EP286 - Jon Pyle on Disappointment, Timing, and Authenticity in Faith

And when we don't get to do what we feel like God called us to do, and I would say generally that about 90% of the disappointment in that is usually about timing.

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 disciplemaking 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 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.

Episode 286. 286 of the Church Digital Podcast. Once again, Jeff Reed here, founder of the Church Digital, and I am excited about this conversation coming up with my friend John Pile. But before we get into episode 286, all of this is brought to you by Riverside. And you know what, every week I talk about Riverside, and I love the artificial intelligence and the abilities that Riverside's baking into their platform, constantly making things better. This week I want to feature one thing, and honestly, this is going to get maybe a little more practical than we usually get here on the podcast, but I honestly didn't know this existed until maybe a month ago, and I was like, "This is freaking cool," and I want to talk about chapters.

So basically, one of the things that the Riverside platform does is once you do the recording and use the AI to scan it, it gives you a list of chapters and topics on there. So at 00:00:00, it's the beginning of the podcast, the introduction, and then at eight minutes and 47 seconds, this is the topic that comes up. And so it gives you basically an index listing of what you're talking about on the podcast. And I always thought, "Oh, that's cool, and it times it with the time code, that's nice," but I didn't. I never really used it until just recently. We started utilizing that topic feature really as we started getting into season six here on the podcast. And what I discovered—thank you very much, Captain Obvious, on my side—is that when you paste that into like YouTube, YouTube turns that into links where users can just click on the time code and automatically scan immediately to the point of the podcast recording, the YouTube video that you're talking about.

So if I want to click on 47 minutes and 32 seconds in the description, that link scans the video up to 47:32, where I can hear that specific clip in real time. Blown away. Like, I, it shouldn't have been that obvious. It should be much more obvious. I'm kind of slow in the grand scheme of things, but once again, it's another example of how Riverside's making YouTube awesome. And even as a guy that's active in this platform, I'm constantly learning more and more about it. And even on the podcast side, your ability to with the podcast app to skip forward, and in some apps you can click on it as well to go straight to that. Like, Riverside, I am blown away at how it's helping our platform, the Church Digital Podcast, become better and better.

So Riverside, thank you for what you're doing. For more information on Riverside, go to thechurchdigital.com/riverside. Go and click on that, find out more about Riverside. Okay, let's get into my friend here, John Pile. Or as some of us more affectionately call him, Russian spam bot. You see, John Pile, let's just be honest here. Like, I've never been in the same room with John. John may actually be the person I am closest with, yet have never breathed the same air molecules of. And so like, as we talk about digital relationships and the ability to care for one another, to invest in one another, to know each other, my friend John, he and I are those two. Like, I really do emotionally care for this guy, yet I've never actually been in the same state as him. I believe I think I can say that he may have went to Disney World at some point. I need to actually dig into that. But here's where we are.

And so I honestly wanted to have a conversation with John. And so I was like, "Hey, John, let's get together and let's do this podcast. We're going to do it on this topic." But man, when I got John on the Riverside platform and wanted to have a conversation with them to really start the podcast, forget that topic, man. I just wanted to have a conversation with my friend. And so we ended up doing an hour-long conversation just talking. And so ladies and gentlemen, audience out there, I present to you John Pile. A conversation like John Pile, the man, the Russian spam bot, and just a conversation with him of me relationally catching up with my friend.

There's going to be tips. There's going to be insights. There's going to be things that you don't want to miss. Biblical truths to better understand digital context in the hemisphere that we live in, I don't know. But you, ladies and gentlemen, simply put, conversation with John Pile.

Wow, man, you know, it's so exciting being an adult because everything changes and nothing changes. When people ask you that, because it's like, I don't know, we still live in the same house, still got the same two kids, still the same wife, right? And I still the same job, right? But I've obviously been continuing with the podcast. I'm in kind of an odd season right now, and it's a season of, and I actually, because I can share maybe too much sometimes, I shared a little bit on social media with a gift from Rocky 3 where he's on the beach screaming, "I'm afraid." Just in a season of just God kind of pointing out some of the things that are under the surface in my life that have been running in the background, if you will. You know, when you take out your phone and you go, "How many apps do I got running?" One of the 80-something apps that I have running is the fear app in my own life right now. And so I've been kind of digging into that and what does that mean and what does it mean to close that to get better performance?

You know, one of the things I love about you and just the conversations that we have is you are you, man. You're unfiltered in a good way. You know, I'm not dropping F-bombs like crazy, but you just like you're not afraid to have the hard conversations and the real conversations. And you know, I think equally, I don't know that scene from Rocky 3. I'm really not a Rocky guy in the grand scheme of movies, but the fear, you know, that's something over the past six months, nine months of my life, I've encountered a lot. And you know, we're going to get into that. So let's just keep going, man.

You know, it was funny, John. I was trying to remember where I actually met you, how we got connected. I think you've been on this podcast before. Like, you know, you have been so integral into the Church Digital with what you're doing with the podcast, with Better on the Inside. You know, Andy loves you. You're doing stuff with From Text to Testimony with that podcast as well. And it's like you're so tied into stuff, but I start asking questions like, you know, has anybody actually ever been in the same room with John Pile? And really like, and so part of me wants that. Like, are you a Russian spam bot? Yeah, like, have we got into the place with AI that you can fake John Pile's existence? Like, where you are not actually a real person? Because I thought Tom was this way, and Tom Pounder, but actually met Tom. And so you're unproven in the space, man. Like, what do you think about this?

