EP232: Joey Santos & Church in a VR Bar

But the question that I would ask every pastor is, what are we losing by not going there?

What is the kingdom losing by not taking up, by not looking at this opportunity to meet people where they are?

Because they're by the millions.

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, everybody.

Happy Labor Day.

Hey, it's Jeff with the Church Digital Podcast.

Looking forward to this conversation.

Digital Church Network, Leadership Network, so much other fun stuff.

And we've got a really interesting conversation centered around today.

You know, it's funny.

I'm the guy that always got like a lot of side hustles.

And hey, that's a great idea.

Let's really move towards that.

And the guest today in this conversation, man, I just kind of walked into this incredible opportunity, incredible vision.

It's like, yeah, I really just want to be a part of this thing and actually see how it rolls out.

And so for the conversation, we're bringing in Joey Santos.

Hey, Joey.

How are you doing?

Hey, Jeff.

How are you doing, man?

Good to see you again.

Good to see you as well.

And so Joey is, man, I feel like I've known this guy for decades.

But it's really, it's just been like right before COVID.

Like it's just been a couple of years.

Yeah, I know.

It was one of those like very, it was very accidental, actually.

Like we, all of a sudden we're in the same room.

It was like.

Kind of got thrust together in a unique situation.

So it's good.

You know, it's like, this is totally off topic.

But you know, it's like in the action movies where the guy and the girl who have nothing

to do with each other go through the trauma, traumatic experience of whatever the action

is.

And all of a sudden they're like dating afterwards.

Joey, you're my action hero.

Like we just got kind of put together in this unique situation.

And oh man, this is all sorts of weird.

Exactly.

Don't take this too far.

That's not where I'm going.

But oh my gosh.

So good.

So Joey's, Joey's my, Joey's my, my global innovations.

No, global innovations pastor, right?

Is that, is that the right title?

No, that, that's integration, man.

You gotta, you gotta mix me up with JMO.

That's what happens.

Listen, if you're going to get confused with anybody, it's a good thing to get confused

with Jason Morris.

You got it.

You got it.

That's a good place to go.

But as global integration pastor with Christ Church, you know, Joey's, Joey's been blessed

with a great church that has vision and understanding of how digital operates and really is, has

really been quietly kind of setting the standard and really running, doing some creative things

in digital space.

So you can check out, what's, what's the website?

Ourchristchurch.com.

Ourchristchurch.com.

And so check that out.

But that, that's not even really the thing that we want to talk about in this conversation.

That was just a commercial for Joey up at the front.

Now, Joey, one of the things that I love about Joey, actually, Joey's been on the podcast

maybe pre-COVID.

It's been quite some time.

We had him on a long ago talking about, you know, unique expressions of church.

We've talked a lot about some unique expressions lately.

But, but Joey historically was, was running church in a bar and so was really utilizing the online

broadcast to run a, a micro location that was located at a physical bar up there in Ohio.

And so maybe Joey, just even to start to kick off the conversation, why don't you tell us

a little bit about that bar?

Is that still going maybe over the past couple of years, how things shifted and maybe what

lessons have you learned through it?

I know, I think it was, it was so interesting when we first talked about this, like almost

three years ago, right?

We're talking about the online and, and, and how the online church was impacting every church

dynamics and routines.

And we were talking about the house campuses and people meeting houses in, in this bar owner

started conversations like, man, what it looked like to have a church in my bar.

And I was like, you know what?

That sounds interesting.

Let's do it.

So we jumped right into it and we'll try to figure it out.

We, we, I'll tell you this.

I think the lesson that we learned right off the bat, because we, we had a very good first

year, uh, and then COVID came around and, and forces to take a break.

And that was one of the best things that happens to us.

The first time we launched the church, the bar, we did it in a way of pretty much replicating

the experience that you have in a streaming service, right?

So we're literally like broadcasting live from the auditorium.

So we, we had all the gear we set up in a way that we took over the entire bar sound system

and TV.

So we could, we could broadcast in every TV and, and, and broadcast the sound to the entire

bar.

But we're just streaming the services.

And, and, uh, we, we, what we learned was there was a big rotation of first timers.

People come for the first time.

They will never come back.

They'll come for the first time and never come back.

And the thing that we learned from it is that they were like, well, to do this here, I can

do this at home.

Um, and I can just sit in my house and watch it because when you watch the service, you're

not talking when you're watching the service, you just pay attention to what's going on

on the screen.

Um, and the, you know, people don't go to the bar to just watch something.

Even if you go to watch live music, which this bar offers live music, you're pretty much

talking the entire time you have a live music.

Well, that's what we learn going to the next, you know, post COVID back in the bar.

We're like, let's just change this whole thing.

And we completely flip how we do services in terms of meeting the audience needs.

And that's what we did.

So we, uh, we changed it from one, like three songs, like we do on the stage to one song

pre-recorded on locations, uh, something that can control the environment, control the sound.

Uh, we pre-recorded the sermon and the message is recorded, uh, is the same message that message

that we preach in a main campus.

But the difference is we stop every five, seven minutes, make a point, ask a question and put

five minutes on the clock.

To have the discussion live.

So now you have this opportunity that you're not just listening, but you're participating

in the conversation about the message.

Um, and, and that's when we start experiencing like results, right?

