EP374: The Listening Tour Begins: Platforms Are Places

[Jeff Reed] All right.

[Jeff Reed] Hey, everybody.

[Jeff Reed] Welcome to episode 347, 347 of the Church Digital Podcast.

[Jeff Reed] Jeff Reed here, founder of the Church Digital and bivocational friend to all.

[Jeff Reed] Man, I am, I'm tired today.

[Jeff Reed] It's been a busy week.

[Jeff Reed] It's been a fun week listening to this music in the background.

[Jeff Reed] I

[Jeff Reed] My normal go-to guy on the lo-fi for the streams, his music isn't available anymore on iTunes.

[Jeff Reed] And I just, right before the show, I went searching, trying to find it, Stream Beats by Harris Heller.

[Jeff Reed] And so I found it, but I got to pay for it.

[Jeff Reed] I got to pay for the royalty-free, which I'm not sure.

[Jeff Reed] And it just seemed weird.

[Jeff Reed] So I was like, let me actually look into it.

[Jeff Reed] So I'm playing this, and...

[Jeff Reed] I'm not feeling it.

[Jeff Reed] It says this is stream beats, but this is like stream beats from 2020.

[Jeff Reed] And lo-fi, lo-fi has aged.

[Jeff Reed] How do I say this?

[Jeff Reed] Matured.

[Jeff Reed] Lo-fi has matured quickly.

[Jeff Reed] Lo-fi from 2020 is not lo-fi from 2026.

[Jeff Reed] And so, yeah, you just, you sometimes just want the real stuff.

[Jeff Reed] And so, hey, if you're like, what the garbage is he talking about?

[Jeff Reed] Welcome to episode 347 of The Church Digital.

[Jeff Reed] I'm excited about the road that's coming up.

[Jeff Reed] We're gonna have some great shows coming up.

[Jeff Reed] We are launching right now, episode 347, we're launching the listening tour.

[Jeff Reed] For the rest of the year in the Church of Digital, I, Jeff, am not the host.

[Jeff Reed] Well, I guess I am the host.

[Jeff Reed] But really, after this episode, I want to hear from you.

[Jeff Reed] I was even sitting down trying to figure out when we're going to do the next town hall meeting.

[Jeff Reed] But the goal of this, of the rest of the year...

[Jeff Reed] is I want to hear stories from people that are in the front lines.

[Jeff Reed] In the time that I've been back and doing some of these open offices and some of the streams, I've heard some incredible stories of how God is moving in digital and virtual space, literally around the world.

[Jeff Reed] Some of the stuff that's coming out of Africa, some of the stuff that's coming out of Pakistan, India, Southern Asia has been incredible.

[Jeff Reed] Some of the stuff here in the U.S. as well.

[Jeff Reed] I've been also hearing stories of just heartache and pain as people are going through difficult situations and involving finances, involving persecution from non-Christians, involving persecution.

[Jeff Reed] from christians and uh really like it's it it it it breaks my heart to see god's innovators here um and struggle and so i want to i want to do a season here at the church digital

[Jeff Reed] About the listening tour, because I want to listen to and I want to learn from these stories that are out there.

[Jeff Reed] You know, if you know, okay, so in about five seconds, I'm going to get everybody who's familiar with The Church Digital to roll their eyes.

[Jeff Reed] So we're in a little bit of a rebuilding stage here at The Church Digital.

[Jeff Reed] Q, I roll.

[Jeff Reed] Yes, thank you.

[Jeff Reed] And part of that is us trying to figure out how we can best help people in the field.

[Jeff Reed] how we can best help the missionaries that are in the field.

[Jeff Reed] I have a sticky right here.

[Jeff Reed] I think I've quoted this sticky in the past on the stream.

[Jeff Reed] It is green.

[Jeff Reed] Green stickies, if you're curious, mean this goes back to my stadia days, which I would say is 2020, 2021.

[Jeff Reed] maybe 22, but I think this is a sticky I've had since 2021.

[Jeff Reed] I was in a meeting with Brian Johnson, who is one of the people with KC Underground, Kansas City Underground, a microchurch movement here in America, a network of multi-church, microchurch movements here in America.

[Jeff Reed] And Brian in the meeting says, don't create anything until you really need it.

[Jeff Reed] What happens, I've got five or six stickies right there that are these...

[Jeff Reed] Mic drop quotes, right?

[Jeff Reed] You hear it and it's like, dang, that's good.

[Jeff Reed] I got to remember that.

[Jeff Reed] And so he said that and I wrote that down on a sticky and put it up on the wall.

[Jeff Reed] By the way, if you heard the Coke pop, it's Coke Zero, Zero Caffeine.

[Jeff Reed] And so I am, I guess the camera shows it right there.

[Jeff Reed] All right.

[Jeff Reed] The following episode is brought to you in part by Coca-Cola.

[Jeff Reed] Coca-Cola, the stuff they use to clean battery acid off your car battery when it's corroded over.

[Jeff Reed] And that's now in my gut, Coca-Cola.

[Jeff Reed] But Brian Johnson's don't create it until you actually need it.

[Jeff Reed] Money's tight with the church digital.

[Jeff Reed] And I don't want to, listen, I'm kind of tiptoeing here.

[Jeff Reed] I don't want to create something unless people actually need it.

[Jeff Reed] And rather than us going down the road trying to figure out how to create a bunch of stuff that nobody's ever using, let's actually create stuff that is helpful for people.

[Jeff Reed] So that, my friends, is the goal.

[Jeff Reed] We want to start to create stuff that is helpful to people.

[Jeff Reed] And that's where we're going with...

[Jeff Reed] the church digital with this listening tour.

[Jeff Reed] We want to listen as people are telling us stories, and we can figure out how best to equip and mobilize people at a global level.

[Jeff Reed] It's interesting.

[Jeff Reed] I was actually having lunch today.

[Jeff Reed] Miami, it was called, it's Wing, what's the place I was called?

[Jeff Reed] It's at Palmetto Bay Golf Course here in Miami.

[Jeff Reed] It's in the golf shop.

[Jeff Reed] It's a wing place, Sports Grill.

[Jeff Reed] So we were at Sports Grill.

[Jeff Reed] It's a famous Miami Wings place down here in Miami.

[Jeff Reed] And I was meeting with a guy who is very active in E3, No Place Left.

[Jeff Reed] If you're familiar with this, this is a global movement, a multi-million dollar global movement around the world.

[Jeff Reed] And they are equipping and mobilizing missionaries and...

[Jeff Reed] every continent, all regions, countries.

[Jeff Reed] They're a very well-known discipleship network.

[Jeff Reed] And one of their regional guy, I was very active with him maybe 15, 20 years ago, and now probably three or four times a year we get together for wings, and I tell him my horror stories, and he'd tell me his war stories, and mentorship applied.

