EP054: I Streamed a Church Service, What's Next?

all right episode 54 of the church digital podcast man has it been a week or what i

it feels like just a week or so ago i was at the exponential conference in orlando

hanging out with a bunch of of church planner people trying to figure out multiplication and

then this coronavirus thing came and it has been absolutely bonkers since then by the way

it has been uh really an enjoyable i hesitate i don't even know what word to say it has been an

enjoyable experience working with stadia church planting in this process as we're helping churches

figure out how to do church online you know it's funny we've been talking about digital churches and

digital church and the biblical ecclesiology of all this kind of creating this new model because we've

got physical churches and we've got digital churches and then somewhere along the way thank you coronavirus

every church has become a digital only expression of worship because there is no longer any physical

option unless we're talking about the house churches which i think are the only physical option that's

available to meet at this point today you family who's listening you are a church is that not awesome

or what well i tell you what this has been a really interesting ride uh there's been a lot of of traffic

and attention that's been brought to this through stadia we've done tons of webinars i've been asked to

speak on more podcasts i think within the past week than my entire life combined and somewhere along the

way it's been awesome to help churches understand yeah it's important to broadcast our services

but there's also this important part of what's next what does discipleship look like what does small

groups look like what does biblical community look like what does being on mission look like for the church

and that's really the question of episode 54 here with the podcast because great we figured out how to do church

services that's awesome good for you it's a it's a necessary step in order to do church today but don't stop there

if this is a two to three week thing then maybe just maybe it's okay to just do services but the reach

that we are getting right now online is astronomical let me let me just share some stats within the church

digital my website talking about how to do church online i've seen a 1000 increase in traffic week to

a week during this coronavirus season so many of you are asking the questions and that's good but it's not

just church people it's not just church leaders it's not just pastors who are asking this question

through conversations with random churches this is a random sampling i'm not saying this is official

but i'm saying that i've heard anywhere from three to five times the amount of viewers in church online

this weekend than than any other this past weekend what i would call church appreciation sunday

church online appreciation sunday when everybody started thronging to the online campuses three to five

times viewership it may just be that we had a lot more attenders in our churches than we realized

and that they're coming less and less frequently or it may be that people out there do due to this

coronavirus issue are looking for something they're looking for answers they're looking for hope

in ways that maybe they don't know how to find and guess what netflix doesn't have all of the answers

for us not even disney plus i know it's hard to imagine disney plus does not have all the answers for us

today church this is our opportunity not just to connect them into hope but to connect them into community

re-imagine re-imagine re-think what discipleship what biblical community is

whatever the mission of your church is

figure out how to do that in virtual space

and allow people to be on mission for you

in this season

the challenge of the church is not the broadcast services

it's not one-way communication

it's a two-way communication stretch

that's going to continue to challenge the people

your audience not just to be a consumer of a product

but to be on mission for god through your church digitally

that's a hard challenge but it's one that you

church one that you pastor need to understand and step up for in a big way

today so here's where we are scheduled a conversation

brought in some online pastors and was like hey

i want to talk about the context of hey we broadcasted a service that's awesome

what's next because lots of us thousands of us for the first time this past weekend

broadcast the service but we have no idea what's next

and as much as we're obsessed with broadcasting the services it's the wrong question

the real question is what's next after the broadcast

what is that next step what is the goal of the purpose of this

i was really excited about this conversation so much so

i decided not to even show up for it

due to scheduling conflicts honestly i just wasn't able to do it

and rather than delaying the conversation i said you know what you guys have the conversation

without me there's probably some leadership lessons in there don't become the lid of your

organization empower others to do

so and i don't have that conversation now but it is a good conversation

i brought in uh ray de armas co-host who's now the official host of the church digital podcast for

this episode he's going to be leading the conversation i brought in two

uh friends of mine two guys that that have been doing online ministry for a while now

uh different size churches i brought in andy mage

from bay hope church as well as mark brant from lutheran church of hope

what's interesting here got different denominations different size churches

but all of them have a very clear vision on what is next and how that process works of hey great

we're broadcasting services good for us what's the next step

great conversation i'm glad you're here um looking forward to what's next for all of you

