EP025: Ryan Sharp & The Value of an Individual @ Life.Church

Hey everybody, welcome to the Church Digital podcast. My name is Jeff. Thanks for jumping on this one. By the way, this is our 25th episode, the 2/5. This is our silver anniversary of podcasts, and so what did you bring, listening audience? I'm expecting silver from you in honor of our 25K. And even finish it. So, but I am excited you're here. We've got a great guest in on this podcast. Ryan Sharp is the online small groups pastor with Life Church. We're doing a deep dive here on small groups, on biblical community, what that looks like, and how it can be utilized. Why has Life Church been so successful with this? How do they overcome some of the negativity that's centered around doing biblical community online? How they've been able to create that culture from leadership down, and what it's like to pass that on to the volunteers and getting volunteers to buy in to this idea of biblical community, of small groups, of life groups existing online. By far the greatest line that I've ever heard in context of online small groups happens in this interview, and I'm not even gonna tell you what it is. It's so powerful. You're gonna know it when you hear it, and you're gonna want to write it down like I did, and you're gonna want to share with others. It's that good. So listen to the podcast. Here myself, Jeff, with the Church Digital podcast, interviewing Ryan Sharp, online life groups pastor through Life Church, doing a deep dive here on online small groups. Everybody, here you go.

Yeah, the point is that our heart has always been community around the Word of God. And so we have, just like in physical locations, you try to foster community around the teaching of the Word of God, of like people coming together and meeting up locally and things like so. Whatever you might do at a physical location, we wanted to do that online as well. There's an incredible community of people that reaches globally, and our heart is to help them take their next step in their faith journeys. So it's really a way for people to get to know each other because they go to the same church, and then to really pursue Jesus together as well. That's the why. If we want people to be fully devoted followers of Jesus, and yeah, I'm curious just because I'm leaning on my Bible study and I've got this guy from South Africa. We Zoom just kind of jump on. Yes. When you're doing international, are most of the Bible studies, like the small groups that you guys call life groups, are those sat through Zoom? Or do you have like people clustering and gathering together internationally in UK in different places? But what does it look like?

The short answer is all of the above. We structure our life groups in two different ways right now. We have two different categories: in person or entirely online. And so within these two ways, we leave it completely open to the leader to decide how they can connect. Why they connect stays the same, but we really leave the how and the what up to that leader. So some use Zoom, some use Facebook groups, some use Talkie. I, oh, so I mean, there's a free version of what you might, you know, have on Zoom. It's pretty cool. It's an up-and-coming. I love, love that, love that tool. But really, they get to connect with however they best can connect with their communities.

Talkie dot IO. That's something that's something I've not heard of. So that's interesting. I'll have to look that up. Is it web-based?

It's a web-based app. They're trying to do a mobile thing as well. It's not as good as the web-based app.

Okay, interesting. I will dive into that. Thanks for the tip. How'd you get started into this? So like, last time, just to put it in context, you were in United Kingdom like last week, two weeks ago, by the time this airs, investing into volunteers over there, casting vision in the church online. Did you like go to school for church online? You wake up one morning and like, hey, I'm gonna do church online, and everybody looks at you like you're crazy? Because that's what happened to me. But like, no, that's really good, Matt.

So I grew up in multiple places of the world. Dad was a geophysicist, and so we traveled to multiple areas throughout my early childhood. So I was exposed to a lot of different cultures around the world. I've always been interested in technology, but more than that, my worldview has always been this global worldview that people need to know Jesus wherever they are. And so when, through my college years, I was thinking to myself, well, Paul used the most advanced piece of technology to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ. And at the time it was the written word, right? And however they would deliver that written word, those letters to the churches, he would spread the good news, the gospel, the direction using the most powerful piece of technology, most advanced piece of technology that he had. So why wouldn't we do the same in this day and age? And it just clicked. Like, why can't we just use the Internet? And so I have been a huge follower of Life Church and an admirer for years throughout my teenage years and through my early twenties, and have always just dreamed about like, God, if you could provide a way that I could work for that organization and be a part of what God is doing, I feel like my heartbeat would be the same as that organization. And really the credit goes to Bobby Grunwald, who back in 2006, the story goes like this. People were planning physical locations, and they were moving these heavy equipment, you know, as you might set up in a portable church environment and everything like that. And one person said to Bobby, you know, he can you get that speaker? And as he was lifting up the speaker, he said, I could do this so much easier online. And the person said, what do you mean by that? He goes, well, I could put a church service together and I could have community online and I could do this. But back in 2006, Bobby Grunwald, the creator of the YouVersion Bible app, had the idea for Church Online. Of course, he's our innovations pastor. And so he started this website called Church Online, Life Church Online. And so we, that's really where it started. And since then, I actually was an early adopter of Life Church Online through my college years. In 2007, this was my church. I was away from my physical home church and looking for a church and found, stumbled on Church Online. And since then, I was hooked.

