EP052: Coronavirus & Preparing for Emergencies

Well, hey, welcome to the Church Digital Podcast. This is episode 52 for those of you

that are keeping track at home, and we're doing a special edition here for the episode.

Normally, we were supposed to have this awesome conversation about the biblical functions of a

digital church. We're just not going to go there because I really felt like we needed to head in

a different direction as we're looking more and more at coronavirus and what's happening with that.

This is not meant to be an alarmist episode. I probably actually do lean a little bit more to

the alarmist side, but honestly, the conversation of how church online can reinforce and help the

church and maybe helping churches develop a strategy for how to handle situations when catastrophes are

happening or when they're about to happen or after they happen, it's kind of important.

I myself, the church that I was at, First Baptist Church of Perrine, 1992 got hit by Hurricane Andrew.

The roof fell within the church. I myself, in the house where I was at, I spent the majority of that

hurricane, that Sunday night to Monday morning, huddled in the minivan in my garage as the rest

of the house around me was exploding and literally exploding because the pressure was more inside than

out and then it just kind of exploded. But what the fun part of it was my entire family, my dog,

and my 87-year-old great aunt were all huddled in this van because that was the safest place.

And then it took us 18 months to get our lives back together. It took the church probably 16 months to

reopen. And we can, we know that tragedies like this happen. So whether corona happens or if you're in,

you know, the East Coast, Southeast like I am, hurricanes, or if you're in the Midwest dealing with

tornadoes, i.e. Nashville even this week, or if you're on the West Coast dealing with the earthquakes and

everything that's there, I do think it's important for churches to have a strategy up front to try to figure out

how to respond in those situations. Oftentimes when you do it after the fact, especially when you're

talking technology, you don't have that infrastructure in place, but even a couple conversations up front

can help you go a long way in the midst of the quote-unquote storms of life. So I wanted to bring

together a panel of some guys and really just wanted to talk through some options about this. So I've got

four people jumping on here. Andrew Statsny from, well, Andrew, man, why don't you just take a minute

and introduce yourself? Yeah, yeah. I work with CDF Capital. I do a lot of online consulting work with

churches. I worked at Life.Church for nine years and have a small tech startup as well.

Andrew's a great guy working in the church online circles, and I've loved rubbing shoulders with him

and in some of these conversations. As well, I'm bringing in Kevin Lee from Saddleback. Kevin's no stranger

to the podcast. Kevin was on probably episode eight or nine. It's been a while talking about a lot of the

perceived issues that people have with church online. But Kevin, why don't you just a little bit what you

specifically do over there at Saddleback? Yeah, Jeff, good to be back. Thanks for having me.

And I'm the small groups pastor for the online campus at Saddleback. I've been doing that for two

years. And I just want to thank you for having me because this episode was born out of my Facebook

post kind of crying out for help. So thanks for doing that, Jeff. Awesome. Yeah. Kevin posted on,

well, we're going to get into that here in a little bit. Let's introduce the rest. But I do want to spend

time on that post. We've got Jason Day from Outreach Magazine, probably my newest friend.

I met Jason over at Exponential Conference, and I've loved spending some time with him. So Jason,

man, just tell us a little bit about what you do for Outreach. Yeah, for sure. Thank you so much,

Jeff. Excited to be on here with you guys. Yeah, I'm the vice president of mobilization

and outreach. So I oversee our major ministry initiatives. I also host the Church Leaders

Podcast. I serve as executive director of National Back to Church Sunday. And so do a lot of speaking

and training and kind of strategizing with denominations and ministry organizations,

church planting networks, local churches on how to be more effective in sharing the gospel.

And of course, to wrap up the panel, Ray DeArmas, digital pastor from Christ Fellowship Miami is in

the midst of travel. So he's phoning in. Ray, you want to say hey? Hey, everyone. It's great to be

here with you. And I'm glad to be joined by these great guys from all over the place, man. Pleasure to

have you all on. Yeah, the awesome thing is like we've got like Ray and I are here down in Miami and

Kevin and Andrew are in California. So we've got the hurricanes and we've got the earthquakes covered.

Jason's in Colorado and I'm not actually sure what the natural disaster there is except for

glorious snow and skiing. But I'm sure there's some bad that, you know, does it get so bad in

Colorado that you can't actually go to church? You get snowed in, right? That's a thing.

Yeah, snowed in would be snow and ice might be the big thing that would keep people home.

Kevin, you reached out. You wrote a post maybe Sunday or I think it was Monday by the time that

it had really hit me because you were talking about, Kevin, why don't you describe it?

Yeah. So just to share a little bit of background, I was born and raised in Korea and came to the

United States when I was 11. So, you know, Korea is dear and near to my heart and I have a close

connections and all my extended family are in Korea. And when this outbreak of coronavirus happened,

started in China. But very quickly, some people in Korea had been infected. And it just,

because of the nature of the virus being epidemic, it kind of shook the country as a whole. So,

and I've started to see a lot of hosts on my Facebook feed who are pastors in Korea saying,

hey, we are going to now turn to online service for their gatherings. And I saw that. I've seen a couple

of online church services that they were doing. And Korea is a much, very much of a conservative

like culture. And that is reflected on Christian or any, any religion. So not a lot of churches have

online ministries and figured out. So I've seen a lot of churches, even the big churches kind of

struggling to do online ministry. And I just wanted to, even though I'm at Saddleback and we've been doing

online ministry for a while, and I'm learning a lot of, a lot of things. I just wanted to get more

resources and information about how other churches do online services in small group ministry and giving.

So those things, I just, I just gather my thoughts and posted. And then this, this group of people came

together. So I'm here to learn from a lot of people here.

That's awesome. Well, let me ask this, like, you know, here in America, I'm speculating, but the number of

churches versus the number of churches that are probably doing something online. And I don't know, one of you may have

better stats, but it feels like it's one to 2% of churches that are broadcasting something, you know,

I'm looking at 350,000 evangelical churches. Maybe there's 25,000 at this point that I think are, that

are on church online platform. So, I mean, even if it's 3%, it's a very small percentage. I think we can

safely say that. What is that, that are already doing church line? Is it like that in Korea? Is there

more? Is there less? What, what does it look like? Do you know?

