EP185: Tom Pounder & Encouraging a Digital Missionary

Welcome to the Church Digital Podcast, powered by Stadia Church Planting.

Through this podcast, learn about how God is using technology and innovation

in digital and digital environments around the world.

Our goal? To help churches like yours learn to be the church digitally.

Our heart? That churches like yours will discover a newfound focus on disciple-making

that will revolutionize your church.

And now, your host, here's Jeff Reed.

Hey, we've got a great conversation set up with you.

By the way, remember, here with Season 5, we're highlighting the crazies, the innovators,

the people who are thinking outside of the box.

And it's a pleasure for me, in this conversation, to connect you, to introduce you,

to welcome back a good friend of mine, a great friend of mine,

who, honestly, I just met for the first time a couple weeks ago.

Tom Pounder is a digital pastor, student pastor, a pastor extraordinaire at a New Life Church

in the Washington, D.C. area.

And one of Exponential's regional conferences, the one in Washington, D.C., obviously,

was held at New Life Church.

And even though I have known Tom Pounder and consider him among my friends for the past years,

I think the first time I probably met him was 2017, maybe 2018.

I've known the guy for a while.

We have developed a great relationship together, and it's all been digital.

And so we even joke about it and talk about it here in the show.

But it's important to notice that there was a friendship that was developed in digital space

that went for at least three years before we were actually able to connect together at the physical level.

And it is awesome for me to bring in Tom Pounder into a conversation where we're highlighting people

who are thinking outside the box, people who are innovators in this digital church space,

if only to start to talk about what Tom is thinking in context of a digital missionary.

Now, what does a digital missionary mean?

What does that look like?

How do we equip people and train people?

Is the digital really a mission field?

And what are some inerrant challenges maybe that come up looking at digital as such?

Yeah, this is really what we start to scratch the surface on.

And there is so much more conversation that needs to be had as we will continue in later episodes

to explore this idea of a digital missionary.

So here's what I'm doing for the conversation.

I'm bringing in Tom Pounder.

Like I said, digital pastor, New Life Christian Church.

And by the way, phenomenal resources through YM Sidekick, through Digital Bootcamp.

My gosh, if you're not tracking with Tom Pounder, you really need to.

We're also bringing into the conversation myself.

Hey, Jeff with the Church Digital and with Stadia Church Planning.

And a conversation that I'm simply calling here, Releasing Digital Missionaries.

Okay, everybody, here you go.

Man, I'm looking forward to talking about a digital missionary.

And I've seen, Tom, you know, you and I have had a conversation on this years ago,

talking about maybe what a digital missionary can be.

And I've seen you in recent months really start to hone back in on that language of a digital missionary.

And so I wanted to bring you back on the podcast here and just, you know, have a conversation.

What is, what is, what's a digital missionary?

What does it look?

How can we, the church, how can we start to explore in this space?

So, man, thanks for coming back and jumping on the show.

Hey, again, as always, thanks for having me.

I'm very appreciative.

And you've been very kind.

And so, and I value our friendship as well.

So this, I'm really excited about this.

I'm going to get all teary-eyed.

That's, that was beautiful.

So let's, let's talk.

You know, we, I've used the phrase here a couple times, digital missionary, as I literally

just get an email from Tom Pounder in, while I'm doing this, it just beeped.

Your newsletter on Friday just hit my inbox.

Well done.

Talk to me.

What, what is a digital missionary?

What, when you use this phrase, like what, what does that mean?

What, what are you envisioning?

Yeah.

So, I mean, again, I think, I mean, it's, it's very simple, but I think we don't ever

look at digital as an, as a missionary opportunity.

I mean, you think back to it, Matthew 28, 19 and 20, Jesus says, go and make disciples of

all nations.

And for the longest time, we were literally physically going to make disciples of all nations,

going to different countries and all over the world.

We have to spend months of preparation, months of language understanding and all that kind

of stuff.

