EP284 - Simon Diercks & German Digital Church Planting

Connect and encourage. Connect like we are doing today. Connect with as many people as possible who are in the same sphere and encourage each other. That is not just your mad idea, that it's really kingdom-minded, working towards one future of the church, not the only future of the church.

Welcome to the Church Digital Podcast. Through this podcast we'll talk about the technological innovations within the church, but more than tech for tech's sake, we'll address deeper questions. Is discipleship making possible digitally? How should we approach the digital mission field? Can a biblically grounded church operate in digital space? And where does the metaverse and artificial intelligence fit into all of this? Whether you're a big or small church, the Church Digital's goal is to help churches like yours learn to be a multiplying church digitally and physically. And now here's your host, Jeff Reed.

All right, we've got episode 284 of the Church Digital Podcast. Simon Dirks is coming up just around the corner. By the way, the Church Digital Podcast brought to you by Riverside. Love saying that, love having a sponsor here helping us get the Church Digital Podcast out in front of people like you. And so actually, Riverside is a remote interview software, incredible quality. We've been talking about in the past weeks of the Church Digital Podcast. Just recently we had Andy Mage, operations director of the Church Digital. He and I were doing an interview utilizing Riverside, of course, talking about spatial computing, Apple's Vision Pro, and so like I use this software all the time. I'm just going to open confession hour here. I use it to interview people and then the great thing about me is I like hand it over to somebody else to actually, you know, produce the video. Garrett Skaggs edited video for us in the past. Andy Mage is doing it for us now. And so like it's a lot of fun handing it off to somebody else to deal with. But you know, since we're talking so much about Riverside, I thought, hey, you know what, I'm going to click around here on Riverside, play around a little bit, see what I can figure out. And there's this really interesting section within Riverside where it's like artificial intelligence to create clips. Actually, like it scanned the entire interview with Andy Mage and like within a couple minutes of clicking the button, it picked out maybe ten, fifteen of the top clips of what it thought the top clips were from the interview. And so I listened to some of them and you know, to be honest, I spent fifteen minutes max creating three different clips total. So five minutes per clip, a minute in length, to get it and get it uploaded into YouTube. Just one of those clips will actually, you know, set a record for the Church Digital's YouTube account. Thousands and thousands upon thousands of views. Like we were super excited to see something come from like, and I am not being facetious and over exaggerating here, five minutes worth of work to create a clip, get it uploaded, that thousands of people were exposed to. And now we saw subscriptions increased through the Church Digital on YouTube. Riverside has so much power built in. In church there's opportunities for you to take advantage of this, whether you're doing sermons and you just want to upload, utilize it for the artificial intelligence for, you know, topics or themes or clips you can use that, or even like summarization you can do that. Or maybe you want to move beyond the sermon and start creating content more exclusively for online, not just repurposing, but utilizing Riverside's remote interview or remote producing to try to get better quality video without having to deal with coming into the studio and some of the complexity that comes with that. Riverside is incredible. So check it out at thechurchdigital.com/riverside. More information there at the website, thechurchdigital.com/riverside. Okay, hey, let's dig in here with my friend Simon Dirks. Now I have never, I actually, I'm hesitating when I say this, I'm not even sure we've been in the same state together. I don't think we've been in the same continent. I don't know that he's ever been in America when I've been in America. Simon Dirks is German. You probably clicked on the headline, German church planting. And so like, Simon works for an organization, but just recently started a church planting organization that's planting digital expressions, exclusively digital expressions of church in Germany. Yeah, so basically he's the German version of Jeff Reed, you know. And so like it's, you know, grab your, I don't know what they call it. I started to make some joke but the jokes would be just so horrible I'm not even going to do it. What's, what are the, is it Heineken? That's the beer that the German, I don't, I don't know. It's a German beer. Hänchen? Yeah, maybe. Anyway, the point being is that I met Simon and some of his team and some of his friends in Germany, honestly, following a hashtag on Twitter for digital kirche. K-I-R-C-H-E. Actually it's D-I-G-I-T-A-L-E K-I-R-C-H-E, which is the equivalent in German to digital church. Somehow I got connected that way, pre-COVID. I'm talking like almost a decade ago. And I've been tracking some of the movements of digital church in Germany over the years. And it's so exciting for me to see this actually come to fruition where now we've got a movement starting in Germany, on another continent, in another country, in another language, of people that are wanting to reach and disciple and mobilize people using digital tools and digital churches. Like I'm just, I'm flabbergasted. We've literally hit another continent here. And so Simon, let's get on a podcast and have a conversation, starting to talk about maybe what are some of the lessons you guys are learning in Germany? What can we in the US learn from that? What are you actually doing? What does a German church look like in your context? What is even some of the physical churches, what are they doing in Germany to better understand and utilize digital? Remember, we get into this in the podcast. Germany is arguably post-Christian, like us is kind of post-Christian. We're not ready to admit it yet. Germany really is a post-Christian culture, a post-Christian environment. So what's the value of digital in a post-Christian context? Guys, I hate to tell you this, but I think the US is going to follow suit here sooner than later. So hey, enjoy this conversation with my friend Simon Dirks, myself Jeff, with the Church Digital, in a conversation that I'm calling planting digital German churches.

