EP337 - What's the Role of Media in Digital Missions?

All right. Hey, episode 337 of the Church Digital Podcast. Jeff here. You know, anytime I listen to this is Stream Beats Harris Heler. But groovy, this particular album. Um, I feel like I'm in Stranger Things. Like I don't know. Maybe it's just you. If you're envisioning being the upside down, the happy upside down.

Anyway, is there a happy upside down? Is there any other TV show that has taken longer to come out with than Stranger Things? Like I don't I don't actually know what Netflix is doing, but I'm pretty sure some of those like elementary school age kids are going to be having grandkids by the time that show actually hits the air. It's crazy how long it is. Literally, I think I'm holding on to my Netflix subscription solely for the purpose of watching that show.

I have honestly told myself once Stranger Things is over, I will cancel it. And I'm pretty sure I said that two years ago the last time I watched a Stranger Things season. Was it season 4? And they just they won't come out with it. It's like they know they're trying to figure out how to get my what is it, you know, at this point $99 a month. It's not that much, but you know, it's like they find a way. They just find a way to get the money. And so Netflix, I'm on to you.

I moved on to Disney because Disney doesn't want my money. I can't even finish the sentence. That's awesome. Hey everybody, welcome to the podcast. It's great to be here. Kind of a little relaxed today. I've got a topic. I'm just going to vamp on here in a little bit, but heading into it, I want to welcome the room. Those of you who are watching in real time. Okay, Steve Reed, brother from another mother. I just realized I my coffee was still in the coffee machine and not where I could reach it, so I had to step out.

Steve, okay, Steve got first, evidently. Okay, who beat me here? Evidently nobody did. Steve, you got there first of all. Welcome. Number two, we got Jeremy. Jeremy is saying hello. Hey, Jeremy. Jeremy, I don't think I've met you, but I recognize your name from a spreadsheet of people that are signing up for Equipping Digital Missionaries. And so, hey, great to meet you. Looking forward to learning more about you here. And looking forward to getting your take on EDM.

If you're curious about Troy Apocalypse, you know, is Troy in fact skipping school or not, he is not in class because he is taking the time to text, "Hi, Steve." And then making me an accomplice to this situation by putting it into YouTube, "Hi Jeff." So Steve and Jeff, the two Reeds, not brothers, are now accomplices in making sure that Troy is not in class. I'm so proud.

Fabio is saying, "Hey." And of course Steve says, "Hey, Troy back." Which now I feel bad for not saying hey. So I'll say it audibly. Hey Troy, get your butt back in class. Graduate. You got like two weeks left, bro. Finish strong. That was my disclaimer in case any police official is watching this. I am not asking kids to skip school. That being said, Troy, you're two weeks away from graduating high school. Finish strong and then do whatever the crap you want, bro.

I feel like I say that every week, man. He's oh, that's right. That's right. Tuesdays. Evidently, Tuesdays is co-op day for Troy. And so you're heading to work here in a little bit. Edith, hey, how are you? Good. Good to see you as well. Good to see you again, Edith. Appreciate you coming on here. And so, hey, listen, we're going to have a lot of fun today doing a deep dive on an interesting topic. Well, this is an interesting topic to me. Globally, I have so many people ask me this question centered around digital, the role of digital media or when I talk about doing digital missions work, they're like, "Oh, I do digital media." And then there's silence. And so I want to speak into that a little bit. Maybe I'm not understanding. Maybe there's an opportunity to think bigger, do something different. I don't know. It just feels to me that it's as I'm holding my coffee precariously while standing, afraid I'm going to like shake it and drop it. It seems to me that there's an opportunity to do more. And that's what I want to dig into a little bit on this stream today.

But before we get there, hey, put this on your calendar right now. Oh my gosh. I just finished, as literally before I jumped on this stream, I just finished the slide deck, the presentation. Y'all, we are doing our town hall meeting for summer 25. Every, you all hopefully realize this. Every three months, couple two or three times a year, we do a town hall meeting where we gather together all of Church Digital, open it up, and really this is our opportunity. Hey, we want to hear from you. What's working? What's not working in your ministry? How can we help you? What are the challenges? What are the obstacles? And this is really one of the best opportunities we have to dialogue. It was out of the town hall meetings and all of the "Jeff, when are you going to do a conference? Jeff, when are you going to do a conference? Jeff, you really need to do a conference." That we decided to launch the Digital Missionary Conference, which was awesome.

