate in digital space? 00:01:00.620 --> 00:01:02.900 Oh, and where does the metaverse fit into all this? 00:01:03.780 --> 00:01:07.900 Whether you're a big or small church, an established church, or a startup church plant, 00:01:08.640 --> 00:01:13.560 the Church Digital's goal is to help churches like yours learn to be a multiplying church, 00:01:14.160 --> 00:01:15.560 digitally and physically. 00:01:16.240 --> 00:01:17.020 Our heart? 00:01:17.440 --> 00:01:20.900 That churches like yours will discover a newfound focus on disciple making 00:01:20.900 --> 00:01:23.220 that will revolutionize your church. 00:01:23.420 --> 00:01:26.540 And now, here's your host, Jeff Reed. 00:01:26.960 --> 00:01:27.580 All right. 00:01:27.620 --> 00:01:28.160 Hey, friends. 00:01:28.260 --> 00:01:30.400 We are streaming live here. 00:01:30.500 --> 00:01:33.160 Jeff with the Church Digital, Digital Church Network. 00:01:33.760 --> 00:01:38.960 Wanting to talk with you about a digital missionary, about a volunteer structure 00:01:38.960 --> 00:01:41.340 that I've come up recently. 00:01:41.540 --> 00:01:46.640 I was speaking at a conference last week, and we had some questions centered around digital 00:01:46.640 --> 00:01:47.300 evangelism. 00:01:48.000 --> 00:01:49.800 And I just happened to be like, hey, you know what? 00:01:49.820 --> 00:01:51.240 I'm actually writing a book on that. 00:01:51.400 --> 00:01:54.880 Let's start to talk about that. 00:01:54.880 --> 00:01:58.000 And so, that's where we are. 00:01:58.260 --> 00:02:01.740 And I wanted to share some of this with you. 00:02:01.800 --> 00:02:07.700 We're literally going to whiteboard a session of this and start to walk through how some 00:02:07.700 --> 00:02:13.880 of these free, I'm not kidding, all of this stuff is free, some of how these free digital 00:02:13.880 --> 00:02:18.400 tools can revolutionize your church moving forward. 00:02:18.620 --> 00:02:23.900 As in, hey, you don't have to spend a penny, and oh my gosh, things will be different. 00:02:24.020 --> 00:02:24.520 You ready for this? 00:02:24.560 --> 00:02:25.020 This is going to be great. 00:02:25.100 --> 00:02:29.340 By the way, we're going to be basing a lot of this on He Gets Us. 00:02:29.420 --> 00:02:31.140 And you may be aware of He Gets Us. 00:02:31.200 --> 00:02:32.300 We've talked about it before. 00:02:32.840 --> 00:02:39.360 But He Gets Us is an ad campaign centered around connecting spiritually seeking people, 00:02:39.500 --> 00:02:44.880 spiritual explorers, people that have spiritual questions, and getting them connected to churches. 00:02:45.080 --> 00:02:48.140 And so, it's through the church digital. 00:02:48.340 --> 00:02:51.880 We're offering 12 months of He Gets Us for free. 00:02:52.600 --> 00:02:55.200 That's thechurch.digital slash He Gets Us. 00:02:55.280 --> 00:02:59.460 You've seen the ads, NFL, Major League Baseball, World Series, basketball. 00:02:59.980 --> 00:03:01.300 You've seen them on social media. 00:03:01.760 --> 00:03:06.860 I just found out, I just read the article, they're doing two Super Bowl ads. 00:03:07.340 --> 00:03:10.940 The Super Bowl is actually going to have two ads driven towards He Gets Us, which means 00:03:10.940 --> 00:03:14.880 there's two opportunities, even with the massivity of, is that a word, massivity? 00:03:15.080 --> 00:03:19.560 The massiveness of what the Super Bowl is, we're going to be driving spiritual explorers 00:03:19.560 --> 00:03:22.880 and trying to get them connected to churches like yours, okay? 00:03:23.360 --> 00:03:27.160 So, and by the way, we're going to be doing a webinar to talk more about this. 00:03:28.240 --> 00:03:33.780 So, Hope Among Sobering Statistics with He Gets Us, The Church Digital, Blue, we're doing 00:03:33.780 --> 00:03:36.300 a webinar Thursday, November 17th, 10 a.m. 00:03:36.400 --> 00:03:38.260 Eastern, thechurch.digital slash webinar. 00:03:38.620 --> 00:03:45.200 We'll talk more about that here in a little bit, but let's, hey, Mike Funkhouse is jumping 00:03:45.200 --> 00:03:45.580 in here. 00:03:45.720 --> 00:03:48.300 Mike, it's been a couple decades, bro. 00:03:48.380 --> 00:03:50.600 Hope things are going well, and that's awesome. 00:03:51.060 --> 00:03:53.080 It was E-M-I-C-M-G, as I recall. 00:03:53.200 --> 00:03:56.940 Mike, I used to run a Christian, actually, I used to run a physical brick and mortar Christian 00:03:56.940 --> 00:03:57.220 bookstore. 00:03:57.340 --> 00:04:00.340 If you know me, Jeff, where were you smoking? 