That's, that's when people are like, I want to come here and stay.

Uh, and that's not where experiencing that.

That we're experiencing that.

Um, I, I like this, it's community-based, it's about the conversations, doesn't matter who's

preaching.

I just want to talk.

Uh, and I, and I, and then you have the results and, and right by the bar, there's a river,

Miami, little Miami river.

That's where we have a baptism is now.

Now we're getting people getting baptized because the experience they're having, the conversations

that they're having, how they're growing spiritually.

So I think in the, in the, you know, in a short answer, uh, that's what's going on with the

church.

The bar has been an incredible experience, uh, for sure.

And, and extended out to a Wednesday night meeting.

So we're not only meet on, on, um, Sunday mornings, but we're having a Wednesday nights

in the basement, uh, come very formal.

We're going to dig deeper into what we learn on Sunday, but still the same thing.

Let's sit around and have conversations.

There's no video recording.

There's nothing.

It's just community.

Let's sit down.

Let's talk what's going on in your life.

And we'll go from there.

So that's, what's going on in the church to buy right now.

That's, that's, that's beautiful.

Now with, uh, with the, the church in a bar, like, are you seeing, uh, people from Christ

church?

Are they just coming to the different microsite location?

Are you seeing people from other churches come in?

Like what type of person are you really starting to connect with when you're, when you're

doing church in a bar now?

Yeah, that is an interesting, the first round before COVID, the majority of people was from

our church because we promoted that way.

Like we, we, we, we approach it as a church planting, say, Hey, we need a group of people

to go there and start volunteering and be part of it.

And is gradually that numbers are going down.

Like people are like, I don't want to do this thing anymore.

I don't feel like I'm getting because they're, they're expecting to have the, the big church

experience.

Uh, and what changed post COVID is that the number one thing that changed it post COVID is

like, I'm, I became the pastor in that location.

So I'm there every Sunday.

Right.

So they didn't have that before they didn't, they just had volunteers running it.

Now I'm the pastor and I'm setting it up.

I'm doing this whole dynamic that when you do in church planting, but in, around the bar

we, you know, we had beers, metal signs around, well, we made metal signs, but church, the

bars, Sunday, 10, 20 AM.

That's the majority of the people that are attending the church right now.

That's people that come Saturday nights, Friday nights, come to party, to drink, see the sign

and like, do you know what?

I can check this out.

And it's kind of interesting because right now they're the core people at the bar, the

church, the bar.

They're my volunteer, my core volunteers.

They are, they're the most faithful ones.

They are so, I would say that right now the vast majority of people are people that came

straight out of the bar.

And, and it's, it's coming to Sunday morning service.

That's beautiful.

What we're seeing, I mean, once again, this is just another one of these examples, right?

Where if you do something different, you reach a different person.

And, uh, and you know, Joey, you're seeing that as you're doing church in a, in a bar,

not, not a branded micro location of, or like a multi-site location, just copy and paste

what a typical church service is, but you're re-imagining it.

You're making it contextually fit more within, within the bar locale.

And as a result of that, you're reaching people that, that, that the, that the buildings aren't

going to reach.

Well, listen, we, we can talk about church in a bar all day long, but we, I want to add

another wrinkle to this.

You know, Joey and I were having a conversation.

I don't know, maybe somewhere June, July.

And, uh, you know, I challenged Joey, like I challenged a lot of pastors.

Hey man, start thinking about what you could do in virtual reality.

Start thinking about what the metaverse could look like.

And, uh, and so I was jumping on, on this call with Joey.

Joey simply said one of these words that was life-giving to me.

Hey Jeff, what do you think about starting a bar in the metaverse?

Now this was intriguing to me.

Well, Joey, why don't you talk a little bit about this?

Like, I mean, you told me, Hey, why don't we start a bar?

What, what's going through your head?

How did you get to this place of even starting a bar in virtual reality?

I think, you know, you got that, that, that train going because you've been talking about

metaverse for a while now and you've been, you've been exposing the potential.

So, you know, like most people that got interested in this, I went and got my VR set and I was

like, let me check out what Jeff's talking about.

And I started looking at some of the churches going online, going on a, on a virtual reality.

And I, the thing that impressed me the most by visiting other churches on a VR space in

other locations, uh, other activities is actually to see what we see at the bar.

That's people, they're completely lost.

They're looking for answers and they're trying to meet people to have those conversations.

And I, it hit me because that's the experience that I have in person at the bar every week.

And not only on the weekends, like I, I'm, I'm not ashamed to say I, I hang out at the

bar a lot because that became our location.

So I'm, I'm at the bar outside Sunday, Wednesday nights.

I'm the bar a lot.

I was there Saturday nights meeting people.

And I, you know, because I'm there, the owners introduced me to all his friends as

here's the pastor of the bar.

That's how they know the staff introduced me to people.

Here's a pastor of the bar.

So I'm known there as the pastor of the bar.

And I, because of that, people actually say, Hey, talk to you.

They ask questions.

People in the middle of a busy bar asked me before, can you pray for me right now?

I'm going through this.

And I got to pray for people in the middle of a bar.

So looking at that experience and see what I saw in the VR, I was like, do you know what?

We already know the environment in a, in, in person experience.

