EP024: Ken Schafer & The Challenge of Equipping Using Online Technologies

Hey there, welcome to the Church Digital podcast. My name is Jeff, and I'm excited to be putting this episode together for you guys. This is episode 24. We've done 24 of these, and we are not slowing down one bit.

If you're not totally new here with the Church Digital podcast, the heart behind this is literally to facilitate a conversation about what church online can be. All of us across America doing church online—we don't have the answer yet. We're still trying to figure this out. From the big churches like Saddleback and Elevation down to the small churches that are struggling to put together a broadcast, there's no clear answer of what church online is. And truthfully, our goal here is to facilitate a conversation, to talk to some people, to ask some questions, and create a learning environment so that all of us can learn how to do church online more effectively.

So we've got a unique episode here with episode 24. We're bringing in one of my closest friends. His name is Ken Schaeffer to the podcast today. Ken and I used to work together at Christ Fellowship Miami. He was stewardship pastor at the time and was responsible for a lot of things and utilizing Dave Ramsey and Financial Peace University. And so we're gonna be talking a lot about that early on in Ken's and my relationship.

Because I'm an online guy, I really challenged him to think more about doing some of his trainings virtually in an online space. And what's fascinating—the reason I wanted to bring Ken back to the conversation—was the first time I had this conversation with him, Ken honestly looked at me and said, "That's not theologically allowed. You're wrong." And okay, maybe he didn't say the theological word, but he basically was like, "You're wrong. You're stupid." What I love about Ken and our relationship is I just kept pestering him over and over again till he changed his mind. And he started to see the advantage of doing church online.

It's not really—I just wanted to wrestle with that conversation here. Okay, here's a guy who used to think against doing community and trainings in online environments, and now he's more comfortable with that and even uses it more in his current workspace. And I'm gonna let him explore it. I don't necessarily need to unpack it in detail because I don't get away the podcast. So here you go. I've got Ken Schaeffer, who actually works with Dave Ramsey now. I've got Brady Armas, online pastor at Christ Fellowship Miami, and myself, Jeff Reed with the Church Digital, in a conversation centered around equipping and utilizing online technologies. Here you go.

I got to tell you, I've been looking forward to this conversation because, man, can I—I love you, and I really miss spending time with you and having some of these in-depth conversations like we had at Christ Fellowship. And one of the things that I love about Ken is that he's never afraid to tell me that I'm wrong, because he's done that majority of our relationship—telling me that I'm wrong, I'm crazy. And in context of some of the church online stuff and the online community, that's been just an ongoing, a long conversation. For someone who's been like, "Oh, I'm not quite sure how that works," to somebody who has kind of spun it and taken it to a different perspective.

So when Ken and I were together and I was around down at Christ Fellowship Miami, Ken was doing a lot with the Dave Ramsey stuff, and we really wrestled with what that looked like in context of doing it online and offering it online. So hey, Ken, man, just take a moment. Just tell us some of that story. Kind of what that looked like.

Well, you know, I did my job as stewardship pastor there at Christ Fellowship. So my basic mission was to equip people in the area of biblical financial discipline and to give them vision and tools to achieve what God wants for them in that area. And Financial Peace University was a big part of that. It's a nine-week course that Dave Ramsey offered by the Ramseys' organization. A lot of churches used that as a building block for their stewardship and establishment programs. And we had had hundreds, or maybe thousands of people go through that at Christ Fellowship.

And this was when you and I started talking about what does it look like to do something online. I was never really a fan. I'm probably of all the people that you'll have on your podcast, I'm probably the least connected online. I check Facebook three or four times a year. I actually receive email summaries of Twitter accounts that I have, and I really don't engage that much digitally for a variety of reasons. But you challenged me, and your basic challenge was, "There's people out there you can reach online that you can't reach in person." And I took that to heart.

