EP134: Rob Wegner & Helping People Find Their Personal Mission

All right, so I'm in a text group

with some digital pastors

and one of them sent a graphic along.

You guys will appreciate this.

It's a photo of a couch.

And the headline says,

church on the sofa will never be the same

as church in a sanctuary.

And so the premise here,

and it's funny, a digital pastor posted it.

And then the other digital pastors,

they're all boo and memes and gifs

of like people booing it.

And it's funny.

My response was, well, God, I hope not.

I hope what's happening in the physical building

is not like what's happening in digital space.

Because if physical is the same thing as the couch,

then we're wasting the opportunities

we have to reach a different type of person.

Now, this was abstract thinking.

And I don't think the other digital pastors

in the text group really maybe appreciated it.

We'll get a chance maybe to talk with them later about it.

I feel like there's something brewing as a future episode.

But it comes down to this heart of,

we can do something different digitally

than we can physically.

Because if all we're doing is the same thing,

then we're really wasting the opportunity

to reach a different person digitally.

This is one of the reasons why I love this idea

of helping people find personal mission.

Established churches have struggled with this.

And honestly, the calling and the mission

of an established church is so big,

they really don't have an opportunity to nuance,

to get into the relational aspects

of helping people find their spiritual gifts,

their talents, their abilities,

and helping release them on personal mission.

And this, this is where I think digital churches can shine.

This brings us into the conversation here,

because if I'm working a digital-only church,

I'm trying to understand how to get people on personal mission,

who am I going to learn from?

Who's doing this real well?

And the answer to that is Rob Wagner

with KC Underground, K Kansas City Underground.

Now, if you're not familiar with Rob,

he's been on the podcast,

man, I would probably guess three or four times

at this point.

So, a great guest here,

a long-time guest with the podcast.

But in this conversation,

we really want to get into personal mission.

How can the church equip people,

not for purposes of the brand,

but to help these people understand

what their personal mission,

what their calling is,

where God may be leading them?

And then how can the church resource them

to go and do what God's calling them to do?

Now, we talk about this all the time

in context of digital-only churches.

You know, we've talked about church as platform,

multiplying out.

We've talked about disciple makers

who are witnessing to other disciples,

who are creating other disciples

and the multiplication part of it.

You've heard me talk about Seth Godin.

And if we really want to reach the world,

it's a matter of telling a small crowd,

make the message as simple as possible

and make it specific for a group of people

and then ask them to own it

and tell someone else.

So the idea of personal mission,

if we're really going to be effective

in the months and the years to come,

is huge,

which makes this conversation so important.

Now, personal mission is key.

Rob, we're also celebrating.

He just published a new book,

co-authored a new book,

Starfish in the Spirit,

with a number of other people.

We're going to talk about that in the show as well.

But it comes down to this idea

of how can we create decentralized movements,

decentralized networks of churches digitally?

How's it done physically?

How are they equipping?

How are they resourcing?

How are they training physically?

And then let's take some cues from that

and start to figure out.

We talked about this even back with Dave Ferguson,

the relationship between a micro and a digital

are very close.

Microchurch and digital church are very close.

It's just the view of community.

Community is different between the two,

but the opportunities to network,

to multiply exist in the same space.

So here's who we're bringing into the conversation.

We're bringing in Rob Wagner,

Kansas City Underground, of course.

We're bringing in Chesley Lundy,

lead pastor from King City Church.

Now, King City's another digital-only church.

Chesley's been on the podcast too,

recently talking about through Stadia.

He's planning his digital-only church through Stadia.

So we had him on maybe a couple months ago

talking about that.

Rob Wagner, talking from a microchurch.

Chesley Lundy, trying to adapt this microchurch strategy

and do it within a digital-only expression church

like King City.

And of course, I'm coming into the conversation,

myself, Jeff, with the Church Digital

and Stadia Church Planning

in a conversation that I'm calling

The Starfish in the Spirit,

Helping People Find Personal Mission.

Okay, everybody, here you go.

Rob, tell us a little bit.

I mean, tell us about Starfish in the Spirit, right?

Like where did this premise come from

and why should people be reading the book?

Originally, I was influenced,

as was Lance and Alan as well,

by a book called

The Spider and the Starfish

by Ori Brofman and Rod Beckstrom.

And Ori is a professor at Berkeley

and a very intelligent and curious

and thorough academic.

