EP324 - Teaching People to Fish Takes on New Meaning, Digitally

Welcome to the Church Digital Podcast.

Through this podcast, we'll talk about the technological innovations within the church.

But more than tech for tech itself, we'll address deeper questions.

Is disciple making possible digitally?

How should we approach the digital mission field?

Can a biblically grounded church operate in digital space?

Oh, and where does the metaverse and artificial intelligence fit into all of this?

Whether you're a big or small church,

the Church Digital's goal is to help churches like yours learn to be a multiplying church,

digitally and physically.

And now here's your host, Jeff Reed.

All right, hey, that music faded out almost like in perfect timing.

It's like I designed it that way.

That was so good.

Hey, welcome to the Church Digital Podcast episode 324.

I've done 324 of these things.

Well, you know, I had some people cover here or there,

but 324 is a lot of me talking.

And so you're going to get a lot more of me talking in the episodes to come.

We're going to get back.

We're doing a season here on the flywheel of digital ministry,

the digital mission flywheel.

We're going to get into that here in a little bit.

And a surprise guest once again, joining us, Funko Pop Da Vinci.

We'll get into Funko Pop Da Vinci here in a second.

But for today, I wanted to hit a couple of things just up here at the front.

We're going to get in the next season.

We're going to be talking about questions in digital mission work.

Really getting into some deep theological, deep, systematic, deep, but practical steps.

Deep theological and deep practical at the same time.

Like, how do those fit together?

I don't know.

We're going to figure it out.

It'll be fun.

So check that in the weeks to come as we're wrapping up the flywheel.

But write this down.

February 11th, Tuesday, 1 p.m. Eastern.

We're going to do our second town hall meeting.

Some of you may remember through the church digital, we did a town hall meeting back in, what, August of last year.

That was when we announced, hey, we're switching over to this digital missionary sending agency model,

which was a pretty massive shift, and it was well-received, and it was a lot of fun having some of those conversations.

And we want to bring everybody together again because, hey, we've got, I don't know that I would say it's massive shifts.

I don't know that it's as groundbreaking, as revolutionary, as a digital missionary sending agency.

Like, I cannot promise every town hall meeting we're going to be, like, groundbreaking, like the digital missionaries sending agency.

But I will say this.

We're announcing a couple things coming up at that town hall meeting Tuesday, February 11th, that are freaking awesome.

Like, I'm really excited about this.

I cannot wait to get the word out on this and to see what's going to happen in the weeks and a month ahead because of it.

So if you're hanging out with us and you're kind of on the, you're lurking on the outside, you're not, you're in the community but not engaging, man, this is a great time.

Come hang out with us Tuesday, February 11th, 1 p.m. Eastern.

It's during this time slot.

Yeah, we'll make it the podcast, and we'll get the word out via VOD.

But it's so much more fun if you're hanging out with us in the stream here live.

But as a matter of fact, I got some people hanging out with me today.

Journey fan, Jeff, great to see you, bud.

Zuko doing that.

We got Steve Reed, my brother from another mother.

You are tough.

I'm going to assume that's the best and not I'm a jerk.

No, Steve wouldn't call me a jerk.

Steve doesn't know me well enough to call me a jerk yet.

I love that.

Ukulele, hand, pink, waving.

It's good to know.

I'm always good for the emoji in YouTube.

To be honest, I kind of miss Twitch a little bit.

You know, I enjoy the YouTube.

I'm not really the Twitch.

This is not the face of a Twitcher.

And so I don't fit the Twitch model.

So that's why I'm kind of hanging out more here in YouTube.

But looking forward, oh my gosh, there's so much.

Oh my gosh, there's so much.

Oh my gosh, there's so much.

Man, as I'm even thinking about sitting here in this chair, I'm just, man, there's three, four things I would want to drop at that town hall meeting.

And so, listen, if you're not coming to that town hall meeting Tuesday, February 11th, yeah, what's wrong with you?

Music keyed perfectly with that.

I'm loving this.

This soundtrack's much more my jam.

And so come hang out with us Tuesday the 11th at 1 p.m. Eastern, okay?

Commercial over.

We're going to get into it.

Hey, so here with the stream today, we have been talking about this idea of a digital missionary.

Now, we've been using the language framework, the digital missionary framework.

But to be honest, it's the same strategy we play here at the Church Digital.

Like, you know, I'm not only the president, I'm also a client.

Those of you that remember the Hair Club for Men will get that nod.

But it's true.

Like, we use this same strategy for the Church Digital.

We've seen it really be effective in digital missionary work outside.

