EP318 - Dr John Harris on Doing Ministry Outside the Church’s Four Walls

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.

Hey everybody, welcome to the stream here. We are streaming live on Twitch and the Church Digital. Hey, Jeff here. I hope you're having a good day. I'm looking forward to this conversation. We've got Dr. John coming into the conversation in just here a little bit. We're streaming a little late. I apologize for that. Honestly, Dr. John and I started having a conversation off air, lost track of time. Honestly, I love getting to hang out with this guy. I learn so much from him. He challenges me on a regular basis to think outside of the box, to stretch norms, and he's always, always, always bringing different ideas to the table. And so I'm excited about this.

So hey, listen, I'm trying to think, hey, you know what? I'm going to do this. I was not going to do this. I didn't tell leadership I was going to do this, but I'm going to do this because you guys, if you're watching this stream and if you're watching the podcast, like you're the inner crowd. And so I'm going to let you in here on a little secret here at the beginning of the podcast before we get into this with Dr. John.

The Church Digital, we're beta testing something right now, and like we're not even talking about this publicly. This is a very, very quiet beta. But since you're the podcast audience and since you're the streamer audience, we're going to let you get the inside scoop at this moment. I'll probably get in trouble for this. Barbara will yell at me, but it'll be okay.

Look, here's the deal. At the Church Digital, we are testing a new equipping digital missionaries online cohort that we are actually implementing globally in three or four different locations across the planet. It's going to start November 10th. It's a twelve-week course designed to help equip, to start to give normal people like you training on how to be a digital missionary. We talked about this a lot at Lazon, and oh my gosh, there was so much excitement centered around this as we're talking with missionaries about this and even in the digital space here in America, trying to give some clarity that some of us innovators, some innovators like you that are doing something different.

And so hey, just going to say this: we're not going to talk about this a lot, but I'm going to tell you this one time. If you're interested in this equipping digital missionaries course, it's completely free. It is beta, so we're looking for feedback, and it's going to start the week of November 10th. For more information, go ahead and swing over to thechurchdigital.com/EDM. Equipping Digital Missionaries. Dr.—no, I'm sorry—Jason Morris created and designed the course. A bunch of us have been curating it and putting it together, and it's going to be a lot of fun. So thechurchdigital.com/EDM for more information on that equipping digital missionary course.

And so hey, let me go ahead and bring into the conversation Dr. John. Hey, everyone, how you doing, sir?

I'm good. How are you?

Doing great. Thanks for jumping on the stream here. Looking forward to the conversation at hand. Now, if you're regular here with the Church Digital, you know Dr. John. Dr. John's no stranger. We've got a lot of new people as a result of Lazon and a lot more international audience. And so, you know, one thing, Dr. John, we'll talk about the book, I'm sure—Sharing Jesus Online—but maybe, Dr. John, to kick us off, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Okay, well, I grew up in a home with my dad as a pastor and my mom, a strong Christian woman, so I had a really good home, Christian foundation at home. And then I end up as a career being in ministry myself as a chaplain in the Air Force. And so I served there for nine years, including a tour in Iraq and Afghanistan as a hospital chaplain working with our wounded troops from our country and from other countries. And then after nine years there, I left the Air Force and worked at a church here in Northern California for about nine years as an executive pastor, Christian ed, small groups, outreach, all that kind of stuff. And then I stepped down from that to do church consulting full-time while at the same time looking at some of these trends of people leaving the church by the millions.

So when COVID happened in 2020 and a lot of churches were shifting to being online, I had stepped down from my position on staff at a church, so I wasn't really connected with a local congregation at the time, except a client I did have a church consulting client. And so my wife and I started Hearts Like His in 2021. There was a Facebook group, and mainly just focusing on teaching about the Father's Heart, the father heart of God, and discipling people in that regard.

Jeff, am I breaking up on your end?

Yeah, either you are or I am. Maybe that's me. Let me move something on my side and let me test. I'll hold something off on your side too.

All right, let's see if that helps. Keep going, sir, if you can.

Okay. So when we started, we were kind of riding the wave of everyone being online, so we didn't have to try to legitimate an online ministry because everyone was trying to be online. But we were online only. We started online through Facebook and through Zoom and really developed quite an interest. So we had about five hundred people join our group. And so that's been kind of my intro into online church.

And I was really inspired by people like Angela Craig, you know, back in the day. Angela was pioneering digital church, especially with Facebook. And so I got some inspiration from that and launched into it. And so then I connected with you, Jeff, through—I don't even know what year that was—but yeah, we connected. And you know, really trying to get into the weeds of what does this really look like? Because honestly, even though I was doing digital church, I didn't call it that, and we had our conversations about that. I still had some traditional church mentality. And so I was learning that that doesn't always translate well into the digital space. So I was learning a whole lot about the context of digital ministry and the culture of digital ministry and really exposing what I thought as far as traditional church that was not working and discovering what was working better to develop digital communities and relationships online and things like that.

And so yeah, Hearts Like His for a few years, and then we shifted more intentionally to Purpose Beyond the Pews, just trying to recapture and connect with those who left the church. Our tagline is equipping former church leaders to live out their faith in everyday lives. So yeah, that's where we're at. Purpose Beyond the Pews is really what I wanted to focus on.

And I'm glad you brought that up because I'll be honest, like I don't really know a lot about what you're doing. Like we haven't had a conversation about that necessarily. Like we always talk Hearts Like His, and there's always a part of that, but you know, maybe just even as we're getting started, talk to me a little bit about what you're doing with Purpose Beyond the Pews.

