EP339 - TCD's Summer Town Hall Meeting

all right hey welcome to the church digital podcast jeff here founder of the church digital

we're doing a podcast recording a live stream and today may 20th is our summer town hall meeting i'm

excited i love the the town hall you see look we even got our little signage right there in the

background town hall it's gonna be really cool so we do this thing we do it every you know three

four times a year maybe once a quarter uh really is a chance to to listen to you to get out there

and to to directly interface uh with digital missionaries and people like you that are out

in the field and so i sent a a survey around earlier uh trying to collect information from you

and many of you contributed we had over 50 people 50 60 people globally contribute to this thing um but

some of you uh did not get a chance to and so during the presentation i want to ask you to go

ahead and present by the way we've got a lot of chat and some things are happening so i'm going to do

like two things at the same time first off here is a little qr code and go and zap that qr code with

your phone and get set up i'm using menti m-e-n-t-i it's a great platform i use it for presentations like

this and so the survey the questions you'll be able to interact with it in real time if you already

voted earlier great thank you go ahead and zap it again because there's questions i didn't ask you

because shh there's some things that we're secretly going to announce in today's stream that i hadn't

announced earlier and so i want your feedback on that so if you did the survey go ahead and fill it out if

you didn't do the survey uh go ahead fill it you know jump on this thing and we'll go through it

chat is blowing up always excited about that uh our friend flat cap uh i still have no idea what

these emojis mean i don't speak this jmo excited jmo is excited there's a reason jmo is excited

we'll get into that here a little bit melanie the great melanie without melanie the entire church

digital ecosystem would crash and burn i'm i'm not even exaggerating from that simon is making

me jealous from poland he and i were whatsapping earlier today i want to go to poland simon is it

always in poland he's at a conference right now and he's convincing me to go to poland so i'm excited

about exploring poland and and evidently tom is jealous of simon in poland like let's just establish

right now meh that is number one uh speak for i'm jealous uh shelter in i guess that means it's cold

in poland or i'm not sure but that's about uh we still got sanitizer i don't even know flat cap um

i wish the software that i was using spoke your language flat cap but you you're in a you're in a

different world sylvan logging in from willows california hey sylvan how you doing uh judy as

well coming in from uh southern socal uh very very cool there simon tarik you know from from pakistan

the middle east so excited tarik is well i mean shoot he he launched equipping digital missionaries

in pakistan in the middle of like war-torn pakistan as it's in the middle of of a war with

with india or maybe it's being said i'm not sure the political situation but man so excited tarik

thanks for jumping on here excited about that uh a mule joel coming on as well the real andy mage

uh so many coming in uh may want to bring down the music just a slight bit are we still too loud

we still too loud bueller bueller of course right when i said that it faded it out okay all right

andy i'll go ahead and do it thank you for the feedback i appreciate it you know you're if it's

too old you're if you're too old if it's too loud if it's too loud you're too old what's the saying

how's that go i'm andy i'm not applying that to you i wouldn't dare apply that to you but that's

that that's they're talking about somebody else uh ian checking in paul micah man this is so good

you and your secrets man i always got secrets uh and i like it better when we can't hear jeff thank

you whitebeard i missed you my friend i'm glad whitebeard's whitebird's coming back around you

know he's starting to he had the new job and kind of got a little hectic multi-site director for

multiple campuses new guy in town trying to elevate the game get some standards he was a little busy

oh my gosh so many people scott coming on micah kiwi from new zealand uh tom uh i don't even know

what shots were fired what shots uh andy i like it better when i can't hear jeff okay that was

that was you know i i andy should i should i send tom to his room you know whitebeard i'm just gonna

tell you like unless you behave i'm gonna make sure you're on santa's naughty list i mean technically

aren't you are santa so would you just go ahead whitebeard and put your own name on your own list

like i think i think that's best in this moment um yeah 900 leaders uh simon from all over europe

900 church leaders excited about the european leadership summit something um sounds like an

incredible opportunity for the future and uh and it's warm not miami warm it was so funny

i walked into i had breakfast this morning with jesse carbell because jesse may be on here but uh

um i would literally i was walking into a hotel there's a starbucks in the hotel lobby and that's

just where jesse and i meet and um and this guy was walking out with a suitcase walking out of the

hotel and literally like he is soaking wet five fifteen feet away from the door just sweat dringing

bald guy clean shave white shirt you can already see through it and he walks past me and he literally

says i'm outside 15 seconds and i'm already on fire just drink it was so funny this poor guy

welcome to miami brian phipps in the house brian kansas city great to see you man brian texted me this

morning and it's just an encouraging note hey man i'm praying for you and it was the right text

at the right moment and so brian so good to see you man sly coming in we got nigeria coming in

yatope oh jesse velez jesse i was talking about you actually with uh jesse carbo earlier today we

still got to get together uh looking forward to doing that at some point uh keegan the qr code

seems to just go to a way to ask you questions not a form yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah i will get to the

you're you're you're you are faster than me keegan just keep that web page open i didn't properly set

it up my fault thank you keegan for for making me aware of my issues so we're going to get to a second

here after i you know stall and uh and give you an opportunity to answer the questions man there's so

much chat we just we gotta roll through some of this stuff so you know what let's just go ahead

and get started so here's what we did the first question where are you from and so the survey 56

people surveyed hey about 27 of them half of the people surveyed were in the united states now we

also got a bunch in europe we got a some down in asia australia some in some in africa none in south

america i want to call attention to that we still have yet to actually crack the uh the south america

but i want to bring my mouse right over here dude we we got a digital missionary in antarctica

i don't know who you are or what penguins you're using to to share jesus over down in south in uh in

antarctica no maybe somebody misclicked i don't know if you're really from antarctica and doing

digital missions talk about remote i i would told i told jesse carbo this morning i was like dude i

want to like move to freaking puerto rico where it's like you know five bucks uh to live and go be a

digital missionary just remotely from puerto rico i'm i'm actually not kidding when i say that but

could you imagine like living in a tent in a camp a base camp down in like antarctica doing doing

digital missions work if you are uh if you are if you have not contributed to the survey zap the qr code

and go ahead and contribute to the survey i want to legitimately tell you here all right we use this

material uh we use this survey to feed what the church digital is doing in the future this is a major

part of us discovering and praying through and figuring out what the direction is the digital missionary

conference is directly related to this stuff that that happened fall of to the to the uh town hall

meeting we did fall of 24 i guess somewhere around there and so um you know contribute to the zap it

in and and let us know where you're at um man there's so much stuff uh ed a coming in uh good to see you

my friend um antarctica is a great location uh to pick uh with your vpn maybe that's it maybe somebody

no no no but like you you you know they actually had to click the thing not not automated on this

one but that's good that's good that's good that's good all right number two kind of hyped up man i'm

excited about this stuff we're going to get into favorite platform or community favorite platform

our community number one is whatsapp not really that surprised by that i i was expecting whatsapp in

there number two

facebook really y'all facebook facebook facebook facebook like i i keep i keep trying

to like get this platform killed and and you can see like new stuff's coming in in the time and it's

adjusting but but facebook all right so if you're out there watching us right now i'm gonna call you

out publicly if facebook is your favorite platform here's what i need you to do i need you to go to

facebook.com slash b b e the church digital facebook.com slash be the church digital and go follow us on