Of course, if you remember back to a month ago, can you believe it was only a month ago? April 2nd. So literally 33 days ago, 35 days ago. Anyway, so we are doing our next town hall meeting basically this time in three weeks, in two weeks. May 20th, Tuesday, May 20th, 1:00 p.m. Eastern. Count it, 14 days from today. We'll be in a town hall meeting. And I want to hear from you. On top of that, in addition to hearing from you, oh my gosh, I thought, hey, this is going to be a light town hall meeting. We're really not going to push that this much stuff because we're really trying to, you know, focus and narrow down and fine-tune. Not a lot. This is going to be a light town hall meeting. And then, you know, somebody's like, "Well, Jeff, are you going to talk about this?" "Yeah, I'm going to talk about that." Somebody else said, "Hey, are you going to talk about this?" "Yeah, I'm going to want to talk about that." "Yeah, I'm going to want to talk about that." And all of a sudden, now I've got like a 30-point slide deck. And so, listen, there is going to be all sorts of awesome things that we are going to be announcing at the May 20th town hall meeting. May 20th, Tuesday, May 20th, 1:00 p.m. Eastern, including I'm not even sure I'm going to open with this or not. It'll remain to be seen. I'm announcing the conferences. Wait, wait, did he say conferences? Jeff, how many conferences are you doing? Um, more than one? More than two? Maybe more than three? Listen, we're going all in, baby. You do not want to miss the town hall. Tuesday, Tuesday, Tuesday, May 20th, 1:00 p.m. Eastern, right here on TCD's YouTube. You're not going to make it live? We'll watch it on demand, but oh, live is so much more fun. We'll have some interactive components like we always do with the town halls, and we'll see you live in the show.

Okay. Hey, and you know what? We've got some new things coming up with the stream as well. Looking at making some adjustments. Was talking with the team over the past couple days about that. Um, love hanging out with y'all. Love doing this. We'll continue doing this until probably I'm dead in the grave or until I can find somebody better to do it than me. No, but we want to fine-tune. Going to start to highlight some partners, some opportunities, ways to equip you better. Not only like partners, but really equipping tools. Like what are some platforms that you all can be using and taking advantage of as ways to highlight tools and things that can help you do the ministry you're doing. On top of that, we really want to highlight even on top of that some of the outposts that we're working with and that we're starting to build up some of these regional networks that are excited about doing ministry. And you know what, I keep, I have been, I've been wanting to send an email out for oh my gosh, Jesse Carbo, I've let you down again. I've been supposed to send this email for a month. Jesse and I kind of tag-teamed this idea to do a stream together with an individual, an incredible individual who will most likely say yes. And I just keep forgetting to ask. Literally, I keep forgetting to ask the person if they wouldn't mind coming. I'll give you a hint. Coming back on the podcast. And so I just need to literally remember to write the email. You would not think that it would be that hard to remember to write an email. Yet in my life, it is. It is that hard to remember to write an email.

Um, I need a secretary. I need an assistant. I need an admin. I need a project manager. I need somebody to tell me, "Jeff, it's time to do your laundry." And if you don't get that, well, hang out in Fam on WhatsApp. Hang out on WhatsApp in Fam and you'll learn probably far more about my laundry than you really want to know about my laundry because Fam, WhatsApp, listen, I love the Discord. I love the gamers, but if I'm honest, oh, WhatsApp is so much more fun for me. Um, Leighton's doing a great job with the gaming. Some of the crowd, I was talking with one of our leaders this week. "Hey, do you prefer Discord or WhatsApp?" And he's like, "Oh, no, no, no. I'm much more a Discord guy." And this guy was a Discord guy. Oh my gosh, WhatsApp, WhatsApp is a lot of fun.

Well, hey, we got some more people checking in. Uh, Mr. Pete, Mr. Pete is in the house. How are you, sir? It's good to see you again. Um, Troy is coming to the town hall meeting. He will not be skipping class to come to the town hall meeting. Troy, will you be in school by then? Or will you be done? Troy, what is graduation day? I need to know. Tell me now. Tell me now. Tell me now. Tell me now. When's graduation day?

Okay. Um, Methos, I gotta click. He's making an allusion to like conference was a month ago. Can you believe? Oh, I we got a new platform for the conference. Um, oh, I'm so excited, y'all. It's going to be good. It's going to be good. We are learning lessons and we are moving on. It's going to be great coming up here for the Digital Missionary Conferences coming in fall 2025. And Troy, yes, it is hard to write an email. It's I'm going to assume you meant an email and that was a typo.

