EP349 - Jeff Talks Bi-Vocational Missionary Work from a Tesla

Jeff here with the church digital live streaming from my car. I actually had a meeting with a church that went really well here in Miami, one of our one of our partner churches with the church digital Christ Journey.

I can um I can go ahead and say this. I'm excited to say this. I will be uh joining staff uh with Christ Journey later this year.

It's part I wanted to talk about today. Uh but also wanted to get into uh some other things just going on with life, the struggles and the opportunities of vocational ministry and and everything that's involved.

I am actually uh I am not driving because you can see I'm not touching the steering wheel. Uh AI is driving for me in in my nice Tesla.

Thank you Tesla uh for for driving. Um I it was funny Tesla actually drove me here today. Uh, I almost got in a car wreck.

Uh, literally honked the horn. You know Tesla when it got cameras everywhere and so when you honk the horn, it records video and so I have to go back and see how close it was.

But somebody came out. Sly. Sly. Right off the bat, dude. I screwed up, bro. That's on me. I am so sorry. I I had this meeting booked.

It wasn't on my calendar and um I I was physically on site with this this church Christ Journey and uh I picked up my phone to see what time it was and I immediately saw your text message and I was like oh crap did I never cancel with Sly and so Sly sir

that is 100% on me thank you for your grace that that you're showing via chat. I'll I'll make it up to you. I I don't know how we'll figure it out, but um, man, that's that's a lot of traffic that way.

Um, welcome to Miami. Traffic all over the place. I'm going to have to go a different route. Anyway, um, yeah, it's it's been a it's been a hectic it's been a fun couple days.

I'm actually coming back from vacation. I was well, that car is doing that, so I have to do this. The life is interesting. I don't want to die.

Yeah, that guy is probably upset with me. Um, life. So, I was on vacation last week and it was fun. It was relaxing. I spent some time with the family which was great.

They're all at school. They're off from school. You know, my kids are in high school. My wife's a high school teacher. And so, when everybody's at the house, man, I I kind of like it's hard to stay motivated.

I like sleeping in. I like, you know, last night we went and got ice cream after dinner and and just like I like I like being around my family.

We did a call. I'll tell you about some of this in a little bit. Hey, before I get things just heads up one, we haven't about this, but equipping digital missionaries, we have a new series of equipping digital missionaries cohorts coming out this August.

This uh later in towards the end of August. Uh Equipping Digital Missionaries is a uh a ten-week um excuse me, a five-week, we've shortened it, a five-week cohort where we walk uh people like you through what it means to be a digital missionary and start to give you some trainings uh to wrap

your brain around how to be more effective in in your digital mission calling. And so it's a lot of fun. Uh and and I'll tell you uh this is the round where we are betting our new LMS, our new uh learning management system, uh called NOI.

And so NOI is a a partner organization. We're excited to have him on board. And uh check out the church.digital/EDM. If you are interested in what a digital missionary is, if you're new to the church digital and trying to wrap your brain around how to get connected or or what it looks like

uh to be part of the network of digital missionaries that we have here at the church digital. Your first step is the church.digital/EDM. Hey Troy.

Troy, I haven't I haven't seen you in a while yet either. We got to we got to catch up my friends and talk. Would love that.

So the church.digital/EDM. And by the way, the other thing is we have a um just a you know a small digital missionary conference, excuse me, four digital missionary conferences coming up uh in September and October.

We've got the information on the website which is constantly growing and expanding. The church.digital uh excuse me, missionary.digital www.missionary.digital. You can get more information on uh the four summits there.

We've got a uh digital neighborhood September 17th. Um we're talking about the culture that exists in platforms and recognizing that culture and and sharing Jesus inside that culture, even planting churches in that culture.

Uh we've got uh in addition to that we've got um uh Christ centered we've got the control alt recover Christ centered recovery happening September 24th October 1st is the European digital missionary conference and October 8th is the gaming digital missionary summit.

So, we've got four major events coming up in September, October. Uh, and you all want to get plugged in to that. All the conferences are free and you just need to register.

Swing over to the website missionary.digital. www.missionary.digital. Okay. Hey. Um, I don't know if you can see this. This is what it's like living in Miami.

You see that? You see that Lamborghini right there? It's sorry, I I changed the camera sideways. You see that Lamborghini? Yeah, that's what it's like living in Miami.

