EP188: The Future Church in the Metaverse

Hey everybody, Jeff here with the Church Digital Podcast once again. All of this is powered by State, a church planning. I missed the beta show format, the streaming format so much. I just, I felt like I had to jump back in here and really talk about this idea of the metaverse. I am so excited for what came out of the announcement yesterday.

Mark Zuckerberg, in case you're under a rock, announced the new parent company that oversees Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Oculus, everything else they're doing, and he called it Meta. And so what a beautiful title. We're gonna get into that here in a little bit.

Meta basically describes the metaverse, this digital, this virtual, this overarching realm, augmented reality, this world that exists even within the world that we are now. Some of you out there saying, "Jeff's on hot. We got to take the streaming solution away from him. He's high right now." But the fact is that we can do so much in this metaverse with virtual reality, with augmented reality, with mixed reality. Everything from the goggles, the headsets that we wear for virtual reality, to the glasses that I'm wearing with mine. If Apple could actually ever come out with the Apple Glass, that would be nice. As a matter of fact, I typed "metaverse" in iMessage today, and Apple actually corrected it. Apple didn't even recognize it. Siri did not recognize the word "metaverse" and instead made it two words: "met a verse." Maybe that's something that tells you a little how far. Actually, I cannot think of anything more Apple than that right now. But that's another conversation for another day.

Look, I really just want to talk about how these physical, how these digital lines are getting blurred. How there really is this idea of physical and digital being separate things. Like, this is even a lesson that I'm learning in this season as I've been the champion for digital-only expressions of church, digital-first that grows physical. And even digital, it's so difficult, and it's going to be, I believe, so difficult in the future to really separate those because I think what's happening is that all of it is getting blurred into this metaverse where we're finding that, hey, that digital element is existing in physical space. And if you watch—we'll put it in the show notes, we'll put the link out later—but as you watch the stuff with Mark Zuckerberg as he's talking about what the future is going to hold with this technology, what's physical is also digital, and what digital is interacting in physical. And there's this beautiful method.

And so church out there, while we're trying to separate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak, while we're trying to separate one realm from the other and say that physical community is good or physical is the right way, but digital doesn't work or digital is inauthentic or digital, that's not what Jesus was talking about. When he said this, at the end of the day, I believe that we need to do this: we need to find ways that the metaverse will complement, not compete with, the physical church. There has to be a way, and I want to challenge us to figure it out. How can we work together in this? What is the benefit that Meta, that the metaverse can have in the physical space? And what opportunities will the church find in this metaverse?

By the way, metaverse is not new. Listen, Mark Zuckerberg, when he did his announcement yesterday, I don't know that there was anything that was, okay, there were a couple things that were cool just to kind of see the roadmap of where they're going in his words, the next five to ten years, and we'll get there in a little bit. But really, the concept of what the metaverse is, I mean, these are things, and there are already people that are championing in these areas. And so it's not so much "look at this new idea of what's possible." I would almost challenge you, and we'll talk about it: look and see what God is already doing in these spaces and start to realize that maybe, just maybe, you're supposed to join him in that work there.

Well, I digress. We're going to get into that here in a little bit. But let's do this: some opportunities your church can find in the metaverse. I keep thinking in my mind I'm saying "multiverse" because of, like, you know, Marvel Cinematics. So if I say "multi," I'm sorry, metaverse.

What opportunities will your church find in the metaverse?

Number one: a new environment for church services. Now, this may be the lazy answer, but I do believe this. I think that there is an opportunity for a meta expression of worship, one that blends physical and digital. And that may be, hey, you know what, put on your augmented reality glasses, your Apple Glass when it comes out, and there will be expressions within the physical church building that will complement what's happening. Maybe that's things within the musical worship set to gather and garner excitement. Maybe it's complementary information or information that was cut off from the sermon and wasn't able to be said publicly, something that can complement that. Maybe it's an opportunity, you know, even some of the things within community to bring someone into that physical service and to have them experience what you are experiencing. So to say that augmented or the meta is not going to affect the physical worship service, well, we're losing an incredible opportunity to reinforce what's happening in the physical building without it. And I haven't even gotten into the whole thing of maybe there's like an avatar worship service happening somewhere. And not Avatar the movie, avatar. Like, anyway, other thing, get there a little bit.

