EP365: Jeff & Simon Diercks Celebrate the 2025 European Digital Missionary Summit

all right oh man that was a mood shift right there for that song kicking in hey

jeff uh with the church digital podcast oh you know what my mic is low so let me crank it up

jeff with the church digital podcast that should be better my settings reset automatically for some

reason i gotta look into that but hey episode 300 kick in here in a second episode 365 oh man

it's been a it's been a crazy 48 hours uh so good we just wrapped up our european digital

missionary conference we've got simon dirk's gonna bring him on in a minute but just want to

highlight 365 podcast episodes today so today is the day that you can actually listen to an hour of

jeff every day for a full year and uh be miserable because who wants to listen to a year of jeff reed

not too many people but we're excited uh about what's happening in europe and uh what we got to

highlight yesterday with the conference and we've got some keynotes we're going to share

on this as well uh and so instead of uh just talking about it let's go ahead and bring simon dirks into

the conversation let me push my magic button hopefully this works hey and here's hey simon

hi hi good to see you yeah so simon is uh broadcasting from his car this may be the first

just saw somebody walk by the car but yeah this may be the first time i've done a conversation with

somebody in a car uh where you at simon well i'm a little in a little city called marburg in germany

it's really beautiful if you step over sometime oh yeah just i'll be over there in a couple minutes

i tell you like i will say this every time i see simon uh he is in an area if he's outside

it is green like is all of germany green and lush and beautiful like this like it's it's incredible

i would say a lot of uh germany is like that yeah oh man that's um i i you know i'm i live in miami

it's like oceans everywhere and clear but man just the trees like it's just in in the mountains that

that's awesome hey when's the last time simon's been on here uh and shared in the past that he's

an ultra marathoner so when's the last time you did any sort of major run

uh it was last year but end of this month i will actually do my first uh running marathon

because normally i love ultra hiking like hiking for more than uh 100 kilometers by the end of this

month will be my first marathon running in frankfurt okay so you're it's that's 20 what is it 26.2

right marathon uh it's 42 kilometers i don't know metric system okay you know it's always the same

with us no it's it's it's 20 no it's no it is 13 miles yeah i don't know what what's what's the

how many kilometers is it 42 42 42 yeah um yeah that's right it's numbers are in my head aren't

making sense right now but i'm gonna trust you because you're you're in the middle of it so very

cool um well good luck actually running instead of hiking i'm guessing that's a different

pair of shoes yeah yes all right so hey let's uh let's so simon was the host yesterday on uh for

the european digital missionary conference which was like 8 30 to 12 30 his time or my time here in

america 2 to 3 to 7 a.m something like that like way early uh and it was a lot of fun i actually ran

tech support in the background and so we didn't have that much trouble this stream actually went

really smooth across the board but um simon like you 24 hours later we did a lot of work to put that

conference together and you and your team showed up incredibly across europe like man share some

highlights for you what what did it feel like uh through the conference

yeah i loved it especially i loved uh spreading a wide view across uh digital ways of ministry in europe

we had 11 uh speakers up on the stage 11 speakers showing us uh about the general situation regarding

christianity in europe um about topics like ai or topics like how to uh empower content creators in gen z

for digital missions but also those practical guys looking into their specific ministry with their

community like hip-hop communities in finland like gamers community in germany or like many others so

look into these um wide wide view of different um speakers and topics has really been so encouraging

with me and also seeing how the conference is just the day after already making an impact

i'm seeing discussions in our outpost europe and in our french group we're already discussing about rolling

out the creedal model we heard about uh for france and uh discussing um how to uh facilitate a

french-speaking edm beginning of next year so we're seeing this conference already making an impact so great

yeah it was it was funny i a confession hour um i i slept through an open office this morning i was

i staying up all night for the european conference it really beat me up and but it was it was interesting

i had uh steve reed was in there and uh cindy who lives in hong kong but but speaks french and um

evidently i don't know who it was but somebody showed up that was french uh only spoke french and

and steve was telling me yeah cindy and he cindy and this person had some conversation about edm and

french and so like i i don't know how it went but uh it was it was cool that people handled the

situation without me one that's awesome but two i love the energy that we're starting to hear about

uh with uh digital missionaries and and extending into uh french in this new country so

very interesting what's ahead yeah definitely um yeah i'm gonna go for it yeah i'm very

very very happy about that uh we already got that uh person connected to uh our french group

and they are planning further yeah awesome just go ahead just you know just another day at the

business uh you know maybe i should be at the open offices let's let other people do it that

another conversation for a different day but very very very cool um what was the um like what was your

maybe favorite talk i i know we it was a different format it was like 11 speakers more of like a ted talk

10 11 15 minutes somewhere in there more shorter talks but what was for you what was like the the aha

moment or the one that you really want people to hear yeah i think what i really loved is uh jim

memory leader of lausanne europe reframing the situation for germany for for europe thinking away

from the lost continent more to a continent that is pre-revival and showing up where that is already

happening within uh church planting movements without within uh youth discipleship movements uh and within

migrant churches across europe is seeing revival already and uh it's a question how we can leverage

digital to uh and to accelerate that what i also left was for many speakers also to focus back on the work

of the spirit in our digital ministries for example like i think it was dima lavra from cyprus he said

before touching a keyword let your knees hit the ground so really prepare your ministry uh with good

prayers and then to see how many good uh frameworks are already available like dealing from poland for

