EP190: What a Disney Castmember Church can Teach Me about Digital & Discipleship

All right, listening audience out there. Hey, it's Jeff Reid here with the Church Digital once again. All of this is powered by Stadia Church Planning. And if there's one thing you know about me, if you really do know me, it is this right here: I am a huge Disney nut. Yeah, I'm a little freak. I'm a little crazy, a little obsessed with the pop culture. I mean, the backdrop wall, if you've ever watched me on YouTube, testifies to that—all the different Funkos and things that I've got. I'm literally holding a Mickey Mouse Funko in my hand at this moment. On top of that, my gosh, the MCU, Kevin Feige, sir, the things that you're doing over there, Disney is not paying you enough. They should pay you more. Huge Marvel fans, Star Wars fan. Hey, looking forward to what's coming next out of Star Wars and what the future holds there. It's a huge fan. The first movie I ever remember seeing in a theater was actually Empire Strikes Back. And Star Wars may have been down since then because, let's face it, Episode Five was the best Star Wars movie ever. But needless to say, I am a Star Wars, I'm a Disney, I'm a Marvel. It's all about the mouse. And so when Facebook paired me up with someone named Steven, I thought Facebook was doing a good job with their algorithm of connecting Disney nuts together. Stephen Barr is lead pastor of a church in Orlando called Cast Member Church. Now, if you know anything about Disney culture, cast members are the employees that run like the parks and work in the company. Everything is a cast member. And so we're looking at a church that's aimed at reaching cast members. Like, that's—is this a workplace ministry? Is this the church? How? What is? How does this work? How is this funded? How does this function? Like, this is thinking outside the box. And so as I connected with Stephen on Facebook, suddenly I found myself: "Hey, Stephen, why don't we do a podcast?" You don't know me. I talk digital church. I talk digital discipleship. We talk innovation, thinking outside the box. We talk about people who are crazy and doing crazy things for ministry. We'd love to just kind of learn more about Cast Member Church and the things that I learned in this conversation surprised even me. I was not expecting the conversation that we had here. With this conversation, and honestly, I'm not going to tell you anything else because the conversation is so good. You don't need to hear from me. You need to hear it from Stephen, from his mouth, in itself. So for this conversation, I'm bringing in Stephen Barr, lead pastor at Cast Member Church in Orlando. I'm bringing to myself Jeff with the Church Digital and with Stadia Church Planting in a simple conversation that I'm calling "What Disney Cast Member Church Can Teach You About Digital and Discipleship."

Okay, everybody, here you go. You know, just tell me a little bit: how did you get started in doing this, this Cast Member Church?

Well, that goes back all the way to 1991. Um, I was a cast member at Walt Disney World for a year, and it was um one of those moments where uh I was already a believer but I was pursuing a career in music, and Disney is one of those logical steps that you take towards uh uh having a career like that. And I remember playing keyboards in front of Cinderella Castle. And look, this was back when the music was live. And uh I remember looking down at the train station uh in the middle of one of our performances, and I thought to myself, "There should be a church here." I don't have a church to go to because we're working all the time. Weekends are the busiest. And there was—it was just a passing thought, just a passing thought. And um that's all I pretty much forgot about that. And uh I went ahead and continued to pursue a career in music and ended up in ministry. I spent 10 years in Spanish-speaking praise and worship music. But uh uh spent—I think I was—it was probably 30 years uh, 20, 25 years at the time uh as a worship pastor. And I was getting to the age—I was turning 50 years old—and I thought, "You know, I don't want to be one of those worship guys over 50 that's trying to be something that I'm not." And I was feeling the Lord tug on me in some different directions uh just in my own walk and the way I was relating with people. And I felt like it was time to make a change. And I was feeling drawn towards planting a church. And my wife and I were living in San Antonio, Texas at the time. And we started—we went through all the assessments and all that fun stuff—and we started planting a church in San Antonio, Texas. And it was in the really artsy district called South Town. And we wanted to reach the weird artsy people, the musicians, the artists, the ones who just didn't fit in anywhere else. And we started—we had it. We had a great launch. Our church met in an art museum. It was very eclectic and wonderful. But for me personally, um it was a little bit uh of a letdown. I was kind of like, "I got this thing started, and then I was like, 'Okay, now what?'" And uh I will—I think I'll even go so far to say I was a little bored. And um looking back now, I realize it was the Holy Spirit doing something. And I was meeting with my leaders one time at Panera Bread, as many church leaders do. And uh one of them made the comment to me: "Stephen, why aren't you doing this at Disney?" I said, "What are you talking about?" He says, "Oh my goodness, Stephen, you bleed Disney. Everything you talk about is at Disney. They did this at Disney. They do that. And this is how they." And even I even made the comment one time that Disney knows how to make disciples better than the church does. And um and so they were like, "Why aren't you doing this at Disney?" And I'm not kidding you, Jeff, at that very moment, that thought that I had in front of Cinderella Castle came back, and I knew that God was saying, "I heard that. I heard that." And so a year later—it took some time to make the adjustments and shift. And the biggest one being convincing my wife to move from San Antonio to Orlando. And um and we uh launched Cast Member Church 10 years ago this January. So that's what got us here.

