EP346 - From App to Impact: Jeff Talks How GodTools Equips Digital Missionaries

all right hey everybody welcome to the church a digital podcast episode 346 346 we got

mr pete hanging out with us alabama here punkin center is where he's at pisto pete if you don't

know is uh is uh our virtual reality one of our virtual reality guys he hangs out he does a lot

of our streams in the big screen and so yeah we're broadcasting streaming live on youtube right now

mondays 2 p.m and we're also uh in virtual reality thank you uh mr for getting us in in the big screen

uh jonah is is coming in well yay justin yeah we've got uh justin uh right around the corner

excited for uh justin suitor gonna intro him officially oh well jonah's listening in from

the philippines so hey we got somebody literally on the opposite side of the planet for me uh man

it's what is it like 1 a.m in the philippines somewhere around there uh jonah thanks for uh

thanks for staying up late uh you know what if uh it's a smart world there are a lot of smart people

in the world and i know the earth is not flat okay i know this but if somebody can figure out how to

solve the time zone issue so that we can be on like the same time zone that'd be nice i'm just saying

like the whole time zones continent you know it's just it's it's it's starting to get annoying i i just

in my my feelings i don't know maybe maybe you agree with me maybe not hey welcome to the church

digital podcast uh i'm excited we're continuing on this season of uh empowering tools uh what no

equipping tools empowering uh partners my gosh i i every time i do the title of the season it's

something new it's something about empowering equipping tools and partners mesh all those words

together and you got what we're doing here peasant says that the time zone struggle is real feels like

time travel that's it does it really really really really really does uh by the way you may hear some

uh excited yelping in the background um my uh my mother-in-law just showed up at the house which is

awesome we knew she was coming coming to stay with us for a couple days and my dog um well let's just be

honest my dog loves my mother-in-law more than anyone else period my mother-in-law doesn't feed the dog

might to walk the dog or you know pay for the vet bills but the dog loves the mother-in-law more than

anyone else in the in the family so that is happening right as we speak right around the corner hey listen

um with this uh empowering season uh we're highlighting some different tools that are out there to help

people like you digital missionaries like you be more effective uh in in your ministry and it's

interesting there are some really incredible tools and resources out there that that to be honest we

were i was talking about this with justin offline that a lot of us don't even know exist and and rather

than than just uh forgetting about it letting all this work go to waste this season where we're highlighting

some of what's out there and and drawing attention to it speaking of things that are out there that we should

be drawing attention to let's not forget the digital missionary summits are back uh so we did a digital

missionary conference we had 1100 people day of from 80 countries around the world even philippines

was represented jonah was uh was proud actually we actually have a strong presence in the philippines

forever uh that whatever reason that is but uh we had that was back in april and we're doing another

series of of summits uh this fall starting uh september 17th we're doing a digital neighborhoods conference

september 24th on digital christ-centered recovery uh october 1st we're doing uh a european digital

missionary conference highlighting ministry that's happening in on on the continent of europe and then

october 8th we're highlighting um gaming uh what it is to be a digital missionary and resources for

uh missionaries in the digital gaming in the gaming space digital gaming's implied i don't know if

anybody really wants to be uh a missionary using like the board game monopoly i'm sure somebody does i that

was that was presumptuous on my part i apologize all the missionaries out there that are are monopoly

addicts i totally schooled my family the other day on monopoly it was bad like i just i took them to town

it was you know it was so bad it was like i'm never playing monopoly again it was it was that good it's

like i'm gonna go out on a high because there's no way i would ever be able to recreate what i just did

in that in that moment just mere mere days ago all right so hey listen with the digital missionary

conference it's a free conference that's out there allowing people like you to uh to engage in the

resources meet people be encouraged being be inspired maybe maybe find some uh accountability some

camaraderie in in what's out there and and even find ways to take next steps in in your digital uh

missionary life uh we want to provide uh tools and resources uh to help you do that to help you uh get

connected and uh stay connected and get equipped uh to do the work that god's calling you to do some more

information on that swing over to missionary.digital www.missionary.digital we'll have more on that in

the days to come uh yeah jonah jonah's i am on your tomorrow now how crazy is that yeah i can i can

appreciate that so what you're telling me jonah is the end of the world did not happen on tuesday

i'm holding you to this we at least make it to tuesday so we're good after that it's up in the air

we'll see what happens cool hey so let's uh let's get into this uh we have i'm trying to think in recent

weeks uh we've had uh crm databases crm uh we've had databases uh come on uh tools software tools

that are running like a crm database we've had artificial intelligence tools uh we've had reporting

tools using air table and things like just a number of different tools we've had um websites that that do a

lot of evangelism uh that are um evangelism uh resources that are very effective and in this

