EP 330 - Questions - What is the role of digital in incarnational ministry? (with Jesse Carbo)

Laughter: Probably a little bit better than our Zoom calls or you know, our digital video calls. But the fact that we have the opportunity to do these video calls really helps us accelerate our work. So it's a tool that helps us be more efficient. Yeah, but I'd rather be with you in person. I mean, next week you and I are going to fly to Dallas. We're going to be in person together. We're going to be meeting with people in person. That's always a great experience in person. So to me, it's like there's a balance. Like the way that you, I guess my conclusion, if I was going to have a conclusion in this conversation, not that we have to conclude, but I would just say the way you reconcile that, feel like that's not a good word to use, but is the way you reconcile incarnational. Mission with digital is that you have a proper view of digital as a tool or as a means to an end with understanding the heart behind incarnational mission. Yeah, and you live within the balance, or you know, if you're more pessimistic, you live within the tension of we got to meet people where they're at. And since people mostly are online, you start there. We go there with hopes that yes, in person is always a better experience, but sometimes you don't get the luxury of in person. So you meet people where they're at and you begin, and because the tool allows you to build a level of community that is impactful—yeah, maybe not as impactful as if it was in person, but it is impactful. There are the evidence is clear that there are millions of people coming to faith, especially, and again, this goes back to the truism like if it's true now, it's true later, and if it's true here, it's true there. If we look at the work that's happening in the Middle East, this is the way people are coming to faith and being discipled in the Middle East. It's all digital. Yeah, the there's using the tool of digital. There are strength. First off, let me back up. Even in digital relationships, even in digital churches, even in digital discipleship, there's value in physical. Like we're very few are saying digital and nothing. Like even the video game churches, they gather together. I can tell you virtual reality churches that I've met together, and people have literally flown across continents, across the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean, to gather together with an American church that they experience in virtual reality. Like there's value in physicality. I think the idea is with digital only is that the physicality is not every Sunday, or it's not—it's helpful, but it's not needed. You know, in my leadership team, all of us have never been in the same space at the same time. Literally, I've got six people that are on my senior leadership team. We're on different continents, probably four different time zones if I did the math, and like we've never all of us been collectively together. And so, but that doesn't mean that we can't function. That doesn't mean that discipleship can't exist. It just means that it's different. It's interesting. Actually, one of our one of our micro church friends told me once. He says to me, Jeff, he's like, I'm a believer in digital discipleship now. Why? This is maybe twenty-two. He says, I'm a believer in digital discipleship now. He's I was like, why? And he's like, well, we've started using it as zoom and complement the physical. And what we've seen is a micro church leader—well, he says, what we've seen is that people will rarely cancel on us digitally. He says we get a higher percentage of physical cancellations. People won't show up, or you know, something happens. They can't figure out the kids. And so, but digital, he's like, people rarely cancel. We're doing the meetings after the kids go to bed at nine or ten, at nine o'clock, and it's later, and it's—yeah, okay, it's more convenient to do it digitally. And so like the idea of engagement, it's easier. I don't got to hold my kids across the city or figure out childcare. Like it's done in the house. The other thing that he said, the other thing that he said, is people—because it's so much easier—people are actually willing to meet multiple times a week and go through it quicker. And not that discipleship is a race, but the idea is that they're engaging in the conversations more. And so, remember, you know, go ahead. That's a super interesting point that you're making because how many times have we sat in church and we heard—I saw a meme one time on social media that was making fun of like almost every church when they talk about small groups, like in-person small groups. They reference it as like, do life together. Yeah, yeah. But if we're honest, you're not really doing life together. You're just meeting once a week for an hour or two in somebody's home. You're not really sharing. Like, rarely do people share the truth about what's going on behind the scenes in their life. We're just answering questions from the sermon that was preached on Sunday, sharing some very surfacy prayer requests we might have, some good guacamole and chips, and then we leave. But digital does provide a means to do more life together because of the fact that you can quickly jump in and out of meetings and calls and messages and really share the truth of—because of—yeah, because it's quicker, it's faster, it's easier to do that as opposed to a once a week hour gathering where people aren't actually