That's a phenomenal story. Yeah, I've had to have lifted way too many speakers in a portable garment, even recently, and said, yeah, there's got to be a better way to do this. Go to Church Online. Just in the heart behind using Church Online to reach people. And so you guys are doing with Life Church, obviously you're reaching tons. Like, I don't even know numbers. And at some level, numbers at some point they stopped meaning things because you lose the stories in the heart behind it. But you're reaching these phenomenal numbers of people through the physical campuses. Now you're reaching phenomenal numbers online, literally internationally, evidently, because you're going over to meet with volunteers in United Kingdom even. But you have the difficult deal of not reaching people in rows but reaching them in circles. I'll and the Stanley. So how do you, what's the tension that you wrestle with? Let me say it this way. I know lots of churches that are broadcasting the service online, but when it comes to, hey, let's do small groups, hey, let's do discipleship, hey, let's do biblical community virtually, oh no, you can't do that. You gotta do that physically. What tensions or how would you answer a church that maybe has some of that tension? That you can't do biblical community online?

Yeah, I would just say, you know, follow what God specifically is calling you and your church to. What he's called us to is to embrace the technology, the opportunity to reach people on deeper and deeper levels. And so I would maybe share specific stories. Like the opportunity to reach a guy named Muhammad in a Muslim country. He was in a world religions course, and his Muslim professor gave an assignment on Christianity. And that's when Muhammad received the instruction to download the YouVersion Bible app so he could complete his Christianity paper. He downloaded the YouVersion Bible app, started reading the Word of God, and was completely transformed by it. And then he came to Church Online because he somehow found Church Online, Life Church Online, and he ended up giving his life to Christ at the end of the service. And so he emailed us this story because he said, pray for me, because it can be very dangerous for me knowing this now. Even more than that, fast forward now. He serves on our team, leading people around the world to Christ at Life Church Online. And he's not only found Jesus and found a new life in him, but he's found a community that he gets to serve with. And through a medium of technology, he gets to connect with our team, he gets to connect with others, and lead people to Christ. That's the opportunity that's ahead of us, in front of us, at Church Online. And so what I might say to a church is embrace that opportunity. Is that the Holy Spirit, God, it can work through incredible ways through Life Church Online, through Church Online ministry. And so just see what God might have had for you.

I love that. By the way, Muhammad's story is awesome. Just a guy whose life was changed in a, you know, in a Muslim country, a place that we can't, you know, as a church, as a physical American church, we can't reach into without like embracing the online technology component of this. We, when you talk with volunteers, like even I know you were international, United Kingdom, 71 volunteers. When you talk to American volunteers, you know, whatever the scope is, like do you have a hard time casting vision, getting people to understand the why or even the how? Or do Life Church volunteers today embrace this strongly?

Yeah, they embrace it. I mean, the opportunity is that they get to come weekly and really be a part of our church. So we have multiple layers of leadership with volunteers. And you ask how do we communicate and cast vision to volunteers? We, everyone has a leader, and no one leads more than ten people. And so the way that structure works is I would lead up to ten individuals, and those ten individuals would lead up to ten. We want all of our volunteers to feel like they're a part of our church and that they're pastorally cared for. And so we have volunteers not just in life groups. We have volunteers in social media, in what we call our host team, which are the people that welcome and pray for people at our services, and multiple other areas as well that people can serve in. And so we want our volunteers to feel that they're pastorally cared for as well as individuals that come online. And there's many different ways that we're able to care for those as well.

What percentage of people that are watching the service is aligned with groups? What we find is, obviously, and work with other churches and online, the people that we're talking through the podcast, like it's a huge number that are watching the services, tens, hundreds, thousands even. But some churches, they have that vision towards, okay, groups, we're gonna hit it and run some. It's more kind of pulling teeth where it's not necessarily there. So like, I'm just curious, kind of...