And you've heard me say this time and time again.

The people we connect with at the digital level, social media, blogs, content, relationships, virtual reality, meeting and world,

the people that we connect with, we want to invite them into a community to establish trust, to build relationships, evangelism, discipleship.

All that works best at the community level.

But through that discipleship and through that community, we want to get to the place of where we are equipping people to do ministry,

where they're discovering what their calling is and not only helping them find their calling,

but mobilizing them, sending them out to do what God is calling them to do and resourcing and caring for them on that journey.

Connect, community, equip, mobilize.

And so through the past couple weeks, we've not only been talking about that as a framework for you all to contextualize

and for you to adapt into your ministry, but we've also been talking about it as a flywheel.

Now, this is where my good friend here, Funko Pop Da Vinci, comes into play.

Leonardo Da Vinci, you may understand, he was an artist, it's funny.

He's got little paintbrushes there and he's got a sketchbook he's holding there in his hand, Da Vinci does.

Isn't that nice? Funko Pop Da Vinci.

Yeah, I really wanted Funko Pop Albert Einstein because I'm kind of a dork and it's too expensive.

It's rare at this point, so they marked up the price.

Boo, Albert Einstein. I love Albert Einstein.

But Da Vinci invented this device.

He's this famous inventor historically and actually like I've seen displays with hundreds of his inventions and exhibits and things.

And so he's this huge inventor back in the day.

And one of the things that he invented was this idea of the flywheel.

Now, I'll actually, you know, I've got videos of like the original flywheel and photos and what he created for it.

But it was this crank device up and it had a handle that you would crank.

And on when you cranked it, there were four blocks of wood that were held up by chains.

And as you cranked it, the centripetal force, I think I'm saying that right, centripetal force.

This is physics, you know, put on your thinking hats as I'm wearing Georgia Tech.

The engineering, whoo.

So the force of the circle, of it going in a circular motion, caused those wood blocks to go out.

And the physics of what was involved in that, those four wood blocks continued to go on and on and on.

And as you let go of the crank, once it got motion, it continued on for a long amount of time.

What I'm describing here is the physics of what's in motion, stays in motion, and the four things together continually kept itself in motion because of the centripetal force.

All right, thinking caps off.

Let's talk digital mission work.

No, I'm kidding.

Keep your thinking caps on.

I think that there is a little bit of application here as we talk about equipping, excuse me, as we talk about connection, community, equipping, mobilization.

Like, if all we're doing is connecting and we're not getting people into digital community, well, connection without that community, you really have no power.

You have people up at the connection level that are shallow and superficial.

And I don't mean to be judgmental, and please don't read too much into this, but you're not able to.

It's really hard to get into rich, deep disciple-making conversations because discipleship happens via two-way conversations.

Digitally, we see evangelism have much better in community.

And so the ability to get these people down to community is so important.

Really, I can tell you stories of connection level ministries that have really fizzled out within months because they were not effective in building community.

It basically became an advocacy group for Christ without actually having tangible stories of life change because all they were doing was creating content and creating noise.

And so, but community, without having that equipping, well, why are you doing community?

What's the purpose of community without having some level of helping people find what God is calling them to do?

That's somewhat we're going to get in there today.

Like, you know, the scripture says, you know, it's, you're eating, you're drinking spiritual milk.

You should be on solid food by now.

Helping people not only discover who Christ is, which is important in community, but helping them discover what God is calling them to do.

What is their purpose in being here and helping get them to the point, multiplying into them where they can go out.

A multiplication strategy in digital context is an unbelievable opportunity.

We'll talk more about that here in a little bit.

But if you're doing community without having some sort of equipping level, why are you doing the community in the first place to help people find Christ, which is an incredible opportunity.

But that is a wasted opportunity if you're stopping with the salvation.

You're on spiritual milk.

And by now you should be on solid food.

Like, that's the thing of nightmares for me.

It's, it's not stopping at salvation.

It's continuing on through discipleship to help them figure out what's next.

And if you're doing equipping without some sort of mobilization piece, well, you know, that's, that's reckless.

You're equipping people with the, with understanding their calling and you're like, okay, see you later.

And you send them out.

I mean, it's like the bomb kicking the bird out of the nest and the bird tanks and crashes down.

Okay.

Yeah.

Tough love happens.

Yeah.

You're going to learn things by doing it.

That's apprenticing one-on-one.

But that's almost the point.

Apprenticing one-on-one, you're still checking in.

There, there's a, there's accountability.

There's relationship.

It was interesting.

I was just doing some scripture reading.

