EP085: Doug Parks, Church as Platform, and Moving Beyond the Institutional Model

Episode 85 of the Church Digital Podcast, powered by Stadia Church Planting. Jeff here. All right, I'm gonna love this podcast. I say that every time. Really need to find the new line. I say that every time. Really need to find a new line for that line. So here's where we are. We're bringing in Doug Parks into the conversation. Doug, Intentional Churches, by the way, we'll put a link. If you haven't read the book, phenomenal book. Organization, some of the things that they're doing with Intentional Churches, some really good stuff. Helping churches be, I don't know, intentional. If you kind of have come out of this simple church mentality, we talked with Eric Geiger, got a lot of Eric Geiger friends on here.

Intentional Churches really builds off of some of that simple church mentality. And there's some really interesting things. We're gonna talk about it here in the podcast. Gonna say phrases like church OS and some things, starting to look at church as platform, which is really interesting because the church isn't a service. It's not a product of services as much as it is like an opportunity for others to do ministry. We're talking about like Airbnb. We're talking about Uber. You know, these are organizations that don't sell, don't drive cars. They don't do taxis. They don't rent properties that they own. They crowdsource and they open it up to others to do the work. They provide a platform, a structure that allows for other people outside of the organization to do ministry.

Oh, I said ministry there. That's weird. That was like a Freudian slip. Because that's what I think the church is called to. And that's where I see really some of the excitement centered around the potential of church online, not when we broadcast our services, which may or may not even be effective in doing ministry, as much as we are empowering others with resources to do the ministry within their circle of influence. So you're going to hear, this is some radical stuff. This is crazy. Maybe, maybe it's crazy enough that it just might work. You're going to hear some interesting terms in here. You're going to hear terms like the one versus the 99. So the church, through evangelism, the Great Commission calls us to go after our one.

This is the person, the people who are lost. We need to have that focus on the one. The 99 are the ones that are already attached. This is the parable, Jesus going after the one, leaving the 99 behind. There are a ton of podcasts that we've done on this, kind of all building up to this point. We're bringing in Craig, Whitney in the past, Tim Selleck has been great, Lee Coat. By the way, these are solid podcasts. We'll put links in the show notes towards them. But it all builds up to this point of, what if we looked at our churches online as a platform, not in something where, once again, we're creating this product for people to consume, but what if we're looking at it as resources that enable others, our 99, to reach their individual ones?

The power of church online, and I've said this before, is not a virtual building to meet in. The power of church online is when it's a distribution network of the gospel to our 99s, enabling them to reach their one. And so the conversation here today with Doug Parks from Intentional Churches just scratches the surface, truly, for what we, the church, and how we need to be thinking about physical church, as well as probably church online, phygital church. You see what I did there? Phygital, physical and digital. Phygital church as well. So check it out. Bring it into the conversation, of course, Doug Parks, talking about him, Intentional Churches. Be sure to check out his info in the show notes, as well as Ray Dimas, digital pastor, Christ Fellowship Miami, in a conversation that I'm calling Churches Platform.

We're moving away from the institutional church. Okay, everybody. Here you go. Well, let's do this. Maybe even just to start off the conversation. Maybe just tell a little bit about yourself, your story, how you ended up in Vegas with your ministry story, Intentional Churches. You know, obviously, we've had some conversation with Lee Coat. So we did a podcast with them a month ago. By the way, Lee's podcast is, I just discovered this, Ray, it's number two on our most listened podcast at this point. So, because it was around discipleship pathways, digital pathways. And so, obviously, that's a hot topic right now. And so it blew up quickly. But even Doug just kind of set this up. Tell us a little bit about yourself and your ministry path kind of to get to Intentional Churches.

Great. Yeah, so I grew up in southeastern Ohio, about 20 minutes from West Virginia. And so it really was the hill country where I grew up. Very blue collar and just a rough, honestly, rough childhood. My dad was a heavy drinker and then was diagnosed with manic depressant disorder in the 80s in Redneckville. So there wasn't a whole lot of mental help there. But had a very dramatic relational salvation story in high school. Had a youth pastor in this little tiny town, man. And he came after at-risk kids like me and got me in the youth group, got me doing fun stuff and introduced me to Jesus and accepted Christ late in high school because of him. And then he became kind of the father figure for me.

And so he encouraged me to go to a small Bible college in Cincinnati. First in my family to go to college. Had to work because I'm figuring out my own way. Ended up at Chick-fil-A working for another Christian man who really took me under his wing. Retired from the Pentagon, Marine Corps guy. And made a case my senior year for me to take over a failing store in Cincinnati and became the youngest owner-operator Chick-fil-A had ever hired. I was 21 when I took over a store. What were they thinking? Yeah, so I did that for a few years. We did well. And quite frankly, I burned out. I had not done the emotional work I needed to from my childhood. And so I escaped to Las Vegas to help plant a Gen X church when that was a thing inside of another church.

