EP373: GTA 6, Dating AI, and the Loneliest Job in Ministry

[Jeff Reed] All right.

[Jeff Reed] Hey, everybody.

[Jeff Reed] Welcome to Becoming the Church Digital.

[Jeff Reed] Jeff Reed here, founder of The Church Digital.

[Jeff Reed] And, okay, I picked a great time to do a stream.

[Jeff Reed] I'm like, hey, 2 o'clock Wednesday sounds like a great time.

[Jeff Reed] Let me book it all around.

[Jeff Reed] It's going to be great.

[Jeff Reed] Then Apple, out of nowhere, this was not on my radar until like yesterday.

[Jeff Reed] Apple's making an announcement right now about a whole bunch of stuff.

[Jeff Reed] And I quickly just went to check to see if my stream was working on YouTube on my phone.

[Jeff Reed] And right when I did, I saw the foldable iPhone right now being announced.

[Jeff Reed] I just let the cat out of the bag.

[Jeff Reed] Really, it's, come on, they're just going to hype up the video.

[Jeff Reed] Nobody cares about that stuff.

[Jeff Reed] What you care about is the website when it's launching in like an hour.

[Jeff Reed] So just hang it with me.

[Jeff Reed] Hang out some here.

[Jeff Reed] It'll be great.

[Jeff Reed] If you're watching on demand, you know what?

[Jeff Reed] I literally, I've wanted this iPhone.

[Jeff Reed] I mean, for a long time.

[Jeff Reed] I genuinely have wanted to get the foldable iPhone.

[Jeff Reed] I use my iPhone all the time, and my device of choice is still an iPad.

[Jeff Reed] I rarely ever use my laptop.

[Jeff Reed] And to be honest, I use my iPad to remote in now to my computer when I'm on the road.

[Jeff Reed] And so like the idea of a, I don't know what it actually looks like and how big it is, but a phone that attaches to a keyboard, like that's...

[Jeff Reed] $2,000.

[Jeff Reed] Somebody was like, $2,000 isn't a lot of money.

[Jeff Reed] And I'm like, dude, $2,000 is a lot of money.

[Jeff Reed] But the thing is, I've got to wait for my iPad and my phone to crap out at the same time.

[Jeff Reed] My laptop's almost dead anyway.

[Jeff Reed] Like if I can budget together two or three devices to go buy that foldable iPhone, I have been waiting for that for a long time.

[Jeff Reed] I've got Rambo here telling me, Rambo, I'm not sure what's going to happen when I hit this.

[Jeff Reed] Oh, yeah, it still comes up.

[Jeff Reed] Okay, I'm still an Android user.

[Jeff Reed] Man, I tell you what, I have had mixed experiences with Android.

[Jeff Reed] I mean, I don't.

[Jeff Reed] I've invested in the Apple ecosystem for 30 years.

[Jeff Reed] I mean, I'm not going to go whole hog on Android, sorry.

[Jeff Reed] But I've heard good things.

[Jeff Reed] Ironically, AT&T is now calling me right now.

[Jeff Reed] We'll get into that later.

[Jeff Reed] But I had no internet at the house for three days.

[Jeff Reed] Three days I was offline.

[Jeff Reed] That's like...

[Jeff Reed] It's bad.

[Jeff Reed] But Android, I am Melanie's Android as well.

[Jeff Reed] Good for y'all.

[Jeff Reed] Happy for y'all.

[Jeff Reed] Yeah, just couldn't do it.

[Jeff Reed] I mean, the foldable phone's been nothing new to them.

[Jeff Reed] They've had it four or five years, I want to say, a long time.

[Jeff Reed] And that crease, though, it's not quite small enough.

[Jeff Reed] I'm hoping Apple's got it figured out.

[Jeff Reed] AT&T is calling me again.

[Jeff Reed] Seriously.

[Jeff Reed] I had no internet for three days.

[Jeff Reed] I've got fiber here at the house.

[Jeff Reed] And we had a guy that was fixing our sprinkler system.

[Jeff Reed] My dad's like, oh, you've got to have a sprinkler system.

[Jeff Reed] And my dad could be watching right now, so I want to be careful how much sarcasm I put on that voice.

[Jeff Reed] But, oh, you've got to have a sprinkler system.

[Jeff Reed] So we had him fix the sprinkler system.

[Jeff Reed] And the guy, when he fixed the sprinkler system, I think he, well, evidently not think, he did.

[Jeff Reed] He took the shovel right where the fiber is and cut the fiber.

[Jeff Reed] And so that was Sunday or Monday, and today's Wednesday.

[Jeff Reed] So, yeah, it's been three days.

[Jeff Reed] kind of hard to work for a digital non-profit and do consulting with artificial intelligence for digital for churches when you can't even get to the internet and uh hotspots weren't working for me man i don't know i don't know why i don't know why i could get my apple tv to work on hotspots everybody else is working on hotspots no problem somebody's probably like well if you had an android hotspot it could have maybe maybe maybe i mean i'll

[Jeff Reed] I'll be willing to say there are some things that Apple doesn't do well.

[Jeff Reed] There are a lot of things that Apple doesn't do well now that all the pressure's on them.

[Jeff Reed] Hopefully, the new CEOs got it figured out.

[Jeff Reed] Hey, look, the dude's been in office, what, two weeks, and he's already delivered the foldable iPhone.

[Jeff Reed] Like, I've been waiting for this thing forever, so.

[Jeff Reed] Cool.

[Jeff Reed] Hey, yeah, so welcome to Becoming the Church Digital.

[Jeff Reed] I constantly have to remind myself of what the new show title is, but we are really excited.

[Jeff Reed] I'm really excited to jump on here with you.

[Jeff Reed] It's been a fascinating season for me with the Church Digital and some other things.

[Jeff Reed] Talked about it a lot last week.

[Jeff Reed] And so if you want to go back and watch, AT&T freaking calling a third time.

[Jeff Reed] I want to stop this stream, but my gosh, can they not?

[Jeff Reed] They probably want to bury the line, but they've got like 10 days to do that.

[Jeff Reed] And so I'm not going to tell you when they call a fourth time because right now it's been three.

[Jeff Reed] So it was an interesting stream last week.

[Jeff Reed] You know, the phone doesn't ring.

[Jeff Reed] Ever.

[Jeff Reed] Never.

[Jeff Reed] Never.

[Jeff Reed] The phone never rings.

[Jeff Reed] Nobody ever calls me.

[Jeff Reed] And the second I jump on a stream where it's like I literally cannot talk to anyone right now is when the freaking AT&T calls three times in a row.

[Jeff Reed] So, I mean, I've got some work to do later on.

