EP072: Greg Atkinson: Physical Church, Church Online, & Why Toothpaste Won't Go Back in the Tube

Episode 72 of the Church Digital Podcast. Powered once again, we're powered by Stadia Church Planting. So we've talked briefly, especially in episode 71, about how he had Nils Smith who was kind of instrumental in my life. If for no other reason, then I had coffee with the guy. There were, there was one event, one coffee was out in Disneyland, California, opposite coast from me, was at a conference and I was speaking with Nils Smith at a coffee house. Jake ran there. He was a radio Armas co-host with the Church Digital, and the fifth guy who was there, including myself, the fifth guy was Greg Atkinson.

Now Greg Atkinson is one of the top guest services consultants right now in the country and does a phenomenal job helping churches do their guest services better. But in addition to that, he really was one of these pioneer guys, one of these guys that started doing church online before church online was anything. And so it was a fascinating conversation at this coffee house just exploring the past, the present, and the future, the celebrations, the stories, the problems, the issues. How are we going to resolve this? How do you fix this? What's been your experience? And really, it was that conversation that inspired the Church Digital Podcast, but even the Church Digital in general, because I realized that churches needed this level of conversation because I needed that level of conversation. And when I left that conversation and started having conversations with other churches, they got excited about it too, which led to the Church Digital, led to this company, this organization coming around to help churches like yours figure out how to do church online. So inadvertently, Greg Atkinson, with Nils Smith and Jay Cure and then all these guys, helped me start this company, or at least inspired me to start this company. And Ray's been helping along the way, of course, because that's what Ray does. Ray's awesome.

So let me actually get to this podcast episode here. You've got Greg Atkinson, who is this phenomenal consultant who understands physical church guest services better than almost anybody in the country. It's what he does literally for a living. His job is to help churches figure out how to do guest services, to do services in their building effectively and efficiently. He understands this, but he's also a guy who helped create church online. So he understands this online component as well. So if there's anybody who really understands the merger of physical and digital, of physical church and church online together into one, honestly, it's him. And that's really the heart of this conversation. Not only kind of analyzing and talking through where the churches in general in this COVID season, how we're either going to improve or how we're going to lose ground as a result of this, the churches that are going to learn something from this season and the churches that are going to, you know, not learn anything in this COVID season. But we also talked about how now that the toothpaste is out of the tube, there's really no way to get it back in. And it's churches that are out there. It's not digital only. It's not church online only. There are churches that will be digital only, but as a general rule, it's not. Let's not stay experimental with this church online only aspect. It's not physical only either. It's a merger of the two. It's getting the two churches back together, figuring out how physical and digital can complement each other, creating this fidget alert model that we've talked so much about.

So church, that's the episode we're bringing in Greg Atkinson, consultant, church online guru from way back in the day. We're bringing in Ray the Armas once again, co-host, digital pastor over at Christ Fellowship Miami, and myself, Jeff, with the Church Digital, in a conversation that I'm calling "Physical Church, Church Online, and Why You Can Never Put the Toothpaste Back in the Tube." Here y'all go.

I think that revival will happen in church as a result of this season in some places. I think that God doesn't break us only to put us back together the way that it was before. I don't think there is anywhere in scripture where we see that God spiritually breaks something and then reassembles it back up in the mirror image. God always changes things for his glory and his benefit in that season. And I'm not saying that digital is a silver bullet, but I think that we're learning the value of relationship. I think we're learning the value of connecting in ways that maybe we didn't really know and understand before, maybe we forgot.

I was gonna say, you know, you and I've been talking for a while, but I was just so thrilled to see when Stadia brought you on, which was such a kind of trailblazing mentality. Nobody else had ever done anything like that. And not knowing that we'd be coming up on coronavirus, it just shows how ahead of the game they were. Yeah, you all were to be able to have a position created like that. I think it's wonderful. As a result of that, I mean, part of the experiment pre-COVID was, "Hey, Jeff, we want you to create a research and development project, three years of how a church can plant digital churches, digital-only expressions of church." And Stadia was excited about it. When this whole COVID thing happened, we pivoted it a little bit where it's now, let's help churches figure out how to be fidget all. But part of being digital is helping them understand how to plant churches digitally, how to multiply. We want to help churches figure out how to thrive, grow, and multiply in physical space as well as in digital space.

And this fascinating thing happened. We were expecting 50 churches at this point. You know, one of my bosses, well, one of the guys that are above me on the pay grade, says to me, "Hey, Jeff, I think it's gonna be closer to 150." Like, there's been a lot of excitement talking about this stuff because I think some churches, maybe not all churches, but a lot of churches are hungry in this season. And they're learning something now that they realize is gonna help them tomorrow. And I think that's the win of COVID. Maybe it's not a hundred percent because I don't think you ever get a hundred percent of anybody anymore, but I do think there's gonna be enough churches coming out of this, and the stories that are gonna be told and lessons gonna be learned in this next season to help us when the next ice storm comes, when we get the next ice age coming through, whether that's AI or whether that's COVID 2.0, whatever.

Just what's in the press conference yesterday, and it's the fall when coronavirus comes back. Yeah, months from vaccine, and in the fall and winter, we're gonna have coronavirus and flu both going at the same time. And there was the doctor with drunk saying that it's going to be a lot more complicated and different here. So we'll be back in the same boat of guidelines and can't gather together. And so if you abandon online insurance, and as you suit those restrictions get lifted, which I consider temporarily, and then fall comes around and comes back full force, and then you go, you go back to, "Okay, now let's get everybody back online." I mean, you just gotta, like we were saying earlier today, you got to keep with the online campus. It needs to always be kind of a both and it's back port.

