EP215: Tyler Sansom & Influencers as Digital Missionaries

The goal is to go from like a large top-end funnel where it's just like creating content down to a communal relationship. So um, getting to know the people you're influencing on a personal level and then introducing them to Jesus and then introducing them to in-person community somewhere. It doesn't have to be our church. We call it church anywhere. It doesn't have to be First Capital. It could be wherever, as long as they're in communities.

Welcome to the Church Digital Podcast. Through this podcast we'll talk about the technological innovations within the church, but more than tech itself, 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.

All right, hey, welcome to episode 215. Hey, it's Jeff with the Church Digital Podcast, the Church Digital Digital Church Network. So much fun stuff here and I am excited about this podcast, this person we got coming up here. This may actually be the most podcasted person here at the Church Digital. Meaning that he's been on more than anybody else. By the way, before we even get into the podcast, if you've not joined Fam, Digital Church Network's online community called Fam, I would love to invite you to come be a part of that. Check out the website digitalchurch.net slash join fam. We're almost up to 500 people in the community, and what's awesome is it's centered around people that are excited about digital church, digital discipleship, metaverse church, innovation, doing something different in the context and confines of the church. And really the heart of it is to help people do what they want to do, get them connected into community, get them connected into support, into trainings, and ultimately into accountability to help them accomplish the ministry. We're working with established churches, we're working with church planters, we're working with people that are just normal people that want to do something for the kingdom with their skill sets and their dreams. And so check this out at digitalchurch.network slash join fam, and uh, we'll go from there.

So hey, but let's get back to this conversation here with my guest now. A lead pastor at First Capital Christian in Corbin, Indiana, Tyler Sansom is joining us here on the podcast. Hey Tyler, how are you doing man?

I am good man. I am hanging out in Florida this week, so it's very relaxing.

Yeah, I want to say of the podcasts that I've done with you, there's at least two of them that I've managed to snag you on when you're on vacation. And so first off, I want to apologize to your wife. If I had known that you were on vacation, I would not have scheduled this podcast for this week. So let's acknowledge that right now. Sarah, I'm sorry. But thanks for jumping on the podcast even on vacation in sunny Orlando, Florida. How are you? At Disney? What are you doing?

No, I am at the International Christian Film Festival. Um, we are about to start principal photography on our next First Capital film. And this is a nice way to connect with some people, maybe get some past that kind of thing wound down here. So that's the hope.

Very cool. So this will be the third or fourth movie?

Third.

Third. Wow. I feel like that's a conversation completely unto itself. As we're trying to like a church that's doing a medium-sized church in Corbin, Indiana that's doing really successful ministry that's really engaged in digital, that's creating films. I mean, it's the reason I love First Capital. They're literally the church that doesn't know they shouldn't be doing these things, and yet they still are doing it. So uh, hey, listen, I'm with this conversation here. I'm excited. I want to hit on a couple topics. Um, you know, one, I definitely want to talk about you. I want to talk about digital discipleship. Oh no, I want to talk about being a digital disciple as part of it, but I want to talk about digital missionaries. And I know that you guys have been doing some work through First Capital on that. And so we'll get into that here in a little bit. But right off the bat, congratulations, lead pastor, sir. Since the last time you've been on, what was it mid-January? You came on board as the lead pastor of First Capital Christian. So talk to me a little bit here about maybe what that role is, what that experience is, and how you've kind of grown through the system to now being lead pastor of a physical church that's also doing digital very well.

Yes, definitely a different pathway than most people take to becoming a lead pastor. I studied film and audio engineering in college and then went back to school for social media marketing, digital communications. So I didn't, I've never gone to seminary. All of my ministry training has really been from school of hard knocks, so learning on the job. But I've been in ministry now for almost a decade full time. Started as a worship pastor and then ended up kind of pioneering this whole church anywhere thing, especially for like the size of church that we are, pioneering it both here and helping lots of churches around the country. And then we grew into something that was really hard to explain to somebody that would have potential to come to Corbin, Indiana to be the succession plan. Because Jeff, you know us well enough to know it's hard to explain who First Capital is. We're a physical church, but we're also a digital church, and we also are in every prison, and we're also making movies, and we're baptizing people in Kenya and in London and all of these different places. So to try to describe that to somebody coming out of more of a traditional route in ministry is super challenging. It'd be challenging enough if we were a megachurch, but then we're a church in a small town, so that already narrows the pool of people who would want to come. And so uh, to be ultra honest, I think I was a little bit default the best candidate just because we couldn't really find anybody else, and I've been there a long time. So I'm fortunate enough that I got this opportunity.

