BETA30: Three Reasons Your Church Needs To Go Multimodal

All right, hey, you've got the Beta Show here, episode 30. It's 30 on the Beta Show. I, you know, and I typed that in this morning. I didn't realize, man, it's been that long. We're doing 30 episodes here at the Beta Show. This is awesome. Hey, I'm Jeff with the Church Digital once again. All this is powered by Stadia, a church planner. We're going to be talking a lot about Stadia church planning here on the show. By the way, welcome if you're some of my Exponential friends. I was literally just hanging out in a webinar with the Exponential Conference talking about digital and how digital can help church planting, physical and digital church planting. Some fun stuff over there. So if you're checking us out with that, awesome. Thanks for being here. Like having you around.

Hey, remember here at the Beta Show we are answering your digital ministry questions. Feel free to check us out. Text us digital ministry questions. 484-324-8724. I'm literally giving you my cell phone number right now. Find me. Anybody else? Okay, maybe Gary Vee is doing this, but other than that, not a lot of people are giving their cell phone number out on the internet. 484-324-8724. Text your digital ministry questions. We will answer them in a future episode.

By the way, once again on the Beta Show, uh, we do this every Thursday, noon Eastern. We answer your ministry questions. We talk about things, and we're gonna be hitting more topics here very soon. I'm on vacation next week, and we're still going to do a Beta Show. It's going to be awesome. If you're watching live, throw those questions and comments in whatever social media platform you're on. We're streaming this on Facebook, on YouTube, on Periscope, Twitter. Uh, I'm trying to think. I don't know if there's anything else. Might be it. Wherever you are seeing this, put comments in there, and we'll try to engage with them and dialogue through it.

Next week here's a quick tease. What's the difference between a church broadcast, a digital slash digital campus, and a digital-only church? I get so many people asking this question. Yes, there's nuances that are involved, but those nuances are huge. We're going to be addressing those questions here on the next Beta Show. But for this one, episode 30: three reasons your church should be multimodal. Three reasons your church should be multimodal.

Here's another one of these words. Listen, vigil was a fun word to use, and we have to define fidget. We're still using digital even in this post-COVID culture. We've done a lot of streams here lately with the Beta Show talking about why digital is so important, physical and digital working together. Maybe you love that. We're going to create a new word here: multimodal. Stadia loves this word. Multimodal. Let's create multiple models of church.

Here's what multimodal means: multimodal churches have different models of church, different methods of discipleship, different opportunities in leadership. And so when we talk about multimodal, we're literally talking about different ways of doing church. And why we need—why we, the church, in this post-COVID, in this new world that we're in—we need to diversify our church here a little bit.

Now, when I say models, what does that mean? Here we go. Different models of church. You got your prevailing, the typical model, you know, what every church was doing like February 2020 before COVID hit. You got the building, or you're renting the building. You're doing the Sunday morning thing, 9 a.m. You're struggling to get people to come more than 1.6 times a month. Get that thing, yeah, okay. So that is a model of church. Now, it's not the biblical definition. There's other things. There's strengths and weaknesses to that model. If you look at Acts 2, for example, 36 to 47, somewhere in there you'll find that there's things that that model does well. There's things that that model does not do well.

There's other models beyond that. You know, we would look at a physical model, one that's using physical and digital together. That's different than doing a physical-only. Digital can complement that. We talk a lot about that here on the stream. There's digital-only. There's location-independent churches, churches that exist completely in virtual reality. And there's strengths and weaknesses to that model. There's avatar VR church. There's watch parties. There's microchurch networks. There's prison churches. There's workplace churches. There's all sorts of opportunities in digital and physical space to do churches differently.

By the way, I just said this like in Korea. I said this on the Exponential things I was just on in Korea. Some of the largest churches pre-COVID were actually in the country of Korea. Like their ability to do gigachurch in Korea was phenomenal. Some of the smallest churches are located in India. Three or four people huddled under a palm tree is defined as a church in India. And both are highly effective pre-COVID. So to say that the gigachurch model is wrong, or the India, the mud hut model is wrong of what they do in church, that I mean, okay, I think God has the ability to define what. But for us, let's take advantage of whatever models we can and hold it to that biblical ecclesiology.

