EP228: Anne Bosarge & Digital Discipleship in Africa

I happen to be on staff with a church in Brunswick, Georgia where I live, and I worked on that staff in a variety of capacities, but I was the multi-campus director for a while. And in that role I kept telling the leadership, "I think we need to start an online campus. I think we need to start an online campus," and nobody was biting. And then the pandemic, and then all of a sudden things were like, "Oh, well maybe this is something that we need to do."

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? 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 would 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 the Church Digital Podcast. This is episode 228. We're somewhere in the summer. It's been a fascinating summer. You know, one of the things that I've loved that we've done here with the podcast within the past couple weeks is we started diving into what the digital church, what church online looks like globally, and some of the contextualizations of what's happening there. Like we had Ezekiel Vittori just last week or a couple weeks ago, I guess at this point. We were talking about the Hispanic church and how a small, relatively hundred-person church in Miami is having international reach, literally discipling people in physical space on another continent down in Latin and South America. We talked about an African-American church and what doing ministry within African-American culture looks like, and L. Michelle was solid in that conversation, maybe about a month ago at this point. And so I'm really excited about the conversation that we're having today. We're bringing in Ann Beauregard into the conversation. And how you doing?

I'm doing well, doing well.

So Ann's got, you know, she got a little time lapse going on. She just got back from a trip from Africa. Yes. And so we're looking forward to that conversation and how that ties in. But Ann, you had an interesting start into digital ministry and digital church. Why don't you just share a little bit about how you got started into the Chapel Online?

Yeah, absolutely. I'd love to. So I have been listening to God for quite some time and hearing Him talk to me and tell me about this idea of digital church and what that would look like. And I happen to be on staff with a church in Brunswick, Georgia where I live, and I worked on that staff in a variety of capacities, but I was the multi-campus director for a while. And in that role I kept telling the leadership, "I think we need to start an online campus. I think we need to start an online campus," and nobody was biting. And then the pandemic, and then all of a sudden things were like, "Oh, well maybe this is something that we need to do."

And the way that all of this started was actually with a women's ministry that I was leading at the time. The women's ministry was an in-person ministry called Becoming More, and we had about thirty women from our church that had started coming in February of 2020. And we were about six weeks into a nine-week small group, and the world shut down. And the women were like, "We only have a couple more weeks. We need to put this on Facebook. We need to continue to meet together." And so we went on Facebook and we started our Becoming More Facebook group, which just grew and spread during the pandemic and grew to hundreds of women very quickly. And we started doing daily discipleship for these women, and it grew and grew into actually curriculum that we started to produce and facilitate small groups that were in person and online, and all of this.

And so about after about a year of Becoming More just growing and finding its own success and just place in the digital world in terms of discipleship, the leadership at our church finally said, "Okay, Ann, let's do a digital campus." And I had been trying to convince them for years, and finally reluctantly they said, "Okay, let's give it a shot."

And as we got started, we began planning. I'm a big planner, and so I like to have all the charts and all the details planned out. I like to work ahead. And so we began kind of planning out a funnel, an engagement funnel, to say, "Here's how people would start and connect with us, and then we'd move them down into deeper level discipleship." And our target audience was at the beginning kind of the nones and dones—people that were saying that they were far from Christ or that they were kind of done with church. Those are kind of the people that we were looking to engage with. And we thought we were going to engage them using some different strategies that we had for TikTok and YouTube. And so we began implementing the plan.

And I would say probably two months into beginning to implement this plan, we began to see that the Holy Spirit had a different plan. And so we began to adjust to God's plan instead of asking Him to adjust to ours. And we began seeing international people engage with what we were doing. And where we discovered that they were jumping in was not at the top of the funnel where we thought they would with kind of just some very basic level things on TikTok and YouTube, but they were jumping right into the deep end and joining our Facebook group and really getting involved with asking for prayer and praying for each other and really beginning some good conversations.

