WEBVTT 00:00:00.960 --> 00:00:06.480 hey now we're really broadcasting live this was awesome i just did the past three minutes i 00:00:06.480 --> 00:00:11.280 literally i clicked the button and uh and and so there's uh whatever i'm using stream yard there 00:00:11.280 --> 00:00:15.360 says are you sure you want to go live and i clicked the button once and just started talking 00:00:15.360 --> 00:00:19.360 didn't even realize that we weren't even broadcasting live so i'm gonna do the whole 00:00:19.360 --> 00:00:25.200 speech again it was awesome hey we are here celebrating this idea of a big announcement 00:00:25.200 --> 00:00:32.080 the church digital 2021 it has been an awesome time uh and but we've got some big things coming up 00:00:32.080 --> 00:00:37.440 and what i wanted man i just wanted to say up front here as we're kicking off i'm tired i've been 00:00:37.440 --> 00:00:43.920 traveling a lot it's been really fun connecting with uh some exponential friends casting some new vision 00:00:43.920 --> 00:00:49.280 uh towards digital and and i'm gonna be in dc no dc i've already been there north cal southern 00:00:49.280 --> 00:00:53.920 california did all those as well but i'm gonna be in chicago i'm gonna be in houston here in the next 00:00:53.920 --> 00:00:59.520 couple weeks so looking forward to meeting up with you if you're gonna be at those events but we got a 00:00:59.520 --> 00:01:04.240 big announcement but let me back up maybe before we get there i want to tell you the why we're doing 00:01:04.240 --> 00:01:10.320 this and what's coming up so you see the heart of the church digital the heart of what we're doing 00:01:10.320 --> 00:01:16.320 all the blogging the podcasting the streaming the speaking engagements the heart behind digital through 00:01:16.320 --> 00:01:22.640 stadia and through exponential digital only church planting through stadia looking at even ramping up some 00:01:22.640 --> 00:01:27.760 global digital church through an organization called finishing the task we'll talk talk more about that 00:01:27.760 --> 00:01:35.040 later just follow it away traveling six of seven weeks by the way thank you very much american advantage 00:01:35.040 --> 00:01:42.400 bonus miles thank you for that and marriott bonvoy i i love you listen all of this is for the one 00:01:42.400 --> 00:01:49.280 purpose of helping churches like yours understand how to thrive grow and multiply utilizing this digital 00:01:49.280 --> 00:01:53.760 technology to understand how digital ministry works how it's different than physical 00:01:54.320 --> 00:02:01.600 um and just to even take advantage of this in context of your church now yes it's a reality let's 00:02:01.600 --> 00:02:07.600 not sugarcoat it in this 2021 era the majority of churches are trying to get back to normal 00:02:07.600 --> 00:02:11.760 as quickly as possible and unfortunately they perceive normal as february 00:02:11.760 --> 00:02:16.720 2020 and so some churches they're not interested and i've had those conversations 00:02:16.720 --> 00:02:21.680 with pastors uh who are in that situation digital pastors who are scrambling and struggling 00:02:21.680 --> 00:02:28.160 and yes it is a challenge but i would even say this i think there's an opportunity in this season 00:02:28.160 --> 00:02:34.960 where not all churches want to go back to what was normal the perception of of what the church was in 00:02:34.960 --> 00:02:40.000 february 2020 i think some churches are wanting to be aggressive they're wanting to experiment they're 00:02:40.000 --> 00:02:46.560 wanting to try something different and really this gets to this heart stadia has this phrase i love 00:02:47.120 --> 00:02:53.840 this and i love the family over there uh we want to go with the goers stadia says this a lot we want to go 00:02:53.840 --> 00:03:02.240 with the goers the people who are advancing who are running let's go with them and so we we made this pivot 00:03:02.240 --> 00:03:08.880 uh in in season two here with the church digital podcast where it's hey we want to go with the goers i 00:03:08.880 --> 00:03:14.240 don't want to spend time trying to convince people that are not interested in digital ministry or 00:03:14.240 --> 00:03:19.520 the benefits of it why they should do it when instead we should be advancing with people who 00:03:19.520 --> 00:03:25.920 want to there's so many people in this season that want to um let's let's go with them and really 00:03:25.920 --> 00:03:31.520 this gets into the heart of let's be crazy let's be radical let's go with the experimenters let's try 00:03:31.520 --> 00:03:39.280 something different 21 years ago i was crazy i taught an online bible study before like online was even a 00:03:39.280 --> 00:03:45.680 thing before social media to anything came out before facebook myspace uh before smartphones webcams 00:03:46.400 --> 00:03:51.280 i was doing