BETA40: How Do I Plant a Phygital (TM) Church (in 3 Not So Easy Steps)

All right, hey, welcome to the Church Digital podcast. Actually, it's the Beta Show. I'm so tired I don't even know what I'm doing right now. This is going to be a great show here. Beta episode 40 here with the Church Digital. My name is Jeff. Once again, all of this is powered by Stadia Church Planting. I know what it is. The music in the background is just so inspiring. The chill factor, it's got me relaxed. I couldn't even think of where I was. Hey, I'm excited about this topic here with Beta 40. This is something that's hitting close to home. We're talking Beta 40 here. How do I plant a fidget church in three not so easy steps? Yeah, so three not so easy steps here towards planting a fidget church. What we're going to be talking about here at the Beta Show, we answer your digital and ministry questions online. So if you've got questions, you've got things that you want to talk about, church planting, established churches, digital only churches, whatever the expression is, digital first, text us here: 484-324-8724. That's quite literally my cell phone number. We'd love to hear from you here at the Beta Show. We do this every Thursday live on a number of different platforms. So if you're watching this on demand, feel free to jump in live. We'd love to have you part of it. Thursdays, noon here at Eastern, at Facebook, The Church Digital, as well as YouTube, The Church Digital. Links are on the screen and we'd love to connect with you. A podcast audience, hey, that's great. Love that you're engaging. Feel free to text us in some questions, but feel free to jump in here live. By the way, I'm just coming off of CPAC, Church Planting Assessment Center, for days helping digital only church planters sort of wrestle with what it means to be a digital church. Stadia Church Planting dot org slash digital. If you're thinking about planting a digital church, digital only, digital first, you feel like, man, I don't even know if this is really a thing, look at it, dig into this, maybe let's have a conversation. Stadia Church Planting dot org slash digital. Let's have a conversation in the time to come. Hey, Beta 41, what are we going to talk about? I'm not telling you now. It's a secret. We're going to get into it a little bit, but here with Beta 40, here's what we're hitting on. How do I plant a digital church in three not so easy steps? Maybe, maybe it's easier than you think. Two of them really you could do right now. But I am looking forward to this conversation and the music can go away. That's great. I don't know if I like the music or not. We're wrestling with that. Here's what I want to do up front here before we get going. I want to wrestle. I want to define what a fidget church is. Maybe if you've listened to me, if you know me, you're like, hey, it's the fidget guy. I say fidget a lot. Stadia actually owns the trademark for fidget in context of church, so we get to define it, which is awesome. The fidget is operating for a church. It's operating in the strengths of physical and in the strengths of digital. Now, that is easy to find fidget in established churches and churches that are already existing, but for a church plant that maybe doesn't have some of those resources, honestly, that's a much harder conversation. And so what I want to focus on with this conversation is a church plant, is a startup church, is a church that has yet to launch or is now just launching. Ironically, even in my own life here in Miami, Florida, I'm working with Reality Church, Carlos, church planter, who's on that same path. We are literally launching in two weeks, and these honestly are some of the conversations that we are having within our church.

