WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.120 episode 68 of the church digital podcast powered by stadia church planting i was set to do a 00:00:05.120 --> 00:00:11.220 podcast this week with dj soto uh jump on a zoom call with him and we were actually trying to 00:00:11.220 --> 00:00:17.060 figure out how to do the zoom completely in virtual reality because dj soto is lead pastor 00:00:17.060 --> 00:00:23.320 of vr church and i have an oculus uh quest headset that i have not used enough in my life 00:00:23.320 --> 00:00:27.900 and so i wanted to do a podcast recording in vr but we had to pause on that we're going to do it 00:00:27.900 --> 00:00:32.820 later because about the same time i reached out to dj soto and said hey let's do this podcast 00:00:32.820 --> 00:00:39.380 tuesday um greg nettle president of stadia reached out to me and said hey jeff can you jump on a 00:00:39.380 --> 00:00:45.360 webinar with me tuesday and and ironically it was both at the same time as the podcast i wanted to 00:00:45.360 --> 00:00:52.900 do with dj and so i said hey greg can i bring a friend dj into a conversation so i i am happy to 00:00:52.900 --> 00:00:59.480 present here episode 68 of the podcast uh president greg nettle of stadia church planting 00:00:59.480 --> 00:01:07.080 dj soto lead pastor of vr church and myself jeff and the church digital we're doing a dig here a deep 00:01:07.080 --> 00:01:16.240 dive into what a digital church is and how virtual reality is in fact the future of a lot of the things 00:01:16.240 --> 00:01:22.900 that are coming up and so guys like dj man really and this is a hard thing to hear in this covet season 00:01:22.900 --> 00:01:30.340 they are the cutting edge and it's not it's not if it's when and as technology swings which is now 00:01:30.340 --> 00:01:36.160 escalated as a result of this covet season you're going to see more and more ministry more and more 00:01:36.160 --> 00:01:43.660 community more and more opportunities of engagement in digital only churches similar but looking a lot like 00:01:43.660 --> 00:01:50.580 what dj soto is doing in vr church so once again it's going to be a great podcast dj soto lead pastor 00:01:50.580 --> 00:01:55.980 vr church greg nettle president stadia church planning and myself jeff with the church digital 00:01:55.980 --> 00:02:01.080 and director of digital church planning for stadia forget to say that sometimes in a conversation that 00:02:01.080 --> 00:02:07.440 i'm calling the foundation of a virtual reality digital church okay everybody here you go all right 00:02:07.440 --> 00:02:12.680 we're going to go ahead and get started we have two guests with us today jeff reed is with us and uh 00:02:12.680 --> 00:02:20.980 jeff um we brought on the stadia staff boy we went after him hard uh in really after we met last fall 00:02:20.980 --> 00:02:27.200 jeff uh you were part of a blue sky session with stadia on is digital church even a possibility digital 00:02:27.200 --> 00:02:32.640 church planting and we came out of that blue sky saying we it is imperative that we move in that 00:02:32.640 --> 00:02:38.660 direction little knowing that this pandemic was going to occur and so we started uh conversations 00:02:38.660 --> 00:02:44.860 with jeff who's kind of i refer to him as the lebron james of church digital world uh in the united 00:02:44.860 --> 00:02:49.760 states and so we're delighted to have jeff jeff tell us a little bit about yourself and and uh 00:02:49.760 --> 00:02:53.380 kind of what you were doing with digital church and then what you're doing now with stadia 00:02:53.380 --> 00:02:59.460 yeah thank you very much glad glad to be here so jeff reed um i came from about 15 years 00:02:59.460 --> 00:03:04.740 church staffing experience uh mega church giga church kind of mentality multi-site church 00:03:04.740 --> 00:03:10.560 launched a dozen campuses and and towards the end of of that church staffing run 00:03:10.560 --> 00:03:17.860 started really pressing uh and focusing on church online digital church really like it's been a passion 00:03:17.860 --> 00:03:24.420 of mine over a couple decades even way back 20 years ago out of college was doing bible studies online 00:03:24.420 --> 00:03:29.540 and so trying to create community and digital space has always been a passion and starting to help 00:03:29.540 --> 00:03:35.540 churches more and more wrestle with that as i was working in that space um interestingly god kind of 00:03:35.540 --> 00:03:40.900 led on my heart a couple years ago uh to step out of a church staff experience and to start a company 00:03:40.900 --> 00:03:46.340 called the church dot digital where basically we help churches figure out how to do church online 00:03:46.340 --> 00:03:53.060 and uh wrestled a lot with this idea of a digital only church which by the way pre-covid was probably 00:03:53.060 --> 00:03:58.020 one of the most controversial things i would ever talk about yeah that was one of the conversations when 00:03:58.020 --> 00:04:05.460 we were at the blue sky event uh together you you were so delighted to be in a room with you know 10 00:04:05.460 --> 00:04:10.740 people 10 you know really significant tech leaders from across the country and some you know 00:04:10.740 --> 00:04:16.100 you know major church leaders that were actually excited about digital platform 00:04:16.740 --> 00:04:21.060 yeah like it's and i don't i don't mean to overstate but it's the thing that i loved about stadia 00:04:21.060 --> 00:04:27.140 is because so often in life i would cast a vision towards church online towards community online 00:04:27.140 --> 00:04:33.300 towards digital community digital church planting and and i was was told by high level leaders and 00:04:33.300 --> 00:04:40.180 influencers no you can't do that no that's wrong no that's that's um as far as jeff you're a sin because 00:04:40.180 --> 00:04:45.060 you're pulling people away from the bride of christ and so i mean the first time i met greg nettle 00:04:45.060 --> 00:04:50.500 and i'm looking at him face to face and he's like casting his vision for what he sees the church 00:04:50.500 --> 00:04:56.180 doing and i'm like dang it that's exactly what i want to do here's a guy who has the exact same 00:04:56.180 --> 00:05:01.380 vision of what it means and so you know greg talks about how it was a hard sell it was a hard 00:05:01.380 --> 00:05:05.860 sell on my end to jump on the team because i'm like i love where this organization's going 00:05:05.860 --> 00:05:11.860 i love their passion towards it how can we work together to that end and so came on staff january 00:05:11.860 --> 00:05:18.820 as director of digital church planting i think i was on staff six weeks before covet hit um which 00:05:18.820 --> 00:05:24.100 was funny because all that controversial and i'm sure dj will dive into it but all the controversy 00:05:24.100 --> 00:05:30.020 surrounding a digital only expression of church yeah all those pastors who were like it's a sin you're 00:05:30.020 --> 00:05:34.340 taking people away from the bride of christ i will never broadcast the service those pastors 00:05:34.340 --> 00:05:39.940 were calling me on the phone hey jeff can you help us here we're in dire straits and so i i don't 00:05:39.940 --> 00:05:45.860 assume that covid changed the bible so like all the theological concerns that were pre-covid like i don't 00:05:45.860 --> 00:05:52.020 think the bible changed i just think there was a lot of opinions and the reality is it's an opinion 00:05:52.020 --> 00:05:57.540 we can do the things in digital community and still pay honor and homage and hold to the biblical standards 00:05:57.540 --> 00:06:04.180 that are in place in acts 2 and others and so by utilizing technology to reach in the digital 00:06:04.180 --> 00:06:10.660 community in this covid season we're impacting people in a whole new way and coming out of this covid 00:06:10.660 --> 00:06:18.020 season i think we've got an opportunity to not go back to the physical building but really to add 00:06:18.020 --> 00:06:24.580 physical locations to this new digital first strategy that'll help the church moving forward all right 00:06:24.580 --> 00:06:31.540 hey jocko from south africa great to have you with us my friend hey we also have dj soto with us dj is 00:06:31.540 --> 00:06:40.180 the lead uh visionary leader of vr church dj tell us a little bit about what's going on people are kind 00:06:40.180 --> 00:06:45.460 of loving this and asking questions and yeah let's you know talk to us about what's going on in your world 00:06:45.460 --> 00:06:50.740 now my friend sure absolutely hey everyone my name is dj soto i'm the lead pastor of virtual reality 00:06:50.740 --> 00:06:57.540 church we're a church that exists entirely online in the metaverse we've been around since 2016 we 00:06:58.340 --> 00:07:05.460 i guess 2017 is when we got established um we're experimenting the year of 2016 but um but before 00:07:05.460 --> 00:07:10.500 that you know had over 20 years of ministry experience big churches small churches mega traditional i mean 00:07:10.500 --> 00:07:18.500 you name it baptist pentecostals it was all around just exploring god's kingdom and um and we were part 00:07:18.500 --> 00:07:24.100 of a quite large church in southeast pennsylvania and i was one of their campus pastors there and it was 00:07:24.100 --> 00:07:30.580 about 2016 where we felt god wanted us to do something new we didn't know exactly what new meant we thought 00:07:30.580 --> 00:07:36.660 that meant plant physical churches and that was about the same time