EP060: Larry Walkemeyer & Getting People on Kingdom Mission

All right, we gotta sew a sixty of the Church Digital podcast powered by Stadia Church Planning. I still, I love this. I love working with Stadia in this season helping churches around the country and around the world figure out how to do this church online thing, figuring out how to help church plants that have yet to even been launched trying to help them figure out how to do ministry today in this season. It's an incredible story. It's an incredible opportunity that we of the church have currently right now to make a difference in the lives of people today, not down the road, not later, not once things get better, but today to reach people where they are today. And really, this is the heart that I want to get to in this podcast, the Church Digital. But we're pivoting some of our conversations a little bit, some of our topics, some of our themes here because we've talked a lot about broadcasting technology. Honestly, there's so many people speaking into broadcasting technology. You don't need to hear from me. You can hear it from others. There's even a lot of people talking about small groups online. Honestly, I was kind of surprised when I've seen the amount of people who have been talking about small groups and the importance of that. It's hugely important to create that biblical community, but I don't even feel like I need to be the voice that's saying it because I think others are saying it.

Here's the truth, and I think this is the biggest opportunity for the church: church online, coronavirus, in the season we're in. By the way, it doesn't change. It doesn't get back to normal with the life that you experienced February 2020. It's not magically going to appear in April or in May or in June. The culture is shifting. What it's gonna look like eventually, we don't know yet, but I can tell you it's never going back. But I do know this: and the culture that's shifting, I think there's an opportunity for the church to do something different. And I think there's an opportunity for us to reach new people, but we need to shift our view a little bit here into this idea of multiplication, in this idea of disciple making, and really in this idea of on mission. What is it? What does it even mean to be on mission in this coronavirus season? What does it mean to be on mission? That right there's a topic, the conversation. So we're bringing in a pastor from California into the conversation to help us hear, talk to this idea of being on mission. Larry Walker Meyer, he's at Light and Life Christian Fellowship. You see, I met Larry maybe a month ago at the Exponential Conference here. It was in Florida, was up in Orlando. And so even though it was just a short month ago, if at this point it feels like it's been several years with just how much we have packed into this coronavirus season. The reason I want to talk with Larry about this is he wrote a book called the Mobilization Flywheel. We'll link to it in the show notes. It's a free download. It's a PDF put out by Exponential and some others are a part of it. Todd Wilson was one of the authors on the book as well. But really at the heart of what it is, he talks about how the system of gatherings, of being the church, of generating missionaries. On how that we can use this, and by missionaries I don't mean people like going to the other parts of the world. What I mean are like missionaries who are just on mission for God in their own space, whether that's in the coronavirus and maybe it's the neighbors that are around you, or maybe you're engaging as a missionary sharing Christ and engaging with people through your digital footprint right now, your social media. But there's an opportunity for us to not only look at the reproduction of reproducing ourselves, reproducing the Christ in us and others, but to get to the point of multiplication where they turn and then multiply themselves into others.

And so we talked a lot about discipleship, about disciple making, but the heart of this is: how can we help people figure out what their mission is? How can we get people and get them on Kingdom mission, which is actually Larry's phrase there? What does it mean to be on Kingdom mission now in the season of coronavirus? And how can we, the church, support it even if we don't directly benefit from it? See, that's the thing. Sometimes the church calls being on mission, "Hey, would you be willing to come like serve coffee? Could you be part of the production team? You want to serve in kids?" And these are all legitimate ways of doing service. But there's a difference, I would suggest, in doing things that helps the church execute physical services or even execute church online services, and then there's a different level of what does it mean to have a personal mission? What is God enabling you to do that only you can do? Because I think if we really tap into that, what is the thing that God wants you to do that only you can do? I think that's where we see a movement happen as we see more of these people living on Kingdom mission spreading throughout their circle of influences.

This is crazy talk. It's a crazy conversation. The thing I love about Larry is the crazier I get with the questions, the more grounded he is in the answers because he's like, "You know, crazy? I love this. Let's just keep going with it." And I got to tell you, for me this was a great opportunity to pause from the hecticness of the week, of the chaos of everything that's going on, and to just stop and have a heartfelt conversation with a man and talking about discipleship, disciple-making, though the heart of what we are doing all of this for.

So to that end, I'm bringing in Larry Walker Meyer, pastor of Light and Life Fellowship, author of the Mobilization Flywheel, and myself, Jeff, from the Church Digital, in a conversation that I'm calling getting people on Kingdom mission.

Okay, everybody, here you go.

Yeah, I just felt like for such a time as this, you know, that's what when I pray about you and your ministry is for such a time as this. My goodness.

