EP347 - Deconstruction, Jesus, and the Misunderstood Movement

All right. Hey, everybody. This is Jeff here, the Church Digital, episode 347 here of the

podcast. Doing a live recording. Thanks for joining me in this chill Thursday evening.

Ian coming in from the outside. This'll be fun. And yes, yes, this will be fun. I'm going

to try not to tick anybody off while at the same time have a purposeful conversation behind

this. And so now it was not even supposed to be what this actually is. We were supposed

to have a conversation with Barbara Carnero talking about some of the work that she's

doing in Word Revolution and creating some because we're in the season here talking about

equipping partners and empowering tools. And so but she's a little under the weather in

Barcelona and asked if we could delay. So we're going to have a conversation with Barbara

here in a in a little bit. And so I literally at about 945 this morning did not have a topic

to talk about here on the stream. Meanwhile, I've been having like an interesting conversation

on the side, particularly in in I started to say Slack. Why do I keep saying Slack in WhatsApp?

I had we're having a particularly interesting conversation in WhatsApp surrounding deconstruction

over the past couple days and maybe a misrepresentation, a misunderstanding of the word and some of the concepts

therein. And it was like, you know, as as I needed a new topic and seeing some of the conversations

that was happening, it was like, you know what? We're going to dig into it here on the stream today.

And so because of the hours, because literally it was like a two hour notice, I didn't I normally I would

love to like bring in a guest for a different view or a complimentary view or somebody who's maybe better

to explain this stuff because I'm not necessarily the best at this. I'll just be honest with you.

But my heart is but just going to have it. And so I do want to have a a somewhat

spirited but respectful conversation around this. I know when you say the word deconstruction

around around people in established church, at least in North American context,

is a lot of unsettledness that comes around that a lot of people get upset. Now, the American church

has been deconstructed many times in the past couple decades. In the past 25 years, the U.S.

church has lost 25 percent of active participants. And so like we are as a as a nation, as a as a

continent, the church on this continent is is struggling. Some stats have come out recently

that the new generation A and Z, they are interested in reengaging in spiritual reengaging

in God. They're just not interested in the church. You know that literally there are books that are

written. I like your Jesus. I don't like your church. They're so unlike Christ. That's actually it's a

Gandhi quote, I believe. But there's there is a movement, a generational movement back towards

spirituality or Christianity, just not in church context, in physical church context. And that's

one of the reasons why, you know, the idea of digital missionaries stepping into the space,

digital missionaries representing Christ, just maybe in a different context, even doing churches

just digitally, maybe putting out a different ecclesiology. Like I'm going to be an ecclesiology

that's respectful. I want to make sure I say the right words there. An ecclesiology that's

respectful of of the Bible, maybe just reimagining some things. We're going to get into that here

in a little bit. Like I, you know, it's funny. Barbara Carnero, she sat down with me. We were,

this is early in our relationship. Um, and, and, and, and she says, so Jeff, like what's,

what's the win in 10 years with the church digital? What's the win? And, um, I, I quickly, uh, I,

honestly, I didn't even have to think about it. Uh, I said, I want to, I want to help create a,

a new ecclesiologically stable, biblically sound model of church.

It's not violating scripture. It's re-imagining what it can be while holding true to scripture.

And that's where I would suggest a little bit of this deconstruction comes into play. Now I have,

I have gone through some of it here. Let's back up. Jeff, how do we even get to this point in the

conversation? I'm glad you asked. Uh, I'm going to push this button and hopefully it works. I forgot

to check this and yes, it does work. I'm very happy. I received this email yesterday, 24 hours ago,

Barna, you know, I'm on their mail list. I'm on, of course, dozens of, of organizations and

corporations, mail lists and, and Barna, you know what I'm actually, I really enjoy Barna's because they

give me stats every once in a while. And, uh, and it's, it's, it's a good place to be. But Barna sends

me this, this email. Let me get this out of the way so I can, I can see our relationships,

pastor's biggest blind spots, our relationships, pastor's biggest blind spots. And, and, you know,

they've done a, um, you know, they've done a re, uh, relational flourishing is lower among pastors

than congregants. Some stats that have come out. Practicing Christians are, uh, 85% are, are like

comfortable or deal with relationships or happy to get into it. Um, pastors, 67%, like that's almost

20%, one in five drop comparatively. And, and, you know, the article goes into talk about it's a major

gap in pastors, uh, lives and support systems. However, they may be unaware or unconcerned that

their relational health falls behind that of, of the other group. And of course, you know, Barna,

Barna's context is to help the, the established church, the physical church. And so like, there's

a, uh, there's a report they want you to buy confession hour. I didn't buy the report. The website

actually wasn't working yesterday and, but they fixed it today. And so, but you can go on, you can

look at the report, you can buy the report. It is, um, it is going to be, um, I'm sure it's factual.

I'm sure it's stable. I love my friends at Barna. I've worked with them historically over the years,

but the vantage point is to help the lead pastor. And so Barna is helping the lead pastor address the

weaknesses that are in play. And that's not, that's not a bad play for Barna. There's 300,000 plus

evangelical churches in North, in, uh, America alone, not including, you know, the other English

speaking, uh, nations and congregations here in, uh, in the, you know, the Western hemisphere. And it's a

great play to solve that initial problem. But, but I would, I, I, and this is what I kind of threw into,

into, into WhatsApp. I was like the, that's like, um, treating the system, treating the symptom. It's

treating the symptom. It's not solving the problem. You see, the problem is, is that I would suggest is

that the 2025 us church in North America, and this is probably where I'm going to get some hate. Uh,

the 2025 church in North America, uh, really has become a content centric model. We create content,

uh, that we want to connect with people with and through that content, through that live content,

through that musical worship and a, an oration, a speaker on stage, we hope to change lives.

