EP225: LMichelle Salvant & The Opportunities of an Digital African American Church

So I had to get to a point, even though I'm a, you know, I'm a minister and I'm a technologist, but I had to understand, you know, let's take a look. We are, as a culture, needing even now more than ever these safe spaces. So how do we help that translate when it comes to digital and even the metaverse realms? So there's a lot of history behind really the Black Church and our role. So to take a building or a place of meeting out of that equation, it's kind of like, where are we?

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 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.

All right, hey everybody, welcome to the Church Digital podcast. We've got episode 225 here, and it's actually going to be one of the first shows in a series that we're going to be doing off and on throughout the summer here. You know, so often I have conversations where we're looking at different contextualizations, different churches that are operating in different ways, thinking outside of the box, whether that's through a fresh expressions, doing like a digital expression of church or a video game or a metaverse church. Or, and that's one of the things that I loved working with State is we really started to explore the idea of how different races and different cultures are connecting in the church. And honestly, I just discovered in my own life that there was not a single way to do church, but that there was freedom in a lot of these contextualizations to do something different to reach a different type of person.

And so this summer that really challenged me to maybe explore some different ways of how we're doing church digitally. And today's conversation is actually going to be one of the first conversations we're publishing, but one of the first conversations we're having on this as we're exploring the African-American church and maybe some nuances of how an African-American church can and should operate digitally, maybe how it can connect better.

Now, listen, up front, I just want to say something and I want to call the purple elephant out of the room. I am a white man. I'm bald with a goatee. I am like the typical looking pastor, American white pastor, that's pretty much like who I am. And so, but I've learned by doing digital metaverse ministry, it's better to ask questions than to make statements. It's better to position yourself as a learner. And if you've ever listened to anything with these podcasts, you've known that it's far more often I'm asking questions and learning from the guest than I am trying to tell the guests what to think, because I don't know the answer to these questions. And even in the conversation of today, what would an African-American church look like digitally? What are some of the challenges? What are the opportunities? What can we do? I don't have the perspective because I've typically been involved in non-African-American, mostly white, but still multicultural churches. And so I want to learn from this conversation. I'm welcoming you to learn with me as well as I'm bringing in as a guest here, El Michelle Salvant. El Michelle, how are you doing today?

Jeff, I love your intro. I am doing completely fantastic, just glad to be here, enjoying the summer weather here in Florida.

So as always, yeah, I'm down here in Miami as a matter of fact. Last week I was vacationing in the Keys, and so it was like, you know, 95 with like 130 humidity. It was just brutal.

Now, now, Europe, Tallahassee, am I right?

Yeah, we're in North Florida, so yeah, a little bit closer to Georgia, still Sunshine State, still hot, but I love the summers. I prefer the sun over anything else. So yeah.

Okay, we can agree to disagree on that point. I went out of there. We go. We might as well get, let's get it started. Yeah, let's just roll into it and move on. But you know, and truly I do mean this, like I'm coming into this conversation a learner here. And so I want to put the disclaimer on as I may say the wrong thing, I may use the wrong term. I mean no offense by this. Anything here, as much as us trying with the Church Digital, try to draw attention to some of these nuances and how if we're going to be effective in reaching different types of people, how we, the church here in America, need to think different and how we can learn.

We've got a conversation coming up with a Hispanic church here in actually Miami that's got global reach. We're talking with people from the German church and from African churches and from Philippines. Philippines is actually the second largest country that is tracking with the Church Digital and Digital Church Network, which is weird to me, more than Canada. But for some reason we've got a rather large Filipino crowd. And so this is a great learning opportunity. El Michelle, thank you for jumping in right here. I, we didn't say it, let's just intro it. El Michelle, you run your own production company, El Michelle Media. Why don't you just start kicking off here? Tell us a little bit about that.

Well, Michelle Media, yes, we're about 14 years old now. We are basically an emerging media and technology company. We specialize mostly in consulting and training work, a lot in the education sector, but our base and what got us started even in this business itself was the church, being a help to the very church that we're talking about now, the churches that we're talking about now. And so anything from web design, which was emerging at the time of in 2008 with like kind of like the WordPress, your do-it-yourself web designs, through social, to now into immersive and more of the metaverse, we're teaching, we're training on this, we're helping equip teams in this area. And then we also have a strong student base where we do these different learning experiences to help students be more positive in times like these and to move forward. We are media that moves you forward. And so that's kind of like the basis of what the company.

