EP051: Ed Stetzer & Defining a Successful Church

Art, everybody, welcome to the Church Digital podcast powered by Stadia Church Planting. I still love saying that part, by the way. Stadia, I think like this weekend is launching their one thousandth church. That's right. They have literally planted a thousand churches here domestically as well as around the world, and we are seeing that that happened in real time. So if you're even thinking about planning a church, you want to have a conversation about what a digital church looks like. You know, we here at Stadia, we want to know. Check out stadiachurchplanting.org, and on the digital side, because we're literally writing the stuff as we're going, hit me up. Here, my information will be in the show notes, and let's get together.

All right, episode 51 here of the Church Digital podcast. This has been the most fun I've recorded of any podcast to date. We were laughing hysterically, and it actually took a lot of editing to assemble this whole conversation together. It was so much fun, and I didn't feel like letting you go listen to like 15 minutes of laugh track going through this podcast.

Ed Stetzer is on the podcast now. Eddie is a man I would call him a mentor. It was funny, actually. I ripped him at one point on Twitter for him assuming the mentor role, but the man's been a mentor in my life and a huge inspiration behind what I'm doing here with the Church Digital. Now, he doesn't always agree on the technology piece and the church online, and so we dig into that even a little bit here in the podcast. But when it comes to discipleship, when it comes to multiplication, when it comes to understanding the culture of who we are here in the Western Church, and digging into the research that he's done through Lifeway and a number of different other resources and organizations that he's working with and influencing, man, I can't think of a better person to come on the podcast here and to really talk about where the Church of today is and how we need to get from where we are to where we need to be. How we get unstuck. Because listen, we all look around, we all feel the tension, we all see the decline, we see what's coming, we can acknowledge that it's there. Nobody's fighting that. But how do we get unstuck? How do we get the lead out? This is really the conversation that we had with Ed Stetzer.

Now, I could dig in here and we could talk about like, I mean, I could spend an entire episode, an entire podcast episode, talking about this man's resume. The churches that he's spoken at, the books that he's written, the articles, the blogs, the conferences that he's been able to speak into and the influence he's had all across America, the American Church, and even the International Church today. Instead, man, I really just want to get out of the way at this point. And I'm bringing in Ed Stetzer from the Billy Graham Center, Evangelism from Moody Church, and a number of other sources. I'm also bringing in Reid the Armas, online pastor, digital pastor, excuse me, at Christ Fellowship Miami, and myself, Jeff, with the Church Digital, in a conversation that I am calling "Defining a Successful Church."

Okay, everybody, here you go.

I think the first message I ever produced for you was when you were teaching over at Christ Fellowship. That was like 2011?

Yeah, there for like six years as teaching pastor.

Yeah, and so it was a lot of fun. And I remember you dropped a line, and this is a thing that I really want to kind of park on a little bit here, because the heart of church today, I think, is missing some things. And I want to, whether we get to the online context and church online and the digital context of this, but really like the core of it is this deal. And you said this line in a sermon, and it's stuck with me for four years. When you build churches like theaters, don't be surprised when people act like show goers. And when you set it in the sermon on stage in front of a thousand people at Christ Fellowship Miami, their Palmetto Bay campus, it literally hit me like a ton of bricks over the head. I was just curious, like, what's the context? Where were you to kind of come up with that?

It was funny. Like, I tried to Google that quote. I don't see it a lot. Like, Google hasn't found it. So like, not a lot of people are blogging or talking about it. But it's such a powerful quote. I'm just curious, kind of like, what's the story behind how you came up with it?

Well, you know, when you kind of look at and begin to ask questions about what's causing a consumer-driven mentality in churches, which a lot of people bemoan and lament, you know, I've got 50 books on a shelf right over there about, you know, how bad it is because we're a consumer-driven church. But then you don't acknowledge that there are some things that have an unintended impact and that might create that consumer-driven church. One of them is, again, when you build churches like theaters, don't be surprised when people act like show goers. Because we're actually trained to be. I mean, I go to a show, go downtown Chicago. We're trained to be passive spectators. That's our job. That's why these wonderful people on stage are doing great things, and then we walk into a church. It's like a theater. We kind of revert to that. That's our job. Look at all these people in the front doing great things. And so we get to be the beneficiary of their gifts, the teaching gifts and the worship leaders' gifts, maybe a video or something. But we're not using our gifts. We're passive spectators rather than active participants in the mission of God.

Now, that's not the only thing in that message. And by the way, bless you that you remember that message from that long ago. But also, I talked about a little bit like the clergy-laity distinction, right? So I'm clergy. I'm ordained as clergy. That elevates me, see, in people's minds. You know, then they're lay people. What do they do? They just lay around all the time. And so the language, you know, Reverend or Doctor or Pastor, the language teaches people that their role is sometimes more to pray and stay out of the way, and the real ministry is done by the ordained clergy in the front of a stage. And they see themselves, regular Christians see themselves as sort of objects of the ministry. They're ministered to rather than partners in the ministry that we minister together.

I think it's a real huge thing. I spoke at Wheaton Chapel just recently about this topic. There is a sense that we have created in many, many places a consumer-driven, customer-service-friendly church. We do things well. If you like the music, you like the preaching, and you like our children's ministry, like our student ministry, you'll stay. And then what you end up with is a whole lot of people not on mission but who are kind of just, you know, going floating down a lazy river with other Christians in a right temperature for them, and their customer service needs are being met. And that's my concern. And where that quote came from, one of the ways that we unintentionally teach people to be passive spectators is the way we build our churches.

