EP375: Platforms as Nations: Dr. Sam Hayes on Digital Missiology

[Jeff Reed] All right.

[Jeff Reed] Hey, everybody.

[Jeff Reed] I think my mic is up.

[Jeff Reed] Should be looking good.

[Jeff Reed] All right.

[Jeff Reed] Episode 375 of the Church Digital Podcast.

[Jeff Reed] Excuse me.

[Jeff Reed] That's the old name.

[Jeff Reed] It's the old name.

[Jeff Reed] That's the old music.

[Jeff Reed] Kind of got sucked in.

[Jeff Reed] I apologize.

[Jeff Reed] Episode 375 of Becoming.

[Jeff Reed] the church digital excited about this this conversation in today's episode uh if you're watching live awesome we saw saw that thumbs up uh hit like hit subscribe same thing if you're you're watching on demand uh algorithms have loved us lately like that we have been getting a ton of traffic on demand

[Jeff Reed] And community's been watching a lot of stuff on post, obviously.

[Jeff Reed] You know, we do these streams during the day, and it's always, hey, who's going to come in a couple?

[Jeff Reed] Great, love to see you.

[Jeff Reed] Thanks for coming on.

[Jeff Reed] But those that are engaging on demand, feel free to throw a jump into the chat.

[Jeff Reed] If you're not on WhatsApp and Discord, you know, what's wrong with you?

[Jeff Reed] Get into our communities as well and start to engage with that.

[Jeff Reed] I think it's thechurch.digital.com.

[Jeff Reed] Thechurch.digital.com can get you into this conversation.

[Jeff Reed] So I've got the music coming, you know, kind of lo-fi playing a little bit.

[Jeff Reed] I'm going to get sappy right now at the beginning.

[Jeff Reed] I wasn't planning on doing this, but the lo-fi I'm playing is in the honor of Steve Reed.

[Jeff Reed] Steve was an active part of the Church Digital maybe for a year or so.

[Jeff Reed] He was our boomer and loved having Steve involved in the conversation.

[Jeff Reed] And I can just remember being on a stream like this with Steve and having to actually explain to him what lo-fi music was.

[Jeff Reed] He just did not understand what lo-fi was.

[Jeff Reed] And the reason I'm bringing this up now, Steve passed away.

[Jeff Reed] He was having some health issues for the past six months or so.

[Jeff Reed] And things just progressively got worse and worse.

[Jeff Reed] And he passed away earlier this year.

[Jeff Reed] And so I miss Steve.

[Jeff Reed] We're not related, brother from another mother, but Steve was passionate about discipleship and saw the purpose of digital in that and loved having Steve part of the church digital.

[Jeff Reed] I can just remember so many conversations that he would jump in and open offices, literally like first thing in the morning.

[Jeff Reed] he would come on and we would be talking about, you know, all sorts of stuff.

[Jeff Reed] Early in the morning, him drinking coffee, me drinking coffee first thing and rolling to it.

[Jeff Reed] So, you know, Steve, well, I can tell you Steve was a Christian whole through and Steve is...

[Jeff Reed] you know, in heaven now in a better place.

[Jeff Reed] And we're stuck here.

[Jeff Reed] So we're not mourning Steve's loss because it's a gain for Steve.

[Jeff Reed] We're praying for Steve's family.

[Jeff Reed] He left a family behind who's dealing with a lot of questions and struggles.

[Jeff Reed] It's hard losing the captain.

[Jeff Reed] And so we discussed it.

[Jeff Reed] I put a post in WhatsApp to the family post on Facebook where they discussed it.

[Jeff Reed] I had been texting with the wife and the daughter leading up to the situation.

[Jeff Reed] um transparently it was funny I I told when I heard Steve's in the hospital I'm like I'm getting in the car he's he lives four hours away from me he's like I'm driving over like he can't stop me and um he was in by the time he hit the hospital he never got out of ICU he never was in a position to get visitors and it was hard and and I don't know the family and they were kind of like yeah you're that weird online guy I don't know about you so anyway

[Jeff Reed] Online ministry, remote ministry is hard.

[Jeff Reed] That's a whole other conversation for a different day, but we're excited to kick off this new fall season, 26, and re-engage with the Church Digital.

[Jeff Reed] I wanted to throw two or three ideas at you all, some things that are coming up.

[Jeff Reed] I'm not going to get into it.

[Jeff Reed] I may tease it later and actually talk about what's happening, but there is a huge opportunity for The Church Digital that has been given to us.

[Jeff Reed] And I don't want to get into the details of it, but I do want to ask one thing.

[Jeff Reed] Take a moment and continually pray for the steps of The Church Digital in the next couple months.

[Jeff Reed] A globally recognized organization is asking to partner with us on a situation.

[Jeff Reed] I'll get into the weeds of it later.

[Jeff Reed] I could just get into it all now, but I don't want to.

[Jeff Reed] And it could be an incredible opportunity for us, or it could be a giant self-destruct.

[Jeff Reed] And there's some risk that's involved.

[Jeff Reed] There's a lot of unknown at this point.

[Jeff Reed] But it's an exciting season for the church digital.

[Jeff Reed] And I'm excited about the conversation we've got coming up.

[Jeff Reed] Dr. Sam Hayes is right around the corner, author of Global Digital Missiology.

[Jeff Reed] I've been working out, just trying to gain the muscle mass to lift the size of this book.

