EP303 - Wait! That's a Church? - Opportunities to Think Differently

I start recruiting leaders is because I don't want it to be a monotone.

I don't want it to be a personality driven by all means.

So I don't want people to just look at me at the past.

When we're having conversations at the church and they recognize leadership,

they just don't point to me.

They point to the other people with me, which I think is great.

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 Church Digital Podcast.

We are in season eight.

Wait, that's a church?

Joey, I think I got that one right.

That may be...

I did.

That was good.

That may be like the cut, copy, paste it.

They were going to do that from now on.

But this is episode 303.

303 of the Church Digital Podcast.

Barbara Carnero is excited about the little 8-bit avatar, Jeff, jumping up and down in front of a cathedral as it morphs into a bar.

Like she...

Anyway, that is a reality that's going to happen.

We had that conversation.

And that's a throwback to 302 if you missed it.

But here in season eight, wait, that's a church, we're hanging out with Joey Santos initially.

And we'll bring some other people in in some future episodes.

But really doing a deep dive into the idea of church at a bar.

Joey is a former digital pastor who resigned from his job as a digital pastor at an established physical church

to basically continue to run a church, microchurch, that operates out of a bar location.

And I actually became the operations manager, operations director for said bar.

And what an incredible story.

I think we're episode three in on this.

You know, Joey, I do think this is going so good.

I think I can officially say we're going to spin this off into a separate series.

I just, I really love hanging out with my friend.

And, you know, we've been getting some good feedback on it.

To be honest, I have no idea how I'm going to manage, like, all the administrative stuff on all this.

But, you know, knowing me, it's like fake it till you make it.

So we're just going to run until, you know, somebody smashes or crashes or, you know, whatever.

If somebody can do it, that's a huge job.

Yes, yeah.

In the absence of leadership, someone will arise.

And would somebody please arise at this point?

No, I'm kidding.

This is great.

I love doing this.

And so, but hey, so let's review.

Episode 301, if you're new to this conversation, the first episode, we've really focused on kind of operation, basically what we're doing with the show and the idea of, wait, that's a church.

And so it's really kind of an intro to the whole thing, as my pharmacist calls me, which is awesome.

Episode 2, 302, was really more focused on the bar itself and Joey's story of how that worked.

And so you can go back and listen to episode 302 of that.

And then episode 3, 303, where we are now, man, like Joey dropped a bomb last week and we kind of glossed it over just because of time, but where Joey was talking about how he is looking at extending the bar into new locations, multiple locations.

And the bar is opening up a new, what's it called, monkey, what's monkey bar, monkey shines?

What's the name of the bar, Joey?

It's monkey bar and grill.

Monkey bar and grill is opening up a new location in, um, well, they're, they're like four or five miles away.

And so what would, what would a multi-site micro church model look like a network of churches?

And even, you know, getting into the question of, as we're talking about, um, multiple models of church, like what exactly is a church?

And so these are some of the things we're going to get into, uh, here into the conversation today.

And Joey, I have done a lot of talking up here at the front and, and not much of you.

So, man, you got anything you want to say up top here as, as we, uh, with the show?

Yeah.

Thanks, Jeff.

I think it has been really good.

It's first two episodes has been really, I think really good.

Actually, it helps me to remember, remember things that we've done that, you know, sometimes you forget.

And it's good to look back, uh, and kind of refresh our memories on some of these things that we've done.

And it's just a bar.

I think it's, I think for the audience though, for the people listening to us, it's so important for them to understand that this is not,

this is really not a statement about any kind of expression of church.

It actually is the opposite is it's us like looking into, first of all, the mission of the church.

And regardless of the building where you meet in, you meet at, it doesn't matter.

It's just, you know, are we accomplishing the mission?

Uh, and I happen to have an opportunity to do this, this inside of a building that happens to be a bar, right?

So we, uh, and we focus on just let's accomplish this mission of making disciples or making disciples look like in this environment.

So, uh, I think it's, it breaks from the traditional, that's for sure.

And, in, I think in the next few episodes, people are going to start meeting other expressions of church out there.

But I think there's even a possibility that we're going to discover through this podcast is people having different expressions of the church inside a traditional church building,

which makes a very interesting, makes a very interesting twist to the whole thing.

Uh, because at the end of the day, it's really about the mission at the church and are we accomplishing that mission through any of those expressions, including digital, uh, right?