Yeah, El Michelle was one of the speakers at Leadership Network's Metaverse Church Summit, which was a couple weeks ago. We'll put a link to the show notes where you can grab that. She stole the show. Majority was virtual reality. She came in talking augmented reality and immersive journaling and all sorts of stuff. And I've said this publicly, I think I even said it within the summit, I've gone ahead and claimed it for me. El Michelle is the most interesting person I've met in 2022. I don't care who else I meet for the rest of the year. If you really unpack who this woman is, it's incredible. And so I would love for you, we'll put some links and show notes, really check in some of the stuff that she's working on, because she is one of the bleeding edges right now of what church, of what Christianity is going to look like as the metaverse continues to unfold, unravel, unfold. I don't know what the term is there. So we're really good there.

And in the context of this conversation, we want to dig in. So El Michelle, you're a high-level volunteer leader at your church there up in Northern Florida called Higher Dimension Church. Why don't you just tell us a little bit, kind of like what serving looks like for the church there at Higher Dimension?

Oh my gosh, Higher Dimension Church Tallahassee. Where the pastors got to give a shout out to my pastors, Carlos and Nikki Collins, of course. Our church is very apostolic and prophetic in nature, operates in the fivefold ministry. We started it from the ground up, so it's kind of like being a part of the launch team. It is the first of what I believe will be many church plants under the Higher Dimension Church Tallahassee brand. What it's like to serve, my husband and I are both serving in the area of media. I am the media director in title, and also I work with the women's ministry and the missions team, but it's all hands on deck, especially when it comes to media. It's our pastors. We are more on the side of being servant leaders. And so even when you lead in a section, you lead. The strongest leaders are those who are serving the most. It's kind of like our mentality. And so when it comes to media, all areas of media, I oversee those areas, and then I'm also given the creative freedom to introduce new and emerging media and technology and digital. Even before the pandemic, our pastors have just been very, very open to that. And I would say that that is a huge step in ministry in general, and especially, you know, in African-American church, we are tech people by nature. You know, you could look at numbers and the things we consume and who's on the networks. You know, we're there as African Americans, but a lot of times on the creative end, there are, of course, a very huge underrepresentation of the culture in these areas. So how does that translate? What does that mean as it comes down to the churches? Sometimes, due to us not being in these areas as a culture in the area of creating, consuming, yeah, we're there, but are we creating in those spaces? Sometimes in the church, there's maybe not the openness as much as you maybe see in other ministries to the new technology, just because there's not sometimes a face on it that looks like our face or an understanding of it. So sometimes just in that sense, we can see a little bit of a digital divide. A lot of times it could be access to things like Wi-Fi and just different things that might hinder the effectiveness of digital, virtual, and even metaverse ministry. But we, I am blessed to give to your original question, to serve with leaders who are very open to what we call ways to really connect. At one time I had even proposed, I said, you know, pastors, instead of being the media ministry, we should be the connect ministry. We are the people who are using all this technology and trying to find ways to connect the message with people, no matter where they are. So that's just kind of like been our mindset, not to put any limitations on what we could do as it relates to media, because the ultimate goal is to make those connections.

That's beautiful. Very long answer to your question, but hopefully, no, that's great. So then I'm pulling from what you just said, the primary way that you're using digital is that first impressions, is that connect? Using it to the social media, digital presence, website, broadcasting of church services, using that to pull people in into a physical building for discipleship and more connection, right? Pull them in and then also reinforce messaging. Because I think what the pandemic showed us, we were one of the few churches in our area during the pandemic that decided to close, or to let me not say close, I like the way our pastors, a husband and wife pastoral team, to expand. So to expand beyond the building and to pursue more of a virtual first approach during the pandemic. I would say about six months prior, we were just working very hard to make sure streaming online was effective. And this was before it was necessary. Okay, before it was, let me say, commonplace. It's always been necessary, but at the time before.

The pandemic obviously the majority of our congregation was in person and not online. But my husband and I, and we know it was only God, just really in six months prior to the pandemic, just for working like, uh, trying this software that, where software, how to, uh, stream better. Let's get these cameras.