00:04:00.620 --> 00:04:01.420 But it's Mike. 00:04:01.500 --> 00:04:02.460 Anyway, it's great to see you. 00:04:02.740 --> 00:04:05.120 That's fun, Mike's a friend from back in the day. 00:04:05.420 --> 00:04:08.040 Hey, look, so actually, I told you we're going to whiteboard. 00:04:08.540 --> 00:04:13.420 Boom, I actually got like my iPad set up right here, and we're going to walk through some of 00:04:13.420 --> 00:04:16.160 this stuff, and hopefully, it's going to be good. 00:04:16.580 --> 00:04:20.760 So, hey, we've got this thing called He Gets Us, right? 00:04:21.180 --> 00:04:24.340 And so, we've got dozens of churches. 00:04:24.480 --> 00:04:25.500 I can't even spell. 00:04:25.620 --> 00:04:27.180 I don't know what's going on in my life right now. 00:04:27.820 --> 00:04:38.500 But we've got He Gets Us, and the goal of He Gets Us is to get people connected to churches. 00:04:41.200 --> 00:04:44.580 And hopefully, that works, and we're seeing it work. 00:04:45.140 --> 00:04:52.340 The problem is, is that when we try to do He Gets Us and do it straight to a church service, 00:04:54.640 --> 00:04:57.580 well, it doesn't necessarily work that quickly. 00:04:58.260 --> 00:05:03.740 And actually, the engagement, the follow-through, the chances of people actually showing up to a 00:05:03.740 --> 00:05:10.600 physical church service is low because there's not a lot of relational equity that's built up. 00:05:10.660 --> 00:05:11.380 There's not a friendship. 00:05:11.540 --> 00:05:12.420 There's not trust. 00:05:12.940 --> 00:05:16.700 And so, we need to get to the place where there's more trust in this relationship, 00:05:16.700 --> 00:05:22.300 which gets into some of the stuff that I want to talk about because, and I would love this if 00:05:22.300 --> 00:05:26.260 there's somebody else in the room, I would love for somebody to help me wordsmith this. 00:05:26.320 --> 00:05:28.560 Because what I would say is, hey, you know what, friends? 00:05:28.620 --> 00:05:29.260 You know what we need to do? 00:05:29.300 --> 00:05:31.060 We need to boil the frog slowly. 00:05:31.700 --> 00:05:33.700 And to be honest, there's only like, boil the frog? 00:05:33.760 --> 00:05:34.540 That's kind of disgusting. 00:05:34.840 --> 00:05:36.940 Like, is that really the imagery you want to use? 00:05:37.300 --> 00:05:37.820 It's 2022. 00:05:38.160 --> 00:05:39.560 You can't just say what comes to your head. 00:05:39.840 --> 00:05:44.220 And so, I would love some help maybe wordsmithing that and figuring out how to do it. 00:05:44.220 --> 00:05:52.620 But the goal is, is we need to build relational equity with these people before we invite them 00:05:52.620 --> 00:05:53.600 into the church service. 00:05:55.180 --> 00:05:58.080 This is, some would say that's hard to do digitally. 00:05:58.320 --> 00:06:02.420 As digital ministers, as digital pastors, it's not. 00:06:02.880 --> 00:06:04.120 We know how to do it. 00:06:04.180 --> 00:06:06.280 It just takes time. 00:06:06.880 --> 00:06:09.920 And so, what I want to do with you is I want to share some things that will help in this 00:06:09.920 --> 00:06:14.140 process to help things go quicker, smoother, quicker, clearer, faster. 00:06:14.680 --> 00:06:16.880 So, we've got He Gets Us right here. 00:06:16.960 --> 00:06:21.100 We're going to get leads sent to our inbox from He Gets Us. 00:06:21.500 --> 00:06:24.360 And then at this point, instead of saying, hey, why don't you come to our church building 00:06:24.360 --> 00:06:24.920 Sunday morning? 00:06:25.140 --> 00:06:26.640 Which is the convenient answer. 00:06:27.300 --> 00:06:34.000 Well, what I said last week was that we wanted to get people connected, not to our church 00:06:34.000 --> 00:06:36.940 services, but instead we want to utilize Alpha. 00:06:38.700 --> 00:06:42.480 And Alpha is a great option. 00:06:42.480 --> 00:06:49.440 If you don't know anything about Alpha, and it's alphausa.org is the website that's listed 00:06:49.440 --> 00:06:49.780 here. 00:06:50.240 --> 00:06:55.560 Alpha is a online, they offer it online, but it's also physical. 00:06:55.660 --> 00:06:56.220 It's evangelism. 00:06:56.940 --> 00:07:03.080 They actually, they offer these like eight to 10 week small group courses that are centered 00:07:03.080 --> 00:07:07.160 around answering questions, spiritual questions that people have. 00:07:07.160 --> 00:07:08.860 And it's a safe environment. 00:07:09.120 --> 00:07:11.340 And it was all physical pre-COVID. 00:07:11.740 --> 00:07:17.160 COVID, they moved it digital and they had immense success with it digitally. 00:07:17.280 --> 00:07:20.940 And Nicky Gumbel actually was a digital skeptic pre-COVID. 