EP231: Turning Tables, Jeff Gets Interviewed by Doug Bursch

The biggest hurdle, and the audience knows this, the biggest hurdle I see it time and time again

with churches right now where we are in September, August, September 2022, physical pastors are

wanting to get back to physical buildings and putting all the eggs in that basket, which may

be the right answer for today, but it's fraudulent and it's short-sighted because I think there's an

opportunity to do something different. Welcome to the Church Digital Podcast.

Through this podcast, we'll talk about the technological innovations within the church,

but more than tech or 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

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. Hey there, welcome to the Church Digital Podcast. Jeff here once again,

co-founder of Digital Church Network, the Church Digital Leadership Network, New Thing Network,

Media Impact International, and well, pretty much anybody else that'll sign a conch. No,

I'm kidding. Well, not everybody, but definitely looking forward to helping forward-facing organizations

that are interested in tackling digital churches, nonprofits. Very excited about this and obviously

helping people plant digital and metaverse examples of church. Hey, that was a mouthful. I really got to

figure out how to simplify that, but that's not going to happen today. Hey, so it's going to be an

interesting podcast. We're going to have a little fun here. I'm talking to a guy I know very, very little

about. We've got Doug Bursch in the conversation here. And so I'm going to set the stage and we're

going to dig into it here a little bit. Doug, we've got some mutual friends, Sarah Kinzer and Hector,

my pocket pulpit friends with the pocket pulpit podcast. Say that three times fast. And so I was

following them on Twitter, seeing some things. And Doug said something in passing on Twitter.

Hey, if anybody's like interested in being interviewed on their own podcast, I'd love to be a guest.

And if you know me, I'll say yes to pretty much anything. And so Doug, welcome to the podcast.

Oh, thanks for having me. And this is kind of fun because we don't know each other that well.

Even your introduction makes me want to ask a hundred questions. Did you mention 20 things that

you're doing all at once? I got a panic attack just thinking about all those.

You know what they call that now? It's actually, I was doing an interview for Leadership Network today

and another show. And the guy's like, Jeff, you are an excellent example of a fractional leader.

And I was like, is that what they call me? Fractional leaders? Where I lead a bunch of

different fractions? I guess so. Hey, I'm a fractional leader, everybody. It's great to have a label.

Well, I don't like math. So I need a term that doesn't use fractions. I don't know. I'll have to

get some poetry term as well. Awesome. So Doug, I'm excited for this conversation.

You know, let me throw it at you right now. I know you've written several books and recently,

and one of the ones that I was curious about, Posting Peace, Why Social Media Divides Us

and What We Can Do About It. We'll put a link in the show notes, but Doug, talk to us a little bit.

Yeah. Well, one, thanks for having me on. I've written a couple books and they're both,

you know, about different things, but community is a big issue to me, like how we come together

and what divides us. So my first book, The Community of God, The Theology of the Church

from a Reluctant Pastor, is what does it really mean to be a community? What does it really mean

to be a church? And I think that works with technology in the world, you know, you're working

in as well, right? Like how do we facilitate community? What do you need for something to

be called a church? And how essential is it for community? But my latest book, Posting Peace,

is Posting Peace, Why Social Media Divides Us and What We Can Do About It. And the issue is,

we've all realized this, that social media, this divisiveness, this anger, this polarization,

at the same level, I love social media. So that's not one of those Amish 2.0, let's just not,

you know, let's just take a fast from all media and just, I care about it. It's not going to go away.

But how do we live with this technology? How do we understand how it polarizes us? Because I don't

think we understand the technology itself transforms and changes the way we abide together. And then also,

in the sense of as Christians, are we supposed to look different online? Or do we just look

like everybody else? So it's a way for people to process how they use social media and to understand

that people aren't just becoming worse, terrible people. But the technology itself is bringing out

some of the best of us or the best in us and the worst in us as well. And both those exaggerations,

we need to pay attention to.

Definitely. And let me just say, as a guy who has literally dedicated the majority of his life

towards digital and digital ministry and church and digital space, the internet is horrible. Digital

is tragic. And when like, it was funny, I was actually, I was sitting, I'm not going to drop a

name because I might be rude to another author, but I was sitting into and talking to a nationally

recognized author. And dude, in his book, he rips digital to shreds. And when I said I was a digital

guy, like in his face kind of dropped, because he was like, I've literally, I've watched his eyes.

He was afraid I was going to rip them. And I was like, I agree with everything you said. It is horrible,

but it doesn't have to be. And that's the pivot. I mean, this thing is, it's a nightmare. Like it is

toxic. It's addictive, but it doesn't have to be. And maybe there's an opportunity to do something

with these tools.

Well, and it's not going to go away. And certainly the platforms might change. I think every generation

doesn't want to be on their parents' platform. So that's always going to change. You know, I don't

want to be on Facebook because my parents are there. And it'll be like that with Snapchat. It'll be like

that with Instagram. So they'll have to create some other new thing for your kids or grandkids to be

on. But the way we behave online is going to be, online is going to have its strengths and weaknesses

regardless. You know, one of the things that I look at is there's a technological theorist by the name

of Marshall McLuhan. He was popular in the mid, you know, late seventies. And I know you know about him,

but there's a couple of things he said that really hit me. First, the medium is the message. And

basically what he's saying is we need to understand that every form of media, whether it's printing,

press, television, radio, internet, it changes the way we communicate. It's not just another way to

communicate information, but it changes what we communicate and how we communicate it. And so

that's a big issue that I look at is, you know, I think about Twitters like this. Have you ever

tried to tweet a scripture? Most scriptures don't even fit into a tweet, which might not mean much,

but that changes what we communicate, right? You don't want to do a thread of scripture. So

that's a very simple thing, but that means we limit what we communicate, what we talk about within those

boundaries and those borders. The other thing McLuhan talks about that just fascinates me is,

he says, every technology extends a part of our human capacity, but it also weakens that human

capacity that it extends. And I know that sounds a little complicated, but the idea is like the car

extends the feet, you know, we can go farther than ever, but it also makes us lazy where we don't

exercise, we don't go anywhere. So it extends our human capacity and then it makes us weak as humans.

Well, the internet's like that. In fact, every technology is like that. So the internet extends

our ability to connect with people, to find more people than ever before, to share our thoughts

instantaneously. But at the same time, it's weakening some of our human connections, our ability to abide

with people through conflicts, our ability to deal with difficulties, to form relationships that are

complex and not simplistic that go through a conflict, to be able to pause in that instantaneous

communication and learn how to discern what should be communicated and shouldn't be communicated. So

those are the things I want us to process. It's not, oh, just get off internet or, you know, embrace

it completely. It's we need to understand how it's forming us and then to make sure as Christians,

we allow Christ to form us through our community and through our social media interactions.

