WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.900 Episode 76 of the Church Digital Podcast powered by State A Church Planting. Jeff here. Once again, 00:00:05.920 --> 00:00:11.780 we've got a great episode for you. Digging in here, getting into the individual, getting into 00:00:11.780 --> 00:00:17.840 the one, getting into the smallness of Church Online. Really, when we talk about Church Online, 00:00:17.960 --> 00:00:24.400 we often think of it as this big, massive, huge thing, but really the success of Church Online 00:00:24.580 --> 00:00:32.560 is not found in its large reach as much as it is in a much smaller engagement. And so we're going to 00:00:32.560 --> 00:00:37.720 talk a lot about that here within this context. We're bringing in Lee Coate, executive pastor 00:00:37.720 --> 00:00:42.960 of the Crossing Church in Las Vegas, a large church. By the way, he also does some work with 00:00:42.960 --> 00:00:49.940 intentional churches, if you're familiar with that. But in context, we talk a lot in this episode 00:00:51.160 --> 00:00:57.640 about individuals, not the mass of what's happening, but the smallness of the individuals 00:00:57.640 --> 00:01:03.660 and how we as a church can reach them. By the way, we're not talking about individuals that 00:01:03.660 --> 00:01:09.640 are just within the physical church building. We're not just talking about the individuals that 00:01:09.640 --> 00:01:14.460 are in a digital-only environment that are not attending the physical building. We're actually 00:01:14.460 --> 00:01:22.620 talking about both and how to develop an intentional discipleship pathway, or as he calls it, a digital 00:01:22.620 --> 00:01:32.340 engagement pathway that your church can utilize the technology component to start to engage and track 00:01:32.340 --> 00:01:38.460 with people in digital space, sure, but also engage and track with people who are going to your church 00:01:38.460 --> 00:01:44.700 for discipleship in the physical environment. Once again, digital. It's this combination of physical 00:01:44.700 --> 00:01:50.660 and digital working together to get this digital placement. And this here, this is what we really 00:01:50.660 --> 00:01:55.900 wanted to talk about. How do we engage people? How do we meet people? How do we build relationships 00:01:55.900 --> 00:02:03.300 with people who are just watching church online and get them to a place where they are fully engaged and 00:02:03.300 --> 00:02:11.060 they're activated in ministry in your church, whether physical or digital only? Fascinating conversation, 00:02:11.380 --> 00:02:18.060 really, really deep level stuff here. By the way, his engagement pathway, Lee's engagement pathway, 00:02:18.460 --> 00:02:23.360 we've got a link to it in the show notes. We're going to talk about this a ton. So swing over to the 00:02:23.360 --> 00:02:28.820 show notes, check it out at thechurch.digital. There's a blog there. If you can't find it, go find, 00:02:28.900 --> 00:02:33.020 search for it and find it there. But access that information, have it available because we're going to be 00:02:33.020 --> 00:02:37.580 talking a lot about this pathway through this podcast. So for the conversation, I'm bringing 00:02:37.580 --> 00:02:43.980 in Lee Coat, Executive Pastor, Crossing Church in Vegas, Ray DeArmis, Digital Pastor, Christ 00:02:43.980 --> 00:02:48.600 Fellowship Miami, and of course, myself, Jeff with the Church Digital and Stadia Church Planning in a 00:02:48.600 --> 00:02:54.260 conversation that I'm calling Digital Engagement Pathways for Your Church. Okay, everybody, here you go. 00:02:54.260 --> 00:03:01.660 So what's interesting about the crossing, Jeff and Ray, is that we would say that for, as long as I can 00:03:01.660 --> 00:03:10.360 remember, we really had an online presence that was there as either an introduction for people or a 00:03:10.360 --> 00:03:16.740 placeholder for people, maybe a substitution or a supplement for people that were unable to make it 00:03:16.740 --> 00:03:25.180 to our physical locations. And that was fine. That was actually a strategy for us. So our online presence, 00:03:25.180 --> 00:03:33.980 I would say, outside of social media, really was limited to our Sunday worship experience being 00:03:33.980 --> 00:03:41.100 broadcast. And so the way I would describe it is, we would bring our auditorium into your living room, 00:03:41.100 --> 00:03:49.180 but you would definitely feel as if you were watching our auditorium in your living room. There was small 00:03:49.180 --> 00:03:55.880 small acknowledgements that you might be watching from somewhere else, but generally, the content and the 00:03:55.880 --> 00:04:03.880 tone of our gatherings would have been directed towards those who were physically in the room. Obviously, 00:04:03.880 --> 00:04:14.600 with COVID happening in March, we made a pivot. And the pivot for us was not as dramatic as probably for some who 00:04:14.600 --> 00:04:20.740 literally had no online presence and had to pivot to figuring it out with iPhones and learn things like 00:04:20.740 --> 00:04:30.360 black magic and 720 and YouTube and things like that. But our pivot was more towards how do we begin to 00:04:30.360 --> 00:04:39.260 build content towards an online audience? And what does that look like? And some of that was technology and 00:04:39.260 --> 00:04:45.660 technical things that we don't need to talk about that's way outside of my lane. But more so like what 00:04:45.660 --> 00:04:52.900 is to your question, what are what is that audience? And frankly, I think the question that I hope a lot of 00:04:52.900 --> 00:04:58.980 churches are have asked that we began to ask early on, which I'm grateful for is, are we just going to 00:04:58.980 --> 00:05:06.860 build a platform that holds our people over for as long as they are sheltering in place, or not physically? Or are we 00:05:06.860 --> 00:05:15.260 going to build a platform that continues to reflect our values of, you know, helping people discover 00:05:15.260 --> 00:05:22.140 Jesus and their own personal journey of faith? And that word discover is a big word. We'll talk about it 00:05:22.140 --> 00:05:27.020 even a little more later. But this idea of we wanted a platform that we could continually see people 00:05:27.020 --> 00:05:33.420 come to Christ and come into community at the crossing. And so that really drove our decisions, 00:05:33.420 --> 00:05:40.220 obviously not within the first 48 hours. But within the first week or two, as we started to get our feet under us off the 00:05:40.220 --> 00:05:46.540 pivot, and started to get organized, then we began to ask those questions moving forward. The funny part is we 00:05:46.540 --> 00:05:55.580 initially told people we're going to be online for two weeks. And as of this recording, we are 12 weeks and no end in 00:05:55.580 --> 00:05:59.580 sight as far as no physical gatherings for us here in Vegas. 00:05:59.580 --> 00:06:04.460 What kind of changes did you see? And I know that you guys had some discussions and you guys talked 00:06:04.460 --> 00:06:09.020 about it, but what would you say are some of the greatest changes that you've seen in terms of how 00:06:09.020 --> 00:06:13.900 you've adapted to this? Because I imagine a lot of churches are experimenting with different types of 00:06:13.900 --> 00:06:18.300 adaptations. And so, you know, what has been the secret sauce for the crossing? 00:06:18.300 --> 00:06:25.500 Well, I think, I think I would say, Ray, a holistic approach pretty quickly was important for us. 00:06:26.300 --> 00:06:32.700 And we'll even drive some of our decisions post-COVID. What I mean by that is we pivoted initially, 00:06:32.700 --> 00:06:37.020 obviously, to bring our worship gatherings. And those took on a little bit of a different form, 00:06:37.020 --> 00:06:44.620 obviously, two camera, a little bit more compressed service times. Things that were directed to that online 00:06:44.620 --> 00:06:52.060 audience, action steps, those sorts of things, engaging in chats, empowering our staff to be 00:06:52.060 --> 00:06:58.300 very present and engaging in those rooms. But I would say even beyond that, making sure that our extended 00:06:59.900 --> 00:07:05.900 ministry also began to have a presence. I'll give you one example. So we have a recovery ministry 00:07:05.900 --> 00:07:12.860 that meets every Monday night, as many churches do. I won't name the recovery ministry, 00:07:13.420 --> 00:07:21.820 but initially they did not want us to take their content online. So we immediately pivoted and our 00:07:21.820 --> 00:07:31.020 recovery ministry became Crossing Recovery, which we call CR. And we started recording music and 00:07:31.020 --> 00:07:39.340 testimonies slash devotionals. And we've had that going on for since the beginning, especially for those 00:07:39.340 --> 00:07:45.020 people that really need that 12-step process, right? If that goes away, that can be life-changing for them 00:07:45.020 --> 00:07:51.020 and life-altering. So that would be an example of thinking that went beyond Sunday. What do we need 00:07:51.020 --> 00:07:58.220 to be doing to create not just an online audience, but really an effective online picture of what the 00:07:58.220 --> 00:07:58.860 church should be? 00:07:59.900 --> 00:08:04.300 Yeah, Jeff sent me a photo of the funnel that you guys are using. And why don't you just tell some of 00:08:04.300 --> 00:08:10.540 our listeners about that funnel in terms of how you see somebody moving from all of that online content 00:08:10.540 --> 00:08:13.580 that you guys are putting out there to actually being engaged in your church? 