00:07:21.060 --> 00:07:24.040 As a result of COVID, he's become a digital supporter. 00:07:24.120 --> 00:07:29.320 And yes, they're moving back to doing physical and we're talking about doing some other things 00:07:29.320 --> 00:07:30.020 with Alpha. 00:07:30.180 --> 00:07:32.760 And they've modernized some of their materials. 00:07:32.760 --> 00:07:38.300 And, but I've got friends that are doing, there are churches within the digital church 00:07:38.300 --> 00:07:43.540 network that are doing Alpha in digital, but we've got churches that are doing in virtual 00:07:43.540 --> 00:07:50.080 reality, Alpha, and they've had immense success with the dialoguing of the material that's 00:07:50.080 --> 00:07:51.420 coming as a result of it. 00:07:51.920 --> 00:07:55.280 But here's what I want to talk about because we've got, he gets us. 00:07:55.620 --> 00:08:00.500 And the idea I suggested last week was that he gets us is going to drive straight to Alpha. 00:08:01.160 --> 00:08:07.240 It occurred to me, and actually I had some questions about that over the week, that the problem 00:08:07.240 --> 00:08:11.980 with driving straight to Alpha, and yes, it does work, like I don't want to mince words 00:08:11.980 --> 00:08:18.760 here on this, but there's an opportunity for us to build more relational equity, to build 00:08:18.760 --> 00:08:23.100 more relational credibility, to get more trust with people. 00:08:23.780 --> 00:08:29.100 Just like we don't want to pass people off to a church service, well, it's an event. 00:08:29.260 --> 00:08:34.620 And Alpha, of course, whether offered physical or digital, is still just an event. 00:08:35.260 --> 00:08:40.360 And there's an opportunity here to do more than just an event, but to really start to look 00:08:40.360 --> 00:08:46.040 at building a relationship and building credibility with people. 00:08:46.040 --> 00:08:53.860 And this is where I wanted to start to get into maybe an idea of going from he gets us and 00:08:53.860 --> 00:08:59.460 handing that off to a digital missionary. 00:09:05.560 --> 00:09:11.940 Maybe this is crazy, but the idea is I think we've got digital missionaries in our church. 00:09:12.960 --> 00:09:17.000 You know, right now in online, in a physical church, hey, why don't you serve online? 00:09:17.700 --> 00:09:22.080 You can be a chat host for us on a Sunday morning, or maybe you can lead a small group. 00:09:23.860 --> 00:09:25.460 I think this is another category. 00:09:25.460 --> 00:09:30.360 And so what I want to do is I want to start to define what a digital missionary can do or 00:09:30.360 --> 00:09:31.340 what the framework is. 00:09:31.420 --> 00:09:36.580 But the idea is that they would get somebody from he gets us and build a relationship with 00:09:36.580 --> 00:09:39.400 that person to eventually hand off into an Alpha course. 00:09:39.760 --> 00:09:46.960 But where there is equity and trust, as opposed to just throwing them over to the Alpha course 00:09:46.960 --> 00:09:47.940 and seeing what sticks. 00:09:48.680 --> 00:09:56.060 And so the idea of digital missionaries, we've talked about that a lot lately through, well, 00:09:56.220 --> 00:10:01.320 just a lot of space, leadership network, new thing network, really starting to unpack maybe 00:10:01.320 --> 00:10:03.340 what the blessed practices is. 00:10:03.340 --> 00:10:07.300 And Dave Ferguson and Dave we trust. 00:10:07.940 --> 00:10:12.260 Dave is probably my boss two or three times over through leadership network, through new 00:10:12.260 --> 00:10:12.740 thing network. 00:10:12.940 --> 00:10:18.900 He's the lead pastor at Community Christian Church in Chicago, exponential leader over there. 00:10:19.360 --> 00:10:22.220 And so Dave, we're talking about digital missionary. 00:10:22.340 --> 00:10:24.120 And Dave says, hey, why don't you do blessed practices? 00:10:25.160 --> 00:10:27.620 What they call blessed practices, do that digitally. 00:10:28.160 --> 00:10:35.680 Now, blessed practices, B-L-E-S-S, this is not new. 00:10:36.620 --> 00:10:41.060 Blessed practice has been around for a while and Dave's been doing a great job with it digitally, 00:10:41.560 --> 00:10:42.260 or excuse me, physically. 00:10:42.460 --> 00:10:43.620 He's been doing a physical space. 00:10:43.940 --> 00:10:46.420 He wrote a book on it, published it, I believe, a year or two ago. 00:10:46.780 --> 00:10:53.360 And it's phenomenal, but it's the simple framework that turns an everyday person into a missionary 00:10:53.360 --> 00:10:55.920 within their physical community. 