EP273 - Tyler Sansom & Next Level Digital Discipleship

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

fit into all this? Whether you're a big or small church, an established church, or a startup church

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

digitally and physically. Our heart, that churches like yours will discover a newfound focus on

disciple-making that will revolutionize your church. And now, here's your host, Jeff Reed.

All right, hey, we've got episode 273 of the Church Digital Podcast. I'm excited about this one,

bringing on the most guested person in the history of the Church Digital Podcast. We'll let you

figure out who it is. By the way, we are celebrating our 100,000th play right now. Literally this past

week, the Church Digital Podcast had over 100,000 total plays, total streams. And so thank you,

listening audience out there for being awesome, for being patient with us. And it's interesting. We'll

get into it a little bit, but we've got this guest has a special place in the Church Digital History,

the podcast history we'll get into here in a little bit. But remember here with season five,

we're getting into the idea of taking your church to the next level digitally or in the metaverse.

And in this context, we want to take your church to the next level digitally. And we're celebrating

some learning communities that Leadership Network is putting on. This fall, this winter, we are doing

a mix-up between physical and digital meetups for this learning community to help churches like

yours go to the next level digitally. As a matter of fact, we're digging into the idea of digital

discipleship and what discipleship looks like and the results of discipleship when done effectively

in digital space, which actually brings me into the conversation here. Guess what? We're bringing in

the most often-guested person. I guess that's the right way to say that. The most person. The most

person. The person who's been on this podcast most in the history of the Church Digital Podcast. The

person who has been on the podcast more than anyone else in the history of the Church Digital

Podcast. I think that one's grammatically correct. Let's go and welcome in Tyler Sansom into the

conversation. Tyler, what a surprise. It's great to see you here again, my friend.

I am doing well. I feel like a seasoned veteran at this point on this podcast.

Yeah, so there's a running joke about how many times you've been on the podcast. It seems like

we really have a deep relationship. I love talking to you on the podcast so much. Actually,

at one point, I did count. I don't remember what the number is, but by far, you've been on the most.

Jay Cranda is number two, and we were actually trying to get Jay on here in a couple weeks to

explore some things with him, but definitely glad to have you back.

It was by default. Back when we first started doing online ministry, there wasn't a lot of

options for other people to talk to. This is true. And really, if you want to go all the way back,

I think you were episode five, but an actual order of recording, you were the first podcast I ever

recorded. Wow, I did not know that. The first interview I ever did was with you. And you can go

back and listen to episode five or six, and what you won't hear is the 97 cuts of ums and ahs that I did

to make that sound clean. It was brutal back then. And I've gotten a little better, maybe a little bit.

I don't think we cut as much out as we used to way back with that first one. But hey, man, it's great

to have you on. As we're getting into season five here of next steps, how to take that next step,

how to get your digital ministry, even your metaverse ministry to the next level. This is

what we're digging in here. And so we're bringing Tyler Sansom in for this conversation. You see,

Tyler, I asked Tyler to be part of a learning community that Leadership Network is putting on

in fall 2023, fall and winter 2023. And so I was like, hey, Tyler, let's do a podcast. Let's jump

on. Let's talk about what we're learning, what we're digging into. But really also, I wanted to talk

about First Capital Church Anywhere and how First Capital, how Church Anywhere is taking their ministry

to the next level, utilizing digital technology. And oh my gosh, every time I turn around, they're doing

something different and something unique, and there's some new story, and it's just beautiful.

But really, Tyler, just to kick this thing, well, first off, hey, you've been a lead pastor like

18 months or so. We've probably had this conversation on this show.

Right at 18 months.

How's it feel? 18 months into this thing, are you energized? Are you exhausted? What's the average

day feel like for you?

Yeah, man, when I finally got past the realization that I'm probably not going to be the traditional

style of lead pastor and then got into kind of my own groove of what to do and fill my day

with, it got really, really energizing for me. So I'm loving what I'm doing. Doesn't look

like probably any other lead pastor in the country, but I'm loving it. The church is growing, and

God is really moving like crazy here right now.

Yeah, I think it's safe to say you're not the typical lead pastor. Right before we jumped on

the show, he was showing off his, what was it, Christian Film Festival number two trophy. It's a

big, giant, four-foot, 30-pound deal. Yeah, so your typical lead pastor isn't directing

an award-winning Christian film like ICANN is this next one, right?

Yeah, ICANN, yeah.

Awesome. So just real quick, disclaimer, when's that coming out? Give me a 10-second spiel.

It will be out late summer, so likely end of July, early August will be the theatrical run.

And right now, man, it's looking like it's going to be out in theaters all across the country

from Palm Springs, Florida, all the way to Spokane, Washington. So really excited.

Very cool. So I've got to drive three hours north to get to Palm Springs, but that will be worth it.

We'll try to get it there in Miami.

Try to get it in Miami. I'll make some calls for you, see if I can pull in a favor. I do meet in

a church. My church meets in a theater, so hopefully I got an inside track there, but probably not

because they're grumpy. I'd make them get up at like 7.30 on a Sunday morning, but that's another

conversation. So hey, let's get into this as we're talking about First Capital, about Church

Anywhere, taking these next steps and getting their digital ministry to the next level. Now, Tyler,

the heart, as we've had these conversations, the thing that I love about what you're doing and the

heart of First Capital is really getting into the idea of the discipleship process, of your

spiritual outfitters, of this outfitting that you've done. Give us an update. Maybe define

a little bit what discipleship looks like for your church in digital space, and maybe some

of the opportunities it opens up.