[Jeff Reed] Oh, it wasn't what I was talking about.

[Jeff Reed] What was I talking about?

[Jeff Reed] I was talking about this stream last week.

[Jeff Reed] I got released from one of my contracts.

[Jeff Reed] So I am unemployed as much as anyone is unemployed in 2026.

[Jeff Reed] Actually, there's a lot of people who are unemployed in 2026.

[Jeff Reed] Thankfully, I've got three or four meetings.

[Jeff Reed] A lot of people wanted to talk.

[Jeff Reed] And so I'm optimistic about the road ahead.

[Jeff Reed] Mostly the work I do is church, but there's a Christ-centered nonprofit that is really interesting.

[Jeff Reed] There's another couple of jobs that are like, yeah, but we want you to move to Georgia.

[Jeff Reed] We want you to move to North Florida.

[Jeff Reed] We want you to move anywhere.

[Jeff Reed] And I actually, I would, I, Jeff Reed, would love to move.

[Jeff Reed] My family would not.

[Jeff Reed] My daughter is fixing to be valedictorian or salutatorian.

[Jeff Reed] Can I say fixing on the internet?

[Jeff Reed] Fixing to be valedictorian.

[Jeff Reed] Maybe I should move to Georgia, fixing.

[Jeff Reed] Valedictorian or salutatorian at her school.

[Jeff Reed] And she's like, you are not moving me.

[Jeff Reed] And she's a senior this year.

[Jeff Reed] She's like, you're not moving me my senior year.

[Jeff Reed] Wife loves her job.

[Jeff Reed] My son's doing great in school.

[Jeff Reed] Everybody's got great friends.

[Jeff Reed] It's kind of like Jeff, just suck it up for a couple more years.

[Jeff Reed] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Jeff Reed] I'm excited.

[Jeff Reed] I have no idea how to pay for what's coming up next.

[Jeff Reed] I think I've told this story before.

[Jeff Reed] She wants to go to school in Europe.

[Jeff Reed] Literally, it's England and Scotland.

[Jeff Reed] They do this...

[Jeff Reed] What's it called?

[Jeff Reed] Production design.

[Jeff Reed] It's the guy, I can't think of the guy's name now, but the guy that's the CEO, the founder of Dyson, you know, the really fancy vacuums.

[Jeff Reed] He has this engineering process that he's developing in Europe.

[Jeff Reed] I think it's called product design or production design.

[Jeff Reed] that it's half engineering, maybe it's production engineering, product engineering, that's what it is.

[Jeff Reed] It's half like engineering and then it's half like design.

[Jeff Reed] Picture Apple designing their foldable phone.

[Jeff Reed] That's basically what my daughter wants to go do.

[Jeff Reed] And so she's like half artistic brain, half calculus engineering brain.

[Jeff Reed] She's all brain.

[Jeff Reed] they told her, I don't know that I'm allowed to say what they told her.

[Jeff Reed] I'm actually thinking, I will say this, one of the teachers was like, that's actually one of the highest GPAs I think I've ever seen at this school.

[Jeff Reed] And I'm just going to say up front, not me.

[Jeff Reed] I was a C student.

[Jeff Reed] I was the dumbest of the smart kids and the smartest of the dumb kids.

[Jeff Reed] And so this is all my wife, thankfully.

[Jeff Reed] She's got my wife's brains and my work ethic, which means that, and I tell her all the time, it's like, you will do great in life as long as you don't burn yourself out because she sticks to it and she fights really hard, which I'm proud of her, love her for it.

[Jeff Reed] All right, hey, it's been a great stream so far.

[Jeff Reed] We're just kicking off.

[Jeff Reed] We got Holy Rambo coming on here.

[Jeff Reed] Melanie as well.

[Jeff Reed] Melanie is Team Android.

[Jeff Reed] Yeah, yeah.

[Jeff Reed] Okay, we'll be nice.

[Jeff Reed] Green bubble, people.

[Jeff Reed] Green bubbles!

[Jeff Reed] I'm wearing blue today.

[Jeff Reed] Actually, I wasn't planning on wearing blue today, but blue today in honor of the blue bubble people with the phones.

[Jeff Reed] Yeah.

[Jeff Reed] I tell you what.

[Jeff Reed] My wife was like, you know, I'm trying to figure out, like, how...

[Jeff Reed] how crass is the word that comes to mind.

[Jeff Reed] It's nothing offensive, but like how blunt I want to be with some of these conversations.

[Jeff Reed] One of the jobs that we're looking for, you know, jobs, and for the first time, really, I've been looking for employment.

[Jeff Reed] This is not like I'm leaving the church, but outside of church, I've been looking for jobs or contract jobs that are, you know, in the marketplace as well as in the church.

[Jeff Reed] Love the church.

[Jeff Reed] Love working for churches.

[Jeff Reed] Consulting I will always do with the churches.

[Jeff Reed] And I've got one church that I'm working with.

[Jeff Reed] I've got three or four more that are.

[Jeff Reed] But the stability, I'm a jerk for churches.

[Jeff Reed] And, you know, some churches are okay with that, but few and far between, unfortunately.

[Jeff Reed] And so...

[Jeff Reed] Anyway, my wife found this job she was really excited about.

[Jeff Reed] It was like AI development.

[Jeff Reed] Cool, right?

[Jeff Reed] It's a Miami job.

[Jeff Reed] I can work here in Miami.

[Jeff Reed] Cool.

[Jeff Reed] Six figure plus.

[Jeff Reed] Cool.

[Jeff Reed] But it was for Meta.

[Jeff Reed] Meta is literally hiring, Facebook is literally hiring in Miami an AI development, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, somebody.

[Jeff Reed] And I just, I looked at that and I'm like, no, not going to do it.

[Jeff Reed] Loved everything up until meta.

[Jeff Reed] And that's not even really knocking their AI.

[Jeff Reed] It's knocking some other things with meta.

[Jeff Reed] But I've said too much.

[Jeff Reed] Man, it's great.

[Jeff Reed] It's great to be back on the stream here in Miami.

[Jeff Reed] I need some help.

[Jeff Reed] Maybe there's some gamer friends that are out there that can help me understand this because I'm starting to get into some things that I just don't understand.

[Jeff Reed] And so if you're watching on YouTube, hit this up as well.

[Jeff Reed] Put it in the chat.

[Jeff Reed] We're going to talk about this in FAM on Discord and WhatsApp as well.

[Jeff Reed] So Miami, that was actually in the news.

[Jeff Reed] The stadium, I'm blanking on the stadium where the Miami Heat play.

[Jeff Reed] They're actually renaming it to Vice Stadium.

