WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.620 Welcome to the church digital podcast. Through this podcast, we'll talk about the technological 00:00:05.620 --> 00:00:10.420 innovations within the church, but more than tech for tech itself, we'll address deeper 00:00:10.420 --> 00:00:15.320 questions. Is disciple making possible digitally? How should we approach the digital mission 00:00:15.320 --> 00:00:20.200 field? Can a biblically grounded church operate in digital space? Oh, and where does the metaverse 00:00:20.200 --> 00:00:25.760 and artificial intelligence fit into all of this? Whether you're a big or small church, 00:00:25.760 --> 00:00:31.140 an established church, or a startup church plant, the church digital's goal is to help churches like 00:00:31.140 --> 00:00:37.920 yours learn to be a multiplying church digitally and physically. Our heart? The churches like yours 00:00:37.920 --> 00:00:42.580 would discover a new founded focus on disciple making that will revolutionize your church. 00:00:43.440 --> 00:00:49.400 And now here's your host, Jeff Reed. All right, episode 277 of the church digital podcast. Once 00:00:49.400 --> 00:00:55.040 again, this is Jeff Reed, founder of the church digital. Jumping in this conversation, I love 00:00:55.040 --> 00:01:02.280 this conversation. It's very exciting for me to bring into the conversation. Doctor, I said doctor, 00:01:02.540 --> 00:01:08.920 Dr. Dan Tebow. Now, some of you may remember, and Dan's no stranger to the church digital and formerly 00:01:08.920 --> 00:01:17.920 digital church network. But Dan is a, well, he is a man of many talents. But one of the things that he 00:01:17.920 --> 00:01:24.200 does is he recently started a digital church called Servant Warriors, where he, well, I'll let him tell you 00:01:24.320 --> 00:01:31.560 about his church here in a little bit. But I said doctor, Dr. Dan Tebow. To my knowledge, and maybe 00:01:31.560 --> 00:01:36.500 I learned in the podcast, maybe I'm not wrong. I got a fact, I'm wrong. I got a fact find here and 00:01:36.500 --> 00:01:45.040 really dig into it before I say it officially. But Dan's got a doctorate with an emphasis in digital 00:01:45.040 --> 00:01:53.020 digital discipleship. Literally, he wrote a 150-page dissertation on digital discipleship. And I read 00:01:53.020 --> 00:01:57.360 this thing. And first off, I'm all over this thing. Thank you, Dan, for the credit. But beyond that, 00:01:57.360 --> 00:02:03.860 I'm also really excited because I'm starting to see other people pick up this idea of the strengths and 00:02:03.860 --> 00:02:09.380 the opportunities that are available for digital discipleship, for discipling people in digital spaces, 00:02:09.380 --> 00:02:15.960 and why digital churches and even fidgetal churches, physical churches need to address this idea of 00:02:15.960 --> 00:02:22.120 digital discipleship and do it, wait for it, fidgetally. Thank you, Stadia. So it is important 00:02:22.120 --> 00:02:28.900 for us as a church to better understand discipleship, which means, hey, maybe y'all need to download a 00:02:28.900 --> 00:02:36.740 150-page academia report from our show notes that Dan Tebow, excuse me, Dr. Dan Tebow wrote on it. Well, 00:02:36.740 --> 00:02:41.080 you know what, you can download it from the show notes if you want, or you can listen to the podcast 00:02:41.080 --> 00:02:51.480 here where we've got Dr. Dan Tebow unpacking his approach for digital discipleship. So here's where 00:02:51.480 --> 00:02:58.240 we got for the podcast. I've got myself, Jeff, with the Church Digital, and I've got Dan Tebow of 00:02:58.240 --> 00:03:06.640 Servant Warriors tackling the idea of a dissertation on digital discipleship. Okay, everybody, 00:03:06.740 --> 00:03:13.380 here you go. All right, I am really excited about this conversation. It's not that often we get 00:03:13.380 --> 00:03:20.640 doctors in the house, especially like in digital ministry. And we're going old school here bringing 00:03:20.640 --> 00:03:30.320 back a friend, Dr. Dan Tebow of Liberty University grad coming in to this conversation. Dan, doctor, 00:03:30.320 --> 00:03:37.800 how do I refer to you right now? Like, what is the respectful reference that I should, 00:03:38.240 --> 00:03:45.360 like, how do I give you the homage, the awe that you deserve? Like, what do I need to do in this 00:03:45.360 --> 00:03:52.480 moment? Well, if you want to be official, it is doctor, but Dan works just fine. I'll give you all 00:03:52.480 --> 00:03:57.360 kinds of nicknames my parents give me and everybody else, right? No, it's just, it's an honor to be here, 00:03:57.360 --> 00:04:02.880 Jeff. You know, I think that we talked the first time probably two years ago. I was in the middle 00:04:02.880 --> 00:04:08.640 of my MDiv, you know, pursuing that. And it rolled into what I didn't know at the time would become a 00:04:08.640 --> 00:04:16.560 PhD program. So here we are. Yeah, I love that. So we had Dan on a podcast. We'll put a link in the 00:04:16.560 --> 00:04:20.420 show notes. I can't remember the number right now. You did 275 of these and they all kind of run 00:04:20.420 --> 00:04:26.340 together. But we had Dan on with Stephen Lowe talking about some of the program that Liberty was 00:04:26.340 --> 00:04:32.820 developing, uh, for its, um, and it was a master's MDiv. You were, you were working on your MDiv at 00:04:32.820 --> 00:04:41.540 the time, I think, Dan, uh, when you're working with Dr. Lowe and that evolved into, uh, uh, a PhD now a 00:04:41.540 --> 00:04:49.780 doctorate level and, and Dan's, um, graduate. And so Dan's got a, a PhD, um, in what, what is the actual 00:04:49.780 --> 00:04:56.260 PhD in out of, out of Liberty? Yep. So the, the actual degree will actually read PhD 00:04:56.260 --> 00:05:02.160 in Christian leadership, but the key piece that makes it fun for us is underneath that the focus 00:05:02.160 --> 00:05:09.180 is digital discipleship. And rumor has it, I may be one of the first or if not the first to actually 00:05:09.180 --> 00:05:15.300 earn that from Liberty. So it's, it's been really cool to, uh, ride that, that development. And honestly, 00:05:15.300 --> 00:05:21.340 a lot of that came through, uh, Dr. Steve and Mary Lowe, uh, both husband and wife, uh, professor 00:05:21.340 --> 00:05:27.280 combo there at Liberty that had a passion for digital ministry. And they saw the need to put 00:05:27.280 --> 00:05:34.720 that into the academia setting and they started what, uh, originated as the MDiv cognate for, 00:05:34.720 --> 00:05:39.520 uh, church ministry in the digital age. And so that's what my MDiv was focused on. And those 00:05:39.520 --> 00:05:44.720 courses actually carried over into the Christian leadership PhD program where it's, you know, 00:05:44.720 --> 00:05:51.400 subtitled digital discipleship. So that's, that's been my, my focus for, I guess, four years total 00:05:51.400 --> 00:05:56.280 through, through seminary at Liberty university. So it's, uh, it's been fun. It's been a lot of fun. 00:05:56.280 --> 00:06:02.500 There's been a lot of, been a lot of rocks turned over and a lot of things looked at and, uh, uh, 00:06:02.500 --> 00:06:04.000 we'll get into all that. It's going to be good. 00:06:04.440 --> 00:06:11.340 Totally. And, uh, to, to be, I mean, on my side, Dan, I, I don't, I'm, I'm, this is not like an 00:06:11.340 --> 00:06:18.300 official statement, but I don't know of anyone. I have not had a conversation with anyone from any school 00:06:18.300 --> 00:06:26.440 that has a doctorate level with an emphasis in, uh, digital ministry. Like that is there. I'm not 00:06:26.440 --> 00:06:31.560 saying that's official, but if, if you are, if you know someone, I'd love to meet them too. But, 00:06:31.560 --> 00:06:37.480 but as of right now, dude, you may be the first person, uh, to, to walk away with this sort of 00:06:37.480 --> 00:06:42.480 emphasis, like this, this is, this is really, and hats off, you know, Lowe's, the, the Lowe's are, 00:06:42.480 --> 00:06:47.620 are, are friends. Uh, and, and, you know, I probably speak at Liberty two or three times a 00:06:47.620 --> 00:06:54.920 year, uh, you know, online for, for his classes and she's curriculum and things. And, and so like, 00:06:54.920 --> 00:07:00.640 it's, it's, it's very, uh, you know, hats off to them for the vision, uh, and, and the, the books, 00:07:00.640 --> 00:07:05.340 the resources that they're creating, it's, it's phenomenal stuff. And speaking of like practical 00:07:05.340 --> 00:07:14.160 books. Yes. Yeah. Now groundbreaking is the 150 page dissertation I read a little while ago, 00:07:14.160 --> 00:07:21.060 uh, authored by Dr. Dan Tebow on digital discipleship. And, and really, so what, what I 00:07:21.060 --> 00:07:28.200 wanted to do is, is really start to, to unpack, um, that cause there is so much in, on digital 00:07:28.200 --> 00:07:33.420 discipleship, 150 page on digital discipleship. I think my, my book on virtual reality, I think 00:07:33.420 --> 00:07:40.580 that was like, um, I think that was 150 pages, but that was like five by eight size pages with 00:07:40.580 --> 00:07:46.380 like triple space with major, uh, margins on the side. You're, you're