EP370 - Becoming theChurch.digital - The 2026 Preview

All right. Hey, everybody. Welcome to Becoming the Church Digital, or at least the pre-launch of the Church Digital. Hey, Jeff Reed here, founder of the Church Digital. Excited to do this stream today. I'm not quite working today. I had a lot of tech issues today, and so I apologize. I'm feeling a little cranky. So I took a couple months off from streaming, which is fine. Love that. Healthy approach. I've had a number of health issues. We'll get into that here in a little bit. But for whatever reason, during that two-month period off, really since Thanksgiving that I was off, there was a lot of software updates and something. Audio crashed in the computer, and I still can't get my lights working. I don't want to be like, hey, my computer system was collecting dust here. But for the past month, really, since Black Friday Giving Tuesday, I hadn't touched the desktop. It's been... It's been an interesting stretch. We'll talk a little bit about my health here in a second, but I am so excited. I'm so excited to get back into the stream, into the routine, to get back into 2026, to get into a couple contract jobs that I've been working, to get into the church digital and what's next for us with TCD. And so, very, very excited about the road ahead. We're going to, let me, let me, yeah. Do I want to talk health or do I want to talk TCD first? We'll talk health. And so many of you know that I had a health issue right around Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving, I went in, no, yeah, the week before Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving, I went into the hospital. The week before Thanksgiving, I went into urgent care, an emergency room, seeing doctors because I was having what ended up being flu A, flu type A, influenza. Not a big deal. I mean, yeah, you got flu, you got to get over it, but it's nothing fatal. And I said to the doctor, yeah, I coughed so hard I passed out. And the doctor's like, yeah, what do you mean passed out? That's not normal. And I was like, well, you know, I have this thing where I cough and I black out for a little bit. And how long? Maybe two, three seconds, nothing bad. But I've done that my entire life. And the doctor's like, well, we're going to run some tests. And so they run a test, and it came back a little elevated with some heart stuff, some enzyme or something. Then they run another test, and then echocardiograms and CT scans, and they screwed up the CT scan, so I got to do the CT scan again. something else and something else and every every exam every test every exam went to heart got got worse and worse and you know the funny thing is like when you're in the hospital i mean they fully admitted me emergency rooms like no you're not going anywhere i was in the hospital for five days But you know if you're getting tests in the hospital, it's like, okay, yeah, we've got you scheduled for another test, but it'll be tomorrow afternoon by the time you actually get in the machine. And so I'm just laying over the Thanksgiving break. I'm literally just laying in the bed at a hospital. I watched a ton of Friends. But at the end of the punchline, so to speak, yeah, I had a... a heart issue. I have a 100% blockage of the main artery. The Widowmaker artery is the name for it. I'm not good with medical stuff, so I can't tell you the actual names. And then there's another branch off of that main artery that's 70% blocked. They tried to do a stent. I actually still have the scars on my wrist from where they tried to go up through the veins through my wrist to put a stent in, and it just was not in a place where the stent was viable. And so I'm having to have bypass surgery right around the corner here, January 15th, Thursday, January 15th, next week. Yeah, like nine days away from having bypass surgery. The surgeon that is doing the surgery is really good. Ironically, he did my father's bypass surgery. My father had a triple bypass, I believe. I think it was triple. Maybe it was double. But a couple years ago, and the surgeon actually created a technique where he doesn't crack the chest open. Instead, it goes through the ribs, and so it's much quicker for recovery going through that route. Everybody's optimistic. I've seen so many doctors. It was funny. I was actually seeing a doctor yesterday, my primary care, who was catching up on everything that I've been doing over the history. And he's like, oh, man, you've got a lot of documentation. You've been seeing a lot of doctors. Yeah, I mean, between the cardiologist, the... endocrinologist, the, um, uh, the, uh, cardio surgeon, uh, the, the pharmacological person. Oh, so funny. The insurance company was like, just call it the other day. And they're like, you've, uh, I didn't realize it was the insurance company, but, um, You qualified for a free audit of all your medicine. Press 1. I just hung up. I was like, I'm not doing an audit. I'm on so many pills right now. It's crazy. I've talked about this in some short videos. I'll do it a little longer here. It took me a while to find God in the midst of this. I still am. I'm not perfect, nor do I want to set myself up to be perfect in this because I'm not. I believe God's here. I believe God's among this situation. I don't fully understand why or what or how we've gotten to this, but I know he's here. And really, that has to be enough. That's where faith kicks in for me. God's got a reason for this. I would tell you that in my life, he's broken me of a lot of things historically. especially in the past, I don't know, two years, three years. Forgive the yawning. I