EP250 - Dr John Harris in Book Launch, Sharing Jesus Online

And so Dave approached us, approached me, and said, "Hey Jeff, what does it look like to be a digital missionary?" And I started giving them some long elaborate response of what a digital missionary looks like. He's like, "It's too complicated." And he started talking to me about BLESS, and it was like, "Oh my gosh, okay, can we figure out how to do BLESS digitally?" And he's like, "That's a great question. You should do that." And so that's where this book came from. And so we've got it, we're publishing it today. It's released. You can buy it on Amazon. You can download the PDF for free. Like, this is a resource for you in your church and the church members. And we're gonna talk more about the book, but it was just an awesome process, even watching Dr. John, you know, own this book and tear it up, literally shredding Google documents. Like, it was just an awesome thing seeing all of this come together.

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, 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 the Church Digital Podcast. You know, I don't even know what episode we're on right now. I've done so many, I can't keep track. And I do know it's funny—we're laughing over here about it—but I do know I got a new book. We've got a new book that just came out literally today. I'm saying "we" a lot because "we" is, well, to be honest, I didn't write this book exclusively. I invited the expert into the conversation, and let me invite the expert into this conversation. Dr. John Harris, Dr. John, it's great to have you on the podcast here, sir.

Great to be here with you, Jeff.

And certainly, it was a fun project working on with you.

Oh yeah, well, listen, you survived working on a project with me, so that is a hard task unto itself. So listen, here's the deal: we wrote another book. Um, long story short—well, here, no, I'll say this. Do you know I've said "we wrote a book" a bunch? And we actually wrote the book. We're exponential. Um, literally, Dave Ferguson—God bless him—says to me, "Hey, Jeff, I want you to write a book on this topic." And when Dave Ferguson comes up to you and says, "Hey, Jeff, you need to do something," the answer is yes, sir. And so we wrote a book. You can download the book at thechurch.digital/blessbook. And so here's what we did. Um, we did a lot. You know, Dave Ferguson, he wrote a book on BLESS and what it means to be a missionary in physical community. And so Dave approached us, approached me, and said, "Hey, Jeff, what does it look like to be a digital missionary?" And I started giving them some long elaborate response of what a digital missionary looks like. He's like, "It's too complicated." And he started talking to me about BLESS, and it was like, "Oh my gosh, okay, can we figure out how to do BLESS digitally?" And he's like, "That's a great question. You should do that." And so that's where this book came from. And so we've got it, we're publishing it today. It's released. You can buy it on Amazon. You can download the PDF for free. Like, this is a resource for you in your church and the church members. And we're gonna talk more about the book, but it was just an awesome process, even watching Dr. John, you know, own this book and tear it up, literally shredding Google documents. Like, it was just an awesome thing seeing all of this come together.

So, hey, Dr. John, you know, just, you know, we've done I don't know three or four more podcasts at this point. Like, I feel like, and with the book, I've had way too many conversations with you. You know, I'm kidding. It's been awesome. But maybe just, you know, get introduce yourself, give some background, talk to us a little bit about Hearts Like His. Like, you know, tell us a little bit about who you are.

I would say 2019, I was more into the in-person ministry, in-person church. That was my jam. And I had just stepped out of a role as executive pastor to do church consulting full-time. And so when the pandemic started in March of 2020, and a lot of churches were looking to shift their physical ministry to online ministry, I thought it would be a good idea to kind of ride the wave of this rise in online ministry with an online-only expression of church for a couple of reasons. One, because the whole online ministry thing, it just exploded because of the pandemic and buildings were closed. Church buildings were closed. But in addition to that, there was a large group of people who I wanted to reach that had already left the building before the pandemic. And so the rise of the "dones"—those who are done with church for a variety of reasons—was a target that I wanted to shift it from the rise of the dones to the return of the dones. So the idea of the return of the dones being a part of that was one of the impetuses behind what we started to do with Hearts Like His. And then the context of it being online to do that, just again, we're riding the wave of the rise of online ministry. And so my wife and I started Hearts Like His, and that began to be the goal for us: to have a discipleship element. So in addition to targeting that group of people, we wanted to do it with a different message. I mean, it's still the gospel, of course, but one that there's an aspect of the gospel that doesn't get emphasized as much, and that is knowing God is your father. So even though we would say we're children of God, we don't always learn how to live as children of God. There's a lot of emphasis on being like Jesus, you know, as Christians want to grow and become like Jesus, become like Jesus. But what was he? Yeah, he was King of Kings, Lord of Lords, all that, but he's also a Son of God, and he modeled for us how to live in a relationship with God as a father. And so that aspect of the gospel is one of the things that we emphasize and frame spiritual maturity in. And so that's kind of been our goal there.

