WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:07.120 Sometimes I wonder if maybe we haven't done better at claiming this new world, this new metaverse for Jesus, 00:00:07.880 --> 00:00:10.220 because some of us haven't been willing to be martyrs. 00:00:10.580 --> 00:00:16.620 The church moves forward sometimes by the willingness of people to give their lives. 00:00:17.100 --> 00:00:20.540 And so I think we're all called to the edge. 00:00:20.680 --> 00:00:28.620 What level edge will vary in our life and will vary, what level edge we can take will change. 00:00:28.620 --> 00:00:30.680 But we're all called to the edge. 00:00:31.280 --> 00:00:32.760 Welcome to the Church Digital Podcast. 00:00:33.500 --> 00:00:37.540 Through this podcast, we'll talk about the technological innovations within the church. 00:00:37.840 --> 00:00:42.040 But more than tech for tech itself, we'll address deeper questions. 00:00:42.900 --> 00:00:44.740 Is disciple making possible digitally? 00:00:45.580 --> 00:00:47.760 How should we approach the digital mission field? 00:00:48.480 --> 00:00:51.280 Can a biblically grounded church operate in digital space? 00:00:52.060 --> 00:00:54.300 Oh, and where does the metaverse fit into all this? 00:00:54.880 --> 00:00:59.300 Whether you're a big or small church, an established church, or a startup church plant. 00:01:00.060 --> 00:01:06.960 The Church Digital's goal is to help churches like yours learn to be a multiplying church, digitally and physically. 00:01:07.760 --> 00:01:08.440 Our heart? 00:01:08.940 --> 00:01:14.620 That churches like yours will discover a newfound focus on disciple making that will revolutionize your church. 00:01:15.300 --> 00:01:17.940 And now, here's your host, Jeff Reed. 00:01:18.340 --> 00:01:22.180 All right, hey, welcome to episode 246 of the Church Digital Podcast. 00:01:22.820 --> 00:01:24.720 You know, every week I say I'm excited about the guests. 00:01:24.800 --> 00:01:30.020 But this week, I am literally very, very excited about this conversation. 00:01:30.280 --> 00:01:35.960 You see, for many of you out there that are planting and that are trying digital church, 00:01:36.120 --> 00:01:40.320 digital ministry, that are being missional with the digital and the virtual reality, 00:01:40.400 --> 00:01:41.580 the metaverse technologies. 00:01:41.900 --> 00:01:45.280 For many of you, I've given you permission to do this. 00:01:45.520 --> 00:01:51.800 Somehow, Google has connected you to me, and we've had face-to-face conversations by the hundreds. 00:01:52.520 --> 00:01:59.020 And it's been my pleasure to have conversations, to dream with you, to talk about what possibly can be. 00:01:59.420 --> 00:02:03.300 And literally, when the rest of the world is saying, no, you can't do church in digital space, 00:02:03.580 --> 00:02:06.560 to be the guy that's like, hey, what happens if we give it a shot? 00:02:06.600 --> 00:02:10.500 Let's see what happens with this, and let's learn along the way. 00:02:10.500 --> 00:02:16.840 Now, what you don't realize is that 22 years ago, 23 years ago, 00:02:17.280 --> 00:02:20.820 someone gave me permission to do this crazy stuff, 00:02:21.040 --> 00:02:24.380 to actually think different about digital technology. 00:02:24.800 --> 00:02:29.620 And we are fortunate enough to have him to do a podcast with right now. 00:02:29.680 --> 00:02:35.200 And so, ladies and gentlemen, I want to introduce to you Leonard Sweet into the podcast. 00:02:35.380 --> 00:02:37.600 Leonard, thank you for jumping on the show with us. 00:02:37.840 --> 00:02:39.520 Great to be with you, Jeff. 00:02:39.680 --> 00:02:41.200 I've been looking forward to talking to you. 00:02:41.540 --> 00:02:43.340 I'm going to learn a lot today, too. 00:02:43.800 --> 00:02:45.460 Yeah, this is going to be interesting. 00:02:45.600 --> 00:02:50.260 Now, you see, Leonard Sweet, if you don't know, this guy's written 60-some books, 00:02:50.260 --> 00:02:55.180 I think I saw somewhere, and this book right here, Soul Tsunami, 00:02:55.320 --> 00:02:57.720 I picked, look at the thickness of this book. 00:02:57.860 --> 00:03:00.140 Like, this is not a light read. 00:03:00.180 --> 00:03:02.340 This is not the type of books that Jeff Reed would write, 00:03:02.460 --> 00:03:07.360 but this is what I've read years ago, like literally as a college senior. 00:03:07.940 --> 00:03:09.100 I picked up that book. 00:03:09.260 --> 00:03:10.580 I can remember seeing it. 00:03:10.640 --> 00:03:11.780 I was in Fort Worth, Texas. 00:03:12.260 --> 00:03:18.280 It was at a Mardell on an end cap, probably 1998, 1999, somewhere in there. 00:03:18.340 --> 00:03:22.000 And it was my senior year in college, and I started reading it. 00:03:22.320 --> 00:03:25.740 And honestly, Leonard, the stuff that was in my head, 00:03:26.280 --> 00:03:30.380 you were the first person that was in my head. 00:03:30.640 --> 00:03:34.720 Like, the stuff that I was wanting to do, the view of digital, 00:03:35.200 --> 00:03:36.880 the experience participatory. 00:03:37.160 --> 00:03:39.500 I remember there was one quote that you said in the book. 00:03:39.560 --> 00:03:40.880 I remember it 20-some years later. 00:03:41.160 --> 00:03:44.340 There was more technology in the Casio Ironman wristwatch 00:03:44.340 --> 00:03:47.480 than in the entire Apollo 11 space mission. 00:03:47.480 --> 00:03:51.420 Yet we, the church, have not done anything different in decades. 00:03:51.900 --> 00:03:54.000 And that stuck with me. 00:03:54.060 --> 00:03:58.460 And as I started to dream crazy dreams about what the church could be, 00:03:58.780 --> 00:04:01.360 about how the church could engage in this technology, 00:04:01.400 --> 00:04:06.140 and now years later in these communities that exist in digital and metaverse spaces, 00:04:06.700 --> 00:04:11.180 your book really capitalized that for me. 00:04:11.340 --> 00:04:14.920 It gave me permission to dream crazy, to think big. 00:04:14.920 --> 00:04:22.880 And we started, actually, an online community at .com months later, eBeliever.com, February, no, April 2020. 00:04:22.880 --> 00:04:24.580 We started our first business. 00:04:25.600 --> 00:04:31.360 Really pioneered off of some of the mindsets and philosophies right out of Soul Tsunami. 00:04:31.540 --> 00:04:38.280 So, first off, you know, thank you for being so diligent in your work, even years later. 00:04:38.680 --> 00:04:43.920 I can just honestly tell you, I'm a byproduct of your efforts for the kingdom over the years. 00:04:44.300 --> 00:04:46.780 Well, maybe I wrote that book just for you. 00:04:46.840 --> 00:04:48.740 You never know why God calls you to write a book. 00:04:48.960 --> 00:04:53.360 Sounds like you may have been the reason why God called me to write that book. 00:04:54.240 --> 00:04:58.400 I followed it a year later, where I kind of, it's called Postmodern Pilgrims, 00:04:58.620 --> 00:05:05.920 where I really developed the epic theme, you know, and I had a chapter on experiential and a P. 00:05:06.060 --> 00:05:06.640 There you go. 00:05:07.860 --> 00:05:08.140 Yeah. 00:05:08.140 --> 00:05:16.280 And then a few years after that, I wanted to show how you could actually, how companies were using this now. 00:05:16.360 --> 00:05:20.540 So, I wrote a, I did the Robert Short thing, remember you, the Gospel According to Peanuts, 00:05:20.580 --> 00:05:22.780 and it spawned a whole genre of books. 00:05:22.880 --> 00:05:28.040 So, I did the Gospel According to Starbucks, where I showed how Starbucks was, was, 00:05:28.160 --> 00:05:34.620 it's all about the coffee experience, and you participate in the coffee that you want. 00:05:34.620 --> 00:05:40.020 You designed it, in other words, and the whole impact of the image. 00:05:40.280 --> 00:05:42.080 And so, I played with that. 00:05:42.440 --> 00:05:46.140 So, that was, yeah, early, early 2000s, yeah. 00:05:46.360 --> 00:05:54.740 Those three books were kind of my attempt to get the church to move into an interface that works with a digital culture. 00:05:55.280 --> 00:06:04.160 Because all of our interfaces were working with a print culture, and we hadn't yet developed an interface to work with a digital culture. 00:06:04.300 --> 00:06:07.380 And that's what I was trying to do with this whole EPIC acronym. 00:06:08.040 --> 00:06:13.500 So, EPIC, by the way, the Starbucks book, I read it, I think I loaned it to somebody. 00:06:13.640 --> 00:06:15.560 Like, I know I've had a paperback copy of it. 00:06:16.340 --> 00:06:24.360 It was the book, you know, back in the years, you used to put, like, the tabs in instead of bookmarks for, like, important stuff. 00:06:24.360 --> 00:06:31.220 And it was, my wife, we were joking about it, that particular book, because there were so many tabs. 00:06:31.440 --> 00:06:34.960 It was, like, all red on the sides, just so influential to this. 00:06:35.060 --> 00:06:42.160 But, you know, we're talking EPIC here, experiential, we're talking participatory, image-driven, and connected. 