Yeah, so a big part of that is based on this premise from a couple of research ideas that talked about how many people had left the church. Right? So Josh Packard's book, published in 2015, Church Refugees, talked about sixty-five million people had left the church. Thirty million left Christianity altogether. Thirty-five million kept their faith but just left the traditional model of church for a variety of reasons, right? And it's not just, oh, they got mad and then they left. No, there's other things that caused them to leave.

And he and Mutz said, most churches, we know the eighty-twenty rule, right? Twenty percent of the folks doing eighty percent of the work. And he said these thirty-five million, a lot of them coming from that twenty percent. So in my mind, I'm thinking, okay, these are people who were invested. These are people who were on staff, they were volunteers, they're tithers, givers, serving, all those kinds of things. And now they're not even doing any of that at all. Now they're not engaged at all. They were active, and now they're not at all. Well, what are they doing? What's happening, right?

So part of my goal with Purpose Beyond the Pews is to reach out to those people who are now not in a local context anymore, where those giftings and callings and passions that God put inside of them were being expressed in a local congregation. I wanted to capture them and say, hey, I get it. If a traditional model didn't work for you, I get it. But you're still called. You're still gifted. You're still on mission. And you still need community. So let's talk about that. What does it look like for former church leaders to live out their faith in everyday lives?

And so a big part of what I'm doing there is number one, unraveling some of the traditional idea of what it means to be in a local church and to serve and give and all those kinds of things. Because so many local churches, in the name of self-preservation, frame all of serving around serving in a ministry. So then if you're not in a local church ministry anymore, folks don't even know what to do. I'm coming along inside them and saying, okay, look, that's not you. Everything that God put inside of you was not made for inside the congregation, right? It's actually made to change the world. So let's look at your job. Let's look at your other places where you live, work, and play, and how can you be on mission in those particular spaces?

And so that's a big part of what we're doing with Purpose Beyond the Pews: look and see how can you take what you've learned from being in a local context, right? There's a lot of experiences there of being in ministry. How does that translate into the marketplace? So what's interesting, Jeff, is that you know, a lot of pastors who were, maybe their whole career was ministry, ministry, ministry, ministry—that's all they know is ministry. Then some of them are in that thirty-five million. I mean, we've seen some reports of some staff now pastors leaving, saying, I can't, I'm just not really feeling this model anymore. But sometimes they stay in that model because they don't know what to do in the marketplace. They don't know how the skill sets that they develop in ministry translate into the marketplace. Well, same way with some people in church ministries as volunteers or staff positions. So I'm helping them see what does that look like in the marketplace and how does your actual job play out in your role as a missionary?

And so helping them see these other contexts as places for them to honor God, serve God, glorify God, be on mission is one of the things that we're doing in Purpose Beyond the Pews. And so it started off looking at debunking some common myths about people leaving the church, right? Yeah, so that's a whole another thing we talk about. So I want to debunk those myths about people who were leaving the church because some of them had some stuff in their head because of what they were told to try to keep them.

Them to stay, right? To try to get them to stay. And they were told some things that were not true. And so that's kind of got them stuck when it comes to living out mission. So I had to debunk some myths. Then we had to talk about APEST. How do you fit into APEST? What's your APEST gifting? And how's that look in your marketplace, marketplace role? And what does giving look like if you're not connected to a local church? So anyway, that's a little bit what—no, no, all this is great.

Um, I've got ukulele here in Twitch saying, "If what God gifted you was meant for outside the congregation, then serving within the church walls is going to feel unfulfilling." And we do that. We see someone that is gifted and we try to plug them into the church in the building. Yeah, every time. Yeah. And that can be unfulfilling, you know? It was interesting. I—this is going to be maybe a long story. I apologize, but it fits in here where I was working at a church and had a relationship with—just a friendship with—the lead pastor. And coming back from Christmas break one year, I just happened to get to the office early like I normally would, and I went and walked past the lead pastor's office. And the lead pastor, literally it's January 2nd or before the office had opened, and he's just bawling in his office. He's just crying, like emotionally, like ugly crying. And so I walked into his office and I'm like, "Hey, what's going on?" And basically, over the Christmas break, someone had sent him an email. Like one of the grandmothers of the church—like one of these, you know, been there fifty years, has prayed over every baby type of person—one of the grandmothers of the church was leaving and was leaving the church to go to another church. And she had sent an email like a week earlier and just hadn't—she hadn't seen it. And the reason that she said she was leaving was that she was no longer being fed at the church. And he just was emotionally devastated at this idea.

It was interesting. I started to talk to him and I was like, "So what do you—" It's like, when you preach, basically I went to like the Engel Scale with him. It's like, "Hey, so when you preach, that's like what you're like? More evangelical? So you're like pre-Christ to like, you know, maybe just accepting Christ, right? So like on a number scale it'd be like negative one to two?" It's like, "Yeah, yeah, that's fine. I like—okay. So small groups is like two to what, three or four? Because your small groups are pretty basic?" I like, "Yeah, no, no, that's good. That's good." And I was like, "So what's this woman?" And he's like, "Oh, she's like a seven or an eight or a nine. Like she's incredible." And I was like, "Well, how was your church ever utilizing her at that level? Or how were you empowering her and helping her to do her ministry where she was doing that? At what point did you ever try to get her off of spiritual milk and get her on solid food? Or tell her that at this point she should be eating steak on her own?" Yeah, like you never. Where did that happen in the context of this decades-long relationship with this woman? And he really just realized, "Oh my gosh, we've not been challenging people beyond to do this." And it was fascinating. The church actually went through a pivot as a result of this one situation. Yeah, he wrote a book on this. Like all this activity kind of happened in that space, and it was so much fun to see a pivot of that. But I'm guessing there's a lot of people that are walking away from the church in a similar situation where they're deconstructing what they're seeing. They have a desire to do more, but really there's not a lot of option for people to, or at least organized options for people to do ministry outside of the church building space. Would that be accurate?

