EP120: Sam George, Diaspora Ekklesia & A Mobile God

Hey, listening audience, up front I want to tell you here transparently. At some point in this conversation, in this podcast episode, you're going to hear my head explode. That's right. Jeff here with the Church Digital Podcast powered by Stated Church Planting. And it's this conversation here. This is the one that there's stuff that is radically rocking my world right now. I don't mean that I don't want to overstate that. Like, I don't mean that in an awkward way, but it is so good and it's so relevant for where we are today, church, and what the future of our churches need to look like.

So here's where we are. We're bringing into the conversation. Well, this, I met this gentleman Sam George earlier in 2021. I was invited to a Send Institute think tank, an opportunity really just to gain connections with other missiologists. I honestly went into it not even knowing what a missiologist was, and kind of enjoyed learning some of that culture and how these people think, what their challenges are, how they view the church, what their different perspectives are, what their unique worldviews are. And so it was a really fascinating conversation. But by far, by far, the best contact I had was with Sam.

You see, Sam, right off the bat with his keynote, he started talking about something that's like I've never really thought of the world. I've never really thought of the church this way. And he was talking specifically about this word diaspora, which means the scattering. Now, you know, typically in context, and we've used the term ekklesia on this podcast a ton. Don't abandon the ecclesia, the gathering of believers. It's the gathering of the call, the calling of the gathered. And so ecclesia has been a popular term, even against this idea of digital church. I've had pastors tell me things like, "You know, don't abandon the ecclesia, Jeff, by what we're doing online." But what you're asking to do online, it's abandoning the gathering in the physical space. And so honestly, I've challenged that by saying, "Okay, well, let's recognize that there is a gathering of people in digital community, and that a community is worthy of a church. And so we need to gather and recognize that gathering, ecclesia and digital community, is as good as gathering of an ecclesia in physical community."

And I don't know that that's wrong. I still believe that. But Sam opens up this whole other world, this whole other realm of possibilities in context of the diaspora, which is the scattering of these believers. Now we see this biblically, and I'm going to get a little preachy here, sorry. But we see this in Acts, the book. When Stephen is martyred and the Christians, really early church, starts to feel persecution maybe for the first time, and they scatter. I mean, biblically, I believe the references where they say, "And as they went, they preached the gospel wherever they went, wherever God was leading them." And so we see this diasporic movement of where the church is scattered, and then they're regathered, and then they gather back up into ecclesia.

And Sam talks about how the two, the ecclesia and the diaspora, work together. It's the gathering of the scattered and then it's the scattering of the gathered. Because God, what we know from Scripture, God is on the move. Feel a little bit like Aslan is on the move. But they work together, you know?

So here's where we are. Sam really starts to unpack this stuff here in this conversation, talking about a revival in the country of Germany, not because of Western European church in that area, but because of East Asian influences coming in from Christians that have been persecuted from China who get on a high-speed train. And because that high-speed train has a stop in Germany, they moved to Germany. And now the Eastern Asian influence is now in the German country, and they're seeing revival because the Eastern Asian, the Chinese church, has brought change, has brought completion for the church in the German country. Phenomenal stuff on a global perspective.

And the more that I listen to like his school of thought, honestly, the more that I start to vibe on this idea of what can digital do. Hey, so we're seeing a country like Germany seeing revival because there's literally a physical railroad that just happens to stop in the country of Germany and Chinese people get off. What if we looked at church that way? What if we did not, what if we did not just look at the church as digital as an opportunity to evangelize digitally, to reach new people digitally? What if digital was more than an evangelical tool? What if it was an opportunity to bring influences in? What if we, church, what if we were open to hearing and receiving some of those influences? How could those influences solve maybe some of the problems we have? Maybe discipleship, maybe relationships in context of the Western church, the North American church?