Let's just build the same thing on a VR because it's going to be familiar for me and for other

volunteers that are already involved to go in and like, let's sit in the bar.

People are going to come to the bar to talk, to fellowship, to have conversations.

We can have those conversations.

They're not strange for us.

So we're like, let's, let's try something new.

That's not the regular church format.

And let's go simply in a way is familiar to us.

But I see the potential because people go to have those conversations and I want to have

those conversations with them right there.

So the, I mean, the idea here then would be to have these types of conversations, to build

a bar and environment to foster those types of conversations in virtual reality, you know,

and more specifically, if you, if you're aware of virtual reality, like the, the world that

we're considering going into is, uh, VR chat, uh, which if you know, the podcast, I commonly

call that the red light district.

DJ calls it the wild, wild west.

Like this is the world where it's estimated that 40 to 50% of its inhabitants are having

virtual sex in private rooms.

Hey, so let's open up a bar, uh, so that we, we, we can talk with people.

Um, you know, it's, it's interesting.

Like I actually, I have talked with, with Christ centered recovery, uh, organizational

leaders.

Um, I pitched this idea cause I'm like, Hey, I want you to, I want to know what your, what

your feedback is.

Like what your, what your thought is on thinking.

I'm about to get like yelled at.

And, uh, surprisingly I wasn't.

So I'm, I'm curious, you know, as, as you've, as you've thought of this, Joey, like, um,

how, how much positive feedback, how much negative feedback, what have been some of the conversations,

uh, that, that you've received when you, when you've started thinking and talking about the

idea of doing this bar in, uh, in virtual reality?

I think it's kind of like in, like everything else, whatever is new, right now I'm having

a hard time getting across to people, just the virtual reality alone.

Right.

Because again, for a lot of people, they cannot even grasp those things are real.

And I tell people the fact that a virtual doesn't change the fact that's real.

It's real for the people that are in there.

They're trying to look for answers in conversations.

Um, so just like for us, when we launched the church at the bar.

Our church family, it was like, it makes sense because they already know all the crazy stuff

we're already doing online.

Right.

So it's very interesting for our church family.

They're like, yeah, that sounds great.

Which was great to have the feedback, but church around us, they, they were very vocal

about how crazy we were by putting a church at the bar.

Uh, and I think that's the reactions that we get.

We got this very mixed reactions.

The first reaction is really about this virtual reality thing.

We should not get in there because it's, you should not get in there because it's not real.

Um, and I, I'll tell people, I said, I'll tell you this, get your set.

I'll hold your hand and we're going to walk together and you're going to see how real actually

is.

Um, but I think what people get confused, like if you're going to set up a bar in a virtual

reality, people are not going to be able to drink.

People are not, like I said, it's about the conversations.

It's about the connections.

Um, um, um, um, I think it's just like you and I had a conversation years ago about some

concepts for online church and how that's so new to, to some churches and the church concept.

I think we're back in the same territory right now of a VR being like, Oh man, here we go

again, something new in, in people don't understand.

People don't see it.

Um, um, I was in Chicago just two weeks ago and I was with a friend of mine, a pastor friend

of mine, and he literally set up a meeting with his staff and said, Joey, come in here

and talk about this.

He said, I've seen you post on, um, uh, social media, all this thing about virtual reality,

metaverse and all that.

Tell us all about it.

And I thought it was very interesting because we just had this like two hour conversation with

his staff and they're blown away by, so this thing is real.

Yeah.

And this pastor actually has a headset, but he has no clue about those places that you

can go and meet people, have conversations.

And I said, Hey, let's set up a time one Sunday, go with me.

We're going to walk together through those places.

And so, yes, Jeff, I think, I think the reception is going to be different, different place to

place.

Our church family completely embraces the technology.

Um, they, you know, the leadership add components to the budget so we can, can support

are starting this, this approach to virtual reality.

But I think outside the church, it's still pretty hard for people to embrace the VR alone,

much less having a church there that represents it, that have a bar that represents the church.

Now, one of the things that I think makes this, this idea unique is at least in the conversations

that I've had with you, unless something shifted, I mean, you're not broadcasting church services

into a VR bar.

Is that, is that true?

Like what, what, so like you're, how, how does leadership view that?

Like what's, cause so much of the physical church experience and the church online experience

is centered around, um, the sharing of, or the watching, the viewing, the consuming of,

of a church service.

But you're not, you're not doing that, or at least that's not the, the aim and the goal

of this.

So talk to me a little bit.

No, it's not.

And I think what helped is that when you go to the church, the bar in the physical location,

it's a way to decentralize form.

I mean, on a physical church, the bar, we're not replicating anything that we do in a,

in a, in a, in a big church setting.

So it's completely separate, it's completely different already.

So, you know, it's not weird for, for church leadership to look at like, we got to do this

differently.

I, I just left a meeting, um, and you know, our, our, our church is still battling with,

with the impact of, of COVID in terms of in-person attendance.

And I had a conversation with my staff and I just talked with the leadership today.

And I said, we got to figure out a way to show our staff to how not to let the, the structure

dictate the programming.

We're in a big building.

We have a gigantic building.

That's not being filled every weekend, but we still behave like the building is full.

And by doing that, sometimes we don't meet the needs, the people's needs when they come

in the building.

So I think it's the same thing going to a different place.