Okay, everybody, here you go.

Well, Jeff, it's a pleasure to be here. And what can I tell about myself? Well, I'm a guy from Germany, forty-two years old, married with Katharina, and we've got two little children. And what I really love is seeing God's kingdom being developed in a digital world. That's something I've been dreaming about for twenty years, and I'm able to participate in different ways these days that makes me happy. I'm also a pastor. I'm a nerd. And I love to do ultra hiking, something like more than one hundred kilometers, just hiking on and on and on.

All right, so much goodness there. It's God's kingdom in the digital world. We'll get there. Um, so I've got to convert something. A ten kilometer is, um, a five km is three point one miles, a ten km is six point two. So you're, your ultra hiking thing is over one hundred kilometers. So we're talking you hike over sixty miles. Like that's, yes, significant distance.

Yeah, the longest thing I did was one hundred seventy-one kilometers and it took me thirty-eight hours. So thirty-eight hours just hiking with small breaks in between, but just going on. And the really great thing about it, people always ask me why do you do that? The great thing is when you do this a lot on my Sabbath days when I'm out with Jesus in the woods, so to say. And the great thing is when you know that you'll be hiking for twenty-four or thirty hours, then you don't have to hurry when praying. You know, you definitely have enough time to finish it up.

Man, I'm sorry. I did not realize we're going to open this podcast with the spiritualization of walking you know one hundred miles. My gosh, like that's incredible. Now when you say hiking, you live in Germany, right? So like, is this your, you're hiking the German Alps? Is this like where are you? Or is this, you know, I know guys that do this in America. You know, that ultra runners, and that, and it's not Alpine. It's like, um, you know, desert road. They do a one hundred mile race down here from Miami to Key West and it's like a ninety mile distance in that. But like, are you, are you like mountain climbing for all that?

It differs. So Germany, you got everything from flat land near the coast up to mountains in the Alpine. I'm situated in the middle of Germany and so there we have, well, I would say something like hills, not really mountains. So when you hike something like twenty-four hours, then you'll have perhaps something like three thousand meters in height difference that you're climbing up and down. Your discipline blows me away. I mean, I could, I could, there was a stretch where I used to run like half marathons where I used to do like the thirteen kilometer runs. Um, and by the way, your mathematical skills and understanding of the metric system blows mine away as well. And so like I really want to start talking about digital church because at least now I can talk about things that I understand and not like the metric system because, um, you know, America is the one country that decides that, you know, they don't believe in the metric system.

Well, Americans don't believe in a lot of things it feels like in twenty twenty-four. But that may, we may actually get into that on a side conversation a little bit. Listen, Simon, I'm super glad to have you in this conversation and I'm excited to learn more about what digital church looks like and some of the things that you're working on mythologically for the kingdom. And so you said it right off the bat and I want to come back to it. This idea of God's kingdom in the virtual world, God's kingdom in the digital world. Um, start to unpack for me a little bit. Um, like what does that mean? What are you seeing digitally in Germany?

Well, that's a big question. So I would start with my own way. I've been working as a programmer, informatics nerd, for something like twenty years. I've also been a pastor for eight years in a small church here in Germany. And for the past seven years I've been working first in publications for a German mission agency. And over the time of Corona, we had a big change process. We were thinking a lot about the future of global missions in sitting think tanks and so on. And we also had one think tank regarding digital mission twenty thirty, so thinking about how the digitalization and how the digital realms will change the way we do global mission within the next one or two decades. And a couple of things jumped out for us. And we recognize, okay, there are some areas where we have to start now to be forerunners and to start learning now. That is what we started last year. And so we started Regio Digital. And what I'm seeing at the moment are three or four different ways where digital ministry is growing in our realm. So first is digital evangelization, especially on social media. We got two TikTok missionaries full-time who are working with us and reaching people online, especially on TikTok and Instagram. We've got a couple of gaming missionaries who are reaching people in gaming communities.

