EP186: Jason Morris - Established? ✅ Micro-location? ✅ Why Not Do Both?

So we all need Jason Morris's in our life, and if you do not have a Jason Morris in your life, you really need one. Maybe not this Jason Morris, but someone in your life that you can reach out to that has those intellectually stimulating and deep conversations, the person that can challenge you.

Moving forward, Jason Morris is one of my Jason Morris's. Kind of works nice that way since like the adjective describes the noun. Okay, cool. So hey, so I was having a conversation with Jason Morris, and actually I wanted to do a podcast with him on some topic. I, to be honest, standing here today I can't even tell you what that topic was. I don't remember anymore. But when I was talking with him about the podcast, Jason's like, "Oh, by the way, I got a new job, getting a job title, and I can't wait to tell you about it." And so all of a sudden whatever I was thinking is gone because I want to learn what Jason Morris is up to.

Jason Morris is the global innovation—well, excuse me—former global innovation pastor over at Westside Family in Kansas City, Randy Frazee's church, and has been doing a phenomenal job in digital ministry for years. And the conversation that is all centered around this podcast really is enlightening to look at how Westside Family, honestly, may be thinking a little crazy here. We're still digging into season two and is exploring an idea of doing something different moving forward.

Now, remember, with Stadia we talk a lot about this phrase: multi-modal, multiple models, multiple modes of church. Pastor, the answer is not to simplify what your church is doing. It's to diversify. You don't need to do more physical church services to reach people. If you were going to effectively reach people with those services, you would already be reaching them with what you're doing. It's not simplify and do more. It's diversify and maybe even reach a different type of person.

And what I love about this conversation with Jason—well, you know what, I'm gonna let Jason have that conversation with you. So here's what I'm doing. I'm bringing into the conversation Jason Morris. I don't even know what his new job title is, but I know he's still at Westside Family, and myself, Jeff, with the Church Digital, and of course Stadia Church Planting, in a conversation that, um, eloquently calling here: establish church, yes. Micro locations, yes. Let's do them both. Okay, everybody, here you go.

What's man, what's going on in life? Catch me up a little bit.

Oh wow, a ton. So, um, in broad strokes, I am in the middle of a role transition right now at church. So, um, yeah, basically what the elders have asked me to do is to take the knowledge that I have with system design and, um, you know, people and all that, and use what I've learned with that and apply it toward what we're calling A2 communities, which is basically a microchurch strategy, but it's being empowered with online stuff, obviously, because they asked me to do it. So that's how it's going to go.

Um, and so right now I'm in the transition of, um, handing off, um, the Sunday aspect of what we do. Because dude, if I get out of Sunday grind, I free up 26 hours a week. I mean, let—so two-thirds of your—I'm assuming you're 40 hours, you're probably more, but let's assume 40—26, that's like, that's two-thirds of your week is spent around creating that online experience, right? And I didn't even think about it because, you know, we're so used to doing that. Um, but by the time you plan, you've got all the meetings. I just added it all up. All the meetings we're in for programming for the weekend, follow-up afterwards, executing the actual thing all morning long, you know, and all of the different pieces of it. When you add it all together, it ended up being 26 hours a week, and that surprised me. I didn't even realize it was like that.

Um, and so when the elders, you know, they asked me to do this, I'm like, okay, this conversation is really not what you would like me to do to add to what I'm doing. This needs to be a conversation about what I'm going to stop doing. So, you know, they said fine, you know, just write up your hours and just tell us what you're all in because they didn't have much of an idea, you know, between all the global stuff that I do and I'm just in 15 different things. And so when I sat down and actually ran the numbers, it surprised me how much I was in the Sunday thing, and I was like, wow. Now I kind of, I feel almost a little bit bad that it was so much because I'm not even, aside from like this Sunday, I'm not even preaching, and I'm spending all of this time with all of the back-end stuff of making sure that Sunday executes well as it relates to online because a lot of it is just, you know, interacting with the teams that are producing and programming stuff and making sure that, you know, the online side of what we do is not forgotten because that happens a lot.

