EP068: Greg Nettle, DJ Soto, and The Foundation of a Virtual Reality Church

episode 68 of the church digital podcast powered by stadia church planting i was set to do a

podcast this week with dj soto uh jump on a zoom call with him and we were actually trying to

figure out how to do the zoom completely in virtual reality because dj soto is lead pastor

of vr church and i have an oculus uh quest headset that i have not used enough in my life

and so i wanted to do a podcast recording in vr but we had to pause on that we're going to do it

later because about the same time i reached out to dj soto and said hey let's do this podcast

tuesday um greg nettle president of stadia reached out to me and said hey jeff can you jump on a

webinar with me tuesday and and ironically it was both at the same time as the podcast i wanted to

do with dj and so i said hey greg can i bring a friend dj into a conversation so i i am happy to

present here episode 68 of the podcast uh president greg nettle of stadia church planting

dj soto lead pastor of vr church and myself jeff and the church digital we're doing a dig here a deep

dive into what a digital church is and how virtual reality is in fact the future of a lot of the things

that are coming up and so guys like dj man really and this is a hard thing to hear in this covet season

they are the cutting edge and it's not it's not if it's when and as technology swings which is now

escalated as a result of this covet season you're going to see more and more ministry more and more

community more and more opportunities of engagement in digital only churches similar but looking a lot like

what dj soto is doing in vr church so once again it's going to be a great podcast dj soto lead pastor

vr church greg nettle president stadia church planning and myself jeff with the church digital

and director of digital church planning for stadia forget to say that sometimes in a conversation that

i'm calling the foundation of a virtual reality digital church okay everybody here you go all right

we're going to go ahead and get started we have two guests with us today jeff reed is with us and uh

jeff um we brought on the stadia staff boy we went after him hard uh in really after we met last fall

jeff uh you were part of a blue sky session with stadia on is digital church even a possibility digital

church planting and we came out of that blue sky saying we it is imperative that we move in that

direction little knowing that this pandemic was going to occur and so we started uh conversations

with jeff who's kind of i refer to him as the lebron james of church digital world uh in the united

states and so we're delighted to have jeff jeff tell us a little bit about yourself and and uh

kind of what you were doing with digital church and then what you're doing now with stadia

yeah thank you very much glad glad to be here so jeff reed um i came from about 15 years

church staffing experience uh mega church giga church kind of mentality multi-site church

launched a dozen campuses and and towards the end of of that church staffing run

started really pressing uh and focusing on church online digital church really like it's been a passion

of mine over a couple decades even way back 20 years ago out of college was doing bible studies online

and so trying to create community and digital space has always been a passion and starting to help

churches more and more wrestle with that as i was working in that space um interestingly god kind of

led on my heart a couple years ago uh to step out of a church staff experience and to start a company

called the church dot digital where basically we help churches figure out how to do church online

and uh wrestled a lot with this idea of a digital only church which by the way pre-covid was probably

one of the most controversial things i would ever talk about yeah that was one of the conversations when

we were at the blue sky event uh together you you were so delighted to be in a room with you know 10

people 10 you know really significant tech leaders from across the country and some you know

you know major church leaders that were actually excited about digital platform

yeah like it's and i don't i don't mean to overstate but it's the thing that i loved about stadia

is because so often in life i would cast a vision towards church online towards community online

towards digital community digital church planting and and i was was told by high level leaders and

influencers no you can't do that no that's wrong no that's that's um as far as jeff you're a sin because

you're pulling people away from the bride of christ and so i mean the first time i met greg nettle

and i'm looking at him face to face and he's like casting his vision for what he sees the church

doing and i'm like dang it that's exactly what i want to do here's a guy who has the exact same

vision of what it means and so you know greg talks about how it was a hard sell it was a hard

sell on my end to jump on the team because i'm like i love where this organization's going

i love their passion towards it how can we work together to that end and so came on staff january

as director of digital church planting i think i was on staff six weeks before covet hit um which

was funny because all that controversial and i'm sure dj will dive into it but all the controversy

surrounding a digital only expression of church yeah all those pastors who were like it's a sin you're

taking people away from the bride of christ i will never broadcast the service those pastors

were calling me on the phone hey jeff can you help us here we're in dire straits and so i i don't

assume that covid changed the bible so like all the theological concerns that were pre-covid like i don't

think the bible changed i just think there was a lot of opinions and the reality is it's an opinion

we can do the things in digital community and still pay honor and homage and hold to the biblical standards

that are in place in acts 2 and others and so by utilizing technology to reach in the digital

community in this covid season we're impacting people in a whole new way and coming out of this covid

season i think we've got an opportunity to not go back to the physical building but really to add

physical locations to this new digital first strategy that'll help the church moving forward all right

hey jocko from south africa great to have you with us my friend hey we also have dj soto with us dj is

the lead uh visionary leader of vr church dj tell us a little bit about what's going on people are kind

of loving this and asking questions and yeah let's you know talk to us about what's going on in your world

now my friend sure absolutely hey everyone my name is dj soto i'm the lead pastor of virtual reality

church we're a church that exists entirely online in the metaverse we've been around since 2016 we

i guess 2017 is when we got established um we're experimenting the year of 2016 but um but before

that you know had over 20 years of ministry experience big churches small churches mega traditional i mean

you name it baptist pentecostals it was all around just exploring god's kingdom and um and we were part

