EP 325 - The Digital Missionary Flywheel - God's Best Kept Secret for Digital Missionaries: Mobilize

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

All right, I guess that's working. Yes, that is working. You know what, um, in all seriousness, when you get old your eyes stop working and um I look like a bumbling idiot half the time because honestly I can't see anything around me. Like I, I cannot read. I can't see. Everything's blurry, you know? I need the glasses, but then I don't need the glasses sometimes. Like it's, I really need to get my life figured out. If somebody could help me figure out my life, that would be great.

Hey, Jeff here, founder of the Church Digital. Episode, I want to say this is 325. Hope this is 325. Uh, I was supposed to look that up in the break and I forgot to as I was writing this, but episode 325 here, the Church Digital Podcast. We're doing um a season here on the digital missionary. We're using the language flywheel. The digital missionary flywheel. We're going to get into it here a little bit. I'm going to give you a sneak peek. We're going to be digging into scripture here. I mean, we talk in Bible all the time. This is more technology than strategy, but today in this topic we're going to be doing a deep dive on scripture in a verse, 2 Timothy 2:2. "And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses, entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others." And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses, entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others. Excited to get into this as we're talking about mobilization in the digital missionary flywheel.

But before we get into that, hey, we got a big thing coming up here right around the corner that I want to put on your radar. Next week, next Tuesday, it's a week from right now at this moment, Tuesday, let's call it 2:11, uh, February 11th, 1 p.m. Eastern New York time. We're doing a town hall meeting. This is where we want to hear from you. And so we're going to be streaming as my dog barks. I once again, seriously, if anybody wants a mutt, Obadiah, free shipping globally, would love to like, we'll even wrap it up nicely in a package, punch some holes in the side so it can breathe, and it'll be great. Uh, but seriously, town hall meeting, uh, Tuesday, February 11th, next week, 1 p.m. Eastern. We're going to be, this is the town hall. We, the Church Digital leadership, we want to listen to you. We want to hear from you. What's going on in ministry? And how can we help?

By the way, uh, we've got some comments coming in. We got Steve Reid, my brother from another mother, still trying to figure out glasses. Uh, have only one good eye. I almost, I can relate to that. I understand. Uh, I'm not even gonna try. Hey, uh, you, Tsomi, I'll just say Suomi. Um, hello, hello to you. I'm glad you're joining. We want to hear from you in the town hall meeting. We, the Church Digital, rolling out some big stuff coming up here in the next uh week or so. We're doing some big announcements uh coming up right around the corner. And so town hall meeting, you want to hear what's coming up here at the Church Digital. Excited about the road ahead, but at the same time we want to hear from you. What's working? What's not working? And how can we help you be better digital missionaries? How can we equip you to be missionaries? We're going to be talking more about that mobilization here in a little bit. But next week, yes, thank you. Uh, flat cap is reminding me, 2 p, oh excuse me, 1 p.m. next week Eastern New York. Like right now, whatever time it is if you're watching this live on YouTube, 7 days. Actually, I guess it would be that way. Way, no, it would be that way. I was right. Seven days later. Uh, go into that. We're going to get into that next week. It's a lot of lot of onboarding and ongoing stuff. How do we onboard? How do we help people get connected into the equipping and mobilization to the network of the Church Digital? How do we provide better resources to equip and mobilize you? Opportunities to help you get connected with others on the journey? A network of partners that are literally in place to empower you in your ministry? Some really, really exciting things coming up here in the Church Digital. And that is going to be 1 p.m. Eastern New York time next week, um, Tuesday, February 11th. Of course, my friend, uh, you are more than welcome for that. Um, I would love to meet you so that I can understand how to pronounce that name. The bad side of digital ministry, and I'm guilty of this, is that I am horrible at pronouncing names. And when I see you, sir, I don't even know where to start. And so forgive me. I would normally be very relational and saying your name and greeting you, but I, my, it's interesting. I'm in Miami and so there's a lot of Hispanics around me and I have tried with grace to speak Spanish in some of these situations. About a decade ago I had a woman come up to me and say, "You need to stop hablando español because you insult my language." I need to stop speaking Spanish because I insult their language. Uh, so very cool. Listen, we're doing a, we're doing like a meetup here. Greg, Greg Saly. Hey, are you from Friendin? I'm from France. If you are, would love to see Europe represented. We're from Finland. Yes, we got a global connection happening right now. This is what I freaking love about the Church Digital. We are taking this thing, the idea of digital missionaries, global. We're going to be talking more. Oh my gosh, this is so good. Both Greg, it's great to see you as well, my friend. Uh, we need to keep you around uh because we're going to be talking more about this here in a little bit. Steve, uh, getting so excited. How are we supposed to wait a week? That's what I do, bro. This is, this is, I am, if I am nothing, I am a hype machine now. I, I am very fortunate in life that I've surrounded myself with the leaders that can actually deliver on the hype that I'm talking about. Like, this is a really sweet spot of the Church Digital because I'm not just talking crazy. Like, we've got a system that's operating at that's meeting the craziness. And so which is what we're going to talk about here. Oh my gosh, all this is setting up so well. I just, we need to get into it. Comments, feel free to chip in. Love this. We're talking about here now. Remember, we're talking about the flywheel. You've heard me talk about the digital missionary framework before. Connect, community, equip, mobilize. The people we connect with in physical and digital space, we want to invite them into a digital community to establish trust, to build relationships. Digital evangelism, digital discipleship. This happens best in community and through that relationship. We want to help them discover not only who Jesus is, but equip them, help them find what Jesus is calling them to do, and maybe equip them on how to do that. And mobilize them, send them out to do what God's calling them to do. And so we've been using the language framework. It's a framework. It needs to be contextualized. How my friend Greg is going to do that in France, believe it or not, it's probably different than how my friend that I can't say his name is doing it in Finland, which is going to be different than how I'm doing it in Miami. And you know, we've got my friend here Steve Reid who's probably an hour and a half away from me. You know, he lives on the west coast of Florida. How he's going to do it is going to be completely different than I would do it in Miami. And that's the beauty of digital ministry. It's a framework. It's not a formula. It's meant to be contextualized.

