EP091: Tyler Sansom - Building & Using Influence as a Digital Missionary

Episode 91 of the Church Digital Podcast, powered by State A Church Planning. Jeff here.

Okay, this guy, this guest, I bring him in all the time. He holds the record. We'll do a test

right now. He holds the record for the number of guest appearances on the Church Digital Podcast.

Okay, ready, go. All right, it's Tyler Sansom. You probably knew that because you clicked on the

link to open up the podcast. So I've just literally wasted 30 seconds of your life. That's great.

Hey, so we're bringing Tyler Sansom in and we're going to have a conversation.

A lot of changes happening. Tyler Sansom, Church Anywhere, First Capital Christian.

First Capital Christian used to have an online ministry called Church Anywhere that was broadcasting

services and doing things. But in this COVID season, they learned kind of some things about maybe how

the online broadcast and the services weren't as effective as doing some other ways. And they've

broken off, First Capital has, the Church Anywhere. Instead of being their online broadcast, it's

actually now a sister church under the same umbrella. And Tyler talks about it. But

essentially, it's now a separate church entity. Different strategy, different vision, different

mission. And Tyler is now the leader, the lead pastor of this Church Anywhere movement. Some

really, really exciting, incredible things are coming from it. And because they've broken off,

now they've got freedom to do digital missions, to do digital ministry, to do things digitally instead

of being locked into the way that you do things at the physical building. And what's happening as a

result of that, now they're asking questions and having conversations centered around how to influence

people, how to build that influence, and maybe from that influence, get people connected to Christ.

And so they're doing, listen, this conversation, this podcast, here's what I need you to do.

I need you to think outside the box. Like, don't be thinking, well, no, that's not what we do in the

physical church building. Physical and digital, they operate differently. Most times, they're actually

backwards. They do it completely opposite. And so for a little bit here, I want you to start thinking

outside the box and start wrestling with this idea of, if I didn't have the building, how could I be

effective in doing ministry? Because this is really the question that Tyler's wrestling with and that

we're talking with in the podcast. We're talking kids, students, TikTok, man, all Twitch, all sorts

of crazy stuff that pre-COVID, like nobody was having these conversations. And Tyler and Church

Anywhere is really leading the way and digging into some of this. So here's where we are. We're bringing

into the conversation, of course, Tyler Anywhere, Tyler Anywhere. That's his new name. Tyler Sansom,

lead pastor, Church Anywhere. We're bringing in Ray the Armist, digital pastor, Christ Fellowship

Miami. Myself, Jeff, with the Church Digital and Stadia Church Planting in a conversation that I'm calling

Building and Using Influence as a Digital Missionary. Okay, everybody, tell us a little bit,

what's going on in Church Anywhere? Give us an update.

Yeah, man, we've launched a whole digital church, which is crazy. And it doesn't necessarily look

like what you think of when you think of church. But we've got four staff members now on our digital

Church Plant team, our Church Anywhere team. I'm actually sitting in one of our office spaces. So

we have a studio, like a community office space, and then like a recording area for audio.

And yeah, it's been amazing to watch how God has worked through that so far. So I think today,

we're going to get into some of the strategies that we're doing. So I won't talk too much about

that yet. But we've got a family ministries online pastor, an engagement pastor for online,

an office admin who kind of handles all of our database and things like that. And then I get to

be the lead of that. So very exciting stuff.

That's awesome. So you've actually got a team. Like 99% of churches in America today, there's

somebody who's like, my gosh, could somebody else love, care about, think about online ministry. But

you, you've got a team that's helping you with that. That's awesome. So tell me a little bit. Let's

just back up. Like you used to be First Capital Christian online ministry. And now are you guys,

are you still connected with First Capital? Like, are you a completely digital only separate church

with a separate team? Like, talk to me a little bit just about that transition. Because people,

people know First Capital, they knew you guys as part of that. But now you're something different.

Yeah. Yes, and no. So we think of it this way, if there's like a big umbrella over top,

that'd be First Capital Ministries. So instead of First Capital Christian Church,

it'd be like First Capital Ministries. And you got two branches of that. So you've got the 305

branch, which is our street address here in our physical location. So we got First Capital

Christian Church at 305. And then you have church anywhere. So we have different target audiences,

but we're still existing under the same vision of helping people find and follow Jesus. So

basically like sister churches with the same vision, just totally different target audiences

and different approaches to ministry.

I love that language, different target audiences. Maybe unpack that a little bit. What's the target

audience of the physical location there in Cordon, Indiana? What's the target audience of what you're

trying to do online?

Yeah, a target audience for our physical location for a long time has been a 35-year-old male in

Harrison County, Indiana. We believe that if we can get the young family's father to come to church,

then the family will come. Not that we're not trying to reach children and moms and teens and all of that.

But most of the time when the dad comes, the whole family comes. So that was our target audience.

Online though, our target audience is the world. I mean, we don't have to pinpoint Harrison County,

Indiana. We want to reach people in Harrison County, but we also want to reach people

in Pakistan and we want to reach people in Australia.

And so the target audiences are a little different. And online, we can be very specific with content and

community strategies for really specific target audiences. So we can literally target like 18

to 20-year-old females who go to Yale. We probably wouldn't do that one, but that's just the example

that I randomly thought of and I'm not sure how I got there.