And it wasn't long before we were counting people from about fifty different countries and thousands of people that were just engaging in a variety of ways. And so we quickly learned that our target audience was not going to be people in the U.S. that were done with church or who had no religious affiliation, but we started to see a bit of a pattern in the people that were engaging with us. They were people that seemed to be hungry for more, that seemed to be dissatisfied with the concept of like a once-a-week church kind of thing. They wanted to go deeper, and they wanted to share their faith. And some of them were in very hard, difficult situations and felt kind of unseen in their current context. And some of them were dones. They had tried church. And a lot of the people that we were engaging with were actually still in lockdown when we in the United States were not. They were still locked down and couldn't go back to church and things like that. So we did engage with people in that manner, but they just seemed to all have this deeper longing to be seen, to be known, and to know that they were loved. Those were really the three things that God made very clear to me that He wanted these people to know. Tell them they are seen, that they are known, and that they are loved.

And so that just continued to be the thing that I began conversations with when people were telling me about their difficult situations and all that they were going through during this time. You are seen. You are known. You are loved. And even to this day, those are the three things that I continue to tell people because those were early on the three things that God said, "I want to use this ministry to help people know they are seen and known and loved."

So now we have in Becoming More, I think about 1,400 women from around the globe in Becoming More in our Facebook group, and we have, I think today I looked and we're at 2,800 in the Chapel Online Facebook group.

And about six months into it, I have a friendship with a girl from Zimbabwe, a lady from Zimbabwe, that was one of our first international people that joined the Chapel Online. And we began just a daily conversation back and forth, and she and I have been in conversation just about every single day for the last year and a half. And early on in our relationship, she said, "And we need to go to WhatsApp," and I was like, "Martha, I don't know how to use WhatsApp," and she said, "Well, I do." And so we now even have a WhatsApp ministry where we have another hundred people in a prayer group that are constantly praying for one another and encouraging one another, really because of all the time differences. Twenty-four hours a day there's somebody in there chatting and praying for each other and encouraging each other.

So yeah, it's been an amazing thing to watch what God is doing and to watch as He is bringing people, His people, His children from all different corners of the globe and bringing us together. It's kind of like a little taste of heaven, I think.

Tell me this, Ann. Like, you're in fifty countries, you know, thousands and thousands of people. Is there like a spread across all the continents? Are they more tight towards a type of demographic? I know you were just in Africa, so I'm hinting you probably have some large following in Africa. Like, what are you finding?

Yeah, for some reason we definitely have a larger population in sub-Saharan Africa. So we actually have more people who are part of the Chapel Online in Harare, Zimbabwe than we do in my hometown of Brunswick, Georgia. So yeah, it's awesome. It's awesome. And we really have quite a reach in sub-Saharan Africa—Zimbabwe, South Africa, Uganda, Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana. We've got Liberia. We've got just a lot of those African countries. And we do have people from all over the rest of the globe, but really we have a big concentration in sub-Saharan Africa.

And so there are African people that are approaching you that are joining the Facebook group that are looking for discipleship, they're looking for training, they're looking for something more than what their typical church experience in Africa is leading to. Is this the picture you're painting?

Yeah, that's the picture. And sometimes I think that people are coming to the Chapel Online in particular just looking for someone to listen to them, looking for someone to support them. I have counseled with just untold numbers of people that have been in very difficult situations. Some of them are just in extreme poverty. I have a friend who is in one of the largest slums in Africa, and we chat probably a couple of times a week about just the things that he is going through. And we have people that are running orphanages that are just in difficult situations, and we will pray together for God's provision and we will support each other when things are difficult. I've had women who have actually—I had one woman just a couple months ago who was actually coming out of being sex trafficked in the Middle East. She was moving back home and finally was able to move back home, but just felt like she was going to be rejected. So just kind of talking with her through that transition. There are just so many stories that I could tell you about people that have come to us just looking for someone to understand and looking for someone to be Christ to them in that moment.