I just happened to not be doing digital the way I was doing before, but I, I, I deeply believe on the digital.

I still, uh, to this day, uh, yes, I help churches in conversations on, on digital, uh, platforms and digital churches and what they're doing, uh, because I believe in that mission.

I believe that you can accomplish the mission through digital, uh, platform, but this isn't to me is happened to be a micro church model, which I never done it before.

That's the most, like, I never, ever crossed my mind to ever do this, uh, anything remotely like this.

So I think it is important though, but, but, but again, Jesus, he said the example, right?

He multiply before he distribute, before he gave away.

And that's what we're looking at, you know, can we, what we need to do to multiply the experience that people are having in this location.

Uh, and I would say, Jeff, I don't know about you.

I, I, I, I'm, I'm curious to hear from you now is, uh, when it comes to multiplication in your mind, what do you think should be the first step of every leader?

What they should think first when, what, what do you think that is?

Oh man, I feel like this is a trick question.

You're, you're putting me on the spot here.

I'm supposed to be interviewing you.

Um, and so, uh, yeah, I mean, I would say, well, you know, it's, it's interesting.

Actually, I, I told somebody this the other day.

It's, it's, if I'm gonna, if I'm gonna train somebody, I never want to train one person.

I always want to train two or three, um, at the same time.

Um, I just have a, um, a very, well, I've trained that one person before I've invested a year in that person and that person doesn't, doesn't pan out.

And so like it, for me, it's, I would rather train two or three people at the same time.

Um, and when I say train, I mean, that can be training on a technique, a technical technique that can be, um, you know, that can be investing in, in a marriage or a relationship or, you know, that could even be just full on discipleship and, and, and, and walking through that person.

Um, the, the intent is, you know, especially focused on multiplication.

Um, you know, is your disciple capable of making a disciple?

Can they reproduce this idea?

Which for me is like, when you said last week that you were wanting your church to multiply, uh, like not just the one bar location, but multiple bar locations.

And that was like an urgency.

Now to me, that was like, that was like angels singing in the background because I mean, to be honest, um, we don't, we don't see that a lot.

Uh, and it, and it, it takes a lot of coaching to get planters today, uh, to overcome the growth mindset and, and go to a multiplication mindset.

Um, and so like to me, that's, that's the big difference with, with multiplication is I'm going to invest time in my best person, not to become my associate, to make my life easier, but actually to hand it off, to be my, not competition, but somebody who's going to be taking my leaders and making my life really much, much harder.

Um, it's interesting there, I'll, I'll shut up after this, Joey, but I heard a guy on, um, oh my gosh, I forget what podcast this was.

Um, it was, uh, a leadership church leadership podcast a couple of years ago, and he was interviewing a pastor in California and this, this pastor, you know, Ian's in the crowd, Ian, this is actually a great story for you.

Um, this guy was at 150 person church somewhere in California, I want to say Northern California, and he said they worked really hard to grow the church to 250, 300 people.

And he said, the staff and the people were miserable at 300, their discipleship model fell apart.

Nobody knew each other.

There wasn't the fellowship and the community aspects wasn't there.

Like they couldn't do 300.

And so what the church decided was anytime they got to 250 or 200, 225, they'd start to split.

They'd figure out who was going to go lead the next church in that church, as I recall, planted seven campuses, seven standalone churches, 150 person church planted seven churches as a result of, Hey, we're too big.

Somebody go.

We're too big.

Somebody goes, who's next, where you want to go?

Okay, let's go there.

Who's going to go with them?

You're like that idea of multiplication is beautiful.

I enjoy.

I have no idea if that's what you were looking for, but that's what I really, I really trying to pick her brain on it because I remember when we first started,

started this idea in implementing this church, the bar, it was so interesting to me because I remember, you know, the bar, you'll be in there.

It's a gigantic building for a bar.

Oh, yeah.

In a restaurant.

So just like I said, the patio alone, we can, we'll have 800 people there on a Friday night.

That's not even inside the building.

Inside the building is another 400 people.

So when we first started, we started with a mega church mindset.

We started the church, the bar thinking, how can we put 400 people inside this bar?

And we'll figure it out what to do with them when they come in.

And it's very interesting because it didn't take too long for me that was there almost every weekend to realize that's not the goal.

Like to me, that was not the goal.

For the church, it's still like that's what we want to do.

We want to feel displaced with people.