so many folks are are now having church online due to the advent of covet 19 otherwise known as the

coronavirus a lot of folks started streaming maybe even for the first time this week i know i talked

to a lot of friends that man their church streamed for the first time this week it felt a little

dangerous felt a little weird but man they went out there they did it they did it and now the big

question is how do they move from content to community so they streamed a lot of content they

put their message out there but now the now how can they help take all those folks who watched all

those views all the different streams that happen and how can they start moving forward and building

community around that that's a big big big and an awesome new frontier for us too i mean it's it's so

neat to know that people can connect this way especially in this time i mean nobody wanted

obviously for church online to become so prominent uh but it's great that now uh there's it's just so

much easier and accessible for churches even ones that have never done this before i think i think

people wanted it to be uh maybe guys like jeff reed and everybody else on this pod but um you know i

think i think it's it's interesting to the the last and we're recording this on a monday uh after

kind of the the world blew up at least the the united states world kind of blew up

and watching the sprint that happened towards the end of last week really the nba got canceled

and then march madness and then you know my timeline is going to get fuzzy because i'm i'm i've had way

more coffee than i've had sleep lately but watching the amount of churches that went oh snap we have to

close our doors what are we going to do um it's funny and and ray get and getting asked to be on here

i think mark and i we've been you know we've been doing church online for a while i mean bay hope's

been doing it for almost 10 years now mark how long you guys been doing it uh i think it's six or seven

i i lose track too on the timeline yeah um but the but it's not just broadcasting services you know

it's not just it it it it's all that's the that's the front door to everything right now is the is the

sunday morning service experience or the weekend service or whatever you want to call it but then there's that

follow-up that needs to happen how do you keep people not only engaged for the 167 hours but how do you keep them

engaged with the body of christ such that that we can kind of further the mission of jesus and i think

that's where we're in an interesting time right now is that these are the these are the times that try

men's souls is what i've been kind of telling people that's that's a good line and it's true this does try

men's souls and and really for a lot of churches it's i i don't want to say everybody's acting like a

hypocrite or anything like that but it's definitely expanding our theology in terms of what it means to gather

isn't it especially since we we currently don't have the capability of gathering publicly you know

this last week the cdc recommending that it might be an eight-week window in which many of us can't

gather in gatherings of over 50 or more in person and so that's a big deal and so now we've got a lot

of churches having to answer the question of all right so we can't gather but we're streaming but how can

we encourage people to build community around this and so what are some ways that you guys have done

this i mean it's been over 10 years for for the two of you and even for cf we've been doing this for a

long time so how do we help take churches especially smaller churches from the stream to community in this

time period i think i think there's a couple of practical ways it's funny i um i wrote a blog post for

church digital uh about this that went up yesterday as a matter of fact um and i related it to world of

warcraft and i i was a big gamer and um what would happen with massively multiplayer rpg games is that

you would start this game by yourself and then you would uh ultimately find yourself in a large group

of people uh running around you know shooting zombies and killing monsters and stuff but what

would happen is that would you and you eventually would group up together and that group would be

fulfilling quests and objectives but that group would actually start moving more into the week and so

you'd be getting out of the game talking to people in message boards and chat rooms and and all these

other things and then you would actually over a period of time learn about these people who started as just

faces on a screen uh or characters on a screen you would learn about these people about their lives about

their wives and children about their homes about their struggles and their joys and all these other

things and and some of those people that i met i am actually 15 years later i'm still friends with and

i still talk to um even though they're literally in one of you know in washington and california and

and maine and new york i still talk to them and the interesting thing is we we can do that even more

readily now than we could 15 years ago now we have this advent of video conferencing and all this other

stuff where we can actually group people in the acts to church model way easier than i think the physical

church realizes so physical church involves you having to drive to a place even if it's a small group

you have to drive to somebody's house you get the kids together you know you pack them up in the back

of the car and then we're going to do the acts to thing of oh hey we're meeting in homes and we're

helping and all this other stuff we can do that immediately i just have to send a link around and

people click on that and then boom there i am on their computer screen and then boom there's 25 other

people in a room and we're all in this computer screen together learning the same thing looking at the

same thing and then at the end of the time i can say okay guys love you let's pray boom and then

