EP295: Peyton Jones, Stunami, and Planting Churches in the Metaverse

I believe that the goal will ultimately be to get people face to face.

It may not, and I don't think it's right to say if we can't get there, it's not worth it,

because right now I'm training in 72 countries. I can't travel very much. I've got a special

needs daughter. But thanks to Zoom, I'm catalyzing Ephesus training hubs all over

the world right now. I thank God for this technology.

Welcome to the Church Digital Podcast. Through this podcast, we'll talk about the

technological innovations within the church, but more than tech for tech itself, we'll address

deeper questions. Is disciple making possible digitally? How should we approach the digital

mission field? Can a biblically grounded church operate in digital space? Oh, and where does

the metaverse and artificial intelligence fit into all of this? Whether you're a big or small church,

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

digitally and physically. And now here's your host, Jeff Reed.

All right. Hey, it's episode 295, 295 of the Church Digital Podcast. Jeff Reed here.

Once again, I'm starting a podcast recording without wearing my hat.

Awkwardly, I put on the hat. You know, I had, I was bald. I used to shave, I shaved my head,

shaved my face, beard, everything. Just had a really long goatee. I never once was self-conscious

about my baldness. And now that, you know, I have hair, like I have the beard. And so it like goes to

the back. If you're on YouTube, you're literally seeing this. But now that I have this, I am so

self-conscious about this, this bald baldness right here at the top of the head. If I'm shaved

everything, it's not a problem, but I just, just a little bit of hair makes me like, oh my gosh,

I've got to cover up the baldness. And so that's why I'm wearing my, my trusty yellow Austin is weird

baseball cap. So hey, trucker cap. Welcome to Church Digital Podcast, episode 295. We are the

unfiltered Church Digital Podcast. You know, I've, I've been saying that a lot, man. I've really just,

y'all are my people. I enjoy talking. I say stuff off the cuff. I really don't think before I speak.

And it's, it's a lot of fun doing, doing podcasts with you all. By the way, this is powered by

Riverside. Love what's happening with Riverside. Even today opened up Riverside and was like,

oh my gosh, there's a new feature where now we have the ability. We always had the ability to like

live stream to Facebook and YouTube, but it was, it was buried in a system setting. And I'd always

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you can see, you can check off a little, little dip switch back and forth, whether or not you want

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to a, a, uh, Riverside embedded page. And it needs even stylized where you can make the page look

different. There's different branding techniques and upload a logo and, and, um, Riverside, man,

I just literally, I'm talking about balling this. If you're watching on YouTube, literally taking my

hat off. Yes, I am taking my hat off on an audio podcast recording for Riverside and, and the work

that they're doing on this platform, because literally each and every week it's like, oh my gosh,

that's a new thing. Oh my gosh, that's a new thing. Oh, look at this. It's so great. If your church

is not doing anything with Riverside, whether it's the shorts, whether it's the streams, whether it's the

long distance remotes, get your creative department, get your digital pastor, get them thinking digitally,

give them Riverside and watch what they do with it. Oh my goodness. So good. All right. Hey,

episode 295, uh, we're, we're going to be talking, uh, off the cuff here a little bit. We're diving

this season episode, season seven. We're diving into the opportunity for your church to experiment,

take steps to do something different. The season without a name. This is the third week of season

seven. And I've hated the names that I come up with. So it's the unnamed season season seven.

Basically we're promoting a bunch of learning communities that we, the church digital are

doing in this week. We're promoting metaverse ministry, what it looks like in virtual reality

church, maybe even what it's looked like to plant a virtual reality church. And of course,

anytime that we, the church digital having a conversation, a metaverse, we're bringing in our

friend, student Nami, Stuart McPherson, Lakeland VR pastor, as well as, uh, uh, planter, virtual reality

planter, uh, running a church called vector church. And so some really interesting things.

Stu's working on a virtual reality as well as his desire to plant a hundred churches in virtual reality

in the next 10 years, helping churches like yours, moving to virtual reality. And that's actually the

purpose of these learning communities we're doing this summer. And if we're actually going to talk

about church planting, well, shoot, let's bring it to the conversation. Peyton Jones, who is the,

I don't know, the author of the modern church planting textbook, plantology and new breed training

and so much that, that, uh, he is doing. And so this is an incredible, incredible conversation.

We did this live in discord and it was so good. The room was hopping. Uh, there was a question before we

even started the podcast that just drove the entire podcast in a completely different direction. We talk

about it in the podcast. I'm not going to drop any more secrets, but you're going to love this

conversation. Check out Peyton Jones's book, plantology. Check out Stu's book on virtual reality

church planting. Check out my book on virtual reality churches. You've literally got three people that

have written three books on virtual reality or planting or planting a virtual reality in this

conversation on virtual reality. Like this is a fun conversation. Uh, and it gets deep and heady

right off the bat. So check it out. Stu Nami, Peyton Jones, the church ninja and me, that digital

church guy in a conversation on virtual reality church planting. Okay, everybody, here you go.

I, you know, I had the, you know, I had the ZZ top thing, maybe not as bad as white beard, white

beard. It's like 12, 14 inches. Literally. You weren't Stetzer level. Remember when Stetzer,

he was out of control. Yeah. Yeah. That that's, that's a throwback right there. You know, and it

was really like, like, um, he never had the, the width, like the breadth. It was, it was always kind

of like spindly, uh, you know, when, when he gets long. Um, you know, I'm not, I'm not calling the

man out publicly, but it really, it just, it looked, it didn't look good. Like he needs, it needed to

be kind of thick. He cut it. He repented of it eventually, but, uh, I, I would love, and I can

see with Stunami, you know, he, he seems like you and I, Stu, like we could be Viking Raiders,

right? I feel that. Yes. I did. I did find out a year ago, I'm directly descended from

Ragnar Lofbrook. So this is why I can't have nice things. Yeah. It's definitely, we did that

whole thing, you know, where you go back through the records and you find the genealogy and it went

all the way back to Ragnar. So we're like, okay. My brother looks at me and goes, see,

this is why we can't have nice things. Well, I didn't realize until about five minutes ago,

um, that we're doing this podcast with three bald guys with beards and goatees.

Like I, you know, I try not to like tart, you know, get myself painted into a corner with

different people and, you know, like getting some variety here on the church digital podcast. And,

and, and I've got mirror image X3 here as, as we're talking, uh, hopefully about virtual reality

and church planting and metaverse and all sorts of interesting stuff. And so, um, Hey, you know,

Peyton, Stu, thanks for jumping on the, on the show here. Neither of you are strangers here to the

podcast. Um, Stu, we had on, uh, I don't know, maybe six months ago, eight months ago,

sometime last summer. And then Peyton, it's been a minute, but we had you on talking plantology.

Um, I guess when it first came out a while back. So both of you, thanks for, for jumping on the show.

Um, we, we are doing this live on discord. And so we've got, uh, Megan, JP, Whitebeard,

Alan Frost, and Melanie is in the, uh, it's in the audience now. And we'll see some others kind

of come in and out towards, uh, towards this, but, um, uh, y'all, if you have questions or thoughts,

uh, throw it in the chat, would love to, to see that and engage. Uh, how does a pest model work

in VR? My man, uh, is, uh, his white beard is going at it right off. Um, and we love it.