50 years they're on the road or creedle building an uh an ecosystem for uh christian uh ministry not

only in germany but uh planned to uh fold out worldwide and to hear um toby um pointing out that jesus

wants to be found but we have to learn that people are searching differently in digital spaces

so these have been really defining moments for me and i really encourage all of you to take the time to

uh look into many of the um talks we had really really a big view yeah i mean josh you just mentioned

like half the lineup you know when uh i will say it was a kind of cool moment i just happen to have

these right here but when uh um when who is jim was the first talk right from uh from uh lasanne so when

he opens up his talk and you know he's got his sunglasses on and and and talking and tying it in

was was was so good the idea of um a pre of a pre-revival instead of post-church instead of post-christian

um and and the the expectation of doing christ yeah i got i'll confess that's something

i um i um i i struggle with uh you know i live in the i don't i don't mean that but i live in the doom

and gloom of the moment it's bad uh and we need to do something and and and and his perspective jim

memory's perspective of of in europe we are doing something like and and and we're seeing god take

steps of this it's it's not that it's bad but it's it's new it's not a barren wasteland we're actually

seeing kind of like the beginning of the plants showing up and and the growth showing up it was

so interesting this is on a completely different topic but i actually watched oh my gosh what's the

name of the the um uh eva um oh my gosh i this is totally a bad scenario movie but not a bad movie

just stupid the disney movie with the the two robots from space uh eva um and i can't think it has

nothing somebody i'm wearing the disney shirt right now somebody's gonna be like jeff you're so stupid

i cannot think of the name of this robot uh who's who's like the main character's name from the movie

shifting off another thing that i did also love was was the man from cyprus talking about you know always

being on the knees in prayer so often in digital ministry we we and i once again i live this where

it's you know we're just executing a playbook we're executing a strategy living in that in that strategic

mindset content creating just go go go and and not beginning in prayer and he must have said that

phrase and because of his accent it took me it took me a couple rounds to kind of understand but the

the hitting the knees uh before you you hit the keyboard hit hit your knees in prayer like that

was such a beautiful visual that he just kept reinforcing through his through his talk that was

that was great yeah i'm all with you i know we did uh translation um you know for the first time we had

uh interprefy it's a company that we we offered live simultaneous translation uh audio ai audio as well as

um subtitles for all the keynotes and sponsors basically all the sessions um you know i've heard some

feedback uh most of it was good did you have you heard any response or anything on your side about how that

interpretify product was handled received uh only the uh only the fascinated uh thing of hearing me

giving english talks and being a translated to german which is my native language that must have been

quite funny for people to listen to that yeah i know it's interesting some of your french friends uh

gave some feedback and they were like it was like oh it's probably 80 accurate

and uh okay i i said my my we do had a portuguese someone who was portuguese was like yeah the

portuguese was awful uh and so but her this is interesting like the standard i i think the the person

who was like 80 percent saw it as a positive ai is is it's it's not going to be perfect it was funny

like internally i was hoping if we could get it not literally i was like if we get it nine out of ten if

we can get ninety percent accurate um that's that's really good and uh when the person literally was

like yeah it's like 80 i was like dang it we're not quite there uh but the person making the comment

was like oh no it's incredible even eighty percent is better than than nothing and um yeah and but the

perspective of the person from portuguese you know eighty percent was like oh this is awful it's not it's not

perfect and uh and so you know ai on on some of that stuff you know i don't think we can expect perfection

yet but you know i i know eighty percent is better better than most um uh better than nothing i was

looking at the registrations you know we had uh we had 500 people register from uh 70 550 maybe it was

76 countries last last report i ran and so well received globally excited about uh some of the some

of the footprint uh of maybe what we're starting and what we can build on built with that with the 76

countries it was it was interesting to me even through the conference the people that were attending

um i i walking in i was actually expecting it to be like european people watching the european

conference but it really was a a global bag of people different perspectives looking at what like

europe was doing and it was more highlighting the ministry of europe and it was interesting even

your perspective of setting up the keynotes to highlight well this is what we're doing in germany

with creedal and this is what we're doing over here with with digital ministry in in cyprus and some of

the work in russia like like you you coach the people to highlight what they were doing in those in

those areas and i just thought that was so cool to have them present themselves as this is just a taste

of what's happening in those areas yeah yeah what i really love is to see um um when we're together in

the outpost europe um what i'm seeing is that so many people from outside europe are thinking about

engaging in digital or physical or physical ministry um in europe and they're attending um to to learn

about culture to um to create networks to um discover opportunities so for the last european edm we did

we're going to start another one october 22nd you can sign up if you want but the last european

edm actually there were more people attending that are not from europe but that are from europe

people like sindy from hong kong of course people like etta from nigeria we are talking to him as

alliance mission about sending missionaries to germany from nigeria how cool is that and that is

really what i'm thinking is fascinating to get what um the current missiology is calling the global

church the time of the global church where the global church connects and finds a way to do ministry

in every direction and digital is just perfect for facilitating that awesome that's that's so cool to

hear how you know you a people are coming to europe b europe is highlighting and inspiring others uh because

of the pre-revival tendencies that that are that are happening in that space and so so so good um maybe

talk a little bit it you know because i know a couple things one we'll talk yeah you know what let's

talk about the the conference first but we're going to be having um let's talk about the outpost as well

with the conference um the the like i said we're going to show i know we're going to show jim's

session here in a little bit who else was jim from lausanne who else was in that first session

yesterday do you remember yeah of course i'll put your memory yeah of course we're gonna hear uh jim

memory um who is uh as i already said regional director one of the regional directors of lausanne

movement europe the second talk was um uh focusing on the question of the opportunities of ai for

christian missions was held by tiro stadlman from switzerland who is professor and such and highly

intelligent um guy uh regarding um the opportunities of ai and the search talk which i really loved was

from andy fronius working um and serving from romania and really having a mindset of multiplication that

for my for my feelings matched so good what we are doing with edm like encouraging and empowering young

people through through a multi-day um onboarding camp to start their digital ministry so encouraging

so good what he has thought through and what he's starting with uh pulse um i really love that so

these have been the first three talks and really will be a great opportunity to listen to them as well

as to some of our sponsors and i'm so thankful for the effort you put into this um jeff to make all

these sponsors available and that also um the sponsors had people from europe telling us how they're using

the products presented how they're pursuing digital ministry that was so encouraging and really an

enrichment um to the talks as well yeah yeah we've got the one of the other sessions that we've

included it was was chloe anon who is in i want to say she's in uh uh i um i i want to think it was

ireland i don't remember but it was somewhere over in the great britain side of the pond i was ireland okay

uh with jesus film uh jesus film project talking about next steps and and that and how she's using

next steps uh in europe and like it was really cool to see that that perspective uh of of how these