Wow, you've been doing this 10 years?

Yes, can you believe it? That's a surprise to me. I, you know, it's funny like I thought I knew everything that was going in and out of Disney uh because I'm a little bit of a Disney freak. And um two, and uh I just—I hadn't—I hadn't heard of you until you hit my—I guess some Facebook recommended us as friends or whatever Facebook does. The algorithm puts us together, and I'm like, "What is—yeah, what is this Cast Member Church?" Now, now so you you planted this thing completely from scratch. Um, this is not like—are you partnering with any other church organization around, or you're you're literally doing a church for cast members?

We're Evangelical Free Church of America. So we were considered a church plant of that. But we broke every rule in church planting, to be honest with you. I mean, uh it was a parachute drop. My wife and I uh we were underfunded. Um it was pretty much every rule in church planting we broke it. And and I'm glad we did, to be honest with you, because we learned a lot as a result. But um no, we just started. And I'll be honest with you, when we first started Cast Member Church, my vision was to create an attractional church that would draw Christians that were working at Disney and give them that Disney environment. And and uh I even, you know, looking back it was my ego, but I had this attitude like, "We're leaving out Disney, Disney, because we've got Jesus, and he can even do better." And uh it was it was that kind of delusion of grandeur, I think, that I had. And it was about two weeks after we arrived here that I realized one: um Disney had changed a lot since 1991. It always does. It's always changing. I should have known better. And number two is I had lived in a church bubble for 25 years, and I did not really—I was not prepared to connect with the Disney culture that I assumed was there. A an attractional church would never would never have worked because you're trying to reach the people who are the show. They know—they, you know, uh we we call it, you know, the uh sizzling wow. Disney is the master of sparkling wow. They know how to do that. And and we we can't do it. We can't match that. We just can't. I mean, we could, but then it would become a show, and that's not what Jesus is calling us to do. So for a couple weeks, Jeff, I didn't want to get out of bed. I would—I had moved my family there. I had no idea how we were—everything that I thought we were going to do, I had this great little strategy notebook that was like, you know, about an inch thick of all the different things we were going to do, all the different books I had read, and this is how it's going to work, and all that. And it was like God had taken the whole thing and just dropped it in the trash can. And I was—I was devastated. I mean, I was in panic mode. And then one morning, I think I was just really feeling sorry for myself, and I felt the Lord in my spirit say, "Are you ready to do this my way?" And I was like, "I don't have another choice. I don't—I don't know what we're going to do other than than your way." And we realized that he wanted this thing to not be about reaching Christians at Disney, but he was going to—he in fact he gave us three promises uh that we've that we've followed well. I take that back—three promises that when we've embraced them it's been wonderful. When we've tried to shortcut them, it's ended up being very difficult. But the first thing was he said he was going to take us into uncharted waters, which meant there wasn't a book written other than Scripture that would show us what we were supposed to do. There was nothing I could—there was no ABC format. Number two was as he would form this out of those who were skeptical and suspicious of him. That was pretty cool but also unnerving. And the third thing was is he said he would multiply it all around the world. So those were really encouraging things, but I had no idea how to to really do any of that. We were stepping into well, uncharted waters, as he said. And so we we realized that the only way we were going to do that was relationship—relationship with people. And that's ten years later, our church is founded on on relationship. We—that's why you haven't really heard about us is we don't market. We don't uh of course we're focused on Disney cast members, so there's not a sense of publicity out there that we're trying to get. But we focus on those who don't know Jesus. So everything we do is designed in their direction. And uh and we've learned along the way just from a practical sense like what what does this look like? You're not you're not trying to overproduce Disney. You're you know uh I can tell you some some horror stories around some churches I've got to plant a friend that went into Vegas and was like, "Hey, I'm gonna—we're gonna out-show Vegas," and come to find out, similar story to you. It's like, "Hey, the Vegas people don't want the out—they want to be—don't want the show. They're part of the show. They feel how shallow the show is. They're much more interested in that same thing as you, that relational piece." So what does relationships look like among cast members, among your church? Like, what's a practical sense of what you guys are doing?