So here's three simple steps. Let me give you step one here for you right off the bat. This may be a little more obvious. Focus on digital communications. Yes, it is important for a church plant to understand digital communications. Digital communications is crucial. As a matter of fact, what good is vision? Now, vision can run a church, but what good is vision, especially for a church plant, for something starting out, if it's not communicated effectively? And so church plants out there, in order to be fidget, recognize that the first part of fidget is understanding the communication piece. Digital communication, digital communication specifically. I'm talking here social media. I'm talking website. I'm talking email, video marketing, calendar planning, all sorts of organizational structure that comes around how to communicate. By the way, planter, lead pastor, you don't need to be the hero that's involved in all of these areas. What a planter needs to be is someone who can trust someone on your team, spiritually disciple them to the place spiritually where you can trust them, and then release them to manage the digital communications. If you, as a planter, lead pastor, if you're controlling those logins, if you're controlling those profiles, if you are the one that's approving every social media post that's happening within your church, you yourself are going to be the lid that's going to prevent that communication from happening. Empower others. Trust others. Disseminate that information out. That vision and let others that understand that platform run with it. As a result of that, also don't be afraid to experiment. It's honestly for the volunteers, and this is something that we're even wrestling with. It's better to ask forgiveness than permission. And so as a church planter, you can't know it all. You can't be involved in everything. Don't try. Trust your people to the point and let them run. And if they screw up, if they say something you don't like, um, hey, can you take that down? Let me teach you a lesson here. And this is why we would do it differently. Or even up front, create a style guide so you get the branding right. Branding style guide. But create a language guide. Hey, this is the posture we're going to take on some of these subjects. Here's how, what we're going to call our church. Here's where we're going to refer to lost people, people who don't know Jesus. Create some terms, maybe even some theological guidelines for your church to understand for your volunteers to understand as they're creating some of these digital communication pieces. By the way, even if you're not a church plant, that's a great idea. Create some documents. You know, I learned this from Ben Stapley, the document king over at Christ Fellowship Miami. Create documents, and the more that you document stuff and the more you give those documents to others, the more effective you're going to be in ministry. So, um, what do you think? We're talking about here, step number one. Focus on digital communications. Focus on digital communications. That is the core component for your three steps, not so easy steps towards being fidget. Do digital communications.

Disclaimer here with number two and three up front. Um, these can be done in different orders. I'm doing it in a recommended order that I think a lot of you will handle. We're going to be talking later on about maybe if we do these out of order and switch it up what it would look like for your church. So the real question is, are you going to launch physically first or are you going to launch digitally first? We're going to get into that here in a little bit. But let's assume that the answer is going to be physical first. I want to put a little asterisk here. I'm not sure that it's a good idea to do a true physical and digital launch at the same time. We're going to explore that here in a little bit. Honestly, with COVID, I don't know that I've seen a church really be digital, really go physical and digital in a deep way at the same time. And so I'm not saying it's not possible. I'm just saying I haven't seen it, and I don't know that it would be really worthwhile. So let's look at this. If you are launching physical church, then your next step, step two, is going to be engage with people in digital community for purpose to invite them to the physical church community. Now, this is not create a digital community. I'm not talking about streaming services. I'm not talking about anything like that. What I'm more suggesting is that you are engaging in regionally based communities, maybe like Facebook groups or hashtags, engaging in digital communities, meeting people that already exist in these communities, building relationships with these people, and connecting those people to your physical church. Other ideas: Facebook groups are a great way to do that. It's funny, just recently I did a search for Facebook groups and I put in the city of Miami. Thousands of options popped up where Miami is in the title of Facebook groups. And so there's plenty of options of already existing communities that you can go in digitally and meet people for purpose of inviting to your physical location. Other ideas beyond that: Nextdoor app is an incredible solution. Here in Miami, honestly, it's like specifically in my neighborhood. Uh, I get lots of postings about, you know, people who hear gunfire, shots like at two in the morning. So it's inundated. But it's phenomenal to me how many people within this physical neighborhood of where I live are utilizing Nextdoor to continually communicate with each other. Or maybe it's following on social media and engaging with accounts for local restaurants or parks or schools. I just saw a posting this morning, and there's a community around the school where my kid goes, one of my kids go, and so there's an opportunity to connect and engage in that digital community, building that relationship that feeds into your physical church community. Hashtags for public community events like farmer's market and craft fairs, and oh my gosh, there's so many sporting events. There's so many different options that can happen for digital community that you can engage in at a personal level, at a church level, and you can also invite the people who are already part of your church to engage in that digital community as well.