just like 150 page 00:07:46.380 --> 00:07:50.880 academia, man. This is, it's a solid meat stuff. We'll get into that here in a second. Let 00:07:50.880 --> 00:07:56.260 me slow down. Um, catch us up. Cause I know like you're a man, you're U S marshals. You 00:07:56.260 --> 00:08:00.580 recently have launched it launched the church. Like tell us a little bit here. What's going 00:08:00.580 --> 00:08:06.000 on in other than Dr. Dan Tebow, what's going on in your life, man, brother. So it's, it's 00:08:06.000 --> 00:08:12.240 a, it's a good life. I always joke with Steve and Mary that I'm the unicorn. Um, you know, 00:08:12.240 --> 00:08:17.100 I, I am, as you said, I'm a deputy U S marshal. Um, I'm coming up on this June. It'll be 15 00:08:17.100 --> 00:08:21.560 years in federal law enforcement. Uh, I was the air force special agent before that, uh, 00:08:21.560 --> 00:08:26.240 before I came to the marshal service. Um, but I've been in the marshals now for, uh, 00:08:26.920 --> 00:08:31.520 let me do a quick math, seven years, uh, just over seven years with the marshals. And, uh, 00:08:31.520 --> 00:08:36.820 the past three and a half years of that, I've been a team lead for one of our fugitive task 00:08:36.820 --> 00:08:42.380 forces here where I reside. So, um, you know, I, I get to, I joked with an individual today 00:08:42.380 --> 00:08:46.180 at a house this morning. I said, yeah, I get to play hide and seek for a living. So, I mean, 00:08:46.180 --> 00:08:50.460 granted it's a dangerous version of the game, but, uh, you know, I, I get to go out there and, 00:08:50.460 --> 00:08:55.500 and hopefully, hopefully keep folks safe. And, uh, and I tell folks all the time, what's unique 00:08:55.500 --> 00:09:00.800 about being a Christian in law enforcement is I have the ability, uh, to go through and get these folks 00:09:00.800 --> 00:09:06.460 hopefully into an area where they can more clearly hear the voice of God. So it's, it's really good to 00:09:06.460 --> 00:09:11.120 be able to make an impact to the community that way. Um, and that's why I love doing what I do on 00:09:11.120 --> 00:09:15.580 that side of things, but that side aside, uh, the past four years, you know, I've been going through 00:09:15.580 --> 00:09:20.880 seminary, um, definitely felt the Lord put that in my heart and, uh, and it's come to fruition. 00:09:21.180 --> 00:09:26.780 And with that, I know that, you know, graduation is just the start really, um, it's just the start 00:09:26.780 --> 00:09:34.620 of everything. And I actually found myself, uh, early this year, January of 2023, uh, ordained 00:09:34.620 --> 00:09:39.520 through the international ministerial fellowship. Uh, I was looking at potentially going back into the 00:09:39.520 --> 00:09:44.120 air force reserves as a chaplain. Um, but, uh, God made it very clear that that's not where I need 00:09:44.120 --> 00:09:48.560 you. I need you to shift focus. And, uh, and I'm trying to use that on the law enforcement side. 00:09:48.560 --> 00:09:55.100 Um, but with that digital ministry and all that comes with that, um, I was able to go through and 00:09:55.100 --> 00:10:00.740 work with a couple of brothers in Christ and found a digital church, uh, called servant warrior church. 00:10:00.740 --> 00:10:05.800 And we meet online and we can flush that out here in a while if you want, but, um, there's just 00:10:05.800 --> 00:10:10.700 different things that I've learned over this walk that are really kind of playing into it. 00:10:10.820 --> 00:10:15.720 And I'm seeing God move and the Holy spirit transcends space and time in ways that we don't 00:10:15.720 --> 00:10:20.240 see in a brick and mortar church. So it's, it's been a lot of fun. Um, but that's, you know, 00:10:20.240 --> 00:10:27.720 so if I break it all down, law enforcement, family, man, student, now alumni, and, uh, and then 00:10:27.720 --> 00:10:32.760 also a digital pastor. So it's that, that part's the mind blowing part for me. So, but that's, 00:10:32.800 --> 00:10:39.540 that's it in a nutshell. That's Dan. You, uh, you may consider yourself a unicorn, but there's 00:10:39.540 --> 00:10:46.220 a lot more unicorn coming behind you. The, the movement of people that are doing ministry that, 00:10:46.340 --> 00:10:53.420 that, that primarily are not part of, uh, church staffs, uh, that are work that are blending 00:10:53.420 --> 00:10:59.240 their workplace and with their ministry, uh, co-vocational, bi-vocational mindsets. Um, 00:10:59.240 --> 00:11:03.880 yeah, this is, this is the new future. Um, not saying that the current model is going 00:11:03.880 --> 00:11:07.780 away, the physical buildings, you know, and all that we'll get into digital. I know. Um, 00:11:07.820 --> 00:11:12.380 but, uh, like that's not going to change. Um, that's not going to stop. I should say it 00:11:12.380 --> 00:11:18.780 that way, but the idea of doing ministry different, um, Dan here is a perfect example of, of what 00:11:18.780 --> 00:11:23.200 the, the new paradigm of what a new model is, is going to look like. And so it's one of the 00:11:23.200 --> 00:11:27.040 reasons I want one to feature him and, and, and get into it. Cause there's some things I'm 00:11:27.040 --> 00:11:31.560 going to, I'll just, I'll just be honest here, Dan. Um, like as I read this, uh, as 00:11:31.560 --> 00:11:33.680 I read this dissertation, um, 00:11:34.240 --> 00:11:36.440 Did you stay awake the entire time you read it? 00:11:37.720 --> 00:11:42.140 I know. Well, Dan, that's the thing. Like, I felt like this was my words. I felt like, 00:11:42.360 --> 00:11:43.380 like if I were to write a hundred, 00:11:43.380 --> 00:11:44.820 Well, I quoted you quite a bit, brother. 00:11:45.820 --> 00:11:49.340 Quite. And you know, I don't even think you realize how much you quoted me because like 00:11:49.340 --> 00:11:54.720 all the, all the hat credit to stadia church planting was, was me. Like that was an 00:11:54.720 --> 00:12:00.420 uncredited writing for, for me. And so stay, I wrote several eBooks for a stadia church planting 00:12:00.420 --> 00:12:05.900 on planting digital and digital and that stuff. And, and so like, I'm, I'm freaking all over 00:12:05.900 --> 00:12:11.240 this thing, which was, you know, a, I'm honored B I'm flattered. But, um, you're the mindset 00:12:11.240 --> 00:12:15.840 I've, I've always felt this and it will, we'll, we'll get sappy up front. You know, every, 00:12:16.060 --> 00:12:22.540 every couple of months I get a text from, from Dan Tebow and, um, dude was always like two 00:12:22.540 --> 00:12:27.660 or three months behind some of the stuff that I was working on. Like, I remember Dan talking 00:12:27.660 --> 00:12:34.580 to me about like a, a network for individuals that would create and champion this digital 00:12:34.580 --> 00:12:40.340 discipleship, uh, towards starting and planting digital churches. And literally my response 00:12:40.340 --> 00:12:45.740 to him was, you know, keep watching my social media. We're launching it in two months. Um, 00:12:45.740 --> 00:12:50.440 like he just was always, you know, right there at the fringe, always asking really good questions, 00:12:50.540 --> 00:12:54.960 always digging in. And so when I'm, when I'm reading this work, like it wasn't, you know, 00:12:55.040 --> 00:13:01.060 boring, put me to sleep. I was like, my gosh, he is eloquently painted this picture of what it is 00:13:01.060 --> 00:13:05.940 actually going through in this. Like, I'm looking at this, like, how do, how do we get this out of 00:13:05.940 --> 00:13:11.460 academia terms and into a, into a book form where others can start to process and understand, 00:13:11.460 --> 00:13:16.560 you know, outside of the, the academia space. And so we'll, I actually, I don't even know if I can 00:13:16.560 --> 00:13:20.200 do this. We can put a link in the show notes where people can download the, the, the dissertation, 00:13:20.480 --> 00:13:26.760 right? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Yep. It's available in, uh, in Liberty's Scholars Crossing, um, ProQuest, 00:13:26.940 --> 00:13:31.660 which is another academic research area. It actually might've made its way into Google Scholar. 00:13:32.300 --> 00:13:35.820 Um, so it's, it's out there. I mean, you can always email me and I'll, I'll send a copy out, 00:13:35.900 --> 00:13:39.420 but it's, it's published. It's, you know, free, free game for anybody. 00:13:39.720 --> 00:13:45.080 Check out the link in the show notes, 150 pages, solid stuff. This Jeff Reed guy, listen, anytime 00:13:45.080 --> 00:13:52.360 somebody like agrees with me, I, or doesn't think I'm an idiot, I consider it a win. And, um, I mean, 00:13:52.360 --> 00:13:58.160 really when I, when I'm, when I'm reading this stuff, I'm like, Hey, the idea, even, you know, 00:13:58.160 --> 00:14:04.020 as I was on vacation, took a break recently from, from the church digital. And we last podcast, we 00:14:04.020 --> 00:14:07.920 had some, some of the leaders on talking about, you know, some of the evolution, wrong words, 00:14:08.000 --> 00:14:14.640 some of the changes that came to the church digital as a result. And, um, you know, even seeing how, 00:14:14.980 --> 00:14:18.580 um, how you've started champion some of these ideas and putting it into practice. 