If I go to the bar and I try to replicate the church service, because even, even like

to the point, Jeff, that when pastors, you know, pastor that's preaching and formulate

the questions, I tell them, don't ask questions.

Like the person's going to church for 10 years, because my audience, it's not going to respond

that way at the bar.

Like, don't tell them about, so when you pray to God, how do you pray about blog?

No, they don't pray.

So the question needs to be formatted knowing that the audience wants to learn from the Bible,

but how more, like more than ever, how that actually applies to my personal life and ask

me questions that make me connect the dots between the Bible teaching and my real life.

And we make sure the questions are like that.

So, I mean, we're already practicing what it looked like for us to go out of our comfort

zone in our own buildings and build something outside that's completely different to a completely

different audience in a physical space.

And now we're taking that to the virtual space because we got some practice there now doing

this at the bar.

And now we're going to have to change that again.

We're going to have to tweak that again.

We're going to have to teach people how to have conversations they're not used to.

And they're going to replicate a church service.

It's going to be a church service, but not a format that we're used to, meaning the model

is going to have to change.

Because if you're going to reach people where they are, we got to change the model.

We cannot just stick with one and believe it's going to do it all.

That was beautiful.

I love that.

I mean, you started off talking about decentralization and, hey, what we're doing

here at the bar is different than what we're doing at the building, which is recognizing

contextualization.

If you're going to really reach a physical person at a bar, that is going to look different

than the physical person that's going to attend a church building to get their spiritual questions

addressed.

And even building on top of that contextualization, if we're really going to engage with people

in virtual reality, yes, there are churches that are being successful broadcasting their

services online.

And many of those pastors are my friends.

And far be it from me to do disparity on that or even the people who are preaching church services

in virtual reality.

But what I love about this idea, Joey, is it's shared experience and it's relational.

You're inviting people into a shared space for the purpose of building a relationship, building

trust.

And so, so much of that in a safe space in where you're not, you know, you're not prophesizing,

you're not preaching, you're literally not getting behind a pulpit and going off.

Like that's a, that's going to, I predict, and it's, it's, we're building it.

It's an experiment, right?

But the heart of this is I see that being a mentally successful way to build relations.

Yes, that's, and that's the focus.

I mean, that's, that's, that's, that's our call, right?

It's a call to love people where they are, to have a relationship with people.

And I'm probably going to quote a lot of, a mix between JMO and Dave Adamson here and

a lot of stuff that we have conversations with guys that, again, we, we have been very attached

for too long to a specific model, what we call church.

So, and it's kind of interesting because we don't even call our, our small groups to meet

at homes church.

We don't, we, we make sure that's very distinct, right?

We say, Hey, on Sunday, I go to church during the week on Tuesday nights.

I go to my small group, which the reality, what's happening in that small group is the

church.

And, and I think being able to restore the idea that whatever I am, I am the church and

we actually have that.

So when we first started our house campuses, every time somebody started a house campus,

they've got a t-shirt from us that says, I am the church really big in the front.

And because we want to be able to understand that like, no matter where you are at, you are

the church, you were, you're, you are called to, to do those things that the church is supposed

to do, to love people and to, to meet people where they are and to, to lead them into a

life of discipleship.

And the things that do all that is relationships.

The relationships is what's going to drive all those things to happen.

And we, we want to make sure that happens in the contextualization of a virtual reality, because

we see how that works in real life for all of us.

Right.

So I'm, we go to the golf course, they pair you up with somebody you, you, you never met

and you start having a conversation and they dropped the F bomb a couple of times, the conversation.

Well, by hole number three, they were like, so what do you do for a living?

And I'm like, I'm a pastor.

And they'll be like, oh man, I'm so sorry.

And I'm like, you know what?

Don't apologize.

Just be who you are.

Go ahead and be who you are.

That's totally fine.

And just by saying things like that, man, I'm telling you, it's, it's one of those, it's

one of those things that less, let people just relax.

I don't know, Jeff, your audience for this podcast totally, but I was just going to take

a, I was just going to be very authentic with people here is when people see me at the

bar, um, I may have a glass of bourbon in front of me.

And that when people like, here's the pastor's bar and they see that on my table, it, it takes

the walls down because they absolutely associate that into like, oh, you're normal.

And I'm not, I'm not here advocating for all the pastors to start going to bars or drinking

so they can connect with people.

I'm saying that contextualization matters to me because I'm doing a ministry inside that

environment.

So because I'm present in that environment every week for them to, I'm not just pastor's

pastor that just show up Sunday morning to say, Hey, let me tell you about your spiritual

life.

I'm the pastor that actually do life with them during the week so they can see a real connection.

So I think when, like for us, like how we translate all that into the virtual reality, how we be,

how we, how we stay authentic by going to virtual reality and doing church, doing church in terms

of how we be, how we be relational to people that leads them to Christ without losing our,

our, our character in Christ, without losing our, our values in Christ.

We don't have to lose any of those things and we still can be authentic and meet people

where they are.

And I think that's the challenge for every church, like how we stay authentic to who we are in

Christ, but still relational to people outside the church building.

Yeah.

So good.

I mean, Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

I know, right?

Church in a bar, the conversations, the bourbon on the table.

