EP126: Jared & Angie Hughes and the Co-vocational Approach to a Digital Only Church

All right, welcome to the Church Digital Podcast once again. It's powered by Stadia Church Planting. We're talking digital only expression of church. By the way, I love what I'm doing, what I get to do with Stadia, and helping people plant digital only, to start digital only expressions of church to help them start churches literally without walls. And so this is a phenomenal aspect of my life right now. I love it. And I love this conversation because I get to talk with digital only planters, people that are starting and that are running arguably probably one of the most successful digital only churches in the Western Hemisphere.

So we're talking today with Jared and Angie Hughes. So they honestly, they were not even on my radar pre-COVID. Didn't know who they were in the context of digital ministry. And so when they pop up here with Hope City Church in this COVID season, quickly I kind of wondered, where did you come from? What's your story? What's your background? How did I not know who you were? And what not? It's not egotistical on my part. I just really love talking with people and love hearing the stories of digital church and online ministry. And they were not on my radar. And I quickly discovered why in this conversation because they didn't start digital ministry. They were novices even walking into the beginning of this COVID season.

So in this COVID season, instead of trying to push back to the physical building, they actually gave up. They passed over a building that a denomination was going to give them because they saw more potential in discipleship and disciple making done in digital space. That's right. So they gave up a building that somebody was going to give them because they wanted to focus on digital ministry. Beautiful, beautiful story.

And some of the successes that they've seen, some of the opportunities they've had to even merge Angela Craig's Pursuit Church Live in this 2021 year has actually merged with Hope City. Angela's obviously great friends with the podcast, been on lots, but as a lead pastor is transitioning into a different role, more towards equipping planters as well. And so she is giving, literally Hope City, or a church she's literally giving her them her church, Pursuit Church Live. Hope City has become nothing in the beginning of COVID season all the way to a giga church arguably within fifteen months. What does that look like within the church? How does that look within leaders? By the way, the leaders themselves, Jared and Angie, they're not even full-time pastors with the church. They've opted to go by vocational where they have outside jobs. What are they doing? Why are they doing this? What's the mindset behind not going fully into the ministry and instead diversifying and doing multiple things in addition to arguably the largest digital only church in the Western Hemisphere?

So this is a really fascinating conversation that we're digging into here. Once again, we're bringing myself Jeff with the Church Digital as well as Jared and Angie Hughes, the lead pastors, the co-lead pastors of probably the largest digital only church in the Western Hemisphere, Hope City Church, in a conversation that I'm simply calling the co-vocational approach to a digital only church.

Okay, everybody, here you go. We went to the Highlands Church Conference, Pastor Chris Hodges, and God spoke to us. Spoke to me when we were there and said, "I called you to lead and you're not doing it." And so we came back. I came back from that. We resigned at Timberlake as the campus pastor. And with the plan of just, you know, going back into the past work, and it was incredible what happened. You know, Ben Sigmund, he said, "Yeah, it's crazy." He helped us canvas church. Timberlake Church was amazing. God thing because he was like, "You know what? Why don't we do this? Why don't I give you the location there in Bothell? We'll give you all the gear, all the stuff. Launch it as your new church, become part of the, you know, the Free Methods Church, being obviously camp conference." And so we did. So October or January 2018, we relaunched that campus as Canvas Church. And pretty much by that, yeah, 2018, right? Yep. To January 2018, we began Canvas Church emerged. And then we were felt like we were just getting into the groove of church planting when COVID hit, which a lot of us kind of put in the same exact, yeah, yeah.

So you know, like Craig Whitney. So it's so great with Craig Whitney, man. That guy challenged us so much. It was he asked me one question. Was Jared, what is it? What is a disciple? When you think of a disciple, what's a disciple? That sounds like something Craig would say. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I didn't like it too much. Anyways, no, I did. But it was really challenging because, you know, you sit back and you think. And he goes, "Behind but be beside somebody that reads the Bible and prays, okay?" Yeah. Because what's a disciple? And somebody said, "What's a disciple of Canvas Church?" And that really led us on this path, I think, where we're at today. It was a massively great question. We laughed and got angry and but it makes you think like, what are you? What are you trying to produce? What, what, what are you trying to? What's it trying to look like, you know?

For us, you know, the background that we have in ministry, you know, we know a lot. We just know a lot of people as well as you do, a lot of movers and shakers in the kingdom of God. And you know, we've been around the block a few times. And for us, the, if we can edit this out if you want to, it's fine, but I think the blow up and show up model is done, you know? Um, not everybody. I had someone tell me once, "Unless you can raise three hundred to five hundred thousand, don't even plan a church. Just go join someone's team." And to me, that's, you know, if I could raise five hundred thousand dollars, I'm probably not going to plant a church, to be honest with you. I'll probably do something different. I just think if there's so many called people, if that is the narrative that's out there, that you have to have the ability to raise hundreds and thousands of dollars, your network has to be so significant and so massive that you can actually go ask so many people, you're so well connected, you're probably not planting a church, you know?

And so maybe you are. That's a few or far between. Most likely, those that can raise three hundred to five hundred thousand dollars to plant a church are a part, probably, of some mega movement, which is wonderful. That's not bad. We were part of a mega movement. They're probably well known somehow, socially media already. They have a good following of people. That's not the norm. That's not the everyday person, you know?

Hope City Church, our tag line is Hope City Church is about bringing hope to everyday people. There's a lot of pastors, a lot of people are called by God who are just everyday people who do not have the ability to raise millions of dollars or hundreds of thousands of dollars. And if that's all the narrative they're hearing, though, the only story they're hearing is that, then with the thought of, you know, if you can't do that, don't start a church, then they're probably sitting on teams they're not supposed to be.

So if you're starting, if you're sitting on a team but God has called you to lead and you're sitting on a team, then you're being disobedient to God. So what's the worst part? The worst part is being disobedient to God. There's lots of people that I know personally that God has called them, and I know that God's called them. It's clear to lead, but they like being on a team of thousands of people or hundreds of people, and they're worried about, you know, what if my church is only fifty people, you know? But you're not, you're not doing what God's called you to do. And that, and that's to me, is the big, the biggest travesty with some of the church planting or the some things we've seen in America.

