EP084: Christopher Benek, Virtual Reality, and Moving Beyond Church Buildings

All right, you got episode 84 of the Church Digital Podcast, once again, powered by Stadia

Church Planting. Jeff here. I love this episode. I love this conversation because we get hypothetical.

We get theoretical very, very quickly. We're bringing in, and every time I talk with this guy,

we end up getting hypothetical and theoretical because that's just a bleeding edge tech guy

that he is. So we're bringing in Christopher Binnick. Now, Chris is actually the lead pastor

at First Presbyterian Church here in Miami. His facility, his campus is located in the heart of

downtown Miami, right off of Brickell Avenue. It's a historical landmark building. And so when you

think Presbyterian Church, no offense to Presbyterians, when you think this historical

landmark facility, you don't always think a bleeding edge tech guy, which is really the grounding of

what Christopher is, which makes this conversation so fascinating because as much as he's in this,

you know, call it an older facility, more traditional facility, he's already thinking and imagining how to

transition and how to move these things into a digital sphere, virtual reality. And as a matter of

fact, Christopher was more than just even being the lead pastor of this church, has been working and

developing virtual reality platforms called churches plus so that other churches can get on board with

virtual reality and doing a number of other areas involving a company that he runs called co-creators.

All of a sudden, you're starting to see where more than just a conversation about a church,

we're talking about some trends of where we are going as a church, which is really the heart of this

conversation. This is not practical, as much as it is theoretical and keeping yourself in check. What are the

steps that we the church are doing mid COVID here, maybe coming post COVID, maybe not? What are we doing

today? What steps are we doing today that can help us to become the church that we need to be for tomorrow? So

here's who I'm bringing into the conversation. Once again, Christopher Benick, who's lead pastor over at

First Press Miami, as well as Ray D'Armis, who's co-host once again with the Church Digital Podcast, but also

digital pastor for Christ Fellowship Miami, and myself, Jeff, with the Church Digital and Stadia Church

Planting, in a conversation that I'm simply calling, getting beyond the buildings of today. Okay,

everybody, here you go. Probably, oh boy, it's been maybe a year and a half ago when, well,

you know, a year and a half ago, maybe, there was an opportunity. So I've written on VR for a long

time, right? So I've, back when I was doing my, so I have a doctorate of theology, or a doctorate of

ministry in theology and science from Pittsburgh Seminary. And that program was the first of its kind

in the world, and I was in the first cohort. I think I was the youngest person in the cohort.

And so I was, that's where I really kind of got into more intentional conversations about

emerging technology. And one of the things that I was doing early on was I just started blogging.

There weren't many people really blogging about the intersection of, you know, science and faith and

tech at that point. And I wrote a piece on VR. And I had looked at, you know, kind of what existed.

And I talked about what would that look like for the church to come. And a gentleman who was in Europe,

actually, somehow stumbled upon this, found this article. And within a week and a half, I was having,

I was in a YouTube seminar that they were doing. They're supposed to be doing it in VR, but it literally

crashed the platform they were on. And so they had to move it over to, I don't know what it was at that

time. I don't know if it was Skype or Google Hangouts, or I don't even know if those were around.

But Philip Rosdale was one of the guys that had developed Second Life. And so here I was, like,

just kind of, you know, waxing philosophically on some of this stuff. And all of a sudden, then

immediately, I'm in a conversation with somebody who's actually done it. There were real limitations.

If you saw Second Life, there were real limitations to it. And part of the limitations were is that it

wasn't a stable platform. And part of the thing is, if you actually pay attention to VR, and you're in

VR, it's the VR world is pretty crazy, right? So if you can, you know, if you can imagine it,

you can do it. And people can imagine a lot of bad things is what I found out. And so, so I was

looking at like, well, what would church look like, but it looked to me like there weren't any platforms

that you could actually do this in without having chaos. And so, you know, later down the road,

David Soto, DJ Soto, you know, started doing some VR church stuff. And there had been other attempts

at this. I knew people who had done stuff in Second Life. And it was like, they had a small group, but

everyone kind of felt like it was hokey. And, you know, you could have somebody just run in and be

really disruptive, and there was nothing you could do about it. And so it was just like,

people control your church all the time. Then DJ, you know, got into this and DJ actually came down

not too long ago, and was in Miami and was talking with me said, you know, it's really interesting,

because before I did any of this stuff, I saw the stuff you were writing about VR and church.

And, and so it was kind of prophetic for me. And then and now, you know, we all look at DJ and go,

man, DJ has done all this great stuff and, and VR and kind of been a pioneer in that space. But he was

really, you know, he was just trying to get his head around what would this look like. And then

all of a sudden, he got in that space. And we all know, you know, anybody deals with tech knows,

it's great to like, think about this stuff and what it could be. But actually, in practice,

it's way messier, right? I mean, it's just, you know, and everyone's looking for the quick fix.

And it's like, there is no quick fix stuff breaks, you have to learn stuff, because you have to know how

to troubleshoot, because that's going to be a problem. And so I was looking at this. And,

you know, I think DJ is great guy really respect him, and the work that he's done. But what I was

noticing was, is there wasn't a lot of work being done in and reformed churches on this subject. And

there are some pretty hefty theological issues when you start getting into virtual church. And what that

means, particularly with regard to sacraments, and, you know, people always raise questions about,

well, what about incarnational ministry? What does that look like? And I thought, well, nobody's really

talking about this in reformed churches. So how do we get people in reformed churches to talk about it?

And so I applied in the, I'm in the Presbyterian Church USA, and the Presbyterian Church USA is

kind of a mix of people from very liberal to very conservative and everything in between.

And admittedly, the church was just struggling to figure out how to do new church developments well.

