WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.840 Welcome to the Church Digital Podcast. Through this podcast, we'll talk about the technological 00:00:04.840 --> 00:00:10.920 innovations within the church. But more than tech for tech itself, we'll address deeper questions. 00:00:11.760 --> 00:00:16.620 Is disciple-making possible digitally? How should we approach the digital mission field? 00:00:17.380 --> 00:00:22.440 Can a biblically grounded church operate in digital space? Oh, and where does the metaverse 00:00:22.440 --> 00:00:27.920 fit into all this? Whether you're a big or small church, an established church, or a startup church 00:00:27.920 --> 00:00:33.840 plant. The Church Digital's goal is to help churches like yours learn to be a multiplying church, 00:00:34.460 --> 00:00:40.460 digitally and physically. Our heart, that churches like yours will discover a newfound focus on 00:00:40.460 --> 00:00:46.820 disciple-making that will revolutionize your church. And now, here's your host, Jeff Reed. 00:00:47.380 --> 00:00:52.040 All right, hey, we've got episode 273 of the Church Digital Podcast. I'm excited about this one, 00:00:52.040 --> 00:00:58.960 bringing on the most guested person in the history of the Church Digital Podcast. We'll let you 00:00:58.960 --> 00:01:06.320 figure out who it is. By the way, we are celebrating our 100,000th play right now. Literally this past 00:01:06.320 --> 00:01:13.000 week, the Church Digital Podcast had over 100,000 total plays, total streams. And so thank you, 00:01:13.580 --> 00:01:19.040 listening audience out there for being awesome, for being patient with us. And it's interesting. We'll 00:01:19.040 --> 00:01:24.100 get into it a little bit, but we've got this guest has a special place in the Church Digital History, 00:01:24.220 --> 00:01:27.940 the podcast history we'll get into here in a little bit. But remember here with season five, 00:01:28.120 --> 00:01:35.960 we're getting into the idea of taking your church to the next level digitally or in the metaverse. 00:01:36.000 --> 00:01:40.180 And in this context, we want to take your church to the next level digitally. And we're celebrating 00:01:40.180 --> 00:01:46.160 some learning communities that Leadership Network is putting on. This fall, this winter, we are doing 00:01:46.160 --> 00:01:52.060 a mix-up between physical and digital meetups for this learning community to help churches like 00:01:52.060 --> 00:01:57.180 yours go to the next level digitally. As a matter of fact, we're digging into the idea of digital 00:01:57.180 --> 00:02:02.820 discipleship and what discipleship looks like and the results of discipleship when done effectively 00:02:02.820 --> 00:02:08.140 in digital space, which actually brings me into the conversation here. Guess what? We're bringing in 00:02:08.140 --> 00:02:14.200 the most often-guested person. I guess that's the right way to say that. The most person. The most 00:02:14.200 --> 00:02:19.840 person. The person who's been on this podcast most in the history of the Church Digital Podcast. The 00:02:19.840 --> 00:02:24.320 person who has been on the podcast more than anyone else in the history of the Church Digital 00:02:24.320 --> 00:02:29.400 Podcast. I think that one's grammatically correct. Let's go and welcome in Tyler Sansom into the 00:02:29.400 --> 00:02:32.960 conversation. Tyler, what a surprise. It's great to see you here again, my friend. 00:02:33.360 --> 00:02:37.620 I am doing well. I feel like a seasoned veteran at this point on this podcast. 00:02:38.140 --> 00:02:43.740 Yeah, so there's a running joke about how many times you've been on the podcast. It seems like 00:02:43.740 --> 00:02:50.540 we really have a deep relationship. I love talking to you on the podcast so much. Actually, 00:02:50.620 --> 00:02:54.240 at one point, I did count. I don't remember what the number is, but by far, you've been on the most. 00:02:54.300 --> 00:02:58.240 Jay Cranda is number two, and we were actually trying to get Jay on here in a couple weeks to 00:02:58.240 --> 00:03:01.300 explore some things with him, but definitely glad to have you back. 00:03:01.300 --> 00:03:07.280 It was by default. Back when we first started doing online ministry, there wasn't a lot of 00:03:07.280 --> 00:03:12.000 options for other people to talk to. This is true. And really, if you want to go all the way back, 00:03:12.260 --> 00:03:18.520 I think you were episode five, but an actual order of recording, you were the first podcast I ever 00:03:18.520 --> 00:03:23.900 recorded. Wow, I did not know that. The first interview I ever did was with you. And you can go 00:03:23.900 --> 00:03:33.720 back and listen to episode five or six, and what you won't hear is the 97 cuts of ums and ahs that I did 00:03:33.720 --> 00:03:40.560 to make that sound clean. It was brutal back then. And I've gotten a little better, maybe a little bit. 00:03:40.600 --> 00:03:45.500 I don't think we cut as much out as we used to way back with that first one. But hey, man, it's great 00:03:45.500 --> 00:03:53.160 to have you on. As we're getting into season five here of next steps, how to take that next step, 00:03:53.240 --> 00:03:59.480 how to get your digital ministry, even your metaverse ministry to the next level. This is 00:03:59.480 --> 00:04:03.780 what we're digging in here. And so we're bringing Tyler Sansom in for this conversation. You see, 00:04:03.840 --> 00:04:09.160 Tyler, I asked Tyler to be part of a learning community that Leadership Network is putting on 00:04:09.160 --> 00:04:16.320 in fall 2023, fall and winter 2023. And so I was like, hey, Tyler, let's do a podcast. Let's jump 00:04:16.320 --> 00:04:20.540 on. Let's talk about what we're learning, what we're digging into. But really also, I wanted to talk 00:04:20.540 --> 00:04:28.180 about First Capital Church Anywhere and how First Capital, how Church Anywhere is taking their ministry 00:04:28.180 --> 00:04:34.660 to the next level, utilizing digital technology. And oh my gosh, every time I turn around, they're doing 00:04:34.660 --> 00:04:39.140 something different and something unique, and there's some new story, and it's just beautiful. 00:04:39.360 --> 00:04:44.880 But really, Tyler, just to kick this thing, well, first off, hey, you've been a lead pastor like 00:04:44.880 --> 00:04:49.160 18 months or so. We've probably had this conversation on this show. 00:04:49.860 --> 00:04:50.920 Right at 18 months. 00:04:51.120 --> 00:04:57.960 How's it feel? 18 months into this thing, are you energized? Are you exhausted? What's the average 00:04:57.960 --> 00:04:58.880 day feel like for you? 00:04:59.220 --> 00:05:05.780 Yeah, man, when I finally got past the realization that I'm probably not going to be the traditional 00:05:05.780 --> 00:05:12.420 style of lead pastor and then got into kind of my own groove of what to do and fill my day 00:05:12.420 --> 00:05:19.340 with, it got really, really energizing for me. So I'm loving what I'm doing. Doesn't look 00:05:19.340 --> 00:05:25.920 like probably any other lead pastor in the country, but I'm loving it. The church is growing, and 00:05:25.920 --> 00:05:28.780 God is really moving like crazy here right now. 00:05:29.580 --> 00:05:33.540 Yeah, I think it's safe to say you're not the typical lead pastor. Right before we jumped on 00:05:33.540 --> 00:05:40.380 the show, he was showing off his, what was it, Christian Film Festival number two trophy. It's a 00:05:40.380 --> 00:05:47.880 big, giant, four-foot, 30-pound deal. Yeah, so your typical lead pastor isn't directing 00:05:47.880 --> 00:05:53.560 an award-winning Christian film like ICANN is this next one, right? 00:05:53.620 --> 00:05:54.580 Yeah, ICANN, yeah. 00:05:55.140 --> 00:05:59.360 Awesome. So just real quick, disclaimer, when's that coming out? Give me a 10-second spiel. 00:05:59.360 --> 00:06:05.840 It will be out late summer, so likely end of July, early August will be the theatrical run. 00:06:06.320 --> 00:06:09.720 And right now, man, it's looking like it's going to be out in theaters all across the country 00:06:09.720 --> 00:06:16.740 from Palm Springs, Florida, all the way to Spokane, Washington. So really excited. 00:06:17.400 --> 00:06:22.760 Very cool. So I've got to drive three hours north to get to Palm Springs, but that will be worth it. 00:06:22.900 --> 00:06:25.300 We'll try to get it there in Miami. 00:06:25.300 --> 00:06:29.940 Try to get it in Miami. I'll make some calls for you, see if I can pull in a favor. I do meet in 00:06:29.940 --> 00:06:35.220 a church. My church meets in a theater, so hopefully I got an inside track there, but probably not 00:06:35.220 --> 00:06:39.400 because they're grumpy. I'd make them get up at like 7.30 on a Sunday morning, but that's another 00:06:39.400 --> 00:06:45.380 conversation. So hey, let's get into this as we're talking about First Capital, about Church 00:06:45.380 --> 00:06:51.860 Anywhere, taking these next steps and getting their digital ministry to the next level. Now, Tyler, 00:06:52.060 --> 00:06:58.160 the heart, as we've had these conversations, the thing that I love about what you're doing and the 00:06:58.160 --> 00:07:04.600 heart of First Capital is really getting into the idea of the discipleship process, of your 00:07:04.600 --> 00:07:10.360 spiritual outfitters, of this outfitting that you've done. Give us an update. Maybe define 00:07:10.360 --> 00:07:16.480 a little bit what discipleship looks like for your church in digital space, and maybe some 00:07:16.480 --> 00:07:17.680 of the opportunities it opens up. 00:07:18.260 --> 00:07:23.700 Yeah. The spiritual outfitting aspect of who we are is something that we implemented right 00:07:23.700 --> 00:07:28.020 around two years ago. It's something we've been talking about for a while. We finally pulled 00:07:28.020 --> 00:07:33.080 the trigger on it a couple years ago. But it is a massive philosophical shift in ministry 00:07:33.080 --> 00:07:40.640 that moves away from the weekend service being king and shifts our focus to how do we get our people 00:07:40.640 --> 00:07:49.740 to feel equipped and outfitted to go out and share the gospel, to self-feed, to be in biblical 00:07:49.840 --> 00:07:57.680 community outside of the church. So that sounds great in theory, but in practicality, that is a 00:07:57.680 --> 00:08:04.080 massive shift in how American church does ministry. It required us to get our entire staff on board. 