We've had that conversation. I feel like in, in other contexts. Um, I know we've talked about

a pest and gaming, uh, quite a bit. Um, and so that'll be interesting in VR.

Why was I not invited to that one? A pest and gaming. Let's go.

Yeah. We, we, we did that with, um, um, Mark, uh, Mark Lutz. Yeah. So we did, we did a full season,

uh, last year, I think beginning of last year, January, February, March on, uh, church video

gaming church, talking, uh, gaming church pastors, uh, Twitch guys, digital missionaries, people that

are actually doing church in the game itself, like in final fantasy and rust and black desert.

Like it was a, it was a pretty deep conversation centered around gaming. And, um, and really if

you look at all the different types of digital churches and there's like five or six different

examples and types, um, gaming is the fastest growing. Uh, and so like the, the Twitch streamers,

they're, they're multiplying quickly. Um, the, the churches that are operating in that space,

they're, you know, coming together and uniting and multiplying. And so, um, and Mark and, and, uh,

Bubba and the love thy nerd crowd and, and like the, the crowd that's really working in that gaming

space is doing an excellent job of, um, of reaching a different type of person. And so really,

you know, Peyton, Stu knows this Peyton, but like the reason we do virtual reality church and gaming

church and social media church and all this, all these churches without buildings is what we find

is that we can reach people that the buildings aren't reaching. You know, we, we hear stories of

like, uh, uh, a neo-pagan that finds Christ in virtual reality or, uh, or a person that hasn't been

to a church building in 10 years finds Jesus through a, through a gaming church. And what's interesting is

these people that are finding Jesus in these unique methods, they don't realize there's anything

unique about the digital church or the virtual church. It's just church to them, just like any

normal expression. And so, um, missionally, like the, the implications of this thing are huge.

And so that's really, I think some, Hey Ian, that's some of what I want to get into. Hey,

Victor as well in this, in this conversation. Um, and so, you know, I'm going to ask a lot of

questions, uh, of both of you guys and, uh, and Stu, you know, I'm sure has some questions and Peyton,

you know, hopefully, um, we don't, uh, catch you too off guard with some of the metaverse VR stuff,

but, uh, we'd love to get your take and opinion on some of this stuff moving forward.

Yeah. When, when I don't, when I don't know something, if you guys don't mind me just saying,

Hey, I don't even know what that is. That sounds amazing. But, um, yeah, tell me more about that.

I may need you to educate me on some of it. Okay. So I have said, and you, you can educate us on this

right now. All right. I'm going to throw you a softball to open it up because I was on a stream

telling people about how, you know, we're having this conversation with, you know, I was excited

about it. And I said, dude's got a fricking snake eyes GI Joe tattoo on his arm. Okay. Like I just,

I want this to be publicly seen, um, only mountain right here with Smaug. Nice. To educate me with

this. Cause I know it's snake eyes, but I I'm not deep enough in the GI Joe lore to actually know

what it is. Like, what is it? Why did snake eyes have that on his arm as well?

Yeah. So that's, that's actually Ninja clan. That's the Ninja clan tattoo. So, uh, he and his

brother Storm Shadow, who's part of Cobra, uh, he has it, the Ninja clan. I, uh, I'm a serial church

planner and I used to always make the joke that I was a Ninja. Um, you know, I don't need any credit.

I don't need any glory. I just want to get in and out quickly strike hard and disappear back into the

shadows. And somebody just started calling me the church planning Ninja. I think it might've been

Alan Hirsch and it just kind of stuck in that. I started putting it on my stuff. Alan still calls

me Ninja, the Ninja whenever I, um, talk to him. So, uh, yeah, I mean that, so I, I got Ninja clan,

uh, more just partially because of that and partially because I mean, there's nothing cooler than ninjas.

I would say pirates, but Oh, pirates versus ninjas. I don't, I don't think so. Like I would take ninjas

over pirates. I, you can take anything you want. I still choose pirates over ninjas. All right. I'm, I'm,

I'm going to throw this in chat right now. Pirates over ninjas Vikings. No, I'm, I'm, I'm ignoring that one.

Yeah. You need to pull when I, when I joined this yesterday. Oh, Vikings. There we go. All right.

Pirates. Megan says pirates all the way. Megan, I'm disappointed in you. I was expecting you. I was

going to, Megan was going to make the decision in my mind and, uh, pirates, John, Johnny Depp over

who's a good ninja. Johnny Depp as a, as a ninja.

Who, who is, is there a, is there like a, I mean, Johnny Depp is the epitome of pirates. I mean,

do you know, uh, there was a special years ago where they said, we're going to, we're going to get

in touch. There's still ninjas out there today. Um, and they, they said, look, a ninja is going to be

able to infiltrate this place. And the guy's like, no way, no way. They had all this security, all this

stuff. And then ninja who came in, um, they're like, there's no way a ninja gets in here. And it was a

repair guy, uh, where he's like, Hey, you know, he did something to jam their signal. And then he

said, uh, someone called me, said, you guys are having an issue. It was him. It was a repair guy.

He got in there and took them all out. And, uh, you know, the point of a ninja is just to be

invisible. So we will never be able to name a famous ninja. It's interesting. Okay. So there is no

which I guess still to me adds the lure of the ninja, but that's okay. We can.

If, if you know who they are, they failed. If you know who they are, they failed. They failed at their

job. They had one job and that was to stay invisible. And you know, so you don't get to

know who the famous ninja is. Chris Farley, by the way.

Uh, I'll just real quick. Um, uh, white beard throws out the comment. Peyton, I was the guy who knew

what movie you were talking about at exponential five fingers of death. I don't know what that's

referencing. Yes. Okay. Okay. All right. Well done. All right. I remember you, sir. Thank you.

Uh, you changed my life with that. Yeah. Once you meet a white beard, like he, everyone,

he changes everybody's life. Dude like is, is crazy. So, all right. Hey, so, so let's get into

this. Um, uh, enough of, of ninjas and pirates and Vikings. Um, let's, let's talk about planting

and other, um, crazy ideas. Uh, so, you know, Hey, just to kick us off here a little bit, Peyton,

you wrote the book plantology. Um, you know, I've heard it called the modern textbook of, of church

planting. And, you know, I know, uh, friends with stadia, friends with new thing. Like I I've,

many circles. So man, what was maybe some of your mindset as you were writing the book, uh,

plantology, and maybe you won't give a little description behind it. Well, the, the first thing,

uh, was when Zondervan approached me, I had, I had written a previous book called reaching the

unreached becoming raiders of the lost art. And, uh, you know, uh, when they said, Hey, we want you

to write a church planting book that will go alongside Keller's book. Um, that's why it's the same size,

yada, yada. Uh, it, it is nowhere near worthy to sit alongside center church, but that was their

idea. We need a nuts and bolts book on church planning. And I said, no, I'm not. No. And they're

like, why you're like, you run the pie. At that time I'd quit the podcast. And I said, yeah, I don't

know if I believe in church planning in America anymore. Um, and, and they, they said, why? And I

said, well, let me tell you two things. If I write a book on church planning, it's going

to piss everyone off right away. And number two, it's going to, um, probably not sell very

well. Would end up selling, like becoming a number one bestseller, like almost overnight,

like in prelaunch. And Zondervan's like, this is already outsold all of our church planning

books. So it, it somehow resonated with people. But the first thing it does is it tells you,

most of what you've heard of as church planting is church starting, right? Get a butt ton of

cash, attain critical mass, run out of building, do a bunch of marketing. That's church starting.