Yeah, I'm, you know, Greg, I'm kind of the optimist on this idea. Like, I just don't see how churches could abandon it, you know what I'm saying? Um, especially since I feel like, you know, every industry goes through its own digital disruption, right? Like, we've seen this over time. Britisher just swiper out a graph from Barna as far as like how church attendance was pre-2010, and he says, "Hey, so look what happened here. Churches went online and pow, you see like a big change." And even then, kind of like what we were citing earlier and when we recorded with Nils, if you're conscientious about stewardship, like if you care about reaching more people for less dollars and leveraging a lot of those dollars to serve orphans and widows and to try and tackle some of the hard-fought problems of sin that we've seen in this world, or even, you know, churches can get involved in telemedicine and get involved in some of these different initiatives, then man, I just don't see how you would want to shun digital avenues for the sake of the Great Commission. I just, to me, that's, you know, we're looking at, you know, Jesus talked about the pearl of the greatest price. Like a guy finds a pearl in a field, you know, it sells everything he has, you know, to go ahead and buy the field to go after it. And I feel like we're in the midst of that. I just can't see how you want to go in the direction.

And I was saying to Jeff right before you popped on, I think some of this that has caused people to drag for so long is theological in essence. And we've been touting and proclaiming online church for years and years and years, but there's just this thought of, "Unless they physically walk through our doors, we can't disciple them." Whereas, you know, Myron is launching campus in Ghana. He's not going to physically sit down with some admirers. One of the biggest disciple makers I know, I mean, we brought him here to my church. I've been in his church. I brought him here to invest over a week at my church, and he's all about making disciples. He has a 7 a.m. discipleship group with men in his church on Monday Saturdays, and is just cranking out disciples. But he also realizes the great potential you have when you go online and can get somewhere you can't physically travel to. And so it grows you exponentially.

But I see it's kind of like you said, digital both and. Well, I want us to live in both realities where, you know, the pandemic's not going to happen forever. There eventually will be a vaccine and things will go back to semi-normal until the next thing comes around. But we should still have digital and physical things going on in every expression of the local church. For the typical brick-and-mortar church that means, where they meet in a school or traditional church building, they should still have broadcasting capabilities and getting it out there to the nations because it just seems like you said, it's good stewardship. It's a better use of ministry dollars. You can reach more people. That's exciting time to be alive.

Well, you know, Jim Tom Berlin, one of our mutual friends, and actually I told this data to Nils, like what you guys were doing back in 2008, 2007, 2005, like that was bleeding-edge back then. And as we've progressed, you know, ten years into the future, Jim uses the language of it's cutting edge, and then it's cool, and then it's commonplace. And he tracks it in context of multi-site where, you know, 1995 or, you know, even the year 2000, multi-site was cutting edge. 2010, it was cool. All the cool churches were on it, but it still was kind of like this weird thing. Well, in 2020, multi-site is commonplace. Everybody's doing it, or at least everybody's accepting it, or at least everybody's heard of it and doesn't freak out because of some theological thing if you're staring at a video screen.

If you're talking about church online, you know, I think what you guys were doing, I call you guys, you're all like the OGs. You've been doing this forever. Even grandma is like eight or ten years in the church online at this point. You guys set the standard. It was cutting-edge back then. Life Church, the stuff that you guys were doing, now what's happening today, it's not commonplace. It's still cool. Churches pre-COVID were adapting to it as they saw fit, but it was really the cool churches that were it. Would not not accepted, and even if...

We're just talking the grille question is are we talking broadcasting services or we're talking making disciples right because there's a difference even in that what God did through this health crisis this pandemic is in between cool and commonplace inserted this other seat crucial do you want to keep do you want to keep meeting do you want to keep existing do you want to keep a body together then you better get on board it's crucial that you become a part of this movement and then hopefully down the road it will be commonplace but for these last six weeks when we couldn't meet in person this was this is your option this is it if you want to get together yeah God kind of kicked it into gear so COVID I mean you're right busy guy Selene on a flame that caused an explosion and we fast-tracked through what should have been ten years relatively quickly I mean what's funny I feel like I'm on the same conversation because I literally just said this with Nils like a couple hours ago it'll be a separate podcast episode you know AI artificial intelligence we had all this stuff coming there's gonna be other major issues coming up other ice ages that that will happen as a result of this and so it's so important to learn lessons in this COVID season that's gonna help us for the next COVID season and if it's not COVID it's gonna be something else whether it's you know a hurricane a tornado an earthquake the great zombie attack that we're all fearing today I'm kidding maybe not well maybe I'm not sure but at the end of the day there's always at this point you can't a seminary student I spoke at Liberty yesterday and the seminary student asked a question I kind of laughed they said is is there is there any chance we can squeeze the toothpaste back in the tube is there any hope and I was literally she the student was literally asking I'm a physical student she said like her physical church do I need to abandon my studies and go to more of an online mentality and I was like okay well yeah it's like no you can't you can't put the tube about you toothpaste back you you prix COVID I think you could ignore it stick your head in the sand do an ostrich thing and but this whole thing of where we are today there there's no there's no going back to normal but I don't think it's all digital at least today in 2020 I don't think the the digital only churches that Stadia is working on the stuff that that Myron's working on there's opportunities in digital but there's more to church I think than that at least in 2020 the average person I think is gonna connect in a physical space but more and more that pendulum is swinging more towards digital 2023 2020 to 2025 by 2029 if this AI thing really hits us then I think culture is gonna look completely different I think we'll shift four or five times before we even get to that point at the rate we're going now.