00:08:04.640 --> 00:08:08.820 It requires us to constantly keep ourselves in check. But what's happened is that we've 00:08:08.820 --> 00:08:15.580 started this focus that's more geared towards equipping the saints. And in return, we've seen 00:08:15.580 --> 00:08:20.700 more evangelism happen. So even though our target hasn't been, let's go lead more people to Jesus 00:08:20.700 --> 00:08:25.500 through these programs, it's been, hey, let's build up these people. And then those people go and lead 00:08:25.500 --> 00:08:31.520 people to Jesus. And since we've started this, we've nearly tripled in the amount of baptisms that we've 00:08:31.520 --> 00:08:36.600 seen. It's truly incredible. I'm praising God every day to be a part of it. 00:08:38.060 --> 00:08:44.080 That's great. So it's funny. Churches talk about this all the time, right? We're not about the 00:08:44.080 --> 00:08:49.540 weekend. We're bigger than the weekend. The weekend's the front door. But yet, when you really look at 00:08:49.540 --> 00:08:57.420 churches, it's so difficult to move beyond that weekend broadcast and to have there be more than 00:08:57.420 --> 00:09:04.460 the weekend service, more than the weekend broadcast. And because it's so centric to the idea of church, 00:09:04.620 --> 00:09:10.140 at least here in the West. But some of the stats that I've heard, even just you talking about how 00:09:10.140 --> 00:09:17.920 baptisms have, would you say baptisms have tripled in the time since? Almost tripled with the focus 00:09:17.920 --> 00:09:24.640 away from. Churches are skeptical and they're fearful of doing something different might actually 00:09:24.640 --> 00:09:30.720 cause harm, more harm than good in that. But Tyler, some of the things that you're seeing, 00:09:30.720 --> 00:09:37.640 I would love to hear some stories or some other examples of how moving away from the weekend service 00:09:37.640 --> 00:09:43.180 has actually, now you still do it, but moving away from the emphasis and the focus on that has opened 00:09:43.180 --> 00:09:49.840 up more opportunities. Yeah. Even within the weekend service, the emphasis has been really moved away 00:09:49.840 --> 00:09:58.120 from seekers. So that's a huge shift as well. So, I mean, we're literally taking ancient liturgy 00:09:58.120 --> 00:10:04.800 right now and making it modern. So we're doing like group readings and we're reciting creeds and all 00:10:04.800 --> 00:10:10.820 these like things that you wouldn't think to do in modern seeker friendly church. And people are going 00:10:10.820 --> 00:10:16.680 deeper with Christ and that's causing them to go out of our building, out of our online experiences 00:10:16.680 --> 00:10:22.820 and share the gospel with people. But beyond that, the supplemental things, I mean, we're 00:10:22.820 --> 00:10:28.800 utilizing digital tools on a literal daily basis, whether that's in small groups, 00:10:29.040 --> 00:10:34.000 using Slack or text messages or whatever we want to use for that. 00:10:35.680 --> 00:10:42.080 We're just, we're relationally invested in our, our people, the people that we've been called the 00:10:42.080 --> 00:10:47.320 shepherd. We're relationally invested in them on a daily basis simply because we can now with digital 00:10:47.320 --> 00:10:51.940 tools. And we're not like going out and coding new types of software or anything. We're just using 00:10:51.940 --> 00:10:58.660 the things that are available to us to point people to Jesus, um, on the 167 hours that are not the 00:10:58.660 --> 00:11:03.060 weekend service. So we still do a weekend service. We still try to do it with excellence. We've shifted 00:11:03.060 --> 00:11:07.640 the focus more towards discipleship, but then we've recognized that once those people leave, 00:11:07.640 --> 00:11:12.160 they need to continue to be outfitted. Um, they still have mental health struggles. They still 00:11:12.160 --> 00:11:15.580 need to learn how to read the Bible. They still need to learn how to have healthy marriages. 00:11:15.820 --> 00:11:21.700 And that's where a lot of our shift has taken place is in, um, those kind of felt needs areas. 00:11:23.460 --> 00:11:28.680 So like, let's, let's back up to the, to the, to the service. Like you're, you're, you're equipping 00:11:28.680 --> 00:11:34.780 people to be on mission. You're, you're, you're caring for individuals within the church service. The focus, 00:11:35.280 --> 00:11:41.480 I mean, you're, would you say your focus is internal as opposed to external, but it's, it's, 00:11:41.560 --> 00:11:48.620 it's internal missional. Like, so it's, it's strange. Our focus isn't about our people. We've 00:11:48.620 --> 00:11:55.880 really tried our best to shift our focus to worshiping God period. I don't know if that makes 00:11:55.880 --> 00:12:02.700 any sense, but it's, it's less about the, who's our target audience, um, being people. And we've 00:12:02.700 --> 00:12:06.800 shifted to our target audience is God, and that should be the only target audience that 00:12:06.800 --> 00:12:13.700 we have. And so that feels a lot older. Like it feels like, um, like ancient, but it's 00:12:13.700 --> 00:12:18.720 also like weirdly fresh in today's society. Um, so we still do like modern music and things 00:12:18.720 --> 00:12:22.760 like that, but we've really just geared it towards how can we help our people? How can 00:12:22.760 --> 00:12:29.420 we outfit them to like fully worship God? And then the outpouring of that is, um, a missional 00:12:29.420 --> 00:12:31.820 community that's unleashed into society. 00:12:33.260 --> 00:12:37.260 That's incredible. I mean, by, by making it about God, you've actually done the thing that 00:12:37.260 --> 00:12:41.660 you wanted to do, but if you made it about the missional community and, and getting them 00:12:41.660 --> 00:12:45.380 activated, like it wouldn't have happened, or at least traditionally, we don't, we don't 00:12:45.380 --> 00:12:46.020 see that happen. 00:12:46.520 --> 00:12:46.680 Yeah. 00:12:47.100 --> 00:12:52.700 It's, it's, it's, it's kind of like whenever Peter walked on water, um, like he, he did it. 00:12:52.820 --> 00:12:57.040 He was able to do something nobody else was able to do. He walked on waters as long as he 00:12:57.040 --> 00:13:01.580 was focused on Jesus, but the minute that he wasn't focused on Jesus and he was focused 00:13:01.580 --> 00:13:04.540 on like the storms around him and the wind and things like that, the things that weren't 00:13:04.540 --> 00:13:09.720 as powerful as Jesus, that's when he sank. And we're seeing this decline in modern Christianity 00:13:09.720 --> 00:13:16.720 where the less that we focus on the main thing, and we start all these programs and all these 00:13:16.720 --> 00:13:22.240 things that we say are in Jesus's name, and they probably are the best intentions. Um, we're 00:13:22.240 --> 00:13:27.060 starting to see this massive decline, but I think the church is kind of calling him, calling us back 00:13:27.060 --> 00:13:32.480 to his lordship and the focus being back on Jesus. All of it, everything else is just peripheral 00:13:32.480 --> 00:13:35.080 tools that we get to use to point people to Jesus. 00:13:35.900 --> 00:13:40.200 Totally. So with the learning community that we're doing here with Leadership Network, we're going to 00:13:40.200 --> 00:13:45.080 be talking, the digital discipleship learning community, we're going to be talking about, uh, 00:13:45.080 --> 00:13:52.080 the outfitters and how, uh, churches like yours can make this pivot, make this shift, uh, away from, 00:13:52.080 --> 00:13:59.080 um, uh, focuses and processes that, that aren't helpful and start to move maybe towards, hey, 00:13:59.120 --> 00:14:05.100 let's, let's put our focus on Christ, on God and see what happens as a result. Now what's, 00:14:05.100 --> 00:14:10.120 what's interesting with First Capital Christian, with Church Anywhere, by the way, do I call it 00:14:10.120 --> 00:14:13.520 First Capital or do I call it Church Anywhere? Like you guys have been in the world for anything for, 00:14:13.720 --> 00:14:18.140 nobody knows. We, we just gave up on trying, you can call us wherever you want. It was one of those 00:14:18.140 --> 00:14:21.080 deals where it was a big deal for a while and then now we just don't care. 00:14:22.300 --> 00:14:27.080 That's, that's awesome. So as, as we're talking about this, but we're seeing through First Capital 00:14:27.080 --> 00:14:32.600 and through Church Anywhere, uh, now that there's, there's a discipleship focus and, and there's an 00:14:32.600 --> 00:14:37.920 understanding of who Christ is, they want to exude that and they want to share that. There's a 00:14:37.920 --> 00:14:43.920 missional opportunity that they're, they're able to realize in, in digital space. Uh, they're leaning 00:14:43.920 --> 00:14:48.120 into digital communities. They're, they're championing new ideas within the ministry. And, and so, 00:14:48.560 --> 00:14:53.780 man, Tyler, was just maybe tell me about some of these outpourings that, as you said, some of, 00:14:53.780 --> 00:14:59.960 some of these outputs where we're now, we're starting to see, uh, a, a, a missional church that's 00:14:59.960 --> 00:15:06.100 activated, that's heading into digital communities as, as a way to, uh, to reach people. Just tell me a 00:15:06.100 --> 00:15:11.140 couple stories. Yeah. So, uh, one of the things that we have just pounded into the heads of our 00:15:11.140 --> 00:15:16.080 people over the last two years is that we want every Jesus follower to have a Jesus cause. 