EP354 - Townhall Meeting

But right now, I tell you what I want to do.

Every time we do a town hall, we do a survey where we get out there and listen specifically to you

and start asking questions from people like you that are doing digital ministry work literally around the world.

And so this is what I want you to do.

Let me click some buttons here and get it up.

But if you can go to the conversation prompt, it's going to be survey.thechurch.digital.

Survey, S-U-R-V-E-Y.thechurch.digital.

That little green button there, we want to hear from you.

Well, it's almost there.

At least it could be there on your screen.

But click on that.

If you're in Hubelot, I think the technology works that if you click on that button,

it'll link you straight out to where you want to go.

It'll open a new window and you'll still be connected to this to hear me.

But either way, we're doing the survey now.

This is Jason Morris' idea.

We're not just doing this part of town hall.

We're going to extend it all the way through the conference.

And when Jason does his talk in digital neighborhoods, I think he's going to reference it.

And so survey.thechurch.digital, you can take it while we are going through.

And so now I think survey.

These things give you too many warnings, Andy, except that you didn't punch the red button.

Evidently, it doesn't give a warning that you didn't punch the red button.

We've got to figure that out.

Survey.thechurch.digital.

Survey.thechurch.digital.

We want to see that or we want to hear from you.

You can click the green button to go there.

But let's roll through a couple slides here.

Where are you from?

We do get this one a lot.

Where are you from?

This is one of my favorite questions, just to kind of see where people are all over the planet.

We've had 25 people or so take the survey already.

And you can see, obviously, there's a big chunk here in America, three down here in where I live, four now, 11 and four down in Miami.

We can see, you know, these surveys, the results are popping up real time on the screen.

But I love this.

We're starting to see, is this New Zealand or Oceania down here?

Obviously, Australia, Asia Pacific, India coming in.

Is that Italy?

I guess.

Germany.

We've got Africa coming in, sub-Saharan Africa.

And so it's exciting for me to see how this is already spreading globally.

And over the coming days, we're going to get this survey in front of more people.

And we want to see, obviously, that spread far beyond what we're looking at in just North America.

And to allow gospel, to allow digital missions to contextualize and adapt culturally around the world.

By the way, whoever this is down here in Mexico or wherever it is down there in Central America, I'd love to meet you.

I'd love to talk with you.

So if you know who that is that comes to mind, let's do that.

Let's look at some other questions.

My primary ministry is in what platform?

My primary ministry is in what platform?

I love you all.

I still can't believe Facebook is number one when I do this.

I just, I'm blown, I'm blown away.

I don't.

God bless you.

But I hope it's being effective.

I hope you're reaching people.

Even like Facebook Substack is, but Facebook, I just, I know, I don't look at it as that type of platform anymore.

But obviously somebody does, and it's effective doing it.

So God bless you.

Twitch, Zoom, WhatsApp, YouTube, Discord, VRChat, in-person, church online platform.

Peacemaking Communities had an interesting conversation with Judy earlier about that.

One, Facebook, two, WhatsApp.

That's good.

And so connecting with people on Facebook, driving it to WhatsApp.

You know what?

I take it back.

I can see that.

If Facebook is being driven to a platform to dialogue at a deeper level, maybe I'd be more comfortable with that.

Because I just, Facebook gets really shallow.

Sometimes it feels like.

Maybe I'm judgmental.

I tell you what, you can at Andy and let him know your distaste for that.

Andy, A-N-D-Y, at thechurch.digital.

That'll be great.

Are you involved in ministry that functions primarily digitally?

So of the ministry you're doing, 23 people responded so far.

It's going to keep this survey open.

Survey.thechurch.digital if you're just joining in.

Open up a separate webpage.

Don't close this.

Obviously, listen in.

Three people, no.

Eight people, kinda, primarily digital.

And then 16 people, strong, yes, that their ministry functions primarily.

Primarily is the important word.

Digitally.

Are you also involved in additional ministry that functions primarily physically?

Are you only digital or are you kind of digital, physical, or all in digital, but also help out physical?

What does that look like?

Five said no.

Five said kinda.

And 16 said yes.

Once again, 16 people, the majority here, are functioning primarily physically.

And so that's an interesting, that's me, by the way.

I mean, I would say that I am primarily digital, but I am helping a ministry, actually a number of ministries, that are working in physical space.

I don't consider myself my ministry hybrid as much, because my focus is digital.

But, you know, when a church in town, actually, I just today signed another church that wants me to help them with their AVL stuff.

And so, like, I'm not driving the church's vision.

I'm driving the church digital's vision, and I'm helping this other organization, you know, achieve theirs towards that.

And so, I don't think it's wrong to be mixed there.

It's just, it's curious to see what that balance is.

Next question.

Share any thoughts on the physical digital tensions in ministry.

One, obviously, ministry reach.

The scale we are able to reach through digital is amazing, and way more than we can do in person, and is a great gateway.

But the embodied reality of the physical ministry feels very important.

It's interesting.

There still is a lot of mindset around the embodiment, the physicality of it coming in.

Both have their strengths.

Digital can be daily, 24-7, and easier for those estranged from the church.

Physical, it's easier to meet in physical needs.

That's true.

Physical is easier to meet in physical needs.

You know, it's interesting.

I fall back on Pastor Dee.

I did a stream with her last week, two weeks ago, and asked her, like, what's the difference between digital and physical?

And she said digital is much more intimate.

Digital to her.

And she's a pastor, African-American pastor, 12 years out of a church in California, digital only.

And she says digital is more intimate than physical.

I was not expecting that.

Community building, integration approaches, how to integrate together, technology adaptions.

We're going to publish all of these down the road.

New responses.

Ones are coming in just now.

Relax and enjoy.

It's something of a balancing act to keep the two working together.

Lots.

I don't know what lots is, but good luck to you.

Lots sounds like lots was a early submission.

So that's known to happen.

I do that all the time.

Hey, let's hit next slide.

Do you have a relationship that are primarily fostered around digital tools?

Do you have a relationship or relationships?

I almost drank coffee from a candle.

Let's just make sure you grab the right thing, Jeff.

Do you have relationships with people that are primarily fostered with digital tools?

So 5% say they have no relationships that are in that space.

45% have some relationships.