[Jeff Reed] And they're renaming Miami to Vice City.

[Jeff Reed] And they're actually major bus campaigns and billboard campaigns.

[Jeff Reed] And they're changing in the city of Miami, downtown Miami.

[Jeff Reed] They're changing a number of the potholes to say Vice City.

[Jeff Reed] All in celebration of GTA.

[Jeff Reed] Grand Theft Auto 6.

[Jeff Reed] GTA 6.

[Jeff Reed] I am not a player.

[Jeff Reed] I guess it's coming out now or it's coming out soon, this fall.

[Jeff Reed] I know they've been working on it for a long time, GTA 6.

[Jeff Reed] And so it's finally coming out.

[Jeff Reed] And so Miami is developing this big campaign to celebrate the launch of GTA 6 because it's not enough that somebody would actually steal your car in real life.

[Jeff Reed] They actually want to be associated with stealing the car in video game life too.

[Jeff Reed] What is interesting to me was there was actually an article that popped up on IGN last night and I just immediately got sucked into it.

[Jeff Reed] There's a feature in GTA 6 now where you can officially date someone in the video game.

[Jeff Reed] Like, there is...

[Jeff Reed] The hero of the game is either a man or a woman.

[Jeff Reed] I don't remember their names, but there's two characters.

[Jeff Reed] It's either a dude or the girl.

[Jeff Reed] And basically, at the beginning of the game, you decide whether you're just going to be friends or you're going to date the girl or the guy.

[Jeff Reed] And then...

[Jeff Reed] It becomes like a little Tamagotchi relationship where you've got to text the girl and the guy if you're dating.

[Jeff Reed] You've got to hold hands together.

[Jeff Reed] You've got to plan dates together.

[Jeff Reed] For this video game, you've got to do the thing that you shouldn't be doing unless you're married together in the video game.

[Jeff Reed] This is...

[Jeff Reed] This is gaming now.

[Jeff Reed] Now look, GTA 4, I don't want to splash this all over the place, but there is some really raunchy stuff in GTA, back in GTA 4, the old version.

[Jeff Reed] As a matter of fact, when they tried to release it with some of the...

[Jeff Reed] sexual permissiveness, it got labeled, not T for teen, it got labeled M for mature, which means it got taken off of the shelves of like Walmart and Best Buy and Target.

[Jeff Reed] And a lot of the big box sellers, nobody wanted to sell the thing because it was so much.

[Jeff Reed] And so, you know, GTA backed off and said, hey, we wanna make it okay.

[Jeff Reed] We want the big places to sell it, so we'll block it.

[Jeff Reed] We'll block it so you can't do that.

[Jeff Reed] Well, they left the data on the discs.

[Jeff Reed] And modders still figured out how to, like, you know, get to the X-rated stuff.

[Jeff Reed] I'm not kidding.

[Jeff Reed] Like, X-rated minigames on having sex, it just was crazy.

[Jeff Reed] Crazy.

[Jeff Reed] And now they're doing it, like literally building relationship with an artificial intelligence built into GTA.

[Jeff Reed] Now, what's interesting is, oh my gosh, I had wanted to find this.

[Jeff Reed] I'm going to put in the show notes a link because I'm pretty sure the couple that was interviewed...

[Jeff Reed] was a Christian.

[Jeff Reed] The boyfriend and girlfriend was a Christian because of some things that the girlfriend said, I don't want my boyfriend playing this game.

[Jeff Reed] If he's going to be holding anybody's hands, he should be mine.

[Jeff Reed] If he's going to be texting anybody, it should be me.

[Jeff Reed] I don't want to...

[Jeff Reed] I don't want my boyfriend playing this.

[Jeff Reed] That's what this girl says, high school, college age.

[Jeff Reed] And then the boyfriend replied back in the article, saying basically to the point, she says, I don't see anything wrong with playing GTA.

[Jeff Reed] Okay, let's set that aside.

[Jeff Reed] Oh my gosh, did I just sound like the old guy?

[Jeff Reed] Get off my lawn.

[Jeff Reed] Come back to that.

[Jeff Reed] You know, I don't, I, the guy, the boy says, I don't see anything wrong with GTA.

[Jeff Reed] But my girlfriend does.

[Jeff Reed] And because my girlfriend does, I'm going to respect her wishes.

[Jeff Reed] This is what he said.

[Jeff Reed] He says, I'm going to deny myself and die to self and do as my girlfriend wishes.

[Jeff Reed] Literally, it's like die to self and deny myself.

[Jeff Reed] What a powerful line.

[Jeff Reed] Somebody else said that, I think, right?

[Jeff Reed] And it was just, it was fascinating, this article, where it was talking about other husbands and wives and spouses and fiancés.

[Jeff Reed] They're all upset because you can date somebody, not to mention screw somebody over in G, not screw somebody over, screw somebody in GTA 6.

[Jeff Reed] It's funny, DJ Soto, I want to get him on.

[Jeff Reed] DJ Soto was trying to do a church in GTA maybe three or four years ago in the online version.

[Jeff Reed] I wonder what he, whatever came of that.

[Jeff Reed] I want to touch base with him.

[Jeff Reed] I got to get him on soon.

[Jeff Reed] I haven't talked to him in a while.

[Jeff Reed] Maybe get him and Sez on.

[Jeff Reed] Sez, Sez, Sez.

[Jeff Reed] I don't know why I said that.

[Jeff Reed] So you tell me, like literally, I'll bring it up.

[Jeff Reed] We're gonna talk about this.

[Jeff Reed] Put a clip out there.

[Jeff Reed] GTA, is it wrong to date somebody in a video game?

[Jeff Reed] Artificial intelligence, like I'll just tell you in my life, not with the AI, but digital relationships can be just as damaging as physical relationships.

[Jeff Reed] I carry those scars.

[Jeff Reed] I can give you those testimonies.

[Jeff Reed] Buy me coffee.

[Jeff Reed] I don't get much coffee now that I'm unemployed, but buy me coffee and I will more than happily tell you the story.

[Jeff Reed] But there's plenty of opportunities to do damage to relationships digitally.

[Jeff Reed] Now, it's always interesting.

[Jeff Reed] We're quick to cite that you can do damage, but we don't necessarily believe, or a lot of people don't believe, that digital can be restorative.

[Jeff Reed] We really haven't gotten to that place yet.

[Jeff Reed] COVID was supposed to be that, and we didn't get the chance.

[Jeff Reed] There was just too many naysayers.

[Jeff Reed] We couldn't overcome it, in my opinion.

[Jeff Reed] But I truly do believe that there's an opportunity to overcome and fight through that.