Uh, and I'm going to, I'm going to misquote the scripture.

I believe it was first Timothy or second Timothy two, two.

Uh, and Paul, you know, Paul's talking about training Timothy in, in front of an audience

of others, uh, so that the people that Timothy would train had the ability to train, train

others.

In that first Timothy, second Timothy, I'm bad with the numbers.

Second Timothy two, two.

It's literally five generations of people are involved in the conversation.

Paul teaching Timothy in an audience of others so that the lessons that Timothy was teaching

to others could be multiplied into others.

That's the verse.

There's accountability.

Paul was teaching Timothy in the audience of others so that Timothy could teach others who

would teach others with Timothy's oversight.

Like it's a mobilization strategy in place.

By the way, you know, how did church exist 2000 years later?

How do we get to this point?

Holy spirit.

Yes.

Prayer.

Yes.

God.

Yes.

Divine intervention.

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

Could you imagine if Paul was like, Hey, it's been fun.

Y'all have a nice life.

See you later.

Paul wrote first Corinthians was like, screw you all.

I'm done.

Second Corinthians.

No, it doesn't matter.

Y'all do what you want.

You know, even that, uh, it's at some level, the, the church and revelation act, uh, revelation

two, revelation three, you know, there.

Yeah, it was, uh, it was, there were bad letters.

It was, yeah, I'm, I'm angry with you.

You are failing, which even shows the accountability in that moment to be able to say, to slap

him on the wrist and say, you've lost your first love.

So it's important for us to, to not stop at the equipping.

It's important for us to not stop at the, the community, but to understand the full picture

of, yes, we want to create connections.

And through those connections digitally, get them into community through community, help

them find, uh, Christ evangelism, discipleship, build trust, build relationships that allow

us the opportunity to help them find their calling it to, so that we can be used by God

to speak biblical truth in their life and then mobilize them and help send them out to what

God is calling them to do.

Now here's, yes, that's a framework that is a framework and you can use that in your context

right now.

And, and it's effective and we've seen it be effective, but I want to challenge you even

beyond the framework to start to look at it as a flywheel.

As you get more and more people going through that system, flywheels, it was funny.

I was talking with, um, I was talking with a digital church.

I'm not going to say what church it is.

I was talking with a digital church pastor.

She'd been doing this a while and, uh, and she's, you know, came alongside her.

We're, we're doing some, some, some consulting and kind of helping her turn the corner in her

ministry and, uh, she is, I would say that she's incredible at the equipping and the mobilization

phase, like some of the, some of the strategies, some of the resources that, that she's been

implementing.

She is very good at the bottom of the funnel.

And, and, and the reality is, is that she has struggled at the top of the funnel.

So she has these, these beautiful strategies and tools to equip and mobilize people, but

she's been ineffective in getting people connected into the connection, into the community.

So they get to that.

And so like, she's putting in all this resources at the bottom without having people to send

through.

And, you know, and seeing that we, we came alongside, I had a meeting with her this week

and, you know, basically was like, you know, we want church, this is going to come along

and help.

And as we started to explore what some of these problems were, it became obvious that,

you know, she needs coaching on the top half.

She needs some guidance on the top half, or maybe even she needs to connect with some people

that are, um, strong on the top half that are good at connection and community, but may

not be fully, you know, capable.

It may not have time for equipping and mobilization.

This is where it's really interesting.

We're going to get more into this in a little bit, but if you're like, this is overwhelming

for me, Jeff, listening to you talk.

It doesn't mean I'm wrong.

It means there's opportunities for partnership or there's opportunities to bring people inside

because whether or not you, I mean, let's talk connect community, equip mobilization at

a physical, a physical space, uh, you need some sort of a community in a physical space.

Now that community can be at a small group, a Starbucks, that community can be a, you know,

I tend to a hundred person venue church, maybe 150.

That can be a 5,000 person venue.

Like it can look differently, but that doesn't null and void the importance of community and

physical.

And you need that in digital without connection, without community, then, then the ministry

you're doing is powerless.

There's no roots at the connection level.

Community without equipping is pointless because why are you even bothering with community?

If you're not doing anything with the people when they're in the community and equipping

without mobilization, that's just reckless because you're giving people the gospel and you're

kicking them out of the nest and you're not caring about what they do in the long run.

But once you get all this going, once you get those four blocks of wood spinning, it carries

on because the community is feeding into equipping.

Equipping is feeding into mobilization.

Mobilization is sending out and they're connecting with new people that are feeding into the community

or into their community.