I think that the challenge for us here in this 2021, the tension of summer 21 for us as the church, do we fall back on what we know or what we're comfortable with? The desire for all of us is to go back to the building. It's what we know. It's like, "Hi-ho, hi-ho, it's back to the building we go." Okay, look, that's a little silly, but the heart of this is I feel this tension. I've had this conversation with churches and have had conversation with other digital pastors where they're saying, "Jeff, our leadership is literally thinking about stopping our stream online because they think if they stop the streaming online, it's going to drive people back to the building. That 20 percent, they're just being lazy. We don't want him to be lazy at home. We want him to be in the building. The church on the couch, church on the sofa, is wrong. It's bad. It's worse than the building. And so we need to stop. We need to cut that off. And instead we need to try to re-emphasize and simplify what we're doing to get people back to the building."

And what I would suggest is maybe the answer isn't simplify. Maybe it's diversify. Maybe instead of leaning away and cutting off and simplifying everything that we're doing and realizing, "Hey, we just want to be building," maybe that isn't the answer. Maybe instead it should be, "Let's lean in and diversify and create more strategies within our church." If the building's not working to effectively reach everyone, then maybe we should figure out how to more effectively connect with people by doing some different models, which gets us entirely to this idea of Beta 30.

Three reasons. So we defined multimodal, and we're saying here's three reasons why your church needs to be more than just a building. I'm not slamming the building, hear me. The building's going to serve a purpose, and you're going to reach people with that building. The answer is not get rid of the building. The answer is maybe there are other things we should be doing that are going to work alongside the building.

Here we are, and this is going to maybe it's going to sound like I'm being controversial here. Buildings. Number one. Three reasons your church needs to go multimodal. Buildings will continue to lose influence. Number one: buildings will continue to lose influence. They'll have a purpose, but their influence is waning. Barna. We talk about this so much you guys are probably sick of me saying it. Eighty percent of people cold to Christ are not interested in coming to a physical building. They're not coming to a digital building either. And so to think of our digital service, whether the buildings are working or not, it plays a purpose. But if we're looking for it for evangelism, if we're looking at these buildings as hubs where we're going to continue to gather people in physical space, we were losing that influence. Our buildings were losing our influence pre-COVID. The shift away from buildings did not happen as a result of COVID. COVID was just an accelerant that got us many years down the road quicker. As a matter of fact, experts are saying anywhere from three to seven years of cultural shift happened within that COVID 16-month season. So we're further along. We're further away than where we were.

Our buildings are losing influence because people that are called to Christ aren't looking for answers, spiritual answers to their questions in the building. Similarly, even looking outside of the whole church thing, a global commercial real estate market is struggling. Like the brick and mortar model, even outside of the church, it was struggling pre-COVID. COVID was the knife in the back getting us away from this idea of brick and mortar. Meanwhile, e-commerce, ecommerce.com, is thriving in these environments.

Just last night, I didn't go to Sushi Maki located here on 144th Street, US-1 in Miami. To be honest, I Ubered it. I Uber Eats, yeah. I paid probably 10, 15 more than if I took the kids to go. I was tired. I didn't want to go. So we Uber Eats and we had our bacon fried rice in our house and we used an e-commerce solution to make it happen.

Look, maybe there's nothing wrong with the building there, and it is a property as a tool, a tool on the tool belt. It serves its purpose well. But if the goal of your church is to have a building, if the end game is "I need to have this building to be effective," that is the wrong idea. Because there are plenty of churches globally, there are plenty of models globally that are highly effective. They're just not using the building. So let's look at that. Buildings will lose influence, so we need to diversify what we're doing in order to be effective in ministry.

Number two, and I'm gonna cheat here. Number two: different models of church will reach different types of people. Different models will reach different types. Once again, this is a win. I can tell you stories of people that have been reached. As a matter of fact, with the Exponential group, I just told him the story of Danny. Danny hasn't been to church in a physical building in 10 years. He was actually disillusioned by church. He had religion shoved down his throat. That's his words, that's not mine. But what happened is Danny has accepted Christ within the Easter season through a digital-only expression of church. It was actually aimed for video gamers. Others are involved, but through that expression of a digital-only church that's aimed at video gamers, Danny, 24, at one of the darkest places in his life, accepted Christ.

Danny wasn't going back to a building, but through a digital expression aimed at a particular people group—video gamers—he accepted Christ. Oh my gosh, you can reach so many different types of people in digital space than you can in physical.