Now, it's interesting as I look and I see how missionaries are operating, and this is really the importance of calling it a flywheel, is missionaries are really operating, really maybe one or two of the areas. Like, they're really good digital missionaries. They're really good at connection, you know, creating the content, the social media. Uh, but they haven't figured out how to do that community piece. And so they're creating a lot of, you know, a lot of connection, a lot of noise up top, but they haven't figured out how to really build discipleship making relationship because they haven't been able to get them into community. And the social media, just the tools don't allow for a rich discipleship making relationship. On average, some can, sure, but on average it's not going to get there. And the same thing at community, a lot of people create a community, but they don't have connection. Or you know, there's planters and people that are great at equipping and mobilization, but they're not good at the top part. They're good at the bottom of the funnel, so to speak, but not at the top. Okay, I'm going to take a break here. Um, it's pronounced, good sir. All right, I'm going to try this right here. Udin Kitzski. It's like, okay, so Uden Kitki. Udin Kitki. Uden Kitki. I hope that's good enough, sir. Um, hey, you know what? We need to listen. I'll do the Church Digital standup. The Church Digital standup. You can book a 15-minute meeting with me. I want to meet you and actually have you tell me your name so I can understand it. Uh, but Uden Kaminsky, thank you. We'll pretend for that now and you can tell me how good or bad I was on that.

But this is the deal with the flywheel. Is that if you get all four happening, connect, community, equip, mobilize, the mobilize reproduces. And now you've got two, connect, community, equip, mobilize. And if that multiplies, then you got four. Like, so you're seeing the bad pyramid scheme happening as a result of this. But what's happening is the idea multiplies. It supports itself. And the challenge is that as digital missionaries, we don't, it's hard to do all four as an individual. Which is really where, okay, you know what? Is God calling? We talked about this several times. What is God calling you to do? And then understanding what your place is and maybe who you need to bring along into the journey. And so this is the beauty of equipping digital missionaries, be the course that we're developing because we're helping explain the whole framework. And you're getting a better understanding of what role you want to be. And then maybe also as a church, as a place, trying to figure out who you can work with, who you can partner with, or who you need to grow and develop to come alongside you in that journey.

And so the flywheel, and maybe you don't even know flywheel. Like, this is, if you're this the first time here with this, you been around for a while. Me and my friend, uh, this is uh, Funko Pop Da Vinci. Say hi, Funko Pop Da Vinci. Uh, so Funko Pop Da Vinci is uh, he's an inventor, he's an artist. You obviously know who Da Vinci is, and uh, his Funko Pop form here. So Funko Pop Da Vinci, or the real Da Vinci, he invented this device called the flywheel. And the beauty of the flywheel is it was, it had a crank on top and it was almost a physics experiment, right? And he had four wood blocks that were on chains that were tied to this crank wheel. And what he discovered is as he spun the flywheel, the chains and the wood, the, um, what's the term? I just lost it.

Centripetal force, the central force of the wood coming out on the chains. He would stop spinning and the wheel would keep going because of the force of the wood blocks being sustained and keeping the energy going around. His energy stopped cranking, but the multiplication force of the flywheel kept it going on and on.

