BETA42: Tips for Better Online Small Groups

Welcome to the Beta Show. This is Jeff with the Church Digital Podcast once again. I love this. All of this is powered by Stadia Church Planting.

Hey, this is the last episode of the Beta Show. We're going to talk more about that here in a little bit. But for Beta 42, here's what we're doing: tips for better online small groups. Here at the Beta Show, we answer your digital administrator questions live, and we've done that 42 times here with the Beta Show. But of course, we are still wanting to engage and talk with you all. You can text us digital ministry questions at 484-324-8724. That's literally my cell phone, and so we'd love to engage with you if it makes sense.

And so let's continue the conversation. Speaking of continuing the conversation, here's the deal. I'm gonna be in Washington DC at the Exponential Regional Conference literally on a Monday. Monday I'm doing a pre-conference track talking digital church. We'd love to meet you if you're going to be at the Exponential Conference. Figure out how to sign up for that pre-conference track and come on. Let's hang out together.

Coming soon, by the way, I'm going to be at other regional conferences, and so you can find information there about the North Cal, the South, SoCal—excuse me, I didn't mean to offend all the Californians that are living on the south side of the state. Of course, there are gonna be other regionals in Houston, in Chicago. I'm gonna be at all of them. I'm doing a lot of traveling before Thanksgiving, and so we'd love to meet up with you. Go to exponential.org, and man, hey, let's get connected.

By the way, I said it before: bye bye Beta. Hang around. We're going to talk about that and what's next coming up here at the end of the show. But here with Beta 42: tips for better online small groups.

So I really want to drill in on this topic specifically for you. I don't know, I'm kind of digging having the music behind me. That's what we're coming up hopefully. We're going to have more of that. But hey, let's shift gears here and start to really drill in.

By the way, I love having Stream Deck. If you're not using Stream Deck and you're doing sorts of digital ministry, you should really check out some of the stuff that Stream Deck has available right now. Totally off topic, totally unsponsored, by the way. Love what Stream Deck is doing. But hey, let's drill in here: tips for better online small groups.

So here we go. Number one: flip the classroom. Go ahead and Google this. There's tons of resources centered around flip the classroom, but at the heart of this flip the classroom is, well, you know what, there was a couple—a couple high school teachers, as I recall. They were in science. I read the book. There's books. This is a whole economic, this is a whole academia school of thought centered around flip the classroom. A couple teachers discovered this where what they did was instead of lecturing in their high school classroom, you know, basic science, whatever it was, they decided that they would record the lectures and in real time give the lectures digitally to their students on iPod videos. This is how far back it goes. The actual, remember, like the YouTube iPod video from back in the day. So they would record the lectures and give them to the students on iPod videos for them to watch at home on demand, at their leisure, when they were doing homework. And then when the students would come into the class, the teachers weren't having to lecture back at the students. The teachers were able to answer questions from the students. The teachers were able to learn more about the students in their individual needs in that environment because at the time the teachers weren't utilizing the class time as an opportunity to lecture to dozens or hundreds of people. Instead, it was meant to be more meeting them with their individual needs.

And a lot of times when we look at how this works for online small groups, you know, I was having a conversation with a friend of mine, Ken. He used to work for Financial Peace University, you know, Dave Ramsey stuff. And they were trying to figure out how to do ministry online, how to do FPU online. And the struggle came: man, nobody wants to sit in a Zoom room and watch a 50-minute video and then only have 10 minutes to process it. What if we watched the video? What if we watched that Bible study video in advance? What if we watch that on demand? And then when we gather it together, we're able to spend time dialoguing, talking together on it? Not wasting the time watching the content in that shared environment, but actually able to build community, learn about each other and what our needs are, and pray for one another in those communities.

So a lot of times right now, man, if you're doing the share video thing in a Zoom or something like that, man, that's the wrong approach. By the way, this may also be the wrong approach as we're going into our weekend services, where maybe it's not sit and watch the 65, 75-minute service, but maybe there's an opportunity to dial. But that's for another conversation.

Flip the classroom. Number one. Number two, you ready for this? Platform matters.

