EP368 Live Recording: What's Next? Decentralizing TCD

all right hey everybody welcome to the church digital

this is the chill music i i um i always get relaxed with this music you know the stream beats

harris heller i think is his name how how howler harris heller how howler is a church planter

harris heller is a musician stream beats um and so this is like kind of gets me in the in the chill

mode here a little bit which is great for jeff post digital missionary conference uh this is

actually the first week after digital missionary conference where i felt normal again i was actually

doing i didn't talk too much about this i was doing two or three projects at the same time i was doing

a um i was obviously doing the four conferences uh three that i was active with and then gaming being

the fourth and then i was also very involved in a a physical church uh revitalization replant

um worked with them for about three months and it was all during the conference season and so

it just was uh was it's it was an exhausting stretch and um but i'm feeling much better now i um i was

drinking coffee actually no it wasn't coffee it was hot chocolate that's how good i'm feeling hot

chocolate in october november's right around the corner excited excited about the road ahead actually

i was working on goals organizational goals we've got a big meeting on friday in church digital

really excited about that i've got um my my new job is kicking off some of you know uh i'm actually

going back to working in the physical church environment uh and some of you are saying wait

jeff you said hell or high water you would never do that again i did i did say that uh in probably worse

things but um you know what god heals wounds and and and god restores people and uh and so i am

very um i i excited it's not the word but you know it's just the word i used to often but i'm really

looking forward to to leaning in and getting back in the physical church environment i'm i'm going all

the way back i'm i'm a a physical church uh uh production director and so the church that i'm working

with christ journey who is a a sponsor of a valuable valued sponsor here at the church digital uh christ

journey uh is launching a new campus here in the south miami area and so i'm literally going to be

running the avl technology for a uh a new building set up and no it's not set up in town a new building

that's in the south miami so me area and so christ journey so me i'm gonna be

officing out of there you'll see some streams um probably closer to the end of the year early next

year uh out of there because i'll be working in the building and they're cool with me doing the

church digital and so i'll be going back and forth lots and lots of fun things i keep staring at my phone

for the record i'm expecting and i my ipad i'm getting a new ipad for the new job new ipad with

the little keyboard and the mouse and and um yeah in church world i can run everything on an ipad like

it's all just like communication stuff and uh but that's going to be uh getting delivered today

and you know an app they don't leave stuff like on your doorstep like apple requires a signature and

so like forgive me if i keep staring down it's that m5 uh ipad you know what was funny thing is if that

actually shows up while i'm streaming uh i will be exiting the stream to go pick up the said package

so that it doesn't get is that it gets delivered today because that that you know those guys will

bounce very very quickly so i should be getting a push notification to my watch and my folk when

somebody rings that ring doorbell and uh that'll be great you know funny story actually now that i'm

thinking about ring um somebody actually hacked jay kranda's ring door but no was it ring doorbell was

it nest i think it was nest somebody hacked jay kranda's nest uh thermostat and actually figured out

how to talk through the nest thermostat to jay like they didn't know it was jay the guy

was just or gal whoever it was was just being a jerk like trying to troll some people but totally

reversed engineered it i don't even i don't i say it was a nest thermostat i don't know if there's a

speaker in the nest thermostat so this the story may not be accurate but totally hacked the the uh

you know iot internet of things and actually had was using it to to kind of troll jay fun story we'll

have to get jay back on the stream soon and and get him to relive that i remember talking with him

about that uh you know a number of years ago and so hey it's always good to go back to the stories

hey so today's been good um it was funny like even leaning into today walking into the stream uh there

was some interesting conversations on um oh my gosh it is freaking incredible

all right so i am um you know we have an it the church digital we have an it we call it uh lex

you know lex luther you know we're going to take over the world it's funny i've even got like the

pinky of the brain funko pops here mounted on my desk the same thing we do every night pinky try to

take over the world and so you know for for the gospel for the kingdom one person at a time digitally

we're going to figure it out maybe but uh and so but you know kind of that take over the world type

of scenario so we've got lex you can you can visit lex you can have a conversation with lex

lex l-e-x dot the church dot digital lex l-e-x dot the church dot digital lex has been in beta

lex will be in beta for a while we're still trying to clean up some loose ends working with some of the

vendors uh and very excited about tapos about live ai if you've been involved with our conferences

this year you've met both of those organizations and they are okay let's see and they are very

excited and we're excited to see them kind of come together these two different organizations and start

to um develop a solid product and so we the church digital works we're leaning in and we're going to

take advantage of that technology as best as possible and and to that end like we've encoded

i don't know 900 hours of programming of content 600 blogs you know three or four books all on digital

mission work digital ministry digital church like we have just enveloped a ton of resources into this

and so you know it's interesting i was i was on discord this morning in general chat and and somebody

asked a question you know is it more of a digital guy than a physical but he asked the question

jacked did if i'm pronouncing that right hey how what what what does digital engagement what is uh

outreach what does digital outreach look like for a physical church and i kind of scoffed because i spent

not in scoff's not the right word but i kind of chuckled under my breath because i've spent

years of my life you know trying to help churches answer that question like there's