[Jeff Reed] And so...

[Jeff Reed] I'm having this conversation with him today and I was telling him about our process, connect, community, equip, mobilize.

[Jeff Reed] And I'll be honest, my leadership heard this.

[Jeff Reed] I don't know if the global teams heard this yet.

[Jeff Reed] It'll be fun for them.

[Jeff Reed] I'm telling Connect Community Equip Mobilize.

[Jeff Reed] And to be honest, I stole a little bit of Connect Community Equip Mobilize from four fields because it's the four cycles through.

[Jeff Reed] They do something a little different in the order.

[Jeff Reed] And I kind of liked how we had modified what we were doing, Connect Community Equip Mobilize away.

[Jeff Reed] It had Mobilize be the last thing.

[Jeff Reed] And then, but he challenged me to rethink on how we're talking about mobilization.

[Jeff Reed] And he's like, you're intentional.

[Jeff Reed] You're making mobilization too hard to mobilize people.

[Jeff Reed] And I was like, well, you're right.

[Jeff Reed] It is really hard for us to mobilize people.

[Jeff Reed] He says, yeah, because that's what your design is.

[Jeff Reed] And he started correcting me.

[Jeff Reed] And so my head is exploding here as this guy's talking about global movements around and structuring and all of that and leadership development.

[Jeff Reed] And so, once again, part of me is like, man, I really want to hear what our missionaries, what the people in the field are going through, what they're experiencing.

[Jeff Reed] I know what I'm feeling.

[Jeff Reed] I know what I'm seeing is acceptable.

[Jeff Reed] I know I'm seeing what the trends are, at least here in America.

[Jeff Reed] But I am curious because I think there's a difference.

[Jeff Reed] I think there's a difference.

[Jeff Reed] Like right now, I've got, I'm working, praise God, I'm working with a couple churches and conversations over the past couple weeks have been really good.

[Jeff Reed] I am, picked up a video directing role for a brick and mortar church that is, it's interesting, the churches I'm getting with are ones that are being, trying to figure out the nice way to say this, they're being rebirthed

[Jeff Reed] They have smaller churches that have a lot of potential.

[Jeff Reed] They have beautiful facilities.

[Jeff Reed] Maybe they're looking to do a little bit of a philosophical shift.

[Jeff Reed] Maybe there's some tension in growing and changing.

[Jeff Reed] And so Christ Church Miami was one of those churches that I was actually part of a year worth of development.

[Jeff Reed] We took them from 30 to about 300 over the course of 12 months.

[Jeff Reed] And 30 boomer, aged, dying off church to now 300 healthy, vibrant, multi-generational.

[Jeff Reed] Didn't chase off the old people, invited the old people to stick around as much as they could.

[Jeff Reed] And so happy to see how that came out.

[Jeff Reed] and still active.

[Jeff Reed] We just launched their app, by the way.

[Jeff Reed] ChristChurchMiami.org app will take you there.

[Jeff Reed] I love it.

[Jeff Reed] We developed a daily devotional that's tied off the sermon into that.

[Jeff Reed] I'm actually working on a system right now for...

[Jeff Reed] pastoral care for the elders that breaks up all the people of the church and assigns them to an elder for pastoral care and that, and so that there's a person responsible for follow-up.

[Jeff Reed] It's got a really beautiful governance structure.

[Jeff Reed] Not much on the Presbyterian denomination, to be honest.

[Jeff Reed] I probably shouldn't have said that because another church I'm working with right now is a Presbyterian church.

[Jeff Reed] But right now, they just seemed interested in using that structure.

[Jeff Reed] And they're theologically so strong.

[Jeff Reed] But now they're interested in taking that knowledge and applying it down to people.

[Jeff Reed] And so that's heartwarming when we take the head knowledge and move it to the heart.

[Jeff Reed] Sorry.

[Jeff Reed] But the idea of brick-and-mortar churches, or as Jason Mortar, Jason Morris called them today in a meeting, click-and-mortar churches, the idea of hybrid, click-and-mortar, I love that, the idea that digital can make physical better.

[Jeff Reed] In 2026, look, you can say that's a misnomer, but most people would say it's possible.

[Jeff Reed] They've just never seen it work.

[Jeff Reed] They don't have time.

[Jeff Reed] They don't have money.

[Jeff Reed] They don't have the knowledge.

[Jeff Reed] Like, there is a lot of churches.

[Jeff Reed] I would suggest the majority of churches are open to the idea of

[Jeff Reed] of digital playing a part, whether it's anything as simple as email to communicate things out, texting, communication channels, or if it gets into social media, those types of things.

[Jeff Reed] Using digital to drive people physical is not...

[Jeff Reed] In 2026, I don't think that's a new idea.

[Jeff Reed] That's not a radical concept.

[Jeff Reed] What is radical, what is new is not that.

[Jeff Reed] It's much more of platforms as places.

[Jeff Reed] It's the community aspect.

[Jeff Reed] It's interesting.

[Jeff Reed] J-Mo is actually talking.

[Jeff Reed] He's speaking at a missions conference, repping the church digital next week, talking about platforms as places.

[Jeff Reed] The idea that we want to treat Facebook just like we treat, just like a normal missions agency would treat India or China or Brazil.

[Jeff Reed] We should be treating Twitch like Argentina.

[Jeff Reed] We should be nothing against Argentina, nothing against Twitch.

[Jeff Reed] We should be looking at Discord like it's Paraguay.

[Jeff Reed] I don't know.

[Jeff Reed] The point being is that how a normal agency would equip and mobilize and send people into global regions

[Jeff Reed] we should look at equipping and sending people into platforms.

[Jeff Reed] Platforms have culture.

[Jeff Reed] Platforms have target audiences, have a community base, uniqueness.

[Jeff Reed] And especially now with more and more platforms developing, more and more uniqueness comes from that.

[Jeff Reed] Platforms like YouTube and Facebook,

[Jeff Reed] They're the catch-all.

[Jeff Reed] Okay, you're not gonna find many Gen A or Gen Z in Facebook, I get that.

[Jeff Reed] But YouTube especially, because it's so, the platform is so neutral in feature sets, it's so simple, it's so video-based that pretty much anybody and everybody, my father's 80, my son's 16, and both of them are on Facebook on their iPads or Surfaces or iPhones on a regular basis.

[Jeff Reed] Now, that's great, but that's the exception.

[Jeff Reed] That's the exception to the rule.

[Jeff Reed] The rule, more and more, are going to be that specific target audiences, specific generations are being reached by specific platforms.

[Jeff Reed] As a result of that, there's an opportunity for us to equip people to be missionaries in that space and mobilize them, specialize to connect with people.

[Jeff Reed] in Twitch, in TikTok.

[Jeff Reed] You wanna talk about a target audience?