facebook we get i i'm i'm not exaggerating here we get crickets on facebook and which is why we pour

all our energy into into whatsapp and and discord so if you really like facebook you gotta engage with

us on facebook and if you're really passionate about facebook hit me up directly i may give you

the keys to facebook um i i i saw this come up i was expecting whatsapp i was expecting discord i was

expecting social media and there's another a smattering of different platforms that came in

all all of that is big screen of course mr pete is coming in mr pete i just see this you know

big screen of course mr pete's passionate about big screen love you sir uh don't worry facebook is

trying to kill facebook they keep making it worse all right we're gonna move on but seriously if you

are passionate about facebook you are missing your caller we the church digital are missing your calling

come let us know and we'll get you placed you are a question number three you are a digital missionary

you are a church staff employee you are a missions organization employee you are a normie you're a normal

person or other i don't know what other could be i guess other could be alien i guess other could be

uh uh a penguin from antarctica i i don't know what other is but figure it out and so you're seeing

here we've got 40 40 by far the majority claim to be quote-unquote digital missionaries now there's

opportunity to do both so a digital missionary that also works for a church staff uh a digital missionary

that also works for a missions organization it's interesting 14 of people surveyed in this thing

are like yeah i'm just i'm just some guy i'm just some gal i i love that i mean that's that really is

this this normie language we used to you know previously in past years i want to bring back the

normie language we used to have normies all of the time and talk about that i used to you know joke on

that we were like the yeah what was the the uh oh my gosh uh rudolph red-nosed reindeer the the island of

misfit toys from the show uh yeah i used to joke like that was us you know micah micah coming in from

the outside saying he is all of the above and yeah well micah i don't know how normal no i'm kidding

i'm not gonna do that to you all right i like you micah unlike white beard who's giving me crap

uh so next up this is interesting recent missionary success stories recent missionary success stories

now let me uh let me work some magic here oh that was the wrong button um shoot that was not what i

wanted to do close q a all right recent missionary success stories well i think i'm supposed to press

stay spacebar hit the wrong button all right here you go that was my fault uh online outreach so let's

click this and drill in here's some success stories that you all are sharing train 1600 people 16

thousand people at a young person's conference to take a step of faith to share their faith

in the digital world someone who engaged primarily online visited a physical location

be baptized i love mission i love the mission work but i really appreciate the effort

on using facebook group to share the gospel with people my team went on a village outreach

during good friday in april in uh yeah in nigeria uh daily text and email devotions working on a youtube

channel we successfully connected a small new association of christian video game creators

and streamers with an international mission focused on evangelizing discipling and inspiring

youth man it's cool like i i almost i want to maybe as a maybe as a blog i want to post some of these

stories but excited about what's happening at the on reach level at the uh online outreach level success

stories i'm seeing jesus transforms lives personal transformation through his calling and blessing

in a biblical peacemaking uh whether the controversies are large or small hearts soften

with path steps to peace lives are being transformed connected uh online with something talking about

life not living uh i'm guessing that's not something but someone talk texted over weeks eventually came to

church and got baptized i'm going around asia for my farewell tour of all my missions work there in in

mission trips i made plenty of friends over the years and this is my last time they see uh

my face in person but you'll get to see them digitally uh and engage with them digitally hey cindy cindy just

coming in uh how you doing cindy good to see you so excited about some of those stories oh i got a

sorry i'm clicking on the wrong screen um let's do uh let's do virtual reality uh i am very active in

virtual reality uh in a program called big screen oh i'm screwing with that don't do that that was bad

uh in in uh in big screen hey hey it's uh it's it's mr pete uh last week i held a team of missionaries

uh through lazon um i led a team of through the lazon virtual lounges they were avatars for the

first time and would like to implement a virtual world for it for their mission talking about explore

explore exposing and exploring new ideas we've got some new ones coming here um i'm new to the

digital missionary initiative uh doing some hybrid missions with a former believer by sharing our

testimony uh launching as digital missionaries another couple that feels called wants to meet

and discuss how they might be able to do the same like it's it's beautiful first off it's beautiful to

see life change happen and be able to make those connections uh where you're able to have those

conversations you see people get baptized or take some steps of faith or or grow closer to god closer to

christ it ends in some level and but it's also as beautiful to help someone that maybe knows jesus

have a better understanding of what it means to to disciple someone not just to conversion but to

develop them to to a closer place in christ so that they're living a life of obedience as well and so

if you haven't shared your stories yet feel free to zip zap the qr code and share your story in that

i've got like 25 screens open windows on my it is so confusing right now let me i'm gonna get this

one out of the way that's gonna help me move forward here a little bit all right next up your biggest

challenge today right up off the top of the bat feel free to you know share uh what you what you have

in there two biggest challenges time and money now it's interesting you know the way this is actually

set up is you actually have to type the word and all of you typed different words and so it is what

it is like you can see uh fundraising you you can see not enough hands for time fundraising for money

you can see all sorts of different uh objects that are centered around uh move to connect to community

needing a mentor a group training there is a lot of that in there as well and so we're going to talk

here some about maybe some equipping things that are coming up but definitely uh excited for the

feedback there on that let's get into this equipping digital missionaries speaking of our online

digital missionary course equipping digital missionaries so creatively named is number one

awesome i love it and it uh it was a great i took it and it was awesome number two i think it's

awesome uh we'll take it soon number three yeah wasn't that interested in it and number four what you

talking about willis maybe not that that aggressive but uh here that's the scores a lot of people seem

to think it was awesome a lot of people are awesome like interested in taking it uh for what it's worth

we've had maybe 75 people graduate through equipping digital missionaries i haven't done the country

count yet on it but i would speculate it's probably 30 to 40 countries that that have taken

edm successfully a lot of global representation coming in we've had close to 300 people

uh register for more information and and are wanting to do it when schedules in line and things like

that so there is a huge interest in digital missionaries and so those of you that are thinking

it's awesome we need to flip the switch and get you connected into it i don't know we've got four or

five cohorts going right now a couple in americas uh one in uh africa one in the middle east uh one up in

germany europe is launching i think in a couple weeks as well so excited to see what's coming out of edm

here's a good one for me i wish the church digital would and this is where we are are you know looking

how can we help you how can we help you now there's a bunch of i'm i'm new uh i'll reserve judgment for

later uh i'm i'm really new and so far it looks good really new don't have advice no suggestions i

love it and and so there's can can i see can i see it in the google play store um sure with a web browser

uh you know we'll yeah this is great i wish the church digital will spread like wire wild flower

wild fire wild fire is that the name of like a superhero or a transformer or something will spread

like wild fire i hope you're right my friend um i don't know who said that but that's that's really

good by the way i don't have any names on on any of these all these are um you know private it's uh

it's it's clean data coming in uh some of you want a technology training uh train me on modern

uh that's why that's not working it's train me on modern technology of doing digital missions

uh i'm in mobilization i have two channels blah blah blah help me help the digital missionaries

with more training and encouraging people to reach out to the unreached people groups using facebook or

whatsapp uh would really uh would expand more into virtual reality

it's a good one uh will expose me to modern technology of doing digital missions

in social media platforms uh be a completely i'm guessing this one's about the digital missionary

conference be a completely understandable course uh with great breakouts um depending upon who you are i

don't know what um completely understandable is but but i get this this is a good one uh

i wish the church digital and and it gives some content uh diversity work and make content content's