week we're going to highlight a a a witnessing and evangelism tool mobile app that that you all can

use that people can use to to share jesus digitally and so let me go and bring into the conversation

justin suitor hey justin hey how are you jeff thanks for having me doing doing great thanks for

thanks for coming on so justin is one of the uh product owners over at uh crew i'm curious i'm going to

talk a little bit about crew here in a little bit uh but he he oversees uh is the product leader of of god

tools as well as some other other resources and so justin before we get into like the uh the god tools

aspect i'm just curious let's just open up with this uh like talk to me a little bit about like the

culture of crew as as we've been talking about uh equipping tools and empowering ministry missions

work digitally uh honestly i just find myself having a lot of conversations with crew people

like y'all get it in in a big way which is kind of impressive to me uh what's the culture like over

they're working are you are you in florida over at those offices or where are you based out of

i had ye old headquarters here um in uh orlando florida yeah i mean so i guess if it's helpful um

i always feel like i have an outside perspective because i didn't come up through campus ministry i was

not on a college campus participating in crew um i worked in advertising as an art director and

innovation spaces and then i was just kind of at a point in my life where i was thinking you know i'd

love to work somewhere on something that i really care about and so i sort of fell into crew and i was

like you know what if this stinks i'll just quit i'll just leave i'll go back to freelancing it'll be awesome

and i have not quit i've been here for about eight years now and um i mean our culture of like the more

i get out there the more conferences i go to the more other ministries that i work with the more that

i'm like wow crew actually is really unique it's a group of people who are just sold out for christ

and are willing to do everything possible to get his name out there and that is that's pretty unique

that to get a big collection of doers in one place who are willing to go do the thing that's that's hard

to find actually yeah it's it's funny like i i find myself stumbling into crew people without even realizing

their crew people and it's like oh tell me this thing you're doing oh yeah oh you work with crew

oh you're a crew too like it's just it's this uh never-ending uh list that i'm sure it has an end

but it's it's really cool uh to see that and and it's and they're all they're all i'm i'm sure

somebody's a jerk on the list but for the most part they're all good people at least they they seem to

be well hey listen now that i made it awkward to to kick off the show um so tell us tell us a little

bit about about your story and and and how you ended up on god tools yeah well like i said um

working in advertising doing a lot of web design a lot of branding work you know down here in orlando

we have the parks there's a lot of big industries and stuff so lots of stuff to keep us busy um but

yeah i was very much just at a point where i was um not as though you're duping clients into work in

advertising but there's a side where you know you want to work on something you really care about

and when you're churning through you know 20 or 30 branding projects a year and and that many websites

and campaigns and you're also looking for to win awards and also move up the the pecking order you

know it's it's a lot it's just a lot and so um very kind of ready to step out try something different so

um crew at a time was hiring a user experience designer and so i uh stepped into the role and it was

um i mean i was very relieved to find people who had been working at microsoft and airbnb and

doing all kinds of stuff who were now working at crew as designers developers strategists all in

the digital space who really cared about um helping fulfill the great commission through using digital

and so um pretty quickly uh i began working on god tools which really only had um a product manager

on it and that was kind of it like one lead developer and one product manager and um so i was like hey

you know like let's go do some research let's get out there talk to people so we sort of reset the

vision for the product and um about that time i actually ended up being asked to take over the product

and since then we've grown the team now there's about uh 13 depending on how you count it up 13

people who regularly work on it doing everything from design copywriting translation marketing development

and um yeah i mean we threw a party in like 2019 when we hit like you know a couple thousand users in

one day and now we're like we haven't had less than like 8 000 users in a few years so it's been

really cool to see and god's just been i mean you know you go through seasons where you you just do

things faithfully and then you go through seasons where god just rewards it and like this has been

a really rewarding season just seeing i mean for a little while it was like all right what countries

are more active than the us and there was a very small list and now i mean 96 or 7 of our usage is

outside of the us most of it in the south it's it's been crazy just watching the the way god's been using

this thing so not 96 to 97 of of your usage is outside of the united states yes i um i never would have

guessed that i mean we we see with us we're probably 60 outside of the us but it still is a us strong

presence i mean that's almost a show into itself like what why why does the united states hate

evangelism so much i'm not i'm not actually asking you that i don't know if you have an opinion it's a

it's a fair question i have a lot of opinions jeff so don't don't worry you're not gonna offend me

oh my gosh okay so so you're you're creating this tool what uh how many how many languages you

mentioned translation did i how many languages do you have this thing in yeah so we've switched a

little bit of the way that we do translations um there are about 120 125 languages that they can

access content from inside of the tool but right now there's like 21 languages that it's entirely available

in okay so um kind of thinking about as the bookstore is in one language but then there's books in many

other languages too so um you know like actually a really cool kind of success story in that is that

like we've been working a lot with the the team in south africa um the the crew team down there and

you know we we had seen like a small spike in usage and so we said hey guys would you be okay if we put

some time and budget towards you know increasing uh some of the translations available because they just

had one tool available the four spiritual laws available in zulu and afrikaans and so we said uh

hey could we work together you know happy to support that and now it's an app language which means

everything's available and we've seen them go from like number 74 on our most active countries to like

