WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:06.400 episode 79 of the church digital podcast powered by stadia church planning jeff here got a great a 00:00:06.400 --> 00:00:11.320 fun episode for you dave ferguson's going to be coming up down the road so if you really want to 00:00:11.320 --> 00:00:16.260 fast forward and skip the fun part okay dave's fun but the fun part of this where we're giving 00:00:16.260 --> 00:00:22.220 away stuff you want to fast forward maybe to up to minute 14 or so and get caught up but but before 00:00:22.220 --> 00:00:29.320 then listen to this we are celebrating the church digital podcast we are celebrating our 10 000th 00:00:29.320 --> 00:00:36.880 play over 10 000 podcast episodes have been listened to by you audience that's out there and 00:00:36.880 --> 00:00:42.320 we are crazy excited about that so we're bringing ray in we're going to be talking about uh just 00:00:42.320 --> 00:00:47.640 celebrating what's been happening through the church digital over the past year or so celebrating by 00:00:47.640 --> 00:00:53.580 giving stuff away giving you an audience out there the listeners out there an opportunity to engage with 00:00:53.580 --> 00:00:58.640 us because we want to hear from you and then oh by the way dave ferguson so it's going to be a packed 00:00:58.640 --> 00:01:04.600 hour here with this podcast so if you're looking for dave fast forward to minute 14 check out the show 00:01:04.600 --> 00:01:12.180 notes and engage with us and maybe even win something in process man is that not a podcast episode or what 00:01:12.180 --> 00:01:18.480 this is awesome hey here y'all go hey we're bringing ray in for the opening say hey ray hey everybody 00:01:18.480 --> 00:01:24.560 10k so excited thank you so much for all your help to get there yeah i didn't think we'd make 1k i wasn't even 00:01:24.560 --> 00:01:30.340 sure we would make 100 um some of those early podcasts listen to like i think episode four with 00:01:30.340 --> 00:01:35.560 tyler was like the first podcast we ever recorded uh-huh and uh it was a little embarrassing it was a 00:01:35.560 --> 00:01:41.360 little little a lot of editing to kind of make that thing happen but but here we are 10 000 so yeah 00:01:41.360 --> 00:01:47.000 luckily um luckily the our audience you guys have been so forgiving with us as we've moved through this 00:01:47.000 --> 00:01:52.520 over time and probably because all of you are embarrassed about your early church online videos i know i'm still 00:01:52.520 --> 00:01:57.040 embarrassed about mine that's the glory of church online is that we can always go by and live through 00:01:57.040 --> 00:02:02.840 our embarrassments isn't it yeah and and the the challenge that that i would even throw to the audience 00:02:02.840 --> 00:02:09.780 out there is i was kicking around the idea of doing a podcast for a year and i just i could i kept trying 00:02:09.780 --> 00:02:15.360 to make the thing perfect right out of the gate i i gotta have the background music i gotta write up the 00:02:15.360 --> 00:02:19.920 perfect intro i was trying to create this this perfect scenario and and uh you know it's funny 00:02:19.920 --> 00:02:26.320 i just i keep hearing this phrase uh version one's better than version none and and so instead of 00:02:26.320 --> 00:02:31.160 just sitting on it and waiting uh gary v thank you for that by the way instead of just sitting on 00:02:31.160 --> 00:02:37.320 your hands uh trying to get it to be perfect just get started it's true and you know jeff i was wrong 00:02:37.320 --> 00:02:41.840 because initially like i i thought we should skip out one episode a month you know what i'm saying and 00:02:41.840 --> 00:02:46.600 and you were pushing early on and you were right about doing one a week and i was just nervous that 00:02:46.600 --> 00:02:52.280 we couldn't churn out that kind of content on the onset and then the moment we started getting 00:02:52.280 --> 00:02:57.080 discussion with leaders and with different folks number one it just became a lot of fun you know it 00:02:57.080 --> 00:03:02.640 just became a lot of fun and real easy to do um but then number two i was surprised at how many 00:03:02.640 --> 00:03:07.880 other people we just kept getting referred to that were in this space i mean a lot of this stems out of 00:03:07.880 --> 00:03:11.640 and the audience doesn't know this they'll hear about this in a future episode a conversation that 00:03:11.640 --> 00:03:19.200 jeff myself nil smith jay cranda uh and greg atkinson had over a cup of coffee uh at a starbucks 00:03:19.200 --> 00:03:24.700 in disneyland and even back then we thought we were alone in this we didn't think that there were 00:03:24.700 --> 00:03:28.860 many players in this space because either we were either a full of ourselves or just be you know 00:03:28.860 --> 00:03:34.120 feeling like we were don quixote tilting at windmills in some cases but you know if you're out here and 00:03:34.120 --> 00:03:38.220 you're thinking man i can't make more content let me encourage you there are plenty of leaders 00:03:38.220 --> 00:03:42.780 there are plenty of people that are there around you invite them into the conversation invite them 00:03:42.780 --> 00:03:45.740 into the conversation because you'd just be surprised that the new world that you're going 00:03:45.740 --> 00:03:51.060 to open up i definitely have been pleasantly surprised by this and here we are at 10 000 listens 00:03:51.060 --> 00:03:55.980 in only 79 episodes hate to say it like that like it's it's pretty incredible beyond what we had 00:03:55.980 --> 00:04:01.500 originally thought well yeah and this is a super niche uh you know audience right pre pre-covid the 00:04:01.500 --> 00:04:06.180 number of people who were interested in doing church online i mean like it was it was a very 00:04:06.180 --> 00:04:11.700 small audience now it's increased you know thank you global pandemic for being our side by the way if 00:04:11.700 --> 00:04:16.580 you're ever interested in launching a podcast global centered around a global pandemic that will 00:04:16.580 --> 00:04:23.220 definitely help your cause launching future podcasts so remember that write that down that'll be helpful 00:04:23.220 --> 00:04:30.180 down the road but in this season um it's it's been awesome having conversations and one of with with 00:04:30.180 --> 00:04:35.160 people who are by far experienced who've been doing this for a decade all the way down to like the guy 00:04:35.160 --> 00:04:40.780 who's just starting out big churches and small churches are like hey how do you do this thing what what's 00:04:40.780 --> 00:04:46.440 involved where how do i even start in in this conversation and in the fun thing in all this is 00:04:46.440 --> 00:04:54.300 there's no silver bullet church a church b church c everything looks different and how it is and so 00:04:54.300 --> 00:05:00.580 uh what i love about the conversations that we're having or even the conversations when the people that 00:05:00.580 --> 00:05:04.840 we're interviewing we're having talking with are even honest to the point of saying hey we're just 00:05:04.840 --> 00:05:10.000 experimenting we have no idea three months from now we we may still be doing this three months and now it 00:05:10.000 --> 00:05:15.940 maybe look completely different but but rather than not trusting not being willing to try 00:05:15.940 --> 00:05:21.960 where rather than waiting we're leaning in we're leaning forward and trying to figure out how to work 00:05:21.960 --> 00:05:28.460 through this season yeah that's so true and even kind of moving into the future um and i think what a lot of 00:05:28.460 --> 00:05:32.280 people are looking for is they're looking for definitive answers with church online and what we've kept 00:05:32.280 --> 00:05:35.460 trying to say through this podcast and we hope that you take this lovingly those of you who are 00:05:35.460 --> 00:05:38.580 listening out there maybe for the first time on this episode maybe for different 00:05:38.580 --> 00:05:44.980 reasons but um but there are no definitive answers it's going to continue to evolve and change just as 00:05:44.980 --> 00:05:49.600 church planting methods of reaching people for christ all these things are constantly changing 00:05:49.600 --> 00:05:55.640 and we cannot be afraid of that change instead what we must do is we must put on our faith lens and say 00:05:55.640 --> 00:06:00.440 okay so how does the gospel move through these mediums move through these avenues because the gates of 00:06:00.440 --> 00:06:03.840 hell aren't going to prevail against it i'm sure that in the future jeff we're probably going to be 00:06:03.840 --> 00:06:09.880 talking uh more vr we're probably going to be talking more uh online small groups and how some of that's 00:06:09.880 --> 00:06:14.340 working out as more and more church small groups have gone completely online and are even afraid to go 00:06:14.340 --> 00:06:19.440 back together in physical spaces because they just don't want to get sick oh yeah wait till 5g technology 00:06:19.440 --> 00:06:25.160 comes out and uh it's a church is going to be revolutionized even on that though i mean the world's 00:06:25.160 --> 00:06:29.800 going to be revolutionized even around that you're going to see more of these revolutions coming 00:06:29.800 --> 00:06:35.900 quicker and quicker as technology grows and expands but even as much as we and this is what i love 00:06:35.900 --> 00:06:41.000 about the church online circles and the people that have been doing ministry in this area for a while 00:06:41.000 --> 00:06:47.560 even as much as we love the technology even as much as we love the new toy uh the new fandangled gadget 00:06:47.560 --> 00:06:56.360 the new apple version of the iphone ipod ipad uh earpods the apple goggle glasses that better be coming 00:06:56.360 --> 00:07:01.600 sometime soon waiting on them waiting on them tim yeah it's not about the technology it's about the 00:07:01.600 --> 00:07:07.000 relationship aspect and that's and if you hear one thing that's that's a constant theme throughout all 00:07:07.000 --> 00:07:13.540 of this it's it's the relational component of church online not broadcasting a single message