And, you know, in fairness, there is a percentage of people that, uh, would, um, connect with that

type of model. In North America alone, we're seeing 25% of, of people, uh, that are actively engaged in,

in the North American church in an organized, actually organized religion, 25% organized religion is

the stat there. That's a Barna quote, by the way. Um, that is, uh, down 25% from year 20, 2000.

So over the past 25 years, we've lost 25%. Um, this is North America. And, and I should also say,

by the way, globally, you know, I understand different continents and different contexts are

at different places. The, I was talking with somebody yesterday and they're seeing, you know,

borderline revival in the global South, like our friends in Africa, our friends in, uh,

in India, like, like the gospel is on fire in, in those contexts and they're hungry for it.

Europe, Europe is, is a, um, is a D, uh, is a D church to model almost already where they,

people are not interested in going to the buildings at all. As a matter of fact, Christmas Eve,

you're more, more likely in, in England, Christmas Eve in England, you're more likely to find more

people in pubs than you will in, in cathedrals. And so the understanding is that they've already

walked away and there's now the church in Europe is adapting to what to do next. Now,

which is funny because we're actually doing a conference for the European Digital Missionary

summit. And that's going to be, uh, October 1st, missionary.digital, get more information

about that. Really excited to see how Europe is adapting and using digital in these, uh, D

churched in environments. So we did this report and I was, was talking about this with, with Barna,

uh, uh, you know, 80, once again, 67% of pastors are, are, are comfortable with environments. 85% of

people are, and, but there's a disparity between the two. Well, is it because pastors don't have

people they can trust within the communities? I'll tell you the pastors that, that I've worked for

often do treat people within the church, um, hands off. It's like, I can't, I'm serving you. I can't

trust you. Um, um, for the organization, I can't be very open about what I'm doing. Uh, I'll, I'll tell

you some of the years that I've worked in, in physical church staffs, uh, have been, you know,

as, as, as, as a pastor and as a staff person, uh, have been some of the loneliest, loneliest

years of, of my life. Like, um, I, I just, I, it was funny. I used to joke. It was like, yeah,

the church owns my soul. It just, because it was so encompassing to serve the model of church,

that, that I was, I was working in to serve the, the churches that I've worked in historically. Now,

let me pause because I want to put this disclaimer. That's not to say that all churches are that way.

As I say this, I'm actually interviewing and it's likely that I will be on a physical church staff,

um, by the end of the summer. And we're progressing forward and moving towards,

towards that sort of a conversation. So I have hope for the future church. I have hope for the

physical church. And I'm glad there's organizations like Barna that are leaning in and wanting to

restore the model. I do, because that model is going to reach people. But through the church digital,

I've, and, and I've, I've always said this, doing something different reaches someone different.

And, and using a, a different model, a different type, uh, of, of way to reach and connect people.

Well, you know, we're going to reach people in, in a different way. All right. So let's ask this

question. Why looking at this stat, it's funny. I'm just going to, maybe I'm going to leave this up the

entire time and just bounce back and forth into it. Looking at this stat right here, pastors,

67% practicing Christians, 85%. What, why is that so, so important?

Barna released another stat a couple of months ago. Uh, maybe it was early, early this year, late last

year. Um, 47% of, um, Oh no, no, that's what it was. 53% of people that are active in a physical

church. These are active church attenders. They are regularly attending church. 53% strongly trust

church leadership. And, and Barna was celebrating that stat as, as a positive, a stat to prove a

stat that's going to get there in a second. For me, it was interesting. You know, I've always been a

flip the script guy, right? 43% of, of people, uh, in America, 43% of Americans that are actively

attending church did not feel like they could say they, they strongly trusted church leadership.

Now, look, there's, there's varying levels, right? There's somewhat trust, neutral, somewhat don't

trust, very much not trust, whatever. Half the people who are sitting in the church building

cannot say I a hundred percent trust my, my pastor. That's not a good sign. That is not a good sign.

And, and why, why do you think that is? Well, in 2025, what we find is that trust comes via relationships.

In 1980s, in the 1990s, in maybe even the early 2000s, an orator, a pastor, a communicator standing

on stage preaching a sermon for 40 minutes would reach a mass amount of people for Christ

because the culture was set up to receive in that way.

Now, unfortunately, in 2025, unfortunately, maybe things have changed and, and there needs to be more,

more relationship. We actually, we see this all the time. Now I cannot say with certainty that it works

this way did physically. I can say with certainty it does work this way digitally, um, because I've seen

it time and time and time again. Digitally, people find community before they find Christ.

I don't know enough about physical church to say whether that's true, whether people find community

before they find Christ. And maybe the reason that some of our churches, um, are dropping is because

they don't have that, uh, that percentage. But yes, there is a, a drop in, there's a, there's a change

coming where people to build trust need the relationship and the physical church model where

the Sunday morning, 9am church service is the lead opportunity for evangelism. It's,

it's lacking the community. Well, Jeff, there's community out in the lobby. You try being the new

person out there in the lobby, uh, to build relationships with people. Yeah, it doesn't

work. It, it, the, the model is flawed at some churches. Yeah. My church can do it. Maybe your

church can. What I would suggest is, is that the, the model is flawed. Now, when I say the model is

flawed, what, what I am not saying is that, uh, God is bogus. Christ did not die. He was just a,

he did die. He did not raise from the dead. He is just a man. I'm not tearing down Christianity.