[Jeff Reed] Look at who the target audience is on TikTok and the effectiveness of TikTok at this point to reach the people that it's reaching.

[Jeff Reed] What's interesting is that the TikTok was, what would I call it, the thermometer.

[Jeff Reed] has actually probably aged a little bit over the past three or five years.

[Jeff Reed] As more people who look like me and less people that look like my son are moving off of TikTok.

[Jeff Reed] TikTok's getting a little older.

[Jeff Reed] And as a result of that, the real question is, well, where's Gen A and where's Gen Z going next?

[Jeff Reed] Are they gonna fold up and leave digital all the way?

[Jeff Reed] I'll believe it when I see it.

[Jeff Reed] However, is there a move towards a new platform, a new engagement for them to look at?

[Jeff Reed] And I would say time will tell very, very soon on that.

[Jeff Reed] But the idea of treating TikTok like Thailand, you see what I did there, TikTok Thailand?

[Jeff Reed] That was completely on the fly.

[Jeff Reed] The idea of doing TikTok in Thailand and treating them the same, that's a controversial, it's a controversial idea among mission leaders and church leaders.

[Jeff Reed] It's interesting, church leaders, pastors think we're crazy on a regular basis.

[Jeff Reed] I know, because I'm the ones talking to those pastors, asking for money.

[Jeff Reed] to further the movement.

[Jeff Reed] And the reality is that they will often say, that's a great idea, that's the way the future thinks, but we're not going to support it.

[Jeff Reed] Because usually there's someone within the organization, whether it's an executive pastor, lead pastor, board, elder board, deacon board, somebody is going to like, no, we're not doing that.

[Jeff Reed] That's not a believable idea in context of churches.

[Jeff Reed] Because a lot of people...

[Jeff Reed] Believe it or not, the idea of digital is still early.

[Jeff Reed] You're not wrong.

[Jeff Reed] You're just early.

[Jeff Reed] Even within missions organizations, global missions organizations, I can rattle off names.

[Jeff Reed] People that I've met through the Lausanne organization have Billy Graham's missions organization.

[Jeff Reed] But these global mission leaders have talked about how this is the right idea.

[Jeff Reed] What we're doing, recognizing these platforms as places is the right idea.

[Jeff Reed] It's just too soon.

[Jeff Reed] And so what you are...

[Jeff Reed] What you are literally, ladies and gentlemen, if you're listening to the stream right now, you are a digital missionary who is paving the way where there is no way.

[Jeff Reed] I'm suddenly, I'm channeling, God will make a way where there seems to be no way.

[Jeff Reed] He works in ways we cannot see.

[Jeff Reed] He will make a way for me.

[Jeff Reed] Truth.

[Jeff Reed] He will be my guide.

[Jeff Reed] Hold me closer to his side.

[Jeff Reed] Another strength for each new day.

[Jeff Reed] He will make a way.

[Jeff Reed] I cannot believe I just pulled that out of the air.

[Jeff Reed] That was truth.

[Jeff Reed] That was crap.

[Jeff Reed] That is probably going to be on Christian CD from like 1990.

[Jeff Reed] It's called 92.

[Jeff Reed] They were the pop band, vocal band out of Liberty University, I want to say, back in the 90s.

[Jeff Reed] I'm pretty sure on that.

[Jeff Reed] And so he will make a way.

[Jeff Reed] That was completely irrelevant to what I was talking about.

[Jeff Reed] But where was I?

[Jeff Reed] Oh, my gosh.

[Jeff Reed] Hey, I used to tell pastors, if you feel like you're going to sing, don't.

[Jeff Reed] And I needed to take that dose of medicine myself there.

[Jeff Reed] I'm glad you could enjoy that for me.

[Jeff Reed] Thanks for sticking around.

[Jeff Reed] And I'm sure I was offbeat.

[Jeff Reed] Seriously, I'm trying to remember where I was in the conversation.

[Jeff Reed] The fact is, is that we are not, we're early in this.

[Jeff Reed] Missions organizations, even missions organizations are saying we're early.

[Jeff Reed] And so when, what you're seeing in culture today around you, as a digital missionary, because this is what I'm seeing.

[Jeff Reed] I'm seeing churches leaning into digital in ways that they never have before.

[Jeff Reed] I'm seeing people, maybe thanks to AI, starting to understand the value of SEO, starting to understand the value of building strong, healthy websites.

[Jeff Reed] It's interesting, there's also a move away from web entirely to go and pour everything into Instagram, and that is so short-sighted, don't even get me started.

[Jeff Reed] But the idea of creating a digital strategy, everybody's got a digital strategy.

[Jeff Reed] The majority of churches have a digital strategy.

[Jeff Reed] They may be stupid, but at least they think they have one.

[Jeff Reed] And so digital does play a role in the physical-digital relationship, in the physical-digital relationship.

[Jeff Reed] A fidgetal church, a hybrid church, really is not of question.

[Jeff Reed] The thing that I would challenge a hybrid church, a physical digital, a fidgetal church, is your standard edge.

[Jeff Reed] Are you utilizing digital for evangelism?

[Jeff Reed] Are you utilizing digital for discipleship?

[Jeff Reed] Are you utilizing digital for generosity?

[Jeff Reed] Are you utilizing digital for engagement?

[Jeff Reed] I'm sorry, empowerment.

[Jeff Reed] Are you doing those four?

[Jeff Reed] Evangelism, discipleship, generosity, empowerment.

[Jeff Reed] And if you are, that's a healthy digital strategy.

[Jeff Reed] If you're not, then you're not taking advantage of all that digital can do.

[Jeff Reed] Get back in there, figure it out.

[Jeff Reed] By the way, side pitch, hybrid.church, www.hybrid.church, new website, the church digital is launched.

[Jeff Reed] That's helping churches do just what I described, evangelism, discipleship, generosity, empowerment.

[Jeff Reed] helping the church itself evangelize and training people to evangelize via digital spaces.

[Jeff Reed] Discipleship, discipling people in digital space just because we have them in brick and mortar.

[Jeff Reed] Well, it can be click and mortar and we can be discipling even digital.

[Jeff Reed] Generosity, if you're not utilizing digital in your generosity strategy,

[Jeff Reed] Wow.

[Jeff Reed] I'm just saying, 2026, think about it.

[Jeff Reed] And fourth, empowerment.

[Jeff Reed] What does multiplication look like in a digital environment?

[Jeff Reed] That's where conversations here with the Church Digital get fun.

[Jeff Reed] But for churches, you've got to solve the problems where they are before they'll trust you with the problems you want to address.

[Jeff Reed] I've learned this the hard way.

[Jeff Reed] I wanna talk about online discipleship and they wanna talk about email.

[Jeff Reed] And so I've gotta solve the email problem, have a success with the email problem and then move that from email to social media and solve the social media problem and then move that to a website and solve that problem.