Well when you think about you know the Apostle Paul saying I have become all things to all people so that I might win some you know if if it took something like this for God to shake his church into letting us see that technology is agnostic as neutral it's not bad like we've been saying for years the churches and for me as a consultant please set up online giving please set up online giving please set up online giving and then I mean just for I've been consulting now for fifteen years since 2005 and to now see churches scrambling of what do we do how do we get people and they're setting up mailboxes outside the church for people to drive by and drop off their checks at a mailbox outside the church and I'm like just set up online giving technology is not bad it's not bad it could be used for good and there's nothing wrong with with streaming your services online we're doing I'm gonna well I'm actually in to online small groups at my church in another local church to two different churches that I have relationships with here locally but that we do some small group that being able to to use these tools for good is is something that we just we just kind of got a shot in the arm we kind of got our butt kicked get out there get out of the boat get out of the boat get out of the boat but you know we've been we've been preaching it for years but it it took something drastic to have that wake-up call for the church now it breaks my heart if you say there's a Lifeway study and Lifeway's big on research that shows that sixty-one percent of churches are online so thirty-nine percent have still not got online that just breaks my heart I just I hate hearing that because then you think well what would it take you know what what would it take to get you to embrace technology into to break you know so I I went to Liberty for seminary in the nineties and obviously a lot has changed since the nineties nineteen ninety-eight ninety-nine a lot has changed since my days there in Liberty and now nowadays but no you can't put the toothpaste back in the tube this this is out there and you know I was in our earlier you and I recorded a webinar and I was just doing another chat about this and my weekend worship and guest services Facebook group and there is will is it okay down the road restrictions get lifted people can meet people start coming back somebody wakes up one morning says you know what I think I'm gonna make brunch and I just watch online today I don't feel like going in today I'm gonna stay in my jammies I've got a little coffee or I'm just I'm just gonna chill at home today are we okay with that I mean I mean I love I love hugging people I love fist bumping people I love obviously I my first impressions guys so I'm real big on guest services and hospitality and first impressions I like seeing greeters and people in the parking lot and ushers and and all that I've spent my career doing however there are some weeks where I wake up and I'm and I'm not traveling and I think I'm just gonna watch online today and and and it's not it's it's such an amazing time to be alive because I don't just watch one I watch like three or four or five churches around the country or around the world and it's it's such a cool thing one of the things that I was going to talk about you had mentioned sharing some stories some of the stories that come to mind in my own personal journey is I I you know we all love you Facebook we love Facebook however I'm a big believer in YouTube and obviously second largest search engine in the world but there is there is just time after time after time I have I have you too I have a Roku and I have YouTube going through my television and I start every morning watching worship on YouTube and it's just a playlist it just comes up and it just goes from one worship song to another worship song and and I'll sit there and I'll start my day with a quiet time and worship reading scripture but there's a lot of times where YouTube has you know suggest stuff and so somebody's sermon will get suggested whether it be Jug Will Hi or Steven Furtick or Matt Chandler or TD Jakes whoever somebody's sermon will get suggested and I cannot tell you the number of times over the years where the right sermon hit me at the right time through the use of technology it was not something I went searching for it was not something I knew existed it was not something I knew had been preached it was just where I was at in my own relationship with God in my own spiritual journey and things I was struggling with and wrestling with it was the right sermon at the right time which we have now through this great worldwide web and the use of technology and so I would just be flipping through YouTube and I will see a sermon title from Jason Franklin or something just some pastor it'll come up or Craig Groeschel there'd be there'd be a message where the title just jumped out at me have yes you need to watch that and I would watch it at just the right time and it just just just just fed my soul just nourish me in such a way and so all that to say how does our expression of church and faith and spiritual growth look going forward as as we come out of restrictions and social guidelines because there may be weeks where we wake up and say you know what I think I do want to watch Craig Groeschel today I don't live in Oklahoma but I'm gonna I'm gonna watch Craig Groeschel today and I'm gonna watch my church online but you know I've got a cold and I don't want to spread it I'm gonna stay at home you know but and then I'm also you know I've put a quote out when this all started with coronavirus digital equals daily which I almost talked about today on the webinar we were recording but I didn't want to interrupt but you know I look at churches that are offering devotionals daily or a word from a pastor or word a staff member you know this is a great time to get unseen staff in front of the camera I was I was watching the Summit Church this past weekend JD Greer and I just did a webinar last week with Danny Franks who's over guest services at Summit Church JD Greer's the president of Southern Baptist Convention their great church and they did a really good online service but one thing they were very intentional about and Danny Franks had mentioned this in our webinar was they had various staff members in each campus pastor record a little iPhone video and then they played that during the service and so there's me hey I'm Greg at the Rocky OU campus and I just want to tell you what God is doing and not in our in our campus and he gave a little thing and then hey I'm Susie I'm its children's minister and we just are so excited to see it and you get to hear from all these people that you typically wouldn't get to hear from because what I was talking to somebody else about on a different podcast is it production-wise technically wise breaks up the flow instead of staring at a screen of a talking head of a pastor preaching for forty-five minutes and so when I watched the Summit Church this past weekend they had they had a welcome from a host they had a welcome from a campus pastor they had music and then they had JD Greer give part one of his sermon then it had more music then they had part two of the sermon then he had more music than he had part three of the sermon then he had more music and then they closed with the campus pastor but it was breaking it up breaking it up breaking it up which we can do through editing instead of just sitting there watching a talking head for sixty minutes because people will get up and make popcorn or go or go outside or walk away you know it is where it were where when the as much as there is positive about online church in the digital world there's also some negatives of people can turn you off of the incident you're dealing with attention spans and people can get up and walk out of the room and so breaking stuff up with little things and then like Danny Franks was saying they they got rid of their countdown before the service and they started doing kids ministry activities so fifteen minutes before the service they were doing some kids programming for four kids to watch and just experimenting looking at different stuff to do that's really encouraging great year you're a master at next steps how have you seen churches adapting and helping people find that next step online thus changing it from just a a broadcast to now we're actually helping people spiritually make a move yeah I am I'm super passionate about next steps helping people take their next step and their walk with Christ but there is there there is something that I have noticed so for like me personally if I'm watching YouTube on my television I'm not sitting with my laptop in my lap where I can fill out an online connection card so I'm just watching YouTube and so there's no typing there's no chatting now that's funny there are a lot of times where I'm watching one service on YouTube and another service on Facebook on my phone and I've gotten both going on at the same time but wait wait wait wait hold on

