EP060: Larry Walkemeyer & Getting People on Kingdom Mission

All right, we got episode 60 of the Church Digital Podcast, powered by Stadia Church Planning.

I still, I love this.

I love working with Stadia in this season, helping churches around the country and around the world figure out how to do this church online thing.

Figuring out how to help church plants that have yet to even been launched, trying to help them figure out how to do ministry today in this season.

It's an incredible story. It's an incredible opportunity that we of the church have currently right now to make a difference in the lives of people today.

Not down the road, not later, not once things get better, but today to reach people where they are today.

And really, this is the heart that I want to get to with this podcast, the Church Digital.

We're pivoting some of our conversations a little bit, some of our topics, some of our themes here.

Because we have talked a lot about broadcasting technology.

Honestly, there's so many people speaking into broadcasting technology.

You don't need to hear it from me. You can hear it from others.

There's even a lot of people talking about small groups online.

Honestly, I was kind of surprised when I've seen the amount of people who have been talking about small groups and the importance of that.

It's hugely important to create that biblical community.

But I don't even feel like I need to be the voice that's saying it because I think others are saying it.

Here's the truth, though, and I think this is the biggest opportunity for the church.

Church online coronavirus in the season we're in.

By the way, it doesn't change.

It doesn't get back to normal.

The life that you experienced February 2020 is not magically going to appear in April or in May or in June.

The culture is shifting.

What it's going to look like eventually, we don't know yet.

But I can tell you it's never going back.

But I do know this.

In the culture, that's shifting.

I think there's an opportunity for the church to do something different.

And I think there's an opportunity for us to reach a new people.

But we need to shift our view a little bit here into this idea of multiplication, in this idea of disciple making, and really in this idea of on mission.

What does it even mean to be on mission?

In this coronavirus season, what does it mean to be on mission?

That right there is a topic for the conversation.

So we're bringing in a pastor from California into the conversation to help us here talk to this idea of being on mission.

Larry Wackemeyer.

He's Light and Life Christian Fellowship.

You see, I met Larry maybe a month ago at the Exponential Conference here.

It was in Florida.

It was up in Orlando.

And so even though it was just a short month ago, at this point, it feels like it's been several years with just how much we have packed into this coronavirus season.

The reason I want to talk with Larry about this is he wrote a book called The Mobilization Flywheel.

We'll link to it in the show notes.

It's a free download.

It's a PDF put out by Exponential and some others are a part of it.

Todd Wilson was one of the authors on the book as well.

But really, at the heart of what it is, he talks about how the system of gatherings, of being the church, of generating missionaries, on how that we can use this.

And by missionaries, I don't mean people like going to the other parts of the world.

What I mean are like missionaries who are just on mission for God in their own space, whether that's in the coronavirus season.

Maybe it's the neighbors that are around you.

Or maybe you're engaging as a missionary, sharing Christ and engaging with people through your digital footprint right now, your social media.

But there's an opportunity for us to not only look at the reproduction of reproducing ourselves, reproducing the Christ in us and others,

but to get to get to the point of multiplication where they turn and then multiply themselves into others.

And so we talk a lot about discipleship, about disciple making.

But the heart of this is, how can we help people figure out what their mission is?

How can we get people and get them on kingdom mission, which is actually Larry's phrase there?

What does it mean to be on kingdom mission now in the season of coronavirus?

And how can we, the church, support it, even if we don't directly benefit from it?

See, that's the thing.

Sometimes the church calls being on mission, hey, would you be willing to come serve coffee?

You'll be part of the production team?

You want to serve in kids.

And these are all legitimate ways of doing service.

But there's a difference, I would suggest, in doing things that helps the church execute physical services

or even execute church online services.

And then there's a different level of what does it mean to have a personal mission?

What is God enabling you to do that only you can do?

Because I think if we really tap into that, what is the thing that God wants you to do that only you can do?

I think that's where we see a movement happen, as we see more of these people living on kingdom mission

spreading throughout their circle of influences.

This is, it's crazy talk.

It's a crazy conversation.

The thing I love about Larry is the crazier I get with the questions,

the more grounded he is in the answers because he's like, you know, crazy.

I love this.

Let's just keep going with it.

And I got to tell you, for me, this was a great opportunity to pause from the hecticness of the week,

of the chaos of everything that's going on and to just stop and have a heartfelt conversation with a man

and talking about discipleship, disciple making, the heart of what we are doing all of this for.

So to that end, I'm bringing in Larry Walkenmeyer, pastor of Light and Life Fellowship,

author of the Mobilization Flywheel, and myself, Jeff, from the Church Digital,

and a conversation that I'm calling Getting People on Kingdom Mission.

Okay, everybody, here you go.

Yeah, I just felt like for such a time as this is, you know, that's what, when I pray about you and your ministry,

it's for such a time as this, my goodness.

Yeah, thank you for that.

I mean, it was for before.

I don't mean to negate, you know, just in general, but now, you know, the fast forward button has been pushed.

And, you know, like you said, there are people arriving there that were resistance.

I mean, that's the whole thing with Stadia.

When Stadia hired me, like it's, hey, we want to do this hyper-aggressive thing to get into technology.

We want to be kind of looking down the road.

Your posture is more of what if, like what if this happens?

And just ask questions.

Ask questions, and let's do research and development to get there.

And it's like, okay, that's great.

And so we delved into this digital-only, you know, ecclesiology.

And honestly, we're pivoting right now because it's like, hey, that theoretical conversation that we were having, that's not theoretical anymore.