for the world 00:07:13.540 --> 00:07:19.940 to hear but engaging in a conversation a relational conversation that's going to help you connect with 00:07:19.940 --> 00:07:26.580 people we it was funny um ray and i've been talking a tweet doesn't change the world no uh it's it's it's 00:07:26.580 --> 00:07:32.240 impossible to get a one-way communication blasted out to the masses uh you if you're on twitter you 00:07:32.240 --> 00:07:39.720 understand that uh a an individual conversation with another person uh relating to and listening to 00:07:39.720 --> 00:07:47.160 is is how we church online can move forward in the coming years uh and that's the culture really that i 00:07:47.160 --> 00:07:53.220 believe we church online we church we need to shift what technology does allow us to do is to connect 00:07:53.220 --> 00:07:59.240 with you listeners that are out there and so here's what we want to do we want to give away stuff 00:07:59.240 --> 00:08:06.000 because why not celebrate 10k uh by giving away starbucks coffee so assuming your starbucks is still 00:08:06.000 --> 00:08:10.380 open majority of them still are some of them may be shutting down some of them may be moving to a 00:08:10.380 --> 00:08:15.280 mobile only delivery kind of system but either way you've probably got a starbucks somewhere near you 00:08:15.280 --> 00:08:21.240 so here's what we're doing we want to give away three ten dollar starbucks gift cards to our listening 00:08:21.240 --> 00:08:27.060 audience that's out there we'll do delivery digitally we'll text email whatever it is here's what i need 00:08:27.060 --> 00:08:33.640 you to do to register for this to register for the giveaway i want to hear from you how the church 00:08:33.640 --> 00:08:41.220 digital podcast has helped your church grow and expand its ministry how listening to this podcast 00:08:41.220 --> 00:08:46.940 how interacting with your leader sharing some of these ideas how the church digital podcast has helped 00:08:46.940 --> 00:08:52.680 change your church in this covet season before this covet season whatever just let us know uh there's a 00:08:52.680 --> 00:08:57.300 system we're using it's called video peel that's going to help us collect the information from you but 00:08:57.300 --> 00:09:04.460 here's what i need you to do go to the church.digital slash 10k the number 10 letter k yeah all 10 00:09:04.460 --> 00:09:10.740 with a k um i that's not a k but it's you get the idea maybe that's okay that's just weird now i'm 00:09:10.740 --> 00:09:18.400 embarrassed the church.digital slash 10k let us know how uh we've helped you your church all submissions 00:09:18.400 --> 00:09:23.520 will be registered we will be contacting the winners within a week of the broadcast of this so that's 00:09:23.520 --> 00:09:31.580 going to be uh monday june 22nd 2020 and uh hopefully you get some coffee listen we have a 00:09:31.580 --> 00:09:37.420 niche audience okay like let's just be honest like we're not kerry newhoff worth a million people 00:09:37.420 --> 00:09:44.220 listening every week so we're consistent we're to our loyal listeners so this is your opportunity 00:09:44.220 --> 00:09:51.340 to register to submit some stuff to engage with us that start a conversation with us and by the way 00:09:51.340 --> 00:09:56.720 maybe win some coffee off it that's right you know and think about that because it's not such a huge 00:09:56.720 --> 00:10:02.920 field your odds of winning are that much greater i mean if you're just looking for a free coffee 00:10:02.920 --> 00:10:09.140 why not take advantage of this so send us your video doesn't have to be a long sermon about it 00:10:09.140 --> 00:10:12.680 doesn't have to be a whole spiel maybe you want to point to a particular episode maybe you want to 00:10:12.680 --> 00:10:18.060 point to a conversation we had or a particular takeaway that you said man you know what this came off 00:10:18.060 --> 00:10:23.020 of this and i decided to make this decision and this is how it panned out for us so no matter what it is 00:10:23.020 --> 00:10:28.260 doesn't have to be that long doesn't have to be that short just send us how god used our show in 00:10:28.260 --> 00:10:34.140 your life and we'll celebrate it together that's awesome by the way i want i want to give a special 00:10:34.140 --> 00:10:40.720 shout out as we get into our episode here to one of our listeners in canada her name is tanis now this 00:10:40.720 --> 00:10:46.800 is this is crazy because you know twitter's twitter a single tweet doesn't change the world but it can 00:10:46.800 --> 00:10:52.880 help you get connected to somebody so dave ferguson leader of the exponential conference lead pastor at 00:10:52.880 --> 00:11:00.080 community christian church in chicago author of hero maker and just all sorts of uh i mean a guy that 00:11:00.080 --> 00:11:06.820 i look up to in christian circle so dave ferguson is on twitter and and he's writing and he's doing 00:11:06.820 --> 00:11:14.200 this this post about this idea this thread of posts talking about how um digital discipleship can feed 00:11:14.200 --> 00:11:20.800 into house churches and micro locations and this is going to revolutionize like the church and so 00:11:20.800 --> 00:11:27.940 one of our listeners out there is my dog barks in celebration of one of our listeners out there um 00:11:27.940 --> 00:11:37.620 tennis so she tweets dave ferguson off of this and says hey you really need to talk to jeff reed 00:11:37.620 --> 00:11:44.100 tags me in it and says about this because he talks about this stuff all the time and so meekly i look at 00:11:44.100 --> 00:11:50.040 this tweet and it's like okay dave ferguson uh this this listener named tannis who lives in canada 00:11:50.040 --> 00:11:54.620 who got connected to me through like the church online summit which was produced by some 00:11:54.620 --> 00:12:00.180 by uh by steve fogg who lives in australia like this is an international thing australia 00:12:00.180 --> 00:12:06.860 australia yeah i'm sorry it's what is that how you say it are you making fun of me right now i have 00:12:06.860 --> 00:12:10.980 no idea you're becoming a hillsong worship leader before my eyes this is incredible 00:12:10.980 --> 00:12:19.160 paying respect man but it's funny like and so i'm like hey uh dave would you like to be on my 00:12:19.280 --> 00:12:26.580 podcast and dave replies yes and so holy cow we got dave ferguson on the podcast for the 10 000th play 00:12:26.580 --> 00:12:32.880 so we're bringing by the way tannis thank you very much tannis i'm gonna send you a starbucks gift card 00:12:32.880 --> 00:12:37.540 just for the reference because there's no other way i would have gotten dave ferguson to be on the 00:12:37.540 --> 00:12:42.000 podcast without that side note all the other listeners start tagging people too and throwing them 00:12:42.000 --> 00:12:47.060 my way yes maybe there's a little selfish ego involved in that but eh we'll roll with it it's 00:12:47.060 --> 00:12:52.120 okay if any of you know mark zuckerberg or anybody like that that you want to tag on one of our deals 00:12:52.120 --> 00:12:57.880 i mean i'm just saying just do it yeah dude zuck on the podcast i don't even know where to start 00:12:57.880 --> 00:13:02.380 with that one all right so it starts with a tweet that's how we know it starts it starts with a tweet 00:13:02.380 --> 00:13:08.880 so here's where we are we're bringing in episode 79 of the church digital podcast here dave ferguson 00:13:08.880 --> 00:13:14.340 like we said exponential lead pastor or excuse me exponential lead uh director of the exponential 00:13:14.340 --> 00:13:18.920 conference and other things community christian church lead pastor of community christian in chicago 00:13:18.920 --> 00:13:25.880 seriously we just had this solid conversation on multiplication and apprenticeship and talking 00:13:25.880 --> 00:13:33.860 about how to do this in in this new covid season post covid season coming in coming out wherever we 00:13:33.860 --> 00:13:39.360 are but where we are today solid conversation once again he doesn't have all the answers he says that 00:13:39.360 --> 00:13:45.300 up front i'm learning from this i'm wanting to explore and to understand it but this idea of and he uses 00:13:45.300 --> 00:13:50.280 the word apprenticeship instead of multiplication or disciple making discipleship but the idea of 00:13:50.280 --> 00:13:56.260 of apprenticing people and growing them to unleash them on ministry is at the heart of what he's done 00:13:56.260 --> 00:14:02.740 pre-covid he was doing it pre-covid in the physical realm but now in mid-covid man we got to figure out how 00:14:02.740 --> 00:14:08.900 to do this digitally and did do it digitally effectively and that's really the challenge of of this podcast 00:14:08.900 --> 00:14:16.040 yeah we've got uh dave ferguson uh leader of the exponential conference uh in a company myself jeff 00:14:16.040 --> 00:14:20.620 with the church digital stadia church planning in a conversation centered around multiplication and 00:14:20.620 --> 00:14:26.040 apprenticeship okay everybody here you go well hello how are you doing what's up jeff how you doing buddy 00:14:26.040 --> 00:14:31.880 doing doing very good hey thank you for just even being willing to to jump on this podcast with me i really 00:14:31.880 --> 00:14:39.180 appreciate it well um actually i was looking for an excuse to meet you so i mean talk to you even 00:14:39.180 --> 00:14:44.440 even yeah i appreciate yeah i'm jeff seriously i think i think some of the stuff that some of the 00:14:44.440 --> 00:14:49.360 stuff you're talking about that we're talking about now is like mission critical so the more 00:14:49.360 --> 00:14:54.920 connections i can make the better for me yeah i had um and even just just background for me 00:14:54.920 --> 00:15:02.900 i i resigned to a church i've been a church staff 15 20 years uh mega church giga church multi-site kind 00:15:02.900 --> 00:15:12.640 of those environments and um god god put this this model this online discipleship uh micro locations 00:15:12.640 --> 00:15:19.860 just on my heart i executed it at the church the church wasn't interested in doing it um and ultimately 00:15:19.860 --> 00:15:28.380 