So Hearts Like His got born, and we started on Facebook. It was a Facebook group, and it just kind of grew from there. And just kind of getting out in front of some of what was happening with online ministry on Facebook specifically, that just helped us learn a lot as we kind of pioneered that. So my wife and I learned a lot about online ministry—not just online ministry, but because it wasn't a shift from physical to digital, it was launching on the digital platform and only being digital with no intention of being in a building, but to do digital discipleship. And so that's what we created: a digital discipleship community. And our slight kids, and literally today, is, well, this is the month where we have hit our two-year, two-year anniversary of Hearts Like His.

Happy anniversary. Congratulations. I don't know I realized it's been two years, but that's, yeah, that's incredible. Good for you.

Yeah. And so listen, when Dave Ferguson's like, "Hey, write a book on digital missionary," I immediately went to my friend here, Dr. John Harris, who, by the way, has a doctorate in transformational discipleship. Am I saying that correctly?

Yeah.

And so, hey, let's bring in the digital-friendly guy who agrees with digital discipleship, who has a doctorate in transformational discipleship, because he's going to make me look good writing that book. And, man, listen, it was a lot of fun working together on that. And, you know, I've said Dave Ferguson's name a bunch, but thank you, Dave, who was very open-handed with us in doing it because we—well, we'll talk about it—but it was like, "Hey, there's no way this is gonna work digitally, Dave. We're gonna have to change some stuff." And he's like, "You can do whatever you want. Contextualize and adjust it to make it happen." And so that was very cool.

Well, hey, let's talk to John. Let me ask you, because this was an early conversation that we had had, and let's revisit it. Who is the book written to? Like, how did we, what's the journey and the impetus of how we landed the plane on who we're writing to?

Yeah, so there's a couple of groups. One is the Christian who spends a lot of time online anyway, and there are opportunities to share Jesus, opportunities to disciple people that they see, but they haven't really been equipped on what to do with those opportunities, how to take advantage of them, even how to recognize them in some cases. And so this book is a tool to help believers who, you know, to kind of share Jesus and evangelize in a context where many of them are already spending hours and hours and hours of their time every day and every week. And so a lot of the in-person ministry experiences that people have in their church—for those who are connected to local churches—a lot of those experiences that they have, they can get content, right? Like the pastor's teaching series or what they're learning in Sunday school or things like that. They can get content from that and then try to share it online if they're doing that. But for the most part, they're not being kept on a model how to begin or start intentional relationships with unsaved people that lead to them knowing Jesus Christ and being able to show the gospel. And so for that question was online, seeing comments, you know, all the time, just not knowing how can I reach out to them? I wish I had a framework of some steps I can take to initiate a relationship with some people. So the Christians who didn't know what to do, wanting a good place to just a starting point for somebody to say, "Here are a few steps"—it's not like the perfect formula like you got to go through step one, two, three, four, five—but some kind of framework to give you an idea on ways to recognize opportunities online and steps to take to start developing those relationships. So there's a lot of questions who are looking to be equipped in that. And a lot of churches do good at teaching, but not necessarily equipping. And when we talk about equipping, one of my passions for that is that I know when I'm approaching pastors about how to up the game on equipping, a lot of times we put a lot of weight on our efforts, right? We'll say things like, "Oh yeah, we had a class on that," but we have a nine-week class on this, we have a six-month—it doesn't matter how long the class is, doesn't matter what you're teaching, right? Is the outcome people doing something different? If they're not doing something different, they haven't been equipped, regardless of what your effort was. And so what I like about this particular framework is it gives you some steps to actually do some things. That's where the equipping is. With this framework, it's very simple, and Dave and John did a great job just framing that really good. But it's really clear, simple, easy to remember, and easy for the average person to take action on when they're spending all this time online and all these different platforms that they want to.

Was so important for us, and even as some of the work we've done through Digital Church Network and others, that it's really—there's so much potential movement with the people in the pews and just releasing them, helping them find their purpose, helping get them on mission. And you've heard me say on this podcast that really the greatest resource a church has is sitting in those seats. And what would it look like to actually release them, to mobilize them, to get them excited to reach their circle of influence? And to do that not only in physical space but in digital and in the metaverse.

So it was a great pleasure. Go ahead, Dr. John.

