EP304 - Why Discord?

Like, Discord gives us that kind of flexibility that we don't have, and at the same time,

we're going to where people are. So people are in Facebook, people are in Discord,

and Discord gives us flexibility. 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, quick editorial note here on the Church Digital Podcast before we get into

episode 304. Jeff here. Okay, so we're in this season called Wait! That's a Church!

And we did a great live podcast recording. Joey Santos and I, we had Dr. John Harris,

Dr. John, talking about hearts like his, the digital discipleship community slash digital church

that he's doing. And maybe minimal ecclesiology, what we're talking about looking at being a church

and digital space and even reimagining what that looks like. It was in Dr. John's standards,

once again, an incredible conversation that was totally screwed up because I gave bad advice at the

very beginning, dealing with some tech issues. And well, if you were in the audience watching the live

podcast recording on Discord, you had a heck of a show, but no one else is going to be able to experience

that because it didn't record. Or at least the genius of Dr. John Harris did not because I told him to mute

the mic accidentally when we were getting started. And so that's on me. But it was an incredible show.

By the way, this is why you all should be part of the Church Digital's online community

on Discord. Go open up a web browser, go to discord.thechurch.digital. Come hang out with us

in Discord. You get, you know, fresh stuff like Dr. John Harris. Literally five, six people only got to hear

that and no one else will because we will never have that conversation again. We'll go back to Dr. John

as a part of, uh, wait, that's a church in a later, uh, episode. We'll get them on. Believe me, there is

a lot for Dr. John here in the Church Digital. Here's what we're doing instead of episode 304. I'm going to

set it up and then we're going to just hand it over and go with it. We have recently moved to Discord,

like I literally just said. And as a part of Discord, why are we moving away from Mighty Networks?

What's the motivation behind Discord? How is Discord working for the Church Digital? Uh, where are we going?

What are we doing? What was the purpose for that? Was it successful? Is it working the way that we wanted it to?

I have gotten so many questions centered around the Discord platform, the technology, the community aspects of it.

Why churches should be exploring that. And so I did a stream a couple weeks ago and brought in the TCD leadership team

to get their perspective. And to my knowledge, this is the first time all of us have gotten together in a physical

environment digitally or physically. Like none of us have all been in a public environment, even digitally at the same

time, except for this broadcast in this, uh, in this, uh, vibe. And so for the conversation, I'm bringing in

myself, Jeff with the Church Digital and Andy Mage with the Church Digital and Jason Morris and Church

Digital, Barbara Canero with the Church Digital, Leighton Flatcap himself with the Church Digital. It's a whole

bunch of the Church Digital people coming in for episode 304, why the Church Digital went to Discord.

Okay, everybody, here's the actual episode. Here you go.

So, hey, I want to publicly say this. This is the first time that we have actually had all of TCD

leadership, um, in at the same time. Uh, this is, um, they're kind of all over the place. Jason,

um, is no longer in the room. J-Mo, you got to have both open at the same time, Discord and Riverside.

I don't know if you can hear me currently. Yeah, now J-Mo's okay. He's giving me the thumbs up. He's,

he didn't get the memo. Everybody else got the memo, uh, to go ahead of time and J-Mo did not get

the memo. And so he went like this, we all went like this and he missed the onboarding. So, uh,

so now J-Mo, let me bring you up, uh, and this is gonna be good.

Sorry about the TCD bot there, Michelle. He's a little, he's a little bit of a, uh,

a jerk. What did TCD bot do now? He strikes down Michelle constantly. I've actually toned,

I've, I've toned the TCD bot down and he still is a little bit finicky.

Yeah. Apparently four claps as mass emojis. Four. Yeah. Will, only one, only one smiley face there.

Will, no more than that. Oh, this is, this is so good. Uh, man,

I'm looking forward to this conversation. This is the first time publicly all five of us have been

together, even digitally, physically, you know, completely remote organization. We've not all,

all been together. And, um, and, you know, I figured out the other day, uh, that, uh, this is the first

time that we've actually digitally been able to do this. So, uh, Hey, welcome to TCD discord.

I actually, I was just on, uh, with our mighty network friends, um, a couple of minutes ago,

Elle Michelle was, was in there and a couple others. Uh, we are swan songing our mighty networks

community. Uh, semi-sonic is singing closing time and, uh, not everybody has to go home, but they,

they can't stay, uh, here. So I'm glad hopefully we're moving everybody over here into the, uh,

into the discord world. Um, I know we've gotten, but everybody should know everybody, maybe not,

but we've got, uh, at least on my screen, I see flat cap on the left. Layton, the relationships guy,

Andy Mage, Chino, um, is our, um, uh, community, uh, myself, of course, Jeff founder, um, loud mouth.

Hilmi is, uh, Barbara Carnero, uh, who's our, our connections and, um, uh, communications, uh, person.

And JMO, Jason Morris is in, uh, Dallas, which is irrelevant or no Austin closer, but, uh, is our, uh,

uh, discipleship director. And so, man, really excited to be here with y'all today in the, in the

stream. So the reason for this stream, no, I stream every Tuesday at one. Um, but I wanted to bring

everybody together because I get this question all the time. Like if, if I had a dollar for every time

I was asked this question, well, I'd have a lot of dollars, but the question I get asked is, um,

why discord? Why did you move to discord? What was the reason for discord? Um, what's wrong with

mighty networks? Why do you hate Facebook so much? Like, you know, basically all, all of this kind

of noise. And so I am like, listen, I can tell you what my motivation was behind it, but I can tell

you my motivation is different than Andy's and it's different than what Layton thinks. And it's

different than JMO's. And so it's like, Hey, if we really want to have this, this conversation,

let's have a cohesively and actually get the crowd together in a public environment for the first

time ever, and start to wrestle with this idea of what discord actually means and the benefit of it

and how we're utilizing it and what the experience has been so far for us. And so, Hey, if you're in

the room chatting, you know, I know Andy kind of welcomed everybody while I was figuring out some

want my issues and I got plenty of issues, uh, feel free to throw questions in chat and, uh, would love

to be dialoguing here. Uh, I know we're also streaming this out into the interwebs. Uh, and so

feel free to, uh, join us. You can join our discord server at discord.thechurch.digital open a new web

browser discord.thechurch.digital. We'll get you into where we are. And if you're watching on demand,

same thing too. We'd love to have you join in here. Um, and so I, I, and I told the group earlier,

I was like, I don't have a lot of questions. I'm just going to open this up. Like why discord?

