EP320 - 5 theChurch.digital Expectations for 2025

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.

Hey, it's episode, I'm just going to start over, y'all.

Sorry to be you.

Hopefully I'll be a little more streamlined this time.

Hey, episode 320, episode 320 of the Church Digital Podcast.

This is the last podcast episode recording for the year.

2024 has been a great year.

We are taking a little break on the podcast.

We've got a lot of changes coming up in 25.

Now, if you know me, it's like, dear God, Jeff, more changes?

Yes, more changes.

And it's a lot of fun right now seeing a team that gets excited and can run

and is excited about some of the paths that we're on

and even partnering with other people that want to come on board with this.

And so there's a lot of fun right now.

24 has been a great year for us.

You know, we've made some changes in leadership along the way.

January 1st, 2024, Bernie Mapili was in the leader position of the Church Digital.

In 23, as you may recall, taking a break, really, from leadership.

Had stepped back from the Church Digital on a couple of my other fractional leadership jobs

and basically took a sabbatical of sorts in 24, in 23.

And Bernie stepped in to lead the organization, and he and Andy did a great job maintaining the org in my absence

and really keeping the seat warm for me to come back.

24, I did come back, and it's been a sprint of sorts ever since,

you know, bringing on probably the best acquisition I've ever done in the history of ever.

At least the most impact was bringing on Barbara Carnero into the Church Digital fold here in 24 January,

which was an awesome pickup, communications and connections from a strategic standpoint.

Barbara is revolutionary, you know, and really, she's...

I respect when people push back on me, you know, because I know I'm a type A guy.

I'm kind of a...

I'm not a bully.

I used to be a bully, but, you know, I can railroad a situation through if I gunned in my head if I had to.

And when somebody pushes...

This is the secret to Jeff Reed.

When somebody pushes back on me, oh, I listen.

Because they're impassionated enough about the idea to, like, stand up to me and be like,

hey, yo, Jeff, you're missing it here.

And Barbara's done that several times.

And you know what?

When she's done it, she's been right.

And so that falls away from me.

Picking Barbara up and bringing her into the Church Digital, her and the Word Revolution team

really set us off for an incredible adventure for 24.

Latency, seeing what he's doing in the relationships, connecting.

Andy, the stuff that he's been doing with asynchronous.

You've got to realize, in 24, we launched a new website.

We launched into Discord.

And we launched into WhatsApp, both in 24.

We were not in either of these communities.

We were in that community we do not speak of, Mighty Networks.

That, you know, Mighty Networks.

That may have not have been that good for us, Mighty Networks.

But that being said, the move into Discord has been, from an engagement standpoint, has been phenomenal.

And WhatsApp, believe it or not, has been, like, six weeks.

Like, it's brand spanking new.

And so we're already seeing success on those platforms moving forward.

And so we're really excited about the road of 24.

And I haven't even gotten to the secret of J-Mo.

But, hey, that's 24.

And with this podcast, as we're wrapping up the year of 24, this is not really a celebration for 24.

As much as it is, five things.

Five things that you can expect from the Church Digital in 2025.

Where is the Church Digital going in 2025?

Well, that's a great question.

Now, you all are the streamers.

You're the podcast listeners.

You're the people that are taking the time to watch me ramble on for an hour or so.

So good for you.

But the flip side of that is, yeah, I'm known to say some things before they should be public.

And Barbara has always wanted to say, Jeff, you don't want to say that yet.

And it's like, yeah, I really, I really, I really do.

And so, look, I'm looking at my little list here.

My little notepad on the Apple app.

And I've got five things.

Now, three of them may be like a bomb drop, like a mic drop here.

Like there may be a surprise when we're saying some of this.

So, this is either going to be a really awesome, oh my gosh, I can't believe Jeff's, you know, the Church Digital, I can't believe they're doing this.

Or it may be, I don't know.

We'll see what happens.

We'll see how the spirit leads.

We'll see what mood that I'm in here as we're getting further along that.

But hey, here we go.

Five things to expect from the Church Digital in 2025.

Let's go number one.

We're just, we're getting into it.

Number one, we're going to expect YouTube to crash on me.

No.

Well, yes, you can probably expect YouTube to crash on me because it's been going to do that.

But no, seriously, that was a throwaway.

Number one, we, the Church Digital, we're going global.

And we're actually on the road of that right now.

Like, so funny, I was sitting down with a friend this morning for breakfast and he's like, you know, is there anybody else from that lasagna conference?

Lausanne, Lausanne, Lausanne conference, Congress.

Yeah, okay.

If the Lausanne conference wasn't enough, if the Church Digital being exposed as a digital missionary sending agency to 5,000 global leaders in Seoul, South Korea,

and another, you know, 15,000, 20,000, 21,000 watching online, yes, there is a huge opportunity to see the Church Digital getting exposed and getting light and getting these ideas out into other continents, other regions, other people, groups.

And so, um, empowering people with the ability to reach, engage, engage, and disciple people in digital space.

Like, oh my gosh, that is such a beautiful opportunity.

Now, I'm, I, I, I'm going to be honest with you, we're, we're, we're already doing it and, and you don't, you don't even realize it.

And so this is, this is probably leak number one, um, and, and some of my Discord friends, I'm sorry, but we've been running a beta behind your back.

So I, I said J-Mo earlier, and some of the stuff that he's been doing, well, this is the stuff he's been doing.

You know, Jason, earlier this year in 24, he was working to develop a digital discipleship process because as a church planting organization, we needed our own discipleship program and, uh, to help disciple potential planters.

And that was the plan, well, as we really were going through the material and as we were talking to planters and digital missionaries and normies, um, they didn't need a discipleship program.