Hold on, you're breaking the rules of Trek, but is literally being counted in two different seats. That's not physically possible. It happens, it happens. But what I found is I did a blog post recently about what churches' websites should look like right now, what their homepage should look like. By the way, I also just did a brand new post about ten questions you should ask your congregation before you reopen. And it's basically talked about bringing back the congregational survey. You know, ask your people: if we were to reopen next week, would you even come? If you have kids, would you even put them in children's ministry? If you're a volunteer, are you even planning to serve again? You know, let's pull our people before we go and open the gates. But that's another topic.

But as far as next steps, what I have seen work really is online connection cards that are on the homepage of the website. So that maybe somebody comes there throughout the week and they fill out a connection card. Whereas they're not going to do it during the music or during the sermon, they're zoned in, they're focused on the preaching, and they're not typing. Like when I'm worshiping, I'm just worshiping. I don't have a keyboard in my hand. I'm not typing anything. Now if I'm on my phone, I might do a like or heart or, you know, I might interact. Yeah, there was something if I'm on my phone, but rarely.

One of the things I did years ago, and Jeff, I know you probably can relate to this, but having a home office and working from home, I started seeing the healthy boundaries getting blurred. And I started seeing issues where I would take my computer out of my office and bring it into the den with me and sit with my computer in my lap and I'm typing and I'm surfing and I'm working and I'm looking and doing all this stuff. But what I was doing was being destructive for my family, for my kids. And so now I have a rule that when I stop working at the end of the day, my computer stays right here in my office. It's plugged in to my screen here, but it stays here in my office. And so the only thing I take when I leave my home office is my phone. So a lot of times I will surf Facebook and, you know, look around. But all that to say, if I'm usually watching a church service—doesn't matter if it's a midweek Wednesday service or a Sunday service—I just don't have my laptop on me because it stays plugged into my office. And so if I'm watching on YouTube, I don't really have any way, watching my television, to interact with you. I just consume. And then if I'm watching on my phone, there's a lot more, you know, I can do with like buttons and typing on my phone.

But what I have seen that churches are getting some response from, and I was talking to a Drake Farmer in Canada, but they have some success with it, and that's just leaving the online connection card on their homepage of their website. So that when people, just in any time of the day, any hour of the day, any day of the week, come through the church website, they can fill that out.

And then another friend of mine just posted in my Facebook group, and he's at a pretty large church in Arizona, a very large church. And he posted that he and his team watched five or six churches, maybe it was seven, this past weekend, and they filled out their online connection card. They filled out their next steps card just to test the system. And none of them got back with them. None of them. So they secret shopped online. And I do this a lot. I do online secret shoppers. But they secret shop six to seven churches, and this is a mega church in Arizona. Secret shop six to seven churches, filled out their online connection card, and didn't hear back from anybody.

And so my thought is, it's great to have all these cool tools and websites and forms and options and all that, but if you don't do the work, how are we going to follow up with people and disciple them and move them to their next step? And so I thought, and so he posted it. He didn't tell who the churches were, but he posted this long comment in my Facebook basically saying, if you're gonna put it out there, you gotta follow up and do it.

And so I have my own personal story. I secret shopped a church in Pittsburgh recently, and they had a "plan your visit" on the website. This was months and months ago, before pre-COVID. They had a "plan your visit" on the website, which is a very cool, trendy, popular thing right now. People were doing "plan your visit" pages. But I filled it out and said, "Hey, I'm coming Sunday to this service," and I was supposed to get contacted by a host. They would say, "Hey, I'll meet you at the door and I'll give you a tour and I'll walk you around." But nobody contacted me. Nobody reached out to me. So when I did the debrief, I said that's great that you have a "plan your visit," but nobody reached out to me. So what was the point of it? It's a cool, trendy thing to have a "plan your visit" on your website, but you've gotta reach out to somebody. You've gotta follow through.

And so that it all comes back to the same old thing we've heard for years and years and years and years: systems. Do you have processes in place to follow up with people? And now in this new era, do you have digital processes and systems in place to follow up with people?

Well, now you're speaking Ray's language. So I just wanted to cut Ray off so that I can say you just like that. Ray's love language. So what's on your heart?

No, 100 percent. Because we have a connect page, and that's something that we pump three times during the broadcast, right? Like we pump it beginning, middle, and end. And it's worked great. Like we've got, you know, we've got a lot of people filling out the card and all that stuff. But even then, next, trying to be nuts as far as why wouldn't even churches consider automating some of that follow-up, you know what I'm saying? These forms, whether you're working with Rock or a mess or we're working with one Church, some you're working with Fellowship One or with different folks, like you can automate instantly. People can get an email, a text message, some form of connection to let them know that you care. But on top of that, this is gold. Like the thing that I keep telling, that I keep preaching to our team, is as long as the engagements go up in the sense of the connection cards that we receive, we'll watch the views go up and down. The views to me are like the stock market. We'll watch that go up and down over the next few weeks and we will be impressed and unimpressed and people will have their doubts as far as who's really behind the screen. But the minute you get a card, that's when you automatically know who's watching you and you can help them take that next step.