And he had noticed kind of this pattern of leadership

that was deconstructing another form of leadership.

In other words,

if you consider something like Napster, right?

And what did Napster do

to the traditional recording industry, right?

It collapsed it overnight.

And you could make an endless list of those examples

where this form of decentralized leadership

that's driven more by a DNA

and distributed power and influence,

a very micro power can actually take down

a very mega hierarchy quite quickly.

And we've seen so many examples of that

in the last 20 years in our culture.

So Ori wrote a book

to basically give a guiding metaphor.

The Spider is centralized leadership

and it's hierarchical.

It's top down.

And a spider, you know,

has a head and a body

and legs that radiate out.

And there's a starfish.

A starfish and a spider

look a little alike from a distance, right?

But if you get up close,

they look different.

And then underneath the surface,

they're dramatically different.

So with a starfish,

if you chop off what looks like its head,

you end up with two starfish

because everything that is required to reproduce

in the starfish is in every cell of the starfish.

And I read that book when I was on a flight to India

and I was a part of a disciple making movement

that became an incredible church planning movement

with literally hundreds of thousands of new disciples of Jesus

and thousands of micro churches.

And when I read that book on the plane,

it was how they say a nomadic experience,

I think it is,

where it was like traveling with Jesus to India,

him helping me understand in a deeper way

the type of leadership.

And it became sort of an obsession for me.

And I'd say for Lance,

and of course,

Alan with his work in The Forgotten Ways,

it's clearly this form of leadership

that is required to see a movemental form of church.

So that's kind of the origin story.

And what's crazy is I read The Forgotten Ways

on the same plane ride

as I read that book.

And now both of them ended up contributing to this book.

And at that point in time,

I would have never imagined

something like that would have happened.

It really is like a dream come true.

Like, is this happening?

This is real?

I'm talking to Ori Brothman and Alan Hirsch,

and they're both involved with this book.

So that's kind of the backstory, brother.

Forgotten Ways, that was,

I mean, that's an older book, right?

I mean, I went down on a date, I'm sorry, but-

It came out the same year as Ori's book, 2006.

Yeah, so I mean, it's been 15 years.

What, and that's, I mean, even in book age,

I think that's a long time.

Like, what brought about this new way of,

or this fresh way of thinking,

or going back to this old way of thinking?

Why write the book now?

Well, for me personally, you know,

since I read that book,

it's been this 15-year journey to say,

okay, I'm experiencing this form of the church in India,

but at that point in time, I lived in Indiana.

Like, why not in Indiana?

You know, I was in a very successful megachurch

and began to basically experiment, repent, iterate,

and saying, how do we get back to this more primal form

of disciple-making, primal forms of church,

and keep reproducing what you could call

sort of like nodes of power in a network

where it's spreading out further and further and further.

And I kept going deeper into the world

of disciple-making movements

and church-planting movements

in places like Africa and South Asia.

And I started leading my teams

inside of the megachurch this way

and kept seeing more and more joy,

more and more authentic community,

more and more flourishing,

more and more multiplication.

And so I just kept going and learning

and trying to find the best practitioners

I could find here in America.

And eventually that led to

what is now the Kansas City Underground.

And Kansas City Underground

is a decentralized network of missionaries

and microchurches and networks of thereof

and hubs that support the missionaries

and the microchurches.

So my personal motivation first and foremost

is I was writing this book

as a handbook for the Kansas City Underground

for our leaders, for our elders,

for our hub teams.

But I've learned along the way

when you do things in a more open source way

where you're not just creating a resource

just internally,

but to actually be shared with the world,

it catalyzes more learning, actually.

As you share it,

you get new insights.

As you think about how you have to describe this,

not just to your crowd,

but to the larger world.

So for me, it's like,

I need this for the Kansas City Underground

and why not share it

with the rest of the world at the same time?

And honestly, I got invited into it.

Lance and Ori had worked for probably a year or so

before they invited me into the project.

And, you know, when Lance asked,

it was, you know,

I think I prayed for about, you know,

two seconds.

And then I was like, yes!

Ori, yes!

Okay.

Because I was a super fan of all of Ori's work, man.

Obviously, you know,

you started talking about Napster

and how that was able to

basically disrupt

the music industry.

And I'm reading

Starfish and the Spider with Ori

and then reading your book,

Starfish and the Spirit.

