EP364 Final Preview: Jeff Teases the European Digital Missionary Summit

all right hey everybody episode 364 364 of the church digital podcast just doing a little mic

check here making sure all my settings look good on the screen and hopefully i sound good

wherever you are watching from thanks for tuning in here for episode 364 this is going to be

the final preview the uh last minute yo we're doing something in europe stream here with the

church digital podcast we've been doing and you know unless you've been under a rock uh you know

that we've been doing a series of a digital rock i'm not sure what that looks like but we've been

doing a series of uh digital missionary summits uh this this fall or september october and so we're on

third of four right now so we started with uh the uh digital neighborhoods jason morris uh put that

together jmo and i uh worked hard to make that happen it was awesome uh then we did our second

of four the second one was uh control all recover christ-centered recovery that was last week and uh

we'll talk more about that here in a second and then we're coming up here on the european digital

missionary summit where we're really going to highlight a lot of the things that are happening

in europe europe is a post-christian environment welcome to 2025 europe is post-christian uh and as a

result it's interesting the buildings well the buildings the cathedrals the the they're they're now um

museums but what is working is digital and so we're getting to see how digital is moving in europe i'm so

excited about this can't wait to get into it even some surprises but let's back up let's back up i

don't have not said this publicly yet this is the first place i'm going to say it so you heard it here

first i always say if you're watching the stream even on demand you're getting the raw unfiltered jeff

everybody else they get the they get the filter they get the you know the maybe the politically

correct version the you know watch the tongue a little bit you know don't you know think about

something before you say it publicly here on this show nah man it just it comes out so yet another

reason to come watch uh the stream here tuesdays at whatever time two o'clock we may be well we're

going to be shifted a whole bunch of stuff around at one point but let's talk let's talk about the

uh control i'll recover excuse me that burp was brought to you by summit cola diet summit cola diet

uh this is uh off brand it's good off brand but it's off brand uh i'm trying to think where we got

this from somebody literally thumbs up right as i burped so if you are are responding on youtube to

my thumbs up by my burp thank you for that that that just makes it so much more meaningful at some

level i'm getting way off all right let's bring it back i'm fishing bringing it back bring it back

all right um that that was me fly fishing bring it back bring it back all right uh let's talk about

uh control recover so you know we had the first conference um of digital neighborhoods went really

good no really no tech issues and it was a first time at hubelo really loved the hubelo experience

even you know even as we're going into our third in our last of the season for hubelo love hubelo

you know it's been a been a great solid platform we had an unfortunate situation that popped up

right as our conference was starting i remember getting uh seeing a seeing a message in um

in um discord somebody said hey i can't access the the uh conference the hubelo website

for a control i'll recover and and i laughed and i was like oh well you know it's probably a

cache issue what's your link and and they said they said the url and i was like oh yeah it could be

saved as a cache because i know that you know word revolution just updated that page

use this one instead it's hard-coded it'll it'll go there directly i promise and the person said back

to me in control i'll recover oh no that one's not working either it's giving me the same error message

and um you know i i i try not to cuss i really do um but i'm going to be honest uh in my mind there was

a silent f-bomb that that went out when when they said that because i knew that there was a a a much

deeper problem that we we were facing and and essentially um 75 percent of the world's population

could not access the control out recover um website for for the conference they could not access who

below 75 of the world's population when we were trying to launch the conference could not access it

now 75 of the world's population is not trying to access our website i'm not an ego maniac but but

the fact is is that there were a lot of people that were trying to access the conference and they

couldn't make it as a matter of fact the first guest speaker conrad cooper from project exodus i'm

texting with him and his team frantically trying to figure out how to get him on because he was the

first speaker right off the bat and in south africa it was mostly international that was having the tech

issues mostly international could not access it which is funny because you know us in the u.s we're like

everything's fine and you know all the tech checks everything that you know andy and word revolution

and all the work that we had done during the week no issues whatsoever but what it ended up being was a

a dns

there's a problem with the dns uh domain name server doesn't mean anything

was not word revolution's fault was a mistake in the dns registry that it populated out and uh it took

you know an hour and a half maybe two hours to fix but you know when you do and if you ever do

online conferences you did that beginning throng the energy like that first push that's who you're

getting for the day you know you'll see some people come in or out but you really want to try strong

