WEBVTT

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 Welcome to the Church Digital Podcast. I'm going to love saying this next part for a long time to come.

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 You ready for this? Powered by Stadia Church Planting. That's right.

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 The Church Digital, the Church Digital Podcast is now powered by Stadia Church Planting.

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 In case you didn't hear through the podcast and through the blogs that we put up,

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 I, Jeff Reed, have taken a job with Stadia Church Planting, where I am now their director of digital church planting.

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 What's a digital church? Awesome. Put a pin in that. We'll come back to it in a second.

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 By the way, this is our 50th episode, 5-0, here of the Church Digital Podcast.

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 I didn't think I'd make it past episode 5. Honestly, I didn't think I'd make it past episode 5.

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 And here we are with episode 50, and I've loved the content. I've loved the guests.

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 I've loved the conversations that we've been having here on this podcast.

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 So you, listening audience, I want to thank you for joining me in this ride, in this journey,

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 as we're discovering more about what Church Online really can be, what it should be,

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 and what digital church will be. So thank you for that.

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 And I want to publicly thank Ray DeArmis, guest host here with the Church Digital Podcast,

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 for joining me on this ride. Honestly, I didn't think any either of us would make it to episode 50.

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 And here we are.

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 So the conversation here that we're going to bring in is, what is a digital church?

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 And that's a great question to ask.

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 There are all sorts of models of church here in the world today.

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 You've got your mega church. You've got your giga church. You've got your multi-site church.

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 You've got your small church. You've got your big church. You've got your high church. You've got your low church.

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 You've got your cowboy church. Yeah, there's a cowboy church.

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 I actually attended a cowboy church in Texas. It does exist. It's for cowboys. It's a thing.

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 All of these different models of church are just it.

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 They're models of the gathering. They're models of the biblical ecclesia.

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 But the important thing to realize is they are models.

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 There's really not one out there today that is the perfect example,

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 the perfect mirror image of what we as a church are called to be biblically.

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 They're just models. They're attempts to get there.

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 Now, some are better than others, but all of them have strengths.

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 All of them have weaknesses.

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 All of them have different characteristics that are towards the direction of biblical ecclesia.

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 They all have strengths in their ecclesiology,

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 but all of them fall short and are limited in some area.

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 I hate to tell you this, but none of them are a perfect match.

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 And so to that end, we're going to create another model of church.

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 Not that it's the perfect model, because I don't think the perfect model exists

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 this side of heaven.

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 But it's another model. It's another opportunity.

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 It's another way to connect people to the saving grace of Christ.

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 Because I think there are people out there in the world today

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 that will not be reached by the current models.

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 And we as the church need to do something different.

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 And to that end, ladies and gentlemen,

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 I want to talk to you about this idea of digital church.

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 What's a digital church?

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 Well, let me show you our definition of digital church.

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 And the awesome thing is nobody's really talking about digital church.

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 So we, Stadia Church Planning and the church digital,

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 we get to define what this digital church is.

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 A digital church is a church that exists digitally before it exists physically.

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 Or maybe it doesn't even exist physically.

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 Now, that may just explode somebody's brains.

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 How can you do church without it being physical?

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 Here's the deal.

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 I think you can.

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 I think if we really look at the ecclesiology of what a church is,

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 I think if you look at the biblical functions of how the church existed years ago,

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 I believe that the digital expression of church

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 can match the biblical functions that are in place.

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 I believe that we can create an ecclesiology of a church

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 that very much matches what the biblical model of church is

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 operating in a digital environment.

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 And so that's the challenge.

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 And honestly, that's the challenge of this podcast.

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 I grabbed a list from well-known sources,

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 and we start to talk through this list of biblical functions.

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 When we look at what the church is, how it functions biblically,

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 can we even do that in a digital environment?

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 Is it possible to start to operate

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 and to have this ecclesiology that operates

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 and these functions that operate in a digital format?

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 Could you even operate as a biblical church in a virtual environment only?

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 Not a physical environment, a virtual environment only.

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 And to that end, we brought in experts from all over the country

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 to be on a panel to start this conversation.

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 Yeah, we grabbed a bunch of online pastors and said,

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 hey, come over here, let's have this crazy conversation.

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 You know the best part of the conversation, straight up?

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 At least four times in this podcast, somebody made this comment,

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 I hope I'm not going to get fired because of this, but.

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 Because there's this fascinating conversation

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 where all these online guys are like, this is a great thing,

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 but it's a completely separate thing.

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 It's a new thing.

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 And that's the beauty of a digital church.

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 Because it's not tied to a physical church model

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 where you're trying to recreate what's happening physical in a virtual space.

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 You get to just swipe the slate clean and start over

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 and create a model of church that just operates virtually,

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 the way that virtual is supposed to function.

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 And that is a beautiful thing.

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 So here's who's involved in this panel.

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 We're bringing in Ian Kirk, Generations, community pastor, online pastor.

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 We're bringing in Jason Morris, Westside family, no stranger to the podcast there,

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 of course, Global Innovations pastor.

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 We're bringing in Joey Santos, online pastor with Christ Church,

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 as well as Ray Diarmus, of course, guest host regularly here on the podcast,

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 as well as digital pastor out of Christ Fellowship in Miami,

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 and myself, Jeff with the Church of Digital,

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 in a conversation that I'm calling Biblical Functions in a Digital-Only Church.

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 Episode 50, everybody, here you go.

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 Jason, what ears are you wearing?

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 Those are interesting to me.

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 These are like some knockoff Chinese brand that Panasami or something like that.

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 But hey, they work.

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 I got them for Christmas.

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 Actually, I gave them to my son for Christmas,

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 and it was somehow, it was beneath him.

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 And so I'm like, okay, I'll use them.

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 And I like them.

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 Love it.

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 We were going to do a conversation centered around language,

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 and I think somewhat it'll still maybe feel that way,

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 because part of language is really at the core of the philosophy of Church Online.

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 I was, so I've taken a new job, and this is like grounded in fact.

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 Joey and I spent, I don't know, two or three days,

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 a couple days back in November out in Colorado with an organization called Stadia Church Planting.

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 And they actually just launched their, just planted their 1,000th church.

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 It's taken them 17 years to launch 1,000 churches, but they celebrated that.

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 What's interesting is with the current growth trends that the organization is going through

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 and how they've been accelerating, they're going to hit the next 1,000 churches in three years.

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 So they'll go to 2,000 churches in three years and are very quickly escalating along.

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 And so the reason that Joey and I got pulled into this conversation is they were really trying

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 to wrestle with what a digital church is.

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 And what's interesting is like, we started the conversation.

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 They got really excited about some of the stuff we were talking about.

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 I really got excited about some of the stuff that we were talking about.

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 And at the end of this like two-day Think Tank Blue Sky thing we were doing,

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 we just kept the conversation going between Stadia and I, and effective this week or late January.

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 I'm like director of digital church planting for Stadia, which is like awesome and scary and everything in between.

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 And people are like, so what's a digital church?

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 And my response back is, what do you think a digital church is?

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 Because we're literally getting to define some of those things right now.

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 So here's what I want to do.

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 I want to like be very particular with some terms here.

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 So what's a digital church?

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 For me, I'm wrestling with three things.

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 I'm wrestling with a church planter that wants to plant a church digitally that will eventually turn into a physical location.

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 So that's one model.

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 I'm talking about a church planter that's planting a church in a digital realm that may stay digital.

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 And so like I'm referencing here a DJ Soto with VR Church, or I'm referencing a Jay Earhart with what he's doing with Love Plant,

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 where the end game of it is not for it to grow into a physical,

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 but to keep it in that virtual, in that digital community.

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 Now, there's challenges.

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 Some of these things that I'm going to go through, like I was reading a book here today.

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 I was reading the, what is this called?

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 The Flywheel.

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 What is this called?

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 The Movement Flywheel.

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 We'll put it in the show notes.

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 But it's a free e-book from Leadership Network and Exponential Conference.

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 And some of the things that, even when they're talking about this stuff, I'm like, I don't really know how to do this digitally.

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 Maybe it's not possible.

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 Maybe it is possible.

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 Maybe we just need to kind of think about it.

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 But it's not like in this podcast, in this one-hour podcast, we're going to solve all the world's problems as much as, hey,

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 there's some challenges here that we really need to pour more into.

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 So let's do this.

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 Let's take a moment.

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 Let's bounce around the podcast.

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 Ian, let's start up with you.

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 And I'll just comment, just maybe 15, 20 seconds, who you are, your ministry, what you're tied to,

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 and what the heart is of church online and that for you.

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 So I'm at Generations Community Church in Marysville, Washington.

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 I am the online campus pastor.

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 And we've been doing this for about a year.

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 In fact, I got the official title in about, the anniversary is just about now.

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 And basically taking us from zero to broadcast.

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 And now we're starting to expand to online groups and figuring out how that's going to work for us.

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 And I also write daily devotionals for the entire church, which sort of fits into this, I hope, for our online groups.

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 But right now we're really starting to wrestle with how online groups are going to fit into the church context.

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 Because in our area, we have Boeing and other organizations that work seven days a week, 24 hours a day.

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 Church on Sunday doesn't fit in a lot of schedules.

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 And so we want to expand that from just worship, you know, just broadcasting worship to having small groups and discipleship online so that people feel connected to the body.

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 Joey, why don't you go next?

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 Well, I'm in Mason, Ohio, Christ Church.

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 And I've been here for two and a half years now.

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 And we start from ground zero.

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 Also, with the online church, they had nothing before I got there.

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 And we really, our main purpose was how we create an online environment that provides full engagement.

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 So the idea was literally to, if our next door neighbor from our church doesn't want to come to a building, but they engage online, we're okay with that.

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 So, and that really opened the door for many possibilities.

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 So we are, we've been experiencing the full engagement.

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 We call it campus because it's really treated as a campus.

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 It's a separate campus, even from financially.

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 So the giving that comes through the online campus is treated separately from the physical church.

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 And we're expanding that now.

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 Like we're, we'll talk more about it, but we, it has been really fun experience to be able to have this presence at a bar and, and have the church there.

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 The church is flourishing.

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 It's great.

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 Yeah.

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 I'm sure we'll tie into the church in a bar.

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 By the way, episode 45 on the church digital podcast.

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 We spent significant amount of time.

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 Joey's no stranger to the podcast here.

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 He was on that one and got to dive into that.

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 And we've got the OG down here, Jason Morris from Westside family.

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 So going all the way back to, I don't have it in front of me, but it's probably like episode seven or eight, six, maybe.

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 It was in the, it was in the top 10 early days of that.

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 But yeah, yeah, I felt like it was, was right there.

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 Maybe five or six.

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 I'll look up while you're talking, but Jason, man, just Westside family.

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 What's, what's the heart of church online?

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 What's the heart of digital?

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 What's your heart?

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 What's, what's going on down over there?

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 Well, what we do is we help people.

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 Our, our mission statement at Westside is loving Jesus, becoming like Jesus and sharing Jesus.

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 And what we do online is help people do that exact same thing using online tools and then leveraging on part of the thing that I do is we leverage that digital expression of Westside to catalyze global church planning movements.

