WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:07.980 Jeff here. We'll get back to the podcast in a second, but I wanted to let you know of an 00:00:07.980 --> 00:00:13.180 opportunity to help you further develop your church online. Here at The Church Digital, 00:00:13.360 --> 00:00:18.320 we found some of the best ways for churches to grow their ministry online is to work alongside 00:00:18.320 --> 00:00:25.080 other churches. To that end, The Church Digital is opening up some coaching cohorts in January 2020. 00:00:25.080 --> 00:00:29.560 Through our cohorts, you'll be connected with churches with similar goals in place in ministry, 00:00:29.740 --> 00:00:34.040 and work through these goals together over the six months under the guidance of the crew 00:00:34.040 --> 00:00:40.460 here at The Church Digital. In 2020, invest in your church online. Invest in you. For more information 00:00:40.460 --> 00:00:47.380 and to find out how you can save 20%, visit thechurch.digital slash cohort. 00:00:50.740 --> 00:00:55.380 Hey, everybody. Welcome to The Church Digital Podcast. My name is Jeff Reed, and it is a pleasure 00:00:55.380 --> 00:00:59.300 to have you join us again today. We've got a great episode, and I'm excited. 00:00:59.480 --> 00:01:06.120 about today's guest. Once again, I do have Ray DeArmas joining us as a co-host. So, 00:01:06.380 --> 00:01:07.800 hey, Ray, you want to say hey to everybody? 00:01:08.200 --> 00:01:10.120 Great to be with you guys again. Excited. 00:01:11.320 --> 00:01:13.500 Ray's got such an amazing podcast voice. 00:01:14.560 --> 00:01:16.060 I appreciate that, Eric. Thank you. 00:01:17.180 --> 00:01:20.760 Good stuff. Hey, oh, we already tipped him. I thought we were going to play another game. 00:01:21.260 --> 00:01:23.840 Yes, the host. That was, guess the guest. 00:01:24.340 --> 00:01:30.320 So, hey, guess the guest. That's weird. Hey, we've got Eric Geiger, Reverend Eric Geiger from 00:01:30.320 --> 00:01:36.700 Mariner's Church, lead pastor on the podcast today. I am moving up in the world. I called in a bunch of 00:01:36.700 --> 00:01:40.460 favors to get this guy in here, and I'm excited. Oh, come on. It wasn't that hard, dude. 00:01:40.920 --> 00:01:48.360 Listen, Eric. Eric has, we used to work together at Christ Fellowship Miami back in the day before even 00:01:48.360 --> 00:01:53.160 Simple Church was a thing, or maybe Simple Church was becoming a thing. I'm not actually sure all that 00:01:53.160 --> 00:01:54.400 rolled out. Yeah, it's around the same time. 00:01:54.520 --> 00:02:02.440 Yeah. So, Eric was executive pastor at Christ Fellowship Miami, where I was production guy 00:02:02.440 --> 00:02:06.200 underneath him. And Ray, you had some time with Geiger down there as well, right? 00:02:06.480 --> 00:02:11.620 Oh, absolutely. I consider Eric to be a huge influence on my life in ministry. Just phenomenal. 00:02:11.900 --> 00:02:12.420 Very good stuff. 00:02:13.400 --> 00:02:15.280 Dude, thanks, man. Thanks to both you guys. 00:02:15.600 --> 00:02:20.140 So, we're going to do a little surprise here. Let's play the game of best Eric Geiger story. No, 00:02:20.180 --> 00:02:23.060 I'm kidding. We're not going to do that. Because, yeah. 00:02:23.080 --> 00:02:29.200 Especially when it comes to tech. I mean, Jeff, there is, the problem is, I think you were the 00:02:29.200 --> 00:02:35.100 one who coined the phrase, the curse of the Geiger. Oh, wow. Only because mics kept going bad whenever 00:02:35.100 --> 00:02:42.840 I spoke. I will attest to this, that I have never seen anyone with as much bad luck when it 00:02:42.840 --> 00:02:49.480 comes to tech as Eric Geiger. Yeah. And as much as the bad microphones are, it's not nearly as bad 00:02:49.480 --> 00:02:53.840 as Spanish soap opera on the screen. Oh, that was crazy. In the middle of your message. I was 00:02:53.840 --> 00:02:58.300 preaching and a Spanish soap opera popped up on the screen behind me. Oh, my goodness. Literally. 00:02:58.800 --> 00:03:04.040 No audio, just the video. Theologically. Now, Jeff, you weren't in charge of that at the time. 00:03:04.420 --> 00:03:08.980 No, I was not. I was a mere volunteer. I cannot be able to be responsible for that. 00:03:09.500 --> 00:03:14.400 But James, who was at the time, who's a great guy. I mean, he even looked at me like I have no, 00:03:14.780 --> 00:03:19.800 just never in my life have I ever thought that would happen. So, theologically, it's either 00:03:19.800 --> 00:03:28.020 the Lord loves me a ton and he trusts that I can be sanctified by those things and the enemy's really 00:03:28.020 --> 00:03:34.420 out to get me because I'm being used by the Lord. Or, or I just have a whole lot of sin in my life. 00:03:34.500 --> 00:03:39.240 You know, it's like one of the two things, right? Or it could be that the Lord wanted to reveal that 00:03:39.240 --> 00:03:45.620 Carlos Ponce, famed soap opera star, is a member of Christ Fellowship. Yes. And show him in all of 00:03:45.620 --> 00:03:54.300 his glory. Show him during a sermon. Maybe a little bit of humility involved in the conversation, 00:03:54.300 --> 00:03:59.880 but we'll just roll on from there. Yeah. Hey, so, so here's what we wanted to talk about here at the 00:03:59.880 --> 00:04:04.900 Church Digital Podcast and try to have some semblance of conversation involved in this. So, 00:04:04.900 --> 00:04:10.240 Eric, I feel like I'm going to call him Geiger for the episode. And I apologize. That's what I've 00:04:10.240 --> 00:04:17.700 called him for a decade plus. He wrote an article in response to a Dave Amundson article about Omni 00:04:17.700 --> 00:04:20.800 Church. And it was this, it was this great thing. And I read the article. I was like, man, 00:04:20.800 --> 00:04:26.420 I got to get Eric on here because I want to really hone in on a couple of these points talking about 00:04:26.420 --> 00:04:32.720 Omni, Omni Channel and Geiger transported into moving Omni Channel into Omni Church, which I love. 00:04:33.140 --> 00:04:38.600 But hey, I know Ray DeArmis is like the, every time we talk about Omni Channel, he like lights up and 00:04:38.600 --> 00:04:44.320 goes crazy here on the show. So Ray, man, a two minute overview. What is Omni Channel? 00:04:44.800 --> 00:04:50.720 So the idea of it basically is that you're looking at your online church and your local 00:04:50.720 --> 00:04:55.800 church. And Eric, feel free to correct me here. Just a little bit more unified light in terms of 00:04:55.800 --> 00:05:00.180 the way that people are encountering and experiencing not just the sermon content, but even some of your 00:05:00.180 --> 00:05:06.300 discipleship content. Different organizations like Home Depot. I love using Home Depot as an example. 00:05:06.660 --> 00:05:11.520 When I buy something from HomeDepot.com, when people ask me where I got it, I say I bought it from 00:05:11.520 --> 00:05:16.500 Home Depot, whether I went into the store or whether I got it from their website. It's, to me, it doesn't 00:05:16.500 --> 00:05:22.080 matter. I just tell them where I, where I received it from. And so in the same way, churches, not just 00:05:22.080 --> 00:05:27.520 through their content, but even through community have some pretty unique opportunities by keeping their 00:05:27.520 --> 00:05:34.800 discipleship process and everything aligned in digital spaces and not just in physical spaces. And so, Eric, can 00:05:34.800 --> 00:05:39.300 you tell us a little bit more as far as how you view Omni Channel in the church and how some of that's 00:05:39.300 --> 00:05:42.040 broken or even kind of changed your mind on things? 00:05:42.360 --> 00:05:47.600 No, no. You described it perfectly. So, you know, Omni Channel would be, it was a word initially 00:05:47.600 --> 00:05:54.100 designed for e-commerce and marketing saying, Hey, it doesn't matter where the customer interacts 00:05:54.100 --> 00:06:00.940 with Home Depot or Best Buy or, or any company. They don't care which channel you're in, as long 00:06:00.940 --> 00:06:07.180 as you, you know, do commerce with them and have a relationship with them. So if you apply Omni Channel 00:06:07.180 --> 00:06:14.480 to church, you wouldn't, you necessarily to the extreme degree, wouldn't, um, you wouldn't care 00:06:14.480 --> 00:06:21.460 if the person connected to your church via, uh, some social channel, as long as they interacted 00:06:21.460 --> 00:06:26.720 with the same content, you wouldn't care if that was live or, you know, via social, you 00:06:26.720 --> 00:06:32.980 just wanted the interaction to happen. The, the, the, the deeper layer, which I didn't spend 00:06:32.980 --> 00:06:37.080 a lot of time talking about on the, on the blog, cause you don't have time to really process 00:06:37.080 --> 00:06:44.380 it is even in an omni channel strategy, like Warby Parker, for example, if you look at them, uh, selling 00:06:44.380 --> 00:06:49.880 glasses, they, they open up brick and mortar. So they started online and they moved to brick and mortar. 00:06:49.880 --> 00:06:54.280 So it's not only brick and mortar companies like Home Depot, who then moved online, you have online 00:06:54.280 --> 00:06:58.380 companies that moved to brick and mortar. And the reason they moved to brick and mortar is because they 00:06:58.380 --> 00:07:06.780 actually feel, or research has told them that the conversion rate is higher in mortar than it is online. 00:07:06.780 --> 00:07:11.500 So online, you might have a conversion rate, you know, if you go to Warby Parker website, you might have 00:07:11.500 --> 00:07:17.260 a conversion rate of 8%, 10%. They use the word conversion differently than we would in the church. Right. 