And so you're either multiplying within your own community and your own church and your

own missions work, or you're sending out and creating new opportunities where that, where

that flywheel is working on its own.

This is what multiplication looks like in the digital mission work, in the digital church

context.

There is power in what I'm describing here.

I think it's important for us to realize there's power in the idea of giving this away.

All right.

So let's lean into some things here.

You know, as we talk about digital missionary, even the idea of equipping, you know, there's

there's the opportunity.

And I would love that.

I would love to ask this question.

Those of you that are watching right now is as you do digital missionary work, do you see

more value in technology?

Are you the type of person that is jacked up about new technology, new platforms, new opportunities

for ministry?

I don't, by the way, I don't think there's a wrong answer.

Are you, are you excited about the opportunity?

Are you an explorer or are you more of a relationships?

Are you more of the type of person that can, can connect with people in the, in the community

that exists in digital space?

Throw that in chat.

Let me know.

I see somebody's right now.

Trustees Asbury.

How are you doing, man?

We actually haven't talked to you in a while.

We need, we need to catch up.

This is all so true.

Community should be moving.

I think it's, this is why people don't stay plugged into a local church anymore.

Community stopped moving.

I mean, that's, that's an interesting, are you doing your, your grant?

I, yeah, you got to catch up with me, bro.

I need to, I need to figure out where you are and how I can help.

Let's do that.

Um, yeah.

So the, the challenge is as a digital missionary, you know, and I'm not even talking about APAS.

I'm not even talking about motivations and, and there's other assessments and things that,

that we do through the church digital to help people understand their calling, their giftings

and their skillset.

But I think it's, it's important for us to understand our, our motivations walking into

this.

Are we, I, it's funny.

I did.

We just did it.

We're partnering with a new organization called true center.

And anybody who does EDM is going to get access to this true center.

And I did the assessment myself.

And I did a walkthrough with the, the founder, the CEO of the, of the assessment.

And, um, I am, I am an explorer.

I think two of my five motivations were like explore and, uh, a motivator and, um, innovator

and, uh, empower.

Like it was, it's basically what I do.

Like it was the most accurate assessment of, of who I am.

But it was funny.

It was like looking at, at that skillset.

I always am, you know, drop me off on the Island with a machete and I'll carve my own way.

So that other people come behind me.

And I'm great at recruiting other people to come jump on the boat and get bit by mosquitoes.

So like, that's, that's me.

That's the motivation aspect behind me.

The weakness aspect of me is funny on the flip side of that is you give me a, like a, a menial task.

You tell me to do something for six months.

I don't, I don't, I don't do that.

I barely do anything for two weeks.

Like, you know, I'm always looking for something new.

I'm always looking for a challenge to be overcome.

And so like, that's, that's my motivation.

It's interesting.

My brother from another, Steve Reed saying here, like his motivation.

From the tech side to the relationships, he's more interested in the relationship aspect.

And Steve, I can, you know, what I know of you, I can see that in you.

I think that's a very good idea.

I think that's a great place to be.

And that makes sense for you.

And that's, once again, that's not bad to understand how to use those relationships.

And use that gifting to connect with people in digital space.

That's good, but it's also important.

To recognize the strengths and weaknesses of that.

Steve, you're really good at relationships.

Steve, you're learning about the technology.

And so to be able to connect with someone either in the network or partner with another missionary or someone that can lean into the technological aspects of what you want to do, it's going to be very important.

We've talked about some of that in some of our open offices.

By the way, Steve's great at jumping in an open office.

You know, I do open offices two or three times a week.

Our other leadership does open offices periodically as well.

And, you know, as I talk with everybody on leadership, how'd the open office go?

It's so funny.

One of the opening.

Oh, I met Steve.

You know, Steve's been diving in and really asking some great questions.

And that's what we're here for with the open offices and the streams and all this is to really give opportunities to learn.

Steve, what's interesting in Steve's context, like the people Steve's going to reach are not the type of people that I'm going to reach.

Steve is – Steve, I'm going to tell just a fraction of your story here.

I'm guessing it's okay.

Steve's a, you know, retiree in South Florida.

He's over on the west coast of Florida.

I'm on the east coast of Florida.

I actually drove through Steve's town over the weekend just real quick.

Had a quick road trip with the fam, with my wife.

But, you know, Steve's retiring age, and I look like I should be retiring, but I'm significantly younger.

And so Steve's circle of influence is quite different than mine.

And so Steve's ability as a digital missionary to reach, engage, share, and disciple with people in digital space is a huge win.

Steve's ability to create community, invite them, create connections with digital people, people digitally.

