EP276 - Bernie Mapili, Andy Mage, and The New "The Church Digital"

Welcome to the Church Digital Podcast. Through this podcast we'll talk about the technological innovations within the church, but more than tech for tech's sake, we'll address deeper questions. Is disciplemaking possible digitally? How should we approach the digital mission field? Can a biblically grounded church operate in digital space? And where does the metaverse and artificial intelligence fit into all of 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 disciplemaking that will revolutionize your church.

And now here's your host, Jeff Reed.

All right, right up here, right off the bat, episode 276 of the Church Digital Podcast, and it is good to be back. It is great to be back. Let me tell you, I missed you all. You know, I hear through emails and social media, historically, you know, for many of you, the planters, the digital pastors, the digital planters, the digital practitioners, the digital missionaries, those of you that are out there in that space, how much of an encouragement we've been able to be through the Church Digital, through the blogs and the podcasts and the books and even through the other channels that God blessed me to have access to over the years. And it's been an encouragement, you know. I say this, it's been an encouragement for me to know that many of you, we were able to help. And bluntly, as I stepped back over this past six months, I took a break. It's specific. I'll get into it a little bit as I took that break. It was you. It was the people. It was you that I missed. It was the stories of life change. It was the conversations about what God is doing through your ministry and about new innovative ideas that you've had. And it was really you, the people, that I missed the most.

And so I am blessed. I am honored to be sitting here in this chair once again, episode 276, continuing on the Church Digital Podcast for the next season. So thank you so much for graciously allowing me to come back in after a six-month break, sabbatical, vacation. I don't know. I don't know what you want to call this thing. After twenty-five years of ministry, I'll be honest, I never have actually had a sabbatical, barely had a vacation here or there. I'm borderline workaholic. And, well, to be honest, and maybe we get into this in greater detail at a later point, but somewhere around June 2023, I had a break. Like a mental break, a physical break, a—if it could be broken, it broke. An emotional break in my life. My body broke. I have type two diabetes. I have arthritis in my knees and legs and feet. I have bad feet pain with the diabetes. I've had a number of other ailments. I don't want to make this medical 101, but let's just say I'm forty-six years old and I walk around with a cane. That's what it looks like for me to get from point A to point B physically. Things went south for me quickly.

There was an emotional break, you know. My friend John Pile just recently did a podcast. He preached a sermon talking about little traumas in our life and how, you know, even something simple as, "Hey, how am I going to pay this bill? How am I going to pay my mortgage?" That's not a major trauma, but it's a minor trauma. When you get enough minor traumas in my life, all of a sudden it's a major thing. And summer twenty-three brought the Reed family into a major trauma situation. And there was a break. I mean, it was minor traumas that contributed and piled up into a major situation. And as a result of it, honestly, I had to step back from leadership and get my family, get my life, get everything figured out. And so I did it. I stepped back from the organization that I founded and was leading at that moment. Actually, it was two. It was the Church Digital and the Digital Church Network. And so I stepped back from that.

And after six months of figuring out what life looks like, what ministry looks like, what family looks like, and after working through multiple different business models and meeting some new friends, man, I'm excited about 2024 and what's in store. We've got some new relationships coming out. You're going to hear some things in the podcast, in future conversations, future podcasts, talking about Resi and Pushpay and Glue and Start Church. And there's a lot of really awesome things coming up in the life of Jeff and the life of the Church Digital as well.

You're going to hear us talk about a new logo, a new website that's brand coming up for the Church Digital. And where I would not say the vision is changing, but I do think there's more clarity and I think there's more people that are owning larger pieces of it. I never wanted to build an organization that was centered around me. I was very vocal about that. I did not want the Church Digital centered around me. And I love the fact that in 2024 we're seeing this happen where the Church Digital is becoming renewed without it being centered around me. In fact, I'm not even the guy that's leading the organization. I now have a boss with the Church Digital who gets to tell me what to do, which actually is a highlight of my life. I enjoy that very much.

And so in this podcast, we're talking about the new Church Digital. We've got Bernie Meley, who's now the CEO of the Church Digital, and we've got Andy Mage, who's the COO, operating director of the Church Digital. And you've got me, Jeff Reed, the founder, the old guy, the guy—if you're watching on YouTube, shaved his beard, got this like gray scruff on his face, new look. But the fact is, what I hope you hear is the same heart for digital discipleship, for doing something different digitally to reach a different person, to empower a different leader, to disciple in different ways. But at the heart of this, aligning to what Christ has called us, disciplemakers and churches to be biblically. And so here we are: Andy Mage, Bernie Meley, myself, Jeff Reed, with the Church Digital in a podcast conversation. I'm calling it "The New the Church Digital." Here we go.

All right, so Jeff, here, let's dig into episode 276, "The New the Church Digital." That may be repetitive. The new Church Digital. The new Church Digital. The new TCD. Let's go with that.

We took a break, like we talked about on the podcast. Took a little vacation, you know. I haven't had a sabbatical in, well, ever. You know, I'd work in all these churches and they would talk about sabbatical and never actually experienced one. And so kind of forced myself to take a little break. And it's awesome because you got this organization—I don't call myself a massive organization, but there was a lot of stuff that was moving. There's a lot of moving parts. And it's like, you know, I got to step away. I got to take some time. But what are we going to do? And it was beautiful to see this team come together.

So we're going to talk about some of the pieces, but right here, the two guys that I've got in this interview, in this conversation right now, Bernie Meley and Andy Mage, man, both of them stepped up in a big way. Like, we were already having conversations about bringing these two guys into leadership. And, well, just to be honest, it was like, "Hey, you know, we were going to onboard you guys slowly," and forget that. Like, let's accelerate the timeline a little bit because that's just the way that I roll.

So Bernie, Andy, y'all thanks for jumping here on the podcast. Welcome to the deep end, I guess, right?

Yeah, awesome. That was a crowd. Let me in.

So Andy's been on the show three, four, five times, I feel like. You've co-hosted this thing.

I've co-hosted. We did an entire run on Twitch.

Oh, that's right. That's right. You were all over that.

Yeah, and then I was on a couple of times before that. And then I don't know, I've been in and amongst TCD and DCN for a couple years now, I think.

Yeah. Do we say DCN anymore? Like, I'm not totally sure. We'll talk. We'll talk a little. We'll get there at some point, I'm sure. Don't let the cat out of the bag too much because we are talking about the new the Church Digital. So there's got to be something old that is going out with that. But thanks for that.

And Bernie, Bernie's new to this, to this concept, new to the podcast at least, new to the public facing. So Bernie, I'll set the stage. I'll tell the story. Bernie, this is maybe April of twenty-three, reaches out to me. Maybe it's May, June, somewhere in the second quarter. And says, "Hey, let's jump on a call." And I've met Bernie once in my life, maybe had five words of conversation with him, really not deep. But Bernie's like, "Hey, like, I'd like to talk with you." And so, I think we met on Discord because Bernie lives on Discord. And so jump on this Discord call with Bernie. And Bernie, who I've, like I said, never really met before, he says, "Jeff, you and I are the exact same person, just in different space." That's scary.

