Fluent Faith: Speaking the Gospel Into Everyday Digital Life

America. Heat. Heat. It's cute. All right, and we're back. Hey, I want to thank you all for jumping on the breakouts. Uh, I know, um, breakouts there's always so much energy centered around what's happening with the breakout leaders and and the topics that are there.

Well, that was weird. I disappeared. Uh, hopefully I'm on the stream now. I I Anyway, hi. Awkward. Uh, I know there's so much energy centered around the breakouts.

Uh, people never want to leave, want to talk about it. There's so many there's multiple breakouts. People want to have multiple conversations. Uh and so we're excited.

We're hope we're trying something this round recording the breakouts. Uh if you registered for the conference, we're going to try to make all the breakouts any that we've got quality video on, we'll make it available topic-wise.

And uh and so that'll be a great resource available to you. I do want to say one of our sponsors, Topapos, uh is um is actually helping us develop uh miss a digital missionary conference AI that's ingesting all of the knowledge of the digital missionary conference, every keynote speaker, all the breakouts, all of that. And so we are going to make that available uh to the uh to attendees uh like you. And so be on the lookout for emails, you know, from the church digital.

We, you know, if there's anything, we know how to email. Uh, and so we'll keep you um in the in the loop on that.

Hey, real quick as as we're heading on. Uh, welcome back everybody. Uh, somebody tell me, give me some feedback on the breakouts, what breakout you went to and what it looked like.

So, you know that keyboard, that thing in front of you. Go ahead and grab it, type on it. Uh, give me some feedback on the breakout, which one you went to, how awesome it was, and or how it's going to impact your ministry.

I just like to hear good stuff. And so give me some feedback right now in in the chat on that. That'll be good. Hey, um the biggest challenge of digital missionaries, the biggest challenge of digital missionaries that that I can see uh constant across the board is fundraising.

I mean within the church digital probably 97 98% of us are are bivocational. uh what we're doing uh funding does not come from it.

And so often we have to fund raise and do things outside of ministry to generate revenue for that. You know, I myself am carrying that burden where I'm fundraising for myself and and for the church digital.

And so we're doing things like the conferences and things like that for it. But as I've over the years, as I've met more and more digital missionaries and had more and more conversations centered around what was the problems and what was the issues that some of the digital missionaries were facing, you know, there was a season where I actually thought, dang it, we're going to have to like create some sort of an opportunity where missionaries can come underneath our 501c3 and I'm going to have to hire some sort of like a a uh you know, a CFO that's going to manage manage all of this fundraising and just the way that I I I operate. I'm like trying to figure out how to conquer this massive problem in order to help people like you figure out how to easily fund raise uh and generate revenue via, you know, old-fashioned missionary fundraising and then I just life-changing conversation.

Seriously. Uh because I was carrying all this stress. I was literally interviewing like financial geniuses and trying to convince them to come on and work for the ch the church digital for peanuts.

And um and Leighton says to me, "Hey Jeff, have you ever met this guy John Crawford over at Reliant?" And uh my answer was no.

But I am so excited to have John Crawford in here because what Reliant is doing and and how they're partnering with the church digital to provide fundraising opportunities for digital missionaries like you is incredible.

and and and as a takeaway today, I want I would love for missionaries like you to better understand what Relion is doing to maybe help you take some next steps in in in your in your fundraising and generating money to allow you to continue to do the ministry God's called you to do.

So, John, that's probably the best setup I can give you, man. You good for me?

Great. I love it. Thanks, Jeff. Yeah. Hey, everybody. Like you said, my name is John Crawford. I'm from Reliant Mission. And ultimately what we do is we come alongside and support you and help you to be trained and coached on how to raise the funds you need for the ministry that God is calling you to.

And then as Jeff said to handle all that employment services back in all the really operational burden of some of that work so that you can go forth and do that.

We do that for over 200 folks worldwide over 400 different organizations. But what particularly excites me about this space, you know, Leighton Flatcap and I met at a conference a few years back, but this space that you guys are in is really meaningful to me.

So, especially as a church planter, I raised my first round of support as a church planter, but then per this conference, the idea of digital neighborhoods.

It was a church planter wanted to go into a neighborhood. I knew a place I had sat down with a map of Indianapolis with my wife and we had looked at different neighborhoods and said, "Where's the neighborhood that we want to go?

But we want to go and live incarnationally. We want to go and be present into that space. And then Jason's talk this morning and all the different things that are going to continue happening.

I know that that is the conversations you guys are having. How do I be native and into this digital space? How do I go and spend time here to be a missionary here introducing people to Jesus being fully indwelled in that space?

And part of oftentimes what that helps what you need in that to help is sustainable funding. funding that is sustainable month after month, year after year and what that looks like.

And now when I start to say support raising or I start to say fundraising, I know the heart rate can go up in the room a little bit.

We can get a little nervous and we can even begin to wonder like, okay, I I get that Paul did it. I get that somebody that it may go raise support in another country.

I get that they do it. But me, a digital missionary and my encouragement to you would be yes, if there's a vision and a mission for what you are heading into and there's a need for the work to be done, we can come alongside you, help build the team around you, train and coach you on how to build that team and then handle all the administrative burden in the back end. And so I just wanted to share some of that and share some of my heart.

