EP112: Jason Morris, Heidi Tompkins, Micro-locations & the Acts 2 Revolution

Jeff here. This conversation today cuts to the wick for me. It cuts a little close to home here. I have always loved this strategy, this model, this idea of using church online, our online services to broadcast, to connect with, and start to create column watch parties, control missional communities, call them micro locations. There's different meanings towards it, but it's this idea of taking digital and growing it physical and having an impact physically, and using digital to disciple, to grow people spiritually to the point where you can even multiply from digital into physical. There's lots of opportunities here.

Some churches, even in this cold season, they're experimenting with it. Like the church we're going to talk about today, we're going to talk about Westside Families. Randy Frazee, Randy Frazee's church. He's a well-known pastor, author as well, and so it's got some name recognition here across the country. We're talking about Randy Frazee's church, Westside Family. Jason Morris, no stranger to the Progress Global Innovation Pastor there at Westside Family, is jumping on this podcast here. We're gonna have a great conversation.

But what's interesting is Jason, I was like, "Hey, I want to talk about what you guys are doing." They call them A2 communities. We'll get more into that here in a little bit. But I say, "Jason, I want to talk about what you're doing with A2." Let's get together. I was like, "Oh no, no, no, no, Jeff. You need to talk to Heidi. Heidi Tompkins is coming on the podcast here as well." Heidi is phenomenal. Oh my gosh, I was blown away by the strategy and the thinking of what's happening here as they're talking about the discipling and getting people out and getting them connected into these missional communities. And now they're leveraging, trying to get the entire church towards this. Interesting. Don't sleep on Heidi's job title. Oh my gosh, the intentionality with this is gonna be phenomenal for it.

And it's a church that's very aggressive, a church that's doing the large gathering well. They're not. I mean, Westside is a big, successful church, and they're saying, "Hey, we need to do something different to reach a different type of person." The church today, we've got a PR problem. We talk about it in the podcast. There's a PR issue with the church, public relations. Like, it's funny. I think sometimes Jesus gets swept up in the church, and I don't know. In this situation, I think it's Christians that may have lost sight of things. I think it's the church who's struggling to adapt and adjust. But I think there's an option for people to see Jesus in a clear light, people who are called to Christ to be connected in a warm, relational way, doing things like this through A2 communities, through micro locations.

So church, if you're struggling with evangelism, if you're struggling to reach people outside of the ninety-nine percent of the people who are connected to your church already, if you are shrinking, if you are flatlining, if you are not growing even in this COVID season, if you're trying to figure out even what multiplication could look like, oh my gosh, this is a great conversation.

So for the conversation here, we're bringing in Jason Morris, Global Innovations Pastor, Westside Family, as well as Heidi Tompkins. You know, I'll go ahead and say her. She works in next steps and in micro locations. Next steps, micro locations. Pull that thread a little bit here in a little bit as you talk about growing and discipling people through next steps towards getting a micro location. That's interesting. The importance even for a large, successful church. But I get back Jason Morris, Heidi Tompkins, myself, Jeff, at the Church Digital Stadium Church Planning in a conversation that I'm calling Micro Locations in the Acts 2 Revolution.

Okay, everybody, here you go. My official title is A2 slash Next Steps Director, and I've been in this position maybe about, I think officially three months, but I worked in it for a few months before officially switching over. And prior to that, you know, worked alongside with the lady who was in the position before. So I've been at Westside on staff for a little over three years at this point in time. So I've worked in family ministry and then now in the next steps industry.

Help me here. Let's unravel some of the onion here. Your next steps and your A2, which is house church, micro locations, let's just say what it is. So is the goal of next steps, you know, of course we know this, next steps is taking steps towards a discipleship pathway, engagement, connection. You're trying to make sure people get connected into the church. But you're also the house church. So is the goal to get everybody in your church to do this micro location type strategy? Like, you're that far? Well, unpack some of this for me, Heidi. Here, help me here.

So really, I would say our ultimate goal is that we have everyone within our both online and on-site. We want to get everyone plugged into A2 communities. And so the ideal, which I don't even have a guess on how long this will take, I mean, for some groups it's going to happen faster, for other ones, you know, years away. But the ideal scenario is getting a group of people together who are just truly doing life together. They're discipling each other. They're learning together. They're going out and they're then pouring into the people around them, influencing their community, and just really being the hands and feet of Jesus.

And so I would say it's not our goal to like eliminate the building. It's we really are taking approach of a both and, because we have, you know, I feel like there's benefits to both. We definitely need to get people into living out just really biblical community outside of this building. And I feel like this pandemic has been the prime, you know, spotlight on why this is important. Because what if this didn't lift in only a couple of months? Like, what happens to people when they are outside of this building and disconnected from the building itself? You know, what does that look like? They need to still be able to function and grow in Christ and still, you know, like said, be the hands and feet and reaching people around them, whether building doors are open or closed.

So that being said, you know, we want to create this environment where people are living truly in this Acts 2 scenario of community. But we don't have any intentions of anytime soon closing doors here either. Like, there's a benefit of having the building and coming back and charging and building and that sort of thing too. So we look at it really as a both and. The whole Acts 2, A2, well played. Wait, slide that in. Case it wasn't obvious for some of the audiences, you know, you and I have talked a lot about this, where attendance patterns are on the decline. People are only showing up maybe once a month anyway. And so in our mind, a healthy rhythm may actually be consistent weekly interactions in their A2 group in their neighborhood and coming to the big batch once a month. That might be a really healthy rhythm. And in some cases, depending upon the A2 group, if that is really their primary expression of church, it might be once a quarter or whatever.

We have like these, um, what we call like these goosebump events where we bring together, for you know, just worship and prayer. That's it. Not a lot of teaching, none of that, just worship and prayer. But so that people can get a sense of a larger network of groups together. Because one of the things that, and you know this too, when you're dealing with house church or micro siting, it's very easy for people to think that that's all there is. When in reality, what we want is those things to be networked and connected all together, honeycombed all around Kansas City and beyond. And so that's where those goosebump moments come in, like maybe once a quarter or something like that, or once a month if you want to show up to the big box or whatever you can do, whatever you like. But we're giving people options where they can embody Christ right where they live and actually find ways of doing practical discipleship that work better in that environment that you'll then you'll ever get in a big box.