Yeah. The spiritual outfitting aspect of who we are is something that we implemented right

around two years ago. It's something we've been talking about for a while. We finally pulled

the trigger on it a couple years ago. But it is a massive philosophical shift in ministry

that moves away from the weekend service being king and shifts our focus to how do we get our people

to feel equipped and outfitted to go out and share the gospel, to self-feed, to be in biblical

community outside of the church. So that sounds great in theory, but in practicality, that is a

massive shift in how American church does ministry. It required us to get our entire staff on board.

It requires us to constantly keep ourselves in check. But what's happened is that we've

started this focus that's more geared towards equipping the saints. And in return, we've seen

more evangelism happen. So even though our target hasn't been, let's go lead more people to Jesus

through these programs, it's been, hey, let's build up these people. And then those people go and lead

people to Jesus. And since we've started this, we've nearly tripled in the amount of baptisms that we've

seen. It's truly incredible. I'm praising God every day to be a part of it.

That's great. So it's funny. Churches talk about this all the time, right? We're not about the

weekend. We're bigger than the weekend. The weekend's the front door. But yet, when you really look at

churches, it's so difficult to move beyond that weekend broadcast and to have there be more than

the weekend service, more than the weekend broadcast. And because it's so centric to the idea of church,

at least here in the West. But some of the stats that I've heard, even just you talking about how

baptisms have, would you say baptisms have tripled in the time since? Almost tripled with the focus

away from. Churches are skeptical and they're fearful of doing something different might actually

cause harm, more harm than good in that. But Tyler, some of the things that you're seeing,

I would love to hear some stories or some other examples of how moving away from the weekend service

has actually, now you still do it, but moving away from the emphasis and the focus on that has opened

up more opportunities. Yeah. Even within the weekend service, the emphasis has been really moved away

from seekers. So that's a huge shift as well. So, I mean, we're literally taking ancient liturgy

right now and making it modern. So we're doing like group readings and we're reciting creeds and all

these like things that you wouldn't think to do in modern seeker friendly church. And people are going

deeper with Christ and that's causing them to go out of our building, out of our online experiences

and share the gospel with people. But beyond that, the supplemental things, I mean, we're

utilizing digital tools on a literal daily basis, whether that's in small groups,

using Slack or text messages or whatever we want to use for that.

We're just, we're relationally invested in our, our people, the people that we've been called the

shepherd. We're relationally invested in them on a daily basis simply because we can now with digital

tools. And we're not like going out and coding new types of software or anything. We're just using

the things that are available to us to point people to Jesus, um, on the 167 hours that are not the

weekend service. So we still do a weekend service. We still try to do it with excellence. We've shifted

the focus more towards discipleship, but then we've recognized that once those people leave,

they need to continue to be outfitted. Um, they still have mental health struggles. They still

need to learn how to read the Bible. They still need to learn how to have healthy marriages.

And that's where a lot of our shift has taken place is in, um, those kind of felt needs areas.

So like, let's, let's back up to the, to the, to the service. Like you're, you're, you're equipping

people to be on mission. You're, you're, you're caring for individuals within the church service. The focus,

I mean, you're, would you say your focus is internal as opposed to external, but it's, it's,

it's internal missional. Like, so it's, it's strange. Our focus isn't about our people. We've

really tried our best to shift our focus to worshiping God period. I don't know if that makes

any sense, but it's, it's less about the, who's our target audience, um, being people. And we've

shifted to our target audience is God, and that should be the only target audience that

we have. And so that feels a lot older. Like it feels like, um, like ancient, but it's

also like weirdly fresh in today's society. Um, so we still do like modern music and things

like that, but we've really just geared it towards how can we help our people? How can

we outfit them to like fully worship God? And then the outpouring of that is, um, a missional

community that's unleashed into society.

That's incredible. I mean, by, by making it about God, you've actually done the thing that

you wanted to do, but if you made it about the missional community and, and getting them

activated, like it wouldn't have happened, or at least traditionally, we don't, we don't

see that happen.

Yeah.

It's, it's, it's, it's kind of like whenever Peter walked on water, um, like he, he did it.

He was able to do something nobody else was able to do. He walked on waters as long as he

was focused on Jesus, but the minute that he wasn't focused on Jesus and he was focused

on like the storms around him and the wind and things like that, the things that weren't

as powerful as Jesus, that's when he sank. And we're seeing this decline in modern Christianity

where the less that we focus on the main thing, and we start all these programs and all these

things that we say are in Jesus's name, and they probably are the best intentions. Um, we're

starting to see this massive decline, but I think the church is kind of calling him, calling us back

to his lordship and the focus being back on Jesus. All of it, everything else is just peripheral

tools that we get to use to point people to Jesus.

Totally. So with the learning community that we're doing here with Leadership Network, we're going to

be talking, the digital discipleship learning community, we're going to be talking about, uh,

the outfitters and how, uh, churches like yours can make this pivot, make this shift, uh, away from,

um, uh, focuses and processes that, that aren't helpful and start to move maybe towards, hey,

let's, let's put our focus on Christ, on God and see what happens as a result. Now what's,

what's interesting with First Capital Christian, with Church Anywhere, by the way, do I call it

First Capital or do I call it Church Anywhere? Like you guys have been in the world for anything for,

nobody knows. We, we just gave up on trying, you can call us wherever you want. It was one of those

deals where it was a big deal for a while and then now we just don't care.

That's, that's awesome. So as, as we're talking about this, but we're seeing through First Capital

and through Church Anywhere, uh, now that there's, there's a discipleship focus and, and there's an

understanding of who Christ is, they want to exude that and they want to share that. There's a

missional opportunity that they're, they're able to realize in, in digital space. Uh, they're leaning

into digital communities. They're, they're championing new ideas within the ministry. And, and so,

man, Tyler, was just maybe tell me about some of these outpourings that, as you said, some of,

some of these outputs where we're now, we're starting to see, uh, a, a, a missional church that's

activated, that's heading into digital communities as, as a way to, uh, to reach people. Just tell me a

couple stories. Yeah. So, uh, one of the things that we have just pounded into the heads of our

people over the last two years is that we want every Jesus follower to have a Jesus cause.

