EP119: Phygital Groups that Multiply

Hey, we're going to get you to that podcast in one second, but before we get there, I,

Jeff Reed, the Church Digital, Stadia Church Planning, I wanted to have a conversation with

you, churches that are out there. One of the greatest things I arguably think that I've done

in my life, other than married and kids, okay, that aside, one of the greatest ministry things

I've ever done is this idea of the fidgetal learning communities that we are offering

through Stadia Church Planning. We want to help you. We want to help your church learn to thrive,

grow, and multiply fidgetally, physically, as well as digitally. We've seen about 200 churches go

through this already, and it's been a phenomenal result of it. Culture is changing within these

churches. They're understanding what it is to thrive. They're understanding how to grow people,

how to grow their church, even in the midst of this COVID, not COVID, wherever we are in the season,

and they're even starting to understand what it means to multiply in fidgetal space. There's no secret

sauce to doing a digital strategy. There's no secret sauce to doing a fidgetal strategy. There's no

secret sauce to making your church thrive, grow, and multiply. It takes work. I'm not going to lie,

but through the framework, through the questions, through the learning communities,

we connect you with churches. We give you some content. We coach you along the way to help you

make the decisions that you need to make so that your church's strategy can thrive, grow, and multiply

your church along the way. This is a great opportunity for your church. We would love to have you be a part

of it. For more information, check out stadiacchurchplanning.org slash fidgetal,

stadiacchurchplanning.org slash fidgetal, P-H-Y-G-I-T-A-L. All right. Hey, that's it.

We're going to get you back to that episode right now.

Can small groups actually multiply? Can fidgetal small groups actually multiply? This is the question

that we're digging into here with this episode of the Church Digital Podcast. Jeff Reed here,

Church Digital, powered once again by Stadia Church Planting. I love the stuff that Stadia is doing,

fidgetal, and the way that they're exploring things like even small groups and how churches

can thrive, grow, and multiply, develop strategies that can help churches like yours learn to thrive,

grow, and multiply. Just recently, I had the opportunity to be on a webinar with our friends

over at Glue. If you're not familiar with Glue, check the website out, glue.us. There's some

really interesting things that they're doing even towards the point of helping churches market and

connect with people within their communities. Go to glueconnect.church slash stadia for more

information. I don't want to park out on that. Within the webinar, you'll hear something at the end that

gives more information towards this Glue Connect thing that they're doing for churches. But specifically

here, we're going to talk about how to get groups that multiply. And so I had a really great

conversation with Jamie Larson of Glue, where she was interviewing me. So we're going to flip the script

here on the Church Digital Podcast. Instead of me interviewing somebody else, somebody's interviewing me,

talking about how to get groups to multiply and maybe even a little bit teasing to what a

discipleship relationship with discipleship groups can look like in digital space. So for the conversation

here, Jamie Larson with Glue, Glue Connect, myself, Jeff with the Church Digital and Stadia Church

Planting, simply put, having a conversation about digital groups that multiply. Okay, everybody, here you go.

Well, hey, everyone. I'm Jamie Larson. I want to welcome you. Today's workshop is digital groups that multiply.

And by digital, we mean combining physical and digital. Please continue to introduce yourself in the chat. We do want

this to be interactive throughout the entire time. So you won't, don't feel rude if you're asking questions

or you're putting something in the chat. We absolutely want you to do that. If you're here with us for the

first time today, welcome. We've actually been having multiple workshops. And so we have a whole series of

them. We've got ones from writing emails to your congregation that they will actually read. And then we've got stuff

around social media and how to build relationships. We've got videos, we've got downloads, so much more.

And so we want to direct you to where you can watch any of those that may be helpful to you. And we have

in the chat, we'll have a link that you can go to so that you can access all of those. So over the next 45

minutes, we're going to walk you through the best practices for helping online groups multiply. I'm really

excited that you're here today. Don't know if you can tell, but I am super excited. My name is Jamie

Larson. I've been a pastor's wife for 20 years, which is weird because I don't even think I'm old enough

to be a pastor's wife for 20 years, but I have been. I started an online education site a couple or several

years ago, actually. And I had to learn the ins and outs of digital marketing, how to attract people

digitally, and how to grow them without ever meeting them. Does that sound familiar? Because that's what a

lot of you are having to do right now. Now I actually work at GLUE and I run the engaged church

community for pastors and communication directors. We also have Randy, Julia, and Jeremy from GLUE in the

chat who are available to answer any of your questions throughout the workshop. We will have a Q&A time at the

very end for you to also ask Jeff your questions. So if they can't answer those questions, they're going

to feed them to us at the end to make sure that we go over afterwards. So throughout our workshop,

we're going to post in the chat and ask some questions. And we would love for you to interact

with those answers or those questions and give us your answers. And so again, I just want to remind you,

make sure that as you're replying, that it's replying to everybody and not just panelists. Okay. Hey, Jeff,

how's it going? Well, hey, that was a mouthful. You went through that pretty well.

Yes, it is a mouthful. I'm glad I got through it. And I'm so excited that you are here with us today, Jeff. I want to

introduce everybody to you. I think a lot of people probably already know who you are, but just in case they don't,

I'm going to share a little bit about you. You are the director of digital church planting for Stadia,

correct? Yep. That's pretty awesome. Yeah, it's a fun job. I bet it is. Jeff's been in the church for

nearly 20 years and he started the church.digital in 2018. And now as the director of digital church

planning for Stadia, Jeff spends his time helping plant digital only churches in online communities.

