WEBVTT 00:00:00.120 --> 00:00:09.300 Hey, this is Jeff with The Church Digital. We're going to get started with the episode here in just a minute, but before we get there, we all know Stadia, the organization that's been powering The Church.Digital. 00:00:09.740 --> 00:00:19.540 Well, guess what? Stadia is opening up some learning communities. We've been doing this for a while now. We've got about 70 churches that are actually part of these learning communities. 00:00:19.540 --> 00:00:29.340 They're learning how to thrive, grow, and multiply, not just physically, not just digitally, but digitally, the combining of physical and digital. 00:00:29.340 --> 00:00:36.300 And it's been a beautiful, beautiful thing. We've got content coming in from churches like Crossroads, from Saddleback, like Church Home. 00:00:36.720 --> 00:00:42.680 But guess what? It's not a content thing. Content's nice. Content doesn't change your church. Let's just say it. It doesn't. 00:00:43.020 --> 00:00:46.480 I'm a podcast operator. I understand this. It's not going to change your church. 00:00:46.680 --> 00:00:57.960 The ability to walk with someone and to help you understand some of the guidance, some of the accountability, the community of connecting with other churches, engaging with them, 00:00:58.680 --> 00:01:12.420 conversations with people as you wrestle with some of these things to try to figure out how to make your physical church and your online church authentically you that lines up with your missions, visions, and strategies, 00:01:12.420 --> 00:01:18.920 or maybe is even tightly intertwined that maybe some of that strategy changes to get more online. 00:01:18.920 --> 00:01:29.380 This is what Stadia is trying to create, an opportunity for you to learn and to dialogue and to change your church to thrive, grow, and multiply. 00:01:29.540 --> 00:01:30.920 It's a beautiful, beautiful thing. 00:01:31.000 --> 00:01:33.500 Hey, the learning community starts in August. 00:01:33.960 --> 00:01:39.600 So right now, go to stadiachurchplanting.org slash digital. 00:01:39.820 --> 00:01:42.460 P-H-Y-G-I-T-A-L. 00:01:42.960 --> 00:01:45.280 Stadiachurchplanting.org slash digital. 00:01:45.820 --> 00:01:50.320 And more information will be there for you to learn about these learning communities. 00:01:50.440 --> 00:01:51.620 This has been great. It's been fun. 00:01:51.960 --> 00:01:54.920 But let's go ahead and get you now to that podcast episode. 00:01:55.340 --> 00:01:58.920 Hey, everybody. Episode 44 with the Church Digital Podcast. 00:01:59.140 --> 00:02:01.940 And I got to tell you, I am looking forward to this episode. 00:02:02.100 --> 00:02:04.840 I love this guy we're bringing back in, Jate Earhart. 00:02:05.080 --> 00:02:09.460 You may remember him way back from episode 13 here with the Church Digital Podcast. 00:02:09.460 --> 00:02:14.400 He leads a video game ministry, a discipleship ministry. 00:02:14.580 --> 00:02:18.280 He disciples video gamers, millennials, Generation Z. 00:02:18.500 --> 00:02:24.320 He disciples these guys towards leading others to Christ in evangelism, discipleship. 00:02:24.400 --> 00:02:32.300 He's creating disciple makers using an online platform called Discord, which is a video game. 00:02:32.420 --> 00:02:35.460 He's leading a video game discipleship ministry. 00:02:35.580 --> 00:02:36.940 How crazy is that? 00:02:37.320 --> 00:02:40.140 And he's been very effective. He's doing some really interesting things. 00:02:40.220 --> 00:02:44.820 But I tell you, the thing that, to me, the thing that just happened that I heard he was doing, 00:02:44.880 --> 00:02:46.540 I was like, I really got to unpack this. 00:02:47.020 --> 00:02:50.760 He's actually in the process, through his church, he does a lot of church planting. 00:02:51.420 --> 00:02:55.360 He's in the process of being part of a cohort for church planters. 00:02:56.040 --> 00:03:03.500 He's looking at turning his Love Clan, his online ministry, not into just the discipleship ministry, 00:03:03.500 --> 00:03:05.560 but into a fully functioning church. 00:03:06.500 --> 00:03:10.100 And if you've listened to the last podcast, and what you'll hear in this podcast, 00:03:10.500 --> 00:03:14.080 is Jay is overly concerned, overly is maybe not the right word, 00:03:14.120 --> 00:03:18.800 but he's very concerned when it comes to the ecclesiology of what a church is, 00:03:18.840 --> 00:03:25.680 and the standard that he is holding into place for his potentially future digital church, 00:03:25.680 --> 00:03:31.660 and how he is exploring and holding himself and the others around him to the standard, 00:03:31.660 --> 00:03:40.280 to allow for this Love Clan, this online ministry, to one day become a fully functioning digital church. 00:03:40.700 --> 00:03:42.880 And that's a crazy, that's an exciting thing. 00:03:43.260 --> 00:03:48.300 I love this conversation, and I love where Jay's heart and his passion is. 00:03:48.380 --> 00:03:52.700 So here you go, I'm bringing in Jay Earhart into the conversation, of course, Jay's with Love Clan, 00:03:53.100 --> 00:03:59.800 and myself, Jeff, with the Church Digital, in a conversation that I'm calling Planting a Digital Church. 00:04:00.320 --> 00:04:01.240 Hey everybody, here you go. 00:04:01.340 --> 00:04:02.420 Did you just roll out of bed? 00:04:03.460 --> 00:04:03.900 Oh yeah. 00:04:05.180 --> 00:04:06.480 Awesome, way to go. 00:04:07.120 --> 00:04:10.640 I mean, my kid was jumping on top of me at 6.30, but good for you, man. 00:04:11.000 --> 00:04:11.580 Yeah, yeah. 00:04:11.800 --> 00:04:12.880 I stayed up a little later. 00:04:13.400 --> 00:04:19.560 I was playing Beat Saber and stuff, so that's why my hair is all crazy, 00:04:19.660 --> 00:04:21.500 because I was sweating like crazy before I went to bed. 00:04:22.220 --> 00:04:24.920 You know, I just got, it's Quest, right? 00:04:25.220 --> 00:04:25.540 Yeah. 00:04:26.040 --> 00:04:27.700 Oculus Quest, I got that for Christmas. 00:04:28.020 --> 00:04:28.420 It's really. 00:04:28.540 --> 00:04:28.980 Oh yeah. 00:04:29.460 --> 00:04:33.340 Yeah, I'm really enjoying kind of getting exposed to a little bit of this. 00:04:33.340 --> 00:04:34.340 I'll tell you the story. 00:04:34.580 --> 00:04:37.140 I was alone in my house. 00:04:37.800 --> 00:04:40.520 My family had gone away for like after Christmas, 00:04:40.800 --> 00:04:45.240 had gone up to the in-laws up in West Palm Beach just for a night. 00:04:45.900 --> 00:04:49.480 And so it's like midnight, 1 a.m., and I've got Oculus Quest on, 00:04:49.580 --> 00:04:54.020 and I'm literally all by myself, and I'm playing the Star Wars game. 00:04:54.100 --> 00:04:55.480 The Star Wars came with it. 00:04:55.880 --> 00:04:56.220 Oh, cool. 00:04:57.000 --> 00:05:01.840 Yeah, I'm in this thing where, and I'm showing my Star Wars naivete right here. 00:05:01.840 --> 00:05:07.320 I can't think of the name of the big giant 50-foot thing. 00:05:07.460 --> 00:05:08.420 It starts with an R. 00:05:08.880 --> 00:05:16.180 Anyway, like I'm kind of chasing after this 50-foot monster to try to figure out, 00:05:16.560 --> 00:05:19.620 and it's like clawing and tearing apart all the environments, 00:05:19.760 --> 00:05:22.180 and I've got the headsets on where I can't see anything, 00:05:22.300 --> 00:05:24.420 but I'm supposedly walking around in the safe space. 00:05:24.920 --> 00:05:29.380 What I didn't realize is the dog was in the middle of the safe space. 00:05:29.540 --> 00:05:31.500 My dog had laid down. 00:05:31.500 --> 00:05:31.880 Yeah. 00:05:32.140 --> 00:05:38.020 And so it was literally right by my feet as this rancor is what it's called. 00:05:38.580 --> 00:05:41.640 The rancor is like tearing apart the thing. 00:05:42.000 --> 00:05:42.260 Yeah. 00:05:42.340 --> 00:05:49.840 And right when the rancor trashes like right where I am with these big, long, thick nails, 00:05:50.420 --> 00:05:53.680 the dog stands up and jabs its nails into my feet. 00:05:54.100 --> 00:05:54.360 Yeah. 00:05:54.520 --> 00:05:55.560 Exact timing. 00:05:56.260 --> 00:05:57.960 Scared the garbage out of me. 00:05:58.240 --> 00:06:00.040 My arms go flailing. 00:06:00.620 --> 00:06:00.760 Yeah. 00:06:01.000 --> 00:06:05.800 What I didn't realize is I was six inches away from the Christmas tree when my arms went flailing. 00:06:06.240 --> 00:06:09.500 And ornaments are like scattered all over the place. 00:06:09.820 --> 00:06:13.400 And I haven't told my wife yet who's not listening to this, but I broke a couple. 00:06:13.540 --> 00:06:14.560 She doesn't know about that. 00:06:14.560 --> 00:06:17.580 It was so funny. 00:06:17.700 --> 00:06:19.700 It's like, man, that's, that's VR, man. 00:06:19.740 --> 00:06:20.660 It just sucks you in. 00:06:21.100 --> 00:06:22.920 Everybody has some kind of story like that. 00:06:23.000 --> 00:06:26.340 Luckily you like spared your, your TV or whatever. 00:06:26.420 --> 00:06:31.700 Cause most people it's like, you know, I forgot that my TV was in the space and like, yeah, 00:06:31.700 --> 00:06:38.220 for me, I was, I was, you know, using the, I was playing some, I think I was playing like 00:06:38.220 --> 00:06:46.200 a pong game or something and, uh, those straps that it came with were like, not that great. 00:06:46.600 --> 00:06:54.260 And like, I let go of it and it like snapped the strap and it like, it like bounced, like 00:06:54.260 --> 00:07:00.660 hit a wall and then it like smashed into a, uh, a lamp and it just like shattered the bulb 00:07:00.660 --> 00:07:02.640 and there's like glass everywhere. 00:07:02.640 --> 00:07:08.080 And I was just like, there's like a, my roommate's like, what the heck? 00:07:08.220 --> 00:07:16.840 Ah, so I actually got to meet the guys that like made the, the vibe. 00:07:16.960 --> 00:07:17.700 This is the one I have. 00:07:18.040 --> 00:07:18.400 Yeah. 00:07:18.680 --> 00:07:22.820 And I was like, what the heck happened with the little strap? 00:07:22.900 --> 00:07:23.940 Like this thing sucks. 00:07:23.960 --> 00:07:25.340 It was, it was like way broken. 00:07:25.340 --> 00:07:27.800 And, and he was like, here, come with me. 00:07:27.800 --> 00:07:31.940 And then he like took me to a guy and he was like, this is the guy whose fault it is. 00:07:31.940 --> 00:07:32.660 You tell him. 00:07:35.100 --> 00:07:37.360 So it was good time. 00:07:37.640 --> 00:07:42.920 So what I did, I went to Best Buy or I know I went to GameStop and I just bought, uh, or, 00:07:43.020 --> 00:07:44.440 um, actually just gave them to me. 00:07:44.500 --> 00:07:48.000 I just got Wii remote straps and they work. 00:07:48.260 --> 00:07:49.260 They're like way better. 00:07:49.620 --> 00:07:50.120 Much better. 00:07:50.520 --> 00:07:50.780 Yeah. 00:07:51.140 --> 00:07:52.600 So that's what happened. 