Another group I wanted to mention is there are some who have already left the church, right? They're not in the pews anymore, they're not in the seats. And this book is an opportunity to help them get back engaged in their mission. From 2015 or so—at least that was the last time I saw—65 million people have left the church. And some of them have become "dones"—they're just done with the church. "I still love Jesus, but I'm done with the traditional model." And some have become "nones"—N-O-N-E—where they have no religious affiliation at all. So there's about a 33 million, 32 million split with the dones and the nones. But either way, this tool is also one that they can use to get re-engaged in the mission and hopefully connected to a body where they're going to—I mean, it'll be really great for somebody who's not attending a Sunday morning worship anymore and they start getting people saved online or even in person and develop a community. Now they have really planted a church because they've planted the gospel first and it developed into a group of new believers that can now be an online community. So it's a really good tool to help those who've already left to re-engage the mission.

So good. And so the resource, the book, is "Sharing Jesus Online." Once again, it's a PDF you can download it for free at thechurch.digital/blessbook—B-L-E-S-S book. And so that'll redirect you. Exponential published it. They're making it a big deal as part of the Lost Cause with the conference in 2023 in March. And so I will include links to all that in the show notes. You can grab it, download it for free. You can buy the paperback on Amazon or Kindle and dig into it.

But what we did through "Sharing Jesus Online" is we mapped these BLESS practices that Dave has, and basically exposed what it would look like in digital and metaverse. So Dr. John, why don't you walk us through a little bit—briefly, just a quick overview—BLESS. B-L-E-S-S. Like, what are these things? Let's start to talk about what that framework looks like.

Sure. Okay, so for those who have never heard of the framework at all, I'll introduce Dave and John Ferguson's version of it because then I translate it to what that looks like digital. Because how we did it digital is based on how they—they're foundational elements of it. Some are the same, some are different.

So an easy to remember and simple and effective framework for how to develop relationships with people that you might not know, or maybe you do know, but if you do know them you can deepen your relationship with them. If you don't know them, it's how to start a relationship with them that ultimately leads to being able to share Jesus and them becoming followers of Jesus.

The first thing you want to do is begin with prayer. You want to begin with prayer. We want to ask God, "You know, who is it that's in your circle of influence, in your view, whether it's in person or not, that he might be already working on?" Because God is already at work in people's hearts. And so when we begin with prayer, that helps us align our efforts into what God's plan is. So instead of trying to create something on our own and asking God to bless it, we want to align with what he's doing. And so, "Who is? Whose hearts is he stirring? Who is he identifying for us to reach out to?"

So you want to begin with prayer. And then another thing that prayer does is it softens your heart too. It helps you shift and helps God do some things in your heart to prepare you for what he's going to do in these new relationships.

B is "begin with prayer." L is "listen." We want to listen to people, listen to their stories, listen to what they're sharing, listen to what's going on with them. And that helps us understand ways that we can do some of the next few steps in this process.

So "begin with prayer," L is "listen," E is "eat." All right, we're talking about that in the physical model that Dave and John created—to eat with people. Because a lot of things happen eating, and it's hard to do digitally. It is, it is, it is. Yeah, so we definitely had to switch that one up.

But so the idea is that the transferable concept here is that you want to do something where people's walls come down, people connect, they relate, you know, over a meal. As far as eating, a lot of things happen that way. And so, you know, when we fellowship with people at church or outside of church, a lot happens over meals—you know, at dinner dates or a business dinner or things like that. So eating is the E.

And then S is "serving." So after you've listened to people and certainly eaten, there are conversations where another opportunity to hear from them—what are their needs? What's going on with them? How can you serve them? And so that first S is finding out ways to serve them.

The last S is now beginning to share your Jesus story—how is Jesus impacted you—and sharing the gospel with them.

So: begin with prayer, listen, eat, serve, and share your story of how Jesus has impacted you.

So then taking that model that was created again for in-person, looking at how do we do that online? Well, some of those principles are easily transferable online. You're going to pray, right? Begin with prayer. You want to listen to people. But sometimes the online listening, or in the digital space, digital and metaverse, is not always audible like in an in-person conversation. So what we talked about in our book is social listening—as we're scrolling through newsfeeds, looking at conversations, we're listening. Although we're literally reading, we're actually listening to what people are saying and listening to cries for help or repair requests or, "Hey, I'm struggling in my walk with God," or, "Hey, so-and-so, my family, they just passed away and I'm struggling with that." Like, we're listening to those kinds of things.

And so listening online is a little different, but very similar. And because of some of the new technology and stuff now, you can translate something from just reading or social listening in a newsfeed to audio conversations. And we are listening audibly to people or video conversations. So the big shift for us with online versus in-person is the E. Like you're saying, you can't eat. I mean, yeah, you can. They could eat on their side of the screen, you could eat on your side of the screen, but it doesn't have the same dynamic.