[Jeff Reed] Chances are website's actually first if you're playing that game, but you're trickling down.

[Jeff Reed] And so like you may work with a church for six months or so before you actually get to the stuff you wanna talk about.

[Jeff Reed] You're just, and you're paving the road to have the conversation that you really want to get to.

[Jeff Reed] I totally get that.

[Jeff Reed] I totally understand that.

[Jeff Reed] And you're right, that is frustrating.

[Jeff Reed] And it is a long tail.

[Jeff Reed] But the reality is, is when you work it, it pays off.

[Jeff Reed] Now, a physical church doing digital ministry is not, listen, I mean, we were, some of these guys, Jay Cranda and so, some of the OGs that were in the church space, you know, they started 05, 06, 07.

[Jeff Reed] I think Life Church was actually 06.

[Jeff Reed] And so, as some of the first churches broadcasting online, there was a lot of animosity towards that back then.

[Jeff Reed] Today, 26, I don't think there's animosity towards streaming.

[Jeff Reed] I think there's a percentage of churches that say, well, you know, PushPay would actually say back in 24, 25, that 70, 80, 90-some percent of churches stream their services online.

[Jeff Reed] 90-some percent have a digital ministry.

[Jeff Reed] They don't understand why.

[Jeff Reed] They're doing something without, it's just because.

[Jeff Reed] That was actually a conversation I had recently with one of the churches I'm talking to.

[Jeff Reed] Yeah, we broadcast our services every Sunday, but we really just do it for people that are traveling.

[Jeff Reed] There's no purpose.

[Jeff Reed] Because, Jeff, we're not interested in reaching people around the world.

[Jeff Reed] It's like, okay, I hear you, and that's great, but you can broadcast a service and utilize that for tools that can reach people across your street.

[Jeff Reed] Like, you don't have to thank global.

[Jeff Reed] You can thank local and still broadcast services.

[Jeff Reed] Like, there's still a purpose in that digital sermon.

[Jeff Reed] And so it's fun kind of having those conversations and moving forward.

[Jeff Reed] But once again, you gotta earn trust.

[Jeff Reed] Where we are the oddballs, where we still are the island of misfit toys, thank you very much, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, is digital missionaries in platforms as places.

[Jeff Reed] we are called to a digital platform.

[Jeff Reed] The difficulties that I've seen more than any other space at this point are the people that are using platforms like virtual reality, like video games, like even some Twitch, TikTok,

[Jeff Reed] But they're using, they're not using TikTok to reach, this is what's interesting.

[Jeff Reed] They're not using TikTok to reach a physical space.

[Jeff Reed] They're using TikTok to reach the TikTok community.

[Jeff Reed] They're using Twitch to reach the Twitch community, not a physical space.

[Jeff Reed] They're using, I mean, video games, Final Fantasy.

[Jeff Reed] You can't reuse Final Fantasy to reach a physical space.

[Jeff Reed] I remember at a conversation, this is with a US-based missions organization.

[Jeff Reed] their executive suites in the room, their C crowd.

[Jeff Reed] It's during COVID.

[Jeff Reed] And we're talking about virtual reality church.

[Jeff Reed] And they said, well, so Jeff, how do you map?

[Jeff Reed] How do you restrict?

[Jeff Reed] Literally, it wasn't about connecting.

[Jeff Reed] It was about restricting the ministry, virtual reality ministry to a specific area.

[Jeff Reed] And I was like, why would I wanna do that?

[Jeff Reed] Well, you know, discipleship and relationships.

[Jeff Reed] Well, why don't you do that online?

[Jeff Reed] Why can't you do that through virtual reality?

[Jeff Reed] Well, you can't disciple people digitally.

[Jeff Reed] And I was like, well, that's right.

[Jeff Reed] You can't with that attitude.

[Jeff Reed] It's funny.

[Jeff Reed] I'm kind of going off.

[Jeff Reed] There's a reason why I don't get a lot of money from churches.

[Jeff Reed] Let's just say it that way.

[Jeff Reed] I make a horrible church employee.

[Jeff Reed] I speak my mind.

[Jeff Reed] I challenge authority.

[Jeff Reed] I question process.

[Jeff Reed] I'm respectful, respectful to God, I'm respectful to elders, respectful for position, but I ask a lot of questions.

[Jeff Reed] And some people can hack that, and some people can't.

[Jeff Reed] And that's why I love now doing consulting work, because...

[Jeff Reed] I don't feel the burden to have to question everything as much as help that person realize what they're trying to achieve instead of me feeling like I gotta own the ministry that's happening there because I work there.

[Jeff Reed] It's me thing, it's bright thing.

[Jeff Reed] We can get it and move on.

[Jeff Reed] Digital missionaries, platforms as places.

[Jeff Reed] We struggle, we struggle, we struggle, we struggle because of the platforms as places issue.

[Jeff Reed] the virtual reality, but what's fun is the virtual reality pastor is not struggling because of persecution from the outside, from the people that are getting, that are lost, that are coming in and ridiculing the church for believing God in a virtual reality environment.

[Jeff Reed] That's not where the persecution comes.

[Jeff Reed] Persecution comes from the Christians who come in saying the church doesn't belong in virtual reality.

[Jeff Reed] So I was having lunch with Scuba Steve is his name, Steve Carswell.

[Jeff Reed] So if you're in Miami, you know who Scuba Steve is.

[Jeff Reed] He says hi.

[Jeff Reed] And so I'm having lunch with Scuba, digging in with him.

[Jeff Reed] And Steve's with E3, no place left.

[Jeff Reed] And we were at this wing place.

[Jeff Reed] And I was like, oh, you ready to go?

[Jeff Reed] After about a two-hour lunch.

[Jeff Reed] And he's like, let's stick around.

[Jeff Reed] I want to pray for the waitress.

[Jeff Reed] And so stuck around for a while, and Steve breaks out the three circles.

[Jeff Reed] If you know three circles, E3, no place left, you know the deal.

[Jeff Reed] These are the people that did the gospel glove like 20 years ago.

[Jeff Reed] So they create a lot of visuals to go with their...

[Jeff Reed] gospel presentations.

[Jeff Reed] And so he breaks out the sticker with the three circles, and he goes through the whole deal.

[Jeff Reed] You know, this is a broken world, and the lines are us trying to find things that'll heal the world.

[Jeff Reed] And one of these is drug and alcohol, and one of these is sex, and one of these is relationships, and even some people do religion.

[Jeff Reed] And he's sharing all this with the waitress leading into the prayer.

[Jeff Reed] And what was fascinating, the waitress who grew up religious Catholic,

[Jeff Reed] Latin South America, I'm guessing.

[Jeff Reed] I have never seen one of these conversations with Scuba go, and he's done dozens in front of me, and I've done dozens as well with him.

