EP318 - Dr John Harris on Doing Ministry Outside the Church’s Four Walls

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, everybody. Welcome to the stream here.

We are streaming live on Twitch and the Church Digital.

Hey, Jeff here.

Hope you're having a good day.

I'm looking forward to this conversation.

We've got Dr. John coming into the conversation in just here a little bit.

We're streaming a little late.

I apologize for that.

Honestly, Dr. John and I started having a conversation off air, lost track of time.

Honestly, I love getting to hang out with this guy.

I learn so much from him.

He challenges me on a regular basis to think outside of the box, to stretch norms.

And he's always, always, always bringing different ideas to the table.

And so I'm excited about this.

And so, hey, listen, I'm trying to think, hey, you know what?

I'm going to do this.

I was not going to do this.

I didn't tell leadership I was going to do this.

But I'm going to do this.

Because you guys, if you're watching the streams and if you're a podcast, you're the inner crowd.

And so I'm going to let you in here on a little secret here at the beginning of the podcast before we get into this with Dr. John.

The Church Digital, we're beta something right now.

And we're not even talking about this publicly.

This is a very, very quiet beta.

But since you're the podcast audience and since you're the streamer's audience, we're going to let you get the inside scoop at this moment.

I'll probably get in trouble for this.

Barbara will yell at me.

But it'll be okay.

Look, here's the deal.

We at the Church Digital, we are testing a new Equipping Digital Missionaries, an online cohort that we are actually implementing globally at three or four different locations across the planet.

It's going to start November 10th.

It's a 12-week course designed to help equip, to start, to give normal people like you training on how to be a digital missionary.

And we talked about this a lot at Lausanne.

And, oh, my gosh, there was so much excitement centered around this as we were talking with missionaries about this.

And even in the digital space here in America, trying to give some clarity that some of us innovators, some innovators like you that are doing something different.

And so, hey, I'm just going to say this.

We're not going to talk about this a lot, but I'm going to tell you this one time.

If you're interested in this Equipping Digital Missionaries course, it's completely free.

It is beta, so we're looking for feedback.

And it's going to start the week of November 10th.

For more information, go ahead and swing over to the church.digital slash EDM, Equipping Digital Missionaries.

It's Dr. – no, I'm sorry, JMO.

JMO, Jason Morris, Create Designed course.

A bunch of us have been curating it and putting it together, and it's going to be a lot of fun.

So thechurch.digital slash EDM for more information on that Equipping Digital Missionary course.

And so, hey, let's go ahead and bring into the conversation Dr. John.

Hey, everyone.

How are you doing, sir?

I'm good.

How are you?

Doing great.

Thanks for jumping on the stream here.

Looking forward to the conversation at hand.

Now, if you're a regular here with the Church Digital, you know Dr. John.

Dr. John's no stranger.

We've got a lot of new people as a result of Lausanne and a lot more international audience.

And so, you know, one thing, Dr. John, we'll talk about the book, I'm sure, Equipping – no, Sharing Jesus Online.

But maybe, Dr. John, to kick us off, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Okay.

Well, I grew up in a home with my dad as a pastor and my mom, a strong Christian woman.

So I had a really good home – a Christian foundation at home and then end up as a career being in ministry myself as a chaplain in the Air Force.

And so I served there for nine years, including a tour in Iraq and Afghanistan as a hospital chaplain, working with our wounded troops from our country and from other countries.

And then after nine years there, I left the Air Force and worked at a church here in Northern California for about nine years as an executive pastor, Christian ed, small groups, outreach, all that kind of stuff.

And then stepped down from that to do church consulting full-time, while at the same time looking at some of these trends of people leaving the church by the millions.

And so when COVID happened in 2020 and a lot of churches were shifting to being online, and I had already stepped down from my position on staff at a church.

And I moved to New City.

So I wasn't really connected with a local congregation at the time, except a client.

I did have a church consulting client.

And so my wife and I started Hearts Like His in 2021.

And there was a Facebook group and mainly just focusing on teaching about the Father's heart, the Father heart of God,

and then kind of like discipling people in that regard.

Jeff, am I like breaking up on your end?

Yeah, either you are or I am.

Maybe that's me.

Let me move something on my side.

And let me test.

I'll hold something off on your side, too.

All right.

Let's see if that helps.

Keep going, sir, if you can.

Okay.

Okay.

All right.

So when we started that, kind of riding the wave of everyone being online, so we didn't have to try to legitimate an online ministry because everyone was trying to be online.

But we were online only.

You know, started online through Facebook and through Zoom and really developed quite an interest.

So we had about 500 people join our group.

And so that's been kind of my intro into online church.

And you're really inspired by people like Angela Craig.

You know, back in the day, Angela was pioneering digital church and especially with Facebook.

And so I got some inspiration from that and launched into it.

And so then connected with you, Jeff, through I don't even know what year that was, but, yeah, we connected and, you know, really trying to get into the weeds of what does this really look like?

Because, honestly, even though I was doing digital church and I didn't call it that and we had our conversations about that, I still had some traditional church mentality.

And so I was learning that that doesn't always translate well into the digital space.

So I was learning a whole lot about the context of digital ministry and the culture of digital ministry and really exposing what I thought as far as traditional church that was not working and discovering what was working better to develop digital communities and build relationships online and things like that.

And so, yeah, hearts like his for a few years.

And then we shifted more intentionally to purpose beyond the pews.

I was trying to recapture and connect with those who left the church.

So our tagline is equipping former church leaders to live out their faith in everyday lives.

So, yeah, that's where we're at.

Purpose beyond the pews is really what I wanted to focus on, and I'm glad you brought that up, because I'll be honest, like, I don't really know a lot about what you're doing.

Like, we haven't had a conversation about that necessarily.

Like, we always talk hearts like his, and there's always a part of that.

But, you know, maybe it just even is here we're getting started.

Talk to me a little bit about what you're doing with purpose beyond the pews.

Yeah.

So a big part of that is based on this, this, the premise from a couple of research ideas that talk about how many people have left the church.

Right.

So Josh Packer's book published in 2015, Church Refugees, talked about 65 million people have left the church, 30 million left Christianity altogether, 35 million kept their faith, but just left the traditional model of church for a variety of reasons.