You know what, we did, we jumped in the deep end right from the get-go inside. And so let's back up a little bit. Um, like somebody out there, they're new to this, you know, micro locations, A2, practicality. What is this? What are you guys doing in this? We'll get to the deep end. We're going to run here in a second. But let's walk a little bit, get everybody caught up.

So at Westside, we've had small group life, life groups, whatever you want to call them. They go by many names at many churches. Um, so we had that existence happening here. And um, I would say that we really, personally from the time that I've been on staff, I've seen that kind of just head into a decline, you know? And so it was, we would do all church initiatives and get a little bit of a bump up, and um, they just didn't last.

And so really, what coming into this A2 community, and Pastor Randy Frazee was the one who was like, "This is really what I want us to build is these Acts 2, 42 through 47, um, living in that type of lifestyle." And so that was something he was bringing in. And so what we really, coming out of the lockdown, was really when we basically kind of introduced a shift in what we were doing in regards to group life.

And so kind of before that, I would describe it as, for lack of a better word, a little bit like a Match.com. Um, you came up to a table and you're like, "Oh, I would like a Wednesday night that has childcare, and maybe I only want a group that is only women or only want this." And so you go through and you kind of hand pick what you would like your group to look like. But most people are going into that scenario because they're going to commit to, um, six weeks, an eight week study. And that's the mindset that they had was, "Oh, everyone in church is going to go, let's say, through the Book of Mark, and so they jump in, they sign up for six or eight weeks, they honor that obligation, and then they kind of bail because there was nothing that necessarily, um, for some that worked and that connected. But I would say on a larger scale for a lot of people, it was just a check in the box. You know, I put in my six weeks, that's what I signed up for, and then I'm out."

And so we really wanted to shift that mindset because it was just temporary and it wasn't building that deeper community. It wasn't building, um, what we were looking for something that's sustainable outside of the building. And so that's when we started to introduce this A2 community. And so we actually start everyone off going through this A2 Revolution, which we did as an all church initiative. It was a six week study. So this is one thing that we do say, "Sign up for six weeks, um, catch the vision, and then go from there." And maybe the group that you did that six weeks with, maybe that becomes your group. Maybe you jumped in with people that you're connected with or you already started off with people that you were involved in and already have in your life. If not, as you're going through that, this six week study kind of explains the grander picture of what we're looking for.

And um, some groups that we have been together and they've been hanging out together, you know, all along, some of those busted up because once they caught the vision of this A2 community, they realized, "Well, hey, we do meet together once a week, but I don't see you at any other point in time. Our life does not overlap at any other point in time. We really just show up one hour a week and we get together." And you know, they may enjoy that, but when we um go through the six week study, one of the

Things that we really emphasize is take a look at your circles, who are people that you are already in community with, and especially if you can catch the circles that overlap. So maybe it's someone that you see—you know, these same families at the baseball field and you also run into them at the gym. Well, if it's someone that you already have natural touch points at a couple of times during the week, those are the people you're going to want to grab and start doing life together with because you kind of already are. So just being more intentional with that.

And so with what Jason is saying, I mean it really comes down to what it says there in Acts 2:42-47. And they devoted themselves to apostles' teaching and fellowship and the breaking of bread and prayer. And in all it came every soul and many wonders and societies began done. So they—it really is taking just that simplicity of pulling scripture and saying this is what they were doing in the early church. We want to take that and make that happen here in the Western culture in this day and age. I mean, that's a solid definition.

You and we totally want to get to the culture shift of changing from like a small group structure to—was this a reaction to COVID? To the culture? Was this something you guys were mulling on kind of beforehand? What was that? What's the genesis kind of of this new approach?

So it was something that was already in the works that I would say COVID just really pushed the timeline up on. And so it's just something that all of a sudden we were like, hey, you know, we were looking at kind of casting this coming into 2021, and now we gotta pull that even earlier and get this going because of the need and just what was happening. And especially, as we talked about, you know, gathering with these small groups and getting the people together—well, through the lockdown, once that lifted up, you know, we could meet in groups of ten, we could bump out, you know, we can meet in groups of fifteen. Well, this is an ideal scenario where people are looking to gather together. They're already going to gather together with people that they're naturally comfortable with that they're already doing life with. And so it really, I feel like, just opened up a door to launch something that we probably couldn't launch as well in a different scenario. If that makes sense.

Yeah, totally. And so then this is a long-term solution here. Like, this is not, hey, we're just doing this because our buildings are at thirty percent. Like, talk to me about why it's long-term. How that fits into the mission and vision. Culture adoption. Like, unpack that. Why are you looking at this long-term?

Well, I think part of it is because we see that pattern in scripture. One, and we are realizing that our prevailing model of an attractional church works for a certain sector of culture, but really doesn't for a much bigger section of culture. And if we keep on trying to do this better and faster and cheaper, we're not going to get—we're not going to even begin to reach that other eighty percent and growing of the people that need to know Jesus too. And so for us, when Randy came—because he wrote a book on this like two decades ago, yes, and he's done it—that was part of the reason why we wanted to bring him in, even, was because he understood this concept and he had like a five-year plan. Okay, this is how we're planning on rolling this out, because it is a paradigm shift. It is not the same as what people are used to. And there are points in which people, even now, still kind of get stuck thinking like, oh, this is just like small groups but with a service component. You know, but it's not. You know, so people still get stuck even now because, you know, they've been doing it the old way for decades. You know, and so now that's why we're calling it something else. That's why we're training and giving them like a six-week boot camp to, like, hopefully reset something in their souls to say, okay, what could Jesus do through you in your neighborhood, in your workplace? You know, what kind of church does Jesus want to build through you? So that's way different than, oh, invite, invest, and invite. It's completely different strategy.

And so it's not that we're going to stop doing the attractional thing. We'll keep doing that because there's a sector of culture that really responds to that, right? And they love it. If you take that away, man, they'll get real upset. But there's a whole other section here where this is kind of boring. They want to be on mission. They want to do something else. And we need to have a way to disciple them, to have them grow in their discipleship.