So I moved to Vegas in the late 90s, 96, 97, something like that. And came up in ministry with guys like Driscoll and Chris C down in Texas and some of the house church kind of guys. Did that for a while and then became the operations guy at our church before we had a building and then became the executive pastor for a long run. I think 17 years total I was there. The church plant ended up kind of nosediving as it switched to a house church model. And so, yeah, fell in love with doing that. And I've always facilitated. Me and an old friend got reunited. He was on staff at Central Church here in Vegas. I was at Canyon Ridge, the daughter church. And he invited me to go on the road and say, hey, I think we can figure out, this is like 11 years ago, how to bring strategic planning to the local church.

And it started a long journey. And we founded IC Intentional Churches about six and a half years ago, seven and a half years ago. So there was about four years of R&D. And then, you know, we really have hit our stride here in the last three years of the big idea of Church OS. And yeah, so that's some of my story, man. Doing ministry in Vegas is awesome. And the reason why I talk about my salvation story, because that's the only reason I got into ministry, man, was to help Luke 15 ones, all my ones in my life to find Jesus, man. So that's part of what you'll find in our stuff always is how do we reach one more one? Yeah, we've talked a lot about the ones in the podcast. Tim Selleck has done a podcast on that.

You know, of course, Tim out of California, in which they do. Craig did a podcast, Craig Whitney, talking about kind of getting out of the church service business, focusing more on the ones and talking through some of that, how to start a movement process. And so it's funny, like all these conversations that we're having, you know, even going back to Lee Coates, we're talking about with the discipleship pathways, it's all starting to intertwine together into a set. I really want to talk about this idea, use the phrase church's platform. You know, and so like there was this historical context where church was, you know, Sunday school based, and then it went to more of like a purpose-driven base.

And now the future you were saying, maybe possibly is this church and platform. And so you said it quickly, I didn't get to explore it. I would love to explore what this idea of church's platform, what that means. So when you said that, like, give me some context and start to describe kind of what church's platform is. Well, I think, Jeff, it really goes back three or four years for us. So this is not a brand new thought or idea. It's one that's morphing as we're going here. And that it started for us in vision casting inside of our church OS. And now we help a church. We talk about vision casting and that every church needs three types of vision that they cast. And traditionally it's been institutional vision.

Like, look at what a great church we're going to be in three to five years. This number of campuses, this number of people attending, so on and so forth. And then our millennials really got after us about casting vision about impact. Like, what's the impact we can have in our community, in our world, if we band together. But we really, again, three or four years ago, started feeling like this platform idea is seed. Now that I look back, was starting with this idea of why is the church not casting more vision for the individual? Like, if I follow Jesus, how will my life be different three years from now, four years from now? Will I be a different dad, a different husband? Will I interact with my community differently?

And how will I be emotionally? And, you know, casting the individual. And so I think that's really where it started and where it's really morphed for us. This idea of engagement in the church is really hot button right now. One of our tools for years has been the idea of an engagement pathway and how we connect. I think Lee referenced and talked about, you know, our framework that The Crossing's been using. Around engagement pathway. And I think when we first started talking about it, as COVID hit, we, like everybody else, we're trying to figure out, is it digital? Is it physical? Is it a fidgetal, like, hybrid thing? And I think the early days of COVID, coming back to this platform idea, really started showing us, we may be in a morph as the church, the prevailing church of the future, away from thinking institutionally.

And almost all of us, including me as pastors, are wired to think the institution of the church. And really thinking about the church more as a platform that connects people to people, supplies, just like any platform business, like CarGurus or Airbnb or Uber. You know, there's tons and tons of platform businesses now. Where they sit in the middle, the church of the future, I think, is going to sit in the middle more providing resources and guardrails. And the ability to help people to connect more directly to one another and help one another. The early days of COVID, we saw it with the, I can give help button and I need help button that many churches put on their website. That was the church stewarding the relationship, like Airbnb, between individuals, if you will.

Let me ask this question this way. What are you seeing culturally that would lead towards more of this getting rid of the institution? And maybe that's a strong word, but not doing it so much as institutionally, as much as providing resources and that. So like, why would moving to church as platform, why would that be better than what we're doing now? Well, I think it's because it's actually activating, in Luke 15 language, our 99 and their ones to be engaged directly more. So instead of, you know, traditionally, most church people, I think, have thought about, hey, I'm going to go invite my one to come to a church service, and then I'm going to hand it off to the pastor and the staff, and they're going to figure out how to connect them to Jesus and to us and to others.