I can remember, I was talking to the head of, uh, navigators in, uh, in the Nigeria.

I think it was Nigeria.

Uh, it was an African country, by the way, navigators has an incredible discipleship process.

Their, their discipleship process is better than anything we could come up with on our own.

And, um, and, and he was talking to me, not about like being discipled, um, shoot, he could teach me a thing or two about being discipled.

What he was looking for, um, was coaching centered around and help to be a digital missionary.

He wanted me to empower the church digital, to empower his team, to be digital missionaries.

And, and really he became the, the kind of the paramount example for us of, we're getting it, we're getting it wrong.

Like we're trying to help people plant churches, but a lot of the people that are coming to us aren't, aren't planters.

Um, we're, we're trying to, um, disciple people that don't need to be discipled.

Now, discipleship is hugely important.

It's part of it, but really they're not looking for just exclusive discipleship.

They're looking for equipping and that can be like spiritually equipping, or that can be technically equipping, or that can be strategic tactical equipping.

And so we really started wrestling with the idea of theological, technical, and tactical.

Well, this is what it looks like to, to, uh, to equip theologically, technically, or tactically, um, towards that.

And so I, I challenged JMO, Hey dude, I want you to create a, um, equipping digital missionaries course, cohort.

We need to strategically equip digital missionaries.

If we are pivoting to a digital missionary model, which we decided to do, then, then our paradigm is to equip them.

Remember the framework for the church digital.

We're connecting with digital missionaries where people were inviting them into communities within those communities.

We invite them to become digital missionaries, we invite them to become digital missionaries, we show them the opportunity of what's involved with that, and then we equip them to be digital missionaries.

And that's really the, the cohort is the, um, is the front door.

And in my man, JMO, he did it.

Now I, I could actually show you the first draft of, of his equipping digital missionary course.

Cause I think the dude's head exploded on a Google doc.

Like it was just, um, I, I think the technical term is logoria, like word explosion on a Google document, everything that was in this guy's head.

Uh, which if you know, Jason incredibly smart, JMO is probably the smartest guy I know in digital church space.

And he put it all on that Google doc and it was convoluted.

It was disorganized.

It was shambled, but it was beautiful.

If you've ever watched, uh, Russell Crowe in a beautiful mind, when that dude gets on a chalkboard and starts to like, uh, you know, um, map out the world or mathematic equations or whatever.

Um, that's what his Google doc was.

And so it took me a couple of days to sit down, um, and, and map it up, but we did, we created, uh, an equipping digital missionaries course.

And then we said, Hey, we're going to, we're going to beta this.

We're going to beta this to like, you know, six people, keep it small, keep it simple.

Let's do one beta in 24.

Just, we can get our, our, our feet under us.

We get some experience with it.

And then we're going to, we're going to roll this thing out publicly in, in a big way.

And, uh, something really interesting happened.

We went to, we went to Seoul and we started talking face to face with missionaries.

And it was interesting.

We weren't, we weren't going to talk about, um, the course.

And I did it.

The first person I talked with, I talked about the cohort equipping digital missionaries.

And the second person I talked with, I talked to, I said, equipping digital missionaries.

And then he caught on and he started talking about it.

And, oh my gosh, all we did at this cohort was, all we did at the Congress was talking

about equipping digital missionaries.

And there was so much interest in doing this.

And Jason looks over at me a couple of days in and he says, Hey, you know, that quiet beta.

Yeah.

That quiet beta of like six is not going to be a quiet beta of six.

It's like, oh yeah, yeah, we're, we're, there's no way we're getting that quiet beta.

And, and that, that quiet beta is, is launching, um, uh, you know, we've had almost 70 people

at this point register, um, to learn how to be a digital missionary through the church digital

70 people across six continents.

And that's the beta, like a literally it's, it's multiple people groups.

And, and the beautiful thing is like the people that are, that are wanting to do this.

They're wanting to contextualize it in their own, in their own language, in their own, to

reach their own people groups, to reach the areas, uh, people from, from India and Southeast

Asia, people from Oceania and the Pacific region, people from the Middle East, people from Africa.

Uh, I told, I told you to pay, I was like, my gosh, we've got like, uh, seven or eight people that are just

from Nigeria that that's in, in, um, uh, you know, you to pay Simon.

We had so many people.

I was like, Hey dude, I, you know, I need you to step up and teach this course.

This course doesn't even exist yet.

That's cool.

We'll get you the material and enough time for you to see it.

We're still developing it, but like, it's, we need you to teach this and they're, they're,

they're doing it, man.

They stepped up, we're, we're offering, um, equipping digital missionaries.

Actually, I don't even know how many courts, uh, courts we're offering.

We're doing two in America's.

Okay.

Um, the third is going to be, uh, uh, Africa.

The fourth is going to be Europe.

The fifth is going to be the middle East and, um, the middle East and India.

I think that's it.

And then there is eventually will be a six.

We'll, we'll launch into Oceania in January of 25.

It's crazy.

Like it's, it's been, it's been beautiful to see these ideas of digital mission work go

globally and to see global people get excited about the potential of reaching, engaging and

discipling people in digital space, you know, all the, all the friction that we see in America.

And, and I just smile because, you know, I know the U S church, I told up my friend today

at breakfast, I was like, yeah, I, I don't have as much credibility here, even in my own

backyard in Miami as I do globally.

Um, there's a, there's a lot more respect for what I'm doing outside of the U S and that's

sad, it's frustrating, but at the end it's rewarding because, you know, I finally found

the audience that's receptive towards this and, uh, man, it's going to be so great when

we get, uh, 70 digital missionaries and empower them and mobilize them in a, in a global space.

So stay tuned for that five things to expect.

