EP062: Jay Kranda & Tomorrow's Phygital Strategy

Episode 62 of the Church Digital Podcast, powered by Stadia Church Planning.

Guys, congratulations. We did it. We survived Easter.

A month ago, people were freaking out about this whole church online thing,

and then we went and did the impossible. We did the Super Bowl.

We did the biggest Sunday of the year and did it in a church online environment.

You out there, the creative geniuses, the online pastors, the executive pastors,

the lead pastors, the volunteer. Each of you did a phenomenal job to help these services happen online.

You all should be applauded for what happened as a result of it.

It's funny. While I was doing this recording, I actually had a text come in from a friend of mine

who's connected with Life.Church, works on the church online platform, that project.

And so I've got some stats. I don't think these are final stats,

but this is just even where we are in the midst of Sunday when I'm doing this recording.

11.4 million people watched a church service on the church online platform.

Of those, 57,000 services.

57,000 services have been executed on the church online platform.

Over 70,000 salvations as a result of it.

134 countries.

By the way, this is like 1.30 p.m. Eastern Time on Sunday the 12th.

We're still in the midst of Easter Sunday, and we're already seeing stats like this coming in,

and I'm sure it's going to skyrocket.

By the way, I'm not sure if we had did all physical services.

I don't think we would have reached 134 countries.

And there's this interesting merger between physical and digital.

Now, look, we really know how to do the physical church service.

We've been doing the physical church service as a church.

We've been doing them for centuries, the physical church service.

I think, gun to our head, we've been trying to figure out how to do the church online service,

the digital church service well.

The conversation that I want to have today is, what does it look like to do both well?

What does it look like to take the church online, the digital aspect, and then the physical aspect,

and do it well together so that it's a merger of physical and digital?

What if, hey, let's just make up a word because that's what we do, right?

What if we're looking at a physical church, one that marries physical and digital together with that?

What are the differences?

What are the strengths and weaknesses?

What are the opportunities that we have to combine, and what would that do for us, the church, long term?

Listen, we made it past getting all our church services online.

We made it past Easter, which was one giant hurdle that we as a church had.

We've got an opportunity now to do the next thing, and that's develop a strategy for the church

that is merging physical and digital together, a fidgetal strategy for the church.

That's the challenge before you.

And to this end, we're bringing in a podcast, a conversation.

We've got Jay Cranda from Saddleback Church, one of the OGs right now of Church Online,

original gangster.

In case, like, you're not up with the lingo, you know, I try to stay cool at 42.

Jay's coming back in.

No strangers to the podcast.

He was actually one of the first guests we had on the podcast a year ago.

We're coming up on our one-year anniversary.

And then we're also bringing in a co-host of the podcast here, digital pastor of Christ Fellowship Miami,

Ray DeArmas, in a conversation that I'm calling Tomorrow's Fidgetal Strategy.

All right, everybody.

Here we go.

Who would have won the NBA Finals this year?

I actually think it would have been the Lakers.

You think?

I actually do.

Yeah.

Would this have been the year?

Yeah, absolutely.

Well, when you say the year, I mean, we've had many years, so you don't need to, like, tell us.

I am sorry, sir.

I did not mean to offend you when I said that.

It's a pre-staried history over there.

Yeah, we're not, trust me, there's no drought, so here, we're good.

But, yeah, I think the Lakers had a, and I know I'm biased, I think they had a legitimate chance to do it,

considering everything.

But you never know.

The playoffs were deep this year.

The teams were deep.

There were everybody, I think there were, like, four teams that legitimately could have, if they would have gotten on fire,

which is all you need.

You just need four, you need four games, man.

That's all you need, so.

It's true.

It's true.

I think it would have been, you guys are the Clippers.

I think either way, the trophy would have stayed in Los Angeles.

Whoever came out of the West was going to win, just because, to me, Antetokounmpo is going to leave.

Like, the Bucs just don't have enough.

That's going to be that.

But, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

I think LeBron gets his third championship with a third team.

Solidifying yet another piece on his resume for history.

Yeah.

Now you're depressing me, Jeff.

Now I'm, like, now we got to, now I got to wait, you know, because most likely they're not going to play.

I know that they're trying to make stuff happen in July, but.

Are they really?

I hadn't heard.

At sea.

At sea.

I know.

Well, like, they're trying, it's like the, what's his name from the UFC?

Like, they're trying to buy the island.

He's trying to, like, buy an island so he can go.

Like, Dana White?

Yeah.

Yeah, he's trying to have fights on an island somewhere.

But people are not.

I mean, the thing is, I was listening to something yesterday, and they were talking about, like, I guess they did WrestleMania with nobody.

Yes.

Yes.

An empty room.

I didn't watch it, but they said it was kind of weird.

Everybody was just like, it's definitely super strange.

So, I don't know.

I don't know how a team, I was watching, I watched a couple nights ago the old, the Utah Bulls games, and I totally forgot the Utah, I remember the thing with the old, with the Utah games was how loud the arena was, because it was all up on it.

Like, it was just kind of a weird, it was like a tight arena, and they kept going to shots of the noise level in the arena, which I totally, I know that was the thing Utah did forever.

But it was funny, because it wasn't a digital meter, it was, like, an actual shot of, like, a real meter, like, somewhere, like, because they couldn't do it digitally, so it just kept shot into this camera shot.

I was like, they felt so old.

But I'm like, yeah, I don't know how in a quiet arena where you could hear everything, it would be really strange, and playoffs are such a momentum.

There is something about basketball when it's loud, and it's just, I don't know how that would be.

And I don't know how it would affect the teams.

And I don't know how, you would have to essentially lock everybody down.

You would have to say, hey, guys, we're playing in this area, this, every, you can't leave, like, and you're just stuck here for the next, you know, for the next month.

Weeks, weeks.

Yeah.

Yeah, and, like, would people really want to do that?

I don't know.

We'll see.

Well, the other thing, Jay, is it's not just the players themselves, right?

Like, it's their staff, it's the coaches, it's a whole lot of folks.

Yeah, it's a lot of folks that you have to have under wraps for quarantine for all this stuff.

But I agree with you.

