WEBVTT 00:00:00.940 --> 00:00:07.300 And so the idea of a microsite is that you're empowering people with the digital resources 00:00:07.300 --> 00:00:12.200 of a church service to open up their home, their workplace, or even to go into missional 00:00:12.200 --> 00:00:15.300 areas to create a church service. 00:00:15.900 --> 00:00:20.620 And through the creation of that church service, connect with people, invite them into a community, 00:00:20.820 --> 00:00:26.080 build relationships with them to the point of, within the physical micro location, to 00:00:26.080 --> 00:00:29.980 the point to where you're capable of having a relationship strong enough to get into discipleship 00:00:29.980 --> 00:00:32.940 Welcome to the Church Digital Podcast. 00:00:33.900 --> 00:00:37.760 Through this podcast, we'll talk about the technological innovations within the church, 00:00:37.980 --> 00:00:41.580 but more than tech for tech itself, we'll address deeper questions. 00:00:42.200 --> 00:00:43.820 Is disciple making possible digitally? 00:00:44.240 --> 00:00:46.280 How should we approach the digital mission field? 00:00:46.560 --> 00:00:49.140 Can a biblically grounded church operate in digital space? 00:00:49.560 --> 00:00:53.460 Oh, and where does the metaverse and artificial intelligence fit into all of this? 00:00:54.180 --> 00:00:59.960 Whether you're a big or small church, the Church Digital's goal is to help churches like yours learn to 00:00:59.960 --> 00:01:03.020 be a multiplying church, digitally and physically. 00:01:03.500 --> 00:01:05.160 And now here's your host, Jeff Reed. 00:01:05.500 --> 00:01:08.460 Hey everybody, welcome to the Church Digital Podcast. 00:01:08.700 --> 00:01:09.560 Jeff Reed here. 00:01:10.120 --> 00:01:16.840 I have been hanging out here on Discord with my friends, White Beard, Andy Mage, A Rock Y'all, 00:01:17.640 --> 00:01:24.280 Trizzle, my new friend Trizzle from Eastern Europe coming by to say hey, coming on with us. 00:01:24.520 --> 00:01:26.580 And DK stopped by for a little bit. 00:01:26.580 --> 00:01:33.900 DK was in a podcast with us not that long ago, talking about African American churches. 00:01:34.320 --> 00:01:38.960 And so had an interesting conversation already about race here in Discord. 00:01:39.180 --> 00:01:42.540 It's before the podcast even started, before I pressed record. 00:01:42.900 --> 00:01:45.940 And so right up front, we're recording this live in Discord. 00:01:46.360 --> 00:01:49.480 We typically do this Tuesdays at 1 p.m. Eastern. 00:01:50.240 --> 00:01:52.500 And so keep an eye on that. 00:01:52.600 --> 00:01:56.900 If you have not joined our Discord yet, what's wrong with you? 00:01:57.260 --> 00:01:58.240 Like, come on. 00:01:58.460 --> 00:01:59.520 No, it's Discord. 00:01:59.740 --> 00:02:00.580 Open up a web browser. 00:02:00.720 --> 00:02:03.300 Discord dot thechurch dot digital. 00:02:03.460 --> 00:02:15.740 Now, some pastor actually told me, they said, Jeff, well, I don't believe in Discord because we're called to be in one accord. 00:02:16.220 --> 00:02:17.300 We should be friends. 00:02:17.380 --> 00:02:18.780 We should not be in Discord together. 00:02:18.780 --> 00:02:27.300 Now, if your church or you and an individual are taking the label Discord of the platform to mean that we are at war and animosity with one another, 00:02:27.380 --> 00:02:40.280 then I want to challenge you up front that you should come hang out with us in the church digital Discord account because it is the server, because it is so much fun. 00:02:40.960 --> 00:02:41.740 I'll just be honest. 00:02:41.780 --> 00:02:43.180 I'm here at the front of the podcast. 00:02:43.480 --> 00:02:44.720 This is not what I want to talk about. 00:02:44.780 --> 00:02:46.000 We're going to talk about learning communities. 00:02:46.480 --> 00:02:48.740 Micro churches coming up right around the corner. 00:02:48.940 --> 00:02:51.500 I'm looking at Riverside right now, reading the script. 00:02:51.620 --> 00:02:53.660 I'm ignoring the script that's in Riverside. 00:02:54.060 --> 00:02:56.140 Credible software, thechurch.digital.com slash Riverside. 00:02:56.180 --> 00:02:59.780 But I'm ignoring the script because I want to talk about this thing with Discord. 00:03:01.360 --> 00:03:02.140 You know what? 00:03:02.200 --> 00:03:06.820 I'm kind of, I don't know that I'm officially saying this publicly. 00:03:09.160 --> 00:03:11.240 I'm kind of giving up on social media. 00:03:12.680 --> 00:03:22.720 Like the percentage of time that I spent on social media this time last year, compared to the amount of time that I'm spending on it this year, I am spending much. 00:03:22.720 --> 00:03:25.940 Hey, Miss Dala coming in from Nigeria. 00:03:26.900 --> 00:03:28.960 I am, Trizzle, Eastern Europe. 00:03:29.040 --> 00:03:30.240 You guys should connect together. 00:03:30.920 --> 00:03:33.920 Because you're probably in a closer time zone, Trizzle and Miss Dala. 00:03:34.360 --> 00:03:34.460 Wow. 00:03:35.760 --> 00:03:36.620 Here's the truth. 00:03:36.720 --> 00:03:38.720 I don't spend much time on social media anymore. 00:03:39.880 --> 00:03:40.740 It's official. 00:03:40.880 --> 00:03:41.380 I am saying this. 00:03:41.500 --> 00:03:41.720 I don't. 00:03:41.780 --> 00:03:42.260 I mean, it's true. 00:03:42.380 --> 00:03:44.040 I don't spend much time on social media. 00:03:44.620 --> 00:03:46.360 I spend time in digital community. 00:03:47.160 --> 00:03:54.480 Because I find the digital community, like people are engaging, people can dialogue, you can build relationships. 00:03:54.900 --> 00:04:00.820 And I would rather build relationships with people like Whitebeard and A-Rockyall and Miss Dala and Trizzle. 00:04:01.300 --> 00:04:02.780 Trizzle already friended me on Discord. 00:04:02.900 --> 00:04:07.440 I met him today and I'm looking forward to having a one-on-one conversation with them coming up soon. 00:04:07.700 --> 00:04:10.000 Like, that's the thing. 00:04:10.420 --> 00:04:10.940 You know, it's funny. 00:04:11.160 --> 00:04:18.720 For the life of me, I'm trying to figure out why the church has so much discomfort centered around the idea of digital community. 00:04:19.420 --> 00:04:23.700 Now, yes, the physical community, the church building, the refuge, we don't want to give that away. 00:04:23.800 --> 00:04:24.820 We don't want to lose our buildings. 00:04:25.340 --> 00:04:27.280 There is power in meeting together. 00:04:27.380 --> 00:04:29.200 Whether it's better or worse, it's not for me to say. 00:04:29.200 --> 00:04:37.480 But there is an opportunity to do things in one accord under the brick building roof that's there. 00:04:37.700 --> 00:04:39.800 And the Sunday morning service is important. 00:04:40.020 --> 00:04:41.980 Yes, all this is true. 00:04:43.280 --> 00:04:53.620 But there is something that can be said about coming together in digital community and building relationships digitally with people literally around the planet. 00:04:53.620 --> 00:05:02.360 In empowering leadership, empowering discipleship, empowering ministry, empowering evangelism. 00:05:05.040 --> 00:05:05.780 You know what? 00:05:06.560 --> 00:05:11.860 I hope when I die, which according to the doctor, it's not going to be any time soon. 00:05:11.900 --> 00:05:13.140 I'm actually getting healthier. 00:05:13.480 --> 00:05:16.540 A lot of the tests are coming back very positive, which is a good thing. 00:05:17.900 --> 00:05:22.660 I hope when I die, I have the opportunity to look face to face with Paul. 00:05:23.620 --> 00:05:29.060 And ask Paul how he would have used digital community. 00:05:31.400 --> 00:05:37.700 Because I believe what we're doing through the Church Digital, creating this network, empowering ministry around the world globally. 00:05:39.240 --> 00:05:44.160 Like, this is how Paul would be doing ministry in 2024. 00:05:45.360 --> 00:05:47.160 You can't convince me otherwise. 00:05:48.320 --> 00:05:50.020 Dude was on the road in jail. 00:05:50.960 --> 00:05:51.960 You know, put me in prison. 00:05:52.060 --> 00:05:52.720 Give me a tablet. 00:05:52.880 --> 00:05:53.560 Let me connect. 00:05:53.740 --> 00:05:54.460 Let me write letters. 00:05:54.560 --> 00:05:55.820 I'm sorry I can't be there in person. 00:05:56.360 --> 00:05:57.260 I'll be there when I can. 00:05:57.320 --> 00:05:58.720 I'm sending this guy along, Timothy. 00:05:58.980 --> 00:06:00.380 Yes, okay, he's a Discord lover. 00:06:00.580 --> 00:06:01.840 But it's okay. 00:06:02.320 --> 00:06:03.020 Things go on. 00:06:04.420 --> 00:06:05.180 I'm telling you good stuff. 00:06:05.340 --> 00:06:05.900 Good stuff here. 00:06:06.180 --> 00:06:09.260 Hey, listen, we've got a great podcast coming up here. 00:06:09.440 --> 00:06:12.500 We are wrapping up season seven. 00:06:14.080 --> 00:06:15.380 The season with no name. 00:06:16.100 --> 00:06:19.100 Today, the season has been five episodes. 00:06:19.100 --> 00:06:20.020 This is the fifth. 00:06:20.020 --> 00:06:21.280 So we talked. 00:06:21.280 --> 00:06:22.440 Andy Mage opened it up. 00:06:22.440 --> 00:06:31.720 Now, the heart of this, the Church Digital is doing learning communities where we are helping churches like yours, physical churches, digital churches, ask better questions and experiment with new things. 00:06:31.720 --> 00:06:37.200 Like Digital Community, Andy Mage is doing a learning community on a synchronous community. 00:06:37.200 --> 00:06:51.200 It's going to be a great opportunity for a church to spend eight weeks this summer and experiment with how to do Discord and build Discord or Slack or Facebook groups or WhatsApp, whatever the platform that makes sense for you to build it into the ministry of your church. 00:06:52.240 --> 00:06:58.660 Because through the connections that we have through social media, we drive them into community and through that community, we disciple them and lead them to Christ. 