And since, uh, you know, Andy is actually the director of community and discord is a community.

I guess that means he should go first. Right? So Andy, why discord?

Heavy is the head that wears the, the ball cap on that one. Uh, yeah. Hello everybody. Uh, so

here's why discord, uh, white beard just said it better than I probably can. Cause it's better

than everything else. There we go. Question, answer, asked and answered. Um,

Hey, thanks everybody for coming. Have a great night. Shut it down boys. Shut it down. Um,

here's the thing. We're actually doing something really unique right now. Not as even necessarily

in discord. So I'm live on three different platforms right now. I am live on riverside

as we record this and send things out to all the interwebs. I am live on discord and I am also

live on a platform called zoom. And the reason I am live on zoom is because we are actually going

to be holding in about five minutes. We're going to be starting our asynchronous learning

community. Actually a number of people in here are from our asynchronous learning community.

Raise your hand in the chat. If you are from, uh, the, if from my learning community, that's

going to be starting today, just throw it in the chat, throw a gif in the chat. Oh, Michael.

Yes. Is I guess maybe the raise the hand thing is an invite to speak. I can't. Sorry. We just,

we can't do that. That's going to get kind of weird. Here's the reason why discord it's because

we can do crazy things like that. We can be live on a number of different platforms. We have this

advantage of being live and we can do all those things, but also asynchronously, the amount of

things that happen on discord is just, it's outstanding. It is the best platform out there

for everything that we want to do. We can be nimble. We can be agile. We can stream out to

hundreds of people. We can do behind, you know, Leighton is running and I'm sure he's going to talk

about some of the community groups he's doing. We can do all of those things. We can have events.

Hilmi and her team can take care of events. JMO and I have been slowly, but surely working on some

sort of like discipleship pathway platform thing that's been happening behind the scenes there.

That's all happening in discord. That's all happening right within this, this app,

whether you're watching it on a browser or on your phone or on your tablet or on your actual

downloaded app, that's all happening right here. And it's outstanding that we get to do things like

that. That's why. Awesome. That was a very kind of short approach. And by the way, nice plug on

the learning community that's, that's happening right now. And so to me, um, it's, it's an opportunity.

When I look at what digital community is and how we're utilizing and engaging with it. Um,

it was just, it's so hard to get that engagement from a technical standpoint, uh, on, on mighty networks or,

or even on Facebook at this point, and, you know, battling the algorithms of Facebook compared to the energy

that comes in here with, with what we're feeling in discord. And so, you know, I love the fact that

we've got, we've got a learning community that that's literally starting today, right? Today's

the first day, Andy. Yeah. Like in four minutes, I'm going to say, Hey everybody, we're going over to

zoom. Yep. It's, you know, literally starting today, talking about the, the, the power of

asynchronous and how to utilize asynchronous to the highest capacity. And, and even as we're looking

at holding asynchronous community, digital community to a higher standard, you know, and looking and

seeing, okay, man, discord from, from a feature set is really giving us, us that, um, that power.

Um, so, you know, Andy, I know you've got to leave like in three minutes. And so, you know,

I want to give opportunities for you, man, any other thoughts before we move on?

No, that's it. Uh, I am going to direct everybody from my learning community. Hey,

let's go head over to zoom. If you don't have the zoom link, it's going to be in another thing that

we get to do. I get to shut off areas of the discord server. We have an entirely async learning

community area where most of you can't see, ha ha ha. You need to join my learning community

to go see the fun that's going to be happening there. Um, you can hit the link in that async

learning community. We're heading over to zoom right now. I love you guys. Thanks for hanging

out for a little bit. You know, you kind of feel a little bit like this is the time where the

children's church gets dismissed from the, from the main building and everybody kind of goes in

their separate directions. And like the adults are left. I'm kidding. I'm not directly implying.

Are you going to sing Jesus loves me right now? No, I was, I was going to ask if,

if like Layton was going to, if he was preaching the children's sermon or when he was done, but no,

I think that's, that's, uh, that's good. I grew up Methodist. We, I, that's like hard coded into

my body. This is what we have to do. Okay. Goodbye. I've got people showing up at zoom. Goodbye,

everybody. Bye. See ya. Um, and, uh, so, Hey, um, where did, where'd it go? Or he, he just left my

screen. And so I, I kind of wigged out there for a second. It went black. Um, I mean, like,

let's open it up flat cap. You're, you're next. And I would say probably I I'm, I'm, I'm saying

something. I don't mean to be judgmental, um, about anybody that's on the screen, but I would

say that Andy and Layton were probably more comfortable in the discord environments over

myself, Barbara and Jason. Like, I mean, I had a discord account, but to be honest, I'm more,

I was more of a slack person just in my context than, than it, uh, Jason's shaking said yes.