Oh no, comrades, the jig is up. Tear down this, tear down the studio. The Americans have found out. Uh, in the worst Russian accent you've ever heard.

Oh my gosh, if you're not watching this on YouTube, just go over there, catch the clip. Like, that was beautiful. Your little accent with the hand motions was so good.

Every time I'm going to like meet somebody or meet up, like Andy was in Marble Falls not that long ago, and a bunch of y'all were in Marble Falls for a thing. Gosh, what was it called? I can't remember.

Yeah.

And I was just like, "Oh yeah, I'll come up there," and then I just wasn't able to do it. Like, stuff always gets in the way. So we're going to have to meet up in person at some point.

We do. We do. I'm doing a lot of work in Dallas these days, not down south where you are, but I got to find an excuse to come down or meet in the middle. We'll figure it out.

Totally and completely. Well, listen, you know, it's when I booked this conversation with John, it was, "Hey, John, I really want to talk about this topic," and we're going to get into the topic here, you know, with hyperlocal and digital here in a little bit. But just to be honest, man, like, as I was doing the prep for that interview, it was, "Man, I really just want to catch up with my friend here and have a heartfelt conversation with somebody that I respect and learn from." And rather than getting into this particular topic, listening audience, I'm just going to be honest. Like, I just want to have a conversation. And so we are going to do something different for the podcast where we're going to roam a little bit. We're going to hit some different topics. Just maybe get into, you know, I always prep the speaker, the guest here on the podcast. I was like, "Man, just pretend it's you and me sitting around a Starbucks coffee table drinking iced coffee and just talking," you know? And some people can pull that off. To be honest, some people really can't. But that's what I'm looking for here is, "Man, I just want to sit at a coffee house with my friend who may or may not, in fact, be a Russian spambot, and have a heartfelt conversation with him about life, about ministry, about digital, and what's going on."

And so if you've not had the pleasure, because John's like, has maybe been on this podcast once, we've tied him in with other things, and he's part of the podcast network with Better on the Inside. But John, maybe open up here. Talk a little bit about Better on the Inside. Like, what's that talk about? Talk to about your podcast. Even from Text to Testimony, like, maybe set up a little bit about what those two pieces of content are.

Yeah, it's so interesting that you talk about that, Jeff. Most first of all, it's great to see you, and it was one of those things where it's like, I feel like I've known you forever. And how do you know how you know somebody that's just been so integrated in your life? And so whether it's from Text to Testimony or Better on the Inside, and even the first time I was on this podcast, it's all kind of linked back to this idea of soul care. And you know, Better on the Inside, in this season, it's soul care in the digital age, and trying to figure out what that looks like. And it all kind of rose out of a need, this niche that I found, has kind of rose out of a need that I've seen as people's souls seem to be kind of eaten and dwindled and crushed and kind of sucked out of them in what they're doing in everyday life. And we have all these great systems and abilities and all of that, especially in the digital world, but how much of it is really helping our soul? And that's why we connected in the first place. And that's, you know, I remember the first podcast I was doing it from my in-law's bedroom. I don't even remember why, but something schedule-wise ran where I had to drop off a kid or pick up a kid, and I didn't have time to get back to...

The office and it was like okay, I'll do it in their bedroom. And so I was in, you know, I was in their bedroom doing that. And it's been about soul care. Like, it's really been about that idea. And part of this season, Jeff, has been for me has been a season of what is really my thing and what is the thing that I really want to focus on and do? Because I'm a yes guy. I say yes to a lot of things and I want to try to do a lot of things. And it always seems to come back. The stuff that really seems to connect with people and stay with people is the soul care piece.

What a hot topic. What a relevant topic. What a necessary topic, really, for us as the church to dive into and better understand the digital implications of soul care. And to be honest, that's really why I love the show that you're doing, "From Text to Testimony," with Andy Mage and Megan Carter. You know, and it's interesting, John. Like, you know, I have so much respect for you, so much respect for Andy, but Megan Carter on that show, what she contributes is like, holy crap, just oh my gosh. Like, you know, I'm listening to the three of you, you know, once again just having transparent, open conversations not only of how to meet people that are going through crisis and traumatic situations, but how to protect yourselves in those moments, in those situations as well. To put up the boundaries and the barriers and the support groups to sustain the ministry in that. Like, it's so necessary for people that really want to be effective digitally.

And so we'll put links in the show notes to "Better on the Inside" and "From Text to Testimony." Like, you know, hey, I'm glad you all are listening to the Church Digital podcast, and we have fun here, but the stuff that they're doing over there, you know, from a mental health, from a soul care perspective, oh my gosh, it's so good.

And really, John, this is maybe let's kick off the conversation here. Like I said, we're going to have a wavy conversation, but I really want to pull on this thread of mental health and soul care. Now, it's interesting. Like, you've equated soul care and digital. I have even started blending the two together—mental health and soul care—but I know that they mean different things. For those that may not understand that, or your perspective anyway, like, tell me the difference between mental health and soul care.

Yeah, great question. And so mental health, in the way that I see it as a non-licensed professional, mental health is the piece that is focusing on not just some of it is the physical and the physiology of your brain and how it works. But the mental health part is managing your emotions, feelings, and figuring out, you know, trauma, anxiety, depression, and some of these things that we experience as humans. And a lot, a lot more people have been experiencing those anxious moments, dealing with depression, kind of uncovering trauma. And we've collectively come through kind of a trauma piece together. And I mean, you know, come through, right? Like, with millions of people dead and still figuring out COVID and what that looks like. And so the mental health piece is something that every human being, every single human being, no matter what, it's closer to healthcare for the emotions, I guess. That's probably the best way to say it, right? Healthcare for the emotions.