Like, I don't, I mean, I don't, I don't know the legalism that's centered around that,

but I got to believe that, that, that doesn't change who Jesus is, but the, the contextualization

that maybe we have to do something different to reach a different type of person takes to

get them to see Jesus, to get them to trust us enough to, to get to the place of that conversation

of Jesus.

That's, that's truly what, what I'm excited about.

You know, it's, it's interesting.

You know, I'm actually trying to remember, I don't know that we've had Dave,

Yeah, no, no, no, we did.

I did a training, um, with Dave Ferguson centered around his, his blessed practices.

And, and we're actually in the process of, of, um, of writing a book, uh, with, um, uh,

with Dr. John Harris from, from, um, hearts like his, that's a Facebook church on, on the

idea of digital and metaverse evangelism.

And it's, and it's centered around Dave Ferguson's book of, on, on blessed practices where it's,

um, you know, blessed, it's the acronym.

Um, begin with prayer.

I'm motioning to this on YouTube.

If you're watching me in real time, if you're listening, sorry, you're not getting the, but

it's begin with prayer.

Uh, it's listening.

And you know, and it's, it's funny, like E, uh, for Dave, when he was doing this physically,

it was eat.

And so it was begin with prayer, listen, eat, eat with someone, share a meal.

Um, and then it was serve.

That person was the first S and then it would share Jesus's story as, as their, your story

as, as the second S.

And, uh, and so the challenge came down, Hey, can you adapt less into digital and metaverse?

And, and I was, I was really excited, but that whole eat thing, I was like, I don't, I don't

know that I really want to want to limit this to eating.

Um, and so it was funny.

We got a bunch of like digital metaverse passes around and started, you know, thinking and

dreaming and talking and the idea of shared experiences quickly rose to the top where, Hey, you know

what, we're, we're going to, in VR, we're going to jump into pop one together and we're going

to play a game or we're going to, we're going to walk around a world together.

We're going to sit around a campfire and just start to talk with people or even something

as crazy as we're going to create a bar and just start to like talk, engage.

Dialogue with people in these, in these virtual spaces, all of a sudden we're starting to

see where that's the first, but crucial step in really trying to engage with a different

type of person in, in these metaverse where yes, you, you can throw the seeds, you can scatter

it.

Um, and you know, some of it's going to hit thorny soil.

You can walk up to people and, and, and it's going to, uh, it's going to get on the, the

rocky path.

Uh, but man, if you could, if you could like work the soil in advance, if you, if you could

create an environment where, where you're, you're building that trust, that relationship,

you're, you're pre tilling the soil, you're getting it stirred up a little bit.

So when that seed is, is cast, it falls into the moisture there.

Uh, I mean, I'm really like digging this analogy, but the truth is though, that man, you can do

a lot, we can reach and connect with a different type of person through doing something unique

like this.

It is.

And I think it goes back, you just, you just hit a great point of the, the trust.

We, we try to really, you know, get people to understand the gospel.

We want to be able to accept the gospel, but there's a trust issue because they don't trust

us, right?

They don't trust the church as it is.

It just don't.

So now we have to go in and build the relationship first.

And after we build the relationship, we, we, we got the door open to him have those conversations.

That's what has been so clear to me, uh, by, by having this opportunity to be at the bar

and meeting people every Sunday, this, just this, you know, this past Sunday, um, we had

this lady come in and, and here's what she said.

I'm coming to church for the very first time.

That's her first time ever walking in the church and her first experience is in a bar.

That's so, and then to me, it's like, okay, I just want to talk to you, right?

Like what caused you to come and walk in here?

And then, and then we'll have this great conversation, uh, in the, in the, in the, again, I'm trying

to just listen, I'm asking questions and she, she's talking and she's talking and she's expressing

and I just asking questions.

I just want to tell me your story, tell me how you got in here.

And, and it's interesting that throughout of that, it starts to build just in the one

meeting, it starts to build, it's not totally built, it starts to build that trust because

I'm really interested in her life.

Uh, and then she started, you know, she asked a few questions around, I'm talking about my

family.

I'm talking about the things I do in life.

And they, so we are having a conversation that has very little to do, you know, in a moment

with the theory of the Bible or the scripture at the moment.

We're not talking about those things, but we're, we're, we're doing exactly what Jesus did.

That was just go in and contextualize people's lives into what he's teaching and he's talking.

Uh, and, and, and I think, man, we got so much there to offer as a church.

If you can just learn to have those conversations, uh, and allow people to just trust you.

Like allow the time you got to give time.

I like, uh, you know, Jason Morris is so strong at that.

He's talking about a lot about time.

Like that's their, that's our currency in these environments.

It's just time.

It's not, you know, we don't, we don't need to build a five, six, seven, $20 million building

to reach people here.

We're talking about a $300 red headset and the ability to just go in and start having

these conversations, I mean, whatever way you want to build this thing, uh, the investment

that you do financially is not as much as you're going to make in time in your time, dedicating

into connecting and meeting and talking to people.

Yeah, that's, that's crucial.

The, the, the time aspects and, you know, it's, it's funny.

I just, I talk with people all the time that are interested in this metaverse stuff and

that it's like, put the headset on, go up to somebody and start a conversation.

Yeah.

Okay.

You can play a pop one with, with some people you can, uh, you know, jump in, in beat saber

with, with somebody you don't know.