That's a pretty heady view. What strengthens us, weakens us. Like that, there's a, it's a two-sided

coin.

Yeah. And by the way, and I'm sorry, I'm interrupting you. You, in the stuff you do, you have to, every

strength can be a weakness, right? Like Zoom meetings, what are the strengths of those Zoom

meetings? During COVID, we found this, you know, you could gather, even if you couldn't be in

person. But then also the fact that you can easily gather through a Zoom meeting, that sometimes

people don't take community seriously. Like when you had to set time to meet on a Thursday

at 7 p.m. and drive to some place and be a part of that, that was a different reality

than I can just stumble out of bed and turn on the computer and connect. That changes a

dynamic. There's strengths and weaknesses to that dynamic. And that's the part I don't

think we look at enough. It eases our ability to connect with each other, but it also might

weaken the input and the energy and the commitment we do to building community because of the

easiness of doing that. And we all know getting tired with, you know, Zoom meetings where we're

online all the time. And because on Zoom, we have to look each other in the eye and there's

less cues in the room. And so the strength is we connect to the weaknesses. We can't, you

know, when you're together with someone in a room, you can interrupt each other. You can

look down, you don't have to look at the screen the whole time, but the insecurities of online

communication have another, you know, reality. I think the church doesn't take this seriously

enough when we institute new, you know, online expressions. I don't think our world takes

it seriously enough. So I want us to ponder this as we're forming the technology.

That's really interesting. Is there, what is a model that isn't toxic of social media?

Like, have, is that, is, are you looking to redeem it? Is, is it lost? And you're wanting

to go on to the next, like, what's, what's the utopian version of, of where you are? Like

what's, where, where, where would you want to go?

By the way, utopia literally means a place that does not exist. And so I, I think that's

one of the problems is we think we have this idea of utopian church.

I'm on to you. We want a utopian church is utopian. They don't exist. And I don't think

we should even seek those out. You know, God can give us utopia in heaven, but well, one

of the things, here's an example of the strengths and weaknesses of it. What is one of the tremendous

strengths of social media? It unites people with shared interest, shared trauma. So people

who've been abused by the church, they can gather together and share their stories. They

never would have been able to do that. They can find voice. They can find advocacy. They

can mobilize to take down terrible ministries and corrupt people. That's a strength. But

here's the weakness of that. People tend to unite around one thing, right? We all unite around

the church abuse thing. The internet allows us to unite around one thing. And so many communities

are formed that way. We all unite around deconstruction. We all unite around Star Trek. You know, we

are big fans of that. And we can exist within that one form of community. That relationship

is still a weak tie relationship in that it's only one thing that ties you together. Strong

tie relationships, there's lots of things that tie you together. And that's what we would

call marriage and long-term friendships. You don't necessarily agree on everything. You're

together for more than just one shared interest. So what happens in these groups, they unite

around that one strong interest. What happens? Conflict occurs. Disagreement about that one

issue. Diversity of thought and opinion. What are those groups doing? Are they finding ways

to heal and come together and have a more diverse understanding of their community? In general,

they're not. They just fracture. And then they go and find other people who agree with what

they agree with. So we're not learning. The strength is we can unite with people around

one issue. But when conflict occurs, because we can go to so many other people, we can replace

people. People are replaceable online. I got thousands, millions of people I can find.

We don't take the time to go through that conflict. So to me, that's both sides of it.

The toxicity is we only unite with people as much as they agree with us versus we're forming

a community. And a community goes through conflict. And a community has diversity. And a community

loves each other regardless if we disagree. So that's what I would look at. Almost every expression

has a positive side. But the danger of it is how do we handle conflict? How do we handle when that thing

that brought us together isn't as happy as it was when we started?

So what's the next book?

I don't know. Man, I am so... By the way, as a pastor, I'm just going to say this to you. Don't

tell anybody. Everybody listening, you can't tell anyone. But when you write Christian books,

you have to dot every T. No, you don't dot T's. You cross T's and you dot every I. That tells you

how it is.

Not anymore. You're done.

And I just, you know, I just would like to write maybe a fiction book where I don't have to have

the answer. And I can just say some nebulous thing. And I don't finish the thought. And it's just

feels a certain way. So that's kind of where I'm torn. I'm torn between the nonfiction where you have

to kind of finish every thought versus just doing something kind of emotional, emotive, or humorous,

or funny. So that's an honest answer for me. I don't quite know where I'm at.

I want to know for you, though. Sorry. Well, for you, because I don't trust, like, I'll talk

forever. Like, I want to partly interview you as well. Like, do you have more? What are you doing?

You have six different ministries. Do these all go together? What's the big picture for you? Like,

what does that mean? What are you doing? Digital ministry? Explain it to the person who has no idea.

Yeah. So the thing that makes me different is that I believe that we can do church,

a biblically styled, ecclesiologically stable church in digital and or metaverse virtual reality

space. Okay. And so I, for years, going back to 2018, I started championing this idea of a digital

expression of church. I started a company called The Church Digital, really kind of screaming it from

the rooftops, celebrating stories and examples of churches that were experimenting with it,

their successes, their failures, their lessons. Yeah. Listen, a physical church wants to help with

digital discipleship. I can do that. You know, I can help with that. And there's some things that we

extend beyond, but it really was about championing these different types of churches pastored by

different types of people in different environments that are reaching different types of people in the

buildings are reaching. And so like that became the heartbeat. And I've worked with organizations like

Stadia Church Planting on championing that, which was an awesome experience, but it wasn't quite,

it didn't give me the opportunity to really help the big C church as much as just the little funnel

that not to disregard what Stadia was doing, but it was a smaller subsector of a much larger problem.

And so resigned from Stadia and actually started the nonprofit Digital Church Network. So I run a

consulting company, The Church Digital. I run a nonprofit agency, Digital Church Network.

I'm not going to lie to you. There's no money in either of those. And so, hey, I've got to figure

out how to like, I don't know, buy groceries. And so I was approached by an organization called

Leadership Network that's very close with Exponential. And they're wanting me to come on and talk about

Metaverse Church. And at the same time, I can talk about Digital Church Network. Okay, I'll do that.

You know, a new thing network is actually our partner, our ministry partner with Digital Church

Network. And they're like, hey, we want to, you know, pay you some salary to help us digitally and

develop a digital strategy with new thing. Okay, I can do that. Media Impact International is a new

relationship that I have just within the past couple of weeks where they're doing social media training

and resourcing organizations and churches in the Middle East, in the MENA region and North Africa. And it's

like, yes, I want to learn from the global church. And so it's all of this, it sounds very cluttered and

messy. And it's hectic, I'm not going to lie. But it's all centered around understanding and gaining

insight on how the church can better utilize this technology, not just to broadcast a service, not just

to do something on social media, but to actually create expressions of church utilizing this technology

in Digital Network. Well, it didn't sound cluttered to me at all. I, for me, I'd like to do 100 things

at once. I don't believe in reincarnation, but I understand how the idea was formed, because I need

more than one life to do all the things that I want to do. I don't know if that resonates with you.