of a quite large church in southeast pennsylvania and i was one of their campus pastors there and it was

about 2016 where we felt god wanted us to do something new we didn't know exactly what new meant we thought

that meant plant physical churches and that was about the same time virtual reality came out and i'm actually in

virtual reality right now um i'm wearing my headset i'm going to try to grab it this is kind of covering

my head right here i have hand trackers and you know i'm going to maybe do a wider shot here as i look

around um all around this environment i can see up and down and left and right and it's so immersive

and this is kind of like what virtual reality church is like it's a bit different this is a platform for

zoom but what we can do is virtual reality brings back the sense of presence where we you know high

five each other give each other hugs say hello um you know the serendipitous conversations before and

after church um that you have and so it's it's hard to explain it's kind of if you've seen the matrix

uh there's this point where morpheus tells neo you can't explain what the matrix is you have

to experience it for yourself and in our journey that has been nothing but true because it's been

hard to explain it we've traveled all over trying to fundraise trying to cast vision and there's this

blank stare um you know with leaders and pastors and organizations but once we put the vr headset on

them and even better yet experience virtual reality church the light bulb comes on let me give a quick

example real fast um it was at a conference casting vision talking about vr church and the automated

response is this can't be church that doesn't count etc etc and there was one pastor who was adamantly

believing that i didn't know that met with them said hey i have an extra headset why don't you come to

vr church with me on sunday so he did he came he he put on the vr headset i actually brought him up on

stage to to talk about his ministry and afterwards he took it off and says i get it now and i want to do

a virtual reality ministry and man if i could take that story and just multiply it over and over again

that's has been our experience before experiencing vr church no that's not a thing you can't have

relationships people are going to be fake it's weird after experiencing it there's a total change in

attitude and in theology like i didn't convince him theologically or ecclesiologically about why

the vr church or vr ministries was valid it was the experience that changed his mind which is i find

totally interesting in this covet era like um like jeff was alluding to uh pre-covid um church online

man that's not a thing you can't do that you can't have church online uh you know in this covet era

i see that theology changing it's like the experience and the circumstances has changed our theologies

because i know of churches um you know good churches by the way who would not broadcast online

very hesitant about digital ministries would certainly not call it church online and now they're

saying hey come to church online right so in two weeks that that's kind of flipped for them so

anyways um a long story short uh my wife and i were church planters in virtual reality

we've planted in three metaverses which is like three virtual reality cities um and we have uh let's

see three churches already planted here in the metaverse and we're looking to plant a couple more so

yeah that's uh there are so many questions dj that i want to ask you and yeah but but um and i just read

an amazing article about your church in wired magazine and uh just really exciting stuff going on

congratulations on all the really the good press you've been getting um which and especially from

unchurched people you know that's been the really fun thing for me to watch um jeff i want to come back to you

because one of the things we've wrestled with pretty extensively and i think you know people need to be

assured of is you know what is what makes a church a church and is digital church a church and theologically

is it okay and because i think that's a fair question to ask right and as we talk about planting

digital churches at stadia certainly we want to be able to respond and say yes we have worked through the

theology of this and and so talk about that jeff in how you're seeing you know digital church

really be the church um in the same ways if not better than many local church expressions

yeah i i love that there's there's this perception that the church is the one hour on sunday and so if

you ask the average person what makes a church a church they're they're going to say it's that church

service piece and the church service the gathering of people in that space is is important but it's not

the only piece of of what makes a church a church if you look at you know acts two and that's that's

just even a great place to start uh there's there's worship there's teaching um there there there's

communion there's uh there's observing the ordinances there's there's giving uh there's options where it talks about

justice and showing mercy and and uh a lot of the pieces of holistically of what makes church a church

and and what's really been painful in this season and and we've talked about this in podcasts where

um the most powerful piece of the perception the most powerful piece of what made a church a church

is that service and for the past couple months through covid that piece has been taken off the board

and actually there's an analogy in place um where if like if you want to be a chess master you take the

queen off the board and you're still able to win the chess match because you're able to use the rest of

the pieces to win and in this season the church service is gone and so we as as the church body have

really been struggling to adapt and to learn how to use the other pieces more effectively in in a digital

environment um the i would argue i would suggest that the church service is important but through digital

environments like things that that dj is doing you have far more opportunities to be relational to

connect at individual levels to build that relationship piece where i can have disciple making relationships

i can coach and develop people at a more intimate level um you know people utilize technology and i think

overall church is hey let's broadcast our services so somebody in ethiopia gets saved and gets baptized that's that's awesome

billy graham in 1995 one message bounced off 30 satellites 47 translators a billion people

heard one message that was 25 years ago the power of technology isn't to a billion people to hear it

the power of technology is let's interact with each other let's engage and talk with each other it's

it's an intimacy technology it's it's not cold there are ways to overcome that and that's that's some of

the stuff dj's doing right here where through the metaverse this guy's interacting with people that

will never sit in physical space and he's able to help them grow deeper in their faith this is i mean

this is phenomenal stuff to see right here yeah and and jeff you know one of the things when we went into

this uh with stadia that we were very convicted of we are not uh we weren't and we are not interested

in helping churches just broadcast their weekend gatherings that's fine if they want to do that we are

interested in creating environments church expressions where the full ordinances of the church can be expressed

