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 --> 00:00:16.640 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 --> 00:00:33.860 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 --> 00:00:46.800 disciple making that will revolutionize your church. And now, here's your host, Jeff Reed. 00:00:47.380 --> 00:00:51.780 Hey everybody, welcome to the Church Digital Podcast. Jeff Reed here, founder of Church Digital, 00:00:51.860 --> 00:00:57.300 Digital Church Network. You've got episode 275. We've got Jake Randa coming up right around the 00:00:57.300 --> 00:01:01.960 corner. Excited about this. Anytime we get Jake Randa on. Well, we'll get into that here in a 00:01:01.960 --> 00:01:07.060 little bit. It's going to be some good stuff. Hey, we've got a learning community coming up with 00:01:07.060 --> 00:01:11.540 Leadership Network. We've been talking about it all of this season. We've been talking about 00:01:11.540 --> 00:01:15.960 a digital learning community, a metaverse virtual learning community, getting exposed 00:01:15.960 --> 00:01:22.880 to the idea of digital communities and virtual reality communities and what churches look like in 00:01:22.880 --> 00:01:28.700 that space. Even talking about doing digital and metaverse mission trips, getting your people exposed 00:01:28.700 --> 00:01:35.560 to some new concepts, some new ideas in digital and in virtual reality ministry. So if you're 00:01:35.560 --> 00:01:42.700 interested in those learning communities, check out leadnet.org slash DLC for the digital one or 00:01:42.700 --> 00:01:48.940 leadnet.org slash MLC metaverse learning community for that one as well. We'll put links in the show 00:01:48.940 --> 00:01:54.960 notes. We've talked about those in past episodes. So check it out. And we're going to segue really 00:01:54.960 --> 00:01:59.240 right here into Jake Randa as we're talking about, you know, digital learning communities and metaverse 00:01:59.240 --> 00:02:03.720 learning communities and seeing things differently. We're going to be hanging out with Jay, digital 00:02:03.720 --> 00:02:07.820 pastor, online pastor, online campus pastor. What is your actual title, Jay? I feel like I ask you this 00:02:07.820 --> 00:02:15.060 every time. Online community pastor. Online community pastor for Saddleback Church. That changed. It was 00:02:15.060 --> 00:02:21.160 not online community before, was it? It changed like a couple of years ago, but it has changed many 00:02:21.160 --> 00:02:25.960 times. But yes, I was about to say you've kind of adapted along the way. One of the, probably one of 00:02:25.960 --> 00:02:34.140 the OGs of online ministry, Jay Cranda, and he's been on the podcast quite a few times. And if you've 00:02:34.140 --> 00:02:40.360 ever heard the podcast before with Jay, who lives in South Southern California, Los Angeles, 00:02:40.660 --> 00:02:46.740 specifically a Lakers fan, and you've ever listened to even some of the older podcasts with 00:02:46.740 --> 00:02:51.740 Ray Diarmus and I, who are, you know, more Miami Heat fans, you've heard some, some, maybe some 00:02:51.740 --> 00:02:57.320 conversations going back and forth about the greatness of the Lakers, how, you know, LeBron left 00:02:57.320 --> 00:03:03.400 Miami to go to, to, to a greater land and things are going to be awesome. And LeBron's, the greatness 00:03:03.400 --> 00:03:07.900 there is. And, um, you know, I just, I mean, we got a title, so I don't, I don't, are you setting up 00:03:07.900 --> 00:03:13.140 for the title? So yes. I, I, but I'm just curious because, because, you know, the Miami Heat, they're, 00:03:13.200 --> 00:03:17.040 they're, they're taking it to the, to the, uh, to the Celtics right now when we're doing this 00:03:17.040 --> 00:03:20.440 recording, the podcast will play later. Yeah. We'll probably be in the finals when this, when this 00:03:20.440 --> 00:03:30.380 cares. And, um, we're the Lakers again. I forget what, what, what's going on. Hey, Western conference 00:03:30.380 --> 00:03:36.820 finals. We were terrible at the trade season deadline. Hey, I'll take it all day. We were 00:03:36.820 --> 00:03:42.080 great. It was great. But yeah, no, I'm a Heat. I mean, the Heat are amazing. They're, they are 00:03:42.080 --> 00:03:48.340 really Jimmy Buckets is, uh, is the man I was messaging with Ray about it. He messaged me. He said, 00:03:48.340 --> 00:03:52.000 uh, he said something about something I posted on Instagram. He said, Hey Jay, you're killing 00:03:52.000 --> 00:03:57.700 it. Like in, in, in this thing in ministry. And I replied, just like the nuggets killed 00:03:57.700 --> 00:04:04.660 the Lakers this week. So just like the nuggets killed the Lakers is beautiful. And so is LeBron 00:04:04.660 --> 00:04:08.760 going to retire? I mean, let's, let's get down to brass tacks. This is what the audience wants 00:04:08.760 --> 00:04:15.080 to know. Is LeBron done? Yeah. You know, I listened to a couple of podcasts and, uh, that talk 00:04:15.080 --> 00:04:21.080 about sports and I, and I always think that when they talk about sports, I'm always like, 00:04:21.120 --> 00:04:25.080 I'm not listening in this for their sports take. And I get annoyed. So I'm imagining somebody 00:04:25.080 --> 00:04:30.080 right now listening to this and going, just talk about ministry, please. Uh, no, he's not 00:04:30.080 --> 00:04:37.500 retiring. He's not retired. LeBron is the master, uh, strategist. And so everybody bugs, you know, 00:04:37.500 --> 00:04:43.500 like I always say this, like everybody says how they don't want their politicians or their 00:04:43.500 --> 00:04:48.220 sports people or whoever to share their opinions. And then we all share our opinions about their 00:04:48.220 --> 00:04:55.520 opinions. And so, uh, like everybody, he's just, he's, he's, he's the person of this age. He just, 00:04:55.640 --> 00:05:00.560 he wants to control it all. And so just like we all control it. So he love it or hate it, but I love 00:05:00.560 --> 00:05:05.900 it. I love LeBron. I love, uh, his, his planning. He's, he's so good at it. And so we got a title 00:05:05.900 --> 00:05:12.240 out of it. So, Hey, if he can pressure the Lakers to try to make sure they act wisely over the summer, 00:05:12.240 --> 00:05:17.640 I'm all game for it. It's not my team at the end of the day. So it could be a mess at any point. 00:05:17.640 --> 00:05:24.660 Do they make the finals next year? Uh, probably not just based off of what, what they can do, 00:05:24.660 --> 00:05:30.740 but, uh, I'm a lifelong Laker fan. So I I'm, I'm here for the, for the long journey. So I'm game for 00:05:30.740 --> 00:05:35.740 it for you. All right. So that was the sports take on the church digital podcast here. Thank you 00:05:35.740 --> 00:05:41.740 for, uh, humoring us. This is literally the only time I ever talk sports on the podcast. Honestly, 00:05:41.820 --> 00:05:47.260 it's the only time I talk sports period. So I've got Jake. I know, I know this Jeff. I could say that 00:05:47.260 --> 00:05:51.220 about you. I was like, I don't know why I could start asking about how the game is played. And I 00:05:51.220 --> 00:05:56.600 feel like you would start to be, uh, you would triangle offense. I have not even watched. Oh, 00:05:56.620 --> 00:06:00.660 I know that. I know what the triangle offenses, you know, the, you know, OG Laker. Come on. 00:06:00.740 --> 00:06:06.000 I do. I appreciate, I've known how it's played, but I know it came out of Riley. So I know, I know the 00:06:06.000 --> 00:06:11.680 history of it, but, um, yeah, I don't, I don't, I can honestly, that's the thing. Yeah. Riley Laker, 00:06:11.800 --> 00:06:17.480 come on. You can't have me hate on the heat. You know, it's got, they got Riley. I'll, I'll, 00:06:17.480 --> 00:06:26.020 all I, all I know is that I have not watched one NBA game this year. That's, that's, that's how much 00:06:26.020 --> 00:06:30.660 sports I'm involved in right now. So thank you. Well, I will say practically, I will say just 00:06:30.660 --> 00:06:36.400 transitioning to digital. One of the weird things about the NBA is the NBA is one of these most 00:06:36.400 --> 00:06:42.100 talked about sports, but they're actually, their viewership is terrible. They've really, 00:06:42.320 --> 00:06:47.120 they've really struggled with people actually watching games because most people, uh, tweet 00:06:47.120 --> 00:06:51.740 about it. Uh, there's accounts like house of highlights on Instagram and tech talk. It's a 00:06:51.740 --> 00:06:57.780 most young people experience it in clips because it's a very clickable kind of small moment type of 00:06:57.780 --> 00:07:02.400 sport, but they deal with this thing. I did this blog post a couple of years ago and it's still true 00:07:02.400 --> 00:07:08.000 where like, if you look at the social engagement of NBA, it's like the top it's over the NFL and all 00:07:08.000 --> 00:07:12.720 this, but if you look at viewership, they really struggle because they have more games. And so it's 00:07:12.720 --> 00:07:16.800 this really interesting digital thing where like, like, it's kind of like a church, a church can be 00:07:16.800 --> 00:07:21.640 maybe constantly talked about, but people who actually show up to the room is very low. So 00:07:21.640 --> 00:07:26.120 it's just really interesting, like dichotomy that they kind of wrestle with and they're trying to 00:07:26.120 --> 00:07:30.960 drive more because people like me will watch games, but the average person, I mean, I try to watch a 00:07:30.960 --> 00:07:36.480 full basketball game and it's hard because it's two and a half hours. It's a lot of timeouts. And so 00:07:36.480 --> 00:07:40.000 it's kind of a lot of the church stuff. It's, it's, there is some parallels there. 