virtual reality came out and i'm actually in 00:07:36.660 --> 00:07:41.540 virtual reality right now um i'm wearing my headset i'm going to try to grab it this is kind of covering 00:07:41.540 --> 00:07:48.260 my head right here i have hand trackers and you know i'm going to maybe do a wider shot here as i look 00:07:48.260 --> 00:07:55.540 around um all around this environment i can see up and down and left and right and it's so immersive 00:07:56.100 --> 00:08:02.180 and this is kind of like what virtual reality church is like it's a bit different this is a platform for 00:08:02.180 --> 00:08:09.380 zoom but what we can do is virtual reality brings back the sense of presence where we you know high 00:08:09.380 --> 00:08:14.980 five each other give each other hugs say hello um you know the serendipitous conversations before and 00:08:14.980 --> 00:08:21.700 after church um that you have and so it's it's hard to explain it's kind of if you've seen the matrix 00:08:21.700 --> 00:08:26.660 uh there's this point where morpheus tells neo you can't explain what the matrix is you have 00:08:26.660 --> 00:08:32.820 to experience it for yourself and in our journey that has been nothing but true because it's been 00:08:32.820 --> 00:08:37.460 hard to explain it we've traveled all over trying to fundraise trying to cast vision and there's this 00:08:37.460 --> 00:08:44.020 blank stare um you know with leaders and pastors and organizations but once we put the vr headset on 00:08:44.020 --> 00:08:50.660 them and even better yet experience virtual reality church the light bulb comes on let me give a quick 00:08:50.660 --> 00:08:57.300 example real fast um it was at a conference casting vision talking about vr church and the automated 00:08:57.300 --> 00:09:03.620 response is this can't be church that doesn't count etc etc and there was one pastor who was adamantly 00:09:03.620 --> 00:09:08.340 believing that i didn't know that met with them said hey i have an extra headset why don't you come to 00:09:08.340 --> 00:09:14.180 vr church with me on sunday so he did he came he he put on the vr headset i actually brought him up on 00:09:14.180 --> 00:09:21.140 stage to to talk about his ministry and afterwards he took it off and says i get it now and i want to do 00:09:21.700 --> 00:09:27.940 a virtual reality ministry and man if i could take that story and just multiply it over and over again 00:09:27.940 --> 00:09:34.340 that's has been our experience before experiencing vr church no that's not a thing you can't have 00:09:34.340 --> 00:09:40.100 relationships people are going to be fake it's weird after experiencing it there's a total change in 00:09:40.100 --> 00:09:47.860 attitude and in theology like i didn't convince him theologically or ecclesiologically about why 00:09:47.860 --> 00:09:54.180 the vr church or vr ministries was valid it was the experience that changed his mind which is i find 00:09:54.180 --> 00:10:00.980 totally interesting in this covet era like um like jeff was alluding to uh pre-covid um church online 00:10:00.980 --> 00:10:06.660 man that's not a thing you can't do that you can't have church online uh you know in this covet era 00:10:06.660 --> 00:10:12.340 i see that theology changing it's like the experience and the circumstances has changed our theologies 00:10:12.340 --> 00:10:17.300 because i know of churches um you know good churches by the way who would not broadcast online 00:10:17.300 --> 00:10:23.620 very hesitant about digital ministries would certainly not call it church online and now they're 00:10:23.620 --> 00:10:28.500 saying hey come to church online right so in two weeks that that's kind of flipped for them so 00:10:29.060 --> 00:10:34.740 anyways um a long story short uh my wife and i were church planters in virtual reality 00:10:34.740 --> 00:10:41.540 we've planted in three metaverses which is like three virtual reality cities um and we have uh let's 00:10:41.540 --> 00:10:46.180 see three churches already planted here in the metaverse and we're looking to plant a couple more so 00:10:46.980 --> 00:10:55.860 yeah that's uh there are so many questions dj that i want to ask you and yeah but but um and i just read 00:10:55.860 --> 00:11:01.060 an amazing article about your church in wired magazine and uh just really exciting stuff going on 00:11:01.060 --> 00:11:07.300 congratulations on all the really the good press you've been getting um which and especially from 00:11:07.300 --> 00:11:13.380 unchurched people you know that's been the really fun thing for me to watch um jeff i want to come back to you 00:11:13.380 --> 00:11:18.580 because one of the things we've wrestled with pretty extensively and i think you know people need to be 00:11:18.580 --> 00:11:26.820 assured of is you know what is what makes a church a church and is digital church a church and theologically 00:11:26.820 --> 00:11:32.900 is it okay and because i think that's a fair question to ask right and as we talk about planting 00:11:32.900 --> 00:11:39.060 digital churches at stadia certainly we want to be able to respond and say yes we have worked through the 00:11:39.060 --> 00:11:45.780 theology of this and and so talk about that jeff in how you're seeing you know digital church 00:11:46.660 --> 00:11:52.820 really be the church um in the same ways if not better than many local church expressions 00:11:53.860 --> 00:12:00.180 yeah i i love that there's there's this perception that the church is the one hour on sunday and so if 00:12:00.180 --> 00:12:04.660 you ask the average person what makes a church a church they're they're going to say it's that church 00:12:04.660 --> 00:12:13.220 service piece and the church service the gathering of people in that space is is important but it's not 00:12:13.220 --> 00:12:18.420 the only piece of of what makes a church a church if you look at you know acts two and that's that's 00:12:18.420 --> 00:12:24.180 just even a great place to start uh there's there's worship there's teaching um there there there's 00:12:24.180 --> 00:12:31.380 communion there's uh there's observing the ordinances there's there's giving uh there's options where it talks about 00:12:31.380 --> 00:12:38.100 justice and showing mercy and and uh a lot of the pieces of holistically of what makes church a church 00:12:38.660 --> 00:12:44.340 and and what's really been painful in this season and and we've talked about this in podcasts where 00:12:44.340 --> 00:12:50.500 um the most powerful piece of the perception the most powerful piece of what made a church a church 00:12:50.500 --> 00:12:56.020 is that service and for the past couple months through covid that piece has been taken off the board 00:12:56.580 --> 00:13:03.780 and actually there's an analogy in place um where if like if you want to be a chess master you take the 00:13:03.780 --> 00:13:09.940 queen off the board and you're still able to win the chess match because you're able to use the rest of 00:13:09.940 --> 00:13:16.740 the pieces to win and in this season the church service is gone and so we as as the church body have 00:13:16.740 --> 00:13:23.540 really been struggling to adapt and to learn how to use the other pieces more effectively in in a digital 00:13:23.540 --> 00:13:30.100 environment um the i would argue i would suggest that the church service is important but through digital 00:13:30.100 --> 00:13:35.780 environments like things that that dj is doing you have far more opportunities to be relational to 00:13:35.780 --> 00:13:44.340 connect at individual levels to build that relationship piece where i can have disciple making relationships 00:13:44.340 --> 00:13:51.780 i can coach and develop people at a more intimate level um you know people utilize technology and i think 00:13:51.780 --> 00:13:59.540 overall church is hey let's broadcast our services so somebody in ethiopia gets saved and gets baptized that's that's awesome 00:13:59.540 --> 00:14:06.180 billy graham in 1995 one message bounced off 30 satellites 47 translators a billion people 00:14:06.180 --> 00:14:13.060 heard one message that was 25 years ago the power of technology isn't to a billion people to hear it 00:14:13.060 --> 00:14:18.900 the power of technology is let's interact with each other let's engage and talk with each other it's 00:14:18.900 --> 00:14:25.060 it's an intimacy technology it's it's not cold there are ways to overcome that and that's that's some of 00:14:25.060 --> 00:14:30.260 the stuff dj's doing right here where through the metaverse this guy's interacting with people that 00:14:30.260 --> 00:14:36.180 will never sit in physical space and he's able to help them grow deeper in their faith this is i mean 00:14:36.180 --> 00:14:40.820 this is phenomenal stuff to see right here yeah and and jeff you know one of the things when we went into 00:14:40.820 --> 00:14:48.100 this uh with stadia that we were very convicted of we are not uh we weren't and we are not interested 00:14:48.100 --> 00:14:53.380 in helping churches just broadcast their weekend gatherings that's fine if they want to do that we are 00:14:53.380 --> 00:15:00.180 interested in creating environments church expressions where the full ordinances of the church can be expressed 00:15:00.180 --> 00:15:07.140 experienced where disciples can make disciples i'll never forget pat yelsinger who's the ceo of vmware 00:15:07.140 --> 00:15:13.220 you know one of the largest tech companies in the world number one uh ceo in the united states last year 00:15:13.220 --> 00:15:18.980 and he challenged us he's huge in church planting and he said greg you know