I piloted a few different ways to do some Financial Peace University groups online, and actually had some tremendous and surprising success with that. What I found was that in a megachurch environment, or really any church environment, there's physical and logistical constraints that are real. So people might want to engage, for example, in a small group discipleship environment, but simply can't. Maybe there are parents with kids, they have conflicts that are legitimate or perceived. But this small group environment, the way you had me set it up online, actually eliminated almost all—you know, you're gonna ask me what you—you know what I did?

Does that have a follow-up question?

Yeah, describe in detail, like, how some of that worked out for folks.

Well, what I realized was—so I think there's you go through an evolution in your life, right? Where when I didn't have, when I wasn't married, I didn't understand the commitments that married people have. Right? Then I became married. We went ten years without children, and so I didn't understand the commitments that people with children had. Then I had children, and I'm like, "Man, how does anybody do anything right that's not Sunday morning at nine o'clock for 90 minutes?" Because like, that's about it.

So what Jeff—well, he suggested I do was actually have people watch the video content for Financial Peace ahead of time, and then we would do like a Zoom group, like the format that we're on right now recording this. We'd do a Zoom group and do just the facilitation of the questions online. That's good, okay? That's good by itself. The secret sauce—what I realized was that the time all of a sudden becomes the time that you hold the group becomes inconsequential. So he can be strategic. So we had ours on Wednesday night at 9:30. And as I was talking about this with people, what I finally came to realize—like, you're not competing with anything on Wednesday night at 9:30. But your kids are in bed, soccer practice is done. The only thing you're competing with is whatever you recorded to watch on TV later. That's the only thing. It's like, "Are you gonna binge on Game of Thrones, which you shouldn't be watching anyway, or are you going to engage in a discussion, a discipleship discussion?" I'll be bro, your life.

So we had the last group I was responsible for. We had, I think, six or seven families. And it looked kind of like the Brady Bunch on the little Zoom screen. You go to that gallery view, and you can see everybody. But I had a stewardess who was part of this group who one time actually joined the discussion while leaving, but I saw her on the jetway of a plane that she was leaving, joining the discussion with her headphones. And I don't even know what city she was in. I had a guy who worked at the Miami International Airport, never met him in person, had a friend of a friend somewhere in Naples, Florida, join our Miami group.

So we found that by changing up the time, and then we also had families that had kids in bed—that same scenario I described. So we found that by time-shifting, we not only can you time-shift your programs, you can time-shift your discipleship environments. And it worked great.

That's good. So how did this work out as far as making folks feel like they were not just connected with it, but really engaging in the content? Because I know I've led FPU multiple times, Ken, and you've helped me out a ton with that. For me, there's always a breakdown in the group after a week three start to see like who's really there. Because that's—for those of you who are not in tune or you've not led FPU—that's after the budgeting week. And so a lot of folks tend to freak out after that. And so how did you maintain that kind of contact and communication even though your group was online, and encouragement also?

That's where something happened that I really did not expect. Because the most common question—in full disclosure, I actually worked for Dave Ramsey now. I'm part of his organization. So I work at Financial Peace University all the time with churches all across the United States. Although this podcast is not an official, and I'm not a spokesman for that organization—this is more about kind of Eric's the church. Sure.

What most churches will ask me, they will assume that because it's a Zoom environment, that the personal engagement will be lower. That was my assumption coming in, and I was actually wrong. And I don't know that this would always be the case, but I found—I thought, you know, you've got that gallery view when you've got six or nine families, and they're all in a little box. It's even better than sitting in a circle. And the reason is because you actually are looking at everyone all the time. So everyone has to participate. That's good. Nobody gets a pass.

And very—and my work now, I do a lot of work on Zoom. So I'm like, I'm talking to you gentlemen right now on an iPad. You're about eighteen inches away. It's actually much more intimate in many ways than an in-person meeting. So the group calls itself out. I found the level of engagement and accountability in the last virtual group I led to be higher than that of many of the physical groups that I've led.