So we're processing through: what would that E look like for us online? What would it accomplish the same goal that eating in person does, where people open up, where they share, walls come down? It's a real opportunity to connect over a meal.

What we discovered is that online, if you enjoy a shared experience, that's what the E looks like online—enjoying shared experiences. And we just really unpack what that looks like and the different ways that that's possible online.

And then, you know, the similar thing is happening there. As you listen to people, as you're enjoying shared experiences, you'll find out, you'll discover ways that you can serve them online. And so in our book we unpack what that looks like—a variety of ways to serve people online.

And then again, being able to share your story, so some of the BLESS practices in person are similar to online except that E, that was when we had to wrestle with a little bit and go, "What accomplishes that same connection goal online?" And that's enjoying shared experiences.

So: begin with prayer, listen, enjoy shared experiences, serve, and share the gospel and share your story with Jesus.

Yeah, and that framework works so well in digital environments. I mean, I can remember—I just, I could feel like I could do a whole podcast on each one. And even like for me, the most—I don't say the most important, but the one that we, the church, struggle with the most, and the one that I think individuals have the opportunity to stand above the church in many ways in reaching people, is through listening.

You know, so often we, the church, say, "Hey, you know what? Listen to this sermon. You listen to me talk." And really, to do effective digital ministry, it's not to build the trust that allows you the credibility to speak at a spiritual level to a stranger, to another person. It's listening. And in church, like, that's the opportunity for a digital missionary person that's out there—build that relationship off of listening, not off of platforming and pushing your agenda. But take the time to listen to them. And with prayer infused, Holy Spirit, allow God to speak through you at some point. But that's not right off the bat.

And that's what I think we, the current 2023 version of a physical church doing digital ministry, that's what I don't think—I don't think, as a general rule, we get that. Maybe I'm overstating, but definitely excited about it.

I was just going to say I agree. I think part of what this book does is help people think as a missionary, right? We don't really think. We don't really train every believer as a missionary. And the goal of this framework is to do that—help people think as a missionary, which means that you don't come with your own idea and then try to sell it on people. You go into that space, you listen to the community, and then you adjust how you share, how you build relationships, and how you show the gospel based on that unique context and what you've discovered through the listening part.

So I agree with you 100 percent. That listening piece cannot be overlooked. It can't be underestimated. It cannot be neglected. Not any of that.

I can remember getting together—you know, when we first started talking about this, and when Dave pitched the idea to me, I'm like, "How are we going to eat together? Like, that does not make any sense, Dave. Like, what is this? What does this look like? What are you actually doing?"

And it's interesting. For a season, I actually did a couple podcasts. You can actually go back without in the show notes. But you know, we brought on John Ferguson, you know, kind of getting his take on what BLESS was. And we did a podcast with him. We did a roundtable with Dave where we brought in Dr. John—you were there—and brought on maybe 15 or 20 different digital and metaverse pastors and planters, and just pitched the idea to them.

And I can remember asking, "Hey, how do we do this whole eat thing? What is eat? And how do we represent this? What does this look like digitally?"

And so I can remember Mark Lutz from Lux Digital Church—it's a video game church. We're actually doing a podcast with him here in a couple weeks. But you know, Mark's like, "I can't. I literally—I think he..."

Said this verbatim, I can't speak for someone else. And everybody else, but I know like when I am connecting with people at that emotional level, building that credibility, that's allowing me an opportunity to speak into their lives. I get that by experiencing a video game, by playing a video game with them and getting that shared experience. And he said that, and I literally, it was like, you know, a brick just fell in the room. I just was like, boom. It was just like that. The power of it was like, okay, and then it just like resonated afterwards.

Voice after voice talking about their shared experiences and how their church, through experiences, they're connecting to build the relationship that allows them the credibility, the trust that to speak towards the kingdom and allowing the Holy Spirit to move in that way. And so definitely really excited about seeing how all this comes together.

Now, John, let me ask you. Like, when you, because when you talk about, hey, I wrote, I told somebody the other day, I was like, yeah, I just wrote a book, and they're like, what? I was like, you know, oh, I wrote a book about being a digital missionary. Like, the look on their face was one that was like, what are you even talking about? Like, do you have any of those stories, any of those conversations where it's like people don't understand the idea of the digital missionary? Why is this such a radical concept?

I think unfortunately for a lot of believers, the concept of being a missionary is form. And so there's that traditional view of, because, okay, think about it. If my view of a missionary is only somebody that goes to another country, then when you say digital missionary, I'm confused. That's what you're talking about. I don't even know how that happens. And so part of the big question mark that pops up on top of people's head when you mention digital missionary is there's a lack of clarity on what a missionary is.