That's really interesting. The whole 18 to 20-year-olds at Yale, that's maybe a little creepy,

but we'll move beyond that one and go to. But just even with the target audience, I'm curious,

like, you know, because I have conversations with some digital planners, digital-only church

planners where they have a specific niche. Like I was talking with a guy in the Philippines. His name

is Philip. Philip from the Philippines. And he wanted to plant a digital-only church in the

Philippines, but was aimed at creatives. And it's like the motion graphics guys, the graphic artists,

the video editors, like that particular group, because that was his one. That was the group that

he was passionate about. With Church Anywhere, do you have a... And we talk about the one kind of like

your... The institutional one, like your model that you're going after, the 35-year-old males

from that. Do you have a one for the digital that you're going after? Or is it more broad at this

point? It's more broad, but we've broken it down demographically and generationally. So we use a

funnel system and I can send you the PDF if you want to link that to this podcast. But there's a whole

funnel system to where we have like preschool age kids, and then elementary age kids, then middle

school, high school, then college age beyond, and then like Gen X plus. Online, there's not a whole

lot of strategy for reaching boomers that wouldn't be the same as like Gen X. And so we kind of stopped

there. But each of these funnels have like a broad base at the top. So there's lots of different things

that we put online that could reach different interest groups within that age bracket, and they

all funnel down to community. So the target audiences are not necessarily like one audience, but we've

got specific niches within these generations. So for example, like we use video games to reach high

school and middle school age kids. But we wouldn't do that for like Gen X people because they're not

nearly as much on video games. So we use YouTube to reach Gen X and Facebook, things like that. And so

not like necessarily one specific target audience, like a 35 year old male, but broken down into

demographics with more specific targets within those demographics.

What's the difference between how you would do ministry when you were under First Capital

Christian? Now that you're a digital only church, you got some different strategies.

What's the big difference? Give me an overarching view between how it used to be when you were under

First Capital and now?

Yeah, it's probably the biggest difference is probably the tethered to part. So everything we did online

before was tethered to what we were doing in person for the most part. And now we don't have to be.

Obviously, we still like to use things that we do in person. We still like to have the same

communicators on the screen. We still like to, if we do an initiative in person, that's a challenge

for our people. We want to try to replicate that online, but we don't have to anymore. So not only do

we get to supplement what we do in person, but we get to create new avenues now, which before didn't

make a whole lot of sense if it was just First Capital. But now we have First Capital plus Church

Anywhere.

Now that you're separate, so you're able to have some freedom, you're able to do some things

different than what's in the building. Give me some examples. Now that you've got that freedom,

how are you utilizing the freedom? What does it look like to operate and to do ministry more digitally

without having the tethered physical building in place?

Yeah, right now we're doing weekly Bible studies. And the cool part about this, like in person,

if you did a Bible study, you'd have people sign up for maybe like a six-week class and you'd all

meet together on like a Wednesday night at seven. Online, you can utilize things like YouVersion or

like creating your own curriculum to where it's asynchronous communication. So people can do it whenever

they want, which means that people from all over the world can join in on these Bible studies.

And because there's so much resources out there, we can change up the subject every single week.

And so even though it might be the same 50 people that are doing the Bible study, we're also adding

three or four more that maybe didn't want to sign up at the first of the month, but can do it the

second week of the month and they haven't missed anything. So it's not necessarily long drawn-out

studies, but right now we're doing like a seven-day study and then a seven-day study and a seven-day

study. And it's seen steady growth throughout. And it's both people that are in our area and then

people as far away as like London, England. So that's really cool.

You mentioned this idea of kids and students and the different funnels and we'll put that in the

show notes. What does it look like to through... Because sometimes when I talk digital-only church or even

micro-locations or house churches and kids, the parenting, the parent of somebody that I'm talking

with will say like, creep factor, stay away from my kids. Yeah, I'm not even sure. I want people

doing that online. What's that tension? How do you guys kind of regulate, moderate that? How have you

addressed that in this idea of reaching kids through a digital expression of church?

So whenever I was a kid, which wasn't that long ago, I haven't had my 10-year high school reunion yet.

So I still can consider myself not that far off from high school. Growing up, going to church,

I think back at the things that we did within like Sunday school and Wednesday nights and things like

that. And I don't want to downplay the stuff. It was fine, but I don't think I would have watched

or participated in any of that had I not been at church. Like the only reason I would have watched

things like that they showed us or read things that we were supposed to read was because I was

at the building. And that's what we did when we went to church. And like, we still kind of have that

model. I think that the stuff that people put out for children within like a worship context for kids

is great stuff. I'm not sure they're super interested in watching that outside of being

at the church building though. So when COVID hit, a lot of people just tried to use that same model

and just like put it online and assume kids would just be interested in watching it. And we found out

that they're just not. Like they're not super interested in watching that kind of stuff.

So our philosophy is more of like an influencer kind of thing to where we're trying to find the apps and

platforms that these kids are actually on and produce content that they would be interested in

watching in hopes that we can make connections with them to be able to disciple them relationally

rather than through content. For example, like our online family pastor, Patrick, he's doing some

Twitch streaming. And right now he's working with our in-person student pastor as like a partnership.

