EP345 - Jeff Talks Digital Missionary Summit(s), Super Secret Projects, 2026

All right. Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Church Digital Podcast. This is Jeff hanging out with

you this Tuesday afternoon. You want to make God laugh, make plans, I guess, because I was

planning to do a really interesting conversation centered around artificial intelligence and the

use of artificial intelligence for evangelism. I ran across a vendor, part of Lausanne,

someone who's created an artificial intelligence that, long story short, it's actually like

programmed with the gospel and is very strong scriptural oriented in quoting scripture and

helping people find Christ. And so, yes, the matrix is helping people find Jesus. Oh, and it's in like,

I don't know, 110 languages. Like, this is really interesting. You know, when the guy told me, I was

like, and I invited him on the podcast. I said, now, I want to warn you, we've got some incarnational

crew hanging out here with us here on the Church Digital. Like, you're going to find some ardent

supporters and you're probably going to have some naysayers on the stream as well. And he's like,

welcome to my Friday. And so like, you know, whatever your stance is on that. But we will

look forward to having that conversation. Not today, because we had a last minute cancellation

and a shift. And when things canceled, it's been like, you know what? It has been so long since I

just jumped on a stream to stream, you know, hang out with y'all for an hour or so. It's like, I just,

I just want to do it myself. And so, um, yeah, you know, hold my hat, hold my beer, whatever the

phrase is. I just want to hang out with you guys for, for, for an hour or so. Uh, so thank you. I,

I appreciate that. Uh, I see Layton is in the room. It's, it's a light crowd, maybe a couple of

people, uh, what I'm seeing so far, which is cool. I mean, it's, it's summer. Summer is here.

Everybody's schedules are, are, are whacked. Um, my, uh, I am a single parent here in, in Miami this

week. My, my wife is actually in, in Fort Worth, Texas, uh, getting, uh, some college board

certification to teach AP for high school courses, whatever, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Uh,

long story short, I joked with my wife. Hey, my wife, who was really excited. Congratulations.

Congratulations. You're going to nerd camp for adults, uh, to which, uh, everyone in

the house laughed. And, uh, my wife is now, you know, um, at nerd camp for, for the week

and she, she's really excited. She's, she's kind of a nerd. Like it's, it's in the, in the

world of academia, um, you know, she got her dose and she got my dose too. Like I am, I

don't test. Well, I don't, I really didn't like school, which is weird because, you know,

my wife loves school. My daughter, my daughter and son actually attend the school. My wife

teaches at the school that I graduated from when I graduated, I swore I never walked back

to that place. And now my, my, I dropped my kids there off, you know, in the mornings

and my, my wife, you know, gets her paycheck from there. My daughter texted me today and

said, Hey, daddy, um, some woman, the head of marketing for Westminster says that your, uh,

high school reunion is coming up in October and you need to go. I was like, yeah, that's,

uh, that's not going to happen. Uh, simply put no. Uh, but, uh, you know, anyway, uh, I've

no idea how I got onto that, but so schedules are crazy. Uh, so we're happy to hang out here.

It looks like we've got flat cap, um, you know, flat cap once again. I don't even know what's

happening here. Hand orange covering eyes, hand orange covering eyes, hand orange covering

eyes is, is okay. So as I'm reading this, are they, um, are you holding an orange in your

hands over your eyes or are your hands orange covering your eyes? Like I just don't know how

to, um, represent this Layton, you know, I may need some help. Uh, late Layton, by the

way, is saying, just, just go and promote the church digital. Uh, no, no. Uh, you know,

it's funny. I told, um, I told one of the, I told my son, I was like, you got to keep

me connected with one of the Bible teachers, some Bible somewhere class somewhere wants to

listen to me talk about how we're planting churches in video games. Um, like coming, come

on, come on. How crazy is that? Planting churches in video games? Come on. Somebody wants to hear

that story. Uh, so we hear from Layton, uh, orange color hands covering hands at wife.

Leaving you home. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. God, God, God rest the children.

Um, she, the, uh, we, you know what we went, we went and saw, uh, how to train your dragon

yesterday. Um, for dinner, we ate three large buckets of popcorn. That was pretty much dinner.

Oh, and my son went swimming in the, in the swimming pool over at the grandparents and forgot

to put on sunscreen. And now, uh, is red. Like a lobster is red. Maybe it's blue. Like

a lobster is blue. Like it's, it's hardcore. And, um, you know, it's common knowledge that

my son who has a black belt and is now working out with a foot black belt in Taekwondo and

it's not working out with the football team that he can kick my butt, but not today. Today I

own him. I just have to boink. And, uh, and he's crying like a little school girl. All right.

Flat cap. Once again, saying, uh, wear your discord as it is in heaven. Teacher. Yes. Yeah, I would.

I would. I would. I got to get in there. I got, I got to find some high school teacher. Like

definitely the seventh grade, uh, Bible teacher is also the e-sports guy. And so maybe that's,

that's the best way in, um, Steve, uh, read jumping on as well. Uh, you know, once again,

Hey guys, once glad you all are here. It's going to be a casual, casual talk. You know, we're

going to, we're going to see some people hit this up on demand and happy to do it. Um, I spent

yesterday, I spent yesterday drawing up a bunch of proposals for what I wanted to do in 2026.

Like some of the things that I'd love to see the church digital get into or some of the heavy

conversations I'm starting to get with volunteers in 2026. And it's man, it's really exciting, um,

to look at the road, what's ahead, um, and start to dream through some of these proposals.