tools are shaping europe and using europe as as the context of that and so we'll watch some of the

keynotes with the first session here but all of the keynotes uh are going to be available um on demand i

think we're going to do an audio podcast through simon's uh podcast but the audio and and audio and

video will be available through our base which is the the where all of our digital missionary

conference data in all the videos end up and so there's information we'll put information in fam about

how to get access to that so you can just check out whatsapp or discord to get connected or if you've

registered for any of the conferences you you already have access to all of that and so we'll have that

available for you um in a matter of days takes a little bit for the team you know to to get all

that together so we'll see that that very soon well before we like to take that okay i like that uh take

that opportunity just to give a great shout out to the team so great what you did with the advertising

with the home pages signing up setting up the platform such a big thank you to any mage to all

the others of the team of course also to you it's just great working with you it's great to see what

you're putting up for our digital ministry thanks a lot to all of them yeah we will be doing more

we've got the gaming conference gaming summit uh digital missionary gaming summit coming up uh in a week

wednesday october 8th and so we've been doing all the conferences so far in hubelo gamers will be gamers

and so that entire conference is going to be in discord and so uh i've got a kind of well thankfully

andy and layton are really running out of that conference but um i will say uh andy uh the word

revolution team barbara and her team have done an awesome job with all of the conferences uh i think

collectively we're all tired and so looking forward to it being done uh i was funny i actually had a

meeting this morning uh about the comp are the next series of conferences and uh the project manager

we're bringing on and he's like okay walk me through how this works in the 40 000 foot level

and so we're already gearing up for what's next uh coming up in in 26 but really excited before we go

because i i know i gotta let you go uh but talk briefly if somebody wants to get connected into your

european outpost what's the best way for them to get connected to you or to really connect with this

group that you're developing in europe yeah definitely we love to get people connected and

the easiest way for you to get connected is just to join the tcd fam you get two opportunities to do so

you can go to discord.thechurch.digital or you can join whatsapp.thechurch.digital when you are joining

whatsapp you got the opportunity to join the outpost europe channel and there we there you'll get um

meet people other people doing ministry in europe or from europe getting connected to them and we also

have the opportunity to meet up in our open offices focusing on topics that are important to you or you

got the opportunity to get connected and to sign up for the next european edm so looking forward i

suppose that within this year we'll have an english-speaking european white edm we'll have another

german-speaking edm and beginning next year we have a french-speaking edm and that is what is defining for

european culture you get a variety of cultures you get a variety of languages and that is what is really

on my heart to get the opportunity for people to attend in their context in a way that they can

understand best so if you want to join in and say for example well there needs to be an edm in albanian

okay let's go for it i love to see an edm starting up in iceland because i visited that a couple of years ago

but you know just get connected we're happy to meet you over there at the tcd fam yeah i want an excuse

to go to the other side of the pond so iceland would be great um you know something i i i need to

go see uh simon he wants me to go to a conference next year and so there'll be some opportunities on

that side but you know if i can do a european world tour over there and check out some sites uh on uh

with the church digital i would would love that and so i do love you know i i love what simon's doing

and uh in challenging us to start to think through uh different languages and different cultures

and in the process of that so i'm excited to see what 26 as we work more towards mobilization in 26

you know what we're actually really doing here is just the beginning i think of what the future is

going to hold in that so simon thank you very much for what's happening uh right now through what you're

doing i'm going to go ahead and let simon go because he's got to get back to work but man thanks

for stopping in your day and having this conversation with us all right thanks a lot to see you all

right bye simon all right and so he's going to disconnect and it's always great to see simon

doing what he's doing appreciate him taking time out today to do that but we're going to set up and

we're going to swing over into uh this first session where we've got three or four keynotes that

we're going to stream up uh together what on earth is god doing in europe today's context for church

and missions in europe jim jim memory regional director of lazon in europe uh philio stadelman

is doing a talk on ai the unexpected opportunity for missions andy fronius uh from oh philio is

actually from um maybe it's thilo sorry thilo uh is from switzerland andy fronius is from romanian

germany uh equipping content creators in gen z for digital missions his talk was good and then chloe uh

chloe hanan uh which is uh was is talking uh about uh creating a digital spiritual journey and excited

about all of uh all of these talks so we're gonna go one two three four all in a row here in sequence

and you're gonna see simon talk here a little bit about mission alliance and so we're gonna head and

set up here you got all the talks from session one of the european digital missionary conference if

you're interested in the gaming we'll do a preview on that on tuesday and it's uh missionary.digital

slash gaming okay everybody uh let me go and push the magic button and check out all of session one

from the european conference here you go the first um session of keynotes we are going to be focusing a

little bit on the big picture the question of what is happening across europe for that we got

the regional one of the regional directors of the lausanne movement europe uh jim memory with us

and he will gonna give us a big picture on what we can see what is happening in missions in europe we

also going to have one a big picture on the question of how is the digital space shaping changing and what not new opportunities grew up that we're

we're seeing tilo stadelman is one of the um most um elaborate persons i know on um the topic of ai he's

teaching as professor in switzerland and we'll be talking um on uh ai and um the opportunity for evangelism and

mission and we also be hearing from andy fronius he's living in romania and is um uh focusing a lot of equipping

content creators and investing into the gen z you'll be teaching a little bit um talking a little bit

about his ministry and giving examples of how that is happening so i'm really really thrilled and i'm

really thankful for our speakers to be with us and before we start with our speakers i'm going to give a

short um a short view on um one of the sponsors that is quite close to me and that is alliance mission

that's a german mission agency i'm working with and what we did as a mission agency here located in

germany but part of a global mission movement is what i want to share with you is we started a region

digital um one or two years ago why did we do that we did that because we recognized that digitalism or

connectivity as a global mega trend is changing the way global missions are taking place and we need to

learn how to do so now not in 10 years when it's or when the time has gone farther so i want to take you

just a short dip into why we did that and how we did that to give you an opportunity with you with the

organizations you are with to think into that direction and to shape your mindset so um one great

part of resource for you to dive in to get an overview on how the global mission the global