00:07:40.380 --> 00:07:43.660 Interesting. I, I, I've actually remember that YouTube video that back in the day, 00:07:43.720 --> 00:07:47.660 you were paralleled to it was good. It's good. Some good stuff. Quality editing out of Jay Cranda. 00:07:47.700 --> 00:07:51.860 Good stuff. Have you watched any of the NBA on the metaverse virtual reality? 00:07:53.420 --> 00:07:55.920 I have. Yeah. What's, what's your take on that? 00:07:57.880 --> 00:08:02.600 Uh, I mean the, it's really cool that you could sit court side and kind of watch these plays. 00:08:02.600 --> 00:08:06.740 I mean, the, the biggest struggle is just the quality of the stream because it's not, 00:08:06.740 --> 00:08:15.420 I mean, it's not a 10 ADP or anything because it's, there's so many, there's so much data in that point 00:08:15.420 --> 00:08:21.560 of view, you know, they cap it at a, um, at a one 80 view essentially where you turn around and it's 00:08:21.560 --> 00:08:26.960 dark. And so it's kind of this one. And so it's really weird because there's so much data in there 00:08:26.960 --> 00:08:33.180 that, um, it's just pixelated. So it's cool. You can be at the side or you can be under the basket 00:08:33.180 --> 00:08:39.720 and you can see it. It's very immersive, but at the end of the day, all this stuff comes down to 00:08:39.720 --> 00:08:46.900 it feeling pixelated at moments. I mean, it's the difference why cartoon ish types of, of, of 00:08:46.900 --> 00:08:53.940 experiences feel very crisp at any real life ones feel pixelated because the cartoons versions are 00:08:53.940 --> 00:08:59.100 tend to be, you know, one color and they can kind of merge all together and it looks crisp. So I think 00:08:59.100 --> 00:09:03.820 a lot of these experiences depends on the quality. It just, it comes, obviously our eyes are just 00:09:03.820 --> 00:09:09.820 are so high or so advanced for obvious reasons that it's just, it's hard. So it's really cool, 00:09:09.820 --> 00:09:15.760 but, um, I've watched like probably 20 minutes worth of a game in there and it's, I could definitely 00:09:15.760 --> 00:09:22.320 feel why it's, it's something that like, this will be a very compelling experience, but it needs to get 00:09:22.320 --> 00:09:30.000 to a, um, it needs to get to a, a quality that's compelling. Also, you know, it's for sure a better 00:09:30.000 --> 00:09:36.280 experience if you watch playback versus live. Live is, is even more kind of janky. And so I've watched 00:09:36.280 --> 00:09:43.580 one game live on, on my quest to at one point and it was just, yeah. So it's, you see, it's all, it's 00:09:43.580 --> 00:09:48.900 like, uh, it's like using a Palm pilot or even like a Blackberry. You're like, I could see why this is 00:09:48.900 --> 00:09:55.860 going to be great. Uh, but you know, it needs to be more, you know? And so I, I think, so I like it, 00:09:55.860 --> 00:10:00.220 but it's definitely not to what it needs to be. Apple's, Apple's new headset. You're going to buy 00:10:00.220 --> 00:10:06.680 it. Are you excited about what's coming out? I am probably not going to buy it, but, uh, we'll see. 00:10:06.780 --> 00:10:11.960 I don't know. You can't make that a saddleback expense. I, I, I think I might have a hard time, 00:10:12.000 --> 00:10:17.120 but we'll see what it is. I know they're speculating it's going to be 3k or something. So I don't 00:10:17.120 --> 00:10:24.280 know. We'll see what the reality is. I mean, I didn't buy the quest pro. So, um, um, but yeah, 00:10:24.280 --> 00:10:31.160 it's funny. I haven't turned, I actually just met with a guy who builds a VR worlds, uh, yesterday 00:10:31.160 --> 00:10:37.220 of it goes to our church and I was confessing to him. I haven't put on my quest to in quite a while. 00:10:37.600 --> 00:10:41.780 So he was trying to get me in cause he builds stuff. He builds a bunch of worlds in VR chat for 00:10:41.780 --> 00:10:47.920 his business. And so, but I was, uh, I was like, Oh yeah, I need to, I need to, cause I was asking him 00:10:47.920 --> 00:10:56.160 about like, how has, uh, Microsoft shutting down all space VR impact VR chat. And, um, you know, 00:10:56.160 --> 00:11:00.820 of course he should throw shade at all space VR. So that's, that's how those people play. 00:11:00.940 --> 00:11:05.300 Yeah. I mean, uh, not that I wanted to spend time on this, but all space VR is like, was, 00:11:05.360 --> 00:11:10.400 was a non event compared to VR chat. All space VR had like, most people had built stuff in all space 00:11:10.400 --> 00:11:15.440 VR, which was crazy. Like I never understood why churches, well, why, why they found it was 00:11:15.440 --> 00:11:19.840 because it was safe. They trusted, you know, Microsoft. That's a hundred percent why. Yeah. 00:11:19.900 --> 00:11:25.540 But I think, I think the thought is, well, Microsoft acquired them. It's going to have this future. 00:11:26.000 --> 00:11:29.860 I think there's a lot of other things, but yeah, you're, you're right. It was the safe. I mean, 00:11:30.160 --> 00:11:34.440 yeah, this guy, he's been in all, he's been in VR chat for a long time and he's been, 00:11:34.440 --> 00:11:40.460 he's built many worlds. I hosted event through the church in one of his VR chat worlds and, um, 00:11:40.880 --> 00:11:46.960 about a year ago, but he, uh, but yeah, he, he always cautions me as he always does this funny 00:11:46.960 --> 00:11:51.100 thing as a pastor. He's like, okay, okay, pastor Jay, like, it's going to be like different. Like 00:11:51.100 --> 00:11:56.640 you'll see stuff. Like he's like, it's like, I'm stepping into, you know, like the red district 00:11:56.640 --> 00:12:02.400 at Amsterdam. That's what I call it, man. It's the red light district. 100%. Um, so I was like, 00:12:02.400 --> 00:12:05.340 crack it up. Anyways, I know we totally talked to, we're supposed to talk about something else, 00:12:05.340 --> 00:12:08.360 but it was funny. We're supposed to talk about experimenting within the church and we're 00:12:08.360 --> 00:12:13.220 talking about, you know, what you're doing in the red light district of VR chat. So we actually 00:12:13.220 --> 00:12:18.340 kind of set it up, set it up pretty well. Um, wow. So you're, you're, you're at a, you're 00:12:18.340 --> 00:12:22.100 at a mega gig of church. Uh, you've got a new boss, by the way, let's talk about that. 00:12:22.600 --> 00:12:25.580 How's, how's the, how's the new boss coming out? The new lead pastor. What's, 00:12:25.580 --> 00:12:30.840 what's his name again? Woods. Andy. Andy. Andy. Andy. Andy Wood. Yeah. Andy Wood. Yeah. 00:12:31.100 --> 00:12:37.200 How's that going? Andy Wood. It's going amazing, man. It's awesome. Yeah. I'm very grateful to be 00:12:37.200 --> 00:12:43.740 able to be at the church in this, um, season. So it's, it's really fun to see. I mean, you really 00:12:43.740 --> 00:12:48.820 don't get to, you don't really get the opportunity many times to be a part of a handoff. Like, 00:12:48.820 --> 00:12:56.820 I feel like it's like this generational type of case study. And so, um, and so, uh, it has been, 00:12:57.140 --> 00:13:02.700 I mean, I was very blessed to be at our church with our founding pastor and then to, you know, 00:13:02.700 --> 00:13:09.360 for the last, you know, 13 years or whatever, and then to kind of go into this new season to have a, 00:13:09.360 --> 00:13:16.820 you know, I, I'm just utterly amazed at both, uh, pastor Rick and by pastor Andy, how that, 00:13:17.040 --> 00:13:20.900 how they've just navigated this. I mean, it's funny. People ask me different things and I'm just 00:13:20.900 --> 00:13:27.620 like, I just, it's, I don't know how it could go smoother. Like in the sense of the, the actual, 00:13:27.760 --> 00:13:31.740 like, I don't know. I talked to other friends and I see things that have happened at other 00:13:31.740 --> 00:13:38.560 transitions. And I'm like, no, I mean, that's not, this is, this is really fun. Um, uh, yeah, 00:13:38.560 --> 00:13:44.960 it's still the weird, the weird thing is to have a pastor, um, your lead pastor, uh, only, 00:13:45.160 --> 00:13:51.440 you know, five years older than you or whatever is, is a really strange, uh, I'm not used to that 00:13:51.440 --> 00:13:56.260 because I was used to pastor Rick, uh, who is, you know, a lot, you know, 30 years older than me 00:13:56.260 --> 00:14:02.740 or whatever. Um, and so it's been really fun. So it's been fun. We are in a really fun season. 