being—yeah, this is a tool. You know, and this, this can—you know, I can push a couple buttons and I can make an attempt to broadcast my message in front of a billion people. I don't think a billion people are going to be interested, but I can do it. I can use this tool to build a relationship with someone that's literally on the opposite side of the planet from me, and I have a one-on-one relationship with someone. I can use this tool to reach someone that's literally across the street from me and can use it for that purpose. And so, you know, and that I think that what incarnational people miss about digital is the intimacy that's possible with this tool. They're seeing the typical church model that's trying to broadcast the church service, that is all about reach and not about relationship, because that's the typical model. And this tool can do that. I don't think that method, that strategy, is effective for the church. But doing a—listen, I mean, we're working with people right now that want to do a micro church strategy digitally. I can tell you digital micro churches that exist on multiple continents, and they've been successful. I can tell you micro—uh, digital micro churches that have started campuses and actually locations off of the ministry. Digital only micro churches that actually spun off a physical campus because the ministry was so strong. Like there's opportunities to explore this at a relational context. And you know, in the incarnational world, I would say I don't speak enough of that language to really understand like how to make that difference. But I would challenge incarnational leaders to really lean into the relational aspects to better understand the community aspects of what digital is, to dive into this 3.0 mentality of recognizing community in those spaces and not trying to pull that out into a physical, but lean in and disciple more of that. The pulling of people out of digital community into a physical relationship, as a general rule, I have seen missional organizations globally try to do that too soon. And as a result of that, people are disconnecting. It's too big of an ask. I don't trust this individual or this organization enough to meet with them physically. I don't trust them enough to have a one-on-one conversation yet. This is the role of community. You lean into the community to build relationships and establish trust. It's not a microwave. It's a Crockpot approach. And it's interesting. Even the incarnational, even the physical micro churches, I've seen them try to use digital as a microwave to quickly pull people into a relationship, and it doesn't work that way. You've got to lean into the community. You got to be okay with it. You know, I tell my virtual reality friends, you want to talk to that avatar without a real name, without a real identity, as long as possible. Because digitally, people are comfortable having hard, difficult conversations behind an avatar, behind a social media handle, behind a—without sharing their real name. When you find out their real name, it actually kills the conversation. It slows it down because now I know who you are. Without that, oh my gosh, you can get so deep so quickly digitally. And that's what we're finding across the board. It's not pull people into that relationship. It's lean into digital as long as possible, and then when there's trust established, then pull them into a physical relationship. That one little shift would make night and day. But it causes—it calls for the incarnational people to recognize the power of the digital tools. Turn across the right way, the digital tools to build relationships. You know what? This, what you just shared, opened for me a whole another aspect of this conversation. What I think what you're highlighting, Jeff, is that we are perpetually living in a more dangerous world than ever before, and the safety barometer for people is so low that part of the reason it becomes so difficult sometimes to really grow your church or build a ministry or make disciples is because of the resistance that people have because of the trust factor. It's like, I don't know you. I don't want you to know me. Like, in order for—like, let's take community. The whole conversation around community. The reason why most small groups suffer and struggle is because people aren't being real. People desperately want to be known, but people are afraid to be known because they don't trust that they're going to be loved. And so what you're bringing up is that like digital is a tool that helps us. So the heart behind incarnational mission is you know, pursuing people, loving people, serving people. Let's move into their neighborhood. But I could move into, like, let's say, like I've got friends that live in like poor neighborhoods here in Miami for that purpose, right, to serve that particular neighborhood. But just because you moved into the neighborhood doesn't give you the right to their life. You have to—you have to live there for a while. You have to prove yourself. You have to show over time that you're trustworthy, right? And so what digital can be is that tool to help you move into people's neighborhoods and prove your trustworthiness and build relationship so that one day down the road there's a community that fosters a kind of healthy discipleship so that people will come to, which it does. Like, what you were going back to, you know, what Jay wrote in his book at Saddleback is that if you can impact people's lives digitally, it