EP337 - What's the Role of Media in Digital Missions?

all right hey episode 337 337 of the church digital podcast jeff here you know anytime

i listen to uh this is uh stream stream beats harris heller uh but groovy this this particular

album um i feel like i'm in stranger things like i don't know maybe it's just you if you're if

envisioning being the upside down the happy upside down anyway is there a happy upside down is there

any other tv show that has taken longer to come out with than stranger things like i don't i don't

actually know what netflix is doing but i'm pretty sure some of those like elementary school age kids

are are going to be having grandkids by the time that show actually hits the air it's crazy how long

it is literally i think i'm holding on to my netflix subscription solely for the purpose of

watching that show i i have honestly told myself once stranger things is over i will cancel it and

i'm pretty sure i said that two years ago the last time i watched uh a stranger things uh sees was a

season four and uh they they just they they won't come out with it it's like they know they're trying

to figure out how to get my what is it you know at this point 99 a month it's not that much but

you know it's it's it's like they they find a way they they just they find a way to get the money

and and so netflix i'm on to you i've moved on to disney because disney doesn't want my money

i can't even finish the sentence that's awesome hey everybody uh welcome to the podcast it's uh great

to be here kind of a little relaxed today uh i've got a a topic i'm just gonna gonna vamp on here

in a little bit but heading into it i want i want to welcome the room those of you who are watching

uh in real time okay steve reed brother from another mother i just realized i um my coffee was

still in the coffee machine and not where i could reach it so i had to step out steve uh okay steve got

first evidently okay who beat me here uh evidently nobody did steve steve you got there first of all

welcome number two we got jeremy jeremy is saying hello hey jeremy jeremy i don't think i've met you

but i i recognize your name from a spreadsheet of people that are signing up for equipping digital

missionaries and so hey great great to meet you uh looking forward to learning more about you here

uh and uh looking forward to getting your take on an edm uh if you're curious about uh uh

troipocalypse you know is troy in fact skipping school or not he is not in class because he is

taking the time to text hi steve and then making me an accomplice to this situation by putting it into

uh youtube hi jeff so steve and and jeff the two reed not brothers are now accomplices in

making sure that troy is not in class i'm so proud uh fabio is is saying hey and of course steve says

hey troy back which now i feel bad for not saying hey so i'll say it audibly hey troy get your butt back

in class graduate you got like two weeks left bro finish strong that was my disclaimer in case any

police official is watching this i am not asking kids to skip school that being said troy you're two

weeks away from graduating high school finish strong and then do whatever the crap you want bro i feel

like i say that every week man he's oh that's right that's right tuesdays evidently tuesday tuesdays is

co-op day for troy and so you're heading to work here in in a little bit edith hey how are you good

good to see you as well good to see you again i appreciate you coming on here uh and so hey listen

we're gonna have a a lot of fun today uh doing a doing a a deep dive on an interesting topic well this

is an interesting topic to me globally i have so many people ask me uh this this question centered around

digital the role of digital media or when i talk about you know doing digital missions work they're

like oh i do digital media and then there's silence and so i want to want to speak into that a little

bit maybe i'm not understanding maybe there's an opportunity to think bigger do something different

i don't know it just feels to me that it's as i'm holding my coffee precariously while standing

afraid i'm going to like shake it and drop it

it seems to me that there's there's an opportunity to do more and that's what i want to dig into a

little bit on on this stream today uh but before we get there hey put this on your calendar right now

oh my gosh i i i just finished as i literally before i jumped on this stream i just finished uh the slide

deck the presentation y'all we are doing our town hall meeting uh for summer 25 every you know hopefully

hopefully realize this every three months couple two or three times a year uh we do a town hall meeting

where we gather together all the church digital open it up and really this is our opportunity hey we

want to hear from you what's working what's not working in your in your ministry how can we help

you what are the challenges what are the obstacles and this is really it's one of the the best

opportunities we have to to dialogue it was out of the town hall meetings and all of the jeff when are

you going to do a conference jeff when are you going to do a conference jeff you really need to do a

conference that we decided to to launch the the digital missionary conference which was awesome of

