EP099: Korey Deck - Shepherding, Pastoral Care, & Mourning Digitally

episode 99 of the Church Digital Podcast, powered by Stadia Church Planting. Jeff here. We are one

week away from the 100th episode here of the Church Digital Podcast, and it's going to be

crazy. I am super excited to bring the 100th episode to you all. We're going to go back.

We're going to get in our DeLoreans. We're going to go back in time here a little bit

and relive a very influential moment in my, Jeff Reed, in my life. And so we're going to

experience that. If you've listened to the podcast, you may know what I'm talking about.

We've talked about this moment, this evening at Starbucks. I don't want to go give away too much,

but we've talked about it a lot here on the show, and we're going to bring back together

that magic and see, even though we've got people who are going to be guests scattered all across

the country, see if we can relive that evening at Downtown Disneyland at Starbucks the way,

oh, look at me. I'm just, I'm giving away so much. I just, I'm going to stop talking about it right

now. But truthfully, Corey wasn't on my radar. I, a couple of weeks ago, I've been working on this

other episode where I'm really curious, like how the Holy Spirit is moving through our churches,

through our digital churches, through our fidgetal churches in this online season. I'm really curious.

I'm looking for some tangible acts, tangible presence of God through these digital methods.

So if you've got that, reach out, let, you know, let me know. But aside from even that, like I was in

a Facebook group and I posted this question, how are we seeing the Holy Spirit move in our churches

this COVID season? And Corey here replied back. Now the way that Corey replied, I'll be honest,

left me speechless. Like literally took my words away. I had to like have a moment and pull it together

because his response was not what I was expecting. I was expecting to hear God did this, God did that,

you know, and just starting to hear more of how we're seeing the Holy Spirit move. Corey's response

was simply put, well, 25 people in my church have died as a result of COVID in this season. So yes,

we've seen God move through the death and losses of our loved ones. And I quickly became speechless.

Like of all the answers, of all the directions, of all of the thoughts that I was expecting to get,

that, well, that was not one of them. And so starting to now piece together questions are like,

how did you, how do you help someone digitally mourn? How do, how do you do a digital funeral? What

does the grieving process look like? What is 25 funerals in a six month period? I mean,

essentially that's like one a week almost. Now they had a much more tighter together,

but how do you culturally as a staff, how do you like care for your staff? What is, what does that do

to the culture of the church? Like my brain started exploding just at the mere idea of having to go

through something like this. A church, Grace Community Church in New York area, having to deal with

something like 25 losses, 25 deaths in this COVID season. Now I want to say upmost and upfront here,

like I want to be completely respectful with this conversation. I'm not looking for gotcha journalism,

the political nature of what may or may not be happening. This is not the heart of this. And even

to the context, this is usually like a digital podcast, but I don't, I don't even really want to

talk about the digital nature of the technology aspect of this. I really want to get down to the

heart of how do you pastorally care for somebody that you're not able to touch? How do you help

someone grieve when you're not able to be in the same room with them? And Corey, who by his own

definition is relatively new in this digital pastor thing, almost had to become a, a expert in it

overnight, just over the sheer fact that he had to help so many people in such a unique way than what

he was probably equipped and trained for in the seminaries and in churches previous to this. So

it's a fascinating conversation that it has very little to do with technology and much more into

the heart of what we as a church are called to be in physical space, as well as called to be in

digital space. And so for the conversation, we're bringing in Corey Deck, one of the campus pastors

over at Grace Community Church in New York State, and myself, Jeff with the Church Digital and Stadia

Church Planting, in a conversation that I'm calling Shepherding, Pastoral Care, and Mourning

Digitally. Okay, everybody, here you go.

Yeah, maybe even just to start the conversation here, tell us your ministry story, how you ended up,

your church, what does ministry life look like for you?

For me, it, you know, started at birth. You know, my dad's a pastor in Florida, and we grew up as

missionary kids, and we grew up in Africa. So I spent most of my childhood in Johannesburg,

South Africa, in the, you know, mid to late 90s. So grew up around post-apartheid ministry life

in Africa, which was an incredibly rich and, you know, just cool time to be in ministry as a family.

So that kind of informed a lot of how ministry has become for me today. So, you know, I grew up as

pastor's kid, missionary kid, all the baggage that comes with that, and was convinced I wasn't going

to be in ministry. And, but God had other plans. You know, I met my beautiful wife, and, you know,

the burden was just so real. You know, the workers are few. That was so apparent to us. And so it just

became clear. So I was a youth pastor, love youth ministry, felt God's calling us to do more. And

that's how we landed in Hudson, in the Hudson Valley. My wife's actually from here. So it was really cool

aligning some of just our roots here and with what God is doing also through Grace Community Church.

So it's kind of a long winding road to get to where we are. But I was actually hired at Grace Community

Church to be the online campus pastor. And that's actually how I first got connected to Jeff. There

was like, I got hired and they're like, you got to go to this conference. And that's, I went to the

conference in 2018, the church IT conference. It was awesome. It was like, I was like drinking from

that well so deep. And so I've been, I haven't been as engaged because ended up the resources weren't

there in the online church world for us to launch. So I got placed at a physical campus.

Some cool opportunities for our church opened up. Instead of launching online, we're preparing to

launch a West Point campus at the West Point Military Academy, stuff like that. But online never happened.

And then three weeks before the government told us to shut down, they were like, oh, we see this coming.

We should launch online. So that's how, so we launched online just a little bit before,

like we snuck out just like a week or two. So we had an interesting rocky road being also in New York

where we shut down fast and hard. So yeah, I hope that answers your question. That was kind of a long

and winding road.