i go back to my life and they go back to their life i think it we're in such a cool period right now

that we need to step into this to explore it yeah i would even take it you know a step further with

that small grouping idea that um i think we're shattering some models of how people meet and group

and and do community before it was hey we're gonna have a small group we're gonna meet on the

every other friday at jeff's house and uh and whoever can make it can make it and so many of

those models were starting to fail because life has gotten so busy to begin with people just have

travel schedules that get on just untenable to be able to meet in person as regularly as they'd want

and so so many small groups were starting to fail community was starting to disappear

because people were getting so busy well now you add online ministry as an option for people

and take away you know even the current climate we're in with this the anxiety and fear uh i feel

like small groups and community is a great next step for people who are doing online it's how do you

get people to begin to meet and even if they live right down the street it's letting people know hey

you can get together virtually you can have a small group in a meeting like this

that is very authentic and it's it's not i mean obviously everybody and all of us that do this say

in person is always going to be better but this is really becoming a great way to get people together

in the same space to share community so families you know you have young kids you get them to bed

and you've got that time where you typically you'd unwind with a netflix show or something like that

well now you say hey our small group's going to meet at 9 p.m on tuesday night

jump online we'll get our computers up and you're meeting with people that you know you're going to

see the next day maybe at the grocery store or the school but this is the best time you can get

together for 30 minutes of just prayer and encouragement so i think we're trying to just

look at all these new models of how to be church together and so if i'm a new pastor you know doing

this online stuff and i've got people who can't leave their homes for a while um you know and i i've

got a way to teach them how to do groups you know in a zoom or other uh option

this is this is the time to be thinking and learning about those things and then the interesting

thing oh go ahead ray sorry no no i was going to say andy uh um that this adds to the whole aspect of

community you know so often we've talked about uh how our churches are often like theatrical

environments in which the quote-unquote church can't necessarily get engaged right because they're

just receiving content just by sitting there in a pew however online now uh we've been and we've

continued to and and it's almost encouraged for them to participate and this creates a new kind of a new

kind of way for them to be part of church which is brilliant the uh it's funny so this last weekend i saw

um as the as the transition started happening very rapidly from hey we're not meeting physically to

okay now we've got this streaming thing i saw a number of people um friends of mine on facebook and

uh follow you know people i follow on instagram and stuff that were having the same debates that i think

our churches both mark and i's churches would have had five or six years ago of there's no way you can

do this you need to actually see somebody and you need to you know physically you know this is how

this is it's the body language and all this other stuff and i saw people very vehemently disagreeing

with the notion that you can do church online and you can more than that you can do community and groups

online and yet i think there's and maybe that's just an older generation and so i don't i don't want

to i don't want to throw the baby out with the bath water there but for me i'm i'm 36 i'm a i'm a

i'm as much of a digital native as you're going to find in pastoral leadership outside of you know

so like you know some of the younger guys but but i automatically like i can see somebody on a screen

and i go okay they're talking to me so that's a real person you know there's almost a suspension

of disbelief that happens that that we can really lean into as we create community yeah and and the

hard thing is there is we are a lot of paradigms had to be broken uh this past weekend right uh for a lot

of folks um and that right there it's so difficult and i understand it's really difficult when someone

you know to to use the phrase someone moves your cheese like this right especially especially when

you weren't ready for it and you and you were antagonistic towards it and you were saying but no

but this isn't possible and and listen this isn't about being right or wrong it's just

it's understanding the difficulty of having to be pushed through this paradigm shift as opposed to

let me absorb it let me think through it let me welcome it into my life and really my biggest

concern is and and let me ask you how folks in your environments are engaging with this how the elderly

are engaging with this because this is primarily like they're it's going to be their primary way of

engaging with church for probably the next month right yeah and that's going to be i think a struggle

uh i've already seen it where uh in my role i've been called by some of our shut-in folks to come

in and help them get connected and even just showing them how to hook an hdmi cable to their computer

to their smart tv to help have a better and more stable streaming experience uh sometimes it's going a

step too far like whoa what are you talking about and so i think um we're gonna have to go slow with this

uh we decided uh for the first time as a church uh to record our traditional service we had not ever