hundreds of hours of content recorded on that exact topic and you know i i could not even start to fully

answer that question but i know lex can and so it's funny over here on the side today i've just been

running prompts with lex trying to get lex to like give me the content the way that i wanted it

and you know with with some of the uh lms's google notebook for example you can do like tell it to

create a podcast and it creates uh you know an audio podcast with ai voices that simulate a conversation

on the topic you're wanting and so lex the the topos ai it has you know one of the options is create a

podcast and so i clicked it thinking that it was going to be like a um uh an audio podcast it was

generating instead what it in what lex ended up doing is scripting out the podcast with the guest

that lex wants to invite and the the ways to get in touch with that guest who's actually justin herman

he's a friend uh is with justin's with mariners i want to say and then um and then also like podcast

tips on which podcast mic i should buy how it should be wired into the computer the settings and the eq

levels that should be with that particular like like lex you know did not actually give me the audio

thing that i wanted but dang i like i have a whole script here i talk from a guy who creates content

podcast all days long um i i won't i won't use this but part of me is like that's actually pretty

impressive slash scary that that lex can do that i'm telling you the end of the world is going to

come as a result of this ai that doesn't scare me that just tells me that we should lean into it now

before things go crazy like either way someone in some you know unforsaken garage not nation garage

is going to is going to weaponize this thing and um enjoy it while we got it and before because

all this is going to go down the drain at some point and on that note you know i don't know that the

calm chill music is really setting in today because now that i'm talking about the end of the world hey

okay so uh there's some things coming up here with the church digital by the way if you're watching

online um feel free oh steve's saying do you have music playing in the background just trying to

figure out whether it's you me or or my head i do have some it may not be that loud boom boom

boom boom boom boom boom so you know if that if that's in your head great if that's not in your head

it is now so have fun uh with that one judy hey judy uh love knowing that the lex the lex

is loaded with information i'll be using that yeah we're actually in the next week or so i think

lex is going to be incorporated on the church digital website we'll have a chat bubble like you know the way

that that stuff works well i've actually to be on the left side over here not the right side over here

i have to go backwards and so you'll see that interestingly we're also uh going to be creating

a an ai for the digital missionary conference and so all of the conferences we're going to ingest that

material into i think a separate implementation of lex and so anything that you've heard or seen at the

conferences um will be able to be interacted with in the in lex even to the point that we want and it's not

going to be lex uh we've got to come up with another name because i don't get it's going to get confusing

but um we want to start like breakouts and other things like actually getting video off of that

um yeah it's good i it's i was actually having this conversation with one of the i'm working with

the church right now um it's a it's a 400 person presbyterian church so it's like a a re transcriptions

uh okay judy is um saying here transcriptions available um that's a good question i don't know

go find out you could probably i'm trying to thank lex lex will give you the link to a particular episode

based on video uh based on on the prompt like if you ask it a question it'll give you that link and then

maybe you can get maybe you can do a transcript off it if not there's more than one way to skin that cat

oh for the conference material judy's saying um yeah i don't i i don't know let's judy when we get there

my hope is to have that in place by the end of the year um if not sooner and so we gotta gotta crawl

before we walk and so get doing the church digital one before the conferences um you know what it's

just speaking of that judy um i i would say this and i've been convicted of this in recent hours like

over oh honestly since the um

since the the recovery conference

we worked really hard and that recovery conference was the best material i've done that no one ever saw

and that's that's not a knock oh there's a couple things one recovery is a very sensitive there's a

topic there's a lot of stigmas around that people are afraid to engage in that because of

how it may seem to appear so so there was a layer of that secondly the technology obviously it had to

hiccup at the beginning if you remember and it's interesting that the the stuff that happened

yesterday uh and monday monday and tuesday with um aws amazon warehouse services that's actually the

same issue that that eventbrite ran into like a month ago or two months ago when we were doing the

conference and then so it just hit a larger aws is much larger than i said eventbrite i'm in hubla

and so um yeah so i feel that i feel that pain we i we're trying to figure out how to make the conferences

more accessible like in in many ways you know we feel that i'm wrestling with this tension because we

are about relationships and doing relationships doing connection doing community in the hublo platform

was a huge success but once again getting people into the hublo platform is hard as opposed to getting

them into something like watching a youtube stream where it's very easy and people will do that but people

can go in and out of youtube and and they're not they're not engaged or we don't even know who they

are not meeting them and like there's this there's this weird tension um and we're trying to figure out

how to have if you know me i never like to say no i always like to say yes and i'm a big fan of having

my cake and eat it too and so we're we're trying to like honestly just trying to rewrite the online

conference playbook and try to figure out what we can do uh with that and so anyway help us and pray

for us in that uh digital missionary pod uh digital ministry utope i'll be chatting with lex on one

question someone asked me about applying acts to 42 to 46 interesting response i got uh yeah i mean

there's a lot in there on the on the um the great commission and so uh no no no acts two is that's

the um go and talk yeah baptize the men of the fathers teaching them in the name and they were

with you always into the end of the age right there's that matthew 28 19 to 20 it's matthew 28

acts 2 is uh the uh the bible that's that's the uh the church the um uh the ecclesiology the biblical

