EP093: Rick Rusaw & The Standard of Church as Platform

All right. We got episode 93 of the Church Digital Podcast. Once again, powered by Stadia Church Planning, Jeff here. Man, this topic, church's platform, has been resonating with me in this COVID season. It seems wherever we go, wherever I go, whenever I have conversations with churches, I find myself talking about it. They find themselves, yes, how do we do this? And so, like, I just really have been kind of honing in specifically on a personal level, internalizing this idea of church as platform. Okay, cool. Some of you out there, what is he talking about? Church's platform. Are we starting a circus? Okay, no, maybe the circus is a bad joke. Platform. Celebrity pastor platform. I made that mention.

Somebody's like, celebrity pastor? We get into politics now? Nothing to do with that. Church's platform is this idea of, and we talk about it all throughout the podcast here. I'll just give an example. Airbnb has made more revenue than the top five hotel chains. Airbnb doesn't own any hotels. They don't have any concierge staff. They don't have a cleaning crew. They don't own any property. They crowdsource it to others. They provide training and resources and guidance for other people to lease out their homes. And that's how Airbnb lifted, raised the roof, lifted the lid, added whatever analogy you want there, to the point where they're making more than the top five hotel chains combined. What if we use this mindset towards the church?

What if we stopped doing church services and instead empowered people to be the church out in the community? Radical, crazy idea. I know, Jeff, you're nuts. What are you talking about here? This didn't originate with me. And so that's what I love about this idea of church's platform. And this is where I'm bringing in the guest here. We've got Rick Russo. Now, Rick is a former lead pastor, LifeBridge Church, 28 years. He talks about it here on the podcast. But on top of that, he's working with Glue. He's one of the leads of the Spire Network Tribe, which is an incredible conference and group that's happening there. Externally focused church and author, like very, well, all over the place, very well-spoken.

And honestly, for me, is one of the leaders of the people, one of the first people that I've really here put thought into this idea of church's platform. So I wanted to sit down with Rick and start to dig in and ask him some questions on this idea of church's platform. Where did it come from? Where did it grow from? What's been your experience? You're a former lead pastor. Are you telling me that if someone came to you right now and said, oh, hey, we want to stop doing church services and instead start to inspire other people to go out and be the church in the community, and that's going to be more effective than the large gatherings? Okay, that is a radical thought. Maybe there is a place for the large gatherings.

But as a lead pastor, would you really give that idea credibility? Yeah. That's the conversation I wanted to have here, to dig into this idea of what a church would look like if it addressed multiplication at a disciple-making level and decided that it no longer wanted to control that large gathering environment for the main method of evangelism and disciple-making, but instead mobilize and unleash people via a platform to get out there and share some really, really crazy stuff talking out here. If you really take it to the extremes and the direction of what we're talking about. So for the conversation, I'm bringing in Rick Russo. Once again, a formerly pastor at LifeBridge, 28 years, glue, Spire Network, all sorts of stuff, externally focused church into this conversation.

I'm also bringing in myself, Jeff Reed, the church digital studio, church planning, and a conversation that I'm calling the standard of church as platform. Okay, everybody, here you go. Yeah. So, you know, one of the things that I'm doing with Spire is to help build a network of pastors, particularly pastors who are in independent churches, you know, don't have any kind of a network of connection outside of their own, you know, relational connections to try to bring collaboration and connection and, you know, best practices, be a part of that. Pastor health's a big deal. I care a lot about that. I think ministry is challenging. And I think during this season, we're seeing that a bunch, as you know, Jeff, all the conversations you're having.

And then on the exec team at Glue, we're going to help bring big tech and big data to leverage up. You know, one of the companies that I was a part of helping get started 15 years ago today is the largest cooperative database in the U.S. that's privately held. It's, we've got data on 300 million Americans. We know where you eat and shop and sleep and all of those things. And I watch that being used for Macy's and Target and, you know, publishers and nonprofits. And I see the church not actually being able to access or utilize that. And so I love what Lou's trying to do and bring in some of that. And I think my interest is simply that there's so much kingdom opportunity today. And we're in a real pivot time in the, in the life of the American church.

Like what's next? What does this look like next? And, and, um, I think there's an opportunity here to, uh, to see, uh, the kingdom, uh, expand, um, along with us, maybe revamping, uh, renewing some of the ways we're doing, you know, the gospel is never going to change. Uh, but how we deliver that might be changing significantly. Amen. The message, the message doesn't change, but the methods, uh, you know, especially in, even within 2020, the church has seen the methods of the change as a result of COVID. Yeah. That, that, that's beautiful. I love glue. Um, you know, and I've been, I don't know that I was an early adopter or even, uh, awareness of it, but I've, I've loved the company and the, the organization.

Every time I talk with somebody at glue, uh, and I don't want any mic drops here. I'm not, I'm not trying to, to, to pull a thread on something. Every time I talk with somebody that works with glue, they're like, do you know about blah, blah, blah. And they tell me some super secret project that I've never heard of. I don't know how many super secret projects going on, but my gosh, like it just could literally take over the world, uh, for, for the kingdom. But by the time all this is done, so really excited to see the stuff that that's coming out of, out of glue right now and looking forward to, to doing more with Spire. So the thing that I really wanted to, to get into in this conversation and we, um, through the podcast and blogs and you, you've heard me talk about this idea of church as platform.

And, and I'm borrowing this because we, we heard it from intentional churches, uh, has, has done a lot with it. Doug Parks has been on the show, um, within the past couple of months and we've had others kind of building up to it. The church's platform idea, uh, has, has resonated within Stadia. And so we've had guys like Tim Selleck, uh, do a podcast talking about the one, um, we had Craig, uh, on talking about this idea of getting out of the church service business, really almost abandoning this idea of, of the church service. And there's different variances of it. You know, I think when I had, um, Doug Parks and I suggested this idea of abandoning the church service business, I, and Doug, you know, forgive me for outing you here, but I think a little part of his brain exploded just with the idea.