And the demands of the church today, the needs that the church needs to survive, it's no longer relevant to this theoretical conversation.

It's completely different.

Like we can figure out what a digital-only ecclesiology looks like, but at the same time, 99% of the churches that exist right now, plus are physical only, that need to embrace some sort of a, and we're using the term fidgetal, a mixture of physical and digital, some sort of a fidgetal mindset so that their discipleship, so their ministry can exist in digital space as well as physical.

Because I think when we come out of this, you know, I had a church, one of the churches that I'm close with here in Miami, they're like, yeah, we're ramping up.

We're going to do more services when we come back from this because we're seeing online attendance skyrocket and people are engaging with this.

And we think it's going to be revival at our physical campuses.

And if God wants that to happen, that will happen.

But honestly, my reading of the culture is, yeah, I don't think people are going to be thronging back the buildings initially.

Maybe in time, maybe you do build on that.

But I'm really hesitant to say, oh, yeah, our venues are going to double in the number of people because of the coronavirus season.

Now, if we're living on mission and our people are engaging in new ways, that's a completely separate conversation.

But views on a web stream, that's not making people on mission.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

And you called it fidgetal?

What was your word?

Fidgetal.

Yeah, fidgetal.

It's actually a business term.

It's P-H-Y-G-I-T-A-L.

It's the merger of physical and digital.

And so that's the – it's a term.

It actually – honestly, I'm not sure where it came from.

Eric Geiger, who's in your neck of the woods, he's actually the first person I've heard say it.

But I know James Emery White over at Mecklenburg or Mech Church, he says it a little bit in his tech stuff.

So – but it's this – when I look specifically – and this is what resonated with me with your book because you've got this multiplication strategy, this plan that comes out.

And it's like if we could utilize multiplication in context of what we're doing online, it justifies it.

I was having a conversation with one of my Stadia coworkers today where it was, hey, Jeff, what's the heart of what we're trying to do fidgetally?

Like what is the goal?

What's the win?

And the principle that I came up with, it's tied to this online to offline, which actually came out of Jay Caranda at Saddleback, where it's like the gospel that we hear in the online world is so impactful to us.

It impacts our physical relationships, our offline world.

And so more than just hearing content, we are – it is driving us to action.

Virtual action is awesome.

Physical action is just as good.

So hearing a sermon, sharing a sermon is one thing.

Hearing a sermon, having it motivate me in such a way that I am now treating my wife, my spouse, my kids differently, now that's a whole other level.

Because content is now going into action.

Right.

And it's not just content.

There's obviously a level of relationship, two-way communications in here as we're casting vision and developing disciple makers to go out and do this multiplication piece.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

I love the way you're thinking.

This whole people on mission.

Churches, I think, are good at getting people on mission for the church.

But I think there's this level, and I'd love your take, of people being on mission for God that may not necessarily run towards the church, but alongside it.

I'm working with a guy right now who was on mission, and he started a nonprofit.

Basically, he's doing telehealth for third world countries.

He's connecting doctors here in America with clinics down in Latin and South America where there's no medical.

And through these connections, he's not only providing physical needs where he's treating people, and other doctors are volunteering to treat people, but he's also working towards providing and meeting spiritual needs, resourcing churches in the area.

And where you've got somebody that's – when I look at – when I talk about a digital-only church, now I'm not – I'm looking at my circle of influence.

I'm looking at the things that I'm passionate about that God has kind of got me fired up, excited about.

And it's like, how can we, the church, how can we unleash people to follow their passions?

Like my friend here who started this whole nonprofit, George, providing telehealth.

Like, do you – within your church or your experience, do you have stories like that?

Is there anything that came to mind through your book?

What is being on mission at a personal level?

What does that look like?

Yeah, Jeff, there are a ton of examples of things that people are actually doing on kingdom mission that the church hasn't readily embraced and championed and called out of people.

I think the church has done a poor job of Ephesians 4, 11, and 12, where those in leadership exist for the equipping of the saints to do the works of ministry.

And so often pastors have interpreted those Ephesians 4, 12 works of ministry as how to volunteer within the church and how to build up the institution of the church,

rather than, excuse me, linking it to Ephesians 2, 10, where God declares that we are his workmanship, his masterpiece, his poyme, his poem,

created a new in Christ Jesus for the good works which God prepared for us long ago.

And because that Ephesians 2, 10 captures those individual callings and those individual giftings and destinies of believers.

And we've somehow taken that and handicapped it to mean only service within the church.

And so you've got people like your friend who have this ability to raise up this whole ministry that's doing incredible things.

But most pastors would be more interested in just how he would volunteer for perhaps the church board.

A lady named Holly comes to my mind who is very active in the real estate world here and has a great business going.

And a couple of years ago, I asked her to be on the church board.

I said, you'd be perfect for our church board.

And she asked me, well, Pastor, I'm leading a Bible study in my neighborhood and we're doing outreaches in our neighborhood.

And I'm leading this coaching thing at work that I'm turning now into a Bible study.

So which one of those do you want me to give up so I can be on the church board?

And Jeff, you know, the answer to that was neither because you're doing what I want the rest of the church to be doing.

You're living on mission as salt and light in a way that fits your personality, your calling, your giftings.

And yeah, she still volunteers some in the church, but her calling that I'm championing is out in the world, in her realm of the world.

And so she's living on mission in a way that I think you're articulating with your friend.

But that's not what's championed in the church frequently enough.

It's how can the people in the pews build the vision of the pastor in the pulpit, the calling that he has.

