EP211: Digital Ministry Doesn't Have To Be WEIRD!

Welcome to the Church Digital Podcast. Through this podcast, we'll talk about the technological innovations within the church, but more than tech for tech's sake, we'll address deeper questions. Is disciple making possible digitally? How should we approach the digital mission field? Can a biblically grounded church operate in digital space? Oh, and where does the metaverse fit into all this? Whether you're a big or small church, an established church or a startup church plant, the Church Digital's goal is to help churches like yours learn to be a multiplying church digitally and physically. Our heart is that churches like yours will discover a newfound focus on disciple making that will revolutionize your church. And now here's your host, Jeff Reed.

Hey, my name is Jeff Reed, and it's great to be here, man. I love modern technology, especially when it doesn't work like it's supposed to. By the way, this entire show is an experiment. You know, normally the average organization would be like, "Hey, let's actually run a couple dry runs, test this out, make sure we can do this." Nah, forget all that. Let's just do it for real in front of a bunch of people, and if it blows up, hey, that just makes it even a more fun story.

So hey, listen, we're doing a live show here. Digital ministry doesn't have to be weird. I don't know if you've experienced stories like this or even have that from your own life, but coming from me, a guy who has been doing ministry, digital ministry, for a long time, I've heard plenty of people tell me that this stuff is weird and get the side eye and talk to me about how, you know, ministry doesn't happen in ones and zeros, and all man, all sorts of crazy stuff. And we're gonna get into some of that here in a little bit. But what I really wanted to do is even just open it up here, and I want to introduce you to some of my friends here. So let's do this. Tom, why don't you go first? Tell us a little bit about yourself. Who you are, what you do, and even talk a little bit about the podcast and the live show that you got coming up next week, right?

All right, yeah. So I'm Tom Pounder. I am the online campus pastor at New Life Christian Church in Chantilly, Virginia. I have a student ministry background, and in fact, I still do student ministry to this day. But my passion is digital and online ministry. I live just outside of Washington, D.C. I've lived here most of my life except for a few years in Germany when I was younger during college time period. But I've been basically born and raised in Washington, D.C. And I am a Cowboys fan. I work for all Washington teams except for that. The Washington Commanders, I guess is what we call them now. The trail. So you were the Cowboys betrayal? I don't understand. I'm a Cowboys fan. There are 26 other better options, aren't there, than the Cowboys?

Yeah, there are a lot of options out there, but I love my Cowboys. And you know, when I was a teenager in the 90s when the Cowboys were winning all the Super Bowls, everyone called me a bandwagon fan. But no one's calling me that anymore. They're just calling me an idiot right now. So yeah. And I have last thing about me is I have four daughters ranging from ages 20 to 14. So I am the one male in a female-dominated household.

So you're doing great, Tom. You're keeping it up. You're rooting for the wrong teams, but I mean, you're surviving, so congrats.

Thanks, I appreciate it, guys. Totally, totally. I think, yeah, there we go. We're back. I have bad internet here at the house, and it's the only option like anywhere near me, so there's no chance of it getting better, which is horrible.

Andy, why don't you go next? Talk a little bit about who you are and what you're up to.

Yeah, definitely. I'm currently trying to hold this ship afloat right now on this here live stream. So if you see me looking and there's a kind of a note of terror in my eyes, just understand that these things are held together by chicken wire sometimes. And if you see things moving on the screen, don't be freaked out. That's not Jeff's bad internet. That's just me playing with some boxes. But yeah, I'm Andy Mage. I'm a digital pastor here in Tampa. I'm also a video content creator and community manager for Alter Live. I'm also helping out with the Church Digital. I run a podcast called Breaking the Fifth Wall. I run another podcast called the Weekday. I run another podcast after that called the Altar Live Show. I also try to stream video games on Twitch and help out with an awesome digital community called Lux Digital Church. I also try to sleep every once in a while, and I am trying to be a good husband to my three children and two dogs and fish, which I don't know if you can see them over there. They have been a wonderful addition to this peaceful studio around here.

Yeah, we got a whirlwind going on. That's a lot, man. Like fish? I get just all that headache, and you just do fish on top of this? Listen, dude, they're like my bonsai tree. For whatever reason, at the end of the day, I turn off the lights, I turn off everything, and I turn around and I feed them. Yep. And I just, for whatever reason, it's my sand breaking or clipping my bonsai tree, and the dog will come in, one of the dogs will come in, and we just hang out for like ten minutes. It's great.

Yeah, let's be honest. When you do this to the kids, it just does not have the same calling. This is just. I've got a 17-year-old, a 15-year-old, and a 12-year-old, so this means keys or money.

Yeah, it's keys or money. You can do it with dollar bills.

Yeah, exactly.

Very cool. So hey, the fun thing about these two guys is they create some content through the Church Digital, and obviously there's a lot that's happening there. Now both of their shows, they're going to start doing live shows Tuesday 6 p.m. as well. And so we're gonna rotate some different shows in here. And for us, part of this experiment is doing things live. And Andy actually mentioned Alter Live, and so we're actually broadcasting this right now in the Altar Live community. And so I'm looking over here, we got some people over here in Altar Live. That's great. We got three or four people. Yay, Alter Live! That's awesome.