mean, that's part of my heart not pushing blood through my system is I'm really tired all the time. And so yawning is just like a side effect of that. Ironically, the doctors told me. It was Thanksgiving, November 15th, November 20th, November 25th, when they finally figured out, oh, you need to have bypass surgery. But I had the flu, and they couldn't. They didn't want to do the surgery quickly because I had flu, and they were worried about me getting post-op sickness. They were more worried about that than me dying of a heart attack. And so basically the doctor was like, hey, we're going to do your surgery January 15th. That's like, you know, a month or so away. Just don't die. Between now and then. And so I've been doing a really good job of not dying over the past, you know, month. And I got two more weeks, nine more days of not dying. And then we'll do the surgery and hopefully not die in the surgery. God's done a really good job of breaking me. I can remember being a kid and praying the prayer, God, break me and mold me into the person you want me to be. When God broke me in my teens and 20s, I don't know that it hurt. I think God was shaping my worldview. I was young and I was malleable. I was shapeable. I didn't have the life yet that I wanted. And God could shape me easily. I was putty. I was clay in his hands. And he made me the way he wanted me to. I'm 48. Breaking hurts a lot more. That putty really has baked in the sun. It's really hardened. And breaking, well, it's not putty anymore. I'm not Play-Doh. It's a lot more like Lego. I'm not planning this analogy. but it's a lot more like Lego where he's breaking me and now I'm like, okay, where are these pieces supposed to go? But that's the funny thing. I really feel in him this desire to let him put the pieces back where they need to go. It's funny. I really do believe this. I think January 15th, and what do I know? I'm not God. But I think January 15th is the rebirth of something new. I do. January 15th is not the end. It's the beginning of whatever this next season of life is. For me, I think that God has slowly and strategically broken me of just about everything in my life that I needed to be aware of. God is just strategically, okay, let's break Jeff of this. Let's break Jeff of this. Let's break Jeff of this. And I look around and it's like, man, there's not much left that he hasn't broken in the past couple of years. And it's like, okay, God, where are we going? What you got? Bring it on. I would say show me, but I don't think he's going to show me. I think he's got to drive. I got to take myself out of the steering wheel, take myself out of the cockpit, and let him do the driving. So pray for me January 15, 2026 for the bypass surgery. Everybody's optimistic. Jeff, you're young. You're healthy. Even with my appointment yesterday, my heart actually, over the past month since November 20th to today, my heart has improved in performance. Doctors actually think I did have a heart attack at some point. But my heart has improved and is performing at a higher level now than it was when I was in the hospital. I've lost 30 pounds. I've... My blood pressure has dropped significantly over the past month or so. People are praying literally across the planet, and so thank you for praying. Please continue to do so. As I hope to get healthy, I mean, listen, if God's going to do something and I don't need the surgery, that's great, but it looks like at this point it's all about being healthy for the surgery so the recovery goes well and I don't get pneumonia or anything. But God is good. You know, it's funny. I really do believe that, even in the hard times. It's like you've got to find God. If I can give you one piece of advice, and I'm not worthy of even making this statement. I'm not. This is the thing that's hard for me. It's just it's hard for me in life. When bad things happen, find God. When challenges come, find God. Like, I don't believe when trials exist, when temptations arise, find God. I... I can go all the way back to the really cheesy footprints, the two sets of footprints, the one set of footprints, and God was carrying you along the way. If you're American, I have no idea how global that is, but at least here in America, the footprints poem was a major part of my childhood. When there's one set of footprints, it wasn't God leaving you. It was God was carrying you. And I just, I would challenge you. When bad things happen, find God. You know, it's interesting. I just pulled up comments to kind of see what was going on. And House of His Glory, that's right. How are you doing, my friend? I'm so glad she's here. She's been such an encouragement over the years. And, yeah, you are being carried for sure. You know, it was interesting. Probably the low point. of my life uh my ministry life was a couple years ago and um it was so funny house of his glory she uh she says to me she says jeff i'll be praying for you and um this is this is i told her this before i was like this is the low point of my ministry career i was i was like yeah prayer i don't i forget what i said but it's something to the extent of i don't need prayers you know i'm sick and tired of prayers i need i need tangible i need god to do something And it just was like, and it was so fun. I just can remember her face when I said, I don't need prayers. And I just, I was not. That was a dark moment. It was a dark stretch for me a couple years ago. And Pastor D's prayers and many others over the years have really aligned, have brought me back, have aligned me. And so I'm so thankful for her stepping in and many others. We got DeMarcus, Bible