Now, I don't want to be like the moment of awkward, and you may see this like if you're watching this on YouTube, but you are a white woman from Georgia, correct? Brunswick. That's like outside Atlanta, right? So your accent—like you're a Southern gal who is doing digital ministry effectively.

Sounds like reaching, discipling, engaging, counseling people in like South Africa, sub-Saharan South Africa. Contextualization challenges, yes, very much. Cultural challenges. Talk to me a little bit here.

Yeah, yeah. So I, my history puts me in a good place to do this ministry. When we were growing up, we lived in Nigeria for three years. So my dad, yes, yes, for sure. So we have a, I have in my heart a deep love for Africa, and I see that God is bringing this kind of full circle in my life. So we lived three years in Nigeria. My brother went back on the mission field and was actually working in Uganda at Uganda Christian University. My mom and dad went back out and worked two years there. So our family has deep ties and deep roots in Africa. And so I was able to draw on that context of just being able to bridge that culture gap a little bit. But at the same time, there is a lot that is different between my context every day and their context every day as well. And so I think that is where, for me, that's where Martha comes in. My friend from Zimbabwe. She and I connected early on, and I very early on said, "Martha, you are going to be my culture coach." And I said, "Look, I have had experience in Africa, but there are going to be times that people are going to ask me things that I am just not going to be able to answer, and I'm going to need someone to go to to really help me understand culturally what's happening."

And there was a time early on when I had a woman who was having some marital difficulties, and there was a lot of infidelity with her husband and all of this. And I went to Martha and I said, "Okay, here's what's going on, and I need you to help me understand the cultural context of what's happening." And Martha was able to say, "And here's what's going on. Here's what is really happening under the surface." And keep in mind that Martha is a twenty-four-year-old single mom who is from Zimbabwe and has, up until just a couple of weeks ago, had never left the country. And so God just put us together in each other's lives. And so she has really been my culture coach, and I have been able to say, "Hey, I'm gonna get things wrong, and I feel comfortable and okay saying some of these things to Martha because I know she loves me and she's gonna forgive me if I make a cultural gaffe with her." So let me get with her on really how I can advise people and just really learn about the culture.

That's incredible. And even your posture of humility, of coming to a culture coach, coming to Martha, and saying, "I need your help. Help me understand. Help me learn. Help me better be able to serve these people by understanding what's happening between the lines." Like, that's beautiful that you were just able to position yourself, you know, even in that moment, as a learner. How are you, with this ministry, you know, you got twenty-four hundred, twenty-eight hundred, fourteen hundred, you know, you're past a thousand in these areas. Are you multiplying this ideology into volunteers? You know, what does that look like? What's the plan to see this thing expand? Because I would imagine this is getting close to beyond what one person could manage.

Absolutely. So about six months into the Chapel Online, the church that I was with that helped me launch this decided that they really weren't in a place to support an online ministry like this. And so what used to be my full-time job then became a job on the side because I took a new job at, um, I actually am the director of leadership strategies and local church resources for the South Georgia Conference of the United Methodist Church. Very long title for what I do. But then on the side, we began to create a nonprofit for the Chapel Online and Becoming More, which now is under a nonprofit called Digital Discipleship. And so now I have actually less time to devote to some of the things that I was doing before. So, um, but even with that, the ministries have continued to grow. And so I've continued to try to find ways to help other people engage in the ministry of the Chapel Online and Becoming More.

I have a great leadership team for Becoming More that is a group of women that we have been together. Some of most of us since the very beginning of Becoming More. And they are the ones that make things go around. I write our curriculum, but they write a lot of the daily posts and things like that that we have. So they continue to kind of help all of that move forward. For the Chapel Online, what has been really neat is to see some of the people that I have personally invested with begin to create content for the Chapel Online. One of my favorites that does this is Derek, and he is actually in Uganda. He is a theological student at a university there, and he, every so often, probably about once a week for the last several months, has been writing some devotional thoughts down, and he will submit it for posting. And he just has the neatest insights and the neatest way of putting things and expressing himself. And so, you know, I am releasing other people to begin to develop some of the content that gets posted on the Chapel Online as well. And Martha is actually the one who is responsible for our WhatsApp group. And so she has become our WhatsApp administrator and my culture coach as well.