Now, to be fair, you know, come up to me, you say, "Well, then, you know, what about Christ Fellowship? You know, that's that's a thousand-seat-plus auditorium. But you know, if you have 50 people, are you gonna put them all in circles? Are you gonna? How are you? How are you gonna not create rows, right? That would be theater-like rows. And I don't really have the answer. I just wanted to complain about the current situation. So I'm like a good church member. I just bring you my problem. But what I would say is I don't know that you can change it. I know there's another way for a large church to meet. I mean, yes, you could just eliminate large church, but I don't know there's a place that they could meet that would cause them not to be passive spectators. But it doesn't mean that you can't be aware of it and work to overcome it. And you know, we talk about helping people, but listen, we need you to move from those rows, just sitting in circles, and we have to help people to move out of that passive spectator Christianity.

But the passivity leads us to this place of consumerism, right? Where we're now we're just tent-poling our spirituality to that one hour on Sunday where we're getting our fix week to week. Lifeway, I mean, I'm not sure if you were involved with Lifeway at the time, but even Lifeway's showing that more and more people are not engaging or talking about spiritual things even outside of the church. It's all centered around, okay, I'm a Christian for this one hour. I'm consuming this, exuding this a little bit with Christian friends, but outside when it comes to Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, it's not part of their lives.

I think that's pretty common. Where what happens is there's a Sunday practice that doesn't become a daily process. And this is, you know, Paul writes in, where is that, Philippians 2, that you obey not only in my presence but also in my absence. So when Paul was there, they were walking like Jesus, and he commends them. When I'm not there, you're walking like Jesus. And that's not true for a lot of people. But they've got to see that daily process of spiritual formation. Eugene Peterson called it, you know, this long process, you know, in long obedience in the same direction. And I think when we walk that way and we're blessed to walk that way, God honors that. We grow. But I think again what happens is that people are generally born again. That's key to preface to all this. Sometimes just get stuck in their own moment where they're not on mission. And that's part of what we talk about here. How do we get on mission? How do we help people to hear the words of Jesus, "As the Father has sent me, even so send I you," to respond like Isaiah did, "Here I am, Lord, send me." So there's a lot of passages that point to this.

The challenge is the modern practices don't always look like the ancient passages. Acts talks a lot about being day to day with the believers. And so they think they were gathering to the grave daily. They were encouraging. Is that possible in the context of today's Western culture church? I mean, we're barely not even getting weekly at this point when you look at. I had a church tell me the other week that even among their givers, their high-level givers, they're attending point eight times a month. So even people who are giving regularly to this particular church, they can't even get once a month. How did we get here? And is there a possibility, an option to turn the corner?

Well, I'm at culture changed. So and we're experiencing something that really nobody in history except the very rich experienced in the past, or the very rich that Englishman, you know, might experience in a Downton Abbey moment where they, you know, the rich, the nobility, sort of go off to their cottage up the mountain or something, and people would go away for the weekend. And that's a stunning thing rich people did. So, you know, Jeff, when you were a kid, fact those many decades ago, many, many, many people didn't go away for the weekend. You and your parents and all likely did not go because they did. The whole infrastructure wasn't there to support it. There wasn't a, you know, every court and every highway stop. There wasn't a courtyard or a, you know, a Holiday Inn or or whatever a Hampton. I mean, so think about how our Hilton. Think of all these names. So 50 years ago, none of those things, none of those things were available. Therefore, the people didn't have the process to do it. Now they have the process to do so, and they're taking advantage of it. So people go away for the weekend pretty regularly. It's kind of a normal thing.

Yeah, so how then do we respond to that? Well, I think one of those responding is, for example, we're actually, and it's a strange thing.

But we're actually now taking like a children's ministry and we say before we'd say, "Hey, would you teach the children's ministry?" Now we're like, "Hey, would you and your friend rotate in the children's ministry?" So there's two people to do one person's role. So I think we do want to sort of work towards where there's a sense that people value this. I wish that more people not only valued it so much that they went to church when they were in town, but they actually planned their time out of town around the valuable connection that the local church is there as well.

So I mean, I think there's just we have to call people to a different way of living. And this is very counter-cultural because right now we live in a time when everybody does what is autonomously helpful, you know, individually kind of driven by what they want to do. And I think the call of God is something more.

Yeah, are these idols to be preached against? Like, is this something that we need to be directly addressing from the pulpit and just kind of engaging with people and saying, "Hey, listen, I face the same challenges like as a minister of the gospel, but this is what scripture says. This is where there is value in the coming together in community."

You know, I'm struggling with the answer. It's a great question. I would say that people get away for the weekend is not necessarily idolatrous, but I would say that if you're driven by leisure to the place where you're not obeying the scripture, that that's problematic. And the call of God is something different and better than that. So yeah, I think there are idolatrous parts to it. I would just be careful, you know, to not call out the fact that you're going to see your parents for the weekend as adulterous, but I could certainly say that this leisure society that distances you from the people of God that you should be in relationship with—yes, I think there's idols that need to be preached about, called down, and addressed in my own heart too.

Yeah, because there's something to comparison culture that we're living in the midst of where not only are we seeing this on a regular basis from some of our friends, but we're then inundated with it on a regular basis when I look at my phone. So now I've got a social feed of nothing but people who seem to live on vacation.