00:10:55.920 --> 00:11:12.720 And so what Dave's idea was for blessed was to begin in prayer, was to listen, was to eat 00:11:12.720 --> 00:11:20.640 together, was to serve, and was to share. 00:11:21.400 --> 00:11:28.640 So what Dave would literally do is he would have volunteers who would adopt these blessed 00:11:28.640 --> 00:11:33.820 practices and start blessing people within the physical neighborhood of the church in Chicago, 00:11:34.540 --> 00:11:39.800 where they would, and the idea was that these volunteers, before they would do anything, 00:11:39.940 --> 00:11:41.440 they would start the conversation in prayer. 00:11:42.140 --> 00:11:43.700 Like, between them and God. 00:11:44.020 --> 00:11:45.880 God, bless this relationship. 00:11:46.100 --> 00:11:49.360 God, do something in this relationship of beyond what I can do. 00:11:49.720 --> 00:11:52.760 God, I am not dragging you into this conversation. 00:11:52.960 --> 00:11:55.500 God, lead me in this conversation. 00:11:55.780 --> 00:11:58.840 And Holy Spirit, do something in this space. 00:11:58.940 --> 00:12:04.380 Like, it is a holy moment where we are confessing, God, we don't have the answers. 00:12:04.740 --> 00:12:07.100 We are positioning ourselves in humility. 00:12:07.520 --> 00:12:12.740 God, help this relationship grow so this person can better know you. 00:12:14.740 --> 00:12:22.620 And after that prayer moment, we shift to listening, where we build that relationship with that person. 00:12:23.140 --> 00:12:32.920 But instead of standing on a platform and immediately telling them how Jesus is this answer to all of their problems, we actually need to listen to what their problems are. 00:12:32.920 --> 00:12:46.800 And instead of interjecting what Christ needs to be or what Christ was from my life, I need to listen to them and discover maybe what Christ needs to be in their life. 00:12:48.380 --> 00:12:57.380 You see, there's an opportunity for a digital missionary to be humble and posture and to be able to listen to the people that we need to listen to. 00:12:58.200 --> 00:12:59.560 Digitally in a metaverse, you know this. 00:12:59.620 --> 00:13:01.160 It's better to ask questions than make statements. 00:13:01.400 --> 00:13:03.440 It's better to use question marks than periods. 00:13:03.620 --> 00:13:06.240 And for the love of all, don't use an exclamation mark. 00:13:06.460 --> 00:13:09.220 See, I could have went strong there, but I don't want to use an exclamation mark. 00:13:09.560 --> 00:13:10.160 Keep it calm. 00:13:11.260 --> 00:13:18.460 The fact is, is that many times when we as Christians, we're guilty of not listening, but waiting patiently for our turn to speak. 00:13:20.020 --> 00:13:24.580 And if we're really going to discover the people that we're reaching to, we need to build that credibility. 00:13:24.860 --> 00:13:28.880 And if all we're doing is telling them what to do, that's not building credibility at all. 00:13:29.760 --> 00:13:31.200 And so we're beginning in prayer. 00:13:31.300 --> 00:13:31.860 We're listening. 00:13:32.320 --> 00:13:33.300 We're going to do this. 00:13:33.340 --> 00:13:34.300 And you can begin in prayer. 00:13:34.400 --> 00:13:35.200 You can pray digitally. 00:13:35.360 --> 00:13:36.080 You can pray to God. 00:13:36.160 --> 00:13:41.980 God, even with the virtual reality headset on, you can be wearing a freaking headset and God is still hearing your prayers. 00:13:41.980 --> 00:13:46.400 I hate to tell people that because it's like, that's so violating to what they actually think. 00:13:46.480 --> 00:13:48.320 But the truth is God's in the metaverse too. 00:13:48.780 --> 00:13:50.340 So you can begin in prayer. 00:13:50.540 --> 00:13:53.340 You can pray for people, no matter the format you're in. 00:13:53.420 --> 00:13:56.360 You can listen to people, no matter the format you're in. 00:13:56.480 --> 00:14:06.960 Virtual reality people will listen all day, or they will talk all day long, which gives you plenty of time to be praying for everything they're saying quietly while hearing it. 00:14:07.880 --> 00:14:14.820 And then now we get to step number three for the E of the blessed practices, eat together. 00:14:16.180 --> 00:14:21.260 Okay, so maybe I could eat like virtual reality food. 00:14:21.320 --> 00:14:26.060 How do I eat in a Facebook group or on social media? 00:14:26.140 --> 00:14:27.200 How do I do this? 00:14:27.520 --> 00:14:32.740 So it was very obvious that eat probably wasn't going to work. 00:14:33.620 --> 00:14:37.560 So what I did was, so I'm trying to figure out how to port this over because they've asked me to. 00:14:38.300 --> 00:14:39.460 Okay, what am I going to do? 00:14:39.560 --> 00:14:40.460 What is eat together? 