Like not, it's not, it's not enough that we're a church that wants to be missional. Like we want

every individual to also be on mission and we want them to do that in an area of passion.

So one of the outpouring specifically digitally has been people coming to us and saying, Hey,

I have this area of passion. How I don't know how to get involved though. And our default answer is a

micro site. Um, so it's sprouted up like, I don't know, 15 new micro sites or something over the last

couple of years, but it's people ministering in their sweet spots. So we've got a micro site right

now at a CrossFit gym. Um, we've got a micro site, um, about an hour and a half away at an elementary

school. That's like an afterschool program. There's all these ones that have sprouted out

simply from encouraging people to follow these passion areas. Um, and all of that is obviously

digitally, um, that we're using digital content, uh, in infused. Yeah. Um, so that's, that's one of

the ways. Uh, another way is, um, with the shift on discipleship, we've seen a lot of baptisms,

but we didn't want people to just be baptized and then kind of like figure out what's next on their

own. So we've been intentional of trying to pair each person that's been baptized with a mentor for

the first six weeks of their journey with Christ. Um, so very relational and it doesn't have to be

in person or online. It can be either. Uh, we created six weeks worth of curriculum that is all

done through like a, um, it's not an app, but it's like a mobile friendly webpage. So every time someone

gets baptized, they, um, they are paired with a guide who guides them through this daily curriculum

using digital content, it's all asynchronous. We've seen tremendous discipleship happen from that.

It turns out like people are excited whenever they first get baptized, but they don't really

usually have, um, quite the direction that they need. This provides them with the ability to have

direction. Uh, we've seen digital, um, small groups happen. Digital leadership trainings, um,

happen using asynchronous communication. Um, I teach every month, um, via zoom to our micro site in

India who found us through Facebook. Like it's just been, it feels like I'm in part of a circus and

God's just like the circus master and I get to be a part of it. That's what it feels like over the last

two years. So that's what I, that's what I love about first capital is they never say no, they say yes.

And then they figure out how, how to make it happen. And, uh, the, the volunteer coal core, the,

the, um, the, you know, the number of volunteer missionaries, volunteer, uh, micro church leaders,

like the passion they serve on, like, it's just, it's beautiful to, to watch that from afar.

I'll, I'll add to that part. Like one of the things we've noticed out of this outfitting

is like people really want to serve. Like they, they, they really do. They want to do it,

but they don't always just want to like hold a baby on a weekend service or open the doors for

people. There are untapped potential areas that people in, in churches all over the country have,

um, that simply they just need help finding their passion area. And we've got to realize that,

um, that at, at first capital, we've seen that happen both online and in person.

Yeah. So let's talk a little bit. You said async a couple of times and that's,

that's always encouraging because I talk async, but I would love to get in a little bit more

detail as we, we talk about, um, you know, what context are using async? What, what platform,

how to, how does it look like, like put a little skin on the bones. Let's, let's define that a little

bit. Uh, I'll do the, the one that I am most involved in right now, because there's multiple ways

that we do this. Um, the one that I'm most involved in is I'm taking a group of guys through a leadership

training cohort. Um, these are, um, not only in person people. So this is potential future leadership

of the church type people that I want to pour into. Um, I've got 12 of them or 11 of them in a group

right now. And every morning, um, we do, uh, a journey Bible studies, what we call it journey group

where I post a small chunk of scripture within a Slack channel. And then throughout the day,

we do, um, observations and applications that come into our mind from that small portion of study

and then we pray together. Um, so that sounds really simple, but it has really grown us closer

together as a group of people, because throughout the day, if someone writes something that I didn't

think about, then I usually respond. And so do the other people. And so it ends up being a group of men

who are constantly talking to each other, even though we're several hours apart sometimes. Um,

in response time and location. So that's one of the, the, the ways that, um, recently we've seen a lot

of success are these like small journey groups that we use Slack for, um, that it's really just

like obedience-based Bible study. Hmm. And so how, I mean, I'm not a Slack fan. We were joking about

that off air. I dedicated most of my life to Slack. No, no kidding. Like I've used Slack for a decade

and, um, anyway, I'm, I'm a discord guy now, but that's okay. It's like, I still love you for

it. Salesforce, not so much, but that's okay. Um, but so like how much, one of the things like

churches, I would suggest they've really struggled with, with a sync, um, to make it really be

effective. Now, what, what I've traditionally heard in the past is, is throwing a bunch of people into,

into an async or like a Facebook group or, or like a Slack or a discord and not really managing it well.

But what, what I'm hearing from you is like, you're, you're working small groups into that.

Yeah. The smaller, the smaller, the better, smaller, the better. Pull that thread. Talk to me.

Yeah. I have 11 in mind. I have 11 in mind. Um, Matthew, one of our staff members is in one

that he's got six or three couples. So six total people, Megan, um, who is like a online legend as

well. Um, she is in, she leads one for women and she had about seven other women in that one.

Um, we, we're in like the pilot season of this right now. So we, we wanted to launch about,

um, six or seven groups that are potential leaders. And in the fall, we're going to do

this church wide, both in person and online. Um, but all of them have come out of it saying

that this was the closest small group they've ever had. Um, just because they're constantly

in communication. Um, it doesn't feel like a group. It doesn't feel like those annoying group

chats. It feels like a very pointed one and it holds people accountable this way. So

because it's asynchronous and like the notifications come all throughout the day, um, rather than

at like one time, you can't really hide. Like it's obvious whenever you miss a day. So, um,

so there's an accountability that happens there. Um, that's why I'm a proponent of making them

smaller. If there was a hundred people in this one group, it would be really easy to hide,

but like six or seven, if you're the only one not responding, like it's pretty obvious

that you're not fully invested. And then at that point we probably would have a conversation with

them and say like, Hey, I don't think this is for you. This is for the people that want to go.