00:07:52.760 --> 00:07:53.260 It's good to know. 00:07:53.660 --> 00:07:54.180 Thank you. 00:07:54.180 --> 00:07:57.540 Nintendo for solving problems years ago that we didn't even know we had. 00:07:57.540 --> 00:08:03.700 So, well, we, they knew they had it because the Wii remote, everybody was smack throwing 00:08:03.700 --> 00:08:08.660 Wii remotes into their TV and they got so fed up with it that they like came up with a better 00:08:08.660 --> 00:08:10.880 strap and they sent them out. 00:08:10.880 --> 00:08:17.400 So I remember having the very first Wii, they sent me like a thing that was an email that 00:08:17.400 --> 00:08:22.900 said, if you give us your address, we'll send you free of charge four straps that are like 00:08:22.900 --> 00:08:24.120 newly improved. 00:08:24.640 --> 00:08:27.800 So please, please replace your current straps. 00:08:28.580 --> 00:08:29.300 So, yeah. 00:08:29.640 --> 00:08:34.180 Man, you are, I want to hear, and the reason I wanted to get with you is really to dig into 00:08:34.180 --> 00:08:40.480 this, um, what you're doing with Love Clan and, and, and, uh, the hopes and desires doing 00:08:40.480 --> 00:08:43.980 church planting program through, through your church. 00:08:43.980 --> 00:08:48.620 And, and I honestly, I just really wanted to catch up and learn more about what you're doing 00:08:48.620 --> 00:08:53.340 kind of as you're trying to progress and build a, a digital church here. 00:08:53.340 --> 00:08:58.340 So as, as we're backing up and some listeners may not remember, Jake was way back in the 00:08:58.340 --> 00:09:05.340 day, uh, has already been on here early on, uh, talking through, um, what Love Clan 00:09:05.340 --> 00:09:08.520 is, but maybe just give a quick synopsis minute, minute or two. 00:09:08.600 --> 00:09:09.640 What is Love Clan? 00:09:09.720 --> 00:09:10.440 What are you guys doing? 00:09:10.680 --> 00:09:17.820 Uh, yeah, so Love Clan is essentially, um, an online place for, for people to chat. 00:09:18.000 --> 00:09:20.900 Uh, and we have a discord. 00:09:21.040 --> 00:09:24.080 That's where we do most of our ministry type stuff. 00:09:24.080 --> 00:09:32.420 It's grown into, into like starting to look into other stuff, but the basics of it is there's 00:09:32.420 --> 00:09:39.040 people, um, out there that are looking for just something other than the cultural norm, 00:09:39.040 --> 00:09:47.900 which is, uh, I'm just trying to win in this game or I want to, I don't, I don't know. 00:09:47.900 --> 00:09:49.920 I'm trying to think of what the exact is. 00:09:49.980 --> 00:09:54.980 I don't know if I could put my finger on, um, what's out there, but I just wanted something 00:09:54.980 --> 00:10:00.000 else, uh, then, then, then that, then kind of toxic or whatever. 00:10:00.180 --> 00:10:02.720 That's kind of the, that's kind of the front face of it. 00:10:02.720 --> 00:10:06.200 I guess the front door into it, the lobby into the church is kind of something we've talked 00:10:06.200 --> 00:10:06.800 about at one point. 00:10:06.800 --> 00:10:11.180 And then obviously the, the backend, uh, the, the real goal is discipleship. 00:10:11.180 --> 00:10:15.480 So in the core team, that's the, our focus is in discipleship. 00:10:15.480 --> 00:10:23.160 And, uh, we have a prayer channel, um, that's really active and we think about next steps. 00:10:23.160 --> 00:10:27.680 What does it mean for people to join for the first time, just looking for something else? 00:10:27.920 --> 00:10:29.860 And then what does that mean? 00:10:29.860 --> 00:10:36.620 If that person is willing to have a conversation with somebody, um, who's a Christian, and if 00:10:36.620 --> 00:10:39.300 they're willing to have that conversation, then maybe they'd add something to the prayer 00:10:39.300 --> 00:10:39.760 channel. 00:10:39.960 --> 00:10:42.960 And if they'd add it for the prayer channel, would they be willing to have somebody reach 00:10:42.960 --> 00:10:46.440 out to them and, and ask them if, um, if they're okay. 00:10:46.440 --> 00:10:52.180 And if so, would they talk about maybe more in depth things like spirituality and then even 00:10:52.180 --> 00:10:52.860 into gospel. 00:10:53.260 --> 00:10:56.980 And if so, then, and we just kind of think through that, that mindset. 00:10:57.660 --> 00:11:04.980 Um, from both directions, you know, both people that are in our core team, um, who are Christians 00:11:04.980 --> 00:11:06.520 learning how to be disciples. 00:11:06.520 --> 00:11:11.300 And then also, how do we, how do we meet people where they're at, um, already on the internet? 00:11:12.000 --> 00:11:15.980 And then what is, what does that look like to kind of join those two things? 00:11:15.980 --> 00:11:16.980 And that's the love clan. 00:11:17.040 --> 00:11:22.880 It's like in there somewhere, you know, it was like, uh, a gaming chat, internet, you know, 00:11:23.100 --> 00:11:23.520 whatever. 00:11:24.360 --> 00:11:24.760 Yeah. 00:11:24.920 --> 00:11:26.780 So how, how long have you been doing love clan? 00:11:26.780 --> 00:11:28.700 Oh, I should just know this off the top of my head. 00:11:28.700 --> 00:11:34.180 Um, but it really feels more fluid because it was, it, it, there's the, there's a whole 00:11:34.180 --> 00:11:39.200 story, you know, where you start with, and we, we said this other one, but starting with, 00:11:39.200 --> 00:11:44.880 uh, another organization called game church, um, and then breaking off, uh, and doing our 00:11:44.880 --> 00:11:45.820 own separate thing. 00:11:45.820 --> 00:11:52.940 And then from there, I think it's been, um, man, seven, eight, nine, two, maybe like three 00:11:52.940 --> 00:11:55.380 years, three years. 00:11:55.380 --> 00:12:03.320 I think, I think three years as the name love clan, um, it may actually be way less than 00:12:03.320 --> 00:12:03.580 that. 00:12:03.660 --> 00:12:05.760 I don't, I don't, I have no idea. 00:12:05.760 --> 00:12:09.560 I honestly don't, I, it's eight, 85 years, I think. 00:12:09.560 --> 00:12:11.160 And, and running strong, you know? 00:12:11.360 --> 00:12:11.760 Wow. 00:12:11.840 --> 00:12:13.800 They had the internet 85 years ago. 00:12:14.040 --> 00:12:14.880 That's impressive. 00:12:15.580 --> 00:12:15.700 Yeah. 00:12:15.820 --> 00:12:17.640 It's a, you beat Al Gore to that. 00:12:17.900 --> 00:12:18.240 Well done. 00:12:18.400 --> 00:12:18.640 Sure. 00:12:18.900 --> 00:12:19.040 Yeah. 00:12:19.040 --> 00:12:22.960 We all, well, we had the whole tin can with the string thing going for a while, but we've 00:12:22.960 --> 00:12:23.340 upgraded. 00:12:23.860 --> 00:12:28.960 So the thing I love about what you're doing is, is that you, you've taken a discipleship kind 00:12:28.960 --> 00:12:36.360 of process towards this of training others to go as opposed to, you know, creating a walled 00:12:36.360 --> 00:12:39.960 off community, virtual community in this context where everybody comes in. 00:12:39.960 --> 00:12:45.080 And so the, the platform, a lot of, it's funny as I, as I talk about you and I say the word 00:12:45.080 --> 00:12:48.780 discord, actually a lot of people don't know discord. 00:12:48.900 --> 00:12:53.640 Like if you're not a millennial and you don't play video games, I think discord's not on, 00:12:53.720 --> 00:12:54.460 on the radar. 00:12:54.860 --> 00:12:58.180 So just kind of like get some basics. 00:12:58.300 --> 00:12:59.880 What do you, what does discord look like? 00:12:59.900 --> 00:13:04.420 And what is the digital context of what you're doing actually look like in context of discord? 00:13:04.840 --> 00:13:06.300 Yeah, that's a, that's a good point. 00:13:07.160 --> 00:13:07.600 Yeah. 00:13:07.600 --> 00:13:13.160 Discord is, I'd say most people probably that don't know discord, no slack, which is kind 00:13:13.160 --> 00:13:13.500 of funny. 00:13:14.200 --> 00:13:16.680 But discord looks a lot like slack. 00:13:16.800 --> 00:13:22.000 If you, if you open the two side by side, but discord has a much more, that there's a lot 00:13:22.000 --> 00:13:27.600 more you can do with bots and with channels and setting it up so that it can run. 00:13:28.960 --> 00:13:31.520 If you don't know slack, you probably know Skype. 00:13:32.740 --> 00:13:35.540 So there's a, there's a Skype element to it. 00:13:35.540 --> 00:13:38.960 There's video chat, voice chat, text channels. 00:13:38.960 --> 00:13:46.160 A lot of it is grouping people together into a space where they can chat and then separating 00:13:46.160 --> 00:13:51.680 those chats into different chat channels and having some of those chat channels be voice 00:13:51.680 --> 00:13:57.820 chat, only channels, text chat, only channels, or the ability to do video. 00:13:57.820 --> 00:14:03.140 And then you can add bots, which the bots help sort through. 00:14:03.600 --> 00:14:10.380 Like if I, if I was to say, yeah, I'm looking for this, that might trigger a keyword and then 00:14:10.380 --> 00:14:14.840 it'll, it'll give a command that like lets people know, oh, you're, it looks like you're 00:14:14.840 --> 00:14:15.660 looking for this. 00:14:15.740 --> 00:14:18.540 Here's, here's where the channel you'd want to go to is for that. 00:14:18.900 --> 00:14:25.000 And, uh, so we can separate people into different games and so on and so forth. 00:14:25.000 --> 00:14:30.320 So to kind of help, help people find other people, uh, for what they're looking for. 00:14:30.440 --> 00:14:30.580 Yeah. 00:14:30.580 --> 00:14:36.260 So over the past two or three years, you've been utilizing, uh, discord as a platform to 00:14:36.260 --> 00:14:38.840 create a discipleship movement called love clan. 00:14:39.000 --> 00:14:42.300 Why are you going through a church planting training cohort? 00:14:42.300 --> 00:14:44.400 Like what's, what's going on in your head right now? 00:14:44.520 --> 00:14:47.580 This for me, uh, is a calling. 00:14:47.780 --> 00:14:53.340 I don't know exactly where, where that stops or like where that line is. 00:14:53.340 --> 00:14:55.660 I'm trying to understand what God's calling is. 00:14:56.060 --> 00:14:59.540 Uh, I, I know that it's to reach, to, to, to reach gamers. 00:14:59.540 --> 00:15:05.200 That's like first and foremost, my, my, my calling first and foremost for everybody, um, 00:15:05.200 --> 00:15:09.220 for a Christian should be to, to make disciples and, and be a disciple. 00:15:10.140 --> 00:15:14.960 But my personal calling is, is doing that for, for gamers. 00:15:15.260 --> 00:15:22.600 I, I had a moment where I felt like God really opened it up for me and, and said that this 00:15:22.600 --> 00:15:23.000 is it. 00:15:23.000 --> 00:15:28.400 And I'd been praying for it for like six months, uh, with a group and it was very short. 00:15:28.520 --> 00:15:30.420 I don't know if it was just a thought in my head. 00:15:30.420 --> 00:15:33.820 To me, it sounded like a different voice than what I was used to. 00:15:33.820 --> 00:15:35.800 So, but it was just, what about a game church? 