Season 3, EP208: Dr. John Harris, Jared Hughes, and Reaching the De-Churched, Digitally

So it was, so the deep church. Yeah, they're going to come, they're going to come hurt, they're going to come broken, but we can separate what happened to them from who they are, the value that they have as a son or daughter of God. And that's that's game changing.

Welcome to the Church Digital podcast. Through this podcast we'll talk about the technological innovations within the church, but more than tech for tech's sake, we'll address deeper questions. Is disciple making possible digitally? How should we approach the digital mission field? Can a biblically grounded church operate in digital space? And where does the metaverse fit into all this?

Whether you're a big or small church, an established church or a startup church plant, the Church Digital's goal is to help churches like yours learn to be a multiplying church digitally and physically. Our heart is that churches like yours will discover a newfound focus on disciple making that will revolutionize your church.

And now here's your host, Jeff Reed.

Hey, this is Jeff with the Church Digital, uh, and uh, leadership network, New Thing Network, uh, oh my gosh, Digital Church Network. I feel like I just, I can go on and on and on with all these titles, but I tell you, I'm having so much fun right now. Like, it is a blast. My dog doesn't sleep at night, so I got about three hours sleep last night because my dog sleeps all during the day, so I'm exhausted, but it is so much fun. Do you ever have that problem, John? Do you have any pets?

I'm totally going off topic here. I'm just, I don't have anything. No, but I have that. That may be the smartest thing. Well, no, well, I have three daughters under the age of seven, and so sleep is still an issue for you then?

Yeah, yes, it is. That's good.

Hey, listen, here with the Church Digital, here with this podcast, we're entering into season three, and really what we're highlighting here with season three is this idea of the humble disrupter. Yeah, hey, listen, if you listen to this podcast, you know we are all about disruption and we're all about doing things differently. And it's funny, actually, I was speaking in front of some global leaders maybe four months ago or so, and this lady pulls me aside and she's with a global missions organization, and she says, "I want you to know that what you just talked about was very disruptive within the church, and I can understand why people look at you weird sometimes, because these are some really disruptive and difficult topics to handle." And I said, "I appreciate that. I do get a lot of weird looks." And she said, "But I want you to know I've never heard anybody say anything as aggressive and as disruptive as you just did and have the humility that you had when you said it." And she said, "That made your words so much more impactful because you weren't doing disruption for disruption's sake." And it was like, "Oh my gosh, that right there is the summarization of what I want to do with my life."

And now as we're trying to encourage others to be disruptive in this season, engaging in different modes of church, man, let's keep that humility in place with that disruption.

By the way, sir, Dr. John Harris is on here. He is the walking embodiment of humility while being disruptive. And so as we're kicking off the season, I don't know that I was intentionally trying to structure this, but you truly are a perfect example of somebody that's, you know, showing much humility and grace even while doing something as disruptive as you're doing. With hearts like his, your Facebook church, and so sir, thank you very much for jumping on this with us.

Yeah, my pleasure. Glad to be here.

Hey, like, let's even have some fun just kind of kicking off here. By the way, we're doing this show on social media, and so we are all over the place, and that's awesome. We love it. And so at the same time, we're testing out this new technology. We're trying to get a regular live stream happening in our Altar Live kind of showroom here, and so I'm actually looking at the stream out of the corner of my eye, and I think we've got some technical difficulties. I know my associates are working on it, hopefully trying to get in touch with Altar Live. They've been having some buggy issues. I don't want to call them out publicly, but some issues with some RTMP streaming. There's some patches that are supposedly coming, and so if we get it working, I'm going to encourage social media people to come hang out with us over in Altar Live and enjoy the show over there. But yeah, you may have a better view where you are right now. So in social media, so we'll get there in a little bit.

But hey, even just to open up here, Dr. Harris, um, tell us a little bit. Like, who you are, what's your story? Talk to us a little bit about how Hearts Like His is working and operating.

Yeah, um, so I don't know how many times I've heard this, but I'm part of that group. I grew up as a pastor's kid, but what was unique about my experience was that my dad was an Air Force chaplain. And so for the first part of my childhood, he was an Air Force chaplain. Then he retired and then he started pastoring a church in Arkansas, a Baptist church in Arkansas, that's where I really matured and just learning some of his own leadership and things like that. And certainly he was a mentor for me in ministry. And so that was a tremendous asset to me, along with my mother. Both of them were just solid believers, and so I had a strong Christian foundation, not just from like a Sunday school class or things like that, but from my parents' lives and the atmosphere that they created in our home.

And so after high school, I went to college. Well, I accepted my call to ministry when I was fifteen. And so going into my sophomore year, I was starting to be in ministry and speaking whenever I had opportunities to. And so I committed when I was in college to go into full-time ministry. So after college, I went to seminary in Memphis, and then into the Air Force as a chaplain. So I was an Air Force chaplain for nine years, spent a tour in Iraq in 2007 and Afghanistan in 2010, ministering to troops that were there as well as our medical team.

And so then, after nine years of that, I left and joined a church here in Northern California in Fairfield as the Christian education pastor and teaching pastor. Then it evolved into small groups pastor, executive pastor. And so after nine years of that, I stepped down from that in 2019, just feeling like I wanted to serve more churches and not just the one that I was serving at, as far as helping them turn some things around.

And part of that was me watching some of these trends that actually led to the birth of Hearts Like His. It's seeing that churches were in trouble, churches were not healthy, churches were declining or plateauing, depending on whoever you talk to. Between eighty, eighty-five, ninety percent of churches in America have been plateauing or declining for a lot of years. Like, that's been a consistent, you know, Barna report, Pew Research report, that's been a consistent trend for several years, and nothing seemed to turn it around.

So I just felt a conviction, man. Let me just kind of step down from this full-time role and help as many other pastors and churches as I could. And then when COVID happened in 2020, and a lot of churches were looking at trying to do something online, I thought, "Well, okay, I'm not on staff at a church right now, and I'm seeing this increase in the number of people who are leaving the church. Some were leaving their faith altogether, but many of them were just leaving the church."

And so as I dived into that to find out why and do some research, that's when I ran across Josh Packard's book, which I would recommend to any pastor or anyone looking to see some of the insights behind this trend. His book, Church Refugees, which is really good. But um, so long story short, I thought, "Man, why? I think it's possible for us to do something on Facebook to just try to target those people who have left the church but still love Jesus." Like, that's my main demographic, my main target. Those who left the church but still love Jesus. And because God's plan for them is to still be in the body, and even though one expression of church might not work, there are other expressions of church, one of which I was getting ready to lean into myself, which was the online one.