Do you think that the

prevailing systems

that digital has

basically

rediscovered

with

crowdsourcing

and with these

like file sharing

with Napster

has allowed a paradigm shift

for this

decentralized

leadership piece

to take place?

I guess

a beggar question

would be like,

would it have been possible

if that stuff

didn't already happen?

That's an amazing observation.

You know,

there's this

interesting relationship

between

the church

and technology.

So if you think about

when Jesus

was walking,

you know,

first century Palestine

and then

the church is launched

after his

ascension

and the coming of the Holy Spirit,

there was the

Roman road system

and a messenger system

that allowed for

a global spread

of the message

of the good news

of Jesus Christ.

And then

you think about

the printing press

Gutenberg's

gift to the world

and that

worked hand in glove

with the Reformation.

And I feel

the internet

is

part of what

the spirit of God

is doing

in the world.

Like I think

God is working

through every sector

of society

including

technology

and

there's fancy

words for this

like one of them

is called

a morphogenic

field

like in other words

ideas

begin to

collate

or

congeal

or emerge

at certain times

and it would be

people who are

distant from each other

start perceiving

this possibility

at the same moment.

For example,

there were multiple people

who created telephones

all around the same

amount of time

because the technology

it built

and there's enough

people that can do

this sort of

evolutionary thinking

to go,

oh,

this is what's next.

So the reason

I bring that up

is

here we are

at the greatest

hour in the history

of the church.

Most people don't know

that or feel that

here in the West

but outside the Western

world,

we have the greatest

disciple making movements

and church planning movements

in the history

of the church

and simultaneously

at that moment

we have the greatest

distribution of

information

and equipping

that has

ever existed

and it does

fundamentally

emphasize

a different form

of leadership

and it makes

possible

the starfish

decentralized leadership

in a way

that is now

multiplied

I don't know

by a factor

of what?

What is it?