Part of me wants to ask questions like, how do we pivot?

How do we change?

Well, let me even ask this question, you know, and you used on kingdom mission.

And so let's use your term here because I think that's good.

You know, with your church today in California, you're in the West Coast, you're in SoCal.

You guys have been locked down for two to three weeks.

How long have you guys been?

What's the condition right now of your church?

Let me ask that.

It's been about two and a half weeks, and yeah, we have no meetings whatsoever.

You know, the first week we were able to gather in homes, but by the second week, after a few days, actually, we were no longer even able to do that.

So we were totally digital from that point on and begin to live stream everything.

So we have small groups meeting online.

We have prayer groups meeting online.

We're doing live updates every day except Saturday and live streaming a Wednesday night service and then live streaming three Sunday morning services and then making those available afterwards in recorded version.

And so it's a whole new world for us because we were doing this all in person now that what we're doing digitally now.

And yet, I think it affords us an opportunity, and we're already starting to see this.

We're seeing some new leaders raise up who thrive in this digital world in new ways.

And that's been our call.

One of our clarion calls in the midst of this is how can you serve?

And trying to give our people tools on how they can serve in this moment and the idea that God has provided this as an opportunity.

And some of you that have been sitting back, this is the hour that God is calling you to step forward in new ways.

And one of the interesting things has been some of our introverts who have really been sitting back have stepped up in a new way on a digital platform, which I found interesting.

Yeah, like, and that's part of Larry, you know, I met you and we I mentioned that earlier in the intro, but like it was at exponential, maybe less than a week before ground zero.

I think ground zero was probably hitting in California when you were in Orlando, and it's starting to roll across the, you know, the Pacific Northwest over towards the East Coast.

And, you know, I can remember having having conversations about multiplication in digital, and it was all, it was all theoretical.

And it's like, hey, you know, Larry, I read your book, this is phenomenal, but there's this completely different wrinkle here, if we could figure out how to how to do this.

And in an almost prophetic timing, a couple weeks later, we're finding where we have to do this, you know, whereas churches, almost ad nauseum have had conversations with me that you cannot do discipleship online, are now stuck in this position where, in order to survive, they have to.

And it's kind of, as in a blog, I actually equated it to like, you know, the great theologian, Mike Tyson, everybody's got a plan until they get punched in the face.

And, yeah, coronavirus kind of punched us a little bit, and the church has adapted through it.

So my question for you is, like, what does, what is discipleship, what is multiplication, what does it look like for you?

What could it look like for you, and is this something where now you're seeing kind of on the flip side?

Is this a long-term thing?

Is this a short-term thing?

Like, what's your feeling centered kind of around utilizing technology to create disciple makers?

Yeah, well, Jeff, I think those are the questions that people like myself who have been leading a long time in a non-digital world,

and I'm 62 now, and, you know, I use technology all the time, but I'm not, it's not my native language.

It's a second or third language that I continue to try and learn.

So I'll just be real honest.

We were thrust into this.

We'd never livestreamed a service until that first Sunday where we had to.

We'd been setting up for it, but we'd been dragging our feet a bit.

And so our learning curve has been really high, even on the service delivery of Sunday morning services.

So then how to learn to do discipleship and missional work and multiplication online.

We've been scrambling to really learn that.

But one of my concerns is that with the livestream, you know, we're a church of about 1,000,

and we've been having about 5,000 listens to our broadcast now.

And that's wonderful, and I rejoice, and we've been getting some great testimonies,

and that gospel proclamation is just something we're praying for, we're working for,

we're trying to get that number up.

But it feels like a mile wide and an inch deep.

And that dries up.

If you've got a body of water that's a mile wide and an inch deep,

it dries up really fast once the sun comes back out.

And that's the metaphor that I'm seeing with our current digital presence with just the

livestreaming of services, which, again, God's used in a powerful way,

and which we'll keep doing after this crisis begins to wane.

But more importantly to me is how to use these digital platforms to go deeper with a few people

in a discipling relationship that actually bears fruit in both the character change of the disciple

and the—so they're being transformed, but also so that they're catching that same vision

to do that with someone else, which I think in this digital world,

they're catching much faster.

I'll just say it that way.

Maybe it's because of the intensity of the time.

Maybe it's because of the ease of getting together with someone online versus getting together at a Starbucks,

which is still pretty easy, but not like just a click of a mouse.

And so we're trying to drive into those relational circles and do disciple-making that way using this new digital platform.

And as to your question as to, you know, I'm not a futurist and I don't have a prophetic gift,

but I think we'll never go back to normal as we knew it.

I think for us, I'm just speaking now, for our local church, we're going to be in a new normal even as it relates to how we deliver discipleship and resourcing.

We're going to lead with the physical, but the digital will be right there beside it,

supplementing and drawing in those and doing discipleship in a new way so that our discipleship platforms are expanded.

So I'm really excited about what I'm learning.

I'm not learning fast enough, but I'm learning.

And one other thing you mentioned, and I don't know whether you would touch on this,

but we actually, one of our church, we got two church plants in the hopper.

And one of them was set to launch on in September of 2020.

But they decided because of the COVID-19 crisis and because of all the online streaming that was going on to launch on Easter Sunday online.

So, you know, they are scrambling and they're getting ready to launch their entire church plant,

renovate church online on Easter Sunday.

Of course, then they'll have a reopening physically, but it will now be with the support and the momentum of everything that they've generated online

before they can even physically do a grand opening.

So we're really excited about that, and I'm watching that develop hour by hour.