Number one, equipping digital missionaries is going to the cohort is going to take the

church digital global.

Now, um, Hey, I'm, I'm interested in more information on equipping digital missionaries.

Check out our website, the church.digital slash EDM.

That's where there's some information on the course overall, as well as in our internet's

beta form, as well as a form you can sign up for the form is these cohorts are closed.

I hate to do that to you.

They are closed.

We are not taking any on anybody else on, um, unless you can write a five figure check.

At what point I may reconsider doing a special invitation for you.

I'm not kidding, but we're not going to bring anybody else in, uh, into, into these cohorts.

Um, but if you fill out the form, we'll get you on the waiting list.

We will be ramping up and doing these in January.

And we're going to, we're going to see this, the, the idea of equipping digital missionaries

flourish moving forward.

So be a part of that.

Check out the church.digital slash E D M E D M is a short for equipping digital missionaries

and not which I always hear in my head.

Anytime I say EDM, to be honest, I hear that in my head all day long, whether or not I'm

talking about equipping digital missionaries or just life.

All right.

All right.

Moving on.

Number one, the church digital is going global.

Number two, uh, the church digital is going accountable, um, as in, in our going into a digital

missionary sending agency, we're also pivoting into a nonprofit model, uh, which puts me,

uh, the founder and currently president of the church digital, uh, in a, in a position

of, of accountability where basically I now have a group of people who I have said have

permission to fire me.

Like I have a board of directors over me and, and, and over the organization.

Um, and to be honest, that has been some of the most, I think the word is cathartic, uh,

that has been so freeing and very welcome from a, from an organizational, from a leadership

standpoint.

Like I have loved the fact that I have a board of directors now and they are excited

about the potential they're on board with what we're doing.

Um, I have a high level of trust with the, who we have now.

And we're even, uh, I've got five, uh, people, uh, men and women that are, that are coming

on board with us.

Uh, and there's another, there's another group that we're going to be onboarding probably within

the next three or four months as well.

Like we want to see the board grow international, grow global, um, towards that.

We've got, it's mostly a U S I say that it's, it's an international crowd, but they're, they're

U S based.

They're mostly here in Miami, uh, with the, the board at this point, but the board holds

me accountable, like, Hey, Jeff, where are we with this?

You said you were going to work on this.

Where, what happened?

What's, and I'm not kidding.

They, uh, contractually in our bylaws, they have the ability to fire me, which means we

got to do stuff.

Like this isn't just a, a, a sit around and talk about it.

This is not waxing, uh, on digital ministry or waxing, even, you know, theological, um, we

are not a, a digital mission advocacy group.

We're a sending agency.

We've got us be sending people out to do digital missions.

Well, how are we equipping?

How are we sending?

How are we connecting?

What's the community look like?

Our funnel's got to be operating at all, all four levels for us to be effective.

And, um, is it, where does it need to improve?

Where does it need to tighten?

But more than that, what I'm finding by having a board is, Hey, Jeff, do you know who this

person is?

You should really connect with them.

They'd be a great relationship for you to have.

Hey, Jeff, have you met this person?

Uh, this is a potential donor who, you know, I've been talking with them and they love the

idea about what you're doing.

Um, like the, the positive payoff has far outweighed the negative payoff, the negative

connotation surrounding having a board.

I, it's funny.

I was actually very negative towards the idea of a board.

I'll be honest.

Like, I just, I, I say, I don't want, I don't want the board telling me what to do.

And it's still early, but at this point, the board's not telling me what to do.

The board is giving me, um, they're holding me accountable to what I want to do.

It's, it's almost like, Hey Jeff, well, how do you see things going?

Okay, let's do that.

How can we help?

Um, and then is it working or is it not working and what do we need to do to fix it?

Um, you know, it's funny.

There was the first time I ever launched, this is going to be a weird story.

Sorry.

The first time I launched a multi-site campus, this is this way back.

This is like, Oh six.

And, uh, we were launching it in Homestead, Florida off of Christ fellowship, Miami, very early in the multi-site process.

And it was a, it was a setup and tear down.

Okay.

And, um, it was, it was, it was, uh, a school, um, Cafetorium.

Like it was basically, we converted a school cafeteria.

So it was, it was like taken, you know, we had this 1100 person worship center in, in Palmetto Bay, Florida, beautiful facility, IMAG screens, like, you know, state of the class, state of the art technology in 20, 2006.

So people were used to go in the church in that building, plush seats.

And instead we take them down to, uh, you know, piece of garbage school Cafetorium where elementary kids eat food, um, with horrible acoustics and a 10 foot roof and 150 foot long, 30 foot wide.

Like it was a nightmare to engage in.

And that's the worship environment.

And, and there were people that loved it because it was missional and creating something new.

And then there are people that hated it because they were consuming it and they were looking at not as a mission opportunity, but consuming.

And, uh, the product that they were consuming in, in the homestead campus was not as good because the facility wasn't as good.

And I just, I remember I would get people chewing my ear off, um, you know, from a consumerist perspective.

Well, it's better here.

Why, what, how can we make this better?

How can we do this?

How can we do this?

And, um, you know, this is the problem.

And it was funny.

I, I, I, I, I, I said at the time as one person was, was chewing my ear off in particular at the setup and tear down, uh, I was loading the trailer.

Literally, I, I, I, I had to drive in a trailer every day, every Sunday worth of hundreds of thousands, tens of thousands dollars worth of gear and just put it into a trailer and drive it back and forth an hour between campuses.

And, and, uh, uh, anyway, at the end of it, I was, as I was doing this, I looked at this person and was like, Hey, if you really want to complain and have it mean anything to me, complain while loading the trailer.