will impact their life physically. Yeah, it's because the people you disciple, they have family behind them. They have neighbors. They live next to. Yeah, yeah, it's all about trust and using digital, using digital community to earn the trust. And to do that, you got to be honest. You got to listen more than you talk. We tell people you got to ask questions more than make statements. Always use question marks. Really never use a period. And for the love of God, don't use an exclamation mark. Like digital is not—you know, is not the platform to sit in, at least initially, and tell people on a soapbox everything that's wrong with their life. And that, honestly, that's a lot of what the sermons come across as as we're broadcasting this out on a mega level. You know, you don't necessarily—some people will engage with it, but the majority will not. And so, but having a conversation, building a relationship, learning about people, you know, we've adapted this—is not a, I guess it's kind of incarnational—but the Blessed Practices from Dave Ferguson. Begin with prayer, listen, eat together, serve, and then share Jesus's story. We actually wrote a book, Sharing Jesus Online dot com, but it's on Amazon. But it's begin with pray digitally, how to do that. Begin with prayer, listen, and then we talk about shared experiences, build relationships digitally with people in digital community, figure out how to serve them, and then share the story. The relational aspects of digital, once again, like it's the thing that we're missing on a broad scale. And for us to be more effective, it's not— Not using digital as a megaphone or a microphone, shouting out, getting the world to hear it. It's much more about a whisper. It's much more about starting a conversation, a dialogue. And through that dialogue, you know, allowing the Holy Spirit to do something, to guide the conversation to make it much more about the person that you're talking with in a relational point rather than making it about your beliefs and how they're doing things that are wrong. You got to earn the trust, and that takes time. Yeah, the way I see it, kind of, you know, to summarize, like digital, right, being the tool. It's a trust-building tool. Like the reconciling factor in incarnational mission is that digital becomes the trust-building tool, the bridge to help foster the trust necessary for healthy community that leads to healthy discipleship. And in an increasing context in the world at which we live, it's more and more necessary. Yeah, if I was in a room full of our friends at the Alliance, I wouldn't say stop moving into the neighborhoods. What I'd say is move into the neighborhoods, but then add the digital tools to help you connect with those people in your neighborhood. Yeah, to build those bridges and build trust so that those conversations can happen, so that we can foster a level of community that, yeah, even if people are not ready for a three, lean into digital-only community environment. If you're not ready for that, which is okay, use a two mindset. I'm moving into a community. I'm trying to build relationships once again. Okay, hey, you know what? I'm moving into this neighborhood. I want to connect with everybody. And so I'm going to sit outside of my front yard. I'm going to do a barbecue. I'm going to go hang out at the park and shake hands. You will meet people that way. Yeah, but here's the reality: the average American spends six to eight hours a day on this device. They spend more time on this device than they do walking the neighborhood streets, than they do walking the dog, than they do going to the parks, than they do playing with the kids in the front yard. And so even if your goal is only in an incarnational mindset to use this tool to build relationships digitally to get to the point where you can say, "Hey, why don't you come over for dinner?" Like, you're crazy not to. But the thing that I would suggest is don't rush getting people into having coffee or doing the barbecue on the street. Some people will respond quickly. Some people need to build trust digitally to get to that point. And I would suggest praying through that. You know, the blessed mindset is begin with prayer and listen. If you feel like God's leading you to do something quicker, go. If you feel like God is challenging you maybe to build that relationship via digital, God can move with your thumbs typing on an iPhone. You know, it's funny. We talk about praying with thumbs all the time when people text like in a text book or WhatsApp, you know, "Pray for me" with a prayer request. I will actually pray, type the prayer, not the praying emoji. I will actually type it out in there. Yeah, write it all out. Yeah, write it all out. Like, God can move digitally. People are grounded through those devices physically. And if we're saying that God cannot move digitally, oh my gosh, like we've just, man has created a device that God cannot use, that God cannot enter. Like theologically, that just opens up a whole other can of worms. So God can move using this stuff. Don't be afraid to utilize it as a tool at the two-point-zero mindset to build that community you're trying to physically. But you got to build trust using the digital tools to be more effective. Can you go back and just repeat the one-point-zero, two-point-zero, three-point-zero? Just so we make sure we capture this in the recording. Yeah, so a one-point-zero mindset is, you know, and this comes back in like the