And I think if I started Hearts Like His five or six years ago, I might have had more of an uphill battle, but starting it in the midst of COVID, when a lot of churches were online, it kind of helped me slide in with not as much resistance.

And so, um, looking at people like Angela Craig when she started For Search Pursuit Church Live on Facebook, looking at some things that Myron Pierce was doing in his digital ministry, I thought, "Okay, this really is possible." So my wife looked into it, leaned into it, and we started it January 5th, 2021. And so here we are, a year later. Well, now you're in some change later, and it's been a great experience. And certainly I've learned a lot.

Um, because we were successful in targeting some of those people in that demographic I was talking about, who left the church but still love Jesus, and now are finding a really healthy and thriving community online. And so it's like it's just been a dream come true.

I gotta tell you, it feels like you've been doing this longer than a year or so. Like, yeah, it feels like you've had more conversations and you've had more experiences. So when you're like, "Yeah, it was January twenty-one," oh man, that was not that long ago. Four times, I know, I know.

Yeah, congratulations. You feel like a seasoned expert in the grand scheme of digital churches. And uh, I totally, I really want to unpack. I'm gonna come back and I want to ask you a question about your military. Okay, we'll do it at the end. Don't let me forget. I want to throw that on as a takeaway because I forget that you have got that military expertise experience. When we get into it, all right.

So really, I mean, what I want to do is I want to talk about this idea of de-church, uh, you know, within digital churches and metaverse churches. I've got friends of mine, uh, Jason Polling at Cornerstone, uh, Yuba City Cornerstone Virtual Reality. Um, he tells me Jeff, seventy percent of the people that are active in our church virtually are de-churched. And just constantly, uh, you know, I've had this conversation with Jared, uh, Hughes over at Hope City Church. Yeah, yeah. And um, and so he's telling me stories where it's this huge percentage of de-churched as well that are active in there.

So you know, this is an unscientific observation, but it seems to me like the church people, people that have left the church, um, inserting the word building, but still love Jesus, it seems like they're engaging in digital spaces. Would you like, this is unscientific, you know, I don't have like massive white sheets backing me up here, but would you agree to that? Or do you feel that through your church?

One hundred percent. And so what I cannot say is what percentage of those who have left the building are plugged into these digital spaces. But what I and others like you've mentioned can say is that for those of us who are in these digital spaces, there is above fifty percent of those are people who have left, who have left the building.

Um, ironically, you know, when churches talk about being mission or whatever, they say, "The church has left the building." No, they hadn't. They may have for a weekend, but they come right back to the building.

There is another part of the church that has left the building for real, and those are the ones who are in these digital spaces, which actually supports the reality that these people have left one expression of church. They did not leave Christianity. They did not leave Jesus, but they left searching for other ways to live out their faith, strengthen their faith, flourish in their faith, and to connect with other believers.

And before the digital space really got rolling, there was no other place for them to go. When they went from first, they most of them thought, well, many of them—I haven't surveyed most of them—many of them, based on their reports, thought the problem was just one congregation. And then they went to another congregation, another congregation, another congregation, and that's when they realized it's not congregation specific or pastor specific. It's this model. And when they realized that it was the model that didn't fit them anymore—the Sunday focus, the worship, the teaching, the offerings, the serving—you know, that model didn't fit them anymore. There was nothing else out there for them that they knew of, and so they just didn't do anything.

So with the rise of house churches, with the rise of digital churches, now there's another—no, there's more options on the plate for them to kind of choose from. And so that's what's happening.

Yeah, you know, if COVID did one thing for us, it kind of messed up all the models and it broke the mold of the brick and mortar. Yeah. And honestly, I do believe COVID was an accelerant. I think we were destined to get there eventually. It's just that God helped us get there a lot quicker. But you're right, you know, the digital church, digital ministry, digital discipleship, the acceleration that we're seeing in micro church, in many ways workplace ministries—like the individual now is looking for purpose. And honestly, I do, and we'll talk more about this in future episodes, but I think we're going to be seeing a decentralized movement, I think, where you see a lot of individuals that are very excited about ministry. They are now excited about the ministry beyond what happens in that building because of maybe the struggles and the issues within that building. And so the church has an opportunity, maybe—I hate to say the word pivot because we've heard that a lot—but have this opportunity to engage in maybe helping others do ministry instead of asking others to help them do their ministry. But that's a completely different conversation.

Well, let me ask this. Let me go ahead, go for it. It is a fuller and different conversation, but it is tied to this one because when I talk to pastors who are saying, "What can we do to prevent this exodus?" and so one of my recommendations is to add another model or expression of church with your church. If you don't do that, then the people who are needing it are going to go find it. But you can add something to your particular ministry and make it meaningful. And you mentioned the word—they're about purpose, seeking purpose. Like, part of what's happening is people are looking at, and I'm not trying to diminish this, but this is a reality we just got to talk about. When you have a growth track and you're saying that two of those four weeks is one: find your, you know, your gift assessment, like your giftings, and then two: discover your purpose or walk in your purpose. Well, when churches use the word purpose, they're talking about volunteer positions. Like, people waking up—that's not God's purpose for the life. It's not to be a greeter or this or that or anything that's an hour and a half on Sunday. Like, it's much bigger than that. And so when churches help them discover their purpose for real, it could be in the building or outside the building. Nine times out of ten it's outside the building. And churches aren't helping people find places in their community to serve out their purpose. They're only so far looking at a volunteer role, which is that more internal focus that people who are leaving are trying to break out of.

Yeah, churches can't. If they shift totally, completely—we use the word multimodal a lot. At least, you know, when I wear my Stadia hat, a church that's running multiple modes. And that's a physical church that's doing a micro, or a physical church that's doing a digital expression. And honestly, like I tell people, COVID was really the first time that churches had to wrestle with being multimodal, with wrestling with a physical and a digital. Now, to be honest, like a lot of churches really struggle with the idea of dichotomy. I mean, for many years it was simplified: do one, do one strategy and do that very well. But just the reality of where we are today is people don't trust, often, the one large thing. It needs to be decentralized. It needs to be empowering. It needs to be infused with friends and individuals where there is trust, because they're not going to trust those organizations like they once did.

I joke in a blog post I wrote recently. I was like, "Pastor, congratulations. Your seminary degree is not trusted as much as Google and friends." Right?