Here's what I want you to do. If you're watching this on Facebook, you're watching this on YouTube, LinkedIn, wherever it is on social media, I want you to swing over here to the Altar Live. It's thechurchdigital.alterlive.com. Come in, create an account if you don't have one, join the community. But we would love to have you in this space and hanging out with us in the community. For us, one of the things that I've really been leaning on, and Jason, I'm going to get to you in a second, we really want to use content to drive towards community. And so for us doing this live show, for us, is a way to start to connect people together into the family, into the community that we're creating through the Church Digital and Digital Church Network. So come see us over in Alter Live, thechurchdigital.alterlive.com.

And this actually sets up Jason Moore. It's Jason. We had a scheduling conflict at the last minute, and Jason dropped everything he's doing with his new life in Dallas. I'm hopefully not a Cowboys fan. We'll ask that question in a second. But not yet. That's a good answer. I lived in Dallas for nine years, and I'm still able to say it's not yet. So I'm gonna hold you through that. But Jason, man, you've had so much change. You were at Westside Family. Why don't you like tell us a little bit kind of what you're up to and what your new role is there with Rezzy?

Well, I'm a new product manager here at Rezzy. And what that means is I get to influence and help develop the new features that are coming out in Rezzy, which is one of the major streaming platforms that the church has. And with its recent acquisition by Pushpay, there are some very fascinating and exciting ways that all of these tools can start to integrate with one another in ways that have never been done before. And that's one of the reasons why I came on to Rezzy to be a part of that initiative. And so right now I'm learning a ton and trying to get the new version of Studio for Rezzy out, which allows a lot of the groundwork for us to be able to do a lot of really cool things at a cadence that's a lot faster than we've been able to do before. So super excited to be on the other side of church tool development because I was a user of the tools for a long time, and now I can be a developer of these tools. Now that I have this experience, it's been really great to be able to influence that.

Yeah, what's it feel like to get out? What's it feel like to be walking on the other side?

Oh, dude, it is so weird because, okay, first off, am I allowed to say that? Are we gonna get in trouble, Jeff?

Why not? I mean, I don't know who's gonna get you in trouble. We'll just come out swinging. That's cool.

What does it feel like to get out? My wife and I have never been church shopping ever in our lives because it was either something that my parents decided for me or my job decided for us. And this is completely new territory. And I gotta tell you, seeing church from a different perspective is really been mind-blowing for me because I know what happens in the kitchen, right? So when I see it all happen on stage and when people are talking, you know, membership classes and stuff, I don't know. It's just for me, it's gonna be really rough for any church to meet expectations for Marie and me because we've been living it for so long. And oddly enough, my digital connection with Westside hasn't changed. So I'm there every Sunday. I am part of a small group, a Westside small group online every Wednesday night. And so my community really hasn't changed all that much. And if I were smarter, I would have just told him to just keep on paying me and I could still do the job. But anyway, it's just I'm in a weird state that way because I've never been in this position before. And you know, I haven't not been a pastor for, or not better said, I haven't been in non-vocational ministry since before I was in college. So this is really new territory for me. But it's really interesting now how much I understand how valuable weekends are to people that I didn't quite understand before, having my job and my church being one and the same. So I'm beginning to get a little bit more empathy for families and couples that only have two days together, if that, and being able to squeeze everything in. I get it at a different level now.

Awesome. Yeah, well, I tell you what, I'm excited about some of the stuff that's going to be coming out of Rezzy. And anytime your streamer, your streaming solution breaks, it doesn't matter the time or day, Jason's cell phone number is going to be... I'll put it in the comments right now. We'll add it at a later. Honestly, our support team is awesome. They have a better call answer rate than 911, so they're incredible.

We use Rezzy at my church, so now I know who to call when I got some issues. I'll just go right to it and write to David.

Yeah, evidently he can be found at facebook.com/jcmorris, and so feel free to message him just incessantly any time there's an issue. That'll be great.

Hey, let's do this. And so I want to get into it. I want to get into the conversation. If you're watching out in social media world, YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, feel free to jump over to the Church Digital, digital.alterlive.com, join the community that we've got in there. We've got some friends hanging out already. Hey, if and by the way, if there are questions or thoughts from the chat, bring them up. I'd love to talk to them through. But the heart of what I want to get into here with the conversation as we're kind of having fun here, relaxing, I'm missing my jam right now in my head. Where's my jam?

Oh my goodness, it's very easy. The beat's got it. Yeah, the beat's got to drop, man. You got to give it space. Yeah, I'm not a patient guy, but hey, so like, so the idea, the question here is digital ministry is perceived as weird, right? I mean, let's just embrace it. Uh, Tom, you've been doing this how many years? I've been doing this how many years? Jason outdates all of us. Andy has been doing all sorts of stuff in this space for a long time. Um, man, what, and we're going to talk about some of this. We're going to drill into some deeper specifics on individual episodes later on down the road, but even just to open up the conversation and get started today, man, what are some examples? What are some of the weird stuff that you hear people saying? Well, church online is really this or digital discipleship is nothing but this. Like, some of what are the weird negative comments that you hear describing digital ministry?

Okay, I'll go first just because this is kind of on my heart a lot. Um, I was at a conference in November. I won't name the conference. Um, but the conference I went to two digital ministry sessions and I was like, this is gonna be awesome. We're gonna learn some more strategy and everything. And the two things that both of those things said, the one thing actually that both of them said was that online relationships are not real relationships. Online discipleship is not real discipleship. You cannot have real discipleship in online. The purpose, the purpose is to get it in person. And finally, I just had, I'm sorry, I just had to raise my hand and say, sorry, we haven't experienced that. Ours is kind of contrary. But that's some of the negative stuff that I've been dealing with a lot lately.