Oh, one hundred percent. So here's what's interesting. You said there's not a lot of organized options, right? And church folks have been trained to not think outside the box but think outside the building. Like they would literally neglect opportunities where God plants them. They'll neglect those because it's not a church-created ministry opportunity, right? The church creates the organized ministries and sanctioned, validated, approved ministries. And a lot of church folk don't think of engaging the one person or the space that they're in. They only think of church first. Let me join a church ministry created by the professionals, created by the few for the many. And that's kind of the thing. To think church first. And like I think you said the person's name was ukulele in Twitch, you know? Yeah, when people are created to take over the world, right, with mission and the gospel and love of Christ and all—I mean, just boom, boom, boom—then they are going to feel unsatisfied sitting in the pews. And that's not even being discussed, talked about, validated.

So let's think about this. Think about how frustrating it is and how common of a practice it is, but how frustrating it is for church staff, many pastors to do volunteer recruitment, right? You've got hundreds or in some cases thousands of people sitting out every week listening to the same volunteer needs. We need more folks in kids ministry. We need more. We need more. Now, why is it that all those people are sitting out there listening to those needs all the time, all the time, and you always have a deficiency? You're always struggling to either get volunteers or keep volunteers? My hypothesis is they know that doesn't match their purpose. And no matter how we try to spin it and have a church-centric experience of Christianity—gotta love your church, love the house, you know, you're called to serve the house—called us? No, no, no, not really. That.

And so we think about some of the language we use to put the church first and all this kind of stuff, right? You do a four-week growth track for new members. Four-week growth track. And in those four weeks you're typically going to learn about your church history. You're going to learn about the importance of you giving, the importance of you serving. And there's going to be some class that says "Discover Your Purpose," right? Yeah, really catchy. Purpose Driven Life book. People, purpose, purpose, purpose, right? Even my group, purpose beyond the pews. People looking for purpose. But in the "Discover Your Purpose" class, I'm going to go through a gift assessment. And then as I go through that gift assessment, you're going to have a list of ministries in your church that you're going to try to match me with. Now that's not me discovering my purpose. That's me discovering my volunteer role, right? Because you put church first, right?

No, I have yet to meet a church that says, "Let's discover your giftings. And we have a set of a list of two lists. We have one for ministries inside their church and one for serving opportunities outside of our church in our local community. We're going to see which ones best fit you." No one ever talks about, "You need to serve in this area in our city and in our community." No one ever says that. It's always the church, the church, a church. And so I was on a podcast recently and I was talking with the pastor and he was like, "Yeah, I think trying to get more people to serve, more people to serve, more people to serve, because I think Christians need to serve. It's, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, you know, talk about the theology of serving." You know, I said, "Let me ask you this question. I agree with you that every Christian needs to serve. But if you have a parent who is serving an hour a day, five hours a week at their kid's middle school, would you count that? Or would you still want them to serve in your kids ministry? Like would it not matter because you still need volunteers? Like your whole thing about serving is volunteers, right? As far as God is concerned, as far as the kingdom is concerned, that person serving at their kid's school in the classroom and on the playground and with the PTA—like God sees that. You wouldn't see that. But you probably get that person to feel guilty and still, 'You gotta serve, serve in the house, right? Serve in the house.' And we need you here and all this kind of stuff."

Let's see. Yeah, you're freezing a bit, but you're still there. We could still hear you. Keep going.

Okay. All right. And so what I want him to see is how he's putting the church or his idea. It's not just, "We want all believers to serve." It's, "No, you want believers to serve in the church first, and then if you have extra time, then you can serve out in the community. Then you can serve out in the world." So what purpose beyond the pews? I'm saying, look at it. And it's easier to do when folks aren't connected to a local church, right? And I would say our community online is church. So it's not like that's still missing. But I would say, hey, like me, for example. I have one of my kids has soccer practice, another kid has dance practice, gymnastics. So every single week for an hour I'm sitting next to a group of parents every single week for months, right? How do I connect with them, right? So there are places I think we can have our folks on mission if we stop, if we put mission first instead of church first.

And so with this group that's already left the church—at least the traditional model of church, right? When I say left the church, I mean the traditional model. They still love Jesus, still love connecting with believers, but they don't like some of the bureaucracy and some of the things that they've experienced and other things like that. They just want to be on mission. So that's kind of where purpose beyond the pews comes in at, just acknowledging them, validating them, and helping them see mission first.

But peeling off the layers of church first, church first, church. One person said, "Well, since I'm not connected to local church, where do I give my offering?" Think about that question. Says, "I'm not connected to local church. Where do I give my offering?" You don't know where you can give money because you're not in church, right? Again, church focus.

I said, "I said, think about this, right? Now my kids are homeschooled. But if one of my kids was at this middle school or whatever, I know through some previous adopted school ministries with churches that a lot of teachers come out of pocket for kids' supplies, right? A lot of teachers come out of pocket. So if my kid is in this particular school and I'm thinking, where can I give money? I'm gonna have a conversation with that with my kid's teacher. And I said, 'Listen, field trip. If you got any kids struggling to afford a field trip, you talk to me. I got them. I'm adopting your whole classroom all year. You do not come out of pocket for anything. No papers, no crayons, no apples on the corner of your desk, no nothing. You have a need, you can talk to me.' I've adopted this classroom. Now when my kid goes to the next class next year, you're on your own. But because I'm gonna do the same thing with my kid's other class. Like I'm right. So my point is there are opportunities to give and to serve outside of the church, and we have to have these conversations with Christians because all they think about is church, church, church, church, church. So then when they pop out, they don't know what to do. They don't know how do I see mission? How do I translate mission? How do I respond to the needs? They're so used to thinking the church is supposed to respond to that stuff instead of me owning some kind of responsibility and owning where I'm at, owning a—

A realm or a society that I'm in and saying, "No, this is my mission field. I don't need a pastor. I don't need the board to approve my ministry idea. I am the ministry idea. I am sent by Jesus, and I'm going to handle business like that."