course if you remember back to a month ago can you believe it was only a month ago april 2nd so

literally uh 33 days ago 35 days ago anyway uh so we are doing our next town hall meeting uh basically

this time in three weeks in two weeks uh may 20th tuesday may 20th 1 p.m eastern count it 14 days from

today uh we'll be in a town hall meeting and and i want to want to hear from you on top of that

in addition to hearing from you oh my gosh i i i thought hey this is going to be a light town hall

meeting we're really not going to we're not going to push that this this much stuff because we're really

really trying to you know focus and narrow down and and and and fine tune not a lot it's going to be

a light town hall meeting and then you know somebody's like well jeff are you going to talk about this

yeah i'm going to talk about that somebody else said hey are you going to talk about this yeah i'm

going to want to talk about that yeah i'm going to want to talk about that and all of a sudden now

i've got like a 30 point slide deck and so listen there is going to be all sorts of awesome things

that we are going to be announcing at the may 20th town hall meeting may 20th tuesday may 20th 1 p.m

eastern including i'm not even sure i'm going to open with this or not it'll remain to be seen

i'm announcing the conferences wait wait did he say conferences jeff how many conferences are you

doing um more than one more than two maybe more than three listen we're we're going we're going all

in baby uh you do not want to miss the town hall thursday tuesday tuesday tuesday may 20th 1 p.m

eastern right here on tcd's youtube you're not going to make it live we'll watch it on demand but oh

live is so much more fun uh we'll have some interactive components like we always do with

the town halls and uh we'll see you live in the show okay hey and you know what we've got some some

new things coming up with uh the stream as well looking at making some adjustments was talking with

the team over the past couple days about that um love hanging out with y'all love doing this we'll

continue doing this uh until probably i'm dead in the in the in the grave or until i can find out somebody

better to do it than me no but but uh we want to fine tune we're gonna start to highlight uh some

partners some opportunities uh ways to equip you better uh not only not only like partners but really

platforms that you all can be using and taking advantage of uh to as ways to highlight uh tools

and and and things that can help you do the ministry you're doing on top of that we really want to

highlight even on top of that some of the outposts that that we're we're working with and and that we're

starting to build up some of these regional networks that are excited about doing doing ministry and um

you know what i keep i have been i've been wanting to send an email out for oh my gosh jesse carbo i've

let you down again i've been supposed to send this email for a month uh jesse and i uh kind of tag

team this idea to do a stream together with an individual an incredible individual uh who will

most likely say yes and and i just keep forgetting to ask literally i keep forgetting to ask the person

if they wouldn't mind coming i'll give you a hint coming back on the podcast uh and so i just i

need to literally remember to write the email you would not think that it would be that hard to remember

to write an email yet in my life it it is it is that hard to remember to write an email um i uh i i i need a

secretary i need an assistant i need an admin i need a project manager i need somebody to tell me jeff it's

it's time to do your laundry and if you don't get that uh well hang out and fam on uh was was it

whatsapp hang out whatsapp on fam and you'll learn probably far more about my laundry than you really

want to know about my laundry because fam whatsapp listen i i love the discord i love the gamers

but but if i'm honest oh whatsapp is so much more fun for me um leighton's doing a great job the

gaming some some of the crowd you know i was talking with with one of our leaders this week hey do you

prefer discord or whatsapp and he's like oh no no i'm much more a discord guy and and this guy was a

a discord guy oh my gosh whatsapp whatsapp is a lot of fun well hey we got some more people checking

in uh mr pete mr pete is in the house how are you sir it's good to see you again um uh troy is coming

to the town hall town hall meeting he will not be skipping class to come to the town hall meeting troy will

you be in school by then uh or will you be will you be done troy what is graduation day i i need to

know tell me now tell me now tell me now tell me now when's graduation day okay um methos i gotta

click uh he's making an allusion to like conference was a month ago can you believe oh i i we we got a

new platform for the conference um i'm so excited y'all uh it's gonna be good it's gonna be good we are

learning lessons and we are moving on it's gonna be great coming up here for the digital missionary