i i stepped out of uh a church staff job in 2018 um because i literally god told me to do this 00:15:28.380 --> 00:15:33.600 and and it's not i don't know just told you two years for everybody else you know and it's and it's 00:15:33.600 --> 00:15:39.620 been a lot of kind of paving the way having hard conversations you know looking at at having pastors 00:15:39.620 --> 00:15:44.440 tell me i'm crazy uh and then you know covet happens and all of a sudden you know that crazy guy over 00:15:44.440 --> 00:15:51.600 there's right um and so you know even seeing kind of the the comment that came up like other people 00:15:51.600 --> 00:15:56.340 were thinking about this i'm like look at him look at him look what he said this is awesome like keep 00:15:56.340 --> 00:16:01.560 keep tracking with it because i'm i'm not i may be the crazy guy but i'm not the only crazy guy saying 00:16:01.560 --> 00:16:08.700 this stuff so well if you're crazy i want to be crazy awesome are you are you uh are you getting a 00:16:08.700 --> 00:16:13.060 place are you getting a place to implement this stuff you're talking about you're dreaming about now 00:16:13.060 --> 00:16:20.180 yeah so uh in addition to the church digital stuff i'm on staff with stadia as their director of digital 00:16:20.180 --> 00:16:28.340 church planting uh and so we're pre-covid i was designing a digital only expression of church that 00:16:28.340 --> 00:16:36.260 was more like a micro hub casey underground tampa underground with a digital footprint as well either 00:16:36.260 --> 00:16:43.020 digital or physical and i think that's still the the track that we're on uh covid kind of caused 00:16:43.020 --> 00:16:49.840 us to pivot a little bit we're doing a lot of uh digital church helping larger churches go digital 00:16:49.840 --> 00:16:56.220 um but in that same vein while we're taking them digital we're teaching them some of the practices of 00:16:56.220 --> 00:17:04.520 the the micro of the house church uh and so i did a podcast the other day with a church in in kansas 00:17:04.520 --> 00:17:09.100 city that or no excuse me kentucky you know they in this covid season they launched a hundred 00:17:09.100 --> 00:17:16.080 micro locations they weren't even doing online small groups pre-covid and just seeing the direction 00:17:16.080 --> 00:17:23.200 um they launched online small groups and uh launched with a hundred micro locations with another hundred 00:17:23.200 --> 00:17:30.980 uh coming as things ease up uh so which uh what church was that that was uh northeastern community 00:17:30.980 --> 00:17:41.820 um i can get you information on that one but they're they're tracking well with it um uh within stadia the 00:17:41.820 --> 00:17:50.960 desire is to and even ramping up was just emailing my bosses craig um whitney but working with them 00:17:50.960 --> 00:17:55.540 and starting to strategize okay this is what we're doing physical what are we doing digital how do we 00:17:55.540 --> 00:18:03.420 preach and and how do we get churches to understand a a disciple making movement one that's not grounded 00:18:03.420 --> 00:18:09.160 in church service is one that's grounded in individuals and kind of growing and expanding 00:18:09.160 --> 00:18:15.600 from there giving it time for the flywheel to activate and then allowing it to go um and that's 00:18:15.600 --> 00:18:21.960 you know even as i cast that vision out of churches um you know i had a pastor recently tell me he's 00:18:21.960 --> 00:18:29.140 like jeff we've got 1500 people coming on a weekend and and you're telling me that you would rather me 00:18:29.140 --> 00:18:36.360 do this relational thing that it's better for the three staff people to be relational instead of doing 00:18:36.360 --> 00:18:43.900 the 1500 and i was like well i think it's better that you empower people to reach people and if you want 00:18:43.900 --> 00:18:49.000 to compare the 1500 versus the 100 people that are probably already active in your church that could 00:18:49.000 --> 00:18:53.920 be unleashed on mission yeah i think a hundred people unleashed are going to be more effective 00:18:53.920 --> 00:19:04.740 than than your 1500 person service online um and that's a that's a hard hard truth um the the service 00:19:04.740 --> 00:19:12.400 plaza role the the queen has its place um but sometimes it's not um i don't think it's at the power that it 00:19:12.400 --> 00:19:19.100 should be that it currently is now well i'm still trying to figure it out i'm i'm fascinated we're 00:19:19.100 --> 00:19:23.920 gonna we're gonna be put our chips in but i'm still trying to figure it out yeah i wear uh three hats 00:19:23.920 --> 00:19:30.000 primarily i'm the lead pastor at community christian church which is a uh multi-site church uh in this 00:19:30.000 --> 00:19:34.760 in chicago we have locations in the city and the suburbs and my brother john and i and a handful of 00:19:34.760 --> 00:19:41.880 friends started that back in the day and by god's kindness that gave birth to new thing and i get to 00:19:41.880 --> 00:19:47.680 play the role of the visionary leader for new thing uh we have uh last time i talked to patrick our global 00:19:47.680 --> 00:19:53.240 leader last week i think 180 some networks globally and over 3 000 churches that are committed to 00:19:53.240 --> 00:19:58.920 reproducing and planted um i won't have the exact number but between 800 and 900 churches last year 00:19:58.920 --> 00:20:04.040 and then i also get to serve as the president of the exponential conference which well with my buddy 00:20:04.040 --> 00:20:11.720 todd wilson um a conference we kind of just took over we can't really say we took over we just kind 00:20:11.720 --> 00:20:15.640 of said hey we'll lead it this year and we've been doing it ever since for like last 13 or 14 years 00:20:15.640 --> 00:20:22.600 and in fact earlier today i just got off a zoom call with our exponential europe uh board and so we're 00:20:22.600 --> 00:20:30.200 going to be launching that uh this year in europe so um i love all things church playing all things 00:20:30.200 --> 00:20:35.640 multiplication and i think that feeds right into what our topic is uh today so i'm excited about 00:20:35.640 --> 00:20:40.920 talking i love that i almost would love to have a side conversation about the nuances between like 00:20:40.920 --> 00:20:46.520 a multiplication and exponential europe versus like even here in america and what some of those nuances 00:20:46.520 --> 00:20:51.400 are but oh well we can do it maybe maybe that's another conversation we'll we'll put a stick on that 00:20:51.400 --> 00:20:58.040 and call uh you know episode two um hey so this is it's really it's really i love the internet i feel 00:20:58.040 --> 00:21:01.640 like i just want to say that up front because it's fascinating to me that that you and i are having 00:21:01.640 --> 00:21:08.440 this this conversation um and so i i connected to dave essentially through twitter you know most 00:21:08.440 --> 00:21:13.240 people are kind of abandoning twitter moving on i love twitter because it's where you get to really 00:21:13.240 --> 00:21:18.200 engage and have solid conversations with like real life people yeah i mean there's yelling on twitter and 00:21:18.200 --> 00:21:26.760 whatever but um somehow dave you were talking about online discipleship and and the ability to launch 00:21:26.760 --> 00:21:33.960 micro locations and evidently someone who i've never met who ironically lives in canada uh tagged me 00:21:33.960 --> 00:21:39.720 because she saw me speak at a conference into this thing and lo and behold you're on my podcast so so 00:21:39.720 --> 00:21:44.680 first off you know i just i want to continue to give thanks to to listeners and the people out there 00:21:44.680 --> 00:21:52.360 who are like hey this stuff is is awesome you need to like connect and and do this so um and i kind of 00:21:52.360 --> 00:21:56.280 did a little homework and realized who you were and what you're up to and i'm going like okay this would 00:21:56.280 --> 00:22:00.360 be at this time a good person for me to get connected with as i'm trying to grow in my understanding 00:22:00.360 --> 00:22:07.640 of this so thank you yeah oh no this is it's it's a whole new world where a lot of these things even 00:22:07.640 --> 00:22:14.680 pre-covid it there was coming on the horizon like like the the the swinging of of church online the 00:22:14.680 --> 00:22:22.360 acceptance of of a digital model of discipleship um we we knew this was coming you know in my mind 00:22:22.360 --> 00:22:27.960 honestly i was tracking with it more 20 the the beginning of 5g technology i think would have been 00:22:27.960 --> 00:22:35.160 a swing even like ais becomes more apparent later this this decade um you know i don't think anybody 00:22:35.160 --> 00:22:41.880 really saw covid coming but the the influence of that and the gasoline of the flame of okay now 00:22:41.880 --> 00:22:47.960 culture just fast-tracked we just got out of the delorean and now it's like a dam that just broke 00:22:47.960 --> 00:22:52.200 and all of a sudden there's like a tidal wave you got coming now yeah and 00:22:52.200 --> 00:22:59.240 so how the shift how the church shifts out coming out of this and how how we adjust and maybe some 00:22:59.240 --> 00:23:04.920 lessons you know we we talk a lot about lessons with the new normal and um the next normal and all 00:23:04.920 --> 00:23:10.280 that and uh you know there's definitely some things that we the church need need to understand and work 00:23:10.280 --> 00:23:15.720 through so but let's let's even just open up with this because i i think we're going to be talking a 00:23:15.720 --> 00:23:22.040 lot about discipleship about disciple making a lot of those um those those types of words 00:23:22.040 --> 00:23:26.120 which by the way is nothing new to the podcast we talk about it all the time but one of the 00:23:26.120 --> 00:23:31.400 things that's that's intriguing to me is that people define the word differently i think if you 00:23:31.400 --> 00:23:35.720 get like 10 pastors in the room and ask them what discipleship means i think you'd get 20 different 00:23:35.720 --> 00:23:43.720 answers so um maybe even just in your