important it's not the end game but content is important uh work and make content based on the age

differences like teenagers adults and youth different content for different people from the church digital

all right slow golf club that is really good to be honest that's that's one of the things that's my

heart right now like i'm a i'm an old bald i'm not as old as steve reed let's set that aside but i'm

an old bald man hey steve i know you're watching on demand just thought i'd throw that at you i'm an old

bald man with a beard like this is not the face of a gen a and gen z movement and so we need to find

it we need to connect with and we need to empower some of these people to to grab the reins men and

women it's one of the reasons we're so passionate about leaning into nationalities to lean into their

cultures to give simon to give you a tope to give tarik to give them a platform to reach into their

spaces but in addition to that well you know women age differences as well different cultures based on on

age like like we the church digital need to be leaning into that helping others and platforming

others towards that another one make uh teams in different areas to produce content in their local

language and have a strong follow-up plan to measure progress and consistency target-based work

uh will be efficient and results driven yeah that's that we are we're in the early stages of that as

matter of fact equipping digital missionaries edm for the first time was taught in german simon would

literally just did that he's wrapping up that first cohort this week next week where we used ai to

translate the uh subtitles into german now to be honest that's a short-term solution for me the long-term

solution and simon knows this is i want simon to you know recruit a team and let's actually

record it in german like i i don't think it's a win for 40 50 videos to be in english taught by a bunch

of american you know guys i i would love to see better representation subtitles may work well but

globally i would love to see better representation on some of these uh there should be different genres

as well with different presentations like uh whiteboard animation uh with voiceover vlogs short films um

but there should be a hierarchy to to lead projects i it's not a bad idea uh some of that's budget and

some of that's uh an issue right now but yeah i love the way you're thinking it should be good to

categorize what you offer how the church digital digital missionaries can help various different areas of

ministry that's feedback too we're going to come back i'm going to come back to that one here in a

second let me see was there anything else i wanted to cover on the slide as we're 30 minutes in uh

international uh not so american centric like i want to publicly acknowledge that one yeah we need to

move away from that be sustainable we need stability i want to represent that one i i would love that that was

actually one of the the topics of breakfast this morning connect with other networks to see the

opportunities and gaps and collaborate to get the world done help visualize and organize digital mission

partnerships and international movements i that's my heart is is to see not the church digital brand in

global space actually i told that to leadership today um you know uh we don't i want to help empower

others to connect into into digital environments and physical and digital space globally like it's not

you know if if if jeff had an opportunity to speak globally i would i would love to empower somebody

else uh to speak globally it's it's not you know god didn't ask me to launch jeffrey.com he helped he

asked me to launch the church digital and so i think that was it um hey there's going to be some

questions from the audience at the end of this thing we're going to do a q a and so let's go ahead you

can click the q a button i believe on the screen it's this little um over here on the side i think

that's it like the little chat bubbles if you've got questions as we're going through this we'll address

everything at the end as as we have time but i do want to do this i want to i want to talk a little bit

because not only do we want to hear from you and this there was some really good things uh that came

out out of this uh these conversations today and the stuff that you shared and we'll share but there's

some things that we've heard in the past and that we've seen in the past that we've been working on

developing and that we're wanting to roll out here very soon including four digital missionary conferences

not one not two not three but four digital missionary conferences coming up here in a little bit and so

but to get to there we're gonna we're gonna like roll into it so you got to stick around for the

missionary conferences we're going to talk about the framework for the church digital connect

community equip mobilize if you've been listening to us if you've been checking into edm if you've been

hanging out with us for any length of time you've heard me talk about this you know uh a deep

cut is going to be you've seen my my friend uh funko pop da vinci and talk about the flywheel

connect community equip mobilize and and how that works in digital missions you're we're connecting via

content via social media via youtube community you know we tend to lean towards asynchronous community

but synchronous and asynchronous work together whatsapp discord community for us is building relationships

establishing trust to be honest the outpost is what you're going to start to see really community

start to foster we're going to talk more about outposts here in a little bit equipping you know

you've seen the equipping digital missionary cohorts come up here within the past six months or so

and then mobilization this is where we encourage we experiment we empower ministry to happen at a

global level helping you find what you're called to and then mobilizing you holding you accountable reach uh

releasing you and helping you do what god is calling you to do in digital space and that's a that's a

beautiful challenge now 2024 was the year of connection and community this is where we made

leaps and uh bounds and leaps and jumps whatever the saying is on connection and community on that social

media on the brand barbara's team word revolution came in and really grabbed the ball and ran with it

on that connection on the top level and barbara's team ingrid and everybody else involved in that

has done and will continue to do an incredible job towards that if you're looking for that type of

stuff word revolution is absolutely unbelievable word revolution.com and at the same time andy made

shifted from connection to community community is andy's sweet spot and he really we launched you

know we launched discord last year we launched um whatsapp last year discord's floating around 700

whatsapp is 515 525 i think and so like we've gotten community going very fast

digitally and 2024 was really the the building of that now 2025 uh looks a little different this is

where my friend jason morris starts to sweat a little bit because 25 is the year of equipping

we launched really we graduated the first class of of equipping digital missionaries our cohort

in 25 we did beta 1 in 24 25 we did beta 2 entirely in 25 we're working on beta 3 right now in 25

and like i said 75 people probably graduated from this thing from across the planet and so excited

about it but it's it's so interesting to me where uh the first edm one was 13 weeks and the 13 week

cohort that dragged a little bit like if we're honest it was it was a little slow it was a little long

uh it got hurt by some holidays in there too but we came out with uh the the the 10 week one and we

said okay let's let's streamline it let's cut it down to like 10 weeks this and i taught i taught the

10 week one uh to like four or five cohorts at the same time which was awesome and but as we're going

through it here's an observation that i will give you direct from the people who were in beta 2 with me

the um gen uh the gen z and the younger millennials this is way too long jeff like this thing needs to

to get down at like four to five weeks the boomers and the gen xers dude jeff man 10 weeks is perfect

we we need longer like it was so funny to hear that the different perspectives mostly centered around

age and so this is what we're doing we're actually launching an edm core we're in the process jason

morris is working on this this is some of the stuff that's coming soon uh but we're we're going to be

launching a a four to five week core group of uh a cohort for equipping digital missionaries now

like you're what you're seeing on this slide was actually our 13 week last time we did a town

hall meeting like i don't know three six months ago maybe i showed this in the spring i think i showed

this in in the in january it was this 13 week and we're boiling this down yeah jason morris no pressure

at all dude i'm just i'm i'm i am literally burning the ship by saying this jason morris on you publicly so

you got it he's gonna nail us but we're gonna we're gonna boil it down we're gonna shrink it down

to um to to to the limited time now i'm just gonna pick out here number seven on here on this little

the sheet here digital imperialism this is my favorite by far my favorite uh course

digital imperialism is is gonna get cut it's it's not gonna make it into a five week

and and you know fundraising it's probably gonna get cut just because because of the length of it

but by cutting it now it's the number one issue that you have as digital missionaries so so we're

cutting it to make it smaller and simpler but by cutting it we're not actually helping you with the

stuff that you're interested in or or me or like in digital imperialism stuff that you need to know

in order to be effective at a global level and so how are we going to handle this situation

how do we shrink edm equipping digital missionaries the only the only course the only cohort that we're

