BETA03: Church, We Forgot the Why

All right. Hey, we are live here with Beta, Episode 3, Beta Show. Once again, Jeff Reed

here with the Church Digital State of Church Planning. I got Ray DeArmas jumping on here,

digital pastor over at Christ Fellowship Miami. Ray, you want to say hey to somebody?

It's so good to be with you all. Special shout out to Tua Tagladova. I can't even pronounce

his last name. Starting quarterback for the Miami Dolphins. We know you're watching. So

glad you're aboard.

Yeah, Tua. Well done, man. His stock rose quickly this week, and this is not a sports

show, but when I see the Dolphins win, it was an away game too, right? It was an away

game 24 to nothing?

It was.

Was it a home game?

It was against our hated rivals, the Jets, which is always, it was a home game whenever we get

Oh, it was a home game against the Jets.

But God bless you, Miami Dolphins. God willing, you'll finally do something right. We'll see.

Guess what? It's the Miami Dolphins. They'll find a point at some point this year, they're

going to end up making me cry. So we are not going to talk about the Miami Dolphins. We've

got far better things to talk about here on the beta show. Up front, remember here with

the beta show, we are quite literally answering your questions on digital church, online church,

online ministry. So if you've got questions, go ahead and text us here. 484-324-8724.

It's literally number for the church. If you speak telephone alphabet, that's awesome. Text

your questions for us. Just even this morning, I had somebody contact me with this incredible

question. We'll tease it. Maybe it's into the show, but we're going to get into that next week.

As a matter of fact, the show last week, we had a question that popped up from Christian here

in the conference. By the way, while we're doing this, if you're on Facebook, go ahead and comment

your questions, your thoughts with us here with the magic software that we're using here, StreamYard.

We're going to be able to put some of those comments here on the air. So go ahead and do that. But

Christian asked this great question. Can you talk about ways that your attendees can engage

that's outside, that's beyond a physical location? So we're feeling this tension. Every church across

the country is. We've got to open up. We've got to open up. All these pastors are pushing towards

getting back in the building, but 30% maybe are going back to the building. And oftentimes it'll drop down

before it drops, before it goes up again. I don't know that I've heard anybody say a number

over 50% right now that's attending. It's usually 30 to 40. And so how do we get that engagement to

come back? As a matter of fact, another question was asked here in light of seeing churches come back

with 50% attendance is this. How can we reach new people while not in the building? And Ken here,

Ken Cavanaugh continues on, I think we need more to double than double what we're currently seeing,

or it'll feel discouraging to kind of come back to that very small building. So we're trying to

figure out how do we engage with people in the digital space when they're not in the building

to get them back into the building if we're doing kind of this digital approach here. And so Ray,

just kind of hearing those questions, what thoughts kind of come to your head, just intro level?

Hey, you know, Jeff, we were talking about this before we went live. And for many of us,

we're going to have to kind of scrap what we had done before, even over the last few months,

then kind of take a pause and kind of rethink because in many ways, we're relaunching again,

we're kind of going at things from a new perspective. And if the goal is engagement and

not necessarily attendance, then we have to ask ourselves, well, how can we get our people involved

and not necessarily just attending? And so we have to really go beyond just Sunday and think about,

well, what are other times, what are the opportunities for folks to engage? Because many times,

we're still stuck in the mode of kind of like what you mentioned, Jeff, here comes Sunday,

we keep thinking about that over and over and over again. If that's our thought process in terms of

building followers of Jesus, then obviously we kind of got to pause. And I think many of us,

even prior to this broadcast would have said that, but now we've got to ask ourselves practically,

okay, are our people engaged in things like small group Bible study? Are they engaged in those

things? Are they engaged in reaching their community? Are you doing anything that allows a

volunteer, not staff, volunteers? Are you providing opportunities for them to engage

their community, whether it's masked up in some kind of socially distant manner?

But we've got to provide more than just Sunday opportunities for folks to exercise their spiritual

gifts.

I love that. Ray, man, I could listen to you talk like that all day long because it feeds so well

into what I wanted to say here. Pastor, don't be upset your people are not in your building.