00:08:13.580 --> 00:08:23.260 And I think that that focus, the idea of a pathway or a funnel is kind of our narrative of our optimum 00:08:23.260 --> 00:08:28.460 narrative of where we would want to see people move. We realize people do what they want to do and the 00:08:28.460 --> 00:08:33.420 timing they want to do it. But we believe it's important for us to have an optimum narrative because 00:08:33.420 --> 00:08:39.100 we want one to work that, scrub it all the time, see what's working, what's not, and really measure 00:08:39.100 --> 00:08:44.220 movement off of that. So if someone links to the picture, which I'm sure Jeff will, one of the words 00:08:44.220 --> 00:08:50.540 they see is movement. These are not programs. I want people to understand we're not taking all of 00:08:50.540 --> 00:08:57.820 our programs and pressing them into a narrative. We're really saying what are the key things that 00:08:57.820 --> 00:09:03.020 we want to produce movement towards someone getting connected to Christ and getting connected to the 00:09:03.020 --> 00:09:07.580 crossing. And we say that over and over again. So within a week or two, we started pressing in, 00:09:07.580 --> 00:09:15.580 and we have a physical location pathway that looks similar to that, but would include other elements 00:09:15.580 --> 00:09:22.940 that are for the physical experience. And so we just basically said, what would a digital virtual 00:09:22.940 --> 00:09:29.500 experience of movement and connection look like? And the top of it is really our reach. We started 00:09:29.500 --> 00:09:34.860 asking the questions around how do we reach people who are far from Christ or far from church community 00:09:34.860 --> 00:09:39.580 and started looking at that and then moved our way down. What's interesting about it is there are 00:09:39.580 --> 00:09:44.860 handoffs as well. If you, if you look at that chart, there are certain places where there's a, 00:09:44.860 --> 00:09:50.700 there's a handoff as far as who will be responsible for that person's care, that person's movement, 00:09:50.700 --> 00:09:57.420 that person's growth along the pathway. And it all starts from our people just spreading and sharing 00:09:57.420 --> 00:10:02.940 to their, to the ones in their life, to use that term, and then beginning to see those people take 00:10:02.940 --> 00:10:06.780 steps. And so that was really the fruition of it. It was taking what we were doing already 00:10:06.780 --> 00:10:15.980 and pushing it into a, an online context. And now that will continue to lead to live for us, um, 00:10:15.980 --> 00:10:20.780 indefinitely because it's, it really, what has shifted our mentality towards that. 00:10:20.780 --> 00:10:24.620 Yeah. And I'm glad you said that. Cause that was going to be my next question was what's going to 00:10:24.620 --> 00:10:29.420 hang around off of this post in terms of reopening, like what's going to stay. 00:10:29.420 --> 00:10:34.300 Yeah. And that's the question, Ray, right. That everybody's asking, right. Is what's permanent and 00:10:34.300 --> 00:10:40.780 what's temporary and everybody has ideas and you can spend all day reading blogs and, and websites and 00:10:40.780 --> 00:10:46.220 listening to podcasts like this, you know, where people are telling you, uh, you know, on two sets of the, 00:10:46.220 --> 00:10:51.180 one set is saying, everything's going to eventually go back to normal. The other sets saying, you know, 00:10:51.180 --> 00:10:56.940 sell your building, you never, nothing's ever going to be the same. We've taken kind of a last 10% 00:10:56.940 --> 00:11:04.540 approach where we've said, we're not sure, um, how quickly, but we believe that, uh, 85 to 90% 00:11:04.540 --> 00:11:09.820 of things will return to some degree of normal for us. People will eventually come back and want to 00:11:09.820 --> 00:11:15.900 gather and hug each other and do that. Um, so what our team has been really scrubbing is what's the last 00:11:15.900 --> 00:11:23.660 10% that is forever changed. Number one, or we want to forever be changed that we're going to make sure 00:11:23.660 --> 00:11:29.500 stays changed. So with the pathway, we have discovered one, that there's some personal touch that we need 00:11:29.500 --> 00:11:35.740 to get back to with our guests. That's beyond just them, beyond that mentality that they just want 00:11:35.740 --> 00:11:41.420 anonymity forever. And so we've learned that once they identify themselves, that some personal touch 00:11:41.420 --> 00:11:48.300 is appropriate. Um, secondly, we've, we, we're using the term integration, which means like our discover 00:11:48.300 --> 00:11:54.380 step will be, be a physical step again, that people can come to campus. They can have lunch, they can 00:11:54.380 --> 00:12:02.220 walk around, they can talk face to face, but we'll also always maintain a virtual, um, presence that 00:12:02.220 --> 00:12:08.300 people, whether online or whether they just choose to take it from the comfort of their home, will be able 00:12:08.300 --> 00:12:14.220 to always access, um, as an integrated alternative. So those are, we're still asking and answering those 00:12:14.220 --> 00:12:20.540 questions, Ray, but that's part of what has been the light bulb moment for us, as far as our movement from 00:12:21.260 --> 00:12:28.540 church, just showing up online when you want it to, this is an experience that integrates, um, in an 00:12:28.540 --> 00:12:34.700 omni-channel type way with our church. So you can physically show up sometimes, or digitally show up 00:12:34.700 --> 00:12:40.300 sometimes, and you can play in both of those sandboxes and still grow in your relationship with Christ and 00:12:40.300 --> 00:12:44.620 your relationship with the crossing. Yeah. I love that omni-channel. We've 00:12:44.620 --> 00:12:51.420 talked a lot about that, uh, on the podcast going, going back about how you're through omni. You're 00:12:51.420 --> 00:12:56.780 trying to get a consistent messaging across multiple platforms. Typically it's more like social media, 00:12:56.780 --> 00:13:02.860 making sure you're, you're consistent across, but I love your approach of physical and digital, 00:13:02.860 --> 00:13:09.500 both being a consistent messaging. Um, one of the things that I'd love to know is who's watching, 00:13:09.500 --> 00:13:16.620 like when you're looking at UK, so you've got 85 to 90% who are physically going back to a building 00:13:17.180 --> 00:13:21.420 at some point, at least that's a guesstimate of what I understood, what you're planning. 00:13:22.620 --> 00:13:27.260 What do you know of, of the 10%? Are they people that are in Vegas? Are they people who used to be in 00:13:27.260 --> 00:13:34.220 Vegas and moved away? Or are they people who just are connecting with your church through, who are they? 00:13:34.220 --> 00:13:41.100 Like, where are you seeing these people come from? Our best way to, um, first of all, that's, 00:13:41.100 --> 00:13:46.700 there's some data that we have obviously Jeff on that, but it's also pretty tricky. Like everything, 00:13:46.700 --> 00:13:52.460 the, the one, one of the reasons why we have these conversations is the, the nuance of the digital world 00:13:52.460 --> 00:13:57.260 is it can be pretty hard to really nail down what's really going on. There's a lot of, 00:13:57.260 --> 00:14:02.780 a lot of, uh, uh, challenges there, but what we, I'll tell you what we're learning about that audience 00:14:02.780 --> 00:14:08.140 is, you know, and we're learning it a lot through our, through our, our pathway because we're, 00:14:08.140 --> 00:14:14.380 as people are moving through it, that's a really good identifier because I think there's so many eyes 00:14:14.380 --> 00:14:19.580 on everybody's thing, right? I'm watching other churches. I'm, I'm peeking in on my friends or 00:14:19.580 --> 00:14:26.140 people I'm coaching. And so I know there's a lot of dialogue around numbers and how many do we think 00:14:26.140 --> 00:14:32.300 are watching and which platforms are best. Um, what I really see is as people start to move from 00:14:32.300 --> 00:14:39.260 the wider end of that funnel and they begin to actually take movement steps into connection is 00:14:39.260 --> 00:14:45.020 where we're really looking at going, okay, this is an integrated model because even if someone, 00:14:45.020 --> 00:14:50.300 I was on our discover lounge three weeks ago and there was a gentleman in New York outside of 00:14:50.300 --> 00:14:55.580 Manhattan who had been watching our service for four weeks. And I don't think this story is just 00:14:55.580 --> 00:15:01.740 anecdotal. I think it's, it's at least an idea of where this can be. And he showed up in our discover 00:15:01.740 --> 00:15:07.580 lounge to take the next step. And he's going to get in an online group from New York and he's going 00:15:07.580 --> 00:15:13.420 to be with people in Vegas and people from elsewhere. So I think what we're learning is if you will lean 00:15:13.420 --> 00:15:20.460 in towards the one in your digital environments, not just as a supplement for your 99 who show up, 00:15:21.100 --> 00:15:29.340 that you will begin to open up the audience much wider, both locally and even beyond that, 00:15:29.340 --> 00:15:35.900 because the tone of what you're doing will tell them they are welcome there versus the tone of I'm 00:15:35.900 --> 00:15:41.420 watching a service that's for a bunch of people that live in Vegas. They can pick up on that. But if 00:15:41.420 --> 00:15:46.940 the tone is, man, we're glad you're here, wherever you're watching, that's key. I will