Working amongst gamers in German nerd culture communities and multiplying, multiplying disciple making gamers there. The second thing is, for one and a half years we got a digital church plant going on in our church federation and I'm happy to be part of it. And I thought, okay, this can't be that this is the only digital church plant in Germany. So I tried to bring them all together and to my astonishment, as far as I know, there are only three purely digital church plants in Germany so far, but a couple more to come, a couple more in planning. And I love to bring them together. And one thing I'm really keen on developing is I've been in talks with a really fascinating guy, Stefan E, who is a real artificial intelligence specialist and loving the topic, has been in global business for the last decade. And for personal reasons, God challenged him where and how he could invest all this knowledge into God's kingdom. We are together thinking where and how artificial intelligence could shape the way we do evangelization and mission in Germany and beyond. So these are the four paths at the moment I'm seeing, together with my work. And I can imagine so much more, but these are the starters for today.

Fascinating. Like you hit all the headlines right there within the first five minutes of the podcast. That was beautiful. Gamers, nerd culture, digital church planting, artificial intelligence. You didn't say fetal, but that's, you know, I'm kidding. That's, I don't know if fetal translates into German. That may be we don't like to say fetal around here either. Although I come to fetal when we go a little in depth regarding digital church planting because I recognize there's always some misunderstandings to clear up when we're talking about digital church. Very interesting. So what is the physical church look like in Germany? Like, I, you know, there are stories of the decline of the church in London. You know, I just constantly hear the stat that Christmas Eve in Britain more people were in a pub than in a church building. And so it's, you know, I feel like at least in the British context it's operating in a post-Christian culture environment. Is Germany operating that way as well at this point? Like, what's the state?

Yes, I would say so. So what you could generally say, what you can say in common for the whole of Western Europe, are a couple of things. Especially with Germany, I can say we got a strong heritage, strong spiritual heritage, of course, because of the Reformation, because of all the theology and all the missionaries who came out of Germany. But nowadays, I think it was last year when for the first time more than fifty percent of the Germans were not members of any Christian church. The Protestant and Catholic churches are declining rapidly. And parts of Eastern Germany, the part that was longtime communism for over decades, are statistically the most atheistic regions of Western Europe. So I would say yes, we're post-Christian and Christianity needs to be rediscovered.

Gathering Europe in 2021 was a migrant churches definitely. We had a strong rise in Germany. Also in our church federation, we recognize that we got something like five hundred churches, but we also have something like I think one hundred twenty, one hundred twenty churches or communities of migrants from I think something like forty or fifty different culture groups, language groups, and so on. And these are really, really growing. There are people in Germany who get once and again small revivals, for example, among Iranian people or at the moment partly from people from Ukraine who are refugees here in Germany. In the first part, the second part is youth movements, especially youth movements connected with discipleship. This is also why we are building a couple of discipleship schools over Europe. And the third thing is interdenominational charismatic youth movements as well. You get a lot of this. The only group that is strongly growing in Germany is among Pentecostal churches, some of the evangelical churches as well, but strongest growth is among Pentecostal churches. So that would be a short overview.

Now I want to come back to Ukrainians in a little bit because actually some very good friends of ours are Ukrainian refugees that came to America, lived actually here in Miami. They just moved to Germany. And so it's ironically like just, I think Christmas Eve, they flew Christmas Eve or Christmas day. But talk to me about the interesting thing about the charismatic Pentecostal movements maybe succeeding. Traditionally in America, and I'm maybe generalizing, and this is a generalization conversation, but in America the charismatics have not had as much, have not seen as much value of digital, at least in the context of church. They would want to use digital as a marketing tool to drive people into a physical building. But the idea of being church and doing church digitally, discipling somebody digitally, not physically, like charismatics, and to be honest evangelicals, and as a general rule the church has been hesitant towards doing something like that. Is that the case in Germany? What are you all seeing and feeling with some of this tension around digital?

Yes, I guess it's quite the same here. I see a lot of churches interested but not being able or being hesitant about really getting into digital church ministry. What happened is that we in Germany had a really boost of digital ways of spirituality and digital ways of doing church through Corona, as everybody on this globe, I guess. What the result of this is that I guess from the Protestant Catholic churches up to almost every small church plant, they built up the capabilities to live stream the services, so to do analog church life and to stream it in a digital way. What I almost see only in very few places is original digital ways of spirituality, of doing church. And that was what I pointed at earlier on, that I guess there are a lot of fetal churches. There are really some that came out strong out of Corona. We got, for example, ICF, International Christian Fellowship, as also in many other countries present. They're really good at doing an online church, online church that has micro churches all over Germany, although the biggest micro church is situated in the south of Germany. So this would be an example where you really got a good hybrid of fetal church. But purely digital churches are almost not present. You got a lot of Christian content. You got especially from the Protestant churches. They're willing to do a lot of money and funding into people who do something that is Christian and that is online and that is nice. But a lot of that what is happening there is not focused missional. It's more community oriented, social oriented.

