EP101: Jim Tomberlin & The Goal of Physical Church

All right, we've got episode 101

of the Church Digital Podcast powered once again

by Stadia Church Planting.

It's kind of nice.

We're in three figures now, 101.

We celebrated episode 100 last week.

Phenomenal episode, packed guest list.

And so lots of content there to process

and celebrations to be a part of.

Listening audience, thank you.

But let's move on to what's ahead.

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Let's segue.

Let's get back to 101 here.

I love this episode.

I love this man.

I'm not ashamed to say it.

Jim Tomberlin, Chief of Staff, Christ Fellowship Miami, Multisite Solutions, Unstuck Group.

Jim Tomberlin impacted my life before I even breathed the same air molecules,

before I even was in the same room with him.

As one of the early pioneers of Multisite Solutions, of Multisite Church,

one of these OG guys in the Multisite movement,

Jim was really pioneering in some areas and really experimenting with this new idea of Multisite

Church maybe 20 years ago, even previous to that.

And from afar, I loved watching some of his mind space that he was sharing back in the day on

Twitter before Twitter was like the minefield it is now, when he was blogging back when like

blogging was cool, like when he was generating all of this content, helping churches go Multisite.

And at another level, I got to tell you, as I've shifted into this new role here with Stadia

and even the Church Digital before then, helping churches go digital, helping churches go online,

it's been a phenomenal relationship.

And just to have a, honestly, a mentor like Jim, we're not engaging all the time,

but when we do talk, it's phenomenal the insight that we get out of it.

So of course, 101, I'm like, hey, let's get Jim back in the show here and let's talk about some

things, Multisite Church, Mergers, Digital Church, Fidgetal Church, where are we going

with all this thing?

Jim, what are you thinking?

And so we're bringing into this conversation, we're bringing in Jim Tomberlin, Multisite

Solutions, Multisite Guy, Chief of Staff with Christ Fellowship Miami, Unstuck Group, so

many hats.

We're bringing in Ray DeArmis, Digital Pastor, Christ Fellowship Miami co-host here, of course,

bringing in myself, Jeff with the Church Digital and Stadia Church Planning.

In an episode here, 101, that I'm really simply calling the key to the next Digital Church

Frontier.

Okay, everybody, here you go.

Hey, well, it's great to be back with you, Jeff, and Ray, appreciate how you're leading

in this whole digital church movement, and it's not new to you.

It's been, what, five plus seven years, maybe, that you really led Christ Fellowship into the

digital space, and we've been building on that ever since, so, and your podcasts are

riveting, and you guys are becoming the voice, one of the key voices in this digital church

movement.

But my background, hey, I'm in my fourth plus decade of being in pastoral church work and

still loving it, and I get the chance now to help other churches have for the last 15 years

as a consultant in the multi-site merger movements, and that's what led me here to Christ Fellowship

as a consultant, and now serving as a chief of staff for the last three years.

It was supposed to be six months, but three years later, plus, still in this game here at

Christ Fellowship and following behind you guys in terms of the work you've been doing

in the digital church space.

That's awesome.

Let's just even back up.

You're in your fourth plus decade.

What's the secret to that?

Like, I don't know.

I look around.

I see people getting burned out.

I see people getting alienated with ministry.

Four decades, so that's like, what, since the 80s?

Like, what's the secret to that?

Even a little before that, so, but I don't know.

I think I've never fully recovered from the redemption that I experienced in Christ as a teenager,

and I'm just so grateful to get to do what I do.

I feel a real strong sense of calling.

I have an incredible wife who has that same sense of calling as well, and we have just been

able to love the church in spite of all of its humanity.

And, of course, that's what the Bible teaches us, that, you know, humanity is broken and

the need of forgiveness and redemption, and so churches are full of broken people who need

forgiveness and redemption, and I'm just glad to be a part of that process in my own life

and helping others in their journey as well.

And I still believe the local church is the hope of the world and have given my life to

the greatest message and purpose that I think a person can give their life to.

So I'm still grateful to be serving and being able to bring, hopefully, some help to some

folks along the way in the work of the church.

Man, hopefully that's inspirational.

Just even for me, a guy who's done 15 years of church staff, and I joke here on the show,

like I've never stayed at any one location longer than five years before.

It's like, okay, it's time to go and just kind of move on, move on, move on.

Somebody like you, yeah, you've had different roles in different parts, but 40 years on physical

church staffs, outside through your organization, supporting church staffs from within, consulting,

being part of that.