And soul care is a little different. And so soul care speaks to something a little bit deeper. And as people of faith, we believe that people have a soul, that there's something supernatural that goes just beyond this world. There's something about us that's an essence. There's something that's more than just the links in our brains, that's more than just the impulses that we have, that's more than just the feelings and emotions. There's something that is essentially us, but it is maybe an intangible quality to us that lives within us. And so the soul care piece is taking care of that essence of you. It's taking care of the peace within you. You know, people say things like inner child. That's not where I really think of the soul piece. You know, in my faith tradition, it's the part of you that's God, right? It's the part of you that was created by God that will live forever. The soul is not going to pass away, you know, whatever you believe about the afterlife. And so the soul is always with you, and it's really who you are. And this body is temporary. We all know that. Everybody dies. And so at some point, mental health issues will be off the table, okay? There, because you just don't have all of that forever. Your body is, we've all seen it, right? We've all gotten older. We all know what it's like. And then on the other hand, the soul part lasts forever. It's an eternal part of us.

And so so much of life we spend kind of focused on this now piece—the physical, the mental, the what our bodies and our brains do. We spend a lot of time trying to get that part healthy, sometimes to the neglect of the eternal part of us, the soul.

I don't think I'd ever equated that mental health was more of a temporary aspect and soul care was eternal or virtually eternal. That's really interesting. Do you, as a pastor who's in this space, do you find it difficult to balance, to go back and forth between soul care and mental health mindsets? Do you find a bias to lean more one way versus another? Like, um, do you? Is it like a conscious or an unconscious thing? Like, talk to me about how you operate in these hemispheres.

It's really hard because they're interlined. It would be one thing if it was like clearly separate—oh, this is a mental health problem, this is a soul problem—but they're all just kind of linked up together and kind of mashed together in a way that you can't remove it. It's like trying to remove the flour from a cake that you baked, right? Like, it's just all tangled up in there.

And so I certainly can see how it, I've never encountered a person who might be dealing with a mental health issue that didn't also have some connection to the soul. It's almost impossible to completely remove those things from each other. Even in a situation of people who are dealing with the kind of spiritual warfare kind of stuff, there's usually a mental health component that's there too that you want to make sure you check in on.

And so because you can't uninterlink these things, what I realize is that as a pastor, I don't have a PhD. I'm not even a licensed counselor. And so I will try my best to leave the mental health stuff to the professionals and focus on the soul care piece, because I do have an advanced degree in that. I do have a lot of practice hours in that. I am able to pastor and help people's souls in that regard. But I can never completely unlink it from the mental health part, but that's not what I'm an expert in.

So the example is like, I'm not going to give you a treatment plan, and I'm not going to counsel you for every week for six years, because there are people that have spent their whole lives being able to do that. You know, by counseling, I mean like meeting with you formally and all that stuff. What I can do as a pastor is help get you on the right path and connect you to good mental health resources to go along with your soul journey.

You know, most of our churches probably have some level of pastoral care where they've got someone that's listening, doing the three counseling sessions or whatever it is, and then, you know, triage, referring on. And I've had conversations with AACC—American Association of Christian Counselors—and you know, they challenged us as digital pastors to be triage, kind of have the conversations, understand where people are, and then help them get the help that they need, whether that's in the church or outside of the church.

You know, Megan Carter, it's interesting. She said, you know, it's a similar thing where she's like, yeah, I don't, we don't create treatment plans with what we're doing. And so, but that's more of helping people get to that next step. Well, and she's studying to create treatment plans, but she's not quite there yet. Um, are you operating as well where it's more of that triage and resourcing? Like, talk to me a little bit about what that looks like.

I'm so glad to talk about that because I'm responsible for pastoral care for our church, and it's a lot of people here. And that's not like a flex, that's just a reality. There's a lot of people and a lot of people need help. And so from the pastoral care perspective, the best thing we can do for most people is help them find the next step. Um, so I shouldn't say the best thing. I should say the best action step, because triage is the perfect way to talk about it.

And most days it feels like being a battlefield medic, but on the spiritual warfare battlefield. You're just getting people that are coming to you with intense pain. Because for the most part, people that are just kind of happy don't call and make an appointment with the pastor. They just don't. They're not like, hey, let's talk to the pastor about, like, it's intense pain. An intense season. A hard decision. A breakup. You know, a kid, a splitting of a relationship with a child. Like, there's a severe pain. And so they come to us and they're essentially saying, take away the pain.

And so we can kind of, as a battlefield medic, sometimes have to be like, okay, drink this whiskey, bite on this piece of wood, and I'm going to cut your leg up. Like, you have to just go, I'm going to treat you in the moment to stop the bleeding, whatever that is, whatever you're going through. We're just going to stop the bleeding right now. Longterm, for like full healing and rehabilitation of this root issue, because the best thing that we can do in pastoral care is point to a root issue.

So if a couple comes to me and they're arguing and they're thinking about getting a divorce, one of the best things I can do is kind of come up with, okay, here's the things that I'm hearing you say around the issues. It's that his mother won't butt out and he won't stand up to his mother, and you resent his mother, right? And so you have this thing that's in the center, and you can kind of frame the issue and then help them take the next steps to help that issue.