It's interesting. And Sam's going to pull some of that thread here a little bit. I just up front I want to say in this, this may feel like a little weird conversation, you know? Yeah, the topic is going to be very heady, probably a little more heady than we normally hit on here with the Church Digital Podcast. My full intention was to have a five-minute conversation with Sam George and invite him to do a podcast recording with me later down the road. Transparently, we started the conversation with Sam George and it just got deep in a hurry. And at the end of this, I was like, "This is so good. This conversation we just had, like this needs to be the podcast, not come back and do it again." And so some of the hosting and the bits may not be to the normal level of what you're looking for, what you've experienced here. But just remember walking into this, the depth of the conversation and hopefully some of the takeaways that you'll have for it.

So here we are. For the conversation, we're bringing in Sam George from Send Institute. Also in the conversation, you'll hear from Brent Folk, who's the VP of Global for Stadia Church Planting, fellow coworker. Love working with him with planting digital churches on a global perspective, which has a whole new perspective on, honestly, off of this conversation. He also got myself, Jeff, with the Church Digital and Stadia Church Planting in a conversation that I'm simply calling Diaspora Ecclesia, the scattering of the gathering.

Okay, everybody, here you go. This idea of the diaspora, where the church was separated. Acts 12, 13, wherever it was. Forgive me, my biblical knowledge is bad. But Stephen gets stoned, everybody dispersed, and as they went, they spread, they preach the gospel. This is a new concept because when I actually look at, at least what I'm interpreting diaspora as, it's being dispersed. I think that's almost a recognition of how the digital church can operate. Maybe it's not in the physical area, but as we're being dispersed yet connected together by digital tools, we're preaching the gospel where we go in physical space as well as in digital space. And as you were talking, I'm like, I would love to have that conversation because I feel like there's something there that would help us maybe explain this better, reconcile this better to people who are not recognizing digital community as a community. Maybe it's through the diaspora approach that we're so...

I would say, you know, I think it's a generational thing, you know? I got two kids in high school, and this post-COVID generation, or those who have been born in the 21st century, or what we call as digital natives, for them this is the first world that they interact with. And so this virtuality and reality, kind of in some way, you know, sometimes the experience is more real than the real experience in classroom. And you know, they're spending eight, ten hours online, digitally wired. You know, these technologies gonna be, you know, into your body now, and you know, chips in your head and all those kind of things. You know, I think, you know, this generation, so talk about those born after 2000, when they come into adulthood, the first step would be the virtual reality is the more real than the reality or physicality.

But then that doesn't end either, you know? If you have to, you know, you don't do marriage, you don't do, you know, a deep level of connection. Virtuality has its own limitation. Physicality and proximity, it does matter. So the idea is the whole understanding of church, kind of, you know, ecclesiology, you know, the history of the understanding of the theology of the church is where we are beginning to kind of make some kind of push and reunderstanding and rearticulating. And so that's where this diaspora ecclesiology comes in.

So diaspora is scattering and ecclesia is gathering, and we have done one or the other. And you know, here is home missions and here is foreign mission. Here is Sunday morning gathering, and now you know, go to your life and do your life and then come back here next Sunday and you know, pay your tithes and you know, be a part of a small group. And I think that kind of thinking is beginning to evolve and emerge into new realities.

So it's what we call as diaspora ecclesia. You're dispersed or scattered together, and the gathered one scatters. So traditionally we have talked about the church and mission as two different departments. We have a missions pastor, we have a missionary, we send them, we support a missionary out there, whatever that is. That's kind of a dichotomy model of that. And then we started talking about gospel and culture. So this is Leslie Newbigin and all of those guys, how much of the late twentieth century engagement and mission in North America and Europe has become a mission field. And so beginning to rethink how we do missions here. Mission is not something that we do out there. Mission is something that we need to happen here.

Then the conversation emerged into what we call as a missional church. Are you familiar with Darrell Cole and some of those writings? So missional church was a major movement in the nineties. But then again, you know, church becoming missional, kind of turning outward, kind of instead of inward, looking outward focused. So now we kind of, you know, so it's not off, you know, so kind of I'm beginning to talk about this idea that the coupling of this word scattered gathering and gathered scattering. So this kind of conceptually, you know, it's like a little postmodern idea, not either or, but blending both together is the, you know, both and paradigm.