I'm questioning the validity of a model. There's nowhere in scripture that it says that,

um, I don't know that sermons have to be 40 minutes long. Uh, I mean, scripture,

it says things like make a joyful noise. Does that mean there needs to be a, a rock band on stage leading

worship? Now I love the rock band. My son plays bass, but it's a method. It's a mod. My son plays

bass for my church. Like, I love it. I, I want that sub. I was, we used to joke, um, you know,

when I was a production director 20 years ago, you know, say things like cue the Holy Spirit. And that

would be in time to, you know, crank up the fog machine. But that's almost is, is the, is the problem,

right? Because we start to create models without examining scripture, without going back, without

questioning how we got to where we are. Oftentimes Christianity, church leaders, this is just my,

my pitch from the outside. We're afraid of questions. It's funny. Jesus, you know,

Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Christianity has survived 2000 plus years. The

Bible is a 6,000 year old document. I really don't think that I am going to ask the question

that tears down the entire Christianity belief system. At least smarter people than me have tried

and have failed along the way. And so taking the opportunity to, to question things.

I think that's okay. Now I'm seeing some, I see some comments coming in. Let me pause here.

Uh, Steve's, you know, asking questions. Did I miss anything? Dude, if you're just walking into

this conversation, yes. Yes, Steve, you missed something. You may want to go back to that.

Uh, Ian is saying, uh, you know, good luck in not taking anyone off with this. It's probably going

to happen. It's okay. Since he sent hate email to Jeff at the church digital, I will gladly embrace

it and respond. Um, um, that would be 33% still not good. I think that may be Scott. I saw when you

said that, I think that was around the people that are questioning. My stats may be off, but for,

I said 43% of people, uh, don't trust physical church leadership. And it may, it may, I thought

it was 57, 43, but you're saying it may have been 67, 33. That's fair. Either way, your points got

still not good. And so what I would propose to you. Oh, just my math. Yeah. Okay. Just, yeah. Yeah.

Listen, my, my, my, my wife teaches AP calculus. My daughter just got a five. She's a, she just

graduated her sophomore year in high school. She just got a college level, uh, credit for college

calculus. Uh, and so, yeah, I'm, I'm the dumb one in the family when it comes to, when it comes to

that stuff. Thanks. Thanks for that, Scott. Um, the, yeah, so it's 50, 57% of people, uh, trust

church leadership. 43% do not. That was the stat that, um, yeah, that's right. 57, 43, nine,

carry the one 10. Um, you're making, you're making me question myself here, Scott. All right, look,

where, where, where I'm going with this is that there's this word deconstruction that's floating

around in church space and it, and it has a, and it has a negative connotation. Deconstruction,

the way that the majority of church leaders in North America, and I would suggest outside of North

America, deconstruction is, is a negative term because it means that you cannot question what's

happening within the church. I, I, I would suggest that we need to question what's in the church.

I would suggest that where there's actually biblical models in place and examples of where people

questioned what was in the church. We just need to make sure that we're

quantifying it against something. Now, you know, let's, it was, was interesting. I actually,

I think Scott, I was picking on you a little bit in, in, in WhatsApp. Um, you know, the idea,

I would actually suggest that, that Christ was in, I don't want to, I love Scott. It's not about Scott.

Um, I would suggest that Christ actually was the, the, the first, you know, if Christ is a Christian,

we can have that term, but he was one of the first within the Christian circles to deconstruct

religion. He stood up against the Pharisees and the Sadducees, uh, questions, their beliefs,

quantified it against existing scripture to show where they were wrong and started a movement of, of people

towards that, that direction. He started collecting people that were, that recognized, that saw the

world that he saw, and they went to him for more learnings and teachings on that space, which is a

great thing. We want to be, uh, questioning. We want to be learning. We should be open to more ways to

recognize in, in scripture and in those teachings. We're here and here from, from flat cap coming in.

Deconstruction is only negative to the establishment, not those who are questioning.

Now it's interesting, flat cap. I want to get to this and rebuilding their faith.

I think asking questions is, is great. What you do after you deconstruct, when you rebuild,

that's where it's interesting, um, here, uh, to insist on, uh, on a standard is oppression. Scott,

that's, that's a, that's a great vantage point. I was actually talking about in the WhatsApp,

that deconstruction is actually necessary to get into contextualization, pairing together the two

ideas of deconstruction and contextualization that you want to get down to that, that, you know,

ecclesiological minimal. Okay. You know, if we're planting digital churches, what is a church?

Let's boil everything out. The 10,000 person mega church model is not the standard for a micro

church or a digital church. What is the standard? And then how do we do that digitally? Um, the

misdefinition of the word comes from the establishment. That's interesting, Scott.

A lot of wisdom in that. Scott actually works for a physical church, used to work for a physical

church. I don't, is in the process of retiring. It may be retiring any, any day now, but he actually,

when he says that he's got some experience behind those words. Deconstruction

does not challenge Christ. Deconstruction. Christ is the same. Christ is, is read the end of the book.

Revelations 2 and 3 is nothing but deconstructing of churches. Dude, you've lost your first love. Get

back in there. Like questioning the established norm is not a, is not deconstructing a model. Let

me make it a model, not established norm. Deconstructing a model is not a bad thing. Um,

it's but to Christ. But what it does do is it questions the model. Uh, deconstruction challenges, um,

opinions. Deconstruction challenges beliefs. Now, if deconstruction takes you away from Christ,

listen, there's plenty of examples of that, uh, of people that have, have deconstructed

and, and where it's not deconstructing the church, it's gone to deconstructing their faith.

Well, I hate to say this, but, you know, Christ said many of, many of will say, Lord, Lord,

and, and I'll say, depart from me for I never knew you. Like there's plenty of examples scripturally

of, of, of how people walked away from their belief. Or, I mean, shoot, we could even take Judas as an

example. Judas never was on the same page as Jesus, in my opinion. Judas was looking for a, a military

king, which was not what Christ was about. Judas wanted his revolution, uh, at the malicious

standpoint, and Christ was looking for it in, in a different way. And so Judas, when Judas had to

deconstruct, hey, this guy is not the, the, the military general that I was thinking it was going

to be. When he deconstructed, he lost his faith at the same time. Now we can beat that up and, and

you're happy to, to wordsmith that around. But the, the fact is, is that deconstructing faith,

well, maybe you never understood what faith was at the beginning. Because the whole part of faith is

believing in something you can't prove. So deconstructing something you can't prove means

that you never really understood what you were doing in the first place.