say the caveat is 00:15:47.580 --> 00:15:52.540 we're not treating it as a broadcast and I'm not sure I'm using the right word. So correct me, 00:15:52.540 --> 00:15:59.180 Jeff, in your world, but we're not looking at creating a crossing broadcast channel or a Christian 00:15:59.180 --> 00:16:06.780 network of content. Nothing wrong with that, but that's not our directive. That's why this engagement 00:16:06.780 --> 00:16:12.060 funnel we're talking about is so important. Because I think when you see broadcast, they're not really 00:16:12.060 --> 00:16:17.580 looking to move people into that kind of community. And we're looking to see people engage in our church 00:16:17.580 --> 00:16:23.740 digitally. You know, it's interesting. I just came out of a meeting, a conversation just before we did 00:16:23.740 --> 00:16:28.620 this recording and we were talking about physical first and we were talking about digital first and 00:16:28.620 --> 00:16:35.260 kind of the challenges back and forth with that. And somebody made the observation, hey, shouldn't we 00:16:35.260 --> 00:16:41.900 be face to face first? Like, it's not about the building. It's not about the technology. It's about 00:16:41.900 --> 00:16:47.500 the relationship piece. And I was like, oh, that's good. I'm going to steal that because it really is. 00:16:48.140 --> 00:16:55.500 It's about that relationship, that aspect of it. And you hinted at it. And I want you to dig in a 00:16:55.500 --> 00:17:01.420 little bit because we've not exposed the podcast to this yet, but I'm going to very quickly in 00:17:01.420 --> 00:17:07.260 subsequent episodes, talk to me about the one. You talked about how, instead of doing a broadcast 00:17:07.260 --> 00:17:13.340 reaching, you're really interested in kind of reaching into and finding the one. I would love to 00:17:13.340 --> 00:17:17.900 hear it and maybe explain a little bit. What is the one for crossings? 00:17:17.900 --> 00:17:22.460 Right. So there's a lot of different terms and I don't want to, I don't want to make people crazy 00:17:22.460 --> 00:17:27.580 who might be listening because you have to, you have to filter this conversation through 00:17:27.580 --> 00:17:32.460 the great commission, right? That our strategy drives our vision through our values towards our 00:17:32.460 --> 00:17:37.980 mission. And our mission is the great commission. And whoever's listening from a church context, we all have the same 00:17:37.980 --> 00:17:43.100 mission. Even if we have a cute statement that says something a little different, it's all based on the 00:17:43.100 --> 00:17:48.300 great commission, right? So then we back up into values and vision and strategy, which can get 00:17:49.020 --> 00:17:55.580 very diverse, the further you get into strategy. And so for us to have the one in mind, Jeff, is 00:17:56.140 --> 00:18:02.780 crucial and key to the tone at which we set. And so we have conversations around things, as many churches 00:18:02.780 --> 00:18:09.260 do, like primary target. Who is our primary target? Doesn't mean the other targets don't matter, but who 00:18:09.260 --> 00:18:16.540 are we primarily thinking is on the other end of either sitting in a chair or has their device open and is 00:18:16.540 --> 00:18:23.180 watching us communicate and what is compelling about that experience for them. So you have churches all 00:18:23.180 --> 00:18:29.020 the time that'll talk about, you know, 35 year old married male with two kids, things like that. We 00:18:29.020 --> 00:18:33.900 have some variants of that that we talk about, but I think what's interesting and you bring up a great 00:18:33.900 --> 00:18:39.020 point because I think it will be interesting going forward to look at. And one of the things that 00:18:39.020 --> 00:18:42.780 online does allow you, right, is a little bit, even an easier way of looking at 00:18:43.580 --> 00:18:47.980 demographics that are viewing, especially with Facebook and some of those things, 00:18:47.980 --> 00:18:53.020 we're able to see who is watching. Who are these people that are watching? What kind of content are 00:18:53.020 --> 00:18:59.180 they interacting with? And I think we will continue to tweak to answer your question. I'm not sure right 00:18:59.180 --> 00:19:05.020 quite yet who our one is online. I know they're there, but I think we'll continue to tweak as we can 00:19:05.020 --> 00:19:11.900 define that more and start to start to say. And we're having the conversation now around do we go back to 00:19:12.620 --> 00:19:21.260 basically streaming what we're doing in the room or do we continue to create content that I would say is 00:19:21.260 --> 00:19:27.420 modeled after what we do in the room, but it's not an absolute mimicking of what we do in the room. 00:19:27.420 --> 00:19:33.020 And that conversation is ongoing right now because we're talking resources and staffing and all of 00:19:33.020 --> 00:19:39.180 that. But that conversation is about the one. Like, how are we going to reach the one that catches us 00:19:39.180 --> 00:19:44.620 online, whether they live in Vegas or in Long Island? And what's the best way to do that with 00:19:44.620 --> 00:19:49.660 the content we're giving them? So that's a long answer to, I think, a pretty important question 00:19:50.220 --> 00:19:55.100 that is yet to be answered for us in its entirety. But I think we're asking and you're asking 00:19:55.740 --> 00:20:01.580 the right question for sure. Yeah. And that's a hard question for so many churches right now is 00:20:01.580 --> 00:20:06.780 do we create content just for online, especially planning for reopening? Where are you guys, 00:20:06.780 --> 00:20:10.220 I know you talked about how you're back and forth in the process, but what are you guys considering 00:20:10.220 --> 00:20:14.700 as far as what that would look like in terms of, hey, we're going to continue, but we're going to 00:20:14.700 --> 00:20:20.140 treat this almost as if it's a separate campus in a unique neighborhood that we're trying to reach. 00:20:21.100 --> 00:20:27.260 Yeah, we've taken the bold step of actually reintegrating one of our locations that we had 00:20:27.260 --> 00:20:31.980 that was in a portable school because we just aren't even sure about their ability to meet. 00:20:31.980 --> 00:20:38.780 And so we made the preemptive step in the last few weeks to have them integrate back into one of our 00:20:38.780 --> 00:20:45.340 other locations, that group of people. And we made a staff change and moved that lead location person 00:20:45.340 --> 00:20:50.060 into an online lead role. And it's interesting, Ray, as I talked to him, he started 00:20:50.060 --> 00:20:54.460 thinking, what does that mean for me as far as content creation, all that. And the conversations 00:20:54.460 --> 00:21:00.060 we've been having is you don't need to worry that much about that. You need to pastor the same way 00:21:00.060 --> 00:21:06.220 you would pastor a physical location. Do that, create steps, make sure people are being cared for, 00:21:06.220 --> 00:21:12.220 make sure movements happening, be online, right? So we'll do some live things with him and all that. 00:21:12.220 --> 00:21:17.260 But I didn't put him in that role so that he could create content. We have people that can do that. I 00:21:17.260 --> 00:21:25.580 need him to be a pastoral, to Jeff's term, face to face as much as possible for those individuals that 00:21:25.580 --> 00:21:31.420 choose to be part of our online campus experience. So that's a preemptive step that we've already taken. 00:21:31.420 --> 00:21:38.460 We've also slowed our re-entry, probably more than some, we're not as anxious for re-entry. 00:21:38.460 --> 00:21:43.900 I just think that I've seen a shift in the last two to three weeks where there was a lot of language 00:21:43.900 --> 00:21:50.220 around the church is not a building and it's all good, you know, a church in multiple living rooms and 00:21:50.220 --> 00:21:57.420 thousands of, and it was great, right? And all of a sudden now re-entry has become a thing. And I feel like the, 00:21:57.420 --> 00:22:05.980 the rush to, to close has now become the rush to re-entry or reopen. And I'm, I'm a little concerned 00:22:05.980 --> 00:22:12.460 that even for us, ourselves included, that we're rushing to re-entry and we're going to miss the 00:22:12.460 --> 00:22:18.300 opportunities that God to make it, which it is a spiritual thing that God has given us in our rush 00:22:18.300 --> 00:22:25.340 to get back to what we knew as normal. And we're, we're slower, partly because we have to be in our 00:22:25.340 --> 00:22:31.500 context right now, we, we can't meet. And secondly, one of our guiding principles of re-entry is we 00:22:31.500 --> 00:22:39.180 don't want to reopen until our physical locations experience can match or exceed what we're doing 00:22:39.180 --> 00:22:47.100 online. And right now we could not even touch what we're doing online, even if we had bodies in a room. 00:22:47.740 --> 00:22:54.220 So we've taken a little bit of a harder stance on, we're going to go slow to try to continue to maintain 00:22:54.220 --> 00:22:59.260 a hard online presence that will continue beyond re-entry. And I just caution guys out there that 00:22:59.260 --> 00:23:04.940 have kind of said online, online, oh yeah, that thing over there. You know, I, I don't think it's, 00:23:04.940 --> 00:23:09.900 I don't think it's going away. Here's what's cool. We've exposed people while they were captive, 00:23:10.780 --> 00:23:15.020 they were sheltered at home. We've exposed people to something that in January, they would 00:23:15.020 --> 00:23:20.380 have said, eh, I don't really want to do that. Right. I like to be in church. I'm not saying they 00:23:20.380 --> 00:23:25.820 won't come back to church. I think most of them will, but when the suggestion is made or when the 00:23:25.820 --> 00:23:31.420 opportunity is now made for them to either attend or invite to an online presence, they're going to be 00:23:32.140 --> 00:23:38.140 way into going, yep, that's a great, we did that for three or four months. It's an awesome way to 00:23:38.140 --> 00:23:42.220 attend church. I'm not afraid of that right now. I'm feeling a lot of people going, I'm done. I want 00:23:42.220 --> 00:23:46.620 to go back to a physical thing, but as things start to settle in, I think there's going to be a lot of 00:23:46.620 --> 00:23:52.540 openness to that online experience. I want to lean in there real quick for a moment because reopening 00:23:52.540 --> 00:23:57.660 to me is not evangelistic. It's a little bit self-serving in the sense that we're rushing back, 00:23:57.660 --> 00:24:02.780 but really to get our own people in the door because non-believers don't care to rush to 00:24:02.780 --> 00:24:06.860 church right now. No, this is not an environment where people are going to be inviting their 00:24:07.900 --> 00:24:14.700 ones into the building. It's just not, but you can still invite them online and there's a pipeline 00:24:14.700 --> 00:24:20.140 there, Ray, for sure. Right. And part of the reason I believe, and this may be unfair, and I don't want 00:24:20.140 --> 00:24:25.100 to caveat this part, this may be unfair of different folks' church, but part of the reason I believe 00:24:25.100 --> 00:24:30.460 that is because they don't have that discipleship pathway for online, which is why they're in such 00:24:30.460 --> 00:24:36.540 a rush to reopen. And so can you talk about how that is affecting your decision to slow the process 00:24:36.540 --> 00:24:43.180 down because you're still carrying people through this process? I think it's a valid point you make, 00:24:43.180 --> 00:24:53.340 Ray, is if you're now, let's say, 10 to 12 weeks into the online almost exclusively, and you don't have 00:24:53.340 --> 00:24:57.660 some degree of an understanding of how we're going to move people in an online environment, 00:24:57.660 --> 00:25:02.700 then I would say you are probably very desperate to get back into the building at this point because 00:25:03.340 --> 00:25:09.820 you've kind of stopped at the hour on Sunday experience. And I think your point is well taken. 00:25:09.820 --> 00:25:15.500 I think that as we develop an understanding of how we can actually disciple and move people and reach 00:25:15.500 --> 00:25:21.340 people, which we've talked about, through an online experience. Again, I think it can be cooperative. I don't think 00:25:21.340 --> 00:25:27.980 it has to be a destination model. I think a destination model is valid. And if that's what God's called 00:25:27.980 --> 00:25:33.580 people and given them a vision for, go for it. I don't think it has to be that. I think it can be 00:25:33.580 --> 00:25:41.660 an integrated or even a entryway type model, but it needs to have that reach factor in order for it to 00:25:41.660 --> 00:25:47.180 be worth the resourcing that people are doing. I've actually encouraged a lot of people, Ray and Jeff, 00:25:47.180 --> 00:25:51.500 to not go full online campus. I've talked to guys that are like, oh, we're going to be an online campus. 00:25:51.500 --> 00:25:56.940 And I'm like, I'm not sure that you're quite ready or have the understanding of what that really means. 00:25:56.940 --> 00:26:03.580 So it's okay for you to just go back to a re-entry model or an entryway model that just sort of is a 00:26:03.580 --> 00:26:09.820 front door for your one. That's totally valid. It's okay to do that, right? To create an environment 00:26:09.820 --> 00:26:17.180 where people can see before they come. Totally a valid reason to have an online presence. I just think we 00:26:17.180 --> 00:26:22.620 have to make those decisions and then create that pathway that will allow people to not just be at a dead 00:26:22.620 --> 00:26:27.100 end, which I think is what we're experiencing right now is kind of a dead end. 00:26:27.100 --> 00:26:33.500 At worst, hopefully we're learning in this COVID season that online can complement what happens in 00:26:33.500 --> 00:26:39.820 the building and the two can work together. Maybe not as a holistic carbon copy. And I'm even fascinated 00:26:39.820 --> 00:26:43.500 with one of the things you said earlier where you were like, yeah, there's some things that we do 00:26:43.500 --> 00:26:51.180 digitally, but we just opted not to do it in online. And so there is a place for online to function, 00:26:51.180 --> 00:26:57.740 maybe in tandem or complementing and filling in some of the weaknesses of online at minimum. But there's 00:26:57.740 --> 00:27:07.820 an option for part of what I think that could be is in this role of discipleship. And you listed online 00:27:07.820 --> 00:27:13.500 groups and community response and some of these things within your digital engagement pathway. And these 00:27:13.500 --> 00:27:21.340 are very strong words. These are very strong ideas that sometimes the church struggles to get a large 00:27:21.340 --> 00:27:26.780 majority of their people in groups, because it's another thing. And the one hour small group is 00:27:26.780 --> 00:27:32.540 really three hours of dragging my kids all around the city and trying to get things. And I'm exhausted. 00:27:32.540 --> 00:27:38.380 I can't handle that. When we're starting to discover, man, online groups really isn't that bad. And yeah, 00:27:38.380 --> 00:27:44.700 I'm digitally exhausted, but it's not digital's fault. I'm digitally exhausted because I haven't had any 00:27:44.700 --> 00:27:50.140 physical interaction. If I had a balanced life between digital and physical, maybe this stuff would 00:27:50.140 --> 00:27:55.740 actually really work better. And so talk to me a little bit, you know, talking about the crossing, 00:27:56.540 --> 00:28:02.220 how the digital and the physical really complement each other or how you're planning to have a 00:28:02.220 --> 00:28:05.740 complement and work together to get people to where you want them to be. 00:28:06.620 --> 00:28:12.460 Yeah, we're leaning in hard to the integration. We're using the term integration, which is that, 00:28:12.460 --> 00:28:19.180 you know, omni idea of we want as much as possible to have some sort of a relationship between the 00:28:19.180 --> 00:28:25.500 physical. So I'll give you some examples that are all still obviously in a lot of beta forms, but 00:28:25.500 --> 00:28:30.780 you know, um, you mentioned groups. I think one of the things that we've discovered is again, 00:28:30.780 --> 00:28:35.660 that captive audience where we were able to not only pivot groups that were meeting physically 00:28:35.660 --> 00:28:41.020 to online, but also we were successful. So pleased with our team, because I know this is harder than 00:28:41.020 --> 00:28:49.420 I'm making it sound. We were successfully able to launch, um, quite a few groups, just strictly online 00:28:49.420 --> 00:28:54.300 groups that had not existed before that people were, you know, shelter in place. And we said, 00:28:54.300 --> 00:29:00.620 what we did is we pivoted to a four week message based group model for the duration of this time. 00:29:00.620 --> 00:29:06.540 And our idea was you can give it four weeks and if it doesn't work or life changes, you're out and 00:29:06.540 --> 00:29:11.420 it's all message based. Nobody's got to have a study. You don't got to watch a video. You just attend on 00:29:11.420 --> 00:29:16.780 Sunday, which helped drive that show up on a Tuesday night, have a conversation around questions we've sent 00:29:16.780 --> 00:29:21.580 out. It's not rocket science. Church has been doing it, but to be able to do that online and say four 00:29:21.580 --> 00:29:25.260 weeks. And then in four weeks, we're going to do another launch or you can stay with your group. 00:29:25.260 --> 00:29:29.660 The thing we've heard a lot is what we're calling a hybrid, which means we're going to have a lot of 00:29:29.660 --> 00:29:34.140 groups that are going to start meeting physically a time or two a month. We're going to have dinner 00:29:34.140 --> 00:29:39.100 and meet because we want to, but man, think about childcare. You mentioned it. Like that's the big 00:29:39.100 --> 00:29:44.940 thing with groups, right? Is what do we do with our kids? Imagine groups that meet once, twice in 00:29:44.940 --> 00:29:50.140 person, but then on a Tuesday night, mom and dad put the kids to bed and at eight o'clock on a Tuesday 00:29:50.140 --> 00:29:55.980 night, there are group meets virtually online. And so you can actually meet more consistently because 00:29:55.980 --> 00:30:02.140 you can meet more conveniently. And we believe that that will be part of what we do going forward. 00:30:02.140 --> 00:30:07.020 We're also looking at shifting things like alpha. We've got groups launching this week with alpha online. 00:30:08.620 --> 00:30:13.020 Things like FPU is creating a lot of digital content. So we're partnering with a lot of these 00:30:13.020 --> 00:30:19.660 organizations that we will continue to have physical options for that down the road, but there will be 00:30:19.660 --> 00:30:28.300 a, again, there will be an integrated digital opportunity there for almost everything that we 00:30:28.300 --> 00:30:34.540 have on our campus. We're still trying to have conversations around things like next-gen ministry. 