If church exists for itself, it is just a club, social club. Church exists for the mission of God. So you need an outward orientation. But if you're all about outward, outward, outward, then you don't know who you are and what you stand on. That doesn't have a community and accountability. And so we are made for relationship at the very heart of it. The doctrine of man, understanding our need for relationship. So it can be virtual or real, but the level of depth of relationship is what we need to measure.

So it is this idea that I call scattered gathering and gathered scattering, but it's kind of blending these together. I mean, it's like, you know, what the church is. For example, Rick Warren will say, you know, 101, 401, the baseball analogy. Now four things that we need to do to understand the church purpose-driven church, four purposes of the church. And I kind of blend some of that, you know, kind of a flat horizontal to what I call as like a DNA structure. It's a little more complicated. So it's like a spiral of a DNA, twin twin strands. One strand is the diaspora, one strand is ecclesia. Both need to exist together, and both exist for each other, and it's together that we understand the purpose.

Of what does it mean to be the people of God, so there is a sense of dispersion. We are scattered together. We gather to scatter for the mission of God. So that's kind of the new ecclesiology that we talk about. At the very core of it, we need to understand that we are scattered people. We are on a mission of God. But we understand dispersed gathering because we are no more captive to geography and time, right? We have been liberated, and at least this technology era, digital era, is liberating us. We are not churches nothing that Sunday morning, you know, it's one particular physical locality and one particular time under one particular leader. We are conscribed to certain set of doctrines, so methodology. So this is largely the Reformation idea—Germany and Anglican and, you know, Presbyterians and Baptists and all of them have. We have been captive and we've been bound by either doctrine, denomination, organization, geographical space and timing. Now at one stretch, we are getting liberated from all of that. COVID has really disrupted all of that in some way. So what do we understand? How do we understand who we are as God's people? It's not a set of rituals that we go through and the religious motion, but to understand that we have a sense of connection with few people, but we are engaging the world for the sake of the kingdom and for the sake of the Gospel. So that's kind of a little complicated schematic.

I can, you know, I have something. How do you characterize the commonality? Is loyalty to the person of Christ? Is it scriptural authority? Yes, yes. Yeah. So, you know, so all those, you know, four core, you know, Rick Warren will say for some people will say six. At the very core of what are those things that are binding these two strands? The kind of scattering strand and the helical structure. You're familiar with the biology, you know, your high school biology class or something? Before the double helix structure. So these are complex imagination to understand an organizational model. So it is not hierarchical. It's not structured. It's not a network, but to understand a complex schematic understanding of a DNA structure. So there are strands that are connecting between ecclesia and the diaspora. And so one of the strand is Scripture because it's foundational for us. There is a time of worship and prayer up and down those structures. And navigators will say, you know, in a wheel diagram, you're familiar with the wheel diagram of Navigators? Guys to one, to up and down and left and right, and you know, center is the hub, and Christian life at the margin. So these are Campus Crusade has certain models. Navigators have developed certain model. Rick has developed certain models. You know, some of the other, you know, doctors, and there are various different models that we talk about what church. So at the core of it, what does it exist? Some people will emphasize more. Africans and Latinos will emphasize fellowship a lot more because they are much more relational people, you know? Asian people, Chinese and Koreans and Indians, and this kind of relational connectivity is very high. But sometimes, you know, the teaching of the world, some people emphasize strong teaching. So kind of need for the teaching because they're a little more cerebral, a little more, you know, intellectual capacity to process things. But some people learn through life on life, so discipleship happens in many different ways. So DMR model to CPM models and understanding all of this, to go back to understand what really is the church. And I think, you know, the COVID, if not anything else, is forcing us to ask this question: What does it mean to be people of God and to be on the mission of God? So that's kind of the understanding of church, ecclesia, mysteology, ecclesiology, and theology of God, and all of that has to be kind of reframed to understand, like what Jeff is doing. I mean, it's got, you know, a few thousand people all over the country, and how do we understand that? So what are those foundational things? So worship definitely, you know, worship and prayer. There's an element of awe of God. It's not like sing three songs, you know, here to a sermon there is a three-point sermon or whatever that is. We have programmatized it, structured it, created a model so that we can quickly duplicate. So this is the Western tendency because I think sometimes we are very pragmatic and we are very economically driven. Does it reproducible? I go to a conference. Okay, tell me one working model that I can go back and erect and raise money and support myself. So I think we are going beyond that to understand beyond pragmatism and, you know, our flexibility, and much more organic in this nature. The body of God, church of God, you know, it's on the move, and unlike, irrespective of what you and I say or do, because our God is a living God. He is a moving God. He's a missionary God.

