EP079: Dave Ferguson - Multiplication, Micro-locations, & TCD's 10,000th Play

episode 79 of the church digital podcast powered by stadia church planning jeff here got a great a

fun episode for you dave ferguson's going to be coming up down the road so if you really want to

fast forward and skip the fun part okay dave's fun but the fun part of this where we're giving

away stuff you want to fast forward maybe to up to minute 14 or so and get caught up but but before

then listen to this we are celebrating the church digital podcast we are celebrating our 10 000th

play over 10 000 podcast episodes have been listened to by you audience that's out there and

we are crazy excited about that so we're bringing ray in we're going to be talking about uh just

celebrating what's been happening through the church digital over the past year or so celebrating by

giving stuff away giving you an audience out there the listeners out there an opportunity to engage with

us because we want to hear from you and then oh by the way dave ferguson so it's going to be a packed

hour here with this podcast so if you're looking for dave fast forward to minute 14 check out the show

notes and engage with us and maybe even win something in process man is that not a podcast episode or what

this is awesome hey here y'all go hey we're bringing ray in for the opening say hey ray hey everybody

10k so excited thank you so much for all your help to get there yeah i didn't think we'd make 1k i wasn't even

sure we would make 100 um some of those early podcasts listen to like i think episode four with

tyler was like the first podcast we ever recorded uh-huh and uh it was a little embarrassing it was a

little little a lot of editing to kind of make that thing happen but but here we are 10 000 so yeah

luckily um luckily the our audience you guys have been so forgiving with us as we've moved through this

over time and probably because all of you are embarrassed about your early church online videos i know i'm still

embarrassed about mine that's the glory of church online is that we can always go by and live through

our embarrassments isn't it yeah and and the the challenge that that i would even throw to the audience

out there is i was kicking around the idea of doing a podcast for a year and i just i could i kept trying

to make the thing perfect right out of the gate i i gotta have the background music i gotta write up the

perfect intro i was trying to create this this perfect scenario and and uh you know it's funny

i just i keep hearing this phrase uh version one's better than version none and and so instead of

just sitting on it and waiting uh gary v thank you for that by the way instead of just sitting on

your hands uh trying to get it to be perfect just get started it's true and you know jeff i was wrong

because initially like i i thought we should skip out one episode a month you know what i'm saying and

and you were pushing early on and you were right about doing one a week and i was just nervous that

we couldn't churn out that kind of content on the onset and then the moment we started getting

discussion with leaders and with different folks number one it just became a lot of fun you know it

just became a lot of fun and real easy to do um but then number two i was surprised at how many

other people we just kept getting referred to that were in this space i mean a lot of this stems out of

and the audience doesn't know this they'll hear about this in a future episode a conversation that

jeff myself nil smith jay cranda uh and greg atkinson had over a cup of coffee uh at a starbucks

in disneyland and even back then we thought we were alone in this we didn't think that there were

many players in this space because either we were either a full of ourselves or just be you know

feeling like we were don quixote tilting at windmills in some cases but you know if you're out here and

you're thinking man i can't make more content let me encourage you there are plenty of leaders

there are plenty of people that are there around you invite them into the conversation invite them

into the conversation because you'd just be surprised that the new world that you're going

to open up i definitely have been pleasantly surprised by this and here we are at 10 000 listens

in only 79 episodes hate to say it like that like it's it's pretty incredible beyond what we had

originally thought well yeah and this is a super niche uh you know audience right pre pre-covid the

number of people who were interested in doing church online i mean like it was it was a very

small audience now it's increased you know thank you global pandemic for being our side by the way if

you're ever interested in launching a podcast global centered around a global pandemic that will

definitely help your cause launching future podcasts so remember that write that down that'll be helpful

down the road but in this season um it's it's been awesome having conversations and one of with with

people who are by far experienced who've been doing this for a decade all the way down to like the guy

who's just starting out big churches and small churches are like hey how do you do this thing what what's

involved where how do i even start in in this conversation and in the fun thing in all this is

there's no silver bullet church a church b church c everything looks different and how it is and so

uh what i love about the conversations that we're having or even the conversations when the people that

we're interviewing we're having talking with are even honest to the point of saying hey we're just

experimenting we have no idea three months from now we we may still be doing this three months and now it

maybe look completely different but but rather than not trusting not being willing to try

where rather than waiting we're leaning in we're leaning forward and trying to figure out how to work

through this season yeah that's so true and even kind of moving into the future um and i think what a lot of

people are looking for is they're looking for definitive answers with church online and what we've kept

trying to say through this podcast and we hope that you take this lovingly those of you who are

listening out there maybe for the first time on this episode maybe for different

reasons but um but there are no definitive answers it's going to continue to evolve and change just as

church planting methods of reaching people for christ all these things are constantly changing

and we cannot be afraid of that change instead what we must do is we must put on our faith lens and say

okay so how does the gospel move through these mediums move through these avenues because the gates of

hell aren't going to prevail against it i'm sure that in the future jeff we're probably going to be

talking uh more vr we're probably going to be talking more uh online small groups and how some of that's

working out as more and more church small groups have gone completely online and are even afraid to go

back together in physical spaces because they just don't want to get sick oh yeah wait till 5g technology

comes out and uh it's a church is going to be revolutionized even on that though i mean the world's

going to be revolutionized even around that you're going to see more of these revolutions coming

quicker and quicker as technology grows and expands but even as much as we and this is what i love

about the church online circles and the people that have been doing ministry in this area for a while

even as much as we love the technology even as much as we love the new toy uh the new fandangled gadget

the new apple version of the iphone ipod ipad uh earpods the apple goggle glasses that better be coming

sometime soon waiting on them waiting on them tim yeah it's not about the technology it's about the

relationship aspect and that's and if you hear one thing that's that's a constant theme throughout all