But as soon as I started really getting into the weekly activities with the church, the bar, I learned very soon, very fast.

That's like, that's not the point.

We'll lose momentum really fast in the church, the bar, if we grow too fast, if we grow too much.

That means we are meant to be a small group of people who want to get a better relationship with each other and God.

And anything beyond that, we need to go to a different place.

So like we got to think multiplication.

And that's when that, in my mind, shifts immediately.

So the first thing I did a year and a half ago, I invited two people to join me on a teaching team.

And they start, I started developing them into that position, which, you know, it was one male, one female, which they, yeah, we have a female teacher.

And I chose the bar.

But the goal for them is like, listen, the idea is for you guys to eventually go out.

And then we train more.

The new location, actually, that we're going to start building at the end of this year, we start building the new location.

One of the teachers, you know, the leaders, it's closer to his house.

So he's like, I'm taking down one.

I said, perfect.

We got things started.

You go, you take that over there.

And I think that's the, that has been like, again, something new for me to dive into and explore what this really looks like.

But here's a challenge.

And I think it'd be great to hear from all other microchurch pastors.

Because because it's such a small group, it's a tight group, the last thing this group want to think about is split up into different groups because they're ready to build the relationship.

It's like when you happen to find the perfect small group in your church, you don't want to split up to grow.

But the church, you know, the church leadership is like, no, if you want to grow, we got to split our group.

Well, it's a very relationship based.

I don't want to split up because we have a relationship.

So we have been having this conversation as the church, the bar with the group that we have saying we are the starting point of this.

That means eventually we have to have such a missional mindset in this church that we're going to have to go out and lead other people so we can grow as a ministry.

So we can actually impact more people, not just here.

And that's we talk about that constantly there.

So we put in people's minds, you know, the whole time they're there that, you know, you may not be here for too long because you're going to be doing the mission someplace else because that's the calling here.

And people, like, they seem open to it.

I think it's going to be different when, you know, it happens.

But we're going to cross that bridge when we get there.

But I think that's going to be our biggest challenge in multiplication because I wanted the multiplication.

I want to see a multiplication that's not so organizationally structured.

I want to see a multiplication that it happens in a way that just like happens to church, the bar, where it's completely relationship driven and not much as organizational structure driven.

Does that make any sense?

Yeah.

So the average church in America with a growth model, you know, they've got a – I'm using a building.

It's not really about the building sometimes, but it's about, you know, utilizing the resources that you have to make that pop.

And so the goal is to make the building, the services, the people, the seats, like maximizing the potential of what's in that building, the resources that are in that building.

You know, what you're describing is almost like another level above that.

You know, I'm thinking like, you know, Rob Wagner's Casey Underground, Tampa Underground down here, Lucas Pulley, Texas Church Project, Jason Shepard.

You know, those guys are not as concerned with what is happening in any one location as much as getting and reproducing more of the leaders and the people to fan out.

They're focusing more on individuals to reproduce something, to grow them to the place where they can stand on their own as opposed to compiling and growing a location or a spot or a brand.

You know, I don't want to equate physical churches to brand, but often, at least in my experience, it is a lot about the brand of that and the misinterpretation of what branding actually means.

But I do think it's a different level of what you're describing.

It's higher than a single location.

And now you're casting vision to your people.

It's not about what happens here on the corner of 5th and Main.

It's now about how can we empower others to do that.

Like, at that point, Joey, I love the fact that you have a teaching team because essentially you're moving into the place higher up the ladder where it's like, hey, I just want to see this idea spread.

What are you going to do about it?

You know, within the movement system, I don't, you know, here with the Church Digital, I don't teach the movement system.

You know, flat cap and Jason do that, you know, and so I don't have to.

I can be higher.

Now, I want to be involved, but to the point of there are people that are doing that and they are reproducing themselves.

It's a conversation I had with Jason today.

So, like, the idea of seeing growth and expansion, but to do that, I feel like we as an individual, we as the leaders, we can't find our identity in doing the work.

You know, so often when I talk about flying higher and empowering others to lead, well, Jeff, I really love insert X.

I really love preaching.

And so, like, I'm not, I want 50 weeks a year.

Jeff, I really love, you know, having the conversations.

And so, I'm going to do it myself.

I don't need to apprentice or disciple anybody into this.

And that's where I feel like it's a mistake because our pride actually keeps us from releasing and raising up the potential of somebody else.

