WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:06.180 All right, we got episode 70, 70 of the Church Digital Podcast powered by Stadia Church Planning. 00:00:06.300 --> 00:00:10.080 Jeff here once again, and we got a great episode set up for you. 00:00:10.140 --> 00:00:14.220 By the way, this dovetails so well into what episode 69 was. 00:00:14.280 --> 00:00:20.020 If you didn't catch episode 69, phenomenal conversation talking about being digital first 00:00:20.020 --> 00:00:24.460 in this mid-COVID, going to post-COVID season as we're coming out of this. 00:00:24.860 --> 00:00:27.260 What lessons did we learn in this COVID season? 00:00:27.260 --> 00:00:30.060 How should we be thinking in the way forward? 00:00:30.580 --> 00:00:32.400 What role do buildings play? 00:00:32.480 --> 00:00:34.220 What role does digital play? 00:00:34.680 --> 00:00:37.960 And this idea of digital first came to a forefront. 00:00:38.200 --> 00:00:44.160 So go back, listen to episode 69, Matt Welty from Crossroads Church, Jason Morris from Westside 00:00:44.160 --> 00:00:46.540 Family, phenomenal conversation. 00:00:47.200 --> 00:00:52.460 But this sets up episode 70 so well, because in this conversation, we've actually got a 00:00:52.460 --> 00:00:55.700 church planter, Ray, don't call me Raymond Hudson. 00:00:56.460 --> 00:00:57.360 Okay, that's not his name. 00:00:57.460 --> 00:00:57.900 Ray Hudson. 00:00:58.200 --> 00:01:01.180 He's a church planter, our city center out over in California. 00:01:01.560 --> 00:01:07.400 And the guy wasn't even supposed to plant a physical church until September 2020. 00:01:08.120 --> 00:01:11.200 And when this COVID thing happened, he didn't wait. 00:01:11.600 --> 00:01:12.300 He jumped. 00:01:12.540 --> 00:01:13.640 He didn't regret. 00:01:14.160 --> 00:01:18.000 He didn't, you know, kick a can and say, okay, what am I supposed to do now? 00:01:18.180 --> 00:01:20.320 He jumped and launched early. 00:01:20.320 --> 00:01:25.600 And I love the fact that he's going in and impacting a community. 00:01:26.080 --> 00:01:31.800 He's trying to reach an area and he's utilizing digital tools and digital technology to impact 00:01:31.800 --> 00:01:35.500 the physical location of Berkeley, California in a great way. 00:01:35.560 --> 00:01:38.480 And I'm excited about the stuff that he's doing in this season. 00:01:39.200 --> 00:01:44.500 But the thing that I love most, and even just in my mind as I'm wrapping around these two 00:01:44.500 --> 00:01:51.540 podcasts, 69 and 70, back to back, is we've got a guy here with Ray who's thanking digital 00:01:51.540 --> 00:01:52.180 first. 00:01:52.720 --> 00:01:57.920 Episode 69, we talked about how it was so important that we, the church, start to thank digital 00:01:57.920 --> 00:01:58.380 first. 00:01:58.840 --> 00:02:05.160 And when I look at Ray Hudson, episode 70, our city center, here's a guy that is thanking 00:02:05.160 --> 00:02:07.680 digital first with his church plant. 00:02:08.180 --> 00:02:12.580 Now, what that looks like, some of the stuff that Ray's talking about is crazy exciting. 00:02:12.700 --> 00:02:13.980 Some of it's just crazy, crazy. 00:02:14.360 --> 00:02:15.760 I'm not sure if it's executable. 00:02:15.860 --> 00:02:16.240 You know what? 00:02:16.280 --> 00:02:17.160 It all is. 00:02:17.500 --> 00:02:20.440 And that's the deal because it's, you've got to think different. 00:02:20.820 --> 00:02:27.700 And what Ray is showing here, even in his youngness as being a church planner that's just launching 00:02:27.700 --> 00:02:31.360 and just getting out there, is that this stuff is possible. 00:02:31.820 --> 00:02:33.680 It just takes a different perspective. 00:02:34.620 --> 00:02:40.880 And so churches of any size, large to small, the importance of here, of this podcast, the 00:02:40.880 --> 00:02:42.820 importance of this conversation is simple. 00:02:43.820 --> 00:02:49.920 Listen to what it is to think different and get a taste of what thinking different looks 00:02:49.920 --> 00:02:53.460 like, because you need to take thinking different. 00:02:53.800 --> 00:02:57.020 You need to take digital first to your churches. 00:02:57.680 --> 00:03:01.080 And what you're going to hear Raymond Hudson doing here in a second, excuse me, sorry, Raymond, 00:03:01.520 --> 00:03:07.600 Ray Hudson doing here in a second, is a beautiful expression of how to think digital first in 00:03:07.600 --> 00:03:09.580 context of what your church is. 00:03:10.140 --> 00:03:16.480 So for this conversation, we are bringing in Raymond, nope, sorry, Ray Hudson, our city center, 00:03:16.600 --> 00:03:19.040 lead pastor, church planner out in Berkeley, California. 00:03:19.220 --> 00:03:25.580 Emily Diaz, who's project manager with Stadia Church Planning, works with Ray, and she's going 00:03:25.580 --> 00:03:26.600 to serve as co-host, of course. 00:03:27.020 --> 00:03:31.620 And myself, Jeff, with the Church Digital and Stadia Church Planning in a conversation that 00:03:31.620 --> 00:03:34.880 I'm calling Church Planting Digital First. 00:03:35.560 --> 00:03:36.160 Okay, everybody. 00:03:36.440 --> 00:03:36.900 Here you go. 00:03:37.160 --> 00:03:37.360 Yeah. 00:03:38.360 --> 00:03:39.300 I'm Raymond Hudson. 00:03:39.640 --> 00:03:41.160 I am from the East Coast. 00:03:41.520 --> 00:03:43.260 So not Miami, but the East Coast. 00:03:44.120 --> 00:03:48.640 And first church I ever was a part of that was a church plant was when I was 17. 00:03:49.280 --> 00:03:55.960 So one of my mentors, Dave Crosby, planted community church in the Poconos. 00:03:56.180 --> 00:03:57.260 And so I was on that. 00:03:57.380 --> 00:03:58.500 That was my first launch team. 00:03:58.620 --> 00:04:00.580 I think I was age 17, snot-nosed kid. 00:04:01.220 --> 00:04:02.800 He was my youth pastor for a while. 00:04:03.520 --> 00:04:07.060 Stories of me turning out lights in the middle of service, you know, all that fun stuff that 00:04:07.060 --> 00:04:09.320 you do when you're a young kid. 00:04:09.560 --> 00:04:11.760 But yeah, so my story started really at 13, though. 00:04:11.820 --> 00:04:17.140 I got saved, filled and called and commissioned to ministry. 00:04:17.320 --> 00:04:18.220 I was a basketball player. 00:04:18.280 --> 00:04:23.680 So I love basketball, but at age 13, I gave it up because I felt like God told me that 00:04:23.680 --> 00:04:24.780 he's calling me to be in ministry. 00:04:26.140 --> 00:04:31.060 So that story leads me from the East Coast to Springfield, Missouri, where I went to Central 00:04:31.060 --> 00:04:35.060 Bible College and got called to youth ministry. 00:04:35.940 --> 00:04:39.620 And so then just through all of that, I got my master's degree, working on my doctorate 00:04:39.620 --> 00:04:40.140 right now. 00:04:40.140 --> 00:04:46.800 And through all different ministry, led me to the West Coast, where I was the executive 00:04:46.800 --> 00:04:50.760 pastor at New Love Church, and one of my main roles was overseeing church planting. 00:04:51.940 --> 00:04:57.000 And so I think in that was kind of before that, but really there where I started working in 00:04:57.000 --> 00:05:02.660 that kind of passion of planting and multi-site strategy. 00:05:02.900 --> 00:05:03.900 I enjoy strategy. 00:05:04.460 --> 00:05:08.840 But yeah, I'm no one special, just a heart to go wherever God tells me. 00:05:08.920 --> 00:05:12.760 I think that's kind of where we're at, where I just, God, where you want me to go, I'm going 00:05:12.760 --> 00:05:13.120 to go. 00:05:13.660 --> 00:05:16.780 If I got friends and mentors that tell me, hey, here's some things that you should look 00:05:16.780 --> 00:05:18.020 at doing, I do that. 00:05:18.120 --> 00:05:23.320 Like even Stadia, I didn't really know Stadia until a friend of mine's, Dan, you know, Dan, 00:05:23.740 --> 00:05:26.700 up in Washington, who said, hey, you should go through Stadia. 00:05:26.800 --> 00:05:29.580 And I was already like partway through my process already. 00:05:30.300 --> 00:05:34.160 So it's just, I really just try to go where God tells me to go and listen to good wisdom. 00:05:34.280 --> 00:05:35.480 Like Emily, Emily's great. 00:05:35.660 --> 00:05:39.100 So whatever she says to do, I do in most cases. 00:05:39.920 --> 00:05:40.720 Not true. 00:05:40.840 --> 00:05:42.680 You had your own vision, your own plan. 00:05:42.780 --> 00:05:48.880 So talk to us a little bit about your church plant and your place and kind of why, why Berkeley 00:05:48.880 --> 00:05:51.500 and what's the vision of City Center Church? 00:05:52.040 --> 00:05:52.360 Yeah. 00:05:53.320 --> 00:05:59.940 The reason for Berkeley, I think would even stem back to like when I was younger in ministry 00:05:59.940 --> 00:06:03.600 and I had someone asked me to do Chi Alpha ministry. 00:06:03.720 --> 00:06:04.820 Do you guys know what Chi Alpha is? 00:06:04.860 --> 00:06:06.060 It's like a college ministry. 00:06:06.680 --> 00:06:08.240 So like the Chi Alpha go to campus. 00:06:08.420 --> 00:06:10.720 And so, so they asked me about doing it in Manhattan. 00:06:11.600 --> 00:06:18.000 And so at that time, I still don't think there is, but there's, there wasn't an, a Chi Alpha 00:06:18.000 --> 00:06:25.600 on NYU campus because it's just how expensive it is, you know, in that area. 00:06:25.660 --> 00:06:27.280 So I remember talking to my wife about it. 00:06:27.300 --> 00:06:28.720 We're like, yeah, we don't really want to do that. 00:06:29.020 --> 00:06:29.600 You know, I'd write. 00:06:29.740 --> 00:06:35.120 And at that point in my mind, I thought, man, it would be way better to work at the university. 00:06:35.160 --> 00:06:36.240 And this is like young in ministry. 00:06:36.240 --> 00:06:41.220 It'd be way better to work at the university and then plant a church or a ministry off of 00:06:41.220 --> 00:06:43.500 that because now you're kind of integrated in that culture. 00:06:44.060 --> 00:06:46.480 And so I've always joked around with my wife. 00:06:46.540 --> 00:06:48.860 And so I say joke and she always says, it's not serious. 00:06:48.960 --> 00:06:49.880 Stop talking about it. 00:06:49.940 --> 00:06:54.440 Even the planting journey of just saying, man, how cool would it be to, to work at a university 00:06:54.440 --> 00:06:56.460 and then plant a church out of it? 00:06:56.760 --> 00:07:00.640 And so I would say even, you know, you know, probably at age 24, when, you know, we were 00:07:00.640 --> 00:07:04.980 asked about that, even then I was like, man, like, how cool would it be to be in like a 00:07:04.980 --> 00:07:11.060 college town and work at a university and plant a thriving church that's in partnership with 00:07:11.060 --> 00:07:13.780 the university instead of not, you know, instead of separate. 00:07:14.620 --> 00:07:15.120 So, yeah. 00:07:15.180 --> 00:07:17.620 So the call of Berkeley is, you know, just an interesting one. 00:07:17.700 --> 00:07:21.720 So I've been at, I was at New Life Church for, you know, a little over four years. 00:07:21.720 --> 00:07:27.680 And so year one, so probably like a year into being there, there was a guy who planted a 00:07:27.680 --> 00:07:28.320 church in Berkeley. 00:07:28.720 --> 00:07:32.560 And so he had been there for like seven years and the church was getting ready to really be 00:07:32.560 --> 00:07:32.860 done. 00:07:33.440 --> 00:07:36.160 And they were moving on to their next season of ministry. 00:07:36.420 --> 00:07:39.660 So he's moving on to the, to his, a different season of ministry. 00:07:39.660 --> 00:07:42.660 And so he actually asked our church to take over his church in Berkeley. 00:07:43.140 --> 00:07:47.560 And so I remember sitting down with my pastor and us talking about it and I was over kind 00:07:47.560 --> 00:07:50.140 of our multi-site model of what we were doing. 