And so, like, I'm looking at Bernie. I'm like, "You don't really look like me. You don't have the long goatee." Well, I don't have much of a goatee left anymore if you're watching on YouTube, you know that. But, you know, at the heart, just so we started having this conversation and really digging in. And I couldn't believe, like, I would say honestly and I'll say this publicly: Bernie Meley is the closest person I've ever met to understanding like the digital strategies and the concepts and the things that I'm talking about, like the ability for me to trust a person at the drop of a hat. And his posturing on everything—I don't want to make myself like egotistical here—but, oh my gosh, he's so easy to work with and so aligned in strategy. Like, it's been a beautiful thing.

So, all right, Bernie, thanks for jumping on the podcast. We're not going to talk to you anymore for the rest of the show.

No, nice, nice conversation, great talk.

Um, Bernie, tell us a little bit about—because they know Andy. Andy was co-hosting through like all of season five. And Andy's been around. Bernie, talk to us a little bit. Tell, you know, tell a little bit about who you are, man.

Yeah, uh, Bernie. I go by Romans on the internet. And I am your business guy who loves Jesus. And I think that's the way I'm currently pitching myself to the internet world. That, uh, yeah, I think the secret ability that God has given me is to understand how businesses work in many different environments. And for the past six plus years, I love things digital, been diving deep into it, got a strong lean into the video gaming space, but anything on the internet is definitely my jam these days.

And yeah, I saw I saw Jeff making all these waves and everywhere I'd go, he was there. And not just there as an attender, like I was, but he was like a guy in the background making things happen. So I just wanted to get to know Jeff and see what you're up to. And I'm definitely not a guy to usurp or take someone's position. I just wanted to come alongside and learn with you. And then you wanted a vacation. So then it was like another example of like Men in Black where I thought, "Maybe I'll make a partner. Maybe I'll make some friends." And no, Agent K was looking for retirement. Or in this case, a vacation. And he was like, "I'm just Agent. I'm not even an agent yet. I'm just a guy." Andy is already Agent J. And then I'm a guy below him. I don't even know. I'm like one.

Of those aliens walking around in the background and like, you know, Andy's over here shooting dudes with his tiny little baby gun, you're in the back smoking a cigarette going "zuka." So I just wanted to join the party, but, you know, I'm here to serve the Lord and here I am. So glad to be, you know, it's beautiful.

Bernie, back when we started the church digital in 2018, 2017, um, like I literally remember buying the domain name in 2017 at a PushPay conference in downtown Disneyland and just had this vision of creating an organization, a company that was centered around digital discipleship. And honestly, like some of the immediate feedback I got from people that were in the space is, "Jeff, why are you calling it the church digital? Call it Jeff Reed.com. You know, make it about you and make it about promoting self." And you know, immediately it was, "That's not what I'm doing. Like this thing has grounds and potential to be bigger than me. This is not just Jeff Reed.com. This is the opportunity to represent what the church can and should look like and will look like in digital space and so metaverse and you know everything else that's down the road."

And so for me it was not about elevating and positioning and trying to get to the higher rung myself. And you know, over time it's been, "Okay, how can I help others get in positions? How can I help platform others and make other ideas better?" Whether it's co-writing a book with Dr. John or whether it's helping others through blogs and podcasts and creating a podcast network, and even looking and seeing, "Okay, what are my strengths and weaknesses as a leader and how can I find people around me that can complement and fill in the gaps?"

I've run, you know, I'm a serial entrepreneur. I've run—well, shoot, at this point I probably started seven, eight businesses and nonprofits in my life. And to be honest, like I'm a great starter. I'm a horrible maintainer. And so coming along with somebody like business acumen like Bernie, to be able to maintain that and elevate that beyond what I'm capable of, it's like, "Why wouldn't I want to involve myself with somebody like that?" Or even some of the quality work that Andy and guys like Tom are creating and producing—they're able to move into that space and are able to start to elevate ideas that now I don't have to. I can start to be more niche and targeted in what I'm saying, knowing that there are others that are complementing the overall work that I could do by myself and are able to cover a much larger base.

And so working with guys like Bernie, I look at the screen and I see Romans like to the left on the screen, so I keep wanting to say Romans, but it's Bernie. Bernie and Andy, totally and completely. And so like, we had the plan that I was going to be the founder, the organizational leader of the church digital, and with that Bernie was going to be coming on as an integrator of sorts, as a CFO, the financial guy. We were jokingly calling him the director of revenue, kind of making him some of the money piece of that. And then operations would fall under Andy. And then when I had the break in the situation, like, "All right, I need a break. I need to disconnect," I did. I let go of the organization. And with it, "Hey Bernie, how'd you like to run this thing?"

And honestly, the conversation probably was not much different than that. It was very much, "Hey, looking around the table," like there was a stint where even Andy was trying to manage some of that, but with everything else that Andy was doing, it didn't make sense. And so Bernie stepped in to lead the church digital. And the midst of all of this change, we'll get into it in a little bit, but seriously, just up front, like it's been a pleasure working with these two guys that are here and the other leaders that we brought into the space that we'll get into here in a little bit.

So any thoughts on that, Bernie? Was the right guy, right place, right time? And quick little story—I had no clue who Bernie was. I knew of Roman, 10 verse 12, 10 verse 2, sorry. Um, yeah, 10 verse 12, 10 verse 2. I don't know what 10 verse 12 is, sorry, man. I can probably look it up. 10 verse 9, probably? Yeah, 10 verse 9, I know. Um, the interesting thing is, so Expo, let me paint a picture for you. I'm a theater of the mind type thing. We are at Exponential 2022. I am hanging out with a bunch of crazies from Lux Digital Church and from a number of other digital enterprises. Jeff is holding his pre-conference powwow for the church digital. We're doing a whole bunch of stuff, bunch of keynote speakers, bunch of things, and then all of a sudden this guy Bernie shows up at this dinner that Jeff has in downtown Orlando. It's like, "Oh, who's this guy?" And all of a sudden our good buddy Mark Lutz walks over and gives them a hug and like they start chatting. And I was like, "Cool." So I sat down with Bernie at a table and we talked for like an hour and it was like, "Oh, this guy's pretty rad."

The next night, literally we get done with like this marathon session and all of a sudden we're driving to Bernie's house in the middle of the woods in a swamp in Florida. And it's like, "First of all, am I going to die? Second of all, like, uh..." No, I got there and I was like, "No, this house is pretty rad." And then we did like a live church service from Bernie's house. And all of a sudden Jeff rocks up without a voice because he'd been talking for 72 hours straight. And we're all like being friends. And it's like, "Cool." That was right there. If you guys look back at it, those were the seeds of this podcast. That was what, nine months ago? That was the seeds of everything that we're doing right now. And it was pretty awesome.

Yeah, that was March, April '23, not '22, but the heart of that and everything else was accurate.

And it's funny, like that's the camaraderie. That was the heart of what digital network church network was supposed to be and wanted to be and what the church digital will be. It's the unification of ideas and the uniting of crazies—the uniting of crazy people together towards the common cause of Christ and empowering and strengthening and platforming them to do what God has called them to do.