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's funny. Like, I even—there's a friend of mine. He's a pastor in Alabama. Over—if it's Alabama in a second. But professor, a friend of mine in Alabama texted me and he's like, "You see, when you don't work for a church, you can say stuff like that. When you work for a church, that's a quick way to get you fired."

So yeah, yeah, that's what it is. Speaking of Alabama, hey, we got Chris. Chris is in here. Hey, Chris, from SubSplash, watching from Alabama. And I've got Rob Sidebottom who is all the way in England. So we got multiple continents engaging with us here on this. By the way, we got our Alter Live thing figured out, and so if you want to jump in, head over to the Church Digital's Alter Live platform. Just in the web browser, type thechurchdigital.alterlive.com. You can jump in into the show. It's going to look the same thing as it does here. You can engage. We've got some people in there already. I'll be taking questions. If there's questions, you can drop it in the chat there in Alter Live, and we'll be engaging in Alter Live along the way.

So hey, let me ask you this, Dr. Harris. When we look at de-church now, I hesitate to ask this because I don't want to offend anybody, but from a stereotypical perspective, do we see—do you see, and this is unscientific—but do you see any trends towards age, towards race, towards economics? When you look at a de-church person, are there any characteristics that stand out, or is it truly a blend across multiple characteristics?

I see a blend, yeah. Nothing uniquely stands out about the majority of those who have left as far as demographics. The more the trend is the psychographics, where it's your people who volunteered a lot, people who were giving a lot, people who were, you know, it's more like their church behavior is higher percentage of people who were part of that twenty percent that we say is doing all the work. That's where large portions of the church are coming from, according to Josh Packard in his book, from his 2015 study. So, and that was before COVID. You know, people already on the brink of leaving. And so when COVID happened and people started surfing or church shopping online and they were able to visit four or five different services a week, then they either popped into one—you know, they're able to kind of shop more or easier or faster—but then some of them try to still pop up and attend, and that's when they discover for them that yeah, the format wasn't working for them, that particular expression.

And like, I think we just had to be okay with that. And I take it personal. I mean, there are a lot of pastors who do, because anytime we invest our lives into something, when there's a criticism of it, we're going to take it personal. But if we can get past taking it personal and hear what people are saying and not demonize them, not try to throw scriptures at them and accuse them of forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, then if we can hear them, we can—that will lead us into some creativity and some innovation that will enable us to serve them and a whole another group that thinks just like them. And where we can offer these other expressions of church in a multimodal context, it's not one, it's not either or, it's all of it. It's all. It's the body of Christ in multiple expressions. And I think we just need to thank God that all these options are available for Christians who have different lifestyles, different, you know, life rhythms, you know, things like that. The one model just doesn't work for everybody all the time anymore.

Yeah, you mentioned the word listening or hearing several times in that when you were describing the church and a digital church specifically kind of engaging in that. I would love an example. Okay, I mean, can you—I don't want to drop a name. Like, I'm not as interested in that. But you know, I just—I know in digital context, hearing and listening is so important. It's so much more valuable to ask questions and make statements. And so would love to maybe for this audience just describe a little bit of what that can look like or has looked like through hearts like his.

Yeah, okay. So one couple, they had expressed to their pastor that they felt like they were calling to do a particular ministry. It wasn't necessarily to leave the church, but to do a particular ministry. And because that whole thing kind of blew up—because again, if a pastor is thinking, "Oh, you want to do something different than what we're doing," then you automatically get put into this category of trying to be an Absalom, you're trying to overthrow the kingdom or trying to be rogue or not submitting to authority or all this stuff. And so several people have talked about how difficult of a conversation they had with their leadership when they were trying to be honest about what was stirring in them, what they said God was wanting to do in them. And they were thinking about something where it could add to that congregation. But there wasn't a paradigm for adding to that pastor's congregation, that particular church. And so it ended up being a separation, and they ended up leaving. And they're just looking for a context like this.

And so now part of what I've done with them and others is kind of help with some wound healing, some of that stuff, because I'm like, "No, God's hand is still on you. You're still giving. Whatever God told you to do, He hasn't changed His mind. We still need you back in the game. But now you have an injury right now. You got to bandage you up and kind of reaffirm: no, you did hear from God." You know, all these kind of things so they can go, "Okay, I guess I'm not crazy. So let me get back in the game and do this and do ministry."

But I think if, and again, I'm talking about several conversations where they actually didn't just leave—like a lot of pastors will talk about folks just laughing and didn't have a conversation. Because many times when they do have a conversation, it blows up. Like, it just doesn't go well. So people have learned to leave without the conversation. Then you might feel dishonored or disrespected, but no, there's a reason why they didn't have the conversation. Whether it's true or not, they have their own reason. But others have had the reason—I mean, they've had the conversation—but they didn't have it where a pastor had listening ears to listen to what the heart of what they were saying.

Were saying was, uh, they weren't trying to leave, didn't want to go, or maybe, maybe someone did want to go, but someone did want to leave. But instead of being blessed and sent out, it just got to be this breakup. And it doesn't have to be a breakup. I mean, even a lot of church splits right now could have been church plants if the conversation was different.

Is it hard to have that conversation with somebody? Whether, maybe, you know, maybe they just walked away and it wasn't healthy, or it was healthy, but you know, many times the conversations like there are unhealthy, there are hurt feelings. Is it hard to have those conversations without ripping, without trashing like the church they're leaving from? Like, how do you, how do you nuance that conversation?

Yeah, you want to be critical of the past. You don't want to be. And you're hearing half of the story. So how do you, how do you do ministry without doing ill will here towards, you know, our brothers, maybe at other churches?

Sure. I want to provide a space where we are open and honest about our experience. And maybe there was something that was spiritual abuse. Maybe there was something that was traumatic. Maybe there was something that was your fault. Maybe you offended them. They, infinity, whatever. But as we move forward, if we're going to have hearts like his, which again is the name of our ministry, then we want to allow the Holy Spirit to dig deep into our hearts and get out whatever junk doesn't belong there. And if we have an apology that we need, that we owe somebody, then we need to be, you know, mature enough to have that conversation.

But as we move forward, um, you can learn from your past without trying to disrespect the people who are part of your past.

