EP069: Thinking Digital First Even When We Get Back to the Building

Hey, this is Jeff with The Church Digital. We're going to get started with the episode here in just a minute, but before we get there, we all know Stadia, the organization that's been powering The Church.Digital.

Well, guess what? Stadia is opening up some learning communities. We've been doing this for a while now. We've got about 70 churches that are actually part of these learning communities.

They're learning how to thrive, grow, and multiply, not just physically, not just digitally, but digitally, the combining of physical and digital.

And it's been a beautiful, beautiful thing. We've got content coming in from churches like Crossroads, from Saddleback, like Church Home.

But guess what? It's not a content thing. Content's nice. Content doesn't change your church. Let's just say it. It doesn't.

I'm a podcast operator. I understand this. It's not going to change your church.

The ability to walk with someone and to help you understand some of the guidance, some of the accountability, the community of connecting with other churches, engaging with them,

conversations with people as you wrestle with some of these things to try to figure out how to make your physical church and your online church authentically you that lines up with your missions, visions, and strategies,

or maybe is even tightly intertwined that maybe some of that strategy changes to get more online.

This is what Stadia is trying to create, an opportunity for you to learn and to dialogue and to change your church to thrive, grow, and multiply.

It's a beautiful, beautiful thing.

Hey, the learning community starts in August.

So right now, go to stadiachurchplanting.org slash digital.

P-H-Y-G-I-T-A-L.

Stadiachurchplanting.org slash digital.

And more information will be there for you to learn about these learning communities.

This has been great. It's been fun.

But let's go ahead and get you now to that podcast episode.

Episode 69 of the Church Digital Podcast powered by Stadia Church Planning.

Once again, Jeff here, excited about the podcast that's happening here.

Awesome topic.

How do we, church, how do we get back into our buildings?

What's the plan?

What should the plan be?

What should we be taking into consideration as we're heading back into the buildings?

And the funny thing is, other than this, like, intro, I really didn't contribute much into this conversation.

Because the people we had on the podcast were so passionate.

They were so excited about this, they wouldn't stop talking.

And through the process, we had a fascinating conversation about how to be digital first in this season.

In addition to going into the buildings, which is back, which is important, and the buildings play a role.

Have we learned anything in this season towards being digital first?

And so that's the conversation that we're having.

It's an awesome conversation.

Matt Welty, technology pastor out of Crossroads up in Cincinnati.

Jason Morris, Westside Family, Kansas City, their global innovations pastor.

Of course, Ray DeArmis, co-host regular here, digital pastor, Christ Fellowship Miami.

Myself, Jeff, with the Church Digital, as well as Stadia Church Planning,

in a conversation that I'm calling Digital First, even when we get back to the building.

Okay, everybody, here you go.

Have you two met each other or had talks?

Yes, you made the connection.

We called each other and had a lot of really great conversations.

I'm really kind of curious to see what Crossroads is thinking now on this particular topic for the podcast.

Because you guys were already probably a couple of steps ahead anyway for most churches.

So I'm kind of curious to see how you guys are approaching it.

We're like doing a complete flip, it seems.

So it's going to be super interesting.

I can't wait to hear more about that.

Man, hey, Ray.

Yeah, I'm thinking like, oh, this is going to be great.

I'm going to let Jason answer everything first.

No, no, no, no.

I'm going to be like, okay.

No.

Here's what Crossroads is thinking.

Here's what I'm thinking.

I don't know.

Yeah.

Also, everything will change too.

That's the fun part about this topic is like in a month.

It's more of like how do you approach thinking about it.

Not only in a month, two months, and then a year from now.

Yeah.

There are probably going to be three separate models.

Yeah.

Agreed.

Yeah.

It's more about the philosophy of how do you think about reopening versus the when do you do it and what's the specific tactic.

It's like, well, you're going to do it three times.

So, yeah, I agree.

Or just try to do it twice or once.

Yep.

Depending upon how you look at it.

And that's one of the things where we as a church are like saying, man, there would be so much pain in creating a transitional plan for the next month, maybe two.

It's not worth it.

For a church of our size, it's not worth it.

Yeah.

Like you, you know, opening your buildings back up doesn't take the same amount of effort as having a service did three months ago.

It's, you're going to pull additional effort away from things that could be really fruitful right now.

Exactly.

Or potentially less return.

Yeah.

No joke.

Are we allowed, is this the kind of stuff we're allowed to say, Jeff?

Well, you know, I'm not even recording this whole time.

I'm not even sure if we officially started this thing yet.

You guys just kind of dove straight into it.

That's awesome.

I told Ray, I was like, I mean, this is all day.

This is all I'm thinking about getting up at three o'clock in the morning, thinking about this stuff.

Ray, Ray, Ray emailed me earlier today or texted or something.

He's like, Hey, how should I prepare for this thing?

And I'm like, are you kidding?

We're going to like let these two guys go in the room.

We're going to like press record.

And they're just going to go.

I mean, the smartest that's in here.

I just want to get out of the way of the conversation and really let this happen.

I've had 27 year old pastors, Jeff, I'm going to do everything I can to get back in that building as fast as possible.

And like who are just miserable in this, in this digital experiment.

I've had 65, 66 year old pastors, Jeff, we are not going to go back into a building until we can hug somebody.

So we are fully engaging in doing this digital movement as long as possible until the place that we can do church the way that we have been designed to do, to do church.

So like, let's, let's fall in love with this digital strategy.

And it's not an age thing.

It's, it's when I still hear the pastor, it might be an experience thing because the guys that have been doing it, you know, 65 years or whatever, they know the amount of effort and energy it takes to pull this off week after week.

And so they're thinking of it from a different mindset because they're, they're talking about managing not only their own energy, but managing the energy of their

congregation because they've seen things come and go really quickly.

And that's something that the 27 year old hasn't learned yet.

Cause he's just like, let's just get it done.

Let's get it done.

You know?

And he's not, he's not really thinking about the marathon like the 65 year old is.

Yeah.

And that, this is a marathon, especially with the stage rollout that we have here in Kansas city, dude, it's going to be at least six months.