And I think in the world we're living in today, number one, institutions are a dirty word. I mean, no one trusts institutions really anymore. But, you know, we trust our relationships to our neighbors. So I really think the idea of one-on-one connection, I've been saying this from the early days of COVID, the fear was the church would turn more inward than it ever has been, meaning become more about the 99. And how do we keep our 99? And how do we keep our 99 giving? And the churches that really started to make headway, I think, were realizing that the invest of invest and invite is probably at record levels in our generation, meaning I'm more invested in my neighbors than I ever was pre-COVID, because I've had time.

I'm walking my neighborhood. So a platform thinking church is thinking about how do I steward that and equip me to the relationships I've already built in my community. And, you know, we've, we've tried to take some action on that here, but that's, that's how we're, it's more, it's better because we're activating people's faith. We're not challenging them to go get someone and bring them to the institution of the church and then hand off the growth of that person. That's really good, Doug. So how are you guys actively sharing that vision with your people? Because it always sounds practical. And to me, this is like the original envisioning of the church, right? To equip the saints to do the work of the ministry.

Like that's, that's kind of the basic theology on what the local church is supposed to be. But so much of what we've done has become content creation platform, less equipping of the saints. And so how are you guys driving the equipment side and less content just to come and see side? Yeah, that's a great question. If you're a church leader, you need to get in the shoes of your 99, get in the lives of your 99. And we overcomplicate it. You know, most people, when they hear about, most 99s, when they hear about evangelism or reaching your neighbor, they freak out. They think, oh, I've got to know the Roman road and have an answer to every question they'll ever have. And so I was in a meeting early on with one of our very high level volunteers at my home church, Canyon Ridge.

And he's literally, he's leaning in like, but what's missing is the church has not provided easy examples where a 99 would say, I could do that. Like, that's not that hard. And so some real pragmatic examples we saw, again, this would be more platform thinking, where a church in upstate New York used, and this ended up happening in many places. But the church bought yard signs and had the church people come pick them up. And then the goal was to write your cell phone number on it. And then things that you might be able to provide help with, grocery shopping for your neighbors or whatever, as people are driving and walking past. Again, the church is providing a very practical, easy platform thinking new to bridge the gap between neighbor to neighbor.

One of the cool things we did, we got this idea from someone else. We're not this creative. But we hired a Kona ice truck to come into our neighborhood. My kids, again, this is platform kind of thinking. It came from my church leadership giving this example. And I said, we can do this. My kids made invitations and hand-delivered them to the 150 homes in our neighborhood. And it was really the first community. And we had social distancing and sanitizer, which quickly fell apart once everybody got here. But we had like 80 to 100 people show up for Kona ice night. And we're still, we'll walk by somebody's house and they'll go, you're the Kona ice people, right? And, you know, we paid for it, all that.

And again, the church is showing, is challenging me to answer, go back to your question. You want your people to say, I can do that. And it's not going to cost me days and days of my time and I don't have to get trained. And, you know, this is a very practical example of the invest side. To date now, we've had four other food trucks in our neighborhood where others got inspired to generosity. And like, you know, our neighbors put up a tent with like tables and sliders. And it's just a great connection time. Again, platform thinking. How do we help our people say, I can do that in a way that builds relationship with their ones? Are you guys then celebrating that with the rest of your congregation?

Because especially in this time where it can be tough to like send out video crews or whatever else. Like, how are you guys showing that example? It's a wonderful example. But once again, there's no offense to you, Doug. You're one of the pastors. So, you know, if I'm an attender at your church, how then is that kind of translating to the rest of the congregation? So that another attender could feel like, bro, I can do that too. That sounds awesome. That's right. So we started, again, more platform thinking. We started a vlog, a video blog from our senior pastor that was five minutes or less, where he would teach on something that related to being in COVID and use scripture. And then we started accumulating stories and doing, having, like, they had me film myself, talk about the idea.

And I actually went out in the street and showed him where it was. And so he was able to teach, here's the principle, here's investing in your neighbor. Now here's Doug's going to talk about it. And there was one other person who's not a pastor who did something similar. I think they did cookies and paid it forward, you know, like, deliver cookies to 10 neighbors and then challenged them to deliver to two neighbors something else, you know. In that vlog, then, we're collecting the stories back because there's comment sections all through the thing. Again, the church becoming platform. The teaching is two to three minutes. There's video, whether it's a Zoom interview that a staff member did or somebody recorded on their phone.

And then that is then pumped out to the email list, contact list of thousands. And they're seeing and doing that. And then we're getting stories back of how other people are actually doing what the example was, right? That's great. Hey, I didn't realize your history was in house church, like home churches. And to me, that actually tells me a lot more about some of the framework of this idea of church's platform. Because when I look at the extreme level, okay, yeah, so Kona Ice coming in and doing snow cones for the neighborhood, that's, I mean, I want to say that's more entry level. But when I look at it, two, three, four, five, six years down the road, I'm seeing house churches. I'm seeing micro locations.