00:15:36.320 --> 00:15:42.020 Uh, that, that, that for me was just like, oh gosh, that, that's so in line with, with 00:15:42.020 --> 00:15:45.560 passions, but even knowing who to reach and, and so on. 00:15:46.140 --> 00:15:51.120 And ever since then, it's been trying to figure out what does that, what does that mean? 00:15:51.380 --> 00:15:54.840 And, and, and it's, it's fluctuated over the years. 00:15:55.220 --> 00:16:02.880 So I, I would say, honestly, it's sort of like this, if it was something that was really 00:16:02.880 --> 00:16:10.000 already being done, um, or something that I could just point at and say, see how that 00:16:10.000 --> 00:16:10.740 person's doing it. 00:16:10.780 --> 00:16:12.580 I want to, I want to do it just like that. 00:16:12.760 --> 00:16:18.120 I would go and I would, I would go to that person and I would ask them what they're doing 00:16:18.120 --> 00:16:19.640 and I would follow that person. 00:16:19.640 --> 00:16:25.000 And, and then after, you know, six months, then I would kind of start to do some of the 00:16:25.000 --> 00:16:25.640 same things. 00:16:25.640 --> 00:16:31.960 And, um, but like we've said, that's just not, it's just not there. 00:16:31.960 --> 00:16:38.360 Like we're, we're kind of, um, I don't want to say we're, we're writing that, but you 00:16:38.360 --> 00:16:40.880 know, we're, we're figuring out what that looks like now. 00:16:41.220 --> 00:16:44.540 You, you, you don't, when you're, when you're doing something new, you don't just throw out 00:16:44.540 --> 00:16:46.460 what, what already exists, right? 00:16:46.460 --> 00:16:49.860 You want to, you want to take that and, and use it. 00:16:49.860 --> 00:16:57.240 And I think it'd be really foolish, um, at 27, uh, years old for me to think that I'm 00:16:57.240 --> 00:17:01.180 going to somehow be, you know, I'm so smart because the internet. 00:17:01.180 --> 00:17:06.820 And so I can just, I can just forget anything else that's been, that's already been done 00:17:06.820 --> 00:17:09.820 ahead of, of whatever work we're trying to do. 00:17:09.820 --> 00:17:17.260 Uh, and instead it's the same, the same idea you would do with any culture where you would 00:17:17.260 --> 00:17:20.560 take what's working, um, somewhere else. 00:17:20.560 --> 00:17:22.680 And you just, you apply it to a different context. 00:17:22.680 --> 00:17:29.880 That doesn't mean that the truth is different or that the, um, even the methods aren't, aren't, 00:17:29.880 --> 00:17:34.780 aren't necessarily applicable, but that there's a different spin to things. 00:17:34.780 --> 00:17:38.500 Um, or in some cases, a different language or a different, you know, whatever. 00:17:39.060 --> 00:17:40.600 And, and that's how it feels with gamers. 00:17:40.600 --> 00:17:42.280 Like that, they have kind of a different language. 00:17:42.420 --> 00:17:46.500 Sometimes they have kind of a different spin to how they see things. 00:17:46.500 --> 00:17:53.500 And so how, how do we, how do we bring things to where people are, um, and, and change the 00:17:53.500 --> 00:17:54.000 context? 00:17:54.000 --> 00:17:55.260 You know, we're reading through acts. 00:17:55.260 --> 00:18:00.240 Um, we see that where, when they're in front of one group of people, maybe the way things 00:18:00.240 --> 00:18:01.640 are presented is, is one way. 00:18:01.640 --> 00:18:06.320 And then if they're in this other context, a different culture that doesn't understand 00:18:06.320 --> 00:18:12.240 when there's the, uh, they, he walks through, um, and he sees all the idols in the town and 00:18:12.240 --> 00:18:12.620 stuff. 00:18:12.620 --> 00:18:17.460 And then he goes to the Sanhedrin or whatever, but he's like, he, he, he, he goes in front 00:18:17.460 --> 00:18:22.780 of them and he's like, Hey, there's, uh, here's how your town is, you know? 00:18:22.780 --> 00:18:24.280 And like, let's talk about it. 00:18:24.280 --> 00:18:30.820 Do you want, do you want to know about the, the, uh, unknown God, you know, and, and, and 00:18:30.820 --> 00:18:36.060 applying things that make sense in their context has been, has been really big for, for me, 00:18:36.120 --> 00:18:37.680 especially thinking towards gamers. 00:18:38.160 --> 00:18:43.680 So that's kind of just to lay the groundworks of where my mind's at with, with all of this. 00:18:43.780 --> 00:18:46.280 You're, you're breaking a lot of paradigms and norms here. 00:18:46.280 --> 00:18:48.180 Like, let's, let's just spell this out. 00:18:48.180 --> 00:18:53.100 So first off, um, you're not in the physical space, you're in a digital space. 00:18:53.100 --> 00:18:57.980 So when you say gamer church, just out of clarity, you're not going to go rent a building 00:18:57.980 --> 00:19:01.840 over here and invite gamers in and do something. 00:19:01.840 --> 00:19:05.040 You're talking about doing this as, uh, on a virtual platform. 00:19:05.220 --> 00:19:05.340 True. 00:19:05.520 --> 00:19:05.880 Not yet. 00:19:05.920 --> 00:19:06.360 Not yet. 00:19:06.360 --> 00:19:06.660 Anyway. 00:19:06.780 --> 00:19:12.680 I mean, potentially maybe, but yeah, starting out in the digital realm first, maybe physical. 00:19:12.680 --> 00:19:18.460 So already, you know, the, the, the average pastor or the average church member in America 00:19:18.460 --> 00:19:20.800 defines Ecclesia as the gathering in physical space. 00:19:20.800 --> 00:19:23.380 And so there's challenges in the right word. 00:19:23.480 --> 00:19:26.840 Uh, there's a reinterpreted, a rereading of, of what that, that could be. 00:19:26.940 --> 00:19:33.000 Even the fact that, that you are targeting an audience of, of gamers, as opposed to what 00:19:33.000 --> 00:19:37.320 the average person would do is target a physical location or something like that. 00:19:37.320 --> 00:19:41.660 I'm going to open a church in my community and I'm going to call it community Christian 00:19:41.660 --> 00:19:42.000 church. 00:19:42.000 --> 00:19:45.220 And I'm going to invite everybody within five or 10 miles to that. 00:19:45.480 --> 00:19:48.780 You're more targeted towards a niche or an audience. 00:19:49.180 --> 00:19:50.220 Is it niche or niche? 00:19:50.540 --> 00:19:52.740 I, I never, whenever I say it, I feel awkward. 00:19:52.940 --> 00:19:53.480 I want to say niche. 00:19:53.480 --> 00:19:57.540 I believe it's, but I think honestly, both, both pronunciations. 00:19:57.780 --> 00:19:57.880 Yeah. 00:19:57.940 --> 00:19:59.000 So we're going to go with this. 00:19:59.060 --> 00:20:00.080 We're going to go with niche today. 00:20:00.220 --> 00:20:00.720 Well, very good. 00:20:01.080 --> 00:20:02.900 So niche, niche, no T niche. 00:20:03.420 --> 00:20:07.080 Um, so you're targeting the niche of video. 00:20:07.140 --> 00:20:08.260 That's just sounds so awkward. 00:20:08.320 --> 00:20:08.980 Now it sounds weird. 00:20:09.200 --> 00:20:09.580 I don't know. 00:20:09.680 --> 00:20:10.520 That's not weird, isn't it? 00:20:10.920 --> 00:20:12.040 You're going to target that. 00:20:12.100 --> 00:20:17.120 You're going to target the very tiny group of video gamers compared to the grand scheme 00:20:17.120 --> 00:20:17.460 of things. 00:20:17.460 --> 00:20:22.080 So you're getting people who are, um, similar in characteristics. 00:20:22.080 --> 00:20:27.900 Their shared value isn't, they know where the closest Burger King is within the community 00:20:27.900 --> 00:20:29.900 and they know how to time the stoplights. 00:20:30.420 --> 00:20:35.580 Their, their shared community, their shared value is, um, centered around video games or 00:20:35.580 --> 00:20:38.460 VR or, you know, the new thing that's come out. 00:20:38.520 --> 00:20:43.220 It's that, that type of person that, that you're kind of reaching out to. 00:20:43.220 --> 00:20:44.680 What are the strengths and weaknesses? 00:20:44.920 --> 00:20:47.740 What are some things that you think that, that that's better? 00:20:48.000 --> 00:20:51.120 And what do you think some things that you're trying, that you've struggled to kind of 00:20:51.120 --> 00:20:56.720 overcome with maybe as you're reaching out with this different reading of how to do church? 00:20:57.000 --> 00:21:01.320 This is something that I'm learning, um, as we're going, that's, that's difficult. 00:21:01.540 --> 00:21:05.980 I, I struggle, uh, calling something a church or not. 00:21:06.340 --> 00:21:12.500 Um, I, even with, with love clan, I don't want to, I don't, I don't want words to get in 00:21:12.500 --> 00:21:12.860 the way. 00:21:12.860 --> 00:21:19.100 I don't want it to with, with anybody, with, um, with the big C church. 00:21:19.320 --> 00:21:23.920 I'm, I don't want to, uh, I'm not, I'm not purposely trying to start fights or anything 00:21:23.920 --> 00:21:24.440 like that. 00:21:24.440 --> 00:21:29.220 You know, it's not like, oh, I'll, I'll call this a church, um, because I know it'll just 00:21:29.220 --> 00:21:32.260 really, uh, hit a chord with somebody. 00:21:32.260 --> 00:21:34.040 And then, you know, that whatever. 00:21:34.040 --> 00:21:41.360 And on the flip side, even in the group, the people that I'm discipling or, um, or that 00:21:41.360 --> 00:21:48.080 I'm ministering to even there, like a lot of them are turned off by the idea of church. 00:21:48.080 --> 00:21:52.920 Like they, they feel like it hasn't listened to some of the things they're trying to say 00:21:52.920 --> 00:21:55.520 or that it didn't answer the questions that they had. 00:21:55.520 --> 00:22:00.280 And so they don't want it to, to be a church, even the people in the core group, some of them 00:22:00.280 --> 00:22:05.640 are not, they're, they're not really, they're like, well, show me what that means. 00:22:05.640 --> 00:22:12.380 Um, because where I came from, I, that wasn't, that wasn't something that was, that was good. 00:22:12.460 --> 00:22:17.920 I wasn't in a good, healthy church and I have to kind of look at it from both angles. 00:22:17.920 --> 00:22:24.740 And, and so that, that for us has been figuring out how do we define, how do we define church? 00:22:24.880 --> 00:22:27.620 And I'm realizing that's not as easy as I thought it was. 00:22:27.720 --> 00:22:34.680 And, and I, I don't want to, I don't want to flippantly call something a church if it's, 00:22:34.680 --> 00:22:42.080 if it's not be for the same reason that we talk about, um, well, we, we just say the word 00:22:42.080 --> 00:22:46.940 like, well, the church says this, and obviously there's a bunch of churches, you know, but 00:22:46.940 --> 00:22:54.440 it, when we say the church thinks this way, um, what we're saying is, you know, things that 00:22:54.440 --> 00:22:57.200 have called themselves churches have said this, this way. 00:22:57.540 --> 00:22:59.920 And I, I don't want to do the same thing for ours. 00:23:00.000 --> 00:23:07.480 If, if it's not, if it's not what an actual church is, because who decides what a church 00:23:07.480 --> 00:23:09.060 is, it should be, it should be God. 00:23:09.180 --> 00:23:12.900 You know, he decides if something is, is his church, he's going to build it. 00:23:13.280 --> 00:23:19.040 Jesus builds the church rather than looking to what already exists and saying, are we that? 00:23:19.140 --> 00:23:20.920 And then we can call ourselves a church. 