done that before we still have a traditional lutheran liturgical service with uh hymns and such

um and so we did that yesterday we put that out online last night for our folks that consider that

their church home uh i'm still waiting to hear uh how that's going for them so i'm excited to kind of

get some feedback and see because i think that's something we were it's it's so funny this is fast

forwarding everything we had talked about producing a video file of that service for a while because we

have a lot of folks that just because of other underlying concerns couldn't make it to begin well now put

us in this scenario and i mean we were scrambling yesterday to get a camera in there and we actually

talked about bringing in hymn singers to sing in the room you know just to give it more of an authentic

feel um so it's yeah but the elderly folks it's it's teaching them a new trick but also keeping it so

simple that that they don't have to i mean some of these things are so user-friendly anymore but it's

just that that getting over this idea that it's new or different and then recognizing how beautiful

it can be well and the thing about being a pastor is that you need to lead your flock and not just

expect them to keep up with you and so there have you know there's the the younger sort of digital

native part of me wants to go to some of the people that i've had to talk to in the nine months i've

been doing this well duh you just click a link like it's duh how can you not get that then the pastoral

side of you says oh i need to love even that with grace

yeah that's good i always like to think of it as if i'm talking to my own family members my own

grandparents when when we have to walk folks through that i mean i'm sure like many of you

uh uh you know especially when you're involved in and what it is that we're doing uh your it for the

family like that's how it works um you know uh mom and dad or grandma and grandpa need help plug

him in that new dvd player or hey we just got him an apple tv awesome so call ray up and i'm coming

over and in the same way with church it's kind of working the same thing we had to flag our campus

pastors early on before the weekend to be willing to do the same thing uh for folks in our congregation

just flagging that hey it would be really unfair for us to have church to enjoy church online to all

of us get to have this great experience and then for them to feel very very left out simply because

they didn't know how to turn it on or how to switch you know how to switch uh which source their

television was on or even hey uh where do i go on the website like how do i make this easier and and

that's that's a very difficult thing but now then as we talk about community what are some tools that

you guys uh leverage currently for online community like what are some different ways that you do that

the biggest ones right now um are for for us in particular are facebook and zoom um and those

are obviously universal uh box standards uh facebook just for the chat aspect of it more than anything

and the quick video quick announcements kind of quick connection thing uh and then zoom for our online

groups uh that's just been the easiest way to kind of get 15 to 20 to however many people you want in a

room um and if you need to do video curriculum you can share the video share the image whatever but

most people as long as you walk them through it for about five minutes they'll understand zoom

we're doing the same thing i mean zoom is uh it's the easiest platform i think for anybody to jump on

you don't have to download the app but it's helpful if you do i mean it's um it's really easy just

click a link and you know we joke about that before and click a link but yeah it it truly can be that

simple um but we're also we're trying to to do some unique content on youtube now as well we started

a video podcast with our senior pastor called pastor mike drop uh his name is pastor mike so that's very

clever dad jokish but um we're utilizing that as a way to communicate uh information to folks so for

example we're really lucky one of our associate pastors uh is a also a medical doctor by trade

she was an ob gyn still is uh and so she actually came on she co-taught yesterday with our senior

pastor uh because she can offer the medical side of this whole issue we're facing uh and so she actually

did a podcast this past week with him and that's been one of our most viewed podcasts we've ever had

because uh she just brought that level of expertise so many people have commented back that was so helpful

to have her on there and so we're gonna before we we had thought about just we recorded like 10 early

you know within a week and we were going to put those out you know one every day and then we're

going to do one a week of those um video podcasts i think now that we have this uh time to reevaluate i

think our senior pastor is going to be recording those as quickly as he can uh just because what

can happen is people used to take for granted we can just go to the building we can go and hang out

with our with our classes and our people uh and that's not going to be the case and so all of those

different things we're going to have to reevaluate can we create those same experiences digitally and

what can that look like um and i would i would love to say that we've got that all figured out today

but we don't but the nice thing is we're closer than we would have ever been before to produce that

same level of digital content and now it's just helping people understand that that experience that

they're going to have digitally while different can still be every bit as authentic as it would be if