um and uh they just didn't um we didn't get it for that conference

so uh love the conference love the content love the direction i was surprised if you go back you can

watch uh stacy of with uh 363 stacy knapp uh tcd's chaplain and director of care and i we kind of

uh relive some of the conference and we actually we showed conrad cooper's talk but um it it occurred

to me as i was watching this conference it was like this is the best conference that no one is seeing

because we really we just didn't get the the attention maybe it's because like we were dealing

with uh very sensitive topics maybe people really just weren't weren't comfortable dealing with that

didn't want to sign up for it maybe i listen i i could speculate all day long but this is what we're

going to do uh we are going to rebroadcast control alt recover uh in its in the in its entirety uh online

uh we're going to we're going to broadcast it on youtube to a date to be determined i i really do

believe it is the best conference we've ever done that nobody saw like we had strong numbers in april

we had strong numbers for neighborhoods

control alt recover strong topics it was funny one of my one of the pastor friends i'm working with right now

uh i was on a text thread with a couple pastors and they were encouraging me

about the conference uh and and one of them this guy's an older pastor in his in his 70s

and uh i'm guessing 70s if you're watching i'm sorry i really have no idea how old you are

again um and uh but he asked me he's he's like he's like so also how's the conference going

and literally i was like oh i was being a smart aleck in the in the moment if you know me you know

i was like oh yeah there's some you know south african guy on stage right now talking

about being addicted to porn and uh he's like wow you don't hear that every day and i was like

no you do not and and so even you know addressing some of that there was a lot more

conversation centered around dealing with the addiction at the personal level i i

i really did not anticipate that i don't want to relive all i'm to the conference all i'm telling

you is that in in the coming weeks we will broadcast we'll make it known and we're going to rebroadcast

the conference in its entirety control out recover moving forward and and get it out there for everybody

to see okay all right so let's do this evidently got this conference coming up maybe you've heard of it

the european digital missionary summit the european digital missionary summit i've got

the website here a rally cry for those reimagining how the gospel moves there's a great video of here

simon dirks better with sound let me see if i can can i play this with sound i can play this with sound

and it's occurring to me now you're not hearing this as i'm playing it okay so you can hear it but you

can't so it's not very helpful my settings aren't working real well for it and so hey simon's got a

great video here on it check this out yo check this out yo 8 30 a.m cest germany um that's 15 hours

actually i think that clock's wrong i think it's i think it's 12 hours i think it's 12 hours because

this video this conference starts at 2 a.m eastern um and that's that's 8 a.m that time

or maybe it's 2 30 either way register uh you can reserve your spot right now listen we've had

over 550 people register for the digital missionary conference here's some fun stats uh for the european

specifically the european 550 for the european some fun stats for this um far less than um

how do i want to say this far less than 50 percent maybe closer to 38 39 not quite 40 percent americans a

lot of internationals have registered in fact this conference alone we had 75 nationalities

seven 76 last i checked actually this morning 76 nationalities have registered for the for the

digital missionary conference and what was what was interesting to me is that it was not the i i was

expecting this to be a massive conference for europeans and and i think it is an awesome conference where

we're platforming what's happening in europe um but the the the the countries after america america's

got a couple hundred people that that are going to be there uh give or take but after that it's it's like

it's it's it's nigeria it's india it's malaysia it's australia it's new zealand um like it's

it's asia i mean there's some europe sprinkled in great britain uh france there's some some uh ink

some europe sprinkled in but it's a lot of europe it's a lot of asia and it's a lot of um

uh oceania and it's just it was like i was i was like what how why what are we doing that because

that was that was not what i had expected and it and it occurred to me this is and i can't guarantee

this but it's just my thought walking into the conference this is the first time that we the

church digital the digital missionary conferences have existed not on a western time zone you know we

usually do them 10 11 a.m eastern and you know oceania it's like 2 a.m they ain't got any chance

well i mean this is six hours shifted more towards europe six or seven hours and so it's it's a little

more achievable for them in that space so it's it occurred to me as we're walking into this much more

global presence uh you know uh 10 15 percent more than what we typically see uh and we're also getting

a lot more um a lot more countries more more spread overall by the way if you're curious last time i ran

the numbers over all the digital missionaries conferences it's been 95 close to 100 countries

that we've had registered for at least one of the conferences and actually i haven't even run the

