EP103: Jason Poling & The Virtual Reality Multisite Campus

Hey, all right, we got episode 103 of the Church Digital Podcast, once again, powered by Stadia

Church Planning. Jeff here. I love this conversation. This is probably going to be

one of my favorite churches because I love how aggressive they are, really, without having a lot

of resources. I'm talking about Cornerstone Church up in the Pacific Northwest. Jason Poling is the

lead pastor there. And so we had this conversation. Jason is the guest here on the show. But let me

tell you up front, Jason's the only pastor I know of in the country that's doing ministry in three

different phases. Now, we don't talk about this a lot, but there's obviously the physical space.

There's digital space, which is like broadcasting your services online, videos recorded through

cameras broadcasted to web browsers, to mobile apps, that sort of thing. You're using video to do

small groups and Zoom and things like that. You know, that's a digital church. It's a physical

ministry, a digital church. That's really kind of where those two phases are that are most popular

in this season. The third phase is the world of virtual reality. It's the world of avatars. And so

Jason Poling here, through his small church, Cornerstone, I don't know, 300, 400 people,

I think he says here on the podcast, he's not only is he doing physical ministry to three to 400 people,

not only is he broadcasting his services online through, you know, cameras and those techniques,

but he's also doing avatar church. He's doing virtual reality church. One, and it's like the same staff

support all three, the same message goes to all three, the same discipleship process goes to all

three. He's figured out how to scale his church, not only physically, not only digitally, but also

virtually in the land of avatars. Like this is a phenomenal story out of a small church up in the

Pacific Northwest. You can see why I love it so much. So, hey, why not bring this guy in and have a

conversation? See what he's learning in this season when it comes to physical, digital, and also

virtual reality. Multi-site campus is phenomenal. So we're bringing in, like I said, Jason Poling,

lead pastor from Cornerstone Church, myself, Jeff with the Church Digital and Stadia Church Planning

in a conversation that I'm essentially calling the Virtual Reality Multi-Site Campus. Okay,

everybody, here you go. Why don't you tell us about yourself? Tell us about Cornerstone,

your church, kind of like give us your ministry story. Yeah, so Cornerstone Church is where I'm at

in Yuba City, which is north of Sacramento, about 45 minutes in the valley up there in Northern

California. And I've been there for two and a half years about. So I was a pastor over in eastern Iowa

in Cedar Rapids in the Evangelical Free Church of America. The denomination is a small kind of

movement. So I was there 10 years and then two and a half years ago came out here, came out west,

packed up the bags like the Beverly Hillbillies. And yeah, here I am. And it's been great. I do love

it out here, aside from the fires and the smoke and all the other crazy stuff in California. But the

people are great and the church has been good to me. So we've really enjoyed it out here.

So there's like, I don't know, a million Cornerstone churches in America. That just

seems to be a popular name. You're not affiliated with any of them. There's no denominations,

no organizations. You're just kind of like the standalone.

I'm sure they're great organizations, but yeah, we're by ourselves out here in Yuba City. So

Cornerstone Church of Yuba City is its own entity, I guess.

Yeah. So is it a big church? Is it a small church? I never want to put numbers on it,

but we're going to talk to kind of calling and vision with where we're going with this

conversation with you. I'd love to just, some of the backstory, like tell me specifically about the

church. Yeah. So when I came out, so it's been a, it's been a blessing and just all, you know,

all of grace from God. Obviously COVID has really made the numbers crazy. But when I came, you know,

it was a church that was maybe struggling. It was struggling. It's about 150 members that had

declined from a peak about 500, about 10 years ago. And it just kind of steadily declined

various reasons. And then, so I came in 2018 and it just, by God's grace, we just, I've got a great

staff. They're, they are amazing because they're very, very, very part-time. As you can imagine,

a small church, the budget's not great and they've just done a great job. And so the church really

grew over the past two years from about 150 to about a little over 300, maybe 330 was an average

attendance on our services on Sunday. And that was about March. And so March hit and then we closed.

We've reopened since. We're probably about 50% of physical tenants. And then the rest seem to be

online as far as average live viewers of our congregants and people, of course, everywhere

else. Who knows, who knows who we're all drawing in at this point, but it's definitely been a ride

up and down. I mean, to grow and then come back down with the numbers, it's, it's been a little bit

interesting, but you know, I think every, most churches that I've been aware of have experienced

quite a, quite a shift here.

Yeah. So you guys are already meeting.

That's, that's, we're meeting now. Yeah. So California, yeah, it's kind of bizarre because

you think California is a lot more strict on it and, and they are pretty strict, but you're allowed to

meet, uh, depending on the County, but we're allowed to meet, um, basically outside is what we were

supposed to be doing, but then the fires hit and you couldn't be outside for longer than five minutes

or hacking up a lung. So we went back inside. It's, it's been a little bit, uh, nebulous on what

the actual protocols are supposed to be with all the things that have been happening.

Well, and California has got, is it, it's MacArthur, right? That, that's.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. He was, yeah.

Difficult out there. So yeah.

That's a whole nother.

The government's being nebulous right now.

So no, but with him, I think they're there, they're a little more onto him. Our area, you know,

up in Northern California, it's not, yeah, it's the, the, the, uh, sheriff and police,

they're, they're pretty relaxed about stuff, but down there, I, yeah, MacArthur picked the

fight. That's for sure.

Yeah.

MacArthur was a champion of online church from the get-go.

Oh yeah, sure he was.

Oh, wow. I'm not even touching that.

Don't go there. Yeah. Don't go there.

Totally not going there at all.

Hey, you'll be a part of cancel culture quick, right? You know, they'll, they'll cancel the

Jeff Reed show. You get on there. Oh, geez.

It would not take a lot to cancel the Jeff Reed show. I'm just saying it's, it's, it's not

like you, you, we even take a lot of work to make it happen. I think a couple of key

phone calls would, would get it taken care of. I'm not that I'm giving ideas to people

because that would be the completely wrong thing to do. Hey, so you hit my radar. I, maybe

like the first month or so, I remember just having a brief, a little bit. And it was this

idea of you're doing a, you're a physical lead pastor at a, at a physical church and you

were spinning up a virtual reality church. Like, I think we met like five or six weeks

before it launched.

Yeah. We were right at the real beginning of this. And, um, and so it's like, Oh, this is

intriguing. This guy's doing physical and virtual reality at the same time. And then I'm talking

into DJ and DJ's DJ Soto lead pastor of VR church. And he just starts singing your praises

of all this stuff that's happening. And I was like, well, man, I want to hear some of these

stories. I want to hear what's going on, uh, with, uh, with your church, uh, Cornerstone

and how it's doing physical ministry and literally virtual reality ministry at the same time in

the middle of this COVID season. So what do you got? Tell me, tell me some stories.