I know that some of the folks that are in the room today are reliant folks beginning to raise their funding towards being able to spend more time doing the ministry that they're really hoping to do.

And yeah, and so then there's a couple different ways to connect and Jeff may have some other thoughts, but I basically I have this profile set up.

There's a resource in there uh if you go to the Reliant Mission profile, there's a resource in there that gives you three of our training videos on is support raising even biblical?

Is it okay to raise support for this sort of a thing? and that's in there as well as my contact and I'll be hanging around the rest of the day as well.

But would love to chat and help make more ministry happen, which is ultimately what we want to do.

Beautiful. Hey, hey, thank you, John, for for sharing that. Okay, look everybody, couple things to to connect here. Um, and so I put a link on here, check out Reliance website. You go and click on that reliant.org.

That's a great way to connect or uh hit the button up at the top sponsors. Not now, you know, at some point later today.

hit the sponsors button. Go check out all the sponsors that we've we've got in there. Plenty of resources that are available on on uh the major sponsors that we've got, but Relion is in there and he's got plenty u John's got plenty of of resources to help you get connected.

Oh, and you know, stop by the the table over there with Relant to talk with John. Hardcore gamer, loves what he's doing. uh digital friendly guy uh right off the bat and so excited how John thank you for you know working with Reliant helping provide opportunities for digital missionaries.

We've got several people that are utilizing it. Uh talk to Flakap flap is utilizing it doing it well. There are others as well that that are in the process and so John once again thank you.

Check out Reliant and uh man love what you're doing. Thanks John.

Yep. Thanks y'all. I'll be around. Feel free to reach out.

Cool. All right. Hey. Um, I am so excited. I am so excited about this. Bye, John. Um, I'm so excited. Let me make this go away, too.

Uh, bye. I guess Andy's away from the computer. It's cool. I am so excited. I've said that like four times. I I I have been waiting.

I've been waiting. I have been waiting for at least eight months for what what's about to happen. um the Jason Morris. Like I told you, this conference is all about how Jeff's brains exploded and we're about to experience round two of Jeff's brains exploding.

I'm sitting around with Jason Morris talking about this idea of platforms as places eight months ago. Casual conversation, you know, it was probably a leadership meeting that that we're having with our leadership team.

By the way, uh the church digital leadership team is, you know, multicontinental. We've never actually been in the same space at the same time.

And so, you know, meeting in in Google meets just the way of life. And so, you know, Jason and I are talking and uh and he says he says, "You know what?

This is kind of like um gospel fluency from Jeff Vanderto." And I was like, "I don't what do you mean?" and he starts talking about some of the ideology that that Jeff's about to share about how the well I I don't I'm not going to I'm not going to like tease it too much, but I just want to tell you that my philosophy on on evangelism and disciplehip shifted as a result of J Mo talking about Jeff.

And so immediately immediately I reached out to Jeff. He's been a friend from the exponential and and the and the the groups over there and and a and a supporter of digital ministry and and and I reached out to Jeff and I was like, "Hey, I want to have you like do something and and we had just a back and forth for months trying to get the calendars to align and I am so thankful. I am so thankful that we were able to get Jeff Vanderelt to come in and speak today in this session as we're talking about digital neighborhoods and how the gospel is shaped inside digital community because this this blew my mind and I cannot wait to get you exposed to this. That's probably the best setup I can give for Jeff Anderson.

And so Jeff, sir, thank you for jumping on the stream here and the stage is yours. Okay.

All right. Thank you so much. Yeah, it's good to be with all of you and I uh yeah, like Jeff said, we tried to figure out our schedule. I was I was actually going to have to do a pre-recorded thing and then we were able to work it out that I could just do it live.

So, uh so glad to be here. So excited about what you're all doing and your heart for people coming to know Jesus. Um I'm just going to kind of introduce the idea first of all, gospel fluency.

You see the subtitle speaking Jesus into everyday life. And the idea there is that um we we we need to learn how to be fluent with the gospel as much as we would learn to be fluent with any other language.

And I don't know if you've ever learned a language, but um I learned Spanish years ago. I'm certainly not fluent in it now because I haven't used it.

If you don't use it, you lose it, which is probably true of the gospel as well, frankly. Um but I got to a place where I remember dreaming in Spanish.

And um when you become fluent in something, you think it, you know, dream it, you filter the world through it. It's like the language you use to interpret things.

It's also the language you use to solve problems. And so this idea of gospel fluency comes from starting first of all with Ephesians 4.

I want to get there in a sec, but I want to ask you to do something before I look at the passage. I just want you to take a moment first before we even go into the concepts to identify a situation you're presently in.

Maybe it's a difficult issue, challenging situation, maybe in your digital space, it's a relationship you're working on that or a person you're caring for, someone you're trying to help them address, something that they're facing, and maybe you personally like it's something you're working on or facing right now.

I want you to identify it because I want you to keep it in mind as we do the training because I found that when you can take a real life situation and apply what I'm about to teach, it actually gets more traction than if it's just ethereal idea.