Um, Troy, you're in Pittsburgh. You're in, no, where are you? You're in Pennsylvania. I'm trying to think of the name of the city. I was just, who was I just talking with? Somebody was coming up to your neck of the woods. I'll think about it later. Don't worry about it.

Hey, so here's what happened. I'm hanging out in the Fam over on WhatsApp and meeting, you know, new people. That community is exploding. And the fun thing is it's a global mix. Like it is just literally people from all over the planet. And they're always asking, you know, I mean, they come on and it's somebody said something about something and then they find

The church digital, they find this on YouTube coming in and hey, you know, it's my first time here. Uh, by the way, if you're watching this on YouTube, uh, and as we're talking about community, uh, our WhatsApp, you can find us online at WhatsApp.urch.digital, and you can find us at Discord, discord.thechurch.digital.

Those are two very easy ways to get connected into our community. Direct links, it'll get you right in the door. It's beautiful. But um, so I was asking this guy, uh, he came on and uh, this person was international, I believe from the Middle East. Uh, I'm not, I'm not going to share his name, but he was, he was talking about some of the uh, ministry that that he was doing in that particular region and uh, and he started asking me, you know, tips on asynchronous community because it's, if it's one thing that that we, the church digital, like I'm, I'm gonna pat Andy Mage on on the back here. Um, maybe rub his bald head for good luck. And I'm guilty of it, too. It's cool. I'll go and do it on camera. Um, like we are, and I don't want to jinx the situation. Andy's actually very um, how do I say this? Uh, very um, oh, what's the word? Like he, he's um, he gets scared of of like uh, like jinxes and stuff. Superstitious. Andy's very superstitious.

And so when I say, "Hey, you know what? Things are really going well in asynchronous world for the church digital." And Andy's responsible for asynchronous for digital community. Like he wigs out. He's like, "Oh my gosh, Jeff, you just jinxed it. Don't do that." And I remember this particular conversation, actually Steve was like, um, Steve Reed was like, "What's asynchronous?" Or, you know, it took me like a month to figure out what asynchronous was, Jeff, cuz you, you say the word so much. Um, and it was funny. It is true. We, we do talk about asynchronous a lot. Um, and so I, I went up to to ChatGPT. Uh, I'm building an agent kind of on the side uh of ChatGPT and I said, "Hey, scour all all of the church digital's blogs and videos and and write a 30,000 word article explaining our our view of asynchronous communities." And you can find that now on on WhatsApp and I think I put it on Discord, too. It's a, it's a pretty good article. Like all things considered, you know, go uh, ChatGPT nailed that sucker pretty well.

Um, I also really wish uh, ChatGPT would learn how to do my laundry, which is another conversation that I mentioned earlier, but I want to get into it here.

But this individual, I says, "So, so what are you doing with uh, what's your, what's your, what's your strategy right now?" And uh, and this, this individual says, "Well, uh, we do, we do digital media and and then it just kind of ends." And uh, now he had, I, I dug in with this person individually and he had a much richer strategy and and and like this is, there was a, there was a deep end to this. This is not me pointing any fingers or making any accusations directed towards this one individual, but it's, it's this um, it's this idea that digital media and this is something that that I don't think we sell well through the through the church digital content, digital media, videos at that connection level. Digital media plays a crucial role in us connecting with people digitally at at the global scale. Oftentimes it gets, it gets downplayed uh in in large part because, well, at least for for me, I, I have come from creating tons of content from the physical church and environment and almost the digital media relational push it, like relationships and digital media, relationships and and and content. It's almost like it's, it's um, exact opposites. It's polar opposites when it, it's, it's really one needs to be the front door to the other.

It, it really is the uh, content, digital media needs to be the front door into community. Often times, and I'll just speak for me, often times I kind of like back off the content because really we, we don't need more, more content. There's content all over the place. Uh, people that that are, are, are watching you. And this is true. They're not, they're not interested in content. They're interested in in community. Uh, I mean, people aren't interested in watching this stream because some bald guy with a beard is talking right now. They're, they're interested because they have some level of a relationship with me and and they know because of who I am in community that I am easily accessible.