But now with the development of the smartphone, we have that opportunity where at any moment

in time, I can be talking to someone right next to me, or I can be talking to someone

clear across the world with me.

And again, I think when we think about digital, when we think about social media, we often

think about the fun stuff.

And of course there's controversies that happen on social media and everything like that as

well.

But I've really, over the past few years, and in particular since COVID, just viewed

it as a missionary opportunity.

People are on their phone.

You know, I used to work with Young Life and Jim Rayburn, the founder of Young Life, had

this phrase, go where they are.

You know, you want to meet teenagers, well, go where they are.

And so what I, my philosophy is, I want to meet people and I want to meet people online

and tell them about Jesus.

So I go on my phone and I get on Twitter.

I love Twitter and I'm on Twitter all the time, but you can go on Facebook, you can go

on Instagram, you can go on TikTok and become a digital missionary and share about Jesus in

a lot of creative ways.

That's beautiful.

Are you, you know, and you, you've, you've had a mix in your career of, of digital pastor,

of student pastor and, and, and going back and, and forth in that.

Have you, do you have examples?

Have you, have you seen where people, stories maybe where people are buying into this, this

digital missionary idea?

Uh, stories of people responding to what I'm doing or people who are being trained up to

do it.

Maybe both either or.

Well, I know again, you know him very well and I just know him a little bit, but Tyler

Sanson is really honed in on this digital missionary stuff, uh, and really using it as opportunities

to use his music ability, his singing ability to share about Jesus.

But he's training people, um, all the time and reaching people all over the world for me.

Yeah, I, I've had different interactions where, so when I go on, on social media in particular,

when I go, um, on Twitter, I'm looking to do two things.

I'm one, I'm looking to encourage fellow ministers.

Um, and I, so I want to encourage them and I create content to encourage them, but then

I want to encourage other people.

Um, and I do that by sharing my life.

Um, you know, I firmly believe again, the church can be a great on social media, but my ability

to reach people is far greater than my church's ability to reach people on social media.

People respond to people more than they respond to brands or churches.

They want to see it really happen in real life.

And in my story is, is different.

You know, I, I, you know, I grew up in Northern Virginia, great family and, uh, pursued ministry

in my life, but I, I'm also divorced.

Uh, and there's a lot of hurt that goes along with that.

And I'm trying to raise my four kids.

Uh, you know, I'm co-parenting, but there's a lot of aloneness that comes with that.

And, um, what I've discovered is the more I can share my life with people and encourage

people, uh, in that way, people respond.

And I get messages, uh, different, at different times on different platforms.

Sometimes I'll get a message on Tik TOK.

Other times I'll get a message on Twitter.

Other times I'll get a message on Facebook about how, what I've been able to share has

encouraged them and challenged them in their relationship with, with the Lord.

So, yeah, I mean, it's not like I'm reaching millions of people, but I feel like God's using

this for just that one.

And every time I create content, I'm looking for who can I connect with, uh, on that.

You know, I've it's, that's beautiful, Tom, just, just yesterday I was, I had a meeting

with, uh, the social media director of the church that, um, that I'm serving at.

We're down here in Miami.

We just launched, um, a re reality church.

It's literally called reality church.

Carlos will let's the pastor, but I was meeting with their, their volunteer social media director.

And, um, and, and, and I told her, I was like, this, this may hurt.

This may be hard to hear, but the organizational, the institutional voice has never meant less

than it does right now.

And, and it's actually decreasing.

It's not increasing.

And so as, as much as we're pouring this energy and the effort into creating these perfect posts

to go within the church, social media channels, the, the real influence, the real reach of the

church is not through the organizational channels, but what, what if we started equipping the people

of our church to share within their social media channels, like to reach their individual ones,

as opposed to the church organizational one, like the, the, the ones of the individuals far

outnumber the ones that the organization can reach.

It just, we need to, to not pivot, like stop the organizational voice.