of this it's it's the relational component of church online not broadcasting a single message for the world

to hear but engaging in a conversation a relational conversation that's going to help you connect with

people we it was funny um ray and i've been talking a tweet doesn't change the world no uh it's it's it's

impossible to get a one-way communication blasted out to the masses uh you if you're on twitter you

understand that uh a an individual conversation with another person uh relating to and listening to

is is how we church online can move forward in the coming years uh and that's the culture really that i

believe we church online we church we need to shift what technology does allow us to do is to connect

with you listeners that are out there and so here's what we want to do we want to give away stuff

because why not celebrate 10k uh by giving away starbucks coffee so assuming your starbucks is still

open majority of them still are some of them may be shutting down some of them may be moving to a

mobile only delivery kind of system but either way you've probably got a starbucks somewhere near you

so here's what we're doing we want to give away three ten dollar starbucks gift cards to our listening

audience that's out there we'll do delivery digitally we'll text email whatever it is here's what i need

you to do to register for this to register for the giveaway i want to hear from you how the church

digital podcast has helped your church grow and expand its ministry how listening to this podcast

how interacting with your leader sharing some of these ideas how the church digital podcast has helped

change your church in this covet season before this covet season whatever just let us know uh there's a

system we're using it's called video peel that's going to help us collect the information from you but

here's what i need you to do go to the church.digital slash 10k the number 10 letter k yeah all 10

with a k um i that's not a k but it's you get the idea maybe that's okay that's just weird now i'm

embarrassed the church.digital slash 10k let us know how uh we've helped you your church all submissions

will be registered we will be contacting the winners within a week of the broadcast of this so that's

going to be uh monday june 22nd 2020 and uh hopefully you get some coffee listen we have a

niche audience okay like let's just be honest like we're not kerry newhoff worth a million people

listening every week so we're consistent we're to our loyal listeners so this is your opportunity

to register to submit some stuff to engage with us that start a conversation with us and by the way

maybe win some coffee off it that's right you know and think about that because it's not such a huge

field your odds of winning are that much greater i mean if you're just looking for a free coffee

why not take advantage of this so send us your video doesn't have to be a long sermon about it

doesn't have to be a whole spiel maybe you want to point to a particular episode maybe you want to

point to a conversation we had or a particular takeaway that you said man you know what this came off

of this and i decided to make this decision and this is how it panned out for us so no matter what it is

doesn't have to be that long doesn't have to be that short just send us how god used our show in

your life and we'll celebrate it together that's awesome by the way i want i want to give a special

shout out as we get into our episode here to one of our listeners in canada her name is tanis now this

is this is crazy because you know twitter's twitter a single tweet doesn't change the world but it can

help you get connected to somebody so dave ferguson leader of the exponential conference lead pastor at

community christian church in chicago author of hero maker and just all sorts of uh i mean a guy that

i look up to in christian circle so dave ferguson is on twitter and and he's writing and he's doing

this this post about this idea this thread of posts talking about how um digital discipleship can feed

into house churches and micro locations and this is going to revolutionize like the church and so

one of our listeners out there is my dog barks in celebration of one of our listeners out there um

tennis so she tweets dave ferguson off of this and says hey you really need to talk to jeff reed

tags me in it and says about this because he talks about this stuff all the time and so meekly i look at

this tweet and it's like okay dave ferguson uh this this listener named tannis who lives in canada

who got connected to me through like the church online summit which was produced by some

by uh by steve fogg who lives in australia like this is an international thing australia

australia yeah i'm sorry it's what is that how you say it are you making fun of me right now i have

no idea you're becoming a hillsong worship leader before my eyes this is incredible

paying respect man but it's funny like and so i'm like hey uh dave would you like to be on my

podcast and dave replies yes and so holy cow we got dave ferguson on the podcast for the 10 000th play

so we're bringing by the way tannis thank you very much tannis i'm gonna send you a starbucks gift card

just for the reference because there's no other way i would have gotten dave ferguson to be on the

podcast without that side note all the other listeners start tagging people too and throwing them

my way yes maybe there's a little selfish ego involved in that but eh we'll roll with it it's

okay if any of you know mark zuckerberg or anybody like that that you want to tag on one of our deals

i mean i'm just saying just do it yeah dude zuck on the podcast i don't even know where to start

with that one all right so it starts with a tweet that's how we know it starts it starts with a tweet

so here's where we are we're bringing in episode 79 of the church digital podcast here dave ferguson

like we said exponential lead pastor or excuse me exponential lead uh director of the exponential

conference and other things community christian church lead pastor of community christian in chicago

seriously we just had this solid conversation on multiplication and apprenticeship and talking

about how to do this in in this new covid season post covid season coming in coming out wherever we

are but where we are today solid conversation once again he doesn't have all the answers he says that

up front i'm learning from this i'm wanting to explore and to understand it but this idea of and he uses

the word apprenticeship instead of multiplication or disciple making discipleship but the idea of

of apprenticing people and growing them to unleash them on ministry is at the heart of what he's done

pre-covid he was doing it pre-covid in the physical realm but now in mid-covid man we got to figure out how

to do this digitally and did do it digitally effectively and that's really the challenge of of this podcast

yeah we've got uh dave ferguson uh leader of the exponential conference uh in a company myself jeff

with the church digital stadia church planning in a conversation centered around multiplication and

apprenticeship okay everybody here you go well hello how are you doing what's up jeff how you doing buddy

doing doing very good hey thank you for just even being willing to to jump on this podcast with me i really

appreciate it well um actually i was looking for an excuse to meet you so i mean talk to you even

even yeah i appreciate yeah i'm jeff seriously i think i think some of the stuff that some of the

stuff you're talking about that we're talking about now is like mission critical so the more