Yeah, you're the you're the only person crazy enough to try to run the nut house. So congratulations by the way. Like, you know, you obviously you are doing a lot. I actually believe at the church moving forward I think we're going to see more and more churches move towards this mindset where you're decentralizing away from the idea of it's just the building, and you're putting focus in the digital, you're putting focus in the micro, you're putting focus in the prison, you're putting focus in into I don't know, workplace ministries or you know other things that may come up. Because and this is the one thing that I think First Capital understands maybe better than any church that I've met, the best resource that you have right now as a church is sitting in your pews and getting those people discipled, getting them activated, getting them released, whether in physical or digital space. Like that is paramount. And it's so important because now we have that ability to reach into places that the building does not reach. So often we feel like the physical and digital, there's competition, but there's not, because digital is reaching a different type of person than physical. And I mean, just even looking at your prison ministries, you've told me stories about how you know there are prisoners that tithe money regularly to the church because that's what they think they should do because First Capital is their church. You've told me prisoners that are running hardcore church services on their own because there is so much ministry that's happening through the church that the church no longer had the volunteer staff, and so it's like, hey, no problem, we'll do it ourselves and dive into that. By the way, like I could literally tell so many stories from First Capital. I'm like literally I feel like I'm a member of the church even though I'm like literally on the other side of the country from it. But that's the power of digital. Nothing else.

Well, hey, uh, pastor man, how, just give me some practical insights here. How has your life changed moving from digital to now lead? What is some of that? Give me some experiences. What are you feeling like day to day, week to week in this?

Yeah, um, some of the big changes are, this is gonna sound awful, I'm not sure I'm doing quite as much as I was. Um, I'm delegating a whole lot more, and that's not a new concept for me, but it's new to this extreme concept for me. The good news about the timing of when I became the lead pastor was right after the Marsol podcast came out, and it was like a gigantic podcast storm, playbook of what not to do as a young guy going into becoming the lead minister of a fairly large church that also has like an eight on the Enneagram personality type. So I've been intentional about making sure that I'm not the guy over anything. So we have a teaching team, we have a leadership team. Um, I'm never like solely making decisions on my own. And uh, so that's been the practical thing that I had to learn how to do over the last four months is how can I put up guardrails to ensure that we're not creating any type of celebrity pastorship? And um, how can we make sure that we're actually doing this as a team with a unified vision moving forward?

I love that. Yeah, I was not expecting you to say yeah, I feel like I'm doing less. I'm gonna just pause there. But the idea of it being healthy, um, you know, I think that's a big move. And um, you know, especially a church like yours that, you know, I mean, wait, 800? How did COVID affect you? I mean, that's a question. Do you feel like, here, are you down? Are you up?

We are almost back. So we're almost back to where we were. I would say we're probably 75 to 80 percent back.

That's awesome. So even so, you're probably 800, maybe plus or minus somewhere in that space. And yeah, in physical space. And so like, there's only so much the budget can afford it, and you guys have been so good at um, you know, stretching that and getting you know systems to over perform and finding ways to kind of stretch and make it work. Um, that's incredible. How's um, what, what I mean, let's shift into this. What does discipleship look like for you all? Like, what lessons did you learn during COVID? Like, what, how is it working to activate and release these people? I, you know, I've been harping on relational discipleship for like literally for years. That has been the only way we were able to build a church anywhere was completely through relationships because we don't have an Andy Stanley or Crypto show that people are searching for. Nobody's typing in Randy Kirk or Tyler Sansom sermons. So we don't have that luxury. But what we can do is create genuine one-on-one relationships. So with that, a few years ago my job description was changed to know 100 people online. And then as I hired people on my jersey first staff, they had that same job description. Now we've taken that mindset and we've transferred it into empowering our people to do one-on-one discipleship as well. So we created this whole thing called, very non-creatively, next step guides, but a better term would be one-on-one disciplers. So this year um, we hit 100 for the first time in April, but we're about 95 for the year. Every person that's been baptized has been paired with a mentor that

We've given digital tools for the first six weeks of their journey with Christ, and the digital tools are something to do with the mentor every single day. So it's teaching them how to pray, how to be generous, how to serve, how to study the Bible, why it's important to be in community, and they're doing that relationally one-on-one. And what we found is now we're starting to see people who are baptized a few months later after walking beside somebody. They are now walking beside other people. So it's not that there's like an expert and a learner. It's a "hey, let's be friends, let's be in relationship and like be the church and then learn how to do this thing together." And it has been an absolute game-changer for us. So that's this year that's been our big focus is outfitting these people relationally.

So it's people that are saved. You're giving them a guide and for over a six-week period. Now did I hear you say like almost daily interaction for six weeks?

Yeah, also the six weeks we give them like it's an interactive website and we give them daily tools for six weeks. And the relationship can go longer than six weeks. We just outfit them with material for six weeks. Very conversational. The guide gets a guide version and the person that was baptized gets like a next stepper version of it and they kind of go from there. And so we've got like people that are in recovery. We've got people overseas doing this, but we also have people in our own physical congregation doing this. It works both in person and online.

And like, how do you train a guide? Like, what? So I'm taking a normal person. I'm basically saying, "Hey, you're responsible for being..." I mean, it's funny. Decades ago we used to call them "first friends," but like the people who would be that first friend at the church. I just maybe dated myself with that reference. I apologize. But how long does it take to grow that person or train that leader to take these steps with someone?

It depends on the person. Right now we're working specifically with people that we know are pretty seasoned in their walk, and so the training has been done over the years. But as we grow, I think that the actual six weeks of content that we're doing is enough training for that person at the end to at least be able to take somebody else through that six weeks of material. So the training is kind of happening on the job. It's being modeled. "Hey, I'm gonna do this for you. Now you're to go and do this for somebody else." It's super cool.