So you were doing it, you were doing Hearts Like His, a digital church, Facebook church, and then you launch this separately or in tandem because it's almost like it's a one-two punch.

It does feel that way. Where did this idea come from? Were there examples of this coming out of Hearts Like His that kind of that fire? Like, what was the spark here?

Yeah, um, I had this initially even with Hearts Like His. So when we started Hearts Like His, we started with, okay, let's do something online to reach the people who have left the church. Although, like I said, because of COVID, everybody was online. And so a lot of people who were in Hearts Like His course still connected to the church, but they were just everyone was at home, right? There's no Bible studies, no AWANA, everyone's at home. So they were plugged in.

So then when, um, AWANA—oh my gosh, yeah, is AWANA still around? There's a throwback. Wow. Yeah. So when church Bible studies were shut down, midweek service shut down, all like all that kind of stuff, a lot more people were still in Hearts Like His who were like I said, trying to disciple hearts in the Father's love, right? And so in theory, I also wanted to target those who left the church. But because everyone was at home, everyone was in Hearts Like His. But now as churches open back up, now the reason for purpose to be on the pews is now there is a more intentional focus on those who've left the church. So I'm not so much talking about discipleship and the Father's love and role of the father in the Gospel like I was initially, because that really matches everybody, whether you left the church or not. Now the intentionality is the same group I had in my mind for all those years. Now it's more of intentional focus to say, now this is more of an equipping community, yeah, than I would say the teaching and the discipleship community. It's more equipping and launching. So that's been our focus.

Yeah, you know, it's interesting. I got pulled into a conversation on LinkedIn, um, maybe yesterday, a couple days ago, where they were really talking about how there were institutions that were equipping for ministry within the institutions. Like, you know, it's all about serving within those institutions. Like you're talking about, hey, we need kids, we need production, we need first impression volunteers to shake hands and all that. But um, there was this—it was interesting on the graph. There was this void when it was talking about like in the world and in public where there was not a lot of organizations or people that were serving the broader public. That's kind of what it was phrased as. And it was so fun. It was like a CEO of a corporation that did this post, and um, somebody in the church digital kind of tagged me and was like, "Oh, well Jeff Reed's working into that." So now the CEO's like, "What are you doing?" So like, I'm trying to jump into that conversation and I think we got a meeting scheduled towards that. But there's something. But even like, you know, Red Cross is like, "Hey, do this," but you know, they need money because they're trying to do their model and they're trying to do their model and they're trying to do their model. Um, it was really interesting for me when we were in Korea. Um, the way that when we would talk with missionaries about like how we want to train their people to do their thing, and it was all like training the trainer and being open-handed, like, "Hey, we're just equipping you with this and you can adapt it and change it and do whatever you want." Like, it was a very—in hindsight, looking at how emotional they got—it was a very selfless move. Like, "Hey, this material is free. You adapt it into your language. You contextualize it. What works for you? You know, take the course and then we're giving it to you." Um, I don't know that we see a lot of that train-the-trainer approach. It's everyone is trying to feed their model or sustain their thing versus volunteering. Is this like making sense? What is it about? Is it self-preservation? Is it um, what is it that causes us to think more internally instead of being more giving?

It's the primary characteristic of an institutional model of church. Every institution um has self-preservation as a primary core value. How can we not just sustain but grow and all kind of stuff? So to do that, the church has trained Christians to put the church first, not the mission first. To put the church first. So um, and there is kind of taught this kind of allegiance to the local congregation. Now we're all many members, one body. The New Testament talks to us over and over about serving one another, encouraging one another, praying for one another, all those kind of things. Um, but we have been taught to put all of our resources, especially our time and money, into the church first.

And so part of what happens is that—this is my personal belief now. I haven't done any research or anything like that, no nationwide report—but what happens is when we turn the attention of people inward, as this is where number one you get your source of everything. So come to the church to experience the presence of God. Think about that language, right? Come here, you're going to experience presence of God. Christians aren't really taught you can experience the presence of God at home. You know why? Because of temptation. They might stay home. We don't want to say that, right? We're not really taught, "Give to your neighborhood. Give at your job. Give." We're not taught that because we got to give here first, right? Support the house. We really are taught this internal focus because our leadership is internally focused. Our leadership is internally focused because our salaries are connected to what's happening here. Our mortgages and leases and all the financial obligations—like, we really need people's time and attention and money here so that we can survive. And if there is time, money, and resources after that, then you can give to missions.

And so I mean, uh, that's just kind of baked into this particular model. A side effect of that is that we're not equipping people to go out and to do things because there's almost like this idea of, you know, I'll put it this way: in some cases, some churches see the mission of Christ as a threat to the body of Christ, to the existence of it, the health of it. If you start going out there, you're going to leave us, right? If you start going out there, you're gonna leave us. Um, think—let's call that subconscious. Subconsciously, maybe. Let's, you know, I don't know, consciously doing that, but subconsciously, okay? Yep.

And so here's one of that. Think about how many times maybe some of you people watching the stream—they were in a church, they came up with a missional idea, and it got shut down. It got shut down. No, no, no, because it was too risky. We don't want—we don't have the volunteers for that, the money for that, no time on the space on the calendar for that. We don't like these missional ideas. They get shut down because it could take resources away from the actual church. Um, me, on the other hand, and others like me—I'm not the only one out there like this—but we're one. Important shift is to go from teaching center to training center, where we're teaching the people to go out there, to spend time out there, to spend money out there, to invest out there in the mission. But guess what that does, Jeff? You're not in the building as much anymore, and that's a problem, right? So literally, the mission of Jesus is a threat to the institutional model itself and its sustainability and its surviving.