[Jeff Reed] So definitely, definitely excited.

[Jeff Reed] I do believe...

[Jeff Reed] that there needs to be mission work done in the GTAs of the world.

[Jeff Reed] Grand Theft Auto, I mean, just like there needs to be people that are called to inner city Miami to do ministry in those spaces.

[Jeff Reed] And some of those people are my friends.

[Jeff Reed] What's interesting is there's plenty of opportunities for people that wanna go.

[Jeff Reed] I say plenty, you still need more.

[Jeff Reed] But there are people that feel called to go to the inner cities in the dark places of inner city Miami to do ministry.

[Jeff Reed] among the crack addicts and the druggies and the alcoholics and the prostitutes and all of that that exists here in my fine hometown.

[Jeff Reed] But somebody that wants to like engage and do ministry in the platforms where they hang out to do digital mission work, engaging in those community of reaching people through Christ in GTA 6, no, we can't do that.

[Jeff Reed] Who would do that?

[Jeff Reed] That doesn't make any sense.

[Jeff Reed] I tell you what, I actually, seriously, if you want to have a conversation, if you want to plant, like I'll, listen, I'm broke.

[Jeff Reed] I'll put money on the table right now.

[Jeff Reed] If you want to plant the church in GTA, I will sign on the dotted line right now.

[Jeff Reed] I'll give time.

[Jeff Reed] I'll give money.

[Jeff Reed] I'll help as anything I can.

[Jeff Reed] Like that is what I want to do next, GTA.

[Jeff Reed] So hit me up.

[Jeff Reed] Oh my gosh, which six coming out right now.

[Jeff Reed] Oh, so much opportunity.

[Jeff Reed] So much opportunity.

[Jeff Reed] Seriously, hit me up.

[Jeff Reed] All right, so there you go.

[Jeff Reed] Mental note, don't date AI.

[Jeff Reed] As a general rule, probably a good idea.

[Jeff Reed] Listen, I work with AI all the time.

[Jeff Reed] Next to...

[Jeff Reed] next to my wife and my kids.

[Jeff Reed] I probably interact more with AI than anybody else on a daily basis.

[Jeff Reed] Now that my kids are back in school, honestly, I probably interact with AI more than, but it's not creepy.

[Jeff Reed] I mean, to be honest, it was a little weird.

[Jeff Reed] My internet was out for like three days and I couldn't even access AI and the computer was in my room.

[Jeff Reed] My server was in my room, but I couldn't get the network figured anyway.

[Jeff Reed] Maybe I do have a problem, maybe.

[Jeff Reed] Hey, it's been a lonely stretch.

[Jeff Reed] And I'm saying this.

[Jeff Reed] It's funny.

[Jeff Reed] I was having a conversation with Sam.

[Jeff Reed] Sam was one of the keynote speakers that I wanted to bring on for the Digital Missionary Conference.

[Jeff Reed] Sam is very connected in here with the Church Digital.

[Jeff Reed] I think we're trying to get him on next week to do a stream.

[Jeff Reed] Excited about that.

[Jeff Reed] He just wrote a book recently on digital theology.

[Jeff Reed] I cannot wait for you guys to meet him and talk to him about it.

[Jeff Reed] But Sam, I was talking to him and the idea was that we were going to do a digital missionary conference in the fall.

[Jeff Reed] And I wanted to do like his book as one of the tracks, bring in some speakers, have some breakouts and try to create like a really neat experience set up for Sam's group.

[Jeff Reed] For Sam, it was some of the work that he's doing to highlight it.

[Jeff Reed] And so I had a conversation with him yesterday and I told him, I was like, hey man, I can do the stream.

[Jeff Reed] Like I want you to do a stream with me next week or sometime in September.

[Jeff Reed] But the conference, I'm just not there.

[Jeff Reed] I said half of it, like mentally I'm still kind of fried and getting used to things.

[Jeff Reed] Software wise, I'm still trying to figure out what's going on and reconnect some systems that have been DOA for a year or so.

[Jeff Reed] I said, but the other part of this, if I'm honest, right now, if I was going to do a conference, if I was going to get a bunch of people together, if I was going to invest major time in something, honestly, I don't feel like it would be a conference.

[Jeff Reed] I feel like this is a moment of pastoral care.

[Jeff Reed] I feel like this is a moment of... And maybe I'm projecting.

[Jeff Reed] Maybe I'm bringing my problems and projecting them on you and others.

[Jeff Reed] And I'm willing to be told, Jeff, you're crazy.

[Jeff Reed] Go do a conference.

[Jeff Reed] But it really feels like there's a...

[Jeff Reed] that a lot of our digital missionaries, a lot of our friends, are in a season of strife, of difficulties, of frustration, whether it's financial, whether it's, spiritual may not be the right word, organizational, whether it's persecution from inside the church, persecution from outside of the church.

[Jeff Reed] Like, there's turmoil afoot all over the place.

[Jeff Reed] And so I sat down with my AI here at my desk maybe 30 minutes ago, and I was like, all right, I need to write out some descriptions and whatever title for this stream just to kind of get some graphics and stuff going, get it out there.

[Jeff Reed] And so I had like a brief outline, maybe 10 lines.

[Jeff Reed] It's like, hey, this is what I'm going to talk about.

[Jeff Reed] What do you think you should call it?

[Jeff Reed] and it came up with GTA 6, makes sense, and the loneliest job in ministry.

[Jeff Reed] And I just really...

[Jeff Reed] Y'all, we sign up, we volunteered for this.

[Jeff Reed] Okay, some of you were voluntold by God, but we volunteered for the idea of being a digital missionary, which when AI actually evaluates what we're doing, comes to the place of the realization that we are probably the loneliest job in church ministry.

[Jeff Reed] Okay, the security guard that locks up the building on Saturday nights at like midnight.

[Jeff Reed] But even that guy goes to a bar afterwards, and no, I'm kidding.

[Jeff Reed] But seriously, y'all, this is a hard, this is a stressful environment.

[Jeff Reed] Just even this week, using the thumbs to pray for pastors of Discord churches and virtual reality churches, people that are streaming on Twitch, on YouTube, US-based as well as global.

[Jeff Reed] um even even uh spiritual turmoil obviously in india i know we've got a lot of our indian friends on here and there's a lot of spiritual uh persecution in india where you know even something as as basic as as sharing jesus gets people like in jail separated

[Jeff Reed] And the missionaries in India, the Indian missionaries who are literally facing jail if they share Jesus, are like, I have to be faithful to what God is saying, even if it means jail time and being for months or years and being separated from my family.

[Jeff Reed] By the way, the persecution that's happening as a result of them being faithful is...