Oh, totally. And you know, the CIT and network, church IT. Yeah. I mean, Washington DC in 2018 was

awesome. 2019, I think it was Kansas City. I was really excited about 2020 in Texas. COVID happened.

And then it's basically run by a bunch of IT guys. The network is a church staff, IT guys. And in 2020,

they got really like overloaded with COVID work stuff. And so I think they're doing like some

regional roundtables and stuff. We'll put a link in the show notes. I'm not actually sure

what they're doing, but a lot of like the online ministry stuff wasn't as really thick in 2020 this

has been in the past. But I, you know, I, I love, um, you know, it's the, there's the whole West

point like that. That's like a really interesting thing. Maybe dig into that on another day, but it

was, was interesting. Like we, we bumped into each other, you know, just recently where, uh, I was in

a Facebook group. I don't remember what Facebook group. I posted it in several of them. Uh, but I

basically asked the question, Hey, where are you seeing the Holy spirit move through your church

in this, in this COVID season? Like I'm not even like church online, you know, sometimes where we

get so systematic in the approach of it. I really wanted to like, start to pull on this thread of,

of spiritually what, what's God actually doing? Don't, don't tell me the system or the strategy,

but what, what are, what are we seeing pastorally and shepherd shepherdly? I don't know if that's a

word, but what are we seeing as, as we're shepherding our people digitally? There's, there's the

adverb digitally. And, uh, and you're, you know, I, I've kind of have said it off, off air a couple

of times, but like your, your comment, you know, left me speechless about how your churches has been

pastoring and shepherding people in the New York area in this COVID season. So maybe just even to

set it up, Corey, do you want to tell us a little bit of your story and what your church is, has been

going through? Yeah, absolutely. And, uh, you know, it was so funny. I was, I think I even told you,

I was in between doing church online, doing, uh, physical campus stuff. Cause we just reopened. It was

our second Sunday and I have a practice in my day where I'm like, I have to stop and celebrate. And

if I, you know, if I think of something, I'm going to go check in or message somebody, I have to share

it. Um, and that's sort of formed out of this story and kind of what our last few months have been for

us. Um, but I, my wife was like, why did you write it so fast? Cause I wrote, I was like, yeah, we had

25 plus people pass away in that season in that, in that six months really was more like a three month

season, um, for us. And so we've been in the church building again now two weeks in a row and, um,

everything feels, you know, I expected, I had a little bit of a sour attitude about it, you know,

cause of all the restrictions and all the distance. And I just had a feeling it wasn't going to be,

you know, what I, uh, expected it to be all my years of church production work, you know,

are rubbing at this idea of reopening with masks and distance and low production, yada, yada.

And, um, I got into the building and, you know, first worship set, um, some of the families who

have lost loved ones are, you know, sitting in their rows far apart and it does look weird and it

does feel like unproduced and it's not the best, you know, the band is not doing the greatest job

and still you could just see like a very tangible, um, healing almost as it was like, we've,

we carried this grief, um, cause we, as a campus, you know, as a, um, as a campus,

we're the second biggest campus at our, you know, location. So there's about a thousand people

in my campus, but we were kind of carrying this loss, this burden virtually, you know,

distanced for a while. So to be back in the room, it was just caught me so off guard. And I was like,

I watched it happen. I was like, Oh, I have to tell somebody about this. And I popped on Facebook

and there was your post. And I was like, okay, cool. I'll share it here. Cause then we did do a

lot of digital, uh, shepherding, weight carrying, grieving all that. Um, but then it was just a

cool moment to be able to celebrate, um, just, just the beginning. Cause it's been a bleak. I mean,

yeah, it's just, I, I, you know, it's not, there's not a lot of hoorah jumping around. There's not a lot

of celebration stuff from us. Um, and so it was really cool to have a very tangible, real moment

where it was just like, Oh yeah, the Holy Spirit's been doing, you know, doing its thing the whole

time. Um, and we were just kind of walking and doing our best in obedient footsteps, you know?

And so even just to kind of set the temperature and the tone here, completely like respectful,

not joking around about this scenario, but, but the reality is, is like within New York,

and I know there's been lots of losses. Don't want to get political 200,000 deaths close to it,

or at this point beyond it as this, as this podcast publishes. And we're, we're as, as a con as a

country, we're, we're dealing with what this loss means and how to manage it. And it's, uh, it just

really kind of blindsided me. Wow. This one church community and specifically you guys are a multi-site

church. It sounds like. And so this is this one campus has experienced 25

losses. And I believe you said that it was kind of upfront, kind of March, April, May, early on in the,

in the pandemic as that went through. And then your curve kind of leveled off a little bit. What was

the, so, so healing, um, like it was first off, I mean, kind of back up, what has been the, the,

the temperature of the staff, not 104, but just like the, the, we do that. I'm sure you do that a lot,

but like what, what's the, I, I, I know what one death, the weight that that carries on me two or

three, like I, I did a funeral once where, uh, it was a murder suicide thing and entire family had

died. And so it was like five people. And that, that weighed a ton on me. It was, it was a family

related that, that had gone. This is 25 people that had, that had gone through this. What, what was

the toll that took on the staff? What was that environment? It was, um, you know, as you would

expect, it was intense. Um, and we were just coming out of a really intense season. I think most churches

were, um, coming out of Christmas, January, February, especially in the Northeast, it's cold.

