EP071: Nils Smith & A Futurist's View of an Innovative, Entrepreneurial Church

Hey everybody, welcome to episode 71 of the Church Digital Podcast powered by Stadia Church Planning.

Jeff here. I am excited about this conversation, about this episode, really because of how chill

this conversation went. It's almost like I'm sitting outside of a Starbucks because really

the first time that I met this person, Neil Smith, was outside of a Starbucks. It was actually

a very influential day for myself and the Church Digital because we were in Disneyland. Yeah,

it's crazy. All magic happens at Disneyland. Everything starts at Disney if you know I'm a

Disney guy. But in this situation, there was a very influential day in my life, probably January,

February 2018, that involved Neil Smith, who's the guest here on the podcast, Jay Cranda, online

pastor with Saddleback, Greg Atkinson, who you'll hear from soon, and Ray DeArmas, who is the

digital pastor at Christ Fellowship Miami. Honestly, the five of us were sitting outside of a Starbucks

and we just spent hours, literally hours, talking about what church online could be and how it could

make a difference in church and in culture had it been given a chance. And what's ironic is it took

a global pandemic to swing through here to actually get the church to pivot, to adopt to some of these

church online principles. And it's so exciting to see how the church is evolving in this season

through church online. And so for months, literally for months, I've been trying to get

Neil Smith on a podcast here. Nils is really kind of like this futurist type of guy, innovative.

By his own disclaimer, he's not a technology guy. He's, he's really more of just a guy who really is

very good at reading culture, looking into the future, anticipating some of the things that are

happening. It's one of the reasons why he's a phenomenal conversationalist. So I've been trying

to get him on the podcast because he's, he does a lot of podcasts himself. And I personally, I've been

wanting to do a podcast on church podcasts because I want to see church podcasts get beyond just a

sermon. And so for months, just between Nils and I, we've really had a hard time aligning our schedules

to have this podcast conversation. And finally, finally, things lined up and I was able to get

Nils to come in to do this podcast. Lo and behold, we didn't actually talk about the stuff that we're

supposed to talk about with church podcasts. Instead, we spent the entire episode talking about COVID,

about innovation, about how did the church needs to be entrepreneurial in this season,

to redefine who it is, not from a biblical standpoint, because that stays true, of course,

but how we operate and the models that with which we work through. This is a lot of what we ended up

talking about in this episode. Not at all what I wanted to, but such a deep, rich, thick conversation

that I'm sure you're going to get a benefit from it. So here's where we are. We're bringing in Nils

Smith, who is Dunham and Company, Chief Strategist for Social Media and Innovation,

as well as one of the OGs, one of the early pioneers when it comes to church online. At some

point, guys, he actually uses the word MySpace in this podcast, literally, like he was doing

church online in MySpace. Just let that sit on you for a while, MySpace. We're bringing in once

again, Ray DeArmas, of course, co-host here with the Church Digital, digital pastor over at

Christ Fellowship Miami, and myself, Jeff, with the Church Digital, as well as Stadia Church Planting,

in a conversation that I'm calling A Futurist View of Innovative Entrepreneurial Church.

Okay, everybody, here you go.

Well, awesome, man. Hey, thanks for jumping on this. I know it's a crazy season and life and things like

this. And I know we've been trying to do this.

And I'm curious to hear, I mean, Jeff, your world has to have blown up and exploded. I mean,

I think the timing of you kind of going all in on this and this happening, it's kind of such a time

as this moment for you, it feels like.

Yeah, I get that a lot. So traffic on my website literally shot up 1000% from February to like that

first, second week of March. And it was just crazy. I mean, I'm still getting, and obviously,

like, it's tapered down. The initial thrust was, how do we stream? We have no idea what we're doing.

And just jumping from webinar to webinar to webinar to webinar, and saying the same thing over and

over again, with that. And so a lot of content driven towards that. I was already doing the same

with Stadia, like going to be the director of digital church planning. And like the goal was to do this

like three year ecclesiology or this three year research and development project towards creating

a digital only church. And I've always been the controversial guy. Like, I am not afraid of like

hard statements and having people react strongly. I've never seen anything as two sided, as bifurcated

as a digital only church. Because there are either people who are like, I have been wanting to do this

for a long time. I'm in, how can I be a part of this? And I've had pastors look at me and say, you are

you are, what you are doing is a sin. You are theologically wrong. And it's like, you know, and so

there's two sides to this. And there's this one guy. And this is, this is a local pastor. This is a friend

of mine. Okay. This is a guy who's known me for years. He's like, Jeff. Yeah, I hear what

you're doing with like all this broadcasting services and things. I think it's a sin. I think

it's wrong. I think you're taking people away from the bride of Christ. You're taking them out of the

church. And we will never, we will never broadcast the service out of this church. Wow. Hey, bro,

no problem. Love you. However, I can help your church. You know, let me know. That was November

of 2019, March of 2020. Hey, yeah, we need some help streaming. Can you, can you come

over? Can you help us with this? I would love to. Let me come over. You know, I'm hoping,

I don't think as I'm watching the news, like COVID doesn't change the Bible. So like all

the theological concerns that that's, that's the Bible hasn't changed. So your theology shouldn't

be shifting now, you know, maybe your opinions have changed or cultural opinions have shifted

as a result of this. I'm hoping that's the, that's the answer. But it's been, I think the

reality is it's just forced people to do it. And then when they do it, they realize how real

it can actually be. And I think that's the big miss from a contextual standpoint of how they

perceive it. Yeah. Forgive me guys. And for jumping into this, but you know, this all comes back to,

everybody keeps questioning what the definition of what it means to gather together, right? Like,

like this is kind of the whole thing of, of why people keep questioning it. And now it's funny,

Jeff and I had a, we had a long private conversation about how a lot of theological shifts were going

to happen as a result of this in terms of what it means to gather, because we can't truly physically

be in the same spaces, but at the same time, and folks like folks like you, Niels, Jeff, myself,

we've been talking about how, man, it's very easy to gather physically, but still feel completely alone

in a room filled with thousands of people in a church service, still feel completely isolated,

feel completely by yourself as if nobody knows you. And every church says that, well, our answer to

that is small groups. And for some reason, when it comes to online, they're still antagonistic towards

it. They're like, well, you know, in person, that's where you're gathering, but, but small groups

online, I don't know if you can truly be known. It's like, oh yes, you can. Yes. Yes. And I would say

personally in my life, I, you know, we go to a physical connect group at Hillsong, um, and that's

our community, our small group community. But I'll tell you, there are people that I've never met

personally that I'm way closer with than the people in my physical small group at church. Um, because

there's a, there's a reality when you lean into relationships this way. And I think there's

a resistance of, of course, if you don't use it, you're never going to experience it. And

you can't have a legitimate opinion on it either. Um, it's just different though. I mean, it's

just never, it's never been around. This is history. Um, and, and, and people are just,

you know, it's hard to contextualize what's, what this is because it didn't exist 2000 years

ago. Um, but yeah, it's just, it's, it's such an exciting, crazy day. And I love, I mean,

I think about what if Facebook didn't exist right now? What if church online platform hadn't

been built? Um, where, where would the church be, um, without a few people that dealt with

the, you're the crazy nut, you know, um, and prepare, was prepared and set a model for how

churches can, can do this. Well, that's, yeah, if this, no, go ahead, Ray. I, you know,