And so I started geeking out about that. Uh, I may talk a little bit about that here. Um,

but even as we're starting to fill out maybe one or two last positions within the church digital,

we've been shorthanded for a stretch and looking forward to get that going. Looking forward to

digital missions project, digital missions, uh, digital missionary conference. I hate that. I,

digital missions project, Jesse, I love you, but I, I just, I, I, I, I get blipped like in the brain,

uh, digital missionary conference, uh, coming up in September and October. And, uh, you know,

the lineup is of speakers is starting to solidify. I think we probably got 75, 85% of the speakers lined up.

Uh, it's just really, it's just a couple left in gaming and in a couple left in, um, recovery still to book. Uh, but it is a solid lineup around the corner, uh, just all over the place on it.

So let's do this. Let's, let's, let's walk through some stuff here. Um, what do I want to do? Let's, uh, it's, yeah, let's go ahead and make this and see if I can do a screen share. Let's go to missionary.digital.

So I'm excited about this digital missionary conference. We launched. Oh, you know what? I'm not sure I built this out. I'm going to push this. Let's see what happens.

Hey, it does work. I didn't undo it. That's exciting to me. All right. So, uh, the digital missionary conference, we, we, we launched the website a couple of weeks ago.

Uh, congratulations. You are looking at the digital missionary summit series. So missionary.digital is the new website.

Well, it's the old website, but it's the old URL, but it's the new website on the old URL. Uh, and I love this, uh, coming up in September and October, we're doing four unique summits.

You know, it wasn't like one digital missionary conference. I mean, shoot, we did that in the spring. What, what, what, what can we do to, to up, up the ante?

Well, let's do four over the course of a month. You know, it's funny. Uh, one of the, one of our, our strategic partners,

she heard we were doing four conferences and she's like, Jeff, aren't you worried about like overwhelming your team?

And I was like, yeah, but we're going to do it. And you know, what's, what's fun is, um, how, how this is rolled out.

Like strategically individuals have stepped up to own different parts of, of the puzzle. Um, word revolution,

Barbara's team has been so awesome in, in developing some of the, uh, the, the branding and some of the language and some of the graphics.

And, you know, the average conference is like, Hey, let's design one look for a conference.

And I'm like, Oh no, no, we're going to do four conferences. So let's do four separate looks.

And so that's what you're seeing here is you're seeing four separate looks for the digital missionary conference.

Let me make it bigger there.

And so we are doing right off, uh, kicking it off, uh, September 17th.

This is probably the, uh, the larger, what I would suspect would be the larger of the four, uh, is the digital neighborhoods.

The digital neighborhoods. This is, um, uh, the most unspecific digital discipleship is the theme, um, digital as physical, uh, platforms as places.

You know, some of the, some of the language that we talk about, um, like, this is what we're doing here in this conference, uh, uh, January.

That was embarrassing. September 17th. And so, um, I mean, I'm excited about this.

Jason Morris is talking at this conference. Uh, but, um, you know, so many, so many, let me highlight two speakers.

Uh, first off, we've got, uh, Jeff, uh, Vanderstelt, Jeff Vanderstelt, uh, for, with, uh, Saturate, uh, has written, uh, 360 discipleship, uh, is Jeff's going to be coming on and talking about gospel saturation.

No, I'm sorry. Uh, gospel, uh, fluidity, uh, fluency, gospel fluency.

Uh, that was, I was not prepared to do this talk today. Can you tell? Uh, gospel fluency.

And, oh my gosh, like if you've not read Jeff's book on this, it's so good. Uh, and so we asked him, it's, it's a book maybe five, six years ago.

Asked him to kind of pull the mothballs off the talk and, and do it in digital space.

Jeff's been a huge supporter of digital church, um, of the church, digital, digital church network historically.

And, um, the digital missionary work that you all are doing out there. Um, he has been, uh, he's one of the, um,

high level leaders within the exponential ecosystem has done written a number of books. Uh, his discipleship organization saturates phenomenal.

Uh, it was funny at some point we were actually, Jason Morris was actually like, Hey Jeff, why don't we like, you know, adapt, uh, Jeff Vanderstelt saturate digitally.

Um, it was actually a really, really interesting conversation for a stretch, but conversation for a different day.

Uh, and then, oh my gosh.

Bekele, Bekele Shanko.

Now I met Bekele, who is a high level, like vice president and crew global.

Like this guy's phenomenal at the crew level.

Um, uh, Bekele directly has, uh, is responsible for something like 2.4 million churches planted globally.

Like it's ridiculous that the numbers that, that I'm hearing, um, you know, connected to him.

I actually, I met, I met Bekele, uh, with, um, uh, finishing the task, the thing that Rick Warren was doing a couple of years ago.

So, and, um, I was, uh, Bekele got me interested, got me invited into that and was, was working with, with him and some others, with crew and some other organizations, uh, with the Rick Warren deal.

And, um, I mean, really a lot of the work that we now do that the church digital now does with crew is because Bekele got, got us in the front door, uh, which was so helpful and so, um, appreciated, you know, these years later.

And so Bekele is going to be talking about, um, uh, volunteer, um, leadership training, leadership development, uh, towards that.

And so it's, it's really exciting to see how the digital neighborhoods thread's going to be developing here very soon.

And we will have breakouts.

Uh, we will have, uh, sponsor tables.

We will have tables as well.

All the tech issues that we had with all the conferences before, uh, thank you very much.

Who below, uh, who below is going to be the platform of choice for our conferences moving forward.

And, uh, to say, to quote the great Andy mage last week during our onboarding with who below, Jeff, I'm very excited.

Uh, yeah.

Barbara was smiling to like a lot of the stability issues and a lot of the functionality that alter live was just missing.