That's so awesome. As well as helping churches develop and implement strategies for

digital church. I just know I'm going to get that term wrong, but I said it right this time,

digital. You're also married with your wife is Amy. You've got two children, a puppy who has a taste

for technology. Tell me about that. Yeah. So my dog loves to eat products and it seems to be the more

expensive, the better taste that it has. So recently she, she totally demolished, demolished the pair of

iPad or excuse me, I, uh, ear pods, AirPods version two, uh, not the pros. It was actually my excuse

to upgrade to the pros, but, uh, the case. Oh yeah. I was, so it, she's, I used to joke that like,

she's Thanos just coming along and thinning out the herd, allowing for, for more growth to come

afterwards. You see, I did a Marvel tie in there. I totally got that. Totally, totally got that. Good,

good, good, good. That's great. Yes. We have a, we have a puppy as well who does love ear pods. Um,

so I can, I can definitely relate. Well, Hey, we want to make sure that you stick around until the

end, because like I said, we're going to have a Q and a, which I think is going to be super valuable,

but we're also going to be giving two bonuses created by Stadia, um, with next steps that can

take you beyond what we even talk about today. These are really informative and really beautifully

designed, uh, bonuses. If this is the first time that you have been hanging out with glue,

I just want to tell you a little bit about us at glue. We are really passionate about growth and

we refer to leaders of churches and nonprofits as champions, because that's exactly what you are.

At the end of the day, our goal is to serve you. So we spend a lot of our time listening to our

champions and figuring out what is standing in the way of your success. And then we work to build

tech solutions that make your job a little easier. I also want to preference that any tools or tech

solutions that we talk about today, um, they will be at zero cost to you. So we are not trying to sell

you anything. I hope that is really refreshing to hear today is all about being a gift to you. And,

um, we hope that this conversation serves you and your church really well. So without further ado,

let's move on to our guest, Jeff, and learn about digital groups that multiply. Okay, Jeff. So what are

the strengths and the weaknesses as well as the similarities and differences of online small

groups versus physical small groups? How do we do this? Well, wow. Like that, that's the big question,

right? How to, what's the difference? We know this physical realm, we're trying to do it online. Um,

and by the way, it's great to be here. Really looking forward to the conversation. Glue crowd. Hey,

thanks for, thanks for this. Um, and I'm a big chat guy, like, like we had talked about here. So even,

I want to ask the room in advance right now, you tell me what, what are the strengths that you see

as you've been testing, as you've been experimenting, as you've been trying online small groups as a

result of COVID, what are you seeing kind of as, as the strengths coming out of that? For me, I see

scalability. It's the ability to virtually at any time do a small group. You want to do a small group

at nine o'clock at night to reach a bunch of soccer moms that single soccer moms that have a bunch of

kids. Yeah, you can do that. You, after the kids go to bed, do a small group and create that

community. Then you want to do it at 11 o'clock at night. Well, I mean, I guess if you're single and

you're not going to wake up the house, sure. Why not go do that? Five o'clock in the morning,

there there's no excuse because you're in an online environment. You're able to do things

virtually digitally that you wouldn't be able to do physically. It's, it's much more convenient

as well. So it's a lot less excuses for engaging in there. It's easy to join a group. Honestly,

we all have webcams in our pockets. They're called iPhones or Androids. And so that the little,

you know, cameras that we've got built in coupled with zoom or some sort of technology,

it's easy to engage right there. But from a more kind of philosophical standpoint, video,

digital small groups is really the great equalizer. Oftentimes, if you really analyze some of the

psychology of what happens in, in, on, in physical small groups, there's a lot of, of judging, or

there's a lot of uncomfortability based on, on where we are meeting in the physical space. Maybe

it's a lower economical person, uh, who's joining a physical small group, walking into a luxurious two

two-story mansion with this gorgeous, uh, gateway doorway. And immediately they're feeling, um,

less valued, uh, more shy, more uncomfortable because it's not in their space. When in fact,

what we discover in, uh, on, in online small groups, there's a lens, like you can't see it,

but it's, it's right there. And that lens gives me the ability, safety, comfort. You know, um, Jamie,

you're, you're on the other side of the country. You and I can have a conversation and I'm not worried

about being judged because I'm in Miami, Florida, and you're in Colorado. And so the ability for us

to get real with each other quickly in digital environments, digital pastors tell you that happens

very quickly in digital space, but not necessarily physical space.

Yeah. That's actually a really great point. I never would have thought of that. And also I

don't have to clean. I mean, you're only seeing the neat part of my office right now. I didn't

have to clean everything up, which is a huge plus. Yeah. It's, it's ironic. I'm actually in my guest

bedroom. So there's like a bed four feet that way. You don't know that you don't need to know that

I don't have to. My dog is probably trashing the living room as we speak. And so I don't have to

explore and expose a lot of that. I can just worry about the conversation that we're having

and engage in the space without having to worry about what's happening in the other areas.

And from, once again, from another practical standpoint, we've got the ability, and you can

Google this term. It's called flip the classroom. This is actually like a, an educational, my wife

has a master's in education and they've studied this, where they found that the lecture portion

of what happens in a, in a, in a classroom setting. The best way to do that is not within the actual

classroom setting with multiple people, but it's watching it on demand during the week. And then when

you gather together, it's not listen to one person lecture, it's actually dialoguing. Right. And so now

we've got the opportunity to not just listen to a video, watch a video kind of online, do that stuff in

advance, but come into the room ready to dialogue. It's, it's better in digital environments. It's

better to ask questions than make statements. It's better to use question marks than periods. And, and

that question, that facilitating allows for people to engage in conversation, which is really the

strength of what we want, utilizing these digital tools, get people engaging in conversations.

Yeah. That's really good that I, and I've actually heard of flip the classroom before. That's, that's a

great approach. So then do we have weaknesses when it comes to, uh, to doing this digitally?

