EP221: Jay Kranda & the Decentralized Church

But I think if you had a fund like that, where you didn't have to worry about geographical deals and people could access it, I think some of that, the DAO model is, again, this is why I think we are structurally having to pivot and think different than how we're wired. And I think it's a lot easier to build. I think it was a lot easier for Apple to be Apple than for IBM to be Apple. 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 itself, 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?

Oh, 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? 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. All right, hey, welcome to the Church Digital Podcast. I think this is episode 221. We've done so many at this point, I can't even keep them straight. But looking forward to this guest coming in. This guest made one of the top three guests number of times on the podcast. One of the OGs.

So excited about this conversation. And hey, y'all, listen. If you've listened to this podcast, I don't do this a lot. But I am going to on this one. If you listen to this podcast and you're a regular listener, you're one of these people that are out there, I need your help. Digital Church Network, we are a non-profit organization. And I have someone that's willing to give $15,000 to Digital Church Network of matching funds. And so over the course of June 2022, I need to raise $15,000 in order to realize this other potential $15,000. By the way, this is going to give $30,000 to Digital Church Network, which is like the operating cost for months. And so I would love to tell you all the stuff that's happening with Digital Church Network.

You can catch that up at digitalchurch.network.deck, D-E-C-K. You can download a slide deck there. You can book time with me. I will give you my cell phone, 484-324-8724. You can call me, but no one ever calls me. So text me, 484-324-8724. But here's what I would love. I literally, I need like 150 people to give $100 so that I can realize. This donation of $15,000. And so here's what I need. Go to digitalchurch.network.com slash give. Digitalchurch.network.com slash give. I never do these. You know me. I never do money calls. I'm really asking for it here. I really need this. The organization needs this. And help us help you. And so, hey, that's it for the commercial. Let's actually get to the podcast.

You know what, Jay Cranda? It's always awkward because I do these like moments like talking like this. And now I want to transition back to the show. And well, it's just it's like I feel bad for the guest because the guest is like, you know, you just heard this spiel. And now I'm trying to be all serious having this, you know, completely separate conversation about what it just was. And I have no idea how to transition. So maybe you can help me transition. Could you help me transition? No, I would just I would just be like, please help Jeff out. He, you know, really needs the money. And please do it. That would be my that would be my pitch. I have like images of like up late at night. Like like the, you know, the dog that's hungry, you know, kind of going on.

I was about to say, could I give you a puppy? Like, would that help this moment be any better? But I will say to all the listeners, that was a very quick pitch because a lot of people, man, their pitches in podcasts and YouTube, they're getting so long that you're like, oh, come on, come on. So that was great. I liked it. I liked the read. It was good. Very good. We'll put all the links in show notes. I forgot to say that. Everything will be there in show notes. But seriously, give to this and so that we can continue to help in digital and metaverse church ministry. So cool. All right. Hey, so let's shift gears for real. And let's get into this conversation with, man, one of the OGs, one of the original gangsta when it comes to online ministry.

Guy's been doing online ministry for a decade. I just found out. Jay Cranda. So how are you doing, Jay? I'm doing good, man. We are rocking and rolling. I know I just looked at my LinkedIn and I have been full time as the online pastor this month, 10 years. And so I did it a few times, a few years prior, part time, kind of grew into a full time role. But I could not believe time moves very fast. I know that's what everybody says as you get older. But that is crazy to think about. So if you don't know Jay, Jay's the online pastor, digital pastor. What's the actual title? My title is online community pastor. Online community pastor at Saddleback Church. Just a small church there in Southern California.

May have heard of it. Rick Warren, the old boss, the former boss, retiring, you know, legacy there with purpose-driven church, purpose-driven life, purpose-driven whatever. And now transitioning over, you just got a new boss or was just announced, Andy Wood, right? Andy Wood, yeah. We are so excited to have, you know, it's a weird, anybody who's been through a transition like this. I was talking to a couple other friends who've gone through kind of founding pastor transitions. It's a really weird transition. I've been under Pastor Rick's, you know, leadership influence, you know, for 10 plus years. And so there's like this mourning, but there's also this excitement, you know. I was sharing right before we hit record that, you know, he's only like five or so years older than me.

And just seeing what he's done, how he influences things, I am beyond pumped right now. So honestly, it's like we got to wait till September, but I'm like, come on, like, let's just do this now. You know what I mean? I want to cancel vacation plans this summer and just let's go. You're going to be the guy, the stalker guy that's just hanging outside his office, waiting for the meeting, waiting for the guy. Have you ever, I've seen this happen. And so I don't recommend this, but the guy who corners the lead pastor in the bathroom to have a conversation. Don't, don't, Jake Tranda, don't be that guy. I will not be that guy. Don't be that guy. Okay. All right, good. I'm glad you're not going to be the guy that corners the lead pastor in the bathroom.

That would be a bad thing. Awesome. So definitely excited. Loved, you know, what I know of, of, of Rick Warren in his transition and how much Saddleback has done for the community, for the, for the kingdom, global kingdom. I mean, something like a mission trip or a missionary sent to every country in the world. Like there's just this ridiculous legacy, uh, under, under Rick's reign, uh, range, not the right word under Rick's leadership, but, uh, it definitely excited about, uh, the road ahead. So have fun. We'll have to bring it back and have that conversation. And we're going to wrap the podcast. This is no, I'm kidding. There's a whole other subject we wanted to get into. So here's the deal with, with Jay.