So, so even like last night, last night we had our time together and I was sharing a little bit about speaking in Orlando at the digital church workshop there. And how, um, there are some people who still don't, who still don't even think online is a legitimate expression of church. And I'm like, it's okay. I mean, I made a post about it. You commented on that, right? Like, some pastors want to argue about whether online church is being as online. Can you actually have a church online? And I said, while some are arguing about that, others are wanting me to come from California to Florida to talk about it. Like, then what's going to go with that?

So I was telling the people in our fellowship last night, I said, listen, don't argue with anyone about the legitimacy of church online or not. It doesn't matter. We all are wearing the same jersey. We're doing the same things. And it's okay if we differ about what we think is biblical or not. It really is okay. We're seeing fruit here. God's changing your lives, our lives. And we're in context biblically. I've got a doctorate of ministry, so we're not out of bounds here. I didn't just come off the street and like, we're just gonna make up something else. No. And my doctor is in transformational discipleship. So it's not gonna be an easy conversation for anyone to try to talk to me about whether or not we can disciple people online. I have a strong ecclesiology for it, a strong theology for it, biblical basis for it. And it is what it is. And if people disagree, it's okay.

So I'm talking to folks in Hearts by Kids and saying, don't even get into an argument about it, right? In the spirit of unity, even with our differences, it's going to be okay. There are others who are looking for what we have. They're looking for what we offer. Invite them, plug them in, and let's see what God does. And that's where we're at.

Yeah, yeah. So so good. It's funny, even just the heart of that, the humility of the disrupter. It's right. Hey, like, we're not going to argue. We're going to prove it on the battlefield. We're going to look forward and on the mission field. And how we're discipling and who we're reaching and how we're connecting and how we're multiplying. That's the victory lap. That's the celebration. That's what I think we're fighting towards.

And even within my own team, it's encouraging. Hey, let's not lean into those fights, you know? And it's funny, like, even talking about humble disruptors here in the Altar Live platform, we've got Jeff Hook, who's like CEO of a church technology company, and Jared Hughes. We just talked about Jared, I don't know, maybe twenty, fifteen minutes ago. He's in here in Altar Live as well, chiming in. Jeff Hook actually, he said something that I just I want to give a shout out to here.

Um, I think many in Europe left the church because of the religious wars between the Catholic Church and their Protestants years ago, and Europe is largely what would be a post-Christendom environment now. People are leaving the American church because of cultural wars in this country that are not showing the love of Christ.

That's interesting. That's maybe a little poignant. Um, and he can say that. It's his right. So you can email Jeff. Oh, no, I'm kidding. Don't. You can see that, not to me. But it is interesting as we've seen just so much even within culture. You know, it's funny like I hesitate to even use the word Trump in a sentence. Not even talking about just even the word Trump because I just I don't want to like stir up something and rip off the band-aid one way or the other. Like it's not even political side either way. It's an unsafe word because of how either side's going to react to it.

Yeah. And so you know, we're seeing that tension. You've been a pastor in that environment. Well, let me ask this question, kind of even pulling that same thread. As a pastor currently, what are you doing to maybe guard yourself from, or your church from, that? So like, you're reaching out to de-churched people. What are you doing to prevent people in your church from becoming de-churched, maybe even some of the stuff that Jeff's talking about here, about just the different cultures and moving away from the church here in America?

Yeah, well, a couple of things. One is I am consistently preaching the gospel. That like, every week, it's God's message of love and forgiveness through Jesus Christ. That's literally been every message, every different topic, but pointing to the same thing.

And here's why. So definitely strong on the gospel truth, but also talking about topics specifically. So we're going to talk about political division. We're going to talk about ethnic division. We're going to talk about that through the lens of the gospel because in this context is an opportunity to disciple people through these particular changes.

And here's one benefit I have that a lot of pastors don't. There are a lot of pastors who, I mean, they know who they're going to vote for this past election, right? They know their stance on vaccines, for or against it. They know all that. But most of them did not feel comfortable saying their particular stance from the platform because you have people in your ministry who are on both sides of that wall as well. Um, you know, of all these different issues. And so they're trying to pastor people through that and trying to honor everyone's thing. But they didn't say. So some of the congregation members wanted some strong stance one way or the other. And if they didn't get that strong stance on a political issue, they left to another church that got that, that was promoting that.

But many pastors felt uncomfortable because it would mess up with the money, right? When people leave, they take their money. They take their volunteer position, all that kind of stuff. And no one sees their congregation fall apart over something that really is not central to who we are as a church.

Well, I don't have. I don't. I'm not. I don't. We don't take up offerings and stuff. There's a giving link that people want to give, but I don't. My point is, I don't. I'm not tied to needing people to give to maintain the ministry the way others are. I don't have a staff or a building or those kinds of bills. So I don't really have to navigate around that for those reasons.

But I'm not saying everyone did for those reasons because, like I said, it's just tough to pastor people when you got blue and red in your congregation, pro and anti-vaccine in your congregation, and all that. But it all comes down to the bottom line of losing some of your budget if you make the mistake and folks take off. And I don't have that. So I'm gonna talk about some stuff from a biblical perspective. And, um, but I'm not gonna pick sides necessarily either.

So yeah, yeah. You know, I remember when Jesus was talking about being sensitive to speaking gospel truths because of budget concerns. And you know, Paul was chastising the Trump. Kidding, of course.

Yeah. Well, so here's the thing. Like, if I know that if I talk about this particular issue on a Sunday, I'm going to, it's not, it's not maybe not. I'm not afraid of talking about it. Maybe I'm not afraid of talking about it. I'm afraid of losing budget enough to where I'm gonna have to let a staff member go, right? So where, because that was already fuzzy for a lot of churches anyway because of the natural decline in giving and things like that. And so it's not worth it to launch out with a particular stance one way or the other for some pastors because the bottom line would be another hard decision that they'd have to make. And it probably wouldn't affect them if they do bunch of cuts. The pastor's salary is not the first one on the list. It's usually some others. And so they didn't want to have to be, you know, to take that risk just for something that they could move past in a different way.

So anyway, have you actually ever met Jared Hughes? Have you guys had a conversation yet?

No, I've just seen him online, him and his wife. It's funny like Jared is blowing up in the chat. This is my life. This is my blood. This is my heartbeat. I love this. Like, because he's, I just, I've had so many conversations with him that have sounded just like this. And so I just I find this comical how it's coming together.

Jared will be on next week, and we're having a conversation about bivocational, which I know is another, you know, heartbeat of yours. And so I don't want to pull from that. And so yeah, this is solid.