As a matter of fact, I have had strangers walk up to me in airports and say, "Aren't you the guy from blah blah blah? Um, it's great to finally meet you. I've seen you on blah. We've talked at blah. I was at Expo and um, this is so funny. Somebody literally walked up to me at the Exponential Conference in uh, Orlando, Florida in March of this year and said, "Aren't you the guy that did the talk on um, Journey?" Now, the funny thing was this is an American rock band called Journey. Uh, I did in fact parallel Journey's uh, hit song "Don't Stop Believing" to the growth and rise of digital churches in uh, pre-COVID, maybe it was during COVID, 2020. Yeah, it was during COVID, 2021. Yeah, it was, it was, it was a crazy talk, but it was like five years ago and and this person remembered it and and and this person, once, once they, once he got me at the conference, started digging in, asking me all these questions what was going on. Like he filed away this piece of content from four or five years ago, whatever it was, 2020, 2021. But it wasn't until he actually saw me that he, he actioned on it and and and started to apply it and dig into it, saying things like, "Man, I really wish we should do this. We should look into this at our church. Would you be available? How do we get connected? What's the best way?" And I, you know, give him the website, give him the community.

And uh, you know, he may be stumbling around or not. I, I don't know. But the content plays a big part in driving people to community.

You, you, you hear me say our framework, our flywheel all the time. The people we connect to digitally, we want to invite them into a community where we're building a relationship, where we're establishing trust, evangelism, discipleship, all of this happens best at the community level.

As part of that discipleship, we want to find and help people find what their calling is on their life, what God is calling each individual to do. And then mobilize them, send them out, hold them accountable to do what God is calling them to do. Connect, community, equip, mobilize. That's the four parts of the framework of the flywheel.

You know, I can even hope some of you may remember the deep cut here. I got Funko Pop Leonardo da Vinci, inventor of the flywheel. And uh, this, that's that's a thing. So that's the flywheel. Now, connect, content is a plays a big part of this. Now, now what we see globally and this is a point of contention, is too strong of a word. This is something that I would love to challenge because we've seen it play differently uh, more effectively globally. What happens a lot of times is people will utilize content in the same way we do. Uh, we're, we're using content to connect with people, but to build relationships and establish trust. They're not sending it from a uh, into a a community like a Discord or like a WhatsApp. Instead, they're sending it as quickly as possible into a one-on-one conversation. Now, now this could be a one-on-one conversation maybe with a pastor, with a a a church member, maybe even it could be a one-on-one conversation with a a call center, like somebody who's an an operator that is is, you know, dialoguing.

And and this conversation could be via texting. It it could be a voice conversation. And it could be, I've even seen some people try to do it with Zoom or or with with WhatsApp, you know, try to Google Meet, like try to have a face-to-face conversation right off the bat, like you're, you're having a um, you're, you're reading a a blog, you're watching a YouTube video, then all of a sudden you're face to face with someone uh on on on a Google Meet call.

In my opinion, and this is based off of the the years of doing digital ministry here in the US and helping with digital media globally. This is outside of the physical church doing digital ministry. This is also based on on what we're seeing through the church digital, digital church network and some of the other orgs we've worked with, DCN. That's a that's a throwback. I had said DCN in a couple years. Um, look, it it's all about boiling the frog slowly, which is interesting because five years ago, early COVID, I would have agreed, get that person in a webcam conversation as quickly as possible. But that's just it, is that over the years, building trust takes time. And this is what I think gets lost a lot of time globally and digitally is that we have this desire to want to move fast. We want to move quick with it, but it's, it's not a quick thing. You know, it's interesting. I actually, there's there's a church that um uh, I'm, I'm, I'm friends with and they, they have an incredible church service online. Like the production quality, the production elements of of how they broadcast their physical church service digitally, it's state-of-the-art, like top shelf. I would say this is in the top one percent of church broadcasts across this country of America, uh, across the United States. Great stuff. I've asked them, hey, how many people do you know? And they've got thousands of people. Thousands of people watch church services from around the, around the, watch this church's services. This particular church's services. Thousands of people around the world. It's not just isolated to their their city, state, or even their country. Like it, it's a globally recognized church.

Here's the challenge. Hey, out of the people that are watching, how many do you actually know? Like, online pastor, how many names? Rattle me off fifty names right now. Can't do it. Thirty names, fifteen names, ten, five. You could probably do five to seven. And and it's this unfortunate reality with having ministry that's based on media, digital media, based on content, is that it's very easy to not know the people you're interacting with.

Listen, a as a people, it's so funny when people call me an influencer. I I just kind of roll my eyes cuz I don't, I don't even know what that means for me. I I humbly, I do not wear that label. Well, but I I would say this is is that you have to work hard to make yourself accessible if you're in the game of content because as nice as it is for you for people to listen to you, they really want to interact with you. Um, they really want to talk about them and have you listen to them. They want to ask you questions about what they're going through or they want to tell you what they're doing and and and have you approve, validate, help in in what they're doing.