Look, when we talk about wrestling, like, when I was in college, I went to go see the filming of Monday Night Raw here in Miami.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

And, man, this was during the Stone Cold Rock era when they were, like, both huge.

And, man, what an amazing experience.

But I saw some of the clips of WrestleMania and stuff.

Dude, you get the crowd out of it.

It's, like, 70% of wrestling is gone.

It's just awkward.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You can't, yeah, that's the thing.

It's, we have, you know, we moved next to our, like, our closest friends.

And so we've been, like, in quarantine with each other, kind of.

But another friend lives on the same street, and they have kids that are older.

And one of the kids is kind of, like, he's not a bane to any of the rules.

And so we had a conversation today about, like, okay, this, our friend's son, Jacob,

who we, I was, like, his small group leader in high school.

Like, I love Jacob.

But, like, he's going in and out.

He's not a bane to anything.

And so now he's going to be home.

And we had this, we're going to have this weird conversation.

Like, you know, we're going to have to tell him, like, he can't just come over to our house.

Because, essentially, if he wants to break the rules, he can.

But we are in self-quarantine right now, like, between our families.

And so we, and you're risking, because our friend's mom is going to come stay with them.

And she's high risk, essentially.

And so, like, so this is what's going to, how are you going to control all these teams,

all their kids, all their families?

Like, so you really have to, you have to have those type of conversations.

Oh, so your daughter who's in college wants to go to the local coffee shop and just grabs

them and come back.

Like, did she wear a mask?

Are you doing the temperature stuff?

Are you going to do what China's doing with the green, yellow card stuff?

Where, like, that's how they're, like, I know it's possible.

But, like, I know they have to go into a player's agreement deal.

They have to go to the player's association and go, like, because it is infringing in people's

rights.

Like, it's a big thing.

And so it's, like, it's going to be interesting.

But regardless, we have to figure it out here in the next month or so as they start lifting

stuff.

If Americans just wear masks, we probably can go back to some activity.

But will people obey is the real issue.

So our autonomy has always kind of been the issue at this.

And I find it very spiritual, like, on one side, because, right, like, the Bible that we

study is actually Eastern in thought.

And so there's a lot more thought in terms of how an individual's actions affect the community.

When this whole thing happened, the instant thing that was insulted was everybody's autonomy,

was everybody's individual rights.

It's like, no government's going to tell me that I can't worship at church in person.

Yeah.

Are you not thinking Christologically about how your actions affect the community?

That's a struggle.

Yeah, I know.

It's a good question.

When we get past coronavirus, when life gets back to whatever normal is, what does church look

like?

What does culture look like around us?

It's like, we started, we're talking about, you know, WWE, WWF, and, you know, the rock

doing his hand thing to the ear.

Are you smelling what the rock's cooking in the kitchen?

Whatever the line is.

It's been so long since I watched that stuff.

I was more of a Hulk Hogan, Ultimate Warrior, kind of, like, that was my heyday way back when.

And so, like, you're right.

That, take that out of the equation, out of that physical environment where you're just

watching it online, there is a piece of it where, yeah, you need that physical component.

But without having the online part, without it being broadcast, you're definitely losing

a lot of reach.

And so, there's this tension, and I can't believe I'm drawing an analogy of church at WWE.

I did not plan this when I started this podcast.

But you've got this tension, right, between, all right, so let's go all the way back to

the way that it was before coronavirus, where all these churches aren't having anything to

do with online.

Okay, you can maybe do that.

I don't even know that you can do that, because I think culture is swinging so far the other

way towards having more digital, more technology, more community centered around these technology

pieces.

So, like, I think there's a balance between the two.

Like, when you look, when you think at what is culture going to look like post-coronavirus,

when you think, how is the church, how can the church respond to this?

Jake Cranda, Ray DeArmas, two of the smartest people I know, which is why I wanted you on this

podcast.

What are you thinking about?

What does the future look like?

I will, I was actually just thinking how you kind of look like Jake the snake.

I was just like, you got, that's awesome.

Yeah, you got, you got the look a little bit.

So, but anyways, so I, yeah, it's a, it's a good question.

I, I, I, I go to two places.

I definitely think that a lot of people are going to immediately leverage, you know, Zoom

for a lot more things.

I think there's a lot of, there was a quote today that I was reading in an article and

he was talking about kind of this idea of, of what the coronavirus is doing.

And I'll just read it.

It was from Ben Thompson.

He says, the coronavirus crisis will not so much foment drastic changes as it will accelerate

trends that were already happening.

Changes that might have taken 10 to 15 years simply because of the, this stickness of the

status quo may now happen in far less time.

And so he was talking about like, uh, cutting cords.

So if people have cable because of live streaming of sports and there's no live sports, a lot

of people might immediately be forced into a, you know, into a corner to go, oh, wow.

Like, I don't really need this.

I can get everything on Netflix or whatever.

Um, and I think churches are realizing like, oh, wow.

Like we can do meetings online.

We, we can do support groups online.

We can do coaching online.

I, you know, I, I was kind of joking that right now, if you get, if you get let go at your

church and you need to get hired at a church right now, you could really get hired anywhere.

Like any church is doing remote, like remote stuff.

Now they might not want to do that.

Um, or they might not have the funds right now to do that.

So it's not really a good time for that to happen, but I, I do think there's a lot of

people just realizing, oh, wow.

Like a lot of this stuff is working now the flip side.

I do also feel that there's a lot of people that this might give them justification to

not do things online after this, because they might go, this didn't work for us, or I didn't

see this.

And I actually think a lot of that is coming from the confusion around metrics.

I don't feel like a lot of people are like, they're, they're looking at all this stuff

and they're like, wow, a lot of people are watching this or this isn't, this isn't working.

And I think if you didn't have the platform set up for this pre COVID-19 and all of a

sudden everybody has to watch on Facebook and YouTube and on your website, whatever, if

you didn't have that platform set up, you're having to remessage a bunch of people where

to go.

And the people that already had that, it was seamless.

Like for us, we already had a platform.

We had, you know, subscribers, we had things.

And so people automatically knew where to go.