If it's working, then why would you have some? Why do we have so much decline in the church in America? Well, I think, you know, I think too, Craig, Craig did he ask us so many questions that challenged just a lot of stuff. Is that a lot? I'm talking about his abs, Craig. Yeah. So we'll blame Craig. Yeah. You know, out of just like, okay, what is church? What does church really look like, you know? How do we, you know, how do we, you know, pivot if we have to pivot, you know? What's success? What's not success? And what does success look like to us? And so out of those questions, when COVID hit last year, it honestly, what, how he asked us those questions and got us to think outside of the box. And then our kids who work in the tech industry, that we're like, "Uh, Mom and Dad, you guys need to have a social media presence before we start, you know, planting an in-person church." And so we looked at those things. And I remember our first Sunday that nobody can meet, and we did online church as Canvas Church. And afterwards, we're like, "Oh, wow, yeah, this isn't anything like what we thought digital ministry looked like." And that's good. Yeah, that's a great point.

Wait, wait, wait a second. Are you saying that you, not even like in the beginning of COVID season, you were not even thinking digital only? Not once? So in this COVID season, you've managed to launch a digital only church and merge with Pursuit Church Live, arguably the largest digital only church in the United States? Yeah, yeah. Holy cow. Well, and we did it honestly. There was no mental pivot until last fall. Yeah. So we did this thinking we're, I mean, so what happened was, so we lost our church in Bothell. And then it shut down. We were meeting out of school, typical church, yeah. So no schools were open. No schools are open. So we were in the process of, of just, you know, we just got started getting our feet underneath us. COVID happened, yeah. And so we, like, what do we, what are we going to do, you know? We probably have, you know, four hundred people following us as far as Canvas Church, yeah, on social media, social media, yeah. And we just started broadcasting from our apartment, yeah, with our iPhones. And we're like, "Man, this is great," you know? And so doing that and then, you know, engagement and stuff that began to happen even on that first Sunday to us was awesome.

So that started in March, and then by September, yeah, October, we've got grown from four hundred to over two thousand people. And we're, we're like, probably September, and we're in the process of, you know, talking with our, with our superintendent, Michael Forney, who's amazing leader. If people don't know who Michael Forney is, and Peter, I'm gonna blow this guy up. That's the guy that people need to talk to. I'm tearing right now. That man knows what he is. Not only is he intelligent, not always, he's educated, which is intelligent. He is tapped into the Holy Spirit. I tell you right now, that guy is somebody that people need to know. Amazing, amazing, amazing leader.

And so, yeah, well, you know, and I was going to say, I mean, and he challenged us, you know? I feel like Craig and Michael in these last three years honestly had gotten us to think outside of the traditional church box. And which I feel like more so than everybody else, I think, yeah. And we were, I would say traditional church people. Even when COVID hit, but when COVID hit and we began to change what could happen, and I'd say fall of last year, we began to have a discussion because we had the potential of actually being given a building. And we could go back into a building once, you know, COVID was over, or you know, possibly, you know, continue to stay in the space. Well, last end of summer, beginning of fall, Jared and I began to talk about just, you know, the relationships that we're building on online.

The discipleship that is happening is greater for us than it has been in the last ten years of ministry. And so that, for like the person, yeah, like the personal engagement, you know, the personal like connection that we were just noticing, like again, not really understanding what was going on.

Angie and Angela Craig met in August. No, I think it was like September. September? Yeah, October. The same time that everything is just 2020.

You know, they kind of connected. Michael introduced them and they connected. Hope City Church was growing digitally in October, November of last year. We had to make a decision whether there's a building within our conference that we were offered that we could have, you know, just get back to normal church when church came back. Debt-free building, property right downtown Bothell, beautiful place, you know, everything you would think of as a pastor like, yeah, of course. And Michael asks the question and it, he said, "I'm 98 percent sure the building's yours, the property's yours, you know, I mean, he goes, 'Do you think that if you guys went back to typical church, which is not bad, you know, traditional church, is it going to hinder what God is doing through you right now?'"

And Jeff, I sat in that chair eating Mexican food, sat back and went, "Hmm, let me think on this." We went home, we talked, we prayed, we talked to our team, and I'm like, "I think we're gonna do what..." I mean, every pastor in the world, their goal unfortunately is to get a building or a bigger building. Yeah, or a bit bigger building. Pastors, listen, if you're watching, that should not be your goal. Listening, that should not be your goal. Your goal should not be to get a building or a bigger building. That should not be the goal of the ministry. The goal of the ministry is to reach people who don't know Jesus, who are lost for eternity. That's the goal.

Now, buildings are not bad. We owned a building, had a building, sold it, gave a building away, turned down a building and property that's worth millions of dollars, not because we figured some things out. It's just, you have to hear from the Holy Spirit. If the Holy Spirit is telling you to get a building, get a building. If it's just the traditional route of ministry, then don't do it.

Well, that's what, and that's what I love about, you know, even going back to Craig and Michael, they challenge us to get outside of the box, think outside of the box, and then in that you can allow the Holy Spirit to direct you. And I feel like that's really where 2020 led us.

Sure, for sure. And so we came back and we did, I think I had some friends of mine like, "You're nuts."

Well, they are. They've already thought you nuts anyway for years.

Yeah, anyway. So we turned it down and we decided we're not just us, our team, yeah, we decided that we're gonna go fully digital. And in January of 2021, we relaunched Canvas Church as Hope City, and that's where Hope City came out of, you know?

Yeah, Hope City Church was launched in January 2021. In February, Angela Craig reached out to us. Yeah, the end of February. In February, and asked if we would consider being one of the four or five candidates to take over Pursuit Church Live. And so which came completely out of the blue. Yeah, we were like, "Yeah, I'm just like, what?" You know, by that time, you know, Angela was mentoring us, giving us good pointers. I mean, just everything you think about was like, you know, read her book seventeen times and Nona Jones and other people, of course. And so by that, you know, by January this year, we're fully like, God is leading us, this is where we're gonna go.