On Easter, I actually got to be in the water with a guy that gave his life to Christ at church. He was anywhere in prison. He got out of prison and moved to court, and that happens way more frequently than we anticipated. And so I became his next step guy because I really wanted to. I want to be a leader that's really involved with everything that we're doing on the servant level. And so on Easter, I got to be in the water while he baptized somebody for the very first time. So I was like the guy that walked beside him, and now I'm gonna stand there as training wheels and you're gonna baptize him in the water, and I'll be there as you walk beside this guy. It was really cool moment.

I can remember Pastor Randy talking about how you guys catalog and count not just the people that are getting baptized but the baptizers. You're making it a big deal about giving the people that was very influential in the church in other people's lives, giving them the authority, the permission to do that, and even celebrating because that is an opportunity for spiritual maturity and spiritual growth. To say, "Hey, here are baptizers that are going through that." And what a powerful story, dude. Somebody from prison, you know, getting rehabilitated, coming back over, moving close to the church where they can be involved in the church, and then spiritually getting to the point where they can baptize somebody else. Man, what a testimony.

One of the six weeks, like the digital stuff we go through, we do a breakdown of First Peter 3:15. It's to always be prepared to give an account for the hope that you have in Christ. So when we got to that week, I had texted Bill—that's the guy's name—I texted Bill on Monday and said, "Here's the verse that we're going to talk about this week. I want you to do it. Your challenge this week is to go out and find somebody to give an account for the hope you have and tell them about Jesus." And on Thursday he called me crying. He's like, "You're never going to believe this, but I'm going to baptize somebody on Sunday because I did what you said and I told them about Jesus." And I was like, "That's the coolest thing ever."

So man, what other... what is something coming back to being the lead pastor? What is something that you're experiencing that you didn't realize? What's the surprise? What's the expectation that's different? Tell me something different in this transition.

Yeah, one of the first things that I did as a lead pastor is that I had an extremely lofty vision for the church of where we're going this year. We're revisiting our core values, which is something we've talked about before, but we launched this whole outfitting structure that I keep alluding to. But we really have taken the onus off of counting people that are coming into the building and like focusing on different metrics and being specific and praying for the Holy Spirit to use our people and things like that. And so I stood up on stage and I had the whole church pray over this whole thing. I gave this compelling vision casting, and I did not realize the spiritual warfare that would happen that follows that because that's just not something I had experienced before. I was never like the lead guy, and I didn't realize how much the enemy would attack when the church is functioning as the church should. And so we're getting to see a ton of people come to Jesus, a ton of life change, a ton of discipleship, but the weight of leadership as the enemy is attacking is just something that I have to continue to get used to. Decision-making has so much more weight than it did before.

How are you resolving? How are you working through that?

Well, the good news is we put this leadership team in place, so it's not just me carrying that weight. It's a team of people that I trust. Randy is actually still on that leadership team, so that transition has been both really good and still hard to navigate because he's been the leader for twenty years. And so we're working through that. But to have a team together to navigate that takes that weight and breaks it into three people rather than all of it on one person's shoulder. But man, just the amount of closed-door conversations that you have to have that are very hard with staff members and key leaders is just something that you don't realize until you're in that position.

I can totally respect that. And just some of that tension as change is coming now, and Randy—I mean, Randy didn't retire. He's still on staff. I saw or still playing a role at least. I saw his job title is "Coach." Literally, Coach Randy.

Coach Randy, yeah. So he is right now as kind of like a mentor figure or specifically be still on the leadership team. He's still preaching like once a month because we've been a teaching team for a long time, and so he's still really good at preaching. So that's one thing that we're going to continue to have moving forward with him. I don't know what capacity he will be after like a year or so, like vocationally, but I wouldn't imagine him going anywhere.

Preaching licenses. I mean, it's been obvious over the years you guys have a great relationship, and to see that extended on, like even as he's transitioning, you know, I think it's a beautiful thing.

Well, listen, we've been dancing around this. This is... it's not the word I'm looking for. It's out... I'm not outliers. That's another word. Outfitters. I have been writing a lot of outwards today. Everything that I'd literally have written stuff on outsiders and outliers, and neither of that is important for this conversation. But outfitters. I think is so... hey, we've been dancing around that a little bit. You know, maybe define clearly what this idea of a spiritual outfitter is and how you're utilizing that within for capital.