You're telling me you can have digital next steps, digital next steps. You can disciple people digitally. Why do I—I don't understand. Well, hey, so talk to me about how you're growing people digitally. You're asking people to be missionally responsible for their neighborhoods, engaging you're empowering. There's calling, personal calling, all of this that's tied up in here. How do you do this digitally? What does this look like?

So one of the things, and like Jason said, that we really—we couldn't have orchestrated it on our own, and Aaron, who is on our next team as well—both Aaron and I dove and really, you know, both feet, we just jumped in with the online world for several months. And when we were together for a long time before we finally got to a point where—like, sorry, we just don't have now the margin to be able to be over here. Just kicked me off, by the way. I really wanted to keep them. Right? I mean, it was one of the things that we felt bad. We're like, sorry, we got these things we have to now do on-site Sunday morning. But it was amazing to be able to step into that world. And I had already had a little bit of background. Back when I lived in Illinois, I was part of a ministry that was out of Texas, and so everything that I did as a part of them was online. And so I was over their prayer ministry at that point in time. And so, you know, they—I didn't pray for anyone physically around me. I, you know, at that point I didn't even know a lot of people. I had moved in Northern Illinois, like separate from where we used to live, was about an hour. And so I really didn't have a lot of people physically around me that I knew. But I was running this online prayer ministry for a ministry out of Texas. And so it was kind of crazy to have a little bit of that background and then to bring that over. And that was a lot of where I got to hang out and operate in Westside's online platform was there on the prayer ministry part, which was awesome because that's a heartbeat of mine.

But like you said, I just want to come back also to a comment that you made earlier about churches having a PR problem. So I feel like when Jason's talking about why, you know, why we want to do this long-term and why this is not just a, you know, hey, let's do this for now and let's see what happens in 2021 and maybe we'll come up with a new plan. The reality is exactly that, where, you know, especially right now, I feel like the church does not have this positive light that is shined on often. And what people don't realize is how many times they actually are encountering Christians on a day-to-day basis. And maybe even our friends, or, you know, strong acquaintances, I would say. When they come to find out and be like, oh, wait, you're one of those Jesus people? Wait, you love God? And they're like, yeah, actually, you know, I've been living it out. I just haven't been preaching it. I've just been living it. And so, I think, you know, there's that sixty to seventy percent of people that are not going to be willing to walk into a building, but they'll talk to their neighbor or they'll jump in and are willing to serve together. Like, hey, we have a neighbor who's having a baby. We'd love to just do a meal train. And they start to pull in these people that are around them, not realizing they're joining in and being hands and feet of Jesus. Until, you know, develops relationships aren't being developed, and then they're like, okay, maybe I'm willing to hear what you have to say about God. And so I think the long-term—that's why this has to be this evergreen situation. It isn't a short-term effect.

Often I hear this is just watching the service element in a house. Like, why? So how—what I'm hearing from you is missionally connected in the communities, you know, in empowering. Like, there's a lot more happening here. How do you dialogue through that? What's the answer to that question for Westside? Why is this not just, yeah, I'm just watching the service at my house?

Okay, so first off, and I'll let Heidi chime in, we tried watch parties for a while and they didn't work as well. So that's what most people think of, so watch party thing. I—there's still might be a place for that, maybe. We just don't know how to run it well. I don't know. But maybe it was just poor timing with COVID and all of that. It wasn't maybe the right mixture of events or situations. I don't know. But we tried doing watch parties as while we were in scramble mode trying to do the A2 thing so that we could at least give people an option when people could at least meet together in groups of ten or fifteen. But they chose not to, practically, because they were just as afraid as all their neighbors were. And it just wasn't a good, you know, it just wasn't the right time for that.

But back to what you're saying, though, is that A2 communities is a whole lot more. When you look at the Book of Acts and you read those verses, the apostles' teaching is a small portion of that whole stack. In fact, one could argue that one thing you do see in the whole stack of things there is community. Because when they're doing all of these things, they're doing it together. And so there's an element to this that I feel like a lot of times in church world we're really big on the teaching side, but we forget everything else that they're doing. And we emphasize the teaching thing when you don't see that emphasis as much when you read the scriptures. And so the teaching thing is there. And oddly enough, I mean, you can maybe edit this out if you want to because I honestly don't know what to make of it, but the scripture says it: they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, not to Jesus' teaching. And I don't know what that means. The apostles clearly are following Jesus, right? And even the Apostle Paul said at one time, follow me as I follow Christ.

Yeah, it is interesting, though, who they're devoting themselves to. Who's teaching? They're devoting themselves to.

So one of the things that we are building in to this is not just Bible study stuff. We're not just, you know, going over the sermon stuff. It's not—that's a small portion of it. Prayer is a big piece of it. Serving and identifying in your neighborhood specifically—where are the places in your community, like in your neighborhood, that needs service, that need help, that need compassion? And we've got a whole other arm in Westside of local impact that is working to be a matchmaker between these A2 communities and the needs that they're probably down the street that they don't even know about. Like a school that needs backpacks or whatever it happens to be. And so we're trying to keep it as hyper-local as we can so that they can have the greatest impact right where they are. And all those relationships start to overlap one another and create the synergy and momentum because you're interacting with the same people that you're serving as you do your daily life. So it doesn't feel like another thing that you have to schedule time for as much because you already know these people and you're already good friends anyway.

Question on, you know, why do we—what's the appeal, I guess, of, you know, the city we're just sitting around watching church and then maybe asking a couple questions or doing a little discussion? I think if that was all that they were doing, then absolutely there's not a big appeal for it, just as Jason's saying. But when you add those pieces of, you know, they break bread together, come in and eat together, which automatically connects people. You know, you add some food into a scenario and now you got people talking and they're hanging out. And, um, if you've got a healthy group, half the time it's like we have to stop. Um, everyone stop dating and let's like get over here to do some of the content because we can easily blow past that while you're, you know, breaking bread together, building community, eating, breaking bread together, discussing what it is that you're going to do, how you're going to serve, what you're planning, that sort of thing. So I agree completely with Jason saying, um, that the content itself is just a small piece. And so often we put it as if it's the main piece and the big chunk, and I don't think that's a right place for it to be because it is a smaller—just one of the components in it.