it 21 years ago crazy right yeah that's that's pretty much the moniker of my life 00:03:51.280 --> 00:03:58.800 i left a full-time job uh doing ministry to start an organization pre-covid that was championing digital 00:03:58.800 --> 00:04:04.800 uh yeah once again uh probably another crazy thing and to be honest that probably wasn't a good idea 00:04:04.800 --> 00:04:10.960 pre-covid but really that's where faith comes in in this stuff but sometimes when we're doing crazy 00:04:10.960 --> 00:04:15.840 things proverbs 3 5 and 6 trust in the lord lean not on your own understanding in all your ways 00:04:15.840 --> 00:04:22.800 acknowledge him and if you're doing that by faith in those seasons he'll direct your path which actually 00:04:22.800 --> 00:04:28.640 gets me back to this idea of being crazy so let's have some fun here if you go on google experiment for 00:04:28.640 --> 00:04:35.120 me tell me where it's at you can throw it in the chat if you google right now plant a digital church 00:04:35.680 --> 00:04:43.120 chances are me the church digital stadia church planting or some blog or podcast that i've spoken on 00:04:43.120 --> 00:04:50.640 will come up in probably six to eight of the top ten listings on google plant a digital church and it 00:04:50.640 --> 00:04:57.440 has been awesome pioneering this this idea and working alongside stadia to fine-tune it has been a 00:04:57.440 --> 00:05:06.240 beautiful experience um but we've got a problem churches like yours out there you're not wanting all the 00:05:06.240 --> 00:05:12.080 radical stuff or you don't just need the radical stuff we all need to learn how to experiment we all 00:05:12.080 --> 00:05:18.080 need to learn how to iterate we all need to to hear these success stories but the reality is you need 00:05:18.080 --> 00:05:26.240 more than just the craziness that i'm bringing to the table yes i'm crazy but you need the practical 00:05:26.240 --> 00:05:33.200 insight you need the more grounded tips um i'm just going to be real right now if i have to write 00:05:33.200 --> 00:05:39.280 another blog or do another stream on the top four reasons your church needs an online small group 00:05:39.280 --> 00:05:44.800 my head's going to explode like literally emoji is going to happen right here on the screen because 00:05:44.800 --> 00:05:52.480 i i mean i'm just i'm spent in that it's been 20 plus years having that conversation and i don't have 00:05:52.480 --> 00:05:59.520 it in me anymore which actually brings me here to the announcement that we wanted to talk about so here's 00:05:59.520 --> 00:06:05.840 what we're going to do we're bringing somebody in to the church digital we're going to onboard somebody 00:06:05.840 --> 00:06:11.680 who's going to take this over not the church digital but really this idea of the practical 00:06:11.680 --> 00:06:16.960 the insights the tips the grounded guy that's actually going to help your ministry take it to 00:06:16.960 --> 00:06:20.640 the next level now here's what we're going to do and this guy's good i'm going to introduce him a 00:06:20.640 --> 00:06:24.880 little bit but i'm going to tease him you guys can do a guessing game if you're in chat here and try to 00:06:24.880 --> 00:06:29.840 figure it out maybe you know who this guy is uh look here's here's where he's a digital pastor 00:06:29.840 --> 00:06:35.440 okay there's a lot of them out there not not that many but there's enough he's in washington dc oh 00:06:35.440 --> 00:06:42.080 oh narrows it down a little bit he's student ministry background he's been blogging and podcasting 00:06:42.080 --> 00:06:50.960 for church online for years dude was doing this content before i was doing this content solid 00:06:50.960 --> 00:06:56.800 stuff he's been a guest on the church digital podcast during our season two run just recently 00:06:56.800 --> 00:07:02.240 quick go to the website try to find out what it was you can narrow it down even runs a facebook group 00:07:02.240 --> 00:07:07.600 on digital ministry you know who this guy is all right look here's what we're doing we're bringing 00:07:07.600 --> 00:07:14.480 in tom pounder into the church digital so i'm going to work my little technology here and bring in tom 00:07:14.480 --> 00:07:22.480 pounder to the screen hey tom how's it going hey jeff i'm doing pretty good awesome so man listen 00:07:22.480 --> 00:07:27.520 i am so excited that you were crazy enough to come on board with us here at the church digital 00:07:27.520 --> 00:07:33.920 and do this that is going to be a great so hey first off i i want to ask this question 00:07:34.960 --> 00:07:40.720 what were you thinking like you're doing this thing you're you're so successful with what you're 00:07:40.720 --> 00:07:48.640 doing with ym sidekick what are you thinking coming on board with this well i mean it all started with 00:07:48.640 --> 00:07:55.200 