So take a moment to do that. Even if you have to write it down, type it in, whatever it may be. You don't have to share with everybody.

That's not what I'm asking for. You're welcome to, but that's not what I'm asking for. But get it locked in so you know what it is.

Just give me a moment to do that. Okay, hopefully you've got one in mind, a person in mind, a situation in mind, a challenge in mind, a problem you're facing, something you're working on in yourself maybe.

And then the second thing I want you to do with that is I want you just to ask how have you been addressing it?

So let me give you an example. So um one of the things in my life was an unreconciled relationship where um I had hurt somebody, they had hurt me.

Uh I wanted to seek reconciliation. We went through even a mediation process to be able to extend forgiveness. I extended forgiveness. He this particular friend of mine refused to.

And so uh that was a problem or situation. Now, it's been resolved, but it took actually sadly several years for it to be resolved.

Well, if I were in on in your shoes right now listening this this conversation, that might have been one that I came up with.

And the way that I had been addressing it was a variety of things. Sometimes it was trying to control the situation, trying to convince him to forgive.

Sometimes it was, yeah, I was praying for him. Other I was getting outside counsel. I mean, I was doing all kinds of stuff. So I want you to think through the situation you're facing, the issue you're in.

How have you been addressing it? What have you been doing? What have you been thinking? How have you been responding? What are you doing to address it right now?

So get that in mind. So the issue and the pattern or way in which you've been trying to address it. So keep that in mind as we move forward.

Now back to the idea of gospel fluency. I'm going to take you to Ephesians 4. And we, this is just I want to make sure there's context for this.

We see Paul saying he gave some to be apostles, some prophets, evangelists, shepherds, and teachers to equip the saints. That's you. That's the people of God for the work of ministry.

That word ministry can also be translated serving uh in the name of Jesus. So we we tend to think ministry sadly is what people do quote unquote in, you know, paid jobs in churches.

But that's not what Paul was talking about at all. He's just talking about people who love Jesus, who are set apart for his work in any space in the world.

That's ministry. And the goal is to then build up the body of Christ till we all reach unity in the faith and the knowledge of God's son, growing in maturity in the stature measured by Christ's fullness.

So we grow up to be Christlike. The church looks more like Jesus. And he continues, "So we won't be tossed like little children back and forth by these waves of every kind of teaching and cunning and cleverness and techniques of deceit." No, we want to be solid and movable, mature.

And then he continues, the way we do that, he says, is by speaking the truth in love. Let us grow up in every way into him who is the head uh into Christ from who the the whole body fit and knit together supports uh each ligament when each is when it's being equipped

and when each part is working properly, it then makes the body grow up. So the idea here is every member's growing up, everyone's getting mature.

When everybody's doing their role, we help we all help each other grow up. But the key phrase here that I don't want you to miss is speaking the truth in love.

Now a lot of us, we might have heard that at one point in our life where we're like, yeah, you know, I remember being in a relationship and it was difficult or a friendship or in a group and we we you know, we finally said, hey, brother or sister or friend, you know,

I need to speak the truth in love with you. And what it meant was like I've got a hard direct word and I'm just going to do it hopefully in a gentle kind way.

And those things do need to happen. But I don't think that's primarily or or exclusively what Paul's talking about here because later on in the same chapter after he talks about the way of the Gentiles and how we don't go in that way.

We go in a very different way. He says this, this is not the way that you came to know Christ assuming you heard about him and were taught by him as the truth is in Jesus.

So when Paul says, "Speak the truth in love," he's basically saying, "Speak the truth of Jesus to every situation." And here's another way to think about it.

If we're going to grow up in every way into Christ, we've got to learn how to speak and also, I'd say, demonstrate. So it's not just our words, but also our actions, the very truths of Jesus into everything.

And I would make the case that where we are not speaking the truth of Jesus or the gospel of Jesus, the good news about Jesus into areas of our life, those will be the areas that will not look like Jesus.

Or we're trying to serve other people and speak truth into them. If we're not bringing the truths of Jesus into their life, they're probably going to grow up in something else.

And we see this all over the place. We see Christians who parts of their life look like Jesus and then a whole bunch of other parts of their life look like their political party.

Not trying to get political, but it's like they they look more like the their peers than they do Jesus in that thing. Or they look more like a philosophy than they do like Jesus in that thing.

Or the way they manage or handle their finances look nothing like Jesus because they got all their training or development from something that doesn't include Jesus or doesn't represent the truths of Jesus.

But what Paul is saying is if we're going to grow up into the fullness of Christ and into maturity in Christ likeness, we've got to learn how to speak the good news of Jesus into absolutely every nook and cranny of our life.

And that's what I mean by gospel fluency. And the thing I want you to do is just stop and ask this question. Maybe even think about the the situation or issue that I encourage you to identify and just ask, how much has the good news of Jesus saturated your life?

I mean, how much does the truth of Jesus apply to everything you're facing? How much does the truth of who he is and what he's done and who you are in Christ get applied to the issues and the struggles and the challenges you're facing?