Who below, who below, who below, which has been around for 20 some years as, as an online event platform.

Who below is rocking it, baby.

And so it's going to be a phenomenal experience.

So September 24th is our next conference.

And this will actually be on who below as well.

Uh, and so we're calling this one control, alt, recover.

Now this may be the most creative name of, of all of our, uh, of all of our summits control, all recover summit.

Uh, and long story short, we're, we're digging into the, um, the, uh, recovery, Christ centered recovery and what Christ centered recovery looks like in digital spaces.

Now it was funny.

I was talking with Stacy last night, uh, Stacy just got a new job in, uh, no, Arizona.

Sorry.

Sorry, Stacy, Arizona.

And, um, I am excited for her, but like now, like some of our meetings are really weird hours.

Cause you know, she's onboarding, which is fine.

But the, um, you know, we're really excited about this conference recovery is not just for the addicted.

Uh, recovery is for all of us because at some level, all of us are marginalized.

All of us have, uh, personality issues.

All of us have pride or ego or, or, or centric to self or, or have put other things, our kids, our pets, our jobs, other things, other idols in the throne where God should be.

And, and, and, and recovery is the opportunity to stop and evaluate and work through the issues that you have to allow Christ to become center in your life.

Now, you know, for some that, that can happen, not in recovery environments.

I'll just tell you, I, having gone through a recovery environment, it changed my, A, it changed my life.

B, it changed my relationship.

C, it changed my, uh, my ministry.

And, and, and this is one of the reasons why I am such a big fan of, of recovery and, and what that recovery mindset can do is because it made me a better digital pastor.

By going through recovery, I learned, uh, empathy.

By going through recovery, I was able to shine the light on myself to work through my crap.

So now that I can shine that light in the darkness, confident, without fear of reciprocity, without fear of, of what it would expose, uh, from, from me.

Um, you know, ultimately we need to, it's going to be so funny.

My kids for listening to this are going to be like, daddy, I can't believe you said that we need to own our crap.

Like we've got this junk that's in our lives.

We all do at some level all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, biblical and all control, all recovery.

Christ-centered recovery is a, is an incredible opportunity for you to recognize what that is in your life and maybe start to, um, work through that.

TCD, the church digital, we're going to be launching recovery groups, digital recovery groups in, in, in the weeks to follow in, in October, 25.

And so really excited to, to get that launch.

We're going to be talking more about that through, through the conference.

Uh, but we've got, man, some, some phenomenal speakers, uh, Nate Graybill, uh, executive director of, um, regeneration.

Uh, Nate's been on the podcast a lot.

This has done a lot of work with me historically on mental health, digital mental health.

And so Nate's coming on speaking about the church's role in, in recovery.

Um, we're going to have Laura Howe from Hope Made Strong coming on, uh, to talk about the role of recovery.

In, um, in, in, in digital missions work.

I'm so excited for, for Laura to do this.

Uh, we've got, uh, uh, we're still working on details here, but Project Exodus, our strategic partner in this area is, uh, is coming on and, and, and leading, uh, a breakout.

Uh, we're excited, uh, about the role of recovery in digital and virtual spaces.

Not only as a mission opportunity to extend the, the reach of how we're engaging and discipling people, others.

To be honest, I'm more excited about what it's going to do to you.

Um, as to be honest, I, I have learned to be very excited about what it did for me.

It was, uh, it was a hard process shining light on yourself.

It was a humbling process shining light on yourself.

Uh, but I pray many of you will, um, what do I want to say there?

I pray that many of you would, um, would benefit from humbly shining light on yourself and allowing God to do with you what he will.

Yeah, I think I can say that.

Cool.

More on that conference coming up.

Stacy is owning the Control-Alt-Recover conference.

Jason has been influential, uh, heavily influential.

He's actually kicking off the digital mission conference, the digital neighborhoods conference on the 17th.

And then we got Simon, uh, Simon Dirks out in Germany, the European, uh, digital missionary.

This one's crazy.

Uh, you know, uh, um, Simon, I think Scott, like 10 or 11 keynotes.

Like if you're, if you're my age, maybe like 20 years ago, leadership network.

I think it was leadership network.

They did this, um, online conference 20 years ago in the day when nobody was doing online conferences, but they called it the nines.

And what it basically was, was everybody had nine minutes of a keynote and, and it just bounced from a nine minute keynote to a nine minute keynote to a nine minute keynote over and over and over again.

And so that's close to what the European digital missionary summit is going to be.

They may get like 11 minutes, maybe 12 minutes, but he's got a ton of keynotes.

Um, and what, what I love about Simon in this, this conference he's putting together is it's a, it's a global reach.

Like he's, he's, he's reaching and connecting to, he's platforming people from like Romania and France and Germany, obviously, and, and scavenavias and, and, and like, it really is a cross section of the company, of the countries that are existing in, um, in, in Europe.

Um, and highlighting the ministry that's existing in that space.

Um, and so what, this is an incredible networking opportunity.

If you're doing ministry in Europe, uh, and you're curious what's happening in that space, or maybe you are neighboring and just want to see what's there, or maybe you're stateside and curious what they're doing on the other side of the pond.

You know, go check out the European, uh, digital missionary summit.

It's going to be August, October 1st, excuse me.

And then the most fun conference.

Now, you know, uh, different titles, most creative, uh, most number of keynotes, like each one has their own characteristics.

Layton and, uh, Andy have been working on, on the gaming summit.

And I got to tell you, I'm really excited to see this one come into play.

Uh, cause they're taking really practical principles of, of ministry development, uh, and applying it into gaming and, um, uh, streaming spaces.