Right.

And it's not just, oh, they got mad and then they left.

No, there's other things that caused them to leave.

And what got me was, he said, most churches we know, the 80-20 rule, right, 20% of the folks doing 80% of the work.

And he said, these 35 million, a lot of them are coming from that 20%.

So in my mind, I'm thinking, okay, these are people who were invested.

These are people who are on staff.

They're volunteers.

They're tithers, givers, serving, all those kind of things.

And now they're not even doing any of that at all.

Now they're not engaged at all.

They were active and now they're not at all.

Well, what are they doing?

What's happening?

Right.

So part of the goal with Purpose Beyond the Pews is to reach out to those people who are now not in a local context anymore, where those giftings and callings and passions that got put inside of them were being expressed in a local congregation.

I wanted to capture them and say, hey, I get it.

If a traditional model didn't work for you, I get it.

But you're still called.

You're still gifted.

You're still on mission.

And you still need community.

So let's talk about that.

What does it look like for former church leaders to live out their faith in everyday lives?

And so a big part of what I'm doing there is, number one, unraveling some of the traditional idea of what it means to be in a local church and to serve and give and all those kind of things.

It's because so many local churches in the name of self-preservation frame all of serving around serving in a ministry.

So then if you're not in a local church ministry anymore, folks don't even know what to do.

I'm coming alongside them and saying, OK, look, look, that's not your everything that God put inside of you was not made for inside the congregation.

Right.

It's actually made to change the world.

So let's look at your job.

Let's look at your other places where you, you know, live, work and play.

And how how can you be on mission in those particular spaces?

And so that's a big part of what we're doing.

The purpose behind the pews is look and see how can you take what you've learned from being in a local context.

Right.

There's a lot of experiences there of being in ministry.

How does that translate into the marketplace?

So what's interesting, Jeff, is that, you know, a lot of pastors who were, you know, maybe their whole career was ministry, ministry, ministry, ministry.

That's all they know is ministry.

Then some of them are in that thirty five million.

I mean, we've seen some reports and stats now pastors leaving saying, OK, I'm just not feeling this model anymore.

But some sometimes they stay in that model because they don't know what what to do in the marketplace.

They don't know how the skill sets that they develop in ministry translate into the marketplace.

Well, same way with some people in in in the church ministries as volunteers or staff positions.

So I'm helping them see what does that look like in the marketplace?

And how does your actual job, how does that play out in your your role as a missionary?

And so helping them see their.

These other contexts as places for them to honor God, serve God, glorify God, be on mission is one of the things that we're doing in Purpose Beyond the Pews.

And so it started off looking at debunking some common myths about people leaving the church.

Right. Yeah. That's a whole nother thing we talk about.

So I want to debunk those myths about people who are leaving the church because some of them had some stuff in their head because of what they were told to try to keep them to stay.

Right. To try to get them to stay. And they were told some things that were not true.

And so that's that's kind of got them stuck when it comes to living out mission.

So I had to debunk some myths. Then we had to talk about a pest.

How do you fit in a pest? What's your a pest gifting and how does it look in your marketplace marketplace role?

And what does giving look like if you're not connected to a local church?

So anyway, that's a little bit.

No, no. All this is great. I've got ukulele here in Twitch saying, if what God gifted you was meant for outside the congregation, then serving within the church walls is going to feel unfulfilling.

And we do that. We see someone that is gifted. We try to plug them into the church in the building every time.

And that can be unfulfilling.

You know, it was interesting. This is going to be maybe a long story. I apologize.

But it fits in here where I was I was I was working at a church and had a relationship with the just a friendship with the the lead pastor.

And coming back from Christmas break one year, I just happened to get to the office early like I normally would.

And I went walk past the lead pastor's office and the lead pastor literally it's January 2nd or before the office had opened.

And he's just bawling in his office. He's just just crying like emotionally, like ugly crying.

And and so I walked into his office and I'm like, hey, what's going on?

And and basically over the Christmas break, he someone had sent him an email like one of the grandmothers of the church, like one of these, you know, been there 50 years, prayed over every baby type of person.

You know, one of the grandmothers of the church is is was leaving and was leaving the church to go to another church.

And he had sent the email like a week earlier and just hadn't she hadn't seen it.

And the reason that she said she was leaving was that she was no longer being fed.

And at the church and and he just was was emotionally devastated at this idea.

And it was interesting. I started to talk to him and I was like, so what do you it's like when you preach?

Basically, I went to like the Ingalls scale with him.

It's like, hey, so when you preach, that's like what you're like more evangelical.

So you're like pre-Christ to like, you know, maybe just accepting Christ a little after.

Right. So like on a number scale, it'd be like negative one to two.

It's like, yeah, that's fine. It's like, OK.

And so small groups is like two to what, three or four because your small groups are pretty basic.

It's like, yeah, no, no, that's that's good. That's good.

And I was like, so what's this woman?

And and and he's like, oh, she's a she's like a seven or an eight or a nine.

Like she's she's a she's incredible.

And I was like, well, how was your church ever utilizing her at that level?

Or how are you empowering her and helping her to do her ministry where she was doing that?

At what point did you ever try to get her off of spiritual milk and get her on solid food or tell her that at this point she should be eating steak on her own?

Yeah. Like you never where where did that happen in the context of this decades long relationship with this woman?

And he really just realized, oh, my gosh, we've we've not been challenging people beyond to do this.

And it was fascinating. The church actually went through a pivot as a result of this one situation.

Yeah. He wrote a book on this, like all this activity kind of happened in that space.

And it was so much fun to see, you know, a pivot of that.

But I'm I'm guessing there's a lot of people that are walking away from the church in a similar situation where they're they're deconstructing what they're seeing.

That is they have a desire to do more.

But really, there's not a lot of options for people to do or at least organized options for people to do ministry outside of the church building space.

Would that be accurate? Oh, 100 percent.

So here's what's interesting. You said there's not a lot of organized options, right?

And and church folks have been trained to not think, not so much think outside the box, but think outside the building.

It's like they were they were literally neglect opportunities where God plants them.

They're neglect those because it's not a church created ministry opportunity, right?

The church creates the organized ministries and sanctioned, validated, approved ministries.