But what I challenged her was let's start to pour some resources, maybe that we're not

using for the organizational and start to resource people to start talking about the church.

It's, it's better for us when we get people talking about the church than when we, the church

talk about ourselves.

And it was funny, like just, it was, it was eyes wide open in that conversation.

And she's like, I've never, never really thought of it that way before.

And it's just, there's so much opportunity.

Once we start realizing that people will listen to others where there is a relational equity,

honestly, more than they'll listen to our organization in, in, in many ways.

Have you, have you felt that?

Do you see that, uh, from new life?

What, 100%, 100%.

Again, the, the, I love how you just said, I think so many of us, uh, social media managers

or online pastors think, uh, we got to be like Wendy's, you know, how Wendy's social media

brand, they, everyone loves them.

They love to follow them.

And there's creativeness there and that we can be like Wendy's and everyone's going to follow

us, but that's, that's far and few between even the best churches.

I firmly believe that even the best churches doing it will never be able to be like a Wendy's.

But what if we trained up people, as you just said, to be digital missionaries, to look

at social media as a ministry opportunity rather than just something they do for fun.

Yes.

You've got to have fun on social media.

You've got to do fun things, but that's TikTok, man.

TikTok is all about fun and you can use that to reach other, other people.

If we train them to think about it, like one of the things, because I do do a small little

digital missionary class with some people, um, from time to time at our church.

And the first thing I say to them is whenever you go on social media, spend some time just

praying to God and asking him to open your eyes to see the ministry opportunities that

you can have.

And again, maybe it's just simply sharing your live stream on that Sunday morning, or maybe

it's commenting on someone who's hurting that day.

If God's giving you the eyes and God's giving you the vision, gosh, you're going to be able

to reach so many people.

As you just said, the church's reach, especially on Facebook, that algorithm is so terrible.

And the church's reach on Facebook is so terrible these days.

But my reach is greater because Facebook values relationships and you can use your relational

equity, like you said, to reach people for Jesus in a really powerful way.

It's funny.

You said the word tick tock for me, the number one question I get right now.

Uh, okay.

Maybe the top three questions, 2020, the number one question I got, I don't know about you,

Tom, but the number one question was, what do we do with the kids?

How do we do kids ministry and student ministry easily?

The top three questions that I'm getting in 2021, how does my church take advantage of

tick tock?

What are we doing on tick tock?

Um, and, and you know, what's funny is I don't, I don't, I personally, I don't have a

solid answer for that.

I mean, other than get your pastor dancing on tick tock and, and nobody seems to want

to take advantage of that.

Um, but you know, it's within our churches.

We have people that understand tick tock far better than me.

44 year old bald guy with a goatee understands tick tock.

And, and, and rather than the church owning the strategy of tick tock, maybe we should instead

release the concept, release that responsibility to someone that we've discipled who understands

the community of tick tock.

Uh, if you, if you're wanting to, to, you know, here in Miami, obviously there's a lot

of multicultural around.

And so as a church, it's not our responsibility in the physical space to understand how to

reach every nationality of person that lives in Miami.

But if we're wanting to reach into Hispanic or wanting to reach a Haitian or, or, uh, Central

American or Cuban, it's, Hey, let's talk with people who really understand that nationality,

who understand how these people think, and now maybe even ask them to be part of our church

in reaching those people, that neighborhood.

And even in a digital space, there are people that understand tick tock far better than bald

goatee Jeff Reed is going to.

And so how can we disciple them to a place where we trust them spiritually and then release

them to go reach people, to be that digital missionary and tick tock or to champion the

idea of us heading into tick tock, uh, to reach people for Christ.

Yeah.

See, I think the misconception about social media and the church is that everything you

do has to be spiritual.

And the reality is, no, everything you post doesn't have to be spiritual.

You have to embrace your church's culture.

You have to embrace your church's identity and include that a part of.

TikTok or whatever strategy you're going to be doing there.