Get into that. Hey, we've got some great, uh, comments coming in. Sermon on the Mount was a

bit of deconstruction and reconstruction of God's word. That is, that is true. I, I do, I use the Sermon on the

Mount all the time, uh, as, as, uh, you know, blessed are the, uh, as, as establishing what,

what we, the church are to be. And that was, uh, quantifiably different. That was challenging

to many who had heard it at, at the time. Uh, and so, so good. I have, uh, Scott saying here,

I have no problem with reform, recontextualization, or any other term we're using. None of it is, is

deconstruction. Uh, I know you can't talk and follow the chat, but your definition of the word is,

is wrong. Now, I, I, I actually appreciate that. I, I, I would flip, Scott, I would flip the script

on you. Uh, I actually think that the way that we are using the word deconstruction is right.

Um, in that, if you, if you look at the pure, um, you know, I'm talking Webster's dictionary

definition of deconstruction, um, it's, it's grounded in, in the way that we're talking about it,

looking at something and breaking it down. The, the problem is, is that culture in North America is

using it wrong. I don't, I don't want to, I don't want to wordsmith on this because Scott, I do,

I do understand your heart is, is that what we're trying to do is break down, um, the way things are

perceived to be and, and re-engage it with the source code, so to speak, scripture, and then re-engage

in an appropriate method. We're seeing some of the weakness in physical church. Uh, we're seeing some

of the, uh, how it's, it's physical church is missing in culture because there's a disconnect

in relationships and, and, and, and content and some of that, maybe a mindset, maybe a move away

from discipleship. And we're trying to create a new model using digital that's re-engaging and that's

open to, um, a, a different mindset. Uh, but it's, is based on, like I said, that source code,

that, that, that scripture and it's re-engaging in that. Um, listen, if it's, if it's deconstruction,

if it's reconstruction, I appreciate your, your, your term, Scott. But my, my point is, is that

people have misconstrued, church leaders have misconstrued any form of questioning as negative.

The majority of leaders, you may be different, but it's, no, you can't, can't question that.

That's, that's, you know, that's non-negotiable. I've, I've worked in environments where that,

that lead pastor was, you know, king, uh, where it was, um, there was no questioning and, and he had

final say. Uh, I, I can tell you some stories. I don't want to on that. But, um, the, the fact is,

is that scripture, we actually saw this and it was, I, I, I shared in one of the WhatsApp groups,

um, it took me a while to remember their names. I had to, ironically, I had to ask chat GPT, hey,

who are those people in scripture that were allowed to, to question or that, you know, that,

that Paul said that the, um, they questioned, and it was the Bereans. It's actually in Acts 17.

Paul went to go talk to the Bereans and, and it was mentioned that the Bereans would, uh,

Acts 17, uh, I think nine to 12. I can actually read it right here. 10 to 12. As soon as was

night, the believers sent Paul and Silas away to Berea. On arriving there, they went to the Jewish

synagogue. Now the Bereans, uh, the Berean Jews were of noble character, uh, than those in Thessalonica

for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the scriptures every day to see if

Paul said was true. As a result, many of them believed and also did a number of prominent

Greek women and many Greek men. It's interesting. I don't think I ever caught the Greek part,

but that's what we're supposed to do.

Like, is, is it better to, to hear the Sunday sermon and, and not cross-reference it in scripture? Or, or is it better to hear the Sunday sermon and cross-reference it in scripture to, to, to, to challenge and to own the belief? You know, as, as, as a youth pastor, I would, I would tell, tell, I told my kids, you know, when you hear something, look it up. I was, was funny. My, my pastor was actually quoted something.

Maybe it was last week. It was two weeks ago. And, and it was funny when, when he said it, I actually opened up chat. He quoted a couple stats and I was like, I don't know that that's true. And I, and I actually, I went into chat GPT and I was like, find this stat or something close to that stat because my, my pastor didn't list a reference. He just threw it at the number out there.

And, and, and, and I just wanted to cross-reference it to better understand it.

Questioning is, is a form of respect if the people you're questioning are aligned to scripture.

The Bereans who were not believers were questioning what Paul was saying.

They were, they were Jews, but the Bereans were questioning Paul and found by scripture and found what Paul was saying to be true.

That's a form of respect.

Dude, I, I, I cross-checked you and you're right.

Where it's disrespectful or where there gets to be a problem is if the Bereans are cross-referencing Paul against scripture and are finding that Paul is not accurate.

Church leaders that are afraid of being questioned because their, their motives or the directions or what they're talking about is not affirmed in scripture.

Man, you're, you're, you're, you're picking a battle without having your, your greatest tool, scripture, God, the Holy Spirit, on, on, on your side.

Like, why, why would you, this is why I just, I love, I love scripture so much in this because scripture is the strength, it's the, it's the, it's the, it's the, it's, it's the strength of, of the battle.

It's what makes your, I'm trying to actually think what is in the, in the armor of God.

What is the, it's, it's the breastplate of righteousness, sword of the spirit, the gospel.

It's the sword, is it not?

The gospel is the, is the sword.

But it really, it's, it's an essential part.

I'll generalize it because I don't have it memorized.

I'm sorry.

But it is the, it's the strength of what we're getting into.

It's the strength of our armor.

And, and to not use scripture in, in, in such a way, it just doesn't make sense.

I think that there's a, a strong emphasis on misunderstanding in, in, in a lot of this misunderstanding and posture.

Even going back to what Hosea is talking about here, about the, the Sermon on the Mount.

Who is, um, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are they that mourn.

Blessed are the meek.

