WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:07.980 Jeff here. We'll get back to the podcast in a second, but I wanted to let you know of an 00:00:07.980 --> 00:00:13.180 opportunity to help you further develop your church online. Here at The Church Digital, 00:00:13.380 --> 00:00:18.300 we found some of the best ways for churches to grow their ministry online is to work alongside 00:00:18.300 --> 00:00:25.080 other churches. To that end, The Church Digital is opening up some coaching cohorts in January 2020. 00:00:25.080 --> 00:00:29.560 Through our cohorts, you'll be connected with churches with similar goals in place in ministry, 00:00:29.740 --> 00:00:34.040 and work through these goals together over the six months under the guidance of the crew 00:00:34.040 --> 00:00:40.460 here at The Church Digital. In 2020, invest in your church online. Invest in you. For more information 00:00:40.460 --> 00:00:47.240 and to find out how you can save 20%, visit thechurch.digital.com. 00:00:50.760 --> 00:00:55.280 Hey, everybody. Welcome to The Church Digital Podcast. My name is Jeff, and it is a pleasure to 00:00:55.280 --> 00:01:00.940 have you join us today. We are on episode 41 of The Church Digital Podcast. This is the last 00:01:00.940 --> 00:01:06.900 episode of 2019, and I'm glad you all have joined us today. I've got Ray DeArmas, of course, guest host 00:01:06.900 --> 00:01:09.360 joining us. Hey, Ray, want to say hey? 00:01:09.780 --> 00:01:14.760 Hey, everybody. It's good to be with you again. Happy end of 2019. On to the next decade. Let's go. 00:01:15.300 --> 00:01:21.440 Yeah, so hope Christmas was good. And we wanted to wrap up 2019 in style here. As we want to just 00:01:21.440 --> 00:01:28.040 reflect back, we've done 41 of these episodes. And there was a gentleman's bet between Ray and I 00:01:28.040 --> 00:01:33.060 if we'd actually make it past eight. And so we're 41 in. I'm not going to tell you who won the bet, 00:01:33.200 --> 00:01:39.540 but actually I think it was Ray. It was Ray. It was not me at all. But we have done 41 of these. And 00:01:39.540 --> 00:01:44.120 just Ray and I were having a conversation, just all these lessons that we've learned through these 00:01:44.120 --> 00:01:49.840 conversations. Because Ray and I, when we started this podcast and doing this, we didn't know what 00:01:49.840 --> 00:01:55.680 we didn't know. And it was fascinating to listen to all of these different people with all of these 00:01:55.680 --> 00:02:02.120 different perspectives talk about what Church Online is and how they are executing their piece of 00:02:02.120 --> 00:02:08.520 church online, maybe at the churches or with the companies where they are at. And so Ray and I just 00:02:08.520 --> 00:02:14.080 came with this idea of, hey, let's do a podcast where we talk about six lessons that we've learned, 00:02:14.280 --> 00:02:20.640 three of each of us, from this podcast in 2019. So going back, hey, if you're like a sitcom guy, 00:02:20.940 --> 00:02:24.360 this is the highlight reel. We're going to go back. We're going to visit some old content. 00:02:24.740 --> 00:02:29.440 We're going to talk about it and highlight it. So you can get a chance maybe to go back and listen 00:02:29.440 --> 00:02:33.140 to these episodes as well. So Ray, you want to share anything on that? 00:02:33.760 --> 00:02:37.940 No, this is perfect. And for those of you jumping in, we're going to refer to past episodes that 00:02:37.940 --> 00:02:40.880 you'll be able to take a look at the show notes and just check out the links if you want more 00:02:40.880 --> 00:02:47.520 information about that. And let me tell you, I learned so much this past year because until Jeff 00:02:47.520 --> 00:02:50.740 and I really started doing this, I mean, we knew that people were doing things out there and they 00:02:50.740 --> 00:02:57.020 were trying things. But when you start to hear from different voices from people all over the United States, 00:02:57.020 --> 00:03:01.200 even some all over the world and just kind of engaging with them and finding out how they're 00:03:01.200 --> 00:03:06.900 using digital methods to disciple people. I mean, it's just amazing. It's powerful. And so let me 00:03:06.900 --> 00:03:11.920 encourage you, go ahead and core back through some of those old episodes, get engaged with it. You 00:03:11.920 --> 00:03:16.260 know, right now, some of you are probably on the drive. And so it's a good time to just binge listen 00:03:16.260 --> 00:03:20.880 to like a bunch of episodes. Go ahead and do it because you'll be surprised at some of the things 00:03:20.880 --> 00:03:24.500 that you'll unnerve, some of the gold that you might find for your church and how to disciple 00:03:24.500 --> 00:03:28.660 people online. It's good stuff. That's awesome. So we're going to kick it off. 00:03:29.240 --> 00:03:33.180 Number six, we're going to start from the bottom and work our way up. Ray, why don't you go first 00:03:33.180 --> 00:03:38.300 here? So what's one of the lessons that you learned listening or doing the interview, doing these 00:03:38.300 --> 00:03:45.100 podcasts in 2019? Let me tell you, Jason Morris's episode on the importance of a discipleship pathway 00:03:45.100 --> 00:03:51.020 for church online was so big because Jeff, you know, some churches are putting their sermons out there 00:03:51.020 --> 00:03:56.520 online. They're putting their messages out there. Some are streaming full-blown services. Some people 00:03:56.520 --> 00:04:02.900 are even dabbling in small groups, but not everybody is thinking step by step by step discipleship 00:04:02.900 --> 00:04:08.440 pathway in terms of how they're engaging their people online. And I'm telling you folks, this was like 00:04:08.440 --> 00:04:13.300 episode three or four for us. If you go back and listen to it, just hearing Jason's passion 00:04:13.300 --> 00:04:21.820 about discipleship. I mean, he's running the entire episode. I mean, he pretty much did all the content 00:04:21.820 --> 