And, um, it was funny, the person did not, they were actually offended and I actually got yelled at by, uh, by a pastor by, for, um, offending the person and not, uh, you know, accusing them.

Um, but the, the reality was rude or not, um, complaints mean a lot more when you got, you know, some shoulder grease involved in it, when you got dirt underneath your fingernails.

And, um, I am looking forward to having a board, to having people, um, that are gonna get dirt under the fingernails.

Leadership means more from people that have dirt underneath their fingernails.

And so I would challenge a lot of you as you're looking at 25, who can you involve in those conversations?

Who, how, and who can you invite to get dirt under their fingernails?

Dirt's weird with digital ministry, but you know what I'm saying, who can you involve in this process, um, that can make your ideas better?

Like I, I, so often when I, I talk with digital missionaries and digital planters.

Like that's the thing I I've, I've, I've said this dozens of times, hundreds of times, probably.

Um, if you can't, if you can't get someone, you know, to come with you on this journey, then how are you going to ever convince a stranger to join you in that journey?

Like the people, you know, are going to be far more loyal to you, um, build on that, uh, and, and listen to them as they're figuring out because they, they have a unique perspective.

Accountability company, uh, is, is a great thing to look forward to.

And, and we're going to be getting into this in, uh, in, in 25, number three, partnerships and projects.

Five things to church digital, uh, five things to expect from the church digital in 25 partnerships and projects.

Um, let's call that number three, maybe that's three, a, and, and three B, uh, oh my gosh.

And this is some of the stuff even building up with Luzon and after Luzon, um, so many conversations, um, involving, uh, global organizations.

At this point, um, some of the people that we have coming into this equipping digital missionaries cohort, uh, at a global level is very exciting.

You know, we're kind of like the new kid on the block a little bit where it's the first time in that space.

And so a lot of these areas, everybody knows everybody and Ooh, what's this guy working on?

What, what are, what are they offering and how does it fit in?

And so we've got some, some key partnerships that are under, uh, development, let's say at this point.

And so we're going to be really excited, uh, when some of this stuff comes out.

And I can't, I probably can't leak anything here.

I really want to, I really, really want to, but this, a lot of the partnerships is maybe a little too soon.

Um, now some of the projects we're working on, uh, we're working on, on a research project with Luzon talking about the effectiveness of digital community for discipleship, evangelism and discipleship.

And that's, um, that's beautiful.

We're talking with, um, uh, man, if you guys have not met a Nash yet, and Nash hangs out with us in, um, YouTube and discord, I believe.

I see him more in YouTube and, uh, I'm sorry, discord and, uh, WhatsApp, but I see him more in WhatsApp.

Uh, but he's been coming on and helping us do some research work.

Um, and he's actually, he's going to be helping us get started in India as well.

Uh, working alongside some of the team in India.

Um, that's just one of the projects we're working on and partnering with some of the global organizations, uh, to create best practices, uh, and not only best practices, but, uh, stats and stories, uh, quantitative and qualitative research for how, uh, community is effective for, uh, discipleship and, uh, evangelism in digital space.

And the beauty is that wasn't my idea.

Like this was, uh, a group, uh, from Lausanne that sat around that was on one, two, three, four, four continents.

I think maybe five, uh, five continents.

Sure.

We can count that guy five continents.

Uh, and they come up with the idea of, of, of this.

And, um, oh, it's so exciting.

Some of the stuff that that's happening there.

There's some other projects where we're talking to different organizations about coming on board.

And I'm going to get into one of the projects here in a little bit, not quite time yet, but, um,

when I look at, at 05, 25, I see opportunities, man.

25 is, um, COVID is over asterisk.

It's still a thing, but in America, we're trying to go back to the way that it was.

What's interesting is there's hundreds of countries around the world that aren't going back to the way that it was.

They're recognizing, Hey, there's some shifts.

Things are different here.

And how we were operating pre COVID is different.

Um, and they're, they're adapting to a different strategy.

And with the church digital, I've always said, we need to go with the goers.

I was just talking about this with Craig Whitney and the podcast a couple, a couple of weeks ago.

We want to go with the goers.

We want to, we want to do it doers.

Um, this is not sit around and wait.

This is, uh, be active, um, and going.

And, you know, if the, if the U S church wants to, to go to the buildings, okay.

Um, there's still things they need to learn, but the church digital aspect, we will be focused

through the church digital on helping the church did on helping digital missionaries be effective.

And if there's some U S based digital church missionaries, awesome.

We're going to go with them and help them.

Some of them, you're all watching this dream right now.

Um, however, if there's some that are outside of that, that, that are global, that, that want

to be encouraged.

It's beautiful.

I've talked about this.

There there's actually the U S based missionary that we have been working with and the international

based missionary that we're discovering.

There's two different personas, forgive me if I've said this before, I don't think I've

said this on the stream, the, um, United States, the United States persona, the people we've

met were the people that understood digital ministry.

They had some awareness of technology.

It was more of like a digital marketer or a gamer, somebody that knew how the process

worked, but did not, and wanted to do things with that knowledge for Christ.

But when they would talk with their U S church or their U S pastor, they were, they did not

give permission to the idea.

Like they would not, uh, embrace the idea, therefore frustrating the, the digital, the U S

digital missionary.

I mean, I've had hundreds of those conversations.

Um, that's the persona.

And, and, and a lot of those people are in our discord.

So what we do for years, it was validation.

Hey, your idea is not bad.

That's it.

That's a great idea.

Yeah.

I mean, so some of their concerns can be answered here.

You're doing that.

Just be a, uh, you know, recognize that.

And Hey, you know what?

You probably should talk to so-and-so they're doing something similar to you.

Maybe you two could work together.

Would you like me?