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 And so like, for example, tomorrow, I'm going to be headed out to Thailand and Laos where we're going to be meeting up with a bunch of church planters and church leaders that we're bringing in from South Africa and India.

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 And at last count, the, we've had a, the, the honor to participate with some really good partners that at last count is like over 1200 churches.

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 Something like that.

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 Not in the same way that one would think of as a church here in the States with a building paid staff, that sort of thing.

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 It is a different expression of church, but what we're doing is we are leveraging the digital resources that we're creating and allowing that to give people on the ground,

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 on the tools that they need to create contextualized versions of Jesus church, wherever they happen to be.

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 So our heart is to make that happen because the way I see it, Jesus said, go into all the world and we're just giving it a shot.

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 So that's what we do.

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 So you're literally getting on a plane tomorrow to travel over that.

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 That's cool.

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 Appreciate, appreciate everybody taking the time to jump in on this.

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 Hey, Ray, you want to give us a 30 second on, you don't get to talk about CF much, like just really the heart of what you guys are doing over there.

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 I mean, really it's, it's continually changing and, you know, God's allowed us these digital tools as a way to reach people and how to disciple them.

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 And even on into the future and eventually Jeff and I'll talk about this because Jeff, Jeff and I both sit on the board and work with different organizations and how a lot of this is kind of taking shape.

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 You know, but everything from, we lead small groups online, we have community online, we have, you know, we do services online and expanded even now into missions and how we can do missions online.

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 And pretty excited to talk about that on in the future, but God has really used this in a great way and just great, been grateful to be here all the way up through episode 50.

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 It's been really cool to be part of the church digital, but really at Christ Fellowship, it's been quite a ride and quite an experience to allow digital tools.

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 And my role is expanded. I'm not just online campus pastor anymore.

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 Like I'm basically our digital strategist overall now and kind of helping find a way to allow all those tools to work together to help us reach people in a digital world, but also recognizing, and we've used this word here on the podcast in the digital world, where the people who attend our campuses and the people who attend our online campus in a lot of cases are one and the same.

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 And I'm sure we'll get into some of that discussion today as we talk about what it means to be the ecclesia or the gathered online.

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 Yeah, it was funny. I got called out on Twitter. I can't even remember who did it to me at this point, but a couple, and it's Twitter, Twitter, Twitter.

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 And it was all nice, but Jay Crandall over at Saddleback tagged, tagged Ray and I, evidently he's got somebody from his church that's moving down to Naples, Florida.

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 And he was asking, you know, Ray and I via Twitter, hey, do you know any churches, any, any, he said, anybody who's doing anything in, in Naples.

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 And, you know, Jay being the online pastor over there, I just, I replied back, are you looking for online or physical church?

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 And somebody, somebody will tell me, we'll put, we'll link to it in the show notes, but somebody busted me and they were like, does it matter?

00:17:49.600 --> 00:17:54.260
 And I was like, okay, touche, well done. I appreciate the shot, you know?

00:17:54.860 --> 00:18:01.380
 Yeah, it does in this context. I want to know who to recommend to, but, but anyway, yes, physical or virtual doesn't matter.

00:18:01.460 --> 00:18:03.620
 We're all, we're all all the same church.

00:18:03.620 --> 00:18:13.300
 I want to hone in because part of me is like, I love that. And the fact that we are all the one church and in the different parts and things that come from that.

00:18:14.240 --> 00:18:17.520
 What I want to propose though, is that there's different models.

00:18:17.860 --> 00:18:30.220
 And so I may want to like segue the conversation a little different here because like, for example, you know, Jason, Jason, talk to me about what, what's going on at the churches.

00:18:30.220 --> 00:18:34.800
 Like what does a church look like where you are, where you're heading to literally tomorrow?

00:18:35.140 --> 00:18:52.760
 Well, that varies a lot depending upon the location. It could be a gathering of, you know, two to 300 in a storefront somewhere, or it could be, you know, three to five believers meeting in a bamboo hut or under a tree.

00:18:53.260 --> 00:18:59.740
 So it, it takes lots of different forms and much of that has to do with the context that they're in.

00:18:59.740 --> 00:19:16.740
 In some cases they're in persecuted places where they have to function in underground, which causes them to be forced to be small and reproducing, which we've found actually works better from a gospel saturation standpoint.

00:19:16.740 --> 00:19:40.420
 In a leadership development standpoint, then amassing large gatherings that are more difficult to replicate and, um, tend to, I mean, they, they all have all the different expressions have their own strength and weakness, but one of the weaknesses of a larger gathering is the leadership development pipeline tends to weaken.

00:19:40.420 --> 00:19:50.140
 And the gospel saturation in a given area tends to weaken, um, um, versus other expressions or other forms.

00:19:50.140 --> 00:19:53.620
 Cause you're talking about different forms of church, right?

00:19:54.100 --> 00:19:59.460
 So like megachurch is different than house church, but they're both church, right?

00:19:59.780 --> 00:20:02.620
 It's just a different expression of what the church is.

00:20:02.620 --> 00:20:06.600
 And when you're talking about digital church, I think it's another thing.

00:20:06.600 --> 00:20:08.480
 It's another expression of church.

00:20:08.940 --> 00:20:12.180
 And one can't say, Oh, megachurch is bad or house church is bad.

00:20:12.580 --> 00:20:15.420
 Well, a lot of it depends on the context and who you're trying to reach.

00:20:16.220 --> 00:20:30.980
 Um, just like I was, you know, listening to Joey, you know, talk about the vast majority of people that are in his digital expression of church are within the geographic reach of his physical campuses.

00:20:31.500 --> 00:20:49.000
 And that tells you something that there is a demographic or a group of people that could possibly only be reached in more of a digital context or in a more hyper local context than what we're thinking, because they're thinking, no, I don't want to be in a building.

00:20:50.180 --> 00:21:08.660
 And if you hear that person, like if the customers that we're supposed to be, or the people that we're supposed to be reaching, if those people are saying, I don't want to be in a building, we need to listen to that because our job, you know, according to Jesus is to go into all the world and make disciples, right?

00:21:09.280 --> 00:21:11.240
 Teaching them to observe everything we've commanded you.

00:21:11.340 --> 00:21:20.220
 And if those people tell us that they don't want to be in a building, and yet we're forcing them into a model that requires one, maybe we need to rethink our approach.

00:21:20.580 --> 00:21:21.380
 That's all I'm saying.

00:21:21.920 --> 00:21:22.080
 Yeah.

00:21:22.680 --> 00:21:26.840
 And the idea of different models certainly comes into play.

00:21:27.000 --> 00:21:33.680
 Korea, Korea is almost seeing borderline revival as a result of a giga church movement.

00:21:33.680 --> 00:21:43.400
 Some of the largest churches on the planet are coming out of Korea, whereas India and China is seeing a movement on a much more house church level.

00:21:43.900 --> 00:21:45.860
 We've had Mike Christian on the podcast.

00:21:46.020 --> 00:21:55.020
 Mike has literally launched 400 churches, 400 micro churches, house churches, so much so that he was removed from India.

00:21:55.280 --> 00:21:59.340
 The Indian government literally kicked him out of the country because he was a threat to national security.

00:21:59.340 --> 00:22:03.780
 He was so effective in planting these reproducing churches.

00:22:04.560 --> 00:22:17.880
 And to say, well, no, the giga church is better or less or more powerful or not, I mean, that's an irrelevant conversation because in the end, we're not judging how many butts in seats or how much revenue is coming in or what the money is.

00:22:18.620 --> 00:22:24.000
 You're judging how we are at fulfilling the Great Commission of empowering a disciple to go.

00:22:24.080 --> 00:22:26.460
 Thank you very much, Jason Morris, for that.

00:22:27.200 --> 00:22:42.500
 Well, there is a facet that I think maybe should be considered, and that is in the same way where the primary expression of church in the first century that you find in the Book of Acts was not in large gatherings.

00:22:42.740 --> 00:22:43.860
 That happened later.

00:22:45.140 --> 00:22:47.720
 That's not to say that large gatherings aren't effective.

00:22:47.980 --> 00:22:58.140
 They can be an effective tool, and we have seen them as effective tools, even in regions where the primary expression of church might be a house church or a smaller gathering.

00:22:58.140 --> 00:23:19.020
 The interesting thing that I see about the digital church, though, is that it is in some ways neither mega nor micro in that it is a networked church where you could have smaller or asynchronous exposures to the church.

00:23:19.020 --> 00:23:29.380
 Not a church service, not a church service, but perhaps, but done in a networked fashion where the net effect is greater than the sum of its parts.

00:23:29.860 --> 00:23:38.600
 Yeah, you know, the tough thing that I see, and this is something that we're all struggling through when we talk about the age that we're coming into in terms of digital churches.

00:23:39.760 --> 00:23:47.140
 You know, for some time, for quite some time, you know, we validated Sunday morning because it was something that we can count.

00:23:47.220 --> 00:23:48.520
 It was something that we can kind of control.

00:23:48.980 --> 00:23:53.220
 With digital tools, we have less and less of an ability to control that.

00:23:53.300 --> 00:23:54.720
 It's more virally spread.

00:23:54.840 --> 00:24:04.500
 We can spread out content further and faster than ever, and it can reach people of all sorts of different means, different economic statuses, different neighborhoods, et cetera.

00:24:04.500 --> 00:24:17.640
 And people can access content from different pastors who aren't even in their own city, and so in that way, it gives them the ability to be shepherded by people that they may never meet, never see, which is something that the mega church movement was already kind of doing.

00:24:17.840 --> 00:24:26.640
 Because even though I could see my pastor on a stage, the odds of us having a relationship in a 2,000, 3,000, 4,000-member church, slim to none, you know?

00:24:26.920 --> 00:24:35.840
 And so now when we start talking about church as how we know it, now we've got to get down to some of the nitty-gritty stuff, which digital, in my opinion, can actually do better.

00:24:36.880 --> 00:24:43.460
 And I'll get to that in a second in the sense of accountability, actually being in relationships, being in somebody's life.

00:24:43.460 --> 00:24:44.880
 And here's why.

00:24:45.160 --> 00:24:50.100
 With digital landscapes and with digital tools, I can be in somebody's life every day.

00:24:50.720 --> 00:24:59.360
 We can stay in communication every single day, and we can keep in accountability, and that person can keep me accountable to things like scripture reading, to prayer.

00:25:00.140 --> 00:25:05.420
 That person can be in my life, and the praises, you know, and the good, the bad, the ugly, all that stuff.

00:25:05.420 --> 00:25:09.960
 A lot of that can happen on digital landscapes where face-to-face interactions can't happen as much.

00:25:10.820 --> 00:25:17.100
 And so, you know, the example, and I've used this before on the podcast, that kind of launched me in this direction, seeing how this could be real.

00:25:17.580 --> 00:25:24.380
 My wife's been part of the same text thread with other Christian mommies for about 10 years.

00:25:25.000 --> 00:25:34.480
 And they've been there through the good and the bad, holding each other accountable through the birth of babies, through some of them, their divorces, through remarriages, through all sorts of stuff.