providing in equipping yet still effectively equip you to handle these issues that you're you're facing

ladies and gentlemen i give to you the tcd equipping library well this is actually a university of

florida gif do i say gif or is it jif i think i should say i want to say jif but everybody's going

to get mad at me and say gif um but the the heart of this is gif or jif aside we are going to create a

equipping a library uh aside from equipping digital missionaries where our outposts

will be able to provide equipping and training on a number of um resources on a number of topics

like for example the the course my favorite section that digital imperialism will be available as as a

course um and talking about how digital culture is stronger than physical culture when you're doing

digital mission work really interesting stuff and so like that is uh that'll be available not probably

as part of edm but available uh after the fact for people to go through on the side and like in topics

with fundraising we're actually in the process of talking with our friends over at reliant about them

reliant actually creating an online course as part of our equipping library so that you can get

trainings uh to help you be better at fundraising and so like some of the stuff that we're going

to do is we're really going to look at hey what are equipping digital missionaries struggling with

and and and and help develop trainings to solve those problems and and if we don't have the answer

there's this really um eclectic group of missions organizations and ministry partners that would love to help

help digital missionaries and so we are going to start to lean into equipping digital missionaries

not just through the cohort but through our outposts overall on a broad range of topics so look for

equipping digital missionaries i'm once again jason no pressure my friend you're going to see more of

the tcd equipping library sometime uh this fall now to do that this is just a fun little tidbit to do that

we are uh we're exploring an lms a full learning um uh learning management system lms learning module

system learning module system i think and so uh we're exploring uh nobi nobi was this is like a

this uh town hall was paid for you in part by uh the fun people over at nobi no but this is a somewhat

of a commercial the nobi they're friends and so we're exploring that platform you can check them

out at nobi.com um i'm not sure they're going to work but it's the it's the best guest walking in

to uh the town hall today so enjoy that slide right there now here's what i want from you

grab your phones open up web browsers at the qr code hopefully you still got it open

i wish i had more training in i wish i had more training in i want to see

what you wish you had more training in would love to see some things pop up now there is probably

some sort of a delay uh between um uh where i'm broadcasting it's not so it's going to take time

so i'm going to stall here for a second um okay i just saw this pop up in chat uh vader luke you

don't know the power of the digital side digital imperialism i totally get the joke i've been

watching i've been watching i've not watched indoor season two yet no no spoilers i was waiting for my

wife to get out of she's she's a school teacher this is her last week of school and so she would

have been mad at me if i watched it without her she really she really liked it and uh and so i haven't

caught up with it but i appreciate that methods and then evangel the republic will be reorganized in the

first digital empire

oh oh so good all right some some feedback is coming in i wish i had more training in microchurch i wish i

had uh more training in discipling people in my network in my neighborhood i'm gonna just assume

something there uh andy mage says and or season two is a masterpiece i i caught it i caught part of a

conversation online does this make and or one of the top five most important people in the star wars

universe when that was said i was like oh my like that that's a whole level of importance and so i'm

excited for it by the way drinking out of my um starbucks mustafar mustafar excuse me coffee mug

as as i'm doing this is decaf it's way past my uh my coffee timeline date but so good all right so

hey listen i can't i can't stall too much longer gotta keep moving but um that we will make these um

trying to figure out we will make these slides available again after edm is over after the town

hall is over and so we'll post the the link where you'll be able to vote again uh the link will be

the church.digital/poll but you'll have access to the presentation all of this you'll be able to go

in there and vote through it so check the check the communities we'll continue the conversation

uh uh hey uh can somebody paste the url for the questions um i'm tuning in from my phone

so can't scan the code yeah it's uh the church.digital/poll p-o-l-l somebody can type that in i guess i can

i mean no reason i can't um but seriously what is digital imperialism all right i'll tell you

you know what well i was about to say you'd have to go take uh equipping digital missionaries

imperialism you know what cultural differences just popped up on my screen scott cultural

differences is the reason imperialism is a term in history where um you know rome takes over the world

and all of a sudden rome forces its culture on everybody else uh england takes over our friends

in uh australia and for india india is a better example england takes over india and forces its

culture on the indian people uh england culture because it is the dominant culture globally uh strikes

out the other cultures in place so digital imperialism would look like this where we are

um did you know i'm gonna i'm gonna call out americans right here but it's not exclusively an

american problem where we america are are being digital missionaries and are consciously or unconsciously

pushing our national culture our national agenda our own cultural agenda instead of represent recognizing

there are cultural differences and and giving people an opportunity to to lean into their cultural

difference to me it's one of the reasons why i don't want my face on a bunch of videos in africa

training african digital missionaries this is not the face of of i joke all the time this is not the

face of an indian digital movement you know we need to find people in these cultures ebenezer and others

that that can represent the the movement globally this is why it's not jeffreed.com

this is why it's the church digital and it's more about empowering others which is very selfless

humble things that christ called us to be act that's digital imperialism digital culture is stronger

than physical culture how you act in different countries doesn't matter compared to how you act

within the culture of a platform tick tock is always tick tock regardless of whether

you're in the middle east or you're in america maybe some slight nuances within the platform but

the platform culture supersedes physical platform that was a very long answer scott thank you for being

the guinea pig there um or actually i wasn't scott that was methos methos thank you for being the

guinea pig there asking that question scott i i apologize uh facebook is exporting digital imperialism

yeah you're not wrong all right hey let's move on we got we got other things i want to cover here so uh

the equipping library is next up by the way the church digital um i'm starting in in a couple weeks

weeks podcast season 12 i've done 12 seasons i i actually on my episode 330 i think this is 338 339

i'm i'm getting old yo um but the next season is going to be equipping partners and empowering tools

we're going to highlight a lot of ministries and and partners that want to empower you to be digital

missionaries and and are providing tools and solutions and trainings and networking and we're

the people that we're working with and bringing into the conversation i'm personally vetting towards

this and so tuesdays starting june 3rd tuesdays 1 p.m eastern right here on t on the church digital's

youtube channel we're going to be talking more about this and digging into it so stay tuned there but

let's do this we're going to talk about ambassadors so we talked about equipping

and i want to i want to help you become digital missionaries but i i need your help i need your

help with something i i i need your help to help us translate the idea of the church digital out

globally um because a cultural differences a lot of people don't understand who who we are at the

physical level and many of you are already doing that naturally starting to uh help us uh multiply these ideas

out globally you know mr pete's chiming in here alabama i there's a lot that i don't understand

about alabama like i i am not uh i'm not i live in miami which is this one of the southernmost points

in america i think but i i am not from the south at all and so like culturally we need people to to help us

you know represent some of these ideas out physically but in addition to that i'm asking for some help for

some people to help us stand before god and and and help us spiritually represent pray for and come

alongside the work that that we're doing with the church digital and so we're calling this group the the

ambassadors now here's the reality of of what we are we're looking for we're looking for people we're

we're basing this on matthew 6 we're asking people to do three things we're asking for a

group of you to come alongside the church digital and pray for uh digital missionaries a digital mission field

the church digital we're asking for you to pray daily for this we're already doing this by the way uh if you've been part of the the the 10 to movement

uh matthew is no luke 10 to for the harvest is plentiful the workers are few and so the church

that digital slash pray has more information on this but you know matthew 6 but when you pray

go into your room and shut the door and pray to your father who is in secret your father who sees in