One of the things I want to ask you on this is, and this, I think, goes along with even McLuhan,

who said people tend to think, oh, you know, a medium just going to take the same message and put

it on a new medium, you know, the same way of doing things and kind of, I see this with how the church

uses the internet, social media, the digital world, is they basically try to recreate a form of what

they're doing, a structure in person online. And I was wondering your thoughts on this. Here's just like

an example. We don't do this well as a church, but I have an in-person service. And then we have a

separate online service. Now it's recorded. Again, we're a small church, so I can't do all the kind

of monocular things. But I thought, I don't want to just record people watching our service. To me,

that's not really what social media or YouTube or those things are like. So I do a message where my

wife and I, we're looking at the camera, we're talking to the people directly. That's our expression.

And then on Sunday mornings, it's more a different expression. So, and I'm still trying to discover,

what are your thoughts on this of how far, let's say, the church has gone to allow the technology

to change the way we express or to form the best way to express? Or are we just taking what we do

in person and trying to put it online? You know, that tension, where do you see the church at?

I mean, that's, that's, that's a great question. That's a great tension for a small church to live

in. To be honest, I'm the guy who's like, Hey, you know what? Small churches, maybe you don't

stream your services online. If you're really wanting to be effective in reaching people, creating a,

a mid quality video product and putting it online for people to watch, like that may not be the best

option for you. And Irma McManus has, has said this recently. If you really respect your, your physical

gathering, don't stream it online. Like if physical gathering is the thing for you, don't cheapen it

by doing it online, do something else online. And like a, an alpha course online or a, a small groups

or a relational or empowering the people in your pews or in your seats to reach their circle of influence

digitally, to be digital missionaries in social media or in the metaverse. Like there's so many

other things more effective than streaming a service online. People that have spiritual questions,

they're not looking to church online services. They're looking to their friends for spiritual

answers and they're looking to Google and Google is not picking up your service. And so it's

understanding digital strategy and it's understanding disciple making and the relational aspect of a small

church doing this is incredible, but they've got to realize that they, it's not competing with the big

boys. Let the big boys be the big boys. Small churches need to be authentic to who they are, which is

relational if nothing else. Okay. And the challenge with the online, you talked about being able to have

church in digital spaces. What do you think is the biggest weakness? Like if the accusation that most

sticks, like here's the problem when someone says, this is why I don't think you can really have church in a digital

space. Yeah. I think that there are people that are more comfortable with it than not. And so like, you'll never

hear me say everything has to be digital. That would be chaotic, but you're, you're not going to hear me say

everything has to be physical because there are people that connect digitally as well as physically. Like I can even look at,

at, at the younger generation and the kids where like the, the line of physical and digital, I mean,

it exists for me. I'm 45 years old. I remember a life before the internet. And, and so for a native,

somebody that can dance back and forth between the two, it's, it's not there. The thing that scares me,

the thing that gives me pause really is, is the mental health, uh, implications of, of what's happening.

Like we're challenging P and I don't know. I'm, I'm working on this. This is, this is one of my goals

of 23. Um, like we are literally challenging people to be on mission in spaces that are addictive.

Uh, secondhand trauma is an actual thing. We're, we're dealing with the high levels of depression,

a suicidal rate. And especially when you get into the metaverse, uh, you're seeing a lot of, um, uh,

pornography. Uh, you're seeing a lot of, of drug alcoholism. Like these things are very strong

in digital and metaverse spaces. I've, I've actually, I had a friend of mine, a former,

um, digital pastor. She tried to commit suicide earlier this year, a good friend. And, and,

and thankfully her husband stopped her. Um, and when, when, when I asked weeks later,

why, what happened, Jeff, I, I, things got dark. Um, and, and because I was digital,

I didn't have a community around me to talk to, and I didn't know where to go.

You know, it's interesting. I talk a bit in the book posting piece about strong ties versus weak

tie relationships. Um, a weak tie relationship is you're just connected on one thing and that's

not wrong. You know, just one issue. Strong tie means many things you're connected with. Strong

ties would be like friendships, marriage, those sorts of things. Uh, what's happening in social

media. And you can see this anxiety in kids and in adults is they have lots of weak tie relationships.

So they have thousands of people that they interact with, whether it's Facebook, Snapchat,

whatever the platform they're on, but it kind of feels like as much as I interact with them,

I exist. But the moment I stopped posting, the moment I stopped interacting, I disappear.

There's not a connection that goes beyond that. So there's less and are fewer and fewer, uh,

strong tie relationships. So that also puts a strain on our strong ties on our marriage. So

in a church context, let's say if you go into a physical space of a church, it's more than just

uniting about one thing. You're hanging out, you talk about larger things. If it's healthy,

you connect and other things, your children, whatever. So you have more of a relationship

there. Online, you might feel like someone's only interacting with me as much as I'm posting a

picture or sharing a thought or a comment. The moment I stop, I disappear. Uh, and that could be

true. If I stopped going to church, I disappear. But at least when you're hurting, you can show up at

church and people see you're hurting and they can come to you, hopefully if they're healthy again

and, and meet with you. So this is a struggle that people have more and more weak tie relationships

than ever before, less strong tie. And then also we're putting strains on that. And then we're not

able to go through conflicts as much. Cause one of the things I think the internet does, the strength

is it provides us to have relationships. The weakness is it's keeping us from learning how to go

through conflicts. And I, here's the perfect example. Go back to olden days, let's say before the car.

Um, what was your social network before the car? Basically anyone within walking distance or you hook

up the wagon, right? It's a very limited group of people. Why did people reconcile or try to get along

in olden days? It wasn't because they were better people. They did it because they had to. Because if you

get in a fight with your neighbor, there's no one to talk to. So you have to find a way to get along

with your neighbor. And there's only two churches in town. And if you don't find a way to exist with

that church, there's no church online. There's no, you might have one book about God. You don't,

you can't search sermons. So people had to learn to deal with difficult people, have a more diverse

expression of community. Now they didn't always do this. There's terrible things about the olden days,

right? Where you had the neighbor who controlled everyone, the pastor who controlled everyone,

and people were stuck in these abusive systems. So I'm not saying that was a good time. It's just

what it was. Now what's the strength of the internet? I don't have to go to that abusive church. I don't

have to have that nosy neighbor control my life. But now I have all these options and we're finding

this with people. The moment conflict occurs, they just find someone else. I got a million churches.

