WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:09.760 all right hey everybody welcome to the church digital we are doing a special 00:00:09.760 --> 00:00:18.760 live stream i i i want to call this episode 344 numbers uh escaped me we actually talked about 00:00:18.760 --> 00:00:22.160 this yesterday on the normal stream like i just i lose track of numbers these days but 00:00:22.160 --> 00:00:29.020 i am very excited about the conversation at hand we're bringing on we're bringing on uh maybe you 00:00:29.020 --> 00:00:33.420 know i started to call him the the father of like modern church movement but i don't know 00:00:33.420 --> 00:00:39.300 if that's weird to anyway we're bringing on alan hirsch into the conversation very excited 00:00:39.300 --> 00:00:48.260 um about alan uh a vision on visioneer uh for for many uh church multiplication organizations 00:00:48.260 --> 00:00:53.560 and movements and really just an inspiration uh to me in general and we're going to get into 00:00:53.560 --> 00:00:59.860 into some things alan's been a supporter of of digital church of of digital missionary for for 00:00:59.860 --> 00:01:06.080 a while and really what we're going to get into today um is is the is the heart of digital what's 00:01:06.080 --> 00:01:13.260 the role that digital plays in incarnational ministry now right there that question already escapes my 00:01:13.260 --> 00:01:19.000 um my my general knowledge consensus knowledge so probably we're going to start the conversation 00:01:19.000 --> 00:01:24.860 with hey alan what exactly is incarnational ministry and then we'll get into the deep end of the equation 00:01:24.860 --> 00:01:31.660 because uh you know i just ain't that bright uh but hey before while i ain't that bright uh we we do 00:01:31.660 --> 00:01:37.020 work a little hard here with the church digital and i've been promising this so we the church digital 00:01:37.020 --> 00:01:44.840 we did a digital missionary conference uh back in april early april april 2nd and had 1100 people show up 00:01:44.840 --> 00:01:51.860 day of from 80 some countries around the world an incredible online conference super excited about it and 00:01:51.860 --> 00:01:57.540 you know of course uh when you do one thing well you've got to build on that and so we had announced 00:01:57.540 --> 00:02:03.560 that we were doing a fall digital missionary conference and uh and so we but we didn't just 00:02:03.560 --> 00:02:10.340 want to stop at one missionary conference we are doing four we're doing a series of summits 00:02:10.340 --> 00:02:17.180 uh for uh the digital missionary conference in september and october and i told everybody 00:02:17.180 --> 00:02:22.660 that we were going to tease them we're going to come up with the titles we're going to announce them 00:02:22.660 --> 00:02:29.060 today and so i am a man of my word we're going to get to alan hirsch in one second but i told you 00:02:29.060 --> 00:02:35.360 we're going to be rolling out the new digital missionary summit series the series of conferences 00:02:35.360 --> 00:02:44.160 we are going to be doing online 100 free uh for for anyone and everyone uh around the world this fall 00:02:44.160 --> 00:02:50.840 and so uh you know someone somewhere has got to have a drum roll happening uh jesse carbo is not 00:02:50.840 --> 00:02:56.140 doing one off camera right now even though i wish he were but let's just go ahead and roll this out 00:02:56.140 --> 00:03:03.200 um we are doing thank you jesse too little too late but uh we've got four of them coming up 00:03:03.200 --> 00:03:10.540 first up uh let me see if i can zoom in i can't can i zoom in yeah there first up we're doing on 00:03:10.540 --> 00:03:19.980 september 17th digital neighborhoods discipleship happens where life does now um this is probably of 00:03:19.980 --> 00:03:25.740 the four that we're doing in the fall this is the one that is the the most uh discipleship centric 00:03:25.740 --> 00:03:31.900 uh digital discipleship this is the probably the one that's the most general across the board that 00:03:31.900 --> 00:03:38.820 we designed one conference for everybody and so that's going to be september 17th information is 00:03:38.820 --> 00:03:49.080 available at missionary.digital the website missionary.digital the second conference of the digital 00:03:49.080 --> 00:03:57.040 missionary conference is oh that oh it's actually this is the third one the fourth one is a secret i 00:03:57.040 --> 00:04:04.280 see what we did here the third conference october 1st the european digital missionary conference this is 00:04:04.280 --> 00:04:12.380 we're in partnership uh with a european german missionary conference um uh miss uh mission alliance 00:04:12.380 --> 00:04:19.000 and so we're excited uh about the european uh digital missionary conference this this conference is going 00:04:19.000 --> 00:04:25.360 to be interesting they're going to have like 10 or 11 ted talks like 11 or 12 minute ted talks 00:04:25.360 --> 00:04:30.620 boom boom boom boom rapid fire excited about how this one's going to be coming out with the european 00:04:30.620 --> 00:04:37.400 digital missionary summit the third summit that we're doing actually it's the last one uh time wise 00:04:37.400 --> 00:04:45.320 october 8th is the digital missionary gaming summit now this one we're actually hosting in discord 00:04:45.320 --> 00:04:54.720 excited about this one but the it's a gaming summit and designed for people that are uh doing ministry 00:04:54.720 --> 00:05:03.840 in and around gaming spaces so twitch discord inside video games uh even some metaverse vr stuff's going 00:05:03.840 --> 00:05:10.960 to be happening in this one and so we've we've got neighborhoods uh second we've got european 00:05:10.960 --> 00:05:16.240 third we've got the gaming now we had announced those three previously there jeff there's nothing new 00:05:16.240 --> 00:05:22.080 here i know i know i know be patient the next one this is the new one we had not previously announced 00:05:22.080 --> 00:05:31.200 this one yet and this is going back to september 24th we are doing uh a a a christ-centered recovery 00:05:31.200 --> 00:05:38.960 recovery a digital recovery conference creatively titled control art recover uh i'm gonna be honest 00:05:38.960 --> 00:05:45.360 that was uh chat gpt let's give credit where credit is due chat gpt is a freaking genius uh yes it will 00:05:45.360 --> 00:05:50.000 take over the world one day yes but we're gonna enjoy the time leading up with that as much as we can 00:05:50.000 --> 00:05:56.400 all right so we are doing a a conference centered around uh honestly the necessity for recovery in 00:05:56.400 --> 00:06:02.560 digital spaces and uh well if we're gonna shine light into the darkness of digital we need to be 00:06:02.560 --> 00:06:09.200 prepared to shine that light on ourselves and so recovery is not just for people with addictions it is 00:06:09.200 --> 00:06:16.400 really for all of us and in a personal level i can tell you that it is highlighted uh that it is magnified 00:06:16.400 --> 00:06:23.760 that is amplified uh my ministry after going through that and in resolving some of the issues that some 00:06:23.760 --> 00:06:28.320 of the baggage that i've carried in my own weight so we are doing in my own life we're doing four 00:06:28.320 --> 00:06:37.200 conferences overall uh first off september 17th is going to be the um digital neighborhoods conference 00:06:37.200 --> 00:06:44.640 september 24th wednesday um recover uh recovery conference third is going to be the european 00:06:44.640 --> 00:06:53.360 conference and fourth is going to be the digital gaming conference digital missionary gaming summit 00:06:55.440 --> 00:07:00.080 yeah that's all i got commercial wise i i told you like i have people that want me to say this for a 00:07:00.080 --> 00:07:06.800 while even my own team we're excited putting this together uh we have been busy booking people uh from 00:07:06.800 --> 00:07:15.520 all sides of the planet um europe to south africa to california to you know i i'm trying to find 00:07:15.520 --> 00:07:22.720 somebody out in like uh singapore to book in to get like the asia pacific islands and hey for the stream 00:07:22.720 --> 00:07:31.040 today we're bringing in uh someone from uh oceanica and so excited for this so so let me uh to it let me 00:07:31.040 --> 00:07:38.160 push the button and bring everybody on uh but let me set up how we ended up here by the way uh alan 00:07:38.160 --> 00:07:44.800 hirsch thank you for joining us once again uh jesse carbo is no stranger to the church digital founder of um 00:07:45.440 --> 00:07:52.960 digital missions project project shins is singular singular or plural it's plural plural digital 00:07:52.960 --> 00:07:59.600 missions project and is on the the board of the church digital as well so excited to have uh both 00:07:59.600 --> 00:08:08.400 of you all on today now