It's funny when I, when I listen, when I talked to a, I did it today. I was talking to a digital church planter. He wants to plant a church in gaming and I think he's in Indonesia. You know, it's funny. I always get Indochina, Indonesia mixed up in the head. I think he was Indonesia. I'm not actually sure. Indochina is a country. I am not good at geography. And if my father's watching, I'm sorry. He was a geography teacher for years and he's yelling at me right now. He's, if he's watching, he's literally screaming at the the computer monitor, screaming, "Madison, Madison, I'm mad, son." Oh my gosh, that just triggered me. If I'm gonna start crying in a minute, I'm going to be in a ball over here. But um, that's another story for a different day.

The, the, that was a long rabbit trail. Wow. Let me try to come back. The, the, the fact is is that they want to interact with you. This guy I was on the call with today in Indonesia, um, I, I literally, I spent just asking him questions and and letting him talk, getting him to share with me. Listen, I, I could have lectured the guy. I could have got on a soap box and told him, but I want to hear from you.

What are you doing? Position me as a learner in that situation digitally. In order to build trust, in order to establish relationships, you got to shut up. You have to stop talking. What we're doing right now, you are not building a relationship with me. I'm telling you what to do, and I'm telling you this is not the method to build relationships. This is the method to monologue. And so you can establish expertise at that level, but you're not establishing trust. And this is where you need to ask questions and let others do the talking.

It's funny. I've got this. I use, uh, so we know this. We use Phantom. Fathom. I use Fathom. If you have a Google Meet call with me, a Zoom call with me, you know, I can skip around. Like it's great. I can search. It's AI based, so I can ask questions. Hey, what did I say? And instead of having to like scroll through pages of dialogue, it actually pulls it AI wise. It pulls it from the record and shows me. But uh, there's a little add-on that I love about Fathom where up in the upper right hand corner of my computer monitor when I'm recording the meeting, it says, um, basically, you've been talking X percent of this meeting.

So like on this call, I've been talking 100 percent of the time because I'm streaming. I don't have a guest. It is me lecturing for this one. That being said, when I'm on a Google Meet call and you know there's four or five people in the room and my percentage says that I've been talking 85 percent of the time, well, that means no one else is doing the talking except for me. And that's not, that's I mean in times I think it's okay, but it's better to do dialogue instead of monologue.

Now what's interesting is I think I just lost internet. Maybe it's coming back. I'm seeing my internet kind of hiccup on me here, uh, a little bit. Oh well. We're going to just stroll with it and hopefully it works out. I think this is going to be recorded on my desk and so worst case scenario, we'll just upload it.

It's important to ask questions more than making statements. Listen more than you talk. Um, use question marks more than periods. Don't use exclamation marks. Don't platform. Don't scream. Dialogue with people through the process. And what you'll find in those situations is that God will use you as a way to help you understand how best to engage. As I was talking to my friend here in Indonesia, all of a sudden an idea of how to approach the conversation, it let me see his motives. It let me see what his giftings were and I could ask more questions. You know, we've been doing a lot lately talking about active listening, and this is really the opportunity for active listening where we can start to highlight some of these ways to listen, to engage more with people instead of pushing an idea or pushing an award. And so using content like this stream or like Twitch or like Tik Tok or Instagram or Facebook, using all of these different things are definitely viable because it's a way to connect with people, but it is not the only thing you should be doing. It is not exclusive. Connection without community in 2025's culture, connection without community is worthless. It's meaningless. You have to have the community in order to be effective with evangelism and discipleship.

Now, okay, wait, wait. Jeff, are you telling me that God can't? Yes, God can. Yes, the Holy Spirit can. I'm saying that in isolated circumstances, yes, God can do something. We Romans tells us that man can look at nature and see the attributes of God and know who he is just by looking at nature surrounding the man. And so yes, God can do something in all situations. What I'm saying is that culturally in 2025, I would say this in the 1980s and 90s, in the 70s, maybe in the heyday of the church here in America, there was much more, hey, content or how people are going to find Jesus. Arguably, a lot of the decline of the church, at least here in America, has been centered around that because the church in 2020, we're still doing the same thing that we were doing in the 70s. Yeah, our worship style changed, um, and uh, our messages maybe are a little more spit and polish and we've got better sermon series titles and better, like, you know, illustrations and effects and things. But um, largely the method of evangelism, the sermon, hasn't changed in centuries. So what's happening is that we are trying to communicate with people who Jesus is via sermon, via content, and they're not receptive to it because they're also needing community, relationship to engage in the content.