Yeah, it's been, it's been awesome and awesome ride. I'm so glad that I got into the

digital ministry and VR ministry. I, I did not know what to expect. The only, the only, uh,

template I had was really DJ and I really good friends with DJ now, but before I didn't know

him from Adam, I just had heard about VR church and it just really intrigued me. And I was like,

that is so cool. I just, I just jumped on the bandwagon, got a, got a quest, a headset from

Oculus from Facebook. And, uh, and then I said to the church, I said, why don't we start a church

campus? And people were really on board with it. They were excited. Again, things were going really

well and church was growing. I think people were just excited to see expansion happen and reach more

people across the world. So, uh, it was really cool too, that even the funding people just were so

generous to donate to this specific project. And it doesn't cost of course that much to do it,

but it was nice that people were really backing it with their support. They were really excited. So

we launched the church, right? Basically we were going to do it earlier and we just weren't quite

ready. And then COVID hit and we're like, you know what, we're not quite ready. Let's just do it. And

we're glad we jumped in at the time that we did. And we were only on the alt space VR platform. It's

just one of the mini VR. It's probably one of the big three, big four of the VR platforms. And that's

the only one we're on right now, but, uh, it's been, it's been great. Uh, but there's a lot of

overlap. We really, from the beginning wanted it to be somehow connected together. We didn't want

it to be its own thing separate from Cornerstone, the IRL church in North Sacramento Valley. We

wanted to be connected somehow, um, in a community and we weren't sure exactly how to do that. We've

seen that I can talk more about as we go forward, some of the ways in which we've been able to see

that vision come to fruition. Um, but we really, and we wanted it to be like, like a campus, like

that you're a part that anybody comes to VR Cornerstone church, they're a part of the whole

Cornerstone family. And we, we share a lot of things together. And, um, so anyway, uh, that

was the real vision is to really draw people in connecting to Jesus, but also connect them

to a larger sort of, uh, situation, a lot of larger body, larger fellowship that was going

on.

Did the genesis of this, like, was this you like having the forward vision excitement of

virtual reality? You didn't even have a headset. Like were there volunteers that were excited

or an elder board, somebody like who, who had the passionate idea to first say, why don't

we do a church in virtual reality?

Yeah, I'm, I'm probably the crazy one at our church and the congregants that they listen

to this, they will definitely laugh at that. Cause I, I get these crazy ideas and out of the

box. I just, I love the idea of, you know, of course I think you're fully on board with this.

I'm really sure of that the mission never changes, but the methods can change and we just need to

adapt and find out how we can reach people for Christ, uh, no matter where the, uh, the situation

might be. So I've always been like pushing the envelope with the congregation and, and people

resonated with that. And so when I brought it up, the elders were like, sure. And church was

excited. At first, the people that were involved were mostly, uh, our teenagers. They were really

excited. And now we've got, uh, a number of people that actually go to our in real life church and

volunteer and participate also in the VR church in their different ages. So it's been cool to see

the spectrum of, uh, diversity there too. So yeah, I was the one that kind of threw it out there.

I remember it was a, um, you know what, it was a Christmas Eve service was the first time I actually

revealed it. And I don't know why I chose Christmas Eve. I think I was just so excited. I just, I think

I had just gotten my headset. So I actually used the headset as a, as a prop in my little Christmas

Eve devotional. And I don't even remember what I said, to be honest. No, no one remembers the sermon

after a few days of preaching. I don't even remember, but I do remember using the headset. And of course,

everyone else remembered that too. So it's kind of bizarre seeing me walk around with a headset on

stage, but that clicked with people. And I told them the vision and that's when people really

started getting behind it and really were excited. So, you know, posting on social media has helped

too. So they can see kind of what this is. There's still doubters and skeptics out there. Not that many

that I hear from the church, but just people that post or respond to my social media, they see the

avatars and they're kind of cartoonish on all space. And they're just like, is that, how can you really

have church that way? Is that real? You know? And so there's just some apologetic kind of dialogue

that happens on why this is really valid and it works and people are growing. So that's been fun too,

to kind of see people that are real late adopters, even skeptics begin to move towards endorsing it

and seeing it as a valid tool. So that's been cool. Awesome. The thing that makes you unique in this

is that you're a mixture of physical and virtual reality. Like DJ's been doing virtual reality for

three years and DJ's unique. And there's a handful of other VR planters that are coming out and starting

to do this. And not that I'm the expert in that I know all 330,000 evangelical churches in America today,

but I don't know of anybody else that's really doing this hybrid of physical, as well as being

serious about virtual reality. So I'm just curious, like, what's the life of somebody in a physical

church? What does that look like compared to like a virtual reality church? Where is it similar?

Where is it different? Is virtual reality a fully functioning church? Like what? Tell me about kind of the

comparison of the physical for you, the comparison of physical and virtual.

Yeah. So, I mean, the basic elements of Christian discipleship, I think, are similar across the board,

you know, no matter what the platform is. So I think that's because you can still have really engaging

discussions and teachings and one-on-one sort of accountability relationships and conversations

about deep things. So discipleship can happen in real life. And sometimes I've found even more,

even more intensely in VR. People tend to be a little bit more open about the real stuff going on inside

of them. So that's been kind of neat to see the benefit and beauty of digital ministry in that regard.

So those basic discipleship elements are pretty similar. It is still a challenge. I mean, VR,

you know, because it's so new in digital ministry, you know, I guess we're all sort of writing the book

on it. We're still trying to figure out how does this work? And so, you know, getting people connected

in a deep and robust way, individually, you have these really deep conversations, but getting them

connected in a group is still a challenge. I think VR, I think VR Church and DJ does a great job.

They have a prayer world after their services. And I've been to that. And it seems like people are

really bonding. That's been pretty cool. Pastor Brock, I don't know if you ever talked to him. He's a

great pastor in Michigan. He's got a great Discord server. They interact a lot. Jate Earhart,

he does a great job with forming. So I think there's guys out there that are really starting

to form community in terms of like the hybrid model, the way I've been trying to do it. And

we're by no means perfect at it. We're still, you know, building the plane in midair. But, you know,

we've had, of course, people from our congregation come into the VR campus. And so there's some overlap

there. And people can, as they just dialogue and have conversations, I hear them, you know,

sharing things that sort of bring the two worlds together. There's been a handful of our VR campus

folks who just go to VR actually have been involved in our live stream for our in real life. So they'll

watch that. They'll engage, comment, even help out. So in helping out and dialoguing with people on the

comment feed. So that's been cool. Our Discord channel, you know, I'd like to see that become even

more vibrant, but it's, you know, it's about a hundred people on there. It's decent. And there's

both people from the VR campus on there and people from the in real life interacting. So that helps.