Um, and the, the posture of the people that Jesus is calling towards in, in this, in this, in the Sermon on the Mount are, are in a position of, of humility, are in a position of, of weakness, are in a position of, of where they have to be dependent on God.

And, and, and that, I would suggest, that questioning, that deconstruction, shirks away, reconstruction, the process of boiling refiner's fire, taking out any of the imperfections, internal questioning, okay, where am I off in this?

Actually, in, in, in, in counterchecking that against God, actually brings us closer to alignment with him, which brings, makes the questions not seem as, as impactful.

I am a control freak.

I am.

I'm, I'm, I'm a, I'm a recovering control freak.

Uh, if you would have looked at me maybe even three years ago, two years ago, if you would have looked at me last week, there's probably some level of control.

My control freak still in me, um, but I, my, my control freak was actually, this is confession hour for me here.

My, my control freak is actually, um, a, a testimony to my lack of belief in my leadership capacity.

This is, this is the unfiltered hour of, of the church digital.

I would, um, challenge, I, that I had to fight for everything to keep it the way that I wanted,

because that was what I wanted.

And, uh, I was, I was constantly battling against others because I was fearful of different, um, different mindsets that would challenge my power.

Uh, and that, that I would lose my power and influence that I had, um, because I did not want to, um,

yeah, I was addicted to the power.

And, and my control freakness is actually, man, that really cost me a lot.

Get more into that at a later point if you want.

The fact is, is that recognizing that God is God, whether or not I'm right, and God can use me, whether or not I'm right.

That really opened up a lot of eyes.

You see, I, I, I, I had a misunderstanding of, of what God was, what God is.

I still struggle with it, that, that faith and that dependence on him.

I am, I'm, I'm, I'm a systems guy.

I'm a processes guy.

I, um, you know, build the model, let it run.

Turn around and say, hey God, look at what I did for you.

It took deconstruction for me.

Word, insert whatever word you want and want there.

It took questioning what I was doing.

Counterbalancing it against scripture.

Talking to others of faith and, and being open and transparent to their negative feedback for me to start to understand where, what I was doing, even though it was modeled by many, many, many other Christian leaders, was wrong.

And I had to be broken to be rebuilt.

I had to take that, that model, that desire, that control freakness out and, and reinsert in, um, the humility that I see in, in scripture, the humility that I see in the Beatitudes, uh, the, the, um, you know, the, the fruits of the spirit.

What do I find?

Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

Notice that control freak was not one of, of those terms.

Um, you know, it, uh, the, um, the, um, the Beatitudes are not saying blessed are the powerful.

Pretty sure you can find some power hungry churches in, uh, Rev 2 and 3, by the way.

Shoot, even the early church, there was questioning in what was happening there.

As Paul was moving on his missionary journey and jacked up excited and started reaching the Gentiles.

In the early church, the converted Jews were like, what the crap?

No, no, no, no, no, they can't do that.

And there were questions.

Well, what do you do when there are questions?

Let's go back to, I mean, now it's, let's go to Paul's epistles and get that figured out.

But at the time, you're going to counterbalance that through scripture.

You're going to counterbalance that through prayer.

You're going to counterbalance that through people that are in your life.

How does God speak?

Experiencing God 101, you can dig into that.

The book's been around a long time and it still is valid today as it was 50 years ago when it was written, 48 years ago.

The point being is if we don't question ourselves, if we don't question what we hear, that creates a above reproach approach,

which creates this control-free, power-hungry model.

If you look at the church, if you look at the North American church today, maybe what's one of the more popular complaints?

Why do we not trust?

You've got people that are power-hungry.

They want to do their own thing.

They're not listening to those around.

And maybe, just maybe, what they're doing doesn't always line up to what they see in scripture.

Maybe instead of trying to treat the symptom, we need to solve the problem.

I appreciate, Scott.

You know, Scott, this is not about you.

I just, you're one of many that are saying, you know, use a different word.

And maybe we need to.

I mean, shoot, I'm the guy that, Fidgetal, I own Hybrid.Church.

Like, I use, I mean, I make up words all the time.

Maybe we need to figure out a new word here.

But it's not so much about challenging God as much as what you do once you challenge God.

What you do with the information when you get it back.

Job questioned God.

And, you know, Job, it's towards the end of the book, what, 37, I'm guessing, 47, towards, you know, God answers back.

Who are you to question me?

Where were you when I created the suns and the earth and separated the water from the blah, blah, blah?

Look, it's, it's all about, it's all about approach.

It's all about posture.

And, and maybe, just maybe, it's, it's all about what we do with the information once we have it.

Many walked away from the church.

Many walked away from God when they should have been walking away from the church.

In today's contextualization, in today's contextualized, in today's bifurcated experiment, experience, culture, you can't get anybody to agree on everything.

The physical church model, it's not bad.

Like I said, I'm, I'm actually going to go work for one.

I, I, I want to re-engage with, with the physical church.

And there are physical churches that get it.

There are church leaders that, and pastors that are, are humble enough to, to create a, um, a culture and experience, uh, of discipleship that is, is beautiful within the church.

And for those pastors in those churches, I'm not necessarily bemoaning you, but they're the, they're the exception to the acceptable rule.

Maybe it's time for us to deconstruct.

Maybe it's time for us to question.

Maybe it's time for us to get back to the way that it used to be.

And, and do something then to contextualize it.

This, this is rough.

Like, this is literally fresh thought over the past 12 hours.

Where I, I was funny.

I'm actually, you're going to laugh.

Um, so, you know, the church digital, we're doing digital missionary conference, 2025, September, October, missionary.digital.

Get more information about the conference.

There are 250 people have already registered for the conference.

Excited about that.

We'll have, uh, hopefully, you know, 10X that, uh, when all said and done, uh, for the four summits we're doing, uh, uh, September 17th, 24th, October 1st and 8th.

More information on missionary digital.

