EP300 - Alan Hirsch, APEST, and Digital Church Movements

All right, hey friends, we're in here on Discord broadcasting live and so set up through the power of Riverside, we are recording this in 1080 as well as broadcasting it out to LinkedIn and Facebook. And so it's great to be out here.

We've got Flap, we've got Pastor G and Whitebeard hanging out with us here on Discord. And so if you've never hung out with us in Discord, it's, hey, swing over to open a web browser and go to discord.theechurch.digital. In charge just walked in as well. Discord.theechurch.digital. And that'll, if you don't even have a Discord account, you'll go through a wizard to set up the account. Not an actual wizard with a wand, but more of like the process to create the account.

Although it would be cool if wizard had a wand. It's Discord, anything's possible. But then after that, it'll invite you in here to the church digital Discord. We've got almost 300 people in here on the Discord. And it's, dude, it is so much fun hanging out with Discord. Like the move, you know, we moved away from Mighty Networks to Discord. The church digital did maybe a month or so ago. We still got the Facebook community that we're working through, but honestly, the move to Discord has been awesome. Engagement is so much more exciting than the other communities. And so big Discord fan, big Slack fan, even WhatsApp, but just more of the asynchronous style of communications.

Like, I'm actually probably going to do a stream in the next couple weeks about the difference between social media and digital community. You know, it's interesting. I was talking with a global organization today, and they were interested in having a conversation about digital community. And I said literally two hours ago, I was like, okay, digital community is not social media. Social media is where you, the content creator, gets to broadcast your stuff out and everyone listens. Sure, like people ask questions and they engage with your content, but you are in control. That's not digital community. That's social media.

Digital community, you flip the script. As the content creator, you know, I am not in control of Discord. I mean, honestly, guys like Whitebeard and Pastor G and In Charge, they are in control of the church digital's Discord. We, as the leaders of the church digital, we position ourselves as listeners more than speakers. This is where it's better to use question marks than yes. Whitebeard, you are in fact in control of the church digital Discord. I will validate that. We'll let Andy know. But we are, it's better, much better in digital community to use question marks than periods. Never use an exclamation mark in a digital community. It's better to ask questions and make statements.

And so understanding that releasing control of the community actually allows the community to thrive. If all we did was post every social media post and every YouTube video to our Discord, I mean, that's just noise that gets filtered. There's no reason to engage with that. And so it was funny. The guy I was talking with is like, wow, I didn't, I never, nobody's ever said that. I never thought of that that way.

And so this is crucial in understanding how to utilize digital community and really one of the reasons why I think today's church doesn't really understand digital community because they want to control the community. When in fact, it's not about controlling the community. It's actually releasing the community. When the community thrives, when it fosters, when it grows, when it multiplies literally. And so some interesting opportunities coming. We're going to get more into that.

Oh, you know what, man? I've been on this conversation for four minutes and I'm sorry, forgive me. I realized I'm wearing the wrong hat. You see this yellow trucker hat? I've been wearing this hat. It says, what does it say on it? Stay Weird Austin. I was in Austin airport and I like the yellow because, you know, the church digital is yellow. And so I bought the hat. I love Austin, but I think it's time to retire the hat because, sad drum roll please, the TCD merch hat, the official gray and white. You know, I probably not the right color for today. Here we go. Here we go. The black official TCD merch hat. I will wear this one for the rest of the show, I think.

And so if you're watching on YouTube, you can appreciate this. You know, I was thinking I was going to put this on podcast. I don't think I will. And so everybody, hopefully seeing this, the hat. But you can buy hats like this and some stickers and some other stuff over at thechurch.digital merch. MCH links over to the merch shop. Grab some of that. You know, support the TCD a little bit, but also get the brand out there in front of some others. So love you guys for that. Appreciate it. The church.digital merch.

I like the black hat. I'm probably a little more, yeah, waiting for the flat cap merch. I don't know if the church shop has a flat cap. We might have to do a custom order for the flat caps. You can't wear hats? Your head's literally too big. Like, I'm almost afraid to ask this question. Whitebeard says he can't wear hats. Flat cap says he wants a flat cap. Flat cap, giving me migraines? Yeah, that was my problem too. They gave me a lot of migraines. I lost, when I lost a lot of weight, my head shrunk a little bit. I'm not saying I had a fat head. Maybe I am saying I had a fat head. Yeah, you know, I'll go and say it. I had a fat head. And so losing the weight actually, my hat size went down. And some of the hats I couldn't even wear. I had some really cool hats I couldn't even wear.

Oh, actually, this shirt that I'm wearing right now, I bought this shirt over like almost fifteen years ago and I've never been able to wear it because it was always too tight. And the other day I was like, oh, let me, what's in the back of this closet that I haven't touched in like eight years? And sure enough, I saw this shirt and put it on. It's like, oh my gosh, it fits. So that's what diabetes and diabetic neuropathy will do for you. All of a sudden you drop a bunch of weight and you look like a skinny guy and everybody's like, oh my gosh, what's your secret? And I was like, being incredibly unhealthy and vomiting like, you know, multiple times a week. Like, I don't know what else do you want to know? So all sorts of fun stuff you did not want to know about. But you know, when you listen to the stream here on Discord and you get the unfiltered version of Jeff.

And so it's going to be a lot of fun. I have to, yeah, fasting is more pleasant than vomiting on a regular basis. This is true. Flat cap, that may be the wisest thing you've ever said. Fasting is far more pleasant than vomiting.

I got to be filtered tomorrow night. All right, I need you all's help. I need help from you all. Tomorrow night, six o'clock, we are doing a live podcast recording for episode 300. Episode 299 was this week. Steve Addison, great interview. Steve Addison came out yesterday on YouTube and podcast. J-Mo, Jason Morris here with the church digital, myself. Steve's from Australia. One of the movement leaders, probably one of the longest, loudest voices right now in church movement and acts and the movement of God. His book, we talked about it on the podcast. And so incredible, incredible conversation. That conversation, honestly, like I just didn't want it to end. I kept going with them. And I got a feeling episode 300 is going to be the same way.