Yeah, and when she reached out to us, and this, the momentum of that, and this is the, I think the great, like, understood, yeah, you know, to be, we're like, "Sure, I mean, okay, you know, what does that even mean?" No one really knows at the time. So we went through that process, and to go through that process with the Assemblies of God and with her board, her board, after we met with them, unanimously like, "This is the couple to take over Pursuit Church Live." Met with the Assemblies team, they approved it. Yes, this is the couple for it. To us is overwhelming, you know, to think that God would know, that God would choose us, that Pastor Angela would, you know, even consider us to be, you know, we were the only candidates that weren't Assemblies, you know, and we've only been in, honestly, we'd only been in digital ministry since March of 2020. So I mean, we're novices. We don't, we're just kind of figuring it out and trying things that maybe nobody else would because we have no idea what we're doing.

That's great. We have no idea what we're doing, so it's awesome, you know?

Well, it's amazing to me. It's amazing that it's like you weren't, when the rest of the majority of churches are trying to get back to February 2020, "Let's get back to that physical space, let's put pressure, let's drive everybody towards it," you're one of the few that I've heard that is a hundred percent sold the opposite direction. It's like, "This digital thing is incredible. This online ministry, there's so much potential, there's so much more power for discipleship and intimacy in some of this stuff," and God rewards you with like a giga church worth of people handed to you on a silver platter. Like, this is, I had it, it was funny, like I questioned myself honestly. I'm like, "How have I never heard of these people?" When Angela mentioned your name for me a couple times, it was like, "I was like, I've never heard of them." And it's, "Well, it's because you weren't around. You weren't doing anything in this digital space." This is, I mean, I'm literally, I'm totally taken aback. I was not expecting that in this conversation. It's beautiful to see how God's moved in this with you all.

Well, it's wonderful. Jeff is like, you know, not, we're so sold on this, you know, the more that we study, the more we realize, you know, you're going to know more of these stats than probably more than I, and you'll share if you do, I'll be like, "Okay, we'll add that," you know?

The fascinating thing is, out of a period of my life about five years ago, I was driving, deep, struggling deeply with anxiety and panic attacks, and I started, I started an online game just to do something to get my mind off of ministry for the most part in life. And I started playing this online game, and to look back at that, some of these guys, five years, I'm still playing five years later, we're very close friends. I mean, we somewhat, we've never met, we've never met in person, we probably never will meet. They're all over the world, some of these men, some of these guys and gals. I have pastored them through their loss of their mom, their dads, divorces, as close as anything else. And to look at that, to think that that right there was a moment the Holy Spirit was using to prepare, to change my mindset, our mindset. This is what I've learned now, now being digital pastors, you know, since March of, what, yeah, 2020, night, yeah, just a year. This is what this, what I've learned, and you know, Angela's helped us with this as well, and we know this to be true. There's hundreds of thousands of people possibly watching you that you don't know. You have no idea. There's no way. And the algorithms, the way Facebook and Instagram and YouTube do things, you know, you're not gonna know. But when they connect with you, they connect, and it's instantaneous. It's a fast connection because they know you. They've watched you. They think they know you.

We've seen this all over the world in, in just the, you know, I don't like to use the word "secular" and "church" interchange. I don't like to use it. Just, we're people, right? And so when they connect with you, it's real, it's fast, and it's now, and it's you. So we teach our team, so what our process on our Sunday mornings or anything we're doing during the week, if somebody's liking what we like or it's doing any, any like or heart, whatever any engagement, we require, we ask our team, require our team, it's mandatory that we are engaging back with them because that's a person that's saying, "Hey, do you see me? I'm here, you know?" We instantly engage with them and we reach out to them, we pray for them, we invite them. At the same time, at the same time, going back to some things that Craig helped us with, I think for years us pastors has spent too much time trying to drag people through a process they don't want to be dragged through. A disciple is a person biblically that wants to follow. There's something going on on the inside of them. They want to be, they want to mimic. So we have to get back to the understanding of the Jewish culture in it and what and how Jesus, the moment, how he is leading in those spaces. He wasn't trying to force people to do something they didn't want to do. They wanted to do it. And so I think for, for, for, you know, probably the last decade, couple decades, you know, we have these great terms of "next steps" and "your next right step" and this and that, and trying to get people, you know, if you have somebody volunteering at your church, you know, they're saying hi to somebody at the door, we think they're a disciple. They're probably, they could be, but they're probably not, you know? They're just a good person that wants, doesn't mean they don't love Jesus. They're just volunteering, you know? We want to create, we're not called to create volunteers. We're called to create disciples. And the disciple, what a disciple is, has been already Jesus, the one that said what his disciple is. A disciple is a person that dies themselves, take up the cross of all Jesus, follows him. So I think what we were discovering is digitally we put the pressure on the people to make, to decide to follow. When we see, you know, we're easy, right?

Well, and we're seeing people that, you know, maybe we're watching, and actually stories of people that I were, I was watching you for months, never engaged, never liked, never did anything, then all of a sudden they, they are, but then they're the ones that are actually engaging with other people and inviting people into the conversation. And that's what we have seen, you know, people inviting people, bringing people along with them in the digital space way more than we ever could to bring people inside of a church building with walls. It's easier to invite someone where they can see from a distance, maybe not feel overly, you know, pushed back on, and then they can, you know, maybe tip that, you know, dip their toe in and then jump in. And that's what we're really seeing.