And so having that accountability, keeping, keeping it small now, and I've seen groups that have big

and small where there's, where's a mix to that, where you get critical mass and critical energy

in the large, but, but having that accountability, um, transparently in front of people,

you know, I mean, there, when, when we talk about don't, don't forsake the gathering of the believers,

like the implication there is, is daily. There was a daily gathering, um, in, uh, in the acts context

and in the early church context. And so utilizing async is a great way, uh, to relive that, to get to

know people. And so like, this is just one of many things that we're going to talk about within the

learning community and try to coach up on how to utilize these digital tools and, and, and to engage in

digital communities missionally better. Now, um, one of the things that, that I love, you almost made

me cry, Tyler. Like we, we had like a, I'll just be honest before we pressed record, Tyler and I had

like a 10 minute conversation and it just managed. He just, he just warmed my heart. Um, Tyler said the

words, uh, obedience-based groups. And I, I, I just started to tear up. Um, and so Tyler, uh, while,

while I'm off camera and, and, and dabbing my eyes a little bit here again, why don't you talk a

little bit about what you're doing with the obedience-based groups?

Yeah, it goes directly into these asynchronous, uh, groups. So that the asynchronous, uh, digital

communities are the method that we're doing this, but essentially it's a scripture a day, uh, like a,

a portion of scripture. Right now we're working through the gospel of Matthew. So it's a, like

essentially each subsection. Um, so today we did like Matthew 16, one through seven. So it's seven

verses. And, um, the goal is for people to look back. How has the scripture applied in the last

week to their life? Look up, um, and pray that God would reveal what he wants, um, from that scripture

in their life and then look forward. And like we say out loud, here's how we're going to use this

in the next day or week. Um, which goes back to that accountability. The problem is most small groups

that I've ever been a part of have been like, Hey, let's go. Um, let's go meet at someone's house

and we're going to spend 25 minutes listening to like an Andy Stanley sermon. And then we're going to

talk about it. And we might come out of that better because we have more knowledge. Um, but we don't

really talk about how we're going to put that into practice. Um, we've kind of skipped the, um, lesson

portion and went straight to God's word portion and have asked people and in front of each other,

asked God to use that in our lives and keep us accountable. So that's the obedience-based part of

the asynchronous learning community that we have going on. If churches today can figure out how to hold

their people accountable, um, the church will be successful missionally. Um, churches struggle

with, with accountability. Actually, I was coached, um, maybe a year or so ago to actually not publicly

say the word accountable because you can't, that you can't say that in 2023, but I'm not, you know,

by the church holding someone accountable, the church isn't telling the person what to do.

The church is saying, what is God telling you to do? And Hey, let's, let's, let's do that.

Uh, and so there's, there's actually, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, a mild dose of humility. The church is

releasing control in that situation, allowing the person to connect directly with God to find out

what their, you said calling earlier, like what their, what their calling is. And then the church

is posturing themselves to say, okay, now that you know what their calling is, how can we, the church

humbly, humbly help? Yeah. How can we outfit you to achieve that calling? Like that's where the

outfitter came from. We're on a, we're all on some kind of journey with Jesus and each of us have a

different, we call it GPS. So gifts, passion, and story. We all got a different GPS coordinate.

Um, how can we outfit you as a church to get to your intended location that God wants you to get

to? That's how we've pitched it to our people. Yeah, that's, that's, that's so good. And, and you're,

we're going to help you get there and, and, and do what God's led you to do. And that,

that opens, it's, it's funny, you know, you're talking before about being so widespread that gets you to,

Hey, what are we doing in India? And Hey, what are we doing with a movie? And Hey, what are we doing

in worship? And all of a sudden, you know, you're all over the map, uh, because you're empowering

others to do what God's calling them to do. And they're, they're leading and you're supporting as

opposed to you leading and, and, and being overstretched. You're empowering others in that,

in that mission. So, um, talk to me a little bit here. Uh, like you, you mentioned India real

briefly and, and I'm sure there's other outputs and things that, that you're doing. Um, what,

what exactly are you doing in India? So we're doing two things in India right now. Um, I say

two things like they're tiny, but they're both pretty big. Um, the first one is we have a micro

site in India. Um, who is a crazy story, but the guy connected with us on Facebook while he was in

seminary. Um, he had already given his life to Christ, but I don't know how he found us on Facebook,

but he connected, watched us for about a year before he ever even reached out. Um, and finally

reached out and asked for a zoom call. So Megan and I jumped on it and we found out that, um, he was

listening to our outfitter series about being on mission. He thought he needed to do something about

it. So he started a house church, um, in his house, uh, using our material. And then he felt

like he wasn't doing enough. So he decided to go out into one of the villages and start a second church.

So he's pastoring two churches, um, got about 45 people in his house and probably another 30 to 40

people in his village all through the church anywhere network. And so he wanted to connect to see if we

could become partners more than him just watching and doing what we say. And I said, yeah, what does

that look like? So we recently have helped them build a well, um, or like have some fresh water in,

in their area. But beyond that, um, I preach live for them once a month via zoom. Um, so that's a

crazy connection with, with India right there, but it goes back to the, um, like outfitters and

figuring out how to disciple people. And we somehow like discipled and inspired this guy all the way

in India through Facebook messenger. And now I have a personal relationship with him and his 45 people

that meet in his, um, house. So I preach, um, once a month and he translates every few words. So it's the

slowest sermon of all time. Um, yeah, the second thing from India is we do digital missions in India.