We're bringing in Alan Hirsch. I didn't plan it this way, but it's two Australians back to back, two church movement leaders back to back. Alan is, you know, arguably maybe one of the loudest voices right now in church planting. And we got him to come in for episode 300, tomorrow night, six PM. And so Alan's coming in and it's like, okay, I could interview Alan and I've interviewed Alan on some other shows and Alan's a great guy. He's the architect behind APEST. And we're going to spend a lot of time talking about APEST tomorrow. If you don't know what APEST is, come and watch it tomorrow.

But hey, listen to this lineup. In addition to Alan coming on, we're going to have, I tried it, it is Juneteenth. I didn't realize that when I booked it, but it was like the only day we could make it happen. In addition to, we've got Joey Santos who runs Church at a Bar. We also have Dr. John Harris, Hearts, like his Facebook Church. We've got Tsunami, a virtual reality church planter. And we've got Susie coming in from God Squad Church. So we've got a gamer squad planter, a gamer church planter, a virtual reality church planter, a digital church planter on Facebook, as well as a micro church planter, all coming in to have a conversation with Alan Hirsch.

And so I am so excited. There is no way this is going to stop at an hour. I can just promise you now. Let's see, it's going to go long. And I sent over an agenda to those guys yesterday with what we wanted to talk about, what I wanted to talk about, and told them to come with questions because they were going to dig into it. And man, they're all excited. Like, it's going to be an awesome time.

So six PM here on Discord. I may stream it, I may not. I may keep that just in Discord and then let it officially, that's what I'm going to do. It's going to be on Discord. So if you want to get the early sneak peek, it's going to be in here at Discord, the discord.theechurch.digital, six PM. We have an event running here in the Discord server. And then it's going to release, you know, sometime next week when the podcast normally releases. So good, man, so good. I'm so looking forward to that.

I would love those of you that are in here hanging out with me in Discord. If you had one question to ask Alan Hirsch, and the question cannot be, who is Alan Hirsch, but if you had one question to ask an expert on church planting, not digital church planting, he does do innovation. He was in Innovative Voices maybe, I don't want to date it, maybe a decade ago. He was the micro church movement. That movement that's inexistent today is because of Alan Hirsch. And so like him and some of his contemporaries. But if you had one question to ask Alan Hirsch, what would it be? Go and put that in chat. Would love to see it. One question to ask Alan Hirsch. Would love to hear that.

Cool. Hey, one other kind of housekeeping type of thing. With the church digital, we launched a new website back in February, March. And you know, websites are never done. You're always adding something to it, always building to it. And so it's like, hey, there's a website, but it's, I think it had two pages when it launched. And we're building it out. Obviously, we've been doing a lot of work centered around learning communities in the church digital. The asynchronous learning community has been going really strong. Digital Communications is going really strong.

I actually, my micro church community, it's interesting. My page, my learning community, everybody who signs up for it would either sign up for asynchronous and micro at the same time. They were like, we're interested in both ideas. And so Andy and I got together and talked about it. It was like, okay, look, the idea of doing micro without a digital community to pull from, the digital community to help, you know, your process, your funnel, it's going to be really difficult.

Hard like it's not going to have legs. And so as much as I would love to do a community, like at this point when I get people saying, "Hey, we are interested in asynchronous or interested in micro sites," I'm like, "Hey, go check out the Asynchronous Learning Community instead." So pushing more people that way.

But we launched a new page on the Church Digital. A lot of people don't know this, but within the past—we've been working on this for maybe the past six months—but the Church Digital has become a nonprofit. We've become, and this was through guidance with leadership like Leighton and Andy and Barbara and J Mo, but we've become a nonprofit organization with a real desire to be bivocational. So many of the people we work with, like Whitebeard, like Pastor G as planters, you know, they've got full-time jobs separate from the ministry they're doing digitally. And honestly, that is the model that we want to carry on inside the Church Digital. And so like, we're all bivocational. I've got a job outside of what I do here at the Church Digital. And you know, I've said this transparently to date, I've not taken a penny from the Church Digital with the exception of a couple contract jobs that I ran where I ran the money through the Church Digital. Like, I literally did work with an organization that paid instead of me, it paid to Church Digital. But the discipleship aspects, like all that, for me it's ministry towards that.

But you know, the Church Digital, we're in a place where we need financial support. And so as a nonprofit, we're launching the Church Digital's support, you know, through training, through equipping, through discipleship. You know, we're creating a lot of resources and we're doing a lot of equipping to help planters and pastors get out there and do ministry in digital space, and we're asking for help to make that happen. And this is not going to Jeff's full-time salary or Jeff's part-time salary. This is going to support the ministry of what we're doing. Honestly, the Church Digital with everything, including accounts and sustaining it, budgets right now is probably four thousand a month. And so I mean, I'm even willing to get into the weeds with you on costs on all of this stuff. But the fact is, we're trying to get ends to meet. And so if TCD has been a help to your ministry and you've benefited from what we're doing, consider partnering with us, supporting what we're doing, you know, either at the individual level or honestly, maybe your organization might be interested in supporting us, whether it's a church or a missional organization or wherever you are in that process. So check out more information at the Church Digital's support. The Church Digital's support—we'll get you more information on that.

Whitebeard, you're right. I actually had that thought just this morning. So cool. Um, let's keep moving. Okay, we've got an awesome opportunity that, you know, once again, we even need more support on coming up. And so I want to share this with you, man. I have no coffee. I literally just looked down at my coffee mug and it's like empty. Is there anything sadder in the world? Yes, there's probably things sadder than an empty coffee mug, but this has got to be in the like the top five. Like, even cold coffee is better than no coffee. And so I'm really disappointed right now. But I'm back because I'm really excited about what I want to tell you about with this opportunity. A, I want you to pray for this, and B, we're gonna need some support to make this happen.