Here's, here's the part that for me is a little pernicious is that technically in the state of Kansas, because of all the kerfuffle that's been happening and in Johnson County, which is the county that our church is in, that has the highest number of COVID cases of the whole state.

The governor is saying one thing, the county is saying another, but both are afraid of touching the church.

They're calling the church an essential business, which is great.

I mean, especially after all the kerfuffle in Kansas, you know, with the governor over it.

Right.

So, um, they're calling it an essential business.

So basically it's like, okay, it's up to you pastors.

Then go for it.

You take the responsibility of the health of your County, of your neighborhood and of your state.

It's on, you know, because the sports guys, they're not doing anything.

I mean, every other large gathering has been clamped down except for the church.

And this is one of those weird legal things about separation of church and state kind of stuff where it lays out in wacky ways for pastors right now.

And now we've got pressure from both sides.

We've got pressure from the culture to not open.

And then you've got pressure from people in our churches to open.

And that's weird.

We've never had that before.

To this, for me personally, is a, like when I can, doesn't mean you should situation, because I think we're allowed.

It's an incredible thing.

It's how affirming even that a lot of state governments are saying, hey, churches are essential businesses.

Yeah, that's great.

That's, that's a great thing.

And when you, we, we have to pay attention to the, the currency of culture right now.

And for the people we're trying to reach, yes, it will crush our witness to not be socially conscious and care about the health of people that we're trying to reach.

And so it's one thing for church people.

Absolutely.

We want, because it will give us a sense of normalcy.

As a church goer, as someone who's been in that habit, this will give me an anchor that feels great.

And it will be amazing.

And I'll get to see my people and that'll be awesome.

But we're going to reopen and risk our witness to unbelieving people who we hope to reach and welcome into the family of God so that the church people who are already engaged in our church currently can come back into a building.

And that might not be the right trade-off.

Right.

Because you would think that we would have learned from the example of Jesus that it's not about us.

It's about that lost person who doesn't know Jesus yet.

And if we do something stupid culturally that puts yet another mark against the name of Jesus, I think we're kind of going to be held accountable for that too.

Way to throw the dagger in there, bro.

It's about love your neighbor as yourself kind of a deal.

Oh, I know.

That was just the Jesus kook that I needed, though.

That was really good.

And so, you know, both of you bring up a very, very good point.

And I guess kind of what a lot of this comes down to in terms of how a lot of this is functioning is do we satisfy our current crowd, which is always a question in church, right?

Do we satisfy our current crowd or do we do what it takes to make sure that we're consistently tapped in with reaching people for Christ?

That's been like the battle of like the last like 50 years of church, right?

Like in terms of, hey, do we consider going more seeker sensitive versus just tapping into like what we've currently going on?

Do we consider going digital versus just keeping things the norm, you know?

This is yet another hard fought battle on that front.

Am I correct in kind of not summing it up, but just looking at it from that perspective?

Yeah, and I would even say it goes beyond 50 years.

I mean, even when you look at 1 Corinthians 14 and the Apostle Paul says, do your church services differently so that the new person who's coming in doesn't think you're crazy.

So I think this is just another application of that idea where, for whatever reason, any organization, whether it be religious or not, tends toward introspection, tends toward complexity, tends toward serving the needs of their members and gets real introspective and real inward focused instead of outward focused.

That's just human nature.

The gap between the people who are already a part of the church, believe what we believe, following Jesus alongside of us and community with us, is growing wider between the people that we're trying to reach.

So I think we have to pay attention to that too.

There was in that last 50 years, in those five decades, that was closer together.

There were, we shared values.

There was an association with church.

There was no big barrier to walking into a building.

But today, like, to go back to how it was before is a false narrative.

It's a fantasy to think, like, we'll go back to the way it was.

There won't be a big barrier for people who don't yet believe what we believe to come into our big, dark building.

We don't know what's going to happen there.

And drop off your kids.

Yeah, right?

Like, sing real breathy in all directions, no matter what, the step forward is how does the combination of both of these things.

It's not an abandon what we were doing physically.

Right.

It's as we step forward, what are we learning now, because we have to in this digital mode, that is effective at reaching new people and is effective at engaging disciples and making disciple makers.

Right.

And then what do we add back in as we can, and when do we do it?

And there'll be, hopefully, lots of different variations of that, depending on the church.

Yeah, one of the really great quotes that, I don't know, maybe, Jeff, you posted this or something.

I don't remember who posted it, but it was an Alan Hirsch quote where he said that church in COVID season right now is having to do things completely differently.

So, what it does is really good chess masters will practice without their queen.

And what we're learning right now is I personally believe that Jesus is forcing us to be really good at our game so that we can find other ways of doing the disciple making mission that Jesus called us to do without a Sunday weekly service.

So, so that we can explore all these other things and discover there, we have more power at our disposal than we realize.

And this, the queen is always nice to have, but it's an add-on.

And what, what has happened, I think, in kind of this punctuated church history of the past three or four months is it used to be that churches had an on-site, they were an on-site church with an online add-on.

Now in COVID season, everybody's an online church.

And post-COVID, we'll see what happens, but I, I'll tell you that there are churches that are forward-thinking from the things we're learning right now and how to play chess well and realizing how much power and how many more pieces we actually have on the board that they're considering.

I mean, like our church is considering flipping to becoming an online church with an on-site add-on.

And that's a different model that I think is more scalable and has more potential for leadership development and probably is even a little bit closer to what we find in scripture.

And I definitely think that it's probably going to be more effective with the culture that we will find ourselves in post-COVID season.

I mean, at the end of the day, I think all of this is playing.

And it's funny, I think two or three times the whole Alan Hirsch queen has come up through blogs or podcasts.

It's been a, it's been a common theme.

We have used the queen.

We, the American church, has used the queen way too much.

And as a result of that, we became just, that's the only tool that we would use on the chess board.

This has removed it.

And I do think it has a place.

I, the guy who's like director of digital church planting, it's my job to plant digital only churches.

I am saying there isn't, there is a place for a physical location in that.