What I'm hearing is it's much more the Acts 2 communities. It's outward-facing. It's not necessarily inward. It's reaching. Is that a safe assumption that that this is all the goal of it is to connect with people outside of the church in the communities where the houses are and invite them in? And through building relationships, to get them connected to people called to Christ, warm them to Christ, and get them connected to the Acts 2 community? Does it ever connect back to the campus? Is the Acts 2 growing in independence to become something else one day? Have you thought down the road like where are we going with this thing?

So, um, the way that I see it is we have the Acts 2 communities that, you know, right now a lot of our primary ones that we have happening right now are groups that have been existing long term. So the nice thing is, as we launch this and we get this off the ground, you know, we're still molding and shaping it as we go and learning as, you know, this kind of comes along. So, um, the nice thing is we have these groups that, and some of them in many ways were already living this out, but they were just called a life group because that's what, you know, was happening. But they already had several of these components already built in. But, uh, in regards to like where this all goes, for some of those, absolutely. I think there are some that are strong enough and have the structure and the different people that are built into that, that they have the potential that if God prompts their heart, they probably could just totally micro-church and just keep, um, you know, a touch base with the building to, you know, be provided with resources or, you know, that sort of thing.

Where we look at Paul, because when Paul went out and he planted the churches, you know, we see that he stays in constant communication with them. He didn't, you know, stop at one place, teach them, hang out there for a couple years, and then like, see you later. You know, he was always checking back, making sure that they were staying on track, making sure that they were staying biblically aligned. And so, you know, if we have some groups that God prompts their heart in that way, absolutely, I think that's something that Westside would embrace—that they kind of micro-church with that same concept of making sure that, you know, we keep a touch base with them in a very Paul-like manner of saying, okay, you guys stay biblically sound. Are you saying biblically sound? What can we do for you? You know, how can we help by letting them sit pretty, you know, self-sustaining at this point in time?

I personally don't see that we would have a ton of those now. I could be totally wrong on that. I do think, um, that with our current mindset now, maybe we look down the road even a little bit further, that may be different. But with the way the current mindset is, um, like Jason referenced earlier, we're just having a hard time getting some of our people to just shift over to think, I'm no longer doing a six-week group. Hey, wait, this is bigger. There's more to it. This is a bigger commitment, um, not like throwing something more on your plate. Again, that's why we want to overlap with where you're already doing life because we aren't adding another thing. You're already there. You're already doing it, maybe deep in your relationships or being more intentional with that time. So, um, to answer that question, that's kind of how you see it. You know, I could see where there would be at this point in time two or three that God would really be prompting in, really jumping out as a micro-church. Um, the other ones though, I don't see that, at least in the near future.

One of the things that I think should be highlighted in what Heidi just said is the importance of the coaching network because really, if you've got your coaching and your mentoring network well established, it almost—everything else almost doesn't matter because you could have whatever kind of strategy or whatever kind of curriculum, whatever your initiative is, if it doesn't work, your coaching network will pick up on it just like that and we'll iterate. And, um, that also holds everything together. So if you have one that is getting really strong, my gut tells me your coaching network is already going to know that, right?

And given the scenario that we're in right now in COVID, there's a couple of things that are on the horizon for us as Westside that, you know, Randy and the team are thinking about. Knowing that because the macro-economic damage of COVID has already been done, that there's a high probability that we're going to be looking at mergers in our future in the next couple of years, and we need to have these strong missional Acts 2 communities already in place in some of those neighborhoods so that if and when a merger happens, we will have hopefully Acts 2 communities that are strong, networked nearby, that could adopt that merger and have it be stronger in that neighborhood than otherwise we could have. Does that make sense?

Yeah, so love everything you just said there, um, which was really—you danced on—I want to come back once again. This is the best non-linear conversation I've ever had, um, so we've got a coaching network. There's a lot of quality control necessary that I'm feeling in there. You're praising the good stuff. You're kind of shaping, maybe you're controlling, trying to figure out how much to control, how much to organically let go of. I'm sure there's that tension, um. Talk to me just overall training. Like, your culture was more of small groups. COVID, everything hit the fan in the middle of this COVID season. When you can't gather together, you try to cast this vision towards connecting digitally. How are you training these people? Who are you looking for? What are the characteristics? Are they excited about this? Is it an easy sell? Talk to me a little bit about how you're developing these people that are leading these Acts 2 communities.

Okay, so that's where we have, again, where I kind of mentioned earlier, this H2 Revolution, where we have the six weeks, and around the office it often gets referred to just as the boot camp because really we want you to be able to walk through, catch the vision, and it's each week you're learning about a piece of it. You know, so like one week it will be about prayer and it'll go in depth and we look at scripture and what did they do about prayer and how does that get implemented in your group and what can that look like? So, you know, very practically in each segment of the book that you are—prayer, okay, well, you can jump on and you can do a group me or you can get a group text. You can have someone who is dedicated in the group that is passionate about prayer and they get to be kind of that spearhead person. So, um, you know, if I'm that prayer person in the group, then something happens, they're letting me know. I'm getting it out to the group saying, hey, we need to pray for this.

So, um, this six weeks is really emphasizing each step of the way where you land in that last week, and that one is talking about really the roles on what if we're going to have the ideal group and say we have all the pieces here together. This is where we would have all these spots filled in. And so it lays out just role descriptions within the group and people can kind of self-identify. And it's okay if they don't have all the pieces, especially right at the beginning, because I feel like as we move along and as people come in and out of your life, you know, God will fill those holes as you continue just to build that community.

