EP041: Six Lessons Learned from 2019's THE CHURCH DIGITAL PODCAST

Hey everybody, welcome to the Church Digital podcast. My name is Jeff, and it is a pleasure to have you join us today. We are on episode 41 of the Church Digital podcast. This is the last episode of 2019, and I'm glad you all joined us today. I've got Raid the Armas, of course, guest host joining us.

Hey, hey, Ray. Want to say hey?

Hey, everybody. It's good to be with you again. Happy end of 2019, on to the next decade. Let's go.

Yeah, so hope Christmas was good, and we wanted to wrap up 2019 in style here. We want to just reflect back. We've done 41 of these episodes, and there was a gentleman's bet between Ray and I if we'd actually make it past eight. And so we're 41, and I'm not gonna tell you who won the bet, but actually it was Ray. It was really not me at all. But we have done 41 of these, and just Ray and I were having a conversation about all these lessons that we've learned through these conversations. Because Ray and I, when we started this podcast and doing this, we didn't know what we didn't know. And it was fascinating to listen to all of these different people with all of these different perspectives talk about what church online is and how they are executing their piece of church online, maybe at the churches or with the companies where they are at. And so Ray and I just came with this idea of, hey, let's do a podcast where we talk about six lessons that we've learned—three of each of us—from this podcast in 2019. So going back, hey, if you're like a sitcom guy, this is the highlight reel. We're gonna go back, we're gonna visit some old content, we're gonna talk about it, and highlight it so you can get a chance maybe to go back and listen to these episodes as well.

So Ray, you want to share anything on that?

No, this is perfect. And you know, for those of you jumping in, we're gonna refer to past episodes that you'll be able to take a look at the show notes and just check out the links if you want more information about that. And let me tell you, I learned so much this past year because until Jeff and I really started doing this, I mean, we knew that people were doing things out there and they were trying things, but when you start to hear from different voices, from people all over the United States, even some all over the world, and just kind of engaging with them and finding out how they're using digital methods to disciple people, I mean, it's just amazed me. It's powerful. And so let me encourage you, go ahead and pour back through some of those old episodes, get engaged with it. You know, right now some of you are probably on the drive, and so it's a good time because things will listen to like a bunch of episodes. Go ahead and do it because you'll be surprised at some of the things that you learn there. It's some of the gold that you might find for your church and how to disciple people online. It's good stuff.

That's awesome. So we're gonna kick it off, number six. We're gonna start from the bottom and work our way up. Ray, why don't you go first here? So what's one of the lessons that you learned listening or doing the interview during these podcasts in 2019?

Let me tell you, Jason Morris's episode on the importance of a discipleship pathway for church online was so big. Because Jeff, you know, some churches are putting their sermons out there online. They're cutting their messages out there. Some are streaming full-blown services. Some people are even dabbling in small groups, but not everybody is thinking step by step by step discipleship pathway in terms of how they're engaging their people online. And I'm telling you, folks, this was like episode three or four for us. If you go back and listen to it, just hearing Jason's passion about discipleship, I mean, he's running the entire episode. I mean, he pretty much did all the content for us. It was amazing. But just hearing his passion come out about helping people in their next step, each and every step, I mean, going down to the ministry small next steps in faith for people who are engaging online, that was just very powerful for me. And I want to encourage people: are you thinking through that? Because for sure, Jason is.