secret will reward you it's a big part of the ambassador we're asking for people once a month

to fast we're looking at matthew 6 18 that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your

father who once again is in secret and your father who sees in secret will reward you i'm pretty sure

i copied and pasted that's for the repetitive nature i just caught that it kind of repeated there

and so we're asking now look we're not regulating what day or when or how uh we'll we'll send out some

resources through the prayer but also we'll send send out some resources on the fasting but our hope is

to create the opportunity to ask for people to come alongside and and be intercessory prayer for us

through the church digital and to fast for us uh for for the digital missionary movement at a global level

and and and then the third thing that i'm asking for and listen i jeff reed i'm asking this humbly

as as humble as i can be in this moment i am going to stop the music because i

want to make sure i'm being humble when i'm saying this i am asking 50 of you to give monthly to the

church digital to be honest i don't care if it's 50 cents whatever the minimum transaction that the

website will will transact is what i'm looking for some of you globally you know you may have a nickel

uh a u.s five cent piece that you contribute like to me it is it is not about the money value of what's

coming out of this i've actually told my leadership team by doing this i'm okay losing money but but the

reality is is you know look at uh the scripture here matthew 6 20 21 lay your your your up lay up for

yourself treasures in heaven for where your treasure is there your heart is also and and i'm asking some

of you it's it's a serious moment here and it's a little painfully awkward because i just killed the

music and i'll bring it back in a second but with this serious moment i'm asking some of you um to own

the vision of of what we're doing to contribute to see it happen not only investing yourself into the

community like you've already been doing investing yourself by equipping and training and others and

and doing the ministry that you're doing globally but to be honest in investing some of yourself

financially into this and and i am asking and this is an ask i'm asking for you to do it monthly

on the website the giving forms there's there's a monthly tab you can switch it over

if it's five bucks a month thank you for giving five bucks a month towards this a cup of coffee

at starbucks if if you're here in america and whatever that translates into at the global level

here's where we're at as ambassadors your prayer is going to cover the work of what we're doing

the the fasting that you're doing is going to sharpen the the mission of what we're doing and

and help to make it more effective and the giving what you're doing is it's going to fuel the future

literally feel the future of what the church digital is offering that's a rather uh serious

thing for us we're gonna have some fun here in a second but if you're interested in the ambassador

program uh being a part of this like i said we're we're recruiting we want to see 50 people this is

serious y'all 50 people coming alongside us praying daily for digital missionaries the digital

missionary field in the church digital fasting once a month towards the mission that god has called us

to do digitally and and contributing something to the the church digital if you tell me hey you know what

jeff i'm already giving to xyz i'm giving money to a missionary or a church planter so that's what i'm

doing instead of the church digital awesome fill it out let us know that's great contribute something

to a digital process and if you're not doing anything or if your ministry is greatly benefiting

as a result of the church digital help us out we uh we desperately need it so more information

at the church dot digital slash ambassadors okay let's get the music going again oh man that's kind

of a downer what have i gotten else okay a little bit let's talk about the fun stuff

so there's this little thing maybe you've heard of it it's called the digital missionary conference

just a small little conference hosted online 1100 people showed up day of from 80 some countries

1500 people globally registered for this thing an incredible conference held by all uh it was exhausting

it was incredible it was rewarding it was frustrating we literally broke the internet

twice um but we heard you loud and clear a lot of you had literally we did we talked about it we took

feedback we listened to what you were saying in the in the communities um some of you uh vocally you

know talking about it um lots of wins things to improve on what what i heard was you wanted more

interaction you wanted more more time to connect with each other and you wanted more

poignant is the word that's coming to mind more focused topics so here's what we're doing

moving forward i piece this on the pot on my show a couple times but we're going to be rolling out

uh there's we're going to do conference seasons two times a year spring spring 26 we will do a

conference i'm telling you right now we're going to do a conference and in that conference is going to

feel like the spring 25 maybe it's a two-day conference we'll spread it out we'll give some

breathing room but we're going to do the big global everybody together type of conference

but what we're doing fall 25 it's it's it's going to look a little different oh i'm moving ahead of

myself man my camera is is uh is too quick to focus on my finger i'm moving ahead of myself we broke the

internet right alter live god bless it could not sustain and they are not going to be able

to sustain where this organization where this conference is going and so we're moving on

na na na na na na na hey hey goodbye all right alter live it was nice but uh we're we we got it we got

to go with something bigger and so welcome to the new tcd platform hubelo and so hubelo is uh

our online conference our online event platform that we're going to be using for our online conferences

we'll actually the next town hall we're going to do in hubelo to let some people get some exposure to it

and to do a rough draft we're going to probably do it uh week in august or early september heading into

that but uh so hey those of you who are like jeff your your conference platform didn't make it

alter live is is fixing the situation that being said some of the feature set i actually have produced

a event in hubelo in the past and um it's a much better experience than alter live i don't want to be

critical of ultra live necessarily in this situation but hubelo offers a lot more um depth of features

a lot more interaction a lot more connection it was it's a it's a it's a pricey tool like i i'm not

going to lie hubelo will be the most expensive tool in our tech deck in our tech stack and so um i i did not

want to roll the dice on uh hubelo without going through alter live first to make sure there was

demand and y'all told me there was demand 1100 people showed up day of we freaking had people hacking

our conference and watching it on youtube directly or you know some crazy old guy showed it on big screen

i'm kidding mr pete love you for that but so the the deal is is that we're going to invest money

into it and hubelo is going to be an incredible day of experience for our online conferences moving

forward and so that's coming up but like i said four not one not two not three

wow that hurts a lot more than i thought it would now there are going to be four conferences we are

doing and uh here you've been waiting for this right can i get can i get like a drum roll do i have the

drum roll crap where did i put my sound effects i thought i had the sound effects somewhere on my

screen i can't see it i have i had my drum roll sound effects and i can dang it but don't boom yeah

all right all right good let's move on i suddenly felt like uh letterman there hey here are the

conferences we've got lined up wednesday 9 24 european digital missionary conference featuring

digital ministry opportunities that's currently happening in europe

we're working with simon uh dirks uh germany uh german uh and european outpost

mission alliance uh towards that as well and we will be doing that on tcd's hubelo

time to be determined 9 24 wednesday 9 24 september 24th

wednesday 10-1 gaming digital missionary conference uh featuring gaming streaming ministry

opportunities globally leighton and andy are working on that at this point and we're going to be hosting

that not on tb tcd's uh hubelo account we're going to be hosting it in discord i don't know that i've

ever i've never been a part of a digital conference in discord so it'll it'll be interesting to see what

the guys come up with on that one but they're heading up the conference and uh looking forward to seeing

that wednesday october 1st in um there and wednesday october 8th

platforms is places discussing and applying missiology to different platforms um across

jason morris and i are heading up that one jason's actually going to be speaking at that headline or

opening up the conference y'all just because that's the one that

just because that's the one that i've spent the most time getting my fingernails dirty on

and my fingers on getting dirt under my fingernails i am so excited about the october 8th platforms as

places i invited all the speakers yesterday and so i'm already starting to hear some conversations and

some questions back but i'm gonna really be excited to see that wednesday 10 8th conference come together

about that we'll be doing that one on youtube but you know i said that we're going to do four

and there's only three listed there some wise person is probably making that observation right now

the fourth one to be determined that we're having a conversation right now with a ministry partner