What? Okay, what prompted that? Was that just completely unbidden? Was it an actual question from the audience? Like, where does that come from?

Yeah, they were doing, uh, in one segment it was like a kind of a round table discussion and some of the things that they've been learning. And one guy was really just pushing that we need to get back in person. We need to not be online anymore. We need to be back in person again. This was in November and things were a little bit different than they are now, but um, it just kind of blew my mind because again, these guys were people who were sharing success stories of online and then went a complete 180 and saying we've got to get back on person. And you know, real, real relationships and real discipleship can't happen online. So yeah, for me, it always ends up well, and Jason, I share you're tearing your hair out motion there. That's that emoji right, that one. And Tom, I hear that a lot from. I work in a uh, a large denomination. Uh, my church fortunately gets it, but there are a lot of people inside the denomination that do not understand that a real relationship can happen no matter what. And the question then always comes to, well, how do you do communion? It's always, it always, at least in my denomination, always gets to the sacraments real quick because that supposedly is what defines what is church. Is how do you do communion? How do you do baptism? Et cetera, et cetera. And it's like, hold on a second. We were actually at a conference last week at Exponential in Orlando. And our good buddy Mark from Lux Digital, uh, did actually Jeff kind of facilitated a bunch of stuff uh in the pre-conference. And Mark stood up there and he gave kind of his testimony of where Lux Digital Church came from. And he was recounting the fact that being in a digital ministry with people all across the globe that are having the Holy Spirit fall upon him or upon them, excuse me, is the closest that you can feel to omnipotence and omni, omni presence. And that right there, if the Holy Spirit can do that while you're in Pittsburgh and I'm in Tampa and that dude's in South Africa, then why can't digital ministry be happening? So that's that's kind of the thing I'm wrestling with, Tom, along that that same path that you're journeying.

Yeah, I I'd like Steven to scratch that itch a little bit. And and first off, let me say I I wrestle with this one like theologically I'm not sure how to use the words that are in my head. And so I'm I'm researching this one. But when people talk about incarnational ministry and and like needing to be in physical space and and like the physical connection of people together and how that's really the only way that that this works, I we do realize that the Holy Spirit is is like not, it's present everywhere. Like God's in heaven. Jesus is distanced somewhere else. Like this whole this whole thing is based off of and yes, an understanding of Scripture. Yes, a presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives. But it's not like we're tangibly touching said Holy Spirit with our fingertips. Yet everything that we're doing relationship is based off of the same physical. Like to me, it's and and I'm not comparing like a physical relationship to one of the Holy Spirit, but to me it's just like, can we get some consistency? Because you say one thing, but then you expect the other on that side.

Jason, you're smart. Let's be honest. You're smarter than the rest of us on this screen. So well, incarnational digital. I love what you're saying. And even the Bible is like the perfect example of asynchronous discipleship because we are being discipled 2,000 years later than when it was written. That's asynchronous discipleship if you ask me. That's like Slack on steroids. People Discord is happening right here. It's called the Book of James, right?

Exactly. And I I think here's here's here's something that I think is going to help tie together a lot of what I've heard. One of the one of the comments that I got when I was showcasing online church back in 2010, someone came up to me and and it was it was fascinating because way even back then they were wrestling with the same types of problems that people wrestled with today. And it was our, it was a pastor that had one of his friends and he was showing them the online stuff that we were putting together. And the first thing that his friend said was, aren't you worried that this is going to keep people from coming to church? And the first response, this was 12 years ago, the first response that this pastor said was, oh, don't worry about it. It's an inferior experience. And that you know, I wanted to punch him in the throat, right? Because in my mind, it's not inferior. Compared to what, you know, I think that there are, no one can, I'll get out a whole thought here in a minute. There is, there is probably no relationship that means anything that we don't enhance in a digital way. Like I was texting my son minutes before coming on this call. I haven't seen him physically in probably six months. That doesn't mean our relationship isn't any good. That doesn't mean he's not family. But I'm going to use every tool I've got to maintain my relationship with my son. He's still my son. Would I like for him to be with me? Absolutely. But that's just not realistic all the time. And one thing that I think we need to be thinking through is that what frequency is physical church or physical gatherings really necessary today? And I think one of the things that even our church planting brothers have discovered is that you don't have to have a gathering every week. You can have it once a month or even once a quarter and do micro gatherings or online gatherings filling in the gaps, very much like how we fill in the gaps in our most meaningful relationships digitally. It's not really any different.

Yeah, I I get, just even build off that. I I hear Hebrews 10:25 at least twice a week. Do not abandon the gathering. You know, it's funny. Like this morning there was actually an article about some of the stuff I'm doing at New Thing. It was published publicly at 7 a.m. this morning. And by 7:10 this morning, somebody commented, this is all wrong, and quoted that Hebrews 10:25. Don't abandon the gathering. Do not give up. NIV, meeting together. And what's interesting to me is, I I feel like we're meeting right here. Like I am talking with with three forefronts. I think so. Like I think we're just saying I'm not breathing your air molecules. I I just I feel like it's happening in this moment. I think, is it? And if it's not, like if it's not, then we need to get really clear about what proximity these limits really are. Is it 100 feet? Is it half a mile? Well, then you better not build your auditorium too big.