jesse started a um it was writing an article for missio nexus that actually got 00:08:08.400 --> 00:08:16.160 published uh alliance missio alliance i'm sorry uh and it got published a month ago uh jesse maybe you 00:08:16.160 --> 00:08:21.520 want to highlight that a little bit sure sure yeah missio alliance um you can find them at missio 00:08:21.520 --> 00:08:27.680 alliance.org and we wrote an article called beyond twitch incarnational ministry in everyday digital 00:08:27.680 --> 00:08:33.840 spaces really just talking about can you do incarnational ministry in the digital space and so 00:08:33.840 --> 00:08:39.680 yeah i'm looking forward to this conversation with uh true missiologist here with us from australia yeah 00:08:40.720 --> 00:08:44.960 yeah so what what i really found out is while talking to jesse about that article 00:08:45.760 --> 00:08:50.880 the more that i was like oh my gosh i really wish we could get like alan hirsch and ask him a couple 00:08:50.880 --> 00:09:00.240 questions uh about this and and so we did and so really wanted to um invite alan to come on and start to talk 00:09:00.240 --> 00:09:07.920 to us a little bit uh as a as a alan is it i can call you a digital supporter like i don't want to put 00:09:07.920 --> 00:09:15.840 words words in your mouth there right yeah sure i i certainly support this i do not claim any speciality 00:09:15.840 --> 00:09:24.880 in it um i follow uh at a bit of a distance uh somewhat um amazed at uh what's going on but uh but 00:09:24.880 --> 00:09:30.880 certainly i i think um we we need to explore this this whole field so you're very much a supporter 00:09:31.600 --> 00:09:39.440 i i love this and so a digital friendly guy who understands incarnational ministry my let's let's 00:09:39.440 --> 00:09:44.720 bring him in and let's start to maybe pull back uh some of the curtains here and get a better 00:09:44.720 --> 00:09:50.240 understanding uh but hey i i don't want to assume anything because i'll be honest i and i'm not 00:09:50.240 --> 00:09:54.640 kidding i don't think i really understood what jesse meant when he said incarnational ministry 00:09:54.640 --> 00:09:57.920 uh until i said hey jesse when you say incarnational ministry what do you mean 00:09:58.480 --> 00:10:06.800 so so alan uh the the uh missiologist that you are uh in in less than i don't know two million words 00:10:06.800 --> 00:10:15.200 what exactly do we mean when we say incarnational ministry yeah if you you picked up on the fact that 00:10:15.200 --> 00:10:21.200 um i call myself the lord of the long answer right so in less than two million words i think yeah i 00:10:21.200 --> 00:10:29.040 mean i've got a counter over here so talk slowly yes uh well talk slowly uh no i'll go as quickly as 00:10:29.040 --> 00:10:37.680 i can well incarnational ministry essentially um is a form of uh mission engagement with the world that 00:10:37.680 --> 00:10:47.040 models on what god has done in jesus christ in becoming a human being so when we talk about the 00:10:47.040 --> 00:10:55.040 incarnation of the son of god and the incarnation of uh logos whatever that we we we i mean it's a 00:10:55.040 --> 00:11:02.480 remarkable act right so like here we have the reality of the eternal god the maker of words worlds with 00:11:02.480 --> 00:11:11.520 words um who speaks the universe into being is eternally present uh actually becomes one of us 00:11:11.520 --> 00:11:17.840 and is in the neighborhood for 30 years and no one even noticed right no one figured it out hey 00:11:19.040 --> 00:11:24.800 the person who created the universe is you know right there in my neighborhood in fact they mostly missed 00:11:24.800 --> 00:11:31.200 it um and then even his disciples don't get it until much much later in the game right that who they're 00:11:31.200 --> 00:11:38.160 dealing with here and uh so there's something about the hiddenness of god in in in the human or in the 00:11:38.160 --> 00:11:44.160 ordinary that is kind of played out here and i often so in forgotten ways i play it out this way that 00:11:44.800 --> 00:11:52.000 i talk about the six pieces way of trying to frame the incarnation and then translate the incarnation into 00:11:52.000 --> 00:11:58.240 our mission incarnational mission so first let's look at the incarnation you look at jesus would you discover 00:11:58.240 --> 00:12:06.560 that jesus became one of us is present i talk about presence in the neighborhood uh the reality that in 00:12:06.560 --> 00:12:14.080 jesus god became fully and whole wholly present within human existence right so that's one presence is 00:12:14.080 --> 00:12:21.520 fully present proximity it's kind of similar to presence but um is in not only in the neighborhood 00:12:22.080 --> 00:12:26.960 he um he's not only a human but he's in the neighborhood but he's also involved where other 00:12:26.960 --> 00:12:34.240 people are so he's in the the marketplaces the pubs uh you know in the streets where people are is in 00:12:34.240 --> 00:12:40.480 proximity to them this will relate a little bit to maybe when we talk about this uh you know in third 00:12:40.480 --> 00:12:47.120 places and fourth places engaging those kind of spaces um other one we say is powerless that he comes not as 00:12:47.120 --> 00:12:53.760 the kind of conquering king but as a kind of suffering servant and this also says a lot about the 00:12:53.760 --> 00:13:01.680 incarnation uh the kenosis we talk about in theology of the self-emptying of the son of god um powerless uh 00:13:01.680 --> 00:13:10.080 prevenience that's an interesting one um uh when jesus says i only do what i see the father doing 00:13:10.880 --> 00:13:16.720 he's recognizing that god's already gone ahead and he attempts to pay attention to what god's doing 00:13:17.520 --> 00:13:23.760 and and do what god does right um and this is really important you know in in our 00:13:25.040 --> 00:13:30.320 going into kind of areas where we i'm unclear of what's going on we just find out what god's doing and 00:13:30.320 --> 00:13:38.320 join with him proclamation that's when we proclaim the gospel jesus did became the kingdom um but it 00:13:38.320 --> 00:13:43.120 usually this plays out very well once you've done the other ones um you know once you've actually 00:13:43.120 --> 00:13:48.800 established credibility presence you know seen what god is doing you're acknowledging it the only other 00:13:48.800 --> 00:13:54.720 one i would add is passion and this we my wife added this into the equation she talks about the 00:13:54.720 --> 00:14:02.320 incarnation of the heart uh where we engage sympathetically with the pathos or the suffering 00:14:02.320 --> 00:14:09.200 or the anxiety of the human situation and condition so you know where we feel what god feels and these 00:14:09.200 --> 00:14:16.560 are all based uh on the on what jesus experiences the six p's but they translate into incarnational mission 00:14:16.560 --> 00:14:22.560 as well so we follow you know we do the same thing we need to be present in the neighborhood we need to be in 00:14:22.560 --> 00:14:28.720 proximity with people be in contact with him now we find out what god's doing we proclaim the gospel and 00:14:28.720 --> 00:14:35.600 the kingdom of me and we feel what others feel we we have an incarnation yeah that's broadly the way i 00:14:35.600 --> 00:14:45.520 kind of talk about at least in one of my books that makes sense no totally and uh even with the accent 00:14:45.520 --> 00:14:55.200 um like just once again you know i'm hearing very smart words uh empathy proximity uh presence eternal 00:14:55.200 --> 00:15:02.000 um is this is it's it's it's a it's a rich picture i i think that that you're you're painting here 00:15:02.000 --> 00:15:11.120 uh and but you know a lot of this like the presence the proximity um often it's perceived to be missing in 00:15:11.120 --> 00:15:20.560 digital or it's it's the absence of it digital is the um is the cheap version of it i cannot be with you in person 00:15:21.120 --> 00:15:28.320 and so instead i will facetime you um i i cannot be with you in person so i am going to 00:15:29.040 --> 00:15:38.240 write this email instead um i i i would love to maybe just the dialogue some with you just even like a 00:15:39.280 --> 00:15:51.120 shooting from the hip um what what is the role of of digital what is the the what part does it play in a 00:15:52.000 --> 00:16:01.840 uh in uh incarnational uh ministry in an incarnational relationship what what what should digital be it 00:16:01.840 --> 00:16:11.520 for this well um jeff i can't i i mean i i i can't like i said speak as an expert in digital i'm not 00:16:12.160 --> 00:16:17.760 but i i am aware and i've spent a lot of time trying to think about the role of technology in our lives 00:16:18.960 --> 00:16:27.360 and um the digital space uh vr kind of spaces uh that you often engaged in are simply expressions of 00:16:27.360 --> 