So I, it would just drive me berserk. Oh no, I was a campus pastor for six years at a multi-site church, and one of my passions after every last service of the morning on Sunday, after every week, my passion was my team would collect all the connection cards because I'm a big connection card guy, and they would have on the top of the stack all of the first-time guests because they knew that I was just ready to follow up. But I cannot, I cannot fathom the stewardship component of having somebody fill that out and not following up, not contacting them to say thanks for coming.

Yeah, oh, I bet I can explain why. And I don't know if this is a fact. I would actually love to ask the guy in Arizona how many of the churches were in the city or was it out of state? Because I'm willing to bet there's something interior within the church, something innate, better word, in context in their DNA.

Oh yeah, oh, oh, they live in another state. Oh, that's just a one-time thing. I don't need to follow up on them. I think I felt that tension. I think you said they did some local churches as well. But you're right, though. Because, you know, I do these Charlotte getaway weekends where church leaders will come spend a weekend with me in Charlotte, and we'll take them to visit three churches in person and do some workshop and training. But we stopped going to one church because when we went to their Welcome Center and we filled out the connection card, and I limit it to ten people, so you have this group of me and my facilitators, thirteen of us, come walking into a church and they fill out the card. And when the guy behind the Welcome Center, and we went to this church specifically because they have a really neat welcome gift and I wanted to stretch people's brains of what you could do besides the coffee mug, and I have had my share of gifts around my desk and talking, like we wanted to show them, "Hey, here's a really cool gift." But guess what? This guy looked at your card and said, "Oh, you're from Canada? Oh, you're from Seattle? Give me the gift back."

No, no, I've heard of this. I know this is true. I've heard of this.

Yeah, yeah, he took the gift back. Thank you for coming. Those are just for local people. Our people, our guests, my guests that I have from churches all over North America that weekend were so turned off that we as a team decided we'll never go back to that church again. And I told the staff what happened because when I had another getaway weekend coming up, they emailed me and said, "Hey, we just want to be prepared. Are you guys coming this weekend?" I said, "No, we're not coming." But no, it's this concept of just because I am in Charlotte, if somebody logs in to our online service from Miami, Florida, it doesn't mean I can't reach out to them to follow up with them and send them some kind of gift and thank them and enter into a relationship with them and talk with them about next steps. I mean, that's just, it's just unbelievable to think that people wouldn't follow up with somebody because so much as that speaks to you.

You know, hmm, yeah, that would drive me bonkers. Only because Jeff and I, we've had this conversation with so many people as far as like, who's within your scope of shepherding, right? Like, who's within the scope of what it is that God brings to you? And you know, it's funny because we talked about being churches for the nations and for missions, and we use that language from the stage. Yet for some reason, with digital avenues, I can't fathom why it is that a church would turn away somebody who's coming up to you saying, "Hey, I want to know more." And yet for some reason, they're like, "Well, you fall outside of our city, state, area code. Too bad."

It really comes down to this thing, Greg. At the beginning, people have a theological issue with church online. And the theology's not in the broadcasting of the services. We're okay with people getting saved all around the world. Let's baptize people in Ethiopia. How awesome is this? Where we have the issue, where the perceived issue is, thank you Eric Geiger for sharing this episode nine of the Church Digital podcast. It's all centered around discipleship. It's, let's get people saved, but when it actually comes to helping them grow deeper in their faith, creating biblical community, helping them understand the personal mission, discipleship, evangelism, fact that doesn't happen virtually. You gotta be breathing the same air molecules. It's in the Bible, right? If we breathe the same air molecules, therefore we are. No, it doesn't, it doesn't work that way. But that's how we've lived. And if, and hopefully COVID changes that, but if COVID 2.0 comes, we're gonna be in a world of hurt.

Well, and think about, you know, we mentioned Myron Pierce earlier, who we were on a webinar with earlier, and I've been friends with him for a few years and have visited his church and he's visited my church. And he's launching these digital churches and he's online campuses. But I know him personally, one-on-one, as I've been to his church.

Church and when he came and I brought him into my church to speak to our church and to do some training, he is a disciple maker. So he's passionate about making disciples and meeting with people and opened up God's Word and reading with them. But who is to say that we can't do it just like this? It doesn't matter where you live, across the country or across the world. If I have come in contact with Jeff Reed, and just as Greg, I would like to be discipled, would you meet with me once a week? Why not do it like this? It's the same thing, sitting in the Starbucks coffee shop. I don't have to physically touch you to disciple you. I mean, yes, it would be great to meet in person and hug and go get coffee together, but who's to say that we can't sit down and say ten minutes? This is, you know, I used to work with ex-pastors and we had a network of nationwide counselors that did Zoom counseling. You can sit down and talk with people via Zoom and have deep discussion, soul-wrenching discussions of your childhood and trauma and things you've been through. You can meet just like this. You don't have to live in the things that good. Yeah, you know, I'm sorry, this just bugs me and I want to get on too much on this perch, but it just drives me nuts that we would be okay with congregants spending thousands of dollars to spend a week in a different country to preach to somebody about Jesus, get back on an airplane, leave them without discipleship, and yet we're not okay with discipling somebody whose lives in that same country who finds us online, reaches out to us via a connection card that costs us zero dollars and zero cents, and we have the capability of discipling them from here.