Jay may be the first person I ever heard say the words decentralized church in together. And so, and that's been a language that, that I've used and at DCN we use all the time. And we've started to really kind of pick up some steam on that. Now decentralized church in many ways is like the word discipleship where it means 47 different things to 47 people. And so it's, you know, let's, let's kind of bring it in. Let's get some clarity and let's talk about at least from Jay Cranda's perspective. What, what is he thinking about when he's saying the word decentralized church? And so tell me Jay Cranda to open up this conversation here. What, what does the centralized church mean to you guys or to you and you slash Saddleback, whatever the context is?

Yeah, I would answer this kind of off of a larger kind of movement. Like you kind of see how God works in different time periods. I don't know if it's so, so much that it's our thought or if it's like, we're even going to like really lean in heavy into it. I think we're, we're teaching, experimenting church. And so we're always trying different things, but I do feel at a, at a high level that the internet and technology is allowing us to do church in a very unique way. I don't think it's changing the basic elements of what church is, but I think it is changing how churches are structured and how things can kind of grow. And so if you think of it, like, you know, the last 40 years or so you've had this, and really you would say the last 10 years, maybe it hasn't been as effective, but from like the eighties all the way through the early two thousands, you had like the mega church movement of, you know, instead of these small regional churches, you had very large churches of 2000 plus people.

That could be large gatherings, have large facilities and offer a large variety of services like support groups, counseling, kind of think of it as like a full service hotel, you know, the difference between a motel to like a, maybe a JW Marriott, you know what I mean? That you could do more when you centralize all your resources. You know, this is the irony if you always look at, you know, other faiths, like, you know, the Mormon faith, you look at their faith and like they have some pretty robust digital efforts that they've ran campaigns. And it's because they have a centralized budget. They can do some, the modern evangelical church is very segmented, you know what I mean? But if you centralize everything, you have bigger budgets, you can do bigger things and offer more to that specific community.

And so that, that has been a huge way specifically, you know, in first world countries generally, and mainly in the U S it's thrived that God has worked. And I think with decentralized church, what I've seen, and I've started to see people experiment and you've already seen this happen in the middle East and China and so forth is maybe you have, you know, clusters of gatherings that aren't centrally hub, meaning they aren't connected to a mothership. You know, um, you kind of think of it kind of like, uh, you know, I, you kind of think of it as like kind of how crypto is where you have crypto is the idea is that you, you can't really bring down Bitcoin. You know, you can't buy all the Bitcoin and own it all it's on thousands upon thousands of devices.

Um, and it's not centralized. And so you can kick all the miners out of China, but Bitcoin is going to survive. Um, you have to bring down the internet and essentially do that, which I guess hypothetically is possible. But, uh, you know, that that's the idea is that like our churches, we have 17 plus locations, but we're still regionally located in Southern California. Like the hub of us, I think, I think decentralized, you're going to have. You're going to have pastors coming out of seminary and doing things and they're already doing it where they're going to not sign leases. And they're going to start preaching live on Facebook or YouTube or flogging or whatever and build audiences and then have regional in-person gatherings all around.

And they're not going to really think of it as like one's better than the other, but it's fully spread out. And I think it is hard for a big church to think small, um, cause it's a huge shift. Um, it's, it's, it's why big corporations struggle with that shift to the next, cause you have to kind of cannibalize your existing market. And I think in a way that's really tough, but I, I really, I think in a time like this decentralized where you can just meet anywhere and enable anything, you just provide vision. And I, I think decentralized church is a large movement. I don't think it's going to be the only way God works moving forward. The same ways to make a church wasn't the only way. I just think it will be potentially one of the main ways God works through microsites and all this over the next, um, 20 years.

And then there'll be another movement. You know what I mean? I, I, you know. Yeah, there's all, I mean, there's nothing new under the sun. It's always cycling. There's, there's always a change in, in the systems and the methods of today may not be the systems and the methods of tomorrow. Um, I, I do agree with that. What, let me, let me ask you. So, I mean, you're describing an influencer, um, without saying the word influencer and maybe influencer is a taboo word. I mean, I struggle even saying influencer, uh, when talking about a pastor, but that's, that's what it is. It's a, it's a person that is, is, has influence online. That's growing to create micro locations scattered around the country.

Now, Saddleback's done a little bit of this. You know, I know you had like, uh, places here in Florida. I remember maybe Tampa area. And so you had some of these, these micro locations scattered around. I mean, maybe some of the ecclesiology is different in these types of things, but would you, did you consider those church? Like, was that a church, what you were doing in Tampa or some of these physical micro locations that you had? Yeah, so we, so I think it's important that the way we think about this, like, um, theologically is we have one church. And so we have Saddleback church and we have many locations. And depending on what that location is, it, it's, it's labeled something else. So like a campus would be one of our primary ways we talk about are like larger locations where they have multiple services, a campus pastor, they have, you know, and then we have something called a venue, which is typically regionally connected to a campus.