Um, you know, the long dark winter is real up here, um, along with it already being a spiritually cold

place. So as far as, um, just the energy level of our staff, you know, uh, we joke about our scrappy

insurgency because, um, I, I, I lead a team of four, um, part-time ladies who are just absolute

powerhouses. Um, and they are, uh, just incredible in their, in their giftings and in their work. But

we were exhausted, uh, in November, my, my mother's, uh, my wife's mother passed. And then in December

and January, two of our elders lost their parents. Um, and so, so this grief season had, we were like,

okay, we were resting. We were, you know, practicing some lament. Uh, we were just digging deep and I,

you know, I'm 29 year old, 29 year old years old. I had never done a funeral before. And in

those three months and I have a young campus, it's not like we're, um, a bit older. It's not

like we've been around for a long time. We're four years old or five years old. And, um, so we had

just been kind of doing this. I had just done my first two funerals as a pastor ever. Um, cause you

don't do a lot of funerals in student ministry. And, um, so we were just exhausted and, um, and then

with Easter, you know, on its way. So we were, we were learning, we were practicing, we're kind

of figuring out. So that's kind of where we were as a staff. We were just, and we were new. I started

as the lead pastor last July. So I had barely been there six months, um, as the physical campus

pastor. I had been working online before then. Um, so there was just a lot. I mean, it was a heavy,

heavy season. Yeah. And, um, so yeah, from, from there, it, it kind of just felt, you know,

just from the beginning of the whole COVID crisis, uh, we had someone pass away early and it was a

member of our church. Um, and it was, you know, someone who was deeply, deeply involved. We, you

know, there's a variety of spectrum for us on, uh, members who were deeply involved versus members.

We saw, you know, Christmas and Easter, things like that. Um, cause Catholic culture's very real

up here. Uh, and so we have a lot of that, but the first person that we lost, um, you know,

her husband dropped her off at the hospital for a skin issue and she didn't come out, you know,

72 hours later, she was, she was gone. So it was like right off the bat and that was early. That

was at the end of March, beginning of April. And, um, so it was just kind of right off the bat.

We felt like we were on our laurels, like not knowing what to do. And then

another week. And, and so it, it became overwhelming really fast.

Are stories like this common out of, of New York churches? Like, do you, are like,

where did that much loss concentrated within communities? I mean, lots of people have died

there. Is that, is that a, a continuation? Like, can other people tell the story?

Yeah. Um, I, I have connected with, I mean, just some of the local pastors here was actually

one of the, one of the few things that we really, um, felt like was a worthy celebration

for us was, um, in this season, cause our church is a little larger, you know, larger churches

in the Northeast are not very common. And, um, so a lot of the local parishes, a couple of

the, um, the synagogues in our area who were experiencing a very similar trend. It probably,

it wasn't a less of a, um, not quite to scale as ours, um, just as far as percentage wise,

but, you know, three, four, five people in a, in a congregation in a smaller parish or

something like that, it was really intense. And, you know, in our faith tradition, we talked

to cameras all the time. It's a little bit more normal. Whereas for, you know, the Catholic

priests down the road and, um, you know, for, for different faith traditions, they didn't

have that. So it was a really unique thing that we got to do. Um, we put on a little

like digital conference for some of our local churches to just learn and resource them with

our technology stuff to help them set up for, you know, virtual end of life, uh, you know,

ceremonies and all the different things that come along with that.

Yeah. I mean, it's, it's, it's crazy the things in this COVID season that, that we're learning

or that we're having to do. And, and like, I, I've a friend of mine wrote, wrote a blog

for the church digital about a funeral that he led. He was in Texas. And I want to say

it was his, um, somebody who's related to him, maybe his mother-in-law, step-mom, somebody,

grandma that had died personally. We'll link to it in the show notes where he, he just kind

of pastorally talked about like how he, uh, experienced and, and how he pastored and

shepherd. Uh, but you know, in this situation, you're 20, 25 of, of these funerals in addition

to the, that's an interesting wrinkle resourcing and helping other churches learn how to take

their people through, through the grieving process of, of what that looked like physical

and or digital. So maybe even just explain some of that to me. Like where were the funerals,

were they, were they physical? Were they digital? Was it like a mix of it? What, what did the

grieving process kind of look like? Once again, completely want to be respectful, but just trying

to imagine what, um, how you're being pastoral in this season where we don't have access necessarily

to the buildings like we're typically used to having. Yeah, that was, I mean, that was the

challenge, right? Shepherding, uh, being able to pastor someone on a screen in one of the worst

moments of their life. Um, I think we've gotten pretty good at it. At least I feel like, um,

we're getting there where we're really engaging each other and being able to pastor, you know,

each other through some of just life's, you know, crisis moments. And, but death, I feel

like I hadn't never thought about tackling digitally. So, um, we were not good at it at first. Um, you

know, and we, I don't, I don't know if we're great at it now, but, um, we did a lot of, uh, just

reflecting at first, uh, after the first few, um, after about the fifth, like loss, we, we kind of looked

at each other as a staff and we were like, oh, you know, this is, this is going to become so much more

than just a funeral, uh, for so many people because of what we were watching. We were watching people

having to drop off their loved ones and then not see them alive again. Um, you know, and that was

really difficult to just comprehend for myself. And I didn't have anybody loved one, you know, I loved

one in that seat. So, uh, after the, about the third or fourth funeral, and then we had like the

fifth or sixth loss, we knew we were going to be doing more. Um, we kind of just took a step back

as a team and I was like, okay, I've only done a few of these. I don't feel like we're doing them

very well. I feel like we're not doing, uh, there's like something, there's a ministry opportunity

we're missing here. Like there's something not clicking. And, um, so we stepped back and we just