[Jeff Reed] I've never seen one of these go hostile.

[Jeff Reed] I always assume they will.

[Jeff Reed] They never do.

[Jeff Reed] And ultimately, my reason for saying this is that people are open to the conversation.

[Jeff Reed] Now, they may reject us, but that's not rejecting us.

[Jeff Reed] That's rejecting God.

[Jeff Reed] We're not accountable for whether or not they reject God.

[Jeff Reed] We're accountable for the conversation.

[Jeff Reed] And so often I think that as missionaries, we give up that, the ability to have that conversation because of the, and this is me, I'll put my name on next to this statement.

[Jeff Reed] I have, I mean, I've been like borderline depressed because of the frustration for the difficulties, maybe I should say persecution, that I've been faced from the physical church.

[Jeff Reed] for me, and that's put me into a place of depression.

[Jeff Reed] Now, I've said this also before on the stream.

[Jeff Reed] I think a lot of my depression, did I tell the story?

[Jeff Reed] I'm having lunch, it's interesting.

[Jeff Reed] The guy I'm about to talk about, Brian's on the text.

[Jeff Reed] He's been texting me here a little bit.

[Jeff Reed] He's trying to secure up an IG account for his youth group.

[Jeff Reed] And so I'm at this Starbucks with a youth pastor at one of the churches that I'm doing consulting work with.

[Jeff Reed] We're talking through the app and some things that I want to develop for him.

[Jeff Reed] And so I'm talking to him.

[Jeff Reed] We're wrapping up the conversation.

[Jeff Reed] It's been like two hours, hour and a half.

[Jeff Reed] And I say something that, honestly, I have no idea where the statement came from.

[Jeff Reed] I look him square in the eyes and it's like, you know what?

[Jeff Reed] Sometimes I feel like my depression is related to the fact that I'm not doing what God wants me to do and my physical body is revolting away because it knows that I should be doing what God is doing and I'm not.

[Jeff Reed] And in the moment I said that,

[Jeff Reed] I literally, I stopped and just kind of stared at Brian quietly and to myself said, I have to remember that because I didn't, those aren't my words.

[Jeff Reed] I didn't come up with that.

[Jeff Reed] That wasn't me talking right there.

[Jeff Reed] I've never had that thought in my life.

[Jeff Reed] I'm not even smart enough.

[Jeff Reed] I don't understand the whole depression aspect, which I do admit I have been depressed over the past year for health and a number of reasons.

[Jeff Reed] But that statement, sometimes I feel like my depression is grounded in the fact that I am not doing what God wants me to do, and my physical body is revolting as a result of it.

[Jeff Reed] Not doing what God wants me to do.

[Jeff Reed] And in many ways, I...

[Jeff Reed] I think that the persecution of what I'm feeling from the church and how that limited me of how the mandate that I had to have a paycheck and walk away from what I felt like God was calling me to do because it didn't pay well.

[Jeff Reed] Like, I'll be honest, I backed off a lot of things that I was doing as a result of that.

[Jeff Reed] Is that wise?

[Jeff Reed] Is that healthy?

[Jeff Reed] Is that what I should have been doing?

[Jeff Reed] Not advocating for that.

[Jeff Reed] Is it wrong to want to try to pay bills?

[Jeff Reed] Given to Caesar what Caesar.

[Jeff Reed] My daughter is going away to college next year.

[Jeff Reed] And she's not going to stay in Miami.

[Jeff Reed] She's not living here.

[Jeff Reed] And so, you know, as a result of that, I got to figure out how to pay for my daughter, you know, to go to college.

[Jeff Reed] My son's a couple years behind.

[Jeff Reed] And oh, by the way, Miami is now the second most expensive city in America.

[Jeff Reed] Just learned that stat a couple weeks ago.

[Jeff Reed] It came out of a news report, and it's grounded in the fact of the average cost of...

[Jeff Reed] what was this what was what they call the stat um like food water um necessities you know i often joke that we'll spend 60 70 bucks at taco bell um to feed four people

[Jeff Reed] And it's not like we're crazy eaters.

[Jeff Reed] It's that it's so freaking expensive to eat down here in Miami.

[Jeff Reed] Taco Bell was 65 bucks.

[Jeff Reed] I'm sorry, Chick-fil-A was 65 bucks the other night for a family of four.

[Jeff Reed] And so Miami, and I'm sure it's expensive where you guys are.

[Jeff Reed] The fact is that trying to pay bills, trying to go after these things is not bad.

[Jeff Reed] But I do think it's interesting that God is there saying, come.

[Jeff Reed] God is saying, trust me.

[Jeff Reed] If he counted the hairs on your head, we should trust him in this.

[Jeff Reed] I don't know.

[Jeff Reed] It just seems to me that as pioneers,

[Jeff Reed] there's an interesting principle where, because I was actually, I was thinking about this too today when I was at lunch with Steve.

[Jeff Reed] And, you know, talking through, well, you know, some guys, some guys get it.

[Jeff Reed] Some guys are just angry.

[Jeff Reed] And I don't mean to like separate the men and the women here because men and women have both been successful.

[Jeff Reed] Um, you know, some of them are, are, are just driven.

[Jeff Reed] I met Mark, uh, Lutz at Lux Digital Church.

[Jeff Reed] And, and I mean this sincerely.

[Jeff Reed] The first time I met Mark, I knew he was going to be successful.

[Jeff Reed] Uh, cause Mark literally looked like a heller high water.

[Jeff Reed] I'm going to launch this church.

[Jeff Reed] I'm going to, I'm going to find the money.

[Jeff Reed] I'm going to do it.

[Jeff Reed] He knew the vision that he wanted to do.

[Jeff Reed] It was strong.

[Jeff Reed] It was clear.

[Jeff Reed] Um,

[Jeff Reed] He didn't know what it was gonna, he didn't know the process to get it done, but he knew what he was gonna do.

[Jeff Reed] And he knew the people he needed to talk to to make that reality happen.

[Jeff Reed] And hell or high water, like I said, he pulled it off.

[Jeff Reed] That's the beauty of, in the Apest, that's the apostolic, just the drive to get it done.

[Jeff Reed] And Mark is, I would, very strong, I would gauge apostolic.

[Jeff Reed] you know, prophetic evangelist shepherd teacher.

[Jeff Reed] Shepherd teacher is on the backside.

[Jeff Reed] We go over APEST and we spend a lot of time on APEST on the backside.

[Jeff Reed] And what's interesting today is that as I look at some of the people that are struggling today,

[Jeff Reed] And I'm not equating anything from this yet.

[Jeff Reed] This is just me in the past 24 hours, literally having conversations with people and thinking, where do I see people struggling and what are the consistencies?