And a lot of church folk don't think of engaging the one person or the space that they're in.

They only think of church first.

Let me join a church ministry that's created by the professionals, created by the few, for the many.

And that's kind of the thing that to think church first.

And.

Like I think you said, the person's name was ukulele and in Twitch, you know, yeah, when people are created to take over the world, right, with mission and the gospel and love of Christ.

And I mean, just boom, boom, boom, then they are going to feel unsatisfied sitting in the queues.

Uh, and that's not even being discussed, talked about, validated.

So, so let's think about this.

Think about how frustrating it is and how common of a practice it is, but how frustrating it is for church staff.

Many pastors to do volunteer recruitment.

You've got hundreds, or in some cases, thousands of people sitting out every week, listening to the same volunteer needs.

We need more folks in kids ministry.

We need more group.

We need more.

Now, why is it that all those people are sitting out there listening to the, those volunteer needs all the time, all the time, and you always have a deficiency?

You're always struggling to either get volunteers or keep volunteers.

My, my hypothesis is.

They know that doesn't match their purpose.

And no matter how we try to spin it and have a church centric experience of Christianity, you got to love your church, love the house.

You know, you call to serve the house, call to, no, no, no, not really.

And so we think about, uh, some of the language we use to, to put the church first and all this kind of stuff, right?

Um, you do a four week growth track for new members, four week growth track.

And in those four weeks, you're typically going to learn about your church history.

You're going to learn about, uh, the importance of you giving.

The importance of you serving.

And there's going to be some class that says, discover your purpose, right?

Yeah.

Really catchy.

Purpose driven life book.

People purpose, purpose, purpose, right?

Even my, my group purpose beyond the pews are people looking for purpose, but, but in the discover your purpose.

This class, I'm going to go through a gift assessment.

And, um, and then as I go through that gift assessment, you're going to have a list of ministries in your church that you're going to try to match me with.

Now that's not just me to discover my purpose.

That's me discovering my volunteer role.

All right.

Because you, you put, you put church first, right?

No, I haven't, I have yet to meet a church that said, let's discover your giftings.

And we have, and then we have a set of a list of two lists.

We have one for ministries inside the church and one for serving opportunities outside of our church in our local community.

We're going to see which ones best fit you.

No one ever talks about you need to serve in this area, in our city and in our community.

No one ever says that it's always a church, the church, the church.

And so I was on a podcast recently and, um, I was talking with the pastor and he was like, yeah, I think try and get more people to serve, more people to serve, more people to serve.

Because I think Christians need to serve, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, you know, talk about the theology of serving, you know, I'll serve.

I said, let me ask you this question.

Um, uh, I agree with you that every Christian needs to serve, but if, if you have a parent who is serving an hour a day, five hours a week at their kid's middle school, would you count that?

Or would you still want them to serve in your kid's ministry?

Like, would it, would it not matter because you still need violence?

Like your whole thing about serving is volunteers.

Right.

As far as God's concerned, as far as the kingdom is concerned, that person serving at their kid's school in the, in the classroom and, and on the playground and, and with the PTA, like, like God sees that.

You wouldn't see that, but you probably get that person to feel guilty and still, you got to serve, serve in the house.

Right.

Uh, serve in the house and, and we need you here and all this kind of stuff.

Uh, let's see.

Yeah.

You're freezing a bit, but you're still there.

We could still hear you.

Keep going.

Okay.

All right.

And so what I want to want him to see is how he's putting the church or his ideas.

It's not just, we want all believers to serve.

It's no, you want believers to serve in the church first.

And then if you have extra time, then you can serve out in the community that you can serve out in the world.

So with purpose beyond the pews, I'm saying, look, it's easier to do when folks aren't connected to a local church.

Right.

And I would say our community online is church.

So it's not like that's still missing, but I would say, Hey, like for me, for example, I, I, my kid, one of my kids has soccer practice.

Another kid has dance practice, gymnastics.

So every single week for an hour, I'm sitting next to a group of parents every single week for months.

Right.

Um, how, how, how do I connect with them?

Right.

So there are places I think we can have our folks on mission.

Um, if we start, if we put mission first instead of church first.

And so with this group that's already left the church, at least a traditional model of church.

Right.

When I say left church, I mean the traditional model.

They still love Jesus though, still love connect with, with believers, but they don't like some of the bureaucracy in some of the things that they've experienced and other, other things like that.

They just want to be on mission.

So that's kind of where, uh, church beyond, I mean, purpose beyond the pews, uh, comes in at just acknowledging them, validating them and helping them see mission first, but peeling off the layers of church first, church first.

One person said, well, since I'm not connected to local church, um, where do I, where do I give my offering?

I'm thinking about that question.

Since I'm not connected to local church, where do I give my offering?

You don't know where you can give money because you're not in church.

Right.

Again, church focus.

I said, I said, look, think about this.

Right.

Now my kids are homeschooled, but if my, if one of my kids was at this middle school or, or, or, or whatever.

Um, I know through some previous adoptive school ministries with churches that a lot of teachers come out of pocket for kids supplies, right?

A lot of teachers come out of pocket.

So if my, if my kid is in this particular school and I'm thinking, where can I give money?

I'm going to have a conversation with that, with my kid's teacher.

And I say, listen, field trip.

If you got any kids struggling to afford a field trip, you talk to me.

I got them.

I'm adopting your whole classroom all year.

You do not come out of pocket for anything.

No papers, no crayons, no apples on the corner of your desk.

No, nothing.

You have a need.

You can talk to me.

I've adopted this classroom.

Now, when my kid goes to the next class next year, you're on your own, but, uh, because I'm going to do the same thing with that, with my kid's other class.

Like I'm right.

So my point is there are opportunities to give and to serve outside of the church.

And we have to have these like conversations with Christians because all they think about is church, church, church, church, church.

So then when they pop out, they don't know what to do.

They don't know how, how do I see mission?

How do I translate mission?

How do I respond to the needs?

They're so used to thinking the church is supposed to respond to that stuff instead of me owning some kind of responsibility and owning where I'm at, owning a, a, a, a,

a realm or, um, of society that I'm in and saying, no, this is my mission field.

I don't need a pastor.

I don't need the board to approve my ministry idea.

I am the ministry idea.