00:14:40.580 --> 00:14:48.120 So I brought together 15 digital and metaverse pastors, physical churches, church plants, digital, metaverse, the entire gamut. 00:14:49.680 --> 00:14:53.040 And I explained to them, so what are we going to do for eat? 00:14:53.360 --> 00:14:55.600 They said, well, what do we do when we eat? 00:14:55.940 --> 00:14:59.600 When we eat together, the idea is that we're intimate. 00:15:00.660 --> 00:15:02.220 We're not pushing an agenda. 00:15:02.360 --> 00:15:03.280 There's no slide deck. 00:15:03.520 --> 00:15:04.860 There's no presentation. 00:15:05.360 --> 00:15:06.380 You're having a conversation. 00:15:07.180 --> 00:15:10.200 You're building relationship. 00:15:10.640 --> 00:15:11.700 You're building equity. 00:15:12.640 --> 00:15:14.280 You're building trust. 00:15:15.300 --> 00:15:19.560 I don't actually go to restaurants with people just where I am in life. 00:15:19.660 --> 00:15:20.600 I'll go with my family. 00:15:21.000 --> 00:15:23.140 But for me, it's not eating together. 00:15:23.320 --> 00:15:25.460 For me, it's having a cup of coffee at Starbucks. 00:15:26.180 --> 00:15:28.760 Or maybe I shouldn't say this on social media. 00:15:28.900 --> 00:15:34.660 It's going to a bar and just hanging out with a friend for a while and talking. 00:15:35.300 --> 00:15:38.820 That's the relational equity for me. 00:15:38.960 --> 00:15:42.480 That's where I build those relationships in those types of environments. 00:15:42.740 --> 00:15:47.380 And yes, Zoom, of course, as I'm Zooming and catching up with friends all over the place. 00:15:47.860 --> 00:15:49.140 But when we started talking with... 00:15:49.140 --> 00:15:52.840 I remember Mark Lutz from Lutz Digital Church was actually the first guy to say it. 00:15:52.880 --> 00:15:56.120 He's like, Jeff, my eat together is when I play video games. 00:15:56.360 --> 00:16:01.360 When I have a chance to actually sit down and talk with somebody and learn about what's doing in their life, 00:16:01.940 --> 00:16:04.700 I do it while I'm playing whatever video game Mark's playing. 00:16:05.200 --> 00:16:08.660 And somebody else is like, oh, yeah, no, I do that in virtual reality. 00:16:08.900 --> 00:16:13.220 When I just go up to people and I start talking to them and invite them over to a world, 00:16:13.740 --> 00:16:16.500 and we share that experience together. 00:16:18.120 --> 00:16:21.440 And it was funny, after those words of shared experience were said, 00:16:21.880 --> 00:16:23.480 they were said maybe a dozen times. 00:16:23.480 --> 00:16:31.080 And so E has quickly become experiences shared. 00:16:35.200 --> 00:16:43.820 And this is a great opportunity to do this in Digital Metaverse where maybe it's playing a video game. 00:16:44.020 --> 00:16:48.880 Maybe it's jumping on a Zoom call and drinking a coffee together. 00:16:49.060 --> 00:16:54.480 Maybe it's going into a virtual reality experience or a virtual reality bar even. 00:16:55.220 --> 00:16:59.200 Listen, online church services can be an experience shared. 00:17:00.100 --> 00:17:07.600 Now, I don't know that it's a good one, especially if you do not have much relational trust with these people. 00:17:07.600 --> 00:17:14.500 Because, I mean, it's a lot of effort to get somebody to watch a 70-minute anything online. 00:17:15.740 --> 00:17:17.380 So find an experience. 00:17:17.540 --> 00:17:24.960 Maybe it's sending a YouTube video to them on an interesting topic that, because you've listened to them, you know what they're looking for. 00:17:25.300 --> 00:17:28.760 And so now you can dialogue with them on that specific thing. 00:17:29.200 --> 00:17:30.460 I don't know what it is. 00:17:30.500 --> 00:17:32.240 This is where missional imagination kicks in. 00:17:32.260 --> 00:17:39.940 And maybe even being attuned to the Holy Spirit, God, what can I do as an experience in Digital Metaverse space to really connect with this person? 00:17:40.200 --> 00:17:46.900 This is where I think there's a huge opportunity to start to connect with people relationally. 00:17:47.620 --> 00:17:49.060 So we begin with prayer. 00:17:49.200 --> 00:17:50.400 We do that in Digital Metaverse. 00:17:50.620 --> 00:17:51.580 We listen. 00:17:52.320 --> 00:17:54.880 We share an experience together. 00:17:55.300 --> 00:17:56.500 As the Lord leads. 00:17:57.200 --> 00:17:59.300 And then we get to number four here. 00:17:59.840 --> 00:18:00.580 We serve. 