00:07:17.260 --> 00:07:22.940 Sure. Uh, but meaning that somebody who goes to Warby Parker site, uh, would, would purchase maybe eight 00:07:22.940 --> 00:07:28.460 to 10% of the time, but in a brick and mortar store, it's, it's usually 50% or higher. Uh, and so they're, 00:07:28.460 --> 00:07:34.060 they're like, man, we got, we want to have that. We want to have that level of engagement. So even, 00:07:35.180 --> 00:07:41.260 even e-commerce, um, and you're often, you're actually hearing more of a term called unified 00:07:41.260 --> 00:07:46.940 commerce now instead of, uh, omni channel, which is basically all the channels are unified. Um, 00:07:46.940 --> 00:07:51.180 but even they, they are like, Hey, look, we need, we want brick and mortar because of the high level 00:07:51.180 --> 00:07:56.780 of engagement that it produces. So if you, if you apply it to a local church, you, it wouldn't make 00:07:56.780 --> 00:08:03.260 you want less face-to-face interaction. It would make you really still value face-to-face interaction 00:08:03.260 --> 00:08:08.380 because you have some that started online and are moving to face-to-face because they realize the value 00:08:08.380 --> 00:08:13.580 of it. Um, that's one. The second thing, and I did mention this in the article Jeff talked about, 00:08:16.620 --> 00:08:20.860 I do think we have to be careful with the term. It's a helpful term. I'm not against 00:08:20.860 --> 00:08:26.140 the term. I use the term, but every example you and I have given, we, we are looking at companies 00:08:26.140 --> 00:08:31.820 whose role is to, to have a customer. Absolutely. I don't, I don't want, I don't want to view the 00:08:31.820 --> 00:08:39.660 kingdom like we're creating customers or that a church is about a customer. You know, listen, 00:08:39.660 --> 00:08:43.980 I'm using the term. I'm using the term. I'm just saying we need to carefully use the term 00:08:43.980 --> 00:08:49.900 term because we, we, we, we really are. Um, well, I think Jeff Reed's got a famous tweet about, 00:08:49.900 --> 00:08:55.660 Hey, if, if all we're doing is, is, um, sitting around, I mean, if we're not making disciples, 00:08:55.660 --> 00:08:57.980 we're just a bunch of guys throwing it. What's that tweet, Jeff? Come on. 00:08:58.300 --> 00:09:03.020 If we're not doing discipleship, we're just a bunch of guys sitting around throwing parties 00:09:03.020 --> 00:09:08.280 on the weekend. I mean, I'm not saying it's a powerful tweet, but, but it, it lives out there. 00:09:08.280 --> 00:09:12.520 And this is the thing, man, like we just fast forwarded to the end of the podcast. I was saving 00:09:12.520 --> 00:09:17.800 the stuff towards the end, but I'm sorry. Let's just, let's just jump in the, jump in the deep end, 00:09:17.800 --> 00:09:23.560 man. It's, it's great. So like, I would, I would say to this that you're right. Church as a whole, 00:09:23.560 --> 00:09:28.600 when they're doing church online, we're creating content. And as a result, because it's content, 00:09:28.600 --> 00:09:34.920 we're creating consumers online. But when we try to say things like, Hey, I can't tell you, 00:09:34.920 --> 00:09:39.880 Eric, how many pastors I've talked to has said, no, we're not doing small groups online. 00:09:39.880 --> 00:09:43.480 That's not my job. I'm not responsible for discipling people online. 00:09:43.480 --> 00:09:50.040 You can't do that. And so it's, it's like you, we can't do ministry, but ministry is what validates 00:09:50.040 --> 00:09:56.360 what we're doing with our content to make it a viable opportunity to change somebody's life for 00:09:56.360 --> 00:10:02.360 real. And I want to be consistent. So like, I'm going to sound like I'm talking on both sides of my 00:10:02.360 --> 00:10:06.880 mouth a bit, but I'm really just want to be consistent. So the reality is some of our worship 00:10:06.880 --> 00:10:12.120 services create consumers too. So we have to, so we have to be careful that if we're going to say 00:10:12.120 --> 00:10:16.760 that about online, that we also don't say, well, I mean, we'll really, what, how different is it 00:10:16.760 --> 00:10:21.960 really than, than, than the worship service that we have? So I, I'm cool with it, creating those, 00:10:21.960 --> 00:10:26.480 those conversations. Now, if the worship service is, is not only about content, but there's times of 00:10:26.480 --> 00:10:30.680 prayer and there's times of connection and there's times after where there's relationship building, 00:10:30.680 --> 00:10:36.380 then it is more than about just the content. But if the worship service is designed only for the 00:10:36.380 --> 00:10:43.340 content, then you really can't look at online as if it's inferior. You know, it's very true. And 00:10:43.340 --> 00:10:47.980 it's difficult for, for people to understand that because even for instance, you know, we're saying 00:10:47.980 --> 00:10:52.680 content, a lot of pastors would struggle through that and say, but I prefer the theological term sermon 00:10:52.680 --> 00:10:59.080 or something along those lines. Exactly. And well, it may be, it may be indifferent to us, 00:10:59.080 --> 00:11:03.900 but even they struggle in terms of the theological implications of how some of that lines up and how 00:11:03.900 --> 00:11:10.380 it hits somebody. Um, can you talk about, uh, and just kind of give a view in terms of the theology, 00:11:10.380 --> 00:11:17.240 uh, behind why this is a great idea to put our content or our sermons online and why we need to 00:11:17.240 --> 00:11:21.440 provide a next step for people in terms of what's next for them and their spiritual growth, even if 00:11:21.440 --> 00:11:26.840 they're not in the room. Yeah. So I always respect when people are consistent in their theology. So 00:11:26.840 --> 00:11:34.380 for those who, um, are against quote unquote online church and they're consistent, they don't put their 00:11:34.380 --> 00:11:40.640 sermons online and they, um, or they, they, they're just really careful to be sure it's not called church, 00:11:40.640 --> 00:11:47.960 uh, because they theologically are, Hey, the word ecclesia means the gathering and this isn't a 00:11:47.960 --> 00:11:53.140 gathering. Uh, I respect the consistency of that view, you know? So, um, that, that, that's where 00:11:53.140 --> 00:11:58.220 they're coming from is that, Hey, it's not truly church because it's not a, it's not a gathering, 00:11:58.220 --> 00:12:04.820 you know? Um, now typically the, the, that view also believes that a church shouldn't have multiple, 00:12:04.820 --> 00:12:12.180 um, services even because a church really is one gathering of, of a group of people. And so if you 00:12:12.180 --> 00:12:17.780 have multiple services, you, it's not one gathering. So it's really like multiple churches, you know? So, 00:12:17.780 --> 00:12:24.260 um, that's, that's that, that would be that, that camp, you know, or that, or that argument. Um, 00:12:24.600 --> 00:12:33.440 for me, I look at it as just want to be sure I separate missiology and ecclesiology. So for sure, 00:12:34.220 --> 00:12:39.440 uh, we, I don't think we would want to say there's any problem with putting your services out there 00:12:39.440 --> 00:12:46.820 from a missionary context, like when the radio went live for the first time and CS Lewis ministered to a 00:12:46.820 --> 00:12:51.440 bunch of people and, uh, during World War II and help people wrestle with the claims of the Christian 00:12:51.440 --> 00:12:58.080 faith or when television went live and Billy Graham started being broadcast in the gospel, uh, people, 00:12:58.420 --> 00:13:05.900 no one, no one criticized that, you know, I don't think so. Um, and so online get, it really is. I mean, 00:13:05.900 --> 00:13:11.080 everyone's walking around with smartphones now. And so we have an opportunity to put the gospel in 00:13:11.080 --> 00:13:17.840 a context that's super accessible to people. Um, it's just a question of if, if you're going to use 00:13:17.840 --> 00:13:25.460 that as equal to, to, to, to the, uh, to the physical experience experience in, in your opinion, 00:13:25.460 --> 00:13:32.800 what's the negative with church online? Like, so if, if church online is, is less than, and, and you've 00:13:32.800 --> 00:13:38.460 not said whether it is or isn't. And so let's, let's just pretend it's not Europe. You're, I'm not 00:13:38.460 --> 00:13:42.780 going to date you, but you're older than me. So you're mid forties. You're, you're welcome for that. 00:13:42.780 --> 00:13:50.040 And so you're like, you're, you're, you're a senior pastor. And so people in your age, when you're 00:13:50.040 --> 00:13:57.840 arranged, some have issues, some don't. What, what are the issues that church online needs to overcome? 00:13:58.340 --> 00:14:04.680 So what are the negatives that's keeping it from having being the same as a physical expression of 00:14:04.680 --> 00:14:10.880 church? Yeah, I think, you know, the first would be the theological. So just to realize that there's 00:14:10.880 --> 00:14:20.780 a camp of people who are, who have, who do make a great solid argument that it, it means gathering and 00:14:20.780 --> 00:14:27.260 therefore it can't be, it can't be digital. Right. So there, so there's that. Uh, but, but I don't 00:14:27.260 --> 00:14:33.640 think Jeff, you'll ever win with those, you know, the online is going to win with those. So, so put the 00:14:33.640 --> 00:14:38.640 theological, um, that's one group. And then there's the, just the practical it's, it's people who are 00:14:38.640 --> 00:14:44.980 like, man, I, I just know personally, I'm not super connected or I know personally, I passively 00:14:44.980 --> 00:14:49.700 watch a television show and I, and I don't want people to passively watch my, you know, a sermon, 00:14:49.880 --> 00:14:56.600 you know, or I know that, um, that when I watch something on Netflix, I'm vegging and I'm not like 00:14:56.600 --> 00:15:01.360 connecting with a whole lot of people with those who, who theologically, um, aren't looking at this 00:15:01.360 --> 00:15:06.640 from a theological, uh, struggle. They're looking at from a practical struggle. What online church has 00:15:06.640 --> 00:15:11.260 got to overcome is, um, helping people