you can't even

put a number

on it

by a million

and

so I do think

right now

we're at this

transition moment

in history

where not just

the church

every form

of like complex

hierarchical

leadership

is actually

crumbling

in one way

or the other

and it's being

deconstructed

one way

or the other

there's a book

it's called

The End of Power

which was very

informative

in actually

writing this book

and the whole

thesis is

there's this

emergent

of these

micro powers

that are

decentralized

they form

around a

shared idea

a small

set of

practices

you can start

making the list

of what those

are

you know

like Al Qaeda

you know

there's positive

and negative

forms of this

and they're

they can't be

controlled

or stopped

and they're

kind of

taking apart

some of the

pillars

or foundations

for the mega powers

and we're

in this

sort of

in-between

state

of

having grown

up with

like kind

of the era

of corporations

you know

monolithic

corporations

for example

and

and it's

it's interesting

because there's

like an accumulation

of power

by those

mega powers

but at the

same time

the micro powers

are multiplying

and the internet

is basically

the perfect

force multiplier

for that

I feel like

I'm waxing

eloquent

is this helpful

at all

I didn't want

to talk on this

all day long

because I do

want to shift

into digital

churches

but you've

set this up

really well

so I mean

essentially

organizations

are deconstructing

things

things are

breaking apart

there's this

tendency

for things

at this point

where systems

are becoming

decentralized

or pushing

themselves

more towards

decentralization

I don't want

to put words

in your mouth

maybe I did

but it was

somewhere in

that realm

when you have

conversations

with pastors

leaders

towards this

I'm just curious

like what's

what's the

knee-jerk reaction

are they

yeah you're

right

but are they

like you're

crazy

what's

what's the

average reaction

that you get

when you have

these

I mean you wrote

a book literally

on this

so they

they know

who you are

they know

what you're

about

do they like

run away

when you start

walking up to

them to go

hide

go talk to

somebody else

like what

what's their

response

well I would

say there's

been a similar

experience to

what I think

you guys in

the digital

space have

experienced

whereas a

couple years

ago

there was

you know

what we're

doing with

decentralized

leadership

missionary

formation

microchurch

decentralized

networks

um

I think

a lot

of

church

leaders

saw

that

sort

of

as

a

novelty

um

they saw

it as

uh

an elective

like yeah

it's maybe

something you

can add

if

but it's

not

it's not

really

you know

central

or truly

important

or

um

a lot

of them

thought about

it more

as like

a new

method

or a

technique

um

like oh

maybe I

can add

you know

microchurches

and reach

a few more

people that

way

you know

what

covid has

done is

it's changed

the conversation

completely

or people

have

um

began to

understand

how fragile

actually the

centralized

form of

churches

and what

happened

in

covid

was

well you

had

basically

two

possibilities

like

you're

in the

digital

space

or you're

in the

microchurch

space

and I

think what

people are

discovering

is

yes

there was

a kind

of a

cultural

pragmatic

reason

to explore

these

possibilities

but as

they begin

genuinely

exploring them

out of

desperation

there's been

more and more

church leaders

that are

realizing

at least

in my

experience

it feels

like the

number of

church leaders

who are

now looking

at

um

this

conversation

they're

looking at

it as an

essential

conversation

they're

looking at

it as

it's no

longer

novel

it's

necessary

and with

the microchurch

conversation

I think

there's

more and

more

pastors

who

are

looking

at

the

scriptures

again

and

realizing

maybe

the

new

testament

really

is

the

story

of

a

disciple

making

movement

that

produced

a

microchurch

movement

that

spread

across

the

Roman

empire

and

this

form

of

church

that

we

do

it

really

is

extra

biblical

that

doesn't

mean

it's

wrong

but

this

other

thing

of

like

decentralized

networks

of

microchurches

maybe

that

really

was

what

the

church

started

with

and

that

small

groups

aren't

the

same

thing

and

I

think

there's

a

similar

discovery

happening

in

the

digital

space

where

people

are

beginning

to

understand

the

level

of

community

that's

possible

in

that

space

exceeded

what

their

expectations

were

because

they

were

forced

to

go

into

the

digital

space

and

spend

a

year

and

a

half

in

Zoom

which

they

would

have

never

done

and

realized

wow

I

can

actually

have

community

out

here

I

can

actually

have

we

there's

so

much

more

presence

than

we

thought

was

maybe

possible

and

then

it

basically

educated

the

entire

world

how

to

get

into

the

digital

space

you

know

and

at

the

exponential

ventures

recently

one of

the

guys

quoted

a

statistic

which

I'm

going

to

need

you

guys

to

help

me

find

and

cite

but

it

was

like

I

think

he

said

17

or

18

percent

of

the

population

spends

more

of their

time

in a

digital

space

versus

a

physical

space

do you

guys

know

that

statistic

no

I don't

remember

hearing

that

but

I

can

do

some

digging

towards

it

to

find

out

well

that

that

was

convicting

to

me

it

was

like

even

if

I

have

like

a

physical

missionary

in

that

person's

neighborhood

or

network

they're

never

going

to

connect

with

them

there

because

they

come

home

and

they're

basically

it's

like

they're

getting

let's

say

they're

a

gamer

it's

like

I'm

home

I'm

gaming

in

the

next

six

hours

and

all

my

social

space

is

there

so

if

I

don't