Yeah, thank you for that. I mean, it was for before. I don't mean to negate, you know, just in general, but now, you know, the fast-forward button has been pushed. And yeah, like you said, there are people arriving there that were resistant. I mean, that's the whole thing with Stadia. When Stadia hired me, like, "Hey, we want to do this hyper-aggressive thing to get into technology. We want to be kind of looking down the road. Your posture is more of 'what if?' Like, what if this happens?" And just ask questions, ask questions, and let's do research and development to get there. And it's like, okay, that's great. And so we delved into this digital-only ecclesiology. And honestly, we had, we're pivoting right now because it's like, "Hey, that theoretical conversation that we were having, that's not theoretical anymore." And the demands of the church today, the needs that the church needs to survive, it's no longer relevant to this theoretical conversation. It's completely different. Like, we can figure out what a digital-only ecclesiology looks like, but at the same time, ninety-nine percent of the churches that exist right now are physical-only and need to embrace some sort of, and we're using the term digital, a mixture of physical and digital, some sort of a digital mindset so that their discipleship, so their ministry can exist in digital space as well as physical.

Because I think when we're out of this, you know, I had a true conversation with one of my churches that I'm close with here in Miami. They're like, "Yeah, we're ramping up. We're gonna do more services when we come back from this because we're seeing online attendance skyrocket and people are engaging with this, and we think it's gonna be revival at our physical campuses." And if God wants that to happen, that will happen. But honestly, my reading of the culture is, yeah, I don't think people are gonna be throwing back into the buildings initially. Maybe in time, maybe you do build on that, but I'm really hesitant to say, "Oh yeah, attendance is gonna double in the number of people because of the coronavirus season." Now, if we're living on mission and our people are engaging in new ways, that's a completely separate conversation. But views on a web stream, that's not making people on mission.

Absolutely. Yeah, and you called it digital. What was your original? Yes, digital. It's actually a business term. It's phygital. It's the merger of physical and digital. And so that's it. It's a term. Actually, I'm honestly not sure where it came from. Erik Geiger, who's, you know, in our neck of the woods, he's actually the first person I've heard say it. I know James Emery White over at Mecklenburg or Metric, he says it a little bit in his tech stuff. So but it's this, when I look specifically, and this is what resonated with me with your book because you've got this multiplication strategy, this plan that comes out, and it's like, if we could utilize multiplication in context of what we're doing online, it justifies it.

I was having a conversation with one of my Stadia co-workers today where it was, "Hey, Jeff, what's the heart of what we're trying to do digitally? Like, what is the goal? What's the win?" And the principle that I came up with is tied to this online to offline, which actually came out of Jake Aranda at Saddleback, where it's like, the gospel that we hear in the online world is so impactful to us it impacts our physical relationships, our offline world. And so more than just hearing content, we are driving us to action. Virtual action is awesome. Physical action is just as good. So hearing a sermon, sharing a sermon is one thing. Hearing a sermon, having it motivate me in such a way that I am now feeding my wife, my spouse, my kids differently, now that's a whole nother level because content is now going into action. Right? And it's not just content. There's obviously a level of relationship, two-way communications in here as we're casting vision and developing, you know, disciples, makers to go out and do this multiplication piece.

Absolutely. Yeah, I love the way you're thinking. This whole people on mission, churches are good at getting people on mission for the church, but I think there's this level, and I'd love your take, of people being on mission for God that may not necessarily run along, run towards the church, but alongside it. I'm working with a guy right now who was on mission and he started a nonprofit basically. He's doing telehealth for third world countries. He's connecting doctors here in America with clinics down in Latin and South America where there's no medical, and through these connections he's not only providing physical needs where he's treating people and other doctors are volunteering to treat people, but he's also working towards providing and meeting spiritual needs, resourcing churches in the area. And where you've got somebody that's, when I look at, when I talk about a digital-only church, now I'm not looking at my circle of influence, I'm looking at the things that I'm passionate about that God has kind of got me fired up, excited about, and it's like, how can we, the church, how can we unleash people to follow their passions? Like my friend here who started this whole nonprofit, George, providing telehealth. Do you, within your church or your experience, do you have stories like that? Is there anything that came to mind through your book? What is being on mission at a personal level? What does that look like?

Yeah, Jeff, there are a ton of examples of things that people are actually doing on Kingdom mission that the church hasn't really readily embraced and championed and called out of people. I think the church has done a poor job of Ephesians 4:11 and 12.

Where those in leadership exist is for the equipping of the saints to do the works of ministry. And so often pastors have interpreted those Ephesians 4:12 works of ministry as how to volunteer within the church and how to build up the institution of the church. Rather, excuse me, linking it to Ephesians 2:10, where God declares that we are his workmanship, his masterpieces, perhaps his poem, created anew in Christ Jesus for the good works which God prepared for us long ago. And because that Ephesians 2:10 captures those individual callings and those individual giftings and destinies of believers, we've somehow taken that end and handicapped it to mean only a service within the church. And so you've got people like your friend who have these abilities to raise up this whole ministry that's doing incredible things, but most pastors would be more interested in just how he would volunteer for perhaps the church board.

A lady named Holly comes to my mind who is very active in the real estate world here and has a great business going. And a couple of years ago I asked her to be on the church board. I said, "You'd be perfect for our church board." And she asked me, "Well, pastor, I'm leading a Bible study in my neighborhood and we're doing outreaches in our neighborhood. And I'm leading this coaching thing at work that I'm turning now into a Bible study. So which one of those do you want me to give up so I can be on the church board?"

