EP289 - Jeff Talks Beer, Multiplication, and the Digital Church

And I would suggest for many of us that are doing the digital church thing, we've got to kill the mindset like how we thought of church, our systems, the growth, even our ecclesiology changes in digital space. Not that it goes away from Biblical—I actually believe that it goes closer towards Biblical—but it's different. Our mindsets are different than it is in physical space.

Welcome to the Church Digital podcast. Through this podcast we will talk about the technological innovations within the church, but more than tech for tech itself, we will address deeper questions. Is discipleship 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 and artificial intelligence fit into all of this? Whether you're a big or small church, the Church Digital's goal is to help churches like yours learn to be a multiplying church digitally and physically.

And now here's your host, Jeff Reed.

All right, hey, you got episode 289 of the Church Digital podcast. Jeff Reed here, founder of the Church Digital. And oh, by the way, the Church Digital podcast brought to you by Riverside. I always got to get that plug in. Love our friends over at Riverside. I got to tell you, each and every week I find a new reason to love this software.

But hey, here with 289, we get to talk. Oh, I—Jeff, I get to talk to the Church Digital family. We're adding a new format every other week here into the podcast. Some, hopefully you've seen it at this point. Sometimes we do a live interview where I'm interviewing people that are involved in digital ministry, digital planting, et cetera, literally all over the world. Or sometimes it's just me doing a stream talking to people through the Church Digital fam. And so today is that time where hey, you get me now.

We did this. I know this is post-Easter as you're listening to this podcast or on YouTube, but we did this live stream Thursday, I guess Monday, however you say it, Thursday, the day before Good Friday. And so it was a great time hanging out with the friends. We talked digital church planting. We talked multiplication. We talked apprenticing. We talked about how "spring up a well" means something completely that I did not realize that it meant. And so some interesting parallels, even getting into like we were talking beer and alcohol and cigar—like it was random. Some of the stream, the first ten minutes, I think you'll find entertaining. But even beyond then, man, it was great hanging out with some friends and seeing some friends I hadn't seen in months and looking forward to connecting with them years, looking forward to connecting with them as well.

But hey, we did want to make this content available for you all, the TCD podcast listeners. And so for a while—you know, I don't know how long we'll do this, but for a while—every other week will be me doing a live stream monologue, and then the opposite weeks will continue on doing the interviews. Got some—oh my gosh—got some really cool interviews coming up in the weeks to come. Some interesting partnerships they're getting ready to announce. Some interesting voices getting ready to come in and speak towards some ideas, especially on this digital metaverse plan thing. The whole metaverse game is going to blow up. It's going to be completely different than what we think it is. And it's fun, kind of just even seeing that coming up on the horizon. So stay tuned on that. I can't leak it. I can't leak that today.

What I can leak—and it's not leaking, it's official—is that the Church Digital, we're launching a community like today, this week. And so right now we're moving away in time. We're moving away from our Mighty Network community. It's been home, but me casa, su casa. By casa, it's time to move on. And so now our casa, our home, our community is going to be over on Discord. And so if you're interested in checking us out on Discord, go ahead and do that. Click on, open up your web browser, go to discord.thechurch.digital. Web browser, discord.thechurch.digital, and that will get you straight into our Discord community. Jump in, create an account if you don't have one. And oh my gosh, Discord's so cool. And we talk about that in the stream a little bit, but definitely we'll see you in Discord. Come hang out with us. And why are we on Discord? We'll talk about that in the stream. What do we want to do in Discord? We'll talk about that in the stream. And what are we doing like that? That's all in the stream. Why are we doing it in the stream too? This is a really good conversation.

And so for this podcast, I'm presenting me, myself, and I—not Jim Carrey. Was that a Jim Carrey movie? No. Jeff with the Church Digital in a conversation that I'm calling—I don't know—"Beer, Multiplication, and the Digital Church." Okay, we're going to go with that one. We're going to make that stick. Beer, what did I say? Beer, digital multiplication in the digital church. That is what we're going to be. Multiplication in the digital church. Okay, everybody, here you go.

All right, hey, everybody. Welcome to the Church Digital streaming out there for the fam here on the community. It's Holy Week. Hey, Whitebeard, Punk Monk Man. I loved hanging. I got to hang out with Whitebeard. I guess a week or so ago, it's been a minute. I've been on vacation. Jeff Reed here, founder of the Church Digital. And I was sitting poolside yesterday in Vero Beach, Florida at the Disney World Resort that's there on the beach. And, well, I'm back now. I kind of still wish I was poolside. There was—it's a beach resort. My family went to the beach. I, with the diabetic neuropathy, walking on sand is not a good thing for somebody who has no feeling in their feet, except excruciating pain. And that actually, I tried it and it did hurt. So, but I am back, looking forward to hanging out. And it's Holy Week here. And so I know there's a lot of stress going on with a lot of our physical church staff and volunteers that are out there. This is a big week. This is the Super Bowl week. Hey, Hector. Lon as well, Flat Cap. I was just texting Flat Cap a minute ago right before the stream. He was checking in on me. And so, yeah, things are good. Holy Week here. With the Church Digital, it's funny. Like, when closer we get, kind of I'll be honest, the month heading into Easter, we the Church Digital, we kind of, you know, quiet down a little bit. Like, we don't make as much noise. Now I know Flat Cap and Tom, and there's been a lot of work that's been happening over the past couple weeks with some devotionals. I know J-Mo, I saw, did one recently. Andy as well on YouTube Shorts. And that's been really good. We've seen a lot of energy, a lot of views get into that. Our viewership actually gone up as a result of some of these devos. You can grab them, check them out there on the Church Digital on YouTube. But really, in the church world, so much energy goes into actually doing the Easter service, to getting that perfection level in place for that Sunday morning, 9:00 a.m.