conferences uh coming in fall 2025 uh and uh troy uh yes it is hard to write and email it's uh i'm

gonna assume you meant an email and and that was a typo um troy

you're in pittsburgh you're in no where are you you're you're in you're in pennsylvania i'm trying to

think of the name of the city i was just who was i just talking with somebody who's coming up to your

neck of the woods i'll think about it later don't worry about it hey so here's what happened i'm hanging

out in uh in in my um in in the fam over on on whatsapp and meeting you know new people that that community

is exploding and the fun thing is is it is it's it's a global mix like it is just literally people

from all over over the planet and they're always asking um you know i mean they're there they come

on and it's somebody said something about something and then they find the church digital they find this

on youtube coming in and hey you know it's my first time here uh by the way if you're watching

this on youtube uh and yes we're talking about community uh our whatsapp you can find us online

at whatsapp.thechurch.digital and you can find us at discord discord.thechurch.digital those are

two very easy ways to get connected into our community direct links it'll get you right in the door it's

it's beautiful but um so i was asking this guy or he came on and this person was international i believe

from the middle east uh i'm not i'm not going to share his name but he was he was talking about some

of the uh ministry that that he was doing in that in that particular region and uh and he started asking

me you know tips on asynchronous community because it's if it's one thing that that we the church digital

like i'm i'm gonna pat andy mage on on the back here um maybe rub his bald head for good luck and

i'm guilty of it too it's cool i'll go and do it on camera um like we are and i don't want to jinx

this situation and he's actually very um how do i say this uh very um oh what's the word like he he's um

he gets scared of of like uh like jinxes and stuff superstitious and he's very superstitious and so

when i say hey you know what things are really going well in asynchronous world for the church

digital and andy's responsible for asynchronous for digital community like he wigs out he's like oh my

gosh jeff you just jinxed it don't do that and i remember this particular conversation actually steve was

like um steve reed was like what's asynchronous or you know it took me like a month to figure out

what asynchronous was jeff because you you say the word so much um and it was funny it is true we we

do talk about asynchronous a lot uh and so i i went up to to chat gpt i'm building an agent kind of on the

side uh of chat gpt and i said hey scour out all of the church digitals blogs and videos and write a

3 000 word article explaining our view of asynchronous communities and you can find that

now on on whatsapp and i think i put it on discord too it's it's a pretty good article like all things

considered you know go uh chat gpt nailed that sucker pretty well um i also really wish uh chat gpt would

learn how to do my laundry which is another conversation that i mentioned earlier but i want to get into it

here but this individual i said so so what are you doing with uh what's your what's your what's your

strategy right now and uh and essentially this individual says well uh we do we do digital media

and then it just kind of ends and uh now he had i i dug in with this person individually and he had a

much richer strategy and and like this is there was a there was a deep end to this this is not me

pointing any fingers or making any uh accusations directed towards this one individual but it's it's this

um it's this idea that digital media and this is something that that i don't think we sell well

through the through the church digital content digital media videos at that connection level

digital media plays a crucial role in us connecting with people digitally at the global scale oftentimes

it gets it gets downplayed uh in in large part because well at least for for me i i have come from

creating tons of content from the physical church and environment and almost the digital media

relational push it like relationships and digital media relationships and and content it's almost like

it's it's um exact opposites it's polar opposites when it's it's really one needs to be the front

door to the other it really is the content digital media needs to be the front door into community

oftentimes and i'll just speak for me oftentimes i kind of like back off the content because

really we we don't need more more content there's content all over the place uh people that that are

are are watching you and this is true they're not they're not interested in content they're interested

in community uh i mean people aren't interested in watching this stream because some bald guy with

the beard is talking right now they're they're interested because they have some level of a relationship with

me and and they know because of who i am in community that i am easily accessible as a matter of fact i've

had strangers walk up to me in airports and say aren't you the guy from blah blah blah um it's great to finally meet

you i've seen you on blah we've talked at blah i was at expo and um this is so funny somebody literally

walked up to me at the exponential conference in uh orlando florida in march of this year and said