00:23:21.000 --> 00:23:24.480 It's let's look to the Bible and what does the Bible say a church is? 00:23:24.820 --> 00:23:31.260 And if it fits the criteria of, of what I, you know, of, is this what Jesus is building? 00:23:31.500 --> 00:23:33.440 And is, does it fit in these things? 00:23:33.460 --> 00:23:34.700 Is it doing these things? 00:23:35.780 --> 00:23:37.740 Then, then we can call it a church. 00:23:37.740 --> 00:23:42.000 But if I talk to one person and they ask me, you know, oh, this is a church, you know, 00:23:42.000 --> 00:23:42.960 I'm not really interested in church. 00:23:43.080 --> 00:23:48.360 I'm going to have no problems telling that person like, uh, well, I mean, what is your, 00:23:48.780 --> 00:23:50.460 what is your view of a church? 00:23:50.460 --> 00:23:54.480 And it's, you know, well, it does this and this and that and okay, well then maybe it 00:23:54.480 --> 00:23:57.020 is, or it isn't based on the definition you've just given. 00:23:57.640 --> 00:23:59.540 Um, but, but here's what it is. 00:23:59.540 --> 00:24:04.360 You know, like this is a place where we're going to, we're going to love you and, um, we're 00:24:04.360 --> 00:24:05.200 going to respect you. 00:24:05.240 --> 00:24:10.960 And there's a, uh, a place that we would like you to get to where you can have a loving, 00:24:11.060 --> 00:24:12.620 respectful relationship with God. 00:24:13.220 --> 00:24:15.680 And, and how do we, how do we work there? 00:24:15.680 --> 00:24:17.860 We can do that together as a group. 00:24:18.100 --> 00:24:22.820 Um, these are things that like I would expect from a church, but maybe that's not the word, 00:24:22.860 --> 00:24:24.260 you know, the wording he wants to use. 00:24:24.320 --> 00:24:27.780 So there's just, there's power, there's power in the words that we use. 00:24:28.320 --> 00:24:37.200 Um, and I, the, the, the best, the best list I've, I've seen so far, um, for what a healthy 00:24:37.200 --> 00:24:43.460 church is, um, speaking specifically about minimal ecclesiology, um, all of that. 00:24:43.460 --> 00:24:51.120 It's, there's a book, um, Todd Wilson and exponential, I think it's called activating the flywheel 00:24:51.120 --> 00:24:56.520 and it's a free, free online PDF thing that you can download. 00:24:56.960 --> 00:24:59.960 Um, and I, I want to make sure I'm right. 00:25:00.020 --> 00:25:04.820 I think it's chapter six is where is all on minimal ecclesiology of like, this is the very 00:25:04.820 --> 00:25:06.320 basics of what a church is. 00:25:06.400 --> 00:25:12.280 They go through, uh, Larry Wackemeyer worked for, well, when I first heard it, he had been 00:25:12.280 --> 00:25:14.940 working on it for a year, but I think he's worked on it longer since then. 00:25:14.940 --> 00:25:23.560 And since the publishing of that, but there's, I think seven, I think there's seven things that 00:25:23.560 --> 00:25:28.920 of, uh, of this is what the, the, the minimum of church is, um, and the, and what a healthy 00:25:28.920 --> 00:25:29.520 church is. 00:25:29.520 --> 00:25:35.360 And so I, I read through that, you take everything at face value at face value, because one person 00:25:35.360 --> 00:25:40.920 might say one thing or one person might say another thing, but you should still, there's 00:25:40.920 --> 00:25:43.000 always some truth in, in criticism, right? 00:25:43.000 --> 00:25:48.880 So I, you look through those seven things, not meant as a criticism, but just as somebody 00:25:48.880 --> 00:25:55.340 that's trying to prayerfully consider what it means to be a church and an effective church. 00:25:56.000 --> 00:26:00.220 And, um, I don't want to just be the minimum a church can be, but what does it mean to be 00:26:00.220 --> 00:26:06.200 a really effective church and, and looking through those, how do I apply those into my context? 00:26:06.520 --> 00:26:12.120 And even if I don't call myself a church, I would still want to make sure I'm doing these, 00:26:12.240 --> 00:26:13.060 these things. 00:26:13.240 --> 00:26:13.660 Yeah. 00:26:13.740 --> 00:26:17.980 I, I, I'm, I'm sitting here on Google while you're talking the mobilization flywheel by 00:26:17.980 --> 00:26:18.600 Todd Wilson. 00:26:18.740 --> 00:26:18.960 Yeah. 00:26:18.960 --> 00:26:19.100 Yeah. 00:26:19.100 --> 00:26:19.260 Yeah. 00:26:19.260 --> 00:26:20.140 Is that what you're talking about? 00:26:20.220 --> 00:26:20.380 Yeah. 00:26:20.440 --> 00:26:20.540 Yeah. 00:26:20.640 --> 00:26:25.220 There's a, so we'll, we'll put a link to it in the PDF or in the show notes. 00:26:25.220 --> 00:26:28.240 I believe it's chapter six, but it, it may not be. 00:26:28.380 --> 00:26:32.480 And then, you know, it's just like misquoting some, anything else you'll find it. 00:26:32.680 --> 00:26:33.520 Minimal ecclesiology. 00:26:33.720 --> 00:26:34.660 It's a really good chapter. 00:26:34.920 --> 00:26:36.300 The whole book's good, but yeah. 00:26:36.920 --> 00:26:37.660 You're right. 00:26:37.760 --> 00:26:43.220 The church today, when people say that the church, it means so many different things, but 00:26:43.220 --> 00:26:47.560 really it's, it's different organizations, interpretation of, of scripture. 00:26:47.560 --> 00:26:54.260 And even that changes in context of, um, locations within the country, locations within other 00:26:54.260 --> 00:26:56.080 countries, other continents. 00:26:56.080 --> 00:27:01.740 The church operates in Africa different than it does here in America based on their interpretation 00:27:01.740 --> 00:27:02.540 of scripture. 00:27:02.540 --> 00:27:06.920 Cause ultimately, and this is the one thing that I, that I think is very easy to forget. 00:27:07.440 --> 00:27:11.420 We're all operating on different models of what we think church is. 00:27:11.500 --> 00:27:11.960 Right. 00:27:12.080 --> 00:27:17.980 Like, um, the, the most popular model at this point is the more energy goes into the one 00:27:17.980 --> 00:27:19.800 hour on Sunday service than anything else. 00:27:19.960 --> 00:27:20.460 Sure. 00:27:20.680 --> 00:27:26.100 And honestly, whether you're a traditional service, a traditional church or a, or a modern 00:27:26.100 --> 00:27:31.260 church, um, contemporary, modern, uh, Hispanic, there's large Hispanic culture down 00:27:31.260 --> 00:27:35.700 here where I'm at in Miami, different cultures within that one hour on Sunday, it's pretty 00:27:35.700 --> 00:27:40.720 much, you know, musical worship, some form of announcements and some form of long form 00:27:40.720 --> 00:27:43.580 teaching followed by more worship possibly. 00:27:43.580 --> 00:27:45.760 And at the end of the day, everybody goes home like that. 00:27:46.240 --> 00:27:53.080 That's what the average person in America would define church as, which is, I would say 00:27:53.080 --> 00:27:55.000 as an event, you know, as an event. 00:27:55.060 --> 00:27:55.440 Yeah, sure. 00:27:55.440 --> 00:28:00.800 I would say, yeah, the, as far as an hour on Sunday, um, that, you know, we need to have 00:28:00.800 --> 00:28:04.480 a bumper after this thing and that this is where we give communion. 00:28:04.480 --> 00:28:08.900 And like, right after we pray, then that's where people's hearts are the most tender. 00:28:08.900 --> 00:28:12.880 And that's when we want to do the offering, you know, like that, the thought, the, those 00:28:12.880 --> 00:28:13.860 kinds of thoughts. 00:28:14.360 --> 00:28:20.300 Um, one thing I really appreciated about, about that book was that it didn't, it didn't say 00:28:20.300 --> 00:28:26.240 like, well, you know, one of the seven isn't a, um, you, you have a band with a three piece 00:28:26.240 --> 00:28:30.420 band, uh, with, with at least a one drummer on rotation. 00:28:30.660 --> 00:28:35.420 And, uh, you know, it's not, it's nothing like that that they're, they're, they're looking 00:28:35.420 --> 00:28:40.260 at the wise before the what, and what we're really describing is a, is a what that might 00:28:40.260 --> 00:28:41.440 come from a good place. 00:28:41.560 --> 00:28:46.820 In the same way, when we think about discipleship strategies, people could just copy what you're 00:28:46.820 --> 00:28:52.120 doing and have it be the what if they're not focused on the why first of why am I doing 00:28:52.120 --> 00:28:52.300 this? 00:28:52.360 --> 00:28:53.580 Why am I discipling people? 00:28:53.580 --> 00:28:55.280 Then, then the what's pretty useless. 00:28:55.280 --> 00:28:59.640 And I think that's kind of one of the problems that's happened with, with churches, local 00:28:59.640 --> 00:29:05.560 churches have a tendency, yes, to kind of copy what's already happening and, and, and hoping 00:29:05.560 --> 00:29:09.600 out of doing the what really well, that they'll, they'll find the why that it kind of comes 00:29:09.600 --> 00:29:10.160 out of that. 00:29:10.800 --> 00:29:13.120 That's not a, a catch all for sure. 00:29:13.320 --> 00:29:22.040 Um, but if you, if you don't know, um, why we sing, uh, you know, and thinking about worship 00:29:22.040 --> 00:29:24.420 in that context and what does it look like? 00:29:24.480 --> 00:29:29.620 What, what does it look like to, for, for why am I worshiping or, or why is this? 00:29:29.620 --> 00:29:35.280 To their spiritual, uh, authority in the church, like, like thinking through some of those 00:29:35.280 --> 00:29:35.540 things. 00:29:35.540 --> 00:29:41.340 And if you get to the, to the core of it, that's what most of the new Testament is, is here 00:29:41.340 --> 00:29:43.640 is, here is what old Testament was. 00:29:44.580 --> 00:29:52.460 And now I want you to think about the why of, of why did I say these things are, are key? 00:29:52.580 --> 00:29:54.360 Why are these things laws? 00:29:54.840 --> 00:29:56.760 Why did I say not to do this? 00:29:57.200 --> 00:30:04.480 And, and people get, got so stuck on the what of it that I'm going to just follow these rules. 00:30:04.480 --> 00:30:05.820 I'm going to follow it the right way. 00:30:05.820 --> 00:30:13.460 And I'm going to do all these things that they, um, I think of the example of, um, well, we, 00:30:13.640 --> 00:30:18.620 you know, we're, we're, we're doing sacrifice and he's like, it's become a stench to my, you 00:30:18.620 --> 00:30:22.740 know, like I, it's a stench to me now because you're just doing it. 00:30:22.740 --> 00:30:26.300 You're doing the what, but you've completely lost the why of why I told you to do it in 00:30:26.300 --> 00:30:27.000 the first place. 00:30:27.800 --> 00:30:34.820 And, and I, I'm not going to say that local churches can have a tendency to become a stench. 