Honestly, just me looking from the outside, that's inspirational to see somebody who's dedicated

40 years of their life to the church.

So, you know, even up front, hey, thanks for the service of that.

Thanks for contributing.

Thanks for helping the bride of Christ in this season.

And thanks for investing.

Even Jim, like you were influential in my life before you and I even like met through multi-site

guy, through multi-site solutions, blogs back in the day, and just really being one of those

loud voices, I want to thank you.

And we've had this conversation before because even before I knew you, I felt like I knew

you and you were having ministry influence on my life.

So thanks for that, you know, even up front, which is why I love having conversations like

this because, you know, I'm listening to you on a Kerry Newhoff podcast and you say the

word fidgetal and I'm screaming up and down.

Yes, yes, yes.

Like he's, he's got it and he said it on Kerry Newhoff and we're getting it out there.

And I'm understanding more of like this, you know, COVID, COVID's a thing.

And as much as we at the church want to go back to February 2020 and pretend like, you

know, nothing happened.

A, I don't think we're actually going to be able to go back because I don't think February

2020 exists anymore in culture and B, I kind of find it funny that churches want to go back

to February 2020 because February 2020 was not a great time in context of ministry.

And so I, you're the, you're the multi-site guy.

You're the, you're the merger guy, you know, and there's, there's books that, that, that

you've, you've written on this.

And I want to have some of those conversations, but I'm just curious, like from a multi-site

perspective, uh, what, what are we learning?

What is the church learning, uh, mid COVID coming out of this post COVID?

I'm hearing some rumors that, that maybe multi-sites dead.

I'm seeing some churches that are kind of struggling with this.

Like what's, what's the multi-site perspective now, uh, mid post COVID?

It's a great question, Jeff.

Uh, I, I, when this COVID hit us, I went back and, and reviewed an article I published with

Outreach Magazine back in the fall of 2019.

And they had asked me to write an article about where the multi-site movement was then, and

where was it going in the future?

So I, I named a half a dozen trends that I was seeing that, uh, we will, that churches

that are really getting and effectively doing multi-site, this is what they're doing.

And this is where this movement is going.

So I went back to see if that was still valid.

It is still relevant in light of COVID.

And as I read it, uh, I thought, absolutely, even more so.

And as I've been said in several different places and others have said as well, that COVID

really hasn't changed anything.

It's just accelerated the good, the bad, and the ugly, uh, in, in all dimensions, uh, you

know, inside and outside the church.

Certainly in the multi-site movement, uh, the trends that we were seeing of effective

churches doing multi-site, uh, that those have only been accelerated and intensified and

magnified through this COVID season.

So, uh, I could tell you the multi-site movement is not, is not dead or dying or the idea of the

model of it.

Just was a few weeks ago with a church that's in one location.

It's about 2000 and said, Hey, we're ready to multi-site.

Can you come and talk to us up in Tennessee?

So, I mean, it's not going away now for a lot of churches.

And then I said this in my article back in the fall, and I just published a new article

with Rezzy, you know, the, our good friends that, uh, living as one now Rezzy, uh, about

they asked me what, what's, uh, could you write an article about multi-site reopenings

in multi-site churches?

But, um, so I expressed several of the things that we're seeing there in the multi-site church

movement.

But we, uh, as we said back in the fall, small is the new big that, um, smaller facilities,

uh, um, uh, is, is clearly the truth was the trend then, and it continues to be that way.

The churches that dabbled in multi-site, you know, with one or two locations, and they saw

that as quoted like a satellite campus, uh, they still had a main campus mindset.

They didn't really make the multi-site paradigm shift.

We're going to see a lot of those churches, churches shedding their campuses.

Uh, we already were seeing that and getting out of the multi-site movement, but those churches

that really embrace the multi-site model, the paradigm of one church, multiple locations,

uh, and, you know, shifted in that paradigm before COVID, they're going to, um, uh, do a fine

in this, in this season.

Those who have a big box model are going to struggle.

That is where every campus is a big, you know, uh, huge space facility.

It's just not needed with a multi-site model.

Those with a big campus, main campus that they had before all, they got into the movement,

uh, they're going to struggle more about filling those campuses up, but, uh, small is the new

big.

And, uh, for those who, who are nimble and who can, uh, um, uh, embrace the paradigm shift,

um, multi-site is still going to be around and is growing.

Thinking small as a consistent challenge for a lot of churches, right?

Just in terms of expectations, uh, how are you encouraging churches to kind of temper those

expectations as they move forward?