So I've just, I have something else that I wrote in this connection. Is, you know, to develop this ecclesiology, we need a better theology itself. We need to go back to understand theology. And so the twentieth century, one of the big missionary, big theological idea that evolved was Missio Dei—Latin word—and but this also comes with a lot of those mission jargons and colonial overtones and all of that. So kind of I wrote a chapter on a book. I think it's expanding into a book now. It's called the Missio Dei. Missio Dei is the move of God. To understand God as a moving God. God is on the move. So you understand the doctrine of God in terms of moving. The Triune God is a moving God. He's constantly in penetration, talking between, interacting with each other. If your God is not a moving God, we make God as an idol. Idol is the one who cannot move or cannot talk. Jeremiah talks about carrying the idols. He needs to be carried. God's need to be carried. He was mocking at the idolatry of, you know, the people. And so, you know, I mean, then Indian culture, my roots are in India, so understanding idolatry. And so New Testament, that the theology of idolatry, much has been written on it both from the Old Testament culture, New Testament issues, and then theology of idolatry. And so kind of understanding God, God is a living God. Christian God is a living God. And if he's a moving God and he's a talking God, and so all of that understanding God as a God is a moving, right from Genesis chapter one, he's on the move. God is on the move. So let's not domesticate God. Let's not anchor him to a geographical location. Christianity always moved about. Jerusalem was it began, moved to Antioch, moved to Ephesus, moved to Rome, moved to Germany, moved to England, came to America. Now it's gone to global South. Real Christian action is in the global South now. So center of Christianity is always moving. We cannot hold and tighten him, fasten him to North America or anywhere else. For the exam, unlike that, Hinduism is a very rooted religion. It is geographically bound. Islam is also very geographically bound. Mecca, we turn towards Mecca and pray. We do pilgrimages to Mecca. The Scripture cannot be translated. So geographical, linguistic, cultural centrality. Christianity has no center. You might do your, you know, Holy Land trip and all that, but our God is not confined to that geography or that particular culture because our God rose again and his living person and is moving about. And that's why our religions come because he pursues us. God who's always a pursuing God. Holy Spirit saying I'm going, but the Holy Spirit is coming. And where the wind goes, you don't know, but God is moving there. Are seven hundred million Christians in Africa. In my recent few travels to Africa, men blown away what God is doing in Africa. Thousands and thousands of missionaries are rising and are going to save Europe and here in America. So, you know, six hundred million, you know, in Latin America now. Christianity is exploding in the global South and in China and Iran. So we need to see that sometimes our own parochial, narrow-mindedness, we see the world from North American vantage point, but that also is limiting us. We are not able to see the full picture because we have blinders on us. We only see the local reality. Hinduism is grounded. Christianity is a mobile faith. So they go to the doctrine of four and doctrine of incarnation, doctrine of salvation, and doctrine of eschatology. All of them in terms of moving, movement, and the doctrine of mission. All of that I have reframed it within this idea of Missio Dei. God is a God who is on the move.