And I know Jason spends a ton of time with, with slack, uh, in, in his work, Barbara probably

would agree to that. She's a metaverse gal, but she, you know, we didn't have a lot of discord

experience. And so, you know, flat cap is, as we were looking at, at discord and talking about

this, like what have been some, what's some of the why for you and some of the wins for

you moving over to discord? I think some of it is as I've been in other places, like

on Facebook, something will be in my feed. And then suddenly people are no longer in my

feed. They disappear. The algorithm changes. And suddenly I don't have people, uh, when

we were on mighty networks, uh, we would have really good engagement over a two week period

of time. And then people would disappear for two months because it wasn't the place they

were already on already engaged. And it was one more place they had to open up and go check.

And when you got notifications, you didn't always open the app. You didn't always check the email.

You just kind of went, yeah, okay. Uh, I'll get to it when I can. Uh, and in discord, like,

I'll, I'll be honest, all of those who are new to discord, I was there three years ago learning this

and I hung around for about a year, just kind of going, I don't know what I'm doing. Uh, I set one

up. I don't know how to do these things, but it is so integrated with all kinds of things. Like we

can go live in here. Like Andy was mentioning, we can have a private group over here. So we're not in

another location. But if you think about a small group within a church, you have a small group,

but you're still in the community with the whole of the church. You can have whole gatherings with

everybody. Like I have not found a limit yet of what you can do in discord and to be connected.

And the other thing is I can quickly give a thumbs up to something when I do not have time

to take and make comments, but I'm still engaged in the community on a level I can be. And when I

have time to be more engaged, I can be more engaged, but I don't lose the, I'm out over

here. Don't have any idea, any clue what's going on. Uh, so there's a whole bunch of stuff

like that, that I think is just really neat. That discord allows, uh, that it's like a combination

of every other platform out there all in one place. And we kind of own our own server. We

are the ones in control of it. We establish what's acceptable, what's not acceptable. I know we've got

the bots helping us do those kinds of things and welcome people, but it's really about the people

who are engaged, uh, on and on and on as things happen in there. So I guess that's kind of my big

picture overview of it. Yeah. Um, mighty networks, we struggled in the deal. The deal with mighty

networks is, um, you know, Facebook, you're battling the algorithm. And so as trying to get

in front of people. And so, you know, move to mighty networks actually took us out of, um,

battling the algorithm. And, and so the idea was, well, our, our community, our, our content,

our connection needs to be strong enough to get people to check another inbox. Um, and, and,

you know, I'm, I'm, I'm not saying we, we failed at that. Uh, but at some point, you know,

muting, uh, push notifications, um, filtering, you know, away from that. And even the, even

though the wall, uh, structure of like, uh, Facebook and mighty networks of how there's a post

and then the dialogue with it, um, it just felt, um, I'm using the word archaic. I don't mean it

that way, but it felt us centric. Um, you know, it's, it's interesting. I've been, I've been wrestling

with this and I'll, I'll write a blog on this at some point or do a stream or something. Uh, and

actually I would love to maybe sit around Jason one day and I have this conversation, but the difference

between digital community and social media because digital social media, like Facebook posting on

Facebook or like a Facebook page or, or a personal profile or Instagram, having an Instagram, like

it's very organizational centric. Let me the organization, let me the individual tell you the

audience what to think. And then you can thumbs up emoji or you can comment on it, but it's very

centric around the individual, the organization. Um, now digital community, like what we're able to

achieve with discord, man, it's not very organizational centric. It's, it, it, it empowers the individuals

to, to speak. It's not us respond. It's not the organization telling the individual what to think.

It's the organization speaking and us, the, the, uh, the organization responding. Like, I mean,

the great example of this is literally happening right now in, in chat, um, white beard throws a,

a chat right now from pastor Coco. Uh, please pray for everyone in Texas, including me who went

through barrel, uh, are without power under heat advisory of a 105, et cetera, et cetera. There are

many who have lost refrigerator food and can't work because of the power outages. That's the hurricane

that hit down there in Texas, right? And so up there where I am in Texas. And so, um, I mean,

listen, I've, I've lived in Texas for 105, 110, um, summers. And so, yeah, yeah, we, we need to,

we need to be praying for them. J-Mo, you're not, that's far, that's further away from you. You're

not, that's not impacting you where you are, is it? I assume. No, we just got a good rain. That's all.

Yeah. That's, that's the thing with hurricanes. Some people get devastated and some people are like,

eh, knock down a branch. Um, but, um, man, taking, thank you, uh, white beard for that and taking the,

you know, that's his, uh, initiative to, to speak into this, not, oh, I need to wait for somebody to

do this and I don't have the permissions, authority, whatever. It's, it's a digital community. It's open

to that. And that's where I think a lot of digital community is different than social media, which is

actually why I think a lot of churches are negative on digital community because they look at digital

community as social media. Well, of course you can't have real digital community on an Instagram profile

or a, or a Facebook page because. Well, Jeff, it depends on, it depends on what you're trying to do.

So I think, I think one of the things that, uh, I'm getting from all of you, there is a mirror

to what happens architecturally in the physical space. So a lot of times churches will say, okay,

we're not going to go to your thing. We're asking you to come to ours. Um, that would be like mighty

networks where you come to our building, you know, I'm not going to go to your building. I'm not going

to go to your bar. I'm not going to go to the, the, your golf course. I'm not going to go to your gym.

I'm going to ask you, and we have whole systems around this. I'm going to ask you to come to my

thing where I'm in this controlled environment physically, you know, for a Sunday service.