Boy, we could spend all day talking about this. Um, I think the first thing that we—Disney is the uniting factor. Disney—when we call it "mouse blood," cast members have mouse blood, whether you were—whether you're a cast member today or you were a cast member 50 years ago—um, you are—you have mouse blood, and it never leaves. So it's it's like a band of brothers. It's like uh something that you've been through or you're going through that nobody else will understand. So there's that little uniting factor. That it's that little nod. I remember when I used to drive a Jeep uh you know, you drive down the highway, you'd see somebody else driving a Jeep.

You kind of give that yeah, like little nod, that little wave, like yeah I know, I know. And well, cast members are the same way. When you say that you were a Disney cast member, you are a Disney cast member. There's an immediate connection because you've shared the same vision, you've shared the same set of values, and you've shared the same vocabulary. And that's what this, that's what defines a culture in a sense. It's vision, values, vocabulary, and a common rhythm. And so we tapped into that. And then again, all the evangelistic things that I have learned over the years were kind of irrelevant because the people that we were starting to interact with didn't even have the Bible as a reference point. Most of the people in our church have never touched a Bible in their lives. So to talk about, you know, the sinful nature, or to talk about, you know, the goodness, even the goodness of God, it was very difficult to kind of maneuver those conversations.

So we became really good listeners. Really good listeners. And finding out what was going on in their lives, what were their highs, what were their lows, what were the fractures in their life. And then little by little we learned to listen to the Spirit and be able to, I almost call it, it's almost like dripping, you know, you're just kind of seasoning everything with, you know, one of those things where it's like, well, you know, in the Bible it says this. It's just something really simple, you know, something that you know. And they'd be like, oh, I didn't know that's where that came from. Or I did, that's amazing, that's wonderful. So we would season those things, and little by little we form trust, which is the most important piece in what we do.

There's three keys to revealing Jesus in relationship here with Casper Church, and it's true really with any believer. The first thing is expressing value. Well, I'll tell you all three: expressing value, forming trust, offering hope. Now here's why people don't care about the hope we have to offer. If they don't trust us, and they won't trust us until they know we value them. So we have to start with value. And that's how we started building relationship, looking at every person as made in the image of God, even if it was hard to see, even the people that annoy you, even the people that are completely different from you. You look for that image of God. And you, I, you actually pointed out, you know, you talk to somebody and say, you know what, you are one of the most passionate people I've ever met. When you walk into a room, your passion just fills the room. And you know what, that is such, God has just given you something so incredible. You, no one's going to be offended by that. No one's going to be offended by being valued. And we start there. So relationships are always about expressing value, forming trust, and offering hope. And when you build on those three foundations, you're forming relationships that will last forever.

That's very cool. And to tap into that ongoing community like Disney has, where cast members with longevity, like are you trying to get supporters, trying to get financial donors, trying to get volunteers? Like, was it hard for you to get to cast this vision for people to buy into and support? Or are they jumping? Like, you know, I'm serious, like my wife and I, we were talking about moving to Orlando anyway. And just this idea of a cast member church and doing ministry in those areas is really exciting to us. But we're kind of weird people in general. So do others, like are the others buying into this?

Yeah, well there's a couple of other churches in the area that are focusing on Disney as well. I mean, you're looking at, you're basically looking at a city of 74,000 people. 74,000 people work for the Walt Disney Company. That's larger than a lot of small towns in America. And there's not a shortage of ministry need. There are churches that are a little more focused on just creating a community for Christians and all that, which is great because that's needed. We're kind of out there in our own sandbox, I guess, you know. We, the Lord told us He would build this out of people who were skeptical and suspicious. So that's the people that we get excited about. We'd like to say to ourselves, the future leaders of Cast Member Church don't know Jesus yet. And that gets us up every day, you know, to keep moving forward.

And so yeah, as far as when I first shared the vision, there were two responses. One was, that is so cool, that is so unique, which I think has translated to better than me. And the other one was, oh, so you're gonna go suffer for Jesus at Walt Disney World? And the sarcastic approach. And which, okay, you know, it's not that, you know, we're truly doing ministry here. But yes, it is one of the most influential places in the world. The world comes here. The people that come here to work at Walt Disney World are going our dreamers and doers. That's what Walt Disney called them, dreamers and doers. They're coming here to get their training, to get their feet wet in not just the world of entertainment, but in technology and in engineering and all of those other things that would make a city run. They come here and they get all of that, and eventually they go somewhere else. And kind of like Rome, the Apostle Paul could not wait to get to Rome because he knew that if he could get the Gospel into Rome, it would travel all those roads out around the world. Well, Disney's a modern day Rome. And so we look at this as this is a great well. And we've proven it because we're now on six continents. But we started here, and we've seen that multiply and go out. And it's been incredible. It's beyond anything I imagined.