Um, yeah, so anyway, what I'm doing right now is I'm mentoring Ty, who's a younger guy, and now Trish, um, who's going to be like the admin, and it's like the perfect scenario that I would have wanted for a team anyway. Because when I hit 50, I thought, you know, I do this and I do it well, but I'm probably not the guy that you want in front of a camera broadcasting to the world unless we wanted just a whole bunch of old people, you know. And so, so, and on top of that, I felt that, well, there's a couple of things. One was, you know, you don't find retirement in any part of the scripture other than the Levites who were required to retire at 50 and to let the younger ones do ministry. Which for me was kind of when I hit 50, I'm like, okay, I need to stop doing stuff and I need to start, um, mentoring other people to do stuff.

Okay, I want to back up because you just quoted scripture that I wasn't aware of, and that doesn't surprise me. Your scripture knowledge is huge. The Levites were retired, biblically required to retire at age 50. At age 50. I didn't know that. Why, why do you think that is?

Look it up. It's crazy. Um, and I, it might be just due to the fact that they had, you know, if you think about it, they're lugging a lot of work. They're doing legit set up and tear down all the time when it comes to the tabernacle, right? And that's got to be some grueling work on one side of it. And I, I don't know why God told him to do that, but it's there. And so that's the only, the only place where you find, like, I mean, I wouldn't even necessarily call it retirement, but if there's anything that's like that that puts an age limit on something, I believe I, you know, I don't know. It's just weird. And so, so for me, I'm like looking at it thinking, okay, you know, just from, you know, looking at the second half of life, thinking, okay, I need to make sure that this thing doesn't—it doesn't have to be like me or how I would want it, but it's got to continue, you know. So I got to be mentoring people. I can't be a doer anymore.

And so, um, I had been, before the elders even asked me to do this, I had been slowly, you know, mentoring a tech person and Ty in this, and he's got a little bit of, you know, pastoral experience too in the youth, and he does video, and it was a good fit. And, um, then when, you know, they asked me to do this, I'm like, okay, if I get—if I could get someone to replace me, then I can focus on this other side of ministry because I feel like, um, if you look at the book of Acts, there was this temple court expression of church and a house of house expression of church. There were both, right? So one that like only does one in isolation, I think is a little bit off.

So anyway, um, we as a church, Westside, and I think the church at large does a really good job, especially online for us. We do a really good job of the temple court expression, both on site and online. In the book of Acts, the house to house expression, however, is something that we're not strong in, and we need help with that, and we need to work on that, especially with the online stuff because no one's thinking about that either, how that all works and ties everything together.

And so in my mind, I'm thinking, wow, that would be really fun to break—maybe not new ground, but just try to figure stuff out. Um, you know, Rob used to be my boss, and you know, now he's doing Casey Underground. And oddly enough, when he spun off to do Casey Underground, that was pre-COVID. That was about, um, three years ago. And today I find that a lot of churches, because of COVID, they're exploring the whole microsite thing because they lived microsite during lockdown, and they saw some of the people saw the benefits of doing a smaller expression of church yet networked together.

And so I think that for whatever reason, Jesus is showing us a new way, or not really, anyway, but trying to rediscover another model of doing church that really, um, it might save us for whatever's coming down the pike. I don't know what it is. So, so, you know, like some of the stuff that I that I get to be involved with, what we do internationally, um, they do small and reproducing microchurch stuff just out of necessity because of persecution from the government or from either other churches for that matter. And I find that for whatever reason it hasn't worked here in the states, you know. I hear that all the time: "That'll never work here." Well, it did during lockdown. I mean, we all had to figure it out then, and there are some of us now, and this is part of the reason why I feel like the, um, the attendance back to the Sunday large gathering hasn't popped back up to where we thought it was, you know? Why? Because they got a taste of what church could be like at home, and they feel like maybe that that's a better, um, way of doing church that fits them.

And so for us, it's like, okay, we're gonna go to you. Whether it's online in a living room doesn't matter. That's like the heart of Jesus: to go to where the people are. And so we're going to try to figure that out. And I'm starting next year, we're not even going to be counting attendance that much. We're going to be—even our metrics are going to change over to A2 expressions and what that's going to look like as it relates to how they minister in their neighborhoods and with the school district and, you know, in the elementary school and all that kind of stuff. And you know, Randy wrote a book about that, so we're going to be putting a lot of that into practice.

Yeah, I'm guessing he's somewhat tracking with that idea.

Yeah, oh yeah, yeah. We, uh, we have—we did a podcast talking about A2. Forgive me, I am blanking on the ladies' name who was on with—she was like your Heidi. Next. Hi, Heidi.