Oh, you want me to introduce?

Okay.

Yeah.

Let's let me introduce you to them.

That was the U S persona.

Globally.

The persona is not a digital person that wants to do missions work globally.

It's missionaries that want to do digital people that already have a calling to be a missionary,

but are now understanding.

If I can adopt and understand how to utilize digital, I can extend my reach.

I can connect with that village that's in their rural area where they have cell phones.

I can go beyond the physical reach of my car or my bicycle.

I can, I can multiply the ideas beyond what I, as a person of capable of doing, like it's

not use my giftings for Christ.

It's I've been called to do this.

I need to learn new skillset.

And it's really interesting to see how those personas kind of combats, not the right word,

but how we can consistently message to both of those personas, how we have, um, the one

that's a digital savvy and one that's a mission savvy personnel.

And I haven't just talking to us and global mindset, like there's, there's a lot of bifurcated

different categories when you look at those two next to each other.

And so that's what, as some of the opportunities that we've got with the church digital, trying

to reach a bifurcated mindset.

So number three, a lot of our partnerships and projects we've got coming up, stay tuned

on that.

It's a big deal.

Um, as we, we continue to take these ideas global number four.

Five things to expect from the church digital in 2025.

Number four, let's go ahead and do two things here.

Expect a lot of YouTube and expect, expect a lot of WhatsApp.

Um, I, I, I've said this before we talk about YouTube.

Let's talk about WhatsApp first.

I said this before, um, WhatsApp will be the platform of choice for the church digital.

Um, I, I, I believe that, um, wholeheartedly.

I love discord and, and I wish discord was more viable internationally.

Uh, unfortunately it's not, um, discord is a very, um, bandwidth heavy platform.

Um, and a lot of our international friends really struggle to engage with, um, with discord.

Oh my gosh.

From a, from a, from a, just from a strictly like operational standpoint, I wish that was

not the case.

I, from, from a, from a feature standpoint, the ability to stream into a, into a discord

room or, uh, to be able to like the, this discord stage or to do, uh, uh, uh, an online call

with a dozen people in, in a discord room with the tic-tac-toe grid, uh, grid Brady bunch

per grid.

The discord platform is so powerful.

It is so rich.

It is so everything that I would ever want in an asynchronous platform.

It is perfect.

Except for the fact that it's a bandwidth hog.

And somebody that's running 4G in a, in a, you know, third world country struggles to engage

in that, in that platform.

And we can't ignore the person that's trying to engage in the third world country.

And so I can either have the, uh, feature heavy platform that doesn't work internationally,

or we can choose the platform that already has 2 billion with a B, 2 billion people internationally

active using it.

Literally 25% of the world's population has this already installed on their cell phones,

WhatsApp.

Um, guys, we didn't think long about that.

WhatsApp is, is the platform of choice.

And so all of our leadership conversations are already happening on WhatsApp.

We've got subgroups that are running entirely on, on WhatsApp.

And so we're going to continue to build out WhatsApp.

We'll continue to build out discord and discord right now.

I mean, we're close to 500.

Like I would love to get to discord 500 by the end of the, by the end of the year.

And, and I think that's, that's reasonable.

So discord's at 500.

WhatsApp, I want to say it's probably a hundred, 150, maybe I haven't looked at that number

recently, but there's, there's viability, um, in discord.

That's not going away.

I, you know, and, and as far as we're concerned, I'm concerned.

Like, I, I think we run both those, those communities simultaneously.

I'm, I, we're not, we're not, we're not sunsetting discord far from it.

Like let's, let's let it thrive on, on what it is.

Um, but when you look at the U S potential and the global potential and the success that

we're seeing globally and the hunger that we're seeing globally, WhatsApp is going to, um,

thrive for us in, in, in a big way.

I literally, I, I joke about it's, it's gun power on a flame, man.

That's going to explode in any, any minute now.

And so, uh, gasoline on a flame, maybe a little, well, that's pretty violent too, actually.

But that's, that's the heart of this thing, man, is, is that asynchronous is going to, and

that's exactly what you want.

Asynchronous solves that mid funnel problem where you're connecting with a lot of people,

but in order to get them in a, in a community, uh, in order to, to really get to the bottom

of the funnel, you need to utilize community to get them down.

And so for us, WhatsApp was the perfect mid funnel solution to get missionaries to our

equipping digital missionary course.

Like when we're all done with this, I'll share some of the stats and numbers of, of where we

are.

Um, but it was, it was ridiculous how well WhatsApp performed for us and helping us

get people plugged into the equipping digital missionary course that we're offering right

around the corner.

So WhatsApp, 2 billion people globally.

That's one of our things to expect in 25.

The other thing that I said for number four was, was YouTube.

And if there's a dark horse in this game for us, it's YouTube.

Now, first off YouTube, you know, second largest search engine on the planet.

Um, YouTube, you know, shorts YouTube.

Um, we want to, we want to hack.

We want to own, we want to take over the church digital wants to take over YouTube.

By the way, if you're not following us, please, the church dot, or no, youtube.com slash the

church digital subscribe.

Be nice.

We've got almost a thousand subscribers at this point.

Barbara told me the other day, it was her goal to get to a thousand subscribers.

By the end of the year, she's developed a pretty rich strategy, uh, for how to do that.

And excited to see that come to fruition.

Um, YouTube's where we meet the next generation of digital planters where it's already how we're

meeting them now.

Um, people, I mean, I can't tell you how many times I've heard the story where people will,

uh, go to their pastor, ask for permission to do something.

The pastor says, no, they go on Google to try to find somebody else that's doing it.

And then they find some YouTube video of me talking about something about it.

And then all of a sudden they're in our community, they're in our discord, they're in our WhatsApp,

they're talking face to face, they're watching a stream.