experienced where disciples can make disciples i'll never forget pat yelsinger who's the ceo of vmware

you know one of the largest tech companies in the world number one uh ceo in the united states last year

and he challenged us he's huge in church planting and he said greg you know team we need to look at this

digital expression not to just be as good as local church or just a little bit less than local church

but he said it needs to be better at evangelism better at discipleship better at worship better at

community than the local church expression and i sat there i think my jaw was on the table saying

how in the world you know and now we're going oh we know how in the world to see this happen

and so you know as we think about our definition of what church is it includes worship and it includes

sacraments like communion and baptism and bible-centered teaching and all of those things so dj let me come back

to you and say how does some of those things cracked out practically uh play out in virtual free i mean

how do you do communion you know um you know what does it look like uh is the holy spirit at work you

know in your church yeah uh well let me just back up just a touch um you know there's a point in my wife

and i journey where we left the church you know we just you know we were just in circles that we don't

want to be in anymore we felt like we were abandoning um our spiritual walk and god and one of the things

that brought us back was a church online experience back in 2005 maybe i can't remember liquid church

in new jersey had an online experience and i started attending that church i started being part of the

chat i would email the campus pastor for the online campus so early on i was already convinced of ministry

that i experienced and that impacted my life you know as far as 2005 and then the mega church i was

a part of in 2010 we launched uh an online online service and one of the first visitors was an atheist and

there was another lady who um was homebound and wasn't going to church and and it just sold me on

the idea it didn't take long for me uh in that conversation of is this valid is this right can it be

effective ministry i mean it just sold me immediately on that so then fast forward to 2016 like i'm already

past all that and i'm ready to like to dive in into the metaverse and i think what surprises people

is when they look under the hood of vr church because i think their initial reaction is confusion

maybe negative is it a cult what's happening here there's a lot of like strange reaction that happens

when they look under the hood and they see the depth of ministry you know worship prayer bible studies

discipleship uh communing the sacraments all the elements of the church exist in the metaverse and one

thing and this is another one hard to explain but let me kind of present this uh thing that god is

leading us into is that he's been saying to us uh vr church you need to reimagine the church not

replicate it and so it would be you know i'm just thinking about everyone that's getting into digital

ministries bringing their physical church online maybe take it through a filter that you're not trying to

replicate one for one everything and think about what are some reimagination that we can have you know

dj i think that's i think that's really important to and you know really want our you know those who

are joining us today to hear that churches that have just taken their you know their typical weekend

gatherings and put them online that's not really digital expression of church that's just broadcasting so

so we really do keep going with that i love i love what you're saying yeah so you know replication can

be fine but i think more the emphasis on reimagination that takes hard work and we're still trying to

figure out what does that mean because someone would say well what are you talking about and we're still

sort of discovering because we did the replication now we're going through a reimagination and so um

like well let me give you an example because i know that's kind of vague one thing that we've done

is we've sermons are not delivered from stage anymore i used to for like a good better part

of a year deliver my sermon on stage had a had a powerpoint you know above my head type of thing

but then we're we're in virtual reality the possibilities are endless because we control

time and space and so what we've done every sunday come to vr church it's like a movie set

we go we start out in the church building but it kind of looks like a modern mega church type of feel

music you know announcements you know all that stuff and then we leave the church building

and walk through the experience and we've done i mean it's incredible it's you know walking through

the red sea um experiencing um you know for easter we walked the hill of gal gotha and went into the

tomb virtual reality lets you experience the bible not just kind of sit and attain knowledge you get to

be tactile with your um experience and your spirituality it's been it's been amazing like this sunday

we've been going chapter by chapter through the book of acts so our world build team has created

the shipwreck from acts chapter 27 that's where we're finishing up the book of acts so we're going

Acts 27 · chapter mention

to walk on the ship there's rain effects coming down we're on the rocks we're going to go on the shore

where uh there's a fire there and so that's part of the reimagination we're going through and i think

there's many other ones that we're going to discover with discipleship um you know with relationships

and so that's kind of like uh where we're at little sneak peek and wow yeah so i'm loving this now not

you know just to be real candid most churches aren't going to jump to vr right now um you know some will

which is really cool um we have a lot of church planters who are launching digitally now and i love

what they're doing and the more that see this i think we're going to have more more church planters

launching in uh vr world as well which i'm really excited about but let's talk about you know kind

of these steps of digital jeff and um you know if somebody's saying okay um i don't have the

technology right now or the know-how to do vr necessarily jeff what are you watching as you know

some first steps what can people do right now you know as we come out of this pandemic um i'm

really encouraging churches hey don't don't just go back to business as usual the world's never going

to be the same again what are some steps they can take right now to move into the digital world keep

it going yeah um i i love this and and i had a church earlier this week maybe it was late last

week the the the lead pastor said jeff our two-year goal is to create a a vr church um and i looked

at the lead pastor and i was like i'm really impressed right now because you know how to spell vr

like i i just i don't hear that language a lot and from from from a lead pastor the the first step

from a church standpoint set the technology aside we'll get to that but from the church standpoint

the the challenge i would say to them is figure out how to make a disciple because if you can make

disciples who can make other disciples if you can figure out how to create that process it's then easy

to find somebody who's passionate about virtual reality and unleash them on that area by the way i mean

this opens up a disciple making process in a digital landscape opens up a lot of potential i mean

