The "BIG ANNOUNCEMENT" at THECHURCH.DIGITAL

hey now we're really broadcasting live this was awesome i just did the past three minutes i literally i clicked the button and uh and and so there's uh whatever i'm using stream yard there says are you sure you want to go live and i clicked the button once and just started talking didn't even realize that we weren't even broadcasting live so i'm gonna do the whole speech again it was awesome hey we are here celebrating this idea of a big announcement the church digital 2021 it has been an awesome time uh and but we've got some big things coming up and what i wanted man i just wanted to say up front here as we're kicking off i'm tired i've been traveling a lot it's been really fun connecting with uh some exponential friends casting some new vision uh towards digital and and i'm gonna be in dc no dc i've already been there north cal southern california did all those as well but i'm gonna be in chicago i'm gonna be in houston here in the next couple weeks so looking forward to meeting up with you if you're gonna be at those events but we got a big announcement but let me back up maybe before we get there i want to tell you the why we're doing this and what's coming up so you see the

heart of the church digital the heart of what we're doing all the blogging the podcasting the streaming the speaking engagements the heart behind digital through stadia and through exponential digital only church planting through stadia looking at even ramping up some global digital church through an organization called finishing the task we'll talk talk more about that later just follow it away traveling six of seven weeks by the way thank you very much american advantage bonus miles thank you for that and marriott bonvoy i i love you listen all of this is for the one purpose of helping churches like yours understand how to thrive grow and multiply utilizing this digital technology to understand how digital ministry works how it's different than physical um and just to even take advantage of this in context of your church now yes it's a reality let's not sugarcoat it in this 2021 era the majority of churches are trying to get back to normal as quickly as possible and unfortunately they perceive normal as february 2020 and so some churches they're not interested and i've had those conversations with pastors uh who are in that situation digital pastors who are scrambling and

struggling and yes it is a challenge but i would even say this i think there's an opportunity in this season where not all churches want to go back to what was normal the perception of of what the church was in february 2020 i think some churches are wanting to be aggressive they're wanting to experiment they're wanting to try something different and really this gets to this heart stadia has this phrase i love this and i love the family over there uh we want to go with the goers stadia says this a lot we want to go with the goers the people who are advancing who are running let's go with them and so we we made this pivot uh in in season two here with the church digital podcast where it's hey we want to go with the goers i don't want to spend time trying to convince people that are not interested in digital ministry or the benefits of it why they should do it when instead we should be advancing with people who want to there's so many people in this season that want to um let's let's go with them and really this gets into the heart of let's be crazy let's be radical let's go with the experimenters let's try something different 21 years ago i was crazy i taught an online bible study

before like online was even a thing before social media to anything came out before facebook myspace uh before smartphones webcams i was doing it 21 years ago crazy right yeah that's that's pretty much the moniker of my life i left a full-time job uh doing ministry to start an organization pre-covid that was championing digital uh yeah once again uh probably another crazy thing and to be honest that probably wasn't a good idea pre-covid but really that's where faith comes in in this stuff but sometimes when we're doing crazy things proverbs 3 5 and 6 trust in the lord lean not on your own understanding in all your ways acknowledge him and if you're doing that by faith in those seasons he'll direct your path which actually gets me back to this idea of being crazy so let's have some fun here if you go on google experiment for me tell me where it's at you can throw it in the chat if you google right now plant a digital church chances are me the church digital stadia church planting or some blog or podcast that i've spoken on will come up in probably six to eight of the top ten listings on google plant a digital church and it has been awesome pioneering this this idea and working

alongside stadia to fine-tune it has been a beautiful experience um but we've got a problem churches like yours out there you're not wanting all the radical stuff or you don't just need the radical stuff we all need to learn how to experiment we all need to learn how to iterate we all need to to hear these success stories but the reality is you need more than just the craziness that i'm bringing to the table yes i'm crazy but you need the practical insight you need the more grounded tips um i'm just going to be real right now if i have to write another blog or do another stream on the top four reasons your church needs an online small group my head's going to explode like literally emoji is going to happen right here on the screen because i i mean i'm just i'm spent in that it's been 20 plus years having that conversation and i don't have it in me anymore which actually brings me here to the announcement that we wanted to talk about so here's what we're going to do we're bringing somebody in to the church digital we're going to onboard somebody who's going to take this over not the church digital but really this idea of the practical the insights the tips the grounded guy that's