You know, it's like, Hey, I had this idea of, of church's platform, but maybe not to the, to the level of like letting go of the service. There's still value, uh, for him within this catalytic experience and some of the things that he's doing. But I love this idea as platform. And I know there's for, for you, you've been one of the early kind of innovators, kind of mind share on here, talking about church's platform, church's as a, as pipeline and some of that. So just maybe even to catch up the audience, cause some of them may be like, what the, what are you talking about? Can you give us like, what is, what's the brief version of, of this church's pipeline as church's platform? What's that look like?

Yeah, absolutely. So I had the benefit, I was in London, um, helped, uh, start a business for banking for unbanked and we're based in London. And, uh, and so it's really opened me up to, uh, really a lot of different, um, avenues. And I was with one of our investors, one of our board members who is at Rothschilds, the number two guy at Rothschilds. And, uh, he said, Hey, tomorrow I'm having lunch with a CEO of Coke and Ford and Procter and Gamble from the U S. And then I've invited seven similar sized companies, uh, from Europe in, uh, would you like to sit in on that? You know, and it was like, man, Akil, absolutely. Like, let me jump in. And I listened to them talk about what was going on in business and business disruption.

And this was probably five years ago. And, um, they described that for a long time, the history of the world business was a pipeline. Uh, your company produced the product, shoved it down the pipeline, consumers consumed it. And you grew your business by a bigger pipeline or multiple pipelines, but it was definitely product was made and it was pushed down a pipeline into the consumer's hands. And then 45 years ago, there was a shift to more portfolio companies. Um, and it wasn't that they were making and selling their own products. They were actually distributing and making available to the consumer, multiple lines of products from other producers. Um, so the pipeline went into the portfolio and then the portfolio, uh, pushed those back out.

And then they said today, the most disruptive business are, are platform companies. Um, and they, they described two things. They said a platform does two things. It allows something to happen that wants to happen. It's not really creating something or making something, but it's allowing something to happen that wants to happen. And then the second thing they said was that it is taking consumers and turning them into contributors. And so I'm sitting there and I'm throwing my pastor hat on at that point. Uh, and I'm thinking, but that's exactly what I want to see happen in the life of our church. How do we take the weekend consumers, people showing up at our services and turn them into contributions?

Cause we don't grow through consumption. We grow through contribution. And none of us are going to grow because, uh, we've somehow been just consuming all that we grow and we contribute. And so if you think about this for a long time in the history, uh, of the U S church and, and, uh, across the seas as well, we were a pipeline. We had a product come to our service at nine 30 on Sunday, our Bible study on Tuesday nights, uh, uh, purchase this small group curriculum, whatever that might've been, um, you know, participate in that. And we pushed it down a pipeline and people consumed it. And then interestingly, uh, 45 years ago, the birth of the mega church was around portfolio companies. So when I went first to LifeBridge, um, nearly 30 years ago now, I was trying to figure out how to open side doors up.

How do we do better stuff for kids? How do we open up stuff for single moms, recovery ministry, all those other ways to help connect people over to a relationship with Christ? How are we doing that? And we saw a massive explosion, right? Uh, multi-site came even out of that same mentality. How are we, uh, able to extend out what we're currently doing? Um, but my shift in the thinking was what if we could turn the church into a platform? What if we could help turn consumers into contributors, which we all care about doing. We want to, we want to make disciples, you know, church has five jobs, right? Attract, get, keep, grow, and multiply. How are we doing those things? We want to see that happen in the lives.

We want to get people, we want to attract people, get people, keep them and grow them, and then turn them into, uh, disciple makers where they're multiplying in ministry. And, and then what if we actually allowed something to happen that already wants to happen? We weren't trying to force it. We weren't trying to fit it into a shoehorn and into a slap, but we were actually facilitating. And there's a lot of spiritual hunger today. We see it in every survey. We hear about that everywhere. Um, what if we could somehow connect? Cause who knew that 200,000 people wanted to turn their car into a part-time taxi? So you get Uber or 2 million people, their spare bedroom into a hotel room, Airbnb. Um, and yet here you have two of the largest companies, uh, that provide transportation and, um, or residents, temporary residents, hotel apartments, uh, and, and they don't own any vehicles or any real estate.

Um, and so if we could extend the church, what, what if we could put the mission of the church back in the hands of the church, back into the people's hands? Um, and that's part of driving a platform. You know, what if we focused as much on scattering as we did on gathering? Uh, because the reality is over the, you know, a long time now, the last two or three decades, we've become really good at doing the weekend. Um, and, and I'm not an anti-weekend guy, but I'm wondering if somehow we've missed part of the equation in this. Wow. Like, and so this idea of the, the church isn't doing these certain, the role of the church isn't to do the services. The, the role of the church, if I'm doing the parallel to Airbnb, Airbnb doesn't provide the housing.

They don't provide the hotel space. They don't own property. Um, they empower people that do, to do what they feel led to do by opening up and selling their, or leasing their homes, renting their homes, their guest rooms, things like that. Airbnb doesn't have a hotel chain. They don't have concierge service. They don't have any property. They don't do a product. They're just helping others do, um, what they feel led to do. And, and as a result of that, Airbnb, it's, it's, I heard a stat, this is pre-COVID. Airbnb made more than the top five hotel chains combined. That's how, that's how popular this, this idea is where, you know, in essence with Airbnb, like the physical property is, is a, is a lid.

It's a roof. And the ability to, to scale, to grow goes, uh, far beyond what's possible. If it empowers others to do, instead of, you know, uh, trying to provide the, the housing opportunities that are available through it. If we apply that to the church, like there's this, this incredible opportunity for the church, I think to scale at, at a insurmountable rate, like something that we've never really thought of. In essence, what we're saying, and correct me if I'm wrong here, our physical buildings are a lid to the growth of our ministry. And if we were to get outside of the ministry, outside of the buildings, the people could be more effective in doing the ministry on their own without the service and without the buildings being the draw to come in.