Heidi Tompkins. That's right. Thank you. Um, is she still involved? Like, next steps kind of transitioning in?

She actually took, um, her dog grooming business took off, and so she reduced her hours as it relates to A2. And that's one of the reasons why they asked me to come in, not to be necessarily Heidi's replacement because she's still kind of working, but what they realized was they needed someone who thought through system design, um, and I do that all the time, and I do it without thinking about it.

So what, what is this going to look like for 2022 when you start swinging in to work through the A2 through the micro communities? What, what are you anticipating doing?

Okay, so here's, there's a lot of that that's still forming right now, but, um, we have in the hopper right now we've got what we're calling Westside Essentials, which is almost—it's basically like a discipleship thing. Like the first one is, um, this is a Bible. It's just basic: how do you interpret the Bible as you read it? Um, there's, you know, one on prayer, just basic, really basic stuff, helping people, um, in their walk with Christ because, you know, if you don't know how to read your Bible, you don't know how to pray. I don't know how you could be a real disciple, you know? So there's, there's things like that that are designed to be—they can be done individually through like an LMS kind of a deal we got going. That same...

LMS I hope will be working and that's that's part of the things that I'm going to be doing to making sure it does work. Um, is going to work in a group setting. Um, so that people anywhere by the way can go through these basics of the Christian life wherever they happen to be in whatever neighborhood they happen to be in, whether it's in Kansas City or beyond. So there's that side of it. I see myself helping the coaching network and helping the leaders as they um try to be Jesus in their neighborhood as it relates to serving with their school districts and things like that. We have a whole other department that dedicates themselves to city ministry that way. So what this A2 thing is going to do, it's going to like integrate a lot of these things that already exist and have them work together in micro together. So it's my job to facilitate for that group leader, wherever they happen to be in the city, to connect with someone that's in a completely different department of, you know, local impact, and help them to find, okay, what's their school district? What's the superintendent's name? Is he a West Sider? What kind of things can we do? Can we mentor? Whatever it happens to be for that elementary school. In like manner, um, bringing together global impact. So it's like, all right, for you, instead of doing like big impact Sunday on one Sunday once a year, we can throw an Indian dinner for your group. And so we will show up, have all kinds of naan bread and curry and all kinds of stuff, and then show a video about what mission could look like in India. And then as a group, go. If you can, if you can't, because the group, you know, there's some people who don't have the money to do it, fine. Then as a group, you can pool money together so that one person as a representative of your group can go. Much like how we find in the New Testament, in the early New Testament, how they would send a representative of that church, that functioning church. There was probably a house church anyway, to do certain things and to send gifts or whatever to different parts. So the notion now is that you don't do impact alone. And that's one of the things that we've learned over the years is that we, like a lot of Americans, you know, we think very individualistically, and then we try to scale that in volume, and we miss something in the process.

So the idea is to get, if one person says, oh, I can't support, you know, I can't sponsor a kid, one of the, you know, 600 or 700 orphans that we, you know, feed, clothe, and educate around the world, I don't have enough money to do that. But as a group, we could, we could pull our money together as a group and do that. And that would be our group's kid that we would sponsor. Or we could have, you can see how the different things that as a group it becomes doable, where most of the asks that we have on the high bar of service as an individual might seem a little daunting. But if I had someone with me now, we can pull this off. And what do you know, you know, Jesus even sent out the seventy two by two. And so there's there's a good design in that, I think, that you don't do ministry alone. You don't do impact alone. You don't do evangelism alone. None of that. You don't do any of it alone. It's a group activity. You don't even process Scripture alone. You don't even see that. I mean, we have this whole idea of, you know, I got to do my devotions. I'm going to have my quiet time. Well, that's great. I don't think that's a bad thing. But it is a completely different experience to process Scripture with other people and hear the Spirit of Jesus speak through someone else's mouth instead of what's going on in your head. I learn a ton just by processing Scripture in group. And we do that, you know, every Wednesday night with our A2 group online. And I've got folks, you know, that you're joining from Birmingham and Iowa and New Jersey and Hawaii and Tennessee and Mexico City. And you know, they're just all over the place. And so, um, yeah, I always get amazing insights every week from other people. And I'm reading the same Scriptures as they are, but I don't, I don't process it like they do. And that's part of the body of Christ, I think. You know, you get people with different backgrounds, different experiences, different lenses that they're reading the Scripture through. Maybe the Holy Spirit has them at a different place and are able to, um, you know, delve a different, um, uh, view of the Scripture from that, uh, so certainly love it.