And so they started this initiative called 1001 Worship in Communities. And anyone could apply for it if

you had essentially a worshiping community that was getting together and gathering. And I knew somebody

who was doing that in Charleston and doing a great job with it. And they would give you a little bit of

money if you did it. And so I did a pitch to him and said, look, I don't have anything yet. But I have

an idea. And they essentially wrote back to me and said, we'll give you the initial grant to get the

equipment. We don't think you can do anything with this. But if anybody can make it happen in virtual

reality, you're the person in our denomination that would be able to do it.

And so they just kind of took a risk and threw money, a little bit of money at me. And so I was

able to afford to go out and buy the equipment to do that. So I started going out. And once I started

looking at it, I'm a sustainability guy. I do not like to build anything without a system behind it.

I think churches do a terrible job of this across the board. They don't look at sustainability as

particularly like, and you, you know, this, if anybody does like now that everybody's in this

digital platform, uh, you know, mode, uh, they're just throwing stuff at the wall. They're not even

looking at their mission. They're not looking at the, you know, uh, they're not looking at their long

term. And so, um, for me, I started looking at it and going, well, from a sustainability standpoint,

this is really difficult to be in VR. And I really, uh, tried to pay attention to what DJ

was doing and hearing kind of some of the critiques that he and other people had about their experiences

in VR. And one of the things that we figured out and that was, uh, was that stability of the

platform was a huge issue. Um, you could go in and be in a, you know, preaching a sermon and just

mid-sermon get thrown out, which is disastrous for a preacher, right? Like if you're, if you're

setting up a, if you're setting up a problem and then you cut out, you leave people, you rip their

tent down and they have no place to live. Right. Like, and so it's just horrible. And then, and then

the second thing that we saw is look, there were no quality controls on any of this. Um, and then the

third thing we found was that it was almost impossible to replicate anything in the real world that

people would have a sacred tie to, uh, to have an expression of it in the digital world. And,

you know, not everyone, like I, I am fortunate to be part of, uh, uh, to be the pastor at first

Miami Presbyterian church. We have a beautiful piece of property on Brickell, uh, on, on Brickell

Ave downtown in Miami. Um, but people can't experience that, uh, in any real way if they don't live

in Miami. Uh, and so what about the person in, uh, Singapore or, uh, you know, Australia who wants to

actually see something about our church? And so, so all this to say, we, we started getting into this

deeper conversation and my initial thought was, well, I'm going to create a version of the church,

but then how do I actually have some protection over the sacred site, which we value and have a way that

it's stable to actually be able to create a message. And so what we started doing is, uh,

start talking to some people and started talking to some developers. And, uh, we said, well, if you can

dream it, we can do it. And, uh, we found, uh, the right people to put it together. And we just said,

we're not just going to build one church. We're going to build a platform so we can have infinite

churches. And so this conversation goes well beyond reform theology, but it opens up the conversation

because there's all sorts of theologies that enrich the kingdom. And how do, how do we enable people to

be in this space technologically to be able to do that? Um, and then beyond that, we are crazy as a

church, uh, universal, if we're not going to, uh, evangelize online. Um, you know, there's 7.7

billion people or something in the world, uh, 3.5 billion of them at least are online and 2.2 billion

of them are gamers. Like, um, you know, I don't know what local re you know, local churches evangelism

plans are, but that's a pretty big area to be able to pull from. Uh, and even if you just pull in

percentage odds off that, um, there's a way to build sustainability for your church, uh, in a way

that, that people haven't thought of before. So, so, you know, looking at that and then I think the

big thing beyond that is, you know, there's also a lot of churches and we're a historic church. They

have overhead issues. So if you're church planning, like, you know, what's an easier way to church

plant than to have a digital version where you don't have overhead, uh, it's in the cloud, your pipes

don't break, uh, your roof's not going to get blown off by a hurricane. Uh, you're not going to have

any of those issues and you can make your worship, uh, as dynamic as you can imagine in VR. Uh, so,

you know, now don't get me wrong. VR is there. There's still some limitations in VR. You have a

little bit of the uncanny Valley thing still with avatars. Uh, totally get that. Uh, but as far as

the physical structures that you can make, uh, in VR, I mean, they're unbelievable. They're beautiful.

Uh, and you know, when we did the first Miami, if you go to, uh, uh, church plus, so it's C-H-V-R-C-H-P-L-U-S.com

and you look under our services, you'll see that there's a, there's a picture of, uh, the first

Miami build. And we did it kind of in a medium resolution, almost like a cartoony field. But if

you look, there's, there's bushes there. And if you actually look online at our church, there's no

bushes in the front. Well, we wanted bushes. Uh, so we could put bushes, uh, in front of the church

when you go into the narthex, we have these old, terrible doors that have been replaced forever.

And they look like they're made of leather and we wanted to put glass doors there forever.

Well, we made them in glass in VR, right? We can do all our upgrades right now. And, uh, and so

it's like, it's a pretty awesome thing. So I'm excited. We, we are going to do here in a couple

months, we're going to do the formal launch in VR, um, of, of that site. It's already built. It's ready

to go. Uh, but part of this is, is, uh, getting it out there so people know, and this, uh, will invite

some people to come in and we'll do an initial worship service in that space. Uh, but our hope

then is to help people to create kind of these stable environments, um, there and, and slowly

we'll be having people come over. I know DJ has, uh, done some small groups, uh, on our platform

right now. And, and, uh, and so, uh, it's good stuff. We're really excited about it.

That's amazing.

Awesome. So it literally in this world where the buildings are useless, you went and created

a virtual building church and are getting to roll it out in VR where people can experience,

um, what, what, what a service, what, uh, what the environment is and feels like at, at first

pres here in Miami, which by the way, like the building itself is glorious where it's

at on Brickle Avenue. It is, um, honestly, it's probably one of the most premier location

churches in all of Miami, just literally sitting on the water. Um, you know, I can remember I

sat down and had, had lunch with you, um, at a bunch of food trucks overlooking, you know,

I guess it's the bay right there at the water walking around and, and it's, it's just an

incredible physical experience, but that you, you've replicated, um, now in virtual reality,

like the, the church overall, what, what's been their, their take on this so far? What's

been the reaction? How are the people? Cause it's, it's an, let me ask this question maybe

even before that, what's the demographic of the church? It's, it's a much older building.