Yeah, for about the last forever, the church has been really focused on one hour on a Sunday morning. And we decided, "Man, it's been a buzzword to hear like, 'Let's focus on the 167. Let's do all this stuff.'" But to September of 2020, we decided, "Why don't we just actually do that? Let's stop talking about it and let's figure out how we're actually going to do that." So we came up with this concept of spiritual outfitters where we're going to shift the focus from getting people to come to our building for an experience. And our main priority is to figure out ways that we can outfit our people that we're shepherding to take one step closer to Jesus every single day, which requires a whole lot of philosophical shift in how to do ministry. It requires us to be a lot more relational because if we're taking individuals on a journey one step closer, we've got to know our people. And then the second thing is we have to figure out different lead measures because we're trying to get different lag measures. So before, lead measures could have been, "Let's do a marketing campaign to get people into our building. Let's preach a great sermon series so people will come back. Let's do a baptism Sunday so they'll know when to schedule baptisms." But our lead measures are completely different now. It's, "How can we give opportunities for people to become generous? How can we give people opportunities to go serve people they've never served before outside of the building? How can we make sure people are engaged on a Tuesday and on a Thursday?" So that's been a total shift for our staff. We worked on the whole strategy for about a year, and we launched it January this year.

What fruits have you seen with the start this year has been received?

Yeah, an unbelievable amount of baptisms. We're at like seventy-eight or eighty baptisms for the year so far, and this is the first weekend of May. That, I mean, that's like ten percent of the audience. That's so... that's crazy.

It is, yeah. It's nuts. The retention of people being baptized is significantly higher as well. That's another huge one. Since shifting our... we don't track. Our executive pastor tracks the amount of money coming in. Nobody else ever sees the offering. So we literally never send out attendance and offering, which has been something that every church ever sends out to like at least the staff. We've switched to a Google sheet that shows number of givers and then number of people that are in connection that are in like connection opportunities, so life groups, things like that. A number of people that are baptizing. A number of people that are serving in various aspects. So we've got this percentage of people that are actually being outfitted, and that's what we focused on metrics-wise. And so the fruit, like the question you asked about the fruit, is really easy to see because we're literally tracking only spiritual fruit that's happening rather than like these vanity metrics.

So we're seeing lots more people give because we're giving them different opportunities to get. We're seeing more people serve because we're encouraging them to be missionaries in their daily lives. That kind of thing. I mean, so you guys have literally... what you're...

Doing here is you're intentionally focusing on the people in the pews, and like I said earlier, because you're activating them through this outfitter program, the byproduct is we're growing and the offering is going up and more people are hearing about Jesus in the community because we're unleashing like 800 people in a 3,000 person town or a thousand people out of a 2,000 person reach in online. So this is by far the best way we could reach as many people as possible. No marketing strategy or sermon series or anything like that could produce this kind of dividend.

Wow, how much of it is like, you know, and sometimes you're giving them opportunities to do this, you know, like group leaders, you know, I think would be maybe sometimes serving in the community, maybe the church has a relationship. How much of it is helping them accomplish the thing they want to do? You know, I can remember like the micro church leaders that are doing it in hospitals, after school, day care centers, orphanages, rehab centers. Like those are some unique experiences to do. How much of it is giving them permission to do this? What does that look like for y'all?

Yeah, one of our core values that we're talking about this year—we haven't, it's the last quarter of the year—is we want everyone to be on mission. So we want every Jesus follower to have a Jesus cause. And in order for us to preach that from the stage, we've been intentionally outfitting specific people and capturing their story throughout. So let me give you an example. In April, well, in January after we laid this whole vision out, I had a guy come up to me and said, "Hey, I do CrossFit. I'd love to somehow figure out a way to reach the CrossFit community in our area. Can I put together a triathlon and have it end at the church and then provide them a safe place to worship right after they finish the triathlon?" I was like, "Yes, absolutely. That's exactly what we want you to do." So this guy organized the whole thing. We gave him some advertising money and we had about 45 people from the community sign up for this. And they did a triathlon, it ended at our church, and we got something up on them that way. So the more opportunities like that for people that are passionate about something, we would love to figure out ways to use that passion for a kingdom purpose. And we're seeing it throughout. We've got a guy who's working with some Afghan refugees right now. We've got a girl from Missouri that watches us online that's now leading an online prayer team that's just simply finding people that need prayer through Facebook and praying for them. Simple things, but it's taking a step closer to Jesus every day.

I'm going to be completely honest, if I ran a triathlon, I don't know that I would want to do a worship experience immediately afterwards. We threw them in the different auditoriums. I ran a half marathon and like I couldn't walk for like three days afterwards. So the idea of a triathlon, I just, I don't think that's me.

It was freezing cold too. It was like 40 degrees when they started. So they got out of the water at the YMCA and then tried to get on a bicycle and it was just like ice cubes. It's so cold. I felt awful for him, but it was a good event.

Let me dig in on something because you talked about Missouri. You're in Indiana. You know, you guys with your digital, you're like, like I said, you're an 800 person church, but you've got, I mean, I don't want to put global on it, but you mentioned a couple countries earlier. Baptized in Africa and London. I forget the nation in Africa, but right?

And you're in Kenya. Kenya, thank you. Um, you know, I know you've got microsites in physical location or microsites in different states scattered across America. Um, what's the tension? Well, let me ask because I don't feel the tension. So how did, how are you counterbalancing the tension within your church? You know, smallest church, medium-sized church, blue collar, smallish town. Let's keep the money inside. But you are intentionally focusing a lot of this outside and with digital, with prison, you know, with a lot of these things. These are not, you know, highly revenue generating ministries, but you're seeing ministry success out of it. Maybe that isn't even generating like money. So how have you managed to navigate that tension where now you can focus outside of the church and really build stuff beyond what's happening within those walls?