How sad. I think that conversation—I mean, we just stayed in touch, and we stayed in touch by text throughout the week as well. Text me if they couldn't come or whatever. But I think in a circle, a hint—one or two people are always going to dominate the conversation. In a panel, when I'm looking at that, when I've had the gallery view and it's the Brady Bunch, you—it's much easier. The visual cues make it much easier to know who's not participating and to call that person in. In addition to which, you're just closer. You're looking at everyone all the time. I can't do that in a circle. I can do it one-on-one or one and two, but in a group of ten families in a circle, I can't do it.

How did it work out in terms of—or did it work out? Because you said the accountability ramped up. Was it coming from you to the group members, or was it them to each other as well? Like, how did that happen?

Them to each other. I couldn't really speak to. I think if that happens, it probably happens more digitally because they largely had no context. They didn't know each other.

I would say this is a little bit different. Financial Peace, by its nature, has a beginning and an end. I talk about it often as being Ephesians 4 and a con—equipping the beginning and an end. My goal is, of course, to teach you some specific principles, habits, behaviors, and then you're gonna learn them, and then the course is done at the end of nine weeks. And that frustrates the snot out of small group pastors in church environments. They say, "Is it a small group? Is it not a small group? Do we count it? Maybe not count it?" And you guys are laughing for a ball. We've all been in that environment.

The reality is people get help on an ongoing basis. I think if we were gonna do community, we would probably do it a little bit differently. I have a friend who just led a Financial Peace group virtually, like what I just described, and he actually had a group text going with all the folks in the group.

The group and he found that to be quite good and they stayed engaged throughout the duration. You're always gonna have folks drop out of things. What I found with doing the virtual group the way we did it, it gives people an easier way to come online.

So thinking about the environment that we had at Christ Fellowship, or any church—not just that's the one two three of us share in common—you have some folks that are our attenders and really the other folks that make it happen. Well, the folks that make things happen, like their schedules pretty well tapped out. They're coming for two services, they're serving in a service on the weekend, maybe two. They're participating there in a small group, maybe a men's group as well. And on top of that you're saying, "Hey, look, I want you to engage in this content that's gonna change your life. All I need is you to pause something else for a week." So they don't want to start something else, right? But at 9:30 at night they can engage for 30 extra minutes as long as they can do it from their home. Coming to a small group is hard, right? You've got to drive across town, you've got to worry about your kids, you've got to dive into the thing. And I'm not saying there's not a place—I have a small group meeting right now in my house at Franklin, Tennessee, and I love these folks—but there are seasons of being able to do that and there are more efficient ways. There can be more efficient ways to equip people.

There's a quick trivia question for you. You ready? Go. And if you guys are Florida guys, so if you tour the Thomas Edison home on the west coast of Florida one time, when I toured, they said what his favorite invention was. And his favorite invention was not what you think it was—the phonograph. And the reason was not what you think. When that was invented in the nineteenth century, Thomas Edison thought about that device as being the democratization of education. The people would have access to education inexpensively and at distance. And it's taken more than 140 years, but kind of in our modern world with online education, even in the church with online discipleship, with some of those ideas, those barriers become blurred and his vision for that is finally becoming a little bit more of a reality.

It's funny because as I've studied history, it's interesting you point out that that was Edison's perspective. And I know we're coming up looking at a grander conversation there, but even then I've seen that over time where a lot of folks look at new technologies and they see that in terms of such birth, but then they try—other folks come along and try and restore that and control that. So you know, Edison invents the phonograph and then, you know, eventually other, you know, copyright becomes an issue and other folks start to constrict and control, whereas the internet has kind of freed a lot of content up. And still a lot of folks are worried about, "Well, how do we control this? Control that?" But especially for those of us in the church world, shouldn't we be asking how to leverage this for free, helping folks in terms of engaging a community and not just the content?

