WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.620 Episode 65 of the Church Digital Podcast, powered by Stadia Church Planting. One of my favorite 00:00:05.620 --> 00:00:12.140 podcasts this year was actually part of a three-part podcast series called The Biblical 00:00:12.140 --> 00:00:19.200 Functions of a Digital-Only Church. And so pre-COVID, pre-coronavirus, before every church 00:00:19.200 --> 00:00:23.920 in America was essentially a digital-only church, we were having a conversation with a lot of online 00:00:23.920 --> 00:00:29.180 pastors, several, four or five online pastors, talking about what a digital-only church model 00:00:29.180 --> 00:00:36.080 would be. And so episode 50 was that introductory episode where we took a book, Larry Walkermeyer, 00:00:36.160 --> 00:00:44.740 Todd Wilson's, The Multiplication Flywheel, and talked about it. The biblical functions of church 00:00:44.740 --> 00:00:51.520 as referenced in Acts, as referenced in the Bible, and talked about how these things could be executed 00:00:51.520 --> 00:00:58.420 in a virtual, in a digital-only space, where it did not require a physical footprint, 00:00:58.420 --> 00:01:05.400 it would only require digital virtual services. Can we do it? You know, it's interesting. We talked 00:01:05.400 --> 00:01:09.880 about worship, we talked about teaching, we talked about giving, we talked about some of those easy 00:01:09.880 --> 00:01:17.080 ones, what I would call easy ones, in the first episode, and that's episode 50. In this episode, 00:01:17.480 --> 00:01:23.200 in episode, well, we're now 65, man, we really started digging into what I thought was going to be a 00:01:23.200 --> 00:01:29.480 slam dunk easy one, but we ended up parking on it for a long time. What does fellowship look like in a 00:01:29.480 --> 00:01:35.920 digital-only church? Now, what's interesting is the reality of where we are today in church, like, 00:01:36.000 --> 00:01:41.500 we are understanding what church looks like. And we're actually feeling the tension because while 00:01:41.500 --> 00:01:48.080 the physical church is out there creating all of this content, and we are content beasts at this 00:01:48.080 --> 00:01:54.620 point, as churches are getting on five, six, seven times a week, multiple times a day, between 00:01:54.620 --> 00:02:02.880 devotionals and sermons and devotional thoughts, sermonettes, all this content worship sets being 00:02:02.880 --> 00:02:10.700 generated online, what we're really seeing is that while this content is effective, what we're missing in 00:02:10.700 --> 00:02:16.640 this coronavirus season is really communication. It's relationships. It's engaging with people 00:02:16.640 --> 00:02:24.160 in a digital way, because there is no other way for us to communicate. And so what does it look like 00:02:24.160 --> 00:02:29.920 to fellowship? What you're going to listen to is a conversation that happened way back in probably 00:02:29.920 --> 00:02:35.380 February, before the whole COVID thing exploded. This was before even the exponential conference. 00:02:35.820 --> 00:02:42.340 We referenced it in the podcast before the exponential conference, early March. And so you're here in 00:02:42.340 --> 00:02:48.300 language of what does it look like? And really, the themes that we're talking about are as relevant 00:02:48.300 --> 00:02:53.820 today to every church across America, because we're all digital at this point. And we all need to figure 00:02:53.820 --> 00:03:01.460 out how to create fellowship digitally, because there is no other way right now other than digitally. 00:03:02.500 --> 00:03:08.020 So here we are, episode 65 of the Church Digital Podcast, part two of the conversation of biblical 00:03:08.020 --> 00:03:13.540 functions of a digital church. We're bringing into the conversation Jason Morris, Global Innovations 00:03:13.540 --> 00:03:22.260 Pastor, Westside Family. Joey Santos, Christ Church, online pastor there. Ian Kirk, Generations Community 00:03:22.260 --> 00:03:30.240 Church, is an online pastor. We're bringing in somebody new, Jay Earhart, who is a video game church, 00:03:30.240 --> 00:03:37.200 digital church, developing it into a church in a church planning system, Jade Earhart with Love 00:03:37.200 --> 00:03:41.680 Clan, and myself, Jeff, with the Church Digital. In an episode that we're just simply calling, 00:03:41.680 --> 00:03:48.000 as I said, Biblical Functions of a Digital Church, part two. Parentheses of three, episode three is 00:03:48.000 --> 00:03:50.560 coming soon. But right now, part two. Here y'all go. 00:03:50.560 --> 00:03:57.600 I interviewed Ed Stetzer on the podcast yesterday, and I was like, nothing's changed. Nothing ever 00:03:57.600 --> 00:04:04.560 changes. Ed, what do we have to do to actually, like, change? We know, we know we need to change. We know 00:04:04.560 --> 00:04:11.040 the stats are bad, but nothing, like, there's no catalyst. We say, yes, we need to change. We're at 00:04:11.040 --> 00:04:16.480 fault. We need to, but we never actually, like, get there. The Big C Church never, never turns the corner. 00:04:16.560 --> 00:04:27.520 So anyway, awesome. Hey, I'm excited about the podcast. So Ray bolted on us. God bless him. 00:04:29.120 --> 00:04:36.640 Sorry. I appreciate you for giving up a Saturday for doing this. And, you know, and I want to thank 00:04:36.640 --> 00:04:43.920 Jade for jumping into filling in some of the holes here a little bit on the podcast. So just to kind 00:04:43.920 --> 00:04:48.880 of lay the groundwork and remind, by the way, the new, the podcast, the first interview that we did 00:04:50.080 --> 00:04:57.120 for, like, parts one through four or whatever, like, that's out now. It actually did very well. I mean, 00:04:57.120 --> 00:05:02.480 I'm not, I'm not surprised. Digital Church is so novel of a concept at this point. I think I'm 00:05:02.480 --> 00:05:08.400 getting a lot of traffic just because people are like, ooh, something new. I don't know if they're 00:05:08.400 --> 00:05:14.080 for or against. I haven't gotten much hate mail on it. But it's, it's a thing. Not as much as like, you know, 00:05:14.080 --> 00:05:20.960 Yeah, not as much as Jade's, uh, Jade's podcast. Um, man, that, that, that's still shooting. I still get 00:05:20.960 --> 00:05:26.400 entirely like a lot of, uh, listens. Jade, you're quickly becoming one of the top five off that one, 00:05:26.400 --> 00:05:33.760 by the way. And it's probably like, but it's a bunch of people who, it works out. I get hate mail. 00:05:37.360 --> 00:05:42.240 Do you pass that along to your guests? I mean, if I got hate, I mean, if you got hate mail on some 00:05:42.240 --> 00:05:47.520 of my podcasts, I would want to know. So I can at least respond or something. 00:05:47.520 --> 00:05:52.800 No, I get the, I get the hate mail. They, they come, they come to me. They go find me and they 00:05:52.800 --> 00:05:58.880 give me the hate mail. And now you, you, the thing you said, you're dumb, big, dumb, stupid. 00:05:59.680 --> 00:06:03.840 I'm just asking questions here. You can't fault me for asking questions. It's not my fault. This 00:06:03.840 --> 00:06:09.280 guy wants to launch a digital church, reaching video gamers for Christ. What are you thinking? 