If I'm pastoring an institutional model of church and you have a hundred dollars as a member, you have a hundred dollars, and you have to decide if you're going to spend a hundred dollars at the local school or in the church, where do you think most pastors are going to tell you to put that hundred dollars? Maybe even tell you to split it, maybe tell you to do something, because it's right. So when I don't have all of those things that I need you to give to, that's why I can tell people online, "I don't—you don't have to. If you want to give, you can, but I want—I prefer that you give where you are planted. Where you're planted. I don't need you to sow a seed to me and then trust that I'm going to do the right thing with it. Not when you can sow that same seed in your community with people that you know, people that you see, people who will see that generosity as an evidence of Christ's love in your community."

You don't have to do that. Like, people all on online, all over the world, you given me a hundred dollars, uh, is great. But you giving that school, you giving your kid's soccer team, you sponsoring that kid who can't afford the uniform and saying to that parent, "Hey, listen, don't worry about it. I, my hundred dollars, I'm going to buy your kid a soccer uniform or the gymnastics uniform," or your kid can't go on the trip, I'm gonna sponsor your kid. That you give—if you have, you give your hundred dollars to that. Don't give it to me. You give it to that, right?

So because I—because we have low overhead with low all the stuff—I don't have staff, team building, leases, all that kind of stuff—I can push you towards that. But I'm telling you, it's a renewing of the mind for Christians to go, "Huh, I guess I can give to that." Yes, yes, you can.

Um, yeah. So but I think a big shift is equipping, equipping, equipping. And more people are looking for equipping. They're not looking for all these deep revelations and insights from sermons anymore. They want to know how to do some stuff. They want to know how to pray for people, how to lead people to Jesus, how to study the word on their own, how to um, lead a home church. How to—they want to know how to do stuff.

You're questioning me before looking at Purpose Beyond the Pews, and some of my inspiration—have I been seeing some of that? I have, absolutely, have absolutely.

Um, there's one guy who, uh, his name is Mike. He works in—he has this thing called Dignity Day, right? Where he ministers to the homeless from haircuts and manicures, pedicures, and health and social services booths out there to really help have this whole holistic view of serving the homeless and all this kind of stuff. And God told me—says, "When you do this, don't launch it out of your church because you and I know if something is sponsored by a church, then it puts up a wall for other churches to be involved and all kind of stuff." So yeah, there—not one church is supposed to own this. And so guess what? He has like fifteen churches involved in Dignity Day. He's got like twenty-something other local organizations. They all come together because not one person owns it.

But here's my thing. Here's my thing. This wasn't something approved by his church. His church supports it. They send volunteers out there, but it wasn't like he was like, "Hey, Pastor, I have this idea." No, he just did it. That's the Purpose Beyond the Pews. He just did it. And it's been eight years now. Over two hundred homeless people are served on this thing. It's just like this crazy outreach. Purpose Beyond the Pews. It's not a church ministry. God put it in his heart. He—now, I'm not—I'm not saying I'm responsible. He was doing way before. I'm just saying this is an example of I like to see even more things like that happen. That's an example of Purpose Beyond the Pews.

Gets local Orcs together, local churches together, 200 people are served. That's beyond. So I like to see that. Another lady who is part of Hearts Like His and Purpose Beyond the Pew, she started a prison ministry. She's in Colorado. This prison ministry that has expanded to now women coming out of prison. She has homes for them now where she is now, I would say the pastor of these homes to help women transition from prison into their family life again, learning new job skills and all. She like lives with them. She has these homes now. The city has given them money, thousands of dollars, and it's going so well that she just baptized 25 ladies in prison just a couple of weeks ago. The city's like, "We need you to open another house because this house is full. You need more opportunities." So they're giving you a whole new house and the money for a brand new van to drive these ladies around. She drove from Colorado Springs to Illinois to help this mom pick up her son, to bring her son back to Colorado, and bringing this whole new life. Like, that's purpose beyond the pews. That's not a church ministry. Some God put in her heart from years ago that she's now launched. Like, that's the kind of—these are two examples of what I'm talking about of people beyond the pews living out their purpose, and lives are being changed by it.

So yeah, so much of what we do with the church digital is we give—we were talking about this offline—like we give permission to digital missionaries, to digital church planters, the people who are thinking outside the box to do it. You know, Cis Pineapple, writing in Twitch right now, where she's talking about how she did a proposal. She drew up a proposal to help an old folks home. She gave it to the church missions team and that basically ignored her. The missions team ignored her, so she just went and did it herself. You know, and so a lot of times, you know, we give permission. Hey, that's a great idea. Why don't you do it? What you're just saying is don't even ask for permission. Just do it.

Yeah, this is what we're doing and ask if anybody wants to come along. Like, who? This is what I'm doing. Just join me. So it's almost a pivot. Like the church—you know, I'm saying this gently with respect—the church doesn't have permission to tell you yes or no. Just find a way to do it and then ask them and others to come along on the road.