team we need to look at this 00:15:18.980 --> 00:15:24.260 digital expression not to just be as good as local church or just a little bit less than local church 00:15:24.260 --> 00:15:28.900 but he said it needs to be better at evangelism better at discipleship better at worship better at 00:15:28.900 --> 00:15:34.820 community than the local church expression and i sat there i think my jaw was on the table saying 00:15:34.820 --> 00:15:40.340 how in the world you know and now we're going oh we know how in the world to see this happen 00:15:40.340 --> 00:15:45.780 and so you know as we think about our definition of what church is it includes worship and it includes 00:15:45.780 --> 00:15:52.580 sacraments like communion and baptism and bible-centered teaching and all of those things so dj let me come back 00:15:52.580 --> 00:15:58.900 to you and say how does some of those things cracked out practically uh play out in virtual free i mean 00:15:58.900 --> 00:16:04.660 how do you do communion you know um you know what does it look like uh is the holy spirit at work you 00:16:04.660 --> 00:16:11.860 know in your church yeah uh well let me just back up just a touch um you know there's a point in my wife 00:16:11.860 --> 00:16:16.980 and i journey where we left the church you know we just you know we were just in circles that we don't 00:16:16.980 --> 00:16:23.300 want to be in anymore we felt like we were abandoning um our spiritual walk and god and one of the things 00:16:23.300 --> 00:16:29.620 that brought us back was a church online experience back in 2005 maybe i can't remember liquid church 00:16:29.620 --> 00:16:35.140 in new jersey had an online experience and i started attending that church i started being part of the 00:16:35.140 --> 00:16:42.500 chat i would email the campus pastor for the online campus so early on i was already convinced of ministry 00:16:42.500 --> 00:16:47.700 that i experienced and that impacted my life you know as far as 2005 and then the mega church i was 00:16:47.700 --> 00:16:55.700 a part of in 2010 we launched uh an online online service and one of the first visitors was an atheist and 00:16:55.700 --> 00:17:02.020 there was another lady who um was homebound and wasn't going to church and and it just sold me on 00:17:02.020 --> 00:17:08.500 the idea it didn't take long for me uh in that conversation of is this valid is this right can it be 00:17:08.500 --> 00:17:14.740 effective ministry i mean it just sold me immediately on that so then fast forward to 2016 like i'm already 00:17:14.740 --> 00:17:20.260 past all that and i'm ready to like to dive in into the metaverse and i think what surprises people 00:17:20.900 --> 00:17:26.260 is when they look under the hood of vr church because i think their initial reaction is confusion 00:17:26.260 --> 00:17:32.500 maybe negative is it a cult what's happening here there's a lot of like strange reaction that happens 00:17:32.500 --> 00:17:37.780 when they look under the hood and they see the depth of ministry you know worship prayer bible studies 00:17:37.780 --> 00:17:44.980 discipleship uh communing the sacraments all the elements of the church exist in the metaverse and one 00:17:44.980 --> 00:17:51.540 thing and this is another one hard to explain but let me kind of present this uh thing that god is 00:17:51.540 --> 00:17:58.180 leading us into is that he's been saying to us uh vr church you need to reimagine the church not 00:17:58.180 --> 00:18:02.980 replicate it and so it would be you know i'm just thinking about everyone that's getting into digital 00:18:02.980 --> 00:18:08.900 ministries bringing their physical church online maybe take it through a filter that you're not trying to 00:18:08.900 --> 00:18:15.300 replicate one for one everything and think about what are some reimagination that we can have you know 00:18:15.300 --> 00:18:20.340 dj i think that's i think that's really important to and you know really want our you know those who 00:18:20.340 --> 00:18:25.460 are joining us today to hear that churches that have just taken their you know their typical weekend 00:18:25.460 --> 00:18:33.380 gatherings and put them online that's not really digital expression of church that's just broadcasting so 00:18:33.380 --> 00:18:39.540 so we really do keep going with that i love i love what you're saying yeah so you know replication can 00:18:39.540 --> 00:18:45.460 be fine but i think more the emphasis on reimagination that takes hard work and we're still trying to 00:18:45.460 --> 00:18:49.940 figure out what does that mean because someone would say well what are you talking about and we're still 00:18:49.940 --> 00:18:55.780 sort of discovering because we did the replication now we're going through a reimagination and so um 00:18:55.780 --> 00:19:00.260 like well let me give you an example because i know that's kind of vague one thing that we've done 00:19:00.260 --> 00:19:05.620 is we've sermons are not delivered from stage anymore i used to for like a good better part 00:19:05.620 --> 00:19:10.740 of a year deliver my sermon on stage had a had a powerpoint you know above my head type of thing 00:19:10.740 --> 00:19:14.660 but then we're we're in virtual reality the possibilities are endless because we control 00:19:14.660 --> 00:19:19.460 time and space and so what we've done every sunday come to vr church it's like a movie set 00:19:19.460 --> 00:19:24.500 we go we start out in the church building but it kind of looks like a modern mega church type of feel 00:19:24.500 --> 00:19:28.500 music you know announcements you know all that stuff and then we leave the church building 00:19:28.500 --> 00:19:32.820 and walk through the experience and we've done i mean it's incredible it's you know walking through 00:19:32.820 --> 00:19:39.620 the red sea um experiencing um you know for easter we walked the hill of gal gotha and went into the 00:19:39.620 --> 00:19:46.820 tomb virtual reality lets you experience the bible not just kind of sit and attain knowledge you get to 00:19:46.820 --> 00:19:53.060 be tactile with your um experience and your spirituality it's been it's been amazing like this sunday 00:19:53.060 --> 00:19:57.860 we've been going chapter by chapter through the book of acts so our world build team has created 00:19:57.860 --> 00:20:01.780 the shipwreck from acts chapter 27 that's where we're finishing up the book of acts so we're going 00:20:01.780 --> 00:20:06.260 to walk on the ship there's rain effects coming down we're on the rocks we're going to go on the shore 00:20:06.260 --> 00:20:11.620 where uh there's a fire there and so that's part of the reimagination we're going through and i think 00:20:11.620 --> 00:20:16.740 there's many other ones that we're going to discover with discipleship um you know with relationships 00:20:16.740 --> 00:20:23.380 and so that's kind of like uh where we're at little sneak peek and wow yeah so i'm loving this now not 00:20:23.380 --> 00:20:29.700 you know just to be real candid most churches aren't going to jump to vr right now um you know some will 00:20:29.700 --> 00:20:34.420 which is really cool um we have a lot of church planters who are launching digitally now and i love 00:20:34.420 --> 00:20:38.980 what they're doing and the more that see this i think we're going to have more more church planters 00:20:38.980 --> 00:20:44.900 launching in uh vr world as well which i'm really excited about but let's talk about you know kind 00:20:44.900 --> 00:20:51.780 of these steps of digital jeff and um you know if somebody's saying okay um i don't have the 00:20:51.780 --> 00:20:57.540 technology right now or the know-how to do vr necessarily jeff what are you watching as you know 00:20:57.540 --> 00:21:02.500 some first steps what can people do right now you know as we come out of this pandemic um i'm 00:21:02.500 --> 00:21:07.380 really encouraging churches hey don't don't just go back to business as usual the world's never going 00:21:07.380 --> 00:21:12.660 to be the same again what are some steps they can take right now to move into the digital world keep 00:21:12.660 --> 00:21:19.140 it going yeah um i i love this and and i had a church earlier this week maybe it was late last 00:21:19.140 --> 00:21:26.820 week the the the lead pastor said jeff our two-year goal is to create a a vr church um and i looked 00:21:26.820 --> 00:21:31.060 at the lead pastor and i was like i'm really impressed right now because you know how to spell vr 00:21:31.060 --> 00:21:36.740 like i i just i don't hear that language a lot and from from from a lead pastor the the first step 00:21:36.740 --> 00:21:41.700 from a church standpoint set the technology aside we'll get to that but from the church standpoint 00:21:41.700 --> 00:21:47.860 the the challenge i would say to them is figure out how to make a disciple because if you can make 00:21:47.860 --> 00:21:56.660 disciples who can make other disciples if you can figure out how to create that process it's then easy 00:21:56.660 --> 00:22:02.500 to find somebody who's passionate about virtual reality and unleash them on that area by the way i mean 00:22:02.500 --> 00:22:08.580 this opens up a disciple making process in a digital landscape opens up a lot of potential i mean 00:22:08.580 --> 00:22:14.420 there's guys like jade airheart who's doing stuff with video games and he's reaching eight to nine 00:22:14.420 --> 00:22:20.740 hundred people through a platform called discord where he's literally one guy's playing video games one 00:22:20.740 --> 00:22:27.460 guy is reading the bible and they're broadcasting that on