That would be like what mighty networks does. And it can do things in that closed environment that,

uh, eliminate distractions and other environments. But now you're talking about, okay,

the basic philosophical idea of, are we going to ask you to be the missionary or are we going to go to

you? Right. That's one of the differences. If we're going to you, we need to be aware of the

cultural context and the environments in which we're dropping into. Yeah. So when I drop into

a building that has a bunch of rows and a stage and a podium, the building signals to me

what kind of activities I can do and what kind of activities are not appreciated. Whereas if I go into

another building and there's a bunch of tables with row, the tables with, uh, round tables with,

and they're all facing each other. Right. Or, and there is no central place. When I walk into that

building architecturally, I know already what types of activities are, um, are wanted and what types of

activities are not wanted. And in the digital space, it's very similar. When you drop into

Facebook, there's a certain kind of, um, doom scrolling, media blasting sort of thing that, that particular

architect, that digital architecture is looking for. And in discord, it's a different architecture

that is expecting a different type of interaction with people. And I think where churches get stuck is

in the physical space, we're very used to a particular type of interacting with people

in a broadcast form because there's a stage and there's rows and, you know, all the things. So

we're used to broadcast in the physical space. And so we just mirror that in the digital space.

And of course, discord doesn't jive with that because that's not what discord is about.

Discord is about conversations like these. Yeah.

But what is interesting is discord is also very flexible in that you can have live streams that

broadcast and you can have more, um, intimate conversations like we're having right now.

And those intimate conversations can be public too. So what discord does is it unlocks a lot of

possibilities for the types of differing interactions that a church should be doing anyway. A church should

not just have a Sunday service broadcast message and you're done. If that's all churches,

churches, well, then there is no real reason for us to gather because a podcast could do that or a TV

show could do that much better, right? There's really no reason. However, if church is the one

another's, if church is a community, a gathering of people that love one another, care for one another,

pray for one another, all of these other things that occur, well, all right, maybe we should

pick a digital space that allows for both types of human interactions in the digital form,

like we hope occur in the physical form. And I feel like discord gives us that kind of flexibility

that we don't have. And at the same time, like discord gives us that kind of flexibility that we don't

have. And at the same time, we're going to where people are. So people are in Facebook, people are in discord and discord gives us flexibility. So in my mind, it's like, okay, win, win, done. Let's do this. Let's figure it out. And we discovered in that flexibility that we could have conversations like this. And we could do all kinds of things that we weren't able to do before because the architecture didn't allow it.

I just did a lot of talking.

Well, they've never really figured out that social space, that 25 people, that 30 people kind of thing.

And it's, you know, Daniel M's done a lot of research in this talking about like the, the fun kind of the environment. And this is the social space is really where you break down mistrust and where you build trust with people. And when I look at what digital community is, the engagement, the dialoguing, it's really that, that social space. And Barbara, I know you were, you were talking, I cut you off. I'm sorry. Go ahead.

Oh, no, I was not. I was actually just applauding Jason. That was awesome.

Jason. That was awesome. I learned new language. Now you just gave me new language to describe some things that I, you know, it was, it was pretty awesome.

And what came to my mind and I remember our initial conversations about like which platforms to keep. And, and there was even a desire to like, let's keep them all, you know, but that is your traditional, you know, pastor conversation saying we serve everybody and everybody's welcome.

And that is a reality of a desire of our hearts to serve everybody. And I think TCD is prepared to serve many. Um, but deep inside, we can only serve some well.

And so when, when it comes to the, the, the ability to serve, uh, equip, disciple, train and, and be present, really, there's only so much we can do.

And I'm not even talking about, you know, financial resources. I'm talking about the depth and the time that is spent. And, you know, because we can multiply all we want, but then if we're not getting to that level of depth,

you're basically just going to have a very superficial thing. And so what we, what we've noticed is that whatever's, whatever would be driving people towards TCD will remain.

So if somebody is, you know, someone is finding us through a podcast, if someone is finding us through a blog post or because they met you at a conference, those paths towards TCD would still exist.

And so it doesn't matter who that person is, but deep inside, there's a specific design that God has given TCD to serve and to equip and to disciple.

And we needed to figure out who that person was and that person was in discord.

Uh, and so we had to, we had to come to the conclusion that, um, many can come to us at slow paces, but we can only go in one direction fast.

And so to gain that momentum and to go in, in a, in a way that is not accelerated because we're rushing, but because we want to multiply, right.

Uh, we had to pick one direction.

Um, and it was, it was, uh, you know, I go back to the Bible.

Like for me, there's a very deep meaning towards the moment when Jesus said, I had to go through Samaria.

I had to, he had to go through it.

And that decision to say he had to was actually because of one person.

It was one person.

And that was, that was what created this such a strong direction for him.

Um, and we have to, Hey, this is me.

Okay.

Like that's one question I get.

I ask God often, or maybe he, he asked me the question off.

I was like, would you do it for just one?

And my answer to him is always the same.

God, no, I would not do it for just one.

That's just a waste of my time, waste of my effort, but the deep inside, it's like, Oh man,

I know exactly what he's trying to tell me, you know, and are we willing to create something

like TCD just for one individual?

And I know that's a hard question, but we have to, I don't know that that's the question.

I mean, I get, I get what you're saying, but it wasn't just one.

It was one, exactly.

It was one, one key person that was going to unlock the whole village.

So, and his, and this is, this is something that you're, um, I love the way that you framed

it is if you're just thinking about one in a mindset of addition, I don't know that it's

worth it.

If you're thinking of one with a mindset of multiplication all day long.

Yes, absolutely.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And we, we, we realized that there is an individual that is praying for something like TCD to exist.

And that person is in this board.

And so for us, it was a matter of simply saying, Hey, can we put together, um, a, a communication

structure, um, a discipleship plan, uh, content strategy, like all of these things that could

speak to that person in a way that would feel so intimate in the sense of like, man, they

know me, they understand me.

They, they see me, they heard me.

They know me to the same level that Jesus taught, taught, you know, said to the woman,

like, I know you had five, right.

There was a level of intimacy and no, and like she felt known yet with no judgment.

Right.

So, uh, it's, it's a matter of, because let's, let's be honest.