That's a great story, and I would even love off-air to kind of learn more about that.

This week, this is this completely true story.

This past week, I was talking to a giga-church digital pastor.

This guy's got 20,000 people that are attending a physical campus,

not to mention the tens of thousands that are watching online.

And a physical campus, it's a very large church.

Let's just say it that way.

His comment to me was, Jeff, I wish I was at a small church right now where I could be doing actual ministry

because the strength of online, and he's like, I really, because we started talking about the digital church planting

and some of the stuff, and even what your friends are doing, Larry, by planting their own church,

going early, taking advantage of this opportunity to engage relationally with people while they're hungry,

looking for something, and looking for those relational touch points.

There's a huge opportunity to do that.

And even the people who were doing these massive broadcasts and reaching the tens of thousands of people,

the problem with that is that you don't know who those tens of thousands of people are.

And to try to discover who they are, who those devices are, who's behind those IP addresses,

like, you know, the business world hasn't figured that out yet, much less the church.

Stadia revolutionized my life like two weeks ago because I've always been struggling with this idea of

you're doing the service first, but like when you're planning a service,

you're gathering the people together and then the groups and this.

And like with the church planning mindset, once again, I come from this world of like mega, giga, multi.

And so I'm like, well, you start with the gathering and then you pull them into groups and then you get them serving.

You get them because so I'm doing the Rick Warren baseball diamond, right?

You know, whether it's a diamond or a triangle, like those are the four stops.

And hopefully we get them all the way to, you know, home plate.

But chances are they drift off somewhere in between first and second base.

And Craig, my boss over at Stadia, he says to me, he says, Jeff, when you're planning a church, you do it backwards.

And I'm like, what do you mean?

He's like, you start with people on mission and then you go backwards and then you, you get them serving and then you get them in groups and then, you know, whatever it is.

But you start with the on mission people and you grow from there.

And this is probably something in the church planning world.

And somebody is out there saying, Jeff, you are so stupid that you didn't realize that.

But dear God, the idea of starting people on mission, even in an online context to say, hey, I want you to go out there and utilize your circle of influence.

In the season of coronavirus, your virtual influence or the physical influence around the 10 houses of your neighborhood.

What an incredible challenge to be on mission to reach people in unique ways who are hungry for this stuff.

I love the fact that your church is like, forget the plan, forget all this stuff.

Yeah, we can wait till September and all this may be over.

And who knows where we look like in September.

Let's just go now.

Let's figure it out.

Build the plan as we're flying.

That is so awesome.

Absolutely.

I think that's the the wind of the Holy Spirit.

Jesus was real clear that it doesn't blow where we want it to.

It blows where the Holy Spirit wants to blow.

And then we go with the Holy Spirit.

And I think this is one of those moments in the church where we have that opportunity for the spirit to blow us into new places where we may have been very resistant to go.

And whether that's in terms of the digital world or whether that's in terms of the missional mobilization and multiplication world, because the scorecard of the American church, no doubt, has been the attendance scorecard.

You know, the bigger and that you are, there are more buildings, the more budget you have, the more successful you are as a church.

And that's the kind of scorecard that, you know, and praise God, we love, I love mega churches.

They're doing a lot of great things for the gospel.

So this is not a dig on them by any means.

But the larger you get, the harder it is to ensure that people are being called into ministry and equipped for the mission that God has created them for.

Now, you can do that, but you've got to be super intentional the bigger you get.

And most churches aren't willing to sacrifice the attenders to send out the missionaries.

And so for us, you know, that's just a part of who we are, this idea of being a river church where people flow in and flow out.

And it's not about becoming bigger, getting more and more people around one person, which we call the lake model, get them more and more around one person and giving to one budget and building up one vision.

Instead, it's this river idea that people will flow in and we will empower and equip them to flow back out with the gospel, especially in the form of church plants.

And that's driven by a different kind of scorecard than the typical American scorecard.

So I think this moment where we can't gather in these large groups is the opportunity the spirit wants to take to create a new kind of scorecard.

So where it's not attenders or what we're in danger of doing right now is to replace the attendance scorecard with the number of viewers scorecard online.

You know, how many views did you have?

But instead, replace that in this moment with this, with the scorecard that you're talking about, Jeff, where Christians are living on mission into their calling and growing, growing the church in the kingdom on the front lines instead of, you know, it's kind of like just go back a physical analogy for a moment.

A guy named Terry in my church that sat there for 15 years.

He was my head usher and just one of my key volunteers.

And because I never cast a vision for and called and celebrated his calling like I should have, because this was when I had the old scorecard.

Terry sat there for 15 years, but now he's living on mission.

And in his neighborhood, in a whole new area, he went with one of our church plants.

He became the associate pastor when he was just the head usher.

And I had to repent to the Lord that I had, I had held his calling back because I was more concerned about how he would serve my vision of building our church as our head usher than I was about saying, Terry, what's the fullness of God's calling for your life?

And where can you express that out in the world and then in the church to its fullness?

That's amazing.

It was right there beneath you.

And just because you were working, you know, forgive me for implying, but your own agenda going in your direction without understanding the larger picture of things and really, you know, missed out on that.

And I'm sure it's exciting to see Terry kind of come into his own with the new role and expanding in ministry.

What a great story with that.

How do you in this season, in the coronavirus, like, okay, analytics to crazy.

Facebook lies.

All right, it does.

Like, I could be scrolling through a news feed, take a second to sneeze into my elbow, come back in.

And if my church service was up for the two seconds while I sneezed, you just got a view.