that we want to come on board with and we're working through the details right now let's just say that

um we will announce that one more thing in in the weeks to come maybe a couple weeks out

but we are having it's called a season a conference season coming up here in fall 2025 where we will

the the goal is to have four sequential conferences online now you know it's funny i was using the term

micro conferences a little bit as i was talking about this not to describe them as as small in attendance

because actually i think they're going to be largely attended across the board but in but what we're aiming to

do is to create very targeted content very targeted trainings very targeted breakouts very targeted

um equippings in the time as a matter of fact some of these conferences like i i know i was listening

to some of the stuff that andy and layton were working on for the gaming conference and it actually

challenged me to like scratch what i was thinking and almost pivot towards how we were we were doing

things because they were creating this this really incredible thread that's that's going to help

gaming missionaries and gaming churches really develop a focus and they were so fine-tuned with

what they were doing they made me kind of want to raise my standard and and elevate that digitally and so

towards what we're doing to platforms and places so really uh really excited about offering what will be

well now it's the fourth one soon but what will be four digital missionary conferences in the course of that

the conference will be roughly four or five hours there'll be plenty of at the other thing like i said

we're going to open it up and let there be all sorts of conversation time hey you know what i just

checked the time i got one more thing oh by the way real quick rank your excitement levels for this of

the four conferences i should have did that while i was stolen of the four conferences there's only three

listed there um of the three conferences which are the ones which is the one you're most excited about

go ahead and rank that let us know we've got the gaming digital missionary summit we've got the european

digital missionary summit and then we've got the platforms as places

this is a unbiased ranking and uh we will uh we'll have it open like i said on the flip side for

people to vote on so excited to see that platforms as places the other ones like i don't want to demean

the other ones um the platforms as places will be the one that's the most generic in this season

um european is going to lean into the european culture it's going to make a lot of sense for

people not connected to digital to european culture to attend it but you're going to have to contextualize

it into your culture not just you know at the same level somebody in europe's contextualizing an american

conference towards that but platforms as places will be the most um unique one there all right hey i

know i'm going a little long i appreciate that let me click through fourth digital missionary talked about

that i got one more thing some of you old enough to remember steve jobs one more thing yo i got one

more thing you're ready for this uh i love the sylvan i'm going to call this out because it just popped

up on my screen out of the corner of my eye um i think they are all hitting trending needs

be fitting for me it's what we tried to do man we we tried to find the trends we tried to find the needs

towards that sylvan that warms my heart man thanks for thanks for saying that and and for seeing that

so i appreciate it we got one more thing you ready for this this i didn't hear in in the you know

conversations a lot of the stuff that we're doing like if you could feel it you could see it because

people were talking about it this one let me be honest coming in there's a little stigma there's a

little you know we don't we don't we don't talk about this and and this is something that i jeff

founder of the church digital i i want to i want to install and i want to change in our culture

i'm i'm i'm okay if we lean into this are you ready here we go the church digital is launching

recovery groups the church digital is launching christ-centered recovery groups this is a this is a

this is a big deal for me of somebody at a personal level who is who has gone through recovery who is

currently going through recovery and and i'm willing to share my story with anyone individually i'm not

going to do it right now i don't have time but as as i look at a lot of the challenges and the ways that

i have been personally taxed and struggled in doing mission uh digital missions work uh with the

opportunities of of you know i've talked about this all the time we're doing ministry in in addictive

spaces we are recruiting volunteers to do ministry in addictive spaces and we're dealing with people

with a high level of of addictiveness if we are going to shine the light in the darkness that is digital

space we've got to be prepared to shine that light a little bit on ourselves and be transparent be

humble be open to work through this there's such a need as as i look across the board there is such a

there was a a guy yesterday that just out of nowhere said something in a discord or whatsapp and i'm dmming

after the fact and and is he's just a broken individual um who's doing ministry in digital spaces and he's

just bankrupt it doesn't have to be about addictive but there's this there's this need that we as a

people we as a network we as a culture we as missionaries in the space that we have to be

comfortable addressing we're launching we the church digital are launching christ-centered recovery groups

because recovery isn't just for addicts it's for the anxious overwhelmed and silently struggling

digital missionaries and leaders often carry hidden wounds from isolation burnout and dysfunction

ministry and digital spaces demand emotionally healthy disciples we're partnering with an

organization called project exodus they're based out of south africa if you've heard of project

exodus before bad one that's not these people it's not these there's multiple project exodus

we're partnering with project exodus that gives us powerful tools uh that provide healing and

transformation this is not about uh restoration it's about restoration not labels it's about freedom

and providing that for for for everyone that's in this space this is i think the biggest thing

that we're gonna do um i i love the equipping library i love core i love you know let's do 25 digital

missionary conferences that's great this right here this is an incredible opportunity for us to be real with

ourselves in a safe and protected space like these conversations this is the reason we brought stacy on

this is the reason we're working with el michelle and and others at the chaplain level because we want to

create safe spaces for people like you to work through um some of the the baggage that you're carrying on

uh for me 25 30 years on some of this stuff once again i'll tell you my story if you want i'm happy to

separately we're beta-ing these groups uh we're working with project exodus we're adapting their framework

we're bringing it into the church digital we're contextualizing it for digital and virtual to be

honest i'm looking for guinea pigs i'm looking for people that are willing to beta this group i actually

have no idea if this link works um i'm gonna put this link up and if somebody can go into chat and test

it real quick the church.digital/recovery uh i am not sure that that link got created so i'm gonna like

type real quick

yes it did get redirected good so the church.digital/recovery i'm telling you

barber's team's good even with the last minute stuff i forgot to get a confirmation

um the church.digital/recovery this form this information uh just goes to myself and stacy

and so uh as me as founder Stacy as chaplain where the project uh exodus certifies the the trainers we're

looking for people that are interested in uh facilitating these conversations as well as for

people that are looking to lead these conversations if you're struggling with some of these things you

don't have to if you're burning yourself out uh if you're running on empty if you're starting to question

your faith if if you're struggling with addictive sin and you don't have a safe space of a private space to

to go to

that's why we're here and so for more information feel free to hit me up directly

uh go through the church.digital/recovery let us know your information and these groups will be

of the utmost privacy uh going through this is not therapy uh this is recovery and there's two

completely different things uh going through that and so hey that's um i think that's what we're gonna

land on questions okay hey look so here's what you can do uh well here's what i'm gonna do i went a

little long seven minutes uh beginning took a while to kind of get through all those slides had a lot of

good stuff up in there so if you got to go i i appreciate it go you want to stick around keep involved

in the conversation i'm gonna roll through some of these questions and if you have other questions

feel free to dump them in chat or uh dump them uh through the the qr code i'll throw the qr code

on the screen as well and so you can uh dig into it there how can we make edm even better that is a a

great question um i i would say let's um you know shorter i think is key um by the way when we go to

the shorter we're also going to go not just shorter but shorter and longer and end of 10 weeks so

basically your outpost leader has the option of a five week or a 10 week depending upon his his or her

audience in their context um because what we what we really want to do is create resources that can be

contextualized but the there's no way we can create a five week or a 10 week or even a 13 week that covers

all of the contextualizations that covers all of the different ways to do it digitally and rather

than trying to boil it down and simplify it down um that's why the library is is so important um we're

going to get more into this here in a little bit i'm going to go to the the next slide because that's