18 in like a few months so it's it's just like stories like that are like they keep me going they

keep they get me up in the middle of the night and early in the morning to do what i do yeah it's it's

fascinating the the engagement culture around technology in africa um much much much higher than i than

i was anticipating with that you're you're you're giving testimonies to that right there um well what do you

what is this what does the app do like how do you how does somebody use it to to witness or or or to

share like you know give give the audience here uh uh a little taste of of what the experience is

yeah well i i'd say that it's best described as um really personifying a lot of what crew cares about

uh which is winning building and sending making multiplying disciples helping average christians

find that they are capable of sharing their faith there's a it sort of started as a joke and now it's

kind of a thing we do where we have promotional stickers and one of the early stickers we did just

said designed to share and um the big idea behind that is that yes god tools is designed to share but actually

all of us are designed to share god made us that way um and that also means that you're designed to share

in your own unique way with unique people that only you can reach and uh so for every app language we

have that phrase designed to share in that language so it's kind of cool to see like you know i think

we're at like 15 now because it's hard to you know hard to make russian and translations of this thing

but um you know it's cool to have designed to share in all these different languages but the app

fundamentally is there's two big sort of buckets there one is called tools which the name's god tools

and tools are just really simple ways to talk about jesus everything from presenting the gospel

in four short points down to um conversation starter questions um so whatever you want to choose on that

range um there's an option for it uh the other side of the house in the app is called lessons and

lessons are kind of these bite-sized micro learning experiences so really really simple ways um to sort

of do the soft side of evangelism right like how do i move my conversations to a deeper level how do i

share my testimony you know how do i listen well um and one of the big things that we really tried to do

with lessons was that if we can't help you kind of get a good idea of of how to do some of those things

in like five six minutes then i think we've actually kind of failed you because there's there's a lot of

spaces out there where people are um you know if you want to learn to share your testimony i know there's

a 12-week course out there that you can jump on to do but i'm designing for the person who's sitting

at a coffee shop their friends about to show up they've got two minutes how can i put one good idea

into their brain for that next evangelistic conversation and so that's that's what i'm

really looking to do with god tools but um yeah i mean we've just been delighted to see people use

it in ways we did not design it for and uh they're sharing their faith they're making disciples

and they're seeing their disciples make disciples which is yeah really that's i love seeing seeing

that happen i didn't realize there was the the lessons aspect where they were also providing

training i i knew the the for lack of a better term content like some of the uh i saw i saw the the

four spiritual laws i chuckled that's when you know something's a crew product because it's got the

the four spiritual laws on there for sure it's it's like that it's bill bill bright right am i

remembering right yeah i um throwback i used to own a christian bookstore and um uh back back when you

know christian bookstores were valid because brick and mortar stores were valid maybe even but uh we we

had we had one got one person uh a guy would always come in and buy the the four spiritual laws little

track booklet whatever they're called yeah that was the only person you know there's just this one guy

would would would buy them in in bulk so like 50 at a time i guess he was giving them out good for

totally we also do you remember chick tracks since we're talking evangelism i haven't had experience

with them but i know what they are oh my gosh yes yeah yeah we also we also we were big chick tracks

being in it was the christian bookstore in miami and um chicks were not related to um like girl chicks or

nor chicken chicks i'm not actually sure why it was chicks but um yeah it was it was it was like not

your mother's typical um uh google it you'll you'll you'll get there oh my gosh i should have chat gpt

create some chick tracks i wonder if chat gpt could do that um all right let's get back sorry i'm down a

rabbit trail i need to go down um so like you're you're you're providing just quick trainings on on

on evangelism uh like have you been getting any any feedback or stories from from people in in how

they're using it and in life change that's happening as a result oh i mean that is one of the biggest

privileges of of my role is uh you know crew operates in almost every country on the planet um formally or

informally and um there's there's a lot of stuff going on and and i mean we we sometimes just get

like little glimpses of it which is really cool um you know from the sometimes i feel like there's a wall

with analytics you know you can only see so much um like we we like to you know kind of share as a team

like oh we just got our first new believer in this country we've never seen that you know and so like

one of them was outside of um a small island outside of madagascar called mayat um had went from zero

users to eight users to one believer and you know it was a delight to be able to like say oh

like that's a huge like thing like we've never seen a believer there we ended up finding like the