00:14:03.020 --> 00:14:09.480 Uh, digital is very important with where we're going. And so, uh, so yeah, it's been, it's been 00:14:09.480 --> 00:14:15.480 great. Very, very cool. Were there a lot of changes, uh, or organizationally when, uh, when 00:14:15.480 --> 00:14:21.380 Andy came in, was it, was it like immediate urgency? Was, was it, Hey, we're gonna, we're 00:14:21.380 --> 00:14:25.360 gonna observe and learn and then do changes. Like what's his, what's his leadership style in the 00:14:25.360 --> 00:14:32.800 transition? Yeah. I mean, I, I, I mean, definitely a little bit of both of just, you know, getting the 00:14:32.800 --> 00:14:39.880 lay of the land. Um, you know, I, I think I can't like there, there's a lot there where like, um, 00:14:39.920 --> 00:14:46.420 I'm not a part of those conversations, but, uh, but yeah, there's been a lot of just assessing 00:14:46.420 --> 00:14:52.440 and realignment of where we're going. And, uh, and it's been, it's, it's been a really nice, 00:14:52.520 --> 00:14:57.280 I mean, yeah, they're so dialed in with, with how to do this, but it really is a great, I mean, 00:14:57.300 --> 00:15:02.440 our church, you know, we are a giga church or whatever you want to call us, but it's, it's, 00:15:02.540 --> 00:15:08.580 uh, it's, you know, when I talked to, when I talked to other, I was talking to somebody at 00:15:08.580 --> 00:15:13.720 another church, actually a church in Florida and, uh, yesterday morning. Um, and you know, 00:15:13.720 --> 00:15:18.680 they were talking about something about their org and they were, they were talking about struggling 00:15:18.680 --> 00:15:24.200 with getting things done, you know, and I was in working in her department with different people 00:15:24.200 --> 00:15:29.780 and their churches probably only have like five staff members, you know? And I'm like, well, 00:15:30.400 --> 00:15:37.020 you know, from my perspective, that seems super easy. And I was trying to encourage them because, 00:15:37.240 --> 00:15:42.140 you know, with a church with, you know, a couple hundred people on staff, a bunch of, 00:15:42.260 --> 00:15:47.320 you know, it's getting stuff done here is it's complex. And, um, so I was trying to encourage 00:15:47.320 --> 00:15:52.820 them, like, it could be more, it could be a lot harder. And, um, and so like, I can't even imagine, 00:15:52.820 --> 00:16:00.760 I don't even get, um, how Andy, Pastor Andy, uh, navigates all the things like, uh, I've, 00:16:01.100 --> 00:16:05.500 it just, it, there's so many moving pieces, but it's been very good in our season. So, 00:16:05.900 --> 00:16:10.080 yeah. Very cool. All right. So let's, let's dig in here a little bit and, and, you know, 00:16:10.080 --> 00:16:15.000 all this has been prelude. We've talked about how, uh, you know, metaverse and, and, you know, 00:16:15.000 --> 00:16:20.440 I know you guys were exploring the metaverse and testing some things in, in VR, uh, doing some 00:16:20.440 --> 00:16:26.080 groups. You talked about VR chat, which is interesting. Um, you're, you're looking at, um, 00:16:26.080 --> 00:16:31.680 you know, some, a new season coming in with, with a new leader. And so some changes with that, 00:16:31.860 --> 00:16:36.320 you know, uh, so often I've seen lately with, with churches that they really are, 00:16:36.320 --> 00:16:42.240 especially post COVID now they've, they've lost that, that experimental edge. Uh, they're going 00:16:42.240 --> 00:16:48.180 back to what's, what's comfortable. Well, what's, what's traditional. Like I'm not, I'm not saying 00:16:48.180 --> 00:16:52.960 ostrich bearing the head and pretending it's February, 2020, but it, it feels like it's, 00:16:52.960 --> 00:17:00.780 Hey, we're, we're wanting to play it safe. And, uh, the, the idea of experimenting and taking risks, 00:17:00.780 --> 00:17:06.080 I don't know if it's economical or if it's just exhaustion, but, but there doesn't seem to be 00:17:06.080 --> 00:17:11.300 that experimental edge. Like there was maybe within the past year or so. I don't know when you, 00:17:11.420 --> 00:17:14.740 have you felt that, or have you talked to some churches that might be struggling with that? 00:17:14.740 --> 00:17:16.420 Like what's your, what's your take on that? 00:17:18.180 --> 00:17:23.760 Yeah, I think it's hard when, you know, there are things, you know, the classic is not everybody 00:17:23.760 --> 00:17:29.000 in the org probably needs to be always experimenting, you know, their role kind of depending on their 00:17:29.000 --> 00:17:32.580 volunteer role, staff role, whatever, you know, they might just have a task to be done. 00:17:33.380 --> 00:17:39.200 So I think it can be really, it can be difficult at times to kind of understand, or how do you cast 00:17:39.200 --> 00:17:45.000 vision, um, around, you know, not doing the same thing all the time, but also like, you know, 00:17:45.020 --> 00:17:49.700 you don't necessarily want your food person always experimenting, you know? And so it's like, 00:17:50.260 --> 00:17:55.520 or even like maybe your maintenance person to always be messing around with stuff. And so I think 00:17:55.520 --> 00:18:02.900 churches, um, have a hard time navigating how to, how to communicate that to everybody. And then the 00:18:02.900 --> 00:18:08.240 other thing is, is that coming out of COVID, I think there was just a lot of priorities to build 00:18:08.240 --> 00:18:15.640 stuff back up and it can be hard to, you know, as you're kind of, you know, I would, I would think 00:18:15.640 --> 00:18:19.900 of it kind of like, it's like different seasons of life where, you know, when you first have kids, 00:18:19.900 --> 00:18:27.540 you're just trying to figure out how to sleep and how to eat and the rhythm and how to, you know, 00:18:27.640 --> 00:18:31.500 it's like what they always say when you first have a, you know, have a kid, they usually tell you like, 00:18:31.880 --> 00:18:36.940 after you, you leave the hospital and everything, just figure out, like go out all together, 00:18:36.940 --> 00:18:43.100 like, and just learn how to like get back to normal life. And so sometimes I think in different 00:18:43.100 --> 00:18:47.960 seasons, different things are a priority. And so coming out of COVID, I think it was just a priority 00:18:47.960 --> 00:18:54.900 of getting the weekend back together. And I think for a lot of churches, they kind of probably just 00:18:54.900 --> 00:19:00.960 leaned a little too heavy too long and to just making the weekend work. Um, again, uh, meaning 00:19:00.960 --> 00:19:06.280 that, you know, one of the struggles in every part of the country in the world was impacted differently 00:19:06.280 --> 00:19:12.320 around COVID and how that is, but a lot of churches, the weekend just isn't the same type of driver. 