So it's just as I get to know some of the people that God has placed in our path and being able to move them from consumer to contributor to creator. Those are kind of the three steps in that process that I'm hoping to see people move in.

Well, and as you're now doing the Chapel by vocational, where you've got the nine to five, the job, and something's on the side, you know, bivocational is not an excuse to slow down. It's the reason why you need to multiply into others so that you can share the responsibility. It means that you don't have forty hours a week to pour into what you're doing.

That's right.

And let's be honest, who, what full-time pastor actually spends forty hours? It's much more than that. But you know, you don't have that time and that resource, and so it's all about handing that off to others and bringing others alongside. And so I love what you're describing about taking somebody from that consumer to where they're generating and they're being a creator of that. It's very good.

Um, I'm curious though. And I didn't, as this, you know, I knew some of your story, but as more of this is unraveling, I didn't realize you had spent years, a couple three years in Africa previous. Is it coincidence that you ended up connecting very well with African culture through the established church that you were working at? Or were you intentionally or subconsciously doing something that was attractive to that culture? I mean, why wasn't it Hispanic culture? Or why wasn't it Filipino? I get a lot of Filipino within the church digital just because the English-speaking crowd that's there. What was it in what you were doing that ended up actually being attractive to the African culture?

I think, um, this sounds ridiculously simple, um, but I think it's because when they engaged with me, I engaged with them. I think a lot of times you have international people that try to engage with you on social media, and you just assume they're going to ask you for money, or they're going to be that Nigerian prince that says he wants to give you, you know, two hundred million dollars in your bank account or something like that. And instead of making those preconceived assumptions about people, I think just begin a conversation and say, "Hi, how are you doing? Tell me where you're from and what your life is like," and begin to ask questions. And so I think for me, it was just really asking questions and continuing that conversation and getting back to people and giving people, approaching people with the dignity of the assumption that they are children of God just like we are, just like I am, and that they are looking for discipleship and friendship. And so I just began to engage with them, and I think that is why they came back. It's just because of a simple conversation to say, "Hi, my name is Anne, and I lead the Chapel Online. I saw that you just joined. Tell me a little bit about yourself." And so I think it was just simply asking questions and engaging people.

Yeah, just I'm almost replying even in my own church staff story. Like, I've got a story similar to that where I had a, um, I got this email on Sunday after church services, and I opened it Monday morning. And literally, you get these emails where it's like the prince from Nigeria who needs two point four million dollars. They get twenty-four billion, and if you give them X, he'll give you Y, and you know that deal. And so I got this email, and right off the bat, um, look, it looks like it's this, you know, prince in Nigeria story. And so I remember it was a long day Monday, and uh, I can remember the mouse moving the cursor to the junk button in the Gmail interface and uh, just hovering because it's been a long day and I need to laugh. I want to see how much this guy wants from me. And so I'm reading this email. I'm assuming spam email just to get a chuckle to see how many zeros are behind the dollar sign that he thinks I'm going to give them via email. And the deeper I get into Philip's email, the more that I realize this guy is not asking for money. He's asking for discipleship. And this is, I had completely misinterpreted what this guy's looking for in this email.

