European Digital Missionary Summit 2025

Hey everybody, welcome you back to the fourth session here at the European Digital Missionary Summit. So great that you're joining us again. See people coming into the room.

Take your time, take a seat and be very welcome. I hope you had the opportunity to join some of our speakers in rooms to jump on a table having an important, meaningful discussion with other attendees or getting up the leaderboard here in our conference.

Let me take a short view I guess. Yeah, we got a little got a little shift. Philip got a little bit up but the others are the same way.

However, welcome to the fourth session. We had really different sessions. The first one with a big overview. Second one focusing down on single ministries in a specific content within Europe.

The third session about frameworks and also practical insight. And now we're going to shift our view a little bit, looking at an academic and then a workplace view.

Before we do so, I'd like to ask you for once one simple thing and that is actually a little bit of money because this conference is like the work of the church digital made up by donations made up with sponsors.

We're saying big thank you to all of our sponsors, but we also want to give the opportunity to you. If you say the digital missionary conference, this one of four conferences is helping your digital ministry, then pay it forward and help the next digital missionary conference to be free as well.

You can do so by going to missionary.digital/forward. That would be just a great help for us to keep up doing what the church digital is doing empowering globally digital missionaries.

So now we're going to look forward to our next sessions and I want to invite you, before we do that, once again to become part of the Outpost Europe at the church digital.

What is the Outpost Europe? We started investing into the digital community, especially after the Force Loin Congress held in Seoul last year.

Before there were for a couple of years a Discord community of the church digital but we recognized that reaching a global audience the one platform that makes the most sense because it's covering over a billion people worldwide is WhatsApp.

So we started a WhatsApp community and within this we are focusing on regional outposts or outposts regarded to special ways of ministry.

For example, there's a gaming outpost. There will be a VR church outpost. There's also a Europe outpost that is partly connected to the equipping digital missionary courses we are doing and partly is just connected to the way or to the focus point of ministry we're doing.

So, as you're attending the European Digital Missionary Summit, I'd love to invite you to join the Outpost Europe to connect to digital missionaries all across Europe.

And you can do so by just clicking on this link to join directly into the group or as well just join the community of the church digital at WhatsApp or at Discord.

Both is a great opportunity. We're going to be starting a next EDM equipping digital missionary course for Europeans in October. October 22nd will be the first date of it and if you want you can just directly sign up here.

I'll be leading through it together with a co-host and I think would be great opportunity. And also reminder, we're planning for a French-speaking EDM starting beginning of 2026.

Big shout out and thank you to Greg, Cindy, and so much more who are already thinking about that. All right, say so much. We're going to start into the last two talks of today.

And for the first talk, we got Daniel Forian. He is dean of a Baptist Theological Institute in Bucharest, Romania, and he'll going to take us into the advantages and challenges of integrating digital technology in the training of Christian leaders.

Quite a long topic, but quite something to say and to listen to him. And it's an honor to have him here because just a couple of minutes ago he finished the opening of the new study year at the theological institute and now he's here with us just live. And we're finishing off the round of talks with a view on the workplace with a workplace view from Stefan.

He is head of sales for a global company and he's also host of all big podcast here in Germany like Eagle's View Podcast and he'll be talking about business leadership and AI for the kingdom because that's a lot what is at his heart.

So without further ado, we are stepping into the next session. Enjoy the talk with Daniel Foderian and Stefan.

Thank you for Simon for the presentation. Thank you everybody for joining this special and I will say unique conference in Europe. I'm looking for years to found something like this and today I would like to present from formal training education how this can be used in training leaders for churches and for mission. I will try to put on the screen the PowerPoint in order you to see and hope to understand me better.

I am from Romania and like some of you this is the second language for me. English is the second language for me.

But I hope I will communicate well and you will understand. I will try to put the PowerPoint here in our presentation.

You already understand. I will talk about two aspects of the topic: advantages and challenges when we integrate theological technology excuse me in our training. The PowerPoint I will try to share now sorry, try to see where is the PowerPoint but I will start my presentation in fact talking about my journey to using technology for training leaders and my experience. It's quite interesting. In 2005 with a group of Romania leaders we tried to train more and more leaders in Romania and prepare different conferences.

The conferences brought together over 500 leaders in Romania and for the first time we faced a challenge to connect to prepare our training materials.