I believe there's a, there are a lot of people out there with a great desire to start something

digitally and wherever they turn, everywhere they look, everybody's kind of pointing a finger

saying, that's just crazy.

Well, that's not how things go.

That's not how it should be done.

You know?

So they, and Barbara, I love, I love that particular story that you told because what Jesus didn't

say was, Hey, you need to come to the temple, even though that's what the woman at the well

thought he was going to say.

Right.

And that kind of ties into this whole discord conversation, because if we're going to be

reaching people to reach people, we need to reach people where they are in the context of

their relational network, not ours.

So that's why Jesus went to Samaria, to that Samaritan village, so that she could run to

the village quickly and tell all the village around her, look at, you know, listen to this

prophet who told me everything that I did.

So if we try to create our own platform, we, in essence, are creating a separation between

us and that person's network that we're trying to reach.

And the nice thing about discord is you can have multiple servers going on at the same time.

So if they're already in discord, well, we are too.

And they, it's more, it's more slippery.

It's less friction for them to then tell their friends, because it's all using the same platform

that they're already in anyway, instead of having them tell their friends, Hey, come join

me on this other webpage that you've never heard of before.

Right.

That's never going to happen.

And one of the other things that I think about too is, and I got to get this one little

thing out.

It's going to sound a little bit tangential, but I, I feel like there is a whole group of

people that are used to doing online digital church in the traditional way, which is kind

of odd that I'm even saying that because we've been doing this now for what, almost 15 years.

There are already digital traditions in church.

Okay.

So we need to think through like, you know, I got nothing bad to say about CHOP, except

that it's not a church online platform.

It's a church service online platform.

That's the problem because it limits you to the Sunday only experience.

What if, right?

We were to, here's, here's the transitional life form that I think is going to take us into

the future.

What if we, instead of using a CHOP webpage that we still have the live stream, we still

do that on Sunday, but instead of the CHOP chat, we have an embedded discord chat of a

channel.

Right.

So that two things happen.

One is it crosses over these worlds that we have between the discord audience and the normal

Sunday person who's just supplementing.

They get access to the people who are doing community 24 seven.

And at the same time, we are giving those people, we're exposing both groups of people to each

other and both groups to an expression of church that perhaps they haven't been exposed to yet.

Because there is the big, you know, temple courts experience, but there's also the house to house

experience that both need to be aware of each other for the synergy to occur.

Yeah.

There's actually churches right now, Jason, that are streaming from Rezzy into discord.

Like, I don't know if you know, but that's, that's what they're like churches.

There are a couple.

I'm actually trying to find one.

They're, they're, they're trying to get me a name to have a conversation.

The guy's like, Oh yeah, so-and-so does that, but they haven't been able to tell me who

yet.

But, uh, there, there are several I've been told that, that are doing it because there are a couple

of churches that are starting to recognize that discord does have that community aspect beyond,

you know, chops experience, uh, in for the, for the one hour.

And so you get all the moderation tools on the discord side that, you know, you wouldn't normally

have with just an average open chat.

You can have your private volunteer stuff and other discord channels and still manage it much

like chop would manage those.

Um, I, I think there's real potential there because you have a platform that can, that's

so flexible.

You can use it in a lot of different ways to bridge into your other environments.

Yeah.

As, as a matter of fact, I should go ahead, go ahead.

Flack app.

I was going to say, speaking of bridging, we are bridging right now already outside of the

United States, which a lot of the other platforms don't necessarily do that.

They will segregate you in some level into your continent within those platforms.

Discord does not do that at all.

Uh, Barbara's not even on the same continent with the rest of us right now.

There, there are people from other continents who are watching us, who are in the chat, who

are, who are on discord right now.

And when you have a community that can be growing globally, not just geographically, but globally,

you have a lot of other things going on and excitement and like, I can get off and go to

bed at 10 o'clock my time.

And somebody might be getting up and joining the conversation when I'm going to bed.

The conversation doesn't stop based on my timeframe.

It doesn't stop based upon here are the business hours of the church.

It is global community can happen simultaneously.

Even if I'm not involved in all the different places, uh, it can be happening with and without

me.

Yeah.

So let's, let's nerd out a little bit.

I'm going to take you down a path of like, you know, um, but, uh, this, these are the

places where my brain kind of goes.

Yeah.

And so, um, you know, we have this idea of time, uh, in, let's just go back to the very

beginning.

Like, and I actually shared this on this board a while ago when we first started the

channel.

Um, one of the, one of the things that got, had me like literally stuck on Genesis 1, 1 for

a long time.

And it was like, I couldn't read anything else.

And I couldn't even get to verse number two.

Yeah.

It was like, okay.

In the beginning, God created, it was like, I know he's trying to show me something and

I cannot figure out what it is because I couldn't read anything else.

And in some point in time, it dawned on me.

I was like, what was the first thing that he created?

It was not the heavens of the earth.

It was time because he says in the beginning, so it was like, time was the first thing he

created.

And so it was fascinating to me that God was showing me that there was a moment where time

didn't exist.

And then the timeline started and all that kind of stuff.

Well, we've been living on one timeline for a long time.

So that one timeline, you know, time keeps going and, you know, days and hours and whatever

and weeks and years and all of that.

Now we have access to two timelines, one in real life and one digitally.

These are happening simultaneously.

And what is interesting is that there's whole generation, like Gen Z and potentially Gen

Alpha.

For them, life happens digitally.

IRL is just the things you get to, you have to do.

So when, and not, not, it's not for everybody, but there's definitely a shift.

You're going to see that there's two parallel timelines and you will have.

I want to double click on that.

What do you mean?

Because right now I feel like I'm in one.

Are you saying that there's a sync timeline and an async timeline?

Is that what you're saying?

We're like totally meta now.

It's multiverse.

It's multiverse.

Think Loki season two.