I'm seeing multiplication. I'm seeing independent actions, maybe from the planting church, but now is resourcing others, not necessarily by producing services, but empowering others on doing ministry, whether it's church services or, you know, the one and others of the Bible, within areas like their community. Do you see it stretching that far as well? Or, like, what's the long play in something like this with church's platform? Oh, absolutely. I mean, you hit on it. It's whether, you know, we've gotten so hung up over the years, over the models, that I think Ray said it earlier, like, it's, hey, nothing's really changed that much for thousands of years. We just have more tools. And it all comes down to relationship and trust between individuals and the ability to serve and share.

And so, yeah, we see it. In fact, my senior pastor, as he taught out on this vlog where he used me as an example, is teaching multiplication. Because we're talking about the vision cast. Number one, our neighbors caught the vision of generosity. Four neighbors have paid for other food trucks to come in. And I'm brainstorming new ideas because it was so fun and creative. And, like, it was way more an ROI than I thought it was going to be. Like, we've got new things we're thinking about. But we see long term, we moved into the neighborhood that we're in for this very reason. Like, to gather and eventually, whether they're called house churches or hanging around in a fire pit or whatever, it ends up being called.

We see it going there. And that I don't think you should be telling your people and challenging them to invite their ones to an online service first. That just does not seem, it just seems absurd to me that the neighbors on my street, that I would invite them first to an online service. I think, you know, what we've done, we're going to do invites to meals once we're able to meet more again and do stuff in our yard. And at the right time, we may introduce that again, the platform thinking idea for me is just turning upside down the way any of us have really thought about church in our generations, where it's going to be about deep relational connections and not the systems and processes need to be set up to help the 99 and ones connect.

I got to tell you, I got to tell you, I got to tell you, I've been starting to use some of that language as well. Not even tied to this, but if we're really looking at the effectiveness of reaching ones, is our online services really effective towards evangelism to where we're making a difference in people's lives and we're seeing salvation come from it? Or is it helpful, like is it helpful on itself or do we need to support it with like a friend sharing it or having that relational equity and then the person introduces the service? And I want you to know, like I'm a guy who usually says controversial things on a regular basis and pastors flipping out on me has happened over the majority of my life.

And I'm not going to lie in this, but this one topic, wait, church services aren't evangelical like that. That's a hard truth, I think, for for churches to to receive, to process, to work through, you know, and even questioning, OK, that 20 minutes of worship that that you're doing up front. Is that for your one or is that for your 99 and if it's for your 99, like recognize it's for your 99. But if you're saying it's for your one, is it is that effective for your one is is the 40 minutes message. Is that effective for your one virtually or even as you're going back to it physically? And so, like, I just would love to hear when churches wrestle with that idea of breaking away from the kind of that first step in the discipleship funnel in your pathway being the church service, because the church and platform, what is the first step?

Is it that church service or like how would you document or draw that out? When the church organizes itself and develops its institutional identity, of which attending a service then becomes a very prominent thing. It's countable. It's, you know, we can. At IC, we try to live between the tension of being a missional discipling movement while we're growing and organizing instead of throwing one or the other out. And I don't know if it can be done, but that's where that's where we live. So when you're asking about what's the first step, I think COVID and the next, I'm going to say through 21 at least, the first steps are things like what I'm describing. They're Kona ice trucks. They're relational.

They're, okay, now the next thing. Could you have, like, we really tried to do this pre-COVID. You know, on the way to Christmas Eve when somebody's potentially open to an invite to a church experience, especially if they have kids. Could you, at Halloween, do something very practical and challenge all your people to do it and make your house the go-to house in the neighborhood? Free food out with the grill in the, in the, and challenging your church people. Could you form a relationship with one or two people you could invite over to dinner before Thanksgiving? These, to me, are the, again, pastors, we sometimes, and I was guilty, I'm guilty of this too, we forget our people are living real lives.

And so we don't make pragmatic, easy, I could do that examples very often, like what I'm describing to you now. So, you know, one, you know, one or two of those families, can you invite them over for dinner? And then, you know, is there something we can pray for? You pray at dinner, we're taking some sort of, and then maybe an invite to a Christmas Eve service, whether it's online or physical. It makes sense then, because we've got relational equity, and that's something that a one might value, that their kid had a cool experience hearing about baby Jesus, you know? So, I think, I think, Jeff, the first step, the missing piece that we've had in the institutional church is we've seen the first step into a service instead of into what we call the relational reach zone.

That relational reach zone, whether it's digital or physical, is a real thing, and every church needs to make sure they have strategies around it. And the more platform strategies, like how do we add, here's one of the ideas I've heard from a church in Texas, and then some churches up in New England. How do we add value to our 99s? Like, what are they struggling with right now? Thinking through moms and dads with toddlers trying to work on Zoom. And my church should be stepping in the gap, helping with that. Like, here's a, we had one church that did a explainer video, and then here's a schedule for toddlers and how you should run the house. And it adds value. And then being able to challenge our 99 then to share that, whatever that very pragmatic tool that we're sharing with our 99 and their felt need at that moment, that they would share it with their ones.