I've been telling my dad, cause my dad's, you know, an entrepreneur, much like you guys,

like a lifelong entrepreneur. And I told him, I said, dad, we've got to be in the middle

of the modern industrial revolution right now. Like that even, and, and we can get into

future stuff. I'm sure either in this episode or another episode down the road, but so many

jobs just either aren't going to be there or aren't going to be, aren't going to be the

same when people return to the workforce coming out of this, because this whole thing is advanced

us in my opinion, about 10 years in terms of where we were headed. Yeah. Just kind of coming

out of it both in the church and outside of the church. Like everybody is saying, Oh man,

we're not going to be the same coming back into this and the sense of now we've got new digital

avenues. We've got new ways of doing this, but even from an economic standpoint, like things are

going to be done way more efficiently coming back because AI is just going to be that much more

available. Yep. Yep. I, you know, it's, it's, it's really interesting. Like, you know, I've talked

to some online pastors in this season and they're, and honestly, they're like, man, we're just going

to go back to the way that it was. And even online pastors, you're thinking that even, even online and

it's, they're discouraged. And I've had conversations with, with churches. There's a church, several

churches I've talked with recently, honestly, that, that have said the thing like, yeah, I just can't

wait to get back to normal. Like I do hear that. And so like, I kind of understand where, where the,

where the online pastors are coming from, or maybe they're feeling that tension, like within the

offices, um, within the virtual offices at this point, cause we're not meeting physically, but it's,

it's for me, for some reason, like I'm, I'm very bullish in this season where I think that this is

actually the catalyst that's going to cause change. Ray, I was actually just recently, um, for some

reason, the Ed Stetzer podcast was, was playing back there. I think I was trying to get a quote

or something, did a podcast with Ed. It was literally like the week before COVID hit. It was

funny in the, in the podcast, Ed actually mentioned, you know, the entire world's going to change once

this COVID thing hit. And Ray and I were like blowing it off. Like, yeah, he's just, you know,

blowing smoke and holy cow, it, it really did happen. But, but even in that Ray, in that conversation,

we were talking about, man, every year we talk about how the church needs to change. We say we're,

we're stuck. We know what we need to do, but there's no catalyst in our life, in the world to

actually cause the change. And then God brings the change. We're literally in the midst of this.

We live this hectic lifestyle. We're on lockdown. The church lives in this one hour on

Sunday. And now it's forced into a position where it has to engage with people seven days a week.

Like, it's amazing to see God move in the midst of all of the, the chaos centered around this COVID

season. Right. And like, and like so many shifts in modern history, right? Like whether it was the

inventor, the invention of the printing press and, you know, the, the Renaissance that comes out of it

and so many different things, like either you can embrace it or you can resist it, but either way,

change is coming for you. I mean, Niels, I mean, you're, you're, you're probably a bigger futurist in

this area. Like, what are your thoughts on that? Because to me, that's just the way that it's

coming. Yeah, man, I'm with you. I think it's, I, and I think some, a lot of us saw this already,

but this is to your point, it's, it's just, it's, it's created speed. I think the other thing it's

doing is it's speeding up new opportunity, but it's also speeding up the death of, I think there's a lot

churches that would, they won't come back, you know, like they're, they're, they're waiting, hoping to

survive this season and, and they won't survive it because they chose that. And, and I think, I think

too, I mean, I, I, I was talking to a guy who works for Lifetime Fitness and runs kind of this

Northeast area. They're, they're, they're having a, I mean, obviously a tough time. Everything's about

physical gatherings, but the opportunity that they see is commercial real estate is about to get

ridiculously cheap because people are going to start working remotely. People, a lot of storefront

businesses are going to not survive this. And so there's opportunity across the board and Lifetime's

well-positioned. And so while this is a short-term hurt, this is going to be a long-term opportunity.

And I think when you can just, just pull back and just look ahead, there are so many opportunities on

it, you know, and, and I don't know this, I can't, you know, could state this publicly, but I was talking

to a friend who is friends with Lou Giglio saying that they, they are realizing they were so focused on

their physical gatherings that, that they, they don't plan on going back to the way it was. That doesn't

mean they're going to not do physical gatherings in the future, but this has forced them to think

differently about church in the future. And I think that's good. That's happening for a ton of

people. But I, and I think as an entrepreneur, I see it from a business context of it's I just,

I've just bought a bunch of domains. And because I just see, I mean, I'm, I'm thinking of new

opportunities every, every hour that it's like, Oh, what, what is this going to do for work? You

know, an online work. And what is this going to do for the financial industry? What is it? I'm a part

of a healthcare startup that does like Uber for doctors. Well, people are no longer going to want

to go to doctor offices in a waiting room where there's a bunch of germs.

No way to do telehealth. Telehealth is going to explode. It's already, it's exploding right now,

but it will continue. This is the launch pad for telehealth. Um, this is the launch, but my mom is a

psychologist. She thinks she might never have a physical office again. She's, this has launched

her into, because even in psychology, you couldn't do the, the telehealth, uh, restrictions were so

great. Well, now they've had to open that up because people are depressed and they can't go to a

psychologist. So they had to, to, to free up psychologist and psychiatrist and everybody to do

remote. Um, so yeah, everything is, is going to be different and there's a business opportunity.

There's a ministry opportunity there. Uh, but I think the sad thing is, is I do think about, um, and I

think it's real, you know, those people that are in their sixties, seventies and, um, have resisted

change. And they're just kind of thought was, I'm going to ride this out. And then now they're

hitting a point where they're, whatever they were going to ride out no longer exist. Um, that's a

tough thing too, you know? And I think, I think there's, there's gotta be a sensitivity to that.

And there's a side of me that's like, sorry, you weren't paying attention. We've been talking

about this, but, but there is a side too, where it's like, man, this is, this is going to be tough.

I mean, you think about truck drivers and trucks driving themselves, you know what I mean?

And there's just so many innovations that, that are happening and we can see where a lot

of it's going. You just, it's, it's getting there a lot faster. And then I think people

thought money is not going to be worth the same thing as it was before. I think this is

going to, I'm into crypto. I think this is going to expedite. Um, and so, but there's

just so much, man. I selfishly, this has been great because I too, I like, I live on airplanes.

Um, I think my clients are learning that, you know what, we can actually do a lot, a whole

lot more through zoom and we don't have to pay for your travel. So I don't have to leave

my family. Uh, and I can do more ministry work, um, as a consultant. And so, yeah, man,

I'm, I just, man, there's so many things I could just go on and on, but my, my, that I'm

just having a hard time sleeping. Cause I'm, I'm so fired up about this season that is so

devastating simultaneously. Yeah. Yeah. We definitely, uh, you know, it's gasoline on

a flame in this COVID season. Uh, we were actually talking with mutual friend, Jim

Toberland, um, uh, podcast, you know, mid, late last year. And, and, and he was talking

about the progression of like comparing it to the multi-site movement of how it was like

the cutting edge thing. And then it was the cool thing. And then it was the common thing.

It was basically over a progression of about 20 years. It was a cutting edge thing.

And then 10 years later was cool. And then 10 years later it was common. And we were relaying

that out to how that would move across church online where, you know, life church, I think

started, um, uh, around 2000, uh, really when it became a cool concept was about, about, uh,

10, 12 years ago. So we're somewhere right now in the middle of from cutting edge to now

the cool idea where the cool churches are really doing it, but, but it's not, not a common

thing. As we were talking about how 20, 29 is the year, um, we've talked about in podcasts

where like the AI 10 years from now taken away, you know, X number percentage of jobs, like

20, 29 was going to be this, this like catapulting cultural shift year where it's going to catalyze

the church to really shift into some of these things. And, and like COVID wasn't on anybody's

radar at all. And now, you know, we're seeing this happen. It's like, Oh, Hey, it's common now.

Uh, you know, what is it? 60. I think I saw life voice that 61% of churches at this point are

broadcasting something online. Um, it's, it's funny. Um, 29% of churches, uh, was it life voice stat?