That here's also, you know, if you want to look at it and just throwing out every angle, I, my friends will tell you it's one of my future books, but your friends will tell you Greg always plays the long game. And so I'm always thinking way down the road. And so I'm not looking for an immediate result. I'm looking at something down the road. But the way the church is interconnected now through social media, you know, whether you have five hundred friends or five thousand friends on Facebook, we know so many church leaders, pastors love to network. They love to get in Facebook groups and learn from one another and share resources and share articles. And Jeff, you know, I follow your Facebook group and I know you've done some stuff in my group and there's a great Facebook Live you did in there. If people need to check out, but there's a lot of collaboration and ambassadors talking with one another. And what I'll see from time to time is somebody in my Facebook group will say, "Hey, we just had somebody from our congregation move to Tampa, Florida. Anybody know of a good church there?" Well, we're living in a day and age where we could build a real relationship with somebody in Tampa, Florida, and then say, "You know what, have you ever considered physically going to a church? Because I bet I mean, I know Radiant Church, Erin Burke in Tampa, Florida, they're great. I would be glad to get you in touch with Erin and encourage you to go check them out." I mean, but long game, there's nothing. There's no reason to cut off and not even open the opportunity to dialogue and get to know and build a relationship with somebody because of distance. And for a lot of reasons, but maybe even if your goal, and I'm not wired like this and I know you're not, but if your goal was the ultimate end all is the physical church, you still play the long game. Could potentially be able to introduce them to somebody that lives in their city because we're so interconnected on social media. And so I could say, "Oh, you live in Miami? Why, I have a lot of friends in Miami. Let me tell you some churches to check out. You guys, Scholarship Miami, you got Vous Church, you go, there's all these great churches." I mean, you can point people because of the church world that we live in. And so I wouldn't be so short-sighted to say, "Well, they're in Miami, I'm in Charlotte, I'm not gonna reach out to them." I think it makes sense to me in 2020.

Yeah, there's definitely a tribe mentality that's kind of popping up. I mean, even with Stadia, like they've got their network of churches, a thousand churches that they've worked with. They've helped there are churches that are planning and supporting. And it's been interesting as I've just come to get to know more of them and how all these churches are interconnected. You know, another option is what Ray, what we used to do with house churches. If somebody would go to Tampa or Orlando, "Hey, consider setting up a micro location and doing the services there through Church Online." You know, there's different models of everything from doing a more of a watch party where it's just watching the service to more of like what I think Jake Rand is developing out at Saddleback, where it's more of a home gathering where the person is more responsible for the shepherding and care of the people there. There's a higher standard of discipleship within that leader to do that. Tyler stands on the UH pet at First Capital. Like these are, which is awesome, these are all conversations that we've had lately and they're all people who are in this season of COVID. Here, these are the churches that are not freaking out. I was actually on the phone or the Zoom yesterday with Church Home, Mark Venti over there, catching up. And you know, some of these guys that were forward-thinking enough pre-COVID, in the midst of this COVID, they're stressed, but they know where they're going.

It's still sad. Yeah, Judah Smith, Church Hall, they actually, oh yeah, five campuses. But we'll link to it in the show notes. She can listen to the podcast we did. Ray, I don't live it six months ago, maybe. It's been a minute. But the thing that I love that I didn't learn in this, he's like, "Yeah, we shut down. We shut down two campuses as a result of COVID." Luke, COVID, they sold two buildings already in the season. And almost like, "Man, I didn't realize economic was so hard for you." And he's like, "Oh no, it's not harsh. We're already planning to do it. We, I mean, we like the campuses. We still, we're always gonna be a fidget alert. It's gonna be a mixture of physical and digital. But the campuses weren't performing at the level that online was. So we're gonna put more towards our digital strategy. The campuses we're holding to a higher standard. If they can hold that standard, awesome. The campuses were fine previous, but online is performing so much better." Ray, to your point, why don't we just do online more and put more energy that way?

Yeah, I was going to say, you know, if you just, if you ever, if your results-driven and you look at metrics, if this season, these five, six weeks of coronavirus COVID has shown you that you're getting better engagement, better connection, better interaction, better consistency, better attendance, better reach, you know, most churches I hear are reaching five times their typical weekly attendance. If you're getting better results, then go all in. All that, let's push in more on that with a both an approach. And I'm not saying don't come back and meet together physically once that's safe to do, but don't let the digital side die down either because it's the one that's produced the most fruit right now. And the man, the fields are ripe for harvest. It's a visible world. I couldn't agree more. And I think that's gonna be something that as we talk about this whole fictional thing, it just has to be part of it.

Jeff, you know, you talked about how scared movements, as we talked about the first wave rolling out in terms of reopening plans, I mean, is it how churches just built for that? Isn't it ready to go for that? I can picture my small group that's already been meeting via Zoom, a lot of us live in the same neighborhood, coming together around our TV apps or for a lot of churches that are still church plants, YouTube, right? Because that's a built-in TV app that's in your TV already, ready to go. I agree with you, Greg. I think churches should be leveraging YouTube because if nothing else, it's a free TV. Leveraging the biggest screen possible so that most people can worship even though we're still gathering at sizes of you know, twelve or smaller.