And it's delivering, and it's delivering digitally, relational investment and the invest-invite strategy. So I think backing up, we want, whether you're a missional church, Gen Xer, and you believed in the communal house church movement, or you were a boomer and you were into the attractional model, all three of those, the attractional, missional, communal model, it all needs to start in the relational reach zone, not in a weekend service. And how are we challenging and equipping our people that they're thinking that way, that they're on mission wherever they're at? We're not adding to their schedule. We're bringing intentionality at restaurants and coffee shops and in their neighborhood when they're walking or at the gym and exercising.

So is there a mid-step here? Because part of my concern with what you're talking about with the invest-in-invite culture is it has created somewhat of a consumer mentality for church in the sense of, that's not my job, pastor. That's your job. You know, like, you do the work. You do it. You do the work. Like, that sounds great. But you guys host a trunk or treat. Like, I don't want to do anything in my house because then I'm afraid as far as, like, either outing myself as a Christian or, like, if I engage somebody, I'm not, I'm afraid of what I'm going to say next. Like, there's so many things that kind of come up there. So how are you guys helping people kind of take that next step, part of the process in it?

It goes back, kind of the formula for me is you got to debunk that, hey, you meet people all the time. All of us do. So debunk that because I meet them and I'm a Christ follower, my church is, like, encouraging me to do that doesn't mean I got to have every answer to every question. Doesn't even mean I have to declare that I'm a Jesus follower at first. So helping take your people's blood pressure down by just saying, guys, this is normal life, and then giving them practical ideas on things they could do that they would say yes to. Like, you become, how do we, again, platform thinking for a church, if we ever get back to club soccer and club sports, how does your family become, like, the hub relationally?

I mean, those are easy steps that most 99 families, most of us who are Christ followers, are already doing it in some way. I just don't think it's as giant a leap. And part of our job in the pastorate, we got to really ratchet down everybody's blood pressure and maybe not even use the word evangelism. Like, just talk about getting to know people. And then, you know, I keep hitting on this, Jim. So the platform idea, then, is instead of the church giving me a, you know, here's my list of five people to pray for, which is a great practical step, just give me two or three of these real pragmatic ideas that I could do with my neighbors or my friends or my waiter or waitress or barista or whatever it is that my church is standing in that gap and helping me think through and simplifying that.

We just got to, we have to take everybody's blood pressure down. This is not rocket science relating to people. You do it all the time. No, I love this. And actually, Ray asking that question in this conversation. But this is actually why Ray and I work so well together, because Ray's asking for the intermediary step. And I'm like, no, let's pour gasoline on this and let's take it to the extreme, because I process everything at the extreme to make sure that it aligns. And so part of me, as you're describing this, and I hear, take the blood pressure down, you know, we want you to relationally connect with people. Part of me, and maybe I'm an idealist. If you listen to this podcast, you hear me on a regular basis.

I probably am an idealist. I actually start to investigate, if you're in this process, if you're in this path, the church service doesn't as much become the evangelism tool, as much as it is the tool to encourage the 99s, to inspire the 99s, to celebrate with the 99s, and release them out to go do, to talk, to connect, to share with the ones. Maybe that's gasoline on the flame, maybe that needs to be several intermediary steps along the way, but does that extreme kind of line up for you, or how do you view that differently further down the road? Number one, I haven't talked much about it. At the end of the day, we don't control outcomes, and it's all Lord willing. So there's the Holy Spirit piece that we don't even know when we're investing in somebody relationally along the way.

And as far as, like, church services, I think they can be, not on their own, not out of relational context. I don't know that church services are really hugely evangelistic and by nature, but I always tell this story, you know, I've spoiled my oldest daughter forever. She loved Coldplay. So her very first concert I ever took her to was Coldplay at the Rose Bowl. At the Rose Bowl. Wow. I know, I went big, man. I think I watched that video. That's impressive. I went big, man. So, you know, in a Coldplay concert, if you've never been, I'm sure there are many of your listeners who are making fun of me right now. Yes, I still like Green Day and many other alternative bands, but I did go to Coldplay.

So, Chris Martin, it was the same week that, who's the guy from Beastie Boys that died? Not Mike D. Anyway, one of the three guys from Beastie Boys died of cancer. And it was that week. So, Chris Martin, it was a little more sentimental. He talked about it, sang, you got to fight for your right to the party on the piano. And then at the end, he cleared the stage, and he sat at the piano, just one spotlight on him, this high-tech show, and he played Amazing Grace. And here are 70,000 drunk and high Hollywood people singing Amazing Grace. He even did one verse a cappella. And I'm like, I do think there's something about worship that's just mysterious, and we don't get. And the application for me is, I see your point of, yes, the service is there to equip the 99 to go reach the one.