00:06:58.940 --> 00:06:59.560 Oh, so good. 00:06:59.620 --> 00:07:00.040 So good. 00:07:00.100 --> 00:07:03.560 You should be taking advantage of the digital community, learning community. 00:07:04.000 --> 00:07:13.880 We talked to Barbara Canero on digital communications, branding, focus, narrow target audience, figuring out who you're reaching. 00:07:14.360 --> 00:07:17.240 You can never niche small enough. 00:07:17.360 --> 00:07:19.920 No one is ever upset for niching too small. 00:07:20.480 --> 00:07:21.320 That's so true. 00:07:21.320 --> 00:07:23.120 Man, I am so glad. 00:07:23.220 --> 00:07:37.260 We had a conversation today with this woman I was talking to in England, and she was praising our website, Barbara, the website design and the focus, because she's like, you went for your target audience, and you nailed it, and we did. 00:07:37.400 --> 00:07:38.200 I'm so proud of it. 00:07:39.500 --> 00:07:46.100 And so Barbara's doing a learning community on global digital communications. 00:07:46.640 --> 00:07:47.860 Now we're talking virtual reality. 00:07:47.980 --> 00:07:49.900 Trizzle, you should check out this one with virtual reality. 00:07:49.900 --> 00:07:53.660 Have you met Andy, or no, excuse me, Stu Nami, Stuart McPherson. 00:07:53.860 --> 00:08:01.240 Stu Nami joined us, and we actually had a conversation with Peyton Jones talking about planting churches in virtual reality. 00:08:01.380 --> 00:08:11.160 Stu Nami's goal, he's lead pastor at Vector Church online, a church planter, and his goal is to plant 100 churches in virtual reality, or help plant 100 churches in virtual reality for the next 10 years. 00:08:11.520 --> 00:08:15.680 Then last week, we brought on Megan Carter. 00:08:15.680 --> 00:08:25.860 Megan Carter has a desire and a passion to start ministries for mental health, literally mental health ministry at your church. 00:08:25.860 --> 00:08:34.860 If you want to figure out how to be healthy with volunteer and create a healthy culture, be part of this learning community for Megan Carter, with Megan Carter. 00:08:35.060 --> 00:08:35.500 Eight weeks. 00:08:35.920 --> 00:08:37.320 All these are eight weeks this summer. 00:08:37.520 --> 00:08:44.060 The asynchronous, the digital communications, the virtual reality, the mental health, and mine. 00:08:45.020 --> 00:08:46.820 The idea of hybrid microsites. 00:08:46.940 --> 00:08:48.420 All of this is going to be eight weeks. 00:08:49.580 --> 00:08:51.340 Individual, you speak like mine. 00:08:51.660 --> 00:08:53.760 People in my learning community are only working with me. 00:08:54.200 --> 00:08:57.660 We'll get into what a microsite is and hybrid microsites here in a minute. 00:08:58.300 --> 00:09:00.520 But all of this is going to be $7.97. 00:09:00.880 --> 00:09:04.880 And for more information, $797, eight weeks, $100 a week. 00:09:04.880 --> 00:09:07.220 You get the sessions all online. 00:09:07.460 --> 00:09:11.000 You get a community to talk through in Discord. 00:09:11.000 --> 00:09:14.920 More information at thechurch.digital.lc. 00:09:15.560 --> 00:09:19.120 Thechurch.digital.lc. 00:09:19.640 --> 00:09:22.900 Hey, guys, that was pretty commercialized for that. 00:09:23.520 --> 00:09:29.680 And so as we're wrapping up season seven, the season never to be named because all the names I could come up with are garbage. 00:09:30.300 --> 00:09:33.600 I am so excited about season eight and season nine. 00:09:34.220 --> 00:09:39.580 So, guys, it's going to be an incredible month or so coming up. 00:09:40.560 --> 00:09:43.840 99.63 a month, White Bird is telling me. 00:09:44.060 --> 00:09:44.680 White Beard. 00:09:46.360 --> 00:09:48.680 So that's $797 divided by eight. 00:09:48.880 --> 00:09:50.660 I am so excited. 00:09:51.220 --> 00:09:52.500 So episode 300. 00:09:53.360 --> 00:09:54.100 We scheduled it. 00:09:54.240 --> 00:09:55.520 It's going to happen here in Discord. 00:09:56.120 --> 00:09:58.860 And, you know, let me just say it. 00:09:58.940 --> 00:09:59.620 I'll just say it. 00:09:59.620 --> 00:10:09.500 Like, we teased what this idea was going to be on episode with Stunami. 00:10:10.540 --> 00:10:15.380 At the end of the episode, kind of like post-credits scenes, Marvel, we were just hanging out. 00:10:15.560 --> 00:10:19.040 And we came up with the idea for what we wanted episode 300 to be. 00:10:19.660 --> 00:10:21.120 And, oh, my gosh, it happened. 00:10:22.240 --> 00:10:23.340 And so I'm going to make you. 00:10:23.340 --> 00:10:25.060 I'm not going to tell you what's going to happen with 300. 00:10:25.220 --> 00:10:25.980 You're going to have to go back. 00:10:26.300 --> 00:10:28.740 But, oh, my gosh, everything we dreamed came true. 00:10:29.960 --> 00:10:36.120 And so episode 300, as scripted in that Stunami episode, is happening in a couple weeks. 00:10:36.280 --> 00:10:37.400 And we're going to do it in Discord. 00:10:37.680 --> 00:10:43.260 And I am so excited to see episode 300 happen right around the corner. 00:10:43.400 --> 00:10:45.180 I think this is 297, right? 00:10:45.260 --> 00:10:49.060 So we've got two episodes coming up and then episode 300. 00:10:49.180 --> 00:10:51.580 And then we're going to kick off season eight. 00:10:52.640 --> 00:10:54.420 I'm not even going to talk about it. 00:10:54.420 --> 00:10:55.160 I'm not. 00:10:55.500 --> 00:10:55.800 I'm not. 00:10:56.360 --> 00:11:01.120 Because it is so the next four months of this podcast, of this stream of Discord. 00:11:01.620 --> 00:11:04.400 Doing this on Discord has been life-giving to me. 00:11:04.840 --> 00:11:09.100 Having the audience in here, the chat coming in, the conversations, it's so good. 00:11:09.640 --> 00:11:15.700 And if you are not doing anything in Discord, if you are not utilizing digital community, 00:11:16.280 --> 00:11:20.720 if you're not utilizing streaming for content creation, oh, my gosh, you should be looking 00:11:20.720 --> 00:11:21.800 at this and doing this. 00:11:21.880 --> 00:11:22.640 What's wrong? 00:11:23.460 --> 00:11:25.120 Take some steps and get into that. 00:11:25.200 --> 00:11:25.840 Okay, I'm preaching. 00:11:26.040 --> 00:11:26.980 Let's get into it. 00:11:27.580 --> 00:11:31.280 Here today, we're going to talk about hybrid microsites. 00:11:31.780 --> 00:11:36.460 And to be honest, I thought about who to bring in to the conversation. 00:11:36.460 --> 00:11:38.000 And I just decided, you know what? 00:11:38.020 --> 00:11:39.420 I'm just going to do myself. 00:11:39.880 --> 00:11:40.660 That sounded weird. 00:11:40.960 --> 00:11:42.280 I'm just going to interview myself. 00:11:42.380 --> 00:11:43.020 Well, that sounds even worse. 00:11:43.100 --> 00:11:46.860 I'm just going to talk straight through for like, you know, an hour. 00:11:46.920 --> 00:11:47.520 Because that's what I do. 00:11:47.540 --> 00:11:48.220 I just talk a lot. 00:11:48.300 --> 00:11:50.880 Like, I've already been talking for 10 minutes. 00:11:50.940 --> 00:11:52.280 I do 10 minutes of pre-show. 00:11:52.380 --> 00:11:53.600 But I do a lot of talking. 00:11:55.100 --> 00:11:58.760 And it seems like with this hybrid, I've actually been talking a lot on other channels 00:11:58.760 --> 00:12:00.500 and platforms with hybrid microsites. 00:12:01.180 --> 00:12:03.780 And I thought, man, I don't want to tag any more of these people because I'm already 00:12:03.780 --> 00:12:05.180 tagging them so often in other spaces. 00:12:05.180 --> 00:12:07.660 So I thought, man, I just would develop a script. 00:12:08.680 --> 00:12:10.900 You know, sometimes I ignore my script. 00:12:11.080 --> 00:12:12.520 Well, today, I'm not going to ignore it. 00:12:12.520 --> 00:12:13.840 I'm going to try to stick with it. 00:12:16.000 --> 00:12:20.280 And actually go through and talk about what a hybrid microsite is. 00:12:20.360 --> 00:12:22.660 So let's just even back up. 00:12:25.100 --> 00:12:26.340 What's a microsite? 00:12:26.700 --> 00:12:29.200 You know, listen, because I've had, I've said that to people and they're like, well, 00:12:29.240 --> 00:12:31.020 Jeff, we don't even know what a microsite is. 00:12:31.260 --> 00:12:33.980 Like you, but what are you talking about? 00:12:34.080 --> 00:12:34.280 Okay. 00:12:35.640 --> 00:12:44.160 So the idea is, is that the idea is that a micro church site or a micro church or a watch 00:12:44.160 --> 00:12:51.280 party, like these are things that happen in a displaced area outside of the church building 00:12:51.280 --> 00:12:59.380 where you are engaging or being the church possibly complemented by digital tools. 00:13:00.020 --> 00:13:06.700 So, for example, a watch party is, and Life.Church actually started the idea of the watch parties. 00:13:07.660 --> 00:13:12.720 They would broadcast their services online and would challenge people to watch them at home, 00:13:12.780 --> 00:13:17.580 which is great, but invite their friends and neighbors and others over to the house to 00:13:17.580 --> 00:13:19.540 experience it with them. 00:13:19.540 --> 00:13:25.320 And so when Life.Church was doing this, I believe they were the first, Life.Church was 00:13:25.320 --> 00:13:31.040 literally opening up their, up people's homes to be the watch party. 00:13:31.140 --> 00:13:32.640 Now Elevation actually has done this. 00:13:32.740 --> 00:13:35.780 Elevation has had at one point, they had a watch party pastor. 00:13:36.660 --> 00:13:39.580 We, hey, Raph, Thinjah, how are you? 00:13:39.840 --> 00:13:42.140 Raph, my buddy from Miami. 00:13:42.240 --> 00:13:43.080 How are you doing, man? 00:13:44.020 --> 00:13:46.080 I haven't seen you in a long time. 00:13:46.140 --> 00:13:46.300 Great. 00:13:46.380 --> 00:13:47.140 Thanks for coming by. 00:13:47.900 --> 00:13:53.640 But the idea of the watch party, and Life.Church, excuse me, Elevation.Church actually had 00:13:53.640 --> 00:13:58.560 somebody on staff, I think I'd said that, that was a watch party pastor, where that person 00:13:58.560 --> 00:14:01.460 was responsible for even starting some of these watch parties. 