But what we faced was this: I was in Constansa, one other colleague was in Galat, one in Klush and Timishara and other places. How we can connect? How we can work together in the same time for prepared the training material? That was in 2005 and we found a solution and the solution was Skype and we connect on Skype and connecting on Skype we work on that was strange for me how to work together to a material but how we can work together to a material when we are in different places and we are not in same place was strange how to talk on these topics in the same time but not overlap and was very interesting for me all this experience. That was the first experience I had and this experience put me in the place where I understand we can do something online prepare are training the leaders using online but it's really a challenge especially the people on my age to use this technology for training leaders.

The second experience I had was in 2012 when I was invited to plant a church to help a church to be planted Romanian church in Florence, Italy.

The leaders, the core group of leaders asked me to train them but how will I do this? I'm in Romania, they are in Italy. How will I do this? And they came with a strange idea. We can do something. And I said what? And they said to me, I will, we will buy you a phone.

You will buy a SIM card and through the phone we will have training, weekly training and was interesting. They connect their phone through a speaker and I spoke through the phone and we done Bible study for almost three months weekly using phone. Sure you will say yeah but I think already technology evaluate development very much in that time. Yeah but these people was not able to provide a different means for training.

Going further in 2008 I visited US and in my visit to US one of my the professor there who helped us with translation he was a Romanian professor asked me do you like to teach online? I say what, what this mean to teach online? How is possible to teach online? And from 2010 until 2020 I was involved in teaching at Liberty University online teaching some classes there and keeping leaders through academic online programs and I discovered not just the nonformal side of online or digital teaching digital for nonformal but also I discover formal, formal education academical education how we can teach using online. Sure, I soon I became the leader of my school online program in my school in 2013 and I living and put together entire structure of a online program for my school. And I also developed other programs academical programs online but currently I am member of the higher education accreditation committee in Romania in this field of online higher education programs.

I'm working for working with them to assessment the programs in higher education in Romania. Some conclusions: leaders can be trained remotely through digital technologies.

This is the first conclusion. A lot of questions I receive during this my journey is is possible to be trained leaders, missionaries using digital technology or let's say communication, internet, all these means for training leader.

Yes, I am confident leaders can be trained through digital technology. Second conclusion: leaders training, leadership training is not only about technology.

It's about passion for God's mission. I know we are focused more on technology, but the main point here is not about technology.

Technology is a means. It's a mean to accomplish a goal and the goal is God's mission. We are in God's mission here on the word earth.

And the church serve this purpose serve to glorify God and serve God's mission here on the earth. This mean is not about technology.

If we have a passion for God and for his mission, we will find means to teach others and to evangelize others. What are the advantages of online training program for church leaders?

I discover five and I briefly go through these five advantages. Training multi-side leaders together it's a blessing. We have students from Romania students from Italy students from Spain students from United States in the same time we can train leaders from different places for multiple places.

We are in one place but teaching leaders from different different places. Not it is not need to buy a ticket for flying one place but we can teach simultaneous the leaders in this training for the ministry.

Second, the second advantage of using technology and digital for training it's integrated learning. The learning it's not outside my life.

The learning and the teaching is coming in my life in my personal life, spiritual life and professional life. The training is will not disconnect you from your environment from your community relations where God put you but the training will came to you.

You will not go to training to a training place. The training will came to you. Also will reduce logistic cost. Some people said say the education online education it's cheap.

I I disagree with this. The online education is not cheap but it's reducing some logistics cost for accommodation, transportation and so on.

Fourth, um, online training help us to accelerate multiplication of leaders will help us to accelerate this multiplication of leaders. We need more leaders. And when I am, I'm, I'm using the word leader and leaders, uh, I'm talking about all kind different kind of leaders.

Uh, pastor, missionaries, evangelist, all kind of leaders. Uh, the online will help us to accelerate multiplication of leaders but also online will develop help us to develop the digital and missionary skills.

When somebody study online using digital, uh, technology, not just, uh, he will not benefit just the content from the content. He will not benefit from the training but also he will learn how this experience can be multiply and indirectly he will be become a missionary in the digital, uh, in the digital space.

What challenge are involved in training leaders through digital means? Uh, I mentioned five technological, linguistic and cultural, pedagogical, organizational and also um, uh, theological and spiritual.

Technological challenges sure are some technological challenges. Not all regions of the world have good internet connection. Not all training participant have access to, uh, adequate devices.