Invite them into a community, build relationships, establish trust, share Jesus, digital discipleship.

He's already doing – it's so funny in Steve's story.

He already had access to some of that, didn't even realize what he was sitting on.

He just had to open his eyes to maybe a new way of looking at some of the social media assets he had available for him.

And now he's being aggressive on evangelizing and discipling in some of those connection points and inviting them into the community and even getting to the place of starting to grow them in the community to the place of some sort of equipping.

You know, I remember Steve's like, you know, as he's relatively new in this, maybe two or three months into this mindset.

You know, Steve was like, hey, Jeff, I understand the top two connection and community.

Equipping and mobilization, I ain't there yet.

Don't worry about it, bro.

You keep working on the top.

Connect community, connect community.

And what's going to happen is you'll see it happen naturally almost in equipping and mobilization.

Or we'll come around and talk to you.

As part of what we're doing with the church digital, we're creating this series of networks.

We're calling them outposts to allow for accountability, for relationships to develop even within our network.

And so we want to connect, Steve, with the other digital and metaverse church planters that would fit in similar context to who he's trying to reach so they can be friends on mission together.

Whether that's, you know, exploring or experimenting, getting encouragement, exploring new platforms or ideas, experimenting with new techniques, being encouraged in ministry, or being empowered, being released to do things instead of being afraid to jump.

So many people are afraid to jump.

It's so interesting.

They literally just need to be told, do it.

And they go.

But it's like nobody ever says go in digital missions.

It's all, I don't know about that.

You know, it's been fun to be the guy that's always saying go.

And so empowering and releasing people, it's very important.

And I see that in some of what Steve's doing.

But Steve's context is different than mine.

Steve's context is so very different from mine.

And that doesn't make it bad.

It just makes it different.

Steve's commenting here.

Of course it is.

Of course it's different.

You know, why would it be the same?

Even though we're in the same locale, like Steve's maybe 90 minutes away from my house.

There, it's a significant jump between the two.

This is some of the stuff, the contextual adaptation.

This is really what we're teaching through equipping digital missionaries.

Now, you've heard me talk about this.

Thechurch.digital slash EDM.

You can pull up the website for more information.

Thechurch.digital slash EDM.

This is our, this is the church digitals equipping phase.

This is where we take the time to intentionally equip people to be digital missionaries.

Now, we, whereas the people we work with are, you know, worried about digital evangelism,

which is rightfully so as missionaries.

We're not, we don't consider ourselves directly missionaries.

We're a sending agency.

And so we, we deal more with discipleship and, and empowerment and, and equipping and, and

that aspects than, than evangelism.

But we do coach evangelism.

There's, there's, you know, it's interesting in EDM, somebody, one of our participants going

through.

It's like, Hey, you never really talk about prayer digitally.

And I was like, it's a bait.

It was like, Oh my gosh, it's a huge miss.

We need to talk about prayer and, uh, you know, Christ centered in, in that and what it

looks like to be gospel centric.

Uh, and so, yeah, it was a good call, but we typically, we don't coach that aspect.

Uh, but I think, I think now that we're getting, uh, into like normal people without the seminary

training, without the, uh, who are trying to understand the missionary calling, I think we need

to get more aware of that, but through our EDM course, we're, we're helping people understand

how to be a digital missionary through some of the videos that we're, we're sending out.

We are instructing them on, um, you know, philosophy and techniques, uh, behind the why of what they're

doing.

We're giving them an asynchronous community, a WhatsApp or discord, giving them the opportunity

to process that information with a group of peers.

And then we, we meet in a huddle, uh, of, uh, gathering of, you know, people in a, in a,

in a Google meet call or WhatsApp or something to let people, uh, apply this information to

their ministry and start to take, uh, accountability on practical next steps in front of others.

And so the ability to instruct, to process and to apply IPA, not affiliated, but IPA, uh, is

key behind what we're doing in the, uh, asynchronous, uh, in our, in our EDM and our equipping process.

And so we were, I was, to be honest, I was supposed to be teaching a cohort right now in this slot.

As I'm doing this, this live, I was scheduled to launch, I think three or four cohorts in, uh,

this week in January.

And, um, as we're wrapping up the, the first round of EDM in my mind, it was, okay, we're

just going to copy and paste that into version two.

And as we were in the middle of wrapping up version one of the beta V1, uh, it was, oh,

we're not, it's, we got to make some adjustments.

We had to make a lot of adjustments.

It was a great first stab and I'm really happy with what we did.