Yeah, I tell you, Jason we commonly call him one of the OGs of church online—original gangsters—because he's been doing it for a long time. He's one of these guys that's been doing church online for ten plus years and has gotten a lot of respect in context of his church and how he's been leading. I think his title is unique. It's not online pastor. It's like, well, it's global innovations pastor. That's literally how this man approaches and has been able to approach digital and church online and technology through the church out there at Westside Family. And so he was key on episode six, and you're right, he was a hundred percent passion coming in and talking about a lot of this stuff. And also on episode 32, where we talked about redefining the why of church online, which was tied into the Church IT Network, phenomenal thing. And really Jason hones in on that discipleship pathway, which is so key for a church online to move beyond just broadcasting the services to really connecting to the larger piece of why are we doing this broadcast? Why are we doing this ministry online? Is it not just to create consumers? It really should be to create disciples. I love Matthew 28, and so I love Jason's passion in their work. A lot of that he's really come down to instead of designing this like massive complicated system that may or may not work, disciple the people that you have, crack open the Bible, and take him through it. It was really, I was expecting, I was really the surprise for me, and that was I was expecting a much larger, this is crazy plan that he would bring to the table, Mister Global Innovation Pastor. And instead, it was really a very simple message of disciple the people that you have online, and God will bring you more. And so Jason, for that, thank you very much. That was an awesome lesson to go through for me.

And we'll call this number five: Eric Geiger. And this is a man who's very special to both Ray and I. We had him on for a combo of episodes nine and ten. But really, the heart of the conversation that we ended up talking about, we kind of veered off a little bit, which that's always where the fun is—not when you stick to the script of what you want to, but when you really get into the meat of something. And so we really wanted to hone into, okay, lead pastor who may or may not have some issues with church online and definitely has maybe a different vision than some others. Like, what is the issue with church online as a lead pastor? What are other issues? What are the issues that are out there that other lead pastors have? So help us understand, because honestly, pre this conversation with Eric Geiger earlier this year, episode nine and ten, I could not answer this question. Like, when I would drill into, I don't understand why you don't see how church online could work, and Eric very simply and eloquently helped me understand: okay, there's a theological issue that some churches will have with church online, and there's a practical issue that some churches, some lead pastors, will have with church online.

Now, the theological, you know, this is like ekklesia, defining the coming together, the gathering of believers that is in biblical times. That's defined within physical space. And of course, you know, they didn't have Zoom in biblical time, so I don't know that the Bible context really figured out how to define community virtually. And I think culturally, community is being defined in a much different way in 2019 than it was, I don't know, in the time of Christ or shortly after with the early church. And so, you know, wrestling with some of that and realizing, hey, you know what, if your lead pastor really has a theological issue with church online, it's gonna take a lot of effort to shift that, and arguably I don't know that you can. And so feeling that tension now, a more practical issue maybe the lead pastor doesn't understand how technology can help community come together. Maybe there's a misunderstanding or just the unawareness of how that can work and function. If it's a practical thing, that's a much easier conversation to have with a pastor than necessarily like a major theological issue.

So Ray, would you pull from that?

You know, it's funny because just today I was having a conversation with somebody as far as where I considered my church community to be, and what I told them was I didn't consider my church community to be there on Sunday morning. And this is actually somebody who's part of my church at Christ Fellowship because they were asking, because obviously it's church online pastor. They're like, so how do you do church? And I was like, I do church both online but I also do it in person. But I told him honestly, my real community is in my small group. That's where my people are. And that kind of shift from where our true community lies is something that church in general still struggles with. And I think that's a conversation that even Eric was comfortable with because in our large gatherings on Sunday mornings, it's too overwhelming. Even if you're in a church plant of like fifty to one hundred folks, for an introvert like me, that's still too many people to get to know really. And so I can't necessarily plug in and do life with people there or feel known, like truly known, or feel truly mentored and discipled. And so, you know, helping pastors see that in online environments, yes, there are large spaces that are overwhelming and where it could seem like people are disconnected. That's true in-person and online as well. But there are also smaller environments that can take place through digital pathways in which people can be known, they can be seen, they can be heard, and they can be discipled. And it was great hearing Eric just kind of engage with some of that from an honest perspective because so often many people were kind of shy away, or some folks might come on a podcast and not necessarily want to engage with full-on honesty with some of their issues regarding some of those digital pathways. But I felt like Eric was honest with us. He was very open-minded. He was great. And I couldn't really see Mick Mariner's experimenting with some of this stuff as they moved forward, leveraging digital pathways to disciple people.