Yeah, it's in me that I too need to live on vacation, that I am not really living life unless I am living on vacation. And then of course, and there's advertisements and everything else that come along with it to convince me of the same thing.

Yeah, and there is a multi-billion dollar industry that's working to get you to engage in these things. It only works if we're going to these places. And so when we don't, then ultimately there's a failure of the socio-economic model. So yeah, so I would say one of the ways the church should be counter-cultural today is by specifically and intentionally helping and encouraging people towards greater biblical community where they're in each other's lives and in doing so, life on life, you know, iron sharpens iron. That, that again, it's almost a cliché, but there living life together and there's priorities that are there.

I noticed that one time I was there—there was this church in a different place when we live now, and there was this church. I guess I won't say the name. Doesn't matter. But there was a couple in the church that were thinking about moving, and I said in conversation with her, "Says well, but we made an eighteen-month commitment to our small group to journey in life together. So we're not gonna move until the eighteen-month commitment is done." And I'd like, that's not generally what I hear. I mean, people like, "Whatever, I'm gonna take a new job," but they made a commitment, a covenant, and they wanted to stick to it. So I think that that kind of approach can be helpful, and I think we need more of it and less of that consumer-driven Christianity.

It's funny because even as you say that, both Jeff and I are kind of in awe as we hear that because that's rare, even within the church. That's not just counter-cultural to our environments outside of the church. If I were to go up at the pulpit and deliver that message, a lot of people would feel convicted and say, "Wow, I've never known such a strong commitment to something like that. That's not my wife or that's not my children."

Yeah, no, I agree. And I think that's not dissimilar to maybe what that first century church looked like. They love each other this much, you know? I'm also doing research now on the Jesus People Movement, and then people were very much like that in the Jesus People Movement. And it seems that God uses that kind of time when people are in deep, deep relationship to really be at work in special and unique ways. And I love that.

How do you engage in that kind of vulnerable nurturability and even commitment when church is—even we try to encourage small groups to break up and to start new groups and this kind of thing for the sake of getting more and more people connected?

Yeah, and that's that's a tricky thing because we're sort of most of us have open small groups where we want to multiply them. And so, you know, what this church does is they do these eighteen-month movements. People come in and kind of go out. So I would say you're gonna have to say to people to make that commitment that we want to be in some sort of biblical community, maybe with people, the same people, but new people may be coming in and being part of that journey. But the more you build towards that, the more that you, particularly I'm multiplying ideas small groups, which I love, the more you build towards that, sometimes you're working against the strength of that biblical community. So that sometimes leads people to want maybe a third place. You know, I've got church worship Sunday a week in worship, and then I've got, you know, multiplying small groups, and then we have kind of some source of community.

I think you can do it in multiplying small groups because, you know, most groups that multiply, they're still a core of three or four families that may multiply, you know, single families, you know, blended families, older couples, whatever. So they become the group that's in deep community, and then they multiply ultimately from there. At the heart of multiplication, somebody's catching a vision that's larger maybe than what they realize. On top of that, it's maybe even larger than what the church is.

I just was having a conversation before we got on this podcast. I was talking to an online pastor where their church has developed a number of micro locations, smaller locations around, but essentially where they've started to reach into is juvenile detention centers. Right? And so they are, because of the passion of a couple individuals with their church to reach out in the juvenile detention centers, this church now has five of these micro locations where they are seeing, I think he said, two to three hundred juveniles, you know, teenagers ten to eighteen, getting baptized over a couple years as a result of the church's ministry in this area.

The church didn't go in saying, "Hey, I want to create juvenile detention centers." It was there a couple people who were passionate about it and worked through the church to allow it to happen. What's the role of the church to create? And we talked about multiplication. We talked about non-consumers. We talked about being on mission. Like, these are all phrases that we've said. What's the church's role in empowering that to happen? How do we get people to understand personal mission and how the church can support it, influence it, and benefit from it?

Yeah, great question. Because I think that, you know, when we talk about people finding their mission, the verse that comes to mind is that Ephesians passage, you know, that God has given apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, and teachers to equip God's people. So the role most people listening or watching are in the category of pastor, teacher. The role of that church leader and staff, I think, is primarily driven by the Ephesians passage.

My friend, if you were on my team, Jeff—I guess we've served together. You weren't necessarily on my team. I would actually not evaluate you annually on your case. I would evaluate you daily. But I would not evaluate you annually. I mean, when I evaluated annually, it would be on who have you equipped, you know? We work together at Christ Fellowship. You know, who have you raised up that's now part of the media ministry or something else?

So with a few exceptions—and your job can be very technical, so that could be an exception—but for almost all staff roles in a church, their primary value to round how have you raised up others for roles and tasks in the life of the local church? And if the answer is I haven't, unless there's, you know, like there might be some specific things. You might be our trauma counselor, and that's not something we're gonna pass on to just everybody. So then the question is how? And I think ultimately it's not really rocket science. There are processes. I mean, we can, you know, Rick Warren's baseball diamond, right? So how do we get to people with a, you know, four-oh-one, was discovering my mission? And so I think that involves helping them know their gifting, their wiring, there may be past life experiences, all that point to what can and should we do with the gifts God has given us? As each one has received a special gift, First Peter four-ten, then last part of your question is I mean that doesn't always benefit the church local. It benefits the church global or Church Universal.