What's the obstacle? What's the challenge? What's the issue that you think the average church leader is seeing from moving beyond content towards discipleship, moving away from the consumer mindset digitally towards something else? And I'm sure from a missiological standpoint you've wrestled with this. Like, what are you feeling looking at it in Germany?

So one obstacle I see in many churches is they have a building, they have bills to pay, and many of the concepts would fade away if they would really switch to digital church. That is what I love about our little church plant. We have almost, we need almost no funding. The only money we are spending at the moment is for the app that is our church meeting room, so to say. That makes it really easy to start up church. That's one part. Second part is that I think it's really not something for everyone. There are people who won't ever enter a church because of disabilities, because of what they experienced earlier, because of a fragile biography, or because of what Christians did to their life, or because they're just too skeptical or too far away from a place where they can live their spirituality. For all of those, digital church is a unique way to do it. But I recognize, for example, my wife would never ever want to be part of a digital church. For me, I have to say that the digital church plant I'm part of is more my church than the analog church which is two hundred meters across the street where I'm leading the children's service for my own children.

Yeah, so that's a lot. I guess you ask for why people don't do it. Part of it is because they are still in the mood of Corona as if we have to be all analog. A lot of pastors really have a theological problem with digital church. It's not real church. That's a discussion I always have to do once and again. So people always start over with digital baptism. I would say, okay, we don't have to talk about that first. First we can talk about digital spirituality, about digital community, about digital discipleship. And I would say wow, there's so much possible regarding that. And one point that's really hindering is the absence of good examples. And that is what I'm up to. I want to build networks and empower people who are willing to get up for good examples.

Yeah, that we very much align on. Where, you know, we're still trying to find the proof of concept. I think in this where you know we've got a lot of churches, at least in America I can tell you stories of a lot of digital expressions of church that are reaching people missiologically. Like, there's the mission field is there in it, it's working. Monetarily, you know, there's some challenges. You know, I've heard some digital churches where the pastor was not bivocational and now they're having to go bivocational because they weren't able to get funding through the digital church through tithes and donations have been a challenge. And even the church digital, like we've been talking, there's we're not hiding, you know, the financial constraints and issues that we've been running through. That's just part of doing ministry in digital space. But more than that, being the bleeding edge guy, like, hey, you want to make a lot of money? Church innovation is not the area that you want to get your first couple million on. I'm just like, that's not happening, not yet. It's not the bleeding edge. It's got to get a little more established. But before I think it monetizes probably. And some really, man, we could have a conversation. You said the words real church, and I feel like I could have a field day on that one too. You know, it's funny. I was actually, Simon, I was just telling you the story. Today's Monday. I recorded this on the twenty-ninth of January, so I think we're going to play this on next Monday, February fifth or whatever. And this morning I actually was like rushed off to go see the doctor because of some medical issues and some things that were going on in my life. I was having a lot of leg pain and it got worse over the weekend. And had a conversation with my wife and you know it was either like go to the emergency room or go see a doctor. And so I went and see a doctor to see if they thought it was worth the emergency room. And the doctor looked, thankfully the doctor looked at it and said, hey, that's great. Like, you do have issues, but you need to go see a specialist.

Specialist and a surgeon, and you need these tests before anybody knows what's going on. So don't waste your time going to the emergency room, but go, you know, let's get these tests scheduled. And so that's like the process that I'm on. That's a very bleak response, but it was a very heartfelt, very warming conversation because I mean, I was like, you know, I'm—they're going to chop off my legs this week. And it just like the pain was literally that bad. But the doctors said it wasn't what it wasn't that bad or wasn't to that point yet.

The reason I bring up this horrific story in a digital church podcast is actually I sent two or three texts out, a couple to some local guys that are my pastor and another local guy that are supporters and encouragers and prayer partners for me. And then I sent a couple to some guys that are not within physical reach. They live in other areas, but they're part of the ministry and work of what I do. Hey, like these are just four guys that are in my life. And it was like, hey, just so you know, I'm going to the doctor. I'm really worried. Like, could use some prayer on this.