So what would it, what does it look like to, to discover your, your one digitally and to focus on that and to develop a ministry plan centered around the one?

Oh my gosh.

Um, maybe one of the top three keynote speakers.

Um, I, I, I'm not, this guy hasn't signed off yet for me.

Uh, he hasn't signed off period, but for me, one of the top three that I'm excited about is speaking at this conference.

Um, and no, it's not me.

You know, that's something I would joke about, but I wouldn't do that.

Um, but man, like I just, I, this one, this is crazy.

This conference is going to be hosted in discord.

Uh, I'm, I'm, I've, I've never seen an online conference in discord.

I'm, I'm, I'm a little, I'm not skeptical.

That's not the right word.

I'm curious.

I'm curious.

I've never seen a, uh, a online event of size hosted on a discord server.

And, uh, Andy tells me, oh, Jeff, don't worry about it.

We do this all the time.

And, uh, so, okay, Andy, I trust you.

And I do, I trust, I trust Andy.

Uh, but I cannot wait to see it, uh, to, to learn from it.

Cause it's, it's, it's going to be great.

And I just discovered, I just discovered they're doing an, uh, gaming after party.

So not only do you get to hang out and learn about how to do ministry and gaming spaces,

but they're like doing a full on gaming after party to grab the consoles, grab the controllers

and jam out playing some games with people from literally across the planet.

So man, what, what an exciting digital missionary conference.

Uh, you know, we had 1100 people the first round.

And that was awesome.

You know, 1100 people come to the conference.

We're, we're hoping for 2,500, uh, unique viewers across the four conferences.

So anywhere from, you know, five to 600 people per conference.

Um, I, and that's, I mean, that's an aggressive call.

Uh, but at the same time, I mean, look at the nuances recovery.

I mean, the average person that's interested in, in recovery is like a 40 to a 50 year old

female, uh, which is interesting.

And I don't know that was actually, it was a woman who told me that's that.

So don't call me sexist, um, 40 to 50 year old female is interested in recovery.

Gaming is a, is a 35, the average person interested in gaming is a 36, 37 year old

male, uh, digital discipleships usually in their, you know, fifties, forties, fifties male.

Um, Europe, I have no idea what the stats are there.

I mean, it's a pretty broad spectrum, uh, what I would say we're trying to get for this

conference and I've been, I've been convicted, you know, we still, we still look a lot like

this, right?

Um, we're starting to get some other nationalities involved and that's awesome.

Um, but we got it.

We got to get away from the, from the bald white man with a beard, with facial hair.

Sorry, Andy.

Sorry, J Mo.

Sorry, everybody else that fits that bill.

Um, white beard.

Layton's got hair.

Layton's got a little hair.

So maybe that's, that's it.

Um, so yeah, really excited about, about the conferences at hand.

They're all free.

All you got to do is visit the website missionary.digital, www.missionary.digital.

And you can register for the conferences there online.

Hit them all up in, in one fell swoop.

Um, you register for one, you can go to all four.

Check off the ones that you're interested in getting updates on.

That's fine.

Uh, but if you register one, um, we'll give you access to all four.

No problem.

It just would get really confusing if we didn't do that, but excited about that.

Um, be praying.

I got, I got to start knocking on doors for sponsors, uh, tomorrow.

So it's going to be good.

Uh, now I tell you what, I sat down yesterday, chat GPT, chat GPT and I are, are, uh, are

good friends now.

You know, there was a time in my life that chat GPT and I were not on speaking terms.

Um, I tried to ignore its existence and, uh, and now, I mean, I, I got to say, I probably

use it 30, 40 times a day.

Um, all the, all of my searches is, is chat GPT.

Now, by the way, uh, Google is in search terms, Google's dead to me.

Uh, and I love chat GPT search.

Like, oh my gosh, like Google tells me what Google thinks.

I want to know.

Chat GPT tells me exactly what I want to know, uh, and formats it exactly the way that I want

it formatted.

Uh, and so, you know, the Google SEO and the Google AdWords and the Google ad grant, well,

that's like up in the air.

Uh, and I know AI is, is, you know, bringing on a new paradigm and a new set of issues.

And I watched matrix the other day and there's a ton of copper top battery jokes.

I can probably insert here, um, from, from that movie.

But, uh, the, the, the reality is, is that chat GPT is a, it's a force to be reckoned with.

Now, for me yesterday, and this is the thing that I, that I found interesting.

I, I believe this.

I, to me, I don't use chat GPT to, um, for stuff I can do.

It's just going to sound weird.

Like, I'm not, I don't use it to be lazy.

I, I use it to multiply what I'm doing, uh, to create more of it, uh, to put it into different

frameworks or different models or different, um, and, and formats or structures.

Uh, like, to me, it's, it's, I would look at, uh, AI, chat GPT, not as, um, do less work.

I actually still would want to do the same amount of work.

I just want to 10x the results.

And so, helping that AI take me into a new realm or a new community or a new context or

allowing me to discover something that's going to help in the ministry that I'm doing.

That's, that's what I'm interested in, in AI for, is the, the contextualization that allows

for better multiplication.

And I used that yesterday.

Oh my gosh, I had so much fun yesterday.

Aside from watching, you know, how to train your dragon, which I'll get to in here in a

little bit.

Um, I'll get to it now.

It's a good, it's a good break.

How to train your dragon.

So I watched the, the live action.

I watched the animation.

I may have fallen asleep in it.

My son gives me a hard time because I fell asleep in it.

I watched two.

I watched three.

Um, I fell asleep in those movies too.