00:30:34.540 --> 00:30:39.020 What does that look like? Those converse, right now they have an experience that's there and available. 00:30:39.740 --> 00:30:42.860 We'll have some conversations around what that looks like in the new normal. 00:30:43.020 --> 00:30:49.420 So if somebody attends a physical small group, but they decide they want to attend services online 00:30:51.020 --> 00:30:56.300 forever. I mean, like that's, that's no pain point. No, like not being in the building. 00:30:58.060 --> 00:31:03.340 How did your church get to that place? I mean, this is, I mean, yeah, COVID may change some things, but that, 00:31:03.340 --> 00:31:10.780 that's a hard pill to swallow sometimes. And it's, it's a hard place for, you know, a senior pastor standing on stage, 00:31:10.780 --> 00:31:15.820 who's used to identifying with people in the room, uh, you know, who needs that, that energy to speak 00:31:15.820 --> 00:31:20.780 to, like, talk to me a little bit about how, how your church got to this place where you're okay 00:31:20.780 --> 00:31:24.060 doing this, really this hybrid, this digital model. 00:31:24.060 --> 00:31:28.380 Yeah. I think you mentioned that. I think I would caution guys again that are listening to this, 00:31:28.380 --> 00:31:33.340 like, you know, Lencioni just came out with his book about motives. And sometimes in this reentry 00:31:33.340 --> 00:31:38.300 time, I I'm, I'm just wanting guys to just kind of at least pray through what are you, what's the 00:31:38.300 --> 00:31:43.740 motivations that are going on right now with your timing? You know, how much of it is, is motivated 00:31:43.740 --> 00:31:50.060 by something other than, um, an authentic need for people to gather during this season. And again, 00:31:50.060 --> 00:31:56.140 I, I'm not trying to answer that question. I just think, I hope guys are asking it authentically 00:31:56.140 --> 00:32:01.820 and making decisions based on that. I think for us, I think we're, um, fortunate enough to have a team 00:32:01.820 --> 00:32:09.020 that sort of, uh, lives in that. What's the, you know, give me some fresh meat. What's the next hill to 00:32:09.020 --> 00:32:16.380 take? Um, and so I realized that not every team is, is comprised that way. Um, but I would say, 00:32:16.380 --> 00:32:22.940 you know, uh, it might be time for teams, no matter how big or small your church is. Um, I love that 00:32:22.940 --> 00:32:27.980 three box solution. I can't even remember the name of the guy who wrote the book, but maybe we can 00:32:27.980 --> 00:32:33.100 reference it there had nothing to do with church, but he basically, I'm going to mess it up. But to paraphrase, 00:32:33.100 --> 00:32:40.220 he talks about how really successful organizations always are maintaining their core business or core 00:32:40.220 --> 00:32:45.980 thing. They're eliminating things that no longer are effective and they're innovating. But he talks 00:32:45.980 --> 00:32:52.540 about how those boxes don't necessarily, um, touch or interact all the time that you can have your primary 00:32:52.540 --> 00:32:56.620 business. It's like Apple, right? They're over here selling you an iPhone while they've got a group 00:32:56.620 --> 00:33:01.020 somewhere in Northern California. That's already created the next thing that we don't even know about yet. 00:33:01.020 --> 00:33:05.740 And when it's ready. So I think I would encourage churches to make sure that they at least can take 00:33:05.740 --> 00:33:10.620 some people and put them in that innovation box and go, what are the things that we aren't doing? 00:33:10.620 --> 00:33:15.020 We can go ahead and stand in front of the people and preach and do all that stuff. But do we have 00:33:15.020 --> 00:33:20.700 somebody over here that's thinking about what's next and we're giving them at least enough, uh, 00:33:21.500 --> 00:33:26.700 enough gasoline poured on it that they can start to create and, and start to integrate that stuff 00:33:26.700 --> 00:33:32.220 into what our core model is. And I think we've, we've tried to do that as much as possible, um, 00:33:32.220 --> 00:33:36.860 to use somewhat of that concept of going, yeah, we got to do what we do, right? We got to do what the 00:33:36.860 --> 00:33:42.380 Great Commission calls us to do, but let's, let's keep this going over here and let's see what works 00:33:42.380 --> 00:33:46.780 and let's integrate it into what is the core. And so I don't care how small or large you are. I think 00:33:46.780 --> 00:33:53.580 churches can innovate in their context and their demographic if they will allow the guys, if it's 00:33:53.580 --> 00:33:58.780 not you as the senior leader, but you've got people on your team that want to do that, put them tech, 00:33:58.780 --> 00:34:03.900 quote unquote, in a box over here and let them innovate a little bit and see what it might do 00:34:03.900 --> 00:34:07.180 as far as your kingdom impact in the context that God's placed you in. 00:34:07.180 --> 00:34:14.780 Yeah, that makes for a very agile church, but it also means you're not worried about tomorrow, 00:34:14.780 --> 00:34:21.020 Matthew 6:34, tomorrow worry about itself. You're just putting trust in today with that, but you also, 00:34:21.020 --> 00:34:27.820 you have to let go of a lot of the, the tensions and control because you're now trusting the guy 00:34:27.820 --> 00:34:36.060 that's in the innovation box. By the way, it's Vijay, uh, yeah, I cannot do it. We'll include the link in 00:34:36.060 --> 00:34:39.420 the show notes. I Googled it real quick. It sounds like it's a really interesting box. 00:34:39.420 --> 00:34:43.260 Yeah. He's got a Ted talk that if you don't want to read, you can just watch the 10 minute Ted talk 00:34:43.260 --> 00:34:47.340 and you'll get the gist of it. It's really good. Sounds good. We'll link to that too. Cause, 00:34:47.340 --> 00:34:52.140 cause I'm all about the 10 minute Ted talk. That's awesome. But there's a piece of this where you're 00:34:52.140 --> 00:34:58.220 letting go and you're trusting the guy that's in the box. Um, and so suddenly I have like Brad Pitt 00:34:58.220 --> 00:35:03.100 flashes what's in the box right now going through my head. So apologize for that. Don't, 00:35:03.100 --> 00:35:08.780 we won't link to that in the show notes, but, um, at, at, at the core of this, you guys are starting 00:35:08.780 --> 00:35:17.660 to, to, uh, to, to utilize this digital pathway to connect with people within your, within your 00:35:17.660 --> 00:35:24.140 physical location in a hybrid model. But you're really also starting to pave the way for a digital 00:35:24.140 --> 00:35:31.340 only crowd, people who are not attending the physical church for, for whatever reason. And, and you've 00:35:31.340 --> 00:35:37.020 talked about how you're okay if somebody does a hybrid of a physical, digital approach and a, and a digital 00:35:37.020 --> 00:35:43.900 uh, only to even to, to that extent. So when you, when you check the extremes of, of your pipeline, 00:35:43.900 --> 00:35:49.500 I'm even thinking like, uh, you know, within this funnel, I'm seeing the, the reference to community 00:35:49.500 --> 00:35:56.380 responses and things like that. What does this extreme look like in a, in a digital only environment? 00:35:56.380 --> 00:36:00.220 How is somebody getting involved in the community if they don't, they don't live in Vegas? What, 00:36:00.220 --> 00:36:02.060 what does that look like for you guys? 00:36:02.060 --> 00:36:07.740 I think that'll be really important for us to continue to press in value. That's beyond, um, 00:36:07.740 --> 00:36:12.620 where you are physically. That's, it's not about where you are, but it's about the value that 00:36:12.620 --> 00:36:19.100 supersedes all of that. Right? So, and again, that's a tonal change for us. So obviously the 00:36:19.100 --> 00:36:24.060 large majority of people who attend the crossing, even if they're digital, but local, which will be 00:36:24.060 --> 00:36:30.140 still a large majority will be able to respond to the Las Vegas community. But we are beginning to have 00:36:30.860 --> 00:36:37.980 some push into going this value of community response, partnership, love, love thy neighbor as 00:36:37.980 --> 00:36:43.180 thyself. If you're in Long Island, if you're in San Francisco, if you're watching in Wisconsin, 00:36:43.180 --> 00:36:50.700 we want to empower you and to push you through messaging and through, um, influence to engage 00:36:50.700 --> 00:36:56.380 that way where you are. Um, because, you know, I think we all would admit there's an institutional 00:36:56.380 --> 00:37:02.620 vision that we all have that caused us to start churches and to lead churches, but that any good 00:37:02.620 --> 00:37:08.220 institutional vision should lead to an individual vision, right? Where the person now starts to see 00:37:08.220 --> 00:37:13.500 the church's vision as my own, right? It's the person who goes and feeds somebody with the church 00:37:13.500 --> 00:37:18.860 and then realizes my neighbor's hungry across the street and walks across the street. So 00:37:18.860 --> 00:37:24.380 in the digital world, especially for those that are outside of our direct, um, uh, physical location, 00:37:25.020 --> 00:37:29.340 that we're going to need to lean in more to helping them understand this is an institutional 00:37:29.340 --> 00:37:34.140 vision. This is a great commission. Then it's a crossing vision, but then it becomes your individual. 