And the guys that were not around, man, Jeff, I'm so sorry you're going through this. Tell us how we can help you in this, you know? Tell us what we can do. Glad to do it. And they're texting me and they're throughout the day asking how it's going. As a matter of fact, literally while I'm having this conversation, my text message just rang in my head and another text came in from one of them. But the funny thing was the local guys—the same thing. Like one of them picked up the phone and actually prayed for me over the phone and asked some questions in the moment. Another one texted me, hey, let us know how we can be praying and what if your family needs anything. Like the response of a digital church people and physical church people—physical and digital, you know—in that moment played the same way. And so it's to me it's really interesting how it's, oh, you can't do physical and we can't do digital. It's got to be physical. But in many of the same ways, its response is driven the same way. It's asking questions and engaging in conversations via digital, whatever.

So sorry, that was a tangent. I just felt like I wanted sympathy for the fact that I almost felt like I was going to lose my legs today. But that's enough. I'm always—you, I felt the past week as I'm losing half of my face because I had a lot of inflammation down my teeth. Oh gosh. And you know, that's the kind of thing where you don't sleep for days. I don't want to compare it to you, Lex, but also a lot of people praying together with me and awesome.

No, I just say that's horrible. That's not awesome. I'm all with you regarding the point that digital community or the way people pray for you doesn't depend on whether they live in the same city. For the digital church plant I'm part of myself, the Beta Church, we call it, where there are people really all over Germany, from all different places of Germany, also from other countries, Germans living in other countries. And what I really love is that digital church can do some things analog church can't. For example, one of our members—let's say members—she moved from the south of Germany to the north of Germany. Said, okay, everything will be new: new job, new people. But I got my church with me. And that is really a continuity in a time where people are more and more migrating because of job, because they have to move along. More and more, that is such a great opportunity.

And also for other people, one of our guys is living in the Netherlands. That is just no German-speaking church for him available. But Beta Church is his church. And they have now gotten their first baby. They will probably move somewhere else, but the church will always be there. That is what I love. No, digital church can't do everything. It has its deficient parts. But analog church, let's be honest, also is deficient in some ways.

So give me a two-minute spiel. Like, tell me a little bit of what Beta Church is, how it operates, platforms, environments. Like, give me the brass tacks. It's quite easy, actually. It's a very, very little church plant. We've been starting through Corona. There are something like perhaps two hundred people registered in our church building, so to say. It's an app. It's not an app we built all by ourselves, but it's a church app that is from a regional programmer who develops apps for a lot of churches, for all churches in our church federation. So we got a core team of perhaps twelve people. We got no—we got a lot of theologians, but we got no one who is paid by the church. It's all just people sharing the time they have.

We got at the moment church services once a month, Sunday evening at half past eight. So afterwards you can go watch a movie after Sunday service on your couch. And the heart of Beta Church in my thought has to be digital communities because it's all about communities. It's about people really getting in real touch in a digital manner. So we have one digital community which started out as sweating together, I guess it would be the name in English, doing sports together digitally. But out of it formed a small group where they're having Bible discussions. I'll start tomorrow at twelve. I start the midday prayer for everybody who's willing to have half an hour praying together during their midday break. We got something like Bible studies just for five meetings. And we're experimenting with it. We're just finishing our discussions on how to do membership. We're not finished with questions of what to do with children, what do we do if someone needs a funeral or needs a baptism. Well, it's Beta Church. It's just beta. We try it and we'll see where we land. But there are people for whom it is really the one church.

And what an experience was really touched my heart is the story of Julia. She was really—she had all church behind her, had deconstructed her Christian faith. And she experienced, okay, something is missing, but I can't go back to one of these churches I've been in. And Beta Church was the place for her where she could do her many steps to get in contact with Jesus again. And so if Beta Church is only for this one person or for persons like Julia, then it's worth doing and trying it.

Short insight: not so much hype. We started out with a lot of tools, but actually it's just the app, Zoom sometimes, something like Slido, Miro, sometimes we had something like MyRoots or did little online gaming. But actually we learned it at the lowest entrance level possible. Almost everyone is capable of doing Zoom. We got the app which is quite self-explanatory, and most of the other stuff we try to keep simple so no one will be kept from participating in our church because of technical stuff. I'd love to do something like Spatial.io, you know, which is this space where you can meet in digital rooms. But if half of the church won't manage it to come in, I think that's not the right thing to do.