connections i can make the better for me yeah i had um and even just just background for me

i i resigned to a church i've been a church staff 15 20 years uh mega church giga church multi-site kind

of those environments and um god god put this this model this online discipleship uh micro locations

just on my heart i executed it at the church the church wasn't interested in doing it um and ultimately

i i stepped out of uh a church staff job in 2018 um because i literally god told me to do this

and and it's not i don't know just told you two years for everybody else you know and it's and it's

been a lot of kind of paving the way having hard conversations you know looking at at having pastors

tell me i'm crazy uh and then you know covet happens and all of a sudden you know that crazy guy over

there's right um and so you know even seeing kind of the the comment that came up like other people

were thinking about this i'm like look at him look at him look what he said this is awesome like keep

keep tracking with it because i'm i'm not i may be the crazy guy but i'm not the only crazy guy saying

this stuff so well if you're crazy i want to be crazy awesome are you are you uh are you getting a

place are you getting a place to implement this stuff you're talking about you're dreaming about now

yeah so uh in addition to the church digital stuff i'm on staff with stadia as their director of digital

church planting uh and so we're pre-covid i was designing a digital only expression of church that

was more like a micro hub casey underground tampa underground with a digital footprint as well either

digital or physical and i think that's still the the track that we're on uh covid kind of caused

us to pivot a little bit we're doing a lot of uh digital church helping larger churches go digital

um but in that same vein while we're taking them digital we're teaching them some of the practices of

the the micro of the house church uh and so i did a podcast the other day with a church in in kansas

city that or no excuse me kentucky you know they in this covid season they launched a hundred

micro locations they weren't even doing online small groups pre-covid and just seeing the direction

um they launched online small groups and uh launched with a hundred micro locations with another hundred

uh coming as things ease up uh so which uh what church was that that was uh northeastern community

um i can get you information on that one but they're they're tracking well with it um uh within stadia the

desire is to and even ramping up was just emailing my bosses craig um whitney but working with them

and starting to strategize okay this is what we're doing physical what are we doing digital how do we

preach and and how do we get churches to understand a a disciple making movement one that's not grounded

in church service is one that's grounded in individuals and kind of growing and expanding

from there giving it time for the flywheel to activate and then allowing it to go um and that's

you know even as i cast that vision out of churches um you know i had a pastor recently tell me he's

like jeff we've got 1500 people coming on a weekend and and you're telling me that you would rather me

do this relational thing that it's better for the three staff people to be relational instead of doing

the 1500 and i was like well i think it's better that you empower people to reach people and if you want

to compare the 1500 versus the 100 people that are probably already active in your church that could

be unleashed on mission yeah i think a hundred people unleashed are going to be more effective

than than your 1500 person service online um and that's a that's a hard hard truth um the the service

plaza role the the queen has its place um but sometimes it's not um i don't think it's at the power that it

should be that it currently is now well i'm still trying to figure it out i'm i'm fascinated we're

gonna we're gonna be put our chips in but i'm still trying to figure it out yeah i wear uh three hats

primarily i'm the lead pastor at community christian church which is a uh multi-site church uh in this

in chicago we have locations in the city and the suburbs and my brother john and i and a handful of

friends started that back in the day and by god's kindness that gave birth to new thing and i get to

play the role of the visionary leader for new thing uh we have uh last time i talked to patrick our global

leader last week i think 180 some networks globally and over 3 000 churches that are committed to

reproducing and planted um i won't have the exact number but between 800 and 900 churches last year

and then i also get to serve as the president of the exponential conference which well with my buddy

todd wilson um a conference we kind of just took over we can't really say we took over we just kind

of said hey we'll lead it this year and we've been doing it ever since for like last 13 or 14 years

and in fact earlier today i just got off a zoom call with our exponential europe uh board and so we're

going to be launching that uh this year in europe so um i love all things church playing all things

multiplication and i think that feeds right into what our topic is uh today so i'm excited about

talking i love that i almost would love to have a side conversation about the nuances between like

a multiplication and exponential europe versus like even here in america and what some of those nuances

are but oh well we can do it maybe maybe that's another conversation we'll we'll put a stick on that

and call uh you know episode two um hey so this is it's really it's really i love the internet i feel

like i just want to say that up front because it's fascinating to me that that you and i are having

this this conversation um and so i i connected to dave essentially through twitter you know most

people are kind of abandoning twitter moving on i love twitter because it's where you get to really

engage and have solid conversations with like real life people yeah i mean there's yelling on twitter and

whatever but um somehow dave you were talking about online discipleship and and the ability to launch

micro locations and evidently someone who i've never met who ironically lives in canada uh tagged me

because she saw me speak at a conference into this thing and lo and behold you're on my podcast so so

first off you know i just i want to continue to give thanks to to listeners and the people out there

who are like hey this stuff is is awesome you need to like connect and and do this so um and i kind of

did a little homework and realized who you were and what you're up to and i'm going like okay this would

be at this time a good person for me to get connected with as i'm trying to grow in my understanding

of this so thank you yeah oh no this is it's it's a whole new world where a lot of these things even

pre-covid it there was coming on the horizon like like the the the swinging of of church online the

acceptance of of a digital model of discipleship um we we knew this was coming you know in my mind

honestly i was tracking with it more 20 the the beginning of 5g technology i think would have been

a swing even like ais becomes more apparent later this this decade um you know i don't think anybody

really saw covid coming but the the influence of that and the gasoline of the flame of okay now

culture just fast-tracked we just got out of the delorean and now it's like a dam that just broke

and all of a sudden there's like a tidal wave you got coming now yeah and

so how the shift how the church shifts out coming out of this and how how we adjust and maybe some

lessons you know we we talk a lot about lessons with the new normal and um the next normal and all