Probably the thing that stood out for me in the conversation with Eric was this idea of consistency, making sure in helping your lead pastor maybe see some of where he is being inconsistent. Example would be, yeah, if you're doing multiple services, then like on any given Sunday or even like a Saturday and a Sunday service, then this idea of ekklesia is loosely defined in biblical context. Ekklesia was the physical gathering in one place. When you go to a service or when you go to a multi-site model—and Jim Toverland talked about this with the podcast as well—it's like when you start to do multiple within the same gathering, you're actually stretching that model of what ekklesia already is. And so if your pastor, I mean, I just, I kind of bang my head against a wall sometimes honestly when I talk to like a multi-site pastor who's like, yeah, I don't, I don't believe in church online or I have an issue with church online. I'm like, you've got six campuses all over the city. You've already shattered this idea of what biblical ekklesia is, and you won't acknowledge that it can work in a virtual environment. It's no different than what you're doing in these other areas. And so that's where, you know, kind of coaching and helping them through it, and Geiger helping to show some of that, and even how to help communicate with the lead pastor.

Pastor, right through that, you know, was really key. Absolutely. Um, the next, the next learning part for me, which we've considered number four, would be our conversation with Danielle Hicks regarding development of watch parties and even watching watch parties become campuses like in a case with Elevation Church and what they did with Melbourne. That was pretty amazing, mind-blowing even. And the fact that they even have the discipline, mind you, to keep a lot of watch parties just as that, as watch parties when we're talking about like over a hundred people gathering in coffee shops or yoga studios to engage with the service but also to be part of small groups and real-life church community.

And I think this is a safe space to say this, you know, when a lot of folks look at Elevation, they think of just Steven Furtick or they think of just the worship team, but they're not necessarily looking at Elevation as actually striving together these people into groups and discipling them. And that's what Danielle is really bringing to the table. I mean, on a huge scale. And it was so inspirational to see them have both the discipline because even in, you know, Southern Baptist churches or in different churches, as soon as they start hitting those numbers, they're thinking, "Oh, let's launch some other campus." It takes a lot of discipline to pull back and say, "No, no, no, we," they continue to develop leaders to disciple more, to make sure that these people are actually in biblical community. And that's something that Danielle brought to the table that was very, very inspiring for me.

Yeah, I gotta tell you, Danny's was one of my favorites of the year as well. And, Ally, it was one of the first exposures that I had had to like the inside, behind the scenes of Elevation Church, and it was not at all what I was expecting. A lot of the humility that she showed in that, and it was for me, it was, she was one of the first people that I heard say a phrase that I heard a lot afterwards: "Hey, guys, what we're doing right now, especially with like this micro-location stuff, honestly, we don't know what we're doing. Yeah, we're experimenting with some things, and what we're doing today, we're probably not gonna be doing in six months because we're just learning in this thing." And to hear a big church, a giant church, one of the giga churches that are out there, right, "Hey, we don't know what we're doing," and kind of admitting that up front, to me that gave me excitement for some of the smaller churches out there that are saying kind of same things: "Hey, we don't know what we're doing either, but just, okay, take that next step, experiment, try, give it a shot, get the tires on it, do something." And so it's really was a great episode there with Danielle. Episode 21, so be sure to check that out. We'll have the link in the show notes for that as well.

So for me, the next episode that I wanted to hit on for a lesson, and talking about humility, this is by far the most humble lead pastor I've ever talked to in my life, and this is Randy Kirk, who's up at First Capital Christian Church in Corydon, Indiana. Tyler Samson's church is the Church Anywhere program. We've talked about these guys a lot, but we actually did like a deep dive, a three-episode span with the people of Corydon, Indiana of First Capital Christian, where we talked with a lot of their volunteers who are basically campus pastors doing the micro-locations, being the pastors at these micro-location services in Corydon, Indiana. We talked with their discipleship team who's creating this discipleship pathway, but this episode with Randy was really where we delved into the from a pastor-level. So Randy's on the older side of life. Like, I'm not saying the man literally resigned on the podcast, but if you listen to it, you will hear him literally resign on the podcast. And I gotta tell you, it like that kind of blew me away a little bit.