You know, I don't know the exact stat, but, um, I know there aren't that many, it's probably

less than 1%. Yeah. What I can see is I've seen over the last year, over the last six months,

some bigger churches, uh, and there are a lot of big churches in Korea, uh, bigger churches

turned to YouTube live to do online services, but it was very limited. There was, uh, no chatting,

no really ministry involved other than live streaming, uh, because all before that, even

before live streaming, it was all just recorded and putting out on their website. Um, and that

was the extent of online ministry. So this is all new. A lot of churches are, and this is

very like emergency for a lot of churches in Korea. Yeah. And, and I don't want, I once again,

I really don't want to be alarmist or anything like that, but like, what, what, what's, what's

the state of, of Korea in this? Like our, I'm quarantined inability to, to gather together

in groups. Like, as you know, people who are over there, friends and family, like, what are

you, what are they reporting out to you? Yeah. So all the, not, not all, but majority of churches,

and I say this in a church perspective, majority of the churches are turning to online and not

meeting, meeting, uh, physically. And that, that's also some other, you know, political campaigns,

um, other social kind of gatherings are all being canceled and churches are probably the,

the biggest because they meet regularly. So then, you know, as, as we look and learn some lessons from,

from the Korea aspect where, where they're having to, to go to church online, how, how long have they been

enabled to, to meet in groups? And is there any, is there any like future, what, what are they expecting?

Like what's, what's the government saying over there?

You know, actually it's been about two Sundays. I think it's two Sundays that, that churches have

kind of replaced their physical gatherings with online church. And it was just announced, um, that

they were just going to do it for two weeks and then they'll probably meet again. Um, but all the,

all the churches that kind of embraced online ministry are extending that, uh, indefinitely until

it gets better, um, which people are speculating, it could be two more weeks, but it could be another

two months. And, and what's really hurting the church over there is because online ministry and

online churches so, um, so new, um, online giving, um, wasn't an option before. So you would imagine a lot

of churches on, uh, that are on loan and that have borrowed money, have no really way to, um, do giving.

So, um, I've heard that a lot of churches are, if this continues to two months and three months,

and a lot of churches could close down. And that's, that's a sad news for, for Korea and for the body

of Christ. Yeah. It's crazy to think, you know, something every, every operationally the city is

fine. Like it was, it was funny. Even my wife and I, we were, we were dialoguing through, um, like our

house, like what, what, what do we need to go buy? And I immediately went to like, okay, buy meat for the

grill. Cause I can cook with propane when the pot, when the power's out. And she's like, but the power

will be fine. Like we'll be able to watch Netflix all day long. If we were, you know, had to, we had

to be, you know, locked in for some reason or something. So it's a completely different paradigm

than even what I'm used to, um, in context of this. And so one of the things that I'd love to do just

with, with the guys that are on here, it's just to start to dialogue through, you know, there are some

things that, that I think, and, and, uh, Kevin brought up the thing about, uh, giving and honestly,

and my knee jerk reaction was, man, I really feel like a lot of churches here in America,

like understand the online giving component piece, but I also deal with churches that are

primarily already doing church online and are probably more of that tip of the spear when it

comes to technological. And so I don't really want to assume like adoption rates or some of that. So

wanted to just maybe talk through what are some options, what are some easy ways for forgiving for,

for broadcasting, for even trying to figure out how to help ramp in the groups and things like this,

because possibly speaking, the American church could be dealing

with something like this. Secondarily, not that it's run in order, but Korean church could probably

use some resources and directions for how to do this, especially if they're trying to figure out how

to do this for, you know, a couple more months. And then thirdly, we're all going to need some

guidance at some level, because if it's not Corona, it'll be another disease or it'll be in another,

um, you know, earthquake or tornado or hurricane or the zombie apocalypse could one day, in fact,

come that, you know, everybody watching sci-fi network is fearing. I'm kidding. Um, although a

friend of mine actually is preparing, but that's for another podcast. So, um, but let's, let's,

let's dive into this. Like, um, you know, let's talk about giving. It's the thing that he said,

he said up front. So like in this, once again, stats, ideas, even, even theories, I'm not looking

for hard facts here as much as gut, like, is there a large adoption rate here in America when it comes

towards online giving? Have we already solved this problem? And for this, for the Korean people,

like, what would be, are there solutions at this point to help them on board? What, what's involved?

Well, Jeff, I feel like online giving, um, has become a thing in the United States for,

for quite a bit. Um, and I think some of the other folks that are on this pod would agree. Um,

and for churches, I mean, for churches that would be in a rush now to adopt, uh, online giving,

I think they'd, I think they'd find themselves stretched at this point because obviously the big

thing is, is helping walk your people through the process of actually logging onto the website.

Uh, you know, tying your bank account to it, et cetera. Um, so it's not that it's too late for

some folks, but it's, it's that it increases the difficulty of onboarding people. If you've not

already gone through some of that process, the tools are there, it's already laid out and there's

a lot of competitors in that space. It's just the onboarding of people and the education of,

of helping others along in terms of getting them on online giving that I think is,

is going to be tough if you're just starting out.

Yeah. I would agree with Ray on that, Jeff, because, and one of the things that we're really

encouraging churches to think through is if you do not have online giving set up already

to, to one, get it going, but then make sure that over the next few weeks that you have,

you know, you're, you're communicating this in your church as you're able to, if you're able

to publicly gather at this point, um, that you are communicating this, you are kind of onboarding

people, you are making this something that you're talking about. Um, you know, you don't want to

wait until, um, public gatherings, if that happens, you know, are, are no longer available to suddenly

try to, as Ray said, onboard people. You want to go ahead and be proactive right now. Um, and it's

going to be beneficial, you know, regardless if, if it closes, you know, your, your gatherings or not.