When's that book coming out? Oh, I don't know. Are off to the press now. It's out of my hand. I have no control after that.

That's awesome. So this is a doctoral class that I'm teaching. I'm teaching a theology class. So but sometimes theologians don't like us missiologists coming and, you know, shaking up their world, just like, you know, Jeff, where to go to a local, you know, even an evangelical, I don't know, pick up Anglicans or the, you know, United Methodists or Lutherans, say they're who's going to accept your ideas now? Because they like the practitioners like us even less. Trust me. Yeah, I'm in the practice and theory, you know? That's where practical theology is a fantastic field. You're not doing a cerebral, you know, ivory tower kind of conversation, which is absolutely abstract philosophy, have no consequences to anybody. Or you become so practical and pragmatic you are not grounding yourself in good systematic thinking and theology. Both is dangerous. And practical theologians kind of interface between both worlds and ground themselves well. That'll last beyond our lifetimes and the fads that come and go, like fashion boutique and the magazines, and then later tech trends which will come. Though we are not a technology company, we are, you know, missionaries and, you know, missions of God, and that's lasting far beyond our lifetime.

You said at the course once, and I don't want to ask this, you know, it was this idea of the global church completes the US church. You want to, and even to the point of you understand the Book of Acts, go live in China for six months, then read the Book of Acts. You want to understand Book of Acts? Six weeks in India. Something to that extent. Um, love it. Head exploded, like really kind of help revolutionize and define even how I was looking at the global church. What's a what's a key lesson? What's a takeaway from from like a doctrinal perspective? What what are we missing at the US church that they're understanding? Is is it a better dependence on God? Is it is it the idea of of a more relational approach? Like what what are the things that were missing here at the North American church?

No, I think it's exciting, you know? North America is an exciting place. Don't take me wrong. And but the idea is we need to see North American Christianity is fundamentally diasporic Christianity. It is a wave after wave of immigrants. They brought their distinctive Christianity, but they brought it from different parts of the world. And when they come and they interact with each other over generations, so first generation will create their own. So German churches, Swedish churches, Irish churches, Italian churches, German churches, wonderful. Second World War happens. You can't do German stages anymore. You can't do German classes anymore. Lutherans were struck. You know, Scandinavians could not do any more Scandinavian services. Japanese could not do any more Japanese churches and services. All of that underwent change. So these waves, because most of the people who are surviving in America are still Christians, seventy-five percent are Christians, but they come from different parts of the world and...

They bring their distinctive Christianity from there. So Koreans have come and said planted 6,000 churches in the last 50 years. It's a significant moment. And since the new administration came on board, President, we had what, 11 million Latinos have been inducted into North America. They have been normally normalized. What that means, 11 million Christians, maybe 10 and a half million are evangelical charismatic Christians. So, you know, the Latino, you know, Hispanic church in America will be about 60 million. That may be the largest sector. We may soon all be learning, speaking Spanish in the church circles than English. They may not write systematic theology books, but they'll have thriving local congregations. So, you know, Indians have come and built what we, you know, our community probably 1,500 churches now, 1,600 or so. Our Chinese have around 1,500 churches. Vietnamese and Koreans and all of this. When all of these various streams comes and starts intermingling, it creates new synergy and dynamism within the North American church.