And I would suggest to you, as we talk about the four parts of the framework—connect, community, equip, and mobilize—that if we can figure out how to do this, how to get those four parts working, we're going to see that multiplication effect where our ministry goes on and on.

This is what, you know, I would talk about. Connection without community—you know, I said this previously, and this may upset some people, and if so, you can add me, you know, come find me on Discord or WhatsApp. We love a conversation. Sit down with you. My heart is pure when I say this: if we're connecting with people and we're not inviting them into a community, well, that connection is powerless because the power is not in connection. Connection is a vanity metric. The power is in community.

If we are creating a community without trying to disciple and multiply through that, without equipping people through discipleship, community without discipleship, what's the point? Why are you doing it in the first place? You got to have some sort of equipping in place. And if we're equipping, if we're discipling people without mobilizing them, well, that's reckless. We're giving people this authority, we're giving people this knowledge, and I mean, it's like saying, "Here's a machine gun. Have a nice life." What are they going to do with that? How are they going to use it?

And so that's where we need that mobilization in place, that relationship that we need. You know, I hesitate to say this word, but we need accountability. You know, it's interesting. The whole idea of accountability—I've used accountability here on the podcast. I remember having, you know, it's interesting. I use accountability a lot with the micro church pastors that we've interviewed historically on the Church Digital. And I would say things like, "You know, what does accountability look like? You know, as a micro church network where you're trying to hold volunteer micro church leaders accountable?" And you know, I remember Rob Wagner said to me, "Jeff, well, accountability is like a bad word. Like, you can't say accountability." And it's like, "Okay, well, what do you say then? What does it look like?"

And I mean, we can wordsmith this thing all day long. We can figure out what it is, but the heart of the conversation is that we want to help accountability happen around how we're effectively using these tools. You know, maybe that's okay. Like, you're needing some help in community? Let's get you connected to someone that can help you in the community. Or, you know, you're really not interested? You're really good at the equipping and mobilization, but your tops? You know, who can we help you partner with? Or how can we provide some training?

Like, you know, I've told this story: God didn't tell me to plant a digital church or to be a digital missionary. If God did, my life would have been easier because I'd be doing it instead. I was clearly, you know, God told me to help. And so as a result of that, the Church Digital, we're wanting to come alongside and help organizations figure that out and be the accountability for digital missionaries that are out there that are willing to walk with us and benefit from the resources and the opportunities that we have.

But secondly, I think there's an opportunity to train accountability in the ministry that you are doing. Let's go back to 2 Timothy 2:2. Like, I'm going to get a little preachy in this one. I just, I want to put a disclaimer on this up front. It is going to be a little graphic. Yeah, this is going to be a little graphic with this one.

2 Timothy 2:2: "And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses, entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others."

Now, what I love about this one verse in Second Timothy—Paul is speaking to Timothy, or writing to Timothy—and there's five different generations of people in this one verse. There are five generations of people listed in this one verse. Like, if I almost, I probably should have created a slide and a graphic and did a share screen just so you can see it, but kind of, what if you're watching on YouTube or if you're listening, just imagine with me: "And the things you, Timothy, have heard me, Paul, say in the presence of many witnesses." The people that are witnessing Paul, entrust to reliable people, the people Timothy's witnessing to, who will also be qualified to teach others, the second generation away from Timothy.

All right, so let me flatten this out. You've got Paul's presence, generation one. You've got Paul's witnesses, which is generation one. You've got Paul, which is generation two, who's witnessing to Timothy, generation three, who's now witnessing to Timothy's training others, generation four, reliable people who are now qualified to teach others, others being their generation five.

So when it comes to multiplication or reproduction, like you're seeing that happen five times, it's worth noting here. And as digital missionaries, we know this. I mean, Paul's the father of the church movement right now. Paul's training Timothy, who's training others. Timothy's not supposed to, like, you know, take people to Paul so that Paul can teach them, or, you know, it's not even going to the witnesses, the people that are holding Paul accountable. Like, Paul's training Timothy to train others who will teach others. There's a reproduction level here.

As digital missionaries, you understand that. As digital churches, you know, or as even in the church ecclesiology, modern church movement in the US, they may struggle with that. You know, I've had pastors—I don't want to live on this—but if pastors come to me, "Hey, your job is to bring people into the church Sunday morning. You do your job. You get them in the door. Let me do my job and witness to them, share Jesus. In 2025, that will reach some people. It's not going to reach all people."

And so we need to adopt more of a relational evangelism approach, which is what we preach all day long here at the Church Digital. Bless, and how to do that. But what you're seeing now is a generational approach where Paul's training Timothy to train other people, generation four, to now train other people, generation five. Paul's witnesses, generation one. Paul, generation two. Timothy, generation three, training others, generation four. Timothy training others, generation four, who's training others, generation five.