Totally.

Totally.

But, but think about it from this angle.

Video games.

A few years ago, you turn on the game, you play, you leave the game.

The game stays where it was.

It doesn't happen that way anymore.

You go in the game.

The game will continue if you leave the game.

Like there's a parallel timeline that's happening just digitally in the metaverse and video games

and, and all of these things like, and so this board is basically giving you access to a complete

different life that is happening just digitally.

And you're going to see like groups of people in Gen Z and down where life happens digitally.

That's where life happens for them.

IRL is just for the things they have to do like hygiene and eat and, you know, like, but

the life community conversations, engagement, like all of these things for them are happening

online.

And that timeline is happening simultaneously with real life, just digitally.

So yeah.

Anyway, that's the kind of stuff that keeps me up at night, you know, crazy thoughts like

that.

That's one of the reasons, you know, when I used to, we used to talk a lot, I wrote a

book on virtual reality churches and actually in the church when the first draft of the book

as I was writing, I would write like in the metaverse and in the real world.

And, and, and, and I was convicted when I was writing.

I was like, I can't keep calling IRL in real life because the metaverse is real.

Like if I call one real, it's implying that the other is not, it's, I'm actually slamming

the metaverse.

And so like, I actually went back and struck all the IRL references because the other is

real.

Now it's, it's asynchronous.

It's outside of time.

It does operate in a, you know, Jason's giving the weird look right now.

It's a tangential approach kind of thing.

Um, if with that, I'm still trying to, I'm still trying to wrap my brain around.

IPL, IPL versus IRL.

I must be missing something because in my mind I'm thinking, okay, my brain can only be in

one place at one time.

Whether it is doing a digital function and or physical function.

Like right now I am physically in Georgetown.

I'm also digitally in this space at the same time.

I get that.

But when it comes to time, I can't be in two times at the same time.

Right.

Unless, unless, unless we're talking about async, where things happen, whether or not I'm engaged

with them or not.

A conversation I can jump into and then jump out of and time flip the conversation in a

way where it's, the conversation is on demand in an async form.

I kind of get that, but it doesn't change the fact that I only have 24 hours in a day.

Does that make sense?

Yeah.

And I agree with you.

I don't think we're, we're bending time by any means, but according to White Beard, you're

just old.

So I'm going to go with that because I don't know how to explain it to you.

No, I'm just kidding.

But yeah, I'm just kidding.

So it's just, it's just an interesting idea how I think we created a different place to

live in the same timeline that we have in real life.

Okay.

That I get.

Yes.

And that place has its own timeline in a way.

Its own, its own community, its own engagement, its own life.

It's, it's the, the, a metaverse community is living outside of the physical community time.

And so we're, listen, JMO is the ultimate realist trying to unpack everything here.

And Hilmi is the ultimate dreamer, you know, and so it's like, this is what staff meetings

are like people.

I just, I want you to understand.

And I'm like, look, I only got you guys for 60 minutes and so-and-so's leaving in four.

We got to be like, let's go, let's go, let's go.

All right.

Let's, so let's, let's clean things up a little bit.

Flatcap, I want to throw it back to you.

There was a question.

And I forget who asked it.

Vernet, I think asked it, man, maybe like half an hour ago.

Discord, like how, using Zoom and some of the other, other software, like talk to us a little

bit with what groups is, within Discord, Flatcap and kind of like what model you have.

We were talking a lot about sitting down at the coffee tables and in conversations.

How does that happen in Discord from a practical standpoint?

Well, one of the things, limitations, I think that Zoom and in Google Meets have is I am

the host.

I have to be present for everyone else to show up.

Now, maybe Google, you have a little more.

If you're inner community, you have some, there's other people with permissions.

But if I'm trying to have a public gathering of people coming and I have the week off, I'm

on vacation.

I'm sick.

I can't make it.

Nobody can meet.

It's all interdependent upon me.

If you're not in these groups, this is a side thing, but it was also connected like it's

overwhelming at some level.

How do you help people coming in to not be overwhelmed?

You allow permissions to not see everything.

So you don't expose them to everything at once.

It'd be like, you know, taking a five-year-old to Disney World and saying, you get to go to

every single place and you have one hour.

You're overwhelmed.

Like you can't go to every single ride in every single place.

So you just say, we're doing two rides.

You give them a limitation of what they have exposure to kind of thing.

So that's just a tangent piece.

But I wanted to preface what I'm going to say.

So there are peer groups.

You can see that there's a peer group that exists, but you get invited into a private

group where things are confidential, where you join together.

And every single person that's in that group can make comments.

We have meetings that take place at certain scheduled timeframes.

I'm going to be on vacation in two weeks.

Those meetings will happen with or without me.

I don't have to be there for those to go on.

They're just set.

Reminders go out.

People show up.

We engage along the way.

And since we have that set up in a way that is private, there is confidentiality.

There is security.

There is those things.

So if it's really, really personal things going on in a prayer request, they're there.

I can still have public ones.

Like we had a prayer for, hey, you know, the hurricane went through and we need prayer

for that.

That goes in the public sphere.

Pastor Coco's in one of those groups.

So you might not even seen her much around the server because she's engaged in that group

and that's where we share the more intimate things going on.

And so that's what I like about Discord over Zoom, over other platforms, is just that level

of things that are going on that you can have everyone open to.

Like we're in Discord right now and the four of us right now are up on the stage and there's

an audience who can come in, which is different than Zoom as well.

You can have a, this is everyone in the meeting and everyone has a voice.

We do that.

I mean, there are so many different levels that seem like it's limitless of the possibilities.

It's limited on your ability to think of a new way to meet people, a new way to engage

people.

And the other thing too, I'm in a lot of other servers.

I'm constantly learning how to be better at Discord by participating outside of TCD,

of outside of my own server, of being in communities with other people.