00:16:33.680 how technology impacts us um for instance i mean like a hundred years ago whenever the phone was 00:16:33.680 --> 00:16:41.760 uh invented it creates the same conditions maybe less impact but you know when you know people at a 00:16:41.760 --> 00:16:50.240 distance can talk to each other and uh this you know that already starts the process of 00:16:51.440 --> 00:16:57.840 depersonalizing to some degree um which can be problematic um but 00:16:59.520 --> 00:17:06.080 we have somehow managed to kind of integrate it pretty well in fact i think telephones and and cell 00:17:06.080 --> 00:17:12.320 phones etc etc now are actually ways in which we keep in touch with each other and probably have a more 00:17:12.320 --> 00:17:19.440 relational connection than simply what was before that was letters which is another technology if you 00:17:19.440 --> 00:17:26.560 will uh you know that was used much slower and also deeper not personal but yet personal you know but 00:17:26.560 --> 00:17:33.120 i i just think playing that out i think digital is is an is an example of that but taken at a whole 00:17:33.120 --> 00:17:40.480 different level and um there are problems in it i think we need to be very clear but there are also 00:17:40.480 --> 00:17:46.720 opportunities representing to us and actually uh challenges which we as christians who have got an 00:17:46.720 --> 00:17:56.080 obligation to be present in all spaces where people are um when we follow the incarnation we you know we 00:17:56.080 --> 00:18:01.280 say what would jesus do here i mean what's the incarnation mean in the digital space i think we have to be 00:18:01.280 --> 00:18:06.960 present have to be have to have proximity we need to kind of feel what you know to engage where people 00:18:06.960 --> 00:18:14.400 are at to feel what they're feeling and to humanize them um to bring dignity to bring good news in in 00:18:14.400 --> 00:18:20.320 those kind of spaces so i think it's a very much a it's a good challenge for us and i think you guys are doing 00:18:20.320 --> 00:18:28.480 the truth yeah go ahead i think alan a good a good follow-up question would be is would jesus use digital 00:18:31.520 --> 00:18:38.960 uh yeah that's interesting question uh you know i'm i'm much more engaged uh with ai um and the same 00:18:38.960 --> 00:18:45.360 question might come about with that um the one the way i actually think about ai it's going to be as i 00:18:45.360 --> 00:18:54.240 i think jeff has really said it's going to rule us entirely but um but the the when you see this in 00:18:54.240 --> 00:19:01.760 in a broader context um ai is not god even though it's going to pretend to be omniscient and omnipresent 00:19:01.760 --> 00:19:08.080 it's going to actually be highly problematic in that regard because it displaces god in a lot of 00:19:08.080 --> 00:19:13.520 people's lives you're going to turn to ai for all your answers you know not to pray you know that's going 00:19:13.520 --> 00:19:23.840 to be an issue no question about it but um but but god's still sovereign um ai isn't independent 00:19:23.840 --> 00:19:30.480 uh reality and even it was god is still a lord over all things so it fits within god's overall frame 00:19:30.480 --> 00:19:38.560 and in his purposes it's not that he's surprised oops they created ai you know um i think he knows what's 00:19:38.560 --> 00:19:45.920 going on but it doesn't mean it's not going to cause great confusion and complexity for us down below here 00:19:46.640 --> 00:19:53.120 and um and i think the same as digital i mean it's would he use it um yeah i think it's a created form 00:19:53.920 --> 00:20:00.160 uh i think he would um but i do think you know there might be a challenge there to constantly remember 00:20:00.160 --> 00:20:06.080 that actually embodied relationships you couldn't have a marriage online could you i mean you could you 00:20:06.080 --> 00:20:10.720 get head in that direction but you couldn't really you certainly couldn't make babies and don't think 00:20:10.720 --> 00:20:17.600 about that too much online um which kind of shows you like somewhere along the line that you know 00:20:17.600 --> 00:20:22.480 ultimately these things are personal yeah and relationships are deeply personal and embodied 00:20:22.480 --> 00:20:29.280 experiences um i think that might be just a you know just to just to keep it it's it's it's not 00:20:30.160 --> 00:20:37.600 ultimately real but it's definitely real but not not perfect right yeah yeah you're right it has its 00:20:37.600 --> 00:20:47.200 limitations digital um like like a lot of things in life there are limitations to us to its use um and 00:20:47.200 --> 00:20:55.040 you know to its use case right and um uh using the phone analogy like like and i think i would even want 00:20:55.040 --> 00:21:02.400 to go back and say that even if we take digital off the table when we talk about incarnational ministry 00:21:03.360 --> 00:21:12.720 and we look at ministry leaders church leaders i think that's a struggle for a lot of pastors to even 00:21:12.720 --> 00:21:17.520 live it out even if you take digital off the table and we're not trying to figure out like what's the 00:21:17.520 --> 00:21:24.720 the digital solution many pastors that i you know even myself when i pastored for 25 plus years like 00:21:24.720 --> 00:21:34.080 the temptation to shut the door to my office at the church building and be totally unaware of what's 00:21:34.080 --> 00:21:42.080 happening in the neighborhood right and expect people in my church to invite people to this gathering on 00:21:42.080 --> 00:21:50.480 sunday morning and consider that ministry and all i do is preach and maybe counsel during the week 00:21:51.200 --> 00:21:57.040 and we really miss the picture of what it means to be incarnational and so so going to your phone 00:21:57.040 --> 00:22:10.160 analogy i can use the telephone to promote my product or i can use the phone to be present and to listen and 00:22:10.160 --> 00:22:16.640 to connect and to build a relationship yeah right and so it's really about the question isn't so much for 00:22:16.640 --> 00:22:24.000 me would jesus use it but how would he use it how would he use technology to be present in people's 00:22:24.000 --> 00:22:31.840 lives to to bring truth to bring the gospel to build relationship and i think that's the real 00:22:33.200 --> 00:22:39.280 like if we really get down to it like the church right now in the west like we're introducing all 00:22:39.280 --> 00:22:43.600 the technology is moving so fast like i think you know you were saying you don't want to be an act 00:22:43.600 --> 00:22:47.920 you don't want to be a self-proclaimed expert i don't either because i don't think jeff does either 00:22:47.920 --> 00:22:56.560 because technology is moving so fast and changing so much i mean i'm the generation that the internet 00:22:57.120 --> 00:23:05.440 you know started you know and i tell my kids you know my youngest is 17 and i'm like oh baby i remember 00:23:05.440 --> 00:23:10.720 when internet was you know that dial-up modem and you had to wait 10 minutes before it was ready to 00:23:10.720 --> 00:23:16.240 use you know it had to warm up and it had all these weird sounds and she has no idea i mean she has to 00:23:16.240 --> 00:23:22.560 watch a youtube video just kind of see what that was like you know and um technology just moves so fast so 00:23:22.560 --> 00:23:31.920 it's so i think there's an incredible opportunity for us to help encourage pastors to think more like 00:23:31.920 --> 00:23:38.400 missionaries today i'm even though i have an organization called the digital missions project 00:23:39.360 --> 00:23:43.520 it really is a project because a lot of my conversations really are coaching and encouraging 00:23:43.520 --> 00:23:51.200 pastors to to really think about intention like what is the intention behind your ministry and and 00:23:51.200 --> 00:23:56.480 and how do you live that out even with digital off the table forget about digital like like how do you 00:23:56.480 --> 00:24:01.200 live that out like what how do you do you know what's going on down the street do you know your 00:24:01.200 --> 00:24:08.960 neighbors like i'm in a church office here and you know this church has an issue with like they don't 00:24:08.960 --> 00:24:12.240 even know who their neighbors are they have the same people that have been coming here 00:24:13.120 --> 00:24:18.800 for the last 40 years and that's it and hopefully with this new pastor they just got there'll be some 00:24:18.800 --> 00:24:24.000 revitalization work and they got to knock on the doors and get to know the people that live here 00:24:26.240 --> 00:24:33.840 so yeah oh i think that's very very very useful and very good comment um and i do think um yeah we 00:24:33.840 --> 00:24:41.760 can be highly disincarnated in ordinary ministry so you know any any criticism we might put into kind 00:24:41.760 --> 00:24:47.440 of issues of digital i mean it's just applies all around as you've well stated but the other i think 00:24:47.440 --> 00:24:53.520 that in your article uh you you said as well which i think is really good point is that not to 00:24:54.720 --> 00:25:01.760 simply use the digital space as a place for marketing or selling something but for actual 00:25:02.640 --> 00:25:10.000 being present to people that are there and and having regularity in that um being there for them 00:25:10.000 --> 00:25:16.160 listening humanizing like i said you know properly rather than simply using you know internet as a 00:25:16.160 --> 00:25:20.080 kind of way of kind of getting your ideas out you know i think it was a useful comment too bro 00:25:20.800 --> 00:25:27.840 yeah yeah not 90 i think 99 of churches right now in the west the way that they use digital 00:25:27.840 --> 00:25:33.200 is really just a marketing tool they're blasting and from yeah they're yeah it's a platform they're 00:25:33.200 --> 00:25:41.520 just blasting information about their events um the next thing that's coming up and they're not 00:25:41.520 --> 00:25:47.440 they're not having conversations they're not engaging i remember one time i was at a pastor's retreat 00:25:47.440 --> 00:25:53.520 maybe about a year ago last september and um we were talking about this digital and and this pastor 00:25:53.520 --> 00:25:59.920 new church planner from from from from los angeles he said to me he goes man i want to use digital 00:25:59.920 --> 00:26:07.360 and social media but i don't want to be a tick tock dancing pastor like in his mind the way to use 00:26:07.360 --> 00:26:12.640 technology is that he had to be like one of these tick tock dancing pastors and i said no not at all like 00:26:12.640 --> 00:26:19.280 he's like well how how would you like what would i do and i said well here's a thought like do you 00:26:19.280 --> 00:26:24.480 use whatsapp he's like oh yeah every day do the people in your church use whatsapp okay what if you 00:26:25.600 --> 00:26:29.920 said that on sun you know if you preach your sermon on sunday morning what if on sunday evening 00:26:30.640 --> 00:26:34.720 you said you were going to be on whatsapp for an hour answering questions and having dialogue and 00:26:34.720 --> 00:26:41.520 conversation about the sermon that that morning i mean this was like a mind-blown moment for this 00:26:41.520 --> 00:26:46.640 guy he left there goes man i'm gonna do that that's so simple i don't got to be a tick tock i'm like 00:26:46.640 --> 00:26:52.080 technology can be used in meaningful ways to build relationships and engage people and take people 00:26:52.080 --> 00:26:58.000 further but we just haven't we haven't i think part of the reason why we haven't thought about how to do 00:26:58.000 --> 00:27:03.680 that digitally is because we're not even doing that physically like in irl right in real life we're 00:27:03.680 --> 00:27:12.000 struggling even there yeah yeah do you think your your tick tock pastor your tick tock dancing pastor 00:27:12.000 --> 00:27:23.040 jesse if he had one hour a week to give would he rather do like that be available in physical space 00:27:23.600 --> 00:27:30.880 or be available like that digitally i don't know i don't know if he would rather 00:27:32.000 --> 00:27:37.120 be available physically or digitally but here's what i do know culturally people are less and less 00:27:37.120 --> 00:27:44.640 willing to do things physically because of busyness calendar competition people just have so much on 00:27:44.640 --> 00:27:53.520 their plate and because of the ability of digital technology right people are just i mean look at the 00:27:53.520 --> 00:28:00.880 trend of church attendance it's it's in decline yeah what's not in decline is is um the number of 00:28:00.880 --> 00:28:06.720 people that are following christian content online like there's a movement of young people that are 00:28:06.720 --> 00:28:12.880 coming to jesus because of christian influencers online so it's not that people are disinterested in 00:28:13.760 --> 00:28:23.280 christianity jesus spiritual truth people are more guarded about what they commit to physically you know 00:28:23.440 --> 00:28:28.560 participating in right so i don't know if the pastor you know he might say yeah yeah i'm willing to get 00:28:28.560 --> 00:28:34.640 together with people physically my point is that like if you live in a community where people aren't 00:28:34.640 --> 00:28:39.360 willing to get together physically then how do you reach them yeah how do you disciple people 00:28:40.400 --> 00:28:43.840 who are less commit like we so we jeff you and i live in miami 00:28:44.640 --> 00:28:52.800 that culturally here in miami people are very non-committal you know when i led the network 00:28:52.800 --> 00:28:57.760 here for eight years we would invite hundreds and hundreds of pastors to come to events and i would 00:28:57.760 --> 00:29:02.800 get all these in you know all these yes we'll be there but it was always like i'm just gonna it's 00:29:02.800 --> 00:29:06.320 more like i'm saying yes just in case i don't have something better to do 00:29:08.720 --> 00:29:14.720 so so what do you do in that situation like yeah you you want to challenge people and encourage 00:29:14.720 --> 00:29:19.840 people there's there's times like you can't make babies digitally you know you got to get together 00:29:19.840 --> 00:29:26.640 in person so there's times when you have to challenge and push for that physical connection 00:29:26.640 --> 00:29:34.000 and and get in person but then the question is like you know what are how how can we think creatively 00:29:35.040 --> 00:29:41.120 about using technology in a way that a lot that creates the room for us to have discipleship 00:29:41.120 --> 00:29:45.920 oriented conversations and not discipleship oriented when i say discipleship i'm talking about 00:29:46.800 --> 00:29:51.360 not just spewing content out of people that they would consume 00:29:53.920 --> 00:29:59.440 but conversations that motivate people and encourage people towards obedience of the lordship of jesus 00:30:02.240 --> 00:30:09.040 alan maybe maybe you can help me with this i it's it's funny we we've used to you were talking 00:30:09.040 --> 00:30:15.120 earlier about um you know even the having babies uh you know you can't do that physically or can't do 00:30:15.120 --> 00:30:23.520 that digitally i'm not going to prove you can um but i i i would say that there's a um there's a 00:30:24.320 --> 00:30:30.560 a conception a perception that i'm totally confused now but there's a perception that 00:30:32.640 --> 00:30:40.560 a lot of humanity is lost digitally like even that's the knock on on chat gpt is the more that we use ai 00:30:40.560 --> 00:30:47.840 the more that we lose our our humanity uh and and oftentimes i've i have found you know this is 00:30:47.840 --> 00:30:55.600 non-scientific uh study here but you know the the converse is is true as well that that digital is a 00:30:55.600 --> 00:31:04.720 tool that actually can allow you to engage um relationally it can be used as a communications tool 00:31:04.720 --> 00:31:11.840 but it is also a very powerful tool towards being able to be in presence with one another um you know 00:31:11.840 --> 00:31:19.600 when my wife and i were in college 25 years ago we were paying mob bell 10 cents a minute to to talk on 00:31:19.600 --> 00:31:26.800 the phone cross country and now you know we can pick up any device and i can be looking at her uh for 00:31:26.800 --> 00:31:34.640 free essentially and so like technology is moving and is and is overcoming some of that that that 00:31:36.000 --> 00:31:42.480 human traits that was once lost um or that has taken a while to really start to understand 00:31:44.480 --> 00:31:50.160 what do you say to a pastor yeah you don't delve much with the the technology but 00:31:50.160 --> 00:32:01.200 um when you talk with people that are are very locked into a way of of doing church you know 00:32:01.200 --> 00:32:07.280 so much of what you're doing is even on on that outskirts uh of of new norms and an established 00:32:07.920 --> 00:32:14.560 uh kind of challenging the established norm so to speak how do you help them try to see something 00:32:15.360 --> 00:32:22.160 different uh how how do you coach them walk with them what are those conversations with you normally look 00:32:22.160 --> 00:32:33.520 like that's a good question um um i would just make a comment just briefly before i get to that um 00:32:33.520 --> 00:32:43.120 about like i found um this very medium or zoom you think about over i know that you're in florida you 00:32:43.120 --> 00:32:51.360 didn't experience uh covered and all that stuff but the rest of the world did um we were you know we 00:32:51.360 --> 00:32:55.680 were living in new york where it was getting really quite hectic so we we actually