Yeah, yeah, that that that that that nursing room that may be in another building with the closed caption TV. We got to worry about those moms and babies. It doesn't count.

Ooh, it doesn't count.

Absolutely. Uh, Jason, real quick, I need to ask you a serious, serious question. Are you in your laundry room right now?

No, okay, no, I'm in my office right now.

Okay, because I saw I saw a post from somebody and you were doing a meeting in your laundry room and I laughed and understood all at the same time. Like I got, I felt that there we go.

Yes, I felt that in the interior part of my soul. And I went, that right there, that's a digital guy.

It was the only quiet room in the house. I love it. I am I am all for it. You know, guys, I actually uh just talked to a guy today, um, a church planter today, uh, and I interviewed him for my podcast. And uh, because what he did was he was supposed to launch his in-person church in October of 2020. And he was setting up. He was gearing up. And um, and of course the pandemic happened. And he shared with me the story about how he said, we can do what we need to do online. So let's figure it out how we can do. And they weren't able to launch in person until Easter the following year. But they met every single week online. They created watch parties where the people were meeting together and they were experiencing church together. They were having discipleship meetings on Zoom like this. This guy launched his church in the midst of a pandemic. And he's saying, guys, how can we figure it out? It's not if you should use online. It's how you should incorporate online tools for your ministry. And that's what really motivated me to see this guy forward thinking on this. And he launched his church. And now they're, you know, they're they're a church plant. They're a year old, uh, and they've got ups and downs. But they did it all online to start. And it was so encouraging, you know?

What I love about that, Tom, is is you could you could probably um have more church planters start a church online so much easier and so much faster because the fundraising, how much do you need to really raise? You don't need all that much for a building, right? And you could probably do it well, do it by vocationally so much easier. Um, I I personally think that doing things online because of the fact that it is so much more inexpensive to pull it off, we should be experimenting in lots of different ways because what do you got to lose, really? What do you got to lose?

Yeah, and the reality is is that there are churches like, I'm gonna give credit. Sometimes and I'll just be honest, sometimes I receive more of the negative than praising of the positive. It's very easy for me, confession hour, it's very easy for me to kind of on on my sleeve where my emotions and be overly critical of some of the negative. Yeah, just a little bit. If you if you know me, you know. Um, but here's the deal with the church today. Yeah, I talked to the church today that they were like, yeah, we we once a month physically, week two uh we we meet at homes, week three is exclusive online, week four we meet in homes again. And then the next week we meet, we meet physically together. I can tell you there was a church we were hanging out with in Exponential, um, Epic Church up in Philadelphia. They shut down three weeks of four. They were um, they were physical service and then everything for three weeks in a row was micro or online, micro or online, micro online. And they did that for nine months trying different things. Now they learn lessons and they're iterating off of that. But really in this season.

There's so many. I mean, my gosh, right now the gas is four twenty a gallon, at least where I am down here in Miami. You know, as economy shifts and cost goes up, we need to be considering other options. And it'd be one thing if we're not seeing results, but the churches that are leaning in, they're seeing incredible results on this stuff digitally. It just feels like it's this old guard that necessarily isn't open to seeing new things because they're stuck in a paradigm or they don't understand conceptually some of the stuff that's happening.

Well, if you think about everything as a tool for its use, you could think of a church service as a tool. You could think of your own body as a tool. If you look at it in that way, then you have at your disposal probably more tools than you would have considered before. And what's hard about tools, once you start using them a lot, is that you end up having favorite tools to do your job, and you're not. And this is true of any kind of discipline, by the way. Because you get good at a certain kind of tool and using it a certain kind of way, even if it's less effective down the road. You know, I can remember the days when I in high school took a manual typing class, and they made me type on a manual typewriter, not even an electric typewriter, a manual typewriter, because that was the classic way to do it. And I don't know why I did that. I did that because they made me do it. But what's a typewriter? I think today we need to not be using old tools to do new work. And God is wanting to do new things. So I want to give a shout out to Hector right now. Yeah, he just said something that was incredible over here in the altar live chat. So Alter the Church Digital, alterlife.com, to say Hector, here Hector Martinez, to say that it isn't a move of God because it's not in person. How would we know? We've never been in person. We have to understand what our words mean, you know, even in context of like how do we know what the heart of God is. Often, like even for me, I don't think I've ever came out, at least I don't think I have, and said physical is bad, physical is horrible, physical doesn't work. There are challenges to physical. They need to be figured out. There are challenges to digital. They need to be figured out. For me, it's not slamming one or the other as much as it is, man, there's an opportunity to reach a different person. And some, it's something. It's that, you know, I'm within the Church Digital podcast. I'm really starting to beat on this phrase here with the next season. But it's the humble disrupter. Hey, listen, I'm gonna do things different, but my posture isn't. It's not to aggravate. It's not the frustration. It's not the anger. It's not to criticize other models and make mine better. I want to take the posture of humility. I want to take the posture of a learner while I'm in the midst of championing, and while we're disrupting here. Like it's the humility that often at times I think is heard more efficiently than the anger, the frustration voice, the battle. You know, I've talked about on my battlefield. It's when I haven't. We're not. You never win these conversations like face to face. It never happens. But if my battlefield's like on the discipleship, it's on actually seeing success in these churches. It's on those metrics and to change lives and the multiplication of that. I think that's where we win this argument overall. And I will say, look at the original church planters. Paul, Timothy, had Titus to a degree. Even Apollos, well, did not have a building. Started with community based, whatever. And you know, I'm not saying that we need to go get crucified upside down, and I'm not saying, you know, we need to get exiled to the Isle of Patmos. But the idea that they were humble disrupters, you know, the idea of the holy war didn't happen until three something was Saint Augustine. And before that, it was just this sort of, hey, I'm gonna confront you with the gospel, and we're gonna let the gospel do the work. And now, I mean, Jason, you're in Texas. Tom, you're in a really weird part of the country. And then Jeff and I are in an even weirder part of the country. And yet we're connected and we're talking. I'm not even sure I'm in the same country as, you know, no, no, you're in common. You're not. You're in the Miami. It might as well be Cuba.

