WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.600 All right, listening audience, you're probably going to realize that episode 26 here of the 00:00:03.600 --> 00:00:10.120 Church Digital Podcast, I, Jeff Reed, am a little more hyped up than normal. It's a little more of 00:00:10.120 --> 00:00:15.100 a passionate subject than normal for me, as weird as it may sound, as much as I love church online, 00:00:15.100 --> 00:00:23.240 because I am Apple's number one fanboy and have been for close to four decades now. And 00:00:23.240 --> 00:00:28.720 unfortunately, some of the things that I've seen recently have brought me pause to the point that 00:00:28.720 --> 00:00:35.800 I started saying some things on social media, on how the company just is struggling with this lack of 00:00:35.800 --> 00:00:43.840 innovation, and how I will no longer be an Apple apologist for this company, and some of the 00:00:43.840 --> 00:00:51.460 decisions that it's making, because I'm releasing them of their innovation call in my life. Yeah, 00:00:51.480 --> 00:00:58.160 it does sound kind of angry and passive aggressive and bitter, even when I say it. But hey, it's my 00:00:58.160 --> 00:01:03.740 podcast. It's cool. So here's what I'm doing. I'm bringing in Tom Pounder from YM Sidekick Podcast. 00:01:04.180 --> 00:01:08.560 Tom's been a great guy. We've been on each other's podcast off and on, but we really want to dive in. 00:01:08.600 --> 00:01:13.000 Here's where we are. We both have a passion for church online. I can guarantee that. I've never 00:01:13.000 --> 00:01:17.940 breathed the same air as Tom Pounder in my life, and I know that man is passionate about seeing church 00:01:17.940 --> 00:01:22.600 online happen. And so I'm bringing him in, and we want to have a conversation about Apple. We're going to 00:01:22.600 --> 00:01:27.040 talk about innovation, and we're going to talk about discipleship. And all this is going to fit 00:01:27.040 --> 00:01:31.340 together, and I promise you it's going to be an awesome podcast. So here you go. Tom Pounder, 00:01:31.820 --> 00:01:38.680 YM Sidekick Podcast, online pastor, youth pastor, a man of many, many talents, and myself, Jeff Reed, 00:01:38.720 --> 00:01:45.280 with The Church Digital, in a conversation in Apple, innovation, and discipleship. Here y'all go. 00:01:46.000 --> 00:01:52.080 Hey, everyone. Today, I am with my friend Jeff Reed, or Jeff's actually with me. I mean, 00:01:52.080 --> 00:02:00.120 we're together online today, and we are talking about innovation, and we're talking about the church. 00:02:00.680 --> 00:02:06.560 And to give you the context of this, you know, Jeff and I are big Apple fans. We love Apple. 00:02:06.760 --> 00:02:11.860 Well, we used to be. Or I don't know. Maybe I used to be. I'm not really sure how far down the 00:02:11.860 --> 00:02:16.260 rabbit hole I'm going, but I'm not happy. So there's always that. 00:02:16.260 --> 00:02:21.980 And see, Jeff is talking about this right now in the context that he is, he has his AirPods in right 00:02:21.980 --> 00:02:29.480 now, and I'm sure he's recording this from a Mac or whatnot. But yeah, so Apple just had their big 00:02:29.480 --> 00:02:37.860 iPhone event, and they released some new iPhones. They released a new iPad, a new watch. And Jeff, 00:02:37.860 --> 00:02:45.040 let's just start with you. How did you feel about this recent event that Apple had? 00:02:45.900 --> 00:02:51.780 So like, and I want to put it into context. You're right, Tom. I have probably six different 00:02:51.780 --> 00:02:58.100 Apple devices within arm reach of me sitting here at the table. Everything from my iPhone, my iPad, 00:02:58.380 --> 00:03:04.740 my Apple Pencil, my Mac computer, my AirPods, my Apple Watch that I'm wearing. If there was like 00:03:04.740 --> 00:03:10.500 Apple underwear, I would probably be wearing it at this time. I do own Fruit of the Looms if you are 00:03:10.500 --> 00:03:18.260 worried and want to go that deep. But here's the problem is that, and I posted on social media 00:03:18.260 --> 00:03:26.700 that I'm done being an Apple apologist. Because for years, Apple has been doing this incremental 00:03:26.700 --> 00:03:32.960 update, incremental update, incremental updates, and just bits and pieces rolling out some minor 00:03:32.960 --> 00:03:38.720 updates within their product lines. And that's nice. That's great. Ironically, 00:03:38.720 --> 00:03:44.320 my phone dies every couple years. So like, it's very appropriate timing for me to go out and buy 00:03:44.320 --> 00:03:50.100 the next phone. I've got the XR, by the way, because I refuse to spend $1,000 on a phone. 