crew team there and they're just crushing it left and right like in a in a hard place it's a muslim

majority um very small micronation um but on the more person-to-person side um there's a a friend of

ours in uh vietnam who um i think i think she did a study abroad in germany and um while she was there she

she um met this guy and you know they talked about faith kind of on and off but at the end of her sort

of uh i don't remember if it was an internship or a study abroad but she had to go home and so they

were what's happening one evening and uh you know having a kind of discussion around faith and she

was able to jump on god tools and be like hey actually can i send you this link and we can just

screen share and look at this presentation of the gospel together and you know he became christian from

that i mean like from vietnam to germany talk about time zones as you mentioned earlier um that's a

painful one that's quite a distance but um you know i mean that's that's what i'm getting at with the

tools just we're designed to share and so you know if if we can if we can allow ourselves to hold on to

one idea or know the gospel in a nice bite-sized chunk or or just have a a different approach to

reaching everyday people in our lives god's gonna open up doors god's gonna meet you in that the holy

spirit's i mean full of power um so you're not doing it alone but yeah that's that's what a story i i super

love i mean from a big number standpoint uh i mean as i mentioned the global south i mean africa alone

is like 55 of all my usage um west africa east africa i mean the country of south africa are just

booming right now like people out there sharing the gospel getting trained um equipping others i

mean they're doing it as as churches as student movements um it's it's been i mean like seriously

this is a major privilege to just be able to sit back and be like whoa i see you god like i see

what you're doing okay this is big so very cool let's let's drill in a little bit in into the the weeds

here now uh we've got a handful of people watching uh live by the way if there's any questions

throw them in in chat would love to uh pull them up and talk through them as well so feel free to

put anything in chat and if you're watching on demand throw it in chat too i'll uh most likely be the

one replying to you i tend to try to keep my eye on the youtube chat and um uh comments and engage in

in real time over there but let's um let me ask now uh to help you justin the majority of our audiences

our did our digital missionaries like we've got people that are that are actively using uh cloud

services social media digital tools app virtual reality uh you know they know their way around

technology and so you know they're having conversations mr pete talks pete host here talks in in big

screen about jesus regularly he actually uses um microsoft flight simulator uh as as a way of in

virtual reality to build relationships with people in big screen and then shares shares jesus uh through

that really like fascinating stuff now um which is why i i like i mean i like your tool

to be sitting around starbucks and oh hey you know look at my phone let me you know let's talk about

this thing together at the same time like that that's cool uh a lot of our our missionaries though

would maybe drill into the the screen sharing that i'm understanding is in the app where you can walk

multiple people through that uh and and so like maybe get into the weeds a little bit of of how that

works technology wise and and uh somebody like do they need google meet is this like a zoom to compliment

like what technology can it integrate in just kind of give us the the 360 perspective yeah well i think

as you mentioned a lot of the use case that we're sitting in is is people being face to face at one

time or another to have that faith conversation and that's good and fine but we also know obviously

people aren't together physically all the time so a couple big ways that we encourage people to use god

tools uh digitally virtually one is you as an individual christian knowing the gospel knowing how to get

into spiritual conversations knowing just how to express your faith through more than a four-point

gospel presentation though i mean i'm sitting at crew headquarters so we're obviously not against that

but um you know like sometimes i think that there are a lot of doors open to us to have faith

conversations but people are you know they're like oh well what if this doesn't go well you know we've

got a lesson on that or like i just don't know what question to ask we have a lesson and tools on that

um so you know if we can just help people overcome a few obstacles to get in personally

whether that's over whatsapp maybe you're having a facetime conversation all that's great and good

screen sharing feature uh funny enough we actually didn't design it to be this way but a lot of people

have been using it with groups of people because uh the way it's set up is that it's not just a one-to-one

experience it's actually a one-to-many so in most of the tools you can jump in there click the top

little uh i found out i didn't know if you knew this but the three dots is called a sushi icon

and i that has made my life just so much better knowing that no kidding i i've never i've i know the

hamburger is the three lines but yeah i did not i've never heard the three dots it's the three sushi

rolls okay yeah all right i'll buy that is my team loves we're like let's put a sushi here let's do a sushi

um so you click the sushi and go down and you press uh screen share and from there it'll give you a

little three screen tutorial you can share a link via whatsapp via you know email whatever but you could

send that actually to multiple people um so you could drop it in your whatsapp channel with i mean

i'm told not to recommend over 40 people because it might start to get laggy but um if you don't want

you know do do as you will um but i've heard of people sharing it with like 20 people everyone can

click the link if they have god tools on their phone it'll open god tools so obviously for training

purposes very helpful um if they don't have god tools it takes them to a web-based experience so