00:06:42.320 --> 00:06:47.700 And this is really the philosophy that was baked into your books 20-some years ago. 00:06:47.820 --> 00:06:56.680 And as we're looking at, you know, church in the metaverse and Web3 and creating these experiences, participatory and getting people to engage. 00:06:57.440 --> 00:07:02.080 Obviously, image-driven, being incredibly visible and connected, engaging. 00:07:02.080 --> 00:07:07.760 Like, this was the roadmap for what digital church and what churches should be. 00:07:08.460 --> 00:07:10.960 And, man, you were talking about this a couple decades ago. 00:07:11.120 --> 00:07:13.540 And so, it's a beautiful conversation. 00:07:13.680 --> 00:07:14.400 Now, let me ask this. 00:07:14.840 --> 00:07:16.960 How did you get started in this? 00:07:17.060 --> 00:07:20.920 Like, what was Leonard Sweet version 1.0? 00:07:21.000 --> 00:07:23.040 Like, what was the genesis of all this? 00:07:23.520 --> 00:07:25.640 Well, I started out as a total academic. 00:07:25.640 --> 00:07:29.500 I just, I was part of, I was a church historian. 00:07:30.280 --> 00:07:32.820 I had a special interest in American religious history. 00:07:33.660 --> 00:07:36.840 So, I started writing books in that field. 00:07:37.040 --> 00:07:38.380 They were meant for other scholars. 00:07:39.520 --> 00:07:49.700 And then, one of the first things that happened was one of my academic friends, who was also a church historian, he was a Presbyterian. 00:07:50.040 --> 00:07:52.160 And they were doing a series for laity. 00:07:52.740 --> 00:07:57.860 And they couldn't find any, it was a Presbyterian series for laity called Life in the Spirit. 00:07:57.860 --> 00:08:03.000 And he, no, I mean, that was my book. 00:08:03.080 --> 00:08:08.820 But it was a series of how do you live as a disciple if you're out of a Presbyterian orbit. 00:08:09.580 --> 00:08:11.520 And they needed to do one on the Spirit. 00:08:11.920 --> 00:08:15.940 So, they couldn't find any Presbyterian willing to write on the Holy Spirit. 00:08:16.740 --> 00:08:27.800 So, he called me on the phone and he said, I know you're Wesleyan, but maybe you're the only one that I can call that can come up with this book really quick because we're almost done with the series. 00:08:27.940 --> 00:08:30.420 And we just haven't found anybody to do something on the Holy Spirit. 00:08:30.720 --> 00:08:34.600 And do you think you could do something on the Holy Spirit that would be Reformed friendly? 00:08:35.240 --> 00:08:40.180 And I said, well, you know, I haven't really written for laity much. 00:08:40.180 --> 00:08:42.140 And he said, well, now's your time. 00:08:42.180 --> 00:08:42.880 So, I did. 00:08:43.000 --> 00:08:44.440 And I had a lot of fun doing it. 00:08:45.400 --> 00:08:48.300 And so, I wrote this book called New Life in the Spirit. 00:08:48.840 --> 00:09:07.660 And then I just kind of started, the Lord kind of began to lead me in a direction where I was pioneering, I think, a new kind of academics, a new kind of academic writing that wasn't just for the guild, but was also for the church. 00:09:07.660 --> 00:09:18.300 And so, then I did a really controversial book, which showed how to do evangelism in this, that's when I was using the word postmodern. 00:09:18.660 --> 00:09:20.900 So, I call it a postmodern apologetic. 00:09:21.780 --> 00:09:37.060 And I don't use the word anymore, but the book was called Quantum Spirituality, where I actually showed how you could read these, you could lift up Jesus and do evangelism with postmoderns like New Agers and that kind of thing. 00:09:37.660 --> 00:09:50.260 And the fact that in a book showing how you could evangelize people who were new age and others and part of this new culture, I actually quoted some of them. 00:09:50.520 --> 00:09:52.940 That was a no-no for the church. 00:09:53.200 --> 00:09:56.840 So, I got all sorts of hate mail and hate sites. 00:09:56.840 --> 00:10:04.380 And, well, you can't talk about reaching somebody without talking to them and, you know, and quoting them. 00:10:04.660 --> 00:10:09.740 And, you know, look what Paul did at Athens, you know, he quoted them. 00:10:10.660 --> 00:10:22.680 And at any rate, so, and then, you know, after I took all that kind of attack, I decided I was going to continue to write scholarly books and continue to write for the church. 00:10:22.840 --> 00:10:24.720 So, that's where I am now. 00:10:24.820 --> 00:10:28.300 And the field that brings the two together is called semiotics, Jeff. 00:10:29.780 --> 00:10:36.420 It's a field of, based on the tribe of Issachar, which were the semiotic tribe. 00:10:37.080 --> 00:10:43.020 And in 1 Chronicles 12, 32, to David, they said, we are the tribe that knows the times and knows what to do. 00:10:43.520 --> 00:10:45.020 And that's the essence of semiotics. 00:10:45.100 --> 00:10:50.580 How do you read the times and then, as a result of that reading, how do you know what to do? 00:10:50.660 --> 00:10:56.840 How do you read the scripture, the story, as story, not as text? 00:10:57.520 --> 00:10:59.140 The Bible was not written as text. 00:10:59.980 --> 00:11:07.280 And so, how do you read it as story and then know what to do and trust the story and live out that story? 00:11:07.500 --> 00:11:11.460 So, that's my particular niche, is that right there. 00:11:11.640 --> 00:11:15.740 I've had the pleasure of listening to him speak on this just recently. 00:11:15.840 --> 00:11:18.880 We were at a conference together in Arizona. 00:11:19.200 --> 00:11:22.960 That's where I met Leonard for the first time, physically. 00:11:23.380 --> 00:11:31.700 And, like, it's incredible to hear you speak on the semiotics and what that looks like. 00:11:31.800 --> 00:11:39.040 You're opening up parallels of the Bible that I have not even, didn't even cross my mind. 00:11:39.160 --> 00:11:44.160 Like, would you, like, and we could literally do an entire podcast episode on this. 00:11:44.220 --> 00:11:50.360 So, like, I'm hesitant that by asking this question, I'm poking the bear and I'm losing control of the entire episode. 00:11:50.360 --> 00:11:57.000 But, would you maybe just share one or two briefly, notice briefly, but briefly to dig into this. 00:11:57.140 --> 00:12:08.840 Because the ideology behind this is incredible of these parallels that we don't even realize because we're not looking with a big enough scope into the semiotic stuff. 00:12:08.900 --> 00:12:10.400 So, share with us maybe a couple. 00:12:10.760 --> 00:12:14.220 Well, just this time of year, we got the, you know, the birth story of Jesus. 00:12:14.220 --> 00:12:24.500 And, basically, semiotics is just receiving it as a story and asking questions you would ask of a story. 00:12:24.860 --> 00:12:30.040 Not asking questions you'd ask of a text, but asking questions you'd ask of a story. 00:12:30.260 --> 00:12:34.000 So, you know, Jesus was born in Bethlehem. 00:12:34.380 --> 00:12:37.440 Well, then the question is, why Bethlehem and not Nazareth? 00:12:38.940 --> 00:12:46.140 So, then if you say, well, it's a fulfillment of biblical prophecy, then you just, you know, you just shut me down. 00:12:46.560 --> 00:12:47.920 There's nothing more to be said. 00:12:48.840 --> 00:12:53.200 But, you're given the theological, you know, trump card. 00:12:53.420 --> 00:13:07.720 So, but if you approach it as story, you know, why was, what is Mary doing traveling, you know, 80, 90 miles on some of the most treacherous roads as nine months pregnant when she didn't have to be in Bethlehem? 00:13:08.380 --> 00:13:09.300 She didn't have to be there. 00:13:09.360 --> 00:13:10.580 Only Joseph had to be there. 00:13:11.360 --> 00:13:13.300 And so, what is she doing there in Bethlehem? 00:13:13.360 --> 00:13:15.000 Why wasn't Jesus born in Nazareth? 00:13:15.120 --> 00:13:18.280 So, you just start, you know, pulling the strands. 00:13:18.600 --> 00:13:29.520 And then you realize, well, does Nazareth is, does anything good, can anything good come out of Nazareth is not about the place so much as the people. 00:13:29.520 --> 00:13:32.620 The people were known as hardcore Jews. 00:13:32.820 --> 00:13:36.320 I mean, fundamentalists about the law, the Torah. 00:13:37.600 --> 00:13:43.540 And that's why none of Jesus' brothers or his friends from Nazareth are part of his disciples. 00:13:44.600 --> 00:13:49.380 I mean, why did he not choose anybody from his first 30 years? 00:13:49.660 --> 00:13:51.920 You know, well, there's a reason for that. 00:13:52.220 --> 00:14:00.220 And so, you just start pulling these strands and you realize, well, this is a time when they still did honors killings. 00:14:00.220 --> 00:14:11.180 And if you brought shame and disrespect to the family, it was up to the father to redress that and to bring back the honor and the glory to the family. 00:14:11.320 --> 00:14:12.480 And they would kill children. 00:14:12.740 --> 00:14:13.080 And they would. 