Oh yeah. I mean, I would be crazy to say that there's not weaknesses. No, there's, there's

opportunities as well to maybe overcome. And once again, I'll ask in the, in the chat, would love you

guys to tell me, what are some of the weaknesses that you're seeing in context of the digital small

groups? For me, right off the bat, and this is, this is not a new concept. This is decades old. It's

the perception that utilizing technology is cold. It's distant. Um, this, this isn't necessarily a

bad thing. It's just means it's, we have to work with a church. We've got to work hard to overcome

that. Uh, it's the impression that, uh, it's very impersonal, uh, when in fact it's, it's very, very

personal. I mean, just this week, and unfortunately I don't want to get into the details within an hour

yesterday, I made a grown woman cry on a zoom call. It wasn't, it was not. No, it wasn't open

confession there. And Jeff, I can be a jerk, uh, but it wasn't in that situation. Honestly, we just got

so real with each other. Her husband was in the room on the call as well, but we just unearthed some

things in 45 minutes worth of conversation that she was very real and personal to her. And she got

emotional as a result of it. And once again, it's recognizing the tools for the strengths and yes,

there are weaknesses, but we can overcome it. It's global. This means that we've got to deal with

issues like time zones. I personally, I've led one small group at one time with, uh, I was in Miami,

Florida. There was a guy in England and there was a guy in Hawaii. Uh, and so the best time to do that

was 3 PM Sunday, Eastern standard time, because that was like eight o'clock in, in England. And

that was like 6 AM in Hawaii. And so these are challenges you've got to look at if you're doing

something, um, global, if you're reaching a global person, um, it's new. We're talking fidgetal,

which is a new word, physical and digital. The fact that you're addressing digital is probably new for

your church. But at the same time here, we're talking, we're going to talk more about this idea

of multiplication and intentional multiplication, intentional focus on this is probably two new

concepts for your church. You're, you're maybe saying it, but you're not putting some of it into

practice. And even one of these concepts is hard. Intentionally focusing on both is once again,

even more hard. Any change in church structure can be slow and tackling two at the same time is

definitely a slow process. For sure. For sure. People are having to get used to change these days a

little bit quicker. It seems like though. So, um, okay. So second question, changes in the church can

take time. So that's what we're talking about right now. What strategies might a church need to make

to ensure that their, uh, digital groups can thrive and multiply. And I, I'm even thinking in my head,

Jeff, right now, some of the older generation and, you know, not having the tech. And so maybe you'll

cover some of that, but, um, would love to know the answer to this. Awesome. Love that. And we'll,

we'll dig into the, the older generation. I'll tell you a story about my mom coming up. I'm not calling

my mom. Well, yeah, I am calling my mom old. Sorry, mom. Um, so right. We've got a strategy

that we need to shift here. The biggest hurdle that, that hopefully we're overcoming in this season

is that we need to move past the Sunday large gathering being the singular focus. Uh, now in

pre COVID, it was, we've done the analogy before we've talked about it where that Sunday large

gathering was really the queen. Um, if you wanted something done, if you wanted something communicated,

if you wanted to get people for your ministry, for your small group, for whatever, get it in that

Sunday service. And by the way, if you get the pastor to work it into a sermon, extra credit

points, you're guaranteed success. Right. I mean, it's crazy, but there's an opportunity to do more

than just that. And, and, and as, and as upset as we were when we could no longer gather in our

buildings, honestly, pastor, don't be upset about not gathering in the building. Be upset that your

people don't have purpose when they're not in your building, which really gets us to this three,

we call them three piston approach. Uh, Ali Ruhi, who's a church planner at Stadia has talked about

this a lot. And it's this idea of, yes, the Sunday morning, the large gathering, the sermon

is important, but it's not the only thing. Let's, let's throw groups in there. Let's throw a biblical

community, getting people at a, at a, in a broken level, smaller groups for intentional discipleship.

That's important. There's a third as well that works together in this, getting people, and I would call

it on personal mission. And really this personal mission and groups, these two pieces work very

well together. And it really, it needs to be an integral part of your church's mission and vision

working for moving forward. And it works great because no matter where you're located, honestly,

you can be the guy in England, you can be the guy in Hawaii. You have the opportunity to reach out to

your community and your own circle of influence and reach them for Christ. So we're talking intentional

evangelism, intentional multiplication at literally in my example, a global, a worldwide movement,

a benefit of COVID. And I really do believe this is that I believe that God realigned his church with

his true mission. We, we moved beyond maybe some unhealthy dependencies on a large gathering where

one person stands on a podium and exudes a spiritual gift in front of thousands. And instead now we've

moved into a place where all of us have the opportunity to strengthen our individual spiritual gifts

and use them to reach our circle of influences with that.

Yeah.

Ali, Ali Ruhi is, is a great example. And I mentioned him earlier. Um, he's, he's a pastor out in California

and he was quoted as, as saying this to me. And, and I, I'll be honest, like my jaw hit the, hit the table

when, when I heard this, he says, Jeff, my church is healthier because of COVID. And, and, and immediately I

leaned in cause I never heard a pastor say my church is healthier because of COVID. But he's, he started

telling me stories of, um, his attendance of his large gathering, his weekend service, uh, was cut

80%, like dwindled down next to nothing in an, in an online environment. But he saw his online small

groups triple. He saw people start to get on mission and understand the personal mission aspects of what

was there. And, and, and honestly talking about another metric to look at in the COVID season in

California, he saw his giving increased 25% increase of giving as a result of it. And so he's not looking

at just shuffling people from, uh, services to small groups. He's measuring giving. He's measuring

personal mission and evangelism. He was saying, Jeff, because of our intentionality towards personal

mission, tying it into groups, this multiplication angle, our church is healthier as, as a result of

it. And, you know, I know I would even segue there into, uh, I mean, Seth Godin, we, we, this is weird

because Seth is probably one of the top marketing guys in the country, maybe the planet. Right. I mean,

we've all, we've all read his books. Uh, he was on a podcast, Google, Google Seth Godin, but he was on,

he did his podcast and somebody from, I think Turkey, uh, phoned in a question for his podcast.