So they're within a geo location of a campus and they're supported by that campus. And then you have, which we call now extensions, which are, you know, under a hundred and they're primarily meeting in homes and some are meeting in larger venues, but, and they meet primarily monthly. And they're just primarily just a worship service and there's no staff present. And so, and, and so we do have 14 of those right now that are happening. Uh, we've talked on, I believe past podcasts about this, that this is something we've tried on and off again for probably, you know, honestly the last eight years, um, on some level. Um, and there's all sorts of reasons why there's been learnings, but, and failures around that.

Um, but we've really leaned in heavy coming out of COVID to go, we think that this is a way we could have a lot of growth, but I think there's still a lot. I think I mentioned it casually, but I think it's really hard for a big church to think like this because when people think of our church, they think big. And so when you, when you show up to, when you show up to our Lake Forest campus, our like largest location, you know, you, that's what you think of Saddleback Church. But when you show up to a Saddleback Church, you know, in, you know, the, you know, the suburbs of Orlando and you're just kind of walk into a home and you're like, what is, this is not Saddleback. You know what I mean? And so I think some of that stuff is still stuff like we're trying to figure out.

It's also really hard to, you know, what's the training that's necessary to coach a leader, to kind of a volunteer, to, to kind of go, Hey, you can do a small group, but you know what? You can actually host a service. And I still think there's some cultural things there. I just had a conversation a couple of nights ago with a woman who's leading one of these extensions in the Philippines. And, um, she, she's had up to 60 people attend one of her gatherings and she was dealing with people in her community that didn't think she should be the leader. Cause she was a woman. And I had to like, you know, so there's all these, you know, outside of feeling equipped and there's like social things, you know, especially in the Philippines, there's going to be more of a cultural.

There's a expectation that it's a man and, you know, and so you have all these like issues that pop up, you know? And I think for us, we just believe in the model. So we're pushing to get to 50 and kind of, I think every group we're kind of seeing it as like a new learning. Okay, here's one, one error, even like costs. Like how do we like giving is a great example. We were really wrestling through, like, how do we handle the financial needs of these? Because if we're going to handle all the expenses, it's too much administration. How do we decentralize this? So like, they just, you know, how can they just collect tithe and then they, they handle it. And then if there's leftover, they send a saddleback, but like that gets real gray real quick and gets real messy real quick.

And so I just, we just really believe in it. And we're just kind of leaned in super heavy the last four months. And, um, we're going through our next phase right now of a re, uh, like a, we've kind of come out of a beta and now we're going to have more of a public launch. And, um, and it's just every day. I feel like every other day I'm learning something from each of these leaders, stuff we need, stuff we can't do. And so, yeah, you know, you've, you've said a couple of times, it's hard for a big church to think small. And I find that ironic because the small church dreams of being big. Uh, and then when it gets there, they need to, to think small and it's kind of like cyclical logic. We can, we can get into it at some point, but it seems to me that, that a lot of the, the struggle with struggle with the larger churches that are thinking this way.

And I'll even say this from, from my own experience, you hinted a little bit with, with the money part is this, is that it feels like bigger churches don't know how to release control or they get stuck into situations where they feel like they need to control. And some things that, that they really don't need to, they need to be more open to contextualization than they don't want to, but they don't want to release that, that control aspect into it. Um, I'm just only because you're already kind of dancing this dance a little bit. How much are you feeling that? Like, are you, do you, do you see that too much control, too little control? Like what, what is that, what's that tension look like in Saddleback as you're doing these extensions?

Yeah, I definitely think that's probably, you probably hit it right there. That there's definitely a, like, we might call it like a Saddleback standard of what it means to be part of a, of a worship service. You know, um, I remember when we experimented with this five years ago, we did one in Northern California and it was very simple. I just knew I had a bunch of people there and we, I went up there, rented a hotel space, found somebody to lead worship. And we, and I literally played the service from my laptop and I just, but we had like 80 people or something show up and it was a total experiment. I just knew we had a lot of people up there and I just wanted to see like, Hey, I'm, I used to be a youth pastor.

I know that I was church. Like, this isn't that complicated. Just find some speakers and projector and hook up my computer. And I literally like use the computer that I brought with me on the airplane. You know what I mean? And, um, and I remember I got a call that next week cause I didn't really talk to a lot of people about it, which wasn't like a probably great idea on my end. Um, but I got a call that somebody, pretty much somebody had found out that I was promoting it as a worship service. I come to a worship service in, in the Bay area and somebody at Saddleback was, you can't call it a worship service. Cause it has to meet these standards and pretty much we, we didn't have banners. We didn't have all the, the experience wasn't, you know, Saddleback, whatever that is.

And I was like, Oh, so I just went, I'll call it something else. Like I'll just call it a gathering. You know what I mean? Like if, if I have to, there's all this red tape to do all this stuff. And so I'm like, I, and I don't think we're there yet. I don't know what we have. I'm just trying to, I'm like, I've, I've always feel this way about a lot of this stuff online. I feel like there's so much theory and I'm just like, I'm not an academic. Like, I don't like, we can speculate all we want. I just want to get 15 and just see like, what are the 15 tell us and let the 15 shape the next 30. And, and I think, um, so yeah, I think that's definitely a big thing that we're, we're leaning into how do we release these in a way that there isn't a lot of control.