Jesus was a missionary. He literally left his home on a mission to come to the earth with a message to carry out the Father's will and live, die, be raised again, and then he went back home. Like, that was a missionary mission, right? And then he says, I'm going to send you to go to the same thing. I'm sending you as a father sent me. I'm sending you. John 20, verse 21. So for part of the shift that has to happen for people to understand even just the phrase digital missionary is understanding what digital, what missionary is. That every Christian is one of those.

So I think it was Charles Spurgeon or D.L. Moody, one of them, have said every Christian is either a missionary or an imposter, right? And even the Moravians and their movements, so powerful is that they really believe that every Christian is a missionary. So that's one of the things we got to get back to. And so because we're not there, digital missionary is confusing because there's confusion about missionary. So then digital, sometimes people don't, it's not in their lingo to use the word digital as much as it is for some of us. So some people that might say online, like, you know, if you say online missionary, that might be a little more clear. But digital encompasses a lot of that space, whether it's, because it's not just online. I could be sharing the gospel through text messages. That's digital, not online, but it's digital, right? Or on Zoom. And so digital, it just encompasses the use of technology, you know, web 2, it's like web 3, which we talked about in the book, virtual, and things like that. But for the most part, the web 2 technology, carrying out the mission of Jesus in digital spaces. Digital missionaries.

I kind of tested out that phrase on my own Facebook page, and I said, um, so how would you, how many of you, subject to the effect of how many of you would be interested in learning about how to become a digital missionary? And some people, they just got it immediately because they knew digital, they knew missionary, and they're like, I love the way that sounds. Like, see, some people got it. I love where that sounds. Ooh, that's cool, that's cool. Others were like, well, what do you mean? You know, and then I just explained it. But for some people, it just resonates and they can see they can clearly put digital missionary together, and it's not a big belief for them to understand what that means. But nevertheless, I think this book is just going to help even expand the concept of every Christian being a missionary, whether it's in person or in digital space or virtual space.

Yeah, I love that. Now let me ask, let me pull the thread on that a little bit more. You know, they're, because you're a digital church, because you're doing a church in a digital community, like you understand the digital mission field. Um, there are some, you know, contemporaries, people I'm sure that you're running in within your church leadership circles that struggle with recognizing the digital community and the digital mission field, the metaverse mission field as well. Like, how do you address that challenge? How do you help people understand the digital and the metaverse, the potential of the digital and metaverse communities?

Yeah, one of the things I do in those conversations is, um, honestly, to try to get a gauge of where their heart is. Like, are they wanting to learn about this to understand it, or they want to debate? I'm not interested in debating about it. It's just, some people, that's just where they are, and that's okay. Um, but others are trying to learn, to really grow, to try to understand it, to see if they want to get into it or not. And so part of the thing that I do there in those conversations is say, get your mind off of the method and the medium, all right? Get your mind off of the media, like digital, online, virtual. That's the medium. And get your mind onto the mission. We're here to reach people with the gospel of Jesus, right? Like, let's just, let's so we want to start off with where we agree here, right? We want to reach people. Our mission is to show the message of the gospel with people wherever they are, right?

Yeah, yeah. Where they are, okay. So we see in the New Testament, um, one price coming from heaven to earth, right? Whole another context, all right? He even had to come in a human being in a manger. The whole deal, whole nother context. He had to speak Aramaic. He had to speak a human language to communicate to human beings in this context. And um, so if our mission is to take the message of the gospel to people wherever they are, Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the uttermost parts of the world, that kind of thing, um, then we look at the mediums that are available for communication, for travel, as just that, just mediums to reach people, to go where people are. Whether they're in another country, they're willing to take a plane. We're going to take a boat. We're going to drive to another state where they are. You know, all along the way, people have used whatever mediums were available based on the level of technology that was available. They've used all those mediums to share the gospel.

So Paul is writing letters. Paul is sailing on ships. No doubt he did some walking. Um, he was going, you know, traveling to Damascus on some kind of an animal or whatever. So everything that was available was used to reach people. So for us, um, like, get out of your mind whatever negative connotations you have with digital or virtual. Those are just mediums. As a medium, they're neutral. They're neither positive nor negative. How we use them can be positive or negative. And so some people would get this whole idea, you know, when Life Church first came out with the YouVersion, the digital Bible, yeah, man, the church had a problem with that, right? You gotta flip through the pages. You gotta be able to highlight stuff. Okay, well, stay on that train if you want to. But they did what they did, and 500 million downloads later, you know, there is a deal. And so now churches have YouVersion Bible apps as well.