00:14:02.580 --> 00:14:09.820 But the goal of the watch party is it's very easy and simple to, like, do. 00:14:10.140 --> 00:14:16.000 It's basically figure out how to get the church service from your phone or the Apple TV to 00:14:16.000 --> 00:14:18.380 the TV and stream the service in. 00:14:19.580 --> 00:14:23.460 And so, like, that's the very easy end of what's happening. 00:14:23.660 --> 00:14:25.020 You know, Elevation Church. 00:14:25.080 --> 00:14:27.420 And by the way, again, it's this Elevation started campuses. 00:14:27.420 --> 00:14:32.140 Life.Church is used to watch parties to, like, birth campuses as well. 00:14:32.380 --> 00:14:35.720 And so that's a very simple approach. 00:14:36.260 --> 00:14:40.560 And then the other extreme is, let's call them microchurches. 00:14:41.040 --> 00:14:42.560 So you got what Elevation's doing. 00:14:42.680 --> 00:14:43.220 Hey, you know what? 00:14:43.340 --> 00:14:47.060 Man, listen, if you're, if I joke about this with small groups, like, if you can break out 00:14:47.060 --> 00:14:51.200 the seven-layer bean dip and press play on your Apple TV remote, you can do a watch party. 00:14:52.640 --> 00:14:59.140 And then the other extreme, you know, it's what the church, the microchurch, they don't have 00:14:59.140 --> 00:15:00.920 the digital resources that are complementing it. 00:15:00.980 --> 00:15:06.780 Like, let's take, you know, stuff that Rob Wagner's doing with Kansas City Underground or Tampa 00:15:06.780 --> 00:15:11.240 Underground, everything that they're doing up in this area where Whitebeard's at. 00:15:11.780 --> 00:15:16.520 You know, they're not complementing anything with what's happening digitally. 00:15:16.520 --> 00:15:22.740 Like, the person is leading the conversation, the person's dialoguing, there's no sermon on video, 00:15:22.940 --> 00:15:29.180 there's no worship on video, anything that's happening in that microchurch is at the full extreme. 00:15:29.300 --> 00:15:35.420 And so it's a much, Rob with Kansas City Underground, he has a much higher expectation 00:15:35.420 --> 00:15:38.760 of what's happening at the microchurch. 00:15:39.260 --> 00:15:41.540 And so you've got seven-layer bean dip guy. 00:15:41.540 --> 00:15:45.020 I mean, all I got to do is press play and hope the video connects. 00:15:45.140 --> 00:15:48.240 And then you've got the guy that's, or gal, that's doing everything. 00:15:49.400 --> 00:15:57.420 And really, the question isn't even just about, like, are you capable of creating a church service 00:15:57.420 --> 00:15:58.040 on your own? 00:15:59.240 --> 00:16:02.060 But it really starts to get into questions of discipleship. 00:16:02.840 --> 00:16:05.800 Like, who's responsible for the discipleship of the person? 00:16:06.500 --> 00:16:11.560 Now, at the watch party, it's very easy to say, oh, you know what? 00:16:11.620 --> 00:16:13.160 Hey, the video's going to do that. 00:16:13.360 --> 00:16:17.060 And we'll try to get these people connected into a small group and everything will be great. 00:16:17.960 --> 00:16:23.440 And that the microchurch has a much more hands-on approach towards discipleship, where it's 00:16:23.440 --> 00:16:26.740 not just, hey, I'm going to route them into a small group and we're not going to just like 00:16:26.740 --> 00:16:27.360 watch this video. 00:16:27.460 --> 00:16:31.760 But we want to actually have the people that are investing in the lives of others. 00:16:32.620 --> 00:16:37.780 And so, now listen, whether it's a watch party or a microchurch, it doesn't matter. 00:16:38.680 --> 00:16:41.440 Different ways reach different people. 00:16:42.400 --> 00:16:46.340 But there's this middle ground that's very effective. 00:16:47.200 --> 00:16:49.800 And that's what we're calling a micro-site. 00:16:50.640 --> 00:17:00.460 The idea is to take the ease of the church service and the responsibility for discipleship and 00:17:00.460 --> 00:17:01.560 merge that into here. 00:17:02.400 --> 00:17:08.340 And so, the idea of a micro-site is that you're empowering people with the digital resources 00:17:08.340 --> 00:17:13.240 of a church service to open up their home, their workplace, or even to go into missional 00:17:13.240 --> 00:17:16.340 areas to create a church service. 00:17:16.940 --> 00:17:21.660 And through the creation of that church service, connect with people, invite them into a community, 00:17:21.860 --> 00:17:27.280 build relationships with them to the point of, within the physical micro-location, to the 00:17:27.280 --> 00:17:31.360 point to where you're capable of having a relationship strong enough to get into discipleship, to the 00:17:31.360 --> 00:17:35.280 point where people trust you strong enough to get into discipleship. 00:17:36.140 --> 00:17:47.060 And so, once again, it's not really about where you are as a watch party or a microchurch or the 00:17:47.060 --> 00:17:54.660 mid-version of a micro-site that I'm such a fan of, but it really does come down to what works 00:17:54.660 --> 00:17:55.620 best for your church. 00:17:56.380 --> 00:18:02.880 Does your church have, you know, a very loose policy where they're really not tracking what's 00:18:02.880 --> 00:18:03.200 happening? 00:18:03.340 --> 00:18:09.220 Is your church very control-centric or very empowering of others where they want people to 00:18:09.220 --> 00:18:10.620 disciple and lead on their own? 00:18:10.920 --> 00:18:14.380 Or is it more of a safe ground to kind of start out? 00:18:15.500 --> 00:18:18.040 That's what I really see with the micro-site. 00:18:18.160 --> 00:18:23.060 It's really a great place to test the waters, test some people, or even grow from a watch party 00:18:23.060 --> 00:18:24.620 into a micro-site. 00:18:24.960 --> 00:18:31.600 So, hey, listen, there's what you really need to ask yourself in looking at is to make 00:18:31.600 --> 00:18:34.160 a decision about what you want to go, which direction to go. 00:18:34.940 --> 00:18:39.980 It really does come down to the discipleship capacity of your volunteer leaders. 00:18:40.340 --> 00:18:44.240 By the way, I may have said this, like, all these are volunteer-led. 00:18:44.920 --> 00:18:49.440 Like, I don't know any church right now, and there's lots of churches that are experimenting 00:18:49.440 --> 00:18:51.080 with the idea of micro-sites. 00:18:51.080 --> 00:18:51.600 Hey, Zach. 00:18:52.260 --> 00:18:57.240 Like, I would even throw out First Capital Christian, Tyler Sansom. 00:18:57.540 --> 00:18:58.700 He's a good friend, of course. 00:18:58.900 --> 00:19:07.460 And so, he is doing the micro-sites. 00:19:08.100 --> 00:19:15.760 And his approach to micro-sites is much more based on – sorry, my doorbell literally just 00:19:15.760 --> 00:19:18.980 rang, and I realized I didn't do something today, but I'm not going to break stream. 00:19:19.540 --> 00:19:22.560 My son's going to come in a minute and say, because he's home from school, and he's like, 00:19:22.620 --> 00:19:23.400 Dad, what am I going to do? 00:19:23.500 --> 00:19:24.540 He's like, I'll just figure it out. 00:19:24.680 --> 00:19:25.640 So, tell him I'll come. 00:19:26.980 --> 00:19:31.200 But the idea is that what Tyler does is he's got volunteers that are doing this. 00:19:32.200 --> 00:19:36.420 Now, he goes for more of the micro-site type of model because they utilize the church service 00:19:36.420 --> 00:19:38.560 broadcasts to come in there. 00:19:38.920 --> 00:19:47.620 But you've got a strong discipleship-centric leader at each of the micro-locations, at each 00:19:47.620 --> 00:19:52.200 of the micro-sites that's capable of leading conversations, that's capable of discipling 00:19:52.200 --> 00:19:55.760 an individual, building the relationships that understands the aspect of church. 00:19:56.980 --> 00:20:00.400 Now, remember, all this follows the pattern. 00:20:00.500 --> 00:20:02.000 We talked about this a lot. 00:20:03.480 --> 00:20:07.500 The people we connect with are in a community. 00:20:08.400 --> 00:20:10.040 Connection leads to community. 00:20:11.320 --> 00:20:17.040 Our community allows us to build relationships that takes us to the place of discipleship. 00:20:17.460 --> 00:20:18.720 Now, remember, we said this. 00:20:18.880 --> 00:20:20.100 We've talked about this before. 00:20:20.600 --> 00:20:25.860 Our connections, the people we're connecting with, digitally, we should invite them into a 00:20:25.860 --> 00:20:28.180 digital community, as this is the model for a digital church. 00:20:28.820 --> 00:20:34.220 The people we connect with digitally, social media, email, even a physical space, invite 00:20:34.220 --> 00:20:37.280 them into a digital community, since it's a digital church. 00:20:37.820 --> 00:20:42.480 And through the digital church, we build relationships that lead towards discipleship, and our discipleship 00:20:42.480 --> 00:20:43.420 should lead towards multiplication. 00:20:45.000 --> 00:20:46.700 Now, it's just a model for a digital church. 00:20:47.140 --> 00:20:49.240 That model works as a physical church as well. 00:20:49.600 --> 00:20:54.340 The people that we connect with in our neighborhoods, you know, your pastors want you to invite them 00:20:54.340 --> 00:20:56.020 into a physical church community. 00:20:56.020 --> 00:20:57.740 They want you to invite them into Sunday morning. 00:20:58.400 --> 00:21:02.900 Hopefully, that Sunday morning service connects them into a small group or however that church 00:21:02.900 --> 00:21:03.940 is doing discipleship. 00:21:04.360 --> 00:21:08.520 And hopefully, through there, you're learning how to invite other people into the community. 00:21:08.520 --> 00:21:12.480 That's not really a church multiplication strategy, but it's something. 00:21:13.080 --> 00:21:14.860 And so, like, that's the model. 