00:14:13.840 --> 00:14:19.560 So, Joseph had a, you know, well, Mary's family would never do that. 00:14:19.820 --> 00:14:20.860 Well, yeah, they tried. 00:14:20.940 --> 00:14:25.280 When Jesus preached his first sermon as he came back to his hometown, what did they try to do to him? 00:14:25.720 --> 00:14:26.720 Throw him off a cliff. 00:14:26.800 --> 00:14:27.660 This is his family. 00:14:28.320 --> 00:14:31.720 They tried to do an honors killing on him because he claimed to be the Messiah. 00:14:31.920 --> 00:14:38.560 So, this is a family that had it in their history and in their very tradition to do this kind of thing. 00:14:38.660 --> 00:14:40.640 So, Joseph is protecting Mary. 00:14:40.920 --> 00:14:48.680 She's safer with him on this treacherous journey to Bethlehem than he thought than she would be if he left her with her own family. 00:14:49.180 --> 00:14:52.040 And who knows whether he'd have a baby or not. 00:14:52.140 --> 00:14:57.800 So, the semiotics is you don't, you explain the story, let the story explain itself. 00:14:58.580 --> 00:15:00.620 You don't try and theologically trump it. 00:15:00.660 --> 00:15:02.140 And then you can't talk anymore. 00:15:02.140 --> 00:15:04.440 You just keep treating it as a story. 00:15:04.600 --> 00:15:05.420 You trust the story. 00:15:05.540 --> 00:15:06.560 And then you live the story. 00:15:07.080 --> 00:15:13.160 And so, definitely, what, you know, I know that semiotics are becoming part of your, like, modern philosophy. 00:15:13.320 --> 00:15:16.420 You're like, I've heard you speak on this a lot and write on it. 00:15:16.480 --> 00:15:19.820 You're, you know, teaching at seminaries and things like that. 00:15:19.820 --> 00:15:27.020 But if somebody wanted to dig into more of the semiotics, like, what's, do you have a book that you really introduce the idea on? 00:15:27.060 --> 00:15:28.440 Or what's, like, the entry level? 00:15:28.440 --> 00:15:31.400 Well, what I would do is I have a YouTube channel. 00:15:32.120 --> 00:15:43.980 And I have, so far, I think 140, 141 weekly Lent talks where I show how to do semiotic readings of the scripture based on the lectionary. 00:15:44.120 --> 00:15:54.180 So, you get an introduction to semiotics from how I take these stories, these passages, these narratives, and unpack them. 00:15:55.940 --> 00:15:59.480 The basic thing about semiotics, though, you connect the dots. 00:15:59.580 --> 00:16:00.620 You don't take it apart. 00:16:00.980 --> 00:16:06.300 And what we've done to the Bible in the chapter and verse, I mean, the Bible is not written in chapter and verses. 00:16:06.440 --> 00:16:07.300 That's what we did to it. 00:16:07.340 --> 00:16:08.180 You got how many verses? 00:16:08.340 --> 00:16:09.120 37,000. 00:16:09.480 --> 00:16:13.680 So, we have laid out on the table before us 37,000 pieces of a puzzle. 00:16:14.360 --> 00:16:17.400 But the puzzle is not there to be a puzzle. 00:16:17.520 --> 00:16:19.040 The puzzle is there to put together. 00:16:20.160 --> 00:16:31.800 And what we've been doing is we've been puzzling it out further and making further puzzles of the puzzle and making more, you know, verse A and verse B, A and B of the same version. 00:16:32.720 --> 00:16:37.000 Rather than what semiotics does is, no, let's connect the dots. 00:16:37.000 --> 00:16:39.840 Let's see if we can't put the puzzle together and see the whole picture. 00:16:40.580 --> 00:16:45.060 So, yeah, check out – we'll put Leonard Sweet's YouTube channel in the show notes. 00:16:45.220 --> 00:16:45.900 It's interesting. 00:16:46.020 --> 00:16:49.300 I may want to unpack you and YouTube here in a little bit. 00:16:49.520 --> 00:16:50.680 Let's talk about T-Loss. 00:16:51.080 --> 00:16:52.940 So, T-Loss is the new book. 00:16:53.020 --> 00:16:55.660 It's coming out any day now, right? 00:16:56.440 --> 00:16:58.620 Yeah, it was to come out today, actually. 00:16:59.240 --> 00:17:01.560 But they delayed it by a week for some reason. 00:17:01.640 --> 00:17:02.240 I don't know why. 00:17:02.360 --> 00:17:04.140 But it was supposed to come out on the 6th. 00:17:04.320 --> 00:17:06.520 I guess now it's coming out on the 13th. 00:17:06.520 --> 00:17:10.620 And so, this is actually running on the 12th is when this is debuting. 00:17:11.100 --> 00:17:16.240 So, audience, tomorrow, go – we'll put the link in the show notes and you can preorder. 00:17:16.500 --> 00:17:17.820 Go to Amazon, yeah. 00:17:18.100 --> 00:17:18.720 There you go. 00:17:18.820 --> 00:17:19.800 Buy the book. 00:17:20.060 --> 00:17:21.420 And so, like, I'm looking – 00:17:21.420 --> 00:17:23.560 It's coming out in hardback, paperback, and Kindle. 00:17:23.680 --> 00:17:24.860 So, you got all three choices. 00:17:25.260 --> 00:17:25.620 So, yeah. 00:17:25.900 --> 00:17:26.220 Great. 00:17:26.320 --> 00:17:27.360 So, I'm looking here. 00:17:27.460 --> 00:17:29.720 I was looking at a quote talking about the book. 00:17:29.860 --> 00:17:33.080 I think it was on Barnes & Noble's website looking at this last night. 00:17:33.920 --> 00:17:41.320 Sweet shows how many of the political problems plaguing modern Christianity are rooted in bad theology. 00:17:42.120 --> 00:17:44.660 Like, that's a really fascinating quote. 00:17:44.860 --> 00:17:47.000 And so, how do we fix this? 00:17:47.220 --> 00:17:49.220 I don't want you to give away the end of the book here. 00:17:49.220 --> 00:17:56.780 But if we're really talking about, like, the modern state of political in the U.S. church, we'll get into the digital stuff here in a second. 00:17:56.940 --> 00:17:59.820 But talk to me a little bit about that with your current book. 00:18:00.120 --> 00:18:02.740 Well, it's a really good question. 00:18:03.140 --> 00:18:07.040 And that's really the reason why we wrote the book. 00:18:07.040 --> 00:18:18.080 And the American church especially has been fixated on eschatology, which is the return of Jesus. 00:18:19.020 --> 00:18:26.260 And that looks at kind of Jesus coming back and the notion of the rapture. 00:18:26.260 --> 00:18:41.200 And it features how he himself is returning and is a part of this coming back to rescue us. 00:18:42.120 --> 00:18:49.420 The whole point about telos is telos is the end, the doctrine of the end. 00:18:49.420 --> 00:18:57.580 And it's the notion that Jesus has already, in a sense, come back. 00:18:57.580 --> 00:19:07.120 I mean, the rapture, he is returning, but the end is already there and for us to enjoy now. 00:19:08.000 --> 00:19:12.720 And the word maranatha is an Aramaic word that comes in three tenses. 00:19:13.920 --> 00:19:17.060 We have it, you know, the one who was, the one who is, the one who is to come. 00:19:17.180 --> 00:19:19.100 But in Aramaic, it's all three together. 00:19:19.420 --> 00:19:26.000 It's one word, the one who was, the one who is, and the one who is to come. 00:19:26.300 --> 00:19:29.780 But the one who is to come is now and has been. 00:19:30.460 --> 00:19:37.180 So a telos is a sense of the, it's a discovery of you. 00:19:37.240 --> 00:19:39.200 You don't begin with now and go to the future. 00:19:39.320 --> 00:19:41.640 You begin with the future and come now. 00:19:42.020 --> 00:19:47.600 It's a recognition that Jesus doesn't so much push us from the past and bring us into the future 00:19:47.600 --> 00:19:50.640 as he's already in this future as he's already in this future pulling us towards him. 00:19:51.840 --> 00:19:59.780 And we have to, he's already there and calling us to join him in what he's already doing in this future. 00:20:00.060 --> 00:20:07.300 So that's the difference between eschatology, which is a push from the past, looking forward to something that hasn't come yet. 00:20:08.060 --> 00:20:12.620 And telos, which is teleology, not eschatology. 00:20:13.260 --> 00:20:16.980 And a teleology which starts recognizing that Jesus is already in his future. 00:20:17.820 --> 00:20:19.100 He's already the God of the future. 00:20:19.520 --> 00:20:21.420 He's already the Lord of the metaverse. 00:20:22.020 --> 00:20:27.400 And he is pulling us towards him to join him in what he's already doing. 00:20:27.560 --> 00:20:29.820 So it's a, it's a whole different orientation. 00:20:31.480 --> 00:20:34.560 And, and it's a warning. 00:20:34.560 --> 00:20:38.800 We spend six chapters warning about bad eschatologies. 00:20:38.800 --> 00:20:50.900 And one of the worst is this, this civil religion that identifies Christian faith, faith religion, and civil religion with, with this doctrine of nationalism. 00:20:50.900 --> 00:21:02.940 That somehow God is an American God, Jesus is an American Jesus, and you got all this mix up of, of faith and, and patriotism. 00:21:03.380 --> 00:21:09.040 And I mean, I, I'm a patriot, but the, but God is a God of all nations. 00:21:09.700 --> 00:21:11.380 God is a God of all peoples. 00:21:11.380 --> 00:21:25.940 And how, how do we understand that and not kind of eschatol, make America the ultimate eschaton and the drama and the scene of, of God's arena of activity. 