So as a church, we did an all-church initiative. We encouraged everyone, whether you even did it just with your family—like, I'm a family of five, if we just did just the five of us—to go through the study and have the discussions because we launched that, um, in August. And so not a ton of people were back in the building at that point in time, and there was, you know, even more people that just were not even willing to get together with a neighbor. So we were like, we want everyone on the same page moving forward. So even if it isn't doing it in community, the ideal scenario is to go through this six weeks together in a community, but in 2020, what—nothing was an ideal scenario. So we're like, just go through it, um, so we really launched it to everyone for everyone to go through it and kind of let God prompt along the way. You know, whether someone—because after that, we were like, hey, let us know, do you want to activate a group? Do you have people in mind? Um, groups that were together before, some of them activated together. Other ones dissolved and they had people who jumped out and started to create their own because as you go through this six weeks, like I said, it really talks about identifying who are already in your circles, who are you already doing life with?

We live in a time and a day and age that it's exhausting to think about picking up another thing. And so that's the last thing that we want to do as a church, to be like, hey, school has changed, life has changed, just going to the grocery store has changed, and we want you to put another thing on your plate to try and do? Everyone would be like, no thanks, not interested. But to step into something that says, this is already—we're going to meet you where you're at and take that and build it into what would be your biblical community. And so, um, like I said, initially we encouraged everyone to go through it so that everyone could catch the vision of the direction that we were going.

The other piece that we have at play that we're still doing a little bit of work and tweaking on, we have we offer something that's called SHAPE, and it is where you—it's a spiritual gift assessment. It has a little bit more detail that goes into that. And so we're looking for ways that as people take this SHAPE, that we can really identify those connectors. And, um, what Pastor Randy has experienced is if you can get those connectors, those people, then naturally can begin to formulate and create these Acts 2 communities. And so we kind of have two things happening there. One is we have new people come in and we want to introduce them just to what our way of life is in regards to group life. And then the secondary piece that we're still kind of developing, where we're intentionally seeking out connectors and utilizing how to build a group based off of them.

Question: six weeks is this the shortest time period in all the conversations I've had. I don't think I've had anybody tell me, yeah, so we're to start the disciple-making process to get some at an Acts 2 at a—

Missional level, like that's a very short amount of time. Are you guys experiencing any challenges or issues in that? How do you overcome it? Is the coaching network that you said is in place for some of the quality control, maybe beyond that six-week training? What's next for them as they leave the Revolution and get into the community?

So that's just as Jason was talking about, that's where our coaching system then steps into place. So you come in with a facilitator, you go through that six weeks, and then if you, let's say a table launches or an online group says we're gonna stay together, we're gonna commit to staying together, then they get partnered right out of that with a coach. And so that coach then comes alongside of them, provides resources, continues to do training, that sort of thing. Where then you just move into the more one-on-one, for lack of a better word, one-on-group, where they continue to pour into them, speaking to them, become a resource. That's where you go for questions and kind of anything you need.

So I think the six weeks is both most people are pretty game for being like, okay, well I'll take six weeks to learn something or to get it, you know, if it is fast. So we're taking something and truncating and being like we're gonna cram as much as we can into the six-week window, knowing that most people are willing to give six weeks to learn something or to like at least get introduced into something, if that makes sense. Knowing that we'll jump out of that and they are not going to come out of that scenario and walk into being a fully functioning A2 community. Like this is just basically getting them started, and then we'll continue to develop through relationship and through our coaching system.

I love that approach of, hey, it's not the six weeks and you're done. It's the six weeks to get you onboarded, and then we're going to grow you in the field. Like you're going to be doing this and we're walking alongside it with you. You know, so often in these conversations it's like, yeah, six weeks, maybe get you to the—I'm not saying you're saying this, I've had other churches, Tommy, six weeks will get you to the watch party, but it's going to take months, maybe a year to develop the missional community. But don't do that in a classroom. Do that in the mission field. Get them into the community, get them walking, and coaching through that. So you've got people taking steps. Your Paul-Timothy relationship is in the mission field, not in a lecture hall.

So I just, it's, I love Westside Family. You guys are like honestly one of my favorite churches. I just historically I've loved what I've seen there from day one, and you were partially responsible for me getting a job at Stadia. So once again, I love what's happening at Westside Family. There's another story with the old Stadia thing, but definitely definitely a fan of what's happening here.

So tell me some stories. One of my fun stories is we have a group that is made up, and actually the bulk of the group themselves are not even Westsiders. Only a portion of the group is our Westsiders, and they kind of are made up from different churches. And that's one of the things that we are for sure. We're like, you know, people are like, well, when I talk to groups and they initially were activating, they're like, well, not everyone in my group is from Westside. I'm like, good. I'm glad, because the church isn't just Westside. The church is everywhere. And so we don't want it to be exclusively, oh, you can only be a Westside group. I think there is much more richness to it if you have people from different churches coming into this.

And that's what this group has here, and they're actually, they live in like a fifty-five and older community, and these people are fantastic. And especially what I love about it is because we're talking about right here in the middle of this pandemic world where this fifty-five and older, they already just by their age alone puts them into that compromise situation. And so this group, they are gathering and socially distancing. They gathered around their pond, everyone just made a circle around their pond, socially distanced, prayed for their community that they live in, for the shut-ins that are in their community. They were going and creating these gift baskets of food and leaving it on doorsteps for people that are not coming out of their house at all, like I said, shut-ins.

This group has one of their neighbors is a gentleman who is battling cancer. And so they had found out about it, so they went out and in front of his house and prayed, praying over him outside of his house. And one of the cool parts of that was they brought him out to the front porch so that he could see the people who were praying for him. And at this point in time, I mean, he's been doing really great since. So I mean, he's still battling cancer, but his spirits are up and he feels good and he's being more intentional about getting out and about, not just coming out outside, being on his front porch, being more mobile inside of his home.

And so that's one of the cool ones where I love, um, Trish Metes. I love to give her a call because every time I call her she's got some story about something that they're doing and how they're impacting people right there just in their little fifty-five and older community, which I love. I think it's fantastic that they've really just fully embraced this missional piece of it. I mean, they're doing studies together and they'll meet on Zoom but then get outside and pour into each other's life. So that's one of my favorite ones. Like I said, I love to give her a call because being in just that age category, she, I can easily be on the phone with her for forty-five minutes. So if I call, I know I've got to have a block, a window, and be able to sit there and chat because we're going to have some good conversations when we get on the phone together.