And the pastors were all in, not knowing uh where it was going to lead. So I say that to say this: we had the access and we were equipped when the pandemic hit to take a more virtual first approach to be ready for what we call expansion of the church. Many were not. Many in the African American church were not because, again, most of the, uh, most of the worshippers, or you know, most of the members were in person. So there was, if you were streaming, it was just kind of like, yeah, okay, that's cool, but it wasn't just a priority. And so we made it a priority. So we were ready, and we had more than a handful of pastors who were calling us right after the pandemic here, calling our pastors, you know, how are y'all doing this? How are y'all doing that? And really just feeling like they could not afford, and I'm not just talking financially, I mean just ministry-wise, and not to meet in person. They were like, we don't have the infrastructure. I mean, we don't have the cameras. We don't have what you have. So the thought, the thinking was different. So a lot of people, uh, many in our area and some in other areas where I know our pastors have uh friends in ministry and things like that, they'll say we never shut down. And you know, for us, safety and people, and like our pastor said, we have families. We have people with young children. We have mature adults. We can't afford to do that. And on the other end, people are like, we can't afford to, you know, close our doors and not be able to reach people at all with the word. So I think there's a challenge there with even having the kind of access or the foresight or the thought to think of it as digital ministry, you know, at the time it was just something you do, maybe, but it wasn't a priority in many of the churches where uh you know I'm familiar with, you know, and that's some, some of the pre-COVID, some of the African American churches that that I worked with or tried to work with, uh, honestly were similar stories. Um, you know, there there was one, it was a pastor, a friend. He's like, he's like, Jeff, I'm okay, I want my message heard around the world. Uh, I I want to see people get baptized in Ethiopia off of the sermons that that I'm preaching. I want, I want global missions to go and happen, happen digitally. But can we block like the fifty mile radius around my physical church because I don't want lazy people staying at home watching this church service? I want them to come into into the physical building. And and we, honestly, that was a pre-COVID conversation. And as a result of COVID, they were one of these churches that that pivoted and really stuck with the understanding of a digital, um, long term. It's been fun seeing this this church kind of expands with it. But it's, it seems like there's there's a lot of, and I don't want to overstate because I think a lot of the church, whether it's African American or or white or otherwise, a lot of the church is really grounded on physicality. Uh, but but I'm wondering how much maybe is over and above because I've seen so many churches and I love how you said they can't afford it, and it may not even be the monetarily as much as just their perception of the physicality of it. How much of of an African American church is really grounded in this physicality? I, without without having done, okay, official research, sure, I would definitely say maybe sixty to seventy percent that don't have a virtual first approach, maybe an appreciation that could be in the church worldwide. So there could be people who watch this and like, we're not virtual first, we're we're in person first. But you know, it's it's even in the language, it's in the thought process, you know, in many of our churches we're the sound team. We're not even the media ministry, you know. When I'm talking to churches, I'm like, you know, this is a ministry, right? Or you're the place where I got to get somebody young, a young person to kind of oversee all that because you know the pastors, many, well, many other leaders or may say, you know, I have a lack of understanding of that. So sometimes the lack of understanding makes just the whole premise of it all just get thrown out like, you know, I don't understand it, so we're not gonna do that. But what I do understand is people in pews, you know, I I read in Nona Jones, uh, book, uh, just just about you know social media and and those type things, uh, just kind of her frustration early on being a manager uh at Facebook over you know their faith-based initiatives and hearing pastors say they were more really concerned having more of an aquarium mindset. She said, uh, then more of a discipleship mindset. How many people can we get in the tank? It's about how many people we can see now, how many people we can reach or would be willing to reach, whether we see them or not. And I think, um, you know, culturally we're family oriented. We're about community. We we love it. We love fellowship, you know, our barbecues, that's our culture, you know. We want to get together. It's a place where you feel safe, you know, in the times where uh America uh was very challenged because there's still made a lot of racial challenges, not maybe a lot of racial challenges period, you know, it was the African American church where we felt safe, where we felt free, you know, to worship, where we you know felt respected as a people. And so you start to think about those things and then you wonder, you know, how will that even translate into digital? What then do we become? Where then is the meeting space, you know, uh, you know, the the place of connection even for the culture? So I had to get to a point, even though I'm a you know I'm a minister and I'm a technologist, but I had to understand, you know, let's take a look. We are, we are as a culture needing even now more than ever these safe spaces. So how do we help that uh translate when it comes to digital and even the the metaverse realms? So there's a lot of history behind really the Black Church in our role. So to take a building or a place of meeting out of that equation, it's kind of like, where are we? And so it's a little bit of a balance on that end. But what I'm trying to say is, man, you talk about finding your tribe, there's so many people. We had a lot of people uh during the pandemic who moved due to employment, due to marriages and things like that, but they still wanted to be connected to the ministry. The ministry still felt like home. So you know, my my uh you know argument is, what do you do in those situations when you still want to feel like home but you physically can't be there? You know, how do you um accommodate that? So, um, just trying to figure it out for for some, is it worth it to figure out, you know, do they have the time to figure out? Some will say, well, we don't have an L or people, you know, it's not positioned to be priority. The message is positioned to be the priority, and it is. But I always say that we're the transportation. And so you got the message, but in one definition, media is known as it's kind of like transportation. So you got to kind of have both to uh achieve the the whole goal. So right now, I I think as a church, especially with the different things that we see happening uh racially, we still want to be there. We still want to be the meeting place. But I think that we are, as a just as a as a culture, want to move a little bit further ahead into these realms. But you got a lot of things to consider. There are still, and I work in some of these areas that are really rural areas where there's lack of access even to you know internet and Wi-Fi, you know, maybe you have hot spots and things like that. But will it, will it hold up? You know, sometimes that lack of access then you say, well, then how do you reach those people uh you know who might be a part of your congregation or you know some have older generations? What we saw early on was a lot of use of uh phone conferencing lines, a lot of people just you know using uh phone conferencing, uh Zoom has been a winner. Zoom as a winner, uh, many people are learning uh really how to use Zoom, even if it's just a call in. And then we are seeing more and more people stream, uh, use some of the the streaming services we're using like Stream Yards. So we're streaming you know across multiple social networks and things like that. But I still don't think we're maxing out on the use of tools like the Church Online Tool through Church, you know, Life Church, that's free. Some of the tools that we could, but then the question is, who's on the other side? Would they, would they really be on the other side, you know, or would they just prefer to meet uh in person? Do you find that people are connecting digitally? Like, I mean, you you've given a couple examples like the person who moves away, uh, you're also using um digital as first impressions trying to connect with a new person trying to lead them into the building like in context of the streaming of the church service. Do you think that is effective in connecting with someone that has distanced themselves or someone you've not met yet? Can you think of stories or examples where where the stream of the service has been effective?