And 50% of you, 50% of digital missionaries responding here, have many relationships that are primarily fostered with digital tools.

This would be digital only.

This would be digital, strong, physical, weak, but not a physical relationship that goes digital.

And so that's cool.

You're knowing people in digital community and building relationships with that.

Considering your digital fostered relationships, have you felt that you have helped individuals grow closer to God?

So far, it looks like this was a question we added late in.

11 people answered this.

I would love if you all have had this point.

Survey.thechurch.digital.

We would love to hear from you on this.

67% of people interviewed would say absolutely they have helped people grow closer to God.

Digitally, 33% would say sometimes, and then 0% would say not really.

So we are, as a digital missionary, we are making a difference, helping people grow closer to God.

It's interesting.

I play an iPhone game called Last War.

It's zombie meets SimCity meets World War III.

And so I'm in alliance with some people, 100 people around the country, around the planet.

And, you know, there's active chat.

And the leader's wife got baptized over the weekend.

Leader's a Christian.

We've talked about Christ pretty openly in the group.

And there's many that are Christian.

There are many that are not Christian.

But there's maybe there's me.

There's the leader.

His name's Chum.

And then there's the other guy, Team Jesus 34.

I don't know what 34 stands for.

But he's the one that's a little more, you know, bang you over the head with the gospel.

And the others are a little more subtle.

If you're Team Jesus 34, I mean, I'd love to have a Zoom call with you.

Anyway, but it's fun, like, you know, getting to celebrate his wife and have that conversation with him.

And other people now asking, what does baptism mean?

And having those conversations.

Like, there's a natural implication to draw people closer to God.

Of your digitally fostered relationships, how many of these digitally fostered relationships are you currently actively discipling?

So you're having a relationship.

Like, I have a relationship with Chum.

I don't know that I'm discipling him.

I wouldn't say that I'm intentional towards what I'm doing with Chum 371, I think.

But so that would not account for me here.

So let's look at this.

Of your digitally fostered relationships, how many are you currently actively discipling?

Zero percent of people are, or some are saying none.

Some are saying one to two people.

Some are saying three to five.

Some are saying here six to 11.

22 percent, almost one of four, are saying 11 plus people are being actively discipled at this point digitally.

So people of you that you know digitally, one in four are discipling 11 people.

You do some rough math here, that's 50, almost 60 percent.

Three of five are discipling three or more people currently digitally.

That's exciting to me.

And I hope that trend continues on.

What's also interesting is if you look at the green here, many relationships.

So earlier we asked the question, do you have relationships with people primarily with digital tools?

The people that said that they had many relationships are the ones that are on the high end of this.

So the people that are actively and intentionally focused on connecting with people are intentionally focused on driving them towards discipleship.

I love this.

This is great, man.

This is telling the story.

Of these digitally fostered relationships, how many have you personally led to Christ and salvation?

Now, you know, there's some really interesting language here around what Christ is salvation and what that means in 25.

And is that a decision?

Is that a long term?

You know, we can have that conversation.

And we already did.

You know, thank you.

Micah jumped on it in discord and he's not wrong.

So don't overthink the question.

But how many people would you say that you've led to Christ where there was a transformation, a decision where there was a change?

It's interesting.

Maybe it's a biased question because of that cultural change in decision and what that looks like today.

But 78% would say none.

They've not seen a specific event of life change more towards it.

Now, a relational discipleship does lean more towards a casual disciple growing as opposed to raising your hand and chop and accepting Christ.

So, you know, I get that tension.

But starting to look here, okay, one to two, 17% would say one to two people.

Six percent would say three to five.

And at a large scale, not much.

You know, this is actually one of the things that I think Jason is going to dig into in the conference.

And I'm actually excited.

One of the other people, Jeff Vanderstelt, is going to come and speak on gospel fluidity in the Digital Neighborhoods Conference.

And I'm so excited about that talk.

Like, I've wanted Jeff Vanderstelt to come talk to you all for over a year on this book.

It's phenomenal.

And it's eye-opening in the conversation that surrounds this.

I would suggest that there's a culture shift that we, the Church Digital, are going to be looking at in the coming season.

All right, hey, let's look at this.

There's always a culture shift at the Church Digital.

If somebody didn't comment, I can't see the chat right now, but if somebody didn't comment that, you should have.

A lot of you were thanking it.

Considering these digitally fostered relationships you have, how many people have been baptized?

You know, I mean, this right here, this is one of the biggest criticisms of digital church and of digital discipleship.

You know me, I talk about this.

When people say the local church, I cringe.

Like, it's nails on the chalkboard.

It's the, you don't mean it to be a slam, but I interpret it, anytime I hear it, I get negative quickly.

Because I'm interpreting it as, well, you can't do church digitally, you have to do it physically in the local space.

And the biggest argument that we get, how are people getting wet?

What does that look like?

So, of the digital missionaries out there that are fostering relationships, zero people are 56%, more than the majority, more than the majority.

The majority are saying no, no baptisms.

And then it's scattered throughout, beneath here.

This is a big deal.

This is a big deal to me.

This is a big deal to Jason.

And this is one of the things that, you know, organizationally, you know, Jason's been asking in the background some of this.

And I do, I think that it's time for us to address this and some other issues.

Like, if we're legitimatizing what digital mission work is, and the Bible, listen, I mean, I'm not saying baptism is important.

I'm saying, look at the Bible, and the Bible is saying baptism is important.

And so, like, we've got to figure that out.

You know, if somebody wants to go get baptized in a virtual reality pool with pixels, I love that.

Let's do that.

But that's a baptism.

Let's call that a baptism and call it done.

Ed Stetzer may not call it a baptism.

Hey, Ed.

But we would be fine calling it a baptism and moving on with that.

But once again, that's an intentional act that's happening even in digital or virtual space.

So, what can we do to use our digital relationships and the digital influence that we have with these people that we're fostering and discipling to lead them to a place of discipleship?

This was a conversation for a conversation for a different day, I'm sure.

The heart of the church digital is to help people have gospel conversations digitally.

Hey, Mr. Pete, and in virtual reality.

I couldn't fit virtual reality on the slide.

I'm sorry, sir.

What do you consider a gospel conversation?

This was eye-opening to me.

This was I came in with an idea and I walked out with another one.

And so there's not necessarily a right answer or a wrong answer.