00:07:50.440 --> 00:07:54.060 And we just felt like at this time, it wasn't, you know, the season to go into Berkeley. 00:07:54.060 --> 00:07:56.860 So we just said, Hey, you know, that's not, you know, for us. 00:07:57.440 --> 00:08:03.620 And so then, you know, kind of the, the progression from that is like two and a half years ago, 00:08:03.620 --> 00:08:06.960 almost three, I was sitting at Pete's coffee, which is the best coffee shop. 00:08:07.360 --> 00:08:12.300 So hopefully I get some like marketing dollars for marketing Pete's coffee on your podcast. 00:08:13.140 --> 00:08:14.300 Um, but I was sitting at Pete's coffee. 00:08:14.300 --> 00:08:18.100 Pete, if you're interested, call me directly, uh, numbers listed on the show. 00:08:18.400 --> 00:08:18.560 Yeah. 00:08:19.200 --> 00:08:21.220 I'll give you a 10% commission off that rate. 00:08:21.420 --> 00:08:21.780 Nice. 00:08:21.880 --> 00:08:22.140 Nice. 00:08:22.200 --> 00:08:22.460 Thank you. 00:08:22.520 --> 00:08:22.940 Thank you. 00:08:22.940 --> 00:08:23.580 You're so generous. 00:08:24.240 --> 00:08:25.960 Um, and, uh, yeah. 00:08:26.040 --> 00:08:28.980 And so I was at Pete's coffee about, you know, almost three years ago. 00:08:28.980 --> 00:08:32.680 And I felt like God say, you're going to be a part of city center church. 00:08:32.860 --> 00:08:36.880 Um, and so I remember as I was sitting out thinking about that and I'm like, God, you know, 00:08:36.880 --> 00:08:37.360 what did you say? 00:08:37.360 --> 00:08:39.520 So, you know, God speaks and then we all act right. 00:08:39.520 --> 00:08:40.400 So we think God speaks. 00:08:40.400 --> 00:08:44.420 And so then that must, you know, that means, okay, you know, I'm into new life two years, 00:08:44.420 --> 00:08:46.860 I guess it's time for me to leave, you know, or go on. 00:08:46.860 --> 00:08:50.560 And it wasn't that, uh, but I remember at that moment was kind of where the first seed 00:08:50.560 --> 00:08:53.180 of just like what, you know, uh, some type of a church. 00:08:53.180 --> 00:08:58.120 And so fast forward, uh, March last year, uh, me and my wife went to something called 00:08:58.120 --> 00:09:00.900 the CMN conference, uh, which is church multiplication at work. 00:09:01.020 --> 00:09:06.300 And so at that conference, we felt God say, Hey, um, I'm calling you to plant that. 00:09:06.320 --> 00:09:07.020 We have been praying. 00:09:07.100 --> 00:09:08.780 I have been praying really for the last two years. 00:09:08.780 --> 00:09:11.580 I'm like, God, what is, what is, what's next in the season? 00:09:11.580 --> 00:09:16.040 Is it, I'm at, I'm at new life for the next 10 years or, you know, so I had been praying 00:09:16.040 --> 00:09:19.780 that, um, and my wife even started feeling like God was saying, Hey, at some point you 00:09:19.780 --> 00:09:20.660 guys are going to pastor. 00:09:21.100 --> 00:09:26.540 Um, but March last year, so not, you know, a month ago, but March, a year ago, um, we really 00:09:26.540 --> 00:09:31.260 went to the conference and a few of our mentors really confirmed it and we felt like God was 00:09:31.260 --> 00:09:34.820 saying, you know, Hey, I'm calling you to, to pastor a church. 00:09:34.820 --> 00:09:36.660 We didn't know planting, but to pastor. 00:09:37.020 --> 00:09:41.700 And so literally I'm at the conference and I text my boss and I say, Hey, uh, pastor Doug, 00:09:42.000 --> 00:09:44.460 um, don't know what this means, but I'd like to talk to you. 00:09:44.520 --> 00:09:45.940 I feel like God is stirring something in my heart. 00:09:46.140 --> 00:09:50.180 And so then two days later, you know, I'm back, me and him meet and I say, Hey, I feel 00:09:50.180 --> 00:09:54.100 like God is calling us to pastor at some point, but I don't know what this looks like. 00:09:54.500 --> 00:09:57.820 You know, you know, I say all the things so that I don't, you know, I got a family. 00:09:57.820 --> 00:10:00.840 So I'm like, Hey, I'm not, I'm not searching for a job right now. 00:10:00.840 --> 00:10:02.560 I'm not, no one's called me. 00:10:02.820 --> 00:10:05.200 Uh, we just feel this, you know, this God call. 00:10:05.200 --> 00:10:10.900 And so then two days later from that, I get a call from a church in Richmond, um, where 00:10:10.900 --> 00:10:15.240 the pastor says, Hey, I've called around to six different people all around the country. 00:10:15.420 --> 00:10:19.460 And they all sent me back to you to say, man, you might be a great fit for Berkeley. 00:10:19.840 --> 00:10:24.500 Um, and so there was a church in need there, you know, so that partnership with that church 00:10:24.500 --> 00:10:25.960 didn't necessarily work out. 00:10:26.280 --> 00:10:30.900 Um, but what I did do is I, I let them know, Hey, if God's calling me to the city, just like 00:10:30.900 --> 00:10:34.320 you guys tell planters all the time, I need to know that God's calling me here. 00:10:34.320 --> 00:10:38.060 And if there's a community that he's calling me to, there was a church that was there that 00:10:38.060 --> 00:10:39.140 needed revitalization. 00:10:39.140 --> 00:10:42.840 I said, man, I don't want to be called to a church and God's calling me to a city. 00:10:42.840 --> 00:10:47.340 I want to make sure that, you know, I know God's calling me to a city and wherever, if 00:10:47.340 --> 00:10:52.040 it's a church or the people that God's calling me to that it's, it's about reaching lost people. 00:10:52.040 --> 00:10:56.200 Like, I don't want to have to go to a church and then for, you know, four years, try to 00:10:56.200 --> 00:11:00.480 get them on mission to, um, impact the city. 00:11:00.480 --> 00:11:02.220 Like, I want to know that God's calling me to a city. 00:11:02.300 --> 00:11:04.980 Then if he's calling me there, where is he telling me to go from there? 00:11:05.220 --> 00:11:07.660 So then April, I literally go there every day. 00:11:07.660 --> 00:11:13.120 So I lived in, um, Danville, which is about 35 minutes without traffic to Berkeley. 00:11:13.580 --> 00:11:17.240 Um, and so I just went and drove the streets of Berkeley every day. 00:11:17.240 --> 00:11:20.500 So there's, um, different Pete's coffee shops, uh, in Berkeley. 00:11:20.500 --> 00:11:23.340 So I literally drove to every Pete's coffee. 00:11:23.340 --> 00:11:27.560 So I, I found out every Pete's coffee, you know, again, like I, I worked with planters, 00:11:27.560 --> 00:11:28.940 we helped fund planters. 00:11:28.940 --> 00:11:32.740 So I just knew, man, if God's calling me to, to do anything in the city, I need to know 00:11:32.740 --> 00:11:36.840 the community, know, get to meet people and then know like we're in the city. 00:11:36.840 --> 00:11:39.800 Like a lot of people come to the Bay area and they try to, they say, Hey, I'm called to 00:11:39.800 --> 00:11:40.280 San Francisco. 00:11:40.760 --> 00:11:42.120 Well, San Francisco is a huge beast. 00:11:42.300 --> 00:11:44.380 So it can't be just be that you're called to San Francisco. 00:11:44.380 --> 00:11:48.780 So even for Berkeley, you know, I, you know, to be honest, I was like, am I committing 00:11:48.780 --> 00:11:52.820 like career suicide to try to go plant a church in the city of Berkeley? 00:11:53.540 --> 00:11:56.820 Um, and so, yeah, but just praying, like literally every spot I went. 00:11:56.920 --> 00:12:00.780 So going back to the vision question, like every Pete's coffee I went to, I felt like God 00:12:00.780 --> 00:12:03.640 gave me a heart for the different communities, you know? 00:12:03.640 --> 00:12:08.000 So I started at this, there's a famous area called people's park in the city of Berkeley. 00:12:08.000 --> 00:12:10.060 So there's a Pete's coffee right at the corner. 00:12:10.060 --> 00:12:14.920 So I went there, prayed, I felt like God say, man, there's a homelessness crisis and, you know, 00:12:14.920 --> 00:12:19.920 really the Bay area, but in Berkeley, you know, I want your church to be a, um, a resource 00:12:19.920 --> 00:12:20.360 for that. 00:12:20.580 --> 00:12:22.860 And so, you know, so I wrote that, I put that in our plan. 00:12:22.860 --> 00:12:28.700 And, uh, then I went to downtown Berkeley where the school is and, you know, and so I 00:12:28.700 --> 00:12:32.920 remember driving around where the students hang out and just feeling like a burden for 00:12:32.920 --> 00:12:36.320 the students that are there, but really feeling like God saying, I'm not calling you to be 00:12:36.320 --> 00:12:40.840 a, a, uh, a church for the campus, which a lot of churches that come into Berkeley, they're 00:12:40.840 --> 00:12:41.780 a church for the campus. 00:12:41.780 --> 00:12:44.680 And I really feel like God say, I want you to be a church for the community. 00:12:45.080 --> 00:12:49.100 Um, and you'll impact the campus, but I want you to be a church for the community. 00:12:49.100 --> 00:12:52.280 So, so then I went from there and then to North Bray, which you don't know that area, 00:12:52.280 --> 00:12:54.520 but North Bray, Gourmet, Ghetto, 4th street. 00:12:54.520 --> 00:12:58.600 Like I just went all around Berkeley and I felt like every spot I went, God kept giving 00:12:58.600 --> 00:13:00.060 vision for the community. 00:13:00.060 --> 00:13:05.300 Um, and so city center church, I kind of vision, I was, um, kind of two parts. 00:13:05.300 --> 00:13:10.880 I was, uh, there's a Tilden park area, um, Tilden forest, which is at the top of Berkeley. 00:13:11.100 --> 00:13:13.540 And I was driving up there and it was a really foggy day. 00:13:13.540 --> 00:13:15.360 So it gets foggy in the city of Berkeley. 00:13:15.820 --> 00:13:20.600 Um, and so as I'm driving up there, I feel like God, you know, really before this, I 00:13:20.600 --> 00:13:23.500 kept feeling like God saying, I'm calling you to be a beacon of hope, a beacon of hope, 00:13:23.540 --> 00:13:24.100 a beacon of hope. 00:13:24.320 --> 00:13:26.580 And so I'm driving up there and it's super foggy. 00:13:26.600 --> 00:13:30.780 And I felt like God say, um, remember when I kept saying, I'm calling you to be a beacon 00:13:30.780 --> 00:13:31.200 of hope. 00:13:31.340 --> 00:13:33.020 I'm like, yes, you know, obviously, right. 00:13:33.140 --> 00:13:34.420 I'm responding. 00:13:34.920 --> 00:13:37.280 Um, and I felt like God stopped me. 00:13:37.320 --> 00:13:41.600 So I stopped my car and I look over and he said, what I'm asking you to do is easier than 00:13:41.600 --> 00:13:41.980 you think. 00:13:42.080 --> 00:13:46.580 Now let's be honest, like to plant a church anywhere and then in the city of Berkeley and 00:13:46.580 --> 00:13:51.360 really anywhere, um, it's, it's super difficult, but I felt like God say it's easier than what 00:13:51.360 --> 00:13:51.780 you think. 00:13:52.200 --> 00:13:58.980 Um, he said, um, think of it as people are just in a fog and they just can't see me. 00:13:58.980 --> 00:14:03.200 So all I'm asking you to do is show people me through their fog. 00:14:03.200 --> 00:14:08.800 And so, so that's where kind of our vision of just, man, we want to impact the Bay area 00:14:08.800 --> 00:14:13.600 and starting in Berkeley, just one community, one family, one person at a time. 00:14:13.600 --> 00:14:15.480 Um, and, um, yeah. 00:14:15.480 --> 00:14:17.260 And so that's kind of where our vision came in. 00:14:17.580 --> 00:14:22.120 Um, even, you know, part of our vision of loving and serving, um, we've just seen, like 00:14:22.120 --> 00:14:25.620 I got literally before this podcast, I got off the call, just got off the phone with Aaron, 00:14:25.620 --> 00:14:27.480 who's the director of the Berkeley school funds. 00:14:27.480 --> 00:14:30.160 And we've just been doing tons of partnerships with them. 00:14:30.220 --> 00:14:33.040 We helped them, um, build out. 00:14:33.040 --> 00:14:38.880 It's like over 2,800 school kits for needy families and the students in the city of Berkeley. 