left to go back home 00:32:56.320 --> 00:33:04.640 with family um and then you know almost up but was it two and a half two three years of kind of messy 00:33:04.640 --> 00:33:10.160 kind of life lockdowns you know we were in the most locked down city in the world in melbourne here in 00:33:10.160 --> 00:33:17.200 australia but um with zoom you know it and i realized i mean this was the way i kept connected 00:33:17.200 --> 00:33:23.600 and in fact it's a very useful it's a very useful uh way of being connected with a lot more people 00:33:23.600 --> 00:33:30.800 than i could normally be and it's kind of pretty much free and secondly i don't have to travel so i'm 00:33:30.800 --> 00:33:37.440 saving on all kinds of technologicals and you know producing too much kind of you know carbon emissions 00:33:37.440 --> 00:33:46.720 etc so no i i think there are a lot of really really good things uh in in in technology but in terms of 00:33:46.720 --> 00:33:54.240 like um the you know people looking at things differently um one of the things we you know 00:33:54.240 --> 00:33:58.800 because we do with a lot of people helping them think about church in the different frames so 00:33:59.360 --> 00:34:04.720 um often people think of church in the legacy model as a building you know kind of picture it like this 00:34:05.280 --> 00:34:11.120 it's got steeple it's always got steeple got pews you know all that stuff in it uh that's what the 00:34:11.120 --> 00:34:20.400 church is and helping people think differently about that um you often have to um help them to go on an 00:34:20.400 --> 00:34:27.840 unlearning journey in order to learn new things you have to unlearn things that are kind of holding to a 00:34:27.840 --> 00:34:33.920 certain paradigm so actually you know developed a process of that called the metanoia curve for 00:34:33.920 --> 00:34:39.680 metanoia journey metanoia means paradigm shift by the way and it's a biblical word for repent well 00:34:39.680 --> 00:34:45.360 repentance is a very bad translation actually uh when you do you translate metanoia 00:34:45.680 --> 00:34:56.880 meta you know what that is don't you meta is beyond over um noia is your thinking now is your mind so 00:34:56.880 --> 00:35:01.600 you're thinking what comes out of your mind so thinking fundamentally differently to the way you're 00:35:01.600 --> 00:35:06.880 thinking now so in other words experiencing paradigm shift and this is cooked into biblical spirituality 00:35:07.600 --> 00:35:12.880 we're meant to have an ongoing experience of this i would argue any move towards god requires it 00:35:12.880 --> 00:35:17.680 because god's ever greater god's going to always blow your mind right you can never put god in a box 00:35:18.800 --> 00:35:25.040 if you put god in a box you gotta repent it's called idolatry and uh and it's not god that you've 00:35:25.040 --> 00:35:31.600 got in the box and your little doctrinal boxes so the idea of having always having your mind blown 00:35:31.600 --> 00:35:38.000 willing to think differently it's actually a critical part of biblical spirituality actually and you're never 00:35:38.000 --> 00:35:43.360 going to learn about anything without unlearning stuff that got you to the point where you are now 00:35:44.240 --> 00:35:49.120 so i that's kind of the thing we we take very very seriously in whatever you're grappling with 00:35:49.920 --> 00:35:55.120 uh in order to learn something new radically new what are you willing to unlearn first 00:35:55.760 --> 00:36:02.800 sometimes our commitments to past traditions or ways of thinking limit our capacity to engage what god is 00:36:02.800 --> 00:36:08.880 doing in the current moment so being open to the present means being open to having your mind blown 00:36:08.880 --> 00:36:24.160 to learn again so we're using digital beyond a communications tool we're not just selling 00:36:24.160 --> 00:36:33.840 something with this but if we're leaning into um creating community if we're developing uh using this 00:36:33.840 --> 00:36:43.040 technology for presence uh to reinforce proximity uh to maybe engage with people um 00:36:45.120 --> 00:36:46.560 using this technology 00:36:48.800 --> 00:36:54.720 as a as an on-ramp maybe there are people that are more digitally friendly that we want to 00:36:55.360 --> 00:37:01.040 engage with in that way before we get to uh engaging them into a physical space 00:37:01.600 --> 00:37:08.720 is that is this what i'm i'm hearing from the group uh from the two of you as we're talking about 00:37:08.720 --> 00:37:13.200 the role of of digital in um incarnational 00:37:16.240 --> 00:37:20.480 jesse i think you've got the you've got this brother what are you feeling yeah you know what 00:37:22.720 --> 00:37:30.400 so my adhd like just went into hyperdrive because he said something about unlearning and now i can't help 00:37:30.400 --> 00:37:37.920 but like i'm just been processing this idea of like you know with technology it's always forward 00:37:37.920 --> 00:37:43.600 movement it's always like learning something new and then you just presented this idea of metanoia and 00:37:44.400 --> 00:37:53.120 how we have to unlearn and it's got me it's got me processing like how do you help in a culture 00:37:54.720 --> 00:37:58.960 where everything's about like learning you know think about like all the pastor conferences that are 00:37:58.960 --> 00:38:05.040 out there you know pastors go to there's so many conferences and you know we want to learn like what's 00:38:05.040 --> 00:38:12.560 the next thing to get better more efficient more effective reach more people grow get bigger and 00:38:12.560 --> 00:38:18.080 then you're saying for us to be able to do this we actually have to unlearn 00:38:20.400 --> 00:38:29.440 that seems almost almost impossible or incredibly difficult yeah 00:38:32.560 --> 00:38:37.840 it is very difficult and changing in a system is it takes real commitment 00:38:38.560 --> 00:38:45.520 but sometimes circumstances kind of force us into that so like you know um again i i lament this 00:38:45.520 --> 00:38:50.320 friends you know like what covered had the opportunity of teaching us is about decentralized 00:38:50.320 --> 00:38:57.920 forms of ecclesia you know in smaller more reproducible homegrown local owned kind of version 00:38:57.920 --> 00:39:04.000 of ecclesia networked as a movement it was a fantastic opportunity for the church to unlearn 00:39:04.000 --> 00:39:10.960 and re-learn and to find a new and far more productive less expensive way of doing church but 00:39:10.960 --> 00:39:15.120 hell no we're not going to go there it's going to be doubled down and for most churches it's gone 00:39:15.120 --> 00:39:20.240 back to the standard form because that's all they knew um and it's partly 00:39:20.240 --> 00:39:28.000 because people weren't willing to let go of prior ideas that they deeply invested in how to get 00:39:28.000 --> 00:39:31.920 someone to understand something when their salary depends on them not understanding it 00:39:34.480 --> 00:39:37.760 often the leaders are the ones most vested in the prevailing system so 00:39:38.400 --> 00:39:43.840 actually winning them over is a difficult thing but i would like to think that the kingdom of god 00:39:45.200 --> 00:39:54.080 or to challenge us you know to constantly uh unlearning and constant growth um and not sitting with 00:39:54.080 --> 00:39:59.200 kind of prevailing forms of church that but for us largely was settled in the 16th century we're 00:39:59.200 --> 00:40:06.000 not even living there now why would we insist on running churches like in 16th or 18th depends on 00:40:06.000 --> 00:40:15.120 your tradition right um if you're catholic back even further you know why would we assume that the ecclesiology uh which is 00:40:15.120 --> 00:40:21.600 is if the ecclesiology idea of church is really not just a physical building it's kind of a set of 00:40:21.600 --> 00:40:25.440 assumptions about how the church relates to the world and the purpose of the church in the world 00:40:26.240 --> 00:40:31.280 and the way that we've normally conceived it is profoundly in effect it's not effective anything 00:40:32.160 --> 00:40:39.520 and it's incredibly expensive so i know this because we've done research that in america when you put the 00:40:40.080 --> 00:40:47.280 budgeting and the cost of running the church in america on every on an annual basis up against the conversion 00:40:47.280 --> 00:40:55.440 rates in in america it's 1.4 1.4 million dollars per convert in america wow 00:40:57.600 --> 00:41:07.040 1.4 million per convert yeah you talk about an expensive system that's ineffective i mean that's 00:41:07.040 --> 00:41:14.960 a good enough reason to change yeah and yeah sorry again for us to it's often bound up with the fact 00:41:14.960 --> 00:41:20.640 that we invested in this so often it's a financial issue yeah i need to get money for my family to get 