00:06:10.240 --> 00:06:15.600 He's in there prodding. Hey, say something. Yeah. Thanks. Thanks, Jimmy Fallon. 00:06:17.520 --> 00:06:22.880 I got to tell you, it's the first time in my life I've been confused for Jimmy Fallon. I kind of like it. It's got a nice feel to it. 00:06:22.880 --> 00:06:28.240 Yeah. It's the face. That's exactly what I was going to say. 00:06:28.240 --> 00:06:30.160 I couldn't. Okay. 00:06:30.160 --> 00:06:32.320 It's like I'm looking at Jimmy Fallon. Yeah. 00:06:34.480 --> 00:06:39.600 So remember in context of this, now there's church online, but it's broadcasting the church services online. 00:06:40.560 --> 00:06:46.400 And that's physical church ministry. That's happening in virtual or digital spaces. 00:06:47.120 --> 00:06:52.480 I really, maybe we can use examples of that, but the, really the core of what I want this conversation, 00:06:52.480 --> 00:06:58.880 isn't physical church doing virtual ministry. It's something more in line of what Jade's doing with 00:06:58.880 --> 00:07:06.560 the video game stuff, where it's holistically aimed at virtual first that may roll into physical. 00:07:06.560 --> 00:07:12.640 So questions like, um, biblically can a church do, and this will probably be the opening question. 00:07:13.120 --> 00:07:18.320 Um, what does fellowship look like? What does disciple making look like? What does compassion look like? 00:07:18.960 --> 00:07:27.040 Justice. Um, what are these things look like in a, um, in a biblical, from a biblical context in a 00:07:27.040 --> 00:07:33.200 digital only or digital first expression of church? Uh, because the exercise we're wrestling with is not, 00:07:33.200 --> 00:07:38.640 can it be physical? We know it can be physical, but can a digital church kind of meet that expectation 00:07:38.640 --> 00:07:43.440 that the Bible puts forth? Um, and a couple of these, I'm like, I really don't know how that's 00:07:43.440 --> 00:07:47.520 going to work. So this might be an interesting conversation. It'll be interesting. See where 00:07:47.520 --> 00:07:52.080 we get the last, the last podcast was easy compared to this one, I think. So thanks y'all for coming back. 00:07:52.720 --> 00:07:55.920 Any questions on anything else before we, uh, before we get started? 00:07:56.800 --> 00:08:04.000 Uh, I do have one question. Cause, uh, I think when you say church, you're not talking about a church 00:08:04.000 --> 00:08:11.360 service. You're talking about all of the facets of church, right? Correct. Okay. So let, let me, 00:08:11.360 --> 00:08:18.160 let me define that. Um, with a digital church, what, what I'm suggesting is we wipe the slate clean of 00:08:18.880 --> 00:08:26.800 expectations and go back to the biblical mandate and as building blocks and then build a model of church. 00:08:27.440 --> 00:08:32.960 Um, you know, last time we talked about 20 minutes of war of worship, you know, is, is that, is that 00:08:32.960 --> 00:08:37.920 effective? Is that the only way of biblical worship is musical worship? The only way Bible talks about 00:08:37.920 --> 00:08:43.280 other things. We talked about the message is the 40 minute sermon, the most effective, do we even need 00:08:43.280 --> 00:08:48.640 a sermon? Is there even what could teaching look like? You say, oh yeah, we can go back to like 00:08:48.640 --> 00:08:53.200 Paul does and write. And then like everyone's in whoever listened to the podcast heads explode, 00:08:53.200 --> 00:08:59.680 but nobody since Jason, you know, hate mail because Jason's, you know, not 26 or 27. 00:09:00.960 --> 00:09:02.320 How old are you, Shane? 00:09:03.200 --> 00:09:06.000 Whatever. Old enough. I just hope you're old enough nowadays. 00:09:07.200 --> 00:09:09.120 Like whatever, whatever you say. 00:09:09.120 --> 00:09:13.440 You know, it's, it's like Jason says something entirely controversial and the fact that he's 00:09:13.440 --> 00:09:16.880 like bald with a goatee and kids, everybody says, that's awesome. 00:09:16.880 --> 00:09:19.360 Jade Earhart says something borderline controversial. 00:09:19.360 --> 00:09:21.040 Wait, wait, wait, wait, but it's a podcast. 00:09:21.040 --> 00:09:22.960 They can't, they can't even see what he says it. 00:09:22.960 --> 00:09:24.160 Oh, they know. 00:09:24.160 --> 00:09:25.600 They can't even see him. 00:09:25.600 --> 00:09:28.400 Well, they know I could be, I just have a young voice. 00:09:30.080 --> 00:09:33.360 Like, that's awesome. 00:09:33.360 --> 00:09:34.720 Does that answer that question? 00:09:34.720 --> 00:09:40.000 Um, yeah, it does because there was a couple of moments in the last podcast where I was a little 00:09:40.000 --> 00:09:44.880 confused as to what we were referring to. And what I like what you're doing is basically 00:09:44.880 --> 00:09:50.960 the church service for millennia has been used as the primary tool to get the church work done. 00:09:51.600 --> 00:09:57.200 And what you're doing is you're dissecting it and you're saying, okay, what was used before 00:09:57.200 --> 00:10:04.960 as a church tool to do church work, the service, we're going to take pieces of that out and we're 00:10:04.960 --> 00:10:10.560 going to see if those pieces can be done digitally. Am I, am I following you correctly? 00:10:10.560 --> 00:10:12.640 You are right on it. 00:10:12.640 --> 00:10:17.280 Whether that means that it ends up looking like a church service or not, it doesn't even matter. 00:10:17.280 --> 00:10:24.480 If we are accomplishing the functions of a church, not a church service, of a church, then who cares? 00:10:24.480 --> 00:10:32.720 Well, I think it's also about, uh, because of the, how the currently is set up is for the church, 00:10:32.720 --> 00:10:37.280 the physical church is without the weekend service, nothing else exists. The church doesn't exist. 00:10:38.000 --> 00:10:41.520 Right. So if, if, if, well, it shouldn't be that way. 00:10:41.520 --> 00:10:42.640 Exactly. Correct. 00:10:42.640 --> 00:10:48.240 But they structure this way. Well, like if, if the, the, the weekend service doesn't happen, 00:10:48.240 --> 00:10:52.160 church doesn't exist and how it's currently set up. Right. 00:10:52.160 --> 00:10:52.720 Right. Right. 00:10:54.560 --> 00:10:59.840 You know, I was, I was talking with DJ Soto a while back and, uh, and he, and he used this phrase. I was 00:10:59.840 --> 00:11:04.640 talking about, you know, how Stadia, how the church digital, how I can help them, you know, with, 00:11:04.640 --> 00:11:09.600 with doing some digital church, um, and trying to figure out how to reproduce guys like him, 00:11:09.600 --> 00:11:14.720 guys like Jade, who are, who are doing this. And, and, and this is, this is what DJ's line was. And, 00:11:14.720 --> 00:11:21.600 and I love this. Um, it's, it's time for us to, to stop recreating church in the virtual space, 00:11:21.600 --> 00:11:28.320 recreating physical church in the virtual space. And it's time for us to reinvent church for the, 00:11:28.320 --> 00:11:34.640 for the virtual space. It's not, it's not, I want to copy this thing. I want to shove this square peg 00:11:34.640 --> 00:11:39.600 into a round hole. It's more of, okay, let's go back to the drawing board. You know, let's, 00:11:39.600 --> 00:11:45.360 let's look at it and figure it out. And now let's recreate it for, for virtual held to the