And even in that though, we need to realize it's a tool, not the method towards it.

And so that's where I think hopefully churches, and I love this idea of digital first where, and this is really the thing that I wanted to kind of park on because it's a different mentality.

Jason, to your point, it's, it was physical first and then maybe an option of digital.

I mean, and that's, and you were far more aggressive in that maybe 10% of churches who were broadcasting pre-COVID.

But for the majority of the church, it was physical first and digital is like, you know, get the people in the physical building.

That's it.

There was not looking at online as discipleship opportunities within that virtual space.

We've got a season now here to pivot.

Matt, Matt floored me when we were talking about this podcast, when I invited him in.

And I was like, hey, Matt, yeah, come on.

I want to talk about when we get back to the building.

And Matt emailed, text, whatever it was.

He's like, he called me out, which I love.

And he's like, Jeff, you're, you're, you're looking at it backwards.

We're not going back to the building.

We're implementing physical locations into our new founded digital strategy.

And in that one statement, I'm like, oh my God, she just, I have told that story to 15 people because it's, it's like when we're doing this, when we're even considering this, let's not forget everything we've learned, but let's add to it.

So I want to hear this.

So Matt, I mean, I've got some things that we've been doing that I could share, but I really want to hear what Matt has to say because they've been doing micro-siting and they're a little, a few steps ahead of the game on that front.

And so I'm kind of curious as to what has changed in this season, what your plans are going forward, if you have any, or if they're just conjecture at this point, that's fine.

I still want to hear it.

Yeah, they, they are conjecture.

I mean, any, anybody who has a hard and fast plan is going to get that plan disrupted really soon.

So we don't, we don't have a hard and fast plan.

We, it's a, it's a, it's a missionary mindset for me.

It's, it's the approach to the problem to go, we're not preserving and protecting our method of church.

We are, as, as the people we're trying to reach, just like if we were to get picked up from America, we're in Ohio, so we're like in the middle of the middle or I don't know, Kansas is maybe the middle of the

middle, but we, and go to a different country with a different language.

We wouldn't go, well, everyone come do it the way that we do it.

We would, we all know this like any, you know, and so we would get in and do the native language.

Culture has changed pre-COVID, but for sure all of us are having to, you know, get gripped by this fact that the native language of the people we're trying to reach is digital.

So we've, this is our opportunity if we'll let it for God to show us the new capability we need in our organization.

So we, we had experimented.

Like I, if we're ahead, we're only ahead in experimenting and gathering up mistakes and figuring out as we go.

But we, I mean, we have, we, we have done the microsite or the, you know, sort of more smaller gatherings, watch parties like Elevation is, and so many other churches are doing inside of the initial weeks of stay at home orders.

Our staff, like so many church staffs have shifted to great.

We're picking up the phone.

We've called every person in the church.

How can we pray for you?

In most cases, leaving voicemails, no one picks up the number they don't know, but that's a pretty nice voicemail to get like, Hey, this is from your church.

You know, um, and, and going, it's, I think too, even the phone call thing, that's a great example of how, when we say digital first, we don't digital.

It digital first is still people doing ministry with people.

Yes, it is a different tool.

That's a platform changing.

It's like, if you were to go back to whenever buildings came online and 300 AD or something, you're like, Oh, you guys are, you guys are going building first.

That's interesting.

No, we're just, you're adapting to the culture.

You know, I would have loved to have been a part of those conversations as a digital guy.

Like that would have been good for me.

Cause now, you know, all the building guys are like digital now, you know?

So yeah, it, it, it is a moving forward and buildings play a critical role in it.

Like, but for us to go, let's not lose any of our innovation that we're experiencing now.

Let's not lose any of our momentum.

We've, we've validated for people that they can be engaged in the church, growing spiritually, reaching their friends without a building.

So instead of going back, it's just a mindset to go, as we add a building back in, what is, what is it?

What can only a building do?

What, how do we use it in a way that is so unique and so value added?

Because it won't, if we're honest with ourselves, all of the church people already engaged in our churches will come back to our buildings when we reopen them.

And then in a few weeks, if we're offering only what we're offering online inside of our buildings, they will opt for the more convenient way to be engaged in our churches.

We've valid, the good news is that we've said in this COVID period, this is an authentic expression of church, what we're doing digitally.

We can't bring buildings back in, in a way that takes all of that away, especially because it's going to be the minority of our churches coming to gather together.

So we're going to get a small group gathered together and say, okay, just kidding guys, all that stuff we were doing online, it's not, not fully church anymore.

You got to come here for the full church experience.

So we've got, that's the mindset of we can't go back.

We've got to figure out how to pull buildings back in to the full toolbox.

I've got a question though, because one of the things we're wrestling with is which one takes primary.

And in our mind, it's like, you know what, we should probably go to the place where online takes primary as the primary expression of worship.

And your on-site expression of worship now takes a back burner to what we are programming for, putting all of our energy in.

And resourcing, staffing, all that kind of stuff.

Because pre-COVID, it was the opposite.

We were broadcasting what was happening on site.

Now, what we could do is we could throw in the room on the screen what we have pre-prepared for everyone online.

Yeah.

So that's a flip.

That's one of the things that we're talking through because one thing that's really great about creating all of your workflows, all of your worship, all of your teaching, all that stuff that is prepared and optimized for the screen is that the screen is scalable.

You can put it in a small room.

You can put it in your pocket.

You can put it in a big room.

It doesn't matter.

Right?

We've got campuses all over the place that just do video.

And obviously, the screen works there.

Right?

Yeah.

So if we were to optimize all of our processes, all of the energy for Sunday's coming kind of stuff on the video first, then we can scale it and let people go wherever they want.

That's kind of what we're thinking at this point.

I love it.

So personal opinion is in full agreement with that.

We internally at Crossroads a year and a half ago, I think is about the timing of it, we went screen first.

So that was an internal call to action.

We will create screen first content for every venue.

And it was just what you're describing, Jason.

And that was the mindset behind it and made mistakes along the way.