And the apostles didn't know how to do that. Um, but we also don't know how to do what the

apostles did. So what if we could go back and relearn timeless principles, things that could

be applied anywhere, anytime with anyone, which hello, digital church, you know, digital church

planning. There we go. If we can find a universal principle and it doesn't matter. You know, I,

I called the Dr. Seuss philosophy of church planning on a train in the rain, in a box with a fox,

right? I can plant them, Sam. I am because these timeless principles are laid down the new Testament.

They're globally out in the world working today. And in periods of church history,

where you see kingdom advancement, these same principles are found like in the Wesleyans,

the Moravians, you know, the Korean church, Azusa street revival, you can go and find these same

principles at work. And, uh, so that, that was the mindset, but I, I figured if I'm going to do one

thing, I'm either going to change the conversation or I'm going to kill my writing career.

Well, either way. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, it's a win, right. You know, cause either it,

this thing's going to blow up with the saying go big or go home. Right. And so yeah, you went

radical, you wrote, wrote from the heart and, uh, and it responded in a, in a, in a big way. You

know, I, I, I, I loved, I read it a couple of years ago when we did the podcast first time around

and, um, you know, enjoyed it thoroughly. And, and, you know, even seeing how it was impacting

Stu Nami, uh, with, uh, with him just in recent weeks, as he was diving into it, you know, Stu,

as, as you were reading it, you know, I know like a lot of people know Stuart's passion is to,

uh, a, he's a pastor at, um, um, vector church, which is a virtual reality church plant. He also

works with, um, uh, a physical church that's doing virtual reality, but he's planting one from,

from scratch as well. And his heart's to see a hundred churches in virtual reality in the next

10 years and wants to actively help churches get into this. And we'll talk about more about that

here in a little bit, but, um, you know, Stu, as you're reading the book and getting into some of

this, like, what are you seeing in context of virtual reality planting? Like how would some of

these ideas that Peyton's talking about, how would it apply over into, into the virtual space?

I think what, what really interests me and intrigues me about what Peyton has written. And so I'm coming

into plantology after reading, reaching the unreached, right? So I'm reading those two back

to back on each other right now. And so, um, what was getting me in both books so far is just that

concept of church starting versus church planning. I think one of the stories that really stood out to

me that you wrote in the first one, reaching the unreached was just the idea of you doing a book club

in Starbucks. And the next thing you know, you've got this church that is all of a sudden going,

right? Yeah. And so within virtual reality, the thing that has stood out to me is the majority of

people in virtual reality are either hostile to the name of Jesus, or they've never heard the name of

Jesus before. And so you're bringing somebody in who's got an apostolic evangelistical bend to their

nature, right? And just saying, here's a space where I can make Jesus famous to the best of my ability.

And I'm going to win kingdom territory here. And for me, the beauty of it is, it is this small gathering

of people that maybe for the first time ever, they're hearing the truth of the good news of Jesus, or they're

hearing the name of Jesus for the first time. And because it's internet based globally, all of a sudden,

here's this light and the seeds of hope that are being presented to people, maybe for the first

time, they're then going back into their own physical context that has the potential to change

the world. And that in that essence, so that to me, for what is happening in virtual reality, and what

I see for the church in virtual reality, the capital C global church is just that concept of like, dude,

we can start churches left and right. And I'm, I'm all for that. But the concept of actually reaching

the loss and the hard to reach places, yes, man, VR and digital spaces, they provide probably the

fastest highway avenue in order to do that. In fact, I've told people, it's like, you have Jesus,

who says to this small band of believers, go into the world and make disciples, right? But now in our

digital age, it's here's the world funneling themselves down to small bands of believers

that then goes back out into the world. It's this really cool system that when I look at it,

I think of it through church history and historical concepts, right? Of just this idea of here comes

the Greeks bringing in a common language. Here comes the Romans bringing in a highway system in order for

everybody to hear and know the good news as quickly as possible. And the internet's doing the same

thing, especially with them VR. So yeah, yeah, 100%. I, you know, I, I think it took me, I'll be honest,

like it took me a minute to get digital church. At first, I'm like, no, because the missional movement

so emphasized the incarnational nature of ministry, that I had this mental block. And then I was having a

conversation with Chesley Lundy, and he just mentioned to me, hey, you're apostolic. This should click for

you. Payton, couldn't you, like you start communities, right? Like that's the apostolic thing. You have the

ability to start communities. If there's a, an iron curtain between church and unchurch. The apostolic lives on

that unchurch. You'll often hear an apostolic minister say, I have more in common and have better

conversations with people who don't even believe in God than I do at a pastor's conference. That's how

you've just told me you're apostolic without telling me you're apostolic, because you're wired for out

there. So to me, this VR, the digital space, this is the apostolic frontier of today. Paul would be here.

First thing Paul did is he went to where the people are at. That's like the first thing we got to know

about apostolic ministry. You go to the marketplace. You go where the people are at. You don't sit in an

upper room forever. You know, you don't, you don't just meet house to house. You get out in the temple

courts. Temple courts now is digital. So you've got to get out there. So sorry, I know I'm going to keep my

answer short because I know we got a lot of questions. But that to me was a breakthrough

for me. And to go a little bit into Whitebeard's question, the biggest mistake our movements always

make is that whenever we get a hold of something, we make it all that. So for example, Calvary Chapel.

Calvary Chapel, if those of you that saw the Jesus revolution, I grew up in Calvary, not grew up,

but when I got saved, 15 years old for a number of years, became a pastor there on and on.

You have in that movie, what was brilliantly portrayed was you had an apostolic,

Lonnie Frisbee, a teacher, Chuck Smith, and an evangelist, Greg Laurie, three of them together.

And you see this explosive growth that comes out. That's what God wired the early church for. That's

why they saw what they saw. But eventually, oh, and the prophetic started to rise up,

but that quickly got squelched. So then that became Vineyard. So all meant to be together. Think of the

power of these five dynamics on one space. But it became a teacher movement. Vineyard. And sorry,

I'm going to step on all 10 toes, or at least five of your toes on one foot, because nobody,

like all movements, have usually gravitated towards one aspect of the apest. So for example,

the prophetic leaders are over in Pentecostal Charismatic. And I love Pentecostal

Charismatics, right? For all the power and presence of God they bring. But when you leave people alone

on their own too long, they start to distort what Jesus looks like. Teachers, if you leave a teacher

alone too long, if you leave an evangelist, I would say Mark Driscoll was an evangelist. And if he's not

left alone too long, it's fine. He brings something fresh and dynamic. And then if you leave him alone,

it begins to distort. Because here's the reality, the five need each other for balance. And in church

plantology, I talk about that if you put the apostolic and prophetic together, you've got a power

team. Put the shepherd and teacher together, you've got a power team. The middle is the evangelist. We

won't stick up the middle finger. He brings the message of offense, the gospel. But I do this five

fingers of death. Thank you, Whitebeard illustration where I talk about all fingers. You would never

fight someone with your finger unless you're in that movie, Five Fingers of Death. He had a Kung Fu

finger. But when you bring all five fingers together, you make a weapon that has kingdom impact, packs a

punch. So when you've got the apostle, the apostle brings them all together for planting. So this is my

point. Getting to the punchline now. The biggest mistake we're going to make in just like missional

community was, I would say, a shepherd movement. Let's do life on life. Let's get together. Let's

have dinner. Even though it seemed apostolic, it actually ran into the rut of it became a shepherding

movement and everybody got stuck. And they just do the best home studies the world had ever seen,

but it got stuck. Because the apest for the kingdom of God to advance it, we have to work together.