Yeah, now Stuart McCallum might want to have a conversation with you about how to make Spatial a little easier, but we can figure that out later. Um, now you said something about don't sweat or sweat while you work or whatever, like a target audience, you reaching more athletic and sports crowd. Um, does Beta Church have a target audience? Like, have you all moved towards having a targeted approach? The other way around, we just started Beta Church, and during the process of focusing how our customer journey, so to say, should look like, we looked at the people who are participating in Beta Church and focused and found four focus groups. We see we did personas on them. And there's something like—I don't know how to translate in English—something like a woman who has experienced bad things in churches or has suffered, been burned, been hurt by the church. Yeah, like that, who's really distant to church but still seeks Christian community. This would be one person. One would be a person who, because of personal circumstances, because of working hours, because of health issues, of family at home, of parents at home, children at home, wouldn't be able to participate in a regular German church life. That would be one. Then we would have one of our personas going to digital nomads, people, German people working in places where there's just no Christian community available. And one more—I don't get it. Got it.

So we got these four personas where we can say, okay, these are part of the target audience we are seeing now. Church leaders in Germany, maybe not comfortable with a digital ecclesiology, not comfortable with a church operating digital. Hey, how do you do baptism? What does communion look like? There's still some questions that are out there with digital expression of a church. It's a new concept. You give us a couple years to get it figured out. Our people are dechurched people, unchurched people. Like, is German culture open to a digital expression of a church? Like, have you noticed any hesitancy? Are the new people that come in open and receptive? What's their response to the idea of a church digital?

The people attending the church, I guess they're very open to it and they have no offense against the idea of doing church digital because part of the people we are reaching are really people who are searching for something, who have been able to believe in Christ and trying to get their faith back. And one of the most interesting target audiences from my perspective would be those who are on the way to believing. Yeah.

So I told about our social media missionaries. And on the one way, you got a lot of possibilities of good digital content or digital Christian influences or digital gamer communities where people can get in contact and have first digital encounter with Christ. And the question is, where do you go from that on? So I would say what people need from there on is getting in touch with someone who can get the next step with him. They need any kind of community where they can be part of it. They need a place where to do discipleship. And I suppose at some point they will need a church. And for many of them who will travel a long way before doing their decision for Christ, I suppose that a digital church would be the perfect place to have this stay first. And why not afterwards have something like an analog cell group in your town? Or because you have children, switch over to analog church in your town or whatever?

I would say there's enough people who would in other ways not participate. So I see some pastors who are saying, who always start over with baptism, with some also with Lord's Supper, or with what happens when someone dies or what's it with the children. And I got no finished answers for that. I don't think that digital church must have them. I think digital church needs to find their analog connect points.

Yeah, no, I think that's good. Like a in 2024, there's value in community and now digital community does exist where you, you know, get—

Together, you know, even on a Discord or a Zoom call or, you know, Mighty Networks is what we use a lot or Facebook groups, like there's plenty of value towards community. And in fact, if your content is not driving to get people connected into a community, then you're effectively not reaching a lot of the people that are available. Like consumer ID ideology, that's like Boomers and Millennials. That's not Gen X. I should say Gen Z and Gen A. Like they're community. They're engaging. They're having conversations. They're embracing this idea of digital community.

But digital community in itself has limitations. I mean, let's be honest, it has limitations. Now, the younger you are, the less those limitations play a part. That being said, like even the guys who play video games every Friday night, every night, four nights, five nights a week, they still like to hang out together every once in a while at a ball game. They still like to get together in physical space. Like there's an opportunity to, you know, the line that I always say, Simon, in this is it's not that digital churches don't do things physically. It's that they're not driven to do it every day, every week. And there's, I would suggest, there's more intentional reality around when it happens.

You know, I can tell you stories of virtual reality churches that meet in physical space and people literally fly from across the country, across the planet, to come over into San Francisco, into Northern California, to get together for this virtual reality church's meetup. Just recently, all the gamer church guys got together a couple months ago down in the Dallas, Texas area. Like there's times where people come together in physical for community. But I think there's a high level of appreciation for when that happens.

And the idea of what you're describing, having a church that grows micro churches, that cells, I think you called them cell groups, but the language doesn't matter. Literally, you're speaking German. But the idea is that, you know, Angela Craig was doing that through Pursuit Church. Live Preo was having huge success with that internationally. I know I believe Dr. John's doing some of that now with Hope. Hope, oh my gosh, he just blanked on Dr. John's church. Dr. John Harris, Hope. Like his heart's like his church. And so Dr. John, you're listening, I'm sorry. My fault. It's been, we need to catch up, sir. It's been a minute since we've talked.

But man, it's the challenges that come, we don't run from. We figure out how to overcome them. Like even the communion and the baptism, I mean, we can talk about ways to overcome that. That's the challenge of baptism and what we're seeing. Some people are open to listening and some, to be honest, are not open to hearing. And at least that's the challenge that I'm facing here in America is people that are very adamant of the right way to do church. And if we're honest, I'm not even sure their opinion of the right way to do church isn't biblical. Like they're not pulling it from a biblical mandate as much as it is their opinions and how they, more often than not, how they grew up. Like it's what church was for them as a child when it was ingrained, and those characteristics, biblical or extra-biblical, become their ideological version of church.