How do you, I mean, listen, you're, once again, you're, I'm bad at math. I'm not going to do the math. I refuse to. I'm 43. I know people who are older than me, people younger than me struggle too, but people who are older often struggle with this idea because they've defined church in one way in the physical building in the one hour on Sunday. That's what the church is. We always say we're, church is more than a building. And in this COVID season, we're, we're feeling the strengths because people have no purpose when they're outside of the building. So we want to go back into the building that we say isn't the building, but it really is. It's not the church, but it really is the church because when we're not in the church, we're, we're, we're stuck.

Like how do you, as, as a formerly pastor, 28 years, how do you process this? How would you suggest others, leaders, lead pastors who maybe a little bit define themselves by the pulpit? How do you think they should process and handle this idea of, hey, let's platform this instead of providing value into the one hour on Sunday? Yeah. And there's a real challenge around that because I don't land in the camp of saying, oh, we're never going to really gather again. I think gathering matters. If you look at the early church, right? New Testament, we see them gathering and, and I know you're in that same camp, you know, I've heard you say things around that. But maybe, maybe what we've done is make the gathering the most important thing.

You know, I played in high school, some sports, I never played football. I was never big enough for that. But, you know, you got that, you got that locker room speech, right? Where you get that coach in there and he's ramping people up and he's making it happen. But, but the game was never about the locker room halftime. It was what was going to happen back out on that field as individuals performed, did their thing. Now they had to be equipped. They had to be, they had, they had to be given the right equipment, the right training. They had to, you know, be physically fit. You couldn't just put anybody out there to play. And so I think that's the concern that happens is, well, if we just let go, does that mean anybody can do anything?

Um, and, and I, and I think that's always the challenge for us. And so we've constrained, uh, the, the growth, the kingdom growth in a city based on the size of, uh, based on whether or not we were, um, the best church in the community or the best church for the community. And those are kind of two different things, right? I, I, when I first went to Lightbridge, I wanted to make sure we had great worship and good preaching and good children's stuff. And for a while I was focused more on being the best church in the community. And really what we shifted to is what if we were the best church for the community? What does that look like? That meant we had to like actually put ministry back in the hands of people.

We had to, we had to trust them that they could actually go out and serve and that maybe serving at their workplace, you know, being a kingdom person there was more effective than if they were a youth coach or a small group leader back at, at home plate, you know, so to speak. And, and so the challenge is how, how do we provide an opportunity to be leading people spiritually, uh, guiding them, giving them insight, helping them disciple and mature and grow and not constrain it to just that has to happen in a physical location at a specified time. Because we've just spent, I mean, look at what COVID's done. It's poured gas on this whole concept. And we've just spent six months teaching people how not to go to a physical place for church.

Um, now the concern is we don't actually know what they're all doing. And that makes us as pastors kind of nervous, right? Like they may be doing some stuff, but I don't think they ought to be doing. Um, and the truth is, I don't know. I mean, what we know from the stats is that a third of people who are active physically come into your services pre COVID, a third, uh, have streamed you and only you, a third are kind of shopping around. They're streaming some other people's stuff as well. But the number that ought to be concerning to us is a third haven't done anything since March. Um, and, and they haven't connected. And so we've got to sort out, you know, if what we were doing was working, um, then I would say, wow, you know, hats off to us.

But every stat, even though churches are grown, you know, I was grateful LifeBridge was growing. Uh, but 78% of church growth in the U.S. is swapping sheep around. Um, we were more, uh, 85% of our resources spent on the weekend. Um, you know, we saw church attendance declining. People were coming less, right? They were coming 16 times a year nationally. Uh, those were the committed people. And so there is this opportunity because people are looking for spiritual things. You know, you run into it in Miami all the time. You know, they want to know big deal questions. What happens to me when I die? What's my life really about? I'm going to make a difference. How do I, how do I have good relationships?

Those are all spiritual questions. And so I think there's just hunger for something, but I'm not sure it's just going to be that we can go back to the weekend model and hope that's going to work for us. So. Yeah. And, and we're, we're seeing even, even pre COVID that, that the, the stadia here through the podcast, we use the language, a lot of, of the ones in the 99 going after the ones, those who are cold to Christ far from God, um, don't, don't understand the salvation that don't have faith yet. And so that there are ones and it's the parable of leaving the 99 sheep to go, go after the one. Um, and when, when we look at one of the things that, that I've often wrestled with is, is our, our, our worship services, are they effective to reaching ones now in a physical environment?

I think more so because there's a social aspect where there's a relational aspect where I'm bringing my, my friend who's far from Christ to a church service to, to experience Christ. And so we see that in a physical environment, pre COVID somewhat, maybe it's waning, but I think it's still a part of it in a digital environment. We, we don't, we don't, I'll be honest. We, we don't see that. Uh, so often, you know, I hear language from, from online pastors, people connect to community before they connect to Christ. Um, or, or, I don't, I don't know that, that a, a lost person, someone who's far from Christ, someone who's, um, cold to that idea is going to invest 60 minutes, 75 minutes, uh, in, in a, in a service is going to stay tapped in through those songs.

They don't know that's going to listen to that sermon. Um, you know, a Ted talk is 18 minutes. And so this guy's going 40 talking about what, you know, and it's just, it's not, uh, and, and I don't mean to like defame the theology of the building and the history of the whatever. And, and sometimes like people start to put themselves in check here. Well, that's what, that's what the church is. The church has to be these things. And it's, well, I don't, if you really look at the biblical context of it, that may be what the U S America church is, but I don't know that you have to define church as what happens in that physical space on, on Sunday. And there's an opportunity I would think to reach a different person through it.