And so like to me, that was another. I would totally agree. And you know, I'm going to build off what you just said. The best part of that 96-hour period that was Exponential 2023 was by the end of it, I didn't have a voice. I mean, literally I could not talk more than 15 seconds in a row. And so it was not the Jeff. I mean, once again, quite literally it was not the Jeff Reed Show. It was other people stepping up and speaking in because my voice was literally gone.

It was funny. I actually left the conference early because I had to go catch a plane. I was going on a trip to Israel, which is ironic in this moment, but the fact was that I didn't even finish it off. I handed the notes to Joey Santos and I had Mark do some things and others. And I was like, "Hey guys, I need you to lay in the plan on this conference." And so once again, it wasn't about me. It was about empowering others and equipping others to get into it. And I think that's a very important lesson for a leader to be able to build something beyond even what they can do here.

And I love, and that's one of the reasons I love working with these two, is because Andy and Bernie, like they see that. And how we can empower other leaders to come alongside us. And even, you know, some of the other leadership team—Jason Morris and Leighton and RZ and Nicole and so many others—are involved in this thing from day to day. Tom and so many others are involved in this thing from day to day. Having them doing what they're doing and contributing is such a good thing.

So all well, let's get into this a little bit. I want to talk about maybe what some of the church digital is coming and what's evolving into. So hey, we've got this new brand. Maybe? Yeah, no, we have a new brand. It's there, right? Like we can say that we have a new brand. And it is somewhere that sits on my desk as I stall for time to pull it back up because I had closed the thing because, you see, we should have rehearsed this and we didn't rehearse it. That's on me.

We should have. All right, on three, do you want to give me like a drum roll or something?

Drum roll.

Yeah, there it is, ladies and gentlemen, the new the church digital. Now what's awesome is this is a podcast, so no one can actually see this.

Yeah, you're not wrong. Oh crap. Well, it'll be in the show notes too, right? Describe. If you're watching this on YouTube, you're happy. If you're not watching this on YouTube, swing over to YouTube or check out the show notes. We'll put a link in the show notes.

I've just been doing so many YouTube shows lately, man. Oh God.

Awesome. So hey, no, we're excited to roll out the new brand of the church digital. And so we've got a new website that's in works, and we're hopefully going to see this launch very soon. But more than just a pretty new cross and a little more 8-bit digitized look as opposed to what I'm told is the more dated podcast symbol look that we had before. Um, I do, there may be a little sarcasm in that. We may want to dig into. I've got to let go of some stuff. Maybe a little bit. I just, I'm going to diagnose myself in that moment. That was a little more jaded than I meant it to come out of my mouth.

But no, I do. I'm excited about the new look. I love change. And if we need to adjust some things to be able to get more relevant and try to get in front of more people, um, man, with some of the stuff that God's opening up this year, shoot, if I got to let go of a logo, let go of a logo. Who gives a crap? Um, so it's a great thing.

But more than the leadership, man, like there's a new perspective towards doing things. Like I know, um, man, I'm really excited about some of the stuff that Jason Morris, J-Mo, is commonly known here within New York, some of the stuff that he's doing with the movement system. Um, we're unifying and creating our discipleship process. You know, it's been a great relationship with New Thing Network and how they're utilizing the movement system. And the church digital is really starting to continue that on and build it out and modify it to work better in digital and metaverse space.

And so you know, I know Andy, you guys have taken some of that with J-Mo here and gone through that, man. Any feedback or thoughts from you on what that movement system's looking like?

It is so interesting stepping into something like New Thing and stepping into established things that New Thing has because you look at everything that they have done for however many years New Thing's been around—what, nine, ten years, something like that—and they have some pretty established patterns. But this digital thing, this is kind of the Wild Wild West. It's the new frontier. And empowering people like Jason Morris, empowering people like Leighton, empowering the people that really have their fingers in the dirt on this one is really cool because there's a lot of innovation.

happening there, there are literally meetings that are happening well, essentially every other week where we're hashing out not like, "Oh, what platform should we use?" but instead, "How do we reach more people for Jesus?" We'll let the chips fall where they may, and we are strictly focused on the discipleship aspect of it.

And I, I think Jeff, to your point, you know, starting this back in 2018, yeah, that was the idea at the very beginning of the church digital: empowering people to make more disciples, to continue on, to reach, you know, reach all nations. But I think it took us up till this point as a church community, like as God's capital K Kingdom, to realize that the tools are there and the tools are pretty ubiquitous. We no longer have to have the conversation, "How to get a stream up or how to do this or that?" because that's pretty much everywhere now. We get to actually do the fun work of, "Okay, how do I take people from where they were to meeting Jesus to now turning into actual disciples?" And that right there, I credit Jason and I credit Leighton for everything that they're doing under the church digital sort of banner to really propel this forward. And I'm super, super stoked for the next three to months with everything that they are developing. And then, oh, by the way, with some of our partnerships that we're able to ship a lot of that mindset into people like Glue, people like Start Church, even when we were just talking about them, and some other sort of assorted responsibilities around that were able to give this contextual information to and say, "Okay, go into your communities and make disciples here."

You go, Andy. Said there's actually what I took from the class is contextualize it. I think the longest time I'll go through seasons of running Bible study groups in and out, but it felt more like I was a caveman who didn't understand what fire was, and I'm just like, "Oh, warm, warm," and so we'd enjoy the fire that's there. Sometimes the fire is there, sometimes not. But now, and I run it tonight, will be the first night I got three guys that I've discipled and I haven't discipled in probably four or five years that we're going to reconnect, go through some discipleship stuff or go through some Bible study stuff. But what they know it or not, they're going through the program that J-Mo, that J's teaching. And we'll see where they stand because I don't think they necessarily want to do it, but they all want to be, they all want to elevate their Christian game, if you will. And that's why they're meeting, not only just for the fellowship, but I could see them very well in short order having all three of these guys going from consuming the Bible to participating and running a group of their own.

I love that. You know, it's one of the podcasts we're working on right now is, um, you know, I'll give away one of the punchlines. It's Matt Welty. He's been on the podcast a couple times. He's director of Technology at Crossroads. Crossroads is a big church in Ohio. Are they Cincinnati?

Andy: Dino, outside of Cincinnati, I think. Just outside of Cincinnati. Multicampus, I know they're in Kentucky as well. Like, they're kind of multisite all over the place.

Um, but I saw them speak at the Church IT Network here. It was in West Palm Beach, maybe back in November. And um, and so I'm forgetting the exact stat, but the heart of what the stat that he quoted was was that they actually documented, um, I mean, essentially what it was was that everybody misses nobody attends church four weeks a month, you know, 100% anymore. Um, and so like, of the people when they miss church, those that watch online and engage in digital relationship, they actually scored it out. I'm going to get Matt on because I actually want him to say the exact words here, but those that engage online had a higher level of discipleship within their life than those that only engaged in physical space.