Um, a lot of it has just been time. Time has really helped. So the more life-changing stories that we can share with our people that happen outside of the walls, the more they buy into the vision of what we're trying to do. And after six or seven years of doing that, that has really helped. It allowed us to be in a position to really have some freedom in those areas. As we were coming up with the outfitting strategy, um, the criteria was that everything that we put on the, um, like the metrics that we're tracking and the we call them aisles, we do like an inventory list every quarter of things that we're outfitting our people with. Everything on the aisles, everything that we're tracking, has to at least have the option for microsites and online to be a part of. So if it's like, if it's a lag measure, I think they have to have the option to be a part of our reach because we've started counting for a long time online plus microsites plus in-person attendance as a part of who we are. So if we're going to try to outfit everyone, we have to include everyone that we're shepherding. And so that's just been a philosophical shift that's happened over the last like seven years.

You mentioned, you know, at one point your job was, and we've talked about this before on the podcast, where it's literally your job description to know a hundred people online. Um, as do other people on your staff, do they have that responsibility now? I mean, your lead pastor, do you even feel that tension now? Like, how is that working out in 2022 at First Capital Christian?

It's a really good question and a really good idea that I probably should have thought. You can take credit for it. It's okay. Nobody knows about you and me. This shift that we've made has been extremely relational. So even staff members that had their only contacts in ministry might have been in like strategic systems have now started becoming more and more relational inside. I have not felt like I needed to mandate a hundred person online or a hundred person, you have to know them, because I feel like right now, at least our staff is very unified in this vision going forward of making things very relational. And so it's kind of happened organically.

Well, I mean, you've achieved this place where it's part of your culture. You know, it's like you, you cultures culture, you know, eats strategy for breakfast or something like that. Somebody said that. Um, you know, we'll give credit. Give credit to Tyler. Tyler said it. Just could tell they didn't say it.

Yeah, totally. Um, but you know, and so I mean, you've gone to that place where it doesn't have to be because you and others kind of before you, um, you know, fought to get it there and leadership was supporting to get that. You know, many listeners out there, I don't, you're not quite at that culture point yet. And so laying down some of those ground rules, well, let me ask you. Let me ask it this way. Tyler, do you think you would have gotten to this place where it is culture without you forcing yourself and maybe challenging others that are around you to hold to that standard?

No, I don't. And as a leader, I think if I don't continue to hold myself to that standard, the culture will also shift because our like our natural tendency as church people, all we've known growing up, is not super relational ministry. It's been systematic ministry where we put somebody in a pathway or a class or something to get them closer to Jesus. And we're taking that whole philosophy and turning it up on its head. So if I don't lead forward in that and continue to be the one that like pioneers that and pushes into that, then I think the culture could very quickly go back to the other direction. Um, so I think it was a great idea several years ago. I think it's a really good idea that I continue to get out on that as well.

Let me ask this. You know, I'm really excited and I believe this is going to tie into the outliers. Like, I want to have a conversation about digital missionary, but I'm pretty sure it's going to tie into outliers, which will tie into digital discipleship. And so we're kind of talking, if you're watching on YouTube, my hands are like going like crazy up and down because everything kind of links and it's tied into one another. Um, and so I don't, but I want to spend some time in the nuance on the digital missionary piece. And so like, here's the context for me. Digital Church Network, we've got like I said earlier, almost 500 people in this network. Um, you know, a large percentage of them are bivocational, co-vocational. They're not attached to a church. And so but they're looking to do digital ministry. They're looking to connect with people digitally. And I've actually been surprised over the past couple months how often I've heard the church say the words digital missionary. And so it's like we're not, you know, the big C church, we're not comfortable with the idea of metaverse church. We're not comfortable maybe with digital only expressions of church. There needs to be some physical grounding as well, okay? You know, we can have that conversation, but I disagree with you, but it's fine. But what we are comfortable with, because we are recognizing that it's a mission field, digital and metaverse is a mission field. There are opportunities to reach people. We're not really comfortable yet with discipleship in digital and metaverse space, but we can at least engage with them with Jesus and try to get them connected to a physical church. Once again, I don't, there's parts of that strategy I love. If that's what a church has got to do to get started, that's fine. I think it's a great idea. I wouldn't end there, but I would at least start to engage with it.

You guys have done some unique approaches with digital missionaries with influencers. And so would love to, as a matter of fact, I was kind of looking at your material a week or so ago and it said 2.0 next to it. It's like you're on influencer 2.0 approach. And so, you know, I'd love to maybe learn a little bit about what the second approach is, maybe some lessons you learned from the first. Like, but maybe just even to start off, let's unpack here. What exactly is your approach and how have you looked at this digital missionary?