00:03:51.100 --> 00:03:56.800 $750, I guess seems to be okay. But this is part of the thing, because Apple at the end of the day, 00:03:57.220 --> 00:04:00.760 has figured out almost as good as any other company, maybe Disney aside, 00:04:01.180 --> 00:04:09.520 to separate money from you and your wallet. Because at the end, they are, they have more cash than any 00:04:09.520 --> 00:04:15.440 other company out there. Their brand is higher ranked than anybody else out there. But here's the 00:04:15.440 --> 00:04:25.640 newsflash. They haven't really done anything innovative in years. I mean, so the AirPods that I now have in my 00:04:25.640 --> 00:04:33.140 ears, which sound phenomenal, guess what? They're freaking $20 earbuds with the cables cut off. If I 00:04:33.140 --> 00:04:39.940 didn't have these AirPods, I'd have a little tiny eighth inch cable connected to my laptop. Actually, I 00:04:39.940 --> 00:04:46.000 wouldn't because Apple took away the adapter, forcing me to buy the AirPods so that I, because I can't hook 00:04:46.000 --> 00:04:52.060 them up straight to my laptop. My Apple Watch, they come out with a new feature and they make the old one 00:04:52.060 --> 00:04:58.040 older. The new iPhone, hey, you know what? We're going to take away, we're going to make it more 00:04:58.040 --> 00:05:02.420 expensive. We can make the old one a little cheaper, but we're going to add, guess this, we're going to 00:05:02.420 --> 00:05:10.900 add a third camera. So this way you can do super slow motion selfies. The iPad itself, the best 00:05:10.900 --> 00:05:16.540 selling 9.7 inch business, the one that's awesome, the pro level iPad, we're not going to sell that one 00:05:16.540 --> 00:05:22.420 guys anymore. Sorry, we're going to make it a fraction of an inch bigger, jumping it up to 10.2. 00:05:22.440 --> 00:05:28.340 And we're going to charge you as much, if not more money for it. This is an innovation. And this is 00:05:28.340 --> 00:05:35.420 what's got me exploding. And it's already the stock boomed as a result of the meeting. Because at the 00:05:35.420 --> 00:05:41.760 end of the day, Apple, the only thing that they're judged by is how much money they're making. And 00:05:41.760 --> 00:05:50.160 honestly, just transparently, we're sheep in this process, buying this stuff. Now, I have bought this 00:05:50.160 --> 00:05:57.120 stuff my entire life. My first computer was an Apple IIGS. That was even before the Macs. So like, 00:05:57.220 --> 00:06:03.440 if some of you old school guys, you can buy into that Apple IIGS with a three and a half inch 00:06:03.440 --> 00:06:08.660 disk drive on it. And I used to code using that computer. And so I've been Mac my entire life. 00:06:08.900 --> 00:06:14.260 There was that stretch where Steve Jobs left the company to go do next and was with Pixar and doing 00:06:14.260 --> 00:06:19.620 all that stuff. I got to confess openly, I wavered a little bit during that time. I experimented with 00:06:19.620 --> 00:06:24.620 PCs. I didn't like it. I didn't like the way that it felt. But I did. I experimented with Steve Jobs 00:06:24.620 --> 00:06:31.460 came back and it was great. I've been a stockholder with the company since 2000, maybe 1999. But at the 00:06:31.460 --> 00:06:38.480 end of the day, where we where that company is, it's not innovative anymore. And I'll just go ahead 00:06:38.480 --> 00:06:44.760 and say it. They're incremental updates on what they have. And the real question that I'm asking 00:06:44.760 --> 00:06:49.900 and struggling with is they're spending all this money on research and development. But I don't 00:06:49.900 --> 00:06:54.960 understand where it's it's going. Yeah, the biggest innovation they've got is they're going to be a 00:06:54.960 --> 00:07:01.740 Netflix competitor. Guess what? Like I'm not looking for a Netflix competitor. And if I was Disney Plus 00:07:01.740 --> 00:07:08.300 has already like got it. Yeah. I'm not going to spend money. I'm not going to get excited. I'm not 00:07:08.300 --> 00:07:15.600 going to become a fanboy over a Netflix competitor. It's the innovation that has me jumping head over 00:07:15.980 --> 00:07:22.340 feet for this. And Apple just hasn't done that in a long time. Well, what would you say would be the 00:07:22.340 --> 00:07:29.260 last thing the Apple innovated? Because I will say this, like when the when the AirPod, I mean, 00:07:29.320 --> 00:07:34.520 the iPod came out, man, that was innovative that I mean, because you took something that was people 00:07:34.520 --> 00:07:40.840 were messing around with cassette players, the MP3 players, nothing was really good. Then that the iPod 00:07:40.840 --> 00:07:47.680 came out and man that like we were not, my family was not Mac fans until the iPod. Then we went to iPod 00:07:47.680 --> 00:07:53.480 and we bought a Mac and we're like, this is gold. Okay. So what would you say would be probably maybe 00:07:53.480 --> 00:08:01.380 the last thing they innovated? The last thing that I was like, this is something that I've never seen 00:08:01.380 --> 00:08:11.580 before. It was the marriage of a iPad Pro with an Apple pencil. And so like I bought this and I'm a 00:08:11.580 --> 00:08:20.300 writer. So like, and I've had probably three or four different versions of iPads in my life. And I would 00:08:20.300 --> 00:08:26.120 always download either GoodNotes. GoodNotes is actually what I use right now. Once again, I'm kind 00:08:26.120 --> 00:08:31.520 of a hypocrite. I totally acknowledge that. GoodNotes. I've used Evernote maybe a dozen times in 00:08:31.520 --> 00:08:35.780 my life. And if you are an Evernote apologist, I don't understand you because I can't figure out 00:08:35.780 --> 00:08:42.820 that software. But I've always been trying to write it because in the end, I'm like an analog guy using 00:08:42.820 --> 00:08:48.460 digital technology, writing out my notes, even the notes for this podcast that I wrote on my iPad. 00:08:48.680 --> 00:08:53.800 And as a result of that, the marriage of the pencil and that released with the iPad Pro, 00:08:54.240 --> 00:09:00.660 the smoothness of like the 650 megahertz refresh rate that you're seeing on that, it was phenomenal. 