Exactly. And so people who have left the church, right, you know, kind of like this idea of, you know, even when the Israelites when they left Egypt, they still had Egypt in them. You know, they still struggle with going to the promised land. Even when people have left the church, they still have this institutional mentality. Like they still can't do anything without a pastor's authority. So now if you don't have a pastor, you have this idea that God put in your heart. Like, what do you do? They're just sitting on it. I'm coming along and saying, why do you need the pastor to approve your ministry idea? You don't. You were taught that. You don't. That's not biblically. That's not the role of shepherds. The role of shepherds in the church is not to approve everybody's ministry idea, not to approve thumbs up or thumbs down to everyone's life decision. That again is part of the internal mental institutional mentality of this hierarchy in the church that's not the pastor's role. The pastor's role is not to have the say-so on everybody's life and everyone's decision and everybody's ministry. And so yes, to Cis Pineapple, I'm like, go out, go out there and do it. And guess what? God will bring people alongside you who share in that same ministry, that same idea, that same affinity, so to speak, or interest. And basically kind of have a missional community. Like, that's what the Temple Underground would call it. And K sits in a missional community, right? There's a mission and you develop a community around that shared interest in that mission. But my thing is, you don't need a pastor's approval. If you're in a local church, now some—let me put it this way. Some Christians are mature enough to be able to stand on this position of, "I love my church. I love my pastor. I don't need him or her to approve everything that I'm doing, right?" And that's biblical. That's true. But some are like, "Well, what if my pastor doesn't approve?" What if your pastor doesn't approve? Then okay, then just sit there, right? So some have left and I'm saying, "You got it. Let's launch what's on your heart, what's on your mind," and coaching them through how to get started and that kind of thing. Others are still connected to the church but they know they can still launch their own thing. And other times, people feel like they're so indoctrinated, like the pastor has to approve every single thing. Says what scripture? There's no scripture for that. That's an institutional model and the hierarchy that's been set up.

Now, the church—that's why you have folks sitting out there by the hundreds and thousands not living out their purpose beyond the pews, waiting only for a church-created ministry that they can serve in. That's not how it's set up. God has put dreams in the hearts of every single believer, and we have a lot of missional potential sitting there waiting on the church to come up either with an idea or to approve the ideas, and it's just sitting there. So when a small group of people come up with ministry ideas, now they try to sell it to the church and try to recruit people for those ideas. That's not how their church's mission is supposed to operate. That's why they sit out there week after week listening to volunteer recruitment strategies and calls for volunteers, and they're not doing anything. And if they do, it's for some big event two or three times a year. Like, that's not our purpose.

You know what I love about this conversation? It's two digital guys having a conversation. We've really not talked about anything in context of digital ministry, digital discipleship, digital mission. Like, this has all been very practical, physical-oriented, applying in either space guidance. Like, this has been, to be honest, this has been probably one of the more disruptive podcast conversations I've had in months. And it's not—and it's not technologically based. Like, we're not saying the church needs to address the technological basis or hybrid needs to be redefined or anything like that. Be comfortable with digital discipleship. Like, it's very grounded in the relation, the role of the pastor, and then the relationship of the Holy Spirit within us to operate outside of the church, not just within the four walls.

Yeah, so yeah, that's a disruptive idea. Yeah, how do we disrupt that idea while being respectful to the church and the four walls and the operation of the ministry that's in place? Because it's very easy to hear, and I know your heart, I know you're not doing this, but it's very easy to hear a disruption, and I'm guilty of that all the time. But how? What's that balance between respect and challenge that we need to be walking here?

I think the balance is definitely relational, right? So say you have a person who is sitting in their congregation. They love their pastor. They love their church. They love their people. But there's a dream that God put on the inside of them. And maybe it's like what Cis Pineapple—like, there's this story all the time. As a matter of fact, Josh Packer wrote about this in his book Church Refugees. That people have left because they feel like they could not stay. The whole idea—refugees—you leave a place you prefer to stay. You felt you can't stay anymore. Some of the reasons he talked about are the bureaucracy. That people have a vision that they have for what they want to do or serve, or the gifting is coming out, but those ideas are squashed. I would say to have some honest conversations with your pastor or ministry leader or whoever and see where they are with this. They likely—I mean, think about this, Jeff. There's not one church that has the budget to support every church member's ministry idea, right? At some point, your idea has got to be not only launched outside the building but maybe even funded outside the building. You can bless someone as a church. If you're a pastor, you can bless someone and say, "We bless that idea in you. We support that idea. We don't have the funds to support it, but if you just need my affirmation, my validation, then you have it. Go and run with it." And then you're on your own to take off with it.

Where the tension comes is what do you do if that idea is not validated and it's not blessed by your church leadership? Now what do you do? Now you're sitting on it. And here's the deal: what God's going to hold you accountable for is what he told you to do, not what the pastor approved or not. So in honor of the hierarchy that you're in, to say, "Listen, Pastor, if this is you, Pastor, I love you. I've been a member of this church for five, ten years, blah blah blah, right? I support this ministry. I'm still maybe even giving here or whatever, but I really feel like God has called me to do A, B, and C, and this is what I plan on doing." So the challenge, the disruption piece is, where does a person lean if they don't have pastoral approval on something? Do they still go for it or do they not go for it? And that's really an individual decision. I don't think you have to. I think also part of the honor in relationship, you don't have to be a church-split kind of person. You don't have to. Things don't have to go that far. Hopefully they don't have to go that far. But you got to stand on what God is—you feel like God has called you to do, whether your church is supporting it or not. But I also would say that sometimes church leadership can help you discern. Not every idea is the Lord's idea. Not every idea is a God idea, and church leadership can help you balance that out and really discern what God's saying. But there's a difference there between that happening versus the idea being shut down.

Yeah, so yeah, like I've given you a couple of examples. The person who's doing the prison ministry—she's still connected to a local church, but this ministry is not her church's ministry, right? The idea I gave you with Mike and Dignity Day—he's still connected to his local church, but Dignity Day is not his church's ministry. His church is involved, but it's not his church's ministry. So these are a couple of ideas. People are still connected to local church and participating, but that's not their church's ministry. They're still living out whatever that purpose is that God has for them.