And honestly, for me, that's super easy. I'm super open source. You know, anybody on my team would tell you like, I'm not a micromanager. Like it's not, those aren't my strengths. And so I, I, I'm like, just go do it. Like if you want to do it, go do it and tell me how it goes and tell me what, like, what are the blockers? And so the problem is, is that I know when you're doing, like, for example, when you're collecting money, there's some tape, there's some, there's some issues there. I can't, I, I know I can't like the, one of the big stoppers is I can't have people do childcare because of liability and safety concerns. And so those are real issues. So how do I expect a group of people when they got 50 people and they want to do childcare?

Cause that's what you do in church. Like it's so essential to have a child service. And I, I'm like, I, we can't figure it out right now because we don't know how to, I don't know how to get fingerprinted and stuff internationally. Like, I just don't like, even I, I found out this past week that we use life scan for a lot of our process and apparently that's state to state. And so we have processes for California, but in order for somebody to do it out of state, they got to go get paperwork from their state government. And then they got to send it into light. Like there's this whole, so we got it all figured out here, but, and so there's all this stuff that I'm like, Oh crap. Like this is, there's all this stuff.

So I definitely think we're leaning towards more autonomy and just how do we even, and this is all again, theory. Like, I think what we would probably ultimately just, if one of these got big enough, we would just, they would either become part of Saddleback, like a campus, or most likely we would just help them incorporate and just, let's just incorporate you in and let's just go down that route because that would allow, there's some technical things like getting insurance for your property for, you know, for liability reasons, uh, handling money. You need some of those government state things in order to be a functioning organization within your County. And instead of us being able to having to provide it, we would just, Hey, let's just go, you know, contact the SBC and let's just get you through a process during court.

You know what I mean? That's a lot easier, but I think it's still, we're not, we're still trying to get, I don't think we, I think we don't have enough. Like I'm trying to get, I want to get to 50 and then I really, that's what I'm trying to like, okay, great. Cause I think we don't have enough of a user group yet personally. You know, and there's worse things than your church than Saddleback helping to plant other churches. Even if it was, we don't want to wear the Saddleback brand. We want to kind of do our own thing. It's like, Oh, Hey Saddleback, you just planted a church. That's pretty awesome. Kind of seeing, seeing how that, that would play out. Yeah, which, which is definitely a, a, you know, I could totally see us getting, especially knowing a little bit about Andy and how his vision and planting churches, like there's definitely that.

But I think that's the, that's the key is like, what's the win of this? And I, and I think, um, for me, I think it's to reach more people and, and lean into people, you know, people, people are moving far away and people are moving in places where there's not churches. And if we can provide some kind of tool or system for them to do a pop-up type of experience, I think it's compelling, but it will be different. It's not, you know, the, the illustration that I've talked about in the past, I think on this pod is, um, the idea of like the franchise, not the franchise, but the corporate Starbucks stores. And then you have like the, like the Starbucks stores and hotels, and there's a two different experiences, you know, one, I could get all the drinks and then the other, you know, I have a limited selection.

And I think we're trying to think about these experiences because there is something about being part of Saddleback church that there, there is some DNA, some culture, but when you walk into someone's home, it's totally going to be a different, uh, field. Now you can still get that flavor, but we're trying to, you know, um, we're trying to walk through that. So, uh, but I can't stress enough to everyone who's listening to this or watching this, that it's us, this is me and us thinking out loud. Like we are very much in the process. This is like practically a, this is like a dissertation and we're still writing it. You know what I mean? Um, and it's, that's, that's so good. And so true. Like there, and that's honestly COVID, you and I had this conversation pre COVID.

Um, and it was, it was borderline heretical. Uh, like people thought we were nuts. People thought we were crazy. You know, I, I was the first, uh, multi micro sites, like similar to what you're doing with the extensions. I mean, I was doing that in like 2016 and even within my own church, I was fighting for it because like they, they, even my own church didn't understand, uh, the logistics behind it. Now, thank you COVID. We're seeing, you know, the, the model of church diversifying. We're seeing a lot of different approaches. We're realizing different ways to reach people look differently. And, and even you're going to reach a different person in a, in a saddleback home extension than you would through a saddleback campus.

And not just because it's located in different states, uh, but more because it's a different type of person engaging and looking for discipleship in different ways. I'm just curious how much, I don't actually know the answer to this in your discipleship outside the weekend service. Look for this context, I'm assuming discipleship happens outside of the weekend service. How much of that is unified, um, and put with extensions and online, or how much of it do you give autonomy for the extensions to, to shape their discipleship? Yeah, I would say it's pretty unified in the sense that they're using our class process, um, and material. So you're doing, I mean, I'm assuming 101, 201, you're, you're still holding the purpose driven something or other.

And that's, yeah. So they, they have the option to either direct people to attend our zoom classes, or they have a package that they can host in their home or in their area. So, so they, they have either, or, um, now all the follow-up and everything still goes through our online process. So if you take class, like in a home and, you know, um, you know, in St. Penisburg or whatever, like you, it would, you would submit it all digitally and it would lean into our online kind of process of how we verify everything. Um, and then, yeah, and then they would use the group paradigm of having multiple groups around their extensions. And so, uh, I don't think there's, I think the, the inner workings of it, they are, they would be a purpose driven extension.