functions uh prayer teaching you look at 36 to acts 2 36 to 47 is the 10 biblical functions of the

church yeah biblical community and church yeah sorry i was stuttering through that trying to get my mind

correct uh yeah uh there's there's a lot in there i talked about that a lot uh the axe the acts 2 stuff

back in uh maybe 22 23 when we were doing the hard press on um

covid 21 22 is when i was at stadia we were doing the hard press on digital church planting

and so yeah there there's a lot in there about reimagining you know what i i would do

at the time utopia and you may have to double up with me i'd have to find this slide deck

but i adapted um

oh my gosh e3 no place left i adapted no place lefts uh uh a church circle so they would take

the uh they would draw a circle and uh the church circle and they would take the ecclesiology the

biblical functions of acts 2 36 to 47 and they would map it all out in that circle worship teaching

uh mercy care um evangel outreach you know what what makes a church a church according to acts 2 36 to 47

there's 10 things that the early church did in acts 2 36 to 47 and then so i would take those 10 things

that was established by a non-digital organization no place left and then i would ask the question can

the church do this what would it look like for the church to do this a digital church could a church

do this that was not meeting in physical space uh and and to be honest the the only two that were

somewhat weird in digital space was baptism and and in communion what would communion look like

and and personally i don't think communion is weird at all i i think communion is you know three or four

people watching a stream that are that are doing something in their own without being part of a

larger corporate body or they're engaged corporately via this the network the video network and not not

in the same space my son's first communion was was done via an online church service

where we gave him coca-cola instead of grape juice sorry it was all we had god and it was a cauliflower

wafer uh no yeah it was a cauliflower wafer don't judge he was um lactose intolerant or something and

so that's what we had in the house and so that's what it was yeah you know yeah uh you know uh utopia

you know you know the no place left circle yeah so like but it was it was totally reimagined i use

that as the foundation and then it was reimagining that in a you know what i i i think i did an

interview uh with scuba steve scuba steve is uh steve scuba steve's name he doesn't scuba and

his first name's not steve it's the weirdest thing but he's one of the one of the leaderships

in in no place left last i saw he was over latin and south america he's based out of here in florida

he's a friend and uh but i think i had that conversation with him literally going through

and just talking about what that what that means in no place left world which is much more of a

decentralized you know small micro church model and how to adapt that into into a digital environment

you know scuba uh no place left is like four people meeting under a palm tree in a park is is

constitutes a church so the idea of thinking outside of the box of a micro church non-content driven

heavily relational model like that's the stuff that they do um and uh yeah so so good uh he you see uh

utope i read a post from rob wagner recently in their sub stack you know what i haven't i haven't i

need to look into that i haven't been following i've been following their podcast uh rob is with uh

casey underground we are i'm excited about this this is one of the things that i want to explore more

in talking about church this is not where i wanted to go but we'll actually get to my topic here in a

little bit because this is great um we are we're leaning back into um church planting more and this is

funny this is funny this is as a result and we're actually the reason i brought this up is we're

working with underground network tampa underground which is uh lucas pulle and those and that crew

rob wagner is a child under the underground network but we're working with um uh lucas pulle brian

sanders and those guys and gals into developing a a micro church a digital model based on their micro church

model that actually came off of the town hall i you know it's i talk about how we do these town halls

like once a quarter this is really a great way for us to listen to you what are you seeing what are

you feeling how can we help your ministry and give us some feedback and insight what's working what's

not working i forget who it was but one of the questions that we had was um one of the questions we had on

that stream was hey jeff how come you don't like do anything with um digital churches anymore like you

shifted all your language to digital um missionaries and you're really not acknowledging churches at all

what what can you do on that it's funny i'm reaching to grab something off my desk this was actually a cup

that that someone made for me i have no idea if that's yeah you can read this on the screen i think

and so it says get it up close if it's in focus no it says the godfather of digital churches and um

you know there was there was a season 2021 2022 where when you googled digital church

digital church planting i was like number one two three four five six like it was all about that

and um and so like in especially my work with stadia like it was all centered around planting

and um you know they there's a balance between planting and hybrid thank you covid

but now you know we had gone to this missionary working with individuals and not necessarily

wrestling into the ecclesiology of of planting churches in digital space in recent

over the past year really since lizon and uh and so somebody brought that concern up

back at the fall conference i think the fall town hall in august and and so i reached out to

micah and uh it was like hey micah who runs a uh a digital micro church of sorts um and and so

i said hey micah why don't you um why don't you help me out here let's would you be interested in

and maybe starting an outpost on digit with digital church plants people that are part of a digital

church or want to plant a digital church and uh and he said yes and then i reached out to lucas

pulle and was like hey what how do you how does somebody like start a micro church and uh and lucas was

like hey yeah there's like this 12 month course that we ask people to go through they meet once a month

so it's basically a full year and people jump in whenever they can they do the they did to rolling