00:15:16.540 --> 00:15:21.480 Like not, it's not, it's not enough that we're a church that wants to be missional. Like we want 00:15:21.480 --> 00:15:26.100 every individual to also be on mission and we want them to do that in an area of passion. 00:15:26.520 --> 00:15:31.980 So one of the outpouring specifically digitally has been people coming to us and saying, Hey, 00:15:31.980 --> 00:15:36.820 I have this area of passion. How I don't know how to get involved though. And our default answer is a 00:15:36.820 --> 00:15:43.180 micro site. Um, so it's sprouted up like, I don't know, 15 new micro sites or something over the last 00:15:43.180 --> 00:15:48.220 couple of years, but it's people ministering in their sweet spots. So we've got a micro site right 00:15:48.220 --> 00:15:54.140 now at a CrossFit gym. Um, we've got a micro site, um, about an hour and a half away at an elementary 00:15:54.140 --> 00:15:57.900 school. That's like an afterschool program. There's all these ones that have sprouted out 00:15:57.900 --> 00:16:03.880 simply from encouraging people to follow these passion areas. Um, and all of that is obviously 00:16:03.880 --> 00:16:10.860 digitally, um, that we're using digital content, uh, in infused. Yeah. Um, so that's, that's one of 00:16:10.860 --> 00:16:16.920 the ways. Uh, another way is, um, with the shift on discipleship, we've seen a lot of baptisms, 00:16:17.100 --> 00:16:21.640 but we didn't want people to just be baptized and then kind of like figure out what's next on their 00:16:21.640 --> 00:16:27.160 own. So we've been intentional of trying to pair each person that's been baptized with a mentor for 00:16:27.160 --> 00:16:33.680 the first six weeks of their journey with Christ. Um, so very relational and it doesn't have to be 00:16:33.680 --> 00:16:40.560 in person or online. It can be either. Uh, we created six weeks worth of curriculum that is all 00:16:40.560 --> 00:16:46.180 done through like a, um, it's not an app, but it's like a mobile friendly webpage. So every time someone 00:16:46.180 --> 00:16:51.580 gets baptized, they, um, they are paired with a guide who guides them through this daily curriculum 00:16:51.580 --> 00:16:58.040 using digital content, it's all asynchronous. We've seen tremendous discipleship happen from that. 00:16:58.160 --> 00:17:02.560 It turns out like people are excited whenever they first get baptized, but they don't really 00:17:02.560 --> 00:17:08.200 usually have, um, quite the direction that they need. This provides them with the ability to have 00:17:08.200 --> 00:17:14.900 direction. Uh, we've seen digital, um, small groups happen. Digital leadership trainings, um, 00:17:14.900 --> 00:17:23.220 happen using asynchronous communication. Um, I teach every month, um, via zoom to our micro site in 00:17:23.220 --> 00:17:28.440 India who found us through Facebook. Like it's just been, it feels like I'm in part of a circus and 00:17:28.440 --> 00:17:32.600 God's just like the circus master and I get to be a part of it. That's what it feels like over the last 00:17:32.600 --> 00:17:38.280 two years. So that's what I, that's what I love about first capital is they never say no, they say yes. 00:17:38.280 --> 00:17:43.840 And then they figure out how, how to make it happen. And, uh, the, the volunteer coal core, the, 00:17:43.840 --> 00:17:50.500 the, um, the, you know, the number of volunteer missionaries, volunteer, uh, micro church leaders, 00:17:50.500 --> 00:17:55.740 like the passion they serve on, like, it's just, it's beautiful to, to watch that from afar. 00:17:56.100 --> 00:17:59.800 I'll, I'll add to that part. Like one of the things we've noticed out of this outfitting 00:17:59.800 --> 00:18:04.960 is like people really want to serve. Like they, they, they really do. They want to do it, 00:18:04.960 --> 00:18:11.020 but they don't always just want to like hold a baby on a weekend service or open the doors for 00:18:11.020 --> 00:18:17.040 people. There are untapped potential areas that people in, in churches all over the country have, 00:18:17.040 --> 00:18:23.780 um, that simply they just need help finding their passion area. And we've got to realize that, 00:18:23.780 --> 00:18:28.880 um, that at, at first capital, we've seen that happen both online and in person. 00:18:29.280 --> 00:18:33.620 Yeah. So let's talk a little bit. You said async a couple of times and that's, 00:18:33.620 --> 00:18:38.000 that's always encouraging because I talk async, but I would love to get in a little bit more 00:18:38.000 --> 00:18:43.960 detail as we, we talk about, um, you know, what context are using async? What, what platform, 00:18:44.200 --> 00:18:48.100 how to, how does it look like, like put a little skin on the bones. Let's, let's define that a little 00:18:48.100 --> 00:18:53.900 bit. Uh, I'll do the, the one that I am most involved in right now, because there's multiple ways 00:18:53.900 --> 00:18:59.700 that we do this. Um, the one that I'm most involved in is I'm taking a group of guys through a leadership 00:18:59.700 --> 00:19:06.360 training cohort. Um, these are, um, not only in person people. So this is potential future leadership 00:19:06.360 --> 00:19:13.500 of the church type people that I want to pour into. Um, I've got 12 of them or 11 of them in a group 00:19:13.500 --> 00:19:20.480 right now. And every morning, um, we do, uh, a journey Bible studies, what we call it journey group 00:19:20.480 --> 00:19:27.340 where I post a small chunk of scripture within a Slack channel. And then throughout the day, 00:19:27.340 --> 00:19:33.380 we do, um, observations and applications that come into our mind from that small portion of study 00:19:33.380 --> 00:19:41.520 and then we pray together. Um, so that sounds really simple, but it has really grown us closer 00:19:41.520 --> 00:19:46.040 together as a group of people, because throughout the day, if someone writes something that I didn't 00:19:46.040 --> 00:19:51.920 think about, then I usually respond. And so do the other people. And so it ends up being a group of men 00:19:51.920 --> 00:19:57.320 who are constantly talking to each other, even though we're several hours apart sometimes. Um, 00:19:57.320 --> 00:20:03.900 in response time and location. So that's one of the, the, the ways that, um, recently we've seen a lot 00:20:03.900 --> 00:20:10.640 of success are these like small journey groups that we use Slack for, um, that it's really just 00:20:10.640 --> 00:20:16.940 like obedience-based Bible study. Hmm. And so how, I mean, I'm not a Slack fan. We were joking about 00:20:16.940 --> 00:20:21.620 that off air. I dedicated most of my life to Slack. No, no kidding. Like I've used Slack for a decade 00:20:21.620 --> 00:20:27.300 and, um, anyway, I'm, I'm a discord guy now, but that's okay. It's like, I still love you for 00:20:27.320 --> 00:20:33.240 it. Salesforce, not so much, but that's okay. Um, but so like how much, one of the things like 00:20:33.240 --> 00:20:39.140 churches, I would suggest they've really struggled with, with a sync, um, to make it really be 00:20:39.140 --> 00:20:44.760 effective. Now, what, what I've traditionally heard in the past is, is throwing a bunch of people into, 00:20:44.760 --> 00:20:51.720 into an async or like a Facebook group or, or like a Slack or a discord and not really managing it well. 00:20:51.720 --> 00:20:57.500 But what, what I'm hearing from you is like, you're, you're working small groups into that. 00:20:57.620 --> 00:21:01.660 Yeah. The smaller, the smaller, the better, smaller, the better. Pull that thread. Talk to me. 00:21:01.940 --> 00:21:07.500 Yeah. I have 11 in mind. I have 11 in mind. Um, Matthew, one of our staff members is in one 00:21:07.500 --> 00:21:14.060 that he's got six or three couples. So six total people, Megan, um, who is like a online legend as 00:21:14.060 --> 00:21:19.480 well. Um, she is in, she leads one for women and she had about seven other women in that one. 00:21:19.720 --> 00:21:24.860 Um, we, we're in like the pilot season of this right now. So we, we wanted to launch about, 00:21:24.860 --> 00:21:29.520 um, six or seven groups that are potential leaders. And in the fall, we're going to do 00:21:29.520 --> 00:21:36.220 this church wide, both in person and online. Um, but all of them have come out of it saying 00:21:36.220 --> 00:21:42.160 that this was the closest small group they've ever had. Um, just because they're constantly 00:21:42.160 --> 