Um, so, but you want to be thinking of not just the online giving platform and what that looks like

and thinking internally, but you want to definitely be thinking about that external communication piece

to your people. What does it look like? You know, have a kind of sort of a help station, um, in your

foyer, in your lobby, kind of talking with people already over the next few weeks to help them

understand how it works and, and to kind of get on. Yeah. And I, I'm following up on, on Jason

as well. Um, I would, I would fine tune my language when it comes to giving, uh, when you're receiving an

offering or when you have a generosity moment, if you have your offering in the back or you don't,

or you pass a bucket, whatever it is, fine tune the language now to just say, and obviously the easiest

and simplest way to give the safest way to give is online and have that on a screen, pop it up,

make it super simple for people to understand. So many of the platforms have texts to give so that

you can just simply send a text and get right into kind of their, their giving pipeline. Um, I would

even have, you know, I'd be looking at simple things. In addition to my giving platform, I'd be

looking at a Venmo account. I'd be looking at a PayPal account just to have it as a backup so that

if there's people that are easy or it's easier for them to do that, and that's what they're comfortable

with, man, make it available. But the language, language sets culture. We know that. So repeat it

over and over and over again. And if, you know, three weeks from now, if you're a senior pastor or a

campus pastor somewhere, you do stage time, you should almost see people mouthing the words with you.

You know, the easiest and safest way to give is online. And then in addition to that, I would

simply say, for me, I, it's super simple. Once you do this, that you can set up recurring giving.

And for me, I don't have a faithfulness problem. I have a forgetfulness problem and I forget all the

time. So we just automate the important things in our life. My wife and I, we automate our life

insurance, our mortgage, uh, car insurance, and we automate our, our tithe and our giving because it's

just that important to us. Uh, I think doing that, Jeff, um, is significant in the fact that if there

is a disaster, the last thing on people's mind is going to be giving, um, you know, the, even if we

have a digital way to give it, the last thing is going to be, Oh yeah. But if we automate it, um,

it makes it a whole lot, a whole lot simpler to say the least. And anyway, just a couple of thoughts

there.

Well, yeah. And, and as you're solving that automation process, as you're getting people

that are tithing regularly through the system, I mean, that just doesn't solve your hurricane

issue. That solves your summer dip in attendance, summer dip in giving as well. And, and like,

there's, there's a number of things that, that, that, that helps with, you know, it was funny.

Like I, uh, I was, I was at a church, you mentioned the Venmo thing. Um, I was at, I was

at a church and they put up a slide during the offering time and they literally, they had like

the cash app, you know, whatever the handle, the log and whatever it was, because that was

what they did for, for giving. And this is, this is a while back, but I said to the person,

I was like, I was like, and there was like, what'd you think of our giving? I was like,

that was great, but you, you didn't, you're not able to capitalize on the recurring giving.

Cause I don't think at the time, like cash app had to like, you know, suck it out of your

account, withdraw it from your account every, every couple of weeks or so. And the person's

like, you can do that. And I was like, well, not through cash app, but there are platforms,

you know, that can certainly help. Now, one of the questions that I get, and I'm just curious

cause cause I'm sure, I know, I'm sure we've all dealt with this type of password, this type

of person. And I appreciate the heart in this, but, but the guy who says, yeah, we don't do,

um, we don't do online giving because online giving means that people can put it on their

credit cards and we don't believe in the church incurring debt. So we're not, we're not even

going to go there. I'm just curious. Anybody have like a response? How do you guys handle

situations like that? Or how would you handle situations like that? If, if a pastor said that,

you know, I think I just the, the saucy side of me would just simply say, you probably haven't done

a great job teaching your people how to handle the money that God's entrusted them with. Um,

and maybe you need to go back and, and do a series and do a deep dive with Dave Ramsey or whatever.

Um, it just seems to me like that whole piece of it, um, is I can't, I can't remember the last time

somebody actually said to me outside of a pastor, can I, is it bad if I give with my credit card?

Most of the time it's miles and it's paid off and, and, and those kinds of things are doing it to get,

to get miles. I don't know. I just, I'm, I'm a little bit, you know, obviously for me,

we, we just go straight out of our checking account. It makes it simple and easy for us,

but, um, I just think, uh, the best thing you can do is probably, um, get on the front end of it

and teach people how to handle and be responsible with what God's entrusted them with more than

anything else. I mean, you can't control other people's money and nor should you try. Um, I think

once you start doing that, it's manipulation and you've got to be careful with that kind of stuff

too. Any other thoughts? Yeah. Honest to God, I heard this two weeks ago and I, I, it's literally

like, it took me a minute. I was kind of was like, okay, well, like you have a website where people

can use the internet browser to go to porn. So you trust them to go to your website, but you, you,

and that, that was what I came to. And I said porn in the worship center and that was awkward. And

maybe like I said earlier, like my filter sometimes doesn't work. Yeah. I thank you. I appreciate that

comment from the side. Radiarmus appreciate. Well done. Hey, so, but I mean, and let's remember part

of this is that we have the opportunity to help the church, your church, the churches that, that are

possibly preparing for, uh, a situation ahead. You've got a prop, uh, also a situation to help

the church long run. So moving to online giving will definitely help the, especially as recurring

donations coming or making it easier for people to tithe. Like these are great steps to move in that

right direction. All right, let's shift gears. Um, and let's head off, head off of giving. Let's head

over to broadcast. So we're, we're looking at, at what do we can service when you're in this type of

situation. You're unable to meet because of the current coronavirus or your worship center got

blown away in a, in a, in a tornado or a hurricane. For whatever reason, uh, your broadcast center,

your worship center, your church is, is not doing services on Sunday. What, what are some solutions?

Uh, how, how do you handle that? What, what could a church do? And we see this already in churches and,

and this actually has happened in Colorado when church, whenever there's a large snowstorm or

something and people can't get out, um, there are times when pastors actually share the message, uh,

from the, from the living room really. And, uh, either via Facebook live or on YouTube, um,

kind of streaming it out. I think one of the things that we need to, to think through, and there are a

couple, a couple of things I would recommend that, that we consider. One is how, how do we broadcast

those? And, and oftentimes, um, it'll be something that's simple and we need to think that to, to have a

simple way to go about doing this. And so if it is a Facebook live or something like that, um, or YouTube

and, and kind of streaming it, you really want to have some sort of connection though, to your website

here at outreach. Our team is, um, right now we've, we've been doing some kind of, uh, brainstorming and

kind of a task force coming together to, to try to pull some resources together. We're trying to

steward our, our influence here to help churches. And we're providing some free streaming options,

um, that our team is building out right now so that it, and specifically so that if a church is

streaming, um, like on Facebook, that it will also be appearing on their website, uh, because not

everyone will know or understand to go to Facebook, um, to see your message. And so that's, that's one

thing. Whenever it's, it's not a, um, it's, um, when it's not imperative for you to be solely

streaming, Facebook is, is a good place for it to also be right. Um, it's a, it's a good extra place

for it to be, but if we're in a situation where, um, the only way that someone is going to experience,

uh, worship, um, and, you know, hear a sermon and, and, and be able to kind of be praying kind of

corporately, uh, virtually it, when, when it's the only way that they can connect, then you want to

make sure that it's not just on Facebook or not just, uh, you know, on YouTube, but that it is also

on your church's website because some people, again, that's the only, only place they'll know to go.