00:21:15.020 --> 00:21:17.220 And by the way, that's a microchurch model as well. 00:21:18.920 --> 00:21:22.600 You know, Tyler's got homes as a microchurch. 00:21:24.180 --> 00:21:26.180 So, the idea is people in your neighborhoods. 00:21:27.500 --> 00:21:30.000 Invite them in to be a part of the microsite. 00:21:31.460 --> 00:21:32.840 Your friends are coworkers. 00:21:33.140 --> 00:21:33.860 Maybe you're doing it. 00:21:33.960 --> 00:21:35.940 It's easier if you really want to target your coworkers. 00:21:36.100 --> 00:21:37.240 Maybe you're doing it at the workplace. 00:21:38.120 --> 00:21:40.540 Hey, every Tuesday at lunch, we're going to go into the conference room. 00:21:40.720 --> 00:21:41.880 I'll bring in food. 00:21:42.100 --> 00:21:44.260 And we're going to do a church service right here. 00:21:45.100 --> 00:21:47.440 And you watch the church service together on a Tuesday. 00:21:48.480 --> 00:21:52.540 Maybe it's, you know, I've even seen retired RNs, registered nurses. 00:21:53.840 --> 00:21:55.240 RNs, is it registered nurses? 00:21:55.440 --> 00:21:56.320 I don't think I said that right. 00:21:56.320 --> 00:22:06.040 But I've seen retired RNs start microsites in hospitals and rehab centers. 00:22:06.620 --> 00:22:12.080 I've seen former prisoners go back and start microsites in prisons. 00:22:12.560 --> 00:22:15.900 I mean, literally going back to rehabilitate those that have left. 00:22:16.460 --> 00:22:19.280 So, there's lots of opportunities to use this model. 00:22:19.420 --> 00:22:21.160 But once again, the model is the same. 00:22:21.160 --> 00:22:27.240 The people that we're connecting with at the hospital, at the orphanage, at the after-school 00:22:27.240 --> 00:22:33.260 daycare center, whether it's employees or whether it's kids, the people we're connecting 00:22:33.260 --> 00:22:36.200 with at prison, we invite them into the community. 00:22:36.480 --> 00:22:42.800 And this would be with the micro, to experience the service, into the community aspects of the 00:22:42.800 --> 00:22:43.100 service. 00:22:43.860 --> 00:22:47.480 And with that relationship that we're building, we invite them into a disciple-making 00:22:47.480 --> 00:22:50.160 relationship that's external from that. 00:22:50.160 --> 00:22:52.440 That disciple-making relationship can't exist digitally. 00:22:52.600 --> 00:22:53.780 You can do something in Discord. 00:22:53.920 --> 00:22:55.900 It can exist physically, if you want to complement on that. 00:22:56.460 --> 00:23:00.160 And this is where the idea of hybrid really comes in, because you're using hybrid church 00:23:00.160 --> 00:23:02.300 service to develop physical relationships. 00:23:02.720 --> 00:23:07.820 And then you have the opportunity to do physical or digital discipleship to complement that. 00:23:09.620 --> 00:23:12.060 Well, you're asking me, what's the difference between this and a small group? 00:23:12.140 --> 00:23:14.260 What's the difference between a microsite and a small group? 00:23:15.720 --> 00:23:19.400 You know, I would challenge you, and it's funny, like, I was actually, as a pastor, 00:23:19.400 --> 00:23:23.380 I was doing microsites back in 2016. 00:23:24.880 --> 00:23:29.880 I mean, we had, as a digital pastor here in Miami, we had microsites in the Key West, 00:23:30.100 --> 00:23:32.380 in the Keys, in New York. 00:23:32.460 --> 00:23:33.500 We had a network in New York. 00:23:33.680 --> 00:23:37.820 We had Carolinas, a couple of the Carolinas, one in Georgia. 00:23:38.640 --> 00:23:42.900 Like, we were extending pretty rapidly. 00:23:43.460 --> 00:23:46.780 We were seeing lots of growth internationally as well, down in Latin and South America. 00:23:47.040 --> 00:23:48.420 We had lots of resources down there. 00:23:49.840 --> 00:23:54.620 And as leadership was, oh, I've told the story where I built this thing without leadership 00:23:54.620 --> 00:23:55.840 even early, no one existed. 00:23:56.620 --> 00:24:00.460 Like, they just said, run, Jeff, you know, and I ran and I built everything. 00:24:01.200 --> 00:24:06.420 And then, as the story goes, I needed budget to increase the support where we were going. 00:24:07.220 --> 00:24:11.560 And so, hey, loser Josh, that's an awkward thing to say in the mobile podcast, but as, you know, 00:24:11.580 --> 00:24:12.400 I needed budget, right? 00:24:12.500 --> 00:24:15.960 And so, when I asked for budget, they were like, wait, what are you actually doing? 00:24:16.040 --> 00:24:19.680 And I had to pump the brakes, and for six months, I had to, like, answer all their questions 00:24:19.680 --> 00:24:24.680 and sit down with them once a week and literally get drilled about what we were doing and what 00:24:24.680 --> 00:24:30.080 it looked like and why and how and all sorts of questions that I assumed they knew. 00:24:31.280 --> 00:24:33.500 But, to be honest, I didn't take the time to tell them. 00:24:33.780 --> 00:24:34.380 And that's on me. 00:24:34.680 --> 00:24:36.040 I'm not mad at them for that. 00:24:36.640 --> 00:24:41.720 But one of the questions that I got from leadership that we spent a month talking about this, 00:24:42.480 --> 00:24:44.820 what's the difference between a small group and a microsite? 00:24:47.240 --> 00:24:50.100 If a small group is done well, maybe nothing. 00:24:51.300 --> 00:24:54.780 If a small group is done poorly, a whole bunch. 00:24:56.440 --> 00:25:01.680 You see, the deals with small groups, and maybe it depends upon how your church does small groups. 00:25:02.320 --> 00:25:10.660 There are small groups where it's very rich, very meaningful relationships where people are invested 00:25:10.660 --> 00:25:14.160 and involved in each other's lives and speak truth and pray for one another. 00:25:14.720 --> 00:25:17.040 And I'm not just talking about the one hour on Wednesday. 00:25:17.160 --> 00:25:19.440 I'm talking about 24-7-365. 00:25:19.540 --> 00:25:22.280 Like, you're engaged in dialogue with that. 00:25:23.540 --> 00:25:28.240 Where your small group isn't about the material you're discussing, but the conversations that are happening throughout. 00:25:29.680 --> 00:25:30.980 Now, there are churches that do that. 00:25:31.060 --> 00:25:32.400 And I've been on staff with churches. 00:25:34.700 --> 00:25:37.300 I've been on churches that have incredible discipleship strategies. 00:25:38.500 --> 00:25:43.660 The funny thing is, the church that was incredible with discipleship strategy had a horrible evangelism strategy. 00:25:43.980 --> 00:25:48.300 And the church that had an incredible evangelism strategy, to be honest, didn't have a really good discipleship strategy. 00:25:50.840 --> 00:25:52.000 There may be something to that. 00:25:52.200 --> 00:25:53.260 Maybe we can drill into that later. 00:25:54.040 --> 00:26:00.700 But the other model of small groups is, you know, so let's say what I was talking about, like a very high standard of discipleship. 00:26:00.760 --> 00:26:01.720 That's like the microchurch. 00:26:03.060 --> 00:26:07.280 And the other standards, more like the watch party. 00:26:08.600 --> 00:26:12.520 Listen, all I need you to do is be capable of pressing play on the DVD. 00:26:13.580 --> 00:26:14.840 Open up RightNow Media. 00:26:15.120 --> 00:26:18.500 And these are the selected Bible studies that you can choose from. 00:26:19.000 --> 00:26:20.420 You choose which one you want to. 00:26:20.480 --> 00:26:22.020 Or, hey, you know what, we're all going to do this one together. 00:26:22.160 --> 00:26:23.820 And here's the dialogue questions for you. 00:26:23.880 --> 00:26:24.740 We've already got it figured out. 00:26:25.060 --> 00:26:27.800 And here's the Bible verse you can talk about when it's time to pray. 00:26:27.900 --> 00:26:29.680 And just write down the prayer request and pray for them. 00:26:31.440 --> 00:26:33.520 Now, mind you, there's nothing wrong with that. 00:26:34.660 --> 00:26:40.620 But what you're doing with the watch party model, with this model of small group, 00:26:41.540 --> 00:26:47.000 is you're basically shelling out discipleship responsibilities to a video. 00:26:48.820 --> 00:26:56.440 The challenge of that is, well, who's, at what point do you get off the spiritual milk and get on solid food? 00:26:57.500 --> 00:26:59.500 At what point do you feed yourself? 00:27:00.960 --> 00:27:06.000 At what point do you start to work towards not your own concerns in feeding yourself, 00:27:06.000 --> 00:27:10.700 but what point do you start feeding others and start being the, 00:27:10.840 --> 00:27:13.520 this is the multiplication aspect that's often lost. 00:27:14.260 --> 00:27:18.800 Because what we try to do, especially in evangelism-centric churches, 00:27:18.820 --> 00:27:23.540 I believe, is you really try to push a lot of groups because you need a lot of groups 00:27:23.540 --> 00:27:26.720 because you want a lot of community because this is where growth and discipleship happens. 00:27:26.840 --> 00:27:27.820 You need more community. 00:27:27.960 --> 00:27:28.700 You need more space. 00:27:29.220 --> 00:27:32.820 You need bigger TVs and people with more chairs in front of those TVs. 00:27:33.400 --> 00:27:36.780 And so, listen, like we'll video all the discipleship. 00:27:37.020 --> 00:27:40.780 You don't have to do anything other than press play and bring out the seven-layer being there. 00:27:42.780 --> 00:27:47.680 And there's an opportunity for, to complement through video content. 00:27:47.680 --> 00:27:52.380 And then there's an opportunity to also have a leader capable, and that's in this middle. 00:27:53.500 --> 00:28:03.920 And so, I would say the difference between a small group and a microsite is that the microsite itself is more centric on discipleship, 00:28:04.220 --> 00:28:12.700 on empowering a leader to build relationships because there's a stronger understanding of what discipleship or disciple-making looks like for them. 00:28:13.340 --> 00:28:15.620 And it looks like for the people they're working on. 00:28:16.600 --> 00:28:18.220 You know what Tyler's been doing? 