Like, yeah, yeah, definitely you explore those spaces.

It's, it's fun.

It's new.

But until you sit down at that campfire, until you walk into a rec room, dorm room with somebody,

um, you know, until you walk into the bar and, and, and, and have a conversation, like you're

not, you're not going to really understand culturally what it is and, and, and the, what community

looks like in, in these spaces.

And, uh, you know, for many pastors that are out there, it's funny.

I was just writing, uh, on this maybe earlier this morning, but, uh, for many pastors out

there, like they need to embrace the idea.

They need to look at that community.

They need to walk around, um, and, and find their person of peace.

They need to prayer walk the metaverse as, as crazy as it sounds, but start to, to really

look at the potential of what's here.

Well, I just, and I look at, you know, we're, we were in Kansas city just, you know, months

ago, having this first conversation.

And I, I, first of all, pastors out there is going to say, I don't have time for this.

I, and I understand that, right?

I'm in a, in a, in a physical church building here, I'm in charge of our online ministry.

I'm in charge of communications.

I'm in charge of family ministries.

I'm in charge of it.

Uh, I'm in charge of a weekend experience like production and the worship.

I got a great staff, but I manage all the staff doing all that.

I got a beautiful family, got wives, two boys, uh, 16 and 13 years old.

Very busy.

They keep me very busy.

They do all this, the right, you know, you say, how do you find time to it?

You find time to it.

Like, trust me, you'll find time to it because it's worth it because it's worth it.

When you walk in there and you see people in need in America today, the last time I look

at it, there are millions of Americans.

I'm not even talking about the whole globe.

I'm talking millions of Americans daily on those devices.

So we can argue all day long.

Yeah.

I don't need to get involved in this.

I don't need to get in there.

This is just a fever.

It's going to go away.

You can, we can make all the arguments should not go in there, or we can actually like,

you know what?

Let me go check this out because there's an opportunity here.

And I think, you know, the church, I wish the churches would look at this way.

I wish pastors would start looking at.

There's an opportunity.

The thing that really hit me, Jeff, I'm already like a first early adopter from the moment that

we talked.

But going back to Kansas City meeting, when we talking to these churches, it was the first

week of vacation, school vacation.

So I told my oldest, say, Hey, just get in the car.

Let's, let's, let's do a road trip together.

Let's go, go with me in this meeting.

And he's sitting there.

He's just listening.

He's on his own iPhone doing his thing.

And he's listening.

And it's amazing.

The conversations we had later, he listened to everything.

He picked his multitasking.

He's doing, but he, he captured everything.

That's the generation.

He actually, this week is like, um, are you going to Houston?

Can I, I mean, he knew he knows I'm going to Houston.

I'm going, so he's like, can I go with you?

And cause I like the conversation again, that's another, to me, it was a sign like that's

the generation that's coming that we can prepare them to be disciple makers through this technology,

because that's going to be part of their lives is there's no way to skate that it's

going to happen.

So it's already happening.

It's already part of their life.

So when I look at all those things, I'm thinking, yeah, we can let that go.

We can, we don't have to embrace this opportunity, but the question that I would ask every pastor

is what are we losing by not going there?

What is the kingdom losing by not taking them up, by not looking at this opportunity to meet

people where they are, because they're by the millions their daily.

So that's, to me, that's the challenge.

That's what hit me.

It's like, I don't think it's worth letting go the opportunity to be in the environment

that I can meet millions of people and have the conversations.

At the end of the day, it's the millions of people just tell us the potential.

This is still a one-on-one ministry.

Just like with my next door neighbor in my house, virtual online, it comes down to one-on-one

ministry.

We're going to meet people one at a time.

We're going to minister to them one at a time.

We're going to impact their lives one at a time.

But they're by the millions.

So we need an army of pastors to come and say, let's do this thing.

And that's really the heart of, of like multiplying this idea, training, you know, on blessed practices

or other systems and really starting to like equip because, because you're right.

It's, it's not one to millions.

It's one to few.

And if we, if we, the church who really understand the potential of the metaverse are lots of small

conversations and not, not mega conversations.

It's not a microphone, it's a whisper.

I, you know, and that's really a lot of, I think the, the tension of, of today's church

is because they're not, they're looking at the metaverse, either discrediting it or seeing

it as another way to, to megaphone something in front of a whole lot of people and, and missing

the opportunities to build that trust on an individual level.

That's, that's so good.

Well, Hey, Hey, listen, we're, we are championing this, this idea of, of, of, of the metaverse.

We want to open a bar.

We want to be, be a church in a, in a virtual reality bar.

And so here, here's, here's what we're doing.

I actually, I built a slide deck and then I bought a domain name and then I put the two

together.

And so you can go right now, uh, to church in a VR bar.com.

Uh, and so that exists.

There's more information, uh, there on, on what we're trying to do.

The reality is, is that we're, we're trying to partner with churches, uh, to build the,

uh, minuscule amount of funds necessary to, to put this thing together.

And we're hoping to partner with churches, uh, that are, uh, that are comfortable, that

are familiar, that want to be conversational in this space.

Um, once again, we're not, we're not launching a, a sports virtual reality bar.

That's going to have 47 different TVs scattered around for you to broadcast the church services.