00:14:18.580 --> 00:14:24.340 What's been fun with it, Jeff is, uh, being, being able to go through and take my background 00:14:24.340 --> 00:14:29.100 and criminal investigations and like the mindset that comes with, you know, like in the air force, 00:14:29.160 --> 00:14:33.060 I did criminal investigations, counterintelligence investigations, and then with the marshals, 00:14:33.160 --> 00:14:37.680 fugitive investigations. So like the way you build a case and the way that you, you know, 00:14:37.680 --> 00:14:43.000 lay out the facts and basically build the picture, I was able to take that skillset into the academia 00:14:43.000 --> 00:14:47.460 world and basically just investigate what's going on. And, you know, especially the digital church 00:14:47.460 --> 00:14:51.940 network, you know, like what's going on there. How's this look? And it was really cool that it's, 00:14:51.940 --> 00:14:56.760 those aren't my ideas that were presented to the dissertation. It was people that are out there, 00:14:56.760 --> 00:15:01.940 uh, paving the road and breaking the ice, um, and really saying, Hey, here's what we're doing 00:15:01.940 --> 00:15:07.120 and here's why it matters. So for me, the whole process of finishing up my, my doctorate and, 00:15:07.120 --> 00:15:12.340 and dissertation at that was, it was humbling to be an ambassador, you know, to go through and say, 00:15:12.400 --> 00:15:16.600 Hey, here's what people are doing and they need a voice. And you need to see what the Holy 00:15:16.600 --> 00:15:21.580 Spirit is doing through these people. And that's, that's been the exciting part, um, to be able to 00:15:21.580 --> 00:15:25.840 put this in, in, like you said, get it into academia, but now take it from academia and get 00:15:25.840 --> 00:15:30.860 it out to, you know, brick and mortar churches and, and, uh, rural areas that are disconnected. 00:15:31.220 --> 00:15:35.820 I mean, you know, we'll get into physical, physical, like you said, but we'll never replace 00:15:35.820 --> 00:15:41.140 physical and we shouldn't, you know, it needs to be synergistic. It needs to be, um, you know, 00:15:41.140 --> 00:15:45.480 coincided. We hear hybrid all the time. Hybrid kind of is usually more accepted than 00:15:45.480 --> 00:15:49.060 fidgetal because people don't have to do with a word they're not familiar with, or, you know, 00:15:49.260 --> 00:15:53.040 whether they debate whether fidgetal is a real word, right? I try to make it one with the 00:15:53.040 --> 00:15:59.140 dissertation, but, uh, I digress. It's a, it's just a matter of realizing that we live in a 00:15:59.140 --> 00:16:05.320 technological world that is fidgetal. I mean, we were at work and we're texting our family. 00:16:05.380 --> 00:16:09.500 We go home, we're with them physically. We are fidgetal families. You know, we do the same 00:16:09.500 --> 00:16:14.440 thing work-wise just before we logged on for this call. I was texting another deputy down in 00:16:14.440 --> 00:16:19.260 actually Tampa, um, asking, Hey, I need a lead for this individual. We got a fugitive 00:16:19.260 --> 00:16:25.280 and I don't, I've never met him face to face, but we're brothers through what we do. We're connected 00:16:25.280 --> 00:16:31.620 and through our digital connection, he's physically apprehending the violent fugitives. So it's just 00:16:31.620 --> 00:16:34.500 the world we live in. But anyway, you got me preaching. I'll stop. 00:16:36.080 --> 00:16:39.780 I love it. So, so, you know, let's, let's get dirty here a little bit. Let's, let's dive in. 00:16:39.780 --> 00:16:44.240 Um, so, I mean, a couple of things. One, you're, you're championing the idea of digital 00:16:44.240 --> 00:16:50.320 discipleship, which makes people, makes church leaders uncomfortable. Um, I mean, we don't need 00:16:50.320 --> 00:16:54.960 to sugarcoat that. The idea of discipling people digitally has been a controversial idea, uh, 00:16:54.960 --> 00:17:02.520 post COVID. Um, and number two, um, you're, you're, you know, using, uh, the, and focusing on 00:17:02.520 --> 00:17:07.140 Fidgetal. Thank you very much Stadia for letting us borrow the word Fidgetal, which is a combination 00:17:07.140 --> 00:17:11.320 of physical and digital. Stadia literally owns the trademark on that. Some really smart guy told 00:17:11.320 --> 00:17:15.200 him to acquire the trademark on that and then it doesn't work for Stadia anymore. Great, great 00:17:15.200 --> 00:17:20.940 organization, but I just don't work there. So you've got, um, you've got this, you're, you're 00:17:20.940 --> 00:17:25.140 championing digital discipleship and you're championing what I'm understanding is physical 00:17:25.140 --> 00:17:33.180 churches to really utilize digital discipleship. Like that's, that's an unpopular idea in 2023, 00:17:33.420 --> 00:17:41.440 2024. What, why did you take that focus? Reflecting on it? I think a lot of it is just 00:17:41.440 --> 00:17:47.700 my background, you know, having been in, um, really a career field in the military that was 00:17:47.700 --> 00:17:51.400 the redheaded stepchild. Nobody wanted to talk to me because I was an OSI agent, right? 00:17:51.400 --> 00:17:57.240 Office of Special Investigations. Um, and so we were always off in our own little islands, 00:17:57.240 --> 00:18:03.140 which then with the job, I was deployed to the Middle East. I was working in, uh, either by myself 00:18:03.140 --> 00:18:08.080 or in pairs of different areas, uh, been to multiple countries and continents and, and doing different 00:18:08.080 --> 00:18:13.380 stuff. And so to be rooted, I mean, yes, I had a home and I had a family, but I wasn't always there. 00:18:13.520 --> 00:18:19.940 And so to be rooted, um, was something I didn't know. And I actually, and I talk about it a little 00:18:19.940 --> 00:18:26.120 bit in my, my dissertation that, um, I was actually digitally discipled as a young baby Christian 00:18:26.120 --> 00:18:33.300 and the individual Adam Fitzgerald brother in Christ, um, who we still talk daily. Um, and we've 00:18:33.300 --> 00:18:39.700 known each other for, let me do the quick math, uh, over a decade, over a decade. And we've only met 00:18:39.700 --> 00:18:45.620 three times in person. Uh, but we talk daily and it's because we use digital tools to connect, 00:18:45.620 --> 00:18:50.360 to share life, share stories. And so I've lived it and I've seen that it's impacted my life 00:18:50.360 --> 00:18:56.580 and it's guided me, but I've also seen in my own journey and my own testimony, uh, when I didn't 00:18:56.580 --> 00:19:01.640 stay engaged through those digital tools with Adam and other brothers and sisters in Christ, 00:19:01.640 --> 00:19:07.480 uh, that's when I fell away and I found myself isolated or backslid and stumbled. Um, and so it's 00:19:07.480 --> 00:19:12.780 just another Testament, like, Hey, this stuff has to be intentional. It's hard work. It takes a lot of 00:19:12.780 --> 00:19:18.520 time. Um, but when you do it right, these stories that come out at the end and the glory that goes 00:19:18.520 --> 00:19:24.460 to Christ is undeniable and you can't argue that. And so that's, that's where my passion came from for 00:19:24.460 --> 00:19:29.540 it. And I was like, Hey, if that, you know, if I'm not out here by myself, who else is doing this? 00:19:29.540 --> 00:19:35.440 And then I had the chance through this platform, through the framework of school to go and investigate 00:19:35.440 --> 00:19:40.860 and ask and getting to talk to these leaders that are out here doing this stuff was just 00:19:40.860 --> 00:19:45.980 mind blowing. And all I was able to do is synthesize it all together, put it together and be like, 00:19:46.260 --> 00:19:51.680 here's, here's a model. Here's a way you can do this. If you're up for the challenge. And if you're 00:19:51.680 --> 00:19:56.980 up to actually take the time and effort and make a difference. I, you know, I was, I wasn't familiar 00:19:56.980 --> 00:20:01.180 with the Adam story. That's, that's interesting to me. Let me, let me pull the thread on that a little 00:20:01.180 --> 00:20:05.920 bit. How did you, how'd you meet Adam? I mean, like how'd you first can get connected with him? 00:20:06.300 --> 00:20:11.600 Yep. So I was a brand new, a brand new second Lieutenant in the air force special agent. 