00:21:26.500 --> 00:21:34.720 So, you know, and being, you know, digital ministry guy, being a person that engages digitally, it's interesting. 00:21:34.840 --> 00:21:37.580 This is the second podcast I've recorded today where I've said this. 00:21:37.580 --> 00:21:46.000 Like I, I'm actually fearful to have conversations about, uh, any sort of political nature in, in digital space. 00:21:46.000 --> 00:21:54.800 I mean, part of me actually feels that, that the, uh, the political scene is a distraction that pulls away from ministry opportunity. 00:21:55.100 --> 00:22:03.480 And I would much rather have conversations talking and sharing about Jesus than my political agenda, my political beliefs, 00:22:03.480 --> 00:22:12.400 because there's so much, um, animosity, hatred, discourse, bifurcation, um, in, in these digital and metaverse spaces. 00:22:12.900 --> 00:22:17.900 Um, and what's interesting is even, there's a lot of that centered around some of the stuff to transition. 00:22:17.900 --> 00:22:21.200 It's some of the stuff where we talk about doing this in church. 00:22:21.200 --> 00:22:27.880 I, I, I was literally just doing a podcast with somebody and, and, uh, I did not have a relationship with this person in advance. 00:22:27.880 --> 00:22:35.660 And, and we started talking off air about some of what I want to talk about with you, the idea of churches existing in digital and metaverse space. 00:22:35.660 --> 00:22:39.220 And, and the guy got a little upset, um, at the idea of that. 00:22:39.300 --> 00:22:43.840 He didn't realize that, that I had that belief and that went against him. 00:22:43.840 --> 00:22:45.800 And it caused discourse a little bit. 00:22:45.820 --> 00:22:48.400 I'm like, Hey, look, I'm not, I'm not trying to bait and switch it here. 00:22:48.420 --> 00:23:07.320 We don't, we don't have to have that conversation on air, but there is a lot of, um, when we look at, at church, at ecclesiology, uh, we see that there's a lot of preconceptions or extra biblical things that have come into the church that, that may or may not be in, in, in play even today. 00:23:07.920 --> 00:23:11.740 Politics has become its own religion and it's become its own God. 00:23:11.740 --> 00:23:21.680 And we live in a culture right now where politics is a religion and most of our churches are more politically segregated than they are even racially segregated. 00:23:21.680 --> 00:23:26.020 Now you've got churches, just of Democrats, churches, just of Republicans. 00:23:27.020 --> 00:23:40.480 Um, and you got couples that would never concede when I was growing up, Jeff, I don't know if you remember this, but what tradition you came out of, but it was, can, can a Methodist marry a Presbyterian? 00:23:40.480 --> 00:23:43.740 You know, or can a Methodist marry a Baptist? 00:23:43.920 --> 00:23:44.740 Can you believe this? 00:23:45.380 --> 00:23:51.180 Now that's all gone and rightfully so, but now it's, I would never, I'm a Democrat. 00:23:51.300 --> 00:23:53.740 I would never marry a Republican or I'm a Republican. 00:23:53.860 --> 00:23:55.080 I would never marry a Democrat. 00:23:55.560 --> 00:24:00.380 You know, we're, we are so, you know, and we look to politics to save us. 00:24:00.580 --> 00:24:04.820 God did not, Jesus did not say, I'm going to send you politicians to save you. 00:24:05.060 --> 00:24:08.240 You know, no, the, the saving comes from Christ. 00:24:08.240 --> 00:24:22.240 And, and, um, that's so, that Telos is also making exactly this, this argument that, that, um, we ought to have churches where pacifists and generals can sit in the same pew side by side and worship God. 00:24:22.240 --> 00:24:26.820 Where Republicans and Democrats can be brought together out of a common identity in Christ. 00:24:26.880 --> 00:24:31.480 Our identity is not in our political religion, which, and it has become a religion. 00:24:32.040 --> 00:24:35.700 Our identity is in Christ that brings us all together. 00:24:36.260 --> 00:24:39.780 And, um, that's, what's going to, that's, what's going to save us. 00:24:40.340 --> 00:24:42.600 Well, I tell you what, you can check out Telos. 00:24:42.800 --> 00:24:44.360 Uh, the link is in the show notes. 00:24:44.460 --> 00:24:47.000 We'll be sure to include that as well for you all. 00:24:47.180 --> 00:24:50.860 And, uh, uh, Leonard, I'm looking forward to, to reading. 00:24:51.080 --> 00:24:52.280 What number book is this? 00:24:52.320 --> 00:24:53.320 Is this like 62? 00:24:53.560 --> 00:24:53.980 Where are you? 00:24:54.300 --> 00:24:55.960 74, 197. 00:24:56.540 --> 00:24:57.980 I think this is like 71. 00:24:58.760 --> 00:24:59.160 71. 00:25:00.160 --> 00:25:00.520 Dang. 00:25:01.100 --> 00:25:02.660 That's, that's, that's a lot. 00:25:03.080 --> 00:25:03.340 I don't know. 00:25:03.980 --> 00:25:06.560 I've, I've got book two publishing like next month. 00:25:06.620 --> 00:25:10.120 So 71, I got, I got a little bit to go to catch up, uh, to you, sir. 00:25:10.120 --> 00:25:12.320 So, hey, well, let's, let's do this. 00:25:12.360 --> 00:25:16.440 Let's pivot because I, I would love some insight from you. 00:25:16.540 --> 00:25:22.180 Now, I, I have a feeling that the world that we're operating in, in, in digital ministry 00:25:22.180 --> 00:25:25.820 and digital church, you don't, you, I, you know, from some of the conversations, I don't 00:25:25.820 --> 00:25:29.360 think you've got a lot of experience in that space, which is great. 00:25:29.440 --> 00:25:34.220 I actually would like the, uh, the knee jerk reactions, the, the obstacles, the challenges, 00:25:34.460 --> 00:25:37.900 the, the pros and the cons approach from here, from you. 00:25:37.900 --> 00:25:43.760 And so, um, a lot of our audience now, a lot of people that are listening are your typical 00:25:43.760 --> 00:25:46.540 physical churches that are doing digital ministry. 00:25:46.540 --> 00:25:48.860 They're, they're broadcasting church services. 00:25:48.860 --> 00:25:51.060 They're figuring out how to do small groups. 00:25:51.500 --> 00:25:59.180 Um, they're maybe exploring with, with the doing things in social media and, uh, Facebook groups. 00:25:59.360 --> 00:26:04.420 Uh, they're doing some discipleship, but they haven't really figured out, um, what that looks 00:26:04.420 --> 00:26:04.780 like. 00:26:04.780 --> 00:26:07.620 And so there's a lot of that, that we're working with now. 00:26:07.680 --> 00:26:12.580 But in addition to that, um, there are people that are listening to this podcast in the audience 00:26:12.580 --> 00:26:18.680 that are planting churches in, in digital space or in virtual reality that are running Facebook 00:26:18.680 --> 00:26:22.580 churches or, or video game churches or Twitch churches. 00:26:22.580 --> 00:26:29.360 And we're seeing almost different categories of, of, of churches, um, rising up. 00:26:29.440 --> 00:26:34.280 What we're realizing is that by doing church, by being the church in these different environments, 00:26:34.280 --> 00:26:37.060 we're reaching a different type of person. 00:26:37.340 --> 00:26:43.020 Uh, we're empowering a different type of leader and we're discipling in, in different ways. 00:26:43.020 --> 00:26:47.680 I can tell you stories of atheists and agnostics that are going to church for the first time 00:26:47.680 --> 00:26:51.940 in virtual reality, de-churched people that are coming back to the bride of Christ through 00:26:51.940 --> 00:26:58.540 a Facebook group, um, Satanists and neo-pagans, uh, that are, that are connecting in the metaverse 00:26:58.540 --> 00:26:59.560 for the first time. 00:26:59.680 --> 00:27:01.640 Like there's some beautiful stories. 00:27:02.140 --> 00:27:05.160 What we're not seeing is, Hey, you know what? 00:27:05.180 --> 00:27:07.440 I'm just going to stay at home on my couch this week. 00:27:07.700 --> 00:27:10.820 Stay, get in my underwear and watch virtual reality church. 00:27:10.820 --> 00:27:15.380 Like that's the stuff that's happening in the metaverse is not that it's, we're reaching 00:27:15.380 --> 00:27:18.360 people that aren't going to the building. 00:27:18.820 --> 00:27:24.820 So, um, I don't know, like, have you, do you have any awareness in any traction of, of church 00:27:24.820 --> 00:27:25.420 in that space? 00:27:25.420 --> 00:27:31.500 Or as I talk about that, as the, the academia that you are like, what are the pros? 00:27:31.620 --> 00:27:32.300 What are the cons? 00:27:32.380 --> 00:27:33.680 What are the challenges, obstacles? 00:27:34.120 --> 00:27:39.240 What would you see kind of as you were looking at that type of opportunity? 00:27:39.440 --> 00:27:48.260 Well, I mean, I, I was the first, um, person to have an educational degree offered in second 00:27:48.260 --> 00:27:48.660 life. 00:27:49.320 --> 00:27:58.920 Right after second life came online, I, um, created a campus in second life and each one 00:27:58.920 --> 00:28:05.800 of my doctoral students, this was, uh, my doctor ministry students, uh, had an avatar and we did 00:28:05.800 --> 00:28:12.880 all of our classes and we had three different campuses, a, a, a water ocean campus, a mountain 00:28:12.880 --> 00:28:15.320 campus and a, and a desert campus. 