Like, if you're only looking at physical church involvement, uh, like if you're a physical church, I'm not talking digital church planting, but if you're a physical church doing ministry, um, complementing and adding digital to that physical will help your people score higher. And it's not that it's a checklist, but it will get them to have a deeper understanding of Christ and the gospel than if you just isolated and depended on doing it in physical space.

And what's amazing, I said on LinkedIn, I guess maybe a month ago, that you know, it felt like 2023 was the year that the rest of the world fought against the disruptors. Yep. Because I'm looking at the virtual reality, the decrease in that, blockchain and crypto, the decrease in that, artificial intelligence is the savior and it's the Antichrist both at the same time. Like, you know, there's been so much, at least from a technological standpoint, everybody's got to get back in the office building, no more remote work. Um, you know, 2023's been the year of fighting against a disruptor. And all those disruptions potentially can bring good things and can help and can complement what's happening. It doesn't have to disrupt from that.

And we were talking about discipleship systems and doing that, like adding something like the movement system or even a discipleship where, hey, you know what, we're going to teach you and you're going to teach somebody else. We were talking earlier about kicking people out of the nest, making them do their own thing, and equipping them to multiply and to tell others. Man, what a beautiful idea. As we wean people off, you know, biblically wean them off the milk and get them on, you know, stakes, digital stakes, or whatever we're calling, maybe that's what we need to call it, digital steak. Digital steak. Um, that's got to be cheaper than a physical steak, right? Probably right now.

Yeah, yeah. Something. All right, cool. And so, you know, I'm buying it. But you know, Andy teased some things that are happening with Glue, and um, man, we're really excited. We're going to do a podcast here in a couple weeks on this. But how to take the movement system and how to pair it and connect it, how to take discipleship and get it connected into what's happening with a lot of the Explorer campaigns that Glue's running. Like, he gets us and some of the other things that are coming up. And we've been working with Megan Carter over at Church Anywhere, First Capital Christian, Tyler. I think Megan's been on the podcast. Uh, Tyler's, yeah, Megan's been on. Um, but um, and uh, Andy's been doing some things. We'll talk about that in a little bit. But um, you know, Megan and some of the things that she brings into the process, some of her wisdom from a mental health capacity. She's currently been trained, recently trained by the American Association of Christian Counselors, bringing that into the digital space, into um, what we've been doing with He Gets Us. You know, I don't want to tease it, but I'm just going to say it. Like, we're literally launching a program. The Church Digital is, uh, where we're helping people that want to be digital missionaries within He Gets Us.

You see, historically, you've had to work with churches to get access to He Gets Us. He Gets Us is this campaign, marketing campaign where they take people who have spiritual questions and get them connected to God, right, and answer those spiritual questions. And so you've got explorers, people that have spiritual questions that are exploring the idea of Christ, and they, Glue would connect churches, and then the church would recruit responders to answer the spiritual question. So an explorer would ask a question to a responder.

And um, well, what's happened is that there are all these churches all over the country, but the demand of explorers is far greater than what the churches are. And especially because churches are primarily interested in like twenty miles around their physical location. And so if you look at the United States, the heat map of where all the explorers are, and just the quote-unquote little dots, hundreds of dots, thousands of dots, but little dots because they're only interested in the physical proximity of those that can attend the church physically on some morning. Like, the platform, um, the concept really struggles. And so the Church Digital, coming alongside saying, "Hey, we know how to make disciples and have conversations. We can talk about evangelism digitally. We can use our thumbs to text, to type, uh, to engage people, to pray with people, to help them even at a digital level get connected to and answer spiritual questions and get them routed to a physical church in their area, maybe even a digital church that doesn't care where they live and can reach them, reach them anywhere."

Well, the people at Glue got really excited about that, and we, the Church Digital, we're really excited about that as well. And so we're going to be teasing that here in a couple weeks. Um, I was not planning on announcing that right here, but dang, I'm so excited about that. It's like, what the cat out of the bag. If you're going to do the Church Digital, hey, you know what's the Church Digital? The Church Digital is right there, man. Yep. We're creating a movement grounded in the movement system, um, within arguably one of the largest marketing campaigns for Christ on the planet today. And so guess what? I don't even, listen, I can't even tell you what the URL is that I want to drive you to. Uh, look for it in the show notes. But if you're interested in this, we'll be talking about it. We're going to make a lot of noise, believe me, coming up. But we're going to have more information for you on help you all get connected. If you're, whether your church wants to or not, uh, if you're interested in getting connected, uh, in helping answer spiritual questions and doing digital ministry, um, we want you to come on board and come be a part of what we're doing through the Church Digital.

Um, awesome. And so listen, that's been a lot of what J-Mo's been up to. Um, Bernie, you've been working a lot with you with Flat Cap with Leighton. You want to talk a little bit of maybe some of the stuff he's been working on?

Leighton is, he's connecting a lot of dots. Just recently, he spoke to some folks. I'm getting his story confused with another story I heard today, but his was folks overseas where they can only talk about Jesus digitally because any other means can lead to arrest and you can lose everything if they do it in person. And we've heard the story a couple times. We've met with some other folks. Jee and I have met with some other folks where that's their whole ministry because in the country in the Middle East that they operate in, it's illegal to evangelize. And you have to already be a Christian to talk about Jesus things. So then the question is, how do you tell new people about Jesus? Well, it's illegal. You can't, unless you're digital. So digital is the only way to do it safely. And uh, if you do the right ways through VPN, if you're in that country, it gets real tricky. If you're still in that country, it's still kind of risky to do evangelism, even if you're digital. But the folks that Leighton were talking to, they need us. They need a digital solution because they want to tell people about Jesus. They feel the call, and they don't want to lose, and it's not just like losing a little bit. It's like they don't want to lose everything. They don't want to be thrown in jail just to talk about Jesus's name. So digital solutions can do that, and they don't have to be afraid. Um, they can be as open as they want.

So uh, that's one piece that Leighton's talking to. And then the other part is Leighton, he's on, he's on the campaign trail to hear people, let him speak on.