talked and we, you know, it turned out my whole staff and I, like none of us had ever led a funeral

or other than the ones that we had done in our building, because so often those are, you know,

weddings and funerals, the senior pastor or the lead pastor handles that. It's not like

a renowned mentorship moment, um, in the, in there, but yet, um, I was like, okay, well,

let's start doing that. Let's turn this into a discipleship moment for, um, our teams. And so

let's, you know, put together a couple of different volunteer teams to handle funerals and meals. And,

um, wakes are very common up here. Um, so how are we going to set up, you know, drive by wakes? Okay,

let's set up a hospitality team for drive through wakes. And, you know, let's make sure we're there

with bottles and masks and, you know, grabbers and six feet trays and all those things. Let's just

figure it out. And so it wasn't anything incredibly systematic, um, which to a systems person like me,

that really drove me nuts. I was like, what are we doing? Like how, how, and I was like, and, um,

our campus director, uh, Megan, she's like, you can't systematically plan end of life stuff, Corey.

You have to just, you'd have to just lean in. And that was what we did. We just spent some time

leaning into, and they were all different. Some of them were celebratory because, uh, you know,

they lived a long and healthy life and some of them were really painful. You know, uh, a lot of them

were really painful in that the loss was just five, 10 years, 15 years too soon. Um, and all with,

you know, underlying health conditions, all those different things, but it was just back to back to

back to back to back. It felt like it wasn't stopping. So we knew we couldn't do it alone. So

we built, we built kind of a little, a little funeral army is what I called them. It's a little dark,

I know, but we, um, we just, it was what we kind of became was just, how are we going to, um, do this? Not

so that we don't get stuck here. Right. So that we don't get stuck in all the grief and all the

loss and all the energy that it costs to be in that place and to do it well. So, um, it was a true,

you know, kind of carrying one another's burdens season for us. Um, so that was kind of, you know,

to circle back, that was what was so beautiful about being in the building. Um, cause I know it's

been happening. I know it's been happening in people's living rooms. They tell us, um, you know,

they love worshiping online, love worshiping with their family and their homes, but it was just,

it was nice for me as pastor to be able to see it. Um, you know, we've, we exercised a lot of our

faith muscle in the last few months. So it was, it filled my tank to be able to see it, you know?

I'll bet. What was this idea of, of the, um, oh gosh, I just blanked on the term to the, the kind of

the drive through the wakes and doing that. I've been never occurred to me, you know, to do something

like that, just as, as, and even as I'm talking with churches about doing things like, like that,

that aspect of the, of the mourning process with that is, that's beautiful. And the fact that you're

utilizing volunteers and other people within the church to, to serve the community, to serve their

own body by, by doing these things, um, is, is just beautiful. When casting vision to the volunteers,

what was, what was that like? Were they excited to be part of it? Did they need to like, what,

what concerns did they have like in this COVID season to engage with people in that space? Like,

just maybe tell me some of those stories.

Yeah, there was, I mean, there's, there still are, um, for us, uh, psychologically COVID's impact,

I think is, you know, for our specifically, we're seeing it in our volunteer teams.

There is a lot of that. Um, so there's a lot of hesitation. Um, so there's a lot of people who

want to serve. And I think that's one of the biggest voids that we have felt. We're a very

volunteer driven church, um, low staff ratios. Um, and that's, uh, you know, a lot of multi-site

churches I know are in that boat. So our volunteers were, uh, itching for something to do. They like,

how do we help? Um, we, we're feeling this. And, um, they did, they did an incredible job feeling it

and, and letting it be fuel. So, uh, for those who weren't comfortable, we had them writing cards,

you know, we had them, uh, reaching out and putting on, um, we have some people who were not

comfortable, but, um, a couple of our older people, you know, they love their Facebook. So

they put together Facebook memorial pages and, you know, they just, um, something else we did

something kind of, we learned through, uh, our church online experience was, you know, just engaging

with people. So you put out a memorial page, okay, engage with them in the comments because then I can

show, you know, the loved ones who are grieving, look at what everybody's saying, right? Look at how

we're not together, right? You don't get to look at each other's eyes for this funeral, but as we go

through this memorial, like throughout it, just read because that what you're reading on that

screen, someone on the other side of that screen is feeling that is thinking that, right? So

helping to kind of, uh, guide people through, uh, digital experiences like that, it was bumpy.

You know, there was a lot of, I can't get my tablet. I can't get my internet. You know,

it was a lot of very basic stuff that I think, um, it was, it was really cool for us, even as we

stayed launching and kind of forming our online experience on the other side of church, it was like, oh,

come back to the basics, make sure we're doing all this stuff, right. Let's, let's really make sure,

you know, we're handling the basic navigational stuff correctly.

And I love all of that, you know, and just having the, making sure the ministry component

isn't in place or the opportunity you have to minister to, to the, to the body, to the people

that, that God's giving you access to. We're, the funerals where the people, um, you know,

obviously there are people that are attached to the church, you know, either intimately

or loosely, maybe it's, it's, you know, more of an outsider, but they consider your church,

your church. Where were there opportunities to, uh, for, for, for life change, for some

deeper conversations, uh, evangelism, talking to people who are cold to Christ? Like how did,

how did God maybe move in that area in context of, of what you were doing there with your church?

Yeah. It's, um, we're, you know, I feel like we're just beginning to see some of that fruit,

uh, as, as far as like tangible steps. Um, you know, if we're, if I, if my next steps pastor was

in my ear, you know, he'd be like, talk about the steps, uh, cause that's so important. And we love

those steps, but what we see is kind of like the more, um, the, just the more like tangible things is,

uh, you know, families of those who have lost, who are, uh, you know, in different faith

traditions, they had a lot of questions about, well, why did you, uh, why did you do this?