00:25:34.880 --> 00:25:42.820
 Praying for each other, keeping each other accountable, encouraging one another, doing all the things that we would expect the people sitting in our pews to do.

00:25:42.820 --> 00:25:50.840
 And doing it more effectively than I had seen in some face-to-face small groups, where it was like a shallow relationship, but hey, they're meeting together every week.

00:25:51.720 --> 00:25:52.740
 So check my problem.

00:25:52.740 --> 00:26:00.960
 So I've got a question on that, Ray, because I think you're touching on something that is overlooked many times.

00:26:02.360 --> 00:26:11.100
 The question I have in that environment, where I think one could actually do more ministry because it's more constant.

00:26:12.820 --> 00:26:20.400
 In that texting group that you've described, do they ever or do the members ever get together physically?

00:26:21.460 --> 00:26:24.600
 They do, but it's not as often as you would think.

00:26:24.960 --> 00:26:30.840
 It's maybe once a year, maybe once every two years, because now they're spread out.

00:26:31.800 --> 00:26:33.720
 Some of them, one of them is living in Canada.

00:26:34.420 --> 00:26:36.720
 A couple of them are living in the Carolinas.

00:26:37.440 --> 00:26:43.400
 And so they've spread out on this scale, but they're very much in each other's lives every day.

00:26:44.100 --> 00:26:49.320
 It was kind of funny because at some point, I was in what I've considered accountability groups.

00:26:49.700 --> 00:26:54.040
 And I would be sitting down with my wife, and I would just hear, like her phone would be going off.

00:26:54.120 --> 00:26:54.780
 I'd be like, what's going on?

00:26:54.820 --> 00:26:55.940
 She's like, oh, it's just the girls.

00:26:56.340 --> 00:26:58.340
 And I'm like, well, man, what's going on?

00:26:58.340 --> 00:27:02.460
 Hey, so-and-so is going through this thing, and we're all praying for her.

00:27:02.620 --> 00:27:04.320
 And I'm like, man, you guys are in.

00:27:04.400 --> 00:27:10.100
 And I mean, some of this is just me being a guy and her being a woman and just them being better at communication in general.

00:27:11.360 --> 00:27:16.880
 But I was like, man, you guys are in each other's lives much more than I am with my own men's accountability group.

00:27:16.980 --> 00:27:19.400
 Like, yeah, we'll talk about some signatures or some different stuff.

00:27:19.440 --> 00:27:22.760
 But you guys are bringing the day-to-day to each other.

00:27:23.300 --> 00:27:24.200
 And that's a big deal.

00:27:24.200 --> 00:27:32.960
 The trend that you mentioned and the way that that texting group has expressed itself as the church is a growing trend that I see happening,

00:27:33.140 --> 00:27:47.340
 where on-site, face-to-face conversations happen less frequently but are more meaningful because of the gaps that are being filled on a more constant basis through a digital means.

00:27:47.340 --> 00:27:57.480
 And perhaps it could be that that trend can be seen not only in church world but in every other sector of society.

00:27:58.260 --> 00:28:12.660
 So that being said, perhaps our ministry model could adapt to that cadence where, who knows, we could have an on-site gathering, you know, once every quarter or something of that nature.

00:28:12.660 --> 00:28:28.820
 That's really big, really awesome, highly excellent, and not able to be repeatable every single Sunday because that's too much of a grind and would suck too much resource and energy from the actual ministry that's happening in a digital means on a more frequent basis.

00:28:28.820 --> 00:28:29.660
 Does that make sense?

00:28:30.220 --> 00:28:36.780
 Yeah, that actually kind of aligns with, if you guys read the book, and Daniel M. talks about it in No Silver Bullets.

00:28:36.980 --> 00:28:39.160
 It's called Flip the Classroom.

00:28:39.240 --> 00:28:40.400
 Are you guys familiar with that term?

00:28:40.940 --> 00:28:46.100
 Where essentially, it was two chemistry teachers who wrote the book.

00:28:46.200 --> 00:28:47.720
 And the philosophy is out there.

00:28:48.120 --> 00:28:56.180
 And since, and I'll talk about my wife later in the context of this book, because my wife said Master's in Education, and when I said Flip the Classroom, she got really upset, which was funny.

00:28:56.460 --> 00:28:57.320
 I mean, we'll get to it.

00:28:57.680 --> 00:29:08.060
 But what Flip the Classroom is, is these two chemistry teachers, instead of being focused on lecturing in the classroom, they flipped it.

00:29:08.060 --> 00:29:16.560
 So they would lecture, like pre-recorded, upload it to a video server somewhere, and the homework was watching the lectures.

00:29:16.800 --> 00:29:29.680
 Instead of the teachers feeling like they had to perform four or five classes a week, their word, perform four to five classes a day, excuse me, they would do it once for online, and the students would watch it once.

00:29:29.680 --> 00:29:34.320
 If there were questions, they'd back it up, they'd pause it, repeat it over and over again.

00:29:34.860 --> 00:29:44.720
 And then that was the homework, the actual, like, application point where they do the homework, where they ask the questions, where they're going through the labs, like, that's done in the classroom.

00:29:45.480 --> 00:29:55.980
 Teachers are able to then engage with the students without having to worry about the performance, without having to worry about that, but more of person to person building that community.

00:29:56.900 --> 00:30:01.000
 Students' scores skyrocketed as a result of that also.

00:30:01.520 --> 00:30:15.320
 The teachers felt they better understood who the students were and what their needs were, because instead of them performing their word over and over and over to them, they got to listen and understood who the students were.

00:30:15.780 --> 00:30:20.000
 Now, my wife has a master's of education, and it was funny.

00:30:20.100 --> 00:30:25.840
 I just, I asked her, because I read the book on the airplane recently, and I got home, and I was like, hey, have you ever heard of this?

00:30:25.840 --> 00:30:28.100
 You ever, like, you know, heard of these guys this book?

00:30:28.140 --> 00:30:30.380
 And she's like, no, but I hate Flip the Classroom.

00:30:31.000 --> 00:30:32.180
 And I was like, really?

00:30:32.580 --> 00:30:33.860
 You know, just tell me why.

00:30:33.920 --> 00:30:35.840
 And she's like, oh, well, the teachers are just being lazy.

00:30:36.280 --> 00:30:37.600
 It was my wife's response.

00:30:38.340 --> 00:30:40.520
 And I was like, oh, that's interesting.

00:30:41.200 --> 00:30:49.320
 And I was like, because I really, I'm interested in this in context of church and discipleship, and maybe even changing how we're creating disciples, what that process looks like.

00:30:49.840 --> 00:30:53.120
 And she says, oh, no, I totally think you should do it from the church level.

00:30:53.180 --> 00:30:55.260
 I think it would be awesome at the church level.

00:30:55.300 --> 00:30:56.600
 I just think teachers are being lazy.

00:30:56.700 --> 00:30:58.860
 So I don't know what that does for my wife.

00:30:59.360 --> 00:31:04.280
 If somebody wants to speak into that, I can give you my wife's email address, and you can speak with her directly.

00:31:04.600 --> 00:31:07.960
 Because Lord knows, I was like, cool, I'm going to let that one go, and we're going to move on.

00:31:08.120 --> 00:31:12.840
 Your wife's reticence to that approach is fascinating to me.

00:31:12.840 --> 00:31:16.240
 At the end of the day, my question is, what is the point of education?

00:31:16.780 --> 00:31:22.920
 Is it so that the teachers can have meaningful activity, or so that the students can learn something?

00:31:23.680 --> 00:31:30.300
 And if test scores are going up, who cares if the teachers are more lazy, even if that's the real reason?

00:31:30.800 --> 00:31:32.960
 If it's more effective, who cares?

00:31:33.680 --> 00:31:42.980
 So in my mind, that really kind of parallels some of the other things that I feel like people are struggling with when it comes to new ways of doing church.

00:31:45.720 --> 00:31:49.020
 You'd need to know what your goal actually is.

00:31:49.540 --> 00:31:51.260
 Is it activity?

00:31:51.820 --> 00:31:52.980
 Is it programs?

00:31:53.100 --> 00:31:53.760
 Is it events?

00:31:54.060 --> 00:31:55.180
 Or is it results?

00:31:55.520 --> 00:31:56.720
 What are those results?

00:31:56.960 --> 00:32:02.500
 And if you're driving towards those kinds of goals, then who cares what kind of methodology you're using?

00:32:02.960 --> 00:32:04.200
 Just do whatever's effective.

00:32:04.680 --> 00:32:09.360
 You know, that same criticism that Amy would give of the teachers.

00:32:09.680 --> 00:32:11.880
 And I would never go against the great Amy Reid.

00:32:11.960 --> 00:32:13.500
 I'm a big fan of Jeff's wife.

00:32:13.560 --> 00:32:15.080
 She does such awesome stuff as a teacher.

00:32:16.040 --> 00:32:17.340
 I'm not getting you in trouble, Jeff.

00:32:17.380 --> 00:32:17.760
 Don't worry.

00:32:18.260 --> 00:32:18.900
 Thank you for that.

00:32:18.940 --> 00:32:19.580
 I appreciate it.

00:32:19.640 --> 00:32:20.020
 Keep going.

00:32:20.160 --> 00:32:20.340
 Yeah.

00:32:20.540 --> 00:32:21.720
 But here's the deal.

00:32:22.460 --> 00:32:28.680
 That's the same criticism I've heard of pastors who have even gone to video teaching or churches that have gone multi-site that have gone to video teaching.

00:32:28.800 --> 00:32:29.640
 Oh, that's so lazy.

00:32:30.420 --> 00:32:32.860
 That's something that churches should not want to do.

00:32:32.960 --> 00:32:34.560
 And it's like, well, hold on.

00:32:34.960 --> 00:32:39.120
 And this is like I was the campus pastor at a physical location before I became the online campus pastor.

00:32:39.900 --> 00:32:48.400
 I did a lot more ministry, like actual ministry, on the weeks that I was not teaching because we were rolling the video.

00:32:48.980 --> 00:32:50.680
 I got to be in somebody's life.

00:32:50.680 --> 00:32:52.440
 I got to go do hospital visits.

00:32:52.700 --> 00:32:54.340
 I went and did funerals.

00:32:54.500 --> 00:32:56.040
 I went and did a bunch of stuff.

00:32:56.480 --> 00:33:05.960
 On the weeks that I was teaching, I spent 30 to 35 hours in books and working on a message and doing that because that's what was needed of me that week.

00:33:06.380 --> 00:33:10.800
 And I felt like I was more in ministry when we were leveraging the technology properly.

00:33:11.180 --> 00:33:12.720
 Joey, you've been quiet so far, man.

00:33:12.760 --> 00:33:13.240
 What are you thinking?

00:33:13.680 --> 00:33:14.740
 This is fascinating.

00:33:16.020 --> 00:33:33.700
 And I say that because I know this is going to sound cheesy, but, man, I cannot believe I'm in the same podcast with Jason because I met Jason for the first time at a very small online pastors conference in Dallas a few years ago.

00:33:33.780 --> 00:33:35.320
 And, I mean, he was incredible.