00:28:15.320 --> 00:28:18.720 And I'd let the students know which campus we were going to be at that week. 00:28:18.780 --> 00:28:23.920 And so we'd, we'd come together and, and this was back. 00:28:24.000 --> 00:28:28.300 I mean, this is like 15 years ago, um, right after second life started. 00:28:29.040 --> 00:28:36.720 So I do have some experience here, um, of, uh, connecting and you could actually order the textbooks, 00:28:36.720 --> 00:28:45.620 um, for the, my courses there in the metaverse and have Amazon deliver them. 00:28:45.680 --> 00:28:50.060 I mean, it was that, so there was a bridge between the two worlds already. 00:28:51.460 --> 00:28:56.180 And, uh, I'd still be doing that, Jeff, if it weren't for second life is suddenly increase. 00:28:56.240 --> 00:29:00.740 I was paying for this cause I know, no, none of the schools I taught, I understood it and 00:29:00.740 --> 00:29:03.400 thought it was worth, were the investigates. 00:29:03.440 --> 00:29:08.720 I was paying, I basically, my whole honorarium was going to pay for this, this experience. 00:29:08.960 --> 00:29:13.960 Um, and, um, then they, they upped the rates, uh, just like tripled them. 00:29:13.960 --> 00:29:16.380 And I could not afford to continue to pay that. 00:29:16.420 --> 00:29:26.080 So I'd still be in there probably if it hadn't been for that, um, um, that, um, cost a factor. 00:29:26.820 --> 00:29:38.640 I do, I do think that, um, that we, we need both to build and to plant churches in physical 00:29:38.640 --> 00:29:42.600 space, but we need to do church planting in, in the metaverse. 00:29:43.620 --> 00:29:51.940 And, uh, and, uh, and the, the challenge though, is that the kind of churches you plant in the 00:29:51.940 --> 00:29:54.360 metaverse can't be like the churches you plant. 00:29:54.800 --> 00:30:00.400 It had been planted in, in the previous print culture and the kind of churches that we're doing. 00:30:00.500 --> 00:30:02.860 It's, this is contextual intelligence. 00:30:02.860 --> 00:30:12.680 You have to let the context, um, determine what kind of, of, uh, church that will be, what kind 00:30:12.680 --> 00:30:13.980 of ministry that will be. 00:30:14.660 --> 00:30:23.320 And, um, to, and to impose standards other than letting that context emerge organically 00:30:23.320 --> 00:30:25.240 is colonialism. 00:30:25.840 --> 00:30:28.060 I mean, it's a form of colonialism. 00:30:28.480 --> 00:30:33.180 We colonize and that's how, that was our first use of digital culture. 00:30:33.320 --> 00:30:38.760 We use digital culture as we use print culture and we try to do print on the screen. 00:30:38.880 --> 00:30:42.700 You all know, you know, the story, and then we're still doing that in some ways. 00:30:42.760 --> 00:30:43.460 We'll still try. 00:30:43.580 --> 00:30:48.680 And when you think of church, we think of, you know, one way of church and the church that 00:30:48.680 --> 00:30:57.800 we're used to, and we've got to let this metaverse, um, tell us and teach us how to do church given 00:30:57.800 --> 00:30:58.720 that context. 00:30:59.240 --> 00:31:04.480 And I think it's going to be a very different kind of experience, excuse me, a very different 00:31:04.480 --> 00:31:10.400 kind of experience and of church than the one that we have, um, you know, there's kind 00:31:10.400 --> 00:31:13.000 of the, in China, they have the above ground church and the underground church. 00:31:13.000 --> 00:31:17.320 And, um, we have, we have both going on here. 00:31:17.420 --> 00:31:23.060 We got the above ground church and the metaverse church and, um, and to be a part of both, to 00:31:23.060 --> 00:31:32.420 see both as valid, um, to, um, but very different experiences and to be contextually driven. 00:31:33.340 --> 00:31:35.740 Um, and that's, that's what I'm missing. 00:31:35.740 --> 00:31:45.720 I'm missing that, um, I'm missing that contextual richness that, um, that incarnates the gospel 00:31:45.720 --> 00:31:54.000 in this new space in a whole new way, um, rather than tries to force into this new space, 00:31:54.000 --> 00:31:57.240 the ways in which we've done it before, the ways in which we're familiar. 00:31:57.700 --> 00:32:03.900 Yeah, that's actually probably the biggest challenge that our planters face, that the people that 00:32:03.900 --> 00:32:09.000 are doing church and in virtual reality and in digital churches, every time I have the, 00:32:09.020 --> 00:32:13.420 the initial conversation, I still want to say every time, but the majority of the time I 00:32:13.420 --> 00:32:18.900 meet these people within the first couple months of their doing ministry or dreaming about doing 00:32:18.900 --> 00:32:24.020 ministry or wanting to do the start of church in these spaces, they all sound like a physical 00:32:24.020 --> 00:32:28.080 church, you know, and, and more often than not, um, I'm challenging them. 00:32:28.080 --> 00:32:31.900 Hey, you are being very limited in your scope. 00:32:32.100 --> 00:32:38.140 You're, you are only trying to replicate what you've seen and you're not have, you're not 00:32:38.140 --> 00:32:41.140 trying to imagine what could be. 00:32:41.380 --> 00:32:47.460 And, and, and, and unfortunately a lot of the imagination, uh, a lot of those that, that 00:32:47.460 --> 00:32:50.500 are imagining, like the, the imagination is incredible. 00:32:50.600 --> 00:32:54.200 Mission imagination, God is doing some incredible things in the spaces. 00:32:54.200 --> 00:32:59.460 And there's a lot of pioneers and there's a lot of, uh, innovators that are doing some 00:32:59.460 --> 00:33:03.040 really creative space for creative things for the kingdom in these spaces. 00:33:03.700 --> 00:33:06.940 The unfortunate reality is, is it's, it's taken their lumps. 00:33:07.440 --> 00:33:09.260 Uh, you know, I don't even talk about this publicly. 00:33:09.500 --> 00:33:10.660 I don't think I've said this before. 00:33:11.140 --> 00:33:17.580 Um, but actually I got, I got called out by, um, uh, John MacArthur's organization just 00:33:17.580 --> 00:33:19.580 recently within the past couple months. 00:33:19.780 --> 00:33:23.540 Uh, Chesley Lundy, who was a co-founder with me of Digital Church Network. 00:33:23.540 --> 00:33:26.760 This is an organization that helps plant digital and metaverse churches. 00:33:27.180 --> 00:33:32.860 Chesley actually got called out by name, uh, because of the idea of church operating in 00:33:32.860 --> 00:33:35.280 digital space and were purported experts. 00:33:35.280 --> 00:33:40.160 And, and, um, I'll just, I'll just be honest, Leonard, like for the first 20 minutes, I was, 00:33:40.240 --> 00:33:41.220 I was really upset. 00:33:41.900 --> 00:33:47.160 Um, and then I, I kind of calmed down and I realized, oh my gosh, this is the highest ranking, 00:33:47.160 --> 00:33:52.640 uh, person that I've actually managed to alienate as a result of doing digital church. 00:33:52.720 --> 00:33:54.600 I'm actually taking a step in the right direction. 00:33:54.680 --> 00:33:56.040 We're getting more attention. 00:33:56.040 --> 00:33:57.540 Like this is, this is a win. 00:33:57.600 --> 00:33:58.500 This isn't a loss. 00:33:58.640 --> 00:34:00.100 Who else can I take off today? 00:34:01.260 --> 00:34:05.040 It was not my first hate site, but it was the highest ranking hate site. 00:34:05.040 --> 00:34:09.200 Like I'm more of like a B level minor league hate site. 00:34:09.560 --> 00:34:12.620 And so this was, this was the first one that was upper level. 00:34:13.120 --> 00:34:15.940 Like, Hey, listen, you can scroll through my YouTube comments. 00:34:15.940 --> 00:34:18.820 If you want to see hate go, I can send you some videos. 00:34:18.820 --> 00:34:22.620 I got plenty of hate over there, but I got, we all got them. 00:34:22.840 --> 00:34:23.580 I feel sorry. 00:34:23.680 --> 00:34:25.100 Nobody's got more than Rick Warren though. 00:34:25.160 --> 00:34:27.160 Rick Warren has the most hate sites of anybody. 00:34:27.160 --> 00:34:32.580 I just feel so sorry for him, but, uh, he's, he's the king of hate sites, but yeah, we, 00:34:32.940 --> 00:34:34.380 it's kind of a badge of distinction. 00:34:34.380 --> 00:34:38.140 How many hate sites do you have, you know, and, and who's hating you? 00:34:38.140 --> 00:34:41.900 Uh, because then, you know, you're doing something for, for Jesus, for the gospel. 00:34:41.900 --> 00:34:46.140 I mean, uh, beware when I'll speak well of you, Jesus said. 00:34:46.540 --> 00:34:52.460 Um, so if you don't have some people that are really coming after you, you're not, um, you're 00:34:52.460 --> 00:34:55.700 not making, uh, enough of a difference for God in the gospel. 