You know, churches are reporting five to seven times the number of physical attenders virtually.

Now, there's a lot of legitimacy in that.

And I am not ridiculing the broadcast of services at all.

But that's just one piece of a larger puzzle.

So my question is, like, how are you evaluating success?

How are you – what is your scorecard?

What's the win of your scorecard?

How do you as a church, as a staff, as pastors, how do you judge right now?

Yeah, Jeff, that's a great question.

And it's one that we are really just this week – the first two weeks, to be honest, we were just scrambling our brains out,

just trying to make things happen and connect our church and figure out what was happening and getting people into – you know,

we have a small group structure.

So that helped us in that moment.

But we still have a lot of folks that aren't in small groups.

So we were creating care circles, and I had 24 staff to move into online ministry at home, from home,

and figuring out how to get them on mission that way.

So it's really this week that we're really sitting down and saying, you know, what does success –

if this thing lingers for another month, two, three months, what does effectiveness for the kingdom really look like?

And so one of the things it's not going to look like is what you just said, is number of views.

That's not our first priority.

It's going to look like the things that we've talked about and I've thought about are the stories.

Because we ask for people – I don't want to just know that you've – would you share a story with us?

And so we've started getting stories from people, emails, text – we have a number you can text –

of people who have never been in church before or haven't been to church for a long time.

One guy from Kansas texted and said, you know, I'm dying from cancer.

And he got there through another guy in Kansas that knows our church, has visited our church,

and he invited his friend who's dying of cancer to get on the live broadcast.

And he did, and the Lord touched his life in a powerful way.

So stories like that, we're inviting those stories in.

And in terms of outreach, what are the new givers that are coming in?

Who's being touched by the message in such a way that we have new contributors to the mission of the church financially?

Because now they're not just watching, they're being moved by the message and the values of the church

to partner with us, whether believers and non-believers, we may not know at that point.

Indicated decisions.

You know, we have an ability for folks to indicate decisions.

So that's a big one.

But then for our own people, who are you identifying as an apprentice in this moment?

Because we've been a little weak on that.

And asking for digital apprentices is, for some reason, now that most of our people, I've been crazier than ever,

but most of our people have more time margin than they had.

Because we're in a low-income area, a lot of our folks are day laborers who lost their jobs, unfortunately.

We have a few in essential services, but most of them have a little bit more time margin.

So we've asked them, hey, would you invest this time in raising up an apprentice

and getting ready to start a new group quickly versus, you know, the six to nine months of apprenticing?

Can you have them ready to go in the next week or two?

That kind of thing.

And with appropriate support, knowing it's different digitally online and shipping those things

that are questions up the rail quickly.

But so those are some of the markers that we're trying to shoot for right now.

But we're still learning.

Well, I got to ask, and I wasn't even wanting to go there, but you just opened it up.

So Crock-Pot versus Microwave, you know, your systems, your book, it typically talks more of a Crock-Pot,

I would suggest, approach of that apprenticeship, those groups, that multiplication.

It takes time.

Don't rush that.

Let's grow it.

Get the person on mission and let them multiply.

You know, you talk about the one to three relationship, one person taking three,

those developing another three, discipling another three, another three.

And that's, you know, takes, that's a time approach.

You just said you were doing a microwave, you know, flip these groups in a couple weeks.

What challenges are you feeling?

What have been the wins?

What have been the losses?

What are the advice that you can maybe give to a church that's maybe wrestling with some of that same tension?

Yeah, I don't want to give the wrong impression.

These aren't new people.

These are people that have been sitting around in the groups that have been learning for, you know,

the last year or two or three or more, and who now, because of this crisis,

we're leveraging the crisis to say, now is your time, man.

It's time to step up.

And so there is still a bit of a crockpot in there because we're not taking new believers

immediately into apprenticing.

But we are really kicking the fannies of some people who have been sitting around for a long time.

And just we're making it easier.

Online has particular challenges, but it's easier in a lot of ways as well.

And the oversight can be a little more direct, too, by the key leader, because, you know,

when Jesus sent his disciples out, they weren't ready.

And I think one of the big weaknesses, a significant weakness of the church is that we haven't trusted the Holy Spirit

and the Word and spiritual authority enough to send out people before they're ready.

And not like Jesus did in the sense that they weren't leaving.

He wasn't leaving them and they weren't leaving him, but he was sending them out and then calling them back,

sending them out and calling them back.

And that's one of the things that enabled the expediency that he was able to use with them.

So I think when we really trust the Holy Spirit and we've got the Word of God really instilled in these people

to the degree that they can recognize heresy, you know, they might not be great Bible teachers,

but they can recognize a heresy when they see it.

So now go with what you have and let's teach you on-the-job training.

You know, let's see what you can do with three or four people that in your circle of influence that you reach out to.

What's the – and you've hinted a little bit.

You've talked about, you know, maybe some lessons.

I think Terry, the man who was the head usher that kind of transferred over.

What's the secret to multiplication?

There's probably no silver bullet.

There's no easy answer.

Cool.

What's the easy answer?

What would be the thing that at least as we're starting this, as we're considering it,

as we're trying to understand, okay, if we can really figure out how to get one person to disciple another person

to the point that they would disciple someone else.

Interesting story.

Side note.

I don't think I've said this on a podcast yet.

Seth Godin.

He's a famous marketer at this point.

Somebody asked him.

I love this story.

Somebody asked him on a podcast, hey, if what platforms should I use to get my message heard around the world?

What the person was actually asking is, what's the social media networks that would be most valuable to the day?