So for us, one of the mistakes we made was we, well, the metaphor we used was Jerry Seinfeld.

So Seinfeld, an incredible comedian, prolific live entertainer, but only so many people could see him live.

When you put Jerry's, no loss of DNA, his comedy inside of a sitcom, it scales.

Yes, but here's the thing, though.

Wait, wait, wait.

You're not going to criticize Seinfeld here.

No, no, no, I'm not.

I'm not.

But I want to draw a distinction.

Like there's few sacred cows.

No, I get it.

Okay, okay.

Okay.

I think you're going to point out one of the mistakes we got, though.

Here's a critical distinction, though.

There is a difference between watching the Seinfeld show and watching a TV show that's one of his comedy routines on stage.

There is a difference.

The way that you program it, the way that you edit it, the way that you leave room for commercial, all those things in a normal sitcom is a completely different metaphor of storytelling than the way that one would do it standing on a stage.

Totally agree.

And what we're trying to pull off right now is not to recreate a stage experience on Sunday in our videos, but create a completely new method of storytelling altogether.

And that impacts the way that we program, it impacts liturgy, it impacts, you know, the way that we try to make it interactive, all of those things.

And we're still experimenting.

We've got one coming out this Sunday that I think is getting close.

We're starting to figure it out, what we can do.

But it's radically different, and it's very disruptive for people that are used to, like, the worship guys are like, what do we do?

How do we do this?

You know, they want to do a stage thing, you know, and everybody film it, but that doesn't fit in what we're trying to do with video first kind of stuff.

So go ahead.

I want to dig in there for both of you.

I want to hear it from both of you, because, Jason, by the time this podcast comes out, like, this will have already happened.

So, Matt, you're going to go next, but, you know, we had to basically stick a dynamite to the whole thing, too, once we hit COVID in terms of the service.

And we had to say, okay, this made sense from exactly what you said, bringing a stage experience to online.

Now, when it's online first, the whole thing, the whole shebang had to change from beginning to end.

Our experience of worship, the way that our worship leaders interacted with the camera, even the way that our communicators talk, length of sermon, et cetera.

So, Matt, for sure, you go.

Jason, I want to hear what you guys got on the docket coming up this weekend.

So, yeah, we've experimented with some of this.

We've done on-location teaching.

So we've gone far away to different parts of the world to go, okay, we're connecting in the geography and what you can feel to the teaching background.

That was an early experiment, and it was better than on-stage teaching.

Way more immersive, can play in more places.

We tried a reality TV show format.

So we used our camps structure, and we followed people through a two-day camp experience, spiritual, mountaintop, exceptional vulnerability, the whole thing.

In 100 ways, it was great.

And in 100 ways, we learned, like, okay, that was cool, but it was also a reality TV show.

And all the people coming for church would say, that was a great reality TV show, but I wanted you to give me church.

So on-location teaching was a little bit better at that.

And so, you know, and so then our more recent versions of on-location teaching are way more interactive.

It's not just a backdrop where Brian was just in Israel, a story where Jesus puts mud in the guy's eyes to take away his blindness, but can't see until he walks the half mile from where this happened down to the river to wash the mud out of his eyes,

which is a piece of the story I'd never thought about before.

And so Brian, blindfolded with mud in his eyes, walks the half mile as he continues to teach about the doubt and the fear and that you have to take action and faith and all these things.

So that kind of new, that's the, at least for us at the moment, that new mode of storytelling to get the sermon across, which was great.

What we've found is that scales everywhere.

And the great news is you can take that same video product.

If you just play it in an auditorium, good, but not great.

Because why come in for just what I could watch on my couch.

But now in an auditorium, in a building, you can augment that with worship experiences from your worship leaders that can't happen anywhere else.

From commentary from Brian or some of the other, like, so we'll do a in and out of video thing where Brian will play a clip of what you can watch the whole thing online.

If you're, but if you're in our buildings, you're going to see a 15 minute clip and then Brian's going to riff on it.

And so it creates this new in-room church experience.

But you, to your point, Jason, you're, you've created a new type of content that's now usable in so many different places, which is really healthy for our churches too.

Because most of our churches are, were made to only produce one thing.

Right.

We've optimized for the past hundred years.

Even our buildings are optimized for one kind of experience.

They do one thing.

So if you, if you flip that in COVID season and take this opportunity to get optimized, to create screen first content, that may work for another five years.

But what it, what it will do is also create a capability in your staff and your organization to pivot again, if you need to.

So now what we're, what we're doing is our online experiences will be different than our in-room experiences.

They'll share some of the same assets.

Yeah.

We're having that conversation too.

And which is a little scary for me because I know all the work that it's going to take.

Totally.

But one, one thing that I think to your point that I've been talking about as well is if we create core content with which each environment can contextualize and add to as needed.

And we know that this 15 minutes is not going to be a whole service, but this will be the core part of the service that keeps us all unified together as a church network.

Yeah.

Right.

This is what we're all going to be doing on Sunday or Saturday night or whatever.

Right.

This is what we're going to be doing this week.

Right.

And each environment can scale it up or down as needed, including the online environment.

So if the online environment, you know, we've got 15 minutes of really high production, high quality storytelling via video.

Now I can do cut ins and riff on that to just my online audience, right?

Knowing that it's my online audience is the primary people that are going to be receiving it.

This is something that's probably going to happen, you know, six months down the road when everybody kind of settles into whatever their rhythm happens to be.

And I will be able to minister to in a specific and contextualized way to that audience in particular, knowing that in the big room of a thousand people or in the other room that we have across town with our multi-site, you know, with 300 people, they're going to be contextualizing it differently.

But we're all going to have that same core content at least.

And that way, instead of having that core content come from one place on a stage, it is now storytelling from video perspective first.

Yes.

And I think we can have way more interactivity around that.

One of the things that we're putting into the video thing for ours right now, and this is what we're experimenting with this Sunday, is to have a particular block of time set aside in the video with like a little countdown and stuff in there.

And prayer prompts to have prayer moments in the middle of the video, so that people can, wherever they are, gather their whole family together and say, okay, we're going to pray for this right now.