Or do you find yourself moving away from Jesus in all those other areas? you apply worldly wisdom or maybe just a proven practice or maybe the counsel of others, but you really don't look like Jesus or remember the truths of Jesus for a lot of stuff you're going through.

And so that's the question I want you to ask as we keep going. Because here's the deal. You and I will talk about what we love most.

Like we most talk about what we most love. And if you just think about the last 24 hours and think about how many conversations you had, whether it was in digital spaces or using your devices, um, you know, chatting, texting, whatever it may be, or, you know, maybe even physically being with someone,

having a conversation, like the question is, what have you been talking about? What's been the center of your conversation? What's been oozing out of your heart?

Because Christ says it's out of the overflow of the heart that the mouth speaks. And that the idea there is you will be speaking about what you love the most.

I remember when I first met my wife and I was absolutely smitten and everywhere I went I was talking about her and I was a youth pastor at the time, our senior pastor and I went on a hike and like for two and a half days that's all I'm talking about.

And finally says, "Would you just shut up? Like go marry the girl. I'm tired of hearing about this." And the truth is like you just you just talk about it like whether it's sports that you love your you know your kids your your spouse your friends your grandkids like nobody struggles to talk

about what they love most and so if you're think about man how do I start becoming more fluent in sharing the gospel to people or even to my own struggles in my life the question is has the gospel has the good news of Jesus so captured your affections that you just can't stop

talking about it now here's something that I've learned We also sometimes grow cold in our love. We we forget what drew us first in the you know drew us to somebody or to Jesus in the first place.

And that happened even in my marriage. I remember there was a season I my love was growing cold. I was talking to older gentlemen about our marriage and the struggles.

And he said, "Hey, remind me again why you married Janie. Like what was it about her that you loved?" And I started talking about all the things that I love.

And the more that I talked about the things I love, the more that my heart grew warm again. And I found myself going, "Man, I really do love JD.

This is amazing. This is the woman I want to spend my life with." What happened? Well, we not only talk about what we love most, but often times if we don't talk about it, we lose our love for it.

In other words, the more that I talked about all the beauty and all the splendor and all the wisdom and all the joy of being with this amazing woman, the more that my heart grew in affection for her.

So, I I would just offer up as you're thinking about growing in gospel fluency in terms of the the process of it, not only pay attention to what you talk about because it's going to reveal your affections, but start getting around people who talk about Jesus a lot.

Because the more that you talk about what why he's so amazing, why his work is so like worth giving your life to, why you adore him so much, the more that you talk about him, the more that you'll love him.

And so, it goes both ways. We talk about what we love most, but we start to love what we talk about most. Which is why you want to get yourself in a Hey everybody.

Hey Jeff. Um, we had a screw up. We accidentally muted you on our side and so I apologize for that. Back up 30 seconds.

Yeah. Yeah. Keegan's laughing at me. That's cool. I'm actually It's so funny. I'm wearing a t-shirt because I don't want to mess up my nice shirt.

I'm having lunch. Um, sorry, Jeff. Our bad. Back up 30 seconds and unmute yourself. Back up 30 seconds and keep going. Even the pros screw up y'all.

Like that. This is a thing. Jeff, can you hear me now? I can. I apologize. You are on a roll. You are throwing it.

Keep going. Back up 30 seconds and and roll with it, sir. I app. Where did you lose me? Was it when I was talking about my uh talking about what you love most with my wife?

Back up. Back up one slide. Hit the end of it and then roll. Yeah. Great. Great. So, we talk about what we love most.

That one. Uh I was making the case that you what will what you love most which capture affections will come out of your heart.

Uh that it will be the thing that you you can't stop talking about. So stop and just think about what you talk about the most and ask yourself is that what's most captured that your affection is it Jesus?

Is it the truth of what he's done uh who you are in Christ and how he's changed everything. I was telling the story and if I if I repeat myself I'm sorry but about my wife when I first met her I couldn't stop talking about her.

But later on in our marriage, my love started to grow cold. And I had an older guy come to me and say, "Man, tell me all the reasons why you you, you know, fell in love with her in the first place." And as I shared all these things, I realized my heart began to be warm again towards her. My affections were stirred up. And I just, then I couldn't stop not only talking about her, but growing in my affection for her.

And I think when it comes to growing in gospel fluency, we want to both pay attention to what we talk about because what we talk about will reveal what's captured our affections.

But if our affections aren't stirred up for Jesus, then we got to be with people who will ask, "Remind me again. Why is it that you first became a Christian? What was it that drew you to Christ? Why why do you adore him so much?" And the more that we talk about all that he is and all that he's done and all that we have in Christ, the more our affections get stirred up for him.

And here's the reality. It's out of the overflow of the heart that the mouth speaks. So, it's not hard to speak about Jesus in these digital spaces that need to hear about Christ when our affections are stirred up for him on a regular basis because it will just overflow out of your life.

But if it's not coming out of your mouth, it's probably not in your heart. You're not being captured by these affections. So, we talk about what we love most, but we also uh have to keep stirring up our affection.

So, what comes out of us will be our affection for Jesus. And then here's the other thing that I know is true. You also talk about what you believe works.