00:28:18.340 --> 00:28:20.340 I keep dropping Tyler's name, but I think it's a great example. 00:28:20.340 --> 00:28:26.480 Tyler's been doing this for a while, five years. 00:28:27.260 --> 00:28:28.800 I think he's up to 20 microsites. 00:28:29.780 --> 00:28:35.720 He's got, he told me, it's funny, he's got microsites from Indiana because that's where he's at, Cordon, Indiana. 00:28:36.180 --> 00:28:40.640 He's got microsites from Indiana to India, literally globally as well. 00:28:41.300 --> 00:28:48.880 Bunch in the area, maybe 75%, you know, within 30-mile radius of his church in a small town, Cordon, Indiana. 00:28:48.880 --> 00:28:52.380 And then he's got several in America and several overseas. 00:28:53.360 --> 00:28:56.540 They're even doing like a film thing in Africa, film school. 00:28:56.740 --> 00:29:03.700 Like, it's really exciting to see some of the stuff that he's doing and how he's utilizing that connection, people he's connecting with digitally, 00:29:04.060 --> 00:29:10.060 starting to help them create communities globally and helping them do discipleship in there. 00:29:11.220 --> 00:29:15.360 And maybe that's really the difference between a small group and a microsite. 00:29:16.760 --> 00:29:21.320 Because a small group is basically, hey, you're going to watch this material and you're going to talk about it. 00:29:22.420 --> 00:29:24.700 You're going to read this book and you're going to talk about it. 00:29:25.260 --> 00:29:26.300 And you're going to pray for each other. 00:29:28.140 --> 00:29:34.180 A microsite is, I mean, yeah, you could cheapen it by saying, oh, you're just going to watch this church service and you're going to talk about it. 00:29:34.920 --> 00:29:36.900 But the standard is higher than that. 00:29:36.900 --> 00:29:46.280 The standard is much more about how do we empower the leader to be the disciple in that situation. 00:29:48.660 --> 00:29:50.200 All right, so hey, let me ask some questions. 00:29:50.480 --> 00:29:57.040 Why should your church, why should you invest time and resources into microsites? 00:29:57.160 --> 00:30:01.000 Number one, I believe this is a natural extension of online. 00:30:01.160 --> 00:30:02.220 I wrote a book pre-COVID. 00:30:02.720 --> 00:30:06.000 I joke I want to do a new version of this. 00:30:06.060 --> 00:30:10.560 Version two, because post-COVID everything's changed in my book pre-COVID. 00:30:10.620 --> 00:30:11.860 I'm not sure it's still valid anymore. 00:30:12.380 --> 00:30:15.520 But it was what happens when church online grows up? 00:30:15.520 --> 00:30:19.920 Hey, in charge, what happens when church online grows up? 00:30:19.960 --> 00:30:20.380 I wrote it. 00:30:20.900 --> 00:30:21.520 You know what? 00:30:21.560 --> 00:30:24.540 I don't even think you can find it right now because I don't think it's on the new website. 00:30:24.660 --> 00:30:25.560 I think we took it off. 00:30:26.460 --> 00:30:36.160 But the fact is, is that we want to see our relationships digitally extend physically. 00:30:36.280 --> 00:30:39.520 We want to see our discipleship digitally extend physically. 00:30:39.620 --> 00:30:42.180 You've heard me talk about this online to offline. 00:30:42.380 --> 00:30:49.880 The gospel that we hear in our online world has to influence our offline relationships. 00:30:50.680 --> 00:30:53.120 Otherwise, all we're doing is creating consumers. 00:30:53.640 --> 00:31:02.640 If all we're doing is hearing and we're not actually doing anything physically or doing anything digitally in response to that, 00:31:03.640 --> 00:31:10.140 are we really disciple makers or are we just consuming a product digitally? 00:31:10.800 --> 00:31:15.820 James 1.22, I misquote this all the time, but as I'm paraphrasing here, 00:31:16.360 --> 00:31:20.260 do not just be hearers of the word online and so deceive yourselves. 00:31:20.820 --> 00:31:28.000 Do what it says in the physical world or in the virtual world or in the insert of whatever world you want there. 00:31:28.200 --> 00:31:33.940 Because the fact is, is that we need to be living the act, the life that we're learning. 00:31:34.080 --> 00:31:39.180 Otherwise, we're just consuming a product that's not really influencing us. 00:31:39.720 --> 00:31:50.560 And that's where I believe micro sites is an incredible opportunity to extend the ministry beyond just hearing. 00:31:50.940 --> 00:31:53.140 It gives people the opportunity for doing. 00:31:54.140 --> 00:32:01.220 Could you just imagine if your church had a network of 25, 30, 50, 00:32:02.020 --> 00:32:10.920 a hundred jacked up disciples digitally around the planet that were utilizing your church's resources and ways to reach the kingdom? 00:32:12.720 --> 00:32:13.860 That's what I did in New York. 00:32:14.760 --> 00:32:18.460 We had a guy in New York who was, we were, like I said, I was a digital pastor in Miami. 00:32:18.820 --> 00:32:21.280 One of my friends moved up to New York. 00:32:21.360 --> 00:32:22.480 He was still connected to the church. 00:32:23.640 --> 00:32:25.880 And he was so on fire for God. 00:32:26.580 --> 00:32:28.440 I don't remember why he wanted to move up to New York. 00:32:29.080 --> 00:32:31.140 But he, I think he was up near family and friends. 00:32:32.480 --> 00:32:34.800 And he, he just, he was, he was my pilot guy. 00:32:35.640 --> 00:32:38.080 And I'm doing this whole microchurch thing in 2016. 00:32:38.280 --> 00:32:40.420 They were not, they were thinking it was us and Saddleback, man. 00:32:40.500 --> 00:32:42.600 There was not a lot of microchurch, micro sites. 00:32:43.980 --> 00:32:51.500 And, and so, you know, had conversations with this guy, prepped him, gave him all the resources in advance, 00:32:52.020 --> 00:32:53.420 asked him questions all the time. 00:32:54.260 --> 00:32:58.320 And he was actually, my second one, my first one that we launched was in the Florida Keys. 00:32:58.400 --> 00:33:01.320 But I could drive down to the Keys and get face to face with the guy in the Keys anytime. 00:33:01.800 --> 00:33:03.120 The guy in New York, that's a plane flight. 00:33:03.240 --> 00:33:05.840 So I had to do everything via, I was on blue jeans at the time. 00:33:06.080 --> 00:33:06.800 We didn't use him. 00:33:07.740 --> 00:33:14.560 And, but what we did was we had, we had the ability to get face to face on blue jeans and coached him and discipled him and prepped him. 00:33:15.500 --> 00:33:16.920 And so he did a couple meetings. 00:33:17.660 --> 00:33:18.440 This is crazy. 00:33:19.260 --> 00:33:26.300 He did a couple meetings and, um, his one location, he met at a Barnes and Noble, I believe, for the first couple. 00:33:27.680 --> 00:33:35.960 And, and what he actually found out at the Barnes and Noble was the people were so displaced around the city of New York. 00:33:36.060 --> 00:33:37.740 There were so many different boroughs. 00:33:37.800 --> 00:33:38.480 Is that the right word? 00:33:38.800 --> 00:33:40.520 So many different regions of New York City. 00:33:41.800 --> 00:33:44.520 He decided at the second meeting, he was going to start a network. 00:33:45.500 --> 00:33:50.500 And he took it on himself to disperse everybody. 00:33:51.080 --> 00:33:57.720 And my man here, by meeting three, had five different locations spread across New York City. 00:33:58.440 --> 00:33:59.400 He's a volunteer. 00:34:00.940 --> 00:34:02.080 Not a staff guy. 00:34:03.360 --> 00:34:05.860 Not even breathing the same air. 00:34:06.480 --> 00:34:10.620 He's in the same time zone, but how many states away from Florida to New York? 00:34:12.440 --> 00:34:13.840 Dude, he was crushing it. 00:34:14.140 --> 00:34:15.340 Like, he was training the people. 00:34:15.420 --> 00:34:16.220 The people were excited. 00:34:16.940 --> 00:34:19.240 Uh, they were utilizing our resources sometimes. 00:34:19.340 --> 00:34:21.080 Sometimes they was preaching on their own. 00:34:21.140 --> 00:34:30.600 And we, you know, for him, I took, we'll get into accountability, but I took a very hands-off approach to let him grow, uh, the ministry that he was doing with his network. 00:34:31.600 --> 00:34:39.300 Because what we were seeing and what he was setting the standard for was not just being a hearer of the word and deceiving himself. 00:34:39.480 --> 00:34:41.880 He was doing what he was hearing. 00:34:43.400 --> 00:34:50.180 You also have to realize, you know, another reason to do micro, um, is that it's a safe front door to the building. 00:34:51.180 --> 00:35:00.200 Now, listen, there are people, the average person, the average first-time guest watches your church service four to six times before they come, uh, into the physical church building. 00:35:00.320 --> 00:35:00.840 That's LifeWay. 00:35:00.900 --> 00:35:01.620 That's a proven fact. 00:35:02.080 --> 00:35:03.280 LifeWay.com. 00:35:04.700 --> 00:35:05.700 It's still about this convention. 00:35:07.420 --> 00:35:19.180 What I think is another way to engage with de-churched and people that have been burned by the church is utilizing micro-locations as a bridge to the physical building. 00:35:19.900 --> 00:35:24.720 Because you've got to remember, micro-locations is all about the relationship of the leader. 00:35:25.820 --> 00:35:29.380 And the leader, yes, can bridge people straight to the physical church building. 00:35:30.140 --> 00:35:34.680 Or the micro-leader can bridge people by inviting them into the home. 00:35:35.640 --> 00:35:36.180 You know, it's interesting. 00:35:36.400 --> 00:35:38.180 Okay, Francis Chan does a lot with micro-church. 00:35:38.380 --> 00:35:42.700 Okay, so maybe this is a, I don't want to say a little jaded, but this is a biased statement. 