00:33:35.400 --> 00:33:36.260
 He shared information.

00:33:36.540 --> 00:33:37.860
 We got, we were sharing meals.

00:33:37.860 --> 00:33:47.340
 And he has been a great, like, I follow his church and then his Twitter accounts and see, you know, he shared what's going on online.

00:33:47.440 --> 00:33:50.140
 And I'm like, I'm here in the podcast with Jason right now.

00:33:50.220 --> 00:33:51.060
 That's pretty incredible.

00:33:51.300 --> 00:33:52.960
 So, man, I pray for you, brother.

00:33:53.160 --> 00:33:55.440
 I appreciate what you do, your leadership.

00:33:56.260 --> 00:33:57.060
 I really do.

00:33:57.140 --> 00:33:57.700
 That's great.

00:33:57.700 --> 00:34:05.700
 I really believe that the future of the online church is going to be away from the online streaming of the Sunday service.

00:34:07.460 --> 00:34:19.720
 And because that, to replicate what happened on the stage, it's still not, it's still, that's still to me not the identity of the real digital church.

00:34:21.060 --> 00:34:32.340
 And I really think that because all we're talking about online, we're talking about content distribution with the only difference is with the relational aspect of it.

00:34:33.220 --> 00:34:40.320
 And we have the ability to really broadcast content 247 and connect with people anytime today.

00:34:40.320 --> 00:34:41.540
 I agree with Ray.

00:34:42.680 --> 00:34:47.320
 I experienced more ministry in the last two years than the 10 years prior in a physical church.

00:34:47.940 --> 00:34:48.380
 Literally.

00:34:49.040 --> 00:34:59.840
 You know, when, when you got a guy from California who never walked in a church before, he never walked in a church and he found our church through a Google search.

00:34:59.840 --> 00:35:06.060
 And he, and he, and he just go through all the steps of, you know, I want to know what's next.

00:35:06.060 --> 00:35:08.120
 And we go through foundations class.

00:35:08.120 --> 00:35:09.080
 I don't want to know what's next.

00:35:09.080 --> 00:35:11.700
 And we go through online Bible study one-on-one.

00:35:11.780 --> 00:35:13.020
 I was there just one-on-one.

00:35:13.020 --> 00:35:14.720
 I said, we don't have to join a group.

00:35:14.820 --> 00:35:19.820
 We're going to be me and you doing this all the way to, I want to get baptized.

00:35:21.400 --> 00:35:26.060
 And he flies all the way from California to Mason to get baptized.

00:35:26.140 --> 00:35:28.980
 And that was the very first time every day he stepped foot in a church.

00:35:29.380 --> 00:35:29.780
 Wow.

00:35:29.960 --> 00:35:30.180
 Wow.

00:35:30.420 --> 00:35:38.500
 And if you don't understand, like people don't understand the power of that moment, you really don't understand the power of just, and he, here's the deal about it.

00:35:38.900 --> 00:35:42.900
 The first time he watched a service was a Tuesday morning in California.

00:35:42.900 --> 00:35:43.880
 It was not a Sunday.

00:35:43.980 --> 00:35:45.660
 He watched a pre-recorded service.

00:35:47.300 --> 00:35:54.860
 So I really think that, one, and I'm going to run the risk to really get myself in trouble here.

00:35:56.220 --> 00:35:57.200
 It's my podcast.

00:35:57.280 --> 00:35:57.740
 You'll be fine.

00:35:57.860 --> 00:35:58.200
 I know.

00:35:58.320 --> 00:36:00.640
 And I just going to repeat what I said in the last podcast.

00:36:00.640 --> 00:36:21.180
 I think churches, the physical churches are a little lost in a sense of, you know, we got this big building and we got to have people come in and we haven't have enough programming that people are happy enough to give them money so we can now pay the bills.

00:36:21.700 --> 00:36:29.860
 So churches are becoming this big real estate business instead of being a place where we can just distribute content and facilitate relationships.

00:36:30.100 --> 00:36:37.780
 So in our church, we shift the conversation because we're seeing people come in and I'm a big data guy.

00:36:38.120 --> 00:36:40.920
 So I can look at data all day long.

00:36:41.200 --> 00:36:44.580
 And the reality is people are not coming to church because of the preaching.

00:36:44.740 --> 00:36:46.640
 They're not coming to church because of the music.

00:36:47.480 --> 00:36:53.460
 They're coming to church trying to find relationships, meaningful relationships with the community.

00:36:53.720 --> 00:37:06.960
 I visualize, I don't know if it's off the subject, but I visualize that the physical church is going through a season of adjustments, of trying to rediscover its identity in today's culture.

00:37:07.960 --> 00:37:12.760
 And the digital church is just in place to be able to fill that gap.

00:37:12.760 --> 00:37:18.960
 So I think for pastors listening to this, the digital church is not here to compete with your church.

00:37:19.120 --> 00:37:23.300
 The digital church is here to actually support what you offer.

00:37:23.640 --> 00:37:34.640
 Now, you've got to just look in the way more objectively how that engagement happens so you are able to distribute content with the relational piece involved.

00:37:34.640 --> 00:37:41.720
 It's like if you can add the relational piece to it, it makes a complete experience for the people participating in it.

00:37:42.400 --> 00:37:42.540
 Yeah.

00:37:42.740 --> 00:37:53.160
 And there's an awesome opportunity for church online's, the online broadcast, the online community of a physical church to complement that.

00:37:53.240 --> 00:37:59.020
 Ray mentioned this idea of physical, a combination of physical and digital within one.

00:37:59.020 --> 00:38:06.480
 And like there's, believe me, I could go off that, we all could go off that pitch and help pastors understand that.

00:38:06.520 --> 00:38:12.920
 And we've all have enjoyed the joys and sorrows of trying to convince someone of the other way on that.

00:38:13.380 --> 00:38:26.860
 Here's, and I truly do believe this, the physical church growth model or whatever you want to call this, the mega church, giga church, multi-site, the typical church that you see today in the physical space.

00:38:27.580 --> 00:38:30.320
 I think they're going to get bigger and I think they're going to get smaller.

00:38:31.360 --> 00:38:37.300
 The model of the large church is going to continue to grow.

00:38:37.540 --> 00:38:41.680
 I don't think that it's going to crash and burn.

00:38:41.840 --> 00:38:43.400
 I don't think it's set for doom.

00:38:43.960 --> 00:38:47.940
 If anything, and I do think that it's serving its purpose for the kingdom.

00:38:48.120 --> 00:38:50.240
 There are people that do connect to that.

00:38:50.240 --> 00:38:57.140
 Just like it would be ill of me to rip a giga church in Korea or a house church in India.

00:38:57.680 --> 00:39:02.020
 Those physical models exist to serve the purpose that they do.

00:39:02.620 --> 00:39:14.320
 Now, there may need to be something complimentary to help get beyond what they do or to reach the type of person that those buildings are not set to reach.

00:39:15.200 --> 00:39:24.700
 We've all experienced, and Joey, you know, you've alluded to some of them with your church online where, you know, there are people who don't want to set foot in the building.

00:39:24.940 --> 00:39:31.560
 As of right now, LifeWay stats, 63% of people aren't interested in going to your church building.

00:39:32.160 --> 00:39:40.100
 80%, 79% are interested in having a conversation about faith with their friends, as long as faith is important to their friends.

00:39:40.460 --> 00:39:42.880
 And they see that faith is important to their friends.

00:39:43.360 --> 00:39:47.360
 So, there's an opportunity, I would suggest, for a new model.

00:39:47.460 --> 00:39:57.700
 We've talked about this, and this digital church model that's driven more towards a discipleship-oriented type structure is what I'm suggesting,

00:39:57.700 --> 00:40:06.120
 where we are discipling people to engage within a community, whether that's a physical community.

00:40:06.120 --> 00:40:10.100
 Maybe it's a neighborhood or a couple blocks around somebody's house.

00:40:10.780 --> 00:40:27.140
 Maybe it's a historical neighborhood, meaning it's the circle of friends that I have in context of what Ray's wife's doing with everything that she's got with people all the way up in another country still engaging in several states represented in that.

00:40:27.140 --> 00:40:38.640
 Or maybe it's something like what Jade's doing, Jade Earhart, where, dude, the guy just loves video games and wants to utilize his passion to try to reach people for Christ.

00:40:39.300 --> 00:40:42.120
 And to say, oh, man, that's not a church.

00:40:42.520 --> 00:40:51.440
 Well, I think there's some biblical standards and some mandates that we need to look at and to say, okay, this is when we look at what church is and the ecclesiology of church.

00:40:51.800 --> 00:40:55.580
 These are functions that a church is supposed to do.

00:40:56.420 --> 00:40:58.160
 And, you know, do we see this?

00:40:58.240 --> 00:41:01.440
 And just in some great examples, do we see this with Jake?

00:41:01.640 --> 00:41:04.820
 Do we see this with the WhatsApp group?

00:41:05.820 --> 00:41:07.820
 Honestly, that all of us are in.

00:41:07.900 --> 00:41:11.500
 We are all in some sort of a WhatsApp group similar to that.

00:41:12.380 --> 00:41:15.000
 I've got a guy in California that's been blowing me up today.

00:41:15.080 --> 00:41:18.560
 I swear he typed something and I almost wanted to crack him a joke back.

00:41:18.620 --> 00:41:20.300
 I'm like, are your thumbs tired?

00:41:20.660 --> 00:41:23.420
 Because that's like 2,000 words right there, bro.

00:41:23.420 --> 00:41:27.220
 And I know you don't have like a computer WhatsApp thing.

00:41:27.380 --> 00:41:29.600
 Like this is the actual like on a keyboard.

00:41:29.960 --> 00:41:30.980
 That's a lot of work, man.

00:41:31.880 --> 00:41:35.280
 But, you know, God bless him and God bless the groups that are doing that.

00:41:35.560 --> 00:41:38.160
 But does that hold up to the ecclesiology?

00:41:38.640 --> 00:41:43.120
 Does it hold up to the functions of biblically what, you know, I'll add them.

00:41:43.240 --> 00:41:51.620
 What exponential conference and what leadership network says, hey, this is the minimum ecclesiology of what a church should be.

00:41:52.200 --> 00:41:53.200
 So let's just roll through this.

00:41:53.260 --> 00:41:56.180
 Let's have some fun and kind of see where we land with some of this stuff.

00:41:56.540 --> 00:41:56.760
 All right.

00:41:56.820 --> 00:41:59.760
 So there's, I don't know, it's probably 10 or 11 on this list.

00:42:00.220 --> 00:42:01.540
 Number one, worship.

00:42:01.540 --> 00:42:05.900
 So in a digital expression of worship, church, how do you worship?

00:42:06.680 --> 00:42:09.800
 Arguably a better question would be, what is worship?

00:42:10.260 --> 00:42:18.480
 I mean, I guess the traditional way, and for many of you who broadcast your services, the first thing you're going to say, hey, you know, we broadcast the songs that we do on Sunday morning.

00:42:18.760 --> 00:42:25.120
 But, you know, Jeff's question of what is worship is kind of an expansive thing that every worship leader loves to discuss, but everybody just kind of takes a pause.