Yeah, so there's two. We have two different approaches to digital missionaries. Approach number one, which is why influencer 2.0 exists, approach number one is using advertising to market to people's felt needs. And we have a team of people, probably eleven or so people, that respond to these emails. So we've created resources like mental health resources, marriage, grief, managing finances, like things that people are searching for. We've got a ton of resources on our website that we use advertising money to hit those people. And then there's a talk to a counselor option, there's talk through pastor options. So we have a team of people responding. We probably get like, I don't know, in between like twenty and thirty a week or so of those. You know, and what's interesting, let me even unpack there. That strategy is actually very common globally. Organizations like Cru, organizations...

Like Billy Graham Association, International Mission Board, there's whole departments. It's called media engagement in global missions, and the ability to kind of create those campaigns, marketing campaigns that then funnels into a database that then has a multilingual call bank where they've got operators that are engaging on WhatsApp digitally or audibly on a phone call to engage with those types of people. Like that strategy is, you know, I don't want to say billions, but there's a ton of money spent to make that happen at a global level. And but you're one of the few churches that I've actually heard domestically here in America that has adapted that and kind of bring it into the church. So kudos for that, even just to call it 1.0.

So I think we've, yeah, I think we actually started doing that in 2016. So that, this is, that's the longest form of digital mission work we've done. Um, last two years, 18 months or so ago, we stuck our foot into the global version of that. So we host Perspectives at our church. The, um, like mission learning community thing, and it's like a ten-week course. And people that are really interested in missions work, after they take Perspectives but don't have any means to become a full-time missionary overseas, we provide them with a global digital missionary platform where we still are using felt needs things like that. But our team has targeted India. So we have eighteen people that have gone through Perspectives, and the cool part is they're not just from our church. They're from churches all over the place. But they're a digital team, so it doesn't matter. And they are in conversation with people from India who have felt needs, around one hundred to one hundred eighty people a week. It's really cool. And some of these relationships have lasted a long time. I got an email from one of our team members two weeks ago who has been in conversation with the same young female who was struggling with mental health for the last six months. And they are now calling each other on the phone, like via WhatsApp. And so it went from like a couple emails to texting to Facebook messaging. So now they're actually friends, and this person's walking beside her and introducing her to Jesus. So that's like the first level of digital missionaries we've got: the domestic felt needs, the global felt needs, and various people on those teams.

But then there's the influencer 2.0 level, the social media influencer level. We have seven people who are doing that right now. But some of them are on TikTok, some of them are writing blogs, some of them are doing YouTube channels. And I think that's that's the only three avenues right now: um, blogs, TikTok, and YouTube. I think are the three that we've got various channels on. But basically it's taking someone's interest. Um, we've got a girl that plays softball, collegiate league, so she does a lot of like how-to-hit softball videos and then shares her testimony and shares Bible verses on TikTok every day. And she's getting like thirty to forty thousand hits a week. Um, and then we've got a guy who's really passionate about recovery from anxiety. And so he's doing something called Rewrite, and it's, uh, he's finding people's stories and creating these like cinematic stories of people who have overcome specific mental health issues and sharing them on a YouTube channel.

We've got a couple that loves cooking, and so they do a channel that's like basically a Food Network cooking show. It's like five or six minutes: here's how to cook a dish, but here's also why you do that. It's to be hospitable because that's what the Bible says. And they share their story through that. Um, so we've created this, uh, like six to eight week learning experience from actual YouTube, TikTok, Instagram influencers from all over the nation that help provide content for it. It's called Influencer 2.0. And we take our people through that and then kind of launch their channels. We have a person on staff that's like their point person to walk the side of them. So that's the other form of additional missionaries that we do.

How is that? So you're running a, it sounds like a beta test, like seven people. Well, it's hard to get somebody to commit to that. It's like a minimum year-long commitment. So this is like the level that's a pretty committed kind of thing. What are you learning through it? Because I mean, because that's, I mean, in my mind, just in my world with DCN and this is a later conversation, but you know, I could think of ten to fifteen people that would be interested in doing something at that level, to that extreme.

Um, well, first off, why is it, why is it a year? Why do you feel like that long is necessary? I mean, unless you come up with a viral video, growth on social media is very slow. Um, influencer growth is very slow. We're not talking like throwing a Facebook page up with like post every ten weeks or something. Like the goal is to create relationships through these channels. And so it's hard. Like a year is at minimum, I think what you would need to at least gain some form of audience with this style of industry. So it's not about the length of it being, you know, trainings and tactics and skills as much as it is just accountability and support of what's going on.

That's really interesting. What is, uh, is it like a biweekly, a weekly, a monthly? How often is engagement? It depends on the person. Uh, the cooking show is like once a month. My wife does actually, one on photography. She's a professional photographer, and so she's doing one once a month right now. That's creating a YouTube video on wedding photography tips and then sharing Jesus through that. Um, mine is the most sporadic, but I've also been doing it the longest. So um, I do a YouTube video here and there, but most of them are like twice a month to once a month right now.

So you're not dragging your upright piano out to like the beach anymore to sing, you know, "Beaches" by Bette Midler cover? Nothing like, you're not really doing that anymore? I'm gonna continue to do it, but I got something. Had to give. You, I mean, you give yourself some credit. You may be a lead pastor who thinks he's got his life easy, but you're also working on a Christian film. So like, there's contextually you're kind of still a busy guy.