That's where they'll likely turn is to your church's website. So, um, we're putting something

together. I'll be, it'll be ready in probably about another week or so at stream.outreach.com.

Which for free, we'll just, um, it will just kind of connect in with your, your church's website,

um, and, uh, through, through a subdomain and whatever you're, you're doing on Facebook live

or on YouTube, it's going to show up there. So you'll have a place, if you don't have a place

on your website now where people can see that it'll be available for you. And that's just something

that we're, we're trying to do to help churches that are wrestling through this. Um, but I, I think

a couple of things you want to think through as well, it's not only your, your sermons,

you want to, you want to kind of keep that worship experience going and connecting with people,

but I would recommend you also have a, a set time that you are communicating with your people

outside of the worship gathering. Um, so a set time where people know that, uh, you, you're going to be

live, you're going to be sharing updates and, you know, maybe more kind of family matters for the

church itself. Right. So really kind of connecting with people and having that, that separate kind

of communication channel. Uh, this is helpful for pastoral care as well. That's one of the things

that we really want to think through is not just our, our worship gatherings, but, but how are we

going to handle pastoral care? Um, you know, if we're not able to, to be corporately. So, uh,

just really being thoughtful through that. One of the things that we even recommend is thinking

through, you might even want to pre-record, um, a few messages while you have your facilities and,

you know, pre-record, um, a four week sermon series or something. Uh, and you can even have

your worship team come in. You can do it on a Thursday night or whatever, do it in your church

facilities now have, you know, a sermon series put together because if churches are closed,

they might, they might be closed for a short, short amount of time. It may be only, uh, you know,

three or four weeks. So if you already have these pre-recorded and you're kind of preparing

that way, you've, you've prayed about this and you're being very intentional, trying to honor

God in the midst of that, to have those ready to go, um, might be just enough you need to bridge

before you're able to gather physically again. So, um, that, that's one thing that we're really

encouraging churches to think through as well as what does that look like to put together a short

sermon series, actually have your live worship team together, um, film them all, pre-record them,

get them ready so that you can just upload them and go. And then more personalized connection with

people. Right. There, there's a lot there, man, that, that was rich. Uh, everything from you're,

you're, so you're, you're throwing together real quick, a software that's going to create a subdomain

to, to move. Yes. People aren't smart enough to go to Facebook and I mean, no disrespect to the people,

but having it on the website to link to not to mention Facebook is, is a huge, um, you know,

distraction. Oh, squirrel, you know, trying to do everything they can to get you off that content

because they want you to process other content so that all the stats go up, not, not just yours.

And so the ability to do that on your website, even YouTube on your website in a control environment,

uh, as, as Facebook and YouTube are trying to distract you and pull you away, your domain is

going to allow you to control and for those people to engage at a much longer, a longer level. Um,

and, and I love this idea and, but what I really want to park on is, is maybe like this, the controlled

updates, what you're communicating. I can tell you it's just in the churches that I've worked in

different situations, uh, dealing with the tornadoes, uh, when I lived in Texas and, and, uh, and the

hurricanes in Miami. Uh, sometimes I feel like I'm talking sports a little bit, but, um, how, what do

you communicate? Like what types of things would we regularly communicate out to people? What, what,

like, what are some thoughts there? What, what are people looking for messaging wise from their church

in, in, in seasons like this?

Well, you know, you know, there's just doing church in Miami, um, especially in hurricane season,

it was whether or not we were going to be open on a particular weekend, uh, whether or not we were

going to gather. And that right there is, is big for everybody. Uh, just to know whether or not the

doors are going to be open on a Sunday morning, uh, is a big deal. And how you communicate that,

um, I strongly suggest for a lot of churches, if you don't have a texting strategy, texting for us,

especially in recent times for, for live updates, uh, to the minute has been such a big deal.

And it's not something that we use for, and we're very careful about this. I'm the guardian of the

gate on our texting strategy because you don't want to inundate people like you do with emails. I'm

sure all of you that are listening out there, your church is probably inundating a lot of folks with

a lot of emails and therefore your email open rate is not that great, but the text open rate is

actually really good. People will check text messages, especially in emergency situations on this

stuff. So whether or not you're going to be open or, um, even if you're ready to help people

is another great way to communicate via text. A couple of other things that I would, um, kind of

think about in these times of communication are obviously, uh, health updates. If, if, if there are

things going on in your community, in your state, or within your people themselves, you know, your,

your, your, your congregants, then kind of health, health updates with them, but also be thinking

about, um, your missions, um, connections around the world, what's going on in, in different areas

of, of the world at the time and sharing updates in regard to, you know, if you have missionaries

out from your church or serving in different areas, um, and just really helping people to feel like

they're informed, um, like, uh, what, what they're getting from the news, but from a, um, kind of a

church family perspective. Like we're, we're part of the, the, you know, the church and this is an

opportunity. I think, I think something like this is a huge opportunity for the church. We see this

whenever there are natural disasters, right? When the church steps up and the church is being a part of

helping to bring healing and wholeness to the community, um, we can see this. And so if we are

championing this idea of hope and opportunity, um, that, that, you know, God is at work in the midst

of crises like this, um, I think those are the additional things, um, aside from the, you know,

important things of, of just like, Hey, are we gathering, um, what's next, where places where you

can get support, where you can get help, um, whatever those types of things look like,

but what are the things that the life of the church is doing in the midst of a crisis? Cause

we're not, we're not stopping church. Just, just if, if we're not able to gather, um, physically,

it doesn't mean that church is stopping, right? So what are we doing as the church and how are we

connected to the greater church across the country around the world? And what are some of those

stories that we can be sharing with our people? Yeah. Just to add on that, I think if, if a crisis

is happening at a church, the chances are the whole city that the church is in is suffering. So, um,

ways to communicate and just empowering the whole church member to, to help the community would be a

big thing in practical ways on how, how the church, uh, can help the community and maybe do a research on

what the city is suffering with. And what are some areas that, that if there's any, maybe just like

what waters or other research resources that are needed, uh, it can be a place where, uh, churches can

help the community and let the communities know, uh, that the church is helping.