Yeah, I think this, I think the digital space is not going away. Yeah, the virtual world is, it's here to stay, yeah, you know? And we need to realize this as a church. Going back in person now, look, don't get me wrong, I love going, I love worship, I love being around people, I love that whole atmosphere, but honestly, I think, do we love the atmosphere? And be, again, atmosphere, do we really are we really engaging with each other? Or we just wanted a fix of that feeling of what it's like to be around a bunch of people engaged in a certain thing? I think that's more of the thing than anything else. Again, being raised in an environment, mega environment, where you know, you have the best of the best all the time, no matter what you do, you know, are we really discipling people? Are we really engaged in their lives? These are questions we have to ask ourselves as a church, as a church globally. If we're declining in America, reaching people and discipling people, we have to stop and ask ourselves why, why, why, why do we see platform the biggest ministries of the nation, the biggest this, the biggest...

We're declining, so we have to either we're not declining and that's just a bunch of propaganda, or we are declining and yet why do we only hear from people who have churches of thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands? Okay, so why are we declining? How do we change that momentum?

I think what God is showing us in a number of ways, number one, the virtual again, the virtual world is not, is it? It's not gonna go away. We're gonna see more digital churches. We're gonna see more of it. We're not gonna see less of that. And that's gonna go, that's going to confront our vocational ministry life. I think, yeah, yeah. Let me ask this because I'm curious. You, within the past 18 months, your Canvas Church has become physical, COVID digital, and now you inserted, I don't know, thousands of people into this equation. You know, and I've heard Angela Craig talk about the stats: 51 percent outside the United States, 49 languages, 48 countries. Like, it's just ridiculous some of the exposure that she's been able to get and the connections and the relationships and the churches she's developed entirely on Facebook. Who's keeping up with this? Like, how are you getting the Canvas people bought into a digital process into, it sounds like a new discipleship, disciple-making-centric environment? Like, are they drinking from the fire hose? Are they keeping up? Are they like, "I'm out of here. I want to go find the physical building"? What's been some of those environments? Because you guys have transitioned heavily, dude.

That's a great question. Let me answer it and answer it this way. Um, yes, yes, no, no, yes. It may be. Um, I think our core team completely spotted. Yeah, we did. We made the decision together. It wasn't just Jeremy, "This is what we're gonna do." We all went on this journey together. So it's been an, uh, literally an open conversation. And, um, so that's been helpful. We've actually, I feel like the first time in our life as senior pastors, we've had a team that we're doing something together versus we're making the decisions. And you know, which goes into it, it goes into a bigger conversation. You know, it's again the co-vocational role. We've been co-vocational for three years. Um, not just when we started Canvas Church. We, we saw when we transitioned Timberlake Bothell campus, we know we saw the money coming in, the money, you know, being spent, and said that's not gonna work. You know what's good about having a multi-campus church? You know, when one campus is struggling, you know, the rest kind of helping along. You know, and when you're seeing a 50 percent help and you're taking over and you realize most of these people are going to leave because they're part of a different church and we're not the same way, we both decided, "Let's get back our feet back into ministry, into the secular world, secular again, back into the work world." Um, because there's there's no way it's not gonna be sustainable. Um, so that's a whole nother conversation of, you know, what it's got, what it really looks like. Um, uh, we, yeah, yeah, I would say in the last six weeks, once it's become solidified now, you know, I mean, people now that churches are going back in person and they should, there's nothing wrong with that. People in our church, and I think what we're seeing is families that have children, want, who are church people, church people, not in a bad way. I don't want to do that. Church people who have friends and family, you know, they have kids, they want to be in person. Um, that's not bad. That's great. Um, I understand that they want, they want to build community with other people. It's best way to build in-person community is be in person, you know. Um, over the last six weeks, we've lost four thousand dollars a month in giving. Well, and it's, you know, and there's a lot of different factors. I think, you know, there's we need to have multiple things. In person is obviously huge. I mean, we're people, people. We need to be around people. And I think with families, especially with COVID and kids, you know, doing school from home and virtually, their social things and their social implications that are taking place now in our kids, which is causing, you know, more anxieties and stresses and those kind of things. So I think, you know, families is harder to stay online only. Um, and so we have had some people in Canvas Church, you know, the transition to, yeah, they want to go back to in person. Um, and or this transition is a little bit too hard for them. I mean, I feel like in any transition, you, you know, people join with you and then people move on to something else. Um, so yes, we've had that. Um, and there has been transition. Um, even in PCL and Hope City Church becoming Hope City Church, I mean, there's connections with, you know, Angela, and Angela is probably one of the best discipleship pastors that I've actually come in contact with. She knows so much about the individual and, you know, cares about, you know, individual people that, that, you know, there's people that are connected with her and she's had a lot of great leaders on her team. You know, and so we've seen, you know, a little bit of transition in that, but we've also seen a lot of people begin to, you know, um, that we would have never thought that would even be leading, begin to like rise up and start leading in that way. So it's been exciting, you know, in a journey in a process. And so when I said yes to all of your questions, yes, we're experiencing all of those things.