12 months and 12 months later 12 weeks 12 sessions later you know they're they've gone through all

their training it's just in time training kind of thing and and that's that's how they do it and so

i said i said to lucas i was like can we can we get that material and like can we adapt it can we

shape it can we you know lucas is like here you go bro dude he gave me he gave me his google drive that had a

a ton of resources on mic on micro and so yeah we're we're excited to to lean in uh to uh to that and uh

the the good news is micah has already adapted that material uh for digital and he's running it through

his outpost now they're they're you know they're test driving it um right now uh i think for september

and october they've already met on it and so two months in i think they've already met in october i

saw that that come through recently you know one of the things this is actually one to talk about with

the church digital and it's funny utope is talking about planting and in some of that now and i'm talking

about how micah's doing something and to be honest i'm not keeping up with it and uh you know steve's

doing uh steve reed is not not my brother steve reed i don't have any brothers but steve reed's not my

brother my brother from another mother steve reed um you know just did an edm outpost an edm

and uh i haven't really connected with people or connected with how that went but it's funny i'm

now having conversations with people that that did that outpost and people there's there's a guy who's

interested in launching a um an outpost in india that went through steve's thing and it's like okay

cool let's have that conversation let's go on that and and um we're we're starting to move more and more

into this idea of the church digital being decentralized now um for for many like i've said

the church digital we're decentralized we're decentralized we're decentralized but the the

reality was is that for since it's like start it's been a top-down organization um i have been the

i don't want to say the brains because i'm not the smartest man on the team i'm i'm not the i'm not the

brawn i'm not the hot hardest worker i don't necessarily have all the money so i'm not i'm not funding

this thing or at least i can't afford it anymore and so we're having to move in different directions and

so it's it's come to this place where you know one plus one doesn't equal two it equals far more

and it's one of the reasons why i've been so strong in saying like tcd's gotta get bigger than us than me

because i am i'm a limiter i'm a lid to what's happening and i'll just throw this up here as

example it'd be great to see how to plant digital churches i'm planning to run an outreach to people

who don't know jesus and hopefully started disciple making movement on digital so that's utope

utope is in in nigeria and um i you know i got utope man i love you i'm happy to help you how best i can

in that um and i've got some ideas that that i and the team would love to share with you and and you

know for the most part we already have uh but a lot of this is really what can you do with this and how

can you make it make it work how can you adapt these these ideas into in nigerian and sub-saharan

south african context you know similar conversation i had today with uh uh with the man i was talking

about starting this in in india you know he is in eastern india which is the the more the bengali

i know very little about the bengali um even less about the other 1100 dialects that are currently

being spoken in india not including the other countries and regions that are in southern asia

and so like you know there's there's a lot that i don't know about sub-saharan south africa there's

even less that i don't know there's even less that i know about whatever the negative way to say what i

just said is there's even less that i know about uh southern africa southern asia and india and so

it's not about you know me me coming in to save the day and tell everybody what they need as much

as it is is how can we empower them to like do it and and how can we resource them and and guide them

and give them freedom to contextualize and adapt this to work in their space you know it's interesting

i've had a couple people actually tell me um you know jeff we appreciate the fact that imperialism is

a big thing that i don't i don't want to get into where it's it's it's it's really about adopting and

adapting what we're learning what utopia is talking about here as opposed to me coming in and driving and

demanding uh now it's it's interesting because i've had a couple of the people that are in startup mode

you know utopia's been hanging out with us for like i don't know 2019 2020 early covet if not before

um and so like it's interesting dude's on another continent i feel like i've got a good relationship

with him i don't talk to him every day but you know we're a we're a dm away and you know i've had

plenty of face time with him even though he's on a different continent but the the challenge that i'm

hearing for some of these others that are in startup is jeff we we need you to to buy in more

on telling us what to do at the beginning and then kind of releasing and allowing us to contextualize

because i've been so loose it's not really doable because i'm telling people to like i'm giving people

freedom when they don't want the freedom they want direction um and so it's it's something i've got

to wrestle with with the team over the next couple i've had enough people tell me that i think i've had

two or three conversations like that over the past month and and it's like okay we may be i may be too

fearful of you know trump's president i may be too fearful about white man coming to save the day

uh but i so i do need to be a little more involved and forceful in some areas but then

decentralized and empowering at others and there's a there's a really intricate balance

and that works in in digital that works in definitely digital work there's an interesting

tension centered around that even with physical churches it's it's really it's really interesting

right now so i am um i'm working with a physical church i'm starting christ journey like

next week uh going basically full-time employee there and still managing a couple other consulting

and a couple other things around and still doing the church digital like you know i back in 2018 i

really adapted the idea adopted the idea of multiple revenue streams for the church digital and other

things and so it's wearing a lot of hats so to speak but um for a physical church

doing digital ministry the idea of of decentralized is is very is very challenging the idea of you know a a

lead pastor uh relinquishing responsibility uh and and empowering others to make decisions at a high level

at there's a very small percentage of churches that that operate that way um you know the majority of

churches in america so to speak have a have a high level decision maker that passes

responsibility down and to be honest that's what the church digital was i was high level

ceo founder and i was you know i had a team around me that i would listen to i mean barbara carnero

she really helped shape the church digital over the past couple years barbara stepping out of of

uh relationship now with the organization but even as she's going like we're so thankful for her work