Well, again, it's, I think before the multi-site movement, uh, the, uh, the, the mantra was,

let's get as big as we can.

And the mega church movement started around the seventies, eighties in America.

And, uh, but then as we realized you can get so big in one location, you can become unsustainable.

And so we clearly, uh, came to that conclusion.

We're not going to see, and there's been a definite decline in building larger buildings,

even before COVID.

We just don't need them.

If you're, have a multi-site mindset.

I was in a church the week of COVID, the week that it hit the country, you know, that mid-March

that Tuesday, I was in a church in Colorado that had moved into a building that they had built

and purchased the land and built a building for $6 million.

And it's, uh, they were meeting in five services in a building of 350 seats, five services on Sunday.

And when they moved into that building out of a school, uh, they were about 500 three years ago,

and they'd grown to 2000 people in a building with 350 seats.

And they, and it was all Sunday after, you know, Sunday morning, Sunday afternoon meetings

that get services.

And, uh, they were almost apologizing for how small the building was.

And I said, why did you build it with only 350 seats?

And they said, that's all the County would allow us to build.

And so, uh, I said, but let me just say this, this is the new normal.

This is before COVID hit.

I mean, the week of it, uh, what you've done here proves you can have, you can be a mega

size church in a small facility.

And, um, and so he said, well, we, we've max, I maximize our space here and we, we want

a multi-site.

And so I was just in that church about a month ago when they had reopened and, um, you know,

they're back in the, in business and, uh, looking at down the road for more sites as

well, as they get, uh, regain their, their, uh, congregation back.

But, um, but I think that is the new normal, uh, you don't, you don't have to be big facilities

to be a big, have a big impact.

It's not getting as big as you can, but it's getting big enough where you can birth healthy,

uh, uh, congregations.

Right.

Jim, is there a benefit to that?

Because as I look to getting back, not everybody's ready to meet with large crowds.

And so is there a benefit to thinking small as opposed to thinking large because of it?

Well, that, that is one of the benefits we know across the country that the larger churches

with larger campuses, uh, are having a hard time returning, uh, you know, the megachurch

facilities, um, are not filling up.

The smaller churches were able to reopen sooner and get back to pretty much business for them.

So, um, we saw that here at Christ Fellowship when we reopened two weeks ago, our smaller

facilities locations, uh, were, you know, 50 at, at our capacity of what's allowed for us

with, uh, social distancing where our, our two larger campuses, uh, weren't, uh, hitting

that even that 25% or barely hitting the 25%, uh, category for us.

And so, uh, smaller is, uh, more nimble and more, uh, there's other, uh, other benefit is

it, it costs a whole lot less to maintain and, uh, take care of facilities, smaller facilities.

I love this line and Jim, you, like you, last time you were on the podcast, the, the line

from you was the, not everybody has to buy into it, but enough have to, to make it worthwhile.

That was, that was the thing I have said that hundreds of times since you were on the, on

the podcast.

And this line right here is going to become my next line.

It's not get as big as you can.

It's get big enough to multiply healthily.

Let's unpack that because in, in physical church, in digital church, you know, there's,

there's reach versus engagement, you know, like that there's a lot kind of in this one

phrase.

And so I guess I would kind of say, how do churches, do churches see this?

Do churches struggle with this?

Like unpack that statement, uh, and, and maybe give some advice or, or shaping in context of

how that applies to the church today.

Well, Jeff, I believe that, uh, it's, it's in the DNA of every living thing.

God has breathed the, the, uh, into every living organism.

And I think of the church as a living organism, uh, the breath of life is to, to be a blessing,

uh, to be fruitful.

That is to reproduce and to multiply.

That was the commandment given to Adam and Eve.

You know, uh, uh, he's, the Bible says in Genesis that, uh, God blessed them and said to

them, be fruitful and multiply.

What that means is, uh, for the local church is it's in our DNA to be fruitful, to be a blessing,

first of all, to a community and to people's lives, uh, but not just to be a blessing so

we can enjoy the blessing, but also to reproduce that that's being fruitful.

And then to, um, not only be reproduction, but multiplication.

Now, that being said, I use the analogy of, uh, a human, of a human humanity, uh, a 16 year

old can have a baby, a 16 year old, uh, uh, young woman can have a, can have a child physically,

but is it healthy?

Is that, is that wise?

Uh, 20 plus year old woman is in a better place to a healthier place to have a healthy

baby and survive the, uh, the delivery.

So I think the same is true for a local church.

Uh, our goal is to make disciples.