I got a million people I can connect with. It's a strength to have all those opportunities,

but we're forgetting how to be Christians, to go through conflict, to express love, to do those

things. So I think that's hitting with this depression too, is we're isolated. We have these

weak tie relationships. And then when conflicts occur, instead of going through that, even if we want to

go through, people quickly abandon us and replace us for someone else. So it can be a very challenging

environment.

Yeah. No, I love that. You know, trying to get the, I mean, you're really speaking towards

emotional IQ, the maturity of the situation of the individuals here. We, in digital, we talk a lot

about a standard of online to offline. Simply, the gospel that we hear online, it has to influence our

offline, our physical relationships. Otherwise, what we're doing is we're creating consumers. It's

consumerism. I mean, it's based off of James 1.22, don't just be hearers of the word, paraphrasing

online. And so deceive yourselves, do what the word says in the real world. And so there's an

opportunity. And this is what I think makes a lot of what we talk about differently, at least through

digital church network, the church digital, like the platform, even pre-COVID, was it's not just

consuming a product. There's the challenge to have this impact the real world, where we're not just

hearing sermons about conflict resolution. We're not just consuming that as product, but we are

challenging you, audience, to live this out in your life, to be that representative. If you've got

conflict, resolve it. If I am, you know, I tell this story, we want to see the fruits of the spirit

in not just physical realm, but we want to see it in physical too. Love, joy, peace, patience,

kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. I think that was all of them. But if I

am a, if I'm a strong Christian, if I'm exuding the fruits of the spirit digitally, in physical realm,

I'm abusive to my wife, I'm verbally abusive to the kids, and I steal from my workplace. I mean,

you're using words like hypocrite or worse to describe me. And so if we are going to do church,

if we're going to be the church digitally, I think there's a demand that we exude that we're

consistent with that, with our fruits of the spirit. We're consistent with our spirituality,

with our maturity. And that maybe it's not run away like you're talking about, run away to go to the

easier option. It's no, I've got to exude that in physical space. And we're gonna, we're gonna grow

through this. I actually, I had a question for you. That is so good. I want to turn this on, on you a little bit.

You're talking about, you're using words, forgive me, you said one and then multiple, like it's,

strands, strings. What's, what's the label that you've said here a couple of times? Where you're,

you're talking about like, man, this is embarrassing.

Weak tie versus strong tie you're talking about?

Thank you, that's what I'm asking. So a weak tie is, is basically you've said like one strand and then.

You disconnect on one thing. We all like Star Trek. That's a weak tie.

Can you, can you grow from a weak to a strong?

Isn't that how relationships grow? I mean, we start with an interest, you know, our kids played softball

together, right? And then we started talking, but even softball is an opportunity to talk about

something else. This is a fascinating thing about as well. I don't talk about this much in the book,

but it fascinates me. The concept of, we are more segmented than ever before. So my son is playing

his switch and listening to YouTube. I'm watching TV like an old man. My wife is on Instagram.

Somebody else is doing something else. Now, I don't think any of those things are wrong,

but we're all doing different things. How do we form human connections? By doing something together,

as we do it together, other connections form, other conversations arise. It's like, why did the guy

like going hunting with his dad or fishing with his dad? It's more than the hunting. It's more than

the fishing. It's the conversations that occurred during the time. What we're doing right now as a

culture is we're so segmented in our own groups that we're not able to have those conversations where

we go beyond a weak tie into a strong tie relationship. It's just about politics, you know,

far right, far left, whatever. It's just about, and we're just enmeshed, you know, or immersed in that

stuff. So yeah, I think weak ties can become strong ties, but you need to have a safe space where you can

do something together. And then by doing something together and having a relationship, then other

things rise up. So to me, like in the home, you know, I have to find ways, something we like to do

together. And if we don't like doing things together, then I have to find a way to be interested

in my son's YouTube videos and his switch, because as we do that together, then he might have a

conversation about what happened at school or something he's upset about. That's the whole family

dinner thing. We all need to gather around for family dinner. I don't think we all need to be at the

family table, but what happens when we're all together at a family table, we talk about other stuff.

So in this digital age with all the strengths of all the things we can do to build stronger tie

relationships. We got to do stuff together and be able to bring in other things that we can talk

about than just our interest in our wants. That I'm not ready to say that's a weakness of digital

church. Um, but I don't know that we've cracked the, the, the shell. I don't think we've got a

solution for, uh, generational church digitally. Yeah. You know, a lot of, a lot of the church,

a lot of the church, not all of them, some of them are more, um, generic in who they're reaching,

but you know, in, in the internet, if you're trying to reach everybody, you're not reaching

anybody. There's the largest nation on the planet is Facebook users. And so like to try,

you can't effectively target everybody. And so, you know, rule number one of digital narrow the

focus, create a persona. And so as a result of that, you're right, we are, are creating echo

chambers. We are surrounding ourselves with, with people that, that think like us transparent

here. Um, and yes, that could be a perceived weakness. There's an opportunity though to grow

beyond that. I mean, I, I can tell you, this is interesting. Mark Lutz is a, is a, is a digital

church planter. He's been running Lux digital church for about a year on Twitch and on discord.

It's a video game church. He's a video gamer and he's got, I forget the age of the grandma,

but like she's in her seventies or eighties, uh, who's very active in discord being discipled

through this church. Like, which, and it's funny cause Mark, like she didn't even know what discord

was before the church. It's not like she's some abnormality. That's really hyped up about, you know,

um, fortnight. She just somehow got connected into this community and, and loved it and is being

stretched as a result of it. And so we're seeing exceptions to the rule. And I think what happens

is when the church has time to like, if the church is really successful in, in multiplying, like if we

are actually successful in helping people realize that they have spiritual mission and that they're not

just consuming a product, but they need to be exuding this in physical realm. If I start with

a gamer, well, that gamer is probably going to have a conversation with their spouse relatively

quickly. And they're going to talk to the friends across the street. They're going to talk to, uh, the,

the kids at the Taekwondo dojo. And so as a result of this, you're seeing, um, some

diversification. I think that that's happening. Uh, and we're seeing early signs of that. Uh, but, but it's

really too soon to tell, I think on how vast it can be and what that reach is as we're trying to get beyond

the echo chamber.

I love, you know, any creative expression. I, I, uh, well, one of the things I, I sometimes

get frustrated. If you ever met a pastor is like, what we need to be is a local church in our local

community. You know, we eat and drink and connect in this neighborhood and it sounds very ideal, but

people don't live in their local. They, they live somewhere. They move, they work 30 minutes away

from there. They're involved in a soccer match. That's, you know, regional. They don't do that.