I am, I'm a firm believer in this and you'll hear me say this a thousand times.

Version one is better than version none.

I would rather get started and learn from it than, than sit around in a room and talk about

what we could have done and never do anything.

I was actually in a meeting, uh, with one of my teammates today, uh, Stacy talking about

some of the changes we want to do with EDM.

And I just was constantly reminding her it's beta, it's beta, it's beta, it's beta, it's

beta.

Let's not sit around and theorize.

Let's just try it and, and, and learn from it.

Uh, you got, you got to crack some eggs to make an omelet, uh, insert Iron Man joke

there.

It's, it's just, it's, it's important for us to do that.

And so EDM is starting on February 12th.

And through equipping digital missionaries through this court, this is our desire to equip

people like you to be digital missionaries in your context, not to adapt to our mindset

and our way of thinking.

This is not digital imperialism where it's, it's, it's our way or the highway.

In fact, we want to give to you the trainings so that you can contextualize it so that you

can adapt it.

We're white labeling this in such a way so that you can distribute this in, in your context

to others.

We want to see a movement of digital missionaries happen at the global scale, not only in locations

across the planet.

We're already seeing it.

We want to see it even multiply more.

Where we want to start to create some of these, uh, uh, outposts, these networks, even in

platforms, we want to see gaming space.

We want to see virtual reality.

We want to see, um, in other platforms.

I was talking to somebody about doing, uh, an outpost starting a network in blue sky.

It was funny was I didn't even realize blue sky was still around.

Like blue sky is not on my radar at all.

And he's like, Oh yeah, I'm, I'm in blue sky all the time.

And I was like, really, why don't, why don't you start and do a digital missionary and start

to recruit and develop some digital missionaries to, to go into blue sky.

It's this way of thinking.

And as, and as we, you know, I say this, I was actually talking this morning to a group

of, um, a global missions organization was doing a conference in Turkey.

And instead of flying me out to Turkey to speak to them, they asked me to speak via zoom.

Uh, I told them next time I was more than happy to take the plane ticket to Turkey.

Cause I wouldn't mind hanging out in Turkey.

But, uh, this morning I, you know, I, I, I just, I shared with them what we're doing through

equipping digital missionaries and the ground level of, of what I want to do is this has

nothing to do with Jeffrey.com.

My desire is not to, this is not out of ego.

This is not out of pride.

Um, pride is my weakness.

Ego is, is the, is the crack in the armor that allows Satan to come in.

Uh, and so I am trying so hard to keep myself humble.

When I say this, I'm even said publicly, you've heard me say this, the, the face of a global

digital missionary movement, it's not a white bald man with a beard.

Like this is not the face of the future of the church digital today.

It's the, it's the face.

Uh, as we try to see these ideas multiply and grow at the global level.

Uh, I got, um, a good news life talking in here.

Uh, so pumped.

I'm currently got two Asbury university students.

I'm doing a digital missionary independent study with, we all enrolled for EDM and I'm so

pumped to coordinate this, uh, without, uh, with our classroom.

So that's awesome.

I didn't know that.

That's cool.

I want to, I got to catch up with you on that.

Uh, I'm trying to think, did I see your registrations come in?

I'll double check.

I don't know if I told you, like it start, I, you should have got an email from us.

It's going to start in February, but we'll, we'll, we'll make that happen.

I'm excited to see that, man.

That is very cool to see that context are different.

And that's really what we work through with EDM.

We teach you a, it's, it's a, um, it's a framework.

It's a, uh, what is it?

It's, um, it's not a blueprint.

It's a, it's not a blueprint.

It's a framework.

And so we don't tell you what to do.

We give you a framework in our desire is to get you to shape it, to adapt it to your context.

What, uh, what good news life here is doing training a couple of college kids.

Once again, a couple of college kids are going to reach people much differently than a 47 year

old bald man with a beard is going to reach.

And so the ability to train those people and equip them and mobilize them, send out.

That's the desire.

As we see this happen at a global scale, you know, at some level, and, and, and even, uh,

he needs to understand here with, uh, with good news life as, as he's worked with college

kids, which is a beautiful story, man.

I need, we just need to catch up.

Um, it's, it's, it's understanding the digital calling, helping those kids, helping those

students.

I say kids, they're adults, helping those college students understand what their digital

calling is.

What are you called to do?

And, and, and, and, and to be honest, once again, who are you going to partner with to

fill in the gaps, connect community, equip, mobilize, connect community, equip, mobilize.

So many stories of people that just want to do connection and they fizzle out because they

have no community.