that crazy conversation we had three years ago and i just said when i had you on my podcast and i thought 00:07:55.200 --> 00:08:02.800 man this guy is awesome this guy i would love to be a part of anything that jeff reed is doing and so 00:08:02.800 --> 00:08:09.600 with your background of doing digital ministry and what you're doing for digital ministers all over 00:08:09.600 --> 00:08:14.640 when you and i had a conversation when we actually got to meet in person when we got after all the years 00:08:14.640 --> 00:08:20.160 of online we got to meet in person you you threw this crazy idea by me i was like man this is what i've 00:08:20.160 --> 00:08:26.160 been looking for to partner up with someone who is really an innovator like yourselves and i just 00:08:26.160 --> 00:08:32.160 thought i i cannot pass this up i know listen i i love it and by the way people who say that digital 00:08:32.160 --> 00:08:39.520 relationships are not real tom has been a very close friend of mine for three years just met the dude for 00:08:39.520 --> 00:08:45.120 the first time i don't know a month ago at an exponential conference in dc and so it's it's a 00:08:45.120 --> 00:08:54.080 beautiful thing tom is digital pastor with um um new life uh there in washington dc uh as student pastor 00:08:54.080 --> 00:08:59.680 as well off and on has been very involved in student ministry as well as digital over the years tom maybe 00:08:59.680 --> 00:09:05.200 just take a minute here tell us a little bit about yourself even beyond that yeah so i was uh born and 00:09:05.200 --> 00:09:13.280 raised in washington dc just outside of dc my my dad actually was a cia guy for over 30 years um 00:09:13.280 --> 00:09:18.800 and so they're from my mom and my dad were from pennsylvania and they moved down here uh do that and 00:09:18.800 --> 00:09:23.040 i just always remember growing up um they would always ask what what does your dad do what does 00:09:23.040 --> 00:09:29.040 your dad do and we're always told to say your dad worked for the government and everyone knew that if 00:09:29.040 --> 00:09:34.000 they said that then your dad worked for the cia so that was just the kind of the weird thing 00:09:34.000 --> 00:09:40.400 uh but you know i was born and raised here uh you know and um i left we left a few years for germany 00:09:40.400 --> 00:09:47.520 i left a few years for college uh but god really hit me uh you know my parents were always believers 00:09:47.520 --> 00:09:53.360 we always went to church but there was always that void in my life um you know throughout high 00:09:53.360 --> 00:09:58.400 school in the summer between my junior and senior year in high school uh went on a mission trip that 00:09:58.400 --> 00:10:04.480 changed my life and i thought if serving god looks like this i don't want to do anything else and you 00:10:04.480 --> 00:10:10.720 know and i looked up to my youth pastor who was just wild and crazy but he was very uh close to jesus 00:10:10.720 --> 00:10:15.600 and i thought this is who i want to be like and so i committed my life to say i'm gonna i'm gonna grow 00:10:15.600 --> 00:10:22.400 my faith and and uh do that but i you know while i was passionate about student ministry another passion 00:10:22.400 --> 00:10:28.880 of mine was always computers i love computers i remember how i'm playing with an apple 2 uh in 00:10:28.880 --> 00:10:36.640 elementary school at the schools and then my parents bought in 1985 or 86 um maybe a little bit after 00:10:36.640 --> 00:10:46.320 that but it was an ibm ps2 um yeah and uh and so from that moment on i was totally hooked on computers 00:10:46.960 --> 00:10:53.920 and so um throughout my college career i still love working with computers but studied ministry uh and 00:10:53.920 --> 00:11:00.640 it was just great that about six seven years ago my church approached me about being the online guy at 00:11:00.640 --> 00:11:08.080 the church and um it was a position that i was serving in and i loved it um and again i've been 00:11:08.080 --> 00:11:13.600 doing the blog for a long time as well doing focus on student ministry stuff but you know i went into 00:11:13.600 --> 00:11:20.640 doing a lot of online stuff and my blog and my podcast was all real stuff that i wanted to uh share 00:11:20.640 --> 00:11:26.560 with people um just different things i'm learning but then also the podcast was about interviewing people 00:11:26.560 --> 00:11:31.440 who were learning cool things and i got a chance to learn from them uh so they were like my heroes 00:11:32.160 --> 00:11:38.240 uh that i just got to interview uh so it's just been a fun ride um i've really enjoyed ministering um 00:11:38.240 --> 00:11:45.040 and i can't see doing anything other than serving the lord so it's been really fun so tom that is so 00:11:45.040 --> 00:11:50.320 awesome man and and love the the experience the wealth of