00:30:34.820 --> 00:30:42.000 I think a lot of them have the right mindset, but if we're ever doing things just because 00:30:42.000 --> 00:30:47.700 it's, it's the norm or just because it's what we think is, is right, rather than prayerfully 00:30:47.700 --> 00:30:52.700 thinking about what our context is and, and is there something else that God would want 00:30:52.700 --> 00:30:56.420 us to do, then yeah, that's, that's a problem. 00:30:56.420 --> 00:31:00.700 That's, that's not, that's not expecting Jesus to build a church. 00:31:00.700 --> 00:31:04.520 That's just us following what other people have built. 00:31:04.520 --> 00:31:08.700 And we're just doing a 2.0, you know, and that's not, that's not, that's not good. 00:31:08.840 --> 00:31:11.180 That's not, yeah, I don't know. 00:31:11.820 --> 00:31:15.220 Uh, well, I didn't really answer, I didn't really answer one of your questions earlier. 00:31:15.220 --> 00:31:20.220 So I'll just, I'll pop on it real quick, but yeah, thinking in context of specific people 00:31:20.220 --> 00:31:30.860 rather than in a local, like a localization of people is, um, well, I made the joke earlier, 00:31:30.860 --> 00:31:40.660 but that I could, if I wanted to find a group of people that were, uh, Christian emos, uh, 00:31:40.660 --> 00:31:46.400 to go figure out what worship looks like with, that would be kind of difficult without the 00:31:46.400 --> 00:31:52.840 internet and now at the internet, you can't, you can be more a niche with the person that 00:31:52.840 --> 00:31:54.340 you're, that you're targeting. 00:31:55.060 --> 00:32:04.300 Um, and I would say that while the, what we, we kind of do that anyway, cause like you said, 00:32:04.700 --> 00:32:07.680 Hispanic is really big in Florida. 00:32:07.680 --> 00:32:12.580 So how do we tailor the church service experience in that area? 00:32:12.900 --> 00:32:18.500 We're, we're going to make sure that we're having some type of Hispanic influence, you know, 00:32:18.500 --> 00:32:23.760 maybe the worship, one of the songs is in, or most of the songs are in Spanish, you know, 00:32:24.060 --> 00:32:28.840 and the, how do our events look like and what are our small group communities and what are 00:32:28.840 --> 00:32:29.800 the things we think through? 00:32:29.920 --> 00:32:33.600 Like we do that just because it was local. 00:32:33.760 --> 00:32:40.200 We think about those things in the local context, but let's not forget that like the church is 00:32:40.200 --> 00:32:43.340 not the local physical location, but the body of believers. 00:32:43.660 --> 00:32:45.980 And so we're already always doing this. 00:32:46.040 --> 00:32:51.840 Like it's just rather than you being, I'm going to go to this location where this group of people 00:32:51.840 --> 00:32:56.120 are now it's, I'm going to find these people from all over. 00:32:56.960 --> 00:32:58.060 They're already online. 00:32:58.060 --> 00:33:01.420 And I'm, I'm, this is, this is my context, you know? 00:33:02.100 --> 00:33:06.000 Um, and so it doesn't, it doesn't really feel too different. 00:33:06.480 --> 00:33:14.900 Uh, it's just people, but you, uh, I have things that I can relate that make, that are maybe 00:33:14.900 --> 00:33:17.920 more specific, uh, than something. 00:33:18.480 --> 00:33:24.820 If you, if you, rather than giving a sports team analogy to a local sports team in the 00:33:24.820 --> 00:33:30.360 area or about a specific event that happened locally, then you'd give an event that happened 00:33:30.360 --> 00:33:34.020 in the game, or you'd give it about a specific game, you know, something like that. 00:33:34.020 --> 00:33:36.400 So it really isn't too different. 00:33:36.400 --> 00:33:42.480 I think it's just possible now, whereas maybe it wasn't fully possible before the internet. 00:33:42.860 --> 00:33:43.420 Hmm. 00:33:44.560 --> 00:33:45.000 Yeah. 00:33:45.120 --> 00:33:50.520 I mean, the internet definitely brought about more, uh, I keep saying the word niche, niche 00:33:50.520 --> 00:33:52.280 more of that. 00:33:52.400 --> 00:33:56.440 Uh, it's, it's one of the reasons like, I honestly, and side note, you'll never have a band like 00:33:56.440 --> 00:33:57.120 the Beatles again. 00:33:57.320 --> 00:34:01.900 There will never be a single musical band to have that much influence. 00:34:02.120 --> 00:34:07.120 Uh, you kind of saw a little bit of it with you too, Coldplay maybe, but the, the musical 00:34:07.120 --> 00:34:12.440 genres are so sub-genred at this point, thanks to the internet that it's, you'll, you're never 00:34:12.440 --> 00:34:14.880 going to be able to get that, that influence and that power. 00:34:14.880 --> 00:34:20.100 And so instead of reaching the world, we're reaching these individual, uh, these, these 00:34:20.100 --> 00:34:25.600 smaller groups of, of people, uh, that we're able to have a much stronger influence because 00:34:25.600 --> 00:34:29.680 you can fine tune, uh, your, your message to that. 00:34:29.720 --> 00:34:34.440 The, excuse me, message is the same Christ, the method of communicating them to that. 00:34:34.600 --> 00:34:35.040 Right. 00:34:35.040 --> 00:34:37.120 Like you guys are doing with, uh, with love clan. 00:34:37.720 --> 00:34:40.680 So, well, well, and not, not, not fast. 00:34:40.760 --> 00:34:45.760 I mean, or just really fast on that, but like, yeah, you, you do tune things to the message. 00:34:45.760 --> 00:34:49.860 Like that's, you know, why don't we copy and paste sermons from, from everybody else? 00:34:49.860 --> 00:34:53.940 Why aren't there just like the same one person writes the same sermon and we do it at every 00:34:53.940 --> 00:34:54.240 church? 00:34:54.240 --> 00:35:00.960 Because the sermon is specific to the heart of the people that you're speaking to the same 00:35:00.960 --> 00:35:06.840 way that, um, you know, when he goes and he says to the, the unknown God, well, that sermon 00:35:06.840 --> 00:35:11.380 wouldn't have really flown in Jerusalem, you know, because they would have been like unknown 00:35:11.380 --> 00:35:11.820 God. 00:35:11.820 --> 00:35:13.380 Like we're, we're Jews. 00:35:13.380 --> 00:35:19.560 Like we, we, we know who God is so that your sermons do, they, they should change, you know, 00:35:19.560 --> 00:35:25.000 the message doesn't change, but like you're saying there, there is a context of the people 00:35:25.000 --> 00:35:28.720 that you're speaking to and in your, in your sermons should reflect that. 00:35:28.720 --> 00:35:34.520 So yeah, we're, that's one of the things that's been really difficult for us lately is okay. 00:35:34.520 --> 00:35:36.820 What does it look like for, for a love clan in the future? 00:35:36.820 --> 00:35:39.000 Because we currently don't have sermons. 00:35:39.000 --> 00:35:45.560 Um, that's not our like primary thing, but there are some people that that's the thing 00:35:45.560 --> 00:35:46.240 that they're going to want. 00:35:46.240 --> 00:35:52.960 And I do see a biblical precedent for some, um, for, for biblical teaching, at least a, um, 00:35:53.320 --> 00:35:57.760 rather than right now we have a lot of biblical discussion and we have, um, small groups, 00:35:57.760 --> 00:35:59.780 things like that where people can discuss. 00:36:00.060 --> 00:36:06.380 But I think as far as the specific spiritual authority, teaching the word, presenting the 00:36:06.380 --> 00:36:11.740 message in a way that, um, makes sense of their context, the same way Jesus did the same way, 00:36:11.740 --> 00:36:17.420 um, Paul does, I think that's something that's going to be a next step for us that we, we need 00:36:17.420 --> 00:36:24.720 to move more into and, um, get, getting the why right first, you know, it's not just doing 00:36:24.720 --> 00:36:29.740 a sermon because that's what local churches do and we got to be the local, you know, we got 00:36:29.740 --> 00:36:36.020 to be just like every other church, but if there is a, a need for biblical teaching and I, 00:36:36.020 --> 00:36:43.840 and I believe there is, then how do we present biblical teaching in the context of four gamers? 00:36:44.720 --> 00:36:51.420 And when, when I say it that way, that's, that is what a sermon is, is, is presenting biblical 00:36:51.420 --> 00:36:53.820 context and in the context of your congregation. 00:36:54.380 --> 00:36:59.080 My small group was the, was the first one to start, um, we call it, you know, alpha one 00:36:59.080 --> 00:37:03.860 and it was the, uh, just went through acts. 00:37:04.200 --> 00:37:06.920 So we Bible based scripture base. 00:37:07.240 --> 00:37:07.520 Yeah. 00:37:07.520 --> 00:37:07.660 Yeah. 00:37:07.660 --> 00:37:07.840 Yeah. 00:37:08.040 --> 00:37:13.040 Um, well, yeah, we, so we use the, the three thirds, there's a thing called three thirds method. 00:37:13.040 --> 00:37:15.360 You can Google it and it'll come up three thirds. 00:37:15.980 --> 00:37:22.700 Um, it's, I, I use, it's from a book called T4T, um, training for, yeah. 00:37:23.660 --> 00:37:28.460 And I think it's training for teachers, something like that, but it's the, it's training for 00:37:28.460 --> 00:37:30.100 trainers, but we'll, um, for trainers. 00:37:30.260 --> 00:37:30.580 There you go. 00:37:30.640 --> 00:37:30.780 Yeah. 00:37:31.040 --> 00:37:31.080 Yeah. 00:37:31.140 --> 00:37:32.320 Link on this. 00:37:32.400 --> 00:37:33.380 This is all very good. 00:37:33.740 --> 00:37:33.900 Yeah. 00:37:33.900 --> 00:37:34.040 Yeah. 00:37:34.040 --> 00:37:36.080 That's a very, that's a really good resource. 00:37:36.360 --> 00:37:42.000 Um, the whole thing, Ying Kai, uh, Ying and Grace Kai, both awesome people and I've got 00:37:42.000 --> 00:37:42.840 to meet them in person. 00:37:43.180 --> 00:37:50.240 They're, I just, I'll, I'll just say T4T is an awesome resource, but, um, three thirds 00:37:50.240 --> 00:37:59.200 of that, the, the first half is kind of looking, looking back, um, at what God has done in the 00:37:59.200 --> 00:37:59.700 last week. 00:37:59.700 --> 00:38:03.000 So we'll use like pastoral care, um, worship. 00:38:03.940 --> 00:38:10.120 Um, yeah, like, like thinking back, worshiping God for what he's done, worshiping, um, praying. 00:38:10.240 --> 00:38:11.580 So, so worship, right. 00:38:11.900 --> 00:38:17.920 In our context, usually for the small group, um, rather than singing, because it got difficult. 00:38:18.020 --> 00:38:21.280 I have done this once where I plus play on a YouTube video and we just listened through 00:38:21.280 --> 00:38:21.480 it. 00:38:22.140 --> 00:38:27.280 Um, and this is so funny because I'm realizing the last time I was on this, this podcast was 00:38:27.280 --> 00:38:30.680 like, oh man, a long time ago before we did our first small group. 00:38:30.680 --> 00:38:34.840 And I think I was saying we were going to do a small group or that we were thinking about 00:38:34.840 --> 00:38:35.240 doing one. 00:38:35.360 --> 00:38:37.580 Maybe you were, you were just kicking the idea around. 00:38:37.920 --> 00:38:38.300 Right. 00:38:38.380 --> 00:38:38.660 Okay. 00:38:38.660 --> 00:38:39.260 So cool. 00:38:39.380 --> 00:38:42.560 So this is kind of, you know, I'll look forward or whatever, but we, we ended up going with 00:38:42.560 --> 00:38:43.540 this, this model. 