I can remember this is another US story, precovid. Um, it was a Carrie Newheoff podcast, precovid. And uh, Carrie's interviewing a lead pastor of a mega giga church. This is precovid. And um, the senior pastor of this mega giga church, probably 15 to 20,000 people on weekends, the US pastor's talking, it was something because the interview was more about content, was more about sermon, more about that, more about the weekend service. I think it was on the weekend service now I think about it. But and this pastor was going on and on and on about the weekend service and Carrie asked, well, how, how, how are, what do you guys do for groups? What do you do for small groups? And um, the lead pastor of this mega giga church paused and he's like, "Well, if it's one thing that we learned, it's that groups really aren't effective in our church's culture, so we just don't waste any of our time doing it."

In 2025 postcovid culture, every church, every individual, every person that desires to do ministry, every missionary needs to take advantage or connect with people that are doing community. Maybe you're a content creator and you just want to partner with somebody to do community for you. That's better than thumbing your nose at it and saying, "Nah, you know what? I just, we're not going to do community. We're just going to create content." I'm telling you, content creation without community, I would suggest this. It's pointless because the content is not going to land unless you've got the community to reinforce it. I mean, even stupid memes mean more when there's a community to dialogue with and to crack jokes and to unpack it at a deeper level.

This morning I posted a really, I don't, I thought it was funny. It was a news clipping article of maybe it was real, maybe it was AI, which would make it even more funny. But it was this woman quoted in the newspaper. Her photo was included. It looked real. And she's like, "I long for the day when AI does my laundry so I can do more art instead of AI doing my art so I can do more laundry." I thought that was funny. And so I posted it in the group and that's why all of a sudden we start talking about Rosie and you know, my ridiculous mountain of laundry that I've got in my closet right now. True or false? I may have been wearing the same pair of jeans for multiple months at this point. Like it's been a stretch since I've done laundry. Uh, confession hour. Pray for my wife. She desperately needs it. Uh, not because she's doing my laundry, but because she's got to put up with me when I don't do laundry.

Where am I going with this? Is that community accelerates, community validates, community, um, what's the word I'm looking for? Multiplies. Uh, community, um, exponentially increases what's happening on the content. You want to pour gasoline on the flame of what you're doing? Involve community. And the idea of, well, let's, I'm going to drive that conversation to a one-on-one. In my opinion and what I've seen, a one-on-one conversation too soon chases people away, or at least let's say a large percentage of people away. There are some people that will go to, this is going to be a bad analogy, forgive me, but there are some people who will in fact go to the meet the pastor portion of the after service ritual at your physical church building. They'll go see the sermon and, oh yeah, I'm a first-time guest. Let's go meet the pastor and shake his hand and learn whatever they want, whatever happens in that space. Usually it's not the first-time guests that go to those things. Usually it's the people that have been around for a long time that want to talk to the pastor. And you actually have to work, trust me, you have to work really hard to keep the usual attenders out to make it about the first-time guests. Meanwhile, the first-time guests are exhausted from the experience. They're picking up their kids and they're getting out of dodge as quick as they can.

The point being is that getting people into a face-to-face conversation is not the best way to build relationships slowly. It gets awkward. And so even in digital, using the digital community, using one to many, where I can be part of the community but I can step back, I can be on the outside, I can not be engaging, I can kind of be passively watching and listening and see if I like it. I can test drive before I get put on the spot.

It's funny. Back in the 1980s, the church that I was in, I was like in elementary, right? I was a little kid and so the church that I was at, First Baptist Church of Perrine down here in Miami, Florida, we would, um, anytime somebody was new, we made them fill out that, you know, now we call them connection cards, but it was a visitor card where they'd give their information and let them know. And lots of people would fill it out. But there was this little like rose lapel, rose sticker, rose. Literally it was like a sewn cloth, um, like uh, threaded uh, rose, red rose with like adhesive sticky on the backside and people would put it to their jacket lapel, right? Yeah, that's jacket lapel. And so like, hey, I'm a visitor. Look at me. And in the 70s, people wore that because they were, it was comfortable. It was proud. There was pride in being involved, being a first-time guest and new. And lots of people, you know, go around, hey, it's great to see you. Welcome to the community. And like that was the way to bring people in.