And there's like these prayer prompts and these little visuals and things like that to keep things going, you know, and then pulling them out of that prayer time into a worship time, you know, but it feels it's not, it's not passive.

So, and that's one of the big things about video I think we need to figure out is keeping it not passive because people are used to watching TV, they're used to watching movies, all those things where you just sit back in the lazy chair in your pajamas and just like coast.

Yeah.

And that's not what we want to do in church, church is supposed to be participative read first Corinthians 14 and everybody's supposed to be bringing something we have to figure out how all of us together can participate.

And I think that's one of the things that people are feeling that vacuum right now, that hole, because they're watching videos and honestly, they're watching videos from everybody.

But if the participation though, you can't, you can't fake that, you know, you can't just watch participation.

You have to create participation.

So that's, that's a great thought.

And I definitely want to have that conversation eventually about how Christians are content overloaded and discipleship start.

Like we'll have that conversation down the road.

I'm pretty sure Jeff will have us back on for that one.

Really, what I want to know is, should we be creating more second screened experiences than if that's the case to ensure that people have that kind of conversation and that kind of participation?

Because for instance, one of the things that I love about the NBA right now is NBA Twitter, because for me, it's, it's, it's a second screened experience.

Not only am I watching the game, but there are jokes, there's inside things.

There's all sorts of stuff happening alongside of it.

You know, Netflix party has kind of erupted and it's become a thing, you know?

And so now I can watch videos and participate with others in that as well.

Yes.

So here for church, how can we make sure and create conversational experiences with this, within the service, both physical and digital?

To ensure that that kind of thing continues.

So it's interesting that you had mentioned that particular scenario with NBA, that you watch the game.

So there's like three different layers of things going on.

There's an actual game that's going on on site in an arena somewhere where people are interacting with one another with this, with different people than the people that are watching it on TV.

But the interaction platform is the same common denominator with both audiences.

I think there's, there are things to be learned there and to be mined there where you can have people on site interacting with people online and create that cross network effect that's happening.

And the only, the only downside to that is, is that y'all have to be on the same time.

So that's where we come back to live versus prerecorded.

See, one of the benefits we have right now is, and this is what we're kind of experimenting with right now is, how can we make prerecorded content, which if you get the quality up, you kind of have to.

How do you get prerecorded content, have the interactivity of live, more than just chat.

And I've seen certain churches take like a zoom call like this, where they'll have people interacting, but they'll do it like mystery science theater 3000 style, where they're watching a video, but everybody else is kind of interacting at the same time.

So that would be one approach that is not chat related, where you have this participative thing, polls and surveys and things like that.

If you're doing it in a live environment, then you can respond to the responses that are happening in real time and people feel like, oh, I'm a part of this, they're paying attention to me.

Q&A sessions, those types of things that can happen cross campus, cross location.

Just the timing thing is what you have to snap into when you create those interactive experiences.

And that's, that's where for me, it's like, okay, how do we, how do we pull this off in a good way?

So that's it, we're experimenting with this Sunday with these prayer moments.

And I'm telling people, if you're in the room, you got people in the room, then pray with the people in your room.

If you're by yourself, or you're watching this later, pray in the comments.

And so, or pray in the chat, you know, so all of the, you are not alone.

That is the thing that people want to feel.

And that's why there's so much push toward going back to the building.

It's because they want to feel part of something again, they want to participate again.

And that, that core desire, we should really think about hard.

Because if anything, any pastor wants to have is somebody who wants to participate.

So let's figure that out in the digital space.

And then when we put the onsite add on, that'll just be easy at that point.

Your prayer moment, Jason, I think it's brilliant.

I can't wait to, I'm going to watch it.

And I can't wait to hear what you, as you debrief it with your team, what happens.

What it reminds me of is if you guys have ever done a Google sprint, they have this phrase

they use in there that's called working alone together.

I'd never thought about it in this context, but what you're setting people up to do, even

if they watch it on demand later on, you're pausing their moment, you're causing them

to interact.

And even if they're only interacting with their family or they're by themselves, they are

with their church, they're doing something alone together.

This is something our movement did, even if it's a little bit separated by time.

And I think too, the, the chat during service, we, we've got to be careful about labeling that

as community or as participation.

It is for some, but also when we go back into buildings, I don't think any of us are going

to be like, and we'd love for everyone to just continue to chat during the sermon.

And we're, it's a, if we go online, that'll never happen.

I don't think we should go back to a sermon.

That's the thing.

Hey, everyone be quiet.

We're going to do our thing now.

Like, so online thinking like, what are those core actions?

What does participation mean?

If I watch on my, my Roku, the sermon this week, and I'm struck by this revelation, this

teaching, this thing that should lead me to an action.

We, we are, we have a know and do within all of our teaching structures where we go, we

don't want people to know more stuff, want them to practice more stuff.

So everything has to end in a do.

So I think too, that second screen experience could be a second moment experience.

So it could, it can be not timed at the same time.

It could be take an initial action.

Like, um, this would be about like, uh, text something to this number because on Monday

morning, we're going to, we're going to, we're going to send you a stimulus to do X.

Dude, there's an idea.

Yeah, it is a good idea.

You've created this participation.

Yeah.

But it's separate and everybody can, even if I watch that on demand a year later,

potentially with this, you know, and, and so I think too, like when you're, you're

creating screen first content, you're thinking about evergreen interactions that

people can have, the other benefit that comes from the screen first content is you're

setting yourself up, not just for the scalability that weekend in different

environments, you're automatically creating all of your long form on demand

content for years to come that people search up what's usable on social media, which I

think we all have to figure out how to get the most out of every single resource right

now and forever.

But interaction is, I have a lot of passion around that to figure out what does that mean

in the digital space when it's mixed in with my life happens in this, you know, if I'm

in this room watching church, how do I interact?

What does that mean?

But there are some tangible steps I can take in obedience and response to God.

And they can be in the moment, worship, prayer, but you could extend the service well into

the week, or maybe even start to get into some of that engagement discipleship stuff.