Absolutely. In fact, uh, we, it's been so effective our Bible study is now entirely online. So we still do, uh, we are still in the hybrid uh service mode and probably looking to continue the course. I don't want to overspeak my pastor. See this at, oh yeah, okay, any more vision you have for us. But I I do see that, um, you know, our Bible studies and even our our Sunday services that are uh entirely virtual, the response is amazing. And people are connecting. People feel a sense of community. People are are giving, which is another thing, you know, it does take uh financial resources to run ministry, you know, and that was another concern with many churches. If I don't see you, are you still going to give? We've we've been able to engage people in that way online. We have gained new people who come consistently who uh live in distant areas outside of the area we live. They they live in the area, but it's so far to commute that uh they just jump online. We even saw people were so used to us uh being online that when they would come in the church, we still stream, you would find people sitting in the actual service commenting online to the point where our pastor said, are we gonna have to just take phones? I mean, because if you're in here, can you be in the building? Because people were, you know, uh, just that that used to and had gotten, um, you know, really really acclimated with our our online presentation. But man, we had to work. And I will, I will let you know that I think on the one end, people don't get into it because they maybe don't understand it all. Well, I've I've heard the calls from pastors like, we check this equipment over and over again, and as soon as we go live, we hear the feedback on the mic. The camera doesn't look right. Like, they just, they want to do it, but it just won't come out the way they want it to. So they're like, look, just everybody's just coming to church. That's what we know how to do well. But we had to work. We had to get the lighting right. We had to work on our sound, buy different mics, upgrade the internet service, you know, buy the software, whatever we had to do to make the online experience uh as good if not even better than what we do in person. On the flip side, our services in person have seemed smaller than what we're doing online. So when we have an in-person service, you either just have many of, but used to be members just uh online or many of the the current members online and just a very small.