So I think we got one advantage here in Germany. Thinking about what you mentioned, Van, advantage is the size of our country. So to give you an idea, I live in the middle of Germany, so I've got the possibility to drive to every part of Germany within one day. So yesterday I've been to the deepest east of Germany for a Sunday sermon. Today I'm back. That is a real advantage because what you said for B Church, also after one year we had an analog meeting. So all B Church came together in the middle of Germany and was fascinating for me. Most of the people I recognized for the first time they existed with lags and with a backside because I only had them on Zoom. But coming together, it was just like, okay, this is church. This is church. There's nothing missing. The people I see analog for the first time, they are my church. So that was really fascinating for me.

And I think that is, regarding comparison to the size of the US, the US, that's a real opportunity for Germany to do digital church and to be able to meet the other people in analog ways. So for example, regarding baptism, why not say where digital church we're connected to many other churches? So if someone comes to face and wants to get baptized, okay, who's in this region? Five people get together. Someone who's doing pastoral work in that region is getting there. Let's baptize him. For example, not a final answer, but a possibility.

Yeah, yeah, and the questions of ecological issues of digital church, well, I would say if you always keep on discussing if it is perfectly right, then you will never start trying new ways of church. And we're in a time where we need to try new versions of church. And not all will be right, but some will shape the future of the church.

Are you talking to other countries or do you know people in other areas of Europe that are thinking this way and that are experimenting? Like what does the rest of Europe look like?

Can't say it for the rest of Europe. I'm at, for the past years, I've been heading out to connect as much as possible. That's my topic in the mission agency here in Germany. So I love to see ways of digital mission growing throughout the world. Loan Movement is a big help. Digital Church Network is a big help. Inditus, Inditus, especially in Asia, is very fascinating to get in touch with a lot of people. There are some digital church plants in Eastern Europe, partly I have been in contact with. But actually, it's not so much. I see some contacts growing. I'm really looking forward, especially at the Loan Global Gathering in Seoul in this September. I'm really looking forward to meeting a lot of people I only got to know digitally so far, analog, for at least once in my life. It would be a great opportunity, I guess.

Not guess. Should, yeah, yeah, you should. I'll make a connection. He's with Crew Global and is, yeah, it's interesting. You know, there's a couple people, more than a couple, but there's some people internationally that I'm silently recruiting and kind of gently pushing, trying to be like, hey, why don't you like start to actually launch some things digitally or start to resource? Or you know, what would, how can we help you like do this in your context?

You know, the Church Digital, formerly Digital Church Network, like, you know, I don't know anything about Germany. And so the fact that you know Jeff go do help plant digital churches in Germany, I would be horrible at that. Now, you doing that is awesome. And so how can I help you do that? Let's talk about that actually.

I had a woman approach me about launching a metaverse, a virtual reality church network in South Africa. Like they wanted me to be the face of a virtual reality church network in South Africa. And just I had the honor of telling her I was like, that is the stupidest idea on the planet. Like I don't know anything about South Africa. So I like the context would be horrible. Now, you know a lot more about South Africa than I do. So how can I help you with the face of a digital church network? And so we're actually, you know, in process and working with her now and training and equipping her towards that.

But Cess is another one of these guys that I'm just like, oh, we got to figure out how to get him moving in Eastern Europe. Man, how can, how can we, how can the Church Digital, how can we help you start more churches in Germany?

Well, I guess that's a lot. The Church Digital is already doing for me. It is a lot of listen and learn, see people from other places of the world. So my first contact was the Digital Church Summit. I guess I was at the Midwest Church Summit. So really seeing people already doing things and experiencing how they are doing that, how they are doing thinking theology, how they are practicing that.

Second thing is connect and encourage. Connect like we are doing today, connect with as many people as possible who are in the same sphere and encourage each other. That is not just your mad idea. That it's really kingdom-minded working towards one future of the church, not the only future of the church.

And the third thing would be to share and to multiply. Share concepts we have. They always, always already, always need contextualization. So I love your BLESS concept, but the BLESS concept needs contextualization to be used in Germany, for example. And then multiply, share the good things. Like Paul said, test everything, take out the good things of it, and then bring them into multiplication. And the most important thing, keep praying for each other. That is what I'm really experiencing that is needed, especially for those who are forerunners. They need people standing behind them and praying for them, like the guys who've been praying for you today, Jeff.