00:41:20.640 --> 00:41:25.440 yeah you're committed you're locked in yeah yeah and so you're locked into a system like that but we have 00:41:25.440 --> 00:41:30.560 to free ourselves as leaders from those kind of constraints in order to kind of lead the church into 00:41:30.560 --> 00:41:36.720 new ground and i think again the digital it could prove to be a really a wonderful way of actually 00:41:36.720 --> 00:41:43.760 investing our resources imagine if you put 1.4 million dollars into your digital strategy you know i think 00:41:43.760 --> 00:41:49.440 you'd get a few more converts if you did it well and you did it incarnationally uh you'll get a few 00:41:49.440 --> 00:41:58.880 more converts than you would by running the standard system yeah yeah all right so are you saying so 00:41:58.880 --> 00:42:04.640 i'm just curious i want to go back because you said since covid it seems to you as you because you i feel 00:42:04.640 --> 00:42:11.920 like you have a a pretty good pulse of the church landscape i mean i'm not i'm not assuming that you know 00:42:11.920 --> 00:42:19.280 about everything everywhere but you're talking to network leaders um you know really on an 00:42:19.280 --> 00:42:26.480 international level so you're saying your sense is that people have doubled down on the old way 00:42:26.480 --> 00:42:32.160 of doing church and are unwilling to do because i and the only reason i'm asking is because from my 00:42:32.160 --> 00:42:37.920 perspective which again is very limited compared to your perspective like i'm friends with the guys 00:42:37.920 --> 00:42:43.360 over at the tampa underground you know kc underground those guys you know they've been doing what they've 00:42:43.360 --> 00:42:51.120 been doing for so long and all of a sudden post-covid it seems like there's been this burst of people 00:42:51.120 --> 00:42:59.040 very interested in kind of a decentralized approach to ministry that conversation has gained a lot of 00:42:59.040 --> 00:43:04.240 momentum from my perspective again which is very limited no no you're absolutely right jess i i think you 00:43:04.240 --> 00:43:12.000 are um but i would say the overwhelming uh predominant kind of church has gone back to running sunday 00:43:12.000 --> 00:43:21.840 services yeah but now there are actually real live we call them proof of concept uh movements 00:43:22.560 --> 00:43:28.000 that are around now and the microchurch movement being one of them that are actually demonstrating 00:43:28.000 --> 00:43:33.040 another way and that's the proof of concept idea is really important because it'll show us a new way of 00:43:33.040 --> 00:43:37.840 doing things and by the way just on that fellas you know the reason why you one another reason why you 00:43:37.840 --> 00:43:43.760 want to get this right is that when you think about church growth theory well it was a theory it was 00:43:43.760 --> 00:43:52.720 brought by donald mcavern comes to fuller seminary becomes a professor there and he's a movement guy 00:43:52.720 --> 00:43:59.040 he's bringing movement thinking uh from from his experience i think it was india and um 00:44:00.800 --> 00:44:06.720 but this is combined with marketing and management theory you know with peter wagner and those dudes 00:44:06.720 --> 00:44:10.400 and it becomes what they call church growth theory contemporary church growth theory 00:44:11.360 --> 00:44:17.040 now it's a theory until two churches came along and gave proof of concept they were called willow 00:44:17.040 --> 00:44:23.200 creek and settled back um no i mean there were more but fundamentally those two were they created 00:44:23.200 --> 00:44:29.600 took this idea and they created two different systems they created huge platforms that prove that this 00:44:29.600 --> 00:44:38.400 is a way is viable and it's a way to go the rest of the church in the world went in the same direction 00:44:39.680 --> 00:44:44.320 and so all you need to do is to have a few examples of these where it's really kind of working 00:44:45.280 --> 00:44:51.280 properly theologically aligned and discerning your way properly you do that and everyone's going to 00:44:51.280 --> 00:44:57.440 follow and i think you might very well become one of those proof of concept organizations that you're 00:44:57.440 --> 00:45:06.720 looking for like yeah i agree yeah it makes a lot of sense and i've had a conversation with jeff many 00:45:06.720 --> 00:45:13.600 many times because you know not to put jeff on the spot but there's times when you know you know like 00:45:13.600 --> 00:45:19.040 anytime you lead an organization there are moments when you feel like giving up because you don't know if 00:45:19.040 --> 00:45:24.640 it's worth it anymore there's this there's these moments of uh is the word liminality right like 00:45:24.640 --> 00:45:31.520 like this this tension this this like is you know should i keep doing this and then you know and i just 00:45:31.520 --> 00:45:37.280 keep saying to jeff like like because he's an early adopter like he's a true early adopter he's been 00:45:37.280 --> 00:45:47.760 doing digital ministry since how long jeff since 2000 maybe 2000 like yeah so so yeah i'm like man i to me the 00:45:47.760 --> 00:45:52.560 sense at least in my gut is that we are one to two years out before 00:45:55.040 --> 00:46:02.400 digital ministry breaks loose across the church globally because well not even globally in the west 00:46:03.280 --> 00:46:07.840 i say not globally because like i'm connected to people that are doing things in the 1040 window and 00:46:07.840 --> 00:46:14.640 that's the only way christianity is growing in the 1040 window is because of digital yeah there are more 00:46:14.640 --> 00:46:21.120 converts that come to christ because of digital tools um because they can't do it in person 00:46:22.160 --> 00:46:29.840 immediately and so digital has become one of the mechanisms for allowing the movement of christianity 00:46:29.840 --> 00:46:39.040 you grow in places where it's illegal so but yeah i think yeah digital has it's it's a heart it's hard to 00:46:39.040 --> 00:46:49.120 adopt because they see it as a marketing tool to promote their their products and services um when it really 00:46:49.120 --> 00:46:55.760 needs to be more so yeah that's the conversation we've been having is like yeah but guys i think this way it 00:46:55.760 --> 00:47:04.240 becomes critically important to bring integrity to this practice uh online i think the incarnational 00:47:05.680 --> 00:47:14.080 frame gives you a very good example of how you can maintain a christ-like presence not something that's 00:47:14.080 --> 00:47:21.120 manipulative or un-christ-like which is there's more than enough of that crap going around yeah um you know 00:47:21.120 --> 00:47:29.280 but to actually uh commit yourself to you know what does it mean to be a genuine jesus-y presence online 00:47:29.920 --> 00:47:36.400 and then working that out which i think again um you know just your article is very good bro and i would 00:47:36.400 --> 00:47:43.440 say i think it still needs work and i think um guiding people because i think most folks go on board and they 00:47:43.440 --> 00:47:50.000 just they're pragmatic or they you know they want to market or sell ideas and create their own platforms 00:47:50.000 --> 00:47:55.840 um we're seeing where that goes right and we see what social media can do every idiot's got a 00:47:55.840 --> 00:48:02.000 bloody pulpit now haven't they you know and they're just ranting and i mean i can't even follow x anymore 00:48:02.000 --> 00:48:09.040 it's just vile you know and but so we as christians need to actually embody a very different way here 00:48:09.040 --> 00:48:15.280 and i think uh the discipline of actually you guys actually laying down the template 00:48:16.080 --> 00:48:22.720 um the default mode that might follow i think is very important to build in the kind of the character 00:48:24.160 --> 00:48:30.240 character issues maybe is a word or uh the kind of a good ethical approach to what does it mean to 00:48:30.240 --> 00:48:36.800 gauge online also kind of an awareness of technology and how it changes us we invent our tools and then they 00:48:36.800 --> 00:48:42.400 reinvent us social media is a classic where it's caused all kinds of problems in the world because 00:48:42.400 --> 00:48:49.440 people weren't aware of it so bring awareness bring thoughtful approaches to this you know in in your 00:48:49.440 --> 00:48:55.280 pioneering or or apostolic work and what you're doing now very very important you're laying down the template 00:48:57.920 --> 00:49:04.160 yeah it's interesting because yeah i mean you're talking language like you know like the pioneering 00:49:04.160 --> 00:49:09.200 work that needs to be done and in some ways it feels like well some a lot of this technology 00:49:09.200 --> 00:49:15.120 been around for a while but it's still so new and there's still