That's not what we're trying to do.

Nor do we want to see like sermons happen, uh, one man or woman preaching on stage.

Uh, we want the DJ to play some music.

Uh, we want the bartender to be relational, uh, and we're looking for people to be part

of the shared experiences, building relationships with others in the space.

And so that's our hope, uh, for the church and to be our bar.

And we're looking to partner with churches and with individuals that, that want to be part

of this.

So check out churchinthevrbar.com for more information on, on this and other, uh, initiatives

and what's, you know, before I shift gears on things, man, Joey, just any, any thoughts

on that church in the VR bar?

Man, that's, I think that's fantastic.

And I think I, again, I want to encourage people, we are not trying to do this.

This doesn't have to be my thing.

First of all, what I like about this opportunity is that we can actually work together with many

different churches in, in participating in this.

Cause again, it, this thing is 24 seven, right?

I mean, we, so we got people from everywhere to participate, to join in.

And I, I love the idea of us doing this together.

So I, I really appreciate all the effort and time you're putting into this, Jeff, and open

up doors for people to go and understand and explore.

And I'm, I even make myself available to people.

Like I want to talk more about this.

I want to understand the whole bar dynamic.

I absolutely, uh, we can set up a time we can talk.

Um, but let's, let's do something crazy here.

Like are we, let's do something crazy.

Let's just build a barn of your environment in the metaverse.

And let's just go for it.

Let's go meet people and see what happened.

Um, I'm telling you in the, in the, in the in person experience has been amazing.

Fantastic.

It's totally worth it.

And I don't think it's going to be that much different when we jump into the metaverse,

uh, environment.

Yeah.

And just even transparently, let me, let me, let me put, put some numbers on this.

We've, I've, I've sat with, uh, with my world building team here, uh, through the church

digital.

And, uh, I mean, quote, quotes on this thing are like $12,000.

And, uh, and so we're, we're trying to raise, uh, a portion of that, um, through other churches,

you know, Joey's and, uh, Christ community churches is willing to contribute some.

And, uh, but we're just trying to raise other with that as well.

If you want to reach out to me directly, we can talk specific numbers.

So there is a financial component to this.

There's also the reality that a VR bar should be open seven days a week, if not 24 hours a

day.

And what does that look like?

Well, that's going to be bigger than one individual church.

And so my, my hope is here, uh, through digital church network that, that we can try to find

some friends on mission.

Uh, so maybe, uh, some other churches and individuals and organizations that a have financial vision for

this, but be also maybe want to be part of a unique experiment to try to reach a different

type of person, uh, through conversational approaches in virtual reality.

And so that's, that's the hope here, uh, with church in a VR bar is to meet these unique

people, uh, but to also find like-minded individuals that want to give a shot experiment and see what

it's like, uh, to maybe engage differently to reach this different type of person.

So for, for more information, you can check out church in a VR bar.com.

And that'll get you to more information here real quick.

Now it was, it was interesting.

Um, as I've talked about this with some churches, a lot of churches are excited.

Uh, some churches are excited.

I should say it that way.

Some churches, you know, to be honest, they're, they're a little uncomfortable with, uh, with

the bar aspect that that's, you know, maybe a little too edgy.

Virtual reality is edgy.

Bar is edgy.

Put the two ideas together in VR chat.

Like there's a whole bunch of, there's a whole bunch of edgy, you know, and that uncomfortability

that that's, that's not a bad thing.

Uh, for, for some of you, maybe it is too aggressive.

I actually, I had, um, I had one of metaverse pastor, uh, pulled me aside and was like, Hey

Jeff, um, instead of a bar, why don't you do a coffee house and like a, like a virtual

reality coffee house in, in VR chat.

And my response was, that's actually an excellent idea.

Like I could almost see creating a, um, several different shared experience environments in

virtual reality designed with this conversational approach.

Like, I don't think a, a VR coffee house is, is that far away.

And to be honest, uh, you know, a beer with a foam top is probably not that far away from

a latte.

You just got to maybe adjust some of the coloration in the glass.

Like I got, I got to think the world builders probably maybe a step ahead to get to that,

that coffee house as well.

But I do, I'm excited about this opportunity, but I also see vision where maybe other opportunities

will open up and we can start to create more of, of these shared experiences as we're going.

So awesome.

I just like the idea of churches working together.

We talked about this before, you know, we sometimes experience some type of a, some sense

of a competition between churches in a physical space, but we don't experience that in an online

environment or even a VR environment.

You see more churches coming together.

So I like the idea.

That's why I like the idea of churches coming together.

That was, we can just, you know, share this experience and then we can, you know, it would

be amazing for churches to come together and build a bar.

And then six months from now, the same church comes together.

So now let's open something else.

And let's just expand this thing and let's just build this ministry like for the kingdom

and see how far we can go with this.

Let's just embrace and see how far it goes.

Well, I like the idea though.

We've, we've talked about this as well.

You know, it's, it's easy to look at this.

Listen, you want to have a conversation about the ecclesiology of what we're doing and whether

or not it's a church or not a church, what it's going to look like over time.

You know what you're, that's a conversation worth having.

But the result of that conversation does not dictate whether or not we should be doing

what we're doing.

Like to lean into the ecclesiology, should we actually be calling this a church?