there's guys like jade airheart who's doing stuff with video games and he's reaching eight to nine

hundred people through a platform called discord where he's literally one guy's playing video games one

guy is reading the bible and they're broadcasting that on twitch and they're impacting dozens of people

there's life change happening as a result and they're getting engaged okay jeff but i gotta stop

you because you know most of the churches we're working with right now they're not ready to jump

to vr yeah so let's just talk about you know for the vast majority of churches right now that are going

hey what what if we just want to do something good as we come out of this with just you know what 4g is

allowing us to do right now really well on digital yeah so we're looking at your at places where community

exists digitally um reach into facebook groups build relationships with people within facebook groups

within your within your community challenge some of your high level leaders and your people who are

capable of being disciple makers where are areas that they're passionate about maybe there's an opportunity to

create micro locations where you're utilizing technology to create new communities within areas of of your

city part of that discipleship process ultimately is training an individual to the place where they are

passionate about reaching and influencing their circle of influence so getting somebody to that place

and then mobilizing them empowering them to go to reach the people that they're passionate about

so jeff we talk a lot at stadia about fidgetal which is the combination of the physical and the digital

and so and we you know i think our kind of philosophy is you know digital is fantastic but if digital faith

is not played out in the physical world then boy we it's a that's a tough question there to ask about

disciple making and so talk a little bit about the fidgetal idea and how digital also plays into the

physical sure yeah there's a theory it's called online to offline the the gospel that we learned in the

online world has to affect our offline relationships our physical world relationships let's i mean let's

take vr church as an example if the only place that that an attender of of dj soto's church in virtual

reality if the only place that somebody shows the fruits of the spirit the love joy peace patience if they

only do that in virtual reality but they're a jerk in the physical world i mean that's that's not a good

thing right like the the the information the content the stuff that we're processing digitally has to

show itself physically and so that's the standard that we i challenge all churches all church online

all digital church like i love the fact that we're all christians in facebook but we need to not just be

christians in facebook we need to be christians to the neighbor i i just i just think that is so humorous

jeff because you know um i you know i led a mega church for years before i became a you know the the

president of stadia and our big thing in mega church world was okay you know we were gathering you know

1500 people in an auditorium numerous times a weekend how do we get them so they come in and they're

showing the fruits of the spirit in that weekend gathering and you know what our big question was and problem

they leave the building and they're jerks when they leave right so that this is not some new question

from digital that digital is raising this is the question of the church throughout history

where people you know dichotomize the world of the church and the world the real world that they live

in vj talk about that how do you address that in your church how do you convince people that hey you

can't just be a christian here online it's got to be lived out in your physical realm as well

yeah i think spiritually is it is what's your church expressing is a behavior modification or is

a transformation so um if you put the big line in between those two behavior modification you know

you could really you know and legalize the religious christian experience but if you're

truly transforming people through the word of god through trans through prayer through discipleship

you know that's going to carry out into their normal lives and so that's what we've seen we've seen

people whose lives have been touched by the gospel and that has transformed their spirit and now they're

expressing that love from what christ has done for them so that can be done through a physical interaction

you know a church a pulpit you know that spiritual encouragement and transformation or it can be done in

virtual reality so i don't know if it's the medium as much as it is uh the power of the message that

is in someone's spirit and that um affects how they live so you're in your church if we come to vr church

you're going to be you know teaching this incredible virtual experiential teaching which i love

that idea but you're saying to people hey when you leave virtual world this is how this applies right

yeah absolutely because we're not here just to attend a service um you know acquire knowledge

we're here to transform our lives which we would assume would affect every interaction that you do

your money your relationships your you know the way you treat your family all those things so absolutely

okay so here's here's one of the fascinating things i want to jump into just a little bit of tech stuff here in a minute but

you know one of the things as we've you know moved towards digital church and we think about you know

our move uh in america especially and those of you who are around the world kind of i'm not sure where

you're at with tech in your country in the world so um you know apply this however but you know it wasn't that

long ago in the united states where we were on 3g technology and then we moved to 4g and it changed dramatically

and um in inside of two years for many of us it will be in this next 12 month period but inside of two

years everyone in the united states will be on 5g technology and to understand the difference between

that when we were on 3g technology if you wanted to download a two-hour movie onto your ipad or your

phone or whatever it took about six hours to download that movie when we went from 3g to 4g to download

that same movie it moved to just about six minutes quantum leap and how in the band speed when we go to

5g it'll move from six minutes to 2.3 seconds so almost instantaneous download of of that that movie and

what that's going to change um one of the reasons 5g is being you know launched at all the big sporting

venues right now um around the united states is because they're getting ready for vr technology so

i can take my 83 year old dad who can't walk up the stairs to watch the cleveland browns play in the

stadium but i can say dad do you want to go to a cleveland's browns game with me today and and he'll say

well yeah but i can't you know and i'll say well dad just put on that headset that i bought you

and you and i can sit side by side and we can be at the cleveland browns game on the 50 yard line

i mean it's crazy that's in the next two years that'll be our new reality the other thing that's

really exciting is globally 90 of the people on the planet will be connected on 4g on some device and so

think about the implications for the gospel with the world having the current technology we have on 4g

so vj talk just dj talk just a little bit about you know some of that change that's going to take place

and how it is going to affect church yeah absolutely i i think um you know church leaders might get