And Jeff, you know the answer to that was neither, because you're doing what I want the rest of the church to be doing. You're living on mission as salt and light in a way that fits your personality, your call, your giftings. And yeah, she still volunteers some at the church, but her calling that I'm championing is out in the world, in her realm of the world. And so she's living on mission in a way that I think you're articulating with your friend. But that's not what's championed in the church frequently enough. It's, "How can the people in the pews build the vision of the pastor in the pulpit, the calling that he has?"

Part of me wants to ask questions like, "How do we pivot? How do we change?" But let me even ask this question, you know? And you used "Kingdom mission," and so let's use your term here because I think that's good. You know, with your church today in California, you're on the West Coast, you're in SoCal. You guys have been locked down for two to three weeks. How long have you guys been locked down? What's going on right now with your church?

It's been about two and a half weeks, and yeah, we have no meetings whatsoever. You know, the first week we were able to gather in homes, but by the second week, after a few days actually, we were no longer even able to do that. So we were totally digital from that point on and began to livestream everything. So we have small groups meeting online, we have prayer groups meeting online. We're doing live updates every day except Saturday and broadcasting a live Wednesday night service and then livestreaming three Sunday morning services and then making those available afterwards in recorded version. But that's the reality. And so it's a whole new world for us because we were doing this all in person, and now what we're doing digitally. And yet I think it affords us an opportunity, and we're already starting to see this. We're seeing some new leaders raise up who thrive in this digital world in new ways. And that's been our call, one of our clarion calls in the midst of this: how can you serve? And trying to give our people tools on how they can serve in this moment. And the idea that God has provided this as an opportunity, and some of you that have been sitting back, this is the hour that God is calling you to step forward in new ways. And one of the interesting things has been some of our introverts who have really been sitting back and have stepped up in a new way on a digital platform, which I found interesting.

Yeah, and that's part of it, Larry. You know, I met you, and we, I mentioned it earlier in the intro, but like it was exponential, maybe less than a week before ground zero. I think ground zero was probably hitting in California when you were in Orlando, and it's starting to roll across the Pacific Northwest over towards the East Coast. And you know, I can remember having conversations about multiplication and digital, and it was all theoretical. It's like, "Hey, you know, Larry, I read your book. This is phenomenal, but there's this completely different wrinkle here. If we could figure out how to do this..." And in almost prophetic timing, a couple weeks later we're finding where we have to do this. You know, where churches almost ad nauseam have had conversations with me that you cannot do discipleship online are now stuck in this position where in order to survive they have to. And it's kind of, as in a blog actually equated it to, like, you know, the great theologian Mike Tyson: everybody's got a plan until they get punched in the face. And yeah, coronavirus kind of punched us a little bit, and the churches have adapted through it.

So my question for you is, like, what does discipleship look like? What does multiplication look like? What could it look like for you? And this is something we're now seeing kind of on the flip side. Is this a long-term thing? Is it a short-term thing? Like, what's your feeling centered kind of around utilizing technology to create disciple makers?

You know, Jeff, I think those are the questions that people like myself who have been leading a long time in a non-digital world—and I'm 62 now, and you know, I use technology all the time, but it's not my native language. It's a second or third language that I continue to try and learn. So I'll just be real honest: we were thrust into this. We'd never livestreamed a service until that first Sunday where we had to. We'd been setting up for it, but we've been dragging our feet a bit. And so our learning curve has been really high, even on the service delivery of Sunday morning services. So then how to learn to do discipleship and missional work and multiplication online, we've been scrambling to really learn that.

But one of my concerns is that with the livestream, you know, we're a church of about a thousand, and we've been having about five thousand listens to our broadcasts now. And that's wonderful, and I rejoice. We're seeing some great testimonies, and that gospel proclamation is just something we're praying for, we're working for, we're trying to get that number up. But it feels like a mile wide and an inch deep. And that dries up if you've got a body of water that's a mile wide and an inch deep. It dries up really fast once the sun comes back out. And that's the metaphor that I'm seeing with our current digital presence. Just the livestreaming of services, which again God's using in a powerful way, so we'll keep doing after this crisis begins to wane. But more importantly to me is how to use these digital platforms to go deeper with a few people in a discipling relationship that actually bears fruit in both the character change of the disciple—so they're being transformed—but also so that they're catching that same vision to do that with someone else.

Which I think in this digital world they're catching much faster. I'll just say it that way. Maybe it's because of the intensity of the time, maybe it's because of the ease of getting together with someone online versus getting together at a Starbucks, which is still pretty easy, but not like just a click of a mouse. And so we're trying to drive into those relational circles and do disciplemaking that way, using these new digital platforms. And as to your question as to whether I'm a futurist and I don't have a prophetic gift, but I think we'll never go back to normal as we knew it. I think for us, I'm just speaking now for our local church, we're gonna be in a new normal even as it relates to how we deliver discipleship and resourcing. We're gonna lead with the physical, but the digital will be right there beside it, supplementing and drawing in those that are doing discipleship in a new way so that our discipleship platforms are expanded. I'm really excited about what I'm learning. I'm not learning fast enough, but I'm learning.