with the Battles, coming in. Good to see you, brother. Yeah, definitely. All right, hey, let's talk a little bit about the Church Digital. Now we've actually had DeMarcus up. I'm actually excited. We've got coming up right around the corner, we are launching the Church Digital Streaming Network. The Church Digital. streaming network you know i've always i've always said it we need more voices than the bald white man with the beard uh the the old bald white man with the beard talking talking digital and so because i reach the context that i can reach but i'm not I'm not the influencer that's going to connect with everybody, nor do I think the influencer that's going to connect with everybody is a valid method. And so instead of having one voice out there trying to connect with everybody, I'm driven, and the Church Digital is built around this premise of we want to... um platform others and and we're actually on the verge of doing this right now so of course you guys know latent size uh who's been doing uh the church digital gaming outpost he does a stream uh once a week interviews and publishes that and and he's been doing a great job um with that And so but when we're continuing to platform and move forward with with Leighton, but DeMarcus is is actually another voice that we're going to be launching in. DeMarcus, if you're on, man, throw in the chat when you're when you're launching. But I'm pretty sure his show is launching here. in the next week or so. I've actually seen one of his episodes, and I know he's got a couple in the can already. Andy's been working with him, helping get them produced and get it going. So excited about reaching African-American, black, urban. in digital and what that looks like. Demarcus is up north. I want to say Chicago, but it's not Chicago. It's somewhere in Michigan. Yeah, next week or two, Demarcus is going to be launching. And really excited to see his show develop, to contextually take the idea of digital mission work, to take digital discipleship, digital church planting, and get it into a new, a different, not new, a different context. Get it into a different context. It's interesting. Both, you know, just looking at chat right now, Pastor D and DeMarcus are both African American doing digital ministry, and both of them kind of just hanging out here. And I love that. But the ideas and the methods, and Pastor D, actually both of you, I want to have you on this stream here in the weeks to come. But the way that they're going to contextualize things for an African-American audience, and I don't think Pastor D is exclusive African-American. you know, and DeMarcus, the way that he's aiming things at the urban context that he's doing. It's going to be different than what I would do or what, you know, Simon Dirks is doing in Germany or in different things. And so we want to get to the place of where we are platforming. Joy Jit in India. We want to get to the place where we're platforming different people with different voices. And this is why we're doing the streaming network to try to create more... to get out there and to do these different contexts and to help get these ideas out in front of these people. And so very excited about DeMarcus's new show, which is launching in a week or two. DeMarcus, I know there was some back and forth on digital pavement. What's the show's title we're rolling with right now, Demarcus? We'll wait for chat for that to come in. Definitely excited to see Demarcus kick off his show in a formal streaming network. All of this will be on our YouTube channel, youtube.com. the church digital, and all of this will be on TCD's podcast. And so if you're a podcast, you can listen to it on demand. We'll have a schedule posted soon. Demarcus' show is the Digital Pavement Podcast. And so thank you, Demarcus, for that. We will be launching, we'll be making a big deal about his show. Actually, maybe even DeMarcus Layton. We may have you guys on next week to talk more about the show. Excited about that. EDM, Equipping Digital Missionaries, excited about that. We're kicking off the next cohort batch will be in February. And so very excited for that. It's funny, EDM, we've been trying to figure out the best way to give it legs. especially in the past couple months. It's funny, I was talking about how I've not been sitting at this desk. The Church Digital has actually been very active over the past couple months, even though I've not been working directly. Very thankful for Inesh, who has been working in the background, doing a lot of data work for us. We moved our CRM from where we were to a newer system with the hopes of really getting the people and getting our EDM leaders, our outpost leaders, our volunteers, getting them access to our database so that they can start to engage and care for people literally around the world. We've got thousands of people in the database. We want our outpost leaders and our EDM leaders and our volunteers to have access to who these people are and start to engage them digitally. So very excited. It's really been a – Jason Morris said it best. I mean, Jason Morris says everything best. But it's been a decentralization of the church digital in the past, I'd say, three to six months. But it's been the decentralization away from Jeff Reed. Everything has been in my head. Everything has been in my hands, like running, driving, pushing. I've had this conversation with you all. No, we're not doing that. We're moving away from that. Let's start to empower volunteers and leaders and give them access instead of Jeff driving. and so very excited about some of the work that's happening. But