Be upset they have no spiritual purpose when they're not in your building. So much of Ray's talking

about serving and being in the community and engaging with people. Like for me, this is the lesson of 2020

because the building stopped working. And when the building stopped working, we discovered, honestly,

and I don't mean this rudely, many Christians didn't know what to do. Like they had so defined their

Christianity by that one hour on Sunday when that was taken away from them. Christians were walking

around without purpose, without figuring out how to exist, how to do things in that world, which

honestly kind of brings up this point that I would say. The goal is not the building. It felt like in

this COVID season, the goal was, hey, let's get back to the building as quickly as possible. And even still in this

COVID season, churches are struggling to get back to the building. It's not the building. It's not

physical. And honestly, like even as a digital guy, I'll tell you, it's not digital. It's the Great

Commission. It's Matthew 28. It's disciple making and figure out how to do that. I would suggest

physically and digitally. So as much as we want to, hey, you know what? We've only got 30% attendance.

It's embarrassing low in the building. I mean, even within my own family, we're having conversations

as our church is going back to the building. And it's just starting to open up November 1st.

My wife and I are having conversations. Do we trust that environment? Nothing against the church,

but do we want to go back to that? Do we want to hold off a little bit and wait towards later?

So many people across the country are wrestling with that. And if we church are putting all our

pressure on the building, but our people are not there, we're missing a great opportunity. Go ahead, Ray.

Yeah. And, you know, speaking of that, Jeff, like just being completely transparent as a staff,

as a staff member of church, and even though I oversee our digital and church online, we,

my family has not physically gone back to church as of yet, even though our church campuses have

reopened. And part of the reason is because I have a lot of family with preexisting conditions.

So the thought of us catching COVID and then passing it on to them and being a risk factor

for them, it's not fear, it's practicality for us. And so we're not there yet for right

now. That's not to say we'll never be there again. That's where we're not there yet for

right now. And if that's me as a leader, then I can only imagine that other people don't

feel that comfortable either. But then it kind of also goes back to, well, you know, beforehand,

we thought that folks were really taking steps spiritually when they were, you know, in the worship

center, arms raised up and singing along. And we thought, man, that person is

engaged. Well, that's one form of engagement, but that's not complete engagement. And I think

that's what we're finding now, because as you said, Jeff, once we took that part of church

away from them, now, what are the other aspects of their faith that they're practicing in? And

how are they growing together with the family of God? Because that's what church is supposed

to be. It's a local recognition of the family of God, wherever you're at. And, you know,

if I couldn't meet with my parents physically right now, I wouldn't cease being part of the

family either way. And so we've got to check in. We've got to see how those folks are integrating

in with the family.

Yeah. And so as much as we want to make it about the building, let's get back to the

building. We want to get more energy into the building. You got two guys here giving coaching

here, giving, giving some direction. We cannot make it about the building because people are

going to be hesitant to go back to the building and to judge either one of our spiritual walks.

Forgive me, Ray, I'm going to speak for you, but I know you pretty well to judge either of

our spiritual walks because we're not sitting in a pew at Sunday, nine o'clock. That's not the right

direction to go, which would lead us to number two. Don't push us into a building. Don't push people

to a building. Take this opportunity in engagement to train them in evangelism, to train them in

disciple making. What if we flip the script on this whole COVID season, instead of making it the

struggle to get back to the building, make it the win of where we took this opportunity of engagement

to train people on how to share Christ, to hold people accountable on sharing their faith and to

do things much more towards this style of let us empower you to reach the people that are in your

life, your circle of influence. It's a completely different approach, but it's one, instead of being

negative because I'm not in the building, I'm taking advantage of the season where people may

or may not be in the building and using engagement outside the church to do something far more

healthier, I think, for the church overall, right? What are you thinking on that?

Well, I mean, you know, and there's so much truth in that, Jeff. And the big thing is, is that we have

an opportunity to equip people to do ministry where they're at. And I think that's another thing that

COVID taught us was, it's not so much about the church, you know, taking that away from them,

because then it's just a one-way broadcast, right? Which is what many of us were afraid of. Oh,

it's a one-way broadcast. There's no interaction. There's no engagement. How are people going to be

able to serve? How are people going to be able to do that? But we thought that just in context of

Sundays, we weren't necessarily thinking about that in terms of how are they serving the community?