So I think it wouldn't be, um, that wouldn't be different. Um, they just might select different things as focuses based off of their age and stage of their location. And so, you know, for example, if you have a bunch of new people, you might select, um, a small group study around purpose driven life. Or if you're like a little bit more veteran, you might do something on the life of Isaiah or something. You might, you might pick different things. So you might all go through the Daniel plan health study because that's what you guys want, or you want to go through this parenting study. So I think that is a variety, but the main elements are, um, aligned with us. So the autonomy for you would be maybe some of the secondary studies that the Daniel, some of that, that's where you give, give, you push the responsibility and the freedom down to the location to choose.

Yeah. So right now I think in all these extensions are very tied to us. And I think as they grow, they will become more autonomous. And then the idea is that they would be a, a purpose driven location that would be able to really do what they want. Uh, but they would be indirectly. But at this stage, they are, they are very tied and they, they are doing all the things. But hypothetically, if, if one got to 150 and they just incorporated, they would go through a different, you know, it would be different. They wouldn't be reporting to us like, uh, like they are now. But, you know, uh, you know, I heard, I heard, uh, is it bill bright? I'm forgetting. He's the multi-site guy at North point. I remember he said once a multi-site strategy, which was really brilliant.

And he said, you know, I treat our multi-site locations. Like I treat my kids. The older they get, the more autonomy they get. And so if you're, and that also speaks to maturity. So if you, if you're 10 years old and you're acting like a five-year-old, you're not going to get the same autonomy. But if you're a 20 year old and you got a ton of maturity and you're paying your bills and you're working. And so I think we're going to treat it that way. Each one's going to be treated very uniquely. Bill bright's like the founder of campus crusade. So I'm actually gam, uh, Googling right now. Like who's the person? Um, anyway, bill bright or families of bill bright. It's not bill bright. Then I, gosh, I'm sorry.

This guy was so good. He's like the number two at North point on multi-site. And I'm like, I'm slaughtering this. Cause I'm, I'm going to blame my, my, my red eye right now. So I'm going to blame my red eye. If you're, if you're watching on YouTube, uh, it's, it's, it's gorgeous. It's awesome. It's shining. I'm searching my email right now. We will find, uh, it's a great quote. Uh, we, we treat our campuses, uh, like our children, the order, the older they get, the more autonomy they get. Uh, and then at some point, you know, 18 years down the road, they get kicked out of the house. Uh, no, they won't. They brought North wide North point may what's interesting with North point is, is that they have this, um, they've got the network, you know, and it's, it's like the campuses, there's a lot more of that autonomy.

And then with the network, it's more like, Hey, here are some resources. Do what you do what you want. There's a lot more, more freedom and empowering with that. I, you see that actually resonates more with me. Uh, and, and, and maybe I'm burned and jaded just from, years of, of multi-site. Um, but I actually, you know, the idea of a, of a multi-church where it's an organization that allows more contextualization, um, in, in those shapes and to reach different types of people within different communities in different ways. Like I'm, I'm much more, even from a discipleship perspective, I don't know. I'm leaning more that way, just with some of the ideas and some of the things that I'm, that I'm working through and seeing Lane, Lane Jones, Lane Jones, you, we were from Bill Bright to Lane Jones.

I, I have no idea. I'm sorry, Lane. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm just stupid. So that's my, that's, that's a great, Bill Bright. I have no idea. Like I knew that was a Christian leader. I was like, Bill Bright, Bill Bright sounds like his name. Like anyways, that's so stupid, but he's amazing. I mean, everybody, if you, Bill Bright has spoken at a bunch of stuff, but I, I got a chance to spend like 30 minutes with him and he, like, I was just like, I didn't know anything about multi-site. I feel like, and I was like, oh my, it was like a, just a hose of information. So is, is, are the extensions under online now? I know that's been like an on and off kind of thing within Saddleback. Yeah, they, they are.

Um, they report, so I currently right now report to our multi-site pastor and I'm on his leadership team and kind of play a role of kind of helping the campuses with digital in some aspects, but also overseeing the online community. And then under that online community is our extensions. And we very much treat our extensions, like the campus expression that I oversee. We don't really treat our online community as a campus, so to say, even though, you know, we did for a long time, you know, there is, but, uh, the idea is that our services that I'm like a campus pastor over are our extensions. And even at our extensions, we, we have a program that they print and on the cover of that program is a photo of me.

And I'm, I have my information there. So if they want to talk to their campus pastor, they can reach out to me. So we, we, we very much, because we're not, we don't have staff physically presence present. We make my presence there digitally so that at least they can, they can reach out. So that's kind of how we're structured and how it works right now. So like, are these, are these multi-site extensions? Like what's the actual language? Just extension campuses, extension locations? There are extensions. There would be saddleback church extensions. And so, yeah. How many do you have at this point? 14. So when you say you're trying to get to 15 to get to 30, you're literally trying to get to 15.

Oh yeah. Learn lessons from that 15. And then you want to reproduce that or figure out how to make the adjustments to get the next 30 launched. Yep. Yep. We're literally just trying to, we're, we're literally in that, we're just in that phase. And so of, we're trying to normalize it. We're trying to, um, like we have a, we have a video story coming out in the next month where we recorded a video of one of our extensions that meets in the Sacramento area. And, um, we try to, we're trying to provide a model because really the first phase of this was, I don't, I feel like people knew what it was, but they needed to see an example. And so this, so this first launch, we got some, we captured a story.