And one other thing you mentioned, and I don't know whether you would touch on this, but we actually, one of our churches, we've got two church plants in the hopper, and one of them was set to launch in September of 2020, but they decided because of the COVID-19 crisis and because of all the online streaming that was going on to launch on Easter Sunday online. So they are scrambling and they're getting ready to launch their entire church plant, renovate church, online on Easter Sunday. Of course, then they'll have a reopening physically, but it will now be with the support and the momentum of everything that they've generated online before they can even physically do a grand opening. So we're really excited about that, and I'm watching that develop hour by hour.

That's a great story. Like, I would even love to learn more about that. It's this week. This is completely true story. This past week I was talking to a mega church digital pastor. This guy's got twenty thousand people that are attending a physical campus, not to mention the tens of thousands that are watching online. And if physical campus, it's a very large church. Let's just say it that way. His comment to me was, "Jeff, I wish I was at a small church right now where I could be doing actual ministry." Because the strength of online, and he's like, "I really..." We started talking about the digital church planting and some of the stuff, and even what your friends are doing, Larry, by planting their own church, going early, taking advantage of this opportunity to engage relationally with people while they're hungry, looking for something and looking for those relational touch points. There's a huge opportunity to do that. And even though the people who were doing these massive broadcasts and reaching the tens of thousands of people, the problem with that is that you don't know who those tens of thousands of people are. And to try to discover who they are, who those devices are, who's behind those IP addresses, like, you know, the business world hasn't figured that out yet, much less the church.

It stabilized my life like two weeks ago because I've always been struggling with this idea of doing the service first. But like, when you're planting a service, you're gathering the people together and then the groups, and then this, and like, for the church planting mindset, once again I come from this world of mega, giga, multi. And so I'm like, well, you start with the gathering and then you pull them into groups and then you get them serving. You know, because so I'm doing the Rick Warren baseball diamond, right? You know, whether it's a diamond or a triangle, like those are the four stops, and hopefully we get them all the way to home plate. But chances are they drift off somewhere in between first and second base.

And Craig, my boss over at Stadia, he says to me, says, "Jeff, when you're planting a church, you do it backwards."

Yeah, what do you mean?

He's like, "You start with people on mission, and then you go backwards. And then you get them serving, and then you get them in groups, and then, you know, whatever it is. But you start with the on-mission people and you grow from there."

And this is probably something in the church planting world, and somebody's out there saying, "Jeff, you are so stupid that you didn't realize that." But dear God, the idea of starting people on mission...