aren't you the guy that did the talk on um journey now the funny thing was this is an american rock band

called journey i did in fact parallel journeys uh hit song don't stop believing to the growth and rise

of digital churches in uh pre-covid maybe it was during covet 2020 yeah it was during covet 2021

yeah it was it was it was a crazy talk but it was like five years ago and this person remembered it

and and and this person once once they once he got me at the conference started digging in asking me all

these questions what was going on like he filed away this piece of content from four or five years ago

whatever it was 2020 2021 but it wasn't until he actually saw me that he he actioned on it and and

started to apply it and dig into it saying things like man i really wish we should do this we should look

into this at our church would you be available how do we get connected what's the best way and i you know

give him the website give him the community and uh you know he may be stumbling around or not i i don't know

but the content plays a big part in driving people to community you you you hear me say our framework

our flywheel all the time the people we connect to digitally we want to invite them into a community

where we're building a relationship where we're establishing trust evangelism discipleship all of

this happens best at the community level as part of that discipleship we want to find and help people

find what their calling is on their life what god is calling each individual to do and then mobilize them

send them out hold them accountable to do what god is calling them to do connect community equip

mobilize that's the four parts of the framework of the flywheel you know i can even hope some of you may

remember the deep cut here i got funko pop leonardo da vinci inventor of the flywheel and uh that that's

that's the thing so that's the flywheel now connect content is a place a big part of this now now what we

see globally and this is a point of contention is too strong of a word this is something that i would love to

challenge because we've seen it play differently uh more effectively globally what happens a lot of times

is people will utilize content in the same way we do uh we're using content to connect with people

but to build relationships and establish trust they're not sending it from a into a community like a

discord or like a whatsapp instead they're sending it as quickly as possible into a one-on-one conversation

now now now this could be a one-on-one conversation maybe with a pastor with a a church member maybe

even it could be a one-on-one conversation with a a call center like somebody who's an operator that is

is you know dialoguing and this conversation could be via texting it could be a voice conversation it could

be i've even seen some people try to do it with zoom or or with with whatsapp you know try to google meet

like try to have a face-to-face conversation right off the bat like you're you're having a um

you're you're reading a blog you're watching a youtube video and then all of a sudden you're face-to-face

with someone uh on on on a google meet call

in my opinion and this is based off of the the years of doing digital ministry here in the u.s and

helping with digital media media globally this is outside of the physical church doing digital

ministry this is also based on what we're seeing through the church digital digital church network

and some of the other orgs we've worked with dcn that's a that's a throwback i had said dcn in a

couple years um look it it's all about boiling the frog slowly which is interesting because five years

ago early covid i would have agreed get that person in a webcam conversation as quickly as possible

but that's just it is is that over the years building trust

takes time and this is what i think it's lost a lot of time globally and digitally is that we have this

desire to want to move fast we want to move quick with it but it's it's not a quick thing you know it's

interesting i actually there's there's a church that um i'm friends with and they they have an incredible

church service online like the production quality the production elements of how they broadcast their

physical church service digitally it's state-of-the-art like top shelf i would say this is in the top one

percent of church broadcasts across this country of america uh across the united states great stuff

i've asked them hey how many people do you know and they've got thousands of people thousands of

people watch church services from around the round the round watch this church's services this particular

church's services thousands of people around the world it's not just isolated to their their city

state even their country like it's a globally recognized church here's the challenge hey how do the

the people that are watching how many do you actually know like online pastor how many names rattle me off

50 names right now can't do it 30 names 15 names 10 5 he could probably do five to seven

and and it's this unfortunate reality with having ministry that's based on media

digital media based on content is that it's very easy to not know the people you're interacting with

listen as a people is so funny when people call me an influencer i i just kind of roll my eyes because

i don't i don't even know what that means for me i i humbly i do not wear that label well but i i would

say this is that you have to work hard to make yourself accessible if you're in the game of content

because as nice as it is for you for people to listen to you they really want to interact with you

they really want to talk about them and have you listen to them they want to ask you questions about what

they're going through or they want to tell you what they're doing and and and have you