Yeah, how do we release it? I mean, it's depending on how far back you go in history, movable type was considered the death of education. The idea that the masses could have books was going to be an issue. When in fact the problem is the opposite. So I'm all about equipping people and I'm about removing their excuses to be equipped. I want to meet people where they are. I mean, there's the performance-oriented part of me—you, I just want to say sacrifice, suck it up, and let's get it done. And then the more pastoral, compassionate side of me wants to make it easy and to bring people along. Somewhere in that mix is the answer.

Let me shift gears on something because we're talking about the ease and ability of education. And in this context of online, what about the anonymity, the safe space in context of what you're doing with FPU? I can be in an online group. I'm not in the physically same space. And so because I'm not like breathing the same air, there's often times with online small groups in my experience, there's a safe space where people are more open to conversations. They're more transparent because there's not this embarrassment of, "I'm in the same space, they can see me blushing and turning red." They're seeing my cheeks turn red, but not necessarily that. And so for me, like an online just in my personal life, an online small group tends to be more transparent than the physical because to me the camera gives the separation that allows more intimacy. I'm just wondering, kind of, either both of you guys, put your experiences. I've been in something like that. Color, you go right? Because I talked a lot. Yeah, no, it's all good, because I think, and we want to hear more from you on the situation. For me, it's really like what Kevin was talking about. It removes a lot of the excuses and you really start to find like who's really in and who's really out. Seriousness of community, you know, especially with discipleship. You know, it's so much of it, and this is hard in the local church context because we want more groups and we want people bought into groups. But then there's folks who are always telling you, "Hey, I want to go deeper. I want more." So with online discipleship, I found now you remove a lot of the excuses and you start to tell them, "Hey, listen, if you really want to go deeper, if you want to go more, this is the commitment. Like, you don't have to worry about, but like what Ken said, I worry about kids, worry about this, because we're removing all of those excuses." What we do want to know is we want to know that one, you're engaging with the content, and two, that you're ready to have real discussion with it. Because we've removed a lot of the other barriers from there, which means that number three, they're left without excuses. So now we start to get to the nitty-gritty. If they, especially if they've not engaged with the first two steps, so that encourages people in the group to call them out. But then also as a leader, it's our responsibility to step up our game and call them out and enter into uncomfortable situations. Okay, in this particular case with Ramsey Solutions, "Hey, so why didn't he watch the video this week?" You know, we've given you an audio and a video portion of it. "Why didn't you do those things?" On the side where I've done online groups where we've done scripts for reading, "Hey, so seriously, like what was the excuse as far as not engaging with scripture this week? You could open the Bible app. You could have put it on audio." And I know that leads to a lot of uncomfortable conversations, but it's those uncomfortable conversations that leads to growth.

Yeah, and I would add that I think, I mean, all three of us have spent our entire lives in a variety of ministry contexts. We each have small church, large church, and medium church experience, right? What others have in common is that when people say churches are full of hypocrites, they're largely right. I mean, I'm one. Yeah. And so there's like intimacy in a church and transparency in person is difficult. I remember was with a group of pastors maybe fifteen years ago. It was a small group kind of accountability thing. And they said, "How you doing?" And like seven guys and roast said they were doing great. And just the eighth one—I don't remember how many there were actually. I can't even remember this guy's name. But he said, "Actually, he says I'm struggling. I have no motivation." And I knew we'll never fit a couple other things. And then he said, "And when I opened up the Bible, it's as dry as dust." Wow. That's it. Well, I've never seen that happen before. And so like that, and that's hard, right? It's hard to do that. But here's what was interesting about those pastors: they weren't all in the same church. And as a group of pastors was kind of regional and they were meeting together. I wonder how difficult it would be for that same man to the pastor and there's nothing wrong with him. We go through those seasons. So that conversation with his elders or with his peers. So I think there is there is some value and anonymity isn't right, but maybe maybe distance. And so I've known Financial Peace groups just because that's again that's my current context where they happen with guys from multiple time zones. I mean, you're just so it's a lot easier to talk about what might be right or wrong with my money or my spiritual walk with people I'm never likely to meet, right? I can see tremendous, I can see tremendous power met. But if you guys remember, if you've ever been to an AA or in any meeting or anything like that, the name is Alcoholics Anonymous, right? Same, same kind of deal. But we're gonna level set something so we all can recognize. So to me, it's the right tools, the right place. There's people for whom an online group or any kind of environment like that would never work, right? And there's people for whom it's always been next best step. And that's what's interesting about Financial Peace University, right? I remember when we first, when Lauren and I first launched our first FPU group, we actually had a visitor come to a meeting that night with his wife. And so like it was their first time ever to our group. And they weren't even coming for an FPU group. They were just coming because, hey, we were a small group and we were just happened to be starting FPU that day. And I remember presenting the information, telling them, "Hey, listen, and if you want you can engage, you know, and not that's cool." And I remember them clear as day telling me, "Yeah, we're okay. We don't need this. It's not for us. Whatever." Well, they stayed throughout the group just engaging the content. And hand down, and then after the fact, about two months down the road, they themselves were asking if they can host an FPU group at their house. And really what it took was it took time for them to get in that kind of community where they felt comfortable enough to reveal their finances and all that. Because they weren't gonna be open with that from the get-go. They weren't just gonna let us into their world like that from the first meeting. But after a while, the walls started to come down. They felt more ready to engage in community from then on.