Yeah, I think the realization that if you leave digitally, you have a lot of leaders. Yeah, you have a lot of leaders that bought in to understanding that 3.8 billion people are going to go on to social media this month. 3.8 billion people virtually are engaging. 1.6 to 1.8 billion are engaging just on Facebook. And they're not all the 70-year-old grandmas. We love our 70-year-old grandmas. The fact is that's not true. They're millennials, lots of millennials, lots of 30s and 40s that are engaged on Facebook on a monthly basis. It's also realizing that we don't want to reach church people. I don't want to reach church people. Church people can go to church somewhere else. It's great. Um, we want to reach people at Hope City Church that don't know Jesus or D Church or who have left the church for various reasons, primarily. Um, I think we can reach people who can't be reached. You know, there's some nations that we're reaching right now that were connected with pastors or just everyday people that somehow find us in countries that they can't have a church, but they have a phone. That, you know, and on that phone, you can have the gospel being preached to you. So I think as pastors and leaders, we have to realize that, you know, God holds the whole, you know, the whole song, the whole world in his hands. The whole world is in your hands now. But I think in the end, what we're worried about is our vocation. Now, I'm not saying everybody has to be bi-vocational or co-vocational. What I'm saying is if you're fighting against in-person, uh, online ministry because you're worried about people not coming to your church, you need to really, really rethink what we're trying to do here. What we're trying to do is reach the billions of people who are eternally lost. If you die and you don't know Jesus, you go to hell for eternity. I hope as a church we still believe that. Yeah, if we don't, we better rethink what we're doing. Um, you know, it's funny, but we work with digital through Stadia. We work with digital-only planters a lot. And, um, probably last year, and I, I told you guys off the air, we probably talked to, I don't know, 50, 75 digital people who are interested in digital planters. By far, the majority of them were, um, co-vocational. They were not one, which is, I think, this is a new area for Stadia, at least it was a new exposure to me. The majority, you know, "Hey, I want to make a living off the church. I want to give 100 percent of it." There was an IT director of a Fortune 500 company, uh, who I talked with. He was lived in Canada. Uh, in his direct quote to me is, "Jeff, I'm making a ton of money over here with this Fortune 500 company as their IT director. I'm not, I want to do ministry on the side of that. I'm not looking to have a bunch of ties become my paycheck, but I don't want to stop that from doing ministry in a digital-only expression of church." And so it's interesting to me because I think when you're talking co-vocational, it's a different mindset than the majority, honestly. The majority of our listeners are probably used to because it's not, they're these are people that are on staff or are volunteers that want to be on staff and are volunteering and serving to the place, hoping that they would be hired. And I, I was, you know, a couple decades ago, I was one of those kids who's like, "Yeah, let me learn and grow." When we, we, so like, that's what I want to. I would love to get your perspective on because you're intentionally, very intentionally, pivoting away from that. Uh, you could, I mean, look, you just merged with a 16,000-person gig at church. I don't know what your numbers are and butts and seats and nickels and noses don't necessarily mean much, but you could very easily be, "Hey, I'm going to play golf 17 times." You could be that guy. You're not that far away. You're intentionally not. We, we don't have to work. We don't have to work outside the church. Yeah, we choose to. So talk to me a little bit about that. Pull that thread. Explore with me here.

For me, I've been co-vocational honestly the majority of our ministry life, and it was by choice in a lot of those times because I actually liked being around non-Christian people. I wanted to be around everybody, you know, and be outside and see things from a different perspective. And when we got, when we got saved, when Jesus changed our life, I was willing to do anything and to fund whatever God called me to do. And so if that meant work, and that's really kind of how I felt like our whole life has been. When we get paid to just do ministry, I mean, I'm like a kid in a kitchen ice cream man, really? I'm gonna get paid? You'll pay us to do what we do? Yeah, you know, and so for us, you know, I think it's become a whole different ballgame. But we grew up in the inner city. I mean, and so we were around people that, and even pastors we know today, a lot of like, uh, that in the urban core of America, really are co-vocational pastors. And so it wasn't like for us, it was when we got into ministry, it wasn't like a huge, "Oh, you don't, you work outside of the church too? Oh, me too. This is great," you know. When we got into more of suburban America is where we begin to see, "Oh, people get paid full time to do this," and that was more of a mind shift for us. And then we got immersed in that lifestyle. And I think really, you know, the last few years of church planting and then digital ministry, it's like we're still going to do what we do regardless. Yeah, and so we're going to do whatever we need to do to make sure that we get to do what we love to do well.

I think, I think it's also, it's we have to just deconstruct what it means, like, you know, um, of course biblically we can say, "Oh, you know, Paul, he's a tent maker," like, yeah, but he's a tent maker occasionally. That we can't use that passage of scripture to say that's how Paul was getting his money all the time. He says very, very clearly why he was doing that. He said, "I could receive, but I've chosen not to for a purpose." So I continue. It's very clear. Um, for us, I think this, if you have to be paid to do ministry, then maybe you're not called. If you have to get paid, I won't do this. I would never do. I've had people tell me, "I would never do that if I wasn't paid." I had past, when we were meeting when we planted, we were both vocational when we planted. I would not do that. There's no way I'd do that. I wasn't paid.

So are you called by God? You know, of course the pushback could be, "Well, God will supply." You know, this, okay, well maybe he will supply you by working at Starbucks. You ever thought about that? You know, you know, and I think it's understanding for us. It's why are we so, why are we so freaked out about that, you know?

Um, to be honest, I had a pastor, a good friend of mine, asked me this question. I'm like, about you know, Jerry, we want to, we want to get you money, you know? I said, "Look, you dropped me a hundred thousand dollar check. I'm still going to work outside the church because I see everything I do outside the church as a circle of influence for the kingdom of God." I'm a jiu-jitsu athlete, so I have a jiu-jitsu team that I train with. That's my circle of influence. Um, I have a gaming world that I'm on. That's a circle of influence. Now I'm starting a trucking company with my brother. It's a circle of influence. Um, Ang has an accounting company. It's a circle of influence. He works for another company. It's a circle of influence. Everything that we do is a circle of influence for the gospel to reach people that you're not pastors end up sitting out in their offices hours and hours and hours and hours a day, you know, praying and fasting and reading the Bible. But then again, I've been a lead pastor for fifteen years. That's not what you're doing, you know? Usually you're struggling, wondering why your church isn't growing. So you go to conference, the conference, the conference, the conference, the conference, the conference, and I'm just being gut honest. I know that's what's going on because that's what I did, and I have a lot of pastor friends. And I have some, a lot of very big mega-church pastor friends, and I know a lot of people, and that's what's going on. We're trying to wonder why the church isn't growing. Jesus said, "I'll build my church." So why are we doing this? Why are we justifying the money and the buildings and this prestige and all that? But we're not, we're not making a dent. We're not making a dent in lost people in America.