we're not you know we're not asking non-christians to download this tool without evangelism yeah yeah

right so it just takes them to the web and uh whatever you can see on your screen it will mirror

that content um from within the tool so it's not going to show the rest of your phone it's not going

to show the rest of the app it's just showing that tool page by page card by card as you go along

and um yeah that's that's just been a really like like my friend from vietnam i mean ultimately it's

that idea of like hey if we really want to like dig into talking about the gospel and like having some

big ideas right in front of us it's doable like it's a it's a real option and um that's why we doubled

down on that feature and that was actually something that came out of covid where you know people were

obviously not together and uh you know to see people transitioning into using it online using

it remotely yeah it was just really i mean like i said it's it's a fun vantage point to be in

i have i know you said you were at crew for about eight years um did you start god tools was god tools

i did not no was it already in existence before you came in okay yeah so it uh 2010 is technically the

the birth year of the app god was clearly doing something because there was a a guy in australia

and a guy in the us who were both kind of i think they were like on their way to becoming staff

kind of interning and they both began developing an app to do the same thing ended up finding each other

and started working together and they built this thing and um so since 22 i'd say 2010 to 2015 it

basically was kind of the digital version of the four spiritual laws which is right fine and good yeah

but right around 2016 or so it became very apparent like hey we could do a lot more with this and there's

a lot more meat on the bone for us to jump into and um yeah so we've we've kind of been expanding that

um yeah it's it's just like i said god's just been meeting us in it and it's been really really cool

and the global nature of our organization is sort of one of two that it's just used so widely um and

they're using it in different ways too like um and i mean in africa they are just out there sharing the

gospel because it's also culturally you're able to you're able to walk up to someone on the street and

say like hey have you ever heard of the four spiritual laws um but you know teams in europe

they're also using it um i could say like i personally um in my context in my community that the

tool openers um is just a giant collection of conversation starters questions um and so either

at my bible study or maybe even with someone i just met um you know we're sitting on a train together

i can say hey you know nice to meet you like i've got this like conversation starter tool i'm so bad

with conversations because i actually am uh i have to extrovert for work but i'm actually an introvert

and uh i can relate you know you sort of bounce back and forth and these questions you know there

might be 20 in a category about sports or television or relationships and it goes from being light and

external sort of stuff to get deeper and deeper into stuff that's pointing more and more towards

um our eternal life so um yeah you know there's there's no there's no one way to do evangelism there's no

one way to um approach starting faith conversations and and we're here for all of it we're here to support

it in one way or another you mentioned something um back earlier in in the in the interview uh when

you're talking about you know uniquely created um you know does uniquely designed the app design um

i think you said something to the extent is we're we're each uniquely created to create reach someone

or we're uniquely created to reach someone for for for christ could you uh i'm that that sounds like

there's a um uh some rich thought that went into that that statement would would love to hear kind

of what you're thinking specifically on that yeah well um i'll have to not it was a throwaway line you

didn't mean anything by it it was a freaking good throwaway line i put you on the spot you blank that's

awesome no no no no it's good but the disclosure is is like i am a big believer in the like providence

of god in this sense of everything is connected um there's a uh actually a john piper book that i have

read a couple of times and just wept through called providence and it has like fundamentally changed

some of the way that i see my work the way i see my role and and just you know the way the way you

kind of see life but you know we we see sun sunrises and sunsets all the time and we think wow that's

beautiful but do we ever think that you know what god never stops making those as the planet's going

around he's always making a sunrise or a sunset and he chooses to make them beautiful and how much more

painful of a thought is this that he made that knowing that i would see it and so in one way or

another there are people that i'm going to share my faith with there are people that um i've shared my

faith with and it hasn't worked out but trusting and knowing that god set that situation up that god

set me up for a reason in order to reach somebody is a really powerful thought um and it's it's a i like

to say like a big god thought like god is way bigger than we actually think he is um but you know jeff

i think what we've just been seeing more and more through the app and through conversations and

through you know just getting out there and talking to our partners and stakeholders around the world

people are way more open to having spiritual conversations than we think they are they're more

aware of their need for them than ever before and like don't get me wrong i'm offering a resource to

help you do that but i'm also in another side saying you have everything you need because you have the

holy spirit and god built you for this um and that's yeah i mean you know we're talking at conceptual

levels you know but uh yeah it's something i firmly believe and so if one thing that god tools can do

is offer you that little bit of confidence like if i just overcome this obstacle i think i could tell

this person about my faith um and so a lot of times who we are uh as you know internally as a

team when we're designing this when we're adding a new feature the the person that we're designing for

is not necessarily crew staff i mean certainly we want to help them you know if they share their faith