connect, not just listen to content, but even to the theological 00:15:11.260 --> 00:15:16.340 crowd, I'd say, Hey, can we be on the same page that putting the message of Jesus out into a whole 00:15:16.340 --> 00:15:21.400 lot of places is, can we put, can we, can we all agree from a missiological standpoint, like just 00:15:21.400 --> 00:15:25.700 getting the message out? It's good. And I believe most are like, Oh yeah, absolutely do that. 00:15:25.900 --> 00:15:32.940 It's just when you then move it from its missiology to its, its actual church, right? That that's when 00:15:32.940 --> 00:15:38.800 then, um, that you, you're, you first have to have the theological conversation. And then if you 00:15:38.800 --> 00:15:44.280 get over that hurdle, there's then the practical conversation. So the, the theological definition 00:15:44.280 --> 00:15:49.940 of church would be more centered around the one hour on Sunday. Ecclesia is really too, you know, 00:15:49.960 --> 00:15:54.360 it's the word for church in the new Testament. There's, it actually means the called out ones, 00:15:54.360 --> 00:16:00.300 but then also it means the gathering. So like, there's a, um, you know, I'm not saying anything 00:16:00.300 --> 00:16:03.960 that people haven't already gone public with like Mark Dever, who are, who I respect at Capitol 00:16:03.960 --> 00:16:10.500 Hill Baptist, like he's against the, the multiple campuses, which, you know, I'm, I'm not against 00:16:10.500 --> 00:16:18.800 and, um, because he believes that, that, uh, the, the church means he's the pastor of a gathering. 00:16:18.800 --> 00:16:22.820 So he would only have one service. He wouldn't have more than one service. 00:16:23.820 --> 00:16:29.040 You see what I'm saying? Because the church is, the church has to be able to gather together. 00:16:29.040 --> 00:16:34.500 I guess the thing that, that I would wrestle with, with this, and, and I know it's, it's different. 00:16:34.500 --> 00:16:39.480 And I've, I've, I've friends who are connected with, with Dever in that, that school of thought. 00:16:39.480 --> 00:16:45.480 And I don't want to make it about Dever, but it's the, where does discipleship come into play with 00:16:45.480 --> 00:16:53.160 this? Because yes, church is the gathering of, uh, coming together in a corporate body, but do we not 00:16:53.160 --> 00:16:59.780 have a personal mission and a calling to go and, and share and create community on our own and whether 00:16:59.780 --> 00:17:07.140 that's bringing it in or, or going out and, and investing like where, where does that, where does 00:17:07.140 --> 00:17:13.380 that lose its flavor in context of online? Because everything that we've talked about is still 00:17:13.380 --> 00:17:20.100 centered around this, um, this one hour service, which is funny. I would actually say that my church 00:17:20.100 --> 00:17:25.780 isn't the church where I'm sitting in a pew for that one hour on Sunday. My church is, is the 00:17:25.780 --> 00:17:31.660 collection of, of, of six or eight people that I connect with on a regular basis and live life with 00:17:31.660 --> 00:17:39.180 in context of, um, the Bible and learning about that. So like, what's the, where, where, where am I 00:17:39.180 --> 00:17:45.900 theologically not lining up in context of, of online or is it's just an evolution where some people aren't 00:17:45.900 --> 00:17:51.040 going to get it and we're theologically okay on the other side? Yeah. I think that the, it would be 00:17:51.040 --> 00:17:55.580 like, Hey, just, you know, I would want to respect people where they are theologically on that. Um, 00:17:56.160 --> 00:18:02.500 and I, I, I personally, where I am, I want to use the tools of the day. Um, you know, Titus one 00:18:02.500 --> 00:18:08.920 to the pure, all things are pure to those who do not believe, uh, nothing is pure. And so 00:18:08.920 --> 00:18:15.020 basically the, the online can be used for pure things and it can be used for not pure things. 00:18:15.020 --> 00:18:20.540 And I absolutely, I want to, I would love to, to use it for pure things. And I think the church is, 00:18:20.540 --> 00:18:26.940 is for sure the mission of the church. And then obviously I want to wrestle with wisdom on 00:18:26.940 --> 00:18:34.420 how the tools are used, uh, to fulfill functions of the church, right? So functions of the church, 00:18:34.420 --> 00:18:40.500 the church gathers for worship, the church gathers for community, the church lives on mission. 00:18:40.500 --> 00:18:46.240 How can the online tools be used to help those functions? You know, I'm, I'm great with those 00:18:46.240 --> 00:18:50.480 conversations. And I think those are the right conversations. We're in a different, we're in a 00:18:50.480 --> 00:18:58.980 really crazy day now where the average attender of a church has used to be someone who went like 00:18:58.980 --> 00:19:04.260 twice a week, you know, like when I got in the game 20 years ago, when I was, you know, a 20 year 00:19:04.260 --> 00:19:10.620 old youth pastor, you know, a, a, a good church member went twice a week, you know, used to tell 00:19:10.620 --> 00:19:14.440 people on Sunday mornings, don't only be a Sunday morning Christian, you know, like get plugged into 00:19:14.440 --> 00:19:21.100 something else. That was, that was a normal thing to say. Now, man, the data is just really staggering. 