That's an old timey idea that doesn't exist anymore. People are connected in all kinds of

different ways. And so I think that is one of the strengths of the digital issue is you're trying to

find out how people actually are connected. They're connecting through like interests. They're more

connected with someone thousand miles away than they are with their neighbor. And we could say, well,

that shouldn't be that way. Well, it just is that way. How do we connect with them? To me, a church,

though, at some level has to be large enough that someone can annoy you and small enough that you can

connect with someone. So to me, if I'm in a group that I'm just isolating with people that I like,

I don't know if that's really a church. It's got to be that there's some annoying, difficult people

that you're trying to love. This is another strength and a weakness of the internet. Rainey and Wellman,

two, I think they're Pew Research people. They said the internet is used for networked individualism

and they use this as a strength. So I network with people based on my individualistic needs.

I need something answered and I find a group for that. I like Star Trek. I find a group that meets

that need. I like to complain about the government. I find a group that meets that need. But it's my

individual need that I find networks for. The problem with that is that turns us into consumers that only

relate with people as much as they meet our individual needs. And so we don't want church to be that way.

And church can be that way in person as much as it can be that way online. I'm not going to church just

for me. I'm going to church because I've been called into community. I'm not going to this Bible

study just for me, but because I've been called into community expression larger than myself.

Whether it's in person or online, that's the kind of teaching that somehow has to be there. This

isn't just about what meets our individual needs. It's about building a community. And that part,

like I think about building a community, people will ask me, Doug, how's Evergreen Church doing?

That's the church I serve. Because the church has an expression larger than myself.

People seldom say, how's Facebook doing? How's Twitter doing? Because we're not seeing those

as communities. We're seeing them as avenues for our personal expression that we can take a break

from, a sabbatical from. So I think using these platforms, we still need to have communities where

we can say, how is the digital church doing? And it has a concept that's larger than Jeff and Doug

and our individual needs. And that is a challenge, whether it's in person or online.

Yeah, that's, I mean, you're, you're a hundred percent right. Um, you know, we can, and one of,

one of the fears that I have with, um, a digital expression of a church is some of the ones that I've

seen are very, uh, personality centric. Um, and that's, that's, that's a, that's a fear. Um, I don't

think it's, I think it's a, um, attention to be managed. I mean, using the phrase that you said

earlier, because I, cause you, you're, you're building this off of an individual, you're using

an individual influence to point to a church, to point to a community. And we're seeing, um,

honestly, some great success. I'm going to use a word you may not know, asynchronous communities.

Uh, this is, these are software like discord or like Slack or WhatsApp, mighty networks,

even Facebook groups. There's actually a, um, uh, an established, it's interesting. I just did a

podcast last week. Uh, and so Seacoast up in, um, the Carolinas areas, um, they ran an experiment

and this is, you're going to listen to last week's episode to hear it. I love this episode.

There was this 20 year old kid. The 20 year old kid had an idea. Um, why don't we create as an

intern? They literally get, listen to the intern. I'm so proud of this church. The intern had an idea.

What if we created a community over here in discord and we connected with Christian influencers and we

allowed them to talk about our community. And so the influencers who are just creating content noise,

they literally started to point to the community. So the purpose of the influencer wasn't noise.

It was community. And then within the community, they started to, to build relationships. They started

to do Bible studies. They started to do discipleship within this discord community. The influencer now has

purpose beyond just the, the fuzzy feeling from that scripture, because now it's reinforced by a

disciple making community. By the way, there's 3000 people in that, uh, discord that are now going

through the process. And what's funny is that church is growing. So there, this group is going so fast,

like the leadership's like, we don't know what we're doing. How do, how do we do this? What? And so

they're, they're experimenting, they're trying, but it's like, God bless them for, for doing something.

And I'm all for the experimentation. The biggest one for me is online. Can I find someone if they

disappear? And my argument is if I can't find a person, then I don't know if we had community. Like

if someone stops coming to church, I know where they live. I can find them. I can connect with them.

There's another way. And I think that part of connection, not like everyone has to do that,

but there needs to be that progression. There's people who show up to church that I can't find.

They're a visitor. I never see them again. That's fine. But others where if they disappear,

they don't just disappear. And I think that's the area we kind of have to look at respecting people's

boundaries, their privacy, but also being able to help someone and find them, seek the lost sheep,

bless them, encourage them, those who are weak. But I want to ask you some questions here. Okay. So

this, what am I on right now? Is this a podcast, a video? Like I know sometimes people aggregate these

in all kinds of directions. What is this going to be used for?

It's both. It's the video will be on YouTube and the podcast. We get maybe

five times more audience on audio only than video.

Okay. All right. So doing these podcasts, what is the thing you wish people would do that frustrates

you that they won't? You know, even people who like the show, who are like, what's the one thing

that would just help you the most? Like if you would only do this, you don't know how much it would

help me in this endeavor. What is the one or two things that come to mind?

You can make future checks payable to Jeff. No, I'm kidding.

Say what you think. Tell me what, tell it. I'm interviewing you. This is not your question.

You didn't give me a list of questions. I want to know the answer on this.

I love it. The biggest hurdle, and the audience knows this, the biggest hurdle I see it time and

time again with churches right now where we are in September, August, September, 2022,

physical pastors are wanting to get back to physical buildings and putting all the eggs

in that basket, which may be the right answer for today. Uh, but it's, it's fraudulent and it's

short-sighted because I think there's an opportunity to do something different. Um, and so it's the,

the, the challenge of, and we talk about it, the challenge of experimenting, the challenge of,

of embracing, uh, a digital discipleship system so that it's, uh, to allow for more scalability,

uh, the, the challenge to reach a different person by doing something different instead of just trying

to do the same thing over and over again. Um, you know, I mean the church, February, 2020 was not a

great time in context of the church. Uh, I mean, we're, we're in 20, I think there was a 25% decrease

over a 23 year period, according to multiple stats. Um, we were, we were at a decline. We were actually

on a little bit of a tick up, but after a multi-year decline heading out of 2019. Um, so like to go back

and say, Oh, that was the golden age, I think is very short-sighted and the, the, the opportunities

to do something different, like there's no better time than now. And, uh, you know, unfortunately,

oftentimes, you know, I have the conversations where the people that are wanting to do something

different, don't have the clout within the organization to make that happen. Right. Right.

And that's often a generational thing too, right? You have older people in the lead pastor role and

then the younger people like do something digital, but it doesn't mean they know how to, here's the

struggle though, isn't it? People are more worn out than ever. And I know as a pastor where I'll

just say no, cause I just don't want to fail at another thing. You know, just say no without even,

you know, I'm doing enough, not well, I don't need to do another thing where you're thinking in the

long haul, this will help you with all those things. But it's so hard when someone is weak,

feeling worn out to get them to have that longer view picture, isn't it?

Yeah. I, it was, there was a, there was a, uh, nationally known Christian, um, influencer,

uh, works a lot with church leaders. And, uh, I, it was funny. I don't listen to his,

his podcast a lot. I listened to this one episode and, uh, I, I about literally, I about F-bombed in my

car driving down the road when he's like, pastors, we have pivoted enough. It's time to stop and it's time to,

it's time to rest. Uh, and, and it's time to be just good enough where we are and, and okay. Yeah.