Like I, I just, I really liked the live action.

Um, I felt like the live action made the action stronger.

Uh, I felt like it made the story more real.

And, and, and I gotta tell you, I, I've really caught more of the historical context and some

of the challenge between the, uh, the Vikings and the son who's, you know, bringing on innovation,

who's bringing on design, who's bringing on really the industrial revolution, um, in, in

the story because he's designing and crafting these things.

Uh, and he's, he's, uh, I'm not gonna, I don't want to, no spoilers.

Um, and so, but it was, it was interesting.

Like, like I did not catch that paradigm, uh, the, the bifurcation of, of the two parties,

uh, when I was watching the cartoon version of it, but I was watching the, the, you know,

the human version, the, the real live, the live action version.

Oh my gosh, it was so rich.

It was like jumping off the screen.

It was painfully obvious.

I was like, oh my, where, where was I?

What, did I really sleep that heavy?

But it was really good.

Really, really, really good.

I enjoyed it.

Um, I would say, you know, anytime you watch a movie or a story, I kind of felt this way

with Moana.

Anytime you have, um, the old way and an individual that's championing the new way, to be honest,

I, I, I see a little bit of myself in that story, you know, um, the church digital doing

something different to reach someone different church doesn't work that way.

Yes, it does.

Let me show you pioneering and training and inviting people to become digital missionaries.

Like we can have that, that conversation, but anytime there's a rebel story, it's very

easy for me to be like, oh, I love this movie.

Cause I just, I resonate so much with the storyline.

And so how to train your dragon, the live action was that for me.

I didn't like so much.

Some of the, uh, some of the other kids that were in the movie.

Like I felt like the animated dorky kids were better than the live action dorky kids.

Um, but yeah, uh, flat cap says, uh, I don't even know the last, uh, movie I saw in theaters

and maybe Chronicles of Narnia.

Narnia.

Wow.

I couldn't live that life.

No, we don't see a lot of movies, but if it's Marvel, we'll see it.

If it's Star Wars, we'll see it.

Uh, the new wicked looked really good.

Wicked part two, um, fantastic four looked really good.

Uh, Superman, my son's really excited about the new DC.

So we'll give it a shot.

I mean, in James Gunn, we trust.

So, I mean, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll give it a fair shake.

See, see what happens.

I don't know.

I don't know.

I would see maybe six movies a year.

We have a membership to the AMC, you know, like not the A-lister, but the stubs, whatever,

that gives us free upgrades and whatever.

We, we, we make it to enough movies to make it worthwhile, but I get it, man.

Like, you know, we bought five movie tickets yesterday for a matinee and it was still like almost a hundred bucks.

It's just, it's just expensive.

And then that's not including the popcorn.

Uh, we had, um, coupons and it was still almost 40 bucks with coupons.

Um, but we did get free refills because we had the bonus perks.

And like I said, we ate a lot of popcorn yesterday.

Trace, trace buckets worth of popcorn.

How do you say, how do you say buckets in Spanish?

Hey Siri, how do you say buckets in Spanish?

There is not a prayer that Siri is going to get that.

I don't know why I thought for one second, Siri would be like Chad GPT-esque.

Has anybody noticed that you ever put like Siri and Chad GPT next to each other and you realize

one's like, you know, college doctorate level and one is like barely, you know, out of diapers,

even though the other one's been around for like 20 years.

It's kind of embarrassing.

Yeah.

All right.

So I use Chad GPT, man, that was a tangent or two.

I use Chad GPT to create some, um, proposals, some things we're working on in the future.

And, um, you know, me, I, I, I, I loose lips sink ships.

So let's just talk about it and sink some ships while we're at it.

Um, you know, uh, what was, what was it?

Deanna, I used to have a, a girl that used to work with me, uh, Deanna Spillone.

And she used to say that, um, oh my gosh, I can't think of it.

Um, secrets leak.

Don't leak the secret.

There was some free.

She would always get mad at me.

She'd be mad at me all the time for years.

Cause, cause I, anytime some secret came to me, I, I would like just blabber that all over

the place.

You know, it's insider Jeff.

No one's supposed to know that.

Yeah, screw it.

Tell everybody.

It's, it's all right.

Um, and so a couple of things to know, and this is, shh, don't tell anybody, but if you

know, somebody wants to know this, let them tell, tell them I am, I'm starting a cohort

in the fall aimed at physical churches.

Uh, you know what?

I've had a, this is confession hour of Jeff at the church digital.

I've had a, uh, love affair, hate affair, probably not the right word to say it.

Um, I, physical churches and I just have not seen eye to eye in, in the, in the 25 years

since I've been out of college.

Um, I, I really just have a strong desire for, uh, us-based physical churches to be something

they're not.

Uh, and, uh, physical churches want something from me that I have not been historically able

to give it.

And so like, it, it just doesn't, doesn't work well.

And, uh, as, as a result of that, um, I may be a little burned and this is, this is, I actually

came to a realization for me.

It came to a head a couple of days ago, a couple of weeks ago.

I was like, Hey, you know what?

I may have some baggage.

I may have some baggage with the physical church that we got to work out.

And so since that realization, I'm starting to work it out, starting to have some conversations,

starting to flesh it.

I don't know if you know this.

This is one of the things from recovery.

When things are, when you're struggling with something, it is always better to talk about

it.

It is at no point in life.

Is it a good idea to not talk about the thing that you're struggling with?

Okay.

Maybe don't go up to your mother-in-law and confess your deepest, darkest sins, but find

a way to have a conversation and put words to the thing that you're struggling with and

watch what God does with those words.