So here's an older guy who's part of a movement, part of a church, leading a church who's launched eighteen-plus micro-locations, amazing, around the city. The church itself reaches about twelve hundred people within physical buildings. Last I heard, they're reaching eight hundred people outside of the physical building in micro-locations around this small town in Corydon, Indiana. By the way, Corydon, Indiana is about three thousand people. So like twelve hundred in the main building, eight hundred outside of the building. There's not a lot of overlap between like the physical and the micro to reach, and at least half the town as a small church. And as a lead pastor, to see him have these conversations humbly, to making statements like, "This isn't my kingdom. Um, this is God, this is God's kingdom that he's given me. I have to listen to the young leaders. I have to listen." Man, what a challenge for lead pastors, for executive pastors, for leadership teams that are out there to not look at the church through just your own eyes. We have to start to look at what can be and to start to empower some of these younger people like Tyler Sampson. He's doing a phenomenal job, yeah, to step up and to bring in a new life and a new opportunity to reach people in a unique way.

Yeah, would you think, right? And you know what, you know what, Jeff? I mean, so much of that was so powerful because I remember Tyler was super excited for us to talk to Randy. And you don't often see that with the young guy, you know, older guy kind of a scenario. Like, normally he's trying to like stash them away, like, "Oh, man, he's kind of not for this." But Randy has proved the age ain't nothing but a number. Let me tell you, his missional mindset and his willingness to get out there and to try these digital pathways and to be so kingdom-minded. Jeff, you're so right, to be so kingdom-minded. The segment they never set foot in the door of our building, but if they're being reached for Christ outside the room, then we will have done our job. It's just so amazing and impactful. And I would pray that when we get to that stage of life that we have the same both guts to keep trying new things and willingness to do so, but at the same time the same kingdom-mindedness, the one throw the keys to younger leaders like Tyler. The guy like Tyler could go anywhere, but he's following Randy. You could see why just from that interview. I mean, it's just an amazing kind of thing that they've got going on over there. And so for sure, go back, take a listen. It's impactful. It'll change your perspective as far as all men, folks who are older in your church, whether or not they'll be pro-church online. Listen, we've seen it over and over again in the podcast, and we've even seen it over and over again in real life. Folks who are entering what I consider this new era of being a grandparent, they're not afraid of technology. They're not afraid of tech. I mean, you can go listen to the episode where we interviewed Jeff's mom. You've heard me talk about Mike, about my father, and how he's interacting with tech like often on the show in terms of his engagement with YouTube and all sorts of stuff. Let me tell you, folks, Randy is a prime example. The age is nothing but a number. And we have a lot of people in our churches that want to reach people and they want to do it online. So it's a powerful thing that's going on.

Amen. Well, I want to take a note since you brought it up. I publicly apologize to my mother for not including her in this list. Linda, a year, you probably are listening, so I think you keep up. I'm sorry. You're your number seven above the six. So just a sitter, okay? You're number eight because the seventh lesson is really Jake Ran, that does not have a Disney Plus account, or at least it took him a month plus to get there. J, publicly once again calling you out. You're listening. I know. Thank you, all right, Mom. Sorry, Jay. Sorry. But you are our best small group leader at Christ Fellowship. Sir Arthur, that being said, sir, our number two, it was Gerhardt. And let me tell you, I've been a gamer ever since I was a kid. I did not realize that people were using gaming platforms to reach other people for Jesus. That, for me, was it. It was a game changer, okay? I thought that Jeff denied that we were doing some innovative stuff, that we were doing some cool stuff of church online. When Jeff worked at Christ Fellowship, and don't get me wrong, we're doing some cool stuff, but what Jake was doing to reach people leveraging gaming platforms and even the fact that he is actually discipling people leveraging gaming platforms and using Discord in order to do so, for me was just one of the most mind-blowing and innovative things.