00:18:02.260 --> 00:18:04.160 Now, physical space, serving's easy. 00:18:04.800 --> 00:18:06.860 Hey, I noticed your yard wasn't mowed. 00:18:06.920 --> 00:18:07.400 Let me mow it. 00:18:07.680 --> 00:18:08.380 Hey, you know what? 00:18:08.600 --> 00:18:10.400 Why don't you let me watch the kids tonight? 00:18:11.000 --> 00:18:14.140 And you and your wife can go, you and your husband can go on a date. 00:18:14.500 --> 00:18:15.260 Hey, you know what? 00:18:16.420 --> 00:18:20.100 It's Saturday morning and here's, you know, two dozen donuts. 00:18:20.520 --> 00:18:21.740 Don't eat them all at the same time. 00:18:22.160 --> 00:18:24.020 You can do stuff like that very easily. 00:18:24.600 --> 00:18:30.360 Now, I can tell you, Digital, in the Metaverse, it'll look different but can be as impactful. 00:18:31.240 --> 00:18:42.360 In the COVID season, when I've had COVID, I had candy, I had Gatorade, I had food randomly delivered to my house by people I've never met. 00:18:43.500 --> 00:18:45.740 They just, hey, we heard you were sick. 00:18:45.740 --> 00:18:46.840 How can we help you? 00:18:47.220 --> 00:18:49.420 And they would not accept, no, thank you. 00:18:50.120 --> 00:18:52.260 And so random stuff just would show up. 00:18:52.320 --> 00:18:55.880 As a matter of fact, you know, a lot of you have seen the Funko Pops behind me. 00:18:56.380 --> 00:18:59.020 There's a percentage of these Funko Pops I didn't buy. 00:18:59.440 --> 00:19:04.720 They've randomly showed up here at the house because somebody found out I like Funko Pops. 00:19:04.820 --> 00:19:09.820 As a matter of fact, the first set of Funko Pops I've ever owned, they're right back there. 00:19:10.020 --> 00:19:16.780 It's Ghost Iron Man with the girl, his daughter from Endgame. 00:19:17.900 --> 00:19:19.900 It's a, you know, a very nice set. 00:19:20.300 --> 00:19:21.900 To be honest, I have no idea who sent it to me. 00:19:21.960 --> 00:19:23.680 It just showed up here at the house one day. 00:19:23.680 --> 00:19:24.860 First set of Funko Pops. 00:19:25.180 --> 00:19:28.480 And then everything blew up afterwards because I'm kind of obsessive when it comes to life. 00:19:28.640 --> 00:19:30.060 That's a whole other conversation. 00:19:31.460 --> 00:19:34.020 Somebody served me by sending me a Funko Pop. 00:19:34.660 --> 00:19:39.040 Now, I probably lost in that equation off the money that I've spent because now I'm addicted to Funko Pops. 00:19:39.140 --> 00:19:42.700 But the heart is, is that they had care in their heart when they did that. 00:19:42.760 --> 00:19:46.120 And subsequent, people have sent stuff to me that's awesome. 00:19:46.580 --> 00:19:48.740 That is even a level of serving. 00:19:49.120 --> 00:19:54.520 By serving, we're showing that we have heard what these people are talking about, 00:19:54.620 --> 00:19:56.380 what the explorers are talking about. 00:19:57.160 --> 00:20:01.380 You'll notice here by beginning in prayer, by listening, by experiences shared, and by serving, 00:20:02.220 --> 00:20:04.180 this is a posture of humility. 00:20:05.080 --> 00:20:08.800 Listening is not getting on top of a soapbox and telling people what to do. 00:20:09.380 --> 00:20:11.000 Serving is not demanding. 00:20:11.900 --> 00:20:15.920 Serving is posturing them, the person, at a higher level than you are. 00:20:16.980 --> 00:20:19.200 Is this not a great opportunity for volunteers? 00:20:20.560 --> 00:20:28.500 Is this not a great opportunity for maybe even you as a pastor or church leader to serve, to listen, to begin with prayer, 00:20:28.620 --> 00:20:30.740 to share experiences with people? 00:20:31.120 --> 00:20:38.640 And as you can bless your volunteers, maybe then empower them to bless people from He gets us. 00:20:39.760 --> 00:20:42.680 And so as you go through this, begin with prayer. 00:20:42.800 --> 00:20:47.560 As you go through listening, as you go through experiences shared, as you serve, 00:20:48.040 --> 00:20:54.000 you eventually get to the place where now you can share Jesus because you've got relational equity. 00:20:54.160 --> 00:20:55.400 Could you share Jesus before? 00:20:55.800 --> 00:20:56.140 Sure. 00:20:56.300 --> 00:21:01.880 If the Spirit leads you to do it after listen or during listen, who am I to say, 00:21:01.980 --> 00:21:04.000 No, don't do what the Holy Spirit tells you to do. 00:21:04.620 --> 00:21:11.720 My point in this is saying, though, is that as we're scattering seed, there's an opportunity to till the soil, 00:21:12.520 --> 00:21:19.740 to water it, to make sure that it's not thorny bush, thorny bush or, you know, path. 00:21:20.100 --> 00:21:21.560 And that, I think, is the opportunity. 