biblical 00:11:45.360 --> 00:11:50.320 standard, but looking different for virtual now. And there's, there's pros and there's cons for this. 00:11:50.320 --> 00:11:56.560 I just did a interview, uh, with Ed Stetzer. We rolled it out last week. Ed is not a fan of digital 00:11:56.560 --> 00:12:02.400 church. Ed is not a fan of church online. And even, and Ed's, Ed's a fan of Jeff Reed. And I have, 00:12:02.400 --> 00:12:08.080 I have a great longstanding relationship with the guy and he was very gracious on the podcast. But, 00:12:08.080 --> 00:12:12.960 but even in context of some of the stuff that, that we're talking about now, like it was funny, 00:12:12.960 --> 00:12:17.840 Ed even drew the analogy and I totally wouldn't do it, but he drew the analogy to the two Muppets that 00:12:17.840 --> 00:12:22.960 are up in like the upper balcony. You know, the, the old guys who are like to get off my lawn type 00:12:22.960 --> 00:12:27.760 guys, you know, that's how Ed painted himself that picture. That wasn't me. That was Ed, but he painted 00:12:27.760 --> 00:12:34.080 that picture up and there are people like that. The, Hey, before we go radically making changes, 00:12:34.080 --> 00:12:41.200 we need to consider all fronts. And to that end, Ed, I agree with you. And that, that's part of what 00:12:41.200 --> 00:12:49.280 this conversation is, is as we're starting to, um, question new ways to do church, evaluating how a 00:12:49.280 --> 00:12:55.520 digital only expression of church is, let's start dialoguing conversations like this. Let's start 00:12:55.520 --> 00:13:02.080 pouring into scripture, finding ways to either agree with the path that we're on, or maybe even to say, 00:13:02.080 --> 00:13:05.680 Hey, you know what, this is, we're not going to make it because of this right here. 00:13:06.240 --> 00:13:10.640 Um, I don't know that I found the thing that's like that we got to stop yet, but I'm definitely 00:13:10.640 --> 00:13:15.040 open to those conversations as we're rolling through this podcast, as well as other conversations, 00:13:15.040 --> 00:13:20.960 wrestling with the ecclesiology of a digital church. Um, and thank you, Ed. I love you. You 00:13:20.960 --> 00:13:25.760 know that we're, we're, we're good. Todd Wilson. When we talked like it, same thing. It's like, 00:13:25.760 --> 00:13:30.320 I don't think I like digital exclusive church. That's different than what you were talking about 00:13:30.320 --> 00:13:35.920 earlier. And now I'm not sure if I like, it was the same type of thing. And I mean, once we started 00:13:35.920 --> 00:13:41.200 going through all these things and specifically even what you're doing here with all of the, 00:13:41.200 --> 00:13:45.760 the list of things. And I, I mean, the reason I brought up, I brought up this book, right? The, 00:13:45.760 --> 00:13:51.840 the activating the flywheel, um, or what, I don't know exactly what he uses. He uses the word 00:13:51.840 --> 00:13:56.480 activating the flywheel, but it's mobilization of the flywheel. So yeah, the book is actually the 00:13:56.480 --> 00:14:01.840 mobilization flywheel. Yeah. Okay. So, but in, but I was, that's what I was using to, 00:14:01.840 --> 00:14:06.640 to start the discussion. It's like, look, look at these things. This is the why, right? We're not 00:14:06.640 --> 00:14:10.880 putting any what's to these things. This is why we're doing this. Why church exists for these things 00:14:10.880 --> 00:14:15.680 that you've specifically mentioned. So are they possible to do in an exclusively online space or not? 00:14:15.680 --> 00:14:22.320 You know? And, um, and he was open to that because it's like the terminology that he's 00:14:22.320 --> 00:14:27.360 heard before that he understands. And so for a lot of this stuff, it's like breaking down, 00:14:28.400 --> 00:14:33.360 uh, the why of why something is. And when I, I just finished the huge study through acts, 00:14:33.360 --> 00:14:39.840 right? Uh, six, seven months, like we did one once a week, one chapter. And as I went through it, 00:14:39.840 --> 00:14:44.960 I'm really thinking about it specifically about, uh, an exclusively online church. 00:14:45.600 --> 00:14:52.320 It really does come down to just the why. And that, that's like almost all of acts, every chapter, 00:14:52.320 --> 00:14:58.640 you can see how they're, they're getting into the why of church and the why of everything that 00:14:58.640 --> 00:15:02.480 they're doing. Even like when they're cleaning tables and they're like, why are we doing this? 00:15:02.480 --> 00:15:05.680 Like we should be out discipling. You know what I mean? And they're like, oh, 00:15:05.680 --> 00:15:09.040 because it needs to happen. You know, we're not saying it doesn't need to happen. It's just a what 00:15:09.040 --> 00:15:14.480 thing. And here's, here's what we need to do instead. And it's just how, that's how most of church 00:15:14.480 --> 00:15:20.560 today feels is like, get back to that. Why? And then focus on what after you'd know exactly why 00:15:20.560 --> 00:15:27.600 you want to do it in the first place. So. Yeah. If we could get the entire BC's big C church to 00:15:27.600 --> 00:15:33.200 figure out their, why to go back to ask that question, we, the church would be in a far better 00:15:33.200 --> 00:15:39.200 spot. And so a lot of that, and it's just really the reason why, you know, as Stadia started talking 00:15:39.200 --> 00:15:45.120 to me about, Hey, let's create a, a digital church model. Like to me, the ecclesiology that the 00:15:45.120 --> 00:15:49.920 biblical functions, this it's, it's first in, in, in, in paramount. It's, it's the most important 00:15:49.920 --> 00:15:56.480 thing. Like, let's not do something that that's off axis. And if we are off axis, man, let's God, 00:15:56.480 --> 00:16:01.920 I'm sorry. Like, you know, let's, let's stop that sooner than later and let's not drag people down a 00:16:01.920 --> 00:16:06.000 road. They, they shouldn't go down. So let's go ahead and do this. Let's, let's, let's get started 00:16:06.000 --> 00:16:11.120 through here. Um, we're continuing on the conversation we did last time with, um, uh, 00:16:11.120 --> 00:16:16.480 most of this panel, plus or minus, um, Radio Armis and Jade swapping in, going through the 00:16:16.480 --> 00:16:22.160 mobilization flywheel. Now this is a PDF that's created by, uh, Larry Walkenmeyer, Todd Wilson, 00:16:22.160 --> 00:16:26.960 hundred page, you know, ebook, pretty, pretty solid here. Uh, exponential conference leadership 00:16:26.960 --> 00:16:31.760 network, both, both put this out. Uh, but what I love, and by the way, they're speaking on this 00:16:31.760 --> 00:16:37.200 at expo, actually expo will have already happened. So I will edit that entire reference out because 00:16:37.200 --> 00:16:41.200 no one will get that or be able to execute on that. They can buy the digital pass. 00:16:41.840 --> 00:16:45.920 Maybe. Yeah. You can maybe do the digital pass. So that, that's a thing we, we, okay. So we'll 00:16:45.920 --> 00:16:50.240 put the link to the show notes. So here's the funny thing where you just said is that, I don't know 00:16:50.240 --> 00:16:54.240 if you realized it, but you were talking about editing what you were saying because they couldn't 00:16:54.240 --> 00:16:59.840 attend an event, but the digital pass they could do. I think you're kind of embodying the very 00:16:59.840 --> 00:17:05.920 conversation we're having. Yeah. That's a good point. Had I known there was a digital pass, 00:17:05.920 --> 00:17:12.000 I would have tied that in to get it out of ignorance. I did not know. Therefore, I don't 00:17:12.000 --> 00:17:18.240 feel bad. Uh, but I wasn't taking a judgment as much as highlighting my ignorance. So I'll go ahead 00:17:18.240 --> 00:17:24.560 and keep all this in. Cause that'll be great. Um, all right. Digital church, here we go. Here's what 00:17:24.560 --> 00:17:28.960 we did. Here's what we covered last time. We covered a worship, teaching prayer, uh, in sacraments, 00:17:28.960 --> 00:17:33.680 uh, the communion, the baptism, things like that. And so you can go, I don't want to rehash that 00:17:33.680 --> 00:17:38.240 because we got a lot to cover. Episode 50 covers a lot of that on the podcast, but let's go ahead. 