But this is funny.

I, I actually, I started working on, um, the spring 26th conference.

Because Barbara and the word revolution team say, Jeff, you need to get the conferences a year out.

And so it's like, fine, I got, I got to start planning spring.

By the way, it's going to probably be a late April if you're really interested.

But where I'm going with that, where I'm going with that is I started putting together words that don't make sense together.

But flipping the script to show that they do make sense together when we understand what those words mean.

And, and, and I actually, I, I put together just, and this is me being stupid.

This is me brainstorming.

This is me finding threads and nuances and, and, and doing this together.

And I created like a, maybe 15 to 20 pairs of words.

You know, I'm talking like synchronous and asynchronous now, you know, as a digital missionary, you need to utilize both.

That's, that's okay.

That makes sense to go together.

And, you know, and, and, and, um, you know, I'm talking, uh, broken to be healed, um, and, um, healed, healed need, or, um, I forget what that one was.

I can pull the document up.

The one that I put together in this was pairing together deconstruction and contextualization and putting them together.

To figure out how best to contextualize digital church, micro church.

And you know what?

And actually, um, our friend, Alan Hirsch down in, in Australia, he's so good at this.

I heard him before I knew Alan, uh, before I barely knew Alan.

Um, I, I, I heard Alan speak on this at an exponential and just blew my mind.

Um, you know, talking about the ecclesiological, minimal ecclesiology, uh, ecclesiological norms.

What is the, the minimum level of, of a church?

What does a church need?

You know, it's interesting with the church that I'm, um, um, talking to right now, they've got a situation.

I'll tell the story.

I, I, I don't think Kit, I'm sorry if I shouldn't have said this.

I'm going to go ahead and say it.

Kit's the missions director.

Kit's actually on the board of directors for the church.

Digital is the missions director at that, at this church.

I won't say the name of the church,

but, um, they are planting a hundred, they're working with an organization in a country.

I can't say that are planting a hundred churches, house churches, micro churches in this communist

country.

I cannot say, and, um, they, uh, started anyway, they said to me, Jeff, would you help?

And so, you know, digital discipleship, um, digital community peer to peer.

Yeah, I can help with that contextualization.

Yeah, I can help with that.

And so, you know, I, I sat down with, uh, with the, the church and started to brainstorm.

Okay, like I can create the, the framework and the, the model.

Um, but what are we, what are we doing?

Like, what, what is it, what does the church mean to you?

And, and the idea was to take the, that church's model of a mega church model, a mega multi-site

church model and boil it down for international, uh, multi-lingual micro in a communist country.

Let's not do that.

Because there's so much that's built into what happens at the physical church level.

That's opinions at, at, at, at mega church level.

That's opinions.

It's, it's not of Christ.

And it's so hard to, you know, that refiner's fire.

It's so hard to take out all of those things to get it down where it's small, simple, and

reproducible.

No, like it's, you, you, you can't.

Now, I mean, it can, it takes a lot of time and it's extremely painful.

And because it's painful because you're, you're, you're pruning, you're, you're, you're

cutting things off and, and, and like, you know, you're snipping leaves when you're pruning

a branch, like the pruning hurts in the opinions that you have of how the church is and what

church is.

That's extra biblical.

It's outside of the Bible.

That doesn't make it bad, but over tradition and over the years, all of a sudden what you

thought wasn't a big deal is now a big deal because it's been baked into your entire model,

which once again works for your model, but may not work in a multilingual communist country.

For us to contextualize things, you've got to deconstruct it.

You've got to break it down to that norm.

You've got to, um, you know, I, I, man, I, Scott, I appreciate you.

I love you.

If I can't say the word deconstruction, I don't know what to say.

Reconstruction is still going to be deconstruction.

Um, but I, I just, I, you've got to be able to break it down and do something with it.

I still attest today.

God is not afraid of deconstruction over the years.

I'm sure God has faced many of these time periods historically where Christians were doing

not smart things in the name of Christ, the crusades, and was causing some cultural shifts.

And, you know, maybe the church needed a little realignment.

I don't know.

Maybe one day somebody will hammer a bunch of theses on a door somewhere and, and that,

that'll be the new norm.

Or somebody will publish a YouTube video and that'll be the new norm.

Or God shows up and breaks us only to rebuild us in the way that he wanted.

At the end of this, I do believe, and I think I've said this before, I will stand before God

one day and, and ask this question.

All right.

Where'd I get it wrong?

You ever watch the, the, the TV show, Good Place?

Like it's, it's a little religious satire.

It's a Ted Danson is, he actually starts off saying, isn't, I don't want, I'm not going

to be a spoiler.

I almost spoiled the show for you right there on that.

The Good Place.

It's, it's, it's funny.

Um, it's, uh, a little, it's very satire, religious, uh, it's very easy to get offended

if, if you watch it.

Um, so maybe watch it, maybe not.

If you, if you can make it past the first couple episodes, you'll be fine.

And then at the end of the first season, your head's going to explode.

But there's, there's the one guy, uh, there, there's the photo.

I forget the guy's name.

Somebody watching this may actually know the guy's name.

There's this one guy who, uh, they have his photo in, in the office, like a big, uh, painting

mural of this guy, because this one guy in, in the history of all time, um, the one guy

was drunk and, and spouted off in a drunken stupor what he thought God was.

And that one guy over the entire history of time, that one guy got it right.

And so they, they like put a painting up, up in the, in the, the spiritual office, because

this is the one guy that actually got it.

He was drunk at the time, but it's once again, satire being what it is, but I'll stand before

God.

Oh God, where'd I get it wrong?

I will.

We're, we are aggressively doing things differently here with the church digital.

Um, and, and, and, and my hope is, is that while we're doing it, we are, we're, we're, we're

cross-referencing scripture.

We're looking at Bible.