Well, and I just want to take on that. I think too, and part of the reason, and we talk about continuing to stay co-vocational, is because we have a team that's co-vocational. Every church, every church has a team that is co-vocational. They may not get paid for the ministry that they do, but that is still a job in which they choose to take up and you know, sacrifice their time and money and all of those kinds of things. And so we wanted to build, even going into, I think, more intentionally going into planting or, you know, relaunching Hope City Church, our team and us, we want to create something that every person can do. And we, you know, I work a full-time job in ministry, full-time. Our directional leadership team, they work full-time jobs and they minister full-time, you know? Everybody that's doing stuff, they work full-time jobs and, you know, they're ministering. And I love when we were at the City Church, there was a pastor, Bob Winer. He came, his daughter was in my small group for years, and he came and goes, "Who's a full-time minister?" And he had everybody raise their hand, and he had us doing it several times. That was crazy and it drove us crazy, but I remember it doesn't matter if I'm getting paid for ministry. When I'm called by God as a disciple, I'm a full-time minister. And so that makes me co-vocational in everything that I do.

So don't be afraid of it. I think this, don't be afraid of being a coach. Don't let your goal be paid by the church because most likely you're not going to be. So, you know, it's a few and far between, if you know, depending on how big your church is, I guess. Don't be afraid, or don't think that if you're paid by the church, God has given you a certain blessing or there's something, something has happened supernaturally or something. I try to get it across in a way that we can understand it. How about this? Embrace, can I be honest? With every season, you want multiple streams of income anyways.

Yeah, you know, let me tell you right now, taught us anything, if Kobe taught you anything, work. You want, you don't want just one stream of income coming into your, you know, you know, my gosh, Dave Ramsey and all these guys have been telling us that, you know, for years, for years. Don't you have multiple streams of income? I'm thinking, without, but that that one guy that I forget his name anyways, um, you don't want just to have one stream of income. We understand this. So don't let all your pastor, listen, don't let all your eggs be in the basket on tithing because if all your eggs are in the basket on tithing, you're going to say certain things and not say certain things, and you're going to meet with certain people and not meet with other certain people, and all of a sudden you become a, a, um, I don't know, a politician. We don't need more politicians. We need less politicians. We love our politicians. We don't need politicians in the pulpit. We need pastors and shepherds and leaders. We don't need politicians in the pulpit.

So don't, don't let money be your driving force. And the thing I mean, we all want to get paid, and don't buy into the thing like, you know, "Well, you know, if you know those that were due labor in the gospel should be paid by the gospel." We got that. We all know the scriptures. It's wonderful. It's beautiful. Let's look at what's happening in society right now and realize somebody just texted me. I actually put on my Facebook, you can go to my Facebook right now, and I have one picture that I just did. It's like three hundred seventy likes. It's me standing out my big semi with my thumb up talking about co-vocational passion. Basically, the future of lead pastors will be, see more of us going bi-vocational. I had a friend of mine make a comment on there. Somebody should go in there and read that comment. I think the church, the church, skip the world. We're trying to reach the world. I think church people who love Jesus and love the church who are starting to figure out, "My dude, I work sixty hours. I put in sixty-three hours just this last five days in my job, not counting another twenty hours pastoring. My wife, sixty hours just this week in her job, not counting probably more hours in that pastoring. My friends, your volunteer that's standing at the door high-fiving people that are coming into your church, work sixty hours this week. Yeah, and you want them volunteering? The person that's serving the coffee at your church, work sixty hours this week. Most likely, the person that's leading worship that's not paid, playing the guitar that you don't see behind you, probably work forty to sixty hours this week, and you want them there. If they're not there, you get upset because they're not there, and we need a guitar player. But dude, wake up. The fact is, join your people. Join your community. Join people administering the people. You'll see an explosion of life in your church."

Beautiful. It's, it's a hard mindset, you know, because it's, it's been so long. It's, it's been so long in that other way, and trying to pivot towards it. But the reality is, and this is, I, I don't get prophetic here, and I'm not the doomsday guy, but I, I think there's gonna be a season coming where, uh, some of the luxuries I think that we, the church, we pastors, uh, are used to, and even the church as an organization, I think that's going to come to an end. And the idea we're actually, you know, my friend, I think it's come to an end.

Well, I agree with you. It's, it's co, it's done. It's come to an end.

Well, I feel like over the last three years, when people find out that we work outside of the church, it gives us a greater open door, and they actually hear us. They hear faster, um, then far more credibility. Well, and then they go, "Okay, I can give money to the church," knowing that, you know, maybe you're not using it for, and maybe they thought about or their things that they heard in the news about everything that's happened the past couple of years, and they feel more safe and secure because, you know, our, we're not just vested in your money or bringing you there because of that. And honestly, that's a lot of hesitation for a lot of people.

What has happened, at least, you know, in the circles that we have run in, what has happened is there's an entitlement. That's a great way to say it. Um, there's an entitlement to, you know, a certain position, uh, and if we don't receive that or if we don't get that, if we, you know, can't go on the vacations or have these things, then then we've done something wrong. But we deserve and we're entitled to have that.

Well, let me ask this, um, and forgive the, I'm not looking for like, uh, gotcha journalism or anything here, but so you're, you're both, you know, bi-vocational, co-vocational, uh, you, your church platform is now Facebook, which is free. There's probably some, you know, studio set up or some startup cost, probably in that, but you're not paying for a building, uh, it sounds like you know, you don't have a large staff. You know, would love to even know what that looks like, but what do you do with the money that comes in? Like, is it very outward facing towards missions? How, because money's got to be tithed. People are probably giving something. What does that look like for you as a church?

Yeah, that's great question. Um, you know, we actually we have a small salary from the church. The rest of our team are all volunteers. Uh, we've had to pivot and do, you know, we've actually bought cameras and stuff like that. We didn't have actually a ton of money coming in even when we were an in-person church, you know? So I mean, other than your, you know, your insurances and things that you have to have as a church and equipment and, you know, just different things that you need to do live streaming and whatnot, um, we and we give to missions. We are supporting, we've, uh, helped other churches plant. We've, you know, donated, and so a lot of our stuff is, you know, outward facing. And we have a small salary from the church because our team told us we have to have it.

Yeah, and so did our conference.

Yeah, and our conferences. And so, and it's small to the, to the amount to the amount of the work that's being produced right now, um, it's minuscule to what.

Yeah, yeah.