So there is a sociologist here in Chicago, you know, UIC, a big school here. He says immigrants are not de-Christianizing America, but they're de-Europeanizing American Christianity. I would say that, you know, kind of not to kind of be ungrateful for the European way. European Americans have been very globally engaged, and that was as a result of the global engagement that happened here. America is the most global place in the world now. It has always been welcoming to immigrants because by virtue of welcoming immigrants, American Christianity is always so dynamic and obviously in the remaking of itself. Well, of itself. Yeah. So I like to recall Stephen, Stephen Warner. That's the scholar's name, is Stephen Warner. I rephrase it saying that diaspora communities are globalizing American Christianity. And the more global we are, the more globally relevant we will be, because we do have those connections to the rest of the world. Germany cannot talk about it. England probably to some extent. Korea cannot talk about it. Neither can, you know, France talk about having a truly global church in their own geographical or geopolitical entity. But the North American church is the most global church. That is the power of the North American church because it has brought in the streams from Korea, the spirituality, the prayer culture. It has brought in the Africans. It has brought in the Brazilian Pentecostal spirit. It has brought in the, you know, the Mexicans and the Guatemalans. It has brought in the Koreans and the Chinese and the Indians and the Sri Lankans, and all of that is mixing together and interacting with each other, and that creates an amazing energy and passion for Christianity.

Just yesterday, last question. I'm intrigued and we can move on, but just yesterday I saw an article from Christianity Today talking about the struggle of multicultural church. You know, you're talking about, hey, basically American church needs to listen more and allow more voices to come in. You know, the de-Europeanizing of the American church and letting others continue to contribute to it. Do you see, I'm just curious because I'm here in Miami. Yeah, we're already like Hispanic all over the place. And so a lot of the, while where we're burnt out, or people in like the Midwest, and my coworkers are like, yeah, race is really a problem. I honestly don't necessarily feel that as much because Miami and my community is so multicultural from the get-go. I'm just curious how much of that race do you see that playing a part in it with the US church now, where they're not, they're struggling to listen to, let some of the other cultures in. You know, we're reading books like White Awake, where the white culture is predominant and rules over everything. Sam, obviously you're not a white man. So like, how do you read or influence that, even culturally, within, you know, we need to see. I mean, you know, I mean, say all the way from the 16th century to the 20th century, early in 1900, what, 300 years or so, most of the Christians lived in Europe. And much of these 16th, 17th, 18th century migration that shaped America also came from the dominant Christian world. So where Christianity grows, it pushes its people out. You become missionary. So 50 million Europeans migrated out of Europe. They went all over the world. They made Christianity look European.

It is the growth of Christianity that pushes out. It is not the migrant. Economic, socioeconomic realities is only one causative factor. But where Christian people become mobile people, they say if you're Christian, you will travel, and if you travel, you will become Christian. Because once when European post-Reformation, post-Reformation, amazing growth of Christianity in Europe, and people were pushed out, they started exploring new lands. You know, their sense of adventure, you know, conquered the seas. British conquered, Portuguese, Spanish conquered the sea. That spirit of adventure and exploring land because this is God's land, he can go anywhere. That's, but it comes from Christian ethics. You are not bound to a land. You're not captivated and trapped, imprisoned to a geography or a culture anymore. It gives the spirit of exploring. All of that Christian European gain in science and technology that Indians did not, Arabs did not do it. Why? It came because of the Christian mindset. And they started exploring, and they conquered the world. British conquered the world, conquered the sea, conquered the world. 100 years ago they said the sun never sets on the British Empire. I'm presenting a paper next week at the UK. I'm saying that 100 years now we say the sun never sets on the Indian diaspora. Indians are there in every country of the world. It's the most dispersed diaspora now. And so I'm not picking upon British. You know, I mean, you know, British have this, you know, kind of sense that the sun never sets on the British Empire. Of course, this, you know, empire has set. An empire has closed down. But the thing is, the idea that British were all over the world, and then that American, you know, era in the late post-World War, America's presence was global as a global economic power, control economy, all of that rose. So now look at where Christianity is. There are 700 million in sub-Saharan Africa, 600 million in Latin America, and 500 million in Asia. They're going to move. They're going to go wherever opportunity exists, wherever they can study, wherever they can get married and live comfortably. And so they will move. And because of the economy and because of the legal structures, America's population will decline, will become more and more dependent. And, you know, so the race card is an important card. But we need to understand from a global church perspective, because Christianity is currently, a typical Christian in the world is a Black female, an African female. So it has already shifted. This is called the shifting of the center of gravity of Christianity. It is in the Global South now. So they will push people out. So Africa is a massive amount of migration is happening. Christians coming to Europe because Christianity has already been identified as a Black man's religion in England now because most people who go to church on a Sunday morning are Black people. The largest church in London, in Leicester and Manchester and Birmingham are all led by Black people. The largest church in France, largest church in Germany, largest church in all of Europe, it's in Kiev in Ukraine, all led by Black Africans. Africa is a missionary force. If there are 700 million, millions and millions of churches in every country, they're going to send missionaries out. They will become mobile. So migration is what makes nations, makes economies, makes churches. All of that is a result of movement of people. And movement of people goes back to a God who's on the move. He makes his people move because we are created to move. I move, I am because I move. You know, they say I think therefore I am. I say I move therefore I am. I understand my identity at the very core of who I am because I'm made to move.