But I think the thing that I love most about this conversation with, um, uh, church's platform is just like Airbnb or Uber has crowdsourced this idea to random people who are now driving nameless people all over the country, myself included. I love Uber. I, I, when I go to a new city, I don't even, I don't even rent a car. I haven't rented a car in years. It's, it's, it's all been Uber and it's been awesome. Airbnb to stay there instead of paying the big bucks for, for a major hotel chain has been a, been a bonus as well. But it starts with these individuals that, that are, that are willing to, to do this. And I think as a church, we've, we've lost this a little bit. Maybe it's behind our professional Christian, Christendom that we kind of, I'll call myself out that I've operated that way.

Hey, I'm a professional Christian. I'm the one who should be doing this. Hey, I get paid by the church to do this. I should be, um, the, the one who's doing this act. Uh, there was a, a nationally known speaker. I was, I was on his podcast, uh, within the past couple of weeks. Uh, and so well-known pastor, I, I'm not going to drop his name, but if I did ever be like, oh yeah, that makes sense. Um, so I'm on his podcast talking and just the idea of lay people baptizing others was just like, uh, like a completely foreign concept. And I look at this and it's, it's amazing to me where, you know, sometimes I'm in circles and I talk about priesthood of believers and people are like, that's the most controversial thing I've ever heard in my life.

There are others where I talk about priesthood of believers and they're like, yeah, Jeff, we've been doing priesthood of believers for like 60, 70 years now. What do you, why are you making a big deal about this? What, what's the theological girding? Because if we're doing this, it's, it's grounded in this idea of priesthood of believers that our people can, uh, witness that they can share their faith, that they can, uh, lead in baptisms and do communion and do these things because the same Holy Spirit that that's in the pastor is, is in, is in these people. This is what we're saying. With this priesthood of all believers. That's a, let's speak to the crowd where that's a controversial idea. Talk to me a little bit.

Lead pastor, you are far more educated than I am on this. How would you combat kind of this challenge against the priesthood of all believers? Well, I think first of all, look at the early church, right? The early church exploded. Um, and the growth was, was rapid and it was, it was neighbor to neighbor to neighbor to neighbor. It's, you know, I mean, Jesus said, right, the two greatest commandments, love God, love, love your neighbor. Um, what if we actually took that seriously? And if it is a person of faith, loving my neighbor means I don't want to engage in their life and I don't want to help them connect to God. I don't want to help, uh, develop spiritually. And so, um, and then if you follow the early church, there were pastors, there were teachers, um, that elders, um, but everybody was seen as part of the body.

You know, Paul talks about, you know, all of us have a place. All of us have a gift. Um, 1st Peter 4.10, everyone use whatever gift of grace you have to serve others. What, what is that? And so you have a gift for communication and you're, you've got a tech background. So you've got some gifting there that I wouldn't have. I don't have that gift in the tech side. Um, uh, maybe my gifts are, um, in organizing or in, uh, creating, um, uh, places, uh, for people to do their thing, empowering others to do that. And as a church, we want to empower people. That's right. We want to see that happen. And, and so what I challenge, you know, my pastor friends around the same thing I was challenged by is back to that simple line.

What if we put the mission of the church back in the hands of the church and the church's people? Um, the church was never intended to be funneled through, uh, one person who became my primary, uh, um, uh, focus of attention. Uh, uh, being a part of the church wasn't, wasn't, didn't, didn't mean just the one hour I showed up at a service somewhere. Um, it meant that I was going to be engaged in this process. I was going to be, I was going to be learning. I was going to be worshiping. I was going to be growing. I was going to be serving. I was going to be hands and feet. And, and so how do we turn people loose to that? Because the reality is where we even got to in a lot of places in ministry, and I always kind of get in trouble with this is when we say service, we often mean serve us and we've got stuff.

We need someone to serve coffee or run the slides or shoot the cameras or be a youth coach on Wednesday nights. And, and I've always been a believer that whether you served in the church or outside of the church, as long as people were being served and God was being honored, that counted, that mattered. Wow. And we were never going to see city transformation. We were never going to see neighborhood transformation until we focus as much on scattering as we have on gathering. We got the gathering thing down. I'm okay. Where's our scattering side? What's really happening on that? How are, how are the most effective people to reach somebody are the people they're relationally connected to, whether that's a neighbor or a coworker or somebody I'm playing softball with or coaching their kids in a, in a youth league.

And, and, and so the reach of the church gets way broader when it's not defined on a geography of driving in or the limitation of a 55, 65 hour and a half, whatever that has been at service or my, you know, the old measurement of butts and bucks and baptisms is not how I think church health is going to be measured. I think it's been measured in engagement and engagement will happen faster across the platform than it will be through a physical location. Well said, well said. I'm going to, I'm going to tell you right now, I'm going to totally steal the service is sometimes serve us language. I'm going to give you credit the first time. No worries. You know how this works, right? I don't know that I can't.

That's so true. In the, the engagement with the two-way conversation, as we relationally start to connect with these, these people are, are ones, the people within the circle of, of influence. You know, we talk a lot about this idea of, of institutional ones, how your church has, has a mission and a desire to reach individuals. And yes, it's possible for your organization to reach individuals. It's a lot harder in 2020 because well, brands, organizations, you've lost your voice, you know, and just even in this, this Twitter cancer, cancer, I'm sorry, let me speak. Twitter cancel culture that we currently live in or organizations, we no longer have a voice or, or really control. The, the real power is it, is in our individuals.

And so the more that we can get people who are, you know, I don't want to make this about the church, but, but loyal to the church on mission to reach their circle of, of influence, to reach the people who are around them physically or even digitally and help them get connected to Christ. And then through that connection to Christ, get them into the church for more disciple making to actually happen. I mean, that's how we create movements in 2020 and beyond. We were trending that way pre COVID. COVID is just gasoline on the flame and we're, we're full on that path at this point, I would say. Yeah. And, you know, I mean, even, even at a, at a base level, at a simple level, you know, churches are going to get more people through their screen doors than they are through their lobby door.