I, I think there's a huge opportunity, um, for, for the, and I'm, I'm even resorting back to

1992 Hurricane Andrew. Ray, were you in Miami in 92? Ray, were you alive in 92? I, I'm not even sure

you may be that young. I'm trying, I'm trying to unmute you here. All right. Yeah. I was totally

alive in 92. Uh, I like Jeff was sitting, uh, in my house that was imploding around me and, uh,

running at, we actually had to leave in the middle of the storm. We had to leave our house and we were

out of it after the storm for a year and a half, you know, living with, with my aunt and uncle,

we actually lived, uh, at a, at a hotel for a week post storm and all of that. And I'll tell you,

I mean, and, and so many folks are dealing with this now over in East Nashville. And I think of all

the different disasters that have struck both churches and people alike, um, finding ways to

mobilize your people after the fact. Oh man, the church in action, when we've seen it,

it is so powerful. Um, in our circles and Jeff knows this, uh, uh, we're so grateful for Southern

Baptist relief because typically they've been boots to ground. Like the day, the, the day after a storm

hits, they've been there with food trucks. They've been there with everything ready to go to serve the

community and just collaborating with churches, uh, on, on how to get a community back on its feet.

And we've been the beneficiaries of that. I mean, at least in my lifetime, I could think of five

instances where Southern Baptist relief actually came through and served churches, churches and people

in our community, both to give the gospel, but also in practical ways, uh, to get boots to the ground

immediately for volunteers. And it was awesome. There, there's a huge opportunity for the church to be

on mission, uh, in the midst of, and after tragedies like those, like I can remember I was the high

school freshman, literally a high school freshman. And, um, I skipped out of football practice to,

for the first couple of weeks. Uh, my football coach wasn't happy when I finally came back, but

I, I, I literally was running like the, uh, red cross, the Baptist, you know, uh, health, all,

all like the food distribution and clothes. Uh, I was, was part of that because for me,

as a high school freshman, and yes, I got out of two days, that was maybe part of it, but it was

also this idea of, let me be, let me be on mission. Let me help people who are in greater need. Um,

and, and the, the opportunity for the church to, to have a presence in, in some of those situations

and in the midst of it. But what's interesting is if you don't have that culture beforehand,

it's a lot harder to fall back on that culture when, when you need it. You know, there are churches

that, that I personally have attended at work that, that have that huge serving culture, um,

selfless serving, serving the community culture. And then there are others that, that probably

struggle with that. And so like, there's, there's huge opportunities for the church to tap into that.

You know, it's kind of ironic where, and Ray, you may appreciate this on the podcast. We always talk

about how church is more than the nickels and noses. And the things that we've talked about at this

point is literally like, uh, giving and, and broadcast. I didn't, totally didn't mean to do that,

but we accidentally like, you know, stumbled into that. Uh, but these are two big components,

but there, there's more to church than just like those two components, right? At least I hope there

is. Um, what, what is, what is like groups look like? What is gathering together in environments

where you can't gather together? What, what could that look like? Yeah. Uh, for us at Saddleback,

we have a lot of online groups that meet through zoom, just like we're doing for us, uh, how online

group looks like is they would, you know, share a screen of, of, of a teaching that's about 15 to 20

minutes long. And we would have study guides with some questions that people can discuss. So it's

something that we are doing already. Um, and it's something that I believe will come in very much

benefit when it, you know, in times of crisis and other churches can do it, it with, um, on just a

weekend messages, uh, as pastors and preachers, we, we are creators, right? We create content all the

time and we can put to a great use by just putting some questions in and having people come, coming

together in a zoom call, or even just in chat, chat functions and messengers and people can discuss

after watching the preaching. So that, that might work for a lot of churches.

So the one thing that I've learned in, in recent days is there are a ton of free platforms or

virtually, virtually free platforms that allow for, you know, this zoom functionality seems like most

churches and even a lot of the businesses are falling back on zoom. Like that's becoming more and more

of the preferred, uh, but Skype's free, uh, FaceTime, um, obviously FaceTime requires everybody have an

iPhone or an iOS device that that's free. And they've now got groups.

It's up to like eight or 10, I think that, that, that can be on and doing that Google Hangouts. Um, I know

is another one that had, for me, it's been a technological nightmare in the past, but more and

more people are telling me that it's, it's become more stable. I think Google Hangouts has a limit of

like six or seven people that may have even have, have grown past that talkie.io. Uh, actually I think it was

somebody at life church that, that connected me with that. That's a, a zoom competitor. That's a hundred

percent free. Even things like, um, discord, I know has, has a free video chat that's built in Slack.

Uh, I don't use that one a lot, but at least the video chat, but it's, it's there Facebook. I got a

Facebook audio call from a guy today. I was like, Oh, okay. I'll talk to you now. Um, I can't tell you

the conversation well, well, but it, it, he at least tried to call me what other platforms

that are out there, um, that would be an option for somebody, you know, free or, or nearly free,

uh, that's that a church could dive into to experiment with. Yeah. If you're looking for

synchronous activity, so, so together talking same time, um, you mentioned Facebook messenger. I know

with Facebook messenger, you can have up to 50 people on a call. So that's, that's a pretty

significant size. So if you're, you know, um, now you can visibly see you can video, I think it's up

to eight, but audio, you can have up to 50 people. So a lot of people have Facebook, have Facebook

messenger. So that might be, uh, you know, kind of a, a simpler one to, to jump on.

Have you had, and I'm, I'm literally asking this and I don't mean anything rude. Have you had good

luck with Facebook on audio and video? I personally have had bad luck, but it's, uh, I have more

recently. I have more recently. Um, it seemed to seem to be relatively stable. So, um,

I know they, they just came out with, uh, uh, at least with time of this recording, wherever we are

March, uh, they came out with the new Facebook messenger app. I don't know if there was like,

it was just superficial design or if there's anything under the hood, but hopefully they've

changed some of this stuff. Ray's messaging me. He's having problems with his zoom on his phone.