Uh, you know, uh, in, in Catholic culture, it's the Requiem mass. I didn't do a Requiem mass.

I didn't do some of the other traditional. So that's, we face a lot of that here. So I got a lot

of questions. That was probably one of the best things to come out of it was, well, why is it this

way? Okay. Well, now I get to talk about X, Y, Z characteristics about what we believe. And

that was one of the coolest things. And then the fruit out of that was as we built out teams

and kind of empowered our volunteers to do that, then our volunteers were the ones handling those

kinds of conversations and they were doing it excellently. So now there's relationships. We

have a lot of people who are the, there's virtual small groups. We have a lot of those happening right

now. So they're all connecting. Um, and so that's been one of the tangible ways is, you know,

our volunteers have connected really well by just caring, by sending, we're still sending

notes, still sending encouragement, still praying with people. Um, you know, so that, that's

probably the most tangible thing coming out of that.

Well, I, you know, I can think of dozens of challenges, like, uh, issues, problems, things

that churches in your position doing what you were doing would, would struggle with, like,

just because it's, it's not, it's not natural, um, pre-COVID to, to engage with people. People

weren't comfortable with these conversations. There was a preconceived notion, uh, against

kind of like video conferencing. Well, I assume was a thing, but let's just be honest. It was

not the adopt. I mean, I think they went from like 10 million to 200 million users as a result of it.

And so culture has engaged and has adopted as much more comfortable in that space

in, you know, October compared to when we were back in March. But I'm just curious to get back

to the question because I randomly just go off on tangents. Who's squirrel? What were, what were

some of the biggest challenges? Like when you go back, I'm trying to figure out maybe it's

technological, maybe it's cultural, maybe it's just issues, challenges, pastoring in a, in a different

way. What were some of the challenges that, that you faced heading into doing something like this,

pastoring people going through crisis situations via technology?

Yeah, it was, uh, I, I think we learned really quickly how much, uh, especially in the Christian

faith, um, you know, in the evangelical lane, uh, we count on physical expression, uh, or physical

connection to convey like deep spiritual meaning. Like, uh, you know, in, even I think about,

you know, all the sermon illustrations were very visual or very hands-on people. And so,

um, you know, I'll never forget the first time we found out one of our, uh, her people was,

she had, her husband had dropped her off in the hospital and he was, he hadn't heard. It had

been two and a half days and he hadn't heard. And, um, what was going on? And, um, at that,

so we were like, okay, well, let's meet, you know, and this was in the height of stay at home orders.

And I was like, okay, I don't know what to do. Let's just, let's meet in the parking lot.

Everybody will stay in their cars. Let's just look at each other. Um, we'll FaceTime or we'll get on a,

you know, a team's call or zoom call, whatever. And you'll, we'll pray together. And, um,

her husband came and he stood in the middle and in the, in that whole, um, and that whole

experience is when he got a phone call that his wife had passed. And so we were literally parked

around him, um, when he got that phone call and, uh, you know, and we had to process that together

and, uh, none of us could give him a hug because he had just been in contact with his loved one who

had passed away of COVID. And so there was not a single physical thing you could do to like ease

his suffering. Right. There was, there was not a single any, and there was, you know, 15 or 20 of

us volunteers and there was just, you're just sitting there holding nothing. Like I had my phone and I

just, I wanted to chuck it, you know, I was like, what am I watching? Um, you know, what, what planet

am I in? All the, all the things that we all felt as we hear all these things and all these stories.

Right. And, um, we, you know, the funeral passage and first Thessalonians, we don't grieve like those

who have no hope, uh, was like, we had to get really as a team. So here's another challenge. I mean,

that moment, not having the physical connection that you just default to. I mean, I think I watched

everybody start to go give him a hug and then they couldn't. Yeah. And to have the, that sort of like

very blatant realization, um, you have to like really reckon your, your faith in God and your

concepts of death really quickly. And, um, so we grieve like those, uh, we don't grieve like those who

don't have hope and, um, or have no hope that just became sort of a rallying cry for us. It was,

okay, well we have hope. Um, and where we don't have hope, we trust in the Lord and we know that

he's up to something and we don't just genuinely don't know what it is. And, uh, you know, it's,

and so I joked about our faith muscle, but that's so much of what it was, was I can't physically touch

you. So I have to have faith that through this screen, no matter how tired or zoom fatigued you

are, there's a phrase I never want to hear again, zoom fatigue. Um, but you know, no matter how zoom

fatigued you are, this is where we are at. So Lord work through this digital, like this digital tool,

you don't like it. Okay. It's not ideal, but it is where we are. Um, and I, and it was sort of,

for us, we didn't have a lot of choice in it. It was just kind of, this is where we're at. So let's,

let's absolutely, um, be wholeheartedly in it because if we're not, um, you know, if we're not

wholeheartedly into the digital connecting, right, the, the, the idea that this is not a barrier,

it's a real tool. Um, if we're not wholeheartedly there, then it's not just my attitude and my heart

that sours at it. It's the people I'm trying to counsel. It's the people I'm trying to care for.