I am sent by Jesus and, uh, and I'm going to handle business like that.

So you were doing it.

You were doing hearts like his, a digital church, Facebook church.

Um, and then you, you launched this separately.

Um, or in, in, in tandem.

Cause it's almost like it's a one, two punch.

It does feel that way.

Um, where, where did this idea come from?

Were there examples of this coming out of hearts like his, that kind of, that, that fueled the fire?

Like where, what was the spark here?

Yeah.

Um, I had this initially, even with hearts like his.

So when we started hearts like his, we started with, okay, let's do something online to reach the people who have left the church.

Although, like I said, because of COVID, everybody was online.

Um, and so the, a lot of people who were in hearts like his, who are still connected to the church, but they were just, everyone was at home, right?

There's no Bible studies, no Awana.

Everyone's at home.

So they were plugged in.

So then when, um.

Awana.

Oh my gosh.

Yeah.

Awana still around.

There's a throwback.

Wow.

Yeah.

So when church Bible studies were shut down, midweek services shut, all that kind of stuff, a lot more, a lot of people were still in hearts like his, who, um, were, like I said earlier, were trying to disciple hearts in the Father's love.

Right.

And so in theory, I also wanted to target those who left the church, but because everyone was at home, everyone was in hearts like his, but now as hearts, as churches opened back up now, um, the reason for our purpose beyond the pews is now there is a more intentional focus on those who've left the church.

So I'm not so much talking about discipleship in, in the Father's love and the role of the Father in the gospel, like I was initially, because that really matches everybody, whether you left the church or not.

Now the intentionality is the, the same group I had in my mind for all those years.

Now it's more of an intentional focus to say, now this is more of an equipping and equipping a community than, then I would say the, the, the teaching and the discipleship community.

It's more equipping and launching.

Um, so that's been our focus.

Yeah.

You know, it's interesting.

I got pulled into a conversation on LinkedIn, um, maybe yesterday, a couple of days ago, uh, where they were really talking about how, uh, there was, you know, institutions that were, were equipping for ministry within the institutions.

Like, you know, it's all about, about serving within those institutions.

Like you're talking about, Hey, we need kids.

We need production.

We need, uh, first impression volunteers to shake hands and, and, and all that.

But, um, there was this, it was interesting on the graph.

There was this void when it was talking about like in the world and in public where there was not, there was not a lot of, um, organizations or people that were, were serving, um, the broader public was kind of what it was brought was, was phrased as.

And it was, uh, it was so, it was so funny.

It was like a CEO of an, of a, of a corporation that did this post.

And, um, one of the, somebody in the church digital kind of tagged me and was like, oh, well, Jeff Reed's working into that.

And so now the CEO is like, what are you doing?

And so like, I'm, I'm trying to like, okay, let me, let me jump into that conversation.

And I think we've got a meeting scheduled towards that.

But there's, um, there's something, uh, but even like, you know, Red Cross is like, hey, do this, but you know, they need money because they're trying to do their model and they're trying to do their model.

Um, it was really interesting for me when we were in Korea, um, the way that when we would talk with missionaries about like how we want to train their people to do their thing.

And it was all like training the trainer and being open-handed.

Like, hey, we're just equipping you with this and you can adapt it and change it and do whatever you want.

Like it was a very, in hindsight, looking at how emotional they got, it was a very self, and I forgive me, I'm not being egotistical, but it was a very selfless move.

Like, hey, this material is free.

You adapt it into your language.

You contextualize it.

What works for you, you know, take the course and then we're giving it to you.

Um, I, I, I don't know that we see a lot of that, that, that train the trainer approach.

It's everyone is trying to, to feed their, their model or sustain their thing versus volunteering.

Is this like making sense?

What, what is it about?

Is it, is it self-preservation?

Is it, um, what is it that causes us to think more internally instead of being more, more giving?

It's, it's, it's the, the primary characteristic of an institutional model of church.

Every, every institution, um, has self-preservation as a primary core value.

How can we not just sustain, but grow and all that kind of stuff.

So to do that, the church has trained Christians to put their church first, not the mission first.

To put the church first.

So, um, and there's kind of taught this kind of allegiance to the local congregation.

Now we're, we're, we're, we're all many members, one body, the, the, the new Testament talks to us over and over about serving one another, encouraging one another, praying for another, all those kinds of things.

Um, but we've been taught to put all of our resources, especially our time and money into the church first.

And so part of what happens is that this is my personal belief.

Now I haven't done any research or anything like that, no nationwide report, but what happens is when we turn the attention of people inward, as this is where number one, you get your source of everything.

So come to the church to experience the presence of God.

Think about that language, right?

Come here.

You're going to experience presence of God.

Christians aren't really taught.

You can experience the presence of God at home.

You know why?

Because of temptation, they might stay home, but we don't want to say that.

Right.

We're not really taught.

Give to your neighborhood.

Give at your job.

Give.

We're not taught that because we got to give here first, right?

Support the house.

We really are taught this internal focus because our leadership is internally focused.

Our leadership is internally focused because our salaries are connected to what's happening here.

Our mortgages and leases and all the financial obligations, like we really need people's time and attention and money here so that we can survive.

And if there is time, money and resources after that, then you can give to missions.

And so, I mean, that's just kind of baked into this particular model.

A side effect of that is that we're not equipping people to go out and to do things because there's almost like this idea of, you know, I'll put it this way.

In some cases, some churches see the mission of Christ as a threat to the body of Christ, to the existence of it.

Wow.

The health of it.

If you start going out there, you're going to leave us.

Right.

If you start going out there, you're going to leave us.

Let's call that subconscious.

Subconsciously, maybe.

Let's see.

I don't know if you're consciously doing that, but subconsciously.

Okay.

Yeah.

And so, here's one of the symptoms of that.

Think about how many times, maybe some of you people watching the stream, they were in a church, they came up with a missional idea, and it got shut down.

It got shut.

No, no, no.

Because it was too risky.

We don't have the volunteers for that, the money for that, no time on the space on the calendar for that.

We don't, like, these missional ideas get shut down because it can take resources away from the actual, from the church.

Me, on the other hand, and others like me, I'm not the only one out there like this, but we're, one important shift is to go from teaching center to training center, where we're teaching the people to go out there, to spend time out there, to spend money out there, to invest out there in the mission.