2020, this is pre-coronavirus, maybe two months ago, three months ago.

What Seth answered wasn't that question.

What he really answered is, okay, if you want a message heard by around the world,

you're not going to tell a billion people a single message.

Those people aren't interested.

100 million aren't interested.

10 million aren't even interested.

You're probably not going to find a million.

100,000, 10,000, you know, numbers aren't, the mass numbers aren't as important as telling an individual.

Tell the smallest number of people possible and then getting them to tell others and then getting them to tell others rather than going big.

And this is, this is a, Seth Godin's Jewish, like not, not a Christian.

And in a very simple way, literally just described discipleship on a marketing podcast to talk about how to be effective in business.

And this Jewish guy with no grounding in faith is telling you, hey, this is what the, literally it's the same thing Jesus is talking about.

To this point of tell someone to tell someone to tell someone.

So my question is just from, from as whatever practical advice you can give, how do you do that?

You're right on Jeff in, in underscoring how Jesus did it.

And Seth, who I agree is one of the world's greatest marketers and understanding of how businesses really distribute and disperse their products.

And Jesus could have done his ministry any way that he wanted to, with all power and authority.

And he could have sat down in Jerusalem and just held crusade after crusade, service after service.

But, you know, the New Testament shows us that 75 to 80% of the time he spent with 12 people or less.

And it was, it wasn't because he was against crowds.

He definitely would gather crowds at times.

So we know that, but, uh, the big crowd at the start of John six was gone by the end of John chapter six.

And he asked his own disciples, are you guys going to leave too?

And, um, but his, his, his model, his strategy was to go deep with a few who would be contagious.

And this is, this is, this is, this, there's no secret to multiplication, but until you become convinced that multiplication is worth the time and the energy and effort to do, you'll keep reaching for addition.

And church leaders reach for addition and there's practical reasons why, um, financially is, is the biggest one.

In order to have a church plant that's financially viable, you have to have a certain number of givers that immediately pushes you towards addition and away from multiplication and how you do your ministry.

So there's some practical realities, um, but probably the biggest, the biggest reality that's a holdback is that we just don't become convinced that Jesus's way is the way that really needs to be followed for gospel saturation of this world.

And, uh, to do it means that we have to die to sell Jesus talking about himself being buried, but also talking about a believer that dies to themselves says, unless a, unless a seed falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone.

But if it dies, it produces a whole harvest.

And so most pastors aren't willing just to die to their own ego, to their own desire to be the guy, um, and to grow the big thing.

And until you're convinced of the power of multiplication and until you're willing to die to your own, to your own ego and, and, um, and just what comes in the church world these days in America, when you grow something big, until you can die to that, you don't really live fully into multiplication.

And the, and the, the other thing that I would just say, and, and just, just quickly is just Acts two, three has become really, really important to me because it's something that I hadn't seen before.

And, you know, in Acts two, the Holy spirit comes in the church's birth.

And it's such a seminal moment, such a instructive moment for us as to how this ministry of Jesus is going to be carried out.

So you've got the 120 in the upper room.

And, uh, one of the manifestations is in verse three is when the Holy spirit comes down, uh, into that upper room.

But a lot of people miss.

And I did the fact that it says in verse three, that it distributed itself and came to rest on the head of every believer.

So you had 120 ordinary folks with the fire of the Holy spirit on their head.

And it says, and they were filled with the Holy spirit verse four, and they began to speak in languages that they'd never learned.

All of them did, which those languages, uh, were just proclaiming the wonders of God.

It says, which was, uh, this, this platform for the gospel to spread through right there.

In other words, God was using all 120 of these ordinary people because the fire, the flame was on their head.

And most pastors look out at their church, church folks and say, they don't see people with flames on their head.

They don't believe in their potential.

We really don't believe in the priesthood of all believers.

We, we say theologically we do, but then again, it comes back to what I said before we equip them for works of ministry within the church instead of, uh, a work of gospel and ministry proclamation with the power of the Holy spirit.

Multiplication doesn't happen until ordinary people, uh, understand that they are filled with the spirit and the pastor and leaders really believe that and call them up to that empowerment level.

That gets messy though, right?

Because, and let, let, let's park on this for a second, because I, I feel that tension.

Part of me, it depends on what hat I'm wearing.

The church planner, let's unleash them.

Let's empower them.

Let's let them go, go forth people.

Right?

Like that, that's, that's the goal.

The, you know, I'm putting on my, my manager side.

You can't do that.

That's not what we do here.

That's not what we call discipleship.

Change that.

You said something in, in, in, in, in, so I sat in, in your session.

The first time I met you was, was at first Orlando at the exponential conference.

The only time I met you, it makes it sound like I've seen you all the time.

And that was like, it was a long time ago.

We go way back a month ago.

This, this has felt like a decade.

Honestly, this past has been crazy.

But you, you, you, you said this thing.

You were like, you don't, don't set the bar too high, but you don't set the bar too, too low.

So when it comes to like ecclesiology church, like unpack that a little bit because you, you want to, you want to release people, but you don't want to release bad theology.

How do you manage that, that, that tension as we're releasing these people out?

Yeah, there's two questions there, Jeff.

Uh, one in relationship to ecclesiology and one in relationship to, um, empowerment and release of, of, of, of the believers.

And, um, so as it relates to releasing people into the work of ministry, like I said before, to me, it's okay if that's messy.

If they're accountable, if, if they're a person that has the humility to submit to the leadership and guidance of those that are more spiritually mature than them, because I, I'm known for throwing a hundred things on the wall and seeing which ones stick.