numbers for gaming yet so i'll have to do that soon is that crazy 100 countries are interested in in

digital evangelism and digital discipleship how to share jesus digitally it's a new world y'all and uh

like i i love listen i spent my day uh at a brick and mortar church i sat in a staff meeting uh with with

pastors and staff people that do ministry sunday morning they're 11 a.m sunday morning 11 a.m in a

brick and mortar building there's value in that i i am i am not the person that's going to criticize

that but i will say you're going to reach somebody different by doing the stuff that we're going to be

talking about here at the european it's a different type of person and it's the person that is not

connecting to those buildings i guarantee you you're going to hear that maybe a dozen times here uh with

the european a digital missionary summit uh and so man find your tribe connect with digital missionaries

across europe who are on the same mission hear what's actually working from for digital discipleship

right now step into the mission get clarity uh encourage to lead where you're already planted

you can attend anywhere stream from any device be fully present wherever you are even on the go

like there's mobile apps for built for europe and now it is designed around europe's culture

language and context i'm getting more into language here in a second and it is interactive

and intentional engage in real conversations if you know uh if you know me you know the conference

as i do online conferences it is not sit back and consume uh it's lean in and engage and so open

tables going as always that this conference is doing more of a ted talk format so it's shorter quicker

talks uh and then open tables to dialogue open q a rooms as well all the guests will be available for

q a in rooms after the fact so excited uh by things uh hey here's what's here's some of the topics

um let me see if i can make this bigger yeah this might be better for you uh what on earth is god

doing in europe today's context for church and mission in europe uh jim memory he is the regional leader

for lausanne in europe so excited about that a.i the unexpected opportunity for missions uh philio stadelman

uh from yeah za school of engineering in switzerland uh andy fronius uh mr uh guggendabit i'm probably

mispronouncing that i apologize equipping content creators and gen z for digital mission uh that's exciting

uh daniel uh uh shonky a mission among gamers he's with alliance mission aki a friend of tcd uh being

light in hip-hop communities uh philip kroll impact of a platform for digital ministry uh redeem your

digital ministry from dima lavrov from uh cyprus actually i think he's for some reason i thought

he was russia but anyway uh tobias clay tobias is a friend as well from credo building digital

frameworks for evangelism daniel fedorian a dean of baptist theological institute of bucharest in romania

the advantages and challenges of integrating digital technology in the training of christian leaders

man that's a deep talk right there uh and stefan l uh is uh with uh the adler blick podcast in germany

business leadership and ai for the kingdom and so so excited about this as with all of the conferences

let me shrink it a little bit as with all our conferences this round uh we've got a lot of

sponsors that have been stepping in and helping to to make this happen and so you know thank you to the

sponsors uh for doing that like it's been uh just to even see how this conference this particular conference

has gone more international it's been um a lot of fun even taking some of these conf these these sponsors

into unknown spaces into international spaces getting them connected with a new global audience so

not gonna lie that's been like a fun thing to do on the side so but hey listen um and we're gonna i

want to get into i want to get into the conference website so here's what you can do uh you can go to

uh right now you can go to europe.missionary.digital uh open a new web browser europe e-u-r-o-p-e dot

missionary.digital if you registered if you haven't registered for the conference you got to register for

the conference go back here to uh the missionary.digital www.missionary.digital

slash europe you can see it right there what kind of my picture's covering it up and come down here to

reserve your spot click the button and tell us where you're coming from and select your country

by the way it's kind of cool like seriously 76 countries registered for this conference tomorrow so

so cool traffic on the website's been incredible just so thankful for what i'm seeing there but if you

registered for the conference now it's time to get you connected to the conference website what you can do

is um you can go to uh europe.missionary.digital it'll take you to a web page and all you got to do is

enter in your email address the one you registered with and it should email you a code if it emails you a

code that's awesome enter the code in if it doesn't email you the code i'm gonna tell you a secret it's a

back door uh and so anyone can access the the conference for free it's for free anyway but even

without registering all you got to do is when it asks you for the code enter in 2025 2025 and so enter your

email address in and enter in the code 2025 and you'll be given access to the conference it's a

it's a back door tell everybody i don't care uh but you know help us get the word out for it create your

conference get set up here but you can start to see uh the sessions the people that are speaking

at the sessions you know they got me speaking i'm just i'm like this much here a little bit uh but