You get You get people with really nice cars like I I have nice car. I'm a Tesla's driving me. I said that earlier. Um but uh yeah, Lamborghinis all Porsches all over the place.

My my son is um he drools over this stuff like he he just he sees these fancy cars and and and and I'm like, "Dude, CJ, yeah, that's that's that's a whole other league of money, bro." But bro, you know, very well or get a good job.

Um and and so we'll see. I I was offensive when I said that very well thing. I I didn't mean that. That was a that was an inopportune joke.

I I apologize. I just lost two followers by saying you're well. Hey, Melanie is saying San Diego can be can be like that, too.

Lots of uh you know, crazy crazy uh cars. Um you know, in in some of these some of these states, it's uh it's it's a lot of fun.

So Tesla is driving me uh home. Um and uh I you know I with my health, with my legs, I uh I I don't I don't drive well.

Like I I can't feel my feet. I've talked about that before. And so, um, you know, honestly, my feet getting the gas and the brake pedal confused happens more than it should.

And so, in this situation, having AI drive me home actually pays off pretty well. I have to keep my eyes on the road or the car yells at me.

And uh, yeah, it's it's it's good stuff. So, if you're like, "How's he doing this without even like touching the wheel?" It's because what what's Tesla call their AI?

Grank. Uh, Gunk. Grank is is doing an excellent job of of taking me home. Hey, so uh here's the deal. Let let me just share a little bit of what's going on in my life.

Uh so I have taken a a a position, a role uh with one of our partner churches in town uh Christ Journey. Christ Journey uh actually I was uh working with that church uh pre-COVID when COVID hit.

I I was actually on leadership with with Christ Journey and help them early navigate some of the uh the tensions early on. Uh I would I would also like and it's just been a church that's very close to my heart.

It's not the church that I currently attend. Uh I attend another church called Reality Church. That's a a church plant that my uh a good friend of mine Carlos Led is planter and pastor of and love Carlos love the church that's there.

Uh but an opportunity came up to to get back to some of my technical roots and start to um re-engage in in live production and help uh church kind of launch out a new campus and a new um output for ministry.

And so uh I'm getting back into the uh the physical multi-site uh megachurch type of a model. And you've heard me say many times, yeah, the mega site, the multi-site church model, it's not perfect.

No, no model is perfect. Um, it's got its flaws. It's got its strengths, but the mega site, the megachurch, uh, the multi-site church, it's going to reach the people it's going to reach.

Actually, I'm I'm going into a brand new campus. Literally, the building is not even done being constructed. It's supposed to launch in uh October, November.

And so I'm going into a brand new building, a brand new facility in a in a very densely populated area of Miami uh to go set up an outpost for ministry to be the light of Christ in that area.

And I am so excited. I am so excited to to do ministry in this space. Now, um this is not uh it's not digital ministry.

It's physical and I am happy to say I am excited to still be doing the church digital as well. Uh Christ Journey, you go to christjourney.org, you can see more information about the church.

They are um like I said, they they've been supporters of the church digital for for years. Um, even pre-COVID they had visions and were supportive of what we were doing and and were financial supporters of of us and the church digital as well as the digital missionary conference like they they buy in.

And actually I was sitting down with the uh exec no relation uh who is just so um praising of of the work that's been done and is so open and receptive to what empowering individuals to share the gospel in today's culture can be.

Uh I mean really all inspiring stuff like some of the conversations we've had is how do we take this um this equipping and mobilizing mindset in the physical churches?

What does this is literally the conversation that we had. What does accountability look like in in the church environment? And this is, you know, I actually on on one of these streams, maybe a couple hundred episodes ago, I had a a physical, no, I had a microchurch network leader tell me, "Hey, Jeff,

you really can't. The church cannot say the word accountability because people don't like accountability." Like, you know, we all say we're going to go be the light in in the darkness.

We all say that we are going to enter when we leave the church building, we're going to enter the mission field. We all say that.

But when when push comes to shove, do do the people in the pews actually do anything? Where where is it lost? Do they not are we not communicating it properly?

Do they need a framework or a system? Do they do they need accountability? What what does accountability look like for an unpaid volunteer who you're asking to catch vision to do something in a spiritual like there's some complexity involved in this conversation, right?