And I think a lot of people, the first couple of weeks have been.

And I am scared that might give them reason to not reinvest.

And I, and I feel both feel like both camps kind of exist.

I do.

I do feel like more people will leverage it.

I feel like that camp's larger, but I am a little nervous for what people will do after

this.

It might, might stop doing some things just because they said, oh, look, we did that.

And it didn't really work that great.

You know, I'm actually a little more optimistic, even though I agree with you.

I think that things will change.

And I'm glad that you cited that article.

Because I couldn't agree more.

This really, it advanced us a lot quicker than what we had thought in terms of arriving

at this point.

I was telling Jeff earlier that we were so happy that 90% of our physical groups actually

transitioned to an online environment during this time, which was bigger than what I thought

would happen.

And so that right there, but there were already exactly what you're saying, Jay.

We had a lot of the things in place.

We had, oh, we know how to do this.

We've done this already in other environments.

We've, we've taken our services online.

We've taken small groups online.

We've got membership online.

We've got like so many different things that are possible that people can encounter these

environments in an online process.

Most of our church was already onboarded to online giving.

So some of those things were already in place.

And for the churches that were not, this was very difficult.

Now, the reason I say I'm more optimistic is because I think that churches now, both church

plants and moving forward.

And even those are going to be replants are now going to have in mind that they need to

have at least some kind of presence in the digital environment.

Even if they're not going to stream their services, their pastors are going to be more conscientious

of the fact that, man, I've got to stay connected with my people during the one, six, seven, all

those hours of the week.

I think that's going to be a primary engagement driving factor kind of moving forward.

Whether it's going to be through social media platforms or something else.

And it's not even going to be before they would like insult people saying, oh, well, that's

just celebrity stuff.

That's just people trying to accentuate themselves.

I think now they recognize, oh, no, there's a need for my people to be connected on a regular

basis throughout the week to pastoral community, to have something, somebody shepherding them

there in that kind of way.

And so that's something that I could see that hangs around for a long time moving forward

in church leadership.

Yeah, that's a good, I was just, as you were saying that, I was thinking of a lot of church

plants and people coming out of seminary right now.

And I got an email from somebody just yesterday that they're, they're graduating from seminary

and they're wanting to plant a church online.

And I'm thinking there's a lot of these people that are finishing up school, or maybe, you

know, there's a friend here locally that planted a church.

And I'm just thinking, oh man, what a terrible time to be like cut off from a lot of the financial

support.

Because it is, it's like, you know, churches that have been going for a couple of years,

you're going to generally have some base, but if you're just, just launching or just launched,

it's going to be really rough.

But I, I, I am excited for the people thinking about planting churches, uh, instead of getting

so wrapped up and just picking a location and a building, you know, more people are going

to go, oh, wow, maybe we should just start streaming and start doing this.

And the barrier of entry is a lot lower now.

And, and I, I like that because I think it gets them thinking digital really early.

Yeah.

Let me, let me pitch in something on that because like, and I'm going to put on my Stadia hat

here for a second.

There are some phenomenal stories that are coming out of Stadia.

Next week, we're going to have, um, uh, Patrick.

He's, he's a church planner.

Um, the man's not even living in the city where his church is, is planning yet.

And he's utilizing Facebook groups and church line to ramp up his actual ministry and, and

how he's got such, like even today, he started rolling out his strategy for how he's using

local Facebook groups to connect with people, trying to get exposure to me, to funnel them

in.

It's phenomenal, the stuff that he's doing.

And he's not even located within the city that he's trying to reach.

There are people that we're going to be doing blogs with and going to write content.

There's guys who were scheduled to launch their church in the fall.

And they're looking at, at like the ramp up of what's, what's happening in this season.

And they're like, yeah, we want to roll sooner.

Like let's launch now.

We're not, we're not prepared for physical, but let's do ministry now because this is where

people need us.

And so it's, it's amazing to me because some people it's, there's a mix.

I've seen both.

There's some people who are like, I don't even know what's going on right now.

I'm going to pause and I'm going to delay.

And then at the same time, I've seen people who are like, dude, the fire's over there.

That's where I'm needed.

I'm running towards the fire to try to do what I can.

It's, it's this phenomenal experience where you start to see planners.

I had a, had a giga church, literally 20,000 member church, physical locations.

Their online pastor said to me the other day, man, I wish I was at a church plant right now

where I could be doing tangible ministry because he's even recognizing, which is scary.

And I kind of had to work with him a little bit, but he's seeing this point of, okay, what's

happening at the, at, at the physical level with the broadcast and all this, that's so

far away from the, the relationships.

You have to work really hard to get into those tangible relationships.

Uh, and that's, that's really where a lot of the church online, the relationships, that's

where the, the life change in the discipleship comes in small churches, church plants have

a huge opportunity in the time ahead to utilize technology in a real way.

I don't know that they really realized it beforehand, but I know a lot of churches are learning it

kind of in this season.

Yeah.

And just to throw this in on the flip side, like I heard, um, from some folks that how

disappointed they were that their churches weren't offering anything here locally in

Miami, how almost disenfranchised they felt like they felt so isolated as a result of it.

And these are older elderly folks, you know, their churches weren't even offering, you know,

the people that you thought, Oh, well, those folks might not necessarily have be into church

online or whatever else.

They felt alone in the fact that their church wasn't offering any opportunity for them to engage

online and they were coming to us saying, Hey, we're going to be watching your services in

this time because we have nothing else.

And I almost wanted to give that, pick up that pastor's phone and be like, Hey man, can

you please just record yourself for this poor old lady here?

Like, cause she wants to be part of your church.

She still wants to be tied in there, but you're not providing that opportunity for her.

Like that's a shame.

I've heard that from a couple of people just looking at pausing and, and I do, do think

it's overwhelming when you think about doing church online.

And especially if you think of it as an all or nothing type of initiative.

Um, uh, we, we've been talking a lot about the ideas that there's like kind of four pillars

of how you kind of do it.

It's it's, you have large gatherings online, you have small gatherings online, you have one

on one connections and you have self-guided, uh, kind of opportunities and your church needs

to do all those and you as the pastor don't need to do it all, but you need to encourage

your key people and your small groups and the people mentoring to use these venues, because

ultimately you as the pastor are not doing all the ministry.