twitch and they're impacting dozens of people 00:22:27.460 --> 00:22:31.700 there's life change happening as a result and they're getting engaged okay jeff but i gotta stop 00:22:31.700 --> 00:22:36.020 you because you know most of the churches we're working with right now they're not ready to jump 00:22:36.020 --> 00:22:42.580 to vr yeah so let's just talk about you know for the vast majority of churches right now that are going 00:22:42.580 --> 00:22:48.980 hey what what if we just want to do something good as we come out of this with just you know what 4g is 00:22:48.980 --> 00:22:56.740 allowing us to do right now really well on digital yeah so we're looking at your at places where community 00:22:56.740 --> 00:23:03.940 exists digitally um reach into facebook groups build relationships with people within facebook groups 00:23:03.940 --> 00:23:09.780 within your within your community challenge some of your high level leaders and your people who are 00:23:09.780 --> 00:23:16.580 capable of being disciple makers where are areas that they're passionate about maybe there's an opportunity to 00:23:16.580 --> 00:23:24.900 create micro locations where you're utilizing technology to create new communities within areas of of your 00:23:24.900 --> 00:23:31.940 city part of that discipleship process ultimately is training an individual to the place where they are 00:23:31.940 --> 00:23:38.420 passionate about reaching and influencing their circle of influence so getting somebody to that place 00:23:38.980 --> 00:23:44.660 and then mobilizing them empowering them to go to reach the people that they're passionate about 00:23:44.660 --> 00:23:51.620 so jeff we talk a lot at stadia about fidgetal which is the combination of the physical and the digital 00:23:51.620 --> 00:23:58.180 and so and we you know i think our kind of philosophy is you know digital is fantastic but if digital faith 00:23:58.180 --> 00:24:04.980 is not played out in the physical world then boy we it's a that's a tough question there to ask about 00:24:04.980 --> 00:24:12.100 disciple making and so talk a little bit about the fidgetal idea and how digital also plays into the 00:24:12.100 --> 00:24:18.580 physical sure yeah there's a theory it's called online to offline the the gospel that we learned in the 00:24:18.580 --> 00:24:26.020 online world has to affect our offline relationships our physical world relationships let's i mean let's 00:24:26.020 --> 00:24:32.260 take vr church as an example if the only place that that an attender of of dj soto's church in virtual 00:24:32.260 --> 00:24:37.860 reality if the only place that somebody shows the fruits of the spirit the love joy peace patience if they 00:24:37.860 --> 00:24:42.980 only do that in virtual reality but they're a jerk in the physical world i mean that's that's not a good 00:24:42.980 --> 00:24:50.100 thing right like the the the information the content the stuff that we're processing digitally has to 00:24:50.100 --> 00:24:56.580 show itself physically and so that's the standard that we i challenge all churches all church online 00:24:56.580 --> 00:25:02.660 all digital church like i love the fact that we're all christians in facebook but we need to not just be 00:25:02.660 --> 00:25:08.100 christians in facebook we need to be christians to the neighbor i i just i just think that is so humorous 00:25:08.100 --> 00:25:13.700 jeff because you know um i you know i led a mega church for years before i became a you know the the 00:25:13.700 --> 00:25:19.460 president of stadia and our big thing in mega church world was okay you know we were gathering you know 00:25:19.460 --> 00:25:25.140 1500 people in an auditorium numerous times a weekend how do we get them so they come in and they're 00:25:25.140 --> 00:25:30.100 showing the fruits of the spirit in that weekend gathering and you know what our big question was and problem 00:25:30.100 --> 00:25:36.660 they leave the building and they're jerks when they leave right so that this is not some new question 00:25:36.660 --> 00:25:41.780 from digital that digital is raising this is the question of the church throughout history 00:25:42.340 --> 00:25:48.900 where people you know dichotomize the world of the church and the world the real world that they live 00:25:48.900 --> 00:25:55.460 in vj talk about that how do you address that in your church how do you convince people that hey you 00:25:55.460 --> 00:25:59.700 can't just be a christian here online it's got to be lived out in your physical realm as well 00:26:00.500 --> 00:26:05.300 yeah i think spiritually is it is what's your church expressing is a behavior modification or is 00:26:05.300 --> 00:26:11.140 a transformation so um if you put the big line in between those two behavior modification you know 00:26:11.140 --> 00:26:16.580 you could really you know and legalize the religious christian experience but if you're 00:26:16.580 --> 00:26:21.620 truly transforming people through the word of god through trans through prayer through discipleship 00:26:21.620 --> 00:26:25.700 you know that's going to carry out into their normal lives and so that's what we've seen we've seen 00:26:25.700 --> 00:26:32.420 people whose lives have been touched by the gospel and that has transformed their spirit and now they're 00:26:32.420 --> 00:26:37.860 expressing that love from what christ has done for them so that can be done through a physical interaction 00:26:37.860 --> 00:26:44.660 you know a church a pulpit you know that spiritual encouragement and transformation or it can be done in 00:26:44.660 --> 00:26:50.500 virtual reality so i don't know if it's the medium as much as it is uh the power of the message that 00:26:50.500 --> 00:26:57.700 is in someone's spirit and that um affects how they live so you're in your church if we come to vr church 00:26:57.700 --> 00:27:03.460 you're going to be you know teaching this incredible virtual experiential teaching which i love 00:27:03.460 --> 00:27:11.220 that idea but you're saying to people hey when you leave virtual world this is how this applies right 00:27:11.220 --> 00:27:17.860 yeah absolutely because we're not here just to attend a service um you know acquire knowledge 00:27:17.860 --> 00:27:22.900 we're here to transform our lives which we would assume would affect every interaction that you do 00:27:22.900 --> 00:27:28.180 your money your relationships your you know the way you treat your family all those things so absolutely 00:27:28.820 --> 00:27:33.700 okay so here's here's one of the fascinating things i want to jump into just a little bit of tech stuff here in a minute but 00:27:34.420 --> 00:27:38.580 you know one of the things as we've you know moved towards digital church and we think about you know 00:27:38.580 --> 00:27:45.380 our move uh in america especially and those of you who are around the world kind of i'm not sure where 00:27:45.380 --> 00:27:52.580 you're at with tech in your country in the world so um you know apply this however but you know it wasn't that 00:27:52.580 --> 00:28:00.020 long ago in the united states where we were on 3g technology and then we moved to 4g and it changed dramatically 00:28:00.020 --> 00:28:08.500 and um in inside of two years for many of us it will be in this next 12 month period but inside of two 00:28:08.500 --> 00:28:14.900 years everyone in the united states will be on 5g technology and to understand the difference between 00:28:14.900 --> 00:28:21.700 that when we were on 3g technology if you wanted to download a two-hour movie onto your ipad or your 00:28:21.700 --> 00:28:28.900 phone or whatever it took about six hours to download that movie when we went from 3g to 4g to download 00:28:28.900 --> 00:28:35.700 that same movie it moved to just about six minutes quantum leap and how in the band speed when we go to 00:28:35.700 --> 00:28:46.180 5g it'll move from six minutes to 2.3 seconds so almost instantaneous download of of that that movie and 00:28:46.180 --> 00:28:52.820 what that's going to change um one of the reasons 5g is being you know launched at all the big sporting 00:28:52.820 --> 00:28:59.940 venues right now um around the united states is because they're getting ready for vr technology so 00:28:59.940 --> 00:29:05.940 i can take my 83 year old dad who can't walk up the stairs to watch the cleveland browns play in the 00:29:05.940 --> 00:29:11.860 stadium but i can say dad do you want to go to a cleveland's browns game with me today and and he'll say 00:29:11.860 --> 00:29:16.740 well yeah but i can't you know and i'll say well dad just put on that headset that i bought you 00:29:16.740 --> 00:29:21.860 and you and i can sit side by side and we can be at the cleveland browns game on the 50 yard line 00:29:21.860 --> 00:29:27.060 i mean it's crazy that's in the next two years that'll be our new reality the other thing that's 00:29:27.060 --> 00:29:37.300 really exciting is globally 90 of the people on the planet will be connected on 4g on some device and so 00:29:37.300 --> 00:29:45.060 think about the implications for the gospel with the world having the current technology we have on 4g 00:29:45.060 --> 00:29:51.780 so vj talk just dj talk just a little bit about you know some of that change that's going to take place 00:29:51.780 --> 00:29:57.860 and how it is going to affect church yeah absolutely i i think um you know church leaders might get 00:29:57.860 --> 00:30:01.780 frustrated i i met with a pastor one time and he was like i'm retiring i'm not gonna have to worry about 00:30:01.780 --> 00:30:07.300 vr right so i think there's a sense