We did something. Here's, I mean, some other ideas. We did this thing called Love Yuba Sutter Day. So

I'm in the counties where we're like situated Yuba County in Sutter County, California. And so we go out

and we take the Sunday off from church. And there's other churches in America have done this before

and go out and just serve the community. So we thought, well, how are we going to do that with

our VR church? Cause we basically do the same service essentially as we do, you know, in both

camp, in both campuses. And so I just said, Hey guys, we're going to take the day off. You guys can

come into the VR church and pray for those that are serving in Northern California. I'd also, it'd be

great if you guys could go out and serve in your local cities and then tell us about it. So that was cool

to see the in real life campus doing something, but the VR campus praying for them, um, doing their own

ministry, uh, for Christ in their local cities. So that kind of brought us together a little bit.

Um, you know, giving, we, you know, we talk, we always are talking about each other. So at the VR

campus, I'm talking about the in real life and stuff that's happened and that they're praying for you

and the same thing, uh, vice versa. In fact, uh, our business meeting, our annual business meeting

for our in real life church, we're really the whole church. Uh, but it'll be, uh, in November

and we're going to have some video testimonies of folks in the VR campus. They're going to just talk

about how they've grown in Christ and how they've been blessed by the church and really thanking the

in real life people for contributing and doing the work and, and, uh, thanking them for their

prayers. So that kind of will have some overlap. Um, just trying, and whenever we talk, we just

constantly talking about each other. We don't keep it separate. And, uh, I think there's some progress

in, in some real connections, but it is still, there's still a gap there. And one of the things

I'm hoping for is maybe with augmented reality advances in the future, there might be a way

to kind of really bring the two together in real time, even where you, I don't know. I mean,

envision, I was talking with DJ and pastor Brock and Jake, it's a while back. Uh, you know, if,

if you could come into your church service in real life and, but yet you, I don't know if there's,

you know, if the technology was cheap enough, or maybe you can see an image, maybe not everybody

can have glasses, but maybe there's something on a screen somewhere that shows

avatars, you know, sitting next to you. And then of course the avatars, maybe they'd have a screen

in their facility. They can see the in real life church and they're all worshiping together. That

would be, that would be pretty cool. I mean, that tech already exists, right? I feel like I just

Yeah, I think it does. Well, the, the NBA is doing that right now. Right. And I was actually

wondering how that kind of environment might play into the local church one day. And I think that's

kind of a cool way. You know, you have the NBA has got the whole thing where they got virtual fans on

screen, people who are watching from their devices or whatever else, but they're in tune with the game

and watching. But if you can have that, like, uh, it's funny, my dad and I were asked, he was like,

Oh, cause he's very old school. I was like, Ray, do you think, uh, do you, do you think it's a good

thing? I said, dad, I think that's a great thing. I think the NBA needs to keep that and adapt that in,

you know, to what, whatever comes next post COVID in terms of coming back in, because now you're giving

young audiences who could never afford a ticket, an opportunity to be front row, you know, for,

for a game, uh, even though it's virtual. And then the same way with church, I could absolutely see

that working out Jason where you've got, you know, I don't know, like an led screen on your wall back

there. That's just avatars, but they're, they're raising their hands up. Yeah. Yeah. I was watching

a basketball, one of the pregames and they were, they beamed Isaiah Thomas who was in Atlanta,

like into the bubble as a hologram and he's interviewing, I don't remember what coach it was

or what player it was. I just remember Isaiah Thomas. And so, but like they're, they're figuring

out how to, how to do this with the technology and 5g and like, it's the future is crazy, which is why

when, when we're talking about redefining community, even in the virtual reality, stuff like that,

it's like, people aren't comfortable with that. It's like, we got to get comfortable. The pendulum

is shifting more and more of this way. This isn't the thing that you fight. This is the thing that,

that you work through, but Hey Ray, I know you, you had some questions, but what are you thinking?

Jason, just a couple of things you had said that I want to make sure, uh, and ask. So you talked

about how folks in, in real life, right? IRL, how they're starting to engage more with the folks

online. Were folks so captivated by the vision that you cast that they were like, man, I got to go

get a headset like immediately. And then they went out and went and got some cause I'm picturing folks

in church and that's not where they're at initially to go out and just go drop on a $300 headset

because they're so captivated by vision, man. Tell me about that. Well, most of course did not go out

and buy a headset so that I don't want to overstate it. Yeah, but there were, we've had, I think there's

probably, and it's a small, I mean, our church, our campus, our VR campus is probably only in the

average about 30 people. So it's a small campus, which is still great. Um, but so, you know,

there's only been about maybe, I would think six, seven from the in real life that have, uh,

participated in some fashion and, and went out, you know, got headsets. So that, that was cool.

Yeah. So I guess they were captivated by the, uh, interfacing between, you know, the technological

advancements and the mission of Christ and see how we could reach more people. I think people are

super excited when we share that we've had people from all over the world come in. Um, they have an

all stay, but most of the time people come in and they, they sit in and participate, you know,

in the whole service, which I'm always, I'm always stunned by. You'd think that they would be bored

and they would pop in, pop out. Cause it's so easy to just jump around in VR. They sit there and they,

they receive the whole message. And when I tell people that in our church, like, yeah, people are

hearing the gospel and they're, a lot of them are not Christians. We've had a ton of conversations

with a lot of unbelievers because they feel comfortable coming into a VR church where they

probably would maybe never come into a brick and mortar church. So it's been awesome for, for

permission. Yeah. We discussed that with DJ, the concept of avatar as like creating a safe space

for spiritual conversations. Do you have any examples of, man, we, we really like took it to

the next level of this person. Obviously you don't have to give a name away or anything like that.

Yeah. Well, I mean, so what, what, what the coolest thing that happens is when they,

you know, connect, I mean, we've had a lot of conversations like after the church, in fact,

a few weeks ago, an atheist who had met before at one of our Bible studies on VR after the church

service, he wanted to talk to me. So we had an hour long conversation, you know, about deep stuff.

I mean, he obviously has got a lot of questions as an atheist. So stuff like that's happened. But one

of the coolest things is when people have started to come and then we connect on discord. I've got a

person that over the six months now that I've been doing the church, we've been having an ongoing,

I mean, I look back and there's like thousands of messages about where they're going with their

faith. They're trying to figure out, do they really believe in Christ? And they're asking a

lot of good apologetic questions. So stuff like that, that's really exciting to me. That really

gets me up out of bed in the morning. And I think that's, that's what's exciting to the church here

because we're trying to reach people, but it seems harder and harder to do it in the physical

spaces of life. You know, it's a different era. People don't sit on their porches and talk anymore.

Right. They close their garage after work and they go and watch Netflix. It's just harder to get

connected with, with your neighbors, but on VR and digital, it's like, it's just amazing how easy it

is. And so I think people really like that. Um, so yeah, there's a lot of excitement in that regard.

What do you think is the, cause I love that you're referring to this as the virtual reality campus.