So, you know, I, I'm going to do that. And, and, and here's what, you know, I mean, I don't know what, are you an iPhone or an Android guy? Right. So that's the, that's the, that's the. Oh yeah. Totally iPhone. We'll see what Apple does soon, but. So here's, here's, you know, what happened. Apple, you know, released the first iPhone and they did. And what you could do was you could make phone calls, you could text and texting actually behind the scenes is way more complicated than the little, you know, icon we've got on there. They made it easy for us and you could, you had a flashlight and a calculator. Now I don't know who at Apple decided those were two things that would actually cause me to want to buy the phone, but they did.

Well now on my phone are, are literally right. Hundreds and hundreds of apps. I've picked most of them. Some of them were preloaded for me. Um, and, and they, and that app has to work on this iOS platform, has to fit the standards, has to fit the rules. It has to, has to have a great user interface and, and experience. So UI UX has to be good in all this. Um, but most of the apps on my phone, I decided I wanted, or more than that, you would tell me at lunch sometime, Hey, there's this app you ought to get. I use it to do my expenses or I use it to entertain my kids or whatever that is. And I'm going, Oh, I need that app. You know, um, I just got slide dialed because I think that's an awesome app, you know, or I can call people and my number stays anonymous to them.

So it's what, what iPhone is doing is providing the platform that facilitates my experience, um, my digital life experience. And what, what I could see the church doing is we create the iOS standard, right? We create the, Hey, these things you ought to pay attention to, and they ought to work this way. And here's some recommended things for you to do to grow spiritually and be engaged as a, as a transformer in your community, to be a better neighbor, to love God, do those two things that Jesus said mattered most. Um, and, and, and we want to help you build the journey that works for you because your journey and my journey aren't always the same. We're at different points in life. We have different experiences going on.

And so what are people doing today, right? We're, we're crafting our own experiences and whether we think they're doing it or not doing it, the reality is people are doing that. And so how am I, right? Thinking about how we're leading the church kingdom stuff in, in 2020, how am I providing a way for people to create a facilitated spiritual experience where they're connecting? So if I were still a pastor at Lightbridge, I want people to connect into Lightbridge, but I'd have to admit the reality of they're not coming as often as they used to. They're often attending other places, either online or in person, and they're getting some of their spiritual nurturing from other things that their friends have recommended, or they've seen something down the road.

I can either put my head in the sand around that, or I can choose to want to help be the platform where I become their base. I become the place they connect back. I come when they help with questions or there's a need. It's not going to be a perfect world for us in this. And gathering is still a part of this, but I want to facilitate that experience that takes it away from my walls and takes it away from butts in seats and talks about actual impact of lives changed and the transformation of a community because that happened. Amen. Well, I'll tell you what, I want to pick on your iOS standard analogy here a little bit because we're also getting relevant in the news. Apple, in addition to Android App Store, has pulled one of the top selling apps out of the App Store here just within the past week.

I'm talking Fortnite, Epic Games. Long story short, I don't want to get into it, but Epic said, hey, we're not going to acknowledge Apple and Android's policy when it comes to in-app purchases because they're taking too much money out. We want to keep the money. So forget it. We're going to ignore their policies that they're ripping us off. And Apple and Android's in unison removed both the apps from the App Store. I don't want to get into Fortnite. Honestly, I think I played it for 30 seconds. Neither of my kids are tracking with that. They're thanking more Roblox for whatever reason. And so it's irrelevant to me. That's all I'm going to say. But I think it does draw an interesting analogy because what happens when somebody breaks that church standard?

What happens if, how do you do quality control? How do you do accountability? You know, I talk with sometimes with people and they're like, you know, I had a guy tell me once, I don't know. I don't know if I totally agree with this. But his statement was, you can control or you can grow, but you really can't do both. So in an environment like this, where we as a church are acting as a platform, encouraging others to do things, but there's some crazy people out there. Like I've attended a church where a person literally said that they were the fourth bowl of the apocalypse. Maybe it was the third bowl. That was their literal, not as a joke. That was what they literally thought they were, that God was going to use them to be.

And maybe it is, I have no idea. That's maybe I shouldn't say, but how do you do accountability? How do you do quality control or, or do you, are those things limiting to, to what the growth of the church could be? So I think that, you know, one of the things the platform does is facilitate even the relational connection, right? So there's a, there's a guy standing on a corner and he needs a ride from point A to point B. And there was a person who, uh, signed up with Uber because they wanted something, right? They wanted, uh, financial independence. They wanted an extra income. They needed a job. They wanted to, uh, be bossed over their own schedule, whatever the reason is that they choose to do that.

What, what, uh, what Uber does is qualify and verify the driver and bring some qualification around the rider. Right. And, and that's all been, uh, the people choose, right? Where the quality is. Well, the church, the way we've always grown is to create relational equity. I connect you up with somebody else. You know, at Lightbridge, I didn't know all the people that attended Lightbridge. I didn't know all the people in our small groups. I was regularly meeting people who were serving in significant ways that I wasn't personally relationally connected to. And so we've actually been doing this for a long time anyways. And, and the quality control has always been a challenge. And so what did we do?

We forced people through all the hoops that we created, right? Whether that was, you know, uh, to work baseball diamond or the stair steps, you know, even though people grow, grow spiritually kind of looping more than they do, uh, just in a one, two, three, four. Um, but, but we always connected them to others. And what we did was try to make sure that people were connecting them to had, had something going themselves. And I think that the platform is the same. We're, I think we're going to have, you're always going to have the crazies. You know, I remember small group leaders who went off the reservation and started, you know, teaching WAPO stuff that we didn't agree with. Right. Um, that's always been a reality, but, but when there's some crowdsourcing, when there's some relational connection and we're helping people connect spiritually to others who are going to help them grow spiritually, that's what a platform does.