00:21:46.840 in communication. Um, it doesn't feel like a group. It doesn't feel like those annoying group 00:21:46.840 --> 00:21:51.640 chats. It feels like a very pointed one and it holds people accountable this way. So 00:21:51.640 --> 00:21:57.620 because it's asynchronous and like the notifications come all throughout the day, um, rather than 00:21:57.620 --> 00:22:03.480 at like one time, you can't really hide. Like it's obvious whenever you miss a day. So, um, 00:22:03.480 --> 00:22:07.460 so there's an accountability that happens there. Um, that's why I'm a proponent of making them 00:22:07.460 --> 00:22:11.160 smaller. If there was a hundred people in this one group, it would be really easy to hide, 00:22:11.160 --> 00:22:15.360 but like six or seven, if you're the only one not responding, like it's pretty obvious 00:22:15.360 --> 00:22:19.560 that you're not fully invested. And then at that point we probably would have a conversation with 00:22:19.560 --> 00:22:22.560 them and say like, Hey, I don't think this is for you. This is for the people that want to go. 00:22:22.800 --> 00:22:28.540 And so having that accountability, keeping, keeping it small now, and I've seen groups that have big 00:22:28.540 --> 00:22:32.340 and small where there's, where's a mix to that, where you get critical mass and critical energy 00:22:32.340 --> 00:22:37.640 in the large, but, but having that accountability, um, transparently in front of people, 00:22:37.640 --> 00:22:42.200 you know, I mean, there, when, when we talk about don't, don't forsake the gathering of the believers, 00:22:42.200 --> 00:22:50.180 like the implication there is, is daily. There was a daily gathering, um, in, uh, in the acts context 00:22:50.180 --> 00:22:57.060 and in the early church context. And so utilizing async is a great way, uh, to relive that, to get to 00:22:57.060 --> 00:23:01.140 know people. And so like, this is just one of many things that we're going to talk about within the 00:23:01.140 --> 00:23:07.280 learning community and try to coach up on how to utilize these digital tools and, and, and to engage in 00:23:07.280 --> 00:23:12.840 digital communities missionally better. Now, um, one of the things that, that I love, you almost made 00:23:12.840 --> 00:23:17.660 me cry, Tyler. Like we, we had like a, I'll just be honest before we pressed record, Tyler and I had 00:23:17.660 --> 00:23:23.360 like a 10 minute conversation and it just managed. He just, he just warmed my heart. Um, Tyler said the 00:23:23.360 --> 00:23:30.740 words, uh, obedience-based groups. And I, I, I just started to tear up. Um, and so Tyler, uh, while, 00:23:30.920 --> 00:23:36.100 while I'm off camera and, and, and dabbing my eyes a little bit here again, why don't you talk a 00:23:36.100 --> 00:23:38.500 little bit about what you're doing with the obedience-based groups? 00:23:40.380 --> 00:23:45.800 Yeah, it goes directly into these asynchronous, uh, groups. So that the asynchronous, uh, digital 00:23:45.800 --> 00:23:52.400 communities are the method that we're doing this, but essentially it's a scripture a day, uh, like a, 00:23:52.400 --> 00:23:57.380 a portion of scripture. Right now we're working through the gospel of Matthew. So it's a, like 00:23:57.380 --> 00:24:03.960 essentially each subsection. Um, so today we did like Matthew 16, one through seven. So it's seven 00:24:03.960 --> 00:24:12.700 verses. And, um, the goal is for people to look back. How has the scripture applied in the last 00:24:12.700 --> 00:24:21.080 week to their life? Look up, um, and pray that God would reveal what he wants, um, from that scripture 00:24:21.080 --> 00:24:25.720 in their life and then look forward. And like we say out loud, here's how we're going to use this 00:24:25.720 --> 00:24:31.700 in the next day or week. Um, which goes back to that accountability. The problem is most small groups 00:24:31.700 --> 00:24:36.260 that I've ever been a part of have been like, Hey, let's go. Um, let's go meet at someone's house 00:24:36.260 --> 00:24:39.960 and we're going to spend 25 minutes listening to like an Andy Stanley sermon. And then we're going to 00:24:39.960 --> 00:24:45.160 talk about it. And we might come out of that better because we have more knowledge. Um, but we don't 00:24:45.160 --> 00:24:51.400 really talk about how we're going to put that into practice. Um, we've kind of skipped the, um, lesson 00:24:51.400 --> 00:24:58.680 portion and went straight to God's word portion and have asked people and in front of each other, 00:24:58.740 --> 00:25:04.200 asked God to use that in our lives and keep us accountable. So that's the obedience-based part of 00:25:04.200 --> 00:25:09.980 the asynchronous learning community that we have going on. If churches today can figure out how to hold 00:25:09.980 --> 00:25:17.780 their people accountable, um, the church will be successful missionally. Um, churches struggle 00:25:17.780 --> 00:25:23.640 with, with accountability. Actually, I was coached, um, maybe a year or so ago to actually not publicly 00:25:23.640 --> 00:25:29.600 say the word accountable because you can't, that you can't say that in 2023, but I'm not, you know, 00:25:29.620 --> 00:25:33.120 by the church holding someone accountable, the church isn't telling the person what to do. 00:25:33.360 --> 00:25:37.820 The church is saying, what is God telling you to do? And Hey, let's, let's, let's do that. 00:25:37.820 --> 00:25:44.980 Uh, and so there's, there's actually, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, a mild dose of humility. The church is 00:25:44.980 --> 00:25:51.960 releasing control in that situation, allowing the person to connect directly with God to find out 00:25:51.960 --> 00:25:57.560 what their, you said calling earlier, like what their, what their calling is. And then the church 00:25:57.560 --> 00:26:02.060 is posturing themselves to say, okay, now that you know what their calling is, how can we, the church 00:26:02.060 --> 00:26:06.800 humbly, humbly help? Yeah. How can we outfit you to achieve that calling? Like that's where the 00:26:06.800 --> 00:26:11.380 outfitter came from. We're on a, we're all on some kind of journey with Jesus and each of us have a 00:26:11.380 --> 00:26:16.400 different, we call it GPS. So gifts, passion, and story. We all got a different GPS coordinate. 00:26:17.120 --> 00:26:21.780 Um, how can we outfit you as a church to get to your intended location that God wants you to get 00:26:21.780 --> 00:26:26.420 to? That's how we've pitched it to our people. Yeah, that's, that's, that's so good. And, and you're, 00:26:26.520 --> 00:26:30.580 we're going to help you get there and, and, and do what God's led you to do. And that, 00:26:30.800 --> 00:26:35.680 that opens, it's, it's funny, you know, you're talking before about being so widespread that gets you to, 00:26:35.780 --> 00:26:41.060 Hey, what are we doing in India? And Hey, what are we doing with a movie? And Hey, what are we doing 00:26:41.060 --> 00:26:46.360 in worship? And all of a sudden, you know, you're all over the map, uh, because you're empowering 00:26:46.360 --> 00:26:51.080 others to do what God's calling them to do. And they're, they're leading and you're supporting as 00:26:51.080 --> 00:26:56.940 opposed to you leading and, and, and being overstretched. You're empowering others in that, 00:26:57.060 --> 00:27:02.180 in that mission. So, um, talk to me a little bit here. Uh, like you, you mentioned India real 00:27:02.180 --> 00:27:07.060 briefly and, and I'm sure there's other outputs and things that, that you're doing. Um, what, 00:27:07.060 --> 00:27:12.300 what exactly are you doing in India? So we're doing two things in India right now. Um, I say 00:27:12.300 --> 00:27:18.860 two things like they're tiny, but they're both pretty big. Um, the first one is we have a micro 00:27:18.860 --> 00:27:25.540 site in India. Um, who is a crazy story, but the guy connected with us on Facebook while he was in 00:27:25.540 --> 00:27:30.460 seminary. Um, he had already given his life to Christ, but I don't know how he found us on Facebook, 00:27:30.460 --> 00:27:35.900 but he connected, watched us for about a year before he ever even reached out. Um, and finally 00:27:35.900 --> 00:27:41.660 reached out and asked for a zoom call. So Megan and I jumped on it and we found out that, um, he was 00:27:41.660 --> 00:27:46.560 listening to our outfitter series about being on mission. He thought he needed to do something about 00:27:46.560 --> 00:27:54.660 it. So he started a house church, um, in his house, uh, using our material. And then he felt 00:27:54.660 --> 00:27:59.300 like he wasn't doing enough. So he decided to go out into one of the villages and start a second church. 00:27:59.300 --> 00:28:06.100 So he's pastoring two churches, um, got about 45 people in his house and probably another 30 to 40 00:28:06.100 --> 00:28:12.280 people in his village all through the church anywhere network. And so he wanted to connect to see if we 00:28:12.280 --> 00:28:18.240 could become partners more than him just watching and doing what we say. And I said, yeah, what does 00:28:18.240 --> 00:28:23.880 that look like? So we recently have helped them build a well, um, or like have some fresh water in, 00:28:23.960 --> 00:28:31.920 in their area. But beyond that, um, I preach live for them once a month via zoom. Um, so that's a 00:28:31.920 --> 00:28:37.540 crazy connection with, with India right there, but it goes back to the, um, like outfitters and 00:28:37.540 --> 00:28:43.500 figuring out how to disciple people. And we somehow like discipled and inspired this guy all the way 00:28:43.500 --> 00:28:49.120 in India through Facebook messenger. And now I have a personal relationship with him and his 45 people 00:28:49.120 --> 00:28:55.580 that meet in his, um, house. So I preach, um, once a month and he translates every few words. So it's the 00:28:55.580 --> 00:29:03.220 slowest sermon of all time. Um, yeah, the second thing from India is we do digital missions in India. 