I believe that wholeheartedly. But I do believe there's something about the preaching of God's word that's sharper than any double-edged sword, and the power of what I saw that night of Chris Martin singing Amazing Grace. And my daughter and I teared up, and everybody, hands raised, singing around us. I'm like, what planet are we on right now? I think we don't know how it all works. But as a church strategist, and I coined myself as a church strategist, I do not think that should be your evangelistic main lever you're pulling, as a worship service, as your evangelistic draw. It needs to be. What I believe happened, unfortunately, in America over the last several years, we got so hung up on the word attractional that the invest-invite thing, I mean, evangelism almost became a dirty word in a lot of church leadership circles instead of seeing evangelism as part of how you grow up your 99 and, like you said, keep them from becoming Christian consumers.

If we're always prioritizing the one as a Christ follower, I have to die to self. I have to give up maybe my money or my seat or my music, which for another generation, you know, I was with a church that had both older and younger in the room, and I said, you know, the older generation, music was the great divider of the church, like music style. But that's not good, and that isn't for our church today. The great divider is social issues. You know, racism, gender issues, all of these social issues, those are going to be the divider of the church for the next decade, two decades, not musical style. You agree with, disagree with. And that all has to be taken into account when we're reaching our one, because that's the world we're living in.

It's a world divided over social issues. Yeah, I don't know why I got off on that tangent, man. No, I want to feed into that, because I don't want to get too existential with this, but I do want to talk about this part of it. It's part of the problem that we sold people on the church, in terms of what the church could do for them, as opposed to Jesus. Because that's where I'm looking at, in terms of, man, we kind of flipped everything around, and I'm part of it. Like, we created churches with amenities, as opposed to, hey, this is Jesus, for everything he is. And so now, it's kind of biting us in the rear end, in terms of, on the back end, well, man, we're having issues with racism, and loving one another, and some of these things that are very practical, in terms of the Sermon on the Mount, where it's like, oh, wait, this is basic Jesus-following stuff.

How has this infiltrated the church? Well, we kind of sold them on all the other stuff, and now that stuff's not there. So now, we're kind of becoming aware of, oh, are they actually following Jesus? As opposed to, oh, like, as opposed to what we've been selling them on this entire time. Yeah, if I assume the best about us, and the generations of church leaders before us, that was never the intent. But it just, it creeps up on you. And I look for our generation, the millennials, who have now taken leadership of the church. What will be the thing that creeps up on them? Like, when you go to build a building, and you make the case to raise the money about, we need to provide more seats so more people can come, and you don't tie the knot around so that you have a place to bring your friend, or we're out of space, it becomes a convenience issue.

It's a slight off. It's not like a 180 degree off. It's like, you know, part of what I talked about in the talk that Jeff was referencing, and he hit these. If you think about the engagement models of the last 60, 70 years of the church, Sunday school model with a welcome center. Go to the welcome center, get an affinity, you know, young married, small Sunday school classmates at 930 over there. Worked great, right? We moved from that into the programmatic model. And here's where I believe we probably really didn't know what we had done. The programmatic era was the more hooks you have in the water, meaning the more programs you have, the more people you'll catch. So I'm going to start a daycare and a sports ministry.

And then the businesses popped up around it. We had mops and grief share and divorce care and all these businesses that fed. And the felt-need programmatic church, to me, is part of what led to what you're saying, that we engage people through their felt need and didn't move them all the way. When you follow Jesus, it means dying to self. So if your class or your program goes away, it's not the end of the world. It's like, you know, and then the simple church, purpose-driven, growth track era. And then I'm just like, I am excited that we may be going back here to this platform, guerrilla warfare, grassroots, stripping away all the titles, missional, attractional, communal. And just, hey, just go hang with your neighbor.

Because your 99 isn't tracking with any of those church leadership think tank kind of things. They're just living life. They're stressed. Their marriage sucks. And they don't know how to parent their teenager. And yet we have the answer. So that was a long-winded answer, Ray. But, you know, I do think the programmatic church, if you subscribe to that methodology, you built lots of square footage and you, you know, it really killed a lot of the invite. And the invite became, look how great a church I have. They have a sports league. Will you come to that? So the intent was there. But it slipped from being a personal, I'm sharing Jesus personally with another human being. And it, again, slid into institutional.

No, and the only reason I ask that is because I'm constantly thinking about, too, like, what's this going to look like post-COVID? And I know a lot of church leaders are in terms of, oh, boy, so now we don't have necessarily all those attractional pieces. Who's coming back with us? And I think when you talk about church's platform, I think that's more encouraging because now we're equipping them to do, to be the church where they're at as opposed to come to church because they may not come back to church. But if we're equipping them to be the church where they're at, then we at least have hope that this is, that we're fulfilling the mission, which is what we're supposed to be doing. Yeah, it's, you know, for me, again, I know some people get hung up on labels, but I'm thrilled about the future of what the church could be.