Not every training provide, uh, provider has the financial resource to ensure educational null, uh, platforms but also our linguistic and cultural challenges. I will refer to some of these um the need to establish a common language of instruction usually English different level of language skills among participants and so on.

Pedagogical challenges. Uh, some of the pedagogical challenges. Many teachers, trainers teach using methods similar to those in traditional education without specific ad adaptations for the online environment.

Not all teachers, uh, possess sufficient digital skill necessary for the effective delivery of the course. But also organizational challenges, uh, coordinating participant from different country countries and time zone difficult in establish common schedule for conducting the courses.

Theological and spiritual challenges. Uh, mindset. Uh, are some doubts about, uh, whether spiritual leaders can be effectively trained at a distance since Jesus and apostle mentoring mainly face to face practice.

Practice training involve not only teaching but also, uh, guiding applica guiding application distance make this harder and more dependent on the learner. These are some u, uh, some challenging in challenges in the, uh, area of theological and spiritual u spiritual, uh, formation and spiritual um area despite the challenges training, uh, leaders through digital means it's possible and can be effective. The digital world needs digital missionary is es ispecially trained for this ministry. The digital world needs digital missionary is specially trained for this ministry.

Thank you very much. Good. Hello to them. So, sorry. Did, did you, did you see my, uh, screen? Did, did you see my video?

Um, I'm leading sales and marketing teams, uh, for a technology manufacturer in in the Dhak region um who's coming from from Taiwan and I'm working in technology already for many years um more than 25 years in in total and when I came to faith back to faith um in 2011 I was working at Cisco at that that time and I asked myself what does it mean being um a Christian um in the workspace and I found that that it means for me that it is important to share my faith um where where wherever possible but I didn't see any connection to technology at this time and um this took quite a while I until I understood that there is a connection in between it and maybe I can explain it on one one one slide here.

If you have a pond of water lilies and you and the water lilies a big big pond and there's only very very few few of them and they double every year and let's say it takes in total 200 years until the pond is full.

Then my question how long does it take until one quarter is full? The answer is it takes 198 years. And I think this explains very nicely what exponential growth means.

You don't see anything for a very very long time. Even after 198 years, the pond is 3/4 without water lilies. So the big growth comes in the end.

And, uh, let me translate this to what it means for us as Christians. Um, we are working now 2,000 years on Bible translations and even after 2,000 years only in 10% of the spoken languages we have a full Bible translations.

So in total 800 out of 7,4400, uh, languages in total. That means that the thousands of people who worked on the mission field getting their Bible languages, um, didn't see their fruit.

But what is coming up is that it is at least possible that technology will help us to accomplish things in a very short time period that was not possible through the last um 2,000 years.

One third of the population you're seeing here is not allowed to convert to Christianity. There are laws in in those countries forbidding it. So either they they don't have any any um um Bible messaging or they simply um are not not allowed to to move on.

But what can change? What is the the big impact I now see coming in in technology? I I would like to to share with you.

So um we have the opportunity of translations and I think this here is a very good example on what is possible. I I tried the translation translated the the first, uh, me message into German from English into German and it was very well, uh, translated.

So this gives us the opportunity that what was not accomplished within the last 2,000 years to accomplish now in a very short time period AI is even able to translate languages that don't have even writing.

So that means um there is a huge impact. The the second huge impact that is coming out of um out of the translation possibility of of large language models is that we can have it simultaneously and can have it um for for everyone individually.

So if if you take my home city at Dudor for example, there are more than 100 languages spoken and that should reflect actually also in in our churches that those, uh, lang languages um are spoken and we have in our church for example a family speaking far from from from Persia and they have now some glasses and those glasses have an automatic um AI translation, uh, through through the speakers of them. So there is a lot possible um to achieve not only, uh, far away in the mission field where where there are no no translations but also in in our cities which get much more diverse over the years.

Uh, topic number two that can help us achieving what Jesus asked us to do to to share the the gospel with with every nation is coming through blockchain and crypto.

So um in many countries it is not allowed to have a Bible and there are high penalties, uh, for for everyone who is having one and all websites for Bibles are blocked there.

So what is possible is to have a decentralized Bible a a system a Bible that can use all also off offline on online whatever you like but is fully encrypted and it is not possible to censor it.

Um, I have no idea if there's any any organization um working on on this um at the moment but, uh, I'm very certain that this is something that will help us to to help people giving people, uh, the good news who are not allowed um to have a Bible.