So many stories of people that are interested in developing digital community and really interested

in discipleship and evangelism via digital community, but they're not good at creating

content.

And so their, their community fizzles out because they don't have people to feed down

into the, the community level.

My friend that I was telling you about the planter, she's really good at the, you know, equipping

and mobilization level.

And she wants to do incredible stuff, but she's not had success at the top to funnel in.

And it's like, oh my gosh, if I could connect you with you and you in like almost Frankenstein,

some sort of a network and turn it into a church, there could be an incredible.

Opportunity, an incredible movement as, as we get valid connection points, feeding into

a tangible digital community, which is getting into feeding into a place where there's wisdom

and strategy behind equipping and mobilization.

And so as I'm saying all these things, it's not as important for you to think, oh my gosh,

I have no idea how to equip people.

Some of you will understand that.

Some of you won't.

Some of you don't need to.

But there needs to be understanding my role I'm responsible for.

And, and, and if I can't do it, I got, I need to come alongside somebody who can do it

with me.

And, and, and sometimes, you know, that person's going to be somebody who's on your team.

And sometimes that's going to be, hey, let me partner with somebody that's outside of

me and, and they work it within their ecosystem.

You know, Jason Morris has, um, always not, I don't say always, I don't mean it that way,

but JMO has, is our equipping and mobilization director.

And I don't know, he's been with us a couple of years maybe.

And so like he is representing and helping us build out the, the, our outposts and our, our

decentralized networks.

And, and what we're hoping to build out at a global level to resource digital missionary

growth and movement.

Um, we want to see 20,000 gospel conversations through our, uh, church digital missionaries

in 2025.

We want to see 20,000 gospel conversations in 2025.

It's, it's, it's very aggressive stats and I'm excited about the opportunities therein and

how God's, I think, going to use our obedience, but this really does, it comes down to like,

that's what we're doing within the church digital.

If I didn't have access to Jason Morris and some of the intentionality that he's bringing

in, that doesn't let me off the ability to, to not create a multiplication strategy.

To be honest, I'd probably be calling up that, that planter that I was talking about just

a minute ago, who's really good at the bottom of the funnel and asking her, Hey, why don't

you come on board and do something with us?

Or can I take the influence that I have and send it over to you and, and do that?

And, and like, you know, you've seen me through the church digital, I bring plenty of people

in and, and, and give them influence and share the platform.

I have no problem with that.

Um, just because you're not called to it doesn't release you from the responsibility.

That's what I'm saying.

Just because you're called to do only a part of it doesn't release you from the responsibility

of the whole.

God's given you these resources.

God's given you these people.

Are you, are you doing something with the talent, so to speak, or are you burying it in

the sand?

Um, are you able to multiply the gifts that he's given you or are you struggling to, to do

anything with it for fear of, of losing it?

That's the big difference.

And really, I think maybe what I want to wrap with here today is the understanding of, of

growing versus multiplying, growing versus multiplying.

Like we can, we can grow a digital ministry.

We can connect with people via content, pay ads, drive new people in utilize Google SEO.

I'm not speaking bad of, uh, uh, search engine marketing, social media marketing.

I've got friends that do that very well.

It's a necessary part of digital ministry.

But if that's the only thing that's bringing people in, that's interesting.

So you've got people at the top level, and then you're feeding them into a community for evangelism

and discipleship.

That's growth.

Now, the more checks you write to Google and to Facebook, the more money that you spend on

getting new people to come into the funnel.

Well, that's the more your digital ministry is going to grow.

And that is an effective way to grow the ministry.

At the global level, millions of U.S. dollars are spent in areas like MENA, in the MENA, Middle

East, North Africa region.

Millions of dollars are spent in India to drive and to get attention for people in those regions

to get them connected to an organization and eventually get those fed into community or

call centers with one-on-one people to have a conversation.

That playbook's happening.

And it's effective.

But that's growth.

As we're discipling these people, and this is what makes us unique.

This is the thing that when I talk with other organizations, to be honest, I don't hear it.

And maybe it's there.

Maybe it's implied.

Because sometimes I don't, I'm not clear on some things.

And even some people question me.

So like, I'm no judgment in this.

But I'm not hearing this idea of helping people find their calling, equipping them to fill that

calling, and then mobilizing and then sending them out.

To me, that's the power and the purpose behind what we're doing compared to some of the others.

Seth Godin, you've heard me tell this story many, many times.

Somebody, it was funny.

Actually, I told this story this morning to the group I was speaking with in Turkey, which

is ironic.

I'll tell you there in a second.