So I often say that your gifts can lead you to minister in your church, through your church, or beyond your church. So in your church, you're teaching small groups. You're working with the children. You're working in the media ministry, whatever else may be that's in. Through your church, as a partnership with, you know, orphanage ministry or it's may be partnered with the good folks set, you know, that you and I do work with with Wellspring, you know, maybe their counseling alliance. And so you're partnering through your church. It's a church-related thing. And sometimes it just be on your church. We're not in a sense that you've moved beyond. You're better than your church, but your church isn't involved in this, but you have a passion for orphan care through and around this particular theme in this particular place in your church, you know, and it's not a bad thing that your church isn't doing every ministry that's out there, but you're using your gifts.

So in, through, and beyond our key things, all of which glorify the Lord under the Lord. And when you're beyond, you still obviously want to be connected to your local church under its care and love. But in, through, and beyond our ways, I think those gifts are used.

You know what's fun is we started this conversation talking about the man on stage speaking, exuding a spiritual gift, the people in the room. And that's how today I would suggest that the average church deems whether it's successful or not. How many, you know, we talk about butts and seats and noses. We use that phrasing a lot. But what you're just talking about isn't like the butts in the seats number, but how we're motivating those people to understand the personal mission and getting out, whether it benefits the church directly or indirectly, the big C church.

Yeah, so and it's it's tricky because you don't want to fall back on clichés, but if you're not measuring your seating capacity, you are measuring your sending capacity. And so I think that that's not just cliché. That's a really essential part of understanding the mission and the calling that God has on each and every person.

So I heard you speak last year, 2019, Exponential. I was in the room, and I'm gonna like go back.

To all of my past speaking engagements and said I am man, this was wrong, and Stetzer has been hugely influential in my life. Wow, I love the fact that I can have this conversation with you. That's so moving to me. I appreciate that, and I'm disappointed you're not gonna be at 20:20. I just was looking at the guest list last night figuring out what's going on. You're not gonna be there. Life goes on.

So I saw you speak at Exponential 2019. I was way up at the upper balcony of First Baptist Orlando, and you hurt—you basically you said this phrase. You were like, "I spoke 2018 here at conference, Exponential conference. I'm speaking again twelve months later, 2019. What's changed? What has changed between 2018 to 2019?" 2018 I said I had to do—we had to do this. The church has to change. 2019 I'm here again in a masculine question: did it actually change? Or are we where we are? Do you do you remember saying that? Like, I don't want to take you out of context. Does that sound like you? Then it basically kind of said we were gonna—yeah, no. I think one of the things that we talked about was, you know, everyone's like talking about, "Let's make a movement. Let's do things differently. Let's change the world." And then I came back the next year and said, "We're saying the same thing." And it's like, yeah, Francis Frank Chan's giving the same message, and he's like, "I just need more in there," and doing that, and Dave Ferguson's, you know, telling us we gotta multiply. And what I would say is, I mean, they're all—I mean, I don't disagree with any of it. And but there is a certain sense that I think that maybe it's maybe it's just the speakers of these events, but I'm growing frustrated in calling for this change that would lead to a movement that everyone seems to amen, but then we go back home to our churches and kind of revert to the same patterns. And you know, we can't revert to the same patterns. We've got to engage all God's people in mission. We've got a seed multiplication become the norm, not the exception.

So and I mean, you know, Dave and Francis, friends, all good. Just pick those two because I have a good Francis Chan imitation. But now I'm sure people got a really good imitation. But so I wasn't, you know, mad or angry. I'm just saying we can't keep having a cheerleader meeting every year. And I'm for Exponential, right? I love what they're doing. But we can't get a cheerleader meeting every year and not move the ball down the field. That's a sports metaphor, by the way. I don't use those a lot. But we've got to move the ball downfield. Now, to be fair, in 2019 there was some data release that actually said we have moved the ball down the field some in multiplication. But it's, you know, it's still not—it's not the kind of movement we want to see. And I'm just desperate for a movement of God that's gonna transform our communities for the gospel, ultimately around the world.

Yeah, so I'd like to follow up to the question, and I love Expo as well, and that don't totally love it. Okay, awesome. Everybody, coop hug. Yeah, how do we get to let out like ands in some efforts? I feel like we're stuck. Yeah, we're actually seeing it declining in some areas. And you've got some stats to say maybe we're moving there. Maybe that's the catalyst to go. But like church-wide, movement-wide, I think we're a big C church. We're not—we're not making the changes we should, or at least it doesn't feel that way.

Yeah, I would say there are some—there are some exemplars and outliers, and we would say we're seeing that here. But yeah, I think I think it's fair to say, I mean, there is a huge cultural inertia towards a lower commitment in church in life. There's a huge tendency that people have to that. And what happens is when new people come to your church, they end up becoming like most people come to your church. So if you know eighty percent your church is not engaged, involved, the twenty percent it's doing the eighty percent of the work. You've all heard that principle. For what's the what's the chance that a new person is gonna be engaged in? About probably about twenty percent, I guess. They tend to shape and follow, be shaped and followed by the norm.