There is a limit.

I believe Jate Live was telling me you can only be in 99 or 100 servers and he had to

leave one in order to join us, but he did.

He came over and joined us because he wanted to be connected here.

Shout out Jate Live if you don't know Jate Live.

If you don't know Jate Live, you're missing life.

I'm just saying.

That's awesome.

Yeah, Jate's fun and I love the fact that he blew off somebody else to join us.

That's so good with that.

And so if you're interested in joining some of these groups, feel free to get connected

with FlatCap on the server and get connected to it.

You know, it's interesting.

And I want to draw attention and just First Pet, I'm going to pick you out right here for

a second.

First Pet says in the chat, I like the thinking and I'm learning here.

Um, what I love about the fact that First Pet is, uh, is in this, is in this chat right

now, um, is that I met First Pet, First Pet Saturday morning on YouTube.

And so, uh, he actually made a comment.

I'm assuming he, forgive me if I'm not, I'm pretty sure I got to that point.

He, um, uh, made a, made a comment on, on a YouTube video.

But Dave Ferguson, I mean, I'm going back maybe two years.

Like this was not a new video that we did with Dave.

It wasn't one of our new ones.

And, um, and so commented on it and I started a conversation where I replied and he replied

and I replied.

And one of the comments was, Hey, like, can you continue this conversation?

Come join the community.

Like there's only so far that we can get in YouTube that we can get in TikTok that we can

get on a story or a reel.

Like there's only so far the conversation goes that we need to get the person involved

in, into a community.

That's one of the reasons why, you know, when I talk about the framework, the people we're

connected to digitally, we really need to invite them in a community in order to get to a place

where we're equipping them or discipling them.

Like there's only so far that content can get without the community piece and being able

to effectively route people.

There's only so far social can take you.

Tell Michelle, oh my gosh.

Yes.

Which is why digital community is different than social media.

Like the social media layer is important, but what we're doing in community is vital in

order to get to the discipleship piece.

Jeff, I'd love to address Tal Skinny Kiwi's question or comment here in the meantime, while

we get Andy set up.

And so one of the questions that he constantly asks himself is, let's see, how doing church

online will impact IRL church?

And I think getting used to having constant conversation and chat with each other during

our events will make it seem weird to shut up and be silent doing an IRL sermon.

And I think what digital churches or digital communities are creating, they're actually answering a need

of what is already starting to happen in the education system, which is one person talks,

30 people sit down and listen.

The education system is going through the exact same challenges that the church is going through

because that is a very outdated way to teach and multiply and grow.

And it wasn't even how Jesus kind of, you know, like there's so much that happened in ministry

that was beyond just one person speaking and everybody else just listening.

And I think this is actually the result of humans saying, I don't know about this.

Maybe there's a different way of doing things, or maybe I'm craving something different.

I mean, just to give you like an interesting example is what Francis Chan did, like having

this huge church that he was pastoring and went and going down to like a home church model

with just like 20 people or 15 people.

I think naturally we're going to shift away from one person presents a sermon and people

watch it.

I think that's just where we're going.

And so I don't know if it's going to take the shape of a micro church where there's little

you know, like smaller congregations, or if it's going to be more, I don't know how it's

going to express itself.

But I think that's that desire is actually what's creating such a need for digital churches

that are more on the, you know, circle table than the auditorium.

You know, there was an interesting, that's so good, Barbara.

There was a comment that actually popped up in our general chat yesterday, last night,

this morning.

I think Paul said it, Paul would have just come back from a trip to the Philippines.

Then he was over there with like, Kansas, well, no, it was, it was Tampa underground over

there.

And, and, and Paul was like commenting off of somebody had said something, I think Matt said

something about Kansas city or about some micro church material out there.

And Paul's like, it was just talking about, you know, the church digitals philosophy towards

micro and, and, um, you know, the underground philosophy and exponential philosophy.

And, and to be honest, like, I love the fact that that, I don't even know who Paul is.

Like I may have a casual relationship with him.

I couldn't pick him out of a lineup, but I love the fact that, that he's looking at the

church digital.

And recognizing some of the, the micro, the intentional micro underpinnings of what we're

doing.

We're not a, we're not a micro church organization by any stretch.

Like there's, you know, giga church people there.

There's in chat right now, there's people that are working at thousand person churches

and, and Ian's at like a church with like 30 people physically.

And that's not even digital.

So like we're, we're serving all sorts.

Um, but the relational aspects, the discipleship aspects of, of what we're doing.

I know JMO has been working really hard to bake that in.

And so like from a relational context that what we're pulling from Tampa underground, Casey

underground, exponential new things, stadia, like there's been so many influences that have

really been, been helping the church digital.

Actually, I said this in the response to Paul is like, man, we're, we're the new kid on

the block compared to all these other organizations that have been around for decades, but we're

really like standing on their shoulders, really proclaiming, Hey, you know, you all are used

to like broadcasting in front of millions of people and being excited because you've got

people to view this video for like three seconds.

Yay.

Yay for you.

Now there's this opportunity to be relational with these people, to get them into community,

to actually disciple them digitally.

And it's this new thinking that, you know, in the U S is a challenge, but globally, oh

my gosh, there's so much open to this idea in, in international spaces.

And so it's, it's exciting to, to be on this front wave coming into it.

Well, Jeff, you and I had talked about this before, so I'm going to steal another minute.

You know, socially as a society, we, we were introduced to the information age, you know,

not too long ago, if you think about it.

And when we were, you know, in that age of information, everything is coming towards us.

The, the social currency was time.

Like I spent time reading information, finding information.

And for those of us old enough, surfing the web, right?

Youngers don't even know what that means.

Like to surf the web.