Hey, we need to rest. Hey, it's been a very rough season. Um, but don't call this the promised land.

Don't call this the completion of the great commission. And what it's, it's, it's, it's funny,

Doug, when people talk with me, um, we start talking technology, but we don't stick on technology

long because it gets down to disciple making. It's down to multiplication. It gets down to

helping people find their mission, embracing missional imagination, um, giving them pastor,

don't be upset. People are not in your building. Be upset. People have no spiritual purpose when they're

not in your building. And so it's, it's these types of things that if I could like scream from the

rooftops and get everybody to listen, it, it does, if it's, if it's digital, if it's micro, if it's

whatever it is, but the idea that one model, that one expression of church is going, especially in

America is going to be able to reach these people here consistently. The answer is no. And we have 25

years history to show that. Uh, and so to say, we don't need to pivot. Well, you haven't listened

over the past 25 years, maybe if we had pivoted before or more aware, uh, but we didn't know.

And so to me, that's, that's the frustrating piece. Yeah. Okay. We've, we've got the great,

uh, what is it? The great exodus, the great resignation is happening. That's not just the

church thing that's across the board. And what another reason church for us to pivot, to understand

we're looking at a new level of financing, even in our churches, we're not going to be able to roll

as deep on the staffing as we were because giving or even finding credible people to take these jobs

is going to be hard to find. We have to pivot to something different.

It, I mean, it really is the challenge. I'm not trying to be a naysayer. I personally believe

there's going to be a huge decline in the American church in the next 10 to 20 years, no matter what

is done. I know as a pastor, uh, like an online, by the way, a pastor online, for the most part,

I just get beat up regularly. It's not a place you go to be encouraged or built up. Almost all the

Christians I follow, their poster about what's wrong with the church and what's wrong with pastors and

what's wrong. And a lot of them, you know, it's because they've been hurt and the, but you just get

like, I just feel like, I don't want to go there. Uh, but the reality is, um, you know, okay, we've done

what's wrong. We've deconstructed. We've, but what are we going to do now? And I think to me is I want

to, uh, instead of holding on to the last gasps of something that might be declining or fading away,

I'd rather make room for the possibility of the future. And even if I fail at it, I still would

rather give opportunity for people to follow my example and learn from it for what they're doing

than to hold onto something that no one's going to be caring about. And I think that's beyond even

digital. It's just a lot of the things that we're doing. And I just wanted to let you know that

that's what I respect about what you're doing. I know the entrepreneurial spirit, a lot of things

you do, lots of vision, not much money to resource it. And sometimes it can be, why am I doing this,

you know, Lord? Um, but I do know, like, I'd like you to succeed, whatever that means.

But even if you don't, you've decided not to bow down and you've decided that your life would be a

witness that others could follow, that you're laying a foundation that allows others to follow.

And you need to remember that because I don't know how you assess it through analytics or,

you know, all those assessments, but fear can keep people just doing the same thing and working on

the same thing until it, you know, just ends. And also, you know, some people, they're called to do

that. That's fine. But I found like what I do, I pastor, I do books, I do online stuff. It doesn't

fit into really any category. And sometimes I get judged by that, but I want to ultimately make

ministry authentically me and then people can reject the core of who I am because I want other

people to be authentically them. I don't want them to fit into the role of what a pastor is supposed to

be an author, supposed to be a person. I just want them to be obedient to what the Spirit of the Lord

has called them to do. And I don't have a right to judge that. You know, the harvest is ripe,

workers are few, there's so many people in need. So I want to encourage any expression. You might tell

me what you're doing, like, that doesn't make sense to me at all. I think that's terrible. But I want

someone in that field. Because you know that there's field after field after field that people

aren't there. And that's kind of, I don't think I'm a good pastor, but I don't think there's a lot of

people doing what I'm doing. So I'm going to do it until God replaces me. So we need to encourage

more people to do more things, creative expressions, expand the definition of the church, and then be

Christ. Be Christ to people. That definition doesn't change. To be Christ, to love, you know, we can be

biblically based and look very different in our expressions. That's my sermon. I'm going to pass

around the offering plate now. You were just my pastor, Doug. Like that, that was an incredible

online pastoral expression. And so thank you for that. We, it's funny, we have a saying through DCN.

I think Chesley came up with it. Chesley Lundy. No, I mean, he found it somewhere, but it was funny. I

Googled it and there's like 15 different expressions or offshoots of the phrase, but essentially it's,

it's, uh, pioneers get slaughtered, uh, settlers get rich. And, and, and, and in many ways, like what

we're, what we're doing with, with how we're viewing digital ministry, which is amazing to me, 2022 post

COVID, we're still getting slaughtered, you know, in, in many ways out there with it. Um, now what's,

can I, can I use definition? I, I, I call it this, the prophetic middle. This might be my

Pentecostal background. Okay. But sometimes we'd like to build ministries from starting from one

camp or another camp, right? And then we try to build in a direction, but that's not really

reconciliation. It's not, I think we kind of just put ourselves in the prophetic middle and then we

trust that God connects us. And that's hard because you're really alone and none of the camps really

accept you, but you know, if you just totally immerse yourself in one camp, then you lose the

ability to speak to the other. And I think there's a lot of, in that entrepreneurial spirit where you're

doing that. And then it's just, Lord, I feel like you called me to do this and I'm trusting that I can

connect with the people, but you can really feel like you're just out there alone, but you have to

do that because otherwise you're just one group, you know, it's the traditional church trying to

convince people you're not, or, or even on the side of people who are hostile towards the church and

giving that all up and just the tech or they're hostile. Like you're even talking in ways that I

know probably aren't accepted on all sides about, there are these weaknesses to our technology and

it can't just be, it's all great. And we do need real community and there are limitations. When you

do that, you're in the prophetic middle and then you just have to hope that God connects you. And he

does, he connects you to these amazing people, but I don't know if he necessarily connects you with

money or resource or fame or fortune. Uh, but you know, eternal reward. I'm sure there's lots of

that. That's, that's, that's what I'm hoping for. Um, it's, it's, you've, you just literally put words

prophetic middle. I have been struggling with how to define that. And you just, you just nailed it.

I mean, here, here's the, like, I want you to understand if, if you wanted to get a picture

of what my past four years has looked like. Um, so I was literally hired by stadia to plant digital

expressions of church because I was talking about digital expressions of church going all the way

back to 2018 before any, like any, anybody had a clue about this. So I'm either a genius or I'm the

lone idiot. I'm still books, still not quite sure yet. Um, but we, as a result of taking this job,

um, and so I started talking with organizations, people started finding, searching, uh, on Google for

planting a digital expression of church at this point today, I have documented over 400 conversations

with people that are wanting to plant a church exclusively in digital or metaverse space.