Cause we're not, we're getting people out of content consumption mode into like, oh yeah,

I did, I did say I wanted on Sunday to do that thing on Wednesday.

How helpful my church just helped me follow through on that.

One of the things that I think has been helpful in this COVID season, because the queen in the

same way where it can go laterally and diagonally, the queen, as it relates to the Sunday service

is both a building and a time.

So, and it's a weekly thing.

So we just went away from weekly and we went away from building those two constraints.

I think you've just tapped into, as it relates to possible interactions where you could have

like a staggered interaction where on one day you're saying, Hey, respond in this way.

And we will talk about it three days later when we have our prayer time together, you know,

live at five, whatever that is.

And you've, you've just, you, you like disintegrated two things.

One is you disintegrated the building and the other you disintegrated weekly Sunday, which

is super helpful because I, we're finding in this time that we're getting more done daily

than we could weekly.

We're getting more done when it comes to parents, empowering them to pastor their own kids and

they're awakening to their own, um, priesthood in their homes, like never before.

And we're getting feedback now where they're like, uh, I don't want to send them to Sunday

school.

And that's because I don't like you guys, but I feel like I can do a better job.

All of us should hear kids ministry is one of the reasons we always hold up as a unique

thing that people come to the building for, which is for sure.

True.

If you're early in your spiritual walk, you haven't had some of those epiphanies you're

talking about, but I do think a lot of churches are figuring out how to distribute the development

discipleship of kids.

And so we're, that is one, that is one of the barriers is interesting.

Yes.

That's one of the barriers too, for a lot of the micrositing stuff.

Cause whenever you talk about like small groups, microsites, um, community groups, missional

communities, the question always is, what are you going to do with the kids?

Right.

And we're figuring that out now in this time period.

So that that is no longer an obstacle because we've already got that figured out.

We did it in COVID season.

We can do it here.

And that will unlock all kinds of scalability for us as the big C church, like we've never

seen before.

But there's, there's other things too, where people, you know, we're calling them up on

the phone.

They're having like these personal interactions and they're saying things like, you guys never

called me before.

And so now, now we're like having these personal conversations, we're praying with people and

the people are telling us, this is more meaningful to me than Sunday.

Thank you.

And so if that's true and what is also true, we did like this, uh, Barna check-in thing

that a lot of churches are doing right now.

And we got results back that were surprising to us, but not that unlike what are a lot of

other large churches are experiencing too, where there were three basic questions.

When it's time to go back to the building, you know, what are your expectations?

Um, and question number one, what are the answer?

Number one response was, Oh, I'll come back.

You guys, I'm in, you guys do whatever you want.

I'm in.

Right.

Right.

That was, that was only 19% said that.

Hmm.

13% said, these stats are your church, right?

These, so 19% at West side.

Okay.

Keep going.

I'm sorry.

Um, and if I get the percentages a little off, it's because they were moving around a little

bit as the survey went through, but the general, the general thing was true.

Okay.

So here's, here's the other thing.

13% said, I'm not coming back until there's a vaccine.

Wow.

That's fair.

And all the rest of them, 69% is, I will only come back with proper health and safety

measures in place.

So we just got this big old indication right there.

Whenever that time comes, whether it is when gatherings can be tens, fifties, or thousands,

the way church is going to look in large gatherings will be different.

It has to be, or we're only going to have 20% of the people show up.

We might be actually okay with that, knowing that the rest of the 80% are online, getting

the job done in their homes and in missional communities and stuff like that anyway, which

kind of brings the question then, if we're getting twice as much work done, twice as much

discipleship for half the cost, why would we want to go back to the building?

So you use it for something different.

Yes.

Like that's the, like, that's what we, we have this incredible opportunity.

To go, to go into the building with a new objective for what happens in the building.

Yes.

If you happen to be a church where you, you've discovered that you're delivering some of the,

some, probably some of the same value, but way more efficiently through all these digital

tools, you have this incredible asset.

So what is it?

And worship is one of those, like for, for the body of believers to be in corporate worship

where the Holy Spirit comes into a room, like you, I can be moved through worship.

Online.

I am authentically worshiping.

It's different when you're in there.

And so, okay, great.

How do we lean into that unique thing that can happen in a building?

What community things can happen in a building?

How can you raise the value?

Like I think about for Leah and I got three little kids.

You know what?

If we could do date night and church in one, that sounds pretty amazing for us in a week.

Like if we could come and kids club doubled as a babysitter and we could drop off our kids.

So crossers is a bit different.

So this next thing I'm going to say, I don't know if everyone will love, but like I can grab

a beer and she can grab a glass of wine and then we can go into church and we can have

an immersive church experience.

And then come out and chat about it a little bit and probably run into some of our friends

who are in a similar life stage before we go grab our kids from kids club.

That's an offering that a building can do that, that I can't, I can't get on one.

And so, and it may or may not have anything to do with a sermon or worship music or the

normal liturgies we're thinking of.

Right.

So as, as we, as we go forward or go, we think about bringing buildings back in, it's great.

What do these add?

Cause we're, we're not digital focus.

We're not building focus.

We're people focused.

So what do people need to help them know Jesus, accelerate their growth to Jesus, accelerate

their path to community, whatever they, whatever you're trying to do, but pick, potentially

pick a new objective or a sharper one for what happens in your building and only bring it

back to do that thing.

Yes.

So to your point, some of the things that I've got like on this list of proposal things that

I'm like submitting.

One of the things is to only use the building for like monthly or quarterly events, like

the big ones.

And when we do the big ones, we blow them out.

Like just big time, high production that we can spend a lot of time working up toward,

setting up the stage, doing all these things.

So like when we launch a series, we're going to do it big.

When we do Christmas, when we do Easter, we do back to whatever that happens to be.

Do it really, really big, bigger than we've ever done it.

And we do it once a quarter or, or whatever, you know, and we can spend all quarter for

that special event and have everybody there on those big things.

And knowing that it only happens about once a quarter, if the COVID thing is still a factor,

we can spread out those, those experiences over the course of a week to disperse the crowd

a little bit.