Um, you know, whether it's the the newest gadget you've got, the game you're playing, the, you know, the tool you have, the vehicle you drive, whatever you think works great, you're going to talk about it.

And that's why Paul says, "I'm not ashamed of the gospel, for it's the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes." He's saying, "The reason why it's not hard for me to to talk about it is because it's the thing that transforms everything." And so I would ask the question, are you experiencing the power of the gospel transforming every aspect of your life? Because if you're not, you'll primarily talk about the part that you think it did transform, which which is why a lot of people talk about, you know, are you sure about where you're going to go after you die?

Because man, I at least it transformed my afterlife. But the gospel is meant meant to transform every aspect of your life. And so I want you to keep the in your mind all the situation that I ask you to identify and the way that you've been addressing it.

And I'm just going to walk through what the gospel includes and why it has good news for probably more than the one issue that you identified.

And remember, the gospel means good news. So I I the people I teach in my own little church regularly is I say um if it doesn't sound like good news, it's not the gospel.

And of course there'll be some of you push back like, "Yeah, but there's bad news in the gospel. Like you got to talk about sin in order to get the good news." And I would say like, "Yeah, but sin isn't the gospel.

Sin is why we need the gospel. Yes, we'll need to talk about the problem, but the gospel isn't sin. The gospel is that we're saved from our sin.

The gospel is that there's good news setting us free from the shackles of sin. And so, if it never sounds like good news, it's possible you're not actually proclaiming the gospel.

And though, I know there's some of you listening going, "Yeah, but didn't Paul say, uh, it's foolishness to those who are perishing?" And I always say, "Yeah, it's foolishness, not bad news." The idea of foolishness is it's too good to be true.

I can't hardly accept it. How could it be that? And so I always tell people if it doesn't if it doesn't sound like good news in your own heart when you're saying it to somebody else, you should back up.

And there's probably a few things you should ask. One, have I listened long enough to to these people I'm with to know what they actually need and what would sound like good news about Jesus that I could give to them.

Because if you listen long enough, you'll go, "Oh my goodness, they need to know this about Jesus. They need to hear what he's done or how much he loves them or what he could do for them, you know?

When you get to that place, you're like, gosh, I can't wait to tell them. So, when if you don't sense it's good news, then I would have slow down.

Maybe you need to listen longer so you actually know what they need and how Jesus is what they need. But the other side of it is maybe we haven't thought through the the breadth and the depth and the length of the gospel that it's not just, you know, limited to justification by faith.

That's that's real. It's not just limited to good news after I die. That's real. But it's got so much more. And so just want to remind you it includes the life of Jesus.

When we think about his life, we think about a real human who did went through everything you and I go through. Hebrews 4 says we have a high priest who's able to sympathize, which means he's able to feel with you what you're feeling because he was tested in every way just like you and me. And therefore, we can go to him in our time of need. And so the life of Jesus is part of the good news.

It's not just his death. It's that he lived our life. Yes, he lived our life and he was lived it you know as a righteous man without sin and completed the work God came gave him to do which is really good.

So he is our hope for being made righteous before God. Uh in him we are righteous but also don't miss it. He he is a human who went through what you went through who's felt what you feel.

And so even maybe even that's what you need to hear or you need to give to someone else today or in in the coming days in these digital spaces you're in.

It's like I want you to know there's a God who mourns. And that's why he says blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted.

Because Jesus was a man of sorrows acquainted with grief. He wept over Israel. He knows what it's like to lose things. He lost his friend and then he raised him from the dead, Lazarus.

But if you don't if you don't slow down in that passage, Jesus is so present in the the sadness of Mary that he weeps with her.

And he does that for you and me. He was wounded. He knows what it's like to be hurt. His friends abandoned him. They betrayed him, denied him, rejected him.

So he knows what it's like to be in that space. He knows what it's like to be lonely. He cries out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me from the cross?" So maybe some of you are like, man, there's these issues I'm going through.

Does he know what it's like to to feel pain, to feel loss, to feel abandoned? Did did he get angry? Yes, he did. Um and so it the maybe that what you need in terms of the good news of Jesus is just to go there is somebody who understands what you're going through,

feels what you feel, and did didn't just feel it. We'll get to the resurrection. He's alive. He's present right now in me to feel it with you.

Jesus doesn't want you to know you don't have to be alone in this. And he wants you to know the human experience is not something he's a foreigner to.

Now, there's a lot more we could talk about in the life of Jesus. His obedience in our place. There's so much, but we'll just move on to the the death.

Now, uh that we know in the death we've got, uh him putting himself in our place, taking on our sin, uh not only dying for sin, but also putting to death death, putting to death the power of sin, defeating the evil one as he's buried in the in the tomb.

And so, the burial of Jesus is really important because what does he do? He takes all that we've done and he buries it there and he comes out in the resurrection without it.

So the death is important because he died in our place and he put to death death and sin and its power. But the burial is so important because he left it there.

Uh he buried it all there. And we if we're in Christ have been raised with Jesus to new life. So our sin, our guilt, our shame, it's in the tomb.

It's not our identity. It's not how he sees us. God sees us now in Christ. And that's why we're co-airs with Christ. And the good news about his resurrection that he has overcome Satan's sin and death.