Oh, yeah.

That started, for me, it started in Kansas City when we had a cohort meeting on digital church planting.

Where I was literally first introduced to the conversation of what decentralized church would look like.

Like, I really caught that in that meeting.

And I really started to study that and explore that and reading books about it.

Because I think fundamentally, it's where the church finds itself in a, not a conflict, but in a realist challenge.

Because the satellite model does not allow decentralized church to work, right?

It's a very centralized model.

Even in a satellite campus style of a church, it cannot be decentralized.

I remember even, like, in a church like I used to work, when I brought the conversation about, you know, we got to change the format in the church to bar because it doesn't work the same way being here in a building.

And, you know, we can't, we cannot have, we cannot try.

It's not going to work.

And in many conversations, it was like, no, no, no, we got, I remember even, like, a sermon series that we're doing on finances.

And one of the conversations were, oh, we got to do there the exact same thing we're doing here.

I was like, you know, let me ask what we're trying to accomplish.

Let's say we can accomplish it in a way that fits that crowd different than here because here you have chairs facing one way, you have a stage, you have lights, you have, you know, everything is set up for what you're doing.

But when you get in a bar setting where tables and chairs and people are sitting more in a community environment, they're having conversations.

What we do in a building, in a church, traditional church building, is not going to work in a different environment.

So all you have to do is, like, what goal we want to accomplish.

Let's accomplish the goal, but it might not look the same the way we do it.

And the tension was that.

The tension was, it's not going to work if you don't do exactly the same.

And I was like, okay, so let's do exactly the same.

And, you know, we actually tried to replicate every single aspect of it.

And it did not work.

And it didn't get the results.

Let me back up a little bit.

Because I know sometimes when I talk about decentralized, I get eyes glossing over.

But I think this is an important principle.

Because I've actually worked in a centralized multi-site and a decentralized both.

And so, like, I can literally testify to the strengths and weaknesses of both sides.

So a centralized church is going to be something like Life Church, where Life Church has an elevation.

And it's not about size.

It's more about they want the same experiences across the board.

Whether it's video teaching, same worship sets, same small group material, same discipleship process.

And that's great.

By the way, Life Church actually has, like, a customer profile.

A couple years.

This is old data.

This goes back pre-COVID.

But lots of churches want to become Life Church.

Life Church would not even consider going to the town or the city that the church was recruiting unless there was a Panera.

I'm sorry, not a Panera, a payway.

If there was a payway in the area that the church was at, that was the metric that Life Church would consider to go into that town.

Because Life Church knew what the customer was.

And this customer of payway was the same customer that would go to a Life Church.

It was the same type of person.

And so Life Church was really good at reaching that type of person and would only go where that type of person existed.

And there's a strong level of centralization and control because the central church is controlling what's happening out at the, you know, Joe used the term satellites at the other locations.

The other issue, the other model is a decentralized multi-site where it's more like a network of churches that work together and less like Starbucks franchises.

So a decentralized model is like, hey, why don't you go over there and why don't you go over there and you go over here?

Okay, I'm in an area that's very urban and downtown.

You're in a very redneck rural area.

You're in a very Hispanic area.

Okay, let's work together.

Let's share HR resources and other things to try to centralize as much as we can.

But it's important that, you know, whatever you guys need at the ministry level to succeed, that's what you should do.

And so it's not about decentralized is not about control as much as it is empowering others.

Now, what's interesting is like I hated the decentralized model when I was centralized.

And when I got to decentralized, I hated central, like, you know, there's so many strengths and weaknesses in both.

It's like it was a nightmare.

Being a communications director in a decentralized church model, I'm telling you, is the hardest thing on the planet.

Oh, man.

You've got six churches all doing their own thing, and you've got to figure out what to communicate from the main brand.

You know, and how many campus pastors were fighting me to get their church, their preaching online?

It's just, like I said, it was a nightmare.

But now, man, I love the idea of what we're seeing Joey do and others where it's not about brand.

It's not about trying to centralize something that's decentralized.

It's more about, man, how do I empower this guy that lives in this area to create a church in a bar with a bar that we're building?

What would it even look like to start to partner with other bars, hypothetically speaking, of course, here?

Like, to me, it's really exciting.

Like, I know people who own bars, and I'm thinking, oh, my gosh, I need to introduce them to Joey because they would love the idea of this church at a bar thing.