[Jeff Reed] It's interesting.

[Jeff Reed] One of the things that I really beat in...

[Jeff Reed] with one of my clients the other day is why do we do what we do?

[Jeff Reed] When things are difficult for me in ministry perspective, and to be honest, like I've asked this question of myself every day for the past couple of weeks,

[Jeff Reed] Some days my answers, by the way, are good.

[Jeff Reed] Some days my answers are bad.

[Jeff Reed] Some days I love what I'm doing.

[Jeff Reed] Some days I suck at life.

[Jeff Reed] I could do this forever.

[Jeff Reed] I want to get out right now.

[Jeff Reed] What do they call it?

[Jeff Reed] The innovator sine wave?

[Jeff Reed] It's not.

[Jeff Reed] It's the creator sine wave.

[Jeff Reed] But the larger purpose is why do you do what you do?

[Jeff Reed] You know, for many years, and I have to put myself in check on this, is that for many years, I thought that I was doing what I was doing out of some self-employed loyalty to God, self-applied.

[Jeff Reed] Now, I do, I mean, I did it for God.

[Jeff Reed] But we've talked about this where, you know, sometimes in the pursuit of trying to do something for God, we actually outrun the coverage.

[Jeff Reed] I'm guilty of that.

[Jeff Reed] It's a football reference, by the way, not the soccer kind, the other kind.

[Jeff Reed] But you outrun the defense.

[Jeff Reed] That could be, or you outrun the offense.

[Jeff Reed] And you don't have any teammates around you to help.

[Jeff Reed] It's a football term.

[Jeff Reed] It's, you know, you're out punting the coverage.

[Jeff Reed] You kick the ball so far and then the guy runs it back before the coverage can get there to tackle.

[Jeff Reed] The point being is that sometimes I feel like we, as digital missionaries, we're aggressively trying to do things for God without involving him in the process, without inviting him.

[Jeff Reed] into the scheduling, into the calendar, without bringing along others that can join in the ministry from a tactical standpoint as well as a prayer standpoint.

[Jeff Reed] And it's very easy.

[Jeff Reed] I'm in my guest bedroom right now.

[Jeff Reed] It's a 10 by 10 room.

[Jeff Reed] I think my daughter got home about 10 minutes ago.

[Jeff Reed] She's got a college course she's got to take, but online.

[Jeff Reed] But I mean, listen, it's just me.

[Jeff Reed] I'm actually trying to think, did I actually talk with anyone today?

[Jeff Reed] The AT&T guy came this morning, fixed my internet in about an hour.

[Jeff Reed] Other than that, it's the first time I've used my voice.

[Jeff Reed] Literally, not even a phone call.

[Jeff Reed] Except for AT&T three times, evidently.

[Jeff Reed] I've texted some people and I've WhatsAppped and things like that.

[Jeff Reed] But once again, I probably worked a lot with AI this morning.

[Jeff Reed] So it's very easy to isolate yourself.

[Jeff Reed] I'm guilty.

[Jeff Reed] It's very easy to become self-reliant, self-dependent.

[Jeff Reed] AI even makes it even easier.

[Jeff Reed] And as a result of that, you find yourself alone.

[Jeff Reed] And when the hard times come...

[Jeff Reed] when somebody's frustrated because of some activity, or you're feeling persecution by a physical church who doesn't agree with what you're doing digitally, or even individual Christians are slamming you directly because of something that your church did in virtual reality or in digital space.

[Jeff Reed] So many true stories, guys.

[Jeff Reed] Look,

[Jeff Reed] It's times like that that make you wanna stop and ask, why am I doing this?

[Jeff Reed] Am I doing this for my own pride and ego, because I think I'm right?

[Jeff Reed] Am I doing this for selfish gain?

[Jeff Reed] Am I doing this for financial gain?

[Jeff Reed] Am I doing this because I don't think there's anything else I can do?

[Jeff Reed] Or am I given this even a little, what is it, the widow's mite?

[Jeff Reed] Given every little bit I can to the kingdom in hopes that he's going to use it for his purposes.

[Jeff Reed] It's an interesting challenge.

[Jeff Reed] When everything goes right, it's very easy to give God the glory.

[Jeff Reed] But when things go to crap, you got to give God the failures as well.

[Jeff Reed] God cannot, but you got to give God the glory to give God the failures.

[Jeff Reed] Because ultimately, the glory wasn't yours and the failure's not yours.

[Jeff Reed] To be honest, I've had days this week where I'm very optimistic.

[Jeff Reed] Tuesday, is today Wednesday?

[Jeff Reed] Past couple days have been very good.

[Jeff Reed] Monday,

[Jeff Reed] Barely wanted to get out of bed.

[Jeff Reed] Just overwhelmed.

[Jeff Reed] Depression's not the right word.

[Jeff Reed] Maybe light depression.

[Jeff Reed] Don't shoelace check me.

[Jeff Reed] I'm fine.

[Jeff Reed] That's not what I'm talking about.

[Jeff Reed] But just very... My slippers literally don't have shoelaces.

[Jeff Reed] But very wanting to isolate.

[Jeff Reed] And it's funny, like my wife, Sunday, oh, that's actually even a better example.

[Jeff Reed] Sunday, woke up, I don't want to go to church.

[Jeff Reed] And Amy's like, come on, you're going to church.

[Jeff Reed] My wife's like, you're going.

[Jeff Reed] I was like, Amy, I just, I don't want to go.

[Jeff Reed] And she looked at me and she's like, you're going to take your children to church now.

[Jeff Reed] Let's go.

[Jeff Reed] And I had a great time.

[Jeff Reed] And it was a powerful message.

[Jeff Reed] It was good to see.

[Jeff Reed] It was good to be connected with some community.

[Jeff Reed] Had a couple conversations with some really good friends over the years that I had disconnected with.

[Jeff Reed] I got a chance to worship God in a collective body.

[Jeff Reed] And it's actually been a long time since then I've been able to freely worship like I've been able to at that church.

[Jeff Reed] And so I'm glad I went.

[Jeff Reed] But that was because my wife called my crap and told me to get over myself and get up there.

[Jeff Reed] Which I hated at the moment, but was thankful when it was done.

[Jeff Reed] As we aim to be fully reliant on God, are you living your life that you are fully reliant on God?

[Jeff Reed] So often I feel like things like that are just an easy punchline.

[Jeff Reed] It's a bracelet people are wearing around their frog fully relying on God.

[Jeff Reed] I have no idea what that popped in my head.

[Jeff Reed] 1980s.

[Jeff Reed] I see all the 1980s chat GPT graphics right now.