Watch what God does with your heart through that process.

And so it was, it was funny.

Like this is the honest God truth.

And I'll say it publicly.

A couple, couple of weeks ago, I was, I was walking in on a Monday, Tuesday, and I was

like, I think I'm a little depressed today.

I think this week I'm a little depressed.

What's, what's Jeff, what's going on?

What's, what's going on here with you?

And, um, I know it was Monday.

It was Monday and, um, I didn't tell anybody.

And you know what happened by me not telling anybody.

I'll give you two choices.

Number one, it got better.

Number two, it got worse.

What do you think?

Number two, it got worse.

I didn't give you time to think.

It got worse.

The feelings got worse.

And so Tuesday I walked in, I woke up feeling in a, in a worse state of depression, 24 hours

later and, um, feeling that same pain.

What did I do day two?

I started to talk to people, told a couple of, uh, TCD leaders, told a board member, told,

told my wife and had just a really blank, um, had a really heartfelt, uh, honest, uh, no hold

back.

I think that's what I was trying to say, uh, conversation around what I was feeling.

I do.

Do we solve the problem?

No.

Is the problem still solved two weeks later?

No.

Uh, would I say that I'm depressed because of it anymore?

I am not.

And that's, that's the thing is that sometimes when we think, um, we're going through our

darkest, we're going through our hardest time, that's where we isolate ourselves.

And, and really in those moments, we can't isolate ourselves.

We need to lean into it.

We need to be more open-handed.

We need to be more transparent.

We need to invite people into our lives, into experience, especially as digital pastors,

as digital pastors, as digital missionaries, it's very easy to isolate yourself in ministry,

in relationships, physically.

It's very easy to be, I mean, like I am, where I'm literally alone in my guest bedroom.

The other than the two dogs and while my son who's sick in the next room, there's nobody

else in the house.

And so it's easy to isolate and hide yourself, uh, from the world, but we shouldn't do that.

When we're, when we're struggling, we should be talking.

We should be inviting others into that experience.

We should be honestly showing some transparency, which allows others to engage with us.

The more transparency we show digitally, the more endearing it makes us, the easier it is

for people to grasp onto who we are.

And so this cohort that we're, we're doing came out of this idea of, man, I'm struggling

right now.

I'm struggling and, and I gotta, I gotta find ways to get through it.

So I gotta get on the same page as physical churches, um, together.

Like we need to have, you know, collectively physical churches and I need to have a come

to Jesus moment.

And, you know, I don't, to this day, I don't think I can give what the majority of physical

churches can do.

What?

I don't, I don't, I don't think it's in me, but I can do something.

And that's what this cohort is going to be.

We're, we're, we're doing a physical church cohort, uh, where essentially I want to launch

outposts inside physical churches.

I want to meet a handful of churches that are interested in developing as part of their

discipleship strategy.

They're interested in planting and starting a digital discipleship system in their church.

Cause I want to start to equip and mobilize people to be digital, uh, missionaries in physical

churches.

Crazy.

I know, but I'm used to talking crazy.

That's just one of the things that we're doing.

Uh, just signed literally before I jumped on this call today, signed the contract with,

uh, Nobe, G N O W B E.

That's going to be our, uh, L M S learning management system solution.

Uh, Nobe is going to be our, um, our equipping library platform.

And so EDM equipping digital missionaries, uh, the sharing Jesus online course.

There's, uh, honestly, my hope is to have six or seven courses online by the end of the

year.

Um, you know, we've got, uh, the church digital, if we were to really look at it, you know,

this is what, uh, you know, we've done 340 some streams here.

At least I have with, uh, the church digital podcast, you know, Tom has given us a lot of

his stuff from, uh, sidekick.

And so he's got three or 400 of those, um, not including from text to testimony and some

of those other shows that, that, that existed, man, I bet, I bet we've got, I don't think

we've got a thousand, but we've got eight to 900 hours of, of content that exists digitally.

What would it look like if we curated some of that in this online courses that became a

more tangible resource to equip people to be digital missionaries?

Like I, I've really long to give missionaries the information they're looking for.

Now, what the equipping digital missionaries is, it's, it's, it's great theoretical, it's

great head, it's great missional, uh, but it's not practical.

Uh, the outposts are practical.

Uh, and we want to use these courses that we're developing to compliment what's happening

at the outpost level to help you all become better, more efficient, uh, digital missionaries

here in, in America, as well as globally.

You know, one of the other things we're working on right now, this one was fun for me because

this was town hall.

I'll go ahead and say this because there's parts of this.

That's like, yeah, this is a slam dunk.

And there's parts of this.

It's like, yeah, Jeff, this ain't, it's not ready for prime time.

And so, um, I, um, we did the town hall meeting.

I went back, you know, I talk about how, Hey, the town hall meetings really help us shape

what we do with the church digital.

Like we're not just waxing, uh, apologetic here.

Like it really does shape what we're doing.

The digital missions, uh, digital missionary conference was in fact influenced by the town

hall meeting.

It was, it was mentioned on, on a town hall meeting that we needed to do a conference.

And, um, one of the things that came out of the most recent town hall meeting was the idea

of, um, Hey Jeff, I know you pivoted the digital missionary work and that's been awesome.

But really, since you pivoted to digital missionary, you don't talk much about digital churches

or digital church planting at all.

Like it's all missionaries.

It's, it's not, it's not planting.

How, um, like, can you, does that need to change?

Can you help?

Like what, what, what can you do towards that?

I, to this day, I don't know who said that.

I, I, I don't think the commentary came with the name.

Um, but the person is not wrong.

Like we did pivot and, and, and I don't regret the pivot.