One of the planters that I've met recently is a first-generation Nigerian refugee, and his goal in planting a digital-only church is to reach other Nigerian refugees, displaced Nigerian refugees across the planet. You can never do that model in physical space, but now through digital you have an opportunity to do something different.

What if your physical church actually partnered with maybe some of the people that have a specific calling like this? And what if your church not only did the physical model but you reached out to a Nigerian people group or to a gamer people group or to American Sign Language? Another one: American Sign Language, ASL, hard of hearing. Another one of the largest unreached people groups in America. Oh my gosh, diminished potential we could have that would never happen in the building. Stop looking at the building as a threat. Figure out how you can.

Diversify your ministry to do something different. All right, now so I'm cheating here also. Realize to be different models of church disciple people in different ways. So remember we're talking here three reasons why your church should be multimodal: to be different models of church disciple people in different ways.

Here's the challenge: how we disciple someone in physical space, in a physical building, in that, you know, Sunday school and maybe it's a cell group model, small groups that are meeting in homes. How that works in digital space? How you're going to disciple somebody in a workplace ministry? It evolves. It looks different. And that's not a bad thing. It's a good thing because people need to be discipled in different ways.

There are people that are going to connect with a digital only expression utilizing a Discord. Or there are people that are going to connect better into a Zoom type of digital. There are people, and there are people that I've met in this season that are longing for the Sunday school model to come back. And that's not bad. I want to say, I want to say we need as many different models as possible because there are people that are engaged with that cell group model, with that small group that meets in homes. There are people that are going to engage better in a digital space and in a physical space.

I've personally, I've met people in my life that actually can't have a conversation and they're incredibly awkward on Zoom. But when you get them in virtual reality and they have that avatar that's separating it, it's a completely different environment because they're more comfortable in that space. And for me to say that you can't disciple somebody in virtual reality because that's not what they talked about in the Bible is ridiculous. It's a model. So let's figure out how to use whatever tools we have available to disciple these different people in different ways.

Creating that disciple physically, digitally, micro church, they all have to look different. Celebrate those differences. Encourage those differences. Find ways to support those differences moving forward because in the end, you're reaching a different type of person than what your single strategy of the buildings alone will reach. And that's the importance. You're reaching different people. You're discipling them in different ways. And you're mobilizing, releasing them into different methods than just the building alone.

Hey, look, number three here. Remember, this is three reasons why your church needs to be multimodal. Number three: allow a different type of leader to shine. As a matter of fact, just this morning I was having a conversation with a digital church planter that Stadia is working with. And we've had this conversation. She is not the paradigm of a church planter in a physical church model. She is not the charismatic leader, and she knows that of herself. She calls it out to say that she's not a leader is false. To say that she's not capable of planting a church is false. She's just not capable. She calls it out of herself. She's not capable. She's not leaning towards that physical church model. She doesn't have the charisma necessarily to do that in physical space. But her ability to lead digitally, she's far more interested in discipleship and disciple making, networking. She's more of a gatherer than the leader. And this is the stuff that really works well digitally.

She was created in her gift sets. I believe will help her be an incredible digital only church pastor. And we, Stadia, are helping her do that. You can talk to me, stadia churchplanning.org/digital. We'd love to have that conversation. Another show.

So whether you're trying to be the physical church, the digital church, a micro church is going to be different than a giga church pastor, a multi-site pastor, or even a multi-site campus pastor. That looks different than if I'm running a singular location or it looks different than if I'm doing a digital only. So your different models, if you're a multimodal church, this gives you different options to bring in leaders in different ways.

Maybe you've got that business leader who's in your church and he's looking for a challenge spiritually. And the only thing that you're coming to him for is, "Hey, I need somebody to help in the parking team." And, "Hey, you know what, I really need this. Check this donation because I'm wanting to build something out. Our times are hard. Can you help us financially?" Those are not bad options. But is it the best option? Are there ways maybe that you can develop him spiritually and then challenge him to reach others within the marketplace? Maybe we're diversifying even into the marketplace of what that looks like. Or you're talking to him maybe about expressing and reaching into a digital only expression. There are options to challenge people with different leader capacities, different skill sets beyond making that one hour on Sunday operate smooth.