And you know, some services actually, when doing the stream, it was Monday Thursday? I actually have no idea what that means. I never grew up in a church that celebrated that. But I know my church is doing a Good Friday service tomorrow. And so if you're doing Monday Thursday tonight, if you're doing a Good Friday Friday, if you're doing an I don't know, I don't think Saturday's anything, but I know some churches do a Saturday service before a Sunday service, trying to get everybody maximum capacity in the building on Sunday morning. You know, whatever you're doing, I pray that somewhere in the midst of all of this, that you find God or that God finds you over the course of the Easter week.

In my story as a church staff for Easter 2011 is actually a Holy Week 2011. I should say, is a horror story. I actually wrote a blog for Resi. I'll put, when we do this for the blog and the show notes, I'll find it because I think it's published. If not, it's going to be published like within the next week or so. No, no, no, it's published before Easter because it was an Easter blog. But it was my horror story of Easter 2011, of how I worked 106 hours, I think, last I calculated. I was just in a situation where I, you know, I'm not saying I was used and abused. I led myself into that situation as well. I claim responsibility, as well as those who led me. But at the heart of it, you know, that Easter day, after Easter Monday, I was on churchstaffing.com trying to find my next job. And three months later, my family lived in a different state. And so there's I know there's a lot of difficulties that go into Easter and things like that. And it's so easy to say this is just for a season, and for some it was just for a season. You know, for me in that situation, I was three years into saying this is just a season, this is just a season, this is just a season. And you know, it wasn't a season. It was just the reality of it. And so wherever you are on your road and wherever God has you on your journey, I pray that God finds you this Easter in a way that is life-giving and is restorative to you for the days and the weeks, the months to come.

Thank you. You know, it was funny when I was in 2011, if somebody there was—there actually his name was Scott. He was a graphic artist at the church that I was at. And, man, I, if I had said I'd killed myself that week, I'd killed myself that week. I was working at 3:00 a.m. on business on property. I was working till 3:00 a.m. on the flip side. Like, there were twenty-hour, twenty-four-hour days straight through just working different campuses. But the reality was that nobody said thank you except for this guy, Scott, who's the graphic artist. And he told me thank you. And I literally broke down crying.

So fun story. Another day, you want to like, you know, take me out to lunch, buy me coffee, buy me a beer? Can I say that on the stream? Is that allowed? I have to ask Andy if I can say that. But we can get together. We can have that conversation offline. And that's great. But hey, listen, I am looking forward to hanging out with you today on this stream, Hector, Whitebeard. And even Leighton, man, what are your Easter plans? Give me something in chat. Let me click over to the chat so I can actually see.

Monday is commandment. A new commandment I give you to love one another. Okay, thank you, thank you for that. I am beer means well or spring in Hebrew. Really, Flat Cap, dropping the knowledge. The word beer means a well or a spring. Spring up new life. Go, go, go, go in my soul. Spring up a well. Splish splash and make me whole. You're telling me that means beer? That's like beer? Cause dang, I did not know that. That just like that warms the soul, man. I can't—I cannot wait. I was just singing that in my stream today. Lol.

All right, we're two for two with a stream up. Oh, spring up, oh well, in beer. So we've got Good Friday lunch service tomorrow and then Easter Sunday and barbecue at home with some family. Nothing, nothing sings respecting Jewish traditions by cooking up some barbecue. Throw some pork on that, and that'll be great.

Does that make beer living water? I think so, Whitebeard. I am all about that, man. I tell you, I love these streams, hanging out with you guys and getting to hear from you. Good Friday, all music and dance. Whitebeard, I was telling—I was telling my kids, my daughter is fifteen and my son is thirteen. We were driving up to Vero Beach. And now my—now let me say this about my daughter. My

My daughter has helped me launch a church. When she was—I mean, I'm trying to do math in my head—maybe she was eleven? This was pre-COVID 2019. She was—she's fifteen now—so she was ten and eleven. She helped me launch a multi-site location set up and tear down at a public school in Miami Beach. So like, she was—it was funny. I asked her, "How do you plant a church, Caitlyn?" And she said, "Well, first off, you need to find the people, and then you need to invite them to church, and then you need to tell them about Jesus." And so like, she's always had a heart towards planting. We've done the church plant now here with Reality Church, so she's actually successfully helped me launch two different organizations in her fifteen-year life. And so I was—when I'm telling—when I'm saying like "helped me launch," like my ten-year-old daughter would be telling adults what to do, and the adults would be like, "Thank you, Caitlyn," and in doing it, like it was high-level respect on both sides. And so I was telling my daughter about what you were doing. You know, they don't know the area where you are. I can't think of that—think I cannot think of the name of the city right now. But I pulled it—starts with an I. At the time, tell me the name of the city where you are.