Now, the heartbeat here, and let's not miss this, is we don't want to create new community. At least at this point, what I'm more suggesting is that you're interacting with already existing digital community. So as a church plant, even if you are fidget and you're just starting out, this is not a massive, expensive thing. This is microscopic. This is utilizing the resources that you already have. You don't need streaming solutions. You need a smartphone. You need a laptop with a web browser. And so now you can start to meet people, engage. You can challenge your volunteers to engage with people within their physical circle of influence, within their digital circle of influence, and maybe even tap in and be that missionary into the areas that they are excited about, utilizing maybe some of these communities that, once again, are regionally based. Because all of the discipleship, well, it lands in your building. And I think that's important to remember. Recognize that the discipleship that's happening is only in the building physically? No. As a church plant, is that good? Is that bad? I've got opinions on that. But at the end of this, it's you get these people into the building for the service where they're getting connected into the group. So if that's your church model when you're launching, being fidget, utilizing digital communications and engaging in digital community, the strengths of digital for this model work very well. And so it's all about engaging in groups, in existing digital community, and building relationships digitally to drive people to that building where your discipleship front door, that building exists. So is streaming that full seventy-minute service, um, is that a wise thing? You know, I don't even know that it's necessary. I mean, honestly, I would be more excited, uh, and I'll say this right here.

I'm more excited about a 60-second video clip in this solution than I am about a full 60-minute service because remember, you're trying to connect with people, build relationships, new relationships. Hey, I just met you. Can you spend 70 minutes watching this video? Chances are the answer there is no. And that doesn't say anything about whether the God thing is right, the theology is right, wrong, bad. Man, you want me to give you an hour of my time? I don't know that I can do that.

Even creating these streams and these broadcasts, I'm very cognizant of the amount of time that we're doing right now: 12 hours, 12 minutes, and 50 seconds. And so I want to finish this as quickly as possible before my audience, before those that are watching, even on demand, tune out. And so if I'm really just trying to get somebody to come to a building, I don't need a full 60, 70-minute service. I really need a short synopsis for them to get a feel for it.

Now, Facebook, social media, these are still the front doors for your church, but it's not by watching 30, 40 seconds of a 70-minute service. It is instead much more about getting, creating content that's going to more effectively drive them to the service.

Remember here, when you're doing digital, there is nothing wrong with hyper-focusing on a locale, on using marketing to focus on even city blocks and say, "Hey, I want to target my marketing energy and I want to create connections, an opportunity to connect with people within a physical environment." As a church planter, that is a huge opportunity for you to create an opportunity to connect with people digitally that you want to then drive to a physical location.

All right, so a quick tip here: remember that when you're doing online, when you're doing this, it's better to ask questions than make statements. So when you're meeting people in these Facebook groups, when you're dialoguing with people through a hashtag, you're doing something through an event, learn who they are before you start talking about the church. Give them an opportunity to start the conversation and allow them. Remember also, we've talked about this: be slow to turn on the webcam. It's not always about, "Hey, great to meet you. Can you jump in a Zoom room over here?" Slow the roll. Let the relationship develop digitally, and through that relationship, you'll be shocked how open people are to continuing the conversation towards coming to the physical space, towards watching a video that allows them to connect.

There's plenty of opportunities that happen when you utilize digital community as a community to reach and engage people for purpose of driving to the physical building.

So here's where we are. Let's just, you know, the three steps—not so easy steps—for a fidget church to plant. How fidget should be working in a church plant.

Step one: we've got digital communications, utilizing digital communications.

Step two: integrating in already existing digital community.

Step three: here you go with this digital discipleship. Move to digital discipleship.

So why? Let's ask some questions. Let's go over why digital discipleship. The multiplication potential of digital is vital to a healthy church. Disciple-making DNA multiplies, replicates. It is the strength of an already existing church. To be honest, discipleship's not always there. I mean, I'll say it. I'm sorry. I had a church. I had a digital pastor tell me at an already existing church, a very established physical church, maybe megachurch level. He said to me, "Says Jeff, you know, the only people who actually in the church today, in the big C church, you know, the only people who are getting discipled?" Says church planters. That's it.