00:38:43.900 --> 00:38:46.780 And so we, we look back at, um, worship. 00:38:47.400 --> 00:38:52.420 Um, I will generally pull through a Psalm or a verse. 00:38:52.420 --> 00:38:59.120 That's just a praise, uh, of God will read through that Psalm and then pray through that 00:38:59.120 --> 00:38:59.420 Psalm. 00:38:59.840 --> 00:39:05.000 So like in, um, if you haven't ever done this, it's actually a really cool, uh, extra thing 00:39:05.000 --> 00:39:10.060 I can throw in for another way for you to pray, but just read through a Psalm and then 00:39:10.060 --> 00:39:12.140 pray in the context of, of that Psalm. 00:39:12.140 --> 00:39:19.260 Like, yeah, God, like you, you are my rod and my staff and you protect me and you, you 00:39:19.260 --> 00:39:23.580 want to, you make a way, um, for me to move forward. 00:39:23.700 --> 00:39:28.740 Even when I feel like I'm in the presence of enemies and you lead me by still waters, you 00:39:28.740 --> 00:39:34.660 know, and, and thinking, thinking through the verses the same way, um, that David would have 00:39:34.660 --> 00:39:41.240 when he's writing them, it's like, I, I feel this way, God, I feel exactly how he feels at 00:39:41.240 --> 00:39:45.880 the first half of this, but I believe the second half, you know, I, I believe that, that you 00:39:45.880 --> 00:39:49.500 can work through these things and that you do protect me. 00:39:50.120 --> 00:39:53.660 So anyway, we're worship in the first, the first half of that. 00:39:53.740 --> 00:39:58.560 And the second half is, um, in, in most of them, it will say lesson. 00:39:59.180 --> 00:40:02.340 Um, and, and I think that's, I think that's good. 00:40:02.520 --> 00:40:08.560 Um, if you can write a lesson, we're actually figuring out right now how to maybe do smaller 00:40:08.560 --> 00:40:18.020 groups because, um, um, smaller meaning shorter periods of time because we have tried the extended 00:40:18.020 --> 00:40:23.340 long period of time groups, uh, currently where it's just, there's no end date. 00:40:23.460 --> 00:40:28.500 It's, you just are in a small group and that has worked for some of the people that started 00:40:28.500 --> 00:40:30.040 small groups in our, in our group. 00:40:30.040 --> 00:40:36.400 I think there's also an easier end for some people to say, this is a seven week series, 00:40:36.400 --> 00:40:38.260 like a seven week small group. 00:40:38.400 --> 00:40:41.320 And at the end of seven weeks, we'll disband. 00:40:41.520 --> 00:40:47.440 There's no, you know, beyond that, if, if you don't want to, um, but then at that same 00:40:47.440 --> 00:40:49.660 time, right after that, we will start another group. 00:40:50.020 --> 00:40:52.180 Uh, and, and we'll go, we'll go from there. 00:40:52.500 --> 00:40:58.840 What I like, especially about that is that it gives us an opportunity for, for, well, for 00:40:58.840 --> 00:41:05.140 one to ask people very seriously to make this a priority and that they have this many days. 00:41:05.260 --> 00:41:08.460 I want you to give me this day, this day, this day, this day, this day. 00:41:08.620 --> 00:41:08.980 Yeah. 00:41:08.980 --> 00:41:10.600 And, and make that a priority for me. 00:41:11.060 --> 00:41:16.840 And at the same time, it gives us an opportunity at the end of that group to ask people that 00:41:16.840 --> 00:41:18.620 we feel like could lead a group. 00:41:19.020 --> 00:41:20.580 Hey, you've been in this group. 00:41:21.100 --> 00:41:23.400 Would you, you know, how are you feeling about this? 00:41:23.420 --> 00:41:24.480 Do you think you could lead one? 00:41:24.620 --> 00:41:27.360 And even if they say, no, you've started that conversation. 00:41:27.360 --> 00:41:31.180 And maybe the, in the next group, they can be thinking about that. 00:41:31.420 --> 00:41:36.440 And, and then now you're, you know, in 14 weeks, that person feels ready. 00:41:36.580 --> 00:41:39.220 Maybe even before that, maybe even halfway through that group. 00:41:39.220 --> 00:41:43.400 They're like, I feel like I could start leading this now, you know, and it should never just 00:41:43.400 --> 00:41:48.220 be, um, so we were talking about starting a group, I think in the last one. 00:41:48.220 --> 00:41:49.900 And then I, I started one. 00:41:50.440 --> 00:41:56.940 Um, we then had, if, if you, Ralph Moore, I'm just going to, you're just going to point 00:41:56.940 --> 00:41:57.860 point at everybody this time. 00:41:57.880 --> 00:41:58.220 It's great. 00:41:58.600 --> 00:42:02.120 Ralph, Ralph Moore, man, I don't know which organization even to look up, but if you just 00:42:02.120 --> 00:42:03.460 look up Ralph Moore, you'll probably find him. 00:42:03.680 --> 00:42:05.040 Started tons of churches. 00:42:05.220 --> 00:42:09.400 He started, he's the only five, level five church planner we could find when looking through 00:42:09.400 --> 00:42:09.880 exponential. 00:42:10.280 --> 00:42:15.140 It's something it, I'm not even going to try to, I'll just misquote how many hundreds of 00:42:15.140 --> 00:42:15.900 thousands of people. 00:42:16.580 --> 00:42:21.120 Um, but it's a lot and how many tens of thousands, or if not a hundred, if it's probably hundreds 00:42:21.120 --> 00:42:22.460 of thousands of churches at this point. 00:42:22.680 --> 00:42:26.840 But I went to one of his churches, um, one of the churches that was like a, 00:42:26.940 --> 00:42:34.960 a church of a church of a church of his in Japan when I went because they, they knew him 00:42:34.960 --> 00:42:36.740 because they knew this guy who knew this guy. 00:42:36.740 --> 00:42:41.880 And they were like, Oh yeah, like, like Ralph, like we, yeah, we know Ralph. 00:42:42.220 --> 00:42:51.160 So it's crazy his, the impact there, but his, his method for even thinking about small groups 00:42:51.160 --> 00:42:58.080 and, um, in church planning and so on, it, it, a lot of it starts with this awesome method 00:42:58.080 --> 00:43:00.660 of one, one person starts a group. 00:43:00.740 --> 00:43:07.560 And then from that, um, that person identifies three people that are like the key, the key 00:43:07.560 --> 00:43:11.940 leaders of that group, usually that happens where you get some people that are just maybe 00:43:11.940 --> 00:43:17.300 a little bit more, they'll, they tend to do more of the work or they just study more. 00:43:17.300 --> 00:43:20.440 They have a tendency to memorize more verses or, or so on. 00:43:20.780 --> 00:43:28.500 And from looking at that, then saying, okay, I'm going to take, I'm going to take myself and 00:43:28.500 --> 00:43:35.240 maybe the third, if you think about like your one and then two, three, and four, yeah, like 00:43:35.240 --> 00:43:40.860 the one in the three will go together, stay together in the, in the group that you're at 00:43:40.860 --> 00:43:43.200 now and continue leading this group. 00:43:43.380 --> 00:43:49.360 Whereas like the two and the four will break off and start a group. 00:43:50.460 --> 00:43:56.280 And, and thinking through that, then it, it ends up becoming like the, the three is now 00:43:56.280 --> 00:44:00.520 the second in the group and the two becomes the one in the group. 00:44:00.520 --> 00:44:04.020 And the four becomes the, the two in that group and the second group. 00:44:04.080 --> 00:44:04.440 Yeah. 00:44:05.060 --> 00:44:11.960 And so everybody is, is moving in a direction that's, that's thinking higher up and like, 00:44:12.000 --> 00:44:13.660 oh, I'm now in a higher level of leadership. 00:44:13.860 --> 00:44:19.100 And so I need to, I need to think about that moving forward and I need to make sure other 00:44:19.100 --> 00:44:20.100 people are doing the same. 00:44:20.100 --> 00:44:22.640 So when now there's another group that starts. 00:44:22.640 --> 00:44:23.920 So, yeah. 00:44:24.000 --> 00:44:28.060 So that's, that, that's a similar model of what you're trying to do through, through 00:44:28.060 --> 00:44:32.420 love clan to, yeah, that's our model to find the two, three, fours. 00:44:32.560 --> 00:44:33.040 Yeah. 00:44:33.040 --> 00:44:36.840 And then when they, when they break off, that's either a separate channel and discord, or is 00:44:36.840 --> 00:44:38.340 that where it gets into physical space? 00:44:38.800 --> 00:44:44.680 So for, for these, for this model right now, that this is kind of what I'm, I'm using for 00:44:44.680 --> 00:44:45.600 our small groups. 00:44:45.600 --> 00:44:49.980 So for our community, we call them community groups, but, um, or life groups is probably 00:44:49.980 --> 00:44:53.560 a better, you know, term and church churchy term. 00:44:53.760 --> 00:45:02.940 But we, we do, um, that, that happened in my group where I had a 10 people and identified 00:45:02.940 --> 00:45:08.160 some people from there and we've, we split, you know, we, um, not even split. 00:45:08.160 --> 00:45:14.420 We had a couple of people who were like leaders in the group and, and said, okay, you, you two 00:45:14.420 --> 00:45:16.020 go and start a group. 00:45:16.360 --> 00:45:19.980 Um, and, and we'll, we'll stay here and we're going to, we're going to rebuild some stuff. 00:45:21.260 --> 00:45:24.840 And, um, and so they did, they start, they started a group and there was still somebody 00:45:24.840 --> 00:45:30.260 in our group who is now second, you know, and, uh, everything kind of shifted again. 00:45:30.320 --> 00:45:36.420 And so when we started the right, right after that, not too long after, um, they, that person 00:45:36.420 --> 00:45:40.060 who is second then started his, his group. 00:45:40.280 --> 00:45:43.860 So we, we have currently three, three community groups now. 00:45:44.220 --> 00:45:49.360 Um, and they've all gone up and down, depends on the week and whatever, but they're all sitting 00:45:49.360 --> 00:45:51.320 at like basically max. 00:45:51.540 --> 00:45:55.240 There's 30 people in small groups now online. 00:45:55.840 --> 00:45:59.260 Um, and, and we're all going, we were all going through acts. 00:45:59.800 --> 00:46:07.560 So I'm like in week 23, I think we do one chapter a week and the, they're, they're in 00:46:07.560 --> 00:46:11.240 like week 13 or something like that of, of acts. 00:46:11.240 --> 00:46:12.500 Cause it's offset. 00:46:12.980 --> 00:46:16.200 Sounds like you're due for one more, uh, for another split here in the next little bit. 00:46:16.460 --> 00:46:16.860 Yeah. 00:46:16.940 --> 00:46:17.140 Yeah. 00:46:17.140 --> 00:46:17.400 Yeah. 00:46:17.400 --> 00:46:20.760 And, and we're going to need, that's, that's actually why we're trying to get to the end of 00:46:20.760 --> 00:46:28.460 acts in, in, in my group and the alpha group so that we can, um, so that we can start trying 00:46:28.460 --> 00:46:29.860 the like seven week thing. 00:46:29.860 --> 00:46:35.080 So our group will technically disband because we're going to, and if anybody wants to rejoin, 00:46:35.080 --> 00:46:40.880 they can, otherwise we're going to then look for another group, um, of people. 