This is something that we as an organization have to figure out.

A gospel conversation is talking with a non-Christian about making a decision to follow Jesus.

11% of you are saying that right now.

Or talking with Christians and non-Christians, helping them grow closer to God.

So, an atheist turning to an agnostic, acknowledging that God exists, is a gospel conversation because they got one step closer to understanding God.

And a Christian who goes from a casual consumer Christian but accepted Jesus into a deeper, multiplying, disciple-making relationship, that is also a step closer to God.

But is that a gospel conversation?

And so this is some of the things that I wanted to know what people were thinking as we talk about what a gospel conversation is.

Does your spouse minister with you with your digital ministry?

6% said, I'm single.

Maybe good for you.

I don't know how that works for you.

12% said, yes, your spouse does minister with you.

82% said, no.

At a personal level, I'm in the 82%.

My wife, I love her, and this is nothing about her, but she's not a digital-friendly person.

And so, like, the stuff that I'm doing, she's learned, but we're in a different space.

She does ministry, incredible ministry through her school, and she's really good with kids, much better than I am.

But we don't often do ministry aligned much in digital space.

Ironically, we'll work together in physical space helping do a church production.

She's great with, like, ProPresenter and those types of softwares.

But digital, it's really been separate.

And so, I don't know if guilty is the right word, but I'm in this 82% where it's not aligned.

Do you have opinions or share your thoughts on that?

My wife joins in when she can help the vision.

We are co-labors of our digital ministry.

Don't have.

She is not.

My wife and I share in the pastoral ministry in a traditional congregation, but the digital piece is mostly my area of focus rather than hers right now.

That, I believe, is actually going to be a common theme.

And maybe that's something to address.

Like, how do we get our spouses more involved in what we're doing?

Is that right?

Like, what does a spouse look like of a digital church?

How can he or she support that?

It would be a good thing knowing that two will put $10,000 to flight.

I don't get that, but I think it would be a good thing.

So, let's just call that and move on.

All right.

Do your children participate with you in digital ministry?

13% said no, or no kids.

More power to you.

69% said no, they don't.

But 19%, one out of five, have the kids somewhat involved in ministry.

Looking at how they sometimes help with scripture reading and prayer.

We hope to start a digital group for some kids.

I'm digitally discipling soon.

Excited about that.

We're exploring doing more on camera time with our children to model family discipleship.

I love that.

They do their own.

I got to tell you, that's a great answer, too.

No, they don't help with our ministry.

We thought them ought to do their own thing.

We want to be careful about the safety of children in a digital space.

Definitely agree with that as well.

And so, once again, I don't think there's a right or wrong answer as we're looking at how we're doing this.

As much as, let's ask the question, how can we model a digital, a complete family ministry or do ministry with the kids in digital space?

And so, if you have not filled out the survey, feel free to click that link on the screen.

We want to hear from you.

Or go to survey.thechurch.digital to do this.

The survey will be left open beyond this.

And I think we're actually wrapping up with one or two slides.

But we'll go beyond this.

We're going to keep the survey open to September 17th or so.

I believe Jason's going to present on this on September 17th.

Biggest challenge facing your digital ministry today.

And I went ahead and just left it open so people could type whatever they want.

And, I mean, it's a hodgepodge.

We've got time.

We've got overwhelming controversy, recognition, screen fatigue, technical skills, recruiting people.

It's challenging.

Viral marketing, asynchronous communications, money, follow-up, effectiveness, schedules, meeting time, getting people to take.

Coherence within ministry, discipleship pathway, resistance to technology, scalability, getting people to come.

Government monitoring.

Yeah, that's something we don't face in America.

Government monitoring, changing time, at least not yet.

I don't mean anything political by that.

Once again, if you've got hate mail on that comment, Andy at thechurch.digital, that'll be great.

Impersonal resources, sustainable, building content, fewer labor's funding.

Look, the point is, is there's lots of issues surrounding this.

And we're going to talk about this.

I had an idea.

Actually, I'm just going to be honest.

I had an idea when this question came in.

Okay, I'm going to be honest.

We had an idea maybe a week before.

But it really ties into this question.

TCD does a lot to train and equip individuals to start digital ministries.

What if I don't want to start something yet, but I want to serve and learn in an existing ministry?

How do I find that?

I want to acknowledge right here with this slide, this is the only question that we, I believe that's the only question.

Yeah.

This was the only question that we received so far with that.

And I think this is a completely, completely valid question.

We're going to come back to this in a second.

This is, this is really good.

How, listen, I don't want to do my thing.

I want to help somebody else do their thing.

Don't go anywhere.

Stick around for that.

Let's, let's dig in.

Andy, can you make the screen go away for me?

This, yeah.

Thank you for that.

The, I still don't really, I'm not comfortable with the interface.

Do I have to turn it off?

I may have to turn it off.

Um, yeah, I do.

It's on me.

That's fine.

The, um, it's too many buttons, man.

Too many buttons.

So here's what I want to do with, um, next.

Uh, listen, we're really excited about this survey.

We're going to roll out the results of this survey at the Digital Neighborhoods Conference.

And we're actually going to talk here about the conferences overall.

Actually, you know what?

Let me go ahead.

I'll click that slide and we'll get into it.

But we are, are very excited to do the, um, to do the conferences and to talk about some

of, of, of what's coming up, uh, with the, the conferences, the surveys, Jason, uh, coming

in Digital Neighborhoods.

Uh, we've got Conrad from, uh, the CEO of Project Exodus, a recovery organization in

South Africa, who's doing great work around the world, is coming in to be one of the keynote

leads for our recovery conference.

When I look at the European Summit, their lineup is ridiculous.

Thirteen people.

It's going to be like TED Talk.

Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam.

All, all very early morning here in America.

Excited about their conference overall.

And, uh, and, uh, gaming conference.

An incredible lineup.

Uh, it's people that I've heard a long time ago, uh, going from Jay Earhart all the way

up to, uh, Christian Ninja, who I've never heard publicly speak, but I've read his stuff

and excited to see what that's going to look like.

Like, the, the lineup of conferences that we're doing here starting in September 17th

is, is incredible.

And, uh, the survey will fit into, like, it's, it's going to be beautiful.

Can you believe we're three weeks out from the conferences?

Like, to me, this is the thing.