Whiteboard. Um, like the little niche area. But I described it as kind of like the Art District that we have here in Miami, which I can't think of either because I am way not cool. Wynwood City. Thank you. Uh, it sounds like it—it's a Y, but it sounds like a C. Um, you know, but I knew it's like—um, I me—I can't think of it now either. But it's the Art District that we've got here in Miami, and that you're walking around dressed up in a monk outfit like on Friday night, handing out water bottles, and people are coming up to you looking for you to like pray with you because they want to talk to the Monk. And that's like your personality. And like, "Oh my gosh, she was like, 'Daddy, I want to go see that. Daddy, I want to go be a part of that, Daddy.'" And so, man, Whiteboard, we may come hang out with you on a Friday night sometime in Wynwood City. Uh, I'll probably go get a cigar, uh, and you know, be smoking that along the way too. Can I say that? Uh, flat cap, is there any spirituality to, um, smoking a cigar? I mean, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. If I quote Freud, but um, man, if we could—if spring up a well is really talking about beer, man, if we could like get something on a cigar, then my life can be complete, you know? Actually, I can't drink beer much anymore. I have to be really careful because of the yeast and the sugar content of all that. Uh, being healthy sucks. I was in Disney World. It's like the mecca of—or at least it's Disney Park, but it's the mecca of Disney desserts. And it's like I couldn't have any of it because like it would effectively like, well, a pain, and B, kill me. So I love the cigar, but I don't know any biblical connections. Off to investigate that. Work on that. Google is your friend. Thank you, flat cap. So good. And our podcast listeners are like, "What the garbage is going on? They're talking about beer, cigars, and smoking and Disney desserts and the beach?" And hey, listen, when I'm—I am still on vacation. I am still—it's five o'clock somewhere, right? It's actually 12:10 on a Thursday. I'll get AI to write the theology of it up. Uh, AI can do many things. I don't know. I trust AI for theology. Or at least I trust AI to create the first draft, you know? It was funny. We did that with Kenny Jang. Kenny Jang asked Kenny on podcast, "Hey, what—how much do you trust AI?" And he says, "AI was a great—" and AI, you know, Kenny's like the church expert right now in AI, or one of the loudest voices. What did he say? It's like, "AI is like a great research assistant. You trust them to do the leg work, but you never want to just turn it in outright without vetting and verifying." So there you go. Uh, but I finally started using AI. Yeah, even flat cap's getting into AI. Wow, that's interesting. So it's a turn of the times, man. AI's—don't run from AI. I mean, listen, at some point it's going to take over the world, and that's okay. Like, I mean, maybe it should. But whenever we get there, uh, might join you all in grabbing a cigar. So, uh, Hector, Hector, remind me—are you San Antonio? Are you Houston? Are you where are you in Texas? I promise you we're going to get into our podcast here in a minute. I am just—I'm having fun with some friends here. Hector will let us know here in a minute. Uh, but let's actually—oh my gosh, yes. South near San Antonio, about an hour south of—okay, yeah, yeah. I thought you were outside, but somewhere down there, man. That's great. So, man, you're like an hour from the Mexican border because I know San Antonio is not too far from Mexico at that point. Very cool. Yeah, close from Mexico. Okay, sounds good. Um, hey, I don't know if you guys saw this—we announced it last week on the Church Digital podcast—but the Church Digital, we're moving over to Discord. We are, um, you know, our time here with Mighty Networks has been nice. I don't want to be overly critical of our home, um, but there's a lot to be said to building a community outside of where people are instead of building a community where people are. It's interesting, and I'm not going to overly spiritualize this, but I was executive pastor of a church for a season—a multi-site church here in Miami—and, um, it was a brief season pre-COVID. And I said to the campus pastors, I was like, "Hey, you guys are—you're not campus pastors. You're community pastors. Like, don't pastor within the building. We've got to be pastors outside of the building. We got to be connecting where people are. Uh, and so go meet the people. Don't hide in the building. Don't hide in the refuge of the cross. Go outside and start connecting with people and bring them in the building. And if you're not going to do that, then nobody in this church is going to do that. You campus pastors have got to set the standard for that." And in many ways, you know, like I said, I'm not trying to overly spiritualize this, but I really kind of felt like hiding in that refuge is what we were doing with this community where we weren't actually out there connecting with people. Um, we weren't engaging. We weren't dialoguing. We weren't meeting. Um, and yes, our connections maybe we're doing that, but really having the community being more accessible, uh, is really our heart. And trying to also realize the people we're trying to reach—this next generation—um, man, they're not hanging out in Mighty Networks. It was really hard getting them to go over to Mighty Networks, but where they are is Discord. And so that's why we, the Church Digital, we're in the process of launching—we're self-launching it this week. Hard launching it actually Monday, the day after Easter, launching it that day. So, um, go to web browser discord.thechurch.digital. Discord.thechurch.digital. That'll get you in. That's your vanity URL to get you into our community. I don't know how many we got in there right now, but once you join us, and uh, you can hang out with us. And um, I know Andy, uh, who's on vacation this week in actual Disney World—uh, East Holy Week is—Andy is excited about launching that. Um, the community is Andy's actually going to be doing a big part of what's going to be happening in Discord. And so we got thirty-three as of now, but looking forward, obviously, to ramping that up. And there's going to be a lot of energy going into our Discord. I mean, he's talking about live podcast streams and game nights and movie nights. And you know, Discord guys, um, you know, are very excited about the Discord platform. So I think it's going to be really exciting to see some of the energy. Even as we're talking, I'm talking about working in virtual office hours in Discord. I think we all are at some level. And so even being more accessible individually within Discord, uh, to be able to meet with people—like our heart is to be very transparent as an organization. And I think that Discord helps us get there a step more than what Mighty Networks can do. Plus, I mean, just the features within the community set—no disrespect to Mighty Networks. Mighty Networks has been a good home, but um, it's been lacking in some areas that we were hoping would be developed by now.