frustrated i i met with a pastor one time and he was like i'm retiring i'm not gonna have to worry about

vr right so i think there's a sense of like oh man what's next we had our website down our social media

is cranking we have a broadcast church our digital vision is complete and then now you start hearing

about virtual reality and augmented reality and so what's happening is i heard this quote that i think

is really important is that we're leaving the information age and we're entering the experience age

and the experience age represents virtual reality and augmented reality and so just as let's say

you're launching a church today you would not think to like we're not going to have a website or social

media or maybe even broadcast you wouldn't think that that'd be crazy but it's only going to be a

couple years before you're going to say the same thing about virtual reality and augmented reality

where that's going to be an expected part of your experience now that might seem overwhelming or

discouraging but really what i've been encouraging people to to do is to experiment just start

experimenting with it you don't have to launch a big vr thing get some headsets for your campus or for

your church and start trying it out and i think you'll start to make those little baby steps to be

prepared for when the experience age you know comes in in full bloom and i think that there's plenty of

people in your church that would also love to dive into that and to be a part of that this is really

powerful we've outsourced innovation in the church i think it's an important point i've heard bobby

and grenwald um say we've outsourced them in innovation i think it's time to bring it back i think you

need to carve out a little r d side of your church you know just a small budget or just people passionate

about experimentation and i think that spirit of pioneering experimentation innovation is kind of

faded in our church circles but i think it's time to bring it back and vr is a great opportunity

to start uh okay dj so we have a lot some questions coming in so if i want to join you

um in your virtual church um i i don't have i don't have a headset i don't know what headset to buy

i don't know what computer i need you know is it going to cost me you know five thousand dollars to

get you know to be part of your church yeah how do we get started with if we just want to join you

right right um so the easiest answer is that vrchurch.org we have a visitor's guide

that'll take you step by step about how to join us at vrchurch and one main thing to realize is that

you don't need virtual reality all these platforms we use can be accessed uh accessible through a pc

2d screen it's a totally different experience but it's still very compelling so um you don't

need vr vr is the most preferred way and if you also if you just want me to give you another short

answer uh the oculus quest if you want to write that down uh google oculus quest and that is in my

opinion the best vr headset to get right now there's more powerful ones for you and tech enthusiasts that

just want to you know throw money at whatever uh the valve index is probably the best high-end vr

but as far as something that's going to work just as simple as your iphone still great um can access

many virtual experiences the oculus quest is the best okay so let me ask you this um i think we're all

curious with probably googling now so what's oculus quest going to cost me for that headset uh the oculus quest

i believe starts around 400 and um and just a quick little thought around that to get into vr when it

first came out 2016 was about 2000 i mean computer vr headset so even in this small amount of time

we're seeing the price lower we're seeing the form factor getting smaller um one thing people might not

realize is facebook apple google all of these companies are spending billions of dollars on virtual

reality and augmented reality and we haven't seen that full fruition of what's what's happening so

whatever is going to come out of that is going to be significant apple's really hush-hush about

their project um and i can only imagine it's going to be amazing because uh you know of apple's history

so if a church wants if a church wants to get started and um or i've got church planners out there

right now listening and they're saying yeah i i think i want to do this give me a price point i mean

you know what if i want to plant a church and i want to get the equipment to do my my hands are

going to move and all this stuff what's a price point that we can jump in as as a as a new church

plan um just for yourself as a church planner you just need the vr headset the oculus quest and you're

ready to go that four hundred dollars you just planted a church no no that's no good i need to pay at

least fifty thousand dollars for a building yeah yeah there was a pastor that said uh he saw me on

the news or whatever and he saw my building he's like i'm really jealous of this guy because he has

a multi-million dollar building that he didn't cost him anything to make so the platform we use is

alt space vr and anyone can use alt space that's another one to google the oculus quest is one and then

alt space vr is the second one alt space is our primary uh church plant that's kind of where our i guess

headquarters exist if you will and that's a great platform you can build anything in there you can get

you can use their templates they have like auditorium templates so you could literally start get the

headset and you're ready to go with the template and then obviously we've done custom creations so we

custom build and you know we have our own building in our own environments um so we get we get fancy with

it but at the end of the day you know you just need the headset um set up an event and your church is

launched you know okay 500 per church plant yeah yeah i just i just think this is just going to change

everything um okay jeff let me come back to you because stadia your work with stadia right now you're

working you're getting ready to launch cohorts and futurist groups and stuff talk a little bit about

those and how people can get involved um in getting you know kind of taking you know there are some of us

that are going man we knew this was wave was coming before the pandemic we were you know now we believe

in it and what can happen and we're not gonna you know a lot of churches we're we're you know we're not

anti-local church by any means um we just think that this can augment a lot of church expressions and

advance the gospel um but you know how what do i do now and i still have lots of questions and

how we've innovated to get our church services online and we're doing a little bit of community

groups and so forth but man how do we take that innovation and really flourish out of this at the

same time we're continuing and we're you know re-entering over the next two years which is really what i believe it's going to take to get back to what you know

it all the experts are saying we're in a two-year window here now to get back to full local expression

um so how do they get involved with you yeah i mean dj soto is a great example here of of not

recreating but of reimagining uh of of innovating and doing something different to digital space

in this coveted season um we just recreated our physical ministry digitally hey let's broadcast our