00:17:38.240 --> 00:17:45.520 And I'm going to go in their order here. Um, so number five out of call it 11, number five is 00:17:45.520 --> 00:17:52.160 fellowship. So the question is in a digital only expression of worship, what would fellowship look 00:17:52.160 --> 00:17:57.680 like? Now fellowship, we're immediately thanking physical church and the gathering together Sunday 00:17:57.680 --> 00:18:03.680 services, whatever that may be fellowship within small group community. In the converse, in context 00:18:03.680 --> 00:18:09.520 of this, it's digital only, but let's utilize our knowledge of digital tools to be inventive. I'm not 00:18:09.520 --> 00:18:14.880 necessarily driving for any specific model or something as much as asking the question, how 00:18:14.880 --> 00:18:20.480 can one fellowship in the biblical context of what fellowship means here, um, through a digital 00:18:20.480 --> 00:18:23.840 church, utilizing digital tools. What do y'all think? 00:18:25.680 --> 00:18:30.720 Well, the easiest one of course is Facebook. I, you know, we look at our certain digital expression 00:18:30.720 --> 00:18:37.680 at our church and our prayer page is actually the most active thing we have. And people are interacting 00:18:37.680 --> 00:18:46.800 and praying for each other constantly. And yeah, you know, it's not as if digital fellowship is a new, 00:18:46.800 --> 00:18:54.640 I mean, I'm sadly old enough to remember BBS and the Bolton board systems and fellowship happening there. 00:18:56.800 --> 00:19:02.240 Honestly, fellowship is the easiest digitally. I think of almost any of it. 00:19:04.640 --> 00:19:09.200 That's really interesting. Cause I agree with you and in the whole BBS thing, man, that you just, 00:19:09.200 --> 00:19:13.760 you just struck a chord in my heart. Like I remember those days, like, like the, the, uh, 00:19:13.760 --> 00:19:21.440 well, the, the 2,400 bod modem, like, uh, you know, before AOL was AOL when it was purely dialing 00:19:21.440 --> 00:19:26.880 into some guy's system. And then you'd get the call waiting call to click in and screw up the, 00:19:26.880 --> 00:19:30.720 or it was even before call waiting where it was just like busy for hours on end. Cause you're, 00:19:30.720 --> 00:19:35.280 you know, downloading some game or talking to some guy in like Istanbul or whatever. Yeah, 00:19:35.280 --> 00:19:41.600 I can, I can feel that. Um, but, but here's the thing, like, it's, it's funny where probably the 00:19:41.600 --> 00:19:47.360 largest criticism we have, and I'll just take Ed, um, Ed's, Ed's thing of, you know, the, 00:19:47.360 --> 00:19:54.160 the Hebrews 10, 25, 28, somewhere in there. Do not, uh, uh, do not abandon the gathering of meeting 00:19:54.160 --> 00:19:59.200 together. Some as they are in the habit of doing, uh, you know, Ed's, Ed's famous line, 00:19:59.200 --> 00:20:03.040 at least famous to me, uh, this does not include electrons and avatars, you know, 00:20:03.040 --> 00:20:09.360 gathering together does not include that. So, uh, which is awesome. And I'm, I'm actually impressed 00:20:09.360 --> 00:20:13.440 that he utilized avatars in the right concept, uh, context right there. It was awesome. 00:20:14.480 --> 00:20:22.720 But what does that mean for us? Like, like how do we, how does, how does, how does community work? 00:20:22.720 --> 00:20:29.120 How does fellowship work virtually that maybe somebody like Ed or maybe outsiders aren't 00:20:29.120 --> 00:20:34.240 understanding? Yeah, I would get to kind of the, again, I'm going to, I'm going to say this for 00:20:34.240 --> 00:20:39.280 pretty much the whole thing. I like what, why, why fellowship, if you know why you're doing it, 00:20:39.280 --> 00:20:44.960 then you can look at what fills that role. Same thing with, with any of these things. Like what, 00:20:44.960 --> 00:20:51.360 why is that an important thing? Um, because even if you look at some of the, 00:20:51.360 --> 00:20:58.720 like what happens with Pharisees, um, is that they'll, they'll take something that was given 00:20:59.440 --> 00:21:05.920 for their benefit. It's something that was given to, to be a benefit to them. And then they, 00:21:05.920 --> 00:21:10.320 they do it legalistically just for the purpose of fulfilling the law 00:21:11.120 --> 00:21:15.760 and not really thinking about why something is what it is. And, um, 00:21:17.280 --> 00:21:23.600 that, that, that is, that scene, that scene throughout, um, the new Testament. And there's 00:21:23.600 --> 00:21:31.600 always this, uh, well, why, why are you not supposed to, to eat these things, you know? Um, and, and this 00:21:31.600 --> 00:21:36.720 was no, you're, you're, you're looking at this the wrong way. And that, that happens throughout 00:21:36.720 --> 00:21:42.480 new Testament as, as Jesus is, uh, really deconstructing what they already know. Um, 00:21:43.200 --> 00:21:48.240 and, and, and asking if they've, if they've really thought about those things. So for fellowship, 00:21:48.640 --> 00:21:56.160 like acts two 42, uh, they continually devoting themselves to the apostles teaching and fellowship, 00:21:56.880 --> 00:22:05.280 uh, to the breaking of bread and prayer and Matthew 18 to, uh, 20, uh, for where two or three are gathered 00:22:05.280 --> 00:22:14.720 in my name. Therefore, uh, I'm among them. So what is that? What does that look like, um, for us to gather? 00:22:15.440 --> 00:22:23.440 Yeah. Is it, is it gathering the physical location? Um, if it's saying that they're devoting themselves 00:22:23.440 --> 00:22:31.920 to the apostles teaching and to fellowship and Jesus is saying that where two or three are gathered in my 00:22:31.920 --> 00:22:40.960 name there, I'm among them. Uh, you know, that there, there get, it gets a little hairy, but you, 00:22:40.960 --> 00:22:48.000 you really have to wonder, um, what people are thinking if they say that you can't do this online, 00:22:48.000 --> 00:22:53.040 you can't gather online because that's what I get is people, I mean, people use these same verses for 00:22:53.040 --> 00:22:59.040 why you cannot do online. You have to, you have to realize what people are saying when they say that, 00:22:59.600 --> 00:23:06.400 um, the why, the why behind that, um, what some of the stuff Jason was talking about last week, 00:23:06.400 --> 00:23:12.160 where it's like when people have, have challenges, uh, and I think Ian, you were talking about it. 00:23:12.160 --> 00:23:15.840 We're talking about it with the, with the communion, the people who are like mailing out the communion 00:23:15.840 --> 00:23:20.640 and it's okay. It's okay to do communion long distance, as long as the pastor or the church is 00:23:20.640 --> 00:23:25.600 the one who's doing the postmark to mail it the appropriate and it's touched. The pastor's touching 00:23:25.600 --> 00:23:30.400 it as it goes in the box, like it, which is crazy. Like, okay. Well, I'm crazy. Maybe it's not crazy. 