But guess what that does, Jeff?

You're not in the building as much anymore, and that's a problem, right?

So, literally, the mission of Jesus is a threat to the institutional model itself and its sustainability and its surviving.

If I'm pastoring an institutional model church and you have $100, as a member, you have $100, and you have to decide if you're going to spend $100 at the local school or in the church, where do you think most pastors are going to tell you to put that $100?

Maybe even tell you to split it, maybe tell you to do something, because it's, right?

So, when I don't have all of those things that I need you to give to, and that's why I can tell people online, you don't have to.

If you want to give, you can't.

But I would prefer that you give where you are planted, where you're planted.

I don't need you to sow a seed to me and then trust that I'm going to do the right thing with it.

Not when you can sow that same seed in your community with people that you know, people that you see, people who will see that generosity as an evidence of Christ's love in your community.

You don't have to do that.

People online, all over the world, you giving me $100 is great, but you giving that school, you giving your kid's soccer team, you sponsoring that kid who can't afford the uniform and saying to that parent, hey, listen, don't worry about it.

My $100, I'm going to buy your kid a soccer uniform or the gymnastics uniform or your kid can't go on the trip, I'm going to sponsor your kid.

That, you give your, if you have, you give your $100 to that.

Don't give it to me, you give it to that, right?

So, because I, because with low overhead, with low, all this stuff, I don't have staff, team, business, leases, all that kind of stuff.

I can push you towards that, but I'm telling you, it's a, it's a renewing of the mind for Christians to go, huh, I guess I can give to that.

Yes, yes, you can.

Yeah, so, but I think a big shift is equipping, equipping, equipping, and more people are looking for equipping, they're not looking for all these deep revelations and insights from sermons anymore, they want to know how to do some stuff.

They want to know how to pray for people, how to lead people to Jesus, how to study the word on their own, how to lead a home church, how to, they want to know how to do stuff.

You're, you're questioning me before us, looking at Purpose Beyond the Fews and some of my inspiration, have I been seeing some of that?

I have, absolutely have, absolutely have.

There's one guy who, his name is Mike, he's out, he works in, he has this thing called Dignity Day, right, where he ministers to the homeless from haircuts and manicures, pedicures, and health and social services booths out there to really help have this holistic view of serving the homeless and all this kind of stuff.

And God told him, he says, when you do this, don't, don't launch it out of your church.

Because you and I know, if something's sponsored by a church, then it puts up a wall for other churches to be involved and all kinds of stuff.

So, yeah.

There's no, not one church is supposed to own this.

He said, guess what?

He has like 15 churches involved in Dignity Day.

He's got like 20 something other local organizations.

They all come together because not one person owns it.

But here's my thing.

Here's my thing.

This wasn't something approved by his church.

His church supports it.

They send volunteers out there.

But it wasn't like he was like, hey, pastor, I have this idea.

No, he just did it.

That's the purpose beyond the pews.

He just did it.

And it's been eight years now.

Over 200 people, homeless people, are served on this thing.

It's just like this crazy outreach, purpose beyond the pews.

It's not a church ministry.

God put it in his heart.

Now, I'm not saying I'm responding before.

He was doing it way before.

I'm not saying this is an example of, I like to see even more things like that happen.

That's an example of purpose beyond the pews that gets local orgs together, local churches together.

200 people are served as beyond.

So I like to see that.

Another lady who is part of, she is part of Hearts Like His and Purpose Beyond the Pew.

She started a prison ministry.

She's in Colorado.

This prison ministry that has expanded to now women coming out of prison.

She has homes for them now where she is now, I would say, the pastor of these homes to help women transition from prison into their family life again, learning new job skills and all that.

She actually lives with them.

She has these homes.

Now the city has given them money and thousands of dollars.

And it's going so well that she just baptized 25 ladies in prison just a couple of weeks ago.

The city is like, we need you to have another house because this house is, you need more opportunities.

So they're giving her whole new house, giving her money for a brand new van to drive these ladies around.

She drove from Colorado Springs to Illinois to help this mom pick up her son, to bring her son back to Colorado and bring in this whole new life.

Like, that's purpose beyond the pews.

That's not a church ministry.

Something that put in her heart from years ago that she's now launched.

Like, that's the kind of, these are two examples of what I'm talking about of people beyond the pews living out their purpose and lives are being changed a lot.

So, so, so, so, so much of what, what we do with the church digital is, is we give, we, we were talking about this offline.

Like we, we give permission to, to digital missionaries, to digital church planters, to people who are thinking outside the box to do it.

Uh, you know, sis pineapples writing in, in, in Twitch right now, where she's talking about how she did a, uh, a proposal.

She drew up a proposal to help an old folks home.

She gave it to the church missions team and, uh, basically ignored, uh, the missions team ignored her.

So she just went and did it herself, you know?

And so a lot of times, you know, we give, give permission.

Hey, that's a great idea.

Why don't you do it?

What you're just saying is don't even, don't even ask for permission.

Just do it.

Yeah.

This is what we're doing.

And ask, ask if anybody wants to come along, like who, this is what I'm doing.

Just join me.

So it's, it's, it's almost a pivot.

Like the church, you know, I'm saying this gently with respect.

The church doesn't have permission to whether to tell you yes or no, just find a way to do it and then ask them and others to come along, uh, on the road.

Exactly there.

And so people who have left the church, right.

Um, you know, kind of like this idea of, you know, you, you, when the Israelites and they left Egypt, they still had Egypt in them.

You know, they still struggle with going to the promised land.

Even when people have left the church, they still have this institutional mentality.

Like they still can't do anything without the pastor's authority.

So now if you don't have a pastor, you have this idea that God put in your heart.

Like, what do you do?

They're just sitting on it.

I'm coming along and saying, why do you need the pastor to approve your ministry idea?

You don't.

You were taught that you don't.

That's not the biblically.

That's not the role of shepherds.

The role of shepherds in the church is not to approve everybody's ministry idea, not to approve thumbs up or thumbs down.

Everyone's life decision.

That again, is part of the internal, um, mental institution mentality of this hierarchy in, uh, in, in the church.