We get stuck when we don't work together. So what will happen in the digital space if we don't address

what Whitebeard brought up, how does the apest work? It's going to be like I would call Mark

Driscoll, evangelist Ron Wilde. In my defense, I was left unattended. John MacArthur, teacher,

left to himself too long. You get stale and stagnant. So it all starts to distort. We know Jesus

doesn't look like that. Sorry, I'm going to offend people on your call. But the reality is you bring

them all together. There's this freshness. That's what the early church had, the apest. Read Acts 2:42.

Acts 2:42

It's all in there, right? With the golden age of the church, it's all represented. But our danger in

this apostolic frontier will be to leave it to the apostles only. And then it will start to lose its

bearing. But if we can bring the other four into this movement, it will become something very beautiful

and very needed. And it may actually, this would be my challenge to people in your space.

I believe the greatest hope for seeing all five work together is in your camp. It is the digital

space camp. I actually think this may be the one place people can truly find it if it's stewarded well.

By the way, I winced at the John MacArthur, not because you're offending me or probably anybody

else on this call. John MacArthur is no friend of the church. Digital has actually called us out publicly.

Actually, it was at Chesley. He mentioned Chesley by name in a blog about the idea of he was so offended

by the virtual church. When he said virtual, he meant digital, but it's some stale language. I think

stale's a good word there. Honestly, it's interesting. Looking on this call, Whitebeard does street

ministry in Art District in Tampa, Ybor City. Justin Nava is a digital micro church.

Ian is a very small church up in the Pacific Northwest. Melanie and Sumi Beats are a digital micro

church that meets on Zoom. Megan's at probably a borderline mega church that's doing digital

incredibly victors in Africa. You've got a very eclectic mix bag of people literally on this call

that are just listening in. What's really interesting to me is when you talk about starting church and you're

talking about the apest is so necessary and going to where the people are in the digital marketplace and

in all of this. Yet the idea of a micro church still gets heat, maybe a little more accepted, but the average

church, you know, they're, they're actually viewing that as like the, the, uh, uh, the disenfranchised real churches.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It's, it's like the people that don't want to do real church or the digital. It's, it's like, you guys are just lazy people sitting at home.

Uh, virtual reality, you know, Oh, there's only 22 million people using virtual reality actively every month.

Who cares about them? Go to a building. Um, and so like, it's, it's, it's interesting to me how there's so much

animosity towards more of the fringes. Whereas I don't know, I see God moving in the fringes, like biblically, he is not

still, he's constantly moving. And, and so, um, I don't know, like, what's your, what's your take on maybe some of the, I'm using the MacArthur word

intentionally, the staleness that when we see with starting churches or legacy churches compared to experimenting and doing something for the kingdom.

Couple of things. Um, number one, you mentioned God being on the fringe. Um, and he is the kingdom of

God always outpaces the church. And I mentioned this in that chapter in Plantology on culture, because if

you look like Martin Luther King Jr. Wrote that letter, um, letter from a Birmingham jail.

And in that he's asking the white church leaders in Birmingham, Alabama, where are you?

I'm in jail. Like, I need you in this fight with me. And he very succinctly, um, points out that

the kingdom of God is, is always ahead of the established church. So God is out there moving

beyond the boundaries of where the church is. Churches are always catching up to the kingdom.

If your theology tells you the kingdom and the church are the same, you haven't been paying attention. Yes,

the kingdom of God is the church, but the kingdom, if you look at Jesus, the kingdom is wherever the king

is. God beat us to the digital space. He was the first person there, right? Satan might've been the

second one there, but God was the first, right? God was the first one there. He always goes ahead of us.

And the more frontline ministry you do, kind of like Whitebeard, like I'm sure he's got a million stories

of where God was already moving in this person's life. Um, I'll never forget showing up at a house,

uh, where, um, there was one of my neighbors and I felt the presence of God in her living room.

Now she was drunk and her husband was stoned the first time, uh, I ever met him because we invited

him to a barbecue and they both, and they got in this huge fight and stormed off. And, you know,

we could hear him yelling as they walked down the road to their house. And we thought, oh, well,

you know, it was awkward. We'll never see them again. And then we called into their house

and I was hit by this wall of God. And as a missionary to, this is Wales, UK where I was for 12 years.

I remember just being scandalized. Like I'm the missionary. I bring this,

you know, like, well, what's wrong with this picture? And God was saying, you're always late

to the party. Have you not figured that out yet? I've been working in these people's lives

way, like way before you, uh, come on big britches, you know, like you're a little,

you're a little too big for yourself right now. You don't bring this. I bring this and you show up

afterwards. I go before you, I come along behind you. And those are just lessons that you got to learn

early on in ministry. And that's definitely been the case here. But, um, going back to the,

to the, the idea of, um, the apest, it's really interesting because these ministries, what,

what happened for a number of years was the shepherd and teacher. And I would say, particularly the

teacher was in vogue and the evangelist still, nobody could work with it. Like no church hires an

evangelist. Right. I'm sure white beard, they might say, you know, if you have a church support

in your white beard, forgive me for this, but, um, probably what they do is they, they, oh yeah,

go do that. Go do that out there. Right. Um, evangelists will come in and they will wreck everything

in a good way. They're going to wreck it. So just get ready. Right. Like I, I used to have a guy,

he'd leave people on the streets to Christ every day and every other pastor would be like, man,

I give my left arm to have that guy, but how do you pastor him? Because every, every week he'd be

out in the parking lot. Jonesy, you reached the lost or I will. Right. Like he was taken,

no prisoners. He wasn't holding back. Right. They're a, they're a, a live wire. And in most

pastors, like we just, you know, it's kind of like radio head, no alarms and no surprises, please.

We want things nice and calm here. That's what we do. But here's one thing to know in the same way

that the teacher shepherd were reigning supreme for years and years and years in the church.

And there was no place for the apes. Um, it's starting to swing at least in missional movement.

And, you know, some of the spaces that you're in and I'm in the shepherd and teacher are not

in vogue anymore. And, and so we have to be aware of that because that's going to come back and bite us.

If we allow what's trendy or popular to rule and reign. Now, thank God in that apes division,

there's a ratio of three to two. Your radicals are your apostles, prophets, evangelists.

Your conservatives are your shepherd's teachers. The shepherd's teachers have been running the show

for the last hundred years. But now if we start letting the apes run,

that will lead to a lot of kingdom advancement. But in the book of Acts, after chronicling the activity

of the apes, Acts is broken up by quality metrics. And, and, and there's actually quantitative metrics,

but they're put in shepherd and teacher terms. And the word of God spread and the number of disciples grew.

So there's your shepherd teacher. They're, they're not really mentioned very much at all during the whole

thing. But when Luke wants to say, right, there was success. The Marines did their thing. The army

rolled in and held the fort down. So we need both. So what's going to happen with, with digital space

is if we don't, um, if we think, oh, teacher shepherds, that's not very sexy anymore.