A topic number three is coming through drones. So if we um the the overall picture is that we have AI getting very strong over the last years on the data side on the large language model side but what is the next step, uh, moving forward is the physical world.

So and we see more and more robots coming. There are um there are calculation that there will be 10 to 20 million robots um only in Germany with a population of of 80 million in in total.

So that there will a lot of help come coming through this. Yeah. The help in in household dayto-day work going with the dog whatever.

But this will also be possible to use for the mission field. Yeah. So there are countries that don't even allow any connection outside. If you take North Korea for for example, it's completely isolated and there it is it is possible um to have some drones um going over and I think it what we also can can see is that there is a very very high momentum in in this technology if we look at the warfare and we had last week um in in Denmark for quite a number of airports closed due to drones coming in but we can use every technology that is used for bad we can also use for good. So um, uh, like like a knife um someone can you can kill someone or you can do a s surgery with this and I believe a technology will be a great enabler um to help help us with this achieving the great command.

And so I would like to say to everyone who is in here and who is working in the business field um that the work that we are doing sometimes seems so disconnected of the of God's kingdom.

It seems um like there is no no connection in it in it. And um what helped me very much is to is is the a phrase Martin Luther said God works through our hands.

So and the the picture he had was that he said God doesn't deliver us with bread. We we pray for for the daily bread but God is not coming to to the door bringing us bread but he is bringing us the bread through the farmer through the supermarket.

So everyone working in God's supply chain. And so I would like to encourage everyone working in business that we are part of God's supply chain even though it doesn't feel sometimes like this.

Yeah. And so so like this this guy here on on the desk um I think it is good and important to have in mind that it is not for what way vain what we are doing but it is also part of the kingdom of God's provision um in here and at the same time I would like um to say something to to those working um in the ministry um field what might be possible possible to learn from the business side.

So what what I like um at the business side on on how we we we are working is that it is very target focused.

So from the employees I'm I'm leading, I expect from each and everyone when I meet them in the elevator that they can tell me on what their part is on achieving our target and where they are to to the target.

And my impression is that it's sometimes in in churches it it gets a bit defocused. There are many things to to be done but what is the actual target?

What do we want to achieve until when gets a bit in the background and I think this is important um um to to keep it up and would help us to have clear goals and to be aware on what what part is everyone doing on a day-to-day basis to achieve this very goal.

Number two is speed. So um when you're skating over thin ice, speed is a matter of survival. And I think in technology, everyone or the the successful companies are are very much aware of this.

It is a huge difference if you come to market with a new phone um now or if you come come to market a month later.

So the speed is very important and I think that's maybe also something sometimes um churches can can can learn from this that there is an urgency it is an urgency in in in what what we are doing and it needs to be an an urgency in in what what we are doing, uh, to stay focused and number three and that that's maybe a bit weird if if a business person um is saying this but I found then that when I was in negotiations of larger deals and I I had a couple of them then it was always a big team working on those deals.

It's it's never done by by by by a single person. It's always you need legal people, you need compliance people, technical people, all all sorts of people and they all have different interests are and are a bit different culturally um how they are working what they are working for.

But deals can only be closed when this team is united. And um um I I I guess this is something because Jesus said so that that we should be united which should be clear for for everyone.

But maybe it helps also to to say that it's also from from a business perspective. We can only be successful. We can only do do successful business when when we are united.

When it is, um, people are striving in different directions, it gets misled and, um, never comes up to a deal. But I think this is important, so I would encourage everyone to target, focus, be driven, and unite for the higher picture we are having in there. And, uh, last not least, I would like to invite everyone, uh, to connect with me, with us, um, on LinkedIn, um, and have a web page, um, for the podcast, um, Simon mentioned. And Simon was a guest already there. And there I'm trying to discuss a bit, um, topics, um, like those how AI and business and kingdom can work together. And with this, thank you very much Simon and Jeff for bringing this thing here up. Thank you.

Thank you very much Stefan, and we are at the end of the last of our sessions at the end of the European Digital Missionary Summit. Almost the session will end within one minute, so I really have to be fast. Um, I want to say thank you again. I want to say if, um, you like the summit and if you're profiting off this, then take, um, the opportunity to pay it forward to help us, uh, doing more conferences like this. That would be just great. Um, one more thing is that you have the ability to jump into rooms with the speakers as we had it before. You can stay for another hour, join the booth, or, um, sit down in, um, sit down in the lounge area and interact and connect to other people.