We're going to tell that story. We have a box kit that we finally built and we're going to be promoting that. And so I think we learned because I didn't want to build a box at first because I didn't know what would go into the box. And so now I've talked to 14 extensions and now I know what they want. And so. What do they want? I want to know what they want. Oh, uh, they, so essentially we're going to be sending in this box, 50 invite cards that are printed on postcard type of card stock type of material they can hand out to their community. I actually do have to update some of them because they say Rick on it. So I have to reprint, uh, uh, the daunting task of reprinting everything at our church.

We print out 25, like printed versions of our program that we literally designed this PDF where you can fold it. And then every week you print the notes out and you put the program in. We're not printing that. We're not sending restocking this. This is just something we, I want to give them 25 versions to see what it could be like. Um, we're sending them lanyards that we'll say, welcome to Saddleback and they can put erasable name on. It's like erasable marker lanyards that, so the idea is that I didn't want to send shirts. Shirts are so, um, annoying to get sizes and stocking. These lanyards are the way to kind of put this on and you feel like staff. We're going to send, uh, 50, 50 or a hundred, uh, Saddleback pins.

Um, and then we have a, we have right now, this is something actually I got to think about right now. I was trying to figure out what's the best thing that they can give to first time attenders. I ended up finding these purpose-driven life workbook, uh, booklets that were like a dollar or a piece. We actually have a Saddleback Bible that we have. Um, and it's like a design Bible has a letter from Rick on the cover. The problem is those Bibles are like 10 bucks a piece and they're heavy. So I didn't really, I couldn't really mail these things. And so these booklets were really nice. And the funny thing is I didn't really have an understanding of the timing of this. So I bought like a thousand of these booklets and now I'm like, I'm just shipping these booklets, like I'm not keeping these booklets, but we got to figure out a first time guest thing.

Um, so that that's the basic. And it's really just to kind of, I think one of the things is the first phase of this. I was very, I went away from having to mail a bunch of stuff because it just was too time consuming and costly. I wanted to just, just get them going. But I did learn that when you get something that arrives on your doorstep, it does make you feel valued and important. We're also designing a box. Like a, it will be a blue saddleback. It will be a custom printed box. I also want that because I want to hold it up on camera. That was the big thing. I didn't have anything to like, I want to build a, like, we want to mail you this box. And so the idea is that you sign up for our, our extension training and then we'll mail you the box.

And, um, yeah. And so I'm very excited about this because, you know, the first 14 really just attended a training and that's it. They really didn't know what we're talking about, but we're going to show a video story here this summer and then show the box. And I'm very pumped. I got to decide some new things in this box because with this change, uh, so I got to figure out like, what do you give a new person? But it's hard. Like I was talking to our, our friends at Sandals Church, Jeff there who did some multi-site stuff. And I remember he did this thing where he sent, um, Uber eat delivery food for their first gathering, which was a cool idea. I also, I'm like, I don't, that sounds crazy to me financially, you know, when you got like five maybe.

Um, and so people do different things, you know, like we have bought in some gear for a couple of art. We have one in the Bay area that's meeting right now. I've bought in like a speaker for them because they needed a speaker. So, uh, we, we do optionally mail them a Roku stick, um, if they need one, but I'm trying to get away from, I think most people know how to stream the service. It's just, when you go into a facility, it gets a little bit more complicated. Um, cause you might need gear. We do have a banner that we send. If you meet in a venue, we'll mail you this banner. That's like $150 banner that you could put out front, but you know, there's all sorts of variables. So most of them are in homes, but we have five of them that meet in venues and, you know, they're all kind of in the range of like 60 to 25 in venues.

So it's still not super big, but you still want it to feel important. So now that you're 15, 14, and you're trying to get to that, that next level, how are you guys dealing with the, well, that's not Saddleback. That's not meeting Saddleback standards. Um, do you, do you feel like the, this, this switch of leadership, is that going to maybe strengthen the bonds or is that going to break the bonds? Is it too soon to tell? Like the, the standards that Saddleback has is going to be huge and you're going to be feeling that tension quite a bit. What, what, what are you, what's your gut? Yeah, I, I definitely think there have been a lot of changes over the last five years on this that have loosened some of this stuff for us.

I think there's a lot more openness, um, from our church just to experiment. And so, um, there were things said years ago that aren't being said now, and I've been given way more freedom to experiment. And so, um, I think definitely there'll be more freedom. And I think, you know, I, I think one of the big things is just that needs to be beefed up is the coaching and more training and, um, and you know, I, that's the area where we need to systematize all that. Cause you can go read purpose driven church, but what does that mean when you're like a lay leader, we got to contextualize the training a little bit more, but no, I think the standards are going to be heightened in some areas, but very loosened.

But I think we're in a season of a lot more freedom, you know, especially coming out of COVID for sure. And just knowing, um, Hey, let's try different things. And so I, I, I feel, I feel like we have a blank check right now, you know, it won't last forever, but that's why I got to get to a number. I feel like I got to get to a number and then I want to use, you know, we're trying to use this, this group to say, okay, this is what we need to hire because that's actually the bigger thing is right now, you know, it's functioning under our team and we're managing it ourselves along with other things we're doing. So I think that's the harder thing that we're trying to prioritize this along with our normal weekend responsibilities, our groups, our events, our whole online community stuff.