And I'll never forget this. Thanks. Thanks, Um, uh, uh, Julie, Judy or Judy, uh, Steel, thank you. Um, it just popped up real quick on my screen, and for the life of me, I can't remember what your first name is.

I'm um, but I do appreciate that. The, um, the the challenge that Ryan said, he's like, you know, it's not not accountability. And I was like, oh crap, that's good.

Like it's it's not accountability where we're going to like put our our thumb on you when when you don't do it, but it's the integrity of, hey, what is God calling you to do?

And do you actually have the integrity to follow through? I was sitting back and I was like, Ryan, that is that's beautiful. It's it's it's it's not accountability with the thumb.

It's integrity where where you're you're inviting them to keep the promise they have not with the church but with God. Hey, video might be a little sketchy.

I'm I'm driving a car on on a cell phone and I hope 5G. So, uh it is what it is. Hopefully, it works. Um, so it's it's it was it was just a beautiful conversation.

I am looking forward to getting back into the the physical church space. It's it's interesting. This is this is praising of digital. I I I love the fact that I have uh digital relationships globally.

Uh you know, I had a meeting this morning with Barbara and her team. Barbara is in Barcelona. Ingrid is in um Portugal. And so working with people, you know, yesterday I had a face to face meeting with Cindy from Hong Kong.

You know, WhatsApping people from different continents. Like it's fascinating. I was talking yesterday with Adrian from Oceania, from Australia.

Oh, like it's so much fun to have all these relationships and see all this grow. My daughter says to me the other day, she says, "Daddy, do you even have friends in Miami anymore?" And that was like the huh?

Okay. So I'm well connected globally. I'm developing relationships digitally, globally. But I think part of me is pivoting too much globally and I want to revert back and be a little more in some of the physical space as well.

Now, some of that is my calling towards being a digital minister and that's—I'm very happy that God's given me this opportunity.

Part of that has actually been my health. Many of you know and I said it earlier like I've diabetic neuropathy. I still can't feel my legs.

I've got arthritis in my knees. I've got shin splints. I've got, I mean I can just rattle off if anything that can go wrong beneath my knees except for gangrene where I have to cut it off. That is going on right now.

And so it's a little bit of me of, okay, I'm going to have to step out of my comfort zone because right now it's easy for me to wake up at eight in the morning, take a shower, walk into my guest bedroom where my office is set up in a five by five square area. I literally have a coffee machine sitting on my desk, and I could be drinking a cup of coffee by eight thirty in a meeting.

Like, that's just easy. That's convenient. And by the way, that is so effective. I'm not ripping that model because the Church Digital has been highly successful with that model and Lord willing, we'll continue to be that.

I'm not leaving the Church Digital. But there's this interesting dynamic where outside of my friend, outside of my family, I don't know that I've got a lot of friends locally.

Actually, it was funny. I was texting Garrett Silji. I run an AVL company with Garrett. Garrett honestly does all the work and I cash checks.

Thank you Garrett if you're watching this. I appreciate that. But you know I don't see Garrett but once a year in physical space unless we're on a job.

And so I was actually texting him yesterday about—I went to a Coldplay concert over Saturday night. He went to the same concert Sunday night.

But it was like, dude, are we actually going to be able to sit in a coffee house together and have a physical conversation that's not via like FaceTime, WhatsApp, texting, or Zoom? Because it's just—that's when physical relationships go digital and not physical, only digital and no physical. I'm thinking, hey, there's something missing.

You know, it was interesting. I was watching even a TV show. I forget what TV show it was last night. I was watching something with my wife and there was a line in the TV show where a woman said, "Well, of course I don't have any friends. I'm a forty-three year old mother, single mother. I'm a forty-three year old woman, a single mother, woman, something like that." And I kind of laughed.

I looked at my wife and I was like, "My wife's not forty-three. She's a little older. I'm not going to call her out." But I was like, "Is that true? Do like forty-three year old women have trouble?" And my wife's like, "Oh my gosh, of course. Yes." And I realized, you know, I mean, she's got close friends, but we've moved this life away from physicality.

What does it look like for a digital missionary to be engaging in ministry digitally, to be operating in digital space, to be building relationships in digital community, represent the culture of the digital community while still being grounded in a healthy physical environment?