[Jeff Reed] I'm going to share with you here in a little bit coming up right here around the corner.

[Jeff Reed] Put on your calendars October 7th.

[Jeff Reed] If you've been hanging around the Church Digital for a long time, you know that we are a community.

[Jeff Reed] We're a family.

[Jeff Reed] That's why we call FAMFAM.

[Jeff Reed] We've got communities in WhatsApp and Discord that are thriving communities where we're engaging with people that are championing the idea of digital discipleship.

[Jeff Reed] literally globally.

[Jeff Reed] Like, they're open offices.

[Jeff Reed] I'm talking to multiple continents.

[Jeff Reed] A day does not go by where I'm not talking to people on two or three different land masses globally.

[Jeff Reed] Like, it's an incredible, so exciting experience to be a part of this, and so thankful God allows it.

[Jeff Reed] But we want to hear from you.

[Jeff Reed] This season with the podcast, with the show, I've got to stop calling it a podcast.

[Jeff Reed] It's much bigger than a podcast these days.

[Jeff Reed] But what we're doing here with the show, we want to hear from you.

[Jeff Reed] And so October 7th, 2 p.m. Eastern, this stream right now, in two weeks, we're doing a town hall meeting.

[Jeff Reed] If you've been part of the town hall, this is where we hear from you, and we have a lot of engagement.

[Jeff Reed] People come on with the stream, and we've got surveys and opportunities to talk, and we cast vision for what's coming up with the Church Digital.

[Jeff Reed] ahead and you know i know with my health issues earlier in 26 really hadn't done a lot of town halls and i'm so thankful for the team that was um pushing the church digital in the seasons where i just wasn't in a health position where i could do it but i'm excited to be back to be doing shows like this and to help them with that so um october 7th

[Jeff Reed] Two weeks from right now, 2 p.m. Eastern.

[Jeff Reed] Jump on that.

[Jeff Reed] Actually, you know what?

[Jeff Reed] There's another thing, too.

[Jeff Reed] The church.digital slash events.

[Jeff Reed] Maybe the biggest pain point we have is time zones.

[Jeff Reed] People are always like, oh, I forgot.

[Jeff Reed] Especially in the U.S., time zones change because of daylight savings time, but it doesn't change globally.

[Jeff Reed] It's a pain.

[Jeff Reed] And so I built a system at the church.digital slash events that all of our streams, all of our open offices, the entire calendar of what we're doing as it's growing, but it's adapting based on your time zone.

[Jeff Reed] And so, you know, Utope in Nigeria, no longer, I love you Utope, I'm mocking you a little bit because he's the worst because time zones just, it's a giant...

[Jeff Reed] And he'll jump on, show up like right at the end of a meeting and be like, hey, I'm here.

[Jeff Reed] It's like, all right, we're leaving.

[Jeff Reed] Bye.

[Jeff Reed] Because, you know, it's just time zones.

[Jeff Reed] So check out that account of the church.digital slash events and do that.

[Jeff Reed] But hey, you know what?

[Jeff Reed] I've been talking a lot and I want to go ahead and bring in our guest into this conversation.

[Jeff Reed] I want to welcome Dr.

[Jeff Reed] I started to call you Steve Reed, man.

[Jeff Reed] That's just like in my in my heart right now.

[Jeff Reed] Dr. Sam Hayes, author.

[Jeff Reed] Like I said, I have been working up.

[Jeff Reed] Global Digital Missiology.

[Jeff Reed] Global Digital Missiology.

[Jeff Reed] That's the size of the book.

[Jeff Reed] You know, I'm going to do this.

[Jeff Reed] So I write a book on virtual reality, virtual reality churches.

[Jeff Reed] Here it is, I'm pimping, this is my first book.

[Jeff Reed] That's compared to this.

[Jeff Reed] This is a massive resource on global digital missiology.

[Jeff Reed] And Dr. Hayes, I wanna thank you for joining this conversation.

[Jeff Reed] And so thanks for being here.

[Jeff Reed] This is your first time on a stream, right?

[Jeff Reed] I don't think you've been part of this before at the Church Digital, right?

[Jeff Reed] Hold on, we lost you.

[Jeff Reed] Oh no.

[Jeff Reed] I promise you, we did a mic check earlier and everything was here.

[Jeff Reed] I am not seeing you on the screen.

[Jeff Reed] And I should see, I was seeing your audio before.

[Jeff Reed] Do you wanna hang up and come back in?

[Jeff Reed] I don't even care if you just use the mic.

[Jeff Reed] Yeah, do that.

[Jeff Reed] He was trying to use a lapel mic to get a better feed, but he's going to come back in with it.

[Jeff Reed] Dr. Hayes, and I'll say this when he's in the room too, but he's been an incredible resource and encouragement for me in the past year and a huge supporter of the church digital.

[Jeff Reed] And so here you go, Dr. Hayes.

[Jeff Reed] How are you doing?

[Jeff Reed] Yeah, we're all good.

[Jeff Reed] Sorry about the tech issues on that, but glad you're here.

[Jeff Reed] I was telling the crowd while you were gone, man, you have been such a supporter of the church digital and an encouragement for me at a personal level.

[Jeff Reed] I can even remember getting really tacky jokes texted to me when I was in the hospital or a distraction to talk about things down the road.

[Jeff Reed] And so, man, thanks for your support and the comfort.