So I said in an earlier stream we were invited to—okay, Whitebeard puts in chat, "The thing sadder than no coffee is no Diet Mountain Dew." I don't even know if I can—I shouldn't have even acknowledged that with a—you're putting Mountain Dew Diet over coffee? I just—I can't. I just can't. Can somebody, somebody if you're listening, this is why we want you hanging out with us in Discord. So somebody can slap Whitebeard upside the head and be like, "What the crap, bro? Come on, come on, don't bring that garbage in here." If you're going to bring your like, you—if you come in here, we need your A game, not Diet—if you had said Diet Dr. Pepper, I would have been more okay. Um, caffeine-free Diet Coke? Like, that's a staple, a staple. But um, oh my gosh, okay, all right. I don't even know if I'm in the mood now to tell you about this awesome, once-in-a-generation opportunity the Church Digital stumbled into. But no, I got freaking have a conversation about—man, I don't even—I don't even know right now. All right, I'm gonna—I had, for the sake of the stream, I'm gonna try to pull it together right here. All right, continue on, Whitebeard. Whitebeard, like, okay, maybe I should point at the camera. I'm watching you, man. Somebody like emoji the eyes in on me. That ain't cool, bro.

All right, once-in-a-generation opportunity. Um, Billy Graham years ago—I mean, Billy's been dead for a while. Awkward pause. Um, Billy years ago founded a missional organization called Lausanne. And um, they—it's a global organization, probably one of the strongest global missional organizations on the planet right now. And I'd probably say top ten in my ignorance. And um, they do a Congress, a gathering. They do it once in a generation, every fifteen years or so. As a matter of fact, they did their last one fourteen years ago in—I want to say Ethiopia. I don't know if it's Cairo, maybe it's Egypt. I could be wrong on that. But they're doing one of these Congresses fifteen years later this summer, this fall, September in Korea.

And um, so I was doing some work with—actually, I was invited to speak there. Somebody nominated me to speak there, and they did this like massive interview process to get speakers and background checks and references and blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. And eventually, like, I was not selected to speak. Life goes on. That's okay. Um, but then they asked me to help out with some of the metaverse, some of the virtual reality stuff that they wanted to do with the Congress. And uh, so I did that. It's just kind of like, you know, some references and introduced them to some people that were doing some things. They wanted to create some content, introduced them to some virtual reality planters. And then um, this is maybe six months ago, like late last year, early this year, not a big deal. And uh, then they came back and they said, "Hey, we want the Church Digital to come to Korea and come hang out with us at Korea and essentially to run a booth in Korea, an exhibit booth. It's an invite-only crowd to exhibit the Congress itself. I think close to six thousand people, global Congress. Like, we're talking one hundred sixty-eight countries represented. Um, they said to me, 'Hey, there are seven key languages that we are going to be speaking here.' So it's not just English. English is primary, but you know, Spanish, Portuguese, and they rattled off a bunch of languages. And my jaw's hitting the floor. And they're like, 'We want you to come in and really represent the idea of digital church and digital discipleship to the Congress through the booth.'

And uh, so I asked the guy I was talking with, like, 'Hey, who else is coming to the convention, to the Congress?' And he starts rattling off, you know, Glow and um, you know, CV, CV Global, Christian Vision and Global Media Outreach, GMO, and the Billy Graham um, BGE. Um, I don't remember if Binaries was one of them, but it was, you know, million-dollar organizations, well-funded, billion-dollar organizations, massive organizations globally. And hey, we're the Church Digital. And um, so I sat down and I was just going to be honest. Like, I put together a budget. Leadership, Leighton was in there, and Andy and Barbara and J Mo. We were all having this conversation, put together a budget for what it would cost. And I looked at this thing and I was like, "Man, like, it might be a couple months' worth of budget." And we're scraping the bottom of the barrel, guys. Like, you know, financially, is this worth it or not? And uh, you know, I'll just be blunt. Like, it was maybe one of the hardest decisions I've made this year. But the decisions that we collectively all made together, Leighton being one of them, we said no. We said no. We're not going to go to the Congress. We're going to tell them no because, you know, be honest, we can't afford it right now. And that sucked. Like, when I sent that email to one of the leaders of Lausanne—because one of my goals for 2024 was to get connected with Lausanne, to work with, to get connected into their ecosystem, to start to meet some of these global partners and to really champion the idea of digital planting globally. Like, this is the perfect opportunity. It was just the literal price tag of entrance was beyond what a small startup—we didn't even have nonprofit status really set by then. Like, we were—it was too soon. And so I told this guy no. And um, it's so funny. I get an email maybe the next day: "Hey, Jeff, I can appreciate your heartfelt response email telling us no. Um, I just—we just need to let you know that we don't accept your response of no. Um, and we need to figure out how to get you here because we want the Church Digital in Korea. What do you need in order to get the Church Digital to Korea?" And I was just like, "Okay, God, what are we going to do?"

And so got on a call with him, had a conversation, figured out some of the logistics better, some things even that I was misunderstanding from the opportunities. And the Church Digital is going to Korea. You know, we're going to be out there in September. We're still trying to figure out who and where and what that looks like. Um, multilingual is definitely going to be a part of this. Um, but I mean, literally, it's the CEO and the top leadership of hundreds to thousands of global mission organizations. Um, and we are the only digital church planting and the only digital discipleship organization that's going to be there. And it was interesting. The guy even said afterwards, he's like, "Hey, um, you know, who else needs to be part of this conversation? Who do you know?" And so I actually got him connected with some of our other friends through the Church Digital. And so there actually may be a good TCD crowd kind of hang out with us there. Andrew Johnson is going to be there. Uh, Simon Dirks is going to be there. Um, Kate Cadis—Baky Cadis is going to be new here. Um, he's coming on as one of our movement leaders. He leads Crew. He leads digital church planting globally for Crew. He's based out of—Black Cap, where's he based out of? Albania, I want to say Albania. I want to say Albania. Um, I just had a conversation today with—well, anyway, another mission organization that's going to be there. Yeah, Flo, happy. He's in Albania.