So I think if pastors would make the hard decisions, and maybe even the beginning church planters would make the hard decision to not build a customer-service consumer-driven ministry. And again, I don't think most pastors are getting up in the morning saying, "Man, if I can just be a consumer-driven industry," but they are saying, "What can we do to better reach people?" And as they say that, they reach people, and most people are Christians who are reached, and they come to our church because we we have maybe asked the question, "What can we do better to reach people?" So our churches better musically or better organizationally, and so we attract people who are customers and consumers of the kind of worship we like and the kind of ministries we provide. And then we were like, shocked—shocked, pearl-clutching, shocked—that the church that we grew actually has more customers than it does co-laborers in the gospel.

So I would say, and I'm not against growth—I guess big churches and for all that—what I would say is we need to just make sure we don't end up with a room full of kind of knowledgeable consumers of the religious goods and services that are distributed in the way that they want. In demand or us are going to go from our Walmart to somebody else's Target down the street, right?

Is there a need? Because my father and I have been lamenting this. Is we've kind of seen the rise to small groups and the need for small groups. But is there a need for a Sunday school to kind of make a reimburses to help educate Christians as to how to evangelize, how to help you know, bring somebody else up alongside them? Because there's a lot of that that I grew up in a Sunday school environment. Jeff, did you may have as well, where that was just kind of the norm in terms of understanding some of those things. And now small groups, unintentionally for the sake of community, but for the sake of, "Hey, look, we're gonna give you a DVD here. We're gonna give you right now media. You hit play. You ask a few questions," and then you kind of roll. Does it do the job of challenging people? Or is there a place where we need just more education on this front?

Mmm, good question. If I had my preference, yes, I would love to see another time devoted to deeper study the Word of God—were celebration in worship, you know, care and community and small groups, and some sort of input of content that helps me be ground through the Word of God like a Sunday school or something like that. But the reality is is most churches have moved away from that, and people search to move away from that because people have moved away for that. It's not one—one is related to the other. And so I would say if that's the case, it's not that they're asking us, it's not that we get to choose or anything like that. It's ultimately the end of the day we're called to develop a people, and there are certain biblical teachers and commands we want to follow to do that. One of them is they might learn the Word of God. However, not however, in addition, there are structures and within which we work and cultures within which we work.

So I'm a believer that you need a third time. And so for me it might be, you know, Bible study on Saturday morning might be something else to go deeper because I think it's cost us a lot—maybe more than we expected. It's cost us a lot to move away from things like a Sunday school model, which again, it's easy to mock because some of it was a little goofy. But I mean, there are millions upon millions upon millions of people—I didn't grow up in church like you did, but I'm so thankful you did—but so many millions of people have been just transformed by the ongoing engagement the Word of God. So I want a third time. I do. I want a third time beyond church and small group. And I think that's key. Is it Sunday morning? I don't know if that will work. I'm for it. I'm for anything where God's people will get more engaged in God's Word.

We've got so much that's—we've got so much content. We're almost inundated with content nowadays in terms of Christian content. Okay, I actually think I'm a little different place than you are, Ray, and that's okay because we love each other. We're friends. I think that the community is gonna be mainly through the care groups, through the cell groups, to the home groups, to the house groups. So I'm talking about celebrative worship gathered together, talking about small groups meeting at homes, and then I'm talking about what you call like a Sunday school, which is more content-driven. So I wouldn't have small groups in a church and an alternative small group of expression in Sunday school. I think some schools could be small groups, but then they're they're also gonna be dealing with pastoral care and prayer things that sort. I'm looking—I'm looking for one place for a deeper discipleship, deeper Bible study as well.

So I think what you're saying certainly could be true that the third place could be community as well. I tend to think that most of the community focus happens in what could be a two-hour gathering in a home where I'm only gonna get people for an hour on Sunday before church. And so I'd want that to be more maybe even a large group we're teaching, you know, large groups Bible study, that kind of stuff. So maybe we may be a little different place, but that's certainly okay.

I want to hone in a little bit because you said the word discipleship. Yeah, that means a hundred different things to a hundred different people. So just paint for me because I'm curious, and we talked a lot about discipleship in the podcast. So like, what when you say discipleship in a discipleship group contextually, what does that look like? What are you literally describing?

Okay, just so I'm not talking about small group—which I think I think every church should have a robust community of small groups that are connected together, key for the church, pastoral care, Bible study, prayer for, and more. And you know, that's kind of become the norm. You know, most churches sort of have that. What I'm talking about is I think there needs to be a third time, a third place where—and let me just say to that—that discipleship is taking place in the worship service. Discipleship is taking place in the small groups. Ray's rightful concern for a greater sense of community—that's gonna take place in in my strange view, that's gonna take place with the small group community. But then part of the discipleship, I wouldn't use that term. These are not like the discipleship classes. I think that's actually historically what some denominations did. There was Sunday school, and then there was the discipleship program, which was some other time.

So let's let's jettison the structural ideas for the conversation now. Let's saying jettison them if they're working, but jettison those kind of preconceived notions. So I'm talking about a place for celebration—that's your weekend worship service. Care community—that's your small group life throughout the church. And content—someplace where you engage the Word of God more deeply, maybe through biblical teaching, maybe through a discipleship course that you're taking, that is a deeper experience than biblically. And the small groups are a deeper experience relationally. And then the celebration is just kind of the gathered process of the church together. And people might have different views enough, and this is not one. I don't think there's like Second Opinions chapter four, verse eleven says you should do this. But but but I do think that to me the thing that I'm missing in a lot of churches is the thing that Ray brought up: is where is that deeper place for community? And what happens, I think, is people who go to a church that's very celebrated, honor its worship service, simultaneously that has good small groups that are community. People in that church officer, I say, "Well, where do I get the Bible deeper?" And then what happens is they come to the pastor's—

Just like some deeper teaching and then the pastor sees a threat and you know, and then it's like, "Well, I'm just, you know, we were to reach everybody. Know, give people a third place where they can take it deeper and know and love the Lord and grow in knowledge of his word." And I wouldn't do that as a replacement. I would say that meant is you're in worship and long as you're in community and we'd love to have you go with a deeper experience of the Word of God.