00:09:00.820 --> 00:09:04.660 It was something I'd never seen before. Anytime I try to write with a stylus, with a pencil, 00:09:05.120 --> 00:09:08.820 it's jerky, it's jagged. Like a second or two seconds later, you see the letter, 00:09:09.320 --> 00:09:17.660 the iPad, the pencil little tip tip is like falling off. And it just, it never worked well. 00:09:18.080 --> 00:09:23.560 And so this did, Hey, congratulations. That great. The year was like 2016 when that released. 00:09:24.200 --> 00:09:30.280 And so once again, I'm a hypocrite Apple, it's been three years. What else you got? I mean, 00:09:30.300 --> 00:09:35.500 I'm sorry. I credit card. Hey, great. Apple's helping us get even more in debt by charging a 00:09:35.500 --> 00:09:41.460 3.5% interest rate just so we can get a really cool feature on our phone where it'll show blah, 00:09:41.500 --> 00:09:48.060 blah, blah. Like I, I don't understand where we went from this company that was, 00:09:48.080 --> 00:09:54.180 that was innovative, that was edgy, that was working in garage, that was tackling companies 00:09:54.180 --> 00:09:59.900 like Microsoft, like Microsoft, usurping them, challenging them, utilizing almost guerrilla 00:09:59.900 --> 00:10:08.300 warfare tactics to release products like the, like the, the iPod. That was phenomenal. That, 00:10:08.460 --> 00:10:12.420 that was better than anything else on the market. Do you remember what else was on the market MP3 wise 00:10:12.420 --> 00:10:20.400 back then? It was, it was, it was like those, was it Sonos? No, it wasn't Sonos, but it was like a 32 00:10:20.400 --> 00:10:30.720 megabit card MP3 reader. You could literally load one CD on a digital music player. You could load one 00:10:30.720 --> 00:10:38.360 CD or you could carry around 500 songs in the pocket of your hand on a, on a hard drive. That was like 00:10:38.360 --> 00:10:44.880 the first iPod. Brains are exploding. Nobody's exploding on this. It's a third camera that does 00:10:44.880 --> 00:10:53.320 slow motion selfies. So I can be really slow when I'm doing. We're getting, we're giving kids more 00:10:53.320 --> 00:10:59.520 opportunities to be creative with their selfies and their Snapchat stories and Instagram and everything 00:10:59.520 --> 00:11:05.500 like that. So, all right, well, this is, this is good. I love this rant. And I will say anybody who 00:11:05.500 --> 00:11:10.980 listens to Jeff and says, okay, well the pencil, no big deal. Everyone, every tablet's got a pencil. 00:11:11.180 --> 00:11:16.180 Well, not all pencils are created equal actually, because I've experimented with this. The Apple 00:11:16.180 --> 00:11:23.900 pencil is by far the most superior pencil or pen that you can put on a tablet. I I've had a variety of 00:11:23.900 --> 00:11:29.040 different ones that I've tried to use on iPads or tablets before. They're just not as good as that 00:11:29.040 --> 00:11:35.760 pencil. So I would say it is very innovative and it continues to be that way to this day. So, okay. 00:11:35.760 --> 00:11:40.980 But again, you and I are not here just to talk about Apple innovation. We want to translate this a 00:11:40.980 --> 00:11:48.560 little bit into, uh, into, um, uh, church innovation and, and in particular where you and I are both, 00:11:48.560 --> 00:11:53.960 uh, fan favorites of, of online innovation. And wait, Tom, are we doing a bait and switch right 00:11:53.960 --> 00:12:01.060 here? Do we just Jesus juke this podcast? We just Jesus juke. Hey, listen, that's the story of my 00:12:01.060 --> 00:12:07.160 life, man. I do. I like, Hey, I tweet out something. Hey, learn what this, what happened with the 00:12:07.160 --> 00:12:12.440 Superbowl this week? And then I juke them into talking about our Superbowl party or something 00:12:12.440 --> 00:12:18.360 like that. So yeah, I do that all the time. Um, but so, okay. So let's talk about church and 00:12:18.360 --> 00:12:24.120 innovation. What, what is your thought on this? Are, is the church innovative enough right now? 00:12:24.120 --> 00:12:29.440 Are, are we failing in this area? Are we succeeding? What, what do you think from a general context here? 00:12:30.140 --> 00:12:35.860 So I think the church is innovating in certain areas. So the church defines itself right now by 00:12:35.860 --> 00:12:41.180 