And the guy asked from Turkey, Hey, how do I get my message heard around the world? And Seth,

Seth basically answered this. You'll never get a billion people to agree with what you have to say.

A billion people do not care about your individual message. If, if you really want to reach people,

it's, it's not a hundred million. It's not a 10 million. It's not a million. It's not a hundred

thousand, 10,000 to really impact people. You want to tell the smallest number of people possible

in idea. You want to get them to own it and you want to get them to replicate it. Yeah. Seth is,

is Jewish, not a Christian. And he's describing in, in simple principles, the, the foundation with

Christ built his church. I mean, he's this, he's explaining discipleship and disciple making.

And so we have this opportunity to see multiplication in these small groups led by

volunteers, by individuals who are on personal mission to see this multiplication happen. And

we've got opportunities in this COVID season to do it in physical space, maybe, but we definitely have

opportunities to do it in digital space where people can be more real and more transparent with each other.

Yes. I love that. Wow. That is really great. So what about changes in the culture?

Multiplying groups can be hard. It's a, it's a definite, a culture change. I mean,

and let's even ask this in the chat would, would love some feedback. What, what cultural shifts

has your church had to do in this COVID season? Groups, uh, giving, moving online. What has that

tension looked like and felt like for you guys?

It's so much, it's so much right now. It really is amazing that we are in this time of history and

we're going to look back and say, wow, this was a transformation of the church and how the church

had to present itself. Um, so yeah, I'm, I'm curious to know.

Totally and completely up front. Hey, let's experiment. Let's try something different.

Let's be okay with it because COVID made us change everything anyway. So let's be intentional

and maybe claim some hills, gain some victories towards it. Let's celebrate those victories when

they come and, and let's celebrate the failures and recognize failures for what they are. You know,

maybe some questions even walking into it is staff bought in. Have you had the conversation with

staff? Do they understand what you're trying to achieve? What about key volunteers, high level leaders?

Have, have you had that level of conversation? Do they all understand the why? Not, not what you're

wanting to do, but why you're wanting to do it? Do they understand some of the motivations?

Because them owning the motivations, once again, it's going to help them replicate it out

into others. Before you roll out that new culture to your entire church,

create test environments where you can learn lessons from it.

Re-evaluate and then try again, reiterate. And so with an experiment, it should never be

an experiment. Oh, that didn't work. Let's throw it away.

Sure.

It should be, let's experiment with it. Let's learn something from it. Let's broaden,

bring more people in and let's experiment again. And so learn lessons, iterate, especially

looking at all the churches that were doing physical ministry in 2019, February,

that are now having to address with everything digital. It's okay to not have the answers,

like give yourself a pass for that. But it's not okay not to do anything.

Sure.

Try something and kind of experiment and build through that. Stay true to who you are,

but don't be afraid to reassess with that. And definitely, definitely involve others in the

conversation. Let others speak into that. Rather than just, it's got to be my way or the hard way,

let others come in. And the more that they come in, the more that they will own that as they're going

back out.

I love that you use the word experiment and test because it really gives permission for failure.

And that's really what we have to do is we have to fail fast so that we can turn around and do it

again and figure out what actually works. And this is the time to be doing that. In marketing,

that's like a known thing and there's permission to do it. But I feel like sometimes in the church,

there's not that permission. And right now we're giving the permission to fail fast so that we can

figure this thing out, right?

Yeah. And really the heart of failing fast is learning those lessons. Learning what you need to pick

yourself up and do it again. The sooner you can fail is the sooner you get to the next step. The

sooner you get to that next version, that could be the success. And if that ends up failing, cool.

Pick yourself up and try again. Iterate from it. Learn from it and try again.

And I will say this. We've got different size churches in the room. Don't wait for the big

churches to figure it out. Big churches doing digital ministry, doing online ministry looks

different than small churches. Coming from a guy who's working in both environments, helping

churches in both environments. I had an executive pastor tell me, I'm just waiting for the giga church

to figure it out. And then we'll just copy whatever they're doing. It doesn't work.

I will say this. I actually had a giga church digital pastor pre-COVID attendance, over 20,000

people, not including the online audience. The digital pastor of this church said to me pre-COVID,

Jeff, I really wish I was at a small church right now, able to do tangible relational ministry,

as opposed to what I'm doing here in the giga church mentality. So there's opportunities for the

small church even to be more successful in this digital environment by looking at it through a

relational scope.

That's good. Okay. Moving right along here, we're going to go to question number three.

How can we empower leaders to start and lead digital small groups that multiply, especially

when more groups means more leaders?

Yeah. Great, great question. Ultimately, the big question is, who's accountable? What is the

relationship between your physical small groups and your digital small groups? Is it all under the

same umbrella? Are two different people leading it? What does that look like? Is there a pastor? Is

there a staff member? Is there a high-level volunteer who's responsible for the small groups,

physical and or digital? Figure out who is the accountable person towards it. Get clarity

towards that. Oftentimes, churches don't have that clarity. And then at that point, now that person

is investing into others and maybe in the staff, but more likely it's volunteers. And by the way,

volunteers are going to scale much quicker than the staff will. Investing directly into calls and texts

or encouragement. If you're a small group, challenge a volunteer to own the ministry and manage it and

grow it. Oftentimes, I've seen volunteers be a better recruiter for other volunteers because there's

this, well, you're paid to be a pastor. Isn't this your job? Shouldn't you be doing this? Which,

honestly, that mindset kills growth. It kills multiplication within any church, within any

organization. I mean, even going back to the Seth Godin idea, it's not let me as a pastor tell a bunch

of people, but let me cast an idea vision to volunteers who then cast it and drive it down to

even more volunteers. Large churches sign, set up a network of leaders where a volunteer is responsible

for X number of groups. Honestly, I've heard, Life.Church has told me there's, in the U.S.

military, there's only, one person's only over seven different people. Nowhere within the military

structure is there more than one person who oversees seven. And so for them, that's their

structure, Life.Church. One person, one volunteer oversees seven who oversee another seven, oversee

another seven. It kind of, you know, pyramids away. What's fascinating by doing this is that churches

Crossroads Saddleback, they've got thousands of small groups spanning multiple continents.