00:23:30.400 --> 00:23:36.960 It's unique. Um, but in, in our context, like there would the, the, there are people who would say, 00:23:36.960 --> 00:23:43.200 yeah, they're currently six people gathered on zoom, having a conversation about God, um, and, and 00:23:43.200 --> 00:23:49.200 trying to do what's best for the church. But God, the Holy Spirit, uh, per Matthew, uh, you know, 00:23:49.200 --> 00:23:55.280 Jake's reference, God is not among them because they are not breathing the same air molecules. 00:23:55.280 --> 00:24:00.880 They're not in a physical space and God doesn't, doesn't work in this. And so even, you know, 00:24:00.880 --> 00:24:06.160 in those situations, you know, drilling in to rehash some of this, Jason was talking about, um, 00:24:06.800 --> 00:24:13.680 to get to the specificity of what don't you agree with? Like where, where is the exact challenge of it? 00:24:13.680 --> 00:24:20.080 I think that's, that's a great line. What's the most unique place where we've seen it? Cause 00:24:20.080 --> 00:24:26.000 fellowships is the easy one. I think really of, of this list, what's the most unique way that we're 00:24:26.000 --> 00:24:32.000 seeing fellowship expand? What's something that surprised you, uh, cutting edge, new idea, new 00:24:32.000 --> 00:24:39.200 concept, who's doing something new? Oh, I don't, I don't want to, I don't want to like, but I have to, 00:24:39.200 --> 00:24:43.520 like what you, when you were talking about DJ Soto, like, I mean, there you go. Like, 00:24:43.520 --> 00:24:50.640 I love what he's doing and I'm in his discord a lot. Just, uh, seeing, looking at what's going on. 00:24:50.640 --> 00:24:57.600 And I, I joined him for, uh, um, one of the, he had a small group basically. Um, and they were, 00:24:57.600 --> 00:25:05.600 they were doing it in VR chat. So, you know, I walked up as my VR avatar, uh, to the robot that was 00:25:05.600 --> 00:25:11.760 teaching that night, you know, and I was standing next to a bird and a ramen noodle cup. And, uh, 00:25:11.760 --> 00:25:19.920 and we, you know, went through, uh, a verse in Matthew, you know, like it's a, it's a weird thing. 00:25:19.920 --> 00:25:26.080 Like I get that it's, I get that it's weird to a lot of people. Um, but yeah, it really does kind of 00:25:26.080 --> 00:25:36.160 go deeper than, than just, am I physically in this location? Um, and, and what is that? What, 00:25:36.160 --> 00:25:42.560 why is that a thing? Like, why, why does that exist? Um, because if I can, if I can interact with 00:25:42.560 --> 00:25:49.920 somebody, um, it honestly, it does, it does hit a certain point where you say, well, then what is 00:25:49.920 --> 00:25:58.240 considered gathering if somebody is, um, if somebody's deaf, are they being like taken out of 00:25:58.240 --> 00:26:04.400 that then because they can't hear you, you know? Um, is it the physical location? Okay. So if somebody 00:26:04.400 --> 00:26:09.680 has a, you know, I don't, I don't want to straw man this, but you, you really do kind of start to limit 00:26:09.680 --> 00:26:15.360 things where it's like, what, what is the actual thing that you're trying to do? Is it better to, 00:26:15.360 --> 00:26:22.560 to hear somebody and not be able to sense their presence or, you know, I just trying to get my 00:26:22.560 --> 00:26:27.040 mind around what you're actually, what you're actually saying when you say these things, um, 00:26:27.040 --> 00:26:36.640 that it's, yeah, I'll stop. I've, I've got, there's, here's a kind of a layer that I'm going to get a 00:26:36.640 --> 00:26:43.760 little bit ethereal and spiritual for a second, but just hang with me. All right. Um, there is a passage 00:26:43.760 --> 00:26:50.720 of scripture where the apostle Paul talks about how he wishes he could be with some of the believers, 00:26:50.720 --> 00:26:56.800 but he can't and being in prison. I mean, that's pretty obvious. And so he says that he will be 00:26:56.800 --> 00:27:06.880 with them in spirit. Now, what in the world does that mean? Man, I don't know, but I do believe that 00:27:06.880 --> 00:27:14.240 God and the Holy Spirit transcends physical space. He created space. He created time. 00:27:15.360 --> 00:27:23.680 And anyone that is prayed with anyone else in a chat room, um, feels what I'm talking about, 00:27:24.400 --> 00:27:31.840 where it doesn't, distance doesn't matter. Um, you feel the prayers of people 00:27:32.400 --> 00:27:39.680 because there is something spiritual and transcendent going on. And just hang with me for a little bit. 00:27:40.880 --> 00:27:50.240 If it is true that we are human spirits ministering to each other, using a layer of abstraction, 00:27:50.240 --> 00:27:57.360 our physical bodies to make that happen. If you're doing that in the VR space, it's just one more layer 00:27:57.360 --> 00:28:04.880 of abstraction. That's all it is. At the end of the day, we have spirits that are ministering to spirits. 00:28:06.080 --> 00:28:12.080 And we have the Holy Spirit that's within us ministering and transcending and doing groanings 00:28:12.080 --> 00:28:19.920 that can't be entered. There is a mystical aspect of this, that if you limit church to just a physical 00:28:19.920 --> 00:28:28.720 proximity, you're missing out on the mystery that is, uh, ministering in the spirit and even fellowship 00:28:28.720 --> 00:28:37.520 in the spirit. Um, and I think that there is, if, if we are really eternal souls having a physical 00:28:37.520 --> 00:28:47.040 experience right now, then it is not that different to have another type of virtual. And I hesitate to even 00:28:47.040 --> 00:28:52.560 use that word because at the end of the day, the spiritual realm is real. It's not virtual. 