there's all sorts of sessions there's breakout rooms to ask questions there's a list of the speakers you

can start to dialogue with the sponsors as always would love for you all to interact download some of

the stuff from the sponsors tables a video of me to explain what's going on a leaderboard for gaming

to to kind of see uh there's uh some gamination that's that's built into the platform that we're

kind of taking advantage of and so you know that's the basic for what's here on the european digital

missionary summit uh the schedule is here so you can you know all you see where i says click join a

speaker i'm a speaker you're not so you don't have that but if you click on more info you can see a

list of of the keynotes and the times that it's happening from 3 to 4 10 a.m eastern i'm going to be

speaking in front of an audience live probably about 305 this morning uh tomorrow morning wednesday

morning i told my wife i'm not planning on sleeping i'm just gonna drink the coffee some more of this

caffeinated uh summit cola and i will be i'll be up for the night no problem i i don't sleep at night

anyway so i'll sleep the day away tomorrow so that's that's what you can expect here uh with the european

digital uh missionary summit but wait there's more so we've got 76 countries coming in and uh you know

europe and in all these different languages and uh and and my friend um

my friend simon was like hey he keeps asking this question and and you know god bless him andy and i

were too busy to hear him like the fifth or sixth time and so he asked seven eight times and and

finally i think last week i heard him i was like we have we got to do something he says hey can we

integrate in interprify into the plan to uh hubelo and uh and so i did a couple things first off i went

into chat gpt to google what interprify was because i had no idea and then i uh looked at interpret

and looked at the websites oh this is cool and then i went up here to you know resources and integrations

and discovered yes it does integrate with hubelo i was like all right let's figure out how to do this

so what interprify does is live translation uh ai based live translation as in ai will process the

audio that's said in the conference live and within four or five seconds after hearing the uh audio

will come back with subtitles in different languages and ai voice audio in different languages

so i get on with uh interprify have a couple meetings with them this is so funny i think i called them

yeah i called them tuesday night of last week uh i filled out the form on the website tuesday night

before the wednesday conference uh wednesday morning before the wednesday conference last week before

all space recover um control all recover um all space recover that's a that's a a hat tip if you if

you if you if you know what i'm talking about all space but control all recover i'm so glad i didn't do

that in the conference i was expecting to uh control all recover it was right before that conference i'm

actually on the on a google meet call with uh interprify lining up all the deals but here's what we're

doing the conference is literally going to be broadcast in 10 different languages the european

digital missionary conference will be translated into in addition to english 10 separate languages i i can't even

tell you what they all are right now um french uh spanish portuguese russian hindi korean like we we

i sat down with simon and we looked at the the the chief number of of countries that in europe that they

were getting connected with as well as some of the other countries outside of the european uh regions that

they that the conference was connecting with and was like okay let's come up with a list of it and so

we we rattled off and now i actually i do want to to find that list give me a second i just i need to

click on some stuff here to get it figured out

spanish french german portuguese russian polish romanian finnish korean hindi

y'all this is it's gonna be crazy we're i i am so excited to test out this software and so if you're

going to the conference tomorrow here's what you want to do up here at the top you know we we've we've

showed this menu bar in the past but reception schedule there's a new button here that's labeled

translation a new button right there that's labeled translation and it's got a little like chat bubble

on it click on it and if there's audio that's happening right now uh like if the conference was going on

you would be able to click on audio translation and select the country select the language that you want

audio or uh you can select um caption and captions start to to fill on the screen um text

now it's it's like the conference is i'm assuming the conference is going to be primarily in english

but you could do subtitles in german and you could listen to audio in hindi or you can do subtitles in

in french and uh language in in um russian like you you can do either one or multiple towards it like

it's it's really really cool like i was watching this and i was like oh man we're yeah i'm in i'm in

we're in you don't have to sell me it was so funny these sales guys they like to sell right and he kept

selling me and i was like dude dude just send me the contracts just send me the contracts i'll sign

it i'll sign it right now well let's hey you know what's the payment plan can we structure this do you

have a non-profit discount i mean these were the questions like i just just like give me the thing to

sign i signed it before the conference last week literally it's like boom boom boom and uh man so it

it was so it was so easy to integrate in and roll out um not of course now i'm jinxing it assuming

everything will work great for the conference but we're definitely excited to offer interpify for this

hey look i'm gonna be blunt right here um and maybe somebody's watching this that would be interesting

interpify is um was not it was not in our budget interpify cost 2500 to offer live translation for