Yeah, it's funny. I, you know, I walked into just transparent here, I walked into the podcast a little blind. I knew I wanted to talk about some stuff, and Jason had told me, hey, I got a new job, but I'm anxious to talk about it. And so this is, this is, this is awesome. I did not realize we were talking micro, uh, but that that's exciting something to hear. Um, when I talk micro, I find myself talking about fission frogs, about how you got to teach people to fish instead of fishing for them, and about how it's more boil the frog slowly as opposed to microwaving it through. Um, and so I mean, I would love to, and that's that, there's going to be blogs and stuff. I wrote that down there that I was like, man, I want to, I want to explore that space, fish and frogs. But for for this conversation right here, um, talk to me about what that, um, disciple making, what that multiplication process looks like. I know many churches that are interested in going micro, but it feels like they're not able to get. Well, I had a church tell me, hey, Jeff, we had hundreds of microchurches open up during COVID. And as soon as we, uh, opened the doors of the physical church, ninety-five percent of them all shut down because everybody wanted to go back to the building. Um, and it was one of my comments was, well, that ninety-five percent didn't understand the why of what they were doing. Because if they understood the why of micro locations, or if they agreed on the healthy why of the micro locations, they wouldn't have wanted to go back to the building. But so talk to me a little bit, uh, like what, what that, what your process is for finding, for discipling, helping people, teaching them to fish, doing it slowly, like what, what does this process look like for, uh, for West Side?

Well, um, I'm gonna talk a little bit, um, aspirationally, because I'm technically not in the role yet. Um, I've got this month to figure that out. Um, but here's how I think it should go. I think I can tell you how I think it should go. Um, so let's say, well, one thing is for sure, the leader has to be what we call a connector. Um, if you're familiar with the five voices of leadership, you know, that's a whole other conversation. But you have a person that is a networker, a connector. Um, you might find them in Scripture called the person of peace. That's the one that kind of unlocks the neighborhood for you or the school for you or the gym or the Rotary, whatever that happens to be. You've got that one person that is kind of like the gatekeeper of relationships and networks around there. So the idea is, let's grab one of those guys and take him through West Side Essentials, where as a group, he already has the relationships. We're not asking him to take his relationships and bring them out of them extractionally into a service or something like that. Just keep on doing what you're doing, but be intentional about it, because God told us all of us, um, to go and make disciples of all nations, not just to pay professionals. So let us help you do that well. Because I can pastor people one by one and keep them connected to me, or I can pastor leaders, connectors, who can then pastor, you know, their own groups, and then multiply the influence exponentially.

So, um, finding those connectors first, and then finding where the other people are that are current West Siders, and maybe this is even on the radar, and that's part of where the data comes in, the data mining comes in, because we have, you know, our database of all the people that are in our church. We have all their addresses and all of that, right? But most of them don't know that there's a West Side or right down the street. And when they go to group, generally they'll drive across town for that particular study or affinity that they want to line up with instead of being missional in their community. So that's going to be a shift that's going to occur where people begin to have a vision for and a burden for their cul-de-sac, their neighborhood, their school district, whatever it happens to be.