Yeah, and you know, that happens independent of content, right? So if you think about, if you think about them, I mean, it's like men's discipleship content, you know, group of guys, they're not going to get together and since and shared that they're struggling until maybe the second or third time today, right? Right. And that is just a reality of who we are and where we are, you know, in our inner culture. I don't think that struggle is anything new. Someone is Satan's best thing. Satan's best tactics is to let us think the world divided and alone. And when in fact we're all struggling. It's true. How do you get, and how did you advise leaders to get beyond just kind of the face answers? Because I imagine a lot of folks, just like you're talking about, come with, "Hey, I'm fine." At group, a lot of folks are coming with their budget and it's a total lie. You know, I've never seen that. I don't know what you're talking about. That strategy doesn't change whether it's virtual or in-person, right? You're only going to get out of something what you put into it. And if you're, if you're distorting your mirror, if you've got a funhouse instead of one that's showing you a real picture, like you're never gonna make progress. So I mean, and it's, and that's independent of financial discussions, you know, that's the conversation I'll have with everybody like, "Who you are right now, there's some total decisions you've made and what you've been reading and kind of your actions. So if you like it, let's keep doing that. And if you don't like it, let's change."

You help folks balance out when they're leading a group. So hey, I got two types of people in my group. I've got one guy who's got a lot of money and he's a lot in debt. I got another guy with a little bit of money and he's a lot in debt. For him to just balancing out those two, because especially when you're doing online, like you get a variety of characters, you know, some folks who are business folks on the go and they think that they've got everything under control with leverage and debt. And then, or just struggling, or like, hey look, I'm just getting by with free public internet. I go to the library. Yeah, yeah. I don't know, to me that's really a pastoring question. I want to pastor both of those guys, right? So I want to ask them. I always, I mean, I have a set of stock questions I ask people about any situation, financial or otherwise. One of them is, what's the biblical principle that applies to your situation right now? And most of the time people know it, right? And so then the question is, okay, well what do we need to do related to that biblical principle?

Let me ask this. Because with your relationship with Ramsey, you're working with churches across the country. You're having these conversations about doing FPU, either physically and even virtually in some situations. Average response when you talk about FPU virtually? Churches, that's awesome. That's crazy. What is virtual like? What's the response? What's the temperature out there?

Yeah, I would say the average response is open, really. And I think, but I think Jeff, I learned that from you. And so I'm gonna, and here's what I mean by that. That's the challenge to move content online is something I would probably not have considered but for our friendship and what you are trying to help accomplish. So when I talk to churches about that, I always talk about it both hands. I say we're going to, you know, we're gonna help you plan something for you know all your people to go through Financial Peace University. And then I'll ask a question: what about your online strategy? And then if they have an online pastor, you and I know some of those guys in common, they'll bring that person into the conversation. And if they don't, also, well, you know, what do you do online? How do you engage? And then I tell them exactly what I told you, which is look, if we do it this way, you have an opportunity to pick up people that you won't otherwise get.