Um, but that's a great question. I think that's, and and that has been a question. So if money comes in, what, where does it go? I think money coming in, I'm not saying pastors shouldn't be paid. They ought to be paid biblically, but it should be comparative, you know, to where your community is at. It could be comparative to the amount of work you're putting in. It could be comparative to, you know, what you're, wait, again, if you're, you know, you want people to show up on on Sunday mornings to serve, be a little, little, a little respectful or a little have a little bit of grace for them if they, you know, they're working. Not that none of that pastor is not working, but again, doing a long time, you know, if you can, if you're gonna, if you have time to golf four days a week, you probably have time to relax a little bit on your people, you know what I'm saying?

Um, and I would say this, um, for us, the money coming in, you know, we're trying to get it back out, you know, to missions for the most part.

Yeah, and we want, you know, in our some of our biggest things is like we just, uh, all of our equipment that we had for our set up and tear down, we actually donated to another church plant that's about eighty thousand dollars of equipment we gave away. And so, you know, and you know, we've done, you know, a lot of that with our equipment with just different things, you know, we want to help other people, you know, do what God's called them to do and to reach more people. And so in any ways that we can do that, um, we want to do that. Now, in I would say probably a lot of our resources have been in giving away to you.

Know people in United States church plants and other things, but we also support missionaries right now in Cambodia. Cambodia, city of Seattle, we have there's a great reach ministry. Yeah, Rich and Kayla Sims if you want to know a name. Rich and Kayla Sims in Reach Ministry and what they're doing with the homeless and work in Seattle, Seattle, Tacoma, and Everest. Yeah, it's another group, another couple or another type of person that you're like, "Who?" Yeah, and you find out what they're doing, you're like, "The impact that they're making." Yeah, the impact Rich and Kayla are doing in Seattle with the houseless and the homeless. Yeah, it's embarrassing. I'm like, "Do I do anything for Jesus?" I don't think I do, to be honest. Yeah, amazing couple. It's amazing to see, you know, even outside of the U.S., how ministry is happening and how the gospel is being proclaimed and people are hungry outside of the Western civ church. So exciting to hear this about these people.

This has been just a completely shocking conversation. The fact that you were not anything in digital ministry and all of a sudden are a digital-only expression of church in this coveted season, expanding and doing everything that you are. I got to tell you, I did not log on to this call thinking that that was what was going to happen. I love it because it's so inspiring towards you. You can do this. Ministry can happen digitally. You can thrive in this situation. The fact that you said no to a building and to continue on this digital road is fascinating.

Do this for me. We work with digital-only church planters all the time. I've probably got twenty-plus planters in cohort right now in some level of planting process. I would love an encouraging thought, maybe like a practical next step. Maybe somebody's out there listening to this right now and saying, "Hey, I'm thinking about this, doing this digital-only thing. I don't know where to start." Give them some advice.

Get online. Set up a camera. Set up your phone. It's what we did. We decided from the very beginning we put our iPhones up for a long, long time. It was just on iPhones. Get yourself out there. Yeah, grow that. Get your people engaged. People, your friends that are that love you and are part of it. Get them to share. Get them to engage. Get them to help you. Start. Yeah, just start and go for it. You know, and put content out. Yeah, who cares if you know, don't look at the likes. I only got one heart today. Who cares? You know, you got one. Maybe get zero. Who cares? You know, get started.

That's why. And I think, try. I mean, honestly, it has been the most refreshing to go digitally online, just the connections and the relationships and the disciples, the disciplemaking that has happened. And I want to stick to it. We have seen more people come to Christ, more relationship, more discipleship happening in this last year than we have in the previous ten years of our ministry life. Like real, personal, real, real-life stuff.

If they're watching you online, yeah, and they reach out to you, let my pastors listen to me. Connect. If they get a like, you gotta. And it's not your mom, reach out to your mom, please. But if it's somebody you don't know, friend request them. Reach out to them. Let them know, "I see you. I saw that you took time to say, 'Here I am.'" If you're not doing that, you're failing. I'm trying to tell you, you're missing to what? Yeah, to who? Much is given, much required. You want increase? Do the little. That's something we learned from the very beginning. Something we told our team: if somebody likes something, I want eight, nine, ten, twelve, fourteen, seventeen people on that person. Don't do, you know, and our team's like, "Dude, if we send the seventeen message," and you know, and you know, we get it, you know, but it's like, "Get after them." And we connect with them on direct message or instant messenger, you know, through Facebook and Instagram. But I would say, for you know, for me, going back to what I was saying, I don't like to be on camera. Camera is something that I've never liked to be. I'm an in-person person. But during this time, I've had to get out of my own box and, you know, stop looking at, "Okay, do I look perfect? Do I sound perfect? Do I have something to say?" And, um, say, "Yeah, God's given me something to say. Stop hesitating. Just get on there. Dream and try things, you know, and be." See, we record here. It's our house. We purposely we've added some lights and stuff like that, but we turned down that. We had someone offer their studio test come and do, you know, and that's good for some people. For us, we don't want to do that. We want a model you can set your phone up, the iPhone or Android, whatever you have. We have an iPhone. You can set your iPhone up and reach the world with the gospel. Yeah, so you don't have to have all the production. You don't have to. There's nothing wrong with that, but you don't have to do that. That's the beauty of it all. And just set it up. Trust God, you know, pray. You know, how many of us heard this? "Pray yourself hot and preach yourself empty," and see what God will do. Yeah, and you can do that. For me, I do it for my truck. I just did it a couple nights ago. When was it? Yesterday morning. Set my camera up on my truck in my cab, and I share the gospel and encourage pastors, encourage least leaders, you know, and I think you can do it.