of like oh man what's next we had our website down our social media 00:30:07.300 --> 00:30:12.740 is cranking we have a broadcast church our digital vision is complete and then now you start hearing 00:30:12.740 --> 00:30:18.500 about virtual reality and augmented reality and so what's happening is i heard this quote that i think 00:30:18.500 --> 00:30:24.180 is really important is that we're leaving the information age and we're entering the experience age 00:30:24.180 --> 00:30:31.700 and the experience age represents virtual reality and augmented reality and so just as let's say 00:30:31.700 --> 00:30:37.140 you're launching a church today you would not think to like we're not going to have a website or social 00:30:37.140 --> 00:30:41.700 media or maybe even broadcast you wouldn't think that that'd be crazy but it's only going to be a 00:30:41.700 --> 00:30:45.860 couple years before you're going to say the same thing about virtual reality and augmented reality 00:30:45.860 --> 00:30:50.660 where that's going to be an expected part of your experience now that might seem overwhelming or 00:30:50.660 --> 00:30:57.060 discouraging but really what i've been encouraging people to to do is to experiment just start 00:30:57.060 --> 00:31:02.740 experimenting with it you don't have to launch a big vr thing get some headsets for your campus or for 00:31:02.740 --> 00:31:08.100 your church and start trying it out and i think you'll start to make those little baby steps to be 00:31:08.100 --> 00:31:14.740 prepared for when the experience age you know comes in in full bloom and i think that there's plenty of 00:31:14.740 --> 00:31:19.220 people in your church that would also love to dive into that and to be a part of that this is really 00:31:19.220 --> 00:31:23.780 powerful we've outsourced innovation in the church i think it's an important point i've heard bobby 00:31:23.780 --> 00:31:29.140 and grenwald um say we've outsourced them in innovation i think it's time to bring it back i think you 00:31:29.140 --> 00:31:34.980 need to carve out a little r d side of your church you know just a small budget or just people passionate 00:31:34.980 --> 00:31:41.700 about experimentation and i think that spirit of pioneering experimentation innovation is kind of 00:31:41.700 --> 00:31:46.340 faded in our church circles but i think it's time to bring it back and vr is a great opportunity 00:31:46.340 --> 00:31:52.340 to start uh okay dj so we have a lot some questions coming in so if i want to join you 00:31:52.340 --> 00:31:58.340 um in your virtual church um i i don't have i don't have a headset i don't know what headset to buy 00:31:58.340 --> 00:32:02.180 i don't know what computer i need you know is it going to cost me you know five thousand dollars to 00:32:02.180 --> 00:32:07.620 get you know to be part of your church yeah how do we get started with if we just want to join you 00:32:07.620 --> 00:32:12.740 right right um so the easiest answer is that vrchurch.org we have a visitor's guide 00:32:12.740 --> 00:32:17.940 that'll take you step by step about how to join us at vrchurch and one main thing to realize is that 00:32:17.940 --> 00:32:25.140 you don't need virtual reality all these platforms we use can be accessed uh accessible through a pc 00:32:25.860 --> 00:32:32.340 2d screen it's a totally different experience but it's still very compelling so um you don't 00:32:32.340 --> 00:32:38.020 need vr vr is the most preferred way and if you also if you just want me to give you another short 00:32:38.020 --> 00:32:45.140 answer uh the oculus quest if you want to write that down uh google oculus quest and that is in my 00:32:45.140 --> 00:32:50.580 opinion the best vr headset to get right now there's more powerful ones for you and tech enthusiasts that 00:32:50.580 --> 00:32:58.180 just want to you know throw money at whatever uh the valve index is probably the best high-end vr 00:32:58.180 --> 00:33:03.940 but as far as something that's going to work just as simple as your iphone still great um can access 00:33:03.940 --> 00:33:09.700 many virtual experiences the oculus quest is the best okay so let me ask you this um i think we're all 00:33:09.700 --> 00:33:16.100 curious with probably googling now so what's oculus quest going to cost me for that headset uh the oculus quest 00:33:16.100 --> 00:33:22.980 i believe starts around 400 and um and just a quick little thought around that to get into vr when it 00:33:22.980 --> 00:33:29.540 first came out 2016 was about 2000 i mean computer vr headset so even in this small amount of time 00:33:29.540 --> 00:33:35.940 we're seeing the price lower we're seeing the form factor getting smaller um one thing people might not 00:33:35.940 --> 00:33:43.140 realize is facebook apple google all of these companies are spending billions of dollars on virtual 00:33:43.140 --> 00:33:48.260 reality and augmented reality and we haven't seen that full fruition of what's what's happening so 00:33:48.900 --> 00:33:53.860 whatever is going to come out of that is going to be significant apple's really hush-hush about 00:33:53.860 --> 00:33:59.300 their project um and i can only imagine it's going to be amazing because uh you know of apple's history 00:33:59.300 --> 00:34:05.060 so if a church wants if a church wants to get started and um or i've got church planners out there 00:34:05.060 --> 00:34:10.740 right now listening and they're saying yeah i i think i want to do this give me a price point i mean 00:34:10.740 --> 00:34:16.260 you know what if i want to plant a church and i want to get the equipment to do my my hands are 00:34:16.260 --> 00:34:21.940 going to move and all this stuff what's a price point that we can jump in as as a as a new church 00:34:21.940 --> 00:34:27.700 plan um just for yourself as a church planner you just need the vr headset the oculus quest and you're 00:34:27.700 --> 00:34:32.340 ready to go that four hundred dollars you just planted a church no no that's no good i need to pay at 00:34:32.340 --> 00:34:38.580 least fifty thousand dollars for a building yeah yeah there was a pastor that said uh he saw me on 00:34:38.580 --> 00:34:42.660 the news or whatever and he saw my building he's like i'm really jealous of this guy because he has 00:34:42.660 --> 00:34:47.380 a multi-million dollar building that he didn't cost him anything to make so the platform we use is 00:34:47.380 --> 00:34:52.740 alt space vr and anyone can use alt space that's another one to google the oculus quest is one and then 00:34:52.740 --> 00:34:58.740 alt space vr is the second one alt space is our primary uh church plant that's kind of where our i guess 00:34:58.740 --> 00:35:04.660 headquarters exist if you will and that's a great platform you can build anything in there you can get 00:35:04.660 --> 00:35:09.540 you can use their templates they have like auditorium templates so you could literally start get the 00:35:09.540 --> 00:35:14.100 headset and you're ready to go with the template and then obviously we've done custom creations so we 00:35:14.100 --> 00:35:19.700 custom build and you know we have our own building in our own environments um so we get we get fancy with 00:35:19.700 --> 00:35:25.860 it but at the end of the day you know you just need the headset um set up an event and your church is 00:35:25.860 --> 00:35:35.220 launched you know okay 500 per church plant yeah yeah i just i just think this is just going to change 00:35:35.220 --> 00:35:41.940 everything um okay jeff let me come back to you because stadia your work with stadia right now you're 00:35:41.940 --> 00:35:47.540 working you're getting ready to launch cohorts and futurist groups and stuff talk a little bit about 00:35:47.540 --> 00:35:53.540 those and how people can get involved um in getting you know kind of taking you know there are some of us 00:35:53.540 --> 00:35:59.940 that are going man we knew this was wave was coming before the pandemic we were you know now we believe 00:35:59.940 --> 00:36:04.660 in it and what can happen and we're not gonna you know a lot of churches we're we're you know we're not 00:36:04.660 --> 00:36:11.860 anti-local church by any means um we just think that this can augment a lot of church expressions and 00:36:11.860 --> 00:36:19.460 advance the gospel um but you know how what do i do now and i still have lots of questions and 00:36:19.460 --> 00:36:24.260 how we've innovated to get our church services online and we're doing a little bit of community 00:36:24.260 --> 00:36:30.180 groups and so forth but man how do we take that innovation and really flourish out of this at the 00:36:30.180 --> 00:36:38.180 same time we're continuing and we're you know re-entering over the next two years which is really what i believe it's going to take to get back to what you know 00:36:38.180 --> 00:36:44.580 it all the experts are saying we're in a two-year window here now to get back to full local expression 00:36:44.580 --> 00:36:52.980 um so how do they get involved with you yeah i mean dj soto is a great example here of of not 00:36:52.980 --> 00:36:59.380 recreating but of reimagining uh of of innovating and doing something different to digital space 00:36:59.380 --> 00:37:06.420 in this coveted season um we just recreated our physical ministry digitally hey let's broadcast our 00:37:06.420 --> 00:37:11.700 services you know maybe it's a different look and feel but it's still the same template maybe it's a 00:37:11.700 --> 00:37:19.860 shorter sermon but it's still the same model of it and through what dj is doing he's reimagining it 00:37:19.860 --> 