Yeah, quite literally living that exact conversation with the church that I'm working with down here where they've got people that are the services are very evangelical minded and the pastor's leading that way. Small groups is reaching a type of people, but then there's that next level person that's trying to figure out how to be challenged. They haven't understood the call of personal mission in their life. They haven't understood at this point we're on spiritual food and we should be feeding ourselves. They're not looking for that challenging opponent. They not been reached. They've just really been kind of trained within that community but not grown to the place of being a multiplier.

Yeah, and so we've been trying to work through and figure out like, how do we grow people? How do we train people? How do we help people understand the multiplication process? That at this point, like we need community to feed you at that upper level, but to the point where now you can feed yourself and then turn around as the Bible calls us to and start feeding others. That's so really, that's the call of personal mission. And that, by the way, and getting kind of Idi to reaffirm you, I've had several conversations and we're even considering bringing back a Wednesday night thing, yeah, and bring it that way that would do that. And we do see some churches. It's really surprising. Churches saying we need a third time and they might go deeper with our kids as well. And so I'd like that. What I would say is I don't want to counter you. I think what happened was, you know, the churches, you know, Wesley and some buddies of God Baptist, whatever, I mean, they had Sunday school, Sunday morning, something, Sunday night, and they usually a Bible say before scented Wednesday night. They had like deacons or elders meeting on Tuesday and women's fellowship meeting on Thursday and a men's breakfast on Saturday, and it just was the all-consuming reality. You couldn't even know your unsearched neighbor's door. You're busy driving past them to church.

So I think the pendulum swung. I'd like to see it come back a little bit more. And yes, I'm kind of an advocate for that, for that third, for that third option. I think that search option, I am, I am. You know, I'm a pastor, so it's all cease celebration care content. I want that deeper biblical content. I don't think the place for that is completely Sunday morning. You know, I generally teach new books of the Bible, and so you're getting content. They're not all these places of content, but this is the one where it's, you maybe remember Isaac scripture or, you know, my Donna, my wife, just text me. She's off to her preset Bible study group. So that's, I mean, the women right now at our church are exercising that as kind of that third place for content. Now I preached there, so should I be like, "Well, Donna, didn't you get enough content from your husband on Sunday morning?" When the answer she would say is that's the most amazing content ever. However, a lesser content of your seat can be received on whatever day this were recording this is on. So yes, I do think that. And I like, I like, yeah. And so like, one of the reasons the Gospel Project, you know, we've seen it go from, you know, five years we started, went from zero users to 1.7 million weekly users have a Gospel Project resource in their hand on a Sunday, is because it's become a third place for some people. Like people use small groups on Wednesday and it's there. We're putting the cookies a little higher on the shelf. Let's go a little deeper into the Bible. And I think that has good, produces good, strong believers.

What do you think of structures decks churches would love hurts for that third place that are outside, almost parachurch? Like I'm thinking a BSF, Bible Study Fellowship, yeah, that give people that deeper access to content but at the same time don't cost to church more resources?

Ya ask a question. I think actually I said Donna was doing precept. It may be a Bible Study Fellowship. I should know more, shouldn't I? I just know she loves Jesus. He goes to a Bible study today. But now I don't have a difficulty with being outside of the church. I think that most churches may be too small to be able to sustain that kind of thing. But what happens is like, you know, sometimes it require your BSF is a men and women, right? BSF spend and women. I think, well, it's there's a men's section. There's women. Gonna do their Bible study separately, okay, okay, okay.

So what I would say is I think it would be good if churches also saw the value for that content, but I'm for any place where people are studying the Bible in an orthodox way more rather than less. I'm think that's great. I sat with you once in Ambassador Rakes at Officer Christ felt reminded we were casually talking about and you used to use the phrase and we talked about the role its Romans or Hebrews. Forgive me, I'm blanking on it. But the don't abandon the gathering together.

Hebrews chapter 10 verse 25. Thank you. I appreciate that. I thought it was Hebrew assembling of yourselves together as is the habit of some, but then talk about all the more, you know, see the Day approaching. So important passage that says two people that gathered worship matters, right? And so in a context as online password time we were having the conversation and you said the phrase and it stuck with me. It's and that doesn't include avatars. And so what I would love to hear, because I know you're not, and you've been public about this with some of your writing and in conversations with me, and I'm an online pastor, digital guide, live in that world. You perceive challenges and issues in context of what of church online, digital church, things like this. And in our respect, you respect that entirely. But I would love just being a guy who sees ministry happening in those areas. So what are some of the challenges that you're seeing? What are some of the issues when you look at the digital scope? When you look at church online?

I see an opportunity to connect with somebody seven days a week actually that leans closer to a biblical model of church. You see some things that's at a different viewpoint, and I would love you maybe to speak to our audience. Our audience has leadership that sees the digital world like you. So how can we, what are the issues we need to speak to? So wrongly sees it like me? So wrongly? And because I know, I think I even remember that there in that conversation there was actually some push back and forth with you and me, and I think that's good.