What your percentages or what advice that you would give to somebody that maybe is trying to get started in this and trying to establish that small group culture online? Well, everyone that comes online, maybe not everyone, but we found at Life Church online is that everyone that comes is looking for a place to belong. And so when they come to a service and that becomes their community, we find that there are people that come to the same service every single week no matter where they are. We've never met them in person but know them, and they're more apt to share even quicker, deeper things because they feel like there's a level of intimacy there where they can kind of share what's on their heart. So community starts from step four rather than step one in a lot of ways online. So I feel like they embrace community. That's why they're there. That's why they're chatting. That's why they're involved. And so they're looking for a place to belong. And just like in any in-person connection, every single individual alive in any conversation, their brain is automatically searching for: am I safe? Is this a safe environment? And so even when we started this conversation, my brain and your brain quickly processed: is this a safe conversation? Do I need to fight or flight this? You know, that's the response that physically happens in our brain. And so that's what we can help people understand: man, you're in a safe place. We're excited that you're here. And God loves you very deeply and wants the best for you. And so those walls start to come down and people start to embrace community. But it's not automatic, Jeff. It's really not, man. It's a constant. It's building that culture of community in an online space just like you would build the culture in a physical space as well.

Jeff, it was Jake Crandall Beck. We had him on, everything was like episode three way back when we were starting the podcast, and he and I have had the conversation several times. I just would love your take on it in virtual environments and online environments. People connect to community before they connect to Christ. Have you guys experienced that? What is Life Church feeling when it comes to that? People connect to community before they connect to Christ?

I think, just like what maybe I said before, people are always searching for a place to belong no matter what they believe. And at Life Church, we feel like you want to feel like you belong here before you even believe. And so when people come, absolutely, let's engage them in community because we truly do care, especially about them as people. They're created by God for a purpose. And so absolutely I would say that. But I would also say not always. People can come to know Christ and then seek out community out of that. And so it works both ways. You know, the whole thing of there's always a next step, a best next step for some individual, and that looks different for different times in different people.

A quick story of a specific life group. This is an in-person life group out in Beaumont, Texas. Shout-out to my life group leader there, Jessica. She leads a life group, and I was able to visit that life group. And while I was there, our pastor Craig Groeschel, he always at the end of his message invites people to give their life to Christ. He says, "Raise your hand if you want to commit your life to Christ." It's a private moment. And I happen to be looking at the room at the time. There's a group of people around sitting and watching this service together, this Church Online, Life Church online service. And I see this guy in the back raise his hand. And I'm like, man, this is such a powerful moment where someone in a life group at Church Online gives their life to Christ. So I had to catch up with this guy at the end. So after the service ends, I was like, introduced myself. His name is Bruce. And Bruce said that this is his first time actually coming into the life group and watching the service. That he would drop his daughter and his wife off every single week, and he would sit in the truck. He wouldn't come in because he felt like he's not ready to commit or not ready to be in community or even to devote his relationship to Christ or anything like that. He said, "Today was just different. I felt like I needed to be there." And then in that moment, I felt compelled to give my life to Christ. I don't know what that means yet, but I did it. And so then we connected him with a life group leader, and he's a part of community and he gave his life to Christ. And so that's just what gets me so excited. And this is someone who has never walked into a Life Church location, but yet they're finding community and they found Christ in the context of an in-person church, Life Church online life.

It sounds like what you're describing is really this melding of physical and online type of thing, right? Where they're there, they're meeting in the physical space but utilizing some of the online technology to kind of see that. So it's like your online campus is birthing more physical communities around, or some of these gatherings. Is that kind of what you're describing, right?

Yeah, precisely. People gather together, attend the service together, and then talk about it. That's really the lowest bar of like, I love what another life group leader said. He's an in-person life group leader out in South Carolina. Shout-out to Steven. He leads an in-person life group there, and he said, "Life Church online makes it so easy to run my life group. All I did was make some coffee, turn on the service, invite my friends, and God did the rest." That's funny. That's cool.