00:19:21.100 --> 00:19:26.880 If a pastor will look at it, um, the best way to track it is to just pull out, pull out, um, cause 00:19:26.880 --> 00:19:32.920 you check in your kids every week, um, is to pull up the number of kids in your church and see how 00:19:32.920 --> 00:19:38.320 many, like, look at the last sermon series you did and then look at the percentage of people who came 00:19:38.320 --> 00:19:43.180 all five or six weeks of that sermon series. And I promise you, you're going to be overwhelmed 00:19:43.180 --> 00:19:49.940 with, uh, unless you've already done it, you're going to be shocked at the people who are, are just 00:19:49.940 --> 00:19:57.060 not as consistent as what you perhaps think that they are. And so do you want to use online to, to, 00:19:57.060 --> 00:20:04.240 to keep that, like, if you worked your tail off as a senior pastor, the, uh, in a sermon series, 00:20:04.240 --> 00:20:11.420 do you want that content to be accessible to people outside of the gathering? Um, just look at the data 00:20:11.420 --> 00:20:17.560 and you probably will, you probably will want that, you know? Yeah. Um, I know I do. I know I do. 00:20:18.040 --> 00:20:21.740 You know, Eric, one of the things that I appreciated about working underneath you is that 00:20:21.740 --> 00:20:26.520 you always have a strong drive towards guiding people through the discipleship process. And you 00:20:26.520 --> 00:20:31.560 talked about how people are, you know, maybe once a monthers or twice a monthers in terms of their 00:20:31.560 --> 00:20:37.140 regular times. How can folks leverage that online content to help people take next steps to maybe 00:20:37.140 --> 00:20:43.420 increase their opportunity to being there on a regular basis? It's the right question. And I think 00:20:43.420 --> 00:20:48.460 it's something I'm wrestling with here. Our team's wrestling with here. We want to do more than just, 00:20:48.460 --> 00:20:55.740 like, use online as a way to rebroadcast our sermons, which we are doing that. But what, 00:20:55.740 --> 00:21:01.600 what, how can we use things that we're creating to help people take an even additional step? And so 00:21:01.600 --> 00:21:07.620 we're testing some things. Like I, I did a series in Romans eight, um, in the third week was the famous, 00:21:07.620 --> 00:21:14.840 um, you got to kill sin or sin will kill you. And so it was a 40 minute message, but there's a lot of 00:21:14.840 --> 00:21:22.760 stuff you can't really hit on that weight of a topic in 40. So we did a Facebook live additional content 00:21:22.760 --> 00:21:29.560 and after the message for people to tap into. And it was like 20 minutes of walking through the famous 00:21:29.560 --> 00:21:39.240 book by John Owen, um, mortification of sin. So we, we want, we actually didn't just rebroadcast the 00:21:39.240 --> 00:21:44.680 content, but we, we provide some additional content and we view that as a next step, but that's just 00:21:44.680 --> 00:21:50.440 one test. I don't know if anyone's really nailed this yet. Um, I, we, we, we do need some churches 00:21:50.440 --> 00:21:56.160 to nail this so that we can have some examples. Um, and I, I don't, I don't know if we'll be one that 00:21:56.160 --> 00:22:02.120 does or not, at least, I don't know if we'll be a pace setter or not, but I want, I'd like to, 00:22:02.120 --> 00:22:05.800 I'd like to, to use the tools to help people take next steps. 00:22:06.360 --> 00:22:11.040 Well, I, and I tell you what, you know, Eric, just even, even one thought, how many multi-sites 00:22:11.040 --> 00:22:18.740 are you now there at, uh, at Mariners? Uh, well, we, we see, I mean, some of them are plants that, 00:22:18.740 --> 00:22:24.100 that, that don't have the name Mariners now. And, um, you spun something off. So that, that, 00:22:24.100 --> 00:22:30.180 that Karen Mariners name would be, uh, three others. Okay. Well, and even on, even on the plant 00:22:30.180 --> 00:22:37.060 side, like to me, I would look at church online as a way to, to plant campuses and or churches, 00:22:37.060 --> 00:22:42.520 you know, start to look at the, uh, you know, the equations, the locations to see where you're 00:22:42.520 --> 00:22:48.800 getting people together. And so like, how hard, like I'm, I'm, I'm actually asking for one to know 00:22:48.800 --> 00:22:53.800 myself, but also if I'm a regular, I'm, I'm thinking about regular pastors like me who are 00:22:53.800 --> 00:22:57.560 listening to this. How hard is it to see those demographics? You know, how hard is it, 00:22:57.740 --> 00:23:02.460 is it back in tools on your website? So