I, I, I, I, I, we blinked.

We sneezed.

Something happened.

And all of a sudden, I'm looking at the Digital Missionary Conference.

And I am, uh, at the website, and it says 21 days, 21 days in a couple hours.

Tomorrow, 21 days, we're launching Digital Neighborhoods.

And, and my, my heart, like, like, jumped.

Um, we, Pastor D, glad you're here.

We need your help here.

Not just Pastor D.

Pastor D, that was, that was a weird transition.

I apologize.

But we, we need your help across the board.

I need you all to jump into, um, Andy, that's not on my screen.

Again, oh, this is frustrating.

You know what?

I may have hung up on my share instead of sharing.

Um, let me, let me reshare this.

My fault.

There you go.

We need your help.

We need your help getting the word out on the Digital Missionary Summit.

We've got an ad campaign running right now.

We're seeing, we're seeing attendance spikes come in.

Uh, communications, uh, has been a little bit of a, um, to be honest, the idea of doing

four conferences back to back to back to back the way that we're doing it right now, I'll

never do it again.

Never.

Um, that was, uh, that was, uh, that was a, uh, a great idea with ill-conceived timing and

overstretched a lot of our, our resources and capacity.

And, and, and, and, and along the way, it's funny.

Like, I'll just, I'll, I'll personally call myself out.

We went from a digital missionary sending agency to a conference producing organization in this,

in this shift.

And, uh, some things we got lost, um, in the vision.

We're going to get through this conference season.

We're going to come back healthier.

We're learning things.

If nothing else through the church digital, it's lots of beta experimentation, learning from

mistakes and reiterating.

And so excited about what 25 fall is going to look like.

And also excited about what we're planning on 26.

And so for us, um, here's what I need from you.

I need your help getting the word out on these conferences.

And so Barbara and the team at word revolution, they did an incredible job creating media kits,

shareable resources, graphics, copy, everything included for each of the conferences.

So here's the information on the digital neighborhood, September 17th, opening at 10 AM.

Uh, the speakers set up with the topics they're speaking on, uh, graphics, uh, and then information

here, copy that you can just copy and paste straight in that is not showing up.

I, I got it.

It's a, it's a learning curve, man.

This is, this is a, this is different.

So digital neighborhoods, uh, that all the information is here.

The keynote speakers, the dates, stuff that you can copy and paste in shareable posts and

graphics, copy that, save that on.

Here's copy.

You can already put in, in social media to get it out there.

Uh, and then tons of graphics, uh, trained you to lead where people actually live online.

This fall, I'm going to grow in digital ministry.

Join me and others shaping church in digital spaces.

You are already sowing.

Now grow for anyone turning chats into church.

Uh, come with me.

Like there's some, some beautiful digital disciples comes to life.

So come with me.

Um, all these graphics is just a click, a download, uh, away.

And we're doing, we've got many others and here's the control alt recover one.

You can see some of the graphics we've created here.

Uh, you don't need to crash and reboot is for leaders who want to heal and lead well in digital

spaces.

Uh, we've already got copy created.

There's tons of other graphics that are available for you to utilize.

Just lots of thought, you know, if, if nothing else, lots of thought went into, uh, from Barber

and word revolution team on these, like, here's all the speakers for the European one, man,

this is crazy.

So much good stuff.

Um, digital missions in Europe starts here.

So come with me.

Um, I love this.

If you lead online in Europe, you need this, uh, come with me and meet digital missionaries

across Europe.

Uh, this is for Europe's digital pioneers.

Join me.

Europe's digital discipleship is rising.

Step in like this is, this is the chance to highlight and draw attention and to bring

people into a network that's supportive and friendly to the idea of missionaries and digital

spaces.

Now let's, let's highlight our gaming friends here.

God bless the gamers.

Um, here's the information, the keynotes, our own Andy made Jade live speaking.

Um, we got to update Craig's out and, um, the other person's in.

Um, Christian Ninja to replace, but Hey, every game is a gathering gamers who disciple, um,

you know, is there, you're invited.

The mission fields.

You've all stepped in play with purpose.

The game is on some graphics here.

Your digital pulpit is already live.

Your stream is your pulpit movement leaders from inside the culture.

Uh, the front lines are gathering.

Love, uh, learn what works now.

I love that because it's not even a, it's not even a pipe dream.

It's the reality of where we are.

And so all of this, I think the graphic was on the screen, digital neighborhood media kit

and shareable graphics.

Well, essentially all of the graphics right now are at share, S-H-A-R-E.thechurch.digital.

Andy, I don't think I changed that.

Um, and so that may not even be the right one, but it is S-H to go to the main page.

It was a late drop, um, S-H-A-R-E.thechurch.digital.

And that will send you to this page.

Just look at, look how beautiful this is.

Everything that's coming together.

Barbara and her team figured out how to make four conferences meld, uh, and culturally brand

into one beautiful schematic.

It is very cool to see that.

Grab some of these graphics.

Listen, last time we exploded.

Um, we had 1,500 people sign up from 85 countries.

We had 1,100 people, uh, day of show up for this thing.

And, um, it was, it was a ton of friends of friends, man.

Like, listen, the ad campaign brought people in.

Yay.

Hopefully the ad campaign will bring some people in.

But the ones who stuck were friends of friends.

The ones who, who, who were, were part of this are the people that were one generation

away, were one stop, skip, and a jump from somebody else.

And so maybe take this opportunity to help us get the word out.

Remember with every shareable graphic, uh, you drive people to the, uh, digital, uh,

missionary.digital website, www.missionary.digital.

And all the registration pages are open on missionary digital.

So we're excited about the digital missionaries.

Yeah, that was it on that page.

We're excited about the digital missionary summit kicking off in three weeks, three, four, five,

six.

Over the next six weeks, we'll be posting four conferences on, uh, on digital missions.

And, um, yeah, here's coffee for you.

It's going to be good.

I'm going to, I'm going to be exhausted when it's over, but man, it's, it's, it's going

to be good.

Hey, I want to pivot on something here.

Let me see if I can get this to work a little better than I have been.

Uh, so if I do that, it's going to remove it.

And then it'll be in the back screen where I can just add it.

Yay.

And then it's there.

So I can add it there.

I am learning how to interact with this thing.

All right.

So, all right.