the one hour service that happens on Sunday, the majority. And I don't, I don't mean to be 00:12:41.180 --> 00:12:47.680 insultive, but the majority of effort of staff, people, volunteers across this country, the majority 00:12:47.680 --> 00:12:52.620 of the effort goes into producing that one hour on Sunday. And, and I do believe that the church is 00:12:52.620 --> 00:13:00.100 being innovative in context of that. Like let's pair it, let's parallel to Apple. I, we're making fun of 00:13:00.100 --> 00:13:07.040 the three cameras and that's, and I love that Apple. Hey, let's slap a third camera on there and see what 00:13:07.040 --> 00:13:11.820 can happen with that. So Apple's being innovative with their devices. Similarly, I think the church 00:13:11.820 --> 00:13:17.900 is being innovative within that. Hey, what if we introduce cameras in here and include iMag and 00:13:17.900 --> 00:13:22.420 worship with multi-site movements, streaming to video teaching to different, different campuses. 00:13:23.100 --> 00:13:29.240 Churches are, are trying to be more expressive in context of, of, of lighting, of creating worship 00:13:29.240 --> 00:13:36.220 environments, of utilizing drama or other videos. Uh, pastors even, I remember, uh, maybe 10, 20 years 00:13:36.220 --> 00:13:43.940 ago where a pastor would show a movie clip, like in a sermon was like, um, really controversial idea. 00:13:44.100 --> 00:13:50.360 And now more and more pastors are being more and more visual, um, with that, trying to connect culture with, 00:13:50.360 --> 00:13:56.900 with the message that they have. And so I do think there's been innovation within that, that one thing. 00:13:57.520 --> 00:14:04.080 The, what I would challenge though, is that churches more than just the one hour on Sunday, Apple, there's 00:14:04.080 --> 00:14:09.960 more potential than just what's happening with your, with your iPhone. And so what, what if the church 00:14:09.960 --> 00:14:16.340 expanded, use that innovation in other areas, not just to reach that one hour on Sunday, but to really 00:14:16.340 --> 00:14:22.960 reach and impact people 168 hours a week? What if instead of just creating that worship environment 00:14:22.960 --> 00:14:29.020 church, what if you were innovative to try to create an opportunity to disciple someone, to train a 00:14:29.020 --> 00:14:35.880 disciple who's capable of leading others to Christ and discipling them? What if we created a series of 00:14:35.880 --> 00:14:41.940 disciples that were capable of making disciple makers out there? The money and the effort and the 00:14:41.940 --> 00:14:48.260 innovation into that one hour on Sunday wouldn't be necessary. And interestingly, we see that culture 00:14:48.260 --> 00:14:54.540 is changing that way. People don't want to go to your church to learn things spiritually because they 00:14:54.540 --> 00:14:59.860 don't want to learn things spiritually. They're not interested in learning from you, church body, 00:15:00.340 --> 00:15:05.200 church building. What they are interested in, they are interested in having a spiritual conversation 00:15:05.200 --> 00:15:12.800 with their friends. We know this from Lifeway 2016. So empowering your church body, providing 00:15:12.800 --> 00:15:18.400 innovation for them with evangelism and empowering them to go out there and share and invest it with their 00:15:18.400 --> 00:15:25.700 friends. That's how the church is going to grow in the future. That's the innovation that we have. But as a 00:15:25.700 --> 00:15:28.860 church, we're afraid of that model for whatever reason. 00:15:29.200 --> 00:15:34.180 Yeah. Well, you know, it's really interesting. It was actually really empowering. I think for me, in my 00:15:34.180 --> 00:15:40.880 perspective, that our church really put an emphasis in the past year or so, we've always talked 00:15:40.880 --> 00:15:45.960 discipleship, quote unquote, discipleship. But we've never really said, okay, go out there and go and make 00:15:45.960 --> 00:15:50.500 disciples. You know, we've talked about, okay, let's talk about discipleship. Okay, now go, let's figure out 00:15:50.500 --> 00:15:56.240 what's happening on Sunday. And we make Sunday a very expressive form. And we use the lightings, the smoke 00:15:56.240 --> 00:16:03.000 machines, the movie clips, the great things. We go online. You know, we're trying to be creative and 00:16:03.000 --> 00:16:07.680 innovative that way to reach those people. But it's only that one hour of the week, like you said. 00:16:08.020 --> 00:16:14.020 And so what was empowering recently was when our senior pastor said, who are you investing in? Who are the 00:16:14.020 --> 00:16:19.940 people that you're investing in? And how are you reaching them? And then I've spent more, honestly, like when I first 00:16:19.940 --> 00:16:26.960 started out doing ministry, it was so great for me as a student minister, a young guy, to go out and be with 00:16:26.960 --> 00:16:32.740 students. Like that was my job, to go out and be with students. And now I feel like my job is