I like that. What do you think is the biggest challenge of translating the IRL campus to the

VR campus? You mean explaining to the folks, uh, in the, maybe it's, maybe it's in strategy,

maybe it's in development of mission, but what's something that you're like, man, we do this in

IRL. I am still struggling with how to do this in VR. Yeah. So, you know, some of the key elements

historically in our ancient faith, right. Of community is communion, uh, baptism, um, you know,

church and some would argue, and people don't like to hear this term anymore, but church discipline,

right? I mean, and all that means is a loving way to help shepherd the flock so they don't fall off

the deep end and get eaten by wolves. Right. So you're trying to kind of help shepherd people.

Those are areas that I think are still a little bit challenging. Uh, church discipline has been

challenging to do even in real life, but, uh, communion and baptism. I haven't figured that

out. Although this designer who's helping us with his new world, he thinks he can design all these,

uh, you know, loaves of bread and communion cups. And I think I never would have thought doing that

before, uh, until live stream happened with our in real life folks. And we were celebrating community.

I said, go to your fridge, get some juice, get a cracker, and let's do this together. And I never

had thought about doing that before. And so now that everybody seems okay with that, we're like,

well, shoot, let's do that on VR. And so then you can have that bond of communion together,

uh, baptism, DJs already done baptisms. And I, I'm of, uh, I know different traditions have

different views on this, but I, I think that's legit. I think that's a real expression, uh, of a

testimony of a witness before others of their faith in Christ. But I know my other friends who have

different views on that feel like, man, you can't do a virtual baptism. That's, you know,

virtual communion for some, if they have different views on communion, that would be hard. But for us,

we're a little more, a little more open on those things, but those bond the community together.

But I think we're still struggling to see some of those ancient elements of fellowship and community

together happening in VR. So that's where we're challenged. I could see how that would be the

case across the board with all sacraments, right? Like, and especially as we talk about

specifically within church, like doing a VR wedding, you know, I know that once, once upon a time,

right? Like zoom weddings and this kind of thing we're thought of as unheard of. And yet here we

are in COVID in, in the midst of, well, I guess this is the only way we've got. So yeah.

Yeah. VR weddings. I hadn't thought about that. That would be interesting.

Now a VR funeral, that's where I draw the line.

That's where you draw the line. That's too much.

It's too much. You actually have to be near the body in order to do the funeral. You have to

breathe the same air molecules that are within the dead body for the funeral. I'm making fun of all

the other conversations.

Westminster catechism, I think somewhere.

Yeah. Something like that. Yeah. It's got, it's got to be in there.

It's got charged. I'm afraid in the era of deep fakes and all that stuff. We're going to have

resurrections.

Oh no.

That's going to be some scary stuff. All right.

Man, you took us places I didn't even want to go.

I had to.

Hey, so, so tell me, like, is it, is it similar demographics? Like, are you reaching the same

type of person? Is it, are they Yuba people in virtual reality? How far does it spread?

Like what, what are you seeing? Like, who are your ones? Who are you reaching and engaging

virtually as opposed to physically?

Yeah. I've only, I've only seen one Yuba City person in there. So mostly it's, it's folks just

throughout the world. Mostly people in North America. We've got Canadians and United States

citizens there. And I don't know if that's, you know, the timeframe we're at. Allspace isn't

probably the most popular platform at this point. Probably VRChat. I don't know, Ray, you probably

know. VRChat is probably the biggest, although it's had some issues lately. But anyway, as far as age

range, that's been pretty diverse. Allspace is, you know, most of the platform, like VRChat

is probably mostly millennials and younger. Allspace, you've got really the spectrum. And maybe,

you know, it's kind of like Allspace is the Facebook and VRChat is kind of like the Snapchat

or Instagram. So Allspace is not quite as cool. But there's still a lot of younger people that

come in there. So, but it's, it's neat because I've got, I got a guy who was in there. I think

he was in his seventies. And then I've got, you know, some teenagers that come in and then

all in between. So different, you know, different backgrounds, different races, different, in

some different countries. We've got a guy that comes regularly from Estonia, you know, in Eastern

Europe. And that's like one in the morning, I think, or midnight that he comes to our church

service. And he comes pretty much every week. And he's still not a believer. He's just processing

through the faith. So that's been cool. Yeah. So it's, it's pretty diverse, I think. Yeah.

More so than, than our in real life church, just because the nature of, you know, where we live.

And that, that's the takeaway statement right there. Yeah. Um, it's, it's more, more, more

diverse, um, digitally because your physical isn't, isn't as diverse. Right. Yeah. Do you

see like DJ reports, um, 80 to 85% lostness attending VR churches? You know, are you seeing

that extreme level of, of people who are unsaved kind of checking out a service to get a feel

or checking out church? Like, do you see that? Or is, is it a little more tamer?

Yeah. No, I, I, I, I don't know. I've never actually thought through exactly percentages. I

mean, there do seem to be folks, we have a Q and a at the end, um, and they can just ask

any questions. So some of them sound like they're asking pretty robust questions. Like

they've got to have some, uh, connectivity to the church at some level. But I think what I'm

seeing probably, even though there are a number of completely lost folks that have never

experienced church, um, a lot of the folks are de-churched. That's what I would probably,

I would probably say there's more de-churched because even calling it church, that's what

was strategic as well. Not only be, you know, philosophically, I do think it's a part of the

church. I don't think it's just a set separate pair of church ministry, but, but also calling

it church is, uh, strategic from a marketing perspective, right? People know generally what

church is. They may not like church, but they're drawn to that, right? A church online. And I can

jump in, jump out, no harm, no foul. And so I do think that de-churched people tend towards,

uh, you know, our churches, you know, probably DJ's mind. So you could consider them unbelievers,

I suppose. So that would be lost. Uh, that would go into his percentage. So yeah, I would agree with

them there that 85% are de-churched or lost or, uh, completely never connected to the church.

Well, if, even if that's a arguable statement, these are people that are not coming back to the

building. Right. Because ultimately you're tapping into people through this virtual reality

that aren't setting foot in the physical space, whether it's de-churched or they just don't feel

comfortable coming in and having questions and kind of having this level of conversation that,

that's doesn't exist. And so, you know, love some of the outward facing and, and the, um, you know,

the evangelism, transparent opportunities that you guys are getting in virtual reality. Like this is

phenomenal. It really is. I mean, it's, it's been a highlight in a really terrible year. It's been

the highlight. It's, this is a great thing. So I'm, I'm glad we got into it. Tell me more about the,

this diverse community. I mean, you've got somebody from Estonia coming in. I can only imagine just

because, you know, the world is open, open up, but it also feels super niche to a degree because not

everybody's on the VR train yet. Right. Like this is still somewhat cutting edge technology in the

sense of not everybody's ready to go buy an Oculus or this kind of thing. So talk a little bit more

about that as far as how that's been interacting with people and connecting with them. Yeah. I mean,

they're definitely, uh, because it's a niche kind of, uh, situation, you know, you can get,

you can start it. You can really get into a conversation with any of them. If you talk about

technology or talk about, uh, Oculus, you talk about your, what headset do you have? I mean,

sometimes they might be a little bit gun shy about talking about other topics, maybe even religious

topics, but boy, you start talking about technology, man, you could be on, you could talk with these

guys for hours. So that is cool. And that, that makes this, all these VR communities, uh, already

bonded, uh, no matter what their belief about God is they're, they're bonded around the technology.