00:04:29.400 for us. It was amazing. Um, but just hearing his passion come out about helping people in their next 00:04:29.400 --> 00:04:36.020 step each. And I mean, going down to the minuscule small next steps in faith for people who are engaging 00:04:36.020 --> 00:04:40.560 online. That was just very powerful for me. And I want to encourage people. Are you thinking through 00:04:40.560 --> 00:04:47.280 that? Because for sure, Jason is. Yeah, I tell you, Jason, we commonly call him one of the OGs of 00:04:47.280 --> 00:04:52.600 church online, original gangsters, because he's been doing it for a long time. He's one of these guys 00:04:52.600 --> 00:04:59.760 that's been doing church online for 10 plus years and has gotten a lot of respect in context of his 00:04:59.760 --> 00:05:05.560 church and how he's been leading. I think his, his, his title's unique. It's not online pastor. It's 00:05:05.560 --> 00:05:11.400 like, it's global innovations pastor. That's literally how this man approaches and has been 00:05:11.400 --> 00:05:17.100 able to approach digital and church online and technology through the, the, the church out there 00:05:17.100 --> 00:05:22.900 at Westside family. And so he was key on episode six and you're, and you're right. He was a hundred 00:05:22.900 --> 00:05:28.740 percent passion coming in and talking about all, a lot of this stuff. And also on episode 32, 00:05:28.740 --> 00:05:34.280 where we talked about redefining the why of church online, which was tied into the church IT network, 00:05:34.640 --> 00:05:40.960 phenomenal thing. And really Jason hones in on that discipleship pathway, which is so key 00:05:40.960 --> 00:05:47.500 for a church online to move beyond just broadcasting the services to really connecting to the larger piece 00:05:47.500 --> 00:05:53.780 of why are we doing this broadcast? Why are we doing this ministry online? Is it not just to create 00:05:53.780 --> 00:06:00.900 consumers? It really should be to create disciples. I'll, uh, Matthew 28. Uh, and so I love Jason's 00:06:00.900 --> 00:06:06.000 passion in their work. And a lot of that, he really came down to, instead of designing this like 00:06:06.000 --> 00:06:12.440 massive complicated system that may or may not work, disciple the people that you have crack open the 00:06:12.440 --> 00:06:17.700 Bible and take them through it. It was really, I was expecting, I was the, really the surprise for me. 00:06:17.700 --> 00:06:22.800 And that was, I was expecting a much larger, this is, this is crazy plan that he would bring to the 00:06:22.800 --> 00:06:29.540 table, Mr. Global Innovation Pastor. And instead it was really a very simple message of disciple the 00:06:29.540 --> 00:06:36.200 people that you have online and God will bring you more. And so Jason for that, thank you very much. 00:06:36.280 --> 00:06:43.260 That was an awesome lesson to go through for me. And we'll call this number five, um, Eric Geiger. 00:06:43.260 --> 00:06:48.520 And this is a man who's very special to both Ray and I, uh, we had him on for a combo of episodes, 00:06:48.520 --> 00:06:53.960 uh, nine and 10, but really the, the heart of the conversation that we ended up talking about, 00:06:53.960 --> 00:06:58.060 we kind of veered off a little bit, which that's always where the fun is. Not when you stick to the 00:06:58.060 --> 00:07:01.820 script of what you want to, but when you really like get into the, into the beat of something. 00:07:02.120 --> 00:07:08.660 And so we really wanted to hone into, okay, lead pastor who may or may not have some issues with 00:07:08.660 --> 00:07:15.320 church online and definitely has maybe a different vision than, than some others. Like what is the 00:07:15.320 --> 00:07:21.080 issue with church online as a lead pastor? What are other issues? What are the issues that are out 00:07:21.080 --> 00:07:27.360 there that other lead pastors have? So help us understand. Cause, cause honestly, pre this 00:07:27.360 --> 00:07:32.300 conversation with Eric Geiger earlier this year, episode nine and 10, I could not answer this question. 00:07:32.720 --> 00:07:37.480 Like when I would drill into, I don't understand why you don't see how church online can work. 00:07:37.480 --> 00:07:44.820 And, and Eric very simply and eloquently helped me understand, okay, there's a, uh, theological issue 00:07:44.820 --> 00:07:48.760 that some churches will have with church online. And there's a practical issue that some churches, 00:07:48.880 --> 00:07:53.900 some lead pastors will have with church online. Now the theological, you know, this is like 00:07:53.900 --> 00:08:01.200 ecclesia defining the coming together, the gathering of believers that is in biblical times that's defined 00:08:01.200 --> 00:08:08.100 within physical space. And of course, you know, they didn't have zoom in a biblical time. So I don't 00:08:08.100 --> 00:08:15.480 know that the Bible context really figured out how to define community virtually. Um, and I think 00:08:15.480 --> 00:08:21.220 culturally community is being defined in a much different way in 2019 than it was, I don't know, 00:08:21.220 --> 00:08:27.320 you know, in the time of Christ or shortly after, uh, with, with the early church. And so, you know, 00:08:27.320 --> 00:08:32.060 wrestling with some of that and realizing, Hey, you know what, if, if your lead pastor really has a 00:08:32.060 --> 00:08:39.720 theological issue with church online, it's going to take a lot of effort, um, to shift that. And arguably, 00:08:39.720 --> 00:08:46.800 I don't know that you can. Um, and so feeling that tension now, now a more, uh, a more practical 00:08:46.800 --> 00:08:53.560 issue. Maybe the lead pastor doesn't understand how technology can help community come together. 00:08:53.800 --> 00:09:01.360 Maybe there's a misunderstanding or just the unawareness of how that can work and function. 