So race is an issue because we'll see more intermingling. America will see more people from Latin America, Africa, and Asia coming to America in order to sustain its economy, in order to keep it as a democratic, fair, freedom-loving people. But it will also go to other places, place like Korea, place like Portugal, place like Spain. These three countries in the next 30 years, their population will become half. How do you sustain a vibrant economy like South Korea if their population has become half? And also Singapore. These are the four countries. So when population kind of, you know, it's, you know, kind of completely compresses and economies, you know, has to be sustained, it will suck people in from other places. So from Southeast Asia, massive migration. We are talking about 30, 40 million people moving into South Korea, Spain. A large number of people from Venezuela and Latin America and Central America is going to go to Spain. Of course, a lot of them will come to North America here.

So look at those population shifts. Massive human displacement will happen in the next 30 years. Then the next thing that I would look for is, you know, highways. And, you know, why so many Jewish Christians moved to all over the Mediterranean world. So in the first century, it is often said as Roman roads. Rome built the road in order to keep the peace, Pax Romana. If you have traveled in the Mediterranean, North Africa, and you know, Eastern Europe, you know, Eastern Palestine and you know, Syria and Lebanon and Turkey, we understand how church came because persecution. Christianity grew in Jerusalem. Persecution came. They just fled wherever the road could take them. And that's why Christianity spread. So looking at the Jewish diaspora helped us to locate where the church was moving. So that becomes the foundation for establishment of the first. By the end of the century, church was all over North Africa and all over, all over the Asia Minor, which is Turkey, and you know, Greece and Rome. So that is the. So if you want to see the trajectory where Christianity is growing, look at that diasporic movement.

So for example, one example that I give you is I, you know, tell a story. I was in Berlin in 2018, central station Berlin, you know, amazing city, vibrant gem. So I was involved with some refugee. I did a book on refugees. I was doing some research. And so I was staying with this German pastor, and we're saying that, oh, you know, he said, oh, you know, let's take a detour before going to church. I want you to take you to a train station. I said, where, which station? I said, we are already running late. There are some refugee ministry leaders are coming to meet us at the church. Let's just go straight. I don't need to see a station. I've taken train from Berlin station. I live in Chicago. I take the Metra, go to the city, an airport. I've gone on bullet trains in France and Japan, and I don't need to see another train. But this is a very important train. I want you to see this train. In his broken mix of English and German, he's trying to communicate. My German is bad. His English is bad. We're trying to talk to each other. And then I said, okay, obliged. Finally, I couldn't persuade him enough, and he takes me to the Berlin Central Station. And you know, takes me to the platform, and I see the first train pulling in. This train is the first train to arrive from Beijing, Beijing, China to Berlin, Germany. First train. Now this is part of the One Belt One Road policy. If you've been following what is happening in China the last 20 to 30 years, China built more high-speed rail than the rest of the world put together. It's wired and networked across the country. Now they're extending the train all the way to Europe. So 2017 also marked the first train arriving and say, you know.