And with it, it's really only one or two staff people that are overseeing the small group part

because they have such a high standard for leadership of the volunteers. And really, this is the

challenge. We should expect more. We should challenge more. We should lead them to a higher level. By the

way, we should be spiritually challenging them as well. Not just in a leadership standpoint, but in a

discipleship standpoint. Help them raise up so that they even see the importance of personal mission

in their lives and can even cast it on to someone else. And it'll make it stickier for them because

they're highly involved. Exactly. Just, you know, keep in mind with this that paid staff people are a lid

to a multiplication movement. And the answer is not. And I know that's hard, Pastor. I've been the guy on

your staff. I have been the guy who oversees 30 employees. But when it comes towards growth and

movement, especially in this mid-coast, post-COVID season, I think there's opportunities for us to

raise the standard of volunteers and encourage them. And this is where we see revival happen. There's going

to be an urgency within you because it was within me where I have to control the situation. And I want to

encourage you a little bit here. Release the control. You know what? And I would even ask this. Let's throw

this in the chat. Is your church too involved in how small group leaders lead? Is it not involved enough? Or is it

involved perfectly? Like, self-evaluate yourself. Honest hour here. Like, you know, I mean, this is a glue

webinar. I don't know. I don't know where the answers are going, but ask yourself that. Throw it

in the chat. Let's figure it out. Small things can happen in a digital space. Like, you know,

something as simple as you get a small group leader that comes up and says, hey, I got a bunch of

soccer moms. We want to do, we want to use Google Hangouts or whatever they call it now as our platform

for our small group. Hopefully the answer is sure. You know, normally we encourage this idea of

platform agnostic where I honestly, as a digital pastor, I don't care what platform you use.

I will support one. I'll support Zoom. And if you don't have a platform, I'll recommend Zoom because

it's something that we as a church recommend. But if they want to get on Discord, if they want to get

on Slack, if they want to use WhatsApp, if they want to do a Bible reading plan on the YouVersion app,

if they want to do Clubhouse, which is the new thing. I mean, to me, it doesn't matter.

It, what matters is I think there are standards that we put in place for our small groups.

But then we say, hey, there's even some flexibility within that. So if a small group wants to meet and

they only want to use WhatsApp, they don't want to get on camera where they can dialogue with each other,

but they want to utilize these tools like a text group. And so they just want to like mass text each

other kind of, you know, and I'm, I'm in a bunch of just different groups like that where sometimes

it's guys, you know, joking around, but, but some of these groups are quite serious where I've got

guys in four or five States and we're praying for each other. And one of the wives just had cancer

and we're pouring into a text group support versus prayer, literally crying while, while texting on a

phone. Now, if that's the only thing you're doing great. Now, if that's a short-term solution,

there's an opportunity to grow that into more, which is one of the things that we've worked on

over time. And so raise that standard, but if somebody wants to start somewhere, be okay,

release that control and let them kind of grow through that.

Yeah, that is good. It's good. Okay. So do you have anything else you want to say on this? I think

we've got to get moving on to the next question, but I just want to make sure that you're, you feel

good about. Love it. Yeah. Let's move to what's next. Okay, great. Okay. So this is, this is a big

question because it's like, I think, you know, we kind of got to a point where we knew how to group,

you know, grow some groups, um, in person, but how do you multiply groups online?

Yeah. So the challenge untangible, you know, it's, it's overwhelming, right? I mean,

we're really talking about two different things where we're talking about creating a multiplying

disciple making structure. And at the same time, we're talking about doing it digitally. And both

of these may be a little uncomfortable or go against the norm of where we are. A couple of things,

maybe heading in, um, first off challenge people to, to reach their, their circle of influence,

like give people cast vision towards this. There, there's a number of, of materials and resources

that, that are out there. I personally, in my life, I've used a material called Timothy Initiative

that kind of cast vision and does training towards that. Uh, four fields is, is another one. And so

would love, and we talk about a lot of these, you know, later on with some other stadia resources,

but don't start with discipleship standards so high that you're excluding people and not letting

people get started from, from the get go. Let people come in and literally the old song from like

the eighties, put me in coach. I'm ready to play, like get them in and, and, and we're through them

out there. Teach, explore, raise the standard, educate, disciple, give them better understanding.

It's better for them to be out in the field, playing out in the field, doing what they feel

God's leading them to do instead of having them on the bench for an extended period of time, not doing

it, uh, instead watching somebody else. Get qualified people leading as quickly as possible,

but that doesn't mean they're done learning. Keep discipling them. You want to really, you want to

find leaders that can lead five to 10 people. And sometimes I feel like in small groups, we, we try

to get those big hitters, the people that can, you know, reach 50, lead a hundred, lead 200. Those,

those people are nice, but you really just need five to 10. So work on that five to 10 and grow them

and develop them through it. Provide training, provide personal investment to help these leaders.

Remember digital allows for a lot more, um, flexibility, you know, even, Hey, we can use the

Bible version, the you version Bible app to go through reading plans together. Do it like, don't know.

We have to define small groups as staring into a webcam. That's not necessary with that because

there's an opportunity to do more. And there's an opportunity to reach people by doing these

different ways online. People are looking for a personal connection. Pastors, we've talked about

this. It's a, you're a lid to growth. A real person is, is going to be more effective. And I would even

throw this as an example, pastor, when's the last time? Well, maybe not in COVID. This is a bad example,

but you're on the airplane and the guy over next to you says, Hey, what do you do for a living?