I threw some teases in there.

I've got some exciting announcements.

I got three exciting things coming up right now that I'm getting at one, two, three.

And, uh, so the first thing I posted, I love this was a photo of, of, of Lex Luthor, uh,

from the, yeah, thank you, uh, Utopia.

I just saw that.

Utopia is great.

I like finding the ears, man.

Thanks, man.

Um, it's, um, Lex Luthor from the Smallville series.

I love Lex.

I can't remember the name of the actor.

He's actually, he is, is now producing a series.

He was, he was in Guardians of the Galaxy.

Uh, I don't know.

It doesn't matter.

Brett Baum or something like that.

Uh, but he's actually producing a series of, of audio Superman, like podcast type stuff now.

And, um, it's awesome.

But, um, we have, there's something that, that I want to share with you all.

Now, this is, you know, if, if beta is too strong of a word, this is alpha.

This is really early.

This is behind the scenes.

We're not actually like showing this in a big way.

By the way, we've got a big announcement, a big surprise coming up.

I'm going to address that answer, that question that came up a couple minutes ago.

But right now I want to share with you the super secret thing that, to be honest,

like only a half dozen people, maybe 10 people have seen.

And so those of you that are watching this live, those of you that are watching this on demand,

I'm giving you a sneak peek right here.

You ready?

I don't think I stopped the screen share.

Okay.

We'll, we'll, uh, do it again.

It's cranky, Andy.

It's a cranky software.

I love it.

It'll be great.

All right.

It's backstage.

Now we're going to bring it on.

Here you go.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Lex.

All right.

Look, here is the deal.

Um, we have created, um, an AI, uh, based on the church digital.

Barbara Carnero has been working on this for, uh, I guess a year or so.

And we had, we had built this in chat GPT initially.

And then we recently found, uh, a, uh, an organization, a company called Tapos, which encodes a large amount of audio, video, pog, blogs, books, podcasts, like any media source and, and, and digests it into an AI form.

Now, look, you're, you're looking at a webpage.

Uh, this is very, um, early in design.

That's what I'm saying.

And it's like alpha is like proof of concept here.

Like, okay.

Like we're not, we're not taking this public, but every, uh, all of the 700 plus blogs that we've written through the church digital, the two books that I wrote through the church digital, the 900 videos and audio podcasts that we've done through the church digital.

Some of you may remember Tom Pounders, um, oh my gosh, what was Tom's, uh, the TCD, um, bootcamp.

Uh, digital bootcamp, even the stuff he did before when he was like, YM sidekick, like all, thank you.

I appreciate that.

Everybody's saying sidekick.

Um, all of that is in this AI.

And so like, um, and so like I can come here, um, and just do a, do a search real quick.

Um, tell me what ministry looks like in VR chat.

And so it's doing that it's scanning the church digital's resources, and it's going to present, uh, it's gathering my thoughts.

Lex is ministry and VR chat.

It's about meeting people where they are.

Digital spaces crafted for connection.

It's real church with a digital twist.

Thanks, act two, fellowship, discipleship, and worship.

But instead of pews, you're in a room, a coffee shop, in VR chat, blah, blah, blah.

You're not alone.

TCD offers coaching resource framework to help you launch, keep pushing, sign the Lex.

That's fun.

Okay.

Hey, you know, I, I remember one of the things that I saw was asynchronous community, struggling

with asynchronous community.

Um, yeah, it's a bug here.

Let me reset that.

There's a bug because I'm doing a screen share and it won't delete for some reason.

I'm gonna screen share.

What are, um, what are five ways I can improve, um, async community for discipleship?

It's funny, Andy.

I did, I did this search earlier and, um, it came up with some things.

Great question.

I'm gonna get it.

Yeah, this is, it is good.

Uh, great question.

Building strong asynchronous community for disciples is crucial in our digital first word world.

Here are five practical ways to level it up.

Regular check-ins, create dedicated spaces, facilitate asynchronous Bible community engagement,

leverage media and resources, foster personal, uh, accountability and stories, encourage members

to share their testimonies, blah, blah, blah.

You can do this.

Check this out.

I'm going to do view resources.

Andy, you're going to love this.

Uh, episode 293, Andy Mage and building deeper relationships.

That is the source of all of the, the material we just shared.

So it pulled episode 293 and generated five.

Andy actually in the call generated seven.

I just didn't want to blah, blah, blah too much.

So I did five here to generate that, to show that.

Pretty cool, right?

Now look at this.

This, this, this, this is crazy.

I, I, I, I love this.

Um, let's, can I type down here?

What, what does, I've never actually done this box before, so this will probably break on me.

Um, what does calling look like, let's say personal calling.

Look like in digital space.

What does personal calling look like in digital space?

Great question.

Personal calling starts with an awareness of impact.

It's the gut feeling you're meant to do more, reach more online.

Think about it.

You begin noticing your online interactions spark questions, encouragement, or transformation.

Maybe somebody reaches out or you feel prompted to comment more.

Talks about calling.

Let's view the sources on here.

Let's see what we get.

The church, digital, the church, digital, the church.

Oh, it didn't come up.

Man, I thought I was going to get that.

Um, let me do one more.

Let me do one more.

I'm, I'm trying to force it to say something.

AI never does what you want it to, but it always gives you the right answer.

Um, how do I plan a church?

Am I called to plan a church?

Uh, great question.

The truth is calling is biblically rooted in God's spirit and his purpose for your life.

Not everyone is called to be a church planter in a traditional sense.

Sometimes your primary God-given role is to disciple well where you are at work in your neighborhood or online.

Uh, that is mission enough.

Uh, but let me go down to the sources.

I don't know if you can see this.

You see this red button?

Exponential.

So here's the deal.

Uh, Exponential is also considering, hopefully, uh, sealing the deal, but is considering coming on with Tapos and bringing their library on.

And so as of right now with this test, we're actually doing where we have access to all of Exponential's library and is melded together with what, what we're doing and offering.

And so while we're speaking to a lot of digital assets and, you know, Jeff streaming, talking crazy about equipping a mobilization.

Yeah.

Some of that of a stream that I did last year, 24 showed up and, and, uh, another stream in, in 24, but a lot of this, like Ralph Moore getting access to his content in, in, uh, in the system is beautiful.