Um, but I don't send out people unless they have a submissive spirit to spiritual authority.

I don't mind if they're a maverick.

In fact, we have a saying in our staff, um, I reward mavericks and remove rebels.

And, uh, a maverick is somebody who thinks different than me and is willing to try things different than me and, and, and may even try things opposite of me.

Um, but they have this spirit of submission and humility, um, to the word of God and to spiritual leadership, but a rebel, um, they don't have that same kind of, of spirit.

So in terms of unleashing people, uh, I want to know that as they go, that they're remaining in this humble posture, uh, of, of a learner, uh, versus a, you know, Hey, I can teach whatever I want.

And that kind of guards, um, uh, against, uh, heresy because now, uh, it, uh, accountability is all, we're always relationally driven.

So as long as you're in relationship with them, I give them a lot of freedom.

Uh, but once they break that relationship, then there's, uh, then there's a problem.

Um, but then, yeah.

And then we can talk if, if you want to about the ecclesiology part, because that's where the bar can get set so high that, uh, your average Joe doesn't have a chance or so low that you have something less than the church, but you're calling it church.

I've, I've got a church I work with.

Uh, it's a multi-site two, three thousand people attending physical campuses, um, pre-coronavirus.

And, um, uh, one of the things that this, this church is doing, this church is trying to figure out a, a discipleship strategy.

Right.

And so, because they're, they're wanting to, they understand the need of multiplication.

Um, they're understanding that they need to take some philosophical shifts in that.

And so part of this strategy has become, uh, separate groups that are encouraged to meet together.

And actually was part of a, of a, a virtual meeting online where it was a two hour zoom call that if, if I were to have a list and you've got a list in your book, uh, and the, the organization that we're working through has their own list, but it's the nine or 10 ecclesiological, the biblical functions of a church, um, listed there.

And so I experienced all 10 of those nine or 10, whatever it was on a zoom call.

Um, okay.

How'd you worship?

Worship was the most powerful experience I've had in a month.

Wow.

Where it was centered around a Hillsong YouTube video being played.

And I sat there and listened to it, praying without interruption for 10 minutes.

It was a long song.

Hillsong does long songs.

Everybody knows that.

They do.

They're good.

But it was, and it was, it was stop.

And in the midst of, for whatever the reason, and God spoke in to me in ways because, because I, it wasn't convenient for me to stop.

It wasn't convenient for me to, to take this break and dedicate two hours of my day towards this literal online church service, but I made myself do it.

And God spoke in the midst of it, worship, giving prayer on mission, teaching, all of this was done.

And the, the, the accountability, the, the sharing, um, this was all done in context of, of this, this virtual service.

Now it's, what's interesting is this is, this was actually done with some campus pastors of the church that, that, um, um, that, that, that I'm helping out here.

And, and, and so like, we all are used to the normal church service, but then we're, we're doing this other thing to just even experiment.

What is a different ecclesiology?

What would a different model of, of church look like?

Um, some of them are comfortable with it.

Some of them are like, this is, this is, I'm not, I'm not really comfortable with this because I'm used to the other.

How do you balance maybe some of that tension?

You're a church, you're planning multiple, you're training people on mission.

You're, you're wanting them to be on kingdom mission, going out and doing these things.

You're, you're freeing them up, but there's this, there's this tension of, okay, the thing that we're freeing them up.

Isn't the thing that, that we're justifying.

And it's much easier if we just had everything look cookie cutter.

How, how, how do you get past not being cookie cutter?

Well, I was lost in your illustration of your experience and, uh, that's so powerful, Jeff.

And, and I think that you telling that story is, is a story that needs to be told because others are having that same experience when, um, more, um, older folks like me are skeptical of the online church.

They can't deny people's testimonies of what God is doing in, in expressions like the one that you encountered.

And, um, I think it, it, to me, it comes back to what I mentioned earlier about the wind blowing where God wants it to blow and you don't control the wind.

You're just taken along by the wind.

Jesus said that in John three.

And I think we're in one of those moments within, in the church and, and there are going to be some people who plant their feet on the wrong place and won't move with the wind.

And now I believe we have to have our feet planted firmly on scripture and we don't want to move, um, but there are, there are places the Holy Spirit is wanting to move churches.

Like your experience that I think we need to be open to and embrace and that's not going to look cookie cutter.

You see, I'm, I'm back to that scorecard because if you, you don't need the Holy Spirit to build in the big church.

Uh, you can do that through corporate strategies and the right person, the right leadership models, et cetera.

Um, I'm not saying that churches, most churches are built that way.

I'm just saying you can do that.

You can build what you call that church, but the Holy Spirit wants to blow with these new expressions of the church that, uh, and our digital platforms give us a whole new avenue for the creativity of the Holy Spirit.

So how you engage with that as a church, um, like I said, I'm just, I'm just barely getting my toes wet in the water.

I mean, you're, you've been swimming in this water and man, I'm, I'm just, I'm just getting my toes wet, but this is the, I think you're going to see, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, after this, uh, crisis, a lot more variety in the expressions of the church in America.

At least I'm praying so, and we need to be embracing that without moving our feet, uh, from the word of God.

I call it the cat move.

If you ever push a, a cat, not too hard, but a lot of times they'll just plant their feet, but their whole body will move.

Uh, they'll just morph around that new pressure.

And in, in, in a similar way, the church in this moment has to be willing to bend if they try and, uh, without moving their feet, we have to be willing to flex to this new reality that we're in.