so much to figure out and it moves so 00:49:15.120 --> 00:49:24.240 rapidly um yeah yeah and i think yeah we need to invite god's spirit in this process to help 00:49:25.520 --> 00:49:31.280 guide yeah because there's things we're going to get wrong yeah um the other thing i would also 00:49:32.480 --> 00:49:38.000 challenge again is something to really think about is to go on you know i'm just you would know this 00:49:38.000 --> 00:49:42.320 particularly i'm very big on movement so that's my shtick right you know idea of getting things that can 00:49:42.960 --> 00:49:49.920 scale and have large impact you know over time and uh and distance and i think the the 00:49:50.880 --> 00:49:57.920 the kind of digital world gives us incredible options there to actually start movements of common concern 00:49:57.920 --> 00:50:06.080 or you know jesus movements discipleship what does that look like online you know being you're building 00:50:06.080 --> 00:50:13.200 that out each of these become clearer as you build it out but the idea of movements and getting you know 00:50:13.200 --> 00:50:19.600 know and i need to spread um jesus idea to spread virally i think is something we need to put our minds to 00:50:20.320 --> 00:50:29.280 and again with you know with central ethical guidelines to it as well yeah it's really good 00:50:31.200 --> 00:50:41.680 really really good so you know for me it's been by the way if there's questions uh in the audience um 00:50:42.320 --> 00:50:48.560 kiwi's having like a side conversation uh as kiwi normally does when he's on these things it's a lot of 00:50:48.560 --> 00:50:57.840 fun to see um he's a genius he should be on here yeah meta he should um yeah he can take my spot that'd be 00:50:57.840 --> 00:51:12.000 awesome um metanoia it's you wrote the book back in 22 23 published it uh 22 23 somewhere somewhere in 00:51:12.000 --> 00:51:19.760 there um yeah yeah we we've talked we've talked about that that in the past um and in coming from 00:51:19.760 --> 00:51:25.280 a guy who's been doing digital ministry since the 2000s like it's literally i launched my first online 00:51:25.280 --> 00:51:35.520 community uh april 15 2000 um i uh oftentimes i i've been told no it doesn't work that way like 00:51:35.520 --> 00:51:42.000 literally the same argument to for 25 years no it doesn't work that way and and it centers around 00:51:42.960 --> 00:51:51.920 the church's use of digital community that the church should not use digital community digital 00:51:51.920 --> 00:51:59.200 community is um forgive me is the bastard child of physical community um it there's no there's no 00:51:59.920 --> 00:52:06.640 god doesn't belong in that space um you you can insert you can you can look at my youtube comments 00:52:06.640 --> 00:52:13.760 uh centered around virtual reality and find lots of people that think that uh the devil is uh is in 00:52:13.760 --> 00:52:20.160 these digital and virtual spaces yet yet we're we're finding that god is is moving and that people are 00:52:20.160 --> 00:52:26.560 finding christ and are being discipled and amongst these spaces atheists are coming to christ um 00:52:27.520 --> 00:52:35.040 agnostics are discovering jesus unchurched or re-engaging and even evangelizing and discipling 00:52:35.040 --> 00:52:42.480 others uh and this is not a once again this is the the forgetting uh the unlearning portion of it 00:52:42.480 --> 00:52:49.120 that we're not it's not a broadcast model it's uh it's a conversational it's a relational evangelism model 00:52:49.120 --> 00:52:55.920 a relational discipleship model and it's um and it's picking up it's picking up steam we're still 00:52:55.920 --> 00:53:05.840 young with this approach um it is a true missionary model it is going to where the people are at 00:53:06.480 --> 00:53:12.880 yeah and where that's really the question you know we we've really pushed this idea of platforms as 00:53:12.880 --> 00:53:21.440 places that we look at at twitch the platform of twitch the community around twitch the community of 00:53:21.440 --> 00:53:27.600 discord the community of vr chat the community of facebook in many of the same ways that a normal 00:53:27.600 --> 00:53:36.320 missions agency would look at uh india china brazil uh and and in that way like like forcing this 00:53:36.320 --> 00:53:43.840 digital community is a community worthy of a church mindset um and that you know has been 00:53:44.960 --> 00:53:53.680 well received by some and not well received by others i i would love if if i could maybe just a little bit 00:53:53.680 --> 00:53:59.840 of your time here let's for sake of argument let's flip the script here a little bit on 00:54:00.480 --> 00:54:05.680 incarnational ministry alan you're usually good at thinking on your feet here um 00:54:07.360 --> 00:54:13.520 incarnational usually would be micro i'm existing in the neighborhood in i have a presence in the 00:54:13.520 --> 00:54:19.120 neighborhood there's a proximity relationship to that and that's where it is and yes we can use 00:54:19.680 --> 00:54:24.480 digital as a way to complement that proximity to get people in whether or not or things like that 00:54:25.520 --> 00:54:32.080 typically where i you know rewrite the script flip the script and try to do the unlearnings and this is 00:54:32.080 --> 00:54:37.680 where it's been a little hard as as of late is this platforms as places where now i'm saying that 00:54:38.240 --> 00:54:44.800 you know in discord as it is in the neighborhood and and discord is the neighborhood as well 00:54:46.240 --> 00:54:52.640 what what are some of the opportunities or constructive challenges of putting 00:54:55.120 --> 00:55:02.480 platforms as neighborhoods as neighborhoods if we're looking at incarnational ministry in these spaces 00:55:03.120 --> 00:55:06.480 what what are some of the challenges or opportunities we may be seeing 00:55:09.280 --> 00:55:13.040 well i think we've already covered a few of them um the um 00:55:16.240 --> 00:55:24.800 i i i i think um you know like going back to the the issue of marriage um which is maybe one of the 00:55:24.800 --> 00:55:34.240 ultimate forms of uh human love and ultimately the you know we human beings probably do need physical 00:55:34.240 --> 00:55:41.840 contact um i wouldn't i wouldn't say that it's either or i would simply say i think it's a legitimate 00:55:41.840 --> 00:55:48.400 space to engage and for some people this is where they could go to church i think it's quite clear 00:55:48.400 --> 00:55:54.240 and the fact is i mean like we you know the prevailing churches might might critique it but 00:55:54.240 --> 00:55:59.280 it's not that you know most churches are great places to belong either you know you go there you 00:55:59.280 --> 00:56:06.320 get basically preached at or you get some sort of religious experience but you know they're limited 00:56:06.880 --> 00:56:13.760 so they can be kind of inauthentic in themselves you know so you know if if it is you know that you 00:56:13.760 --> 00:56:18.560 know it's jay craanda over it's so funny you're talking about uh saddleback jay craanda digital 00:56:18.560 --> 00:56:24.960 pastor over at saddleback anytime he sees me he he's like you know how you know it's uh talking about 00:56:24.960 --> 00:56:30.400 incarnational well yeah but you can't you can't have sex digitally well i mean technically you probably 00:56:30.400 --> 00:56:34.480 could but that's not and that's not a good thing and we don't want to get it too deep into that 00:56:34.480 --> 00:56:41.280 but you know the bible ironically you know paul talks about being single uh and and then there's 00:56:41.280 --> 00:56:47.600 there's the flip side towards towards a lot of this and so there are people that live without that 00:56:48.320 --> 00:56:54.960 and and i i do not believe physical or digital like it's not it's both there is there you know i'm not 00:56:54.960 --> 00:56:59.440 saying it's hybrid i don't want to use that that term in that but there's physical selves and there's 00:56:59.440 --> 00:57:07.360 digital selves in that where there's a proximity towards it but um towards both sides of it are 00:57:09.840 --> 00:57:18.320 do you see where there's an opportunity to to build relationships that exist only in digital space 00:57:21.200 --> 00:57:29.200 i think there will be uh situations where that is the case um um again i i don't know enough about it 00:57:29.200 --> 00:57:34.720 um but i think like there are there are some problems related to that with some of the japanese kids who're 00:57:34.720 --> 00:57:42.160 gonna do gaming and don't leave their rooms for 23 hours or something like that and um i i think there 00:57:42.160 --> 00:57:51.840 will be uh unintended effects uh of going all out in any technology um we invent our tools they have an 00:57:51.840 --> 00:58:00.240 unintended reciprocal effect on us um not all of them healthy uh ai is going to be a classic