00:34:55.700 --> 00:34:57.280 So I congratulate you. 00:34:57.280 --> 00:34:58.220 Thank you for that. 00:34:58.280 --> 00:34:59.560 Leonard Sweet says, congratulations. 00:35:02.360 --> 00:35:07.480 So let me ask this, cause, cause when I, when I have these conversations, um, when I talk 00:35:07.480 --> 00:35:12.960 with people about planting a digital church, uh, the people who think this is a horrendous 00:35:12.960 --> 00:35:18.420 idea will quote the don't abandon the get, don't forsake the gathering, uh, Bible verse. 00:35:18.480 --> 00:35:24.020 And when I talk to the people that are doing it in this space that are meeting in virtual 00:35:24.020 --> 00:35:28.920 reality, that are meeting in digital church, they're quoting at me, the don't forsake the 00:35:28.920 --> 00:35:29.800 gathering scripture. 00:35:29.800 --> 00:35:36.180 So the same scripture is being quoted, uh, in favor of and against the idea of church and 00:35:36.180 --> 00:35:36.880 virtual reality. 00:35:37.040 --> 00:35:41.800 Like from an ecclesiological standpoint and realizing that you are far more educated than 00:35:41.800 --> 00:35:44.980 I am in this, um, it can, can this happen? 00:35:45.060 --> 00:35:45.900 Is this stable? 00:35:46.100 --> 00:35:52.200 Like what, what is your view of the ecclesiology or should we be looking at it from a different 00:35:52.200 --> 00:35:52.700 perspective? 00:35:53.140 --> 00:35:57.640 No, I, I think, but I think part of the problem is that we're used to that word church, Jeff. 00:35:58.120 --> 00:36:05.840 When, when you immediately say church, um, people, it's hard to get rid of all the preconceptions 00:36:05.840 --> 00:36:08.520 that come with, with that word. 00:36:08.800 --> 00:36:13.160 So I, I just talk about planning a, a ministry, planning a mission. 00:36:13.520 --> 00:36:19.500 I mean, come up with, with some other phrase, um, than planning a church. 00:36:19.540 --> 00:36:22.320 So this is, is planning a body of Christ. 00:36:22.480 --> 00:36:24.280 I mean, that's, that's what really what the church is. 00:36:24.320 --> 00:36:26.660 It's a, it's a new body of Christ. 00:36:26.780 --> 00:36:28.240 The body of Christ is the temple. 00:36:28.640 --> 00:36:35.380 And so what does it mean to, um, where were the temples and, and the, the, the body of Christ, 00:36:35.460 --> 00:36:37.300 the bride of Christ is the, is the temple. 00:36:37.520 --> 00:36:42.900 So use some, I think part of it is just using a new, some new language. 00:36:43.180 --> 00:36:46.760 Um, and that, that's why I love the word adventurer. 00:36:46.960 --> 00:36:53.060 I mean, you're digital, the people listening to this podcast, they, the word adventure comes 00:36:53.060 --> 00:36:53.860 from the word advent. 00:36:54.820 --> 00:37:02.760 Advent means, you know, ambushed by an arrival of something special and, and fresh and, and, 00:37:02.760 --> 00:37:05.640 and God, God anointed and appointed. 00:37:06.240 --> 00:37:12.260 It's not an, an, an adventurer is somebody who lives out that advent, who, who sees life as an 00:37:12.260 --> 00:37:13.900 adventure, as an advent. 00:37:14.280 --> 00:37:17.380 And what you're talking about in digital space here are advents. 00:37:18.100 --> 00:37:22.660 Um, I don't like the word invent, invent is something we create, but an advent is something 00:37:22.660 --> 00:37:25.480 that God creates and surprises us with. 00:37:25.480 --> 00:37:33.640 And, and how do we then in this digital, uh, universe, um, be true adventurers, uh, people 00:37:33.640 --> 00:37:41.580 who are seeking advents, new arrivals of God's presence and power in this new realm and what 00:37:41.580 --> 00:37:51.660 forms can it take and what new temples can be built in this, um, in this new, um, new metaverse. 00:37:51.880 --> 00:37:57.780 Um, so I, I just, I think part of our language gets us in trouble, um, the metaphors that we 00:37:57.780 --> 00:38:02.560 use and, and this word church, even in church, what is called church planning. 00:38:02.660 --> 00:38:03.540 I try to stay away from it. 00:38:03.580 --> 00:38:08.260 You're not church planning, you're ministry planning, you're mission planning, you're adventing. 00:38:09.360 --> 00:38:15.280 Um, what does it mean to advent in this new, uh, this new universe? 00:38:15.940 --> 00:38:17.420 Um, that's the advent. 00:38:17.660 --> 00:38:20.440 I've, I've, I've not heard that, that perspective before that. 00:38:20.560 --> 00:38:21.780 That's, that's fascinating. 00:38:22.460 --> 00:38:28.360 The, you know, what's funny is, is even like in the space, the, the digital planters, the, 00:38:28.360 --> 00:38:32.820 the metaverse planters, um, we, we've all struggled with, are we a church? 00:38:32.880 --> 00:38:33.740 Are we not a church? 00:38:33.880 --> 00:38:40.480 I can tell you like, um, Dr. John Harris, who I wrote, uh, the second book with on a digital 00:38:40.480 --> 00:38:41.160 evangelism. 00:38:41.280 --> 00:38:47.560 He actually runs, uh, uh, uh, a Facebook church, but he has such a large percentage of 00:38:47.560 --> 00:38:49.220 50 church people in his ministry. 00:38:49.900 --> 00:38:51.540 He doesn't use the word church. 00:38:51.620 --> 00:38:53.940 He's discipleship ministry, similar to what you're saying. 00:38:54.040 --> 00:38:58.340 Jade Earhart's another one who just has gotten so much. 00:38:58.340 --> 00:39:04.860 And he's so, um, he's actually a very, um, probably of all the digital planters I know, 00:39:04.980 --> 00:39:09.360 Jade's actually one of the brightest when it comes to biblical knowledge and, you know, 00:39:09.420 --> 00:39:12.040 of, of, of just awareness of scripture. 00:39:12.640 --> 00:39:19.040 Uh, and so he believes he's a church, but he's gotten so much like negative conversation 00:39:19.040 --> 00:39:24.040 centered around what he's doing, whether it's a church or not, that he's, he's adopted the 00:39:24.040 --> 00:39:25.080 mindset of a missionary. 00:39:25.340 --> 00:39:30.640 And instead, Hey, I just, I'm, I'm missionally living, um, with, and just kind of sidestepping. 00:39:30.800 --> 00:39:34.740 And then you got some of the other guys that, you know, want to grab the bull by the horns 00:39:34.740 --> 00:39:39.500 and don't mind the controversy and, and, and, and want to, want to shake up the system and 00:39:39.500 --> 00:39:40.360 cause a disruption. 00:39:40.360 --> 00:39:45.100 And, you know, we try to, we try to coach them on a humble disruptor. 00:39:45.100 --> 00:39:49.580 Let's kind of like, you know, let's not, you know, screw the world in the process of, 00:39:49.580 --> 00:39:50.180 of doing it. 00:39:50.180 --> 00:39:55.340 And so, yeah, lots of, man, it's, it's a fascinating season trying to help. 00:39:55.540 --> 00:39:56.100 It's funny. 00:39:56.120 --> 00:40:02.780 Like even, even your idea of the adventurer, um, we, the language we've used, and this is, 00:40:02.860 --> 00:40:07.440 this is not the best example I'll tell you right now, but it's the, if we, I think Chesley 00:40:07.440 --> 00:40:12.320 came up with this, one of, one of the guys that I work with, um, it, the, the saying is 00:40:12.320 --> 00:40:16.560 that, um, pioneers get shot, settlers get rich. 00:40:16.940 --> 00:40:23.580 And so it's like, we're kind of that, that first wave right now doing this thing, trying 00:40:23.580 --> 00:40:24.580 something new. 00:40:24.580 --> 00:40:30.220 And, and we're, we're kind of in, in that getting shot period where some people are supportive, 00:40:30.340 --> 00:40:31.620 some people not so much. 00:40:31.620 --> 00:40:36.540 And there's, there's bullets flying by us, uh, whether intentional or unintentional. 00:40:36.540 --> 00:40:37.160 I like that. 00:40:37.340 --> 00:40:44.840 I mean, I don't like that pioneer settler imagery, but I do, I do think that we need to understand 00:40:44.840 --> 00:40:46.460 and we are a people of the edge. 00:40:46.840 --> 00:40:48.400 We are not a people of the center. 00:40:48.560 --> 00:40:49.900 The center is the past. 00:40:50.260 --> 00:40:51.900 The center is the status quo. 00:40:52.760 --> 00:40:55.740 And that whole metaphor of the center, when people say, well, Jesus is my center. 00:40:55.880 --> 00:40:57.960 I say, well, what's your circumference then? 00:40:58.500 --> 00:41:00.660 You know, isn't Jesus supposed to be everything? 00:41:00.800 --> 00:41:03.740 Isn't he supposed to be everything that there is? 00:41:04.060 --> 00:41:09.240 So, but where you find Jesus most forming in the future is not at the center. 00:41:09.580 --> 00:41:10.540 It's at the edges. 00:41:10.700 --> 00:41:12.660 Jesus did not choose the disciples from the center. 00:41:12.780 --> 00:41:14.200 He didn't choose the movers and shakers. 00:41:14.500 --> 00:41:20.120 He chose his disciples from the edges, from the periphery, from the, and so there's different 00:41:20.120 --> 00:41:22.840 levels of edge, I think. 