Awesome, man. I so appreciate that. It's funny, the first time that I publicly used the BLESS concept for digital missions, actually I was speaking for your deal, Simon. It was a I don't, Mission Alliance, it was Lan German, yeah. And so I woke up at like three in the morning to go speak at this thing. And I was like, oh, you know what, it's new material. I'll give it a shot. Let's see if it works. And I literally, I was like five minutes before I showed up in this thing online. This speak was three thirty in the morning Eastern. And as literally as I showed up, I realized BLESS is an English word. The contextualization of this isn't going to work in Germany. Jeff, you're an idiot. And so like quickly, I'm in the chat. I don't think this is going to work. You may need to help me contextualize this because I'm going to like crash and burn here in about ten minutes.

But listen, I know Leighton. You know, you and I have had a relationship for a year or so digging into things and exploring this digitally. I think this may be the first time or maybe two or three times we've jumped on a Zoom call or something, but very few visual. And I don't think we've ever been in the same room, right?

You've not. We've not connected physically at all.

No, not yet.

But what's, yeah, we'll save it for Korea. We'll just fly to the other half of the planet to get that. But the, to me, like Leighton mentioned to me, Leon's our relationships guy with the Church Digital. And it was funny. He said to me, he says, hey, Simon's planning a digital church, starting like a digital church network in Germany. And Leon's like, you know, should we be helping him? And I was like, heck yes, yeah. Like, you know, that's why are we even asking the question? The answer is already yes.

You know, we started the Church Digital to help crazy people in America and draw attention to what they were doing. And Germany and Eastern Europe, and we're doing a lot of work, it feels like in Africa, a lot of interest down there. Philippines is our is in our top three right now, actually content consuming, which is crazy. Like there are people in the Philippines that are processing the stuff that we're talking about with digital church. And so, you know, for you all of you that

Are out there, whether you're, you know, domestic on my side of the planet or on the other side of the planet, the ideas of what we're talking about here and contextualizing this idea and this concept for the kingdom to reach the people that are dechurched and unchurched that have given up on the building or will never go to the building. Why not take the effort to reach a different type of person doing the things that Simon's describing by following a Biblical model that may not align to the opinions of today, which are opinions and not necessarily a Biblical mandate?

So listen, I want to thank you all for listening. Simon, I want to thank you for this podcast. This podcast has been a year in the making. Like, we have had the hardest time aligning on time zone timelines and things like that, and honestly, like, there are two things I don't understand in life: the metric system and time zones. And so having a conversation with you has been very hard because it challenged the time zone aspect a lot. But I'm glad we finally did it, and we're going to have more of these because I want to keep up with what's going on with this experiment of digital churches in Germany, because that's hugely exciting to me. And I'm appreciative of the fact it's like nine, ten o'clock at night and you're doing this podcast interview with me on a Monday night, which is awesome too.

So as we're landing the plane here, any closing thoughts?

Well, I think I'd like to point out: thank you very much for the Church Digital for giving us a digital home for our German Digital Church Plant Network. We called it Cloud Kirche, which means Cloud Church, so to say. So if any German, any German-speaking people out there who want to go onto church planting, join the fam, join the digital church, and come to our channel, Cloud Kirche, it would be great to get in contact with all of you. And thank you very much, Jeff. You actually are the starting point why we as a German mission agency today have a region not only geographical but region digital. Because during the time we were on our think tanks thinking new things and so on, I stumbled across the Church Digital Church Network and the Digital Church Summit, and that was really an ignition. So thank you for what you brought up here in Germany.

Oh, I'm honored and flattered by that. Thank you. There are other idiots too in the world that are talking about this. It's not just me. So let's give some of them credit.

Yeah, let's get some more idiots talking and let's get some more idiots out there doing this as well. Like, it's the—it's a 2024 is a year of the crazies. I firmly do believe it. Twenty-three, to be honest, there was some backlash against the innovators like you. We can talk about Elon Musk and Tesla and Twitter and all that. Yeah, sure, the guy's wacko at some level, but he's also an innovator. There's a lot of backlash against blockchain and crypto. AR, VR kind of went down. I, you know, I feel it tipping a little bit here in twenty-four. Even in church space, there's some stats that I'm not allowed to say publicly yet. I cannot wait to say them, because to me it's really exciting and it tells the story of how the church today in twenty-four is hungry to reach different people, and I believe are going to be re-engaging more in digital and virtual spaces. And so the best is yet to come, man. That's a horrible pun on a podcast, but we're going to land the plane there. We're going to call it a day.

Hey, for Simon, this is Jeff with the Church Digital. Thanks for jumping on this podcast, and we'll see you next time on the show. You have a good day.