Then, uh, and we ignore them and don't let them come to the fore, then our movement will not be

sustainable. It will be flesh in the pan, but it will not, it will not have that sustainability metric.

So I wrote up maybe 15 questions we were going to getting into. I don't think I've, I've touched

one question on this. Sorry. And no, no, I may not even go there because I mean, when I sat down,

I was not thinking we'd cover a pest and this is just fascinating. And so, um, now you said the word,

and I want to hit both of you on this because both of you get your fingernails, hopefully dirty on this,

or have lived in this world. You said the word incarnate, you were uncomfortable, Peyton,

you were uncomfortable with this because of, um, you know, the micro church. I hear it all the time,

you know, incarnate being with someone is just so important. And Jeff, you just don't get that,

that digital. Um, to be honest, like the church digital, we really operate and we try to operate

like in a micro church strategy, uh, but just in digital and virtual space. Like that's really how

we try to encourage our ministry to, to, to grow. And a lot of our, our micro church brothers and sisters,

to be honest, some of them are not friends. Like they don't see what we're doing and they've

got issues with that idea. And so Peyton, you know, you saw the light, you had a conversation with

Chesley. Stu, you used to mock virtual reality churches. You're like the Saul in this conversation,

leading to the conversion one day of, of Paul. Like, I would love to hear from both of you,

how you got over, like, what was it internally that you had to reconcile to see, um, a little

bit of the story, a little bit of the theology, like whatever it is, like what helped you see the

light, so to speak, or change your mind. For me, obviously it was just COVID. I mean,

prior to COVID there, an article comes out on VR church. And I thought that was the dumbest thing I've

ever heard of in my life. I was probably the loudest voice in the room, got over here to Lakeland

during the height of COVID and quickly heard that they're wanting to explore this idea of virtual

reality church. And I was like, cool. You guys hired me to be a small group pastor. So I don't have to

worry about it. It was like, I'm, I'm more than willing to focus on building small, like digital

small groups. I, because of COVID, I saw the need for it. Um, so I was ready to go ahead first into

that, but still VR idea was still like way out of my league and something I still struggled with,

but I got the invite into it. Right. So that idea was let's start a church in virtual reality. Let's

bring Lakeland into it. And if we get nothing more than a small group out of it after a six month trial,

well, we'll call that good. And, uh, you know, three years later here, I still am as full-time VR

campus pastor. And really for me, what it was is just, I was seeing people to Payton's point,

this is like, this is hardcore apes coming out, right? For sure. But I was seeing people, um,

be introduced to Jesus. And I was seeing connection on a whole different level than what I see in person.

And what I mean by that is, um, I saw people getting really authentic and transparent

right from the beginning because nobody's trying to save face. So here we are as this church in

virtual reality and people think that it's a joke. So they're showing up or they're coming in to just

completely trash the environment and the experience. But what they're coming in with is all these

questions and biases and baggage. And they're going, so are you actually a church? Are you actually a

pastor in this space? I'm like, yeah. And they're fine. And they're like, here it is. Here's all the

stuff that I'm carrying right now. Now fix it. And I'm sitting there going, I can, I know who can.

So if you're willing to go on this journey with me to, uh, understand who Jesus is, uh, you know,

I can almost guarantee that he'll make himself known to you. He's not an unknown God. Um, and so for me,

that's where it really started to unravel. Like I, I liken it to the confessional box for, uh,

Catholics, right? It's like, here I come, here's all my baggage. I can't see you. You can't see me.

The avatars act as that confessional screen in between, um, where people are just way more authentic

and transparent with their struggles and their questions than we get in real life. What is

fascinating to me though, and a lot of pushback that I still get from people is, uh, you know,

it's not real, you know, people can show up, they can not be involved. They can just stand to the side.

They can blip in for a second and blip out. And I always go back to the idea. It's like,

how many first time visitors or second or third or year long visitors do you have showing up your

physical church that they are coming in late, sitting in the back and the first ones to leave

because they're not wanting to be known or seen that they're there. It's just the same.

We're just finding new areas to live that out. But I mean, we like many of us get called into ministry

because God has given us a heart for people. And we want those people to be introduced to Jesus.

And we want to teach Jesus in the process. Like we want to preach the gospel. And sometimes we can do

it in physical spaces where it's the same people showing up week after week, and they're hearing the

same message week after week. But in the VR space, I was like, dude, you're putting me in the middle of

people who they've never heard this before. It's like, this is fun. Like this is smack dab in the

middle of like who Jesus and the early apostles and disciples were reaching. Like this is, this is

a completely different, a lot of fun. So the question for me became, how do we become the street

corner church in the VR spaces? And that's what we ended up chasing after.

Beautiful. I want to get to the missional implications here and with the next question,

but Peyton Incarnate, like how did you talk to me about some of your mindset of how you pivoted and

maybe help us as we're trying to figure out how to converse with our church leaders and things like

that? How, how can we help them maybe understand a different viewpoint?

Yeah. So the, this is going to be an incomplete analogy, but I see it a little bit like Wesley and

Whitfield when the church was, was stuck and the Anglican church wasn't bad in its time, but it was stuck.

Um, I think we have to, to look back and Anglican church had a lot of strengths at that time. A lot

of times we can, we can read the narrative that the Anglican church sucked. Therefore, um, but Wesley

died in Anglican and he wasn't trying to replace the Sunday service. He was trying to reach more people.

So what he did is he went out to the highways and byways and he preached in the marketplace.

That's our digital space, our catch all. Then he created the bands, which did not replace

a Sunday gathering, but it fostered life change and discipleship groups. Like what people would call

micro church now was bands. Um, and it's the reason things exploded. So when we go back to the church

plantology principle, did these things work in the early church? I can point to what I just described

in the book of Acts easily in multiple places. Then I can go to globally, where does this still happen?

And then I can go to church history, which I let out with. So there are timeless principles here.

The problem that people really getting hung up on is the technology. And you know, one of the things,

there's a couple of things I'll say about technology and mission. Number one, uh, the golden age of Israel

was when David came back from the Philistines. The reason the Philistines dominated the Jews was because

the Philistines were an iron age people, the Jews were a bronze age people. David brought back iron

age technology, right? From having been a mercenary in their armies. When he brings that back to Israel,

they become the golden age. Now, the question is, was it wholly due to iron or was it due to the Lord?

Or was it due to both? I would argue it was probably both that the Lord moved through that technology.

And the Israelites whooped up with the spirit of the Lord. David was a man of battle. He clearly knew

you came down, Lord, where we get Ephesians 4, 10, and 11 from, uh, Psalm 68. You came down onto the

battlefield and you ascended back up into heaven, you know, giving gifts and leading captives. And like,

David felt God came down and fought. So it was supernatural, but he also had iron in his fist.

So then we would go to the modern mission movement. Um, the modern mission movement happened because of

William and Kerry. Yes. Um, but it really hit full steam, no pun intended with the advent of the steam

engine, because now you could get all over the world quicker. So now we had this explosion of the

modern mission movement, um, with the advent of the steam engine. Now we're entering into a new time.