And so you got to understand some of it.

You got to enable your key people to do it.

But I do think a lot of, I do think it calls out.

Like if it's, if you're just streaming, I still believe that it's, it's because your ministry

paradigm was so dependent on people being present and the more you do stuff online.

And I know you guys have experienced this before you do something digital.

You have, you have to really think through it because it's, it's, you have to pre-program

it.

You got to write out your emails.

You got to coach your people.

And I think a lot of people, the way they do ministries, people show up and they preach

and then they have these conversations.

And sometimes digital kind of calls out all this, this planning that you have to do.

And it's, it is hard.

So I, I, I'm, I'm praying that a lot of people, as the weeks go on, that they get challenged

not to be like, not just a pause.

And that even the people that are doing small things that you got to lean into more uncomfortable,

like you've got to up your game slowly because this is as, as the weeks and the months draw

on, however long we're in this season, you can't pause, cannot be an answer.

It can be an answer for some things, but not for everything.

Yeah.

You know, Jay, a conversation that I think that this advanced drastically, and we were

highlighting this with our staff the last couple of weeks was the, the engagement being the

new attendance conversation.

To me, this whole thing is, is advanced this light years ahead because, you know, everybody's

falling in love with the views right now, right?

Like, oh man, great.

We got awesome views.

Hey, everybody's reaching thousands and thousands of people.

Wonderful.

But the thing that I keep telling them is, all right, but how many, how many connections did

we receive that week?

How many people are getting plugged into small groups?

Because if, and when, if, and when it comes time to transition back to physical locations,

like we need to make sure that people are connected.

We need to make sure that they're connected.

And even then in the here and now, if they're going to be cared for, they have to be connected,

whether it's in small group, whether they're serving, they have to have some kind of tangible

connection to the church.

And so we have to hone in on those metrics now and put a greater emphasis on those than

we do on the actual view count week to week.

Yeah.

So, I mean, engagement, at least how I define engagement, it's a two-way conversation.

So, it's user, computer user, online attender, engaging in a situation with the church or

someone from the church to the point that they're no longer just consuming a product, but they're

responding and engaging with it in the physical space.

There's three different models of church.

One would be a physical only model of church.

One that is, hey, we're just going back to the way that it was in the physical space.

There's the other end of the spectrum, and this is one that I've done a lot of talking

about, where it's a digital-only model, a digital ecclesiology only in virtual space.

It's not dependent on the physical at all.

And then there's probably something in between.

Call it more fidgetal.

That's the term that Stadia is using right now.

Towards, it's a mixture of digital and physical, where we're utilizing the physical church, but

we're utilizing the digital tools to create a mixed model of it.

Ray, we've been on podcasts with Eric Geiger.

I think Geiger is actually the first person that I ever heard say the word fidgetal back

when we did this podcast almost a year ago now.

Man, it's been crazy.

Here's my question with all that.

Is a physical-only in this culture, and I'm not looking for mic drops here, but legitimately,

is that even going to work?

Technology has shifted and adjusted so far.

Yeah, there's probably some churches that still could be physical-only and ignore it.

But I'm wondering, at some point, is it already gone, where a physical-only approach, they're

not going to last?

Is there room for it?

Am I being too doomsday?

I'm open to feedback.

What do you guys think?

Physical-only.

I think you're always going to have outliers in terms of the physical-only that you'll be

able to point to.

And that they'll be able to point to themselves and say, you see, we did it without digital,

as if there's a gold medal for that.

I think those are always going to exist.

I don't think it's going to be the norm, though.

I think within the bell curve of, hey, strictly digital and strictly physical, I think the

greater is going to be in the middle, where the physical meets.

But within that, though, I think you are still going to have some on the outlier side that

say, nope, we are not going to podcast even.

We're not going to put our stuff streaming.

We're not going to do any of that.

Instead, we're going to make sure that all of our meetings are in physical spaces and

environment.

I think that's still a little hot.

Yeah.

And it's really, it comes down to like, you know, each of us are called to reach the people

God calls us to reach.

So is the question, can people leverage just physical and not digital?

Well, of course, there's always going to be counter movements to reach different people.

You know, it's kind of like the difference between, you know, Orange County to Los Angeles

County to, you know, outside of Seattle, like every little subculture exists.

And, you know, I don't have to like Minecraft for Minecraft to be used and popular.

You know what I mean?

Like it, it is, you know, there's so much of the internet that I just don't get and, but

it's still relevant.

You know, I pull up any YouTuber and I, I get annoyed in a moment and I'm like, how is

this person popular?

And it's, but it's the point is that, you know, it's, it's the whole thing that's happened

with zoom in the last couple of weeks.

Like zoom has been around.

Many of us have been using zoom for five plus years.

And the problem with zoom, what happened in the last couple of weeks is when 200 million

people use it.

And 1% of those 2 million people get scared because a third of their people are in China.

Then everybody has, there's a backlash on zoom and it's like, nothing really changed.

It just happened to be their audience went berserk.

And it just, when you have a large enough people, people get scared.

But I think the reverse is true with the church is for sure.

People are, there's always going to be things that are going to be relevant.

And I think they're going to be people that are unreached.

And I just, I think it doesn't, it doesn't make sense if you want to reach a lot of people

to not use digital, but can you reach people?

Yeah.

And I still think that that will be, um, it could be a powerful expression, especially

as you know, before this, there were all that stuff going around about how social media

and being on your phone and screen time and all this stuff was kind of draining your brain.

And the thought was, if you were leaning too much into digital, you were kind of feeding

this bad habit and it wasn't mentally healthy.

Um, and so I think that will go back.

Um, I, I, I, I think whatever we're in, you know, we're going to swing back, uh, the

pretty, you know, humans are pretty resilient.

And I think, you know, everybody thought the world was going to be one way after 9-11 and

guess what?

We went back to that way.

I think we're going to go back to our ways after this, there will be some changes, but

I, I, I think we are, I mean, you look through the, the, the span of history.