30 times a year i i of course want to help them share it 50 times a year that's wonderful um but

we're really thinking about the person who's going from zero to one not the person who's thinking i want

to go fulfill the great commission and you know become a missionary like that's good stuff but what

about the person who's just like i want to tell my mom that i've been going to church and my life has

been changed and i know it's going to be hard because she's been hurt by the church in her past

you know those those are the kinds of conversations that uh people there are real people out there who

need help um and if we can offer them something super tangible like that is worth every dime worth every hour

and minute of my time to help more people go from zero to one even just pulling the thread on that a

little bit you're um so your tool us you said three to four percent of of user bases and is in america

you're a global organization but you're based in america um i think the global headquarters is in america

but it's a it's a strong u.s organization that works globally it's a global organization based in the

u.s however you want to flip it how do you how do you keep a non-us mindset how do you um create tools

that can be flexible to the africans versus somebody in europe versus somebody in the in the middle east or

or oceania like you know there's um there's a lot to be uh open-handed with things um but how do you

still have it be effective or how do you take feedback given all the different hundred and would you say

hundred and hundred some languages 20 some primary like you know you're you're obviously getting into a

a lot of different cultures how do you manage this yeah great question um i'd say it's a lot of what i

do personally um but you actually said it there in being open-handed a lot of it's just a posture of

our team um who many of them have international experience i mean our teams it's hard for us to

have a lot of team meetings because i mean like the guy i work with the most my product manager lives in

ethiopia you know so it's it's like we've got a couple hours before one of us has to wake up early

or stay up late so uh but a lot of it just comes down to being like open-handed and being like hey

god has given us a open environment in the us where we have free speech we have resources how can i just

come alongside and honor what god is doing in vietnam and you know it's not my story it's your story

how do i come alongside what god's already doing through you all um but the other side of that is

just ultimately like relationship um i'm constantly whatsapping with people from all over the world at

odd times um you know just hey this thing's broken or hey can we amend this translation or whatever you

know and um so they all have my personal whatsapp and i i don't mind that it's it's honestly it's a

privilege to um be alongside serving them in that way um but yeah it's i wouldn't say there's like

aside from those two two sorts of things there's no there's no single answer other than like

just you gotta grind to make that happen um because i i think that we're in a really cool

let's even just say in crew we're in a really cool season where things are becoming way more

grassroots um there's a lot more space for you know the the team in the drc or the team in ethiopia or

albania to say hey we're gonna go try to do this and that's because we know our audience we know our

what needs to happen here we know what evangelism and discipleship looks like here and as the sort of

cultural experts and curator of of what works how can i come alongside what god's doing there and and be a

force multiplier and not get in the way so um yeah that that's a lot of what we're doing i would say

one of the big updates that's coming to the app soon um is when you come in through the onboarding

you actually won't just say you know hey i want to use this app in english you'll actually say you know

hey my name's jeff i live in the us and i speak english and based on that you're actually going to be getting

recommendations and a whole sort of personalized view of the app okay because we don't we don't want to

put i mean i i think what works in the us is great i think that's awesome but who am i to say that they

should use that in singapore yeah i i don't know what works in singapore but you know what this big wild

organization i'm part of they have people in singapore and the philippines and vietnam and

all sorts of places so i can lean on those local experts to actually choose the thing choose what

their um their actual users would see and even create custom tools and lessons so if i'm uh you know

what it looks like to share my faith and testimony in the us i think we've probably both got a good

idea of what that looks like what does that look like in colombia or the uk or belarus goodness i have

no idea but we have teams who know that and uh so creating more of a platform for that i don't always

say right information but more right information uh to be available is is really important yeah

do you um so with crew you've got access to their entire network of of users like that that's just

at your fingertips to be able to disperse around so if you need translation or if you need insight

like it's just a an email or a ping away totally well i mean incredible but let me also say

where i sit in the organization is this like odd little nub over here where i have zero power

to be able to do anything like i can't say you know hey i need this translation on tuesday it's it's

a if it if it serves your national ministry i would love for this transition to be available so i mean

that open-handed posture is is there's a pragmatic side but also i mean it's also just the posture i

believe we should have um so i'm a hundred percent if it serves them if they want it because there are

countries where they say you know we don't use god tools people don't trust you if you walk up with a

phone yeah um and so you know for their face-to-face evangelism they don't use it and like if they do use

it praise god if they don't use it praise god also you know i like that's also okay um they know what

works there and i i'm just trusting that god's going to use it or not use it appropriately that's good

which kind of begs the question there there's been some findings recently in in the u.s

you mentioned earlier there's a re-engagement to spirituality um people have a desire to know god

but maybe not necessarily the church and uh not you know for whatever reason there's many reasons i'm

sure at least here in the u.s um for that do you and that's where like uh and in our context digital

missionaries doing something different to reach someone different uh relational evangelism seems to