I'll link to it in the show notes, but I think this was like Barna 29% of churches, uh, are not

growing in this season or reporting. They're not growing in this COVID season. Ironically,

Barna also reports that 29% of churches refuse to do communion online. I don't know that those two

are related, but it's this really, it's, it's, it's a fascinating kind of connection that, you know,

even some churches aren't willing to embrace the full model or have like blocks that, Oh no,

we're not able to do these things. Yeah. But these blocks are really the thing that allows us as a

church, I think, to engage in, in online circles. Yeah. One of, one of my newest church clients is

Crossroads Church in Southern California and, uh, gotten to know their pastor, Chuck Boor, Boor,

Boor. I can't say his last name right, but he, I love him. I've not been listening to him preach for

years, but I, um, I've just gotten to know him personally. And he, he said, he's always going

to, it's been an afterthought, um, but it's become so real to him. And they had planned for

almost a year of this huge baptism service with connected to Easter. Um, and then he was like,

Oh, we've got to scrap that. And then after two weeks of doing online, he's like, no, we're,

we're doing that and we're doing it online and that's going to be very real. So they're,

they're doing tons of online baptisms. Um, and it's just fun to see pastors who have leaned in and

have allowed, uh, themselves to think ecclesiology, uh, about how they do church differently. And it,

yeah, it's just, it's just, it's exciting and it's not, um, yeah, it's just, I, I, I'm really eager to

see where this lands and even like crossroads. I'm curious to see when things are back to whatever

our future normal will be. Uh, what does that look like? You know? And, uh, yeah, it's, it's,

it's net things will never, there will never be normal the way it was. Yeah. Uh, but, but I think,

uh, there will be, we're not going to be in isolation the rest of our lives either.

And so, uh, yeah, it's, it's just the whole thing. Everything's going to be so interesting.

There will be, there will be digital churches that will come out of this. Like, and to me,

this is, this is the new term that, that we're using and stadia is, um, running with it. And we're,

we're helping churches move to this idea of digital. Uh, yeah, we want to go back to the buildings.

And, and as much as I push this digital only model, the buildings have a place. Interestingly,

I was on with Mark Venti yesterday. We were catching up on some things. Mark's the

executive pastors, number two guy over at church home. And, um, and Mark, Mark said this line,

he's like, Jeff, the buildings work for us. We don't work for the buildings. And it was this,

this fascinating concept where they've even like restricted, they've sold buildings in this season.

They still believe in the model of physical buildings, but they're also, you know, going

all in on a, on a, on a digital only model. But he was very quick to point out in the conversation,

Jeff, we're a fidgetal church. It's this mixture of physical and digital. You can't really go

exclusively one way or the other. And, and I believe that I think there's an option to do things

in a digital church to reach people in a digital way that you may not in, in, in a physical realm.

And so some of the conversations, you know, that we're even having right now are churches that

exist in a physical space that are learning lessons from this season and realizing, hey,

more than just doing our physical ministry online, what if we planted and did things differently in the

digital space? Actually, I talked with the church yesterday and the executive pastor told me, we asked

him, you know, through Stadia, it's like, hey, what are your goals? What do you want to do in the next

two years? The executive pastor says, our lead pastor's vision in two years is to plant the church

in VR. And, and, and I kind of, I looked at, I looked at the executive almost with tears in my eyes and I

was like, wait, like, wait, you're telling me your lead pastor knows how to spell VR? Like, stop right

there. That's a fascinating concept. And, and, and the, the lead pastor of an organization has a vision to

realize there is community in virtual reality. There's an opportunity for me to engage with people

differently. DJ Soto, like, let's recreate, let's replicate, let's reimagine these things. It's a

phenomenal opportunity that the church is. If we can just capture that vision and keep it going, we,

the church would look phenomenal if we're learning lessons today that are going to help us for tomorrow.

When I think it's, it's a digital space in comparison to a physical space. And so I, you know, one of the,

one of the conceptions, like, uh, I'm working with transformation church in Tulsa and they're,

they're considering, they consider themselves first a digital church that happens to have a location in

Tulsa. And this is a new mindset shift that they've made that, that Mike Todd has had for years, but

the church around, you know, everybody else never really got until, until now, but, uh, but they see

the really defining Facebook as a campus, uh, uh, YouTube as a campus. Um, and, and we're looking at

Twitch right now, you know, so Twitch would be in, we're trying to say, what is that community like?

As we go into the Twitch community, we don't want to just do it our way. We want to, we want to be a

part of the Twitch community and create a community that's native to their platform and, uh, the way

they form community. And so, uh, it's fascinating to think about their multi-site strategy is platforms,

not necessarily the internet, you know? Um, and then it brings, they come together in, in just like a

multi-site church. You might have gatherings where your three or four physical campuses come together

for special events, um, or has unified pastoral leadership and things like that. Um, but yeah,

it's, it's, it's, it's, we have no idea what that church home is fascinating. Mark is not a technology

guy. Mark's a pastor who is, and I think the less he knows about technology, the better, because he

thinks about it from pastoral mindset. Right. And he asked the technology people to align the

technology to the church's vision and it serves them. The technology serves them just like the

buildings serve them as just a tool to accomplish the purposes of, of the church.

That's good. Nils, why, why do you think it is that businesses, um, and, and granted entrepreneurs

tend to be ahead in this kind of thing, but a lot of businesses like Home Depot and others have

embraced the fact that, Hey, look, the buildings serve us. So we're going to invest a lot more

in this online space because we want things to be completely cohesive, but we recognize

that, Hey, if it's not profitable or if it's not really moving us in the right direction,

then we're okay with cutting our losses and moving on. Why do you think it's so hard for

the church to do that? I think people actually misperceive how far ahead the business community

is because a few, a handful of businesses are very innovative. Um, the, the reality is, is I've

gotten more and more into consulting on the corporate side as well. Uh, the corporate moves

slow, uh, a lot of corporate moves slow and, and, and, and we saw Toys R Us go out of business,

um, because they moved slow and they leaned into they, Amazon put their business out of business.

And I think, and you're seeing that happens so much to folks that, that, and, and think about,

I mean, I think early days of Amazon, they were a digital bookstore that everybody laughed at,

you know, and, and they put all those companies out of business. And, and so a handful of, of

innovative leaders and companies have thrived in, in this changing landscape, but 10 X that in the

companies that said that, that laughed at it and blew it off. And so the church isn't the only, uh,

entity to move slow. I think, I think just people, people, people's nature is to lean into comfort.

People's nature is to lean into what they know, um, and what they've known. And, and I think there's,

there, there are some of us that just are wired differently. And I, and I think I've learned,

like, there's a side where, uh, my wife has had to tell me like other, other people aren't lazy.

You're just a workaholic. Does that make sense? Like I'm wired differently. Um, and, and, and,

and I think it's normal. And that's where I think this is a moment for innovative leaders to stand out

and lead their organizations differently. Um, and, and those that, that, and there are leaders that,

that want to just settle. Does that mean, and I say settle like in lower and that's, and that's healthy

to a point, but that worked in a season, but we're moving into a season where changes is more necessary

at a, at a rapid state. And I, you know, I even think about like, I'm doing, I've done some parenting

web webinars this last year, or, or even some live speaking events where people are asking about social

media and their families. And they're like, Oh, it's going to be okay. Because they said radio was

going to ruin kids and television was going to ruin kids. Uh, and none of that ruined kids.

But the reality is the internet has moved way faster than television ever did. Uh, and we could

monitor that way easier. Now there, I actually believe you can monitor the internet more than

you can monitor those things if you're smart, but most parents aren't smart enough to be able to

monitor it, uh, like you can. Um, and people have access to more than they've ever had. So I think

the rate of innovation and, and, and it's not like we're going to get here and it's going to stop.

It's only going to get faster and faster and faster. And it's AI is, I mean, AI is going to

build things themselves. Uh, it's as you get into the future of AI, it, it is as scary as I think

people make it out to be in their minds. Um, and I think that's where the government's got to get

ahead of it too, of like, how do we govern this new world that's being created around us? And I think

then the reality is life is going to get easier. Houses are going to build themselves. Cars are going

to drive themselves. Groceries are going to be delivered, you know, our lives. And then that

brings down the cost of everything. Um, and so people can actually then just function as, as things that

only people can do in creativity and in creative thought and, and, and, um, relational, you know,

connection it's, but, but our minds it's, it's hard to, yeah, there's a long tangent on, you know, how,

uh, why churches move slow, but I, cause I, but I think the bottom line is it's, it's human nature

to move slow. And it's, um, it's the rest of us that think everybody's moving slow or just workaholics

and people that, uh, see the, we're the weird ones at the end of the day, but I'm glad to be a weird

one, you know, especially in this moment. There's, there's a tension with that though. Right. Cause

like I've even heard, I would say Craig Groeschel is by far one of the most innovative pastors in

America today. I'd put them in a room of three. I don't want to discredit some of the other guys,

but, but life church obviously is doing some incredible things. Bobby Grunwald and the team.