Oh, virtual office hours. Very cool. Yeah, flat cap, yeah, I don't—maybe you missed that. Maybe you missed that meeting. We'll get you an update on that soon, uh, and then ask you to come up with those hours too. Uh, C.H. Spurgeon smoked cigars, so at least it puts us in good company. Uh, Whiteboard, punk monk, um, awesome. So yeah, I mean, like I said, it's um—sometimes a cigar, maybe it's just a cigar, but it can be a fun cigar. So I—it's funny. I see like six doctors at this point, and um, do you—and they ask me all the time, you know, "Do you drink?" I was like, "Not that much," you know, because at this point I don't. And um, "Do you smoke cigars?" You know, I used to say like, "Yes, but it's only like, you know, four cigars a year," because, you know, only when I'm in social circles out with people will I smoke one. And um, and they would always like the four. It was funny when a doctor is like, "Four? You need to get that down to two." He's like, "Because there's a big difference between smoking four cigars a year or two cigars a year." Like, fine, I'll get it down to two. And um, and so now it's probably zero, honestly. But you know, fine, I'll say two. And okay, so I smoke like two cigars a year just socially. And um, some doctors will freak out on me for smoking two cigars a year, and some doctors will be like, "Two's nothing. I'm not even going to write that on my chart." Uh, but it's so funny like they all just have their own different opinions. Lon's like, "I smoke while I blow snow or mow the lawn." Awesome. So we're talking about snow blowing and mowing the yard here on the Church Digital podcast. We are fifteen minutes into this live stream. So much fun. All right, hey, let's actually get into the topic at hand. This is going to be great. Um, hey, we have a—I have a philosophy in some of what I'm going to roll out probably in the stream over the next couple weeks. It's really getting into this philosophy of what we're doing. We, the Church Digital, what we're doing in ministry, and at the same time what we're encouraging digital churches, digital church planters, planters to do as well. Um, over the span of time through COVID and all, I've developed a framework. I mean, I guess that's the right word. We're still kind of piecing it together, and I'm working it out in my head. And we talked about this in the podcast recently. You know, it's that our connections—our digital connections need to drive people to community. Within that community, we build relationships that lead towards discipleship. Discipleship making, and our discipleship making always needs to be driven towards multiplication to create the loop. So we've got digital connections, which lead towards community, where discipleship happens, which leads towards multiplication. You know, it's interesting. Uh, Barbara Carrero, who is CEO of Word Revolution, she's new to TCD leadership. Uh, just invited her on—I don't know, maybe a couple weeks ago. And she's now the—maybe a month ago—she's now the connections. So she's overseeing connections, and Andy's overseeing community, and Jason Morris is overseeing our discipleship, and Leighton is assimilation, kind of helping everybody drive all the way through. Um, but it was interesting. Barbara sent me an article, uh, and I'll—

Put this in the show notes as well, but it was an article from Variety magazine. Variety, no it wasn't Variety. Variety Business. Oh my gosh, I'm blanking on the name of the company. It wasn't Variety, but it was one of those like, it was a fashion company, but it was that fashion business and I was like, I didn't realize fashion companies had business websites. And so it was like, but it was really, it was a really trendy, really artistic article, but it was talking about how the word funnel is dead. And about how we look at how, um, marketing basically, Jay-Z and Gen A, they broke the funnel of the funnel process of driving everything down from top to bottom and getting deeper down the funnel, then getting the conversion down at the bottom. Because what Jay-Z and Gen Z did is the goal is not to get the conversion. The goal is actually to get that Gen A, Jay Gen Z person to become a brand ambassador. Like it's not enough at this point, from a business standpoint here, it's not enough to get the sales transaction. It's not enough to get somebody to buy your product. The goal is not to get the money in the bank. The goal is actually to get that person to become a brand ambassador, to get so excited about what your business product is to actually start their own funnel and processing to become a mouthpiece for what, um, for what you're selling.

And it's interesting, like that's actually discipleship 101. Seth Godin, I've quoted this Seth Godin way back in, uh, 1929. Um, you know, somebody asked Seth Godin, how do you get your message quoted? How do you get your message heard around the world? Seth said, you know, telling a billion people, it's not the answer. A billion people don't care about anything you specifically have to say. Craft a message specifically for someone, get them to see it. Excuse me, get them to see it, hear it, understand it, and then get them to tell someone else. Like it's that repetitive motion that's what's in place. Jesus, um, you know, is the light of the world, and as we are to hear, we are to go. Um, the church in Acts 2, as they actually, I think it was Acts 8, I apologize, but the early church of Acts Jerusalem, as they were dispersed, as they went, they told. And so what you're seeing is a dispersion, a diaspora, should we say, of the church ideas. And in digital space, I would suggest that that multiplication down at the bottom, that it's not just enough for us to get conversions. It's really enough. It's a challenge for us to challenge those people to multiply, to not just build the mega church, the giga church, but instead to build multiple churches that are specifically aimed and targeted at nuances and niches. Niches, niches, niches, niches, however you say that. Niches, don't say it that way. That's weird. But that's the goal.

And what's interesting is Barbara, Barbara was so excited. She sent me this article and she's like, we think this way. We're ahead of the curve. And so Variety magazine or whatever it was, that Variety Business, that came up with this article talking about the death of the marketing funnel, we were ahead of the game. Thank you very much. And I give full credit to Seth Godin and Jesus Christ. I'll let the two of those, I'll let you figure out the two of those together. But no, that's good. But let's talk about this. So the top here, so really it's not even a funnel. And that's what I told Barbara. It's like, man, we've got to, we got to work on this language because I keep wanting to describe it as a funnel, and but it's not a top. It's more of a loop. It's like this. It loops back around. And so as we have connections, we invite those connections in the community. Within that community, we build relationships and get towards a disciplemaking relationship. And within the disciplemaking relationship, that's where we, um, we teach towards multiplication and empower and mobilize people to do their own thing. And now they're reaching their connections and build those into community or invite those into our community. But you can see how it loops. It constantly loops. And there's different layers to this. We want this. We, you know, some in church planting world, that's called generations. And so we want to see multiple generations. We want to see multiple loops come out of this. We want to see multiple layers come out of this. We want it to be complexity. This is a messy thing. It's okay to be messy.