Yeah, North Cuba.

Yeah. Um, yeah, yeah. We get our freedom, but it's really good food. Go ahead.

Totally way better. But then we've got, you know, Hector is up in the Northwest. All these people that can connect quicker with the idea that we can be humble disruptors. And that honestly was one of the biggest things that I took away from Exponential that has changed drastically in even just eight months of really kind of looking at this through the lens of Alter Live, yes, but also as we've started to take steps away from the pandemic, God willing and the creek don't rise, is that there's a new level of humble disruption happening. It's less about left and right politics. It's less about my camera looks better than yours and all that, and more about, hey, here's the gospel. Let me show you how we can actually change the world through our technology. And Jeff, I really appreciate what you're doing with church planters all over the place in the digital church network that you and kind of Chessley and everybody else are running. Is that you're approaching it with humility but also with power and focus. So keep on keeping on, young man.

Thank you very much. I appreciate that. Um, and moving on, what, what other, what is another thing that's weird in this, in digital ministry? What's another? Tom, you've been around a while. What else you got?

Well, let me just say this. I'm going to give a shout out to Jason because the first time I ever met Jason, um, it was at the IMC, the I Ministry Conference. It was in Dallas, it was Dallas, Texas, years and years ago. And he gave us, Jason gave all the attendees, it was like thirty, maybe forty people, fifty people or something like that. He gave us all these goggles that you could stick your iPhone in, and it was like kind of like VR of swords. Those are awful. It was like the preview. But Jason was like, I would admire Jason because he's such a futurist. He's looking to the future. It's gonna be in the future. And you know, I like, you know, bringing to the forefront of VR. I mean, everyone thinks I have kids because student minister. Um, I have kids that are now in their thirties. They're millennials. They're not in their thirties with families of their own who think VR is not real ministry or not real life either. And I'm like, of all the people who should be getting VR or metaphor stuff, it's millennials. And these guys are the ones that are telling me, Tom, it's weird. It's not good. It's not church. It's like, and I'm like, you guys of all people should get this. But again, and I'm trying to figure it out, but I'm forty-seven, and I'm like, hey, it's a mission field. It's a mission field.

Yeah, I want to know how many linear disintermediation we need. So it's like all of us live with at least two, right? Because our soul, spirit, you know, and the body. We're already a couple layers already, right? And we think that's normal. When my soul ministers to your soul after going through all of those layers, just add a couple more, and it's no big deal. People have used other layers, whether it's books or TV or a phone call to encourage somebody and pray for somebody. All of those things have their place in the discipleship continuum. And I would argue that understanding what each tool does best is probably a better way to approach it because there are some digital tools that break through barriers that physical tools, like a building and a service, intrinsically have. They have these limitations to them, whether they be by space or by time, at the very least, not to mention even how much they cost. And one of the things that always bugs me about VR, for those who criticize it, is when I drop into VR, it blows my mind how many worlds and rooms there are for people to talk about spiritual things that have nothing to do with Christianity. You're talking to some guru somewhere. They're talking to some atheist about grief. There's all these worlds out there. People that are searching for Jesus, they don't know it. And I feel like, in a sense, almost, you know, with my VR headset in, you know, in the laundry room some days, I feel like that I'm like the Apostle Paul on Mars Hill, looking at all of these different idols of all of these different things that people worship, trying to find meaning in their life. And I look around and I'm like, guys, we've got to be in the public square making a difference because they cannot outnumber us five to one. That's just not right.

Anyway, I was speaking at a, uh, I don't know, one of the dozen Exponential things I've spoken at in the past year. And um, I was talking about VR, and uh, I was talking specifically about one of these worlds called VR Chat, which is like, if you don't know VR, it's like the red light district of virtual reality. It's like West. All sorts of crazy goes on there. And um, it was funny. Right when I said VR Chat, there was a woman, a girl, mid-twenties, out of my view over here on my left. I thought she fell out of her chair. She just had this like immediate reaction, okay? And I thought she sneezed. I kind of looked over a little bit to make sure she was okay, just kept talking, kept telling the story of VR Chat. And every time I said it, like she had this physical reaction to the words VR Chat. And at some point, I'm like, it was wrapping up the story. It was right at the end. It's like, hey, let's take a break. Uh, and so everybody exits out. It's kind of in between sessions. And she sticks around. And I'm like, are you okay? Is there anything going on? She starts to tell me about the dark things, the dark places, the manipulative, the destructive, the toxic environments that she was personally exposed to, the toxic relationships, the, um, I mean, I hate to use the word avatar abuse, and this is one side of the story. I don't know both sides. But she definitely was carrying a lot of baggage towards virtual reality. And it was funny. She looked at me and she says, the church has no business being in VR Chat. And I just, I looked back at her and I was like, because of everything that virtual reality was for you is the reason why the church has to be in VR Chat. Yeah, and as much as we see these dark places and dark stories and dark things, the church has to be the light. That's not the reason to stay away. That's the reason to run towards it. Now we can talk about ecclesiology and is it a church, is it a mission field, we can all day long. That conversations are relevant. They're the workers. Uh, excuse me. The harvest is plenty and the workers are few. And it's time to get into that space. Go ahead.