I mean, I think I talked to everybody I knew for the next two weeks about what Jake was doing with Discord and the fact that he was leveraging gaming platforms to disciple people online. Jake's stuff about leveraging Discord as a lobby area for church online, for me, was so impactful because, yeah, you know, we can game and we can talk and we can kind of have some fun, but the fact that he was trying to get to that next level of relationship and that next step with people and helping engage them and helping pull them in for as an evangelistic method, that that was so powerful for me because, even you know, churches struggle in-person leveraging their lobby area in church in terms of connecting with people. I mean, you know, church world, you guys know this. We do conferences based on how to get that connection part or that next step card from people. We do all sorts of things just to get that contact or how to greet people, how to get that next step. And here Jake's doing it inside a chat room, a gaming chat room, to leverage and to reach people. I mean, it's powerful how he's using gaming platforms to disciple people for Christ.

Jeff, how are you impacted by Jake? Because for me it was big.

Yeah, Jake's been a guy that I've followed up on, and we're gonna have on the podcast in January because I want to unpack this one thing that he's working on. He's literally going through a church planting program right now. So his church that he's at, they do a lot with Exponential Conference, and so they have a church cohort, a church planting cohort where they take physical churches through it. Jake's going through it because he and his core team through this love clan group that meets on Discord, they've been led to create a digital church. They don't want to just be a discipleship group that's doing something, but they're trying to gird up their theological selves so that they can operate by the standards of what a church, a biblical church, is.

Now, some of you out there, your heads just exploded at this idea of, "Wait, what's a digital church? He's gonna do what in Discord?" And we've had conversations with like DJ Soto with VR Church. We've talked a lot about this idea of creating a digital expression of church in a virtual space that aligns with the biblical standards that are held. And Jake, in his twenties, set himself out and said, "Hey, I want to go through this training to understand wholly and completely what a physical church is because I want to adopt it and adjust it to work in a virtual context." And so him being wise that way, to even examine himself so that he himself is grounded theologically, able to lead a church at that level, man, is really exciting to me. And it's one of the things that I just, I love what this kid's doing. I say "kid," but it's huge. Like, twenty years younger than me. So I love what this kid's doing and want to see him continue to do some great things.

Yeah, and I want to give a quick shout out to the Roadblock Scenes because that was another, you know, that was another thing that just kind of blew my mind that through.

Through roadblocks that they're doing what they can to disciple people, and so it's just a beautiful thing. Folks are using gaming platforms to disciple people. I just, I can't, it's just amazing. Go back, check out these episodes. I'm telling you, blow your mind.

Yes, Jade Sepa Sowed is number thirteen, and Daniel Aaron talking about wheat. That's another one, man. We just hit that last week, episode forty. But Daniel, and how at eleven years old, dude, this guy had had this dream of like, hey, and I'm not even doing like spiritual vision or anything. Like to guys like, hey, this is Roblox, this is a cool thing. What if we did church in here? And like eight years later, he's got a board of directors helping him structure a church. He's figuring out how to do discipleship in the area, and he's touched twenty-six thousand people through this church in Roblox. Like, that's that's no small feat, and it's amazing to see how God is doing some things in some of these digital churches and some virtual spaces.

Yeah, they need to get strengthened. Yeah, they need to get some sort of a discipleship process and structure in place. But don't stop. Let's adjust the model to keep it going, right? And I'll be honest, for me, episode one, my favorite. Ray and I were talking out there before. They're saying, and I just I just started writing down names. Like, there's so many lessons. There's so many things that that's like, man, I wish we could do this a bunch of this stuff that we did. The Church IT Network kind of recording the micro campus talk, which was awesome to start with. Why that was awesome? Jim told Merlin droppin' all this knowledge when it comes to the trends of multi-site church over the past twenty years and how church online is starting from the cool thing to become the common thing to become the mainstream thing. And to see how that idea grew in the multi-site world and how church online is not that far behind, maybe a decade behind that same process.