How churches can stream on the internet from a baseline perspective. So Leon's changing his content. You'll see soon where he's going to be openly telling folks about how to baseline industry standardization of how to do digital things for the church, for your church or outside of your church. But his target is mostly going to convince churches to join the digital frontier and more than what COVID made you do, but do it from more than a baseline. The expectation of doing things digital has moved up since COVID. A lot of folks assumed it's gone down or doesn't exist anymore, and actually it's continuing to rise. And that's going to be Lane's job is to reach that baseline expectation. Of course, all those folks who want to go above that, it takes more, more than what Leon will be throwing out there generally, because everyone's context and city and people group is different. But Leon will be hot on the trails of that. Yeah, Leighton, it was so Leon blew me away the other day where he put in Discord with that. He connected with a friend of mine, Simon Dirks. And it's like, hey, and you know, shared some of the stuff that Simon's working on. What was so interesting is that I've never met Simon. Simon lives in Germany. And so, you know, Leighton relationally, digitally, without me introducing, connected with a guy that I knew. Simon. And so I've been talking with Simon for a couple years now over different things. And you know, they're, I didn't realize this, but you know, Simon's planting and starting a network for digital churches essentially. Simon's doing the thing that we did through Digital Church Network. And Leon and we're going to have Simon on the podcast. I've been trying to get him and another guy on the podcast for six months or a year. Like we just haven't. It's been a year now, but we haven't been able to figure out time zones. Believe it or not, like time zones is the hardest thing. Shock. But you know, the fascinating thing is Leon's like, hey, why don't we, why don't we work together? Like, can we, can we, can we, the church digital, can we resource and help and be an aid to this network that's starting up in Germany? And you know, I actually don't run the organization anymore, so I don't have like the authority to actually say yes. But heck yeah, like why, why aren't we, why should we not? Like let's get a kingdom win globally and come alongside some of our other brothers who think crazy and sisters that are on another continent. How can we help the digital church expand in Germany? Or how can we help digital churches reach some of the areas where you cannot have a physical churches meeting? Like what would it look like in Iraq and Iran and Afghanistan and China if we started to see churches exist digitally? Because there's so much pressure and strain and actually like murder. Like they will kill you if in Iraq. And so digital is the way to make that happen. And how, why, how can we start to resource and help people in that space to understand more of what digital can be? And so like the future of the church digital for us, not only to create movements here in America, but resource, envision, resource, envision people outside of the US globally and come alongside them of what's happening. Man, it's starting to really look beautiful of what 2024 can be.

Okay, so we've been talking about the Avengers. We've not been talking about the Avengers, but we've been talking about this idea of doing digital Avengers and about how the team that we've been building through the church digital, how we can start to step in and maybe avenge something. I don't know the analogy probably breaks down. But Bernie, the Avengers is your heart, man. You want to talk a little bit about that?

Well, as a nerd of things, yeah, I always love the idea and I think Andy helped form this as well. I just, I love the idea of calling us Avengers. I guess, well, I don't, I don't know who Andy did you choose who you would be? I you did. I don't recall who it was. Who was it? I want to say for the record, been saying Avengers, but it's really X-Men.

Well, like somehow we all tailored towards the X-Men side. Yeah, I think that's just because of awesomeness and plus like they're the Avengers are played out. Like don't add me. Anybody that's listening, the Avengers are played out.

Oh no, come on. We just lost viewers for, yeah, that's fine. Uh, I think I ended up being something like either Cyclops or Gambit. Maybe is that what I heard?

Ah, I like the Cyclops. I think you're like a really good leader. You're like the leader guy. I don't know about that. I see Gambit. Gambit is a kind of a not so not such a good guy, right? He's, is he a good guy? I don't, you keep talking. I'm going to look up exactly what I am because now I'm curious. I'm pretty sure Gambit isn't exactly the role model. He's like, he's kind of, yeah, he kind of sucks. Just put it that way. I think he has a movie coming out soon, so we'll see what they think. But last I checked, Gambit isn't the best role model. But oh, okay, here's what I got. Somebody gave me with Doctor Strange, which I can see, or Thor, which I don't know if I get Thor because I have no hair. I'm not tall. I'm definitely not Norwegian. I'm Polish. And yeah, so I think I like the Doctor Strange one though. That's pretty fun.

You do the CrossFitting though.

I do do CrossFit. That's true. That is very Sorik.

Yeah, yeah, well, while you, I assume we just got on a sore subject, so I'll let you figure that out. Wow, oh my gosh, that was painful even for me, which superhero does that jokes? That's my guy. Andy's at the end of the day, yeah. Oh, he does go. He has nice nails. He tells good jokes. True. Uh, but um, RIP for the Avengers idea is that each of us would be a standalone. I think that's the difference between the X-Men and I think the Avengers. The Avengers usually each one is iconic in their own right. X-Men has usually always been about the team. Uh, each one, X-Men usually gets their butt kicked when they're alone, except for maybe Wolverine. But he gets his butt kicked all the time because he has a healing factor, kind of like plot armor. But the idea is that each of our leaders would be standalone in their own right, would be someone respected in the space that they want to speak Jesus into. So, uh, like Leon, he would be the guy who would be the one for baseline, showing churches how to get into the digital realm in a not so embarrassing way or above what they think is the baseline. Because the baseline expectation is if I stream on Facebook, we're now digital. And that, that is just not the baseline expectation anymore. That barely scratches the surface. Everyone's doing that. That's not really reaching anyone other than checking off a box that we did something digital. Um, so Leighton is paving the way to speaking into that space because he's been streaming for quite a few years now, probably as long as you, Andy, or you're probably a little bit longer than him. You guys are somewhere, you guys are somewhere within a year or so of each other. But that there's so much institutional knowledge from hardware, software, and just how to do it consistently day in day out, not go through burnout, and how to find ways to make it redeeming the Lord in the process. That it's not just you glamorizing self but glamorizing Christ. And then you have someone else like I'm looking at the list. Um, Stacy, who has a big heart for the grieving space and more than like when you hear grieving, you probably assume some type of loss of like a loved one. But uh, in just one hour conversation with Stacy, she is just so attuned to all the things that can cause grieving like job loss. And I didn't have the notes, but there's like seven other types of loss. And she's going to go through and really own that space because she, for some, you know, we're all different parts of the body of Christ. But somehow she gets power by dealing with such a painful place. And I think the one lesson I learned from Stacy is you never really get over loss. Like me losing my mom five or six years ago, you know, I would tell people, oh, it took me four years to get over it. And something in talking with Stacy, you don't actually get over it. What happens is you learn to accept it and it becomes a part of you. And then you just live with it. But you don't live with it in a way that it drags and holds you down. But it becomes a part of it. It's almost like it merges into your being and you move on as a, and you move on with it instead of it being this, un, this elephant under the rug that blurt. And because if you don't deal with grief, it'll come out on its own terms, which is something you learn as you grow older. That if you don't deal with grief, it will hit you when you don't want it to hit you. You won't be in control of it. You could be in a restaurant. And I told her one funny story because I thought it was cute. Is every once in a while I'll see a small little Asian woman. I'm like, oh my God, that's my mom. And she said, oh, those are, those are, I think she called them echo or something. But she had some kind of name for it. And like, she's like, giving me context to understand what's happening. That little Asian lady, she actually does look like my mom if you put up a photo next to the two, you'd be like, oh my gosh, like same small little stature, same hairstyle and all that. And it's just, uh, I forgot how she, you know, got to have more Stacy sessions, I guess, to understand it in a grieving expert way. But um, it's just so nice. She has all these cool terms to give you context and know what you're experiencing so you're not always like, for me, I just thought it was a cute little moment. Like every couple years, there'd just be some random lady. I'm like, oh my gosh, I would have to look away because it just makes me think of my mom too much. I gotta like, oh, I gotta go somewhere else because that's, she's the mannerisms are too similar. Um, I dare she dare not speak and then actually sound like my mom like burst into tears. Just so cute. Um, and then other experts that we have in the room, uh, you got J, who is like the uh, discipleship expert, if you will. So coming out with some cool titles for the new website. But his goal is perfecting this uh, training manual of how disciples make disciples digitally. And that it's not just a thing you have to do. It's a thing you want to do. And you have the tools and how to do it. It's so easy. I think the one thing I got from J's course is that it's so easy to do as long as you're intentional about it. And I think a lot of us were very unintentional about the Great Commission. We wait for moments to happen, assuming we're not a pastor like Andy, where it just happens being a pastor. But for us non-pastors, you kind of just wait for it to present itself. But through J's course, it shows you there's intentionality where it's not like you're always on, but you're tuned to moments that are open doors and maybe you should walk through those doors. Whereas before, like, yeah, that's for, that's some, that's Andy's job. He's the pastor. He'll get it. And I think that's like so the wrong mentality of Christians today. It's not the pastor is just a guy like everyone else. It's not his job to do all the Jesus things. Um, it's our job as Christians. Um, so there you go. Yeah, so I think it's going to be interesting as we start to build out this Avengers team, not only of thought leaders, I mean, because we can listen, you can read a J Mo article all day long. Like some of some of his concepts and perspective is incredible.