Because, number one, the millennials, if you ask any millennial, even a millennial church leader, what do they want in life? They want to have a good team that they're a part of and contribute. They want to not crash and burn and screw up their life. They want to raise their kids well. And they're relational, man, at their very core. Like, they want to hang out more. Like, I always, the men's ministry example is a classic, you know. A generation of men were greatly changed in their life because of the Promise Keepers movement. And every one of those leaders came back to their church and wanted to start a men's breakfast. And if your church is like our church, those boomer men did not understand why millennials wouldn't show up at the men's breakfast that's at 730 on Saturday morning.

And I just kept telling our guys, guys, they're not like you. They already have community. They're hanging out in the craft beer bars and the cigar lounges. And they're playing cornhole with their friends once a week, twice a week. They're already relating. So, again, I am the most hopeful what the church could be going forward because I think we have that relational DNA in this next generation in spades. Combined then with what we're seeing during COVID, which is, again, I would argue the latent invite energy in the American church is at the highest level it has been in generations. What church leaders must figure out, this is where the innovation comes in, how do we steward that latent potential that's already in the system right now?

And that's what's gotten me all the way back to platform thinking. Like, it has to simplify. It has to become relational. It has to become all the things we've been saying here. I love that. And we're going to run out of time because I wanted to ask another question. We'll bring it back on the podcast. Stadia is doing, and you know this, we talked about this idea of planting digital-only churches, starting a cohort in August. And so, stadiachurchplanning.org slash digital. If you're interested in planting a church that only exists in digital space, this idea of a church's platform to me is intriguing in context with that digital-only. And so, I want to have a completely separate conversation with you on that that's not today because I just totally want to unpack that in that context.

But here's where I want to land, and I'm going to slap a date on it. So, today, it's Thursday, July 9th. And the reason I'm slapping a date on it is because things change on a regular basis. This podcast is going to publish Monday, July 13th. So, today, July 13th, we're in the middle of racial chaos. COVID is a thing. In some areas down here in Miami, if you're watching the YouTube, you're seeing Ray wearing a physical mask. It's that bad in Florida, in Miami. I, myself, have not set foot outside my house. But the reality is that it's a mess. I'm interested in this idea of what you're talking about. And so, I'm interested in transitioning and moving my people. I'm recognizing, as a church, I'm recognizing, hey, you know what?

Over the past three or four months, we've been very focused on our 99s. We've really, in this season, we've not gotten to our ones. And we can't, I had a church tell me this week, Jeff, we can no longer pause ministry. We have to figure out how to do this. We've been on pause for three or four months, focused on the 99s. It's time to get back on the ones. Give me some practical advice. I want to switch to this new way of thinking. I want to start to adopt and to learn this. I want to learn how to focus on my ones, even in the midst of this chaotic July 2020. Where do I even start? How do I do this? Give me some advice. Well, and I would reinforce, I don't know if you saw the Barna study that just came out.

Like this week that said that, yeah, good luck taking care of your 99s. Because if their numbers are accurate, a third have left already or something scary. And I would argue it's because during COVID, most of us have forgotten the Great Commission. It is about more and better and rallying yourself around that. So anyway, I believe discipleship and evangelism has always been linked in God's strategy for growing up us as Christ followers. And yeah, practical examples. So, you know, I would start if I were starting somewhere, I would start at just asking a few questions. Like, hey, what are my 99s feeling right now? What are their stressors? Like, I just did this with a team. I said, let's just talk about your 1 and your 99 because they're having the same stressors.

These aren't different. We're not talking about. So let's start with the stressors. Now, is there anything in that list of stressors that you made for 99? You can just think about your own life. I mean, I got teenagers. Like, we're trying to figure out how we're going to go back to school and there's going to be two days and online. I'm like, my wife just stresses out. It's like, it's stressing us. And then the second question behind that, I would say as a church leader, what could you provide them that would help practically, tools that would help them bring down their stress level? And I gave a ton of examples through our talk, man. But, you know, it's things like how do you work from home and still maintain professionalism?

How do you manage? You're going to have distance learning kids. How do you keep them on a schedule? And these aren't things, you know, none of us are trained on these things in seminary. But just be human. Just, like, think about where people are at and let the church come alongside and help in that. So, you know, the practical stuff, I think anything we can do to have people think about and be mindful of helping their neighbors in any way. You know, we saw a lot of these strategies pop up. Neighborhood Facebook groups that 99 started. Yeah. Yeah, the Kona Ice Truck, you know, all those kinds of ideas. If you were getting started as a church, I probably, Jeff, think I do more in, like, just think about it this way and you'll get there.