And you have that awkward dance where you try not to say that you're a pastor. And if you do say you're

a pastor, he probably shuts you down and doesn't have any conversation with you for the rest of the

flight. At least that that's been me on several occasions, but situations like a person reaching

out to another person. Hey, Susie, my name's Jamie. Uh, I'm a single mom. Uh, you know, I, I got connected

to you through the church. Pastor Jerry over here told me you might be interested in a small group.

We've got four small groups over here. We, uh, we've got, I've got four moms that are involved

in a small group and I would love to invite you into the small group. We, we meet online at eight

30 at night after all the kids are out of bed. Um, sometimes there's a glass of wine. Sometimes

we're in our pajamas. Ultimately it's a great time for us to unpack, but we, we read through God's

scripture. We pray together and it's been incredibly helpful, honestly, in my life. And so

we're wondering if you'd like to join us in that, that right there means more than the pastor

checking in pastor check in, but now you've got somebody that's relatable that can connect

to her. Yeah. So love that focus on personal evangelism. Um, you know, let's say that personal

mission in, in resources that are available to leaders, things like this Timothy initiative,

other things, get that in front of people. This experience of, of multiplying guided by strong

curriculum will help people invite more people, which will invite more people. And what's fascinating

this, especially if we focus on the personal mission aspects of multiplying, it's less about

the church and it's more about individuals. You're not inviting people to a large gathering.

You're encouraging people to have a personal mission in their life and evangelize and utilize

that to bring others to Christ. And through that process, obviously, yes, get them connected

to the church for, for more disciple making, but that's a much more, you know, to, to use the

buzzword, that's a much more authentic approach through this individual way than, than others.

Um, from a practical standpoint, my small group, I met last night with them. We was literally

my wife and I were in this room. And so there's about 50 people. It's about 30 devices.

Wow. That is huge.

Yeah. And so we start big and, and what happens in our group, there's the time where we come

together, we pray, we do a devotional, there's a vision casting kind of at a large group where

we're going through, uh, emotionally healthy relationships because they're a book. And so there's

a portion that's together that's big, but we break up. And so we utilize a zoom feature

called breakout rooms.

Right. And so now I'm not in a group of like 50 people. I'm more like in a group of six

to eight. Uh, and so then there's a leader in the room and we're, we're going through

and talking about it. Now what's, and then at some point we'll either come back together

for closing prayer. We'll, we'll break up from the groups.

Okay.

What's fascinating by using this kind of large gathering, small gathering approach is that

we're actually mentoring and growing other leaders in this small group setting. We're seeing

who's stepping up to be the leader. And so initially, eventually maybe empowering that person or this

group to not be a group of 50 and then break out. But maybe the six to eight people goes and starts

their own small group. We, this leader that's being nurtured, it doesn't even know that he's

being nurtured is eventually going to be cast this vision of, Hey, why don't you go lead this

small group over here? Uh, and I'll tell you like Saddleback utilized this method. We stole it from

them. Um, everything's borrowed. You guys can take this idea, but Saddleback does, uh, they did a

super group kind of thing where it's this 50 people, large gathering for small groups. Uh, they did

seven days a week. Uh, and they ran an experiment with it where they had one of these super groups,

uh, meetings. So it was seven large groups. And at the end of the six weeks that their curriculum

was run, they had birthed something like 57 small groups out of seven. And so we're literally seeing

multiplication here because you're utilizing this, this factory of the super group, this large

gathering. You've got an opportunity to intimately grow individuals in these small gatherings.

And then you've got an opportunity to release them to kind of do their own thing.

Accountability is still a part, but you're doing that through a multiplication purpose.

Oh my gosh. That, that is a great nugget right there. Um, wow, Jeff, you have shared so many

great things for us to think about today. Um, and I'm just wondering, I'm sure that you have a lot

more to, to share as well, but I'm wondering, what do you want to leave folks with now?

Um, yeah, so absolutely here. Uh, we've got two bonuses. Now I'm really excited about these,

these resources and I love helping churches and, and right off the bat, we've got two bonuses that,

that I want to leave in your hands. First off, there's a selection of questions that I hope

you'll bring back to your church and talk with your team about, because it's not enough for you to

understand this. You're not going to change culture. Just you bring your team in. These discussion

questions are all about digital groups and how it can operate at your church. And the second bonus

is an excerpt from, from our book that Stadia called Defining the Fidgetal Church. You'll get

both of these bonuses sent right to your inbox, along with a link to the recordings, uh, from today's

workshop. Oh, and by the way, uh, if one more thing here, Steve Jobs, one more thing. Um, hopefully

it's that cool. Uh, if this has been helpful for you, uh, we're thrilled here to announce that in

partnership with Glue Connect, we're making, uh, our 10 on-demand fidgetal training sessions

available to you for free. Really, really excited about this. Through the 10-part course, we'll walk

you through the essentials of engaging your people more deeply than ever before, even when you can't

meet in person by, by doing this in physical and digital space. You'll walk away with best practices

for online worship that engages people for the long run, how to run small groups, even when you can't

meet in person, how to be a change agent at your church, how to change that culture, how to prepare

for the future. Uh, and there's a ton of more information in here. Uh, so do this, go to glueconnect.church

slash stadia to sign up for the fidgetal quick start course, uh, through a glue connect.

And that'd be a great, yeah. So like we, we do this with stadia, uh, and there's, there's groups

that are, that are there. Uh, but honestly, and this is, I love glue. I've, I've loved you guys for

years. And so the opportunity to make these resources available for you to impact more churches,

including some of the churches that are in here on this webinar. Yeah, this is, this is my heart.

And so we would love to make this available to you. Yeah. Thank you so much. That is

incredibly generous. It's very relevant. I'm really excited to be able to offer this to everybody

for free. Um, and I want to share a little bit more about glue connect just because I think that

there's probably quite a few people on here who haven't heard of it. We believe that the church

is stronger when it's working together. And that's not just churches, that's networks, that's people

like you together to change lives and to transform cities altogether. Um, so here's how glue connect

works. It uses a collective of ad buying power to support church outreach campaigns in your city.