Or it's an individual going, everything you're talking about sounds like you're going through a little bit of an anxiety attack right now. And you're like, so just know, hey, that's happening. I'm here with you. I'm sitting with you. I'll pray with you, and I'll also try to connect you with the counselor who can help you find that next step.

And so that's what pastoral care, I think, looks like, especially in the digital age with all of these resources that are available. It's not enough just to be their pastor. You also want to be their networker and chief—the person who knows the resources to point them to, build relationships with counseling centers locally and online. There are a lot of people that operate online, and be able to connect people so that they can actually get the help they need.

And we can get into it. Megan talked a lot about the networking there, and we're going to be pulling the thread more on this. You know, AACC as well. I'm trying to reconnect with some friends over there from last year and to continue on that conversation about how we as pastors can really better understand the relationship between mental health and soul care. I don't know that we need to be mental health experts. I don't know that we can be, unless we want to put in the time to study to better understand the science behind it. But at...

least to understand how to triage is just a word that people in those fields keep saying to me. Triage and help get people connected to the best possible action step. That's so good. Best possible action step. Good stuff. Um, listen, I'm gonna be transparent. When you said chop your leg off, I I winced a little bit. Um, you know, I've had a conversation, John. I don't even know if I've really had this conversation with you directly, but um, you know, I took a six-month break. Um, you know, a lot of little traumas we're going to get into uh later on in the podcast just in my own life. Um, and one of those things and I've I've blogged about it, I don't think I've talked about it too much, but my um diabetes type two. Um, and really it looks like I had diabetes type two for years untreated. Um, a situation in in my life where you know, I bluntly, I was a um running a startup company. We didn't have insurance and my wife was a part-time employee who didn't have insurance. And so we had Obamacare for the kids and you know, really just discarded our own health in some of those situations. And and I knew some things were off, but it wasn't a big deal. It wasn't a big deal. It wasn't a big deal until my wife went full-time and got insurance. And then you know, the doctor started listing off all the things that were wrong with me. And um, you know, uh, to be to be honest, like my, I'm 46 years old and I walk with a cane. Uh, my wife actually said to me the other day because there was some medical things that were wrong with my legs and I'm I'm seeing neurologists. I'm seeing um uh vascular surgeons. I literally have seven doctors right now on speed dial on my phone. I can show it to you. And uh, because that's that's what my medical life looks like right now because my body is so screwed up. And uh, so literally the chopping the leg off, like that that stung a little bit. I know you didn't mean it that way, but that that hit closer to home. But it really set up this this next question that I wanted to get into where I I want to talk about like disappointment because there's things that I thought was going to happen in twenty-three that that didn't happen because of the little traumas that I had to stop for. There are things that I I I wanted to do and I felt like God was, I'm going to be very honest here, I felt like God was leading me to do some stuff in twenty-four. And and I'm looking at the way twenty-four is going to be and I know God's in control, which is actually a double-edged sword because I know God's in control of my life, but then I know that God's in control of my life, meaning he's approving the pain that I'm going through on a regular basis. And so how do we, how do you, how do you manage this? Um, the the tension between you feel like God's leading you in another direction, yet in reality you're not seeing that happen. Like what is, what is, is that disappointment? Is that anger? Frustration? H, how do we manage that? All of the above. It's disappointment. It's anger. It's frustration. And it challenges our view of ourself. It challenges our view of God. And you know, I uh, as I've been thinking about my own disappointments and what I was hoping would happen, is that we actually have to grieve our expectations sometimes. We actually have to grieve when our expectations don't pan out. And in our heads we go, okay, we move on. It wasn't real. It was just kind of in my, like, there's not a tangible thing. Like when we when a loved one is struggling, there's something more tangible to grieve, or when we have a health problem, there's something more tangible to grieve. But a lot of times we don't take the time to grieve our plans, our goals, our expectations, or what it feels like God was calling us to. And unfortunately or fortunately, like words create worlds. And so we talk about these things that we want to do and we get hope in our heart, right? And it it hope makes our heart sick sometimes with this feeling. And and so I think we don't take the time to properly grieve when our expectations aren't met and when we don't get to do what we feel like God called us to do. And I would say generally that about ninety percent of the disappointment in that is usually about timing. Um, I've been reading David's story and it struck me as I was doing, trying to research it, and I don't have the exact year, but he's anointed kind of king as a teenager while there's already another king. And he's told he's going to be the king of Israel. And it's about twenty years until he has the whole kingdom. And part of it is he's waiting for Saul. And even when Saul passes away, he becomes the king of like the southern kingdom, like the Judah piece of that. And there's still more that has to happen with Benjamin. And there's brutal war and there's relatives and loved ones that die till he actually presides over Israel. And so some, a lot of times God may have anointed you or called you to something, and your responsibility is not to succeed in it, but to pursue it. And the timing part, God is going to take care of. And sometimes we think it's going to be a one-year thing that's actually a rest of life thing, right? And sometimes we only get to plant the seed and never get to see the tree grow. And that is, that is what we grieve. That is what we have to grieve. The the idea of of of grieving the loss. You know, it's interesting. I've had you know, and bluntly, I'm seeing counselors through some of this and um trying to to be healthy and to work through uh some of it all of a board. And and the you know, the counselors, they talk to me about about the grieving process and and doing some of that. A past, a friend of mine um basically equated, I walk with a cane. I'm forty-six years old. Um, you, I told a doctor the other day, I was like, yeah, I've probably fallen five or six times in the past two months. Uh, and they looked at me and they were like, you're forty-six. You shouldn't be falling. And I was like, I know. You know, I'm