00:19:12.460 --> 00:19:18.640 And it doesn't mean you can't become efficient at it and there isn't things to get, you know, dialed back in. 00:19:18.720 --> 00:19:24.620 But I think it's also like, Hey, maybe the reality is that the weekend isn't the number one front door 00:19:24.620 --> 00:19:29.420 anymore. Um, meaning your building, it doesn't mean the building's not important. Doesn't mean. 00:19:29.560 --> 00:19:35.600 And so I think there's just that, like when urgency comes in, you kind of drift back to just trying to 00:19:35.600 --> 00:19:42.040 keep things alive. And it's because the season of your church is, but I think long-term, um, you know, 00:19:42.180 --> 00:19:48.300 it's, it's just, Hey, you gotta keep, you gotta keep that spirit of like entrepreneurship, you know, 00:19:48.300 --> 00:19:54.660 it's, it's, it's, Hey, when do you get space? Uh, actually I was in a meeting yesterday and one of 00:19:54.660 --> 00:20:01.680 our pastors said, he said, because we're in, and it was in, it was a good point because we're always kind of 00:20:01.680 --> 00:20:06.780 driving towards the weekend, at least in this season where he's like, we never get a moment to kind of 00:20:06.780 --> 00:20:15.620 back up and look at what's working and not. And so it's like, I, I was, uh, I was just reading a, uh, this book 00:20:15.620 --> 00:20:22.900 about, um, it was about your life and rhythm. And it was, uh, it's just about rhythms in life. And one of the 00:20:22.900 --> 00:20:29.020 thoughts was in your own weekly time, how many, how much do you allocate any time in your week or your 00:20:29.020 --> 00:20:35.200 month to do deep thinking? And so like, uh, I do this a lot with, with my team where there, I have 00:20:35.200 --> 00:20:40.540 a couple of younger people on my team and you know, they're, they started very idealistic and kind of 00:20:40.540 --> 00:20:43.960 like, I'm going to do everything. And then they got to the point where like, Oh wow, I can't do 00:20:43.960 --> 00:20:47.360 everything. I got to like prioritize stuff. And I said, yeah, I go, one of the things you got to figure 00:20:47.360 --> 00:20:52.740 out is in your week scheduled, deep thinking time to kind of evaluate everything you're doing. So 00:20:52.740 --> 00:20:57.480 like, I think churches, they're just so focused on the weekend and just making that work again and, 00:20:57.480 --> 00:21:02.360 you know, pay the bills and get all that, all the hard work that kind of COVID kind of disrupted. 00:21:02.520 --> 00:21:08.780 I think though, we forget that, you know, maybe we're investing too much energy on something that's 00:21:08.780 --> 00:21:14.220 not delivering the same results, or maybe we need to allocate this or that. So it can be hard. I mean, 00:21:14.220 --> 00:21:20.020 even Google, for example, Google was the famous, like 10% of your time to test. And then, you know, 00:21:20.260 --> 00:21:24.980 at the same time they wasted billions of dollars. I mean, that's why this, the founders had to like 00:21:24.980 --> 00:21:31.180 step down because they were wasting too much time on random projects of like, you know, all sorts of 00:21:31.180 --> 00:21:37.000 stuff. I mean, this was the, the famous, uh, autopilot program. I'm forgetting what it is. It's not, 00:21:37.000 --> 00:21:42.520 um, I'm forgetting it's, it's the, anyways, they, they wasted like a billion dollars because they were 00:21:42.520 --> 00:21:47.500 doing too much testing on the side. And so it's like, there, there is this balance, but I totally 00:21:47.500 --> 00:21:54.280 get why churches drift away from it. That's, that's good. Um, man, that was a lot there, 00:21:54.400 --> 00:22:00.840 Jay. You just were, we're, we're packing it in the it's, it's interesting. Have you met Jay? Uh, 00:22:00.840 --> 00:22:07.080 have you met, um, Tyler Sansom? Have I connected you to, uh, but before and, and, uh, you know, 00:22:07.080 --> 00:22:12.280 he's, he's doing the learning community with us and, and it's interesting, like you said early on, 00:22:12.280 --> 00:22:17.220 it was, Hey, you know, the Sunday morning, isn't the, um, isn't the front door that it used to be 00:22:17.220 --> 00:22:22.020 or whatever the vernacular that it was around that. Uh, and I'm actually curious and the learning 00:22:22.020 --> 00:22:25.740 community, the reason I'm asking is learning community we're doing is with Tyler. Tyler's 00:22:25.740 --> 00:22:30.940 actually co-leading it with me. He is, um, we're, we're talking about how, you know, moving beyond 00:22:30.940 --> 00:22:36.600 the weekend and the weekend plays a part, but it's not, uh, the behemoth that it once was. What, 00:22:37.020 --> 00:22:43.520 what does that look like for, for Saddleback? Um, not, does, does Saddleback at the place? I know 00:22:43.520 --> 00:22:52.000 it's a giga. You guys have massive buildings. Um, what is, what is a, a non weekend or a lesser 00:22:52.000 --> 00:22:53.920 emphasis weekend, uh, look like? 00:22:55.740 --> 00:23:03.360 Yeah. I mean, I wouldn't say that. So I, I'm more saying it from the perspective of 00:23:03.360 --> 00:23:09.640 it's like, for example, for us as a church and every church would, would have probably a little 00:23:09.640 --> 00:23:15.340 bit of a different feeling, um, around this, but, um, and, and your, your time and place in history 00:23:15.340 --> 00:23:22.760 and where you're at, you know, your geography all determine some of these answers. Um, but for us, 00:23:23.560 --> 00:23:30.580 it, it, it wouldn't be so much that we obviously stop the weekend or even don't prioritize it. Um, 00:23:30.620 --> 00:23:37.780 I think for us, it probably just means understanding the on ramps or entry points that a new person 00:23:37.780 --> 00:23:43.540 might come in. So maybe pre this type of strategy, we might go, well, everybody just comes to the 00:23:43.540 --> 00:23:46.860 weekend and then from the weekend, they fill out a connection card and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. 00:23:47.120 --> 00:23:54.380 I think for us, um, uh, pastor Rick said this years ago, he talked about the idea of 00:23:54.380 --> 00:24:00.460 a side doors are going to be kind of the future of the American church. Um, people aren't, and, and he 00:24:00.460 --> 00:24:06.020 was alluding to, you know, the empty buildings in Europe, the empty church cathedrals that are 00:24:06.020 --> 00:24:11.500 beautiful, that are empty and how, um, you know, most people are coming to Jesus, not through coming 00:24:11.500 --> 00:24:16.600 through a worship service. Um, they're coming through a small group or a relational outreach 00:24:16.600 --> 00:24:22.820 or some kind of connection. And I think it's, we've benefited off of this populist type of 00:24:22.820 --> 00:24:29.480 Christianity in America. Um, the last, you know, a hundred years, really, I mean, it's from our 00:24:29.480 --> 00:24:34.800 founding, but, you know, really over the last evangelical type of movement in the U S has been 00:24:34.800 --> 00:24:41.800 super strong since the, since the 1900s. And so, um, you kind of, if you think about it that way, 00:24:41.800 --> 00:24:48.900 it's just like small groups, outreach opportunities. And, you know, the lean is going to be, it's going 00:24:48.900 --> 00:24:53.860 to be too decentralized. It's going to, it's going to get too loosey goosey. Cause you're not going to 00:24:53.860 --> 00:24:58.760 really know what it means. It's like salvation army. It's like, what does it actually mean? You know, 00:24:58.760 --> 00:25:03.460 their outreach is super powerful, but their church is super weak. I'm generalizing, but, you know, 00:25:03.460 --> 00:25:07.280 if you talk to most people in salvation army, that's kind of what has happened. And then, 00:25:07.360 --> 00:25:12.420 then you just have food banks, you know, long-term they just become, you know, a church starts doing 00:25:12.420 --> 00:25:17.040 a food bank outreach to reach and build relationships in long-term all the faith kind of gets strained 00:25:17.040 --> 00:25:20.680 from it. Potentially. It's kind of what's happened with a lot of the universities on the East coast. 00:25:20.840 --> 00:25:27.900 And so I think, um, I think it's just side doors. And I still think, I mean, every, I, I would argue 00:25:27.900 --> 00:25:33.020 with most people about this. I, I have that. I don't think the future of the American church 00:25:33.020 --> 00:25:41.080 is the way of Europe necessarily. I just don't. Um, I, I think it's possible. Um, but I think, 00:25:41.280 --> 00:25:46.600 I think there's a lot of tells in our culture that people are very upset about where we're going. 