over the past couple years and how she helped us understand who we are and helped us shape this new

digital missionary model but that was her saying jeff you should do this and me saying yes you're

right we should do that an interesting wrinkle develops even beyond that of okay i'm still list i'm

listening to people i'm not being an a-hole but it still is coming through me and the challenge of

me is what do i know about what yetope is going through in africa you see it's not about

me you know it's funny i've got a i've literally i can't get to it but there's i've got a bumper sticker

um john 330 that's right over here on my desk a little black bumper sticker from my c28 days

if you don't know what c28 is google uh c28 store colossians 28 um but it's john 330 he must

become greater i must become less um and so which is um it's not a the bumper sticker says it's not about

me referencing john 330 and so the idea is not jeff needs to be the lead the idea is really

the win is not jeff gets everything that he wants the win is yetope creates a discipleship movement

in nigeria the win is we start multiplying missionaries in india to reach the bengali people

which is the number three unreached people group on the planet the win is we start to see

a a revival in in post-christian europe um the win is that we help uh gamers get connected to god

gamers who have given up on the church because of years of rejection and persecution from the church

go back to oh can the church persecute that's an interesting idea go back to god yeah like that's

the win and so rather than putting myself at the top in saying y'all do whatever i say

this is going to be funny i don't know that utope realizes this but utope is the boss of the

organization bro like utope simon leighton uh steve reed the micah micah bales the other outpost leaders

it's funny um uh i've been interested in hearing to hear what you're going to present today it's

interesting i read a couple places recently he meant to he meant us to collaborate with each other

uh in all that we do yeah it's funny uh new things uh steve actually talks about the great

collaboration about how you know you've got the great commission it's the great collaboration and

there's uh utope may remember those verses off the top of his head better than i do but that's that's

really is the challenge that god called us to collaborate with each other lazon is very strong

in in the collaboration ideology of that but you know the idea is you know how can we help steve reach

the people that steve's called to reach with legacy how can we help utope simon all of these people how can we

start new movements in areas like sub-saharan excuse me in like southern asia or like in oceania or east

asia uh we've gotten so much interest recently in east asia what would it look like to to start

something and who can we find to to lean into that and what does it look like to grow and empower them

uh to reach the to reach those and to multiply themselves into others the guy asked me today

he's like what's a win for the church digital in india and and and i said the idea that you're going

to multiply yourself into other people i'm like i'm not i'm not putting a number god's going to be god

uh it's like but i only want to train people that are going to multiply these ideas we've made the

mistake historically of of reaching out to people and recruiting people um that were very um influential

in their area and asking them to you know rep tcd in the area as well and and what happened is into

general generally speaking we became a tool on the tool belt um and not necessarily as funny i actually

made the joke it's like we're a bumper sticker on the back of the nascar i mean we're one of 57 37 24

different ideas uh 24 different methods and the person wasn't or the persons weren't really excited

about what we were doing uh just in situations where it was where they were able to hey oh this is a

good fit but if we didn't see the multiplication because it wasn't a big deal to the to the individuals

i i want to see i mean i'm literally talking about making these people like the top bill of the

organization and so i i am actively hoping that people are going to respect the authority that i'm

giving them of this organization and utilize the resources uh that we have for the purpose of

equipping and multiplying missionaries globally in their context

steve's boss i feel like we need to start the hashtag steve's boss.com or something you know

hashtag steve's boss launch a new website whatever steve says.com um and and and just make it because

that's that's what i want to do you know if if we're not it's maybe the simple church in me thank you

eric geiger but if it's not effective in making disciples if it's not effective in multiplying missionaries

i i don't want to do it and and if it is if it is effective then i want to do more of it

and to really know what's going on we got to hear from the people on the front lines

uh and figure out how we can equip and mobilize more effectively in that space yeah brian brian i

don't think i know you man thanks for jumping on the stream here yep love it we may have met somewhere

along the way i apologize but thanks for being on um it is and so this idea of decentralization is is

huge it's organizational flipping i i as founder i is you know it's funny the board told me jeff you

know because i say founder because founder has said that um founder implies i started this idea but i'm not

the boss and and the my board you know says to me jeff you need to be um you know executive director

like people need to understand that you're that this is your you know tower and your your power

you're in charge like you're you're the influence and i'm i'm still wrestling with that i think i've said

executive director two times in the past five months since they told me that just because i've been like

you know i say it sometimes just to kind of shop it around and see what people's responses are to it

um because ultimately i i i i don't want that power i want to give that to somebody else because this is

not jeffreed.com this is the church moving a digital space in a global environment or in a global space

in a digital environment and that i i think is crucial so it's flipping that script where we've got these

outposts we've got these missionaries that are operating in a global way in our in our departments

andy with equip uh with uh connecting and community uh jason with the equipping myself with mobilization

stacy with care like how can we resource the steves the simons the etopes the the the people that

are operating at at a at a global level the latents in their context the micas in their context and

environments doing digital micro or gaming like how can we better equip and mobilize

people in that space how can we share resources and connect them along like these are these are the

questions uh that we're we're heading into it's i mean listen i love i love doing the conferences

the conferences were incredible um like the for 25 the 5 conferences the people the thousands of people