So another one I think that Randy talks about is an A2 community that he has in his neighborhood, and they adopted a foster mom who had like four or five foster kids. And they just decided, hey, you shouldn't have to do this alone. And so they started serving her in little ways, you know, taking the kids out and doing activities and all of that. And that ended up bringing her into the Acts 2 community, and now she's an active participant in the Acts 2 community because of the service that they were doing to their neighbor as a group.

And that's one of the interesting things that I find, that when I've had groups, when we get to, when if I can ever get the group to serve together, it is a catalyst that changes the dynamic of the group forever. We will always talk about that time that we did this at, you know, a rescue mission or whatever. They'll always talk about it, and it somehow, I don't know what it is, but it like solidifies the group together because we have shared experience outside of studying the scripture or watching a video or whatever. We're actually really making a difference in ways that we could never do alone. So if it was just my family or just me, if I'm trying to help a foster mom or whatever this neighbor, I'm very limited in what I can do. But if there's ten of us in the neighborhood doing it together, that's a whole other thing.

Yeah, I'm curious. I just want to pull the thread on that story. Does the money, and I've had churches ask me this, like I normally don't get into this level of granular. Does the money go through the church? Are the ten people giving it straight to the mom? Like what does that look like in this one example?

Well, from what I understand, all of the, you know, we're talking, because here's the deal, all the pastors, they're thinking about tithes, right? So tithes still go where tithes go, right? So if you have a multi-congregational group, all the tithes go where their church is, whatever they feel like. The interesting thing, if we're talking about helping this particular mom, outside this would be like an offering, you know? Okay, they're doing extra stuff, right? And shouldn't we all be generous anyway? I mean, isn't the point here's something to really think about. Is the point to collect offerings or is the point to create generosity in the hearts of my people? What is it? Because sometimes we think it's the same thing, but that's not always the same thing.

Demographic-wise, like what type of people are you seeing? Is it just across the board? Who's buying into this idea?

It is literally across the board. What we have experienced in our current state, and that's why we continue to also offer this A2 Revolution, because what we found coming out of the lockdown and going into the H2 Revolution as the all-church initiative, what we did find was families that had elementary-age kids. It was a struggle to get them to jump on board. And like I said, we launched that in August. Those are the people that were so heavily hit with the change in dynamics of what was happening in traditional school and hybrid options and online options, and they were just feeling overwhelmed in just life inside their home, let alone being able to step outside and learn something new on what the church is changing.

So what we did experience is that group was smaller. It wasn't totally limited, but it was less attended by that category or that demographic of people. But we really do have across the board all ages. I mean, I talk to people in their eighties that are doing this and that love it. We have people who, and actually I just had a lady who is new to our community and she's eighty-seven, talking to her on the phone, you would have thought you were talking to a fifty-year-old. Like this lady has energy like no other. And so she wanted to get plugged into a community, and I'm like, you need to get on board with this group over here. So I actually connected them with that group that I was just telling you the story of.

But we have them going all the way down to, you know, single people and young couples, that sort of thing. And what's cool is as we go through and continue to meet, and I just went through those last couple weeks and was on the phone and talking to each group that is gathering, and we have a whole mixture. So there are some groups that have just within their group themselves, within their community themselves, have, you know, empty nesters down to people with toddlers. So they've taken the approach of their community of being able to be like in that mentorship role.

We have other ones that, you know, groups that are made of completely empty nesters or completely people who are in the same season or stage of life. And so as I go through and talk to them, it's a mix of all kinds, and that's what's really cool about it. And most of them that I talk to, the ones that are gathering in person, most of them are like, we're game, we're open for more people. The one group that's empty nesters, they're like, we're mostly empty nesters, but we're totally game to have a younger couple come in here that we can also just pass that wisdom on to.

And so one of the things that I think is cool, it's a little bit early, so I've made note, I'm like, I love this and I think we can pursue it a little bit further down the road. As we've had some of these groups that have been together longer, that they would love to take on a younger, newer group and kind of mentor them along. So as we talk about this Paul and Timothy, not only that one-on-one Paul and Timothy, but think of Paul and Timothy group-wise, you know, and I love the idea of that.

Said I'm like, "This is awesome," because they're like, "This is something we would love to do. If there's a newer group that's coming in and they're just trying to figure things out, we'd love to come alongside of them and walk them through group on group." Yeah, we'll just mentor you, we'll coach you entirely. That's beautiful.

So you're doing this. I mean, part of this has got to be digital, right? You're talking about some of the revolution is done digitally as well as physically. Any digital constraints, any issues, and any challenges with doing it digitally versus physically? Or is it equal? Is it better? What's been the digital experience here with this, um, with the revolution as well as maybe the coaching afterwards?

What I've experienced, because I do a lot of the online stuff—in fact, we get done with here, I'm gonna get in my online A2 community right after this—is the service component is a little bit more complex because we're so spread out. Like, I've got folks from Alabama, Hawaii, Texas, you know, they're just all over the place. So when it comes to adopt a foster family in your neighborhood, how can we do that as a group? It's a little bit more complicated than if we were all in the same cul-de-sac. But that said though, we are doing it, but just a little bit more on an individual level while being encouraged by the group, and in some cases resourced by the group, even though we're doing it individually.

Um, one of the other things that I was talking with our global impact team this morning on was the ability of our Acts II communities to have the ability to go on global mission trips and have that be something where we could start off with like a virtual mission trip to start with. So they could get trained on what a mission trip would be like. Like if they as an A2 community wanted to say, "Okay, we want to go to India," we could give them an India virtual mission trip that talks to them about all the different people that they'll meet, here's what India is like, and then this year they could say, "Okay, this year not all of us can go, but these two people can go, and we'll all pull together funds for these two people to go this year. Next year you two will go, and next year you two will go, and while you're gone we're all gonna be praying for you and we're all gonna be, you know, texting each other and finding out all these things, and when you come back you get to share everything that happened." So those are the types of things that even in an online setting can work well. So we could do a virtual missions trip online, and if we wanted to say, "Okay, all of us are gonna go to South Africa," and maybe pull our money together and say, "Okay, you're gonna go this year and you're gonna go to South Africa," and even if it doesn't matter at that point if I've got one person in Hawaii, another one in Texas, another one in Alabama, we're all going to meet in South Africa. So it doesn't matter.