And I know you've gone through some, some restoration, like, so what's the demographic and how are they

responding to this new technological approach? Yeah. So our, our demographic is actually, we're,

we're pretty young. Uh, the average age of our leadership is like 40 in our church, which, uh,

is, is pretty young from, I think most churches. Uh, but that, that represents, uh, Brickle where

the average age on Brickle is like 37 years old. Uh, so, you know, at 44, I'm like an old man in

my church. Right. So, uh, but, but, uh, and, and we're very, probably the best thing about our

churches. We're very multi-ethnic church. So we have people from all over the world. Um,

you know, I know, uh, I think at one point we had, we had more than, I don't know, 35 countries

represented. And this was when I got there about a year ago, uh, you know, just about a hundred

people, active membership. I mean, uh, not a very big church, small church. Um, we've, uh,

about doubled that here in the first year. And so, uh, it's, it's really grown. So, so we're

in Brickle, Brickles, the, for people who don't live in Miami is the financial district,

uh, in, in Miami, it's, they call it the, the Southern wall street. Uh, and we are literally

our churches right in the center of the highest population density, South of New York city.

Uh, so we're, we're in a really interesting place. Uh, and what a lot of people don't

know about South Florida is it has become like a startup Mecca, uh, in the United States.

I think it's like second only to, I think it's on Inc magazine, second only to Silicon Valley

now. So there's a lot of people in startup culture there. And so we have a lot of people

who, uh, they get that, they get that mindset. Um, you know, I've kind of got most of my press

actually around artificial intelligence. Cause I talk about automation a lot. And I talk about,

um, um, actually I talk about automation crisis a lot. And so, uh, the stats on automation

crisis, uh, projections are that, and the best report in the world essentially says by 2030,

we'll have 11 to 22% on employment, uh, automation. And it's not that there won't be

new jobs. It's just that, um, we have to retrain people to do those jobs, but those automation

percentages only go up. So in like, say a church, you know, most little churches, um, the vast

majority of churches in the United States are a hundred members or less. Um, and the reality is

with that automation issue is that, is you're going to have, um, you're going to have all these

churches that are struggling to even have a pastor. They're struggling to pay for their overhead.

And if they lose even 11%, okay, 11% unemployment, think about that. So they lose 11% of their income,

not because people aren't generous, just because they don't have it. Uh, then all of a sudden

what's going to happen to them. Well, they're, they're going to fold is what's going to happen.

And it doesn't mean that the church universal isn't going to exist because we know the church

is not our buildings, right? We, we know it's the community, but, but what is going to happen is

this overhead that, that, you know, that we, um, that we have these costs that we have, they,

they are going to kill the institutional church. And so we're going to have to think about new ways

of being and doing church. And so, uh, I, I have been talking about that all over the world,

uh, to people. I invited to speak at different places and I go and I talk about this and I talk

about, well, what are churches sustainability plans? Um, because if you don't have a sustainability plan,

uh, I mean, 22% unemployment is 3% less than the great depression. And those numbers only rising,

right? So people think Corona virus is bad. Corona virus is just the taste of what's coming.

We have hope we now it may be a year, but we have hope that eventually, you know,

a vaccination will happen and we'll be out of the Corona virus thing, uh, with automation,

you're not going to be out of it. It's only going to continue to happen and people are going to have

to continue to be retrained. So, so I say all that is to say last year at Easter, uh, I actually

pre when I preached the service, I was talking about the church's future. And I said, look,

these statistics, they're real. Like, as far as we can tell, this is real. And you don't have to

believe me. You guys are all in the finance district. You saw this happening when ATMs happen,

you go to Costco now, and you saw, you know, uh, or you go to Sam's club. Like we, my wife and I

had a membership at Sam's club. When we started, there were 13 people on registers. Now there are

two people on registers and there are 11 registers that are automated with one person overseeing them,

right? The process is happening and you can look around and there's just example after example. And

some of these things are great. They're your room, but it's cleaning your floors. You don't want to do

that anymore, but we can't deny that that stuff is happening. And so I preached about it in my,

in my worship service and my people, like I had a line, I had more people wanting to talk about

automation and AI than I did about anything else. Uh, they want to know what's going on. They want

to have to see what's going on. So my, what my experience has been as far as kind of talking about

emerging tech is these, these folks in my congregation, they are all very interested in

this. Um, they understand that this is important. It may not be their wheelhouse depending on what

they're doing, uh, but they're excited about it. And so when, as I talked about the virtual reality,

you know, peace with them, they've started to say, well, um, I don't necessarily know,

I don't know a lot about virtual reality, but I know that it's a thing. And once you give them

data and statistics and say, look, you know, there's 2.2 million gamers out there. Um, and you know,

the percentage of people that are younger coming to the church, uh, is continuing to lag. Like, uh,

they start to that, that they take that data in and they go, yeah, okay. So let's try something,

you know what I mean? And, and if, if this is a way that we can get engaged and let's figure it out.

And so the response I've had for people is they want to see their pastors talking about tech. They

want to see, they want to see technological development, you know, happening in their churches.