00:14:39.200 --> 00:14:43.440 And, and all the walls that you think would be up are down right now. 00:14:43.440 --> 00:14:44.560 Like they're reaching out to us. 00:14:44.560 --> 00:14:45.480 They just reached out to us. 00:14:45.560 --> 00:14:50.140 We're going to, I'm partnering with echo church to help out eight homeless families right 00:14:50.140 --> 00:14:50.460 now. 00:14:50.460 --> 00:14:54.000 Um, we're, we can't help out eight homeless families, but our church is going to help out 00:14:54.000 --> 00:14:54.940 one homeless family. 00:14:54.940 --> 00:14:58.340 And we're going to try to partner with a few other churches to help out the rest. 00:14:58.500 --> 00:15:03.320 And so we've just seen what's, what's fascinating here with, with Ray, with even this language 00:15:03.320 --> 00:15:05.240 is, and, and, and forgive me. 00:15:05.300 --> 00:15:06.960 I, I want to say the word launch. 00:15:06.960 --> 00:15:10.340 And every time I say the word launch, uh, somebody corrects me and say, Jeff, we don't 00:15:10.340 --> 00:15:11.620 launch churches. 00:15:11.620 --> 00:15:13.920 You, you, you, you're, you're starting this thing. 00:15:13.920 --> 00:15:18.080 You're making a difference in the community of, of, of where you are. 00:15:18.140 --> 00:15:23.720 You're already impacting, working with organizations, 2,800 meals, eight homeless, like you're thrown 00:15:23.720 --> 00:15:28.380 out a bunch of stats and numbers here, but you, you, you, you're not even supposed to start 00:15:28.380 --> 00:15:34.740 your actual physical location campus gathering stuff until the fall. 00:15:34.740 --> 00:15:41.900 So like, how are you a church now when you're not even like in this COVID season, when you're 00:15:41.900 --> 00:15:47.040 not even doing, doing the gatherings, what, what you, you started early, you launched digital. 00:15:47.040 --> 00:15:50.380 What, walk me through some of, of that, that mentality. 00:15:50.380 --> 00:15:56.640 Like what was the need that you saw and why did you think you can solve that utilizing cloud 00:15:56.640 --> 00:15:58.120 services and social media? 00:15:58.260 --> 00:15:59.800 Like, talk to me about that. 00:15:59.980 --> 00:16:04.300 Well, I think too, like for us, like what I've told our team multiple times is we actually 00:16:04.300 --> 00:16:10.000 launched back in August for the official end community, like launching that we're doing 00:16:10.000 --> 00:16:14.880 with, uh, I think with Stadia through their partnership and CMN and just our different 00:16:14.880 --> 00:16:18.980 partners, yes, we had a launch date of September, but I actually never even wanted to put our 00:16:18.980 --> 00:16:19.880 launch date on it. 00:16:20.060 --> 00:16:23.920 So I took it off and then some said, put it on and some said, take it off. 00:16:23.940 --> 00:16:24.860 So, you know, that's all funny. 00:16:25.180 --> 00:16:30.720 Um, but like, so back in August, we, I said, one of our vision was we wanted to, we, we felt 00:16:30.720 --> 00:16:35.680 like the start of our church was when we started partnering, loving and serving. 00:16:35.680 --> 00:16:40.140 Like that was part of the vision of saying, how do we, how do we make it in a city like 00:16:40.140 --> 00:16:40.500 Berkeley? 00:16:40.840 --> 00:16:42.760 Well, they're about causes they're about serving. 00:16:42.760 --> 00:16:45.580 And so we wanted to be a church that loved and served before we launched. 00:16:45.700 --> 00:16:53.380 And so even before the, you know, the whole digital launch per se, we were already doing 00:16:53.380 --> 00:16:56.700 things, you know, we were already, I felt like we were already being the church. 00:16:57.200 --> 00:17:02.140 Um, it's just, there was a title that we were putting on it and to launch successful, we were 00:17:02.140 --> 00:17:07.080 going through the right steps, um, to, in order to accomplish what God was calling us to 00:17:07.080 --> 00:17:09.700 accomplish, which was a sustainable church. 00:17:09.960 --> 00:17:15.460 Um, but so the digital church was, um, you know, and I've been in the reason why we were 00:17:15.460 --> 00:17:17.100 able to launch digitally. 00:17:17.400 --> 00:17:22.440 Was I had already, and I told Emily this, I had already been dealing in my mind. 00:17:22.960 --> 00:17:24.940 Uh, really not being okay. 00:17:25.000 --> 00:17:26.220 And so I always say this. 00:17:26.220 --> 00:17:31.160 And so it's, so it's in love, but not okay with the M rhythm, but the M rhythm is great. 00:17:31.160 --> 00:17:33.400 So not okay because it's not good, but not okay. 00:17:33.400 --> 00:17:38.960 Because what I didn't want in my heart was to put on events just to get people's information 00:17:38.960 --> 00:17:44.820 because we had already been a church of serving, you know, we had, I think, you know, from August 00:17:44.820 --> 00:17:51.980 to, to, uh, January, we had served thousands of people already, um, without anyone for anything. 00:17:51.980 --> 00:17:55.820 And so when we, when we launched digital, when everything happened with COVID, it's so weird. 00:17:56.060 --> 00:17:59.620 I actually was excited over nervous. 00:18:00.000 --> 00:18:05.520 Um, and I don't mean excited for all the difficulties I was excited because one of the things that 00:18:05.520 --> 00:18:09.660 I pray all the time is like, God, help me to innovate the expression of the gospel. 00:18:10.040 --> 00:18:13.860 Um, and, and, and I want to be at the forefront of stuff, not at the backend. 00:18:13.980 --> 00:18:16.060 You know, my wife is always stopping me because I'm an entrepreneur. 00:18:16.060 --> 00:18:19.220 I, I have, if you look at my phone, I've got like tons of business ideas. 00:18:19.280 --> 00:18:23.480 My wife always rings me in and says, you're called a pastor, not business ideas. 00:18:23.480 --> 00:18:28.660 So I say that to say, um, I feel like my heart is always God, wherever you want me to 00:18:28.660 --> 00:18:29.220 go, I'll go. 00:18:29.320 --> 00:18:32.320 And so one of the things that God said to me at the beginning of this process was be 00:18:32.320 --> 00:18:33.080 adaptable. 00:18:33.340 --> 00:18:35.440 That's why even being with stadia was being adaptable. 00:18:35.500 --> 00:18:38.980 I could have just stuck with my plan and I had it already lined out. 00:18:39.080 --> 00:18:43.380 Emily will tell you, I came with a plan lined out, but I felt, but I knew that in order 00:18:43.380 --> 00:18:47.160 to accomplish what God wanted, I had to expand my partnerships and be adaptable. 00:18:47.220 --> 00:18:47.980 That's what God said. 00:18:47.980 --> 00:18:53.220 So when this happened, uh, literally the week of it happening, I thought, I felt like God 00:18:53.220 --> 00:18:58.240 say, this is exactly why I called you to plant a church because I don't want you to, I 00:18:58.240 --> 00:18:59.400 didn't, I don't want you to shrink back. 00:18:59.460 --> 00:19:06.940 I actually want you to run forward in this season and, um, and to pastor, um, people who 00:19:06.940 --> 00:19:07.480 are in need. 00:19:07.480 --> 00:19:12.600 So your team and to continue to love and serve those who are not on your team. 00:19:12.600 --> 00:19:19.080 And so, um, so yeah, I feel like it was just a moment of just feeling like God saying, run 00:19:19.080 --> 00:19:24.400 forward, you know, um, as I prayed and thought through, man, I was feeling uneasy about like 00:19:24.400 --> 00:19:26.620 what the rhythm was going to look like already. 00:19:26.760 --> 00:19:33.540 Um, and then strategy saying, if this goes on through September, um, what is it going to 00:19:33.540 --> 00:19:34.900 look like to launch right now? 00:19:34.900 --> 00:19:36.520 So it was both strategy. 00:19:36.520 --> 00:19:38.980 It was, you know, started with prayer, then strategy. 00:19:38.980 --> 00:19:45.360 And so, yeah, it's just, I launched digitally because I, I asked people first, uh, you know, 00:19:45.360 --> 00:19:46.440 which was, you know, smart. 00:19:46.440 --> 00:19:47.620 And some said, don't do it. 00:19:47.660 --> 00:19:48.560 Some said, do it. 00:19:48.560 --> 00:19:51.100 Some said, you know, just be smart and how you do it. 00:19:51.260 --> 00:19:53.220 Uh, but I just felt like, man, I love to preach. 00:19:54.480 --> 00:19:57.100 Uh, I felt like we were, we were set team wise. 00:19:57.100 --> 00:20:01.840 Like we had a, we had, we have a great team that had already been going together. 00:20:01.840 --> 00:20:05.760 We were already joking about, man, maybe we'll do an Easter pop-up service. 00:20:05.960 --> 00:20:08.240 Um, you know, already been talking about that. 00:20:08.240 --> 00:20:11.900 So it was literally just a, our, you know, we already are in the community. 00:20:11.900 --> 00:20:13.320 Our team's already set. 00:20:13.800 --> 00:20:16.380 Um, it's just adapting all of our plans. 00:20:16.580 --> 00:20:18.000 Um, and I was like, all right, great. 00:20:18.440 --> 00:20:20.360 And, um, yeah, so we just prayed. 00:20:20.860 --> 00:20:23.080 I, um, the process of that was prayer. 00:20:23.080 --> 00:20:24.240 And then I talked to our board. 00:20:24.240 --> 00:20:28.900 Then I talked to some, I had a meeting with Emily that it was like a Thursday or something. 00:20:29.080 --> 00:20:31.300 I talked to our leadership team that night. 00:20:31.300 --> 00:20:35.900 We had a launch team meeting on March 15th, which was like the week, um, that everything 00:20:35.900 --> 00:20:36.620 got shut down. 00:20:36.620 --> 00:20:39.960 So we were online with our launch team meeting and then literally in a week. 00:20:39.960 --> 00:20:46.980 So from March 15th to the March 22nd, we started an online church and, um, we did our 00:20:46.980 --> 00:20:49.220 first team meeting on zoom, which was the 15th. 00:20:49.220 --> 00:20:52.300 And then we started services on this 22nd just to do our preview. 00:20:52.300 --> 00:20:56.920 So we did three weekends of preview and then, you know, launched Easter weekend. 00:20:57.860 --> 00:20:58.380 Right. 00:20:58.480 --> 00:21:04.240 I love what you said about how God has called you to be an, an, an innovator of, um, in 00:21:04.240 --> 00:21:06.320 expressions of, of the gospel. 00:21:06.320 --> 00:21:10.160 That's such a, a beautiful way of, of expressing that. 00:21:10.160 --> 00:21:12.200 And also a high calling, right. 00:21:12.200 --> 00:21:14.900 Of man being on the forefront, like you said. 00:21:14.900 --> 00:21:21.720 So tell us a little bit of how you starting this digital campus, a digital church, how that 00:21:21.720 --> 00:21:24.980 is an expression of the gospel for your community. 00:21:26.120 --> 00:21:31.940 Um, yeah, I think, um, I think, I think, I think, I think for us, the beginning of the 00:21:31.940 --> 00:21:39.080 expression is not looking at the, at our digital service as our service, let's say, or our church. 00:21:39.080 --> 00:21:45.760 And more looking at it as a, an awareness, like bringing hope to people who are listening 00:21:45.760 --> 00:21:46.040 in. 00:21:46.040 --> 00:21:49.440 And the reason why that's, I think is different is because I think what we're seeing right 00:21:49.440 --> 00:21:53.320 now, and again, I'm, I hate to, you know, this is my opinion. 00:21:53.320 --> 00:21:53.640 Right. 00:21:53.840 --> 00:21:57.420 Um, and so, and I'm, I'm still trying this, but what we're seeing right now is churches 00:21:57.420 --> 00:21:59.380 are duplicating what they do on Sunday. 00:21:59.620 --> 00:21:59.980 Right. 00:22:00.040 --> 00:22:03.600 So a bunch of churches are duplicating what they do on Sunday, which is not a bad thing, 00:22:03.600 --> 00:22:05.600 but they're duplicating what they do on Sunday. 