[Jeff Reed] really, that you've been providing, at least with me and other leaders here at The Church Digital along the way, sir.

[Jeff Reed] So thank you for doing that.

[Jeff Reed] Awesome.

[Jeff Reed] So tell me here a little bit about this book, Global Digital Missiology.

[Jeff Reed] This is a hefty lift.

[Jeff Reed] What's the purpose?

[Jeff Reed] What's the story?

[Jeff Reed] Who's the audience?

[Jeff Reed] What are you really doing with this thing?

[Jeff Reed] Okay.

[Jeff Reed] Wow.

[Jeff Reed] And so the focus of this with your time at Fuller, like this is not a casual read you'd pick up at Barnes and Nobles.

[Jeff Reed] This is more of a, like this is a true academia textbook you're writing here, right?

[Jeff Reed] what's the focus to really drive you to reach the academia market?

[Jeff Reed] I don't mean disrespect of this.

[Jeff Reed] And we'll have Dr. Lowe from Liberty on as well here in a month or so.

[Jeff Reed] But there's not a lot of...

[Jeff Reed] I don't know what the right word is, interest?

[Jeff Reed] Receptivity is probably a better word.

[Jeff Reed] I remember I was speaking when I was in Luzon in Korea, I was speaking with the head of a major seminary up in Canada.

[Jeff Reed] And I started talking about what I was doing and dude was just glazed over.

[Jeff Reed] Like he was not open to this idea.

[Jeff Reed] Why are you investing time and resources into reaching that specific audience?

[Jeff Reed] Totally.

[Jeff Reed] In one of those, I know we've had a lot of conversations with JMO, Jason Morris.

[Jeff Reed] Jason wrote one of the introductions in this book.

[Jeff Reed] I actually was blessed.

[Jeff Reed] I didn't know.

[Jeff Reed] For the record, I was kind of surprised I did this.

[Jeff Reed] um i was i thought i was asked to write an introduction and when i when i look at the book it's actually like one of the forwards and evidently my short introduction was like eight pages or something so like i evidently i was i was very wordy on it um god bless but um you know jamo was was one of these these inspiration he's an inspiration to me uh jason actually right now so i'm having this conversation he is he's speaking for the church digital on um

[Jeff Reed] on platforms as places.

[Jeff Reed] And that's the philosophy of the Church Digital, that we want to treat Facebook, Twitch, Discord like a normal missions agency would treat India, China, Brazil, and equip and mobilize people to be missionaries in those platforms as if they were places.

[Jeff Reed] Train people on the culture, equip them, and send them out.

[Jeff Reed] And so that really, I mean, I remember the first time J-Mo expressed that to me.

[Jeff Reed] My head exploded.

[Jeff Reed] I was like, say that again.

[Jeff Reed] That is the language.

[Jeff Reed] We're going to do that.

[Jeff Reed] Honestly, that was maybe two years ago before Lizon and maybe three years ago at this point.

[Jeff Reed] And so that's really been the core component of what that is.

[Jeff Reed] I know within the book, you've had conversations.

[Jeff Reed] I remember the first time I had a conversation with you talking about some of the stuff that you were doing, Platforms as Nations.

[Jeff Reed] I was like, oh my gosh, I need to get you and J-Mo together and let the two of you talk at a philosophical, theological level that I am not tracking with, but able to keep up with, let me say it that way.

[Jeff Reed] But Platforms as Nations,

[Jeff Reed] is built into this book, into the philosophy of what you're talking about.

[Jeff Reed] I'm just curious because platforms as places, platforms as nations, it's more than just a nuance.

[Jeff Reed] You're seeing these platforms as actual nations.

[Jeff Reed] What is that...

[Jeff Reed] What is that responsibility?

[Jeff Reed] If we really are looking at these platforms as nations, what's the reason why you're looking at that nuanced difference?

[Jeff Reed] Ha ha ha ha ha.

[Jeff Reed] Mm.

[Jeff Reed] Yeah, I mean, it's funny, the Pantate Etni, I'm probably mispronouncing that, but that's such a key philosophical shift.

[Jeff Reed] You and I were talking yesterday.

[Jeff Reed] Tell me the story of the mother.

[Jeff Reed] who had the kid that was gaming.

[Jeff Reed] And you were speaking at a conference and having the conversation.

[Jeff Reed] Yeah, yeah.

[Jeff Reed] So talk a little bit about that because it's interesting kind of the mental shift that happens once you really start to look at these platforms as people groups and the people that are in that space.

[Jeff Reed] Go ahead and tell it.

[Jeff Reed] Bye.

[Jeff Reed] Yeah.

[Jeff Reed] 100%.

[Jeff Reed] And it really is so beautiful to have that conversation with people where you can flip the script on them.

[Jeff Reed] And, oh my gosh, my son's exposed to this.

[Jeff Reed] It's the world of the devil and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

[Jeff Reed] And all of a sudden it's like, oh my gosh, my son has an opportunity to engage in the space and to reach people for Christ using these tools.

[Jeff Reed] It's beautiful when you see that come about.

[Jeff Reed] And I know it's, you know, I don't mean to be rude, but churches in America, churches globally, they often struggle with that philosophy, with that model.

[Jeff Reed] Digital discipleship is a challenging thing.

[Jeff Reed] And so I understand that, but the reason books like this are so important, in my opinion, is it starts to chisel away at the philosophy that it's not important.