And uh, you know, I sent it over. At the time, I had a guy, uh, his name's Michael, uh, and so I sent it over. I forwarded it to Michael, who was my small groups, my discipleship online guy, and I said, "Hey, Michael, um, go to town. You know, reach out, follow up with them. Um, if there's something there, awesome. If there's something not there, let it go. Like, don't waste time on it." Um, and so ended up that Michael was, um, that there was something there that Michael would literally teach this guy lessons on Wednesday, and that this guy would go around and teach it to his house church on Sunday. And we were literally training this guy, um, to how to do it, train Philip on how to do this. And so we started getting stories back of like fifty, seventy-five, one hundred people showing up. And we started hearing stories of baptisms like twenty-five kids on a Sunday. And I started, it was fun. I started talking to my leadership about this, and my leadership's like, "We don't, we don't believe you. We want photos." And so I'm like, "Hey, Philip, send photos. Like, let's actually see this thing." We started, we started seeing what was happening, and it was fascinating. Like, the lessons that we taught Philip didn't even stop within his church. He started, on his own volition, traveling around to neighboring cities, towns, communities, other countries, teaching this stuff. And it was like we activated this guy to be a church network, church planting leader within South Africa by actually just like having some conversations and giving them some light coaching.

And that, that was like, it was funny. I'll get off me. I'm sorry. But like, five years, that was five years ago. And it was funny. Michael just within the past three months flew to Africa for the first time to meet with Philip, took over some resources. They were actually one to do it pre-COVID, but COVID hit right, and travel shut down right when they wanted to do it, like two or three years ago. But they finally, they finally did it and got face to face. And just some incredible stories in celebration of what God's done because of, you know, some people openly having some conversations with some people engaging, respecting. I see you. I, um, I'm here for you. You know, I love that language to be seen, to be known, to be loved. That was, that was so.

Good, now you got to do this in like real time. You just got back from Africa. What was it, you were in Uganda, right? Like, yeah, so talk to me a little bit. Like, how did you end up in Uganda?

Yeah, so on the leadership at the Chapel Online, I have a pastor who is actually in Nashville, Tennessee. His name is David Sabulamay, and he is from Uganda originally, but they live here in the U.S. And he and his wife actually started a school, and just over eleven years, this school has just blown up, and it is in Uganda in the Kalungu District in Wasandeku. And he actually asked me a couple of months back. He said, "And when are you going to Africa?" And I was like, "David, whenever somebody will help me out with the cost." And so he said, "Well, how about this summer?" And of course, that's just, you know, two months to get ready for this trip. But he invited me to go over there and to speak and lead a women's conference over there for the women in rural Uganda in this area where the school has an impact with these different educational centers. And so I took a friend over there who's also on my Becoming More leadership team, and we booked a flight for Martha from Zimbabwe and Martha, medicine Uganda, with along with another team from Nashville that was going to do some children's ministry stuff and things around the school. And we took the first couple of days to go out into the surrounding areas where we were and meet our Chapel Online people. So some of the people that are my dearest friends that I have been in contact with for, you know, some of them over a year, we were able to go and see them and see their ministries.

As you were talking about that last story that you mentioned in South Africa, one of the things that came to my mind was that about a year ago I began having conversations with these three guys that were in Jinja, Uganda, and they each had different ministry areas. They each had different things going on in their lives. But then more and more as I talked to them, I said, "Hey, you guys really need to meet each other. Like, you're in the same area and you're doing ministry and you're looking for support, and all three of you are right there in the same town." And so about six months ago, they met up and met each other, sent me a picture of themselves together, and they have started doing ministry. And so I was able to come. They actually do women's ministry with some of the women that are at their church. And so I was able to go and meet with three groups of women from an organization that one of our Chapel Online guys, Joshua Boulay, has an organization called Lift Up Girls. And I was able to speak to three groups of their women—many of them young girls, young mothers. One of them was as young as fourteen that had just given birth, and they're trying to earn a living. They're trying to give them just some leadership, basic life skills. And so I was able to go and do ministry with my guys in person, which just felt so amazingly wonderful. They call me Mom. So these are all my boys. And it was just so awesome to be able to be with them.