I mean, you, you know, this, I mean, there, there are people who are making lots of money

off of TikTok right now because they're posting stupid things, but they're building a follower

and follow.

And here's the deal.

If you use your TikTok and post some funny videos that may not lead them closer to Jesus,

but I'll tell you what it will do when that person's hurting and that person's, uh,

looking for a church, they may remember your account and say, you know what, that church

seems pretty fun.

That I related to that person who shared that simple little story, or I related to that person

who did that stupid little dance.

I'm going to check out their church and they might check out your church online and that

lead them down the, the, the part.

Again, just TikTok is fun.

Embrace the funness of it.

But I also know that TikTok can be inspirational.

And so we post, um, some encouraging stuff, like some, some clips that we talked to that

really challenges people's thinking.

And again, we try to keep them short because I think TikTok is best as a short form.

I know they've expanded the three minutes and whatnot, and there's actually even talk of

them expanding even more.

And I'm like, TikTok is best when it's a minute.

And if you can keep it to that minute and really make them laugh, make them smile or feel better

about themselves, then I think that you're, you're doing an effective thing.

What you're doing is you're highlighting.

That's actually one of the biggest differences between physical ministry and digital ministry,

physical ministry, you know, it's, it's all about the, um, it's, it's, you want it quicker.

It's let's, let's get there.

Let's do the, let's present the salvation in every message, the plan of salvation.

Um, it's, it's more centered around the, the spiritual aspects within the weekend service,

you know, and things like that.

Uh, digital is far more of boil the frog slowly, uh, crockpot than microwave.

Uh, and, and, and really it's more about what you're suggesting is building that relationship,

maybe even more than getting to where the end game or, or, or the goal is.

It's, it's developing it slowly.

Uh, and, and there are people within church that's, Hey, you, you can't be re you can't

have that level of relationship digitally.

What's, what's fascinating to me is the people who are having the, that level of relationship

digitally.

And rather than saying they can't do something, encouraging them in it, you know, like I would

even Tom, even being off topic here a little bit, I would even count our friendship in that

and, and the ability that we've had to connect relationally connect digitally over social media

tweets and DMS and emails and zoom calls and, and everything over the years.

I mean, yeah, it was awesome when we met together physically and, and if we were able to have

conversations physically that, you know, I, I didn't necessarily want to take time to have

digitally, but the development of both of those is, is phenomenal.

And so understanding digitally how we can build these relationships with, with people and start

to train and equip volunteers to do so.

Man, this is a beautiful idea.

Uh, and utilizing these channels to, to reach an Oikos or the circle of influence, uh, for the

cause of Christ, man, I can't think of a better reason to actually utilize social media other

than to use it for the kingdom.

Again, it's just like in, in, in person settings, you know, people want to feel accepted.

They want to feel cared for.

And if they feel accepted and cared for by you, they're going to stick around and stay

longer.

So when you're thinking about a digital missionary, it is a, it's a longer term play, but again,

we're, we're in this for salvation.

And any comment that I get, I respond to any person that is going through a hard time.

Like again, because I'm on Tik TOK and because my algorithm is interesting, I come across a

lot of divorce people.

I comment on every single one of those divorce, uh, Tik TOKs and try to begin the relationship

or try to begin a friendship and encouraging them.

And that's part of what a digital missionary does.

A digital missionary looks for opportunities to comment and share the positiveness of Jesus.

Because again, we, we know this, there's so many misconceptions about who believers really

are and people just make up things.

It's my job as a digital missionary to share the love of Jesus of who Jesus really is to people.

And I do it in what I post as content, but, but how I interact with people as well.

Let me, let me ask just a clarifying question here on, you know, and I didn't see us focusing

on Tik TOK, but Hey, why not?

Um, when you're interfacing on Tik TOK, are you interfacing on a new life channel?

Are you interfacing on a Tom Pounder channel?

I'm interfacing as a Tom Pounder.