I actually remember surfing, you know, you go from one page to the next, no search engines,

that kind of stuff.

So it's like, you know, that was the information age and the currency that we were spending socially

was time.

Then we moved to engagement age.

That's like social media.

You post, you comment, you share, you create your YouTube, whatever.

And that is when we shifted to a different currency, which was attention.

You'll hear a bunch of marketers talk about that kind of stuff.

So, you know, everybody wants your attention.

And we shifted.

We are already in a, in a, in a different age right now,

which is the age of curation.

And I mean, just look at many of the YouTubers out there.

They're curating a path for somebody, right?

What's, what should I unbox next?

Yeah.

How many of you watch those videos where somebody is telling you what, what products to buy and

how and where, I mean, even my kids will look at the unboxing of toys.

They prefer to watch somebody play with them than actually get them.

And so that I did unboxing of the TCD swag.

There you go.

You see, so like these, the, the curation age where that we are right now,

uh, the currency is trust.

And so what creating is circles of trust.

And that those circles of trust is what society will naturally pursue.

And honestly, uh, discord is a perfect tool to adjust exactly that.

Not just curation, but, but with trust being the currency that we're now spending socially.

So, well, with, with curation, it's also, here are all the people doing all of these things.

And so there's a whole bunch of adding to knowledge of, there's not just one way to do it.

There's not just two ways to do it.

There's not just three ways to do it.

There is experimentation happening.

When we're talking digital, you're throwing VR in there.

You're throwing Twitch gaming streaming in there.

You're throwing Facebook groups in there.

You're throwing, I think it is unlimited.

The number of ways that, that people are, are doing it.

And so I just want to tag back on and, and Andy can probably add this too of the, the interaction

between things.

I've, I've been a pastor for over 20 years before I was a pastor, I was trained to be a

teacher.

So the, I stand in front, I disseminate information was the way I was trained.

I am totally addicted to being interrupted as I'm reading the Bible.

I read two hours a day, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and sometimes longer.

And I get five minutes into something and we get a side conversation for about five to 10

minutes about a question that was engaged going on is, what do you think about this?

Or what about that?

Like, it was so hard over the last couple of years for me to give sermons, um, because nobody

was interrupting me.

Nobody was asking questions.

I did not know if I was connecting and resonating with people because there's no chat for me to

read, to know I connected.

And, and I'm also with churches that are struggling and dying that I've been working

with.

So they're not even used to amens and hallelujahs and let their face know that they're in agreement

or nod their head.

I'm like, oh my goodness.

So, I mean, I'm at the two extremes of, I know that people are getting it and we're having

a conversation and they're going to walk away with something.

And I gave something to them and all I'm going to get at the end is great message, pastor.

And I have no idea if I really even connected with somebody.

So good.

I, you know, I, I, it's a confession hour here and this, this drives my wife nuts in church.

So a lot of, you know, like if you've been around the church digital for a long time,

the name Ray DeArmis, he used to be a digital pastor at Christ Fellowship Miami.

He actually replaced me when I quit as a digital pastor when I resigned.

Just call it healthy.

So we go to the same church.

Okay.

Ray and I go to the same church.

And so I will, it's a small church, 150 people in a service, 250 on a weekend, a church plant.

And I always sit on the left-hand side and Ray always sits on the right-hand side.

So we're like opposite from each other.

And during the sermon, we've got a text thread open between us.

Now, Carlos Lollette's the pastor of this church.

We are great friends.

Like we went, we used to work with Carlos and I'll just, I'm literally, I'm just blowing up Ray all during the sermon.

Thoughts, questions, ideas, like, you know, second screen, like you would normally do like in, in, in discord.

And, uh, and Ray's texting me back.

And so like, we're, we're laughing.

I'm, I'm joking kind of, you know, and, and so I'll smirk sometimes every once in a while.

And my wife is like elbowing next to me, like, put the phone away.

You're making a scene, stop it.

And I, but I'm just, you know, still doing it because that's, that's how I engage.

Right.

But the, the traditional teacher, the masters of education, I'm doing this.

My wife's fricking brilliant, but she's struggles with new ways of, of thinking.

Like she's very traditionalist in, in her, her style.

And so she's seeing me do this, engaging you.

Like you're being completely disrespectful to, to Carlos and to everybody else in the room.

Meanwhile, Carlos is like, where are the highlights?

Give me, give me the updates.

What are you guys thinking?

We're, so we're even talking with Carlos and bringing him in.

And, and so it's, it's really, um, it's interesting to see that, that parrot, that paradigm shift.

I've been saying this and I've told JMO previously, like for me, platforms like Pushpay and Resi should be incorporating in asynchronous community into the, into the live aspects of it.

Like, I would love to see talking about church aligned platform.

How can I live, uh, chat in the live room with church aligned platform and have the online people see it in the same time?

Like, can we time slip so that it, it, it makes sense.

So virtual and physical can, can connect.

Andy's giving me the peace sign.

I don't know what that means.

Are you seconding?

You got to go.

Peace out.

Cool.

All right.

Hey, I want to be respectful of time, but I'm having fun.

So, um, Andy Hilmi or Andy, Andy left, uh, flat cap Hilmi, do you have time to hang around for a while or do you have to go to?

I got to run.

So I thank you guys for this time.

It's been amazing.

So I'll see you guys around.

Awesome.

Hey, uh, y'all jumping on the stream.

That was a very abrupt end, but we got to go.

So thanks for hanging out with us.

I lost track of time.

I was so excited by my async comment.

Uh, we're good, but, um, feel free to, I, we stream every Tuesday doing this and would love to see you all on here and, uh, get connected into church on what we're doing here.

I started as a church on a platform, get connected to what we're doing with the church digital.

We'd love it.

Hey, thanks y'all for being here.

Um, see you soon.

Bye.