00:35:44.180 --> 00:35:54.880 Francis Chan, evangelism of the future is not going to happen in cathedrals or temples, but it will happen in living rooms and couches, living rooms and homes, homes and couches, homes and living rooms, something like that. 00:35:55.380 --> 00:35:55.920 You can Google it. 00:35:56.860 --> 00:36:02.680 Right now, Whitebeard is Googling Francis Chan, trying to find that quote, and hopefully he does find it. 00:36:03.000 --> 00:36:04.540 Because I don't think I butchered it that bad. 00:36:05.020 --> 00:36:06.620 Actually, I know, I know I had it. 00:36:06.680 --> 00:36:07.400 I referenced it. 00:36:07.520 --> 00:36:09.700 I did a podcast with Daniel M. a while back. 00:36:09.840 --> 00:36:10.280 I am. 00:36:11.340 --> 00:36:12.900 This is three or four years ago. 00:36:12.960 --> 00:36:14.200 This is back when I wrote the first book. 00:36:15.240 --> 00:36:15.900 Pre-COVID. 00:36:16.940 --> 00:36:18.540 What happens when Church Online grows up. 00:36:19.520 --> 00:36:21.200 Daniel M. talked about social space. 00:36:22.280 --> 00:36:24.320 You know, you got like your large church buildings. 00:36:24.420 --> 00:36:26.060 You got your small home gatherings. 00:36:26.180 --> 00:36:27.400 You got your one-on-one conversations. 00:36:27.620 --> 00:36:28.560 There's different levels. 00:36:30.100 --> 00:36:33.880 Daniel M. talked about social space, which is 25 people. 00:36:35.000 --> 00:36:40.360 And Daniel M. talked about how the church is horrible at doing social space. 00:36:41.020 --> 00:36:41.640 Like, think about it. 00:36:41.700 --> 00:36:45.420 What gathering right now do you have that's 10? 00:36:47.000 --> 00:36:51.160 I mean, let's, you can get one-on-one with the pastor or a campus pastor. 00:36:52.000 --> 00:36:56.220 You can get, you know, one-on-three with your close group of friends that you have at the church. 00:36:56.700 --> 00:37:01.260 You can join a small group, which is most likely, you know, 10 plus or minus. 00:37:02.420 --> 00:37:09.140 And then you've got the mega building, mega attendance, which maybe you're at a church service of 50, 100, 500, 5,000, doesn't matter. 00:37:10.280 --> 00:37:14.800 But you really don't have a social space of that 25. 00:37:16.240 --> 00:37:18.060 And that's where there's comfort. 00:37:18.740 --> 00:37:19.520 It's intimidating. 00:37:19.820 --> 00:37:20.980 It's easy to get lost. 00:37:22.000 --> 00:37:24.040 In the large gathering. 00:37:24.920 --> 00:37:27.420 There's not a relational connection at the large gathering. 00:37:27.820 --> 00:37:28.440 Just be honest. 00:37:28.620 --> 00:37:30.400 I mean, unless you're at a small church with 50 people. 00:37:31.280 --> 00:37:32.680 Well, and I'll even say it this way. 00:37:32.820 --> 00:37:37.400 Like, my small, my church, reality church, I think there are 250 people. 00:37:37.520 --> 00:37:40.400 There's probably 75 to 100 people attending each service. 00:37:42.140 --> 00:37:48.440 If I want to walk in, sit in a chair, listen to the sermon, worship, walk out, not talk to anybody, I can do that. 00:37:48.440 --> 00:37:49.460 Even at a small church. 00:37:51.060 --> 00:37:54.460 So you don't get that relational connection at the large gathering. 00:37:55.140 --> 00:37:56.520 That may hurt some of you pastors. 00:37:56.520 --> 00:37:57.800 But the reality is you don't. 00:37:59.620 --> 00:38:07.760 Social space, 25, gives you a safe space to have conversations and dialogue where people can be seen and heard and understood. 00:38:08.840 --> 00:38:13.180 Without the intimidation of one to 10 or one to three or one to one-on-one. 00:38:14.680 --> 00:38:15.400 You know, it's funny. 00:38:15.560 --> 00:38:19.600 People, pastors think, oh, I should get one-on-one with as many people as possible. 00:38:20.180 --> 00:38:22.360 First off, not everybody wants to get one-on-one with you. 00:38:23.540 --> 00:38:24.400 That's intimidating. 00:38:25.600 --> 00:38:27.600 What would I talk about with a pastor? 00:38:27.600 --> 00:38:31.060 That pastor, like, they're honored that you want to offer. 00:38:31.280 --> 00:38:32.600 So I'm saying don't, like, offer. 00:38:33.380 --> 00:38:35.220 But don't build the thing around you. 00:38:36.700 --> 00:38:38.020 Build it around others. 00:38:38.580 --> 00:38:42.440 So the idea of a supergroup, a safe space, a micro-site for 25, 00:38:43.000 --> 00:38:47.380 to give people an opportunity to get exposed to some new ideas without the pressure. 00:38:49.300 --> 00:38:50.100 Think about it. 00:38:51.820 --> 00:38:52.680 Another reason. 00:38:53.480 --> 00:39:00.720 You're going to reach a different type of person using micro-locations than you will with the building. 00:39:01.400 --> 00:39:04.020 Yes, you can bridge people from the micro-locations to the building. 00:39:04.980 --> 00:39:09.000 You can also do something different, to reach someone different. 00:39:10.060 --> 00:39:10.980 Like, let's just think about it. 00:39:10.980 --> 00:39:12.100 The giga churches, life church. 00:39:13.000 --> 00:39:15.800 The mariners out in California. 00:39:16.260 --> 00:39:16.980 Geiger's a brand of mine. 00:39:18.800 --> 00:39:19.280 Seacoast. 00:39:20.200 --> 00:39:22.300 I mean, crap, even Christ Fellowship Miami, where I'm at down here. 00:39:22.400 --> 00:39:25.260 Church, a giga church, you know, 5,000, 7,000, 10,000 people. 00:39:25.800 --> 00:39:28.080 Vega churches, 1,000, 2,000. 00:39:29.440 --> 00:39:31.520 Medium-sized churches, 500, 700. 00:39:31.680 --> 00:39:33.240 Small churches, 150, 200. 00:39:33.920 --> 00:39:36.920 A micro-church, micro-location, 25, 15. 00:39:37.600 --> 00:39:40.020 Online, hundreds, thousands. 00:39:42.140 --> 00:39:43.840 These are all different types of churches, right? 00:39:44.620 --> 00:39:45.540 What's the best one? 00:39:48.820 --> 00:39:50.380 I mean, I know what I'm biased to. 00:39:52.820 --> 00:39:54.440 Your bias may be different than mine. 00:39:55.060 --> 00:39:56.260 I don't have to be right. 00:39:57.400 --> 00:39:58.700 Maybe you're right. 00:40:01.280 --> 00:40:06.980 What we need to recognize is that each, the one God called you to, Whitebeard, what we all said. 00:40:07.660 --> 00:40:13.260 What we need to recognize is that each of us are called to something different. 00:40:16.260 --> 00:40:19.680 Some of the largest churches on the planet operate in Korea. 00:40:20.440 --> 00:40:27.360 Tens to hundreds of thousands of people will gather in a worship environment in Korea. 00:40:28.520 --> 00:40:31.540 Some of the smallest churches on the planet are in India. 00:40:32.200 --> 00:40:36.280 We're talking three people underneath a palm tree or a mud hut. 00:40:37.140 --> 00:40:37.960 What's better? 00:40:40.520 --> 00:40:44.540 You're going to do different things to reach different people. 00:40:46.280 --> 00:40:52.720 Now, here's another fact for you to Google and look up, whether you're on the podcast or in the live room. 00:40:53.460 --> 00:40:55.260 You can hear me talk about this more and more. 00:40:55.380 --> 00:40:56.060 I love this. 00:40:56.320 --> 00:41:05.900 Bloomberg, back in January of 2024, January of this year, to my knowledge, was the first company, the first publication, 00:41:05.900 --> 00:41:14.160 to state the words, introvert economy, introvert economy. 00:41:14.840 --> 00:41:21.740 What Bloomberg is stating is that, whether it's as a result of COVID or whatever the reason, 00:41:22.660 --> 00:41:33.400 there is a section of people that are not interested, that are no longer interested in physical interaction with people. 00:41:35.900 --> 00:41:49.000 The idea of attending a mass gathering, a sporting event, a movie, a church service, is not something they're interested in because they don't want the social pressure. 00:41:50.160 --> 00:42:08.100 And what introvert economy is, according to Bloomberg, is this massive shift of businesses moving away from the physical and instead trying to figure out how to get to people's homes or operate in a more distributed idea, distributed model. 00:42:09.420 --> 00:42:18.420 So the challenge here for churches would be to recognize that our buildings are going to be really good at reaching the people that the buildings are going to reach. 00:42:18.840 --> 00:42:20.360 I'm not questioning that. 00:42:21.100 --> 00:42:30.220 But the idea of doing digital, or the idea of doing micro, or the idea of doing virtual, or the idea of doing gaming, 00:42:30.720 --> 00:42:37.040 all of these give us an opportunity to reach someone different that the buildings will not reach. 00:42:38.340 --> 00:42:39.880 And that's what we're going to get with micro. 00:42:40.580 --> 00:42:48.500 That's what you're going to get with what Rob's doing, Lucas Pulley, what Lucas is doing up in Tampa Underground. 00:42:49.440 --> 00:42:56.380 What Jason Stewart is doing, oh my, in Texas at Church Project. 00:42:57.240 --> 00:42:59.120 Oh my gosh, it's not Jason Stewart. 00:42:59.240 --> 00:43:00.340 I can't think of Jason's last name. 00:43:00.400 --> 00:43:05.300 Jason Shepard at Texas in Church Project. 00:43:05.500 --> 00:43:07.100 Oh my gosh, I want to tell you so badly. 00:43:07.960 --> 00:43:10.020 I want to tell you so badly what's coming up season eight. 00:43:10.180 --> 00:43:11.300 This is the perfect opportunity. 00:43:11.480 --> 00:43:12.860 I could just, you know what? 00:43:14.020 --> 00:43:15.700 No, not going to. 00:43:15.800 --> 00:43:16.480 We're going to tease it. 00:43:16.960 --> 00:43:17.620 We're going to sit on it. 00:43:18.180 --> 00:43:19.020 I don't leak. 00:43:19.020 --> 00:43:22.060 I don't, I leak like a sieve, okay? 00:43:23.060 --> 00:43:25.980 But I'm going to hold on to this because I'm just so excited about it. 00:43:27.060 --> 00:43:28.300 Here's the reality too. 00:43:28.540 --> 00:43:35.880 If you tied in microsites, if you tied that into your church's micro, you know, church's multiplication strategy, 00:43:36.520 --> 00:43:42.240 maybe a series of a microsite or a couple, two or three microsites, that becomes your next church plan. 00:43:43.460 --> 00:43:45.460 Becomes the next campus for you to launch. 