I was able to also go to Mitiana and see Frank. Frank is a young man. He was eighteen when I first got connected with him through the Chapel Online. And he actually told me in our first conversations, he said, "Um, Ann, will you pray for me? I have an orphanage here." And I was like, "How old are you?" And he was like, "Eighteen." And I'm like, "Eighteen, and you have an orphanage?" And he ended up saying, "Well, actually, the orphans are me and my brothers and sisters." And so he, at eighteen, had lost his mother. His, all of the fathers of the kids were out of the picture. And it was just him and five younger brothers and sisters. And we began having conversations. And we actually worked—a team of us have actually worked to get all of Frank's brothers and sisters sponsored for school. And they're now in school, and Frank is in school earning a certification as an electrician. So we were able to go and be with him, walk to the kids' schools, meet their teachers, all of these wonderful things, and spend some time with them as well. So it was just so good to pick up the relationship that has already been established with all of these friends of mine and just do ministry with them, do life with them, walk down the street and go to the school and go to the marketplace with them and just spend time. So it was an amazing experience.

That's beautiful, with Frank and how you're able to step in. And let me ask, because it's your, your—let me pull a thread, see what happens. So like, you were able to come in physically and help Frank. And so part of this is I'm curious: as a digital church, what is the role with physical? With what you're doing? And maybe a follow-up question to that: do you even consider what yourself, what you're doing, do you consider that church? Does Frank consider that church? Is the desire to get Frank connected to a physical church? Is it to stay connected with you? Kind of, you know, some of the ecclesiology—I know, I know you know that area. You know, maybe talk to me a little bit about how the Chapel Online is operating.

Yeah, so in Frank's case, Frank does have a church that he attends. But that church does not offer the daily discipleship that we offer. They simply don't have the resources in order to do some of the things that we're doing. And so I think one of the things that has been a topic of conversation since the Chapel Online started was, "Is this a church or is it not a church?" And so many people have asked that. And every time I get asked that, I just kind of smile and say, "I feel like the church is time the people of God gather together. That is the church." So are we the church? Yes, we are the church. Are we a church? I think that's a whole different kind of thing. Are we a church? No. Are we the church? Yes. And I don't think that I am just not as concerned about labeling whether we are a church. I just want to be the church. And so for a lot of our people that are not engaged in a church, in a physical church where they attend, I will try to counsel them to move toward that. But for some of them, they're not there yet, and I'm okay with them not being there yet. I would much rather them engage with the Chapel Online digitally than not engage with any kind of discipleship at all.

And so, you know, I think that all of us should be engaged in as many avenues as possible to build our faith. I know that there was a conversation I had with somebody who said, "But Ann, if they're being discipled on the Chapel Online and in church, they're being double discipled." And I'm like, "Friend, let me be, you know, triple discipled and quadruple discipled if that's what it takes. I would much rather be double discipled than only singular discipled." So I'm not trying to be the only expression of church that people engage with. I hope that we will all be engaged with multiple, six, multiple expressions of church because I think church, the church, is so much more than just one building and one group of people gathered. And I think that if we see ourselves just as connected and attached with one particular congregation solely, we are being singularly discipled, then we miss out on the richness of other people's perspectives and traditions, and we miss out. So I think let's triple disciple people if that's what it takes in order to share the gospel. I'm all for it.