00:37:26.580 in the digital space i think we all have an opportunity here in this season to we know how to do physical 00:37:26.580 --> 00:37:31.940 church well i mean here in in this continent we've been doing it for hundreds of years physical church 00:37:31.940 --> 00:37:37.700 like we we've got that model down really within the past six weeks eight weeks we figured out or 00:37:37.700 --> 00:37:43.060 we were trying to figure out how to do digital um you know we use the language and you said it greg of 00:37:43.060 --> 00:37:49.620 digital a melding a merger of physical and digital together and that's our that's our goal is to help 00:37:49.620 --> 00:37:54.420 churches through these learning communities uh and and futurist groups figure out how to 00:37:55.140 --> 00:38:03.540 do digital church well how to utilize your existing church to disciple create disciple makers to expand 00:38:03.540 --> 00:38:10.580 and a plant and to do things utilizing technology like what you see here in vr church man that is a 00:38:10.580 --> 00:38:16.820 really big jeff reed behind dj soto right now if you can see that that's that's really scary but you've 00:38:16.820 --> 00:38:22.100 you've got this opportunity to do that and so with stadia we're looking at a six-month learning 00:38:22.100 --> 00:38:28.900 community uh we've got um close to 100 churches that that were coming together to be part of this 00:38:29.460 --> 00:38:35.300 experts coming in from from churches all across the country that are doing this well churches like 00:38:35.300 --> 00:38:41.380 saddleback churches like church home um a number of churches coming in and other vendors who are coming 00:38:41.380 --> 00:38:47.700 alongside and we're creating these learning experiences and even futurist groups a three-year method 00:38:47.700 --> 00:38:53.060 to help churches understand how to plant okay let me stop you there let me stop you there so we've got 00:38:53.060 --> 00:38:58.820 this futurist group that's going to run for three years and that's kind of like the cadillac of hey i'm 00:38:58.820 --> 00:39:06.900 an entrepreneurial spirit and i'm going to go all in and um so the question is you know okay so to be part of 00:39:06.900 --> 00:39:12.580 that team stadia can we get some uh links up here uh for people that might want to be part of that who 00:39:12.580 --> 00:39:19.620 they can email and jeff is that to email you or uh is that justin or who should they email yeah i tell 00:39:19.620 --> 00:39:27.140 you what justin moxley is is the contact on on the futurist group um i think if you can go to stadia 00:39:27.140 --> 00:39:36.420 churchplanning.org um that is a great place to onboard for either the uh the learning community 00:39:36.420 --> 00:39:42.020 or the futurist group yeah so the digital future so you know it has a higher price tag because it's 00:39:42.020 --> 00:39:47.940 going to be much more intense it's a longer period of time the six-month learning communities are for 00:39:47.940 --> 00:39:54.100 people that go hey we kind of put our our toe in the water and we think this might be good and we want 00:39:54.100 --> 00:39:59.460 to learn more um and that's a much give me an idea what's how much is it a month for a church to become 00:39:59.460 --> 00:40:06.420 part of one of the the the the six-month cohorts yeah so the learning community at the sixth month is 00:40:06.420 --> 00:40:13.540 750 a month uh i'm doing bad math i think it's 4 500 yeah uh and and at the end of that for the six-month 00:40:13.540 --> 00:40:23.220 process um we're going into detail of of a physical and virtual a digital mindset um almost a digital 00:40:23.220 --> 00:40:29.060 first mindset of how we're structuring things once again we've got a little strategy now let's figure 00:40:29.060 --> 00:40:35.300 out how to add physical buildings to it let's not go back to the normal let's talk about um utilizing 00:40:35.300 --> 00:40:39.940 church online to create community utilizing small groups to manufacture disciple makers 00:40:40.900 --> 00:40:46.580 unleashing these people mobilizing them unleashing them into micro locations looking at technology 00:40:46.580 --> 00:40:54.340 like dj soto like vr church um creating community via mobile apps and and other areas and so it's it's 00:40:54.340 --> 00:41:03.140 not it's how to help your physical church through digital technology thrive grow and even multiply 00:41:03.140 --> 00:41:07.140 that's the game of what we're doing okay so i did you know this is not a big stadia commercial that's 00:41:07.140 --> 00:41:11.620 not why we were doing this i just don't know of anyone else that's doing it and you know um i said 00:41:11.620 --> 00:41:17.540 to another church pastor just yesterday i said hey i you know i don't have to sell this by any means 00:41:17.540 --> 00:41:22.900 i'm just saying it you know if i were still the senior pastor of river tree i'd be in that futurist 00:41:22.900 --> 00:41:28.660 group because i'm just all over this i now i wouldn't quit you know we had you know they i think 00:41:28.660 --> 00:41:34.340 river tree now has nine multi sites and all that stuff and they need to continue doing that this 00:41:34.340 --> 00:41:42.580 is another expression of church now dj let me come back to you because um you know vr is kind of that 00:41:42.580 --> 00:41:49.860 whole next level dj that that people are wanting to go to and so you know to jump in on that um you know 00:41:49.860 --> 00:41:54.340 how do they start doing that i mean you know i mean we're going to be talking about that some but 00:41:54.340 --> 00:41:58.820 do you have some reference point dj uh you know how can they learn vr 00:42:00.900 --> 00:42:05.860 yeah can you guys hear me i was fixing some technical issues can you guys hear me good okay 00:42:05.860 --> 00:42:11.300 great perfect um yeah like it i think it just goes back to that experimentation start to read up on it 00:42:11.300 --> 00:42:17.540 um read our visitor guide at vrchurch.org and um start to discover what vr is all about i mean that's 00:42:17.540 --> 00:42:22.900 the same thing we've done with like computers internet smartphone you know all these things and and vr is a 00:42:22.900 --> 00:42:28.420 technology that is in line with some of those um some people are calling it the next computing paradigm 00:42:28.420 --> 00:42:34.900 and that um is an interesting kind of uh paradox or uh you know paradigm shift that we're experiencing 00:42:34.900 --> 00:42:39.940 but um yeah and i think once you get in there you'll it'll start to make sense the light bulb will come 00:42:39.940 --> 00:42:45.220 on you'll start to experience these um you know metaverses and i'll just kind of see if i can change 00:42:45.220 --> 00:42:49.220 the camera here um where you could actually build something like this if you wanted to 00:42:49.860 --> 00:42:54.820 like i mentioned before the possibilities are endless you control time and space you could 00:42:54.820 --> 00:43:00.820 have an auditorium just like this you could be on the moon you could be in the red sea and i think it's 00:43:00.820 --> 00:43:06.340 just a matter of getting in there experimenting uh trying it out and it'll all start to fall 00:43:06.340 --> 00:43:14.900 in place so so um here's a great question does every participant need a headset or can you just view 00:43:14.900 --> 00:43:21.700 the picture um so yeah there's a couple ways to do it um primarily vr is when you put it on and 00:43:22.420 --> 00:43:28.900 experiencing it in a 3d environment there's also a 2d mode where you could just view it like on the 00:43:28.900 --> 00:43:34.820 screen like you kind of watch broadcast church but you can can still control your avatar through the 00:43:34.820 --> 00:43:39.620 experience so people can still come up to you say hi see how you're doing you know high fives and all 00:43:39.620 --> 00:43:44.740 that and then we also broadcast as well so for vr church you can experience experience it three 00:43:44.740 --> 00:43:51.700 different ways so you don't need vr that's the best but you can also do it in 2d mode on your pc 00:43:51.700 --> 00:43:57.300 and you can also watch it on broadcast and some of our church plants depending on the platform even 00:43:57.300 --> 00:44:03.300 have an app like one of our church plants that's called rec room or on the rec room platform has an 00:44:03.300 --> 00:44:08.500 ios app so technically you can come to be our church on your ios device so these platforms that 00:44:08.500 --> 00:44:15.460 are being built for the metaverse for virtual reality they are thinking a ton about non-vr users so 00:44:15.460 --> 00:44:24.340 it's a very um inclusive environment okay now jeff um what do you see as you're you know working with 00:44:24.340 --> 00:44:30.900 you know we're all going we can all be gung-ho here but let's say you got to go back and you got 00:44:30.900 --> 00:44:38.740 to talk to your elders or your management team um what's the step how do you how do you convince your 00:44:38.740 --> 00:44:45.540 leadership team that hey i think we need to be looking at the digital world yeah i i think it's 00:44:45.540 --> 00:44:53.780 to help people realize that that this is this is maybe this was the future pre-covid but during this 00:44:53.780 --> 00:45:01.780 covid season life accelerated uh and to the point when 5g rolls out like this stuff is going to 00:45:01.780 --> 00:45:09.860 explode once again very quickly um pastors there there are two different types of pastors who have 00:45:09.860 --> 00:45:17.780 concerns um they may have theological