We, um, do a thing called perspectives in our area. That's like a 10 week course on becoming a

missionary. And the people that graduate that, uh, many of them have like huge desires for, for that

type of ministry, but no means to go overseas. So we partnered with CV outreach and, um, we're doing

felt needs ministry to India right now. And we're averaging somewhere around 170 to 180 people a

week that we're connecting with. Uh, and the team's about 18 people.

So hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. 170 to 180 people define connecting. Is that,

is that text? Is that email? Is that voice? It's a email, email, email, email, and WhatsApp. So

text. Yeah. And what's, what's really cool is that we've, we've onboarded some natives. So like

we have people who have come to Jesus through this ministry who are now on the team as digital

missionaries to India, but they're in India. Okay. So, um, a small church and a medium-sized

church in Cordon, Indiana with small town in Indiana, uh, is currently, um, onboarding digital

missionaries to reach people in India. Like you guys have misspelled the state, Indiana to

India. It doesn't matter. You're figuring out how to, yeah, we just, we, we accidentally messed up

and we figured it out. Typo for, forget that. Let's just go ahead and stick with the plan.

That's, that's, that's awesome. So like you've got, how'd this start? You had people that were

called to India? Yeah. Well, no, we had people that were called to missions that couldn't go be

missionaries due to financial or health or whatever. And, uh, so I said, well, what about this?

We've already been doing felt needs ministry for a long time. Um, one-on-one like here in the States,

uh, started with our own website, then partnered with CV. And then now we've added on, he gets us

in glue. Um, what if we tried this in India, we have a Google ad grant. We could probably make that

work. And they said, yeah, let's do it. Um, actually I just said, what we tried to overseas,

the team voted on India. That's the one that they all decided they wanted to go for first. So that's

how that came about. That that's incredible. And so it's, it's a, it's a, it's a course, uh,

perspectives and just the output of that, uh, you help to activate people and help them find

mission by doing it digitally to engage into a community literally on the other side of the

planet. Um, which is, which is resulting in discipleship to the level of knowledge you're

onboarding Indian natives to effectively reach India natives to your, your system. Like this is,

it's a beautiful level of, of multiplication discipleship.

I cannot wait, cannot wait to get to eternity future. And like, I want to just want to be

there sometime when like one of our India team members from like Podunk, Indiana gets to meet

someone from a village in India. And they're only there because this guy reached out in Cordon and

they get to see each other for the first time. Like that, that image just like, it makes me tear up

the idea that, that God's that big.

And once again, like through the learning communities, we're trying to highlight different

ways that through discipleship, digital discipleship, you can activate people and help

them find a digital purpose in ministry, a digital calling. And something here like a perspectives

course, which equals activating people on mission on the other side of the planet. Um, I mean,

this is, this is a beautiful story. You know, one, one of the other stories that I just, I know from a

personal level with Tyler is the stuff that, that first capital has done with, he gets us. Uh, and

that, you know, that's been a campaign through glue and a number of different other partners that,

that I've done a lot of work with, and we'll be ramping up even more in the near future, hint,

hint. Um, but, but for now, Tyler, talk a little bit about, uh, maybe some of your experiences,

you and your church's experience with, he gets us.

Yeah. And we jumped on board really early on with them, actually through you, you onboarded us.

Um, but like right at the beginning of this thing. And, um, right now we're at, we are averaging

around 130 ish connections to people, um, to people that are engaging per month, which we didn't know.

That's just like normal for us. We didn't realize that was like four or five times the amount that

most churches are doing. So we've been like wearing ourselves out and building this team,

but it's all, it's all for like a great purpose. Um, we've connected with, man, story after story.

Uh, the one, one of them that highlight, um, that's not super happy, but was, um, pretty hard

ministry was I connected with somebody around Thanksgiving last year who had, um, had their son had

committed suicide and she had found him. And I connected with her through glue, um, about two

days after that happened. And we ended up talking on the phone for a while, ended up helping her get

into some counseling. And she was about three and a half hours from me. So like, not, it wasn't like

my neck of the woods. Um, but these are real people that have real, um, and urgent needs. And it's just

like an honor to be able to have a team that connects with those kinds of people.

That's just one of the, you're right. That's not a, it's not a happy story. Uh, and there,

there's a lot of unhappy stories, but one of the thing I love about he gets us in the churches that

are part of, of glue's explorers program is that there are churches that are willing to have those

hard conversations and there's people and volunteers that are willing to, to almost be digital missionaries

engaging in a way with, uh, with spiritual explorers and people that are, that are seeking answers.

Um, I cut Tyler. I've never heard that, that story too, literally two days after, uh, there,

she found her, her child, um, on suicide. Like you're, you're, that's, that's front lines, man.

Yeah. None of, none of these, um, like we watched the, he gets us commercials and we don't realize

how intense that some of these conversations are going to be. But I mean, that's, that's what

happens when you step into people's messes. Like Jesus came for the sick, not for the, the healthy.

Um, so his church is going to step into those situations as well. And for some reason online,

at least in my experience over the last decade, online people are more apt to open up about the hard

stuff. Um, so this is, I always tell our team, like you're on one of the hardest teams that we

have as a church, because you're stepping into some serious mess. Um, and it's hard to sustain,

but well worth it when you have conversations that end up in a positive light where you can

actually help someone. What's beautiful about this story is this woman was three and a half

hours away from your church. Um, and so I'm, I'm willing to bet knowing you, you weren't like,

hey, well, you should come to our church building. Like you, you, you took the time to minister to

this person without the direct benefit of, of having them be in the church building to go against some

metric somewhere. Like you ministered to her regardless of the fact of where she was located.