Like, we could scale this thing.

Oh, yeah.

And it's going to be different in different locations because it's different people, and it's different leaders.

Like, see, even that alone, one of the things why I started recruiting leaders at the church, the bar, in a very small group, is because I don't want it to be a monotone church.

I don't want it to be a personality-driven by all means.

So I don't want people to just look at me at a pastor.

And it's interesting right now because when the church makes – when we're having conversations at the church and they recognize leadership, they just don't point to me.

They point to the other people with me, which I think is great.

They don't just recognize me as the only teacher.

They recognize all three of us, which I think is phenomenal without me ever pushing that.

Just by putting them up front and leading conversations, and all three of us, we don't lead the same.

So, for example, here's how we do this.

And this is going to make some pastors really probably twist their arms on this one.

But the way we do it is, like, we actually met last October and planned the whole 2004 teaching plan for the whole year.

Except one thing, though.

With the weekends I teach, I prepare myself.

I chose the team.

But each one of us do our own way.

We don't follow the same format.

We don't follow the same – I'll tell you this, Jack.

Not even – we use the screen, the big screen behind us.

We have a big screen that we use for, you know, to show sports.

So we connect our computer.

But not even our presentations look the same.

Like, it's not like we have the same template for the presentations and all.

Why?

Because we want people to know the teacher, to know the speaker for who they are, for their style.

And I think that's – it's so important on a church environment, right?

And the people, like, if it's going to be decentralized, I even look at us like the leadership – our leadership is very decentralized, right?

We agree on the mission, where we want to go, but we don't want to, you know – and I actually thought it's interesting because branding seems to be a dirty word in church sometimes.

But even to be decentralized, you've got to brand that, right?

You've got to brand the decentralization of your model.

But I think there's so much good when we actually prepare leaders to be who they're called to be and allow them to lead.

Well, flat cap in chat here.

By the way, we're hanging out in Discord.

I don't know if I said that earlier.

We're broadcasting this live in Discord, doing a live podcast recording.

Discord.thechurch.digital.

Come join.

Okay, so flat cap in the chat here says, set them free versus control them.

And that's an interesting question.

So decentralized, we want to empower people in the field.

You're talking about this guy that lives in this area.

You want to see him succeed, and so you're training to release.

What is a non-negotiable?

Like in microchurch network terms, minimal ecclesiology, we talked about that a little bit in episode 300 with Alan Hirsch.

What defines a church so much that in your terms that's not on the table?

Well, that's a little question, isn't it?

You see, it definitely is not the style of service.

What defines the ecclesiology of the church, the Bible, for example, is not the style of service.

And I would say, Jeff, this is one thing.

It's the Bible is the only authority in the room.

That's it, like for us.

Like I said, I mentioned that before.

I mentioned that before.

I said, you know, I tell the church, the bar, I'm not the authority here.

The Bible is the authority.

I'm just a mall cop.

All I have is a flashlight.

I cannot arrest anybody.

I cannot take anybody down.

I, that's, that's all I am.

And, and the people kind of love that at the church, the bar, because they, they feel like I'm not trying to impose anything of, because I'm a pastor, I'm of the authority over them.

And really relax them to be part of the conversation.

But I think what the, the main thing for us, because we don't do anything traditional, we don't have a worship in a sense of the music side of it.

No, we don't have a worship team.

So we don't do music like we do in a traditional church.

We don't do, if you look at the most traditional things that we have in a service, we don't do, we don't preach the same way, right?

Because we, we do more like a conversation style.

We ask questions.

We allow people to participate.

So I think when it comes to what, what, what, the things that's non-negotiable for us, looking at multiplication is that we're never going to deviate from teaching the Bible.

And I not say only teaching, I would say practical teaching.

That's, that's another part of it, the church, the bar.

So we, when we prepare the message, when we ask the questions, the fundamental guide to ask questions, the questions have to be fully related, life related.

So we teach the Bible and then attach to a life question.

So I can make the association.

So Jesus was very, Jesus was the master in practical teaching.

He was not just the teacher.

He was not just the rabbi.

He was like very practical in his teaching.

That's why we look at the parables, right?

That's why we look at how he tells the stories and how he, he, he always had the gift to relate to people right immediately because it was practical.

His teaching was for people to really understand, right?

He, he, he came down to, to people's capacity to understand because that's how much he care for people.