00:20:12.180 --> 00:20:18.920 And, uh, I was getting into ultra running. Uh, I liked to run when I was younger. Um, and I think 00:20:18.920 --> 00:20:25.980 the book born to run came out and the running craze was big. This was like 20, 2010, 2011. And, uh, 00:20:25.980 --> 00:20:29.800 and so I read the book and say, I want to, I want to try this ultra running thing, which is anything 00:20:29.800 --> 00:20:36.740 over 26.2 miles. Uh, usually it's on a trail or, you know, different terrain. And, uh, so I was like, 00:20:36.760 --> 00:20:41.860 well, naturally let's see what's out there. And I was also young in my faith. And I always wanted to 00:20:41.860 --> 00:20:47.780 know, um, I want to know more about Jesus. Right. And so I came across, I stumbled across, um, FCA 00:20:47.780 --> 00:20:53.820 fellowship, Christian athletes. Uh, they had an endurance branch of FCA and they had an online 00:20:53.820 --> 00:20:58.380 forum, the old school chat room forum. And I logged in and just started sharing like, Hey, 00:20:58.380 --> 00:21:02.900 you know, here's where I'm at. Here's what I'm trying to learn. And Adam saw the post. I think 00:21:02.900 --> 00:21:06.620 he, uh, he said it was a prayer request. I don't, we've looked for it several times, 00:21:06.620 --> 00:21:10.280 but the forum's since been down and everything else. So it's, it's now out in the metaverse 00:21:10.280 --> 00:21:14.680 somewhere, but, um, we've looked for it, but he says it was a prayer request that I posted 00:21:14.680 --> 00:21:19.360 and he responded. Next thing you know, we're talking and you know, we're, like I said, we're 00:21:19.360 --> 00:21:23.160 brothers. You know, I go down and see him. I saw him recently. There was, there was a death 00:21:23.160 --> 00:21:26.800 in the family and, you know, to be able to be there. And he actually asked me to speak 00:21:26.800 --> 00:21:30.920 at the funeral for that person. I mean, it was just, it was humbling that, you know, 00:21:30.960 --> 00:21:35.780 here is a brother who I've only met three times in person, but we were connected on that level 00:21:35.780 --> 00:21:40.780 that he would ask me to fill a role like that, you know? So, um, yeah, that's, that's the 00:21:40.780 --> 00:21:41.100 story. 00:21:42.580 --> 00:21:47.720 It's in, it's interesting. The idea of physical or fidgetal, uh, like there is a physical component 00:21:47.720 --> 00:21:53.920 to that. And even, even as a digital pastor of, of, of a digital church, utilizing physical 00:21:53.920 --> 00:21:59.240 when it's appropriate is, is it's, it's not that it's non-existent. It's actually, I would 00:21:59.240 --> 00:22:04.840 assume incredibly powerful. What's it, what's it actually like, you know, the three times 00:22:04.840 --> 00:22:08.360 in 10 years that, that you and Adam connect, what are those experiences like? 00:22:08.800 --> 00:22:12.280 So, I mean, naturally the first time you go to meet someone face to face, you do you feel 00:22:12.280 --> 00:22:15.860 like, Oh, this is going to be awkward, but it was like we had been together our entire, 00:22:15.860 --> 00:22:22.460 entire lives because we had connected on such a personal level through text messaging, FaceTime, 00:22:22.720 --> 00:22:28.280 forums, email, whatever tools we used. Right. And, uh, so there was never any awkwardness. 00:22:28.380 --> 00:22:33.360 I mean, it, there just wasn't. And he absolutely, he absolutely told me, he was like, Hey, you're 00:22:33.360 --> 00:22:38.840 actually one of the closest individuals I have day-to-day life. And that was just mind-blowing 00:22:38.840 --> 00:22:44.720 to me. You know, it was just a testimony to digital tools being, uh, being useful. Right. 00:22:44.720 --> 00:22:50.180 And a lot of folks have the premise that, uh, digital means that you have a huge brick and 00:22:50.180 --> 00:22:55.560 mortar church. And then you've got this huge, uh, online campus where you've got, you know, 00:22:55.600 --> 00:23:01.160 an online stream and blazer light shows and all this other stuff. And that's not digital. 00:23:01.360 --> 00:23:05.460 Well, I mean, yes, let me take that back. It is digital, but that's not the heartbeat of 00:23:05.460 --> 00:23:10.600 digital. The heartbeat of digital is the atoms of the world. Being able to connect on that type 00:23:10.600 --> 00:23:15.800 of level with someone and have intentional, intentional relationship. That's, that's where 00:23:15.800 --> 00:23:20.660 God really makes an impact. I mean, just look at the ministry of Christ. Every time he encountered 00:23:20.660 --> 00:23:25.560 somebody, a story came to surface. Every time he encountered the one person, the one person 00:23:25.560 --> 00:23:31.060 went and told the story. That's, that's ministry. That's discipleship. That's digital discipleship 00:23:31.060 --> 00:23:35.160 for us today. Imagine what Paul would have done if he had the digital tools at his fingertips 00:23:35.160 --> 00:23:39.500 that we have. I mean, he used letters because that's what he had, but imagine if he had zoom 00:23:39.500 --> 00:23:46.220 or, you know, or Riverside, right? The ability to connect like this, like he would be in awe, 00:23:46.460 --> 00:23:49.940 you know? And so we've, we've got to be good stewards of the tools that are sitting at our 00:23:49.940 --> 00:23:55.620 fingertips. Yeah. I imagine Paul would, would be, you know, handing some churches their butt 00:23:55.620 --> 00:24:00.940 on a sling digitally, you know, trying to figure out how to do that or utilizing social media 00:24:00.940 --> 00:24:06.560 to get out in front of a larger amount of people. Um, you know, it's, it's interesting. Actually 00:24:06.560 --> 00:24:12.120 a great, great segue talking about Paul and the, the birth of the church and some of the, um, 00:24:12.180 --> 00:24:18.060 evangelical movements that, that Paul started with his missionary journeys. Uh, you say, um, I, 00:24:18.060 --> 00:24:23.060 I forgot to write down the page number here, but, um, the folk in, in your dissertation, 00:24:23.320 --> 00:24:28.200 uh, I'm quoting you, I think, uh, the focus on missional evangelism is not the sole mission, 00:24:28.200 --> 00:24:34.200 nor is it the end of digital ministry. On the contrary, it's just the beginning. 00:24:35.180 --> 00:24:38.880 Unpack here a little bit, start to expand a little bit on what you're saying here. 00:24:39.600 --> 00:24:45.280 Yeah. Um, so I, I made the, the reference just a minute ago about how many churches are creating 00:24:45.280 --> 00:24:51.300 the Sunday experience to be streamed online, which amen had at that. There's nothing wrong with that, 00:24:51.440 --> 00:24:57.660 but there's too many churches, church leadership, church structures that are settling there and calling 00:24:57.660 --> 00:25:05.400 it digital ministry or heaven forbid digital discipleship. And really my, my takeaway from 00:25:05.400 --> 00:25:11.340 the research is that's, that's falling short. That's falling short. Um, we're, we're settling 00:25:11.340 --> 00:25:17.080 it for an online stream and being a content that is getting the good news out there, which amen, 00:25:17.220 --> 00:25:23.520 we should be. Uh, but then we stop. We don't know how either we, either we stop because we 00:25:23.520 --> 00:25:28.700 don't have the time resources or the know-how to continue for it, or we stop because we just want 00:25:28.700 --> 00:25:34.840 to continue focusing over here on another project. When reality, we need to have folks that are good 00:25:34.840 --> 00:25:41.620 stewards to leave that space and move into, um, a digital discipleship, move from digital evangelism, 00:25:41.720 --> 00:25:48.260 digital content into discipleship, make this a process that is continually built upon for the 00:25:48.260 --> 00:25:53.460 individuals. Um, and in the research, one of the digital church leaders, um, had actually mentioned 00:25:53.460 --> 00:26:01.800 that, look, you need to move from, um, content, uh, to, or you need to move from consumer to, um, 00:26:02.600 --> 00:26:08.420 wow, am I blanking? I should have wrote this down beforehand. Um, basically you need to move from 00:26:08.420 --> 00:26:13.760 consumer to creator. Um, you know, you need, you need to go through and move from consumer to creator, 00:26:13.760 --> 00:26:19.700 and you need to make sure that consumer to creator part is just from someone who is, I remember it 00:26:19.700 --> 00:26:25.060 now. Here it is. It's consumer contributor and creator. That's the pathway. Uh, one of the folks 00:26:25.060 --> 00:26:30.740 I interviewed that was, that's what was, was, uh, was utilized. And so when you have an online stream, 00:26:30.840 --> 00:26:35.680 they're consuming what you're putting out there, which is good, but now let's be faithful to lead 00:26:35.680 --> 00:26:40.400 them to the next step, which would be contributing. When we get them to go through and comment or share 00:26:40.400 --> 00:26:45.600 or engage with an online chat host, that is the next step. But now ultimately we want to move them 00:26:45.600 --> 00:26:51.300 into creator, which is an individual that is now out there either leading their own ministry or they're 00:26:51.300 --> 00:26:55.360 going through and creating their own content and, you know, replicating again, disciples who make 00:26:55.360 --> 00:27:00.640 disciples. And that's, that's the, that's the pull. You want to move them through that, through that 00:27:00.640 --> 00:27:06.580 process. And ultimately what you're doing is you're creating obedience in that individual. You know, 00:27:06.580 --> 00:27:10.880 you're making them an obedient disciple that's going to follow the call on their life. And they're going 00:27:10.880 --> 00:27:15.840 to continue to create disciplines that give them that battle rhythm of being a digital disciple. 