case in 00:58:00.240 --> 00:58:06.560 point it was a big one bigger than digital proper because it displays human intelligence and it does 00:58:06.560 --> 00:58:11.520 a cracker job of it and it doesn't matter whether you know the theoreticians tell us it doesn't think 00:58:11.520 --> 00:58:19.280 like a human i said it doesn't matter but 99 of people are going to treat it like it's god yeah you 00:58:19.280 --> 00:58:24.480 know yeah so we're going to be thinking like it will not it thinking like we will at some point 00:58:25.200 --> 00:58:31.760 we're going to sound smarter you know uh but we're going to be dumber because we won't do much thinking 00:58:31.760 --> 00:58:36.400 for ourselves anymore and that in the long run i don't think is good for us so we need to be aware 00:58:36.400 --> 00:58:42.960 of that technology does have a reciprocal effect and that's you know we need to just be aware of it 00:58:43.680 --> 00:58:50.400 uh when we inflict it upon other people just to try and predict that you know again we couldn't have 00:58:50.400 --> 00:58:56.720 predicted this with social media uh but it has changed things in the the whole anxious generation 00:58:56.720 --> 00:59:03.840 stuff and um you know kids now just almost completely you know you know posing for the camera you know 00:59:05.600 --> 00:59:11.680 it's it's changed things it had a huge impact on society and not all a bit good some of it's very 00:59:11.680 --> 00:59:19.760 good i just think we need to think both ways about it and be i think a wholesale engagement with it um 00:59:19.760 --> 00:59:25.920 you just got to be critically aware good and evil in all things and we need to have discernment of 00:59:25.920 --> 00:59:32.960 spirits that's good that's good what we solve the world's problems tonight 00:59:35.360 --> 00:59:43.360 hopefully we made people think a little more more deeply about it yeah what um it's the other side of 00:59:43.360 --> 00:59:52.560 the planet where alan's at so uh it's uh thursday morning where he is so he the future does exist we 00:59:52.560 --> 01:00:02.400 do we do make it uh to that point um any uh you know i don't want to take up too much more of alan's time 01:00:02.400 --> 01:00:10.720 but um uh closing thoughts jesse as we're wrapping up here anything on your side no i just i'm super grateful for 01:00:10.720 --> 01:00:18.000 you alan um you've had such a profound impact on the church at large and in my life and you know we 01:00:18.000 --> 01:00:22.720 started a network here in miami and i remember we we started this gospel leadership network and i remember 01:00:22.720 --> 01:00:28.720 you challenged me you said you should call it the jesus leadership network and and your challenge really 01:00:28.720 --> 01:00:34.400 like knocked me back and i was like i was so gone because i was part of this like young and reformed 01:00:34.400 --> 01:00:39.840 group of guys and it was like gospel leadership and you challenged me and i was like later i look 01:00:39.840 --> 01:00:43.520 back and i'm like yeah alan was right i should have changed the name right away like on that day i should 01:00:43.520 --> 01:00:49.920 have changed the name and uh wish i had but i didn't and then uh you and i had a chance pre-covid 01:00:49.920 --> 01:00:56.960 i think it was the fall of 2019 to go to cuba and train some church planners and i thought about this 01:00:57.680 --> 01:01:02.160 because we were talking about incarnational ministry and we met with that cuban actor 01:01:02.160 --> 01:01:08.160 and got to share the story of the of the prodigal son and he was so you know a self-acknowledged 01:01:08.160 --> 01:01:12.800 agnostic you know who basically was like i don't believe in god but he loves pachi and he just wanted to 01:01:12.800 --> 01:01:19.280 like be with us at dinner and and i just remember you and and robert and pachi sharing the story of 01:01:19.280 --> 01:01:25.040 the prodigal son with him and he was so blown away and and i just kept looking around and i'm like what 01:01:25.040 --> 01:01:31.040 am i doing at this table like i shouldn't be here like this is this is somebody snuck me in you know 01:01:31.040 --> 01:01:37.360 maybe they don't see me over here but um but i'm just great grateful for you and thank you thank you 01:01:37.360 --> 01:01:42.160 for everything yeah thank you just i feel the same way bro what am i doing at the table uh honestly 01:01:42.800 --> 01:01:50.000 and i often find myself pinching you know pinching myself thinking oh my god it's probably because 01:01:50.000 --> 01:01:54.960 it's probably because deb lets you be at the table because she's really the she's the best one you 01:01:54.960 --> 01:02:01.280 know she's she's amazing yeah it's uh it's all about the women giving the the men permission to be 01:02:01.280 --> 01:02:10.800 every man marries up that's something we can can certainly 100 hey alan as as we're wrapping up um 01:02:10.800 --> 01:02:19.920 any closing thoughts on your side today no i i guys just keep going um you know i'm i pray for you 01:02:19.920 --> 01:02:28.080 uh rooting for you um i think what you're doing is absolutely critical um and let's keep keep keep 01:02:28.080 --> 01:02:34.560 the journey going but yeah and just stay centered on jesus like jess was saying love it well i tell you 01:02:34.560 --> 01:02:40.240 what you can't go wrong if you become more like jesus so just stay close it's gonna be good it's good 01:02:40.240 --> 01:02:47.840 all right kiwi's got a question we'll ask alan to wrap up here uh how will our effortless and daily 01:02:47.840 --> 01:02:55.040 connections digitally affect the way we understand the role of the church i think he's got to answer that 01:02:56.720 --> 01:03:04.240 isn't that normally what he does it's it's like he he he pokes the bear with the question a little bit 01:03:04.240 --> 01:03:10.000 knowing that he's got like the right hook ready to swing uh anything you want to anything you want to 01:03:10.000 --> 01:03:16.800 share here i think what he's saying is i mean we clearly engage um digitally all the time including 01:03:16.800 --> 01:03:21.680 what we're doing now uh these things are really part of what we're doing how do they affect us as the 01:03:21.680 --> 01:03:26.880 church well i think they do play a role i know we need to again be very aware of it and enhance it 01:03:26.880 --> 01:03:33.920 and be more jesus in our use of these things but um yeah but they do i mean technology impacts us in so 01:03:33.920 --> 01:03:44.960 many ways you know and we we're entering into a you know a technologically defined reality um i i actually 01:03:44.960 --> 01:03:52.640 think that there will be i predict this there will be pre-ai and post-ai like bc dc you know 01:03:55.040 --> 01:04:05.040 but um um i think that in if we kind of survive the 21st century they will kind of um mark it as 01:04:05.040 --> 01:04:13.120 as a kind of an era epoch difference so all that to say um because i think everything changes now from this 01:04:13.120 --> 01:04:21.600 point yeah i i just you just did say if we survive the 21st century like i i want to draw attention 01:04:21.600 --> 01:04:27.040 you did put an if in there right yeah i did put it okay all right all right i wasn't sure if it broke 01:04:27.040 --> 01:04:31.680 broke up in my ears just just one that's another podcast that's a whole that's all that is another 01:04:33.440 --> 01:04:40.080 it's it's i have all kinds of thinking about what's going on no but the uh the the post the ai as as 01:04:40.080 --> 01:04:47.840 as the the the time stamp the labeler uh is uh is beautiful yeah yeah i mean it's it'd be interesting 01:04:47.840 --> 01:04:56.160 as as you know bc ac before christ ano domini maybe that gets replaced uh in time 01:04:56.880 --> 01:05:02.560 it might be supplemented but um i do think we're going to see the world as before it's like we can even 01:05:02.560 --> 01:05:10.320 say internet was just uh resourcing information for us it was unbelievable but it didn't do our thinking 01:05:10.320 --> 01:05:16.880 for us right ai actually goes into the very core of human consciousness the language language goes to 01:05:16.880 --> 01:05:22.480 the very center of how we think the internet distributed us it didn't it didn't replace us 01:05:22.480 --> 01:05:30.640 ai ai ai has the ability yeah that's right no i i get you that's interesting well in i'll reach out 01:05:30.640 --> 01:05:37.440 to you in 12 to 14 months and we'll have that conversation then if we still um if we're still 01:05:37.440 --> 01:05:45.600 around there's no promise all right so we're gonna we're gonna land the plane for uh for jesse for 01:05:45.600 --> 01:05:50.480 alan this is jeff at the church digital for a special wednesday stream thanks for hanging out with 01:05:50.480 --> 01:05:56.800 us today everybody and we'll see you next time on the show y'all have a good one have a good one