So let me say first, you want talking about the concerns, but I want to say first let me talk about the areas that I want to affirm. I think that online church is a great opportunity for people to engage in community and can really be a tool to use what you talked about that greater sense of community day by day. Because far people performing people are engaging in Facebook, and if you have a robust community there or, you know, sometimes even an internal community like a church community builder or maybe this resources you particularly recommend where you've got, you know, chat rooms and online conversation, and yeah, so I actually think that in 2020, if you have the resources to do so, you'd be pretty like irresponsible not to engage in a, and your larger church doesn't have more resources in this in a robust online engagement that that really creates community that can be seven-day-a-week.

So I don't want the, I think my concerns would be when it does encourage people to not be in church. Now what we found is by and large is it actually doesn't do that as a whole. There are some people that does do it, I'm sure, and there's some people who can never go to church. I mean, so I know we'll get notes from someone who's homebound or whatever, maybe, and praise God for that. So one concern I would have is that person who sort of is moving away from community and sees online church as a replacement of that. And I don't think that electrons and avatars should replace your place feet and faces as the primary way that people interact with one another.

And let me just say that we are now ten years into online church, and I don't think it has. So one of the things you, when you were running our online church kind of world, you did encourage people to come to be a part of the community. Now again, are there places in spaces where that's not possible? Yes. Here's ago. We may be, depending when you release this podcast, we may be in the middle of a global pandemic. My daughter was one of the first four people in Tennessee there at a youth camp in Georgia where some kid from Florida had swine flu. So they all came back from the youth camp with this flood of swine flu, including my daughter. And the church that who had the camp's called Long Hollow, you have friends who are on staff there now, but they shut down church. So we said no, do not come. Don't go. You guys, we got to stop the spread. Now didn't work. Ironically, and everyone and you know would eventually get swine flu, but anybody, its mortality rate greatly was less than the first reports, which is good. But so we're we may be the place where the only way we're having this kind of community is online church.

So so again, so many positive things that, but same time, part of my challenges, I live in a world where I go to a conference and everybody is just a hundred percent in favor of every single new idea and it's just this is the great, you know, I write in Outreach Magazine and Outreach Magazine is a wonderful magazine. You should get it. Subscribe to it. But everything is a great new idea in Outreach Magazine and everything is a great new idea at Exponential. Everything is great. And what I would say is I'm not sitting around saying, "Well, let me tell you, I'm on the balcony of the Muppets and I got some thoughts I want to say." But what I do want people to hear is there are unintended side effects. And if online church moves people out of community, then it's not helping. It's actually hurting.

Do we have a lot of evidence that's done that? No. Would I, for example, a mutual friend of ours did the first online baptism, and what I encourage widespread online baptisms? No. I want people to get together in their community. Now you could say borrow your shoes. I would say that, you know, they the people literally watch the baptism. The first online baptism was I believe in Pensacola and it broadcast from South Florida. It was one person at a home, but they broadcast it in front of the church. So it is certainly the public profession, but I just want people to, to the degree they can, to work against sometimes the trends and to say we want personal community as much as we can have it. And then online church becomes a tool that even enhances that and, you know, provides for times we can't be together and more so.

How far the divide? How far apart are we, Jeffrey? You know, I would look at I would look at online community. I would look at church online. So I would say that if an attender is only exhibiting their Christian traits, if they're only exuding the fruits of the spirit in the virtual relationship they have, and that is not getting into the physical world, then there are consumer. They are the same type of person that's sitting that one hour and sun in the building and not living on personal mission for Christ.

Throughout the week, and so that's the philosophy, and we talk a lot about it in church online circles about the online to offline, where the gospel that we learn in the online world virtually affects our offline, our physical world relationships. And so the challenge of church online is not to broadcast the services and be a replacement for a physical church. I would suggest that the challenge really of church online is to distribute discipleship and empower people to be the church where they are physically and to start to exude some of those things in a physical realm.

The problem is that the vision of what church online can be is lost at the same level, and forgive me for overstating, but where the average church today doesn't understand a lot of the things that we talked about. They don't understand your three C's. They don't understand multiplication. What they understand is we got to get as many people in here on Sunday because we're defining the success of our church off the butts in the seats and the nickels in the noses, and not off of Ed. It's one of my favorite things you said today, this idea of a successfulness of a church is its ability to have people multiply themselves. And so that actually is the exact same line that I would look at with church online.

The problem is that the average church in America doesn't have that vision, much less for church online. They don't even have it for themselves, right? And so there's an opportunity. You know, the more that I talk about church online, the more that I just end up talking about church, because the culture that's being propagated out of the church, well, church online is just a mirror of it. It's a force magnifier towards that. And so we have an opportunity, I think, to change culture that not only is going to help the church online, but it's going to the physical church as well.

I don't think there's a lot of daylight between us, because what I would say is if I were to be having a conversation with Joe church member or Joe pastor, whatever, what I would say is what Geoffrey's talking about, you need all of this all over your church because that's where people are and that's the means of communication they're needing. I mean, we used to have telephone rings. I mean, I don't know how old you have to be to know. Ray, do you remember telephone prayer trains?

Totally do.