knowledge by the way secret tip 00:11:50.320 --> 00:11:55.280 run a podcast not because you've got stuff to say but because you want to learn from other people 00:11:55.280 --> 00:12:01.200 definitely a a pro tip right there and has been just i i was telling actually i was texting grade 00:12:01.200 --> 00:12:05.360 the armist last night i told him probably the best thing that i've done ministry wise in 10 years 00:12:05.360 --> 00:12:09.440 uh we'll start this podcast i don't know three four years whenever we started at this point i can't 00:12:09.440 --> 00:12:15.120 even keep track in my head hey so tom do me a favor i because you're you're you're ym sidekick 00:12:15.120 --> 00:12:21.040 coming over tcd sidekick we're gonna get there in a little bit what's this whole sidekick thing like 00:12:21.040 --> 00:12:28.720 what what how does this work for you yeah so i i've always envisioned myself i i've always enjoyed 00:12:28.720 --> 00:12:34.960 leadership and and being a part of the process and being a part of teams um but one thing that i always 00:12:34.960 --> 00:12:40.880 i figured out about myself is that i'm a really good sidekick like i'm a i'm you know i can be in a 00:12:40.880 --> 00:12:47.360 number one position uh and i can i'm very comfortable in that but where i feel like my sweet spot is is to be in 00:12:47.360 --> 00:12:53.520 that number two position to be that sidekick and so when i was blogging you know um before i even 00:12:53.520 --> 00:12:59.760 started the podcast um i i just thought what does my blog want to be about what do i i don't want to 00:12:59.760 --> 00:13:05.760 be about me i want to just be a part of the conversation and so i just thought you know sidekick i loved 00:13:06.400 --> 00:13:13.200 growing up i loved batman and robin and i know everyone loves batman i mean i do too um but i was really 00:13:13.200 --> 00:13:20.480 drawn towards uh yeah robin right there i was drawn to uh be the sidekick there i love dick grayson i 00:13:20.480 --> 00:13:26.080 thought he was awesome and he became nightwing his own superhero but you know him being robin i was 00:13:26.080 --> 00:13:31.440 just one of my favorite characters and i thought i want to i want to be the sidekick so that's how i 00:13:31.440 --> 00:13:37.680 approach my blog that's how i approach this the podcast that i do i just want to lift other people 00:13:37.680 --> 00:13:44.080 up and be support to other people and that's why i chose sidekick yeah that's beautiful and hopefully 00:13:44.080 --> 00:13:50.560 that makes sense some of the easter eggs i think i had more people texting me and asking me not what 00:13:50.560 --> 00:13:57.120 the announcement was but why are we doing like batman graphics and uh and pikachu i had people 00:13:57.120 --> 00:14:03.760 asking me which one was pikachu it was so funny uh you know uh mario here with this charlie brown's 00:14:03.760 --> 00:14:08.320 probably my favorite because snoopy says wolf snoopy never you know talks but that's okay so you 00:14:08.320 --> 00:14:16.080 know and of course star wars uh for that and so definitely excited about taking this idea of sidekick 00:14:16.080 --> 00:14:21.120 um and bringing in and not that i'm batman and looking for a robin but looking for an opportunity 00:14:21.120 --> 00:14:26.720 to get more voices out there uh and doing it by the way dick grayson is totally the best robin ever 00:14:26.720 --> 00:14:34.160 and i'm not even he is yeah so that's that's another conversation entirely hey here so here's 00:14:34.160 --> 00:14:41.120 here's what we're doing be be excited for this here's the the practical reality of this uh with the tcd 00:14:41.120 --> 00:14:46.800 sidekick the podcast why am sidekick podcast is coming over to the church digital it's going to be 00:14:46.800 --> 00:14:51.360 part of the church digital podcast network we'll talk more about that here in a little bit we're 00:14:51.360 --> 00:14:57.440 going to be tom's going to be doing weekly blogs updates through the church digital the new content 00:14:57.440 --> 00:15:02.560 he's developing it's going to be available through the church digital distributed and available for that 00:15:02.560 --> 00:15:10.000 tom's weekly email grounded sidekick scoop grounded in in practical insights and tips uh is going to be 00:15:10.000 --> 00:15:15.600 available weekly and and tcd the church digital audience to be able to subscribe for that tom is 00:15:15.600 --> 00:15:22.320 taking over stadia's be the church online facebook group and running that and so excited to see 00:15:22.320 --> 00:15:28.400 some of the insight coming in uh around in that so listen tom we're doing a bunch of stuff through the 00:15:28.400 --> 00:15:36.800 church digital to get tom's information his insights his practical tips out there and you can hit all of 00:15:36.800 --> 00:15:44.080 that up by going to