How are they engaging their community? And so for many of us, maybe it's time to go back to even

the Saddleback style of small groups, right? The 1-4-1 or the 4-1-1, depending on how Steve

laid and versed it to you once upon a time, but it was four weeks of Bible study,

one week of get together and party, and one week of serving your community. And if you've got that

kind of structure as a small group, then the idea is, is you can spend one week inviting people who

aren't Christians to come and take part in your small group and see that you guys are normal and

invite them to come back for Bible study the next week. And then you spend four weeks of Bible study

with them, just kind of journeying with them on a spiritual journey. And then the last week you serve

your community together. That's an easy, basic structure in which you've got evangelism. You've

got discipleship, you're reaching out to your neighborhoods. And at the same time, if they come

to Christ, guess where they're connected? At your church. Love that. Cause we get that. That's where,

that's where we connect. That's where we win by getting people into church, but the church is,

is not the pew. Like let's not kid ourselves in 2020. The church is not that physical seat. Hopefully

over the past eight to 10 months here, however long COVID has been so hard for me to keep up.

Yeah, it's, it's, it's a thing, but listen, it's, it's, it feels like it, right? Here's the deal.

Some of you, some of you out there, pastor, you're telling me right now, but Jeff, we're already doing

this disciple making. We're, we're, we're already focusing on that. I would ask, take a section here

and Ray was kind of hinting at it. Pause and ask yourself some of these questions. Honestly, is it

working? Are you seeing results? Are you seeing multiplication? Are you seeing not people getting

saved in a building? But were you seeing even pre COVID or mid COVID? Were you seeing people within

your church reach out to others? You know, here in stadia, we use the language of, of the 99 and the

one, the nine, and it's a parable of the, uh, the shepherd that leaves the 99 sheep to go after the

one lost sheep. And so the, the idea is, okay, the 99 people, these are people that are warm to Christ.

They're, they're warm to your church. They're your faithful following your, your, your core.

And so the one is that lost person that doesn't know Christ. Are you seeing situations where your

99 are going after your one or your 99 consuming a product? Or are they just being part of the church

without necessarily reaching out and being aggressive in the community?

It's true. And you know, the last big thing is, is that we need to make sure and try and keep

the church body together. There's a lot of division. There's a lot of things that are,

that are dividing us right now. Uh, we're being divided along all sorts of lines and all sorts of

opinions, and we have to do with the best that we can to keep the family together. And so it's not

that I want you to change who you are as a church family, but you also got to recognize that this is

a tough time to disciple your church. This really is because you've got to kind of bring up the fact

that, Hey, listen, I understand that there's all sorts of reasons to divide right now, but the one

thing that Jesus prayed for before he went to the cross was unity. Will you stay united with us?

Will you be one with us? Whether you're pro coming into the services or whether you're pro staying

at home, this is a time now more than ever for the sake of our witness to be united as one.

Yeah. Yeah. And so it was really, even with that unity, if we were focused in unity towards the

cause of, of sharing Christ, of being serious about disciple making and, and empowering people

towards this idea of reaching their ones, um, what, what would unity in this season look like?

You know, so often I hear, I, I, I, and this is crazy to me. I don't understand 2020 because I'll

talk with a pastor and I've had this conversation at least a dozen times where a past in this COVID

season where a pastor tells me something to the extent of Jeff, I think my church is going to split

because of masks. There is so much passion within the church centered around this idea of

masks of race, of, of political, like 2020 has been a very bifurcated year, totally recognize that.

But even in the context of all of these different ideas, what we really are looking at are people

who are passionate about something. And as much as we're separated right now and are not able

to engage in, in physical space together, what if we, the church, what if we figured out how to redirect

that passion towards masks or not masks to redirect some of the outspokenness that we have and get

that directed towards helping people evangelize, helping people understand disciple making processes,

what Matthew 28 calls us to do, and then unleashing them out. Church, what, what if the call for COVID

in this season isn't get back to the building, but it's create an army of disciple makers and unleash them

to reach their people, mobilize them to go. And we've got incredible opportunities in this season

looking at like rooted is, is a platform that exists online. Disciples made no place left.