Talk to me a little bit about that multiplication piece. So you just said six continents. I can probably try to name all the Disney parks that are in my head right now. I didn't, I did. Is there one in Australia? Or is that, I mean, like, they're so, so where are you right now? And maybe what is that multiplication? What does that look like for your church?

Well, right now my home is at Walt Disney World. In fact, one mile behind that corner of my office is Cinderella Castle. And so we, you know, we started here. And of course, Anaheim, the original Disneyland, Paris, Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Shanghai. And so those are the Disney park locations. What happened for us is Walt Disney World had, I say that in past tense simply because of the pandemic implications that we're dealing with right now at Disney. Used to have a very large international population of cast members from all over the world through the College Program or the Cultural Representative Program. As someone who is familiar with Disney, I'm sure you've seen Epcot with the World Showcase. Every country has its own cast members from that country. We focused very heavily on World Showcase because that's just where the fruit was. We were seeing God opening up, giving us favor, and opening up doors with all these cast members from other parts of the world.

So we, of course, you focus on the fruit. So you, we did that. And then of course, you know, the famous words, and then COVID. And we went from this really thriving community of people that were meeting at different times and different days and hanging out at our house. Our house was kind of the central location for everything that we did. And because we were so close to Disney, and we had this, it was wonderful. I mean, it was one of those where I'm like, going, this is great. I'm happy with the way things are. And then COVID hit. And we went to zero. Everybody was sent in a very short time period. Disney shut down. We thought it would be a week. We thought it would be two weeks. We thought, okay, maybe a month. And that dragged on. And of course, the inevitable happened where Disney was shut down indefinitely, which was strange, incredibly strange for us.

And so all these people went back to their homes all around the world. Brisbane, Australia, Berlin, Rome, Morocco, I mean, just everywhere you can imagine. And once again, I was sitting there going, okay, God, what now? I mean, obviously He saw, He knew this was going to happen. And we were a little more wise this time. Rather than trying to jump into a strategy, we thought, let's just kind of see what God wants to do. And we had already been using a digital platform to a certain extent just to connect with all, you know, we've been doing this for ten years. So a lot of customers have left Disney and gone on to other things. And so the digital platform was very simple for us to use just to stay connected.

Well, we decided, hey, anybody want to get together with us? We just like to see how you're doing. And of course, this, remember, this was a global nightmare at the time. And we put the word out, anyone who wants to meet with us, we'd love to spend some time with you. Jeff, I was busy from like seven in the morning till four in the afternoon every single day, sitting here talking just like I'm talking to you, encouraging and trying to process everything that was happening. And it was, you know, dealing with anxiety issues, all everything that went with the pandemic. And then I thought it would be a one-off. I thought it'd be one of those things, it's like, okay, that was good, and just wanted to see how you were doing. And they were all saying, can we keep doing this? And my wife and I said, I think we just got the green light from God for the next step. And so we said, yeah.

So we put the word out again. Anybody who wants to be a part of this in the digital world and with the church, let us know. Well, we went to six continents and multiple groups in different locations around the world. And we're not looking back. To be honest with you, even as the borders have reopened and all, it works. I just had a cast member just this week tell me, a German cast member, he said, you know, if I would have been at Disney, I don't think I would have been as close to everyone as I am now meeting online all the time. He says, I feel closer to you now than I was when I was there in person because this is intentional. And I was like, yes, yes. And that was incredibly encouraging because that tells me, yes, you can do life in the digital world. You can see the Spirit moving in the digital world. You can build solid relationships in the digital world. So that's where we live now.

That's awesome. I totally got this on tape. I'm going to cut that segment out. We're just going to loop it over and over for the rest of the digital relationships are valid. That's great.

Oh, they are. Yeah. Now that the borders are even open globally, not yet, right? Like the international, yeah, it is. Okay, everybody's everybody's open. So like, and I'm actually heading out to the West Coast. I'll be at Disneyland here in a couple weeks. I'm spending a weekend in between some work jobs. And so I'll be out there, and the family's flying out with me. So we're gonna go enjoy the California sunset. And I'm really looking forward to it. But now that everything's getting back to normal, whatever normal is, and even normal is suspect. We live in Florida, you and I do. And delta variant is a real thing. But is digital still like part of your strategy? How are you keeping, balancing that digital and what you were doing physical? Some of the stuff at your house and some of the relational pieces? Like, is it either or? Is it both? How are you managing that?

I would say that our strategy is we're making it up as we go along. I think it really is. For us, I look at it as we've just decided this.

In the last couple weeks, to officially say that we are a digital church simply because that's our gathering piece. We gather in the digital primarily, even here in Orlando, even locally. It's easier to gather online than to get together physically. And what I mean by that is in our unique context, you work an eight-hour shift out in the hot sun, out in the hot Florida sun all day. You go home to your apartment, you change your clothes, you take a shower, you change your clothes, and the last thing you want to do is to go back out again and go to Disney Springs or the Starbucks or our house for that matter. But if you say, "Hey, you know, if you want to hop online and we'll all meet there," it's much better and more effective that way, even on a local in a local context.