approve validate help in what they're doing it's funny when i when i list when i talked to up i did

it today i was talking to a digital church planner he wants to plan a church in gaming and i think he's

in indonesia you know it's funny i always get indochina indonesia mixed up in the head i think

he was indonesia i'm not actually sure indochina is a country i am not good at geography and if my

father's watching i'm sorry he was a geography teacher for years and he's yelling at me right

now he's if he's watching he's literally screaming at the the computer monitor screaming madison madison

i'm mad son oh my gosh that just triggered me if i'm gonna start crying in a minute i'm gonna be in a

ball over here but um that's another story for a different day the the that was a long rabbit trail

well let me try to come back the the the fact is is that they want to interact with you this guy

i was on the call with today in indonesia um i i literally i spent just asking him questions

and letting him talk getting him to share with me listen i could have lectured the guy i could

have got out of a soapbox and told him but i want to hear from you what are you doing position me as as

as a learner in that situation digitally in order to build trust in order to establish relationships

you got to shut up you have to stop talking what we're doing right now you are not building a

relationship with me i'm telling you what to do and i'm telling you this is not the method

to build relationships this is the method to monologue and so you can establish expertise at

that level but you're not establishing trust and this is where you need to ask questions and let others

do the talking it's funny i've got this i use uh so we we know this we use a phantom i them i use

fathom if you have a meet call with me a zoom call with me you know i can skip around like it's it's

great i can search it's ai based so i can ask questions hey what did i say and instead of having

to like scroll through pages of dialogue it actually pulls it ai wise it pulls it from the record and

shows me but uh there's a little add-on that i love about fathom where up in the upper right hand

corner of my computer monitor when i'm recording the meeting it says um basically you've been talking

x percent of this meeting so like on this call i've been talking 100 of the time because i'm

streaming i don't have a guest it is me lecturing for this one that being said but i'm on a google meet

call and you know there's there's four or five people in the room and and my percentage says that

i've been talking 85 of the time well that means no one else is doing the talking except for me and

that's that's not i mean in times i think it's okay but it's better to do instead of monologue

now what's interesting is i think i just lost internet maybe it's coming back i'm seeing my

internet kind of hiccup on me here a little bit oh well we're gonna just roll with it and hopefully

it works out i think this is going to be recorded on my desk and so worst case scenario we'll just upload

it it's important to ask questions more than making statements listen more than you talk um use question

marks more than periods don't use exclamation marks don't platform don't scream dialogue with people

through the process and and what you'll find in those situations is is that god will use you

as a way to help you understand how best to engage as i was talking to my my friend here in indonesia

all of a sudden um an idea of of how to approach the conversation it let me see his motives let me see

what his things were and i could ask more questions you know we've been doing a lot lately talking about

active listening and this is really the opportunity for active listening where we can start to highlight

some of these ways um to listen to engage more with people instead of pushing an idea or pushing and a word

and so using content like this stream or like twitch or like uh tick tock or instagram or facebook using all of

all of these different things are definitely viable

because it's a way to connect with people

but it is not the only thing you should be doing it is not um exclusive

connection without community in 2025's culture connection without community is

is worthless it's meaningless you have to have the community in order to be effective with evangelism

and discipleship now okay wait wait jeff are you telling me that god can't yes god can

yes the holy spirit can i'm saying that on isolated in isolated circumstances

yes god can do something which romans tells us that man can look at nature and see the attributes

of god and know who he is just that looking at nature surrounding the man

and so yes god can do something in all situations what i'm saying is that culturally in 2025

i would say this in the 1980s and 90s in the 70s maybe in the heyday of the church here in america

there was much more hey content or how people are going to find jesus arguably a lot of the the

decline of the church at least here in america has been centered around that because the church

in 2020 we're still doing the same thing that we were doing in the 70s yeah our worship style changed

um and uh our our messages maybe are a little more spit and polish and we've got better

sermon series titles and better like you know illustrations and effects and things but um largely

the method of evangelism the sermon hasn't changed in centuries so what's what's happening

is that we are trying to communicate with people who jesus is via sermon via content and they're not