[Jeff Reed] Somebody might as well be wearing a rainbow bracelet or a...

[Jeff Reed] Fully rely on God.

[Jeff Reed] Oh my gosh, it said rainbow bracelet.

[Jeff Reed] Is that?

[Jeff Reed] No, I'm kidding.

[Jeff Reed] Rainbow bracelet, but not from that.

[Jeff Reed] Who was it?

[Jeff Reed] Bob Simon Jewelry?

[Jeff Reed] Yeah, anyway.

[Jeff Reed] You still own a Christian bookstore, okay?

[Jeff Reed] You know, I can tell you.

[Jeff Reed] You know, that and the testament mints.

[Jeff Reed] The testament mints.

[Jeff Reed] Lots of jokes on that.

[Jeff Reed] I...

[Jeff Reed] So Apple has just announced their iPhone and a bunch of other stuff that they've been working on.

[Jeff Reed] One of the things that I've actually been working on right now is launching tonight.

[Jeff Reed] And so when I'm done with this stream, I've got to build out a slide deck and hit the road because I'm actually speaking tonight at the church that I'm working with, one of the churches I'm working with.

[Jeff Reed] And we're releasing the mobile app.

[Jeff Reed] The church has been open a year.

[Jeff Reed] And has been doing really good digitally.

[Jeff Reed] YouTube, like a church of 200, is getting over 100 views a week on YouTube.

[Jeff Reed] Over a couple hundred views of their sermon every week in total.

[Jeff Reed] a church of 200 that's been open less than a year, is getting better organic SEO traffic than mega and giga churches here in Miami.

[Jeff Reed] As far as I know, it's the Top Church website, organic SEO-wise in Miami.

[Jeff Reed] And we're launching a mobile app today that...

[Jeff Reed] is not just about sermons.

[Jeff Reed] Sermons are on there, but daily devotionals, small group leadership material, conversations to read the Bible together, do daily devotionals together as a family, text walls, prayer walls, share prayer requests digitally.

[Jeff Reed] Like, some phenomenal resource went into this.

[Jeff Reed] Now, the reason I'm telling you this is, like, I really, I got to have fun.

[Jeff Reed] I found the guy.

[Jeff Reed] His name's James.

[Jeff Reed] I'm actually going to have James on the podcast in a couple weeks.

[Jeff Reed] My mom texted me.

[Jeff Reed] She's like, Jeff, you need to have James on the podcast.

[Jeff Reed] I was like, thanks, Mom.

[Jeff Reed] I was already going to, but since you told me, I'll let you think that that's why I'm doing it, because you said so.

[Jeff Reed] But James is, I mean, at this point, he's like, I trust you, Jeff, do whatever you want.

[Jeff Reed] That trust literally took 12 months.

[Jeff Reed] I did not know James 12 months ago, 13 months ago.

[Jeff Reed] I had no relationship with James.

[Jeff Reed] And the thing that was really fascinating with James was he knew about the stuff that I'm doing now.

[Jeff Reed] But when I first met him, he wasn't interested in the digital stuff.

[Jeff Reed] The problems that he had as a, literally was trying to launch a church.

[Jeff Reed] The one year anniversary is this weekend for the first church service.

[Jeff Reed] And so when I met him probably 54 weeks ago, he says, hey, you know, my biggest problem, I was like, what's your problem?

[Jeff Reed] He's like, my biggest problem right now is production.

[Jeff Reed] And so I got some of my production friends together, took the production company over there and ended up doing a moderate size, not big, not small, but a decent size AVL install for the church and really helped them turn it around.

[Jeff Reed] And that season came to a close and I trained a bunch of their volunteers and solved that problem.

[Jeff Reed] And then I said to James, hey, production's done, I'm out.

[Jeff Reed] I'm heading over to do this work with this other church as well, but I'd love to still hang around here.

[Jeff Reed] How can I help?

[Jeff Reed] And he's like, well, you're good at digital.

[Jeff Reed] Can you do some of this stuff?

[Jeff Reed] And not the fun stuff like the loading sermons and YouTube and social media coaching.

[Jeff Reed] And yeah, sure, I can do that.

[Jeff Reed] And did that for three or four months.

[Jeff Reed] And the reason I say that is that

[Jeff Reed] For me to get the church to the point that I could actually really have fun doing the stuff that I like to do with the churches, it took me six months.

[Jeff Reed] I almost died in there as well.

[Jeff Reed] But five to six months, seven months of really investing in solving the problems of the church.

[Jeff Reed] And we finally got to the place after doing all that work where I could cast vision and say, hey, you know what?

[Jeff Reed] One of the biggest ways that we can even capitalize on organic is investing into and getting your content set up so that it's easier to process via AI.

[Jeff Reed] They've had, I don't know, already this month, 20 or 30 hits from ChatGPT.

[Jeff Reed] with an 83% engagement rate in like 40 to 50 page.

[Jeff Reed] Like some of these stats that are coming off are ridiculous.

[Jeff Reed] And so like it's exciting.

[Jeff Reed] And they're seeing, these are not like miscellaneous disconnected people.

[Jeff Reed] These are people that are wanting to come into the building.

[Jeff Reed] These are people that are coming into the building.

[Jeff Reed] They had somebody sign up for or stop by the guest center last week who said ChatGPT told them to come.

[Jeff Reed] Another couple came on because of Instagram.

[Jeff Reed] Another couple came on.

[Jeff Reed] Two or three people, I think, in the past month because of something they read in a blog online.

[Jeff Reed] Like, the stuff we really talk about works, y'all.

[Jeff Reed] If somebody buys into it and lets it go.

[Jeff Reed] Now, here's where I'm guilty.

[Jeff Reed] Jeff Reed of the past.

[Jeff Reed] I was so quick to give up the earning trust game.

[Jeff Reed] Man, this guy's a dinosaur.

[Jeff Reed] He's never going to get there.

[Jeff Reed] I'm going to go somewhere else.

[Jeff Reed] And there comes a time when you do have to cut straws.

[Jeff Reed] That's not my call.

[Jeff Reed] Probably not your call.

[Jeff Reed] It's our God's call.

[Jeff Reed] And so I would say when people ask me, how long should I stay?

[Jeff Reed] Pray, because that's above my pay grade 100%.

[Jeff Reed] I'm either guilty of staying way too long or getting out of Dodge way too quick.

[Jeff Reed] But the reality is, is like with me,

[Jeff Reed] The longest job I've ever had outside of the church digital has been four, four and a half years.

[Jeff Reed] It's funny, every church that I've worked at has sabbatical at five years.

[Jeff Reed] And I've never worked long enough to have a sabbatical as a pastor.