And then they say, tell me more about that. And I told them the same thing and I throw in Game of Thrones and they always drop by contact. So you know, Wednesday night, though, I guess Game of Thrones is off now. I read, I've never watched. Sure, you need another analogy. Game of Thrones? I do. Okay, whatever it is. Sorry, quick sidenote. You know, we had a coworker one time ask me if I'd seen Stranger Things, and my answer was that, what, just because I love it? I didn't know it was a thing. Even though as far as I'm concerned, the 1980s are the culmination of our civilization. So all that aside, I said what I talk about is picking up stragglers. You know, I don't, I don't want to use this as exegesis, but I've been giving thought to what does it mean when Jesus leaves 99 sheep and gets one sheep? And I'm not saying that I'm lying, but is it an application of that teaching? But I will say, like, using whatever tools we have to reach people, they need to be reached for whatever thing it is we're trying to accomplish in the church, whether it's evangelism, whether it's discipleship, whether it's community. However it is, you want to draw lines around those boxes, which kind of lead together. They cut into it. And so it's a no. I'm feeling almost primarily, almost exclusively with really large churches. That's kind of what I do. So they have a different set of resources at their disposal. But the hilarious thing is in the last move, like, well, what do we need to do? Is it something we need for me? Like, no, actually, you already have Financial Peace and Zoom is free. And they go, that's, they said, there's no others, really? No, it isn't even our thing. We don't even sell it. We just tell you, give you a vision to do it on your own. They say, yeah, that's it. My God, that's something we do. We just want to create multiple ways for people to access content in groups. It's amazing.

I got five years ago, five years ago, I don't think it would have looked like that. There's no way. Yeah, you know, I know both say this personally. Like, I've seen just even within the past two years conversations going from you're crazy. Like, when I have these conversations with pastors and churches, I've literally been told you're crazy. Eighteen months, two years ago, now I'm being told you're right. We're just not ready for that.

Yeah, I get that. And so then again, in my context, which is very discrete at the beginning and an end, like, you know what, you're ready to try nine weeks? Like, just try this. And if you hate it, stop doing it.

Yeah, when it's very easy. Yeah. And that that's gotta be helpful. In the same way that in some ways, you know, Financial Peace groups have helped launch ongoing communities, you know, ongoing small groups. Some of these communities are gonna continue on and stick, like, whether it's for the existing online pastor or whether it's for somebody who just kind of bugged for it and they're like, hey, we just like hanging out with these folks. You know, we're gonna keep doing this and we're gonna keep studying the word together or something else. I mean, it's just a continuation of great community.

So let me ask this. Because you see the big picture, yeah? Your context is centered around Ramsey and FPU, which is a nine-week thing. That the thing that I've always loved about you is you're open to the honest conversations and you speak your mind. So moving beyond the nine-week window, theoretically this isn't your avenue, but I want you to speak into this. What challenges does the church need to overcome to create a holistically online biblical community that solely meets through Zoom or other platform, digital platforms?