you were sitting in a classroom in our building in west des moines or otherwise and it's um to piggyback on

that and here's a little inside baseball um for everyone listening mark and i are actually in a

small group that we meet once a week ish uh as regularly as possible um and god kind of brought

us but also a bunch of people to the same idea at the same time not not necessarily the video podcast

but grouping people around um self-produced content youtube content basically how do we as as church leaders

help organize people around bits of content not these huge swaths of things but you know so for example

that that medical doctor podcast like mark you're sitting here talking about that and i'm going

oh man how could we as the church not just your church and not just my church but how could we as

capital c church jump on that and like i i almost wonder if there's a way um one of the screens i have

open right now behind you guys is a is a as a google sheet that we're sharing between all our pastoral staff and

shooting schedules and stuff for the next weeks you know just to get content out there i would love to

have that not just with our church but with all churches so that we can start to open up these

groups inter-church interdenominational groups and that's very crunchy pie in the sky hippie way of

looking at things but we're in this era like let's try it let's group people together and see what works

yeah not not at all i don't think it's i don't think it's very hippie issue or thinking that way

too i mean what i found is the online community in terms of churches and church online uh has actually

been more interdenominational in terms of helping each other out than anything else that i've been a

part of which is a beautiful thing in terms of sharing information and it's funny because our people

need to hear this kind of content mark i want to applaud you in your church in terms of what you've done

because even as i was talking you know for the first time we offered a kids experience online this

week and one of the things that we discussed with our kids ministry is how we're going to capitalize on

that and what and a topic that we came up on is help like helping parents disciple their kids and

navigate social distancing and what that's going to look like but then not just creating the content but

making sure that there's conversation around the content as well there's a total aside from the

pocket can you share that i would love to take a look at that yeah we've not created it yet but

we'll totally share that with you guys and and send it over and mark you know we'll include this in the

show notes as far as what you guys did this last sunday uh because i think it'd be great and i think a

lot of churches could learn from that because you know this is a great opportunity for us to continue

and to engage in the conversation like culture at large is having this conversation and the church

there's a place for us here um and and it's not in terms of fear and fear-mongering and it's not in

the truth of in terms of just pushing faith but there's there's a way to bring everybody together and to

say hey listen so as believers here's our response and here's how we're going to guide our families

through these things and we can generate these conversations and start them uh just real quick

because we actually had similar conversations this week in terms of what tools because we'd

already been using zoom um but because uh onboarding people can be so difficult we're even encouraging

people to go back to old school phone conferencing like hey call up a member of your small group and

add a call on your iphone and add a call and add a call and keep adding a call you know if it's like

the easiest way for you to do this if you don't want to download an excess app if you don't want to go

about those things then just go old school you know old school prayer chain and just add a call

right there and let's all gather around the iphones and let's have small group you know yeah we can't

see each other but at least we know that we're here and we're together and we can have conversation

uh there's so many different ways to do that so for even churches that are thinking themselves man i

don't want to go out i don't think we can afford zoom right now things are all crazy we're not even sure

about giving right now but we just need some free tools guys there's stuff that exists out there for

you to come around and to be in creative community whether it's just a phone call whether it's google

hangout something we've done before here uh but leverage whatever tools that there are because

there's all sorts of ways go ahead and andy you had another two other two other ones actually you're

talking about the phone thing two other real cheap and free ones anybody listening to this needs

them skype obviously great is installable on any platform allows you to put a bunch of

people in a room together the audio quality is not the best but it it works um the other one is slack

and i've been experimenting with slack for uh i'm trying to get people away from facebook because

facebook is the you know the big evil but also a lot of people are just leaving facebook in droves

um slack actually has video conferencing built into the free client up to 15 people that you can group

together uh and and then you have a chat transcript of everything that happened later so there's this

enormous opportunity there slack and i i believe i want to say um discord does it as well discord's more

kind of esoteric for a lot of people so just if you want to stick to slack go for it that's good are you

guys providing uh questions or like discussion questions to help generate some of that community

alongside the content that you're creating on the weekends yeah so i'll jump in on that um

uh we have been producing a a document essentially that was shareable on our website for our small

groups it was a sermon discussion guide uh where our uh small groups pastor would edit down the sermon to