So I think that part of the, in the church, the bar is that we look at, we're not going to only teach the Bible.

It's going to be a very practical teaching on the Bible.

So we can actually apply right now.

And we don't ask questions that are not there.

I mean, we, we, we, we're talking about right now, this few weeks, we're talking about what's church at the church to bar.

And the last Sunday, the first question I asked right off the bat, it was, what do you fear the most about church?

Which is a very weird question to ask, but it was amazing how we usually have five minutes for an answer.

We, that we spent almost 10 minutes on that because everybody had something to say because in reality, people have fears when it comes to church, because at some point in their lives, they got hurt by the church.

And people are very open.

People are very honest.

And it was so interesting to hear that the two major, the top two on the list was a fear to be judged.

Like people go to church, but they're very feared to be judged.

And the second one is the secrets that are behind the scenes.

And, and I think, you know, just as a reference, you got to understand that in the location we are at, a lot of people that go to church, any church or even church, the bar, they started their church experience in the Catholic church.

So a lot of people made the reference say, Hey, I, I, I was going to church every Sunday and here's what happened.

And I know there's secrets behind it, but there's people that just went to a regular church and got surprised by also pastors who ended up falling.

So I think, I think making the Bible, the center of, of your teaching and not deviating from it and making that very practical, it has been a really good recipe for, for us.

In terms of, in terms of that's a non-negotiable, we're always going to be by the Bible, what the Bible teaches.

Yeah.

That let me, let's, let me go a little more practical.

I love that answer.

Uh, we can spend all day on that, but, um, let's say location two wants to do music.

Are you, are you okay with that?

Oh yeah.

I'm not opposed.

I just don't have, I just don't have the structure, the talent to do it.

So I'm not, you know, I'm not going to force it.

Uh, and, and people are okay with that.

I'm okay with that.

Right.

But, uh, absolutely.

If we have, uh, if somebody opened a location, say, Hey, my son is a really good singer and can really do the worships.

I go for it.

Uh, do it.

I'm not, I'm, I'm not going to regulate any of that in any location.

Uh, if he really works for the group, right?

It's, I mean, if somebody that cannot hold a tune and doesn't know the guitar has like, think the guitar has seven strings instead of like six or, I mean, it's going to be complicated.

Right.

Uh, or I remember doing, uh, worship auditions in church and this musician, musician came in, like, I want to play in the worship team.

And she, and she started playing the keyboard, but like, let's play this song together.

And she said, uh, can we just post your app?

Because I can only play songs in the app.

We're like, have a nice day.

Thanks for coming by.

Yeah.

You know, here's the number for the student ministry worship guy.

Why don't you go connect with him?

That's funny.

Um, what, um, you know, it's, it's interesting, you know, it's just, I feel like we're focused on music, but yeah, it's interesting that your music is not like music is typically on, on the radar for, uh, um, you know, an essential for worship.

I, I, for church, I would say, you know, somebody is going to quote, make a joyful noise.

Uh, and, uh, and, and, and tell me 15 Bible verses and involving musical worship and David, uh, which is why they think that, uh, that music should be part of a church service.

And so you taking it off the table is, is interesting.

Um, is there anything like, I don't necessarily want to call that a radical idea, but is there anything else that, that you've, you've kind of have adjusted off the table from what the typical model is?

Um, yeah, I think, I think, I think music was the bigger one because even in the beginning we, we used to, when we first started, we used to broadcast the music from the main campus.

Uh, but it's interesting enough, just like we have these discussions before in the online church, digital church, when we stream music to your church, I invite you to just go and look at your, um, uh, uh, analytics, look at your analytics per minute and see what happened in the worship during our live streaming.

Um, you know, people are making sure the pancakes are not burning and make sure, you know, the diapers are changed and all that.

And they're waiting for the message to kick in and when message comes in, you see the uptick on the audience.

Why?

Because at home on the broadcast music is just not that relevant that people want it to be.

It's just not that engaging because I'm not, I'm not in the, in the room.

See, the worship that we do in the room is built.

To provoke a reaction, a response, right?

So that's why we have the lights and projection and, uh, and all that, all that environments built for it.

But in my house, I'm just listening.

I'm just, I'm just watching a show.

I'm, I'm watching a music and I want people to get offended with that.

I know the intention is not to be a show, but I'm sitting in my house watching a nice music on TV.

And then I'm going to start consuming the message in which that's what I'm coming in for.