I don't think by doing ministry outside of the box, you're really outside of the four walls. You're really separating community of the church from the ministry activity, and so often like that's been united. And that's really just the indoctrination—is a strong word—but that's just the way that ministry is done when it's within the four walls. Like, help the four walls exist, help the programming. It's all about the programming. It's all about the model. But by doing it outside that, now you still need the community. You still need the foundation, whether that's physical or digital, IRL or online, you know, we can—you're fine with that, I know—but you still need that community space for support and encouragement. But you're doing ministry separate from that community base. So when you're doing, like, you know, you're talking about Dignity Day, Mike—who encourages him? Who is the—like, does he have a team of people he's walking with?

at this point, friends, has he developed co-workers? Like, what's the evolution of somebody who starts an idea outside of the church and then grows it and multiplies it here? Here's a very important factor of that. Number one, if it's the Lord's idea, he's going to really answer those questions in relationships, resources, all those kinds of things. So let's take Mike's example, and he's doing it for eight years now. A lot of the volunteers at Dignity Day are coming from his church, but like I said, it's not a church-sponsored event. It's announced at the church as well as other churches as well. Like I said, twelve to fifteen churches involved. So he has the support and blessing of the church, but it didn't come from the church's idea. No pastor on staff came from that idea, and that church doesn't own it. The benefit of being connected to a church and having in doing this is that when people get saved or need to be discipled, that there is a community that you can bring them into that is part of that. As you're catching fish, so to speak, is part of that. Right. So I'm not advocating people leaving their church to do this kind of stuff. What I'm saying is you may have to do it without your church's backing, you know, getting volunteers from any church or finances from any church. But if this is the Lord's idea, he's going to bring that. You can find some people, even from other churches, who have the same passion for the ministry that can also be involved in that. So we're not talking about separating from community for the sake of mission, but we are talking about not letting a hierarchical structure suppress you stepping out in faith on a ministry idea that God has, that God has called you to do.

So I use a digital platform to help encourage these individuals and support them and pray for them. There are also digital examples of this. Another person in our Purpose Beyond the Pews, she, you would have considered her somebody who doesn't speak a whole lot and things like that, but because of a ministry online, she got involved in a prayer ministry in our group. So her, another lady, matter of fact, the one that's doing the prison ministry in Colorado, were going live prayer in our group every week, like Facebook Live. People have put their prayer needs in there. So live prayer. Now it was interesting to me because, again, she's the person that doesn't say a whole lot in public, right? Traditionally, she's started to do more and more of that in the past few years because of what's been happening in the digital community, the equipping, the encouragement, shifting some paradigms. So guess what she does now? Every week, she posts on her own personal Facebook page, "If you have any prayer needs, send me a DM." She has this online prayer ministry that she's doing.

Another guy, who was part of Hearts Like His and Purpose Beyond the Pews, he has his own digital evangelism ministry now. He's an older guy in his sixties, and he has a heart for evangelism, but he doesn't like to speak out loud. He doesn't like to record videos. And so what he's done is he created a Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok account, which was a big deal for this guy. Like, he's from a non-tech person, right? To now he has three channels. And he watches teaching and stuff online. He actually records it, edits it, and he posts clips of other people preaching and teaching. And now he responds to people in the comments and DMs. He has one hundred followers on TikTok now. He's in thirty-five countries where his videos are now being seen, all from his home. He has a legit online digital evangelism ministry from his home. Where did he get that idea from? He didn't get it from talking to his pastor and saying, "This is what I'm thinking." He got it from our community that validates online ministry, online evangelism. And he definitely has read that book right there. But that's what I'm saying. It's a purpose beyond the pews. And so there's prayer ministries, online evangelism, online, those two examples I gave, and then also the Dignity Day that's in person, and the prison ministry that's in person. But the community that has been backing them and supporting them and praying for them, the digital community has been part of that.

So yeah, yeah, I mean, I think that's how, like, my follow-up question was going to be, how does sharing Jesus online fit into all this, you know? The book, the idea, Dr. John and I co-wrote a book together. He was the brains, and I was the pretty face. Where are that? Actually, that's my common go-to. I find smart people and just back them. But no, like the idea of sharing Jesus online, utilizing digital, you know, we have a lot of digital missionaries watching this and people that do digital space things in digital space. You know, it's not asking permission, not looking for alignment, doing your own thing, finding community where you can, you know, places like the Church Digital towards that. But you're still involved in a church that doesn't understand. Like, how do you deal with that? Tension may not be the right word. You know, I've been in situations where it's awkward, like even in my own church. My own, my own, I love my pastor, pastor, but you know, he has no idea what I do at a general role. He just doesn't understand it. He's not grounded in that. And so, you know, at a personal level, like, you know, I actually sat down and tried to explain to him the other day how Korea went, and the conversation went about fifteen minutes until he had an emergency and had to take off. And it was like, yeah, I mean, it just was a loss. How do we, you know, reconcile? Feel, how do we process these moments where we're trying to find approval, acceptance, understanding, yeah, from people that may not be able to give that to us?

Okay, so one of the things I would say is really get biblical on how much leverage church leadership should have over your decisions about this. And you're going to have to come to terms with the sense of disappointment you're going to have for not feeling supported for something that you know God has really called you to do or stirred up in you. Here, here's the reality. Here's the reality. Church leadership in many contexts is not going to share the passion for ministry that God has put inside of everyone in those congregations. Not only do they not have the budget to support it, they don't have the passion for it. All that's what APEST is all about. If you're evangelistic and your pastor is a shepherd, your pastor is not really going to be focusing on going after like that the same way that you would. If you're apostolic, you like starting new things. The shepherd that sees new things as a threat to the nurture and care of those who are there is not going to. If you have an apostolic drive, you're going to be frustrated sitting under a shepherd and expecting a shepherd to approve that apostolic calling and ideas. To some degree, you're going to have to find a way. If you're wanting to stay connected to that church, to honor the leadership there, love them, support them, but find the freedom to not feel chained to their approval because, say, when you stand before the King and he asks you, "What did you do with the gift he's given to you?" What you cannot say is, "I would have done more, but my pastor didn't like it."