00:09:01.360 --> 00:09:06.900 If it's a practical thing, that's a much easier conversation to have with, with a pastor 00:09:06.900 --> 00:09:13.500 than necessarily like a major, uh, theological issue. So Ray, what'd you, what'd you pull from that? 00:09:13.500 --> 00:09:17.740 You know, it's funny because just today I was having the conversation with somebody as far as 00:09:17.740 --> 00:09:21.980 where I considered my church community to be. And what I told them was, I didn't consider my church 00:09:21.980 --> 00:09:26.220 community to be there on Sunday morning. And this is actually somebody who's part of my church at 00:09:26.220 --> 00:09:29.380 Christ fellowship. Cause they were asking, cause obviously it's church online pastor. They're like, 00:09:29.440 --> 00:09:33.660 so how do you do church? And I was like, I do church both online, but I also do it in person. 00:09:33.660 --> 00:09:38.860 But I told him, honestly, my real community is in my small group. That's where my people are. 00:09:39.420 --> 00:09:45.080 And that kind of a shift from where our true community lies is something that church in general 00:09:45.080 --> 00:09:48.660 still struggles with. And I think that's a conversation that even Eric was comfortable 00:09:48.660 --> 00:09:54.160 with because in our large gatherings on Sunday mornings, it's too overwhelming. Even if you're in 00:09:54.160 --> 00:09:58.820 a church plant of like 50 to a hundred folks for an introvert like me, that's still too many people 00:09:58.820 --> 00:10:04.620 to get to know really. And so I can't necessarily plug in and do life with people there or feel known, 00:10:04.620 --> 00:10:10.460 like truly known or feel truly mentored and discipled. And so, you know, helping pastors see 00:10:10.460 --> 00:10:15.380 that in online environments, yes, there are large spaces that are overwhelming and where it could seem 00:10:15.380 --> 00:10:21.960 like people are disconnected. That's true in person and online as well, but there are also smaller 00:10:21.960 --> 00:10:28.160 environments that can take place through digital pathways in which people can be known. They can be seen. 00:10:28.160 --> 00:10:33.420 They can be heard and they can be discipled. And it was great hearing Eric just kind of engage with 00:10:33.420 --> 00:10:38.380 some of that from an honest perspective, because so often many people would kind of shy away or some 00:10:38.380 --> 00:10:43.140 folks might come on a podcast and not necessarily want to engage with full on honesty with some of 00:10:43.140 --> 00:10:47.840 their, you know, with some of their issues regarding some of those digital pathways. But I felt like 00:10:47.840 --> 00:10:53.060 Eric was honest with us. He was very open-minded and he was great. And I can really see Mariners 00:10:53.060 --> 00:10:57.220 experimenting with some of this stuff as they move forward, leveraging digital pathways to disciple 00:10:57.220 --> 00:11:02.220 people. Probably the thing that stood out for me in the conversation with Eric was this idea of 00:11:02.480 --> 00:11:08.560 consistency, making sure and helping your lead pastor maybe see some of where he is being 00:11:08.560 --> 00:11:16.100 inconsistent. Example would be, yeah, if you're doing multiple services, then like on any given 00:11:16.100 --> 00:11:22.900 Sunday or even like a Saturday and a Sunday service, then this idea of ecclesia is loosely defined. 00:11:22.900 --> 00:11:27.580 In biblical context, ecclesia was the physical gathering in one place. 00:11:28.080 --> 00:11:32.240 When you go to a two service or when you go to a multi-site model, and Jim Toberlin talked about 00:11:32.240 --> 00:11:37.640 this with the podcast as well. It's like when you start to do multiple within the same gathering, you're 00:11:37.640 --> 00:11:42.680 actually stretching that model of what ecclesia already is. 00:11:43.160 --> 00:11:47.900 And so if your pastor, I mean, I just, I kind of bang my head against the wall sometimes, honestly, 00:11:47.900 --> 00:11:52.540 when I talk to like a multi-site pastor who's like, yeah, I don't believe in church online or I have an 00:11:52.540 --> 00:11:58.180 issue with church online. I'm like, you've got six campuses all over the city. You've already shattered 00:11:58.180 --> 00:12:03.400 this idea of what biblical ecclesia is. And you won't acknowledge that it can work in a virtual 00:12:03.400 --> 00:12:08.920 environment. It's no different than what you're doing in these other areas. And so that's where, 00:12:08.920 --> 00:12:13.780 you know, kind of coaching and helping them through it and Geiger helping to show some of that and even 00:12:13.780 --> 00:12:19.380 how to help communicate with, with the lead pastor through that, you know, was, was really key. 00:12:20.020 --> 00:12:26.380 Absolutely. The next, the next learning part for me, which we would consider number four would be 00:12:26.380 --> 00:12:31.780 our conversation with Danielle Hicks regarding development of watch parties and even watching 00:12:31.780 --> 00:12:35.700 watch parties become campuses, like in the case with Elevation Church and what they did with 00:12:35.700 --> 00:12:40.640 Melbourne. That was pretty amazing. Mind-blowing even. And the fact that they even have the 00:12:40.640 --> 00:12:45.660 discipline, mind you, to keep a lot of watch parties just as that, as watch parties. And we're 00:12:45.660 --> 00:12:51.940 talking about like over a hundred people gathering in coffee shops or yoga studios to engage with the 00:12:51.940 --> 00:12:56.940 service, but also to be part of small groups and real life church community. And I think this is a 00:12:56.940 --> 00:13:00.240 safe space to say this. You know, when a lot of folks look at Elevation, they think of just 00:13:00.240 --> 00:13:05.480 Stephen Furtick or they think of just the worship team, but they're not necessarily looking at 00:13:05.480 --> 00:13:10.840 Elevation as actually striving to gather these people into groups and disciple them. And that's 00:13:10.840 --> 00:13:16.880 what Danielle is really bringing to the table. I mean, on a huge scale. And it was so inspirational 00:13:16.880 --> 00:13:22.320 to see them have both the discipline because even in, you know, Southern Baptist churches or in 00:13:22.320 --> 00:13:25.400 different churches, as soon as they start hitting those numbers, they're thinking, oh, let's, 00:13:25.520 --> 00:13:29.720 let's launch another campus. It takes a lot of discipline to pull back and say, no, no, no. We 00:13:29.720 --> 00:13:35.820 need to continue to develop leaders, to disciple more, to make sure that these people are actually 00:13:35.820 --> 00:13:40.120 in biblical community. And that's something that Danielle brought to the table that was very, 00:13:40.240 --> 00:13:46.040 very inspiring for me. Yeah. I got to tell you, Danny's was, was one of my, my favorites of the 00:13:46.040 --> 00:13:52.060 year as, as well. And I, it was one of the first exposures that I had had to like the inside 00:13:52.060 --> 00:13:57.300 behind the scenes of, of Elevation Church. And it was not at all what I, what I was expecting. 00:13:57.560 --> 00:14:02.920 A lot of the humility that she showed in that. And it was, for me, it was, it was, she was one of 00:14:02.920 --> 00:14:08.540 the first people that I heard say a phrase that I heard a lot afterwards. Hey guys, what we're 00:14:08.540 --> 00:14:13.220 doing right now, especially with like this micro location stuff, honestly, we don't know what we're 00:14:13.220 --> 00:14:18.040 doing. Yeah. We're experimenting with some things and what we're doing today, we're probably not going to 00:14:18.040 --> 00:14:25.380 be doing in six months because we're just learning in this thing. And to hear a big church, a giant 00:14:25.380 --> 00:14:30.180 church, one of the giga churches that are out there say, Hey, we don't know what we're doing. 00:14:30.180 --> 00:14:35.620 And kind of admitting that upfront to me, that, that gave me excitement for some of the smaller 00:14:35.620 --> 00:14:39.500 churches out there that, that are saying kind of the same things. Hey, we don't know what we're doing 00:14:39.500 --> 00:14:45.500 either, but just, okay, take that next step. Experiment, try, give it a shot, get the tires on it, 00:14:45.500 --> 00:14:51.400 do something. Um, and so it was really, it was a great episode there with, with Danielle episode 21. 00:14:51.560 --> 00:14:57.620 So be sure to check that out. We'll have the link in the show notes for that as well. So for me, 00:14:57.680 --> 00:15:03.260 um, the next episode that I wanted to hit on for the lesson and talking about humility, 00:15:03.260 --> 00:15:09.740 this is by far the most humble lead pastor I've ever talked to in my life. And this is Randy Kirk, 00:15:09.880 --> 00:15:15.380 who's up at first capital Christian church in Corden, Indiana. This is Tyler Sampson's church. 00:15:15.380 --> 00:15:20.220 It's the church anywhere program. We've talked about these guys a lot, but we actually did like a, 00:15:20.220 --> 00:15:27.120 a deep dive, a three episode, uh, span, uh, with, uh, the people of Corden, Indiana, 00:15:27.280 --> 00:15:33.900 first capital Christian, where we talked with a lot of their volunteers, uh, who are basically campus 00:15:33.900 --> 00:15:39.540 pastors doing the, the micro locations, being the pastors at these micro location services 00:15:39.540 --> 00:15:43.820 in Corden, Indiana. We talked with their discipleship team, who's creating this, uh, 00:15:43.820 --> 00:15:49.820 discipleship pathway. But this episode with, uh, with Randy was really where we delved into the, 00:15:50.360 --> 00:15:57.980 um, from a pastor level. So Randy's on the older side of life. Like, I'm not saying the man literally 00:15:57.980 --> 00:16:05.360 resigned on the podcast, but if you listen to it, you will hear him literally resigned on the podcast. 00:16:06.000 --> 00:16:10.600 And, and, and I got to tell you, like that kind of blew me away a little bit. So here's an older guy 00:16:10.600 --> 00:16:20.100 who's part of a movement, part of a church leading a church who's launched 18 plus micro locations. 00:16:20.360 --> 00:16:20.820 Amazing. 00:16:20.820 --> 00:16:27.300 And around the city, the church itself reaches about 1200 people within physical buildings. Last 00:16:27.300 --> 00:16:34.080 I heard they're reaching 800 people outside of the physical building in micro locations around this 00:16:34.080 --> 00:16:42.440 small town in Corden, Indiana, by the way, Corden, Indiana is about 3000 people. So like 1200 in the 00:16:42.440 --> 00:16:49.180 main building, 800 outside of the building. There's not a lot of overlap between like the physical and 00:16:49.180 --> 00:16:56.440 in the micro to reach in at least half the town as a small church. And as a, and as a lead pastor, 00:16:56.440 --> 00:17:03.500 to see him have these conversations humbly, uh, to, to making statements like, this isn't my kingdom. 00:17:03.980 --> 00:17:09.240 Um, this is God, this is God's kingdom that he's given me. I have to listen to the young leaders. 00:17:09.240 --> 00:17:14.940 I have to listen, man, what a challenge for, for lead pastors, for executive pastors, for leadership 00:17:14.940 --> 00:17:21.620 teams that are out there to not look at the church through just your own eyes, but to start to look 00:17:21.620 --> 00:17:27.160 at what can be and to start to empower some of these younger people like Tyler Sampson, who's doing a 00:17:27.160 --> 00:17:34.980 phenomenal job to step up and to bring in a new life and a new opportunity to reach people in a unique 00:17:34.980 --> 00:17:39.020 way. Yeah. What'd you think, Ray? And you know what, you know what, Jeff, I mean, so much of that was so 00:17:39.020 --> 00:17:43.000 powerful because I remember Tyler was super excited for us to talk to Randy and you don't often see 00:17:43.000 --> 00:17:46.920 that with the young guy, you know, older guy, kind of a scenario. Like normally he's trying to like 00:17:46.920 --> 00:17:51.480 stash him away. Like, Oh man, he's kind of not for this, but Randy has proved that age ain't nothing 00:17:51.480 --> 