that and uh you know there's definitely some things that we the church need need to understand and work

through so but let's let's even just open up with this because i i think we're going to be talking a

lot about discipleship about disciple making a lot of those um those those types of words

which by the way is nothing new to the podcast we talk about it all the time but one of the

things that's that's intriguing to me is that people define the word differently i think if you

get like 10 pastors in the room and ask them what discipleship means i think you'd get 20 different

answers so um maybe even just in your context as a guy who's done multiplication around the world

um what does discipleship what does that mean what does that look like for you um i in our context and

actually that's fascinating because we we seldom use the word disciple because it feels like that

word's kind of been co-opted uh to mean cramming a lot of content in someone's brain going through a

course they're going to take in a certain class that kind of stuff but knowing the spirit of what you're

talking about um i encourage leaders when i'm working with them like it because discipleship is

really about growing as an apprentice with jesus and it's a relational term you can't fully um define

it or fully measure it but do yourself a favor and do the best you can and then start trying to measure

that so in the spirit of that what we've done at community christian church the church i lead

is what we try to do is we try to develop we call three c christ followers and the three c's are

celebrate connect and contribute and those are three different dimensions of the relationship

of an apprentice of jesus you have a relationship with god which is celebrate your relationship with

the church doing community together and that's connect and then you have relationship with the

world and that's where you contribute to make to contribute to god's dream to make it everything

god meant for it to be so we talk about celebrate connect and contribute fully understanding that

isn't you can't really fully measure those but we found some ways to really develop some metrics

around those and that helps us least go like okay here's the direction we're headed and do a better

job of going like okay how are we doing in growing three c christ followers or disciples yeah i understand

the co-op i love love the three c's i understand the co-opping of of the word i'm just curious what what

is your natural language what what are you what's the phrase you use to talk about um apprenticeship

apprenticing the ways of jesus yeah so not unlike dallas willard or you if you've listened to a lot of

john mark homer stuff he he uses that too um okay but that yeah that that works for us and the idea of

of disciple making discipleship apprenticeship the idea of doing this in in digital circles pre-covid

um and i'll just be the one like hugely controversial um pre-covid 2019 majority of churches were not doing

anything online maybe 10 were broadcasting a service but when it came time to building relationships

disciple making online small groups even caring about people who were outside of the physical circle of

influence of any any one campus the church was really kind of um dispersed and in hands off from that

now covid we're understanding and we're going to we're beginning to kind of see how we can start to engage

in this discipleship in this relationship aspect uh from a from a digital standpoint what what lessons

just even maybe from from the outside 40 000 foot high level what are you learning in in this season

when it comes to apprenticeship when it comes to multiplication in context of doing it digitally

yeah i think um not quite as advanced as yourself but pre-covid i mean i had the opportunity to

there were some people that influenced me i um was i'd already plugged into a lot of stuff that glue

was doing so i got to know scott back and of course you've spent any time with scott who's the founder

there i mean scott makes the point which um that all all human growth happens by relationships

all human growth happens relationships and i think and that totally fit the way we do church and totally

fit our understanding of who god is and our theology and um the more we began to talk and he introduced

me to a guy named paul sangeet chodroy who i don't know if you've had a chance to read his book called

the platform revolution he's um an mit prof a brilliant guy and basically he began to lay out

what it looked like to be a platform organization and the more that i heard scott talk about you know

all human growth is relationships and read through uh dr chodroy's stuff and then also got a chance to

kind of interact with him just a little bit as well you put those two together you're going like holy

smokes i mean for someone like me who's who has a chronic preoccupation with movement and multiplication

you're going oh this the here's the deal this this is how you scale something and um and i think so

we were starting down that path and and i can go more into that but you're like you just said though

i mean covid kind of i think it's the crisis that forced all of us kind of shoved us out the door

said whether you liked or not here we go yeah i think one of one of the big lessons you know that i

think we're still learning is this idea of scale versus reach like we have we have the churches would

look at pre-covid you know i had a pastor tell me hey jeff literally this was the conversation hey

jeff i i want to see people around the world get saved listening to my messages i literally like i want

to see somebody in ethiopia get baptized but the the area around my church where i want to do ministry

want to do discipleship i don't want them to hear my services online i want them to come to the building

where i can build relationships with them the guy in ethiopia let's be missional let's let's be outward

facing i i want to reach that far but i i don't want to engage with them i don't want to build that

relationship that's that's someone else's problem and and and i think what what's what's fascinating

is is even the the strength of online isn't that isn't the reach yeah it's cool somebody on the other

side of the planet can can have can listen to a one-way conversation uh you're in chicago right now

i'm in miami it's far cooler that the two of i are having the two of us are having an open conversation

right here online and the fact that we can engage with people by the way i i just met this guy the

other day his name's uh tome he's from nigeria he is the nigerian version of jeff reed uh former

church staff guy um doing all sorts of digital church online stuff in nigeria and i'm literally

having an hour-long conversation with this guy via zoom and we're swapping stories we're encouraging

each other towards that and so like there's maybe not at the spiritual level but there's almost like

there's this apprentice level conversation where i'm learning from him he's learning from us and

now we're able to go off and do things i'm saying what you're describing i mean i think it is a form

of discipleship i mean is he a believer yes yeah so i mean you're basically you're you're mentoring

each other and what has become the platform for making that possible that relationship possible

is the internet i think we're just we're a paradigm shift which is a big deal but we're a paradigm shift

or a mental block away from seeing that and how we can do that over and over and over and over again

what digital allows us to do is break away from this model of being in the church to have this

disciple making to have this apprentice level relationships digital allows us to to scale out

much broader much wider much more effective where i can have this conversation with this guy in nigeria

a a a a church attender can reach out to their their high school um you know people that graduated high

school from or re-engage with a college roommate or gather together people who are have a similar