And next thing you know, they're in an EDM course, the equipping digital missionary course.

Literally that's one, two, three, four of the people that are in EDM.

That's their story.

Uh, it's close to 10%, 6%.

Um, and so there's some vibe that I'm sure many more have been affected by YouTube as well,

but YouTube is, is the, is the way for us to, to connect in, in the future.

YouTube right now, the algorithms are favoring YouTube.

The search engines are favoring right now where it's interesting digital missionary.

Um, if you Google digital missionary, we, the church digital, we should be ranking number

two organically, all organically, uh, right now you'll see, I believe a blog that I wrote

on what is a digital missionary.

Uh, I believe that's ranking second.

And then on, uh, on some of our YouTube videos, I think we're ranking two and three and sir,

one and two, um, and so like, it's the, the algorithms are really favoring YouTube content

for whatever the reason.

So, um, we're gonna, we're gonna own YouTube, but the dark horse, the thing that I was talking

with Andy about today, the thing that I cannot wait for, and, and, and I think it's coming

in February, YouTube's coming out with a asynchronous community.

If you Google, uh, YouTube, a new community, they announced it back in, uh, September, actually

when we were in Lausanne, uh, maybe early October when the actual announcement came out,

but they've YouTube's got a blood fish, a blog where they talk about it.

They are coming out with an asynchronous community.

In my opinion, I think YouTube's going after Twitch and discord.

YouTube already is getting more, um, views obviously than Twitch.

Um, you know, Twitch is another, uh, technologically heavy bandwidth, heavy platform.

A lot of our international users really can't use Twitch.

Um, like there's one situation of a guy I know in the middle East that was trying to

watch this stream, not this stream, but a stream like this on Twitch wasn't working.

And so he clicked over and actually started watching it on YouTube and then everything

was, was fine.

And so like from a bandwidth perspective, YouTube, uh, is much lighter than that.

And so the reach of, of what it's doing, but YouTube has always been community light.

Yes.

There's some community features.

Yes.

It's kind of behind a, um, um, you know, it's, you gotta get to a certain level to get

there, but in the grand scheme of things, it's not real community.

It's like, it's Facebook 1.0 is more community than what, what YouTube is.

It's YouTube's much more about content than community.

And they've come out and said that, and they've started giving some details that YouTube's

coming out with asynchronous community.

And when YouTube's asynchronous community comes out, if it's any good, if I were a digital

church and I had one platform that could be my content and my community, unless I was doing

specifically for gamers, I would choose YouTube or discord.

If it was apples to apples comparison, if it was, um, I don't know what a lesser apples to

the tomatoes, like it's, if it was at least in the ballpark, oh my gosh, the, the, the,

the solidity of, of YouTube and what it means for other platforms through algorithms.

Yeah, I would move that way.

And so be what, be on the watch out for YouTube, a lot of you that are doing ministry in this

space, um, there's opportunities to capitalize on what YouTube is doing and the, and the little

bit that you're investing now is going to pay off dividends down the road as this, as this

expands out.

Like it was funny.

I actually, I say this, I'm not going to tell you the number, but I own, I own Apple stock.

When I was, um, I'm trying to put a number on this 22.

Um, I graduated 21 when I was 21 years old in the year, what would I have been?

Uh, 99 in the year, 1999, pre, pre Y2K.

I bought, uh, 10 shares of Apple stock.

Now let's, let me, let me date what that meant.

Apple stock, 1999, Steve jobs is not CEO of Apple.

He had been excommunicated.

He was not, he was trying to do whatever he was doing with a corporation called next.

Next he was running, uh, a small little startup nobody had heard of at the time called Pixar.

He was, uh, doing a bunch of other stuff.

Pixar actually spun off of, uh, Lucas, um, Lucas's deal.

Um, then Steve jobs bought it from George Lucas.

You could really get into this.

The Pixar story is crazy, but, um, Steve jobs was not around.

The best technology, this is way before iPhone.

This is way before iPad.

This is before Apple watch.

This is like, um, I max were, were the, like the triangle that would sit with the CRT monitors.

Um, these were, uh, well, man, those are crazy, man.

Don't, don't sell on Apple.

Um, uh, Phantom just put in that Berkshire Hathaway is selling, uh, seeking a lot of, uh, selling a lot of their Apple holdings.

No, don't sell an Apple.

Apple's got legs and they got, they got what nobody else has is cash right now.

Everybody's broke except for Apple.

Um, but dude, they were selling like Bondi blue.

I max and they just expanded into indigo blue and candy apple red.

And like that was, and it was apple shares were at like $8, $10.

And, you know, I just, I was out of college.

I didn't have much money.

My mom's like, oh, here's whatever, like buy some stock just almost as an experiment.

And so I did, I bought, I bought a bunch of Apple and then like a year later, Apple came out with the iPod, which was a revolutionary idea.

And then I can't even tell you how many splits, how many, whatever, but I looked up the other day, how much, uh, how much stock I have in Apple right now.

I'm not, I'm not retiring off of Apple yet.

I've, I've, I've, I've nowhere in the realities.

I'm, I'm nowhere near that at this point, but dang, I wish I invested more than like a hundred dollars in the Apple at the time.

It was funny.

I bet I bought like 10 stocks and to be honest, I bought, I bought Intel.

Um, I bought, um, I bought some other tech companies.

It was, um, by far Apple was the best investment.

Some others I did not, did not perform as well as my Apple friends did.

But that's, that's the, I have no idea why I was telling that story.

Uh, I went to Macworld in San Francisco in the year 2000 and got my charcoal iMac, a DV 15 gigs a few months later.

Yeah.