We we've been through a lot and eventually we, we kind of go back to norm.

So I don't think that this will drastically change too much.

I just think, I think it will just lead to people.

I think there's a portion of people that probably we're going to adopt some digital stuff.

Um, I I'm curious, the thing I feel like that, that I think it will impact churches.

I think the more we're more remote learning, remote learning stuff is going to be really

interesting.

I think there's going to be a lot of people more okay with like people working from home

and just like, that's, I think a lot of churches just totally, you know, you know, figured that

one out.

Um, but I, I, I don't think it's going to, I, I feel like for sure digital is the smartest

way to do it, but still people will still not do digital for sure.

You know, we're going to get to the remote learning.

Carrie Newhoff published a thing and I don't want us to unpack it here in a second, but I

want to come back to your four pillars, Jay.

Uh, and, and I'm, I'm, I'm glad you said it because it was in the back of my mind.

I couldn't figure out what the four were, but I've loved this of you've got the, you know,

the large group, you've got small group, you've got one-on-one, and then you've got kind

of self-led self-taught systems that are in place.

I would suggest pre-coronavirus that church was using was very good.

I say that we were really good at broadcasting services and we were really good at making

sermon archives and some resources available for us, quote unquote, self-taught.

I don't know that we were really developing rich funnels and curriculum there, but I think

we were, we thought we were good at maybe the, the large group and, and the self.

I don't think that we had really given much attention to the one-on-one and, and the small

group, I think that we're seeing the small group grow, um, quickly.

If no, nothing else in like situations like Ray where, Hey, we had to get our groups have

to meet.

This is a long period of time and now, you know, Ray's telling stories of 90% of their

small groups are now funneled into an online environment.

And some of those, when the dust settles, some of them may stick online.

Some of them may be a hybrid and, and, and, you know, would love to see some exposure there.

I think in this season, I'm, I'm hoping that the church is learning there, there's opportunities

for four pillars, not just two.

And one thing that I don't even think that we've even realized yet is how to utilize the

one-on-one for multiplication, for discipleship, to teach, uh, disciple others to the point

where they can disciple someone else.

So I think there's even opportunities for us to grow in this season where we even are today

towards what tomorrow can be.

Kind of any, any thoughts, any thoughts on that?

How, how have you seen the, the, the small groups or the one-on-one kind of, what does

that look like in, in, in your environments?

So for us, um, you know, the small group has really been transformed in a lot of ways.

I mean, we were already doing digital small groups before through zoom or through Google

hangouts or whatever methods that the group leader wanted to choose.

But, um, but Jeff, what you're talking about here, you know, I don't even know if we're,

if we're succeeding at that.

I'm, I look forward to hearing Jay's answer a little bit more.

This is what I was going to highlight is remember we, we spoke to Ed Stetzer a few, a few episodes

ago where he talked about the need for the third environment that churches need, like

a third environment.

And we talked about how digital can become that we're finding that we're creating more

content.

content, but even I've been coming back and talking to our leadership about creating

more community around that third environment.

environment, because as such, we've kind of become like mini Netflix with the amount of content

that we've been churning out.

Just the need to feed people, social, social, social, thinking that that's connection.

But the reality of it is that the opposite is true.

People need more community kind of engagement.

So Jay, uh, what are some things that you guys have done in terms of the one-on-one stuff,

uh, to get good at that?

Yeah, I, so for sure we've had a huge conversion as well.

I don't know the percentage of, of what's happening, but a lot of stuff we were promoting

promoting early on was how to convert your existing group to an online group and then how

to join an online group.

So I think we, we, we spun up a lot of like more robust tutorial videos on how to use zoom.

We spun up a support line so people who were kind of stuck could call in and we could answer

questions on whatever I did.

I did one where this lady who was like clearly in her eighties, she did not know how to zoom.

She's trying to do it from her iPad.

And, you know, I'm just, I realized she was scheduling, she was editing her, her zoom meeting

on like her iPad calendar.

I was like, oh yeah, that doesn't talk to the zoom app.

You got to go.

So like, so it's like those types of things where you're just trying to, you're trying to

help people navigate the gap of, of transition.

And then, and because like we're in that where it's, it's, it's the classic, like, you know,

what's going to happen when people like with the industrial revolution, we're going to leave

people around, you know, the people from the horse to the car and people get left behind.

And we're in one of those digital where you could have survived without digital on some

level, cause you could have still done stuff.

But now those people who hadn't adopted, you know, are being left behind.

So we wanted to guide those people.

And then it was a lot of, we spun up a lot of online central groups where large groups

could be together and we would use zoom breakouts so that people could taste and experience what

an online group was before being jumped into starting one or joining one small.

But one-on-one, I think a lot of it is around, Hey, experience an online group, join an online

group.

And then the idea is that you could do this same thing one-on-one with people.

And, and I think we've been communicating two things.

It's, you could do a zoom, a Skype or just call people.

And this is something that, you know, I've been doing.

Like I did a zoom with my grandma a couple, like two weeks ago, a week and a half.

Oh, grandma.

That's awesome.

That's so sweet.

I love it.

And so like, but it was funny.

A good grandson.

I know.

Yeah.

I'm just saying it for brownie points, but like, but it was funny.

Cause like I said, let's do a zoom and I text all my family and stuff.

And we did this zoom and my grandpa, my, my, one of my brothers and his wife live with my

grandma right now.

And so she, he was able to be tech support and we were all able to get on the call.

And the cool thing, I have another brother that's in, um, well, actually just moved.

He's in Missouri outside of St. Louis.

And we were able to all be on this call and we hadn't all been together for like years

and like my nephew and stuff.

And it was, it showed the power of this.

Like, why weren't we doing this before?

Like we could have done this, but this forced everybody to do it.

And I think with my grandma though, I still, we did that zoom, but I still call her once

a week.

I call my other grandma too.

And so the last couple of weeks, cause two things, I know that they're isolated and they

have to stay inside that they're in the demographic to have to, but I just call them.

And so I think we're encouraging, you don't have to use complex technology.

You could just jump on the phone.

And I think a lot of that is just teaching and modeling from, from the pastor side.