So like, how do you train? How do you equip? How do you empower the leaders? So Steven in South Carolina, turn it on a computer, you know, whatever, to TV, the Apple TV, whatever it is, some sort of vehicle to get it up on the screens to experience the service. And then is leading, I'm guessing, some sort of discussion conversation afterwards? Like, Stephen's in South Carolina. What does that training look like? How are you guys helping him do this?

Yeah, so he's connected. He has his own leader. It's like we said before, there's multiple layers of leaders. So that his leader trains him and connects with them every three months at least. They're having what we call a significant conversation. That's really what we train our leaders of leaders to have: every three months, have a significant one-on-one conversation with the people that you lead. And so there, he's getting that connection to a Life Church team member volunteer. And then also, there's an initial training that he goes through. After we do background checks and everything, get them through our process of applications, we have different videos that we've shot of how to practically lead an in-person life group. And so it even talks about having the music on, having it smell good in the room, having enough parking, having it easily accessible. So really practical training in that area. And then on the entirely online side, we have practical training for that as well: how to lead an effective Facebook group, how to increase engagement in your Facebook group, how to do a Zoom call, things like that. And so it's very practical training on the front end to set the life group leader up for success.

That's incredible. And so it's just part of your Life Church team that is developing the content, your leaders though, for accountability, your one-to-ten, ten-to-ten underneath, like that's all volunteer driven or mostly volunteer driven, right?

Yeah, it's entirely volunteer.

The entire life groups ministry at Church Online is all volunteer. Wow. So when it comes to like, you know, expanding your circle of influence, like there is no place Life Church won't go. You're telling me a story about Muhammad in an undefined Middle Eastern country. There's no place you don't want to go. You'll go anywhere.

Yeah, absolutely. I think Jesus will go anywhere. That's really the power behind the gospel and the hope of what Jesus. You know, I believe in Matthew 28, when he said, "Go into all the world and make disciples, teaching them to obey all the commands I've given you, and remember this: I'm with you to the end of the age." When he gave us that command, that commission, I believe he had the internet in mind as he stood right then and there. He knew that there would be something called the internet that will allow us to do this on a broader scale and a quicker scale. And then I think he knows what's coming next, and he says, "Men, let's utilize that. Let's leverage that to go everywhere to help people find Christ."

Amen. I love this conversation, and I'm gonna love this next question because yeah, I just want to see how you respond to this. So you are effectively in Life Church, God, Holy Spirit. I'm forgive me, I don't want to like boil any of the spirituality out of this conversation, so don't allow that to happen. But effectively, Life Church is going out and attempting to reach the world utilizing Church Online. And effectively, in conversations we've talked about multiple states, multiple time zones, Europe, and multiple continents. Middle East is probably more on the Asia side, so yeah, multiple continents involved in this conversation. Yet the average church in America struggles with Church Online. And when you really drill into it, like until the listeners who are hearing you talk about all this, the listeners are saying, "Yeah, I have this vision. I want to do this too. I want to be part of a church that's doing that." But my church is too afraid of embracing Church Online because it competes with a physical church because you can't do this stuff virtually. It has to be done in physical space. I'm not saying there's like magic power in the bricks, but often we live our lives that way. Like the Holy Spirit isn't an ethereal thing. It's a virus that gets spread when we breathe the same air together. And yes, when two or more are gathered together, God does something phenomenal. But I think God does something phenomenal via Zoom too. And I'm not one to limit God. So Mike, my question is: is this all that was set up for it for this? Yeah, like how can you encourage people? Or what would you look at to say, "Hey, Life Church, we were able to get past this. We were able to get past this issue. And once we saw from this angle, once we understood this, we just were able to run." Because you're Life Church and you're not the only one. There are others. But as a whole, there's 350,000 evangelical churches in America. There's probably two to three hundred that are doing online small groups. So there's something special that's happening with the select few. My hope is that more can get onboard. How can more get onboard? What do we need to do?