And we wonder why the church still exists two thousand years later. God ordained this idea, this movement, and it literally, like, you can read in scripture where things are, where gospel is happening, and the gospel spread, and everyone was, everyone in Asia knew the word. And so that's, by the way, Tskin, a Kiwi, checks in. He's from New Zealand. It's good to see.

And so like, it's beautiful to see the point here where scripture is talking about the gospel being spread individually. Now, yeah, Paul standing in front of hundreds at some point, maybe, and thousands, and writing the script, and writing his evergreen, the letters that are in the Bible that are now influencing us today. The evergreen content, the Bible itself, is continuing on outside of time and space, which is phenomenal. Maybe a little science fiction, but it's incredible to see how even some of the digital concepts that we believe—asynchronous communication, remote discipleship—well, crap, the Bible's been doing that for two generations. There's nothing new.

But let me bring it back. We have a responsibility to multiply. We digital missionaries, we people that are connected with the Church Digital, we—I would almost argue Christians today—we have a responsibility to multiply. Yeah, let me back up. Let me say it a different way.

Billy Graham said, and I've said this in recent podcasts, this quote just really resonating with me lately: "It's the Holy Spirit's job to convict. It's God's job to judge. It's our job to love."

And so my challenge to us as digital missionaries is, how are we showing love on platforms like Twitch? On platforms like Discord? In spaces like virtual reality or video games or in Facebook? Is Twitch? Does Twitter? Does X give you an opportunity to show love, to show grace, to show Jesus in that space? Can we connect with people in a new way using those platforms and show the love that we're called to do? I think we can. And using this flywheel, we've got the opportunity to even multiply that share.

Now, it's our job to love. It's the Holy Spirit's job to convict. And so if we're sharing Christ, I would argue that's a win. If somebody actually finds Christ, that's not my job. It's my responsibility. It's the Holy Spirit's job. And so I don't want to celebrate what God, the Holy Spirit, is doing, or at least I don't want to claim responsibility for it.

I remember the first time I preached a sermon and a kid accepted Christ. I was beside myself. I was jumping up and down, literally. I was like a nineteen-year-old kid. I preached the sermon, and two kids at a winter camp accepted Christ, and it was funny that the youth pastor kind of pulled me aside at some point and he's like, "I'm glad for you, but just acknowledge God used you, not you using God."

And the power in the celebration was God's. It wasn't mine. And it honestly, that conversation—thank you, David Parks—stuck with me twenty-five years later.

More than that, I would suggest that for us, the celebration is the courage to have the gospel conversations. Who are we sharing Jesus with in digital space? In physical space? Who? What are these gospel conversations like? That's for me, that's the braveness of a digital missionary: having those conversations with people.

Once again, if all we're doing is our social media posts, I don't know that that's a celebration. Twenty thousand people saw my post, and it only cost me fifteen hundred dollars to get enough people to click over? Well, crap, I just spent a lot of money. Like, that's not a movement of God. That's a movement of George Washington, the dollar bill. If you're an American, that makes sense.

And so like, it's what are we measuring? We're measuring the ability to have individual conversations with people about Jesus. We're measuring those gospel conversations. That's to me, that's the thing that we're responsible for.

And to that end, the multiplication aspects of this, the mobilization aspects of this, I want to ask the question: Who are you having conversations with? You as an individual right now, who are you having conversations with? Who's the Paul in your life? Who right now is mentoring and discipling you and challenging you at a deeper level? Who are the Barnabases in your life? Who are the people that you are challenging and by the way, who's that, that are challenging you at an equal level? And by the way, who's the Timothy? Who are the people that you are mentoring and discipling and growing so they can tell others?

You know, it's interesting. Greg Salty is a preacher. Preacher is preaching today. I am not a preacher. I play one on TV. I'm not even an influencer. I play one on TV. But this is a message that's worth.

Preaching, you know, with the church digital, I'm a dude talking into a microphone and I'm gonna be really honest. There are seven people watching this YouTube stream live right now. And so, you know what, this does asynchronously after the fact. There'll be a couple hundred that'll listen to it on the podcast. There'll be a couple hundred that'll watch and engage this. And so me alone, my content will die at about 500 people.

The beauty of this is—thank you, Greg, for asking the hard question—is where does it go from here? Now I've had plenty of conversations with Greg and I know the heart behind what he's doing. I know Tall Skinny Kiwi and what he's doing in New Zealand. I've talked with Flat Cap. I've talked with Bible with the Battles man. I love this guy. I'm excited about what he's doing. Actually, that's a new YouTube channel for you, man. I don't think I have DeMarcus. I don't think I've seen that from you yet. Excited about that.