The pivot was the right move, but it was, it's, it's interesting.

The pivot left a void and the void was for, um, digital churches, digital church planting.

And to be honest, the, the void was also physical churches.

Don't talk, talk and void, like, you know, the bad guy from Thunderbolts, but more of

the absence, um, with the pivot, it left an absence for digital church planting and physical

churches doing digital ministry.

Cause those were the people also that we were connected with, but with the pivot, they didn't

have any place else to go.

And so they ended up unsubscribing and cutting bait and, and, and running away.

Well, we want to lean back.

Like I said, we want to start to, to really embrace the idea of digital missions work at

physical churches.

Like that is the olive branch I'm bringing.

If you're serious about, uh, digital evangelism and discipleship, come hang out with us.

If you're a physical church, come hang out with us.

There's an opportunity.

Um, if you want me to help you figure out how to make your stream better, it's not really

my jam.

I mean, I can introduce you to Garrett.

Garrett can take care of that for you.

And so the idea of re-engaging with digital churches, we need to do that.

And it was funny, right, right about the time we have the town hall meeting, we had a conversation

to onboard, uh, and to create a digital micro church outpost.

And, and, and so we talked to Micah Bales, who's leading a digital micro church right now.

And it's actually in the process of planting one and said, Hey, you know, why don't you

create an outpost?

He loved EDM.

He loves networking and connecting with people.

And I was like, why don't you create an outpost and just for people that are wanting to do the

digital micro strategy?

Well, you know, as, as he and I started talking, a digital micro made less sense and digital

churches overall made a lot of sense.

And so we are going to be launching in, in fall right around the corner, a digital church

outpost.

And so if you are doing anything in the digital or virtual space, we, we want to hang out with

you.

We want to create an outpost.

We want to connect you with others that are doing in this space to, to inspire, to cast

vision and to create learnings that can help the next generation of planters be successful

as this generation is.

So will the next.

And so what can we do for peer to peer support to help today's generation of planters be successful?

So the next generation will as well.

That is the way we roll with the church digital.

You know, we, we listen and when it makes sense, which more often than not, it does.

I surround myself as smart people.

Thank you.

Uh, we, we do it.

We do what they tell them to do, you know, and this is really talking about 26.

I think this is what the, I think this is the future of where we're going.

You know, it's, it's interesting.

The, the church digital is, uh, right now, I would say it's a top down led ecosystem.

I am the visionary.

I'm the leader.

I, you know, what, what I say goes, I don't, I don't like that, but that's one of the things

that I'm learning in a, in a, in a, uh, bifurcated in a fractional leader role in a, um, you know,

a volunteer led organization.

It needs a strong vision to be successful.

Um, and that voice is coming from me right now, but I think there's another opportunity and

this is something I've been, I've been struggling with, but love your, your, your take on it.

And, um, yeah, Steve, Steve's saying, uh, it's been almost an hour.

I think it's nap time.

Dude, I'm telling you, I'm exhausted.

Uh, I didn't sleep well last night and, um, I, I will, I'll hang up off this stream and

I'll, I'll go take a nap.

But I do want to say this.

Um, I've been working on this, the church digital, my hope for the church digital.

Is, you know, we, I say we learn a lot from the, the micro church, small and decentralized,

small and decentralized, small and decentralized.

That's what I wanted the church digital to become a series, a network of small and decentralized.

But instead we've got, you know, 1100 missionaries large and we're in a situation where it's leadership

from the top down, which is not decentralized.

It's actual centralized.

You know, the board technically is about me, but me and I tell leadership what to do and

they do it.

And then that trickles down to the outpost leaders and down in the next six months.

In the next nine months, by this time next year, I'm, I'm saying this on video to hold me

to it.

I want to flip the script where I'm not on top pushing vision down.

Here, here's what I, here's what I believe.

And this is a lesson that my friends over at church project taught me.

Jason Shepard told me this once.

His most recent stream that he did with me is probably a year or two ago.

In order to have a decentralized movement, that's manageable.

You have to have a centralized, uh, you have to have some aspects that are centralized.

Now what that is can depend, but a true decentralized, a true decentralized movement would be like chickens

running around with their heads cut off.

It's not going to be sustainable and it's not going to be multiplicative.

Um, and so in order to give everybody can, the ability to do what they want, they need to know

the boundaries with which they can experiment and explore and do something different.

And they, and then we also need to figure out what is central, what is consistent, what are we,

what are we doing?

Um, and so that's why we did the framework, connect community, quit mobilized, because that's,

was a very basic framework that gave freedom to the EDM leaders, to the outpost leaders,

to whoever, to adapt and contextualize as they saw fit.

But how Simon would adapt it is different than how Utope would adapt it.

It was funny, Utope, what's that me?

Utope, Utope, I'm going to, I'm going to out you right here, man.

Uh, he watched at me this morning.

He says, Hey, I'm thinking about doing something.

Um, and, and I think it may conflict with the church digital.

And, and I kind of, I kind of chuckled and I was like, dude, there's nothing you're going

to do.

That's going to like conflict with the church digital.

But what, what do you think?

What are you thinking?

And, um, and, and he told me because he's, he's getting ready to launch a framework on something

that the church digital does not have a framework on.

And I'm like, go for it.

I mean, that doesn't, you have freedom to explore and you have freedom even to a change the framework

that I'm giving you.

Like there's some level of, of, of open handedness, even on our side towards this.

But to say, um, you've got the freedom to do whatever you want.

Well, I mean, if you want to do a physical church plant, I don't know that that really

makes sense with the church digital.