to go sit 00:16:32.740 --> 00:16:40.220 in my office and figure out the best lesson to do, who I can email, yada, yada. And I've really gotten 00:16:40.220 --> 00:16:45.480 it back in the mold lately of saying, okay, who are the two people I'm hanging out with today? Who am I 00:16:45.480 --> 00:16:51.040 taking out to lunch? Or who am I meeting up with in working on discipleship that way, both from a 00:16:51.040 --> 00:16:56.260 leadership perspective, but also from a student ministry perspective where I'm hanging out with kids? Like it 00:16:56.260 --> 00:17:02.180 is like, I think we get trapped and we're like, well, we're going to be innovative on Sunday, but then do 00:17:02.180 --> 00:17:06.400 nothing during the rest of the week. And that's why, actually, that's why honestly so many people I feel 00:17:06.400 --> 00:17:11.640 like ask me, hey, what do you actually do? Is your job actually full-time? And I'm like, yeah, it's full 00:17:11.640 --> 00:17:20.300 time. I do lesson preparation and write a talk and what else do I do? Like I thought that before. I'm 00:17:20.300 --> 00:17:27.600 like, that's where I need to go out and be with people and disciple other people. Yeah. And sadly, a lot of 00:17:27.600 --> 00:17:34.320 churches out there, Tom, and we've both felt this, you're not evaluated on that discipleship piece. 00:17:34.700 --> 00:17:42.540 You're evaluated on the weekend and what happens on the weekend. Success is measured on the weekend. 00:17:42.820 --> 00:17:48.400 I went off on this tirade and it wasn't that bad. You can find it on social media. It was out of 00:17:48.400 --> 00:17:54.880 character for me. And so like I had people calling me, texting me, honest to God, wanting to make sure 00:17:54.880 --> 00:18:00.540 that I was okay because it was so out of character for me to start slamming Apple because I am a number 00:18:00.540 --> 00:18:02.120 one Apple fan boy. Yeah. 00:18:02.340 --> 00:18:09.920 My mother calls me and she's really worried. And my mom's been on the podcast, Linda. Oh, that was 00:18:09.920 --> 00:18:15.260 awkward. I just called my mom by her first name. Mom, I love you. It's great. But she emails me a Fox 00:18:15.260 --> 00:18:22.420 News article the next day. And it says a stock store as a result of Apple's announcement. And okay, 00:18:22.600 --> 00:18:27.480 and she's, and her response was, and she's a business woman and this makes sense. Her response 00:18:27.480 --> 00:18:33.380 was, well, Apple must be doing something right. Right. And what's interesting is, yeah, if Apple 00:18:33.380 --> 00:18:39.000 is being measured on generating cash, launching a credit card, launching a Netflix replacement, 00:18:39.160 --> 00:18:43.620 moving to a service model instead of a product model, you're right. If that's the end game there, 00:18:43.720 --> 00:18:48.520 that's making sense. And here's the thing, church, I want to challenge you with. If all you're being 00:18:48.520 --> 00:18:54.200 evaluating on, all you're evaluating is that one hour on Sunday. Yes. Then what you're doing may 00:18:54.200 --> 00:19:00.860 be making sense, but that doesn't make it right. Right. Right. Yes. I love this. If Apple is measured 00:19:00.860 --> 00:19:08.420 as an innovation company, then innovate. If you are no longer an innovation company and you just want 00:19:08.420 --> 00:19:13.020 to, just going to be measuring off the dollar, Tim Cook, businessman, I'm kind of talking to you, 00:19:13.080 --> 00:19:18.920 although I doubt you're listening, measuring yourself as by the dollar, then that's a completely 00:19:18.920 --> 00:19:25.820 set of rules. And what you're going to lose is fanboys like me, who for decades have been drooling 00:19:25.820 --> 00:19:31.520 over the phrase, oh, one more thing coming out of an Apple announcement. They're not, they're not 00:19:31.520 --> 00:19:38.180 happening anymore because they're not trying. Yeah. And church, let me spin it to you. If all you are 00:19:38.180 --> 00:19:43.760 doing is trying to boost or struggling to boost the attendance records that are happening at your 00:19:43.760 --> 00:19:51.000 physical campus, because you're measuring that metric as opposed to creating disciples, 00:19:52.040 --> 00:19:58.300 then we're measuring the wrong thing. You need to evaluate and maybe some of your innovation doesn't 00:19:58.300 --> 00:20:04.760 need to go into creating a more flashier show Sunday, 9 a.m. And instead figuring out how to motivate 00:20:04.760 --> 00:20:10.400 people and how to train and equip and empower people to be a disciple 168 hours a week. 00:20:10.720 --> 00:20:14.460 Yeah, I love this. And we're going to talk about one thing specifically that you had heard recently, 00:20:14.460 --> 00:20:19.300 but I want to say this. I've often said about student ministry, because I've been involved with 00:20:19.300 --> 00:20:24.280 student ministry over 20 years now, is that my biggest success in student ministry is not 00:20:24.280 --> 00:20:30.060 what happens when I'm there with high school students. It's