00:42:25.120 --> 00:42:32.480
 You know, we kind of identify the worship as primarily the singing portion of church and the fact that we're singing and engaged together.

00:42:32.600 --> 00:42:44.320
 But the reality is, is whenever we say that worship's a lifestyle for some reason, that tends to take a dive once we try to talk about church in the context of online, because we want people still to gather in physical spaces and sing together.

00:42:44.660 --> 00:42:48.000
 Truth is, it doesn't matter if they're singing privately, you know, in a room.

00:42:48.320 --> 00:42:50.520
 It doesn't matter if they're singing amongst a group of other believers.

00:42:50.520 --> 00:42:55.500
 They're still engaged with God, and worship can take on so many different forms within that.

00:42:55.660 --> 00:42:58.320
 Now, that being said, we're looking for our traditional form of singing.

00:42:58.740 --> 00:42:59.420
 Yeah, you know what?

00:42:59.460 --> 00:43:01.580
 They're watching the broadcast, and they're singing along.

00:43:01.840 --> 00:43:02.600
 Like, that is happening.

00:43:02.700 --> 00:43:08.280
 In a lot of cases, man, folks have even engaged in the chat, like, hey, man, my hands are raised right where I'm at.

00:43:08.540 --> 00:43:12.360
 And that's a powerful thing when God can do that, no matter where they're located.

00:43:12.900 --> 00:43:17.800
 You know, and I love the idea of the weekly gathering.

00:43:19.140 --> 00:43:26.780
 And Jason, you've alluded to this in a past podcast, and actually, you connected me with Neil Cole's Church 3.0.

00:43:26.820 --> 00:43:28.820
 We talked about that the last time that you were on.

00:43:28.920 --> 00:43:35.760
 And that book, along with some others, really started to reshape kind of how I was viewing church.

00:43:36.780 --> 00:43:38.140
 Answer this question for me.

00:43:38.620 --> 00:43:42.080
 When did church become a weekly expression?

00:43:42.080 --> 00:43:44.400
 Do you know historically, or does anybody know?

00:43:45.200 --> 00:43:54.000
 Like, I mean, obviously, we're seeing God speak, Jesus speak to large crowds, feeding of the thousands, the Beatitudes.

00:43:54.220 --> 00:43:55.400
 So he's doing this.

00:43:55.960 --> 00:43:59.020
 We see it in the letters to the church.

00:43:59.020 --> 00:44:01.140
 So we know that smaller works.

00:44:01.300 --> 00:44:04.980
 But when did it shift to, like, every Sunday we're doing this thing?

00:44:04.980 --> 00:44:10.140
 One of the things that you find in Acts is that daily they were doing all these things.

00:44:11.200 --> 00:44:26.860
 So that actually falls into more of a frequency that most of us experience in the digital church, where daily we are, you know, breaking bread, dedicating ourselves to the apostles' teaching, to prayer, and to the word.

00:44:27.440 --> 00:44:44.040
 Those sorts of things, we don't, I think, if I remember correctly, and I might be wrong, but I think around 300 A.D. is when you start seeing the more traditional or temple-based expression of Christianity.

00:44:44.380 --> 00:44:49.940
 That was kind of centered around the Nicene, I don't want to get historical here, but the Nicene Creed, all that was kind of in that.

00:44:49.940 --> 00:44:59.900
 Okay, so, like, there's this idea of where it shifted to a periodical tentpole as opposed to moving away from this lifestyle thing.

00:45:00.100 --> 00:45:08.440
 I would suggest, man, even, like, popping in the AirPods here, jamming out to a Hillsong.

00:45:08.540 --> 00:45:13.000
 Yes, it's not corporate worship, but it's worship to God.

00:45:13.080 --> 00:45:15.400
 But we're losing in the digital church environment.

00:45:16.180 --> 00:45:18.580
 We are probably losing a little bit of that corporate.

00:45:19.060 --> 00:45:20.320
 What do you guys think?

00:45:20.380 --> 00:45:24.620
 How can we overcome that corporate loss that we're feeling there?

00:45:25.140 --> 00:45:36.120
 So, but actually, I think something like what we're doing now on Zoom would be effective, where you can see one another and respond to one another corporately and still be in the digital expression.

00:45:36.120 --> 00:45:46.040
 I'm on a number of different Facebook groups, and we all discuss liturgy, you know, old school, your hymn services, modern worship, not, you know.

00:45:47.300 --> 00:46:01.280
 And the struggle that, and that's what I pull into this, is I'm bringing into that liturgy mindset, is that it, liturgy means the work of the people gathered together.

00:46:02.460 --> 00:46:15.240
 And I think we're going to have to struggle with that, I think, like the Zoom calls where people become more comfortable with that, or Skype, or Hangouts, or whatever other thing you want to do.

00:46:15.560 --> 00:46:20.600
 I don't know that we're going to get to that corporate mentality, not that we should either.

00:46:20.600 --> 00:46:33.820
 But I think the microsites, where you have three or four people gathered together, is sufficient to meet that corporate need, rather than have this huge expression of these huge buildings.

00:46:34.340 --> 00:46:36.220
 Hope my senior pastor is not listening to me.

00:46:36.640 --> 00:46:46.180
 Where you, that is what needs to be done, is this huge building, this huge gathering, which is not sustainable, certainly in the current cultural environment.

00:46:46.180 --> 00:46:57.640
 I just want to add it to it, because he made a point, and Jason pointed out something there from Acts, that I think seals the deal for me, right?

00:46:57.800 --> 00:47:00.620
 The Bible said they add to the numbers daily.

00:47:01.880 --> 00:47:14.160
 And I think what's interesting about that is, when you ask the question, what worship looks like in the online campus, you're trying to translate what happens in the corporate building, in the corporate worship in the building, into the online.

00:47:14.280 --> 00:47:16.700
 And to me, it's like, there's no connection there.

00:47:17.820 --> 00:47:23.560
 Like, I don't want to replicate, that's the thing I really don't want to replicate in the digital church.

00:47:23.560 --> 00:47:32.740
 I want the digital church to be this very personal, intimate opportunity that I have to have with God and with others that wanted to be with me at that moment.

00:47:33.200 --> 00:47:39.700
 And that's not going to look like a man-made, we can service experience.

00:47:39.920 --> 00:47:41.940
 And I just lost half of your audience right there.

00:47:42.480 --> 00:47:43.560
 So I...

00:47:43.560 --> 00:47:47.220
 I was losing them anyway.

00:47:47.340 --> 00:47:48.080
 Don't worry about it.

00:47:48.100 --> 00:47:48.560
 Let them go.

00:47:49.020 --> 00:47:49.640
 Do you know what I mean?

00:47:49.640 --> 00:47:57.980
 Like, so I think that the tradition, the traditional way of looking at the weekend service is not going to translate into the digital church.

00:47:58.320 --> 00:47:58.520
 Yes.

00:47:58.680 --> 00:48:00.460
 I really firmly believe that.

00:48:00.640 --> 00:48:16.000
 So, sure, I can get my worship team put in a studio a week long and we can record all kinds of songs that we want to do together just for digital church and have the library available on my online church and say,

00:48:16.000 --> 00:48:23.980
 hey, if you want to set aside some time to listen to some songs and pray, I mean, I can create my own programming online.

00:48:24.500 --> 00:48:27.260
 Well, and there's how much assets now available.

00:48:27.580 --> 00:48:27.900
 Exactly.

00:48:28.460 --> 00:48:32.620
 I mean, if, get a $10 Spotify account, there's how much?

00:48:32.760 --> 00:48:36.220
 I mean, it's ridiculous the amount of resources that are out there.

00:48:36.360 --> 00:48:37.820
 I was actually having the conversation the other day.

00:48:38.000 --> 00:48:41.960
 What happened to, like, normal Christian music that wasn't, like, praise and worship?

00:48:42.300 --> 00:48:47.740
 There used to be, like, bands like DC Talk and Audio Journalin that would do, like, just music and everything.

00:48:47.880 --> 00:48:48.700
 And I'm not ripping it.

00:48:48.720 --> 00:48:53.500
 It's not necessarily bad, but it's, like, there is no more, like, general genre.

00:48:53.500 --> 00:49:01.340
 It's all Christian, praise and worship, which is just a ton of more resources and assets that we can do.

00:49:01.380 --> 00:49:02.600
 Now there's a business model.

00:49:02.720 --> 00:49:03.400
 Why do they do that?

00:49:03.460 --> 00:49:05.400
 Because it's cheaper to – anyway, but that's a whole other thing.

00:49:06.220 --> 00:49:07.940
 We're not eliminating community, right?

00:49:08.760 --> 00:49:09.620
 That's the battle.

00:49:10.720 --> 00:49:17.680
 Pastors in local churches, they firmly believe that what we're trying to discuss here is a way to eliminate community.

00:49:18.980 --> 00:49:25.380
 Here's the problem with that, because their mindset is, the way we're talking, I can just – I don't need anybody around me.

00:49:25.480 --> 00:49:30.540
 I'm just going to go online, listen to my music, listen to my message, and not talk to anybody about it.

00:49:31.020 --> 00:49:32.640
 That's not what we're talking about.

00:49:32.940 --> 00:49:38.640
 We're just talking about take the content where people are at, which they're mobile devices, because that's where they are at.

00:49:39.420 --> 00:49:43.060
 Now, we open up opportunities for them to connect with people through it.

00:49:43.720 --> 00:49:44.780
 That's the point.

00:49:45.120 --> 00:49:57.180
 And I think the battle, the resistance that we end up facing with many churches is that, no, it's not – I mean, I literally heard a pastor say this just at the end of last year.

00:49:58.880 --> 00:50:04.920
 When he opened the – he was starting the message, he was like, you know, I love that we can broadcast online, but here's the deal.

00:50:05.340 --> 00:50:10.600
 If you're in your house right now, you could be here, you should be here, because you're not in church if you're not here.

00:50:10.660 --> 00:50:12.280
 And he just said that on camera.

00:50:12.740 --> 00:50:19.980
 Another thing, it was people that post on social media talking about their online church.

00:50:20.060 --> 00:50:22.800
 They say, if you cannot be in church today, watch online.

00:50:23.620 --> 00:50:26.460
 And to me, it's like, how that doesn't make sense?

00:50:26.580 --> 00:50:29.580
 But because the perception is not there, right?

00:50:29.620 --> 00:50:32.200
 Because you are the church where you are.

00:50:32.200 --> 00:50:37.020
 That's why our house campuses, we have this big t-shirt, this really big, I am the church.

00:50:37.680 --> 00:50:38.080
 Awesome.

00:50:38.860 --> 00:50:41.080
 Because of that, because you're the church where you are.

00:50:41.080 --> 00:50:55.000
 I think the concept of worship in a model that the physical church produces might not be what worship is going to look like in a digital church.

00:50:55.240 --> 00:50:56.880
 That, to me, that's really the bottom line.

00:50:57.020 --> 00:51:00.020
 Let's segue, because I want to get through some more of this list.