550 people uh in 10 different languages globally to help them get connected into this for a free

conference we just picked up another 2500 expense on top of other things now the conferences are

typically our way of fundraising i've talked about that through the church digital and so

sponsor donations pay it forward donations all of this is you know helps us do future conferences but

also helps us with year in yummy year to year operation costs 75 to 80 percent of our annual uh budget is

covered off of conference sponsorships and so um and that number is decreasing as our expenses go up but

hopefully sponsorships go up you know it's funny like this actually is a expense uh increase right

and so here's what i'm asking i'm asking for and i don't i normally don't do this on the stream

but seriously i would love for somebody to step up love for three people here's what i want

i would love for three people to step up this is what i'm asking uh three people each person donate

eight hundred dollars to the church digital tcd we're a non-profit 501c3 in the us uh if three

people donate 800 that's 2400 i think it was 2497 i'll eat that hundred believe me i will be okay with

that but if i could get three people three churches three companies three organizations three entities to

pick up 800 a piece that would allow for 2400 to come in to tcd to cover this uh interprify expense

we're gonna do this in the future like uh and that's part of what i was i wanted to say we're gonna

like make this like make this a thing interprify assuming it works well tomorrow all the all the beta

tests have been incredible

and i'm very excited to see our global reach extend on you know there was a i i don't know how to explain

this but i i don't think google's lying to me when the conference last week um the number one website

the number one country that was on the hublo website outside of america the control all recover

hublo website specifically the number one country the number two country america being one it's china

like google's not lying to me uh i i i cross-checked the way i was running the report

um and and that just kind of threw me for a loop but we the church digital are definitely getting

a global audience and global exposure and so using tools like uh live translation and captioning for

multilingual events and interprify is beautiful by the way interprify is not paying me to say any of

this or keep their website up on the stream for this long although they should maybe need to have that

conversation after the conference but we're very excited about what interprify is offering so check

out the reception area to get a full list of what's going on in the conference if you need to create your

profile uh you know your photos and things like that please do that the more that you put publicly out

there the more that people will engage with you the full schedule is here so you can see exactly what's

going on as well as when each of the keynotes are happening and so all that information is uh listed

here translation like i said that'll make more sense not tomorrow it'll make more sense when or that'll

make more sense tomorrow not today sponsors this is a big one we want you to hang out here uh with all of

our sponsors global church movements the church digital alliance mission i want to thank simon

and alliance mission so much for being the heart of this european digital missionary summit jesus film

project god tools true center right now media bam portals reliant regeneration project exodus there is so

much that's happening here and uh we're so thankful for all of our sponsors uh and their uh they're

sponsoring this conference and providing resources for digital missionaries like you and so if you've

not gotten your free right now media account or if you haven't downloaded the next steps app or the

god tools app all this is free done your free true center assessment um you know bam bam portals may be the

hot takeaway of the conference i'm so excited to see what bam's going to look like by the way it's business's

mission uh literally it's like creating an e-commerce uh website that generates funds for missionaries

it's it's e-commerce shopify e-commerce uh to generate revenue for missionaries while they're

while they're on mission as digital missionaries i would think y'all would be interested in that

uh and then regeneration project exodus man that was great for the conference

last week so check out some of the information here on the sponsors then of course there's tables we love

tables being able to connect with people um uh through the tables ask questions dialogue sponsors are

great open tables as well are just as good love seeing that and want to see more of that so lean

into the tables me as it literally says right here meet someone new i i i the thing the people that get

the most impact the people that get the most impact this is what they tell me i like this is not me

projecting this is what i'm heard uh the favorite thing is talking to other people at tables meeting

people they didn't know and learning from their experiences lean into the conference don't sit back

lean in engage and participate rooms um nothing new here these are all set up as um

um breakouts uh not breakouts uh oh question and answer after each of the sessions there's going

to be like a 10 15 minute break and the tables will be open if you do have questions that you want to

speak to a particular speaker you can go straight to that room and talk to that person there and then

there's the event feed the social media feed nobody's posted on this one yet we got to get it going

uh and so take the time to to do that points polls and things on that as well and then of course you

may remember the my schedule um and then the notifications and then the yes stuart sent me a

test last week um the messages pain that you can interact with like who below is an incredible

platform we're excited about it excited to be doing another round of conferences on it uh coming up

and uh excited honestly excited to learn some things from europe later the tonight in by my count