Um, when the internet first started, church had an issue with that, doing online. All this demonic, is this and that? Like, we have a tendency to demonize everything that's new because of the potential for it to be used for negative purposes. But the reality is, for the creativity and the innovation, is looking at how things can be used positively to accomplish our mission. So I challenge people to put the mission first. The mission first, before the method, before the medium. Put the mission first. Are you really wanting to reach people wherever they are with whatever means are available? When the answer is yes, then we can talk about all these other kinds of things.

So there's online ministry. You know what? There's negative things online, absolutely. But we don't just stay off of online because there's negative things on there. We invade that space with the message because people are still online. So we bring our message, the message of the gospel, online. And so depending on where people are stuck at, that's what I kind of approach generally. That's my approach. Is put the mission first. Get the gospel to people. And how we do it, you keep on doing it in person if you want to. But online, there's definitely some great avenues for us to carry out the mission, particularly the Great Commission, for sure.

Totally and completely. And there's going to be, I mean, I've said this before. I'm a digital guy, and there's going to come a time when digital is not effective for helping with the Great Commission, where the metaverse is not as helpful towards that. And you know, I'm publicly saying, whatever is more helpful at that moment, I'll be jumping, shifting towards that, because for me, it's the opportunity to contribute to the mission, to contribute to the Great Commission, to reach that different type of person that the physical buildings are not reaching. The nones and the dones that you've so eloquently talked about here in this podcast. And so that digital is that option today, which is why the digital and the metaverse missionary is important. Which is why the best practices, why we need to begin with prayer, listen, create and engage and enjoy shared experiences, why we need to serve. By the way, let's just call out right there. Begin with prayer, listen, engage and share, enjoy shared experiences, and serve. All four of those call for humility. Like, it is very hard to be arrogant and do any of those top four. And so our posture is one that the Holy Spirit is filling and fulfilling within us, where we are calling the Holy Spirit to move in digital and metaverse space.

Can the Holy Spirit move in digital and metaverse space, Dr. John? Let me ask you. As the lead pastor of Hearts Like His for two years, have you seen the Holy Spirit move in digital space in the past two years?

Yeah, just a little bit. Just a little bit. It seems a struggle at times, but I've seen him produce a little bit of fruit. You know, it's these things where so often we say that it's not possible or we're told it's not possible. But when you really dig in, it's actually happening on a regular basis, on a regular basis.

Yeah. And even like, I'm going to talk specifically to the church staff person out there because I know you listen to the podcast here. Um, like, look at your ministry and start to see where the Holy Spirit is moving and start to celebrate those moments within the life of your ministry.

No, Dr. John, I'm going to pivot a little bit here. We've talked about the book. We've talked about how the book is aimed at, um, you know, not at a church leader. The book is more aimed at the church attender, or the dones, at a normal person, and helping a...

A normal person have a framework to share Jesus and digital metaverse. Um, what are, how does this book, how does this book apply to a physical church staff person, an online pastor, an executive pastor, someone that's at a physical church? Are there application points? What would this look like? Um, what would bless look like even within their own church in digital?

Yeah, yeah, I okay, here's what's amazing about this whole using bless online. Um, so your question, how does this apply to a church staff? Every person on a church staff is there to mobilize that church for the mission of Christ. Whether you are a graphic designer or senior pastor, it doesn't matter. Every person is there to help that church get activated in the mission of Christ. They'll be able to grow in their own walk with Christ and show the gospel, right? So growing personally with God, being in communion with each other, sharing the gospel with the world. And so what bless does is it gives staff members another tool to multiply the ministry of any physical church, right? In a couple of ways.

So multiply the ministry of the physical church by giving a tool to Christians that's going to help them carry the mission forward. And it kind of leans against the paradigm of ministry at a church being done primarily by a small group of paid staff members or even the larger group of leadership volunteers. This tool helps mobilize every person in your church for the mission. So that multiplies your ministry potential right there.

But then secondly, because we're talking about doing something online, most churches now have an online ministry. But that online ministry is mainly, again, they've kind of mirrored the staff-produced ministry that's in person. They're doing that online where staff produce ministry online. And so the same problem can be overcome. We have the majority of people sitting there and they're not engaged in the mission that you wanted to mobilize into the mission. Now you're doing that not just in person, because bless can do it in person, but you're also doing it online. So now you have your members of your church online spending hours of time anyway that can complement your online ministry by helping reach out to more people online and not have a church that they can connect them to. For those who are in a local, you know, the proximity local church, man, you have people in your church doing online ministry that can bring people. Instead of trying to depend on just Facebook ads, your church's Facebook ads, but you have for free you have your fifty, your hundred, your thousand members who are doing online ministry leading people to Jesus. They can bring them back into your trip like that's just that's a no-brainer.