Yeah, to answer your question, I don't know if there's a specific silver bullet, like this is what changed our whole mindset. I think it was really what we felt like God was calling us to and the opportunity ahead of us. Where I mean, what I may say to someone who is on the fence about this, is this an online ministry for us as a church? Consider processing: what if you had the opportunity, you know, to reach quite literally billions of people within the context of your city? You would do everything you could do to reach those people. If they lived in your city, you would find a way to reach them. Well, there's billions of people in an online context, and online.

world and we have the greatest message, the greatest news that has ever hit humanity, which is Jesus Christ and the redemptive power of what he brings to the world. And so why wouldn't we try to reach, you know, as many people as possible? So I think also it's just because it hasn't been done before doesn't mean it shouldn't be done. And so that's maybe something that we might look at as a church and see, you know, why can't we do that? And we've failed a lot through the process. And as you're starting online ministry, you may try something and it may not work or it may not work how you thought it might work. Keep trying because the why matters the most. And the why is to bring as many people into heaven as possible, many people to know the hope of Jesus Christ. You know, that's the lie. And so when we know that, we'll use anything. We say this all the time at Life Church, that we will do anything short of sin to reach people who don't know Christ, to reach people no one's reaching. We have to do things no one's doing. And so maybe God's calling you to that. Maybe God's calling you to do things that no one else is doing. And it may look different than Life Church, and God's calling you to that to reach your unique community of people in an online context.

Well said. I think I've quoted both those things. Any other people this podcast, everything short, nothing short of sin are everything short of sin to reach. And if you want to reach different people, you got to do different things.

Yeah, that's been the reverberation of this podcast and other guests on there. So yeah, thank you for, you know, personalizing that and putting an actual face to somebody who is out there trying to do something different and trying to be effective and creating a disciple online and creating biblical community opportunities to help people go deeper in their faith.

I'll tell you, man, it's a team effort. We've got an amazing team here at Life Church that we're excited to try new things and do different things and fail quickly and adjust quickly. And also our global team of volunteers, they're just bought in. They're excited. They're also alongside us willing to do whatever. And so that combination really helps us focus on what we're truly after.

One of the biggest problems that I see with churches that are doing church online where they're stuck is, okay, we're broadcasting the service. We've got hundreds, maybe a thousand people watching this. We know its views. Analytics are telling me that a significant amount of traffic is local within the city. Analytics are telling me the significant amount of traffic that's outside of the city. So it's kind of all over. But I don't know who these people are. So like, I've got people who are doing church in isolation. That's not good. We want people in community. What are some things that you guys, Life Church, has done that you've seen done? How do we break down those walls of isolation and start to discover, you know, who is actually watching in church online? So once we know who they are, we can pull them in. What's worked for you guys?

Yeah, I mean, we see Life Church online as just another location where we have church. And so in the same way that we would attack problems, we would attack them the same way at physical locations. And so we think to ourselves, how would we handle it if we had some people coming in and in the back row, which we do a lot, and then leaving right away? We don't know who they are. We might see their face for a brief moment, or actually we might not. And so they come in, they sit down, they leave. How might we help them engage? Now, for a time, that might be the best next step for them. It'd be amazing if they came back and then they came back again, then they came back again, and just had a great experience every time they came. And maybe they introduced themselves. Maybe we engage them. Maybe we leave them to engage. You know, we say all the time, we will not say our people won't. We've committed as a church to say we won't say our people won't. We'll actually instead say we've not led them to yet. And so really, if we have people coming online, we want to lead them to take that next step to have a conversation. And so that's in maybe a transition video from worship to pastor Craig, we may say, hey, here's a question. Why don't you answer that in the chat and express genuine concern for them and to see them where they're at? So really engaging that online audience as if they are in the room, which they are. They are in the room. And so you may say in a physical location, we'd love to meet you in the lobby, connect with our team in the lobby. We might do the exact same thing online. We say, connect with us in that chat area, join a life group. Life is better together. And we're so glad you're here. Those are the language, that's the culture, that's how we're leading people towards deeper connection and not just a coming and going.

Great. Well, I know one of the movements that I've seen with groups lately has been, you know, Clay Francis has talked a lot about this, where they've started marketing the digital groups not just to the online campus but actually to the physical campus as well. Your guys' group approach, is it unified like that? Where somebody can attend the physical campus and then a virtual small group is that encouraged? Is that discouraged? Like, how do you handle nuances like that?

Yeah, absolutely. Specifically, it goes both ways. We've many opportunities in our campuses where I find someone that's near a campus that wants to join a life group. And so I'll connect them with that local life groups pastor, and they'll start it at a physical location. But yet they found that physical location through Life Church online. And so then the opposite happens. There are people at physical campuses that approach the life groups team at that campus and say, hey, I'd like to start an online group. And so they'll both list them for their local volunteers. But then that like that group leader would like to open it up globally and say, like, hey, I want to start a homeschool mom script, and I want to open it up to more than just this city. And so that life groups team will send us that information, and we'll help them connect globally as well. So it can go both ways.