the kids that are now adults and have 00:20:30.060 --> 00:20:36.900 families of their own that I'm still in relationship with and still in contact with, that I am marrying 00:20:36.900 --> 00:20:42.520 when they're getting married. They're inviting me to, when they're drunk and wasted and down on their 00:20:42.520 --> 00:20:47.620 luck, they're calling me. I view that as success. Why? It's because I've been that positive Christ 00:20:47.620 --> 00:20:54.960 living example to them that they know that they're missing Christ in their life. And so that's why 00:20:54.960 --> 00:21:04.260 they need that. And so I feel like discipleship isn't just on a Sunday. And it's not just when you 00:21:04.260 --> 00:21:10.280 have them in your church or your program. It's a lifelong mission. It's the loving them one day at a time 00:21:10.280 --> 00:21:15.520 and seeing how God works in their life. And I think there's lots of different ways that we can be 00:21:15.520 --> 00:21:20.440 innovative in empowering people. Now, you've talked about this on your podcast before. I've talked about 00:21:20.440 --> 00:21:26.240 this on my podcast before. You know, we've had Ray talk about it as well. You know, there's lots of 00:21:26.240 --> 00:21:31.260 different ways to do it. And you had just heard something, or you were just on a call with someone 00:21:31.260 --> 00:21:37.740 from Seattle about ways that they're trying to empower people. What is a cool, innovative thing 00:21:37.740 --> 00:21:41.740 that you've been hearing about recently? There's an organization, it's called Church Home. 00:21:42.280 --> 00:21:48.680 It was created by, it was a church, it was out in Seattle. And I think San Francisco is California and 00:21:48.680 --> 00:21:52.960 Seattle. It's a five campus, multi-site church spread out across two states. And I was talking 00:21:52.960 --> 00:21:57.380 with their staff, and I'm going to have them on the podcast. It was just a prerequisite call. 00:21:57.740 --> 00:22:04.540 But here's the deal of what this church did. They're literally doing a burn the ships mentality here, 00:22:04.540 --> 00:22:12.480 where they're moving away from more campus growth. And instead, what they did is we want to create 00:22:12.480 --> 00:22:20.440 a discipleship strategy digitally that can help people who are engaging us online, but also help 00:22:20.440 --> 00:22:27.460 them help people who are engaging at the physical campus. And so more than a church online strategy, 00:22:27.460 --> 00:22:36.200 it's a mobile church strategy, where utilizing this mobile app, not only do they have access to sermons, 00:22:36.200 --> 00:22:43.120 which are a vital, but not holistic approach to church, but there's discipleship resources to help 00:22:43.120 --> 00:22:48.680 challenge them with the different levels of what somebody needs to be a disciple, even to the point of 00:22:48.680 --> 00:22:55.960 training them to share their faith with other people. And so the goal of Church Home out there is to 00:22:55.960 --> 00:23:03.040 challenge someone to become a disciple to the context of creating other disciples and utilizing 00:23:03.040 --> 00:23:11.080 the home as the centerpiece, people's houses, to create micro locations to start to gather them 00:23:11.080 --> 00:23:16.880 together. So instead of, in Church Home's context, and they've not been the only one, 00:23:17.360 --> 00:23:23.960 Mech Church is another one who's on this road, instead of trying to build more campuses and grow that way, 00:23:24.460 --> 00:23:30.960 they've gone to a digital approach, utilizing homes to reach people, to disciple people, and to grow 00:23:30.960 --> 00:23:36.740 people, and to, for the point of multiplication, to create a disciple who's capable of creating more 00:23:36.740 --> 00:23:42.540 disciples. Now what was interesting, and this hit the news maybe six, nine months ago, and we were 00:23:42.540 --> 00:23:47.740 actually talking on it on the call today. Like when this came out, Fox News was pushing articles, CNN, 00:23:47.740 --> 00:23:54.860 like here's a pastor who's like pastoring online, Judah Smith. And I got to tell you, from the church, 00:23:55.080 --> 00:24:01.960 the response wasn't good. Instead of like honoring this guy for trying to experiment with something and 00:24:01.960 --> 00:24:07.580 doing something new, one tweet, and this is just one that stuck in my head, I don't know what the F-bomb 00:24:07.580 --> 00:24:13.380 you think this is, but don't call it church. That's literally the tweet. And so, but this has been the 00:24:13.380 --> 00:24:19.820 attitude from the church in response to a guy who's trying to experiment. Right. And what's funny, 00:24:19.940 --> 00:24:25.280 when you actually talk with the church, they'll even tell you, hey, what we're doing today, 00:24:25.440 --> 00:24:32.040 we may not do in three months. We're experimenting as we're going with this. Instead of trying to figure 00:24:32.040 --> 00:24:40.480 out what the finish line is, we're just going to go learn as we go and adjust. And