Tall, skinny Kiwi.

Anytime I tell an old grandpa story, tall, skinny Kiwi has to, has to up me.

White beard would have to up me as well if he were around.

So it's funny.

Like the two of them just, it's, I feel like I was in a, I was in a call the other day.

Tall, skinny Kiwi.

Is that a call the other day with you and white beard?

Um, that was the two of you guys were in the room together.

I want to say, right?

Oh my gosh.

That was like, I, if I could be in a room with two of those guys, um, I would just be a fly on the wall.

Just listen to their stories.

Um, there'd be a lot of fun.

Don't sleep on YouTube.

Um, and if you all are not considering WhatsApp, you should be considering WhatsApp moving forward.

Uh, for some of the opportunities, especially in global space.

All right.

Hey, Melanie.

We're picking up.

All right.

Five things to expect in 25.

Number one, church digital is going global.

Number two, um, Hey, we're getting some accountability, um, towards that, bringing on a board, involving more and more people to hold us accountable.

And, and, and really the best way to hold us accountable is to, to get some dirt under your fingernails and, uh, and, and join us in our, in our work.

Um, look, um, look and see where God is moving and join us, um, um, in his work, Henry Blackaby.

Number three, we've got a huge number of partnerships and projects we're negotiating through now.

Stay tuned.

Number four, uh, YouTube and WhatsApp.

Um, there's going to be a lot more YouTube and there's going to be a lot more WhatsApp coming soon.

Coming soon to the church digital as, as we move these ideas globally.

And number five for the church digital, um, this is the one, this is the one that I'm like, I, I, this is the big one.

And so, um, I have, I have like, um, little birdie angels and demons on me right now.

The, uh, the, the birdie, the, the angel is, uh, is white beard.

Don't say it, Jeff.

Don't say it.

Barbara is the other birdie next to white beard.

Don't say it, Jeff.

Don't say it.

And the other one is me saying, Oh, say it, Jeff, say it, say it.

Like I, I, I'm my worst enemy on, on this stuff.

The reality is flat cap with the sticker.

It's beautiful.

Hey, look, the reality is, is that, well, I've, I've said this before, you know, Barbara comes on the church digital and, uh, and, you know, when we started the church digital, it was, um, I was trying to be everything for everyone.

And the only way to make everyone happy is to sell ice cream, which is ironic.

Um, there's some stories centered around that, but that's, that's what my, uh, executive pastor and friend used to always tell me.

If you want to make everyone happy, Jeff sell ice cream.

And so, um, um, we found, um, Barbara helped us focus down to this digital missionary rate.

And, and, and as we, and as we focus down the digital missionary, well, our open rates on like our, is an example, our open rates on our email skyrocketed.

Like we've been much more successful with engagement now that we've, we fine tuned down the digital missionary at the same time, a complimentary statistic, our unsubscription rates have gone through the roof.

So like we are, uh, we're a lower, um, we're a higher open rate and a higher, we're not interested in any more rate as well simultaneously.

Because we really had two different audiences that we were reaching at the same time, the church digital pre-barber 23, we had digital missionaries and digital planters and we had physical church doing digital ministry.

Uh, and 24 has been really about aiming and creating that digital missionary framework, connect community equipping and mobilization and helping get that aimed at the, the digital missionaries through the church digital.

And it's been very effective.

Like I am not complaining here.

Like, ooh, the year 24 has been really good, uh, towards, uh, connecting with people, getting them invited into community, building relationships, establishing trust, um, even to the point of equipping them to be a digital missionary now through EDM and, and what we'll soon find is mobilization.

We'll get more mobilization next year.

But the, um, like the, the framework is, is in process for our digital missionary friends.

And so we, the church digital, we're in beta with it, but you know, we can see how the sausage is made and, and like, we're going to run that playbook for, uh, our digital missionaries.

But we've got this whole other sector, this whole other audience group, this whole other section of people with the church digital that are, that are hungry, that are looking for something.

Um, and, and, and, and it's these, these physical church ministry people that are doing digital ministry.

It's the digital pastors and that are, that are doing ministry in a physical space who are the lead pastor doesn't understand what they do, where, um, you know, budget is limited.

And, and, and, and, uh, uh, uh, vision fluctuates because there's not a clear priority in what they're, what they're doing.

Like there's still an opportunity to do it, to help a physical church understand how to utilize digital well.

But it's not through the church digital because the church digital needs to stay focused on digital missionary work.

You can't make everybody happy, but we've got digital missionaries has its focus, but there's this opportunity and welcome to the quandary of me for the past six months.

Um, because it's like, uh, we're having success with one arm, but I'm alienating a completely other are a completely other group here.

So what do we do?

What do we do?

What do we do?

Okay.

So we did something.

And I'm not going to tell you what it is.

You're going to have to wait.

Now I may come back.

We may do some streams.

We may make some announcements during the Christmas break.

Um, you may see me early January and say, Hey, everything changed.

But no, I really do.

We've, we've, we've got a, a solid plan in place.

Here's the deal.

What I would tell you, you know, I talk a lot about the, the, the digital framework.

The people we connect with physically or digitally, we want to invite them into a digital community.

And within that digital community, we have build relationships.

We establish trust.

Evangelism works best even in, in community.

But through that community, we start to equip them through discipleship and, but ultimately equip them to the goal of accomplishing something.

And whether that's for the, the, um, the, for our digital mission, I work, that's it's mobilizing and mobilizing, sending people out on, on the journey for a physical church.

Now that, you know, bottom funnel may look different.

It may be like how to, um, how to incorporate or how to integrate in digital into their, their strategy better.

But the framework of connecting to community, to equipping, to whatever, like that is a very solid framework.