So not only does this tool help that staff become force multipliers and mobilizing the members of your church to do ministry in person and online, but then secondly, it can be reaching people who are not even close enough for your physical community, but you can generate online deceptive communities as well.

Um, so let me summarize the two things by saying this. Number one, helps mobilize more people. But number two, this is the thing I was trying to get to, it reaches the people who will never, no matter what you do, walk into your building. They will, that's what I think. I don't think churches are returned. Yeah, I think if we get better graphics, a more relevant worship service, beef up our website and our app, you know, a great, more interesting teaching series, that more people from our community are going to come. No, they're not. There's a segment about thirty, thirty-five percent of people who are interested in spiritual conversations, interested in hearing about the gospel, who are never ever, no matter what, walk through your door. I think it's the Pew Research that was talking about. They will never ever do it. So we have to go out to get them, meet them where they are, and then disciple them where they are. And that's where this tool helps reach those people who are not coming into your door. You know, but they'll come to your house or they meet with you on Zoom or meet with you on a Facebook chat or whatever, but they're just not going to come to your door. So when you mobilize people in your church to engage in the mission and then they're able to reach people who are not going to walk through your door, but they'll see them online, take with them online, that right there multiplies those two dynamics. Multiplies the impact of the ministry that your church can have in person and online. And bless is a great tool to do it.

Yes, so well said. With all that, and guys, we believe, guys, gals, podcast listeners, audience out there, I mean exponentials giving this resource away for free. So I'm literally not saying this trying to make a buck. This is a free resource. Pastor, church worker, that's listening to this podcast, I challenge you, pull five to ten people out of your ministry that are comfortable in digital community, they're comfortable in social media, they're comfortable in some of these environments. Give them the PDF for free. I'm not making a buck on this. And let them read it and challenge them to do it. Like I almost want to do like a Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego test here. You do this, see the results that you're gonna get off of it. Um, six months, twelve months from now, and compare it to what's happening within the church. Because I promise you this, maybe it's not reaching apples to apples numbers, but dollar to dollar, the people that you're going to reach off of a dozen people that are motivated and serving as digital missionaries, you're not, it's a free opportunity. Um, the cost on this is minimal, but what you're gonna get is you're creating a culture that is evangelism. You're creating a culture of humility. You're creating a culture of prayer dependency. You're creating a culture of listening to the Holy Spirit, and you're engaging all of that in a new community that, by the way, your church is probably not tapping into effectively if all you're doing is streaming services online. Like you'd literally have nothing to lose by doing this. You're not having to shell out a hundred thousand dollars for a new studio. You're not having to hire a new person. You're creating a bivocational movement, a volunteer movement, a person-led movement. And I would suspect, actually I said this, I said the statement the other day to a church because we're having this conversation. I said, you know what, I suspect at some level if this is successful and if you really do lean into it, you'll create an environment where your volunteers are leading your staff. Like you will create such a prayer-dependent culture that in many ways the volunteer Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednegos that are experimenting with this will become at a higher level, I would suspect, in the majority of the staff that are working there. That may be I may be overstating, but the heart of this is that you've got nothing to lose by giving a shot and doing something like this within the church. And to this end, man, we're even opening up and doing some things. We're creating an online course for this that is set up for a volunteer. We're reinforcing a lot of the things that we've talked about within the book and in the resource just to make it more accessible, easier in video format to be a resource to help with some of these things. And whether you're an individual that's being motivated to do this or whether you're in a church that's wanting to adopt this and adapt this, more information on that is at the church dot digital slash bless course. The church.digital slash bless course.

Um, listen, I strongly believe in digital evangelism. I believe in what we're talking about here. I believe that the stuff that Dr. John and others like him that are reaching in the digital communities, that are engaging in digital space, I'm seeing them, I'm hearing stories of them reaching people that are done with the physical buildings, they're done with the established church, they're not coming back, or there's no interest in that idea at all. And the idea of approaching with humility and listening and building that relationship in these communities digitally, guys, we've seen it be so effective. I would encourage you, buy the book, check it out, download the book, check out the core course, whatever it takes towards this, but there's huge opportunities that your church can leverage in a big way.