00:17:57.860 but a number. Let me tell you his missional mindset and his willingness to get out there and to try 00:17:57.860 --> 00:18:02.960 these digital pathways and to be so kingdom minded, Jeff, you're so right to be so kingdom minded to 00:18:02.960 --> 00:18:07.360 say, man, they never set foot in the door of our building, but if they're being reached for Christ 00:18:07.360 --> 00:18:13.300 outside the room, then we will have done our job is just so amazing and impactful. And I would pray 00:18:13.300 --> 00:18:19.100 that, that when we get to that stage of life, that we have the same both guts to keep trying new things 00:18:19.100 --> 00:18:24.420 and willingness to do so. But at the same time, the same kingdom mindedness to one throw the keys to 00:18:24.420 --> 00:18:28.580 younger leaders like Tyler, the guy like Tyler could go anywhere, but he's following Randy. You 00:18:28.580 --> 00:18:33.540 could see why just from that interview. I mean, it's just an amazing kind of thing where Randy's 00:18:33.540 --> 00:18:37.840 empowering and he's saying, no, go take it. Like continue to push the ball forward for kingdom 00:18:37.840 --> 00:18:43.020 practices and kingdom methods, man. And it's just a phenomenal thing that they've got going on over 00:18:43.020 --> 00:18:48.640 there. And so for sure, go back, take a listen. It's impactful. It'll change your perspective as far 00:18:48.640 --> 00:18:53.080 as, oh man, folks who are older in your church, whether or not they'll be pro church online. Listen, 00:18:53.580 --> 00:18:57.160 we've seen it over and over again in the podcast, and we've even seen it over and over again in real 00:18:57.160 --> 00:19:03.900 life. Folks who are entering what I consider this new era of being a grandparent, they're not afraid of 00:19:03.900 --> 00:19:09.380 technology. They're not afraid of tech. I mean, you can go listen to the episode where we interviewed 00:19:09.380 --> 00:19:15.860 Jeff's mom. You've heard me talk about my father and how he's interacting with tech, like often on the 00:19:15.860 --> 00:19:19.560 show in terms of his engagement with YouTube and all sorts of stuff. Let me tell you folks, 00:19:19.840 --> 00:19:25.260 Randy is a prime example. The age is nothing but a number. And we have a lot of people in our 00:19:25.260 --> 00:19:29.300 churches that want to reach people and they want to do it online. So it's a powerful thing that's 00:19:29.300 --> 00:19:34.560 going on. Amen. I want to, I want to take a note since you brought it up. I publicly apologize to my 00:19:34.560 --> 00:19:40.220 mother for not including her in this list. Linda, you're, you probably are listening because I think 00:19:40.220 --> 00:19:46.740 you keep up. I'm sorry. You're, you're, you're number seven of the six. So just consider, okay, 00:19:46.820 --> 00:19:52.260 you're number eight, because the seventh lesson is really Jay Cranda does not have a Disney Plus 00:19:52.260 --> 00:19:57.000 account, or at least it took him a month plus to get there. Jay, publicly, once again, calling you 00:19:57.000 --> 00:20:01.020 out. You're listening. I know. Thank you. All right, mom. Sorry, Jay. Sorry. Let's go. 00:20:01.020 --> 00:20:05.520 And Linda, you are, you are our best small group leader at Christ Fellowship. All right. That being 00:20:05.520 --> 00:20:11.400 said, uh, so, uh, our number two, it was Jay Earhart. And let me tell you, I I've been a gamer ever 00:20:11.400 --> 00:20:16.200 since I was a kid. I did not realize that people were using gaming platforms to reach other people 00:20:16.200 --> 00:20:21.940 for Jesus. That, that for me was, it was a game changer. Okay. I thought that Jeff and I, that we 00:20:21.940 --> 00:20:25.660 were doing some innovative stuff, that we were doing some cool stuff with church online when Jeff worked 00:20:25.660 --> 00:20:29.640 at, at Christ Fellowship and we were doing, and we don't get me wrong. We were doing some cool stuff, 00:20:29.640 --> 00:20:35.280 but what Jay was doing to reach people, leveraging gaming platforms. And even the fact that he is 00:20:35.280 --> 00:20:40.400 actually discipling people, leveraging gaming platforms and using discord in order to do so 00:20:40.400 --> 00:20:45.400 for me was just one of the most mind blowing and innovative things. I mean, I think I talked to 00:20:45.400 --> 00:20:51.100 everybody I knew for the next two weeks about what Jay was doing with discord and the fact that he was 00:20:51.100 --> 00:20:57.980 leveraging gaming platforms to disciple people online. And Jay's stuff about leveraging discord as a lobby 00:20:57.980 --> 00:21:03.880 area for church online for me was so impactful because yeah, you know, we can game and we can talk and we 00:21:03.880 --> 00:21:09.420 can kind of have some fun. But the fact that he was trying to get to that next level of relationship 00:21:09.420 --> 00:21:15.760 and that next step with people and helping engage them and helping pull them in for, as an evangelistic 00:21:15.760 --> 00:21:22.380 method, that was so powerful for me because even, you know, churches struggle in person, leveraging their 00:21:22.380 --> 00:21:27.300 lobby area in church in terms of connecting with people. I mean, you know, church world, you guys 00:21:27.300 --> 00:21:31.700 know this, we do conferences based on how to get that connection card or that next step card from 00:21:31.700 --> 00:21:36.480 people. We, we do all sorts of things just to get that contact or how to greet people, how to get that 00:21:36.480 --> 00:21:44.480 next step. And here, Jake's doing it inside a chat room, a gaming chat room to leverage and to reach 00:21:44.480 --> 00:21:50.560 people. I mean, it's powerful how he's using gaming platforms to disciple people for Christ. Jeff, 00:21:50.560 --> 00:21:56.460 how are you impacted by Jake? Because for me it was big. Yeah. Jake's been a guy that I followed up on and 00:21:56.460 --> 00:22:02.380 we're going to have him on the podcast in January because I want to unpack this one thing that he's 00:22:02.380 --> 00:22:10.780 working on. He's literally going through a church planting program right now. So his church that 00:22:10.780 --> 00:22:16.880 he's at, they do a lot with exponential conference. And so they have a church cohort, a church planting 00:22:16.880 --> 00:22:24.240 cohort where they take physical churches through it. Jake's going through it because he and his core team 00:22:24.240 --> 00:22:31.400 through this Love Clan group that meets on Discord, they've been fled to create a digital church. 