It's the, you know, it's the husband in the worst moments of his life. So, um, it became easy then to

kind of counsel our people through, well, we can have church digitally because this is where we're

at, you know? So it, it helped now our, you know, our online community is pretty robust and our people

are really, even though it's new, it's fresh for us still, they're really accustomed to it. Um, so

it's really cool to see how those kinds of things, those patterns, those behaviors we formed over the

last few months are starting to bear some fruit. Okay. So I'm, I'm putting myself literally in,

in your spot. Uh, I'm, I'm in a parking lot, 15 people standing around this guy that we're praying

for just found out that his, his wife died. Um, how did you, how did you show comfort to that person?

You can't do it physically. Uh, there, there, I mean, his wife just died. They were, were connected.

I'm guessing whatever the timelines, whatever early on, you know, it was, it was, it was just radical

numbers that may have tapered off with, with more research. Finish the story for me. How,

how did you show comfort to somebody in that situation? What did that, what that looked like?

Um, I had some of my, my deacons there and, um, you know, they're incredible. Uh, one of them,

he does, um, hospice care. So he's like, he's, um, you know, he's just, he's the old, he's the old man

with wisdom who you just need at every church to be a complete family. You know, he's that guy.

And, um, he just started, he just started reading out of the Psalms and, um, I couldn't tell you

what Psalm he read. I don't remember, you know, it's all such a blur. Um, but there was, you know,

so he read and then, and then we just started praying, you know, there was, there wasn't a whole

lot to like say, I didn't have any words, you know, I was, I mean, I had words, but I couldn't say

them out loud. Um, uh, I was, uh, you know, I was so, I was so frustrated. I was so like,

I can't believe we gathered here to pray for healing and to pray for peace. And now we're

in this moment. Um, and I think that was about then that I started to realize, Hey, this is like

becoming a pretty serious thing that we're going to have to tackle as a campus. Um, and it just so

happened that, you know, I have a background in digital church and discipleship. So we had some of

these tools, um, and we were well-versed in them as a, you know, my campus team was. So it was, um,

it was certainly something that we were equipped to handle. Just was, it was a lot, you know?

What changes did you do digitally? How, how did your adjust digital ministry? And then did it work?

Were people receptive for it? Like, or, or how did they adapt to this, to the ministry that you

were doing digitally? Um, so we, we don't have, we didn't have a robust groups ministry

pre COVID. Um, we didn't even really do a lot digitally. Um, we, we, we have launched a lot

of campuses really fast and they have grown. Like we have seen a lot of really impactful fruit from

our physical campuses. So we didn't, um, we, our small groups are in our volunteer teams. So we

didn't really have a lot of small groups. It was like volunteer teams. Um, so they started me,

I mean, they've, they've met digitally kind of on and off. So that part wasn't the, like

the, the big adjustment for our people. Um, they, they pivoted to zoom calls instead of

in-person calls. Um, they, they, you know, volunteered in droves to man church online

platform that, that was like, to me was one of the easier things. If that's, I think it's

unique maybe because our church is just so volunteer heavy and we've always been. So our

people are really flexible that way. It's like a real blessing of where we are. Um, so we made

that, that pivot was pretty quick. And we just kind of said like, yeah, meet with your teams,

but also there's, you know, a solid half of our church who's not. So invite them into, and we've,

we've, um, you know, it's, uh, it's not like anything fancy. We didn't do anything fancy to get

through the season. Uh, we had once a month, um, one of the elders at our campus, uh, he loves to

teach. He's, uh, um, a neuroscientist neurologist. He's a rocket surgeon. That's how I think of him.

He's brilliant. And he loves, loves, loves the word. So he just puts on like three hour seminars

about topic X. And, um, you know, it didn't do a lot to reach the unchurch, but our church people,

um, it, it was just so, you know, so supplemental for them to have some of that. They'd, there would

be like, I'd, I'd hop on some Saturdays and he'd have like 80 people, not 100 people, 80 people,

um, on his calls, which was just cool. It was just one of those things. So we didn't do a lot of,

um, you know, super intentional digital switch style stuff other than the things that we had in place.

We just helped to transform, you know, we got the text to connect things. A lot of things I had

been banging drums for, for a long time, it kind of forced that. So, which was great. And, um, we've

seen a lot of fruit out of some of those big steps. I think that we just hadn't really made as a church

because, you know, um, I joke, um, up here, you know, in the, in the Northeast, I think that the,

the church development, church growth cycle, we're like, we lag about 10 to 15 years behind.

So some of the things that are really worked in sort of the Southeast and in the West are like

just starting to work in the Northeast. So physical campuses, like the multi-site models really

do it well. And actually a lot of churches in the Hudson Valley. So it's kind of cool.

Okay. Interesting. Um, you mean, you mentioned digital fatigue earlier, or I said, yeah, I think

you said Zoom fatigue was, was the throwaway line, you know? And so you, you, you, your, your people

weren't, were not able to meet. They're going through this crisis. They're falling back on Zoom.

You mentioned Microsoft Teams, these different, you know, uh, video conferencing platforms to talk.

Are you guys experiencing kind of Zoom fatigue off of that? Like right now, wow. Your church,

how are they holding up?

I would say there's definitely, uh, there's a portion and, and I honestly, I recommend it. I'm

like, Hey, if you're really fatigued by the digital thing, please come to the campus. We don't have a

lot of room at our campus right now. You know, we went from being able to seat 225 per service,

having like five services to seating like 90 people now. So I, yeah. And that's, yes, with

all the New York state requirements, it's very interesting. So I just encourage, I'm like, Hey,

if you are that, if you are fatigued, if you are drained by seeing my face on the screen,

come see my face in person. Like, and so that was kind of the vision cast for reopening for

us was for those who have just had like really tough, please come and let us, let us just see

your face. Let us cry with you. Let us, um, we can't hug you. We won't, but let us just pray

and encourage you this way. And, um, so there is, there is a good portion, honestly, a lot of the

people who carried the burdens heavily with us in the first few months of this are the ones who are

fatigued by the digital thing. They, and they, and they, you know, there's a lot of positives and

they are very, um, affirming that it's an effective tool and it's important ministry that we have,

but they're, uh, they're ready to just kind of be back. So there is a segment, there is a segment,

but now not nearly as large as I thought we would have coming out of this. I thought they were,

um, that thought there would be a larger resistance for it. And there wasn't.