receptive to it because they're also needing community relationship to engage in the content

i can remember this is another u.s story pre-covid um it was a it was a carrie knew it was so funny

this was i i can tell you the name of the church i'm not going to but this this podcast always stuck

with me it's a carrie newhawk podcast yeah pre-covid and uh carrie's interviewing a lead

pastor of a mega giga church this is pre-covid and um and uh the senior pastor of this mega giga church

probably 20 000 15 20 000 people

on weekends the u.s pastors talking with something because the interview was more about

contents more about sermon more about that more about the weekend service i think it was on the

weekend service now i think about it but in this pastor was going on and on and on about the weekend service

and and carrie asked uh well how how how are what do you guys do for groups what do you do for small groups

and um the the lead pastor of this mega giga church pause and he's like well if it's one thing that we

learned it's that groups really aren't effective in our church's culture so we just don't waste any of

our time doing it

in 2025 post-covid culture every church every individual every person that desires to do

ministry every missionary needs to take advantage or connect with people that are doing community

maybe you're a content creator and you just want to partner with somebody to to like do community for

you that's better than thumbing your nose at it and saying no you know what i just we're not going to

do community we're just going to create content i'm telling you content creation without community i i would

i i would i would suggest this it's it's pointless because the content is not going to land unless

you've got the community to reinforce it i mean even stupid memes mean more when there's a community

to dialogue with and to crack jokes and to unpack it at a deeper level this morning i posted a really

i i thought it was funny it was a news clipping article uh maybe it was real maybe it was ai which

would make it even more funny but it was this this woman quoted in the newspaper photo was included it

looked real and she's she's like i long for the day when uh when ai does my laundry so i can do more

art instead of ai doing my art so i can do more laundry i thought that was funny and so i posted it in

the group and that's why all of a sudden we start talking about rosie and and um you know my ridiculous

mountain of laundry that i've got in my closet right now true or false i may have been wearing

the same pair of jeans for multiple months at this point like it's it's been a stretch since i've done

laundry uh confession hour pray for my wife she desperately needs it uh not because she's doing my

laundry but because she's got to put up with me when i don't do laundry where am i going with this

is that community uh accelerates community validates community um what's the word i'm looking for

multiplies uh community um exponentially increases what's happening on the content you want to pour

gasoline on the flame of of what you're doing involve community and the idea of well let's i'm going to

drive that conversation to a one-on-one in my opinion and what i've seen a one-on-one conversation too soon

chases people away or at least let's say a large percentage of people away there are some people

that will go to the this is going to be a bad analogy forgive me but there are some people who

will in fact go to the uh meet the pastor portion of uh of the after service ritual at your physical

church building they'll go see the sermon and oh yeah i'm a first time guest let's go meet the pastor

and shake his hand and learn whatever they want to do whatever whatever happens in that space

usually it's it's not the it's not the first time guest that goes to those things

usually it's it's the people that have been around for a long time that that want to talk to the pastor

and you actually have to work trust me you have to work really hard to keep

the usual attender is out to make it about the first time guest meanwhile the first time guests

are exhausted from the experience they're picking up their kids and they're getting out of dodge as

quick as they can the point being is is that getting people into a face-to-face conversation

is not the best way to build relationships slowly it it gets it gets awkward and so even even in digital

using the digital community using one the many where i can i can be part of the community but i can

i can step back i can be on the outside i cannot be engaging i i can kind of be passively watching

and listening and see if i like it i can test drive before i get put on the spot

it's funny it's back back in the in the 1980s the church that as i was i was like an elementary right

i was little little kid and so the church that i was at first baptist church of p ryan down here in

miami florida we would um anytime somebody was new we made them fill out that you know now we call them

connection cards but it was a visitor card where they give their information and let them know and

and lots of people would fill it out but there was this little like rose lapel rose sticker rose

literally it was like a it was a sewn cloth um like uh threaded uh rose red rose with like adhesive

sticky on the backside and people would put it to their jacket uh lapel right yeah that's jacket lapel

and so like hey i'm a visitor look at me and in the 70s people wore that because they were it was