attribute like a a club or a hobby or something and and start to build in relationships that way

i i think what what you're beginning to see is is this idea of of breaking apart the church out of a physical location

and doing it more neighborhood based um reaching out to you know circle of influence within the neighborhood

or even doing some things digitally where we start to examine and dig into um relationships and communities

that already exist digitally as as a as a pastor as somebody who's you know you're dealing with the

multiplication you're understanding um the physical aspects you know what what challenges do you

feel what does that make you excited does that make you scared does that make you like tell me your

temperature when we're talking about okay i want to break up the building and instead of it being a

location i want to disseminate it and and spread it across multiple locations

um is adrenaline rush a temperature i mean that's i mean that's what that's i mean that's how

it makes me feel no i mean because um i mean i was you know i don't know two weeks i was telling

my executive pastor going no these buildings are like an albatross now that's probably an over

exaggeration because i think there's some things some good things that come can come out of it

but and this and i'm and certainly community isn't the only only case but i mean like this weekend

our engagement was probably more than double what it was pre-covid so i mean and we're getting we have

more people in small groups we have more people serving and even financially we're in a better spot than

we were before so it's kind of like there's there's not anything at least so far to be afraid of except

the ignorance of like when we finally do leverage this platform to its fullest extent

i mean wow what what could happen yeah one of the things that that i i love with with like a dispersed

model and i i can play the card i i can totally have the conversation right now and maybe we'll get to

it later but the idea of of a digital only church a church that only exists sure um which is is still

controversial even when you talk with like online pastors who live in online space and that's their

job to minister even uh like jace kranda saddleback he and i have conversations on the time all the time

where we talk about the necessity of of the physical space as well which to me is one of the reasons why

we want to have the the the house church location or some sort of a physical like the the biggest why

does he think why does he think what's the necessity of it well and here here's the challenge like let's

let's talk about it if i am a um if i'm a christian on facebook

but i'm a jerk to my wife and i'm an a-hole to my kids right what am i am i really a christian or or is

it it's one thing to be that that happens all the time in our churches right isn't that you think the

guy who the deacon who shows up you know you know with a smile on his face but then you know two years

later we find out he's been beating his wife i mean that happens that doesn't just happen in digital

spaces right that happens in physical spaces yeah and and that's that's the the challenge though

would be let's figure out how the the goal would be online to offline the the gospel that we hear in

our online world has to affect our offline relationships so it's it's one thing for him

the challenge is stay away from consumerism don't just be the guy listening don't just be the guy listening

to the podcast but create environments so that it has to impact your your real world a sermon and on

a podcast or a sermon watched on facebook live is one thing but if it's to the level that it creates

a reaction that influences the real world that that's the win yeah but i mean i i think you say the same

thing about the online world in fact i think you might be able to make the case that in an online world

your engagement with take like a sermon is even more more serious because they they because when

they show up at my website they can actually pick which sermon they want to watch and they get to

pick which one that they engage with which probably is kind of because there's something going on in

their life so there's probably a deeper engagement than if they show up at my one of our 10 locations

because they have to listen to whatever comes out of my mouth then and they may and just because they're

there it doesn't mean they're actually doesn't mean they're right thank you for being honest right

there and appreciating that well it's a brutal fact but it's it's true where with with a digital

environment you're able to craft and create uh something that that's more tailor suited for

for an individual um and it's interesting carrie newhoff i love carrie does he does those listings

that are so well you know and he talks about how there's the uh he did an analog and digital comparison

analog the old school way listed out seven things digital then he listed off seven things on that side

and and one of the things that was fascinating to me and actually a bunch of people were like that's wrong

was analog he had the word global underneath analog and under digital he had local and it was funny

like a people pastors were like that's that's backwards that's that's wrong you know you have

you have global reach on the analog side and and so carrie carrie had a typo carrie did a mistake

and i was like no you're you're missing the point digital gives you the opportunity to customize

things for the individual in analog way you're blasting a single message everywhere and it's not

about that and even to the point of in a disciple making relationship it's not blasting a single

message analog it's connecting and unleashing and immobilizing individuals with the message

to go out and do things within their circle of influence the relational aspects of of church online

of discipleship online of all of these things allow for a much more individualized approach in an

appearance automation is awesome but if but if we automate so much out of disciple making us out of that

apprentice style relationship man we've really lost the value of the of the human touch from that

and that's really the thing that that we're looking for in this day and age it's it's that relational

aspect do you feel tension of okay you haven't talked about it you're on stage you're you're preaching

the sermon everybody's hearing that in the room though they may need more uh personalization they

may need more more of a different approach um like do you feel the tension to try to feel that do you

meet those needs and in other ways like how do you how do you see digital kind of helping your

church kind of automate through that do you have any practical insights on that

i i think in that one in particular i think the big aha for me is there's like

well at least three different opportunities so you have you have the content you're creating this week

for them to engage with so like this sunday you know we're doing we're going to a series called pray

like this and we're going through you know disciples said how we should we pray just said pray like this

so we got that you can engage with but then you also let me let me back and let's say in a i think

your term's digital so in the physical world okay in our physical buildings they can come and experience

that but then you can also experience that online but the but the third part and i think the third one

that big aha to me that's vastly being underestimated right now is all of your um all of your previous

content because most of us in the church world we only think about the big idea i'm creating for this

weekend and that's what we advertise on our website that's what everybody has to engage with that's we

measure we only measure kind of what they engage this week but all of a sudden like so for example i was

fortunate enough i got to write a book called finding your way back to god or a book called starting

over well once we did that series back in the day it's done but now guess what if someone

in through google adwords or whatever else however else we want to advertise if someone's going through

a loss of a job or or a loss of a relationship or some other kind of loss they're like man if i could