context as a guy who's done multiplication around the world 00:23:43.720 --> 00:23:52.680 um what does discipleship what does that mean what does that look like for you um i in our context and 00:23:52.680 --> 00:23:57.960 actually that's fascinating because we we seldom use the word disciple because it feels like that 00:23:57.960 --> 00:24:05.880 word's kind of been co-opted uh to mean cramming a lot of content in someone's brain going through a 00:24:05.880 --> 00:24:10.040 course they're going to take in a certain class that kind of stuff but knowing the spirit of what you're 00:24:10.040 --> 00:24:15.320 talking about um i encourage leaders when i'm working with them like it because discipleship is 00:24:15.320 --> 00:24:21.800 really about growing as an apprentice with jesus and it's a relational term you can't fully um define 00:24:21.800 --> 00:24:28.200 it or fully measure it but do yourself a favor and do the best you can and then start trying to measure 00:24:28.200 --> 00:24:32.440 that so in the spirit of that what we've done at community christian church the church i lead 00:24:32.440 --> 00:24:37.160 is what we try to do is we try to develop we call three c christ followers and the three c's are 00:24:37.160 --> 00:24:41.400 celebrate connect and contribute and those are three different dimensions of the relationship 00:24:41.400 --> 00:24:46.520 of an apprentice of jesus you have a relationship with god which is celebrate your relationship with 00:24:46.520 --> 00:24:50.920 the church doing community together and that's connect and then you have relationship with the 00:24:50.920 --> 00:24:55.160 world and that's where you contribute to make to contribute to god's dream to make it everything 00:24:55.160 --> 00:24:59.240 god meant for it to be so we talk about celebrate connect and contribute fully understanding that 00:24:59.240 --> 00:25:04.520 isn't you can't really fully measure those but we found some ways to really develop some metrics 00:25:04.520 --> 00:25:09.160 around those and that helps us least go like okay here's the direction we're headed and do a better 00:25:09.160 --> 00:25:14.680 job of going like okay how are we doing in growing three c christ followers or disciples yeah i understand 00:25:14.680 --> 00:25:20.920 the co-op i love love the three c's i understand the co-opping of of the word i'm just curious what what 00:25:20.920 --> 00:25:25.560 is your natural language what what are you what's the phrase you use to talk about um apprenticeship 00:25:26.200 --> 00:25:31.880 apprenticing the ways of jesus yeah so not unlike dallas willard or you if you've listened to a lot of 00:25:31.880 --> 00:25:40.360 john mark homer stuff he he uses that too um okay but that yeah that that works for us and the idea of 00:25:40.360 --> 00:25:48.520 of disciple making discipleship apprenticeship the idea of doing this in in digital circles pre-covid 00:25:48.520 --> 00:25:57.000 um and i'll just be the one like hugely controversial um pre-covid 2019 majority of churches were not doing 00:25:57.000 --> 00:26:03.560 anything online maybe 10 were broadcasting a service but when it came time to building relationships 00:26:03.560 --> 00:26:10.920 disciple making online small groups even caring about people who were outside of the physical circle of 00:26:10.920 --> 00:26:19.000 influence of any any one campus the church was really kind of um dispersed and in hands off from that 00:26:19.000 --> 00:26:26.280 now covid we're understanding and we're going to we're beginning to kind of see how we can start to engage 00:26:26.280 --> 00:26:33.720 in this discipleship in this relationship aspect uh from a from a digital standpoint what what lessons 00:26:33.720 --> 00:26:39.480 just even maybe from from the outside 40 000 foot high level what are you learning in in this season 00:26:39.480 --> 00:26:45.240 when it comes to apprenticeship when it comes to multiplication in context of doing it digitally 00:26:46.200 --> 00:26:51.960 yeah i think um not quite as advanced as yourself but pre-covid i mean i had the opportunity to 00:26:51.960 --> 00:26:57.640 there were some people that influenced me i um was i'd already plugged into a lot of stuff that glue 00:26:57.640 --> 00:27:03.000 was doing so i got to know scott back and of course you've spent any time with scott who's the founder 00:27:03.000 --> 00:27:09.720 there i mean scott makes the point which um that all all human growth happens by relationships 00:27:10.520 --> 00:27:14.760 all human growth happens relationships and i think and that totally fit the way we do church and totally 00:27:14.760 --> 00:27:21.720 fit our understanding of who god is and our theology and um the more we began to talk and he introduced 00:27:21.720 --> 00:27:26.920 me to a guy named paul sangeet chodroy who i don't know if you've had a chance to read his book called 00:27:26.920 --> 00:27:36.840 the platform revolution he's um an mit prof a brilliant guy and basically he began to lay out 00:27:36.840 --> 00:27:44.520 what it looked like to be a platform organization and the more that i heard scott talk about you know 00:27:44.520 --> 00:27:52.120 all human growth is relationships and read through uh dr chodroy's stuff and then also got a chance to 00:27:52.120 --> 00:27:57.160 kind of interact with him just a little bit as well you put those two together you're going like holy 00:27:57.160 --> 00:28:04.040 smokes i mean for someone like me who's who has a chronic preoccupation with movement and multiplication 00:28:04.600 --> 00:28:12.440 you're going oh this the here's the deal this this is how you scale something and um and i think so 00:28:13.480 --> 00:28:17.960 we were starting down that path and and i can go more into that but you're like you just said though 00:28:17.960 --> 00:28:21.960 i mean covid kind of i think it's the crisis that forced all of us kind of shoved us out the door 00:28:21.960 --> 00:28:27.800 said whether you liked or not here we go yeah i think one of one of the big lessons you know that i 00:28:27.800 --> 00:28:37.080 think we're still learning is this idea of scale versus reach like we have we have the churches would 00:28:37.080 --> 00:28:43.080 look at pre-covid you know i had a pastor tell me hey jeff literally this was the conversation hey 00:28:43.080 --> 00:28:48.280 jeff i i want to see people around the world get saved listening to my messages i literally like i want 00:28:48.280 --> 00:28:57.880 to see somebody in ethiopia get baptized but the the area around my church where i want to do ministry 00:28:57.880 --> 00:29:02.520 want to do discipleship i don't want them to hear my services online i want them to come to the building 00:29:02.520 --> 00:29:07.320 where i can build relationships with them the guy in ethiopia let's be missional let's let's be outward 00:29:07.320 --> 00:29:13.560 facing i i want to reach that far but i i don't want to engage with them i don't want to build that 00:29:13.560 --> 00:29:19.160 relationship that's that's someone else's problem and and and i think what what's what's fascinating 00:29:19.160 --> 00:29:25.400 is is even the the strength of online isn't that isn't the reach yeah it's cool somebody on the other 00:29:25.400 --> 00:29:31.160 side of the planet can can have can listen to a one-way conversation uh you're in chicago right now 00:29:31.160 --> 00:29:36.200 i'm in miami it's far cooler that the two of i are having the two of us are having an open conversation 00:29:36.200 --> 00:29:42.680 right here online and the fact that we can engage with people by the way i i just met this guy the 00:29:42.680 --> 00:29:49.960 other day his name's uh tome he's from nigeria he is the nigerian version of jeff reed uh former 00:29:49.960 --> 00:29:57.160 church staff guy um doing all sorts of digital church online stuff in nigeria and i'm literally 00:29:57.160 --> 00:30:02.440 having an hour-long conversation with this guy via zoom and we're swapping stories we're encouraging 00:30:02.440 --> 00:30:08.040 each other towards that and so like there's maybe not at the spiritual level but there's almost like 00:30:08.040 --> 00:30:12.440 there's this apprentice level conversation where i'm learning from him he's learning from us and 00:30:12.440 --> 00:30:17.800 now we're able to go off and do things i'm saying what you're describing i mean i think it is a form 00:30:17.800 --> 00:30:23.560 of discipleship i mean is he a believer yes yeah so i mean you're basically you're you're mentoring 00:30:23.560 --> 00:30:27.400 each other and what has become the platform for making that possible that relationship possible 00:30:27.400 --> 00:30:33.240 is the internet i think we're just we're a paradigm shift which is a big deal but we're a paradigm shift 00:30:33.240 --> 00:30:37.240 or a mental block away from seeing that and how we can do that over and over and over and over again 00:30:37.240 --> 00:30:44.360 what digital allows us to do is break away from this model of being in the church to have this 00:30:44.360 --> 00:30:52.280 disciple making to have this apprentice level relationships digital allows us to to scale out 00:30:53.640 --> 00:30:59.480 much broader much wider much more effective where i can have this conversation with this guy in nigeria 00:31:00.520 --> 00:31:07.480 a a a a church attender can reach out to their their high school um you know people that graduated high 00:31:07.480 --> 00:31:13.880 school from or re-engage with a college roommate or gather together people who are have a similar 00:31:14.680 --> 00:31:22.200 attribute like a a club or a hobby or something and and start to build in relationships that way 00:31:23.000 --> 00:31:31.000 i i think what what you're beginning to see is is this idea of of breaking apart the church out of a physical location 00:31:31.560 --> 00:31:38.280 and doing it more neighborhood based um reaching out to you know circle of influence within the neighborhood 00:31:38.280 --> 00:31:46.120 or even doing some things digitally where we start to examine and dig into um relationships and communities 00:31:46.120 --> 00:31:54.360 that already exist digitally as as a as a pastor as somebody who's you know you're dealing with the 00:31:54.360 --> 00:32:01.000 multiplication