00:29:03.220 --> 00:29:09.120 We, um, do a thing called perspectives in our area. That's like a 10 week course on becoming a 00:29:09.120 --> 00:29:15.720 missionary. And the people that graduate that, uh, many of them have like huge desires for, for that 00:29:15.720 --> 00:29:22.460 type of ministry, but no means to go overseas. So we partnered with CV outreach and, um, we're doing 00:29:22.460 --> 00:29:29.680 felt needs ministry to India right now. And we're averaging somewhere around 170 to 180 people a 00:29:29.680 --> 00:29:32.860 week that we're connecting with. Uh, and the team's about 18 people. 00:29:34.420 --> 00:29:39.920 So hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. 170 to 180 people define connecting. Is that, 00:29:39.960 --> 00:29:45.100 is that text? Is that email? Is that voice? It's a email, email, email, email, and WhatsApp. So 00:29:45.100 --> 00:29:50.320 text. Yeah. And what's, what's really cool is that we've, we've onboarded some natives. So like 00:29:50.320 --> 00:29:56.360 we have people who have come to Jesus through this ministry who are now on the team as digital 00:29:56.360 --> 00:30:02.240 missionaries to India, but they're in India. Okay. So, um, a small church and a medium-sized 00:30:02.240 --> 00:30:09.940 church in Cordon, Indiana with small town in Indiana, uh, is currently, um, onboarding digital 00:30:09.940 --> 00:30:15.880 missionaries to reach people in India. Like you guys have misspelled the state, Indiana to 00:30:15.880 --> 00:30:19.760 India. It doesn't matter. You're figuring out how to, yeah, we just, we, we accidentally messed up 00:30:19.760 --> 00:30:24.620 and we figured it out. Typo for, forget that. Let's just go ahead and stick with the plan. 00:30:25.660 --> 00:30:31.440 That's, that's, that's awesome. So like you've got, how'd this start? You had people that were 00:30:31.440 --> 00:30:36.340 called to India? Yeah. Well, no, we had people that were called to missions that couldn't go be 00:30:36.340 --> 00:30:41.460 missionaries due to financial or health or whatever. And, uh, so I said, well, what about this? 00:30:41.460 --> 00:30:47.020 We've already been doing felt needs ministry for a long time. Um, one-on-one like here in the States, 00:30:47.020 --> 00:30:52.320 uh, started with our own website, then partnered with CV. And then now we've added on, he gets us 00:30:52.320 --> 00:30:57.740 in glue. Um, what if we tried this in India, we have a Google ad grant. We could probably make that 00:30:57.740 --> 00:31:03.160 work. And they said, yeah, let's do it. Um, actually I just said, what we tried to overseas, 00:31:03.160 --> 00:31:07.600 the team voted on India. That's the one that they all decided they wanted to go for first. So that's 00:31:07.600 --> 00:31:13.580 how that came about. That that's incredible. And so it's, it's a, it's a, it's a course, uh, 00:31:13.580 --> 00:31:18.820 perspectives and just the output of that, uh, you help to activate people and help them find 00:31:18.820 --> 00:31:23.580 mission by doing it digitally to engage into a community literally on the other side of the 00:31:23.580 --> 00:31:28.880 planet. Um, which is, which is resulting in discipleship to the level of knowledge you're 00:31:28.880 --> 00:31:35.560 onboarding Indian natives to effectively reach India natives to your, your system. Like this is, 00:31:35.560 --> 00:31:39.200 it's a beautiful level of, of multiplication discipleship. 00:31:39.200 --> 00:31:46.480 I cannot wait, cannot wait to get to eternity future. And like, I want to just want to be 00:31:46.480 --> 00:31:52.040 there sometime when like one of our India team members from like Podunk, Indiana gets to meet 00:31:52.040 --> 00:31:58.380 someone from a village in India. And they're only there because this guy reached out in Cordon and 00:31:58.380 --> 00:32:02.840 they get to see each other for the first time. Like that, that image just like, it makes me tear up 00:32:02.840 --> 00:32:05.480 the idea that, that God's that big. 00:32:05.480 --> 00:32:09.420 And once again, like through the learning communities, we're trying to highlight different 00:32:09.420 --> 00:32:15.680 ways that through discipleship, digital discipleship, you can activate people and help 00:32:15.680 --> 00:32:22.500 them find a digital purpose in ministry, a digital calling. And something here like a perspectives 00:32:22.500 --> 00:32:27.400 course, which equals activating people on mission on the other side of the planet. Um, I mean, 00:32:27.400 --> 00:32:31.040 this is, this is a beautiful story. You know, one, one of the other stories that I just, I know from a 00:32:31.040 --> 00:32:36.420 personal level with Tyler is the stuff that, that first capital has done with, he gets us. Uh, and 00:32:36.420 --> 00:32:40.540 that, you know, that's been a campaign through glue and a number of different other partners that, 00:32:40.540 --> 00:32:44.800 that I've done a lot of work with, and we'll be ramping up even more in the near future, hint, 00:32:44.880 --> 00:32:50.760 hint. Um, but, but for now, Tyler, talk a little bit about, uh, maybe some of your experiences, 00:32:50.760 --> 00:32:53.160 you and your church's experience with, he gets us. 00:32:55.600 --> 00:33:00.100 Yeah. And we jumped on board really early on with them, actually through you, you onboarded us. 00:33:00.100 --> 00:33:07.340 Um, but like right at the beginning of this thing. And, um, right now we're at, we are averaging 00:33:07.340 --> 00:33:17.080 around 130 ish connections to people, um, to people that are engaging per month, which we didn't know. 00:33:17.400 --> 00:33:21.160 That's just like normal for us. We didn't realize that was like four or five times the amount that 00:33:21.160 --> 00:33:24.760 most churches are doing. So we've been like wearing ourselves out and building this team, 00:33:24.760 --> 00:33:32.760 but it's all, it's all for like a great purpose. Um, we've connected with, man, story after story. 00:33:32.760 --> 00:33:39.800 Uh, the one, one of them that highlight, um, that's not super happy, but was, um, pretty hard 00:33:39.800 --> 00:33:47.000 ministry was I connected with somebody around Thanksgiving last year who had, um, had their son had 00:33:47.000 --> 00:33:52.760 committed suicide and she had found him. And I connected with her through glue, um, about two 00:33:52.760 --> 00:33:57.960 days after that happened. And we ended up talking on the phone for a while, ended up helping her get 00:33:57.960 --> 00:34:03.160 into some counseling. And she was about three and a half hours from me. So like, not, it wasn't like 00:34:03.160 --> 00:34:11.560 my neck of the woods. Um, but these are real people that have real, um, and urgent needs. And it's just 00:34:11.560 --> 00:34:15.320 like an honor to be able to have a team that connects with those kinds of people. 00:34:15.320 --> 00:34:19.320 That's just one of the, you're right. That's not a, it's not a happy story. Uh, and there, 00:34:19.320 --> 00:34:24.760 there's a lot of unhappy stories, but one of the thing I love about he gets us in the churches that 00:34:24.760 --> 00:34:31.160 are part of, of glue's explorers program is that there are churches that are willing to have those 00:34:31.160 --> 00:34:36.920 hard conversations and there's people and volunteers that are willing to, to almost be digital missionaries 00:34:36.920 --> 00:34:43.240 engaging in a way with, uh, with spiritual explorers and people that are, that are seeking answers. 00:34:43.240 --> 00:34:49.240 Um, I cut Tyler. I've never heard that, that story too, literally two days after, uh, there, 00:34:49.240 --> 00:34:55.720 she found her, her child, um, on suicide. Like you're, you're, that's, that's front lines, man. 00:34:56.200 --> 00:35:01.320 Yeah. None of, none of these, um, like we watched the, he gets us commercials and we don't realize 00:35:01.320 --> 00:35:04.760 how intense that some of these conversations are going to be. But I mean, that's, that's what 00:35:04.760 --> 00:35:09.320 happens when you step into people's messes. Like Jesus came for the sick, not for the, the healthy. 00:35:09.320 --> 00:35:15.160 Um, so his church is going to step into those situations as well. And for some reason online, 00:35:15.160 --> 00:35:20.520 at least in my experience over the last decade, online people are more apt to open up about the hard 00:35:20.520 --> 00:35:25.960 stuff. Um, so this is, I always tell our team, like you're on one of the hardest teams that we 00:35:25.960 --> 00:35:33.480 have as a church, because you're stepping into some serious mess. Um, and it's hard to sustain, 00:35:33.480 --> 00:35:38.200 but well worth it when you have conversations that end up in a positive light where you can 00:35:38.200 --> 00:35:42.920 actually help someone. What's beautiful about this story is this woman was three and a half 00:35:42.920 --> 00:35:49.480 hours away from your church. Um, and so I'm, I'm willing to bet knowing you, you weren't like, 00:35:49.480 --> 00:35:56.040 hey, well, you should come to our church building. Like you, you, you took the time to minister to 00:35:56.040 --> 00:36:02.280 this person without the direct benefit of, of having them be in the church building to go against some 00:36:02.280 --> 00:36:06.920 metric somewhere. Like you ministered to her regardless of the fact of where she was located. 