um that's that's going to be good next question how can i help um oh my gosh there's so many different ways

i lost uh you lost my question michael what was your question

was it to youtube okay hold on i did i'm sorry my friend um show question i did i i

i answered i clicked answered accidentally i see it now well what is our strat what is uh

what is our strategy with tc's youtube channel how do we measure success yeah thank you micah that's a

great question um the the strategy is constantly evolving um right now the strategy was uh a lot of me

and um at well strategy was multiple things but then we pivoted to missionary uh equipping and mobilizing

missionaries it was a lot of me uh like i said i and so we're now platforming latent on the gaming space

and so he's coming on and doing some stuff in twitch and gaming um it is my goal to get other voices in

there um from a uh i i am like one of the one of my side hustles right now uh i'm working on a a

women's show like you know we've got a lot of really qualified very talented very gifted women

that are hanging around the church digital like i could just rattle off seven or eight names right

now of people that are digital missionaries in in this space um that are very talented communicators

and i've often thought about oh my gosh what if we did like a digital missionary panel like you know

the view or something like that get a bunch of women feisty women on a on a panel show every

every two weeks or whatever just you know going off and stuff at the end we want to get to the place

where we're platforming more voices now um even at a global level like i i would love to see simon

start to do stuff and utope and you know tarik to start the platforms to some of where we're going

so we can start the platform global culture within our our youtube channel um i um for for us

youtube is part of that connection level that feeds into community and so we want to make sure

that and a lot of people i've met on youtube or i found this on youtube and i've joined this in

community um steve reed's actually example of that recently a lot of you know steve steve found this

maybe two months ago in youtube and you know has hung around with us a lot in in the community level and so

that's how that is um with anything at the connection level i mean look i've got we got

what 1200 subscribers i'm really excited about that um i i wish we had more but i don't really

celebrate anything at the connection level i celebrate it at the community i'm for far more excited we got

500 in youtube pretty active community we've got almost 700 in whatsapp or i'm sorry i said 500 in

whatsapp pretty active community we got almost 700 in discord um i'm far more excited about that than i am

youtube subscribers or facebook followers or things like that connection is vanity metrics

connection has to feed to community whether it's physical community or digital community

if you're doing a physical church and you've got 1.5 million facebook followers and you get 100

people showing up at your church on sunday and you're not discipling people digitally you're not

creating digital community for them to engage in there's a problem like that's a very extreme level

but it's not connection metrics don't mean crap it's however you get people into community that

that that next level that is is what you you really start to celebrate on oh wrong button um sorry about

the confusion there i'm marked as answered how are the strategy teams organized and who is responsible

for those who are not very familiar with the church digital yeah it's a long question

um connect community quit mobilize we've got a connection director bar so i'm founder i answer to a board

um but with the framework barbara is our connections director so she's responsible for

social media she's responsible for communication she's responsible for the the top funnel community

is andy uh jason is equipping and mobilization is me at this point we don't really have a mobilization

director at this point um and so but that's the structure we've got outposts outposts are decentralized

networks that operate alongside the church digital but independent so we've got like leighton and gaming

and simon in germany and yetope and um africa and uh sub-saharan south africa and then we've got

tarik in middle east and some others and so i say they're decentralized because and we work alongside

them because they don't answer to me you know simon says hey you know what i'm going to start an edm

this month awesome simon says hey you know what i'm going to skip this round of edm awesome simon says

hey i'm gonna simon says i'm getting kind of a joke here uh but like he's got freedom to to do what he

wants with it for me the win is how can i help simon do what he wants to do and simon as an example

simon says to me jeff i want to do a digital missionary conference can the church digital help yes please

here comes the european digital missionary conference simon's like hey i'm doing this

conference and uh it might make sense for you to come out i'd love to go to poland in 2026 let's do

it how does it make sense and you know can you slap my name around and get you the ability to speak at

the conference since you're connected with the church digital how can we help how can we magnify that

many of you are interested in in expanding your reach not just to be missionaries but to start to

help change the digital culture in your context we would call those outpost leaders that's what simon

and utope and some of that is and so we would love i would love to explore that that with you as we're walking through

how can we make edm even better um right now it's all about contextualizing it and adapting

it in those languages um and seeing it replicated in different cultures that's what i'm hoping to do

by the way the outposts they have freedom um you know if they're like hey i want to cut this section

i want to add this stuff this doesn't work in in our region instead we're gonna i want to create this

video myself like it's you know uh it's open so i would the closest thing to it jason morris's

language idiom is open sourced and so the outpost leaders we make the church digital mix recommendations

and then the outpost leaders have freedom to adjust that as they want to all that we ask is that if

they create content uh if for their context that content is then available to the church digital

to give to others for example simon um gets his his edm translated into german subtitles

and so we have that resource it's on the church digital channel and if i don't know somebody else

in germany wants to lead an edm but doesn't want to do it through simon for whatever reason the

resource is available for someone for that person to do that and so you know i don't know if you know

somebody came in from i don't i don't have a good example in german towards that but you know if

somebody wanted the french version to do something in and down in uh french guiana or that range

but not uh europe and was a separate deal if we had actually we're talking about french soon

all right all right good there uh how can i help uh we don't have a clear way we need your help

uh in in a big way we don't have um a clear front door it's maybe one of the things we need to work on

for volunteering i think now in 2025 i think there's more clarity on the positions and the roles and the

needs so we may make that clear what i would say is if you want to help if you want to uh serve if you

want to volunteer you need to connect with me directly and the best way to do that is to schedule a call

with me and so i'm gonna go ahead and put this up on the screen dearfeg.com that is my name jeffrey

backwards that's my social media handle uh if you've ever seen that be like what's that guy smoking it's

just jeffrey backwards and uh and so feel free to go to that link it links to my calendar you can grab

time with me and let's let's have a conversation um i will learn what you're doing and try to help you

connect with the right person whether it's barbara andy layton stacy uh myself jmo like ian it's it's

we move very fast and it's a very agile group and so right now it's it's kind of weaves in and out

in some different areas so go through me and i'll help you get connected dm me directly you know how

to reach me on the communities or deerfeg.com to book time with me cool all right how can i help that

one is done uh listen we need we have um my gut is that we probably have 35 active volunteers

that are contributing at some level of the church digital and and even the people that are not

volunteers that are paid to be honest they might as well be volunteers for paying them so little um

that's at some point i haven't told leadership this but i want this is a conversation but at some point

soon i think i want to like uh actually publicly announce what everybody's making like it is it is so

ridiculously small how much money people are making off the church digital it is amazing how effective

we are as an organization at the global level off the this is not a reason to give that's not why i'm

going down this road but it's phenomenal you know people are like i need a million dollars to be effective

digital missionary i need to build that studio i need that new camera i need i need i need it

you don't need jack it is it is so easy to it's hard work but it can totally be done with with pennies

uh i remember like there were seasons with the church digital that we were on a budget freeze i think

all our expenses were less than andy would know a thousand fifteen hundred dollars a month was all we were

spending um amazing like it's just you can reach be global very quickly okay uh how can i help thank

you for asking i always love when people ask that question i know the focus has this is a good one

i saw this one this came in today and uh i i actually i copied andy um copied and pasted andy on

it and i was like this is a problem this we have we we we walked away from this and this is this is a

valid issue i know the focus has shifted to missions however there are there still resources