that we've connected with across 95 countries i did the math 95 countries is um that is an exciting

takeaway but we are not a conference organization like if the only thing we are doing is is the digital

missionary conference where we are um we're celebrating what's happening in digital mission but we're not

equipping and mobilizing um that's not that's not something i want to be a part of i don't want to talk about

the battle is not in who below the battle is not in webinars the battle the battlefield of this is is in uh

discord it's in uh whatsapp it's in web browsers it's in relationships it's in it's on the discipleship

field it's on the mission field and and i want to be part of the battle i want to be i don't know i don't

know what that was a battlefield general to be honest i don't even want to be a general um i've

actually been thinking about you know in the midst of all the 90 things that i'm doing what would it look

like to to go back and actually start a a digital church i'll be honest actually i had this thought this

morning if somebody comes to me and presents a solid idea or even a weak idea but is teachable

to do a church to reach deaf people asl or otherwise i i may like i may drop everything and and go be a

part of that no i'm not going to drop everything but like there is an incredible opportunity there

and i've i've seen some people come and go with it i've seen some startups kind of peter off i've i've

not seen anybody really own and run with the idea at the church level but there is an incredible

opportunity to do digital church um to reach deaf people hard of hearing people globally and these are

people that literally will never make into a physical building because so many so few physical churches are

doing deaf ministry anymore conversation for different way different day flipping the script

essentially myself the board we're in a servant position we are in a servant position supporting

the staff the departments the departments are in a servant position supporting the outpost leaders

who are in the mission field doing what they're doing that is the call that's the drive that's the desire

for where we're going now now what's interesting is there is i can talk on a stream here for 42 minutes so

far telling you about how that's that's what we're doing we're not doing that yet and and actually doing that

takes a lot of time yeah this is an upside down kingdom model an upside down kingdom but it's funny

the lead pastor of the church that i start working for monday bill white actually wrote the book called

upside down kingdom and where he talks a lot about this this philosophy and so it's interesting talking about how

like they get me and i get them and i'm going to go work for them it's because the philosophies of what

we're doing actually are not that that different and uh this is not the church that i grew up in that's actually another

church here in miami this is this is this is a new relationship here uh with uh with this particular

church over the past three or four years so um it's it's a a very servant-minded

minded opportunity for us hey tall skinny kiwi good morning uh it's a very servant oriented mindset

where we're flipping the script on on on how we are serving

people now the reality of that is it's going to take some time to kind of flesh that out

and um here's here's what i'm saying today uh the church digital is going to take a little break

uh next week is actually going to be the last stream that i'm going to do here this year

uh where and we're going to be circling the wagons doing some reduced streams uh some of the reduced

um emails like we did a huge push for uh into the year or should be a huge push for the conferences

um and and as a result of that barbara is shifting out word revolution who has served us very well for a

couple years is is is heading out the door uh barbara's actually launching a new agency to reach another

audience group as well and excited about some of the work that she's got planned and what she's trying to

do uh we're bringing in a new agency that's going to come on board and support us moving forward uh

and and there's going to be more work uh that there's a lot of even on top of all the superficial stuff

with the connect and community there's there's a lot of behind the scenes work that we the church

digital leadership that we need to do because i need to move from a a method or a model where i've been

pulling people up and telling them what to do and getting them at a higher level to instead getting

to a place where they're asking and leading and we are supporting on what they're doing this is this

is you know some of what we're talking about is actually going back through some of the goals we

had established and them and saying okay like when we created these goals in many ways i it was my

goals and i was getting you to own them let's flip it let's talk about them being your goals and me on

it so if you're good if this is your your goals what do you need to do to to own and reshape who else

do we need to bring into this conversation how do we need to shift in order to be more effective in

in some of these spaces what other areas can we start to tap into who else do we know that can

come on board and start to lead an outpost what does it mean to onboard uh people into edm and what

else can we do to make that a more effective process even things like our database our crm is an

unfortunate nightmare right now and we need to get that kind of cleaned up and rebuilt and shuffled

around and by the way who's going to own that in the future moving forward so that it's not a nightmare

these are just like top of the head uh struggles that that we're looking for and for that reason

we're we're circling the wagons here a little bit working with our outpost leaders uh working with

senior leadership working with the board on a number of topics and so we're not going radio silence

not saying that but we are going to limit what we're doing uh so that we can be more effective to do a

relaunch may be too strong of a word but to to come back with a new focus and a new strategy in 2026

i would and part of that also and it's it's worth noting we're going to talk more about this next week

um by the way i love this uh brian uh discipleship 101 build stages for others you know in in a i'm

going to get back to what i was going to say here in a second because that's good i've been convicted of

this and this is something that um this is something that the church project guys taught me um and and

i've had this conversation with uh the underground the tampa the kc underground network because like i

just i i i wasn't thinking this way and and i am now because i see it in in the work that they're doing

building stages for others as brian said here is is such an interesting phrase because to really

create a decentralized movement this is something that that uh jason shepherd taught me from church

project a decentralized movement is actually very centralized the processes are centralized but

there's guidelines and there's freedom to explore once you get past quality control once you get past the