not so bad that I got to press the button that that sends the signal that says I fallen and I can't. The medical alert, yeah, whatever that is. Yeah, but it's still like that's that's what my my body's evolved to. And my um and my my pastor friend locally here in Miami says to me, says, Jeff, the the the crutch is is the thorn in your side. That's that's, was it Saul that had the thorn? If if I remember correctly? Yeah, so it's it's Saul's thorn. And he says that's that's slowing you down to the speed that that God wants you. Um, it's the limiter that going to make sure that you're staying dependent upon him. And um, I mean, that once again, that that hurt at multiple levels. But it reinforces this idea of of the the patience of of waiting for things and God time instead of feeling like we had to to force things uh into a place where we're trying to manufacture something that he wants to do when he's ready to do it, not when we we best want it. Yeah, well, man, as people who study the Bible, we sometimes forget that there are thousands of years between pages. And we know the end of the story. And our life, we don't know the end of the story. And so we always want to skip that messy, painful middle part where we're forged, where we're changed, where we're molded, where we're broken, where we're healed. We want to skip that part and get to the cool part of the testimony. Like I want to be the live fast drug addict that turns into the pastor. I don't want to have to go through withdrawal. I don't want to have to answer for the people that I've hurt and the things that I've done because that part sucks. And a lot of churches, unfortunately, I feel like have an anemic theology of suffering. And so it's so easy in our theology of suffering to go, well, if I'm suffering, I did something wrong. Or if I'm suffering, I'm outside of God's will. Where, un, the, I say unfortunately because it sucks and I don't like it either. Nobody likes it. Suffering is just a part of human existence. And if your theology of suffering is it turns into a kind of prosperity gospel for life of, well, if my life is going well, it must be mean that I'm obedient to God, the counterpoint is if my, if I'm struggling or I'm suffering, that must mean that I'm doing something wrong. When in fact you might just be being faithful. And the suffering doesn't have anything to do with your obedience. So how do we, I mean, just in in response to that, um, we don't have an understanding of suffering. We're not, I mean, what I'm I'm almost paraphrasing off this, but we're not grounded. We're we're we're flying off in in other contexts that really aren't relating or struggling to relate with the people that we're trying to connect with. Um, H, how do we as digital pastors, as ministers, or even normal pastors, how do we stay grounded? How do we get reconnected? Is is it possible? And even specifically digital, is it possible to get um disconnected like too much in the digital space and therefore being isolated from from the people we're trying to connect with? Absolutely. I mean, absolutely. I was just talking to a friend today about isolation and how we can have all these relationships but still feel isolated because the quantity of relationships can never replace the quality of intimacy. And digitally, it's kind of about quantity over quality generally. That's kind of what the tools kind of promote us to of like we want as many likes. We want as many shares. We want as many engages. We want views, downloads. And those are kind of shallow metrics because they don't always speak to the deeper engagement. And so I I think it's easy to be ungrounded online and have a strange perspective of where you're sitting in the world. Um, and I think no matter what you're doing, whether you're just uh, whether you're doing just physical ministry or just digital ministry or some combination, the only way that I know to stay grounded in any significant way is to apply the same things that you're trying to teach about suffering and soul care and mental health to yourself. Um, because when you are applying these things to yourself, you're not likely to forget them for the people around you because it's part of your journey. And when you live it, people see it and they believe it. And they go, oh yeah. And so you can stand up and go, yeah, man, I'm afraid right now. And I've been running from God for a long time and he's been trying to tell me something and I I haven't been listening. And you can say that because you're no longer a professional Christian that got hired because you're better than everybody else. You're just somebody who God called into whatever it is, whatever the space is, and you're alongside everybody. And so it digitally, it's easy to fake it. It's easier than in real life because I'm the kind of person that picks up on your your cues, right? And so if we're sitting in a coffee shop together, I'm like, okay, you say everything's fine, but bro, there's something weird. Like, what's what's really going on? Digitally, you don't have that to the same degree. You could just have the same conversation over and over. Man, oh, it looks like so and so's thriving in life. And you see their family and their pictures because they went on three cruises last year and six trips to Disney World. And you know, their their business is blowing up and they're you know, they're buying boats and houses. That's a little bit, yeah, it's the extreme example. But we can hide behind that in even really small church spaces of, well, this guy's got a podcast with a much bigger audience than I do. Clearly because of what I see digitally. Um, this person is obviously doing well because of how they're teaching about Jesus and it seems like it's fully aligned. And it, the temptation is not to be grounded in the reality of your own health because you, the, there, this is not, I, this is I would say that it's God's law, but it's also just a physical law of the universe. You can't give what you don't have.

And even in America where we go into debt over everything, eventually the check is due. And so you can borrow—especially soul stuff—and I don't think we think of our soul like this, but like we can borrow against our soul to make progress. We can borrow against our soul to advance what we want to do. The problem is the payment always comes due. And that's why Jesus says, "What does it profit a man to gain the world but lose his soul?" You only lose your soul. The times I see it the most are things that people feel are worthy, people feel that are good. And how many church leaders—if you, I mean look man, I've been just talking about this and Andy will tell you, I'm watching this stuff go down in the SBC, and I'm seeing people that I'm not involved, so I'm outside, but I've seen people that I've seen that have been well respected, that have written things that are very good. I've read the books, I've seen their ministry results, I've seen all of this. But when you're protecting people that abuse children, you're borrowing against your soul, and the payment will come due, whether it's on this side of heaven or on the other side. At some point you're going to have to talk to Jesus about it. And you're—I don't know what else to tell you. Jesus spelled it out himself. That's not my words. Those are Jesus's words.