Yeah, after the film's over, you'll see some more Broadway covers, I think. But what are you, um, who are you looking for with this? Like, if what type of person makes a digital missionary at that influencer type level that you're maybe, what are some traits? What are some characteristics? Like, how do I know that this is me?

They, I mean, you have to be charismatic behind a camera for them or in front of a camera for the most part, unless you're just writing a blog. Which there's a guy named Evan that writes a blog. Who, he had written a blog before, and now he's partnered with us to be a digital missionary. And that's awesome because we can use like our Google Ad Grant money to push people to the blog because it's hosted on our site now, things like that. So for the most part though, you have to at least be good on camera. Otherwise, like nobody's going to want to watch you. But on the flip side of that, you also have to be authentic. So it can't be just like an actor or something like that. It has to be a person that's gifted in charisma and also a person that's sold out for Jesus because people on the internet will sniff through that so fast. So that's the two main things that we look for is authenticity and then at least some form of skill to be in front of the camera.

Yeah, that's that's fascinating. Which is why the pool is like this big. And listen, I mean, listen, we all have influence. Uh, you know, I remember writing a blog early on about, you know, your Aunt Ruth who's really good at pistachio pudding. She has influence now. I don't know that she wants to dedicate a year towards being more of an influencer approach, but I think that she can be activated as a digital ministry through maybe some other, you know, approaches. And one of the things that actually, next week in the podcast, we've got John Ferguson coming in, uh, talking about, you know, Dave and John. They wrote a book years ago about the best practices, uh, and really kind of this methodology. And it was written for like physical neighbors, physical people to engage within their neighborhood and start to, um, you know, engage their neighbors and be a blessing to them and build relationships. And what's fascinating as I sat down and really as we started to unpack kind of like the best practices, since I worked with New Thing and Community Christian and all these people, I started, you know, we started recognizing, hey, this actually works for like digital missionaries. And so we're going to talk about a simplified approach with John next week on the podcast. But you know, for this one, really kind of focusing on on these influencers and approach.

Yeah, maybe not everybody's going to, you know, I'm kind of half joking, but dragging the upright piano out into the ocean and shooting a video while singing, you know, whatever "Beaches" by, uh, Bette Midler. Did Bette Midler actually sing "Beaches"? I don't know if that's like a horrible example. I just do that. It was close. I did, um, "Africa" by Toto in fake rain. So that's really close. That's what I'm talking about. Sorry, I knew it was something to do with water and, uh, but you're kind of, you're the show tunes guy on YouTube, aren't you? Like, um, "Bless the Rains Down in Africa." I, I would, a friend of mine just posted on Facebook this past week that they went, they saw Toto like live in concert. And at my race, I was like, Toto still alive? Like, that was kind of a surprise. But I didn't realize. But actually, our, um, Megan, who's our engagement pastor that's pioneering all of this digital missionary stuff, she actually went and saw Toto with her husband last week. In Journey, maybe that's what it was. It was Toto and Journey together.

Oh my gosh, that actually would have been a really good concert. Megan's not old enough to think that's a good concert. I, I thought she's young. That surprises. That is her husband's favorite band of all time, Toto. So awesome. I have no idea how we got, I don't know, I actually didn't know how we got there. But but it's but it's fun. Like, what's a win for you on this, this influencer? Like, is that, is this part of your church? Is this a separate thing that you're just experimenting with as lead pastor? What I mean, what are your expectations coming out of the influencer?

Yeah, it is very much part of our church, part of our DNA. Um, I'll give you a very practical win. It was, um, one of our TikTok digital missionaries, uh, found out that she does, she does a lot of stuff on being a mom, um, and also being an anxious mom. So she has anxiety, and she's a young mom. And so that's like a lot of her TikTok. And so she connected with this girl, um, that was struggling with the same issues. And they found out they were like an hour and a half away. And so they met up in person after they connected online through this digital missionary platform. And then now the mom, the other mom, drives like an hour to our church and brings her daughter with her. And so this digital missionary is literally sitting in the auditorium with this mom that's like an hour away that the only connection is through TikTok. So that's a very practical win to bring that like online engagement to an in-person relationship. Obviously, that's the like the pinnacle of wins. But that's a good example that actually happened.

So you, the goal is you're trying to get the influencers to get people that their audience connected into a physical relationship with the influencer with the church.

Church with another church, like what's that? That would be awesome with another church. The goal is to go from like a large top-end funnel where it's just like creating content down to a communal relationship. So um, getting to know the people you're influencing on a personal level and then introducing them to Jesus and then introducing them to in-person community somewhere. It doesn't have to be our church. We call it Church Anywhere for a reason. It doesn't have to be First Capital. It could be wherever, as long as they're in community with other believers. I mean, that's very open-handed, which is another thing I think we're going to see in churches in the future. That it's not about, you know, a brand or an individual or kind of driving that traffic to First Cap, to First Capital, but hey, let's try to connect with others and try to connect people across that. So I think that's noble.

Um, what? How let me ask this question. How far are you into the with the seven? Like, what changes would you consider doing for the second round? What lessons have you learned to try to even reproduce and do this? Maybe what are some next steps even with this influencer track?