have

a

missionary

in

that

space

we

won't

have

a

gospel

presence

there

you

know

and

I

forget

who

it

was

but

when

he

dropped

that

quote

it

was

like

a

light

bulb

went

on

I

was

like

whoa

that's

like

300,000

people

in

Kansas

City

it's

only

going

to

go

up

too

my

kids

are

six

and

seven

years

old

and

we

try

to

say

hey

no

you

got

to

go

outside

you

got

to

play

but

it's

like

no

Minecraft

so

it's

just

going

to

go

up

you've

been

using

a lot

of

digitally

savvy

words

by the

way

I've

always

felt

micro

and

digital

was

a

very

similar

strategy

if not

the

exact

same

strategy

it

just

looks

at

community

differently

community

being

the

neighborhood

the

zip

code

at

a

micro

digital

micro

focus

but in

different

nuances

within

it

so

hearing

nodes

of

power

and

a

network

being

described

for

a

decentralized

micro

man

I feel

the same

thing

I don't

know

Chesley

does

in

a

digital

context

which

I really

would love

to spit

ball

here

for

a

little

while

Rob

you've

got

some

vision

for

what

you

think

what

you're

now

understanding

maybe

as a

result

of

ongoing

conversations

17-18%

of people

spend

50%

of their

time

in

digital

man

maybe

we

do

need

to

do

some

churches

in

that

space

Chesley

man

you're

literally

launching

a

network

of

churches

you told

me

recently

you almost

feel like

a network

just connecting

these people

together

so both

of you

are

experiencing

some of

this

digital

church

happening

tell me

and I

just would

open up

for both

you guys

what

what is

a

what is

a

decentralized

digital

church

network

movement

insert

adjective

what does

this even

look like

when

COVID

hit

none

of our

I mean

when we

were in

total

lockdown

none

of our

microchurches

could meet

in person

so we

basically

upgraded

our

zoom

account

and

said

to every

missionary

microchurch

you have

access

to a

zoom

room

and

what

happened

is

virtually

all

of the

microchurches

there were

a couple

that

didn't

make

the

transition

for

various

reasons

but

all of

them

basically

transitioned

to a

digital

space

where

basically

through

their

phones

through

their

laptops

they

began

to

connect

and

what

was

interesting

is

like

our

microchurch

and this

happened

with a

number

of the

microchurches

like we

had a

rhythm

of

hey

you know

about

twice

a month

we're

gonna

have

like

we're

gonna

have

one

party

and

then

we're

gonna

have

something

that's

about

serving

in our

community

kind of

two

expressions

of

mission

or

out

and

then

we

always

have

like

we

gotta

have

a

couple

what

we

call

in

expressions

so

for

us

it's

like

hey

meet

with

your

coach

or

be

a

part

of

the

equipping

gathering

so

you're

connected

to

the

larger

movement

you know

you're

you're

being

supported

and

you're

connecting

with

eldership

that

kind

of

thing

and

then

two

up

is

like

in

your

microchurch

family

meet

at least

twice

a month

around

a meal

a table

for

discipleship

engaging

the scriptures

prayer

planning

for

mission

like

what

are we

going

to

do

for

our

outs

this

month

well

most

of

the

microchurches

went

to

meeting

every

week

for

an

up

so

it

doubled

actually

the

number

of

up

meetings

and

for

our

microchurch

it

immediately

deepened

the

community

too

because

we're

in

this

crisis

pandemic

where

there's

so

much

fear

and

anxiety

and

then

we

also

noticed

like

the

connecting

in

the

equipping

gathering

same

thing

missionaries

who were

coming

once or

twice

a month

now

we're

coming

every

week

to

the

equipping

gathering

and

then

the

number

of

missionaries

we

ended

up

equipping

has

just

gone

because

we

moved

our

equipping

into

a

digital

space

we

all

over

Kansas

City

rather

than

just

in

the

southwest

quadrant

where

we're

located

so

I

feel

like

we've

been

living

there

for

a

year

and

a

half

and

now

we're

sort

of

coming

out

of

it

and

what

we're

deciding

to do

with

our

equipping

gathering

is

we're

going

to do

an

in

real

life

gathering

probably

once

every

six

weeks

but

the

point

of

it

will

be

more

about

worship

prayer

kind of

like

what

you

could

call

sort

of

like

prophetic

activation

a

chance

to

sort

of

hear

the

voice

of

God

together

and

commission

each

other

again

and

be

sent

again

and

so

we're

going

to

continue

with

the

equipping

online

because

now

we're

reaching

people

all

over

the

city

they're

not

all

going

to

drive

an

hour

to

go

to

a

physical

location

for

equipping

like

we'll

keep

that

Holy

Spirit

to

fill

us

again

and

we're

going

to

be

sent

and

commissioned

and

we're

going to

hear

from

God

together

you see

what I

mean

so

I

feel

like

the

Lord

used

COVID

to

transition

us

into

that

space

man

whether

we

wanted

to

or

not

Chesley

what

are

you

seeing

bro

I

think

the

biggest

opportunity

that

the

church

hasn't

quite

figured

out

yet

is

the

power

of

influencer

marketing

and

I

believe

it's

the

new

frontier

for

missions

in

the

church

and

this

is

what

I'm

trying

to

do

right

now

right

so

I'm

going

out

I'm

starting

a

podcast

I'm

getting

on

social

I'm

beginning

to

make

aware

who

I

am

not

for

the

sake

of

my

fame

right

so

that's

the

largest

difference

between

an

influencer

marketer

and

an

influencer

missionary

is

we're

not

out

for

our

fame

we're

out

for

Jesus

fame

but

we're

going

into

these

sectors

so

for

me

it's

young

professionals

in

business

and

using

the

influencer

marketing

platform

by

building

a

personal

brand

and

then

funneling

them

into

a

training