I would love a conversation around that. I don't know the answer. Like I walk that tension. Listen, we're incredibly successful digitally.

I love it. If there's part of me I definitely love the idea of doing online remote ministry, remote work, remote leadership teams being as globally oriented as we are.

I'm going to be honest. We're doing a board of directors meeting and the majority of the board of directors live here in Miami. It'd be very easy to jump on a Zoom call. A couple of the board directors—one, I think one person at this point lives outside of Miami—we're flying them in, fly to Miami, we put you up in a hotel for a couple days and let's actually instead of doing it on Zoom let's meet together in physical space. Why? Because there's value in meeting together physically. There are ways to be more effective in meetings and conversations physically than digitally. That's not knocking digitally. To get into a deep planning, a deep meeting conversation, deep strategy, you can build trust much quicker. You can deepen trust much deeper physically, I think, than digitally. It takes a little bit longer digitally, although it's easier because of constant communications.

We can get into the weeds on that if you want, but the fact is that I'm walking this tension of what is the relationship between physicality and digital and how can we be digital ministries but still being healthy physical?

I was listening to a podcast a while back. Oh my gosh, this is funny. I'll actually parallel it with something else.

If you've ever watched Die Hard, I love Die Hard, the best Christmas movie ever. You can at me on that. But you know, the opening scene, Bruce Willis is on this airplane, and this has nothing to do with the entire movie, except this is why Bruce Willis eventually takes off his shoes at the Nakatomi Plaza, I think it is. But the guy sitting next to Bruce Willis is talking about, hey, to get over the jet lag when you take off your shoes, throw your toes in the carpet. It's like this in the movie. It's like this physical trigger that gets people to work through the jet lag. And it's funny that Bruce Willis actually does that in the movie. He just—oh my gosh, it works. And then his shoes are off when the terrorists come in and then Bruce Willis is running around barefoot for the rest of the movie. Blood everywhere. You can watch it. There's an interesting—I heard a parallel. I heard a podcast from John Pile a while back. He had on a great guy talking about the tension between physicality and digital. Great podcast. We'll have to find it in the show notes. But John, the guest said, you know, sometimes you got to get the grass between your toes.

And if I'm honest, in my own life, whether it's work, whether it's ministry, whether it's my own physicality limitations that have existed, whether it's my just lack of a desire to do it in physical, I just—yeah. The fact that it's one hundred twenty percent humidity outside. The idea of getting the grass between my toes has not been a strong point for me.

And so I got to do it. I got to get the grass between my toes. Got to get out of the house. I got to let AI do some driving for me.

And so I'm taking this role in Christ Journey. I'm excited about doing ministry in physical space. I'm excited about where the church is going.

They're coming up on their one hundredth year anniversary and there's a lot of energy in a one hundred year old legacy mega multi-site church in Miami, launching this new campus. Launching some other new initiatives. You know, a strong pastor, biblically grounded. It's a desire to empower individuals with the gospel.

Like it's a really fascinating opportunity. When I look at the Church Digital, I so in many ways, you know, the Church Digital is a fractional part-time job. It's a volunteer organization. I'll say something publicly. This is the first time I've said this. We'll share this stat in other places.

The Church Digital ended its first year of nonprofit status. Two thousand twenty-four, July one to two thousand twenty-five, June thirtieth. We have a July to June fiscal year.

And so this is actually our first year of being a nonprofit organization. Before the Church Digital has been around a long time before, honestly, we were a for-profit organization run off my bank account.

But we moved this past year to being nonprofit and organizationally, we've operated on seventy-five thousand dollars. Two thousand twenty-four to two thousand twenty-five, that twelve-month period, we had seventy-five thousand dollars come in.

And organizationally, we spent seventy-six thousand dollars. First off, that is incredible. I am so thankful. I am so grateful for the seventy-five thousand dollars that's come in organizationally.

That's Giving Tuesday. That's the first conference, conference sponsors, that's individual donors, that's sponsoring churches, that's sponsoring organizations, missions organizations. Like that is an incredible amount of money. To go from zero to seventy-five thousand is a testimony to the fact that I was able to stay on budget and take it and spend seventy-six thousand of the seventy-five thousand is incredible as well just because I love spending other people's money. Sorry, Christ Journey. But that being said, I cannot believe—like this is the thing that I want to step back and I want to document.