Uh, so maybe there's four bugs in this that were really anticipated, but you know, he's,

he's saying WhatsApp and I can tell you like we we've used WhatsApp, um, which really also

brings in, you know, WhatsApp for, uh, for audio, uh, with that. But that also brings in this

idea of text-based groups and how like, you know, and Ray and I, we've, we've had conversations

about this in other podcasts, uh, talking about how being in a text community or a community of

friends, people that we know, keeping in touch with each other via the text groups, everything

from like the, the sarcastic jokes and the constant trolling of one another, even to the

place of like, how can I pray for you? What's going on in your life? What, when you read the

scripture, what are the things that come out becoming more, uh, pastoral as well as, you

know, just more relaxed? Like, have you guys experienced, I'm just curious even within the

group, that like text engaging relationship where maybe it's six or eight people in a WhatsApp

group or a, um, you know, a group me app or something like that. Anybody want to share

a story from that? Yeah. I mean, I do a, a, quite a bit of work with, uh, groups of people

and inevitably it takes one quick conversation. Like here's the rules for our text. And that

keeps you on the right track. Um, so somebody doesn't get in, uh, too many memes. I'm like

the king of memes. So I'm usually the one calling myself out. Um, some of those things

are, are, um, you know, it just, you just can establish here's, here's how we're going to

communicate and here's, here's the pathway that it goes. I, I would even encourage you, I'm

following up on what Ray said earlier about a texting strategy. Um, I think I would also begin

trying to figure a ways to, I'm always a proponent of taking what happens in the real world and

making digital a piece of that from, so if you're attending church this Sunday, how is your congregation

going to act in a digital way and when they're in person? So it could be, Hey, um, if you want the

latest updates, the best way to do that is simply sign up for our texting service and you can do it

right here. Just text this number and it's, and it's done. So you begin that kind of communication

pathway that here's how we're going to communicate. Um, and, and when you need to know the latest of

what's happening here at church, this is the fastest way for us to get it out. Um, I would be trying to

figure in a couple of digital elements along the way too. So anyway, I love the idea of, of like the

digital approach where you're, what you're doing in digital, uh, you're doing in the physical world

also matches the digital and utilizing that as a community piece. And even in a chase, we'll get to

you in a second, but even the idea of doing, um, your, your announcements in a way during a season

and when it's healing, where people need to know, do them in an area where they can respond and ask

questions or, or ask poignant questions like, how can we pray for you in the midst of this and give

people an opportunity to, to voice? I mean, we, we talk about how engaging the word engagement is lost.

A lot of it's meaning for me, engagement means not talking, but listening. It's better to ask a

question than make a statement. And for a church and an organization to ask the question and allow

the church body to respond, man, that like at an upper and allow the church body to minister to itself

through that group, man, that would be powerful in a situation like this, where there, where there

would be a lot of pain and hurting. I I'm sorry, Jason, I took you a little off topic. You were going

to say? Oh, no, no, um, no, that's all, that's all, that's all solid stuff. I was going to say two

platforms, um, that, that I would really try to consider or focus in on. One is, is a platform that

probably more than likely for most churches will be new. Um, so you can only do this if you're going to

spend, you know, a few weeks right now upfront, getting people onboarded, but that's Slack.

Um, we use Slack, um, here at outreach, uh, all the time and Slack, you know, for free, you can have

unlimited, um, channels. It can be private channels, can be public channels. You can get channels for

different groups, whether it's small groups, discipling groups, um, whatever it might be general,

you know, general groups, you can invite people in. It's, it's very, very, um, helpful. There are apps

for it. So you can get notifications as people are sharing and you can have back-to-back conversations

pretty, pretty easily. And it's a real, real simple system to use. Um, and it has, you know, some

different add-ons that you, that you can integrate. And it's just, there's a lot of flexibility to Slack.

So if you have time to, you know, to, to help onboard people to Slack, then, then that's something. Um,

if you don't have time or just another really good option, uh, Facebook, Facebook groups, um,

almost everyone's on Facebook, um, whether you like it or not, I'm not a massive, uh, Facebook user

myself, except that I have to use Facebook because I run groups on Facebook. You know what I mean? So,

uh, I have responsibility with people there. So, um, but Facebook groups, um, are, are one of those

things that, uh, you can set up again, you can set public groups or private groups. You can invite

people into the group so you can really structure them. Um, you can upload videos and different

things. You can do live teaching in the group. So for your, um, small groups, your life groups,

you know, discipling type things, uh, really, really functional actually. Um, so that's a, that's an idea.

And like I said, a lot of people are on Facebook, so it's, it's not, um, whether you love Facebook

or hate it, that happens to be where a lot of people are hanging out. So, or at least have an

account, right? So if you have to go to something, at least a lot of people, if they don't spend a lot

of time there, a lot of people have an account. So they can, if you say, Hey, log on to Facebook,

there's going to be an invite and your notifications for, you know, your small group or whatever.

So Slack is Slack is free up into, you know, X number of posts. And it just, it cycles through,

like, it doesn't archive your entire life on it. And it's like, I've got, um, through my business,

I just, I use a free account and I've got a number of select people that, that I'm on it. And it's,

and it's awesome. And I think it's, I think it's more powerful than the discords. Discords are,

it's like Slack for video gamers. Uh, I like it better than WhatsApp because WhatsApp just seems

to be a lot of like noise, not as structured. Um, but I'm also like, I don't want noise. I want

structure. I'm like, like Andrew, except I don't do the memes. I yell at the people who do the memes.

So like, I'll just have to, Andrew, I'm not giving you my cell phone number because I don't want the

memes. Um, that thing that, that I've always, it was funny, like in my head, like Facebook workplace,

where, where it's like the, the, the separate version of it. I always thought that would be a

great idea. Like more churches should take advantage of that, where they're the only ones that are in

there. They're not worried about the algorithm. They can really control it. Uh, and, and, and Stadia,

I love Stadia. Stadia uses it, but I got to tell you, it's become another inbox. It wasn't like,

oh, I'm already in this Facebook workplace app all the time. So I'm naturally just getting this

information. It's become, oh yeah, that's the app that's got like X number of notifications. I'm

just going to ignore that from now. I'll look at it later. And I only get to it once every,

you know, once or twice a week, which is enough for how Stadia is using it. But if I was a church,

I would want somebody to engage in it more than that. So that's one of those things. There's like,

man, we should really do that. But when I actually tried, I was like, yeah, not really.