It's going to make it a whole lot easier than to try to pull that off every single Sunday

because the dispersal of that will, will grind our staff into the ground.

Because if you're thinking like in my mind, I'm just like right now we've have like four

services at our largest campus, right?

815, 930, 11 and five already online on demand is already bigger than our five.

It's like, um, factors of magnitude bigger, our on-demand audience than the five o'clock

PM.

Right.

It, depending upon which measures you use, which I use like super conservative measures.

We can talk about that at a different time, but you know, it's bigger than any other service

depending upon the way that you measure it.

Right.

So, but in COVID season or post COVID when all these safety measures have to be in place,

what is that going to look like?

You know, we can't have an 815 and a 930 and a one hour service because of the turnaround

time that you will need to clean up and do, and then space people out.

Are we going to do more services?

Are we going to space them out two hours?

So now we're talking about Saturday, Sunday, all day, having this huge building that is

optimized for thousands of people, not for fifties or hundreds and spacing out all the

chairs, cleaning up afterwards.

That is a nightmare for staff.

I mean, you just, you think about that and even the staff that have been redeployed toward

call centers that are loving it by the way, because they're having, they're praying with

folks, they're awakening their pastoral calling like never before.

And now you're going to tell them, Oh, we're going to pivot again.

And instead of you working like two services, two or three services in a morning, you're

going to work all weekend.

And you're going to clean up every single time.

Yeah.

How is that going to feel?

So in my mind, if we, if we take it and say, all right, we're going to do this once a quarter,

once a month, whatever we can spread out and disperse and do it in a sustainable fashion with

the staff that we currently have, knowing that the primary expression will be in neighborhood

communities, in, in online, in homes.

And another thing that I'm proposing too, is that we replace our small group ministry with

this new missional community thing.

So there's no competition.

So in other words, no more small groups, all of our small groups are going to be these

community group, missional community things.

And they'll all be watch parties that do it whenever is most convenient for their neighborhood

once a week.

And knowing that daily they're still, we're still going to be doing the online stuff that

we're always doing.

So every day they're going to get it just like they do right now, except now they'll be able

to go down the street and meet with 20 or 30 other people, have a barbecue, watch the service,

which is, which is designed for that type of environment.

And then once a month you have this huge blowout or once a quarter, you have this huge blowout.

We baptize a bunch of people.

We have a concert gathering together.

Love it.

The thing is, there's already families that are doing this right now.

We've already had families do this in other parts of Olathe and in Lenexa, even before

COVID.

And I guarantee you they're doing it right now because that is their primary expression

of church.

And they would come to the big box about once a month.

So I'm just taking that basic model that organically already happened.

And I'm saying that is the model now, because it's the only one that's going to function with

any kind of, you know, man, just the thought.

Of trying to do kids ministry and, you know, big box experience in this phased COVID season

gives me hives.

Because it's just way too much work for what you're getting out of it.

But if we can, and everybody else knows it too.

And there's a bunch of people who think, man, I don't want to go back to the big box because

I don't know what kind of contagions are going on there.

You know, how they're cleaning.

I will minimize my surface area of risk by going down the street.

I'll do that.

You know, and so that right there is leadership development.

It would be so exciting to me to see us start figuring out the hybrid of mega church and

home church or missional church, missional community stuff.

I think, I mean, any thriving church has had to have that aptitude continuum of temple

and home.

Like you can't only do one.

And so the mega church has that continuum.

There's got to, even the home churches are hurting right now.

I can't go to my 25 person home church gathering right now.

And so it's interesting on both ends of the spectrum, you're having to figure out if you

weren't prepared digitally, this is a really tough time.

So as more things come online, no matter who you are, figuring out how you can win.

And so I, as you were describing some of that missional community stuff, I thought how that,

which is organic and sometimes it's faulted at like, man, is it, does it ever really grow?

Does it ever really reproduce?

Does it ever, how do you give it an influx of resources so that it can expand?

Yeah.

So to take, to take Randy, to take the leader in there, to model it on the big screen of

the mega church is really interesting to even use the buildings to go, we're not doing weekend

services maybe in our buildings for the next few months, but what we could do on Tuesday

night is the four or five, two, four, four zip code hosted by the missional community leader.

Like we're going to help them throw at the bill.

Like, so it's a safe third space where people can come socially distance barbecue.

Now they take it from there and run like now they're out of the building after that one,

but we can, so figuring out how to overlap some of these.

Neighborhood home base and things that we, ah, we've always been so attracted to in principle,

they just fit and sound right.

And how do we accelerate and infuse them with resource of some of the mega church model that's

about execution and drive.

So what if we were to use the big box only for leadership development of those leaders who

were, um, hosting these, uh, missional communities?

So if I want to go to the big mo to the big box and I'm, we're only allowed 50 people, well,

it's going to be those 50 leaders instead of just 50 rando people, you know, that may or may not be

impacting their neighborhoods because we're very clear about what we're supposed to do as a church.

So if you're going to limit us to 50, well, those 50 are going to be rock stars.

Kind of like when Jesus only had the 12, they were rock stars.

And so he could go saying, look, I did everything I was supposed to do.

You know, I'm good with those 11, you know, that one, whatever, but those 11 were good.

So if the state says, oh, you can only have 10 people, well, then we're just going back to Jesus,

you know, and we're going to dedicate all of our energies on that group of people, knowing

that they will be leading others as well.

It's not just micro sites.

It's not just like we, we live pre COVID.

We lived in this world that we thought was all these separate just, well, you're just a mega

church.

You're just a home church.

You're just a micro site.

You're just a missional community.

It's the blending of these that is so interesting to me right now to go like, it's, it is the

micro community while you're reaching tens of thousands of people potentially.

Like you're, you're, it's a both and, and it's so hard to do the both and, but as movements

now, I think we've got to step into how do we do the big and the small, how do we do the

digital and the physical, how do we do the very personal and the macro ministry that we

might do?

Like it's all on the table and figuring out where we can win in the both and based on your

ministry and your church feels like this is the, this is the moment to capture before

all of this lifts.