And there's almost an expectation that that happens at this point. And if we don't do that,

we look like we're, you know, like we're Luddites or something. Uh, and, and, and the reality is,

is that they're using tech all the time, right? They've got more computing power right now on their

phone, uh, you know, than, than generations have before. And so for us to just ignore that stuff,

we'd, we'd be crazy. And so, uh, so, so that's kind of our whole thing is we're saying, okay,

where can we step this up in real emerging ways? This is good. Chris, these are, this is like next

level bleeding eggs thinking for a lot of folks, even for some of our audience. And so I, what I

would ask is, so when you talk about thinking through reallocation of resources towards what's

next, what are some of the recommendations that you're giving churches in terms of how do we tool

for the future, considering this automation crisis that you're talking about? Sure. Well, well,

certainly, I mean, and you guys are, you know, on the front of this, uh, but certainly getting people

into a digital mindset. Um, and part of what we've tried to do is say, look, this is very contextual.

Uh, it's not one size fits all. And that's why you have to have conversations about it. I had

somebody yesterday from a major camp and conference center say, look, we're not gonna be able to do

any conference programming for youth, uh, this summer. What can we do in virtual reality? And the first

thing I have to say with them is it's like, look, you're building a digital platform. You're

digiting, building a virtual platform. Uh, and I think some of that is we have to start training,

training people to talk about digital and virtual different because we say virtual all the time.

We're not meeting virtually right now, right? We're meeting digitally. Uh, and, and, uh,

but if you're talking about fully immersive virtual, virtual reality, right. Or we can make those

distinctions. And I don't even like the term virtual. I've said that I think it's an alternative reality.

I, you know, uh, I don't, I don't think it's, uh, I don't think it's actually different from our,

uh, from our physical reality per se. Right. And so, uh, so, so anyhow, so part of this is,

is figuring out, okay, how do we, you know, how do we start to, um, build a plan for our particular

context? And so I think that's different if you're a small church, for example, as you're opposed to a

large church. So there are large churches around us. They've been streaming for a couple of years,

right? They've, they have borderline television programming. We're, we're a small church. We

don't have that tech. When I got there a year ago, they hadn't invested anything in that and

trying to get them to understand the value of that when they have other immediate needs was not

really a priority, uh, is the truth. Well, obviously now it's a priority, right? They get

it why they need it. And so for us live streaming every week, that's not what we're going to do.

Uh, what we've done is we've created a digital, we call it a digital liturgy and we created all

the liturgical parts. Uh, and if, if you go to our website, you'll see what that is. And so I do

certain parts of that liturgy. Other people do certain parts of the liturgy. Our worship person

sings some songs, but then we let people take their phones and they upload, uh, you know,

they upload their, their part of the liturgy to the liturgy. And then essentially what happens is you

see the multi-ethnic faces of our community, right? It's not just a couple leaders doing it,

but the benefit of that from a structural standpoint is, is then we have built a system

where we are not trying to fumble with stuff live stream. We're pre-recording everything for people,

uh, because data is telling us that more people are paying attention to our stuff over time than

they are just jumping on doing that. So as you look at that, that's a systems thing, right? So if you're

looking at systems for your long-term, uh, sustainability, the questions are, what are your value propositions

of your local church? Uh, where are the things that your church can begin to, uh, ideate on, uh,

what the needs are of your community and how can you create digital solutions? So I think,

for example, um, there are a lot of things that are out there that churches, churches are good at

identifying problems and actually coming up with solutions for problems. Uh, tech is good at aggregating

data and doing things to scale. So if you take those two things together, you can actually identify

problems, aggregate the data and fix the problems to scale. And churches aren't going through basic

ideation processes, uh, to do that with their congregations. What's happening is leaders in the

church are saying, you're going to do this and this is the path we're going to go. But what I don't think

we're doing is we're not actually looking at the giftings of people and saying, okay, so, you know,

uh, Bob or Sally is good at X and they're identifying a problem. How could we take what we know about

technology, uh, and integrate it with that to create something that's sustainable and create a value

proposition. And so I think what we need to do is we need to start looking more entrepreneurial,

at, at kind of what is out there for churches and create sustainability that way. So if churches have

property, that's very valuable, they need to leverage their property. Uh, you know,

they need to leverage their property to endow themselves quite frankly, uh, at this point,

if they're, if they're, you know, if they, uh, are tech savvy, they need to start leveraging and

creating products. If they're, they're service savvy, they need to figure out how do we create

sustainable service mechanisms, but not be afraid to charge for them because I don't know. I mean,

ask churches now that they're online, is their plate going to be the thing that sustains them long

term? And I would say no. Well, it depends, right? Because that, that depends on a systems thing.

Once again, if they've onboarded people to online, regular giving versus, Hey, like, are you suggesting

like, Hey, you know, to watch services, like there's a subscriber fee or what are you suggesting there?

Uh, I, I, no, I think, I think, I think we need to get away from the concept that the church

shouldn't be entrepreneurial and create and charging for services. So I think if we planned,

look, if, if 11 to 22%, uh, automation, you know, happens at 11 to 22%, I mean, 11 to 22% of people

lose their jobs. It doesn't matter if you've online people to, to giving, because if they don't have the

money, they can't give it to you. And so, yeah. So, so part of what, so part of what I'm getting

at is I think the church has to start looking at different ways to, to create revenue. Uh, and what

that, how you do that is going to take a very localized approach, right? Because some churches are small,

they don't need as much revenue to actually sustain themselves. Uh, but they have to figure out what's

their value proposition in a real way. And I, I think that we think, um, that what we're doing

presently is just enough because we're like, well, look, I, I, I preach every week and, uh, you know,

and I, I make some phone calls, uh, to people to take care of them. And I would say that that might

not be enough. Uh, quite frankly, um, that that's, um, that's an old model. Uh, and, and it's not that

preaching the word is not important. It's obviously central, uh, in the reform tradition, right? But, um,

but it's, how are we preaching the word and what are the mechanisms which we're going to do that?