The point is that these people are, for me, they're the ones that I'm walking with. They're the Barnabases where, you know, they're speaking into my life and I'm speaking into theirs. And so they're challenging me. And I've got, you know, I can go through the Timothys—the people that I'm pouring into, that next generation that's coming along. And by the way, even a guy that's been doing 25 years of digital ministry, I got the Pauls that are speaking into me now. They're not necessarily digitally ministry-minded, but there are people—Scuba Steve, for example. He's not watching this and I don't think this will hit his radar, but he's one that has challenged me in a big way.

By the way, you know, I just happen to have this book right here on my desk: The Timothy Initiative. The guys that—and we don't use this in the Church Digital context, but their leadership, just like with No Place Left, the E3 crew—those two discipleship organizations really formed and structured my worldview. Now, and so when I look at the Pauls, when I look at that circle of witnesses that are watching, I honestly feel like Paul surrounded by DeMarcus, Battle, and Greg Salis and Flaps and Kiwis and people that I don't know how to pronounce their name—I'm sorry, sir—those are the witnesses that are watching me as I'm now hoping to train that next generation.

By the way, I'm teaching an EDM class today at 3 p.m. Eastern, which is another example of how we are passing down the equipping digital missionary mindset and casting vision so that others can cast the vision. Not just how to be like a digital missionary to create content, but to be able to invest in people's lives, to share Jesus with the generation using tools and methods to reach people that aren't going to go into physical buildings. Do something different to reach someone different.

And so, like, who are the people that are investing in you? You know, it's interesting. I talked about this in one of the communities. I think I shared this in Discord recently. I started getting back—I bought a new car, which is a funny story. I bought, I traded in my old Jeep. I bought a Tesla. I'll tell that story later. I honestly like, and this is a true story, I don't drive real well. My legs aren't—yeah, EDM is equipping digital missionaries. Thank you for Flat Cap. I kind of flub sometimes with that. But I don't drive my car real well. Like, my feet—I don't feel my shoes sometimes. My shoe slides off my feet. And actually, I found myself intentionally trying to step on the brake a couple times and accidentally stepped on the gas and the car lunges forward. And, you know, fortunately no issues happened as a result. But, you know, I just don't trust myself driving a vehicle.

And so actually, full self-driving on the Tesla—I think they're on version like 13 or 14 of the software. The AI, it's really good. Like, I will say that the majority of the times that I drive a vehicle now, it's with AI driving. And so you can pray for me, but actually I trust the AI more than I do myself.

The reason I say all that—sorry, it's nothing where I was going—but I started listening to more podcasts now that I'm in the car, enjoying driving and not feeling like I was the risk that I was previously. So I'm helping drive the kids around a little bit more and teaching my daughter how to drive. So I've started listening to podcasts again. It's a long story just to get to the podcast, but the one of the podcasts I've been listening to is Entrepreneurs on Fire, from a secular standpoint, not a Christian standpoint. EO Fire heavily influenced what we're doing here. The "version one's better than version none," "get out there, beta," like all that non-scripture type language, but the things that motivate us in our operations, or at least me at a personal level, that all came from John Lee Dumas and EO Fire. And so you can listen to it or not listen to it. I don't think there's ever cussing, actually, but it's a lot of outside-of-the-box thinking and ideology.

But he says, like, one of the things that I love about—was, you know, one of his catchphrases that he always falls back to—for me, doing something different to reach someone different—he always says, "You're the average of the five people you spend the most time with." And that really challenged me to kind of think back about who I am investing in and who I'm allowing to invest in me.

And it's interesting that that mindset—like, I'll just be honest, like, you know, even things like, you know, I used to obsess over, and this is me. Don't project this on you if it doesn't fit. If the shoe doesn't fit, spit out the bones, eat the meat. You're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. I mean, to be honest, I stopped playing around with games on my phone because it's like, you know, that's that time that I'm spending with—I don't know that it's helpful. And so like, I actually shifted towards reading more books and getting back into more podcasts just as I was kind of re-engaging with this idea of moving beyond. And that's at a personal level because that's what's motivating me, that's what's challenging me. And I want to suggest that as digital missionaries, this is countercultural, right? A little bit. Because as countercultural in digital, like, if I'm a streamer, I want to get like massive numbers. I want thousands of people watching me on Twitch. The idea of multiplying myself into a competitor, a potential competitor who can then work against me and maybe take some of my audience away from me—well, it doesn't work that way. Like, that's a horrible idea. I would lose my influence instead of gaining influence. I'm not giving it to other people. That's countercultural to digital. But I would suggest it's actually very practical in context of scripture, where we have to start to think that way.