If you wanted to do a, uh, dinner church, I don't know that really makes sense with the

church digital.

Like there's some things that, that are inherently the, the, the church digital.

Um, and, and so we need to have a level of standardization, but with that standardization

comes flexibility.

And with that standardization comes the opportunity to, uh, adapt, to contextualize, uh, to see

things differently.

You see, we've been top down for the past year.

Really, we've been digital missionary for a year.

About this time last year was when Layton would know, um, you know, we started talking crazy

about moving to digital missionary.

And for the past year, I have been, I'll call myself out.

I've been driving to build out the framework and to establish the departments, but in the

very near future, it's going to flip.

And the outposts instead of me are going to be on top.

The decentralized networks, the missionaries in the field, the EDM graduates, the, uh, the

people that are on our network that we're equipping and empowering.

These are the ones that are going to be in charge.

It is not going to be the Jeffrey show.

It can't be.

I'm a white bald man with a beard who lives in Miami, Florida.

Like this is not the face of, of what is represented globally or digitally.

I mean, the, the average, what was the saying?

The average Christian in the globe is a, is a 40 year old African woman.

Um, I think that was something that Lizanne told me recently, like, this is not the face

of, of the typical Christian or the typical missionary.

Um, and so I think it's important for us to realize that where we're going with the church

digital is to empower these individual networks up top.

What Simon's doing, what Utope's doing, what, um, what Micah Bales is launching with digital

churches, what, uh, Leighton's doing with gaming, what, you know, I can just rattle on what Steve's

doing with legacy.

So funny.

Leighton told me the other day, he says, cause we were talking about whether the church digital

will still, was still innovative.

And Leighton's like, are you kidding me?

Steve Reed just launched, uh, um, a digital missionary outpost aimed at boomers.

Like that may be the most innovative idea, crazy idea I've ever heard of.

A missionary net digital missionary network for boomers who would come up with that idea.

Okay.

That was technically me honestly, cause I was trying to figure out some way to resource my

mother who wanted to be a digital missionary.

Who's a boomer?

Hi mom.

Love you.

The, the fact is that 26, we want to give power to the Steve's.

We want to give power to the Simons, to the Etopes, uh, to the Micas, to the Josh's, to

the Leighton's.

Um, I, myself, I, you know, I need to be in a position where I can resource and help them,

which I'm already doing.

These three or four, these three or four, uh, projects that we're working on.

I only told you a couple of proposals, a couple of them.

I'm not ready to say yet.

Um, I've already got the outpost leaders in place.

Two of the four were from direct outpost leader conversation saying, Jeff, why don't we do

this?

And I said, if I can get it built for you, would you run it?

And they said, yes, cool.

I'm going to build it with you and you'll get the keys when we're done.

And, and I'm doing that for a season to get central teams and others ready to, to manage

it, but realize where we're going is going to be to empower the outpost leaders.

What's the book, uh, actually I've not read the book, but leaders eat last, um, you know,

at the end of the day, there's, there's a lot that humbly, I don't know.

And, and I would rather empower and listen to people who are in the field and help them

do what God's calling them to do than to draw more attention to what I think is right or

best.

I love this stream.

I'm even okay.

If this stream stops, like I I'd rather empower somebody else at 47.

I'm kind of curious.

What's the next face of the church digital?

Who is it?

Where are we going with this thing?

And so, you know, what is 26 look like?

We're going to flip the script.

And the outposts are going to be positioned at top.

And so I would welcome you.

If you want to really want to be a part of what the church digital is doing in the very

near future.

Well, the best way to get in to an outpost is to get connected into equipping digital

missionaries, EDM.

So go check out the church.digital slash EDM equipping digital missionaries, EDM.

We're getting ready in August to launch a five week course on our new LMS platform, Nobi,

where you'll get to learn how to be a digital missionary and get connected into a outpost into a regional

network, a peer-to-peer network where we can help people like you learn how to be more effective

digital missionaries.

This is interesting.

All right.

Let's see where this goes.

According to AI, the largest share of Christians live in Sub-Saharan South Africa, 31%.

Yes.

Latin Caribbean region, 24.

I'm assuming they consider Catholics, Christians, which works for me.

And Europe, 22.

Internet speed, statistics, I don't know what that is.

But yeah, I would buy that, Steve.

That makes sense.

Which is where they get the average Christian today is African-American female, Sub-Saharan

Africa.

It's interesting.

Even the word Sub-Saharan Africa, I don't think Africans understand the Sub-Saharan Africa

language.

I ran into that the other day.

But yeah, that's a thing.

Like I said, y'all, we are chill today.

Down low.

Kind of relaxed a little bit.

Maybe more so.

Leighton, Steve.

It was great to hang out with you.

Thanks for chatting this thing up.

Those of you watching on demand, feel free to leave a comment, subscribe while you're on YouTube

and questions, hit me up.

But coming up, let me look real quick.

I mean, shoot, if you stuck around this long, what's a little longer, right?

Let's see.

Let's see.

Next week.

I can't read that.

Oh, we're talking Justin Suter from a crew.

We're talking with crew again.

Justin Suter, who's head of God Tools.

And so excited to talk through the tools, the features that they've got.

I'll tell you, God Tools straight up, some really interesting, really powerful tools that can help people like you do ministry in digital space.

And by the way, it's free.

And so check out the podcast, Justin Suter, next week.

We'll be doing some screen shares.

You'll be seeing this, the conversations firsthand, and you're going to love it.

But until then, this is Jeff with The Church Digital.

Thanks for hanging out with us today on the stream.

And we'll see you next time on the show.

Y'all have a good one.