uh the guidelines and the standards so you know tampa church project

is very centralized because there's there's ways that they look at metrics and measurements and there's a

very centralized process into that tampa uh underground is is incredibly decentralized where

they're doing like you know um different churches and different environments business uh workplace whatever

um homes um homes public areas like it's just it's very free in in what it looks like

but there's a level of centralization when it comes towards onboarding process when it comes towards

mission vision values when it comes towards analytics and successes

um language terminology and so which is interesting this gets back to like the the what two or three of our

our new outpost leaders or potential outpost leaders are saying jeff you're given too much freedom

there's so much freedom we don't know what to do can you lean in a little stronger and be a little more

finite like and to at least help us get our our grounding now which which i'm okay with but i need

people to once they get their footing i need people to like you know break out of that egg like you know

i'll i'll i'll put them you know if i'm if i'm the this is going to be embarrassing i can't believe i'm

i'm going to say this on a stream i'll be the mother bird that was uh that was actually it was funny my

nickname it's a true story right here my nickname on the high school football team my senior year

was mother goose um because i i was kind of like the the shepherd um pastoral person on the team

and and you know some of the team appreciated that some of the team didn't but when um when i would get

upset about something like when i would really get ticked off in football and i started ripping heads

um the the linebacker mike ortigo friend uh he would look at me say yo mother goose don't get your

feathers ruffled he said that to me once dude stuck it stuck for like a year man i couldn't believe it

but ultimately what i'm saying is is that you need people to be stable but you need you need people to

be able to crack out of the egg because they've got at least us they've got to own that idea

enough to work through contextualization if utope stays in the egg and doesn't adapt this

i'll just tell you it wouldn't have worked the version one version two maybe even version three

utope i don't remember how many different versions we did of of edm but it wasn't until

utope broke out of the egg and said guys i don't want to do it the way you're doing it i want to do

it this way instead we gave him freedom but it took him a couple drafts to get it to where he was

comfortable enough and he understood it enough to do it his way and and it worked with us it's actually a

great story simon some of the work that he's doing uh i mean he's he's pushing us to get into different

languages he's what did he tell me this week he's he got somebody uh that is going to translate

and uh um to translate edm no translate um uh sharing jesus online simon's getting g sharing jesus

online translated into german and i'm hoping french i really want french um to to translate the book into

that somebody's translating it for free and i think design is going to be free or reduce cost

and and so but like there's a that's him adapting it for his context and and then being able to push

that and use that in different ways he's seeing the resource and saying hey it's going to be really

effective if we can and then they're running with it when i wrote sharing jesus online at no point

did i ever think hey this would be great in german or french but simon has that vision and wants to run

with it and for the love of all please yes let's go so we're going to be taking a break

to circle the wagons get our our departments our leadership we brought on some project managers

to help manage relationships and and uh we're developing volunteer teams you're going to be

hearing more about that in the coming months as we're looking to really empower this movement at at a

global level but it's not centered on me working 50 60 hours a week on it like it was historically

you know i've put in a lot there's no regret in this i've put in a lot of hours in making this happen

which is why it still is a jeff-centric organization and i want to see the church

digital grow beyond a jeff-centric organization and i feel like god is best glorified when this is no

longer a jeff-centric organization you tope mentioned earlier in the stream uh the idea of or maybe it was

steve i think steve actually said it the idea of collaboration and to see that come to fruition

where we can continue to contextualize adapt learn from each other collaborate for kingdom purposes

globally oh what a what a sweet opportunity we have in digital spaces to even build on this conversation

where we've had people from at least four continents on this stream that i've managed to feature and bring

into the conversation and so this is a incredible opportunity you know it's funny i'm so i'm seeing

brian uh feeling the holy spirit all over the shift yes i i i am too my friend i um

it's funny i'm gonna start crying it's um letting what what i'm doing right now letting go empowering

other people positioning others moving to decentralized instead of centralized this makes

no sense in a digital environment like no one teaches you at influencer school to empower other people

and give up your platform give other people your followers uh they don't they don't they don't say

that they don't say decentralized they don't say they say a million person stream is better than

a hundred thousand streams of ten and and we've you know god has just convicted me over the years

you've heard me say flip the script man we're just going to keep flipping the script

because uh i would rather be a hundred thousand churches of ten than a million person church i to me

i i i haven't talked about this too much i met um

i met rick warren through um jay crahn is a friend over at saddleback but i met rick

um doing some work uh globally it started when i was at uh stadia but um through an organization

called um finishing the task actually that's where i met by kelly shanko by kelly shanko was actually

who spoke at that the neighborhoods conference but kelly was actually a key he was in the room

with this conversation um and uh be kelly rick and a couple others hey jeff

um how do we get one church for every hundred people on the planet globally using digital tools

how do we do that and um i i i drew up the plans

literally like overnight i was asked that question on a on a monday night that's a true story i was

asked that question on a monday night in 2022 and i drew up the plans for the church digital in its current

iteration and presented them tuesday uh i i sent the i sent an email to bichelle and uh one of bichelle's

one of the guys i was working with that bichelle was over and um you know maybe four hours after