And so for all of us, it's easy to kind of borrow against our soul, which is our current peace, our current joy. Think of the fruits of the spirit, right? Faithfulness, kindness, all of the things that we aspire to be—we can borrow against those things for success, to move ourselves forward. And so to stay grounded, you have to have a sense of boundaries of what you can do and what you can't do, because you can't pour from an empty cup. You simply cannot. It's a law of the universe. And the only person that I know of that could feed five thousand with two fishes and a loaf is Jesus. All the boy did was bring his lunch. Jesus did the miraculous part. In between, and so God might use you if you're empty, but that's up to him. Your responsibility is to care for yourself.

Incredible. Um, so good. Uh, if you're SBC, um, don't send me hate mail. Uh, you can send it to uh, Bernie Meley, uh, Romans RS, uh, the church.digital. That'll be great. Um, no, I'm kidding actually. I am SBC, and he's not wrong. Um, like there's been some difficult things in that space, but we don't—I don't get into that too much. Um, let me ask the best podcast I have heard so far this year. Now we're one month in—congratulations. Actually, I think you did the podcast in December, but it was you and Kyle Burkholder, I believe, uh, talking about, you know, make the church local. And he's a—I mean, he's not a—he's a very physical church-minded guy. He was a planter, as I recall.

Yeah, he took over a church in Ohio.

Yeah, yeah. And so it was just this incredible, rich conversation. Well, why don't you maybe set up some of the highlights of what you guys covered in that?

Yeah, man. Kyle is a friend from seminary, and I know him because he worked for a large church here, and I watched him—I won't say be radicalized, but I think he'd be okay if I said be radicalized—of just understanding what some of these larger church ministries maybe were doing. And we—so he moved to Ohio, was—is the pastor of a church there. Not the senior, not the lead pastor, just a pastor of the church there. That's an important piece to him. And so what we talked about was how he, instead of focusing outwards to kind of build something larger, he really focused in on just a community, just a few square miles around his church and where he lives. And so his whole goal and his focus was really shrinking the ambition of the church, I guess you might say, to really just focus on the relationships around him and the people of what he's talking about.

Because, uh, the thing that sticks with me, Jee, and the whole thing made me mad and inspired at the same time, um, of just like, he's like, "You can't pay attention to the news because that's stuff you can't do anything about. Meanwhile, your neighbor has a sick bird, and your neighbor would love their pastor to come over and bless the bird and talk with them for a few minutes." And you could be getting really mad. And so I just did it right. Let's just take me as an example, not as the hero, right? I railed about an SBC thing that I'm completely disconnected to, that there's very little that I can actually do to help the problem or really hurt the problem, honestly. I mean, I can care for people that talk about it, but there's so many layers of disconnection from that. That if I want to pastor well, I have to pastor the people around me.

And so that was the conversation of his push to make church very hyper-local, as local as you could possibly make it. And I love the idea of the church being hyper-local. Um, but at the same time, it's like digital does not have that hyper-locality, or at least you have to work very hard in the hyper-locality like you've—and so like the conversation was, um, was encouraging and frustrating. I found myself saying yes, and I found myself muttering curse words under my breath in my—I actually, I was down in the Florida Keys listening to it. I distinctly remember, and I was like, "It's incredible and it's frustrating," because it's like we're ninety percent there, but not quite. And there's a—there's an application. I believe this. I believe there's an application of where the church can be hyper-local digitally. And I'm not suggesting—and yeah, I mean, we can utilize geolocation to target, you know, whatever ads and build locations only in the two-mile radius around your physical church. Like we can, you know, the apartment building across the street from my church. Like we can utilize technology for that. But larger than that, I think there's opportunities to dive into specific target audiences, um, demographic groups, um, characteristic groups.

Like I remember there was a guy we were working with. Um, actually I need to reach out to him and see what's going on. He was a—oh my gosh, I'm blanking on the country—but he was a refugee. This is before Ukraine. I can't believe I'm going to blank on the country, but he was a refugee, displaced, and he's currently a pastor in America. And he was interested in planting a digital expression of church that was reaching other refugees from his country globally. And like that was the niche audience, the target audience that he was wanting to go after with his digital church. And he had, you know, elaborate plans, and he thought it was a way to connect people back to the cultural heritage of what they grew up in and use that to share Jesus. And I was like, "Man, this is an incredible plan."

Some of the nerd culture ministry summit, some of what those guys are doing—that's what you were talking about before with Marble Falls—but you know, utilizing, you know, what they're doing, using gaming to reach nerds and to build the relationship. I can call them nerds. They call themselves nerds. But like, you know, reaching using the culture to really reach in and share with Jesus. Like that's where I think a lot of this hyper-local comes into play digitally. The challenge is that the US church—and I'll generalize here—they're not interested in target audiences and hyper-location. They're interested in shotgun blasts and just casting seeds wherever it may fall, realizing it's going to fall on some. It's quantity versus quality.

Which, yeah, yep.