Awesome. Phenomenal. By the way, thank you. You are not listening to this podcast, but if you were,

thank you very much, um, not for listening, for doing what you're doing, I'm not that much of an ego

guy, but here's, here's the thing. Like I've even heard Groeschel talk, you know, at the most recent,

um, what, what, what is the, the willow Creek, the leadership, what do they call that? The summit,

the summit. Yeah. The leadership summit. Thank you. Uh, coronavirus brain, global leadership summit,

global leadership summit. Thank you. He used the phrase Gitmo. Uh, he literally is talking

about at some point, it just has to be good enough to move on. And so like the, the, the tension of,

okay. Um, I want, I want to change the world, but at some point, the perfectionist is actually going

to stop me from being able to do the thing that I'm really trying to accomplish. And so get it done

at the point that you can let it go. It's good enough to move on. Um, and for me as a, um, and I heard

that and it, when COVID hit, that was when Gitmo triggered for me in a new way, because for me, I'm

looking at, holy cow, my website just increased a thousand percent. I'm going to have to make some

changes because I have to, uh, there's just so much more impact and potential. I have to

let go of things. I have to ask others to come on, on board with me. We, we went from like,

um, well, I went from one writer in 2019, December to probably 25, 30 different writers writing content

for me in the COVID season. Uh, we, we onboarded 20, 25 people easy. I can't even like count. I can go

back, but I don't know what the number is. Like, I'm literally like, Hey, nice to meet you. You want

to write a blog? This'll be great. Come on. It's just, it was a phenomenal opportunity.

Yep. But part of that is because I, I realized that the lid of the church digital in that season

was me. Um, and, and, and I could, I could control it. I could regulate it. I could make sure my hands

were on every piece of it, but to do that, I would become the, the literally the flesh, the lid of this

thing. But if I were to step back, if I were to let others be involved in the process, um, the thing

would grow much faster because it wasn't dependent upon, on me. And so I, I think that the church has

an opportunity, I think maybe even to release a little bit, like I would, this is the conversation

I would love to have with, with the, uh, with the Groeschels and the Grunewalds. What's your

relationship like over the past decade? You know, when, when Bobby comes in with some crazy idea,

um, what's the response, what's that conversation look like? What's, what's the push back and forth?

How have you figured out? Cause you're both strong leaders. You're both driven. Somehow they've

managed to figure out how to release the, the, the, the tension, figure out how to work. And as a result,

that organization has skyrocketed in ways that, that, that churches maybe haven't. So there's an

opportunity I think to learn here. Go ahead, go ahead, Nils. I think the bot, I mean, there's an,

and I think they're, they're such a great case study for an organization that leaned into innovation and,

and, um, and have seen the fruits of doing, leaning in early, uh, to, to innovation. And they're,

they're so well positioned to, to, to, to where things are, are going because of that. You know,

they're, they're not capped, you know, uh, they, they just literally took the lid off 10 years ago.

And, um, and, and I think it happens for a couple of reasons. Um, and I think some of the mistakes I

see is, is there's such a, a high level of trust between Bobby and Craig that, that that's essential.

You know, uh, I think there's also, I've yet to see an organization thrive, especially in the online space

without a senior pastor or senior leader, lead pastor, who at least has a vision for it. It doesn't

mean they've got to be technology minded. And, and I don't think Craig, I don't, I, I've not even met

Craig. Um, I've been in some rooms with him, but, uh, I, I, I, I don't think that he's a technology guy.

I think he is incredible visionary that is, is, is kind of just like, whatever pushes the gospel

forward. Um, I'm going to lean in and Bobby has been his guy that he's like, I trust that guy.

And so I'll drive it and lead it, uh, from a vision standpoint, but I need you to create the

structure for it. And what I see, I see some, some pastors who are like, yeah, I want to go reach the

world online and I'm going to go get my 25 year old youth pastor. Cause he seems techie

to figure out how to do it. And then that guy creates a mess or the 20. And I think about me

when I was 25 and I knew everything, you know, and I'm like, why won't my senior pastor just give

me the keys to everything? Um, and the reality is if you throw the keys to that 25 year old,

he might be smart, uh, but he, uh, or she, uh, is, is, is, is 25, you know, like there, there is,

there's just natural immaturity that just comes or maturity that comes with age. And, and so I think

you've got to, uh, you've got to have trust and trust is built over years and it's, it's lost in a

moment. And so I think any organization that is going to thrive, it has to have, it has to have

multiple people driving innovation. It cannot be just one person. The top person has to be bought in

and they have to have people they deeply trust, um, that, that will, that will go along for the journey.

Uh, but I've, the, the organizations, I mean, this is a leadership, the conversation outside of a

technology conversation. When, when I've been a part of, and I've worked with organizations where the

senior pastor doesn't trust the people around them and he feels the need to, or she feels the need

to do everything themselves. Um, you're capped, you're immediately capped when you don't have

a core leadership team that you trust. Yeah. Can you speak into Nils, the cost of innovation too,

just cause you know, there was tremendous time costs. There's tremendous, uh, like you're saying,

trust costs to, to do things like, like what life church did that we're talking about, like the open

network for instance, or even you version, like offering that for free from the get go. Yes.

You know, they embrace the internet of free early on. Like I remember reading about that

in wired, like it back in 2007, like, man, the internet of free, how that's going to become a thing.

And I was like, Oh wow. Like, and here it is. A church was embracing that early on

to the point where they're giving away church online platform for free, like tremendous cost,

tremendous hours, all that in the background thoughts on that.

Yeah. You know, my, my Todd has become one of my favorite people in the world. Uh, I, I,

my wife is like your man crush on pastor Mike, uh, Jill. Um, and I, you know, I met him probably six

months ago and, and my, that's where my crush began. Uh, my crush maybe began, uh, from a distance before

that. Um, but he, you know, he, he shared with me his story of, of where, you know, and so transparently,

but, but five years ago they were a church plant. They had about 150 people and they met in a storefront.

And he said, God gave me a vision to that. We need to buy cameras and, and lean into, uh, our,

our video, um, and, and, and social media. And so he's like, I want, you know, that anyways,

they made an investment at $80,000 as a church plant to buy these nice cameras, because he was thinking

about what is this? You know, it was because he felt like God called him, you know, to do that.

He had about 50 people leave his church. That's like 30% of his congregation because they felt like

he, um, he was immature and was, uh, was, was not being a good steward of the church resources by

making that decision. Well, today their, their church and I, you know, as I was working with the Easter

services, uh, they just literally bought a new building, um, cash, a 4,000 seat auditorium, um,

and, and they, they moved in and now they can't meet there. Uh, but at Easter, um, and I was texting,

uh, with, with Pastor Mike, uh, at, and at Easter, they had, they had 40 times the people gathered

online in their live stream. They could fit in their room. Um, and, and, and so you, you talk about

a good investment five years ago, financially they're giving us up, you know, almost 20% since the COVID

crisis started, um, because they, they leaned in early. Uh, there is a cost with innovation

and the cost is sometimes financial. The cost is sometimes people. Um, the, the cost is people

calling you crazy, Jeff, you, you know, like, you know that. Um, and so I don't, you know, I, I still

remember when I was at community Bible church early days of like, are you really encouraging people to

get on Facebook? Like, why do you want people to get a divorce? And I was like, how did you correlate

me encouraging our church to use Facebook too? I want people to get a divorce. Now he did because

somebody in his, his small group had gotten a divorce because they connected with an old

spouse. There are dangers. There, there are things that as we lead new things. So the cost is generally

way more than money. It's often a lot of time. Um, and then it's also just leadership equity that you

have to earn. You cannot just say, I've got this title and I'm going to guide. And that comes with

casting a clear vision and, uh, and then taking some risks. And you, if you, you know, they always

say, if you don't fail, uh, you haven't, you're not innovating fast enough. Uh, you have to have

freedom to fail and, uh, and, um, expectation that that failure is a part of leading into innovation.