that i sent that in via email i get a tap on my shoulder and said and looked up and it was it was

rick's right hand man rick is the leader of of uh finishing the task but i get a tap on the shoulder

and says hey um rick and some of the leaders are going to be in this room in about 30 minutes

i saw your your design can you can you come over and like tell them about it maybe get them to ask

some questions answer some questions

yeah sure how long do i have maybe 10 minutes of time is there any technology in the room no um no slide

decks nothing just just come in and talk for 10 minutes can i get a whiteboard yes you can have

a whiteboard and so i got got a whiteboard i mapped out the the church digital uh it was funny a week

later i i resigned from stadium 22 uh and um went down the road towards building out what this is today

and that's where i i can design the framework i can design the systems but if we really are going

to get to the place where we're going to get one church for every 100 people on the planet globally

using digital tools if we're really going to reach people in unique contexts in the 95 countries that

we're currently engaging in

white bald dude with a beard what the crap do i know about the big bengali people i hadn't even

said the word bengali this year until this morning

look it needs to get beyond me it needs to get be owned by others and if god's going to be glorified

if the holy spirit is going to move we need people that are going to be able to question uh in

environments contextualize and shape the gospel not rewrite the gospel but shape it in such a way

digitally to make it effective to reach people in the unique context jesus doesn't change jesus stays the

same but that doesn't mean our methods need to stay the same and to be able to invite that freedom to

encourage that mindset and and do something different to reach someone different globally yes please

so that's what we're doing the entire body growing by what every joint supplies i'm sure that makes sense in

in the context there my friend i i but i love the idea of the body growing together working together uh

to do this god god knew what he was doing and and and to be honest even as we look at what's happening

and not happening digitally you know it'd be very easy to be discouraged um here in the us looking at how

physical churches are struggling with digital ministry reverting back to physical in the building but

we've been fortunate enough to to be a part of some incredible global movements to have some incredible

conversations and see how god is doing work globally digitally um and that we are laying a foundation

today for what is is moving forward culture changes and so we shape the gospel in order to keep it

the same same impact same story told uh in different ways through different eyes i love it thank you for

that kiwi great to have you on um in the middle of the morning for you hey look so here's what's going

to happen we're i'm going to stream next week not going anywhere we're going to stream i i you know

what it's on youtube i think it's wednesday next week let me let me actually make sure i don't

i don't want to lie here on the stream um i can click that tab i can do that

as of right now i'm streaming wednesday no tuesday uh the 28th at 2 p.m um i am

i'm going to be streaming uh now here's here's what i'm doing next week i'm going to talk about

about this show the church digital we have done over 370 episodes this is episode three snows 369

370 will be next week of the church digital podcast and um that is 370 episodes of me monologuing

or me interviewing and and dialoguing having other people on and and just like hey we're going to flip

the script and things are going to change we're going to be we're going to start to do some of

that change next week or no we're going to talk about the change that's coming next week and so

january uh will be the launch give you the t's uh will be the launch of the church digital streaming

network what that means what it's going to look like and uh what the what the future is going to be

we're going to talk about that next week and we'll get more into the weeds on that and a lot of the

changes that that are coming um and on the content side and on the community side we'll get more into that

next week and so come back we'll put the information in fam watch of course uh on demand as you're able

but we're excited be praying about the road ahead um i really do feel like god's behind these moves

um and and it's it's us taking the hands off the wheel you know i hate to to really go play the pun

here jesus take the wheel uh like you know drive in this situation uh i i have been told my uh my um

i live here in miami my span my name is jeffrey dale uh if you know me jeff is my first name

and my middle name is uh dale don't call me dale don't call me jeffrey uh but uh the the spanish

equivalent of some cuban people told me this uh is el jefe dale uh which if you know uh spanish el jefe

dale is pretty much the boss screaming at you do it and do it now uh that is el jefe the boss dale

do it now and and so jeffrey dale el jefe dale that is my that's was my motivation for years and

god is moving me to not drive but to release and uh and trust the trust him to go through this and so

pumped i appreciate that i'm brian hey man thanks for chiming in and joining us today being part of the

stream uh and it was really cool to uh to engage with you and the others today thank you for all

the amazing video content and time maybe a few months off will be refreshing expect you to return with

new vision for a new chapter i think i do have a new vision for the new chapter it's just going to

take us some time to to implement it and and to refresh i will say that taking some time off um

is good um the conferences being in may next year uh the next digital missionary conference may 12th

and 13th gives us time january february march to kind of ramp up we're even restructuring how the camp

the conferences are being managed um we'll get more into it but we're i hated the fact that the conferences

took so much and we really kind of shifted away from empowering digital missionaries for uh

probably five or six months i hated that we fried out the the creative team i just i hated a lot of

the cost of of the conferences and we're restructuring some things to make sure that we don't

don't get there again uh but yeah uh i see this from judy excited about the future uh we'll be praying

and so be praying for us in the days in the weeks to come as as we're heading into the new year uh

with 25 i'm getting a phone call i'm gonna have to go but for jeff this is jeff with the church

digital thanks for hanging out with us today we'll see you next time on the show y'all have a good one