you know take out some of the stuff that uh we can shorten it down to about 20 minutes so it's a little bit

more digestible uh we're talking about now coupling that with a video component as well so that small groups

that maybe can't meet in person can do this on their own and then get together virtually to discuss

so we can at least keep that continuity of meeting uh going because as you know as people do right now

they're kind of hunkering down and you know i would say it too i mean obviously this is very contextual

based on what we're facing right now but a lot of folks are really concerned over this social distancing

and folks that already feel isolated in general and if we don't find ways to virtually connect

i think especially as the church and encourage that we're gonna have some folks who are already

struggling you know with that connection point in general that can feel so isolated that it's just

it's it's going to get to a point where we just we encourage people at the end of our broadcast

yesterday we said hey reach out virtually or give a phone call to people you know really need you know

that reach out right now because um especially given this time this is where you know that virtual

connection can really make a difference for folks in staying connected not only to just one another

but to that faith growth yeah to piggyback on that we're actually we do uh we don't necessarily do off

the sermon itself we haven't we do that every so often um but our newest role of groups was supposed to

be starting after easter but given everything it's actually going to start this week um we've i've got

a meeting of our leaders happening at the middle of this week and then we're starting that role on

sunday we're starting a brand new curriculum or a brand new semester excuse me and we're basically

we've got a couple of groups one group is just doing a straight uh bible study like our the leader he's

um a brilliant guy and he's just going to walk people through the book of james and he's doing

old school bible study and just one-on-one type stuff it's going to be great uh we've got another

group that is going to be doing kind of some more right now media kind of guided content um so just

from other places that we can kind of zoom in you know i always use the crazy love example it's not

going to be crazy love but you know something a little bit more introductory there to see if the

group dynamic works and then give it six weeks if it doesn't work spin off into another group we

actually had um a guy that he started our whole online ministry and kind of helped here and then

backed away and has been a volunteer ever since he had a really brilliant idea a couple weeks ago that

we're going to in enact immediately actually and that is the group that is less about a study and a

curriculum and that is more about relationship and relational so literally it's going to be a group that

we're just going to get get together whenever we can maybe two groups maybe three groups have a leader

have kind of a guided prayer session and then really just open it up for 20 30 minutes and just

talk and just chat and really just you know especially right now i think if if people are looking at the

you know the i know the extroverted people right now are dying a thousand deaths every time that they

have to they hear about being quarantined and have can't leave their house for eight weeks and i i

understand that i i totally get that and so if we can offer a space that allows people to just come and

talk just we don't have to learn we don't have to it's just let's just talk um i think that's a

that's a very plausible idea and i think one that's going to gain a ton of traction

yeah it's funny because a few weeks ago we talked to ed stetzer and we were kind of discussing the

need for a third space in terms of church environments like we had we talked about you

know hey so it's great that we've got services and it's great that we have small groups but we discussed

the need for a third environment and i think this whole thing that's going on can actually fast forward

digital becoming that third environment that third space because you know i i lamented kind of the loss of

sunday school i don't know if either you guys grew up with sunday school but i did and you know in sunday

school there was a lot of good education in terms of spiritual disciplines there was a little bit of

a higher accountability there was a lot more that went on that when churches in general when we made

the hard swing to hey move away from sunday school and move directly towards small bridge only

we we now have an under educated uh christian wise you know generation coming up behind us

in terms of just some of the basic stuff of the bible and now we're opening up opportunities

digitally for a lot of this to occur where it's like even churches that move towards simple church

like ours did uh online environments over the next couple weeks are going to be our way of like

engaging people midweek where we didn't even have a midweek service before

but now we see just the need to stay plugged in with people because we don't have the capability of

meeting with them face to face well and i kind of liken it to this you know you talk about people

getting comfortable with the environment um short story when i was a kid growing up i was a huge cubs

fan absolutely lived and died by the cubs my grandfather started it it was a terrible affliction for so

many years because of how bad they were but i'll never forget you know watching wrigley field on tv was

so amazing you know uh just to see the ivy and just to see the players and on the field i thought ma'am

what would it look like to be there in person and so i went finally when i was 22 to my first game