And they're literally just saying, you can challenge us to anything and we will take you on in

anything. So we've had kids that are challenging them to like video games. So they'll like capture this

challenge and post it on YouTube as like challenge number one. Yesterday, they did one with a local kid

who challenged them to soccer. And like neither one of our people are good at soccer. So they got like

killed by this 12-year-old girl in soccer, but they've been capturing that and putting it on YouTube

to engage with other students that way. So that's just some of the stuff that he's trying to do.

He's being an influencer on YouTube with content that kids are interested in in hopes to share the

gospel with them relationally. That's pretty cool. And YouTube has been the main platform that you guys

have seen success with that. Twitch, like guys have been a mix.

Twitch and Instagram have been the ones that he's really focusing on.

That's cool. And this approach with platform, have you seen it lead to like relational exchange? Have

you seen it kind of move forward in that? Because when I think of that, I think of, all right,

internet celebrity, but I don't necessarily think of connection.

Yeah. It has been, it's been a slow build. We're confident in the strategy and we've made some

connections. I'm speaking specifically for youth. Weirdly, the adult side of the strategy has been like

super successful so far and like kind of exploded and we can get into that in a little bit.

I think kids are a little bit more tech savvy and can find broader things than adults can on the

internet. And so there's just so much to pick from that it's been a slow build, but we have seen some

success from it. So we're seeing kids who are viewing the devos he's posting every single week because

they found him through Twitch or through the video game stuff. And we're seeing, well, these challenges

are working. Like kids are actually challenging them to things, which is good. So.

Is the traffic on that, is it, is it local to cut in Indiana where you are? Is, is it outside of that

with, with the kids, the devos, the, the challenges? Like what's, what's the footprint?

Yeah. It's a mix of both. Um, we realized that the easiest way to start specifically with teens

because nobody's like trailed this before, um, would be to start locally because we have name

recognition within our community and the surrounding areas. So he's targeting local. Um, but the by-product

of that now is beyond local, um, which on the adult side, we kind of went the opposite way. So we

targeted worldwide and the by-product has been some local people have been involved. Um, we just had

the advantage on the adult side that we've been doing online ministry for a while, whereas we haven't

had online kids and teen ministry, um, up until recently. So, yeah, I mean, let's, let's, let's talk

about on the adult side. So you've got challenge me and you're getting schooled by a 12 year old

kid, the girl playing soccer. Awesome. Um, you know, what, what, what are you doing on the adult

side? Are you trying to like playing darts? Like what, what's the challenge? What's the hook, um,

on, on, on the adult side? Is it, is it typical Bible stuff, church stuff, or what is, what is

building that influence? So me and the engagement pastor are both take, we call it digital missionary

strategy. And that's what we've, um, we've labeled this part of our strategy. And so I'm a digital

missionary to YouTube. That's, that's been my, my platform. She's a digital missionary to TikTok.

That's her platform. So for my YouTube channel, um, my background is in music. And so, um,

I've been singing for a long time. I play lots of instruments. And so I'm using those talents

to, um, like build an audience. So I've been posting like Broadway music covers. Um,

I'll post like one of those a week. And then I'll also post like either a devotional, um,

which is like five minutes or so, or a vlog with like a Devo content in it or a spoken word

devotional, like a poem. Um, so I've done all three of those in the last six months, like on

some form of weekly basis. And, um, like the, the covers are a really good way of introducing

people to my channel. And then, uh, the devos are a really good way of introducing people

to Jesus.

I'm sorry, Tyler. How big did that Hamilton cover go for you, man?

The Hamilton cover is at like eight or 9,000 right now, but I did, I did a wicked cover,

um, uh, for the, uh, the defying gravity, like the main song. And it's at like 130,000 views

right now, which is crazy. So like it's, it's nuts. If like YouTube, if you just are consistent

and have like good content, spend time making it like, it's easy to build an audience. Um,

so I had like 300 followers when we started this, um, kind of, or subscribers when we started this

digital missionary strategy and I have like almost 2,500 subscribers now, and that's been

three and a half months. Um, so the cool part about once you get past like a thousand subscribers,

YouTube unlocks a community tab. So you can post, um, updates like you would on Facebook or Twitter

or whatever. And so I'm posting like the link to my weekly Bible study. So I'm having people from my

YouTube community who are doing Bible studies with me now. Um, I'm became friends with them on

Facebook. So I like have like private messages with these people who have only, um, met me through

YouTube, which is crazy. Um, and so that, that's the kind of stuff that we're doing. The girl that's

doing TikTok is very similar, except she has made her niche, um, mental health. She struggles with

anxiety. Um, and so she started a blog about mental health issues and how to get over those.

And she makes these silly TikTok videos that direct people to her blog. Um, and this is crazy guys.

She's been praying with about six to eight families weekly, um, just through TikTok. Um, so she had

like, she did this one blog where she held her glasses up to her phone, um, and focused through

her glasses and then took the glasses away. And basically it was like, now you can see what I see

and it's real blurry. And then she wrote a blog post about how we don't often look through other

people's viewpoint. Um, whenever we talked to them, genius idea, but it had like 200,000 hits on TikTok

because it was a clever idea. And then that led people to her blog posts. So now she's like one-on-one

discipling these people and like praying with them through private messages, um, over an 11 second

video and a blog post. Crazy stuff. That's amazing. Like, like even just mentally processing

through that to a, uh, an 11 second video, incredible idea with the glasses, but, but through

that, getting it connected into, um, you know, a blog post where they're, where they're digesting

more content on your website, brand new website, leads them to, to, uh, to a relationship getting

to the point where they're, where they're praying together and dialoguing through that. That's

incredible.