00:41:22.920 --> 00:41:25.260 So you've got the, the leading edge. 00:41:26.160 --> 00:41:27.660 You've got the cutting edge. 00:41:29.240 --> 00:41:31.340 You've got the bleeding edge. 00:41:32.460 --> 00:41:36.220 And then you've got the place of martyrs, which is, I call it the ledge edge. 00:41:38.340 --> 00:41:45.740 And I think at various times, Jeff, we're called to be different, at different places in the 00:41:45.740 --> 00:41:47.520 edge, but we're always called to the edge. 00:41:48.160 --> 00:41:50.000 So we are all edge people. 00:41:50.180 --> 00:41:52.580 We're edgy people, just by definition. 00:41:53.100 --> 00:41:57.600 If we're truly a follower of Jesus, we're not playing it safe in the center. 00:41:57.980 --> 00:42:00.720 We're out on the edges, but there are various edges. 00:42:00.720 --> 00:42:06.320 And there's the, the, the, the leading edge, the cutting edge and the bleeding edge. 00:42:06.320 --> 00:42:08.280 And you're, you're on the bleeding edge. 00:42:08.280 --> 00:42:13.420 And a lot of your people out here are either on the cutting edge or the bleeding edge. 00:42:13.420 --> 00:42:19.540 And then, you know, there are, the church has moved forward because some people were willing 00:42:19.540 --> 00:42:24.220 to, to say, um, I'm, this is worth my life. 00:42:24.820 --> 00:42:30.460 And we have a, we read the Bible in English today because William Tyndall, um, translated 00:42:30.460 --> 00:42:33.900 the Bible in English and for it, he didn't get royalty payments. 00:42:33.900 --> 00:42:36.120 He didn't get the Pulitzer Prize for literature. 00:42:36.280 --> 00:42:37.100 He got martyred. 00:42:37.420 --> 00:42:41.060 I mean, you and I can read the Bible in English today because he was on the ledge edge. 00:42:41.720 --> 00:42:45.120 He, he said, I'm going to, you can't stop me. 00:42:45.160 --> 00:42:46.360 I'm going to translate the Bible. 00:42:46.560 --> 00:42:50.260 So the poor boy behind the plow, that was his metaphor, can read it in English. 00:42:51.100 --> 00:42:54.700 And he, um, he got martyred for it. 00:42:54.700 --> 00:43:01.060 So sometimes I wonder if maybe we haven't done better at claiming this new world, this 00:43:01.060 --> 00:43:05.440 new metaverse for Jesus, because some of us haven't willing to be, be martyrs. 00:43:05.660 --> 00:43:11.400 Um, the church moves forward, um, sometimes by the willingness of people to, to give their 00:43:11.400 --> 00:43:11.840 lives. 00:43:11.840 --> 00:43:15.740 And, uh, so I think we're all called to the edge. 00:43:15.860 --> 00:43:22.340 What level edge will vary in our life and will vary what, what level edge we can take 00:43:22.340 --> 00:43:25.880 will, will, will change, but we're all called to the edge. 00:43:26.180 --> 00:43:26.360 All right. 00:43:26.360 --> 00:43:27.420 So let me ask this question. 00:43:28.000 --> 00:43:34.100 Um, what I'm seeing as, as I'm talking to these people, these people that are, are living 00:43:34.100 --> 00:43:36.380 on the edge, probably bleeding edge. 00:43:36.460 --> 00:43:41.020 I don't think we've, we've got many martyrs or edge, edge people, although we've got some 00:43:41.020 --> 00:43:43.200 that are on the tip of the spear going, going in. 00:43:43.300 --> 00:43:50.360 I do believe that I'm actually seeing a different model of, of pastor, of planter coming out 00:43:50.360 --> 00:43:50.840 of this. 00:43:51.380 --> 00:43:56.260 Um, it was, I was working with stated church planning for a while and, uh, helping plant 00:43:56.260 --> 00:43:57.700 digital churches through stadia. 00:43:57.880 --> 00:44:02.940 And I would tell them, Hey, I've got like 75% of the people that want to plant a digital 00:44:02.940 --> 00:44:05.100 expression of a church are bivocational. 00:44:05.500 --> 00:44:09.580 Like these are not seminary trained people that I'm now talking with. 00:44:09.580 --> 00:44:10.620 It's a completely new model. 00:44:10.960 --> 00:44:14.740 And it was funny, stadia would tell me back to like, Hey, physical church, it's like 00:44:14.740 --> 00:44:16.280 12 to 20%. 00:44:16.280 --> 00:44:18.780 It's, it's not as aggressive as what you're seeing. 00:44:19.000 --> 00:44:22.440 And now, now it's like, for me, it's past 75. 00:44:22.440 --> 00:44:23.360 It's even more. 00:44:23.760 --> 00:44:30.100 And, and, and actually the average planter, it's almost now 50% bivocational. 00:44:30.300 --> 00:44:31.600 Are you in other spaces? 00:44:31.600 --> 00:44:37.880 Are you seeing maybe a change in the model coming from an academia world that, that, that 00:44:37.880 --> 00:44:38.480 you are? 00:44:38.660 --> 00:44:43.640 I mean, what, what does that mean that we now have, I mean, I don't want to say uneducated, 00:44:43.640 --> 00:44:48.440 but unseminary trained people, um, actively pastoring and doing ministry. 00:44:49.000 --> 00:44:49.240 Yeah. 00:44:49.280 --> 00:44:50.900 And I think, I think it's a good thing. 00:44:50.900 --> 00:44:51.720 It's a good sign. 00:44:51.720 --> 00:44:57.140 I do think we need to find new ways of, of academically forming these people. 00:44:57.140 --> 00:45:05.440 But, um, but yeah, I think, I think in the future there will, the idea of this being a paid 00:45:05.440 --> 00:45:10.520 profession and even seeing it as a quote profession will become increasingly problematic. 00:45:10.520 --> 00:45:14.340 I don't like the metaphor of bivocational. 00:45:14.480 --> 00:45:15.220 I don't like the word. 00:45:15.320 --> 00:45:16.800 There's only one vocation, Jeff. 00:45:17.620 --> 00:45:23.680 I mean, there's only one calling that calling will have multiple expressions and multiple 00:45:23.680 --> 00:45:32.100 manifestations, but, um, you don't, you don't, it's not bifurcated, you know, it's, it's 00:45:32.100 --> 00:45:35.960 not something that's by, it is one calling. 00:45:35.960 --> 00:45:41.580 We all are received as one calling and that one calling at various times in our life will 00:45:41.580 --> 00:45:44.620 have different ways of expressing itself and manifesting itself. 00:45:45.120 --> 00:45:53.340 So, and, um, you know, sometimes we will need, uh, depending on what way we're in our life 00:45:53.340 --> 00:46:00.680 to receive more income for that, um, for that out, out fitting and outcropping of that calling 00:46:00.680 --> 00:46:02.920 and other times we'll be able to receive less. 00:46:02.920 --> 00:46:06.060 So, but it's one calling, let's get this clear. 00:46:06.600 --> 00:46:07.400 One calling. 00:46:07.940 --> 00:46:08.140 Yeah. 00:46:08.340 --> 00:46:13.660 So do you, what do you, what do you, what do you call somebody who like, it's just, just 00:46:13.660 --> 00:46:19.040 like, what's the term you use instead of, um, uh, bivocational? 00:46:19.520 --> 00:46:23.960 What, what, how do you describe a person that's, that's just ministry? 00:46:24.120 --> 00:46:25.200 There is no label. 00:46:25.620 --> 00:46:25.860 Yeah. 00:46:26.480 --> 00:46:27.400 We're all ministers. 00:46:27.700 --> 00:46:34.980 We're all called in the ministry and some of us, you know, some get, um, paid for it, 00:46:35.040 --> 00:46:38.860 doing more of it than others, but we're all called into, into ministry. 00:46:38.860 --> 00:46:41.240 We are all by virtue of our baptism. 00:46:41.240 --> 00:46:42.360 We are all ministers. 00:46:42.360 --> 00:46:49.160 We've been ordained in the ministry and our baptismal certificate is our commissioning into 00:46:49.160 --> 00:46:49.800 missions. 00:46:50.160 --> 00:46:53.900 So we're all in, we have a ministry to the body and a mission in the world. 00:46:54.300 --> 00:46:56.220 So there's that double thing here. 00:46:56.380 --> 00:47:02.380 We're, we're ministers by virtue of our baptism, but also we are missionaries by virtue of our 00:47:02.380 --> 00:47:02.820 baptism. 00:47:02.820 --> 00:47:05.900 So we have a ministry again to the body and a mission in the world. 00:47:05.900 --> 00:47:11.000 And, um, so it's not, some are high vocation and some don't. 00:47:11.060 --> 00:47:16.740 I think there's, there's this calling for each of us that will express itself differently 00:47:16.740 --> 00:47:18.080 at different times in your life. 00:47:18.080 --> 00:47:25.180 And, um, and that we need to, so the question becomes then what's your ministry to the body 00:47:25.180 --> 00:47:26.340 and what's your mission in the world? 00:47:27.120 --> 00:47:28.500 And everybody ought to have one. 00:47:28.660 --> 00:47:31.160 That's why we have a missionary family. 00:47:31.220 --> 00:47:32.580 I have a missionary marriage. 00:47:32.600 --> 00:47:33.660 I have missionary kids. 00:47:33.720 --> 00:47:34.760 I don't go on a mission trip. 00:47:34.760 --> 00:47:36.140 All of life is a mission trip. 00:47:36.960 --> 00:47:40.800 Um, let's be clear here about our, our, what this is. 00:47:40.940 --> 00:47:46.340 So, um, everybody needs a ministry to the body. 00:47:46.480 --> 00:47:50.780 Everybody needs to identify and name and claim what's your mission in the world. 