You know, and I'll just say this real quick. Like we even, we talk about, you know, um, we talk about, like, about hearts. Our excuse me, hearts like his is your church. We talk about he gets us, where, uh, you know, a lot of churches have been hesitant. I've had the conversations. They've been hesitant to adopt he gets us because the conversations are, uh, our staff just don't have time to constantly engage with this. And you know, I'm like, people, you've got your audience, you've got your members, you've got your people in the pews. This is a missional opportunity for them. And I would even go as far, and we're having these conversations with he gets us and glue as well. I believe this book is the framework, is the model to create a he gets us volunteer like the church. How do I prepare somebody in the pew to engage with someone that a spiritual explorer that comes in through he gets us? My suggestion would be give them the free PDF that you can download from the church.digital slash bless book. Give them the online course that you can buy for you know really cheap. And the heart of this is that you are now equipping someone to do ministry through he gets us. There's a priesthood of all believers opportunity, a movement that would come if we would release our people, equip them, and release them. In this book, bless practices sharing Jesus online that Dr. John and I wrote, I think is a big move towards creating these movements in digital and metaverse space.

Yeah, it is. I think one of the shifts that is needing to happen is for churches to shift from being teaching centers to training centers. And a lot of the teaching focuses just on the pastor. And the problem is when the teaching focuses on the pastor or the pastoral teaching team, then you can tell people all day that they should be doing the mission, engage, but they're not going to do that because you create a context with a focus on you as a teacher, and people don't see themselves as a teacher, so they're not going to duplicate what you're doing.

Um, and so part of that teaching has to shift to more training and equipping where people are learning how to do things different, where we're not just becoming more educated but we're becoming more engaged. So teaching helps educate people. It doesn't always cause them to be engaged in the mission. Training and equipping, right? Equipping leads to engagement. Teaching and training leads to education. And so this book is, um, I think it's going to meet, it's going to quench the thirst for questions who are saying I want someone to tell me what to do, train me, equip me. I want to do this. I'm tired of seeing people on my news feed or whatever and just feeling uncomfortable because I don't know what to do, what to say to them, how to start a relationship with them. And so this is gonna be a tool that helps kind of fill that gap and quench that thirst for believers are saying I want to, I want to, I want to get in the game, or for churches saying we want our people to get in the game. What's a good tool to do that with? I think this answers that question.

Beautiful. Moving from teaching to training, that is such a good word.

Think we're going to land the plane there. That was great. As we're wrapping up here, Dr. John, any closing thoughts?

Well, I'm just looking forward to seeing what the Holy Spirit does. Um, because I think at the end of the day, what this book is going to do is help Christians take either one step or the next step. I think some people are doing something, but they don't know where they get to a place they don't know what to do now. Like, maybe they're building relationships, but they don't know how to bring up Jesus. Now they don't know how to, you know, so I think this book is going to help people either take that first step or a next step if they're already engaged. And so there's a lot of things that the Holy Spirit will do with that. So I'm looking forward to seeing um, it answer questions for people, get more Christians engaged, and ultimately some more people come to know Jesus Christ because of what Holy Spirit is doing for the believers who are launching out into the deep. And in our case, that means online and digital, digital, digital, and virtual spaces. So yeah, so thanks again for inviting me to be a part of this project.

Oh dude, I would do this with you again in a heartbeat. And so we're through the church digital, we're working on publishing. I mean, honestly, I've already written book proposal three and four. I've already submitted those off to some publishers and working towards that, um, having conversations about five and six. And so books five and six as well published in '24. But Dr. John, you have an open invitation to work with me on something. And so I am sure there will be more coming from this relationship soon. But hey, we're going to land the plane. This has been great. You can buy the book, get the link to Amazon. You can download the PDF for free, Kindle, soft cover, like all of that's at thechurch.digital slash bless book. The links in the show notes. The online course, thechurch.digital slash bless course. And uh, to be honest, like I would, but we would love to dialogue with you on this. Dr. John's contact information is going to be in the show notes. And of course, you guys know how to find me on that. And so let's, if there's questions on the book and some of the stuff that we're talking about, feel free to reach out. But check it out. Uh, we will also be at Expo Orlando. Dr. John and I will be, and so he, Dr. John's teaching a course on this at Expo Orlando. And so more information at exponential.org. Exponential, thank you for publishing this and, uh, you know, championing digital and metaverse movements like you guys are. It's awesome to see an organization so sold out and bought into digital metaverse like Leadership Network and Exponential is. So thank you for that. And you know what, we're going to land the plane right there. So for Dr. John, this is Jeff with the Church Digital and Digital Church Network. Thanks for jumping on the podcast here. We'll see you next time on the show. You all have a good day.