Like these are all evangelism, disciple making, disciple training systems that allow people like me,

pastors to train others on how to share their faith and through that process, releasing them out.

What if instead of being worried about how do I get, you know, max capacity in the building and force

people into a situation they may or may not be comfortable with, or even I'm trying to reach out

to ones to get into the building where the ones don't necessarily want to get back to the building.

What if we stopped in this season and said, Hey, let's intentionally train up our 99.

Let's focus on the people, whether they're in the building or at home, and let's disciple them.

Let's engage with them and hold them to a higher standard so that we can now release them out.

So they can be released out to reach the people that God's called them to reach.

Yeah. And it creates a different sense of raising the bar, right? In terms of maturity. And it's

ironic because, and many of us know this, somebody who comes to faith brand new is usually most excited

about sharing their faith. Why is it that we try to squelch some of that by saying, well, we want,

we want to get you into our different system or try to mold you into our thing, as opposed to saying,

all right, let's equip you to share your faith wherever you're at, because this is the most

excited you're ever going to be about it. And the reality is, is in this COVID season,

you have lots of people who are coming to Christ. Lots of people are coming to Christ online,

digitally, or even someone who are showing up in person. It's possible. So if that's the case,

why not equip them with the basics of the faith, turn them around and send them right back into their

workplace, send them right back into their zoom rooms, into their, their places where they have

influence and saying, guys, here's this Jesus that I found. Here's this forgiveness that I found.

Come with me, come and see, come and taste and see that my Lord is good. Find all those things.

It's real. Why do we want to stop all that? The answer is, is because we don't, but at the same

time, we feel like we're ill equipped. It doesn't matter if you're going back to some of the stuff

that Jeff talked about or evangelism explosion, like go all the way back and dig up whatever evangelism

training you were taught when you were a teenager and train somebody else in how to do that and figure

that out. Because right now it's not about, oh man, we do great worship here. Oh,

hey, we got great production. Hey, we got wonderful guest services. It's not really about

that right now. And it might not be about that over the next six months. So what can it be about

right now? Reaching somebody for Christ. Yeah. Love that. Hey, what can it be about right now?

Well said, Ray, let's use right now, right now, not the right now network, you know, whatever is that.

Okay. Maybe anyway, let's let right now, let's use COVID to get people off, uh, spiritual milk and to

get them on solid food. Now I'm paralleling here. First Corinthians three, two, I gave you milk,

not solid food for you. You're not ready for it. Indeed. You are still not ready. Swing over here to

Hebrews 5, 12. In fact, by this time you ought to be teachers. You need someone to teach you the

elementary truths of God's word all over again. You still haven't gotten it. Paraphrase, uh, you need

milk, not solid food. So there, there's, there's a call I think for us to understand, Hey, there's an

opportunity for people to be on milk, but we need to grow them towards a solid food point. And I would

suggest here sitting in your, well now virtual pews because your physical buildings are relatively empty.

There's an opportunity for us to aggressively engage with our people outside of the building

or inside of the building, but to create them, to be the disciple makers, to get them on this

biblical solid food to the point where they can now feed themselves and maybe even take care of feeding

and leading someone else to Christ. Ray, what are you thinking on this? Well, I love that, you know,

Jeff, but so often so many folks that I've talked to about these particular verses have taken this

and think, well, my folks need more knowledge. And the reality of it is, is that there's enough

books. There's enough material. There's enough content out there. Now, uh, many of your churches

have access to right now media, kind of like how Jeff joked about a little bit earlier, you know,

you have access to all the content in the world. And yet we have very knowledgeable Christians,

but not a lot of Christians that are putting into practice some of the things that they've done.