actually going to help your ministry take it to the next level now here's what we're going to do and this guy's good i'm going to introduce him a little bit but i'm going to tease him you guys can do a guessing game if you're in chat here and try to figure it out maybe you know who this guy is uh look here's here's where he's a digital pastor okay there's a lot of them out there not not that many but there's enough he's in washington dc oh oh narrows it down a little bit he's student ministry background he's been blogging and podcasting for church online for years dude was doing this content before i was doing this content solid stuff he's been a guest on the church digital podcast during our season two run just recently quick go to the website try to find out what it was you can narrow it down even runs a facebook group on digital ministry you know who this guy is all right look here's what we're doing we're bringing in tom pounder into the church digital so i'm going to work my little technology here and bring in tom pounder to the screen hey tom how's it going hey jeff i'm doing pretty good awesome so man listen i am so excited that you were crazy enough to come on board with

us here at the church digital and do this that is going to be a great so hey first off i i want to ask this question what were you thinking like you're doing this thing you're you're so successful with what you're doing with ym sidekick what are you thinking coming on board with this well i mean it all started with that crazy conversation we had three years ago and i just said when i had you on my podcast and i thought man this guy is awesome this guy i would love to be a part of anything that jeff reed is doing and so with your background of doing digital ministry and what you're doing for digital ministers all over when you and i had a conversation when we actually got to meet in person when we got after all the years of online we got to meet in person you you threw this crazy idea by me i was like man this is what i've been looking for to partner up with someone who is really an innovator like yourselves and i just thought i i cannot pass this up i know listen i i love it and by the way people who say that digital relationships are not real tom has been a very close friend of mine for three years just met the dude for the first time i don't know a month ago at an exponential

conference in dc and so it's it's a beautiful thing tom is digital pastor with um um new life uh there in washington dc uh as student pastor as well off and on has been very involved in student ministry as well as digital over the years tom maybe just take a minute here tell us a little bit about yourself even beyond that yeah so i was uh born and raised in washington dc just outside of dc my my dad actually was a cia guy for over 30 years um and so they're from my mom and my dad were from pennsylvania and they moved down here uh do that and i just always remember growing up um they would always ask what what does your dad do what does your dad do and we're always told to say your dad worked for the government and everyone knew that if they said that then your dad worked for the cia so that was just the kind of the weird thing uh but you know i was born and raised here uh you know and um i left we left a few years for germany i left a few years for college uh but god really hit me uh you know my parents were always believers we always went to church but there was always that void in my life um you know throughout high school in the summer between my junior and senior year in high

school uh went on a mission trip that changed my life and i thought if serving god looks like this i don't want to do anything else and you know and i looked up to my youth pastor who was just wild and crazy but he was very uh close to jesus and i thought this is who i want to be like and so i committed my life to say i'm gonna i'm gonna grow my faith and and uh do that but i you know while i was passionate about student ministry another passion of mine was always computers i love computers i remember how i'm playing with an apple 2 uh in elementary school at the schools and then my parents bought in 1985 or 86 um maybe a little bit after that but it was an ibm ps2 um yeah and uh and so from that moment on i was totally hooked on computers and so um throughout my college career i still love working with computers but studied ministry uh and it was just great that about six seven years ago my church approached me about being the online guy at the church and um it was a position that i was serving in and i loved it um and again i've been doing the blog for a long time as well doing focus on student ministry stuff but you know i went into doing a lot of online stuff and my blog and

my podcast was all real stuff that i wanted to uh share with people um just different things i'm learning but then also the podcast was about interviewing people who were learning cool things and i got a chance to learn from them uh so they were like my heroes uh that i just got to interview uh so it's just been a fun ride um i've really enjoyed ministering um and i can't see doing anything other than serving the lord so it's been really fun so tom that is so awesome man and and love the the experience the wealth of knowledge by the way secret tip run a podcast not because you've got stuff to say but because you want to learn from other people definitely a a pro tip right there and has been just i i was telling actually i was texting grade the armist last night i told him probably the best thing that i've done ministry wise in 10 years uh we'll start this podcast i don't know three four years whenever we started at this point i can't even keep track in my head hey so tom do me a favor i because you're you're you're ym sidekick coming over tcd sidekick we're gonna get there in a little bit what's this whole sidekick thing like what what how does this work for you yeah so i i've