It's just going, Hey, here's a way you can experience it.

Hey, and then we tell them, Hey, you need to do it one-on-one.

And then lastly, you can use whatever you want.

Just old school call them.

You know, I was trying to earlier today, I was meeting with somebody this morning and

we were trying to do a zoom call and the, and their wifi went down and it's funny.

I just, we called and we did a phone call.

And it's like, it doesn't need to be this like complicated thing.

And I think sometimes we put the bar so high that it's just like, we just like, and this

is the whole thing.

You guys know this, our online groups were very agnostic with our technology.

So it's just like, meet with your friends, meet with your people.

We don't care how you meet.

Zoom's a great tool.

If it's confusing to you, I don't care.

Call, you know, you know, you text each other, whatever, just you need to meet.

And so I think the more we tell those stories, the more we provide environments for them to

taste it and experience it, the more people will do it.

And I, and I think that's why I would encourage pastors.

If you're like, I just don't get online groups.

I don't, it scares me.

I don't, if you don't do it, your community won't do it.

And your job is you still want your church to still be a church and you need to facilitate

that.

And I think a lot of churches are, are the catalysts to people figuring it out.

They're either experiencing at work or they're experiencing in their church.

And if they start doing it, then guess what?

Then they'll go, oh, you know what?

I could do this with my family or I could do this with my, with my, with my neighbors.

I could use zoom.

And I think a lot of people are meeting in online groups for their work and for their

church.

And that's bleeding over to all areas of life, which ultimately leaves to people not

feeling as isolated and it leads to a healthy experience.

So I think we do have a job to show that this stuff is possible online and we got to push

them and we got to do it.

Jay, you said something earlier that really intrigued me.

You said that you think that things are going to kind of go back to normal, like really, really

quick.

You know, in terms of the fact that we're going to get back to the way that things work.

Why do you think that's the case?

And what do you think some of that's going to look like?

Like let's say August, they say, Hey guys, we're ready to go back in to gatherings of

50 or more on a nationwide scale in the United States.

What does that look like to you?

I think if you're, if you do not know, so this is the number one thing.

There's a lot of people that went streaming first week or two and they were measuring numbers

and now week three, four, five into it, they're seeing a draw.

And so I think the narrative is going to be like, wow, that only worked for the first week

or two.

And now we have a third of wherever we were at.

And I think if you don't, if you don't properly understand the metrics, if you don't properly

understand what's going on, then I feel like the data, data can be spun in any way possible.

It's another example is that if you don't have a good strategy online right, right now, and

you're not telling people to get into online groups, if you're not launching them, launching

them, then nobody's going to do it.

And you might come out of this, go, you know what we stream, but online groups really didn't

work.

And our people really don't want it because nobody did it.

And the question comes down, was that because nobody did it because they really didn't want

it?

Or was it because your poor leadership, you weren't able to execute it right?

And so I think I'm nervous that right now churches are not leveraging digital correctly.

And they're going to say, our people don't want a digital strategy because they didn't

do it.

And it really, it's not going to be because they didn't do it.

It's because you didn't do it right.

And I think it could be a little bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

So I think it's, I think people will, I think a lot of people will continue streaming their

services.

I'm just worried people won't stream more things.

They won't lean into online groups.

They'll pull back.

So like support groups, online support groups, I think make a lot of sense.

And I think a lot of people will go, you know what?

That was scary.

Let's not do that.

I don't think you need to make it for everybody, but I still think that like online counseling,

online crisis stuff, online support groups, I think that has a place digitally and, and

maybe it's 20% of your strategy, but I think a lot of people might go, you know what?

And pull back at least that's my, but if I put on my, my speculative hat, um, which, which

if you knew anything about my stock investing, you would know that it's probably not worth

a lot.

Uh, but, but ultimately I guess that's what I'm feeling.

I I'm a little nervous about that.

Yeah.

You know, it's funny.

Cause I, I lean a little bit more of the optimistic side.

And the reason is, is because, you know, I, I liken it kind of to what happened when, when

your lead pastor, when Rick Warren came out with purpose driven church, a lot of churches

tried it and they, and they tried it.

They quote unquote, tried it.

They didn't necessarily give into it.

They didn't build systems around it.

They didn't really try to move people through each of the five purposes.

They didn't really do that.

And so after, you know, six weeks of, Hey, we took our church through purpose driven

life.

We did X, Y, and Z.

And you know what?

Our church didn't grow.

Well, you still stayed in small groups.

You didn't funnel people.

You didn't have connections.

You didn't have systems in place to move people into the small groups.

Those who wanted to join those who wanted to get on board with some of this stuff.

You took a lot of people through it who wanted to get on board, but you never really had

the systems in place to get them there.

So it's not that it didn't work.

It's that you weren't really fully dedicated to the system.

And so that's kind of where I agree with you in a sense of, yeah, are some people going

to be critical of it on the back end?

Absolutely.

Do I see a lot of other people kind of like the elderly that we talked about on the front

end transitioning to churches that had a lot of those systems in place though?

Absolutely, I do.

Because now they're put into care systems where people are actually carrying on them

and loving on them in that one, six, seven space.

And not just in that hour and 15 or two hours on Sunday.

Now they've actually got church for real.

Like they've got a community of believers that are in their lives that care about them

as opposed to just, well, I sit in a pew and I sing from the hymnal.

It's the same hymnal every week.

And that's all we got.

Now they're actually going to have real people, tangible people in their lives that they can

go and visit, that can visit them.

And then this is the not so optimistic side.

There's still the fear factor of getting sick.

There's still that cloud that's going to loom over our nation and over a culture for quite

a while where I think even just going to church and seeing people in masks is going to be enough

to freak people out that they're going to say, you know what, I'd prefer to stay home.

I prefer to engage in digital spaces for now until I have some kind of normalcy back.

And so even though I agree like, hey, 9-11, eventually things went back to normal.

I still see because of cultural advancements and because of fear and even because of connection

on the positive side, I see a lot of the digital stuff hanging around and sticking.

Well said, well said.