Yes, so Ed Stats, it was funny. Ed, Ed spoken on this recently and shared a resource and then somebody sent it to me and I love this where he actually stair-stepped, we'll link to it in the show notes, but he's stair-stepped this phases of churches reemergence from the crisis and was talking about family churches, okay, that's less than ten. So the idea of, "Hey, you're gonna, your church is in a room less of ten people." Well, if it's XX, that's more of a house church. So now I have the ability of a family of four. I can probably invite three to four families into my house and to create this house church feel. Obviously keep it clean, like, hold the house to the standards, but theoretically you could like do less than twenty utilizing Church Online and call it something like a house church, a cell church. In a space of twenty to fifty, a courtyard church, maybe you're doing a courtyard in a church building outside and the sun, get a portable sound system, get a decent projector. Up to a hundred people, you know, a small church operating at two hundred and fifty, like they're there now. Mega churches, ten thousand, twenty thousand member churches that are right now asking questions, "Where can we gather two hundred and fifty people together?" and call that a mid-step. They're literally right now asking those questions, digging around trying to find large-ish venues that they can use, smaller venues that they can use as a stair step before they get into the building. And so if we're smart with this, we can utilize the technology to slowly, you know, would you joke the other day with at the seminar was that you boil the frog slowly. You don't like crank it up immediately. Some of these three, four thousand venue buildings, I don't know that you use those anytime soon. The Church Home, they're like, "Yeah, we're not anticipating being in our large venues in 2020. We think it's gonna all the way be in the next year." And so we've got to figure out how to utilize small thanks to COVID. Malls, the new big. And so the more effective we are at these small sizes, Daniel M's caught him social space on this podcast. There's an incredible opportunity for us to still do ministry. By the way, that's not only can help us today, once again in the next COVID crisis, you have that infrastructure in place.

I was actually on the phone with Portable Church. I was texting some guys with Portable Church talking about this exact thing. "Hey, guys, do you have systems that you're building right now so that a large church can create a cell church environment for twenty-five to fifty people or a courtyard church for up to a hundred?" Like, make it easy for churches to create this stuff. And they're like, "Yeah, sure, we're literally designing them right now, getting them set up." So they're gonna be options. And let's figure out how to structure yourself so that you can stair-step back in. I forgot about the article basically say the same thing. It is a strategic approach to reopening, like Ray was saying, through the house church movement. You know, it's some has been on my heart for years, back when I lived in Missouri, 2011 to 2014. I was a part of a house church in addition to my church. I was on staff at. I told him, I said, "I'm eventually probably going to do a house church. I've been intentionally trying to get to know my neighbors more." I said, "But eventually I said I'll probably do a house church." I said, "Because we have these church planters in waiting at my church that are going to be sent out to sin to..."

Try to plant more traditional conventional churches, but I said, yeah, I made plant one day, but it's going to be a house church. It's gonna look different than, you know, what we typically do. However, when it comes to easing restrictions with COVID, you can't just yank it off all at once and 500 people show up in the same building again. So you're gonna have to strategically roll it out in a geographic neighborhood, house church, home church, family kind of model of, you know, we've got a group of ten here and a group of ten there and a group of ten in this neighborhood and a group of ten in this thing we're hood. You're gonna have to get really strategic. That's the kind of stuff that church has been working on right now, sitting down, looking at helping their small groups pastor out, breaking down, saying how can we strategically roll this out? And it would make sense to me to do it through small groups for those that are already existing for them to start meeting together that know each other. But yeah, you know, I had a late night Zoom last night with the church communications director in North Carolina, and she was saying where church of a thousand, we can't just open up and start meeting with a thousand people all together. And I said no, you can't. You know, you've got to be strategic. It gets back to systems and processes, how you roll it out moving forward. The interesting thing in this is each state, each city, it's gonna have a different strategy. Each church, to me, it's the fascinating thing. So I feel like the church kind of got in a rut because everybody was kind of copying each other, and we're not gonna be able to do that.

Actually, I had a church tell me, the discipleship pastor told me, says Jeff, we're going away for two days. We're doing a virtual retreat, the senior leadership for two days of the church to plan out the next twelve months. And I was like, how in the world are you gonna plan out the next twelve months? You don't even know what next week looks like. And he's like, oh, that's just it. We're planning this thing out as if we're opening up in May. We're planning out if we're opening up in September, and we're planning out if we're opening up in 2021. So we're not planning out twelve months. We're planning out three different paths of twelve months, essentially thirty-six months. They're planning up thirty-six months of church. I don't know that you have to do that. Some churches may need to, but there's really an opportunity, I think, to think outside the box, experiment. Jay or Greg, you were talking about that earlier, and really try to do something different here.

Yes, that's why I come in tonight. I just did this new blog on Greg acting CENTCOM about questions you should ask your congregation before you reopen. But yeah, I'm gonna go back and edit my blog and add a question of would you be okay opening it up in house churches or smaller venues? Because I love that. That needs to be talked through. Because, you know, the big question is when are we going to open? Well, you have some governors that are gonna pull the trigger very quickly, and some that aren't, and everybody spread out. However, the questions that I was asking is if we open up, are you even going to come? Like, if I'm a church of five hundred and I ask my staff and my lay leaders to put their health on the line and to show up and to be ready to serve, and ten people walk through the door and not five hundred, I've just wasted everybody's time. Why not do a survey and know ahead of time? No, girl, people are going to show up. Four hundred ninety are gonna stay at home because I think it's too soon. Let's find that out now. And so I didn't build a tool. I didn't build anything that you have to purchase. I actually linked to like Typeform, a Jotform, and Gravity Forms and Google Forms and Survey Monkey. I said create a survey however you want to do it, but just get the word out there of, you know, if you have kids, are you going to put them in children's ministry? Help us plan so that we can do this twelve month plan like you're saying. Can we roll out in May? Does it need to be June? Doesn't need to be September? Does it need to be 2021? Give us data. You know how precious data is? That's why I love connection cards. So give us the data we need to make informed decisions.