00:21:21.700 --> 00:21:25.800 Maybe it's some people call it pre-evangelism, whatever you, because I'm not losing sleep on that. 00:21:25.800 --> 00:21:33.440 But the heart is, is that we can do some people, we can do some work on some people's hearts before we get to Jesus. 00:21:33.840 --> 00:21:44.620 And in 2022, 23, where nobody trusts the church, maybe it's an opportunity to restore that trust before we get to Jesus. 00:21:45.580 --> 00:21:46.560 For what it's worth. 00:21:46.940 --> 00:21:48.160 So that this would be the goal. 00:21:48.160 --> 00:22:01.880 Get your volunteers to roll through this digital missionary pathway of beginning of a prayer, of listening, of sharing experiences, of serving and sharing Jesus. 00:22:02.160 --> 00:22:08.320 And now, after you go through that, maybe it makes sense to get them connected into a church service. 00:22:08.780 --> 00:22:11.180 Maybe it makes sense if they still got spiritual questions. 00:22:11.300 --> 00:22:12.820 Maybe it makes sense to connect them to Alpha. 00:22:14.320 --> 00:22:18.540 By the way, we still haven't gotten to the place where this costs money. 00:22:19.580 --> 00:22:22.440 Like, He Gets Us is 12 months for free, right? 00:22:22.560 --> 00:22:23.640 We talked about that. 00:22:24.040 --> 00:22:28.220 At the church.digital slash He Gets Us. 00:22:29.480 --> 00:22:31.320 Gets you 12 months for free. 00:22:32.420 --> 00:22:35.400 Alpha USA, everything there is free. 00:22:38.140 --> 00:22:47.920 And of course, your digital missionary pathway that I literally gave you, the volunteer hours that are implied are free. 00:22:50.320 --> 00:22:53.000 Okay, maybe you buy my book when it comes out in January. 00:22:53.180 --> 00:22:54.640 So maybe it's $9.99. 00:22:55.040 --> 00:22:56.880 That's so cheap, I'm not even going to write it in there. 00:22:57.140 --> 00:23:17.400 The heart of this is that you've got an incredible opportunity to empower digital missionaries and to release them and start to utilize some of these free resources that are in place to help your church start to process and evangelize and create disciples even in digital metaverse spaces. 00:23:18.560 --> 00:23:21.760 Now, look, the opportunity here is not just for He Gets Us. 00:23:22.280 --> 00:23:24.420 There's your entire church, right? 00:23:24.800 --> 00:23:26.820 Your church has relationships. 00:23:27.760 --> 00:23:35.240 And maybe you start to empower your entire church to be these digital missionaries. 00:23:36.240 --> 00:23:45.520 Or maybe you start to funnel relationships through your church into these digital missionaries. 00:23:45.520 --> 00:23:53.720 And you start to go through that same process, not just for He Gets Us and at least if He Gets Us, but maybe it's for your entire church. 00:23:54.360 --> 00:24:04.160 You've heard me say this many times that the best resource our church has today are the people in our pews. 00:24:04.580 --> 00:24:05.840 It's not the checkbook. 00:24:06.040 --> 00:24:07.440 It's not the LED screen. 00:24:07.940 --> 00:24:09.020 It's not the haze machine. 00:24:10.000 --> 00:24:11.380 It's the people in the pews. 00:24:12.240 --> 00:24:16.740 What does it look like if we get them activated and if we get them released on mission? 00:24:17.080 --> 00:24:20.140 And that's the opportunity that I'm talking about here. 00:24:20.140 --> 00:24:29.780 By training them to be digital missionaries and connecting with their circle of influence as well as with the people that are funneling into the church, 00:24:29.840 --> 00:24:44.360 you have opportunities to start to mobilize digital missionaries, even coming out of your own church, reaching people in their circle of influence as well as the people that are coming into your building. 00:24:45.180 --> 00:24:47.440 You want to talk about revolutionizing your church? 00:24:48.220 --> 00:24:52.000 Learn how to activate the physical church people. 00:24:52.400 --> 00:24:54.980 Get them excited about being on mission and releasing. 00:24:55.480 --> 00:25:03.840 By the way, you know, I had the unfortunate reality that I got to tell this to about 15 African American pastors yesterday. 00:25:04.920 --> 00:25:06.400 I'm sorry to say this, Pastor. 00:25:07.480 --> 00:25:11.160 Your influence has never been as little as it is today. 00:25:11.580 --> 00:25:13.940 It is continuing to shrink. 00:25:14.580 --> 00:25:16.100 We see more and more reports. 