So we're trying to figure that out. We're trying, is this a trend? Is this a fluke? Is this just a bump in the road? But you know, it's like surfing. You just ride the wave and trust it knows where it's going. And so we're kind of just riding it and see what happens.

I love meeting together locally. I love my dining room table. It seats eight people, and we've had over a thousand cast members sit at that table. It's one of the most special places, and obviously the most special piece of furniture in our home. And there's something very special about that. A lot of brokenness has been shared there, a lot of anger. We let cast members be themselves. We, you know, there's a lot of things shared at our table that probably wouldn't be shared in other churches. Things just have been spoken, but we have people who have experienced vulnerability at the table. Well, that's transferred over into our DNA, into the digital. I don't notice a difference in vulnerability, whether it's online or in person. That could be just the way they're led, the way that it's cultivated. I don't know, but I see it's not really an either or. It's a both and.

You know, if when once Disney kind of gets its footing back, which this is the 50th anniversary, so things need to be coming together, we'll probably start some more things on the local level and hopefully do some getting together in person as well. If people want to go that direction, but we won't back off on the digital at all.

Love that. And in the balance, and I can totally have conversations with you about digital-only expressions with no physical, but even in your context, you like the balance between the two and try to find we use the term "fidget" a lot—physical and digital—finding that sweet balance is good. And to be honest, you are very similar to many other pastors that I've talked to in this season. Man, I don't know what I'm doing. We're just giving it a shot. We're figuring it out. We're going down this road. We're learning along the way. So that is a beautiful thing.

One thing that I find really unique about you is your singular focus here at Stadia. We use the term "the one"—the target audience, the type of person that you that the church is going after. And it's interesting when we talk with planters, a lot of times they struggle with defining their church off of a one because, you know, "be all things to all people so that some may come to know Christ," and so you know, they're wanting to cast a much larger net or they feel that tension of, "Hey, I gotta do everything for everyone." And I don't honestly, I don't necessarily agree with that, which is why I find your approach refreshing. But I want to ask, like, have you felt tension or how do you manage like going outside of the one? Like, you know, even something as silly as a cast member's girlfriend who works outside of Disney is going to be involved, and so you know, you're breaking there. There's some things you're okay with, but have you thought about moving outside of the cast member like target range, or is it singular focused on that?

No. Disney is so big. And I mean, I'm not just talking about Walt Disney World, but the Disney company is so big. Because you're not just talking about theme parks, you're talking about cruise ships, movie studios, television. You're talking about, I have one member of our church who is over the standards and practices for Disney Plus, Hulu, the Disney Channel for Switzerland, Germany, and Austria, the German-speaking portion. And she started out as a cast member, a great cast member, mind you. But her influence has grown, and we've grown with her. We've gone with her.

I do understand the tension. It doesn't affect me. I've had people say, "Hey, you should do this for Universal. You should do this for Sea World." And I don't feel that because what I would say to other church planters is, who do you connect with? Who gets you? You know, when you sit down with somebody and you talk about something that you could talk about for hours, who is that person? Well, for me, it's Disney cast members. I get them. I just, I know what's inside their head. We share vision, shared values, shared vocabulary. We get that. And so there isn't this labor of cultural contextualization where I have to figure out, "How do I make this work?" It's like, no, it's the world that I operate in. Even when I lived in San Antonio, I was still a cast member. I still thought like that. So it's a natural connection.

The bizarre thing for me is when people go, "Wow, you're really lucky. That's very fortunate for you, that God called you to that." I'm thinking, no, I think this is the way it should be. God designs each person to connect with certain people. And if you connect naturally with them, well, Jesus, that's an easy bridge for Jesus to cross. And so I think we have to really get to know ourselves and our passions and connect with other people.

I use the example, you know, you've got a guy, we'll call him Al, and Al is into cars. He has an auto repair shop, and he's into all these things with engines and cars. Who's Al going to hang out with? Al is going to hang out with car people. So what if the church equipped Al instead of inviting people to his church to learn how to be the church among car people? Well, that's what we're doing here at Disney. We're looking at every Disney cast member. What fires them up? Who do they connect with? How can we empower you to be the church wherever God's called you?

Hey, I just want to say for the public record that this is the first time that I've ever had a conversation with Stephen, and I did not prompt him to say any of the previous comments in any way, shape, manner, or form. I don't even know if that was the question I was asking or was hinting towards that. That was beautiful.