If you've ever launched a multi-site church and you've gone from one campus to three campuses, you know, one to two campuses is easy. Um, you can fake two campuses being stable. When you get to three campuses, it's very hard to fake stability with campus number three. Campus number three is very messy. It's very awkward. It's very painful because you break every system. With one campus, with campus three, or campus three dies. And so you've got to, you've got to kill the systems. You've got to kill your mindset. And I would suggest for many of us that are doing the digital church thing, uh, we've got to kill the mindset like how we thought of church, our systems, uh, the growth, the even our ecclesiology changes in digital space. Not that it goes away from biblical. I actually believe that it goes closer towards biblical, but it's different. And our mindsets are different than it is in physical space.

You know, I talked on this podcast where I've had at least two different organizations offer me jobs within the past couple years, uh, to be a, you know, one church actually vocally said they wanted to be a million person church online. And, uh, actually I don't, I don't think they ever got off the ground. But they offered me a job to come on staff with them to blah blah blah. And it's like, you know what, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't even know that I agree that there needs to be a million person church. Um, you know, I think that's unwieldy. I think that's large. I think that's structurally awkward. I think that's, uh, numeric. I don't know that that's relational. Um, like there's a lot of challenges you've got with a million person church. Even the desire for a million person church, man, I, let's find a hundred of those. A hundred people in that, let's launch a hundred thousand person churches. I think the math is right there. Uh, the scale needs for support, yeah. I mean, that even even a digital, like could you imagine trying to be relational with a million people, uh, online? Like you don't have the, you don't have the easability of physicality. Uh, now you've got more access. Um, but it would be, it certainly would be a challenge. Um, a thousand, a thousand, ten person churches would be a hundred thousand. That I do know, Len. Um, but you get my point. Is that, man, if we need to be, we need to be thinking different. And that's where, that's where I love this idea of smaller churches. I love this idea because it's more relational. Um, I love this idea of intentionally focus on multiplication. And part of that means just right off the bat, like, who are we, who are we mentoring today to be able to, um, hand this thing off? If, who are we mentoring today to be the next generation pastor tomorrow? Who are we mentoring today to be in the, in the best, um, well, me, I'll just even touch on that as I'm literally coughing in the microphone. You know, I'm not, not I'm not the long term. It's interesting when I launched the church digital, when I when I spun off Digital Church Network, even Digital Church Network specifically, I, I, I'm not saying I heard a voice of God telling me, but just in my heart I knew I was not going to be the long-term solution for Digital Church Network. The need for an organization to launch, to plant digital churches, to focus on digital churches, I saw as a need. Um, but at the same time, I just had this like comfort that I was not going to be the long-term solution. Like if there's going to be a global organization that runs to plants digital churches across the planet, it does not need to be a white bald man with a very oppressive looking beard at this point. Go check me out on YouTube if you haven't seen it. I, I like the beard. How it's coming in, man. Never done this before. But hey, listen, no seriously, I, I didn't think it was going to be me. I, I even as I'm running the church digital, that's why when I came back, um, recently, um, I, I told, I told leadership I was like, no, no, no, I'm not. It's not Jeff leading. It's we're being led as a leadership. We're doing a team leadership here. Um, because I don't, A, I don't have the health capacity. B, I don't have the energy right now. C, I'm not even sure I'm the right person. But ultimately, D, we need to find the next generation. Like the people that we have in place for the church digital, uh, the team that I mentioned, our senior leaders are incredible. But honestly, I'm looking for the people that's going to take it to the next generation. I'm looking for those next generation leaders that are going to step up and that's who I want to meet. And that's who I want to start to dialogue and talk about what their passion for digital discipleship is and their desire to see disciples grow into leaders that are planting churches and multiplying churches in the networks and starting movements globally. Like for me, that's what I want to see. The next generation version of the church digital, um, and empower that guy or that gal or that team to do what they're doing.

That's a very selfless approach, is it not? To be able to have a, and I don't say this of my own to toot my own horn or my own fruition, but I mean I very easily could have, um, kept this idea for myself. Probably would have been easier to monetize had I kept it all for myself. Instead, the money that comes in, I, I pay the team. And so like to be honest, from a nonprofit standpoint, I haven't made a penny off the church digital. I've made some money off some of the consulting that I did, but that's been it. And so organizationally, even, hey, you know, instead of doing a podcast, a church digital podcast, I've encouraged the network and we've developed five or six shows. It's funny, just even yesterday I talked with a guy about starting a new show. I'm really excited. I'm not going to announce it yet. Going to tease it. It's going to be cool. It's going to be the most non-digital digital show we're doing. Um, but really excited about, yeah, I'm not going to, I'm not going to sell you. But it's not about me. Was it John 3:30? He must become greater. I must become less. And, um, you know, that verse has always resonated in my life because it can't be about me. Um, it can't be about my desires and my wants if it's going to be about God, if it's going to be about Jesus, if it's going to be about discipleship and multiplication. Now, if I want to make it about me, I can make it about me, build something around Jeff Reed and make have a bunch of stooges doing what Jeff Reed wants to do. And that may or may not work. That may or may not be more effective. But I don't know that that's going to have the legs. And so, um, multiplication is so important to this. Who are you multiplying? Who are you working with? Who are you mentoring? Who are you apprenticing? What does it even look like to apprentice or mentor someone? These are great questions and challenges, and these are the things to wrestle with. I mean, through the church digital, we've done tons of podcasts on mentoring and apprenticing. Well, we'll put one in the show notes. Um, I'm thinking we did one with Eric Mecha way back. Um, you know, in his context was not digital, but, um, you know, talked about what that would look like. It's one of the things I love about, you know, seeing what Mark is doing with, um, uh, nerd culture. You know, developing nerd culture, actually united that entire group, um, all the, all the streamers. You know, if Mark was egotistical, if Mark was thinking about himself, he would not have created nerd culture ministry.