And so like there's thought leadership, but there's also, um, like consultants. Like, how can, um, Leighton come and develop that base, help your church develop that baseline for what, um, digital needs to be? How can you elevate your game to get to that, to even just the beginning level?

How do you move beyond just streaming and streaming of a church service and start to really utilize streaming to reach people in digital space? And these are just some of the questions. Getting into whether it's, um, whether it's Leighton, whether it's, uh, even some of Bernie with some of the financial things he's bringing, Andy from a content or from a ministry perspective. Like there's such an opportunity, um. Ray is coming along from communications, and I'm, we're being very casual, um, you know, talking about some of these names, but just look for this opportunity to come alongside. We won't call it Avengers because, you know, I'm pretty sure Marvel's got that term copyrighted. I'm willing to bet we can't license it. I'm pretty sure, dang, I don't want to have jail time over this.

And, um, my dogs are currently barking and going crazy. I don't know if you can hear that, but never get two dogs. One dog's fine. Two is the worst if you do content online. But there's an incredible opportunity for us to come alongside the church, um, and, uh, and now we've got also, I mentioned earlier, some of these partnerships. You know, we're talking to Glue, or we're doing a lot of work with Glue already through He Gets Us and the Explorers program and expanding into other things. And we're already talking with some other partners, Start Church and others that are doing, um, ministry in digital space and coming alongside and kind of helping with that.

And so that's where, hey, like, you know, some of these organizations, missional organizations, global organizations, how can we help? What are you looking for? What are you struggling with? And so, you know, I don't know if agency is the right word, but, um, you know, especially with Glue, we've been doing a lot towards this idea of how to equip responders better. And so it would be, who of me, of right now, Andy, you want to talk about FTTT and really get into, uh, from texting the testimony, and what that has looked like so far?

Yeah, uh, there, the partnership with Glue has been awesome. Uh, they have drastically expanded their footprint in digital ministry in the last I'd say two years, but in particular the last year. Everybody remembers the He Gets Us ad from the Super Bowl in 2023, and it kind of lit the Christian social media sphere on fire for a couple days, which I think was really cool. And that actually helped improve, in good and bad ways, as everything with Christianity does, um, and that actually helped improve the standing of what Glue was trying to do, which is really become the premier technical platform for Christianity, utilizing all sorts of different partnerships and kind of a big wealth of database knowledge and, you know, a unique team of engineers. They have been able to plug certain pieces in to really, uh, hone in on people that are exploring faith.

And we actually, um, partnered with Glue to help out that Explorer program. And so we kind of had this first step, which was creating a series of videos based off of actually part of what we're doing with our discipleship program. We had Dr. John Harris, uh, really delivering some key things talking about the blessed practices from sharing Jesus online and everything that was that kind of came from that. But out of that sprang a deeper partnership, and we were given the remit to create a show, uh, some sort of unique podcast show stream, something that was designed to do three things.

Number one, it was designed to be entertaining, of course, because you don't just want to have a bunch of people sitting staring at a camera for a couple of hours or a couple of minutes because nobody's going to watch that. Doesn't matter where you put it. So it wanted to be entertaining. Number two, it had to be insightful, uh, meaning there had to be actual real experts doing actual real things. And number three, it had to tie into what Glue was doing specifically with its Explorer program.

And so out of that came this brainchild that I and kind of some members of our team developed called From Text to Testimony. And From Text to Testimony is essentially a show that is all three of those things. I'd like to think we're entertaining. You guys don't have to agree with me. Uh, I think we've got a really good chemistry myself and, uh, John Pile, who is like my blood brother, and I've never met the dude. But you want to talk about a digital relationship? Like me and that guy were homies. Uh, and then the amazing Megan Carter, who we've already talked about, and we are the Three Amigos on From Text to Testimony.

And essentially what the show does is it walks through our real life experiences using the Glue Explorer platform. There's a lot of things that Glue is tying together, but one of the main things is using a free texting service to help reach people that are in need of care, of love, of conversation, of community, of all sorts of things that we know that we really have that core gut feeling that we need. From Text to Testimony addresses a lot of the holes that are currently in that program, a lot of things that we have seen, a lot of the experiences we had, a lot of the conversations, and then out of that we draw practical learning and practical tips.

And it's been a lot of fun to produce. It's been a lot of fun to be on. It's been a lot of fun to present to Glue. Uh, you can check us out actually on our Church Digital YouTube page. Also, Glue is going to be marketing that as well. So if you're ever in touch with anything that Glue is doing, please do us a favor and click the FTTT link. I don't care if you watch it, just click the link, make us, you know, give us a little boost there with Glue. Uh, that's that's called viral marketing, right? We're allowed to do that. Uh, that show, by the way, is going to continue. Uh, we are blogging about it. We're posting about it. We are doing the thing, and I have had a ton of fun getting a chance to just talk with Megan and with John and really get into some of what people are actually struggling with. Things like anxiety and depression and mental health and grief and loss. And, um, we talk about Power Rangers, and then we loop that right into, you know, mental health conversations because it does happen. And all sorts of things in there. So check it out. From Text to Testimony. It's a lot of fun.

Yeah, I just want to contribute here. Um, that show is incredible. Um, the entertaining? Yeah, no, I'm kidding. It's entertaining. Thanks, Jay. But the heartfelt conversations, uh, digging into topics, um, for people, for digital missionaries and people that are sharing Jesus digitally on social media or via texting, like we're doing it for Glue, aimed at Glue, um, people that are part of the Explorers program, people that are responders and active into that. But beyond that, uh, if you are currently doing any sort of digital ministry, like hands-on, in the weeds, interacting with people directly, um, like that is your show. These are your people. And what they're doing to practically equip on how to handle mental health issues and other challenges that you're facing with the Explorer program and otherwise, like it's a very good resource for people that are in the midst of that.

And so, um, I mean, really, it's become one of the flagship things that we've been doing here with the Church Digital. Like there's, um, that, my podcast obviously is coming back, but that has stepped up in a big way. Um, I'm going to be doing some things over with our friends over at, um, Resi and Pushpe, and you'll see some of that. We'll talk about more of that in the future. Um, but even like, I don't know if we can get Tom Pounder on the phone. Like, is he available? Let me, we're gonna have him. Yeah, we're gonna have him call in in just a few minutes. He is, he's gonna sneak in some of the stuff. Like, I just, I want, as he's coming in, I want to say this before he actually jumps on because Tom Pounder is freaking incredible.