It's not just to do church, but, uh, we're the point of the spear of the, of the, of the,

of make the disciple making the local churches.

And, uh, so the, the goal ought to be as churches are birth is let's, let's reach people.

Let's make disciples, let's grow, um, uh, healthy things grow.

And so when we get strong enough and healthy enough, we need to reproduce.

And, uh, and then when the, uh, when we birth out other congregations, true multiplication

is when those congregations or campuses give birth to campuses.

And so that's just in our DNA.

And, uh, but there is just like in, in the human body, there is a, uh, a healthy time to

do that and a premature time for that to happen.

So, so we're seeing multi-sites are, and I love this evaluation that you say, if you're

going to measure health, don't just measure the Sunday, measure groups, measure multiple

levels, because that's going to tell you the health.

Uh, it's more than just that reach of the Sunday morning, nickels and noses, uh, the butts

and seats approach.

And so kind of have that and, and hopefully physical established churches, even mapping that

out onto the digital side, don't just map out, uh, and celebrate the number of Facebook viewers

you have for two seconds.

Uh, but how many, how much of that's getting connected into your next step, your membership

classes?

I was going to say that it's not just the followers, it's how many are taking a next step.

That's the key.

Um, if there, if nobody's taking a next step or if you're not even giving them an invitation

to take a next step, but even if you are, uh, that's to me is the real evidence that you're

connecting with people, that people are really are engaging with you.

They're not just flipping through the, through the websites.

Yeah.

The, the challenge is to move beyond consumer.

And so, cause we don't want our, our church on lines.

We don't want our churches to be filled with consumers.

We want to get to that, that next level.

And so put metrics on that measure that gauge the success of those next steps.

Don't just be, don't just be celebrating the reach number.

You can, you can write a check to Facebook or to Google to, to boost that reach number.

You got to figure out how to get them to that next level.

Jeff, I think the churches are going to be effective in this, uh, COVID era and beyond

are those that really are going to move away from focusing on the weekend experience, uh,

but more to what's our content this week that we're going to put online, that we're going

to deliver it week at the, at our physical campuses that we're going to funnel through

our small groups.

And, uh, that really it's, it's less about an event.

The weekend is just, is a vehicle now, uh, one of, and a very powerful one, but one of

several, and I think the focus moves there.

What can we put, what, what's our content for this week or for this three months or whatever?

And then how do we get that out, out in different ways, um, uh, digitally?

How do we deliver that on the weekends?

And so that we start with, you know, in the past, uh, Ray is the idea was, Hey, we have

our weekend experience.

How do we make it digital?

Now, I think the shift needs to be, we have content that, uh, we, uh, start digitally.

And then how do we, how do we deliver that?

Contextualize that in a physical location?

Yeah.

The, the idea of a previous to COVID, I could see where a lot of ministries were, were operating

siloed.

Like the weekend experience, maybe doing one thing, small groups may or may not be connected

to that.

Kids and students were, were often kind of doing their own thing.

In this COVID season with digital kind of rising in influence, I can see where digital becomes

this thing that connects all of it together because we're experiencing those services digital.

And we're experiencing our small groups digital.

So our, our people are now getting drinking from the same faucet.

And there's an opportunity for us as the church to seamlessly connect those together.

I love that.

Jim, create one, one experience, one direction, one track, and whether it's social media, that's

prepping for the service or the service that's prepping for a deeper conversation in social

media, you're moving people solidified in one direction instead of micro fractional pulling

them in all sorts of different places.

That that's beautiful.

I don't think I'd really ever put that together until just now.

It's a great opportunity.

Well, let's, let's do, I want to talk about, um, I want, want to talk about mergers a little

bit.

So you just came out with this book, uh, actually it's a, it's a re-release, uh, and, and what

a, what a timely re-release where you've got, uh, churches that were, we're trying to here

in this COVID season, we're, we're shutting down.

Like was a Barna, uh, David Kinnaman comes out, uh, 30% of Christians have left the church

mathematically an act of God or radical disciple making, but mathematically they're gone.

We are not going to get them back.

20% of churches, uh, uh, Kinnaman saying are going to shut down.

In the next 18 months, um, you know, we, we've talked about digital strategy being, being

a possibility, but, uh, mergers are definitely going to be, uh, a thing in the future.

And you guys were already re-releasing this book and working towards this, this book coming

out to help churches figure out how to do this merger thing.

Jim, tell me about it.

Yeah, it's, it's an incredibly, the timing of this was amazing.