00:22:31.960 --> 00:22:36.780 They don't want to just be a discipleship group that's doing something, but they're trying to 00:22:36.780 --> 00:22:43.320 gird up their theological selves so that they can be operated by the standards of what a church, 00:22:43.320 --> 00:22:49.160 a biblical church is. Now, some of you out there, your heads just exploded at this idea of, wait, 00:22:49.340 --> 00:22:56.140 what's a digital church? He's going to do what in Discord? And we've had conversations with like DJ Soto, 00:22:56.380 --> 00:23:01.280 with VR Church. We've talked a lot about this idea of creating a digital expression of church in a 00:23:01.280 --> 00:23:08.060 virtual space that aligns with the biblical standards that are held. And Jake, in his 20s, 00:23:08.260 --> 00:23:12.960 has set himself out and said, hey, I want to go through this training to understand wholly and 00:23:12.960 --> 00:23:18.180 completely what a physical church is, because I want to adopt it and adjust it to work in a virtual 00:23:18.180 --> 00:23:25.860 context. And so him being wise that way to even examine himself so that he himself is grounded 00:23:25.860 --> 00:23:31.680 theologically, able to lead a church at that level, man, is really exciting to me. And it's one of the 00:23:31.680 --> 00:23:36.740 things that I just, I love what this kid's doing. I say doing that, but it's like 20 years younger 00:23:36.740 --> 00:23:40.860 than me. So I love what this kid's doing and want to see him continue to do some great things. 00:23:41.220 --> 00:23:44.340 Yeah. And I want to give a quick shout out to the Robloxians, because that was another, 00:23:44.560 --> 00:23:51.000 you know, that was another thing that just kind of blew my mind that through Roblox, that they're 00:23:51.000 --> 00:23:56.440 doing what they can to disciple people. And so it's just a beautiful thing. Folks are using gaming 00:23:56.440 --> 00:24:02.720 platforms to disciple people. I just, I can't, it's just amazing. Go back, check out these episodes. 00:24:02.720 --> 00:24:09.220 I'm telling you, blow your mind. Yes. Jate's episode is number 13 and Daniel Aaron talking about, 00:24:09.460 --> 00:24:16.360 that's another one, man. We just hit that last week, episode 40, but Daniel and how at 11 years 00:24:16.360 --> 00:24:22.080 old, dude, this guy had this dream of like, hey, and I'm not even doing like spiritual vision or 00:24:22.080 --> 00:24:26.240 anything. Like the guy's like, hey, this is Roblox. This is a cool thing. What if we did church in 00:24:26.240 --> 00:24:31.400 here? And like eight years later, he's got a board of directors helping him structure a church. He's 00:24:31.400 --> 00:24:38.140 figuring out how to do discipleship in the area. And he's touched 26,000 people through this church 00:24:38.140 --> 00:24:45.340 in Roblox. Like that's, that's no small feat. And it's amazing to see how God is doing some things in 00:24:45.340 --> 00:24:49.960 some of these digital churches and some virtual spaces. Yeah. They need to get strengthened. Yeah. 00:24:49.960 --> 00:24:55.700 They need to get some sort of a discipleship process and structure in place. And, but don't stop. 00:24:56.040 --> 00:25:01.440 Let's adjust the model to keep it going. That's right. And, and I'll be honest for me, episode 00:25:01.440 --> 00:25:07.360 one, my, my favorite, um, Ray and I were talking off air before this thing. And I just, I just 00:25:07.360 --> 00:25:12.880 started writing down, uh, names. Like there's so many lessons. There's so many things that, um, 00:25:13.000 --> 00:25:17.080 that's like, man, I wish we could do this. A bunch of this, the stuff that we did, the church 00:25:17.080 --> 00:25:21.920 it network kind of recording, uh, the, the micro campus talk, which was awesome to start with. 00:25:21.980 --> 00:25:27.480 Why? That was awesome. Jim Tolmerlin dropping all this knowledge when it comes to the trends of 00:25:27.480 --> 00:25:32.120 multi-site church over the past 20 years and how church online's starting from the cool thing to 00:25:32.120 --> 00:25:37.420 become the common thing to become the mainstream thing. And to see how that idea grew in the multi-site 00:25:37.480 --> 00:25:42.860 world and how church online's not that far behind, maybe a decade behind that same process, Mark Bente 00:25:42.860 --> 00:25:47.740 with all the stuff they're doing at church home. Uh, man, it was, it's beautiful to hear him say, 00:25:47.840 --> 00:25:52.780 yes, we're, we're called to be a church and, and we're girding ourselves up theologically to make 00:25:52.780 --> 00:25:57.420 sure that we're holding to a biblical standard. But honestly, when it comes to like how we're 00:25:57.420 --> 00:26:01.900 progressing or how we're building, we're looking more to corporate America to help us figure out 00:26:01.900 --> 00:26:07.960 how to do the management in the church, because the church is so far behind in some of these areas. 