And I think for some churches, you don't have to lean into innovation. Sometimes you can be the

second person there. Life church has already led and it doesn't mean you need to copy life church,

but learn from, and Bobby would be the first person to tell you that they've made a lot of mistakes

along the way. Uh, and that's where they so transparently put stuff out there to like, say,

don't do this, don't do this, don't do that. Uh, because we learned, uh, and we don't want you to

make those mistakes. Uh, you know, we'll, we'll let you catch up faster. Um, because you, you came

second. And so some, some want to get there first, there's a huge cost of going first. Uh, but I think

there's a huge expense at going third. I think going second is probably one of the best places for most

leaders to be leading when it comes to innovation. I love that because yeah, absolutely. Because so often

this is when I worked in Apple retail, I kept telling people, they were like, man, isn't it so

great. Apple's leading the way. And I was like, no, they're not first to market with anything.

Yeah. I was like, they weren't first to market with a smartphone. They weren't first to market

with a media player. They weren't first to market with a laptop. They're, they're just, they're better.

That that's all it is. They're better than the people who were first to market. So other people may

walk through that door first. And every Android universe user in the universe is probably saying amen

right now. They're like, they're, they're like the Simpsons did it. Like they're the people

are like, we did it first. We did it first. But Apple just has this way of, okay, cool.

You did something great. We're going to try and just take that innovation and work it in our system

and make it better. And that's, that's kind of where they've made their, where they made their

fame in the last few years.

That's so good. I mean, and I think do it well too. I mean, I think leaning into excellence

is one of the keys there. And I think too many churches have tried to copy life church online.

And it's like, be you and learn from their core principles. And I think an Apple, Apple is very

clear on who they are. They don't put out bad products. They don't put out, I mean, even when

Steve jobs, like threw up, put everything in, everything needs to fit on one table is what he used to say.

And so they're like, we're going to do these, these things really well.

Um, and, and so I just left Apple because I'm bored with, uh, how, how, uh, how second they are.

Um, but I, but at the end of the day, I'm frustrated because my Android stuff and my,

my Chromebook stuff is buggy because the, because they're kind of going first in different areas.

Um, and Apple is going to do it right. And I think that there, there's a winning strategy

in going second and, but there's a fun strategy for some to go first. And Mike Todd is, is going first

and, and he's going to, he's going to have some scars by going first, but he's going to see some

incredible fruit. Jeff Bezos went first. He's got some scars. I guarantee you there's fruits there,

but there are plenty of other people that just watched Amazon and, and kind of rode those coattails to,

like, look, I can just watch what Bezos is doing right now and just do that in two years

and, uh, and, and, and be good. And that's what Walmart is essentially doing. Walmart's just riding

Amazon's coattails, just copying their business model with the infrastructure they already had in

place. And so, uh, and I think Walmart is probably the perfect example for churches to say, we're a

traditional business that was very successful, that has looked at where things are going. And, and we

have just, we have adapted and adjusted without completely abandoning our old, but I'd be willing

to bet that in the next five years, you're going to see half the Walmart's that you, you see today.

Um, but their business is thriving that more than it ever has.

Jeff Bezos: So this has been a fascinating conversation on the innovative entrepreneurial

church. This is not at all what I wanted to talk about, but that's what makes this so much better.

We'll, we'll bring you back to have the podcast conversation. By the way, I love the fact that

you've abandoned Apple, or at least are thinking about abandoning Apple. I've taken a lot of heat

because I'm an Apple fan boy who, as I hold my Apple pencil in my finger writing on an iPad here,

I myself am frustrated because the luster is gone. But similar to you, I, the other stuff's just not

good enough for me to actually like endorse and run with a hundred percent. So I'm still a blue bubble.

Jeff Bezos: It does. I'm not, I'm not a green bubble people like relax. I'm not there yet,

but I'm to this point where I'm like, I'm not, I'm not really feeling the blue bubble anymore.

So that's another conversation. We'll, we'll bring it back to that. I really want to focus on this

because you've used the word because there's a small church out there who has heard you use the word.

Um, here's innovation, who hears excellence, who hears life church, who hears all of these big words.

Dude, I'm a 250 person church. My camera is maybe a Mevo. Um, what's how, how am I supposed to compete with that?

Jeff Bezos: Like let's, let's, let's drill on that. How does a small church compete?

Jeff Bezos: That's their mindset. How do I compete with life church?

Jeff Bezos: And that's why I think that the transformation church story is, is so powerful

in that they were five years ago, uh, a, a 200 member, you know, church plant and, and might cast a

vision for this camera equipment and prioritizing online because that's going to be their front door.

And, and then that also expanded into their kind of multi-site strategy, all kinds of other things, but

Jeff Bezos: They saw that as their front door from a giving standpoint and transformation has been

unbelievably transparent in their, their first year that they, they, they had like $1.5 million

budget. So that, which is great for a church plant. And they, they grew very fast early on.

Jeff Bezos: Then after they bought those cameras, their budget dropped to like 1.2 million,

Jeff Bezos: I think because people left. Uh, and then the next year was about 3 million.

Jeff Bezos: And then the next year was, uh, I think this last year was like over 20 million

Jeff Bezos: Given they bought a building cash. This is, was a five year old church. Now that came

with Mike, listen to God. Uh, Mike led with a clear vision. Um, and, and, and he, he, he continued to

Jeff Bezos: Push. And I mean, I think I, I give so much credit to, to God blessing that unique

situation and in the movement of God, but I also Mike listened to God, you know, and, and leaned in and,

Jeff Bezos: and, and, and God moved. That doesn't mean every church is going to be, and you shouldn't

Jeff Bezos: Just follow the transformation model, but I think it, it starts with having a vision.

Jeff Bezos: And I think this is, I just did a Facebook live or your live stream or before this of, um,

Jeff Bezos: A friend of mine just has been speaking the word exponential into me. And, um, and honestly,

Jeff Bezos: I have, you know, I've, I've gone charismatic since I went, started going to Hillsong.

Jeff Bezos: And so there, there's a guy who just kind of spoke a prophetic word, uh, over me.

Jeff Bezos: And, uh, and that word exponential has kind of been the word I've leaned into this year.

Jeff Bezos: And, and, and somebody spoke it to me yesterday and it kind of restart of, of we're

Jeff Bezos: in a moment where everyone can be rethinking everything. And if you, if you're in this assembly

Jeff Bezos: line of just feeling stuck, or what do we do next? This is the perfect moment to say

Jeff Bezos: we're going to do things different. And it doesn't mean you need to go to online campus,

Jeff Bezos: but I think a lot of pastors and administrators have stopped listening to God. And they've just said,

Jeff Bezos: I'm going to do church and I'm going to pray, but praying means I'm going to pray for

Jeff Bezos: my congregation. Praying means I'm going to, uh, just pray for you to bless my efforts with

Jeff Bezos: the church and the church, the way I do church and the way that, um, Saddleback does church,

Jeff Bezos: because I follow the purpose driven model. I think these models are great, but where is God

Jeff Bezos: calling your church? Uh, and it might be to lead it and be stable and just die over the next 20 years.

Jeff Bezos: Uh, that, that, that might be your calling. I don't know. Uh, but, but I believe that

Jeff Bezos: there is a ministry opportunity, uh, that, that exists online and it might be to, you know,

Jeff Bezos: I helped a church recently plant a church in Iran exclusively on the internet. They can't plant it. I mean,

Jeff Bezos: there are house churches and things that you can plant, uh, but they literally, it's a digital

Jeff Bezos: church in Iran and, uh, and they do digital small groups and they do digital worship gatherings

Jeff Bezos: through stream yard. And there are literally people in Iran that are a part of the service and

Jeff Bezos: people outside of Iran that are part of the service. There are opportunities that didn't exist.