So you're doing ministry in this as a digital pastor, you're utilizing your personal channels

as opposed to an organizational church channel.

Um, why drill into that for me?

Yeah, we do have an, we do have an on a church channel and I post and interact with people

as they, they share.

But when I'm interacting with people, I'm highly looking to interact with people from

a personal person, because again, people respond better to people than they will respond to

a church.

If, if I comment now I can do a little of this and, uh, you know, um, but I've chosen to

just interact as a person because I feel like I have a greater chance of, of meeting them

where they are as Tom Pounder.

And they can look at my bio and they can, you know, discover all that stuff about who I

am.

They can look at my videos and know that I'm posting highly encouraging stuff.

But the reality is, um, I feel like I have a greater chance of impact if it's just Tom

Pounder.

What, at what level?

I mean, let's even, let's, I mean, obviously Tom, you trust yourself.

Yeah.

And so you're doing that outside on your, on your personal channels.

Uh, you know, I've, I've had conversations with, with other digital pastors that, that are

actually, I don't agree with this personally, but they're a little skeptical

towards allowing individuals to utilize their own channels as opposed to utilizing the organizational.

They don't, they don't trust people.

They're afraid of, um, you know, inappropriate circumstances or, or things happening.

Um, how do you, like, how would you get past that through, from a new life perspective from

your church?

How do you trust the people?

How do you train the people, equip them?

What is that relationship?

Cause we want to get this beyond just digital pastor utilizing his own channels and starting

to empower others.

Maybe what are some of the, the, the steps, um, the check points that, that you put in

just to make sure or could make sure that things are legit.

Yeah.

So when, when I, when we talk about releasing digital missionaries and the first thing that

really they do is they, they go through an opportunity to go through a four week training

with me.

And I kind of go through the basics of what is a digital missionary and what are we looking

for?

And then I walk them through like, well, how can you be a digital missionary?

Because I think a lot of people, um, think that a digital missionary has to be a 20, 30

something year old person or 40 something old person.

The very first class that I did of digital missionaries, they were all over 40, you know, but they were

looking to figure out how they can use their platform, uh, to encourage people with Jesus.

And again, part of the cool thing about being, going through this class that I had with them

is I taught them all the basics of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube.

Um, at that time I didn't talk about Tik TOK, but the next one I'm going to do, we're going

to talk about Tik TOK, you know?

Um, and so we, I go through a process with them.

Um, and then, you know, kind of weed, weed out some of the people that may not be quite

ready to do this.

But the other thing I do is, um, I do a lot of online Bible studies, uh, and the people

that really comment and are really engaged and active on those online Bible studies, I

actually ask them personally to consider, uh, taking the steps of path forward and being

a digital missionary, because I'm seeing their spiritual development, their growth a little

bit.

And so I'll ask them to run with me and then I'll, I'll stick them actually in a group.

And this is a, through WhatsApp, I'll stick them in a WhatsApp group and just try to test

it out a little bit without ever officially being a digital missionary.

I, I tested out with them and then we go through the training as they make it through

there.

So it's a little bit of a few step process.

It's not refined by any way, stretching the imagination.

I know there's probably other churches that are doing it better than I am, but that's the

process I'd go through.

And I've, you know, I've seen you do, doing this recently, those online Bible studies through,

uh, Twitter spaces.

How's, how's that going?

Uh, okay.

So the first one was great.

It was very good.

The second one, it was not good.

And so we had, you know, and so, but that's one of the things that I've really enjoyed about

this is I'm really experimenting to see what works.

And, uh, it, again, I know this is being recorded and people are going to hear about

it, but, uh, I post because it did not go well yesterday.

I actually posted a thing on my digital bootcamp Facebook group to say, when's the best time

to do an online Bible study?

Because I'm trying to get an idea of when is the best time.

See, I took from now you're going to get into the weeds a little bit, but I selected 6 PM

on a Thursday because I, I saw some people doing Twitter spaces at 5 and 6 PM.