So let, let me ask this and let's, let's pivot as, as we're getting close to wrapping

up here.

Um, and let's just say it this way.

There are people listening to this podcast that buy into what you're saying.

Their leadership does not.

So let's, let's pivot here and let's get a little practical.

Oh, this, this entire conversation has been theoretical.

So there are people where that are passionate about this.

Now they, their leadership's not, how do you advise them to have the conversation?

Cast vision direct.

Uh, you guys are both high level leaders.

How would you recommend things like that are handled?

Submission to authority and honoring your leadership.

I think you have to empathize with the fact that.

Oftentimes the way that they have won the way that they have engaged in ministry.

that there's a grieving process that if, if it's happening, they have to go through this.

Like I used to watch people get lit up by my message.

I used to go down and put my hand and pray on for someone down for, you know, like there's

so much change that for many of us who are passionate about it, we've, we've crossed these

bridges for the last many years, but we've got to give time and space for people to cross

them with us.

And then I think practically to help them do that, putting them in positions where they

can win and then ensuring you're, you're looping back all of the life change stories.

Like the, that's really what we're in this game for.

And so if you're truly reaching new people for Jesus, if you're seeing people get baptized,

you're seeing people grow and those tangible stories, whether they start to come in as now

app reviews or Facebook comments or whatever, there's going to be a new way to get them.

But you've got to do the feedback because so much of our leadership now is flying by

instrument instead of by sight.

And you have to take it on your responsibility to be the instrument of feedback to go, this is

something's happening.

God's at, God's at work here and patience and timing.

Like I, you know, all the, everything does have to come together and, and, and you can sometimes

see it before other people, but there there's often times also a reason why maybe it's not

hitting all gears right away.

Um, and that sometimes is even protection.

So just being open to that and honoring your leader, I think is a big part of it.

One of the other, uh, things that's a tool at our disposal that we have uniquely in this

time that it's not that this kind of frustration didn't exist before it it's been there with

any transition like this.

But now you have the unique opportunity to just blame it on the virus because it's forcing

us to do things that we probably wouldn't have chosen to do otherwise.

And so when I love that, you know, you're flying by instrument instead of, you know, by

sight, which is awesome.

And that is what makes your, uh, metrics and your analytics so important in this time.

You're hitting something with the engagement thing.

I mean, I think online gives us such an opportunity to have a breadth of reach.

Yeah.

Great, great leaders can smell that coming.

If you are at all trying to, to, to prop up a number that just like, if you're taking your

Facebook impressions, which is valuable for something, but then trying to go like, see what

you, to move people like the inciting incident of the virus will move a great leader to a

place of, of, of introspection and reflection and how are we going to tackle this thing?

But then to your point, Jason, like it's, you need down the funnel metrics to go like, no,

here's, here's the real stuff that, that is happening as a result of this.

I think that's what attaches them to the great, I mean, in the past, you know, five years ago,

a lot of us were talking about a future state where certain models might not work, which is

valuable, but it's very different.

Like that's still a manufactured threat.

You take advantage of the fact that right now there is a very real threat to our model

ministry and not to our, not to our model ministry.

There's a threat to our ability to fulfill the great commission.

And as followers of Jesus, we get hyped up on going like, great.

The gospel is, is resilient.

So, so what, what's our way around?

How are we going to do this?

And we, we just got to capitalize on that the best that we can.

Love that.

Yeah.

And that's, that's going to be a great place to, to land, land the plane.

It's, I think God has his church going through them for a reason.

I think there's, there's a lesson to be learned in this.

And in the process of God breaking the model of church, not his church, but the model of

the church, you know, I've, I've never known in scripture where God breaks something and

then puts it back together exactly the way that it was.

Usually in that breaking process, there's, there's a humbling and adaptation of something to get

it more in tune with the, the, the glory and the purpose that God wanted for it.

And so I'm, I'm anxious to see how the church is going to evolve in the season.

We just did a podcast with Ed right before COVID and with Ed Stetzer and, and, and literally

the conversation with Ed is Ed, we talk, all this needs to change literally year after year,

week after week, month after month.

Jeff, we say we need change and nothing ever changes.

Ed, what do we have to do to change?

And it's like, Jeff, I don't know that you, you're going to see the change.

And then like later in the podcast, he says something about COVID and then March 8th happened

in the entire world, like changed.

And, and it's, it's, it's kind of bittersweet in this moment to look and to see God, God's

in control of all of this.

And, and, and as a result of it, things are going to work to, to the, to the, to his glory

ultimately throughout it.

And we are just mere pawns and pieces serving him in that.

And I'm so anxious and so appreciative of this change and where we're going.

You know, I can, even from my experience, the churches that, that were, that are making,

picking up those phone calls and having those conversations and building that, the people

are saying, yeah, I'm at, I'm at a better spiritual level now than I was with the

events.

Like there's, there's lessons in here that we, we church, we need to, we need to learn

from that.

So, so Matt, Jason, man, uh, I think this is the least I've ever said in a podcast.

And this is the most fun I've had through it.

Cause I just sat back and it's like, I'm just going to listen to these guys.

Um, Hey Ray, we need to just give them a podcast.

Like, let's just get the two of them doing a digital podcast network, son.

I keep talking about it, man.

This needs to be a thing.

All right.

So, so we're, we're going to, we're going to revisit that.

We'll come back around.

But seriously, gentlemen, thank you very much for this.

This was a great conversation, uh, for Ray, for Jason, for, for Matt, this is Jeff, the

church digital.

Thanks for being here.

And we'll see you next time here at the podcast.

Y'all have a good day.

You, I knew that, that, um, that I'd play chess this way, but I wanted to make sure it wasn't

just weenie hut juniors kid chess back in the day, but when a pawn crosses the board, if

you've lost your queen, it gets promoted.

You could, you could, yeah, exactly.

And church online is just crossed the board.

Interesting.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's all.

That's good.

Right there.

That's good stuff.

Yeah.

That's got to get back in there.

We'll figure out a way to, to inception.

Anyways, guys.