Um, and maybe the old way we've been doing it, isn't the most effective way to do it. Uh, and so

we, we have to, we have to think about that. Um, the, the other way is, is are there other ways to

spread the gospel, um, than from the pulpit? Uh, and can we integrate those gospel messages into our

tech? I, I, I have like no time for people who just want to critique Facebook all the time from the

church. The Facebook is evil, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. Well, what have you done as the church to

actually increase faith Facebook's, uh, virtue ethic? Um, that's on us. You know what I mean?

That's on us. Like if we care about having virtuous tech, we need to invest in people who are in tech

to create virtuous tech. Right. And, and so we haven't done those things. So that's a value proposition.

For example, uh, you, you could have a whole thing where you could, uh, church could set up essentially

consulting, uh, to tech organizations to help them to create products that, that meet the needs of their

wider community. And you would say, well, maybe the, maybe the, they don't need that. They can get,

they can aggregate data on it. Yeah. I would, I would say what I found is, is that the fact that I have

REV in front of my name means something to people. Um, there it, it still means something to people and,

and people say, okay, well, he's a pastor. So, um, so he knows something about, uh, questions of

ultimate meaning. And as that pertains to our products and whether people view those as moral

or not, you know, when the Pope puts his blessing on something, you know, this big, uh, uh, you know,

the Pope is working, uh, you know, they put out the Vatican, put out this, uh, statement on artificial

intelligence. And the thing that everyone was shocked about was not that the Vatican put something

out on artificial intelligence, but that they were working with Microsoft and big companies.

Right. And so, and it's like, well, it's because they understand, like, if we're going to shift

culture, we actually need to be engaged and have real conversations with these things. So,

so where's our opportunity to do that? So every church has a different value proposition and they,

it's, it's based on the people that are there. And part of that is we have to evaluate, okay,

how are we going to pivot in a digital world to bring that value proper proposition close?

Let me ask something. Cause I love this idea of, of, of the pivoting and the value let's,

let's go. You're talking, you said 20, 30, 10 years down the road. I would even suggest maybe

as a result of coronavirus, I think technology has gasoline on a flame at this point. And I think

we're going to fast forward, but let's use 20, 30 as an example in, in your mind, does every church

have virtual reality is every church within 10 years, within 20 years is, is it a method just like

a church online service is broadcasted via live stream? Like what is the role of VR in amongst

technology at the church level? Be, be futurist. Tell me what's going on.

Sure. Well, I, I mean, I, if you've seen ready player one, right, you see what the Oasis is,

right. And so in the Oasis and ready player one starts in a gaming community, it's set up to

actually be gaming oriented. So the platform we've created, uh, it, it isn't just, we are launching

it because we want to have a virtue proposition first. So we're launching it with churches, but what

we can do is not limited to churches by any stretch of the imagination. And so I don't think it's just

churches that are going to be in VR. I think it's globally, like, I think, I don't think we'll have

this conversation like this anymore, uh, down the road. I think that when, when we can have VR that

feels real and is more and more accessible to people, if I can feel like I'm sitting in the

same room with you and having a sensory experience that way, why would I not do that? If it, if it's,

it's so we're just on the front end of that tech and that's why we're not using it as much because,

you know, it's like, it's, it's like live streaming. If you've never done it before,

people think, Oh my gosh, this is so crazy. It's so hard. Right now is the opportunity. Like you've

been forced in the opportunity to, to figure that tech out. And so I think, I think there's

huge advantages to virtual reality that you're, you don't have in your local church right now.

Uh, and one of them is, is, uh, as far as your physical environment, you can change what it looks

like, like all the time. Uh, you can, you can change it and radically like, Hey, I want, you know,

our walls to be different colors, different shapes. Uh, I want, you know, I want, um, you know,

I want the, uh, choir to, you know, have, uh, a thousand people in it and to be perfectly harmonized.

Like you can do that stuff, uh, long-term and, and VR. The other thing is, is I think what we're

forgetting is there's a huge percentage of population right now that, that are homebound

or they're disabled and they don't have a way to get to church. And if you look at statistics for

people who are in VR, there's a high percentage of folks who, who have disabilities. Um, and, and so,

you know, they're able bodied in other ways, but not in ways that the church currently meets their

need. And so we're able to actually reach out to more people. We're actually to have, uh, more

multi-ethnic conversations with people because you have different cultural experiences. I mean,

to me, that sounds a lot closer to, you know, the biblical vision of the kingdom of God, uh,

than, you know, are, and I've served in these churches, you know, are all white church in rural

Ohio. Right. And so if you can have that virtual present, and I also think it's long-term, it's not

going to just be, um, it's not just going to be that people have virtual components. They'll still

have physical components in many places, but I think those will be integrated with augmented reality.

So right now you have a lot of churches that have empty pews, right? But if you could actually

see the people who were online and you were in a physical place and they could see you in a virtual

reality, but you could see an augmented version of their, of their avatar from, from VR in your

physical space, your people who were showing up would actually see more of the cloud of witnesses,

uh, around them. Right. And it would literally be in a digital cloud at that point, uh, projecting into the

physical space. But, but I think those kinds of things are things that will come over time. Uh,

right now we, we understand like, you know, um, churches are, there's going to be a lot of churches

that are, you know, this just isn't for me right now. I get that. Uh, but, but I think it's important

for us to be leading and pioneering in this area. Uh, and churches that are serious about creating

long-term, uh, digital platforms for their church. This is space they should be in now because what

they're learning in this moment was they should have been live streaming five years ago. Uh, that's

what they're learning right now. And, and if they were, they wouldn't have the problems they have,

right? They would, they should have had a digital plan five years ago. Any good ministry is going to

take you three to five years to build. Now's the time to get in and to start learning how to do this so

that as this develops, you, you can, you can be in this space. And so, so I, I do think it'll be

pervasive, but I don't think that's just a church thing. I think it's understanding it's a cultural

thing. The church has, they have, we have been, you know, behind the times, quite frankly, uh, uh,

you know, even as you and I talk, Jeff, and you're saying a lot of times what you're telling people

with stuff that people were doing business, you know, 10 years ago, uh, and, and people in the

church are like, is this going to work? And it's like, yeah, it's been working. You just

aren't aware of, you know, like, so, um, uh, so part of that is, is kind of getting people,

what I'd like to see is the church pioneering this stuff as opposed to being behind on it.