So that's, that's an entry level or entry way into conversation to evangelistically. So that's kind

of neat. Um, but yeah, I think it's still is pretty, it is still pretty small percentage-wise

in terms of the overall population of the world, how many people are connected to it. But I, I really

think even though VR kind of bumped up for what was back to 2017, 16, I think I can't remember when

Facebook really went for it and it looked like it was going to go off the, off the rails, you know,

and then it sort of diminished. But I, I think, um, with the Oculus two coming out and as the price

point goes down, uh, they disconnect, they're trying to keep it away from a lot of wired to the, to the

PC, you know, even though that's a better experience, most people are not gamers and they don't have all

that equipment. So if you get them a two, $300, which is still high, but I think it's going to

still take off. I think you're going to see VR continue to expand. And I think most, then more

people will come into VR churches. So I think church, I think churches, I don't want to be,

I guess I'm a preacher, but I don't want to preach it, all the pastors out there and make them feel

bad. I, you know, this is a total, uh, it's a freedom. If they want to do it great, if they don't,

that's fine. But I do think that this is the time to get involved with it. I think it's just going

to blow open in the next five to 10 years. And, uh, I think churches really should, should get

involved with it. There's just so much opportunity. So I don't know if you ever watched Pastor Brock,

have you ever watched Pastor Brock's Twitch's, uh, Twitch feeds where he goes into VR chat and just

has conversations evangelistically?

If you haven't, it's one of my favorite things to watch. I subscribed to him because I love it. And I

can't remember his, I can't remember his Twitch. I think it's twitch.tv slash Pastor Brock VR, but he

just, it's amazing the conversations that he's able to get into because people are open to talking about

deep things. And the evangelist, it's just, I've not seen anything like it in our culture, in real

life. Yeah. You'd be lucky if you go out in the streets of wherever you live to have one pretty

decent conversation about Christ. Right. But in VR, it's like every time he gets on, it's, it's

amazing. The questions these folks are asking. And anyway, so I, I think that churches just need to

say, see that that is real. Like there is a huge mission field and it's only going to get bigger.

Were you, cause you're, you're talking about lead pastors needing to get into this area. Pastors

need to understand. Yeah. I, in this COVID season, I've had two pastors say to me, we want to launch

a virtual reality campus. So the idea is even spreading through and we're helping them figure

it out. Here's what I want to know. Like, were you, so you didn't own a VR headset. You said that

earlier. Yeah. Were you in this culture, like the discord, the Twitch, like was, is this native

to you or you just dove into this in COVID, learned it and planted a church in, in these

communities? Well, I've always enjoyed technology and I, and I, I guess I'm a little bit geeky,

I guess. That's, it's cool now to be a nerd. Right. So I, I've always been that angled that

way. Uh, but no, I've not been, uh, not been that at all connected to any of those types of

environments. Like Jade, Jade is like a master at discord and, and online. No, I'm, I'm completely

not. And so it was literally reading. I think I read, read about DJ and I think Christianity

today. And I was like, that's amazing. What a cool thing. And I just started looking online

and doing what you do, going Google and seeing what, what's out there. And, and I thought,

I'm just going to do it. Bite the bullet, get a, get a headset and jump in. I think my

first experience was in VR church. I visited there and I was, and I was blown away. I was

like, this is the most amazing church service ever. So cool. So, and then from there I just

went hog wild with it, you know? So yeah, I didn't have any. So yeah, for those pastors

out there that feel like, man, you know, these guys are way beyond me and I just don't have

the knowledge. It, it, it really is not complicated. It's just, it's just,

it's not. So, and it is, I will say it is, there are some elements that, that, you know,

I've been challenged by, but I, you know, most staff, most pastors are going to have somebody

on staff or maybe a volunteer. I've been blessed. We've got a director of operations that

she basically does all that stuff for me now at both campuses, you know, live stream,

all the alt space stuff. So I'm blessed right now. But that wasn't the case when I first started.

So those pastors that feel like they don't have that person still jump in. And then as you get

into it, you'll find somebody, there'll be somebody that's inspired by the vision that has

some techie skills and they can set up your PowerPoint slides on, in all space. Cause that's the stuff

where I'm like, I don't want to deal with that. But yeah.

Your operations director handles everything from the physical building to broadcast to all VR.

She's pretty amazing. She, she just has the ability to just

navigate all in the social media for both and discord community connections. She does all that

stuff. Wow. So I've, and that's been recent because I didn't have her at the very beginning. So we hired

her four months, I don't know, three months ago. And that's been, it's like, yes, it's been awesome.

So I'm not going to ask her name because if other people heard it, she'd have a great job.

Can't let her get her resume out there.

Not going to do that with much respect. Go to the website. You can probably figure it out on your

own, but no, that that's incredible. You don't like that. That's almost like the unicorn. You don't

find people with, with those, those giftings easy. So, so well done with that. I even wanted to build

on it a little bit and start to talk about maybe like volunteers. Like you mentioned some of the

physical volunteers are starting to serve in virtual reality. What does that look like? Was it difficult to

kind of cast that vision? Were there people that had an understanding of the culture or are you having

to train on VR culture at the same time? Like what, what is the volunteer onboarding and what does

some of those processes look like? Yeah. So it's one, one case in point, a guy who is, I think he's in

his, is he in his 50, maybe high fifties, low sixties. And, but he just has a great heart for

ministry. He loves to teach the word of God, loves people, but no, no technology. I mean,

nothing technological. And, but he just really caught that vision of the opportunities to reach

people and to minister to them. And so he went out and got an Oculus go because that was the cheapest

one. And, and I think they discontinued that one now, but he got the go and he jumped in. I don't

know, five months ago, four months ago. And he does, he helps lead the Bible study on Wednesday nights.