[Jeff Reed] And we start to put together findings and facts and statistics and stories and surveys of people that are doing this.

[Jeff Reed] You researched, what, 80 surveys, seven interviews?

[Jeff Reed] You spent a lot of time...

[Jeff Reed] dig it in to create a mass like this.

[Jeff Reed] What was a surprise to you in the data?

[Jeff Reed] What were you expecting?

[Jeff Reed] What'd you find?

[Jeff Reed] What was like the, oh my gosh, I didn't see that one coming.

[Jeff Reed] Hmm.

[Jeff Reed] Yeah, it's interesting.

[Jeff Reed] Flat cap's jumping on here in the background.

[Jeff Reed] That sounds like a person of peace.

[Jeff Reed] Oh, sorry, man, I clicked off that too quick.

[Jeff Reed] But it sounds like a person of peace almost a little bit where you've got that native that's in the space that can help translate and guide and direct towards that.

[Jeff Reed] Flat, that's a beautiful call right there.

[Jeff Reed] Now, I'm gonna like...

[Jeff Reed] That person, that person of peace, that's not like in the physical proximity, right?

[Jeff Reed] It's not like, you know, it's somebody completely separate, right?

[Jeff Reed] And so the relationship is only digital?

[Jeff Reed] Uh-huh.

[Jeff Reed] Yeah.

[Jeff Reed] That's so good.

[Jeff Reed] You know, it was interesting.

[Jeff Reed] I was having a conversation before this call with Paul, who's a microchurch leader.

[Jeff Reed] He works with Tampa Underground here in the States.

[Jeff Reed] And, you know, he made the comment, you want to go fast, go alone.

[Jeff Reed] You want to go long, go with a team.

[Jeff Reed] And it's, you know, involving more people.

[Jeff Reed] You may already made a reference to APEST in that, which obviously plays a, or at least with the Church Digital, we promote as a big part of finding partners and rounding out not only a digital skill set, but a spiritual skill set to make sure that things are complemented through that.

[Jeff Reed] Like, you know, from a church planting world, you really are speaking here in this, you're speaking the language of a church.

[Jeff Reed] But obviously this Pantate Etne, I hope I'm pronouncing that right, Pantate Etne, it's not...

[Jeff Reed] And some people don't buy into that digitally.

[Jeff Reed] When you have the conversation with the pastor that's not a supporter, how does that go?

[Jeff Reed] How do you convince someone?

[Jeff Reed] What's your argument to help them understand maybe the cultural implications within these platforms?

[Jeff Reed] Yeah.

[Jeff Reed] I mean, reach them even in the digital nations.

[Jeff Reed] That's such a challenge.

[Jeff Reed] I love that.

[Jeff Reed] I love that you're pushing these buttons.

[Jeff Reed] Now, the reality is that digital does have its downside.

[Jeff Reed] It was funny.

[Jeff Reed] I was talking with Paul today.

[Jeff Reed] Hey, you know what?

[Jeff Reed] The successful digital ministries that I'm looking at today,

[Jeff Reed] I mean, arguably, you could say they're influencer based.

[Jeff Reed] You know, people actually call me an influencer, which I kind of laugh at because this is not the face of an influencer.

[Jeff Reed] But I do admit I play that role.

[Jeff Reed] I do the streams.

[Jeff Reed] I run the social media.

[Jeff Reed] I have the conversations.

[Jeff Reed] I engage in the community.

[Jeff Reed] You know, Leighton was on here.

[Jeff Reed] I think he's still on here as well.

[Jeff Reed] Leighton Flatcap does that as well with that.

[Jeff Reed] And so there is there is like a shadow side.

[Jeff Reed] to this conversation.

[Jeff Reed] You mentioned attention economy.

[Jeff Reed] You mentioned algorithmic division, which can be a strength and it can be a weakness.

[Jeff Reed] Data extraction, vulnerable populations.

[Jeff Reed] If a platform, if we're using this, what's the line where we utilize the strengths of this without being complicit to the shadow side of things?

[Jeff Reed] How do you draw that line?

[Jeff Reed] Yeah.

[Jeff Reed] Yeah.

[Jeff Reed] yeah yeah and that's that's unfortunately that's just pre-programmed by culture um a lot of a lot of what we're we're doing you know you hear me say the phrase flip the script because we're we're doing things opposite i can actually remember during covid i had a conversation with a master's student

[Jeff Reed] at Texas Christian University.

[Jeff Reed] They didn't realize I'm a TCU alum, and somehow they got connected.

[Jeff Reed] But this master's student was doing a research on digital missions, like 2020, 2021.

[Jeff Reed] And we started talking, and I was sharing this reverse philosophy.

[Jeff Reed] It's not influencers, it's engagement.

[Jeff Reed] It's not try to collect as many as possible, but having that one-on-one conversation.

[Jeff Reed] And it's funny, this master student, head is blown.

[Jeff Reed] And I still, to this day, I still get occasional emails.

[Jeff Reed] She's no longer with TCU.

[Jeff Reed] She, you know, got her degree and has moved on, but she's still asking questions, trying to navigate through this.

[Jeff Reed] And, you know, I know even like churches that I serve with here in Miami, the pastors are not, they're not...

[Jeff Reed] They're not wired to be the influencer.

[Jeff Reed] I don't want to paint that picture.

[Jeff Reed] But they're wired to be skeptical of the influencer.

[Jeff Reed] And so, so much of when I come with these ideas, they put on these lenses of...