Oh, you know, I think that, as that's really a question, right? That's something you want Kurzweil or somebody to throw some wine space at. I know people that pay more attention to that than I do. Given that a lot of thought, I think this is one of those areas where so where we're changing is society ultimately, like the church will track with that as people communicate. Those changes just naturally come. So I don't know that we have a complete idea what that looks like or what the barriers are. But if you think about, I mean, and you may have these statistics, like how many workers in an average week you zoom to connect for something? Like, I don't use just Zoom and Zoom just in communities. I use it to do my job, right? So it's becoming more and more ubiquitous, which is like my all-time favorite SAT word. I just love that word. So those barriers, as the barriers come down, it just becomes that much more acceptable and common. So I think maybe the answer is as community, not church community, but just as community becomes increasingly digital and legitimate community, I don't mean Instagram influencer or tribe, Facebook happy pseudo stuff. Is people legitimately connect this way? It'll happen. It'll happen more and more. And I don't, there's folks that are always gonna be on the front end of that, like you too. You're gonna want to make that happen more quickly. Early innovators, adopters, that kind of thing. I don't, yeah, I don't know. I'm kind of struggling with that answer. It's the same thing I tell pastors, which is like, just try it because you can. You can undo it. Like you can just stop. But see what value you get. And I think those answers ultimately emerge.

That's good. There's a period in my life where it was very easy for me to meet for a breakfast meeting at six or seven a.m. in the morning, and I treasured those times of personal community and Cuban toast and you know the whole thing in the cafeteria in Miami. The reality of where I live, the community I'm in, and the job I do, instead, Zoom meetings are always possible, right? That right there was a hard thing for me to adapt to as a campus pastor. That I think, like, when I was leading a physical location, I was also going through a change in station in life. And that we just had a baby. And so beforehand, I was like, hey, I'm ready and adaptable for like six a.m., seven a.m. meetings, that kind of thing. Where if I would have thought through, and this was a few years ago, and even though I was super into tech and all this stuff, I didn't think through the concept of, hey, this is a great space to leverage for community, right? For all this stuff I think would help me out tremendously. And it also would have freed up the volunteer on a regular basis in the sense of, hey, like, you don't have to take time out of your workday and show up to a random Starbucks near you or whatever else. Like, we can still meet and have this kind of community. And it would have provided more time for genuine questions or digging a little bit further.

But I mean, again, my own current circumstance, we just recently moved from five separate buildings in my company to one giant building. It's a huge campus, and eight hundred and fifty something Dave Ramsey employees are all in one place. And you know what? He talked about that vision. He talked about how creativity was going to be unleashed because we were in one location. And I kind of heard that, but you know, I was not in our new offices two hours before I was able to have a conversation and make something shorter and better because the fact that guy was in my building that was previously in a different one. So it's always going to be a both. And we're not, did we, are we analog creatures, not digital creatures? Digital is the tool, right?

Great, that's good. Yeah, love that. It's not into that, to that point. Like, church online, a healthy church online, isn't the abandonment of the community. It's the distribution of communities and then into other areas. And within recent weeks, we've done a deep dive really discovering Church Anywhere, which is out of First Capitol, their location. They're doing sixteen micro locations, you know, in a really small town, rural area of Indiana. We just got off with Elevation within the past week as well, talking about their watch parties and about how they're doing this in a big way. Saddleback is pushing the micro as well. And so like, there's legitimacy in not abandoning the physical space. God calls us, the Bible calls us not to abandon meeting together. And that isn't assuredly what's happening. But the ability to encourage, to strengthen, to disciple, to help others grow, utilizing the virtual space here, like Zoom, you know, you mentioned a text group earlier. WhatsApp definitely does that. We've talked with people, Jate, who does the video game, what platform is it? Discord. We've talked with him in the past who use Discord, it's a WhatsApp, Discord platform for that. You know, there's plenty of opportunities to connect with community.

One of the things that I love, and I heard Platt Scroggins over at North Korean, I heard him say this at a conference I was at, the business world looks at digital disruption as an opportunity. And they see all the functionalities and the features and the things, and the business world adopts this digital disruption, all this new technology, as a way to make what they do better. As a general rule, the church has been more hesitant in that area. It excites me. Can that you tell?