He'll go out, he'll get up and do prayer on the service or announcements. We got a number of people

that do that. So yeah. And then there were some teenagers that were like super native to all of

this and they were, that was easy, but, but it's neat to see guys like that who just really love

people and want to see them know Jesus and the hope of Christ. And he's like, I can put up 200 bucks

for a go and jump in. And, and again, all space, it makes it, you know, these platforms for the most

part, they make it pretty easy for people to, you know, there's a little bit of a learning curve,

but you know, you give it a half hour and it's, it's just not that complicated. You just hang out

with people and talk to them. I mean, it's not, so that's, that's a pretty cool story about somebody

that had like zero, like he's in his low sixties. Yeah. I had nothing technological about him,

but he, he's in it. He does it every week. So. Is your typical corner stoner, is it more of the

sixties guy or is it more of the, the 20 something that's in that culture that's being, being the

missionary? So we're, we're actually pretty evenly split now. It was at the beginning, it was mostly

probably fifties and above. And now we've got quite a lot of young people and young families and,

and some millennials. So it's, it's kind of grown over time, but yeah. So I guess that's why the

diversity is there in our volunteer base. You know, we've got, you know, director of operations,

she's in her, you know, low thirties, but then we've got, like I said, volunteers there in their

sixties. Now it's all of this plus church online, or is this your church online? Like is VR it?

No, we do church online. So we do live stream and, uh, and we have other video content that we put out

stuff like that, but it's all, yeah. That's a lot. Cause I know we've been focusing on this

particular thing, but that's a lot. Cause that's, that's running three sites now,

like in terms of multi-site church. And it's a church of 300 people. I mean, this is like,

like the, the resources that you're pouring into this, even, even just time equity is, is phenomenal.

So, I mean, I don't, I don't know if that's forward vision, uh, just seeing the road ahead

and pivoting that way, but like, just. Yeah. And it hasn't, I guess it hasn't felt, uh,

I think because I just, I do the exact same sermon. So, you know, it's just like opening another

search service, uh, you know, like a lot of pastors, they might, Hey, I want to go from one

to two services, two to three services. That's all we did. And, um, but you know, there is some

equity time and some money, but it hasn't been, it hasn't been that, uh, over overbearing. And I

think because of the, when you see the fruit, right. And you see the excitement of the mission being

accomplished, uh, it just gives you this net, this energy, right. It's supernatural energy.

I think that's, what's happening is that people are just excited. And so that they,

they want to give their time and their money to that. So I think that's, what's kept it sustained

is that it really is. People really are connecting with Christ. So pretty exciting.

That's, that's great. When, when, when you first, so you read, you read this, I just, I want to come

back to this cause I love the fact that you birthed this, you know, relatively quickly out of the COVID

season here. You read this article in Christianity today, DJ Soto. Yeah. How long between that point

and you actually like launched a service? Uh, it probably, it probably was, uh, at least eight

months. Yeah. I think it was, I think it was in the summer of 2019 that I read that. And I remember

telling, I remember reading it. Uh, I was eating a snack at the dinner table there and reading this

article. And I, I think instantly I said something to my wife who was in the kitchen there and I, or

somewhere, I can't remember where she was. And I, and I said, and I said, this pastor, he's baptizing

people in virtual reality. And I just want, you know, I was just like, this is, and we had a long

talk about that's so crazy and revolutionary and what's that mean and how does that work? And, and so

that, that conversation, it just led to a bunch of conversations with her and so many other people

in the church and about just the viability in the, and, and, and, and, and should this be done? Should

this be, is this something God wants? And I think enough people just got, as I told people, they were

just like, yeah. And so it just, it just kind of took, took fire from there leading to the Christmas

Eve service and the headset and, and then people were excited. So I think we had, and I mean, we're

small, we're a small time situation here. We're not, you're not talking to Andy Stanley. So our church

is small. And, but I think we had five people donated about $5,000 right there at that end of

that Christmas season in January towards this effort. And then the elders, since they've seen

that the, what's been done, the elders are like, let's, let's put more money to this and more money

to digital where before, you know, digital was like, I don't even think we even had any money. I don't

think we had any money associated with it. I don't know what we were doing. We weren't even doing

live. Yeah. We weren't even doing live stream until, uh, until all this happened. Isn't that crazy?

Yeah. It's funny. Cause it doesn't seem that crazy because people, you know, we talk about this

in terms of pastoral leadership, but people really do want to give to vision, right? Like they really

do want to give towards seeing their kids or their grandkids reach. And so when they see guys like you,

Jason, taking steps forward in that direction, bold steps, they may think, man, I don't care what it

costs, man. That's going to reach my kids. That's going to reach my grandkids. That's going to reach

the next generation. Yeah. I'll sacrifice. I'll give whatever it takes to that.

It's been cool. We even started, uh, Jade Earhart and started this thing called God and gaming.

And again, one of those situations, I, I, I, I'm not, uh, you know, there's nothing new under the sun.

So I just beg, borrow and steal. So I said, Jade, that is a great idea. So we started our,

what we call GG, uh, good God gaming. So we, we actually started that. And again, people were,

people, especially in certain age groups are a little bit like, that's weird. Is that even,

is, you know, is that even like biblically, you know, can God, can God bless you playing video games

and doing a Bible study? But at the same time, they're like, I want to see my, my kids reached,

you know, I want to see, I want to see the next generation reach for Christ. And so people have

been excited about it. So we started, we're doing one right now. We're going to start a second one.

And these are things I never, ever, ever, ever would have thought of a year ago. I mean,

Oh yeah.

This is not how I was trained, like in seminary.

Well, growing up in nineties, Christian cancel culture, where they were telling us to throw away

Mortal Kombat. Now they're like, no man, go reach those kids with Mortal Kombat.

It's crazy, man.

Yeah. I was, was having this conversation the other day, like through Stadia, we're, we're doing digital

only church planners. And some of these digital only church planners want to plant an MMO.

Like in, in different platforms and things like this. And, and so I was having a conversation

with Stadia about this and DJ was, was in the room and we're, we're talking about like the,

the viability of planting churches in games like Final Fantasy 14 or 15, whatever the version

they're, they're up to. And, and DJ just has the throwaway stat. Yeah. There's like 20 million

people that, that are, that are, they're still engaged regularly in, in this Final Fantasy 14

platform. And, and, and, and the guy that I was with, with Stadia, like he, he gets white.

He says, you're telling me there are 20 million people that engage just in that one, just in

that one game, 20 million people. And he's like, he's like, Jeff, we're doing this big movement

with Stadia to, to plant churches in prisons because we found the stat that there's 2 million

people here in the U S in the, in the, in the penal system. And they need to get some sort of a

church. So we're helping plant churches in prisons, but now you're telling me there's 20 million that

play in just one of like multiple platforms. It's crazy. It's crazy. And the opportunities for

us to like engage and to create a church in those communities. Oh, like to me, that's exciting.

Like virtual reality is, is, is scratching the surface of really what the future can hold for us.

That is so awesome. And you know, the 20 million, I, I can, you know, just guessing I would majority

of those have no connection to the church. I mean, I play Valorant a lot. That's actually the,

the one of the, the, the one GG study that we do. We do it in Valorant, which is kind of,

kind of interesting because we're shooting people and talking about grace and stuff, you know,

and have mercy, no mercy. But it's, it's, but these, but these guys that are on there that

I never, and, and I think several of them are from the, you know, several are IRL folks.