00:36:09.000 --> 00:36:13.480 Yeah. I will say this now more comfortably than I've said it in the past, because my church 00:36:13.480 --> 00:36:17.560 is a lot more comfortable with me saying this now that I'm the lead guy. Um, I just, 00:36:17.560 --> 00:36:22.760 I just don't care if they come here. I, I, I, I want them to come here. I'll care about them 00:36:22.760 --> 00:36:28.520 and deeply care about them here. Um, but man, I'm going to stand before God someday. And it's not 00:36:28.520 --> 00:36:33.960 going to be a, um, who had the most church attenders as a pastor contest. It's going to be 00:36:34.680 --> 00:36:40.200 who went out to the least of these, um, and, and helped them. And if my motive is 00:36:40.200 --> 00:36:45.240 only to get them to come to my church, I am like dramatically missing the point of this whole thing. 00:36:45.240 --> 00:36:50.040 Right there. That's next level thinking. You know, if, if we can, if we can move beyond 00:36:50.040 --> 00:36:56.920 the butts in seats metric and start to recognize maybe what digital relationships are, what relationships 00:36:56.920 --> 00:37:03.000 are and what discipleship and what for care for people needs to look like in digital and how that can 00:37:03.000 --> 00:37:08.120 help the church, uh, whether physical or to let this is a, this is a beautiful story and a beautiful 00:37:08.120 --> 00:37:14.200 example. And I'm sorry, it costs the, the, the, the life of a, of a, of a person here to tell this 00:37:14.200 --> 00:37:20.120 story, but man, this is the potential that we have even through utilizing like glue's spiritual 00:37:20.120 --> 00:37:28.280 explorers program to, to champion, uh, ministry to reach the people that our buildings are not going 00:37:28.280 --> 00:37:38.360 to reach now, Tyler, let me, let me ask this. Um, 130 people a month. That's, that's 33 people a week. 00:37:38.360 --> 00:37:47.080 That's, that's five to seven conversations a day. Um, you're, you're like, I just not to be facetious, 00:37:47.080 --> 00:37:51.400 but you're not having all those conversations yourself. You know, I know Megan's busy as well. 00:37:51.400 --> 00:37:55.160 You and Megan are not having all these conversations. You mentioned earlier a team, 00:37:55.640 --> 00:38:00.280 like how, how, how have you brought on volunteers to have some of these hard conversations? What does 00:38:00.280 --> 00:38:07.320 that look like? Yeah, we've, we've, we've been really selective with this group simply because 00:38:07.320 --> 00:38:12.040 it really is kind of the front lines. Um, so this is more high level of people we trust. I think 00:38:12.040 --> 00:38:16.840 there's 10 on our team right now for, he gets us maybe 11. I would have to go look. We've onboarded 00:38:16.840 --> 00:38:20.600 a couple of people in the last couple of weeks, but these are people that have either expressed 00:38:20.600 --> 00:38:27.080 interest in ministry or they're like higher level capacity types of people that haven't necessarily 00:38:27.080 --> 00:38:31.880 found their place in physical ministry yet, but like want to help the kingdom and people that's the 00:38:31.880 --> 00:38:37.560 types of people that we have on the team. Did they, did they approach you or you approach them? 00:38:37.560 --> 00:38:41.480 Cause I'm thinking outfitters, like has somebody come out of the outfitters program and said, 00:38:41.480 --> 00:38:46.360 I want to do this. Or is this the one area where you're like self-selecting people and grabbing 00:38:46.360 --> 00:38:53.560 them out? Well, this is kind of, um, a perfect example of outfitters. It's, oh, you need a, 00:38:53.560 --> 00:38:58.200 this is your strength and you need a place to serve. Okay. Well, here's what we can offer if this 00:38:58.200 --> 00:39:03.720 would be of interest to you. Um, so that's kind of how that worked. And, uh, so like once again, 00:39:03.720 --> 00:39:09.400 through the explorers program glue, he gets us and in church cares, and there's so many other, uh, 00:39:09.400 --> 00:39:15.880 glue systems that are out there that just, uh, before the explorers program, so much opportunity, 00:39:15.880 --> 00:39:21.640 uh, but you've got to disciple people. You've got to take them through a process to start to be able 00:39:21.640 --> 00:39:26.760 to handle some of these hard conversations. Like, could you imagine a volunteer engaging with someone 00:39:26.760 --> 00:39:32.520 whose, um, whose son had died two days earlier? That's a hard conversation for a pastor, 00:39:32.520 --> 00:39:37.720 much less a volunteer. That's happened. So that's happened to our volunteers, maybe not 00:39:37.720 --> 00:39:45.880 that exact scenario, but things equal to that level of intensity. And they know that it's okay to say, 00:39:45.880 --> 00:39:51.000 I don't know. Let me pass it on to the person that can help you. Um, and we know that too. That's why 00:39:51.000 --> 00:39:55.960 we have counselors that are operating out of our building, um, so that we can send them to those. 00:39:55.960 --> 00:40:00.360 You know, as, as much as I've, I've talked with like American association of Christian counselors, 00:40:00.360 --> 00:40:05.880 uh, doctor, uh, oh my gosh, I'm blanking on his name right now. Dr. Carl over there, uh, 00:40:05.880 --> 00:40:10.520 and, and others, you know, the language has been around like volunteers handling these difficult 00:40:10.520 --> 00:40:16.040 situations. Here's the next level tip. You want to offload it to a volunteer. You want your volunteer 00:40:16.040 --> 00:40:20.280 to run with a ministry like the spiritual explorers, but there's, there's a certain level 00:40:20.280 --> 00:40:27.320 that a volunteer can't do. And so the volunteer is really expected to triage. Hey, if you engage 00:40:27.320 --> 00:40:31.800 with somebody at that level of, of a complex, difficult situation, a volunteer doesn't need 00:40:31.800 --> 00:40:35.720 to run away from it. The volunteer needs to be comfortable enough to engage it. But just like 00:40:35.720 --> 00:40:41.160 Tyler said, be comfortable with, Hey, you know what? I don't, I don't know the exact answer for that 00:40:41.160 --> 00:40:45.720 one. Can I, can I get you connected to somebody who's maybe a little better equipped to handle the 00:40:45.720 --> 00:40:51.000 situation? There's no shame in running away from something like that. As, as a matter of fact, 00:40:51.000 --> 00:40:56.600 there, there's courage that you're able to engage in that conversation and be sensitive enough to be 00:40:56.600 --> 00:41:01.240 aware that, Hey, I'm not the, I can't take this one to the finish line. I've got to be able to hand 00:41:01.240 --> 00:41:06.360 it off. Uh, and so this is, this is a beautiful conversation. Talk to me a little bit, because I 00:41:06.360 --> 00:41:12.920 know that in the past that you've done things with, um, uh, in influencers, like you did an influencer 00:41:12.920 --> 00:41:17.560 course, I believe, or something like that. And, uh, you know, I know Megan was doing a lot of 00:41:17.560 --> 00:41:21.960 interesting things with Tik TOK and you were exploring that with some other, other volunteers. 00:41:21.960 --> 00:41:26.280 What, what happened as a result of all that? Is that, is that still going? What's, what's up? 00:41:28.760 --> 00:41:33.640 Yeah. So some of them are still going. Um, some of them didn't become influencers because, 00:41:33.640 --> 00:41:39.720 you know, the internet's hard, but, uh, yeah, it's still an effective ministry. Probably the biggest 00:41:39.720 --> 00:41:46.680 success story, um, for a person that went through influencer 2.0, um, is a, a couple named the 00:41:46.680 --> 00:41:53.800 Guernseys who started a cooking show. Um, and they started this like food network style cooking show on 00:41:53.800 --> 00:41:57.800 YouTube because they like to cook and they share the gospel through that. And they've got a Facebook 00:41:57.800 --> 00:42:02.520 group now, like a thousand people and they share recipes and all kinds of stuff with them. Um, 00:42:02.520 --> 00:42:11.000 but a big win for us was we did a Seder meal asynchronously, um, on Passover week. So the, 00:42:11.000 --> 00:42:15.640 like on Holy week. And, um, we had people meeting here in the church building. We had people meeting 00:42:15.640 --> 00:42:21.800 in homes. We had people meeting in Uganda, Africa, like all, all over the place. And the Guernseys use 00:42:21.800 --> 00:42:28.600 their cooking show to teach us how to prepare the Seder meal. Um, so it came full circle, um, in that area. 00:42:28.600 --> 00:42:34.040 So yeah, the influencer thing is still going. Um, those are sometimes fast, fast builds and 00:42:34.040 --> 00:42:38.760 sometimes slow builds, but that's one way that we're using social media at least to. 00:42:38.760 --> 00:42:42.760 Yeah. Um, it's, it's, it's, let me ask it with your influencer program. 