And I'm like, okay, that's probably an ideal time.

They're getting a good audience, but I'm going to run with it.

But what I discovered after yesterday, I said, you know what?

Six o'clock is not a good time because the people I'm trying to reach are making dinners

for their families right now, or they're doing family time.

I need to go.

I need to go later.

I need to do these later and to try to attract an audience that way, because that's my target

audience.

They're going to be on later when their kids are asleep and they've got a little bit of

free time.

Yeah.

All the studies that I've done, I tend to be like eight or nine at night.

Um, and so I, I just lean more that way.

Thanks for telling me, man.

I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sorry.

My, my, my fault.

I didn't know the quicker you fail, the quicker you are to that time when you do actually succeed.

So there you go.

I was just helping you help, helping you succeed quicker.

But, but here's the deal.

Here's the deal, Jeff.

I mean, as a digital missionary, you're going to fail a lot.

Um, as new technology comes out and as things develop, you're going to try things, you're

going to fail, but that's the beauty of it.

I mean, I failed yesterday and I'm like, okay, this just didn't work.

I'm going to, I'm going to make the adjustments and for next week, we'll, we'll do something

different.

Yeah.

And that's, that's beautiful.

And within your churches, that may be hard to get to that place.

So I, and I'll just speak from my own ministry life.

A lot of times for me, failure was, you know, abandon ship and let's never go there again.

Um, very rarely did I get the failure to iterate failure to learn lessons and re-implement.

Uh, and it's actually, that's something that we've done in several podcasts with Jay Cranda

talking about because Jay's culture out at Saddleback has been completely different where, you

know, I, I think they're currently on their fifth implementation of a micro church strategy.

Um, and, and it's not even that all of them have failed.

The first couple were very successful.

They just weren't scalable.

And so they just, when they get to a point, they realize, Hey, this isn't working.

Let's try it again.

Hey, this worked, but it has this weakness.

Let's try it again.

Okay.

This was a complete failure.

Let's try it again.

And, and it's understanding, listen, in the year 2021, anybody who says they have a playbook,

uh, for church ministry, I don't know what they're talking about.

Uh, COVID trashed everything.

Nobody knows what they're, what they're doing.

I've, I've done, I've done meetups with, with digital pastors, um, with dozen plus digital

pastors and half of them are openly saying, Hey, I don't, I don't actually know what I'm

doing here.

Like it's, it's, it's, it's completely random and everybody's got their strengths and weaknesses.

And what's fascinating is what one church is really good at and other churches horrible

at, which is one of the reasons why we do this podcast to be able to highlight successes,

to be able to highlight, um, new learnings in this area to help churches understand how

to take some next steps.

And this idea of digital missionary, uh, and empowering and releasing people.

This is just golden.

Tell us, I want to drill in a little more into the weeds here, Tom.

Um, you, you were so, and I didn't, I didn't realize this and, and we talked about Tyler,

Tyler, we're going to have on, uh, at some point here in a couple months, he's ramping

up his trainings right now towards digital missionary and excited to kind of see what he's doing

and thinking.

I didn't realize you were actually doing like a four week course on that.

It sounds like, you know, a couple of times here.

Talk to me, like, do you know, I'm, this is in the weeds and I apologize for putting you

on the spot.

What's like the syllabus of the four weeks?

What are you covering over those four weeks?

What is that development process for training somebody to be a digital missionary?

What does it actually do?

Well, so like the first week is something where we just talk about the value of missionary

work, why we should go, what's the point of us going and being there.

And then I kind of tease a little bit.

I try to keep these to like an hour long time because I know time is very valuable, but we,

we, we dig into scripture a little bit about Jesus calling us to, to go and reach other

people and how technology has changed and evolved over the years, um, and how now we have this

opportunity and I kind of glance over some social media stuff.

And then week two, I dig into social media and what is social media?