00:27:16.360 --> 00:27:22.320 Taking that, taking that consumer, um, maturing them, growing them to a contributor where they're, 00:27:22.440 --> 00:27:27.400 they're, they're not just absorbing, but they're, they're speaking into it and then growing them to 00:27:27.400 --> 00:27:33.160 the place where they're creating. I mean, there's, there's a literal multiplication that's happening 00:27:33.160 --> 00:27:37.720 in digital. This is one of that's actually that, that pathway is one of the reasons why I think 00:27:37.720 --> 00:27:45.400 digital is actually a very healthy approach towards discipleship because it walks people 00:27:45.400 --> 00:27:53.400 towards not just being consumers for years, um, eating or drinking, uh, spiritual milk. It helps grow 00:27:53.400 --> 00:27:59.600 people to the place of the solid food of the spiritual state that the Bible speaks of. And so there's this 00:27:59.600 --> 00:28:05.700 great opportunity to, to disciple people digitally and grow them to the place where they're not just 00:28:05.700 --> 00:28:11.040 absorbing this, but they're not just contributing to this, but they're, they're creating it. And now 00:28:11.040 --> 00:28:15.940 they're responsible for discipling others in that. And for me, that's one of the awesome things that 00:28:15.940 --> 00:28:21.920 we've seen you do is, is really take this up with, um, with the digital church that, that you started 00:28:21.920 --> 00:28:26.820 and now challenging others, uh, within, I just blanked on the name of it. Servants, what's, 00:28:26.820 --> 00:28:31.700 what's the name of your church? Servants, uh, servant warrior and, um, in, in, servant warrior church. 00:28:32.960 --> 00:28:37.540 Yeah. Seeing you run with that now. Um, well, let, let me ask, there's another quote. I love this. 00:28:37.540 --> 00:28:46.180 And, and, and also I have no idea who this guy is. Um, Thomas JN, um, and you credit him in 2014 was, 00:28:46.180 --> 00:28:54.580 uh, he said, um, where I've got it here. Uh, he went one step further and utilized the five components 00:28:54.580 --> 00:29:03.100 of witnessing, spiritual formation, belonging, worship, and prayer, all found in acts two, uh, 00:29:03.200 --> 00:29:08.300 as his criteria for his research, but continue to note, there is still very little research done on 00:29:08.300 --> 00:29:14.160 the topic of online discipleship. He suggested, uh, qualitative stuff. Who is Thomas? Um, who's this 00:29:14.160 --> 00:29:20.360 guy? JN Thomas. Yep. Um, if I were to pull it up, I believe if I recall correctly, he actually had 00:29:20.360 --> 00:29:26.180 a dissertation and that's where that came from. He said this in 2014. And, um, to, to my knowledge, 00:29:26.180 --> 00:29:33.120 which I didn't know any work was being done in 2014. Um, and so like he was doing a dissertation 00:29:33.120 --> 00:29:39.360 at live is under Liberty in, in 2014. And Thomas, that, that quote that you mentioned is actually, 00:29:39.360 --> 00:29:45.860 it is actually the, uh, the thing that really put the light bulb on for my, my focus. I mean, 00:29:45.860 --> 00:29:49.920 I was like, all right, like someone needs to do this. Let's give it a shot. Right. Um, okay. 00:29:49.920 --> 00:29:57.020 So here we go. So his James and Thomas, he did an analysis of discipleship in online environments. 00:29:57.820 --> 00:30:06.720 And that was a dissertation for a PhD. And that was through Dallas Baptist university in June of 2014. 00:30:07.280 --> 00:30:12.560 Um, interesting. I just, I didn't know anybody was in that space back in 2014. Uh, and so. 00:30:12.880 --> 00:30:18.980 Yep. I think 2010 was probably the earliest who was in 2010. Yeah. You're quizzing me here. I got 00:30:18.980 --> 00:30:25.480 to go in and look, I believe, uh, Angela's work was pretty early as well. Angela Craig, 2011. There's 00:30:25.480 --> 00:30:33.400 that one. So Jay Mullins had a doctoral dissertation, uh, titled online church. That looks like that was in 00:30:33.400 --> 00:30:38.960 at Liberty as well. And a lot of these are other divinity programs, you know, there, there was no 00:30:38.960 --> 00:30:44.360 digital discipleship program yet, but they were still starting to dig in, you know? So with that 00:30:44.360 --> 00:30:49.820 said, you know, a lot of these, a lot of the references that I use are basically 2010 until 00:30:49.820 --> 00:30:55.560 recent and 20, I think 2007 was one of the earlier ones. That was actually Dr. Mary Lowe. She was 00:30:55.560 --> 00:31:01.620 talking about online education and that education piece, which brings development bridges very quickly 00:31:01.620 --> 00:31:06.340 into discipleship. And that's when we see their book of, uh, ecologies of faith come into play. 00:31:06.940 --> 00:31:13.300 Um, but they, uh, you know, a lot of these were 2014, 2015 folks were really starting to say, Hey, 00:31:13.300 --> 00:31:18.260 the internet's here. What do we do with it? And then COVID happens. Right. And then that changed 00:31:18.260 --> 00:31:23.340 everybody's attention to, Hey, how do we really do this? And so there's been a huge resurgence in the 00:31:23.340 --> 00:31:28.700 past three years of trying to understand digital ministry as a whole. Now, as I was reading your, 00:31:28.700 --> 00:31:35.000 um, your dissertation, it's interesting that, you know, some, sometimes key words kind of jump 00:31:35.000 --> 00:31:40.180 off the page at me. Cause it's, it's words I don't often hear other, other people in church space talk 00:31:40.180 --> 00:31:46.060 about. And you, you kept, you know, you referenced several times and dug into it, uh, the idea of 00:31:46.060 --> 00:31:51.760 church networks. Now coming from a guy who started a network, uh, like, I, you know, I'm, I'm very 00:31:51.760 --> 00:31:56.660 passionate about that idea. So maybe, um, you know, explain to me a little bit when you're talking 00:31:56.660 --> 00:32:01.960 about the idea of church networks or networks, what are you envisioning? What do you think the future 00:32:01.960 --> 00:32:06.180 is going to look like here? One thing that I've noticed through my research and talking to folks 00:32:06.180 --> 00:32:15.820 is there's almost, there's almost a resurgence of the first century church and the 21st century 00:32:15.820 --> 00:32:21.040 world. And what I mean by that is the Holy spirit is connecting and moving people, um, through this 00:32:21.040 --> 00:32:26.080 digital space. And if we look back at the first century church and the way that the spirit moved 00:32:26.080 --> 00:32:31.820 and grew the church, we're starting to see that now, you know, some of the digital church 00:32:31.820 --> 00:32:37.600 leaders I spoke to, they have full on church plants that are growing from a digital initiative 00:32:37.600 --> 00:32:43.120 in the United States. Now in various African countries, you couldn't have done that anywhere 00:32:43.120 --> 00:32:49.120 else, right? Through, except through digital space. And so that's, that's a network. And my argument 00:32:49.120 --> 00:32:53.240 would be, we go into scripture and we can look at, you know, the, the body of Christ, the church, 00:32:53.240 --> 00:32:58.360 what are we called to be? We are called to be a global unified body glorifying the Christ. 00:32:58.900 --> 00:33:03.860 And, uh, you know, we, especially in Western culture, and this could be a whole nother doctoral 00:33:03.860 --> 00:33:09.180 study, right? Within Western culture, we've gotten so segmented. You know, we look at post 00:33:09.180 --> 00:33:14.340 reformation. We look at, you know, the, the, the rise of Protestant denominations and different 00:33:14.340 --> 00:33:20.140 councils and sets of setups and everything else. We've gotten so fragmented where our, our tree now has 00:33:20.140 --> 00:33:27.140 so many branches on it that we need to come back to the root. And, um, with that heart of knowing what 00:33:27.140 --> 00:33:34.340 it means to be the unified body of Christ, um, set up for the coming days, right? Um, that's where the, 00:33:34.340 --> 00:33:40.160 the church network comes into mind. And so an example of what this could look like, and again, 00:33:40.160 --> 00:33:45.720 there's several contexts and it could look different for different church leaders, but within, for example, 00:33:45.720 --> 00:33:51.600 servant warrior church, um, that is a group of, it started as a group of 12 guys that were, it's 00:33:51.600 --> 00:33:58.300 funny, it was 12, um, started as a group of 12 guys that were first responders military. And it was 00:33:58.300 --> 00:34:03.500 just an online discipleship group. We would talk, we would had, we had several that if you ask some of 00:34:03.500 --> 00:34:08.500 the, the servant warrior OGs, you know, that have been around since the beginning, we've played with 00:34:08.500 --> 00:34:13.180 discord. We played with Marco Polo. We played with text groups, Facebook groups, you know, 00:34:13.180 --> 00:34:18.640 we tried them all to see what was working best for folks. Uh, but ultimately it led to the point 00:34:18.640 --> 00:34:24.920 where it's like, Hey, let's, let's turn this, not just from a discipleship group, but let's be the 00:34:24.920 --> 00:34:30.200 visitor or let's be the digital church in physical spaces. And so we started servant warrior church. 