mid-nineties, nineteen-nineties, late nineteen-nineties. It's the information age where people would put information on a webpage. So your church, if you're a micro church, you would build a webpage and you would try to share it with people. But the goal was not to do ministry digitally. The goal was to get people connected to a physical church location. So a micro church, you would put out an invite to a barbecue and you would put it on Evite and send it out to everybody in the neighborhood and try to get everybody to come to the physical building. You're putting information online, but your ministry is happening physically. Obviously, that still happens today. We still do that today, right? Most churches, they've got that "plan a visit" page. You know, "Our church services meet on Sundays at nine and eleven," and you know, "We've got childcare," and so they're disseminating information. It's a kind of a one-way communication model. Okay, yeah. And so two-point-zero, you know, now starts to empower individuals to talk with that. And they're able to dialogue somewhat. But the goal is still to drive people to a physical location. One was organizations having the authority. Two-point-zero, the social media age offers conversations where now we're empowering individuals to talk. By the way, other people talking about your ministry is far better than you as a pastor talking about ministry. But still with the two-point-zero mindset, the goal was not to recognize community for what it is, an opportunity to build trust. It was still driving to go to the physical building. So we're getting other people a social media graphic that says, "Come to our church service Sunday nine a.m.," or we're asking people, "Hey, invite your friends to this barbecue," and they would take that link from Evite.com and send it out on their networks trying to pull people into the physical mindset. Does that make sense, Jesse? You good? Makes sense. Yeah, and then the three-point-zero mindset. This is much more. I mean, at the technological side, this is virtual reality, this is metaverse, this is immersive, this is blockchain and crypto. But at the core of all of this, I would boil it down to a deeper understanding of digital community and how people can exist and can operate and build relationships and quote-unquote live. Okay, that may be controversial, but they're existing inside these digital communities. I'm talking about WhatsApp. I'm talking about Slack. I'm talking about Facebook groups. I'm talking virtual reality. I'm even talking video games where they're spending hours upon hours engaging in building relationships and quote-unquote living in these spaces. And even if you're in the physical, and I would argue, just to back up, you can build relationships digitally. Those relationships can lead to people finding Christ digitally. We see that. We find discipleship even happening digitally. So the idea that you can't utilize that, God cannot utilize digital community for discipleship and evangelism, we're already seeing that's happening. So why not use that tool? The people that are leaning into digital community at the three level often times are not the people that would come to a physical building or are cautious about physical relationships in general. And so using digital, this is a bad term and I would want to change this, but it's "boil the frog slowly." It's take time to build a relationship before you go into Christ, before you implement that. Because what you're going to challenge them to do, there has to be relational equity there. There has to be trust behind that. And so that's our stance of it. You're using digital community either to do discipleship as a standalone because your church believes in three, we believe in digital community. But if your church isn't there yet, your organization, you are not there yet, I would challenge you to maybe use digital community a little bit to start to build a relationship more before you get them into physical space. Like, don't be averse to digital community. Instead, recognize that it does have a purpose. And like, maybe you're two-point-five. You're not buying the whole thing about, "I'm going all in on digital community and every digital community deserves a church." You're not there. That's cool. If you're still driving to physical, there's benefits for you in digital community. And that's really the opportunity for you to multiply what you're doing because you're going to reach people in digital community. You're going to build trust in digital community that are not engaging with you right now in the physical realm. Yeah, a kind of a practical application of this that I see for pastors is similar to what you do, right? You have an open office that you do pretty regularly throughout the week. You stream that on YouTube, right? And I think you're streaming that on multiple platforms. Well, the open offices are, yeah, I do open offices and I do streams. So streams I'll do on YouTube, and then open offices, I and my team are just in a Google Meet room. And so like this morning, I had a Google Meet where I had someone from Nigeria, someone from Sudan, someone from Chakia, and someone from actually here in Florida, not that far from us in Naples. And so yeah, I mean, they wanted to ask some questions. They shared their stories. They're interested in being part of our equipping. But what open offices does is it makes you available where people can come in. And sometimes I'll have nobody. Sometimes I'll