So look, you know, we use this term a lot of times when we're talking about small groups at platform agnostic. I was just talking with the church literally 30 minutes ago about this because at the end of the day it doesn't matter what platforms we're on. And I've learned this in my own ministry life where there were times where there were groups that were meeting up. Like one was a soccer mom kind of thing that was wanting to meet together, and they wanted to use Google Meet or whatever it was called at the time. I know it's been rebranded a couple of times. There was another small group that was meeting up, and there were some international connections with this, and they wanted to use WhatsApp. And at the time, as a digital pastor, I kind of said, you know what, no, I want everybody to meet on platform X. And I kind of drew a line. I kind of was controlling a little bit here and said, hey, you know what, I want you all to come in, use this platform, because I don't want to have to support Google Meet. I don't understand the tech aspects of it. I'm not even sure I agree with like calling WhatsApp a small group. So no, here are the standards. You're utilizing my platform. It's the highway or no way.

You know what happened? Those groups still met. Those groups still exist, and they exist outside of those platforms. The platform that I wanted, the leadership still met, still did what they wanted to do. And so instead of saying no and pushing away, man, I lost the opportunity to help them, to help them multiply, to help them grow spiritually and to mature into it.

The platforms matter, not in that we need to control. We, the church, need to control, but that we, the church, need to recognize where people are and where they want to go. If you've got a soccer mom group that wants to use Google Meet, awesome. You got a bunch of CEO business type people that are already in Slack and they want to use Slack, cool. If you got a bunch of people that want to use WhatsApp, you got a bunch of gamers that want to use Discord, whatever it is. I mean, shoot, my friend Tom Pounder is just experimenting now with Twitter Spaces and doing a Bible study through Twitter Spaces.

So if you're wanting to use any of these platforms, by the way, if you're not familiar with Alter Live, alterlive.com, go check it out. Incredible platform for not just services but also for discipleship. But regardless of where the platform is, my advice would be pick one that works for your church that you are willing to provide tech support for. Otherwise, if people want to utilize different platforms, the ultimate question is: where do people want to be? And then let them go. Let them run. Let them explore that space. Empower them to do their thing in a different platform, even if it's a platform that you don't understand.

You know what's interesting? In the next week, we are actually rolling out a podcast. I am super excited about this. It's talking about a student ministry that is actually—sorry, it's a church that's starting to do Bible studies, starting to do small groups in Minecraft. And the pastors exploring Minecraft, and the pastors talking with others that understand. If you don't know Minecraft, that's cool. I don't know Minecraft either. And that's actually the heart of the podcast is explaining Minecraft. But there's an opportunity to connect with people. And rather than trying to control people and drive them to one platform, be open-handed here and let others drive where to go.

Number three here: tips for better online small groups. Slow the roll. Webcam. Look, so much of what we call digital ministry, we are trying to drive people to look into that camera and to engage in conversations. What's interesting in my ministry years, you know, especially recently, I've come across a completely different type of person. One that I don't know that I ever met in physical ministry space or in what I was doing digitally. I've started to meet a generation of people that aren't comfortable with that webcam being on. And I've started to meet a different, maybe classification of people that really are just, they want to engage digitally, but when that webcam's on, I don't know if they're self-conscious because of identity issues or they're not wanting to, like from a privacy issue, they don't want to be that real yet. And so I think there's an opportunity for us to engage with people, to dialogue with people, without the webcam.

So like, and I've seen this where a church is doing an online service, and hey, so the next thing right after that online service, you get a chance to jump on Zoom. We're doing a Zoom meeting with the pastor. Come hang out with us in this Zoom meeting with the pastor. This sounds like a terrifying idea to me because, well, first off, the pastor is the equivalent of like the high school principal. And so you want me to turn on Zoom Sunday morning? You want me to like actually get dressed? You want me to clean up my house because this pastor, the principal, the leader of the organization, is now going to see me? For many, I think that is a scary thing.

There's an opportunity, even within groups, for us to create an opportunity to connect with people without the webcam on, utilizing platforms. I mean, we're even just talking about the Twitter thing a second ago. Clubhouse has been incredible in this season. Even going towards things like, um, Bible reading plans from YouVersion, just an incredible opportunity to meet with people in a different way. And while we think, man, we really want to get face to face with people as soon as possible—yes, you do want to get face to face with people. You want to see them through that webcam. You want to dialogue with them. But when they're ready, and there's an opportunity to crockpot the idea, crockpot the relationship, slow cook it—if you didn't get the analogy—instead of microwaving it, trying to rush it through, warm that relationship before you turn on the webcam.