00:43:48.600 --> 00:43:50.840 Or it becomes a network of microsites. 00:43:50.840 --> 00:43:53.120 That's actually what happened to the New York network. 00:43:53.920 --> 00:43:59.960 The New York network actually broke off from the church at the time. 00:44:00.160 --> 00:44:07.380 And so we actually planted, I can tell you, off that work that we did up there in New York, two churches were planted in the city of New York. 00:44:07.700 --> 00:44:10.420 Actually, I keep up with one of the guys on a regular basis now. 00:44:10.420 --> 00:44:18.240 Now, and so there's, you can tie micro locations and microsites, micro churches, even watch parks. 00:44:19.060 --> 00:44:22.740 You can tie that into the micro church strategy, into your church's strategy. 00:44:23.320 --> 00:44:28.060 But there has to be awareness of what's happening and support for it. 00:44:29.160 --> 00:44:30.940 Historically, that's the one thing I did not do. 00:44:30.980 --> 00:44:33.640 And I wrote several blogs about this for Rezzy. 00:44:33.780 --> 00:44:39.840 Like, I was horrible at communicating what I was actually doing with leadership. 00:44:40.020 --> 00:44:45.020 I ran when I should have walked and I should have brought others along. 00:44:45.980 --> 00:44:49.060 And so that's actually the lessons that I learned at a personal level at the church digital. 00:44:49.900 --> 00:44:54.240 That's why Andy and Flatcap, like Flatcap, man, thanks for jumping in here. 00:44:55.600 --> 00:45:02.400 You know, even Whitebeard, coming on board and looking forward to getting to know him more and involving him in the process. 00:45:02.840 --> 00:45:06.940 And even seeing how he's going to grow his ministry through the church digital. 00:45:09.820 --> 00:45:12.480 I, historically, I made ministry about me. 00:45:15.340 --> 00:45:19.700 When I look at Paul's ministry, I never get the idea that Paul's ministry was about Paul. 00:45:22.560 --> 00:45:24.740 Paul wanted to preach to the Gentiles, others didn't. 00:45:24.800 --> 00:45:25.560 He fought for that. 00:45:25.620 --> 00:45:29.600 But I don't think he went on the attack on it. 00:45:30.040 --> 00:45:32.600 I just think he corrected wrong when he saw it. 00:45:33.280 --> 00:45:39.280 When he saw unholy actions, when he saw things that needed to be addressed in the church, 00:45:39.360 --> 00:45:39.960 he addressed it. 00:45:40.780 --> 00:45:42.280 But I don't think he attacked it. 00:45:46.540 --> 00:45:50.820 I think Paul, you know, was he a church planter? 00:45:51.100 --> 00:45:52.980 Maybe, because he planted churches all over the place. 00:45:53.520 --> 00:45:55.020 But he was also a networker. 00:45:56.180 --> 00:45:58.720 And he used the Roman roads, his letters. 00:45:58.980 --> 00:45:59.960 He used his trips. 00:46:00.080 --> 00:46:01.920 He used it all to spread. 00:46:05.140 --> 00:46:15.060 When I even just, like, literally drizzle, I'm drilling a little bit here, man, at the idea of where you are in check. 00:46:16.420 --> 00:46:17.580 How can we help you? 00:46:18.140 --> 00:46:19.000 What do you need? 00:46:20.180 --> 00:46:29.780 How can we fan the flame of what's happening to see ministry extend digitally in Eastern Europe? 00:46:30.900 --> 00:46:37.820 Not for the glory of the church digital, not for the glory of myself, not for the glory of Trizzle, whoever that is, but for the glory of God. 00:46:44.200 --> 00:46:45.560 It's all about control. 00:46:46.740 --> 00:46:47.740 I've learned this. 00:46:48.920 --> 00:46:55.120 Now, if you knew me 10 years ago, if you knew me five years ago, 2018. 00:46:56.800 --> 00:46:57.640 Is that six years ago? 00:46:57.700 --> 00:46:58.720 No, I guess that's six years ago. 00:47:00.800 --> 00:47:06.360 I'm a, I'm a different person now than I was six years ago. 00:47:07.400 --> 00:47:11.100 Six years ago, I was, well, I was broken. 00:47:11.860 --> 00:47:13.120 Not in the way I'm broken now. 00:47:13.880 --> 00:47:15.480 It's funny, God keeps breaking me in new ways. 00:47:16.380 --> 00:47:18.680 I keep putting myself back together and God finds another way to break me. 00:47:18.760 --> 00:47:19.760 Maybe I just need to stay broken. 00:47:21.940 --> 00:47:23.160 Wow, that's a thought. 00:47:23.360 --> 00:47:23.520 Ooh. 00:47:24.480 --> 00:47:25.680 Come back to that one, Jeff. 00:47:26.580 --> 00:47:28.560 But the reality was six years ago, I was a control freak. 00:47:28.560 --> 00:47:29.760 Seven years ago, I was a control freak. 00:47:30.520 --> 00:47:35.820 And I, so it was me leading a digital ministry, very strong direction drive. 00:47:35.920 --> 00:47:38.820 And if you know me, you know, I'm very strong direction drive. 00:47:38.900 --> 00:47:42.440 Now, there's a reason my hand's a fist right now, if you're watching this on YouTube or video, 00:47:42.580 --> 00:47:45.980 because I was very controlling, very domineering. 00:47:46.720 --> 00:47:50.600 My friends from back then know that is true. 00:47:51.020 --> 00:47:55.520 And my friends are very few back then because that was true. 00:47:57.300 --> 00:47:59.060 And I went, I went toe to toe. 00:48:00.240 --> 00:48:03.940 With churches, with leadership, with my leadership. 00:48:05.340 --> 00:48:11.980 Because they didn't agree or they didn't see or they didn't support a lot of these ideas. 00:48:17.940 --> 00:48:20.900 But I've learned it's not about controlling the situation. 00:48:24.400 --> 00:48:28.080 I've really, I've learned to take a step back. 00:48:28.640 --> 00:48:30.720 It's funny, I wrote this, I wrote this blog recently for Prezi. 00:48:31.240 --> 00:48:33.620 The best advice I was ever going to be given was Eric Geiger. 00:48:33.740 --> 00:48:35.740 Second time I mentioned his podcast, his name on this podcast. 00:48:38.340 --> 00:48:40.080 I was literally, I was talking digital with Eric Geiger. 00:48:40.080 --> 00:48:42.940 This is 20, let me say it this way. 00:48:43.300 --> 00:48:50.420 This is before, this is 2005, 2004. 00:48:52.640 --> 00:48:56.160 I'm literally talking to Eric Geiger, executive pastor at Christ Fellowship Miami, 00:48:56.540 --> 00:48:58.320 about doing digital ministry. 00:48:59.120 --> 00:49:02.880 He had hired me to be a digital pastor in 2005. 00:49:03.740 --> 00:49:05.660 I was, I would have been, if we had actually had done it. 00:49:05.800 --> 00:49:07.960 I'm not calling myself this because I wasn't. 00:49:08.200 --> 00:49:11.240 I would have been one of the first 10, easy, back then. 00:49:11.520 --> 00:49:13.200 Other than Life Church, I don't know anybody else. 00:49:13.360 --> 00:49:16.060 Maybe another church or two, 2005. 00:49:21.000 --> 00:49:27.100 But what Geiger told me was, Jeff, if you're trying to convince me of something, 00:49:27.200 --> 00:49:28.700 I don't understand anything you're saying. 00:49:29.080 --> 00:49:31.520 I literally don't understand the words that are coming out of your mouth. 00:49:32.620 --> 00:49:35.740 If you're going to convince me, learn to use my language. 00:49:39.640 --> 00:49:47.820 That, 2005, 20 years ago, 19 years ago, human words, 00:49:47.820 --> 00:49:51.420 I don't know of any other word, any other statement, any other sentence 00:49:51.420 --> 00:49:54.940 that had more effect on me than that right there. 00:49:57.660 --> 00:50:04.100 I had to learn how to speak Geiger for a couple of years. 00:50:04.940 --> 00:50:07.720 Now, I don't know that I was really good at speaking Geiger. 00:50:08.660 --> 00:50:10.200 And I didn't always agree with Geiger. 00:50:10.500 --> 00:50:11.780 And Geiger didn't always agree with me. 00:50:13.900 --> 00:50:16.680 But I learned how to communicate with him 00:50:16.680 --> 00:50:19.100 because I learned what was important to him. 00:50:20.040 --> 00:50:22.760 And I had to figure out how to align digital 00:50:22.760 --> 00:50:28.540 to meet his wants, desires, thoughts, needs, goals, standards, 00:50:29.220 --> 00:50:31.240 missions, vision, drive. 00:50:32.120 --> 00:50:32.680 Plug in the word. 00:50:36.680 --> 00:50:39.120 The idea of a micro-location, the idea of digital community, 00:50:39.380 --> 00:50:42.560 the idea of a mental health ministry, 00:50:42.660 --> 00:50:45.460 the idea of targeted digital communications, 00:50:45.620 --> 00:50:47.380 the idea of a virtual reality church. 00:50:47.860 --> 00:50:49.740 All of these are great ideas. 00:50:52.080 --> 00:50:54.680 Dr. John's nickname for me is Idea Guy. 00:50:55.800 --> 00:50:57.940 We were writing the book, 00:50:58.740 --> 00:51:00.380 Sharing Jesus Online, together. 00:51:01.720 --> 00:51:03.700 He literally, I just, I'd come up with crazy ideas. 00:51:04.200 --> 00:51:05.720 Crazy ideas, crazy ideas, crazy ideas. 00:51:05.840 --> 00:51:07.520 I was throwing ideas at him all day long. 00:51:08.760 --> 00:51:10.280 He said, Jeff, you're the idea guy. 00:51:12.980 --> 00:51:13.440 It's funny. 00:51:13.560 --> 00:51:14.380 He even told me, too. 00:51:14.440 --> 00:51:16.940 He's like, you need to not be the idea guy. 00:51:17.120 --> 00:51:20.320 You need to, like, find the thing that you want to do and do it. 00:51:21.960 --> 00:51:23.600 And so I can be idea guys for other people. 00:51:26.320 --> 00:51:28.760 And the church digital, empowering those ideas to happen. 00:51:29.340 --> 00:51:30.060 Others do it. 00:51:30.900 --> 00:51:31.820 That's what I get to do. 00:51:32.460 --> 00:51:35.580 I get to work with the Trizzles and the Flatcaps and the Andys 00:51:35.580 --> 00:51:38.440 and the Loser Joshes and the Whitebeards and the Incharges 00:51:38.440 --> 00:51:41.920 and help them do the ministry they're doing. 00:51:43.720 --> 00:51:44.940 You know, it is kind of frustrating. 00:51:45.220 --> 00:51:47.780 I'll just be honest here as we're wrapping up this podcast. 