Collective he would not be doing the Summits he would not be doing the podcast show that he's doing instead he would be focusing on building out Lux even if it meant dominating some of his competition and knocking him out and taking streams he would be talking about absorbing Jates and some of the others in building up his brand Lux Digital Church and there may be some of that I actually have no idea but the reality is is that instead of him absorbing in trying to build up his Lux Digital Church brand he's putting energy he's putting energy into Lux and he should but he's putting energy into nerd culture which is this network that really seeks to strengthen and unify the existing stream Christian streamers that are out there and in digital missionaries and digital churches but at the same time looking to train that next generation and create resources for that next generation to come along and do what God has called them to do and that deserves respect because it's very easy to be singular focused and me focused in ministry entitled egotistical spoiled looking at self instead of God and instead there's that challenge before us John 3:30 he must become greater I must become less that was actually it's funny Whitebeard no you but there was a um a sticker you know I used to own a Christian bookstore and actually a Christian second store called a Christian head shop called Hey Stacy Christopher Christopher Monroe holy cow dude man it has been a minute how are you doing man Chris I haven't I haven't thought of you in a long time we gotta catch up man great to see you um man Kentucky concrete I want to know everything of what's going on um I I will email you after the show let's find the time to jump on a zoom call or phone call and catch up man Chris I have I have not thought about you in a while hope things are going good in your world you and you man I'm blinking on your wife was your was your wife's name Chris is Christine no no I'm blinking on it right now I'm sorry um but there was this bumper sticker that I had in pouring concrete right now I'm glad I can entertain you and uh don't pour don't pour yourself into a corner while you're pouring concrete Chris Christie I knew it was close yes Chris and Christie Monroe um they were it's funny talking about Mark it was it was if I'm think I'm getting my cohort right it was Mark it was it was Mark Lutz it was uh Chesley Lundy who we all know and uh Chris in a row those were the three uh guys that were part of the first digital church planting cohort that Stadia ever did those were the those were the first three guys and I I had no freaking idea what I was doing like it was it was take the Stadia Playbook and just try to digitize it on the fly um and there were there were lots of lessons and even the Stadia Playbook was kind of changing at and I love Stadia I'm not ringing Stadia at all but the Stadia Playbook was changing like in real time and so I couldn't even get what they were saying really that down and oh man but it it was so much fun working working with uh with Chris and Christie on that hey but this this bumper sticker I mean it's literally it's it's um he he he must become greater I must become less it was literally like one by one by four in uh and we used to sell him at the bookstore we sold him at this head shop called C28 it's basically a Christian version of Hot Topic and P on we saw 100 people come to Christ in a in a brick and mortar mall in West Palm Beach Florida literally we brought 100 kids to Christ um witnessing and trained my employees to witness using like Christian t-shirts that were up up on walls incredible we were praying for people kids would come in they would after school they would come to our Oh Stacy knows C28 yeah C Stacy I ran the first C28 out of the state of California um we actually had a uh I had license I had money promised to open C28 up and down the state of Florida Miami Fort Lauderdale West Palm Beach Tampa Orlando um I think there was a six location I multiple millions of dollars were earmarked to me I was in my twenties uh were earmarked um I had to get a proof of concept I had to get one store to succeed if one store would have succeeded it would have been great and so I invested into one store C28 West Palm Wellington Green and uh long story short the year was 2007 and uh a wise man known as Barack Obama in his presidential campaign used the word recession and the economy fell apart like all he had to do was just and I love Barack but all he had to do was say the word and just saying that word brought it into being no that's not true but the economy fell apart the money dried up and actually I lost multiple businesses I lost two businesses as a result of that 2008 election the bookstore as well as my C28 as well as future C28 but man it was that was so much fun I ran that C28 Stacy for maybe three years two years it was it was two hours away from me because I lived in Miami and it was in West Palm Beach and so I hired a manager Ryan Elow uh and who was a friend of mine from college and he moved down here he had a friend moved down here we had to be like the assistant manager we hired kids actually we fed a lot of our our the kids that found Christ we fed them into local churches and um um Life Church Wellington Green actually benefited a lot from us we actually sent them they had just came about and so they were new in the area and we were crazy and they were crazy and so like we we really at the time ended up and there like the the manager one of the one of our assistant managers at C28 had actually became the youth pastor over there and like it was just great relationship between the two church the church and our organization um but we would have kids come over after school and do like Bible studies and and like come over and they'd have bad days and they want to pray with with the employees um oh it was really was the first time I ever looked at doing ministry outside of the box and it was interesting at the time I wouldn't have said that's church but in hindsight I I don't know maybe maybe we were doing church in a brick and mortar mall I mean we had we had connections so let's let's look at my my my funnel here we had connections um you know and through those connections um with the with the conversations we're having with with people in the store were we're engaging them we're dialoguing with them we're sharing Jesus with them they're finding Christ and then we're inviting them into a community now the community wasn't the best and it really it wasn't this is the downside where it probably wasn't church we weren't it's not like we were intentionally focused on discipleship we were more really focused on evangelism because we wanted the model was we wanted to partner with churches for ongoing discipleship and growth but really even just having long-term discipleship growth in place more focused towards empowering them towards discipleship and and yeah it could have been interesting to to spin that off as a church model but in in hindsight as I'm thinking about it probably was more of a a mall missionary mall at Wellington Green missionary I don't brick and mortar mission I I don't know um headshot missionary head shot missionary maybe that that's what we should call it good times he must become greater I must become less you know it's funny I can actually tell you the dollar figure of how much uh over well 100 I think it was like 107 officially 107 people coming to Christ cost because I know exactly how much money I lost running that business um for the two and a half years that it ran um and actually it's cheaper than a lot of our churches in America so yay me uh but the the fact is is that um God was glorified even through a a failing business uh because a failing business that lasted two years in a brick and mortar mall in Wellington Green um now um has a hundred people in the kingdom as a result of it over a hundred people in the kingdom as a result of it it's interesting you know I can actually tell you the names there's a couple of those kids that died um since then and I've been notified I was married at the time uh I was also a workaholic at the time thank you Stacy um one of the moms was very close uh to the to the store and uh one of the one of the kids that found Christ through the ministry of the mall actually had uh uh found Christ uh but had a a terminal disease and died maybe a year or two later and um it it's just a really sweet time you know when you're on the front lines of ministry whether it's physical or digital it's it's interesting like that was it was a physical relationship for many but I I was in Miami and so even my connections with this mom really was when I was writing blogs with runwithgod.com oh I blogged thousands of blogs before blogging was even like a thing and so but the relationships even via email in the early mid 2000s like these are are valid um the the the intimacy to to connect with people and to feel their pain I met this mom once at the funeral of her son um but the support that we were able to give uh to her even though I'm two hours away via a very fast car uh Ford F-150 driving very I guess it was a Dodge Ram at that point but driving very fast um listen digital connections digital relationships are real and valid our connections the relationships that we have with people digitally our social media relationships our email databases our websites the the people we we we connect with at conferences or that we meet in stores or whatever that has to be we have to engage those people and start to build relationships hoping that the we can get these people connected into a community this woman found community for us in C28 yeah she had a church she was actually part of Life Church as I recall um but she would talk about how like the the friends that her son had through C28 and the friends that were connecting with her were part of her community was part of her support group Stacy um you would be better um I haven't told the story in a decade and so like even just trying to use your stories your your your language for dealing with grief um we were there for her as an organization even remotely and um and helped her grieve for her the loss of her son through that community I would challenge us as churches to recognize that discipleship happens best in community if we look at oh so many books uh but the probably the best one right now is The Other Half of Church um was was written very recently um by uh Wilder and I can't think of the other guy's name right now but that's a book that focuses on brain science actually I mean they literally get the to a brain scientist the other guy not Wilder but the other one's a brain scientist and they talk about how the brain works in in processing discipleship and and the long story read the entire book it's fascinating but at the end of it hey you know what discipleship happens best when it happens in community not when you sit in listen discipleship happens best when when you when you live it out when you act it out when it's when it's a a conversation not a monologue and so hey let's let's preach that sermon online hey my dream I've had a pastor tell me this my dream is to get more views of my sermons than there are YouTube views of Baby Shark go ahead and and uh YouTube Baby Shark and see how many views there are of the the Baby Shark yeah Leon knows he's got that one he's he's already typing in he knows what the number is without even looking oh no he's laughing at me no I'm not kidding I have had somebody tell me that God told me that my sermon will be viewed more than Baby Shark Billy Graham came close maybe but even Billy Graham knew