group in person so we're trying to navigate those challenges too but in the early early days man our pastors got a lot of pushback um from inside and outside of the church about what we were doing because if there's one church in the area who's just like yeah we're not going back in the building yet we're going to continue online then others in the area are like looking at other churches like well why aren't you doing what they're doing so you had pastors that kind of wanted to have discussions about that and then you did have some members that said i just can't get into online i don't feel connected i'll have to go to a church that's just primarily in person with being in a community that that has that sort of mindset you guys are looking at digital as first impressions to connect with initially like you even talked about calling it connections so what separated that mindset from what the crowd was telling you other churches in the community it's not worth it you can never get the tech right it's just not even worth the effort let's just come together physically we want to hang out we we value community your church has taken a maybe a little different approach to what the the typical african-american church sorry for the stereotype but the typical african-american church doesn't care anything about this they don't want to put the effort into it maybe they can't afford it i don't want to judge but you're doing something different you're going counter cultural to that what is it within your church within the leadership within you that's helping to lead the church down a different path than what everybody else is well what i'll say during the pandemic and even what continues was safety that was our pastor's primary concern it was safety and having a way to ensure that the message could continue to go out but that people could stay safe they did not want to go home and try to sleep at night trying to bring everyone in the building for a message and it wasn't safe so that was just first and foremost secondly it has always been about the word going forth and we're not just saying that to sound like this is what you would say as a christian church it has always been about finding unique ways to have the word become a part of people's everyday life so if that's on the social networks if it's through creating a playlist on youtube wherever people are is where we want to be has always been the mindset for other churches i'm not saying because i started the conversation saying you know as african americans we are you know trendsetters in a lot of ways or trend adopters you put something out we hey well we want it you know why not we want to buy it we want to try it but it's the mindset sometimes uh of the black church being so um you know so much about fellowship and that safe space it's hard to see how that translates into digital we are that safe space in a culture that can be uh well in a world that can be scary at times for our culture we're a place that you can come and relax and feel free and things like that so a lot of the times even if it wasn't financed um it could have been access just not having the technology in the area or not having the willingness to see it as ministry and see it as the word going forward to continue to reinforce connection for us it was a no-brainer we felt like we've always feel like the word we have needs to be shared needs to be out there it's going to help someone's life somewhere whether we see them or not we want to put it out there so we're constantly trying to find ways to do that i even have a branch of what i do through the company it's called jc publicity jesus christ publicity since 2005 it's all a bit always been about getting the word out and talking about what jesus is doing now and not letting location or like you say physicality stop that so we've always had a forward mindset about that so on the software side i've been there but even on the tech side our pastor has a you know a bit of a cabling and tech background just even in the church there's always big technology there's screens everywhere anything any way we can use technology to enhance uh the the the faith experience we've always that's just always been a part of our dna like even now we have these bracelets through link because we realize sometimes we send out updates and you know people don't get them or don't know how to get on the website or whatever so we're like why don't we give some bracelets that are powered with nfc chips so we could just connect with you that way so we're always trying to strengthen the connection i have never thought of using link in that way i i got to tell you right now that was that that's that's a takeaway for me um that was really good yeah we'll put a link in the show notes oh totally oh yeah because then all the bracelets so yeah it up they update it once and then you control the updates and you just have your messages here why have a cd well i have that you know you just have everything that someone needs right on their arm well well tell me i mean because uh your your heart is in your church is hard i'm hearing it's get get them get the message out i want to maybe dig in a little bit here on types of content um and realizing there there's content that connects but then there's content that leads to community uh where you can engage around that content uh and and we want to see like that engagement happen we want to see connecting in in into groups for deeper discipleship and things like that we want to see you i mean you said safe space that's a great word we want to we want to create safe space digitally have you found that even though we want to create safe space digitally even though people aren't there's a bias towards not going towards safe space digitally maybe have you seen that types of content are more successful to create that safe space digitally to create that that engagement um like are you what are you learning and you've been running this company over 14 years what have you learned in in this space i think that uh you have to be uh intentional about it and to be quite honest with you this is why i join not to just try to plug it or give you a warm and fuzzy like our pastor would say um digital church network because i realized we were tech forward but to really dig into media ministry and digital discipleship discipleship that's a whole other level that's a whole other level that we have even in all my tech forwardness yet to really tap like we know how to put we're we're doing all the basics really well we'll put the flyer out you're going to be notified like i said we got the braces we're going to update the website we're going to stream we're gonna be on time we're you know gonna take the pictures let you know what happened but as far as now we're looking at things like using groups more to you know even we call our members partners to do our partner trainings to use these kind of tools and these platforms to like you said create that community we're bringing the people in they're trusting us we're a trusted voice but empowering them in a way that you would have these kind of these sessions in person and things like that we're still it's still in development for us because i think we are now finally making the shift uh into realizing this is a real ministry like some i was talking to my husband about it we don't have a digital pastor our pastor is the pastor you know and and a lot of i don't know how many other african-american churches have digital pastors or things like that but i don't know any right off the top of my head like personally you know so we we realize that we now have to we have all the tools down pat we got it and we're going to use it we're not scared of them we're moving ahead but now we are currently looking to develop more content to reinforce our digital ministry mindset now we're going to our pastors are looking at the ads i'm like y'all know what we need to do ads on facebook we should do these kind of things so it may be going from a super high-tech discussion now to a very basic discussion but i think that um that's just a very true statement of where we are because even with all our doing we didn't quite grasp fully that this is a full-fledged ministry now let's build this community around these people who are coming online and now we're we're starting to do that you know i i love that you said that that's that's really it's it's one of these tensions i wrote an ebook a while back what happens when church online grows up and and what you're actually describing is this natural tension that that happens as you start to do ministry in this space and as you start to build community it draws attention to it's not just tech there's discipleship there's ministry opportunities that's happening here and how do we let that grow on how can we foster a a safe space an environment where that discipleship or multiplication can happen in digital space because otherwise now you've taken people up to a point but you don't have any infrastructure beyond that well let me let me just ask like in the physical space uh michelle um like what what does what does your church do beyond sunday morning you mentioned bible studies earlier it sounds like you're kind of separating bible studies in churches like what what outside of the sunday morning service what does discipleship actually look like at your physical church and then the next question is what would it look like to do that digitally but but first up front you know what what would it look like what does it currently look like at your church currently it looks like um a lot of outreach and mentoring we have a women's mentoring program called the ruth project that's been going on since uh 2014 and so that's just really empowering women and girls uh to lead uh lead by faith step out into their purpose and produce things uh six months mentoring program is kind of like the foundation of it and you go through and uh at the end of it you you burnt out something that you believe god has called you to do whether it be a book or a movie or an album or or whatever and you do that using kind of like biblical and lifestyle principles uh there's a similar mentoring initiative on the men's side of thing called the salomon project otherwise outside of those there's outreaches like we've done outreaches uh at our prison ministry outreach is uh seven eight years in about as old as uh the ministry is itself and uh doing ministry in the homeless community and things like that but other than that and maybe some special workshops and the partner uh orientation class but that's that's kind of what that looks like um what would that look like digitally well we we have had some of the mentorship meetings online and developed more of a hybrid approach to that but still trying to get our footing in feeling that stick like we would you know that that that sense of community and togetherness like we would when we're in person and getting people to come and have that same intensity people do seem to be a little bit uh more relaxed about that but we're still we're a work in progress in this area and we're okay with that because if we've been forward and everything else and and we'll do it until we get it we're going to be kind of like the same way in here there there's something to it that i do want to note though that caught the attention of some other ministries early on when we were doing our virtual services and we continued to do that uh one of the members of our hospitality team uh one of the ushers started literally transferring those skills from in person to online so as people would show up she would be in the chat like well hello jeff we're so glad that you're here or if jeff makes a comment she's like you're right on about that jeff and