Somebody wanted to say something.

Yeah, um, you know, if you have someone that has such a strong reaction to a virtual experience, one has to wonder, yeah, if this whole argument of is it real or not should just get thrown out the window. Yes, because for that person, it was nothing but real for the negative, right? So could it not all the more be something positive and real? The real thing, I think, has lost a lot of weight, especially with the pandemic. We've everybody knows that the pandemic has been the great acceleration tool. And then there's, I don't know if you heard, there's some stuff going on over in Eastern Europe right now that's also accelerating some things. And uh, the idea that we can't have real relationships, that people can't really do all of their work from home, that you know, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, I think is getting thrown out the window more and more, thankfully.

I struggle with, and Katura said it in the altar live chat, sometimes I struggle with sharing people the necessity of digital options when they are so reluctant to jump in. How do you, how do you do that, you know? How do you convince a died-in-the-wool, or been going on every Sunday for the last 50 years, that you know, nickels and noses type of church pastor? How do you do that when they're just gonna look at us as the young whippersnappers? Even though none of us are young and we're the ones that are just disrupting every budget thing that they have going for the next two years? What are you guys doing about that? Go ahead, Jason.

You know, as you were talking, pretty much to try to get a strategy to make people move from one mode that they have imprinted on to another, I don't think is going to be worth your time. Because historically, missionaries have always been a small percentage of the church. But those missionaries, those are the ones that love to discover all of these new ways to do ministry. Those are the ones that are probably already talking to you about it. Those are the ones that you just empower, and then you build off of the people that are natively in that platform. Just like a missionary would, you send a missionary and then he grows the community from that place. And if you think a platform as place, then all those relational connections work the way that they would normally do, and then they can build a church right there in that native environment.

So the, I think it's a little bit, we're not gonna get a bunch of people to change modes. I don't think that's gonna work for them, and that's okay, because you do need different types of churches and different expressions to reach different types of people. So let them be what they want to be. But for those who feel discontent or have that missionary call, give them the vision to go into a different space, a different place, a different platform, and give them the power to raise up the church in the harvest. Because you know, that's just how it's always been done, you know, biblically.

Yeah, yeah. Um, go ahead, Tom.

I was gonna say, I almost wonder, you know, as the new generation, you know, the Gen Zers and Gen Alphas come in, if there won't be a shift. So almost where, what are our family ministers and our student ministers and our children's ministers teaching with the students? Like, how are they embracing this so that when these kids get older, online is not foreign to them? It's natural to them? I mean, it's already now they're VR, yeah, right. But here's the interesting thing that's going to happen that at least I'm seeing is that we've got youth pastors that are trained in traditional Bible colleges. Again, not a bad thing. You need to have some sort of education and some sort of semblance of what you're doing. But the traditional Bible colleges are going to take another 15 years to catch up. You know, they're more of a lag factor than a lead factor. So we're gonna miss right now. We're missing sort of that 10 to 15 year gap. I was hoping that COVID was going to speed it up, and it sped some things up in the church, but I think it also hindered a couple of other things, and that is one of them.

Uh, we, you know, Jason said that these kids are VR native, and like my youngest is a 12-year-old was just upstairs playing one of the Star Wars experiences on his Oculus. Like, cool, that's awesome. It was also said during Exponential, and it's really been resonating with me. These kids are not defined. You know, there is no sort of separation between what happens online and in the VR world and what happens in school. Their screen name is them. Yep. There is a synergy that is happening within their soul from the second that they are two years old. They can pick up my iPhone and make calls on it. You know, they don't know anything different. And we're gonna miss like five or ten years here unless we are supremely confident in what we're doing online and supremely confident in what Jesus has to say to them through these digital spaces.

Yeah, and Katura, this is why you go with the goers. You go with the people that are going. You go with the innovators. That's the battlefield. It's getting them to succeed. It's funny. Um, I'm going to drop a name and whatever. Jim Tomberlin is a guy that's been influential in my life. He was probably one of the founding fathers of the multi-site movement. And it was funny in a pre-conversation I had with Jim. I had the attitude that I need to change the world. I need to get everybody on a planet to buy into church online. How do I get seven people saved and adopted into the mindset? And, um, yeah, it's a lot. Uh, Jim looked at me and he told me once. He's like, Jeff, you got to get enough people to buy into it to make it worthwhile.