I don't know that that's true to that extreme, but the heart of it is that if a church plant is healthy from the beginning, there's such an urgency on building that team. It's not had years of wearing off. And so understanding that DNA from the beginning of that church and then supplementing it with a digital, supplementing it, that's like gasoline on a flame. And digital, how it multiplies and then how it's going to roll into a church that multiplies, that already has a multiplication structure in place, is a phenomenal opportunity.

Digital offers this perfect mix of reaching people and equipping people that would literally—I said it here on the screen—be gasoline on the flame of a church planting's existing disciple-making culture. And so that's really the challenge. If we're really talking about the why, why is digital discipleship so important? You see it right there because it's this: I'm going to reach people and I'm going to also equip people. I can build that relationship and then after I have the relationship, I can apply that disciple-making culture to digital, and that's going to allow me to equip people because digital is so strong when it comes to equipping people.

All right, so but then there's a why number two. Why digital discipleship number two? Because digital community is a community that's worthy of a digital church. You see, many people today use the term "digital church," but to be honest, I don't know that we're really doing church digitally. I think we're doing parts of church digitally. I think that we're doing broadcasting a service digitally, or maybe we're supplementing a couple groups here or there because of COVID that don't want to come back to the physical space. But if we really look at the ecclesiology, the biblical functions of the church, I don't know that we're seeing that done in digital space a lot.

There's an opportunity for a church plant to maybe recognize that. Now, there's a different type of person that we can reach digitally as well as physically. All those communities that we've connected to in step two, all those digital communities that we were now part of for purpose of driving towards a physical location, maybe some of those that wouldn't come to the physical location, maybe now you have an opportunity to be the church in that same digital community. You built that relationship in step two, but now is step three. As now we're looking at digital discipleship, we have some of those structures in place. Maybe there's an opportunity to be the church, maybe to do some of that richer ecclesiological functions in that digital space.

It's a challenge. Like I said, three not-so-easy steps, and we're starting to see here number three: there may be a challenge before you. Maybe it's better to launch that church first physically and then, "Hey, how do we do this next step?" Don't forget that the digital options are there for more and that you can reach a different type of person digitally than you can physically.

So here's the deal. If you are hearing this and this is resonating, Stadia wants to help plant fidget churches just like I've been talking about here. Stadia church planting dot org slash plant. Interested in planting a fidget church? Interested in planting? We didn't talk about it, but digital-only churches—there's plenty of opportunities for Stadia. We worked with, I don't know, a couple dozen planters just this week on going through a discovery process, assessment process, helping them understand what God is calling them to and what the ramifications of that are and how we, Stadia, can partner with them on that journey. So we'd love to have you. Stadia churchplanting.org/plant.

Well, hey, we're going to wrap here. Beta 40. As I said here, planting a fidget church plant in three not-so-easy steps: step one, step two, step three. Maybe there's an opportunity there. Next week, here's what I want to hit on. We're going to keep talking. Remember, step one: digital communication. Step two: digital community. Step three: digital discipleship. You could do some of that out of order. Up for conversation on that. The average church probably is looking at this one, two, three step right here. So love what that's looking like. Beta 31. What we're going to 41, what we're going to hit next week. Man, time flies. Starting a church, maybe thinking digital first. What does it look like? It's interesting. We've talked with just a couple planters this week that are planting, that want to do micro, that want to do physical, but they are thinking digital first. That's then going to grow into physical. And so it's online to offline. We're creating an online expression and online discipleship and online ecclesiology that grows into digital. That's going to be the conversation for next week here with Beta 41.

And to be honest, we're going to wrap. Hey, this is Jeff with the Church Digital and Stadia Church Planting. It's been a great conversation. I love what we're talking here about church planting, digital church planting, strengths of physical and digital working together. Questions, thoughts? Hit us up on social media. Myself, deerfedge, or the Church Digital on social media, your favorite platforms, or text us 484-324-8724. This is Jeff for everybody else here. Thanks for jumping on here. We'll see you next time here at the Beta Show. Y'all, good day.