But dude, digital planting going global. I have always said this. I have said this for years. Like, this is documented in the podcast. Um, I believe the path to digital planting is going to be far easier globally than through the US. Um, the US still has the buildings, is still operating the well-ish, and they're not wanting to—they want to get the building to work. They're not willing to try other models. Globally, the buildings have stopped working, and they're recognizing they need other models to reach more different people. The frustrating thing with me here in the US is, you know, I mean, I don't know fresh stats. I doubt it's changed much, maybe a point or two. But

Essentially, active people, active Americans in the US church is one, four, 25%. Are considered active. I want to say active is once a month if not once a quarter, involved in church. Active, we're down to 25%. That means 75% of Americans are not involved in the church, but the buildings are working and, you know what, the buildings can reach that 25%. The buildings can increase to 30%. The buildings can increase to 35%. That's great. God can do revival and blow things up. Like, it would be beautiful to see that happen. But what I'm recognizing is that digitally, the work that we're doing, the work that Pastor G is doing, what Flat Cap is doing, and even how Whitebeard is engaging with this prayer monastery, we are reaching people and engaging with people that the buildings are not reaching. It's not that we're fighting over the same people. It's not that we're even taking away from the buildings. The building shouldn't be threatened by us. We need to figure out how to work together to reach the entirety of everything. Micro churches shouldn't be threatened by us. Physical churches shouldn't be threatened by micro either, because micro reaches a different type of person than a mega will, than a digital will. And so, like, in order to complete the Great Commission, it's not "we're better than you." It's "we need to figure out you need to give us freedom to do what we're doing, and we need to work together," not threatened, but for the greater cause of Christ where we are, specifically here in America, globally. Oh my gosh, I look at some of the work that Simon's doing. I look at some of the work that in Germany, learning more from Cadis. And Cadis is like, "Oh my, oh my gosh, Jeff, we're so excited the crew to come on board the Church Digital and learn more from you guys," and that. And so there's this awesome collaborative environment that's coming up, and I am so excited about the opportunities, really digitally, to learn from the global church and contribute ideas to how the global church can reach people in the physical and digital communities that they're connected with. It's like, oh, so good. We need many more models than we have ever tried before.

Listen, I'm the digital guy. I get it. Like, I think if you Google "planting a digital church," I mean, at one point I was like, of the top ten organic hits in "planting a digital church" on Google, the majority of it was either stuff from the Church Digital, Digital Church Network, or stuff that I created on other people's channels for them, or interviews of me on their podcast, or stuff like that. Like, you know, and so, you know, I'm the lone nut job. There's other nut jobs. There's other crazies. But I was one of the first crazies. I was really being in this drum. And so, but even I've said, you know, when digital stops being effective, let's go find another model. Right now, digital's incredibly effective. But the endgame isn't the models. It's not loyalty to a model. It's loyalty to creating—I hope it's loyalty to creating disciples. It's loyalty to the Great Commission. It's loyalty to what God's calling us to do. And so those of you that are called to the buildings, awesome. We want to see buildings thrive. We need buildings to thrive here in America. And the ministry where it's accessible globally, we need to see that continue on. Nobody wants to see buildings get torched.

You know, it's interesting. I think that's a lot of the criticism. Think the missions organization that I was talking to today, he was introduced to me as a digital church planter. So the organization was not comfortable with digital church planting. And I knew, I knew getting on the call, this organization is not going to be comfortable with digital church planting. And so I addressed it immediately. I was like, "Hey, listen, I am known for that. Like, that's my thing. That's not to say I'm going to push that ideology on you. In actuality, a digital discipleship process from feeding into a physical church or feeding into a digital church looks very similar up at the top. It's really just that handoff, either to a physical church or a digital church. But whether you're a physical church or digital church, you still need to utilize digital community in your missional organizational process in their digital engagement strategy. And so, like, don't worry about the planting. I'm not going to take you to a place that your organization doesn't want you to go. We still need to work together."

And, man, he was—I remember I think I told you—like, the thing about the difference between community and social media, when I said that to him, he's like, "I've never thought of it that way." He's like, "You're just blowing my mind just by saying that." And, you know, to be honest, you know, I've had associates who work with me and say, "You know, the physical church buildings needed disruption." You know, and I've worked with people and, you know, that stand on the wall. And, you know, what's the line from "A Few Good Men"? "You need me on that wall. You can't hand..." You know, all that, the Jack Nicholson line from that. I don't know. Maybe it needs a disruption. Maybe they just need more understanding. Maybe they need a better balance of respect. Maybe—this is my question. This is my question to Alan Hirsch. I even said this in the email. I'm, "Alan, I'm going to ask you this question: How do we innovate without getting shot? Pioneers get shot. Settlers get rich. I want to talk to one of the church planting innovators, thought leaders in this space. How do we innovate without getting shot?" That's what I want to know.

I don't, at this point, I've had enough bullets thrown at me. It's like, "Cool, we're just going to keep going. You don't agree with me? That's fine. Can I help you? Oh, you want my help, but you don't agree with the big picture? I'm actually okay with that. That doesn't bother me. Let's work together to the point that you're comfortable, and then we'll hand you off at that point. We can move on."

And, you know, Andy and the team, we get that not everybody's going to buy into the virtual reality and digital and, you know, maybe even among some of us as leaders, I don't even think we all 100% agree on some of the stuff. Like, it's so opinionated. But we're going to experiment. We're going to try. Constantly innovate and dream through everything. It's fluid. We are changing on a regular basis. We're going to get into that even here in a little bit. So the opportunity is not ultimately—I'm excited to go to Korea, not to force them to see our way of thinking or to convince them that our way is better, but really to help adapt what they're doing to a digital mindset and expose them to the idea of what a true digital church looks like. Not a content-centric digital church that we're so good at here in America, but a digital church that more fits within the ecclesiastical, biblically stable, solid foundation, engagement, dialoguing, 24/7 digital church. That's exciting to me. That's what I want to be a part of.

I've said this. You know, Barbara asks me, "What were we doing?" Oh, we were doing goals with leaders. And, actually, Flap, we're going to share this with you guys soon. Get your buy-in on it. But she asked me, she's like, "What's your ten-year goal for the Church Digital?" And I was like, "I want to create a valid, established, accepted new model for church. I want it to be biblically valid. I want it to be helpful, beneficial, stable, like, you know, where pioneers are not getting shot anymore. Where it's even financially viable, because right now it's not viable, I would suggest. And I want it to be accepted. Okay, I mean, some people don't accept micro church, but a micro church leader—I mean, Rob Wagner's not getting bullets at this point. Like, he's worked through that season. That's where I want us to be. That's the dream, people. So we'll see where we get in that.