services you know maybe it's a different look and feel but it's still the same template maybe it's a

shorter sermon but it's still the same model of it and through what dj is doing he's reimagining it

in the digital space i think we all have an opportunity here in this season to we know how to do physical

church well i mean here in in this continent we've been doing it for hundreds of years physical church

like we we've got that model down really within the past six weeks eight weeks we figured out or

we were trying to figure out how to do digital um you know we use the language and you said it greg of

digital a melding a merger of physical and digital together and that's our that's our goal is to help

churches through these learning communities uh and and futurist groups figure out how to

do digital church well how to utilize your existing church to disciple create disciple makers to expand

and a plant and to do things utilizing technology like what you see here in vr church man that is a

really big jeff reed behind dj soto right now if you can see that that's that's really scary but you've

you've got this opportunity to do that and so with stadia we're looking at a six-month learning

community uh we've got um close to 100 churches that that were coming together to be part of this

experts coming in from from churches all across the country that are doing this well churches like

saddleback churches like church home um a number of churches coming in and other vendors who are coming

alongside and we're creating these learning experiences and even futurist groups a three-year method

to help churches understand how to plant okay let me stop you there let me stop you there so we've got

this futurist group that's going to run for three years and that's kind of like the cadillac of hey i'm

an entrepreneurial spirit and i'm going to go all in and um so the question is you know okay so to be part of

that team stadia can we get some uh links up here uh for people that might want to be part of that who

they can email and jeff is that to email you or uh is that justin or who should they email yeah i tell

you what justin moxley is is the contact on on the futurist group um i think if you can go to stadia

churchplanning.org um that is a great place to onboard for either the uh the learning community

or the futurist group yeah so the digital future so you know it has a higher price tag because it's

going to be much more intense it's a longer period of time the six-month learning communities are for

people that go hey we kind of put our our toe in the water and we think this might be good and we want

to learn more um and that's a much give me an idea what's how much is it a month for a church to become

part of one of the the the the six-month cohorts yeah so the learning community at the sixth month is

750 a month uh i'm doing bad math i think it's 4 500 yeah uh and and at the end of that for the six-month

process um we're going into detail of of a physical and virtual a digital mindset um almost a digital

first mindset of how we're structuring things once again we've got a little strategy now let's figure

out how to add physical buildings to it let's not go back to the normal let's talk about um utilizing

church online to create community utilizing small groups to manufacture disciple makers

unleashing these people mobilizing them unleashing them into micro locations looking at technology

like dj soto like vr church um creating community via mobile apps and and other areas and so it's it's

not it's how to help your physical church through digital technology thrive grow and even multiply

that's the game of what we're doing okay so i did you know this is not a big stadia commercial that's

not why we were doing this i just don't know of anyone else that's doing it and you know um i said

to another church pastor just yesterday i said hey i you know i don't have to sell this by any means

i'm just saying it you know if i were still the senior pastor of river tree i'd be in that futurist

group because i'm just all over this i now i wouldn't quit you know we had you know they i think

river tree now has nine multi sites and all that stuff and they need to continue doing that this

is another expression of church now dj let me come back to you because um you know vr is kind of that

whole next level dj that that people are wanting to go to and so you know to jump in on that um you know

how do they start doing that i mean you know i mean we're going to be talking about that some but

do you have some reference point dj uh you know how can they learn vr

yeah can you guys hear me i was fixing some technical issues can you guys hear me good okay

great perfect um yeah like it i think it just goes back to that experimentation start to read up on it

um read our visitor guide at vrchurch.org and um start to discover what vr is all about i mean that's

the same thing we've done with like computers internet smartphone you know all these things and and vr is a

technology that is in line with some of those um some people are calling it the next computing paradigm

and that um is an interesting kind of uh paradox or uh you know paradigm shift that we're experiencing

but um yeah and i think once you get in there you'll it'll start to make sense the light bulb will come

on you'll start to experience these um you know metaverses and i'll just kind of see if i can change

the camera here um where you could actually build something like this if you wanted to

like i mentioned before the possibilities are endless you control time and space you could

have an auditorium just like this you could be on the moon you could be in the red sea and i think it's

just a matter of getting in there experimenting uh trying it out and it'll all start to fall

in place so so um here's a great question does every participant need a headset or can you just view

the picture um so yeah there's a couple ways to do it um primarily vr is when you put it on and

experiencing it in a 3d environment there's also a 2d mode where you could just view it like on the

screen like you kind of watch broadcast church but you can can still control your avatar through the

experience so people can still come up to you say hi see how you're doing you know high fives and all

that and then we also broadcast as well so for vr church you can experience experience it three

different ways so you don't need vr that's the best but you can also do it in 2d mode on your pc

and you can also watch it on broadcast and some of our church plants depending on the platform even

have an app like one of our church plants that's called rec room or on the rec room platform has an

ios app so technically you can come to be our church on your ios device so these platforms that

are being built for the metaverse for virtual reality they are thinking a ton about non-vr users so

it's a very um inclusive environment okay now jeff um what do you see as you're you know working with

you know we're all going we can all be gung-ho here but let's say you got to go back and you got

to talk to your elders or your management team um what's the step how do you how do you convince your

leadership team that hey i think we need to be looking at the digital world yeah i i think it's

to help people realize that that this is this is maybe this was the future pre-covid but during this