A whole other podcast—the virtual missions trip. I got to write that down. We'll come back to that at a later time.

So you mentioned Alabama, you mentioned Hawaii, Texas, Kansas City. Frazee's nationally known, written some books, and has a strong history in church culture. Um, are you seeing, you know, so I'm hearing obviously online, I'm sure you guys are all over the map. Historically, what I know of you, you're all over the map. Are you seeing the A2s start to develop at that wider level? Are you hyper-focusing intentionally on KC? What's the strategy here? Uh, when you look at a global perspective, basically what we've done is a little bit of dividing and conquering here as a department. And I don't know if it's the right approach or not, but at least for now it makes it, it gives us a little bit more clarity on who's doing what and who's on first. So basically, anybody inside the Kansas City area, Next Steps takes care of as it relates to their coaching network. Anyone outside of the Kansas City metro area is my coaching network. And so basically, that's, I don't know if that's the right way to do it, but at least everybody knows what we're doing and who's responsible for it.

So in my particular case right now, my coaching network is relatively small in comparison to Heidi's, but mine's more spread out. And what my hope is—and we're still working on this—the first time as we went through the Acts 2 Revolution, when we got done, my hope was that they would all spin off their own Acts 2 communities wherever they happen to live, whether that be, you know, I wanted another one, an A2 community in Texas, I wanted one in Alabama, I wanted one in Hawaii, you know, I wanted them all over the place. And they kind of freaked out on me. They felt like, "Dude, I'm here solo. I don't know what's going on. You can't do this to me because I'm so low." And I'm like, "Okay, whoop, right? Just calm down. You know, listen, learn. All right, we'll just take it a little slower than for you." But they know that that's what I'm thinking, you know? So I'm like, "All right, I'll just track with you." And so at least for now, I'm keeping that still original group, and I'm going through like DBS style. We're going through, you know, the Book of Mark right now using some video curriculum. And we know that one 20-21 is going to do the same thing. And I think over time they're going to realize how easy it is because the actual group itself is just DBS, and I honestly don't know of an easier, more multiplicative way to do this. Because once you just start with Scripture and have a few basic questions, and then that's group, and that's it. You pray together and you eat together, and you know, all that.

Well, people look around after a while, and what I've done, at least in this group, when they all told me, "No, no, no, I can't start my own group," I'm like, "Okay, time out. All right, you say you can't do your own group? That's fine. All right, we're gonna still stay together, but you need to know this: I'm not teaching it anymore. I'll be in it and I'll participate, but all you guys, I know you guys have the capacity to do this. You've seen me do it for the past six weeks. It's not rocket science. You're going to do it this week, you're going to do it the next week, you're going to do it the next week, and so on." And actually, for the past month or two, I haven't even taught anything. I just show up and enjoy the group. That's it. I just have fun praying with these guys, and everything, and they teach it.

And so what I'm doing is, at least in this period before we go to 1-20-21, during the Lent season, where basically we're doing the same thing, is my hope is that I'll be able to tell them, "Okay, so we've done this together. You've taught like three times already. You know how this works, and it's not hard. What do you think about spinning off your own one-20-21 Lent group?" You know, and I haven't talked to them about this yet, but we're going to get there, right? You can get there. You gotta boil the frog slowly, you know? Right, give him the confidence, and then, "Hey, yeah, you know, once again, it's walking through them in the field. It's not in the lecture hall where they're collecting dust."

No, that's exactly right. Doing anything, it's, "Hey, let's do it, and version one is better than version none. Like, do something, learn from it, iterate, and try it again."

Totally, totally love this approach. It's awesome.

Hey, um, Jason, your global process—it's like the revolution is similar. It's very similar. You may be modified, contextual for some small things, but for the most part you're just copying and pasting and then applying it in a different mind, in a different culture environment, right?

Yeah, yeah. In fact, one of the things that, um, when we were going through COVID and we were saying, "Oh, we got to do A2 communities now. What do we do?" And I'm having a lot of conversations with Heidi, and it's like, "Well, let's just do the same thing we do globally. It works there, and I know it can work here." And that was one of the things that, you know, like when Rob was on staff—now Casey Underground—it was the same thing. It's like, "When you go overseas and you see how multiplying movement ministry can work with ordinary people doing ordinary things and allowing Jesus to do the supernatural, then you come back to the States and you think, 'Does it have to be this way?' You know, you just start to think, 'Let's reverse engineer what we know works on the other side of the planet and do it here simply,' and you know, let's see if it works." And what we found is that it can, but it does take a mind shift because it is a different ministerial engine that runs on different fuel than what we're used to.

I, um, one of the guests I met this guy at the end of last year. I was on a next generation missiologist, uh, I was in this think tank that people were way smarter than me, and this thing thinking, I'm honestly I'm not sure why I was there because literally just smart people dropping knowledge. And one of the guys was named Sam George. Never heard of him before. Who was Indian. Do you know Sam George?

Oh my God, he's a good friend. This man, my head's exploding. Oh my gosh.

And he's like, "You really want to understand Acts 2? Go live in China for six months, then read Acts. Go live in China for six months, then read Acts. You live in India for a year, then read Acts. Now then you start to understand the international church completes the American church. It's not the American church going to..." I'm preaching. We're going to have Sam on the podcast. Um, he started talking about diaspora, you know, ecclesia, the scattered gathering as opposed to gathering the scattered. My head's exploding. Um, something comes up with me about digital church planting. He's messaging me directly. He's like, "I want to talk to you." No, I'm like, "Oh my gosh, I want to talk to you. This is incredible. We're going to get there in a little bit. It's going to be great."