We're looking at how things are, um, how we're doing things and making sure it aligns with

that scripture.

I'll tell you, we're not, we're not cross-referencing it against physical church buildings, um, because

it doesn't, if COVID taught us anything, it taught us that it's physical church building

mindset doesn't work digitally.

Um, that doesn't make it bad physical.

I don't think that makes digital bad.

Now, what I would say is that I don't think this came up somewhere.

I think I was talking with Jesse Velez about this.

The model, digital is a model, just like physical is a model.

And like I'm saying, there are good physical churches, um, there can be bad digital churches.

There can be people that use this tool effectively, and there can be people who use the tool ineffectively.

Uh, whether the physical church model works or doesn't, um, there, there is, there are people

that, and God is glorified through that model in some context, physically, and in some context,

physically, it struggles.

And, and, and I believe that God can use a, a digital content model if God so chooses.

Um, but when I look at other parts of scripture, I see more consistency around relationships.

And when I look at today's culture and some of the challenges they have, I see relationships.

And so while I can't, this is like, um, once again, I'm trying not to posture to be like

a jerk here.

While I can't say that I speak for the entire digital model, what I can say is that we encourage

people to use digital in, in a way that aligns to scripture.

Now look, digital is the place of pornography.

The metaverse is, is the place of great darkness.

And, and, and so to say that we are alone and that, that we can control and that all things

that are digital and all things that are metaverse are good, uh, and of God, uh, that I, I, I cannot

say that.

But that does not mean that what we are, are doing is not of God.

And I believe God is using us in a way to bring about a change and the way to bring out a, a new

model, a healthy, uh, model of church in digital virtual space.

Now, can that be abused?

Yes.

Can that be misaligned?

Yes.

Does that need to be deconstructed?

Every step of the way.

Let me say it this way.

Every step of the way.

Yeah.

Like bring on the questions.

And, and I've, I've said this for years.

The, the day that we find a different model that is more effective in connecting people,

like the day that digital does not become effective for, for reaching and discipling people, I out.

Like, let's, let's be, let's do what we can for the kingdom.

If we're stuck on models, if we're stuck on models, I mean, I don't overthink what I'm about

to say.

I honestly, like everything that I've said here today, I'm comfortable with.

I'm about to say something out loud that in my mind, I'm like, I don't know that you

want to say this.

If I were to oversimplify, I would say something like, if we're stuck on the model, we're no

different than the Pharisees and the Sadducees.

Yes, there's a lot more than model in that, but they were stuck on pride and ego.

And not recognizing what, what God was doing in that moment, not recognizing that they had

Christ before them.

And I would suggest that, that even though I am a digital guy that's been pushing digital

for 25 plus years, God had called me to be a digital pastor 33 years ago.

Honest to God, I can say that my parents will back me up.

I will count it all as loss and we'll move on when Christ opens the door for something else.

If we're going to make a difference in people's lives, we have to be open to shining that light

on ourselves.

We have to be transparent in all things, even when it means questioning ourselves, deconstructing

ourselves.

Here, he says this, Jesus always, Scott, Jesus always called us back to the standard.

That is not deconstruction.

That is the opposite of deconstruction.

No.

And that's, that's where we're, that's where we're off here, Scott.

Deconstruction brings us back to the standard.

Deconstruction sheds away that right there is, this is, this is where, Scott, I'm, I'm

trying like you and me, bro.

We are on the same page.

I want to get us there because deconstruction tears it apart so that the standard is what you

have.

That is what I'm saying.

Is that deconstruction deconstructs it down to you get to the standard.

I had a, oh my gosh, what was the, I had a, I had a deconstructed spicy tuna roll, um,

at, at, um, payway.

It was, it was like a big bowl and it had the rice, it had the spicy tuna, it had the celery,

it had the, but it wasn't in a roll form.

It was deconstructed and you had the individual elements around.

I ate a spicy tuna roll in a bowl that was not in as made as like a sushi.

It was made, but it was made, but it was made, but it was the elements of a, a spicy tuna.

You are, that, that's just it.

To your point though, Scott, um, I don't fully understand the term and people inside the church and maybe outside the church.

Yeah.

And to your point, Scott, I'm either debating whether or not to reclaim the word and so alienate those around me or come up with a new term and try to get that work through.

And that, my friends, is what we call a Tuesday at the church digital.

Cause I was, I was talking with, uh, you know, it's, it's so easy to forget.

We're a, essentially a volunteer organization.

Like, I mean, there's 50 some people globally who, who are volunteering and serving, you know, the leadership that we've got is, you know, some are paid, some are not.

Uh, by paid, I mean like fractional leadership, they're paid pennies on the, on the hour.

Um, the, um, I, I, myself, like I just started taking, uh, um, a stipend a couple months ago.

Um, but I was meeting with our, the word revolution team and I was going over, over the past couple of weeks, I've been going over everything that happens, you know, that's going to happen in the next six months.

It's a lot.

And, and it was, you know, I just, I told him, I was like, listen, I, and there's, it's, it's a lot of change for you all.

And, and they're feeling it on, on the, at the comms level, comms and connection level.

Like there's going to be a lot of shifts, but what's coming out of that is, uh, is going to be a, a tighter organization.

We do a lot, uh, with, you know, a digital missionary conference for, for,

for individual summits over the span of a month.

I had somebody, you know, who's, who's in the industry, someone I respect.

She says to me, she says, are you crazy?

Like, do you think your team can handle that?

No.

Um, but you know what we're going to do is we're going to, we're going to, we're going to, we're going to, we're going to nail it as best we can.

Uh, it's going to be good enough to move on.

And I, I do know this is that, um, we're going to depend on God and, and we're praying that God does something incredible through it.

Proverbs three, trusting God, even when it doesn't make sense and acknowledge him while you're doing it.

And he's going to direct your path.