00:51:00.680 --> 00:51:03.600
 And we thought worship was controversial, wait for the next one.

00:51:03.820 --> 00:51:05.400
 And I'm going in their order.

00:51:05.540 --> 00:51:06.900
 This isn't me choosing this order.

00:51:07.640 --> 00:51:08.020
 Teaching.

00:51:09.220 --> 00:51:17.080
 So what would teaching, what could teaching, what should teaching look like in a digital expression or a digital expression of church?

00:51:17.080 --> 00:51:22.340
 Now, here's whatever we assume it is in the physical, we have an opportunity to start from scratch.

00:51:22.680 --> 00:51:27.260
 This is not a physical church doing a church online, doing their ministry in a virtual space.

00:51:27.360 --> 00:51:36.180
 This is a digital church that's planted just for the purpose of growing and multiplying digitally or physically.

00:51:36.180 --> 00:51:40.440
 But what should teaching look like in a digital church?

00:51:40.440 --> 00:51:42.380
 Jason's laughing because I know he's got something.

00:51:43.040 --> 00:51:51.040
 Whenever I try to answer that question, I try to go back to the most primal expression of church that we know of.

00:51:51.600 --> 00:51:52.920
 And that's found in scripture.

00:51:53.780 --> 00:52:04.860
 So I feel like if the apostle Paul felt it was okay to teach via his letters, in other words, via text, then it's okay for us to teach that way, too.

00:52:05.900 --> 00:52:06.380
 Wow.

00:52:06.500 --> 00:52:11.960
 You don't have to have, and you have like, I just finished up the book of Romans, right?

00:52:12.180 --> 00:52:21.200
 In the last chapter, it's fascinating because he sends greetings from afar, right?

00:52:21.200 --> 00:52:32.100
 So he's disintermediated already, but yet he's sending greetings, trying to maintain the connection of community after having taught for 15 chapters.

00:52:33.100 --> 00:52:39.660
 So the way I see it, and the apostle Paul never saw the church in Rome.

00:52:39.920 --> 00:52:42.040
 It was a group of five house churches.

00:52:42.520 --> 00:52:50.260
 But he was teaching that church without actually being physically present, even though he wanted to be.

00:52:50.800 --> 00:52:53.740
 I mean, that was his desire to be, but he wasn't.

00:52:54.640 --> 00:53:01.760
 And so I think that tells us a lot of what could be done when it comes in the digital space, because it's already been done.

00:53:02.340 --> 00:53:03.840
 So we should just go with that.

00:53:04.340 --> 00:53:12.320
 Well, so here's what I would say, you know, in Joel chapter two is like, all of this is being forecasted in terms of what the future church would look like.

00:53:12.320 --> 00:53:17.320
 It was a lot about how they would teach each other, because the spirit of God was moving in them.

00:53:18.000 --> 00:53:33.260
 And so once again, in the context of community, there's something so powerful about the fact of, hey, listen, we can all watch good sound teaching, good sound content, whether it's coming from the outside or whether it's somebody delivering it from the inside.

00:53:33.380 --> 00:53:38.120
 And then we can actually discuss something that we can't do on a Sunday morning in a physical space.

00:53:38.220 --> 00:53:45.600
 We can discuss how it's applicable to our lives and discuss and confront one another about, seriously, like, can we live this out?

00:53:45.760 --> 00:53:49.860
 You know, let's go to the simple and yet tough to follow commands of Christ.

00:53:50.200 --> 00:53:53.420
 You know, something like loving my neighbor as myself.

00:53:54.280 --> 00:53:54.560
 All right.

00:53:54.580 --> 00:53:57.080
 So it's one thing for one person to teach it from the stage.

00:53:57.080 --> 00:54:12.580
 It's another thing for me to talk about and practicality about how it's supposed to be lived out and to discuss about how I don't do it all the time and how there are times where it's hard to love my neighbor or to ask the question, well, who is my neighbor?

00:54:12.660 --> 00:54:13.800
 Just like it was asking Jesus.

00:54:14.300 --> 00:54:16.300
 And to unpack that with one another.

00:54:16.880 --> 00:54:26.960
 Those are the kinds of things that can be done in digital spaces that can be done powerfully, where I can learn from other people's experiences, where I can, you know, rethink and have.

00:54:27.080 --> 00:54:33.660
 Some reshaping of my own mind and my own thoughts by the impact about how the spirit of God is moving into other people's lives and not just my own.

00:54:34.340 --> 00:54:37.420
 That's something that can happen in digital community very quickly.

00:54:37.860 --> 00:54:46.940
 Oh, I think one of the things about message, I think really has to do with when you talk to an online audience, you're talking with a global audience.

00:54:48.020 --> 00:54:56.720
 I think one of the advantages that pastors have from the stage is that they still preach into the local church and the local audience right there.

00:54:57.080 --> 00:55:00.800
 And to make the shift, it's, it's not easy.

00:55:00.880 --> 00:55:02.220
 It's, it's not easy.

00:55:02.280 --> 00:55:03.780
 I mean, put them in a really bad spot.

00:55:04.820 --> 00:55:21.820
 So, it's interesting because if you're going to do a Bible study online, online group, the Book of Romans, you're pretty much just talking with people in your church or Christians that know what Book of Romans is.

00:55:23.260 --> 00:55:32.040
 Whereas, if I'm going to do a Bible study or a group, I'm going to do a group on leadership, leadership and principles of leadership.

00:55:32.400 --> 00:55:33.880
 It's going to be based in the Book of Romans.

00:55:34.640 --> 00:55:48.680
 But, I'm going to, I'm going to tell you exactly why you should do this Bible study by introducing a title and a theme and a reason that is not the language that the church, the local church is used to.

00:55:49.800 --> 00:55:51.420
 And I think that's a big challenge.

00:55:51.520 --> 00:55:56.520
 That's one of the things, it was very clear to us when we started Church of the Bar.

00:55:57.300 --> 00:56:04.740
 Because we started, we started Church of the Bar in the worst possible sermon series that we can start, Book of Revelations.

00:56:06.060 --> 00:56:15.920
 So, so, I mean, there is not much practical thing that you can really tell people, go to work tomorrow and leave this out, right?

00:56:16.020 --> 00:56:18.880
 So, it, it's, it was just incredible.

00:56:19.120 --> 00:56:27.180
 And out of that, I'm, I'm at the bar and I'm watching people watching the service and it's like, I don't know.

00:56:27.300 --> 00:56:40.240
 But, and immediately, and one of the things I'm considering soon is, I'm saying, let's record the message that actually speak a language of the people that go to the bar.

00:56:41.860 --> 00:56:43.920
 That's incredible, practical.

00:56:44.260 --> 00:56:48.640
 It's incredibly life-living, what you can do.

00:56:48.640 --> 00:57:00.680
 So, you break down in a way, in a language that when people listen to it, they can actually turn the TV, the computer off, and actually, I can do something with this.

00:57:01.160 --> 00:57:07.320
 Listen, with, when I'm sitting in a chair in my church, yes, I want to learn the Bible, I want to learn.

00:57:07.400 --> 00:57:10.540
 I mean, it's just, it's just, that's a part of going to church, right?

00:57:10.540 --> 00:57:16.500
 The pastor's going to teach, you're going to, you're going to keep developing in discipleship in the church.

00:57:16.680 --> 00:57:17.800
 That's part of it.

00:57:18.400 --> 00:57:26.020
 But, online, the audience is so global that church language doesn't fit.

00:57:26.640 --> 00:57:28.740
 I lost the other half of the audience right now.

00:57:30.120 --> 00:57:34.080
 Let me ask this, because, because, because I'll either bring them back or I'll chase them all away.

00:57:35.540 --> 00:57:42.880
 Is there a model, and is there a, and this is legitimately me asking, I am wrestling with this right now.

00:57:43.460 --> 00:57:46.360
 Is there a model of a digital church where there is no sermon?

00:57:47.140 --> 00:57:48.320
 What do you guys think of that?

00:57:48.580 --> 00:58:05.180
 In other words, it's so group-based, it's so relational-based, that you don't even have a, and maybe we need to watch the message sermon label, but the person lecture style is not even a part of it.

00:58:06.260 --> 00:58:08.880
 So, yes, I think that's possible.

00:58:09.480 --> 00:58:18.560
 The key here is that scripture still needs to be a foundational piece of whether it's discussion or whether it's something else that's going, that's happening there.

00:58:18.680 --> 00:58:22.780
 I do think that an element of scripture needs to be a foundational piece.

00:58:22.780 --> 00:58:37.000
 And so whether it's not somebody from the traditional lectern or pulpit delivering it or even from video teaching, as long as there's scripture at the center of a discussion or whatever else, I think that can take place or shaping what can happen.

00:58:37.000 --> 00:58:43.000
 Now, you know, and this is where, you know, many of us have been part of prayer services and this kind of thing where there wasn't like a formalized serving.

00:58:43.500 --> 00:58:49.580
 Okay, that's cool, but I guarantee you somewhere woven in there, there were scriptural elements as part of those gatherings as well.

00:58:49.720 --> 00:58:51.860
 So I would say, hey, scripture is somewhere in there.

00:58:52.100 --> 00:58:53.500
 I think we'd be good to go.

00:58:54.200 --> 00:58:55.260
 Ian, did you have something?

00:58:56.440 --> 00:59:04.440
 No, I don't think that there is a model that we should bind ourselves to in digital church.

00:59:06.440 --> 00:59:17.740
 That's exactly one of our problems because we, when we ask these questions, we're, keep looking back to the methods that we're accustomed to.

00:59:19.020 --> 00:59:23.640
 Going back to how you opened up the question, how should the church teach?

00:59:24.560 --> 00:59:32.820
 And it's more of what are the essentials that need to be done to teach and let it go from there?

00:59:32.820 --> 00:59:36.640
 Because flipping the classroom would be a key point.

00:59:38.160 --> 00:59:39.720
 What are the essentials?

00:59:39.960 --> 00:59:41.400
 You know, and Ray covered it too.

00:59:41.540 --> 00:59:43.580
 The scriptures are the essentials.

00:59:44.960 --> 00:59:50.960
 But why do we continue to bind people to a method or even multiple methods?

00:59:51.300 --> 00:59:56.280
 Because each digital group cohort is going to have a different way of connecting with one another.

00:59:56.680 --> 00:59:57.620
 Let's keep moving.

00:59:58.660 --> 01:00:00.960
 Number, let's call it number three.

01:00:01.680 --> 01:00:03.060
 And I hear this one.

01:00:03.180 --> 01:00:03.940
 I do.

01:00:04.080 --> 01:00:06.620
 This is one that hurts.

01:00:06.620 --> 01:00:13.340
 This is one where physical is not required or mandated, but it's going to be a challenge.

01:00:14.100 --> 01:00:20.540
 The sacraments, baptism, communion, child dedication is not one of them.

01:00:21.220 --> 01:00:25.540
 But those things that were held, you think, you think it probably is, but it's not.

01:00:25.900 --> 01:00:26.420
 It's not.

01:00:27.060 --> 01:00:28.420
 Only in Baptist circles, guys.