You know, she since has moved on to another city, but can now continue to do that online. And other churches saw that it was like, "Wow, we had never thought of that kind of like virtual ushering." So that was one thing that really sticks out that we continue to do that has made people feel that sense of community and being noticed. You know, but there's still a lot more. A lot of people, it's just about being noticed. Our pastors too are good about that. If you come in and you say hello and that comment goes up, they're like, "Hello Jeff, we see you out there. Hope you and the family are doing great," or "Haven't ever met you Jeff, but we're glad you stopped by." They're good at just trying to bring you in. But there's a lot more that we want to do to try to keep people in virtually as well, which is why I'm part of Digital Church Network, just trying to learn all I can about that to bring it back.

Man, two plugs in one episode. This has been great. Thank you for that. I'll write you the check later. This has been gold.

No, listen, I honestly I envy you. A church that's, you know, has a solid foundation that's trying to figure out how to wrestle with some of the stuff digitally. You know, looking at, you know, what do we need to reinvent? Where do we need to think differently? Where do we just need to port it over? Hey, that guest service is volunteer. Give them a keyboard. Let them do some typing. It may not be as different as you think. The discipleship process, how you get somebody engaged within your church, how do you, you know, your next steps or connection or whatever the phrasing is, some of it's going to be the same, some of it's going to be different. And you're right now, you know, at the cusp of this journey where you're trying to figure out how to make some of these adjustments, how to get started on this, or how to strengthen, you know, maybe some of these opportunities that you're seeing. What's the—so your church is seeing this. What's the largest obstacle that's preventing other African-American churches from seeing this? I'm asking, forgive me, I may be asking you to speak to stereotypes and larger things, but the heart of this is like, is it financial? Is it lack of missions understanding, a bigger picture? Like, just what do you feel?

I definitely think it is lack of understanding the bigger picture. The resources are there. The African-American church, faithful, committed, loyal, going to do what they can to see the ministry move forward, building, putting the money into buildings and things like that, gonna do that. But not seeing the vision of why, really pouring resources into the digital space, like how that's gonna work. And then sometimes it's the manpower. I've worked with certain pastors who are like, "Okay, I get you over here to train. We're going to get on this, get on this ship. We're going for it." And then the next month I'll be like, "So how's it going?" They don't even do it anymore. But I don't, you know, they were on the camera one weekend and I don't know where they are now, or, you know, it's just for some reason the media ministry in a lot of these, our churches, has become like the pool to a house. Oh yeah, we might get that pool one day. I don't know. Instead of a main room in the home, you know? It's still a pool. It's still an option. You know, we may, we're working on it. We don't know. Or pretty much everybody's back now, so now we really don't know. Instead of, I think it's, I don't think it's the lack of resources financially as much as it is the lack of knowledge and someone who wants to see this as ministry and wants to do it consistently as much as our pastors. And this is not to toot my own horn or my husband's horn, but this is to make a point of how serious we are about media ministry. If they were going to preach the word, we were going to be at their house setting up cameras and doing whatever we could do, early, however, staying late, whatever we were going to do to get the feed right. We were going to be there. Throughout the pandemic, we did not take a break. If they were going to preach, we were going to get the tech right to make it happen. It wasn't an option.