[Jeff Reed] It's those that are platforms as places that are diving in specifically to platforms, not doing ministry in physical space.

[Jeff Reed] Digital drives the physical.

[Jeff Reed] It's doing ministry in digital.

[Jeff Reed] Digital discipleship, digital community, metaverse, virtual community, platforms as places.

[Jeff Reed] And then I would say at the same time, it's the shepherd teachers.

[Jeff Reed] I don't mean that rude.

[Jeff Reed] The apes,

[Jeff Reed] are stubborn enough to get it done.

[Jeff Reed] Now, maturation wise, you really don't wanna be a pain in the butt apostolic person.

[Jeff Reed] Like that's not a healthy apostolic.

[Jeff Reed] You wanna be balanced where you mature.

[Jeff Reed] I had a pastor tell me once, Brando, he said, the leader is not the one who's the strongest at their defaults.

[Jeff Reed] The leader is the one that understands and can communicate and work with all defaults.

[Jeff Reed] And so you don't want to be the—because I was a pain-in-the-butt apostolic.

[Jeff Reed] I still am a pain-in-the-butt apostolic.

[Jeff Reed] It's just so high on that side.

[Jeff Reed] But I'm working on understanding the prophetic, the evangelical, the shepherd, the teacher.

[Jeff Reed] I'm trying to get more balanced and operate it from a balanced strength as opposed to being lopsided.

[Jeff Reed] And that's what I'm seeing, really, some of the people that are struggling are more stronger on the shepherd-teacher side, where they're passionate about caring for people or communicating a message in that space, but they don't have the oomph, the flexibility, the drive necessarily.

[Jeff Reed] to build out in the space or even to communicate, to recruit a team around them to fill in.

[Jeff Reed] And this is why it's so important.

[Jeff Reed] It's so important as digital missionaries.

[Jeff Reed] And when I say this in EDM classes and other organizations, it's so funny to me that people don't see this and don't understand this.

[Jeff Reed] I could tell you dozens of horror stories where I've said this and people just don't get it.

[Jeff Reed] I'd say things like, you need a team.

[Jeff Reed] You need an organization around you.

[Jeff Reed] I'm not saying that you're the leader.

[Jeff Reed] I'm not saying that you're the bottom peon.

[Jeff Reed] You figure that out.

[Jeff Reed] But if you are going into digital ministry alone and you are trying to provide connection, community equipping, and mobilization, if you're trying to find and disciple people in digital spaces all by yourself, you are not going to work.

[Jeff Reed] It's not going to.

[Jeff Reed] You're going to fry out yourself.

[Jeff Reed] because there's so many gifts and skills that are necessary to do that.

[Jeff Reed] And even accountability, rather than operating and doing your ministry in isolation, why not inviting and challenging people to come in and support you in the ministry that you're doing?

[Jeff Reed] That's the healthy way to do this.

[Jeff Reed] And the people that I see struggling are alone.

[Jeff Reed] Now, it's funny.

[Jeff Reed] I even went to Church Digital.

[Jeff Reed] I felt alone.

[Jeff Reed] Guys, half the reason I disappeared, I went AWOL for a year, was because I was dealing with a depressive state that I felt alone.

[Jeff Reed] I mean, I've had conversations with my board.

[Jeff Reed] I've had conversations with the senior leadership team.

[Jeff Reed] We've talked about this with the global team.

[Jeff Reed] And I'm not saying anything nobody's ever heard.

[Jeff Reed] I'm pretty sure I've even said it on the stream.

[Jeff Reed] half of my departure was that I was putting on the isolation.

[Jeff Reed] Even though I had people around me, I was putting on an isolation state, pushing people away, which was only causing me to feel farther away from God, farther away from my family, farther away from loved ones, farther away from my support community.

[Jeff Reed] The isolation...

[Jeff Reed] I didn't go into the isolation saying, God, why don't you stay over there?

[Jeff Reed] I did not.

[Jeff Reed] I did not intend that.

[Jeff Reed] In reality, though, by the end of the day, God, you're good over there.

[Jeff Reed] This space, this is my space.

[Jeff Reed] Let me wallow in my despair.

[Jeff Reed] It's not me.

[Jeff Reed] Okay, maybe it is me, but just, you just, God, you stay over there.

[Jeff Reed] That is such not a good idea.

[Jeff Reed] And honestly, as I look at what could I have done differently?

[Jeff Reed] How could I have revisited it?

[Jeff Reed] How could I have relived the past year or so?

[Jeff Reed] The logic of...

[Jeff Reed] Being obedient to God even when it didn't make sense.

[Jeff Reed] And it's interesting that one of my clients right now is preaching through Genesis.

[Jeff Reed] And, you know, so we're talking about Adam and Eve who disobeyed God.

[Jeff Reed] Noah, Abraham, Isaac.

[Jeff Reed] You know, there are so many people across the old Genesis.

[Jeff Reed] It's the same freaking story over and over and over and over again.

[Jeff Reed] People who are obedient to God up until a point, excuse me, don't obey God.

[Jeff Reed] That's that Coca-Cola just kicked in.

[Jeff Reed] I don't know if you heard that on the mic.

[Jeff Reed] Nice, well played.

[Jeff Reed] Genesis is that people that were obedient to God up to a point and then stopped.

[Jeff Reed] And then the stopping point is where they disobeyed God and then there's

[Jeff Reed] consequences of disobeying God, of not having the faith to carry it through.

[Jeff Reed] Was it Abraham, Isaac, and the other child?

[Jeff Reed] I mean, I just, I don't need to get into it.

[Jeff Reed] It's not the right place.

[Jeff Reed] There are other Old Testament scholars who can do it.

[Jeff Reed] I'll send you the sermons.

[Jeff Reed] They're on, I tell you what, you can download the app, ChristChurchMiami.org website or ChristChurchMiami.org app.

[Jeff Reed] I'm not gonna turn the church digital into a commercial for the Christ Church, but I thought that was funny.

[Jeff Reed] The reality is, is that God can do incredible things through us when we let go.

[Jeff Reed] I'm reminded of Peter on the boat, walk on the water.

[Jeff Reed] I'm also reminded when Peter got overwhelmed and God helped me and he sinks like a lead balloon.

[Jeff Reed] Which just reminds you the difficulties of the things that God's asking you to do.

[Jeff Reed] Not that it's right, not that it's wrong.

[Jeff Reed] I told Scuba today.

[Jeff Reed] It was a good meeting.

[Jeff Reed] I told Scuba, because I'm like, here's where I think we're stuck.

[Jeff Reed] How do I do this?

[Jeff Reed] And he didn't tell me how to fix it.

[Jeff Reed] I wasn't expecting him to.

[Jeff Reed] We had some good conversations.

[Jeff Reed] But I told him.

[Jeff Reed] I said, the persecution that I see from the people that are under my care, man, I carry it personally.