00:47:51.820 --> 00:47:53.340 And sometimes you get paid for it. 00:47:53.380 --> 00:47:54.300 Sometimes you don't. 00:47:54.400 --> 00:47:56.260 No, I love what you just said. 00:47:56.280 --> 00:47:57.480 And let's, let's build on it. 00:47:57.520 --> 00:48:03.060 So in a world where everybody has a calling, what's the role of the church? 00:48:03.200 --> 00:48:04.740 It's not the church's mission. 00:48:04.760 --> 00:48:05.800 It's God's mission. 00:48:06.340 --> 00:48:08.800 So it'd be a part of God's mission in the world. 00:48:09.180 --> 00:48:10.340 And this is the problem. 00:48:10.460 --> 00:48:19.560 A lot of the church has made, um, a mission for itself apart from God's mission. 00:48:19.920 --> 00:48:20.360 Okay. 00:48:21.360 --> 00:48:37.560 Um, and that's when, um, that's when you got Jesus, you know, God saying, okay, if you don't want to be a part of my mission, it's called choice and consequences, but I will not be without a witness. 00:48:37.560 --> 00:48:46.160 So literally, um, what happens is God goes that pagan Persian King Cyrus and says, I'll use you. 00:48:46.260 --> 00:48:48.200 God goes to that prostitute Rehub, I'll use you. 00:48:48.480 --> 00:48:53.500 So sometimes God's more active in the world than in the church because the church is off on its own mission. 00:48:53.860 --> 00:48:55.600 So it's not the church's mission. 00:48:55.660 --> 00:48:56.440 It's God's mission. 00:48:56.980 --> 00:48:59.480 And the question is, is God's mission going to have a church? 00:48:59.980 --> 00:49:00.640 One more question. 00:49:00.940 --> 00:49:03.980 And we're running short on time, but look at looking forward to this. 00:49:04.440 --> 00:49:05.340 You're a futurist. 00:49:06.940 --> 00:49:11.960 1990, you were dreaming and talking about Epic, which is setting the stage for where the church is today. 00:49:12.660 --> 00:49:15.280 Um, what's the church in 2040 look like? 00:49:15.680 --> 00:49:17.480 Where are we going in the next 18 years? 00:49:17.940 --> 00:49:21.420 I want to do a little, let me end with this little challenge to you. 00:49:21.540 --> 00:49:25.620 Um, that's not a big enough. 00:49:25.700 --> 00:49:25.940 Okay. 00:49:26.580 --> 00:49:27.060 Go bigger. 00:49:27.280 --> 00:49:27.640 Perspective. 00:49:28.300 --> 00:49:36.920 Um, a child born between 1990 and 2000 has a greater, a female has a greater than 50% chance of death. 00:49:36.940 --> 00:49:49.980 Well, in the 22nd century, a male born between 2000, 2010 or female has a greater than 50% chance of living well into the 22nd century. 00:49:50.460 --> 00:49:53.640 These are 22nd century kids. 00:49:53.880 --> 00:50:00.020 We are norming and forming faith in 22nd century kids. 00:50:00.680 --> 00:50:01.800 How are we doing? 00:50:02.440 --> 00:50:05.460 We think we've seen changes the past 10, 20 years. 00:50:05.780 --> 00:50:10.700 What they're going to see in their lifetime is unbelievable. 00:50:12.060 --> 00:50:29.400 And, um, so I, I really think it's not so much, what is the church going to look like, but what, how can we navigate this, this stampede, this avalanche of change that is coming driven by, and I call it a grainy future. 00:50:29.400 --> 00:50:36.580 G-R-A-I-N, genetic engineering, robotics, artificial intelligence, information technology, and nanotechnology. 00:50:37.240 --> 00:50:45.660 And these, these technologies are going to create a whole future that we can't even imagine right now. 00:50:46.180 --> 00:50:55.140 So, the, what we need are the navigational skills to, to, uh, to move into this future. 00:50:55.260 --> 00:50:59.480 And the most important one, of course, is, is Jesus. 00:50:59.660 --> 00:51:01.200 He's the, he's the lodestar. 00:51:01.460 --> 00:51:02.420 He's the north star. 00:51:03.100 --> 00:51:12.360 And so part of it, part of our challenge as a church is helping people to follow him better, to know him better, to love him more. 00:51:12.880 --> 00:51:16.600 And so that he becomes the, the, the lodestar of our life. 00:51:16.600 --> 00:51:28.200 He becomes, um, the star that we, that we are following in the, in this, um, in this whole, uh, new multiverse that's forming out there in this metaverse. 00:51:28.820 --> 00:51:32.220 So for me, that's the, that's the big issue. 00:51:32.220 --> 00:51:36.100 So it focuses again, it comes down to how do I know Jesus better? 00:51:36.200 --> 00:51:42.000 How do I love him more deeply and, and serve him more faithfully and trust him? 00:51:42.920 --> 00:51:50.360 Um, and how do I know the Jesus story better so that I can move into this future, um, and trust the story? 00:51:51.100 --> 00:51:56.400 You're, the more grainy the future becomes, the more we need to know our origin story. 00:51:57.200 --> 00:51:59.900 Um, because we are humans. 00:51:59.900 --> 00:52:09.540 We were made by God to be humans and all the genetic technology is showing us how to be other than human, transhuman and all sorts of other ways. 00:52:09.760 --> 00:52:16.380 So how do we then faithfully move into this future using this technology without losing our humanity? 00:52:17.160 --> 00:52:28.360 And that's, that's the challenge for me is do we really know our origin story so that we can, the true original means origin, return to origin. 00:52:28.360 --> 00:52:34.720 So do we, as we become original, how do we become original knowing our origins and being faithful to our origins? 00:52:35.400 --> 00:52:39.360 Because we're, we're going to see, I mean, think of it, 22nd century. 00:52:39.740 --> 00:52:45.340 My, the, outside my mother, my best friend, he was, she was born in 1897. 00:52:45.340 --> 00:52:46.780 She died in 2003. 00:52:49.000 --> 00:52:50.460 She lived in three centuries. 00:52:52.300 --> 00:52:53.200 That's our kids. 00:52:55.480 --> 00:52:56.340 That's our kids. 00:52:57.540 --> 00:53:02.860 Um, and how do we prepare them for the changes that are going to come? 00:53:02.940 --> 00:53:04.340 Cause we're not going to know what the changes are. 00:53:04.520 --> 00:53:05.920 They're, they're going to be surprising. 00:53:06.200 --> 00:53:13.760 They're, they're black swans and, you know, um, wild cards everywhere. 00:53:15.260 --> 00:53:18.580 So that's the, that's the importance for me of focusing on Christ. 00:53:18.820 --> 00:53:20.160 So you said grainy. 00:53:20.680 --> 00:53:22.760 Uh, I heard, I caught the end of it. 00:53:22.800 --> 00:53:23.800 What was the G and the R? 00:53:24.300 --> 00:53:25.160 Genetic engineering. 00:53:25.720 --> 00:53:26.160 Genetics. 00:53:27.180 --> 00:53:27.620 Robotics. 00:53:28.380 --> 00:53:28.820 Robotics. 00:53:29.940 --> 00:53:31.420 A is artificial intelligence. 00:53:31.580 --> 00:53:33.080 I is information technology. 00:53:33.480 --> 00:53:35.020 N is nanotechnology. 00:53:35.900 --> 00:53:36.300 Nanotechnology. 00:53:36.300 --> 00:53:42.580 Um, I was not expecting, you may be the first person I've ever talked with that has said 00:53:42.580 --> 00:53:45.920 nanotechnology in, in a church podcast. 00:53:46.020 --> 00:53:50.080 Like I, we don't, we don't, we don't often get to that, um, here, at least, at least I 00:53:50.080 --> 00:53:50.380 don't. 00:53:50.440 --> 00:53:51.840 So that, that was a pretty deep cut. 00:53:52.360 --> 00:53:54.240 Uh, but that, that's, I mean, it's fascinating. 00:53:54.320 --> 00:53:55.440 I've got, I've got my son. 00:53:55.680 --> 00:54:01.420 I mean, both my kids are, are in the windows that you're describing and it never, it has never 00:54:01.420 --> 00:54:03.840 occurred to me that these, these are 22nd century kids. 00:54:03.840 --> 00:54:08.860 Like that just has not, uh, that, that didn't, that didn't just res, that didn't ring the 00:54:08.860 --> 00:54:09.060 bell. 00:54:09.240 --> 00:54:12.240 And so, man, that's, that's a scary idea. 00:54:12.240 --> 00:54:19.860 And how, how is we, the church, how is we as parents, how are, are we, uh, training these 00:54:19.860 --> 00:54:25.900 kids, protecting, discipling, guiding them today so that they, they can, uh, be living the 00:54:25.900 --> 00:54:28.920 life of, of Christ in, in, uh, the 22nd century. 00:54:28.920 --> 00:54:29.600 Oh my gosh. 00:54:30.320 --> 00:54:33.460 Um, I just got really tired thinking about that, but that would be it. 00:54:33.540 --> 00:54:37.800 Well, Jeff, it's been great to be with you. 00:54:38.180 --> 00:54:38.540 Sorry. 00:54:38.760 --> 00:54:40.420 I, I dumped that on you at the end. 00:54:40.760 --> 00:54:41.500 Oh my gosh. 00:54:41.560 --> 00:54:45.020 That, that was, that was horrible, but this has been a great conversation. 00:54:45.020 --> 00:54:47.780 So Leonard, Leonard Sweet, thank you for the time. 00:54:48.160 --> 00:54:50.440 And, um, we're going to land the plane for Leonard. 00:54:50.580 --> 00:54:53.720 This is Jeff, uh, with the church, digital and digital church network. 00:54:53.800 --> 00:54:54.960 Thanks for jumping on the podcast. 00:54:55.060 --> 00:54:56.040 We'll see you next time on the show. 00:54:56.400 --> 00:54:57.120 Y'all have a good day.