[Jeff Reed] he's only interested in views.

[Jeff Reed] He's only interested in vanity metrics.

[Jeff Reed] And just transparently, it's taken a year worth of relationship to get them to take those glasses off and start to look at it from my perspective.

[Jeff Reed] Like I've said the entire time, I'm not interested in turning this 70-year-old guy in a wheelchair into being an influencer.

[Jeff Reed] That's a disrespect to him and what his message is.

[Jeff Reed] But there's stuff that this guy can do that we're not using effectively to get people into the building.

[Jeff Reed] And if that's your metric, then let's do that in a physical space.

[Jeff Reed] Digital, man, there's so much opportunity to do things, but you've got to release that vanity metric.

[Jeff Reed] Give me a success story.

[Jeff Reed] Maybe somebody that has done that, has released the vanity metric.

[Jeff Reed] Was there an example of someone in your surveys and interviews that maybe was going one way, pivoted, and saw God move as a result of that?

[Jeff Reed] Mm.

[Jeff Reed] yeah yeah

[Jeff Reed] How do you, it's interesting, you find your sheep, go after it.

[Jeff Reed] And this idea of nations, digital nations, digital people groups, disconnected people groups, all of a sudden this is really just opening up.

[Jeff Reed] How do you find, how do you actually identify?

[Jeff Reed] a digital people group?

[Jeff Reed] How do you go after it?

[Jeff Reed] This is a pretty lofty claim.

[Jeff Reed] It's a challenging idea.

[Jeff Reed] So what do you recommend in the idea of finding and engaging in these disconnected digital people groups?

[Jeff Reed] Hmm.

[Jeff Reed] Hmm.

[Jeff Reed] It's interesting.

[Jeff Reed] I mentioned Steve earlier off cuff.

[Jeff Reed] Actually, this conversation, Steve comes to mind again.

[Jeff Reed] Transparently, I'm curious your take on this because I handled it one way.

[Jeff Reed] I'll admit, maybe it was wrong.

[Jeff Reed] I think it paid off though, but I'm curious your response.

[Jeff Reed] Steve is...

[Jeff Reed] You know, just forgive me.

[Jeff Reed] Steve, I love you.

[Jeff Reed] He knows this.

[Jeff Reed] And I've had this conversation with him when he was alive in the room.

[Jeff Reed] But he was a boomer.

[Jeff Reed] He was passionate about Christ.

[Jeff Reed] He retired, kind of post-guy.

[Jeff Reed] Lived west coast of Florida, simple life.

[Jeff Reed] You know, driven business success, not much ministry experience.

[Jeff Reed] But really wanted to do much in his closing years for Christ.

[Jeff Reed] And somehow he got the idea of being a digital missionary and connected with me through the website or something, but had a meeting with me.

[Jeff Reed] And he also was having a conversation with, let's just say a globally recognized missions organization.

[Jeff Reed] Like I don't need to out the specific organization for the story, but he was interested in using his waning years

[Jeff Reed] uh for uh ministry digitally and he was passionate about globally and so steve comes to me this is the interesting part of the story steve comes in this meeting and and he's like hey you know what jeff i'm really interested in in being a a missionary um i i want to reach the indian people

[Jeff Reed] I remember this first conversation, this was maybe two years ago.

[Jeff Reed] He was very passionate about India.

[Jeff Reed] And I was like, you know, Steve, what do you know about India?

[Jeff Reed] And there's 1,800 dialects.

[Jeff Reed] Do you know anything with the language?

[Jeff Reed] No.

[Jeff Reed] Do you watch TV, engage in the culture?

[Jeff Reed] Do you know anybody that's Indian?

[Jeff Reed] No.

[Jeff Reed] Have you eaten at an Indian restaurant?

[Jeff Reed] Do you know how to drink the chai?

[Jeff Reed] You can't say chai tea because that's TT.

[Jeff Reed] It's a Spider-Man joke, but no, like, you know, do you have any culture engagement with this?

[Jeff Reed] And the answer was, was no, no, no.

[Jeff Reed] He just, you know, had this idea of, of India in his, in his head.

[Jeff Reed] No, at that moment, and this is where I like, I would love feedback.

[Jeff Reed] I actually directed him away from India as the people group.

[Jeff Reed] I felt he had a calling to do digital missions, but reading the situation, I didn't think, forgive me for like stereotyping in this, but an older boomer white man digitally who doesn't understand Indian culture is not gonna do much in India to be effective.

[Jeff Reed] But what happened was he actually had a 250-person Facebook group of people that were mixed of Christians and un-Christians that was built as a support group when he was coming off cancer.

[Jeff Reed] And I was like, well, Steve, forget about India.

[Jeff Reed] That's your mission field there.

[Jeff Reed] Here are people that this is your people group, and they're already loyal to you because they supported you in your mental time, in your physical time of need.

[Jeff Reed] So I had a guy that was interested in a physical people group with India, and I directed him another way.

[Jeff Reed] I just would love your take.

[Jeff Reed] Should I have encouraged him for India?

[Jeff Reed] Should I have directed him this other direction, like I said, to something that's more relatable to where he was?

[Jeff Reed] How far do we push this idea of people group?

[Jeff Reed] How would you have advised Steve in that situation?

[Jeff Reed] Right.

[Jeff Reed] Mm hmm.

[Jeff Reed] Yeah.