And so they're considering whether or not to stay, I don't know if it's going to work, but you sources of everything is available.

But then off of all of these posts, you can create social media posts.

You can do personal reflection prompts, um, teaching materials.

If you want it for a teaching, create a podcast episode of audio that it resonates through.

Like there's a really rich engine around this.

Now, uh, design of Tapos is, um, you know, not the strongest, uh, to say the most.

I just, I just unshared on that when I meant to share the screen that I was on, but the.

Um, the roadmap of where they are and some of the things are improving on is, is going to be great in the near future.

But I would say, I would say this, um, look for Lex, uh, in the very near future, uh, as a chat bot on our TCD website.

Uh, in addition, we will be taking all the digital, digital missionary conferences, and we're going to be digitizing that into a separate, um, AI.

Probably won't be named Lex.

We'll have to figure out some name for that.

Um, what was, what was Superman's, um, girlfriend?

I'm, I'm so not a DC guy.

Uh, the, the reporter, I don't know.

Somebody will tell me in chat, but the idea is maybe we'll come up with some name.

Lois.

No, we're not going to do Lois.

Lois.

Maybe Lane.

I don't know.

We'll figure it out, but we'll come up with some name for the, um, for the AI on that one.

But I, you know, some of the things that, that I'm suggesting more than just a chat bot or a webpage, how do we get Lex into discord?

Would it work as a discord plugin?

How can people interact with Lex in a, on a discord server, on a discord channel?

How can we do that same thing into, um, WhatsApp so that we can interact with it on these asynchronous communities?

Like that's our desire is to make Lex more engaging and more available for you all.

And so Lex is, is one thing.

Now that's, um, that's, that's maybe the most surprising thing.

Uh, and I do want to thank Barbara, uh, for really starting the conversation with us on the idea of virtual, of, um, uh, AI agents and what it can do.

Like we, I was not to say that it wasn't on my radar, but it was not a priority in, in really seeing, um, the work that she initially did on Lex was so inspiring.

Like, to be honest, like, and, uh, uh, the reason why we call it Lex is, you know, I, Lex is trying to take over the world, bro.

And, and, and, and I firmly do believe that at some point, uh, you know, what we're doing with AI is, is going to go crazy and it's going to cause a major problem in some capacity.

But, let's use it while we can, cause it's going to happen either way, in my opinion.

And so, yeah, one day Lex is going to, you know, take over the world.

But right now, I think he can help us make disciples.

Uh, any hate mail on that, you can send it to Andy, A-N-D-Y, at church.digital.

But let's do this.

We've got a couple things and I'm running out of time in typical fashion.

The question was, how can we get, how can I help other people do digital ministry?

How can I help other people do digital ministry?

That was the question from the survey.

We don't want to do our own thing, but I just want to help somebody else do their thing.

What does that look like?

Um, and so, here's what we're doing through the church digital.

This is volunteer.thechurch.

Maybe volunteers.

V-O-L-U-N-T-E-E-R-S.thechurch.digital.

Volunteers.thechurch.digital.

Redirect to this form.

Um, we are starting a, a projects team.

Uh, we're developing a database.

We brought on, we brought on two or three project managers, really excited about this, um, to

bring on some, some people to keep us focused on, and when I say people, I mean me, uh, to

keep me focused on tasks, to keep me focused on, on, uh, vision, on goals, on things, and

not follow the wild rabbit like I'm known to on occasion, or the shiny toy.

And so, um, in, uh, uh, on the care side, we've, we've got Jose Santiago, uh, and Nash

is coming in on the equipping and mobilization side, and in new to T-City, excited about this.

We, we've got, uh, Purpose Antonio, uh, from Nigeria coming in, and, uh, Purpose has a strong

background in, in project management, uh, in different formats, uh, agile, and, and blah,

blah, blah.

Uh, but, um, one of, one of the things, and the thing that I love about Purpose is that

he, it, what stood out in the interview process with him from Nigeria was his, yeah, Purpose

is from Nigeria, uh, Utope, uh, you two should connect.

Uh, he's not that far outside of Lagos, but I think he's on the opposite side of where I

thought you were.

Uh, anyway, Purpose, uh, was talking to me about, um, how you, you make, you fit project

management into ministry.

You don't make it tasks, you make it, uh, ministry-oriented, and you highlight the good

that it's happening, and, and what it's benefiting, and things like that.

And, and it was just this, it was this perfect moment of, okay, we need to figure out how to

capture that culture from this guy named Purpose.

I almost started to call him a kid.

He's not a kid.

But from this guy in Nigeria, and figure out how to get it into the church digital.

And, and what Purpose says right off the bat is, he's like, he's like harassing me, dude.

I love it.

I love it.

He's, he's like, we need, we need, we need, we need a projects team, Jeff.

Okay, Purpose, I'm doing a meeting on Tuesday.

I'll, I'll, I'll make it in.

And so we're developing a projects team.

Listen, we do a ton of work inside the church digital.

Fact.

Um, we do, um, a ton of work, uh, outside, uh, as we're looking at expanding streaming networks

and what we're doing with the podcast and new courses.

Like there's a ton of assets that we want to develop running for conferences.

There's a ton of, uh, you know, two conferences a year, major conferences a year.

There's a ton of assets that, that we need help with.

Um, and, but that's just us.

There's also this whole other world of, um, how, how, listen, I'm, I'm a, my mom right

now, Jeff, I'm ready to launch this Facebook group.

God bless.

Um, I need a logo for my Facebook group.

How do I get a logo for a Facebook group?

I'm not going to tell my mom to go get, use chat GPT.

So I need somebody to do chat GPT for her or, you know, spend an hour and create a typeface

logo that she can put in her profile and some sort of banner for the, for the top.

Like that's a simple thing that, by the way, if you're interested in doing that, you can

email me, Jeff, J E F F at the church.digital or fill out this form.

Cause essentially what we want to do is we want to figure out what are some of the skill

sets that you have, uh, website development, social media, content creation, graphic design,

event planning, community outreach, technical, uh, building relationships, preaching, pulpit

care.

Is there anything that we missed?

Yes.

We're interested in you serving and helping and volunteering with the church digital.

We're also interested in making this database available to people within our network.

And, and you know what, let's go back to that slide where there's like 47 things that are,

that are hard.