00:26:07.960 --> 00:26:12.400 Like it was, it's eyeopening to have some of these conversations, see leaders out there 00:26:12.400 --> 00:26:17.400 who are leading a lot of these big churches, even, even small churches with, with Joe Radicevich 00:26:17.400 --> 00:26:23.840 and trying to figure out how to take next steps for, for all these organizations to grow their church 00:26:23.840 --> 00:26:30.880 online. That being said, my favorite conversation and the one that I think had the, um, the most 00:26:30.880 --> 00:26:37.180 impact on me actually really had nothing to do with church online. And this was Seth Muse talking 00:26:37.180 --> 00:26:43.740 about from a communications perspective, how we communicate things digitally. Now, Seth's the 00:26:43.740 --> 00:26:49.640 communications director, um, uh, in, in Dallas, Texas was, was at, was at Hope Church for, for a while 00:26:49.640 --> 00:26:55.700 and, and does a lot of communicating and, and seminary of hard knocks podcast. A lot of you guys may know 00:26:55.700 --> 00:27:00.560 him or be connected with him there. But what we really honed in on is this idea of how we 00:27:00.560 --> 00:27:09.280 communicate things online and, and whether, um, we're communicating about ourselves or if we're 00:27:09.280 --> 00:27:15.600 communicating in a way that's engaging and listening to what others are saying. You see, in, in church 00:27:15.600 --> 00:27:22.680 online is, is very guilty of this, but the church in general is as guilty. We don't understand what 00:27:22.860 --> 00:27:30.940 engagement is. We've lost what that meaning is. Uh, and so rule number one, talking about your upcoming 00:27:30.940 --> 00:27:38.880 sermon series on Facebook is not engaging. You are, you are disseminating information about your church 00:27:38.880 --> 00:27:45.520 in hopes that others will hear you. Now, chances are your people who are already connected to your church 00:27:45.520 --> 00:27:52.740 will listen to that information and that will be engaging to them. And they may even respond to it. 00:27:53.280 --> 00:27:58.240 But if you're trying to connect with someone who's not familiar with your church, you're trying to connect 00:27:58.240 --> 00:28:05.720 with someone who's outside of the general area, uh, that you see any given Sunday, maybe somebody who's cold to 00:28:05.720 --> 00:28:11.980 the idea even of Christ that sermon series, just as an example, that sermon series post on Facebook, 00:28:11.980 --> 00:28:17.640 ain't doing you Jack. No. And what it's definitely not going to do is it's not going to get you 00:28:17.640 --> 00:28:25.100 engagement back where they are going to respond back and forth. See engagement really comes not as much from 00:28:25.100 --> 00:28:34.100 talking as much as it is listening to the people and then responding and building online relational equity 00:28:34.100 --> 00:28:39.340 with people. That's where engagement should be. Yeah. Ray, what are you thinking on that? 00:28:39.400 --> 00:28:43.700 Yeah. You know, that's, it's powerful, Jack, because so much of this with what we do with digital platforms 00:28:43.700 --> 00:28:49.640 should be built around conversations that we're having with our people. And to your point, churches more often than 00:28:49.640 --> 00:28:54.720 not, you know, in our struggle to communicate things, we have so much of a struggle that we want to talk at 00:28:54.720 --> 00:29:00.640 people than necessarily talk with people. Um, everything about our churches, even an in-person experiences are 00:29:00.640 --> 00:29:06.200 built from a stage platform. Our sermons aren't engaging or worship isn't necessarily engaging. You know, we want them 00:29:06.200 --> 00:29:11.800 singing repeat after me kind of stuff, you know, and that's not necessarily helpful when it comes to online 00:29:11.800 --> 00:29:17.800 platforms. So when we approach online spaces, we shouldn't be surprised when even large mega churches have a 00:29:17.800 --> 00:29:24.420 struggle with, Hey, how come this only got like 10 likes, or how come this only got like 15 views when there's no 00:29:24.420 --> 00:29:29.800 method, when there's no reason for people to actually engage with the information, to actually have a 00:29:29.800 --> 00:29:38.680 conversation with what's going on. And so for churches, you know, that's, that's, uh, content was so good because it reminds us that we have to be more 00:29:38.680 --> 00:29:44.500 conversation oriented in terms of how we approach people online. And so as we restructure our communications, 00:29:44.500 --> 00:29:49.000 as we look on into the future, make sure that even take a look at some stuff, like some of the things 00:29:49.000 --> 00:29:53.840 that has helped us out, uh, maybe some of you have seen this Brady Shearer put out like a list of like 00:29:53.840 --> 00:30:00.140 30 to 40 some odd questions that churches could just post up online and just start conversations with 00:30:00.140 --> 00:30:03.920 people. That's been a game changer at Christ Fellowship, as far as our social media is concerned, 00:30:03.920 --> 00:30:08.600 because we went from like having two comments to like all of a sudden starting a bunch of conversations 00:30:08.600 --> 00:30:14.140 on our Instagram and Facebook feeds. And it all starts with a question. Why? Because questions 00:30:14.140 --> 00:30:19.280 invite people to be part of the answer. We're not talking at them. We're talking with them. And then 00:30:19.280 --> 00:30:23.840 whatever else happens after that question, we're responsible for. If they want to keep engaging with 00:30:23.840 --> 00:30:30.380 us, we have to continue to engage with them. Yeah. Remember this Billy Graham in the nineties, uh, 00:30:30.820 --> 00:30:38.540 preached the message. That message was bounced off of 34 satellites and was heard by 1 billion people 00:30:38.540 --> 00:30:46.500 around the world. 