[Jeff Reed] Yeah.

[Jeff Reed] Yeah, I mean, the apostolic of me is jumping up and down.

[Jeff Reed] Heck yeah, why not?

[Jeff Reed] It's so funny after, you know, 25 years, honestly, of fighting this battle.

[Jeff Reed] That's not an exaggeration.

[Jeff Reed] I've kind of gotten to the place where I throw up my hands, and it's like, hey, I...

[Jeff Reed] Physical church, if you don't get it, you know, hey, nice.

[Jeff Reed] Just keep doing what you're doing.

[Jeff Reed] I'm literally, like, I'm glad people like you are doing things like this because I don't have the battle in me anymore.

[Jeff Reed] Like, I'm tired.

[Jeff Reed] Honestly, I'm just tired of fighting.

[Jeff Reed] um in the in the conversation i'd rather go with the goers and and work through it um but and that's one of the things actually i i love um about the book i respect about the book is that you know you spent a chapter 15 on you know the idea of stewarding digital within the physical church

[Jeff Reed] Chapter 16, you really address the idea and went digital first, digital only, what that asynchronous community digital church would look like, completely separate from physical boundaries and limitations.

[Jeff Reed] You know, it's hard for, you know, especially in America, to view that $20 million church as a...

[Jeff Reed] physical limitation but but the reality is that building that structure is a lid compared to what you can do digitally um what do you think is like i'm just curious uh in in today's society i mean let's let's box it down to american you can address global if you want um is it is it harder to do a physical with the digital is it harder to be a digital only like what what are some of the pros and cons and tensions you're seeing in maybe both models

[Jeff Reed] Interesting.

[Jeff Reed] Yeah.

[Jeff Reed] Hmm.

[Jeff Reed] Hmm.

[Jeff Reed] yeah yeah yeah

[Jeff Reed] Yeah, you do.

[Jeff Reed] It's interesting.

[Jeff Reed] The last thing I would ever advocate for, and I'm a huge fan of Avatar-based church.

[Jeff Reed] Honestly, I can say this.

[Jeff Reed] 30 years ago, as a freshman, sophomore in college, I was studying up on and learning about the Avatar and about virtual reality, even at that point, trying to navigate through what the church would look like.

[Jeff Reed] And so some of those early experiments, even with Second Life Church, with Life Church and others, I was very active.

[Jeff Reed] And

[Jeff Reed] But what's interesting is that, man, I forget.

[Jeff Reed] I was just so good with one, two, three, four.

[Jeff Reed] Man, I totally forget where I was going.

[Jeff Reed] You do need both.

[Jeff Reed] That's what we were talking about.

[Jeff Reed] You need both.

[Jeff Reed] The last thing that I would ever say is that every church needs a virtual reality church.

[Jeff Reed] That's not within the culture of it.

[Jeff Reed] every church does not need a multilingual church.

[Jeff Reed] Every church does not need a classic service for boomers in that generation.

[Jeff Reed] But there need to be people that serve that boomer generation.

[Jeff Reed] There need to be people that serve a multilingual, bilingual culture.

[Jeff Reed] There need to be churches that serve in those people groups.

[Jeff Reed] And the reality is, is that, I mean, I can give you names.

[Jeff Reed] of people that are serving in virtual reality and avatar churches that would never serve, that would never connect within a physical church.

[Jeff Reed] And so recognizing it as a people group, as a platform, as a nation, as an entity, all of a sudden now there's an opportunity to step into the space.

[Jeff Reed] And avatar churches...

[Jeff Reed] I'm going to be very crass right now.

[Jeff Reed] I apologize, sir.

[Jeff Reed] Avatar churches, to my knowledge, have never criticized or ridiculed the physical church for what they're doing.

[Jeff Reed] Physical churches, I can give you testimonies directly from pastors of avatar churches that are constantly criticized, that are constantly persecuted by physical church Christians, by normal Christians that are uncomfortable with the idea of churches existing in virtual reality and criticizing.

[Jeff Reed] the pastors and leaderships of churches in that space.

[Jeff Reed] Like it is a, it is a freaking crime.

[Jeff Reed] Some of the persecution that, that churches in, in these experiments, it's the reason I exist as the church digital, because I saw the persecution that was happening within innovators and digital wide, because we're trying to do something different.

[Jeff Reed] Maybe it's funny, and this is going back 20 years for me.

[Jeff Reed] I can remember a day that probably one of the first persecution criticisms, mockings that I faced when I was in my 20s with some of these ideas, they called me Reverend Photoshop.

[Jeff Reed] pastor of Photoshop because I was creating stuff digitally.

[Jeff Reed] And it was, hey, how many people rate?

[Jeff Reed] It was for raising the hands.

[Jeff Reed] It was like, how many people click that button?

[Jeff Reed] How many lives did you change by clicking buttons?

[Jeff Reed] And it's like part of me just...

[Jeff Reed] It's fine.

[Jeff Reed] Blow it off.

[Jeff Reed] But there are people within these environments that are really getting persecuted hard that are looking for that.

[Jeff Reed] We're going to be talking about the idea of listening tours and really trying to re-engage with the missionaries, the pastors and churches in that space because they're doing so much good.

[Jeff Reed] This is a sidebar.

[Jeff Reed] I'm sorry, sir.

[Jeff Reed] But they're doing so much good for the kingdom.