00:25:46.840 --> 00:25:51.860 And, um, and I think it doesn't mean that the future of the, of the American, 00:25:52.180 --> 00:25:56.540 American culture is Christian. I just think that there's probably a future where the American church 00:25:56.540 --> 00:26:02.580 is not persecuted that way. I think it's going to be, I think there's still a chance. Um, I think 00:26:02.580 --> 00:26:07.880 Christians really love the nuclear theology. We, cause we, we kind of read the end of the, 00:26:07.880 --> 00:26:12.000 the book of revelations. We go, well, this is where we're going. And I would say, yeah, 00:26:12.000 --> 00:26:19.400 but that could happen in a million years. Um, so I mean, I think, yeah. So I, I, I just, 00:26:19.540 --> 00:26:24.780 I think it's just like more outreach, um, more doing ministry on people's terms, 00:26:24.840 --> 00:26:30.140 obviously more digital type of things where people start digital. It just means the building is, 00:26:30.140 --> 00:26:36.840 is going to become a more core strategy than a outreach strategy potentially. Now I don't know 00:26:36.840 --> 00:26:42.100 what that means fully for our church, because we're still in the, you know, you know, our church is 00:26:42.100 --> 00:26:46.280 doing a lot of them. Like our buildings are, you know, we've experienced a lot of growth this last 00:26:46.280 --> 00:26:51.100 year. I mean, there's a lot of stuff there that is still happening for us. And that's why I kind of go, 00:26:51.540 --> 00:26:57.260 I don't think that season is fully done, but, um, but yeah, it's going to be curious. And digital 00:26:57.260 --> 00:27:01.660 obviously is a big part of that. Um, I don't know if churches know what that means, but it's, 00:27:01.720 --> 00:27:07.340 it's definitely going to be a big part of it. Yeah. Let's, let's unpack core strategy. 00:27:07.820 --> 00:27:15.540 Uh, you said, so it's, it's not going to be, um, the evangelism strategy or the front door strategy, 00:27:15.540 --> 00:27:17.560 but it's core. What do you, what do you mean by that? 00:27:20.060 --> 00:27:29.500 Um, so I, I, I, I, I'm just alluding to that. Um, you know, particularly on the idea that, 00:27:29.500 --> 00:27:35.680 you know, maybe if you look at your, your budget and your time, you know, your talent treasures, 00:27:36.100 --> 00:27:43.880 you know, type of layout that you might allocate percentage less around the weekend, for example, 00:27:43.880 --> 00:27:50.300 at some point in the future. And so like, um, again, this has already happened. And if you talk 00:27:50.300 --> 00:27:57.240 to anybody in the middle East, they don't, they don't, they do the weekend, but they're doing a 00:27:57.240 --> 00:28:03.020 lot more of a lot of churches are doing a lot more resourcing around, um, outreach opportunities on 00:28:03.020 --> 00:28:10.700 digital. Um, uh, they're doing a lot more Bible study focus because, um, you know, every country is 00:28:10.700 --> 00:28:17.860 different, but a lot of countries you can publicly, um, worship, but you can't publicly convert. 00:28:17.860 --> 00:28:22.220 And so if you're born into a Muslim family, you, you can't convert, but if you're born into a 00:28:22.220 --> 00:28:27.360 Christian family, um, you're, you're allowed to go to church, you know, and a lot of those countries 00:28:27.360 --> 00:28:34.760 are trying to kind of genetically force the Christian community to die essentially. So it's like, 00:28:34.760 --> 00:28:38.360 we're not, we're going to allow you to worship or we're going to tell other countries you can worship 00:28:38.360 --> 00:28:43.440 so that we don't get in trouble. But what we're saying is you're, after your family dies, no one's 00:28:43.440 --> 00:28:47.860 really going to be, it's, it's kind of like siloed off into how many kids you can have within your own 00:28:47.860 --> 00:28:54.680 community. And so, um, I think those are signs like you don't, again, you don't go, I don't go into a 00:28:54.680 --> 00:29:01.340 country like, um, Saudi Arabia or something and go, oh, I'm going to just check out church on Sunday. 00:29:01.500 --> 00:29:07.120 Like that's, but I know the church is still thriving there and it's thriving around digital 00:29:07.120 --> 00:29:12.300 platforms. It's thriving around Bible study. So I think that's the sign is like, if you, now that's 00:29:12.300 --> 00:29:18.800 an extremist view of the future, you know, it's like a, it's, it's super extreme, you know, but it's, 00:29:18.900 --> 00:29:23.840 it's, you look at that and you go, what if that happens in the next 30 years, you know, and you kind 00:29:23.840 --> 00:29:28.620 of go, yeah, they're probably, you're probably not going to be 50% of your budget or 30% of your 00:29:28.620 --> 00:29:33.640 budget's allocated to the weekend. It might be towards a small group strategy or a discipleship 00:29:33.640 --> 00:29:39.880 strategy. I mean, I was talking to a, uh, uh, a guy, uh, actually not too far away from you, um, 00:29:40.080 --> 00:29:46.860 uh, about small circle. Um, that's on, it's in, uh, he has a ministry where he does discipleship 00:29:46.860 --> 00:29:52.420 through an app. It's a really powerful thing. And I could totally see more churches having a pastor 00:29:52.420 --> 00:29:58.480 that has this mentorship app that you encourage people anywhere to do these one-on-one relationships. 00:29:58.480 --> 00:30:03.860 So yeah, it, the, what it looks like could be a variance, but I think it just, if you look around 00:30:03.860 --> 00:30:08.000 the world and if you look around history, like this is already played out, unfortunately, doesn't mean 00:30:08.000 --> 00:30:13.580 it's our history, but I think if you forecast it, you can see a possible timeline where that happens. 00:30:13.580 --> 00:30:17.200 Yeah. I want, I want to come back to the global church. I want to ask some, some questions centered 00:30:17.200 --> 00:30:23.180 around that, but even like the idea of, of the discipleship and the mobile app and some of the 00:30:23.180 --> 00:30:29.960 things, um, how do you experiment towards some of those things or what, what steps would you recommend 00:30:29.960 --> 00:30:34.680 experimenting with within the physical church? You know, uh, just in my context, digital church 00:30:34.680 --> 00:30:43.020 network, I see a lot of experimenting. I see a lot of, of, of leaning in and new ideas, but really it's, 00:30:43.020 --> 00:30:51.780 it's new church plants. It's, um, individuals that, that don't have, uh, baggage and sometimes a lack 00:30:51.780 --> 00:30:58.260 of vision and there's, there's less, uh, well baggage to kind of work through. And so, you know, you, 00:30:58.380 --> 00:31:03.780 in, in your context, you've, you've been able historically to have a lot more freedom to explore ideas, 00:31:03.780 --> 00:31:10.200 um, and to experiment and saddle back, saddle back. But how would a, how would a normal church even 00:31:10.200 --> 00:31:14.560 start to wrestle with the idea of, of experimenting and trying to do something different? 00:31:16.160 --> 00:31:23.460 Yeah, I, I would, I just told one of our campus pastors this, that, you know, my job title was 00:31:23.460 --> 00:31:32.880 definitely less defined than anybody. And so I think I've been able to have a lot of, um, um, momentum or 00:31:32.880 --> 00:31:42.300 be, I've been able to influence my part of the strategy, at least a lot more, um, because I have 00:31:42.300 --> 00:31:48.220 a lot more autonomy, um, because it's, it's less defined. So the more defined a role is, I think 00:31:48.220 --> 00:31:52.360 the, you know, less opportunities to kind of experiment. 00:31:52.360 --> 00:31:57.880 And so like a classic example would be like an HR department for a church or like, you know, whoever 00:31:57.880 --> 00:32:04.480 manages accounting, you know, they're experimenting might be just around what software technology 00:32:04.480 --> 00:32:10.900 you use and, you know, convert it. So it's like, it's very, it's, you know, I have like a ton of 00:32:10.900 --> 00:32:16.400 opportunity because there's no real, there's no, at least when I started, there was nothing really 00:32:16.400 --> 00:32:22.060 written. And, and most of the stuff that's written is very conceptual. It's not like a playbook as some 00:32:22.060 --> 00:32:26.820 of these other things. So I think first off your role kind of determines how much experimenting you 00:32:26.820 --> 00:32:36.780 get to do. Um, and so I think there's that, um, yeah, I, I would say, you know, one of the things 00:32:36.780 --> 00:32:44.180 that I have really harped on myself, like, and I would encourage any pastor, um, in any church, 00:32:44.180 --> 00:32:48.760 one of the kind of the mantras that I kind of repeat is that our job is not to get people in a 00:32:48.760 --> 00:32:57.100 room. Our job is to produce fruit or outcome, uh, an outcome. And so the thought is, is that the room 00:32:57.100 --> 00:33:04.400 experience is still valuable. And, you know, again, um, I would argue with anybody, even in the digital 00:33:04.400 --> 00:33:12.100 space, um, people get married and even in the online space, they get married and they connect 00:33:12.100 --> 00:33:18.080 physically. And until that experience changes, we'll really talk about full digital church and 00:33:18.080 --> 00:33:22.340 that sense. I mean, there's a reason why you get married and then you move in together. And so I 00:33:22.340 --> 00:33:28.860 think we're, we're pretty far away away from that fully experienced, like replacing that. And