Hey, um, we're going to land a plane on Sam George, sir. If you're listening, thank you for coming. We're having a conversation soon. But let's do this before we go. Um, hey, you know what? You had this culture before, or so you were at least the mindset, maybe it had launched the culture, but you were wrestling with this. I've met you, Jason. I don't know, 2018, and I remember having conversations this way early on. So like the idea was there, and there was maybe a culture shift, but at least the vision towards it was there.

There's some people out there listening. They may have the vision. Um, they haven't pulled the trigger yet. Um, in this COVID, mid-post, wherever we are, however you want to define it, 2021's not gonna be the skyrocket return back to 2019 the way that many of us want it to. So we're still in this environment. How does a church, both of you, Heidi, Jason, Next Steps, how would they get started in doing something like this? They're doing large gatherings. They've got an online environment. Maybe there's a healthy, sub-healthy group environment, but there's a major transition going from that towards what we're talking about here with A2. Give, give some of the audience out here, give them some practical first steps. How do they get started on this journey that you guys have done?

So I mean, like I said, where we have, and you know, I'm not sure what this looks like moving forward, whether this is something that we're pushing out to other places or not, like the Connecting Church, as Jason referenced, you know, Pastor Randy Frazee wrote this book several years ago. I, it's actually there's a 2.0, so I don't know what time when the 1.0 was written, um, but that has a lot of the structure that's there in it. But really, it's, you know, the simplicity of, if you just, if you need a book, you've already got it. It's the...

You know, you're going to act and you're going to look at what that early church looks like and begin to shift that mindset, which I find to be the biggest piece. It's really making that shift in how you see church being done. And take a look and study what they did in the book of Acts. I mean, so like, really, it could be as simple as that. You don't even have to buy a book. You already got it. You can download it on your phone. Excuse me. So, um, looking at that and then beginning just to implement those into your groups where you're the apostles teaching, gathering together, breaking bread and prayer. And, um, you know, being missional with the people around you. And so, um, that seems like I just totally put it in a simple sentence, but I do believe it can be as simple as that. As really just taking these and take those baby steps. And that's what we're really looking at. Some of our groups, like I said, they're further along, but that's because they've naturally already have fallen into some of this and have been living this way. For other people, they're just in those very beginning steps. And maybe that first step is gathering together and eating together. Great start by coming together, breaking bread together, begin building those relationships. And then we'll, you know, if you're a church that's starting off new, then walk along to kind of guide them into it.

One of the things that we are doing to come along are groups that are, um, younger, for lack of a better word, younger in this walk. Um, we're providing, you know, service opportunities for them, whether we're providing them here. We did where we packed meals. We've done a couple of those where people came and you could pack meals together. You know, finding ways for them to come and serve together.

One of the things that, like, for women's ministry that we're going to be doing in this upcoming year in 2021, we're going to come alongside of a ministry that's launching down in the city that's ministering to, uh, women who are in the prostitute life. And so there's a place called Christine's Place that's opening up. And they're providing food and a bed, that somewhere they can come and safely rest and get fed. And the long-term goal of that place will have a shower and that sort of thing. So they'll continue to grow and provide things. And so, um, that's one of the things that I'm going to challenge our women. And we'll particularly challenge our A2 communities that are primarily made up of women because we do have a handful of those to say, here's a serve opportunity where you can go and really what you're going to do is just go and love on these women and make them feel welcome and let them know that they are seen and that God loves them.

And so there's going to be, uh, opportunities that we send out to our families and to our A2 communities to say, hey, here's some serving opportunities that are coming up in our community. Here's some that we're offering here in the church. And, um, just initially walk alongside of them. And I feel like any time you begin that process, and we talked a little bit about this online, um, Jason, where, you know, we kind of, you begin to talk about it and then all of a sudden they're like, okay, you know, we had a trunk or treat here at church. Well, what does that look like for our online community? Because that was something we did offer for on-site, come in and serve the community, provide a fun opportunity. And we're like, well, how does that transfer for our online communities? Well, you know, we're like, you could donate to one that's going on around you. And so we begin, once you start that whole think tank, people are like, oh, wait, I got an idea, or we can do this. And so, um, as you kind of introduce those ideas to these groups, they begin to pick that up on their own and they continue to move forward. And we're like, okay, great, what is the prayer life look like for you? Okay, let's help you build that. And so, um, it's baby steps. If that's where we're at, but like you said, I mean, baby steps is better than nothing. And it's forward movement. And just looking really at the book of Acts and saying, let's add these components into group life and, um, begin developing that rich community.

As a pastor, you pour out to so many people and minister to so many people. It is so refreshing to just be a regular dude that someone can speak life into you. You know, and I know there's probably a lot of pastors that feel that way.

Yeah, because I know I was, you know, and that's, it's so life-giving to be in an environment. And even Jesus at times felt that way. So when he's at the Garden of Gethsemane and he's like, I am sorry, I am, I am, you know, I'm grieving as unto death. Come apart with me and pray with me. So Jesus has his three, and he needed his guys. He needed his tribe because there were moments when it was really rough, you know, and he needed them. So it's not like Jesus is always, you know, pouring into the disciples. There were moments the disciples poured into him. And I think there's a lot of pastors out there, and there's a lot of staff out there that they just need to be discipled, dude. And once you do that, then now we can actually teach with integrity. We can actually be an example to the believers in word and conversation and faith and purity. When we're actually discipling one another, and then it doesn't sound so hard when we go and try to tell someone else to do it. It is a whole lot harder to tell somebody to do something that you don't know how to do yourself.

If you're a staff listening, if you're an individual listening, and you've never been discipled, here's my phone number: 484-324-8724. Text me. I will either do it myself or help you find someone who can do this for you.

My gosh, I could sit here and talk all day, but I have to go. Jason has to have an A2 that sounds like it's international, maybe possibly. So we're going to have to break. But this has been a phenomenal conversation. I want you to come back. I want to hear what's going on. There were still questions I didn't get to ask, but we're going to save it for another day and revisit. But thank you very much for the time, Heidi. It's great to meet you. Jason, as always, uh, my heart goes to you for Heidi, for Jason. This is Jeff with the Church Digital and Stadia Church Planting. Thanks for joining us here on the podcast, and we'll see you next time here at the show. Y'all have a good day.