2025, people don't want to be singled out like that. 2025, they want a little more control, especially digitally. Digitally, you want to give people control of their destiny. You want to let them drive their engagement and discipleship process digitally. You do not want to shove down them more and more content, force them. 2025, you want them to have access to be able to pull in. Um, the more you shove, the less they're going to receive, the more quickly they're going to unfollow. Uh, the more you allow them to control, the deeper they will go, which means more engagement for you in the long haul.

Now here's the challenge. By doing this, you have to agree to go slowly. This is not microwave. This is crockpot. This is a slow boil. This is not, um, I'm going to go from zero to a million overnight. It's going to take time. Do you want it to go fast or do you want it right? And fast will get you a percentage, but it's not going to be the numbers that time would be. By the way, fast is also expensive. You know, it's like, do you want it fast and expensive or do you want it slow and cheap? Uh, and then do you want it good or do you want it bad? Like there, that's there's a whole like three trifecta there where it's like, uh, how do you want it? How, what quality, what time, and what, um, uh, yeah, uh, how, anyway, there's there's like two, my brain totally lost that thought.

But how you are utilizing content to connect with people is hugely important and that digitally you give it time. Now I have had, we're just coming off Equipping Digital Missionaries, EDM.

I have we've got maybe a dozen churches I would say that are currently in equipping digital missionaries cohort, um, and coming off it, and they're like coming into EDM saying I am curious about my church launching and starting a digital missionaries program. And this is this is not broadcasting church services.

This is developing missionaries and sending them out to be on mission for Christ digitally. Content plays a huge part in that content, but it's not church content.

Arguably, you're asking your, you know, your the people that are volunteering for this to create content for something different. Like, you know, I I know there's a there's a couple churches right now that are exploring the idea of gaming churches digitally and and if you're doing that, that's great, but you're not starting something um but but you're not broadcasting your church services on Twitch. You're creating content that engages with gamer community uh and then putting that in a place where gamers can access it to start to build relationships with gamers to draw them into your Discord server or or you are going into their Discord server without community without content and just building relationships in random Discord servers. Uh which is a great play as well. It's a little easier on the non-content creators, but it takes time either way to develop it through.

My my my point being is that it takes time to develop relationships digitally. Tyler Sansom uh over at First Capital Christian Cordon, Indiana. Tyler, one day I'll come visit you.

Uh he's his church has always been the church that I want to come see. And and Tyler has said to me over the years, um it's maybe the best piece of advice.

Uh I called him once uh during COVID. I was like, "Hey, I'm looking for a handful of like job profiles for digital pastors, online pastors. Can you send me what what you guys are doing at at a First Capital Christian?" And and Tyler, you know, said back to me.

He said, "Jeff, um I don't have to send you anything. This is the job profile. You ready?" Sure. Go ahead. What do you got?

Know 100 people digitally. Be in relationships with 100 people digitally that you are not in relationship with physically. That was the job profile. He said if you know people then Christ will flow out of that which feeds into discipleship process which feeds into evangelism which feeds into everything else.

But he's he's like the impetus of everything is is being in relationship with 100 people outside of your physical context. As digital missionaries, as digital pastors, it's not a bad idea.

Using that content, using that digital media to connect with people to build relationships so that you can say, I literally know 100 people digitally and and with those relationships, I'm funneling them into whatever the digital discipleship process you've got created.

Um, I'm sharing Jesus. Um, I'm discipling them. I'm I'm helping them draw closer to who God is and helping them find what God's calling is on their life.

These are not that radical of ideas but respect that by doing that the answer is not just we do media like for the for the content creators that are out there and and and I say this very gently respectfully it's it's like you do content and what now what you do content now, what I can remember there was a season in in my ministry career. I was production director for a a mega large multi-site church down here in Miami and there was a stretch new leadership, new uh change of guard.

We lost a lot of of our existing leadership and volunteer base. And there was a season there was a season in this church's life where it was all about the weekend.

100% of all like the church was so thinly strapped that 100% of the effort went into the weekend. And and and we even said like to leadership, we would say, "Hey, this is short term because we're needing to circle the wagons.

We're needing to build up some volunteers. We're having to multiply to get ready to try to handle some other things and issues. And so like it was a it was a short-term solution that we acknowledged up front and communicated out.

This isn't the long-term strategy, but we could barely survive just doing the little bit that just doing the weekend. And then we very clearly said it's the weekend and then what's next?