Otherwise, um, we're going to go, um, backwards in our effectiveness instead of forward.

That's a great word and a, and a great illustration right there.

Stay, stay grounded in the word.

Um, keep that as, as the foundation of it.

Um, and, and, and some of the, the functions and the things morph shape around you.

You're still structured where you need to be.

You're still rooted on, onto that, that foundation.

I'm mixing analogies there, but you're, you're still built on that foundation, but you're, you're shaping as, as necessary.

Um, you know, one of the, one of the arguments and even within online pastors, um, when I talk about a digital only ecclesiology, I've actually been, um, yeah, I'll say it.

I've been yelled at by online pastors, people that do ministry online saying you can't, you can't do on, you can't do online only.

You have to have the physical, uh, and some of it's, you know, uh, tradition they're, they're kind of rooted in.

Um, some of it, you know, one of them was ironic.

One of the persons was like, yeah, well, my dad was, it was a, was a pastor.

I'm a PK.

And I'm like, yeah, so you've been grounded in this for like 30 years, 40 years.

Like, do you think maybe you could think differently about it and it would change your worldview?

And, and the person's like, yeah, you know what I, I do, I can see where that's opinion and, and it's not, you know, grounded in that, in that theology.

But the idea of, of a different model that may work for, for some people, but not necessarily all of them, to me, that's my prayer for the church.

Um, I, I don't, I, I would be foolish to say church online, uh, a digital church model, model, a fidgetal blended church model, uh, a high church model, a low church.

It would be silly to pick one model and to say, this is the best for the, for the church.

I mean, even pre-coronavirus across the country, Korea had, uh, giga churches that were, were making huge movements.

Uh, India, China was, was house churches and micro locations.

India is like people sitting under a four tree, under a, uh, four people under a palm tree.

So, like, the church looks different, but it's grounded in, in, in that, in that same biblical foundation, in those biblical functions.

And so, to, just to close, like, I would suggest that's the, that's the challenge for the church in this coronavirus season.

Stay grounded in that word.

And, and post-coronavirus season.

You know, I, I wrote a blog on this, just, just this recently.

I think it was last week.

I, I think the church is broken right now.

Not God's church, the models.

I, I think the models are broken.

Um, and, and, and I don't want to put words in God's mouth, but God's in control of this.

And, and, and which means God broke the models.

What, what's interesting is that if God's breaking us, then God will put us back together if we stay true to him.

But if he's going to put us back exactly the way we were before, then why did he break us in the first place?

I think there's an opportunity here.

If we're truly broken by God, humbled by him, staying true to his word, everything that you said in this podcast.

We have an incredible opportunity to, to shape what the church is in a whole different way.

But, better yet, we don't have the opportunity to shape it.

God has the opportunity to shape it.

And, and through that, I think we are going to be in a far better place.

As long as we're seeking him, staying in tune to him.

And, and, and girding ourselves on what we're learning in scripture and what these standards are.

Whether that's a digital only church, whether that's a, a digital blended church model, whether that's physical only.

If it's a cowboy church, if it's a, if it's a millennial church, whatever.

You know, it's, cause it's, all that's just method.

All that's just, you know, marketing and, and, and spin and process.

It's, it's the scripture part that, that's so important.

Well, I tell you what, I, I just preached a sermon right there.

So I'm sorry.

I loved it.

I was saying, amen, Jeff.

I was like, preach, brother.

Preach.

I appreciate that.

I, people are like, you should be a preacher.

I'm like, you've not heard me preach.

My sermons are awful.

Like my topics on this are good.

Cause this is my wheelhouse, but ask me to preach on James too.

Not so much.

Well, Hey, this, this has been a great podcast.

I really, I utmost respect for you and your work.

And I appreciate your time jumping on here and having a conversation, talking about multiplication,

discipleship, some of the, the, the tensions that, that you're feeling.

We're going to continue to pray for y'all out, out in California, just as we are everywhere

else, trying to understand how best to overcome the, this, the situation we are, you know,

while we're broken doing what we can, but, but staying in tuned and focused to what God

has for us.

So, and Larry, any thoughts as we're landing the plane, anything on your side?

Yeah, I, I just, I just would say this is opening up whole new avenues for the gospel

to flow through.

And church leaders that wanted, wanted to go back to the old normal as quickly as possible

are going to miss what the Holy Spirit is saying in this moment.

What I agree with you, we're in a moment of brokenness and we need to let the spirit break

us.

I talk about it as being the, the texture of the clay.

This, this, this crisis that we're in is God is wanting to soften the clay so he can put

his fingers deep in the, in the clay of the church and reshape it into a more effective

vessel.

The, the wine in it's going to be the same.

The treasure in it is Christ alone, but to reshape the vessel.

But if we don't get soft in his hands during this time and just hold on to the old, we won't

have the new wineskin that he wants to build out of this.

And while this is not ideal, this time is not ideal.

It's right now real and God's going to work in this time, but he's also going to work through

this time into a new effectiveness for the church.

And that's what I'm believing.

Yeah.

So that blog that I said that I wrote, what he just said is so much more eloquently stated

than what I did.

So ignore it.

Don't go to the link in the show notes about my blog.

Just listen, back it up like four minutes.

Listen to what he just said, because I think I tried to say the same thing, but you, you,

you nailed that.

I'm a, I'm a tech guy, just wearing a different hat.

So Larry, thank you much for jumping on this podcast and join us today.

For Larry, I'm Jeff with the church digital podcast.

Thanks for being here and we'll see you next time on the show.

Y'all have a good day.