Well, so I think I one hundred percent agree with you that it doesn't seem that there has been—I'll say this: the folks invested in the evangelical industrial complex that require five to ten percent growth this year so that in three years you can build the new building, so that in thirteen years you can build the building after that, and all of the way that we've kind of done these mostly suburban churches—um, they're not interested in that. And it hasn't been about connection, whether it's digital or non-digital. Uh, and so what you're talking about is the digital tools deepen our relationships with people qualitatively, even with people we know in person. I can text my son throughout the school day, and you know, he's in sixth grade, so he got his first phone, and we've only had one law scare so far, Jeff, so okay, we're doing okay.

Um, but digital tools—and sometimes we overlook digital tools because digital has become synonymous with innovative. Um, sometimes. And I think we have digital tools that serve us all the time. And so these phones that allow us to text and take pictures and connect us in intimate moments with people that we love—that is not possible without digital. Like, think of how many relationships we've deepened because of digital communication, how many times we've been able to talk to somebody where we couldn't talk to them before. Um, we're old enough to remember a world where if I said I was going to meet you at the mall and you weren't there, well, I'll figure out where you are tonight when I get home because I'm not calling you from the mall. It's just if you're not at the fountain between two and two fifteen, then you're not showing up, and that's it, instead of the text, right?

And so we're a generation that remembers what it was like before, and how these digital tools really help us connect more deeply with people and things. Even little things like, uh, I look at how easy it is to share podcasts and movie recommendations. They even have things on things like Disney Plus where you can watch together when you're separated by a distance. And it's not—it's technically extremely hard to do that, right? To get things to sync up across the country or across the world so that you're watching something at the same time as somebody else. But that gives a depth, an intimacy of relationship that wouldn't be possible without digital tools. Uh, the phone included. Like the phone is a digital tool where you can talk to somebody that you wouldn't have been able to talk to. And so I think the hyper-locality of being able to text your neighbor—because texting, in a way, is informal, but text, I found, is like a glue, is like a bonding agent between people. I text before I really know you as a friend and you're kind of an acquaintance, but then we become friends and I text you a little bit differently, and then we become best friends and I text you totally differently. But it's a bonding agent that brings us together in all these different phases. And don't underestimate that locally, sending that text to your neighbor. And it's a way for, especially for people that don't feel seen or heard or cared for, just a little reach out like that is a really simple way.

Because I think the digital equation, Jeff, is always half as cheap, uh, twice as small, right? Isn't that like the—eventually over time where it's like we're going to make, uh, memory, right? Uh, I think it had to do with uh, computer chips back in the day where it's like every five years it's going to be half as big and, or—yeah, it's going to be half as big and half as expensive. So it just keeps getting smaller, half as cheap, twice as small.

Yeah, I've vaguely heard this before, something like that. There's this idea that it's all about efficiency and less cost, and like that's what digital has largely done is it's scaled the world down a lot in regards to that. And while that can be soul-crushing at times, so that there are some things where it's like you try to call customer service and it's like, "I can't talk to a person that can do anything about this. I'm either talking to a machine or a call center somewhere else or an AI or whatever," and I feel less human. But it also works the other way.

Of going, it's not as expensive. You don't have to form a long form letter to write to a friend. I want to do a whole podcast on this. Um, we're going to bring uh John back into the conversation. Um, I would love to maybe get Kyle Burkholder or or somebody else maybe because I know this is a this is a theme that that John's hitting on in his podcast as well but would love to uh dig into this and start to explore cuz I think we're really just starting to scratch the surface man. There were other things I wanted to get into like I wanted to get into you did a uh you posted one of your sermons on your podcast feed talking about little traumas and oh my gosh that that hit me at the right moment with the right message and so God used that that sermon on that podcast. I was driving Pine Crest Florida down here in Miami when I heard that and I literally pulled off the road to just process what you were hearing through that so that was really impactful. You have to, I'll, we'll put a link into the show notes for that. I want to ask this question because I want to know John P's response to this question and this may set up another conversation. Um, how do we get a generational church digitally because what you're describing is very relational. Um, and and one of the and one of the obstacles and I'm talking digital only church but I think it works for hybrid churches as well is we see a lot of um relationships that are often one-on-one so a man with a man, a woman with a woman uh that that type of thing, disciplemaking relationships um or maybe kids are doing things with kids. Now there are physical generational churches where you've got grandparents, parents and kids, you know in the same worship service in the same community. Um, I don't know that I've really seen or maybe I'm wrong but I don't know that I've seen that really happen in digital space yet. I I would love your take. What are we missing? What do we need to do? Like if we got maybe five minutes, I'd love your take.