And Paul says in in Romans 8, if we now have the spirit of of of God in us that enables us to cry out, "Aba, daddy, father, we also have the spirit that raised Jesus from the dead." So all the power of the resurrection is now in us by his spirit.

And Jesus said, "Those who believe in me are going to do the same works that I do." So maybe your issue is like, I'm facing what seems like an insurmountable situation or I'm dealing with sin that I just can't get over.

And Paul is really clear. You have the same power in you that Jesus had in him. And it's in his resurrection that that power over Satan, sin, and death is now the power for you to overcome anything you're facing.

And here's the good news. He ascended to the right hand of the father. And he says, "If I go, then I'll send my spirit." So when he ascended, not only is he there representing you as an advocate before God the Father forever, but he's also giving you all that you need for every situation you will ever face. So his ascension is now I've sent my spirit. I'm now praying on your behalf. If you wonder if someone's praying for you, Jesus is praying for you right now.

And he he knows exactly what you need. He knows what you're going to say before you say it, what you think before you think it, and what you need before you even face it.

And he wants to give you everything you need to be able to walk the life he's saved you to walk. And the good news is he's going to return and make all things new.

And so maybe even the situation you're facing like, you know, is it ever going to change? I mean, I'll tell you what, some of the times for me, the good news of the gospel is it's not going to stay like it is today.

It is going to change. He is going to transform all things. The old will become new. We'll be living in a new heaven and a new earth.

Now, I did that really fast. I I usually train this stuff in a day. I have a whole book about it. But what I want you to do is I just want you to stop and think about your situation and and how you've been addressing it and ask yourself, have I been addressing with any of these truths? the truth of Jesus's life, his death, his burial, his resurrection, his ascension, his return. And I promise you that all of that contains all that you need for whatever you're facing.

And the goal is to say, "Holy Spirit, would you help me. And that's the job of the Holy Spirit is to bring to our mind the things that are true of Jesus to our situations, to our struggles, to say, "Holy Spirit, would you remind me of the good news of Jesus for the thing I'm addressing either in my life or in the people that you've surrounded me with?" So, just want to encourage you to ask that question in light of your situation.

How would these truths bring how would these truths about Jesus bring good news to the thing you're facing right now? Now, a good practice to engage in is to do that in a with some other people and just practice sharing like here's an issue. How does the good news of Jesus apply to that issue? Let's talk about that. Now, here's another exercise I'll give you as I'm coming to a bit of a close.

I will regularly go back to this kind of categorical way of describing the different aspects of the gospel and I'll just take one of them and say, okay, why is the life of Jesus good news to us? This is a good thing to go do. You could do this in a chat. You could do this in a group. Whatever it may be, but let's just what's one thing that's good news about the life of Jesus?

Someone might say, "He feels what we feel." Great. How is that good news? And then I usually say someone else answer might be, "Well, because he feels what we feel, it means that my feelings matter to Jesus." Great. Why is that good news? Well, if my feelings matter to Jesus, then Jesus is actually going to care for anything I ever go through. Yes. Why is that good news? And I'll just keep asking, why is it good news? Why is it good news? Why is it good news?

And what you're doing is you're just drilling down as deep as you possibly can on just one aspect of the gospel. And if you were to practice that over and over and over again, all the different aspects of the gospel, you'll find the breadth and the depth of the good news of Jesus is inexhaustible. And what's great about that is the more you do that and practice that, the more ways you'll have to share the good news of Jesus, not just to your life, but to the lives of those that are surrounding you all the time.

So I'll end there. I got a few more things I could share, but I think that's probably enough for today. Um, love for you to practice applying this and see how it goes as you put it to practice in your everyday life.

No, I love this. By the way, Jeff does have the book you mentioned it in the talk. I'll go ahead and put here Gospel Fluency by Jeff Vanderstelt. Uh thank you Jeff for speaking on this. Um I'm going to ask a follow-up question that I really want to tie this together.

Um but grab that book on Amazon, Kindle, uh paperback, whatever. I use the Amazon link. I know a lot of us are international, global, all of us are international, but you know, even overseas, Amazon can get to everywhere. So grab that book um and dig into this. But Jeff, the question that I want to ask kind of following up on this.

So the context of the conversation with Jason Morris and I was centered around um what a gospel conversation is. And so um I would love maybe just a thought from you as we're talking about gospel fluency. It's a different language reporting this into digital you know if you want to go digital or not but like what in your mind what is a gospel conversation as digital missionaries as missionaries what is a gospel conversation?

Well I for me a gospel conversation is when you listen well enough to know what the need of the gospel is in their life. So I listen long enough that I know what their real need is and then I'm able to bring the good news of Jesus in such a way that it actually meets the present need that they're facing and Jesus is the hero and or the answer or the solution. Right? To me that's how I would sum it up. And um but what here's what it's really important. You know there's a proverb says the person of understanding is able to draw out the deep waters of another man's heart. And I think one of the things that we're doing is we're trying to draw out the waters of someone's heart so that once their heart is drawn out, we know how to apply the good news to the aspects of their heart that need healing, hope, uh restoration, you know, a fulfillment, satisfaction. And so I didn't even have time to talk about like how do you even apply this to all the emotions, right? Like every emotion people are going through, we can bring the good news of the gospel to, but it really requires listening long enough to discern the longing of the heart and then bringing an aspect of who Jesus is to bear on that in such a way that sounds like good news to the hearer.