So I think getting our churches, people in our churches, the Black churches, to get to the point where media is not an option, not understanding is not an option. Okay, I'm gonna have to take a class. Okay, I'm gonna have to get somebody. I'm gonna have to let someone know we are passionate because, you know, we're a very soulful people. I'm not, I don't want to overstate that for everyone, but we are in my house, okay? Very soulful. We love music. We love these things. You come to our churches, you better believe those musicians are gonna be on paid staff. You're gonna have some music. But the media or things like that may take a back seat. So I just think it's also reassessing our priorities and those things are important too, what we've always had. But I think realizing that there are so many other people on the other side of your media or your digital ministry, whatever you want to call it, and beginning to invest in that, not just the equipment but the knowledge, is where we're lacking. That's gold.

But let's get a little more practical here. At that, that was a solid answer of trying to figure out how to reassess and how to not build the pool one day, put it in a piggy bank or a jar or somewhere, put the money away, but actually like build it as a core part of the house. I told a pastor once, I was like, "Um, digital ministry is not icing on the cake. It's the cake."

And so that was, he told me it was, he was like, "Jeff, you're icing on the cake," and I was like, "That may be the most offensive thing you've ever said to me in our entire lives together." We've known each other a long time at that point. But it's just it's understanding that, well, but let me ask them. Let's because you would, with the African-American context here, um, hey, somebody's interested in doing this. Maybe it's an equivalent of you. It's a high-level volunteer, not a pastor on staff. They're listening to this podcast and they're excited. They're motivated. They want to do something. They've got ideas that you are speaking literally to the L. Michelle version of another African-American church. How do they get started? What advice can you give them?

Well, the first thing is I would join a network of like-minded people. I think you, you know, speaking to you wherever you are, you need consistent reinforcement yourself to keep that fire burning and to keep learning yourself. You know, just really immerse yourself in digital discipleship. Look at it like that. Begin to, you know, get an understanding of the platforms, but also if I could look back, another thing you could be getting an understanding of is the type of content that could build digital community that you could do as a digital ministry to build community. So the first thing would be connections, like groups like, uh, you know, Digital Church Network or whatever groups that you could find online, Facebook groups that just really kind of speak to media ministry. Reach out to me. You know, I'll try to connect you in any way I can.

The second thing that I'm really gonna recommend, and this is key, is simple but it's key, is to have a meeting with your leadership. Not under pressure. Not right after they preach Sunday because, take it from me, many years in this, a lot of my no's came because I came at the wrong time. They're right off the pool, you know? Pastor, what we really need to do, we really need to buy this. It's kind of like, can I just calm down for a minute? Let's talk about this another time. Don't let that lead to offense. Just set up a meeting at a time where you could have the attention of your leadership and really, after you've done maybe a little more research or, you know, listen to some talks, you could go on YouTube and listen to talks. You could subscribe to Barna, their full access plan online, and read reports and different things like this. But have a talk with your leadership about, to gauge their feelings on digital ministry. That would be too, not in any particular order, but kinda in a little bit of order, okay?

And the third thing that I would recommend: be consistent. Don't put your hand to the plow, man, and then let it go. If this is what you say you're gonna do, you know how important media ministry is. The Bible wasn't that the first printed book, Jeff? Back me up on this, right? The Gutenberg press, first printed book, longest ever in circulation is the Bible. That was technology. That was media. We did that, you know? The message was there, but without the vehicle, no, you know, you can't reach the people. So if you say you're gonna do this, be consistent. That's what your pastors are looking for.

And last but certainly not least, meet your ministry right where they are. You know who's in your church. So you might see Higher Dimensions doing this, so you want to do this because we're doing it, but you don't know the reason why we're doing it like this. Know your membership and start with where they are. If it's just a conference call, hey, that's using technology. Let's max out. Let's be the GOATS of conference calls, greatest of all time, man. You can't beat us on these calls. Then move on to Zoom. Be real. Have a sustainable plan, not just a flash in the pan. This is like, this is for real, man. This is not a game. This is media ministry we're talking about, reaching people with the word. Get connected yourself. Have a meeting with your leadership at the appropriate time. Don't delay, though. Have the meeting, request the meeting, and continue to meet about that so you'll have the vision right that you're putting out there, you know what I mean? Be consistent and know those you labor among. Meet them where they are.