EDM, Equipping Digital Missionaries, our online course, we'll be kicking off new cohorts of that in February. Look for information coming soon from the Church Digital. We're very close to rolling this out publicly. And then let me see what else. We're doing care groups. We've been talking a lot about Project Exodus through conferences and Giving Tuesday and things like that. And so thankfully, our Thrive groups. or maybe a month or two away i think we're going to kick them off in march and so excited excited about that we've had to move the crm we're empowering like a whole new leadership structure by the way if you're interested in in volunteering or serving If you've done EDM equipping digital missionaries, that's a great way to start, to teach or lead those groups or help with an outpost that's really trying to be a training center in different contexts. And so we want that to happen. And so we'd love to... get you either connected to an outpost or maybe even talk with me if you want to start a new context or if you're interested in being part of the streaming network if you're interested writing in blogs or want to connect more in the community and lead out in some areas like the church digital we're a we're a volunteer-led organization like You know, the little bit of money comes in to pay the bills is nice. But we're essentially volunteer-led across the board. And it's people like you. It's people like DeMarcus. It's people like Pastor D. There's so many others that really make the church digital the church digital. to make the church digital, to help the church become digital. And really, this is what I want this show to be about. This stream, moving forward, you know, we rebranded. It was the Church Digital Podcast for years. 369 episodes of the Church Digital Podcast. Becoming the Church Digital, it's 370 now, this show right here. And I want to get back to... really highlighting digital churches, metaverse churches, virtual reality churches, Facebook churches, whatever the context is. Pastor D, I want to highlight what's happening with, oh my gosh, DeMarcus, I just blanked on the name of your church. It's the online church, the church online, it was online. I saw it the other day, and I was like, oh, my gosh, I love that name, but I can't think of it right now. Oh, my gosh. So bad. My fault. Sorry to Marcus. The oxygen not making it to the brain. Quite literally, like, a major problem. I forget things so easily right now. And I equate it to oxygen. I've got, I'm actually not wearing it right now. I just, I got out of the shower late today. But the new Apple Watch has actually been really a godsend. Tracking health and a lot of that. Really big thing. Way off topic. How did I get there? Okay, coming back. I want this show... to really start to highlight some of the ingenuity of what's happening digitally. It's interesting, even here in South Florida, Liz Rios, who is an incredible woman who's doing a lot of work in digital space. She doesn't fly too much in our community as much, but she runs a church planting network. She does a lot of work digitally. She doesn't like Trump. I don't want to get into the politics, but even Liz is somebody I want to bring on and really have a deep conversation because she's wrestling with what justice looks like digitally. And so there's just many other contexts. talk with Mark Lutz and the people over at Lux Digital Church and really start to work through really start to work through what age-graded ministry looks like. You know, Mark and his wife run Lux Digital Church together. There's not a lot. I mean, DeMarcus and his wife run their church together. Mark and his wife do. That's the exception to the rule. The rule, the standard, is spouses aren't involved. My wife is not involved with the church digital at all. I mean, like, I'll sit down at a dinner and we'll have a conversation. She knows what's going on. She knows names. She knows people. I'll ask her advice on something. But, you know, she's not a digital person. She's not going to jump on here. But I think it's, actually, I should interview. We should get my wife on here. Maybe we'll do that. We'll figure out how to do that. She works during this time, but we can sim live something. It would be really interesting to get my wife on one of these and just have a conversation with her about it. Supporting what it's like to support a control freak. What it's like to be married to a control freak. What it's like to be married to a recovering, broken control freak. That's either an incredible idea or a great way to get me fired. The board of directors would be like, yeah, you're out. No, I'm kidding. They wouldn't do that. Maybe. But I do want to start to highlight some digital churches and maybe get back to the interview and some of that. So here's what's happening. My surgery is happening February 15th. I'm basically out a week. for recovery. And so back to the 20, so I think it would take me to the 23rd. I think the weekend is the 25th. So sometime the last week of January, we're going to officially relaunch Becoming the Church Digital. The Church Digital podcast will relaunch after my surgery into Becoming the Church Digital. Already starting to line up guests for that show and excited about where that's going. But until then, like this week and then next week, I think next week, Tuesday, I'm doing another stream. Just going to keep it small and simple. It's funny. I'm actually watching the clock tick because I actually have got a jet here in a little bit to get into something else. And so really, really quick on the stream today. But looking forward to