Um, what's, what's the pros and cons of all the major platforms.

Uh, of course I spend the most time on Twitter because it's the best pro right there.

I mean, just kidding, um, but I spend time on all the, the major ones.

I talk about Facebook, Instagram, Twitter.

I talk about YouTube.

And again, like I said, I'll incorporate Tik TOK in the next one that I do.

Um, and then week three, um, we get into, um, ministry opportunities.

And I talk about how are, what are the different ways that you can be a digital missionary.

And we work towards the different things that you can tell about stories and posting images,

posting live streams.

Again, as you know, Jeff, there's like some real basic stuff that you can do that everyone

can do really easy starting today.

And then you dig down a little bit deeper in what ultimately we get to do is, um, uh, I

want them to be able to share their story, their testimony.

Um, and so I, the assignment on week three is what's your story.

Uh, and when you come back to class, I want you to the following week, tell us your three

to five minute story so that you can share it.

Uh, and then week four is when we, um, we actually share our stories.

Uh, the, the homework assignment then is to go and share it in some form online.

But then we also talk about tech gear that you can use, you know, how, you know, using

your smartphone is maybe the only tool you will need.

And then we talk about some other tools and gadgets you can use, uh, that will help you

make videos better, uh, or do, uh, or share your content better.

So that's kind of the general thing without looking at it right now.

That's kind of the general, how I, how I work it.

I know.

I, I love it.

And that's, that's a great.

Um, even just base model to kind of work towards, um, you know, as I mean, I think I was 40

when, and with a 15 year ministry staff, like a ministry career, professional Christian church

staff, I think I was 40 before somebody literally taught me how to share my faith.

Um, like the evangelism training, um, like the evangelism training that piece.

And, and, and I, at the time it was, um, you know, the three circles, four fields, three

thirds, like there's whole system centered around that.

And somebody sat down and actually started, I was, I'm not kidding 40.

And it was like, Oh my gosh, I, and, and, and, and am I sharing my faith?

Am I doing this confession hour here?

No, I wasn't before that point.

I was great at producing services, but even as a church staff, I was not great at, at having

those personal level conversations.

Um, and, and I would suspect a lot of our church members, a lot of the consumers, a lot of the

people in our, in our seats, um, or watching us online, uh, I would suspect that they're

probably the same way.

I mean, sure.

Maybe they're, they're comfortable having a conversation if somebody comes and talks to

them about Jesus, but something proactive, uh, something reaching out, even praying for

these people in advance and walking in with intentionality, uh, and allowing the Holy spirit

to use them.

I, I, I would suspect at least my circle of influence and my friends, they struggle with

that.

And so even Tom, what you're suggesting is a, is a beautiful thing.

Well, let me ask this.

Like if some, if a church out there is like, Hey, I want to do that.

I want to, I'm interested in this, uh, digital missionary piece, um, evangelism training, helping

people understand how to utilize their social media networks, their Oikos, um, for, for the

cause of Christ.

Like how would a church even get started in this?

How do you, how do you get from square one to where you are?

That's a good question, Jeff.

And I wish I could have the answer for you.

No, I'm just kidding.

Uh, I, I, I would contact someone like you, Jeff.

I mean, I, or someone, you know, someone that you know, that's doing it again, the great

thing that's come out of, um, COVID in is that there's more people thinking online now

and there's more people thinking online opportunities and people like you, Jeff, who've been in online

ministry well before COVID hit, um, have been thinking that way.

And I think, you know, if, if you really see the value in online and I can't see how you've

been through COVID and not seen the value of online, then you have to just continue to scratch

where it is itching and realize that while people may be zoomed out, they're still watching

your services.

They're still engaging with people online and there's still plenty of opportunities.

Uh, and so I, I think it's like reaching out to the people who are really doing it.

And, you know, again, Jeff, your, your list of people who know is far greater than the mine,

but I think just reaching out to some of these people who've been doing it for a long time

and just picking their brains.