Last fall, the publishers came to my co-author and I, Warren Byrd and said, your book has been

a steady selling book, but it's in hardback.

Could we have your permission to release that in paperback?

Cause we didn't think it's a growing, um, trend and, uh, we'd like to make it even more accessible

to more people.

And we said, we would be willing to, uh, do that if you would allow us to update it.

And, uh, and so we did a survey last fall of nearly a thousand churches who had gone through

a merger in the last five to 10 years.

Uh, and, uh, we added three more chapters.

We, everything we wrote in the first book, we, uh, uh, we, we didn't have to repent of

anything.

We wrote, uh, everything we said there that we published eight and a half years ago, where,

where we really gave some language to the merger, um, um, conversation and some categories and

some tools about how this has gone from a lose, lose to a win, win, uh, option for churches.

And that was more, these are more mission driven versus survival driven kind of mergers that

we were seeing 10 years ago.

And so, uh, that trend has continued to grow, uh, more and more mergers are happening, you

know, eight, 10 years ago, 30% of all multi-site churches were, uh, a result of a merger or

acquisition of a church building through a merger, uh, Christ Fellowship is, you know,

Ray, we've had three, uh, mergers here locally and four globally that, uh, that's, you know,

came on campuses, congregations through a mergers.

We, we certainly experienced that now in our latest survey, over 40% of multi-site churches

are experiencing, you know, facilities through a merger, but we also saw church planters,

uh, 20% of church planters are acquiring a facility through a merger.

And, um, we also see that many more and more churches are seeing, um, who are looking for

a pastor or succession strategy as a merger is, is becoming more a tool or an option for

those kinds of churches as well.

But the publisher said, we, we see there's, this is a growing trend and, uh, we'd like to

release it next fall.

That was a year ago in the fall of 2020.

And so we, we added three more chapters, added a bunch more tools, told more stories, updated

some more stories from our first book.

And, uh, we submitted our final manuscript the month before COVID hit.

And, um, once it hit, we asked the publisher, could we have that back and, uh, address the

COVID issue?

And, and, uh, and also we wanted to review is COVID changed anything we wrote.

And it didn't, again, it only accelerated what we were already were seeing.

Uh, there's more churches merging because more churches are just, are struggling.

And, um, the, um, and they said, well, we're going to, we, they get, they allowed us to

have the book back to, I mean, the manuscript back.

We updated some things related to COVID.

Uh, and they said, we're only going to release one book this fall and that's your book.

Wow.

Because it's so timely.

So we, um, it's better together, making church mergers work expanded and updated.

That's awesome.

We'll, we'll include a link in the show notes for that, but it's, uh, it was, it was a great

book beforehand.

I, you know, I read version one, however many years ago, but having it come back out to help

churches, I, I'll be honest, like I've had, I've already had some of these hard conversations,

uh, with, with churches of, Hey, um, um, I've lost my space.

I was set up and tear down at a school.

That's not, that's not going to happen or we're, we're not going to go back to the school.

I have no idea.

We're already disconnected.

We, we've tried the digital thing and we're really not able, we were barely grasping, you

know, financially being able to hold on.

And, and I guess my question kind of walking into this is at what point is it, if, if I'm,

if I'm a church like this, that's struggling today, I've got several different options.

I've, I've got, I've got the merger route.

I've got the, the digital strategy become a digital only church for a season, uh, until

I can get my feet back underneath me.

Um, you know, I've got just to hang it up and close it down.

Don't worry, like just move on to the next thing.

So I've really got like three different approaches.

It's interesting.

You're kind of talking about all three at different levels.

So what, how do I know as, as a, as a lead pastor of, of a church that's struggling,

how do I know what path to go on?

It's a good question.

I, one of the things that we tell churches, um, how do you know if you're a struggling

church or stuck church or strong church?

Those are our three categories, right?

Your strong churches are, are emerging because they're acquiring facilities and congregations,

adopting them, um, as, cause they're growing, they're expanding, they're needing for facilities.

Uh, stuck churches, uh, many times are stuck because they, uh, they, they don't know they're

stuck.

They think cause they're meeting their bills and, you know, everything's okay.

They're not in trouble financially, but they're not reaching people.

They're not growing.

And some, some churches are fine with that.

Uh, they like, they don't, they're okay being stuck.

Others aren't happy with it and are dissatisfied with that.

Then there are, those are struggling.

We know that, um, in our work at, at the unstuck group about, um, we have a category of there's

seven stages of a life cycle of a church.