I say that fifty times a day, like. And it's, you know, and it's more of, "Hey, you know," and I'm a techie guy, so I use language like, "Um, churches app, churches platform. Hey, what if we stopped creating a product instead started producing others and giving the ability to," and I'll do, like, you know, we're doing a podcast later with some people from Glue talking about the Uberization of church. What would church learn from Uber? From, um, you know, so many other platform-based companies out there? Airbnb was the one I was just blanking on a second ago. Anyway, yeah. And so there's a lot of lessons towards that. And you've kind of stumbled into that. This is not even the conversation I was expecting to have when I was talking to a Disney church, but I'm super excited to hear that that's where you're landing because you're right. Your greatest resource are the thousands of employees and cast members of Disney Parks and Disney in general because their circle of influence, their oil costs, is huge, is multinational in many situations. And the ability for us to equip and empower them and disciple them to that place is beautiful.

My next question was literally gonna, and you may have just answered it, but let me throw it at you anyway. What does discipleship look like for your church? How do you disciple these cast members? Like, what's the process to get them to understand, you know, their story in Jesus's story that others need to hear?

Well, let me give you a statistic that will shock you and anyone who hears this. Ninety-five percent of the people who call Cast Member Church their family are still yet to know Jesus personally, to trust him. So we've embraced the philosophy—it's not really a philosophy, I think it's just fact—is discipleship begins before conversion. So we are discipling them. I mean, if you look at Jesus walking with the disciples for three-plus years, how much time took between the time Jesus called Peter to the time that Jesus was standing there in front of the location, the gates of Hell location, where he told Peter, "Who do you say that I am?" How much time passed between him calling Peter and Peter confessing that Jesus was the Savior and the Son of God? The whole time they're moving as a family, and yet these guys are still trying to figure it out. They're drawn to Jesus. There's something really special about him. They think, they wonder, maybe. And they're following along.

We have this huge family of people that are on a journey moving towards Jesus constantly. And so we don't, I think one of the things is we move the goal posts a little bit. Most people, I hate it when I generalize, so I'm gonna preface that by saying I'm not sure I'm right on this, but I would say most tend to think that salvation is the goal line. Get, you know, lead people to Jesus, boom, we got the win. And I don't see that in Scripture. I see that as a life and death decision, absolutely a crucial decision, but it is not the goal line. The goal line is someone who knows Jesus and is becoming like Jesus, meaning not just in his character but also in his capabilities to multiply disciples and invest in other people, to serve others, to be where people are that don't know Jesus.

And so we are modeling that the whole time. I had a cast member one time make the comment. He was listening to something I was talking about, and I was talking to another customer about a situation they were going through, and he was, this was happening online by the way, and he goes, "I know what you're doing. I know what you're doing." I said, "Oh, what am I doing?" He says, "You're teaching us how to be like Jesus." And I'm like, guilty as charged.

But what we do is we are showing Jesus to them every time. And we don't avoid any conversation. Oh my gosh, we don't avoid any conversation, no matter how controversial, no matter how awkward. But Jesus isn't afraid of that, so we're always showing them Jesus, always showing. But we're not pushing him. He's always coming in naturally. It's a part of our, when we started the communities, we call them communities D for Disney, unless they want to sue us. Yeah, if they sue us, it's for discipleship. So in any case, we made, we told all of our global communities, "Look, we are gonna get together. We would love to get together with you, but here's the thing: we're going to talk about Jesus because he's a natural part of our life, and we're going to just so you know, you know, we're that's just who we are." And the most common response was, "Well, that's what we would expect. We like that."

So discipleship for us is moving people one step closer to Jesus every single interaction, and then as they come to know him, helping them learn how to reveal Jesus to others, how to be Jesus to others. And it's, so it's a very, it's a very natural, very, very, very natural. And it's not.

Awkward. That's why I love it. I'm a former worship pastor. I was terrible at evangelism. The idea of evangelizing outside of the church scared the living daylights out of me. I just thought, "Oh, I don't have the gift of evangelism. Let them do that." And now it's just a part of my daily life. But it's not weird. It's not weird at all. It's just about talking about my friend Jesus.

I was talking to my friend Jesus this morning about you, and we were talking about this. That natural and people in the world that we live in, again, our cast members are either skeptical, suspicious, or by and large indifferent. They just don't know. They don't know what they don't know. And so to them, this is really interesting. This is fascinating because we talk about it as a part of our lives, not as a segment of our lives. My Christian life? No, this is my life. Jesus is my life. And I want you to hear what he's doing in my life. And oh my gosh, we've been talking about you too. And here's some things that you know, he might be interested in. That you might be interested in knowing he's doing in yours.

So it's very subtle. It is intentional. Don't get me wrong. I don't want you to think it's not. We're not thinking like generic, just hanging out with Jesus kind of a thing. But it's very intentional. But we become so attuned to how the Holy Spirit works through this that it doesn't feel like we're evangelizing. It just feels like we're inviting people into our lives.