only start over they don't have to go to pray like this they can go to our starting over series and

engage with that and so i think we have the opportunity to create this whole smorgasbord

of opportunities so because like for us we'd create content then it goes to our big idea resource which

we'd sell to a handful of churches that they could use some other time but now all of a sudden no it's

like you open up your whole library of content to them does that make sense yeah and it and it

becomes you know the phrase in digital world is evergreen it's content that that's not

that's the same term in publishing too right and so all of a sudden um you you're able to customize

things uh content um and then with accountability with follow-up with with relationship start to walk

people through that and and get them to to process it's it's it's a beautiful thing and and as that

creates people that are that are comfortable with um being through that apprentice stage let me let me

shift gears because i'm even fascinated with this word word apprentice so an apprentice eventually

becomes the guy who's doing the doing the work the master right master and apprentice that that's kind

of the the two tiers um so in in in a in in your church and multiplication kind of environments um when

does when does an apprentice become the master when is the person done in in that process yeah well i

mean part of the reason like you said we like the terms because it has to do with both both the knowing

and the doing so both you know um and for us it's pretty fairly simple whenever the person who is

apprenticing thinks the apprentice is ready and the apprentice thinks they're ready then they're ready

and so they said okay now you do the whole thing all over again no we don't overcomplicate it i mean

it's fairly simple that way when you think you're ready and the person discipling you so to

speak thinks you're ready then you're ready go start disciple someone else we do the same

thing at a leadership level when you're as an apprentice leader when you think you're ready

and as the leader when you think your apprentice is ready send them out to start another group or

another team or whatever it is that you're apprenticing them to do and so within the church

you're you're looking at small groups you're looking at uh serving opportunities championing a team

you know another and so those are those are kind of the uh the areas where where you're

apprenticing and growing um in the middle of this covet even even coming out of it like the

the watch parties the the micro locations the house churches you know that's starting to to grow in

in popularity um have you guys looked and explored doing anything anything in that in that situation like

what's what's community christian doing right now um towards that we're in a little bit of a unique

situation because we're in chicago and we're also in illinois which will be one of the last states to open up so

we're currently in still in phase three of a five phase plan which allows us to meet in groups no larger

than ten um so but what we have in the queue and this is probably more than you want to know we've

kind of designed a playbook we're calling it and so we have four different plays we can run and play

and play number two play number one is just community online everything's online play number two is what

what we're calling three c communities and our three c communities based on like we talked about

celebrate connecting our micro churches and so what we'll do is whoever leads that whoever leads that

three c community they'll be the person responsible for bringing people together to celebrate have that

experience to connect do life together and also contribute make a difference in the world and those

can happen of course anywhere in chicago but also anywhere we're in like last i heard 1500 cities

around the world and so that happening in those 1500 cities where there's someone who says yeah

i want to i want to i want to lead one of these so i'm just curious what what is one of those and

it's a playbook like you've not even executed this the uh the you know obviously illinois is a little

more strict um in the grand scheme of things um what what does leading one one of these three c house

church communities what what does this look like yeah i think i think what it is it's it's just a small

expression of the church where you it could be where you live where you work or where you play

and and probably a lot of them are around affinity um or maybe geography it's where you where you live

and it could be and sometimes i think it could be as small as you know a dozen people and sometimes

it could be upwards of maybe you know maybe 40 people or so that you then break up into smaller

groups that meet throughout the week but essentially what it is it is it's exactly what you've been

talking about it's a micro church a smaller expression of the church that if i can put on my church

planning hat for a second i mean that we've been dying for for you know for decades now because

the way we plant churches and the way we start new sites is so expensive in most cases and so

and it's definitely not a movemental form and suddenly now we're in a season where people's

interest in spiritual things is higher than ever and also what they want is that a lot of them anyway

not all but a lot of them want smaller expressions because it's safer and you put those two things

together it's like this ripe environment suddenly in the western world to do micro churches like we've seen in the east

yeah we had we had daniel m on the podcast pre-covid or like right when it happened and you know he was

talking a lot about his uh i don't know that he came up with the terminology but the social space

that like 20 to 50 person thing that is is really missing it's like you either got the the the the 10

person or you got like the the church setting the church plant that's 50 and up and then the the mega and

the giga and all that but that that really kind of that that safer environment of of the 20 and 50 to

kind of connect with is is gone and so utilizing a house church uh or a micro movement just to kind of

be that that sort of of of starting point you know it was stadia we've talked about that we we don't

want to get to the place of where we're planting a house a single house church like that the the end

end game for us would not be plant a single house church it would be let's figure out how to plant a

hub a network of house churches similar like casey underground or um you know rob wagner there brian

sanders and the stuff that he's doing over at tampa underground as well but start to establish a

multiplying network of of these these house churches uh or or micro that that allows for a a different

expression at the the 20 versus 50 i'm just curious like is it watching the worship is it watching the

the teaching is it give freedom for the church they're centralized there's decentralized i'm just

curious kind of how how will we do that way yeah that what we'll do the same way we do church planning

so like if you came to community church and you're a church planner you could either plant a church with

new thing and we're getting great you could be a part of us and here's the four r's that we follow

or you can go do your own thing and we will bless you and then you have to do that so the same thing

with a micro church expression if you want to be a three c community then yeah you'll use our big idea

content and you'll use our small group stuff and we will provide coaching we'll provide a leadership

community in fact i'll tell you what anybody that's listening i'll give them my email address

dave ferguson at community christian.org dave ferguson community christian.org we'd love to

talk to you about this if you want to do it we will give you a personal coach we will give you a

monthly leadership community we will give you a relational connection and we'll also give you all

the equipment we possibly can and then also all of our big idea content the commitment we'd make

ask from them though is that they use that and they develop people as three c christ followers