It's interesting the relationship you're describing because it's irregular and you've had regular results. And I'm not saying the two are actually, I'm saying the two are related. But like, how do this gets back to this idea of culture, right? Because so you guys have this culture where it's a healthy balance between what you're describing, a healthy balance between physical and virtual, between the brick and mortar and online, where they're cohabiting very well, very efficiently, and helping each other, not viewed as opposites or almost enemies. Like, and I have five clients, I have churches that I've worked with that would paint the picture of, yeah, I'm literally a larger church in the Midwest, five, six thousand people, literally having conversations about shutting down their online campus or online campus reaches multiple thousands of people a week because the church saw that the online attendance was growing, physical campus was declining, and therefore we want to shut down the online campus and force everybody to come to the building. I may be overstating on some things, but that's the general principle of a lot of the churches out there. And yet somehow you've created this healthy balanced culture between the physical as well as online where you're working together towards a common goal and people are interweaving between physical and online, healthy as they should. How do you create that culture?

Well, the first thing I would say is I never want to doubt anything that God may be calling a specific church or a leadership to do. And so I really want whatever the lead pastor, senior pastor at any physical location, to hear is that we never want to say that there's this is the only way we to answer the second part of your question. I would say that we truly do believe both at Life Church online and at all of our physical locations, which they're one in the same. We feel like our that the church is truly not a building, but it's the people. And so that is really the culmination of how we've led our people to believe that it is the people. It is in deeper levels of community that it is people. So whether they come online or come in person to us, it's the same. And we've had to make that call. And it's not that I've not heard anything to where that was an even difficult call. That was a call that we understood that the church truly is the people. And we say this all the time at Life Church online. Within our thing, we actually just right near me, we have a saying on the wall. It says, every number has a name, every name has a story, and every story matters to God. And so we may be seeing people coming to our services and we consider them just a number. The X amount of people came and then X amount of people left. When really we have to understand that because the church is the people and not a building, that number has a name and that name has a story and that story matters to God. And so it's not understanding. It's that culture that we've been able to fall into that's led us to really have this outcome.

Yeah, I'm gonna steal that. Every number has a name, every name has a story, and every story matters to God. That's it. Who actually said that? That's pastor Craig. Craig, for credit. Oh sure, yeah. Awesome, awesome. Hey Craig, yeah, if you're not listening, but if you were, thank you. I appreciate the quote. That's awesome, man.

There, this has been great. It's been really good. I love your heart to create community. I love your heart too to work alongside the campuses. I love how God is rewarding your faithfulness and humbleness in mighty ways to make a difference in the kingdom. Like, this has been really exciting and encouraging for the listeners and those that are out there. What's the, you said there's no silver bullets. I totally get that. What's the first step? So I'm doing a broadcast. I need to, I don't want to take that first step. I want to create groups. I have no idea how to start. Where do I start?

Yeah, I would say if you're doing a broadcast and you're not cultivating online community, your first step would be to either yourself or develop a team to stimulate online community around that broadcast. So stimulate that online community, create that community around that content is really what we would say. And so once you're there and you've got two or three on your team that show up at every service or they're parceled out of different services and they're answering every comment that comes in, like welcoming them personally, getting to know their stories, engaging with them with the content, then step two would be to find people to lead groups that you could lead them into deeper levels. And so step two would be John Smith wants to lead a life group. It's gonna be on Tuesday nights at this time, or it's gonna be an ongoing Facebook group. And then I can lead them to that. Something that we've tried that has had a decent result of it will actually gather people together and create a Facebook group for them and then connect them to it. It's gotten okay results. I wouldn't say that's a silver bullet, just like with what you said, there's no silver bullet. But then I would say also something that has really worked is.

Been a game changer for us has been having a Facebook group that we can filter everyone to. So every person, so we call it our global Facebook group, you know, and so we have a certain amount of people that are in there that are part of our services that either find that group or find it as a result of our service. And so they go to and from that group from a service or to a service. But really it's a way that everyday members of our team and volunteers are engaging people with different questions of the day and different updates about what different events that church online really about your next steps and different things we want to lead people towards.