00:34:30.200 --> 00:34:35.960 And what's different about us is we're focused on that intentional, uh, relationship, organic 00:34:35.960 --> 00:34:41.760 discipleship piece, um, where we meet daily, uh, through an online form. It's actually circle 00:34:41.760 --> 00:34:47.940 communities as our website. It's kind of like mighty networks, but built differently. And, um, we meet 00:34:47.940 --> 00:34:52.960 there and have a full platform, but then we also have three different times each week that we can 00:34:52.960 --> 00:34:59.220 get on zoom. There's one time a week where I actually teach, you know, or preach. Um, and then the other 00:34:59.220 --> 00:35:04.780 two times are fellowship where we just hang out and we talk and it's grown from 12 people to, I believe, 00:35:04.840 --> 00:35:10.360 35, 36 people in just a couple of months. Um, and the thing is, is we're not worried about growth. 00:35:10.360 --> 00:35:14.620 We're not, we're not like, we're worried about the one we want to have that intentional relationship. 00:35:14.620 --> 00:35:19.960 We purposely don't advertise. I mean, we have, we have a website. That's just a splash page that 00:35:19.960 --> 00:35:25.840 leads you to circle, but I'm not posting content on Facebook, Instagram. I'm not trying to pull people 00:35:25.840 --> 00:35:30.400 in because the spirit will do that. That's his job. His job is to go through and build the church 00:35:30.400 --> 00:35:34.400 and convert and transform hearts. Our job is just to steward the people that he brings to us. 00:35:34.960 --> 00:35:42.400 And so having that focus has changed the way we do church. Um, and so with that said, we're, 00:35:42.440 --> 00:35:47.360 we're training, we're training disciples up and we're equipping them and showing them, Hey, 00:35:47.440 --> 00:35:52.340 the spirit filled spirit led life is talked about in the book of Acts is real. And it can be done today, 00:35:52.340 --> 00:35:58.160 just as it was back then, if we do it correctly and we surrender to him through obedience every single 00:35:58.160 --> 00:36:04.560 day. And by doing that, we now are raising up leaders and what's cool. And what would be the 00:36:04.560 --> 00:36:10.320 vision here is going through and having these leaders that are in, I mean, we have Florida, 00:36:10.320 --> 00:36:18.500 we have Michigan, Ohio, Tennessee, South Carolina, California, Nevada. Um, and we also have a couple 00:36:18.500 --> 00:36:22.720 of families that are doing something called overlanding where they're in their four by four vehicle and 00:36:22.720 --> 00:36:27.220 they're traveling the world. We have a family down in Argentina right now, another family getting ready to 00:36:27.220 --> 00:36:32.060 go back to Peru. They're in the States visiting family now. Uh, but we connect actually one of the 00:36:32.060 --> 00:36:36.920 elders. He's, he's going back to Peru here in just a couple of months with his wife and son and 00:36:36.920 --> 00:36:42.460 continuing their global journey. And so it's just really cool to connect these folks where they have 00:36:42.460 --> 00:36:47.560 physical expressions that they can start to engage with their communities, their workplaces, um, and 00:36:47.560 --> 00:36:53.380 other folks that they know. And so they're, they're creating that network organically. And how cool would it 00:36:53.380 --> 00:36:58.220 be to take servant warrior church and create a servant warrior network one day where we're going 00:36:58.220 --> 00:37:03.800 through and we're connecting with say a rural church in the middle of, I don't know, you know, 00:37:04.380 --> 00:37:10.220 Timbuktu, Nebraska, that just doesn't have a connection to, you know, a bigger city or a bigger 00:37:10.220 --> 00:37:15.580 church. And we can say, Hey, we have this online space where we can basically send you a digital 00:37:15.580 --> 00:37:21.700 missionary where we're going to go and create a space for your physical church. And we're going to send one of 00:37:21.700 --> 00:37:27.320 our digital members there into that space. They'll teach you how to run this, how to engage, build it 00:37:27.320 --> 00:37:32.380 up. And then at that point we go through and spend three months with them. And then we launch them off 00:37:32.380 --> 00:37:37.600 on their own and they create a network where we're not a denomination. We're not saying you have to do 00:37:37.600 --> 00:37:42.220 things our way. It's just a, Hey, here's the tool and we're connected in Christ. Why don't we build 00:37:42.220 --> 00:37:47.960 each other up? And it's just a way of taking initial thought for a digital church and building it into a 00:37:47.960 --> 00:37:50.580 network that's physically located all over the place. 00:37:51.280 --> 00:37:55.840 And the idea of, of a, of a church network isn't, isn't a new concept, you know, life, life church 00:37:55.840 --> 00:38:01.720 has had the open network for, for years. And, and, you know, I, you know, even going back to maybe 00:38:01.720 --> 00:38:06.700 2015, um, you know, the opportunity to sit down with some of, some of the life church guys to talk 00:38:06.700 --> 00:38:13.000 specifically about that. And, and the idea is to be very open-handed. Like you cannot, there's a 00:38:13.000 --> 00:38:17.540 difference between a network and like a, a series of multi-site churches, multi-site churches. You 00:38:17.540 --> 00:38:23.620 usually are very centralized and very controlling of what's happening in that space with a network. 00:38:24.080 --> 00:38:29.960 You have to be very open-handed and very loose with that. And so there's, and, and sometimes, 00:38:30.180 --> 00:38:35.780 you know, the physical churches isn't, isn't comfortable being loose and open-handed with that 00:38:35.780 --> 00:38:41.480 because the, the mindset's just not necessarily there. And so it's, it's a different mindset, 00:38:41.480 --> 00:38:48.140 but in 2024, um, you know, maybe it, it pays off for ministry to look different, to be more open-handed, 00:38:48.140 --> 00:38:51.860 uh, than closed-fisted, so to speak. Sorry for the analogy there. 00:38:51.860 --> 00:38:58.460 And what's, what's nice about that idea, Jeff, is you can go through, you can go through and take, um, 00:38:59.220 --> 00:39:04.420 you can take this network idea and you can remain open-handed because a lot of people that are taking 00:39:04.420 --> 00:39:09.860 these ideas in, like you said earlier, by vote, co vote, right? I get paid absolutely nothing, not one 00:39:09.860 --> 00:39:13.900 pennies for doing the servant warrior church thing. My employment comes through, you know, department of 00:39:13.900 --> 00:39:20.580 justice. Um, that's my, my, my main income and that's my focus. But within that, I'm also called to be a 00:39:20.580 --> 00:39:25.660 disciple. And so I can remain open-handed and not worried about budgets, keeping lights on everything 00:39:25.660 --> 00:39:31.140 else. I mean, the only thing that costs us is it's $120 a month to keep our digital space open, 00:39:31.140 --> 00:39:36.460 which we have folks that are being faithful to help support that. So 120 bucks a month versus, 00:39:36.460 --> 00:39:42.640 you know, thousands of dollars for rent and lights and everything else, right? Like totally different 00:39:42.640 --> 00:39:48.960 thing to where, um, we're, our focus is different. We don't have to be tied to, um, you know, the 00:39:48.960 --> 00:39:54.680 traditional, um, framework, you know, it's, it's something that is a lot of, a lot more free. 00:39:54.920 --> 00:39:59.960 So, you know, to those that are maybe thinking about trying it, like give it a shot, you know, 00:40:00.200 --> 00:40:03.320 you'll be surprised what the Holy spirit will do with it. If you're just obedient to follow. 00:40:04.100 --> 00:40:09.440 So let's, let's dig into your research a little bit here. Um, what, what did your research look 00:40:09.440 --> 00:40:13.160 like? What, what questions were you asking? What were your findings? Like, give me, 00:40:13.280 --> 00:40:16.560 give me a little bit here on, uh, on the research you put together. 00:40:17.000 --> 00:40:23.280 So quick nutshell on this, basically it's a, it's called a qualitative grounded theory study. 00:40:23.280 --> 00:40:28.080 All right. Fancy way of saying, I'm not focused on numbers. I'm going to focus on the story behind 00:40:28.080 --> 00:40:35.960 it and the kind of the factual evidence, um, on top of going through and dialing into this thing that 00:40:35.960 --> 00:40:42.320 doesn't have much, uh, research into it yet. That's why it's called grounded theory. And so, uh, what, 00:40:42.540 --> 00:40:48.440 what that allows me to do is let the data that's collected go through and interpret itself and speak 00:40:48.440 --> 00:40:54.520 for itself. And so through that, through that process of how that worked, um, I was able to, 00:40:54.520 --> 00:41:00.120 to develop basic questionnaire. That's called the DCLQ. Uh, it's the digital church leader questionnaire, 00:41:00.120 --> 00:41:07.120 extremely original, um, within those 10 questions though, it's three subsets. And the one subset is 00:41:07.120 --> 00:41:12.880 asking a research question about how are digital church leaders, um, basically viewing digital 00:41:12.880 --> 00:41:19.020 discipleship and, uh, digital networks. And then the second section is what methods are they using? 