And that's why, you know, our goal is really from a VR standpoint, um, you know, to get ahead of the

pack if we can. And I think that's what we've, that's what we've created. So love that.

That's real good. Chris, uh, just as I'm thinking through this and I'm thinking of the

crowd that you're coming out of and the crowd that you're communicating to, uh, you know, how,

are the reform community? How is the church? How are the Presbyterian community reacting to these

things? Cause this is, you know, high church, highly steeped in tradition, uh, you know, in terms of

the encounters that I've had, and that's not to say that a lot of them, especially now, you know,

post coronavirus aren't experimenting with digital forms and tech, but man, just in serious opposition,

even before you came on, Jeff and I were talking about blog posts about, well, you know,

church online, cool, but Lord's supper, no way. Like, yeah. Yeah. Oh, we're having that conversation

right now. I mean, my, my thing is like, look, I, I, my, my wife's Catholic practicing Catholic,

uh, goes to St. Hughes here and then comes in as part of our worship service. So we have to be pretty

versed, you know, just in our relationship is the sacramentality. And I, you know, I think that this

is part of why I wanted to get into these conversations and to push this is, is one. And,

you know, in my tradition, it's not just for me to say, Hey, here's what we're going to do.

Uh, we have to, the community needs to be prayerful about that and discern,

right. But it doesn't mean that people aren't to, to have a prophetic voice into that and to speak,

uh, about what may be coming and to try to get the community to, to decide, um, you know,

how they should, they should move. So, you know, our, our, uh, denomination has,

has actually said that it's possible, uh, for us to have, uh, communion online, but they've kind of

made it only like only in crisis scenarios like coronavirus. Right. So they've not actually

addressed it. They've just addressed the crisis. And I think part of what we need to do is say,

Hey, how are we going to have a conversation about that? And then you really get into like,

when you start kind of getting into the scientific side of it, it's like, okay, so, um,

you know, we've talked about like in our tradition, we talk about these are common elements, but they're,

uh, common elements of bread and fruit of the vine, right? Like, right. So in other words,

wine or juice is easily what we're referring to. So the question is, is at a molecular level

or a particulate matter level, what is significant about the, you know, what is significant about

the constitution or ordering of those elements and the way they are, uh, that matters to us as we do

this? So, uh, is it significant that Jesus picked out a certain molecular structured object, uh, for us to

participate in, or, or even in a sub particulate matter, is that significant? No one's having that

conversation. Um, and, and the question is, is like, well, then, you know, as we think about who we are,

are made in the image of a creator God, is this the only form that we think we can have as human

beings? Is this the only way we can be our incarnational? Because as I understand the Trinitarian

God, uh, at least out of my tradition is you have a creator of redeemer and a spirit God, uh, uh, that,

you know, are, are, uh, you know, three in one, right. And so you, so what does it mean to be spirit,

you know, uh, made in the image of a spirit God in a digital world? Like we've not talked about that.

So, so I think fundamentally we have to start having conversations about the nature of existence

and who we are, what I've proposed and kind of has, this is what I've got kind of more popularity for

is like, I, I take it from a perspective of artificial intelligence and you don't even have

to buy my AI argument to buy this, but I essentially say, we're not God, right? That's most Christians

are going to agree to that or else they're going to, their pastor is going to set up a time for

counseling. So we're not God, right? We're not God. And it, that means we're God's AI.

That makes sense. Like we're not God. That means we're, we're God's, we're, we're something God

created us. We're God's AI. And I don't like to say we're artificial intelligence. I think that's

an inadequate word. I think, I think it's better to say alternative intelligence because, uh, I don't

think my cat is artificial, for example, I actually think it's a living entity, uh, and it shows,

shows me affection, you know? And, uh, and so I, I think it's an alternative form of, of, uh, you know,

intelligence. Um, and so if you buy into those two things, then what I would say is all matter,

everything we experience and, you know, in our existence, uh, all physical matter is divine

technology. Uh, and we're called to be stewards, caretakers, I would say co-creators like a child

with their parent of divine technology. Uh, and so if you start looking at that, then when we start

looking sacramentally at things, it's like, well, what does that mean? Uh, if this is divine technology,

why does the ordering matter in the way that it is? And some of those things we might have to leave

that to being a mystery and be okay with that right now and leave that mystery there and say,

you know what, in humility, we don't know why Jesus said this. Uh, and so, you know,

we're going to err on the side of caution and that's where I think the community of faith has to speak

into it. Other things we might say, you know, we don't know why. And so, uh, we're going to move

forward, uh, in a spirit of love and ask for forgiveness if we're wrong. Uh, you know, I had, uh,

I had a professor at Princeton who said, uh, he was really sick and he thought that he thought that, uh,

he saw an angel at his bedside and his, what he found out later was it was his wife.

And I said, well, professor, how'd you know it? It was your wife. Maybe it really was an angel.