Yeah, the stuff that he generates for you, for the kingdom, um, is incredible. And the dude's been doing it for years. Like, I think between YM Sidekick, TCD Sidekick, uh, the stuff that he was doing, all secondhand, because he was all doing, he was at the church and still is. Like, he's been doing this for eight or nine years easy, um, writing content, writing blogs, doing podcasts, uh, just trying to help people on the front lines of churches. And him coming alongside the Church Digital and, um, and contributing and being the sidekick of the Church Digital and contributor to the TCD Podcast Network and really overseeing a lot of the content overall, man, it's been really fun to work with him at a more direct level, uh, and see what God's been doing with him in this space.

So is this going to be like that Michael Scott thing where he's like, "I would never say that to his face"? Like, you're just never going to tell him all of these glowing compliments? I'm totally going to bust his butt for coming on late, even though we told him five o'clock and not whatever time it's supposed to be.

So no, I would never say this. He'll listen to it and he'll be like, "Oh, that's sweet," and then I'll totally deny I said it.

Hey, you know, for years, I'll just be honest right here. For years, I wasn't sure Tom, uh, was actually a real person. I thought he was a Russian spam bot because it's true. It's true. Because I would never actually see him. I knew all of his friends. His friends would tell me because I would see his friends all the time, but Tom never went to conferences. He never aligned the things. And, like, you know, he's just couldn't get out. And so I wasn't sure Tom was an actual person. Um, in many ways, now I've seen Tom. We've been able to, like, be in physical space once or twice. I, I think, um, I now feel that about John Pile, by the way. I'm not sure John Pile's a real person. I think he's just, I don't think he is either. I think he's like one of those, like, um, VTubers. I think he's a VTuber. Like, he's just, he's just a, he's like Hatsune Miku. Just like somebody's voice in a background somewhere with a, he is, he's too good.

Tom, we'll get to you in a second. It's okay. All right, we're chatting. We're chatting around. Kyle is too good. He is too good to be a real person. John, I love you, but you are too good to be a real person. You are too good. Um, his podcast, by the way, uh, he's doing a podcast season, Beyond Church. What's what's his podcast called? Inside Y? Better on the Inside Y? Once again, like, I know he's on a break right now. Um, it was 2023 was a rough year for a lot of people, but my gosh, the stuff that he does and the conversations that John does is unbelievable.

Well, we can talk about John later. Tom, hey, we got Tom here. Hey, hi, Tom. Hi, guys. I listen, welcome in. You're wondering what you walked into. Why don't you have a seat over there? So we, uh, you know what, uh, Bernie just told me that I had to stop singing your praises because it was like too appropriate for the air and that I needed to, like, tone back. So forgive me. You'll have to go back and listen to everything nice that I said about you. But hey, why don't you talk a little bit about some of the stuff that's coming up with, uh, TCD Sidekick?

Yeah, so if you don't know what this TCD Sidekick is, it's a podcast that I've been doing for a number of years where I bring on ministry leaders and we talk about

How to do ministry more effectively in today's world and today's world is really centered around this digital and online component. You know, I know that you talked about this a while back and I don't know if this is a four-letter word or not, but the phygical ministry where you combine the digital with the in-person. Um, and I really get ministry leaders on and really talk about how we can do, use digital and online as tools to help us do ministry more effectively. And so I bring on all sorts of just ministry leaders, whether an executive pastor, a video guy, student minister, children's minister, whoever is doing ministry and incorporating those digital components, I'm bringing them on and talk about what they're doing so that we can all be encouraged to do ministry better and more effectively in today's world. It's beautiful. Um, Stadia, I would like to formally apologize for using your trademarked word phygical. Uh, please don't sue me. Uh, next time we'll get permission before we do such a request.

Tom, I thought we had this conversation. Um, yeah, I, it's funny like whenever I say phygical, I got, I've gotten so much crap over the years for saying phygical like people don't like the word phygical. Like it's, um, they equate it to what's, what's the word like, um, like fidget. There's other words that that you know when you say it, it's like that just sounds like a dirty word.

Well, I don't, I don't like the word moist. I hate that word moist. That's what I was trying to come up with. Moist. It's like phygical and moist. It's like you can't, you can't say words like phygical. Um, yeah, people are afraid. I'm like, I'm like, are you killing somebody? You think I'm killing somebody because I said digital? I don't, I don't understand why. Don't you like tuna? I just, I just, I got, I have like a, I have a couple of bugaboo words. Moist, tuna, and garbage. I don't like the word garbage for some reason. It's just, they make me just, anyway, keep going.

That that must be like a musician sound guy thing like you hate garbage. Okay, I'll quick story. Garbage is is one of those words that like as a neurotic twelve-year-old or eleven-year-old I was like trying to go to sleep and I have a terrible time sleeping all every year since I've been alive I just can't fall asleep. My mind doesn't shut off and so I was sitting there literally staring at the ceiling and it got caught. You ever get like get caught in a word and you just like think about the word and then you think about it and then you think about it? That was garbage for me and it was like garbage, garbage, garbage, garbage and I, I did it for probably it felt like an hour. It was probably only five minutes but just kept that word kept repeating and I, I learned to hate it at that point. So we don't call it the garbage right here. We call it the trash. Take out the trash, please. I'm gonna start the garbage podcast. Don't, I'm unsubscribing right now. Tuna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna subscribe and then unsubscribe just to stick it to you. Can you call it what the garbage by by Romans one-oh-nine? That would be awesome. Um, would would love that.

So Tom, um, man, uh, what, what, listen upfront and and I was singing your praises earlier even though Romans told me to shut up, uh, you're the heart that you've poured into the church digital with the the content that you're you're writing and complimenting and and coming into and and when I took the break carried for six months, man, it it has been awesome. Um, and and I have heard from from many out there that it's benefited and so thank you for doing the effort for taking the time for for like you did and Tom's not going anywhere. Uh, we're looking forward to ramping even even more up but man thanks for some of the work that you've done for the kingdom over the past six months or so, longer than. Thanks. I mean, honestly, like here, here's the deal. Like again, when I started doing digital ministry, I was very much a self-taught guy. I didn't go to school for this. I didn't do training. I went to school for youth ministry and so I had to learn all this stuff. So I would latch on to people that was were doing this. So that's again that's how I first discovered who you were, Jeff, and then got connected with Andy and everybody else. And but the reality is my heart is to really help equip people and give them practical ability so that they can say, you know what, this isn't rocket science. I can incorporate digital stuff into my ministry. I can learn this stuff too. And uh, I can be a digital missionary and encourage people in Christ no matter where they live or what they're doing. And so that really, my heart is really to to help raise up leaders that they that they think, hey, I can do this. This is possible for me to do.