00:41:19.140 --> 00:41:23.540 How are they already doing it or how are they seeing it done? And then the third question is how are they 00:41:23.540 --> 00:41:29.200 making sure that this is, uh, effective, not asking exactly their measurements, but how are they, 00:41:29.200 --> 00:41:34.400 how are they measuring? What are they, what are they judging their effectiveness by? And so within 00:41:34.400 --> 00:41:39.760 those, uh, 10 questions that were asked to all the digital church leaders, um, the data just started 00:41:39.760 --> 00:41:44.520 flowing in and it was transcripts and everything that was able to upload and do the geek stuff and 00:41:44.520 --> 00:41:49.400 start looking, okay, what's the problem of themes? Who says what, how many times, and really just kind 00:41:49.400 --> 00:41:55.380 of flush it out. And, um, within my dissertation, there's, there's three different charts, um, that 00:41:55.380 --> 00:41:59.060 really break these down and folks again can download it in the comments. 00:41:59.200 --> 00:42:07.600 And, um, you know, look into it, but ultimately to keep it short, um, the first research question of 00:42:07.600 --> 00:42:14.480 what is digital discipleship really boiled down to digital discipleship is just biblical discipleship 00:42:14.480 --> 00:42:19.920 with a new innovative twist of using different tools. That's, that's all it was. And, you know, 00:42:19.920 --> 00:42:25.120 to, to, to go through and think that it's something, um, that's just this amoeba that you can't get your 00:42:25.120 --> 00:42:32.720 hands on is really a myth. Um, it is nothing more than, um, going through sharing the good news and 00:42:32.720 --> 00:42:40.400 building them up in Christ and using the tools that you have to, to make that happen. Um, within that dialing 00:42:40.400 --> 00:42:50.480 down though, the, the RQ1 findings basically found five main, um, tenants that made digital discipleship 00:42:50.480 --> 00:42:57.120 what it is. And basically digital discipleship has to be innovative. You have to be willing to try new things. 00:42:57.120 --> 00:43:04.480 It has to be immersive. You know, I've talked a lot so far in our chats today that you have to be engaged 00:43:04.480 --> 00:43:10.880 every single day. You have to be immersed. I mean, the, think of the initial 12, they lived and walked 00:43:10.880 --> 00:43:18.480 and, and, you know, had meals with Jesus every day. Um, that's, that's an immersive experience that a lot of, 00:43:18.480 --> 00:43:24.080 uh, dare I say physical churches don't have, you know, it kind of comes to the, we'll see you next week. 00:43:24.080 --> 00:43:29.920 Well, that's, that's not the church. Um, synergistic, you know, going through and having that connection 00:43:29.920 --> 00:43:34.080 of everything we've been talking about in the digital world, and then making sure that it's 00:43:34.080 --> 00:43:39.200 relational and you're adapting. You've got to go through. And one of the guys that I interviewed, 00:43:39.200 --> 00:43:44.400 um, he'll probably listen to this. He talked about grace bridges and he said, Hey, we need to meet 00:43:44.400 --> 00:43:48.560 people where they're at, which is no different than traditional evangelism and discipleship. You got 00:43:48.560 --> 00:43:52.960 to meet folks where they're at. We do the same thing in digital space. And so that grace bridge 00:43:52.960 --> 00:43:57.200 actually takes us into that next main finding of the research question, the second research 00:43:57.200 --> 00:44:02.160 question. And that was looking at the methods. And I could sit here for a whole another hour on this 00:44:02.160 --> 00:44:09.120 section where, um, really, if you think of a digital tool, an app, a website, um, or any type of forum 00:44:09.120 --> 00:44:14.480 that's out there, it's all been tried and used and they all work in their own ways at their own place 00:44:14.480 --> 00:44:19.600 and time. And so one of the things that really came out of that is don't allow yourself to choose a pet 00:44:19.600 --> 00:44:24.080 tool and then miss out on all the others that can actually help you out. Um, you know, just like a 00:44:24.080 --> 00:44:28.560 toolbox in a garage, you've got different tools for different jobs, make sure you're being faithful to 00:44:28.560 --> 00:44:34.160 use those tools at the right time. And so within that, ultimately what you needed is you need to have 00:44:34.160 --> 00:44:40.320 committed leadership. You need to have a missional focus again, synergistic, um, and then stay 00:44:40.320 --> 00:44:45.760 innovative and have that micro to macro approach. We talked a lot earlier about you, you got to worry 00:44:45.760 --> 00:44:50.160 about the one, don't worry about the, the, you know, the masses and bringing in, you know, a mega 00:44:50.160 --> 00:44:54.640 church. If that's, what's meant to happen, the spirit will make that happen. Just focus on the one. 00:44:55.440 --> 00:45:01.200 And then the last, uh, research question there, uh, was looking at the measurement part. And this, 00:45:01.200 --> 00:45:05.680 I know we'll probably dial into this just a little bit more, but the biggest thing there is we talked 00:45:05.680 --> 00:45:11.440 about, uh, vanity metrics a lot and the vanity metrics were basically like, Hey, we go through, 00:45:11.440 --> 00:45:16.480 we measure attendance, we measure likes, and we measure duration, but really are they telling us 00:45:16.480 --> 00:45:20.560 anything about effectiveness? And all the digital church leaders that I interviewed are like, honestly, 00:45:20.560 --> 00:45:25.760 when it comes to vanity metrics, they're junk. All they are is an indicator that something's happening, 00:45:25.760 --> 00:45:30.000 but you don't know what's happening. And so you've got to drill in further and say, okay, 00:45:30.000 --> 00:45:34.720 how do we actually measure for effectiveness? And the things that this research found is that we 00:45:34.720 --> 00:45:39.920 have to figure out, is there obedience? Is there steps of obedience happening within those individuals 00:45:39.920 --> 00:45:45.120 that are engaged in digital tools and digital space? Um, what are their testimonies? You know, 00:45:45.120 --> 00:45:49.120 one of the digital church leaders said, look, you can't argue a story. I'm like, that's quotable. 00:45:49.120 --> 00:45:54.640 You know, like you're exactly right. Like, again, look at the gospels, look at Jesus's ministry, 00:45:54.640 --> 00:46:00.240 look at the parables story is powerful. We have to be chasing the story. Um, and within that story, 00:46:00.240 --> 00:46:05.520 we can measure things, you know, and that's, that's up to the church leader to figure out within their 00:46:05.520 --> 00:46:11.680 context, what does that look like? But again, chase the story, um, and focus on that, that growth, 00:46:11.680 --> 00:46:17.760 focus on the daily fruit, you know, Galatians 5, 22, 23, what is the spiritual fruit? Do we see that 00:46:17.760 --> 00:46:22.800 if it's happening? Then, okay, you're doing digital discipleship. If it's not, maybe we need to shift 00:46:22.800 --> 00:46:29.200 focus and figure out why. Um, and then ultimately the global nexus. Again, we got to think, we got to 00:46:29.200 --> 00:46:34.800 think global church, big C church, whenever we touch digital, because within that, that's, I mean, 00:46:34.960 --> 00:46:41.280 digital gives us the ability to think big C church at all times. And we have to maintain that as we 00:46:41.280 --> 00:46:48.720 push, push out into this, but ultimate, ultimately Jeff, when it came down to it, um, if you're going 00:46:48.720 --> 00:46:55.200 to go through and have a, uh, digital vision tools in a mission, you have to have all those things I 00:46:55.200 --> 00:47:01.200 talked about. The obedience is key. The synergistic approach is key. And then the innovative and the 00:47:01.200 --> 00:47:07.760 immersive, uh, focus in your relationships is absolutely key. So that's, that's basically 00:47:07.760 --> 00:47:11.920 the dissertation in a nutshell. So hopefully you stayed awake and you don't have to go read 150 00:47:11.920 --> 00:47:19.760 pages. Dr. Dan Tebow, literally doctorate in digital discipleship. Um, well, church leadership 00:47:19.760 --> 00:47:24.880 with an emphasis in digital discipleship, but, uh, very, uh, very good words there. Check out the 00:47:24.880 --> 00:47:32.720 dissertation, um, to get more information on that. So much, literally so much meat in there. I was, 00:47:32.720 --> 00:47:38.240 was very impressed reading it. Um, so man, thanks for the work that you did. Uh, it was interesting. 