I don't think I've ever realized—I've had this conversation hundreds of times, if not thousands of times, with church planters, lovers, haters, everywhere in between, skeptics, naysayers. I don't think I've ever heard anyone describe to me the "a church versus the church" mentality like that. And that's very easy to process, to reconcile. And I've been wrestling with that through Digital Church Network. Like, we're somebody—it was funny. One of our network leaders actually pulled me aside and he said, "You know, I know what you're doing." And I was like, "What, what are we doing?" And he's like, "You're creating a digital church for pastors. Like, you are setting the model for what digital church should be with the network, but you're not calling it a church." And I laughed, and I was like, "I mean, I guess that's what we're doing, but you know, I don't—I don't know that I ever really considered my what we were doing at church. I don't even know that I consider myself a pastor, but that's a whole other conversation." But this, the heart of "we're not a church but we're being the church" is really interesting. I don't know that I'm one hundred percent sold, but it's definitely for people that are skeptics and for people that struggle with the ecclesiological side. I think that solves a lot of the problems where it's, "Hey, we're working with people that are and helping them get connected to a church as well." And the whole idea about single discipleship is ridiculous. I've heard that argument: "Well, we're discipling them, so you don't need to." How about we do it together? How about there's multiple contextualizations? How about we work together? You know, I just—I totally—I remember reading in the Bible where Paul talks about isolation and how we should be separated and not working together. I'm being entirely sarcastic at this moment. So definitely love what you're doing. Talk to me a little bit. Like, what does the future hold? Are you deeper into African, you know, connecting with more of the—let me ask this question: How much of the Chapel is like American? You alluded to there—you get more attraction not in your hometown. You get more attraction in some city in Africa. Like, is there any percentage of people that are American? Like, is there any, like, what is the average American person connecting with? Are they connecting the same way? Is there differences in how an American and an African is processing through your stuff? What does that look like?

So there are some differences. We do have a lot of people from the U.S. that are very active in the Chapel Online, and I love. One of my favorite things to do is on Wednesdays we have live prayer on Facebook. And so Wednesday morning I will get up—which Wednesday morning for me is, you know, afternoon, midday to afternoon in Africa—so that there's a time lapse there. But Wednesday morning I'll get up and I'll do a post and say, "Hey, going live for prayer later today. How can I be praying for you?" I did it just today. We're recording on a Wednesday, so I did it just this morning. And we have the prayer requests that continue to flood in throughout the day. And I love that the prayer requests that we're praying over are from people from every continent. And the thing that I love the most is to see our people praying for each other and commenting on each other's prayer requests. And you know, today I had somebody that was a pastor from another church in another state that was commenting on someone's post asking for prayer. And I know the story behind that other person. And just what a beautiful picture to see the people of God coming together in that way.

And I think what I have seen is that my friends from Africa are teaching me and all the rest of the people in the Chapel Online from the U.S. a lot about the power of prayer because they are so very consistent in prayer. They are so very passionate and very intentional about praying for each other and very open about asking for prayer, asking for prayer in all kinds of different areas and crises in their lives. And so they are inviting an openness in the Chapel Online that

Has been really good for those of us from the U.S. to learn from and to grow in. So I think that they are definitely leading me in that area and encouraging me in that area. Since the chapel online started, I have told so many people, "I've never prayed this much in my whole entire life." Like, I never knew that we could, that I could spend as much time in prayer as I do right now. And that's because I have been learning and growing in that area from my friends in Africa. So they definitely are our prayer warriors, and I appreciate that.

That's beautiful. I've often wondered, like, what an overseas, what a global influence would be on a U.S. church or a U.S. individual, and how could that be? We had a podcast conversation with Sam George, and he's a missiologist. He works for the Sine Network and a couple other global organizations. But it was funny. I just remember I was describing to him some of the things that I was excited about with digital churches, maybe back in 2020, early in the COVID season. And I was talking about the global reach of what we could do. And Sam, who's from India, I believe—you know, it says to me it was so funny. He slapped me upside the head. I don't even think he realized that he said, "Jeff, your vision for digital is so small." And I'm just like, "Well, what?" Like, you don't even know who you're talking to right now. And he's like, "You're thinking this way. You know, ultimately, he's like, 'What happens this way?'" And it really started to challenge me about how if we could bring these global influences, if we could bring the global church to the U.S., how maybe that helps solve some of our problems. And so part of that is networking, bringing those influences back towards the U.S. So actually creating those digital roadways or physical relationships to allow that influence to come. And then it's also within the U.S., it's posturing yourself. And you've done a great job of this. Posturing yourself with humility, where you are a learner, where you can be teachable. Where maybe, just maybe, we don't have this whole thing figured out here in the U.S. Maybe the U.S. church is not the—I started to say spectacle. Actually, I think it probably is a spectacle. But, you know, the dream example of what it should be. And maybe there's, you know, maybe there's nothing perfect inside of heaven, and we should all be learning from one another. And so this is beautiful. So where are you going? Like, with this, are you interested? Is it just expanding Africa? Are you like, "Let's go to Ukraine, let's go to Russia, let's go to, you know, other Eastern Europe?" What is there? Is it just as the Lord leads? Are you intentionally driving to do something? What's your approach with growth and expansion?