what what attributes what are you looking for for someone what what characteristics are you

looking for for somebody to lead like a like a house location something like this i think one of

the great things about this too is some of the people that you may not have in the past going

like i don't know if i want to plant a church because you're about to invest you know a hundred

thousand dollars or half million dollars in which puts a really kind of an exceptional kind of leader

this opens you up to a lot of folks there's a lot of folks that can you know have a job and lead

a micro expression of the church and so probably i would say probably a lot of people probably they

probably have a gift of evangelism they may have a gift of apostleship um they have a passion for

those kind of things and what we're playing with the idea now is that we would actually covenant with

them for 18 months if they'd be willing to covenant with us for 18 months we can invest in

them for 18 months they can invest in us we'd ask them to get an apprentice where they would

sort of have a multiplier in it and then in of 12 months we'd kind of hopefully it would

multiply we'd also reevaluate do you want to go on for another year and a half and or is this next six

month's gonna kind of bring it to a close um but right now i'm looking for people that are willing

to experiment that's awesome i mean post post covet like life if nothing else is a big giant experiment

in this everything oh my goodness yeah everything you wanted to try let's just try it now do it and

see and and the fun stuff on on the digital side is like it's cost negligent in the grand scheme of

things you know i've i've got a i've got a friend that is is planting jade erhart you may know him

through through exponential uh but he is he does social media for exponential at the conferences or

something and some video work but he's doing a digital only church and growing into that um

and uh i think he spent five dollars on a font like he's he's getting his salary from somewhere

else he's contracting with other people by the way if you're looking for video work jade erhart

i'll include a link in the show notes he's awesome but what he's ultimately what what he's doing is

he's like yeah it's i'm using a a platform called discord uh that's free i'm connecting with like

almost a thousand video gamers at at this point uh and he's taking them through four fields which is uh

which is a free discipleship material uh and he's reshaping it and then it's like yeah this is

this is and it's effective he's he's got a hundred probably disciple makers apprentices out there i i

attended one of his what what he would call a small group it was uh they were playing a game called terra

a video game and so literally i'm watching them play video games and then i'm listening to them dialogue

and talk about the bible and literally quoting scripture while playing video games and i'm like

this is crazy i i could never do this but then i look down and i see that he's got like 30 some kids

watching this like like in real time and i'm like it's it's a new freaking world man it's just that's

awesome they're finding ways to do it and so it really does come down to this level of let's find ways to

to experiment for the kingdom um the the the gasoline that was spewed on the covet situation

that brought about the explosion um let's figure out the new thing to do to kind of work through

that which really gets us into this idea of of a digital church uh and so that's some of what you

know jate as an example is working on um there's definitely other guys guys like dj soto who's doing

some incredible stuff in in virtual reality where he's got hundreds of people at this point i think

he's got three different maybe four different church expressions in virtual reality on different

continents and even on different platforms at this point he just opened up one in uh playstation vr

um so he's he's doing this he's doing these these works as a as a pastor though sometimes we look at like

the acts to the the the ecclesiology of of what a church is and rather than looking at the the

biblical model of well you know how do you do communion in virtual actually dj soto as an example

he actually got like made fun of uh bbc did a news show on him fox cnn the daily show ran a

shtick on him because he was baptizing people in virtual reality um people how was he doing that

changed uh i mean literally like an avatar let's have the conversation yeah literally someone would

baptize an avatar in virtual reality yeah and he was calling it baptism uh bbc picked up the the

news story and it just blew up um now you know and i don't want to speak for dj buddies we've talked

about it on this podcast it's it's an outward symbol people were seeing it um he did not add the

person who got baptized the water molecules did not actually like touch skin but we're also saying

you know there's no um there's no power in the water molecules it's it's a symbolism it's a symbolic

act done in front of people there were other people in the room watching the virtual reality avatars and

and on screen so it counts um what tensions do you feel i'm just curious you know why why not uh

what tensions do you feel with with conversations like that as you look at what a traditional church's

ecclesiology would would be executing some of those things in uh in digital only um

you're probably asking the wrong guy because yeah i i don't i mostly i don't really see i don't really

feel the tensions as most is more it's more i just see lots of opportunity and it's more a curiosity

so like when you said he's baptizing people i'm like how do you baptize people online

so for me it just even physically it doesn't show up as attention so it's like curiosity like oh how

could i do that um that's partly personality yeah well and you're leaning into it as opposed to you

you're oh by nature of who you are you're gonna be more apt to hey let's let's lean in and try to

figure this out as opposed to you know i hate to say the analogy but uh i'm an old guy get off my lawn

kind of thing um yeah somebody quoted that to me recently sorry it was a bad pun uh but you you

there's a there's an opportunity if nothing else right to to look at uh church in in a new way

whether it's through micro locations whether it's through through a digital only the real power comes

down to individuals and able to do this from a church planning side we need digital church planners

from from a micro location side we we need people to be the the apprentice to the level that they're on

mission and then unleashed out to go and and create these uh relationships work through their circle of

influence to to grow and disciple someone to that that point now there may be some people listening and

and i've worked on their staffs i've had conversations with these people that um leadership doesn't lean

in like like you do they they they lean back um i had a conversation with with a uh uh i want to i

want to say he was a he wasn't an online pastor i think he's a youth guy uh but in this season he's

been operating as an online pastor in the church he never done it before he loves this idea of of

being an online pastor online ministry discipleship online these things this is just one story of many

but the the church coming out of this covet season they're reverting back to normal

so rather than leaning in we're we're leaning out um give some advice to this guy how would you

does he try to convince does he does he try to um leave does he does he just stay put in where

he's at like how do you handle that that tension right now um at a church well i was talking to our

staff we had our all staff meeting this morning and um um basically we just we just gone through

and we've repurposed and kind of refocused everyone's role and a whole huge number of