Oh, I mean, it's the digital fatigue is not digital's fault. It's the lack of physical,

uh, no. And I do, I do talk digital planting and somebody is going to be like, but Jeff, you said,

yes, there, there is, there is an extreme group today that's doing digital only church planting.

And those are meeting a particular type of person, but the average person in America today has two

passports. Like there's the physical passport and there's the digital passport. Yeah. I want to be on

social media and I want to connect with new people, but I want to also sit at a sushi restaurant and,

and, and, and drink my green tea surrounded by friends. Like, and so you need, you need to be

able to utilize both of those. And, and digital fatigue is not digital's fault. It's the lack of

physical. Uh, and so moving forward, you know, I, I think there's, there's places for, for both,

but yeah, so you're going back to the building. How many services have you actually done or like how

many weeks have you run? Where are you at right now? This coming Sunday will be our third Sunday

back in the building. Um, so we've been open for two weeks prior and we're, we're just holding three

services on a Sunday. We used to do a two day, Saturday, Sunday split. Um, but just resourcing and

right now and all the things that we have to do to keep the building open and safe, then it just didn't

make sense to me. I mean, that, that makes total sense, but what, what are you, what, what has that,

what has the, the, the, the, I keep wanting to say temperature and I find that incredibly inappropriate

in this conversation. What, what's, what's been the tone? What's been the feeling? What, what's,

what's the feel of, of those services? Oh, it's, it's so very different. And, uh, I think we've all

kind of acknowledged it, um, because we watching, um, yeah, watching this, I don't want it to sound

negative. And so I'm, I'm, I want to be really careful because it's, it's not to me a negative

watching on screen on experience. And a lot of us, and we joked about it as a team, you know,

we're all watching different churches and filling our own cups and our own hearts with, you know,

what God's doing ever in other places around the country. But we watch so many experiences,

you know, even just our own for the past seven months. So I think subconsciously many people

like envision themselves in the room with a crowd when they were watching that thing. So when they

get to the building, it just, it feels really unsatisfactory. It feels, they were like, we've

been watching this for six months. Why does it feel weird to be here right now? And yet it does,

uh, it just kind of feels funny. Um, so we're working on like, how do we make it feel less,

uh, just distant because it is, it's distant. It's, you know, it's anonymous. Whereas,

you know, the anonymity is what we all had for seven months. We almost don't want to be anonymous.

We want our faces seen, you know? Um, and so it's, it's funny to think that I know more people. I can

identify more people through our church online than I can in the building just because of the face mask

in the distance. Like I can, I can actually physically, me, know more people right now digitally,

you know, than I can in my in-person building. It's just such a funny thing to like reckon with.

Um, but yet that's like one of the challenges for us now as a church, you know, managing,

I'm sure a lot of people are in that boat, managing our division of resource for, uh,

maintaining all the online stuff while we're back in person.

Which actually leads into exactly kind of the next question I want to ask is, well, and, and, and it's

funny when I ask churches and have these conversations, like there's no solid answer. People do not know how

to answer the balance between physical and digital. The average answer is this is what we're trying

right now. And we're going to figure out kind of where we go from here. So experiment, try some

different things, but as you're looking at your, at your church, what is, what is that balance? What

role is digital is online going to continue to play for you in the moving forward in the months to come?

I, I think, and I, the way that I've seen it, uh, I kind of see it playing out for us at Grace is I

see it as a true discipleship tool. Um, I don't know if we'll ever be the really big online only

campus, or I don't know if we'll have a, I, I, we have had a lot of really good fruit, but, um, I think

for us, the, the, the biggest win is taking all of our core, you know, pathway processes, which are

all really good from in-person and finally making that transition, um, to digitizing them and then

using them well. Um, that is the thing that we have in person, we have nailed. Uh, and so translating

that digitally now, that's been one of the biggest wins for us is, um, is really, you know, kind of

honing in. That's what digital, that's, I think that's how we're going to manage, right? Cause we

don't have the resourcing. We don't have the video editing. We don't have, and hardly any of the

equipment, you know, like we are, uh, very just kind of a lagging behind is again, a term I use for the

Northeast. Um, in a lot of the things infrastructure wise to make digital ministry really thrive.

We don't have those things as much as we do have kind of the digital discipleship stuff. We can do

that. So I think that's where we're going to, um, because it's already naturally what we're going

to, so we're just going to kind of lean into those things, um, with our kind of the future of the

online ministry. Yeah. Well, and honestly, it may be a little off topic, but if you're, if you're

doing your physical services and, you know, and people are wanting to gather physically, and it sounds

like in this season with everything that New York's been going through, like, I think there's, there's an

importance in gathering physically. One of the fidgetal mindsets, something that would digital can do

that could compliment it would be that discipleship process. Like that's, would be a very powerful

online digital tool that would compliment the physical services and not, not conflict with it.