Yeah. I will say this now more comfortably than I've said it in the past, because my church

is a lot more comfortable with me saying this now that I'm the lead guy. Um, I just,

I just don't care if they come here. I, I, I, I want them to come here. I'll care about them

and deeply care about them here. Um, but man, I'm going to stand before God someday. And it's not

going to be a, um, who had the most church attenders as a pastor contest. It's going to be

who went out to the least of these, um, and, and helped them. And if my motive is

only to get them to come to my church, I am like dramatically missing the point of this whole thing.

Right there. That's next level thinking. You know, if, if we can, if we can move beyond

the butts in seats metric and start to recognize maybe what digital relationships are, what relationships

are and what discipleship and what for care for people needs to look like in digital and how that can

help the church, uh, whether physical or to let this is a, this is a beautiful story and a beautiful

example. And I'm sorry, it costs the, the, the, the life of a, of a, of a person here to tell this

story, but man, this is the potential that we have even through utilizing like glue's spiritual

explorers program to, to champion, uh, ministry to reach the people that our buildings are not going

to reach now, Tyler, let me, let me ask this. Um, 130 people a month. That's, that's 33 people a week.

That's, that's five to seven conversations a day. Um, you're, you're like, I just not to be facetious,

but you're not having all those conversations yourself. You know, I know Megan's busy as well.

You and Megan are not having all these conversations. You mentioned earlier a team,

like how, how, how have you brought on volunteers to have some of these hard conversations? What does

that look like? Yeah, we've, we've, we've been really selective with this group simply because

it really is kind of the front lines. Um, so this is more high level of people we trust. I think

there's 10 on our team right now for, he gets us maybe 11. I would have to go look. We've onboarded

a couple of people in the last couple of weeks, but these are people that have either expressed

interest in ministry or they're like higher level capacity types of people that haven't necessarily

found their place in physical ministry yet, but like want to help the kingdom and people that's the

types of people that we have on the team. Did they, did they approach you or you approach them?

Cause I'm thinking outfitters, like has somebody come out of the outfitters program and said,

I want to do this. Or is this the one area where you're like self-selecting people and grabbing

them out? Well, this is kind of, um, a perfect example of outfitters. It's, oh, you need a,

this is your strength and you need a place to serve. Okay. Well, here's what we can offer if this

would be of interest to you. Um, so that's kind of how that worked. And, uh, so like once again,

through the explorers program glue, he gets us and in church cares, and there's so many other, uh,

glue systems that are out there that just, uh, before the explorers program, so much opportunity,

uh, but you've got to disciple people. You've got to take them through a process to start to be able

to handle some of these hard conversations. Like, could you imagine a volunteer engaging with someone

whose, um, whose son had died two days earlier? That's a hard conversation for a pastor,

much less a volunteer. That's happened. So that's happened to our volunteers, maybe not

that exact scenario, but things equal to that level of intensity. And they know that it's okay to say,

I don't know. Let me pass it on to the person that can help you. Um, and we know that too. That's why

we have counselors that are operating out of our building, um, so that we can send them to those.

You know, as, as much as I've, I've talked with like American association of Christian counselors,

uh, doctor, uh, oh my gosh, I'm blanking on his name right now. Dr. Carl over there, uh,

and, and others, you know, the language has been around like volunteers handling these difficult

situations. Here's the next level tip. You want to offload it to a volunteer. You want your volunteer

to run with a ministry like the spiritual explorers, but there's, there's a certain level

that a volunteer can't do. And so the volunteer is really expected to triage. Hey, if you engage

with somebody at that level of, of a complex, difficult situation, a volunteer doesn't need

to run away from it. The volunteer needs to be comfortable enough to engage it. But just like

Tyler said, be comfortable with, Hey, you know what? I don't, I don't know the exact answer for that

one. Can I, can I get you connected to somebody who's maybe a little better equipped to handle the

situation? There's no shame in running away from something like that. As, as a matter of fact,

there, there's courage that you're able to engage in that conversation and be sensitive enough to be

aware that, Hey, I'm not the, I can't take this one to the finish line. I've got to be able to hand

it off. Uh, and so this is, this is a beautiful conversation. Talk to me a little bit, because I

know that in the past that you've done things with, um, uh, in influencers, like you did an influencer

course, I believe, or something like that. And, uh, you know, I know Megan was doing a lot of

interesting things with Tik TOK and you were exploring that with some other, other volunteers.

What, what happened as a result of all that? Is that, is that still going? What's, what's up?

Yeah. So some of them are still going. Um, some of them didn't become influencers because,

you know, the internet's hard, but, uh, yeah, it's still an effective ministry. Probably the biggest

success story, um, for a person that went through influencer 2.0, um, is a, a couple named the

Guernseys who started a cooking show. Um, and they started this like food network style cooking show on

YouTube because they like to cook and they share the gospel through that. And they've got a Facebook

group now, like a thousand people and they share recipes and all kinds of stuff with them. Um,

but a big win for us was we did a Seder meal asynchronously, um, on Passover week. So the,

like on Holy week. And, um, we had people meeting here in the church building. We had people meeting

in homes. We had people meeting in Uganda, Africa, like all, all over the place. And the Guernseys use

their cooking show to teach us how to prepare the Seder meal. Um, so it came full circle, um, in that area.

So yeah, the influencer thing is still going. Um, those are sometimes fast, fast builds and

sometimes slow builds, but that's one way that we're using social media at least to.

Yeah. Um, it's, it's, it's, let me ask it with your influencer program.

Is there, you know, often I've, I've thought about, it's funny right when I started the church digital,

I wrote a blog, uh, about how your great aunt Ruth, who's really good at, uh, pistachio pudding,

uh, is, has influence and, and how like she should use that for social media. Actually,

that was the heart behind us, us writing Dr. John and I writing, um, oh my gosh,

I just blanked on the name of the book, Sharing Jesus Online. Um, yes, I did on my podcast,

just admit that I forgotten the name of the book that I wrote like three months ago. You can,

you can flag that one and throw it at me later. Um, but you've got, you know, through Sharing

Jesus Online, everybody's got influence. Uh, and so there's, there's that approach to influence.