Yeah, we need to start thinking about multiplying and mobilizing. My gosh, I'm choking up over here just the idea, you know? I'm getting feedback here. Flap: "Version one's better than version none." Yeah, totally, totally about that. It's the idea as we're multiplying into others and as we're sending them out. We cannot effectively reach everybody, but there are people that are equipped to reach someone. Flat Cap and I are very similar people, actually. I just had lunch with Flat Cap—or a late breakfast with Flat Cap—Sunday. First time—it's not the first time, I bet you, Flat Cap, but first time I've seen you in two or three years, I would guess, physically. And so sat down with him and just had a good conversation.

Fact is, with Flat Cap, the people that he's going to reach are different than me. He's a little older than me, maybe a little more wiser, a little more experienced under the belt. You know, he's got his kids are older. More ministry years, different experience. And his heart for streamers and in that space is completely different than me. Like, he is a streamer. I play a streamer on TV. And so the people that he is going to reach are different than the people that I'm going to reach.

Throw Jason Morris in the mix. The people that Jason Morris is going to reach is completely different than who I'm going to reach. And so that's the beauty of contextualization. Just drop and let's, you know, throw Andy in the mix. Well, the people that Andy's going to mix—as hardcore gaming as he is—is going to be completely different than who any of us are going to reach. And so collectively, you've got four old white men, Americans, balding. Across Leighton's got a little hair, but don't let him kid you. Like, he wears the hats to cover up the baldness that's happening. Shh, don't tell anybody. You got four old white men who are reaching completely different contexts. And so the ability for everybody to reach, for one person to reach everyone digitally—trying to reach everyone, you reach everyone, you reach no one. Contextualize, break it down, simplify this. It's so good.

Flat Cap saying here: "Different experiences help you connect with different people." It's true. And this is where you need to think countercultural because remember, digitally, culture tells you it's all about the connection. Get the views, spend the money, get the conversions. But it's all connecting at the top level. Social media leads, followers, likes, comments. And that only gets you so far until—nice hat, Flat Cap—until you run out of energy up at the top and people start bolting and leaving because the connections are shallow. That's where you need the community to get people to stick.

You know, it's interesting, even talking about this idea of accountability. Who's challenging you? You know, I had a pastor who was interesting. Was having lunch, breakfast with one of the guys who's helping us organizationally, one of my coaches. And he was talking about a mutual friend. And he was like, "Hey, this guy was like coaching me on how to be an executive pastor." And he said, "This is serious, but he's like, 'If your campus pastors are not reading a book right now, they should be fired.'" It was this level of challenging. I think that's a little bit extreme, but like, who's—as digital missionaries, we're thinking outside the box—who is challenging you? Who is mentoring you? Who's helping you? Who's helping hold you accountable? Who are you challenging? Who are you walking with that's even helping you carry the burden? There's a lot of burden. You cannot do this alone.

The idea of accountability is, you know, some would say it's a dirty word. You know, as interesting as I was just kind of writing through notes, I actually found myself reflecting back to one of my favorite Marvel movies. This is embarrassing—Marvel Cinematic Universe. It's not too embarrassing. Captain America: Civil War. Watching Captain America: Civil War, I always thought I was Team Cap. Like, I sided with Cap. Not the movie. The cinematography. This like, it was designed to make you think Team Cap. Let's lean into it. But I mean, at the end of the day, Team Iron Man had like the whole thing with Iron Man. But what they wanted was there was all this power and influence but there was no accountability. Yeah, okay, maybe it was the wrong organization, whatever. And the—I don't want to go too far on this—but the ability to have an organizational structure to help guide and align is a big opportunity.

I don't know that I'm Team Stark. I have to go back and watch the movie and actually think how serious I want to stand against this idea of Team Stark versus Team Cap. You can, you know, throw it in chat.

Know, uh, text me 44324-8724. I'd love to know, you know, if maybe that idea, maybe you are Team Stark because of the accountability, but it comes down to we do not need to be alone in this journey. And this is the heart behind what we're doing at Church Digital.

We're launching right around the corner a series of outposts. These are, and you'll hear about this next week in a big way, where we're creating decentralized networks in platforms and places that are designed to encourage, explore, and experiment and empower. Let me say this a different way.