What it's, what it doesn't do is say that everybody has to go through this one person to get bedded before, um, before they can be checked off to actually do something. And there's danger in that, right? There's always the challenge in that, but we've watched pastors pull off the reservation too. So I guess our checks and balances haven't always been as good as we want. I don't know if that makes sense, but, and cause it's a concerning thing. It is a challenge. Um, but, but I've always assumed that God was big enough to handle the crazies. Um, and that, and the people who were seeking him and finding him would find relationally the people that could help them do that. What is, what is training?

What is onboarding look like at a, at a church's platform church? Are you, uh, overtraining to make sure that, that they're under control? Are you releasing them early and kind of letting them learn on the fly? Like what mentally, when you, when you kind of envision what this looks like, what does it look like? Yeah, I'm not really, actually, it's a great question. I think that, um, I think one, there is some content attribution, right? So somebody who created, so you're creating a, here is good content. Here is things that are biblically reliable and, and stay true to scripture. Um, I, I think your, I think a platform could work when you're helping, uh, uh, someone who's a connector, right? Every, every neighborhood has somebody who's the people person, they're the gatherer.

Um, and then there's somebody else who's saying, well, maybe here's some content. Here's, here's good content that's available across the platform, uh, for you to use. And then there is, um, and, and, and in that, I mean, because people are doing that today, right? People are, are now they're watching you preach, but they're also watching, you know, Andy Stanley preach or whoever else they're choosing to watch today. Um, and so they're, they're doing some of their own content. Can we help provide a kind of an approved content or a content, a filter of sorts? Uh, can we help provide how you get connected to others who are like you, who are growing spiritually? So whether you do that in a, in a, a digital group or you do that in a one-on-one connections.

And I think you're also facilitating then service. Here are ways for you to get engaged where you're, where you can be serving some others. Um, and so really, again, the platform comes back to where it's facilitating that journey. It's not controlling that entire journey. Okay. I think we're early in and I think we're going to fail more than we succeed on this. And, um, I think it's going to be a bit of an evolution. And I think before it was debatable about whether this is where we're going. And now I think the debate's kind of what we've done in reality is here. We've just pushed all these people to online. 84 million people have streamed a service in the last six months. Yeah. And that, that'll actually segue.

Okay. So 84 million people watch, watch the service, um, you know, online streaming. We're talking church's platform. Now, like the, the extreme level that I am and my whole involvement, obviously digital pastor online ministries, creating, you know, relational connections. I, the idea of, of doing a digital only expression of church, one that doesn't require the physical footprint, creating community, uh, in digital space, looking at Facebook as a people group to, to reach and going into those areas. Like I'm that level of extreme guy. And so for me, the idea of church's platform is empowering because I would want to look at the individuals, the physical attenders or even digital attenders of a church and say, go find your circle of influence, whether it's physical or, or whether it's digital.

And so starting to even challenge to see micro locations pop up, or maybe somebody who's in another state starts a micro location for the church at, at their house or at their workplace. And so we're moving this idea of an online ministry into the offline world. Don't just be hearers of the word paraphrased online, do what it says paraphrased in the real world. So we're seeing that migration of, of digital things in the physical world and the ability for, um, uh, priesthood of believers to, to speak into that, to have volunteers, be the pastor, to be the shepherd, maybe not the teacher, maybe not the preacher, but the shepherd to oversee and care for. I can just tell you dozens, if not hundreds of stories of, of churches, of micro locations in this season, where God's been doing things physically, when we can't even get back into the building for, for whatever reasons there are.

Is this idea of, and I truly, I'm looking for blatant, blunt feedback on this because when I have conversations about digital-only expressions of church, I've learned this. Um, there are either people who very much agree with it, or there are people that are like willing to like throw down and just start yelling at the, a mere idea of, of church happening in digital-only space. I, and I, I love the conversation because people are going to be passionate one way or the other. Very rarely is somebody like, eh. So talk to me a little bit. I'm just, I'm just curious. You know, this, this platform idea, applying it in digital-only space to reach people digitally through social media platforms, through, you know, it's funny, we're talking about, uh, fortnight through video games.

There, there's been a movement of that recently, virtual reality, places where you're not gathering together in physical space. I'm just curious, what's, what's your take on that? I, what, what camp are you kind of falling into? Yeah. You know, I, I, I'm going to lean towards that. That's going to become more and more of our future. Right. So I, and I believe that downstream, um, you know, see if I can use this analogy. So, so we thought we needed big office buildings to house all our staff and employees, various companies. And what we figured out is that actually production, um, has gone up. Uh, the, the, uh, quality of the work has gone up while we've all been doing, you know, zoom or my space, use my teams, whatever we're using, right.

For workplace. Um, that doesn't mean that every office building is going to close. Um, but there's gonna be some repurposing. And I think we're going to see more micro sites. Um, so now a business would have a place where there's a biz hub center. If I have to go in and, you know, uh, get a notary, create, create some whiteboard space where we're, where we're collaborating. There's still going to be a need for some relational connection where you actually physically sit around a conference table at work, but commercial spaces are clearly going more home-based more, more. I think you're going to see home sales in the future, uh, be a, here was my zoom space in the room. Here was my biz hub center that I had in my condo complex that I could go down and use it, uh, when I needed some things.

And so take that analogy over to the church, right? We're still going to need some biz hub centers, so to speak. We're going to still need some points where we gather. I think gathering, um, relationally is going to matter, but the move to micro church and the move to multi sites. So a church could get large and still kind of stay small, right? You could have a site of 500 or a thousand, 2000, um, in places. Um, and now we're going to home churches, right? And, and those, I, I think, uh, again, my hope would be that what the platform would do is help connect all of that together. So that you had these micro sites, you had these individuals facilitating spiritual journey and experience, and, and we were helping resource that out from the platform.

Um, and that we weren't so focused on the big auditorium, the big building, the dollars spent, um, on that facility. So, so, so I think, I think that's where it's going. Hence, how do we get on that train now? No matter where we are. So if you've already got physical expression, awesome. Where's your digital expression? And not streaming services, you know, I'm not talking about just streaming services. They're going to be an actual creating a digital space where people can connect and grow and create part of their journey, uh, with you at a spiritual level. And if, if all we're excited about is going back to now, now we're all going to stream and we're going to shoot from our platform because think what just happened.