Um, let me ask this question. So I, some of my church leadership brethren, some of my, uh, maybe their friends, maybe they're just people I know, you know, I've heard them say, hey, doing digital's a cop-out. Going to a digital church is a cop-out. These people need to, you know, insert some aggressive term about coming back to the body, not run away into a digital environment or something where they're copping out.

Um, like, how do you respond in those situations? What does that look like for you?

Yeah, I would dive deeper and say, a cop-out from what? Um, like, and instead of being able to go back to the body, the physical body, the incarnate body of Christ, doing this digitally, they need to address their sins and their issues within the church that they had the issues with. And instead, now what you're saying is, hey, go to a different model, a different expression where maybe we're not addressing the larger character flaw that may be within the individual. And number two, they're addressing a digital expression of church instead of physical, which may or may not even be legitimate.

I mean, let's be honest. I'm not even really making this model up like there are people that would think this and that have said this to me. And so that kind of flies against some of the stuff that you're.

Talking about what, what's the response to some of those situations? Sure thing. Whether a person is in an in-person congregation or a digital congregation, the biblical principles of handling offense is still there. And so even when, um, if I'm talking to a person in our congregation or our fellowship or someone has had an offense with somebody, you still need to deal with that. You still need to deal with that. That's a biblical principle. And so I would kick back and say that the digital, maybe, um, that the digital space is not a place to escape biblical conflict resolution. Okay? That is it. But I would also say to that person that some people came to their in-person church because they did the same thing for another in-person church. So that's not a slam against being in digital space. That same thing happens before digital was a thing. People popping around because they were escaping offense. They didn't like this pastor. They, whatever. So that, so as long as that person who is concerned about digital space being a cop-out is also tackling that concern with people in their congregation who may have joined their congregation because of an offense somewhere else, if they're tackling that, then I appreciate your concern in this digital space too. But if you're not tackling that, then don't try to use that as something to downplay the digital space.

So, so then, other, there's another part to what you were saying, um, but I was gonna try to write it down so I didn't want to lose it. Tell me again because there was a really good point I really thought about until responding to that thought.

Um, so it's, it's either somebody not addressing maybe a character flaw or an issue within their own psyche, um, but then also looking at digital as a substitute.

Yes, yes, yes, yes, okay. So here is the big piece that I want everyone listening to this, um, presentation, this interview, to learn. You cannot put every digital church under a broad blanket because all of them are doing things differently and you don't know what they're doing in there. But let me unpack it by saying this. Many people, when they think of, uh, they don't know the difference between church online and an online church, okay? So church online is you taking your Sunday worship experience and broadcasting it online as is, right? And the same spectator model of in-person, sitting in a seat, watching what's on stage, is just transferred to the computer where you're sitting on your couch watching everything on a screen. That's church online. Some churches saw that and said, now we want to create a more active and engaging experience for the people who are watching online. And so they dived into that and created some other things. But online church is not just taking something from a sanctuary and just broadcasting it. It is more engaging, more interactive.

So when people don't understand what digital church really is and all the different expressions of it, then they think that it's the same as online church where people are just sitting back watching what's going on. And that is not what digital churches do, at least not what effective, healthy ones do.

The reality is that whether you're in the digital space or in-person space, you got to be intentional about creating community either way. And there are ways to do it in person and there are ways to do it online. But just because someone is online, it doesn't mean that you're not creating community and building relationships and having accountability and having transparency and openness and honesty and praying about legitimate needs. Anyone can tell you that being in person, that alone, has not solved their community issues. That hasn't solved their accountability issues. People can attend every single week in person and you still not know them and they still not know you. But they can go through the motions. But so there has to be something that engages that person with interpersonal interactions, small groups or whatever. But you still got to be intentional about building relationships in person. And the same thing is online. But some people don't understand it.

So I don't argue with people if they just want to argue. But if they want to learn about what we're actually doing, me and others who are doing this well, I'm happy to explain it to them. There is more of a dialogue and interaction that happens. So that's why we do things on Zoom now. We are our meeting is on Zoom and we stream to Facebook because we want an open dialogue and a chance to talk instead of just responding to comments, which we did for a while. But it added to the dynamic of the interactions and the prayer and the accountability and the questions. I mean, it's quite a community. It's quite a community. And one person actually said, being in Hearts Like His helped me see what I was missing from my in-person experience. Like, if you do it right, it can be done well. And people can grow and mature and experience relationships and accountability and community and biblical church. But if you don't do it right, then they won't. Just the same as if you don't do in-person right. That's the reality across the board.

Definitely agree with that. And creating that community using the content to create the community. It was funny. That's one of the reasons why we were doing the podcast, you know? We, I was like, hey, let's do this live. Why not? You know, let's throw it in. Let's create a community centered around Altar Live. And we're going to continue to push that over through here with thechurchdigital.alterlive.com. And plus the fact now that it's live, you never know what's actually going to happen.

So, hey, Dr. John Harris, I'm going to go ahead and bring Jared Hughes into the conversation because I want the two of you to actually meet, because in many ways you two are very passionate about the same sort of things. So, Jared, man, thanks for jumping on here. I know we recorded a conversation earlier and that'll be on in a couple days, but I know that you're passionate about this de-churched audience as well. And so maybe just a little second here, and respected Dr. John here, but Jared, like, what y'all's take through Hope City Church, how are you addressing and maybe reaching out to the de-churched crowd?

Yeah, I think it's, you know, like John is saying, it's the realization that just because a person has left the church doesn't mean they have left Jesus or the church as a whole. You know, they have maybe moved on from an in-person setting, traditional setting, um, and they still love Jesus. They still love people. They still love the gospel. They still have the Great Commission. But you know, we are a funny species, you know, as humans made in God's image, so to speak. And who knows? There's lots of reasons, um, some good, some bad, some ugly, some sad, um, why people move on from that type of setting. And I think the folks that we're reaching, um, a lot of them are that. I've enjoyed this conversation so far. I'm like, oh my goodness, there's more of us out there, wow. You know, and it's just amazing to see what the Holy Spirit is doing in the body of Christ. Um, and I love, Dr. John, what you said about the difference between church online and the online church. Um, that is a great point because it's not the same. It's two different things.