00:28:53.520 --> 00:29:00.880 But if you have real spirits ministering to real spirits, who cares what the intermedium is, 00:29:00.880 --> 00:29:08.480 whether it's, if it's physical proximity or a VR chat, who cares? Yeah. Because I am ministering to 00:29:08.480 --> 00:29:18.400 another person, another soul, another spirit, whether I'm using physical, um, avatars or digital ones, 00:29:18.400 --> 00:29:23.440 I don't know that it really matters. One of the interesting things that I do find about the 00:29:23.440 --> 00:29:32.800 scriptures that you shared, Jade, are two things. In the one scripture, um, Jesus says anyone, two or 00:29:32.800 --> 00:29:39.440 three are gathered in my name. The, in my name part is what we forget. We get all fixated on the 00:29:39.440 --> 00:29:45.680 gathering. When could this be a gathering, what we're doing right now? I think so. In my name, 00:29:45.680 --> 00:29:51.600 it doesn't say who are gathered in physical proximity or gathered in the same room. And then you get back 00:29:51.600 --> 00:29:57.360 to what I was talking about originally about being with someone in spirit. I think there's something to 00:29:57.360 --> 00:30:03.600 that I don't know all of the theological ramifications of that, but if we limit ourselves to just 00:30:04.160 --> 00:30:11.440 physical proximity for ministry, we're going to miss out on a lot of ministry that we could potentially do 00:30:12.400 --> 00:30:20.400 and using a lot of tools that we could be using. Now I say that, and I have a question that I want to pose 00:30:20.400 --> 00:30:28.000 to the group that is in the second passage that you referenced, Jade, in Acts 2. And that is the 00:30:28.000 --> 00:30:33.200 breaking of bread, which for a lot of churches, especially in a traditional type of atmosphere, 00:30:33.200 --> 00:30:38.400 fellowship and breaking of bread together are kind of one in the same, where I don't think they really 00:30:38.400 --> 00:30:43.680 are, but there's something to be said there. When someone sits down and eats a meal with someone, 00:30:44.320 --> 00:30:51.040 it feels like, even in a spiritual sense, that something unlocks. And any of you that are familiar 00:30:51.040 --> 00:30:58.080 with like the blessed method, or even in the way that Jesus, in his transcended spiritual state, 00:30:58.640 --> 00:31:04.880 after being resurrected from the dead, when he broke bread with the disciples, that's when their eyes 00:31:04.880 --> 00:31:11.280 were opened, and they realized, oh, this is Jesus. Again, I think there's something to breaking bread with 00:31:11.280 --> 00:31:19.840 people and sharing a meal with people that is a little bit more difficult to achieve in the digital 00:31:19.840 --> 00:31:24.880 space. And I'm not talking about fellowship, I'm talking about the breaking of bread piece 00:31:24.880 --> 00:31:32.320 that many times gets mixed in with fellowship, and can unlock deeper forms of fellowship. And I don't 00:31:32.320 --> 00:31:37.600 really have the answer to this. And the breaking of bread piece is what I would love to post to the 00:31:37.600 --> 00:31:43.920 group. Has any of you guys shared a meal digitally? Because that seems to be part of the Christian 00:31:43.920 --> 00:31:44.640 experience too. 00:31:47.040 --> 00:31:54.720 Yeah, yeah. I mean, all of that, like, awesome. I think that's what you're saying is, is so good for 00:31:54.720 --> 00:32:00.160 for people that don't think about, especially for people that don't use online regularly, 00:32:00.160 --> 00:32:05.520 whoever never thought about communicating with somebody in an online setting that don't see 00:32:05.520 --> 00:32:13.920 it as spirits to spirits, as an actual, because, because, yeah, a lot of people don't think about 00:32:13.920 --> 00:32:20.560 it that way. But people that are online that use their avatar as the way to communicate with people, 00:32:21.600 --> 00:32:28.000 I mean, for them, that feels that that that maybe they're more open in that setting than they would 00:32:28.000 --> 00:32:33.680 be even in a physical where they would just shut down. And it's not really, you know, I've seen that 00:32:33.680 --> 00:32:34.400 time and time again. 00:32:34.400 --> 00:32:35.120 Oh, yeah, me too. 00:32:35.120 --> 00:32:39.920 Yeah. So Jason, yeah, I'd ask I asked kind of the same question I'm going to always ask. But like, 00:32:39.920 --> 00:32:44.640 what, why? Like, what, what is it about breaking bread that there's a piece there? There's obviously 00:32:44.640 --> 00:32:51.600 something like you said, maybe it's going deeper with fellowship, or maybe it's that in sharing 00:32:51.600 --> 00:32:58.960 experiences that unlock something? Is it the actual food itself? You know, like, is it the action of 00:32:59.520 --> 00:33:04.960 pulling bread apart that unlock, you know what I mean? Like, I mean, I'm guessing not. But my, 00:33:04.960 --> 00:33:12.880 but my point is, there is a like, you have to really wonder what it is. Before, because anytime 00:33:12.880 --> 00:33:19.920 that we take something, we say this specific thing, for this reason, but if we can't apply a reason to 00:33:19.920 --> 00:33:27.920 it, unless, unless it's, it's, I mean, you know, God says, do this thing. And then you don't ask me a 00:33:27.920 --> 00:33:33.360 reason why, just do it, then okay, you just do it, you know, and so that there's that balance of, 00:33:33.920 --> 00:33:38.880 is this a is this something that is commanded, that he says, pull bread apart, when you're together, 00:33:38.880 --> 00:33:43.920 you know, this is a command? Or is it something that he's telling you? Think about why? Why are 00:33:43.920 --> 00:33:49.840 you doing this? Why pull bread apart? You know, what is the reason for it? And I, maybe I'm reading 00:33:49.840 --> 00:33:55.360 this verse wrong. But my feeling is that there's a there's a why by what is it? What are we actually 00:33:55.360 --> 00:34:01.680 doing when we do this? If that makes sense? Yeah, I think what I think there is something primal about 00:34:01.680 --> 00:34:10.240 sharing a meal with someone that you just don't, I mean, you just don't do that with people that you 00:34:10.240 --> 00:34:18.480 don't care about. And because of that primal nature, I don't know where it comes from. Maybe God put that 00:34:18.480 --> 00:34:23.840 within us. I mean, he could have made us where, you know, we could be like plants, and we don't need to 00:34:23.840 --> 00:34:32.000 eat at all. But he made us on purpose to have to eat. And to, and he made us with one mouth so that 00:34:32.000 --> 00:34:37.120 when we're stuffing our face, we can't really talk. And we have to listen to somebody. I mean, there's 00:34:37.120 --> 00:34:42.720 some very basic elemental things where I think God was very intentional in the way that he did it. 00:34:42.720 --> 00:34:48.960 And I think one of the only ways that we could approximate that, and by the way, just a 00:34:48.960 --> 00:34:57.360 parenthesis, many of the expressions of the, of the prevailing church, don't do this either. Right? 00:34:57.360 --> 00:35:04.080 We don't break bread together either. So I think one of the opportunities that we have in the digital 00:35:04.080 --> 00:35:12.160 space is to pioneer, maybe a new expression of breaking bread. And I use that as just a metaphor 00:35:12.160 --> 00:35:21.040 for sharing a meal. But one of the ways that I've seen it done, and is to just set up a video chat while 00:35:21.040 --> 00:35:26.320 you're eating with someone else who's in a video chat while they're eating, and you're seeing their 00:35:26.320 --> 00:35:33.440 face, and you're talking with them. And you're, you're not physically sharing your own food. Yeah, 00:35:33.440 --> 00:35:38.240 like you are right now. Like you're not physically sharing your own food. And I think there's something 00:35:38.240 --> 00:35:45.040 that is helpful in that as well, that if you were to dissect and say, Okay, the, there is a spiritual 00:35:45.040 --> 00:35:51.440 discipline of sharing, of being generous with what you have, that is important, that in the digital 00:35:51.440 --> 00:35:56.400 space, we need to be intentional about. But I think there's another aspect of just being able to talk to 00:35:56.400 --> 00:36:04.320 one another. And if we're eating together, even if it's over a video chat, it feels like something 00:36:04.320 --> 00:36:10.560 is different than when we're just talking. Yeah. And I don't know what that is, but it's there. 