So with that connector, bringing them through West Side Essentials, um, which will set, and actually even before West Side Essentials, we have a like A2 boot camp, which kind of sets DNA for the group and lets them know, hey, you are here together for the benefit of your neighborhood, wherever that happens to be. So you guys have to figure it out, you know, prayer walk your, um, your neighborhood, discuss together what are the needs in the neighborhood. And many times those particular needs are opportunities for ministry to begin to sow good will so that you can share the good news. And so all of those things is part of A2 revolution. And then they just continue on with West Side Essentials, and you add those service components in because all of that is baked in with the A2 revolution boot camp. And things start happening, and people start, you know, looking at their neighborhoods differently. Instead of thinking, oh, I can't stand my neighbor because he's too loud or his dog poops on my lawn or whatever that happens to be, then it's like, oh, that person needs Jesus. So inherently, I'm going to be treating them differently. And so it changes the way that neighborhoods feel for people. And our hope is that they become so engaged in the neighborhood that if they come on Sunday to the big box, that's secondary. That's like a cherry on top. That's something that they might do once a quarter, maybe once a month. Truth matter is, they're only coming once a month anyway. So in a way, we're kind of backfilling what they're already telling us with their actions, that they don't feel the value or they're not being, um, ministered to in a way that makes sense for them. But only once a month. I mean, we just got to be realistic about what's actually going on. So our strategy is, okay, if you're only going to come once a month anyway to the big box, well, then we need to figure out how we can disciple you, um, every other day and all the other weekends that you're not showing up. Was that a hard thing to sell to leadership? Hey, look, they're only coming once a month. We we already know that the solution is not try to get them to come two to three times a month. The solution is give them spiritual purpose and mobilize and activate them in their homes. The win is not to bring them on this expensive building and property. The win is to get them released and and doing things within their home communities. Like I would imagine that for for the average pastor, that's a hard truth to hear. Um, what was that process like for your leadership to work through that?

Well, it's been a seven-year process. Boil the frog slowly, like I said, right? Right, exactly. If you look back on it, um, our church has been kind of moving in that direction very slowly. And of course, COVID accelerated that whole process. We had thought that, you know, maybe in the next three years or so we would have a whole neighborhood thing going. And that we thought we would have a lot of time to bake that in because a lot of our current small group structure wasn't like neighborhood church. Um, and so it wasn't microchurch for sure. And so, but you know, COVID basically just put the floor on the accelerator pedal on that whole thing because what ended up happening is that people ended up doing microchurch whether they liked it or not. Just like for a lot of, um, for a lot of parents, they ended up homeschooling whether they liked it or not. And some of them liked it. Some of them didn't. Um, I I think that there is this, this particular model isn't necessarily something that would work to the detriment of the other model that we all know and love. So it's not...

Where we do house to house, until it, you know, starves temple court. I don't think that's the idea. The idea is to do both temple court and house to house. Both of those environments do very different things. Both of those environments have their own set of strengths and weaknesses attached to them, and we just need to be honest about what each environment does well and what it doesn't.

When we're talking about making disciples, the smaller environment probably works better. When we're talking about encouraging the disciples and motivating them to continue to create disciples, the bigger environment works well for that. So it's not like you do one and not the other. You need to do both, and you also need to understand how both synergize with each other if thought through as a holistic system in a way that you find very much in the book of Acts.

The whole thing about, I think about the book of Acts, we hear a lot of people talk about how they're just like the book of Acts and they want to be like the book of Acts, but they completely ignore the daily aspect of it. Like they're meeting in each other's homes daily, in the temple court daily. We tend to say, "Oh, we can't do that," and so we just ignore it. Well, there's a lot of digital tools out there that allow us to be encouraging each other to love and good deeds on a daily basis. So maybe we could do that instead of just completely ignore those passages.

I feel like using not only the message of Jesus but the methods of Jesus are, I mean, they're just as sacred. I mean, let's pull that thread. So you're talking about, I mean, I'm even flashing back to a Daniel M podcast I did like two years ago because he's talking about like the large gathering and then the social space, which is like the twenty to fifty, which would be like the micro, the individual size. It seems to me like digital is maybe the glue or the connector that really tries to piece all this together. What do you have? And you're the digital guy, so talk to me. What are you thinking about that?

Okay, so think about this. You have a church structure and you put on top, like think first century. You have a church structure. You have temple court, house to house, temple court if you can, house if you can't, all of those things, right? What happens on top of that layer of all of those relationships that are happening in person? Letter writing on top of it. That is the technological layer on top of that people infrastructure.

And what I think a lot of times pastors resist is they think, "Oh, we're going to have bots talking to each other." You know, that's not digital ministry. Digital ministry is a layer on top of the relationships that we already have. It's really, I think, detrimental to think of them in two buckets because the reality is we all live in both, and the most meaningful relationships that we have are being mediated by face-to-face connections as well as technological connections, and those blur many times.