I cannot believe the amount of ministry impact we have had at a global level with spending seventy-five thousand, seventy-six thousand dollars. Like, what is it? Six times twelve is seventy-two thousand. So, you know, just rough math in my head, sixty-four hundred dollars a month. Like, that's not even a full-time salary.

Like, I could not live on that in Miami. Miami is just so expensive. But this fractional leader, this volunteer team, these people that we're developing and empowering and casting vision towards, it's been a life-affirming thing to see people catch the vision of digital missionaries, to understand the vision of the Church Digital and to propagate this out in big ways globally. And I'm so thankful for that.

I was at a crossroads. Do I—Jeff, do I make the seventy-two thousand, seventy-six thousand, seventy-five that comes in? Does that go into my bank account and like how do we pay for tech stack? How do we pay for other leadership? No. Everybody's volunteer. Or do I say hey, you know what? I'm going to make very little just like everybody else.

Everybody else is making very little and the tech stack is growing and increasing in cost. Marketing is growing and increasing in cost as we're accelerating growing this thing out. And I went to a ladder model which is why I'm getting a job at Christ Journey because yes, I'm very excited about physical ministry, yes, I'm very excited about digital ministry and I have a unique skill set in place where I get to do both. And hopefully make a little money along the way to pay the bills.

When I look around the digital ministry spaces right now, to be honest, I can only pick out a handful of missionaries, a handful of church planters that are paid one hundred percent by an organization. Like there's very few that are on a quote unquote salary, per se.

And that number honestly feels like it's diminishing more and more as more and more organizations are leaning towards a bivocational or a fundraising model in digital missionary space.

I mean even like the—we do a lot with Crew and Crew is an immense supporter. I'm so thankful of Crew. Crew is actually one of the major sponsors right now of the Digital Missionary Conference coming up here in September and October.

But even Crew, they invite their staff to fundraise to generate their own salaries that are coming in to fundraise for the budgets of what's happening.

And so the old model of, hey, we're going to do ministry and we're expecting the ministry to pay for our salary. I mean, to be honest, I'm taking one of those jobs in physical church space and I'm grateful for that.

But to be honest, I've also got a couple other revenue streams in place between the AVL company that I've started, couple other contracts. I've got a conversation later today with another organization that may want to put me on a contract and I'm being very above board like the meeting that I just had with Ryan at Christ Journey. Hey, just so you know, here are the conversations that I'm still having. I am accepting this job. Um, if I do sign a contract over here, then I'm going to invite some other people to be part of that contract.

And by the way, if I do sign on with this company over here, here's how it's going to benefit Christ's Journey. Like I would challenge us and I'm a serial entrepreneur. I have started this is actually a really interesting thought right now. I've started more businesses than I've owned cars, but I've owned I've started more businesses than I've owned houses.

Actually, I thought that was going to be close, but I've started a lot of businesses in my life. A lot have succeeded, a lot have failed, and I've learned so much along the process of both.

But to desire to do ministry full-time without recognizing that there's mortgages, that there's costs, that there's kids college funds, there's savings, there's retirement, there's, you know, all this stuff that piles up. We've got to be able to create a method in our lives that allows us to do both to be able to generate that revenue and do the ministry.

Now, too often, and I've seen this with MTCD, I really have, and this may come across harsh. I really don't mean it to. I just drove past the house I grew up in. Um, I don't mean this to come across harsh. I'm sorry if it does, but too often I've seen where we are hesitant to do the hard work of ministry because it's not able to the funds in my life.

I have seen where God has called for obedience and humility before he has provided solutions. In my life, I have seen where God has provided obedience and humility before he provides solutions.

Let's look at it this way. Um, Proverbs 3:5 and 6. I talk about this all the time. It is literally the contract between man and God. If man does this, God will do this. Man says God says to man, "Hey, this is what I need you to do. I need you to trust me with all your heart. Lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge God." That's the three things man does. Trust even when it doesn't make sense and praise God while you're doing it. And what's he going to do as a result? He will direct your path. He will make your go your path straight. He will make He will solve it. Solve it maybe not the way that you want, but he's going to solve it. And so it's not God solves the problem before you do it. It's you've got to take the leap and trust knowing that he's gonna make the path straight.