It was like the Superbowl. The first time she texted the rest of the team and said, I just

prayed with someone through TikTok. All of us were like, this is the best day of our lives.

I mean, this is where we're seeing fruits of this. You're seeing other, do you have any other

stories? Any other examples?

When we started talking about potentially, um, starting a fully digital church, um, my main,

like meat behind my argument for my eldership was the screenshot that I had taken from a guy

I went to high school with. And, uh, on the screenshot, he had put, um, a Facebook post

that said, if heaven is filled with Christians in quotation marks, then I don't want to be

there. And it like, it broke my heart. Cause I grew up with this guy and I was like, man,

there's no reason that Christians should be the reason this guy doesn't want to go to heaven

and have a relationship with Jesus. Like we should not be, um, the reason for that.

So I brought that to our eldership and said, like, this is the type of person we can reach

on the internet that we're never, ever going to reach by him coming to a physical building.

Like period. Like it's very clear what he just said. He's not going to come to a building.

And, uh, so we, yeah, we were like, yeah, that's great. So we started this online campus.

Um, my Devo spoken word poem from two weeks ago, I got posted it on YouTube and that same

guy commented on it and said, you got, you have no idea how much the videos that your

church has been impacting my life. I've been really struggling with my faith for years.

I was locked up in prison for seven years after high school and I've just felt so lost.

And you have no idea how much of an impact you guys have made on me.

Literally the same guy that had posted this Facebook post. That was the reason we started

this campus. Um, and that was like the absolute affirmation that our team needed, um, for us

to be like, okay, God, um, you're a lot bigger than we think you are. And I think we're doing

the right thing. So just you take it and run with it. And since then it's like the, the floodgates

have opened specifically with people on YouTube and TikTok.

You know, we, we talk a lot about this idea of, of creating, connecting relationships and

building relationships. And we actually had you on a podcast, I don't know, maybe

somewhere in this COVID season, you know, talking about this and that relationship piece. And you,

you dropped the line. I've never heard an online pastor say it. My, my literal job description says

I need to know a hundred people digitally. And so like you interacting with your, your former high

school, uh, buddy here that that's great. You've, you've got the, the girl praying. Um, you know,

some people would say maybe that's not a real relationship, uh, praying through TikTok.

It's not in physical space. Maybe prayer only works. Holy spirit only works if you're breathing

air molecules. Like we can get sarcastic on that maybe, but, um, like talk to me about the

relationship level because people connect to community before they connect to Christ often

in online and digital spheres. We see that here in 2020 in this COVID season. So that relationship

component is key for us to be really effective in reaching. How was digital church being effective

in creating these relationships? I think the accessibility is probably the easiest, uh,

or the, the best part of online ministry. Um, yesterday I connected with, um, one of our

church anywhere. I would, I'm not going to say members cause we don't have membership, but

one of our regular church anywhere people, um, who lives in Missouri. And it was easy for us

to connect about an issue that had happened to her at work that day. Um, even though she's

like a different time zone, it was late in the evening. Um, but because we have built a relationship

through, um, Facebook messenger, after we had connected through a worship service, um, I was

able to, to pray with her over this issue she was having, um, said, try to counsel her the

best that I possibly could in like a pastoral way. Um, but because the relationship we built

through just Facebook messenger, I've never seen her in person. I felt like I was talking

to an old friend, um, even though we've never actually met. So the accessibility and ease

of connection is unlimited on the internet.

Yeah. It's funny because it sounds like your church, Tyler has not just a lot of different

lines in the water, but, but like a specific line to each platform and then almost drawing

them in to the same hub in terms of getting connected with church anywhere on almost all

platforms. Like how, how are you guys like utilizing some of that? Cause it seems like

it's very methodical, you know, as, as you talk about it, I'm like, man, it's pretty cool.

They got somebody for Tik TOK. They got some, they got you for YouTube. They got, but then

you're drawing them into this community that's much larger than just the platform.

Yeah. We are. And you'll, when you see the PDF, I'll send Jeff, you've got these big

funnels, which are the broad, like Tik TOK, YouTube, Instagram, whatever, but they're

all funneling down to this community. And we've got a discord, um, community for like

teenagers. Um, we've got a Facebook group, um, for adults. And then, um, beyond that, we've

got our individual YouTube community, which once you get past a certain amount of subscribers,

you have this community tab and like people are on YouTube all the time. And so if you

post a, how can I pray for you today? Um, status update, you're getting like 20, 30 comments

of people from all over the country who are wanting you to pray with them. And that's when

you have an opportunity to say, well, let me send you a friend request on Facebook so

we can continue to pray for each other. Um, that's when you say, let's exchange emails

so we can stay connected beyond just this YouTube thing. And so while the funnel might

be really broad at the top, once it narrows down to leading them to either a Facebook group

or our website, um, where the blog is being held for Instagram or for Tik TOK or this discord,

we have them like we've, we've captured their information to continue the relationship.