There's 47 answers to those within the network.

I struggle with, um, asynchronous community.

Well, the good news is between AI and, and maybe somebody else in the network, you can get

coached on how to make it better.

I really, I struggle with time.

Well, maybe you can recruit a couple of volunteers to come alongside you and fill in the stuff that

you're weak on and some people that are willing to help you with that.

And so part of what we're looking for right now is how to get more people involved, not

only with the church digital, but involved in ministry overall within the network so that

we can resource some of you out there that are struggling.

How many weeks are you, are you looking to commit?

Um, how comfortable are you used with online tools?

Um, on a scale of one to 10, how excited are you to join the projects team?

Uh, I would be interested in volunteering for other digital churches and missionaries should

a tangible need arise.

Anytime, sometimes, occasionally, nope.

Uh, and anything else you want to tell us.

Volunteered out to church.digital.

Excited.

Excited about the opportunities.

Um, and it was, it was really cool.

Like, um, you know, I know purpose is new with us, which is awesome, but purpose really kind

of pushed on me to, to get there, to make this happen.

And listen, I am, I always listen to people when they, when they push on me.

Um, well, for the most part, cause it makes us, makes us better.

All right.

So here we go.

I'm wrapping up on time.

We're going to go a little long.

There was, here's the, here's the last, the last of the surprises.

So by the way, did I do a, let me see.

Let's go back to the, there was a photo of Lex, right?

There was a photo of, what was the second photo I did?

Um, oh, the projects, the science project.

We just did that one.

Yeah.

Because of the project that the team's called projects.

Um, listen, when it's, when it's last minute, like late at night, it's not always the best

ideas, but it's fun.

And then the third graphic that I put in there was the right hand turn signal.

And the fourth was a present.

And so look, here's what we're doing.

The church digital, we have a, uh, we developed a partnership that we're going to announce today.

Now we're going to roll this into the conferences.

We're excited about this, this sponsor.

Um, and they ultimately, the sponsor is very excited about you.

Uh, it's, it's funny in the grand scheme of things surrounding, surrounding digital, uh,

ministry and digital, uh, discipleship.

We've been friends with this organization for a long time.

And it was funny.

I was actually talking with some of their, their leadership.

And it's like, I can't believe we've waited all this time to actually make something official.

Like it was, it was kind of stupid between both of us that we didn't get to this point.

But the, the result of this is that we, the church digital are able to give you guys and gals, anybody that's involved, heck, anybody that's interested.

We're able to give you an incredible resource that that's going to help your ministry.

Uh, I don't think I could oversell that any more than I just did.

And so I'm going to hopefully click this button and it's going to show up on the screen and it disconnects.

Andy, that's the second time I clicked the green thing and, and, and it, and it disconnects.

So write that down as a bug and we'll let our friends know that they got a problem.

Um, yeah, that's right.

Hey, whoever, whoever did the Oprah, I am feeling the Oprah.

Let's try it one more time.

We're going to go, we're going to add to the stream.

And here we are.

We, the church digital have come up with a partnership with right now media.

Essentially all of anyone who's connected with the church digital has immediate access to all.

Of right now media.

And so, uh, I'm going to tell you how to do the, um, how to get your free account in a second.

But if you don't know, don't know right now media, let me tell you right off the bat.

Uh, if, if Netflix and Bible studies had a baby, that might be weird, but it would be right now media.

Uh, and so this is a massive resource of, of digital discipleship from, uh, Christian authors,

Christian pastors, uh, kids material, kids videos, like this is anything surrounding Bible studies for,

for kids and adults, the young people.

And it's all available in digital space.

Like if you're looking here, popular teachers, uh, Kyle Adelman, Francis Chan, JD Greer, Joby Martin,

Jenny Allen, John Mark Comer, Louie Giglio, Kyle Martin, and more.

Like this is an incredible asset that's available globally.

By the way, they are working into multiple languages.

I'm not sure what the number actually is.

They told me I forgot, but ideally this is going to be a huge, uh, resource that is now available

for anyone that's connected, uh, with the church digital.

And so what you need to do to get this is you will go to, uh, uh, I just blanked on it.

Uh, the church.digital slash right now media, the church.digital slash right now media.

And, and you can create an account there.

You'll see the TCD logo.

I'm in Miami, Florida.

So therefore I think the entire organization is Miami, Florida.

Sorry, Andy.

Um, we'll get into Odessa later.

Actually, I thought about telling Odessa Ukraine just to kind of be funny, but the guy didn't think

that was funny.

But we're excited about the idea of, of right now media and, and coming on board with that.

The accounts are free for personal use.

And so the church digital cleared it with the board leadership.

We're excited.

We pay a nominal fee, uh, to make that happen.

Like I couldn't believe how cheap it was.

And so feel free to, to, you know, give out that URL.

Like it's candy, man.

Uh, uh, the church.digital slash right now media.

Feel free to sign up for your account.

Uh, no limits on it.

Um, there, there's funny, there's a group functionality.

I was looking at the backend.

There's a group functionality.

I'm not sure that we're going to turn on.

Uh, we will have a, let me see if I can get this part to work.

I'll have to log in real quick.

Um, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

That's not the right password.

Don't you hate it when you do that?

You bunch of people watching your type and you can't typing, talking, and being on camera at the same time.

It's very hard.

I can play a video game.

I've done that a couple of times streaming.

Um, but talking is a different bird for me.

All right.

Look, and by the way, if somebody's like, Hey, I'm looking for a place to volunteer, it should be a great place to start.

Um, we have the ability to create a custom library with the church digital.

And so when you're logged in and you click the church digital, it comes to this custom library page.

And so I went ahead and I just threw in Jeff's picks because I love Francis Chan.

Francis Chan doing the acts, uh, study on acts, hugely impactful.

His book acts, I think it's called acts, um, was life-changing for me.

Uh, eyeopening for me in many ways.

Uh, his study on James has been incredible in my life.

Uh, I don't know that I've done this, but, uh, a vision for the global church.

Francis Chan's headlining it.

Yeah, it might be interesting for y'all to take a look at.

And so listen, I've got Jeff's picks here.

In the future, we're going to have curated picks and different lists from that.

And so if some volunteer out there is like, Hey, you know what?

I love digital Bible studies.

I'd love to help the church digital figure this out.