church is developing is the state of the great commission report that has been released before

the fourth lausanne congress of the lausanne movement um last september 2024 so that's really an overview of

mission experts from all over the world who asked the church which are the big gaps you see in um

fulfilling the great commission until 2025 and there's a lot to learn in this report one thing that is

really astounding is that um asking this question to the global church they found out 25 gaps these 25

gaps are the the are the the most concentrated view on what the global church sees as a big challenges

for mission until 2025 and if you walk through these gaps it's great to read through that and to dive

deeper if you walk through that you see that at least at least 10 of these global gaps of the global church

to reach the great commission until 2025 2050 is um connected to digital life to digitalism to connectivity

and that is why we said okay we want to learn how to start a region digital we are thinking not only about

geographical regions like like africa or asia we are thinking of the digital spaces as as of a region

and a region with digital cultures with digital countries so to say places and spaces and digital

ways to engage people so we started with working for a couple of years among gamers we started with

digital evangelists on social media with learning how to do digital church planting with learning how to

leverage ai for automated evangelism and thinking about so much more future topics how did we do that we

asked on the one inside where our development feels that we need to go along as a mission agency we need

to think about what is digital church about what does a digital equality equality look like we have to

learn how the new work changes people of life we have to think about new ways of a digital me we have to

think about how to do covered operations um in countries with creative access or how to leverage business

funding in digital spaces and we also have to think about a thing on different levels like what do we

need to think about digital theology what structures do we need to be on side of digital missionaries what

culture do we need to build up where do we need to do experiments and which new skills do we need to learn

that would be much more to say i just want to shape your mindset for you and your organization or the

organization you're with to start thinking on how to do digital missions in your context

for our continent and beyond and the question the one question i'd love to to pass forward to you is

what digital stories of hope will god tell through you that might be a question guiding us throughout

this day so much that um so much that um from alliance mission as uh one of the sponsors of this great

conference and uh if you're um thinking about becoming a digital missionary and are from germany

or from the neighboring countries then you're invited to join um a weekend of um asking about your

digital calling uh here in evasbach you're invited to join up there if you're interested

in what we are doing as alliance mission you can just find some more information on the website i

post here in the chat i also post a chat to dive a little deeper into the state of the great commission

report gain deep insight on what what is happening with the global church you can do that by reading

it online downloading a pdf in one of six languages or chatting with the lausanne chatbot i love that

opportunity of course all right so much said let's just straight dive over to our first speaker into a

forced talk and that will be jim memory regional director of lausanne movement europe jim over to you

well good morning good evening whatever time in the world is for you uh it's a pleasure to be with you

yes my name is jim memory i'm british by birth but i've spent most of my life as a missionary in spain

with the with ecm european christian mission today i have the privilege of co-leading the lausanne movement

in europe if i put my sunglasses on everything gets dark and frankly that's how most people see europe as

spiritually dark godless secular post christian and it's not even not just politicians or journalists or

academics over and over again even in christian conferences like the one that uh you'll be shown

on your screen in a second um say that europe is post christian and when we when we repeat something

we start believing that it's true even when it's a lie sadly i think most european christians many if not

most european christian leaders and maybe even some of you on this call have internalized the myth

of the inevitable decline of european christianity rather than holding on to the hope

of the lord's return demonstrated in the resurrection we've internalized an eschatology of despair

so brothers and sisters this morning i want to encourage you to take off

your sunglasses because as i've been saying for the last five years europe is not post christian

it is pre-revival and out of the spotlight an extraordinary re-evangelization of europe is taking place

the first area in which we see that is what's happening with church planting movements

in short almost every european country today there is an there is an acceleration in the number of new

churches that are being planted whether that's through denominational initiatives mission agencies

like alliance mission or ecm or many others individuals platforms or ministries that are facilitating

church planting new models of church in traditional form and some in more radical form new christian

communities are sprouting up almost everywhere we look perhaps the most exciting thing of all has been to

this is to see the proliferation of national church planting movements national networks of planters

from across the denominations that are connecting and collaborating in reaching their countries

now as i said at the beginning i spent 15 years as a church planter in spain

church planters tend to be entrepreneurial mavericks they're focused more on their own church

and their own locality so collaboration between church planters is a new thing and i think it's a sign

of revival happening in europe secondly what we see with diaspora churches god is using

people on the move to sow the seed of the gospel across the continent of europe some of these diaspora churches

are european the photo in the bottom right of your screen is betania church in dublin it's the largest

church in ireland and it is a romanian diaspora church over the last 30 years latin american

migrants have planted hundreds thousands of churches in spain portugal and beyond it's difficult to find

a major european city that does not have a large spanish-speaking or brazilian church

african initiated pentecostal churches number in the thousands in europe tens of thousands probably

just one of those the redeemed christian church of god has planted nearly a thousand congregations

in the uk over the last 25 years if you live in a european city if it has a significant african

population there will almost certainly be an african diaspora church even if you are not aware of it

and asian christians have also planted churches wherever they've migrated to there are twice as many

chinese evangelical churches in italy as the total of all of the evangelical churches of any kind in the

neighboring country of slovenia this new reality is a huge opportunity for the gospel but it's also a

huge challenge because the presence of thousands of diaspora churches isn't having anything like the

impact it should because so many of the church leaders are not able or willing to adapt their cultures

their churches to the culture and to the context i spoke to a chinese church leader recently he said

this the chinese diaspora churches are like beautiful flowers that have been planted in european soil but

they've forgotten to remove the pot we need to encourage diaspora and native church leaders to work

together and maybe digital media can be one of the ways to break those flower pots to see these churches

reach this next generation of europeans thirdly what's happening with the next generation amazing things

are happening amongst europe's youth we regularly hear about new revival movements in different countries

of europe this one really caught my eye it's scrocret fest in in croatia a christian festival for young

people from across the balkans it was the first event of this scale that's brought together a young

generation from across the whole region since the the war that there was in that part of europe a generation

ago but i also want to highlight another sociological reality in europe europe's birth rates over the last