be very effective relational discipleship even done via digital tools has been effective as well

um as you're looking at things globally are you seeing uh you know you've talked a lot about the

the the global south the south is is uh borderline revival at this point that's what's on fire uh

spiritually so to speak is is in the southern but the the disenchantment with the church

uh a re-engagement of spirituality looking forward in different ways are you seeing that

in in different global contexts as well definitely definitely i mean i think um

we we all love to use the word revival you know and uh obviously there's a historical precedent for

that um i think the idea that it has to look a certain way is something that we might actually

need and this is this is not this is my opinion this is not the opinion of um crew or anything but

way to put the disclaimer on that that yeah it's going to be good when the disclaimer comes out

when when you're speaking for tens of thousands of people you know yeah i always like to make

make sure i'm putting that out there but you know i i think when we can take the opportunity to say

you know what god's going to use revival as he wants to use it um and it might not look like

church attendance is the first thing that swells um so i i think ultimately as us as designers developers

digital practitioners how do we how do we take what god's doing and come alongside it um and so you

know is it is it to get people in pews i mean eventually i think so right like god i believe in the

church i'm certainly not abandoning that um i think there's just a side of like how do we how do we not

bring a prescribed shape to how this thing should go um and just meet people where they are um one of

the tools that i i speak into but i i'm not the the owner of is something called the audience map

and uh it's a a research-based tool it's actually just an internal tool that we've sort of made available

um where you know thousands of interviews from people all over the world have created this sort of

thing that shows you know what for someone who is um uninterested in the gospel if we just keep

sharing the four laws with them something might happen but our research doesn't say that that happens

it actually says that it put it pushes them further away from being open to hearing the gospel but you

know what does make them open to hearing the gospel is um being free to ask questions and not being

judged or building trust and relationships with christians and i think we all know those sorts of

things but to have the data to say like this is this is our best contribution is to actually push in this

way you know so there's like a great story i heard of a team who uh rather than like you know in eastern

europe looking at these these uh college-age students who are just not interested in the gospel and

you're trying to invite them to church but they're not interested you know what they did they started a

cooking class and this cooking class oh i thought you said cocaine class and i was no no no sorry no

that's an interesting take cooking cooking cooking uh vegetable oil okay i'm with you all right

teaching these like new students who are first time living away from their families uh to cook for

themselves and engaging them in christian community i mean that was like their most successful evangelism

like strategy like that's that's actually kind of crazy so i think you know even thinking about

things like discord and whatsapp groups and all sorts of online presence things sometimes like you're

doing something else and i think a lot of the gaming community knows this it's like you know church folks

are like oh you're just playing games together and it's like no you're not you're you're doing life

alongside them and god's going to use that in really meaningful ways yeah yeah i mean that's

that's a lot behind the the heart of the digital missionary is is using the uh you know affinity is the new

proximity instead of creating community because it's uh you know i live next door to someone create

community because i'm doing things uh similar to what they're doing or we're connected together via

um you know the those characteristics instead and so love um love the idea of being relational in that

it's funny you mentioned the audience map um west brooks i'm blanking on west's wife's name but

west is active in our community leah uh i met leah um i met leah in korea at lazon uh and so uh leah

invented audience map i guess years ago and actually she was one of the beginners of it yeah yeah and

cheryl uh is actually speaking at our at our conference on audience map i love the context of of audience map

and um i i you know when when west was talking to me about it and then you know some of the

conversations i've had with cheryl since then it was like oh yeah the the the carryovers to this in

digital context are huge um for sure it just needs to be explored and we've not really done that up until

this point so she'll be she'll be on one of these streams cheryl will i'm sure at some point but we'll

we'll we'll do the conference with her she's in the we're doing uh uh one of the conference for her

is digital neighborhoods and it's it's it's her uh jason morris jeff van der stout oh and uh and

and bekele shanko um so we got we got a couple crew coming in for that like i was saying like i sat

down i was like who am i going to get to speak at this stuff oh look they're crew people you know you

guys are all over the place so that's that's that's a lot of fun cool um all right hey if somebody

wanted to uh to grab the app how do they how do they find you yeah well you can go to the app store

play store um just type in god tools or alternatively if you want the extra step you can go to god tools

app.com and uh download it there like i said uh it's in over 120 languages um i think i think it's