you're understanding um the physical aspects you know what what challenges do you 00:32:01.000 --> 00:32:05.160 feel what does that make you excited does that make you scared does that make you like tell me your 00:32:05.160 --> 00:32:10.840 temperature when we're talking about okay i want to break up the building and instead of it being a 00:32:10.840 --> 00:32:15.080 location i want to disseminate it and and spread it across multiple locations 00:32:17.960 --> 00:32:24.600 um is adrenaline rush a temperature i mean that's i mean that's what that's i mean that's how 00:32:24.600 --> 00:32:30.920 it makes me feel no i mean because um i mean i was you know i don't know two weeks i was telling 00:32:30.920 --> 00:32:34.840 my executive pastor going no these buildings are like an albatross now that's probably an over 00:32:34.840 --> 00:32:38.520 exaggeration because i think there's some things some good things that come can come out of it 00:32:38.520 --> 00:32:45.480 but and this and i'm and certainly community isn't the only only case but i mean like this weekend 00:32:45.480 --> 00:32:54.040 our engagement was probably more than double what it was pre-covid so i mean and we're getting we have 00:32:54.040 --> 00:32:58.920 more people in small groups we have more people serving and even financially we're in a better spot than 00:32:58.920 --> 00:33:04.600 we were before so it's kind of like there's there's not anything at least so far to be afraid of except 00:33:04.600 --> 00:33:08.920 the ignorance of like when we finally do leverage this platform to its fullest extent 00:33:09.480 --> 00:33:16.360 i mean wow what what could happen yeah one of the things that that i i love with with like a dispersed 00:33:16.360 --> 00:33:22.920 model and i i can play the card i i can totally have the conversation right now and maybe we'll get to 00:33:22.920 --> 00:33:29.800 it later but the idea of of a digital only church a church that only exists sure um which is is still 00:33:29.800 --> 00:33:36.280 controversial even when you talk with like online pastors who live in online space and that's their 00:33:36.280 --> 00:33:41.560 job to minister even uh like jace kranda saddleback he and i have conversations on the time all the time 00:33:41.560 --> 00:33:48.520 where we talk about the necessity of of the physical space as well which to me is one of the reasons why 00:33:48.520 --> 00:33:54.920 we want to have the the the house church location or some sort of a physical like the the biggest why 00:33:54.920 --> 00:33:59.880 does he think why does he think what's the necessity of it well and here here's the challenge like let's 00:33:59.880 --> 00:34:08.360 let's talk about it if i am a um if i'm a christian on facebook 00:34:10.120 --> 00:34:19.800 but i'm a jerk to my wife and i'm an a-hole to my kids right what am i am i really a christian or or is 00:34:19.800 --> 00:34:25.480 it it's one thing to be that that happens all the time in our churches right isn't that you think the 00:34:25.480 --> 00:34:30.600 guy who the deacon who shows up you know you know with a smile on his face but then you know two years 00:34:30.600 --> 00:34:34.680 later we find out he's been beating his wife i mean that happens that doesn't just happen in digital 00:34:34.680 --> 00:34:40.600 spaces right that happens in physical spaces yeah and and that's that's the the challenge though 00:34:41.240 --> 00:34:46.840 would be let's figure out how the the goal would be online to offline the the gospel that we hear in 00:34:46.840 --> 00:34:53.400 our online world has to affect our offline relationships so it's it's one thing for him 00:34:53.400 --> 00:34:58.760 the challenge is stay away from consumerism don't just be the guy listening don't just be the guy listening 00:34:58.760 --> 00:35:07.240 to the podcast but create environments so that it has to impact your your real world a sermon and on 00:35:07.240 --> 00:35:14.840 a podcast or a sermon watched on facebook live is one thing but if it's to the level that it creates 00:35:14.840 --> 00:35:21.720 a reaction that influences the real world that that's the win yeah but i mean i i think you say the same 00:35:21.720 --> 00:35:26.520 thing about the online world in fact i think you might be able to make the case that in an online world 00:35:26.520 --> 00:35:32.760 your engagement with take like a sermon is even more more serious because they they because when 00:35:32.760 --> 00:35:37.080 they show up at my website they can actually pick which sermon they want to watch and they get to 00:35:37.080 --> 00:35:40.280 pick which one that they engage with which probably is kind of because there's something going on in 00:35:40.280 --> 00:35:45.880 their life so there's probably a deeper engagement than if they show up at my one of our 10 locations 00:35:45.880 --> 00:35:49.880 because they have to listen to whatever comes out of my mouth then and they may and just because they're 00:35:49.880 --> 00:35:56.680 there it doesn't mean they're actually doesn't mean they're right thank you for being honest right 00:35:56.680 --> 00:36:04.040 there and appreciating that well it's a brutal fact but it's it's true where with with a digital 00:36:04.040 --> 00:36:10.120 environment you're able to craft and create uh something that that's more tailor suited for 00:36:10.680 --> 00:36:17.320 for an individual um and it's interesting carrie newhoff i love carrie does he does those listings 00:36:17.320 --> 00:36:24.280 that are so well you know and he talks about how there's the uh he did an analog and digital comparison 00:36:24.280 --> 00:36:30.680 analog the old school way listed out seven things digital then he listed off seven things on that side 00:36:30.680 --> 00:36:35.400 and and one of the things that was fascinating to me and actually a bunch of people were like that's wrong 00:36:36.040 --> 00:36:44.680 was analog he had the word global underneath analog and under digital he had local and it was funny 00:36:44.680 --> 00:36:49.400 like a people pastors were like that's that's backwards that's that's wrong you know you have 00:36:49.400 --> 00:36:55.720 you have global reach on the analog side and and so carrie carrie had a typo carrie did a mistake 00:36:55.720 --> 00:37:01.880 and i was like no you're you're missing the point digital gives you the opportunity to customize 00:37:01.880 --> 00:37:09.080 things for the individual in analog way you're blasting a single message everywhere and it's not 00:37:09.080 --> 00:37:15.640 about that and even to the point of in a disciple making relationship it's not blasting a single 00:37:15.640 --> 00:37:22.760 message analog it's connecting and unleashing and immobilizing individuals with the message 00:37:22.760 --> 00:37:29.160 to go out and do things within their circle of influence the relational aspects of of church online 00:37:29.160 --> 00:37:37.800 of discipleship online of all of these things allow for a much more individualized approach in an 00:37:37.800 --> 00:37:45.160 appearance automation is awesome but if but if we automate so much out of disciple making us out of that 00:37:45.160 --> 00:37:51.960 apprentice style relationship man we've really lost the value of the of the human touch from that 00:37:51.960 --> 00:37:57.480 and that's really the thing that that we're looking for in this day and age it's it's that relational 00:37:57.480 --> 00:38:03.640 aspect do you feel tension of okay you haven't talked about it you're on stage you're you're preaching 00:38:03.640 --> 00:38:10.440 the sermon everybody's hearing that in the room though they may need more uh personalization they 00:38:10.440 --> 00:38:17.880 may need more more of a different approach um like do you feel the tension to try to feel that do you 00:38:17.880 --> 00:38:23.720 meet those needs and in other ways like how do you how do you see digital kind of helping your 00:38:23.720 --> 00:38:26.680 church kind of automate through that do you have any practical insights on that 00:38:27.480 --> 00:38:32.600 i i think in that one in particular i think the big aha for me is there's like 00:38:33.480 --> 00:38:39.640 well at least three different opportunities so you have you have the content you're creating this week 00:38:41.000 --> 00:38:46.280 for them to engage with so like this sunday you know we're doing we're going to a series called pray 00:38:46.280 --> 00:38:51.160 like this and we're going through you know disciples said how we should we pray just said pray like this 00:38:51.160 --> 00:38:57.560 so we got that you can engage with but then you also let me let me back and let's say in a i think 00:38:57.560 --> 00:39:03.400 your term's digital so in the physical world okay in our physical buildings they can come and experience 00:39:03.400 --> 00:39:10.280 that but then you can also experience that online but the but the third part and i think the third one 00:39:10.280 --> 00:39:16.600 that big aha to me that's vastly being underestimated right now is all of your um all of your previous 00:39:16.600 --> 00:39:22.760 content because most of us in the church world we only think about the big idea i'm creating for this 00:39:22.760 --> 00:39:26.280 weekend and that's what we advertise on our website that's what everybody has to engage with that's we 00:39:26.280 --> 00:39:32.120 measure we only measure kind of what they engage this week but all of a sudden like so for example i was 00:39:32.120 --> 00:39:36.520 fortunate enough i got to write a book called finding your way back to god or a book called starting 00:39:36.520 --> 00:39:43.720 over well once we did that series back in the day it's done but now guess what if someone 00:39:44.600 --> 00:39:49.880 in through google adwords or whatever else however else we want to advertise if someone's going through 00:39:49.880 --> 00:39:56.680 a loss of a job or or a loss of a relationship or some other kind of loss they're like man if i could 00:39:56.680 --> 00:40:02.760 only start over they don't have to go to pray like this they can go to our starting over series and 00:40:02.760 --> 00:40:07.400 engage with that and so i think we have the opportunity to create this whole smorgasbord 00:40:07.400 --> 00:40:11.480 of opportunities so