And, um, the downside is about 60% are in maintenance mode stuck about 15% are in life

preservation.

And then the, um, about 10% are in, um, life support those that's about 25% of those churches

that COVID is only going to accelerate their, um, uh, closing.

Now, uh, if you're a church, it's not, whatever you measure as a church, whether it's attendance,

finances, uh, but baptisms, uh, whatever you measure, if, uh, if that's, if those things

have been on the downside for more than two plus years, you're in trouble.

You need to turn around or you may not, you may be too far gone to turn around.

You need to close down or the nice thing is with a merger, you have a chance to have a

new, a second life, a new chapter, a rebirth.

How do I know what path to choose?

The first thing church leaders need to do is, and the first thing leaders do is define

reality.

Where are we now?

Uh, where do we want to go and how do we get there?

And so, uh, one of the things we do on the unstuck, uh, website, we have a self-assessment tool

that churches can take.

We've had over 15,000 churches take the self-assessment tool of their health.

And, uh, we, and that's where we get our cat, our statistics about how many churches are struggling,

how many are thriving, et cetera.

But, um, so first of all is, uh, our friends, are we, do we, are we going to make it?

Uh, do we, even if we can make it financially and many of the churches that merge are not

in trouble financially, but they, they're not, they're stuck.

They're not reaching people.

They're not making disciples.

And we all know that the church should be a prevailing church and that we, we exist to

make disciples.

If we're not making disciples, then we're stuck now.

But, uh, uh, so a, a good self-assessment is the first step.

What are the, what are the metrics?

What are the things that measure health in the, in your, in your world?

That will tell you, we need to do something here.

It's a great start.

Really.

I mean, honestly, humbly evaluate where you are in the path.

Is it worth getting connected to, to somebody else or even just being broken enough to recognize

where, where you are and that you even need, need that help.

So we'll, we'll link to the self-assessment in the, uh, in the, in the show notes.

You, you can get access to that and go through, um, and, uh, the, the unstuck group,

Tony Morgan and those guys are, are, are doing a great work right now, trying to help, uh,

obviously as many churches in this COVID season.

I think all the organizations that were trying to help churches, they're all working overdrive

right now, trying to help through that.

So, you know, Jim, one of the things that I've loved about you is, is you're, you're the

forward thinking guy.

Um, you're, I don't, I don't want to say like, you're like old, but you're, you've been

working for, uh, for decades.

That's awesome.

We talked about that earlier.

So we'll just, we'll just pay homage to that.

Um, but by thinking, uh, by being the age that you are, you've always been kind of pushing

the limits on things.

One of the leaders of the multi-site movements championing this, this idea of mergers, uh,

you've been forward thinking in context of, of your ministry life.

And this is what I think is interesting in this season now is we've got a, uh, an opportunity

to do something different.

You know, some of the things that, that I've been championing is this idea of a digital only

church, a church that doesn't have a physical footprint necessarily.

And we've, you know, we've talked with digital only planners like DJ Soto, who's got a, uh,

I don't know, reaching hundreds of people in virtual reality on multiple campuses.

Angela Craig is doing a Facebook, uh, church that's in 40 countries, 43 languages, something

like that.

Jade Earhart's reaching video gamers and discipling them and creating a discipleship movement, growing

it into a church digitally using tools like Twitch and discord.

Uh, and so this is a, this is a forward thinking thing.

And so as I, as I talk with people about this idea of a digital only church, uh, I get one

of two responses, uh, one is that is the greatest thing that I've ever heard.

It's about time.

How can I help?

Or the second is that's borderline heresy.

You're going to hell just for the idea.

Um, and literally even in COVID season, it's, it's, it's a, it's a true dichotomy.

It's either one of those two.

I'm just curious, kind of your perspective at this idea of a digital only church, a church

without a physical footprint existing in, in digital space held to biblical standards.

Um, what, what's your take?

What's your opinion?

When you look at the future, what role do you see like a digital only church playing?

This conversation is a lot like people were having before COVID, where can you even do

a digital campus, digital church experience?

You know, there was a lot of debate about that.

It's not biblical.

It's not, it's not, uh, meets the requirements of biblical community, et cetera.

Nobody's, nobody's saying that these last six months about, can it work on online?

Of course, we've demonstrated, it's been demonstrated.

You can be a fully functioning church online.

The question about digital only, I think, uh, first of all, I, that is the only option in

parts of the world where it's illegal to meet as Christians, where the, uh, where there's

persecution.

So, uh, for many of those, that's, that is the only way they can do church is digitally.