Yeah. Uh listening, driving the longing which which points to Jesus. And and what's interesting is Jason and I really started to unpack this. So, I came into the conversation like I'm just going to be very blunt in this moment. I came in with the with the mindset of a gospel conversation is when you practically share Jesus. You literally take out your tract, you walk somebody through it like it was very conversion related and and and in confession hour like that's from 25 years of Southern Baptist, okay? Like you know that's that's how I was raised and that I'm no knock Southern Baptist I'm sorry but that's that's what I brought into the conversation and and and um and and it was so funny and and J Mo I think he's on here still he he was he was like well Jeff how hard is it to get an atheist to acknowledge there's a God like just moving an atheist to an agnostic like working through that is is that not a gospel conversation? Yes. Somebody who accepted Christ that you're moving more towards a deeper relationship with Jesus which is leading them towards multiplying and discipling other people. Is that not a gospel conversation? Yeah. And the ability to to move what we're doing into that uh to shift how we're utilizing digital not specifically towards evangelism, which is important, but moving everybody closer to whatever that next step is.

Yeah. Incrementally. Go ahead. Yeah. I I'll often say the problem with most of our quote unquote evangelism strategies is that we're trying to get get them an entire meal and they're not even hungry yet. Like so like let's stop doing let's stop stuffing food down their throats. Like they've got to develop some form of hunger and when you're dealing with a starving person you put a little honey on their tongue just to create a hunger again. It's like it might only be a drop of honey, which could be one small gospel truth. Like the friends that we were reaching out to for a long time, I started with at one point just going like, I don't know if you know this, but you are made in the image of God. And let me tell you how you display God to me. Like, it's amazing how you look like, and you may not even believe in God. I'm just going to tell you, you you were created to be a picture of what God is like to the world, whether you believe it or not. Let me tell you some of the ways you display what he's like. Well, that was good news, right? Well, then when we talk about falling short of the glory of God, which is sin, we can go like, well, you don't look like God all the time. That's what sin is. Well, I could frame it up in a way that made sense to her. And and she saw people that way. She she was just I was using her language cuz she always would always say, "I think people are amazing." Like I you just think about the beauty of people. I'm like, "So, I just stepped into her language, her worldview, and brought good news into that." And that's a lot of what we're doing is we're not trying to get them to buy into our worldview. Step into their worldview and bring some bit of truth into that worldview. And then that's eventually going to lead them to more and more. And they're going to hunger for more when you just give them that little honey, that little taste. Taste and see that the Lord is good. That's what we're doing.

You just set up the next talk. So good. We're going to have Cheryl Boyd talking about audience mapping and some of the stuff that crew is working on. And so that's the next uh conversation, the next keynote that we have. But Jeff, this is exactly what I was looking for. And uh and you brought it, Jeff Anders, Gospel Fluency. I'll leave the link up there for a little more. But Jeff, thank you for joining us today and and sharing from your heart here. Okay. So good to be with you. Thanks. Thank you, man. Give it up for Jeff. Let's let's hear it in chat. We're seeing some uh going on. And so Jeff, thank you. I'm going to kick you off. Bye-bye, Jeff. And so, oh man, I I literally I I I want to listen to that. That guy does like a one day training on this. And you just got like the 30 minute version of of Jeff Vanderstelt. And um I kind of want to do like the full day and and dig into that. And so u anyway, Jeff Vanderstelt, uh you you can check out uh the book and Google Jeff. He is all over the place. He wrote a 360 discipleship for for uh exponential recently, I think. And anyway, so good. Hey, listen. Um we're going to we're going to take a break in a minute, but um before we head into a break, uh we've got one more sponsor.

And listen, I I we were talking about fundraising earlier. Fundraising is is is important. It's a challenge. It's an issue. And yes, missionary fundraising like what we're talking about with the Reliant is an opportunity. An opportunity. I I would suggest that today as missionaries, we need more than an opportunity and and the opportunity to maybe do multiple revenue streams.

Now, this this gets crazy. I I you know, some of you like, whoa, I I can't even do You want me to do two? You want me to do three? What What are we What are we talking about here? Um I I want to bring on um actually, let me look. No, no, no, no. I want to bring on I want to share with you a a video uh from uh BAM portals. Uh this is business as mission. This is an incredible opportunity for some of you to generate some revenue in a unique way. So uh let uh Andy, let's go ahead and fire that video.

At ECOMA, we empower missionaries, faith-driven entrepreneurs, and churches to build sustainable income so they can become self-funded, support their communities, and change lives. In our startup academy, we work directly with you. We teach you the essentials of e-commerce and digital marketing, and we offer personalized mentorship to guide you every step of the way.