So I'm looking here at Whitebeard. Flap says, "We need many more models than we have ever tried before." I agree. I think I said that. Gallup poll released March 25th shows that three in ten US adults attend religious services regularly. Twenty percent every week and nine percent almost every week. Reported eleven percent attend religious services once a month, while twenty-five percent seldom. I would be interested in the stats on that, like the well, Gallup poll, but how their discovery process was. Those numbers are higher than I'm used to. But still, three and ten are active. I would say. I mean, if you want to say eleven percent, okay, that's forty percent. Is including once a month. And so if you're not engaged once a month, then you are not engaged. I mean, you're a CEO—Christmas, Easter, only crowd. And that's, you know, even the physical churches don't consider that attendance. They're like, "How do we pull those people deeper down the funnel?"

So I'm looking at that now. OSV News, thank you for finding that. You know, Whitebeard's always the fact-checker. Okay, Whitebeard, you just made up for the Diet Dr. Pepper line. No, Diet Mountain Dew. Diet Mountain Dew is just—even the thought of it just squirrels my stomach, man. All right.

I want to talk through here with the time I got left. Do I have something at—I'm trying to actually remember my calendar right now. Let me—I've got to figure out my timing. I think no, I am open. Oh, no, that's tomorrow. Yeah, I am still open. I'm at the two. Okay, I've got time because what I was about to do, I was probably don't think I can finish by two. So I'm going to go a little long. I'm going to give you stream an inside scoop into what I'm thinking. I've shared some of this with leadership. I haven't even really processed this. We're going to process this in a call tomorrow, I think. But I've been wrestling with some things internally, and so I'm just going to vocalize it here on the stream. You guys get the early sneak peek on it. And if it works, great. If not, I'm not even saying I'm doing this, but this is just like the—I'm peeling back behind the curtains. I'm letting you get a peek on what I'm thinking. And I would love your take on this.

And so many of you know that I've talked about developing a framework for digital churches. And by the way, I think physical churches operate this way, honestly. I think micro churches operate this way as well. And so I'm grounding this on Bible, and I'm also grounding this on current cultural trends of what we're seeing, where what we're recognizing about ourselves, and even brain science actually operates in line with what the Bible is saying and how the church should be operating. And essentially, the framework is four steps.

The people we're connecting with digitally—that could be social media, that could be an email list, that could be a Facebook group, that could be paid ads. The people that we're connecting with, we want to get them into a community. We want to build relationships with them in a community. There's a limitation at a software level, often times with social media and email, where you really can't build a relationship, or it's harder to build a relationship using some of these digital tools. But if we can get them into a digital community platform like a Slack or a Discord or a Mighty Networks or even a WhatsApp, all of a sudden now we have more ability to create relationships in community. And the stronger those relationships are in community, step three—

Easier it is to get them into discipleship relationships and evangelism. Discipleship happens within community digitally. So and then the sooner we get through and then that discipleship process, the more that we can multiply them and help them find their own mission. The more that we can mobilize them and equip them to head in their own direction. And equip them on how to do that. And so I've had this framework: connection. People are connected to. We want to get into involved in community. And through the community is where that we we want to disciple, realizing that with discipleship we're multiplying and mobilizing and sending them on their way.

And you know, I'm pretty vocal about that. And so I've been, and this is this is the secret behind the sauce. Um, not only is that going to be like the framework for planting a digital church, um, but like I said, that works physically. People were connected to within our physical communities. We want to invite within a physical community. That's the Sunday morning buildings. Within the Sunday morning buildings, we build relationships with people within that community. Within that community is where we start to lead towards discipleship making relationships. And you know, within that community and within that discipleship making relationships, hopefully we want to help people find their mission.

Now, often times their mission is guest services or coffee or parking, and it's more sort of around, you know, helping the church develop its ministries instead of empowering people to find their own ministry. Um, but either way, there's still a multiplication or mobilization that's happening as a result, even in physical space. The only difference between physical and digital is really, I mean, connection can often look the same, but it really is more about digital community versus physical community where, arguably, religious Christian organizations are just now grasping and are starting to ask questions about the potential of digital community.

As an aside, the US Surgeon General, um, earlier this year talked about the epidemic of loneliness, about how young people in America, um, around the world he talked about, but America specifically, um, talked about how there's an epidemic of loneliness. His words. And through that loneliness, um, there is an incredible opportunity to solve it, to cure it, to fix it. Like, there's this need that we have. Kids have all of the access to all of these communities, all of these relationships, all of these people, and they've never been more lonely than before.

And what's interesting is the Surgeon General, who's not a Christian by the way—he's actually a very strong atheist. I have mutual friends with someone, um, because I'm trying to get this guy on the podcast because of this. Um, the Surgeon General says there's six pillars that the community at large has to do in order to solve this epidemic of loneliness. I don't know what one through four, five, and six are. I know one through three, but I tell you what number four is because it just stuck with me when I saw it: digital community.

The US Surgeon General says that digital community is a massive way to solve the epidemic of loneliness, and that we are not utilizing digital community. Not just the church in general, we're not utilizing digital community to its effectiveness. Um, and instead of utilizing, once again, social media to broadcast one way, to be in communities where it's a dual, it's a conversation. And just even think about how you're running your communities. Are you using your communities in such a way that it's a one way, or are you creating an environment where people have the freedom to talk and to dialogue? That's why that community piece, connection to community, is so important, um, physically and digitally.

But I've been wrestling with changing some things. And so, um, the name for me, I put up on the screen, but maybe I'm not going to do that. Um, for me, connection to community like that makes sense. I don't want to touch that. Um, but the church digital, we're really wrestling with this idea of community and what's next after that. Like, for many of you helping a church planter like Pastor G, or, you know, even some of the work that Tope is doing in Africa and some of the others, like there's an opportunity to equip planters with a discipleship process where maybe they didn't have a discipleship process.

And so, you know, we've got, um, you know, our discipleship partners in our process discipleship, and flat cap is working diligently, um, to with J-Mo to help people get connected with our discipleship process, and that's going well. Like, um, this is not to belabor that, um, but what's interesting is there's a very small percentage of people that are going through that discipleship process. Meanwhile, you know, people like Pastor G are running their own asynchronous learning community and are looking for help and guidance on that. Or, you know, so and so starting up a virtual reality and are wanting to connect with, um, tsunami to talk about that. Or, you know, there's opportunities to network. Or I've got this missional organization that's wanting to talk, even Korea. Like, um, I go up to Korea. Every one of these missions organizations that are going to be there, these are the top of the top. I, hey, so you need to change your missions organization discipleship process to what we're doing at the church digital? I'm not going to say that. Um, you know, shoot, some of their discipleship processes probably better than what we have. And so it's, you know, I hate to say no. Um, instead, I always love to figure out how to say yes.