And then is, are you, do you looking at influence that way? Are you looking at a more of, of the

specialized kind of influencer track? Yeah, it both. Um, so we encourage, encourage people

both in person and online to use whatever platform they have to share, um, Jesus. But the, the exact

language that we use is we want every person to keep their eyes open, looking for every opportunity

to show people Jesus through their actions. So that could be in person, could be online.

But we say that at the end of every time we meet as a group of people. Um, but yeah,

the, the influencer 2.0 training was more specialized around like a skill set or a platform.

So say that, say that plumb line again, you like, what, what do you, what do you, is it?

Yeah. We want every person to keep their eyes open, looking for opportunities to show people

Jesus through their actions. It could be in person, could be online.

Uh, wow. Just through their actions. Yeah.

So show people, that's our definition of being a church that's on mission.

And that, I mean, that I guess resonates with the audience, right? I mean, that's, that's one

of the reasons why I think you've been able to activate them so well.

I think so. Yeah. We say that all the time. And then a cause, a Jesus cause, we define that as

a focused effort to help people find and follow Jesus through their area of passion. So everyone should

be on mission always, but then we want everyone to have one lane that they're like all in and

passionate about. I tell you what, I hope you're writing this down or better yet, you can join us

for the learning community. Um, lead net.org/dlc digital learning community. This is what we're

doing with Tyler Sansom here, um, in, uh, fall 23 by, by the way, uh, I'll go and say this, uh,

coupon code Tyler lead net.org/dlc. Get a hundred dollars off by using the coupon code Tyler. This is,

but what, what we want you to see here is that these are just incredible ways to, this is, this may work

for your church, this may not work for your church, but these are just opportunities, examples of how

we can onboard people missionally. But it starts with a discipleship process where you're, you're

training them and activating them and then releasing them physically or digitally. However, you know,

they feel called by God and, and being the church that is going to be activating them regardless of

what direction they're being called to, whether it makes sense in context of the church or outside,

you're part of that process to, to see them towards what they're, what they're calling or

what their cause is for us. This, this, this is so good. You know what? I don't know, Tyler, man,

listen, your church is doing all sorts of stuff artistically. It just did the I can movie we talked

about. I know, I know there's been some, some, uh, expanses musically with worship and we, we talked

about some of the, the high church methodology before, but then you've got some new balances.

And so kind of update me a little bit with what's going on with your church overall artistically.

Yeah. I mean, obviously people are watching content like in a bizarre amount, like six to

eight hours a day on, on phones, they're consuming content. And so we, we just want to be part of that.

Um, so we've take, taken like an entrepreneurial, um, route to what we call creative outfitting.

Uh, the movie is one example of that, but like just the movie social media last, last month reached 1.6

million people. Um, and then we're using the same funnel to get them into community that we would

with any other digital ministry. Um, our worship team is, uh, committing to write one song a month

with the goal of eventually being 60 to 70% all original songs written for our community. Um,

but they've recognized that that's an area that they could release these songs online,

um, and use some digital market marketing methods to share the gospel with people in a different way.

Um, we're doing a lot of that stuff for jails and prisons. So we're making a mini series right

now, a narrative mini series, um, that will be on every tablet of every offender in the state of Indiana.

Um, so we're just taking pretty much anything that we can throw on a wall. And if it sticks,

we're going to utilize, um, digital practices to get that out to as many people as possible

in the creative space. Yeah. So I didn't even occur to me that you were going to use, I can,

the movie as a way to onboard a people and get people connected to, to your church.

That's the whole, that's the whole point of it. Yeah. So we partnered with the guys from the

Chosen and right at the, at the front, we just said, Hey, we don't care if we make money or any

of that off of this. The goal of this is to get as many eyeballs to hear on this project so that as

many people can hear this message of redemption as possible. And then beside that, we wrote, um,

small group curriculum, um, a 40 day devotional, and we're hosting all of that on our website.

Um, and so we would just funnel them down the same way we would through church anywhere.

It's just a different avenue. That's, that's, that's beautiful. Um, and just once again,

it's, it's all of these, I mean, anything artistically digitally has an opportunity to

connect up to the church where it's even, um, you know, the influence that the, that the filmmakers,

that, that the musicians, all of this funnels into, uh, some sort of a process that leads people

back to Christ, at least people back to the church, back to a better, uh, understanding.

Can I give you, can I give you one quick story of that?

Sure.

So we, we, we had some screenings of, I can, um, for select people, um, because we wanted

like feedback and things like that. And, um, one of them, I didn't know the guy. He was

invited by one of our other producers. He's from Texas, drove 10 hours to get here. Basically,

he was just like, I don't know why I'm here. Um, afterwards he wrote us on

Facebook and, uh, he said, I didn't know why I came to Indiana, but as soon as I started

watching the film, I realized that God brought me there to leave as a free man because their

story in the movie mirrored my wife and I's story. And I've been struggling with this guilt

for the last decade. And God spoke to me that evening and I'm never going to be the same.