I would 00:33:28.860 --> 00:33:34.080 even argue, even if that is, it will be kind of a fringe thing probably. Um, you know, potentially 00:33:34.080 --> 00:33:40.680 even in a hundred years from now, but the, the thought is, is there are, you know, the challenge 00:33:40.680 --> 00:33:46.560 would be for any church, any ministry really would be your job isn't to get people in a room. Your job 00:33:46.560 --> 00:33:53.060 is to produce something in their lives. So for example, like if you want to, um, if your job is 00:33:53.060 --> 00:33:58.620 to be over the parent ministry at your church, your job isn't to put on a parent event or create parent 00:33:58.620 --> 00:34:05.220 resources, your job is to encourage your members and attenders in the area of parenting. So the deliverable 00:34:05.220 --> 00:34:11.580 could be a, an event you put on or the deliverable could be a digital resource. And so exactly for, you 00:34:11.580 --> 00:34:17.060 know, it could be, well, we do this event once a year, or we create a podcast where parents can listen 00:34:17.060 --> 00:34:22.780 on the go. And so I think it's just this encouragement is what are you trying to do in your role and how can 00:34:22.780 --> 00:34:29.560 digital aid that and practically what it means usually in experimenting. I would say, I think a 00:34:29.560 --> 00:34:35.280 digital is very important track of where we're going and where we are now that I would say, just 00:34:35.280 --> 00:34:42.520 look at your next year and whatever you're doing, integrate one digital offering in your rhythm. And 00:34:42.520 --> 00:34:49.040 so like, for example, my church does, uh, we do discover your purpose. It was formal, formally called 00:34:49.040 --> 00:34:57.660 class at our church. And, um, all of our campuses do this monthly in person. I might go to a campus and 00:34:57.660 --> 00:35:04.560 go, Hey, I think you doing that in person in your yearly rhythm is really important. What if you 00:35:04.560 --> 00:35:12.820 experiment twice a year doing that on zoom? And so it's not replacing it, but it's just introducing 00:35:12.820 --> 00:35:17.880 one small integration of digital to see, cause you probably have people at your campus that can't 00:35:17.880 --> 00:35:24.280 come to the room. They might actually engage in a zoom better there. Um, there's probably people 00:35:24.280 --> 00:35:28.620 that are engaging you online that coming to the room is hard. Maybe the first step is this. And so I 00:35:28.620 --> 00:35:34.060 think it's, Hey, think about your, your role isn't to get people in a room and tell them to do 00:35:34.060 --> 00:35:38.500 something. Your goal is to produce fruit in your lives. How can digital, or how can you innovate 00:35:38.500 --> 00:35:43.580 to do that better? And sometimes you just need the 30,000 square foot view to kind of back up and 00:35:43.580 --> 00:35:48.300 just be like, Oh, it's kind of like what memorials do. You know, like you're, you're busy, you're busy, 00:35:48.340 --> 00:35:53.100 you're busy. You go to a funeral or memorial and you're like, Oh, well, I need to like hug my kids. 00:35:53.100 --> 00:35:58.480 I need to go on vacation with my wife. It just resets you. It resets you. It's important. And I think a 00:35:58.480 --> 00:36:03.140 lot of times churches just don't reset on what they're doing or what their job is. And so I think I would 00:36:03.140 --> 00:36:08.560 first go, what are you trying to produce? It's not the room is a option. It's not the option it might 00:36:08.560 --> 00:36:16.480 be still, and then introduce some small experimenting in your yearly flow just to see, because the key 00:36:16.480 --> 00:36:26.600 here I found is that iteration is how you get clarity. And so you don't go, you know, again, 00:36:26.600 --> 00:36:31.660 the classic example of this is everybody. It's like when PayPal and eBay launched and they're like, 00:36:31.660 --> 00:36:38.860 I'm not going to put my credit card online. And everybody was like the, the, the arrogant prideful 00:36:38.860 --> 00:36:43.080 part of people went, I'm never going to put my credit card online. Well, the thought was they weren't 00:36:43.080 --> 00:36:48.960 going to put the credit card online in that version of the internet. And you flash forward 10 years and 00:36:48.960 --> 00:36:54.280 you're like, we all have our credit card online. And the thought is because we think it's not going to 00:36:54.280 --> 00:36:58.820 evolve and it does. And so it's like, it's like the people go, I'm never going to use a VR headset. 00:36:58.820 --> 00:37:07.100 And you're like, okay, we've been here before. Like, I'm not saying in this current set, you're going to 00:37:07.100 --> 00:37:13.980 be like, you know, cartoonish, you know, jumping around with no legs. You know what I mean? But in 10 00:37:13.980 --> 00:37:18.160 years, if this is completely different and your work bought it for you and you're working with people 00:37:18.160 --> 00:37:23.420 in a virtual space, you probably will. And I'm not going to show my receipts, but it's, it's gonna 00:37:23.420 --> 00:37:29.060 like it. And so I think it's just like, let's iterate. And so it's confusing and foggy and you 00:37:29.060 --> 00:37:32.700 don't need to know it all. You just take one step. And so that would be my encouragement is like, 00:37:33.160 --> 00:37:37.380 how do you ingrate digital? Like, just do one thing in this next six months. And trust me, 00:37:37.380 --> 00:37:41.620 you do that one thing you'll learn. And then you'll, and so just, so that that's part of my is 00:37:41.620 --> 00:37:45.520 like, what's the fruit you're trying to do? And then just do one small thing. You don't got to like 00:37:45.520 --> 00:37:51.020 completely do it all. Just do one small thing. Trust me, I've benefited. And I know Jeff, you have 00:37:51.020 --> 00:37:58.340 too. I've benefited through 15 years of doing a bunch of small digital things. And I have clarity. 00:37:58.820 --> 00:38:02.480 I, it doesn't mean I have complete clarity of where we're going, but I definitely have 00:38:02.480 --> 00:38:07.980 some clarity. So, and I can navigate the future a little bit better because of that. 00:38:08.080 --> 00:38:12.200 Yeah. One, one of the things, and actually I, I'm not, I was gonna say, actually, I would love your 00:38:12.200 --> 00:38:15.580 take on this. I would love your take anyway. Like this isn't, that's not, that's a very rude thing 00:38:15.580 --> 00:38:22.240 to say. Actually, I'm really interested in how you would answer this question. I've seen in a lot 00:38:22.240 --> 00:38:26.620 of mega and giga churches, churches your size, you know, maybe a little smaller, even 00:38:26.620 --> 00:38:36.580 the expectation of perfection and such a high standard that really prevents an experiment 00:38:36.580 --> 00:38:46.600 from happening. A fear of failure, the unacceptance of failure prevents the idea of actually exploring 00:38:46.600 --> 00:38:53.560 and trying something different because the idea is we can barely handle perfection with what we are 00:38:53.560 --> 00:38:58.780 doing much less trying something different. Uh, and, and, uh, you know, it's, what's the old Aaron 00:38:58.780 --> 00:39:03.800 Sorkin TV show studio 60 something on the sunset strip where they always, you would always have 00:39:03.800 --> 00:39:07.600 that like countdown. I don't know if you've ever watched that TV show, but they had a countdown 00:39:07.600 --> 00:39:14.580 clock. It would roll 167 hours and would always count down to the next time that they did whatever 00:39:14.580 --> 00:39:18.440 the TV show they were doing. It's like a Saturday night live spoof, but there was so much fear 00:39:18.520 --> 00:39:25.220 that was built into the next Sunday. There was so much expectation and so much urgency that's onto that 00:39:25.220 --> 00:39:31.960 and the perfection of that, that they really never had the opportunity to experiment. And, and, and I've, 00:39:31.960 --> 00:39:37.600 I've seen, I've seen that in real time with churches because there's so much expectation. There's so much 00:39:37.600 --> 00:39:43.340 demand, uh, towards that because there's this, this perception of, of excellence or this desire for 00:39:43.340 --> 00:39:48.980 excellence. Is that how do you, do you combat that? Do you see that? Do you relate to that? Like, talk to me a 00:39:48.980 --> 00:39:49.880 little bit about excellence. 00:39:52.240 --> 00:39:59.200 Um, I mean, I, I mean, there's a spectrum. I think first I would go to like, I think from top down leadership 00:39:59.200 --> 00:40:07.940 from the lead pastor to the elders, whoever, are they providing that space? Um, and that, that value of, um, 00:40:08.420 --> 00:40:13.140 you know, our, our, our culture for a long time was try anything one time, but don't try it twice. 