Number two: hey, you know what, I think we're missing a new. We have an opportunity for a new education tool for discipleship. Augmented reality, the learning complements physical. What would disciple-maker multiplication look like if it was complemented with augmented reality or with virtual reality tools? Okay, hey, what? Listen, there's a whole opportunity that's going to open up for more education. I could tell you, hey, what if we're doing a Bible study on Job and we're able to put on glasses that now open up a whole system worth of information on the biblical knowledge of the story of Job and start to discover what's happening in that space? Maybe, maybe even it's relationally connecting with someone while you're going through that material. Like, you're on a phone call with them, but now you're wearing glasses and you're able to talk with them easier in real time as if they're sitting next to you at that Starbucks. Or maybe it's putting on the goggles and now I'm fully immersed in Paul's missionary journey and I'm walking with him. I'm seeing what he saw in a real way that makes it real to me.

My wife and I were actually considering going on a trip to Israel in 2022. I don't think we're going to do it for a number of reasons, but it was something that was offered to us that we were considering. And it would be incredible to stand on that sand, to stand on that road, to see life the way that Jesus saw it, to see things in the way that it was in his lifetime. But I'll tell you what, without writing that big check, I would love a virtual experience of that, to see that, to be immersed in that, to understand that. And I hear from guys like DJ Soto that are creating these teaching, these disciple-making, this discipleship, these Bible studies where it's this immersive world that they're building. And people are seeing it, even in rudimentary virtual reality technology that we have today, they're seeing it in real time and it's impactful and understanding to the knowledge because it's not just one lecture style where it's not just hearing it, but they're also seeing it and experiencing it in a different way. More senses are getting involved in it, and that's a beautiful, beautiful opportunity to further expand and to reach a different type of person that way.

Number three here, kind of stalling out: a new mission field to invest in the future. The opportunity for the church ahead is to really look at this new mission field to invest in, all right? Hey, look, we've got guys. They're already doing this. Jade Earhart has been a guy that we've had several podcasts with who has invested himself into the mission field of virtual reality, of gamers, of people that are in that realm, and spends hours, countless hours, investing, building relationships, sharing Jesus, and making a difference in these people's lives. And actually, I just had a conversation with Jake this past week and looking forward to doing a podcast with him again in '22 to talk about some of the awesome things that are happening as a result of Love Clan.

But even beyond that, we just had a conversation yesterday, ironically, with another pastor who's investing his time specifically into virtual reality. His name is Pastor Brock, and he has some phenomenal stories about how he's building relationships. Not necessarily—I don't. Both of these guys, are they a church? Are they not a church? Listen, we can have that conversation. But at the end of it, they look at the community that's happening within metaverse, within that realm, and they are investing of themselves into it. They are building relationships almost the same way. If I was going to go be a missionary—and I don't know why Belgium came into my mind—but Belgium, if I'm going to go be a missionary in Belgium, I am going to invest in the people. I'm going to build relationships, and I'm going to share Christ with that. And it's been awesome to see guys like Jade, like Pastor Brock, invest of themselves into those relationships as if they were in another country. It's interesting, the metaverse even possibly being another country.

Number four here: a new community worthy of a church. A new community worthy of a church. Maybe just maybe, and this is, listen, they're guys like, and Brock, we had this conversation. We'll look forward to it in the podcast here in the coming weeks. Brock's doing some incredible stuff in virtual reality. But the second you start talking about, "Are you a church?" he pushes back a little bit. You know what, Jeff, I don't think I'm a church. I believe the church needs to be more in the physical space. And so he's leaning heavy into the mission field but not necessarily at the point that a digital community is a community worthy of a church.

What's interesting is other guys are seeing immense benefit from it from a ministry perspective. Guys like DJ Soto with VR Church, guys like Jason Polling with Cornerstone Yuba City, which is the physical location for them, and Cornerstone VR. Lakeland Churches as well, up in Minnesota, has had huge success. Stewart over there with their virtual reality, where they are doing church services. They are being the church entirely in virtual reality. As a matter of fact, DJ Soto will tell you with his church, he's at least he's told me in the past, eighty to eighty-five percent of the people who attend his church are agnostics. They're atheists. They have no foundation of Christ at all. It's not de-churched. It's unchurched people coming in and experiencing. Yeah, sometimes they're trolls. Sometimes they come negative. Sometimes the trolls accept Christ, and that's a phenomenal story, and DJ's talked about those on podcasts in the past.