That's not the pastor's role.

The pastor's role, not to have the say so on everybody's life and everyone's decision and everybody's ministry.

And so yes, the, the cis pineapple, I'm like, go out, go out there and do it.

And guess what?

God will bring people alongside you who share in that same ministry, that, that same idea, that same, um, affinity,

so to speak or interest and basically kind of have a missional community.

Like that's what the Tampa underground would call it.

And you can't sit in the miss the community, right?

There's a mission and you develop a community around that shared interest in that mission.

But my thing is, you don't, you don't need a pastor's, a pastor's approval.

If you're in a local church, uh, and there's some, let me put it this way.

Some Christians are mature enough to be able to stand on this position of, I love my church.

I love my pastor.

I don't need him or her to approve everything that I'm doing.

Right.

And that's biblical.

That's true.

But some are like, well, what if my pastor doesn't approve?

What if my pastor then, okay, then just sit there.

Right.

So some have left and I'm saying, you got it.

Let's launch.

What's on your heart?

What's on your mind?

And coaching them through how to get started and that kind of thing.

Others are still connected to the church, but they know they can still launch their own

thing and sometimes people feel like they're so indoctrinated.

Like the pastor has to approve every single thing says what scripture, there's no scripture

for that.

That's the institutional model and the hierarchy that's been set up.

Now, now the church, that's why you have folks sitting out there by the hundreds and

thousands, not living out their purpose beyond the pews, waiting only for a church created

ministry that they can serve in.

That's not how it's set up.

God has put dreams in the hearts of every single believer and we have a lot of missional

potential sitting there waiting on the church to come up either with an idea or to approve

the ideas and it's just sitting there.

So when a small group of people come up with ministry ideas, now they try to sell it to

the church and try to recruit people for those ideas.

That's not how the church's mission is supposed to operate.

That's why they sit out there week after week listening to volunteer recruitment strategies

and calls for volunteers and they're not doing anything.

And if they do, it's for some big event two or three times a year.

Like that's not our purpose.

You know what I love about this conversation?

It's two digital guys having a conversation.

We've really not talked about anything in context of digital ministry, digital discipleship,

digital mission.

Like this has all been very practical, physical oriented, applying in either space guidance.

Like this has been, to be honest, this has been probably one of the more disruptive podcast

conversations I've had in months.

And it's not, and it's not technologically based.

Like we're not saying the church needs to address the technological basis or hybrid needs

to be redefined or anything like that.

Be comfortable with digital discipleship.

Like it's, it's very grounded in the relations, the role of the pastor and then the relationship

of the Holy Spirit within us to operate outside of the church, not just within the four walls.

Yeah.

So that's a disruptive idea.

Yeah.

How do we disrupt that idea while be respectful to the church and the four walls in the operation

of the ministry that's in place?

Because it's very easy to hear, and I know you're hard.

I know you're not doing this, but it's very easy to hear a disruption and I'm guilty of that

all the time, but how, what's that balance between respect and challenge that, that we need to be

walking here?

I think the balance is, it's definitely relational, right?

So say you have a person who is sitting in their congregation, they love their pastor,

they love their church, they love their people, but there's a dream that God put on the inside

of them.

And maybe it's like the, what's this pineapple?

Like there's, this is a story all the time.

As a matter of fact, Josh Packer wrote about this in his book, Church Refugees, that people

have left because they feel like they could not stay.

The whole idea of refugees, you leave a place you prefer to stay, you feel like you can't

stay anymore.

Some of the reasons he talked about are the bureaucracy, that people have a vision that

God has for what they want to do or serve or the gift or what, you know, gifting is

coming out, but those ideas are squashed.

I would say to have some, some, some honest conversations with your pastor or ministry

leader or whoever, and, and see where they are with this.

They likely, I mean, think about this, Jeff, there's not one church that has the budget

to support every church member's ministry idea, right?

At some point, your idea has got to be not only launched outside the building, but maybe

even funded outside the building, you can bless someone as a church.

If you're a pastor, you can bless someone and say, we bless that idea in you.

We support that idea.

We don't have the funds to support it.

But if you just need my affirmation, my validation, then you have it.

Go and run with it.

And then you're on your own, you know, to, to, to, to take off with it.

Where, where the, the tension comes is what do you do if that idea is not validated and

it's not blessed by your church leadership?

Now, what do you do?

Now you're, now you're sitting on it.

And here's the deal.

What God's going to hold you accountable for is what he told you to do.

Not what the pastor approved or not.

So in honor of the hierarchy that you're in to say, listen, pastor, if this is you, pastor,

I love you.

I, I, I, I've been a member of this church for five, 10 years, blah, blah, blah, right.

I support this ministry.

I'm still maybe even giving here or whatever, but I really feel like God has called me to

do a, B and C.

And, and this is, this is what I, this is what I plan on doing.

So the challenge, the, the, the disruption piece is, um, what, where does a person lean

if they don't have pastoral approval on something?

Do they still go for it or do they not go for it?

And that's really an individual decision.

I don't think you have to, I think also part of the honor in relationship, you don't have

to be a church split kind of person.

You don't have to, you don't, things don't have to go that far.

Hopefully they don't have to go that far.

Um, but you got to stand on what God is.

You feel like God's calls you to do, whether your church is supporting it or not.

Um, but I also would say that sometimes church leadership can help you discern.

Not every idea is the Lord's idea.

Not every idea is a God idea and church leadership can help you balance that out and really discern

what God's saying.

But there's a difference there between that happening versus the idea of being, being shut

down.

Um, yeah.

So, so yeah, like I've, I've given you a couple of examples.

Uh, the person who's doing the, the, the prison ministry, she's still connected to a local

church, but this ministry is not her church's ministry.

Right?

The, the idea I gave you with Mike and dignity day, he's still connected to his local church,

but dignity day has, is not his church's ministry.

His church is involved, but it's not his church's ministry.

So these are a couple ideas.

People are still connected to local church and participating, but that's not, um, but they're

still living out whatever that purpose is for that God has for them.

I don't think by, by doing, by doing ministry outside of the box, you're really outside of

the four walls.

You're really separating community of the church from the ministry activity.