01:00:28.640 --> 01:00:29.640
 Only in Baptist, yeah.

01:00:29.960 --> 01:00:32.600
 So, you know, sprinkling, whatever, not doing that.

01:00:32.660 --> 01:00:33.600
 I'm a Southern Baptist at heart.

01:00:33.640 --> 01:00:33.860
 It's cool.

01:00:33.920 --> 01:00:34.280
 Moving on.

01:00:34.320 --> 01:00:36.480
 Maybe a little bit liberal Southern Baptist, but not.

01:00:36.600 --> 01:00:37.580
 Anyway, it's another conversation.

01:00:38.060 --> 01:00:40.280
 For us today, baptism, communion.

01:00:40.520 --> 01:00:43.080
 What does that look like in a digital church?

01:00:43.640 --> 01:00:48.440
 All right, since this is a digital podcast, I can't ask everybody to raise hands, but how

01:00:48.440 --> 01:00:53.720
 many people here, give it an I, have baptized somebody as a result of online church?

01:00:54.200 --> 01:00:54.500
 I.

01:00:55.180 --> 01:00:55.500
 All right.

01:00:56.220 --> 01:00:57.220
 Two, three.

01:00:57.480 --> 01:00:57.740
 All right.

01:00:57.840 --> 01:01:02.120
 So, the answer is three of four, 75%.

01:01:02.120 --> 01:01:03.020
 All right, man.

01:01:03.200 --> 01:01:05.340
 So, it is possible, not granted.

01:01:06.020 --> 01:01:10.920
 And, Jeff, we've talked through some of the different ways and challenges that this kind

01:01:10.920 --> 01:01:11.520
 of thing has happened.

01:01:11.680 --> 01:01:17.700
 Everything from folks finding a method in their household and doing it via video chat into a

01:01:17.700 --> 01:01:24.360
 bathtub to, Joe, you referenced somebody flying across four states to get baptized or, you

01:01:24.360 --> 01:01:25.740
 know, whatever it was, half the country.

01:01:26.220 --> 01:01:27.640
 I mean, that's a big deal.

01:01:27.860 --> 01:01:33.640
 And so, as far as that sacrament, I think we can kind of give a solid check mark to that.

01:01:34.300 --> 01:01:35.020
 Lord's Supper.

01:01:35.640 --> 01:01:40.800
 And this is an idea that I stole from Cranda and Saddleback Church, encouraging our folks

01:01:40.800 --> 01:01:46.960
 to prepare in advance with all the materials and to take it at home alongside of us.

01:01:48.560 --> 01:01:49.000
 Check.

01:01:49.600 --> 01:01:50.380
 And we've done it.

01:01:50.700 --> 01:01:54.240
 Yeah, it is a great, and that's actually one of my biggest struggles, and it's where

01:01:54.240 --> 01:01:59.640
 the Church of the Nazarene, which is my denomination, struggles, because we have a more sacramental

01:01:59.640 --> 01:02:00.700
 aspect of it.

01:02:01.660 --> 01:02:09.520
 And in our case, by rule, an ordained elder has to officiate the sacraments.

01:02:10.660 --> 01:02:15.180
 Now, what was interesting is the, oh, gosh, now I feel really sad because I can't remember

01:02:15.180 --> 01:02:23.800
 their names, but there's a group that does the PTZ cameras, and they did a worship thing

01:02:23.800 --> 01:02:25.520
 last Friday or something like that.

01:02:25.980 --> 01:02:30.380
 And actually, there's a Lutheran church in preparation for their communion.

01:02:31.440 --> 01:02:42.180
 They send it out via mail so that people take communion, but it obeys their rules so that

01:02:42.180 --> 01:02:44.980
 everyone can partake together.

01:02:45.120 --> 01:02:48.540
 It's a very, that was eye-opening to me.

01:02:49.840 --> 01:02:56.520
 Yeah, it's okay within church, I'm going to use the word bylaws, theory, practice, if the

01:02:56.520 --> 01:03:02.420
 church mails the grape, the little shot glass worth of cracker and grape, as long as they

01:03:02.420 --> 01:03:06.500
 mail it and postmark it from them, that is crazy.

01:03:07.540 --> 01:03:09.420
 It was surreal.

01:03:09.580 --> 01:03:11.720
 I have to acknowledge that it was surreal.

01:03:11.720 --> 01:03:15.360
 It was, it kind of broke my paradigm there.

01:03:17.140 --> 01:03:20.980
 You know, that's a challenging thing, and I'm grateful that they were at least willing

01:03:20.980 --> 01:03:23.140
 to take it to that step, and here's why.

01:03:24.180 --> 01:03:27.760
 They were so willing to help somebody take part in the sacraments.

01:03:27.880 --> 01:03:30.840
 They were willing to jump over the hurdles to get there.

01:03:31.540 --> 01:03:32.440
 You know what I'm saying?

01:03:32.840 --> 01:03:36.840
 And that's what, to me, that's very much the center and the heart of what it is that

01:03:36.840 --> 01:03:37.180
 we're doing.

01:03:37.260 --> 01:03:40.220
 We're willing to jump through and break through a lot of barriers just to bring somebody

01:03:40.220 --> 01:03:40.700
 to Christ.

01:03:41.720 --> 01:03:42.440
 Right.

01:03:43.260 --> 01:03:46.700
 And I think, or to connect them with the body of Christ.

01:03:47.620 --> 01:03:51.160
 And so that right there, Ian, I think that's a powerful example of, hey, you know what,

01:03:51.220 --> 01:03:52.760
 man, we'll find a way.

01:03:53.260 --> 01:03:53.980
 We'll find a way.

01:03:54.000 --> 01:03:55.740
 We may not have the answer, but we're going to find a way.

01:03:56.220 --> 01:03:56.840
 Very cool.

01:03:56.840 --> 01:03:57.860
 I will say this.

01:03:57.960 --> 01:04:06.460
 I've had more interest from some of that higher ecclesiology church, some of the higher

01:04:06.460 --> 01:04:09.080
 church in doing church online.

01:04:10.360 --> 01:04:17.020
 Previous years, it's been more contemporary, less traditional, but more traditional, starting

01:04:17.020 --> 01:04:22.580
 to get wrestling with those and trying to figure out how to get past that.

01:04:22.580 --> 01:04:27.220
 That whole mail your communion juice, that's a thing.

01:04:27.300 --> 01:04:32.220
 It has to be grape juice because you can't mail alcohol over state borders.

01:04:32.580 --> 01:04:35.960
 I know this because of, well, I'm not going to tell you that story now.

01:04:36.460 --> 01:04:37.560
 We'll visit that on another podcast.

01:04:37.560 --> 01:04:38.940
 There went all your bachelor's credentials.

01:04:39.160 --> 01:04:41.000
 There went all your bachelor's credentials right there.

01:04:41.760 --> 01:04:46.660
 It is interesting, Jeff, that there is something I think that needs to be thought through if there

01:04:46.660 --> 01:04:55.200
 are denominational obstacles is to figure, is to get those defined because, you know, Ian, you were

01:04:55.200 --> 01:05:03.200
 talking about that an ordained minister has to administer the elements, right?

01:05:04.040 --> 01:05:11.280
 Well, it would be helpful, I think, for you guys to define at what distance does that officiation

01:05:11.280 --> 01:05:12.320
 stop?

01:05:13.600 --> 01:05:16.920
 Is it 10 feet, 30 feet, 100 feet?

01:05:18.380 --> 01:05:25.900
 You know, or 1,000 miles, in which case, if you're doing a live stream of it, they could

01:05:25.900 --> 01:05:29.520
 be officiating at a distance, right?

01:05:30.620 --> 01:05:31.180
 Exactly.

01:05:31.380 --> 01:05:37.220
 Those are the types of things that, that's what Ray was talking about, is once you establish

01:05:37.220 --> 01:05:43.600
 what the obstacle actually is, other than we've just never done it that way, then you can figure

01:05:43.600 --> 01:05:49.180
 out what kind of workarounds you can employ, because if your, if your obstacle happens to

01:05:49.180 --> 01:05:54.340
 be, it has to be blessed by an ordained minister in the moment, he's got to physically touch

01:05:54.340 --> 01:05:58.660
 it and see it, well, then fine, let him do that ahead of time and then mail him out.

01:05:59.260 --> 01:06:06.140
 You just got to figure out what, what the real minimal ecclesiology is, and then create your

01:06:06.140 --> 01:06:09.040
 workaround so that you don't eliminate people in the process.

01:06:09.440 --> 01:06:12.560
 Jason, you actually brought up exactly something I was thinking of is,

01:06:13.100 --> 01:06:20.260
 even before I was hearing the Lutherans, this Lutheran church doing that, was it makes some

01:06:20.260 --> 01:06:26.300
 sense if we are actually watching in real time, why that's not officiating, and of course,

01:06:26.400 --> 01:06:31.760
 I'm sure someone will ask for my credentials after that, because I just said that, but the

01:06:31.760 --> 01:06:34.320
 reality is, is what is real time?

01:06:34.420 --> 01:06:35.100
 What is gathering?

01:06:35.220 --> 01:06:38.560
 That's the whole question of what is church, digital church?

01:06:38.780 --> 01:06:42.700
 I think we're going to entitle this podcast, yeah, we're all crazy.

01:06:42.700 --> 01:06:44.220
 It's crazy, but it just might work.

01:06:44.760 --> 01:06:45.980
 Yeah, that sounds about right.

01:06:46.220 --> 01:06:50.860
 We're all like resigning here, all we're doing is just, you know, talking Bible here

01:06:50.860 --> 01:06:55.120
 in church, and anyway, it's, it's really, it's fascinating, and I hope you guys all keep

01:06:55.120 --> 01:06:55.620
 your jobs.

01:06:56.660 --> 01:07:02.440
 Hey, yeah, so this has been a great podcast, and I've, honestly, I've got probably another

01:07:02.440 --> 01:07:05.240
 seven or eight things to, like, go over here.

01:07:05.600 --> 01:07:08.920
 We're going to have to get the group back together and do this, because I want to continue

01:07:08.920 --> 01:07:09.600
 this conversation.

01:07:09.760 --> 01:07:12.220
 I know Jason's getting ready to go off to Laos.

01:07:13.020 --> 01:07:13.820
 Where are you going, Jason?

01:07:14.040 --> 01:07:16.180
 Yeah, yeah, he's muted, but he's shaking his head.

01:07:16.240 --> 01:07:17.460
 Yes, yes, Laos, so that's fine.

01:07:18.340 --> 01:07:23.960
 So yeah, we will, when he gets back, we'll, we'll do part two of this, bring the group

01:07:23.960 --> 01:07:27.220
 back together, and then finish the dialogue through this.

01:07:28.200 --> 01:07:33.180
 And so I want to, I'm going to kind of stick in the order here, because part two is going

01:07:33.180 --> 01:07:39.500
 to be a lot more, like, this is really, I'll just read through it, fellowship, disciple

01:07:39.500 --> 01:07:45.980
 making, compassion, how does the church, digital, how does the digital church show compassion?

01:07:46.180 --> 01:07:46.780
 It's interesting.