25 years have collapsed some mediterranean countries now have rates that are amongst the lowest in the world

this chart shows europe's old age dependency ratio the number of people aged 65 plus per 100 people at working

age is expected to rise from around 30 in 2015 to between 50 and 60 and in some cases in the case of

italy and spain to between 70 and 80 by 2025 in other words for every five people of working age there will be

four pensioners all these older people also use digital media so as you innovate i would plea with you to think about

people like me as well those who are entering into this older generation because they are also using those

tools and we need to think about them there's going to be so many more older people in europe in the years to come

god has not given up on europe it may be out of the spotlight but whether that's through church planting

which is accelerating whether it's through diaspora churches which are multiplying everywhere or whether

that's through revival amongst the next generation god is at work in europe i would love to say when i do

this presentation again that there's a fourth thing happening in europe what is happening in the digital

space so i'm here today as much to speak as to learn from you and so i would as i say i would love to have

a fourth thing that i always say when i travel around what god is doing so i'm really excited about that

europe is not post-christian it's pre-revival and i say that not only because of what i see but also

because of what i believe europe is not post-christian because jesus christ is risen from the dead the

resurrection of jesus has trans transformed the vision of the disciples and it should do the same

for us how can europe be post-christian if jesus is still alive secondly europe is not post-christian

because the church is still here the church is here the spirit of god is here and through history whether

through persecution or corruption there have been many times when it seemed like the church was destined

to disappear and yet here we are how can europe be post-christian if the church is still here and

thirdly europe is not post-christian because we know how the story ends and it ends like this with

people from every tribe and tongue and nation standing before the throne and before the lamb every nation

of europe will be represented there too so i want to encourage you to look at europe in a new way not

through dark glasses let's let's change the story about what we're saying about europe let's stop talking

about europe as post-christian let's start to believe that it is pre-revival because that is what god is

doing right now everywhere we look so again i want to challenge you this morning um and this evening

wherever you are to to look at europe through new eyes to um pray for europe but also to consider how

digital media might be impacting in each of those three areas and how it could impact into the future

i'm thankful for this gathering thankful for this time together and as i said already i'm here to learn

so thanks so much for the opportunity to speak into you this morning and uh pray a blessing on this day

god bless you wonderful good morning from my side my name is thiele stadelmann i'm speaking to you from

germany this morning and we're talking about the unexpected opportunity for missions because of ai and

we are not going to talk about the opportunity of ai as a tool that can help us in our work as missionaries

as christians but for the opportunity that arises because of the way we can talk about our world view

about spirituality because everybody has questions about the future because of ai

i am a computer scientist not a missionary not a theologian i'm a computer scientist leading a

research center of 40 employees developing ai systems at a public university in switzerland

in zurich and let's dive directly into our topic to use our time well so how can ai be an opportunity for

missions think about it like follows maybe let's do together um an experiment do the think think about

the following for for a couple of seconds given ai how do you envision the future of our human societies

try try try to envision it what picture comes up of the future given that we now have ai systems

does it look anything like this maybe you can bet on it that for most people you're going to talk

about this question our future societies with ai being with us now um evokes pictures like this

like in the matrix where we humans are like morpheus who's tortured by ai systems agent smith in the

background very dystopian pictures lots of fear because of the technology being bad for us and

maybe eradicating humanity or killing our jobs or at least making our life somehow miserable and taking

away what we love this is what people very often have in mind and i conducted a lot of research into

what are the reasons for this and what uh struck me is that these dystopian narratives that are around

everywhere these narratives that you read in the books by professor harari the homo deus and so on

that you see in movies like the matrix that you see in open letters by the future of life institute that

you see basically in every major news outlet and these narratives these fear instilling narratives

are all based not on the technology we have or certain scientific facts they are based on the world

view of those interpreting these facts um so let us quickly dive into these world views that give rise to

dystopian narratives um ethicists tim netgebru and emil torres two researchers have recently analyzed these

philosophies or world views and came up with an acronym to talk about it i give you the reference there on the slide and they talk about the

the so-called test real bundle of philosophies or world views test will be an acronym standing for

things like transhumanism extra pianism singularitarism and so forth so what do these world views encompass

and let me tell you first these worldviews are very predominant uh in silicon valley amongst people who are

building ai technology amongst very uh people with high reach on social media like mr musk uh mr altman from

open ai and so on all these people you hear about every week they basically subscribe to these philosophies

what do these philosophies say well let's do a quick tour through this by rationalism they are saying

well we as humans are nothing but information processors we are basically a machine we are a computer

that takes input processes it and output something some information so basically we are the same as

computers and then by virtue of the next philosophy singularitarism they go forth assuming that um

when we are the same as technology technology can basically do everything that we can so they don't

need to prove for their assertion that ai can become conscious can become basically on eye level with

humanity or even more can become super intelligence just by self-improvement there's there's no scientific

proof for that or even an argument there's well it's it's a belief system that this could happen because

well we are conscious and we are the same and then it goes on to the last philosophy i want to touch

upon here the transhumanism that basically says well if we are the same as technology that doesn't make us

we are actually lower why well because we are um we are running on biological hardware so to say

and biological hardware is somehow rotting we have we need to digest we need to sleep we age at some

point we will die that's somehow inferior we should all become less human and more like machines that's a transhumanism

and so if this is the worldview shaping our most powerful narratives we have in the public sphere

it's actually no surprise that people get fearful listening to them why because these philosophies show

little regard for human worth and dignity now well if this is all based on worldviews

and that's good news we we don't have to subscribe to that worldview and actually we don't as christians

we have a completely different worldview of what is the human and what our future is just to give you

a couple of quotes i believe you're totally familiar with them the bible says we are not anything like just

information processors it says we are fearfully and wonderfully made made we are my values we are made in

the image of god we have dignity just because of that and god so much loved us that predominantly he gave

actually his only son um and we have hope in colossians 1 it says christ in you the hope of glory we have

hope of glory that is our worldview that is distinctly different than the view of people shaping a lot of the

public discourse on ai so we can because everybody is spreading their view of the future with ai based

on their worldview can utter a distinctly different and much more hopeful and so much better world view