You know, everybody has been sitting at home watching you and they're in their underwear, eating pancakes, and they've been watching you from your home, teach them. That's what, yeah. And the most effective ones have been around that. Not the, not everybody who went just in their auditorium and shot from their stage, like the room was full. Um, there was a disconnect there. So we're going to have to make this migration. So I land in the camp of that's where we're going. And the faster you start making that shift, the, the, uh, I think you're going to be ahead of that curve. Um, um, and you know, I mean, look at, look at Blockbuster, right? You know, they missed the term. Um, they, they, they just absolutely, you can go in every city now and there's a blue awning somewhere and that used to be a Blockbuster.

Here, here in Miami, it's a Taekwondo school. They, they, they turned the Blockbuster into a Taekwondo school at US one and Southwest 152nd street. Just saying, love, love that. You know, they had the opportunity. I don't want to die here, but they had the opportunity. They could have bought Netflix to Netflix for 4 million, 7 million. It was pennies compared to what, what Netflix is. And they said, nah, that's okay. We're going to, we're going to stick with the DVD thing, you know? And listen, I, I, I tell people I used to own a Christian bookstore. I owned a Christian bookstore, physical Christian bookstore in from 2003 to 2007. It was a million dollar store, fastest growing Christian bookstore in the state of Florida.

And I never thought this is honest to God truth. I knew it was coming. I knew the shift was coming. I need books, blogs. People aren't even going to read books anymore. Like I was the prophet saying that out loud while I owned the Christian bookstore. I just didn't think it was going to happen as quick as it did. And I didn't think it would turn the corner like it did. But in the context of about six months, um, we lost the local Christian radio station here in Miami. Um, iTunes started, um, app store where you could buy straight on the iPhone and, and at the same time, Amazon just exploded. All three of those things happened. The only people who were coming into my store, they wanted to buy like the holy oil from Israel to, to like, you know, do the, the whatever with the thing or the prayer shop or, or just the, the gimmicky Christian stuff that you would buy from whatever Christian bookstores at the time.

Like it's just, it's, it dried up because we had the opportunity actually. And I, I tell people I had someone maybe 10 months, less than a year from when I actually had to shut down the store. I had somebody come into the store and try to buy my business. There was another Christian bookstore in in another part of, uh, Florida. They, he was moving down here to Miami and he was just looking for whatever to, you know, to extend this business and to do something local. So he tried to buy me out. I didn't see it coming. I didn't think it'd be that quick. And, and, and even like in my mind, I'm like, maybe I should the people around me. No, you'll be okay. You'll be okay. And sure enough, less than a year later, we, we, we shut the doors down on it because it had closed.

Well, Hey, I don't want to, like I said, I didn't want to spend too much time on that. I do want to, I want to ask you one more question because, um, you know, we've, we've been talking about not broadcasting the services, um, or like that's, that's a teaching method, which is known for consumerism, not for activity, not for action. And so as a result, sometimes it's harder to get people on mission through that, or, or what's, what's the role? What's the purpose? Does the service for evangelism or is it for, for on mission? Like if, if you were, if you were a lead pastor right now and you were, I mean, you literally are, have been one. So like, this isn't a stretch and you're moving your church to this idea of churches as platform.

What is the purpose of the weekend service? Tell me right now, physical, digital, what is the purpose? What's the goal? What's the role of, of the weekend service? Yeah, I think that's a, that's a, it's a great, um, question to kind of plow into for, for everyone. One, I think it, it still does serve a purpose of, of connecting people up and people still are finding ways to bring their friends. I want to invite you to come to service. So, so while we're moving from one, uh, mode of transportation to another, you know, I don't think it's the time to abandon one, you know, the most confusing, uh, time in, in history with road traffic stuff was when you had the cart and, and, uh, buggy with the horse and, and motorized vehicles.

They didn't know how to obey, uh, through, you had, and they were both running simultaneously. And we're going to see that happen again, right? We've got now driverless vehicles coming. And, and so one of my friends who's chief of, uh, detectives for accident investigations in the entire city metro of Denver, they've been already working on what the rules are going to look like and how they're going to handle response times and what they're going to do because they realize that it's, it's the crossover where there's going to be, uh, confusion and injury and accident. And we're in that crossover time. We're not going to, I don't think, I think the mistake might be to put a sign up outside on life bridges doors, you know, where I was and say, Hey, we're not meeting anymore.

Physically. You can catch us online. Here we are. And God bless you. I love you. Look forward to seeing it. Um, because we're in that crossover time. What I would be suggesting is if there's not part of my team, because we know how to do weekends. Well, right. Every, every church that's growing in the U S knows how to do weekends. Well, we got that down. Where's my innovation coming? What staff are my pivoting? Um, you know, four questions I've been asking pastors this, this last, um, six months is what have we lost that needs to stay lost, um, in this season? What have we found that needs to stay found? Um, what do we need to welcome back? Cause there's some stuff we need to welcome back. And then how are we pivoting?

Because if we don't pivot, if we don't pivot, we're going to be riding in a horse buggy when everybody else has actually already shifted the cars. Um, and so it's, it's that, and I, and I, I tend to be a change from within guy, not a throw it out and start over guys. So you're getting my bent and bias on that, but, but I think it's time for us to be thinking who on our staff right now, am I pivoting to only be thinking about platform, only be thinking about my digital engagement pathway, only be thinking about digital strategy, only be thinking, how am I figuring out who's out there and how am I going to get them on an engagement journey that, that, that helps them discover grace, grow in grace and live gracefully, right?