Um, but this, this is good. So like, I'm just curious, like what other, are there any other

areas of church when we're looking at, okay, so we have to prepare for a Corona virus, or we have to,

you know, prepare for a future natural disaster or emergency. What are some other tools or thoughts,

some holes that we need to fill in, uh, for a church to, to function?

Can I, can I just give two overarching like thoughts that I want to make sure that, um,

that we communicate? Uh, the first thing is, is like, uh, Kevin and I are out here in California.

I'm in San Diego. He's in LA. Um, I'm back, uh, and forth to Palo Alto. So the Bay area quite a bit.

If you'd asked them two or three weeks ago, are they worried about this current crisis? Not a bit.

They're not at all. When your community has one or two infections that happen or positive tests,

all of a sudden people start going, Oh, this, we're going to stop gathering. So if you're out there

today, you're listening to us going, Hey, this is great. Um, these guys are, you know, doomsday

profits and, and that kind of stuff, just know that it would take one case, one positive case in your

community before your church population starts going, Oh, are we going to go to church on Sunday?

Cause a lot of people are going to be there. Okay. So that's, that's the first thing to just

kind of keep that in mind, not to panic over it, but to just plan for it, that if it does happen,

you want to be prepared. And then the second thing, and Jeff and I offline had talked briefly about

this the other day, um, as any responsible pastor, and if you're in charge of content or development

of content, I would be preparing for Easter as well. Like what happens the biggest day of the year,

our super bowl, if two weeks before a week before, um, you get a case in your area and we know there's

going to be more cases. Um, don't know how many, but I would just prepare to develop all your content

for Easter. You've got plenty of time to do it. If you start now going, what's our plan when that

happens? So those kinds of two overarching things are things that I just, I want to make sure just

philosophically people are thinking about not necessarily tools, but we really should be

thinking that way. Yeah. Collectively. You just made every creative director for a church in America's

head explode. Like it's just all over the place. And you know, if they give me their cell phone

number, I'll send them a meme as well. And we'll just double it up. Okay. But I mean, there's, there's,

there's some validity, at least in the awareness of, um, we're, we're, we're not that far away. Um,

there, there could always be an issue, especially, you know, you guys living literally on the edge of,

uh, of a, you know, the tech tectorial plates. I think it's called, I'm going back to like my

elementary geology. Is that the tectorial? That's not the right word. It's something out plates.

What is it called? Dinosaur. What you just said. There's something, is it? What's the term?

Tectonic. Tectonic. There you go. Thank you. Jason saving the day, man. That's awesome.

Seeing those tectonic right there on the edge of that. Um, it's just, it's, it's awareness to this,

right. And then, and then it's, it's flexibility to know, okay. And in those situations,

we got to figure it out. You know, I actually last year, uh, a friend of mine, and this is like the

creative purpose, but they did their church did a good Friday service and it was entirely shot

off a single camera in somebody's living room. Like it was an, an acoustic unplugged set and they had

thousands of views and it was centered around my man's living room with a single camera and eight

people doing a musical slash worship stuff and not overly produced nothing. Um, you know, crazy,

just a single camera stream, but it was immensely powerful. And so it's, you know, and given,

especially where we are, at least let's take the time to ask the question, you know, what could we do?

What's the plan? Um, what would it be? Should we have to explore it? Don't, don't write it in stone.

Don't even write it in ink, but at least have in pencil. Okay. Hey, this is the path that we're

going to go on. This is the gear, um, that we have. This is how we can use it. We need to acquire this.

Um, and honestly, and this isn't being like, like, um, crazy, but I think have some of that gear in

place. Like know that, oh, I've got to buy a Mevo camera. And so it's a $300 purchase. Let's go and

buy it because you're going to need it at some point. Um, there be prepared for these situations

so that when you have to respond, you can respond quickly with the best foot forward for the kingdom,

as opposed to scrambling and re and regretting things along the way.

Specifically the coronavirus, which is, you know, this, you know, uh, a pandemic's a little different

than the natural disaster in that natural disasters may be knocking out our internet access or our power

access, you know, that could be a whole different thing. But with this, I think the way people will react,

like Andrew said, it, uh, it doesn't have to be that our government says, okay, people can't gather

publicly. I mean, if, if we look at our churches today, um, average attendees are showing up, you know,

two times a month, maybe, you know, three times a month, if you're, if you're really, really,

you know, have a really engaged congregation. And so, um, it's not going to take necessarily the

government to say, Hey, you know, you can't gather publicly.

It's going to take just a little bit of, you know, extra concern that, you know,

a family does not want to, to have their kids out in a public space. Um, because, you know,

there's, uh, you know, been some, some virus has been, you know, reported in, in, in the area,

or even in the next city away, or, you know, next big city. And we're seeing this already in,

in churches like in Washington, you're already seeing this happening. Um, so it really, it's,

it's one of the things that we want to think about again, not to be alarmist or whatever,

but just be prepared. Um, what, what is this going to look like? If there are people who have some,

some bigger fears and who are going to say, you know what, we're just going to voluntarily,

um, stay at home and watch worship online. Right. Um, because we just don't want to

take that extra risk of exposure for whatever reason. And people have different levels of,

fear and anxiety over these things. You know what I mean? Uh, so, so I think it's one of those things

that again, you know, we're not saying that the sky is falling, but we're saying,

let's just think through this because there are going to be people who are not going to,

to show up simply because of concern of being in, in public places gathered with people. So

you want to keep that in mind, right?

We haven't even touched on, there's a whole other group of people that aren't interested

in coming into your building to be spiritually fed. But if you moved some of your resource

and your discipleship online, you'd reach a whole lot more people. Like all these conversations that were

tastefully having centered around the framework of Corona virus or, you know, impending other

natural disasters. The reality is, is that, and I believe this, maybe it's not the reality,

but I believe the churches are going to get smaller and churches are going to get bigger

and more and more that the church is going to be engaging with content online and our ability to

disciple, to help people grow deeper in their faith, to keep people on mission, utilizing online tools.