So by watching people at the bar, watching the music and not having any response to it, when we transition from video to live, I was like, there's no reason to bring music if we don't really have music to offer.

One of the ways that I do that though, um, is we take communion.

And when we take communion, I actually play a worship song, uh, for people to reflect as they're taking communion.

And that's kind of like our music portion of it.

But one thing that I don't know if there's anything else that we removed from, we changed so much from the traditional way of doing church.

Uh, besides the music is the music is the big one, right?

I mean, you have the two biggest parts, portions of your service is going to be message and music.

Uh, and we use that time mostly for the conversations that we have on the Bible.

Yeah, that's, that's, that's big.

Um, I could see, oh, some other, that's what I was going to say.

Excuse me.

Some other ways it's interesting, even cutting worship out.

Um, I mean, there's more than one way to skin that cat.

There's more than one way to scratch that itch.

Let's be a little less gross.

There's more than one way to scratch that itch.

Uh, provide a YouTube playlist.

Um, put it on, put it on your, like a weekly website where they can digest it on their own or Spotify, but they can take it, take, they can take it with them and they can worship in the car as they're going.

Um, we actually did a lot of that with some of the micro stuff that we were doing, um, back pre COVID out of the church that I was at.

And so we had, uh, micro church networks around and, and they didn't have, I mean, they would watch the canned worship half the time.

And sometimes it wasn't working.

Some would bring in a guy with a djembe and a classic and a acoustic guitar to play.

Um, you know, some would do their own YouTube playlist and do casting crowns and whatever.

Once again, we were very decentralized with that.

Which I got a lot of heat from a centralized church leading at the centralized micro church network, but that's another conversation.

Um, but the idea of, Hey, be, be creative with it just because you've seen it one way done in a corporate environment at your, you know, mega church on the corner.

Doesn't mean that's the way it's the only way to do it.

And, you know, there's always ways to, to reimagine some things.

And so, I mean, I give, you know, you know, pats in the back and, uh, praise for, Hey, we really can't do this well.

Um, so we're, we're not going to, but we're open to, if, if somebody else would, um, that's, that's great.

Um, man, is, is there anything else we need to cover today?

Is this good?

This, I think that's a great conversation.

There's so much here that we can, you know, keep talking.

We, we will next few weeks.

Uh, but I think it's been, it's been good.

And I think a lot for people to, to, you know, to, to join this conversation, you know, through comments and, and messages, just say, Hey, here's, here's some thoughts on this because we, we have not all figured out.

We're still, we're still learning.

We're still exploring.

We, uh, and we love to network on this because I think that's, that's a big part of it.

Yeah.

Uh, Simon says, uh, in, in chat here, Simon's in Germany, by the way.

Uh, love what you do.

A friend, pastor of mine opened a jazz bar in our village in Germany, uh, reaching people that would never attend our church.

And so love that assignment's actually a pastor of beta church, uh, a digital only church in, um, in Germany as well.

And is starting a, uh, cloud church, which is a, a digital church network up there.

Simon, we need to talk, uh, not appropriate for this podcast,

but I need to, I'll, I'll, I'll DM you and, uh, and let's, um, let's find the time to get together.

Uh, but no, this, this is good, man.

I have tall, skinny Kiwi.

I will listen to tall, skinny Kiwis typing something right now.

I'm going to stall for tall, skinny Kiwi.

Tall is, uh, uh, your readings from New Zealand.

That's why I stalled, bro, for you to say hello from New Zealand.

I was going to say you are from New Zealand.

I didn't need you to type it in there to, to stall the ending of the podcast, but it's, it's, I was expecting some wisdom.

Uh, tall, skinny Kiwi is a VR guy.

And so looking forward, we'll have to have him on at some time talking about VR church.

We do want to get into, we've been spending a lot of time on, on the micro model, which is due.

I mean, Joey's a, a friend and has done a great work and does understand digital, but we'll be expanding this into, um, digital, uh, into, and we've got some digital guys on tap.

And, and, and the VR as well and some others.

And so we are excited to, uh, to explore unique expressions of, of church and fresh expressions of, of church here in 2024 and beyond.

And so, Hey, we're going to wrap it for, uh, the church digital episode 303 for, uh, Joey.

Uh, this is Jeff at the church digital.

Thanks for jumping on, on the pod.

We'll see you next time on the show.

Y'all look good.

Bye.