In my own life, it was funny. I was telling Ryan the story today. I'm actually it's so funny. I'm randomly driving at this point. Two blocks this way. It was is a Christian book. Well, used to be a Christian bookstore. Used to be my Christian bookstore. 2003 I was just coming off this really weird experience where I lost uh my my first .com my first business ebeliever.com uh has a server crash the company that I had paid tens of thousands of dollars to to keep the server healthy and to back it up had told me oh after three years of business no we never did any backups and I lost you know four years worth of webdev work uh I lost 69 church websites I literally had pastors has lost all their websites.

All email addresses were tied to listen Gmail or or you know any of that. Like it was it was a big freaking deal. And this back in like 03 and um as a result of that I I was I crushed I lost everything. And u I I felt like I was searching for what God was going to have me do next. And God told me literally I I I can I can equivocably say this.

There's maybe half a dozen times in my life where I can tell you that the voice of God told me to do something and and say I mean this is not like an idea. This is like literally I'm hearing audibly God saying this is true. And and God told me to buy a a Christian bookstore. There was a Christian bookstore that was not too far away from where I am now. It's called uh the word Christian bookstore. owned by a former pastor, family friend, knew the guy for a long time. I used to buy books in there all the time.

I am a a techie. I'm an innovator. I'm a very aggressive type of person. You know me. And in this in this at this point, I call this the lite years. My friends that know me call this the dark ages. I was so adverse to technology because of the way I lost my first .com, my first business um that I was like, I never want to literally I was like, I never want to touch a computer again.

And and so and and God was like, buy this bookstore. And so I went up to the I knew the owner. He was moving. He was retiring. And it's this is a small closet, really small um startup kind of not startup. It had been around a decade, but he just didn't have a lot of capital to build it out. Uh it was kind of a a side project for him. He really wasn't doing anything, but he just had no desire to build it.

And you know, there were a couple other closets around. There wasn't a strong demand. Um but I I just I had a passion for scripture. I had a passion for the Bible. I had a passion for books and music at the time. I maybe 23. and and and I told I told the guy I was like, "Hey, I want to buy your bookstore." And he's like, "Well, good. I want I want to sell you my bookstore." And I I just I had this piece late 23 that God was was going to work this thing out.

And um something changed along the way and and right around November 23, I get this call. November of 2003, I get this call and and it's it's it's Paul, the owner, and he says, "Hey, just so you know, I'm not going to sell the bookstore to you. Instead, I'm going to sell it to this other guy." I mean, that crushed me. I was like, "Why?" And he's like, "Well, um, first off, you you're really young and and and I don't think you can really do the business aspects of this." And I was like, "Well, you know, I've run this other business. I've got three years experience. um you know, my my background with family. I was like, I've got I've got opportunities here, Paul.

And he's like, well, yeah, but this other guy has more capital. He's got a team of people that are going to co-run it with him. Uh and so, just so you know, like it's no disrespect, Jeff, I like you, but I'm going to sell this business to the other guy.

This is like early November 2003. And I'm like, "God, what are you doing to me? You told me I was going to buy this bookstore and and and yet you tell me like it's now going to this guy. Why?" It was not the answer that I wanted to hear. Now, fast forward a little bit. December, call it 26 after Christmas 2004, 2003, same year, month later.

The guy that bought the bookstore, by the way, all that capital, all that partners that he had, dude, went crazy upgrading the bookstore. $300,000 of new inventory, $100,000 of of new fixtures. He took the bookstore from a 1500 square foot to a 5,000 square foot, built out a back office, built out um uh a a cab a uh like a a work facility in the back, a storage facility.

Like this was 5,000 square feet of retail gloriousness. I'm not kidding. It went I said, 1500 square feet. It may have been 1,000 square ft to now like almost uh uh 5,000 oh so 5200 ft². It was this huge huge undertaking. He opened it Black Friday day after Thanksgiving. He ran it Black Friday to the day after Christmas and the the day after, you know, Christmas Eve he shut it down for a week uh to kind of rest afterwards.

and he calls me the day after Christmas, says, "Jeff, I just invested $500,000 into this business and and and I realize I um I can't I can't I can't do this. I I Jeff, honestly, this is honest to God, true story." He says, "Jeff, I I've come to realize that I I just I don't like people that much. I'm really a private guy and and having all these conversations with people being all this relational physically dealing with with people as customers like I don't know what I was thinking but that's that's just not me.