And so, like, for me, the goal, um, I'm really starting to wrestle with this word: equip. How do we equip people? Hey, Wes, how do we equip organizations to better understand digital? Like, you know, Wes stumbling in is a great example. Um, you know, Wes is not the paradigm type of person that we want coming into TCD. I mean, we're aimed at helping digital planting through digital discipleship, and like that's the heart. I've already said I want to create a new viable, stable model of church in ten years—digital. And so that's what the goal is.

Well, Wes is a programmer developing software. Wes, from a relationship perspective, oh my gosh, the doors that he's been opening are incredible, and I'm so appreciative for the relationship. And I'm hoping it's mutually beneficial for him on his side. Um, but for Wes, like it's more about how can I equip him to do what God's calling him to do? How can I help? Hey, Randy, how can I help with what he's doing? How can I help Randy with what Randy's doing? Randy's a great example as well. Randy, if as I recall, if that's the right Randy, I'm thinking Randy's a production director, I think, in, um, at a physical church. And so he's got opportunities and things that he's needing to do, um, and it doesn't necessarily align with our discipleship process.

So while our goal is discipleship, and arguably we're a discipleship organization that plants churches digitally, uh, more than a planting organization, like that's an interesting conversation. I've really been wrestling with: well, how do we equip this large model of other people? And really, that was where the birth of the learning communities came. You know, as we're digging in and helping churches and organizations better understand asynchronous communities, or, um, you know, targeted digital communications, or micro churches, or VR and mental health, like those are examples of how we, the church digital, we want to equip, not in a way to be a money grab for the physical church because physical churches have the money, but instead strategically design things that were helping the church planter, the big C church, um, better understand what's possible with digital.

You know, I'm beginning to ask myself questions like: can we help a planter, and at the same time help a US-based physical church, as well as a global organization? Where's the, you know, the Venn diagram, so to speak? If we're aiming at the planter, what does the other circles look like? Where it's like, okay, US churches and global missions organizations, where is the commonality between those three? That's our sweet spot. Because I think that is the goal. Um, we want to help the Pastor G's that are out there, uh, even the flat cap, the work that he's doing as a networker and arguably a digital evangelist. Um, I say that not in a cheesy way, but I would consider him evangelism at some level. Um, digital missionary, maybe a better word. Um, you know, Whitebeard, what he's doing with digital prayer. Um, you know, those are the innovators. Um, but we don't want to, I don't want to abandon what's happening and what God has opened up in some of those spaces.

A lot of the things that I say with our lead leadership is, shoot, where did I even say this today? I don't think it was on this call, but it's like, oh no, no, no, it was with that missions organization earlier today. It's like burying the, um, the mission, the, uh, the talents in the sand. Hey, God gave you these talents, um, these resources, and you didn't do anything with it. To be honest, that's my nightmare a little bit. I love the work that we're doing with planters. Um, I struggle, you know, I struggle with the idea of God giving us these resources with the non-planters and us just not being wise stewards with those resources.

How do you create a digital missionary? That's interesting. Well, Whitebeard, that was a little bit of the conversation you and I had yesterday when I jumped on your stream. Um, what was the digital monastery stream of yesterday? And instead started talking about, you know, certification of what that looks like. Um, and so, um, I mean, that's some of what I think we may be looking at.

I mean, right now, I'll be, I'll be, I'm just going to be honest. Um, in, in, in Chuu, you'll see him jump on some of these streams sometimes. He is, he's in Nigeria. He is with, um, missions organization called Navigators. And Whitebeard, that was actually in Chuu's question to me. Um, Jeff, we need your help to help us as an organization learn how to create digital missionaries in African context. And so I connected him to Tope, and that's what Tope is doing. Um, but what's interesting is Tope is walking him through the movement system because that's what we equip Tope to do. And there's nothing wrong with the discipleship process that the church digital uses, but if I'm honest, Navigators has a freaking incredible discipleship process. Like, I might even be interested in, like, we could learn from them, not them learning from us. In that, and so all of a sudden, it's more of, I think we may be missing more of it.

Hey, M Penny, um, I'm excited, M Penny. I'm excited you're on here. Um, I'm excited all you're on here. That was kind of rude on my part. But the, um, you know, Whitebeard's asking, does the church digital become a missions organization? I don't know what we are, man. I don't know. I wish I did. Um, because, well, there's two problems. One, we're really fluid right now because we're really reactionary to the currents and the waves. Um, you know, right now it's Korea. Um, it's missions organizations. And I think it may be that for a couple years. Um, but I don't want to ignore the planting aspects of discipleship. And so, like, there's that. The relationships that we've been building with M Penny and Randy, like at an individual level, not at an organizational level, have been awesome. Wes, Wes is the same piece. Um, and so I don't want to say, um, no. Hey, Gap's jumping on here. Gap's another example. Gap's a planter. Oh my gosh, I'm glad you're here, Gap. He is actually the penultimate example. He had started this.

Thing with, um, I'm Gap. I'm gonna tell you your story in 30 seconds. He started a digital church, uh, in a synchronous community on Discord for a physical church, built it up to 4,000 people. Basically did a presentation asking the physical church for budget. The physical church said, yeah, you know what, we're really not interested in this. We're going to cut you entirely. And like, no budget, no nothing. That church actually is now standalone. I actually helped him get the 501c3 through Start Church. Or the church digital helped him get the 501c3 through Start Church. And now, you know, I say this nicely, but you know, the church digital is the—I mean, he's got his board, but we're the community of people that are helping Gap do what Gap's doing. And so I don't know how to be physical church guy because we got thousands of them from COVID. I don't know how to be the guy for Gap and for Pastor G and how to be missions organization at the same time. Like, that's the challenge in the back of my mind.