Like this is not a couple of people having a stupid idea. There are hundreds of this. And four years

ago, here's how the conversation would go from the planter. Jeff, I've got this crazy idea.

My, my pastor thinks I'm nuts. My denomination doesn't want anything to do with me. Uh, my spouse and

my friends, because they've never seen it before. They don't even know how to support me or, or this,

this idea, Jeff, is this a good idea? Is this a bad idea? Is this even biblical biblical? And so I had

the opportunity to sit down with some of these guys, Chesley Lundy, Mark Lutz, and even tell the

stories about some of these churches that had existed going all the way back to 2015. The oldest digital

church, as far as I know, came 2011. It was planted by a teenager, a teenager planted a digital church in

roadblocks that's reached tens of thousands of people decades later. It's crazy how this is. Yeah. Okay.

The, the, the teenager didn't understand discipleship. He's a teenager. What were you doing when you were a

teenager? Like, I mean, yeah, old men don't understand discipleship. So, but the, the heart of this is

decades or like years later, 2022. Hey, you know what? You're, you're not crazy. Your pastor may not

understand it. The denomination doesn't, but now there's people that are having success. Can I

introduce you to them? I mean, this, this is why I resigned from Stadia. This is why we started

digital church network so that we can be the community where that we can provide the care

and we can provide the coaching for the people that have these ideas. We're not a denomination.

We're, we're a network. We're a community. We're, we're, we're family to people who are literally

alone. Like I joke with these, with these people. We're the island of misfit toys. Nobody, we were the

prophetic middle. We don't speak to either side. We don't connect anymore, but that doesn't make us

wrong. Well, and this is one of the things that drives me crazy. We are an assessment culture in

general where there's less people on the field playing and there's more people in the stands,

just assessing what other people are doing. And that I think that's a problem. So I don't mind an

opinion, but I'm like, go do your opinion. It's amazing how pristine an opinion can be, uh, when you

don't have to actually put it into practice. So to me, I encourage any expression. A lot of people say,

you know, what's wrong with this kind of church. I'm like, fine, I get it. It's, it's wrong. Go do

what God's put on your heart. And then you're going to find, you're going to find the strengths

and weaknesses to it. You're going to find how to modify it. But I believe the harvest is ripe and

the workers are few. I want to welcome anyone who's going out into the world to reach people.

And so that part of being threatened by it, being worried about it, you know, I just, I'm not afraid of

that reality, but it will drive me crazy when someone will just every day, what's wrong with the

church they left? What's wrong with this? And I'm like, you know, Christ in you has got to have

some expression. There's got to be something you could partner with, something you could do,

and then see if it works. Because here's the reality, no matter how you do it, if you do it

online, in person, in the hills, or in a cathedral, community's tough. And eventually you don't want to

be in it. And eventually there's conflicts, eventually, you know, and then you have to learn how to love and

the universal things that happened in every age, regardless of the technology. So what I like and what

you're doing and others are doing is, here, okay, you think the church should be more involved? Let's

go do it. Plant a church. I'll resource you. I'll help you. You know, here's your questions. And then

to me, managing expectations is probably the biggest thing, okay? Doing that, are you okay if this doesn't

happen? Are you okay if this happens? Like, as long as people can manage those expectations, and it's

true with any kind of church expression, then it's okay. The other one, and anyone listening here, is I think we

need to live for value in the doing. Everything I do has to have value in the doing. I think we get

dangerous when we do something for a future payoff. Like, well, I'm going to start an online church,

but it better get to this or it's failed. If you do that, you're going to be miserable. It has to

have value in the doing. That means this service had value whether we do it again. This relationship

had value whether it continues on. We need to free people up to do that because all these leadership

books and expectations for the church have put so much pressure that you have to become a certain

thing, and you have to get past 100 people or 200, and you got it. There's all these expectations,

and people are living for some future payoff that never comes, or when it comes, they're

not satisfied. So to me, to encourage someone, do what God's put on your heart. Make sure it has

value in the doing, and whether you do it for one year or for 50 years, let's celebrate it that you

spent time in the harvest. We have to expand the definition of church, expand the definition of

pastor, celebrate more expressions, celebrate different issues of how long they are, their reach,

focus. The harvest is ripe, workers are few, and we are a diverse group of people, and our churches should

express that diversity. You know, 75 percent of the people that we talk with about planning those

churches, 75 percent over, are bivocational. Like, it is, it's no longer seminary educated.

And it was interesting, when I was with Stadia, I was reporting 75 plus, and people that were

planting physical churches, even 12 months ago, like, it was within Stadia, it was 25 percent

bivocational. So they were seeing a bivocational shift, but nowhere near as drastic as what I was

reporting with 75. And now, you know, a more recent stat, they're seeing 25 percent actually move to

50 percent. 50 percent of the applicants that are wanting to plant a church through Stadia are now

bivocational. And so there's this phenomenal shift towards this new model.

Well, that would make sense, though, even in traditional churches. The problem with our church

growth movement is it's platformed anomalies and exceptions to the rule. That's not the reality of

the church. The majority of churches are under 250 people, bivocational pastors. But we've created

all those people to say, you're all doing it wrong. You all need to be something else. So the majority

of the church are saying 80 percent of the church is doing it wrong. You got to be like the 20 percent

anomaly. Now, I don't mind the 20 percent. I just think, I don't think God's looking at the majority

of the church and saying, this is terrible. You need to be something different. So even with online

expressions, let it be what it is. And in the sense of this is because, by the way, you don't even know

what you're going to collect. I bet you a lot of people started and they thought they knew the people

they're going to reach and they reached different people than they thought they're going to reach.

You just don't know. But we need more bivocational expressions. We need more. I don't I that's what's

driven me crazy about all this. This literature on church leadership and growth has limited people's

willingness to go be pastors because there's so many expectations. They're like, I can't be that.

I have a doctorate of ministry. I have lots of education theologically. But if someone has a

calling to plant a church, I want them to plant it, whether they don't have an AA. Now, do I want

them to continue in education and be in community and grow and learn? You bet. But to think that somehow

you need that traditional formal education to go out and preach the gospel is foolishness to

fishermen. So I like this concept, you know, release people. But we are so much more

healthy when we're doing than when we're assessing. I would even tell some of the people listening right

now, if you're really bitter with like and you're critiquing other expressions, often it's a sign

that you're critiquing expressions where you should be doing that. But because you're not doing something

like that, all you can do is critique other people who are doing it. You've got to make room for that

gifting. If you're spending all your time critiquing other people's messages, then you need to get a

message out there. If you're spending all your time critiquing how people are forming church, then you need to form

something. And I've often found a sign that we're not using our gifting as we begin to judge other

people who are using that gifting. Now that's hard because we think people may judge us the way we've

been judging them. But that helps us with how we interact with people when we start doing it ourselves.