mission even in an online context to say hey I want you to go out there and utilize your circle of influence in the season of coronavirus your virtual influence or or the physical influence around the ten houses of your neighborhood what an incredible challenge to be on mission to reach people in unique ways who are hungry for this stuff I love the fact that your church is like forget the plan forget all this stuff yeah we can wait till September and all this may be over and who knows where we look like in September let's just go now let's figure it out build the plane as we're flying that is so awesome absolutely I think that's the the wind of the Holy Spirit Jesus was real clear that it doesn't blow where we want it to it blows where the Holy Spirit wants to blow and then we go with the holy spirit and I think this is one of those moments in the church where we have that opportunity for the spirit to blow us into new places where we may have been very resistant to go and weather that's in terms of the digital world or whether that's in terms of the missional mobilization and multiplication world because the scorecard of American terms no doubt has been the attendance scorecard you you know the bigger and that you are there are more buildings the more budget you have the the more successful you are as a church and that's the kind of scorecard that that you know in praise God we love I love mega churches they're doing a lot of great things for the gospel so this is not a big on them by any means but the larger you get the harder it is to ensure that people are being called into ministry and equipped for the mission that God has created them for now you can do that we got to be super intentional the bigger you get and most most churches aren't willing to sacrifice the the attenders to send out the missionaries and so for us you know that's just a part of who we are this idea of being a river church where people flow in and flow out and it's not about becoming bigger getting more and more people around one person which we call the lake model get them more more around one one person and giving to one budget and building up one vision instead it's this river idea that people will flow in and we will empower and equip them to flow back out with the gospel especially in the form of church plants and that that's driven by a different kind of scorecard than the typical American scorecard so I think this moment where we can't gather in these large groups is the opportunity the Spirit wants to take to create a new kind of scorecard so where it's not attenders or what what what we're in danger of doing right now is to replace the attendance scorecard with the number of viewers scorecard online you know how you know how many views did you have but instead replace that in this moment with this with the the scorecard about where Christians are living on mission into their calling and growing growing the church in the kingdom on the front lines instead of you know it's just it's kind of like just to go back a physical analogy for a moment I got in Terry in my church that set there for fifteen years he was my head usher and just one of my key volunteers and because because I never cast a vision for and called and celebrated his calling like I should have because this was this was when I had me a hold scorecard Terry set there for fifteen years but now he's living on mission and in his neighborhood in a whole new area he won't want one of our church plants he became the associate pastor when he was at just the head usher and I had to repent to the Lord that I had I had held his calling back because I was more concerned about how he would serve my vision of building our churches are at Usher then I was about saying Terry what's the fullness of God's calling for your life and where can you express that out in the world and then in the church to its fullness that's amazing it was was right there right there beneath you and just because you were working you know forgive me for implying but your own agenda going in your threat action with without understanding the larger picture of things and really you know missed out on that and and I'm sure it's exciting to see Terry kind of come into his own with with the new role and expanding in ministry but what a great story with that how do you in this season in the coronavirus like okay analytics are crazy Facebook lies all right it does like I can be scrolling through a newsfeed take a second to sneeze into my elbow come back in and if my church service was up for the two seconds while I sneezed you just got a view you know churches are reporting five to seven times the number of physical attenders virtually now there's a lot of legitimacy in that and I am NOT ridiculing the the broadcast of services at all but that's just that's just one that's one piece of a larger puzzle so my question is like how are you evaluating success how are you what what is your scorecard what's the win of your scorecard how do you as a church as a staff as pastors how do you judge right now yeah Jeff that's a great question and it's one that we're really just this week the first two weeks to be honest we were just scrambling our brains out just trying to make things happen and connect our church and figure out what was happening and getting people into you know we have a small group structure so that helped us in that moment but we still have a lot of folks that aren't in small groups so we were creating care circles and I had twenty four staff to move into online ministry at home from home and figuring out how to get them on mission that way so it's really this week that we're really sitting down and saying you know what what does success if this thing look if this thing lingers for another month to three months what does effectiveness for the kingdom really look like and so one of the things it's not gonna look like it's what you just said is number of views that's not our first priority it's it's gonna look like the things that we've talked about and I've thought about are the stories because we we asked for people not I don't want to just know that you viewed would you share a story with us and so we've started getting stories from people emails texts we have a number you can text of people who have never been in church before or haven't been to church a long time one guy from Kansas texted and said you know I'm dying from cancer and I and he got there through another guy in Kansas that knows our churches visited our church and he invited his friend who's dying a cancer to get on the live broadcast he did and the Lord touched his life in a powerful way so stories like that we're inviting those stories in and and then in terms of outreach what are the new givers that are coming at who who's being touched by the message in such a way that we have new contributors to the mission of the church financially because now they're not just watching they're being they're being moved by the message and the values of the church to partner with us whether believers and non-believers we may not know at that point indicated decisions you know we have an ability for folks to indicate decisions so so that's a big one but but then for our own people who who are you identifying as an apprentice in this moment because we've been a little weak on that and asking for digital apprentices is for some reason now that most of our people I've been crazier never but most of our people have more time margin than they had because we're in a low-income area a lot of our folks are day laborers who lost their lost their jobs unfortunately we have a few in essential services but most of them have a little bit more time margin so we've asked them hey would you invest this time in raising up an apprentice and and getting ready to start a new group quickly versus you know that the the the sixth and nine months of apprentice thing can you can you have them ready to go in the next week or two that kind of thing and with with appropriate support knowing it's it's different digitally online and shipping those things that are questions up the up Darrell quickly but so those are some of the some of them workers that we're trying to shoot for right now but we're still learning well I gotta ask and I wasn't even wanting to go there but you just opened it up like so crock-pot first microwave you know your your your your systems your book it typically talks more of a crock-pot I would suggest approach of that apprenticeship those groups that multiplication is it takes time don't don't rush that let's grow it get the person on mission it and let them multiply you know you talk about the the one two three relationship one person taking three those developing another three disciple another three another three and that's you know takes that's a time approach you just said you were doing a microwave you know flip these groups in in a couple weeks what challenges are you feeling what have been the women's wait a minute losses what are the advice that that you can maybe give to a church that that's maybe wrestling with some of that same tension yeah I I don't want to give the wrong impression these aren't new people these are people that have been sitting around in the groups that have been learning for you know the last year or two or three or more and who now because of this crisis were leveraging the crisis to say now is your time man it's time to step up and so it there is still a bit of a crock pot in there because we're not taking new believers immediately into apprentice thing but we are really kicking the Fannie's as some people who have been sitting around for a long time and and just we're making it easier online has particular challenges but it's easier in a lot of ways as well and the oversight can be a little more direct to buy the key leader because you know when Jesus sent his disciples out they weren't ready and I think one of the big weaknesses a significant weakness of the church is that we haven't trusted the Holy Spirit and the word and spiritual authority enough to send out people before they're ready and and not like Jesus did in the sense that they weren't leaving he wasn't leaving them but he was sending the mountain and calling him back sending a mountain calling him back and that's what and one of the things that enabled the expediency that he was able to use with them so I think when when we really trust the Holy Spirit and we've got the Word of God really instilled in these people did they agree that they can they can recognize heresy you know they might not be great Bible teachers but they can recognize a heresy when they see it so now go with what you have and and let's teach you on-the-job training you know let's let's see what you can do with three or four people that in your circle of influence they that you reach out to what's the and you've hinted a little bit you talked about you know maybe some lessons I think Terry the the man who was the the head usher that kind of transferred over what's the secret to multiplication there's probably no silver bullet there's no easy answer cool what's the easy answer okay what would be the thing that at least as we're starting this as we're considering it as we're trying to understand okay if we can really figure out how to get one person to disciple another person to the point that they would disciple someone else interesting story side note I don't think I've said this in a podcast yet Seth Godin he's a famous marketer at this point somebody asked him I love this story somebody asked him on on a podcast hey if what platform should I use to get my message heard around the world what what the person was actually asking is what's the social media networks