All right, so we're rolling here. We are moving past the slow roll, and we're moving to number four.

All right, number four: it's better to ask questions than make statements. Let me say it another way. Number four: it's better to use question marks than periods. Let's say it a third time: it's better to dialogue than monologue. Let me say it another time just to make sure we're all on the same page: it's better to shut up and listen than spend the entire time monopolizing the microphone in front of others.

I mean, that's the heart of this. And really in digital environments, I feel like I need to like turn off the shut up.

Thing, so I'll turn that off. It's a joke. You can hopefully get it. Look, at the end of the day, we need to be able to utilize the strength of digital when we're doing our groups, when we're engaging in community, not by talking, not by preaching, not by doing a one-way communication, but by listening, by dialoguing, by giving others an opportunity to speak and to highlight that, to listen to that, to value that, and to meet them where we are.

Doing digital ministry, doing digital groups, is not a "come and see" where I stand in front of the camera as I'm doing right now and I preach at you in a one-way conversation. This is not effective. This is one of the reasons why, honestly, we're moving away from beta and wanting to engage in more two-way conversations moving forward. For you, your church, there's an option, there's an opportunity for you to listen and dialogue. Your group leader should not be preaching. You've already got a preacher on Sunday morning who's doing this for your church. You don't need group leaders who are preaching. You need group leaders that are listening.

And honestly, if this is one of the things—and I'm going to shift gears a little bit, didn't know what I was going to do this—alpha as an organization does this incredibly well. Alpha is an event-based evangelism tool, and they train their leaders physically and digitally. They train their leaders to listen. They train their people to listen, and it's highly effective even in digital spaces. I've had a friend of mine's church have 700 people come to a single alpha event, and it was all centered around—and it's hugely successful because the volunteers, because the leaders, listened. And it's listening in digital environments that gives you an opportunity to have success.

So guys, shut up. Let's not utilize group as an opportunity to preach. Utilize group as an opportunity to listen moving forward here.

Number five: the first question really defines whether you're going to sink or swim. Hey, when you're doing—and this works for church services as well, this works in digital community, period—chat hosts, small group leaders, if your first question is so complicated, is so deep, is so rich that it gets not everybody in the room talking, you're going to struggle the rest of the day. I—this is a mistake. Learn this from me. I am the worst at this, where I come in deep, I come in heavy, and I get people staring at me. Um, not because it's a bad question, but because I haven't broken the ice. I haven't got them talking beforehand. I haven't got the group moving and engaging. I'm coming in too fast, too hard, too quick, too deep, and as a result of it, they are not comfortable yet having that conversation and asking that hard question right out of the bat. It's very hard to get the group to re-engage, to reconnect, once you get that done.

So what am I saying? The first question—hey, have a social hangout time before you get started in the small group dialogue. Talk with each other. Get people talking. This is hard in Zoom. This is one of the reasons why I mentioned Alter Live earlier—the opportunity to have side-by-side conversations, the opportunity to be social, the opportunity to kind of whisper to your neighbor exists much better in an Altered Live platform and in other platforms as well than it does, unfortunately, in Zoom. And so get people talking before you start. Um, and the first question that you asked in the Bible study, make it a softball. Make it an alley-oop, a lob. Make it something that people, multiple people, can talk about and knock it out of the park. Yeah, you're gonna get to deeper stuff later. You need to. You need to challenge. You need to ask such rich questions that people do pause, they have to think about it to come up with an answer. But if that's the first question that you're coming up with within the small group, it's going to be a struggle for you the rest of the day.

Cool. Number six here: time to lose control. In fidget, growth is the enemy of multiply. It's time to lose control. Here in fidget, growth is the enemy of multiply. I mean, and let's be honest here, we don't want to set standards so high as the limit the potential of the leaders and disciple makers that we have. I've made this mistake. I even talked about it earlier. I want everybody to be on my platform, and by doing that, I'm limiting the opportunity of growth and the reach of what me as a pastor and us as a church, as what we can do, even in that a very practical platform level. At a spiritual level, don't have a standard so high that you're turning people away, potential people away, that have potential to do ministry.