So often, so many churches, um, that are, you're, you're, would you say you were like, how big are

you? Uh, we have eight, nine campuses. We're about to have a 10th campus actually, um, in the fall,

if we ever get to launch, um, our West Point campus, cause that's a whole different thing, but, um,

The whole different thing. It's a whole, yeah, we have a couple of those going. So, uh,

attendance pre-COVID, uh, between four, like three, 35 and 4,000.

Your particular campus. Oh, and my campus is about a thousand. Yeah. Yeah. A little less.

So you got about a thousand, you got a thousand at your campus. Lots of churches who are really at

that thousand mark. They, they spend so much time and energy and resources on creating a physical

service and a digital service because they want the digital to be at the same standard at the same

level of what the physical, but what's unfortunate is right at that thousand mark, you don't necessarily

have the budget, the resources, the time, the staffing to really make that quality second service probably

align digitally with as good of the quality as what you're doing physically. That's right. And so you're

spending all those resources to make that work. Honest to God, I had this exact same conversation with a

thousand person church earlier today. They're investing so much into, into the, to get the services to be at the

same quality and they're forgetting. There's this whole other thing down here of discipleship and

disciple making that if we can be more effective in that digital discipleship in the other 167 hours a

week. That's right. And if we can do that, that's going to connect with physical people as well as

digital people. And that's going to raise the overall standard of your church. And in time as

discipleship gets better, evangelism, disciple making, and all of a sudden that thousand person

kind of lid, limit roof that you get, all of a sudden you grow past it because you did infrastructure

instead of trying to do the, the sexy thing with, by doing that, that online service. So I love the way,

the way that you're thinking. And honestly, like I have so much respect for you right now that of how

you've pastorally met the needs of the people within your community in ways that, you know,

probably not too many people in this country have really dealt with a situation like that. I will

have nightmares tonight of how I would have handled the guy whose wife just died. And I'm literally

standing in front of him and I cannot hug him. Like, I don't know how I can, I would be the pastor

and that's, and I'm a digital pastor. I should, there should be things that it's like, oh, I need,

I need to have a better word to say or a phrase or something like that. But, um, I feel like I would

have like given him a hug and then go home and like, just cover every inch of my body with whatever

the cleansing solution. I just, I can't even, I can't even fathom that. And so how you have been able

to pastor and shepherd, uh, in that environment is, is phenomenal. So thank you for being transparent

here, honest a little bit, uh, open it up and walking through this. Not that you would have

been dishonest in any other place, but just kind of, kind of sharing here with the audience,

um, how some of the situations that you've gone through, this is, this is, this has been a great

episode. Just tell me even a little bit here. Is any, any closing thoughts as, as we're landing the

plane here in any things we're wrapping up? Uh, mainly a, I appreciate you saying those things.

Um, Jeff, you know, this has been a very, yeah, unsexy is a good way. You know, it's just not been

that. And, um, you know, and I didn't get into ministry for that, but it, it was just, it was

nice to, uh, be encouraged by you to, it was even, uh, it was even cool. I would say, and I appreciate

you in your ministry. Um, and just your voice, um, through that, you know, just, it was you through

your Facebook page. Um, but, uh, just thank you for asking, you know, thank you for asking what's,

what's the Holy Spirit doing. Uh, we need voices of encouragement. I think, um, you know, I'm young

and in ministry and I've been in it my whole, I've been in church my whole life, been working behind

the scenes. And, um, if there's one thing we need more of is, is more, uh, sharing, more learning,

more encouraging. Um, so I really appreciate what you've done. Um, appreciate you asking me on here

and just letting, you know, even for me, this has been healthy, uh, you know, to process. So I

appreciate, uh, you and I appreciate you getting to share. I think the final thought is, uh, nothing

we did was perfect. And, you know, you said, what would I do in those moments? I still, I have

nightmares about it still. Right. Cause I don't think I did it perfectly. Um, but we did,

we did something, you know, and I think that's so, um, we were, we were there, you know, and I think

that's so much of what being the family of God is supposed to be, is just be there. It doesn't

gotta be pretty perfect, uh, you know, or produced and just be there. So, uh, I mean, that's, that's

a powerful lesson, you know, even for today. So often, you know, gosh, I remember the first time in a

church environment, I heard the word excellence. And honestly, I twinged a little bit because I know what

excellence means and sometimes excellence is unattainable. And often we find ourselves

following down a rabbit hole of trying to achieve this excellence instead of what God has for us.

And so, um, I, if, if maybe that's even the, the, the takeaway, maybe there's times for excellence,

but maybe there's times to just do the ministry that, that God has, has allotted us and how you've

managed to, to recognize and, and pastor and shepherd people in this situation, Corey, honestly,

um, is, is very encouraging for me. Um, and, and, and it was impactful just straight up in my own

life as I'm trying to find people who can tell me how the Holy Spirit has moved, uh, in, in, in,

the, the, the, the, the 25 plus, you know, whatever the, the, the final number is of people who have

passed away in context of your church and pastoring and shepherding physically, digitally,

fidgetally, however possible in that season.

It's been such a weird, hot mess of a thing.

You know, the, the, the, the methods don't matter. It's, it's, it's that, it's that discipleship

is that disciple making we're, we're making noise when, when we're fighting for one side

versus the other, but, and we've lost sight of, of the person, the people that we're literally

trying to, to do ministry with. So I love that you, you know, have been able to tell some of

these stories about you're putting people first in this, um, regardless of the methods and

however you've managed to, to do it. So man, thanks for the time. Thanks for, for jumping

on this, uh, for Corey, uh, this is Jeff with the church digital. Thanks for joining us here

on the pod and we'll see you next time. Y'all have a good day.