Uh, and, uh, we know that people perhaps in prisons as well, you know, I mean, they can't

go to a church service and all that sort of thing, although there are ways to even have

a church service in a, in a prison, but I think, is it possible?

Yes.

Uh, and, um, is it only, I think that we, I think we will see some experiences of church

individuals who are, who are going to be, uh, digital only.

That's just going to be their strategy.

And I want to just say, go for it.

The, um, uh, I think that if I was a church planter today, and if I was starting all over,

if I was going to start as a church, I would start digitally.

And this is basically what it's so fun because that's what you get.

You're working with Stadia.

That's what they hired you to do is to help church planters start churches beginning

digitally first, at least.

And I think mostly with the idea of a physical, uh, launch eventually.

I think if, uh, that if I was doing, I would do digital church and then I would get people

into small groups.

And, um, and then maybe once a quarter, we'd rent a facility and I'll come together.

Um, and, uh, you know, have a church experience.

The, uh, that, I think that would be the way I would go.

It reminds me a lot of the first century, the first three centuries where they, uh, the,

and the most part it was illegal to meet as Christians to certainly build buildings and

all, but they all met somewhere.

There was a meeting place somewhere, uh, but it was homes.

It was by a riverside.

It was, uh, in a jail.

It was, um, the, um, the idea of a, being of a, uh, a building centric faith, you know,

that's, that's something that's happened over the last hundreds of years, maybe in the West.

But, um, we know today that, uh, where the church is growing the fastest is, um, in places

like Iran, uh, Afghanistan, et cetera, but I'm getting off track.

Digital only, um, I, I, um, I think the jury's still out on that.

I think that the, no, it's not just about biblical community.

I think it's just human humanity in general has a need for physical connection.

So I think we'll figure out ways to, um, uh, come together, but it won't, uh, but I think

it'll be different venues to doing that.

But I do think if I was starting a church today, I would start digital first for sure.

And, uh, and then figure out how do we deliver digital experience in a physical location?

How do we adapt that?

Yeah, I, I, I love that challenge.

The idea of, of, of, of planting a church digital first and then, and then growing it in physical

stadia.

We were doing that a lot.

I can already tell you, you know, success stories of guys.

I loved your podcast with, uh, the Nouveau church.

Oh yeah.

Yeah.

Nouveau has been doing a great job with that.

And it was funny.

There was, um, we would, one of, one of the other guys that was on here, Ray Hudson, who's

with, um, oh Ray, forgive me.

I'm sorry.

I'm blanking on your church name right now, but he just launched.

He had been digital.

He'd launched early, um, in, in the middle of the COVID season.

And he just coming out of, out of COVID, he just had his first physical services, I think

this past week, um, he did, and it was, it was at a micro location.

It was not in the location he was planning on, uh, but they could have 20 people in the

service, uh, because of restrictions.

And so he launched his first service with six, first weekend with six services to Saturday

for Sunday, uh, preached 15 minutes, you know, shorter worship was a much more condensed environment.

It was basically some of the same content that was done digitally with his online service,

just done physically.

And so planners are trying to figure out how to mold that.

Honestly, he's trying to figure out if he could do 10 services, 10 services as a planner.

It's just phenomenal because some of the dedication heading into that.

But here's, here's what I know.

And Jim, you know, maybe, maybe you see this, maybe not.

But when, when I look into the, into now coming out of COVID, I really see where all the models

have been jumbled up.

Uh, I, I think that, that people, maybe this isn't a long-term thing, but at least short-term,

I think churches are trying to fit into whatever mold they can and, and maybe the established

model of what any given church was, uh, because of COVID, I think all the playbooks are kind

of jumbled and everybody's just grasping to try to find whatever straw they can to, to work,

which I think opens up in opportunities for things like digital only churches to work and to kind

of get defined. Uh, because I've, I've got micro churches, I've got digital, I've got digital

only, I've got digital first where I'm having to do this before I've got digital next where I'm on

the verge of shutting down. I'm trying to find somebody to merge with and digital next really

seems to be the solution for me, um, for a season until I can get my legs back under me as a church.

It just really seems like as these models get jumbled up, I think there's an opportunity for

another model to open up with this idea of, let me recognize digital community as a community that's,

that's worthy of, of a, of a church. So are you, what, what challenges do you see even as,

as we're looking at all of these different models of what church looks like and how can digital play

a part? Well, I think this, this is an exciting era. This allows us, we've gotten in some ways,

COVID has given us permission to do a lot of experimenting and a lot of trying. I would say

right now, Jeff, nobody has, would, would definitively can say, this is the way to forward. This is,

this is the best model. This is the best practices. We're all learning that right now. And so, uh,

it's, but I think this is a great shakeup for the church because we were stuck and declining,

generally speaking, 20% of the churches in America, we're, we're, are thriving, we're thriving.