I mean, you know, and he says, well, if I get to heaven and God said it was an angel,

I'll just apologize. Sorry, God. Uh, sorry, God. I thought it was my wife. Uh, but, but you know,

it's, uh, it was actually an angel. Like, like, do we think God is, you know, if we make a mistake,

God is not loving enough that God's going to take care of us, I, I make mistakes left and right all

the time. Right. And so, so, so how, how do we have forgiveness in that? And I think when we go into

that piece, then it's helpful for us to kind of have that balance where we're talking about, okay,

you know, as a community, are we willing to, you know, are we willing to have, are we willing to

risk ourselves in this way to have the conversation? Um, or, or, you know, are we going to live kind

of out of a presupposition of fear? And I don't see the gospel telling us to live, live out of a

presupposition of fears. So, so yeah, are there going to be things that happen? Sure. We we've had,

uh, I know a lot of people would have their zoom conversations hacked with inappropriate

materials. Should that, do they stop having zoom conversations? No, they should learn better

protocol for how to initiate their scene. Right. Like, uh, you know, and yeah, that's unfortunate

and they made some fires and they're going to have to deal with that down the road. But, uh, but that's,

that's part of the learning curve better to learn it now when you don't have a, you know, a thousand

people trying to pay attention to what you're, you know, you weren't zoom calling and live streaming

to a million people on Twitch. You know what I mean? Uh, better to find out now while you're

learning. Right. And it's the same thing. Uh, so, so I'm encouraging people to get engaged.

The nice thing about VR is there's a younger community that's there. And so it really is an

investment for people to engage in, in the future for their church. It's, it's a present investment,

but it's also a long-term strategic investment where a lot of the things I see people responding

in coronavirus right now, uh, they're, they're a bandaid. And what I ask people is how many of

the things are you doing right now? Are you doing them in a way that you'll continue once you're able

to go back to your, your, your, you know, kind of typical situation, are you going to still do what

you're doing? Are you going to throw all that aside and just say, Hey, that was for a second,

because if so, you're not building sustainability.

Right. You know, it's ironic, Chris, is that I think many of them think that this is a bandaid,

but I think when they return, they're going to see that there's a new normal

and that they're going to have to go back to some of those structures that they'd established during

this time period. Yeah. Well, and, and the other thing that I keep, you know, I've, I've got some

people who kind of deal at high levels with some of this stuff, but the thing that I keep hearing

is saying, yeah, well, we might come out of quarantine for a little bit, but we might have to go

in a couple of times to quarantine. Uh, and, and the question is, is what's your game plan,

you know? And so, um, so if people aren't looking at the sustainability and taking an opportunity to

do that right now, um, you know, the, I think long-term it, it's, you're going to see the effects

of this long-term on your ministry. If you don't have that game plan, but I'm telling you by 2030,

uh, people aren't going to have money to give to you. So if you're not looking at a bigger piece,

and one of the things that being in a digital environment helps is you look, your audience

is exponentially bigger that you can pull from, right? So if you can create a culture of giving

online, even if you lose 11 to 22%, if you, of that, you can engage those people still in giving,

you're still doing that, but can you pick up 11 to 22% globally among the population that will still

have jobs? Will they see value proposition in what you're doing? And I think that's really important

because you're probably going to lose it in your community. You're going to lose it in your current

immediate community, and you're going to have to find ways to evangelize. So that's, that's not to say

that people can't evangelize in their communities, but I've been in church. I've seen churches. I know

churches that are in extremely poor situations, uh, in their community, but they've got flourishing

ministries, uh, because they reach beyond their community. Uh, and, and what they do is they reach

outside where, you know, to places where there are money to bring it back into their community,

to help their community to grow. And that's an opportunity with the, with the digital church, obviously.

So there's, um, there, there's a, a great potential for churches to reach out into this.

And, and, and I love, um, you know, I love everything about this conversation, even down to like

being involved in micro businesses and finding other ways. It's funny when we go overseas,

uh, when we help churches overseas, uh, we train them on how to create micro businesses and ways to

generate revenue to come in. Things cost money, but when it comes to here to America, there's often,

it's, it's taboo where you're not allowed to, to get into that area because it has to be offering

based. And so I love that the challenge of maybe some of the stuff, uh, hadn't put that together

and didn't even think I was going to get there in a conversation about virtual reality, but love that,

that we did get to that place. I wanted to ask this question because you're, you're, you've created,

my understanding is you've created a separate platform. DJ Soto, you know, is doing his stuff

on, on all VR. I don't know a lot about virtual reality. I know, I think he's got two or three

different platforms in all VR that, that he, two or three different churches that are, that are meeting

in virtual reality due to time zones. Uh, I know there's rec room. There's probably more VR

type of solutions. Are you utilizing those or are you building a separate environment?

So we have a separate environment. Uh, but what we do is, uh, so we'll actually have a larger,

you're going to see, uh, and if people kind of pay attention to what we do over the next, um,

you know, nine months, you're going to see, we're going to start releasing some other things,

but we're going to have actually a larger platform launch, uh, in the fall is the plan at this point.

Uh, and so that's going to actually have other elements that I, I don't want to give away what

they are yet, but I think that'll be, come on. It's just us and you know, a few, whatever hundred

people. Yeah. So, but, uh, but, uh, but we're pretty excited about that. We're not worried about

people being on the platform long-term. Uh, but again, we want to make sure that we are creating

stable environments. Uh, right now, like what we're, what we're creating is, uh, environments

that you can easily double. Um, but really we don't think there's a limit to the possibility

on how many people you can have it. So what happens is in most of these platforms, almost

every one of them, you can't get more than 40 people in a room, which is really limited. Uh, and so

then that's a stability issue. And so we've created stability so that that, that number

becomes kind of X exponentially server based. Uh, so, but, um, but what we're, we're offering to

people is we can actually create for them a stable environment, and then we can actually create an,

we can create a copy of their church if they want to put in these other, these other platforms.

Now they, it won't, it won't be as high res. It won't be as nice and the other platforms cause

they're not as stable platforms, but they'll be able to use those if they want to go do evangelistic

work and then bring people then over to our platform. If they want stability or they want

to do things more in volume. And so part, part of that gives them the ability to do, do that.

And that's why right now we're only focusing on custom builds, uh, for people. Uh, we, we're not,

uh, you know, just kind of making open, uh, source. Anybody can do whatever they want to do in the

platform because that stability piece is important. Uh, so it's the way to think about it is, is, uh,

church plus is really kind of the equivalent of the physical church. And some of these other spaces

right now are the evangelical, you know, spot, the spots where we go out to do our evangelism.