getting more into it. I think we're going to keep this Tuesday, 10 a.m. I don't really like it. It feels early to me. But just life being life, it's really hard to guarantee availability for me in the afternoon because I just keep moving all over the place. Yeah. So what? We talked about the streaming network. We talked about EDM. We talked about groups. Oh, the conference. Digital Missionary Conference, May 12th and 13th. I've been working quite a bit on the conference and so excited about that. We're developing an innovation track. We're developing a digital leadership track. We're developing... I don't want to give away all the secrets, but Corey Aldrin was the first person we've officially asked to come on and be on the... I'm one of our keynote speakers. Corey is CEO of Sermon Shots. I'm so excited about that. Oh, Matt, what's your last name? We asked, just the other day, I asked Matt, you know, it's going to make me too fat. google moved to two-factor authentication and and i appreciate google for for for installing tfa but it's really freaking annoying every time i have to log in that i have to to tfa like it just it really makes it hard to do something subtle uh so Bad Google. Bad. Bad. Google, you did harm. No, I'm kidding. That's fine. Matthew. Matthew, what's your... Matthew Nierman. Matthew Nierman, head of research for Lausanne, is coming on as well. Y'all, I'm... It's been a... It's been a roller coaster of a 25. the good the bad this is where things are going incredible things are a train wreck i can do this i can't do this you know even even fears of facing mortality and um you know preparing i had a conversation with andy the other day making sure he had logins in case i die in the surgery And Andy's like, are we really doing this? And I'm like, yeah, man, sorry, we're really doing this. You know, what happens with the church digital? How do you, how would it operate? How would it move on? And the board would step in and others would. The church digital is bigger than Jeff Reed. The church digital probably operate better without Jeff Reed. Oh, man, I don't know that I want to officially say that, but I do think there's, you can definitely see my strengths and the weaknesses inside the church digital. I do believe this. God is in control. And I think the biggest lesson I learned in life in 25 came down to a horse. This is funny. I was at a men's retreat. A couple of the board members took me out to literally Montana, the line from Hunt for October, Sam Neill. I would have liked to have seen Montana in Russian. So I finally got to see Montana. Hunt for Red October may be my favorite movie of all time. So another story for another different day. But we go out there and we're getting this training over at the horse pen, whatever they call it. And there's a woman out there. She's on a horse. Literally, she's taking us through communion from a horse. And she's talking about how the horse doesn't, When you drive the horse, it's not so much about yanking the head as much as it is pushing the body with the legs. And when the horse gets pushed with the right leg, it goes left. And when the horse gets pushed with the left leg, it goes right. And so it's all about where you're feeling pressure. But it was funny, the woman... When she's on the horse and she, like, pushed both legs at the same time, the horse is getting pressure from both sides, and the horse doesn't know how to respond, and the horse freaks out. Jumps up in two legs and goes crazy. But it was fascinating to me, this idea of the horse right, the horse left. The horse right, the horse left. But the horse was responding to the pressure. The pressure, it didn't fight against the pressure. It responded. It reacted. It allowed the pressure to move. And to be honest, that has been my approach for 25 through the year. I found that out in like February or March, early. And that really was that thing that guided me in 25 and 26. How am I going to respond in this season? How is this pressure influencing me? Not that I'm pushing against it, but that I'm letting it lead. How am I letting it drive? How am I reacting? Where is it taking me to? And how do we need to respond in that? It has been... so much easier for me to let God lead rather than me thinking, how do I fight? How do we push through? How do we overcome? How do I make my agenda? These are not words. At least these are words that I hope I'm not saying. Instead, I'm saying, where is God leading me to? And how do we set up something where God is leading? And I think that's the plan of the Church Digital in 26, is where is God leading, and how do we set up at that spot? What was it? Matthew 6, 33, 34. Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. Seek first the kingdom of God. Seek first God's righteousness. And all these things will be added unto you. It's 34. Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. Find God's righteousness. It's not hard to find God's righteousness in the midst of everything. All right, that's my challenge for you today. Thank you for hanging out with me for episode 370 of what is a preview tease for Becoming the Church Digital. We'll do another one of these next week. Take a break while I'm doing surgery and recovery, and then we'll kick off. With the new show, new theme, new everything back at the end of January. Thank you for hanging out with me. This is Jeff, founder of The Church Digital. Be praying for me heading into the 15th, and I'll see y'all online. Have a good one. All right. I redid my stream deck. Where's the stop button? Oh, there it is. All right. Thanks, everybody. Y'all have a good one.