because like for us we'd create content then it goes to our big idea resource which 00:40:11.480 --> 00:40:15.400 we'd sell to a handful of churches that they could use some other time but now all of a sudden no it's 00:40:15.400 --> 00:40:20.200 like you open up your whole library of content to them does that make sense yeah and it and it 00:40:20.200 --> 00:40:24.840 becomes you know the phrase in digital world is evergreen it's content that that's not 00:40:24.840 --> 00:40:33.480 that's the same term in publishing too right and so all of a sudden um you you're able to customize 00:40:33.480 --> 00:40:41.800 things uh content um and then with accountability with follow-up with with relationship start to walk 00:40:41.800 --> 00:40:48.040 people through that and and get them to to process it's it's it's a beautiful thing and and as that 00:40:48.040 --> 00:40:55.640 creates people that are that are comfortable with um being through that apprentice stage let me let me 00:40:55.640 --> 00:41:00.680 shift gears because i'm even fascinated with this word word apprentice so an apprentice eventually 00:41:00.680 --> 00:41:05.240 becomes the guy who's doing the doing the work the master right master and apprentice that that's kind 00:41:05.240 --> 00:41:13.160 of the the two tiers um so in in in a in in your church and multiplication kind of environments um when 00:41:13.160 --> 00:41:19.880 does when does an apprentice become the master when is the person done in in that process yeah well i 00:41:19.880 --> 00:41:24.120 mean part of the reason like you said we like the terms because it has to do with both both the knowing 00:41:24.120 --> 00:41:29.720 and the doing so both you know um and for us it's pretty fairly simple whenever the person who is 00:41:29.720 --> 00:41:33.480 apprenticing thinks the apprentice is ready and the apprentice thinks they're ready then they're ready 00:41:35.640 --> 00:41:39.720 and so they said okay now you do the whole thing all over again no we don't overcomplicate it i mean 00:41:39.720 --> 00:41:42.840 it's fairly simple that way when you think you're ready and the person discipling you so to 00:41:42.840 --> 00:41:47.320 speak thinks you're ready then you're ready go start disciple someone else we do the same 00:41:47.320 --> 00:41:50.600 thing at a leadership level when you're as an apprentice leader when you think you're ready 00:41:51.240 --> 00:41:55.720 and as the leader when you think your apprentice is ready send them out to start another group or 00:41:55.720 --> 00:42:00.520 another team or whatever it is that you're apprenticing them to do and so within the church 00:42:00.520 --> 00:42:06.600 you're you're looking at small groups you're looking at uh serving opportunities championing a team 00:42:07.240 --> 00:42:11.960 you know another and so those are those are kind of the uh the areas where where you're 00:42:11.960 --> 00:42:17.160 apprenticing and growing um in the middle of this covet even even coming out of it like the 00:42:17.720 --> 00:42:23.080 the watch parties the the micro locations the house churches you know that's starting to to grow in 00:42:23.080 --> 00:42:29.800 in popularity um have you guys looked and explored doing anything anything in that in that situation like 00:42:29.800 --> 00:42:34.920 what's what's community christian doing right now um towards that we're in a little bit of a unique 00:42:34.920 --> 00:42:39.880 situation because we're in chicago and we're also in illinois which will be one of the last states to open up so 00:42:39.880 --> 00:42:46.600 we're currently in still in phase three of a five phase plan which allows us to meet in groups no larger 00:42:46.600 --> 00:42:53.000 than ten um so but what we have in the queue and this is probably more than you want to know we've 00:42:53.000 --> 00:42:57.560 kind of designed a playbook we're calling it and so we have four different plays we can run and play 00:42:57.560 --> 00:43:03.160 and play number two play number one is just community online everything's online play number two is what 00:43:03.160 --> 00:43:07.720 what we're calling three c communities and our three c communities based on like we talked about 00:43:07.720 --> 00:43:14.360 celebrate connecting our micro churches and so what we'll do is whoever leads that whoever leads that 00:43:14.360 --> 00:43:19.160 three c community they'll be the person responsible for bringing people together to celebrate have that 00:43:19.160 --> 00:43:23.800 experience to connect do life together and also contribute make a difference in the world and those 00:43:23.800 --> 00:43:30.120 can happen of course anywhere in chicago but also anywhere we're in like last i heard 1500 cities 00:43:30.120 --> 00:43:34.120 around the world and so that happening in those 1500 cities where there's someone who says yeah 00:43:34.120 --> 00:43:40.760 i want to i want to i want to lead one of these so i'm just curious what what is one of those and 00:43:40.760 --> 00:43:46.520 it's a playbook like you've not even executed this the uh the you know obviously illinois is a little 00:43:46.520 --> 00:43:56.040 more strict um in the grand scheme of things um what what does leading one one of these three c house 00:43:56.040 --> 00:44:01.800 church communities what what does this look like yeah i think i think what it is it's it's just a small 00:44:01.800 --> 00:44:06.200 expression of the church where you it could be where you live where you work or where you play 00:44:06.840 --> 00:44:13.640 and and probably a lot of them are around affinity um or maybe geography it's where you where you live 00:44:13.640 --> 00:44:18.520 and it could be and sometimes i think it could be as small as you know a dozen people and sometimes 00:44:18.520 --> 00:44:23.400 it could be upwards of maybe you know maybe 40 people or so that you then break up into smaller 00:44:23.400 --> 00:44:27.320 groups that meet throughout the week but essentially what it is it is it's exactly what you've been 00:44:27.320 --> 00:44:32.040 talking about it's a micro church a smaller expression of the church that if i can put on my church 00:44:32.040 --> 00:44:38.280 planning hat for a second i mean that we've been dying for for you know for decades now because 00:44:39.800 --> 00:44:46.920 the way we plant churches and the way we start new sites is so expensive in most cases and so 00:44:46.920 --> 00:44:51.800 and it's definitely not a movemental form and suddenly now we're in a season where people's 00:44:51.800 --> 00:44:57.560 interest in spiritual things is higher than ever and also what they want is that a lot of them anyway 00:44:57.560 --> 00:45:02.520 not all but a lot of them want smaller expressions because it's safer and you put those two things 00:45:02.520 --> 00:45:07.640 together it's like this ripe environment suddenly in the western world to do micro churches like we've seen in the east 00:45:07.640 --> 00:45:15.080 yeah we had we had daniel m on the podcast pre-covid or like right when it happened and you know he was 00:45:15.080 --> 00:45:20.200 talking a lot about his uh i don't know that he came up with the terminology but the social space 00:45:20.200 --> 00:45:28.120 that like 20 to 50 person thing that is is really missing it's like you either got the the the the 10 00:45:28.120 --> 00:45:33.800 person or you got like the the church setting the church plant that's 50 and up and then the the mega and 00:45:33.800 --> 00:45:39.560 the giga and all that but that that really kind of that that safer environment of of the 20 and 50 to 00:45:39.560 --> 00:45:47.080 kind of connect with is is gone and so utilizing a house church uh or a micro movement just to kind of 00:45:47.080 --> 00:45:53.880 be that that sort of of of starting point you know it was stadia we've talked about that we we don't 00:45:53.880 --> 00:45:58.760 want to get to the place of where we're planting a house a single house church like that the the end 00:45:58.760 --> 00:46:04.360 end game for us would not be plant a single house church it would be let's figure out how to plant a 00:46:04.360 --> 00:46:11.240 hub a network of house churches similar like casey underground or um you know rob wagner there brian 00:46:11.240 --> 00:46:16.440 sanders and the stuff that he's doing over at tampa underground as well but start to establish a 00:46:16.440 --> 00:46:24.520 multiplying network of of these these house churches uh or or micro that that allows for a a different 00:46:24.520 --> 00:46:31.960 expression at the the 20 versus 50 i'm just curious like is it watching the worship is it watching the 00:46:32.440 --> 00:46:39.240 the teaching is it give freedom for the church they're centralized there's decentralized i'm just 00:46:39.240 --> 00:46:44.120 curious kind of how how will we do that way yeah that what we'll do the same way we do church planning 00:46:44.120 --> 00:46:48.680 so like if you came to community church and you're a church planner you could either plant a church with 00:46:48.680 --> 00:46:53.560 new thing and we're getting great you could be a part of us and here's the four r's that we follow 00:46:53.560 --> 00:46:57.240 or you can go do your own thing and we will bless you and then you have to do that so the same thing 00:46:57.240 --> 00:47:01.160 with a micro church expression if you want to be a three c community then yeah you'll use our big idea 00:47:01.160 --> 00:47:05.960 content and you'll use our small group stuff and we will provide coaching we'll provide a leadership 00:47:05.960 --> 00:47:10.360 community in fact i'll tell you what anybody that's listening i'll give them my email address 00:47:10.360 --> 00:47:15.320 dave ferguson at community christian.org dave ferguson community christian.org we'd love to 00:47:15.320 --> 00:47:20.200 talk to you about this if you want to do it we will give you a personal coach we will give you a 00:47:20.200 --> 00:47:25.880 monthly leadership community we will give you a relational connection and we'll also give you all 00:47:25.880 --> 00:47:31.320 the equipment we possibly can and then also all of our big idea content the commitment we'd make 00:47:31.320 --> 00:47:34.840 ask from them though is that they use that and they develop people as three c