00:47:38.240 --> 00:47:43.840 Uh, as I, as I was reading it, um, and I'm not sure what page this was, but I kind of chuckled 00:47:43.840 --> 00:47:51.760 under my breath. Um, uh, so you said at some point in your dissertation of note, uh, this literature 00:47:51.760 --> 00:47:59.280 review did not uncover specific fidgetal leaders at this concept had yet, uh, leaders as this concept 00:47:59.280 --> 00:48:04.960 had not yet been flushed out within the digital church framework. Hence the intent of this research 00:48:04.960 --> 00:48:10.880 study was to better understand the fidgetal church, uh, and its viable contributions to digital 00:48:10.880 --> 00:48:16.640 discipleship and effectiveness within like, you know, chuckle, the physical, the physical church, 00:48:16.640 --> 00:48:21.760 the physical church. They haven't, haven't figured out that you, this, um, let me ask you, 00:48:22.560 --> 00:48:26.880 you know, you're, I, it's, you know, I've just kind of like, I don't know my seat. I'm like, 00:48:26.880 --> 00:48:30.800 thank you very much. Cabs it obvious, but I know, I know what you were, I know you're writing to your 00:48:30.800 --> 00:48:37.360 audience in that, but what do you think the struggle is? I'm going to like get, why is this so controversial 00:48:37.360 --> 00:48:41.840 within, within the physical church? What we've got a lot of physical church people that, you know, 00:48:41.840 --> 00:48:45.040 they're, they're listening. They're asking questions. They're, they're interested. They're 00:48:45.040 --> 00:48:52.480 feeling tension from above. Um, how, how do they combat maybe too strong, but how, how do they work 00:48:52.480 --> 00:48:57.040 through this? Um, and that's, that's a loaded question, Jeff. Um, it's actually one of the things 00:48:57.040 --> 00:49:01.360 that I recommended at the end of my dissertation, like, Hey, this needs to be explored. You need 00:49:01.360 --> 00:49:07.440 to ask these questions and, and take time to go talk to, uh, you know, just focus instead of 00:49:07.440 --> 00:49:13.120 going to a physical church leader, go to a physical church leader and start asking these questions and 00:49:13.120 --> 00:49:20.320 see, you know, delve in what are the things holding them back. Um, you know, I, I, I barely tapped the, 00:49:20.320 --> 00:49:27.280 the tip of the iceberg when it came to that within this. And what I found so far was that usually it's, 00:49:27.280 --> 00:49:33.600 it's fear of the unknown. It's different. Um, it's challenging. The that's new, you know, 00:49:33.600 --> 00:49:38.080 all these things make someone uncomfortable because they're used to doing things a certain way. 00:49:38.080 --> 00:49:45.520 Um, and they don't know what to do with it. So that's one aspect. The other aspect is there's 00:49:45.520 --> 00:49:52.880 a lot of time requirement within making this work. You know, um, two, three months, about three months 00:49:52.880 --> 00:49:57.360 in with servant warrior church. And, you know, one of the, one of the guys on the call the other night, 00:49:57.360 --> 00:50:00.880 it's like, Hey, there's only, there's only about six, seven, eight folks that are actually 00:50:01.440 --> 00:50:05.760 intentional on being here every single day. I'm like, that's okay. Because that's six, 00:50:05.760 --> 00:50:11.680 seven, eight people that are so intentional that are now going to replicate. And so you have to go 00:50:11.680 --> 00:50:19.440 through and be accepting of the way that discipleship can take form without seeing a big bang for your 00:50:19.440 --> 00:50:24.160 buck right off the bat. And I fear that too many physical church leaders are like, well, we're not 00:50:24.160 --> 00:50:30.080 really seeing growth. We're not seeing a, you know, influx in tithing or attendance or whatever 00:50:30.080 --> 00:50:35.120 metrics they are measuring by. And so they discard it. And it's like, man, if you just wait a little 00:50:35.120 --> 00:50:40.800 bit longer and be patient with what you have, you may see a garden emerge that you never knew it's 00:50:40.800 --> 00:50:47.200 there. And so ultimately, again, it comes down to fear of the unknown. It comes down to not willing 00:50:47.200 --> 00:50:52.800 to actually you till the soil as long as it needs to. And then the other part is they're just so focused 00:50:52.800 --> 00:50:58.000 on the other things that are directly in front of them. You know, this, this is one of those things that 00:50:58.000 --> 00:51:02.480 if you don't know how to engage with digital tools, it can be completely daunting, right? 00:51:02.480 --> 00:51:06.400 I have co-workers that are a little bit older, and then they're struggling in just a word processor, 00:51:06.400 --> 00:51:11.280 right? If you don't know how to use the tool, you need someone to show them. And so I would love to see 00:51:12.560 --> 00:51:19.360 a rally of digital missionaries, for lack of a better term, that are willing to go out and start 00:51:19.360 --> 00:51:24.560 training people, you know, give them the ability to see that, hey, this isn't something to be scared of. 00:51:24.560 --> 00:51:29.040 Yes, it's new, but it can be utilized. And here's how you do that. You know, let me let 00:51:29.040 --> 00:51:34.960 me go with you, walk with you. And so that's, that's something I think if we were to focus that 00:51:34.960 --> 00:51:39.760 going into the next year or two, we would start to see more obedience stories emerge that we never 00:51:39.760 --> 00:51:46.720 knew were coming. Dr. Dan Tebow of Servant Warriors, Sharon here. And so, man, hey, thanks, 00:51:46.720 --> 00:51:52.960 thanks for the time. Dan, this is, this has been, this has been really good moving beyond the metrics, 00:51:52.960 --> 00:51:57.200 re-evaluating what the church looks like, moving beyond the nickels and noses 00:51:57.840 --> 00:52:04.720 approach and, and, and understanding that that discipleship is measured differently and it takes 00:52:04.720 --> 00:52:12.000 time. You know, it's interesting. I can remember, um, I can remember in my church staff career, 00:52:12.000 --> 00:52:21.040 I want to say the year was 20, maybe 2008. And I was in a church staff meeting at the church I was 00:52:21.040 --> 00:52:27.360 working at at the time and was, was part of a conversation with the lead pastor and the senior 00:52:27.360 --> 00:52:34.240 leaders of the church about the approach towards, uh, what discipleship would look like. And, um, 00:52:35.120 --> 00:52:40.640 and discipleship as part of that, discipleship went the route for the church. This is 2008. It went 00:52:40.640 --> 00:52:44.960 small groups. You know, the, the, the typical approach is what they decided, but there was, there was, 00:52:44.960 --> 00:52:49.920 even in 2008, there was a strong push towards, towards more intentional, uh, discipleship and 00:52:49.920 --> 00:52:54.800 disciple making is what we probably would more call it. Uh, but it was, it was shot down at the church. 00:52:54.800 --> 00:52:59.840 And, and, and to be honest, I, I, I think to this day, I, I ask the question all the time, 00:53:00.640 --> 00:53:08.640 what if 15 years ago, this church had a change of heart and instead 15 years ago decided towards 00:53:08.640 --> 00:53:13.520 an approach of disciple making instead of discipleship? Um, how would it have affected 00:53:13.520 --> 00:53:19.040 differently? Would we have seen the exponential growth, not pun intended with exponential, but the 00:53:19.040 --> 00:53:24.880 exponential growth that happens with discipleship over time? Um, and so like wrestle with some of 00:53:24.880 --> 00:53:30.240 this stuff with your church, with your leaders, uh, ask them some great questions and download Dan's, 00:53:30.240 --> 00:53:36.560 um, uh, dissertation on digital discipleship. Good stuff. Hey, listen, Dan, as we're landing the plane 00:53:36.560 --> 00:53:41.760 here, uh, man, any closing thoughts on your side? No, Jeff, I just want to say thank you. You know, 00:53:41.760 --> 00:53:48.560 it's you've, yes, I've referenced you a lot and I hope you see how much of an impact you had on this 00:53:48.560 --> 00:53:52.960 work. I mean, this is, believe it or not, you were discipling me through the process every time 00:53:52.960 --> 00:53:56.880 we would text every couple of months. And it was just one of those things that I'm thankful for. 00:53:56.880 --> 00:54:02.560 You know, it's, um, it's, um, it that's, that is what digital discipleship looks like. It's just 00:54:02.560 --> 00:54:09.520 intentional communication designed at furthering for the glory of Christ. And that's, that's what 00:54:09.520 --> 00:54:13.120 you're doing at DCN and I couldn't be more thankful to be part of it. So thanks brother. 00:54:14.640 --> 00:54:20.240 Amen. Listen, I appreciate it. Um, I'm excited to see how, uh, things go with servant warriors, 00:54:20.240 --> 00:54:25.360 how things go with everything that you're working on. And, um, believe me, we have a lot more 00:54:25.360 --> 00:54:30.480 conversations to go through. So, uh, you can, we'll, we'll keep texting. Um, I'm sure on this, 00:54:30.480 --> 00:54:35.120 but Hey, for now we're going to land the plane and we're going to wrap it up. So for, for Dan, 00:54:35.120 --> 00:54:41.120 this is Jeff Reed, uh, with the church digital, because all of the digital church network and the 00:54:41.120 --> 00:54:45.760 church digital is all coming into the church digital. We talked about that before, but Dan wasn't 00:54:45.760 --> 00:54:49.920 aware of that. So that's okay. DCN, uh, God rest his heart. We're, we're merging it 00:54:49.920 --> 00:54:55.600 under the church digital. So Jeff with the church digital wrapping things up. So thanks everybody 00:54:55.600 --> 00:54:58.560 for jumping on the pod. We'll see you next time. Y'all have a good day.