And at this point, thank you. This, uh, Andy, this is the thing that COVID did. COVID made it so that enough people have purpose to make it worthwhile. And today we are fighting for the right, and we're celebrating the successes today so that the next generation is already that much better prepared. Totally. Uh, so that we're further along for that. Like, I'm not trying to convince an 80-year-old blue hair to buy into online small groups or digital discipleship. It can happen. If you've not heard me telling the story of my mom, my mom leads. She's 70-something. I'm not allowed to say the age. But she leads three online small groups. She's very successful in digital ministry. So blue hairs can get it. Technically, hers is a little more brownish than blue. But the purpose is not to convince everybody. The purpose is to help those that are on the way make a difference with what you can today and let's pave the road for those that are coming after us. Whether it's physical, whether it's digital, whether it's meta, whether it's micro, it doesn't matter. If anything, that's another thing COVID did. It allowed us to diversify. Let's break up and do all sorts of different things instead of feeling like we were locked into one model. Because as a result of all of those different strategies and tactics, we're now seeing different people find Jesus that we're not finding Jesus in those buildings.

Awesome. Hey, do any, listen, I mean, I just kind of like landed the plane without even meaning to land the plane. I apologize for that. Um, hey, and that's because I did want to keep this around an hour. I didn't want to go long. And so we're at 50, and it's we got like four of us as we're, and so we'll, it's funny. Katura is like, uh, just for context, I'm a Kidmin director. Uh, no, this is interesting. Let's ask this one question. I'm theorizing something. I had a fascinating conversation today. Katura, I'd like your take on this too in a second. I had a student-led organization, um, reach out to me and ask inquire about some digital ministry. Now, this is not a church. This is one of these parachurch student organizations empowering students to reach students, you know, like more of the disciple-making stuff that maybe typically more in the Bible. I'm not taking shots, just a thought. But it was interesting to me where, um, they were more receptive. I mean, I started, you know, me, I started talking crazy. VR church, Roblox church, Minecraft church, video game church. Like, I'm living in the fringes. And if people are buying it, that's great. And it was interesting this parachurch organization, which has a little more of a discipleship-centric feel, um, they were like buying it hook, line, and sinker. Like, I didn't, I didn't have to sell real hard. They caught the vision quickly for that.

Um, man, do any of you guys parachurch organizations, student-led organizations, have you seen, um, like more of a leaning towards digital and in some of that, you know, I always feel like people like the churches are saying kids don't like student ministry. It doesn't work online. They don't like Zoom. Well, of course they don't like Zoom. That was school for two years, and school sucks. Like, is there experiences like, give me some insight here? Uh, would love Katura answering some Kidmin as well. Like, when you look at student ministry, kids ministry, what are some of those tensions? What are you feeling or seeing?

Well, I'll say for student ministry, we had success. Middle school students were more apt to come and do an online gathering than high school students were. But we also had some success thinking outside the box and changing how we did the group, you know? We played some more games, um, and where they were interactive games. Like, how your scavenger hunt in your home? Go look for this and bring it back, you know? Interactive games where they could be interactive but also on the screen together as well. Um, we found some really good success with like PowerPoint games. Like, you know, fun little weird things. So we brought back some old tech to get to the new kids, and they were kind of, you know, floored by it. So we've had some success with that with students. Um, and we don't hesitate when if we need to go online and do something neat and add a different element. We had an online game night or an online trivia night. I know some people have done online gaming nights. Um, student ministers like video gaming nights, and that's been really helpful for them as well.

Awesome. Uh, Jason, what have you, what have you seen or done? You seen anything? I mean, you're kind of the guy. There's about three things at play here when it comes to a parachurch organization that works with young people. One, you know, young people, that's their life anyway. So they're already digitally native. They're already VR native. So it's no big deal for them. That's one thing. Another thing about a parachurch organization is they're not bound to the same liturgy that a church would be, and so they have more freedom to do different things that a church may not feel the freedom to do. Um, and another thing about it as well is parachurch organizations that work with kids are very used to using a lot of different tools, not just one tool, the Sunday service, to get a particular job done. And what's great about what Tom was kind of alluding to was that a lot of these parachurch organizations would use technology as a tool in a different way than how a normal person running a church service or a youth service would do it.

For example, if you look at the basketball court in the same way that you would look at Minecraft, you're probably getting closer to the way that old school youth ministry used to work around a shared activity. It's just a digital shared activity that you're using to create relationships that are then leveraged for discipleship. So if you have that basic understanding of using a shared common activity, whatever it is, it could be physical, it could be digital, doesn't even really matter. You're using that to just spend time together, create relationships, and then leverage that for discipleship. That's kind of what happens in these parachurch organizations, and really, that's kind of what probably all of us should be doing is using all of these shared activities, no matter what they are, to enhance relationships for discipleship to occur.

Yeah, Katura, what would I, what I said to, uh, what I said to this organization because they were like, well, how do we start? Um, and the first thing that I said was I was disciple the kids to the point where you trust them spiritually, and then ask them where's God calling you? And if they say something stupid like, like, uh, VR or Roblox or Minecraft or, uh, World of Warcraft or even shoot, DJ Soto right now is experimenting with Grand Theft Auto. Yeah, like they are final fantasy digital missionaries into GTA right now, uh, and they're having conversations about Jesus. Hey, let me murder this prostitute. I'll be right with you, and then I'll, I want you to tell me about God. I, I don't, maybe the line's there.

Maybe the line's not there. I don't know. That is called cognitive dissonance, that somebody is expecting and that, you know, if you, you know, remember the Pharisees? They brought in the prostitute, told them, you know, what does the law say? It is no different. It's just in a digital space. Well played. Awesome.