1 billion people heard a single message simultaneously around the world. And that was 00:30:46.500 --> 00:30:52.500 in the nineties. And so if that's what you're using your church online for, dude, that was like 20, 30 00:30:52.500 --> 00:30:57.460 years ago. There's gotta be something better than that. We're wasting the technology. If all we are 00:30:57.460 --> 00:31:04.300 doing is yelling our message out there and not listening, by the way, the culture of the 1990s compared 00:31:04.300 --> 00:31:11.360 to 2000, now 20, guess what? Completely different. You may be screaming from the rooftops, but ain't nobody 00:31:11.360 --> 00:31:17.360 listening. And if they do by any chance hear you, you're definitely not connecting with them going that 00:31:17.360 --> 00:31:24.480 approach. So utilizing the social media, utilizing technology, utilizing church online to be more 00:31:24.480 --> 00:31:29.900 engaging, to be more listening, to respond. These are the things to look at. And you can definitely listen 00:31:29.900 --> 00:31:35.960 to that podcast. A lot of wisdom got dropped on that. It's episode 28 there with Seth Mews and 00:31:35.960 --> 00:31:43.960 redefining engagement. Uh, so that has been awesome. Well, man, Hey, like that flew. So we're, we're what 00:31:43.960 --> 00:31:50.740 we're six episodes in six lessons, uh, with that. So right, man, like what, what do you think? Let's just see 00:31:50.740 --> 00:31:54.120 what happens here. What, what do you think the future is going to, what do you think 2020 is going to look 00:31:54.120 --> 00:31:59.100 like? 2020, um, you know, for the church digital, I think it's going to be great because in a lot of different 00:31:59.100 --> 00:32:03.000 ways on our site and through different methods, you guys are going to hear from a lot of different 00:32:03.000 --> 00:32:08.460 voices, um, you know, from us. And so I think that's going to be great. Really the big thing, uh, for 00:32:08.460 --> 00:32:13.440 church online and even for the way that churches interact with digital platforms, I'm so excited 00:32:13.440 --> 00:32:19.640 for how more and more pastors are taking an interest, you know, in the least they're curious. 00:32:20.020 --> 00:32:24.940 And so I want to encourage you if you're here and you either have a senior pastor who's curious, 00:32:24.940 --> 00:32:29.660 or you are a senior pastor who's curious, or even you're a senior pastor or your pastor and you're on 00:32:29.660 --> 00:32:35.100 the fence, let me encourage you, stay curious, continue to, to delve into some of these things 00:32:35.100 --> 00:32:38.780 and think through it with an open mind and think through how you can engage people online. 00:32:39.100 --> 00:32:43.680 Because I'm telling you the reward that's out there is greater than the risk. The risk is actually 00:32:43.680 --> 00:32:47.620 minimal at this point. It may seem large for you. It may seem, but what if people, what if we fail? 00:32:47.680 --> 00:32:51.900 What if people say X, Y, and Z? I'm telling you guys, this is small. This is almost as if you could 00:32:51.900 --> 00:32:56.720 have bought AT&T or Apple stock in the eighties, you know, and you're going back in time near DeLorean. 00:32:56.720 --> 00:33:01.280 And you've got all the information because it's only going to go up. So you have the ability to 00:33:01.280 --> 00:33:08.160 engage people online. It's never been cheaper. It's never been easier. And so today just start 00:33:08.160 --> 00:33:12.400 exploring new platforms, start thinking of new methods and new ways that you can engage, not just 00:33:12.400 --> 00:33:18.480 your people, but your community online and see how God will take it. Jeff, what about you? 2020 00:33:18.480 --> 00:33:25.800 online, what do you think? Do not be afraid to experiment. Always get out there, kick the tires 00:33:25.800 --> 00:33:33.660 on things and learn lessons. When experiments fail, that doesn't mean the idea entirely failed. It means 00:33:33.660 --> 00:33:40.160 learn your lesson from that and try again. There's a nugget here. There's an opportunity here. 00:33:40.720 --> 00:33:47.020 There's, uh, the road that we are on, uh, online technology, church online technology is only going 00:33:47.020 --> 00:33:54.860 to get better. The culture engaging in community virtually is only going to get, uh, more effective, 00:33:54.860 --> 00:34:02.080 uh, more influential. And the church needs to be in, in that space, whether doing a physical church or a 00:34:02.080 --> 00:34:08.860 virtual church, either way, get your, get in the game and get going with church digital, man, we are 00:34:08.860 --> 00:34:13.420 going to open up a ton of different stuff. We've got more writers who are going to be creating content 00:34:13.420 --> 00:34:20.900 on a regular basis. We've got more video content and podcast ideas and things. Uh, 2019 was a phenomenal 00:34:20.900 --> 00:34:26.320 year. Uh, but it was just the beginning of something much greater. There's even some partnerships with 00:34:26.320 --> 00:34:31.820 some organizations that, um, if God is behind this and all this works out, there's going to be some 00:34:31.820 --> 00:34:36.680 phenomenal things coming forward for the big C church coming out of, out of the church digital Lord 00:34:36.680 --> 00:34:42.240 willing. And so to that end, man, continue to pray for this year. Pray for us as, as we are praying for 00:34:42.240 --> 00:34:46.960 you church out there, uh, who is wrestling with this stuff, who's asking questions, who's kicking the 00:34:46.960 --> 00:34:51.720 tires, who's experimenting, who's asking questions of leadership that leadership doesn't know the answer 00:34:51.720 --> 00:34:59.620 of. We understand you. We've been in your shoes and to that end, don't give up, keep pressing and start 00:34:59.620 --> 00:35:07.300 heading towards what, uh, to 2020 is going to hold for you. Hey, so we're going to wrap right here. Ray, 00:35:07.380 --> 00:35:11.100 man, any, any closing thoughts as we're landing the plane? Go back through some of those episodes. 00:35:11.100 --> 00:35:15.940 I'm telling you, take a binge, listen, uh, have some fun and kind of go back in time through 2019 00:35:15.940 --> 00:35:22.200 with us and see just how God may inspire you to try something new in 2020. Awesome. Hey, so we're 00:35:22.200 --> 00:35:28.040 going to land the plane on there. 2019 is in the rear view mirror heads up 2020. It's going to be 00:35:28.040 --> 00:35:33.200 awesome for Ray. I am Jeff with the church digital, and we're going to call it here. Thanks everybody. 00:35:33.740 --> 00:35:37.120 Uh, see ya next year. Awesome. Talk to you later. Bye.