that's the thing 00:24:40.480 --> 00:24:45.520 that the church gets stuck with. Yep. The church needs to know for whatever reason. And I mean, 00:24:45.520 --> 00:24:50.780 I need to wrestle with this. The church needs to know the finish line before they go. Whereas any 00:24:50.780 --> 00:24:57.420 given corporation in America, hey, let's go down this road. Let's see. And let's evolve. There's more 00:24:57.420 --> 00:25:05.840 freedom to kind of adjust, but we're too afraid of. And it just makes me wonder, like Acts 1, 00:25:06.360 --> 00:25:13.400 when Jesus left, went away, and the people prayed, and they prayed continually. What if they were 00:25:13.400 --> 00:25:20.500 afraid? What if they didn't pray? Would the Pentecost of Acts 2 have come? Would it have stopped right 00:25:20.500 --> 00:25:25.960 there? Because they didn't know what to do. Hey, the work's done. Jesus is done. That go make 00:25:25.960 --> 00:25:32.200 disciples. I don't know what that means. So we're just going to stop. Right? Like, could you imagine 00:25:32.200 --> 00:25:37.440 if this church died right there before it even got started because they were too afraid to figure out 00:25:37.440 --> 00:25:43.480 what the next steps were? Yeah. Well, listen, I agree with you 100%. It's so funny because as you're 00:25:43.480 --> 00:25:48.860 talking about it, when companies innovate and they try new experiments or try new things, 00:25:49.020 --> 00:25:54.900 they get applauded by people. Like, look what they're trying to do. Look at this great idea. But when the 00:25:54.900 --> 00:25:59.740 church tries to innovate, there's so many people. It's almost like the Major League Baseball. When 00:25:59.740 --> 00:26:06.120 Major League Baseball tries to change a little bit, all the traditionalists, no, you can't do this. 00:26:06.180 --> 00:26:11.600 That's not how it was supposed to be. And it's the same way with church. No, no, you can't go online. 00:26:11.960 --> 00:26:17.700 No, you can't do videos. No. And then it's like, oh, okay, it's not so bad after all. I mean, 00:26:17.760 --> 00:26:23.200 you know, it's this weird thing. And I think we've got to continue to push the envelope. And who knows, 00:26:23.540 --> 00:26:28.840 maybe it won't work. But if we never try, we're always going to, we're always going to be wondering 00:26:28.840 --> 00:26:36.540 what if. Church, we've got to experiment. I mean, just bottom line. What if Paul, it's like, 00:26:36.600 --> 00:26:41.240 hey, you know what? All these other people out there, I don't care. That's not my church. 00:26:42.380 --> 00:26:46.220 What if he didn't do the missionary journeys? What if he didn't write the letters to travel 00:26:46.220 --> 00:26:52.140 along the Roman road? The most technological advanced thing in the time, by the way, the Roman 00:26:52.140 --> 00:26:56.760 road, when it was first built. What if he's like, you know what? Screw it. I really don't care. 00:26:56.760 --> 00:27:02.400 What if Martin Luther was like, hey, you know what? I'm not going to put this up on the thesis. And by the 00:27:02.400 --> 00:27:08.960 way, those 95 theses that he posted, the 100 theses posted on the wall, he sent them to area towns as 00:27:08.960 --> 00:27:16.280 well. So the revival didn't just come out of his one church. It was surrounded areas because he cared 00:27:16.280 --> 00:27:20.560 enough about it to make sure. By the way, it's actually one of the first things printed on the 00:27:20.560 --> 00:27:25.640 printing press. Send it around to others. Talk about another one. The printing press itself. Talk about 00:27:25.640 --> 00:27:30.480 innovation. What if he's like, hey, you know what? I don't care about you all and what you need of the 00:27:30.480 --> 00:27:35.760 Bible. I'm just going to print for like my family. And it just walks away. No, he did the printing 00:27:35.760 --> 00:27:41.520 press so that everyone could have it. At Billy Graham, Billy Graham preached to a billion people 00:27:41.520 --> 00:27:47.360 at one moment, one message bounced around a bunch of satellites. Billy Graham hits a billion. What if 00:27:47.360 --> 00:27:52.920 Billy Graham's like, hey, you know what? I don't care about the people in Africa, in Asia, in Europe. 00:27:53.320 --> 00:27:56.900 I don't even care about the people in Seattle or on the other side of the country. I'm just going to 00:27:56.900 --> 00:28:02.960 preach to my small little church here in North Carolina. Where would that leave us? The fact is 00:28:02.960 --> 00:28:09.440 that we need people. We need churches to push, to be innovative, to ask questions, to challenge 00:28:09.440 --> 00:28:16.160 standard quo. We don't need incremental updates on platforms that already exist. If we want to reach 00:28:16.160 --> 00:28:22.260 new people, we need new methods. And we need churches to step up and start to experiment in these areas 00:28:22.260 --> 00:28:28.020 beyond something that some traditionalist is going to say, hey, are we sure we want to do that? 00:28:28.740 --> 00:28:33.620 While traditionalists are challenging that, guess what? Churches are out there and are being highly 00:28:33.620 --> 00:28:36.400 effective in reaching new people by doing something different. 