And so often like that's been, been united and that's really just, uh, indoctrination is

a strong word, but that's just the way that ministry is done when it's within the four

walls, like help the four walls exist, help the programming.

It's all about the programming.

It's all about the, the model, but by doing it outside that now you still need the community.

You still need the foundation, whether that's physical or digital IRL or, or online, you

know, we can, you're fine with that.

I know, but you still need that community space for support and encouragement, but you're

doing ministry separate from that community base.

So when you're, when you're doing like, you know, you're talking about dignity today, Mike,

um, who encourages him?

Who is the, like, does he have a team of people he's walking with at this point?

Uh, friends, has he developed coworkers?

Like what's the evolution of somebody who starts an idea outside of the day?

The church and then grows it and multiplies it.

Here's a very important factor of that.

Number one, if it's the Lord's idea, he's going to really answer those questions in relationships,

resources, all those kinds of things.

So let's take Mike's example.

And he's been doing it for eight years.

Now, a lot of the volunteers at dignity day are coming from his church.

But like I said, it's not a church sponsored event.

Um, it's announced at the church as well as other churches as well.

Like I said, 12, 15 churches involved.

Um, so he has the support and blessing of the church, but it didn't come from the church

as I did.

No pastor on staff came from that idea.

And that church doesn't, doesn't own it.

But the benefit of being connected to a church and having, in doing this is that when people

get saved or need to be discipled, that there is a community that you can bring them into.

That is part of that as you're catching fish, so to speak, it's part of that net, right?

So I'm not advocating people leaving their church to do this kind of stuff.

What I'm saying is you may have to do it without your churches back, you know, getting volunteers

from your church or finances from your church.

But if this is the Lord's idea, he's going to bring the, you can find some people, um,

even from other churches who have the same passion for the ministry that can also be, be

involved in that.

So we're not talking about separating from community for the sake of mission, but we are

talking about not letting a hierarchical structure suppress you stepping out in faith on a ministry

idea that God has, that God has called you to, to do.

So I use a digital platform to help encourage these individuals and support them and pray for

them.

Um, there are also digital examples of this.

Another person in our purpose beyond the pews, she, she, you would have considered her somebody

who's shy, doesn't speak a whole lot and things like that.

But because of a ministry online, she got involved in a prayer ministry in our group.

So her and other lady, matter of fact, the one that's doing the prison ministry in Colorado,

we're going live prayer in our group every week, like Facebook live, people have put their

prayer needs in there.

So live prayer.

Now it was interesting to me because again, she's the person that doesn't say a whole lot

in public, right?

Traditionally, she started to do more and more of that in the past few years because of what's

been happening in the digital community, the equipping, the encouragement, shifting some

paradigms.

So guess what she does now?

Every week, she posts on her own personal Facebook page.

If you have any prayer needs, send me a DM.

She has this online prayer ministry that, that she's doing.

Another guy has, who was part of Hearts Like His and Purpose Beyond the Pews.

He has his own digital evangelism ministry now.

He's an older guy in his 60s and he has a heart for evangelism, but he doesn't like to

speak out loud.

He doesn't like to record videos.

And so what he's done is he, he created a Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok account, which

was a big deal for this guy.

Like he's from a non-tech person, right?

So now he has three, three channels and he watches teaching and stuff online.

He actually records it, edits it, and he posts clips of other people preaching and teaching.

And now he responds to people in the comments and DMs.

He has a hundred followers on TikTok now.

He's in 35 countries where his videos are now being seen all from his home.

He has a legit online digital evangelism ministry from his home.

Where'd he get that idea from?

He didn't get it from talking to his pastor and saying, this is what I'm thinking.

He got it from our community that validates online ministry, online evangelism, and he

definitely has read that book right there.

But that's what I'm saying.

It's a purpose beyond the pews.

And so there's prayer ministries, online, evangelism, online, those two examples I gave.

And then also the Dignity Day, that's in person, and the prison ministry, that's in person.

But the community that has been backing them and supporting them and praying for them, the digital community has been part of that.

So, yeah.

Yeah, I mean, I think that's how, like, my follow-up question was going to be, how does Sharing Jesus Online fit into all this?

You know, the book, the idea.

Dr. John and I co-wrote a book together.

He was the brains, and I was the pretty face.

That actually is my common go-to.

I find smart people and just, like, back them.

But, no, like, the idea of, you know, Sharing Jesus Online, utilizing digital, you know, there's a lot of digital missionaries watching this and people that do digital space, things in digital space.

You know, it's not asking permission, not looking for alignment, doing your own thing, finding community where you can, you know, places like the Church Digital towards that.

How do you, but you're still involved in a church that doesn't understand, like, what, how do you deal with that?

Attention may not be the right word.

You know, I've been in situations where it's awkward.

Like, even in my own church, my own, I love my pastor, Pastor Carlos, but, you know, he has no idea what I do at a general rule.

He just doesn't understand it.

He's not grounded in that.

And so, you know, at a personal level, like, you know, I actually, I sat down to try to explain to him the other day how Korea went.

And the conversation went about 15 minutes until he had an emergency and had to take off.

And it was like, yeah, I mean, it just, it was a loss.

How do we, what are we supposed to, you know, reconcile, feel?

How do we process these moments where we're trying to find approval, acceptance, understanding from people that may not be able to give that to us?

Okay, so one of the things I would say is really get biblical on how much leverage church leadership should have over your decisions about this.

And you're going to have to come to terms with the sense of disappointment you're going to have for not feeling supported for something that you know God has really called you to do or stirred up in you.

So here's the reality, here's the reality.

Here's the reality.

Church leadership, in many contexts, is not going to share the passion for ministry that God has put inside of everyone in those congregations.

Not only do they not have the budget to support it, they don't have the passion for it all.

That's what APES is all about.

If you're evangelistic and your pastor is a shepherd, your pastor is not really going to be focusing on going after like that, the same way that you would.

If you're apostolic, you're like starting new things.

The shepherd that sees new things as a threat to the nurture and care of those who are there is not going to, if you have an apostolic drive,

you can be frustrated sitting under a shepherd and expecting a shepherd to approve that apostolic calling and ideas.

To some degree, you're going to have to find a way, if you're wanting to stay connected to that church,

to honor the leadership there, love them, support them, but find the freedom to not feel chained to their approval.