Yeah, love that. By the way, nobody, nobody was providing helps and aids, you know, with this back in like twenty-eighteen, twenty-seventeen, before then. Andy, when did you start being digital pastor focusing like digital? Digital was June of twenty-nineteen. Twenty-nineteen? Yeah, it was, it was twenty-nineteen. It was Jay, it was me, it was Tom, and it was maybe Dave Adamson. But Dave's been off and on on on what he's focusing on. I know he's got a lot of different focuses. Um, and so yeah, it's, it was light and and honestly Jay was the first person to interview me and I think Tom heard me on Jay and that's when Tom reached out and so those were really the first two to kind of circle around me and help me get started uh with that and so hats off to Jake Granda out there.

Tom, Tom's Avenger is we have him as either Hank or Robin and some people might take offense to Robin but like Tom is that dude without the weird. Tom, Tom is no, not Robin Leech. Robin like a Batman and Robin fame. Yeah, we're jumping like metaverses. We can't we can't go DC to Marvel. I didn't come up with it, okay? I just, I'm just say Iron Lad. Can we? Robin is like my favorite. I know the Avengers is Marvel and so I'm okay with Hank. But when I again when I thought of sidekick, I'm thinking I'm, I'm the Robin of you all and so I want to help you guys and you know that's that's kind of where I I figured I'd play in. Is this the Rob Marvel actually have a good sidekick? Wait, what'd you say? What'd you say, Bernie? There was a certain Robin that want that Batman or tried to? Yeah, that was in the Batman. So there, Dick Grayson is my favorite Robin. He he was the original and he became Nightwing. So you know, yeah, are you trying to kill me, Tom?

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. This just got ugly. Yeah, Tom, are you are you trying to take me out? No, no, no. You're taking Bernie. It's now Bernie's problem. It's not me. Yes, I'm clear. Sleep with one eye open, Bernie. Wait, wait, if we really think about that, makes him the first Robin, which would make you would be the third Robin, which would make me the fourth one. You're the little, right? Yeah, I'm, oh, I'm the, I'm the best one. Yeah, well, are we sure about that? Yeah, that still remains to be seen. That's the equivalent of my DC knowledge right there. That's all I've got, ladies and gentlemen. That's all you need.

Hey, you'll notice one thing here. We've been talking a lot about the church digital and we've really not said anything except a passing joke about Digital Church Network, DCN, the church planting organization that uh that we started or that I started. And um, well, it got confusing like I, I just, I don't want to like try to mince words on this. Uh, the idea of trying to market and communicate two separate organizations, uh, the the the weight and the burden, it just, it didn't make any sense. And as I started talking to people about how they were two separate, like people that knew what we were doing, honestly, people were were telling me, hey, Jeff, we have no idea what you're talking about. We just know it's you. We just see you talking about it. And so the idea of having the two separate organizations running one, the church digital as a for-profit aimed at helping establish churches and two, Digital Church Network, which is aimed at at helping plant digital churches, the the overlap just became where it didn't make sense to really separate them. And so we went through this process and it's taken six months or so, honestly, to combine the two together, the church digital and the Digital Church Network. And um, the the cage match for which domain name would actually win uh went to the church digital. Um, one of the reasons why it's because it would kill me inside if we actually lost TCD, changed the logo, fine, but uh, I like, let's let's keep that sucker going. Uh, I'm kidding. There's other reasons. But I, I do actually really love the idea of the church digital.

So um, you know, our our dedication to church planting still there, if not stronger, it's tied into the movement system and we're you're going to see that ramp up. Um, arguably exponentially as we start to get more uh leaders like Tsunami and more leaders like Megan as we start to resource other organizations like what's happening in Germany, which we'll get more into that later. And so um, our our our passion to be once again the people that are dealing with the crazies, uh, that are helping resource the crazies. One crazy is is a nut job. Two crazies is something to consider. Three crazies, well, they're forced to be reckoned with. And so I think we're lining a bunch of crazies up, uh, Tom Pounder included, trying to kill off Bernie, uh, but what you're, I think you're going to see with the church digital in the future is is going to be uh a powerful force to reckon with as we leverage digital discipleship uh to reach and empower people to what God has called them to do in physical and digital space.

So I am so looking forward to what the future holds uh with this organization as as it as it continues to grow and expand. And so that may be all I have to say from a from a podcast host perspective. Um, as we're landing the plane here, guys, and you know what, I haven't, I haven't wrapped up a podcast in like six months. I'm actually like, what am I supposed to do at this moment uh as we're landing the plane because that's my catchphrase that I've said two hundred seventy-five times. Uh, Tom, any closing thoughts on your side?

Happy to be here. I am really excited about what the new year is going to bring for the church digital and the Digital Church Network. Tom, digital violations. That's two violations. We got phygical and DCN. Phygical and DCN in the same podcast. I don't even know. Um, all right, so we're very happy for it's coming in the church digital. Um, and happy New Year. Need like the Family Feud x i. You can just cut all of me out of this. Oh, no, it's staying. It's staying. My every second of that's in. That's that's good. Andy, the person who should have shipped out the language guide has who's can hopefully get that out maybe R can put something together in the next couple days. Um, what sounds like I got work to do on our branding guide. Uh, that's awesome. Twenty twenty-four, any closing thoughts as we're landing the plane?

Twenty twenty-four is going to be rad. Uh, we've got some really cool partnerships. We've got a really cool team established and like for the first time in I think hopefully since Jeff started, there is a a a lot of real, real like big growth happening, not just being Jeff L, but being team Le. And the only way this is going to succeed is if we can help Jeff really spearhead this. So I'm super stoked to be part of this team and yeah, it's going to be, it's going to be a really, really cool year.

Awesome. Bernie, any closing thoughts on your side?

Nope. Bye.

Good, good answer. Wow, that's that's how he leads his meetings by the way. The power of editing. The power of editing. Actually, had a closing thing. It turns out I'm actually the third Robin, which is Tim Drake. That makes Andy the bad boy Robin, Jason Todd, who Joker kills, who then doesn't die, comes back for vengeance. So actually, Andy's the bad Robin and Damian is the fifth one and Tim Drake. I'm just the innocent one. I'm, I'm like Dick Grayson. I'm like Tom. We're just the innocent Robin sidekick guys. It's just good to be one.

Of the good, oh all right. Andy's officially Red Hood. Is that what we're saying? Okay, he's the guy who gets killed by The Joker. That's the, that's the part that, oh, an inauspicious end. I love it. Yeah, nice work Jeff. That's your fault. Why did you let J? All these, this is why I hang out in Marvel world because like, it's, it's, it's, it's happier. It's, it's less, it's less gruesome. Yeah, yeah, just don't read anything Spider-Man related because apparently his, the real tagline is Spider-Man never gets anything nice. Huh? Yeah, the real Spider-Man, Peter Parker, they've decided to never let him have a happy ending. He will never be happy. Huh? Miles Morales and all the other spider people can have happy endings. Peter Parker cannot. Sorry. And, and, and, and podcast end. Pause there we go. Yeah, yeah, there we go. I mean, I wouldn't say technically it's not your podcast 'cause I'm the host, but you're my boss. So hey, on that end, we're going to land the plane. This has been great.