comfortable it's proud there's pride in in being involved being a first-time guest and new and lots

of people you know go around hey it's great to see you welcome to the community and like that was the

way to bring people in 2025 people don't want to be singled out like that 2025 they want a little more

control especially digitally digitally you want to give people control of their destiny you want to let

them drive their engagement and discipleship process digitally you do not want to shove down them more

and more content force them to 2025 you want them to have access to be able to pull in um the more you

shove the less they're going to receive the more quickly they're going to unfollow uh the more you

allow them to control the deeper they will go which means more engagement for you in the long haul now

here's the challenge by doing this you have to agree to go slowly this is not microwave this is crockpot

this is a slow boil this is not um i'm going to go from zero to a million overnight it's going to take

time do you want it to go fast or do you want it do you want it right and fast will get you a percentage

but it's not going to

it's not going to be the numbers that time would be by the way fast is also expensive

you know it's like do you want to you want it fast and and expensive or do you want it slow and cheap

uh and then do you want it good or do you want it bad like that's there's a whole like three

trifecta there where it's like you know uh how do you want it how what quality what time and what um

uh yeah uh how anyway there's there's like two my brain totally lost that thought

but how you are utilizing content to connect with people is hugely important and that digitally you

give it time now i have had it we're just coming off equipping digital missionaries edm i have we've

got maybe a dozen churches i would say that are currently in equipping digital missionaries cohort

um and coming off it and they're like coming into edm saying i am curious about my church

launching and starting a digital missionaries program and this is

this is not broadcasting church services this is developing missionaries and sending them out

to be on mission for christ digitally content plays a huge part in that content but it's not

church content arguably you're you're asking your you know you're the people that are volunteering

for this to create content for something different like you know i i know there's a there's a couple

churches right now that are exploring the idea of gaming churches digitally and if you're doing that

that that's great but you're not starting something um but but you're not broadcasting your church services

on twitch you're creating content that engages with gamer community uh and then putting that in a place

a place where gamers can access it to start to build relationships with gamers to draw them into your

discord server or or you are going into their discord server without community without content

and just building relationships in random discord servers uh which is a great play as well it's a little

easier on the non-content creators but it takes time either way to develop it through

my my point being is that it takes time to develop relationships

digitally

tyler sansom uh over at first capital christian court in indiana

tyler one day i'll come visit you uh he's his church has always been the church that i

want to come see and tyler has said to me over the years um it's maybe the best piece of advice

i called him once uh during covid i was like hey i'm looking for a handful of like job profiles

for digital pastors online pastors can you send me what what you guys are doing at a first capital

christian and tyler you know sit back to me he said jeff um i don't have to send you anything this is

the job profile you ready sure go ahead what do you got know 100 people digitally

be in relationships with 100 people digitally that you are not in relationship with physically

that was the job profile he said if you know people then christ will flow out of that which

feeds into discipleship process which feeds into evangelism which feeds into everything else but he's

he's like the impetus of everything is is being in relationship with 100 people outside of your physical context

as digital missionaries as digital pastors it's not a bad idea using that content using that digital media

to connect with people to build relationships so that you can say i literally know 100 people digitally

and and with those relationships i'm funneling them into

whatever the digital discipleship process you've got created um i'm sharing jesus i'm discipling them

i'm helping them draw closer to who god is and helping them find what god's calling is on their life

these are not that radical of ideas but respect that by doing that the answer is not just we do

do media like for the for the content creators that are out there and and i say this very gently respectfully

it's it's like you do content and what now what you do content now what i can remember there was a

season in my ministry career i was production director for a mega large multi-site church down here in miami

and there was a stretch new leadership new uh change of guard we lost a lot of of our existing

leadership and volunteer base and there was a season there was a season in this church's life where it was all

about the weekend 100 of all like the church was so thinly strapped that a hundred percent of the effort

went into the weekend and and and we even said like to leadership we would say hey this is short term

because we're needing to circle the wagons we're needing to build up some volunteers we're having to

multiply to get ready to try to handle some other things and issues and so like it was a it was a