Because when you stand before the king and he asks you, what did you do with the gift he's given to you?

What you cannot say is, I would have done more, but my pastor didn't like it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I would have, you know, Jesus, you were there.

My pastor didn't approve.

That's why I didn't do it.

Think about the pair of the talents, right?

One has four, one has two.

I mean, whatever.

And the king comes back, what'd you do?

Well, I took the two and made it four.

Well, I buried it, right?

You, another contemporary version of burying it is I didn't get my pastor's approval.

What are you going to say to Jesus about that?

He's going to say, I didn't tell your pastor to do it.

I told you to do it.

I'm your Lord.

I'm your master.

And your pastor is nowhere on my level when it comes to leading your life and guiding your life.

Nowhere on my level.

And that's the place where the church is tripping some people up.

The pastor is not the center of Christianity.

Jesus is.

The pastor is not the one who has called you, sent you, filled you, and gifted you.

Jesus is.

So at some level, you're going to have to wrestle, to resolve within yourself, you're a follower of Jesus.

Jesus has sent you on mission.

And it doesn't have to shatter relationships with your pastors and churches and all.

It doesn't have to do that.

But ultimately, you're going to think about who you're responding to or who you're accountable to.

And the reality is, Jeff, some relationships can be maintained in this country.

They're healthy enough to be maintained in these contexts.

Like I've given you two examples of healthy ones.

But in some cases, you might have to leave.

That's sad when it happens.

Disappointing when it happens.

Hurtful when it happens.

But in some cases, the mission is going to require it.

And there's no soft way to put that.

Yeah, this has been a good conversation.

Love it.

This is not where I thought we were going to go, but I had so much fun doing it.

This has been solid.

We're supposed to talk digital missionaries.

I don't know that we ever got digital.

But the idea of ministry outside of the walls, I mean, that's something that all of us as missionaries need to understand.

And some of the inherent challenges, at least here in the West, in working with the, you know, Dr. John, you would probably say that you're primarily de-churched.

But with the audience here, at least you're working with de-churched and challenging them to be evangelic.

So awesome.

I love it.

Hey, I have a question for you.

Have you ever, who wrote Church Refugees?

Josh Packard.

Have you ever had a conversation with him?

I have not.

If I could set up a podcast with you and Josh Packard, would you have a conversation with him about this?

You have no idea how awesome that would be.

Listen, I almost quote Josh every single time somebody asks me about Hearts Like His.

Everything I talk, I talk Josh's stats all the time.

And so that would be, that would be absolute nuts for me.

But yeah, I, yeah, I, yeah, I'd be cool.

I can't make any promises.

I've got a friend of a friend.

And so I'll, I'll, I'll do some digging and see if I, if I can't get in there.

But, and, and to be honest, like, I don't even want to be part of the conversation.

I just want to be a fly on the wall.

Just to see.

Me too.

I should follow him.

Awesome.

So, Hey, let's call that 25 goals.

Uh, so we'll see, we'll see what's happening after the new year.

And, you know, in my life, yours was church refugees.

My, my book, um, back in that era was, um, George Barna's revolution.

Uh, as a matter of fact, like that was, um, I actually had a business at one point that was called, uh, revolution retail.

I had, um, uh, a store called a C two eight, uh, based on Colossians two eight.

Yeah.

That, uh, yeah, yeah.

And so what we, we brought a hundred, hundred kids to Christ in a brick and mortar mall in Wellington green, uh, West Palm beach, Florida, essentially.

And, uh, and so, but I just was, you know, as a, as a 20 something year old graduating from college, I had crazy ideas.

And I've talked about this in the streams and whatever, but, um, you know, the church could not reconcile the stuff that I was talking about.

And, you know, in, in, in that revolution, George Barna talks about the same thing you said, God's not going to hold your pastor accountable for what he's telling you to do.

He's going to hold you accountable for what he's telling you to do.

And, uh, and I read that and my whole, my whole ministry psyche changed as a result of that.

And, um, and just shifted to this, to this new, uh, to this new model.

Um, and it's been challenging and I mean, it's been, it's definitely been rewarding.

Uh, it's, it's, I love, you know, I even love the fact now that I get to walk with the, you know, the church digital community and, and, and leaders and people that, you know, think outside of the box, like, like we do.

And, and, uh, and so we can encourage each other and pray for each other along the way.

I mean, I didn't have that 25 years ago and having and providing that community now and seeing all the, the, all the, that God's doing through.

These relationships is so, so good.

Even now as we're extending global, man, I just can't wait.

So awesome.

All right.

Hey, we're going to land the plane.

I will say this.

We have had, this has been probably the most passionate chat I've seen in, uh, in Twitch in a while.

Like, I mean, we don't really get good chat, but there's been a lot of excitement.

So you can lately DWR, uh, sis pineapple.

I know there's some others that are in here as well.

Uh, mission awareness, uh, DWR, like I said, uh, flat cap, flat cap was surprisingly quiet.

He may have had to have leave, but, uh, man, it was just so good.

Thank you all for hanging out with us in chat.

Uh, you know, you know me, we're always doing something.

We're supposed to do this on Tuesday.

I was feeling sick Tuesday.

And so we bumped into Thursday and now Andy's got to edit it real quick and get it on podcast

for Monday.

So hopefully we can turn around, but Hey, uh, as we're wrapping up here, Dr. John, any other

closing thoughts, uh, you know, I just want anybody tuning into this, this podcast live

or replay you're, you're here because something is stirring in you.

And I just want you to know you're, you're in the right place.

Don't doubt, don't doubt that God has you on this track, that he has you on this journey

and don't doubt that he's going to provide for you.

You might not see it all right now, but he's going to provide for you and digital communities,

digital culture, digital, uh, locations are legitimate missional, um, destinations, legitimate

missional destinations, um, for you to, to take the gospel to, and the disciple people on

and the spirit of God is just going to, he's going to bear fruit that remains.

And that includes in digital space.

So awesome.

Well, thanks for jumping on this, this podcast with us, Dr. John appreciate it very much,

but for Dr. John, this is Jeff with, uh, the church digital.

Thanks for hanging out with us on this stream.

And we'll talk to you next time on the show.

Y'all have a good one.