I hear, and I love this about Barbara Carrero, and she's not wrong, Jeff. No one has ever hated. No one ever feels bad for niching smaller than they are. You know, the church digital website has been working great, converting. We've been getting engagement through the website, incredible, because it's focused on the planter aspect. I guess my fears were, um, missing. I'm being very transparent right now. I'm in a public environment, so maybe that's healthy or not healthy. But it really comes down to these communities, the people we're connected with, whether it's missions organizations, whether it's planters, whether it's physical churches, inviting them into a community where discipleship happens. But it may be more than discipleship. Maybe it's equipping. Maybe it's learning communities. Maybe it's conferences. Wait, did he say conferences? Conferences. Um, and so you know, we're doing things at that equipping level. Thanks, Randy, for coming by. Um, which leads towards mobilization. You know, mobilizing Gap to do what he's doing, mobilizing Randy to do what he's doing in the physical church, mobilizing, um, mission organization X to do that.

Maybe it's a character flaw, by the way. You know, if you're APEST, I'm apostle like 90, 93 percent. I'm apostle, and everything else is like 30 percent. Like, I'm hardcore. And, um, for me, that means I just want to say yes to everything. Like, I hate saying no. And, um, maybe I just need to figure that out.

Um, really, it's interesting. Um, I am, I'm not a teacher. I'm not. Um, the rest were actually probably more 40 percent. Um, yeah, I'm pretty, you know, it's been. If I had taken that test maybe five, six years ago, I probably would have scored differently. But this past six years, I think, kind of reshaped some of my mindset a little more than I was.

Um, that's funny, actually. I met with, um, funny story. Garrett Silgi is a production director at Christ Fellowship Miami. As a kid, I was discipling. I say that kid. He's got like three kids now. But he was a kid I was discipling at the physical church I used to work at. And he actually took my job when I left. He became the production director for the church. Never five, six campuses. And, uh, is doing a good job. He's doing a better job than I was. He's much better at that job than I was. And, um, I came together with him and was like, hey, what are we? Um, we were talking, catching up. We hadn't really talked much in a while. And, um, and he's like, would you ever come back to work at CF? It's a funny story. I've worked at the same church in my teens. I was an intern and I was the interim youth pastor in my teens. In my twenties, I was an interim youth pastor and a youth pastor. In my thirties, I was production and tech director. And, um, you know, in my forties, I was, um, digital strategist and digital pastor. And so like, tens, twenties, thirties, forties, I've got a long career at that church. Literally not straight through, mind you. Like, but in and out, in and out, in and out. And so he asked me. He's like, would you ever? And when I left, it was funny. The day I quit, my last day there, I actually told people, who knows, maybe I'll come back in my fifties. We've got like, you know, six years to change culture and some things happen different here. Everybody kind of laughed.

Um, where I sit in this chair now, like, my life has changed so much in those six years. I don't think I'd go back. I even told him I was like, I, there's no way. Like, my mindset has shifted. What I believe in church is shifted. My calling is shifted. Like, it's not about that anymore.

All right, well, I've been telling some stories here. Um, in Penny, I think the church has the same mission whether IRL, in real life, for digital. I do agree with that. Like, and, you know, you came in a little late. The framework that I'm talking about: connections lead to community where discipleship happens, which needs to lead towards mobilization, which gives the church opportunities to mobilize. You know, if that's the church framework that operates in physical or digital churches, just really the only thing that changes is community. Physical churches look at the church building as community. Digital churches look at Discord as community. Really, if physical church that recognizes Discord as community, oh my gosh, the opportunities there. That church can explode. Um, but I do believe it's the same mission. And a lot of what I'm talking about specifically in Penny is more based on TCD and really the direction where we're going, where we can go.

Um, yeah, they, uh, Westbrooks. I love West. Um, they just don't always see, uh, he was actually applying to implement Penny. Uh, yes, they just don't always see digital as a legitimate avenue for accomplishing the commission, the mission, the common mission. I'd love for one day digital missions ministry is no longer a needed moniker. It just should be missions ministry. I do. I do agree with that. I, I would love. I do. You'll hear me. It's funny. Um, Dave Adamson's actually very popular. Used to work with Orange. I'm not sure who Dave's working with these days. He's Australian. Um, but actually lives in Australia. And I used to be the digital pastor at North Point. But Dave's a big YouTube guy, and Dave and I get in this fight every once in a while, um, because Dave really doesn't believe, hey, Stewart Putnam's in here. Stu, how you doing? Um, Stu used to be the digital pastor at Christ Fellowship in West Palm Beach, not the church that I just referenced, Christ Fellowship Miami, and worked for Glue for a number of years. And so Stu, I'd love to hear where you're working these days. I know there's been some transition. Um, would love to catch up with you. But, um, Dave Adamson is always like, Jeff, stop saying digital church. It's just church. And I was like, the day that the world thinks that digital church is a church, when it's an established, viable model that I don't need to define or fight for or quantify or validate, the day that happens, I will call it a church and not a digital church. But because I have to validate it, because it needs to be quantified, because it needs to be explained, because I need to fight for it, um, I will define it as a digital church. Um, because I don't think there's understanding in that space yet at this point.

Patriots, gun control, how you doing, man? I don't think I've met you yet. Glad you can come in. Uh, digital is, yep, digital is helpful for now. Wes says, uh, for the missional period where, yeah, definitely. Um, I do think there's opportunities to change the pivot, but we're not, respectfully, we're not there yet. And that's not bad. Uh, it's just we're not there. Uh, I think, uh, McGarvin, old school church growth guru, would say that now that digital is the best place for walking 21st century bridges of God.