That would be most valuable to the day 2020. This is pre-coronavirus, maybe two months ago, three months ago. What Seth answered was, wasn't that question? What would he really answer? It is okay if you want a message heard by around the world, you're not gonna tell a billion people a single message. Those people aren't interested. Hundred million aren't interested. Ten million aren't even interested. You're probably not gonna find a million, hundred thousand, ten thousand. You know, numbers aren't the mass numbers aren't as important as telling an individual. Tell the smallest number of people possible and then getting them to tell others and then getting them to tell others, rather than going big. And that this is, this is a Seth Godin, Jewish, like not a Christian, and in a very simple way, literally just describe discipleship on a marketing podcast to talk about how to be effective in business. In this Jewish guy with no grounding in faith is telling you, "Hey, this is what the literal, it's the same thing Jesus is talking about." To this point of tell someone to tell someone to tell someone. So my question is just from, from as whatever practical advice you can give, how do you do that?

You're right on, Jeff, in underscoring how Jesus did it. And Seth, who I agree is one of the world's greatest marketers and understanding of how businesses really distribute and disperse their products. Jesus could have done his ministry any way that he wanted to with all power and authority, and he could have sat down in Jerusalem and just held crusade after crusade, service after service. But you know, the New Testament shows us that 75 to 80 percent of the time he spent with twelve people or less. And it wasn't because he was against crowds. He definitely would gather crowds at times, so we know that. But the big crowd at the start of John 6 was gone by the end of John chapter 6, and he asked his own disciples, "Are you guys going to leave too?" But his model, his strategy, was to go deep with a few who would be contagious. And this is, this is, there's no secret to multiplication. But until you become convinced that multiplication is worth the time and the energy and effort to do, you'll keep reaching for addition. And church leaders reach for addition. And there's practical reasons why. Financially is the biggest one. In order to have a church plant that's financially viable, you have to have a certain number of givers. That immediately pushes you towards addition and away from multiplication and how you do your ministry. So there's some practical realities. But probably the biggest reality that's at the back is that we just don't become convinced that Jesus's way is the way that really needs to be followed for gospel saturation of this world. And to do it means that we have to die to self. Jesus talking about himself being buried, but also talking about a believer that dies to themselves. Says, "Unless a seed falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it produces a whole harvest." And so most pastors are willing just to die to their own ego, to their own desire to be the guy and to grow the big thing. And until you're convinced of the power of multiplication and until you're willing to die to your own ego and what comes in the church world these days in America when you grow something big, until you can die to that, you don't really live fully into multiplication.

And the other thing that I would just say, and just quickly, is Acts 2:3 has become really, really important to me because it's something that I hadn't seen before. And you know, in Acts 2, the Holy Spirit comes and the church is birthed. And it's such a seminal moment, such an instructive moment for us as to how this ministry of Jesus is going to be carried out. So you've got the 120 in the upper room, and one of the manifestations is in verse 3 is when the Holy Spirit comes down and into that upper room. But a lot of people miss, and I did, the fact that it says in verse 3 that it distributed itself and came to rest on the head of every believer. So you had a hundred and twenty ordinary folks with the fire of the Holy Spirit on their head. And it says, "And they were filled with the Holy Spirit." Verse 4, "And they began to speak in languages that they'd never learned. All of them did." Which those languages were just proclaiming the wonders of God. It says which was this platform for the gospel to spread through, right there. In other words, God was using all 120 of these ordinary people because the flame was on their head. And most pastors look out at their church at church folks and say they don't see people with flames on their head. They don't believe in their potential. We really don't believe in the priesthood of all believers. We say theologically we do, but then again it comes back to what I said before. We equip them for works of ministry within the church instead of a work of gospel and ministry and proclamation with the power of the Holy Spirit. Multiplication doesn't happen until ordinary people understand that they are filled with the Spirit, and the pastor and leaders really believe that and call them up to that empowerment level.

That gets messy though, right? Because, and let's park on this for a second because I feel that tension. Part of me, it depends upon what hat I'm wearing. The church planter, let's unleash, let's empower, let's let them go, go forth, people, right? Like that, that's the goal. Then I'm putting on my manager side. You can't do that. That's not what we do here. That's not what we call discipleship. Change that you said something in you, and so I sat in your session. The first time I met you was at First Orlando at the Exponential Conference. The only time I met you. It makes it sound like I've seen you all the time. And that was, this has felt like a decade, honestly. I know it's been crazy. But you said this thing. You were like, "Don't set the bar too high, but you don't set the bar too low." So when it comes to like ecclesiology, church, like unpack that a little bit because you want to release people, but you don't want to release bad theology. How do you manage that tension as we're releasing these people out?