It's not in the Gutenberg press, but it's literally a new part of technology. A few years from now,

we're going to be doing this in virtual. People don't realize it yet, but virtual,

everything is going towards virtual. There seems to have been some kind of effort to tamp that down.

Maybe that's an investor ploy. Who knows what that is? I'm not wearing a tin full of hat,

but it is in a big way going to sneak up on all of us. Just like the iPhone, just like that,

that revolution happened. We all wish we'd been in on the ground floor. This is what's going to happen

right now. People are pretending like it was just flash and pan. We tried it. It didn't work.

It is going there. And as, as we get ready for that to happen, um, I guess the question that you asked

to go back to that, it's my Wesleyan roots, um, cause I'm a free Methodist these days. So to me,

I keep looking at John Wesley going, Oh my gosh, he figured this stuff out hundreds of years ago.

And that's what we're looking at is that wide gathering catchment space, the bands that brings

them together for meaningful conversations and discipleship and then gathering. So if you look

at plantology, as opposed to church starting, the three step process of the apostles was sow the seeds

of the gospel. That's that wide catchment space, water through discipleship. That's your bands.

That's those little communities Stu's talking about. And then the, the, the last part, which is the

incarnational part. That's your third stop. I'm a hybrid. I believe that the goal will ultimately be

to get people face to face. It may not. And I don't, I don't think it's right to say if we can't get there,

it's not worth it because right now I'm training in 72 countries. I can't travel very much. I've got a special needs

daughter, but thanks to zoom. I'm catalyzing Ephesus training hubs all over the world right

now. I thank God for this technology. Incredible. Yeah. It's interesting. You bring that up even

segueing to the next question. 72 countries is incredible. I didn't realize with that with you,

Peyton, but we've got any two crew, um, on, on the call. Now he came in, he's in Nigeria. He actually

works with the navigators in Nigeria. Oh yeah. It's great. Or, and, and so he's like asking questions

about digital evangelism and, and how to really be effective utilizing digital to, to reach that

person that is cold to Christ. And Stu, like you mentioned that a lot and you're, and you're,

you know, Peyton, you're talking about, uh, Wesley and, and, and, you know, there's, there's so much

potential on digital and meta as, as we're looking at what, like the role of, and the future of

evangelism, future of outreach, and what are these things going to look like? We'd love maybe just to

hear from both of you, like, what are some wins? What are some opportunities? What are some steps maybe

that we can be taking now as we're looking at, um, what the, the future and maybe reaching people

utilizing this metaverse and virtual reality technology? Stu, maybe you want to share a

little bit of some of the stuff you've been doing? Yeah. I mean, it's still all so new, right? Like

here I am sitting in the seat for three years and I feel like every single week I'm having to make

subtle adjustments or big adjustments in order to really speak a language or a love language to the

people that I'm coming across. Yeah. I think, you know, the common misconception of what a lot of

people will ask for, like, if you're a church leader, like, well, how do I do what we're doing

physically into the VR digital space? And most times I argue like you can, I don't know that I would.

Um, you know, when I started, uh, vector earlier this year, I w I walked into it with this mentality of

like, okay, we're going to do one worship song, you know, that we brought in from YouTube. And then I

I was going to teach a 20, 30 minute message and then close out. So pretty much what you would

experience at, you know, your local church. Um, and I think I did it for maybe two, three weeks.

I was like, dude, this, this just is not cutting it. Like people, I have questions. They would much

rather get in conversation, which like when the service was done, I would leave the event open

just to fellowship and hang out with people and people were asking questions. And that's probably

like the most fruitful, beneficial time of this VR service I was putting on. So about a month into it,

I just told everybody like, we're scrapping what this originally looked like. And we're going a

completely different direction. I told him, I was like, I want to keep the worship aspect of it. I think

it's a great way to set the table, but you guys have questions. So you bring me your questions.

I will research, and then I'm going to come back with questions and we'll chase after it together.

And then I'll throw the cherry on top of here's the scriptural point of view on what it is that

we were chasing after. So what I'm like, what I'm experiencing is like, there is such a huge,

like people acknowledge that there's a void in their life and people acknowledge that the world

just doesn't seem like it's very much in control right now. And so they want to know why is the

world the way it is? Why is there so much disaster? Why, why can I see a church in virtual, virtual

reality and expect them to tell me that there's something good and a not so good world. And I'm

sitting there going, okay, like, let's dive into these hard topics that you might not experience on a

Sunday in your local church context because they're chasing after their own series. So it's felt-based

needs. And then on top of that, the people who are coming in with me, like, they're starting to hear

these questions, like the hard questions, and they're learning firsthand how to address those

questions. So then they're going back to their own friends and their own neighbors and their own

family members incarnate and answering those questions and then leading them to Jesus at the same time.

So I'm seeing like this evangelistic muscle that's all of a sudden being flexed and strengthened that

hasn't been there for quite some time, you know, to Peyton's point, a shepherd teacher movement.

And I think that's what people have been hungry for. I think you've got people outside of the church

that have been hungry for the church to be the church. And then I think you got people inside of

the church that have been hungry for the church to be the church and be kingdom advancers. So yeah,

I think that there's just tons of different opportunity. It just really boils down to

what do you want to do as a church? What do you want to do as a person? And more importantly,

like, what is God calling you to do in that space? And why wouldn't you just do it? It's so easily

accessible to you to just get going.

It's beautiful. Peyton, as we pivot to you, I want to do an add on here because I know your time is

rare. We may continue the conversation on our side a little bit here once you leave. But as you're

talking about, you know, opportunities for evangelism in virtual metaspace, you know,

you're talking about the fourth industrial revolution, which is so appropriate. Maybe

some advice to somebody that's wanting to plant a church in virtual reality. What would be some

takeaways or advice that you would give to someone with that? So let you take it from there.

Yeah. You know, I was going to say one of the kind of cool things, I'll answer the first part

first. And then the second part, you know, the digital thing for us, the opportunity

that it's really given us is, let's put it this way. We started training people. I used to have to be

physically on the ground and train people physically. And so the way our churches that we planted would

multiply and we discovered micro church because you're always going to discover much like what Stu said,

I discovered all this interactive stuff. We never sat in rows because the first church that I planted

accidentally, I might add, was in a Starbucks around discussion with Dan Brown Da Vinci Code.

30 Europeans turned up first week, 40 second week, 50 third week. And they just wanted to read the real

gospels after the first couple of weeks. And so that became a church. And I'm like, oh, okay. So,

you know, medium has always been an issue, right? The reason I was talking that technology,

C.S. Lewis took to the radio. I mean, that was him, you know, World War II using the technology

available to him. We got mere Christianity out of that because that was a radio broadcast to start

because the church medium was not what he needed. Tim Keller, right? Doing the New York Times, right?

And that would have been digital, right? We're not talking people getting literal newspapers. They're

getting emails into their inbox. Tim Keller harnesses that. So I think for us, you know, we're training.