Enough to. Hey, anywhere I speak, I want to leave behind me an army of churches ready for followup because we are not doing driveby evangelism. We need to leave a community behind for these people to connect with. I had an African-American pastor tell me once, "Jeff, I want to hear my sermon. I want to hear my sermon preached around the world. I literally want to see somebody in Ethiopia come to Christ and get baptized because of my sermon."

Hey, that's awesome, pastor. I love your vision. What happens when, um, what happens when that person gets baptized? What's next? What do you do with that person after they get baptized?

"Oh, Jeff, I don't know. That's not my problem."

Well, let's make it your problem, pastor. And I got to sit down with that guy and actually explain to him why it was his problem. Thankfully, it is his problem now, and he is doing something about it. The guy that gets baptized in Ethiopia. The challenge before us is to create disciples, multiply disciplemakers, and unleash them in digital and metaverse spaces. Tsunami's desire to plant a hundred churches in virtual reality. Mark's desire to reach and really affect gaming culture, even out and beyond what Lux is doing. Like, this is the dream of the church digital.

Even, you know, some of the stuff that they're doing in Germany. Like, I, you know, it would be so easy for me to say, "Oh my gosh, I want that to be, how do you say, the church digital in, um, in German?" Uh, it's a digital Kirche, I believe. I don't know what it is, but a cloud church? Yeah, cloud church is what they call it. And in Germany, the singular church is Beta Church. It would be so easy for me to go on an ego trip and to say, "Hey, you know what? Like, I want that to be the church digital branding. Let's do that. Let's convince that. Let's resource him. Let's give him." But only if he agrees to and make him sign a nondisclosure NDA, a non-compete waiver. And, you know, I, we can, you know, legalese this crap. I don't even know how to legalese in multiple nations, but we get international law involved in this. And, you know, let's own digital churches nationwide, international, continent-wide, planetary. Listen, if we could figure out how to copyright digital church on, I don't know, Mars, let's go ahead and do that. And let's get Elon on the phone and see if we can get him to pay for it all. If anybody does have contacts to Elon, that would be great. You can email me at Jeff.

Easily. Um, said, "Hey, let's figure out how to own it." I don't have a clue on how to effectively do digital church in Germany. I mean, I can give ideas, but can you actually tell me whether there's a nuanced difference between sharing Jesus to a German versus an American?

There's been opportunities in the Middle East, North Africa, Muslim areas. I'll tell you what, there's a huge difference culturally. Sharing Jesus to a Muslim versus sharing Jesus to a non-Muslim. When you share Jesus to a Muslim, you've got to go through the Old Testament. Like, there are Muslims who will accept Christ without actually getting to the New Testament because they see the prophecy of Christ in the Old Testament. They see the echo of what's to come. And just with that preview, that is enough for them to accept. And so it's understanding. You've got to work through their terms because that's what their culture is. That's who they are. You've got to respect that.