So I think the majority, cause it's a small group, but I have never heard them talk

hardly ever about Bible study. I mean, this is drawn them out. Like they're doing something they

love and they're talking about God and learning. But anyway, on Valorant, you know, there's,

you know, it's such a huge community, just like, I mean, probably not as big as Final Fantasy,

but you just see the gamer interaction and it's, it's not great, right? Like these folks are

seemingly clearly lost. So I think the opportunity is enormous. Like it's really untapped all the,

all the gamer culture. It's, it really is a mission field. It is the modern day mission field. That's

where most of the younger generations are hanging out. I, so I, what you said, man, that I did not

know 20 million on, that's crazy.

That to me gets back to the conversation of avatar in terms of who is the real you,

right? Like, because Christians in these environments act differently too. And so they've

even got to learn. And we're probably as pastors going to have to lead our people towards establishing

not a new to ethic, but that same ethic in these environments to make sure that there's integrity

across the board, right? Like who you are in digital spaces, whether you're gaming, whether you're

in virtual reality, whatever else has to be the same Christian that you're living IRL in real life.

Right. And so that has to carry over. And then why not grab people spiritually that you're connecting

with over there and bring them over to Christ. I mean, that's, that's massive.

That's awesome. That's a good point about the ethic that we have to understand. Cause I think

there's, you know, wrongly or rightly, we, we have this under, you know, the sacred secular divide.

Right. And I think some of that's okay, but I do think that maybe has created some of this dilemma

where we don't know how to enter into other spheres as a Christian. And we just, it just,

we just haven't, I don't think we've equipped people to know how to actually be in the world

and experience the secular, all that, all that is all reality in a sacred way. And as inverted,

so what we've done is we've separated the two out and history of the churches bears that out,

right? We've, this is your sacred spot. Come and do the holy stuff here. Only here's a secular

don't mix the two together. Um, that's really the loud message, whether we intended to send that

message or not, we sent that message. So that's why there's people, you can't play final fantasy

and speak about Jesus. And the reality is we have to figure out this ethic where we bring

Jesus into all those spaces. I think that's, that's what's so cool about the digital revolution here

happening in the church. I think is it's creating more robust disciples that are through and through

living out their Christian existence in all spheres. I think that's huge.

Well, it's, it's certainly a fascinating opportunity to revisit the idea of calling

to create a disciple maker to the place. It's funny. I just got an email from,

from the girl that wants to plant an MMO asking a question on something as we're doing the podcast.

So like she literally has a calling to plant a church in, in her guild, in the, in the game that,

that she plays. It's, it's not final fantasy. It's another one, uh, black something online.

I fly for me. I can't think of it right now. It's just anyway, sorry. Yeah. I should know. I don't

know. I don't keep up with the MMO culture as much as I should. I'm learning dude. I'm 43. I'll try

to keep up as much as I can, but she has a calling to do this. And so now we have like organizations

like stadia or even like people like DJ coming along and saying, Hey, let us help you plant this

church and do this. Yeah. Shoot. Even five years ago, like this was crazy. I, I start to hear the

horror stories of some of these planters who like, like DJ Soto, like Angela Craig, who were planning

these churches digital only without a physical footprint and like just being told no and ridiculed

and mocked and no support and denominations, like not returning phone calls. And yeah. Yeah. Like

it's, it's, it was this crazy world. And what's, what's fascinating is now as a result of COVID,

I think people have a lot more future vision than they did pre COVID where some of these things

aren't necessarily as radical. And even, I mean, shoot, Jason, even your story alone here, where

over the span of eight or nine months, you went from, I can't even spell VR to, Hey, I'm getting

ready to launch a VR church. That's tied in to the mission and vision of our church with centralized

support, with funding coming from the physical campus, the virtual, like that's a very quick time

turnaround for you to have an effective ministry virtually. I can't believe you're doing, you know,

broadcast digital church online ministry as, as well. So you're really attacking like on three

different spheres, the avatar, the church online, as, as well as the physical now with, with your

building in, in Yuba. Like this is, this is just a phenomenal church ministry that you've developed

on these three fronts.

You're, you're wearing me out now thinking about like, man, I guess we are doing all those things.

I'm starting to, well, I'm worn out for you.

No, I've got a really good staff. Like I said, I mean, we really are blessed. And so, but it's been,

but again, the energy's there because God's doing stuff and that's always exciting. So.

What's the biggest challenge? Um, so you're doing physical, you're doing broadcast, you're doing

what's, what's the hard thing? What's the tricky thing? Um, either in each of them or all of them,

like where, where, where do you get stuck?

Well, I think, man, just trying to figure out, um, discipleship. I mean, there's, it's amazing to me

after 2000 years, we're still, you know, so many books are written on every generation. Cause we're

all like, man, how do we do this? And I think we know how to, but it just seems, it seems challenging

to know how to take somebody to the deeper levels. And, uh, and, and sometimes just happens

sort of by accident, which really God just doing it. And you're like, wow, this guy wants to,

wow. He wants to be, uh, involved more. I think God, I didn't, I didn't have anything to do with it.

He just, you know, the Holy spirit moved him, but I like to figure out how to get better

in the inner life church on the online, uh, digital, uh, live streaming, et cetera. And then

the VR avatar stuff across the board, I want to see somehow a disciple, figure out how to do

discipleship in a much more streamlined. I hate to use that term, but just a way that makes sense

for everybody that we can replicate. And it can, it works across all spheres because it's just the,

the age old process that Jesus instituted. And I guess I'm just struggling sometimes to,

to figure out and maybe because the nuance of every personality, every person is different.

And every situation is different, but I've, I've been challenged by that through all. I've been

a pastor since 2008. And so not that long, but I mean, long enough to be like, how come I haven't

figured this out yet? So I'm kind of embarrassed to even admit it, but that, that would be awesome

to see the church just get more and more on fire, more empowered, more equipped to do its work.

And I see it in pockets, but I feel like I'm probably failing, uh, to really make it

clearer for the people. So that's where I'm hit a nerve there. That one's always, I can't figure

this out. I was going to say it took the master three years with 12 guys. Yeah. Right. And that's,

that's what I keep reminding myself. And that's why I remind a lot of our guys, because you know,

it goes back to the whole microwave crockpot conversation. We always have a church in terms

of discipleship, because like, I know that, and I'm calling my own organization out in this sense.

Sometimes we say, Oh man, we need to, we need to create leaders. And what we really mean is,

oh, we need to send more volunteers out. We're not necessarily as concerned with the slowness

of discipleship, which is really where the deep and heart wrenching stuff comes from. And yeah,

you know, sometimes you got to take out your highest leaders out of ministry because man,

they're not there spiritually right now. And you got to do the work and, and working with them to kind

of get back up to speed, et cetera. Not because they're not leading high enough because their

spiritual life isn't matching the calling that they've got right now. And so I think that's just

the lifelong struggle that we're all going to have as ministers and leaders. And so, you know,

Jason, kudos to you, man, as you try to figure that out, to do that both in, in IRL and, and in VR,

I know it's going to present a lot of challenges, but a lot of joys as well.