Yeah, there's two questions there, Jeff. One in relationship to ecclesiology and one in relationship to empowerment and release of the believers. And so as it relates to releasing people into the work of ministry, like I said before, to me it's okay if that's messy if they're accountable, if they're a person that has the humility to submit to the leadership and guidance of those that are more spiritually mature than them. Because I'm known for throwing a hundred things on the wall and seeing which one sticks. But I don't send out people unless they have a submissive spirit to spiritual authority. I don't mind if they're a maverick. In fact, we have a saying in our staff: I reward mavericks and remove rebels. And a maverick is somebody who thinks different than me and is willing to try things different than me and may even try things opposite of me, but they have this spirit of submission and humility to the Word of God and to spiritual leadership. But a rebel, they don't have that same kind of spirit. So in terms of unleashing people, I want to know that as they go, they're remaining in this humble posture of a learner versus, you know, "Hey, I can teach whatever I want." And that kind of guards against heresy because now accountability is always relationally driven. So as long as you're in relationship with them, I give them a lot of freedom. But once they break that relationship, then there's been a problem.

But then, yeah, and then we can talk if you want to about the ecclesiology part because that's where the bar can get set so high that your average Joe doesn't have a chance, or so low that you have something less than the church but you're calling a church.

I've got a church I work with. It's a multi-site, two to three thousand people attending physical campuses pre-coronavirus. And one of the things that this church is doing, this church is trying to figure out a discipleship strategy, right? And so because they're recognizing that they understand the need of multiplication, they're understanding that they need to take some philosophical shifts in that. And so part of this strategy has become separate groups that are encouraged to meet together. And actually I was part of a virtual meeting online where it was a two-hour Zoom call. That if I were to have a list, and you've got a listing in your book, and the organization that we're working through has their own list, but it's the nine or ten ecclesiological, the biblical functions of a church listed there. I experienced all ten of those, nine or ten, whatever it was, on a Zoom call. Okay? How did you worship? Worship was the most powerful experience I've had in a month. Wow. Where it was centered around a Hillsong YouTube video being played. And I sat there and listened, praying without interruption for ten minutes. It was a long song. Hillsong does long songs. But it was, and it was stopped in the midst of, for whatever the reason, and God spoke into me in ways because it wasn't convenient for me to stop. It wasn't convenient for me just to take this break and dedicate two hours of my day towards this literal online church service. But I made myself do it, and God spoke in the midst of it. Worship, giving, prayer, on mission, teaching, all of this was done. The accountability, the sharing, this was all done in context of this virtual service. Now, it's what's interesting is this was actually done with some campus pastors of the church that I'm helping out here. And so like, we all are used to the normal church service. But then we're doing this other thing to just even experiment. What is a different ecclesiology? What would a different model of church look like? Some of them are comfortable with it. Some of them are like, "This is, I'm not really comfortable with this because I'm used to the other."

How do you balance maybe some of that tension? You're a church planter, you're multiplying, you're training people on mission, you're wanting them to be on Kingdom mission, going out and doing these things. You're freeing them up. But there's this tension of, okay, the thing that we're freeing them up isn't the thing that we're justifying. And it's much easier if we just had everything look cookie cutter. How do you get past not being cookie cutter?

I was lost in your illustration of your experience, and that's so powerful, Jeff. And I think that you telling that story is a story that needs to be told because others are having that same experience. When more or older folks like me are skeptical of the online church, they can't deny people's testimonies of what God is doing in expressions like the one that you encountered. And I think to me it comes back to what I mentioned earlier about the wind blowing where God wants it to blow. And you don't control the wind. You're just taken along by the wind. Jesus said that in John 3. And I think we're in one of those moments within the church, and there are gonna be some people who plant their feet on the wrong place and won't move with the wind. Now, I believe we have to have our feet planted firmly on Scripture, and we don't want to move. But there are places the Holy Spirit is wanting to move churches like your experience that I think we need to be open to and embrace. And that's not gonna look cookie cutter. You see, I'm back to that scorecard because if you don't need the Holy Spirit...

Spirit to build in the big church, you can do that through corporate strategies and the right person, the right leadership models, et cetera. I'm not saying that churches, most churches are built that way. I'm just saying you can do that. You can build what you call that church, but the Holy Spirit wants to blow with these new expressions of the church, and our digital platforms give us a whole new avenue for the creativity of the Holy Spirit. So how you engage with that as a church, like I said, I'm just barely getting my toes wet in the water, and you've been swimming in this water, and man, I'm just getting my toes wet. But this is that I think you're going to see after this crisis a lot more variety in the expressions of the church in America, at least I'm praying so. And we need to be embracing that without moving our feet from the Word of God. I call it the cat move. If you ever push a cat, not too hard, but a lot of times they'll just plant their feet, but their whole body will move. They're just morph around that new pressure. And in a similar way, the church in this moment has to be willing to bend if they try and without moving their feet, we have to be willing to flex to this new reality that we're in. Otherwise, we're gonna go backwards in our effectiveness instead of forward.