And if you can clone that, if you can copy and paste that, it's almost like, oh man, I can almost run a completely separate version of the same playbook, but aimed at a, at a different audience and have the same successes by running an established, proven, successful framework, just in a different context.

It's the goal of, is it better to be a million person church or a hundred thousand churches of 10?

I would always say a hundred thousand churches of 10, because you can get an established framework, copy and paste it, that can give you a different context.

And so I would almost invite you to even look at your own ministry and how you are, um, connecting, how you're, uh, how you're connecting, how, what, what a community looks like, how using that community for a purpose of equipping or discipleship or, and then through those, through the relationships that are developed through the equipping, what's, what's the end game at the bottom of the funnel?

How are we using the community for it to solve the mid funnel problem to get to whatever the bottom is?

We're going to have some fun in 25.

Whether you're a digital missionary, whether you're a physical church doing digital missionary, uh, physical church doing digital ministry, uh, 25 is going to be a great kingdom year.

Um, that being said, Jesus has come, we're going to come back, uh, you know, in the next 48 hours to save America from the election.

No, I'm kidding.

Not really though.

Um, you know, it's funny.

We were even talking about, uh, it's just a, this is a, this is the post credit scene in the church digital.

We were, we were, we were talking about, um, you know, we, we've actually worked very hard to not be political in this, in this U S season, uh, of, of, of that.

And, and, and, um, and guys, in the grand scheme of things, I am not a politically minded person.

Like, I, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't put much stock in that.

Um, but I do know in Romans that, uh, all leadership was installed by God.

So either that was a contextualized comment at the time and is not relevant to where we are today or the electoral college process in the United States operates outside of the purview of God or God's in control.

And whatever is going to happen will happen.

I tell you what, I know how, I know how I would want to look at that situation as a Christian.

Anyway, be praying for your country, even if you're overseas, we'll be praying.

I say that that was negative.

That was bad.

I'm sorry to mean it that way, but regardless America or not, like be praying for your country.

Um, I, I've, I've told this story.

My daughter came up to me several, my daughter is 16.

Now, I don't think she would remember the story, but she came up to me when she was, um, she was probably eight.

Like it's been, it's been a minute since this story.

We were living in Austin at the time.

And she says to me, now you got to realize my daughter's sophomore in college.

She's taking college, she's taking college level, sophomore in high school.

My daughter is a sophomore in high school.

Um, she's valid, she will be valedictorian of her school as long as she doesn't like to do something stupid or crash.

Um, but she's incredibly smart and gifted.

Um, and, and, and, and, and so she looked at me, you know, perplexed, like, you know, an eight-year-old girl would let her father.

And she says, daddy, when I grew up, I want to be the president of the United States.

And I did a very un-daddy like thing.

I laughed in her face and said, oh God, I hope not.

That was my knee jerk reaction.

Um, and, and, and so she looked at me, you know, perplexed, like, you know, an eight-year-old girl would let her father who just laughed at her.

And, and, and I was like, well, sweetie, um, that's a really hard job.

Um, and, and, and I think you can do it, but there's so much stress and there's no way to succeed at that job anymore.

Um, our leaders need to be prayed for, regardless of who's in what seat or who's in what power,

or who has what ahead of them or behind them or what amendment was voted on or who's in what chair.

Um, you know, what, who was it?

It was Elijah and the Kings, the prophet who's like, you don't need a prophet.

You need God, but you want to, you, you don't need a King.

You need a, you need to, you need God.

But since you don't want to listen to God, fine, here's your King, Saul.

Um, all right.

You want a King?

Take your pick.

Get out there and vote and pray for whoever God installs as president or whatever your position is globally.

Samuel.

I'm hearing it.

Samuel.

Who did I, who did I say?

I think I said Samuel.

Yeah.

I'll pretend I am not.

I'm not the old Testament scholar, but a lot of my, um, disdain is too strong of a word.

I said, Elijah, I'm sorry.

You're right.

Um, a lot of my disdain for politics is centered around that is, um, I just, we deserve a God.

We don't deserve a King.

And, and so much of our world is now wrapped up in our Kings.

We should be more focused on our God.

And on that note, I think we are going to wrap up episode 320 of the church digital podcast.

And therefore all podcasts for 2024.

You're keeping score at home five tips, five things to expect from the church digital in 2025.

Hey baby, we go on global.

Hey, we are getting accountability.

And with that accountability, somebody is going to one day fire me, which is awesome.

I cannot wait for that day.

But ultimately, if you want to, if you want to be, be accountable, pick up and get some dirt under your nails and help me load the trailer.

Um, there's a lot of partnerships and there's a lot of projects we've got coming up through the church digital that are very exciting.

At a global scale, YouTube and WhatsApp, if you're buying stock at home, invest in those two.

Yes.

Okay.

As long as meta Facebook does not screw up WhatsApp, it's going to take over the world.

Hopefully it don't do anything stupid.

And number five physical church is doing hybrid.

Stay tuned.

More coming very soon.

And with that, we're going to land the plane.

I have been Jeff with the church digital.

Enjoy 2024.

If you're American, eat some turkey around the world.

Celebrate Christmas.

Uh, love on some family and, uh, stay tuned.

I'll be doing some more streams.

I'll be hanging out in the communities and open offices like normal, but the podcast, we're done for the year and look for, uh, a coming back in 2025.

For everybody in the room, tall, skinny kiwi, whoever else has been hanging out with us, flat cap, ukulele, starlet, uh, phantom, just scrolling through the list here real quick.

I think that was it.

Lewinson was here for a while.

Thanks for being a part of this for everybody else.

Thanks for being a part of 24 with us.

We'll see you in 25.

Y'all have a good one.

Bye.