Yeah, I think I honestly think we're still a little bit early in to answer that question fully. We've already been making a ton of questions specific, or answering a ton of questions specifically like how often do they post? What's the style of posting that each of them are seeing the most traction with? What type of content are people actually wanting to watch versus what the influencers want to create? So finding that balance of like trying to guide them. Um, like Megan and myself are not big influencers by any means, although I do have the blue checkmark on Facebook. My wife, uh, you know, I'm very proud about that. So she's like sitting over here listening. But uh, we just got some experience on figuring out like algorithms and what to post and when to post and try. And that's not an easy concept to teach just like a regular person that doesn't live in that world. And so that's really the things that we're learning is how to communicate algorithm shifts to people, how to communicate, hey, this is a great idea, but nobody's going to watch that in a loving way and things like that. So it's a continual process of learning.

I mean, so you guys are really diving in. There's a lot of tactics here. If you're getting into analyzing the algorithms, um, beyond just like the simple content piece and accountability, that's really good. And that's more on our staff. That's how we're guiding. So we're not expecting our people to do that, but we have to be on top of it so you can coach them through it. And that's an ever-changing game as well, of course, as you know. Um, what is what areas did you say that the people were in right now?

Um, it's TikTok. I remember YouTube, blogs, and YouTube. And what was the last one?

Yeah, YouTube, TikTok, YouTube, and blog. And blog posts.

What? Blog surprises me. Is there, you know, coming to a blogger, um, is there much influence left in blogs? Maybe what's the secret to that one?

So this one is about men who are um struggling with sexual affection. And so it's a very niche audience with a guy who's got a great story in that of how God redeemed him. And so it's not the largest influence, but it's an extremely important influence and a tight-knit community.

That makes sense. So the lesson there is you're not trying to reach everybody. You're trying to reach a particular person, but it's a very much needed person to be reached. And this is the one that you were talking about moving it to your domain, which now that niche group makes sense, you know, still doing that within the which domains you put it on?

Church Anywhere. Yeah, uh, you know, and so that doesn't feel entirely out of place on that. Um, and you can use the grant. I mean, that it's called The Constant Battle if you want to check it out on our site. It's pretty good stuff.

Cool. We'll put up, we'll put a link into the show notes. We'll find out and get that figured out. But this is beautiful, man. Listen, I know you're on vacation. I mean, I could sit around here and talk to you for another couple hours, but I want to let you get back to whatever is at the International Christian Movie Cinema Conference. The mostly movies?

Mostly movies. I guess.

Awesome. Um, hey, listen, as I feel like I want to ask a joke like, you know, something like, you know, our is or cinema is going to make it okay. Um, what's the last movie you saw in a theater? Are you getting to the theaters a lot? I'm actually curious.

Uh, the last movie that I saw in a theater? Do you know there? I don't know. We were all in on the Regal Unlimited pass. Um, we saw every movie that ever came out for like two years, and then COVID hit, and then we just had a hard time getting back. This week of things we do live really close to the drive-in, and it opens this weekend. So um, we'll hit that a lot. So maybe I'll get maybe get that back. You know, I just, you know, I feel bad saying this as a guy who makes movies, but yeah, at this point, like for me to actually hit a theater, like it's got to be Marvel Cinematic, you know, something epic that I just want to experience on the screen. I watch movies all the time at home, but you know, the theaters, man, they're dwindling away. So um, but that's a conversation for another day. We'll have to do like the Christian, what's the name of the new movie? I can, I can, what is it? Just I can't. Um, you know, I've got fight in my head, so I've naturally put I can fight together, which is not probably what you want to do. The mashup of those two?

I don't think might probably not work.

Yeah, maybe that's the sequel that none of us really want at this point. So that's awesome. Hey, as we're landing the plane, any closing thoughts, man?

Uh, no, I would just tell you that the probably the biggest lesson I've learned in all of ministry, but specifically now that I get to be the lead, my voice has a lot of weight. Is uh, there's a whole lot of hey, let's just do this mindset that has to happen really soon with the church. Like we can't, we gotta stop just talking about stuff and just let's just do it. Let's stop talking about stuff and just say let's go do it and then we can talk about what we did after. I think that's a big lesson we all need to learn.

Awesome. Um, to just, you know, burn the ships, man. Let's go. Uh, you know, it's funny. Even, you know, some of the churches I'm working on some things, and I'm like, no, you're gonna, we're gonna launch something in twenty-twenty-two. Like, this is not, I don't want to sit around and just, you know, wax poetic and talk theoretical. There's other opportunities to do that, but we want to go with the goers. And so, you know, love your heart, and and you know, quite honestly, you have put your money where your mouth is over the years, and uh, lead pastor, sir, it's an honor to have you on and excited to see how God's going to continue to utilize uh you and and just even other churches uh setting the example uh through First Capital. So thanks for doing it, man, and thanks for jumping on the show. But we're going to land the plane. So for Tyler, this is Jeff with the Church Digital Digital Church Network and a bunch of other fun stuff. Thanks for jumping on the podcast here. We'll see you next time here at the show. Y'all have a good one.