I was having a conversation with, um, Jason Morris, Westside family, global innovations

pastor, whatever he's been on the pockets a lot. We all, we all know Jason. Uh, he, he used

the term with me, uh, the, the phrase, uh, Facebook is just another neighborhood. Um, and it was

really, and it's talking about how for, uh, for Westside, like his goal is to unleash volunteers

on each individual platform. And instead of trying to move people from Facebook to watch

this YouTube video to go over here for that, it's like, no, utilize the Facebook tools and

just create community in there. It was just transparently, I've, I've gone back and forth

in that. Um, and, uh, but I hear from you this, Hey, like, yeah, I'm, I'm the YouTube guy.

I've got somebody who's a TikTok girl who's, who's in that. Um, what, what's, what's your

mentality? Talk, walk me through a little bit here, the process of keeping kind of everybody

within that platform, doing church in that space, being church in that space. Like what

was your mindset kind of with that breakup?

Yeah. Um, well the, the TikTok girl was by accident. She just posted the, uh, the, the

glasses video and it blew up and she had a bunch of followers. So I was like, Hey, maybe

you should just focus on TikTok. And so it was predestined. Yeah. That worked really

well. Um, YouTube we knew was the second biggest, uh, search engine in the world. And

so we knew some, we had to get on there somehow and figure out a way to reach people. And it

wasn't going to be just sermon clips every single week. Um, like I love our senior

pastor and I get to preach too, but neither one of us are Andy Stanley and neither one of

us are Steven Furtick and we don't have any kind of name recognition beyond that. Um, so

people probably aren't searching for first capital Christian church or church

anywhere on YouTube, but they might be searching for this cover video. And then I might have

a chance of relationally building with them. So I don't necessarily tell people to stay

in their lane and be only on this platform. It just happened to be, that's the platform

that each of us, um, know how to use the best. Um, and so we wanted to focus on what we do

well, um, within this season of like launching this church.

Are boomers connecting with this? Um, I'm curious, like, is there, is there, is there a line where

an influencer approach, is it too soon to tell? Like what, what, what are you finding there?

Yeah, it's a, I think it's a little too soon to tell. Um, and I don't like I'm 27. I don't really

tailor my anything towards boomers. Um, just because I like on YouTube, you have to be yourself.

People appreciate authenticity. And so like, I don't, I don't know how to be anything but a 27 year

old. Um, but maybe in the future, uh, we, we might have, uh, like a YouTube channel dedicated

specifically for, um, things that, that boomers would like. I don't know.

No, but I think, I think that's important. And I think that's, that's the right mindset.

You know, too often folks try to act outside of their age range or try to be who they're not.

And we keep talking about internet in an age of authenticity. And yet we keep finding more and

more folks are inauthentic online. How are you encouraging your leadership to stay true to who

they are as opposed to trying to be that big communicator? Because so often I'm finding that

leadership wants to push forward, man, we want to grow to that status. Well, you're not Mike Todd

and I don't want you to be. Yeah. It's man, that's tough. And like, I always tell my wife,

I would hate to be a teenager growing up today because of the comparison game that they play

on social media, but that's not just teenagers. Adults do it all of the time. Um, specifically now

we have the leaders who have been leading, leading pastors that have been 20, 30 years at the same

church. And now they're seeing their church attendance in person, like non-existent.

And they don't know how to cope with it because church has been this way for so, so long that,

um, they're comparing themselves to not only the past, but they're now comparing themselves

to other churches that are struggling, but still might be a little bit bigger than, than we are.

So like the church down the street might have 400 people and we might have 300 people and we might

have both used to have 1500 people, but there's still the comparison game being played.

So that mindset is not just online. We have been really, really, um, diligent in trying to like

carve our own path on the online stuff. And that's why I'm doing Broadway covers. Like I'm not very good

at anything else. So like I can't sing lots of other types of music. And so I try to do what I can do.

Um, but I realized not everybody can do that, but everybody can do something well. And so if,

if we could get past the comparison and get past what we think it's supposed to look like and focus

on people and telling people about Jesus, the only way that we can, um, I think that we could start

all using the internet more efficiently. Um, I think we're learning through quarantine that church doesn't

necessarily have to look like three songs and a message. Uh, church can look like finding

connection through a YouTube video that leads to a weekly Bible study that leads to baptism.

I'm curious a year from now, if for, for whatever God forsaken reason, if we're still stuck in this

situation, how do you see some of church online evolving? Uh, particularly for you guys, I know you can't

necessarily speak for everybody, but particularly for you guys in terms of continuing to build

on the community that you guys have already started to create.

Yeah, we're starting, we're starting this, uh, soon. Our, our big theme for the fall for at least

for, um, church anywhere and for first capital, hopefully we're figuring out how to mesh these

together, um, is to empower our people. Like historically church anywhere, we've been really

good at empowering people to lead like through micro sites and things like that, but that's been more

difficult in quarantine. So now we're trying to figure out initiatives to mobilize people

more. Um, one that's coming out soon is something called I am church anywhere. And we've reached out

to several of our church anywhere regulars across the country. Like all four of us have reached out

to 10 people and they've sent videos back with them telling their testimony video. Um, so we're going

to blast social media with testimony videos from people all over the world. Um, and then challenge other

people on each of these posts to also share their story. So we'll give them a way to upload their

video, um, like through email or through our church anywhere website, and we'll continue to share their

story. So it could be like a two or three week initiative. Um, but we're at least going to be

sharing 40 to 50 stories of these people and how God has moved in their lives. But that, that mobilizes

people to act and do something. So our whole fall is based on these actions. We're trying to work on, um,

teaching them how to be generous beyond just like weekend services, uh, teaching them how to share their

stories. Um, things like that.