We've been training over the last few years. Just church plantology came out of that, but

I've been training on the ground and been so limited and we're getting ready to unleash all of our

training for free to everybody because we've been doing this for the global world. And we try to keep

the light switched on, but we're like, you know, we just, this is a, this, this whole thing is about

faith. Let's just flick a switch. It's for what people can afford. If they want to give, pay it

forward to the next person, but we're not going to charge. So we've tried the last six months just

charging. We made some money. It was great, but we just don't feel right about it. And where we're

headed, we need to reach the next gen. Like the next gen is my big thing. Like when you're talking

about opportunities. So this is the reason. If, if we, I was in a think tank recently for denominations

and they, that we did a bunch of post-it notes, everybody, they broke us up into groups and all

these different groups put on the walls, you know, what are the top 20 things that you think we need

to do to get the church unstuck? So here's all these denominational leaders and someone in one of the

groups had written youth. And my wife and I were there together and they told us, you can circle on all

these posts. It's probably, you know, 120, 140 different things represented here. Circle the top

three you think we ought to focus on. And my wife circled youth three times. And she said, because

if we don't focus on that, nothing else we do matters. Yeah. So the young people

are here. Now I, I'm not a young person. I don't, I'm, I'm never going to be cool on TikTok,

but if I can be a Paul to their Timothy, you know, if I can be a Yoda to Obi-Wans that are training

Luke's, I've done something, you know, I've really done something. So I, I think, you know, like I'm,

I'm getting, the reason I have to jump is I'm getting ready to hop on to a webinar with Ralph

Moore, who's recently come on with us and he's brought all of his training to us for free.

And so all of our training is going free. Here's a guy that through discipleship,

2,700 churches came out of it, just through discipling people. He, uh, he had it all. He

had the ring of power. He had the, he had the big stuff and he just gave it away and said, you know,

not, I just, just want to make disciples. And I think if I were to, my next book will be called

Discipology and the way that we took apart the book of Acts to explore church planning. We're taking

apart the gospel to look at, um, at, at disciple making. And I am just blown away by the intentionality

of Jesus. There is a pattern there. There's things he did that we've, we, nobody's talking about.

And, and I just cannot wait to unpack that. That's actually my biggest motivation for just

flicking that switch and saying, literally, I want every youth group to be taking this,

this training. I want to release, there are four things Jesus trained the 12 to do in those three

years to become disciples, make disciples, gather and scatter disciples, by the way, gathering and

scattering. That's micro church. So, uh, anyways, um, guys, thanks so much for having me. Um, really

appreciate it. And thanks for asking about the book. Uh, hopefully, uh, those of you that are on here,

they're like, Hey, I'm never going to be a church plan. And hopefully, uh, Discipology will really,

really appeal to you.

I know. I love it. Thank you for jumping on this. Anytime I have a conversation about APES,

I'm giving you a call. Like we will, we was funny. I was actually trying to find like a resident APES

expert to pull into a podcast or two. And Peyton, you're now going to be my guy. Thank you for

contributing to this. And, uh, we'll, we'll let you head off to, to the webinar. Say hi to Ralph.

And, uh, thanks for coming on. Hey, we're going to stick around and keep doing this interview. Peyton,

thank you very much. By the way, there was a question in, um, uh, uh, Ms. Uh, Ms. V. Um,

read a book by Neil Cole called church 2.0. Uh, I've done a podcast with Neil, um, church 2.0 was

actually very influential. Peyton would say the same thing. Uh, but Neil tells actually a really

interesting story in the book about a church in a, in a coffee shop. They were actually in the process

of starting a coffee shop, um, and, um, and to do church in, and then they realized we don't need to

buy a coffee shop. We can just do church in a coffee shop. And so they actually pivoted that way. So do

that. Um, here's the question I want to ask you as you're wrapping up, Stu, um, as, as you're looking

at, cause you're interesting, you're running a vector, which is a plant and you're running a physical,

uh, virtual, uh, through Lakeland. What's the, what's a way that virtual reality can complement a

physical church? Like, is there a way that the two can work together? What have you seen or what do

you model through some of the things that you're doing? Yes. A hundred percent. The, the real

question is what does that church, that physical church want to do and what do they want to use

virtual reality for? Like, if you're wanting to broadcast like what Lakeland does as like a video

venue, multi-site campus, you can do that. And there's tons of different platforms, tons. There's like two

main platforms I can think of off the top of my head that you can do that. Um, but as I've been

picking apart this more and more, like it really boils down to just that question of like, what is

it that you want to accomplish? Like, do you want your people in your church to be stronger evangelists?

Like there's a use for that. Do you want to make the Bible come alive to people at your church and to

people in virtual reality? There's a way to do that through world building. Um, which I would say

even to the point that you were just saying with church 2.0 and Nicole, it was the same thing for us.

When we launched into it, we used what was already there. And then we decided to pay for somebody to

build a world for us and all space, all space shut down. And now we're in big screen and we're just,

again, using what's already there. And it's just like, I look, people are going to show up to it.

We don't have to do anything fancy. It's the beauty of the gospel is simple. Just show up someplace and

start preaching it and let people know that there's a God who is for them and not against them. And

there you go. You've got something really amazing happening. Um, but really like the beauty of what

VR does for the physical church is anything that you dream up, you can do. And so it's just like,

this is where your creatives come into place. This is where your trailblazers and your

futuristic minded individuals come into place. And you just say, dude, run wild. Like my XP here at Lakeland,

he was telling me not too long ago that there's a whole team. I guess this would be the Disney

Imagineers or whatever they're called, but like, that's their job is they just sit there and they

dream up the new things that they could do for Disney and movies and whatever else. And like,

dude, if you have somebody on your team that can live in that headspace, like that's me,

right? Like I'm that dreamer. I'm always thinking of like, what's the next thing that we can do?

I'm a great starter, not a great finisher. I'll be the first one to admit that, but I'm also really

good. Like I've like that a pest mentality that Peyton was talking about. Like you really got to have

all five. If you're going to pack a punch, like, I love that. I'm going to do this from now on.

But like, even for like VR space, like that's what you need in there is you need all five of those

in order to do it well. And I've acknowledged that for myself as like, dude, I know that I'm a great

starter, but I need the other people around me to make the nuts and bolts come together in order

for that dream and that vision to come to life. So anything that the physical church

can dream up and wants to do, you can do it in the virtual space. And that can be

strengthening what you already have, broadcasting what you have, or taking over new territory that

hasn't even been thought of yet. So I love that. By the way, my daughter's goal in life is to become

a Disney Imagineer. Like, I mean, that's, I'm not, I'm not kidding. That's like the thing she's

striving for. She wants to, uh, um, get her degree in, uh, from MIT, uh, and then go get a job at

Disney. Uh, so anyway, another conversation for a different day. Um, Hey, so, so good. So we are,

and we've, we've talked about this, uh, through basketball podcasts in this season. Uh, we're,

we're doing, um, a series of learning communities here, uh, with the church digital. And one of them

is going to be virtual reality. We're, we're, we're stewards leading a number of churches, uh,

to, to start a ministry in virtual reality, whether it's a church, whether it's a small group, whether

it's whatever, but it's, it's, it's more than just exploring. Like we want to actually help churches

get dirty and really start to understand and do what ministry looks like in virtual reality. And so,

Stu, do you maybe want to share a little bit about what your learning community is going to look like?

Yeah. So just, you know, 40, 45 minutes, hour long learning community once a week for about eight

weeks. And really it's just going to be the nuts and bolts of what it would look like to get started,

uh, in virtual reality, uh, and, you know, kicking Satan's butt and spreading Jesus name.