Hey, this has been fun, right? So we're talking about the weirdness. It's not, it's not weird. There are ways to look at it beyond the weird, okay? Maybe the GTA thing is a little weird. Time hotel. But at least we're acknowledging going in that that one's weird. And so listen, I've loved this conversation. Here's what we're gonna do. Tuesdays at 6:00 p.m., we will be doing some sort of a live stream here in Altar Live tied to the Church Digital network. So this week, and actually once a month, we're going to do this show as a panel. Digital church doesn't have to be weird. And then after subsequent weeks, Tom's going to do a show, Andy's going to do a show. John Pyle wasn't able to join us tonight. He's doing a live show as well, so you'll see those guys roll out. Some others probably throw into the mix when Jason Morris gets his life figured out because he just had a move. I'm gonna be like, "Yo, Jason, it's time to start. Let's do something together." And so I don't know what it looks like. He's got some ideas. I've got some ideas. But we're gonna keep it on the down low, hopefully until he kind of gets settled in in the new life in Dallas. And looking forward to bringing him into a lot of the fun stuff because I don't know a smarter guy, at least who will answer my text and respond quickly. I don't know anybody smarter than Jason Morris. And so I love having him involved in this conversation moving forward.

Hey, as we're landing the plane, any closing thoughts on your side? Now let's, Tom, as we're wrapping up, anything from you?

Don't hate on the Cowboy fans. Why the word? Gosh, that's what you want to land a plane on?

Yeah, you got nothing, bro. It's the Cowboys. Yeah, my turn. The Cowboy fans are the worst.

Take that. Okay, Tom, do you want to take another shot? Are you going to stick with that? Like, I'll give you one shot to redeem yourself.

I love the idea that the online, it's a mission field, and be open to doing ministry in a new mission field so that more and more people can hear about Jesus.

Let's go. Awesome. Love, love that. Love the mission field. Andy, what do you got?

Yeah, right along that same line. If your kids start coming to you and saying, "Hey, I'm feeling like God's telling me to go do this weird thing on TikTok," or "I feel like God's telling me to go put on a headset and do this church thing," let them. Don't knock it until they've tried it, until they've ran that race just a little bit, just to see it. It turns out that this whole digital thing actually has legs, and we need people to actually work the fields for the harvest.

Amen. I tell you what, no, people will argue. I know because they argue with me. People will argue the idea of a digital or a meta church. I, they won't argue on a mission field. And if so, my gosh, it is so easy to make them look foolish. You tell me I can't go into virtual reality and tell people about Jesus? Like, that's really what you're telling me right now, pastor? If that is such a, the argument you can win. Digital and meta is a mission field. Ain't no way you're going to lose that, at least with anybody who has any semblance of like gospel in them.

Jason, as we're wrapping up here, any closing thoughts on your side? As my dog barks, um, mission fields become churches, and the vast majority of people thought that Jesus was weird. So go with it.

Oh, we just lost Jeff. Hold on, he's coming back.

Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. No, this is, this is fun.

Oh, and there he is. Boom. Hello. Okay, I clicked on the view. I clicked on the mute button because my dog was barking in the night, and I hang up. I don't, I don't, anyway, I'm sorry. I really did. I think we can talk about this offline. It was mute. I swear, Jason. I have no idea what you said. Was it good? Do we know?

It was great. Typically, Jason. Typically great. Awesome. Well, I got Hector saying, "Woo, say that, Jason." So evidently that's enough to make it work.

By the way, did I mention this is an experiment? We're trying to figure this stuff out. We're kind of playing it by ear. And so I apologize for that. And I got to give Ecamm credit because I was able to get in really quick after I hung up on myself. Listen, live. I love the idea of a mission field. I love these conversations. And we, Digital Church Network, we're here to help empower you to the digital ministry that's happening. So look for more of these live shows. I'll be doing a live podcast on Thursday as well. Chesley's doing round tables and trainings on Monday nights. And so we're leaning hard into helping people like you, churches like you, individual digital missionaries like you, get into this digital ministry stuff. So look for us moving forward. Hang out at the Digital Church Network. Fam, that's fam.digitalchurchnetwork.bam.digitalchurch.network. I think I said that right. Yes. And look for more streams on this in the near future.

Hey, so here's what we're going to do to wrap up this here. If you're an Altar Live, I'm going to kick you into the lobby. I would challenge you all to spend some time, click on, sit at a table, sit with each other, and dialogue and ask yourself takeaways from this conversation. What are maybe some of the struggles that you have with leadership, and maybe collectively start to process and work through different ways to solve those problems? And so, you know, I see some people in the audience here. I'm gonna kick you to the lobby in about five seconds as soon as I stop talking, and just engage in some of those conversations as you have time. And so, as always, with Church Digital, with Fam, with Digital Church Network, we're here for you, working through that. So questions, hit us up at Fam. But this has been great. For Tom, for Andy, Andy, thank you for handling all the tech as we're exploring and digging this out. For Jason, Jason, thank you for showing up the last second. Tom, thank you for like being cool. Who's the oldest guy here? Oh, is it Tom or is it Jason? Who wants to throw down? Probably me because I'm okay.

Oh, oh yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah, you you win. Okay. So for Grandpa Jason Morris, this is Jeff with the Church Digital and Digital Church Network and a whole bunch of other stuff, man. Thanks for jumping on here as we're doing digital ministry. It doesn't have to be weird. You all have a good day.