Gotcha. Just curious, do you use like a particular system? Is it something that you've homegrown? Um, like curriculum, that sort of thing? I'm not a fan of the word curriculum. As soon as I hear curriculum, I think program. I think, you know, something. Um, it just depends on the life of that person. It really does. It's learning. Again, like I said earlier, we learned how to become really good listeners. And one of those, one ear on the conversation, one ear on the Holy Spirit, and just being able to navigate that. Um, God always gives us the right words at the right time. We've made lots of mistakes. Don't get me wrong. But you just, I think the more comfortable you become with just being a disciple and inviting other people into those conversations, it doesn't feel like you're doing a curriculum. You're just talking about life, and God gives you what you need at that moment in time.

Love that. Um, listening, you're right, is so important. And plus with those big Mickey Mouse ear hats like you got a lot more listening capacity coming through on that. I'm sorry. Yeah. Um, hey, let me, I mean, this still might be a weird question following up Mickey Mouse. I don't know. It can get weirder than that. Oh, let's go there. Funding. Are you self-funded within the ties? Are you having to be creative with some funding? By Bivo or Covo, like what does ministry life look like for here? Supporting ministry, supporting you, other staff, like what's happening there?

That's a great question. Um, again, we broke every church planting rule when we started this. So we came in, like I said, underfunded. We had some money coming in, but we were underfunded. My wife actually works for Disney. Um, part of that is because we needed the income, and two, it was a boots on the ground kind of a thing. As a pastor, it's very awkward for me to work for Disney and also, you know, to have be representing a faith because Disney is very careful about that. I respect that. They're a secular company. They can do whatever they want. And so for me to be a pastor and working for Disney could create some tensions, and we don't want to do that. We want to. Jesus can work with that. Believe me, he can work with it. So my wife works for Disney, so that helped.

Um, we raised some funding in the beginning, but over the course of time, one, like I said, one of the promises was that God would multiply this around the world, and I neglected to say without the need of a building or a staff. And so we knew, okay, this is, if this is going to happen, it's going to have to be people that already have jobs that are Bivo or Cova or whatever. And of course, cast members already have a job. You know, they're already working for Disney. And if they are making disciples in the process, you've got a functioning church.

The funding comes by way. We've had people that have contacted, said, "Hey, we love what you're doing. I would like to support monthly." I am, I do take a salary from Cast Member Church, but I'm actually weaning myself off of it, simply because I want to set an example that I get to serve Cast Member Church, not that I work for Cast Member Church. But that's not the case for everybody. That's not a prescription. I'm just saying that in the world that I live in, I want to model that. So I do other things. I write books. I speak. I consult different things like that that help wean that income down so that when the money that's coming into Cast Member Church, whether it's tithes or outside support, goes right back into what we're doing, allows us to upgrade or expand and even just simply serve cast members in their times of need.

I mean, that is your story. That has been a story that I've heard more and more in this mid-post, wherever we are, Covid season. It seems like more and more pastors are moving out of a paid full-time position, going part-time, even going true Bivo, Covo. Um, to ease pressure and finances off, you know, the church, but also as an invitation to allow people to come up within the church instead of being the paid professional Christian, to allow people to do that. It's interesting. Just the stat that I found this week, um, 75 percent of church budget is driven towards payroll and building, um, which is interesting because you're the exact opposite of that. That's not your problem. We just shot the curve on that one. So yeah, you're ahead of it now. There's pain points for where you are certainly, but there's opportunities to learn and work through it. And so I'm, man, I'm just ecstatic by this conversation. I called you, you know, did this because I thought, "Hey, it's a Disney thing. I got to pay homage to my Disney people." And then he's outing himself as a digital church, and he's talking about discipleship openly on the podcast. I mean, like, this may be my favorite podcast in 2021 just with that happening right there.

Yes, it's been good stuff. Hey, so one last question as we're wrapping up here. Um, so somebody, a church wants to do this, a church planter wants to do this. Um, you jumped in feet first without asking any questions. Uh, would you advise that moving forward? Would you like, how, what are some next steps if somebody wants to get started into this?

Uh, I can only speak for myself, but I think if I was to, here's what I would say. Um, and maybe this is a little controversial, but I've never shied away from that. Um, is focus on making disciples. Are you a disciple maker? Are you passionate about making disciples? Uh, a guy who discipled me for a while, Mike Breen, you probably have heard of Mike with 3DM and all that, makes the comment that if you plant a church, you might get disciples, but if you make disciples, you always get a church. And when we made that pivot, that was huge for us because no one, we no longer had the expectations of, "Oh, if we're a church, we need this. If we're a church, we've got to have that." And we just simply were obedient and faithful to the Great Commission, and whatever that looked like was up to God.