have, you know, eight to ten people. And so yeah, I mean, it's a circus trying to have conversations. And in either way, it's fun. But yeah, I do, I probably do offices two to three times a week, and my team does it periodically throughout the month. Yeah, to me the practical application is like, what if pastors had open offices? You know, essentially they're moving into someone's digital neighborhood and saying, "I'm just gonna sit on this like picnic bench and I'm available to chat and just have conversation and build relationship." Yeah, you know, and then they let everybody know, "I'm here. I'm available. Right?" Which is to me feels like very incarnational mission to say to people in the neighborhood, "I'm available. I'm here. No agenda. Just my door's open, right?" And it's you're doing it in a way where people don't have to show up physically to the church building to meet with you. You're going to them. You're saying, "Hey, I'm a click away." Yeah, you know, I think that could be really powerful way for pastors to live a kind of incarnational missional ethos that's combined with digital. Yeah, yeah, this is good. This has been a good conversation. Yeah, that's making yourself accessible, which is huge in digital. Don't come with, if you do that, don't come with a script. Don't come with an agenda. Don't push your next sermon series. Honestly, don't even push small groups. Like, listen, some of that is, I think when I hear you say one-point-zero, two-point-zero, three-point-zero, I think the ethos behind the one-point-zero, two-point-zero, three-point-zero is like, three, you know? One-point-zero is like, "I have an agenda that I'm pushing and I'm just trying to get it out there for people to know about it, right?" Yeah. Two-point-zero is like, "I still have an agenda and I want you to know about it, but I'm empowering people in our community to help promote that agenda, right?" But then three-point-zero, three-point-zero is a much more hands-off, open-handed, holistic, like, "Let's just build, let's just build a relationship and see what God does and let's connect and let's, yeah, it's, yeah, it's as digital evolves. I mean, obviously what's behind digital, like we don't get from one-point-zero to three-point-zero. It's not like there's an AI technology that's like making the metaverse. It's people who are developing the technologies. Culture that shifts the technologies and we see God using it, yeah, in a way that makes a huge impact. Yeah, 3.0. It's so good. Jesse, your interpretation and your adding of one, two, and three, um, you know, three is a decentralized mindset. And so it's not pushing it, it's not pushing my agenda. It's what is God calling you to do and how can I help? And so like having that decentralized mindset digitally, remember, it's about small conversations. It's not big conversations. It's whispers. It's not megaphones. And so as a result of this, oh my gosh, and this is where it's like incarnational leaders are, in my opinion, are looking at digital through the wrong lens. They're looking through the lens of how the megachurch is operating and they're trying to apply that to their ministry. But the tool is a tool. It can be used in different ways. And looking at it through a different lens, in a different light, oh my gosh, the potential. It was, I've actually, it's funny, I for a season I was actually really driven to do a cohort of microchurch leaders to help them understand how to do digital better because in my opinion they're missing so much power and so much potential. And I'm not trying to be insulting or anything. They're just looking at it through the wrong lens. And it's a pivot of mind. They're seeing the tools as weapons, and we're trying to highlight and say no, the tools aren't weapons. They're gardening tools. Yeah, oh, that's good. These are gardening tools, and we can cultivate a beautiful ecosystem if we use the tools properly. Certainly, many people have taken gardening tools and turned them into weapons of warfare. Mm-hmm. But just because somebody has taken a pick or an axe and turned it into a weapon of warfare doesn't mean that's how you have to use it. We would advocate and say that what we're trying to do here is highlight how the tools are actually meant to be used, that they're more aligned with incarnational mission than perhaps they had considered. Yeah. Hey, everybody, Jeff here, wrapping up. I hope you understood and gained new insight on the Web One, Web Two, Web Three mentality, not just on how it organizationally informs how it pushes agendas organizationally, it pushes agendas through individuals, and maybe even starts to recognize the decentralized mindset of Web Three. That was my wow. That was my uh-huh moment when Jesse made that spin and applied that towards the end. And so listen, um, if you're incarnational ministry, if you're a microchurch, I really do believe you're missing something here. Physical churches, I think you're missing something here. If you're not even comfortable with Web Three going all in, consider a 2.5 where you're just leaning a little more into digital community, and I'll bet you will see a massive result from that. Reach out to us at the Church Digital, of course. We would love to help along the way. But I'm going to land the plane for Jesse from Digital Missions Project and the TCD board. This is Jeff with the Church Digital. Thanks for hanging out with us today on the stream, and we'll see you next time on the show. Have a good one.