It has been such a blessing, such an honor to be with all of you, and we're saying a big thank you to all of the team of the Church Digital. We're saying a big thank you to the speakers being here with us, and the talks will be made available, um, within the next weeks from the team of the Church Digital. Get connected with us. Join the family on Discord, on WhatsApp, become part of the Outpost Europe. Check out the EDMs and probably join the European EDM. And, um, just take a time to connect to some more interesting people. Now the time is over for our summit. I'm saying a big thank you to all that we've heard. Be blessed for the ministry you're in. Be blessed for what you're doing in digital ministries. Thank you all for being here and take some more time together here in, um, the lobby or in the rooms. Bye-bye.

And next week you're invited to join again because then we're going to have the last of our four online conferences. Next week we're going to be hearing from the gaming world. Um, so next week we're going to have the conference on gaming, and it's focused on ministry in the gaming world, streaming in-game, and async. And if you're serious about making disciples in this space and want to turn your passion for gaming into purpose, then this is where you should get equipped. Take a look at missionary.digital and join in for the conference next week as well. And for today we're finished. Have a blessed day and see you soon.

And for finishing, we're going to hand over. We see if, uh, the stream extends a little bit for famous last words of Jeff Reed, leader of the Church Digital.

Jeff, oh wow, you did such a good job wrapping the plane. I wasn't totally thinking this was going to happen. That's awesome. Yeah. So we got an air. We got a message that popped up. The conference is over like in, you know, ten minutes. And that was two minutes ago. So this is, um, overtime, extra innings. Uh, what's it called in soccer, or football as you know it, like when there's time, extra time. Anyway, listen, we I've loved doing these conferences and connecting with people like you, inspiring, bringing people together. We talked about Gaming Con that's coming up next week. Leighton, his team, Andy, I was just texting him, have been working really hard to put that conference together in Discord. Um, through the Church Digital, through all of the EDM, the cohorts, the peer-to-peer groups, through our outposts. Uh, there's so many opportunities as innovators, as digital missionaries, as people who think outside of the box.

Oftentimes, it's we're alone. Uh, we're not connected with others who have similar ideas. And with that isolation comes frustration, depression, and things like that. And so we are creating the Church Digital as an ecosystem, as a network, as a place for people like you who are thinking outside the box to connect. And so hopefully you're hearing that across the conferences and the streams and everything that we're doing, the cohorts and the trainings towards that end. And it is my pleasure to be part of an incredible team globally that gets to do this on a regular basis.

By the way, bivocational, fractional leadership all across the board. Like, we are a volunteer organization for all intents and purposes, uh, globally, and it's so much fun because everybody's buying in to the vision of that. And so if you're interested in supporting what we're doing, missionary.digital/forward. Uh, the proceeds of what'll happen here will go on to help future conferences. Uh, as we're looking to do that, I should say this, and Simon, I apologize. This is the last announcement. We're going to land the plane.

The next digital missionary conference after next week, okay, Gaming Con next week. Uh, more information at missionary.digital/gaming. The next digital missionary conference will be May twelfth and thirteenth, uh, twenty twenty-six. So we've got a two-day block, May twelfth and thirteenth, twenty twenty-six. Uh, we're going to do a full day of a massive conference, and then we're going to do tracks, several tracks of conferences. Topics, uh, will be coming soon. I'm already lining up speakers, but we're excited about what's coming up, uh, down the road. And it was exciting to meet some people internationally. Thanks. Thanks for jumping on the conference here for this one. Y'all, I think I'm done. And so I'm going to land the plane here for this, uh, for this conference.

Feel free to hang out at the tables, go to the rooms, meet some of the speakers, ask some questions, meet somebody new, learn something in the tables. Like, don't just consume content, you know, it's been quick talk, quick talk, quick talk. Now it's time to actually talk to somebody else and, uh, and engage. So check out the tables, go to the sponsor section, download something from the sponsors. If there's one thing you can do for me is download the sponsor PDFs, click on the links, watch the videos before you leave, sponsors tab in the upper menu. That means a lot to the people who are helping fund this thing right now. So thank you for that. I'm going to go for Simon, for, you know, all the sponsors. Thank you, Mission Alliance, for being, uh, a major part of this. But I'm going to land a plane for the team here at Church Digital and everywhere across the globe. Thanks for being part of the conference. Go hit the tables, y'all. See you later.