Jeff Bezos: You couldn't have done that a couple of years ago and the internet wasn't fast enough there in

Jeff Bezos: Iran a couple of years ago. Um, and so you, you, there are just, there, there are so many

Jeff Bezos: opportunities for a leader to just pull back right now and pray, you know, and, and just say

Jeff Bezos: what, and, and I think what Mike said, Mike had a vision to, to, to reach the world. Um,

Jeff Bezos: I had, I, you know, I'll tell you, uh, this is, this is, I'll get personal here. Um, when I started online church, uh,

Jeff Bezos: at CBC with online church.com. I had a very clear vision, um, that I believe is from God

Jeff Bezos: of, of a worship gathering that's going to, and I've never shared this publicly, I don't think,

Jeff Bezos: uh, but that's net that that that's that there will be people from every country and territory around the world in a worship gathering

Jeff Bezos: Um, and, and at, at the same time. And I don't think that's ever happened.

Jeff Bezos: Um, and, and, and I, and I believe that in the next year to two years, we will actually see that moment

Jeff Bezos: happening happen. Um, and it, it seems so impossible to me 10 years ago today. It seems so

Jeff Bezos: possible. And that's a vision because I, I, in that moment I was listening to God and where,

Jeff Bezos: and, and I've been kind of like even a lot of the things in the leaders I've invested into

Jeff Bezos: the more I hear somebody casting a vision for that, that's where I align as a consultant of like,

Jeff Bezos: I want to get next to you and, and help help guide you towards that vision.

Jeff Bezos: But there are other people that have a different vision from God and in a different calling from God

Jeff Bezos: Um, and it might be a different direction. I just think a lot of people haven't leaned into the internet

Jeff Bezos: Because, because honestly, they're not, they're not, they're not leaning into God.

Jeff Bezos: Uh, and it doesn't mean God's going to call everyone to the internet.

Jeff Bezos: I think, though, we just, we put, we put God in a box of this is this the box of a church in a church building and

Jeff Bezos: We do worship and we, and I'm a Saddleback guy. I went to Rockbridge Seminary.

Jeff Bezos: And so it's like we do worship. We do, you know, uh, small groups. We do, you know, missions.

Jeff Bezos: And, and we do it in this way. Well, the reality is, if you take the five purposes of Saddleback

Jeff Bezos: and, you know, Rick Warren's purpose-driven church, it all fits into the internet.

Jeff Bezos: Uh, it fits into, you can do worship online. You can do small groups online. You can fellowship online. You can do discipleship online.

Jeff Bezos: Uh, you can do missions online. Um, it, you, the internet is, is just another tool.

Jeff Bezos: So I, you know, I, I think there's just so many opportunities and I think pastors are not

Jeff Bezos: leaning into the opportunity. And, and I, and I, and I might be overstating it to say the pastors

Jeff Bezos: aren't listening to God, but I believe that there's so much opportunity there. And I think there are some

Jeff Bezos: digital missionaries out there that don't yet, uh, and are scared to take that leap that God

Jeff Bezos: might be pushing on them. And I think this moment, uh, that we're all sitting in is, is probably

Jeff Bezos: stirring a lot of those people. And I hope that they will, it's going to get hard. Does that make sense? It might be fun right now.

Jeff Bezos: Uh, but, but as you lean in and, and if people aren't calling you crazy, I don't think you're leaning in hard enough.

Jeff Bezos: Right. Um, and so I, yeah, I just, I just want to see some pastors, uh, and it doesn't mean they have to

Jeff Bezos: have a physical. I'd rather see some Jeff, even to your point of, I'd rather see some just say I'm going to plant

Jeff Bezos: a digital church. And if we end up having physical gatherings, cool. If we don't, we're going to start on

Jeff Bezos: Twitch and Twitch is going to be our, our, our first campus. Um, and, or we're gonna start on Facebook or we're gonna, you know,

Jeff Bezos: whatever it might be. Uh, but yeah, I just think there's so many and we just haven't even thought of the

Jeff Bezos: Facebook. When I started online church, I come Facebook. I don't think video was even possible

Jeff Bezos: yet on Facebook back then, you know, and then Facebook live. I mean, I, you know, get an iPhone and

Jeff Bezos: you can, anybody can start a church tomorrow. Um, in a church, you know, at the core is just people

Jeff Bezos: gathering, you know, as people in community. Um, we, you don't have to have a license to start a church.

Jeff Bezos: Well, from one crazy guy to another crazy guy. Um, thanks for being crazy. Uh, it's, it's been, uh, it's, it's been

Jeff Bezos: a crazy run. Uh, by the way, I'm gonna do a little commercial here. If you are interested

Jeff Bezos: in planting a digital church or any of the stuff that that Nils was just talking about,

Jeff Bezos: I do apologize for the commercial. Stadia, we're literally recruiting digital church

Jeff Bezos: planners to do exactly what my man's talking about. So, um, you know, looking at your

Jeff Bezos: circle of influence and what you're passionate about figuring out how to utilize

Jeff Bezos: that passion to reach disciple and grow. Yeah. Uh, an ecclesiological model

Jeff Bezos: of church in a digital space. It's possible you can do it.

Jeff Bezos: Tell me how Stadia comes along. So if a pastor

Jeff Bezos: says, I want to plant a digital church. How does Stadia come alongside a pastor to do that?

Jeff Bezos: I am glad you asked. Thank you for that, Nils. So right now we're actually in the process

Jeff Bezos: of developing some fidgetal learning communities where we're literally taking

Jeff Bezos: I've we're developing a lineup of pastors to be part of this, of innovators. A lot of the

Jeff Bezos: people that have been on this podcast and others to come in here and speak as part of this

Jeff Bezos: learning community for about six months. We're looking at taking people through hitting

Jeff Bezos: things like how to be fidgetal, how to staff digital pastor mean. How do you get the entire staff

Jeff Bezos: to be invested and engaged in a fidgetal mindset, digital and physical? What does it mean

Jeff Bezos: target to work with digital community? How do you create a small group that that's reproducing itself?

Jeff Bezos: What does disciples making mean digitally? What are the challenges? How do you become the coldness of technology

Jeff Bezos: with with Christ? How do you create a disciple maker in the space? All sorts. Man, the speakers we've got

Jeff Bezos: coming in. Well, I'm just gonna tell you this. Go to StadiaChurchPlanning.org/Vigital. P-H-Y-G-I-T-A-L.

Jeff Bezos: I totally appreciate the nod there, Nils. It wasn't necessary, but anytime I get to talk about Stadia, I love

Jeff Bezos: doing that. And I'm excited about what's happening there. So if you're wrestling with this space, we'd love to have you in there.

Jeff Bezos: And aside from even churches, because as part of helping churches understand how to be fidgetal,

Jeff Bezos: understanding churches, how to plant digital only, that's part of the process that we're doing.

Jeff Bezos: Another part that we're doing really is working with individuals, people who are not

Jeff Bezos: connected with churches, who are saying, I have a passion about an area.

Jeff Bezos: You know, a guy's like, man, I'm really into alt-VR.

Jeff Bezos: And I'm thinking about what would it be like to be another DJ Soto doing a VR church?

Jeff Bezos: Well, we want to come alongside you and help in that.

Jeff Bezos: That's good.

Jeff Bezos: And so like a lot of this is not let's help on the church side, because I think the churches

Jeff Bezos: need to understand this to resource individuals.

Jeff Bezos: But part of what we're also doing is resourcing individuals to helping them understand

Jeff Bezos: what that is and helping them grow.

Jeff Bezos: And even more than, you know, the phrase is thrive, grow and multiply.

Jeff Bezos: We want to help churches understand how to thrive, grow and multiply.

Jeff Bezos: We also want to help individuals who are interested in planting their own thing,

Jeff Bezos: thrive, grow and multiply through that.

Jeff Bezos: So either way, hit me up.

Jeff Bezos: My information's in the show notes.

Jeff Bezos: And I, Stadia, we would love to have a conversation with you on that.

Jeff Bezos: Totally was not anticipating going in commercial.

Jeff Bezos: Digital, by the way.

Jeff Bezos: Digital, yeah.

Jeff Bezos: Thank you for that.

Jeff Bezos: And I, you know, it's funny.

Jeff Bezos: I'm actually trying to remember where it came from.

Jeff Bezos: It's a business phrase.