You know what's interesting? I, you know, talking about old school guys, I actually did, um, my gosh, who wrote Experiencing God? Somebody tell me. I'm blanking on the guy's name now. He's dead recently. His son died recently. Yeah, Henry Blackaby. Um, Henry Blackaby. Um, I actually mapped out. I'm trying to think where I wrote this blog. Maybe it's, oh, maybe it was Leadership Network. Maybe it was the church digital. If it was Leadership Network, I probably got republished on TCD. But I wrote a blog that mapped out Henry Blackaby's seven steps for Experiencing God, um, like how we experience the Holy Spirit. Um, you know, and it honestly, I forget what they are, but it was through spoken word. It was through, um, you know, people feedback from others. It was script. Whatever it was, I actually mapped out Henry Blackaby's experience in God and asked and basically asked the questions and defended whether or not you could do that entirely digitally. Like, what were the strengths and weaknesses? Um, and it was funny. I did that right when Henry Blackaby died. Uh, maybe like, maybe it's three or four years ago. That actually what triggered it for me. I do a quote. I used to do a quote with Henry Blackaby in a lot of my talks, talking about how basically God would move, um, if we, if they, oh my gosh, you have an original experience in God in a three binder? I do too. Um, I have that. Um, from the, maybe it's not original because I mean, that Experiencing God's older than me. It was early, it was mid-seventies, as I recall. Um, but, uh, there's a quote in there where Henry Blackaby talks about, um, how God moves when we get over ourselves and our preconceived notions and instead look and see where God is moving and join him in his work. If only the church would get over their preconceived notions and instead recognize where the Holy Spirit is moving, we would see a true act of God and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And so like, that is powerful. Um, Henry Blackaby wasn't even like around when, wasn't doing ministry in a digital era, but oh my gosh, if you applied his principles from Experiencing God into that space, I almost want to do that.

Um, after I did Experiencing God, I did T.W. Hunt's Mind of Christ, which, would that was another heavy discipleship kind of parallel thing for me. Kind of, I've always wanted to map out Mind of Christ into that in that same context of digital. Um, it was interesting. I used to work for Eric Geiger. Um, and when he wrote, when he wrote Simple Church, I was actually at the church that he was at. That, now I'm actually, I'm actually our church was the first Simple Church. I've wanted to map out Simple Church and map that out in digital context too. Eric's not a digital church fan. He's more of a SBC guy, and they don't necessarily like us in the SBC world. But he is now, actually, I don't think Mariners is SBC, so he may be loosening up a little bit. I need to give him a call. I haven't touched base with him in a while. I've got a bunch of friends at Mariners these days. Um, so man, that's it. Welcome to the brain of Jeff Reed doing the live stream here.

Uh, I will, um, I love this. Like, I don't know if this is helpful. I don't know if there's any world-shattering takeaways or anything that I want to share with you guys. Um, but for me, I'm a verbal processor, and the opportunity to talk through this and even see some stuff come in on chat and to dialogue with you on it, like, I love the streams. I love the open offices that we do in here. And so y'all, thanks for jumping on here and hanging out. You know, I know some of you are more active than others. Some of you, I'm just rambling noise in the background while you're working. And, uh, that's cool. Whatever I am doing for you is, is I appreciate your time and hanging out here. And I love that, um, I get to flex on the script and be a little more, um, Jeff. This is, you know, I talk about the podcast unfiltered. Jeff. I just, I say whatever I want. I don't say whatever I want on the podcast, but I can, you know, I'm a little loose. I am loose in the podcast. Um, here you're at.

Communo Stewart, that's interesting. I just, it's so funny. I just saw a job listing for Communo last night, and I thought, honestly, I didn't think for me, but I thought, man, I wonder if I could get somebody connected into that because a lot of what we're working with is talking about equipping, you know, financially. We're trying to help some of our planters find jobs that they can make money and do the planting and the work, you know, as bivocational. And so I'm always keeping my eyes out for digital Christian organizations that are paying that wouldn't mind a digital church planter being bivocational. Physical church would mind, would most likely mind. And so that's interesting.

Yeah, um, Stu, DM me here on Discord, friend me if you can. Dear Fedde, R-F-F-E-J. Let's talk offline, and I'd love to connect with you. I'm actually working on some things that might make sense for you. I don't get into that here on the stream, but yeah, let's talk soon.

Um, Wes, this is the value here. Encouragement that we're not crazy or we're alone? No, we're not. It was funny. You have my cell. It's even better, Stu. I felt alone when I was in ministry, to be honest. That's why I made a horrible church staffer because I went to work every day thinking I had to fight for what I wanted because every day I did have to go to work fighting for what I wanted because I was the only person that wanted what I wanted. No one else had the same vision. The vision changed, and I didn't change with it, and arguably I should have left, but instead I hung on to trying to convince others and trying to provide value. And I was in fear, honestly. I was in fear of losing my paycheck. And so that caused two and a half years of pain, of heartache, of frustration, and literally of being alone.

Actually, I told that to the operations director as I was leaving. And she said, um, because it was funny because long story short, she and I have had a good and bad relationship over the years because I was always aggressive, fighting. I'm like a type A mentality, and she just wasn't. And so, you know, she was like, as I was leaving, with her, and she's like, "Well, Jeff, it's been really great knowing you and getting to know more of you because we've had a lifelong relationship." And she says, "It's really interesting to see how much you've changed and how much you've softened over the years." That was her opinion. And I honestly teared up when she said softened. I was like, "You know what? I literally felt like I had to fight for everything every day that I worked here. I did not feel like I was supported, and that just caused like this canyon open." And it was true. Like, when I was on staff, I mean, I left in 2018. There was no the church digital. There was no parent organization. The only online conference there was like fifty people church network in that exponential was not doing anything digital. Like, I mean, nothing was recognizing digital. And so for us now to provide resources like this and the stuff that Dave Adamson's doing and Mills and Jay Kanda, and oh my gosh, like there's so many. There's so many voices in this on digital ministry, on digital discipleship. Arguably, there's probably too many voices. People coming out of the woodworks. Don't even get me started on it, or AI experts. All of a sudden, everybody's an AI expert.

I love the fact that we get to be a part of this and do this with the church digital. So thanks, y'all. I am rambling, Wes. Wednesday, tomorrow night, six p.m. Eastern, we are bringing in, um, and I will call him this tomorrow at some point. Freaking, uh, I just blanked. I've been talking so much I ran out of words. We're bringing in freaking Alan Hirsch into the conversation. Alan Hirsch, um, church planting guru, expert, church innovator extraordinaire, is coming into the conversation into this Discord room, six p.m. tomorrow, uh, with four digital church planters. A virtual reality planter, a gamer planter, a digital planter on Facebook, and a microchurch planter. Hirsch having a conversation tomorrow night. See you with bells on, and you guys come with questions too, gals, whoever is listening, and we'll see you tomorrow night, six p.m. in here on Discord. Love you all. Thanks for hanging out. Talk to you later.