Uh, uh, and I celebrate that. And many of those are the churches that are very innovative and

pioneering and willing to, to try new things. The, um, but I think this season gives us the permission

to do that and ask me a year from now, uh, what's, what's the new, the new normal, what's the new

best practices. Uh, again, I think, um, a lot of how you produce, predict the future is what's working

now and kind of, um, um, follow that the implications project that forward. But right now COVID has turned

everything upside down, but it gives us a huge, um, opportunity and permission to try new models,

new methods, new ideas. And those, those, uh, many of those are going to stick and become the new,

the new normal. Yeah. And, and even to quote you from last time you were on, not everybody has to buy

into it, but enough have to, to make it worthwhile. So, you know, in this, in this season, experiment,

try something new, um, change the way that you're evaluating to a fuller picture beyond just the,

the reach, start to get into that engagement. Engagement is the new, um, you know, stat to

celebrate and do that across your entire church, your entire discipleship pathway, engagement pathway,

and, uh, change the way that you're evaluating your church. This is all, it's all beautiful. It all

works together. So Jeff, I'm, I'm thinking it was you that coined the phrase fidgetal church,

right? You know, what's interesting is we could actually probably have that conversation. It's

either myself or James Emery White. It was, I, I stole it from, uh, from business, like businesses

using it. Forbes, I think was the first place that I saw it. Um, and it was funny the other day I was

actually trying to scrape back through blog posts to try to find where mine was. And, and it's, I know

James Emery White's been using it a lot over out of, um, out of his church and his movement, uh, with

church and culture. And so I'm not sure honestly who predates it, but we were, we were early on in

that. And I, I love, I love that it's now becoming like normal talk. I was watching a sermon of a church

of a friend of mine and, and some 65 year old pastors on stage preaching online, talking about

how we as a church, we need to think more fidgetal. And I'm like, I just got a 65 year old dude to

say fidgetal in, in a sermon. Like I, my, my work here is, is done. Like this is, this is great.

So it has definitely been a great run and, uh, we're, we're not slowing down. I know you four year,

four decades ongoing. You're, you're not slowing down either as well. And you've been a little

inspirational for me, even just saying, Hey, I want to be able to keep pressing on in ministry and

doing this. And, and for me to keep up pace with you, I guess that means I'll have to be working

in 2040 and, and, and Lord knows what the church is going to look like in a couple of decades. So

that, that might be an interesting challenge into itself, but Hey, Jim, and it's been great hanging out

with you today. Uh, as, as always any, as, as we're landing the plane here, any closing thoughts?

You commented about just being forward thinking for four, four decades. I appreciate it. Thank you for

that compliment. I do have a, um, I've always had this. I, I, I wake up every day thinking, how can we

do this better? How can we reach more people? How can we make more disciples better and more and

better disciples? Um, that has been a driving force for me or, or a conviction. And how do we,

how do we do this better? I never, I get bored when it's, uh, routine, uh, even if it's routine

successful, um, because success sometimes can be the greatest inhibitor of, of greater impact

because we, we get comfortable with our current success. And so I think, uh, all down through the

centuries, there've always been innovative church leaders who were willing to, uh, experiment to

embrace the latest technology and, and leverage it and use it for making more disciples and extending

God's kingdom on earth. And so, um, it's fun being in this space and, um, I, and, uh, I, I'm still

loving it and, um, and want to keep doing this until I can't. Awesome. Love it. So, hey, check,

check out, uh, better together, the links in the show notes on, on, on the merger, uh, you know,

check out if you're not following Jim on, on social media through multi-site guy and merger guru,

and, you know, what's, what's, whatever the next thing is, Jim, Jim will figure it out and, and,

and find ways to, to, to jump on that. So love, uh, the, the influence Jim, once again,

that, that you've had on my life. So thank you for that. Ray had to step out, uh, to go actually

do Christ fellowship work as, as known to happen. So Ray's not even on here, but it was great having

him on too. For Ray, uh, for Jim, this is Jeff, uh, with the church digital and stadia church planning.

Thanks for joining us on the podcast again, and, uh, we'll see you next time here at the show.

Y'all have a good day.