Mark Banty with all the stuff they're doing at Church Home, man, it was it's beautiful to hear him say, yes, we're we're called to be a church and regarding ourselves up theologically to make sure that we're holding to a biblical standard. But honestly, when it comes to like how we're progressing or how we're building, we're looking more to corporate America to help us figure out how to do the management in the church because the church is so far behind in some of these areas. Like, it was it's eye-opening to have some of these conversations, see leaders out there who are leading a lot of these big churches, even even small churches with Joe Radevich, and trying to figure out how to take next steps for for all these organizations to grow their church online.

That being said, my favorite conversation and the one that I think had the most impact on me actually really had nothing to do with church online, and it was Seth Muse talking about from a communications perspective how we communicate things digitally now. Seth's the communications director in Dallas, Texas. Was was that Hope Church for a while and and does a lot of communicating and Seminary of Hard Knocks podcast. A lot of you guys may know him or be connected with them there. But what we've really honed in on is this idea of how we communicate things online, and whether we're communicating about ourselves or if we're communicating in a way that's engaging and listening to what others are saying.

You see, and in church online is very guilty of this, but the church in general is as guilty. We don't understand what engagement is. We've lost what that meaning is. And so rule number one: talking about your upcoming sermon series on Facebook is not engaging. You are disseminating information about your church in hopes that others will hear you. Now, chances are your people who are already connected to your church will listen to that information, and that will be engaging to them, and they may even respond to it. But if you're trying to connect with someone who's not familiar with your church, if you're trying to connect with someone who's outside of the general area that you see any given Sunday, maybe somebody who's cold to the idea even of Christ, that sermon series, just as an example, that sermon series post on Facebook ain't doing you jack. No. And what it's definitely not going to do is it's not gonna get you engagement back where they are going to respond back and forth.

See, engagement really comes not as much from talking as much as it is listening to the people and then responding and building online relational equity with people. That's where engagement should be.

Great. What are you thinking on that?

Yeah, you know, that's it's powerful, Jeff, because so much of this with what we do with digital platforms should be built around conversations that we're having with our people. And to your point, church is more often than not, and you know, in our struggle to communicate things, we have so much of a struggle that we want to talk at people then necessarily talk with people. Everything about our churches, even in in-person experiences, are built from a stage platform. Our sermons aren't engaging, or worship isn't necessarily engaged. You know, we want them singing, repeat after me, kind of stuff. You know, and that's not necessarily helpful when it comes to online platforms.

So when we approach online spaces, we shouldn't be surprised when even large mega churches have a struggle with, hey, how come this only got like ten likes? Or how come this whole thing, huh, like fifteen views? When there's no method, when there is no reason for people to actually engage with the information, to actually have a conversation with what's going on. And so for churches, you know, that's Seth's content was so good because it reminds us that we have to be more conversation oriented in terms of how we approach people online.

And so as we restructure our communications, as we look on into the future, make sure that even take a look at some stuff like some of the things that has helped us out, maybe some of you have seen this. Brady Shearer put out like a list of like thirty to forty some-odd questions that churches could just post up online and just start conversations with people. That's been a game changer at Christ Fellowship as far as their social media is concerned because we went from having like two comments to like all sudden starting a bunch of conversations on our Instagram and Facebook feeds. And it all starts with a question. Why? Because questions invite people to be part of the answer. We're not talking at them. We're talking with them. And then whatever else happens after that question, we're responsible for. If they want to keep engaging with us, we have to continue to engage with them.

Remember this: Billy Graham in the nineties preached a message. That message was bounced off at thirty-four satellites and was heard by one billion people around the world. One billion people heard a single message simultaneously around the world, and that was in the nineties. And so if that's what you're using your church online for, dude, that was like twenty, thirty years ago. There's got to be something better than that. We're wasting the technology if all we are doing is yelling our message out there and not listening.