And that's where we started to to really focus on rebuilding and refocusing on the discipleship process in the the community and what that looked like outside of the church on Sunday morning.

And so my suggestion to you content creator, if all you're doing is content, ask yourself and then what is it? More content? Is it is it less content?

Now, this these are are weighted questions. Well, maybe I can be better. Um I I can I can build relationships with with people e even just as a content creator.

Probably can. Yeah, you can use tools like Instagram and uh uh you know Facebook maybe and and uh you know TikTok maybe and and yeah X if you're on that like you can use those to to create community.

Um can you scale community? Is is it the most effective ways to do that? I mean these are these are questions to ask and and to pray through.

I mean maybe God wants you to stay where you are. I it's not for me to say what's right and what's not right for you.

What I do want to do is cast vision and maybe share an idea of it's not just about the content but what the content leads into.

It's not just about the Sunday morning service physical church people but what that physical church service leads to. It's not just about watching uh a church service online but what it leads to.

It's not just about creating uh a series of of videos on YouTube, but what it leads to like whatever that next step really is arguably the first thing that's not a vanity metric because people watching content, people consuming content is a is a vanity metric at best.

Leading consumers to do something beyond just consuming content. That's the first step. That's not vanity. That's the first step that's actually showing you what ministry can do.

Getting consumers to consume, that's easy. Getting people to do something with what they've consumed. That's where I think it it happens, right? Anybody could could follow Jesus.

It was it was being it was trusting Jesus enough in Luke 6 when he started talking about eat my flesh and drink my blood to not run away and then being with him over 3 years to the point that when all of a sudden they started getting crucified.

Oh my gosh, did I just Jesus juke that? I think he did. Like when Jesus like it's always drove me nuts. Okay, people who believe that the disciples like made all this crap up about Jesus.

Yes, there was historical Jesus. Yes, he died. We're coming off of Easter, but he didn't rise up. The disciples faked that. Why? Like, what did they benefit but to die to be martyred down the road?

Why would they not just run away? Jesus in the three years that he had access to them established trust, built relationships, and discipled them in community.

I mean, when when Jesus said, "Hey, go walk down this this road, go visit this town, and don't go by yourself. Always take someone with you." Why?

Community. Does community be, you know, you and God? Sure. Can God speak via nature itself? Yeah. Paul says so. Um, can can God use two or more gathered?

Yes. Three or more gathered? Yes. And so that's the challenge for you today is look at what your ministry focus is. Do you consider yourself a a content creator?

Do you consider yourself a community builder? Are you more of a teacher equipper? Are you a a mobilizer? Somebody that wants to empower others to do ministry?

Whatever your different role and purpose is, I would suggest to you that you need all four of the framework, all four of the flywheel.

Connect, community, equip, mobilize. You need all of that represented in order to be effective in in in doing ministry, especially in church and in missionary space.

And and if you're just playing a part of that, well, then maybe you need to work and partner with someone who can help you fill in the rest of those gaps.

A an equipper that's at at a digital church that doesn't have connecting community. Well, that church is going to struggle because an an equipper doesn't have a front door that's going to generate the leads, the people to come in.

Can the Holy Spirit do something in that situation? Of course. But does that mean we should put all all the eggs on that? And and if the answer is yes, then you pray like you've never prayed before and you fast like you've never fasted before and call for God to to create divine appointments in your life. But maybe instead of just scattering seeds, maybe we could aim and scatter seeds. Maybe we could collaborate and scatter seeds.

Maybe we could work together and be more efficient scattering seeds. What I'm suggesting is not the antithesis of of of the Holy Spirit. I actually I think even where two or more gathered in in our context as leaders, I think God is glorified when when we work together for his purposes.

That's the stream for today. Uh I hope it's been fun. I've I've enjoyed spending this time with you today. It's been a a good a good conversation.

I've got a meeting coming up in just one or two minutes. Actually, uh I thank Steve Reed. I'm I'm on with you here in a little bit, but we're going to wrap.

Uh and so for me, it's been me. It's Jeff with the Church Digital wrapping up on this podcast, on the stream today. Do not forget we have our town hall meeting Tuesday, May 20th, two weeks away from today.

Tuesday, May 20th, 1:00 PM Eastern New York here on uh TCD's YouTube, the church.digital, excuse me, YouTube.com/thechurchdigital. Uh we'll provide more information on in the days to come.

Thanks for hanging out with us, y'all. Y'all have a good one.