and just walking in the field was like man it totally it shattered all my expectations you know on what

i thought it it would have been so take that in reverse a bit you know we're so used to in person

you know but i think once people realize that this virtual experience can be authentic and it you know

oh oh wow this isn't as bad as i thought it was going to be um it really can enhance the ability to

stay connected especially during this time uh i mean andy and i and jeff have been you know hanging

out together for the better part of six you know months or so and uh we've never been in the same space

together you know we've never been in the same room or building together but i consider these guys you

know friends and you know we we do life together in in the way that this is you know so much so that

you know if we ever do happen to you know finally get a chance to to be around each other that's gonna

be a really cool moment uh just to say oh man you know here we go uh i think our people in our churches

especially a pastor who is exploring this for the first time uh needs to understand you know try this out

you know it's it really can be authentic i think the fear before was how can you be authentic via a

screen and um i feel like that is the more you experience it the less that fear is is prevalent

yeah um because you really can be church together yeah it's funny because we've discussed uh how

avatar sometimes can encourage people to be more um more willing to share just because they feel all right

because there's distance between us in terms of the screen and everything else they feel more open as

if like well you can't hurt me or you can't do something about it so i'm more open to be honest

or to be me um which can create a lot of interesting things in terms of authentic community and church

as we have this over the next couple weeks you know in times past we have our church self we have our

social media self but now with digital online uh especially with these smaller environments to encounter

the content right encounter the the message but then having to honestly answer okay but how is this

impacting my faith well and take it even a step further uh let's take the context out of things

all together what we're really experiencing right now is a new advent of ways to connect with people

and there will be some folks that may connect with our churches for the very first time ever because

they realize oh i don't have to show up in person the first time i can check them out online first

so there's a real opportunity here especially for some of these smaller church gatherings uh where

folks are going to check them out for the first time virtually why because it's finally an option

and you know don't underscore the fact that this could be an opportunity to reach people who have never been

to church before i mean of course there are your folks who are your regular folks are like yeah so

glad we could still be church together but there's also people in that virtual space who are hanging out

with you for the first time and you could say hey we would love to meet you in person when we get the

chance to do so and here's where we are it's it to never uh because it's easy for us to assume

you know and use insider language with folks in that space uh to to take that aside and say no we need

to be as welcoming in this environment as we would be for anybody walking into our physical space so

that they not only can connect with somebody so you know yesterday we had uh hosts we actually had

co-hosts for the first time ever there was myself and and uh one of our other pastors that sat at a table

we welcomed people on camera then we handed it off to our our worship team and each and every person

introduced themselves you know so that the person who was watching knew oh that's alissa she's our worship

leader oh that's mike he's our senior pastor oh that's mark that's amanda we we tried to to really

be as open in that environment as possible so that that first time viewer didn't just see us as some

uh face on a screen they saw us as a somebody that really did truly want to connect with them that's

really beautiful and it's the kind of things like that that really make church online more about the

community and less suggest about hey i'm watching the screen um and as we go over these next couple

weeks i know churches it's going to be tough uh andy mark what would you tell a lead pastor right now

just to encourage them like hey listen this is this could be a solid game changer for your church what

would you like this morning we had an all staff prayer time uh just to kind of lead out and lead into

the you know the time and the thing that kept coming up in all well most of the people that were praying

was that this is the time that the church will shine the brightest this is the time that the gospel

message will shine the brightest is in times of adversity and this is a time of adversity and it's

up to the you know you go through history and you see the church trying different things at different

points in history some of them succeeding some of them failing this one has already been tried

sort of the online frontier has already been tried we've already gotten past the bleeding edge we already

know how to group people together we already know how to stream there are free utilities out there to

stream and to group and to gather and to do all these other things we need to get work and we're

stepping into very rapidly the 2.0 phase of online church and for any pastor that's out there that is

that is worried about how i don't know how how my people are gonna how my people are gonna uh respond

and take it and do all that the worst thing you can do is in a time like this for the next three

to five weeks the worst thing you can do is not give a shot because you're going to you know

the the worst thing that happens at that point is okay you go back to what you used to do you go back

to your normal physical gatherings and that's the way you minister to your people but you know you never