And that's, that's one of the things, again, when I started doing online ministry, the very

first person I reached out to was Jay Cranda and he didn't know me from anybody.

And he was the nicest person to me and shared just the most amazing stuff with me and gave

me time and answered all my questions.

And then as I got to know you, you know, well before COVID, you were super nice to me as well.

And just sharing stuff, all these online guys are some of the coolest people that I've ever

met in ministry.

And I'm not kidding.

I mean, they're, they're not arrogant.

They are humble people who are simply trying to do the Lord's work.

And so, um, I don't know if you have a list, Jeff, of all the great people doing it, but

I would say start talking to them and to getting ideas because there's lots of, lots of opportunities

out there.

Yeah.

I think one of the reasons why the community is so tight is because pre COVID, you know,

for a decade, Jay Cranda was told he was crazy.

You were told you were crazy.

I mean, I've, I've, I've been doing this for 20 years and I've been told I've been, you

know, nuts and I've been chewed up and down.

Um, yeah, we can, this podcast, I've told that story many times, uh, but it's, it's understanding

as a result of that, you know, even in this COVID season, uh, the, the, the continuity,

the, the, the, the friend, the friendliness, the support, uh, within the digital, I, I talk

with on, uh, with, uh, like student pastors, children's pastors, music pastors.

I don't, I don't see a creative directors, communication people.

Like I don't see the, the community aspect nearly as tight in those areas as I do among,

uh, digital pastors and online people and churches that, that are doing online ministry.

So yeah, definitely resource.

And we'll throw some links in the show notes.

You can check that out.

I mean, I would also, I would even start to kick the tires, explore some of these like

disciple making systems that are, that are already out there, uh, that are already existing.

Don't reinvent the wheel.

Uh, Timothy initiative disciples made, uh, four fields, some of the stuff out of, out of no

place left, um, discipleship tools, uh, is, is another one, uh, zoom a training.

Um, like there's, there's a lot of stuff that already exists and it's not that hard.

Hey, ask your church this, can I get 10 people and do an experiment?

I want to go through this 10 week discipleship system and see if we can't, at the end of this,

get people excited about talking about Jesus on social media.

And, and if you get success with the 10 people, that's awesome.

If you don't get success, maybe try another material.

I mean, another system, another process, make adjustments, try to figure out where the breakdown

was, ask where the breakdown was and try again.

I mean, it doesn't stuff like this doesn't cost anything and it doesn't hurt anything to try

to experiment.

Uh, and the payoff can be, um, incredible can be like church changing.

Well, I would agree.

There's so many resources out there.

And I think in a large part too, um, when I told my church that I was going to do a digital

missionary group, they were like a static.

They never even thought of that before, but if you have someone thinking that way, um,

then they're going to, they're going to let you run with it.

And, um, like you said, there's so many different tools out there.

You're not recreating the rule, the, the, you're not recreating the wheel.

You're simply just tailoring it to the digital and online world.

Love it.

Love it.

Love it.

Hey, this has been Matt, Tom, this has been a great time.

Uh, it's always great hanging out with you.

Uh, as, as we're landing the plane, man, any closing thoughts here?

No, I, I think there's lots of, there's lots of opportunities out there and the more digital

missionaries we can get out there is sharing hope and love of Jesus, not creating arguments

or division, but just sharing the truth of Jesus out there.

The better our social media interactions are going to be.

And Lord knows we need to reclaim social media for the kingdom.

Maybe a little bit here or there as, as well.

So, Hey, uh, Tom, thanks for jumping on the podcast.

If, if we'll include, um, links in the show notes for all of Tom stuff, but Tom, great

for, thanks for jumping on.

Glad to have you here.

And, uh, for everybody else listening, thanks for joining in with, uh, the church digital

podcast.

Thanks for jumping on the show.

We'll see you next time here at the pod.

Y'all have a good day.