It's the same deal where with that lady who was with off, gave me the opportunity. We talked about this recently on the stream, but to do the virtual reality church in, um, where was that? South Africa. I have no clue how to reach people in South Africans. Like, are we talking, um, just culturally? It's very much a mix. You don't need somebody on the other side of the planet. You need somebody like on the ground that can understand how what you're doing is impacting people in a real, physical way. The gospel that we're hearing online has to affect our offline. It has to affect our, our digital has to affect our physical. And how are we doing that?

As we're leaning into this Holy Week and coming out of this Holy Week, I really want us to wrestle with this. How are we multiplying ourselves to allow God to use us in context beyond our own? Who are we mentoring that can go and do ministry beyond what our capacities are?

I have a lid. I have a limit. It's funny. If you would have asked, if you would have had this conversation with me a year ago, I had just published my second book in six months. A year ago, I was on top of the freaking world. There is nothing I couldn't do. Um, I was, that was at the prime. Diabetes struck hard. Neuropathy struck hard. Um, health took a turn south. I have limits. I'm a lid to what God can do. And the more that I can help others, the more that God can accomplish through me.

For many of you out there listening to this, you are the well. You're going to get shot. Pioneers get shot, right? And what happens when you get shot? You get buried. Your funeral is going to be nice. I'll attend. I'll try to attend physically, but eventually become worm food, fertilizer. For many of you, you're the fertilizer that's going to allow the growth of the church. You can look at what your church is doing, or I would challenge you to look around and see how you're helping others grow in this season as well.

Take the approach of what Stu's doing, Vector Lakeland, and wanting to plant churches. What Mark's doing, Lux. And, oh my gosh, "Jeff, I don't have time. I don't have money. I don't, I don't, I don't." Neither do I. I feel your pain. By the way, I'm doing all of this, and I probably only have fifteen to twenty hours worth of effective work product I can do a week without crashing. Honest to God, I take three to four naps a day. I woke up today at eleven a.m. I got up because I thought I had a meeting at eight thirty. It got cancelled. Ended up throwing. I literally was driving, almost threw up in my Jeep. Opened the Jeep door, stopped the car long enough for me to puke. I didn't even get out of the car. I just puked outside of the Jeep four or five times. That's more information than I wanted to share. I apologize.

Um, I don't. There's lots of excuses. There's lots of things that you can say, and they're, you're not wrong. But with God, maybe you can. With God, maybe you should try. Anytime I found a planter, this was always the test. Is Chris still on here? Chris will remember because I remember. Yes, Chris, I remember saying this to you, Chris, um, years ago. Who have you convinced to do this with you? Who's going on this journey with you? Have you found somebody crazy enough to go and do this with you? Because if you are not capable of convincing a friend that what you are doing is good, I don't know that you're going to be able to help, you know, somebody that's not a friend and understand it. And for many of you, I think that might be the challenge. Start telling your friends what you're doing. Inviting them to be a part of it. Mentoring and discipling them to carry some of the weight, if not even do their own thing. Start multiplying into people that you know as a test for when you actually have to multiply into people that you don't.

Oh yeah, and Stacy's point, give me your money. Very good. Make sure to set up that nonprofit. No, I'm kidding. Actually, I'm not kidding. I'm trying to get the church digital to be able to give our nonprofit to other organizations. Like, we're, I'm navigating that right now. The Star Church, trying to help people get started because I know it's hard.

I don't know why I create scripts. I have a full script down here of stuff that I wanted to talk about today, and I got halfway through it. We ended up talking about multiplication. I wanted to focus on connection. This is what I needed to do today.

Hey, churches that are listening to this on Monday, you just spent Holy Week getting ready, trying to help people get connected to your church. Physical churches, you just spent a lot of time, and rightfully so. Probably Holy Week is one of the top weeks of the year that people will connect to your church. And so lots of churches try to get a new wave of people, and you come back the next week. And so connection is very important. I am not downplaying the importance of connection. It's literally the top thing in our loop. What I would suggest, though, is that you spend some time focusing on multiplication, on what discipleship and multiplication looks like for your church, for your ministries, for your organizations. Digital churches, that you spend some time focusing on that as well. As important as connection is, I might suggest for a kingdom, multiplication may be more so.

All right, hey, I am going to wrap for today. This has been a lot of fun. I was not anticipating, once again, going this long, but it's been great. Um, conversation is not a monologue. That's why our church services are interactive. I love what Imagine Church is doing, Stacy, and that's so true right there. That's good. Thanks for keeping it real always.

Um, listen, I'll, there's plenty of disgusting stuff I'll talk about here, especially on the streams. Podcast is weird because I'm talking to like somebody else, but streams I get a little more real. People awesome. But hey, we're going to land the plane here on this one.

Um, I have in the back of my mind I'm thinking what's coming up next on the podcast, and right now I'm going to be honest, I don't remember what's coming up. So hey, uh, next week on the podcast there will be me and somebody talking about something, and it's going to be awesome. And then after that we'll do a stream on this. But hey, check out some of the other podcasts that's going on as well. You know, there's, oh my gosh, there's going to be, oh, I should have talked about that today. Oh, there's, oh, you know what, we'll do that on the next stream. I'll have more details in the next stream, but there's going to be some really exciting, some really exciting metaverse stuff. Stu's excited. I might have Stu jump on the stream with me coming up. Stu's excited. There's going to be a metaverse church podcast. We got some changes. We got some big news, and we got some big things coming up here very soon. The metaverse, my friends, is not dead. It is merely in waiting.

So hey, we're going to land at this point. For Jeff, this is Jeff with the Church Digital. That was weird. Thanks for jumping on the podcast stream here. Love you all. Happy Holy Week. Happy whatever it is that you're doing, and looking forward to what's next. You have a good day.