Yeah, I don't know how old you get. So imagine, you know, how bad it is, because you call somebody. It's like it's literally like that bad game of telephone where you call somebody. By the time it's done, you know, so intone has grown a third arm and it's the craziest thing.

Exactly, exactly. So I think we're so, so count Ed Stetzer among the people who say what Geoffrey is talking about is right, important, and as you described it there, just fits very similar, right? So I'm far more pro, but in everything, I'd like to acknowledge that the breathless embrace of every new idea doesn't always think through what could be the negative consequences of it. And I think I start saying that there in the seeker movement in the nineties, and you know, I guess that gave me a reputation for just saying, hey, let's think about this. But I'm pro this, like, so in the mid-nineties, and I'm wearing a Hawaiian shirt, you know, I'm walking around. I want to be Rick Warren Jr.

And so I'm all in, but I'm like, hey, there are some consequences.

I might not. Yeah, I lived in Erie, Pennsylvania, plant to church. Maybe in a white shirt isn't the answer to gospel work in Erie, Pennsylvania. But you know, I think we have to ask those questions. So let's have concerns, but let's also seize the opportunity that online community provides for us.

They don't see. I don't see any separation between whether you're saying, and maybe it's because, you know, both of you are so engaged and far along in the process, and like you said, that it's been ten years, so now we've had opportunity to evaluate and take a look and kind of consider. It's what you were talking about, where our people are both in physical environments and in digital environments. Digital is a great opportunity to engage them and to show them more spiritual content, but even create that kind of community and foster that community.

And Jeff, you're a hundred percent right, that we could be creating consumers just as well in digital environments as we do in physical environments. And that's something that church in general, like Jeff, you're not discussed this before, like our strategy online and in-person needs to be the same. And we have to make sure and emphasize that whether it's consistently or on an ongoing basis with our people, hey, look, whether it's two or three environments, you should be taking part in all of these things. And then Ed, to your point, and we've seen this, smaller even if they take place online, are enhanced even more, yes, by meeting in physical spaces. They really are.

And you know, Jeff's mom leads a small group with people who are separated time zones to small groups, to small groups, do small groups, right? And you know, her relationship was enhanced even more. She and her husband were on vacation in Puerto Rico and went to go stay at one of the women that are in response. They went to go stay at her house, and they had never their husband and spent time with her. That's only growing and building that community. And if I were to ask Linda, hey, look, this physical, you know, this physical meetups enhance your online relationship, she a hundred percent yes.

Yeah, no, that's good. That's good. So so press on in good deeds and don't be, don't feel. I get Stetzer's back there saying I got some concerns, you kids. I just, again, I'm, I guess, you know, I'm a professor. I'm supposed to ask those questions. And so I think that sharpens us too. I think that some of the people who may be criticized, I use the example earlier of the seeker movement in the nineties. I mean, I learned from. I'm like, yeah, you know, that is kind of a valid criticism. But don't miss on all the amazing and people are coming to Jesus. And I think people are engaging the culture. So don't miss all of that. But yeah, there's some things maybe thought, think about, be careful about too.

Awesome. Well, hey, we're gonna land the plane, and I really appreciate your time. I know you're a bit very busy with doing life, the things that you are, and man, I have loved having you on this podcast and even just spending more time with you. You're gonna be speaking down here in Miami, April second, with Wellspring Counseling Center, doing a thing where Wellspring is literally addressing a lot of the stigma centered around mental health. And so in Miami, we're gonna be over at Wayside Baptist Church. You can go to wellspringmiami.org for more information on that. So Wellspring, this, I mean, its whole, there's all kinds of like centers and people working all over South Florida. So if you're in any place and just want to make it down for the gathering, it would be worth your time.

And what's the webpage they find that?

Yeah, it's wellspringmiami.org. We're gonna be broadcasting it online, so if you hit me up on dear fetch or follow Wellspring Miami on social media, you can find more information there. And I get to hang out with my friend Eddie and produce another event.

Small tip on Eddie: when he's on stage, he normally has an iPad with him that has those notes in, but he's also texting the production director when anything goes wrong in the room to make sure that he knows that Eddie knows that something went wrong in the room. As I might text and say, hey, that verse wrong or the lights burn, I don't even know what I've texted about.

Oh, it's been awesome. My favorite one was, um, I was camera directing, and he texted me. He's like, you forgot to start the clock, that would let Ed know how long he had. All that's good.

Yeah, it's like you forgot to start the clock, and I said I texted him back, "Wall camera directing, no I didn't. It's running fine." And he's like, "No, really, it's not working." And I leaned over to the guy, and I was like, "Did you remember to start the clock?" Literally sitting next to me. "Did you remember to start the clock?" And the guy's like, "Oh crap, I forgot," and he pressed it. So like Eddie is just constantly engaging in this stuff, and it is so, it is. I don't make it sound like I wrote a sentence. I think I probably wrote "clock lock," and then you like, "It's working fine," and I said, "No, no, it's not." Like, yes, I was at that time, but it wasn't like, "Dear Jeff, I'd like to point out to you that the chronometer that is not appropriate completion time for my sermon." Anyway, you get the point. You're gonna start live tweeting now, live, exactly, while you're preaching. Like, that's like the next level. That's awesome.

Well, hey, thank you for jumping on the podcast. For Ed, this is Jeff with the Church Digital. Thanks for jumping on this one, and we'll see you next time on the podcast. Y'all have a good day.