And that's really where the issue of spiritual health comes into play and really meet because it's,

listen, if you can give me a full discourse and a background on Corinth

or on the book of Hebrews or anything else, hey, all of that's wonderful. But is it really

pushing somebody forward in terms of practicing their Christianity? Are they really loving their

neighbor as themselves more because of it? That's what we're talking about in terms of moving them

through the pipeline in terms of discipleship making, not just in terms of knowledge. Knowledge is great.

But once again, just like we learned in scripture, knowledge can also puff up.

And so we have to be careful that we're not just trying to create knowledgeable Christians,

but we're trying to create people who actually practice their faith actively,

loving the people that are around them, bringing them to Christ, and then discipling them right

after. That's the important thing.

I love that. You know, it's James 1:22. Don't just be hearers of the word.

James 1:22

You know, I paraphrase online and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.

Once again, paraphrasing in the real world. Don't just hear the word, do what it says.

And so having that executed. Love, love that there. Hey, look, we're, we do a show beta and somebody

called me out. They were like, well, Jeff, you're not giving us any, any practical insights on how

to do this. So here's your beta moment for the show. Run some test groups through a disciple

making process. Disciples made, rooted, no place left. Alpha, even as it is an opportunity to engage with

that platform. Test this out, test this out. An intentional disciple making initiative. Run it in

small and did it work? What do you need to improve on? Like you can grab 30 people right now, break

them up into groups. Some of the leaders of your church and start to do this even in a, in a skunk

works, even in a small situation, experiment with it and then, and then see where you get.

Right. Or start very small. You know, I, I did a program called growing up by Robbie Gallaty

with three guys intentionally at my church and I hand selected them. I, and then when it came time,

when we were done, I told them that they had to hand set, select somebody too, and intentionally

let them know that they were in a discipleship relationship. I told them there's no ninja

discipleship. There's no, Hey, I'm going to do this. And they're not even going to know it. This

is going to be like, Hey, you know, sand the floor. And then, all right, I'm going to teach you

how to block. It's not going to be any of that. You have to make sure that they identify that

they're in an accountable relationship and that you are going to keep them accountable to things like

reading your Bible, praying evangelism, et cetera, because then it's understood that there's

expectations. Then it's understood that you guys are going to live in conversation about these things.

It's not going to be something that's all, and by the way, no, no, no. We're meeting for an

explicit person purpose to move you forward in terms of being a follower of Jesus, disciple people

on purpose. Start small like the master did, and then over time, go big.

Well done on the Karate Kid reference. That was great. I got to tell you, I'm a little disappointed

we made it to the end of the show without working in a back to the future reference since today is

back to the future day when it went in the future. I feel like we failed a little bit here in the

show. We'll have to work harder on that next time. Hey, listen, we Stadia, we want to help churches

like you figure out how to develop a digital strategy, a fidgetal strategy, one where you're

creating those disciple makers and unleashing them fidgetally in digital and physical space.

If you are interested in more of these types of conversations and how we can practically help

your church, check out stadiachurchplanning.org/fidgetal. Next week, we are talking about

Christmas. I don't know, seriously sitting here today, October 21st, I don't know that I have an

answer for Christmas. We're going to work on it this week. We're going to ask around and see what some

churches are doing to figure it out, but how do you do Christmas in a fidgetal environment? What is

that going to look like, December 23rd, 24th, 25th, 2020? It's going to be crazy. Text in your questions

here to For The Church, 484-324-8724. We would love to hear your questions. I went a little long

this episode, but loved every second of it. I knew this was going to be a rich conversation. Ray, any

closing thoughts as we land in the plane? No, much love to you all. Don't forget, hey, it's okay to try

things. We haven't mastered these things. We're not in a new normal. Jeff and I talked about

there's no sense of new normal because what we're facing right now, we've not been doing long enough

to be normal. I want to just encourage you, church pastor, it's okay to experiment right now. It's

okay to try something. Try and make sure that the mission stays the same, but the way that you're

accomplishing that mission, keep loose hands with that. Awesome. Love that. Hey, for Ray, I'm Jeff with

The Church Digital and Stadia Church Planning. Thanks for jumping on this episode of Beta 3. We'll see you next

time here at the beta show y'all have a good day see you later