Right. Uh, so they, it's kind of like the world and the church. And so our goal is eventually though,

to, uh, create an opportunity where we create enough services where people like the Oasis.

Uh, and so that's a little foreshadowing of what's to come. If you think about how that was created.

Uh, so they're, they're able to come, uh, to the, to the platform because they want to actually

be able to see the other things that can happen. Uh, and so, so that's what we're excited about,

uh, is because, um, you know, I've had somebody recently talked to me about, um, what would it

look like to do? Uh, cause we have Miami fashion week. What would it look like to do a fashion show

in VR? What would it look, you know, what would it look like, um, if we create all of our camp and

conference stuff? Uh, so we really replicate our whole camp and conference facility where people

can play virtually in it all year round, even when they don't come, it doesn't eliminate what

they're doing. You know what I mean? Those, those kinds of things are building communities where

people come and they build communities and their space. We want people to be able to grow healthy

communities, uh, that, you know, they're not just getting trolled all the time. Uh, that's one of

the challenges of, of current VR. And so, so, so in other words, you can, you can have that option

depending on what your goals are. So one of the things we ask you is if you want to build a virtual

church, we ask you what your ministry goals are, um, because some people, they want current

people they have to be in that space. They want to use it. Some people want to do, um, I've talked

to a lot of people that are interested in like historically preserving their building in a digital

way, right? So you have people that have historic buildings and they know that their historic building

might not be there in 20 years. Uh, so they, they, uh, have decided that, Hey, let's make a virtual

version. Maybe they want to sell their property. They make a virtual version, uh, and then they

could sell their property. Uh, you know, so there's all sorts of options for people as they think about

that, uh, based on what their, their context is, you know? Um, and so, so that, so that's what we're

looking at, but, but yeah, DJ has been doing, I know DJ has been doing some small group stuff

and, uh, we love to do like stress testing. Cause we love to see where we can push limits on stuff.

Uh, we're hoping, um, we're hoping here and a bit, uh, uh, push some world records in VR.

And so, um, so we've been doing some of that stuff and, and I know DJ and some other pastors

have actually been helping in that process. So it's, it's really good. So, uh, that's awesome.

Love, love that you guys are, are, are working together in that. And DJ is a good friend and

we need to get him on the podcast to talk more about what he's doing, but yeah, his stuff is great.

So like, if somebody's got questions on this VR, if somebody's interested in the platform,

somebody wants to wax theoretic about how we are God's AI, uh, which I still just blows my brain

every time I hear it, just trying to even unpack that. Um, how can people get in touch with you?

So, uh, the easiest way is, uh, two things. They can go to a church plus if they're interested in

developing a VR church or kind of putting their toe in the water on that. Uh, so that's, uh, C H V R C H

P L U S.com. And then, uh, if they're interested in some of the work that I've done specifically,

they can go to my website, which is Christopher Benek, uh, dot com B E N E K. Uh, and they can,

they can learn more, uh, that way and reach out to me that way.

Awesome. Yeah. So we'll include all that in the show notes. And, um, man, this has been,

you know, I knew when I would bring you on, I knew it would be a challenging podcast just

because we're not thinking, you know, with that, you have to start thinking with the scientific

mind and maybe a futurist approach with some of the things that you are wrestling with. And this,

this was, um, this was right on, on par for that. So, man, thanks for, for jumping on the podcast,

Ray, just as we're wrapping up any, any last thoughts. Absolutely. You know, I love Chris's

pioneering spirit in terms of pushing boundaries to where, not just where the church is, but where the

church should be. And so church family that are out there and listening to this, I want to encourage

you, you know, to adopt the same spirit, stay open as to where God could take us next, especially

in this time where we're in the midst of a crisis, all bets are off in terms of where we're headed next.

And so if we're going to keep reaching people, we need to consider any and all methods. And I think

Chris is doing a bang up job with virtual reality right here.

Yeah. So, so true right there, Chris, just as we're, we're landing the plane here and any, uh,

closing thoughts, uh, just to say, I think it's great. I mean, I think it's great one that you're

doing the podcast that people are, are, you've got people who are engaged and they're thinking about

that. Um, you know, to, um, to Ray's point, just, just to say, you know, don't underestimate the

potential of the church. I think we've, we've for so long, uh, worked from a position of scarcity

and we need to start understanding that, uh, you know, Abraham Kuyper has this quote that,

uh, you know, says, uh, something effective, you know, every square inch, uh, of, of existence

is Christ's dominion over which he cries mine. And, you know, there's, there should be no exception

for that with regard to technology. Uh, this, this field is Christ. And so, uh, we as co-creators,

caretakers, stewards of the cosmos, we have to believe that God will equip us, uh, if we're willing to

listen, uh, to what God has for us collaborate together, you know, use the spiritual discernment

of the church, uh, uh, to lead the world into, uh, that, that new, uh, redemptive reality that,

that Christ has called us to participate in. And so I, I think that's, uh, uh, a reason to get excited

about waking up every day, uh, because it gives us this, this wonderful opportunity of, of bringing

new creation into the world. And so, uh, pretty awesome thing.

What, what, what a great challenge. Um, our, our church building structures may be broken temporarily,

um, as a result of, um, the, the COVID situation. Uh, but, but we, as a church, we've, we've got an opportunity,

uh, to shift a little bit and God has dominion over it all. That's, that's what, man, what a great line

right there. So, Hey, we're going to, we're going to wrap on this podcast, Christopher. Thanks for,

for jumping on this. Appreciate the time. Thanks for having me. Yep. There's certainly for, for Chris,

uh, for Ray, this is Jeff at the church digital. Thanks for being here and we'll see you next time

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