01:07:47.440 --> 01:07:51.240
 Justice, how does the church, digital church, show justice?

01:07:52.900 --> 01:07:58.600
 Mission, people being on mission, literally doing a global mission, there's a fascinating

01:07:58.600 --> 01:08:06.980
 conversation surrounding that, body ministry, which I'm assuming is, like, the body serving

01:08:06.980 --> 01:08:13.800
 in a context, and so we can, we can unpack all of those, I think, on part two of the podcast.

01:08:14.020 --> 01:08:16.420
 But I want to land on this.

01:08:17.180 --> 01:08:19.700
 The last one that we want to talk about today is prayer.

01:08:20.420 --> 01:08:27.920
 So what is a digital church, a digital-only expression of church model, how is that driven

01:08:27.920 --> 01:08:30.660
 celebrating, showing, empowering prayer?

01:08:31.500 --> 01:08:32.240
 What do y'all think?

01:08:32.580 --> 01:08:36.700
 Oh, I think that, I think it's already happening, right?

01:08:36.880 --> 01:08:42.200
 I mean, there's several apps that you can do prayer, you can be a prayer community, but

01:08:42.200 --> 01:08:48.100
 even the simple thing is text messages, like Ray just exemplified earlier, I think it's

01:08:48.100 --> 01:08:49.140
 happening more.

01:08:49.140 --> 01:08:57.460
 That is the, I think that is the beauty of this digital environment that we live in today.

01:08:58.000 --> 01:09:00.420
 I think there's a lot of activities already happening.

01:09:00.540 --> 01:09:09.280
 I think we have not formalized that yet, like in the digital space, as a way of, like, okay,

01:09:09.340 --> 01:09:11.340
 then the digital church, here's how we pray.

01:09:12.100 --> 01:09:15.580
 I think we have, I think maybe we have not done that yet.

01:09:15.580 --> 01:09:18.980
 I think in a very, like, official matter.

01:09:19.220 --> 01:09:26.200
 I think it's just, there's a very word that you use a lot, organic way that things are

01:09:26.200 --> 01:09:29.200
 happening, that people are texting each other, they're sending emails with prayer.

01:09:29.280 --> 01:09:37.080
 Today, I just got a message early this morning, a text message from somebody from our church

01:09:37.080 --> 01:09:39.000
 that was taken to the hospital.

01:09:39.120 --> 01:09:45.660
 She's in the ICU, she had a kidney transplant, well, I don't need to wait until tomorrow morning

01:09:45.660 --> 01:09:46.720
 to let everybody know.

01:09:47.440 --> 01:09:55.280
 I was able to just send an email to 140 volunteers to have them all pray for her immediately.

01:09:55.620 --> 01:09:56.460
 It's happening.

01:09:56.860 --> 01:09:58.500
 And people reply back the email.

01:09:59.580 --> 01:10:05.740
 Listen, I heard a lot of things, good things in the podcast today, but Jason landed on a whole

01:10:05.740 --> 01:10:13.040
 thing about Paul in writing the letters in Romans, and you're just like, if you don't get online

01:10:13.040 --> 01:10:20.600
 church after that, I don't know what to do, man, because, you know what I mean, like, that's

01:10:20.600 --> 01:10:22.680
 it, like, we're living it out.

01:10:23.080 --> 01:10:26.680
 So, I think prayer is happening, I really think.

01:10:26.740 --> 01:10:31.980
 I think it's, we're having Night to Shine next week, and what we do for the online church

01:10:31.980 --> 01:10:38.920
 to participate in Night to Shine, we ask them to pray at six o'clock when it starts, and

01:10:38.920 --> 01:10:44.380
 at 8.45, when they do the crowning moments, we go live so they can see what they pray for.

01:10:45.040 --> 01:10:45.660
 Oh, that's awesome.

01:10:46.320 --> 01:10:49.760
 So, I mean, we push prayer a lot.

01:10:49.940 --> 01:10:57.400
 Prayer online, we talk a lot about it, but I think it's just, you continue to push the

01:10:57.400 --> 01:11:02.080
 idea that you can, you don't need a specific platform to do it, it's in your hands already,

01:11:02.160 --> 01:11:03.380
 it's that phone you have in your hand.

01:11:03.700 --> 01:11:05.040
 Find somebody to pray with.

01:11:05.340 --> 01:11:13.960
 I would totally agree with Joey there, and most people who would push back on digital prayer,

01:11:14.720 --> 01:11:16.880
 like Joey said, are already doing it anyway.

01:11:17.100 --> 01:11:22.680
 I don't know of a pastor who doesn't pray over the phone with somebody when they can't

01:11:22.680 --> 01:11:23.020
 be there.

01:11:23.840 --> 01:11:24.880
 That's digital prayer.

01:11:25.400 --> 01:11:26.840
 I don't know what you do about that.

01:11:28.060 --> 01:11:33.140
 It's just, it's just using, in some cases, a different tool, or in some cases, the exact

01:11:33.140 --> 01:11:37.180
 same tool as any other pastor would use to call someone up and pray for them.

01:11:37.660 --> 01:11:43.500
 Yeah, I'll be texting with somebody, and just like a one-off conversation, and I see they're

01:11:43.500 --> 01:11:49.460
 going through a hard time, or Facebook Messenger, and just instead of the, I pray for you, you

01:11:49.460 --> 01:11:54.900
 know, let me pray for you, or I'll be praying for you, just type the prayer, and it's amazing,

01:11:55.080 --> 01:11:58.520
 just even the reaction from that person.

01:11:58.620 --> 01:12:03.440
 I've had people come up to me days later, thank you for praying for me, and it's just,

01:12:03.560 --> 01:12:09.020
 I've never had anybody pray for me via text before, and how you're able to utilize that piece.

01:12:09.620 --> 01:12:13.820
 By the way, the coolest feature that I've seen in the digital scope in context of prayer,

01:12:14.240 --> 01:12:16.760
 Crossroads out of Cincinnati is doing right now.

01:12:16.760 --> 01:12:22.340
 We did a podcast with them a couple episodes back, and so tied into their mobile app, they've

01:12:22.340 --> 01:12:30.540
 got the ability for people to post prayer requests, either, you know, anonymous or, you know, stating

01:12:30.540 --> 01:12:31.460
 their name next to it.

01:12:32.480 --> 01:12:37.680
 But then they also have the option for it to be public or private, and if it's public, other

01:12:37.680 --> 01:12:44.500
 people see the prayer requests and can tag that prayer request and say, I'm praying for you.

01:12:44.940 --> 01:12:50.000
 The person gets a push notification every time that prayer request is tagged.

01:12:50.900 --> 01:12:57.260
 And so there's this immediate, you know, the feeling, the physical feeling across a digital

01:12:57.260 --> 01:13:00.160
 medium that, wow, people are praying for me right now.

01:13:00.260 --> 01:13:01.520
 I'm part of a larger community.

01:13:01.680 --> 01:13:04.300
 Now, that's cool, but here's the cool thing.

01:13:05.220 --> 01:13:09.040
 Down the road, once that prayer request gets answered, yes, no, whatever the answer is,

01:13:09.360 --> 01:13:16.100
 the person who has the prayer request can go back in and mark it answered and then say how

01:13:16.100 --> 01:13:17.100
 it was answered.

01:13:17.720 --> 01:13:22.800
 And when they do that, that's pushed out to every person that ever tagged it saying that

01:13:22.800 --> 01:13:23.720
 they were praying for it.

01:13:23.720 --> 01:13:31.240
 There's this option of within the church app, within their, they are creating community.

01:13:31.660 --> 01:13:33.260
 My gosh, centered around prayer.

01:13:33.400 --> 01:13:37.420
 What better thing should we build our community around than prayer?

01:13:37.820 --> 01:13:42.120
 18 months ago, I prayed for this thing, and now God's brought it to be.

01:13:42.240 --> 01:13:43.600
 I'm part of that.

01:13:44.660 --> 01:13:51.780
 That church sees 115,000 prayer requests a month through this system because they're, and

01:13:51.780 --> 01:13:55.920
 it's, it's a big church, but still, it's not that much large adoption in context of mobile

01:13:55.920 --> 01:13:56.120
 app.

01:13:56.180 --> 01:13:57.200
 Not everybody's on it.

01:13:57.560 --> 01:14:03.360
 So there's that much people identifying, connecting with prayer because there's a communal feel

01:14:03.360 --> 01:14:04.180
 around it.

01:14:04.260 --> 01:14:08.260
 And they're getting that physical interaction across a digital medium.

01:14:08.600 --> 01:14:15.180
 One of the things that, as I was listening to you guys, it's, it's fascinating how we tend

01:14:15.180 --> 01:14:24.100
 to think about a church meeting, a gathering, an assembly only in ways that we have experienced

01:14:24.100 --> 01:14:29.120
 it, instead of looking at the way that scripture kind of defines it in a more looser form.

01:14:29.760 --> 01:14:34.020
 And maybe this could be a springboard to be thinking about the next time we get together.

01:14:34.700 --> 01:14:40.320
 But I'm looking at 1 Corinthians 14, 26, and it says, well, my brothers and sisters, let's

01:14:40.320 --> 01:14:40.620
 summarize.

01:14:41.400 --> 01:14:46.720
 When you meet together, it doesn't say how, like, I think we're in a meeting together right

01:14:46.720 --> 01:14:47.000
 now.

01:14:47.720 --> 01:14:50.480
 When you meet together, one will sing.

01:14:50.620 --> 01:14:51.220
 That's interesting.

01:14:51.400 --> 01:14:51.860
 Just one.

01:14:52.480 --> 01:14:53.260
 One will sing.

01:14:53.780 --> 01:14:54.780
 Another will teach.

01:14:55.400 --> 01:14:58.560
 Another will tell some special revelation that God has given.

01:14:59.140 --> 01:15:01.760
 One will speak in tongues and another will interpret what is said.

01:15:01.760 --> 01:15:05.860
 But everything that is done must strengthen all of you.

01:15:07.320 --> 01:15:13.760
 And I think if we concentrate on that and do whatever we need to do to make that happen,

01:15:14.160 --> 01:15:21.460
 I think that's probably a pretty good church service, regardless of the size, place, or form.

01:15:22.440 --> 01:15:23.120
 That's awesome.

01:15:23.700 --> 01:15:24.540
 Well said, sir.

01:15:24.700 --> 01:15:28.560
 We're going to wrap up here episode 50 of the Church Digital Podcast.

01:15:28.900 --> 01:15:29.820
 Thanks for listening.

01:15:30.000 --> 01:15:35.360
 Thanks for being a part of 50 and looking forward to the next 50 and everything that happens

01:15:35.360 --> 01:15:40.360
 there as we continue to talk through digital church, church online, and everything in between.

01:15:40.940 --> 01:15:44.380
 So for Ian, for Joey, for Jason, for Ray, this is Jeff.

01:15:44.500 --> 01:15:45.120
 Thanks for being here.

01:15:45.160 --> 01:15:46.840
 We'll see you next time here on the podcast.

01:15:46.980 --> 01:15:47.480
 Y'all have a good day.