00:37:34.140 --> 00:37:37.740 We can't tell you in Grand Rapids, Michigan, what this looks like for you. 00:37:38.220 --> 00:37:42.940 But man, if you're really living out fully what it is to be in Christ and to be in community, 00:37:42.940 --> 00:37:47.580 you better figure it out. Right. And I can even see a day where we'll feature a lot of 00:37:47.580 --> 00:37:51.980 those things in our social media. You'll start to see pictures of people outside of our immediate 00:37:51.980 --> 00:37:58.460 area, living out their faith that we're talking about and telling stories about in these places 00:37:58.460 --> 00:38:04.620 that we've never met except online. And to me, that is freaking amazing. 00:38:04.620 --> 00:38:11.820 So at what level, um, would you consider somebody to be not just fully engaged in the church who watches 00:38:11.820 --> 00:38:17.980 online, but actually involved into such a degree that you're considering them almost key leadership 00:38:17.980 --> 00:38:22.700 in the church because you're, you're pushing some barriers here, which is great. But you know, 00:38:22.700 --> 00:38:26.940 I don't know if you guys do membership for instance, at the crossing, but if you guys don't do something 00:38:26.940 --> 00:38:32.060 like that, then at what point would you take the outside, uh, consideration into major leadership 00:38:32.060 --> 00:38:35.900 decisions that you guys are making? So you just reminded me of something that I'm going to answer 00:38:35.900 --> 00:38:41.580 your question with this, um, and push on me if I don't get to the answer, but, um, we, we use the 00:38:41.580 --> 00:38:47.500 term activator. Um, we don't have a membership. I I'm not, I'm not, not a fan of membership for us. 00:38:47.500 --> 00:38:54.300 We just use this term activator and we define it somewhat by an individual's movement through that 00:38:54.300 --> 00:39:00.620 narrative of the pathway, right? So it's not just you're an activator because you serve in the nursery 00:39:00.620 --> 00:39:06.700 once a week. It's a, it's a much more holistic understanding of, you know, you're, you're gathering 00:39:06.700 --> 00:39:13.980 with others, you're in community with others in a smaller form and you're, um, living selflessly. 00:39:13.980 --> 00:39:18.940 That's kind of how we define it. You're living selflessly in the way you give, you go, you use your gifts. 00:39:19.580 --> 00:39:23.900 So we, we have, we, you know, we've got t-shirts that say activator. So if you've got a t-shirt, 00:39:23.900 --> 00:39:30.060 that means you've got a thing, right? Um, and during this COVID about three weeks ago, we decided we 00:39:30.060 --> 00:39:35.020 need to touch base with this people because normally we would have a gathering about three times a year 00:39:35.020 --> 00:39:41.820 with a meal and rally and, um, you know, cast vision. So we did a webinar and we put it together 00:39:41.820 --> 00:39:49.020 and it was crazy because we tried to do a webinar that was, um, kind of live slash pre re it was, 00:39:49.020 --> 00:39:55.740 it was technically, it was crazy, um, for rookies like us, but it was amazing. Had over 400 people, 00:39:55.740 --> 00:40:02.700 RSVP show up. Um, we don't know how many viewers that met and just able to check in and cast more 00:40:02.700 --> 00:40:09.660 vision and share stories around that. And so I can see now again, Ray, to your question, someone in 00:40:09.660 --> 00:40:14.860 Grand Rapids, I don't know why I'm picking on Grand Rapids, but somebody in Grand Rapids who really 00:40:14.860 --> 00:40:20.300 connects with Christ, they consider themselves part of our community and they're living out that selfless 00:40:20.300 --> 00:40:25.740 living. They're in an online small group. They're attending that they were going to create an 00:40:25.740 --> 00:40:29.900 environment where if we're live in the room with our activator night, you better believe that you're 00:40:29.900 --> 00:40:37.500 going to be able to join that in a digital way. Um, when that's happening, um, in real time is my 00:40:37.500 --> 00:40:43.820 expectation, not, Hey, catch it later, but in real time so that the Grand Rapids activator will have 00:40:43.820 --> 00:40:49.980 the same experience as the Las Vegas activator. And I, it's funny cause that sounds really amazing. 00:40:49.980 --> 00:40:55.180 And it really doesn't sound that far reaching to me now. Yeah. In January, I would have said, 00:40:55.740 --> 00:41:00.780 what's the point? So, um, I sound very confident. I need to tell the listener, like, 00:41:00.780 --> 00:41:06.140 this is all stuff that's blowing our mind over the last three months. So, um, 00:41:07.020 --> 00:41:11.500 it's okay to, it's okay for me to sound like I'm really confident when really I'm just learning 00:41:11.500 --> 00:41:17.580 like the rest of us. Well, and it gets back to where we're driven or motivated by face to face, 00:41:17.580 --> 00:41:23.500 which calls out the individual. Kerry Newhoff just recently posted like his seven trends or seven 00:41:23.500 --> 00:41:30.060 changes or seven something that you have to do to be effective. Oh my gosh. I only have three. He 00:41:30.060 --> 00:41:35.580 always has five. He's always got more, always more. He's a content machine, man. You know, 00:41:35.580 --> 00:41:40.860 he's got to have lists. He's got lists in, he's got lists in the next year of five this and six that. 00:41:41.420 --> 00:41:44.300 Dude's got more content than Netflix, man. Like he's just crazy. 00:41:46.220 --> 00:41:50.060 Awesome. Well, the thing that, the thing that I want to draw attention to is because he said, 00:41:50.060 --> 00:41:54.220 he said like the old, like he's like analog is the old way. Digital is the new way. It was like 00:41:54.220 --> 00:41:58.620 one of these types of things. And he's like, global's the old way. Local's the new way. 00:41:59.340 --> 00:42:05.260 And it's amazing to me how many people have come back around and they're like, that doesn't make 00:42:05.260 --> 00:42:10.700 sense. Local's the old way. Global's the new way. And it's like, you know, you don't, 00:42:10.700 --> 00:42:16.700 you don't understand the heart, what, what we're, where we are right now. It's about the individual 00:42:16.700 --> 00:42:25.260 and the church's role in empowering that individual to be on mission, to be an activator where they are 00:42:25.260 --> 00:42:30.380 in their local community. The global approach was my church has to be everywhere. 00:42:31.180 --> 00:42:36.380 The, the approach that Kerry Newhoff was hinting to is I don't have to buy the church, don't have to be 00:42:36.380 --> 00:42:41.100 everywhere. I need to be connected with people and I need to be empowering them where they are, which 00:42:41.100 --> 00:42:47.340 were other of his big buzzwords, empowering and connecting to get that individual to, to be that. 00:42:47.340 --> 00:42:52.060 And the story that you're telling in, in Grand Rapids or, or any of them that we're dealing with. 00:42:52.060 --> 00:42:54.140 I've got to find somebody in Grand Rapids right now. 00:42:54.140 --> 00:42:56.940 Evidently, man. You're listening and you're in Grand Rapids right here. 00:42:58.300 --> 00:43:02.300 That makes me happy. I was the guy listening to like preachers and they always told you, 00:43:02.300 --> 00:43:05.660 write to Grand Rapids, Michigan, and we'll send you a book. And I was like, Grand Rapids. 00:43:05.660 --> 00:43:10.540 It's probably in my subconscious, Ray, somewhere that that's like the address that you got to mail 00:43:10.540 --> 00:43:11.100 your check to. 00:43:12.220 --> 00:43:15.340 Zondervin is based out of Grand Rapids. I'm just saying there's, there's 00:43:15.340 --> 00:43:17.660 gotta be something up, up there in publishing. 00:43:17.660 --> 00:43:22.460 It's interesting. I think, you know, Jeff, you mentioned Kerry and he's obviously a great 00:43:22.460 --> 00:43:27.100 asset to churches. And I love what he writes about. One of the things he's been discussing 00:43:27.100 --> 00:43:34.940 that's been a bit of a, uh, uh, attention for us is that most people are, most churches are now 00:43:34.940 --> 00:43:40.380 experiencing a flattening of their digital attendance, however they were measuring it. 00:43:40.380 --> 00:43:44.620 And we could have a whole nother podcast around that, but no matter, no matter how they were 00:43:44.620 --> 00:43:49.900 measuring, I think most everyone would say they've seen a flattening. Um, and so it's interesting 00:43:49.900 --> 00:43:55.820 because Kerry has continued and others like, like our, us have continued to say there is a future 00:43:55.820 --> 00:44:00.460 for digital. And I think we're also experiencing in my conversations, guys that are going, man, 00:44:00.460 --> 00:44:06.220 I want to buy into that. But the numbers I'm seeing now are starting to make me nervous that maybe, 00:44:06.940 --> 00:44:10.140 um, I'm not ready for that, right? That you're saying it's digital, but 00:44:10.140 --> 00:44:15.260 people are flocking or flying away like crazy. Why should I lean into this? It sounds like I'm 00:44:15.260 --> 00:44:19.100 asking you guys the question, but why should I lean into this? Why should I resource this 00:44:19.100 --> 00:44:24.940 when I'm seeing people start to back away? Um, and so I'm concerned, concerned people are going 00:44:24.940 --> 00:44:29.100 to respond to that inappropriately. Yeah. What I've been telling a lot of folks who've, 00:44:29.100 --> 00:44:33.500 who've been dealing with that too, is I remind them of nine 11. You know, if you planted a church, 00:44:33.500 --> 00:44:39.020 like the week before nine 11 odds are your church that week two was packed like right after nine 11, 00:44:39.020 --> 00:44:46.220 uh, in terms of people like culture, especially running to the church, just looking for a place 00:44:46.220 --> 00:44:52.620 to go, looking for answers, looking for comfort, call it whatever you will. And then slowly trickling 00:44:52.620 --> 00:44:58.540 off. Like as that event subsides, as we kind of come to a better understanding of normal, that's how 00:44:58.540 --> 00:45:02.380 I've been explaining to my leadership in terms of man, those first few weeks leading up to Easter were 00:45:02.380 --> 00:45:07.100 spikes, man. What was going on there? And I'm like, yeah, everybody wanted a piece of Jesus. Cause they 00:45:07.100 --> 00:45:12.220 thought the world was going to end. Now they're kind of living in this and they're thinking, well, 00:45:12.220 --> 00:45:16.860 maybe things in, in the apocalypse aren't as bad as I thought. The world didn't end. So what am I 00:45:16.860 --> 00:45:22.060 doing? Well, and I think the captive audience has now become less captive in most places, even if 00:45:22.060 --> 00:45:28.060 churches are not, um, you know, starting to open up their physical locations again, people are out 00:45:28.060 --> 00:45:32.380 in most cases, however you feel about that. It's true. Right? And so, you know, I think, you know, 00:45:32.380 --> 00:45:37.900 eventually soccer practices will happen again, tournaments will happen. And so I think I agree, 00:45:37.900 --> 00:45:44.060 Ray. And I think we're just seeing also a normal attendance patterns start to take hold in the 00:45:44.060 --> 00:45:49.580 digital world. Lee, I actually think you got the answer here in this graph. Cause a lot of the times 00:45:49.580 --> 00:45:56.300 that we're going to lose people if all we're doing is providing content, because if all we are doing is 00:45:56.300 --> 00:46:01.580 providing content, there's going to be better content. Jay Crand over at Saddleback tweeted a 00:46:01.580 --> 00:46:07.980 stat and actually it made me explode. My head exploded. I literally, I tweeted the emoji like 140 times of 00:46:07.980 --> 00:46:15.180 the head exploding. When I saw this stat 10% of people have swapped to churches in this COVID season, 00:46:15.180 --> 00:46:21.020 10% of people have changed the churches that, that they're going to because the content ultimately 00:46:21.020 --> 00:46:24.780 wasn't good enough. And if the content that we're watching isn't good enough, they're going to go 00:46:24.780 --> 00:46:31.500 somewhere else. People leave on content unless we get them on mission, unless we get them engaged, 00:46:31.500 --> 00:46:37.660 which is, which is the heart of this thing. Church online is, is the first step of a service, which 00:46:37.660 --> 00:46:43.900 leads into some sort of a content where I'm interacting in a chat room or, uh, or the church is 00:46:43.900 --> 00:46:49.260 communicating with me via a welcome text. I'm now engaged in, in a two-way conversation, 00:46:49.260 --> 00:46:53.900 which is leading towards a connection where there's different things with Facebook and a 00:46:53.900 --> 00:46:59.180 discover class and, and a personal gift from the church where you're starting to stair-step people 00:46:59.180 --> 00:47:05.900 who are cold to the church or even cold to, to God into a warmer relationship with the church into a, 00:47:05.900 --> 00:47:12.620 ultimately into a face-to-face as quickly as possible interaction. If we, the church cared 00:47:12.620 --> 00:47:18.300 about the face-to-face, we wouldn't be worried about investing in digital. It's pennies compared 00:47:18.300 --> 00:47:23.420 to what launching a campus is. And at the end of the day, it's the more that we can engage people in 00:47:23.420 --> 00:47:28.540 community and create this movement that you've described in this chart. It's how that we, the 00:47:28.540 --> 00:47:33.980 church can, can thrive and multiply even in this season. So I'm sorry, Lee, I cut you off. Go ahead. 00:47:33.980 --> 00:47:41.340 I was cutting you off. Yeah. Um, I think what's interesting is that I popped on our discover 00:47:41.340 --> 00:47:47.340 lounge last night. Uh, and just, just cause I wanted to, you know, it happens every Tuesday 00:47:47.340 --> 00:47:52.780 night in a zoom room and we have people that are facilitating that, but man, it just so inspires me, 00:47:52.780 --> 00:47:58.780 you know, and we've moved a monthly environment to a weekly environment. We believe that things move 00:47:58.780 --> 00:48:03.420 faster in the digital world that I'm not going to sign up digitally for something that doesn't happen 00:48:03.420 --> 00:48:08.380 for three more weeks. That I'll sign up on a Sunday for something that happens tomorrow night 00:48:08.380 --> 00:48:14.300 or in 48 hours. And I think that's true, but we'll see, but man, I pop on there and you know, 00:48:14.300 --> 00:48:20.700 there's a dozen people in as there's a dozen, uh, little squares. Like we're looking at in a zoom 00:48:20.700 --> 00:48:26.940 room with couples, both sitting around a table, staring into the camera, single people staring at the camera 00:48:26.940 --> 00:48:32.940 from both Las Vegas and other places, watching the values of the crossing go by in a presentation, 00:48:32.940 --> 00:48:38.300 facilitating a Q and a, um, talking to them about getting connected in an online group. And I'm just 00:48:38.300 --> 00:48:46.140 like, man, like this is amazing just to see this, you know, and again, we get enamored by rooms of 00:48:46.140 --> 00:48:51.260 hundreds, right? We want, we get these, these sort of numbers of man, our first step, we need to have 00:48:51.260 --> 00:48:57.260 50 people show up this month or 75 people show up. But what's cool about the digital is they become 00:48:57.260 --> 00:49:03.180 so story-based like we've all talked about. So you're literally dealing with people one-on-one 00:49:03.180 --> 00:49:09.660 and you're seeing people in, in, in, and it's just, yeah, it's different than physical. It's different 00:49:09.660 --> 00:49:15.340 than eyeball to eyeball, but there are some things that can happen virtually that I'm not sure would 00:49:15.340 --> 00:49:22.220 happen at the speed that they happen if it was based on a physical, a physical, um, a setup. 00:49:23.660 --> 00:49:30.220 That's awesome. Well, Hey, I have, I've loved this podcast. I've, I've loved this conversation. 00:49:30.700 --> 00:49:35.340 The idea of creating a pathway and engagement pathway like this. And once again, I've said it 00:49:35.340 --> 00:49:41.260 dozen times in this podcast, click the link, look at it, take, take a look at this and, and even start to 00:49:41.260 --> 00:49:48.300 figure out how your church can, can kind of pivot towards this or develop something like this. Well, 00:49:48.300 --> 00:49:53.740 Lee, let me even ask this question as we're, as we're wrapping up here. I don't have this. I don't 00:49:53.740 --> 00:50:00.380 have a plan like this. I may not even have a plan like this for my physical church. Like how do I even 00:50:00.380 --> 00:50:05.900 get started in developing something like this for my church? Yeah. I think one of the things that's key 00:50:06.460 --> 00:50:11.660 on that digital chart that I want to mention as I, as I answer that is if you look at it on the left, 00:50:11.660 --> 00:50:18.140 there's some core foundational words, contact connect community. Those, those are words that we believe 00:50:18.140 --> 00:50:23.980 in as far as those, those are the, the movement steps. The reason there's those lines and the items 00:50:23.980 --> 00:50:31.900 on the right is because those are, those are, um, the methodology behind the objective and those are 00:50:31.900 --> 00:50:37.420 very interchangeable. So even right now, seven, eight, nine weeks in, we're still working on those 00:50:37.420 --> 00:50:42.380 things on the right. And I've told my team, we're not going to spend months. Like if something's not 00:50:42.380 --> 00:50:47.660 working towards connection or towards community, we're going to scrap it and we're going to innovate. 00:50:47.660 --> 00:50:53.660 And so right now, everything you see on the right is still in play, but I can't guarantee you that in a 00:50:53.660 --> 00:51:00.300 month that some of those things won't shift or change or be eliminated based on effectiveness 00:51:00.300 --> 00:51:05.500 towards the objectives. So I wanted people as they look at that chart to understand, I wouldn't, I would 00:51:05.500 --> 00:51:09.660 be able to tell them some practical things we've learned, but I wouldn't want to be the guy telling 00:51:09.660 --> 00:51:17.020 them, follow this model exactly. And your world will blow up with engagement. Um, but you know, 00:51:17.660 --> 00:51:22.940 I've developed these tools alongside our grow minimum group and, uh, working with some other teams. 00:51:22.940 --> 00:51:28.060 And, you know, I'm sure you'll link to me, um, along with my day job. I'd love to talk to people if we 00:51:28.060 --> 00:51:32.460 could be of any help or make some suggestions, obviously we'd love to do that. And the stuff 00:51:32.460 --> 00:51:37.260 that you guys are doing in the forums that you guys have as well, we'll continue to help people. 00:51:37.260 --> 00:51:43.340 Um, I think it's key time, man, Jeff, Ray, I think, you know, as people reenter, um, 00:51:44.540 --> 00:51:50.300 stating again, what I stated earlier, I just think this is the core time for us to make some decisions 00:51:50.300 --> 00:51:58.620 around what is online going to look like for us because, uh, uh, it, it, it, those decisions will 00:51:58.620 --> 00:52:05.580 have a huge impact on your church's, uh, ability to really fulfill the great commission at its peak 00:52:05.580 --> 00:52:08.700 that God intends in this next, in this next season. 