00:46:40.880 --> 00:46:42.300 And that gives people an off ramp. 00:46:42.300 --> 00:46:49.020 If they're like acts was, you know, too much, 20, 28 weeks or whatever is like, I, you know, 00:46:49.020 --> 00:46:50.320 that's too many, too many weeks. 00:46:50.820 --> 00:46:54.660 So that that's, that's what that is. 00:46:54.660 --> 00:46:58.660 And that's the, the middle half I was saying like lesson rather than right now, we're not 00:46:58.660 --> 00:46:59.320 creating a lesson. 00:46:59.320 --> 00:47:00.640 It's a discussion. 00:47:00.640 --> 00:47:05.220 We're discussing through, if, if we're looking at three thirds, this is the second, the second 00:47:05.220 --> 00:47:09.940 side, but the, we're doing discussion instead of lesson and they're discussing through acts. 00:47:10.040 --> 00:47:17.880 And then the last half being practice and prayer and goal setting, thinking, thinking the first 00:47:17.880 --> 00:47:19.960 half is looking back at what God's done. 00:47:20.060 --> 00:47:21.160 The middle half is looking up. 00:47:21.220 --> 00:47:22.700 What does God want to say through these verses? 00:47:22.940 --> 00:47:27.380 And then the last half looking forward, what does God want to do goal setting for our group 00:47:27.380 --> 00:47:34.120 practice for the future, making sure that, um, people are, are trained so that like last 00:47:34.120 --> 00:47:36.640 week we did, um, what's your story. 00:47:36.880 --> 00:47:39.200 Can you give a two minute testimony, you know? 00:47:40.040 --> 00:47:46.020 And as a, as leading the group, you know, people kind of give me blank stares of like, 00:47:46.040 --> 00:47:48.580 I have to give it to, I have to like, think about a two minute testimony. 00:47:48.760 --> 00:47:54.300 And so I, I have to lead by example, you know, if I don't have a two minute testimony, then 00:47:54.300 --> 00:47:55.340 I can't expect them to. 00:47:55.820 --> 00:48:03.940 So that that's, it's just a thing that you, um, well, and that's all tied into T for T or 00:48:03.940 --> 00:48:06.200 T for T for T is the two minute. 00:48:06.400 --> 00:48:10.300 And, you know, I think they even have a 32nd version as well that that's tied into that. 00:48:10.300 --> 00:48:14.960 So, but that's where, from a, from a, from a biblical standpoint, you're going through 00:48:14.960 --> 00:48:19.860 acts from a discipleship standpoint, you're going through the T for T simultaneously that 00:48:19.860 --> 00:48:26.240 gives you a foundation to allow for a discipleship system to be trained in and taught. 00:48:26.740 --> 00:48:27.220 Yeah. 00:48:27.440 --> 00:48:32.860 Which is also biblical, you know, like it's, it's all biblical, but it's, it's the bit 00:48:32.860 --> 00:48:36.020 biblical is where I'm getting my, my wife from, you know? 00:48:36.060 --> 00:48:39.760 And then how, you know, like, how do you do that? 00:48:39.860 --> 00:48:45.480 These things, um, in the current context is where a lot of that stuff like T for T, um, 00:48:45.820 --> 00:48:50.040 and even like the, uh, activating the flywheel thinking through and looking like, okay, what, 00:48:50.100 --> 00:48:51.660 what does it, what does this actually look like? 00:48:51.740 --> 00:48:52.140 Yeah. 00:48:52.260 --> 00:48:57.440 The current, the current existence of church today in America is a model. 00:48:57.800 --> 00:48:58.320 Right. 00:48:58.400 --> 00:49:01.840 Um, it's grounded on biblical truth, but it's a model. 00:49:02.160 --> 00:49:02.600 Right. 00:49:02.660 --> 00:49:04.920 Uh, 500 years ago, it looked different. 00:49:05.120 --> 00:49:07.440 1500 years ago, it looked different. 00:49:07.440 --> 00:49:10.640 At the time of acts, it looked different. 00:49:10.640 --> 00:49:19.120 And so a lot of times, uh, today we're, we're making adjustments to the model to do things 00:49:19.120 --> 00:49:25.120 in a church online component or with what you're doing, a digital church, holistically digital 00:49:25.120 --> 00:49:25.660 model. 00:49:25.960 --> 00:49:32.240 And, and it's been, it's received negatively because, oh no, that's not what church is. 00:49:32.620 --> 00:49:40.340 When, when, in fact, even the way that we do church today, isn't really like the, it's a 00:49:40.340 --> 00:49:40.660 model. 00:49:40.820 --> 00:49:42.720 It's an interpretation of what they see scripturally. 00:49:42.940 --> 00:49:47.460 The biggest challenges with, with church online, uh, is, Hey, what are you going to do with 00:49:47.460 --> 00:49:48.260 the kids ministry? 00:49:48.460 --> 00:49:50.080 How are you going to do kids ministry online? 00:49:50.560 --> 00:49:53.400 And my response is, where do I see kids ministry in the Bible? 00:49:53.540 --> 00:49:57.820 Like that's, that's not a, that's not a Bible mandate that we have a separate children's 00:49:57.820 --> 00:49:58.660 church over here. 00:49:58.740 --> 00:50:03.480 You can make a very good argument for, Hey, it's our job as a church to disciple the parents, 00:50:03.580 --> 00:50:04.440 to disciple the kids. 00:50:05.000 --> 00:50:08.200 You know, what, why do people feel like there needs to be a children's ministry? 00:50:08.600 --> 00:50:14.340 Um, and, and if it's, if it's grounded biblically, if it's because we're looking at stuff that 00:50:14.340 --> 00:50:17.700 says, you know, that you bring them up in the way they should walk. 00:50:17.700 --> 00:50:19.640 And when they grow up, then they won't turn from it. 00:50:19.640 --> 00:50:22.560 And so therefore, how do I bring my kids up into this? 00:50:22.620 --> 00:50:25.180 And like you're saying, that could be, that can mean a lot of things. 00:50:25.180 --> 00:50:28.080 That could mean that the church is helping doing that thing. 00:50:28.740 --> 00:50:32.160 Um, that they're helping raise the child, you know, and we, that's usually in a church, 00:50:32.160 --> 00:50:34.040 what we'd say is we're going to help you raise your child. 00:50:34.700 --> 00:50:38.480 Um, and, and, and so those are, those are good why questions. 00:50:39.300 --> 00:50:43.440 But if it's not from a, if it's not from that perspective, if people aren't thinking that 00:50:43.440 --> 00:50:49.180 way, if they're just thinking, I want the same thing I had, um, they should think a little 00:50:49.180 --> 00:50:49.540 deeper. 00:50:49.540 --> 00:50:52.820 I think is all like, think, think about why, why you want those things. 00:50:53.940 --> 00:50:54.500 That's all. 00:50:54.500 --> 00:50:54.840 Yeah. 00:50:55.400 --> 00:51:02.040 So let me ask this and, and, and we'll probably wrap with this, but where, um, at what point 00:51:02.040 --> 00:51:03.680 are you done? 00:51:04.140 --> 00:51:05.760 At what point will you look out? 00:51:05.820 --> 00:51:13.800 Have you thought of this and say, love clan is, is the existence of a digital church when 00:51:13.800 --> 00:51:16.100 we, what is that? 00:51:16.180 --> 00:51:16.600 Oh, right. 00:51:16.920 --> 00:51:18.260 Well, the, okay. 00:51:18.400 --> 00:51:24.840 Actually, this is, this is an unintentionally a great answer to a lot of the questions because, 00:51:24.840 --> 00:51:30.380 um, you know, you're asking even from the very beginning, why would I go through a church 00:51:30.380 --> 00:51:31.920 planning training thing? 00:51:32.020 --> 00:51:34.880 And I don't know if we ever actually hit on that totally. 00:51:35.080 --> 00:51:36.060 We're, we're bouncing around. 00:51:36.100 --> 00:51:36.440 It's okay. 00:51:36.440 --> 00:51:36.820 It's great. 00:51:37.480 --> 00:51:46.760 Um, it, if I want to look at what currently exists, I'm not trying to, um, go in blind 00:51:46.760 --> 00:51:49.700 that I see so many dangers when you do things alone. 00:51:50.060 --> 00:51:56.260 So we want to look at what already has, has worked in the past with local fully understand 00:51:56.260 --> 00:51:58.300 the context of what's out there. 00:51:58.300 --> 00:52:00.820 You know, if you're going to write a good book, you should probably read some really good 00:52:00.820 --> 00:52:01.420 books first. 00:52:02.060 --> 00:52:10.780 Uh, so that, that's what is, and, and this is one of the things that, um, they, they point 00:52:10.780 --> 00:52:13.400 through all of this, uh, going through that. 00:52:13.480 --> 00:52:15.720 They, they, they'll talk about right now, we're talking about budget. 00:52:16.340 --> 00:52:18.720 I don't want to talk about budget in my personal. 00:52:18.860 --> 00:52:22.360 I'm probably not thinking about budget, but they said, Hey, I'm in church. 00:52:22.480 --> 00:52:23.560 This is what you need to think about. 00:52:23.620 --> 00:52:24.500 You need to think about a budget. 00:52:24.760 --> 00:52:27.140 You need to think about your value statements. 00:52:27.220 --> 00:52:28.740 You need to think about mission statements. 00:52:28.740 --> 00:52:38.760 You need to, you know, and I, if it wasn't for, if it wasn't for them basically telling me 00:52:38.760 --> 00:52:40.920 to think through those things, then I probably wouldn't. 00:52:41.540 --> 00:52:53.480 Um, so I will, uh, stall and try to find my vision statement, uh, from, you know, that I 00:52:53.480 --> 00:52:58.140 wrote up in the cohort that I otherwise wouldn't have, uh, have written up. 00:52:58.500 --> 00:53:00.800 So basically they made you write a vision statement. 00:53:01.180 --> 00:53:02.720 They make you write all that stuff. 00:53:02.760 --> 00:53:03.020 Yeah. 00:53:03.300 --> 00:53:05.720 And, um, you don't have a vision statement. 00:53:06.440 --> 00:53:09.920 Well, I do because I am in the cohort one. 00:53:10.360 --> 00:53:10.720 Yeah. 00:53:11.080 --> 00:53:11.800 You know what I mean? 00:53:11.800 --> 00:53:12.760 So what's the vision statement? 00:53:12.840 --> 00:53:13.380 I want to hear it. 00:53:13.880 --> 00:53:17.960 So they also told about the difference between a mission, a mission statement and a vision 00:53:17.960 --> 00:53:18.140 statement. 00:53:18.220 --> 00:53:21.460 So our, our mission statement is that, yeah, as it, right. 00:53:21.660 --> 00:53:22.520 There's a difference. 00:53:23.340 --> 00:53:27.020 So our mission statement is to help gamers find and follow Jesus. 00:53:27.480 --> 00:53:27.900 Okay. 00:53:27.900 --> 00:53:35.700 You know, and our, our vision, um, the, the big long-term only possible with God, right. 00:53:35.840 --> 00:53:38.920 Would be to have 1 million disciple making gamers. 00:53:41.000 --> 00:53:44.980 So disciple making, disciple making gamers. 00:53:45.280 --> 00:53:45.400 Yeah. 00:53:45.480 --> 00:53:45.900 That's good. 00:53:47.960 --> 00:53:48.680 It's work. 00:53:49.220 --> 00:53:49.420 Yeah. 00:53:49.640 --> 00:53:49.920 Right. 00:53:50.860 --> 00:53:53.900 So, so, so you've got this mission vision. 