00:40:14.200 --> 00:40:19.400 Um, and meaning like learn from it, fail forward, you know, type of concept. So I think 00:40:19.400 --> 00:40:24.440 the leader casts that vision and that space to make that happen. So it's not about knowing, 00:40:24.600 --> 00:40:30.220 you know, um, it's, you know, the, you know, the idea is like with Twitter, like Twitter and 00:40:30.220 --> 00:40:33.880 like you can tweet and you can have stuff misspelled and there's a lot of forgiveness, 00:40:33.880 --> 00:40:38.660 but there's a difference when it goes to print. And so I think the different, it's just knowing 00:40:38.660 --> 00:40:43.900 what you're trying to do. So I think leadership creating that culture is really important. I've 00:40:43.900 --> 00:40:50.020 benefited from being part of a lot of cultures where that has been, um, kind of casted, uh, 00:40:50.020 --> 00:40:57.680 figured out. I also think that there's a lot of, um, um, I don't know how to say it. Like I noticed, 00:40:57.840 --> 00:41:02.580 especially when I'm talking to people on other people wanting to do digital things in their church 00:41:02.580 --> 00:41:08.400 and they tend to be younger. Um, there's a lot of arrogance around that they should just listen to 00:41:08.400 --> 00:41:16.620 you. Um, and it's generally, it's the, uh, you haven't done anything to be listened to yet type of 00:41:16.620 --> 00:41:23.480 thought was where I would go. Um, and I've, I've struggled with this definitely, but I, I, you know, 00:41:23.560 --> 00:41:30.580 I've benefited long-term to become more, um, to, you know, it's, it's the Columbo ask more questions. 00:41:30.740 --> 00:41:38.600 Don't lead with, this is my idea. And, um, and, and then also pick your strategic times to lean 00:41:38.600 --> 00:41:44.360 in. Um, and so I think I've learned that if I can, it's the idea with money, you know, if I can be a 00:41:44.360 --> 00:41:49.080 good steward with a little, God will give me more and I'd be a good steward with what I have. So for 00:41:49.080 --> 00:41:57.040 example, like people will go, um, it, you know, uh, a question that I've been asked in the past is 00:41:57.040 --> 00:42:03.540 like, I've, I've, I've done some help. I've done some consulting outside of my, my own org. And people 00:42:03.540 --> 00:42:08.860 will ask me like, Jay, how, how do you do your job and you do this other stuff? And, and I, and I don't 00:42:08.860 --> 00:42:15.400 do a lot of it, but, but I said, well, do your job. Well, if you do your job, well, they won't 00:42:15.400 --> 00:42:22.180 question if you're doing something else. So if you are bad at your job and then you start doing 00:42:22.180 --> 00:42:27.860 something else, they're going to see it as a time thing. And so I think it's a, it's a tension there 00:42:27.860 --> 00:42:32.940 where you gotta, you gotta know, can you do this in this season? And so I think, um, trust me, 00:42:32.940 --> 00:42:38.440 I've had many times where I've been corrected and I've been, you know, I've, I've said the wrong 00:42:38.440 --> 00:42:42.640 thing and I've learned through that. And I've been grateful to have amazing bosses that have told me 00:42:42.640 --> 00:42:50.320 like, um, I, I still remember one of the things early on, um, in my role, uh, one of my, one of my 00:42:50.320 --> 00:42:56.620 bosses, one of my mentors who said, Jay, sometimes when you talk, you say I too much, like I did this 00:42:56.620 --> 00:43:02.680 or something. And I was young and, and, uh, I was, you know, I had to wrestle through, well, 00:43:02.680 --> 00:43:08.520 like, well, maybe it was me or, you know, like I had to like get, and I think, but I heard that from 00:43:08.520 --> 00:43:13.280 my leadership of like, that's, and they weren't saying it like I was a terrible person. They were 00:43:13.280 --> 00:43:18.380 just giving me feedback and I heard that and I listened. And so, um, and then also just understanding 00:43:18.380 --> 00:43:25.240 too, like a lot of times you don't have all the data, like as a young leader, like that's a huge 00:43:25.240 --> 00:43:30.160 thing. Like, like I think about, I could think about all these things I want my church to do, but I, 00:43:30.400 --> 00:43:35.240 I don't know what our budget is. I don't know where we're at. Like, there's so much I don't know. 00:43:35.240 --> 00:43:40.560 And I think the more you as a leader under like more come to the place of like knowing that you 00:43:40.560 --> 00:43:47.820 don't know it all and, and ask more questions in the process. So like, I might think that this is 00:43:47.820 --> 00:43:52.980 better than whatever my pastor is doing, but I have to go. I don't, I don't know it all. 00:43:53.680 --> 00:43:58.160 I mean, I literally don't know it all. And then second, instead of going, you're wrong, 00:43:58.520 --> 00:44:05.920 just ask the question. And then I've found, um, long-term as I'm consistent in my own faith of 00:44:05.920 --> 00:44:11.580 God, I'm consistent doing my own stuff. I've benefited long-term from like just being at, 00:44:11.720 --> 00:44:18.040 and then good steward with what you're given just long-term you're given more, uh, might not be as 00:44:18.040 --> 00:44:22.320 much as, you know, somebody wants or whatever. But I think it's just that it comes from the, 00:44:22.380 --> 00:44:26.600 so first it's top-down vision of like creating that culture where people can experiment. 00:44:26.980 --> 00:44:32.060 And then I think a lot of like, you just gotta, um, you gotta know your line. Now I would joke, 00:44:32.180 --> 00:44:36.900 everybody, I joke a lot with other people that, you know, friends who have new jobs and do new things 00:44:36.900 --> 00:44:41.080 and they, and I find out about it. I joke back, I go, I'm just boring. I'm still at my church. 00:44:41.620 --> 00:44:47.340 You know, um, I'm definitely a guy who is very, uh, consistent in that area. So I know I might be 00:44:47.340 --> 00:44:53.880 the extreme and you could, doesn't mean people have to be that. I, I, I have amazing friends that 00:44:53.880 --> 00:44:58.760 are doing amazing things and they've been at 10 different orgs in the last 10 years. And that's 00:44:58.760 --> 00:45:03.500 totally okay too. It, but I think if you're really thinking about, if I'm thinking, if I'm talking 00:45:03.500 --> 00:45:08.660 to a young dude or, or a woman who's pastoring at a church and you want to, you want to move it 00:45:08.660 --> 00:45:13.940 forward, I would just say, uh, trust your leadership, ask a lot of questions, be a good 00:45:13.940 --> 00:45:19.620 steward with what you got. And I've found that, you know, generally long-term, trust me, I've had 00:45:19.620 --> 00:45:24.000 seasons where I haven't felt that, but I've, I've been on the, I'm on the other end of it where like, 00:45:24.000 --> 00:45:30.360 I'm, I'm now in a season where I'm, I feel the pressure that I got to deliver, not the worry 00:45:30.360 --> 00:45:36.380 that I'm being ignored. And, uh, and so, uh, but you know, that's my, that's been, that would be my 00:45:36.380 --> 00:45:40.380 journey on it, especially as somebody who's been at the same church for, you know, almost 15 years. 