How's that going to happen for them? Yeah. I love that lost and found approach. Cause, cause there's definitely some new directions we need to go to. Uh, but you've got to let go of, of, of some of the things the way that, that it was. Otherwise, um, you're, you're, you're, it was, uh, Mark Bente, executive pastor at Church Home, he's used the language when, when he transitioned from the physical to the very strong digital strategy that Church Home has, uh, he said the staff would come in and do the, uh, I forget the, the biblical reference, but it's the idea of you're asking me to make twice the bricks with, with the same amount of, Hey, you're, you're not giving me the, the resources that I need to do this.

And you're wanting me to work twice as hard, but without, you know, ease, easing off. And, and, and, you know, we saw that in, in March, April, May, June, uh, pastors were operating out of their comfort zone, trying to do physical and digital and really didn't know how to do digital well. And as a result, the, the, the mental capacities, the mental health, the burnout that we saw just was, I believe it was unparalleled because it was so new and, and, and so many churches were jumping on to this online thing. It's such a radical number without really understanding how it did and it burned them. Yeah. Just as you just, no, just as you just said, yes, there's a confusion around that. Right. So, because I know what to do in the model I'm currently operating and, and the rest of this is really kind of unknown to me, you know, but what does data do?

Data only helps us, you know, move, right? If I said to you, Hey, when I woke up this morning, it was 40 degrees at my house. Um, you would say, wow, you know, are you up in the mountains or do you need to get, you know, some heat? Uh, and I'd say, well, it wasn't 40, uh, Fahrenheit. It was 40 Celsius. It was actually 104. And you'd be saying, man, you better get some air conditioning then. Right. But if I said, well, it wasn't the temperature in my house. It was somebody in my house at a temperature of 104. You might be saying, you better get tested for COVID or maybe you got the flu. You better go see a doctor. And I said, well, actually we have a four week old, uh, in our house. And it was him who had the 104.

You'd be calling 911 on my behalf at that point. And all that changed was you gained information. Well, we've just been able to gain a whole bunch of information in the last six months. And we can either choose to pretend it didn't happen, or we can start to make this pivot. And I think the successful ministries, whatever that means, right? We have a whole lot of ways, you know, I don't know what Outrage magazine is going to do in the future. I were going to, what's the top 100 list going to look like in the future. What's that mean? It's not going to, it's no longer going to be about what our weekend attendance was. Nobody even knows what that is. Ask any pastor what their weekend attendance is right now.

And they all say, well, pre-COVID, we were X. And now I don't know. Yeah. Lots of, lots of questions, lots of opportunities to learn, learning experiences coming out of this. Um, you know, on a side note, and this, this may sound bad. I don't know how to say it well, but I mean, I, I love it. The, the challenge of, this is something new. How, how can we figure this out? How can we help the church? How can a church overcome some of these, these challenges? Like, for me, it's, it's, it's refreshing because all the playbooks are thrown out. Anybody, anybody at this point in 2020 who's like, I know what the future holds almost, I feel like they're kind of crazy because I, I, it's, it's impossible to tell what, what we're going to do coming out of this because the COVID thing has, has mixed it up and so much.

And I just, I love the challenge of it. And this idea of, of a, of a, of a, of a church as, as platform to me, I think is a, a natural extension of what the church can be. And it's almost like COVID, I don't want to say forced it into existence, but it definitely forced it into a relevant conversation because this idea of church's platform really solves so much of the problem points, the pain points that we were feeling pre-COVID, but definitely even during the midst of COVID, seeing how our, our buildings don't have the, the impact that a Christ did, Troy, that it once did, say it, say it that way. You know, I, I told a pastor once, don't freak out because you're, because your, your people aren't in the building.

Freak out that your people don't have a purpose when they're not in the building. Like, let that be the thing that, that keeps us motivated and driven. Let's give them that purpose so that, so that when COVID 2.0 comes up, when global pandemic 3.0 comes up, when hurricane natural disaster comes in and wipes away your town, I've lived that in my life down here in Miami. You know, there, there are definitely going to be times where your, your church cannot be your building. And if we truly do believe that the church is the people, then let's start acting and behaving that way. So Rick, man, sir, I want to thank you for the time. This has been a great conversation. Just as, as we're, we're landing the plane here, any closing thoughts, any pearls of wisdom, like mic drop, if you got it right here.

Just, you know, when the gospel advanced substantively, technology was, was at the base of that, right? When does, when does Jesus show up? God sends him when Rome had already conquered the known world and it created a transportation system, a road system. And, and so the gospel was able to go from Jerusalem to Judea, the Samaria, the other most parts of the world, because there was a natural system for that to happen. And then when the printing press came about and the Bible got put in people's hands, Reformation was launched, we saw the gospel spread, you know, across the known world. And I think God's going to use this moment to advance the kingdom, to break out of some of the modes we've been in and give us new ways to empower and enrich and engage people so that, so that the kingdom advances.

I'm just convinced. Yeah, it's, it's a, it's a scary, powerful, awe-inspiring thought. God's using COVID, God's in control, even in this COVID season. And as a result, God's breaking what his church looks like. He's breaking the model of the church. I, I, maybe, maybe scholarly people better than me will know, but I, when God breaks something, I don't know that he has ever put it back exactly the way that it was. Like I, I, Job lost all the people. He may have gained more back, but there was no undo button for, for, for Job. And biblically, I don't, I don't think there's an undo button historically in that context. I don't think there's an undo button here. I don't think the challenge is for us as a church to get back to the way that it was February.

It doesn't, it doesn't work that way. Um, learn the lessons of, of this COVID season, adapt to where we are. Um, and, and, and prayerfully through, through God's support, we'll understand, uh, the vision and the direction that he'll have for his church, uh, here in America and, and, uh, and beyond, of course. So Rick, sir, thank you very much for, for, for the time here. Obviously, glue, uh, externally focused church. Uh, we'll put links to, uh, a bunch of the things in the show notes there with that, but, um, thank you. Appreciate you being on. For Rick, this is Jeff at the Church Digital. Hey, audience, y'all, thanks for being here again, and we'll see you next time here on the show. Y'all have a good day.