[Jeff Reed] And it's hard right now with that front line that's doing things against the church culture that's so good about supporting and propagating itself, but really isn't good about change.

[Jeff Reed] And so it's hard being the change agent for the church because the church is, by design, not wanting to change.

[Jeff Reed] Hey, talk to me a little bit.

[Jeff Reed] I mean, I'm talking backstories and stuff like that.

[Jeff Reed] You're 20 years, 25 years in the Army, special ops.

[Jeff Reed] You got a PhD centered around this book.

[Jeff Reed] What have you learned?

[Jeff Reed] What did the Army teach you about this?

[Jeff Reed] How does your history tie into what you're doing now?

[Jeff Reed] Go deep here and tell me a little bit about your story and experiences.

[Jeff Reed] Mm.

[Jeff Reed] Mm hmm.

[Jeff Reed] Mm.

[Jeff Reed] Yeah, it's interesting as a leadership.

[Jeff Reed] It's one of the things we're going to roll out.

[Jeff Reed] I'm saying something here.

[Jeff Reed] I'm not supposed to officially say it, but I'm going to go ahead and say it.

[Jeff Reed] We're going to start doing some Bible studies and devotionals.

[Jeff Reed] We're really going to lean strong in modeling some digital discipleship within the organization.

[Jeff Reed] And even providing it globally within the network.

[Jeff Reed] Because it's really interesting to me.

[Jeff Reed] We were talking about it as leadership today, where the idea of what Paul, you were talking about Paul, what Paul's doing.

[Jeff Reed] You're telling me if Paul had a Wi-Fi...

[Jeff Reed] that he wouldn't be doing what we're doing right now?

[Jeff Reed] Like, I mean, dude was writing letters, sending it with people.

[Jeff Reed] He was remote ministry 101.

[Jeff Reed] There's nothing new under the sun.

[Jeff Reed] What we're doing is the model that he set up.

[Jeff Reed] And so, like, really, if we look at... And so I sat down and started looking at Scripture.

[Jeff Reed] Corinthians, 1 and 2 Peter, it's like, oh my gosh, so much of what this Scripture is

[Jeff Reed] It doesn't discourage us.

[Jeff Reed] It should encourage us because we need to look at it through the lens of what we're doing digitally.

[Jeff Reed] And so, like, we're going to dive into the Scripture.

[Jeff Reed] I think we're calling it scattered.

[Jeff Reed] Maybe I'm not supposed to say the name.

[Jeff Reed] We're still trying to brand it.

[Jeff Reed] But we're going to be doing a series of Bible studies to wrap up 26 and into 27, really centered around this idea that what we're doing is not foreign.

[Jeff Reed] What we're doing is not obscure.

[Jeff Reed] It's not random.

[Jeff Reed] It's encouraged by the scripture.

[Jeff Reed] We're just looking at it through a different paradigm that's not limited to what it has been.

[Jeff Reed] And so, you know...

[Jeff Reed] God be the glory, and hopefully we can encourage some people along the way.

[Jeff Reed] I know this conversation right here, I've been, I mean, I've just, I love you as a person.

[Jeff Reed] I love, you know, the book.

[Jeff Reed] I love your energy.

[Jeff Reed] I love how much you care for the organization, for the network, for the people.

[Jeff Reed] Like, you've been such an encouragement through the process.

[Jeff Reed] I'd love to maybe, just as we're wrapping up, maybe one or two more questions.

[Jeff Reed] What would you tell, like, there's got to be, I'm curious, I ask this sometimes, like, there's got to be a line somewhere, right?

[Jeff Reed] You know, it's like, what would you do?

[Jeff Reed] What would you not do?

[Jeff Reed] Like, me personally, the idea of virtual reality baptisms, like Duncan and Avatar, you know, I know, okay, are we saying the water is really holy when it gets wet?

[Jeff Reed] Is that really a thing?

[Jeff Reed] I'm actually, I work for one of the churches that I do now.

[Jeff Reed] They actually, it's a Presbyterian church, and I saw a baptism a couple weeks ago, and they sprinkled and dunked in the same baptism service.

[Jeff Reed] Like, they did both different.

[Jeff Reed] I was like, can you do, but they did that.

[Jeff Reed] And so, like, you know, even my paradigms get stretched.

[Jeff Reed] And so, I'm curious, what would a digital, like, what should a church not do

[Jeff Reed] digitally do you have a line is it is it flexible like how would you answer that question interesting yep

[Jeff Reed] Wow.

[Jeff Reed] Yeah.

[Jeff Reed] Yeah, amen to that.

[Jeff Reed] The don't go alone doesn't surprise me, but I don't disagree.

[Jeff Reed] Anyway, what did I say earlier?

[Jeff Reed] Go alone, go quick, be agile, go long, go with someone.

[Jeff Reed] I think that's actually like an African proverb or something like that.

[Jeff Reed] But it's very true in digital space.

[Jeff Reed] I can tell you so many stories of crashes and burns of people that went with it alone.

[Jeff Reed] And just one story just jumps out in my head where it was a husband and wife duo and it was COVID season and they wanted to do it alone.

[Jeff Reed] And I suggested like having a team and to distribute responsibilities and things like that.

[Jeff Reed] And they were like, why?