for digital churches so first off in my mind a digital church planter is not that different than

a digital missionary we talk about digital missionary like nor most for the most part digital missionaries

the framework connect community equip mobilize a digital missionary typically is is only going to

handle one or two of those on their own and then we'll partner with people for the rest a digital

church planter i would change that you need to to all four and so a digital planter usually has a large

team whereas a digital missionary may just have a smaller team or is an individual that's working

closely with a network of other people outside so there are some similarities maybe in the model of of that

which i appreciate um the the importance for this is that we really lost that voice

i mean pre-digital missionary we were pre-covid i was maybe the voice the only voice for digital

church planting pre-covid i mean this is before mark was i'm even just trying to think mark hadn't even

launched because i helped mark launch through stadia um i mean there was like angela craig pursue church

live dj soto vr church uh pastor d was doing her thing house of his glory um roblox robloxian christians

daniel heron um

is that it i'm not counting like second life life church that's a physical church doing digital

but digital only planting i probably on one hand you count the number of churches that that were doing

in that pre-covid and um we need to get back to the place where we're we're providing some support

for that now what i would call that in the church digital language and i want to invite people to do

this we're going to do this more formally in the fall barbara if you're watching thank you sorry

but in the fall we're in the spring in the summer i'm using right language sometime this summer we're

going to run a campaign and we want to we want to start to collect some information because there are

holes in the church digital there are small pockets of people that are passionate about an idea

and and we almost want to do like matchmaker of sorts and try to connect people together

like this i've got a guy that's interested not member directory judy i don't know that i want to go

there but maybe uh maybe we need to update our database a little better actually that's not a

bad idea judy thank you for saying that um there are people that are that are planted a church digitally

and and we want to formally get them together and create a digital outpost for them where they can

encourage each other where they can talk about exploring different techniques experimenting with

different ideas uh explore different ideas experiment with different techniques and uh and be uh empowered

to do ministry by what's happening there it's uh these are peer-to-peer supports and in the ability to

create the ability to to funnel resources uh happen through the outpost a lot of our equipping

happens through the outpost and it's that that peer-to-peer community that exists and and we the church

digital we need to create one for uh church planners i'm actually doing that i'm creating an outpost

for physical churches that want to create a digital missionary framework in their church that's just an

example of like a subgroup that i'm creating as an outpost and we need to find somebody that's

wanting to do that for digital churches so if you are interested in um planning a digital church or

you've planted a digital church and you're interested in connecting together uh with other digital church

planters reach out to me we'll make some formal informal introductions and see if we can't get a

a network a peer-to-peer group created out of that um this is uh paul maybe this is something our micro

churches podcast can work on organizing resources for digital churches church planting yeah uh paul i

would we're launching a micro church's um network uh outpost with um micah bales is actually leading

it if that's what you're talking about i i don't the similarity between um i don't know i would have

to talk about it see who actually shows up if it's digital churches that are operating the micro model

well we need to get you connected with micah if it's digital churches that are doing anything other

than the micro church model which there's plenty of other models um if it's gaming get you connected

to layton if it's micro get you connected to um mike uh if it's something else that's where i think

there's a temporary hole maybe we need to isolate and start to create some others

yeah it's a great question i want to thank whoever said this because what it literally did was it

exposed hey there's a problem there's something that you have not thought of and um not dealt with and we

wanted to do that feedback's important um i really do i can close this feedback's important if you are

not if you're not listening to the people around you you're going to find that eventually they don't

have anything to say and um i never wanted to be accused of being that type of person um leadership

the people around me this community is has made us better i mean you all have heard me say

we were not you know at some level we were not planning on being a digital missionary sending

agency it wasn't until we actually looked around and um we were not surrounded by church planners

just surrounded by missionaries it's like well crap we got it we got to pivot and so

we're doing digital mission work it's it's one thing to to

henry blockaby says there's four or five different ways that the holy spirit can speak

the holy spirit speaks through um you know audibly speaks through he speaks through scripture he speaks

through um uh through through prayer uh the holy spirit speaks through um the voice of others

and it's one thing to say oh i'm really called to do x and all the people around you aren't interested in

that but they're interested in something completely different maybe maybe you're called to x but maybe

god wants you to explore why and uh so be sensitive to to who your audience is because it's hard to

build an audience and if you have an audience that's doing a different direction that's you know worth

looking into i'm just going to be sensitive here i mean to me this is one of the reasons that it was so hard for me

to pivot towards digital missionaries because at the time it was probably 50 50

digital missionaries and and physical churches doing digital ministry

and and i fought barbara i thought it's the right word you can ask any of them

i fought barbara for months

against this idea years actually before she even came on board going all the way back to 23.

i can remember sitting in a in a in a bar in orlando with barbara and a handful of other people

uh yeah 2023 taught at at the expo conference and she was challenging me to simplify and i'm like no

i want to have my cake and eat it too like i can't i can't choose it's it's it's both sides and um

we i would just tell you uh choosing and changing for us i not one regret not one regret the the hole

that we left was the digital church planter which was exposed today digital churches digital churches

planting yeah we need to step into that physical churches if you are serious about it's so funny

i've uh i had a call this week i don't remember i don't remember the guy's name and so you may be on

watching this if you are i'm sorry but um i had a call with a guy who was interested in um you know

i put a thing in discord and whatsapp hey if your physical church is doing digital and you're interested

in launching a digital missionary whatever let me know and um you know right off the bat when i get like

i'm going to be very judgmental when i say this but when i get a social media manager

conversation or you know somebody that's a uh a media director i'm like this is this this is not going

to go the way because the church is not staffing the right not staffing a person in that role they're

not going to they're not going to see it and this one guy that i was talking to he was very excited

he was very excited about what i was talking about towards being a you know creating a digital

missionary outpost and really installing a framework in the church but i asked him i was like okay well

you're excited is your leadership excited would your lead pastor be excited and he's like oh absolutely

not there is no way we would ever do anything like this here

okay you know what what do you feel called to do are you in the right place are you an obstacle is

there something god is calling you to do i can't answer these questions you you can so there's

there's tensions there which i get i have no idea how i got on the tangent hey you know what it's been

a whopping 90 minutes and this has been a lot of fun i have appreciated hanging out with you

and anybody else that's left after the 90 uh mint minute roll here um but yeah we're gonna wrap up

here anybody else got anything they want to say buehler buehler buehler i think we're good

i'm tired it's been a long day i'm gonna wrap so hey thanks everybody for coming out

um next week i'll do a tease next week i got confirmation this morning and lined it up here

uh was it may 27th 1 p.m eastern i'm doing an interview uh with jose oh my gosh jose how do i

i pronounce your last name um day day kitty day kitty uh jose the kitty is who's jose the kitty he's

the guy that's been working with uh vatican with uh the old pope and now the new pope on defining what

digital missionaries looks like in the catholic denomination and so very excited to have this

conversation jose and i have been talking on the side through some things but looking forward to

getting a conversation with jose the kitty next week and talking about uh his new boss at the vatican

uh an american and uh exploring and redefining even what digital missionaries looks like within the catholic

denomination and so until next week this is jeff with the church digital swing by the church digital

slash poll i'll open it up here in a couple questions if anybody else wants to contribute

stories or ideas uh we would love that but we'll see you next time here with the church digital

podcast. Y'all have a good one.