So it's not just you doing it. Um, so it's not just you doing it. It's a collective of, of churches doing

it together. We do all the planning. So glue does all the planning and strategy, uh, for you running

the ads on social media with very targeted, um, you know, unique to the needs of the people within your

city city. And why do we do this? We are working together to help you get more people through your

digital front door. We want you to focus on doing what you do best, which is building relationships and

nurturing disciples through the, uh, power of the gospel. And then we do what we do best, which is

serving you through tech solutions. The ads, uh, sent to people or the ads, you can see them right

here. I think it's, it's on the, um, the, the slide right here. This is what they look like. And it sends

people to a directory of churches and your church should definitely be in that directory. People can

view, uh, your church's profile. And then if they want to learn more or connect, um, they're encouraged

to reach out by social media or by visiting your website and look at how great this all looks. I mean,

this is very professionally done. The value of all of this is $1,700, which we know through talking to

our champions, um, is a lot of money and it's hard right now to, um, to be able to finance something

like this, but we also know how powerful it can be for you. So glue connect is rolling out city by city

right now. The, there are donors in, um, Dallas, Fort Worth, Florida, Kansas city, and Columbus who are

kingdom minded and who have stepped up to pay the cost. You guys, this is amazing. We have donors who

have stepped up to pay the cost of glue connect for churches like you. So for your church, it's,

it's, it's free of charge. It's not free though. I hate when people say, Oh, glue connect is free

because it's not free. Um, nothing is really free, right? The reality is that someone out there has

already paid it for you so that churches like you can have access. But I do want to say that there are

limited, um, amounts of scholarship per city. So because you are on this workshop, you are one of the

first hearing about it and you can go snag a scholarship, um, so that you can be one of the

first churches, um, you know, and, and able to get the scholarship and, and your church will be inside

this church directory. Together churches can win so that you can go focus your attention on your

ministry and what really matters.

Love that. Hey, remember that by signing up, you're going to get access to the resources from

stadia, like our fidgetal quickstart and a lot of the other, uh, partners who want like us,

they want to serve churches like you. And, and, and again, to get access to these 10 modules from

stadia, uh, all centered around utilizing the strengths and the weaknesses of physical and digital

fidgetal church, um, go to glue connect. Uh, it's right there. Glue connect. Church slash stadia, uh,

and sign up for your glue connect account and you'll be able to access our course at that point

completely free.

So everything's free. You get glue connect and you get, uh, this amazing course and it's done for you.

So glue connect is not one of those piece of technology where you actually like have to go

hire somebody to figure it out. Um, it is done for you. The only thing you have to do is fill out

your profile that, that shows up in the directory. And at glue, we actually have, um, champion success

managers who, uh, walk alongside you to help you do that. We have a community as well that will help

you, um, fill out that profile. So, Hey, I just really want to thank you so much, Jeff, for joining

us. You just gave us so much information so generously. Um, and so thank you for being here,

Jeff. And I want to thank everybody else, uh, who joined us today. Remember that you're going to get

the bonus. You get free 12 months of glue connect plus stadia's digital quickstart course. Um,

and so if you have any questions, make sure that you reach out to us via email. We'll put that in

the chat. Um, and we are going to go now into, um, Q and a. And so if you do have questions that you

want to ask Jeff, we invite you to stay a little bit longer, um, and we'll get those questions answered

for you. How do you facilitate the nature of five to 10 minute casual space for catching up and having

time for fellowship in digital groups? How can you help you feel a sense of community?

Yeah. Love that. The, the awkward thing in that 50 person group kind of gathering is that there's

only in zoom, there's only one thread conversation. So when I'm in a room with 50 people, I can lean

over to my wife who's physically sitting next to me. I can turn off the mic and I can whisper something,

but that moment where I'm trying to talk to square number 27 on my screen and, and I can do that in

chat, but that's not nearly as cool. What I will tell you this is there are other platforms, uh, that

are working, that are coming out that give more attention to this. Um, uh, unplug here. Alter live

actually does a lot of that where I can break out. I can have like a, just a talk with just square

number 27 and kind of isolated conversations. So check out that platform. Okay. Ultimately you want

to get people talking. And so if you're creating environments for that, even doing some of the

breakouts, giving people the ability to kind of go utilizing some of the breakout feature, we'll get

them talking in that five minutes. Um, they'll make it about one on one way conversation, but

multiple. Yes. Yeah. That's, that's really good. Um, we actually kind of talked about this a little

bit, but didn't go too deep into it. So how, uh, can a church get specific age groups like seniors

and we're not talking high schools and high school seniors. We're talking about senior, seniors, uh,

involved in groups, uh, when they're not super comfortable with technology.

I never told my mom's story. Sorry, mom.

Oh, you didn't. That's so true.

Oh my gosh. I I'm, I'm so embarrassed. Um, so my mom's 73 years old and true, honest to

God story. Um, maybe four years ago, I was a digital pastor and I looked at mom and I said,

Hey mom, I've, I've got a group of, um, my mom's, uh, a, uh, uh, female professional,

a lady professional here in Miami, just like a business professional, very kind of VP of major

fortune 500 companies, kind of that, that wiring. And I said to mom, I said, Hey mom, I've,

I've got some 20 somethings, young professionals, females. Um, would you want to do a small group

with them? Like, like teach them not, I mean, teach them all about God. Yes. But also like past

wisdom, mentorship, like kind of mentor these, these young professionals. There's a lawyer,

there was a doctor. And my mom's like, sure. Honestly, she was in her late sixties at the

time. She thought her ministry career was over. This is her story. She thought her ministry career

was over. She's like, Hey, all the church that she's at, it's all a bunch of young people.