[Jeff Reed] and i started rattling off reasons and a pest and and you know strengthen and team approaches and all that and they were like oh we don't we don't need that and that that thing lasted like three months um and i'm not i'm not saying the team wasn't the reason but um there's there's an opera there's an opportunity to have people with you

[Jeff Reed] um i've never you know at a personal level i've never wanted the church digital to be jeffrey.com because i wanted that team i wanted to you know engage with people smarter than me i wanted to you know have people to challenge my ideas and make it better and hold me accountable

[Jeff Reed] uh for that whether that's um you know the the the senior leadership the global volunteer team the the board of directors like structure yourselves with with people that that can hold you accountable um you know even during the last two years have been hell man

[Jeff Reed] And to have people with me, even in those hard times, has just been so vital and so good.

[Jeff Reed] And I very much count this man as one of those people.

[Jeff Reed] So, Dr. Sam, thank you so much for being on here.

[Jeff Reed] I've got global digital missiology here in my hand.

[Jeff Reed] Amazon.com, what's the best way to pick this bad boy up?

[Jeff Reed] Awesome.

[Jeff Reed] So check that out as we're landing the plane here.

[Jeff Reed] Dr. Sam, any final thoughts?

[Jeff Reed] Any closing thoughts?

[Jeff Reed] Yeah.

[Jeff Reed] Amen.

[Jeff Reed] Hey, listen, it's a hefty book.

[Jeff Reed] There's a lot in there, but check it out on Amazon.

[Jeff Reed] And Dr. Hayes, you are, would you say samhayes.org?

[Jeff Reed] Samuel Hayes or Sam Hayes?

[Jeff Reed] Samuel, S-A-M-U-E-L, Hayes.org.

[Jeff Reed] I'll put some of the links in the show notes and link to Amazon as well after the fact.

[Jeff Reed] And so, Dr. Sam, thank you for landing the plane.

[Jeff Reed] Next week, for being with us today, next week, we've got Arno.

[Jeff Reed] Oh my gosh, I've known Arno for like almost a decade.

[Jeff Reed] And Arno is in South Africa.

[Jeff Reed] I've never met him physically.

[Jeff Reed] And his last name, I'm gonna try to say it, but you're gonna butcher it.

[Jeff Reed] It's Arno Pretorius or something like that.

[Jeff Reed] He's built this incredible software platform to help churches extend engagement beyond Sunday.

[Jeff Reed] And so really excited to bring him on to talk about some of the things that he's doing.

[Jeff Reed] The software is...

[Jeff Reed] Oh my gosh, I'm blanking on it right now, the name of it.

[Jeff Reed] But check out the church.digital slash events.

[Jeff Reed] We've already got it in there set up coming up.

[Jeff Reed] Something spaces, worship spaces, discipleship spaces.

[Jeff Reed] Oh my gosh, this is bad.

[Jeff Reed] This is bad stream right now.

[Jeff Reed] I should have this information.

[Jeff Reed] I'm actually going to look it up because I feel so awkward that I'm having this conversation about Arno and I wasn't able to pull it quickly.

[Jeff Reed] Give me one second.

[Jeff Reed] uh bad television plan in advance and i failed tuesday wednesday here we go um

[Jeff Reed] Kingdom Online.

[Jeff Reed] Yeah, let's do that.

[Jeff Reed] I'm going to say Kingdom Online.

[Jeff Reed] Go check it out in advance.

[Jeff Reed] Kingdom, K-I-N-G-D-O-M dot online.

[Jeff Reed] We'll have Arno on next week to talk about his platform for engagement and how he's encouraging churches to move beyond the live stream, to engage in a digital community, to draw people deeper into Christ.

[Jeff Reed] You know, one of the things we kind of blew off in this, just as the segues were wrapping up,

[Jeff Reed] Digital churches have an incredible opportunity to break the rules and stretch the limitations of what can be with the gospel.

[Jeff Reed] I love that.

[Jeff Reed] Physical churches have an incredible opportunity to strengthen the physical attender by engaging in digital.

[Jeff Reed] To me, that's the thing that I don't think physical churches understand.

[Jeff Reed] There's actually reports, we've talked about it before, Crossroads in Cincinnati, where they measured that a physical-only attender versus a physical and digital attender.

[Jeff Reed] The physical and digital attender showed a higher level of discipleship.

[Jeff Reed] by being engaged physically on Sunday and digitally Monday through Saturday.

[Jeff Reed] And so the opportunity to disciple people, to engage in people, to get them in community, to establish trust and build relationships that extend into the physical realm is very possible.

[Jeff Reed] And that's almost going to be a drum that we're going to be beating as well because physical churches are just missing it right now.

[Jeff Reed] And they need to understand that to really be effective, I think, in the days and weeks and months to come.

[Jeff Reed] Completely other conversation.

[Jeff Reed] Dr. Sam, thank you for hanging out with us today.

[Jeff Reed] For Dr. Sam, this is Jeff at The Church Digital.

[Jeff Reed] Appreciate the time.

[Jeff Reed] Enjoy it.

[Jeff Reed] Jump into one of the communities.

[Jeff Reed] Let us know what you think.

[Jeff Reed] And like and subscribe.

[Jeff Reed] All right.

[Jeff Reed] Thanks, everybody.

[Jeff Reed] Have a good one.

[Jeff Reed] And this is the part of the show where I've got to find the stop button because I can never find the stop button when I need it.

[Jeff Reed] All right.

[Jeff Reed] Here it is.

[Jeff Reed] All right.

[Jeff Reed] Bye, everybody.

[Jeff Reed] Alright, we should be free.