Yeah, I wish somebody would have told me that advice right there, all four of those, like a decade ago. I cannot tell you how many awkward conversations I've had in a moment of frustration on a Sunday after church when that pastor is like, "I don't want to hear anything from you right now. I want to connect to people. I want to do other things." And so like for me, that was a huge lesson that honestly I learned somewhere around 2015, I think, is when that finally sunk in. So that was really good.

By the way, you mentioned Gutenberg. You know, Gutenberg was actually considered a heretic like for decades. People called Gutenberg basically a tool of Satan after he was printing Bibles because when he was printing Bibles, he basically made pastors, the scribes, the people who were writing these Bibles out by hand. He basically got them jobless. They were unemployed. And there was a movement actually. I wrote a blog on this, I think for Leadership Network. I wrote something recently on it where like Gutenberg was a heretic. He was criticized by a movement of people within the church because of what he was doing with his innovation. And so like for somebody who is, and I just would add to your point, for somebody who's thinking outside the box, tap into the network piece. Be encouraged. Realize that you're not, you're thinking different than everyone else is, and that's not necessarily a bad thing.

It's funny. Just even while we're doing this, I got an email. I got, doing this podcast, an email showed up and there's a quote from Albert Einstein in this email. Let me read it for you right here. "We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them." And so it's like, you know, I've actually, I want to like fact-check Albert Einstein on next. I'm going to like start using that one. But it's that different thinking of how we're doing ministry that's going to solve our problems.

The problems of today. So if you're alone, get connected with other people who think like you for encouragement. You need that. But that does not mean you need to stop thinking different. It needs that you need to start encouraging others to think like you, start talking louder, just not on Sunday mornings after the service because that's a horrible time for that conversation.

Yeah, man, I'm so fired up after that. Like, this, even this conversation has fanned the flame because it's, you know, it is that, that is amazing that you gave that story of Gutenberg. And then when you talk about think different, anybody with an iPhone, hey, that's Apple's tagline, right? Yep, think different. And so, you know, you're, you're valid. I want to tell you that. And, um, don't ever stop because, you know, what's gonna happen one day your leaders or the leaders wherever you are at the time are going to wake up to it. And the worst thing that could happen is you not to be ready. And you were the one who said you first believed. I found myself in that position a few times where the leadership has been like somewhere and they'll say our media person is here. She's been talking about the metaverse and all that. And just think if you would have just relaxed your grip, you won't be ready. So you got to stay true to what you believe because someday people are going to wake up and they're going to need it.

Hopefully we won't have another pandemic, but thank God me and my husband, and my husband more than me at the time, would not come off getting the stream right. We built that ark when there was no rain. And when it rained, everybody was like, oh my gosh. And even me, I was like, Chris, that's my husband. I was like, man, you really did it this time because we were positioned to win. We win people and to be there for people when they needed us most. And so I would just encourage anyone. I feel encouraged myself. Just that we have to go harder and reach people right where they are.

There are people in the hospital who really need us. These are basic things we know, but do we know? We have one of our partners in the hospital right now in recovery, just recently to something that was just, man, so out of left field. But it felt really good to know, let me be able to take your bracelet, brother. So even when you can't think of what that website is because you're on pain medicine, it's just too much, or someone in the room doesn't know our church, what are you saying? You need to get on. What they don't understand, they just tap the bracelet and you're good to go. You know, so we got to start thinking like that, how we can meet people where they are.

Beautiful. Well, Michelle, we're going to land the plane. This has been an incredible conversation. I've learned a lot, and hopefully some of the audience has been listening. Thank you for representing us African-American churches. We're wrestling with how to help African-American churches be more effective digitally. By the way, L Michelle, there's like dozens of different ways to connect with her. We're going to put all that information in the show notes, so feel free to slide over to that or check out thechurch.digital. And of course, she's very active in Digital Church Network, which she plugged at least three times, which may be the most that's ever been plugged by any guest ever. So once again, thank you for that. But that is very appreciated. She's definitely one to check out and reach out to, so be sure to grab some of that.

But hey, we're gonna land the plane. So for L Michelle with L Michel Media and Higher Dimension Church, this is Jeff with the Church Digital, Digital Church Network, Leadership Network, and a whole bunch of other fun stuff. Thanks for jumping on the show here. We'll see you next time on the podcast. You have a good day.