So I would say the first thing I would say is you really, you want to be passionate about making disciples. Um, I would also say, um, if you love the lost, great. If you have a, if you don't, figure it out, figure it out, just simply because that's the mark of a disciple is to serve. Um, but I would say for someone who's actually like feeling the call, um, I would split the difference. I would not necessarily recommend a parachute drop. You know, God is, you know, God will work with whatever we give him. And so he's been faithful. And one of our jokes has been for ten, you know, we celebrate ten years in January, and I said, you know, our celebration should be, "We're still here." But the truth of the matter is he blessed that. He took that. But there were some pain points that we could have avoided. But we also learned dependence upon the Holy Spirit in ways that maybe I wouldn't have learned if we were fully funded, if we were, you know, all set up. And I don't know. I don't, it just, that was just the choice that we made.

Um, but I would split the difference. I would say don't wait till you're ready because you're not going to be. That's like getting married. That's like having a baby. Don't say, "I'll plant a church when I'm ready." Well, then stay where you are because you're never going to be ready. Uh, I would also recommend surrounding yourself with people who can speak, you know, can either affirm or give you counsel as to whether this is a pipe dream or if it's a call of God because they look similar. They can look really, so you can convince yourself, "Oh, this is, I know I'm called." I've had people come to want to serve with Cast Member Church saying, "Oh, I'm called. God's called me here." And in the early days we'd be like, "Awesome, more people, great." You know, and then they find out, "Oh, I was looking for more of a normal church. I'm more comfortable around believers." It's like, "Well, you knew all along that this was." Some people just loved the idea of mission, not the actual mission.

So if you have people in your life that can give you wisdom, saying, "Man, you really, this is definitely a call," or someone saying, "Are you really sure? Are you really? Have you counted the cost?" That's really important because, you know, church planters, I'm preaching to the choir to anyone who's listening to this, but church planters, you get a target on your back. Satan is going to put a target on your back. And so you better be prepared because sometimes it's just the confidence in that call that will get you through. That you get up in the morning, you go, "Okay, God called me to this. He will not abandon me." That's what gets you through. But if it's a pipe dream, I don't know what to say. I hope that helps.

Nope, that was incredible. You know, and so often through Stadia, we've got a discovery process, and I'll be honest, like I've helped planters through that discovery process, and I'm like, "Yeah, you are set. You're good to go. And you know, God speed." And at the same time, they look at me and it's like, "God hasn't called me to this. Uh, and I've had people that I thought would make excellent planters realize through that process, 'Hey, this is not what God's called me to. I don't know what it is, but it's not planting.'" And so, you know, having those people in your lives that can speak truth to you and being open and honest to God for how he can lead you, uh, and be humble, teachable, faithful in that season to listen, to put on the Mickey Mouse hat with the big ears and use it to listen in more deeply, more keenly to the Spirit is so important.

I would also add resilience. I would add resilience to that. Uh, are you willing to get back up every time you get knocked down? Are you a resilient person? Uh, and that comes with taking things personally, all that stuff that happens, can you shake it off? Can you shake it off? Because I think that's what separates, when you're in the mission field, that's a person who can say, "Okay, well, that didn't work. Okay, we'll try this." You know, and you just keep getting back up. You keep getting back up. That's the one. That's the one. Those are the people that drive Satan nuts. They just keep getting back up. And that's.

That's the person I want to be. Love it. Emotion, emotional intelligence, right alongside with that, just been able to, to where, where through, you know, the situations that come up. So true. Um, even even in Disney World, Satan still has, um, still has power and is able to affect some things even in the great magic kingdom.

So all right, hey, this has been an incredible conversation. Thank you, uh, thank you Stephen for this, uh, cast member church. If somebody wanted to follow you or find more information on cast member church, uh, where should they go? Uh, it's real simple: castmemberchurch.com. And uh, and I'm also on Instagram and Facebook. You can find me, and uh, but yeah, start with castmemberchurch.com and learn a little more about who we are, what we're doing, and hopefully it's an encouragement to anyone who sees it.

Hey, yeah, so this season with the podcast we're talking about, you know, crazy people doing crazy things for God, and you are right up there. So thank you for your faithfulness of ten years of doing cast member church, um, centered around Disney cast members, current and old, literally around the world, and for recognizing that digital has power to influence and to help your church go to places where it could not normally go. So man, thank you for jumping on this on this podcast, Stephen. Greatly appreciate it. Uh, for the audience at home, this is Jeff the Church Digital and with Stadia Church Planning. Thanks for joining us here at the pod, and we'll see you next time at the show. Y'all have a good day.