00:51:54.320 --> 00:51:55.840 I'm trying to put a time on this. 00:51:57.880 --> 00:51:58.320 2017. 00:52:00.160 --> 00:52:07.260 In the year 2017, I had somebody hand me a check in my name, written to me, four figures. 00:52:08.940 --> 00:52:12.760 And in the memo line, signed, and in the memo line said, 00:52:13.480 --> 00:52:16.500 only deposit if you're planting a church. 00:52:20.720 --> 00:52:27.420 Literally, I had received a check seven years ago to start a church. 00:52:28.180 --> 00:52:29.400 Somebody saw that vision in me. 00:52:29.480 --> 00:52:36.100 The ICU conversation, this pastor saw in me the opportunity to do something 00:52:36.100 --> 00:52:37.420 and challenged me to do that. 00:52:37.700 --> 00:52:41.160 And wrote a decent-sized check, all things considered, 00:52:42.300 --> 00:52:44.200 to supporting me in getting started towards me. 00:52:46.660 --> 00:52:47.920 For seven years, I prayed. 00:52:48.780 --> 00:52:49.620 I still pray. 00:52:49.880 --> 00:52:50.640 God is in my time. 00:52:53.080 --> 00:52:55.720 If you're watching on YouTube, I'm shaking my head no for a reason. 00:52:57.720 --> 00:52:59.120 For whatever reason, God says no. 00:53:00.080 --> 00:53:00.700 God says help. 00:53:03.360 --> 00:53:04.400 I agree with him. 00:53:05.300 --> 00:53:06.740 I mean, I'm not saying this fighting. 00:53:07.040 --> 00:53:08.120 I'm not saying this arguing. 00:53:09.200 --> 00:53:10.980 I'm not negative about that idea. 00:53:12.120 --> 00:53:14.200 Like I said, I'm drooling over the idea of helping Trizzle. 00:53:16.200 --> 00:53:18.020 I love seeing what Whitebeard's doing. 00:53:18.360 --> 00:53:19.780 What Whitebeard, yeah, Whitebeard. 00:53:20.140 --> 00:53:24.780 I open up my email, and I get a church today, and, you know, clicking through. 00:53:25.080 --> 00:53:28.380 I spend like two minutes a day looking at my, in Google, in Gmail, 00:53:29.820 --> 00:53:32.620 at the updates folder, because that's basically all the newsletters. 00:53:33.020 --> 00:53:36.700 And I see, you know, I do a lot of work with churchproduction.com. 00:53:37.760 --> 00:53:41.340 And so when I see their emails, and they send a lot of emails, I open up theirs, 00:53:41.680 --> 00:53:45.420 and I see this guy named Tom, and T-H-O-M. 00:53:46.140 --> 00:53:49.500 And I see the last name, and I'm like, I know Tom. 00:53:49.620 --> 00:53:50.380 I think that's Tom. 00:53:51.560 --> 00:53:53.980 And so I click on this video and start watching this video. 00:53:54.060 --> 00:53:55.600 They're talking about PTZ remotes. 00:53:55.600 --> 00:53:57.980 And sure enough, I see Whitebeard. 00:53:58.080 --> 00:54:00.060 I see Tom on this video. 00:54:00.180 --> 00:54:01.660 It's like, oh, man, that's so awesome. 00:54:01.800 --> 00:54:06.220 I love that he's getting out there in that space and is creating assets for church production. 00:54:06.460 --> 00:54:09.400 You know, a little bit of me kind of felt like he was cheating on me a little bit, 00:54:09.440 --> 00:54:10.640 like I felt like the jilted lover. 00:54:11.180 --> 00:54:12.580 But I got over that quickly. 00:54:12.680 --> 00:54:15.500 I was able to like, hey, good for you, Tom, because it's not about Jeff. 00:54:16.040 --> 00:54:16.980 It's not even about Tom. 00:54:17.060 --> 00:54:19.300 It's about, you know, resourcing and helping people in ministry. 00:54:19.660 --> 00:54:25.300 I love what Flatcap's doing with his prayer booths. 00:54:26.020 --> 00:54:27.380 He gives updates on that every weekend. 00:54:27.540 --> 00:54:29.920 Excited to see some of that stuff coming together. 00:54:30.160 --> 00:54:31.680 I love the ministry that you all are doing. 00:54:32.460 --> 00:54:35.080 And that's where I am so excited about Discord, 00:54:35.260 --> 00:54:37.020 because it gives us the opportunity to do it together, 00:54:37.860 --> 00:54:39.580 to celebrate and pray for one another, 00:54:40.260 --> 00:54:41.980 to talk about how we can help. 00:54:43.560 --> 00:54:45.180 Because, dude, that's my mandate from God. 00:54:45.660 --> 00:54:48.340 What has God called you to do, Whitebeard asked earlier? 00:54:48.980 --> 00:54:50.560 Do whatever God calls you to. 00:54:51.780 --> 00:54:52.840 My job's to help. 00:54:53.760 --> 00:54:57.780 I mean, literally, that might be the tattoo on my body. 00:54:58.560 --> 00:55:01.840 Help, God, dash God. 00:55:02.280 --> 00:55:03.640 Help, close quote, dash God. 00:55:03.820 --> 00:55:04.720 You've got to figure out how to help. 00:55:06.080 --> 00:55:08.980 But that's the challenge that I want to invite you to. 00:55:09.180 --> 00:55:11.700 Step up, step into this thing, and roll. 00:55:12.400 --> 00:55:15.440 The learning communities are a great opportunity to do that. 00:55:15.940 --> 00:55:18.340 Hey, here, I just, real quick, let me roll through this just for, 00:55:18.500 --> 00:55:23.520 I don't know why, but with this microchurch learning community, 00:55:24.140 --> 00:55:27.140 the eight sessions, why we're doing microsite, number one. 00:55:27.220 --> 00:55:29.240 Number two, control accountability and reporting. 00:55:29.740 --> 00:55:30.600 What are the options there? 00:55:30.660 --> 00:55:31.380 What does that look like? 00:55:31.480 --> 00:55:35.260 Recruiting, equipping, and empowering the leader is going to be option three. 00:55:35.600 --> 00:55:37.520 Number four, location, location, location. 00:55:37.660 --> 00:55:38.720 Where are you doing this thing? 00:55:39.080 --> 00:55:40.180 And it doesn't make sense. 00:55:40.520 --> 00:55:42.600 How do you be missional with where you're putting these things, 00:55:42.680 --> 00:55:44.560 where it makes sense with the people you're working with? 00:55:44.880 --> 00:55:49.000 Number five, technology and non-technology solutions for microchurch. 00:55:49.100 --> 00:55:50.660 Some really interesting things coming up there. 00:55:51.260 --> 00:55:53.980 Number six, budgets, tithes, and voting. 00:55:54.600 --> 00:55:55.720 How are you going to handle that? 00:55:55.800 --> 00:55:58.220 Number seven, scaling and reproducing. 00:55:58.700 --> 00:56:02.980 What does it look like to scale and reproduce these microchurches? 00:56:03.060 --> 00:56:08.420 Or even get a microchurch or a microsite creating and birthing its own microsites. 00:56:08.520 --> 00:56:10.040 And you start to see generations happen. 00:56:11.060 --> 00:56:14.140 And then number eight, experimenting, failing, and iterating. 00:56:14.780 --> 00:56:18.420 I guess maybe that should be fail, experiment, and iterate. 00:56:18.540 --> 00:56:19.320 But we can talk about that. 00:56:21.120 --> 00:56:24.140 Those are the eight sessions that we're going to get into here with the learning community, 00:56:24.420 --> 00:56:26.620 with the microsites. 00:56:26.620 --> 00:56:28.380 And I'm excited. 00:56:30.700 --> 00:56:35.380 I'm excited to see what God's going to do through this and the others. 00:56:36.160 --> 00:56:38.840 So, for more information on the microchurch learning community, 00:56:38.960 --> 00:56:42.300 check out the church.digital.lc. 00:56:42.360 --> 00:56:45.780 The church.digital.lc for a learning community. 00:56:46.540 --> 00:56:50.400 And then we'll continue to send some emails out promoting and getting the word out. 00:56:51.560 --> 00:56:54.200 And, hey, we're going to land the plane. 00:56:55.220 --> 00:56:58.420 Episode 298 is coming up next week. 00:56:59.700 --> 00:57:00.840 Hanging out with Tom Pounder. 00:57:00.880 --> 00:57:03.460 We're doing a stream with Tom here. 00:57:04.240 --> 00:57:05.140 It's a different time. 00:57:05.200 --> 00:57:06.020 And I think we're going to change it. 00:57:06.060 --> 00:57:08.780 So, I'm not going to advertise when we're doing it. 00:57:08.900 --> 00:57:12.700 But check the Discord calendar for Tom. 00:57:13.120 --> 00:57:14.160 And, no, it's coming up. 00:57:14.220 --> 00:57:14.760 We're talking YouTube. 00:57:14.980 --> 00:57:16.480 Tom's doing some phenomenal stuff with YouTube. 00:57:17.040 --> 00:57:18.000 Decided to get that out there. 00:57:18.060 --> 00:57:18.620 298. 00:57:19.000 --> 00:57:20.280 And we're actually going to start. 00:57:21.260 --> 00:57:24.180 Tom, I believe, is going to start streaming here on Discord as well. 00:57:24.300 --> 00:57:26.760 I'm doing some live shows like I am. 00:57:26.760 --> 00:57:30.500 I'm so excited to get more shows and more guys in here streaming and engaging. 00:57:30.760 --> 00:57:31.780 There's more gals as well. 00:57:32.520 --> 00:57:35.020 Excited to see Tom come do that. 00:57:35.420 --> 00:57:37.100 And, hey, we're going to land the plane. 00:57:37.360 --> 00:57:38.660 So, appreciate it. 00:57:38.820 --> 00:57:39.840 It's been a great podcast. 00:57:40.000 --> 00:57:42.320 I have talked for 57 minutes straight through. 00:57:43.200 --> 00:57:45.020 With only a couple of Diet Coke breaks. 00:57:45.260 --> 00:57:46.200 And so, it's good to do that. 00:57:46.300 --> 00:57:48.560 One edit in the live stream. 00:57:48.660 --> 00:57:50.420 And, of course, everybody was great. 00:57:50.500 --> 00:57:52.440 Whitebeard, thanks for your help and fact-checking. 00:57:53.740 --> 00:57:55.440 Chezify just walked in at the last minute. 00:57:55.520 --> 00:57:57.300 Flat cap and Trizzle. 00:57:57.980 --> 00:58:00.100 Nice to meet you all and hang with you as well. 00:58:00.220 --> 00:58:03.620 If you've got any questions, feel free to hit me up on the Discord. 00:58:04.320 --> 00:58:14.960 And if you're not in Discord, what the garbage is wrong with you, Discord, and open up a web browser, go to Discord, D-I-S-C-O-R-D, D-I-S-C-O-R-D dot church dot virtual. 00:58:15.500 --> 00:58:23.440 That'll get you in, create an account, jump in, say hi to somebody, and all sorts of fun stuff happening there in Discord. 00:58:23.800 --> 00:58:25.820 So, more questions, feel free to ask. 00:58:26.000 --> 00:58:27.180 See me there. 00:58:27.520 --> 00:58:28.160 Talk with you all in.