Hey, yeah, so and I mentioned it briefly, Cary Newhoff, and I hate to like quote, well,

Cary Newhoff said, but it's interesting because actually I had several people email me Cary

Newhoff's most recent blog, we'll link to in the show notes.

It's like five predictions for the future.

And honestly, a lot of it has validated a lot of the things that I've been saying.

He's talking about how digital church is here to stay, church online in his context,

because when I say digital, I'm far more aggressive towards digital only, but to his

context, church online, digital church is here to stay.

Daily content was another thing that Cary said in his of how this is the opportunity for

church to be seven days a week.

Ray, to your end, I think there's an opportunity not just to be content, but to have community

around that.

And that's the thing that I think the church lesson that I'm learning, even mid-coronavirus

here, it's not enough to be content seven days a week, but to be community.

Acts 2, I recently wrote a blog on this last week about how we're content overload, but

we're really conversation starved because we're watching content, but we're not interacting

with people.

Create community online, not seven days a week, not just the content.

Work environment.

I got to tell you, I'm looking forward to having this mixed work environment where some

at home and some in the office, because I've had plenty of people tell me that they are

more productive in home environments as well.

This was interesting, and we'll pause here for a second.

He saw that multi-site, maybe it was going to have an issue here because people are more

likely to stay at home and engage instead of going to some of the multi-site campuses where

they're smaller.

They can't necessarily afford the 20% drop like a normal church would.

What's your spin?

And the fifth was sermon, and we can talk about sermon later, but sermon definitely is evolving

in this season.

But I'm just curious on the multi-site, and I'm not necessarily looking for mic drops either

here, but what do y'all's take towards multi-site and maybe struggling in this season?

Yeah, I guess I feel like a lot of our multi-site in our model, and I've seen this in other churches

as well, is that ultimately, the larger you are, the more neutral your language has to come from.

It has to feel like it's from this behemoth because you're ultimately thinking about everybody.

And I really have loved a lot of churches that have multi-site expressions thriving because

literally their pastor now has more time than ever to communicate to their community.

And so our church was doing stuff daily, and I just loved watching a lot of our campus pastors

just go live and upload videos and record stuff from their home and just figure out all that stuff.

So I actually, and I think ultimately that's the, within your church, the value of the multi-site,

depending on if you have live teaching or a pre-recorded type of thing.

You know, a lot of it comes down to that tight-knit community.

And ultimately, social media and online tactics are really good in that.

And so the idea is that I just have my message for our people.

And I think if you empower people, I actually think that this is a thriving opportunity.

Now, the question is, is the person who got hired at that multi-site location ready to,

you know, to actually be somebody to leverage these moments?

Cause I know I noticed that it's like, all of a sudden, like, you know, we had some people that

weren't really on social media and now in this time you have to be on social media.

This is the only way you could talk to your people and that could be uncomfortable.

So I do think it's, it's the same way if your multi-site tomorrow went to a live teaching

and you were a video also, but maybe you're not necessarily the person that can handle the

live teaching.

That's not a skill that you've built up, but I definitely think it's something that is

valuable, more valuable at a multi-site level.

Cause you could be more personal, more, you can be, you can kind of express the ethos

of whatever your campus is at that level.

Yeah, I agree with you, Jay.

I think there's a lot of need, you know, for campus pastors, especially, and we had the

same issue where campus pastors, a lot, all of our campus pastors had social media accounts.

Did they ever leverage them for the sake of connecting with their communities or whatever

prior to this?

No.

And so this was kind of a sharp learning lesson, like a real quick, have to hit left and take

a turn where, and even then we've had to encourage them.

All right, but not just content.

Once again, kind of like we flagged earlier, but also community side, make sure you're engaging

in the comments or you're talking with people that you're inviting them to take next steps.

You're doing those things as well.

I think that's crucial, but also there's something that, that I wonder about because I launched a

physical multi-site before I took on this job of being our, our online pastor.

And, you know, looking back and looking, or excuse me, looking back a little bit in terms

of the expenses that are there, and even then looking forward in the way that some of these

dynamics are changing the economy of church, I do wonder how, how ready churches are going

to be to jump into rental spaces for a lot of this, especially where real estate can be so high

when they know the potential for reach through digital avenues, and they know the potential

for community building early on onset before launching that physical location.

Um, I'm, I'm kind of hoping that a lot more churches who are kind of on the edge to transition

would merge through some of this with some of the multi-site churches to help alleviate

some of that stress, some of the financial burden that's there.

Not just because churches like, you know, Coral Christ Fellowship, Coral Gables that I helped

launch, you know, would have an opportunity.

But because, you know, specifically in, in cities, in areas like New York, LA, where Jay, where Jay's

at, you know, in Orange County, in that area, Miami, where I'm at, where real estate is so huge and so

expensive. And it's difficult for churches to stay physically in a space where they can gain from

that. That to me is a big deal. And then the last thing, Jeff, we flagged this before is the size of

the spaces that we think that we need. You know, I think in terms of advancement, we're not going to be

building these massive theaters anymore. I think this is going to help advance the fact that we're

going to build smaller, smaller rooms, but maybe more of them, you know, to help accommodate for the

needs of a specific community, recognizing that the digital environments can carry the bulk of the

load of larger spaces. There's certainly opportunities for the physical church to, to pivot through this.

And even to understand, you know, at the campus level, it's, it's far more relational in getting down

into that, even with multi-site churches that I work with, it's, it's, you know, the content, let, let central

run the content at the campus level, get, get relational, get, get down and dirty at that level and

understand that, you know, we're in the people business at that point. At the campus level, if we're

conversation starved, even in this coronavirus season, that's, this is our opportunity to, to engage at the, at the

campuses, uh, to really get into that. So, um, definitely love that. Well, I tell you what,

we're, we're going to wrap. This has been, this has been a great, once again, it's always a great

podcast when Jay, Jay Cranston's in the building. Love seeing Jay's, uh, face. You have to go to

YouTube. The way we're on YouTube, we never talk about YouTube and nobody ever follows me on YouTube.

But if you want to see Jay's face through this and see his awesome, um, seminary-like backdrop

that's not in a, uh, an actual library, go over to YouTube and you, you can see that and dissect it.