Like, you know, right now while we were talking, I got a text from my wife. Now, no one's gonna say, "Oh, I just interacted with her," and I just answered her, right? Well, we're interacting using technological tools to enhance our relationship. And when you think of digital tools that way, as a way to enhance relationship, not replace it, to enhance the relationships that are there, then you find what you find in the second book of John where he's saying, "You know, I'm writing it now in pen and ink. I'm not going to write you everything because I hope to see you face to face so that our joy can be full." He still wrote the rest of the book though, you know? And he's still writing. So just by virtue of the fact that he did, he did both. He wrote using the technology today, and he visited them, visited them from time to time.

The visit can be, um, how do I properly say this? The visit, the face-to-face visit can be filled. The gaps can be filled in with technological means. So, for example, many people with their family relationships already work this way. Your mom, you know, it's Mother's Day. Do you drive over to your mom's house and say, "Happy Mother's Day"? Well, you could, and you'd be a good son if you did, but most of us are probably calling them up on the phone or we're sending them a text. So what we're doing is we're filling in the gaps of the relational connection using technology.

And I think that we can do the same thing today. And I also believe that if the apostle Paul can do remote church planting just by writing letters without even meeting people sometimes, like the book of Ephesians, he didn't even meet you. You never see in the book of Ephesians him saying, "Hey, say hi to so-and-so," and so-and-so doesn't say that. He just writes the book and lets it circulate all around because he doesn't even know who they are. Now there's a thought of multiplying ministry right there.

So you create a system that then helps to spawn off Jesus communities wherever they happen to be. And so I really think that there's a lot of biblical precedent for some of the things that we're trying to do in the digital space with digital tools. They're just new tools, that's all. The impetus is the same. The desire is the same. We're wanting to connect with other people. We're wanting to help other people as many as we can. We're trying to make as many disciples as we can. And so why wouldn't we use tools to help be a force multiplier for the relational connection that we're hoping to have with people?

Love it. These, like, the model you're doing with the micro, it's you're reaching a different type of person. You're empowering a different type of leader. And so like, it's in discipleship, even looks different in that space. And that's why I love, you know, churches that run a multimodal, different models, different modes of church. And so like, it's in discipleship, even looks different in that space. And that's why I love, you know, churches that run a multimodal, different models, different modes of church. And so you being physical with the big building, you being broadcasting services online, you moving towards a two community here in 2021, 2022, and beyond, um, like this is just expressing different models of church to be more effective for ministry in KC.

And what's interesting is your church by doing these different models well, and honestly, like, you're in a unique position, Jason. I mean, I'm not to pat you on the back, but you're probably one of the smarter guys in the country when it comes to digital strategy and systems. And you've got a long history in this space. You've got Randy Frazee, who's, I think you mentioned earlier, I mean, he's literally written books on this. And so he comes with a very strong DNA. The DNA of your church, your boss used to be Rob Wagner with Casey Underground. Like, there's a lot of strong DNA that leads your church to this point.

Is this model something that you think is exclusive to your church or for very few churches? Do you see, like, or would you promote every church in the country to do something like this? Like, how would you suggest if somebody was thinking about doing this? Would you encourage them to do that? Like, talk to me a little bit. Is this idea scalable? Can this multiply to other churches?

Um, I think it can, but we just have to be super honest about what we're actually trying to do. So if our ultimate goal and end is to get people into a building so that they can put money in the offering plate so that we can all eat, we just need to be honest about that. And if our model requires that, well, then okay, we got to work that the best we can.

Now, I don't think there's any pastor, regardless of their model, I don't think there's any pastor that wouldn't love every single person that he pastors to evangelize his friends. I think every pastor would want that. Now, the question is, how do you facilitate that? For many, many decades, the way that many pastors have facilitated that is by telling the people that he pastors, "We are going to create this amazing experience for your unsaved friend. All you got to do is bring him here, and we will do the rest." And for many decades, that worked. So I'm not saying it's a bad thing. It was a beautiful and wonderful thing where millions of people came to Jesus. So awesome, right?

The problem is today the culture has changed very much. Where in the days when that particular methodology worked really well, a lot of people woke up on Sunday thinking, "Where am I going to go to church today?" Nobody that doesn't know Jesus is asking that question right now. And so how are we reaching those people is the question, not how do we reach people that would like to go to a church service? We've got that covered in spades. We're asking the question, how do we reach people that don't know Jesus yet? And those, by the way, are the friends and neighbors of the people that we pastor.