That's a great word, and again, a great illustration right there. States they grounded in the word, keep that as the foundation of it, and in some of the functions and the things, more shape around you. You're still structured where you need to be. You're still rooted on to that foundation. I'm mixing analogies there, but you're still built on that foundation, but you're shaping as necessary.

You know, one of the arguments, and even within online pastors, when I talk about a digital-only ecclesiology, I've actually been, you know, it's all saying I've been yelled at by online pastors, people that do ministry online, saying you can't, you can't do online, you can't do online only. You have to have the physical. And some of it's, you know, tradition. They're kind of rooted in some of it. You know, one of them is ironic. Whatever, the person who's like, yeah, well, my dad was a pastor. I'm a PK, and I'm like, yes, you've been grounded in this for like thirty years, forty years. Like, do you think maybe you could think differently about it and it would change your review? And the person's like, yeah, you know what? I do. I could see where that's opinion, and it's not, you know, grounded in that theology. But the idea of a different model that may work for some people but not necessarily all of them, to me, that's my prayer for the church. I don't, I would be foolish to say church online, digital church, modern model, a vigil blended church model, a high church model, a low church. It would be silly to pick one model and to say this is the best for the church. I mean, even pre-coronavirus, across the country, Korea had giga churches that were making huge movements. India, China, was house churches and micro locations. India's like people sitting under a four tree, under a pond, four people under a palm tree. So like, the church looks different, but it's grounded in that same biblical foundation in those biblical functions. And so just to close, like I would suggest that's the challenge for the church in this coronavirus season: stay grounded in that word. And post-coronavirus season, you know, I wrote a blog on this just this recently. I think it was last week. I think the church is broken right now. Not God's church, the models. I think the models are broken. And I don't want to put words in God's mouth, but God's in control of this, which means I broke the models. What's interesting is that if God's breaking us, then God will put us back together if we stay true to him. But if he's gonna put us back exactly the way we were before, then why did he break us in the first place? I think there's an opportunity here. If we're truly broken by God, humbled by him, staying true to his word, everything that you said in this podcast, we have an incredible opportunity to shape what the church is in a whole different way. But better yet, we don't have the opportunity to shape, but God has the opportunity to shape it. And through that, I think we are gonna be in a far better place as long as we're seeking him, staying in tune to him, and hurting ourselves on what we're learning in Scripture and what these standards are, whether that's a digital-only church, that's a digital blended church model, whether it's physical only, it's a cowboy church, if it's millennials or whatever, you know, it's because it's all that's just method. Oh, that's just, you know, marketing and spin and process. It's the Scripture part that's so important.

Well, I tell you what, I just preached a sermon right there. So I'm sorry. Amen. Jeff has like really, I appreciate that. I people are like, you should be a preacher. Like, you've not heard me preach. Sermons are like my topics on this are good because this is my wheelhouse, but ask me to preach on James, not so much.

Well, hey, this has been a great podcast. I've really, I'm most respect for you and your work, and I appreciate your time jumping on here and having a conversation, talking about multiplication, discipleship, some of the tensions that you're feeling. We're gonna continue to pray for y'all out in California, just as we are everywhere else, trying to understand how best to overcome this situation we are, you know, while we're broken, doing what we can, but staying in tune and focus to what God has for us. So, and yeah, Larry, any thoughts as for landing the plane? Anything on your side?

Yeah, I just would say this is opening up all new avenues for the gospel to flow through. And church leaders that wanted to go back to the old normal as quickly as possible are gonna miss what the Holy Spirit is saying in this moment. What I agree with you, we're in a moment of brokenness, and we need to let the spirit break us. I talk about it as being the texture of the clay. This crisis that we're in is God is wanting to soften the clay so he can put his fingers deep in the clay of the church and reshape it into a more effective vessel. The wine in it's going to be the same. The treasure in it is Christ alone, but to reshape the vessel. But if we don't get soft in his hands during this time and just hold on to the old, we won't have the new wineskin that he wants to build out of this. And while this is not ideal, this time is not ideal, it's right now real. And yeah, it's gonna work in this time, but he's also gonna work through this time into a new effectiveness for the church. And that's what I'm believing.

Yeah, so that blog that I said that I wrote, what he just said is so much more eloquently stated than what I did. So ignore it. Don't go to the link in the show notes about my blog. Just listen back, like four minutes. Listen to what he just said, because I think I tried to say the same thing, but you nailed that. I'm a tech guy just wearing a different hat. So Larry, thank you much for jumping on this podcast and joining us today. For Larry, I'm Jeff with the Church Digital podcast. Thanks for being here, and we'll see you next time on the show. Y'all have a good day.