the church digital slash sidekick that if you're looking at the stream online if you're 00:15:44.080 --> 00:15:52.800 looking at youtube the church dot digital slash sidekick is the way to get connected into this and to start 00:15:52.800 --> 00:15:58.240 receiving tom's stuff here so tom tell us just here right now uh man what what can we expect what are 00:15:58.240 --> 00:16:06.320 like some things that are coming up in the pipe right here with tcd sidekick well i one is i've lined 00:16:06.320 --> 00:16:11.040 up a bunch of great interviews and i've already conducted a few of them that are going to be released uh 00:16:11.040 --> 00:16:16.800 starting next wednesday so next wednesday will be my first one and can i tell who's going to be on the 00:16:16.800 --> 00:16:24.640 podcast okay yeah sure let's do it okay ben stapely the one and only i wasn't expecting that one very 00:16:24.640 --> 00:16:31.040 cool love that yeah so i i love ben and you love i know you love ben too and so he's just one guy i 00:16:31.040 --> 00:16:38.960 wanted to kind of launch this tcb d sidekick off with uh so i'm excited he'll be my first guest there 00:16:38.960 --> 00:16:43.920 and i've got four or five other online ministers who are lined up and they'll be coming out in the 00:16:43.920 --> 00:16:47.840 consecutive weeks of just conversations we're having about online ministry and what it looks 00:16:47.840 --> 00:16:52.720 like for you and what what it looks like for them but also more importantly what it looks like for you 00:16:52.720 --> 00:16:57.920 and how you can apply what we're talking about uh into your ministry context uh and then i've just got 00:16:57.920 --> 00:17:03.040 great different blogs and my blogs you know they're they're digital based but i also focus on some 00:17:03.040 --> 00:17:09.920 leadership issues um and uh just things like that so i i try to take digital in the in the aspect of 00:17:10.560 --> 00:17:15.440 not not just if you're an online pastor i want these to apply if you're a children's minister 00:17:15.920 --> 00:17:21.360 if you're a student minister uh if you're an executive pastor how can you incorporate digital 00:17:21.360 --> 00:17:27.520 components into your uh ministry and so again that's where we're going and so i that those are 00:17:27.520 --> 00:17:31.760 the kind of angles i'm going to take for for the content i'm producing with the church digital 00:17:32.640 --> 00:17:40.320 and i love that i mean i love that aspect where we're trying to not make digital so much as an 00:17:40.320 --> 00:17:47.760 as an exclusionary aggressive radical approach but trying to make it practical for every person for 00:17:47.760 --> 00:17:53.280 every step for every person who's in ministry even challenging digital missionaries which i know tom's 00:17:53.280 --> 00:18:00.640 passion about even uh challenging those that are not on staff to embrace digital as a as a way of uh 00:18:00.640 --> 00:18:08.240 disciple making moving forward and so tom i cannot be more excited about what is happening and getting 00:18:08.240 --> 00:18:14.880 ready to talk about this but sadly we're gonna have to wrap up here and so there's gonna be some big 00:18:14.880 --> 00:18:21.040 things coming down the road even beyond this 2022 is going to be awesome and we still got a chunk of 00:18:21.040 --> 00:18:27.920 21 left to go through church digital podcast network's going to expand look for more voices to come into 00:18:27.920 --> 00:18:35.200 this area as we are really passionate about helping people helping pastors helping ministers helping them 00:18:35.200 --> 00:18:41.840 understand how to use digital to the place of multiplying stadia uses the language until every child 00:18:41.840 --> 00:18:48.800 has a church and that's the motto of of the church digital dude ministry do multiplication until 00:18:48.800 --> 00:18:54.320 everybody's got a church because that's the goal of where we are so much more coming soon in context 00:18:54.320 --> 00:19:00.240 of all of this church digital ecosystem but hey thomas we're landing the plane here any closing thoughts 00:19:00.240 --> 00:19:07.120 on your side just excited to be a part of the team and looking forward to how this develops and uh to be your sidekick 00:19:09.120 --> 00:19:16.640 awesome do not put on the costume whatever anyone says no cosplay necessary there hey guys and and we're 00:19:16.640 --> 00:19:23.520 out for tom this is jeff uh with the church digital uh powered by stadia church planning thanks for jumping 00:19:23.520 --> 00:19:28.080 on this big announcement hey there's going to be more stuff more big announcements coming soon so look for 00:19:28.080 --> 00:19:36.160 it coming soon but until then check out uh the sidekick page there the church digital slash sidekick get connected 00:19:36.160 --> 00:19:42.160 with tom and uh y'all have a good day