Jeff Bezos: Like it's one of those things that I think the business world's a little ahead of us,

Jeff Bezos: the church side, maybe not as far to your point as we think they are,

Jeff Bezos: but they are ahead.

Jeff Bezos: And so the combination of physical and digital merging together.

Jeff Bezos: We're, we're, we're digital people, especially coming out of this COVID season,

Jeff Bezos: We are going to be very digital people.

Jeff Bezos: And so utilizing churches, understanding how to not, it's not about the services,

Jeff Bezos: but about how to utilize the digital to disciple someone,

Jeff Bezos: to be involved in their life seven days a week to help them grow deeper,

Jeff Bezos: to empower them to utilize the digital technology to connect with others,

Jeff Bezos: to disciple more people, to get them connected in God in a new way.

Jeff Bezos: I, we, we just, we had this, and this is, it's a podcast we did recently with,

Jeff Bezos: with Tyler Sansom.

Jeff Bezos: And I have never, I had never thought of this.

Jeff Bezos: Tyler's like, hey, so one of the things we do between services

Jeff Bezos: and small groups that just meet people, get them connected,

Jeff Bezos: kind of in a, in a welcoming area.

Jeff Bezos: You know, the feature on Netflix, where it's like the watch party,

Jeff Bezos: where you can like watch the same Netflix video all at the same time.

Jeff Bezos: So they opened it up to like people, hey, if we're, we're doing family movies.

Jeff Bezos: Uh, if you want to jump on on Netflix, do the watch party thing, come in.

Jeff Bezos: He had 20 families sign up

Jeff Bezos: to watch movies together.

Jeff Bezos: And so they're building relationships.

Jeff Bezos: They're talking.

Jeff Bezos: Some of them might be Christian.

Jeff Bezos: Some of them might not be.

Jeff Bezos: It doesn't matter.

Jeff Bezos: They're building relationships.

Jeff Bezos: And then when it's time to actually like,

Jeff Bezos: You know, one of the weeks.

Jeff Bezos: Hey, maybe we're not going to show a movie this week.

Jeff Bezos: Maybe we'll jump on zoom and talk about what God's doing in our lives.

Jeff Bezos: And some of them may have stories.

Jeff Bezos: Some of them may not, but it's an opportunity

Jeff Bezos: to relationally invest in people to get to that point.

Jeff Bezos: And it's like, if Netflix doesn't exist,

Jeff Bezos: try to get 20 people in a room like that to build relationships.

Jeff Bezos: You really, you really can't.

Jeff Bezos: 40, 60.

Jeff Bezos: Like there's no limit on that unless Netflix has got limitations.

Jeff Bezos: I don't know.

Jeff Bezos: But at the end of the day, like you're utilizing technology

Jeff Bezos: Not to compete with the weekend service, but to compliment it

Jeff Bezos: To do something that only the technology can do.

Jeff Bezos: And to me, this is where, and we're not even as a church.

Jeff Bezos: We're not even utilizing technology in this way yet.

Jeff Bezos: We haven't figured it out.

Jeff Bezos: We're so afraid of it because it's competing with the one hour on Sunday

Jeff Bezos: That we don't want to actually take advantage of the power to relational connect with it.

Jeff Bezos: It's incredible, too, when you think about, and I love this fidget where you can interact,

Jeff Bezos: But you think about the complexity and one of the things transformation is dealing with

Jeff Bezos: is having a 4,000 seat auditorium.

Jeff Bezos: Getting people in and out of a physical service is really complicated.

Jeff Bezos: And the funny thing, and Robert Emmett used to always say this with onlinechurch.com,

Jeff Bezos: Is he's like, look, I don't, we don't have security guards.

Jeff Bezos: We don't, we kind of have digital security guards that ban people.

Jeff Bezos: But it's not so complex when we don't run out of parking.

Jeff Bezos: We don't have to figure out how we get 30 minutes to people leave a service

Jeff Bezos: and then new people to come in.

Jeff Bezos: And we don't care if people double dip on the online services like we do

Jeff Bezos: in the physical services.

Jeff Bezos: And there's just so much opportunity.

Jeff Bezos: And I think, you know, I get excited too.

Jeff Bezos: There is not a locked in model.

Jeff Bezos: One of the visions I really have for churches that I don't see happening much

Jeff Bezos: yet is house churches coming out of it.

Jeff Bezos: And I think that's where church home was going in a lot of ways.

Jeff Bezos: But we kind of these micro gatherings that start of you have a cluster in Ohio,

Jeff Bezos: and you have a cluster in

Jeff Bezos: Pakistan, you know, and you have a cluster in Sydney,

Jeff Bezos: and you have a cluster, you know, 50 miles away from your church building

Jeff Bezos: where people just don't want to drive, but they want to gather or people that

Jeff Bezos: don't want to go into a big auditorium anymore because of COVID.

Jeff Bezos: And they'd rather just be in a living room and watch church on a television

Jeff Bezos: and then eat lunch together and be in like a different kind of community.

Jeff Bezos: Yet they want it from a teaching standpoint.

Jeff Bezos: And I still I believe the pulpit drives the church and I think online church

Jeff Bezos: allows that pastor to be able to speak into those homes.

Jeff Bezos: And I think in many ways we, you know, I think even back to the rabbinical days

Jeff Bezos: of you would choose a rabbi to follow, you know, and I think we still do that.

Jeff Bezos: We choose a pastor of this is the person that I want to speak into my life spiritually

Jeff Bezos: and I want to follow from a teaching standpoint as the primary person speaking in my life

Jeff Bezos: spiritually and now that's no longer limited by geography and you as a pastor are no longer limited by geography

Jeff Bezos: and me as an individual and no longer limited by geography of who who I choose to speak into my life spiritually.

Jeff Bezos: And I, these are the new opportunities that that are not a limitation to church or a distraction from church, but are only an enhancement.

Jeff Bezos: And it doesn't mean you have to reach the world. It does mean you can reach the people within 20 miles even even more.

Jeff Bezos: than you could before and be even more connected. There's man, there's just so many things I love fidgetal.

Jeff Bezos: I tried to go buy fidgetal.church and I saw you already bought fidgetal.church, so you beat me.

Jeff Bezos: Don't buy my domain. I'm already there.

Jeff Bezos: That's awesome.

Jeff Bezos: I was gonna sell it back to you. I was just looking for an upsell.

Jeff Bezos: The funny thing was, I bought that. It's so funny. I bought that like three months, like 2019.

Jeff Bezos: Yeah.

Jeff Bezos: Because I'm like you. I just, I buy domains randomly, come back around, whatever.

Jeff Bezos: And so 2019 I bought that domain and I'm talking with Stadia, you know, February, March.

Jeff Bezos: March, it was in this COVID season 2020. We're talking about fidgetal and working through it's like, hey, let's,

Jeff Bezos: let's push all in on this term. And I went to buy fidgetal.church, not remembering I already bought it.

Jeff Bezos: And so I went to buy it and go daddy and it came back and said already bought. And I'm like, well, crap, who's smart enough to actually be planning ahead.

Jeff Bezos: And so I go into who is looking up was like, oh, I bought it four months ago and didn't even remember.

Jeff Bezos: You forgot that you bought it.

Jeff Bezos: I forgot I even bought it.

Jeff Bezos: So that's, welcome to, welcome to my COVID life.

Jeff Bezos: Are you, are you willing to admit how many domains that you, that you have in your,

Jeff Bezos: Are you a GoDaddy guy? Who do you, what do you use your domains?

Jeff Bezos: Yeah. So I'm a GoDaddy guy. I'm, I'm three figures. I'm not four figures.

Jeff Bezos: You're in the three figures though.

Jeff Bezos: I am, I am three figures. I keep it in context. Honestly, I like my, my, my industry,

bad word, my, my zone, my, the area of, of influences church. So I don't, I don't really

even let myself go outside of that.

Jeff Bezos: Yeah.

Jeff Bezos: You're in the three figures.