00:22:05.720 --> 00:22:09.640 And so they're trying to get people to watch for an hour or hour and 15 minutes or have 00:22:09.640 --> 00:22:14.760 long worship sets and messages that are very, not very long that are long. 00:22:14.760 --> 00:22:16.280 Oh, no, you can say very long. 00:22:16.380 --> 00:22:16.680 It's okay. 00:22:16.940 --> 00:22:17.420 Very long. 00:22:17.480 --> 00:22:18.480 Very long. 00:22:19.000 --> 00:22:24.860 And so, um, and, and not that that's a bad thing, but I feel like, you know, for a church 00:22:24.860 --> 00:22:32.520 that's been going, they're just trying to push through until, uh, you know, everything changes. 00:22:32.760 --> 00:22:37.820 And so I think on ours, the innovation that we're trying to do, and we're still adapting 00:22:37.820 --> 00:22:43.900 and all of that is to create a space that's easy for an unbeliever to show up to online. 00:22:44.560 --> 00:22:48.260 That is just a first step and not the last step. 00:22:48.340 --> 00:22:53.220 Like, I feel like a lot of times it's like, okay, we've done church because we have a service 00:22:53.220 --> 00:22:58.280 online when for us, it's not that we're more saying, how do we create a message that both 00:22:58.280 --> 00:23:01.920 offers hope and then, and then points it to the gospel. 00:23:01.920 --> 00:23:07.160 So like, if you were to watch one of our services, I preached for 15 minutes, the first three 00:23:07.160 --> 00:23:13.360 weeks, and I went 20, uh, or a little bit less than 20 the last two weeks, but my goal 00:23:13.360 --> 00:23:16.360 is 15 to 16 minutes. 00:23:16.360 --> 00:23:18.900 And so, you know, just a practical like testimony. 00:23:18.900 --> 00:23:25.580 We had a few non-believers who, who jumped on, um, a few of my ones who I texted to say, 00:23:25.620 --> 00:23:26.740 Hey, just watch through our service. 00:23:26.920 --> 00:23:30.700 Um, who said, man, I wish, you know, we never hear this in church. 00:23:30.780 --> 00:23:32.660 I wish the message was longer. 00:23:33.700 --> 00:23:35.420 That's from an unbeliever who said that. 00:23:35.420 --> 00:23:35.640 Right. 00:23:35.700 --> 00:23:39.720 And so, so for us, like even worship, like we're not, we don't do a worship set. 00:23:39.720 --> 00:23:43.660 We have like a song potentially that's enhancing the message. 00:23:43.760 --> 00:23:47.740 So the question we're asking as a team is like, is there a song that enhances the topic that 00:23:47.740 --> 00:23:48.600 we're talking about? 00:23:49.520 --> 00:23:51.920 Um, and so, yeah, so I think we're trying to innovate in that way. 00:23:52.000 --> 00:23:55.860 We, we do a leaders meeting pre-service and we do an after party after our service. 00:23:55.860 --> 00:23:59.840 So we actually have a leaders meeting that's an hour before our service where we're building 00:23:59.840 --> 00:24:00.600 our launch team. 00:24:00.600 --> 00:24:05.060 Cause I want to be able to tell Emily, Hey, we're continuing to build our launch team. 00:24:05.060 --> 00:24:09.700 And we're not building our launch team per se through a service outside of the troops 00:24:09.700 --> 00:24:13.140 are helping them, but we're creating an environment for them to invite friends. 00:24:13.140 --> 00:24:14.860 But we do a leaders meeting for an hour. 00:24:14.860 --> 00:24:17.280 And I say an hour, it's an hour before service. 00:24:17.280 --> 00:24:21.200 It goes for like 30, 35 minutes where we're talking engagement online. 00:24:21.200 --> 00:24:22.900 We're talking about what our week was like. 00:24:22.900 --> 00:24:25.740 We're getting prepped for, for the service block, you know, so that's happening. 00:24:25.740 --> 00:24:30.400 And then after service, which is one of the innovative things that we want to do in church 00:24:30.400 --> 00:24:32.400 is that we want to create a space. 00:24:32.900 --> 00:24:38.100 Like, so I guess I would say what I don't want to do is take what we're doing now and 00:24:38.100 --> 00:24:39.500 say, okay, now we're going to do church. 00:24:39.500 --> 00:24:41.420 Like it's always been done when we go in person. 00:24:41.880 --> 00:24:44.440 Uh, one of our biggest things has always been, how do we rethink church? 00:24:44.440 --> 00:24:48.240 And so I'm actually, we're actually looking at how we're doing church right now and saying, 00:24:48.240 --> 00:24:52.960 how can we take what we're doing now and duplicate that, or at least take what we're 00:24:52.960 --> 00:24:56.040 doing now into a, into a in-person gathering. 00:24:56.040 --> 00:25:00.840 So part of that is, you know, maybe not even calling ourselves a church, but we are a church. 00:25:00.840 --> 00:25:04.500 So this is so random, but not a, but I'm saying where we create an environment, like 00:25:04.500 --> 00:25:07.260 in Berkeley, where it's like, we're having conversations around faith. 00:25:07.440 --> 00:25:12.920 And so, because it's a conversation, you know, I may, there may be a, a video teaching 00:25:12.920 --> 00:25:18.680 of me and, or a message or conversation that I have for 15 minutes or 20 minutes. 00:25:18.800 --> 00:25:25.260 And then our leaders, and this is, I'm still working through this, but our leaders are then 00:25:25.260 --> 00:25:28.880 actually leading a, a, a group discussion group afterwards. 00:25:29.320 --> 00:25:31.780 Um, and it's not after, but during the service. 00:25:31.780 --> 00:25:33.520 So, so it's just, everything looks shorter. 00:25:33.620 --> 00:25:36.840 So even our worship still doesn't look like we're having a full worship set. 00:25:37.040 --> 00:25:42.880 It looks like we are having a song or two that's engaging the topic that we're talking 00:25:42.880 --> 00:25:43.220 about. 00:25:43.780 --> 00:25:48.340 Um, and maybe there's smaller spaces that we're looking at, you know, I hate to go all 00:25:48.340 --> 00:25:50.500 into it, but you know, those are things that we're thinking about. 00:25:50.560 --> 00:25:55.560 So I think in the innovating of what's happening online, I think it's further than that, where 00:25:55.560 --> 00:25:59.080 we are saying like, can we create a church that actually looks different? 00:25:59.080 --> 00:26:02.820 I think a lot of times when we, when we innovate, what happens in church, we move a few songs 00:26:02.820 --> 00:26:04.900 around or we add a video and say whatever. 00:26:05.560 --> 00:26:11.020 Um, but like, is there really a church that looks different than any other church outside 00:26:11.020 --> 00:26:12.020 of how it's done? 00:26:12.020 --> 00:26:13.020 It's done, you know? 00:26:13.020 --> 00:26:15.660 Um, and so I think that that's something that we're looking at. 00:26:15.660 --> 00:26:20.060 Like our after party, we, you know, it's one of our most engaging times where people actually 00:26:20.060 --> 00:26:22.540 can have conversations around what was just discussed. 00:26:22.540 --> 00:26:26.640 Um, so I've been talking to some psychologists and stuff and thinking like, how do people learn? 00:26:26.640 --> 00:26:31.100 Like people learn from doing, like they hear something and then they do something with it. 00:26:31.140 --> 00:26:34.640 And I think a lot of times that doing happens later in the week, which is fine. 00:26:35.160 --> 00:26:36.660 Um, but we're like, Hey, what does it look like? 00:26:36.660 --> 00:26:40.680 Like another thing, like midweek, like right now we do a midweek small group gathering. 00:26:40.680 --> 00:26:41.960 So we call it our city groups. 00:26:42.440 --> 00:26:43.820 Um, we don't see that changing. 00:26:43.820 --> 00:26:49.720 So, um, moving forward, we may continue to do midweek digitally. 00:26:50.240 --> 00:26:56.600 Um, you know, we probably will still have a digital campus that is not just a, um, 00:26:56.920 --> 00:26:59.260 a play of what's happening during Sunday. 00:26:59.640 --> 00:27:02.860 Um, but it's specific to what that digital campus is. 00:27:02.900 --> 00:27:07.720 We may have a campus pastor that doesn't even live in Berkeley, but knows how to facilitate, 00:27:07.720 --> 00:27:10.540 um, digitally a church, you know? 00:27:10.540 --> 00:27:14.440 So anyway, I'm, I'm rambling right now, but those are all things that we're thinking about 00:27:14.440 --> 00:27:15.700 and talking through. 00:27:16.700 --> 00:27:19.540 I love, I mean, I love all of this. 00:27:19.600 --> 00:27:25.180 The idea of doing the post-service, tying it into a Bible study of sorts. 00:27:25.280 --> 00:27:27.760 Do you, you have, I'm just curious, do people jump on zoom? 00:27:27.780 --> 00:27:28.640 We don't say Bible study. 00:27:29.120 --> 00:27:29.420 We don't say Bible study. 00:27:29.420 --> 00:27:29.880 I'm sorry. 00:27:30.060 --> 00:27:31.580 That's, that's the uncool word. 00:27:32.100 --> 00:27:37.020 Um, but you're, you're after party, keeping it on brand, my fault. 00:27:37.020 --> 00:27:38.740 Uh, so you're after party. 00:27:39.240 --> 00:27:42.480 Um, but you're, you're tying into the message, reinforcing that. 00:27:42.580 --> 00:27:43.480 It's interesting. 00:27:43.480 --> 00:27:46.840 Like, and I'm even pulling a thread a little bit on that. 00:27:47.120 --> 00:27:49.080 So the average Ted talks 18 minutes. 00:27:49.140 --> 00:27:56.220 So like organizations like Ted think it's, it takes 18 minutes to converse something, to 00:27:56.220 --> 00:27:59.920 get into your head, to get information into your head. 00:28:00.420 --> 00:28:05.780 Um, it's a lot of the pastors and speakers that I'm working with in this season are like, 00:28:05.860 --> 00:28:10.980 Hey, we were cutting our messages to 18 minutes and then a seven minute to move the head to 00:28:10.980 --> 00:28:11.620 the heart. 00:28:12.020 --> 00:28:16.760 And so it's like having that extra seven minutes for the invitation for the application. 00:28:16.760 --> 00:28:21.720 You're, you're building off that concept even a little bit here with your message, because 00:28:21.720 --> 00:28:27.220 you're saying, Hey, let's do that in group where together we're processing through that 00:28:27.220 --> 00:28:28.640 and feeding off of each other. 00:28:28.720 --> 00:28:35.280 Your 18 minute Ted talk, your informational message up at the front suddenly gets application 00:28:35.280 --> 00:28:40.200 in real time through your after parties where they're starting to figure out as a group, 00:28:40.200 --> 00:28:43.740 how to apply this stuff to their lives in, in real time. 00:28:43.740 --> 00:28:45.020 Like I, I love that. 00:28:45.020 --> 00:28:50.840 And that's, this is an example of, I mean, to your point, you can't do that, um, in, in 00:28:50.840 --> 00:28:55.940 a physical church, or at least it's hard to do that, especially in a larger physical, physical 00:28:55.940 --> 00:29:00.200 church, but a digital church has different rules. 00:29:00.200 --> 00:29:06.580 And if we don't, uh, to borrow words from DJ Soto, VR church, the pastor, if we don't just 00:29:06.580 --> 00:29:11.560 try to recreate what we're doing in physical space, and instead of we try to reimagine it 00:29:11.560 --> 00:29:16.640 digitally, there's an opportunity for us to do far more effective things in the digital 00:29:16.640 --> 00:29:22.180 world than in, than in physical, not to replace the physical, but to reach a different person 00:29:22.180 --> 00:29:23.740 in a different way with that. 00:29:23.740 --> 00:29:28.720 And, and I think what you're talking about here, Ray, is, is a great example of it. 00:29:29.420 --> 00:29:35.560 You said earlier, um, that, that the church wasn't about the one hour on Sunday, by the 00:29:35.560 --> 00:29:38.540 way, that was a hugely controversial statement pre COVID. 00:29:38.700 --> 00:29:42.380 I think during COVID, I think we're understanding more of that now. 00:29:43.000 --> 00:29:48.060 Uh, but pre COVID, like, I'm not saying I got yelled at, but it's, it was a lot of hard 00:29:48.060 --> 00:29:52.720 conversations with, with not just pastors, church people, like, cause so much of it was 00:29:52.720 --> 00:29:54.280 defined by that one hour on Sunday. 00:29:54.780 --> 00:29:58.260 But you said it's not, it's not the service. 