By the way, the culture of the nineteen nineties compared to two thousand now, twenty, guess what? Completely different. You may be screaming from the rooftops, but ain't nobody listening. And if they do by any chance hear you, you are definitely not connecting with them going that approach. So utilizing the social media, utilizing technology, utilizing church online to be more engaging, to be more listening, to respond, these are the things to look at. And you can definitely listen to that podcast. A lot of wisdom got dropped on that. It's episode twenty-eight there with Seth Muse and redefining engagement.

So that has been awesome. Well, man, hey, like, that flow. So we're what, we're six episodes in, six lessons with that. So right, man, like, what do you think? It's just see what happens here. What do you think the future is gonna, what do you think twenty twenty is gonna look like?

Twenty twenty, you know, fix your staple. I think it's gonna be great because in a lot of different ways on our site and through different methods, you guys are going to hear from a lot of different voices, you know, from us. And so I think that's gonna be great. Really, the big thing for church online and even for the way that churches interact with digital platforms, I'm so excited for how more and more pastors are taking an interest, you know, at the least they're curious. And so I want to encourage you, if you're here and and you either have a senior pastor who's curious or you are a senior pastor who's curious, or even you're a senior pastor or you're a pastor and you're on the fence, let me encourage you: stay curious. Continue to delve into some of these things and think through it with an open mind and think through how you can engage people online because I'm telling you, the reward that's out there is greater than the risk.

The risk is actually minimal at this point. It may seem large for you. It may seem, but what if people, what if we fail, what if people say X, Y, and Z? I'm telling you guys, this is small. This is almost as if you could have bought a Tesla or Apple stock in the eighties, you know, and you're going back in time in a DeLorean. You've got all the information because it's only gonna go up. So you have the ability to engage people online. It's never been cheaper. It's never been easier. And so today, to start exploring new platforms, start thinking of new methods and new ways that you can engage, not just your people but your community online, and see how God will take you.

Jeff, what about you? Twenty twenty online, what do you think?

Do not be afraid to experiment. Always get out there, kick the tires on things, and learn lessons when experiments fail. That doesn't mean the idea entirely failed. It means learn your lesson from that and try again. There there's a there's a nugget here. There's an opportunity here. There's the road that we are on: online technology, church online technology is only going to get better. The culture engaging in community virtually is only going to get more effective, more influential, and the church needs to be in in that space, whether doing a physical church or a virtual church. Either way, get in the game and get going with church digital.

Man, we're gonna open up a ton of different stuff. We've got more writers who are going to be creating content on a regular basis. We've got more video content and podcast ideas and things. Twenty nineteen was a phenomenal year, but it was just the beginning of something much greater. There's even some partnerships with some organizations that if God is behind this and all this works out, there's gonna be some phenomenal things coming forward for the big C church coming out of the church digital, Lord willing.

And so to that end, man, continue to pray for this year. Pray for us as we are praying for you, church out there who is wrestling with the stuff, who's asking questions, she's kicking the tires, who's experimenting, who's asking questions of leadership that the leadership doesn't know the answer of. We understand you. We've been in your shoes. And to that end, don't give up. Keep pressing and start heading towards what twenty twenty is gonna hold for you.

Hey, so we're gonna wrap right here. Ray, man, in any closing thoughts as we land in the plane?

Go back through some of those episodes. I'm telling you, take a binge listen, have some fun, and kind of go back in time through twenty nineteen with us and see just how God may inspire you to try something new in twenty twenty.

Awesome. Hey, so we're gonna land the plane on there. Twenty nineteen is in the rearview mirror. Heads up, twenty twenty. It's gonna be awesome. For Ray, I am Jeff with the Church Digital, and we're gonna call it here. Thanks, everybody. See ya next year.

Awesome. Talk to you later. Bye.