by talking about our view of the world given also technology we need to be quick to talk about a christian

perspective on technology because i have the feeling that many christians somehow have inherited from i

don't know where um predominantly critical view of technology let me let me try to challenge that

quickly what could be a positive christian perspective on tech well the dictionary says and

the encyclopedia britannica technology is the application of scientific knowledge to the practical aims of human life

so i'm no greek scholar i'm a computer scientist but my theologian friends told me the original words for

in greek for technology are techne meaning arts craft and skill and logos that we know very well from the bible

it means word reason and especially in the biblical context the word of god so he is the not so

literal translation but i think not so a translation that has a lot of value of the word technology for us

a free translation could be technology is the art of applying god's word

to make life better and here's some evidence for it um in the first 10 chapters of the bible every time humans

create some mess um god gives them some sort of technology to deal with the consequences of their mess to deal

with the consequences of the fall for example um here the first one in genesis 3 we see that god gave adam and

eve uh coats of skin to close them and well you can find scholarly articles uh on the internet in scientific

journals explaining in detail how producing uh um clothes from from animal skins has been high tech a couple of

centuries before so god gives humans technology so we can i think say with a certain confidence that

technology is a god-given tool in a fallen world and yes it's also our temptation and things can also go

bad with technology but let's put a focus on technology is a god-given tool in a fallen world and so ai is a

tool in a foreign world it's not in itself in itself good or bad it's a tool that we can use others will

use it for their purposes we can use and for us it's predominantly also an opportunity to speak about

what we believe so let me conclude the scarcest resource today as i sense it is hope the thing we

most need in our world today is hope people are so hopeless and we have a tremendous opportunity here to spread

hope because of our worldview because our worldview is originally rich in hope it's a hopeful outlook on the future

and it's now the time to sow this hope it might be the biggest opportunity to speak about our view of

the world since maybe c is as loses time because well if you listen to elon musk if you listen to max

tagmark president of the future of life institute they all speak from their worldview they make it explicit

they say i believe this about the world that's why i think we're going this way or that so that's an

opportunity to make our invitation to make our worldview explicit as well and talk about it

boldly and say we believe this and because of that we see the following opportunities

so ai's most welcome side effect is that now world views are everywhere everywhere in the public debate

everywhere in the public discourse it's not anymore like 30 years ago or it all needs science and facts

and what we cannot see and cannot prove we will not talk about no it's the opposite world views are

everywhere and everybody needs to is is is asking okay who is the human in the light of this powerful

technology who are we what is our place in this world and we have so much to say about that as christians

from the bible from a biblical worldview so i encourage you to use this opportunity and talk boldly about

your faith because everybody now asks us questions because of ai thank you very much be richly blessed

good morning from romania it's so good to be here with you my name is andy fronius

and i have been a missionary as long as i can remember my mom is a missionary and she started a women

shelter in romania my wife and i we adopted four children and we're living in romania because of that

after seminary we joined young life a mission organization and we did youth ministry for seven

years we developed uh new works for young life work with international school students and with local

students and that whole package of being passionate for missions but also very interested in technology

has led me to be fascinated with the entire world of youtube and halfway through my youth ministry journey a young

person approached me and said andy you need to check out this youtuber from new york casey neistad he's a vlogger

a vlogging was very en vogue at the time and he was inspiring by video six that i watched of this

creator from new york i knew i had to buy a camera and i had to become a youtuber myself

so this kicked off this entire journey of acquiring gear you know gas gear acquisition syndrome i'm sure many of you guys here in the call are familiar with it

and and and then i learned i had to niche down and i picked a niche which is christian parenting and

youth ministry and started creating resources there and god has blessed that over the last seven years

to the point where today we are partnering with a czech youth organization called josiah venture

and we're taking everything that we've built over the last seven years with a team

and scale it to all of europe here's a little uh back story i started making videos um started doing

youth ministry and combined those two things that has grown we also had presentations on gen z on how to reach

them better so my main focus is actually training adults training youth workers parents and pastors

and we do that with a platform and this platform you can see over here it's called mr jugendarbeit mr

youth ministry in german what makes this platform so special is partnerships over the last seven years

years we have invited and partnered with 200 individual christian creators and mission organizations

that let us translate their stuff so the content mix on our platform is 80 translated 20 original content

which has allowed us to grow to one of the leading platforms on parenting and youth ministry in the german

uh language sphere and with a friend of mine dave patty you can see him over here he's the leader of josiah

venture we have decided that we'll merge and we will build an entire digital missions track for all of

central and eastern europe by taking this platform and scaling it to multiple languages and multiple

countries but on top of that we see the need to train christian creators so we established uh an

in-house event an invite only event we called it the digital mission summit we have done a few of those

and you can see um our first schedule uh take a screenshot if you want of of how we did it so we we

invited um christian creators from all around europe that um present the gospel um via their um avenue for

example there's alex alex is a 14 year old was a 14 year old young man from uh bulgaria

and he had an old broken phone and he was an orange i kid you not and a little orange as a tripod so he

leaned the phone um to the orange and he started doing bible studies because his grandpa who happens

to be the pastor of his church wouldn't allow him to preach saying he's too young so he did bible studies

on tick tock and if you're familiar with eastern europe tick tock has a very high saturation of

that market and today when he uploads a video does a bible study he has usually like 500 people being

there with him in the live streams and many people give their lives to christ as a result so we're

gathering these people from all across europe and putting them together to train them and i'm sure that

we will do more of these in the future to train christian creators and then give them also the

platform to grow here's another example of what i'm doing i am part of a creator community by april in

alter if you don't know her she's on youtube she's really good i have learned a lot from her and as

creators we're hanging out in a creator crew for six months at a time daily we have thumbnail clinics we

have title clinics we have masterminds so my my time is spent mostly focusing on how can we have a

stronger presence as christian creators on youtube and and with these things in the background

i would like to focus on the task how can we encourage small churches with resources and how can we walk

alongside them to help them introduce adolescence to christ and help them grow in their faith and

for me it is clear that young people are spending a majority of their time on digital platforms