Is, is the, is the end game of, of something like this? Is it, is it depth as in the four of you want to get

as many followers, subscribers as possible for, for the influence? Is it, is it width where you want to

multiply yourself into other potential and we all have the potential to be, uh, spiritual influencers?

Like what, what's the end game with, with your, your approach here?

Yeah. One of the things this fall we're working on is a content creation team, but we wouldn't be

having them probably create content from church anywhere. We would be encouraging people that we

are, um, personally mentoring, um, on how to do some of the stuff that we're doing. Um, so that could be like

a lay person, a volunteer who may be like really good at pottery. So why not make pottery YouTube

videos and hit that niche of people in order to hopefully share Jesus with the people that share

the interests that they share? Um, so that content team this fall, we're really going to work on

teaching them how to do video stuff, teaching them how to be good on social media, and then like

unleashing them to kind of do what we're already doing.

I mean, alongside of other stuff too, that's not our like biggest focus we have, but that's one of the

things we're trying to do for this mobilization piece. So Ray, to answer your question a year from

now, I hope that church anywhere has been mobilized to share the gospel on the internet and not just

consume content that we put out.

What is that act? So if we're not just consumers, what is, what is that action? Um, we talk about this

a lot online to offline. The gospel that we hear in the online world has to affect our offline

relationships. James 1, 22, don't just be hearers of the word online, do what it says in the real

world. I'm just curious, what has that action that do in the real world peace, um, have, have you seen

some of that? You're seeing engagement with, uh, subscribers. We're getting opportunity to pray.

Uh, have, have we seen it get to this place yet where it's now driving action in the, in the

physical realm?

Yeah. I got a text yesterday. Uh, this is super exciting. I'm really excited to share this. I got

a text yesterday that said, Hey, what, what does church anywhere have to offer for me for mobile

baptisms? And I was like, well, tell me more about it. And they said, well, I just shared Jesus with

a coworker and I need to be able to baptize her. And I was like, dude, I will, I will buy you a pool

if that's what it takes. And so, um, yeah, we're going to be able to provide her with like a horse

trough to baptize this person in their parking lot, um, of on like Sunday afternoon at their

workspace. Um, and so that, that would be one of the things that's driving action. Like I hope to

be the outfitter. Um, basically if they text me and they need like, like I just shared Jesus with

somebody, but I have a question about this. I hope to be able to be the person that gives them the

answer to send to the other person rather than just saying, okay, we'll tell them to come to church

and I'll tell them myself, if that makes sense. Yeah. We, we've, we've talked a lot about it in

podcasts. This idea is church's platform where, um, what if the church didn't actually do the

service, the church service, but instead empowered other people with the gospel and let them do the

evangelism, the disciple making it, doing actions through it. Like companies like Uber and Airbnb are

revolutionizing their industries, but they don't actually provide the services as much as empower

others to do that. And by doing it, it's become more, more scalable, um, and reproducible. And

they're getting a much larger reach than they would, which you're describing. Here's a great

example of that where somebody is like, Hey, uh, I just brought somebody to Christ. I have no idea

how to baptize them. Can you, can you help me with that? And, and, and being a horse trough in a

parking lot. Was that, is that in Corden? Is that somewhere else? Like an hour where is an hour

away? Yeah. So you're, you're helping somebody figure out a horse trough an hour away. Well,

and they're connected with our microsite. That's a, that's an hour away as well. So like they'll

already have a community of believers to go and like physically be with after this, which is awesome.

That's interesting. We didn't, we haven't talked about the microsite piece. So you had, uh, 18,

19, 47. How, where are you up to now? 21. It changes everything. 21. I really think last time we

talked is 20. So every time we talk, there's just another one popping up. Um, Hey, so like,

is that part of it where it's digital that, that grows physical? What, what role does physical play

in a digital only church anywhere? I don't know. That's the beauty of it. It's, it's awesome. It's

ever evolving. So like this person that's getting baptized in the horse trough is going to be able

to physically connect with this group because we already have them there. Um, but hopefully like

ideally somebody would find a video I put out on YouTube and then like a year later they're

leading their own microsite. That would be awesome. Um, but I just don't know yet. It's,

it's still a little too early to tell how exactly they fit together. Um, we're all for people being

in physical communities if it works for their demographic and where they like geographically

live. How's that working out right now? And I'm, forgive me if you guys went over this earlier,

but how's that working out right now as far as the microsites meeting and all that is all of

that like completely, Hey, digital right now. And if so, are you looking for a plan for them to come

back? It's like 10 or less or some of that. Like, how does that work?

Some of them are working well. Um, like some of them in homes, like that's up to the people that

own the home. Like they can, they can do whatever they feel comfortable with. And so those have been

fine. Like the, the, the home side has been the cause-based ones where they're more institutional

have really been based on what, uh, the places will let us. I will tell you this, our low, um,

one of the jails that we're in brought me in to design a sound system behind a plexiglass wall

that they were going to put in, um, in order for us to continue doing church anywhere and for other

people to come in. So they, they finished installing yesterday. It's like a giant plexiglass wall

where the volunteers will stand on one side and the inmates on the other side. And there's a

two-way microphone system so we can still communicate. There's like two giant screens

where we can still watch the same things. Um, so it's been really cool to see these institutions

buy into the idea of doing ministry in their places and then figuring out creative ways, uh,

to actually make it happen. So that's a very safe way. There's like no germs being passed at all,

but we can still come in and do those. So those start back next week. Um, it's really just case

by case for these microsites on what can meet and what can't meet.