00:29:58.640 --> 00:30:00.460 It's not even the broadcast of the service. 00:30:00.760 --> 00:30:02.520 What is church in this season? 00:30:02.640 --> 00:30:03.480 You're a digital church. 00:30:03.680 --> 00:30:05.480 You planted a digital thing. 00:30:05.660 --> 00:30:07.940 I'm asking you, how are you defining church today? 00:30:08.360 --> 00:30:08.600 Yeah. 00:30:08.800 --> 00:30:13.160 And, you know, and I hate to clarify because, but I, you know, clarify, I think for me, I 00:30:13.160 --> 00:30:20.500 think for me, I'm a digital church right now with tentacles in a physical community. 00:30:20.660 --> 00:30:21.060 Right. 00:30:21.160 --> 00:30:23.560 So like our digital, sure. 00:30:23.560 --> 00:30:27.240 We're a digital church, but our focus community is Berkeley, you know? 00:30:27.240 --> 00:30:30.580 And I think I said, one of the things you sent, like, just be like, just because someone 00:30:30.580 --> 00:30:32.660 wakes up someone day and says, Hey, I want to start a church. 00:30:33.200 --> 00:30:36.600 I think if you're just going to, if you're just going to start a church with a microphone 00:30:36.600 --> 00:30:39.840 and a video screen, you're missing out on what the church is, it's doing right. 00:30:39.880 --> 00:30:40.560 It's hands and feet. 00:30:40.640 --> 00:30:42.560 So I think that that's the beginning portion of that. 00:30:42.700 --> 00:30:47.880 And then I also would just clarify to say, I think digital church, I think that there are 00:30:47.880 --> 00:30:51.880 things in digital church that can help you to reimagine what's happening in physical church. 00:30:52.340 --> 00:30:56.360 And I think that that's what I'm working on in my mind, which is how do I take what's 00:30:56.360 --> 00:31:00.700 happening digitally and, and point that to a physical space. 00:31:01.120 --> 00:31:05.900 And even if that's a smaller physical space, but multiple small, you know, so, so I would 00:31:05.900 --> 00:31:07.360 say that for that. 00:31:08.260 --> 00:31:12.420 But so then to your question about, sorry to go off on a tangent, but to your question then 00:31:12.420 --> 00:31:14.260 about the church, right? 00:31:14.440 --> 00:31:16.760 Like, so the question about, you know, what is the church? 00:31:16.940 --> 00:31:20.240 You know, I've, I've said this for a while and I think stadia has helped me so much on 00:31:20.240 --> 00:31:25.760 this, which is the one, like, I feel like the conversations around like you're one has 00:31:25.760 --> 00:31:28.360 been probably the most defining one for me. 00:31:28.460 --> 00:31:32.180 And it, and it led me to one of our vision things, right? 00:31:32.200 --> 00:31:35.960 So our vision is one community, one family, one person at a time. 00:31:36.320 --> 00:31:41.320 And so what I told our team was our one community right now is Berkeley. 00:31:41.440 --> 00:31:43.080 We feel like right now God's calling us to Berkeley. 00:31:43.080 --> 00:31:47.060 Our one family right now is the type of person God's calling us to. 00:31:47.180 --> 00:31:53.500 So for us, it's unreached families, middle to upper class business leaders, and then also 00:31:53.500 --> 00:31:58.700 church people who are, who we can activate to be the church that God's called us to be. 00:31:58.780 --> 00:31:59.620 And then one person. 00:31:59.740 --> 00:32:03.600 And so what I told them about one person, and this gets to your question about the church 00:32:03.600 --> 00:32:05.340 is why are we here? 00:32:05.580 --> 00:32:10.480 So I'm posing this question, but giving the answer, like, why are we really here? 00:32:10.480 --> 00:32:15.060 And I think that there are things that people can say, multiple reasons of why we're here. 00:32:15.060 --> 00:32:21.160 But I think the only reason why we're on this planet is to love God and to help and to love 00:32:21.160 --> 00:32:27.440 and serve people so much that they experience God and then fall in love with him also, right? 00:32:27.460 --> 00:32:32.320 So then in the midst of that, when I look at what the church is all about, it's about helping 00:32:32.320 --> 00:32:35.520 people to utilize their influence to build God's kingdom. 00:32:35.940 --> 00:32:38.800 And that does not help happen on Sunday, right? 00:32:38.800 --> 00:32:43.960 Because every person that's listening in now or around our world, or every believer, let's 00:32:43.960 --> 00:32:47.860 just say for right now, has 40 hours of weeks somewhere, right? 00:32:47.940 --> 00:32:56.340 And so if God made them only to impact his kingdom in one hour space, which is the church, 00:32:56.640 --> 00:32:59.240 building physical, we're missing it, right? 00:32:59.300 --> 00:33:03.960 Because if you look at all the miracles that happened in scripture, most miracles happened 00:33:03.960 --> 00:33:06.000 in the marketplace, right? 00:33:06.560 --> 00:33:07.460 Most miracles. 00:33:07.800 --> 00:33:14.540 And so I just think for me, when I even think about what we're doing online, it's one piece 00:33:14.540 --> 00:33:17.400 of what we're doing, but it's more for awareness, you know? 00:33:17.420 --> 00:33:20.940 And then you can't even really gauge church online right now anyway. 00:33:21.160 --> 00:33:23.140 It's everything I feel like that's happening around it. 00:33:23.520 --> 00:33:26.080 So like what church to us right now is three things. 00:33:26.100 --> 00:33:29.160 We're doing city gatherings, city groups, and city cares. 00:33:29.460 --> 00:33:34.560 So how we love and serve our community is church for us, because we have lost people who are 00:33:34.560 --> 00:33:35.360 serving with us. 00:33:35.560 --> 00:33:37.680 Like right now, I'm here at a podcast. 00:33:38.160 --> 00:33:43.160 I've got one of my ones that went with our team to serve at the school to finish handing 00:33:43.160 --> 00:33:43.800 out the bags. 00:33:44.100 --> 00:33:46.400 So I think that it's the loving and caring. 00:33:46.560 --> 00:33:47.620 I think it's the groups, right? 00:33:47.660 --> 00:33:49.080 Like transformative relationships. 00:33:49.600 --> 00:33:53.560 So for us, those transformative relationships are happening outside of our service, because 00:33:53.560 --> 00:33:57.680 right now you can't have it digitally unless you utilize other tools. 00:33:57.800 --> 00:34:05.220 So for us, pre-service, Zoom for, you know, 45 minutes before our service, and then our after 00:34:05.220 --> 00:34:08.580 party for people who are not on our team that want to engage with us. 00:34:08.680 --> 00:34:14.060 Like we feel like those conversations and relationships are for us what the church is, you know? 00:34:14.100 --> 00:34:16.000 I, you know, I've encouraged our team. 00:34:16.500 --> 00:34:18.080 So we have a leadership team of 20 people. 00:34:18.100 --> 00:34:24.620 And I say, hey, throughout the week, I want you to go through and text and check in with 00:34:24.620 --> 00:34:26.100 people on our launch team. 00:34:26.200 --> 00:34:28.980 And I'm going to example, I'm going to show you how to do that. 00:34:29.000 --> 00:34:30.700 So I do it for our leadership team. 00:34:30.840 --> 00:34:34.340 So like today I was on my, you know, I think it was like an hour and a half walk. 00:34:34.460 --> 00:34:38.320 And I literally tried to text through everyone on our team, not just the 20 members, but 00:34:38.320 --> 00:34:42.200 everyone, and specifically spoke to what their needs were. 00:34:42.460 --> 00:34:46.520 So what their things, you know, so not just sending a generic text, you know, but really 00:34:46.520 --> 00:34:47.240 trying to reach out. 00:34:47.320 --> 00:34:52.340 And so I just think the church is loving God and helping, you know, loving and serving people 00:34:52.340 --> 00:34:54.840 so much that they fall in love with God also. 00:34:55.280 --> 00:34:59.820 And so, yeah, I think the service though, you know, the thing that we've held up as being 00:34:59.820 --> 00:35:04.440 the most important thing, trying to get hundreds of people into a building, which is not that 00:35:04.440 --> 00:35:05.460 I don't want to do that. 00:35:06.140 --> 00:35:09.960 But actual church, you know, may look a little bit different than that. 00:35:10.020 --> 00:35:11.500 I think COVID helps us with that. 00:35:11.940 --> 00:35:15.640 And so, you know, for me, I'm working on a model right now, which, you know, I need more 00:35:15.640 --> 00:35:22.120 conversation around, but to where, you know, where maybe we are in small spaces around our city 00:35:22.120 --> 00:35:24.960 that don't fit tons of people. 00:35:25.100 --> 00:35:28.480 But we've got, you know, the other thing that we're looking at is my leadership team, 00:35:28.700 --> 00:35:31.200 part of the church is activating them to lead, right? 00:35:31.200 --> 00:35:32.200 And they're all great leaders. 00:35:32.280 --> 00:35:38.060 And I think a lot of times in church, we just use people to accomplish what we want to accomplish 00:35:38.060 --> 00:35:40.180 instead of empowering them to really lead. 00:35:40.360 --> 00:35:43.260 And so what if, you know, we're always looking for a leadership pipeline. 00:35:43.400 --> 00:35:47.520 I think I have a great leadership pipeline, I think, because I've got 20 leaders right 00:35:47.520 --> 00:35:52.340 now who are on our leadership team and in our launch team who imagine if they were campus 00:35:52.340 --> 00:35:54.160 pastors over a service, right? 00:35:54.160 --> 00:36:00.260 And so each of our little services, let's say it's 50 member services, and they pastored 00:36:00.260 --> 00:36:03.800 the 50 that are in that and got them to invite their friends. 00:36:03.900 --> 00:36:07.440 And if we had three or four 50 member services, you know what I mean? 00:36:07.480 --> 00:36:12.480 So we're just looking at, you know, so I'm going pre, like I'm still working this out in 00:36:12.480 --> 00:36:18.520 my head, but the church is not just one service, you know, to your point. 00:36:18.660 --> 00:36:20.580 I feel like, love, love, love that. 00:36:20.820 --> 00:36:25.760 And by the way, like there's a misnomer and I want to speak to it a little bit. 00:36:25.800 --> 00:36:31.320 And it's actually the thing that I love about your story, Ray, how are you utilizing a digital 00:36:31.320 --> 00:36:32.860 church to impact the physical area? 00:36:33.780 --> 00:36:39.660 You know, I think a lot of times a misconception, and maybe it's like the, it's the DJ Soto's 00:36:39.660 --> 00:36:43.080 fault where, hey, I'm doing this VR church thing. 00:36:43.080 --> 00:36:48.080 And I've got people from all over the globe coming in, as a matter of fact, he's got three 00:36:48.080 --> 00:36:54.980 campuses on three different continents, Asia, Pacific, Europe, and America that is engaging 00:36:54.980 --> 00:36:58.620 with hundreds of people in virtual reality doing discipleship with them. 00:36:58.740 --> 00:36:59.700 And that's, that's awesome. 00:37:00.120 --> 00:37:03.760 And we need more of that, but, but I love what you're specifically doing. 00:37:03.760 --> 00:37:08.560 Cause you're like, dude, I want to use this technology to engage with people in my location. 00:37:08.560 --> 00:37:14.520 Even things like, um, Patrick, uh, Patrick Holden, what Patrick's doing about how awesome. 00:37:16.040 --> 00:37:22.660 I sat, I did a podcast a couple of weeks ago and I'm like, dude, do you want my job, Patrick? 00:37:22.840 --> 00:37:24.360 Why don't you do my job? 00:37:24.400 --> 00:37:26.420 Why don't you become Stadia director of digital church planning? 00:37:26.580 --> 00:37:31.480 And I just want to learn from you in this situation because the stuff that he's doing with Facebook 00:37:31.480 --> 00:37:36.120 messenger, connecting with people, cold calling and the results that he's getting, I've made 00:37:36.120 --> 00:37:36.960 Patrick stories. 