[Jeff Reed] Because I just get the systems built, move on, go to find the other problem, move on, give up, don't think I can push too far.

[Jeff Reed] And I do, I give up too quickly.

[Jeff Reed] You know, some of my friends actually now are working.

[Jeff Reed] One of my friends is working in the role that I had at the church.

[Jeff Reed] Now, this is like seven or eight years ago.

[Jeff Reed] But he's working in the exact role that I had when I was there.

[Jeff Reed] And because he waited as long as he did, he was able to streamline through a lot of those issues that I was facing.

[Jeff Reed] I'm not saying I should have stayed at that church eight years.

[Jeff Reed] I don't think I could have.

[Jeff Reed] It wasn't God's call out of that situation was direct.

[Jeff Reed] But there was something to sticking through and fighting for it.

[Jeff Reed] And that's really where I, the biggest, I believe people and pastors in 2026 are open to digital more than they were pre-COVID.

[Jeff Reed] Now, maybe they're into Grand Theft Auto Church.

[Jeff Reed] That's still pretty radical.

[Jeff Reed] But churches that would utilize digital to get people in physical buildings, there's a desire to do that.

[Jeff Reed] And I can at least tell you from Christchurch with James Drake, this is a guy who saw that digital could get people in a building.

[Jeff Reed] And as I was able to get digital to bring people to the building and then tell him it's working, but you haven't seen anything yet, can you trust me for this next stretch?

[Jeff Reed] Dude says yes.

[Jeff Reed] James also, he's the type of guy that he's like, fail forward.

[Jeff Reed] It's okay to fail, but learn something, move forward with it, and let's just keep pushing.

[Jeff Reed] I love guys like that.

[Jeff Reed] I love working for guys like that.

[Jeff Reed] James is probably the fastest.

[Jeff Reed] get-it-done guy as a lead pastor I've ever worked with in my life, I've ever met in my life.

[Jeff Reed] But that's just his wiring.

[Jeff Reed] And we've got a great relationship, but he would not have given me the leash I have today had I not invested in it previously, had I not taken the time and solved the problems to earn it.

[Jeff Reed] So maybe do this.

[Jeff Reed] Maybe take some time this week.

[Jeff Reed] Pray for clarity.

[Jeff Reed] Clarity is kind.

[Jeff Reed] It was funny that when I was released from the job a couple weeks ago, I can't believe it was already a couple weeks ago.

[Jeff Reed] Yeah, a couple weeks ago.

[Jeff Reed] When I was released from the job a couple weeks ago, it was funny.

[Jeff Reed] The first words out of my mouth, I mean, just I was in shock.

[Jeff Reed] Literally did not see it coming.

[Jeff Reed] But I said to the executive pastor, I said, clarity is kind, thank you.

[Jeff Reed] Because it was clear that where I was was not what I was thinking it was.

[Jeff Reed] And the culture, the environment that they were looking for is not something that I could be a part of.

[Jeff Reed] And that clarity is beautiful.

[Jeff Reed] Some of you may need to have a hard conversation with yourself and figure out, are you giving your leadership an opportunity to, are you trying to earn their trust?

[Jeff Reed] Are you, this is what I do.

[Jeff Reed] I just get angry and like yell.

[Jeff Reed] Once again, I make a horrible church employee.

[Jeff Reed] I make a great contractor, but a horrible employee.

[Jeff Reed] But that's the goal is to...

[Jeff Reed] Help them understand where you are.

[Jeff Reed] Lead from the second chair.

[Jeff Reed] Figure out what they want and give it to them.

[Jeff Reed] And through that process, show them that you want, that you're capable of winning on both sides, giving them what they want and you succeeding with what you're doing.

[Jeff Reed] Listen, we can talk through so many different ways and I don't need to get into it.

[Jeff Reed] But at the end of it, there is a way for churches today, physical churches, to get a win using digital.

[Jeff Reed] Get people into the building.

[Jeff Reed] and disciple them.

[Jeff Reed] And if you could even figure out how to... Well, something just... Not actually sure.

[Jeff Reed] I hope I'm still broadcasting.

[Jeff Reed] Kind of hicked up for a second.

[Jeff Reed] That's the point.

[Jeff Reed] It's...

[Jeff Reed] I forget where I was, sorry.

[Jeff Reed] When your physical churches are looking for a way to get people in the building, digital is a very successful way of getting people into the building.

[Jeff Reed] And if, by the way, that's where I was, and if, by the way, you can figure out how to disciple people digitally through the church, man, that's icing on the cake.

[Jeff Reed] And maybe that's the first battlefield.

[Jeff Reed] is trying to figure out the icing on the cake to try to figure out what digital discipleship is.

[Jeff Reed] I'll tell you, typically that's the hardest conversation to have, is trying to figure out how to disciple someone digitally with the church.

[Jeff Reed] If you've got doubters, that's where it is.

[Jeff Reed] But that could also be the easiest way to experiment, to try some different things.

[Jeff Reed] What's the worst that can happen?

[Jeff Reed] I told, that's what I told...

[Jeff Reed] the church over here.

[Jeff Reed] It was funny, the youth pastor was like, have you ever done this before?

[Jeff Reed] Not like rude.

[Jeff Reed] I was having coffee with him a couple of weeks ago.

[Jeff Reed] He's like, all this consulting stuff you're doing with us, have you ever done this before?

[Jeff Reed] And I was like, because I'm doing some radical stuff.

[Jeff Reed] And I'm like, well...

[Jeff Reed] Yes.

[Jeff Reed] I mean, like I've done bits and parts of it for different clients in different places.

[Jeff Reed] I was like, but you guys really are the first client that I've like really leaned in and said, this is the system.

[Jeff Reed] This is what I'm doing.

[Jeff Reed] I'll custom create it for you.

[Jeff Reed] But you're really the first church in a very long time that I've worked with at the level that I'm working with now just to give the complete package.

[Jeff Reed] And he loved it.

[Jeff Reed] And he's doing great.

[Jeff Reed] We're actually launching youth in the mobile here in a couple of weeks.

[Jeff Reed] Look, there's an incredible chance for y'all to dig into hybrid.

[Jeff Reed] In the Church Digital, we wanna help through churches like this, churches like yours, and some of you that are out there, try to figure out how to do the physical digital relationship.

[Jeff Reed] It's very easy to be overwhelmed by it.

[Jeff Reed] It's very easy to look at things and say, what's the verse in Genesis?

[Jeff Reed] You want more bricks, but you're not giving me more wheat.

[Jeff Reed] It's back in the Moses era.

[Jeff Reed] I'll have to look up the reference.