Like, you'll get the pragmatic things that I do, like, a whole ton of pragmatic deals. But I would start with the question, what are the stressors? What could we as a church do to help backfill that and help them help their neighbors backfill those stressors? And you're going to come up with a whole list of brainstormed ideas around it. Yeah, just get people being human, starting the conversation, talking with others. Get to know the neighbors. Get to know, figure out who you're going to target within your circle of influence, who your ones are. And even just start to engage in some conversations with them and the needs will start to pop up. Yeah, I was just going to say, okay, if I'm just speaking directly to pastors right now, your 99 have invested in their neighbors at a level never seen before.

How are you as a church leader going to steward that and encourage it and fan it into flame? And I don't think it can be an invite to a church service first online. It's like, get back to basics, man. We're in guerrilla warfare right now. You know, it was interesting. I saw, I haven't read that Barna report yet. It's something popped up on my Twitter where it was like, they're not looking for a church service. They were looking for prayer and shepherding out of the church. Like, it was completely different. We'll put a link to it in the show notes. But it was interesting, like the go-to for what people are looking for from the church in this COVID season isn't what we were providing. You know, and once again, it's not that content.

It's the conversation. It's the relationship. It's the community. It's the pastoring. It's the shepherding. It's the listening. It's the other parts of that. And honestly, I'll be transparent. I got it wrong. March, I'm telling churches, create more content. April, I'm looking around and realizing, hey, it's not content they're looking for. And so, first off, I'm sorry. Secondly, learn from mistakes and let's shift towards that relational approach. So, hey, Doug, man, thank you for jumping on the podcast. This has been great. Ray, as we're landing the plane, any closing thoughts on your side? Yeah, we're still, I'm still intrigued as far as what the church would look like as a platform in terms of connecting with and to people and how some of that, like, I don't even think we've even tapped the surface as far as what some of this means.

And I'm sure Doug is even learning in a lot of different ways as far as what the ins and outs is. But, you know, it's kind of like how we talk about a lot here on the pod. It's just try it and see where it leads. And so, Doug, I'm really encouraged by what you guys are doing and how you're equipping your people to engage their community. Because, especially in this season where you got nowhere to invite them to, you've got to find a way to reach them. And so, it's a very fascinating thing that you're doing. I love it, man. There's a lot more built into, actually, Doug, why don't you talk about Intentional Church a little bit as you're landing the plane as well, the actual book and your services and what you're doing through IC.

Yeah, guys, we, you know, we got on this kind of big idea that really has matured in the last two to three years. And that is the idea of a biblically-based church leadership operating system. And all that means is what you would think about an operating system for your computer and phone. Like, it aligns us like we've never been aligned before in language, in thinking, in approach. It has church OS is what we call it. It's got built into it, thought around every domain of church you have to lead and manage no matter what size you are. It is execution built in, so it's not just the vision, strategic planning side. And so, with that, we have multiple things. We just had a book released with Thomas Nelson, Harper Collins at the end of March, which you can pick up and read more about.

First four chapters give you real good thinking behind our approach. And then we launched a digital experience called the Activate Experience, just about six weeks into COVID, where you can actually start using the book and applying this framework and thinking to planning, which we would argue, I know we're a little biased, but your planning has had to morph. And if you don't have a framework, we actually have supplied that in church OS. And yeah, and then we do on the ground, like installing the church OS system and then coaching it throughout a year with you as well. And we've already picked up way back up in doing that. I've been on the road quite a bit, which it's very odd to fly right now, guys.

I'm just telling you, it's weird. But I'm thankful that Southwest has kept empty middle seats because some of those American airlines wouldn't scare me, man, when you see those planes. Yeah, I don't think I'd fly American either. And that was like my frequent flyer company that I would go through. But we'll put a link to Intentional Churches as well as the book, Intentional Churches. Was there a new book that came out? Because I thought Intentional Churches was, was Intentional Churches what just came out? Yes, Intentional Churches, our trade book, just came out the end of March. Yeah, I thought it was, was further along, older than that, but that, that's excellent. And I just want to call out that Jim Torberland just stuck his head in Ray's window to say hi.

That was, that was funny. You don't see that happening every other day, but evidently it does. He always finds a way to make it into a pod, man. I'm telling you. Healthy site guy always finds a way and he always does. Tell Jim I said hi. Will do. And, you know, if you don't put this out in the recording, tell him, he needs to come out to Vegas for a glass of wine, man. I'll treat him. Boy. We'll, we'll include that. We've said much worse on this podcast than that, but that's, that's awesome. Hey, so we're, we're going to wrap. Thanks for joining, uh, for Doug, for Ray. This is Jeff with The Church Digital. Thanks for jumping on this one and we'll see you next time here on the pod. Y'all have a good day.