00:42:43.400 --> 00:42:49.000 Is there, you know, often I've, I've thought about, it's funny right when I started the church digital, 00:42:49.000 --> 00:42:56.200 I wrote a blog, uh, about how your great aunt Ruth, who's really good at, uh, pistachio pudding, 00:42:56.200 --> 00:43:03.000 uh, is, has influence and, and how like she should use that for social media. Actually, 00:43:03.000 --> 00:43:08.520 that was the heart behind us, us writing Dr. John and I writing, um, oh my gosh, 00:43:08.520 --> 00:43:12.920 I just blanked on the name of the book, Sharing Jesus Online. Um, yes, I did on my podcast, 00:43:12.920 --> 00:43:16.680 just admit that I forgotten the name of the book that I wrote like three months ago. You can, 00:43:16.680 --> 00:43:21.480 you can flag that one and throw it at me later. Um, but you've got, you know, through Sharing 00:43:21.480 --> 00:43:26.040 Jesus Online, everybody's got influence. Uh, and so there's, there's that approach to influence. 00:43:26.040 --> 00:43:31.640 And then is, are you, do you looking at influence that way? Are you looking at a more of, of the 00:43:31.640 --> 00:43:39.160 specialized kind of influencer track? Yeah, it both. Um, so we encourage, encourage people 00:43:39.160 --> 00:43:45.720 both in person and online to use whatever platform they have to share, um, Jesus. But the, the exact 00:43:45.720 --> 00:43:51.720 language that we use is we want every person to keep their eyes open, looking for every opportunity 00:43:51.720 --> 00:43:55.640 to show people Jesus through their actions. So that could be in person, could be online. 00:43:56.040 --> 00:44:00.760 But we say that at the end of every time we meet as a group of people. Um, but yeah, 00:44:00.760 --> 00:44:06.920 the, the influencer 2.0 training was more specialized around like a skill set or a platform. 00:44:06.920 --> 00:44:11.240 So say that, say that plumb line again, you like, what, what do you, what do you, is it? 00:44:12.120 --> 00:44:19.000 Yeah. We want every person to keep their eyes open, looking for opportunities to show people 00:44:19.000 --> 00:44:23.320 Jesus through their actions. It could be in person, could be online. 00:44:23.320 --> 00:44:26.040 Uh, wow. Just through their actions. Yeah. 00:44:26.040 --> 00:44:29.480 So show people, that's our definition of being a church that's on mission. 00:44:29.480 --> 00:44:34.520 And that, I mean, that I guess resonates with the audience, right? I mean, that's, that's one 00:44:34.520 --> 00:44:36.680 of the reasons why I think you've been able to activate them so well. 00:44:37.640 --> 00:44:43.240 I think so. Yeah. We say that all the time. And then a cause, a Jesus cause, we define that as 00:44:43.240 --> 00:44:50.920 a focused effort to help people find and follow Jesus through their area of passion. So everyone should 00:44:50.920 --> 00:44:57.160 be on mission always, but then we want everyone to have one lane that they're like all in and 00:44:57.160 --> 00:45:02.760 passionate about. I tell you what, I hope you're writing this down or better yet, you can join us 00:45:02.760 --> 00:45:10.280 for the learning community. Um, lead net.org/dlc digital learning community. This is what we're 00:45:10.280 --> 00:45:18.040 doing with Tyler Sansom here, um, in, uh, fall 23 by, by the way, uh, I'll go and say this, uh, 00:45:18.040 --> 00:45:28.120 coupon code Tyler lead net.org/dlc. Get a hundred dollars off by using the coupon code Tyler. This is, 00:45:28.120 --> 00:45:34.360 but what, what we want you to see here is that these are just incredible ways to, this is, this may work 00:45:34.360 --> 00:45:39.720 for your church, this may not work for your church, but these are just opportunities, examples of how 00:45:39.720 --> 00:45:47.080 we can onboard people missionally. But it starts with a discipleship process where you're, you're 00:45:47.080 --> 00:45:52.440 training them and activating them and then releasing them physically or digitally. However, you know, 00:45:52.440 --> 00:45:59.800 they feel called by God and, and being the church that is going to be activating them regardless of 00:45:59.800 --> 00:46:04.600 what direction they're being called to, whether it makes sense in context of the church or outside, 00:46:04.600 --> 00:46:09.640 you're part of that process to, to see them towards what they're, what they're calling or 00:46:09.640 --> 00:46:14.680 what their cause is for us. This, this, this is so good. You know what? I don't know, Tyler, man, 00:46:14.680 --> 00:46:19.480 listen, your church is doing all sorts of stuff artistically. It just did the I can movie we talked 00:46:19.480 --> 00:46:25.960 about. I know, I know there's been some, some, uh, expanses musically with worship and we, we talked 00:46:25.960 --> 00:46:30.840 about some of the, the high church methodology before, but then you've got some new balances. 00:46:30.840 --> 00:46:35.320 And so kind of update me a little bit with what's going on with your church overall artistically. 00:46:36.280 --> 00:46:42.040 Yeah. I mean, obviously people are watching content like in a bizarre amount, like six to 00:46:42.040 --> 00:46:47.400 eight hours a day on, on phones, they're consuming content. And so we, we just want to be part of that. 00:46:47.400 --> 00:46:55.320 Um, so we've take, taken like an entrepreneurial, um, route to what we call creative outfitting. 00:46:55.320 --> 00:47:01.480 Uh, the movie is one example of that, but like just the movie social media last, last month reached 1.6 00:47:01.480 --> 00:47:07.000 million people. Um, and then we're using the same funnel to get them into community that we would 00:47:07.000 --> 00:47:14.120 with any other digital ministry. Um, our worship team is, uh, committing to write one song a month 00:47:14.120 --> 00:47:20.680 with the goal of eventually being 60 to 70% all original songs written for our community. Um, 00:47:20.680 --> 00:47:24.440 but they've recognized that that's an area that they could release these songs online, 00:47:25.000 --> 00:47:31.000 um, and use some digital market marketing methods to share the gospel with people in a different way. 00:47:31.560 --> 00:47:37.320 Um, we're doing a lot of that stuff for jails and prisons. So we're making a mini series right 00:47:37.320 --> 00:47:42.600 now, a narrative mini series, um, that will be on every tablet of every offender in the state of Indiana. 00:47:42.600 --> 00:47:48.040 Um, so we're just taking pretty much anything that we can throw on a wall. And if it sticks, 00:47:48.040 --> 00:47:53.720 we're going to utilize, um, digital practices to get that out to as many people as possible 00:47:53.720 --> 00:47:58.920 in the creative space. Yeah. So I didn't even occur to me that you were going to use, I can, 00:47:58.920 --> 00:48:04.680 the movie as a way to onboard a people and get people connected to, to your church. 00:48:04.680 --> 00:48:07.800 That's the whole, that's the whole point of it. Yeah. So we partnered with the guys from the 00:48:07.800 --> 00:48:12.520 Chosen and right at the, at the front, we just said, Hey, we don't care if we make money or any 00:48:12.520 --> 00:48:18.200 of that off of this. The goal of this is to get as many eyeballs to hear on this project so that as 00:48:18.200 --> 00:48:23.240 many people can hear this message of redemption as possible. And then beside that, we wrote, um, 00:48:23.240 --> 00:48:29.480 small group curriculum, um, a 40 day devotional, and we're hosting all of that on our website. 00:48:29.960 --> 00:48:34.520 Um, and so we would just funnel them down the same way we would through church anywhere. 00:48:34.520 --> 00:48:38.680 It's just a different avenue. That's, that's, that's beautiful. Um, and just once again, 00:48:38.680 --> 00:48:45.240 it's, it's all of these, I mean, anything artistically digitally has an opportunity to 00:48:45.240 --> 00:48:50.880 connect up to the church where it's even, um, you know, the influence that the, that the filmmakers, 00:48:50.880 --> 00:48:57.780 that, that the musicians, all of this funnels into, uh, some sort of a process that leads people 00:48:57.780 --> 00:49:02.340 back to Christ, at least people back to the church, back to a better, uh, understanding. 