any web, any web host can tell you where they're watching 00:23:02.460 --> 00:23:08.860 from? Yeah. I mean, Google analytics, um, can, can drill into that and that's Google analytics is 00:23:08.860 --> 00:23:15.640 free. Uh, you just put it in a bed code on, on your website and back into CMS and, uh, and Google, 00:23:15.840 --> 00:23:20.760 Google gives you those reports on a regular basis. And so any given Sunday, you can know where 00:23:20.760 --> 00:23:25.260 people are pulling from now there's, there's other stats and other things like how long they watched 00:23:25.260 --> 00:23:31.060 some of that stuff that you can pull in from other sources, but that's a good, yeah, that's a good 00:23:31.060 --> 00:23:35.120 step. So if you, if I'm a senior pastor listening and I'm like, man, that would help me with my 00:23:35.120 --> 00:23:40.100 strategy. That's something that they could contact you on. And you could, you could, you could, 00:23:40.200 --> 00:23:43.600 that's something you could solve somebody on. Like, Hey, let me, let me look at your, 00:23:43.660 --> 00:23:47.160 let me set up Google analytics for you. This is going to help, you know, where you could 00:23:47.160 --> 00:23:54.140 launch something in the future. Sure. That'd be great. And so part of this also is as a, as a result 00:23:54.140 --> 00:23:59.720 of that, once you know where these people are, start to cluster them together into a, like a 00:23:59.720 --> 00:24:04.920 micro location, a house church, a micro site, uh, meeting and meeting in a home, meeting in a 00:24:04.920 --> 00:24:12.300 conference room, work conference room, just different areas and start to cluster, whether it's 00:24:12.300 --> 00:24:15.700 small group curriculum, whether it's actual doing church services, watching and experiencing 00:24:15.700 --> 00:24:21.960 it together, doing a watch party or something, you're creating these, um, physical locations. 00:24:21.960 --> 00:24:28.280 You know, you're talking about Ecclesia as a separation from, uh, it's, it's lacking the, 00:24:28.320 --> 00:24:33.680 the community in context of online. Whereas I would actually pitch their options where online 00:24:33.680 --> 00:24:39.240 births, these Ecclesias around these, these communities around, and whether you're clustering 00:24:39.240 --> 00:24:44.500 this for a church plan or a micro site, all of a sudden online is, is the vehicle that's 00:24:44.500 --> 00:24:51.300 helping you create these, these pockets of growth instead of pulling away from and hindering. 00:24:51.760 --> 00:24:57.740 So if it's truly a unified experience, if you, so if you take omni-channel church, that's 00:24:57.740 --> 00:25:04.480 that idea to the, to the furthest thing here, yet you're committed to a discipleship process. 00:25:04.480 --> 00:25:09.140 So hang, you're, you're, you have both, you believe in the tools and you have a process. 00:25:09.620 --> 00:25:14.860 You could have somebody who every week they watch at home every single week. 00:25:14.860 --> 00:25:17.260 That's, that's the, that's the service they attend. 00:25:17.460 --> 00:25:17.900 Right. 00:25:18.040 --> 00:25:18.240 Yeah. 00:25:18.260 --> 00:25:23.500 Their next step is to be in a group and they then are, they, they, they then show up on 00:25:23.500 --> 00:25:25.780 Tuesday nights to a physical group. 00:25:25.920 --> 00:25:26.400 Right. 00:25:26.820 --> 00:25:30.620 Then their next step is to serve or to do outreach in the city. 00:25:31.460 --> 00:25:36.720 And they, so I, you know, truly omni-channel church would be, they, they can ebb and flow 00:25:36.720 --> 00:25:40.640 between physical and online environments throughout the whole process. 00:25:40.780 --> 00:25:41.140 Correct. 00:25:41.140 --> 00:25:44.700 And still feel like they're part of the church, which is, which is significant. 00:25:45.000 --> 00:25:50.480 But the, the wrestling currently is most people, when they hear online church, they're only thinking 00:25:50.480 --> 00:25:51.220 the weekend service. 00:25:51.220 --> 00:25:53.800 They're only thinking one step of the discipleship process. 00:25:54.020 --> 00:25:55.540 They're not thinking the whole thing. 00:25:56.080 --> 00:25:56.320 That's right. 00:25:56.560 --> 00:25:58.180 And let me just throw this out there. 00:25:58.240 --> 00:25:58.700 Sorry, Ray. 00:25:58.900 --> 00:25:59.380 No, it's all right. 00:25:59.760 --> 00:26:01.520 Is that not even a fair statement? 00:26:01.720 --> 00:26:02.840 Let me, let's just be honest. 00:26:02.880 --> 00:26:08.620 Is that not even a fair statement in context of church where churches itself defines itself 00:26:08.620 --> 00:26:10.360 a lot by that one hour on Sunday? 00:26:10.600 --> 00:26:15.120 And maybe not so much, maybe it's not to the extent of church online, but there are churches 00:26:15.120 --> 00:26:17.760 out there that struggle with that ideology. 00:26:18.140 --> 00:26:18.540 Agree. 