christ followers 00:47:34.840 --> 00:47:39.720 what what attributes what are you looking for for someone what what characteristics are you 00:47:39.720 --> 00:47:43.960 looking for for somebody to lead like a like a house location something like this i think one of 00:47:43.960 --> 00:47:48.040 the great things about this too is some of the people that you may not have in the past going 00:47:48.040 --> 00:47:52.280 like i don't know if i want to plant a church because you're about to invest you know a hundred 00:47:52.280 --> 00:47:58.520 thousand dollars or half million dollars in which puts a really kind of an exceptional kind of leader 00:47:59.240 --> 00:48:03.960 this opens you up to a lot of folks there's a lot of folks that can you know have a job and lead 00:48:04.680 --> 00:48:09.240 a micro expression of the church and so probably i would say probably a lot of people probably they 00:48:09.240 --> 00:48:13.960 probably have a gift of evangelism they may have a gift of apostleship um they have a passion for 00:48:13.960 --> 00:48:18.760 those kind of things and what we're playing with the idea now is that we would actually covenant with 00:48:18.760 --> 00:48:22.200 them for 18 months if they'd be willing to covenant with us for 18 months we can invest in 00:48:22.200 --> 00:48:25.800 them for 18 months they can invest in us we'd ask them to get an apprentice where they would 00:48:25.800 --> 00:48:29.800 sort of have a multiplier in it and then in of 12 months we'd kind of hopefully it would 00:48:29.800 --> 00:48:34.520 multiply we'd also reevaluate do you want to go on for another year and a half and or is this next six 00:48:34.520 --> 00:48:40.760 month's gonna kind of bring it to a close um but right now i'm looking for people that are willing 00:48:40.760 --> 00:48:47.400 to experiment that's awesome i mean post post covet like life if nothing else is a big giant experiment 00:48:47.400 --> 00:48:53.000 in this everything oh my goodness yeah everything you wanted to try let's just try it now do it and 00:48:53.000 --> 00:49:00.440 see and and the fun stuff on on the digital side is like it's cost negligent in the grand scheme of 00:49:00.440 --> 00:49:06.360 things you know i've i've got a i've got a friend that is is planting jade erhart you may know him 00:49:06.360 --> 00:49:11.480 through through exponential uh but he is he does social media for exponential at the conferences or 00:49:11.480 --> 00:49:16.600 something and some video work but he's doing a digital only church and growing into that um 00:49:17.400 --> 00:49:23.160 and uh i think he spent five dollars on a font like he's he's getting his salary from somewhere 00:49:23.160 --> 00:49:27.320 else he's contracting with other people by the way if you're looking for video work jade erhart 00:49:27.320 --> 00:49:31.720 i'll include a link in the show notes he's awesome but what he's ultimately what what he's doing is 00:49:31.720 --> 00:49:37.800 he's like yeah it's i'm using a a platform called discord uh that's free i'm connecting with like 00:49:37.800 --> 00:49:43.880 almost a thousand video gamers at at this point uh and he's taking them through four fields which is uh 00:49:43.880 --> 00:49:49.080 which is a free discipleship material uh and he's reshaping it and then it's like yeah this is 00:49:49.080 --> 00:49:55.800 this is and it's effective he's he's got a hundred probably disciple makers apprentices out there i i 00:49:55.800 --> 00:50:01.800 attended one of his what what he would call a small group it was uh they were playing a game called terra 00:50:02.360 --> 00:50:09.160 a video game and so literally i'm watching them play video games and then i'm listening to them dialogue 00:50:09.160 --> 00:50:14.600 and talk about the bible and literally quoting scripture while playing video games and i'm like 00:50:14.600 --> 00:50:20.920 this is crazy i i could never do this but then i look down and i see that he's got like 30 some kids 00:50:20.920 --> 00:50:26.520 watching this like like in real time and i'm like it's it's a new freaking world man it's just that's 00:50:26.520 --> 00:50:33.400 awesome they're finding ways to do it and so it really does come down to this level of let's find ways to 00:50:33.960 --> 00:50:43.320 to experiment for the kingdom um the the the gasoline that was spewed on the covet situation 00:50:43.320 --> 00:50:49.560 that brought about the explosion um let's figure out the new thing to do to kind of work through 00:50:49.560 --> 00:50:55.320 that which really gets us into this idea of of a digital church uh and so that's some of what you 00:50:55.320 --> 00:51:01.640 know jate as an example is working on um there's definitely other guys guys like dj soto who's doing 00:51:01.640 --> 00:51:06.840 some incredible stuff in in virtual reality where he's got hundreds of people at this point i think 00:51:06.840 --> 00:51:12.120 he's got three different maybe four different church expressions in virtual reality on different 00:51:12.120 --> 00:51:17.880 continents and even on different platforms at this point he just opened up one in uh playstation vr 00:51:18.760 --> 00:51:26.680 um so he's he's doing this he's doing these these works as a as a pastor though sometimes we look at like 00:51:26.680 --> 00:51:34.120 the acts to the the the ecclesiology of of what a church is and rather than looking at the the 00:51:34.120 --> 00:51:40.440 biblical model of well you know how do you do communion in virtual actually dj soto as an example 00:51:40.440 --> 00:51:46.520 he actually got like made fun of uh bbc did a news show on him fox cnn the daily show ran a 00:51:46.520 --> 00:51:52.600 shtick on him because he was baptizing people in virtual reality um people how was he doing that 00:51:52.600 --> 00:51:59.080 changed uh i mean literally like an avatar let's have the conversation yeah literally someone would 00:51:59.080 --> 00:52:06.840 baptize an avatar in virtual reality yeah and he was calling it baptism uh bbc picked up the the 00:52:06.840 --> 00:52:12.760 news story and it just blew up um now you know and i don't want to speak for dj buddies we've talked 00:52:12.760 --> 00:52:18.760 about it on this podcast it's it's an outward symbol people were seeing it um he did not add the 00:52:18.760 --> 00:52:25.000 person who got baptized the water molecules did not actually like touch skin but we're also saying 00:52:25.000 --> 00:52:31.400 you know there's no um there's no power in the water molecules it's it's a symbolism it's a symbolic 00:52:31.400 --> 00:52:36.280 act done in front of people there were other people in the room watching the virtual reality avatars and 00:52:36.280 --> 00:52:43.880 and on screen so it counts um what tensions do you feel i'm just curious you know why why not uh 00:52:43.880 --> 00:52:49.960 what tensions do you feel with with conversations like that as you look at what a traditional church's 00:52:49.960 --> 00:52:56.680 ecclesiology would would be executing some of those things in uh in digital only um 00:52:58.040 --> 00:53:03.960 you're probably asking the wrong guy because yeah i i don't i mostly i don't really see i don't really 00:53:03.960 --> 00:53:10.280 feel the tensions as most is more it's more i just see lots of opportunity and it's more a curiosity 00:53:10.280 --> 00:53:13.320 so like when you said he's baptizing people i'm like how do you baptize people online 00:53:13.880 --> 00:53:17.880 so for me it just even physically it doesn't show up as attention so it's like curiosity like oh how 00:53:17.880 --> 00:53:24.840 could i do that um that's partly personality yeah well and you're leaning into it as opposed to you 00:53:24.840 --> 00:53:30.280 you're oh by nature of who you are you're gonna be more apt to hey let's let's lean in and try to 00:53:30.280 --> 00:53:36.680 figure this out as opposed to you know i hate to say the analogy but uh i'm an old guy get off my lawn 00:53:36.680 --> 00:53:42.520 kind of thing um yeah somebody quoted that to me recently sorry it was a bad pun uh but you you 00:53:42.520 --> 00:53:49.640 there's a there's an opportunity if nothing else right to to look at uh church in in a new way 00:53:50.280 --> 00:53:58.200 whether it's through micro locations whether it's through through a digital only the real power comes 00:53:58.200 --> 00:54:05.960 down to individuals and able to do this from a church planning side we need digital church planners 00:54:05.960 --> 00:54:12.120 from from a micro location side we we need people to be the the apprentice to the level that they're on 00:54:12.120 --> 00:54:20.840 mission and then unleashed out to go and and create these uh relationships work through their circle of 00:54:20.840 --> 00:54:29.720 influence to to grow and disciple someone to that that point now there may be some people listening and 00:54:29.720 --> 00:54:35.960 and i've worked on their staffs i've had conversations with these people that um leadership doesn't lean 00:54:35.960 --> 00:54:45.480 in like like you do they they they lean back um i had a conversation with with a uh uh i want to i 00:54:45.480 --> 00:54:51.400 want to say he was a he wasn't an online pastor i think he's a youth guy uh but in this season he's 00:54:51.400 --> 00:54:57.400 been operating as an online pastor in the church he never done it before he loves this idea of of 00:54:57.400 --> 00:55:02.440 being an online pastor online ministry discipleship online these things this is just one story of many 00:55:03.960 --> 00:55:08.120 but the the church coming out of this covet season they're reverting back to normal 00:55:08.920 --> 00:55:16.440 so rather than leaning in we're we're leaning out um give some advice to this guy how would you 00:55:17.320 --> 00:55:24.760 does he try to convince does he does he try to um leave does he does he just stay put in where 00:55:24.760 --> 00:55:33.400 he's at like how do you handle that that tension right now um at a church well i was talking to our 00:55:33.400 --> 00:55:40.440 staff we had our all staff meeting this morning and um um basically we just we just gone through 00:55:40.440 --> 00:55:47.640 and we've repurposed and kind of refocused everyone's role and a whole huge number of 00:55:47.640 --> 00:55:51.880 people