Yeah, yeah, I would. You know, Jesus, you were there. My pastor didn't approve. That's why I didn't do it. Think about the parable of the talents, right? One has four, one has two, I mean, whatever. And the King comes back. "What'd you do?" "Well, I took the two and made it four." "I took, well, I buried it, right?" Another contemporary version of burying it is, "I didn't get my pastor's approval." What are you going to say to Jesus about that? He's going to say, "I didn't tell your pastor to do it. I told you to do it. I'm your Lord. I'm your Master, and your pastor is nowhere on my level when it comes to leading your life and guiding your life. Nowhere on my level." And that's the place where the church is tripping some people up. The pastor is not the center of Christianity. Jesus is. The pastor is not the one who's called you, sent you, filled you, and gifted you. Jesus is. So at some level, you're going to have to wrestle to resolve within yourself. You're a follower of Jesus. Jesus has sent you on mission, and it doesn't have to shatter relationships with your pastors and churches. And not, it doesn't have to do that. But ultimately, you're going to think about who you're responding to or who you're accountable to. And the reality is, Jeff, some relationships can be maintained in this. They're healthy enough to be maintained in these contexts. Like, I've given you two examples of healthy ones. But in some cases, you might have to leave. That's sad when it happens. Disappointing when it happens. Hurtful when it happens. But in some cases, the mission is going to require it, and there's no soft way to put that.

Yeah, this has been a good conversation. I love it. This is not where I thought we were going to go, but I had so much fun doing it. Like, it's this has been solid. We're supposed to talk digital missionaries. I don't know that we ever got digital, but the idea of ministry outside of the walls, I mean, that's something that all of us as missionaries need to understand, and some of the inherent challenges, at least here in the West, and working with, you know, Dr. John, you would probably say that you're primarily dechurched with the audience here, at least you're working with dechurched and challenging them to be evangelical. So awesome, I love it.

Hey, I have a question for you. Have you ever, who wrote Church Refugees? Josh Packard. Have you ever had a conversation with him?

I have not. If I could set up a podcast with you and Josh Packard, would you have a conversation with him about this?

You have no idea how awesome that would be. Listen, I was cool. Josh every single time somebody asked me about Hearts Like His, every single time I talk, I talk Josh's stats all the time. And so yeah, that would be absolutely nuts for me. But yeah, I yeah, it'd be cool. I can't make any promises. I've got a friend of a friend, and so I'll do some digging and see if I can't get in there. But and to be honest, like, I don't even want to be part of the conversation. I just want to be a fly on the wall just to see.

Me too.

Awesome. So hey, let's call that twenty-five goals. So we'll see what's happening after the New Year. And you know, in my life, yours was Church Refugees. My book, back in that era, was George Barna's Revolution. As a matter of fact, like, that was, I actually had a business at one point that was called Revolution Retail. I had a store called AC28, based on Colossians 2:8, yeah, that, yeah, yeah. And so we brought around one hundred kids to Christ in a brick and mortar mall in Wellington Green, West Palm Beach, Florida, essentially. And so, but I just was, you know, as a twenty-something-year-old graduating from college, I had crazy ideas. And I've talked about this in the streams and whatever, but you know, the church could not reconcile the stuff that I was talking about. And you know, in that Revolution, George Barna talks about the same thing you said. God's not going to hold your pastor accountable for what he's telling you to do. He's going to hold you accountable for what he's telling you to do. And I read that, and my whole, my whole ministry psyche changed as a result of that. And it shifted to this new model. And it's been challenging. I mean, it's been definitely been rewarding. It's, it's, I love you. I even love the fact now that I get to walk with the church.

Digital community and leaders and people that you know think outside of the box like we do, and so we can encourage each other and pray for each other along the way. I mean, I didn't have that 25 years ago. And having and providing that community now and seeing all that God's doing through these relationships is so, so good. Even now as we're extending globally, man, I just can't wait.

So awesome. All right, hey, we're gonna land the plane. I will say this: we have had this has been probably the most passionate chat I've seen on Twitch in a while. I mean, we normally get good chat, but there's been a lot of excitement. So ukulele DWR, CIS pineapple, I know there's some others that are in here as well. Mission awareness, DWR, like I said, flat cap, flat cap was surprisingly quiet. He may have had to leave, but man, it was just so good. Thank you all for hanging out with us in chat. You know me, we're always doing something. We're supposed to do this on Tuesday. I was feeling sick Tuesday, and so we bumped it to Thursday, and now Andy's got to edit it real quick and get it on podcast for Monday. So hopefully we can turn it around. But hey, as we're wrapping up here, Dr. John, any other closing thoughts?

You know, I just want anybody tuning into this podcast, live or replay. You're here because something is stirring in you, and I just want you to know you're in the right place. Don't doubt. Don't doubt that God has you on this track, that he has you on this journey, and don't doubt that he's going to provide for you. You might not see it all right now, but he's going to provide for you. Digital communities, digital culture, digital locations are legitimate missional destinations, legitimate missional destinations for you to take the gospel to and to disciple people on. And the Spirit of God is just going to—he's going to bear fruit that remains, and that includes in digital space.

So awesome. Well, thanks for jumping on this podcast with us, Dr. John. Appreciate it very much. But for Dr. John, this is Jeff with the Church Digital. Thanks for hanging out with us on this stream, and we'll talk to you next time on the show. Y'all have a good one.