12 hours from 12 hours from right now 12 hours from right now i will probably

log in and sit down at a table uh jacked up on caffeine and try to stay away

i like the music today

all right so here's what i need you to do if you've registered if you've not yet registered for

the conference go and do it reserve your spot uh www.missionary.digital slash europe if you have

registered awesome good for you who are you bringing to the conference uh we've got some um

media kits available missionary.digital slash uh europe media kit you know what an easier link would be

share s-h-a-r-e dot missionary dot digital share s-h-a-r-e dot missionary dot digital click on europe

and so here are the confirmed speakers and topics as well as a number of graphics man i love these i

grab these and i throw them on instagram and facebook uh so do that invite some people maybe

text them directly whatsapp them directly um i mean listen we are translating this thing into 10

different languages does that mean that you may know some people now that can engage with the content

better you'd like to join you maybe a a donor sponsor maybe uh somebody that you're asking to

join the vision and partner with you uh maybe maybe some people that really don't understand what you're

doing and uh this is an opportunity to give them some exposure or show them some other other ways to

validate the mission that you're trying to do take advantage of this conference and uh and use it to better

your uh digital missionary uh approaches i'm so excited y'all it's gonna be great so doors are opening uh

going back to the official european digital missionary website doors are opening 8 30 a.m cest

germany time october 1st that's tomorrow 8 30 a.m cest pretty sure that's 2 30 a.m uh u.s eastern

that's the thing y'all all right hey uh so here's what's going on the conference is wednesday

excited about that thursday i'm doing a stream uh we're gonna have simon uh simon dirks

uh from um sorry project exodus mission alliance we're gonna have simon from mission alliance

coming in alliance mission and uh and he was he's the host of the european digital missionary

summit he works with tcd works with mission alliance has a digital church german digital

church network runs a digital church dude is like digital hook line and sinker and he's about eight

feet tall um i actually have no idea what the translation of that is into the metric system

us can we just adopt a metric system and just be done with it thank you um okay so anyway dude simon's

gonna jump on a stream we're gonna talk about you know some of our favorite talks takeaways from the

conference so you look for that on uh thursday coming up but you know at least from where we are today

it's gonna be it we've got you know two of the four conferences down the third one is coming up

tomorrow and then the the digital missionary gaming summit

digital missionary gaming summit is going to kick off on um october 8th now that's not going to be in

hoovulo i'm excited about this because it's going to be 100 in discord 100 in discord

i keep trying to like make suggestions well what if we integrate this website or what if we like late

no no no 100 in discord 100 in discord okay andy and uh and layton have been working hard on

the european excuse me on the gaming uh the digital missionary gaming conference and so it's going to

be really cool really cool to see that happen on october 8th and then i take a nap

a long nap a well-deserved nap honestly i'll sleep good after after europe the you know i don't

this is not the face of a gamer although i am spending way too much time on this last war

ios game like it's i'm i'm not addicted but i spend too much time still maybe i am addicted

that might be a conversation for a different day hey you know what guys i'm gonna land the plane uh

ladies and gentlemen i am gonna land the plane and so thanks for hanging out with me today

uh for everybody in europe that's making me wake up at two in the morning or not go to sleep tonight

so that i can be part of the year no no guilt implied i volunteered i love it i'm gonna be running

uh the little tech support widget basically hey if y'all get bored in the middle of the night

and you're like hey where's jeff because jeff's not going to be on the screen

at all let me see if i can zoom in jeff's gonna be down here on the little widget

so if you're like hey where's jeff click on the little need help widget

and uh just start a message with jeff i'm gonna be manning that all morning long

at least 2 30 to 8 pop in on camera every once in a while but try to be

invisible and let the europe people do their thing so for the people that are going to be

asking me for technical support at 2 30 in the morning eastern time that is a that's an apropos

right for the people that are going to be asking me for help when i'm half asleep

this is jeff with the church digital thanks for hanging out with me at the stream and looking

forward to what's coming up with the digital missionary conference the european

digital missionary conference tomorrow y'all have a good one