Jeff Bezos: Yeah, I am. Lots of, lots of buzzwords, lots of keywords,

Jeff Bezos: Lots of, of things coming up. I've a couple of clients I do stuff for,

but you know, that's, that's, it's on a minimal. I don't want to respond. My, my worst fear is I

forget to renew a domain for a client that that's like there. And so like, I just, I'm as much as

possible. Hey, let me set you up with an account. I'll, I'll do the initial purchase for you.

Jeff Bezos: So you get the discounts and then I'll just hand it to you.

Jeff Bezos: Yeah, that's good. I love it.

Jeff Bezos: Anyway, that's, this is, this is, it's been a, it's a great conversation, man. I love,

Jeff Bezos: I love, uh, you, we got together. I was actually, I was reminded of this and we're

going to, we're going to talk about this later because I've, I'm actually, we're doing a podcast

with Greg Atkinson. Yeah. Um, uh, later this afternoon side of Starbucks, maybe three,

Jeff Bezos: four years ago. Um, yeah, Disneyland, uh, with, with Nils, Jay Cranda, Ray was there

and, uh, and Greg Atkinson, um, just talking crazy. And, uh, to, to see three, four years later,

whatever the math was, um, how crazy has become a reality and how churches are, are, are now wrestling

with this in, in real time, trying to figure out how to adjust. Um, man, thanks for, thanks for what

you're doing. One of the questions, we do want to bring you back. Um, one of the questions that,

that I wanted to ask even was, man, you were one of the like pioneers in this. And so like 10,

20 years ago, did you just real briefly, did you see this coming or was it, was it, was,

was it a, like, did you realize that the church would be in the season where this would become a

reality or were you pushing vision, just hoping to get close to it?

Greg Atkinson: I, and, and I'm going to give you a longer answer, uh, because I, I think it's,

I think it, uh, my, my story, I think my, might even inspire some, someone else of I'm, I'm an

accidental in all of this. I'm not a technology guy. I, um, when I, in 1999, I was a youth pastor,

my first youth ministry gig, I was introduced to AOL instant messenger. And that's where my online

ministry began. That was my first day of youth ministry. A seventh grade girl introduced me

to AOL instant messenger. And so from my first day of ministry, all I knew was digital and physical

and, and my most successful ministry came out of digital relationships that I then merged into

physical relationships. And, and that just went into my space. And then that went into Facebook.

And I, and then, you know, about 12 years ago, I was doing, leading a college service and we had about

75 college students who gathered and somebody introduced me to this platform called Mogulus,

where you can plug in your handy cam to your computer. And now it's live stream.com, which

is now owned by Vimeo. Uh, but it, it was like, I can do this and I can live stream this service

anywhere. We literally had a thousand people that night, watch our service on Mogulus because we,

somebody told me to plug in a camera and I was willing to try it. And we told everybody,

update your Facebook and your MySpace with this link. And then we started reaching the world.

And then, so, so I would just, I was willing to try things. And when I would see something,

I'd be like, oh, I'm going to lean into this. And then I got in the newspaper in San Antonio,

which is where Robert Emmett heard about me. And Robert Emmett took me to lunch and he's like,

do you think, I mean, we've planted 10 churches and I'm just tired of the headache of planting new

churches. Do you think we could do a church on the internet? And I said, I'd love to try to figure it out.

Um, so yeah, so I, I would say he had a vision. I, I was fascinated by life church. Um, and we literally

just figured out how to do church. Like, well, what about small groups? Well, what about

prayer? What about baptism? What about, and, and we just figured it out one step at a time. So I would

say I, I didn't have a vision for this. I had a willingness to try new things and, uh, and God gave me

vision along the way and God gave Robert Emmett vision as our lead pastor. And, and I helped,

I helped him accomplish his vision and me. And now as a consultant, that's what I do. I choose, uh,

clients who, who have a vision I want to align to and help them create structure to, to accomplish

their vision. Um, yeah, so that, so that's my journey into this, but I didn't have a clear vision

and, and I don't have a clear vision for the future, but I want to continue to be a part of

willing to try new things to see. And, and I think I love Craig Grishow's line, anything,

anything short of sin to accomplish the gospel or further the gospel, you know, I don't know exactly

the thing, but anything. And, and for me, it has, it has been the fruits have been when I've leaned into

technology innovation. That was awesome. Thank you for that. Um, man, what well said. I love the fact

that you use the word AOL in my space in a conversation. Like I was, I was Nils BYX, by the way.

BYX. Nils BYX was my AOL. I am name. Brothers under Christ. Yep. Brothers under Christ. Very good.

I'm with you. So yeah. Wow. That's a throwback. Yeah. Uh, what school you were in Texas?

Yeah. I was at, uh, it was Southwest Texas, Texas state university. I think I've got my shirt on.

Yes. Okay. All right. Well done. Okay. Yeah. So I was, I was brothers under Christ at, at TCU.

What year did you graduate? Listen, I'm going to cut all this out. So let's, or maybe I'll leave it in.

I don't know, but what, what year did you graduate? 2002. 2002. Okay. I was 99. All right.

Very cool. I didn't realize that. I mean, I can do like the whole early days of bucks.

Oh my gosh. I can't, in, in one spirit, in one voice, we sing our,

Oh, I, it's been 20 years since I've tried to remember that we see each other physically.

Very good. I'll definitely get you in and raise like these bunch of old guys are freaky right now.

So you guys are part of like an Elks club or like a Stonehenge, you know,

the group that I don't know about, man. Some kind of good.

I love it. So evidently, if you're, if you're, if you're a boxer, you are a shaved head and have a goatee.

Cause evidently that's, that's what we're establishing here in this podcast.

Well, and it's built into your AOL screen name. It's built in.

It had to be. I almost got a bucks tattoo. I I'm kind of glad I didn't. Uh, but I almost went that far.

Yeah. I w I was not that radical. Well done. Um, awesome. Hey Ray, I don't know how you're

going to make sense of this, but as, as we're landing the plane, any closing thoughts?

No, I'm so glad Jeff, you got to throw a pipe organ in the background of when Mills was preaching

there. Cause I was about to get rolling with him and for so long we prayed for acts too, right?

Like I heard churches over and over again, praying for revival and talking about, man,

we want to see a revival happen and just maybe, just maybe what if we're living in it now?

Like, would we actually open our eyes to like, look at the fields, like Jesus said and say,

Hey man, the harvest is here and it's not in a way that we expected.

Maybe a lot of it's going to come digitally. And maybe if we would embrace like what Neil

said so eloquently, and I love this, the vision that God has for us instead of trying to copy

somebody else. Like what if Paul had the ability to say, Hey Jesus, I can't physically get to Macedonia,

but you gave me this camera and you gave me this computer and every other way I keep coming up to

walls. But through this way I can get into that 1040 window. I can preach the gospel. I can get it to

people. There's a relevant method here. If we would just embrace this time for what it is,

sorrows, heartaches, but also the positive things that come with it.

There's so much beauty that could come from this man.

Well said. Well said. Yeah. And we'll have to get the sound effect of the pipe organ in here. That's

a good idea. Um, you're totally listening to the pipe organ right now. Cause I'm going on faith

that I'm going to work it in right about at this point. Okay. Nils. Um, thank you, Ray. Nils,

it's landing the plane. Any, any closing thoughts on your side?

I just want to say, I love you guys. I, I love the relationship we've had through the years online

and, uh, and, and the work you're doing right now, uh, in leading this conversation. Um, it's,

it's special and it's important and it's critical. And I appreciate you letting me be a part of the

conversation. So the podcast I wanted to have was, man, the church needs to figure out how to utilize

long form audio better because we want to hear something other than a sermon. So, and this is

according to Gary V 2020 is the year of long form audio. So church, let's get a clue and figure out

how to create long form audio. I hope you enjoyed the conversation. We did not have, uh, instead, uh,

we dove into this, uh, innovative entrepreneurial church model, which, or just what a church would

look like if it was innovative and entrepreneurial. So thank you for this conversation. We'll have to

bring you back another time and actually get into the audio piece because I would love your angle on

that. And so we'll get there for Ray, uh, for nails. This is Jeff with the church digital. Once again,

thanks for jumping on the podcast and we'll see you next time here on the show. Y'all have a good day.