And and and so he says he says Jeff why don't you buy the bookstore from me for what you were going to pay the previous owner.

And so I owned the Living Word Christian bookstore for about four years. We shut it down eventually because of the recession in in '08 09. But the ministry implication that I want to share, by the way, I mean I profited $500,000 worth of of revenue worth of inventory and um you know uh fixtures.

He invested 500k into that store and didn't make hardly anything off it. Meanwhile, I went from a a store in a closet that was maybe making $100,000 a year. And because of that that footprint of a store, he gave he literally gave me I'm I'm not pennies on the dollar, quarter on the dollar, so to speak.

Like, we we launched that store into a million-dollar business. in the middle of of you know early recession time periods. Eventually we we we we lost it in '09 uh when a lot of businesses shut down.

Um my my point is is I think we have to risk and trust in it. I think too often people are hesitant to let go of what they have, not realizing that what God has for you is so much better. I think it's very easy for us to to you know a a a bird in one hand is better than two in the bush.

In bivocational ministry, it's very easy to look and to say I but Jeff, I I want to do great things, but um I can't I can't get paid for it. And so I I need to I need to shut it down. I I I can't do this. I I give up. I have had conversations unfortunately with so many people that have incredible visions of digital ministry, but they can't get past not being able to monetize it and and do a full-time salary.

And so many of these callings are lost out of fear of not being able to pay the paycheck. Now, look, you you can interpret what I'm doing with the church digital going back and now taking this full-time job. U I'm working full-time. Well, I'm working close to full-time for the church or for um Christ Journey. You can look at that and say, "Hey, you know what? Um Jeff's giving up. Jeff's chickening out. Jeff himself doesn't have faith to hold on to what uh you know what God can do through the church digital monetarily." And so Jeff's cowarding, taking the coward way, but getting a secondary job.

And maybe that's right. I don't know. One day I'll stand before God and ask him that question. The way I would look at it is that we are aggressively diversifying and decentralizing the church digital away from me. I have I went and and I've I've I've said this a hundred times. 2018, I'm sitting at Downtown Disneyland in uh in California at at a PushPay conference and I I'm sitting at this conference.

2,000 people are in the room listening to a keynote talk and I'm literally writing out names, domain names for what uh we wanted. Actually, I have these sketches uh that I did them on an iPad, so they're digitized, but I'm literally writing out domain name ideas um for for what the church digital would become. And and and I and and I have jeffrey.com and then I have others names that were listed, the church digital among others.

And I wrote next to Jeffrey.com, this has to be bigger than me. And and what our intentionality has been and my leadership team, the board, uh the volunteers with TCD, they've heard this so much.

When things get too heavy, the answer is not slowed down. The answer, honestly, is rarely more money. The answer is involve more people into the conversation.

And that's where for this to operate bigger than me, we need to decentralize this away from me. We need to get people like Jason Morris, like Andy Mage, like Barbara Carro, like Stacy, like the others in leadership.

We need to get them more authority to lead out as the experts that they are. We need to empower you as outpost leaders, as digital missionaries. How can you contribute and bring into this? To be honest, I'm looking at guys like Steve Reed. I'm months and literally are tell me that's pretty cool. How do I get more involved?

The beauty of the church digital at this point is that we're very close to successfully creating a framework and establishing that framework, which means y'all can do whatever you want with it. Like it is my gift to you. You make it happen. But in keeping it running, keeping it operating, we never would have gotten here if it was reed.com.

It took a lot of risk to not do jeffreed.com. I mean, let's just put numbers on this and I've got I'm going to have to go at some point soon in a couple minutes.

I started the church digital in 2018. 2018? Yeah, 2018. Nine iterations of the church digital. The church digital has been nine different focuses since 2018.

We have been learning. We have been experimenting. We've been trying. We have been failing since 2018. Finally, now 2025, six, seven years later, we got it right.

There's some risk financially, there's a lot of loss, but God moves. And while the answer we hear may not today, may not be the answer we need to hear, it's what we need to know.

God will get us to where he wants us to be if we're willing to trust him even when it doesn't make sense and acknowledge him while we're doing it.