00:26:18.660 --> 00:26:23.460 I think that's why I said it would have to be a church that's coupled with like church for 00:26:23.460 --> 00:26:25.080 us is not this one thing. 00:26:25.080 --> 00:26:28.020 It's, it's, it's an overall discipleship process. 00:26:28.600 --> 00:26:29.000 Yeah. 00:26:29.260 --> 00:26:32.680 And that's where, and I'm glad Jeff brought that up because that's, that's some of the 00:26:32.680 --> 00:26:33.820 struggle that we've seen overall. 00:26:33.820 --> 00:26:38.020 And I think in the last few years is there are a lot of people who've considered church 00:26:38.020 --> 00:26:40.420 just, Hey, I come for the content. 00:26:40.420 --> 00:26:46.000 I come for the worship and for the word, and I don't necessarily have any kind of interaction 00:26:46.000 --> 00:26:49.660 with believers throughout the week, or there's nobody who's necessarily helping me grow 00:26:49.660 --> 00:26:51.220 in my faith in Christ. 00:26:51.220 --> 00:26:53.240 It's just this one hour of interaction. 00:26:54.000 --> 00:26:57.540 And this is where not just church online, but church in general can become a dangerous 00:26:57.540 --> 00:27:01.440 place where I've even really come to appreciate like the work that Robbie Gallaty has been 00:27:01.440 --> 00:27:05.220 doing and just trying to help people grow in their faith by getting them into community, 00:27:05.220 --> 00:27:08.940 even where they're at and helping people take those next steps. 00:27:09.440 --> 00:27:14.160 It's why those things can be so crucial, whether it's, you know, through an online platform for 00:27:14.160 --> 00:27:19.180 our folks who travel, because we've seen that or, or whether they're able to gather in person 00:27:19.180 --> 00:27:22.120 just because of the, they need that kind of accountability. 00:27:22.740 --> 00:27:23.660 Yeah, that's good. 00:27:24.400 --> 00:27:33.760 How do you, as, as a lead pastor, so, I mean, and, and Mariners is huge, like, and just in 00:27:33.760 --> 00:27:40.360 the context of size, California, you've got a wide varying range of people that attend different 00:27:40.360 --> 00:27:41.420 demographics, different. 00:27:41.800 --> 00:27:44.540 How do you make a decision for something like this? 00:27:44.800 --> 00:27:47.740 Like theologically, I'm agreeing with this. 00:27:47.780 --> 00:27:48.520 I'm not agreeing with this. 00:27:48.580 --> 00:27:51.720 Once again, I'm not, I don't want to put you on the spot for a decision and a direction, 00:27:51.820 --> 00:27:56.860 but more of what decisions, because, because realize the people that are listening to this 00:27:56.860 --> 00:28:03.740 are technical people that need to convince someone like you of what, the way that they 00:28:03.740 --> 00:28:04.200 think. 00:28:04.460 --> 00:28:07.200 And so coach me through here. 00:28:07.660 --> 00:28:14.000 How can we connect with, with you as, as a high level leader to show you some of these 00:28:14.000 --> 00:28:15.940 things to, to get you to understand? 00:28:17.240 --> 00:28:18.500 That's a great question, man. 00:28:18.900 --> 00:28:21.080 Hey everybody, this is Jeff with the church digital. 00:28:21.080 --> 00:28:22.780 We're going to break the interview right here. 00:28:22.880 --> 00:28:23.960 That was a great question. 00:28:24.520 --> 00:28:27.040 The answer was even better, honestly. 00:28:27.260 --> 00:28:33.320 And so rather than to go through an entire conversation here as, as Eric Geiger eloquently 00:28:33.320 --> 00:28:37.080 answers that question and all the conversations afterwards, we're actually going to break the 00:28:37.080 --> 00:28:37.460 episode. 00:28:37.720 --> 00:28:43.180 We're going to come back because we just had a great episode in context of Omnichannel and 00:28:43.180 --> 00:28:44.040 Unified Church. 00:28:44.280 --> 00:28:48.920 But the conversation that's coming next as we talk about how to talk to your leadership 00:28:48.920 --> 00:28:53.520 about church online, honestly, it's just a whole other episode into itself. 00:28:53.660 --> 00:28:59.280 I honestly thought I was landing the plane with something simple and yeah, it wasn't, but it 00:28:59.280 --> 00:29:00.160 was awesome. 00:29:00.160 --> 00:29:02.460 So you definitely want to check out the next episode. 00:29:02.460 --> 00:29:04.440 We're going to wrap episode nine right now. 00:29:04.540 --> 00:29:11.020 Episode 10, Ray DeArmas from Christ Fellowship Miami, Eric Geiger, lead pastor, Mariner Church 00:29:11.020 --> 00:29:14.260 and myself diving into that, how to talk to your leadership. 00:29:14.900 --> 00:29:18.060 Hey, if you got any questions on this past episode, check out the show notes. 00:29:18.220 --> 00:29:22.640 Don't forget while you're there, subscribe to this podcast, man, support it. 00:29:22.720 --> 00:29:28.340 Feel free to leave a review as well as that helps us get the word out and helps us get this 00:29:28.340 --> 00:29:30.260 content in front of other eyes. 00:29:30.400 --> 00:29:32.860 But for Eric, for Ray, my name is Jeff. 00:29:33.180 --> 00:29:33.980 Thanks for listening.