covid season life accelerated uh and to the point when 5g rolls out like this stuff is going to

explode once again very quickly um pastors there there are two different types of pastors who have

concerns um they may have theological concerns then they may have just some um you know uh opinions or

certain uh unsure uh if there's a theological concern it's it's a much longer conversation

um if it's hey i need to figure out uh i've got questions what what does community actually look like

what does this look like how does this fit into what we're doing it's have conversations it's it's

understand the the winds of the lead pastor speak their language they're passionate about evangelism

talk about the opportunities to connect with new people they're passionate about disciple makers show

how you can do these things virtually honestly the perception of digital church and church online

is that it creates consumers and that's the reason why pastors are against pre-covid they were against

this because it's a consumer mentality that being said in this season we are doing an excellent job

of the church of building relationships virtually highlight that and show that that this isn't a consumer

platform this is an opportunity whether vr whether church online whatever the context there are digital

communities being formed here and people are connecting in real ways with this and we the church

need to reimagine what we're doing in this space experiment today what better reason during the

covet season we all have an excuse to experiment try something different i i just i just it just makes

me smile as we're going through this because these thoughts keep popping in my head about you know because

you know being a senior pastor for so long and just all the things we struggle with consumerism in

the church you know we did away with uh church uh membership because membership has its privileges

and we went to church partnership and the whole point of that was because we were creating consumers

in the church so again this isn't a new problem that's created by digital it's how do we attack that in

general right in the in the church today um and it you know certainly it's true in the united states and

it's a challenge um all around the world hey we just have a few more minutes together so if you have uh

questions that you would like answered please get those up while you're getting those questions up i we

have i have two slides i want to show you i keep pushing this this is a free um resource that we have

now that you can use go to this link at the the bottom there weekly pastor's pool this is incredible

this is available to all of us right now where people you can take a pastor's pool every week

and get this data back to you about how churches are doing and you can also you we use this with our

whole staff at stadion again stadia is 100 virtual so i got a report this week about how our staff's

doing spiritually how they're feeling physically you know are they optimistic and it was all based out of

this um this um this tool and so let's go to the next slide and so you can get this and get this online

and uh um just you know share your voice you'll get all the data back we don't make any money from

this this is a fantastic tool okay let's come back now and um dj how do you do follow up somebody becomes

um and for the most part they they they show up in one of your weekend well nice you can't even say weekend dj

whenever your services gatherings are um they show up what do you do yeah it's interesting you

you mentioned not just the weekend because part of that reimagination for us is churches always

exist we are the church and it's not an event we it's the gathering and so we gather many times throughout the week

a sunday tends to be an experience but doesn't mean that's less of a church gathering that we would have

midweek but it's it's really no different than a physical church but as we connect with people

we build relationships with them and then one of the things that we use outside of vr because we're

not in vr all the time you know about after an hour of using vr you're kind of fatigued and all

right i'm gonna take a little break outside of vr we use a platform called discord and jeff alluded to

that and discord is where we the life of the church digitally happens uh outside of virtual reality

and so people come in and they're they become part of the church family that way and there's a

prayer channel uh there's discipleship there's spiritual life there's all these uh you know

volunteering um so once we make that connection from virtual reality it transitions into discord where

we can have some in-depth conversations and that shoots back into virtual reality so it's this

ecosystem that exists for relationships discipleships volunteering uh leadership training we just launched

a seminary for vr church because we realized man we need to develop leaders at a high rate our church is

significantly growing pre-coated and now in the covet era it feels like it's going nuts and so we just

need a lot of leaders so we're developing a seminary for that so um i think it's no different than a

physical church as far as how they would interact with someone relationships and then connecting with

them offline so to speak and then developing that into spiritual life discipleship and leadership

empowerment okay jeff we you and i were just having a conversation you know via stadium work yesterday

about a church out in las vegas that's developed a pipeline talk about that a little bit uh maybe

um you know just kind of the steps that you need to think through from somebody hitting your digital

gathering if you will to becoming fully integrated yeah um the the biggest problem that you're going to

have in in broadcasting church services or or even in virtual reality like dj can can relate to this

where you've got people who are watching in anonymity and you're trying to discover who these people are

you know and the typical church service will go the typical church will go okay the church service is

the front door that leads into uh small groups and community and then that from there you get them

on mission you know rick warren's purpose-driven church baseball diamond type type of thing um and so

you've got this church service and you need to discover who these people are and it's very difficult at times

that perspective to discover who they are and that's where a lot of the relational relationships and

building that comes in you know dj having those conversations discovering who people are discovering

discovering what their needs are and then doing ministry pastorally to them getting them connected

into the right groups and the right people like that approach can happen the hardest part of it

is is between that service and getting in the groups discovering who they are kind of another method

that we've been i call one two three it's starting with the service groups other another method is is

much more of a disciple making utilize the technology to engage in in relationships which is the strong

point of the technology meet people disciple them to the place where they go out and reach other people

three two one start with discipleship first that feeds into uh community gather them into small groups when

you get critical mass and then when you get a lot of small groups then launch it into a service it's it's a

backwards mentality which i thought was weird then when i'm hanging out with my stadia friends they're

like hey jeff that's how you plant a church that's how you start a movement it's not one two three starting

with groups or with a service it's three two one starting with um uh disciple making and it's it was this aha