So I was speaking with a group in Turkey about this.

And Seth Godin, you know, is talking, Seth Godin, if you don't know, I've said his name

a lot already.

He is the, I mean, I don't know what to call him.

He's a thought leader in communications and marketing here in the US.

I don't know, US Times or New York Times bestseller.

He's written 40 some books, like incredible, well known, well versed in the US and global

scale.

And so somebody asked Seth Godin, ironically, the guy that asked Seth Godin this question

was in Turkey.

It was part of Seth Godin's podcast, 2019, 2020.

Somebody asked Seth Godin, hey, how do I get my message heard around the world?

I say all this is ironic because the guy was in Turkey talking to Seth Godin, not a Christian

who's in New York City.

So the fact that, you know, he asked that question, got this message heard around the world.

That wasn't what Seth answered though.

Seth answered the question, how do I get my message heard around the world?

And Seth's response was a billion people don't care about anything you have to say.

If you want to get your message heard, it's not talking to a billion people.

You need to think much smaller.

Okay, it's not a billion.

So what?

I got to talk to a hundred million, 10 million, 1 million, 100,000, 10,000, 1,000.

Seth, how much smaller do I need to think?

This is the, this is the marketing thought leader in the U S if not global.

If you want to get your message heard around the world, this is, it's literally a Kimbo

podcast, 2019, email me, DM me directly, text me 4 4 3 2 4 8 7 2 4.

I'll send you the link specifically where he says this.

You want to get your message heard around the world.

You craft a message specifically for someone, for an individual.

Get that person to see it, hear it, understand it.

Get that person to tell someone else.

And when that person sees it, hears it, understands it and tell someone else, then they are driven

to tell someone else and tell someone else.

And all of a sudden now you've got a multiplication strategy in effect because you've got all these

ones talking to their ones and fives and tens.

This is the opportunity of the church digital.

This is the opportunity of a digital missionary.

This is the opportunity of a digital church planter.

Not to amass these giant followers.

We've talked about this in recent weeks.

Not to get a large number of subscribers of nameless people we don't know.

But to invest directly into people.

To build relationships.

To establish trust.

To help people find Jesus and discover who Jesus is and what he would have for their

lives and mobilize them for that calling.

That is how we multiply.

And to multiply, there has to be a reason why that community exists.

There has to be intentionality to push those people into an equipping.

Push may be the wrong word.

To invite those people into an equipping so that you can personally or someone within your org,

your chain, someone you're partnering with is responsible for equipping them to do what God is calling them to do.

Because if we're not intentional about taking the resources that God is giving us and equipping them to do what God is calling them to do,

what's the point?

And if we're equipping people without knowing what they're doing and walking with them,

well, then aren't we being a little reckless?

As we're wrapping up, that's the flat wheel.

The people we're connecting with digitally, we want to invite them into a community to establish trust,

build relationships, evangelism, discipleship.

In that context, we want to, through discipleship, we want to start to engage them and equip them,

help them understand their calling and release them and mobilize them to do what God is calling them to do.

Sounds easy, huh?

Maybe it is.

If you're interested in more of the questions on this, feel free to hit me up.

You guys know where to find me.

If you're watching on YouTube, put the comments here in YouTube.

I answer every comment on YouTube.

Personally, you'll often see, you almost always see the dash J-R.

That is me, Jeff Reed, and I'm happy to engage with you on YouTube.

Or you can find me in Discord or Slack, excuse me, Discord or WhatsApp, discord.thechurch.digital.

Take your web browser there.

WhatsApp, whatsapp.thechurch.digital.

Find me there.

Or you can go ahead and give me my cell phone number, plus 1-484-324-8724.

And once again, the music just kind of panned out perfectly right there at the end.

That was nice.

So we're going to land the plane today.

I hope this was helpful.

Next week, we're going to do a deep dive in mobilization and start to paint a picture of,

okay, once we get people off spiritual milk and we get them on solid food, what's our responsibility

and how do we immobilize them?

How do we apprentice them?

How do we get them out of the nest?

How do we kick them out without, you know, destroying or burning them in the process?

And what is our responsibility long-term?

And more than that, how can the Church Digital help you do this?

All right.

So that's going to wrap up.

Don't forget about February 12th is February 11th is the town hall meeting.

That was really weird.

I don't know what I was thinking when I did that.

So nobody turned that into a clip.

I would really appreciate it.

But we're going to wrap.

So for Jeff, this is Jeff with the Church Digital.

Thanks for hanging out with us with this podcast.

We'll see you next time on the show.

Y'all have a good one.