We're giving you accountability and a network and space to, with others, to be encouraged to explore new platforms, new spaces, to experiment with new ideas or new techniques, and to be empowered to do ministry through the resources and connections of organizations that are working with our network. This is a huge way to come alongside others and understand this—not accountability like you're being limited, but accountability where you're being given and multiplied. One plus one may not equal two. One plus one may actually equal four in this process and five, because you're going to start to see not just an addition mindset but a multiplication as you're working along with others. And by the way, if those others can help strengthen the other parts of the flywheel, where you can find somebody in your outpost to maybe come alongside and help you at the community level, your weakness—I mean, is that not a win? And even like internal coaching, as we learn to care for others in the ministry of what's not just happening in our ministry space but in other ministry space, if we start thinking Kingdom over Castle, the idea of mobilization isn't a bad thing. It's a great thing. I'd suggest it's a God thing. We'll get into platforms and places later, but Second Timothy 2:2: "And the things you have heard me say, me Paul, in the presence of many witnesses, entrust them to reliable people who will then be qualified to teach others." Paul, Timothy, audience, reliable people, teach others. The idea of accountability, the idea of mobilizing and structuring generations—it's right there. Paul literally modeled accountability.

Now I want to say this. I want to say this like accountability in digital space is hard. I get it. You know, it's like, you know, Tulski, a Kiwi, is talking on here. Greg Saly is talking. Steve Reid's, you know, talking. Like there's an interesting chat that's kind of happening off in the chat as I'm doing this live—off, not off topic, but tangent. And to be honest, I've never met any of these people. I'm, by the way, I'm fine. The conversation is happening. I'm not criticizing that. I love that. But you know, Tulski and Kiwi is in New Zealand, 156, 17 hours away from me in Miami, Florida. How am I supposed to hold Tulski Kiwi accountable? It's interesting. We, I remember having a conversation with Ed Stetzer on one of his podcasts or one of my podcasts. I don't know. I don't remember. But church discipline came up, and you know, we talked about how to do church discipline would look like in digital space. It's fine, Kiwi. We talked about how to do discipline in digital space, and it was like he just could not comprehend the idea of discipline without the physicality. How are you supposed to hold somebody accountable if you can't actually see them? And it was interesting. Yeah, it's interesting. Flat Cap's actually asking the exact question right now. How does local church hold someone accountable when they move to the church down the road? Physicality is actually a horrible accountability tool.

Now, what's often attached with physicality, and this is my point, Flat Cap's teasing it right up the top, is relationship. Relationship makes a great accountability tool. I have a relationship with Flat Cap, and I would say an intense one for two to three years. I have a growing relationship with Steve Reed over the past two months. Kiwi, I feel like I've known Kiwi for decades, although it's probably only been a year or two that we've actually interacted, although that dude's been around for so long. I told him first time I met him, I was like, "I've known you for years and we've never actually connected before." Relationship is what provides the ability for accountability. And so if we're trying to do accountability, if we're trying to do church discipline without relationship, if we're trying to lead people without relationship digitally, it's gonna fail.

I tell our leadership team, I tell our board, I've asked the Church Digital board, I was like, "Hey, be involved in Church Digital. I don't want you to lead. I don't even want you to, like, you know, feel like you've got to do stuff, but know the people. Like, know the voices, know the leaders, because we don't want to lead by, you know, this is getting back to Maxwell's five levels of leadership, I think it was Maxwell. We don't want to lead by title. We want to lead by relationship. I don't want to tell people what to do because I'm the founder. I don't want Leighton to tell people what to do because he's the relationship guy. I want to be able to relationally lead. We want to lead by relationship. We want to hold accountable through relationship. You know, should we ever get to the place of church discipline or organizational discipline, even that is done through relationship. And so the importance level is to be relationally connected with others. I mean, even just look at Second Timothy 2:2. That's all I need to do. "And the things you have heard me say, they were around in the presence of many witnesses. The witnesses were around. Trust to reliable people, more than one, who will also be qualified to teach others." There, the relationship is baked all in that.

Tall, skinny Kiwi says here, "Bricks church is where people turn up for two hours since they dressed up and smiling. Digital church presents ourselves daily with all our faults. Accountability is possible online." Oh my gosh, Kiwi, you make me smile. Um, yeah, by the way, this is the podcast that, um, if my, I have a pastor friend who's a pastor of a church in Alabama, and uh, he does not, uh, he's not active with Church Digital, but he will, um, he'll engage with me every once in a while, and we were just friends. He's a mentor of mine growing up. He was a Paul in my life as we were starting Church Digital. And um, he will, early on, he texted me and he's like, "Hey, Jeff, it's a good thing that you don't work for the physical church anymore." And I kind of laughed. I was like, "Yeah, I know that, but why are you saying that now?" And he's like, "Yeah, 'cause if any physical church pastor, lead pastor, heard your podcast today, they'd fire you on the spot."