people who weren't before now a part of our online team and a part of our communications team and all

that and part of it i said is if our mission has stayed the same and our mission statement is to help

people find the way back to god and the way we do that is like we've already talked about three c christ

followers i said in order to do that though i think in the future well not even yeah right now and going

forward for the foreseeable future there's three there's our there's three different customers out

there there's three different kinds of people we're trying to reach i call them stop uh stop people

yield people and go people the go people are gonna our folks are going like i can't wait to get out of

this house you open up anything i'll show up the yield people are um i'm i'll leave but i'm

going to be cautious because i want to make sure it's safe and the stop people are people i'm not

leaving unless i have to and i think what we're seeing is we're seeing all three of those at least

at least for the next year and maybe beyond that because who knows when covet 20 shows up or whatever

else is next and if you really are serious about like in our language helping people find the way back

to god or reaching people who are far from god then you have to figure out ways to reach all three of

those people and the only way you're going to reach a whole bunch of those that those yield people and

all those stop people is going to be online and and it's already evidence too i mean some of the

churches that are now opening up most of them that are opening up i mean they're seeing you know

sometimes as low as you know 12 but no nobody's usually bumping past 30 or 40 percent of their normal

attendance before well where are those people right they're yield or they stop they stay they're

hesitant or they're staying at home and so to to not have an online presence so i mean first i think

if i was coaching this guy i'd say hey i'd take this back to your lead pastor your senior pastor say hey

i think the future kind of looks like this and if we're serious about reaching people

and paying our staff we better we better reach these these we better do these things and at that

point if the answer is still no then you probably need to find another job the it's interesting with

your stop yield and go um there may be another category i don't know it doesn't fit neatly and so maybe

maybe you don't don't consider it but you got me thinking yeah those are all people that that fit

within the physical model of church right so stop yield and go assumes that that they're attending

a physical building and the stop that they used to yeah right right right um what what about

and i'm i'm curious because you you're a you're nationally known uh and so you've got a a potentially a

a broad reach uh do you see traction outside of the chicago area are there people who engage with uh

with your church online um as a result but maybe living in different cities or states um countries

even like what like i said i mean digital footprint look like yes i mean i don't i haven't got the updated

stats over the last three weeks probably on these particular numbers but as of the first seven or eight

weeks into just being just online yeah we were in 1500 cities in 40 countries oh you mentioned that

you did say yeah so so yes i mean it's definitely happening and it and some of the folks i mean they're

there we do six different services on sunday and some are there the same service it's like they're

sitting in the same pew they're there the same service guy from australia he's mike mcgarrity hey he's

there and checking in you know dude from india checking in talk to me about the responsibility

you feel towards dude in india i love that um i don't want to make yeah okay let's make that the

example so like the the end game with discipleship is to to get that dude in india for you would be

to make him an apprentice to launch out like do you look at dude in india the same way yeah yeah

in fact in fact in fact when we talk about what we want to do with these microchurch these 3c

communities i mean it's not so much my friend in india that guy but it's the guy in australia i'll

use mike as the guy hey you know mike's been there every week he would i think i think if we launch

this thing i think mike would be the kind of guy going hey i would love to do one of these in my

neighborhood can i can i be a can i lead a 3c community and we would say yes and we would build

a relationship with him and we would equip him we would coach him we'd have a leadership community

that he'd be a part of and and all we'd be off and running talk to me i think that's that's the

that's the thing that's awesome about this whole thing so you're used to multiplication and and i love

this it's built into your dna you're already a church planner you're talking about this um

you know there there's there's a level of okay this guy's in australia i want to empower him to

do this but i really he's in australia i can't i can't control him i've got to create a culture and

then unleash him like what's the what's quality control what's what does what does that look like

when when you actually let go what is letting go look like in a situation like this well i mean again

i think first of all i think control is a little bit of an illusion

and you know so you don't really have control you only you only have what people give you

um and so i would want to come in with him like okay hey how are we gonna do this thing and um and

like we talked about before it'd be like let's let's try this for 18 months and he would make a

commitment to us and we may include it to him and then we would x we try to we just trust each other

i like to lead with a yes on that kind of stuff we trust each other and we go forward and then we

re-evaluate somewhere around the 12 month part i had scott beck said that to me which was fascinating

that the most important um um quality online is trust and and that's what i and i thought that

that was i and i more i thought of that boy if your church can become a trusted

brand i mean then you have tremendous opportunity if they if they're not if they're skeptical or people

are you know how are you know what kind of a leader are you or what are you doing with your money or why

are you trying to influence me this way then you don't have it then this thing doesn't scale but if

people trust you and you're and it's well placed sky's the limit this has been a great podcast man

dave i i want to thank you for your time um thanks thanks for what you're doing i think what you're up

to is really really important and i'm glad you're kind of spreading the good news and the opportunity

about this awesome hey just maybe even as we're landing the plane any any closing thoughts one of the

things that was passed to me and that i've been passing along to our church is uh a really simple

slogan um it's kind of based in that based on that verse you know where it says i didn't give you a

spirit of fear or timidity but of power and love and self-discipline and i think i've been kind of

trying to operate this way where fear sees a crisis faith sees opportunity where fear sees a crisis faith

sees opportunity and i think if we will begin to look at this situation through the lens that god and

the spirit wants to give us i think there are tremendous opportunities and particularly what

you're championing uh for the church and church planning and multiplication and discipleship so

i'm grateful for what you're doing awesome yeah super super uh appreciative of that and let us not live

in a spirit of fear but let's grab it in a full circle and um with god's help work through it so

thank you very much sir uh for the time uh for dave this is jeff with the church digital hey everybody

Thanks for jumping on the podcast with us, and we'll see you next time here at the show.

Y'all have a good day.