concerns then they may have just some um you know uh opinions or 00:45:17.780 --> 00:45:23.940 certain uh unsure uh if there's a theological concern it's it's a much longer conversation 00:45:23.940 --> 00:45:30.580 um if it's hey i need to figure out uh i've got questions what what does community actually look like 00:45:30.580 --> 00:45:35.940 what does this look like how does this fit into what we're doing it's have conversations it's it's 00:45:35.940 --> 00:45:42.020 understand the the winds of the lead pastor speak their language they're passionate about evangelism 00:45:42.020 --> 00:45:46.420 talk about the opportunities to connect with new people they're passionate about disciple makers show 00:45:46.420 --> 00:45:53.780 how you can do these things virtually honestly the perception of digital church and church online 00:45:53.780 --> 00:46:00.660 is that it creates consumers and that's the reason why pastors are against pre-covid they were against 00:46:00.660 --> 00:46:06.660 this because it's a consumer mentality that being said in this season we are doing an excellent job 00:46:06.660 --> 00:46:12.580 of the church of building relationships virtually highlight that and show that that this isn't a consumer 00:46:13.140 --> 00:46:20.980 platform this is an opportunity whether vr whether church online whatever the context there are digital 00:46:20.980 --> 00:46:26.580 communities being formed here and people are connecting in real ways with this and we the church 00:46:26.580 --> 00:46:32.420 need to reimagine what we're doing in this space experiment today what better reason during the 00:46:32.420 --> 00:46:37.540 covet season we all have an excuse to experiment try something different i i just i just it just makes 00:46:37.540 --> 00:46:42.260 me smile as we're going through this because these thoughts keep popping in my head about you know because 00:46:42.260 --> 00:46:47.380 you know being a senior pastor for so long and just all the things we struggle with consumerism in 00:46:47.380 --> 00:46:53.220 the church you know we did away with uh church uh membership because membership has its privileges 00:46:53.220 --> 00:46:58.660 and we went to church partnership and the whole point of that was because we were creating consumers 00:46:58.660 --> 00:47:05.540 in the church so again this isn't a new problem that's created by digital it's how do we attack that in 00:47:05.540 --> 00:47:12.180 general right in the in the church today um and it you know certainly it's true in the united states and 00:47:12.180 --> 00:47:17.460 it's a challenge um all around the world hey we just have a few more minutes together so if you have uh 00:47:18.100 --> 00:47:22.980 questions that you would like answered please get those up while you're getting those questions up i we 00:47:22.980 --> 00:47:28.900 have i have two slides i want to show you i keep pushing this this is a free um resource that we have 00:47:28.900 --> 00:47:35.460 now that you can use go to this link at the the bottom there weekly pastor's pool this is incredible 00:47:35.460 --> 00:47:41.300 this is available to all of us right now where people you can take a pastor's pool every week 00:47:41.300 --> 00:47:48.660 and get this data back to you about how churches are doing and you can also you we use this with our 00:47:48.660 --> 00:47:54.820 whole staff at stadion again stadia is 100 virtual so i got a report this week about how our staff's 00:47:54.820 --> 00:48:00.580 doing spiritually how they're feeling physically you know are they optimistic and it was all based out of 00:48:00.580 --> 00:48:07.780 this um this um this tool and so let's go to the next slide and so you can get this and get this online 00:48:07.780 --> 00:48:14.020 and uh um just you know share your voice you'll get all the data back we don't make any money from 00:48:14.020 --> 00:48:23.540 this this is a fantastic tool okay let's come back now and um dj how do you do follow up somebody becomes 00:48:23.540 --> 00:48:29.540 um and for the most part they they they show up in one of your weekend well nice you can't even say weekend dj 00:48:29.540 --> 00:48:36.580 whenever your services gatherings are um they show up what do you do yeah it's interesting you 00:48:36.580 --> 00:48:41.220 you mentioned not just the weekend because part of that reimagination for us is churches always 00:48:41.220 --> 00:48:47.860 exist we are the church and it's not an event we it's the gathering and so we gather many times throughout the week 00:48:47.860 --> 00:48:53.220 a sunday tends to be an experience but doesn't mean that's less of a church gathering that we would have 00:48:53.220 --> 00:48:58.660 midweek but it's it's really no different than a physical church but as we connect with people 00:48:59.540 --> 00:49:04.900 we build relationships with them and then one of the things that we use outside of vr because we're 00:49:04.900 --> 00:49:09.460 not in vr all the time you know about after an hour of using vr you're kind of fatigued and all 00:49:09.460 --> 00:49:15.220 right i'm gonna take a little break outside of vr we use a platform called discord and jeff alluded to 00:49:15.220 --> 00:49:21.540 that and discord is where we the life of the church digitally happens uh outside of virtual reality 00:49:21.540 --> 00:49:25.540 and so people come in and they're they become part of the church family that way and there's a 00:49:25.540 --> 00:49:29.940 prayer channel uh there's discipleship there's spiritual life there's all these uh you know 00:49:29.940 --> 00:49:37.060 volunteering um so once we make that connection from virtual reality it transitions into discord where 00:49:37.060 --> 00:49:42.580 we can have some in-depth conversations and that shoots back into virtual reality so it's this 00:49:42.580 --> 00:49:49.780 ecosystem that exists for relationships discipleships volunteering uh leadership training we just launched 00:49:49.780 --> 00:49:55.460 a seminary for vr church because we realized man we need to develop leaders at a high rate our church is 00:49:55.940 --> 00:50:01.780 significantly growing pre-coated and now in the covet era it feels like it's going nuts and so we just 00:50:01.780 --> 00:50:07.620 need a lot of leaders so we're developing a seminary for that so um i think it's no different than a 00:50:07.620 --> 00:50:13.060 physical church as far as how they would interact with someone relationships and then connecting with 00:50:13.060 --> 00:50:19.300 them offline so to speak and then developing that into spiritual life discipleship and leadership 00:50:19.300 --> 00:50:25.700 empowerment okay jeff we you and i were just having a conversation you know via stadium work yesterday 00:50:25.700 --> 00:50:31.700 about a church out in las vegas that's developed a pipeline talk about that a little bit uh maybe 00:50:31.700 --> 00:50:37.060 um you know just kind of the steps that you need to think through from somebody hitting your digital 00:50:37.620 --> 00:50:46.660 gathering if you will to becoming fully integrated yeah um the the biggest problem that you're going to 00:50:46.660 --> 00:50:53.940 have in in broadcasting church services or or even in virtual reality like dj can can relate to this 00:50:53.940 --> 00:50:59.620 where you've got people who are watching in anonymity and you're trying to discover who these people are 00:50:59.620 --> 00:51:04.180 you know and the typical church service will go the typical church will go okay the church service is 00:51:04.180 --> 00:51:09.860 the front door that leads into uh small groups and community and then that from there you get them 00:51:09.860 --> 00:51:16.020 on mission you know rick warren's purpose-driven church baseball diamond type type of thing um and so 00:51:16.020 --> 00:51:22.980 you've got this church service and you need to discover who these people are and it's very difficult at times 00:51:23.940 --> 00:51:29.460 that perspective to discover who they are and that's where a lot of the relational relationships and 00:51:29.460 --> 00:51:35.300 building that comes in you know dj having those conversations discovering who people are discovering 00:51:35.300 --> 00:51:40.180 discovering what their needs are and then doing ministry pastorally to them getting them connected 00:51:40.180 --> 00:51:45.860 into the right groups and the right people like that approach can happen the hardest part of it 00:51:45.860 --> 00:51:51.860 is is between that service and getting in the groups discovering who they are kind of another method 00:51:51.860 --> 00:51:58.020 that we've been i call one two three it's starting with the service groups other another method is is 00:51:58.020 --> 00:52:03.780 much more of a disciple making utilize the technology to engage in in relationships which is the strong 00:52:03.780 --> 00:52:10.660 point of the technology meet people disciple them to the place where they go out and reach other people 00:52:10.660 --> 00:52:18.820 three two one start with discipleship first that feeds into uh community gather them into small groups when 00:52:18.820 --> 00:52:24.340 you get critical mass and then when you get a lot of small groups then launch it into a service it's it's a 00:52:24.340 --> 00:52:29.620 backwards mentality which i thought was weird then when i'm hanging out with my stadia friends they're 00:52:29.620 --> 00:52:35.460 like hey jeff that's how you plant a church that's how you start a movement it's not one two three starting 00:52:35.460 --> 00:52:44.420 with groups or with a service it's three two one starting with um uh disciple making