They're going to be very effective, not for the church at post Corona, not even for the church

post natural disasters. I think they're effective for the church today. You've got people in your,

in your audience. And I used the word fidgetal earlier, like it, they are a mixture of physical

and digital. They're a mixture of physical engagement and online engagement. And for the church to truly

be effective, we need to start transitioning away from online only discipleship, or excuse me,

physical only discipleship, physical only small groups and start to move into a world where

people can engage more, ask more spiritual questions, grow deeper in their faith and be on

mission through some of these digital tools. I believe the church will look far different if it opens up

and if it changes and embraces culture, not just in the physical front, but if embraces it on the,

on the digital too. But I'm, I got a little, like I'm a little jaded there, kind of like that's a,

that's a pet peeve. So that's a thing. Uh, but Hey, this is, this has been a great podcast. I want to ask

one more question. Um, so dealing, and this is actually a Ray Ray question. Ray had the thread,

the step out. Um, he's, he's got a thing tonight at, at his, at the church, but ministering to fear,

uh, driven culture. What do people need, need to hear spiritually after going through something like

Corona after going through something like, um, a natural disaster? What, what are the elements

pastorally has put on your pastor hat here for a second? Like what, what are they looking to hear?

What do they need to hear? Uh, in, in situations like, I think it, I think for me, I look at it.

Number one, they need to know and understand, hear the assurance that God is still God and he's still

in control. Um, and then what they need to see from leaders is, is calmness and trust in God and not

panic from a leader, but somebody that is, is steady in what they're, uh, and how they're leading and,

and how they're, um, uh, connecting with people still that the, you know, what God's called us here.

And until Christ comes back, uh, we're going to occupy and continue to move forward.

And, you know, the, yes, we'll, we have times where things are up, down, questionable,

not understanding everything. Absolutely. Uh, but we should be, um, not only men and women of faith,

um, which obviously is the opposite of fear, but also like that should show a little bit, not in a cocky way,

but just in an assurance way to go, we know God has this and we want to let you see that we understand

that. I would, I would say that we really need help, um, our people and not just our people,

but the world to, to see that God is present with us, um, in the midst of tragedy. I think that's super key,

um, that, uh, that we know that there is, is hope within, um, difficult times and challenging times,

that we're not left alone, that we're not, uh, God has a deserted people. Um, but God is actually,

you know, suffering through this alongside of us and walking with us through it. So I think,

I think that's key. I think one of the other things, especially for our people and even preparing,

moving into this, you know, like potentially, because we talked about some of the opportunities,

but I, I remember I preached the Sunday after 9-11 and I'll never forget that Sunday as long as I live.

Right. Um, and, and just with my people and just, there's a lot of brokenness, but it ended up being

also not just a time of, you know, coming together and, and kind of embracing one another and, and talking

about hope, um, in the midst of crisis, but also incredible opportunity. Um, God is a God of redemption

and, uh, what the enemy means for evil, God redeems for, for his purposes and for good. And so whenever

there are crises like, like these, um, we have the opportunity to say there are people who are living

broken lives and, um, they're looking for wholeness. And in the midst of this, there's even more

brokenness, you know, your life's already broken and yet, and then there's some sort of calamity or

tragedy. And, and so we, as the church had the opportunity to engage people, um, in a way, um,

that, that oftentimes only come through these difficult, difficult, um, circumstances. Right.

And we see this in individual people's lives, but, but we're, I think we're going to be seeing this in

the lives of nations around the world, in the lives of cities and communities, um, that, that there is

this, this, uh, hunger for something true and something real. And, um, we have the opportunity.

So we want to encourage our people that as much as we're going through this and we want to be here for

one another in the midst of this, this is also an incredible opportunity for the mission of God, um, for people

to, to experience the hope of Jesus, maybe for the first time in their lives. And, and we want to,

we want to be a part of God's, um, redemption in the midst of, in the midst of all of this.

Hey, Kevin, as we're wrapping up, you know, I know part of this, we wanted to create some resources for,

for Korea. Do you have any, any messages or anything for the people there? Like, like, what would you say

to, to the Korean audience right now?

Yeah. I just want to echo what Andrew and Jason said, um, just encourage them that,

that, you know, the spirit that is in us is stronger than the spirit of the world. And,

you know, one thing that I know about Korea is it's a very enduring country. Uh, it has endured a lot

and I know it's going to, um, overcome it. So the resources, I think our conversation was very helpful

because a lot of churches are only looking at how to stream services, but we are giving different

dimensions of how we can express church online. And it's been incredibly beneficial just to hear it.

And I can't wait to share it with, with some churches in Korea. Hey gentlemen, thank you very much. Um,

we're going to land the plane here. This has been a great podcast. Um, and, and I'm, I'm honored to,

to be with you guys to, to touch on this very sensitive project. Um, just, and we didn't say it up front,

like health concerns. Listen, I'm the last person to, to want to give advice to somebody on how to do, um,

like, you know, wash your hands. Don't touch your face. Like I was funny. I was watching Comedy Central

and they had lined up all these politicians who are making these announcements of do the smart thing.

Don't touch your face. And then like five seconds later, they cut to a clip of them, like rubbing

their face over. And I know not to touch my face, but I'm sitting here with my hands on my chin and

doing everything I can not to do it. So don't listen to me on the physical stuff. And I'm not even going

to talk to you about that. Listen to like you, whatever the new sources around, uh, that are,

that are hopefully give giving wise sage advice in that situation. But I do know this, there,

there's more to the church than what happens for the one hour on Sunday. And there's more to the

church than what happens when it hits the plate. So as you're looking at preparing a strategy for,

for what church needs to be, how we need to care for and shepherd people, um, who are going through

tragic situations like this. Don't just look at the one hour Sunday replacement, take a deeper dive,

look at really what the heart of ministry is, and then look at the heart of what church is,

and then figure out how to replicate that digitally. It's going to help you plan for the emergency

situations that that will come. And chances are, it's going to help you with your day-to-day ministry

today. For Andrew, for Kevin, for Jason, for Ray, who had to step off. This is Jeff with The Church

digital. Thanks for joining us. We'll see you next time here on the podcast. Y'all have a good day.