00:52:08.700 --> 00:52:12.540 Very, very well said, by the way, I'm assuming in this funnel, 00:52:13.340 --> 00:52:18.380 like you've got six or seven steps, church online, contact connection, community online groups, 00:52:18.380 --> 00:52:23.420 community response engaged. Like I'm assuming that's your metrics. That's what you're measuring, 00:52:23.420 --> 00:52:28.620 right? Where people are. And so like, it's not just the butts in the seats number you're, 00:52:28.620 --> 00:52:32.700 you're measuring at each level of the funnel through there, which is giving you 00:52:33.180 --> 00:52:37.420 the number you're looking for, which is a more, more balanced approach. Go ahead. 00:52:37.420 --> 00:52:42.060 Yeah, for sure. Like a, um, a percentage number is generally how we're doing it. So I give you the 00:52:42.060 --> 00:52:46.940 first month, which I haven't got recent numbers, but the first month we had a hundred people, 00:52:46.940 --> 00:52:53.980 105 people who, um, RSVP for our discover. One of the things we didn't talk about is we killed our 00:52:53.980 --> 00:53:00.700 digital connection card in the first two weeks because it was a response and an ask towards nothing. 00:53:00.700 --> 00:53:05.820 And there, and so we thought let's, let's just immediately move them to this lounge, 00:53:06.380 --> 00:53:12.060 which totally violates our physical principles that we would do in our physical locations. 00:53:12.060 --> 00:53:16.620 So basically when they RSVP for the lounge, they're giving us the same information they 00:53:16.620 --> 00:53:23.420 were giving us on the connect card. They're just RSVPing. And so we had 103 people that RSVPed, 00:53:23.420 --> 00:53:31.980 we had about 60% who actually showed up. Um, and we had 30%, um, I'm sorry, we had 50% of that 60% 00:53:33.100 --> 00:53:38.540 that, so we had a hundred RSVP, 60 show up, 35 who ended up in an online group. 00:53:38.540 --> 00:53:43.420 Those were our, those were our main, um, April to May numbers right after Easter. 00:53:43.420 --> 00:53:49.660 Yes. And we feel really, I mean, if we had that, honestly, you guys, if we had that in a physical 00:53:49.660 --> 00:53:57.740 month, um, we would call that pretty effective, um, engagement and moving people through the pipeline. 00:53:57.740 --> 00:54:03.660 So we felt pretty good about that. But to your, to your bigger question, yes, we can see data wise 00:54:03.660 --> 00:54:08.700 where things are working or where things stop working potentially and where we need to pivot with our 00:54:08.700 --> 00:54:15.420 methods. Yeah. I, I love that. And accountability is so crucial with having something like this. And 00:54:15.420 --> 00:54:19.260 people are asking me, well, how, how do you count? They're trying to compare like the, 00:54:19.260 --> 00:54:23.660 the physical and the online, and you start to get to the, the multipliers, which my gosh, 00:54:23.660 --> 00:54:27.660 that just complicates things so much when you had those multipliers and all of a sudden you, 00:54:27.660 --> 00:54:32.860 you starting to get false stats coming back in where you don't really know the true story. 00:54:32.860 --> 00:54:38.540 If, if you put your metrics on this and you hold each level accountable, not for, 00:54:39.180 --> 00:54:44.300 you know, some multiplier, which producing these awesome numbers, but the ministry of what's 00:54:44.300 --> 00:54:50.540 actually happening and you're able to evaluate and adjust in there. I love what you said about how, 00:54:50.540 --> 00:54:55.980 man, the stuff that's on the right side of this graph, like it may change. If it's not effective, 00:54:55.980 --> 00:55:02.140 if, if, if chat rooms and welcome text is not effective ways of contacting, then let's change. 00:55:02.140 --> 00:55:07.900 You know, I can tell you in my own experience, like Facebook messenger cold calling is hugely 00:55:07.900 --> 00:55:12.940 effective right now. Now for, you know, three months, six months, 18 months. Sure. At some point, 00:55:12.940 --> 00:55:17.180 that's going to change. And when the numbers drop, because you're evaluating that you'll, 00:55:17.180 --> 00:55:22.700 you'll move to the next thing, but you, you have a more balanced kind of dipstick approach across the 00:55:22.700 --> 00:55:28.860 entire thing, as opposed to just kind of watching that one number and celebrating when, you know, 00:55:29.500 --> 00:55:34.700 the Facebook ads are to your benefit and you get more traffic that way. 00:55:34.700 --> 00:55:40.060 So to be honest, the top of the, the top of the funnel measurements is where you really begin to 00:55:40.060 --> 00:55:46.620 measure. I mean, if we're honest, it's when that contact is made and that real engagement starts to 00:55:46.620 --> 00:55:51.660 happen. That's really the number that matters. Everything else is just eyeballs that are difficult to 00:55:51.660 --> 00:55:57.420 really ascertain what, who is that and why are they watching and how long are they watching? 00:55:57.420 --> 00:56:03.980 But man, when they take a step, when they self identify as, Hey, I'm here and I'm interested in 00:56:03.980 --> 00:56:09.020 engaging, not just clicking on the thumbs up or the heart, but I'm literally interested in engaging to 00:56:09.020 --> 00:56:15.420 me. That's when the numbers really start mattering because they really start reflecting lives and 00:56:15.420 --> 00:56:24.620 movement and life change. That was a great line to end. I love how that was so well said. Thank you. 00:56:24.620 --> 00:56:28.860 It does. It's, it's when you get to that next level, when you get to the contact, that's where, 00:56:28.860 --> 00:56:33.660 where they self identify themselves. That's where, that's where the challenge starts. That's not where 00:56:33.660 --> 00:56:40.620 the challenge ends. And so Lee, man, thank you for that. Ray, as we're landing the plane and any closing 00:56:40.620 --> 00:56:46.140 thoughts, what are you thinking on your side? Lee, I love this. You know, just the fact that you were 00:56:46.140 --> 00:56:50.940 so open about this pathway. And I think a lot of people who are going to look at that link in the 00:56:50.940 --> 00:56:55.660 show notes are actually going to discover how much of this they're going to want to either copy over 00:56:55.660 --> 00:57:01.500 or how they can really adapt their own strategy into this, which a lot of folks aren't necessarily 00:57:01.500 --> 00:57:06.300 thinking into. And if you're leading a church and you're not thinking through pathways, then the 00:57:06.300 --> 00:57:09.820 reality is, is you're still just thinking of Sunday morning, even if that's online. 00:57:10.180 --> 00:57:13.740 As we're landing the plane, Lee, any closing thoughts on your side? 00:57:13.740 --> 00:57:20.060 Just encourage guys and gals that are leading, you know, where, where you are in this season to look 00:57:20.060 --> 00:57:24.940 beyond just the replication of your Sunday experience and pushing into people's living room, 00:57:24.940 --> 00:57:30.460 but to begin to take the, the, the great commission we've been given and in your context and in your 00:57:30.460 --> 00:57:36.940 way to begin to see how can I leverage digital moving forward as people have been exposed, as people have 00:57:36.940 --> 00:57:43.340 been embracing, um, as we move forward into this new normal, well, how do I reshape what I'm doing 00:57:43.340 --> 00:57:49.180 in order to see life transformation happen? That it wouldn't just be a supplement to what we're doing 00:57:49.180 --> 00:57:55.100 physically, but that it would become really a catalytic thing for your church to begin to 00:57:55.100 --> 00:57:59.820 stretch their influence and see the kingdom of God advance. That would be in whatever way, 00:57:59.820 --> 00:58:03.900 shape or form or strategy you use, that would be my strong encouragement to anyone that's listening. 00:58:03.900 --> 00:58:11.340 Yeah. Love that very much. And the, the marriage of the two of, of the physical and the digital 00:58:11.340 --> 00:58:16.620 working together, um, going with a digital strategy does not mean that you're abandoning the building. 00:58:16.620 --> 00:58:20.940 Now I'm, I'm a cutting edge guy. If you want to talk about a digital only church, I would love to have 00:58:20.940 --> 00:58:25.820 that conversation, but for the majority of churches out there, you're not ready for it. And, and, and 00:58:25.820 --> 00:58:31.740 a matter of fact, the culture needs the physical aspect of it too. Like, just like we're in the 00:58:31.740 --> 00:58:37.740 middle of digital, um, frustration and burnout, we need that physical engagement, even in this COVID 00:58:37.740 --> 00:58:43.340 season. So figure out how the two can marry together and create that discipleship strategy, 00:58:44.140 --> 00:58:49.820 this decide, this digital engagement pathway that we were linking to and talking about to help figure 00:58:49.820 --> 00:58:56.380 out what the next steps are. Uh, and also to hold accountable for the, for the path of, of how your 00:58:56.380 --> 00:59:01.980 church is doing in the digital space. So Lee, man, I want to thank you for jumping on this and sharing 00:59:01.980 --> 00:59:08.140 that. So very much appreciate you, um, for that, for Ray, for Lee, this is Jeff at the church digital. 00:59:08.140 --> 00:59:12.140 Thanks for jumping on the podcast again. We'll see you next time here at the show. Y'all have a good day.