Should we be calling it a mission field, a missional opportunity?

Like we, we can debate that, that conversation all day long.

And to be honest, I'm not dying on the field of whether or not it's, it's a church or not.

But what, what I would say is that while the ecclesiological conversations need to be

happening, uh, the missiological conversations, whether or not this is a mission field that

is worthy of our time, there's no conversation, Senator O'Meara.

The answer is yes.

Um, leaning into the, the missiological implications, the, the missiology of, of what we're doing

of to try to reach these different people that the building are not reaching by utilizing

virtual reality in a new way.

Like there, there, that's not questionable.

The answer is go now.

And so we would, I would love conversations with organizations that are wanting to go that

route through VR church in a bar, VR coffee shopping, uh, whatever.

I don't, I don't even know what everything rolls out, but at the heart of this, like, let's,

let's figure out how to do something different with this metaverse technology to reach a different

type of person.

And the goal is not to just be different.

It's to the end of the day, can it reach me, really reach people for God through it.

That's, that's, that's the goal.

So the end of the day is, this is really not about the, how, how fun, how cool, how different

this is, but it's like, you know, as much as I love technology, some of the steps I see

online and in the VR is like crazy that the action is happening, but I never, it never crossed

my mind in my wildest dreams that I would spend my Sunday mornings in a bar and I would be

meeting people and talking about Jesus and, and baptizing people out of a meeting that

we call church that happens inside of bars in the morning.

So that's, you know, I think we just got to be a little bit open to the something new.

And I think we got to be this much open to the overall goal and mission.

And if we can just keep the mission as a big picture, I think we're going to get there

together, I think, you know, just a little bit of like, okay, I'm going to, I can, I can,

I can give a little bit of an openness to the difference, but here's the big mission

and we don't deviate from it.

And that's the thing about this, this, this, this, um, this venture that we're in, if we

can call it this way with the church, the bar and the VR is that is it's, we're never

going to deviate from the mission.

We're never going to, we're going to, that's always going to be there.

That's, we're never going to go off of that.

Well said.

Don't deviate from, from that mission.

Awesome.

Well, hey, Joey, as, as we're landing the plane here, um, any, any closing thoughts?

Man, I, I just want to appreciate your time.

And I, I think we're, I think we're living some amazing times.

Um, and, and, you know, a few years ago I thought, oh, we're going to land on this online

church thing.

It's going to be awesome.

And that's one thing, Jeff, I, a final thought, pastors listening to these church leaders, this

is not your next online church.

This is another layer of ministry in your church.

And I hope that does not create another sense of desperation for you, but I'm saying you got

young people in your church that already has the, the, the VR.

You got people in your church, not just the young, all ages, they already got the device

waiting for an opportunity to know what to do with it besides playing games.

But you're going to, you're going to continue to minister to people through online church.

The online church is not going to go away.

Like the physical church is not going to go away.

We just got another layer of opportunities to reach people.

But it is very missional and, and it's worth doing.

So I, I really encourage pastors to just like, give it a chance to just learn more about it.

Just go learn more about it.

Just learn more.

Just explore the possibilities.

Talk to people.

Talk to Jeff.

Ask questions.

Bring more people into the conversation and see how this can actually fit into the mission

of your local church.

You know, we talk about online church, be an extension of the local church, be an extension

of the physical church.

And here's another layer to that extension.

That's the VR.

And I, I think I'm excited about it.

How God's going to use this.

Yes.

Very, very much so.

Pastor, church person, young person, lean in, ask questions.

Yeah, you know, it was, it was funny just last week we had a podcast, maybe it was two weeks

ago.

We did a podcast with, with Seacoast, which is a mega, huge mega church, multi-site church.

And you know what Seacoast did?

They listened to the crazy 20 year old and they actually experimented off what the 20 year

old thought was.

You know what?

They're reaching thousands of people as a result of it.

Go back.

We'll put a link in the show notes to that episode.

But the reality is, is that you've got people with some crazy ideas and rather than discrediting

them and ignoring them because it doesn't fit within the physical paradigm, maybe, maybe

we should experiment on it.

Maybe you should invest in them to the point where you trust them spiritually and then give

them the little resources that are necessary to do it.

Seacoast has invested $0 and 0 cents into a 20 year old, into the idea, the missional imagination

of a 20 year old.

And as a result of it, they're reaching thousands.

What we're talking about here is, is not, you're not going to break the bank on this.

I guarantee every one of your physical campuses is a hundred X more expensive than the stuff

that we're, we're talking about doing in this space, but maybe just maybe the opportunity

to reach a different person utilizing this stuff.

Um, maybe there's a way to do this.

Um, I don't know if you're more interested in the experiment, uh, check out church in a VR

bar.com and would love to connect with you.

Hey, Joey, man, it's, it's been great to hang out with you.

Uh, looking forward to looking forward to Houston coming up in, uh, in, in a, in a little bit

and, uh, for, for wherever the Lord leads.

So thanks for jumping on here, man.

Excited about it.

Thank you, Jeff.

Appreciate your time.

Awesome.

For Joey, this is Jeff with the church, digital, digital church network, leadership network,

new thing network, and whatever else we can attach the word network to.

Thanks for jumping on the podcast and, uh, we'll see you next time on the show.

Y'all have a good day.