Email Jeff at the church digital.

If you're like, I hate Bible studies and right now media is stupid.

Email Andy at the church digital.

That will be great.

Whew!

Man, I'm tired.

I'm trying to think.

Andy, did I cover everything I was supposed to cover?

Yes.

Andy is saying thumbs up.

So listen, we are, are good to go.

All of these links.

If you're watching on demand, we will be having these, uh, links available in the, in the, um, description in YouTube.

Easy to click.

Uh, let's engage.

Uh, help us share those graphics for the conference.

Hype up graphics in the conference and what you're doing.

Um, fill out the survey, survey at the survey.thechurch.digital.

Get connected to the volunteer team.

Right now, media, incredible asset.

Play around with Lex as your heart desires.

Um, but this is one of many ways we, the church digital are trying to help empower, uh, equip and empower people to do ministry.

And ministry and digital space globally, um, and it's, it's wonderful for me when I have conversations with, uh, missions organizations who see vision in what you're doing and see vision in what we're doing.

It was funny.

I had, uh, I just, today I signed to another church for a contract.

I'm doing some AVL coaching for them, physical church.

And, um, and the pastor, the pastor's known me for a couple of weeks.

Cause I've been doing some AVL installs and they're asking me to step up in a temporary time to be like a temporary leader for in the church.

Uh, and, and, uh, the pastor's like, I just looked at your website and figured out what you actually do.

And I was like, Oh, Oh no, here it comes.

Like that is the moment in my life where it's like, okay, it's, it's either going to be hellfire and brimstone or it's going to be, that's really cool.

And the way this guy did it is he's kind of a dry personality.

I literally had no idea where I was going and he's like, I can't believe you're planning churches and virtual reality and discord.

And he's like, my kids would love this.

And we need to do like, he just, he saw, he's a guy who saw the vision and it just, it clicked for him.

And it's so beautiful.

I hope you have that experience too, where, where you talk with someone and they see the vision of it and they, they want to be a part of it.

And if, and if, if you don't have that in your digital ministry life, that will be my prayer for you.

That someone, that someone you will meet in the next week or so will have that vision that you will be given a divine opportunity by God to share a vision of what God has called you to do.

And someone will see it and want to be a part.

Hey, we started awkward.

Pastor D, Yatope, everybody else who's around.

Let me, let me jump on attendees and see who's here.

Purpose.

Man, glad you're here.

Pastor D, Simon, Judy, Gary.

Gary, I meant to connect with you earlier.

Didn't get a chance to Paul, Ian, Leighton, Flatcap, Micah, Tariq, Micah, stirring the pot.

That's, that's, that's honestly, that's what I love about Micah.

Micah, like, hey, I see what you're doing.

Drop a bomb in there.

Okay, you clean it up now.

That's beautiful.

Tariq, Emmanuel, DeMarcus, Melanie.

We've, we've got some, Tariq, Toki.

I don't, I don't, I don't know.

Glad you're a barber.

Thanks for coming in.

Steve, Anesh, everybody that's in.

Listen, it's an exciting season for the church digital.

So take these next steps.

Help us as we push the ball forward with conferences, get more awareness, get more connected to,

to partners globally and start to equip and empower more people to be digital missionaries globally.

I did a lot of talking this one.

Sorry.

Hopefully the conference is stable for you.

I'm going to pray in a second.

But before we go, here's what we're going to do.

The lobbies are open.

And so the digital lobby should be open.

Andy hopefully can make sure in the background that the lobbies are open and running.

And at the same time, there's a breakout room called Actor Party.

And so I would love you all to grab a table, have a conversation, meet some people, go over to the, to the, you know, at the lobby, at the lobby.

I think the software calls it the lounge.

We probably need to adapt our language to lounge.

Go hang out in the lounge.

Alter Live called it lobby.

Go hang out in the lounge.

Grab a table.

Talk to somebody.

Swing over to the breakout.

See how that works.

Just like, you know, figure the technology out.

We will be in this platform for the conferences starting in a couple weeks.

But for now, let me pray us out and we will go.

Heavenly Father, God, thank you for this group.

Thank you for, thank you for people that are called to you in unique ways.

Thank you for the pioneers, the influencers, the out-of-the-box thinkers, the people, well, just the normal people that are called to do something you called, you directed them to do.

Thank you for their direction and purpose.

God, help us, the Church Digital, as we continue to equip and mobilize digital missionaries.

Help us as we resource others to come alongside and help the existing work that's happening globally.

Thank you for loving us and using us in the way that you do.

In your name we pray.

Amen.

Awesome.

Thanks, everybody.

Have a great one.

Hang out in the lounge in the breakout room, and I'll see you later.

I actually have no idea how to hang up right now.

Is it the red button?

I'm just going to hit the red button.

Let's see what happens.

Thank you.

I'm just going to hit the red button.

I'm just going to hit the red button.

I'm just going to hit the red button.

I'm just going to hit the red button.

I'm just going to hit the red button.

I'm just going to hit the red button.

I'm just going to hit the red button.

I'm just going to hit the red button.

I'm just going to hit the red button.

I'm just going to hit the red button.

I'm just going to hit the red button.

I'm just going to hit the red button.

I'm just going to hit the red button.

I'm just going to hit the red button.

I'm just going to hit the red button.

I'm just going to hit the red button.

I'm just going to hit the red button.

I'm just going to hit the red button.

I'm just going to hit the red button.

I'm just going to hit the red button.

I'm just going to hit the red button.

I'm just going to hit the red button.

I'm just going to hit the red button.

I'm just going to hit the red button.

I'm just going to hit the red button.

I'm just going to hit the red button.

I'm just going to hit the red button.

I'm just going to hit the red button.

I'm just going to hit the red button.

I'm just going to hit the red button.

I'm just going to hit the red button.

I'm just going to hit the red button.

I'm just going to hit the red button.

I'm just going to hit the red button.

I'm just going to hit the red button.

I'm just going to hit the red button.

I'm just going to hit the red button.

I'm just going to hit the red button.

I'm just going to hit the red button.

I'm just going to hit the red button.

I'm just going to hit the red button.

I'm just going to hit the red button.

I'm just going to hit the red button.

I'm just going to hit the red button.

I'm just going to hit the red button.

I'm just going to hit the red button.