00:25:16.420 --> 00:25:24.400 Most recently, or at least one of the more recently ones would be Barna's Digital Evangelism, December 2020, where people have spiritual questions. 00:25:24.500 --> 00:25:25.480 They're not coming to a building. 00:25:26.640 --> 00:25:30.980 They're going to Google to find the spiritual answers, which leads to YouTube. 00:25:31.860 --> 00:25:34.020 And so how's your church service showing up on YouTube? 00:25:34.220 --> 00:25:34.960 Chances are not good. 00:25:35.940 --> 00:25:38.800 And they're going to their friends who they think may have spiritual answers. 00:25:39.320 --> 00:25:43.040 So yes, we need to, as a church, we need to figure out a digital strategy and we can help you with that. 00:25:43.260 --> 00:25:47.600 But the larger piece is, is that you really want to effectively reach people. 00:25:47.860 --> 00:25:52.900 You've got to reach our people, disciple them, release them, and then help them reach theirs. 00:25:53.400 --> 00:26:07.540 And the framework that I'm talking here about being a digital missionary and doing the blessed practices that I've shared, begin with prayer, listen, experience is shared, serve, and share Jesus. 00:26:07.540 --> 00:26:09.400 I'm going to write Jesus here just to be clear. 00:26:09.880 --> 00:26:10.460 Share Jesus. 00:26:11.840 --> 00:26:20.360 This is a very simple, easy, memorizable, repeatable framework that is perfect for volunteers. 00:26:20.760 --> 00:26:24.820 So I would definitely check that out. 00:26:24.900 --> 00:26:25.780 And that's on the house. 00:26:25.980 --> 00:26:27.860 I'm not even charging you $9.99 for the book. 00:26:28.580 --> 00:26:29.600 But do that. 00:26:29.660 --> 00:26:33.560 Hey, let me put this up big, nice, and clear as you can see it. 00:26:34.220 --> 00:26:51.860 But we want to get people through, he gets us, we want to get them connected to digital missionaries in your church, where you can disciple them, answer their spiritual questions, and get them fed into an alpha course, which will feed into a church service, or get them fed into a church. 00:26:51.860 --> 00:26:53.860 We want you to help people. 00:26:53.860 --> 00:26:57.000 We want you to help people meet Jesus and get connected into a biblical community. 00:26:57.900 --> 00:27:02.500 And whatever that order is, is irrelevant, I think. 00:27:02.880 --> 00:27:10.980 But the heart of this is, is that you have to be relational with people, which is where the digital missionary course kicks in. 00:27:11.700 --> 00:27:12.240 Well, cool. 00:27:12.380 --> 00:27:15.240 If there's any other questions on that, you can hit me up on social media. 00:27:15.400 --> 00:27:16.420 You all know where to find me. 00:27:16.900 --> 00:27:28.960 Just to remind you that there is a webinar we are doing Thursday, November 17th, 10 a.m. Eastern, talking about hope among sobering statistics. 00:27:29.260 --> 00:27:30.160 We'll have, he gets us there. 00:27:30.920 --> 00:27:33.900 I'll be there at Church Digital and Glue will be there as well for the webinar. 00:27:34.440 --> 00:27:38.880 More information at thechurch.digital slash webinar. 00:27:39.140 --> 00:27:48.820 And if you're interested in signing up for He Gets Us for free, there's He Gets Us for 12 months for free, thechurch.digital slash He Gets Us. 00:27:49.400 --> 00:27:50.800 And with that, I'm going to land the plane. 00:27:50.880 --> 00:27:51.740 This has been fun. 00:27:51.820 --> 00:27:53.220 I appreciate you all coming on. 00:27:53.280 --> 00:27:57.280 If you got any questions, hit me up on whatever social media channel that you're on right now. 00:27:57.460 --> 00:28:02.160 Throw in any questions or comments there, or you can, you know, I'll give you my cell phone number. 00:28:02.620 --> 00:28:06.280 I don't have it as a slide, but it's 484-324-8724. 00:28:07.140 --> 00:28:11.220 Feel free to text me at the number 484-324-8724. 00:28:11.380 --> 00:28:14.620 That's number for the church and telephone out. 00:28:14.720 --> 00:28:15.740 But all right. 00:28:15.940 --> 00:28:17.980 Hey, I'm going to land the plane with that. 00:28:18.100 --> 00:28:19.200 This has been great. 00:28:20.040 --> 00:28:22.960 I'm Jeff with the Church Digital, Digital Church Network. 00:28:23.060 --> 00:28:25.400 Thanks for jumping on here with this live stream. 00:28:25.920 --> 00:28:28.520 We'll see you here next time. 00:28:28.520 --> 00:28:29.440 There's always something. 00:28:29.580 --> 00:28:34.360 Podcasts, streams, would love to connect with you however possible. 00:28:34.460 --> 00:28:34.800 Reach out. 00:28:35.060 --> 00:28:35.420 Thanks, y'all. 00:28:35.480 --> 00:28:35.820 Have a good day.