Um, and so we'll just go through like the nuts and bolts of it. Like what is VR? Like,

man, is this even a place that the church is supposed to be in at this point? Uh,

we'll talk about what are the different platforms out there. Um, you know, uh, DJ Soto and I hopped

on a call three years ago when I was first getting started. And he was just like, dude,

you got to look at each of the platforms as like different countries around the world.

So, you know, like your big screen is going to be like your, uh, United States, North America,

and then your, uh, VR chat is going to be your middle East. I did that on purpose, by the way.

Um, and then, you know, so on and so forth. So each one has its own language. Each one speaks

differently. It's got its own different culture, people. So it's understanding like, man, who are you

geared towards? Like I personally, I'm not a VR chat person. I would love to be, but it's just not who I am.

This is why big screen works really well for me. Like the small knit community, like let's

get into a really good conversation. Um, but we'll go through all that kind of stuff. And then

my guarantee is as long as you've got a headset, um, by the time that eight weeks is done, you'll be

full on ready to, uh, be in virtual reality and kicking off a ministry. So love it. So, uh,

yeah, so that learning community is going to kick off, uh, mid June. We're going to roll that for,

for, for eight weeks, uh, June, July lands and land the plane sometime in August. And so

for more information on, on Stu's learning community, and I'm doing one on, uh, hybrid,

uh, micro churches, a physical church that's doing a hybrid version of a micro. Uh, there's one

on asynchronous that Andy Mage is doing digital communications is Barbara and, uh, Megan, who's

on the call is also doing one on, um, a mental health and digital ministry. And so for, for

information on those five learning communities, the church that digital slash learning hyphen

communities, uh, you know what, I'll get a short code made the church that digital slash LC. I'll

get Barbara to code that in. And, uh, and yes, uh, white beard does seven 97 with a question

mark. Yeah. So the cost is seven 97. That's going to support the ministries of the people who are

teaching the learning communities and the church digital. So, uh, for more information,

check out the church.digital slash LC, uh, and get more information and sign up a form there. And

the person that's facilitating or reach out and answer any questions and get it going. So, um,

awesome. Hey, uh, this has been a lot of fun today. Peyton's so good, man. Um, you know,

I, I'm going to be honest. I, well, let me say I'll, I will be, you know what, this is the uncut.

This is filled. This is the unfiltered. I always said with the podcast, I'm just going to be blown.

Right. So, um, uh, I'm sure I was, I was, uh, this week, earlier this week, I was leading, uh,

uh, I was in Dallas. I was offsite and I was leading a round table or is helping with a round table

for a bunch of church live production guys. And, uh, I didn't, I didn't have a lot of time. And I realized

like in the middle of one of the sessions, oh crap, I don't have questions set up for the same for Peyton.

I got to do it. And so I reached out to Stu and I'm like, Hey, do you have any questions?

And Stu's like, man, I thought I was just called commentary. And so I was like, oh, I got,

so I'm gonna have to come up with questions for both. And, uh, and so I opened up my chat GPT

and I said, Hey, I'm doing an interview with a virtual reality pastor and the author of Plantology

come up with 10 questions. It came up with 10 really good questions. And so I was like, okay,

let me push my luck. Let me do 20 questions. Came up with 20 really good questions. Like analyzing Peyton's

book is so good. And, uh, and so like that was, that was the framework that I had in place. And I only asked

like two or three of those questions because I did not see a pest coming in. And when a pest went like

this, I was like, Ooh, let's just stay on that road. That was so good, man. So good. So yeah, white beard.

White beard. Um, we, we ate white, we're, we're trying to get white beard to do a, do a, um, uh,

a hangout with us here on TCD. We just got to, got to get through some of the, the, the details squared

away, but hopefully we're going to see that in the next week or so. And, uh, that that's going to be

good. Um, I, uh, I want to do a podcast that's called, um, so, uh, you call that church question

mark that really, we're going to explore some like unique expressions of church, not just digital church,

but micro and physical and, and like the, the idea of, of some of the church 2.0 stuff,

like getting that, you know, when we did that interview with Neil Cole last year with Jason

Morris, J Mo and I, it was like, you know, almost, Hey, you need to write, rewrite the book for church

3.0 and start to, you know, open up some of this, this new expressions that, that are even beyond the

micro. So anyway, we're going to land the plane. Hey, as we're wrapping up, Stu, any, any closing thoughts?

I just, like, I will say this. I do love that white beard did blow up the conversation with a pest

and I think I would have loved to have like dove into that a little bit more pain because there is a section

in that, uh, VR church finding book that I wrote that is focused on. So who's the right person to do VR ministry?

And I, I went pretty hard on the idea of like, well, anybody with the apest giftings can do it.

I would probably say the apostolic evangelist for sure. Uh, but now talking to Peyton, I feel like he would

blow me up on that one a little bit, but yeah, it was good. It was a good question.

Yeah. You know what I'm, I'm actually going to try to do. I'll, I'll push my luck here. It's been,

it's been a minute. I have, I, you know, I haven't talked to him since I got sick. Um,

but I wonder if I could get Alan Hirsch, the guy who is the author, like he is the guy who came up

with a pest, um, and get Alan Hirsch to come on and talk through maybe some digital and virtual

implications of a pest get a, you know, what, what would be an interesting podcast? I'm just

talking out loud here. Uh, but to get, get a guy like you in virtual and get a guy like, you know,

a Mark Lutz or, um, yeah, get a more or a Dr. John, uh, to come on to represent like a digital,

maybe both and just let the four of you guys just like, I would shut up. Uh, and I would just let the

conversation happen. Mark Lutz, Dr. John, you and Alan Hirsch talking a pest for an hour.

Okay. Um, so Hey, it's episode 295 of the church digital podcast. We are celebrating episode 300

in five weeks. And, um, I, to be honest, like I don't have a plan for episode 300. I was actually

going to joke about this. That may be episode 300, man. Um, let me, let me see if I, let me see who I

can get on the phone. Uh, but Dr. John, uh, uh, Mark, you and Alan Hirsch celebrating 300 that

that's something to aim for. Uh, so we'll see. You need a micro expression in there.

We'll offline it. That's interesting. It's, it's true. You know, you know, get somebody,

you know, Joey's doing the church in a bar. Don't know about that. I, you know, I'd rather not pull in a,

a network guy, um, find somebody a little raw. Um, anyway, let's, let's talk about it. We can beat

that up. All right. Hey everybody, we're going to land a plane. This has been a great white beards

apologizing that he blew it up. Why are you apologizing? You've never apologized for anything

in your life. Uh, yeah, yeah. Awesome. But Hey, thanks for, um, uh, yeah, we'd have to do it.

We'd have to do it at like three in the afternoon when it's 9am his time. I've, I've dealt with that.

We did, you know, it was interesting. Episode 299 is also with the guy in Australia. Episode 299 was,

um, uh, Steve Addison. I had to look at his book. I blinked on his name. Episode 299 will be Steve

Addison. We actually already did that interview. So it'd be Australian, Australian back to back 299,

300. All right. I'm putting too much pressure on myself. Uh, we're going to figure it out. Hey,

but we're going to land the plane for a tsunami for, um, Peyton Jones. You know,

I've been wanting to say Peyton Manning all day. Peyton Jones. This is Jeffrey with the

Church Digital. Thanks for hanging out with us on the pod. We'll see you next time on the show.