00:45:40.460 --> 00:45:44.880 So that, that would be my perspective. Beautiful. And let's, let, let's flip the script. And just 00:45:44.880 --> 00:45:52.160 even as we're wrapping up the show here, um, you're a leader, longstanding leader, an older leader at a 00:45:52.160 --> 00:45:58.900 church, and you got a whippersnapper who's talking crazy ideas and saying, I too much, and, uh, 00:45:58.900 --> 00:46:03.660 trying to bring about what you're perceiving as aggressive change, digital or not, doesn't matter 00:46:03.660 --> 00:46:11.200 in this context. Um, how, how, how do you respond? What, what's the wise way in 2023 to respond in 00:46:11.200 --> 00:46:17.880 situations like that? To, to the young leader. To the young leader. Yeah. I think, I think that 00:46:17.880 --> 00:46:23.500 there's a perspective that I've gravitated towards. Um, I, I always use, I use the example of like, 00:46:23.500 --> 00:46:30.020 I remember when I came to faith in high school that, um, I really struggled that my brothers 00:46:30.020 --> 00:46:37.440 didn't know Jesus. Um, and I remember I did everything. I, I was doing everything that I 00:46:37.440 --> 00:46:43.240 could to kind of convert, but I was their older brother and, you know, um, and they kind of knew 00:46:43.260 --> 00:46:51.640 punk J, um, and they knew all my imperfections. And so one of my youth pastors at this time said 00:46:51.640 --> 00:46:55.100 something to me that was very profound. And I still remember to this day that, you know, 00:46:55.500 --> 00:47:00.940 you know how you love your brothers so much. And yeah, yeah, I do. He's like, do you know that God 00:47:00.940 --> 00:47:09.220 loves them more? And don't you think God's going to do everything in his power to make sure that if 00:47:09.220 --> 00:47:16.180 they can know him they're, that they're going to know him? And I was like, that's true. I, I, I believe 00:47:16.180 --> 00:47:20.700 you. And so, and he was, he's like, you, you do what you need to do, like be faithful with what you 00:47:20.700 --> 00:47:25.560 have, be a good steward, but trust God. And so I would say on the other end to a young leader, 00:47:25.560 --> 00:47:31.220 the perspective is, is God cares more about your church and more about your community than you. 00:47:32.020 --> 00:47:37.460 And so you have tons of dreams and that's that fiery spirit is there for a reason, 00:47:37.460 --> 00:47:44.420 but trust God's timing in it. And I mean, you would go through the history books of all the 00:47:44.420 --> 00:47:49.440 different leaders that had to wait their time. I mean, I, I mean, you think about some of the 00:47:49.440 --> 00:47:53.520 conversations we're having now, even we've had the last couple of years about race. And you think 00:47:53.520 --> 00:47:59.920 about the things that somebody like Martin Luther King didn't get to experience, like wouldn't have 00:47:59.920 --> 00:48:04.100 been fair for him to experience the blessing of all the things. I mean, the, the types of things we're 00:48:04.100 --> 00:48:10.620 talking now are still hard, but it's very different than what it was in the civil rights era. And, um, 00:48:10.860 --> 00:48:15.440 and so I, you know, it's, he didn't get to experience Barack Obama and all these, like these things, 00:48:15.440 --> 00:48:22.900 like, and so in one angle, it might, you might go, man, that's really crappy for Martin Luther King, 00:48:22.980 --> 00:48:29.760 which I guess it is, it was, uh, but it, I think on the flip, it's, he played his role in moving 00:48:29.760 --> 00:48:35.620 our country forward. And so I would say, get a more eternal perspective on your role in helping 00:48:35.620 --> 00:48:40.640 your church go forward. Like, don't get so wrapped up in, you know, I think of it as like the Jeremiah 00:48:40.640 --> 00:48:47.960 example where Jeremiah, um, didn't get to experience the blessings of all the things he was talking 00:48:47.960 --> 00:48:53.620 about. And he's the one that had the famous verse, like, I have wonderful plans for you. And he most 00:48:53.620 --> 00:48:59.480 likely lived the rest of his life in captivity, not knowing anybody who actually really listened 00:48:59.480 --> 00:49:05.140 to him. And so I think it's easy what, what we're saying in like digital change, what we are, what 00:49:05.140 --> 00:49:10.940 we're actually saying is we want to be there when it all happens. And I think that's okay to ask that 00:49:10.940 --> 00:49:16.220 and desire that, but just understand sometimes God's plan doesn't involve us ever knowing what actually 00:49:16.220 --> 00:49:22.200 happened. And so I think just come from eternal perspective. I've found generally that, you know, 00:49:22.260 --> 00:49:26.940 because of our, especially in the U S I think there's a lot more you can do. It might take more 00:49:26.940 --> 00:49:33.980 relational investment, but, um, it's, it's the classic example. And this would be my, my, my hard 00:49:33.980 --> 00:49:40.200 conversation with a leader is if you're so focused on telling people how smart you are, uh, 00:49:40.260 --> 00:49:47.220 you, you've, you've, you've already failed, like allow your reputation to prove who you are. 00:49:47.940 --> 00:49:53.840 So if you have to tell people you're smart, then maybe you are smart, but nobody really cares. 00:49:54.100 --> 00:50:00.100 Nobody really wants to listen to you. But if you just do the work and prove your concept, it's, 00:50:00.100 --> 00:50:06.320 it's like our faith. Like we got to live out what we read every day in the Bible. And it's, 00:50:06.320 --> 00:50:09.540 it's our reputation. It's our testimony. So have a testimony in your digital, 00:50:09.540 --> 00:50:16.160 like just solve it. You know, like I'm not a, I'm typically not a good, uh, uh, I tend to not be 00:50:16.160 --> 00:50:20.980 a good person to complain to things about. Cause I'm like, then solve it, you know? And then I would 00:50:20.980 --> 00:50:27.180 say all the time, well, like, you know, it's hard. Yeah, it's hard. You know, if, if it was easy and AI 00:50:27.180 --> 00:50:33.840 bot would have already replaced you, like, you know, like, like it's, so I think it's like, figure it out, 00:50:33.940 --> 00:50:38.820 do the long work, you know, it's the same thing. It's like, it's all this stuff. Like we got to figure 00:50:38.820 --> 00:50:43.560 out, we, we got to lean in. So I would say, get an eternal perspective and then do the hard work. 00:50:43.640 --> 00:50:48.460 And, um, and, and you listen to podcasts like this, get perspective. We all, we all need like 00:50:48.460 --> 00:50:52.820 an injection of encouragement. Trust me. I've had many, many of those, you know, Jeff, Jeff, 00:50:52.860 --> 00:50:56.780 you and I have done this. We've talked about different frustrations so many times. And, and 00:50:56.780 --> 00:51:01.640 we use that to kind of, and this is why you created this podcast to help people along the journey. 00:51:01.640 --> 00:51:06.380 So I would just say, come from a eternal perspective, kind of, I would like, probably, 00:51:06.540 --> 00:51:11.800 you know, uh, you know, slap you on the face a little bit and say like, keep going, you know, 00:51:11.800 --> 00:51:16.320 and then you might point at people in the Bible and go, I mean, are we really, is it harder than 00:51:16.320 --> 00:51:23.240 that? No. And so like, we can do this and then just live it out, you know, execute your vision 00:51:23.240 --> 00:51:27.400 and controlled things that you can influence. And trust me, if you, if they see momentum, 00:51:27.400 --> 00:51:33.000 it can kind of, it will, it will expand. It might not expand in your timeline, but you know, 00:51:33.020 --> 00:51:35.260 God's timeline tends to be a little longer usually. 00:51:35.840 --> 00:51:38.440 Yeah. Well, it was, it was Peter that was crucified upside down, right? 00:51:38.920 --> 00:51:39.280 Yeah. 00:51:39.640 --> 00:51:44.300 Yeah. So Peter, Peter's crucified upside down. I think, I think you can handle like some, 00:51:44.500 --> 00:51:49.660 somebody not agreeing with you in the workplace. So that, that's, that was, that was well said 00:51:49.660 --> 00:51:55.160 right there. Thank you for that. Um, yeah, we're, we're 275 episodes into encouraging people on, 00:51:55.160 --> 00:51:59.780 on their innovative, innovative journeys. So been lots of conversations and encouragement, 00:51:59.780 --> 00:52:04.120 uh, along the way with that. And, you know, maybe I actually need to go back and count maybe, 00:52:04.120 --> 00:52:09.460 maybe half a dozen or more with you, man, you've been, you've been regular on this as well. And so I 00:52:09.460 --> 00:52:14.340 want to thank you for, for your encouragement, even at my level for, for encouraging me on that we've 00:52:14.340 --> 00:52:19.560 been, you know, working on projects and things, even outside of, of, of the podcast relationship here. 00:52:19.660 --> 00:52:23.740 And, and, and what you're doing at Saddleback. And it's, it's always, I'm always encouraged when 00:52:23.740 --> 00:52:29.100 I'm hanging out with my friend Jay Cranda and, uh, especially when the heater, uh, up and it's 00:52:29.100 --> 00:52:32.680 at least more encouraged in that season. You can listen to the first three minutes if you skipped over 00:52:32.680 --> 00:52:36.700 that to understand why, but, uh, Hey, we're going to land a plane. Jay, this has been, it's always 00:52:36.700 --> 00:52:42.540 great hanging out with you, man. And, um, I will, I'll have to come out to, to SoCal and, and for some 00:52:42.540 --> 00:52:47.700 reason, make an excuse to fly out and come hang out with you again. But, uh, but we're going to wrap it. 00:52:47.700 --> 00:52:51.880 And so for Jay, this is Jeff with the Church Digital and Digital Church Network. Thanks for 00:52:51.880 --> 00:52:55.220 jumping on the podcast here. See you next time on the show. Y'all have a good day.