Okay, so you're creating community around the event, chat rooms, stuff like that, meeting people, getting names, cataloging their information in some sort of database, and then inviting them into like a mega group for your entire online environment. And so that online group could involve hundreds if not thousands of people. It could involve physical campus people that are just attending online occasionally as well. Like you're gonna get a lot of crossover. But once you have all those people, once you have their contact info, once you have them on Facebook, funneling all of them and trying to get those people connected into some sort of an online group where they can be part of a biblical community and somebody can spiritually be caring for them. That's exactly. I mean, I think like I would say the audience here that's listening is, you know, pastors and church leaders and different individuals. And so I would say it's the same way you might if you're starting a new location or even planting a church. What would be your first step to do with it would probably be to try to foster community around, you know, the message of what you're doing. So how much you do that? Well, first you'd have people greeting at the front door to make sure that this is, you know, help people see that. So you would do the same online. You would have people greeting and stimulating that community and like a lobby of sorts in your chat area. And then you might say, "Man, take your next step to join a group."

Love it, love it. Let me get one more question before we go. What do you guys study curriculum content-wise? Like, what with online? Is it the same thing as physical groups? What does that look like content-wise?

Yes, it is the same thing as physical locations and all of those groups as well. So we have every week we have questions that are created by our team. This is the Life Church team that all of the campuses get, and Church on the Life Church online gets as well. And these are deeper questions, what you might see at most churches that do a small group ministry model where they're diving down deeper into the message. So we get that, and then also there's specific content that we record out of series. Pastor Craig will record extra kind of bonus content videos. And so at physical locations they'll have those Life Group pastor Craig videos with like "Help me lead your life group." And so it's really effective whenever you know pastor Craig is on the screen and then you get to have a conversation about that content of what he just said. And so it's not just deeper, it's deeper, deeper even. So that's been really effective too.

And as far as curriculum, we hold it really open-ended. They're not required to bring up what we call our talking over notes. Those are the questions out of that week's sermon. They're not required to follow any sort of specific curriculum. We really have a high degree of trust of like, "Lead your community, help your community grow," and we're excited that you're doing it within Life Church around our services.

Awesome, awesome. It's funny like when I talk to churches about their online and church doing a small group, some of them tend to create systems that are very complex, but yours is very simple, you know, very reproducible. You know, yes, there's technology behind it, but it's questions from the sermon. So people watch the sermon, the easiest thing for them to do is to follow up on that. And so to use that as the vehicle to grow and reproduce groups, maybe some easier groups help people get started like that. That's an encouraging thing to consider. Don't overcomplicate it. Maybe try to keep it simple to allow people to connect to the community and then let God move within the community and grow it as he does. So that's to me that's a huge takeaway right there. Just keep it simple. I mean, I hate to be like the "keep it simple, stupid" guy, but really, keep it simple, right? You know, it didn't just allow God to move as he does. So that's really encouraging.

Yeah, there's resources that you're at your disposal. You know, this is doable. This is biblical. And so that's what we're just really excited about what God has allowed us the opportunity to do. And if you have any questions at all, I would love the opportunity to just have a conversation with you about what God might be doing in your unique situation and see what God might have for you.

Well, that's awesome. Hey, so where can they find you online?

Yeah, you can reach out on Instagram. My handle is at Ryan M Sharp. R-Y-N-M-S-H-A-R-P. Cool. And she can go on there and I'm sure he's got some Europe posts still somewhere from United Kingdom on there just recently and others. You know, and I appreciate it like I've engaged with you several times online and you know, I listen, honestly, I'll tell you like he was very receptive and open, quickly to jump back. So that was good to know like when people are open and receptive.

So ever heartbeat, yeah man, the heartbeat of our church, the heartbeat of my leadership is we're all about the capital C Church. And so we really believe in what God is doing here at Life Church, but we also believe in what God is doing in the global capital C Church. And so for you listening, God's called you for a specific purpose. He's and you can do this. And if you feel a level of discouragement, just turn to Jesus and refocus on what truly is important and lead well.

Amen. I was gonna ask you if there's any thoughts to wrap up, but honestly that was the most eloquent thing I think we could wrap up on. So we're just gonna call it done. For Ryan, this is Jeff with the Church Digital. Thanks for joining us and we'll see you next time. Have a good day.