We help you design and set up your online store, connect you with trusted suppliers, and give you the tools to overcome barriers like language and local markets. With Ecomza's digital franchise, you get a digital catalog from trusted suppliers. You simply offer these products in your store. When a customer places an order, the supplier ships it directly to them. You don't need to manage inventory or invest upfront. You start small and grow on your own terms. With Ecomza, anyone can become self-funded, even with limited capital and resources.

At Ecomza, you don't just learn business, you launch one.

Kai, hey everybody. Yeah, thanks for that. I want to introduce Kai uh who's with uh BAM portals. Uh Kai, why don't you come on and and talk a little bit uh about ECOMA?

Yes, thank you Jeff. Yeah, this is uh one of the uh initiatives we doing as uh BAM portals and I want to say hi to everyone if we haven't met today. I'm working as e-commerce and digital marketing consultant uh helping brands grow online around the world and I encourage you to check and learn more about our initiatives in our sponsors page.

So the initiative we are presenting today it's called Ecomza and it's a way uh to teach missionary based driven entrepreneurs refugees and churches how to to come self-funded and how to create their own business. The idea born during COVID where we struggle to get donation and financial support uh to our missionaries and refugees and churches around the world. So we I was working at the time with e-commerce and digital marketing. So we saw the demand for e-commerce globally and we thought how we can help those group those people to become self-funded instead of relying on donation and support.

So Ecomza, it's more than training. It's a way to transform lives and community. So we blend our experience and the global demand toward e-commerce and we created a six week digital training that teaches entrepreneurs, faith-driven entrepreneurs, churches and missionaries around the world how to create their own online business to be again self-funded instead of relying on donation. We teach them entrepreneurship, e-commerce, digital marketing. We help them understand and use the AI tools that are available right now.

And we partnered with Shopify to build for them an online store that suits their local market in terms of language, currency, legal requirement and customer needs.

So the training we do is exactly six weeks live training and at the end of it they will be able to launch their online business. But getting the knowledge and even ready-made store is not enough. You need products in the end, right? So we have created a new business model that suits our entrepreneurs. We went to the businesses and suppliers around the world that we work with in our consultancy business and mostly they are BAMER, which doing business as a mission.

We connected them to our entrepreneurs where they share their product catalog digitally. Our entrepreneurs will list it in their online store and market it in their local market. When a customer orders these products, the order will go directly to the supplier with the cost of the product and the supplier will send the product directly to the customer. Our entrepreneur keeps the profit and does the after sales and customer support. And in this business model, they will not need to invest upfront or to have a huge capital or manage inventory.

As you see in the video, and later on we can work this relation to be stronger, to come even to grow, even to be like authorized dealer or franchise in their local market.

So the results so far, we have in average $18,000 revenue per store for the first year. We got 1.5 jobs created per store in average and we have 61% of the stores we have open still in business after two years. We got 12 online stores that grown into authorized dealers in their local market and even we have two who launched their own product brands.

We have trained hundreds of missionaries, church planters, refugees and faith-driven entrepreneurs around the world from the US to Europe to the Middle East to Africa and we're looking forward to expand this impact and we are willing to collaborate with you. If you're a faith-driven missionary and you're looking for a way to create a new income stream that's a much better way than relying on fundraising and become self-funded. So I'm willing to connect. Feel free to contact me and I'm really happy to work with you to do better impact.

Yeah, thank you Kai for this. Um, Kylie, where are you from again? Sweden, Switzerland?

Stockholm, Sweden.

Sweden. That's, that's what I thought we were asking online. Y'all, this offline, this is a, um, as digital missionaries, digitally savvy people who understand digital marketing, a lot of these principles. I look at this as an incredible opportunity to fundraise. Like even as I'm listening to this presentation, I was telling Andy offline, it's like, man, I may step into this and give it a shot to see what we can generate revenue for this.

And so I would say this, check out Cal at his table. Go to the sponsor tab. Check out the information from BAM portals. BAM, business as mission. But the idea of creating a revenue stream based off of an online store, e-commerce. They do the training. You get the assets, the revenue that comes from it. Man, this is an exciting, exciting opportunity. I see Andrew Jones sharing the Swedish chef. That is priceless. So, Kalai, thank you for jumping on and be sure to connect with Kalai at his table or in the other meets. Thank you, Khalle. Oh, let me share the link. I'll go ahead and put it up here. I meant to do it earlier, but if you're interested in the website, business as mission, it's that one. You can click on that and check out bamportals.com. But Kalle, thanks for jumping on here today and being with us.

Thank you so much. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. All right. Hey, listen, we're behind schedule. I just had so much fun doing what I'm doing. I've, you know, who cares about time, right? I mean, when you're doing like a five hour conference, what's ten more minutes? So here's what we're doing. We're going to take a five minute break. We're going to let everybody stand up, stretch, you know, bio break if you need to. Am I allowed to say that? Bio break. Is that kosher to do? Get a drink, grab some coffee. I just ate my last cheese stick and so I'm good to go. But we're gonna take a five minute break. Tables are open. Sponsors are out there. Feel free to dialogue, connect, and we're going to come back for session three. I mean it's 1:48. Let's call it 1:55. 1:55 Eastern in seven minutes. We'll be back with session three. Okay, everybody.

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