It's so dope. It is awesome. It's, it's, it's been great. We're just like, you know, raving out over here

looking at Jay's, uh, theological backdrop. Cool. Hey, so as we're landing the plane here after that awkward moment,

it's, Hey Ray, any thoughts as we're landing the plane here? Yeah. Um, leading into this, I honestly,

I let, I went into this season with the spirit of fear, you know, with the disease and everything

kind of looming over us as a heavy cloud, like many of you did. And even kind of watching as to how

churches were going to transition into these spaces. I'm super encouraged by the ones that have at least

tried. And I think that's something, you know, to be celebrated now coming out of it. Are we going to

embrace the physical and digital? That's a question that we've all got to answer together

and how we're going to embrace that. I've always been encouraged by how Jay and Jeff have led the

way and pioneered in so many ways and providing resources for, for churches to navigate those

questions. And so if you've not yet checked out some of Jay's tools in terms of how to launch

small groups online, how to do that, I want to encourage you to just, you know, take about a half

hour and plug in with some of those videos and, and dive into it and start to ask yourself, man,

am I concerned with the community aspects of my church right now? Or am I just worried about

getting a message out to them every week? Because that community question, that's going to change

everything for you in terms of your digital experience. Jay is right. And that this could be

something that, Hey, it's just a fleeting moment for your church, unless you leverage it for all of

its potential. Awesome. Well said by the way, Jay, jacranda.com. I think that's the website.

Is Jay Cranda your social media? Like how can people follow up with you, Jay?

Yeah. Yeah. Just Jay Cranda. Just create all, all the accounts. They're all the same.

Jay Cranda all over the place. You know what?

There's not a lot. There's not a lot of us. So.

Hey, and you should hit him up on Tik TOK. Jay Cranda on Tik TOK.

Oh, I don't even know if I'm on that. That's a good question. I have an account.

Oh, I'm going to follow.

That's a question. You told me before you had an account. So you lied in a previous podcast.

Well, I have, the question is, is that I don't know what my username is. So I think I have it. So

that's a good question. I would say, Jeff, for my, my closing thought would be to encourage

churches and leaders, you know, within, within those churches with your leadership is this is

the time to experiment with all your ideas. So if you've got an idea that you want to experiment

with digitally, this is the time to test it because your leadership is at least got some interest.

So do not, if you're like, I want to try out this thing digitally and you're doing it six months from

now, you've missed it. You've totally missed the point. So whatever you want to do, try it out and

put it under the, the umbrella or the, you know, the everything about we're testing this out. So

online membership, we want to test out online membership. Hey, can we test this out right

now? We're not going to, let's just do small things. Let's just try it out in a beta form,

but this is the time. Make your asks now. Do not wait till later. So I think that would be my

encouragement. Yeah. By the way, if, if you're not in a faith, talking about experimenting and even

just getting feedback that are on this road, if you're not in a Facebook group, um, talking and

talking through some of the stuff, you really should be a lot of the, the best wisdom and experience from

guys that are doing this guys and gals who are doing this, you know, um, I'm hearing coming out

of Facebook groups. So I know I started one at either short link is that the church.digital slash

FB for Facebook. And so that'll redirect to, to one that I'm doing with stadia. I know there's a,

um, uh, online digital tools. And if you hit me up on Facebook, I can point you that way.

And the.com man, I don't know how you generate so much like video content on, on YouTube. I'm always

shocked at how much stuff you're, you're turning around just the one man shop making that happen,

but he's definitely a good follow there with, with the YouTube stuff. And not to mention,

I mean, crap, five years ago, seven years ago, when I started on this road, I didn't know what I was

doing. And, uh, Jay was one of the voices for me, honestly, that just started speaking into,

into me and saying, Hey, there's this thing called online to offline. Have you heard of it?

And honestly, that one philosophy and whether he takes credit or not for saying it revolutionized

my view of church and others as well. And so you go back to earlier podcasts, if you go back to episode

three, I think it's was, was the first who Jay Cranda, the OG. And so you can catch up with that

and listen to it. But as, as, as you, as you tell me the least listened to episode, by the way,

you've told me last time we were on. So, so I edited this story. We need more views for it. We need

more listens. People help Jay out. Come on. Listen, audience, I'm going to be completely honest right

now. And this, I cut this out in an earlier podcast because it was inappropriate, but he's brought it up

again. So let's actually really tell the story. Jay Cranda is the least listened episode I have at the

church digital today. Um, I don't think it's related to Jay Cranda because Jay Cranda, another episode

that we did later on was actually very high, but I launched four episodes at the exact same day when

we launched this thing, by the way, our one year anniversary is like coming up in, in a couple of

days. And so our one year anniversary, we're, we're bringing in somebody we're going to launch on

Thursday. It's going to be awesome. One year anniversary coming up. But with Jay, we launched

four episodes in a row. Episode one, episode two, we're heavily listened to episode four, which was

the top one in the podcast. When people downloaded it is heavily listened to my man, Jay gets no love

whatsoever. Nobody listens to his podcast. I'm like, it's Jay freaking Cranda. Why does nobody listen to

this podcast? I had, I had, I totally thought like I texted you a day later. I had an idea of why that

happened, but I still, you like it, like it, but I know you released a bunch at once, but it still

cracks me up. Oh yeah. It's, it's, it's totally, it's, I should have launched three. Maybe I should

have just launched two, but I was really excited to do this podcast thing. And I can't believe we made

like 60 plus here. This is awesome. When your anniversary coming up. So here's what I want you to do.

Listening audience, stop this podcast, go back to your app, scroll down, find episode three, Jay

Cranda. By the way, I'm not saying that episode is better than this episode, but it's, no, it's,

it's, it's a really good one. Check it out. Listen to it and just show some love to my friend Jay. So

he's no longer the least listened to episode of the church digital. I mean, he's too smart to be at the

bottom. He just, he really is. Give Jay a chance. This is a great way to end. This is a great way

to end. Jay, it was great having you on the podcast. I hope we have many more before you kill Jeff Reed.

But yeah. Awesome. Hey, so for Ray, for Jay, this is Jeff for the church digital. Thanks for being

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