You know, we're pulling a thread that doesn't necessarily vibe sometimes, and we're thankful there are churches that are financially partnering with us and the churches that are aligning, physical churches that are aligning with the idea of digital missionaries. Because in the heart, you know, even things that like Kiwi just said there, the idea of mobilization, multiplication, that it's not just about the lead pastor—like I'm pulling on some threads that the US physical church is going to be struggling with. Doesn't make me wrong. And by the way, the physical church model, once again, I've said it dozens of times, the physical church model is going to reach the people. Physical church model is going to reach. It's not that their ideas are wrong or that they're invalid. It's that those ideas are decreasing in influence, and we have to acknowledge doing something different will reach someone different. It's not just bang the same drum over and over again. It's learn how to play another instrument. You know, let's rock an electric guitar. Let's figure out the bass. Let's figure out acoustic. Let's figure out how to get all different sorts of models working. We need micro. We need physical. We need digital. We need workplace. We need video game. We need VR. We need streamers. We need, like, we need it all working for the kingdom. We need collaboration. We need friends on mission. We need Kingdom over Castle. We need to figure out what accountability looks like and learn how to work with others for the common cause, not of self, but of Christ.

And as we talk about equipping and mobilizing and what that's going to look like in Church Digital and beyond and the network that we're assimilating to help, we're building to help digital missionaries in that space, this is where we're going. All this excites you? If you hear me talk about all this and you're like, "Hey, I want to know how to get involved," there's two things I want you to do. One, I want you to sign up for, uh, digital, uh, the digital, uh, equipping digital missionaries. Hold on, Flat Cap. Everyone needs to learn Latin to attend mass. Not the first time. Thanks. That's okay. Sorry, I read this mass, and I'm like, "What the garbage is he talking about?" And it took me a while. Everyone needs to learn Latin to attend mass way back in the day. Not the first time things change. Yeah, I get you. That was good. All right, sorry, sorry, Flat Cap. That one took me a minute. I think you misspelled mass. I'm not judging you for that, but uh, it, that was like moss. Is that, that's it means something in a different language, so I was confused.

Two things, you know what, you're distracting me, Flat Cap. All right, bringing it back. You know, I'm doing this for social because I want this. All right, hey, listen. If you listen to me have this conversation talking about mobilizing, about equipping and mobilizing digital missionaries, and you're excited about some of the stuff we're talking about, if I am hyping you up and you want to figure out next steps, there's two things I want to challenge you to do. One, I want you to sign up for Equipping Digital Missionaries at thechurch.digital/EDM. Equipping Digital Missionaries at thechurch.digital/EDM. We, through the Equipping Digital Missionary course, by the way, I'm revising version two right now. Beta. We're making all sorts of changes to make it better and tighter for a cohort more effective of cohort moving forward. Thechurch.digital/EDM. I'm kicking off some cohorts here in a couple weeks. We want to get you connected. The second thing I want to invite you to is the town hall meeting, 'cause all this, all this, all this is going to come to light, and a lot of the questions that you have right now are going to get answered at the town hall meeting next Tuesday, 1 p.m. Eastern, here on the Church Digital's YouTube. So hang out with us for the town hall meeting. Sign up for EDM if you're interested in how to be part of our equipping courses, which feeds into our mobilization, our networks. We want to get you connected to outposts. Like, all this is right around the corner. And so join in with us as we're starting to head this way.

Okay, hey, that is going to wrap. I'm going to see you all. Sign up for EDM. I'm going to see you next Tuesday, 1 p.m. Eastern in New York time on the Church Digital's YouTube. And um, for Jeff, this is Jeff, by the way. Let's say goodbye as we're wrapping up in the sad moment. Let's say goodbye to Funko Pop um Da Vinci. This is probably the last time you will see Funko Pop Da Vinci. I may keep them right here on my desk just always an arm's reach away because I just, I love having Funko Pop Da Vinci available. Oh, have Funko Pop Darth Vader sitting on his throne. I mean, that's kind of.

Bad right, um, interesting story on that one, but that's okay. So say bye to Vinci. This we're going to wrap up um season 11 here of um uh the flywheel digital missionary. Flywheel is is toast, we're done. We have we've talked about equip uh excuse me, connect, community, equip, mobilization. We've beat that.

Dr. uh and so next week uh town hall meeting, then we're going to launch into a questions, questions that digital missionaries are are wrestling with right now. Excited about that one. Getting back into the interview kind of conversations, less of a talking head from me in in this next season, but next week the TCD leadership team is coming together. We're all going to see at the town hall right here Tuesday 1 p.m. Eastern. All right, so for Jeff, this is Jeff the church digital. Thanks for hanging out with us as we land the plane and uh you have a good day. Bye. Just kidding, I got to click the button twice. I was trying to be all slick and not look and but I realized I didn't, I didn't actually click, so I'm gonna click it again. Hey, this is Jeff for the church de orling the plane. Thanks for hanging out with us and you have a good day. Bye.