It's interesting, not related to this at all. I was reading a story the other day, man. This may have been an Ed Stetzer article. Ed, I don't remember where I saw it. Ed writes so many different articles, it's hard to tell. Ed, I'm giving you credit either way. But it was an interesting stat where um, China as a country needs missionaries. In China, and so the church in China would recruit missionaries to go into China. But before they would let them be missionaries within their own native country, they sent them away to England to go to theology training, to go to seminary. So anybody who wanted to be a missionary in China ended up in England to go to seminary. And then after the year of seminary, these Chinese missionaries would go from England back to China, across the continents, uh, to go back to uh, to get plugged in and become a missionary in China. And what the China church found out in this season was that the missionaries, once they got back from England, there were basically useless to the church in China because they were culturally programmed England. Because they lost their China root and culture.

Now, examples of this, I don't know specifics. I'm just reading this in an article. But the fact is is that there are people within the culture of whatever community that you're wanting to connect in to, have the opportunity to engage at a deeper level. We just need to challenge them to go where they are. We need to encourage radical thinking. We need to remember to experiment. Digital churches, digital multiplication, is not about numbers. It's about relationships. It's about individuals. It's about names. And often this is lost in digital because we think that digital is all about anonymous and not knowing who people are. And digital does have the challenge of doing that. It is possible. I've told the story about my friend of mine who's broadcasting his church service online, reached half a million people, 500,000 people. Fact is, he only got 11 connection cards. So there's 499,989—I'm probably doing bad math there—but you get the idea. There's a whole bunch of people who are anonymous in that opportunity. But for us, when we're doing fidget, if we're really utilizing the strength of physical and digital working together, we have to understand the relationships, the names that's happening here. Digital groups—it's not about control. It's about equipping disciple makers, releasing them, and encouraging them along the way as they're going on mission.

This, by the way, is the opposite of control. I'm not telling people, "No, you can't do that." I'm talking with them, "What do you want to do?" And then encouraging them to do that, praying for them while they're doing that, having faith that God is going to use them on their journey in a better way than God could use me to force them to do something different. Really being fidget, really understanding digital is this release of control that is going to allow God to move in individuals' lives that are higher and better than what I could do on my own.

Number six—and this may be the most important thing that I say today—it's time to lose control. And fidget, all growth is the enemy of multiplication. So take that away. Those are your six tips for better groups moving forward.

Hey, this has been great. Uh, let's say bye to the Beta Show. We are done. Uh, it's about 42 of these. I'm not saying I'm never coming back. I'm not. We're going to keep broadcasting. We can't keep doing different things in different formats. I'm going to put beta on the shelf. You may see it again. Beta had some spin-offs. If you're around for like the crazy stuff we were doing with Cray, um, yeah, let's take a break on it. We're going to get some back to some podcasts here in season two.

Well, here, let me do this before you get to season two. Uh, what did we learn in the beta? What are some takeaways that I learned here in the beta show?

Number one: you got to let go of something good in order to grab onto something great. And the fact is that the resources that went into beta, it really caused us to—yeah, we want to do something else, but let's figure out what that is and let's give it a shot.

Number two, attached to that as well: don't be afraid to kill something that's working, especially when there's limited resourcing that's involved. Um, we could keep doing the beta show, but we're going to change formats because I think there's an opportunity to do something better as a result here.

Season two is kicking off next week, and we're excited about this here with the Church Digital, excited about this through Stadia, and we're going to see really a rollout of a new emphasis centered around innovation, centered around crazy thinking, crazy ideas that really is going to push the church, that's going to elevate the church into this next season of ministry.

Look, it's so easy to look at ministry pre-COVID, COVID, mid-postcovid, wherever you think you are in the story. But the reality is is that for a lot of us, going back to the building is a priority. It's a priority for a lot of churches. For us, the Church Digital, we want to keep championing this idea of this innovation of what's coming next. And for us as the organization, we want us to continue—not start, because we've been talking about it—but we want to continue, not necessarily trying to convince people to do digital, but telling the stories of those that are doing digital and how that's being effective in ministry today.

So beta, man, it's been 42 episodes. We love you. It's been great, audience out there. Thanks for jumping on this and being part of the beta show. But we are very, very looking forward to what season two looks like, kicking off just next week.

By the way, also kicking off next week: Exponential in DC, as well as some other events coming here in October and November.

So to wrap for all of this: this is Jeff with the Church Digital and with Stadia Church Planning. Thanks for jumping here on the stream with us, and uh, we'll see you next week in season two. You all have a good day. Bye.