Um, as Jeff knows, we've been planting for twenty-five years in suburban America, urban and the suburbs and rural communities. And we had just planted a church in Buffalo, Washington, our third church plant that we had been graced to do. And right before the pandemic, we had just started getting our feet underneath us. And we switched to digital like most did. And it took off and it opened our eyes to, wow, what is going on out here in the world? You know, and start deep diving into all of that. And of course, Angel Craig has been a big mentor to us as well. And you know, we had about a year ago been offered a building, a church building, debt-free building, to continue to bring our in-person, to go back. And our team decided, you know, um, no, we don't want to do that. So we turned that building down, the property down, and continued online. And that's not for everybody, right? It is for us. And it's really opened our eyes to, you know, again, just on faith. Well, social media has 3.7 billion people who are active users on a monthly basis. I mean, what an audience that the church has been given, a door that's been opened to the church. So it's been exciting.

There is, I would love both your takes on this. There's a, I don't want to call it a movement, maybe it's an idea, maybe it's a practice. But you know, a lot of times when you talk with planters, um, church planters, uh, they're more interested in reaching the lost, which may sound bad because I think the lost people that don't know Jesus, the atheists, the agnostics, I think they do need Jesus. But there's an intentionality, and I use that word strongly, there's an intentionality towards going towards that and not necessarily going towards the church, maybe because of perceived baggage or other issues. Like, maybe just to help both of you, uh, Dr. John, you go first, but kind of what's your response? What's your take towards that? How would you advise a planter that may be thinking, hey, the church has got too much baggage that I don't want to spend time investing into? I'm better off going after somebody that's purely lost?

Yeah, um, it's great to go after the lost, um, because I mean, that's the mission of the gospel. Um, but when you do that, you know, you're going to be praying for some leaders to help you. And one of the interesting things about the de-churched is that sure, there are some that have left wounded, hurt, offended, really immature in how they handled stuff and all that. But the majority of the ones who are de-churched, according to Josh Packard, are the ones who are the mature leaders who are serving, giving, and faithful. They're the ones that left. So the in-person expression is missing some of those more mature people who again just left because the model didn't work. And sometimes offense, sometimes bad conversations, sometimes whatever was the impetus or the stimulus to that awakening, like, this is not fitting me anymore. And they left.

And so I think a part of what I want to do in Hearts Like His is gather them and then deploy them. Because many of them are skilled. They're competent in a lot of different areas. They, and many of them were the workforce when they were in the building. They can still be the workforce in the church through digital space. So I'm providing a context in digital space to gather them all together. But I want to deploy them. And I want to help them launch in-person, like in their home. So it's not like we're just going to be digital just until Christ comes back, even though I think that could be okay. But I want to use the digital space to help create living room spaces. Like, that's one of the big end goals for me.

And so it's to provide a place for those who wanted to come get healed. To go, okay, what you experienced was not good. That wasn't the church. That wasn't the gospel. Let's dive into that. Get you back on track with where you are with God and what his plan is for your life, namely to become like Jesus. And then let's see what are you supposed to be doing? Where are you supposed to be going? And let's go out. And the cool thing about targeting them is that they don't want to reproduce why they left. They don't. But if they don't learn something else, then that's still...

their default and by and by default they'll still do it kind of like I want to be like my mom or dad and then you end up being like your mom and dad because that's all you know. You have to learn something different. And so in hearts like his they're learning something. They're learning something different. They're learning about forgiveness. They're learning about grace. And so peeling off these layers of religion so that when they go back out there they're going out with a different message and it's not red tape and a bunch of hoops. It's Christ and him crucified.

Yeah, Shane Higgins is in the ultra live environment right now jumping up and down at your digital space that grows. Yeah, that's a great line and I think he's gonna start to own that through Only One Church. So very cool there, Jared. Um, Matt, what's your take here with planters maybe struggling with the focus to identify and reach out to the D Church? Is is are they or what what are they missing? How would you coach them on that?

Well, I think it's depending what kind of circle you're a part of or where you're coming out of, it's fixing the notion that the church is not for the church. You know, story after story, passionate planters, visionary planters who, you know, once you're here the church is not for you anymore. You know, so get to work. You know, your seat is not that scene is not for you to feel any longer. You know, the church is for those who don't know Jesus. Over a period of twenty or thirty years you're hearing this over and over again and over and over again. The church is not for good churches, but who's it for? You know, it's a theological thing ultimately. You know, I I think it's you know, I love what Dr. John is saying. It's like if you get a church person healed in whatever shape or form, they're you know, they're the ones who give and tithe and serve and will do ministry and equip the saints and make disciples. And it's like those, you know, really if you think about when you're planting, you know, some of those people you're planting with, I wouldn't much say they're teachers, but they're from a church somewhere and they're leaving that church to become part of your team. And they're not teachers, so to speak, but they're leaving somewhere. And some of those people that join your team, um, they're hurt. They could be one step away from being coming to the church. I'm out of just you know, gifts and talents not being utilized. Um, again, to be a person, you know, their ministry didn't fit the vision and the model of that particular church organization that they were part of. And they they get shipwrecked sometimes. Um, again, not wanting to plant would hurt people because people tend to hurt people in the long run. But healed people also end up healing people, you know? And so I think it's realizing that um, not again being a person who got stuck in that. You have somebody that comes who's your delusion, you know? And also like, oh, that's a little too much. We're too young. We're two. We're too, you know, we're like a sapling. We're a new planted thing. We don't want anybody to come in and ruin this seedling to get, you know, started. And man, we just kick ourselves. We just we just end up hurting ourselves in the long run, you know? Because again, we're not, you know, I guess again, you're reproducing like what you don't want to become and you end up becoming that. You're like, oh, how did we get here?

Some thoughts over this? Totally, totally see that. Thanks for sharing that. Um, hey, I I did want to dig into one question and this is going to be, this may be off topic now. Let me ask this up front. Jared, are you military background? I don't want to assume he's a Marine, but if I've ever seen anybody that was a Marine, it's going to be Jared Hughes.

No, I'm an Army infantry bedroom.

Okay, all right. Our Army infantry. And Dr. John Harris, you were, you were what when with your service? You were a chaplain?

I'm the people the Army calls for helping to get in trouble.

Okay, Jared will make sure you get Dr. John on speed dial and we'll be good moving forward. No, we love it, man. Look, all of us we work together, but we sure have fun messing with each other.