[Jeff Reed] The missionaries that are having to walk away from the mission field because they can't afford it and they can't figure out how to structure their work, their missions work while being bivocational.

[Jeff Reed] I carry that personally.

[Jeff Reed] The missionaries who are giving up on digital because of the pressure they're receiving from outside the church, family, or inside the church, I can tell you some horror stories on both sides.

[Jeff Reed] I carry that personally.

[Jeff Reed] I shouldn't.

[Jeff Reed] I need to not be in pain as much as I am.

[Jeff Reed] But just being a little transparent on my side, this is where I feel the most... Man, you're getting the unfiltered.

[Jeff Reed] You are getting the unfiltered Jeff Reed on this episode.

[Jeff Reed] This is where I feel the most ill-equipped.

[Jeff Reed] because I'm trying to figure out how best I can help a digital missionary remotely on the other side of the planet, how I can care for them, how I can support them, when I myself don't have the finances to do it, but give them a situation where they can.

[Jeff Reed] And sadly, I don't have the answers.

[Jeff Reed] I know I had one of the missionaries...

[Jeff Reed] one of the missionaries I'm working with now, or that's part of our network, they said to me, you know, this is somebody who was constantly praying for me when I was going through my health issues of a year or so ago and really just broken.

[Jeff Reed] And really, I've told this person, I've talked about this person before.

[Jeff Reed] I'm not going to say a name.

[Jeff Reed] But my spiritual low point was connected to this person.

[Jeff Reed] The lowest I've been at any spiritual moment of my life was connected to this one missionary directly.

[Jeff Reed] When they looked at me on a Zoom call, an open office or something, and said, Jeff, I'm praying for you.

[Jeff Reed] And the words out of my mouth were, ugh.

[Jeff Reed] I don't need that.

[Jeff Reed] I don't need more prayer.

[Jeff Reed] Prayer isn't helping one bit.

[Jeff Reed] I know I've tried.

[Jeff Reed] What I need are answers.

[Jeff Reed] What I need is direction.

[Jeff Reed] What I need is money.

[Jeff Reed] I don't need anything else.

[Jeff Reed] That's what I need.

[Jeff Reed] So if you got that, give it to me.

[Jeff Reed] I said that in a public open office.

[Jeff Reed] You can probably find the video.

[Jeff Reed] somewhere of that.

[Jeff Reed] Once again, not my best moment.

[Jeff Reed] I actually went back to that person and apologized and thanked them for praying because I was not spiritually healthy.

[Jeff Reed] I was not.

[Jeff Reed] Guys, I've been messed up for a couple years.

[Jeff Reed] And the fact coming out of this conversation, right now that missionary has come to me and said, I'm not feeling much different than you were at that moment because things have gotten so bleak and so hard.

[Jeff Reed] And as we're looking at these difficult moments, it's not...

[Jeff Reed] I've always felt like if God takes our successes, then God gets our failures.

[Jeff Reed] If our ego, our pride, claims successes for us, then we have to claim the failures as ours because we were the ones that did it.

[Jeff Reed] But if God is the one that orchestrates the success of the past, then God takes the failures of today and just goes ahead and claims whatever tomorrow is.

[Jeff Reed] Today or tomorrow, today has enough trouble of its own.

[Jeff Reed] Let's let God worry about tomorrow, Matt 634.

[Jeff Reed] And so in the midst of whatever trial, whatever season you're in, go ahead and ask that question.

[Jeff Reed] Is God getting the wins and the failures?

[Jeff Reed] Is God getting the persecution?

[Jeff Reed] Is God getting the difficulties for the position that he's put you in?

[Jeff Reed] Or are you carrying it?

[Jeff Reed] That's the thought that brought me back.

[Jeff Reed] we've talked about it with the Church Digital, and I've said this recently on a stream.

[Jeff Reed] We were talking about shutting it down.

[Jeff Reed] I was talking about shutting it down.

[Jeff Reed] And in the reality, one of the leadership conversations that I had, one of the conversations that I had with leadership brought me to this one point.

[Jeff Reed] Jeff, is this yours or is it God's?

[Jeff Reed] I am...

[Jeff Reed] doing my best to be a wise steward of his ministry here.

[Jeff Reed] And we're going to do whatever we can to encourage people to be missional in digital and virtual space, to equip and care for the missionaries on those platforms, just like they were places, and to see a movement multiply in digital and virtual space.

[Jeff Reed] And it encourages me very much to see even today God moving in quiet ways behind the scenes.

[Jeff Reed] church calls that's interested, you know, looking for X ends up being Y, a missions, global missionary conference, global missions conference, digital missionary conference sponsor.

[Jeff Reed] I couldn't remember the acronym for a second.

[Jeff Reed] Sorry, DMC.

[Jeff Reed] Digital missionary conference sponsor reaches out asking if I'm interested in a leadership position of sorts.

[Jeff Reed] Like there's some things that,

[Jeff Reed] I can step back, and these are my words, I can step back and see, well, yeah, Jeff, once I get over myself, I can see where God's moving.

[Jeff Reed] For me, my pride and my ego gets in the way.

[Jeff Reed] My pride and my ego puts me in the place where it's, hey, Jeff's all alone, when, you know, cue footprints, photo, and God's carrying me the entire time.

[Jeff Reed] It's a fun reality realizing that when you're alone, you're really not.

[Jeff Reed] It's comforting.

[Jeff Reed] It's a lesson I have to teach my kids.

[Jeff Reed] You know, my daughter's setting up for college applications right now.

[Jeff Reed] Actually, she's here right now.

[Jeff Reed] She's in another room.

[Jeff Reed] She's a high school senior.

[Jeff Reed] She's doing Calculus 3 at a local school, Calculus 3.

[Jeff Reed] She passed Calculus 1 and Calculus 2 with flying colors, and so she's already taking Calculus 3.

[Jeff Reed] The reason I get into all that, she's filling out college applications now.

[Jeff Reed] And one of the questions on the college applications, one of the essay questions, is what difficulties have you faced in your senior year?

[Jeff Reed] And she says, well, Dad, I already talked about your health and about you almost dying and having to deal with that.

[Jeff Reed] I already addressed that in another question, so I can't mention it again.

[Jeff Reed] So, Dad, I really want to talk about how you've been unemployed or not making money.

[Jeff Reed] Are you okay if I talk about that on the college application?

[Jeff Reed] And I was like, my wife stepped in and kind of championed the conversation and helped her find the angle and it worked.

[Jeff Reed] Well, at least she was able to write it.

[Jeff Reed] And I sat there while my wife, Amy, was talking to Caitlin.

[Jeff Reed] I literally just sat there thinking to myself, what have I done here?