who weren't before now a part of our online team and a part of our communications team and all 00:55:51.880 --> 00:55:57.080 that and part of it i said is if our mission has stayed the same and our mission statement is to help 00:55:57.080 --> 00:56:01.160 people find the way back to god and the way we do that is like we've already talked about three c christ 00:56:01.160 --> 00:56:06.920 followers i said in order to do that though i think in the future well not even yeah right now and going 00:56:06.920 --> 00:56:10.760 forward for the foreseeable future there's three there's our there's three different customers out 00:56:10.760 --> 00:56:14.680 there there's three different kinds of people we're trying to reach i call them stop uh stop people 00:56:14.680 --> 00:56:20.280 yield people and go people the go people are gonna our folks are going like i can't wait to get out of 00:56:20.280 --> 00:56:29.400 this house you open up anything i'll show up the yield people are um i'm i'll leave but i'm 00:56:29.400 --> 00:56:34.200 going to be cautious because i want to make sure it's safe and the stop people are people i'm not 00:56:34.200 --> 00:56:39.240 leaving unless i have to and i think what we're seeing is we're seeing all three of those at least 00:56:39.240 --> 00:56:44.200 at least for the next year and maybe beyond that because who knows when covet 20 shows up or whatever 00:56:44.200 --> 00:56:48.920 else is next and if you really are serious about like in our language helping people find the way back 00:56:48.920 --> 00:56:53.320 to god or reaching people who are far from god then you have to figure out ways to reach all three of 00:56:53.320 --> 00:56:58.120 those people and the only way you're going to reach a whole bunch of those that those yield people and 00:56:58.120 --> 00:57:03.560 all those stop people is going to be online and and it's already evidence too i mean some of the 00:57:03.560 --> 00:57:07.960 churches that are now opening up most of them that are opening up i mean they're seeing you know 00:57:07.960 --> 00:57:13.320 sometimes as low as you know 12 but no nobody's usually bumping past 30 or 40 percent of their normal 00:57:13.320 --> 00:57:19.800 attendance before well where are those people right they're yield or they stop they stay they're 00:57:19.800 --> 00:57:25.320 hesitant or they're staying at home and so to to not have an online presence so i mean first i think 00:57:25.320 --> 00:57:30.360 if i was coaching this guy i'd say hey i'd take this back to your lead pastor your senior pastor say hey 00:57:30.360 --> 00:57:33.800 i think the future kind of looks like this and if we're serious about reaching people 00:57:35.080 --> 00:57:41.880 and paying our staff we better we better reach these these we better do these things and at that 00:57:41.880 --> 00:57:47.400 point if the answer is still no then you probably need to find another job the it's interesting with 00:57:47.400 --> 00:57:54.760 your stop yield and go um there may be another category i don't know it doesn't fit neatly and so maybe 00:57:54.760 --> 00:58:00.520 maybe you don't don't consider it but you got me thinking yeah those are all people that that fit 00:58:00.520 --> 00:58:07.320 within the physical model of church right so stop yield and go assumes that that they're attending 00:58:07.320 --> 00:58:14.440 a physical building and the stop that they used to yeah right right right um what what about 00:58:14.440 --> 00:58:21.160 and i'm i'm curious because you you're a you're nationally known uh and so you've got a a potentially a 00:58:21.160 --> 00:58:30.280 a broad reach uh do you see traction outside of the chicago area are there people who engage with uh 00:58:30.280 --> 00:58:37.800 with your church online um as a result but maybe living in different cities or states um countries 00:58:37.800 --> 00:58:44.040 even like what like i said i mean digital footprint look like yes i mean i don't i haven't got the updated 00:58:44.040 --> 00:58:49.160 stats over the last three weeks probably on these particular numbers but as of the first seven or eight 00:58:49.160 --> 00:58:55.160 weeks into just being just online yeah we were in 1500 cities in 40 countries oh you mentioned that 00:58:55.160 --> 00:59:00.360 you did say yeah so so yes i mean it's definitely happening and it and some of the folks i mean they're 00:59:00.360 --> 00:59:05.400 there we do six different services on sunday and some are there the same service it's like they're 00:59:05.400 --> 00:59:10.360 sitting in the same pew they're there the same service guy from australia he's mike mcgarrity hey he's 00:59:10.360 --> 00:59:18.360 there and checking in you know dude from india checking in talk to me about the responsibility 00:59:18.360 --> 00:59:23.640 you feel towards dude in india i love that um i don't want to make yeah okay let's make that the 00:59:23.640 --> 00:59:31.400 example so like the the end game with discipleship is to to get that dude in india for you would be 00:59:31.400 --> 00:59:36.520 to make him an apprentice to launch out like do you look at dude in india the same way yeah yeah 00:59:36.520 --> 00:59:41.480 in fact in fact in fact when we talk about what we want to do with these microchurch these 3c 00:59:41.480 --> 00:59:46.600 communities i mean it's not so much my friend in india that guy but it's the guy in australia i'll 00:59:46.600 --> 00:59:52.200 use mike as the guy hey you know mike's been there every week he would i think i think if we launch 00:59:52.200 --> 00:59:56.120 this thing i think mike would be the kind of guy going hey i would love to do one of these in my 00:59:56.120 --> 01:00:01.240 neighborhood can i can i be a can i lead a 3c community and we would say yes and we would build 01:00:01.240 --> 01:00:05.160 a relationship with him and we would equip him we would coach him we'd have a leadership community 01:00:05.160 --> 01:00:10.920 that he'd be a part of and and all we'd be off and running talk to me i think that's that's the 01:00:10.920 --> 01:00:16.600 that's the thing that's awesome about this whole thing so you're used to multiplication and and i love 01:00:16.600 --> 01:00:21.320 this it's built into your dna you're already a church planner you're talking about this um 01:00:21.320 --> 01:00:26.680 you know there there's there's a level of okay this guy's in australia i want to empower him to 01:00:26.680 --> 01:00:33.960 do this but i really he's in australia i can't i can't control him i've got to create a culture and 01:00:33.960 --> 01:00:40.840 then unleash him like what's the what's quality control what's what does what does that look like 01:00:40.840 --> 01:00:47.080 when when you actually let go what is letting go look like in a situation like this well i mean again 01:00:47.080 --> 01:00:50.200 i think first of all i think control is a little bit of an illusion 01:00:53.000 --> 01:00:56.360 and you know so you don't really have control you only you only have what people give you 01:00:56.920 --> 01:01:03.480 um and so i would want to come in with him like okay hey how are we gonna do this thing and um and 01:01:03.480 --> 01:01:08.200 like we talked about before it'd be like let's let's try this for 18 months and he would make a 01:01:08.200 --> 01:01:12.440 commitment to us and we may include it to him and then we would x we try to we just trust each other 01:01:13.160 --> 01:01:17.240 i like to lead with a yes on that kind of stuff we trust each other and we go forward and then we 01:01:17.240 --> 01:01:21.640 re-evaluate somewhere around the 12 month part i had scott beck said that to me which was fascinating 01:01:21.640 --> 01:01:31.960 that the most important um um quality online is trust and and that's what i and i thought that 01:01:31.960 --> 01:01:36.440 that was i and i more i thought of that boy if your church can become a trusted 01:01:38.200 --> 01:01:45.640 brand i mean then you have tremendous opportunity if they if they're not if they're skeptical or people 01:01:45.640 --> 01:01:50.440 are you know how are you know what kind of a leader are you or what are you doing with your money or why 01:01:50.440 --> 01:01:54.680 are you trying to influence me this way then you don't have it then this thing doesn't scale but if 01:01:54.680 --> 01:02:03.800 people trust you and you're and it's well placed sky's the limit this has been a great podcast man 01:02:03.800 --> 01:02:09.720 dave i i want to thank you for your time um thanks thanks for what you're doing i think what you're up 01:02:09.720 --> 01:02:14.120 to is really really important and i'm glad you're kind of spreading the good news and the opportunity 01:02:14.120 --> 01:02:19.800 about this awesome hey just maybe even as we're landing the plane any any closing thoughts one of the 01:02:19.800 --> 01:02:25.080 things that was passed to me and that i've been passing along to our church is uh a really simple 01:02:25.080 --> 01:02:29.480 slogan um it's kind of based in that based on that verse you know where it says i didn't give you a 01:02:29.480 --> 01:02:35.000 spirit of fear or timidity but of power and love and self-discipline and i think i've been kind of 01:02:35.000 --> 01:02:40.520 trying to operate this way where fear sees a crisis faith sees opportunity where fear sees a crisis faith 01:02:40.520 --> 01:02:47.960 sees opportunity and i think if we will begin to look at this situation through the lens that god and 01:02:47.960 --> 01:02:52.200 the spirit wants to give us i think there are tremendous opportunities and particularly what 01:02:52.200 --> 01:02:57.640 you're championing uh for the church and church planning and multiplication and discipleship so 01:02:57.640 --> 01:03:05.160 i'm grateful for what you're doing awesome yeah super super uh appreciative of that and let us not live 01:03:05.160 --> 01:03:11.880 in a spirit of fear but let's grab it in a full circle and um with god's help work through it so 01:03:11.880 --> 01:03:17.320 thank you very much sir uh for the time uh for dave this is jeff with the church digital hey everybody 01:03:17.320 --> 01:03:20.860 Thanks for jumping on the podcast with us, and we'll see you next time here at the show. 01:03:20.940 --> 01:03:21.420 Y'all have a good day.