always envisioned myself i i've always enjoyed leadership and and being a part of the process and being a part of teams um but one thing that i always i figured out about myself is that i'm a really good sidekick like i'm a i'm you know i can be in a number one position uh and i can i'm very comfortable in that but where i feel like my sweet spot is is to be in that number two position to be that sidekick and so when i was blogging you know um before i even started the podcast um i i just thought what does my blog want to be about what do i i don't want to be about me i want to just be a part of the conversation and so i just thought you know sidekick i loved growing up i loved batman and robin and i know everyone loves batman i mean i do too um but i was really drawn towards uh yeah robin right there i was drawn to uh be the sidekick there i love dick grayson i thought he was awesome and he became nightwing his own superhero but you know him being robin i was just one of my favorite characters and i thought i want to i want to be the sidekick so that's how i approach my blog that's how i approach this the podcast that i do i just want to lift other people up and be support to

other people and that's why i chose sidekick yeah that's beautiful and hopefully that makes sense some of the easter eggs i think i had more people texting me and asking me not what the announcement was but why are we doing like batman graphics and uh and pikachu i had people asking me which one was pikachu it was so funny uh you know uh mario here with this charlie brown's probably my favorite because snoopy says wolf snoopy never you know talks but that's okay so you know and of course star wars uh for that and so definitely excited about taking this idea of sidekick um and bringing in and not that i'm batman and looking for a robin but looking for an opportunity to get more voices out there uh and doing it by the way dick grayson is totally the best robin ever and i'm not even he is yeah so that's that's another conversation entirely hey here so here's here's what we're doing be be excited for this here's the the practical reality of this uh with the tcd sidekick the podcast why am sidekick podcast is coming over to the church digital it's going to be part of the church digital podcast network we'll talk more about that here in a little bit we're going to be tom's going to be

doing weekly blogs updates through the church digital the new content he's developing it's going to be available through the church digital distributed and available for that tom's weekly email grounded sidekick scoop grounded in in practical insights and tips uh is going to be available weekly and and tcd the church digital audience to be able to subscribe for that tom is taking over stadia's be the church online facebook group and running that and so excited to see some of the insight coming in uh around in that so listen tom we're doing a bunch of stuff through the church digital to get tom's information his insights his practical tips out there and you can hit all of that up by going to the church digital slash sidekick that if you're looking at the stream online if you're looking at youtube the church dot digital slash sidekick is the way to get connected into this and to start receiving tom's stuff here so tom tell us just here right now uh man what what can we expect what are like some things that are coming up in the pipe right here with tcd sidekick well i one is i've lined up a bunch of great interviews and i've already conducted a few of them that are going to be

released uh starting next wednesday so next wednesday will be my first one and can i tell who's going to be on the podcast okay yeah sure let's do it okay ben stapely the one and only i wasn't expecting that one very cool love that yeah so i i love ben and you love i know you love ben too and so he's just one guy i wanted to kind of launch this tcb d sidekick off with uh so i'm excited he'll be my first guest there and i've got four or five other online ministers who are lined up and they'll be coming out in the consecutive weeks of just conversations we're having about online ministry and what it looks like for you and what what it looks like for them but also more importantly what it looks like for you and how you can apply what we're talking about uh into your ministry context uh and then i've just got great different blogs and my blogs you know they're they're digital based but i also focus on some leadership issues um and uh just things like that so i i try to take digital in the in the aspect of not not just if you're an online pastor i want these to apply if you're a children's minister if you're a student minister uh if you're an executive pastor how can you incorporate

digital components into your uh ministry and so again that's where we're going and so i that those are the kind of angles i'm going to take for for the content i'm producing with the church digital and i love that i mean i love that aspect where we're trying to not make digital so much as an as an exclusionary aggressive radical approach but trying to make it practical for every person for every step for every person who's in ministry even challenging digital missionaries which i know tom's passion about even uh challenging those that are not on staff to embrace digital as a as a way of uh disciple making moving forward and so tom i cannot be more excited about what is happening and getting ready to talk about this but sadly we're gonna have to wrap up here and so there's gonna be some big things coming down the road even beyond this 2022 is going to be awesome and we still got a chunk of 21 left to go through church digital podcast network's going to expand look for more voices to come into this area as we are really passionate about helping people helping pastors helping ministers helping them understand how to use digital to the place of multiplying stadia uses the language

until every child has a church and that's the motto of of the church digital dude ministry do multiplication until everybody's got a church because that's the goal of where we are so much more coming soon in context of all of this church digital ecosystem but hey thomas we're landing the plane here any closing thoughts on your side just excited to be a part of the team and looking forward to how this develops and uh to be your sidekick awesome do not put on the costume whatever anyone says no cosplay necessary there hey guys and and we're out for tom this is jeff uh with the church digital uh powered by stadia church planning thanks for jumping on this big announcement hey there's going to be more stuff more big announcements coming soon so look for it coming soon but until then check out uh the sidekick page there the church digital slash sidekick get connected with tom and uh y'all have a good day