00:49:02.340 --> 00:49:05.140 Can I give you, can I give you one quick story of that? 00:49:05.380 --> 00:49:05.500 Sure. 00:49:05.800 --> 00:49:12.960 So we, we, we had some screenings of, I can, um, for select people, um, because we wanted 00:49:12.960 --> 00:49:18.160 like feedback and things like that. And, um, one of them, I didn't know the guy. He was 00:49:18.160 --> 00:49:23.560 invited by one of our other producers. He's from Texas, drove 10 hours to get here. Basically, 00:49:23.560 --> 00:49:27.620 he was just like, I don't know why I'm here. Um, afterwards he wrote us on 00:49:27.620 --> 00:49:33.380 Facebook and, uh, he said, I didn't know why I came to Indiana, but as soon as I started 00:49:33.380 --> 00:49:38.440 watching the film, I realized that God brought me there to leave as a free man because their 00:49:38.440 --> 00:49:43.520 story in the movie mirrored my wife and I's story. And I've been struggling with this guilt 00:49:43.520 --> 00:49:47.920 for the last decade. And God spoke to me that evening and I'm never going to be the same. 00:49:48.300 --> 00:49:52.560 And I'm like crying as I'm reading this message, but that guy's worshiped with us through church 00:49:52.560 --> 00:49:57.560 anywhere every week since then. So all the way in Texas, we now have a family that we worship with 00:49:57.560 --> 00:50:02.520 simply through this creative means. Um, so that's, that's kind of what I meant by it's just a separate 00:50:02.520 --> 00:50:07.040 avenue, but it all funnels back into the helping people find and follow Jesus. And then how in turn 00:50:07.040 --> 00:50:12.580 can we outfit them to go do the same? Man, what, what an incredible story. And, and, and, 00:50:12.580 --> 00:50:16.960 and prayerfully we'll, we'll see more, um, come from, come from the movie, by the way, 00:50:16.960 --> 00:50:22.200 the first movie ever made about softball, right? Yeah. It's crazy. Crazy. Yeah. I never, 00:50:22.300 --> 00:50:25.960 never, you told me that. And I was like, there's, there's gotta be. And of course I went to a league 00:50:25.960 --> 00:50:30.680 of their own, but no, that was, that was women playing baseball, not softball. Uh, so who knew 00:50:30.680 --> 00:50:38.420 anyway? Um, what church, church leader, pastor, what I want you to see here is that Tyler and through 00:50:38.420 --> 00:50:43.660 first capitals taking the church to the next level utilizing digital. And do I want you to, 00:50:43.660 --> 00:50:49.320 to your church to make a movie? Well, actually my, my church made a movie in 20, 2013. It was called 00:50:49.320 --> 00:50:55.060 Genesis. It was kind of like a combination of the book of Genesis and steampunk. I'm not kidding, 00:50:55.160 --> 00:51:00.240 unfortunately, but you can, you can go back and look at that if you want. Um, no, I'm not, I'm not, 00:51:00.320 --> 00:51:04.760 I'm not suggesting that maybe I'm suggesting that, but no, it doesn't have to be what I'm suggesting. 00:51:04.760 --> 00:51:07.700 If it fits their culture. Yeah. If it fits their culture, sure. Contextualize. 00:51:08.040 --> 00:51:13.560 Definitely. Steampunk Genesis. Think about it. Give it a shot. Um, but the fact 00:51:13.560 --> 00:51:19.440 is, is, is that we want your church to think differently and start to recognize that there's 00:51:19.440 --> 00:51:25.860 opportunities beyond what you're already doing. And truthfully, a lot of the time it's activating 00:51:25.860 --> 00:51:31.660 your volunteers that are looking for an opportunity to be challenged beyond, I don't know, serving 00:51:31.660 --> 00:51:38.000 coffee and changing a diaper. There, there are other things volunteers can do rather than just 00:51:38.000 --> 00:51:43.080 complimenting what's happening in the weekend service. And that's what I would love for us to, 00:51:43.460 --> 00:51:48.640 recognize. And we're looking for churches that are willing to be challenged on this. We're through 00:51:48.640 --> 00:51:52.260 the learning community with leadership network. We're looking for churches that, that want to take 00:51:52.260 --> 00:51:57.240 it to the next level that want to move beyond the metric of, of weekend that want to see people 00:51:57.240 --> 00:52:02.360 disciple digitally. I want to see people empowered on mission, recognizing their cause and starting to 00:52:02.360 --> 00:52:06.980 be released out into it that, that want to look at digital communities as a missional community that 00:52:06.980 --> 00:52:11.920 want to go on mission trips, literally mission trips into, into digital community, into gaming, 00:52:11.920 --> 00:52:17.840 into all sorts of different spaces digitally and be the light of Christ missionally in the middle, 00:52:17.920 --> 00:52:21.520 midst of social media, in the midst of Twitter, in the midst of Facebook groups, in the midst of 00:52:21.520 --> 00:52:27.180 discord and, and, and the metaverse and the things like that. And so this is what we're looking for 00:52:27.180 --> 00:52:31.840 here, uh, with, with the learning community, the digital discipleship learning community, 00:52:31.980 --> 00:52:38.200 Tyler and I are putting together through leadership network. Once again, it's leadnet.org, L-E-A-D-N-E-T.org 00:52:38.200 --> 00:52:47.740 slash D-L-C for digital learning community. Coupon code Tyler save you a hundred bucks off of that. And so Tyler, 00:52:47.860 --> 00:52:52.620 man, it's just, are you excited about the learning community? Like what, what, what are you most excited 00:52:52.620 --> 00:52:57.800 about as you're looking forward to this? Yeah. Sometimes you feel like you're on an island, 00:52:57.920 --> 00:53:03.580 especially as a lead pastor, um, because there's just not a lot of lead pastors, at least in my 00:53:03.580 --> 00:53:09.880 sphere that are, um, thinking, uh, in terms of the way that we're trying to think. Um, and so I'm excited 00:53:09.880 --> 00:53:14.620 to connect with some other people that are ready to, I don't know, throw us up against the wall and see 00:53:14.620 --> 00:53:20.340 if it sticks with us. Um, and then maybe we can figure out how to make each other better. Awesome. 00:53:20.500 --> 00:53:24.640 Yeah. That, that's the beauty of a learning community is, is that, uh, we learn from you, you learn from us. 00:53:24.780 --> 00:53:30.900 And, uh, after throwing a bunch of, what did, what did you say? Throwing a bunch of throw stuff at the wall. 00:53:30.900 --> 00:53:35.540 I started to say throw crap at the wall, but it's like, that's, that's, it's not what you said. I don't want to throw 00:53:35.540 --> 00:53:41.860 crap. I mean, that's, that's what I tell my kids, but that's not podcast language. Forgive me. Throw stuff 00:53:41.860 --> 00:53:44.600 against the wall, see what sticks. There's a little bit of that. And then there's some, 00:53:44.620 --> 00:53:49.400 Hey, let's aim while, while we're throwing that at the wall and see what we can, can get from it. 00:53:49.400 --> 00:53:56.000 And so more information there at, uh, leanat.org slash DLC. And then of course we've got leanat.org 00:53:56.000 --> 00:54:00.720 slash MLC for the metaverse learning community. Stuart McPherson was on last week and we were 00:54:00.720 --> 00:54:05.020 talking about the metaverse learning community. Maybe you're looking to get a little more edgy 00:54:05.020 --> 00:54:09.520 with some virtual reality and, and, and get into that. Uh, we've got mission trips and other 00:54:09.520 --> 00:54:14.560 opportunities there with, uh, the metaverse learning community, MLC. And so, hey, 00:54:14.620 --> 00:54:20.400 awesome. Tyler, that's listen, it's always fun hanging out with you, man. I, I, uh, I wish 00:54:20.400 --> 00:54:27.240 I could do a podcast with Tyler every week and, uh, sadly I cannot. So maybe, maybe in another 00:54:27.240 --> 00:54:31.500 life. Um, but Hey, as, as we're, as we're wrapping up here, Tyler, any, any closing thoughts? 00:54:32.800 --> 00:54:38.140 Yeah. I would just, uh, encourage you guys to think outside the box. Um, oh, I first of all, 00:54:38.140 --> 00:54:42.800 encourage you to go, um, to the lead net website and sign up for our learning community, 00:54:42.800 --> 00:54:47.920 because I think it's going to be a lot of fun. But beyond that, start thinking outside the box 00:54:47.920 --> 00:54:53.180 because God's kingdom is a whole lot bigger than just one hour or two hours on a Sunday 00:54:53.180 --> 00:54:59.320 morning in a building together. Um, and I have seen firsthand him move in some crazy ways. 00:54:59.860 --> 00:55:02.080 Um, if you just allow him to do that. 00:55:02.520 --> 00:55:07.580 It's, it's, it's a beautiful thing. Releasing control may be the hardest thing your, your church 00:55:07.580 --> 00:55:13.020 will have to do to go through this process, but, uh, releasing it and, and allowing God to move, 00:55:13.020 --> 00:55:19.820 uh, through you, um, is, is beautiful when, when it happens and you get to see the growth 00:55:19.820 --> 00:55:25.160 of the people underneath you who are, who are taking leaps and bounds because you're pouring 00:55:25.160 --> 00:55:30.500 into them in the process and then empowering and releasing them to do what God's called them to do. 00:55:30.500 --> 00:55:34.980 Not what you're telling them to do, not what you've all and told them to do. I, and I totally 00:55:34.980 --> 00:55:38.900 get the ball and told thing. I've been on a church staff. I know how it works, but there's an 00:55:38.900 --> 00:55:46.240 opportunity to, to watch God grow that individual far beyond what your, uh, abilities are. And you get 00:55:46.240 --> 00:55:50.900 to be the, the vehicle that platforms others and helps others on the journey. It's, and that's 00:55:51.860 --> 00:55:55.040 at a personal level. I just believe that that's what God's called the church to be, 00:55:55.460 --> 00:56:00.420 uh, especially here in, in 2023. And on that note, we're going to land the plane. So check 00:56:00.420 --> 00:56:07.100 out leanet.org slash DLC, uh, coupon code Tyler or leanet.org slash MLC. If you're interested in 00:56:07.100 --> 00:56:12.680 Metaverse, go and do coupon code, uh, Stunami, S-T-U-N-A-M-I for that one. Either way, you get a hundred 00:56:12.680 --> 00:56:17.240 bucks off their respective, uh, learning communities. We'll get you going. Any questions you can hit me 00:56:17.240 --> 00:56:21.620 up? Four, eight, four, three, two, four, eight, seven, two, four. That's myself. Go ahead and text 00:56:21.620 --> 00:56:26.800 me. Don't call me. Don't be that guy. Don't be that girl. Text me and we can have the conversation, 00:56:27.040 --> 00:56:31.400 but we're going to land the plane and we got to go. So for, for Tyler, this is Jeff, 00:56:32.040 --> 00:56:35.160 the church, digital, digital church network. Thanks for being on the podcast here. We'll see 00:56:35.160 --> 00:56:37.120 you next time on the show. Y'all have a good day.