00:37:37.160 --> 00:37:41.480 He's one of that, one of our fastest growing podcasts right now, because everybody I talked 00:37:41.480 --> 00:37:45.680 to, I'm like, you got to listen to this because he's doing something that we all need to figure 00:37:45.680 --> 00:37:47.420 out how to do effectively. 00:37:47.420 --> 00:37:51.860 It's, it's a beautiful, beautiful thing, but it's what we're seeing as a digital church 00:37:51.860 --> 00:37:58.000 interact physically and you're making a difference in physical where you're trying to love. 00:37:58.000 --> 00:38:02.840 What I think I heard you say is that you, you want to love God so much through your church 00:38:02.840 --> 00:38:06.060 that other people experience this physically. 00:38:06.360 --> 00:38:11.260 And I think that is a great challenge for a, for a church like yours, whether digital or 00:38:11.260 --> 00:38:15.280 physical to get through, to break through a consumerism mentality, whether it's a, through 00:38:15.280 --> 00:38:20.180 a digital expression or a physical expression, just some guy that's in the board back row, 00:38:20.580 --> 00:38:25.120 falling asleep, disconnected to get them to a place where they're loving God, where they're 00:38:25.120 --> 00:38:28.680 so on mission for them that they're expressing this stuff out physically. 00:38:28.680 --> 00:38:32.780 I just want to challenge you real quick with an idea because there's a church, it's a digital 00:38:32.780 --> 00:38:33.100 church. 00:38:33.240 --> 00:38:34.500 It's literally just spinning up. 00:38:34.620 --> 00:38:36.620 It's existed for a while as a ministry of a church. 00:38:36.720 --> 00:38:40.180 It's called Church Anywhere, First Capital Christian Church in Cordon, Indiana. 00:38:41.060 --> 00:38:46.680 This one church, less than a thousand people, regular attendance, has spun up 18 micro locations 00:38:46.680 --> 00:38:47.600 around their city. 00:38:48.180 --> 00:38:53.280 They've discipled, they've grown leaders to be essentially the campus pastors. 00:38:53.600 --> 00:38:59.320 And the areas where they're unleashing these, these micro locations, Huntington disease rehab 00:38:59.320 --> 00:39:04.000 centers, prisons, orphanages, afterschool daycare centers. 00:39:04.500 --> 00:39:08.860 These are not like people who are opening up their homes, although that's an awesome challenge. 00:39:09.040 --> 00:39:14.120 But what they've intentionally said is we want to be very missional with our approach. 00:39:14.640 --> 00:39:19.200 And so they, in addition to the thousand people who come in the building, when there was a building, 00:39:19.200 --> 00:39:25.100 they see an additional 700 people engaging in these micro locations scattered around the 00:39:25.100 --> 00:39:30.900 surrounding area, which, by the way, are chosen by the volunteers that are leading it. 00:39:31.120 --> 00:39:34.440 They ask the questions of the volunteers, what areas are you passionate about? 00:39:35.160 --> 00:39:41.180 And then unleashing them, either to playback video teaching, to do live teaching, maybe it's 00:39:41.180 --> 00:39:43.100 live worship, maybe it's canned worship. 00:39:43.320 --> 00:39:48.280 It's, it doesn't matter, but this is an example of, of a, and this is, they're spinning it off 00:39:48.280 --> 00:39:52.200 into a completely separate digital church because they're recognizing that even the physical 00:39:52.200 --> 00:39:55.640 church is, is a limitation, is a lid of it. 00:39:55.720 --> 00:40:01.180 And so they're spinning it off separately to allow it to grow even more in this COVID and 00:40:01.180 --> 00:40:02.140 post COVID season. 00:40:03.420 --> 00:40:07.720 You've, you've got a huge opportunity because you've got a foundation and you understand digital 00:40:07.720 --> 00:40:09.100 better than most. 00:40:09.100 --> 00:40:15.440 You've got this huge potential to turn that and explode that into small viral locations 00:40:15.440 --> 00:40:18.800 where you can impact the city of Berkeley, man, like never before. 00:40:19.160 --> 00:40:24.080 And as you're utilizing that, that leadership pipeline, that discipleship pipeline, whatever 00:40:24.080 --> 00:40:28.860 the language is, as you grow those people and empower them on, on mission, man, that's going 00:40:28.860 --> 00:40:30.020 to be a really cool thing. 00:40:31.380 --> 00:40:34.660 I think one of the exciting things about quarantine, right? 00:40:34.780 --> 00:40:41.160 And in the midst of being under the cloud of COVID is that it challenges all of us to enter 00:40:41.160 --> 00:40:44.020 into the mentality that you already have, right? 00:40:44.100 --> 00:40:45.740 Is this innovation, right? 00:40:46.340 --> 00:40:51.140 For most of us, it's just out of desperation of like this thing that we're used to doing 00:40:51.140 --> 00:40:52.880 each week is now gone. 00:40:53.020 --> 00:40:55.200 So we have to come up with something new. 00:40:55.520 --> 00:41:01.360 What would you say, Ray, to, you know, you have opened your mind of saying, what is the 00:41:01.360 --> 00:41:08.020 different ways and strategies and models that I can utilize for the same purpose of just 00:41:08.020 --> 00:41:10.060 spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ? 00:41:10.160 --> 00:41:15.560 What would you say to those that are struggling with letting go of what they're used to, of 00:41:15.560 --> 00:41:21.260 maybe, maybe a little stuck in the way, the traditional way of church of how to enter 00:41:21.260 --> 00:41:24.760 in to being excited about the opportunity for innovation? 00:41:25.660 --> 00:41:32.120 Yeah, well, I think I would first say, because I've got friends who, who have churches and 00:41:32.120 --> 00:41:37.140 buildings and staff and facilities and healthcare costs, you know, all of those things. 00:41:37.140 --> 00:41:40.580 And I think, you know, and that's why I say, I think it's a great opportunity that we're 00:41:40.580 --> 00:41:41.100 in right now. 00:41:41.120 --> 00:41:44.560 And I feel like God's called us to it because, you know, we don't have all those things. 00:41:44.560 --> 00:41:49.320 And I think, I think one of the things that's a hindrance in this season for some churches 00:41:49.320 --> 00:41:52.000 is, is you're just trying to make sure you can pay your salaries. 00:41:52.000 --> 00:41:57.360 And so my heart goes out to those churches, because that's, that's really hard and really 00:41:57.360 --> 00:41:57.860 difficult. 00:41:58.240 --> 00:42:04.840 And so I think that it's hard to be innovative when you've got those types of pressures that 00:42:04.840 --> 00:42:05.280 are going. 00:42:05.760 --> 00:42:09.720 But I also would say, I think that those are the moments you lean in even harder, right? 00:42:09.720 --> 00:42:12.600 Like, I think there's a lot of great things that come out of faith. 00:42:12.600 --> 00:42:16.240 And so I think it's, you know, so I think I would give encouragement first to just say, 00:42:16.240 --> 00:42:18.200 man, God is still God. 00:42:18.460 --> 00:42:21.200 God's not surprised, you know, like he's still on the throne. 00:42:21.200 --> 00:42:26.080 And I think in the midst of our trials and difficulties, he tells us not to worry, right? 00:42:26.120 --> 00:42:28.440 Like Matthew six, where he's saying, Hey, don't worry. 00:42:28.520 --> 00:42:29.280 Like I've got it. 00:42:29.300 --> 00:42:31.840 So I think to those pastors, it starts as, Hey, God's got it. 00:42:31.980 --> 00:42:32.580 He's with you. 00:42:32.680 --> 00:42:33.580 He knows what's going on. 00:42:33.620 --> 00:42:34.400 He's not surprised. 00:42:34.820 --> 00:42:39.320 But then I think the other side of it is, you know, allow, like knowing God makes new 00:42:39.320 --> 00:42:39.620 things. 00:42:39.620 --> 00:42:44.700 I feel like we, we think that God changes things and he does, but I think that God's a God who 00:42:44.700 --> 00:42:45.400 makes new things. 00:42:45.420 --> 00:42:50.660 And I think in this season, let's be honest, like insanity is doing the same thing over and 00:42:50.660 --> 00:42:52.320 over again and getting the same results, right? 00:42:52.320 --> 00:42:58.080 Like there's, there's many churches and Christianity in general in our nation, we've been doing church 00:42:58.080 --> 00:42:59.800 the same exact way forever. 00:43:01.000 --> 00:43:05.860 And we have had some adaptations, but it's really adaptations to style of music. 00:43:05.860 --> 00:43:13.900 It's adaptation to how you preach is that adaptation to size of building or lighting, like those 00:43:13.900 --> 00:43:14.500 types of things. 00:43:14.500 --> 00:43:19.080 But to the core of like what church is, that's why you have some people that do home church, 00:43:19.140 --> 00:43:19.380 right? 00:43:19.780 --> 00:43:23.280 You know, and then you have some go mega and micro, like all those things. 00:43:23.280 --> 00:43:30.420 But what about the actual, like what you're saying and the consideration of like what people 00:43:30.420 --> 00:43:30.700 think? 00:43:30.780 --> 00:43:32.980 Like, I just feel like God wants to do something new. 00:43:33.100 --> 00:43:34.560 This is not a surprise to God. 00:43:34.660 --> 00:43:41.220 And so I think it's just tapping into, man, like being okay with adapting, being, asking 00:43:41.220 --> 00:43:46.680 the question of like, what are we doing right now that we've been doing that's not, hasn't 00:43:46.680 --> 00:43:48.120 reaped the results that we want. 00:43:48.440 --> 00:43:51.700 But I don't think everyone has a mind to innovate. 00:43:51.940 --> 00:43:58.780 I think there's, you know, people have, you know, they want to, change is hard for anyone. 00:43:58.940 --> 00:44:00.200 I think change is super hard. 00:44:00.320 --> 00:44:03.900 And so I think it's, you know, getting in right circles. 00:44:03.900 --> 00:44:08.080 I think it's talking with people, reading more, maybe, you know, I don't know. 00:44:08.160 --> 00:44:11.400 I don't, I don't, I guess I don't know how to answer it because I, because I, I don't 00:44:11.400 --> 00:44:12.620 sometimes like to change. 00:44:12.620 --> 00:44:17.540 I just feel like I got a word, a specific word from God, which was be willing to adapt. 00:44:17.740 --> 00:44:22.160 And I think that everything I do, I'm always thinking, adapting and then literally my prayer. 00:44:22.280 --> 00:44:27.140 So on my list, it says, God helped me to innovate a new expression of the gospel. 00:44:27.140 --> 00:44:29.100 I've been praying that for the last like two years. 00:44:29.100 --> 00:44:34.180 And so, um, I don't, you know, I don't, I don't, I don't, people just need to spend 00:44:34.180 --> 00:44:36.020 a little bit of time with you and it'll rub off. 00:44:36.680 --> 00:44:41.340 No, I just, I just think it's just, man, be open to something new. 00:44:41.440 --> 00:44:42.320 I think that that's the thing. 00:44:42.320 --> 00:44:47.980 Like be open to, to it, not looking the same, be, start with, don't preach for 40 minutes. 00:44:47.980 --> 00:44:50.640 I think, you know, I don't, I don't, it may sound bad. 00:44:50.640 --> 00:44:57.880 Like, yeah, I think, you know, yeah, I think it's, I think it's the little things like change, 00:44:58.000 --> 00:44:58.980 start with little things. 00:44:59.200 --> 00:45:00.480 You know, I, that's what I'm saying. 00:45:00.480 --> 00:45:03.340 I feel like there's so many, like, I don't know people's circumstance. 00:45:03.340 --> 00:45:05.000 There's so many things that people are dealing with. 00:45:05.000 --> 00:45:06.040 So I can't answer. 00:45:06.460 --> 00:45:10.180 I think, you know, I, I, I, I'm the type of person where I'm like, I don't want to make 00:45:10.180 --> 00:45:13.180 a blanket statement that affects thousands of pastors. 00:45:13.180 --> 00:45:19.460 I would say in their area of influence that they're in, look at things that they can change 00:45:19.460 --> 00:45:21.440 small, you know, I don't know. 00:45:21.960 --> 00:45:22.960 Maybe that's a bad answer. 