So I just am the first follower. That's kind of how I'm positioning myself. I'm letting the Holy Spirit lead, and I'm just following. So I would love to be able to do some more trips and things like that to reach out to some different people in different parts of Africa where we seem to have a concentration. I would love to spend some time with my friends in Zimbabwe since we have so many people from Zimbabwe in the chapel online. Love to go to South Africa and spend some time there. I have multiple people in Pakistan that are wanting me to come there as well. So I don't know. I mean, really, the limit, I think, for us is we need people who are English speakers, and that is what kind of we all seem to have in common. But other than that, I think that we will just continue to go and respond to wherever the Holy Spirit is leading.

I would love to eventually be able to launch some community groups and things like that overseas. That is something that we have done with Becoming More. So we have with our women's group, we have in-person and online groups that meet, and we've launched multiple groups around the country here in the U.S. that are Becoming More groups. And so that way you have kind of the hybrid version of in-person and digital that gives you that community. And I would love to eventually do that in some different places with the chapel online. But with doing this part-time in my spare time, that, you know, just slows us down a little bit with our plans. But ultimately, I would love to be able to see, just like I connected those people in Jinja, Uganda, I'd love to begin to connect the dots with some different people who then begin to have relationships and meet together in person and grow and do ministry together and do life together.

So the first one, I guess, is in Jinja, Uganda with my three guys there. And we'll just see. I love it. The first follower. Hey, we're following the Holy Spirit wherever he leads and taking cues from him. And so, and thank you for what you're doing. Thank you for being obedient. You know, it's been a fun road going from the established church to bivocational, finding the job, continuing the ministry. I mean, there's a lot around that. Taking the ministry to Africa and being faithful, not to Africa, but with Africa, and being faithful to that. And so definitely excited to see how the women's ministry as well as the church continue to grow. But as we're landing the plane here, any closing thoughts?

I think I would just encourage people that are engaging in digital ministries to start a conversation with someone from another country. Just go into it with open hands to say, "What might I be able to learn from this person?" And I think that once you open the door, your heart will grow and expand, and your mind will grow and expand, and you will be able to encounter God in new ways just because you are open to how God is working in another person, in another country, in another culture. And I think that that will give each and every person a little taste of heaven because I have a feeling we're not going to be sitting in a U.S. section, an Africa section, and an Asian section. We're not going to be sitting in those sections. And we're going to be all together in this united, diverse community of believers. And so how about we start learning that now? And let's do a little warm-up for heaven.

I think that digital gives us the opportunity to do that. Amen. Actually, honestly, that's why I live in Miami. It's because of the diversity of this city. It's captivating. It's expensive. I don't know how I can afford it anymore, but it's captivating. Even being among this, and so I love what you're talking about. And I will continue to be praying for the chapel online and what's happening, thank you, there globally. And so, hey, we're gonna land the plane. It's been a great show. We've got some more global opportunities, some more global conversations coming in soon. So stay tuned. We're working on a couple other angles—Germany, Europe, as well as some others. And so awesome. We'll be leaning into that soon. But for Anne, this is Jeff with Church Digital and Digital Church Network. Thanks for jumping on the pod here. We'll see you next time on the show. You have a good day.