00:28:36.980 --> 00:28:42.160 Right. No, that's exactly right. And I think as we kind of wrap up, I think you're exactly right. 00:28:42.320 --> 00:28:46.720 If we don't try, we're always going to fail and we're always going to be wondering what if. 00:28:47.200 --> 00:28:53.520 And the best way we can reach more people and beyond Sunday morning is to try to innovate, 00:28:53.720 --> 00:28:59.480 be creative, invest in people. That's always a great formula for success. Because again, 00:28:59.820 --> 00:29:06.220 it's kind of like back when you look even at Rick Warren's Purpose Driven Church, not Purpose Driven 00:29:06.220 --> 00:29:10.900 Life, but Purpose Driven Church. He talked about how the transition was you were sitting in pews at one 00:29:10.900 --> 00:29:15.560 point and now you're sitting in chairs. I mean, can you imagine if most of us were sitting in pews 00:29:15.560 --> 00:29:20.220 still? I mean, that's just so uncomfortable, but that we've got to change. We've got to innovate. 00:29:20.480 --> 00:29:24.520 And if we want to reach more people in this day and age, we have to do that. 00:29:25.380 --> 00:29:25.460 Yeah. 00:29:25.800 --> 00:29:31.220 All right, Jeff. Well, it is always great to have you. Well, actually, this is a combined podcast, 00:29:31.220 --> 00:29:35.800 so I'm on yours, yours, own mine. And so this is, it's always great talking to you, man. 00:29:36.280 --> 00:29:41.500 Yeah, we'll have to, we'll have to do this again. Next time though, you get irate about something on 00:29:41.500 --> 00:29:46.720 social media and I'll be like, hey, let's, let's get together and blow off some steam and talk about 00:29:46.720 --> 00:29:52.280 it on a podcast. Okay. Like, well, you know, I actually get irate all the time on social media, 00:29:52.280 --> 00:29:58.860 so I can totally see myself doing this again about something. Honestly, next time, like something stupid 00:29:58.860 --> 00:30:03.540 happens in the cinematic universe or Marvel and Spider-Man actually goes back, then we can go 00:30:03.540 --> 00:30:08.520 back and talk about how smart a thing that was. But that day, sadly, will probably never, ever, 00:30:08.740 --> 00:30:13.900 ever come. So we can, we can always hope, man. We can always, always, always hope. Hey, Tom, man, 00:30:13.940 --> 00:30:19.960 thanks for this. This was a great idea. And for, by the way, my audience, if you've not hit up Tom 00:30:19.960 --> 00:30:25.480 Pounder, hit up to see the show notes and there's be all sorts of links in there for that. And I'm sure 00:30:25.480 --> 00:30:30.220 Tom will probably have the same on my side, but this has been, been a great time. Appreciate the 00:30:30.220 --> 00:30:36.840 convo. So, Hey audience, this is Jeff and we're going to wrap the podcast right here. Episode 26, 00:30:36.840 --> 00:30:42.820 talking about Apple innovation and discipleship. I hope it was worthwhile. I hope it was fun. 00:30:43.160 --> 00:30:50.960 Pray for me. I am still a struggling, recovering Apple fan boy who now needs another place to locate 00:30:50.960 --> 00:30:57.020 his fan boy ism. And so we'll have to just figure that out. I'll go, I'll have to ask my kids what 00:30:57.020 --> 00:31:02.720 the cool thing is right now and just kind of adopt that, I guess. But Hey, church in a serious note, 00:31:02.840 --> 00:31:09.360 it's time to find something new. Um, the methods that we've been using have been reaching the same 00:31:09.360 --> 00:31:15.160 amount of people, the same number of people, the same type of people. And there are people who will 00:31:15.160 --> 00:31:20.500 not be reached with these methods. If we want to reach new people, we need new methods. It's time 00:31:20.500 --> 00:31:25.760 to expand our product line away from just Sunday morning and start to figure out how to be more 00:31:25.760 --> 00:31:32.940 effective, how to reach out and engage people in a different way where we are. The message Christ 00:31:32.940 --> 00:31:40.420 stays the same. The messaging, the method needs to change. So that's the challenge church. Get out there, 00:31:40.580 --> 00:31:46.980 experiment and figure out what's next. Follow the, the, the ideas of the church homes or the saddlebacks 00:31:46.980 --> 00:31:51.900 or the elevations or so much of what we talk about on this podcast. And there's lots of excellent ideas 00:31:51.900 --> 00:31:57.600 that are out there, but the best idea has yet to been discovered. And right now it's out there in 00:31:57.600 --> 00:32:03.380 somebody's head saying, what if, and if that's you, and if you're saying that, what if step up and figure 00:32:03.380 --> 00:32:08.420 out how to do it? Let's go. Hey, this has been a great podcast. Uh, and I am looking forward to 00:32:08.420 --> 00:32:13.760 what's next. We'll see you next time here at the church digital podcast. Y'all have a good day.