[Jeff Reed] that my my my ministry has brought my daughter to a point of recognizing difficulty like have i scarred my kids in the process what have i and i start literally i just start unraveling everything guys this was this weekend this is not even something a year ago this is like it's like a couple days ago

[Jeff Reed] And I've started talking more to both kids about the ministry, what's going on, the opportunities, the benefits, who I'm reaching, what I'm working with.

[Jeff Reed] You know, I've even apologized.

[Jeff Reed] Guys, I'm sorry that, you know.

[Jeff Reed] we don't own the boat in miami that we're not going out on on the ocean water that we're not going on parties that we're not going on ski trips that we can barely afford the things that that your friends can that you know we we only have two cars and the other day i was talking about selling one of the two cars we'd be down to one car

[Jeff Reed] By the way, I totally wanna do the Tesla RoboCab, but that's another conversation.

[Jeff Reed] Seriously though, I'm like, I live a digital missionary lifestyle.

[Jeff Reed] I'm broke in the second most expensive city in America, Miami.

[Jeff Reed] What am I supposed to do with that?

[Jeff Reed] I don't know.

[Jeff Reed] Do not know.

[Jeff Reed] And so if you're in those spaces, what I know I can't do,

[Jeff Reed] Actually, I think there is something to, I don't know what to do, but I'm going to give it to God and put faith in Him to handle that.

[Jeff Reed] And I don't mean to be the Sunday school cop-out guy.

[Jeff Reed] I don't mean to be the, you know, the, yeah, Jeff, it's easy for you to say.

[Jeff Reed] I live that pain every day at this point.

[Jeff Reed] I mean, there are homeless on the street that are making probably more a year than I'm pulling in at this point.

[Jeff Reed] I saw homeless, like homeless guys down here with Cash App on their, you know, swipes on their phones.

[Jeff Reed] ingenious idea.

[Jeff Reed] Seriously.

[Jeff Reed] Whoever gave the homeless guys Cash App, smart move.

[Jeff Reed] It'd be funny if Cash App did that to get a cut.

[Jeff Reed] They wouldn't do that.

[Jeff Reed] Maybe they would do that.

[Jeff Reed] I don't know.

[Jeff Reed] Anyway, to bring it home, there's a challenge today.

[Jeff Reed] We are still early.

[Jeff Reed] for platforms as places.

[Jeff Reed] We are still early in doing missions work in digital context.

[Jeff Reed] Digital communication is fine.

[Jeff Reed] Digital community is still not sure about that.

[Jeff Reed] God only does community in the building.

[Jeff Reed] Don't abandon, don't forsake the gathering of believers, Hebrews.

[Jeff Reed] There's still gonna be that pushback.

[Jeff Reed] And if anything, it's gotten louder and more vicious in the time that I was away and are now coming back.

[Jeff Reed] And so those of you that are out there in the midst of these difficulties, be encouraged, seriously.

[Jeff Reed] And that's hard to say.

[Jeff Reed] I understand that.

[Jeff Reed] You are literally doing what God has asked you to do.

[Jeff Reed] And as a result of that, knowing that God is on your side, who are you to say no?

[Jeff Reed] I mean, you can say no.

[Jeff Reed] That's up to you and God.

[Jeff Reed] I said no and, well, God swallowed me by a whale with a whale by getting me fired.

[Jeff Reed] 100%.

[Jeff Reed] 100%.

[Jeff Reed] You know what?

[Jeff Reed] I feel like it's time to go.

[Jeff Reed] God is calling me to go.

[Jeff Reed] I really like having this paycheck.

[Jeff Reed] I'm going to go ahead and stay here because I don't want to lose my paycheck.

[Jeff Reed] If anything, I want to lean further in because I want stability.

[Jeff Reed] My family deserves stability.

[Jeff Reed] I should give them stability.

[Jeff Reed] I'm ignoring God.

[Jeff Reed] Three months later.

[Jeff Reed] Hey, Jeff, you're out.

[Jeff Reed] Thank you, God.

[Jeff Reed] Clarity.

[Jeff Reed] Bringing me back.

[Jeff Reed] By the way, I would challenge you, find your clarity without getting canned or without...

[Jeff Reed] Needing God to intervene at the level that he did.

[Jeff Reed] Getting swallowed by a whale is not a fun thing, I would imagine.

[Jeff Reed] And neither is getting canned.

[Jeff Reed] But I'll tell you, I'm doing much better now.

[Jeff Reed] What was that?

[Jeff Reed] There was a, oh my gosh, there was an actor in the 70s.

[Jeff Reed] But I feel much better now.

[Jeff Reed] Can't think of his name.

[Jeff Reed] He's kind of a creepy guy.

[Jeff Reed] Anyway, that doesn't matter.

[Jeff Reed] I'm flashing something from Adam's family, but I don't think it was Adam's family.

[Jeff Reed] Anyway, too old for that.

[Jeff Reed] Anyway, we're going to wrap up.

[Jeff Reed] This has been fun.

[Jeff Reed] I hope it's fun.

[Jeff Reed] It's been fun for me.

[Jeff Reed] It's funny.

[Jeff Reed] I didn't do much interaction with the audience today.

[Jeff Reed] People were just flying in and out on a regular basis.

[Jeff Reed] Always thankful for the audience that comes in.

[Jeff Reed] I knew when I changed times, it was going to be difficult because a lot of people consistently see me at two.

[Jeff Reed] And so always thankful for the people that are coming and watching live.

[Jeff Reed] Next week, we're starting.

[Jeff Reed] I'll publish the schedule soon, but next week we're starting the listening tour.

[Jeff Reed] We've got a couple book authors coming out.

[Jeff Reed] We've got on digital missional theology, digital missiology, digital theology.

[Jeff Reed] We've got a couple success stories.

[Jeff Reed] We've got a couple people that are struggling coming in that are just being transparent in this season.

[Jeff Reed] and know they've done what God's called them to do either way.

[Jeff Reed] Just because God called you to do it doesn't mean that it's successful.

[Jeff Reed] God called you to do it, and we need to be obedient, not look for success in that.

[Jeff Reed] But that's...

[Jeff Reed] That's part of the deal of being a missionary.

[Jeff Reed] So we're going to land the plane.

[Jeff Reed] Hey, I want to thank you guys for hanging out with me today on episode 347.

[Jeff Reed] Hit me up in Discord and WhatsApp.

[Jeff Reed] It took me a minute to remember the word WhatsApp.

[Jeff Reed] It's been a while since I've done this.

[Jeff Reed] Hit me up Discord and WhatsApp, The Church Digital on both of those, or like and subscribe, of course, on YouTube at BeTheChurchDigital.

[Jeff Reed] For The Church Digital, this is Jeff signing off.

[Jeff Reed] Thanks, everybody.

[Jeff Reed] Have a great one, and we'll see you next time here on the show.

[Jeff Reed] Bye.