00:45:23.020 --> 00:45:23.420 I'm sorry. 00:45:23.960 --> 00:45:25.120 No, it's, it's, it's great. 00:45:25.580 --> 00:45:26.440 Let me ask this. 00:45:26.440 --> 00:45:33.240 Um, so, uh, I, I want you to talk to somebody that's currently planting and is overwhelmed 00:45:33.240 --> 00:45:39.040 and overloaded and has no idea how to engage in this COVID season and is afraid of what 00:45:39.040 --> 00:45:44.520 life is going to look like post COVID, or maybe even a guy that is thinking about planting, 00:45:44.520 --> 00:45:50.480 is thinking about starting and doing something new, but it's not sure, um, what even church 00:45:50.480 --> 00:45:55.260 looks like in this, in this new reality and what we're going to be walking into. 00:45:55.400 --> 00:45:56.380 I want you to talk to them. 00:45:56.860 --> 00:45:58.060 What would you tell them right now? 00:45:58.160 --> 00:45:58.340 Yeah. 00:45:58.340 --> 00:46:02.120 For someone that's new, I think, cause, cause this is a little bit easier for someone who's 00:46:02.120 --> 00:46:05.200 new, who hasn't decided to plant yet plan. 00:46:05.380 --> 00:46:11.460 Well, I think, um, I think in this season, um, you know, for us, like we, we had a, we 00:46:11.460 --> 00:46:12.260 had a plan. 00:46:12.360 --> 00:46:15.920 I had a plan that I felt like God gave me in the midst of adapting it. 00:46:16.060 --> 00:46:20.620 So for someone who's wanting to plant right now, know that if you feel the call from God to 00:46:20.620 --> 00:46:22.640 plant a church, don't rush it. 00:46:22.640 --> 00:46:25.080 I would say number one, like there's no need to rush it. 00:46:25.360 --> 00:46:28.340 Um, but know that if God's calling you to plant a church, he's not going to leave you 00:46:28.340 --> 00:46:28.860 out and drive. 00:46:28.980 --> 00:46:33.060 Like, that's kind of what we start with in our family is like, man, like God knew he's 00:46:33.060 --> 00:46:33.880 called us now. 00:46:34.260 --> 00:46:37.880 Um, but then on the opposite side, if you're, if you're really getting ready and you haven't 00:46:37.880 --> 00:46:40.360 started yet, man, like what better time than now? 00:46:40.620 --> 00:46:47.220 If you are ready, if you have, um, trained, if you've had, yeah, I think the experience is 00:46:47.220 --> 00:46:47.420 good. 00:46:47.460 --> 00:46:51.660 If you've got great mentors, if you have an organization that you're going through, like, 00:46:51.880 --> 00:46:52.820 man, why not now? 00:46:52.820 --> 00:46:54.340 Like God's, God's in it. 00:46:54.660 --> 00:46:59.180 Um, if he's calling you to that, if you've been affirmed by, by organizations to go do 00:46:59.180 --> 00:47:03.060 it, don't be fearful, um, because of what's going on right now. 00:47:03.060 --> 00:47:04.840 Like God's called you for a reason. 00:47:04.840 --> 00:47:08.920 If you stepped out of an executive role or if he stepped out of a church role to do this, 00:47:09.020 --> 00:47:11.280 he's not surprised that you did that. 00:47:11.340 --> 00:47:13.060 And so I just think that I would move forward. 00:47:13.120 --> 00:47:17.740 I think for those who are already planting, um, who are wondering if they should shrink 00:47:17.740 --> 00:47:21.500 back or not, I think, I think it's, I think it's a, I think it's a good question to ask 00:47:21.500 --> 00:47:25.260 if you're not prepared, you know, if you have, if you don't have the funding for it, maybe 00:47:25.260 --> 00:47:30.200 right now, if you haven't built the right, you know, your team, you know, but the, but 00:47:30.200 --> 00:47:32.940 the opposite side of that would be don't shrink back. 00:47:33.020 --> 00:47:36.040 I think that sometimes we are making decisions based off of fear. 00:47:36.700 --> 00:47:41.460 Um, and, and it's really showing us where our faith is, you know, it's like, uh, when 00:47:41.460 --> 00:47:45.740 Peter was on the water and, uh, you know, he asked Jesus, Hey, should I walk out? 00:47:46.180 --> 00:47:51.740 Planting is like that, you know, go, that's crazy to walk on a, a, a, a C that's crazy, 00:47:51.740 --> 00:47:52.740 but he walks out. 00:47:53.180 --> 00:47:57.800 Um, and I think the decision to stop is because we're taking our eyes off of Jesus. 00:47:57.800 --> 00:48:02.080 And so I think for the planters who are out there who are like, man, like, did I make 00:48:02.080 --> 00:48:02.960 the wrong choice? 00:48:02.960 --> 00:48:08.940 I mean, if God called you to something, um, it just may be that you have to adapt, adapt 00:48:08.940 --> 00:48:09.720 what you're doing. 00:48:09.840 --> 00:48:11.380 You know, it may look different. 00:48:11.920 --> 00:48:16.020 Um, you know, but you know, so yeah, I think, I think we're in a season of it looking 00:48:16.020 --> 00:48:16.300 different. 00:48:16.400 --> 00:48:17.540 So I think you have to keep your eyes on Jesus. 00:48:17.600 --> 00:48:18.440 You got to pray every day. 00:48:18.600 --> 00:48:23.220 I know I started our, our cast with that, but literally I try to pray every morning at 00:48:23.220 --> 00:48:27.300 the same time because I need my marching orders in order to live on purpose. 00:48:27.300 --> 00:48:29.980 I need God to tell me, am I making the wrong choice? 00:48:30.000 --> 00:48:30.940 Am I going the right direction? 00:48:31.000 --> 00:48:31.840 What do I need to adapt? 00:48:31.900 --> 00:48:32.760 What do I need to change? 00:48:32.760 --> 00:48:36.640 And so I think, I think, I think, I think even back to the question of like churches 00:48:36.640 --> 00:48:40.300 that need to do this, I think it's just asking the question of how do I adapt in 00:48:40.300 --> 00:48:40.700 this season? 00:48:40.700 --> 00:48:43.820 Like we just have to continue to adapt and not get comfortable. 00:48:44.180 --> 00:48:46.880 I remember, you know, different churches I've worked for where I felt like, man, people 00:48:46.880 --> 00:48:47.620 are just comfortable. 00:48:47.780 --> 00:48:48.320 We're comfortable. 00:48:48.760 --> 00:48:52.120 I remember even when I decided to plant, I, you know, for about a year, I felt like we 00:48:52.120 --> 00:48:52.700 were comfortable. 00:48:52.920 --> 00:48:55.980 Like, I remember just talking to our teams and saying, man, like, man, if we want people 00:48:55.980 --> 00:48:57.440 to invite friends, we need to be doing that. 00:48:57.500 --> 00:48:59.800 We need to be out at the coffee shops and we need, you know what I mean? 00:48:59.800 --> 00:49:05.040 So it's just, I think it's just like allowing God to get you uncomfortable is not a bad 00:49:05.040 --> 00:49:05.320 thing. 00:49:06.760 --> 00:49:10.280 Well, it's clear, Ray, that you have not shrunk back. 00:49:10.540 --> 00:49:15.200 You're stepping in and you're moving forward and you're innovating and, and we love partnering 00:49:15.200 --> 00:49:17.920 with you and we love learning from you. 00:49:18.080 --> 00:49:23.040 You are on the forefront of the innovation for the cause of the gospel and we love that. 00:49:23.400 --> 00:49:27.940 So what does the future look like for your current digital church? 00:49:28.000 --> 00:49:28.640 Where are you going? 00:49:28.900 --> 00:49:29.580 What's the plan? 00:49:30.340 --> 00:49:30.500 Yeah. 00:49:30.580 --> 00:49:33.900 Well, I think number one, we will never have a service. 00:49:33.900 --> 00:49:39.260 Like we will never, it's like for digital, we will never, we're live stream. 00:49:39.760 --> 00:49:40.580 This is just us. 00:49:40.720 --> 00:49:45.140 We will never live stream a in-person service for a digital context. 00:49:45.760 --> 00:49:46.660 That's just us. 00:49:46.740 --> 00:49:52.400 I feel like, I feel like in-person is completely different than, than digital. 00:49:52.640 --> 00:49:57.240 And I just don't, I just don't feel like it works well if you're trying to reach both 00:49:57.240 --> 00:49:59.000 people in-person and people online. 00:49:59.220 --> 00:50:05.740 So for me, I know for us, Hey, we, we want to make sure that, you know, for us, it looks 00:50:05.740 --> 00:50:07.120 like, Hey, we're going to have a digital campus. 00:50:07.120 --> 00:50:10.340 So we're always going to have a digital campus of city center church. 00:50:10.840 --> 00:50:16.920 Um, I think number two, you know, the future for us is I got to get approval from my management 00:50:16.920 --> 00:50:23.400 team and different partners as I'm thinking through vision, but I'll give you a peek into 00:50:23.400 --> 00:50:23.560 it. 00:50:23.580 --> 00:50:28.940 So, so here's a peek into my vision with realizing that this is just thought right now. 00:50:29.040 --> 00:50:33.880 And, um, yeah, no one's holding you to just a couple million people. 00:50:34.020 --> 00:50:38.740 Listen, I don't, I, okay. 00:50:38.760 --> 00:50:40.920 Number one, and I, and I did this with Emily. 00:50:40.920 --> 00:50:45.680 I did a, a off the cup interview with a person. 00:50:45.680 --> 00:50:49.500 And I've asked multiple now, non-Christian people in Berkeley. 00:50:49.760 --> 00:50:55.140 Do you think church that we're going to be able to gather in large groups, even after 00:50:55.140 --> 00:50:56.060 they release it? 00:50:56.260 --> 00:50:57.620 And Emily, you were there. 00:50:57.700 --> 00:50:58.380 What did she say? 00:50:58.980 --> 00:50:59.780 Absolutely not. 00:51:00.280 --> 00:51:01.200 Absolutely not. 00:51:01.680 --> 00:51:05.540 Um, because one, it's the Bay area, then it's Berkeley. 00:51:05.540 --> 00:51:10.740 And even in Berkeley, it's like, Hey, we, we are going to be, we're doing things how we 00:51:10.740 --> 00:51:11.420 want to do it. 00:51:11.420 --> 00:51:13.940 And because I love the city, cause I'm in it. 00:51:14.080 --> 00:51:19.860 I want to, I want to make sure that I'm creating a church that my ones will show up to. 00:51:19.960 --> 00:51:23.260 And they realize we don't want to just be your stereotypical church. 00:51:23.380 --> 00:51:24.940 We want to rethink what church looks like. 00:51:25.860 --> 00:51:30.180 And so what if there was a church, you know, mind you here, this is just my thought, but 00:51:30.180 --> 00:51:36.200 imagine if I create, if we could create a church that there were, that only gathered 00:51:36.200 --> 00:51:37.460 50 to 60 people. 00:51:37.460 --> 00:51:43.660 Now, this is just random thinking, but 50 to 60 people, um, and our, our desires would 00:51:43.660 --> 00:51:46.580 be at the city centers of different communities. 00:51:46.580 --> 00:51:48.300 And we want to create city center hubs. 00:51:48.300 --> 00:51:50.660 That's kind of the, was the future vision. 00:51:51.300 --> 00:51:54.020 Um, but in our area, every, every building is small, right? 00:51:54.020 --> 00:51:55.620 So Berkeley, you've got small shops. 00:51:55.620 --> 00:52:02.980 So what if we could create a church that meets in like a storefront fits, you know, maybe 00:52:02.980 --> 00:52:08.980 could fit a hundred people, but for social distancing reasons, we do 50 people, um, that show up to 00:52:08.980 --> 00:52:09.140 it. 00:52:09.140 --> 00:52:14.800 And we just have multiple services in different parts of our city at storefront areas. 00:52:15.800 --> 00:52:17.560 Um, what if we could do that? 00:52:17.560 --> 00:52:23.960 And what if it, it wasn't for, you know, 20 minute worship set and, um, some announcements. 00:52:23.960 --> 00:52:28.360 And then the guy preaches at you for 30 minutes and then you do, um, worship at the end. 00:52:28.360 --> 00:52:34.460 But what if it was really an environment that facilitated conversation over a normal service? 00:52:35.000 --> 00:52:37.980 Um, you know, I think for me that, you know, that's what we're looking at. 00:52:37.980 --> 00:52:43.320 And so what if it was, you know, maybe it's, it's a, almost like a party in the beginning. 