00:53:53.900 --> 00:53:57.740 You've sat through the budget talk, although for pennies compared to what another church 00:53:57.740 --> 00:54:00.400 can do, you're doing, you know, that is, that's free. 00:54:00.640 --> 00:54:05.200 That's a whole nother, that's a whole nother conversation, but we, we're trying, we're not 00:54:05.200 --> 00:54:06.900 that we're, I don't want to even say that out loud. 00:54:06.900 --> 00:54:10.780 We're, we're having a difficulty, uh, finding places to spend money. 00:54:13.360 --> 00:54:18.720 I mean, outside of like, uh, you know, some salary or something, uh, that I would have 00:54:18.720 --> 00:54:23.260 more time for, especially as I'm moving into freelance, some stability to be able to write 00:54:23.260 --> 00:54:30.520 sermons would be nice, but yes, it, it is significantly cheaper and, and large scale. 00:54:31.060 --> 00:54:32.660 International church planning movements. 00:54:32.660 --> 00:54:34.360 They'll tell you money kills a movement. 00:54:34.980 --> 00:54:35.080 Right. 00:54:35.420 --> 00:54:37.840 Well, we're 800 members and we haven't spent anything yet. 00:54:37.840 --> 00:54:40.860 We spent $5 to buy a color on a fake website. 00:54:41.640 --> 00:54:46.620 So that's, I'll cut you the check. 00:54:46.900 --> 00:54:48.200 I'll, I'll, I'll reimburse you there. 00:54:48.240 --> 00:54:48.460 Great. 00:54:50.360 --> 00:54:53.180 I took it out of my personal, uh, you know, so. 00:54:53.840 --> 00:54:54.460 That's awesome. 00:54:54.820 --> 00:55:02.780 I love your heart, Jate, of how you're utilizing discord to connect, meet, help create these disciples 00:55:02.780 --> 00:55:07.440 and then unleash them in their local or virtual communities. 00:55:07.440 --> 00:55:09.220 That's, that's, that's a huge thing. 00:55:09.220 --> 00:55:13.960 So, man, thanks for, uh, thanks for jumping on the podcast with us and, and, and hanging 00:55:13.960 --> 00:55:14.500 out today. 00:55:14.560 --> 00:55:17.460 I mean, any, any closing thoughts as we're landing the plane? 00:55:17.620 --> 00:55:20.520 I'll just, if I can real quick, I'll try to do this as fast as possible. 00:55:20.600 --> 00:55:23.460 I'll just tell you a story of just something that just recently happened. 00:55:23.880 --> 00:55:24.480 Um, do it. 00:55:25.080 --> 00:55:31.640 So in our group, we had our core meeting on Saturday and we were talking, I was explaining 00:55:31.640 --> 00:55:34.120 something that we do called step cuts. 00:55:34.140 --> 00:55:38.620 And it's the idea of like, everybody has a next step, but that you cut that step in half. 00:55:38.620 --> 00:55:40.660 And how do you make it an easier step for somebody? 00:55:40.660 --> 00:55:43.700 And then what does it look like to make it basically a ramp? 00:55:43.740 --> 00:55:46.160 It was just, this is the logical step for somebody to take. 00:55:46.820 --> 00:55:49.900 And, um, there's a guy in our group named Zilly. 00:55:50.280 --> 00:55:54.660 And so I wanted to, um, I asked his permission if I could share this, but he, he shared his, 00:55:54.720 --> 00:55:56.140 his story basically. 00:55:56.800 --> 00:56:04.020 And, um, for him, he was moving towards being reclusive towards never hanging out with anybody. 00:56:04.020 --> 00:56:05.640 He was inside his, his room. 00:56:05.640 --> 00:56:08.020 And so it was, um, yeah. 00:56:08.020 --> 00:56:13.320 And, and, but he bought this game called Gary's mod and it was like $10 and it was a multiplayer. 00:56:13.520 --> 00:56:14.100 He didn't realize. 00:56:14.100 --> 00:56:16.380 And so they was like, well, I guess I wasted $10. 00:56:16.820 --> 00:56:18.100 But we did game nights. 00:56:18.300 --> 00:56:19.900 And so he joined a game night. 00:56:20.560 --> 00:56:25.820 Um, a friend invited him to the group and then he did the game night. 00:56:26.000 --> 00:56:29.340 And then he started coming to the, all the other game nights and buying the games we were 00:56:29.340 --> 00:56:29.900 playing. 00:56:29.900 --> 00:56:32.680 And so it was like consistently playing. 00:56:32.900 --> 00:56:38.060 Then that friend invited him to, um, to do D and D in his house. 00:56:38.480 --> 00:56:42.420 And he was like, I never would have done that if it wasn't for having some relationship 00:56:42.420 --> 00:56:42.920 with people. 00:56:42.920 --> 00:56:44.600 So he went and did D and D at his house. 00:56:44.700 --> 00:56:46.200 Then his friend invited him to church. 00:56:46.200 --> 00:56:50.240 And he was like, okay, you know, like that's, that's sure. 00:56:50.380 --> 00:56:50.720 Why not? 00:56:51.360 --> 00:56:52.200 So he went to church. 00:56:52.480 --> 00:56:56.420 Um, at the same time, he kind of started, he started coming to our community groups. 00:56:56.900 --> 00:56:58.440 Um, fast forward, you know, fast forward. 00:56:58.560 --> 00:56:59.300 It's been a while. 00:56:59.380 --> 00:57:02.380 He's at church and, uh, he was in our community groups for a while. 00:57:03.880 --> 00:57:09.000 And, um, all of this stuff, um, is, is going on. 00:57:09.060 --> 00:57:11.240 And so he's chatting active in our group. 00:57:11.460 --> 00:57:13.220 Um, love the guy to death. 00:57:14.040 --> 00:57:18.700 And he's in our core group explaining like, this is, this is kind of my progression. 00:57:18.920 --> 00:57:20.860 You know, this is, these are the next steps I've taken. 00:57:20.980 --> 00:57:22.420 Um, and here's where I am today. 00:57:22.960 --> 00:57:27.460 And then he quickly had to go, he did like jet out of our group and, um, we were like, 00:57:27.520 --> 00:57:28.000 okay, cool. 00:57:28.100 --> 00:57:34.660 You know, some, uh, somebody I'll shared and we moved on that night at like nine 30, he 00:57:34.660 --> 00:57:38.120 sent us a photo and it was, um, of him being baptized. 00:57:38.960 --> 00:57:44.060 And, and he was like, I have wanted to make this decision for the last, you know, the last 00:57:44.060 --> 00:57:46.920 like two, three years, but it just never was the time. 00:57:47.240 --> 00:57:52.180 Um, I was at my local church today when I had to leave, I had to go to my local church 00:57:52.180 --> 00:57:56.300 where I have like, uh, another group and they were, it was talking about baptism. 00:57:56.300 --> 00:57:59.140 They said, if anybody wants to make this decision now, let's not wait. 00:57:59.220 --> 00:58:00.880 And I just said, it's time, you know? 00:58:01.040 --> 00:58:03.880 And so he got baptized, um, that, that night. 00:58:04.300 --> 00:58:10.380 And he has, he has a fear of, of water and he, it always, he always has where he's like 00:58:10.380 --> 00:58:14.740 wading in water is, is actually really cool, but head underwater. 00:58:15.120 --> 00:58:20.320 He, he said, being baptized might have doubled the number of times his head's been underwater. 00:58:21.060 --> 00:58:22.100 Oh my gosh. 00:58:22.660 --> 00:58:26.560 So like, like actually, you know, like actual, very legitimate fear of, of that. 00:58:26.760 --> 00:58:34.820 So, um, so he's really taking, he's taking lordship and very seriously in his life. 00:58:34.820 --> 00:58:40.880 Um, like that, that is, I, that's what we, what we want to figure out. 00:58:41.060 --> 00:58:47.440 Like, how, how do we, how do we have this where somebody who's in reclusive people aren't 00:58:47.440 --> 00:58:48.380 going to be able to get to them? 00:58:48.460 --> 00:58:49.780 Where do we meet that person? 00:58:49.780 --> 00:58:52.520 And when we look in the Bible and we say, where are the people at? 00:58:52.700 --> 00:58:54.220 Jesus goes to where the people are. 00:58:54.380 --> 00:58:57.080 If those people are online, then we go online. 00:58:57.220 --> 00:58:58.600 I'm not going to be able to find that person. 00:58:58.600 --> 00:59:00.740 If they're in a house, they never leave. 00:59:01.240 --> 00:59:03.540 I got to go online to where that person is. 00:59:04.460 --> 00:59:10.100 And, um, so, so that, that's why, you know, that's what we're doing is really just meeting 00:59:10.100 --> 00:59:12.660 people where they're at, which everybody says that. 00:59:12.720 --> 00:59:15.500 And so we're, that's the reality is that they're online. 00:59:15.660 --> 00:59:19.540 So I, I appreciate Zilla letting me share that. 00:59:19.540 --> 00:59:23.840 And, uh, I didn't want to leave without throwing it in there because it's just such a cool story. 00:59:24.100 --> 00:59:24.880 Um, Oh yeah. 00:59:25.680 --> 00:59:25.900 Yeah. 00:59:25.900 --> 00:59:30.920 Well, and, and I love your passion for, you know, for people like that. 00:59:30.960 --> 00:59:37.740 Uh, I, I love your passion for that, that millennial, that, that Gen Z crowd, the, and you're, 00:59:37.740 --> 00:59:41.560 you're kind of stuck in, in the middle right there of, of, of, of that group. 00:59:41.560 --> 00:59:46.460 And these are, these are your, your people and the idea of using, I still, whenever I 00:59:46.460 --> 00:59:49.980 tell people about the video games, they're like, wait, you can, you can disciple people 00:59:49.980 --> 00:59:50.760 through video games. 00:59:50.820 --> 00:59:51.620 What's that look like? 00:59:51.620 --> 00:59:56.440 Uh, and usually people, usually people say like, wait, we're still talking about online, 00:59:56.440 --> 00:59:56.720 right? 00:59:56.860 --> 00:59:58.360 That's, that's, I get that a lot. 00:59:58.400 --> 00:59:58.600 Yeah. 00:59:58.720 --> 01:00:03.940 And I've always been enthralled with, uh, with love clan and what you guys are doing and 01:00:03.940 --> 01:00:09.960 am very much excited to see how God's going to continue to, uh, to do things, uh, there 01:00:09.960 --> 01:00:11.880 through discord with it. 01:00:11.960 --> 01:00:16.980 So if, if anybody's interested in getting touch with you, um, we'll include, we'll include 01:00:16.980 --> 01:00:21.860 the links in the show notes, but I remember there, there was like, um, it was a URL to 01:00:21.860 --> 01:00:23.440 get connected with love clan. 01:00:23.480 --> 01:00:24.380 It was it, what was it? 01:00:24.380 --> 01:00:24.540 Yeah. 01:00:25.100 --> 01:00:25.940 Loveclan.net. 01:00:26.100 --> 01:00:29.340 That's, that's the easy, easy join. 01:00:29.700 --> 01:00:30.120 Yep. 01:00:30.240 --> 01:00:30.440 Cool. 01:00:30.720 --> 01:00:31.840 So check that out. 01:00:31.920 --> 01:00:32.820 Loveclan.net. 01:00:32.820 --> 01:00:37.720 Check out and see what, what Jake's doing, how he's doing, um, unconventional ministry, 01:00:37.720 --> 01:00:43.480 definitely unconventional, but at the core of it, discipleship, uh, in growing, uh, even 01:00:43.480 --> 01:00:49.980 to the point of, um, you know, researching and, and, and training and growing into, into 01:00:49.980 --> 01:00:51.340 a fully functioning church. 01:00:51.340 --> 01:00:54.740 So, Hey, Jake, uh, thanks for, for jumping on this with me. 01:00:54.980 --> 01:00:57.800 Uh, for Jake, oh man, love it for Jake. 01:00:57.860 --> 01:01:00.220 Uh, my name's Jeff and, uh, we'll see you next time. 01:01:00.300 --> 01:01:00.820 Thanks for coming. 01:01:01.000 --> 01:01:01.180 Bye. 01:01:01.680 --> 01:01:02.100 See ya.