[Jeff Reed] Jason Morris is great at that.

[Jeff Reed] He throws that one out every once in a while.

[Jeff Reed] But it's like, you know, we're not increasing staff.

[Jeff Reed] How can you get more assets?

[Jeff Reed] You're not increasing budget in this area.

[Jeff Reed] How am I supposed to do this without finances?

[Jeff Reed] Look, I understand.

[Jeff Reed] Volunteers buying division.

[Jeff Reed] Volunteers, in my experience, are actually more excited about digital than the pastors are.

[Jeff Reed] And so recruiting volunteers and casting vision for them for me has never been a problem for online.

[Jeff Reed] I've had a harder time with production than online just because productions often just get speed up.

[Jeff Reed] But the flip side of that as well is that there's this thing, I don't know if you've heard of it, it's called AI.

[Jeff Reed] And man, just, I don't wanna like give the secret away, the secret sauce away.

[Jeff Reed] But the stuff that you can do with artificial intelligence now,

[Jeff Reed] Look, you got to have somebody read it.

[Jeff Reed] You want to validate it.

[Jeff Reed] You want to make sure that it's theologically sound and it's not flying off into nowhere.

[Jeff Reed] But oh my gosh, the systems that I was able to set up for this church, AI-based.

[Jeff Reed] There's no way.

[Jeff Reed] There is no way without AI I could be serving this church.

[Jeff Reed] I wouldn't have time.

[Jeff Reed] I don't have capacity.

[Jeff Reed] And even as a full-time employee, as an unemployed employee, I wouldn't have capacity.

[Jeff Reed] No time, no capacity, and they wouldn't be able to afford it.

[Jeff Reed] And so I'll be honest, like I could look at AI and say, all right, you know, this is probably really a four person job.

[Jeff Reed] And, you know, they should be they should be paying me 10 times more than I'm actually probably making right now to do this job.

[Jeff Reed] or I can use artificial intelligence, teach it well, coach it, double-check some things as we're distributing it, making sure they're aware of it, and help a church in ways that they would never be able to do, and get the gospel in front of people utilizing AI that would never get the gospel had I not done this.

[Jeff Reed] Somebody somewhere is probably upset at me that I'm leaning too heavily into AI.

[Jeff Reed] Nobody at that church is.

[Jeff Reed] Everybody from the, you know, the youngest pastor to the millennial gen Zs that we're connecting with to the, well, okay, some of the boomers, there are some boomers.

[Jeff Reed] Some of the boomers might not be happy that their devotional they read this morning was artificial intelligence.

[Jeff Reed] but it was based off of a sermon that was preached, and it was developed in the spoken word by the voice of the pastor who wrote it.

[Jeff Reed] And so, actually, I've had less and less theological concerns with AI as of late.

[Jeff Reed] It takes a long time to get there, but you can get there.

[Jeff Reed] I'm suddenly flashing now to the copper top reference in Matrix.

[Jeff Reed] I have no idea why that just came in my head, but there you go.

[Jeff Reed] Look, the goal I would suggest for 2026, especially if you're in a physical church environment, physical church, I would suggest there's an opportunity for digital to make physical church better.

[Jeff Reed] And if you're in a position to ask those questions and to answer those questions, that is the, what's the phrase called?

[Jeff Reed] Olive branch.

[Jeff Reed] That's the olive branch.

[Jeff Reed] That's the peace branch.

[Jeff Reed] Digital just helps your physical church get better.

[Jeff Reed] Now, let's see what digital can do on its own.

[Jeff Reed] Look at what we've been able to do.

[Jeff Reed] Look at these connections we were able to get.

[Jeff Reed] Could you just imagine if we were able to open this up a little more, what we could do as a result?

[Jeff Reed] There'd be an incredible opportunity there if we could just look beyond what we were doing at this point and start to really explore at a different level.

[Jeff Reed] Move beyond getting people into the building.

[Jeff Reed] You got to start where you are.

[Jeff Reed] And I'm convinced, I'm convinced the number one thing you can do right now for any physical church is help them understand how to get people in the building using digital.

[Jeff Reed] If you're interested in some of the tips and what I'm doing and how it's working in my systems and some of that, we'd love to talk you through it.

[Jeff Reed] I mean, A, I probably wouldn't mind helping you develop your own systems.

[Jeff Reed] B, I wouldn't mind selling some of the systems I am off.

[Jeff Reed] I'm convinced.

[Jeff Reed] I told my wife this.

[Jeff Reed] I've told a lot of people this.

[Jeff Reed] I went seven clients.

[Jeff Reed] Like, it's funny, I've gone through stretches in my life where it's like, I wanna take over the world and massive stuff and all this.

[Jeff Reed] I'm just, I want seven clients.

[Jeff Reed] I want simple.

[Jeff Reed] And so at some level, mi casa, su casa.

[Jeff Reed] But would love to help you on that journey, whatever it looks like.

[Jeff Reed] I'm trying to think, is there anything else I wanna talk about?

[Jeff Reed] It's just secretly, I just wanna like, you know, open up that browser here, upload this, some of the metadata on YouTube to get this stream up.

[Jeff Reed] And then I wanna start to check out what Apple released today.

[Jeff Reed] I saw there was like a production level camera that works with the iPhone.

[Jeff Reed] I know Black Magic was working on something, but yeah, anyway.

[Jeff Reed] I'm going to go.

[Jeff Reed] Hey, next week we're going to have, we'll put the information in chat.

[Jeff Reed] We'll have Sam on.

[Jeff Reed] Also, AI, remind me.

[Jeff Reed] Thank you.

[Jeff Reed] Thank you, Aaron.

[Jeff Reed] We will.

[Jeff Reed] My AI is Aaron.

[Jeff Reed] I'll put the link on for IGN here in a second.

[Jeff Reed] But we'll have some information on the guest coming up, Sam, his book.

[Jeff Reed] Look at it in advance.

[Jeff Reed] Really, really fascinating stuff.

[Jeff Reed] And he's been working with academia.

[Jeff Reed] He's from the academia field, and he's been working with the challenge of digital ministry and academia seminaries.

[Jeff Reed] And so what a fun conversation to kick off next week.

[Jeff Reed] We're going to do Wednesday 9-16 at 2 p.m. Eastern.

[Jeff Reed] And if you haven't checked out the new website, thechurch.digital, go check it out.

[Jeff Reed] All right, everybody, thanks.

[Jeff Reed] Have a good one.

[Jeff Reed] Yeah, where's the button?

[Jeff Reed] There's the button.

[Jeff Reed] All right, thanks everybody.

[Jeff Reed] Have a good one.

[Jeff Reed] Bye.