If somebody wanted to do this, like, uh, influencer model, um, you, you started with 300 on YouTube,

like how did, how did, how would they do that? Like what, what advice would you give to somebody

who's wanting to go down this road?

I think we, we tend to overthink everything and we plan things out until we're blue in the face.

And then we end up never doing anything. A lot of the times like that's, that's been,

that's been probably one of my pet peeves since starting in full-time ministry eight years ago,

as it's just been this, like we put all this effort into the pre part of it. And then we get so

exhausted that it never comes to fruition. Um, the best time to start YouTube was probably last year,

but the second best time is right now. So just do it, um, figure out what you like or what you're

good at and just start making videos like people make them with cell phones. Um, and if your end

goal is trying to build relationship with people, then, um, I think whatever you do, um, like focus

it in on that goal and just start doing it. That's probably the worst advice ever, but just do

something I think is, is the way I would go with that.

You, you started with YouTube. You had the followers on there. Megan stumbles into TikTok and,

and discovers it. Um, talk to me a little bit about kind of finding that, that strategy.

Uh, YouTube is the second largest search engine. If you separate it from, from Google,

like, is, is that the place to go? If I was wanting to do this influencer,

how, how do, what, tell me the strategy for, for what, how to get started?

Yeah, I think, I think YouTube is probably the, um, YouTube has a really large audience.

It's also not the easiest one to get started on. Um, it, there's just such a broad base of

videos. It's hard to get noticed right off the bat. Whereas TikTok is 11 to 13 second

videos. Um, you can be really goofy and find what's trending and build a following probably

quicker. But I think TikTok is harder to do ministry on than YouTube is. Um, so there's

benefits to both and there's cons to both. Um, for my own, like I don't have a TikTok. Um,

I don't really have much interest in that. And so that's why I picked YouTube. There wasn't like

a big strategy behind it. Whereas she already has a TikTok. She has interest in that. Um,

like there's a, I think you, you and, uh, Dave Adamson did the 10 commandments to YouTube. Um,

that's a, that's a great video. Like go watch that and then just start a YouTube channel and do what

he says. Uh, I feel like that's a microcosm for Christianity. I heard, uh, Francis Chan one time

Matt passion. Um, and he, he literally just opened the Bible and said, okay, here's how to be a

Christian. Just like open this up and do what it says. And we like to make it a lot harder sometimes.

Well, for YouTube, like go find a video that explains how YouTube works and then just go do it.

There's a bunch of those YouTubes out there. I'm just curious, like is Twitch is something that's

becoming more and more prevalent. You know, I think they just shut down Mixer, which was little

known. And so a bunch of the Mixer people kind of jumped on, on Twitch and it seems to be

picking up, um, you know, broadcast audience kind of mindset. Ray is, as well. Is, is Twitch on,

on either of your guys, um, roadmaps, awareness? Like are you tracking with Twitch at all?

Yeah, that's, that's our online, uh, family pastors doing a lot with Twitch. Um, especially

like these video game challenges and stuff to be able to stream those on Twitch. Lots, lots

of teenagers are on that, um, platform. I've been trying to get our students guys to really

focus in on Twitch. They've done a good job of kind of going after the gaming community, similar how

Tyler's talked about how each of their folks have gone after like a different platform. Some of them

tried, like they, they specifically assigned certain folks to be keen on NBA 2K, some on Call of Duty

and some on like Animal Crossing, and then kind of put up a schedule on our Instagram, you know,

to try and engage students in some of those platforms. And they found some success there. Twitch

is one of those things. And we, we, we've seen a lot of folks, uh, really spread the gospel in some of

the, on Twitch and, and do this kind of a thing. It's just like YouTube where if you're consistent

with it and stick with it and know it and understand it, you really can grow something

positive. It just takes somebody who's minded towards it. Unfortunately, we haven't found anybody

to really stick with it on, on, on our, on our end. Well, I tell you what, Ray, I'm totally going to put

you on the spot here and I wasn't even thinking I was going to ask this question, but you know,

he's talking about an influencer approach, which is atypical physical ministry. You are actually

a physical church, digital pastor. Like what, what headaches, what challenges, some of this

influencer approach of how he's doing it, what would it take to do that at a physical church,

or at least in a church that's used to doing physical ministry?

I think the first thing is that you have to, you have to really help some of your pastors and some

of your people understand the importance of the fact that this is a real audience that you can have

real influence over. Um, and really even understanding what an influencer is. I mean,

Tyler, feel free to butt in and disagree at any point. Um, because some of them, they have such a

negative view of what it means to be an influencer at this point. Like, like they look at it and they

see a lot of people involved, involved in multi-level marketing schemes who are just trying to like

sell stuff or, or whatever else. So when they first think influencer, they think of it as kind of a

selfish thing. Like, Oh, I'm going to grow my platform or I'm trying to get popular and not

necessarily trying to elevate Jesus in a particular area or something along those lines. We did have

a campus pastor who I'm not going to name right off the bat. Uh, and he actually did in a positive

light. He actually found a bit of his voice early on in COVID and really started keying in on the

subject of anxiety, kind of like how Tyler had somebody in his group do that and really was doing

a good job. And it's funny. He messaged me about two weeks ago, like, Hey, I want to start building

this up again. And I said, man, you did such a great job at the beginning. Don't, don't lose your

voice in this. And he said, yeah, I just started. And this is the key, I think for a lot of pastors

and where they struggle. He started to get discouraged on the view count because we measure what matters.