And I'm like crying as I'm reading this message, but that guy's worshiped with us through church

anywhere every week since then. So all the way in Texas, we now have a family that we worship with

simply through this creative means. Um, so that's, that's kind of what I meant by it's just a separate

avenue, but it all funnels back into the helping people find and follow Jesus. And then how in turn

can we outfit them to go do the same? Man, what, what an incredible story. And, and, and,

and prayerfully we'll, we'll see more, um, come from, come from the movie, by the way,

the first movie ever made about softball, right? Yeah. It's crazy. Crazy. Yeah. I never,

never, you told me that. And I was like, there's, there's gotta be. And of course I went to a league

of their own, but no, that was, that was women playing baseball, not softball. Uh, so who knew

anyway? Um, what church, church leader, pastor, what I want you to see here is that Tyler and through

first capitals taking the church to the next level utilizing digital. And do I want you to,

to your church to make a movie? Well, actually my, my church made a movie in 20, 2013. It was called

Genesis. It was kind of like a combination of the book of Genesis and steampunk. I'm not kidding,

unfortunately, but you can, you can go back and look at that if you want. Um, no, I'm not, I'm not,

I'm not suggesting that maybe I'm suggesting that, but no, it doesn't have to be what I'm suggesting.

If it fits their culture. Yeah. If it fits their culture, sure. Contextualize.

Definitely. Steampunk Genesis. Think about it. Give it a shot. Um, but the fact

is, is, is that we want your church to think differently and start to recognize that there's

opportunities beyond what you're already doing. And truthfully, a lot of the time it's activating

your volunteers that are looking for an opportunity to be challenged beyond, I don't know, serving

coffee and changing a diaper. There, there are other things volunteers can do rather than just

complimenting what's happening in the weekend service. And that's what I would love for us to,

recognize. And we're looking for churches that are willing to be challenged on this. We're through

the learning community with leadership network. We're looking for churches that, that want to take

it to the next level that want to move beyond the metric of, of weekend that want to see people

disciple digitally. I want to see people empowered on mission, recognizing their cause and starting to

be released out into it that, that want to look at digital communities as a missional community that

want to go on mission trips, literally mission trips into, into digital community, into gaming,

into all sorts of different spaces digitally and be the light of Christ missionally in the middle,

midst of social media, in the midst of Twitter, in the midst of Facebook groups, in the midst of

discord and, and, and the metaverse and the things like that. And so this is what we're looking for

here, uh, with, with the learning community, the digital discipleship learning community,

Tyler and I are putting together through leadership network. Once again, it's leadnet.org, L-E-A-D-N-E-T.org

slash D-L-C for digital learning community. Coupon code Tyler save you a hundred bucks off of that. And so Tyler,

man, it's just, are you excited about the learning community? Like what, what, what are you most excited

about as you're looking forward to this? Yeah. Sometimes you feel like you're on an island,

especially as a lead pastor, um, because there's just not a lot of lead pastors, at least in my

sphere that are, um, thinking, uh, in terms of the way that we're trying to think. Um, and so I'm excited

to connect with some other people that are ready to, I don't know, throw us up against the wall and see

if it sticks with us. Um, and then maybe we can figure out how to make each other better. Awesome.

Yeah. That, that's the beauty of a learning community is, is that, uh, we learn from you, you learn from us.

And, uh, after throwing a bunch of, what did, what did you say? Throwing a bunch of throw stuff at the wall.

I started to say throw crap at the wall, but it's like, that's, that's, it's not what you said. I don't want to throw

crap. I mean, that's, that's what I tell my kids, but that's not podcast language. Forgive me. Throw stuff

against the wall, see what sticks. There's a little bit of that. And then there's some,

Hey, let's aim while, while we're throwing that at the wall and see what we can, can get from it.

And so more information there at, uh, leanat.org slash DLC. And then of course we've got leanat.org

slash MLC for the metaverse learning community. Stuart McPherson was on last week and we were

talking about the metaverse learning community. Maybe you're looking to get a little more edgy

with some virtual reality and, and, and get into that. Uh, we've got mission trips and other

opportunities there with, uh, the metaverse learning community, MLC. And so, hey,

awesome. Tyler, that's listen, it's always fun hanging out with you, man. I, I, uh, I wish

I could do a podcast with Tyler every week and, uh, sadly I cannot. So maybe, maybe in another

life. Um, but Hey, as, as we're, as we're wrapping up here, Tyler, any, any closing thoughts?

Yeah. I would just, uh, encourage you guys to think outside the box. Um, oh, I first of all,

encourage you to go, um, to the lead net website and sign up for our learning community,

because I think it's going to be a lot of fun. But beyond that, start thinking outside the box

because God's kingdom is a whole lot bigger than just one hour or two hours on a Sunday

morning in a building together. Um, and I have seen firsthand him move in some crazy ways.

Um, if you just allow him to do that.

It's, it's, it's a beautiful thing. Releasing control may be the hardest thing your, your church

will have to do to go through this process, but, uh, releasing it and, and allowing God to move,

uh, through you, um, is, is beautiful when, when it happens and you get to see the growth

of the people underneath you who are, who are taking leaps and bounds because you're pouring

into them in the process and then empowering and releasing them to do what God's called them to do.

Not what you're telling them to do, not what you've all and told them to do. I, and I totally

get the ball and told thing. I've been on a church staff. I know how it works, but there's an

opportunity to, to watch God grow that individual far beyond what your, uh, abilities are. And you get

to be the, the vehicle that platforms others and helps others on the journey. It's, and that's

at a personal level. I just believe that that's what God's called the church to be,

uh, especially here in, in 2023. And on that note, we're going to land the plane. So check

out leanet.org slash DLC, uh, coupon code Tyler or leanet.org slash MLC. If you're interested in

Metaverse, go and do coupon code, uh, Stunami, S-T-U-N-A-M-I for that one. Either way, you get a hundred

bucks off their respective, uh, learning communities. We'll get you going. Any questions you can hit me

up? Four, eight, four, three, two, four, eight, seven, two, four. That's myself. Go ahead and text

me. Don't call me. Don't be that guy. Don't be that girl. Text me and we can have the conversation,

but we're going to land the plane and we got to go. So for, for Tyler, this is Jeff,

the church, digital, digital church network. Thanks for being on the podcast here. We'll see

you next time on the show. Y'all have a good day.