Jason Polling with Cornerstone Yuba City is a different story. He would tell, seventy-five to eighty percent are de-churched. These are people that have been burned by the church or by people within the church. Often you're not burned by God. You're burned by the model. And so the majority of them step back because of people or some things within.

A specific model, but the first step back towards the bride of Christ is through virtual reality goggles. And so you've got all these opportunities here, ending with maybe being the church operating in the church in this metaverse, in this avatar world, in this virtual reality community. Listen, whether or not it's a community is not the church's to decide, and especially listening to all the stuff—if you haven't listened to Mark Zuckerberg's 76-minute presentation, you should. I don't think I will ever listen to an Apple keynote again until they bring out the Apple Glass. And from now on, I'm Zuck man. That was an awesome presentation because it showed us what Facebook's future is, what now Meta's future is, and the opportunities for that community to exist. Zuckerberg's already said it's a community, and he's going to invest Facebook money into making sure it's a community. The real question for us church is: do we think it's a community that's worthy of a church?

And I would love to work with people. I want to find the people that want that to be a community that's worthy of a church. People, church out there, pastor listening to me right now: do not fear the metaverse. You should fear the MCU multiverse more than you should the metaverse. The metaverse is not gonna hurt us. Lean in to this. Yeah, okay, Facebook—maybe we trust, maybe we don't trust. If you're not paying for the product, you are the product. There are reasons to kind of challenge and question here a little bit, but that doesn't mean we don't take advantage of it as well.

By the way, Zuckerberg said, and I said it earlier, five to ten years from this virtual reality, from this metaverse, from this technology becoming mainstream—yeah, a lot of it's being experimented and worked on right now. Some of it's in beta. But we've got churches five to ten years. I mean, I'm 44 right now. When by the time I'm 55, 2032, 2033—yeah, this is going to be common. Now, for some of you that feels like, man, that's a lifetime away. I can barely get through like day-to-day stuff, and there may be some truth to that. But there's an opportunity here to lean in. There's an opportunity here to get in front of the curve ball and run with it instead of getting hit from behind like so many of us did with the COVID shift.

So what I would challenge us in this season, church, pastor out there, is listen to this: lean in, experiment. You know, even with the Jason Poling situation when he launched Cornerstone of Virtual Reality—truthfully, he didn't know anything about virtual reality. The people that knew VR were volunteers within his church. You just got jacked up excited about it and said, "We should do this." And oftentimes, I would imagine there are people within your church that maybe are jacked up excited about doing something in the metaverse, in social media, in digital, in video games. And rather than saying no, say yes. Even if it's yes, but. Yes, let me walk with you. Yes, but I want you to take someone else. Yes, but I need to disciple you first so that I can trust you spiritually to the place that you can run whatever the but is that needs to happen to make it happen for you in that situation. Figure out the but and get them to the point where you can release them, or at least trust them to do something. Maybe even like start a church in metaverse. I don't know. I didn't wake up this morning or yesterday morning and think, "Hey, I'm gonna really be talking about starting churches in metaverse," but hey, welcome to 2021, right?

Hey, Tom and I are going to be focusing a lot on metaverse here with 2021 in the days and weeks to come. But hey, I want you to do this right now. If you've got the Church Digital—like I said, the metaverse is not a new thing. Facebook's announcement yesterday was not new. It was more of there's going to just be intentional focus on this. So if you want to learn what is actually happening right now in the metaverse in the church, what churches are taking advantage of this, and what it looks like, go ahead and do this: swing to the church dot digital slash metaverse. Go to the website, the church dot digital slash metaverse. A great number of resources there—Jason Poling, Jade Earhart, Tom Pounder, Stewart up with Lakeland Church up in Minnesota. Some awesome stuff. But there's a blog written by DJ and some others, and Tom's got a blog publishing Tuesday on this and some other things are happening. So lots of stuff happening with the metaverse. And here, church, this is our opportunity to get ahead of the curve, to jump in, and to learn along the way, to meet a different type of person, and maybe discover a new community that's worthy of a church.

So hey, we're gonna wrap this. This has been great. I am Jeff with the Church Digital, and we stayed at Church Planting. Thanks for jumping on this live stream and this podcast. See you next time, y'all. Good day.