Listen, I have produced tens of thousands of the one hour on Sundays. They're important. They're helpful. They're going to serve a purpose moving forward. But there are other options. And this is what we as a church need to consider. Maybe we need to diversify. Maybe we need to allow another type of leader to shine in the season so that they can be effective in ministry moving forward. There are diamonds in the rough and we don't even realize it, and we're not utilizing them at all.

Here we go. I lied. Are you ready for this? Top three reasons your church needs to go multimodal. I'm gonna give you number four. What can we afford in this season? Yeah, okay, look, let's not, let's call it out. It's really the fourth. I said three. I lied. We're good. We're cool.

The reality is that economics are hard. It's funny. I just read an article. I posted it in some Facebook groups today. 2020 U.S. was actually one of the top years for charitable giving. It was the largest year of charitable giving in U.S. history, 2020. We, the church, I'm seeing these articles all the time float through my desk. I know the stories. I've had the conversation with pastors. The church is struggling financially. We're shutting our doors in the midst of the largest charitable donation event happening in U.S. history over the year of 2020. I don't know how to explain this. I'm digging in. I'm having conversation. We're going to do a podcast on this on "To the Church Digital" here soon. But I think what the takeaway is is that maybe your multi-site can't afford to launch a new physical campus. What if you did one digitally? What if you put that emphasis not into a digital, maybe a digital only expression of church? Maybe it's more of a digital broadcast with digital discipleship online. Maybe it's a workplace ministry. You're going to talk with a couple of these business executives in your church and challenge them. Maybe there's some elders that on your board that need to get out and do things within the community they live in, and you want to create a microchurch or a micro location strategy.

Don't stop pushing ministry and multiplication because the economics are bad and you can't afford the lease on a new building, to buy a building, or the AVL cost. There are other things you can do. By the way, digital is going to give you a far cheaper footprint than physical. Micro is going to give you a far cheaper model than physical. And so utilize this. What can we afford? We can afford a different model. Explore that. Don't wait on it. Don't sit on your hands because and put all your eggs in a building that's losing influence. Diversify what you're doing into different ways, thinking about shutting down even to that level. If you're thinking about struggling, don't shutter the doors of your church. Shutter the doors of your physical location and figure out how to diversify in the digital only, in the micro, diversify into something else that's going to give you the opportunity to exist, to thrive.

Moving on, I have had a pastor tell me in this, I've had somebody tell me that going digital allowed them to thrive. Going physical, going back to physical actually hurt it, held them back. It was a lower standard. I'm trying to get this guy to do a podcast as a church down here in South Florida. I'm excited for this conversation because this guy's passionate about it. And it literally says, "Hey, Jeff, I was doing digital ministry right before COVID hit. We went physical. It actually slowed us down. It didn't work. We went back digital and we started skyrocketing again."

So to say that digital doesn't work, that it's not right, that it's theologically wrong, that's God's call for you, maybe there's opportunities to thrive in this area. Look and see where God is moving and join him in that act. At the end of the day, don't limit yourself to one model in this season of struggle. It's not put the eggs in one basket. Maybe it's to diversify.

If you've got any comments or questions, I would love to hear it. I've got Facebook user, love this. Don't know who you are, but the fact that you love this makes it happy for me. That's great. Any other questions? Feel free to throw it in there and I'll be engaging them in the chat. Don't limit yourself to one model in the season. Like I said, diversify.

We at Stadia, we are wanting to talk with churches that want to go multimodal directly. If you're thinking about this, hit me up on social media. Every social media platform you can think of, I'm DeerFedJeffrey. Backwards: D-E-E-R-F-F-E-J. Hit me up if you are interested in going multimedia. I, Stadia, we would love to help you in that.

Next week, my vacation week, I'm going to pre-record and we're going to set up the stream. You'll get it next week. And don't yell at me. I'll really be on the beach kicking back, relaxed next week here on the Beta Show.

What's the difference between a church broadcast, physical digital campus, and a digital only church? Hey, this has been a great time, maybe a little longer than I wanted to, but loved the opportunity to stream here. Exponential fans, thank you for that. Thank you for coming back. This is Jeff with the Church Digital and with Stadia Church Planning. We're going to wrap Beta Episode 30 here. We'll see you next time here at the Beta Show with the Church Digital podcast. Y'all have a good day.