00:36:10.560 --> 00:36:15.840 Well, when you're breaking bread, your defenses are down, right? I mean, it's, it's like the whole 00:36:15.840 --> 00:36:21.360 thing. Culturally, why we shake hands is so that our right hands are busy, not holding our guns or 00:36:21.360 --> 00:36:28.240 our knives. And so shaking hands is what breaks down the defenses. And Jade, if in the podcast audience 00:36:28.240 --> 00:36:32.800 has no idea, but Jade, if you could pass that box of cereal over here, that would be awesome. I would 00:36:32.800 --> 00:36:42.640 love. Yeah, he's eating golden grams over there on his side. But there's a, there's a, there's a, 00:36:42.640 --> 00:36:48.720 you release those defense mechanisms. There's a lot of intimacy when it comes to sitting around, 00:36:48.720 --> 00:36:53.600 drinking coffee, ship breaking bread together, sharing, sharing a meal with that. Honestly, 00:36:53.600 --> 00:37:00.160 I feel that defense mechanism is down as a general role over zoom or virtual communications anyway, 00:37:00.160 --> 00:37:07.280 because for me, the, the, the webcam and the TV monitor, the, the computer monitor I'm literally 00:37:07.280 --> 00:37:14.640 looking at at this moment is that is allows for that intimacy of it. I don't, I don't have to have 00:37:14.640 --> 00:37:19.760 my defense mechanisms up talking to Jason Morris. Cause I know Jason Morris is not going to stab me with 00:37:19.760 --> 00:37:27.360 his knife. And so like, I can be relaxed in that scenario. Joey, a little sketchy, maybe something 00:37:27.360 --> 00:37:32.480 could happen there in time. Only time will tell, but I'm not face to face with him. So once again, 00:37:32.480 --> 00:37:38.880 yeah, he knows people. We all know people. Okay. So there's this opportunity we have to, um, to, to 00:37:38.880 --> 00:37:46.000 embrace wholeheartedly with that. This is great. I love that that breaking the bread though. Um, sharing that meal virtually 00:37:46.000 --> 00:37:53.280 I've done that. Um, honestly, for me, it's been more out of, I'm so busy. I haven't eaten. I think I did it this 00:37:53.280 --> 00:37:58.480 week. I literally was like eating leftover dinner from last night when I was in a meeting with somebody on 00:37:58.480 --> 00:38:03.920 zoom. I don't know that I went into that moment, you know, thinking, Hey, let me let this be a moment of intimacy. 00:38:04.560 --> 00:38:09.040 Um, and the guy I was with probably wouldn't have appreciated the intimacy either, but maybe that's 00:38:09.040 --> 00:38:16.480 something that I, you know, need to consider into the future. How do we get more, um, intimate online 00:38:16.480 --> 00:38:20.640 without being weird? Cause that's not what I mean, but Jake, did you have something else? Uh, 00:38:20.640 --> 00:38:27.520 yeah. Yeah. So like, okay. So my, the reason I ask is because I do, I think that's something, 00:38:27.520 --> 00:38:31.760 I think that's something that we should look at. Like it is something we need to figure out is, 00:38:31.760 --> 00:38:38.880 is why for those things. And if my, my thought, my gut reaction is the things that you're saying 00:38:38.880 --> 00:38:45.760 are, are right. That there is a, um, that you're talking, um, it, a lot of it, I honestly, 00:38:45.760 --> 00:38:51.600 I think it's a cultural thing that at the time, the breaking bread would have been kind of a, 00:38:52.720 --> 00:38:58.080 the, the time to really talk about things, go throughout the week, have experiences. 00:38:58.080 --> 00:39:08.640 Um, for me today, uh, I've, I've said it's, it's difficult for me to imagine what my relationships 00:39:08.640 --> 00:39:14.080 with other people would be like if there wasn't video games, you know, like I can't, I don't, 00:39:14.080 --> 00:39:17.680 I don't know how other people do it. I mean, maybe they watch Netflix together. Maybe they go to the 00:39:17.680 --> 00:39:22.160 movies together, you know, that, and those are, those are experiences. It's difficult at movies. 00:39:22.160 --> 00:39:27.120 Cause you can't really talk, uh, to one another. Right. So it's a cool experience. You think about 00:39:27.120 --> 00:39:30.560 like, remember that time we went to the movies together. Remember that time that we went, uh, 00:39:30.560 --> 00:39:34.640 to the mall together. Okay, cool. Like we can talk at the mall and we can have shared experiences 00:39:34.640 --> 00:39:40.800 and so on. But I mean, man, video games are just so great for that because I'm in a voice channel 00:39:40.800 --> 00:39:46.080 with a bunch of people. I see them, you know, and we're talking about life while we're running, 00:39:46.080 --> 00:39:53.760 you know, down, uh, into battle, you know, or whatever the heck it is. And, uh, that, that 00:39:53.760 --> 00:40:00.800 experience, um, I get to know people very, very well. I just went to Japan with a bunch of my friends. 00:40:00.800 --> 00:40:05.040 There are nine friends went to Japan together. Uh, four of them I had never met in person. 00:40:05.600 --> 00:40:11.440 Uh, we'd only played video games together. And I'll tell you what, those four, I, I know better, 00:40:11.440 --> 00:40:16.400 uh, have better connections than the other people that I just had physically that, that I, that were 00:40:16.400 --> 00:40:21.280 in my proximity that I went to church with. We're in my small group even because man, I'm hanging out 00:40:21.280 --> 00:40:26.400 with these guys six days out of the week or whatever. And these guys that I physically hang out 00:40:26.400 --> 00:40:32.080 with, I only saw once or twice a week at small group, you know? So, you know, you touched on 00:40:32.080 --> 00:40:37.680 something, Jay, that I think is very important to highlight is just the amount of sheer time that 00:40:37.680 --> 00:40:46.000 you're spending with these people. Like if we were to limit fellowship to a one hour a week thing, 00:40:46.000 --> 00:40:52.800 we're missing out on so much opportunity where even if we had a one hour and a small group, okay, 00:40:52.800 --> 00:40:58.800 three or four hours max for the week, man, you're probably pulling that off in a day with some of 00:40:58.800 --> 00:41:04.320 your good friends online. Well, and that's how much, how much closer is your relationships because 00:41:04.320 --> 00:41:10.080 of that? And that's actually one of the advantages I see to the digital world is, you know, we look at 00:41:10.080 --> 00:41:18.560 scriptures, it's gathering daily, do not give up gathering daily. And I look at our world right now 00:41:18.560 --> 00:41:25.600 and it's like, we're always so busy that digital, I think is the way to really garner that fellowship, 00:41:25.600 --> 00:41:30.800 which is what Jake was talking about. I mean, it's like, even those half hour, 45 minute conversations 00:41:32.400 --> 00:41:38.960 make a big difference. However, you know, one of those statistics, you know, the going back to 00:41:38.960 --> 00:41:45.840 Jake's why is one of those statistics of, and at least for me as a father, this is kind of