and it's it was this aha 00:52:44.420 --> 00:52:49.780 moment for me like light bulbs going off and it's it's this really exciting opportunity of things that 00:52:49.780 --> 00:52:56.100 we get to do with a digital church reimagining it let's start with disciple makers and start a movement 00:52:56.100 --> 00:53:02.580 that way okay so that church out in vegas is called the crossing um for those of you you what who want to 00:53:02.580 --> 00:53:07.380 know and essentially what they did is and it's what i think we all need to do so we've got this digital 00:53:07.380 --> 00:53:12.980 expression of church going on right now but what's our you know we've all went man in local physical 00:53:12.980 --> 00:53:18.660 church world we have a pipeline of okay if someone comes in we're gonna announce we want you to fill 00:53:18.660 --> 00:53:23.780 out a welcome card you're gonna get a free coffee mug over here and uh you know we have a welcome to 00:53:23.780 --> 00:53:30.580 river tree class or your next step class we need to be thinking that through digitally online the same way 00:53:31.220 --> 00:53:37.380 very easy click here if you want to know more about the church click here if you know if you'd like to 00:53:37.380 --> 00:53:43.300 talk to someone if you want to pray with someone we those things are easy steps to design and take 00:53:43.300 --> 00:53:47.460 but they don't happen by accident they happen intentionally okay we're going to wrap up here 00:53:47.460 --> 00:53:54.500 momentarily yeah jeff come back it is harder to get people uh to go from services to to getting in 00:53:54.500 --> 00:54:00.340 groups and so you may think there are things that you're doing in physical space that that may work 00:54:00.340 --> 00:54:06.340 um that that should work online have some intermediary steps in that path to get people connected even 00:54:06.340 --> 00:54:13.300 even things like a casual meetup or a virtual lobby or a chance to to interact in in facebook 00:54:13.300 --> 00:54:17.860 there's more steps that are necessary a lot of times churches get frustrated because they're not able 00:54:17.860 --> 00:54:23.140 to get people connected into groups and we're seeing a lot of success now as people are putting more 00:54:23.140 --> 00:54:29.380 kind of intermediary safer steps in between services and groups to get people connected with that i'm 00:54:29.380 --> 00:54:34.980 sorry to interrupt so much of this in your podcast and in your webinars where can people go to access 00:54:34.980 --> 00:54:42.420 all of that so yeah go to the church.digital i just honestly i just did a podcast on this uh featuring 00:54:42.420 --> 00:54:47.700 tyler stanstrom who's the engagement pastor at first capital christian church up in court in indiana 00:54:47.700 --> 00:54:53.620 i think it's episode 67 66 somewhere around there anyway jump on the church.digital there's tons of 00:54:53.620 --> 00:54:59.540 resources to help churches figure out how to do church online how to plant a digital church how to 00:54:59.540 --> 00:55:05.940 be fidgetal in this new season um would love to you know connect with you guys over there as well hey dj i've 00:55:05.940 --> 00:55:12.340 got to ask this question you collect an offering at vr church uh let's see no we haven't done that we'd kind 00:55:12.340 --> 00:55:18.100 of do that offline and the short story behind that is when we first went into that space um there was 00:55:18.100 --> 00:55:22.340 this reaction in virtual reality where they're like oh great here comes the christians we just want to 00:55:22.340 --> 00:55:29.060 ask for our money so um as we went in that space we were very careful about saying hey um give us your 00:55:29.060 --> 00:55:34.420 money tithe you know because most of the people that attend vr church are not christians they're atheists 00:55:34.420 --> 00:55:40.180 they're agnostic it's very unique in that regard so it's not like i'm preaching to the choir per se this is 00:55:40.180 --> 00:55:47.460 uh spiritual milk uh people that have never stepped in church before and so only recently have we started 00:55:47.460 --> 00:55:53.300 integrating the idea of of giving at it from the stage and we direct people to our website and i'm 00:55:53.300 --> 00:55:57.460 sure there's technology coming where we could pass the bitcoin plate around and you know that could 00:55:57.460 --> 00:56:02.980 totally be a thing but it's not necessarily a tactile experience at vr church but it's definitely part of 00:56:02.980 --> 00:56:09.860 our culture as we relate it to the website you know dj one of the things that i am so excited about 00:56:09.860 --> 00:56:17.380 because um you know i love the generosity of god's people and um it's just so amazing and one of the 00:56:17.380 --> 00:56:21.380 things i'm most excited about again back to my experience at river tree over the years you know 00:56:21.380 --> 00:56:27.460 we had the big at the time when we put it up 13 million dollar campus as our central location you know 00:56:27.460 --> 00:56:32.340 and man it became so much about how do i keep the financial engine of the church running and i'm not 00:56:32.340 --> 00:56:39.460 telling people not to put up buildings and you know rent things and stuff but man i just love the day when we can 00:56:39.460 --> 00:56:46.020 say to our church online look um you know we do have to pay salaries for pastors and we do have to have 00:56:46.020 --> 00:56:52.980 technology and those things but the reality is you know um 90 of our money we can say hey in your local 00:56:52.980 --> 00:57:00.980 context um would you take your money this um you know this week and would you invest that in your local 00:57:00.980 --> 00:57:06.580 community somehow or we're gonna have you know we're gonna plant a church and this we're gonna help these 00:57:06.580 --> 00:57:12.420 church planners do this and all the money we raise and i believe virtual and digital church is going 00:57:12.420 --> 00:57:18.260 to be one of the keys to unlocking hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars for the church to 00:57:18.260 --> 00:57:24.260 transform the world in jesus name so i'm really excited that hey dj you you've been a pioneer you've 00:57:24.260 --> 00:57:29.540 taken the hard knocks your family i know you were traveling a lot trying to you know get this launched 00:57:30.100 --> 00:57:35.700 thank you for the sacrifices you've made to lead the way thank you that's really that's so nice to 00:57:35.700 --> 00:57:40.180 hear it's always encouraging to have uh kind of wind wind at our back sometimes we feel like there's 00:57:40.180 --> 00:57:45.780 spit in our face but um you know the reaction to vr church can tend to be negative and so it's really 00:57:45.780 --> 00:57:50.900 nice that you say that's really encouraging and i'll probably tell my wife and um she'll be encouraged 00:57:50.900 --> 00:57:55.780 about that as well so yeah thanks thanks so much i really appreciate that and dj i'm looking forward 00:57:55.780 --> 00:58:00.500 and i know jeff as well you guys are great friends but i'm looking forward to how we can partner together 00:58:00.500 --> 00:58:07.940 to you know literally um plant 10 000 churches a year you know in the digital space i there's no reason 00:58:07.940 --> 00:58:14.260 not to right my friend so let's do that jeff thank you for your leadership at stadia and throughout the 00:58:14.260 --> 00:58:19.140 united states and around the world all right hey so that was a great podcast that was a great webinar 00:58:19.140 --> 00:58:26.900 i loved having that conversation with with greg and it was fascinating just even to see in the webinar 00:58:26.900 --> 00:58:33.700 how he uh just got excited by a lot of the things that he was seeing by the way i should have said 00:58:33.700 --> 00:58:39.860 at the beginning dj soto did the interview completely in virtual reality so if you want to jump over to 00:58:39.860 --> 00:58:47.460 youtube and watch it over there and see dj soto's virtual reality self in this interview it is phenomenal 00:58:47.460 --> 00:58:53.220 so check that out on youtube we'll put the link in the show notes for it as as well but uh greg thank 00:58:53.220 --> 00:58:58.740 you for sharing the the content with us and and it is i said in the podcast in the webinar it is an honor 00:58:58.740 --> 00:59:05.780 and a pleasure to be here at the stadia family uh dj thank you for jumping on this and um we need to 00:59:05.780 --> 00:59:13.780 create more dj sodos out there some of you audience you are the next version of dj soto you are the 00:59:13.780 --> 00:59:19.860 ones who are looking at this technology and and you are you are excited you are driven you see the ministry 00:59:19.860 --> 00:59:27.060 potential that is happening there i want to talk with you find me on social media go to the church.digital 00:59:27.060 --> 00:59:34.020 contact me the facebook groups the church.digital slash fb there's a facebook group that i'm running 00:59:34.020 --> 00:59:39.060 right there we've got eight i think eight nine hundred somewhere around there 800 people actively 00:59:39.060 --> 00:59:45.380 involved in a church online facebook group and so there's plenty of opportunities to connect but 00:59:45.380 --> 00:59:50.020 let me help you take those next steps if you're passionate about technology the way that dj is 00:59:50.020 --> 00:59:56.180 passionate about vr let's talk hey it's been a great podcast thanks for joining us we'll see you next time 00:59:56.180 --> 00:59:59.380 here at the church digital podcast y'all have a good day