So is, do you think training is, is that the biggest challenge right now? Um, trying to develop the shepherd, develop the, uh, the pastoral heart? Like what's, what's the biggest obstacle you're facing with these? I think technically money is the big, biggest obstacle because we need, we need to figure out how to provide something that self interesting. Well, example, like I was just talking to one of my leaders about this and, um, they had collected some money and then they melded in to one of our locations. And, you know, I was talking to this leader and they were like, essentially like the art, we didn't want to take the money because if we took it, um, we, we didn't have a way to get it back to them.

Like we couldn't just write a check and give it back to them. We didn't have a real easy way to like report this back to the IRS in a very seamless way. And because we don't have staff present, it's really hard to validate how it's being collecting and who is it being collecting and making sure it was all collected. And so by having all volunteers, it's, if we can't really be a pass through agency. And so I think like this leader was like, well, I, so they're sending me back the money and she, like, they're just going to have a thousand dollars and now it's on them. And so I'm having to tell them, okay, you can't collect any more money. No money has to go through your bank. And, and what I'm trying to coach them on, you know, kind of, you know, building it in the sky is like, okay, just have leaders take responsibility of different needs.

And I wouldn't, cause if you store money in your bank, I don't know. And they were actually out of the country. I go, I don't know how your taxes work. And so I don't want you to get deemed for this. Like, cause if this money comes in, it's going to be seen as income. And so just, we gotta be very, so I think there's a lot of structural things, especially because we have like a one budget system at our church. And I think some of that stuff is very like, and then obviously if you send money in, you get the write-off, but if they don't have, so I think there's some of that stuff that I actually like, as much as I know it's like, there's ways to solve it. It's, it's very messy. It's just very messy.

And so I, I, this, this may be a completely separate conversation, but I wonder if like DAOs and some of the things that are coming up with, with blockchain and crypto, if that's not, that's not solving that. I totally don't want to like get lost in that conversation right now, but that's really intriguing. Yeah. Because like, I remember one of our early, like the first extension that I was ever part of, this was probably seven years ago. It was funny. Like we went out, we heard that this group was meeting and renting this, uh, this facility and I had been in contact with them. And so I went out there and, and I was like, we, we went to it. They had like 35 people showing up to this VFW and somebody would sing and they would play.

It wasn't, they were just doing it. And I remember I went out there with my boss at the time and we went to lunch afterwards. She's like, so like, how is this working? And they're like, well, what happens is it's like 200 bucks or a hundred, a hundred bucks or something a month, a week to rent it. And a different small group owns it every month. I mean, every week and they rotate and they were just choosing not to, if they were tithing 500 bucks a month, that family would just tithe 400 bucks and you use that a hundred there. And so people are naturally doing that. And so, but it's really weird, you know, to tell a member of our church to say, you know, your first fruits don't go to Saddleback, go to your needs.

You know what I mean? And so some of that stuff is just really gray, but I think if you had a fund like that where you didn't have to worry about geographical deals and people could access it, I think some of that, the Dow model is, again, this is why I think we are structurally having to pivot and think different than how we're, we're wired. And I think it's a lot easier to build. I think it was a lot easier for Apple to be Apple than for IBM to be Apple. You know what I mean? I just, you know, the same way, you know, like a Ralph's to become Amazon or whatever. I just, I think there's some structural things and I think you lean into your strengths. And so I, I think, I think we could figure it out and we are, but I think, you know, a guy coming out of, or a guy or a girl coming out of seminary and just plants a church.

Like, I think that they will just be able to solve this that, you know, just set it up this way. I think of like, like the story of Binance, like Binance, you know, they got shut down in China or whatever. And, you know, they're the, one of the leading, uh, uh, crypto exchanges and, and one of the early ones. And he got, they're pretty much trying to shut him down and they were interviewing the CEO of Binance. And he was like, yeah, we've always been decentralized. Even our offices, we don't have a central headquarters. And so when they got shut down, it, it wasn't hard because everybody, everybody worked remote. And so you couldn't like, even though it hurt him on this area, it didn't hurt. Like the people, it wasn't like shutting down an office.

Like when, when Saddleback Church during COVID, our offices, our offices shut down. It was a little bit of like, a lot of people were like, oh, what do I do? You know what I mean? Didn't hurt me because I had already worked from home, but I think you're going to have people I've, we've always been this way. So that's why I think that you're going to, big churches will figure it out and are figuring out, but I think you're going to have a lot of innovation at a different level. And, and what I think you need to get there are churches that are willing, as kids back to the control, you just got to let go. Like you're not going to be able to adapt if you're holding to the model. That's, that's not adjusting.

If, if you're holding to the model tighter than you are the mission, you're really good. Yes. That's a good way of saying it. Um, where, where you could be. And so like, that's, that's really is, is, is my heart just even as, as we're resonating on this. Hey, um, one more question and, and we, we got it. We got to land the plane. How does, how does Saddleback, your pastor has been around a very long time, uh, literally just now retiring. You're a giga church, um, like trying to get a ship to move. I would imagine is very difficult yet. You guys and gals, your team has been able to adjust very well, or at least the outside perception is that it's very well. I'm not looking for some, something scandalous here, but like, how do you do it?