there is this fascinating talk on youtube by a young man you stop that here real quick uh by a young man

and he says if you look at our entire life and put a dot for every month that is available and if you

subtract the time that you will sleep and work and groom yourself have hygiene and all those things you

you have about a third of your time remaining and at the current course of action 92 percent of that free

time will be spent looking at a screen by any person not just by gen alpha or gen z but the majority of

people will spend 92 percent of their free time looking at a screen and that is why we have to be present in their world

um what i've noticed in eastern europe especially um but also in switzerland is that tick tock and other social media avenues

are usually the first point of contact for young people to hear about christ and specifically it is worship

videos the entire genre um for example there was this girl in winter tour in switzerland and she

showed her mother um one of these videos yeshua the worship song that goes for 18 minutes or so

and said mom i want to go where they do this and the mother didn't know what this was so she took this

piece of information to her hairdresser um and asked her hairdresser if she knows where they do this um

worship and and she says yes i'm going to a church you can come with us and that happened two years ago

and they have been faithful members found a home in that church so worship music is very powerful and then a

young police officer in our church he joined about half a year ago he saw again coming from a non-faith

background a tick tock video on somebody just explaining a bible verse so the word of god

there was no hype video no trending video no clickbaity video it was just the bible explained one

verse at a time and that spoke to him so that he started looking and he joined a digital community

and the digital community said you have to find a local church so he googled our church and joined

and we baptized him a few months ago all of this shows me two things the holy spirit is already alive

and active and working on those digital platforms and the second thing it does not depend on me i just get

to uh water to put nutrients there and to disciple as as things grow along but we have to be present in

these digital platforms the way i achieve it personally is i i have built this ghost publication this is the

german version of it and ghost is similar to wordpress it's a free open source project you can download it and

self-host it if you want to or you can go with their hosting which is more expensive but what's so

beautiful about ghost if i log in in the back end here i have everything in one place i can create

articles i can see my database of members i can see the tracking of visitors and numbers so i no longer

need google analytics or plausible i no longer need convertkit or similar email service providers because

it's all in here all in one piece of software and what we'll do going forward is we'll take this put

it on one german server and then have clones for each language version and then have an api connection

and then have an ai pre-translate content so let's say the ministry leader in romania wants a specific

series of articles on easter and he just says full request it gets pre-translated article and then can

push it out which is super easy and fascinating and lean and simple so i'm very very passionate

about this as you can tell but the future is not this because i see at the same time a very risky thing

going on if you look at the traffic that google provides that has dropped since easter this year

so significantly that we had to correct our calculations we thought that by the end of

this year we will have a million individual visitors spending about two minutes on the platform which we

won't we won't even have half a million anymore as we used to in the past but we'll have less visitors

and i i assume that the day will come where we will have probably 10 000 visitors a year as people are

moving towards ai solutions and getting the answers directly from their llm this leads me to push for

email newsletters we have to own the community and my high recommendation like if you're in digital

ministry build your newsletter and build it fast and partner so that's it from my side i hope it was a

little inspiring and showing you what's happening around eastern and central europe

thank you so very much these have been three intense first talks we heard um having an overview on the

situation in a not post post christian but pre-revival europe looking at the opportunities of ai and seeing how

digital uh platforms and gen z should be um utilized and brought together um working in um learning

communities together and empowering those going forward so now we want to step forward and hear from

one of our sponsors who's making this conference possible and we first gonna see a short video and

then hear a little bit about next steps by the jesus film project so let's watch a clip first

do you remember the last time you watched something that moved you spiritually maybe it was a sermon

clip or a short film or even the jesus film but what happened next most of us just scroll on to the next

thing and the impact fades for the last 40 years jesus film project has been at the forefront of visual

storytelling capturing and translating thousands of hours of media that have touched millions but pressing

play is no longer enough to truly change lives we need to help people go beyond just watching content

everyone everywhere needs a next step to discover and follow jesus let me introduce you to next steps

a revolutionary tool that lets viewers seamlessly engage and take action directly from the screen they watched

our content with a further tap users can hear the gospel ask for prayer connect with the local community

and grow their faith through experiences called journeys journeys combine clips from the jesus film project

and custom content with interactive elements tailored to each viewer's needs and interests across the world

next steps is already proving effective in ukraine pastor's wives are using it to guide faith communities

and invite people to church in malaysia campus crusade for christ is using it to help students follow jesus

and invite others into prayer groups and even in korea digital missionaries are using culturally

relevant journeys to share christ with their communities imagine the ripple effect if every viewer could take a

personalized step towards discovering and following jesus well now they can join us in providing next steps

because everyone everywhere deserves a next step to take let's give that to them

good morning everybody my name is chloe hannon and i'm coming to you from dublin in ireland and it's a

pleasure to be with you here this morning in this innovative event kudos to the organizers i'm loving

engaging with conference content from the comfort of my office where i get to have no awkward small chat

while my coffee break which is you know always the most awkward part about a conference

so my name is chloe as i said and i serve as the regional strategy director for jesus film project

in europe i have been with crew for over 16 years and i just joined jesus film project

as a digital strategist about three years ago where prior to that i had 13 years in campus ministry with

a specific focus on digital ministry so for me digital is just a strategy we have lived through a revolution

in our time we can call this the digital revolution sure um but really what has changed is how people

send and receive information something that is fundamental to our our existence has shifted on

its axis thanks to that revolution of the digital world wide web in a short period of time the power

of digital has changed how politicians are elected how corporations sell and most importantly

how individuals see themselves in this world europe is somewhere where we have bibles in every language

we have churches in every city so according to popular christian metrics we're a reached continent

but i live in the reality that is very different to that where churches plus bibles does not equal

believers and as missionaries in a digital space we are competing in a saturated market with

opportunities and challenges that are fast-paced and ever evolving as a continent we are technically

more connected than ever but spiritually maybe just still as disconnected as ever

jesus film project is a media and technology agency for mission and we are working to develop resources

that our partners are using in real time on the field we are very passionate about the power of media

as you saw raya in that video tell you jesus film has a history of standing over on 50 years over 50 years of