00:52:43.320 --> 00:52:44.320 We're all just hanging out. 00:52:44.360 --> 00:52:47.000 It's a social, it's almost like a family gathering a little bit. 00:52:47.120 --> 00:52:48.560 You can invite your friends to it. 00:52:48.620 --> 00:52:49.600 Hey, we're going to have food. 00:52:49.920 --> 00:52:51.720 Um, we're going to hang out here for a little bit. 00:52:51.720 --> 00:52:57.000 And then there's going to be this guy who's going to talk a little bit about a truth that 00:52:57.000 --> 00:52:59.460 we believe is applicable to your life. 00:52:59.920 --> 00:53:02.500 And we want to answer the question every week. 00:53:02.600 --> 00:53:05.560 How does Jesus help in the midst of what we're going through? 00:53:05.740 --> 00:53:10.580 Like does, is Jesus applicable for our daily life and have a short conversation about that 00:53:10.580 --> 00:53:17.480 and then move into groups, um, where people can, in a group of three to four or five, engage 00:53:17.480 --> 00:53:18.860 around this topic. 00:53:19.420 --> 00:53:22.620 Um, and what if there was a church that looked like that in it? 00:53:22.720 --> 00:53:28.260 And because I like multi-site, you know, what if it became a model where, you know, during 00:53:28.260 --> 00:53:32.600 the week though, the partner, we're partnering with some type of organization or we become, 00:53:32.780 --> 00:53:38.680 you know, like a leaser and we've got different community resources and or businesses that are, 00:53:38.820 --> 00:53:42.820 that use our space through the week, which it could be sustainable because it's a smaller 00:53:42.820 --> 00:53:43.320 space. 00:53:43.760 --> 00:53:46.140 Um, and they're really paying enough for the lease. 00:53:46.140 --> 00:53:51.660 And then we're just, we just happen to be a gathering of people, you know, Sunday night 00:53:51.660 --> 00:53:53.580 or Saturday morning, you know? 00:53:53.660 --> 00:53:57.760 So I don't know, I'm rambling, but that's, we're working through that type of a thought 00:53:57.760 --> 00:53:58.460 of church. 00:53:58.460 --> 00:54:01.280 And we just have multiple of those little hubs around our community. 00:54:01.280 --> 00:54:04.720 And it's led by our leadership team over me, except for I'm speaking. 00:54:05.760 --> 00:54:12.140 So you've got all these ideas, your entrepreneurial ideas, and your wife's telling you, stop thinking 00:54:12.140 --> 00:54:12.580 that way. 00:54:12.660 --> 00:54:13.760 She is actually. 00:54:14.120 --> 00:54:14.260 Yeah. 00:54:14.420 --> 00:54:16.420 So get your wife on here. 00:54:16.580 --> 00:54:18.380 We need to, we need to cut that out. 00:54:18.380 --> 00:54:23.960 Cause I mean, what you're selling here, more people need to buy, um, conversational approach, 00:54:24.200 --> 00:54:27.620 never stream a live service for a digital audience. 00:54:27.740 --> 00:54:31.780 Like these are radical concepts that shoot. 00:54:31.820 --> 00:54:34.340 I'm not even crazy enough to talk that way now. 00:54:34.340 --> 00:54:39.100 And, and, and I, I'm the guy who's been talking crazy for 20 years and, and finally now the world's 00:54:39.100 --> 00:54:43.660 catching up in COVID, but you're, you're, you're a couple of years ahead, uh, which is awesome. 00:54:43.660 --> 00:54:47.680 It means that you're going to get people that are going to tell you, no, uh, it doesn't 00:54:47.680 --> 00:54:48.360 work that way. 00:54:48.520 --> 00:54:50.080 And then you're going to prove them wrong. 00:54:50.240 --> 00:54:53.740 And you're going to, you're going to be able to celebrate some stories of what's happening. 00:54:53.920 --> 00:54:58.620 And slowly people are going to start look at you as a church planner and realize, hey, 00:54:58.680 --> 00:55:01.800 wait, there's some validity here to the way this is happening. 00:55:01.900 --> 00:55:04.680 What if we did something similar, you know? 00:55:04.720 --> 00:55:07.100 And so it's, it's, we're, we use this language. 00:55:07.100 --> 00:55:10.580 We just did a podcast on this and, and I made a mistake. 00:55:10.580 --> 00:55:11.360 And this is funny. 00:55:11.360 --> 00:55:14.980 I reached out to a, uh, uh, crossroads in Cincinnati. 00:55:14.980 --> 00:55:19.140 It's a, uh, a giga church, huge 20,000 plus church up there. 00:55:19.140 --> 00:55:22.920 And I reached out to the pastor of technology and I was like, Hey, come on a podcast. 00:55:23.120 --> 00:55:25.340 I want to talk about how we get back to the building. 00:55:25.980 --> 00:55:27.780 Um, and, and I'm the cutting edge guy. 00:55:27.820 --> 00:55:30.280 He's the director of technology and Matt Welty. 00:55:30.280 --> 00:55:33.660 And he's like, Jeff, your, your approach far from the get go is completely wrong. 00:55:34.060 --> 00:55:36.440 Um, we're not going back to the building. 00:55:36.580 --> 00:55:41.860 We're implementing physical locations on our new founded digital strategy that's mapping 00:55:41.860 --> 00:55:42.920 out towards the future. 00:55:43.120 --> 00:55:46.100 And I was like, oh, you're right. 00:55:46.340 --> 00:55:49.180 All the preconceived norms are, are off the table. 00:55:49.680 --> 00:55:56.040 And so the way that you're re-imagining this, even as you're starting it, others need to 00:55:56.040 --> 00:55:57.040 do that as well. 00:55:57.420 --> 00:56:03.400 And the more that radical ideas, like some of the stuff you just kind of threw away, uh, 00:56:03.400 --> 00:56:05.000 it's like, Hey, these are some things that we're thinking about. 00:56:05.000 --> 00:56:08.040 Like, my gosh, I could talk about that for another hour. 00:56:08.040 --> 00:56:10.400 Just digging some of it, some of that apart. 00:56:10.540 --> 00:56:13.000 Just don't tell my wife that I'm on this podcast. 00:56:13.380 --> 00:56:16.460 Well, evidently, like I need, I need to like do some intervention here. 00:56:16.540 --> 00:56:18.200 We need Emily to do some like counseling. 00:56:18.740 --> 00:56:21.440 We need to encourage this to do more. 00:56:21.540 --> 00:56:22.480 This is awesome. 00:56:23.060 --> 00:56:25.420 Hey, so this has been a great podcast, Ray. 00:56:25.540 --> 00:56:26.800 I am so excited. 00:56:27.300 --> 00:56:33.020 Uh, just even what I'm hearing here, uh, with, with the, with the church and how you are looking 00:56:33.020 --> 00:56:35.160 at it, you've rushed into the fire. 00:56:35.160 --> 00:56:42.960 You're looking at it with fresh eyes, um, and being, um, re-imaginative instead of recreative, 00:56:42.980 --> 00:56:44.100 uh, in this season. 00:56:44.100 --> 00:56:45.420 So well done, sir. 00:56:45.500 --> 00:56:46.180 Well done in this. 00:56:46.320 --> 00:56:49.400 Emily, as we're landing the plane here, any closing thoughts? 00:56:50.180 --> 00:56:55.860 We just love partnering with you, Ray, as from Stadia's perspective, it's so fun to get 00:56:55.860 --> 00:56:57.540 to come alongside to support you. 00:56:57.680 --> 00:57:04.540 Also just to learn from you and your innovation and your ideas and be able to, uh, bless up, 00:57:04.660 --> 00:57:04.900 right. 00:57:04.900 --> 00:57:09.360 And share those with other church planters who are alongside of you planting churches and 00:57:09.360 --> 00:57:10.780 who are coming behind you as well. 00:57:10.780 --> 00:57:15.760 So we are, we are for you and we are praying for a city center church there in Berkeley. 00:57:16.320 --> 00:57:18.060 That's awesome. 00:57:18.220 --> 00:57:22.040 I'm, I'm, I'm so excited about what, um, what I've been hearing here. 00:57:22.120 --> 00:57:22.780 This is awesome. 00:57:22.900 --> 00:57:23.020 Right. 00:57:23.320 --> 00:57:24.240 This has happened yet. 00:57:24.240 --> 00:57:24.520 Right. 00:57:24.680 --> 00:57:26.900 So just to clarify, this is all thought. 00:57:29.000 --> 00:57:35.500 So we are encouraging thoughts and if you've, and we're praying for it, for the thought to 00:57:35.500 --> 00:57:38.480 be caught by God, that it's part of him. 00:57:38.480 --> 00:57:44.380 And, and, and as you're discipling, he is bringing people into your, your path to help that, that 00:57:44.380 --> 00:57:45.760 thought become execution. 00:57:46.240 --> 00:57:46.420 Yeah. 00:57:46.480 --> 00:57:48.160 Hey, funds is always great. 00:57:48.160 --> 00:57:54.840 You know, anyone here is something they like, you know, with city center.com, you know, 00:57:54.960 --> 00:57:58.320 it wouldn't be a church planting podcast without a financial app. 00:57:58.420 --> 00:57:58.980 There you go. 00:57:59.420 --> 00:58:01.640 Help me innovate a way to do church. 00:58:01.960 --> 00:58:02.120 No. 00:58:02.840 --> 00:58:03.280 Awesome. 00:58:03.640 --> 00:58:08.560 Hey, so besides the, the plea for money from Ray, Ray, any closing thoughts? 00:58:09.020 --> 00:58:10.200 I swore a hand in the plan here. 00:58:10.340 --> 00:58:15.000 Yeah, no, I, I just think, man, like we just can't, we can't just think things are going 00:58:15.000 --> 00:58:15.860 to go back to normal. 00:58:16.240 --> 00:58:19.420 And so I just think if we, if we, if we're thinking that way, that doesn't mean that we 00:58:19.420 --> 00:58:25.280 have to change all of our, our, all our, our, our ideas or our strategies, but I do think 00:58:25.280 --> 00:58:29.320 we just, we can't think, you know, and I think the good thing for me is I'm not going back 00:58:29.320 --> 00:58:29.800 to normal. 00:58:29.800 --> 00:58:30.500 I'm starting. 00:58:30.800 --> 00:58:34.660 So for me, it's a little bit easier because I'm starting something. 00:58:34.660 --> 00:58:39.160 And I think for those who have been going for a while, you know, you just have to think 00:58:39.160 --> 00:58:40.660 things can't go exact. 00:58:40.780 --> 00:58:42.920 They're not going to go exactly back to the way they were. 00:58:43.060 --> 00:58:48.660 And so why not ask God for something crazy new, you know, for their areas? 00:58:48.780 --> 00:58:50.160 So, and we can all do it. 00:58:50.200 --> 00:58:50.580 It's fun. 00:58:50.660 --> 00:58:51.040 Come on. 00:58:51.180 --> 00:58:51.800 What, what bet? 00:58:51.860 --> 00:58:53.620 Like we are the church. 00:58:53.760 --> 00:58:55.740 Do we not serve an innovative God? 00:58:56.120 --> 00:58:57.960 Does he not, is he not powerful? 00:58:58.040 --> 00:58:59.960 Is he not extreme in thought? 00:59:00.020 --> 00:59:02.680 If that's so, then we shouldn't just be doing stuff the same old way. 00:59:02.680 --> 00:59:05.060 Like he doesn't do things the same way. 00:59:05.140 --> 00:59:05.780 He's a new God. 00:59:05.860 --> 00:59:06.740 He does fresh things. 00:59:06.960 --> 00:59:08.540 He's consistent, right? 00:59:08.580 --> 00:59:12.460 He's the same guy as he was yesterday, but he is a, he does new things. 00:59:12.800 --> 00:59:14.480 So new, new wine skins. 00:59:14.640 --> 00:59:15.480 Well, well, well said. 00:59:15.580 --> 00:59:16.440 Well done there. 00:59:16.620 --> 00:59:17.040 Very good. 00:59:17.360 --> 00:59:22.540 Hey, so Ray, if people like, uh, want to follow up with you, if they've got, you've got 00:59:22.540 --> 00:59:27.620 questions, if they're interested in the church and what you're doing, how can people get 00:59:27.620 --> 00:59:29.500 in touch with you or find out more about the church? 00:59:29.500 --> 00:59:33.440 So my email is Raymond at our city center.com. 00:59:33.720 --> 00:59:36.280 Raymond at our city center.com. 00:59:36.360 --> 00:59:37.180 We can start there. 00:59:37.560 --> 00:59:37.900 Awesome. 00:59:38.080 --> 00:59:38.620 Sounds great. 00:59:39.020 --> 00:59:41.160 Hey, so Ray, thanks for jumping on this. 00:59:41.280 --> 00:59:45.400 Emily, thanks for, for co-hosting and helping the conversation for, for Ray and Emily. 00:59:45.560 --> 00:59:48.700 This is, uh, Jeff at the church digital and stadia church planning. 00:59:48.840 --> 00:59:51.780 Uh, thanks for joining us and we'll see you next time here at the podcast. 00:59:51.880 --> 00:59:52.360 Y'all have a good day.