You know, I already had a donor reach out and be like, "Hey, I heard you're taking a job. Like, is this the end of the church digital? Are you guys going to be wise stewards of the money that's come in?" Dude, nothing's changing. If anything, we're ramping up to be more effective.

We're in the process. I posted we're in the process of bringing on a project manager or two and excited about decentralizing more responsibility out and empowering others to use their strengths for the kingdom through the church digital.

If anything, it's going to create a stronger TCD because it's not centric on me and my strengths and weaknesses. A decentralized model with a centralized core and framework is going to be the effective way that TCD grows and multiplies globally.

And me as I drive AI, me being hands off and letting God use others and their strengths and abilities, that's going to be so important for the future of the organization and it's going to be beneficial for all of us in the very near future.

And so don't stress about the future. What I would say is that organizationally, I mean, listen, we've already got AI is not being my friend right now. Stop it. There freaking car. I got my flavors confused while talking.

We've already, you know, booking conference 24, 2025, the four conferences coming up here in the fall. Already planning out 26. I'm literally already got schedule, not scheduled but rough written out what's happening for the spring concert conference in 26.

There's some other things in place, some equipping courses. Jason's working on multiple languages already adapting. We're rolling out EDM in French right around the corner.

But it's at less than seven thousand, at about seven thousand a month. What we're doing is incredible. I'm kind of working on the language in this.

I'll say it in here. Like my desire is to see the church digital. I want to double next year, go from 75 to 150.

But I really believe this because of the scalability of digital and online and the decentralized framework that we're kind of bringing out. I believe a 2x increase in income would generate a 10x return in ministry.

I think we're very close to seeing this stuff go viral. And to just be honest, if we went viral right now, it wouldn't be good because we don't have the framework to manage that level of growth quickly.

And so I'm kind of glad God is holding back the giant explosion that I believe is going to happen when the Holy Spirit infuses into this.

We're almost there, but I believe that God's going to use the work that he's doing through us. And to be honest, me releasing is going to allow a lot more people to be able to come in and own their piece of this and allow the ministry to be oh so much stronger.

So be praying for us. Know that I'm praying for y'all. It's not lost on me that so many digital missionaries and digital planters are struggling financially.

I to be honest I still carry that as a badge almost, that that's like I need to come up with a solution to solve that problem to allow for more to come in.

I really did. I used to have meetings with my team and talk about how can we generate revenue? What do we need to do? We need to be the problem solver to allow this thing to explode. And maybe God can do work through us in some way in some capacity.

But what I think is more effective is just this simple. Okay, I'm gonna trust in God even when it doesn't make sense and I'm gonna acknowledge him when I do it and as a result he's going to make the path straight.

And question I want to ask all of you today is what is a small simple step you can do that doesn't make sense? Maybe it's financial, maybe it's operational, maybe it's tech stack, maybe it's volunteer, maybe it's releasing and allowing others to come in and own.

I don't know. That's integrity, right? You have the conversation with God. Break through that. And then with integrity, take that step.

It's financial. Let it and traditionally I have had to let things go and watch what God does. Until I let things go, God doesn't move. But I have to let it go.

Those of you at home singing Let It Go, Let It Go, Let It Go. Thank you. If I was in my office, I would play the soundtrack, but I'm in my car driving, so I can't.

But anyway, hey, this has been a great conversation, a great stream. I literally just pulled up into my house and I got a jet because I've got a meeting coming up in an hour.

Hey, listen up everybody. I'm doing another stream tonight, 9:00 p.m. Eastern, and hanging out with our friends. Yeah, about you singing. That's awesome.

Send me a YouTube video of that. We're streaming with Dark Void and some of our Blue Angel VR friends about what their ministry and their story looks like in VR Chat virtual reality.

I love these kids. I love what they're doing. It's incredible to me. It's a 15-year-old kid, maybe 16. But he's got like adults that are doing ministry with him.

He's got like college kids and from impressive schools. Just the vision of this kid to do something different, to reach someone different and create this ministry in virtual reality.

It's a fascinating story that I really want you to hear. And so we're doing it late, 9:00 tonight, 9:00 p.m. Eastern. We'll put the link in fam everywhere.

So look for it there. But love you. Thanks for hanging out with me today as I drove around Miami. Talk to you all later.