When you know in Madrid, in Italy, in France, in Netherlands, and in London, trained all the way from the eastern coast of Asia to the western end of Europe, trains are running. So now the explosive growth of Christianity in China—we're talking about 250 million Christians or so in China alone. In another ten years, by the end of this decade, China may be the most Christian country in the world. And persecution, growth of Christianity, persecution—what are they going to do? They're going to take the train and go where the train goes, much like the Roman road in the first century.

So this will bring a migration. Scholar in our hospital tells me that around 100 million Chinese will go to Central Europe, Central Asia, and Middle East, and 85 million of them will be Christians. Talk about we—women need around 25,000 churches in Germany alone in the next 30 years if this many Christians are going to land up in Germany. Trains are coming every day. Somebody is going to come on those trains. It will revive Christianity in Germany, but it'll look European. It won't look like Martin Luther. I mean, it'll look like a Chinese, not like Europeans like Martin Luther. So the face of Christianity is changing. It'll change from a European phase, a Caucasian face. I'm not kind of putting down any of you. I just love you, brothers in Christ, you know. But hear that the very face of Christianity is changing before our eyes. It is an exciting time for the 21st century. Christianity will become more global than ever in the history of the church.

Yeah, it will be really interesting. I mean, if a global train going from China to Europe is going to affect what the church is going to look like, when we really look at digital, what is digital going to do?

Oh yeah, digital infrastructure, physical infrastructure will be defining things for this century. Yeah, how church will happen. Look at infrastructure closely. Monitor infrastructure. And I'm talking to somebody at the Starlink—uh, Tesla's space company. They send two thousand satellites. We're gonna get wired like unlike anything. It's going to happen in the next few years. He's already started subscription broadband, 100 Mbps connectivity, every home. This is going to link the world together. You can pastor a congregation all over the globe, every time zone. You're not limited by geography and time anymore. We've been liberated, man. I tell you what, was that good?

The potential for digital in my mind has skyrocketed off of this conversation. You see, I honestly, and I do mean this, I feel like I had a very small perspective of what digital needed to be. Yes, digital can help create new ecclesias. Yes, digital can help with evangelism and get new people connected who would not normally connect. I did not put together this idea of digital can bring different cultures together, and with those cultures, with those influences, can really restore the church.

I do believe this. Sam George has said it multiple times now. If you want to better understand the Book of Acts, go live in China for six months. Go live in India for six weeks. In my life, I've done a lot of ministry in Ukraine, in Russia, and I see that in the lives of the people who are there. What do we need to learn as a church, as a North American church? What do we need to learn from the Russians, from the Ukraines, from the Chinas, from the Indias? And how can digital help us connect to those influences so that we can learn them for the betterment, for the completion of our North American churches?

You see, it's not just an opportunity for us to tell people about Jesus. It's an opportunity. Digital is digital is an opportunity for others to influence us so that we can better understand who Jesus is. And this is the takeaway of digital, and I hope this is the thing that is changing your worldview today.

Hey, this is just the start of many, many conversations, hopefully to come, talking about how digital can reshape your church's worldview. So check it out. We will be hanging out on Clubhouse this Thursday, talking about this and other topics. We will be on Clubhouse five o'clock Eastern for a lot of the weeks moving forward. Some of you don't have Clubhouse. Sorry, I've got invites. Feel free to message me directly or email me, jeff@thechurch.digital, and I can hopefully get you connected with some invites if you would like to take part.

If you're not able to get onto the platform for whatever reason—Android users, I'm sorry—we're going to go ahead and record it. We'll probably make conversations available on social media, as in podcasts, as available. But hey, let's unpack this in the coming weeks and months ahead. Hit us up on social media. Hang out with us in Clubhouse. And let's start to unravel maybe what our church needs to learn and how our church can learn utilizing some of these digital tools and resources.

Love the conversation. For Brent, for Sam George, this is Jeff with the Church Digital and Stadia Church Planting. Thanks for joining us for the pod today, and we'll see you next time here at the show. You have a good day.