And the minute that the metrics start to dip, all of a sudden we think I've lost influence.

I've lost hope. Nobody's interested. And so he stopped doing it. And I tried to encourage him

and I tried to send him a podcast and other folks. I'm like, listen, you got to do this because you

love this. And because you really believe God has called you to voice, to give you a voice in this

specific area. Tyler, what are your, what are your thoughts there on that? Yeah, I agree. And that kind

of goes back to that comparison game trap that we can fall into of, well, my views have gone down,

but this person's views have gone up. But we're all trying, if, if, if it's the same category,

we're hopefully all on the same team trying to reach the same goal. So stop comparing yourself to

other people's views. And the way the internet works is like, you're going to fluctuate on like

view counts and things like that. One video could be viral and have a ton of views and the other one

could have like four or 500, but that doesn't mean you're any less effective. If you can,

if you can get past the view count and focus on the audience that you're building and the community

aspect of what you're trying to do relationally, then things kind of change in your mind like that.

I also think it's a leap for a lot of pastors in physical churches to move from,

I need the church's platform to elevate my voice as opposed to building my own platform.

Because so many of them want to get on the church handles thinking that, oh man,

this is how I am able to be heard. And I've heard this from other churches as well,

where it's like, oh, well, all of a sudden our campus pastors want to be in the church online

broadcast, or they want to do announcements in this specific area because they're so used to the

church's platform, elevating their voice instead of establishing their own. And that's where I would

encourage them. This isn't meant to be discouraging in any kind of light. It's meant to be encouraging of

God gave you a voice, use your voice, as opposed to thinking that the only way that your voice can get

elevated is through at your church handle.

Yeah. I've had that conversation with some of my staff, some of the staff members on the physical

side of what we do early on, who struggled with the idea of us being, we call it digital missionaries,

but it's a social media influencer because of the pride issue of it, of, oh, you're trying to just

build your name up. You're trying to do this, trying to do this. What we got, we have to remember that

like when we're wrapped up in our like church bubble, like our Christian bubble, like we know

all these churches, like we know what North Point is, you know what Elevation is, but like a majority

of people that we're going to see on the internet, they don't have a clue who Elevation Church is.

They don't have a clue who North Point is. They may know who Andy Stanley or Stephen Furtick is,

but like those are name recognition things for Christians. If we're trying to reach non-Christians,

they're not like super trusting of institutions in the first place and definitely not searching for

churches specifically. So we came up with this, like we got down to the fact that we think we can reach

more people as a person rather than a church handle. And that was really hard for people to grasp at the

beginning. So you have to have some form of like, like why you have to have the why behind it to be

able to back up why you're trying to do what you're trying to do.

And the great irony of all that to me, Tyler, is when I listened to Craig Rochelle in his leadership

podcast, when I listened to Andy Stanley, it's very apparent that they're not going after the

church community. They're going after business leaders. They're going after people outside of

their circle that they're trying to pull in for the sake of the gospel. And that's the interesting

thing to me is that even though those folks get accused of trying to build their voice in the

Christian community, what they're really after is they're looking at it through an evangelistic

approach. And that's why they started a lot of those platforms was to go reach out to people

instead of reaching around to the same people that they're normally reaching.

Yeah. Love, love everything about this. If, if we're, if you're a physical missionary, you're going to

move to another country and you're going to build relationships. You're going to connect with those

people. And through that relational influence, that's how you start to spread Christ. And so you want to

go as many people as possible. You want to share Christ as much as possible to build up the church.

What I love about this model of influence is it's not influence for influence sake. It's influence

for the sake of the kingdom that leads somewhere. And so understanding it's not about the number of

YouTube subscribers, just like it's not the number of butts and seats that we're watching

in our physical service, as well as our online services. It's, it really comes down to whatever

that next step is getting people connected into your discipleship pathway, funnel process, whatever,

towards getting people connected to the gospel, to the greater understanding of Christ. And so whether

that's done, you know, we use this language a lot at Stadia, it doesn't matter if it's physical,

it doesn't matter if it's digital, but those are not the end. It's means to the end that developing a

person to become a disciple maker, great commission, that, that should be the end. And so whatever the

process is, is to do that, let's do it. I love this influencer idea and I'm going to be excited

to, to kind of see how this, this grows and develops. And of course, I think Tyler has holds the

record for number of times to appear on the church digital podcast. So we will, of course,

bring them back at some point. Uh, several of them are the top as well. Just, just kind of calling

them out here a little bit there, but, um, actually, uh, it's, it's been a really interesting couple

months here for the podcast. That's a later conversation, but we're going to land right

here. Time's a thing. Hey, listen, Tyler, thanks for jumping on this. Love the fact that you're

innovating, um, digging into things and taking a different approach. Love seeing what's

happening at church anywhere and what's coming up. For Tyler, for Ray, this is Jeff with the

church digital and stated church planning. Thanks for being here. And we'll see you next time

here at the podcast. Y'all have a good day.