What is it culturally within your, your, your leadership, your team that allows for these adjustments that allows you to be on, what are you version five or six at this point in the micro? Like you're constantly adjusting and tweaking things. It's what I love about you and Saddleback. How do you get that trust? Uh, well, I, I, I mean, I, obviously it's, it's top down. I mean, for sure. I think Rick and the team is there are fast fluid and flexible is one of our mantras that we talk about. And, you know, he talks a lot about, and he teaches us, you know, uh, if you're going to fail, fail fast and fail cheaply too. And so let's, let's try out a lot of different things. And I think, you know, why we're doing it and even what we're doing, it is, it's not really changing.

It's just the how. And so I think there, um, yeah. And I, I, I just believe that that's how we are, you know, cause we, we've done all, we've done, we, you know, they started the church in a phase where church was very different. And then there were many changes throughout that. Like one of the biggest changes for our church history was leaning in to, uh, canceling midweek and, and moving to small group strategy. That was a huge growth factor. And that was something they did like 15 years or 20 years into our church's history. And that was a huge, like huge change. Another one, multi-site, a huge change, you know? And, um, and so I think we, our church has benefited from big changes and understanding we need, you know, I think of it, it's kind of like practically now it's like TikTok where tech, one of TikTok's greatest strengths is like, they're doing hundreds of thousands of micro tests every second.

And, you know, you don't see stuff on TikTok based off of who you follow. You see stuff based off what's the most popular thing at that moment. And, and this is why it could, it's a, it's a hypercharged algorithm versus Instagram and Facebook. And so, but you need those tests. And so, and I think our church allows us to do a lot of testing. And I would tell anybody who's starting off, you know, figure out your job description, prove you can deliver on your job description and then experiment on the side. And I think, uh, I've, I've benefited from a lot of great bosses and coaches that were just like, Hey, do this stuff. And then when I, when I figured out how to do that stuff, then it was a lot of experimenting.

Also, we're very, we're just a very honest church. Like this is, this is where we're at. You know what I mean? We got 14 and I don't think I've, I feel like for our church microsites is not necessarily the answer. I think it's a answer among a lot of other strategies. Um, I still believe in the mic, the multi-site strategy. And so I, I, I just think that there's some other opportunity here. Um, and so, but yeah, I, I think it comes from top down for sure. And just how the, our church is wired. We're a teaching church. And so I think because of that, I think that kind of, you know, kind of bleeds off onto everybody for sure. Very cool. Well, Hey, this has been a, this has been a great conversation.

I love, love hanging out with Jay Cran. That's been, been a minute, uh, since we've gotten together for a podcast, but, but definitely a good one. And Hey, just as, as we're landing the plane here, Jay, um, any closing thoughts? Oh man, I would love to hear from anybody, um, who's listening this, that if you're doing any type of microsite type of thing, and we haven't talked, um, please message me on Instagram or whatever. Um, we're in a learning mode and I've, I've had a lot of conversations with a lot of different people, but if you're doing something, especially if you have more than 15 microsites, please message me. I would love to set up a conversation and just pick your brain. So who has more than 15?

I have no idea. I mean, Tyler, Tyler, you, um, 15 is a big number. I don't know that at least at this point, I mean, during COVID, I, there were a lot that were 15 or more. I'm not like DJ Chong who can kind of memorize all this stuff. Like he has like the list of all the people who do all that. I don't know. I have, I'm so terrible at like, yeah, all that. So I, I think 15 is, is a, is, uh, let me say this while you're messaging him message me because I, I mean, I cannot think of that many people that are doing 15, uh, micro right now. Um, anyway, that's a, that's a great, now, I mean, micro church, completely separate conversation, but an established church doing a micro site. Yeah. That's a great, Hey, you know what?

One more question just while, and this is going to be completely off topic, Los Angeles Lakers playoffs, 2023. Yes or no? Yes. I'm going to hold you to it. Yes. We, we got a new coach. You're going to blame the coach. I'm going to blame all sorts of things, but I'm going to, I'm going to blame. We were terrible. LeBron James was amazing. Our supporting cast, blah, you know, Anthony Davis was injured. We were all over the place. We got a new, we're going to, we got a new coach going to bring in a new culture, a new DNA. Um, and I'm excited. So we're not going to spoil another year of LeBron James, but, um, but I'm an optimist, you know, until I'm a negative. So, so, but I'm hopeful. So for today, Jay Cranda, Laker, apologist slash optimist, uh, well, well done.

And who needs to see an ophthalmologist evidently with his eye? Is that, is that the word? Is that the eye doctor ophthalmologist? Yes. I think you nailed it, man. I think you nailed it. Yes. It'll never get better than that right there. So I'm officially retiring the church digital podcast because that was like, boom, boom, boom. That's beautiful. And I've got nothing left to say except for the podcast that I've already recorded for next week, which is awesome. So, Hey, but, but we're going to land the plane. Jay, thanks for hanging out with us today. Uh, for Jay, this is, uh, Jeff, uh, with the church, digital digital church network and a whole bunch of other fun stuff. Thanks for jumping on the pod here and we'll see you next time on the show.

You all have a good day.