know you might find something that that really sparks a light in your community that really starts to

connect more and more people together and through that connection to the gospel

yeah i heard a story yesterday of a pastor who uh did facebook live for the first time and his

daughter actually held the phone in the front pew and you know pointed it at him and uh and that's

the other thing i'm encouraged to you you know you don't have to reinvent the wheel on this you know

don't feel like you have to instantly become an expert on this uh kids i mean on let's just face it

they they've been operating devices since they were born you know and so find a student you know this

is a great time to really i think elevate some volunteers in your in your churches you know to

a place where you know may i don't i don't know how to do this facebook thing but you know i can find

a kid or even a young adult that that is native to this technology that might even think of an idea

you'd never thought of before and is willing to come in and give that time why because there's value

placed in that moment like man i can give to my church i because i know this uh it just gets me

excited being a former student pastor of you know exciting kids to volunteer and to use that gift that

they have because they've been doing you know snapchat hangouts they've been doing all these things for

for you know the better part of two to three years so now you know it's connecting their digital gift

with the church in a new and radical way and so all that pastor really has to do

is content and they're great at content you know this is what they've been called to do is to create

content now help give somebody else the opportunity to curate that content for you in a way that you

know they can upload it to youtube you can they could create a youtube channel for your church it

doesn't take much but if you don't know how to do it you're going to struggle with it but that kid's

going to come along and say man i've already had a youtube channel i've only put two things up there

but let me do this for our church this would be awesome you're going to use youtube whoa

that's so good and i'm so glad you guys said that and for any of you who are out there that this was

your first sunday streaming or maybe your second third but you just feel super nervous because you're

like well it's not at the standard that i thought it would be you know what andy and mark are sharing

with you it's gold because we just want to let you know that your folks are going to care about

the fact that you're trying they want they want to know your heart and they want to know that you're

with them through this situation they're just scared and they need to hear their pastor's voice they need

to hear the source of hope and you're doing that and so continue to do so guys great thoughts

thank you so much for your time uh let's wrap things up andy anything you want to add to land the plane

man i i'm i'm really excited about these next weeks and coming months i really do think uh i didn't

remove the whole online church i really think this is a time for the church global to really step up to

minister to bring hope to bring light to bring peace and i am so uh thrilled that guys like us

and people all over the world listening to this are going to get the chance to really lean into what

god is doing that's good mark you got anything you want to add yeah i would say go and do some

learning yourself to uh benchmark off of other folks yesterday while i was actually on stage at

our table hosting i had andy's church uh online experience up and i was watching that and commenting

in their space because that was a lot of fun and just seeing what they do um we're doing a lot of

that this week you it'd be easy to think oh man you know we're a big church we've got this figured out

no we're still learning from everybody else as well so go in and watch other churches that are doing

this even even at a small scale and bring it back we have a phrase at our church we call

hopeifying you know our church is hope so we hopeify something and put it into our context

just because somebody's doing something on a big scale with five cameras and hd and all that

you could look at that and say man well we can't do that but just learn from like how are they engaging

that camera because i think uh like for example if you're a pastor and you're doing this for the

first time the worst thing you could do is to be still looking around your space nobody's there

oh let's talk to these folks because that's what we do you know think of that camera like a person

and put a name to that person that is that's margie and she's sitting at home with her husband and they

are not able to be here i'm talking to her and and that's that's where that connection can become

authentic when you when you engage with this in a way that says i know we can't be together in person

but when we can again because there is another side to this time we're going through when we can

again how beautiful that's going to be that's real good guys thank you so much for your time and this

has been a great time and listen for those of you listening out there don't just create the content

encourage community to meet together whether it's in person or online listen digital spaces are going

to mean a whole lot right now we don't have to over complicate the process all we've got to do is keep it

simple stupid just kiss right just keep it simple and let's just relax and let's get through this

together these next few weeks are going to be an incredible time in the church's history and i

promise you church pastor a lot of people who would never step through your doors are going to listen

to your message and come to know jesus and get discipled as a result of this so this is going to be a

great time for you guys thanks so much for your time together for jeff who couldn't be here for me

for andy for mark this is the church digital hope you all have a great day