21 or 22 languages that's 100 available in which already covers most of the world in second first

second or third languages which is great um but yeah i mean and like also i would say anyone that

downloads it who's like you know i really wish this thing was here or i wish you guys did more of this

please feel free to write in because you know who gets those emails is me and i love getting feedback

um the good the bad and the ugly is better than nothing so um very appreciative of anyone who writes

it i'm i'm guessing uh i hate getting emails so i'll just start forwarding you mine and you can just check

mine too um i'm i'm guessing like asl hard hard of hearing deaf that's a separate app entirely you

you've not delved into that so we have not officially delved into it but it is it is very much on our

radar um what what we've been learning is i which i really am actually quite daunted by is there are

as nearly as many sign language versions as there are languages yes and so um yeah how do we offer a

really great experience yeah for someone who is not just american sign language but right nigerian

versus british sign language because all of them all those people right now would just say oh i speak

english and uh so yeah we in the vein of simplicity we would rather not put some things in the app

in order to make sure that like it is a good experience yeah no it's that's very fair um

there are there are where i've started talking to some ministries that are that are carrying the

the light the torch on that so i was just curious um imb create is is working on a on a base i forget

what they call this it's a base sign language that is like 80 accurate across the majority of um sign

languages cool and and like it takes the if you generalize down basic moves there's a there's a

consistent theme across uh continuity across the majority of them and so they're they're trying to

develop a a new language based off of that i don't know somebody from imb can correct me but last last

time i love that so ago yeah it'd be fun um what is are you doing anything with ai with this i'm just

curious your translation sounds like you're doing it um for sure for sure you're using ai to translate

or human well so trans ai translation is part of our process but the way that because i have this

sort of rolodex in my whatsapp of of local experts um you know i'm not just going to go translate

something into tie and then just put it out there you know i have a local expert who i can say hey can

you double check this um either what we do is we use ai to get it to like what we call like the 80 percent

level where it's like mostly done and then they come clean it up or sometimes ai is good enough and

they're just like yeah i just had to you know cross a couple t's and that's it you know which is really

cool um we actually just had a a intern who did some experiments on uh offering like hyper contextualized

recommendations of tools and lessons because like i said we're going to be moving to this sort of

localized version of the app so you know if you're accessing this in central asia it's going to be a

different app it's going to look look a little different different content you know how you share your

testimony there is different than how you share it in san francisco um and so part of that is going

to be a little bit ai powered yeah okay it's cool it's it's interesting to me some of the um i started

to say fear not the right word trepidation not the right word cautiousness centered centered around

that um ai and so it's it's always interesting you know some of your mission organization

compartment uh you know camaraderie uh whatever some of some of your other friends

are are like um you know nobody gets hired unless we're using ai 100 first and others are like

you know kick ai to the curb and and so it's interesting yeah from everything perspective everything

in between yeah love it um if nothing else it makes for a good conversation while we while we wait for

our uh our robotic overlords to eventually take us over uh cool all right hey listen man this has been a

great conversation i'm excited to to get the word out on on god tools it is available on

android android and um and ios so so thank you for that if jesus were among us today he would be

having a iphone or an android what would jesus use you know i think i think jesus is a man of the people

and he would probably have an android wow i'm okay with the answer i'm i'm a little hurt with the the

the line of the man of the people like what am i an elitist now because i i've got a very big iphone i

i mean i'm brother i i've got i've got the same but you know everywhere i go i i get to travel and meet

partners and you know all over the world and they are all android users and uh i don't think jesus would

be uh shaming us with with blue text bubbles yeah now that's true that's true that's true let's let's

what what is non-negotiable if jesus were alive today and had and had a a smartphone he would be using

whatsapp that you can take to the bank i promise you on that for sure discord yeah i love my discord

friends but uh you know i i i i he'd be he'd be he'd be green bubbling over in in whatsapp oh all

right for sure hey listen check out god tools uh god tools app.com find it on the app store

and in ios or android uh justin man thanks for hanging out with us today as we're wrapping up

here in any closing thoughts no it was it was a pleasure let i think like as you said it's

available in the app store totally free um i think our organization sometimes does a bad job of this

so we have tons of things available for digital missionaries strategists on the ground field

missionaries to use that people just don't know about um so i'm more than happy to make this available

and i think even please feel free to write in and say like hey that you know if if you did this a

little more it would be way more usable in my church in ecuador like praise god i'd be happy to add that

kind of stuff so um yeah we're we're just happy to have it be available and let you all know about it

yeah we've got a we've got a rather vocal crowd and so you just opened pandora's box they're gonna

they're gonna hunt you down yeah you're you're gonna you're gonna love it okay all right so hey

we're gonna we're gonna wrap up uh check out god tools god tools app.com uh the on the app stores as

as well free download and use that uh to connect with people physically and digitally to to share

the love of christ uh justin thanks for jumping on but we're gonna wrap for justin uh i'm jeff with

the church digital thanks for hanging out with us on this show and uh we'll see you next time on this

stream y'all have a good day and i'm looking for the stop button and i can't find it well this is

embarrassing oh there it is yeah i'm blind getting old is horrible man all right see you later bye