Love that. Hey, this has been a great conversation. I started the conversation that if, once again, I just love getting these guys together and talking because the thing that I'm like, hey, we're going to talk about this, we never get to, but the conversation is so rich in the midst of it. I've loved diving into. I want to recreate, and I didn't realize I wanted to do this as much as I did because literally we've had the conversation with Nils today, Greg today, two separate episodes, Jay. I feel like we've talked to Jay. I'm loving the last month, right? I want to recreate that night at Starbucks like it, the five of us to get there on a thing. We'll figure out a topic. We'll figure out a time. That's awesome because there's that was a monumental night figuring out, discovering the stories of the past, look at the future, looking at trends of where we're going. Truly, truly phenomenal. And there's plenty of opportunities for churches big and small to learn in this season to try to figure out how to not go back, not to think you want to go back to the way that it was pre-COVID, but to learn things in this season to help you be better as a church after COVID and also prepare you for whatever's next. The next COVID, the next crisis, the next thing that's gonna come up. Because thank you very much, seminary student whose name I don't remember, you cannot put the toothpaste back in the tube.

No, it's just that reminding of how small the world actually is, you know? All these connections, and they meet people online. We meet people through social media, but it is so much sweeter when you finally do get to meet them. And so through technology, we have the opportunity to build relationships we otherwise wouldn't. So like, if I'm walking in my local grocery store, I'm not going to bump into Jeff, and so I'm not gonna see him at my local church or in my community. So I don't have a chance to get to know him. Through social media, I can start to build a relationship so that when I come to Miami like I did and I say, yeah, take me to the best Cuban sandwich, and you hook me up, that time is so much sweeter because we had built this relationship online. And then when we break bread and eat that Cuban sandwich together, it's an awesome thing. And so why shut down that opportunity when we can get to know somebody from Detroit? And then who knows, one day you may have a business trip or a conference or a reason to be in Detroit and get to see them face to face. It's a beautiful world we live in.

Yeah, and I'll go ahead and say it. If any podcast listeners want to come down to Miami, I will take you to Havana 1941. Is that the native? Eighty-nine ninety-nine. So so good. Oh my gosh, I'm so there. I can't wait, man. That's gonna be great. We're gonna Miami all up. We're gonna look, we're gonna play Pitbull as loud as we can, which is non-stop. It'll be a good time.

Well, you guys have the sun, and they're saying sun helps lessen the impact of the virus, and there's a lot of sun in Miami. So we should all have a big party in Miami because there's a lot of heat, a lot of sun. So that should be the safest place in America right now.

Never a bad place to have more pastors come and come on down and help us out. Me, that's all I'm saying. But if you come, stick around. It's kind of hard to get pastors to come down here sometimes, but that's a completely separate podcast. It's probably somebody else's issue, not mine. So hey, we're gonna land. We're gonna lay in the plane. This has been a great podcast, and we're gonna definitely do more with this and we'll come back around it and get the OG crew back together. Ray, as we're landing a plane, any closing thoughts?

Yeah, Greg, thanks so much for taking the time. You're absolutely right. You know, when we all look back at what's happened over the last, you know, like we talked about a conversation that happened two to three years ago, when we look back over what's happened in the last ten years and we recognize that the church today is different and that it's going to stay different, let some of this encourage you. Yes, it is scary. Take a moment and breathe, and then get ready to accept the new normal. It's gonna be okay. God is going to use this. With Jeff and what Greg have been talking about is completely fine. Jesus said that the gates of Hell won't prevail against it. So if we're gonna embrace digital avenues to get it done, let's do it.

Greg, I says we're landing the plane on your site. Any closing thoughts? Any last thoughts?

No, I just encourage people to keep watching your podcast and listening to your podcast and checking your resources, your articles. Seems like every day, and you're cranking out new articles, new content, new blogs. And I was thinking, man, how much instead you pay on this guy's? Thank you. But no, I think this is, I think you guys are crushing it. And so just keep paying attention. You got some great guests and some great insight and wisdom coming on the podcast. And so thank you for what you're doing. You know, as we said on a webinar we recorded earlier today, none of us had been through a global pandemic before. You know, this is new to all of us. There are no experts for this season of where the church can't even physically gather unless you were around back in the Spanish flu days. Like, none of us are experts. We don't know this world. And so we're all figuring out as we go. We're all building the ship as we go. But you guys are really helping navigate. And so thank you for your work.

Awesome. Yeah, I was gonna make some joke paralleling Jim Tom Berlin to the Spanish flu, but that's probably not in my best interest. So sorry, Jim. I'm not even gonna say what I was thinking. We love you, Jim.

Hey, this has been a great podcast, and lesson learned: surround yourself with smart people because when you need them, they will involve themselves and make you look a lot better than you actually are. That was actually what I did through COVID because a lot of smart people came alongside, and it helped in that. And Ray, one of many involved in this. And well, we've been able to do through the podcast and blogs and groups and even working alongside Stadia, this has been phenomenal.

Yeah, if you guys aren't involved in Facebook groups, first off, Greg's group is awesome. Twelve, thirteen thousand people in that. If you're not involved in Facebook groups that are tied to this church, either like Greg's, the one that the one that I lead through for Church Online with Stadia, there are others that do Church Online stuff. You guys are missing out, especially in this experimental season where there is no right answer and we're all kind of guessing and trying to figure out how to navigate your way through. There's always somebody who is where you want to be, and they are more than willing to contribute and help you with that in groups like this.

By the way, if you're in one of those groups, be sure to help out somebody behind you in the same way you're looking for help above you. And what happens as all boats rise, we end up all changing the culture within the church through Facebook groups, which is crazy. So I've loved doing it, and I don't want to continue on doing it. And obviously, Greg, love being a part of what you guys are doing.

So hey, once again, thank you for the podcast, for Vorrei, for Greg. This is Jeff with the Church Digital. Thanks for being here, and we'll see you next time on the podcast. Y'all have a good day.