So if you're new and this is what you want to do and you're like, "I want to try. I want to do this." Dude, if you're a pastor and you want to start a digital ministry in your church, you know, look at that time as an actual time in your church. Don't do this. Something we had planned if we were going to get the building. That's good. I'm glad you asked that. What we had already decided, because it was going so well, if we went into in-person, we were going to continue streaming at the same time with a camera right up where it was like we're doing this right now. What we didn't want to do is put the camera up in the balcony and have this balcony look like you're just watching from the sideline. We went from that to planning that we were going to do a nine o'clock gathering alone in our house and then go to the church and do our service. So treat your online digital as its own church or its own service. Don't just record your service and put online, "Hey, watch it." You can do that if that's what you want. Instead, if you have money, hire a pastor, hire somebody, and make them your digital pastor and have them interact and engage with those people online. And I think that those are some things. I think, yeah, and I'd say for me, you know, you get an idea. A lot of times it's a gut idea, but you don't know if it is or it's not until you try, you know. We, uh, superintendent Michael calls us Fidel, and he calls us Fidget because we actually have people we encourage people to gather together at their house with their friends and family, have food, and do hope at your house is what we call it. We may actually go to about seven or eight different locations, yeah, and then we travel. So we take church on the road, yeah. Two people's houses that are gathering, and you know, and then I do a daily devotional every day. It's something that I'm like, it's an idea, and it's taken off, you know. So I'd say try things, you know. Get out of the box. If it's an idea, it doesn't hurt to try. It's not going to hurt, you know. The whole thing is like, yeah, we just, I think sometimes in the church we just stop trying because we're worried about what people think and what does this work. We only get so many chances, dude. Just try it. My God, give it a break, you know. No, no, no, none of us are that important. We think we are, but we want to be important, but not in a bad way. But we just, it's there's billions of people in the world. You will connect with those that connect with you. Some reason, people connect with me because I have a bald head. You have a bald head. It happens, right? I don't know why. It's just the way it is. And so I think it's just get out there and try it.

If you're a person that, again, three point eight billion people will use social media every single month. Those are active users. I'm sure that one of us can reach about twenty people, okay? Let's no. And I think that I think that's so good, you know. We're a church. The great thing about a digital church is we're a church without walls. It also means that there's no time or space. And so there's one other thing that I definitely want to encourage church planters and digital pastors is you have to learn to. It's okay to turn your phone off, to turn your computer off. That's the whole thing, and to take a break. And that's something that I don't, I like to-do lists, and so if I can't cross things off, you know, answer every person, connect with every person, it's hard for me. But I also understand that for me to be healthy, I have to shut that off. I have to give time for this. I have to give time for other things. And so, you know, you have to have boundaries with a church that really has no boundaries. There's no physical boundaries. There's no time, no space. And so creating those things is going to keep you healthy. We become a church twenty-four seven, three hundred sixty-five days a year, yeah, and it's real. And that's why a lot of pastors burned out somewhere around May 2020 because they couldn't wrestle with. They were trying to do the physical ministry in digital spaces, and they were trying to keep up that twenty-four seven instead of putting. It's funny. I've got, I think I've talked about on the show before, I bought one of those like timeout safes, you know, that that you like when the kids are bad and you want to take the iPad away, you're kind of in as like a locking mechanism on the lid. And so I bought that to try to penalize the kids. And I've got good kids, so I never actually penalized them. The only device that goes in this thing is my phone and my watch when it's like, "Hey, I need a timeout from like ministry and life, and I need space." And so I'm just gonna like lock it up. And it was funny. I remember like the first time I did it, my wife, uh, she freaked out on me a little bit. She's like, "What happens if there's emergency? What happens?" And I'm like, "Life will go on. People will call you. I have access to my computer, but I just need to not be connected to that stuff." And so having that opportunity, giving yourself permission to have space, yeah, we do. We've talked a lot about mental health. Mindy Caliguire has been on from soulcare.com, and we've touched on that a lot. And so those are those great conversations, just like this one has been. Like, oh my gosh, I could literally just keep asking you questions. This has been awesome. We're gonna have to do it again. But this has been a phenomenal. I didn't even realize you were doing the micro as well. I love the fact that Fidget has been one of the phrases that I've used a lot in the season. So I love that people within your organization and coaching have been kind of directing you in that way, having digital church drive towards physical ministry. Is huge. Could spend like an hour just talking about that and digging into y'all's approach. But we will have to do that again. And so, hey, Jared and Angie, I have loved this conversation, loved you being a part of this, taking the time here to jump in. Dude, if somebody wanted to check out, by the way, Facebook, if all the users of Facebook were a nation, it would be the largest nation on the planet. So, you know, talking about the nation of Facebook and reaching, so there's plenty of potential there to reach people. And love the fact that you are getting into that space and running as aggressive as you are. If somebody wanted to like check out your services, maybe learn some things, observe some stuff, how would they get in touch with you?

How would they follow you? Like, where? What's a great place for people to start to really discover what Hope City is?

Yeah, remember, yeah, yeah. Number of places you can go to hopecitychurch.us is our website. All our links are there. You can look at, look us up on Facebook. Um, Hope's thing is Hope. Teacher's name is a lot of hopes, but our it's at Hope City Church Live and it's on Facebook. Yeah, at Hope City Church Live is our Facebook page. You can look at, looks up there. Um, and uh, yeah, Jerry Hughes, yeah, and Jared L Hughes, I think, is Facebook. I don't know, mine are the same. Mine's Angie K Hughes, both on Instagram and Facebook. And so a lot of things that we do on our personal social media and at Hope City Church Live, we combine, intertwined, do different things. And so yeah, you can connect with us any of those ways.

Yeah, Hope this year's live is now uh reaching uh 22,000 people. Our goal is to hit 100,000 by 2023.

Hey, it's doable. Hundred thousand. We've never hit a hundred thousand people in 2023, and we want to have ten thousand leaders passing those hundred thousand people. That's our goal. And I totally want to have like that leadership conversation as well. So we will come back around. There's so much, and I love the um, I love the intentionality and even the humility, you know, as you're talking about growing and expanding and doing ministry in digital space. It's been a beautiful conversation. So but we gotta wrap because like life goes on. So for Jared, for Angie, this is Jeff with the Church Digital in State of Church Planning. Thanks for joining us uh here at the pod. We'll see you next time here at the show. Y'all good day.