one of 00:41:45.840 --> 00:41:53.520 those paramount things is they show that children who eat meals around a table with their parents 00:41:54.480 --> 00:41:59.280 have better relation skills, have better interaction skills, have better connection 00:42:00.160 --> 00:42:06.080 with their family, which gives them greater stability in life. So that's one of, that's where kind of one of 00:42:06.080 --> 00:42:11.760 those big struggles that we're going to have, I think digitally with fellowship. And I, that's, 00:42:13.360 --> 00:42:21.520 I think breaking the bread is an analogy or a symbolism of that exact scenario. And I don't, 00:42:22.240 --> 00:42:30.720 as much as I want it to, I don't think digital will get all the way there. But a lot of the barriers 00:42:30.720 --> 00:42:37.680 that keep us from being intimate will be removed digitally because as Jake said, hey, I know these 00:42:37.680 --> 00:42:43.920 four guys really well. And I'm going to guess, Jake, you can, you know, chime in or not, but I'm going to 00:42:43.920 --> 00:42:49.120 guess that when you ate with them and spent time with them, it was even deeper because you didn't have 00:42:49.120 --> 00:42:57.600 to go through all the surface garbage anymore. Yeah. I mean, I, I think it definitely, it definitely was 00:42:57.600 --> 00:43:02.560 a different, there's a different there. There's a, it's not, it's not fully the same. There, 00:43:02.560 --> 00:43:08.400 there is something different about meeting physically in a location with somebody. I don't want to, 00:43:08.400 --> 00:43:12.560 I don't want to diminish that because I think it's important, you know, like we have bodies for a 00:43:12.560 --> 00:43:21.520 reason. But I like the, the, the specific example that I think I got from Todd, but it might've been 00:43:21.520 --> 00:43:26.640 actually from Pat, but he said something like, could you get married online? 00:43:27.600 --> 00:43:34.400 Yes. Could you never meet your wife ever? And you just only meet online and you're always online 00:43:34.400 --> 00:43:40.720 for the rest of your life. Yeah. And that might even be okay, but there's probably something, 00:43:40.720 --> 00:43:45.600 uh, you know, and I, I probably don't need to go very much further than that of why for some people, 00:43:45.600 --> 00:43:50.800 that would be very, um, not fulfilling for them. Everybody that's married does nods their heads. 00:43:50.800 --> 00:43:56.560 All right. Not me. Cause I'm not married. Um, but, but there is something, you know, there's something 00:43:56.560 --> 00:44:01.360 different about being in a physical location and being able to hug somebody and, and all that. So, 00:44:01.360 --> 00:44:10.320 but the, the, the, the thing that I think that you're hitting on is not even just time, 00:44:10.320 --> 00:44:20.320 but if we're looking at physical church, are they are, is the church daily meeting with people in the 00:44:20.320 --> 00:44:28.560 church to, to eat for lunch? Like, no, uh, maybe never. Some people after Sunday, they will go 00:44:29.280 --> 00:44:34.480 after church to meet and, and do that. You know, I have a group of friends that I go to do that with 00:44:34.480 --> 00:44:44.000 sometimes regularly. Um, but it's not like it's, it's, it's, that's why I asked what the, what the 00:44:44.000 --> 00:44:49.280 why is because it's okay. That that's something that we should put in there. Then if that, if meeting 00:44:49.280 --> 00:44:54.320 physically, I have relationships with people online that our relationships have gotten a lot better. 00:44:54.960 --> 00:44:59.520 Um, when we, we met online, talked for like a couple months or whatever, and then we met, 00:44:59.520 --> 00:45:06.400 we met in person. And maybe, maybe that's a thing is that physical or online exclusive church could say, 00:45:06.400 --> 00:45:10.320 all right, if that's really actually important because there's something different that unlocks 00:45:10.320 --> 00:45:15.760 in our relationships online after that, well, then maybe we do every six months, there's a meetup 00:45:15.760 --> 00:45:21.840 and you break bread together. You get, it's a big dinner, everybody meets. And then after that, 00:45:21.840 --> 00:45:25.840 you go back to online because you can do that daily, you know, but, but every six months, 00:45:25.840 --> 00:45:30.720 we're going to do this thing. And I think that's, there's, yeah, there's definitely something to be 00:45:30.720 --> 00:45:37.280 said for that. I totally agree. Yeah. And that, that meetup, actually, I, that's something that, 00:45:37.280 --> 00:45:42.800 as I'm looking at designing digital churches and working with them, I actually think that meetup's 00:45:42.800 --> 00:45:49.360 important. Um, you know, and, and I, I look at, you know, um, uh, Saddleback, uh, Jay Cranda, 00:45:49.360 --> 00:45:54.640 Jay's looking at doing, um, the, the meetups with their house churches. He's talking about doing them every, 00:45:54.640 --> 00:45:59.520 uh, six to 18 months. I think he's wrestling with that, trying to encourage everybody coming together 00:45:59.520 --> 00:46:06.480 and then him coming in, uh, and doing that, even as, as I was producing, um, house churches and 00:46:06.480 --> 00:46:11.440 micro locations. Um, there were, there were times where we would fly everybody in who were doing the 00:46:11.440 --> 00:46:18.000 micro locations, the Christ Fellowship Miami, just to encourage, to cast vision, to, to work towards that. 00:46:18.000 --> 00:46:22.640 Uh, because ultimately you're right. There is something that, that can be, can, 00:46:22.880 --> 00:46:28.400 can be gained, can be learned, can be experienced in that, in that physical space. And Jay, I will 00:46:28.400 --> 00:46:35.840 forever use the marriage, um, analogy. That is awesome. It was a little weird coming from a single 00:46:35.840 --> 00:46:40.560 guy, I got to admit, but I think there's totally a lot of weight in that. So thank you. Thank you for 00:46:40.560 --> 00:46:45.120 sharing that. Hey, and this was the easy one. Like this was supposed to be the throwaway. Let's just 00:46:45.120 --> 00:46:50.080 move on. And we ended up spending a lot of time on the easy one. So that, that's awesome. All right. 00:46:50.080 --> 00:46:54.640 So we're going to wrap with Fellowship. I want to thank these guys for jumping on the podcast. Uh, 00:46:54.640 --> 00:47:01.360 uh, Jason Morris, Ian Kirk, Joey Santos, uh, Jade Earhart. Man, you guys are great. By the way, 00:47:01.360 --> 00:47:05.440 they did this. They gave a couple hours for this conversation on a Saturday. They were so 00:47:05.440 --> 00:47:09.440 passionate about having this conversation about digital church. We've got two of the parts done. 00:47:09.440 --> 00:47:14.560 We are going to part three. We're going to publish that here in a little bit. So episode 66 00:47:14.560 --> 00:47:19.520 is actually going to be, uh, biblical functions of a digital church. Part three. Look for it here 00:47:19.520 --> 00:47:25.280 in a couple of days, but for now, we're going to wrap for the crowd, Jason, Ian, Joey, and, um, 00:47:25.280 --> 00:47:28.960 Jade. This is Jeff, the church digital. Thanks for joining us. And we'll see you next time 00:47:28.960 --> 00:47:31.040 here on the podcast. Y'all have a day.