Yeah. Good word. That's a good word, Ray. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, a year ago, you couldn't even do discipleship online. I was,

always having those conversations in 2019, discipleship, disciple making, you know, that,

that you had to be in the physical space for that. And, and even to see in COVID where now,

you know, something like less than 200 churches were doing small groups online to now a major

percentage are embracing this and figuring that as a result of COVID, maybe it goes back to normal.

We'll have to see what, whatever the perceived normal is February 2020. Maybe it reverts back to

the way that it was, but I think there's a better understanding of community of engagement

and, and hopefully discipleship, disciple making as, as a result of it. So you are not the only church

to wrestle with that. So, so at least have that, have that in mind. Many, many churches are trying

to crack that, but if we can figure out how to do discipleship digitally, virtually, and this just

becomes a distribution network of the gospel, the internet digital does, man, I think that's when

we see revival because I think that there are buildings are a lid and what you're seeing in

virtual, what we're seeing through your broadcast and church online, I think that's going to open up a

whole other, a whole other level of church that, that we don't even realize here in 2020. So.

Yeah. That's good. Good word.

Hey, listen, I mean, I love this time. I'm so excited about this idea of the three phase church.

You are the one guy in the entire country who's doing three phases.

I don't know about that, but yeah, it's crazy. Yeah.

If I was wearing a hat, I would take it off. Um, it's my salute you, whatever it is. So,

so thank you for that. Hey, Ray, as, as we're landing the plane, just any, maybe closing thoughts.

Yeah. Just, you know, and I love the thought process of, of how you're looking at this as

its own campus. And I don't think that can be overstated enough because, you know, every platform

down the road is going to be viewed as a separate campus. Kind of like how we go multi-site into

different communities. You know, YouTube is going to be considered a church online campus one day.

Facebook's going to be considered its own campus one day. And so we kind of have to take a look at

how we're taking that same mission method and engaging specific environments. And so I think what

you're doing, Jason is so wonderful and so forward thinking, but at the same time, it fits in with

who your church is now. So it's not like you're being somebody else. You're being who you are

in this space. And for that, like Jeff, I took my hat off to you.

Thanks, bro. Yeah. Thanks guys. It was fun.

Man, just even as we're landing the plane here on your side, Jason, any, any closing thoughts

and anything as we're wrapping up?

No, I just, uh, well, thanks for what you guys are doing. I mean, I think just keeping it out. I mean,

cause there's not that many champions for this, right? I mean, you already talked about DJ

and his story was one of kind of on his own in the wilderness, right? And people were, and I did

see, you know, as I did research, people can be just really brutal. And I don't know why we do

that to each other. Why, why we eat our own, uh, but we do. And so, uh, it's gotten better now

because there's more people like DJ that are out there and you, but the, the, you know, you doing

this, uh, allows for a voice to be had for people that are trying to see a new way forward to bring

people to Christ and giving it. I just think, yeah, there's not that many voices out there

that are, that are, uh, making us look, uh, nor, I mean, everyone else makes us look abnormal and

maybe even not even biblical sometimes. And so it's nice to have somebody that's, uh, you know,

understanding that this is really a legitimate means of expressing the gospel to people. So

thanks for doing what you're doing with stadia. Yeah. Amen. And so Ray, Ray was actually part of

my Genesis and we're going to be celebrating this in a couple of weeks. The, the church digital is

coming up on our 100th episode, uh, here on the podcast. And so, and this goes back, the podcast

is actually going to highlight, you know, my story back in like 2000, January, February, 2018, Ray.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was that long ago. And once again, in COVID, it feels like, you know, forever

ago, but forever, but it really was like three, maybe not even three years ago. But, um, you know,

my church story was, uh, I was frustrated because I could not get leadership to, I, I didn't even feel

like I was communicating clearly to leadership. We were like so far apart, um, just in the different

visions and methods and directions of, of what I was seeing and how I was seeing it. And so I felt

alone. I was frustrated. Literally. I didn't feel like anybody was like on the same pages as me.

And so because of that, I felt weird and like, well, maybe, maybe I'm just looking at ministry

different or maybe God really doesn't, doesn't work this way. And so Ray and I, um, we were blessed

at the time to go to a conference in California. Actually it was in Disneyland, downtown Disney. Um,

other side of the country for us here in Miami. And so went to this conference and was actually

surrounded by, I don't know, a couple hundred people who maybe more than that, but they were

people who were thinking just like I was thinking. They were asking the same questions that I, that I

was asking. And as a result of it, I started to realize, Hey, I'm not alone, but there are very few

people who are championing these ideas. Like these people don't know each other. I'm, I'm literally on the

other side of the country. And I have no idea for years that there were people who were kind of

wrestling with these same things that were coming up with solutions that I didn't know about.

And, and, and really it was in the middle of this conference that I, that I started the church

digital. I bought the domain name in the middle of a keynote speech, uh, on, on my phone, on the

GoDaddy app, because I was like, that's not an endorsement of GoDaddy, but I just, I bought it.

Cause it's like, I was like, God, God called me. I'm going to do this. I have no idea what it looks

like. I didn't know it was going to be like, quit the job, start the business. I didn't know Stadia.

I couldn't even spell Stadia at the time. Uh, and it's just as how Skide has kind of orchestrated

all this, I believe in a way to help create new churches, to birth new digital only avatar only

digital mixing, physical and digital, you know, to help churches utilize these tools, not for digital

purpose, not for VR purpose, not for even physical benefit, but it's this idea of creating these

disciple makers who can go and pioneer and create new churches in MMO, in Twitter, in Facebook, in

virtual reality, in whatever the crazy thing that comes up next. Cause there's always going to be a

crazy next thing and how we, the church can support. That's beautiful. And Jason, you are doing a great

job and maybe even just realizing, Hey, there's more than just the building. Let's test them. Let's

experiment some of this stuff and the stories. Like, I just want to continue to get updates, man,

just to kind of feel you're, I've got, you're the three, your nicknames, you know, three phase

polling. I got, we got to come up with something, but you're the guy who's doing it in the three

phases. You are the one guy. And so like, I want to hear what's going on. What are you learning? What's

working? What's not working for you here in, in the, in the months ahead. So let's, let's bring you

back on. Let's dialogue. I'll add a fourth phase. Maybe there's a four, is there a fourth phase? Is that

possible? If there is, you'll be there first. If there is, you will be there first.

Jason polling, a cornerstones, a bleeding edge. Oh, man. I love this. So, Hey, for Ray, for Jason,

this is Jeff with the church digital. Thanks for jumping on the podcast here. We'll see you next

time. Have a good day.