Maybe that brings about a little humility, right?

I mean, yes, it does. Yeah. You know, I used to, when I, when I was, uh, maybe a couple of decades

ago, but I used to say that the complaint, but I was the set up and tear down church. And so I'd be

like the complaint box, uh, exists in, in the, in the box truck. And so like, if you want to complain,

you better be working because if you're, if you're complaining and you're working, then maybe you've got

value with that because you're, you're part of the solution instead of just the, the disgruntled guy.

Hey, here's another question I want to ask you. Cause we've gone a little while and I want to make

sure I get this in, um, big, big picture, you know, the dream stuff that you maybe don't share

with everybody. Cause it might seem foolish. I guess it's not like Joseph's, you know,

coat of many colors and your brothers are all going to throw you in a pit for telling your dreams,

but what, what's the big, ideally you'd love it if the work you're doing here, you know, 20 years from

now, 30 years from now, 50, what it could become or your desire for the church. What is that?

You know, I, um, I, I, I am a, I'm an AV guy. I'm literally the geek that sits in the church closet

and runs the technology that that's, that's what my, that's what my training was. And so even that

I'm, um, um, you're asking me some of these questions, it like those, my friends who know

me, my friends who knew me 20 years ago, they, they can't believe some of the stuff that I'm involved.

I can't believe some of the stuff that I'm involved in. And so I had, I had the honor,

Dave Ferguson's a friend, but I had an honor of sitting down with him maybe a year ago at a

conference. And, um, and, and I started casting vision towards what we're doing with digital church

network. And, um, and Dave looked at me and it was just incredible. Like I had booked 15 minutes

with the guy and 15 went to 30, 30 minutes went to an hour. I almost spent 90 minutes and I'm not

bragging here. This is just the overwhelming thing of how I believe God's in the middle of this.

Like, and Dave looks at me after hearing me talk about my heart and these people and this opportunity

and what we want to see. And Dave says, Jeff, do you realize if this actually works the way that

you're describing, you're going to be bigger than the Catholic church. And I'm, I'm not going to lie.

I hadn't thought of it that way. And I kind of freaked me out at the moment. I may have gone into

a panic attack, but that's a, another conversation. I mean, the heart of this is, is that I, and I think

I said it earlier, I want to reach a different type of person in the building. I want to empower a

different type of leader in different environments where discipleship may look different. For love

of God, I just want to do something different than we're already doing. And, and, and if, and if we can

create a new model of church, not the only model, I don't want to evolve. I'm not exclusive, but just

a new model to reach different people than what we're reaching currently, that's a kingdom win. And, and,

and so that's, that's for me is, is, is the goal to be able to, to see generations of disciples being

created as a result, multiplying disciples being created as a result of the ministry that we're doing.

Oh, by the way, in digital and metaverse space, and we're seeing it happen on a, on a, I would say

micro, we're seeing it happen on, on, on some situations, but obviously there's an opportunity

for more. That's really good. I, I, it frustrates me when people have to tear down another expression

to make room for their own, which to me is always a sign of insecurity. And I got to tear down large

churches for a small church. I got to tear down traditional churches for house churches. You know,

I, I just, I, I'm going to go do what God's put on my heart. I'm going to trust

other people are trying to listen to the Lord with their expressions. One question that'll follow

up. So are we tithing in crypto? Is that what we're doing online? How's this going to work?

You, you, you laugh. Yeah. I mean, that actually is, is a conversation. I mean, I, listen, I'm,

we're in the middle of talking about blockchain crypto. We're talking about DAOs. We're talking

about decentralized expressions of church. And so, I mean, yeah, most, most will accept Venmo and cash app and,

credit cards. But, um, listen, the next, I, I mean, I just literally did, did, uh, interviews on that

today. Um, church is going to look different and we've got to be okay with that. If, if, if you are

digging into your, to your typical model and you're unable to give, then you're making your model and

idle. Um, and I even, it's, it's funny, like as much as I passionate, I am about digital and meta,

the day that something else comes out better, that's more effective than creating disciples and

multiplying disciples. I'm going to embrace that idea because that's the end game. And so as much

as we're kind of stuck trying to, well, that's not the way that it used to be. That's not the way that

it was. That's not that any of what, what drives me nuts is the, that's not the way that it is in the

Bible. Well, shoot, they didn't talk about crypto in the Bible. Really? Like, is that what you want to,

is that what you really want to get into? Um, they, they didn't talk about your steeples in

the Bible either. So let's, let's really start to be consistent. Well, I think we're pragmatic too,

because sometimes people, well, it's a house church. Well, you know why they were a house church?

Because they were kicked out of the synagogues. They probably would have stayed in the synagogues

if they hadn't been kicked out of that. And then why did they kind of move from house churches back

into regular churches? Because people were martyred in their homes and things happened and there was

instability. And so they decided to have its own place. You know, those are all pragmatic decisions.

And then we turn them into the, thus saith the Lord. Uh, that's the thing. People who are avoiding

technology and especially even older people, it's, that's the reality. You want to be able to engage

with people. You want to be able to connect with them. You don't want to find yourself in some

isolated Island. You know, obviously something's interested, some things don't. I get that. But

I want to, when I die, whatever that is, that I'm connected with someone from every generation.

At some level, I have a connection. I think we're dangerous if we're just with one group of our age

or one ethnicity or one political category, whatever. When we're just with a bunch of people

like us, I don't know if we're where Jesus is because Jesus is going in every generation,

every race, ethnicity, economic strata, and the digital world. Some of the most important

conversations of our time are happening online. And that's, you know, bring it back to my book

because I also have to sell books, posting piece, why social media divides us and what we can do

about it. The issue is like some of the most important issues are being talked online. And

shouldn't Christians be there, not just with different content, but with a different spirit.

And regardless of what we're using, we can have a different spirit. We can engage these things and

tell people we care about where they are and the spaces that they value.

Amen. This has been fun. I got to tell you, I was nervous walking in, but I love your conversation.

Doug, thank you for, thank you for joining us today.

Oh, Jeff, thanks for letting, you know, answer my questions and let me answer a few of yours.

This really was a privilege.

Awesome. So, hey, we're going to put a link in the show notes to Doug's book. Check it out.

Twitter, Fairly Spiritual. It sounds like there's a story there. I regret not having time to get into

that, but you can hit them up on Twitter and check out the book, but definitely excited, Doug.

Thank you again for joining us. But we're going to land the plane. And so for Doug, this is Jeff with

the Church Digital, blah, blah, blah, Digital Church Network and a whole bunch of other stuff.

Thanks for being on here. Y'all have a good day. See you next time on the show.