Awesome, love it. Hey, so actually I want to ask both you guys this question. And so I I love the D Church conversation. We're we're going to wrap on that, but I I'm going to I'm going to open up a little bit here and just even the situation we are in Ukraine and Iraq. It's created a unique perspective that I think may actually reach into some other people. And I'm actually really glad I got two, you know, military guys coming in here. So I've got a troll. Um, Jeff Reed personally have a troll in my life and this guy has been very active in my life. Um, he was a former student back in the day. Um, he shows up maybe every three months where he'll crash some live broadcasts that I'm doing, say some misquote some Bible thing that is totally out of context and completely wrong and he's getting the message completely backwards. And so, um, yeah, and so like he's like I said, he shows up every three months and disappears. Um, I had a conversation with him and uh, he I mean literally he called me one day and and we just had an opportunity really to to dive in, open up and just really transparency him, him talking. Long story short, dude's carrying some baggage from military and um and and so like we were in a good place. Um, all this stuff in Ukraine started and and and it it was a trigger for him, I think. And now I've seen him go back to some of that reengaging in that. And so I kind of settled that story up to get to this point. You know, seeing a lot of this unfold, I gotta imagine there's military people out there similar to my my friend the troll, literally my friend the troll, who who are that bandage is getting ripped off. All that stuff they've been packaging in from from the mess of of war, from the mess of military, that's that's ripped off as as pastors, as church leaders, as as friends on social media. How do we how do we help that? How do we speak to that? How do we serve that need? What what do you advise somebody like me and somebody like maybe maybe as we're listening to this we're picturing people maybe even in our own lives uh that are or maybe struggling with this? What what do we do here?

Um, Jared, would you like to kick us off?

Well, I think, you know, my active duty life is very short-lived. Um, though I've been around the military by, I was the fourth generation person in the military, but my entire family, my wife's entire family's military. Um, I have a son that's a special forces guy now. Um, so this is a big conversation right now. My brother just retired after thirty years as a Marine tank officer. He actually led, he was the company commanding the lead the tank battalion into Afghanistan. Um, so we were having lots of conversations regarding this. I think um, it's connecting veterans. Let's say this way, combat veterans. Um, especially combat veterans, you know, who've been around it now for two decades, connecting them with the right people to have those conversations. Um, for the reason I use my brother for example is I've never experienced combat, you know? I was in and out before anything even happened. The conversation with my brother though, who has, who's uh, having more deployments than I think one person should be in, um, to see more combat in his life than you know, been a lot. Um, who's lost troops under his command, who's you know, done the war stuff, you know, um, connecting veterans with people like that who love Jesus, who are following Christ. Um, they can't, they have a unique and unique perspective that uh, like I for sure don't have outside of you know, my my military career historic career as it was. Um, it's not really a lot to say, but I I think um, yeah, if we could have a network of men and women who um, have experienced those things they're experiencing and and I think it's also that as a father, you know, my son again is in the military. I have uh, three nieces and nephews. I just, my youngest one of my nephews just finished course recon school. I have a niece who's on her way to become a helicopter pilot and have another one who's they're all officers. Um, you know, so it's around. We're discussing it a lot, you know? And then you see what's going on and all that we've gone through, you know, as a world and as a country where you know, I think for a lot of veterans it's all the automatic talk of hey, we need to get, we need to get troops over there. That's like, man, that is a band-aid that you're, it, it's a wound that is being ripped apart, you know? You know, yeah, I'm not really sure how much you say, maybe Dr. Jonathan even more into that, but yeah, it's definitely not an easy, not an easy thing to navigate for sure.

Dr. John, what's your take?

Yeah, I was uh, I was a chaplain in the Air Force. And so even when I was active duty, um, I was the uh, you know, confidant for a lot of people um, as our processing through different things. Um, and and a lot of the things happening now uh, militarily um, as it relates to war and stuff, yeah, I have my own triggers. Uh, last year when we pulled out of Afghanistan and Marines got killed, I had a major major problem with that. I was in Afghanistan in 2010 um, and and part of why I had problems with it was, you know, and it didn't matter. Here's the reality is there was no really nice easy way to leave Afghanistan like ever. So it was likely that something like that, you know, could happen. But then there are details about it that I just had problems with. Here's my point as a former chaplain and as a pastor, I'm also getting calls from other people who still want to process out loud their experience of this while I'm personally processing some of my stuff, okay? What's a gospel-centered view of our departure from Afghanistan? What's a gospel-centered view of the Ukraine Russia situation? Um, and it and it really is tough. It really is tough. There's part, there's times I'm like, man, we should have gone in and crushed all that, right? And other times I'm like, you know, but the reality is I don't like war. I was I was in the hospital in Iraq and Afghanistan. I've seen it. I've seen it. I I felt the ground shake when bombs and mortars were coming in like I've been there. And so it's not something that people who have been a part of it are a big fan of. But on the other hand, sometimes um, we we do see where it might be necessary um, to prevent a larger evil or larger fallout and things like that. So um, so the even when I was in the Air Force, right, the balance. I remember talking to a guy, talking to a guy. We were out there. We were in Korea. We did this little worship thing out on the strip. And so there are all these clubs and bars and all this kind of stuff. But I saw I saw a guy up uh, like three stories up leaning out the window um, it opened up the window so we were worshiping and singing it. So they, oh, I saw the window open like there's some intrigue to what we're doing. So you're drinking this beer. So I told folks I'm gonna go up and see him and talk to him real quick. So I wanted up there all the time. I've been to a bar that was just a bar and not like Applebee's. So I went up there and uh, I'm sitting there talking to him and he says he asked me a question. So he's an A10 pilot. He says, what does God think about me being able to have the capacity to kill ten million people with what I carry on my Eric, my jet? Did they teach you that in seminary? Nope. So so balancing Christianity with a directing order because as a pilot, if he's given that order to drop that payload wherever you're dropping it, it's it's over. Yeah. So we talk about that a little bit. But here's the thing. This is what I would say, Jeff, to you and this this troll that you apparently asked God to remove three times and he said my grace is sufficient for you. I am, I'm not going to remove it. Um, is the listen, listen, whether you

Have military background or not, when someone comes with some stuff like that, the first thing you want to do is just listen and ask questions. So why do you feel? What is it about what you've experienced that makes this so difficult? Sound like the band-aid is being ripped off. What wound is opening up for you? Listen. Don't try to debate politics. That's not what it's about because you're going to lose that, right? Those of us who are over there on the ground, we have a different view than those of y'all who watched it from TV. It's just, it's just so, you know, you're not going to win that. But why is it? What makes this hard for you? Why is it the band-aid getting ripped off? Or what do you not like about this the most? What hurts the most? What bothers you the most? What would you like to see happen? See, it's just questions. It's just questions, and that is a ministry in of itself.