short-term solution that we acknowledged up front and communicated out this isn't the long-term strategy

but we could barely survive just doing the little bit that just doing the weekend

and then we very clearly said

it's the weekend and then what's next and that's where we started to to really focus on rebuilding and

refocusing on the discipleship process in the community and what that looked like outside of the church

on sunday morning and so my suggestion to you content creator

if all you're doing is content ask yourself and then what is it more content is it is it less content

now this these are our weighted questions well maybe i can be better um i i can i can build relationships

with with people even just as a content creator probably can yeah you can use tools like instagram

and uh uh you know facebook maybe and and uh you know tick tock maybe and and yeah x if you're on that

like you can use those to to create community um can you scale community is is it the most effective ways

to do that but these are these are questions to ask and to pray through i mean maybe god wants you to

stay where you are i it's not for me to say what's right and what's not right for you what i do want

to do is cast vision and maybe share an idea of it's not just about the content but what the content leads

into it's not just about the sunday morning service physical church people but what that physical church

service leads leads to it's not just about watching uh church service online but what it leads to it's not

just about creating uh a series of videos on youtube but what it leads to like whatever that next step

really is arguably the first thing that's not a vanity metric because people watching content

people consuming content is a is a vanity metric at best leading consumers to do something beyond just

consuming content that's the first step that's not vanity that's the first step that's actually

showing you what ministry can do getting consumers to consume that's easy getting people to do something

with what they've consumed that's where i think it happens right anybody could could follow jesus

it was it was being it was trusting jesus enough in luke 6 when he started talking about eat my flesh and

drink my blood to not run away and then being with him over three years to the point that when all of a

sudden they started getting crucified oh my gosh did i just jesus juked that i think he did like when jesus

like it's always drove me nuts

okay people who believe that the disciples like made all this crap up about jesus yes there was historical jesus

yes he died we're coming off of easter but he didn't rise up the disciples faked that

why like what did they benefit but to die to be martyred down the road why would they not just run away

jesus in the three years that he had access to them established trust built relationships and

discipled them in community i mean when when jesus said hey go walk down this this road go visit this

town and don't go by yourself always take someone with you why community because community be you know you

and god sure can god speak via nature itself yeah paul says so um can can god use two or more gathered

yes three or more gathered yes and so that's the challenge for you today is look at what your

ministry focus is do you consider yourself a a content creator do you consider yourself a community

builder are you more of a teacher equipper are you a mobilizer somebody that wants to empower others to do

whatever your ministry whatever your different role and purpose is i would suggest to you that you need

all four of the framework all four of the flywheel connect community equip mobilize you need all of that

represented in order to be effective in in in doing ministry especially in church and in missionary space

and and if you're just playing a part of that well then maybe you need to work and partner with someone who can

help you fill in the rest of those gaps

a an equipper that's at at a digital church that doesn't have connecting community well that church is going to struggle

because any an equipper doesn't have a front door that's going to generate the leads the people to come in

can the holy spirit do something in that situation of course but does that mean we should put all all

the eggs on that and if the answer is yes then you pray like you've never prayed before and you fast like

you've never fasted before and call for god to to create divine appointments in your life

but maybe instead of just scattering seeds maybe we could aim and scatter seeds maybe we could collaborate

and scatter seeds maybe we could work together and be more efficient scattering seeds what i'm suggesting is

not the antithesis of of of the holy spirit i actually i think

even we're two or more gathered in in our context as leaders i think god is glorified when we work together for his purposes

that's the stream for today uh i hope it's been fun i've i've enjoyed spending this time with you today it's been a good

good conversation i've got a meeting going up in just one or two minutes actually i think steve reed i'm

on with you here in a little bit but we're gonna wrap uh and so for me it's been me it's jeff with the church

digital wrapping up on this podcast on the stream today do not forget we have our town hall meeting

tuesday may 20th two weeks away from today tuesday may 20th 1 p.m eastern new york here on uh tcd's

youtube the church that digital excuse me youtube.com slash the church digital uh we'll provide more

information on in the days to come thanks for hanging out with us y'all y'all have a good one

Thank you.