I'm just going to retire. I'm done. And, uh, and so she tell you like this rejuvenated her career.

My mom is not technological. She's like, I'm having to go over there and teach her how to print

at least once a month. Like, so she's, it's not like she's the super sharp and the technical aspects,

but she's recognized the ability to love on people, care for them to the point where she's leading two

groups. I think she's starting considering doing a third. Um, one of her groups is she's reached out

to moms that she knows that, you know, maybe fifties, you know, more in that age that have young

daughters, 20 sums that are scattered across the country. And so my mom's second group is working

with older ladies and their daughters. And the only time that they really gather together regularly

during the week is talking about the Bible and praying together. Like this is the opportunity

that my mom has. And even like some of the groups that she's led, uh, there was a girl that she was

introduced to her. She was a law school student up in DC. She's since moved to Houston. And that this

girl that my mom mentored, who my mom said, Jeff, it's like the daughter I never had.

She's now leading physical small groups in Houston and still engages regularly digitally. So even my

mom is seeing multiplication where she's worked with this girl in Houston or in DC who moved to

Houston and is now leading small group in the physical space in Houston. So digital technology,

old people, I don't think that that's an excuse to back off. I think that you cast the vision.

This isn't an opportunity for you to do things digitally. This is an opportunity for you to

mentor and disciple a generation that's looking for help that, that can gain something from your

influence. And so approach that with it. Now, you know, is it get with small groups? Is it do a

massive party line like on a call? Cause they're really technologically phobic. Yeah. Work through

that stuff. Right. But if we're really looking to multiply, I have seen old people engage in digital

church as much as I have the millennial and the 20 something. It all depends on that perspective and

that challenge of personal mission. That's where an older generation is going to win on personal

mission. That's good. And you know, here's a question. I don't know that you need to go too deep

into it because I feel like you did talk about it quite a bit, but in a digital group, how do you

encourage outreach? And maybe what they're talking about is more, you know, instead of multiplication

outreach, it's, you know, I'm actually community-based service. Yeah. Yeah. So you got to teach people

to fish. Um, I'm in, I'm on multiple continents, uh, spread across 11 time zones. Um, I can't,

we can't all get together and do the service project together, but I can encourage people

and the guy in England and the guy in Hawaii and the guy in New York, Hey, why don't you find five

friends and go work at a homeless center? Why don't you go do something? And, and, and I'm not giving

people the service project to do. I'm teaching them the importance of serving in their communities.

And I'm challenging them to reach their circle of influence where they are. It's a huge opportunity

for them to connect with their neighbors, their coworkers, their friends, and start to carry it.

It's more important in this environment. Uh, I could preach a whole sermon on that. I'm not going to,

but, but essentially the gospel that we hear in our online world, it has to influence

our offline relationships. And so it's very important for these people, wherever they are,

to be engaging in that physical space. That's, that's part of even this multiplication because I

want them to be talking to their friends about this. That's good. Yeah. Okay. So, um, this question

is near and dear to my heart, actually. Um, would you recommend making a digital group or hybrid digital

in-person group public like, um, you know, Facebook, like a Facebook group?

Okay. So I would utilize Facebook, um, if I'm creating a Facebook group for the 10 people or

the 30 people or the 50 people in my super group or individuals, I don't know that I would make that

public. I would make that just for those people that are within that community. That being said,

asterisk, your church, I would suggest has a, as a public Facebook group for the entire church

or for the online community. Utilize that as a place to gather people together. I've personally,

I've seen more success out of a Facebook group for your church, as opposed to your Facebook page

for your church. And there's lots of strategies I could talk about, about broadcasting church services

into Facebook groups, driving people into Facebook groups, because as people go into Facebook groups,

there's a record that they were there. And I have a handle, which means that I get a Facebook

candle so I can contact them. Facebook groups is a very powerful tool. The real question is what's

the context where you're trying to achieve towards it? So I hope that's helpful. I'd love to drill in

specifics at a later point if that's possible. Yeah, that's good. That's good. Okay. So gosh,

we, this is a lot of questions for today. Um, how do you know if my digital physical groups

are really multiplying? What should I be looking for? So how, how do you know if your groups are

multiplying? Um, you're going to start to see some generations happen. You're going to start to see

people inviting others in. You're going to start to hear salvation stories. You're going to start to see

videos of, of baptism. Yeah. Like, like even let's figure out how you're going to baptize somebody

that gets saved in another, another time zone, an old friend from Facebook. There, there, there are ways

to do that. These are the things that you're going to start to kind of struggle with questions that

are going to pop up. And when these stories come in, celebrate them, get up on the rooftop, put a play,

the video in front of the church, all text, everybody within the church staff, you know,

especially in this experimental phase, celebrate your victories and tell people the lessons that

you're learning. If, if it's not going well, what's the lesson and how are you going to change it and

do it different next time? Like be very public with the experiment because people are going to start

praying with you. They're going to celebrate with you. They're going to be like, Hey, I'm not okay with

this. I'm not okay that some guy's getting baptized, uh, in, in a, in a, uh, apartment in a condo

in New York city in a small little bathtub. He almost banged his head on the faucet.

Too bad. It already happened. Like, and this is, this is awesome. We're, we're seeing a, a person

movement here where people are evangelizing to others within their circle of influence in digital

space. It's okay. God's doing something great here and that's needs to be celebrated.

That's right. That is right. Oh, Jeff, thanks so much for all the information. Thank you for staying

long to answer questions. Um, this was a wealth of knowledge.

I want to encourage you to glow, go to glue connect.church slash stadia, get your free course,

get on glue connect. You want to make sure that your church shows up in that profile. So when

explorers are looking for a church, you can be that church for them. All right. And if you have any more

questions, please email growth at glue.us and have a fabulous rest of your day.