So if people have not, have no military background, nothing at all, they could oftentimes feel unqualified to step into that space for that military person. But everyone can listen and everyone can ask questions and just help that person process out loud. You'd be surprised how well that can actually be administered to an individual.

Yeah, that is so good. Um, this guy called me on a Facebook messenger out of the blue, maybe three months ago. Like, you know how you can like voice style and messenger? He took a shot. He took a shot at me, and I replied back. I was like, "Hey, if you really feel that way, here's how we're to solve that problem together. Come join me." And so he called me, and just, I mean, literally, I was funny. I was actually like at a conference and was supposed to go be with a bunch of people and whatever at some networking, and I was like, "I'm gonna have to stand outside." I was in Kansas City, and in like a short sleeve shirt, and it was January. It always December, and that was freezing. And so I'm outside in a short sleeve shirt in December in Kansas City, freezing, talking to my troll. And just, "Man, what's going on in your life? I haven't seen you in twenty years. Like, what, what's the?" And we're just starting to kind of unravel through that.

Yeah, just even in my own life, like it's like, "Okay, we're on top of this. We're good, and it's fun." It's just, I was, it was like right when the war hit, you know, and then it's just this whole other level. And so I mean, it's, it's, um, it's horrific. It's an awesome opportunity. It's, it's honestly, I look at it as a privilege where, "Hey, I've got this guy that's struggling to figure out who Jesus is, but he's actually willing to like talk with me." And so I have this opportunity to engage him where I know historically he's kind of been shut down with some others. And so, you know, love that Jesus too. You know, and oftentimes we, you know, those digital ministry, and both these guys know, like, don't click that kick out button. Let them go. Let the crowd, let the crowd speak into it. The crowd will correct the situation. You need to care for the individual.

Yeah, and so that there's so much opportunity we can to engage and kind of help, which I've heard so many people, so many stories, even in virtual reality, of where there was a Satanist that was coming and trolling some VR churches. Her literal name was, um, oh my gosh, I'm blanking on the name here. Um, it was, uh, "Queen," uh, "Satan's Queen" or "Queen of Hell," so something "Queen of Hell." Alice, "Queen of Hell." And so literally, like, family background of Satanists. And through relationships that was built, maybe nine months down the road, she accepted Christ, and now she's actively serving in several of the VR churches, actually helping multiply ministry into VR change. So yeah, and it's just she went from, you know, "Alice, Queen of Hell" to like "Alice in the Palace," and just a complete, um, uh, spiritual change as a result of kind of what's happening.

And so anyway, that is such a digression away from where we were, but thank you for even just entertaining me for a couple minutes as I kind of opened up myself here to a couple military guys. So thank you for that. This has been a solid conversation on D Church. Um, and you know, even maybe the troll somehow fits into that. You can kind of wedge that in, uh, listening audience, however you want. I love this live format. We're going to do this more. And you know, uh, go ahead, speak to me. Like you said, this might tie in. I in Mark chapter five, there was a man who had thousands of demons, right? He had Legion. And um, and he, what's interesting is he ran to Jesus. As he ran to Jesus and fell down at his feet, and then the demons spoke out and said, you know, "Please don't mess with us," right? And so, uh, but what's interesting is that's a really clear picture about sometimes what happens to us is that people who are hurting, people who are tormented, they run to church or they're running to Jesus. And when they get there, the demon speaks out, and we get offended by what the demon is saying. But Jesus saw the man behind the torment. He saw the man behind Legion. And so he dealt with, he was able to separate the two. He dealt with Legion, and the next thing you know, the man is clothed and in his right mind.

And I think that's just part of it. And not just him, but even Peter, right? When Peter said out of his mouth was, "This shall never happen to you," and Jesus says, "Satan, get behind me," right? He says Satan. He was able to identify Satan and distinguish that from who, from who Peter was. I think the same thing when we have these people who come up that are termed these trolls or whatever, um, I think we gotta, if we view them through a different lens, um, and just see, ask God, "Who are they?" Like, I hear what they're saying. I hear the words coming out. I don't want to respond to the words. I want to respond to either the hurt, the brokenness, the torment, the whatever that's behind, to open up a door to the enemy to use these words through their mouths. And I think so, so the deep church, yeah, they're going to come. They're going to come hurt. They're going to come broken. But we can separate what happened to them from who they are, the value that they have as a son or daughter of God. And that's that's game-changing. It's game-changing as life-changing. And we see this, the spirit of God, uh, work in miraculous ways in those contexts.

That was incredibly well said, and way to actually take a tangent and time. I'll help you out here. You're a seminary trained. Hey, you know that twenty-minute, you know, uh, tangent that I just did? You often, no, we're gonna tie it. We're actually gonna make it the main point. We're gonna, yeah, I meant to do that the entire time. That was solid.

Hey, hey, gentlemen, thank you very much for jumping on the show. Hey, here's what I'm gonna do. Like, if you are still watching out there on social, I see we got a number of people on social. Uh, we're going to open up the Altar Life platform, and we're going to start to engage into some conversations over there. We're going to open up the lobby mode here in as soon as I wrap up. Here's the question I want us to take away from this. Our churches, whether you're a physical church that's doing digital ministry, a physical church, a digital church, a meta church, you know, the environment for this one doesn't matter because all of us have the opportunity to engage, uh, whether a big church or a small church or a church plant. We all have an opportunity to engage with D Church. Two questions: What are you doing now? And maybe what opportunities uh do you need to engage in? What should you be doing? Where's God leading you to go? And so we're gonna wrap the plane. If anybody's watching on social, swing over to the churchdigital.alterlive.com. You can see the link on the video. We'd love to connect with you over there. And if you're in Alter Live, as soon as I wrap up, I'll click the button and uh we'll swing over into the lobby and engage with that.

How are you currently viewing D Church? If you're listening on podcast, ask yourself this and talk with your leadership. How are you currently viewing the church? How are you serving the church? And maybe what opportunities do you have ahead to do something different? So for Dr. John and uh and Jared, Jared, thank you for jumping in. This is a great run of Jared next week, uh, and so it's a one-two punch with that. Love it. Hey, this is Jeff with the Church Digital, Digital Church Network, and a bunch of other really cool stuff. Thanks for jumping on the podcast here. We'll see you next week live, and we do this next Thursday, three p.m. Eastern. Y'all have a good day.