moment for me like light bulbs going off and it's it's this really exciting opportunity of things that

we get to do with a digital church reimagining it let's start with disciple makers and start a movement

that way okay so that church out in vegas is called the crossing um for those of you you what who want to

know and essentially what they did is and it's what i think we all need to do so we've got this digital

expression of church going on right now but what's our you know we've all went man in local physical

church world we have a pipeline of okay if someone comes in we're gonna announce we want you to fill

out a welcome card you're gonna get a free coffee mug over here and uh you know we have a welcome to

river tree class or your next step class we need to be thinking that through digitally online the same way

very easy click here if you want to know more about the church click here if you know if you'd like to

talk to someone if you want to pray with someone we those things are easy steps to design and take

but they don't happen by accident they happen intentionally okay we're going to wrap up here

momentarily yeah jeff come back it is harder to get people uh to go from services to to getting in

groups and so you may think there are things that you're doing in physical space that that may work

um that that should work online have some intermediary steps in that path to get people connected even

even things like a casual meetup or a virtual lobby or a chance to to interact in in facebook

there's more steps that are necessary a lot of times churches get frustrated because they're not able

to get people connected into groups and we're seeing a lot of success now as people are putting more

kind of intermediary safer steps in between services and groups to get people connected with that i'm

sorry to interrupt so much of this in your podcast and in your webinars where can people go to access

all of that so yeah go to the church.digital i just honestly i just did a podcast on this uh featuring

tyler stanstrom who's the engagement pastor at first capital christian church up in court in indiana

i think it's episode 67 66 somewhere around there anyway jump on the church.digital there's tons of

resources to help churches figure out how to do church online how to plant a digital church how to

be fidgetal in this new season um would love to you know connect with you guys over there as well hey dj i've

got to ask this question you collect an offering at vr church uh let's see no we haven't done that we'd kind

of do that offline and the short story behind that is when we first went into that space um there was

this reaction in virtual reality where they're like oh great here comes the christians we just want to

ask for our money so um as we went in that space we were very careful about saying hey um give us your

money tithe you know because most of the people that attend vr church are not christians they're atheists

they're agnostic it's very unique in that regard so it's not like i'm preaching to the choir per se this is

uh spiritual milk uh people that have never stepped in church before and so only recently have we started

integrating the idea of of giving at it from the stage and we direct people to our website and i'm

sure there's technology coming where we could pass the bitcoin plate around and you know that could

totally be a thing but it's not necessarily a tactile experience at vr church but it's definitely part of

our culture as we relate it to the website you know dj one of the things that i am so excited about

because um you know i love the generosity of god's people and um it's just so amazing and one of the

things i'm most excited about again back to my experience at river tree over the years you know

we had the big at the time when we put it up 13 million dollar campus as our central location you know

and man it became so much about how do i keep the financial engine of the church running and i'm not

telling people not to put up buildings and you know rent things and stuff but man i just love the day when we can

say to our church online look um you know we do have to pay salaries for pastors and we do have to have

technology and those things but the reality is you know um 90 of our money we can say hey in your local

context um would you take your money this um you know this week and would you invest that in your local

community somehow or we're gonna have you know we're gonna plant a church and this we're gonna help these

church planners do this and all the money we raise and i believe virtual and digital church is going

to be one of the keys to unlocking hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars for the church to

transform the world in jesus name so i'm really excited that hey dj you you've been a pioneer you've

taken the hard knocks your family i know you were traveling a lot trying to you know get this launched

thank you for the sacrifices you've made to lead the way thank you that's really that's so nice to

hear it's always encouraging to have uh kind of wind wind at our back sometimes we feel like there's

spit in our face but um you know the reaction to vr church can tend to be negative and so it's really

nice that you say that's really encouraging and i'll probably tell my wife and um she'll be encouraged

about that as well so yeah thanks thanks so much i really appreciate that and dj i'm looking forward

and i know jeff as well you guys are great friends but i'm looking forward to how we can partner together

to you know literally um plant 10 000 churches a year you know in the digital space i there's no reason

not to right my friend so let's do that jeff thank you for your leadership at stadia and throughout the

united states and around the world all right hey so that was a great podcast that was a great webinar

i loved having that conversation with with greg and it was fascinating just even to see in the webinar

how he uh just got excited by a lot of the things that he was seeing by the way i should have said

at the beginning dj soto did the interview completely in virtual reality so if you want to jump over to

youtube and watch it over there and see dj soto's virtual reality self in this interview it is phenomenal

so check that out on youtube we'll put the link in the show notes for it as as well but uh greg thank

you for sharing the the content with us and and it is i said in the podcast in the webinar it is an honor

and a pleasure to be here at the stadia family uh dj thank you for jumping on this and um we need to

create more dj sodos out there some of you audience you are the next version of dj soto you are the

ones who are looking at this technology and and you are you are excited you are driven you see the ministry

potential that is happening there i want to talk with you find me on social media go to the church.digital

contact me the facebook groups the church.digital slash fb there's a facebook group that i'm running

right there we've got eight i think eight nine hundred somewhere around there 800 people actively

involved in a church online facebook group and so there's plenty of opportunities to connect but

let me help you take those next steps if you're passionate about technology the way that dj is

passionate about vr let's talk hey it's been a great podcast thanks for joining us we'll see you next time

here at the church digital podcast y'all have a good day