Me that you know a lot of the larger churches and the mega churches that you're working with have been pro doing this online and NFP. You may be the on-ramping towards changing some of that culture. That aside though, it's been very difficult in recent years. Churches may be starting to shift and get more on board and may be asking why or how. And in that, but even still, like I had a conversation yesterday with a church that was actually going south. Like they were wanting to shut down their online campus because it restricted and it was taking away so much from the physical space, which to me that's the worst thing you could ever do. But hey, no, hey, let's stop the thing that's working, you know? I'm sorry. I mean, I'm not ostrich head in sand kind of came to mind and joked with the guy. But unfortunately, some of that them mentality is still out there. And so man, thanks for using your platform with Dave Ramsey to try to bring some awareness to that. And even if it's just for a nine week trial period going through FPU, man, thanks for helping churches adopt that and start to realize the potential for education, for community in context of using online.

Yeah, well, this is, I mean, I'm all about discipling and equipping them however it is that we need to do that, right? Whatever the tool is. So sometimes that'll be in person. Back in the day it might have been a conference call. I've been a part of email list serves and chains going back. I mean, I think that'll bring you way back. And so there's, I mean, the tools change. What our mission doesn't. And so we want to, we want to engage in it. We are awesome. Well, hey, it's been a great podcast, Ray. Closing thoughts before we land the plane here?

No, I'm grateful for what Kevin's done and how you're encouraging states to continue to use digital platforms just to try it out, to test it out, which is really what all this has been about. For those of you listening for a while, you know that none of us have this down. We're all testing things. And so I encourage you, you know, even if you don't do online groups, Financial Peace University is a great place to start. It's a great structure. And if you've never done FPU, it's changed my life. It'll change yours.

Well, I was a good plug. Anything on your site? Anything to lay into plain? Did you know, here's finished where I started, which is I'm probably the least digitally engaged person you know. And I still have a, I still believe that there's room for guys like me to access content in a digital or in an online environment. And I've helped people change their lives this way. And when I do that, my life has changed. So there's Paul talked about being all things to all people. So it all means he might win some. Mmm, again, we're not going to draw a theology of online church from a couple of random verses. But I think there's something to that idea. Before I say no to something, I always want to say, what if it worked? It's good. Amen.

So since you're not socially accessible because you don't even know how to spell Twitter, somebody wanted to reach out to you. What's a good way or to get in touch?

Ramsey's signal, smoke signals or gills? It's a pretty good question. So I have an email address, which is Ken dot J for Dave Ramsey dot com. Email is something that people used before Instagram and Twitter and Facebook. So Ken dot Schafer. Schafer is S-C-H-A-F-E-R. And that's probably the easiest and fastest way to find me. So we'll put that in the show notes as well as a number of articles. Why Ken needs to watch Stranger Things. If there's anyone on this planet, Sri, it is you.

Well, maybe I'll check it out. You know, I'm getting, I felt pretty good earlier this year when I finally watched my first episode of The Big Bang Theory about two months before it went off the air. Apparently there's this new show called The Office also. I might check that out.

You have Netflix? It's all gonna go soon. It's all going away. I'm gonna speak your language here, Ken. It is a, it is an Adventure of Buckaroo Banzai. Yes, the stylistic miss of that in an eighties, the randomness of it exists in Stranger Things. I might have to, not, okay, it's not like you know, let's just wearing the cowboy. Actually sell it on VHS. Funny enough, I think that it is. Yes, like I just, I cannot believe you have not gotten into Stranger Things. So we're gonna Ralph. I'll see what I can do.

Awesome. Thank you, serious. Oh, hey, this has been the Church Digital Podcast and not the Stranger Things fan club. That's another podcast that Ray I will probably start sometime soon to be that speaker. Hey, but this has been a great conversation on church online and creating these biblical communities. Ken, man, thanks for jumping on this and just helping us wrestle through this. Thank you for always telling me no, Jeff, you're stupid, but then listen afterwards and at least being humble enough to say, hey, you know what, you may actually be right because that actually is really encouraging. Thanks. So listen, broken watches where it is right twice a day. So all good.

Awesome. Totally insulted right now, but we're gonna win. I'm gonna walk away. So thanks everybody for listening and we'll see you next time here at the Church Digital Podcast. Y'all. Good day.