impact from the original jesus film that has brought the gospel into over 2000 language and cultures

but the digitalization of information is at the heart of our strategy now moving into 2026 while we are

developing media that reaches the unbeliever we are also looking at the missional digital strategy

leading me to introduce you to why i'm here next steps next steps is a platform where you can create

customizable tappable journeys that can be deployed within your digital ecosystem it offers a practical

bridging solution in the gaps that naturally exist between channels creating

digital journeys within the digital journeys that can be tailored to your audience within the platform

you can access the full library of jesus film media sure but you can also upload your own media

the user experience is modeled after that social media modality of tap tap tap with options within the

journey and then the overall design allows you to facilitate online to offline connection with direct

integration to text apps like whatsapp or telegram the design behind next steps is reflective of the

overall digital revolution that i'm talking about the individualization of the world how the individual

has seen themselves has shifted so we see this emerging of agency and choice being paramount the days of that

corporate mentality are dwindling and anything that has centralized control has been railroaded by that

transformational principle of radical trust which is what the communication theorists termed when they

looked at that release of control from the centralized linear and singular sources to the

empowerment of the user the individual in the grand scheme that i would like to call the multiplication

of choose your own adventure books which if you know you know next steps allows you to facilitate a

self-directed journey while also holding on to your core convictions of mission destiny destiny and

ultimately introducing them to jesus when someone encounters next steps they are invited to choose their own

path forward they might decide to watch a short video that sparks curiosity about life and faith they might want

to ask a big question that's been on their mind for a while or they might take the bold step of

chatting directly with someone who's ready to listen we know that faith journeys don't look the same

everywhere in fact they rarely look the same from one city to the next never mind across the 40

plus countries in europe we are a patchwork of languages histories and cultures what resonates

in warsaw might not resonate in lisbon what feels natural in helsinki may feel foreign athens but

next steps allows us to do two things at once first to share content and pathways that can

cross borders and languages and secondly to adapt so that churches and ministries can shape it to fit

their own voice their own culture and their own way of connecting with seekers it's flexible enough

to carry the breadth of europe's diversity but structured enough to give teams a clear pathway for engagement

a friend of mine who was involved in the development of next steps from new zealand and one of his home

teams began experimenting with next steps to connect with students online and before that they were using

mostly cold contact evangelism which i'm a big fan of and spent 13 years doing on on campus and

sometimes it can just feel super weird you know you're walking up to students and starting an awkward

conversation and um and at times also you can feel like you spend a lot of time approaching people

without getting much traction so the new zealand team introduced next steps and something shifted for

them because instead of randomly approaching students they were able to connect with those

who had already engaged online and those who were already spiritually curious so next steps became the bridge

it gave those students an easy no pressure point and it gave the team a way into real life conversations

about faith in slovakia one ministry leader told me that students often avoid public religious events

and but they are very open to engaging privately through digital platforms so two like next steps have

given their team an ability to create a safe space for students to talk about faith in western europe

in places like the uk france or the netherlands we often encounter what i would call a polite indifference

to faith people aren't hostile to it but it's really just not on their radar and next steps allows us to gently

put it back on their radar in a way that isn't confrontational different cultures different

challenges but one digital tool that is adapting to them all the next generation is not waiting outside

church doors hoping for someone to invite them in they're online they're searching and they're asking

questions scrolling late at night when no one else sees their doubts or fears and if we don't meet them

there someone else will next steps empowers teams to do just exactly that to engage seekers in ways that

make sense in their cultural context it allows us to bridge the online world and the offline world

and crucially it gives us a way to move people from digital curiosity into real relationship with local believers

leaders let me give you a couple of practical examples of how this can work and how we're seeing

partners adapted so we have some churches that are integrating next steps into their websites or their

social media giving visitors a way to engage with their culture and their experience of church before

they even show up in person we have campus teams like i said the new zealand one who are using it to filter

through hundreds of digital contacts and finding those who are ready for deeper conversations we have

regional ministries that are adapting content in different languages ensuring seekers don't just get

information in english but can hear it in their heart language in particular one of my favorite stories comes from

serbia a team there has developed a next steps journey um with a poster that they put in a bus stop and a qr

code and it's just got a smiley face and a sad face and it just says are you good or bad and so where

people are waiting for public transport which is notoriously slow in their city and they can scan

this qr code and take a quiz and it ends up with them encountering options for spiritual content and

that has resulted in them having contacts that have gone from offline to online other way around online to offline

so as you think about your ministry your own context i would encourage you to ask what would it look like

if seekers in my city in my nation could take that one small next step towards jesus that's the power of

next steps it doesn't do the workforce but it gives us the bridge the starting point and the connection we

need to walk with people as they explore and in a europe that is digitally connected but spiritually

searching that could make a difference please go to next steps dot is make your own account and start

making some journeys today thank you for having me the first um uh session of keynotes we are going

to be focusing a little bit on the big picture the question of what is happening across europe for that

we got um the regional one of the regional directors of the lausanne movement europe uh jim memory with us and

he will gonna gonna give us a big picture on what we can see what is happening in

ha ha oops it looped i uh i thought it was gonna fade to black and all of a sudden he just kept

talking and doing the same thing all over again hey listen so it was so cool uh to listen to that i i

love the idea of of the uh you know the choose your own adventure i did get the reference um there at

at the end thank you chloe man i want to thank simon and his team for all the all the work to put

together the the european digital missionary conference uh we the church digital we handed a

lot of the background details but actually creating the conference was with simon and and uh and his

team and and a lot of the european crowd especially out of a mission alliance and so thank you simon and

and and crowd with that and so we are are going to land the plane here it was so much fun doing the

conference it was so much fun seeing the the translation 76 countries uh represented accessing

the content live and on demand like it's it's going to be a pleasure starting this and more in the days

to come so but at this point we're going to land the plane for for simon uh this is uh jeff with the

church digital thanks for jumping on this stream tuesday uh we're going to be teasing the gaming

conference more information coming up at missionary.www.missionary.digital/gaming that'll be the last

of our four summits uh this season thanks y'all have a good one