And, um, we, with the church digital, we're doing this and words like, you know, deconstruction, whether that's the right word, whether that's the wrong word, we need to come up with a new word.

Uh, we'll figure it out.

And that is, that is one of many, many things that you're going to see in, in the coming days through the church digital.

I am, uh, gosh, I am very excited.

Yeah, I do want to, we're talking a lot about physical church today and I do want to, want to kind of pause here for a second.

Um, you know, I've said, I've said in leadership circles, the, my senior leadership knows, the board knows.

Key volunteers know, I've, you know, I've said it here on the stream.

Now I don't, I, I'm not hiding this.

Like I am, um, most likely taking a job at a, at a physical church, um, in, in the coming weeks.

Um, and I don't, I don't view that as any sort of a move away from the church digital.

Uh, it was interesting.

I've actually, uh, had, had a conversation with a friend, a donor here at the church digital.

Uh, and, and there was, I could tell there was some skepticism, you know, well, are you, are you still going to be, you know, doing the church digital?

Are you giving it up?

It's like, oh no, no, no, no, no, no.

No, church digital isn't going away, uh, by far from it.

Like this is, this is the season to lean in strong.

This is, uh, this is the season to, to push hard.

Uh, God is opening some incredible doors in, in a ministry context.

Um, what I think you're seeing is that this is not going to be, um, a Jeff Reed centered, a Jeff Reed focused, a Jeff Reed driven, uh, organization.

And, and that we're going to start to move away from that.

Now, I may be a visionary role.

I may be a mouthpiece to be able to do streams and, and stuff like this.

But, um, we want to, um, we're recognizing there's some incredible, absolutely incredible people that are now connected with us at a global level.

And for us to really, the, the heart of what we're doing at this time and time again is decentralization.

We want to create a decentralized global movement that, that's freeing Simon, that's freeing Yatope, that's free, freeing Tariq, that's, that's freeing up Layton, that's freeing all of these people, Micah, to do what God is, is calling each of them to do.

Freeing Stacey to do what God is calling them to do.

And as, as a result of that, what we, what we really wanted to do was create a central framework, connect community, equip, mobilize, get those pieces in place, and then start to empower others to utilize that framework.

And, and, and in the process of that, you're going to see a lot more people, a lot more faces of the church digital, instead of just this one bald guy with a beard, wearing an orange Mickey Mouse shirt.

I don't know who dressed me this morning, that was a little awkward.

The fact is, is that it's, it's going to look different.

And in, in the midst of a decentral, you've, if you've ever been a part of a decentralized movement, you know, it's messy.

Um, you, it's, decentralization is not, centralization is clean.

Decentralization is messy.

Uh, there, it's very, it's impossible to be a power hungry control freak in a decentralized movement.

And so it's, I'm even more adamant that we move in this direction as a check and balance for myself so that I can empower others, uh, instead of seeking it for myself.

But the, the, the vision, the dream, the drive of the church digital is not slowing down.

It's decentralizing.

It's getting in the hands of others.

Biblically, the church exploded, not because this is going to be bad.

Don't be mad at me.

Biblically, the church did not explode because of Christ.

It exploded because Christ invested in 12 men who carried it on.

Um, if it was just Christ, he would be a madman and a lunatic, but Christ invested into others who carried it on.

He would be perceived, would be perceived as a madman and a lunatic, but that others carried the name of Christ up into their own death.

You know, Peter crucified upside down, um, you know, and, and everything encompassed in that, that the sacrament, not that I'm, we're going to kill Andy.

Oh my gosh, that'd be awkward.

Um, but the, the validity of this carries on, um, because of that generation.

And I can remember, I can remember, you know, the first group of, of, um, church planners I worked with when I was with that, that stadia.

I literally, I was like, you're lunatic one, you're lunatic two.

There's a Ted talk on this, uh, watch, um, concert footage, um, lunatics.

Uh, you can Google it.

Um, crazy people.

It's a really good Ted talk, but it's interesting.

The first person that followed and I'll get into it.

You can Google it.

We'll talk about it later, but, uh, it was talking about the, the influence of, of getting the idea to spread, uh, dancing at a, at a, uh, outdoor concert.

Crazy.

The fact is, is that the church digital is not, man, I'm really bad at tangents today.

The church digital is not slowing down.

We're ramping up, um, and we're decentralizing into some different areas to allow.

People's passions and people's callings to come out at a stronger level.

Pray for me that God has moved through the transition and that, um, he'll be glorified through physical churches and digital churches, uh, globally.

I'm encouraged.

I hope you are too.

Scott, love you.

I mean, I, I, I feel like I've said your name a lot today.

I'm really don't mean to pick on you.

Uh, it totally does make sense, uh, about the, the, um, you know, agreeing the deconstruction, that minor context, finding a different word or reclaiming the word.

I hear you.

We'll have to figure that out.

All right.

Hey, next week.

I have no idea what's going on.

The schedule has gotten a little screwed up in recent weeks.

We'll re-engage.

Scott says it back to, I love you, brother.

We're good.

I know.

I know.

We're good.

Scott, Scott's great.

But, um, looking forward to re-engaging next week as we're getting back into, uh, the season and equipping partners, empowering tools.

So, so check that out.

WhatsApp and Discord's got the schedule.

You can find that the church.digital slash calendar.

You can find the schedule there as well.

Um, and swing over to missionary.digital.

We're, we're going to be launching more stuff on that in the next week or so.

And so looking forward to updating you all on the craziness, the craziness that's going to be the four digital missionary summits we are going to be doing this fall.

Check it out.

Missionary.digital.

But for Barbara, feel better.

Uh, this is Jeff with The Church Digital.

Thanks for hanging out with us today on, on the stream.

Uh, send a email to, um, Andy, A-N-D-Y at thechurch.com.

Thanks everybody.

Y'all have a good one.