So the methodology in times past has been, you know, we can do it and you can help. And now we've got to flip it, you know, Home Depot style, is where you can do it and we can help. Because the truth of the matter is, if that person is never going to darken the doors of a church service but he desperately needs Jesus, well, then we need to figure out a different kind of strategy that helps that guy come to Jesus, period. We can't just hope and try to make the church experience so good that he wants to come.

When I've had, here's the thing, I've had so many people tell me, "No, church isn't for me," and they'll, and while they may say that, and I answer them, it's like, "Okay, that's fine. Is Jesus for you?" And they're like, looking at me like, "What?" It's like, "I don't care if you come to my church. I just want to bring you to Jesus. I don't want to bring you to church." You know, because nowhere in the Great Commission does it say, "Go and create faithful attenders of Christian community theater." You know, it doesn't say that. It says, "Make disciples."

Now, a church service can be a wonderful tool toward making disciples, but it cannot be the end game. And so if we look at it as a tool, well, then now we've got all these other tools at our disposal toward making disciples too. And we can pick the best tool for the job for the right type of person that we're trying to reach.

So it's almost like segmenting your audience a little bit and trying to use the best tool for the job. And what we're doing right now is we know that we're gonna be able to minister to all the people when it comes to a church service. We've got that down. We're good. We've got that down. We're looking into, okay, what is this other whole sector of society that is never going to come to church? How do we reach them? And who knows, maybe the microchurch thing isn't the best idea, but we're going to figure that out along the way because the missional impulse that's there will drive us to reach our neighbors and coworkers and friends to Jesus. Because if not, then why are we even here, really, you know? We're going to give an account for all of the relationships that Jesus has placed in our life, and we need to think seriously about that.

And what, unfortunately, in times past, and this is, you know, because I'm a part of this too, so I point fingers at myself at the same time, and because it worked back then, but now it doesn't. But the problem is that our people don't know how to tell others about Jesus anymore. They only know how to invite people to church, a church service. That's all they know how to do. That's a big problem.

Holy cow, that's, I wasn't even thinking about that downside toward the attraction model. And I'm saying, if the attractional model is working for you, then keep on using it because whatever works, I don't really care. But what we're finding, especially post-COVID, is that our churches, when you're just looking at weekend church attendance, they're not getting bigger. They're not. And none of them, as far as I can tell, I mean, it's very few, the ones that are growing faster than the population of that particular area. Dude, we have to do a better job than this. And if...

This isn't working well then. Let's just dismount and find something else. I love it. Well, hey man, um, we're gonna, we're gonna land a plane. This has been an awesome conversation. Uh, I'm excited about your new job. Like, that's, uh, I mean, shoot, anytime you're tying digital and micro together, I think that formula works very well. And I'm excited we'll have to check back in with you here, uh, sometime into '22 and kind of hear what's going on, uh, at Westside and with their A2 communities.

As we're wrapping up here, man, any closing thoughts?

Well, I'm just, I'm just honored that Jesus is asking us to join him as he builds his church. Jesus knows what he's doing, and he's the one that's going to do it. So we just have to tap into that, to what Jesus wants. And I just feel honored that I can be along for the ride. And so if I can be a resource, or for that matter, you know, in this new endeavor, there's a bunch of people I'd like to talk to. So I think one of the things that's great about using online and digital things is that they tend to foster collaboration. And that's one thing that Jesus wants. He wants us to be one as he and the Father is one. So yeah, let's share ideas. Holy cow, we've got a big job to do. None of us by ourselves is going to win the will for Jesus, but that's our job. So we've got to figure out how to work together. That's the only way we're going to get this done. So I would really welcome anyone who has ideas or who sees holes in mine, please tell me. Um, and yeah, I'll be more than happy to help people, you know, find and follow Jesus, because I think that's why we're here.

I love it. Yeah, we'll put Jason's, uh, info in the show notes, and you, you can, uh, can give him positive or negative feedback. And yeah, dude, I'll take him both. And whatever else, he'll, he'll take it all.

That's awesome. Hey, listen, hey, this has been a great podcast, Jason. I am so excited for you. Thanks for, uh, thanks for, you know, taking the time here for the conversation. And, uh, be praying for the road ahead. But for Jason, this is Jeff at the Church Digital and with State Interest Planning. Thanks for, uh, jumping on the pod here. We'll see you next time on the show. Y'all have a good day.