Okay, my first thought is this is a little me machine. My my iPhone, my phone is a little me machine and so it is pushing us against generational churches because think about, okay, my, let's I'll just take my family. My mom, myself, my wife and my kids. When we go to the same church, we're all compromising something. We're all not necessarily getting our favorite thing in the whole world. So my mom may prefer hymns to rock music or we may prefer you know a certain smaller set. Like every generation has certain worshiping kind of preferences in terms of how they want to experience church and then the younger kids want to experience in a certain way and we try to do it in mega churches and all that but our phones have just hyper like focused on that of just like it is a little me machine. All of my preferences are captured on this, all of my everything, and so I don't have to compromise in any way. And so I think the digital efficiency of it, it's naturally going to lump us with people like us. It's it's just naturally going to lump us with people like us because through all of our preference we found it right through the algorithms through all of this stuff we found this digital church or through this relationship or through this Facebook ad or whatever. And so there's a lot of like to like it because so much of digital and now I'm getting way beyond my own brain because I'm talking computer stuff, so much of digital stuff is matching. A matches A so A goes there, B matches B so B goes there, C matches C so C goes there. So you're a sixty-three-year-old woman that's widowed living in San Antonio Texas. These are the ten things you're going to like. And you're a thirteen-year-old boy who is going through middle school who has searched a lot about Fortnite. Here are the ten things you're going to like. And so you like, you, you have these silos. And so a generational digital church is going to have to figure out how to break the silos of preference and come to one space together. And it's almost always a human choice. And so I am not good at some video games but sometimes I play with my kids just so that I can be a part of that world. And so I am so bad at Fortnite, Jeff, but my eight-year-old and maybe, look, I'm not saying you should let your eight-year-old play Fortnite but he's got a twelve-year-old big brother that does. So here's where we are. We made choices. So I'm not, I'm not judging you whether you let your kids or don't let your kids but my eight-year-old's like hey let's play together and he's on his switch and I'm on the Xbox and I'm terrible, terrible. And there are times that he's like okay dad like maybe I I kind of want to win now so I'm gonna play with brother. Um, but then there are times when he just wants to play with me because we're playing together. And so I I and I'm not like some big hero for that. It's just I think there's going to have to be some compromise when it comes to these things and it comes to us kind of getting out of these silos of preference and coming together for a truly digital expression of church because think about social media platforms, Jeff. Like a lot of young people are like you know I'm sure there's another social media that don't even know about. They're like you're not on Bleet Blorp and I'm like no and they don't tell us about Bleet Blorp because they don't want old people on Bleet Blorp because we ruin TikTok right? Millennials ruin TikTok and Boomers ruin Instagram. And so we have these like these age specific kind of platforms. That something's going to have to come through and break through these silos of preference to create a generational church. There's, it's the algorithm right? I mean the algorithm is trying to separate us with people that are just like us. And and and really healthy churches, dig physically, are not surrounded by people who look just like us. It's multicultural, it's multiracial, it's, it's, it's everything that's not. And and so it's how do we, how do we, you know, we want the algorithm to work for us but at the same time we want to combat the algorithm so we're not depending on it.

Yeah, well my friend Mary Charlotte Ellia said this on a podcast. Mary Charlotte Ellia said this. She said the algorithm is not your friend. Oh, I like that. The algorithm is not your friend. And I think that's a good place to start as we're building digital churches and everything is the algorithm makes things easy but it can really be, how, nine thousand real quick. Uh, the algorithm is a tool. It's not your friend. That that is so good right there. I I tell you what, John, um, I mean I've said it two or three times already in this podcast. We're going to do this again. Um, I I miss my friend and so uh would love to come on. We'll talk about hyperlocal. Uh, we'll talk about generational. Uh, we'll talk about a lot of this stuff. It's interesting. There's um, I mean these are these are the theme. I I didn't set out in twenty-twenty-four to kind of hit on these themes but you know we we've talked target audience several times with this Barbara Carrero. We've had that conversation with her. Generational with Barbara as well. Um, Megan hit a lot on on some of the mental health and soul care type of things. And so multiple themes hitting on that. Hyperlocal I think is going to be a continued theme um for for a season. And so man thanks for jumping on this podcast and and uh and and sharing a little bit from the heart like you're so so good at. But hey as we're uh as we're landing the plane here any any closing thoughts?

Oh man, it is so good to see you. And I love your beard. Uh, it's good. You like, even though we've never met, you're a figure in my life. You're Jefe and my wife knows who you are even though she's never met you and maybe has never seen you, has only heard your voice, boys. Um, but like it's so good to see you man. So before I go, I'm going to try to book another time so that we could, even if we don't podcast, even if we just chat, I would love that.

Yeah, let's let's do that. Let's let's just get together and and and chew the fat. So um, down here in in Miami. And this this goes to the state of my my my mental status in ministry. Okay, by the way, today I have lost ninety pounds since I quit ministry. Yeah, so talk about you know I'm a physical, I'm a train wreck but but emotionally I'm I'm in a much better place. And this is not, I, it was funny. I saw one of my employees this morning at Starbucks and I was like that's not to rip the church. Um, it's it's my mental status when I was working there. Um, I I couldn't, I couldn't handle what what was what was happening. And that's not ripping the situation. It's ripping me because I I was, I was the wrong fit for, they needed, but it was interesting. My nickname, my name is is Jeffrey Dale uh Reed, R-E-E-D, and and but my my nickname there was Ándale, uh, which is is basically the equivalent in Spanish and we're in Miami of the boss saying you know do it, do it now with urgency. And so like that was basically was was the the status. My nickname was basically the guy walking around yelling at everybody to get the crap done. And it's like well no wonder I was like one hundred pounds overweight and uh you know not liked by anybody and like cussed out by you know by people you know under their breath. And it's like hey you know what I was not the right guy for for for the season there. Um, but God, you know, even it's interesting, even going back to the opening question about disappointment. Um, that season of my life, this is you know early twenty-tens, mid-twenty-tens, um, there was a lot of disappointment centered around that. If I knew now how God was is going to use me uh to help guys like John who I've never even breathed the same air molecules with, um, I would realize that my faith was very small and that God has a bigger plans than what stupid thing I think he's calling me to do. Um, and so I I appreciate the journey that he's calling me on. And John, I appreciate the journey of walking this with you. Uh, but hey, we're going to land the plane. So for uh John, this is Jeff with the Church Digital. Uh, thanks for jumping on the podcast here. We'll see you next time on the show. You have a good day.