EP044: Jate Earhart & Constructing a Digital Church

Hey, this is Jeff with The Church Digital. We're going to get started with the episode here in just a minute, but before we get there, we all know Stadia, the organization that's been powering The Church.Digital.

Well, guess what? Stadia is opening up some learning communities. We've been doing this for a while now. We've got about 70 churches that are actually part of these learning communities.

They're learning how to thrive, grow, and multiply, not just physically, not just digitally, but digitally, the combining of physical and digital.

And it's been a beautiful, beautiful thing. We've got content coming in from churches like Crossroads, from Saddleback, like Church Home.

But guess what? It's not a content thing. Content's nice. Content doesn't change your church. Let's just say it. It doesn't.

I'm a podcast operator. I understand this. It's not going to change your church.

The ability to walk with someone and to help you understand some of the guidance, some of the accountability, the community of connecting with other churches, engaging with them,

conversations with people as you wrestle with some of these things to try to figure out how to make your physical church and your online church authentically you that lines up with your missions, visions, and strategies,

or maybe is even tightly intertwined that maybe some of that strategy changes to get more online.

This is what Stadia is trying to create, an opportunity for you to learn and to dialogue and to change your church to thrive, grow, and multiply.

It's a beautiful, beautiful thing.

Hey, the learning community starts in August.

So right now, go to stadiachurchplanting.org slash digital.

P-H-Y-G-I-T-A-L.

Stadiachurchplanting.org slash digital.

And more information will be there for you to learn about these learning communities.

This has been great. It's been fun.

But let's go ahead and get you now to that podcast episode.

Hey, everybody. Episode 44 with the Church Digital Podcast.

And I got to tell you, I am looking forward to this episode.

I love this guy we're bringing back in, Jate Earhart.

You may remember him way back from episode 13 here with the Church Digital Podcast.

He leads a video game ministry, a discipleship ministry.

He disciples video gamers, millennials, Generation Z.

He disciples these guys towards leading others to Christ in evangelism, discipleship.

He's creating disciple makers using an online platform called Discord, which is a video game.

He's leading a video game discipleship ministry.

How crazy is that?

And he's been very effective. He's doing some really interesting things.

But I tell you, the thing that, to me, the thing that just happened that I heard he was doing,

I was like, I really got to unpack this.

He's actually in the process, through his church, he does a lot of church planting.

He's in the process of being part of a cohort for church planters.

He's looking at turning his Love Clan, his online ministry, not into just the discipleship ministry,

but into a fully functioning church.

And if you've listened to the last podcast, and what you'll hear in this podcast,

is Jay is overly concerned, overly is maybe not the right word,

but he's very concerned when it comes to the ecclesiology of what a church is,

and the standard that he is holding into place for his potentially future digital church,

and how he is exploring and holding himself and the others around him to the standard,

to allow for this Love Clan, this online ministry, to one day become a fully functioning digital church.

And that's a crazy, that's an exciting thing.

I love this conversation, and I love where Jay's heart and his passion is.

So here you go, I'm bringing in Jay Earhart into the conversation, of course, Jay's with Love Clan,

and myself, Jeff, with the Church Digital, in a conversation that I'm calling Planting a Digital Church.

Hey everybody, here you go.

Did you just roll out of bed?

Oh yeah.

Awesome, way to go.

I mean, my kid was jumping on top of me at 6.30, but good for you, man.

Yeah, yeah.

I stayed up a little later.

I was playing Beat Saber and stuff, so that's why my hair is all crazy,

because I was sweating like crazy before I went to bed.

You know, I just got, it's Quest, right?

Yeah.

Oculus Quest, I got that for Christmas.

It's really.

Oh yeah.

Yeah, I'm really enjoying kind of getting exposed to a little bit of this.

I'll tell you the story.

I was alone in my house.

My family had gone away for like after Christmas,

had gone up to the in-laws up in West Palm Beach just for a night.

And so it's like midnight, 1 a.m., and I've got Oculus Quest on,

and I'm literally all by myself, and I'm playing the Star Wars game.

The Star Wars came with it.

Oh, cool.

Yeah, I'm in this thing where, and I'm showing my Star Wars naivete right here.

I can't think of the name of the big giant 50-foot thing.

It starts with an R.

Anyway, like I'm kind of chasing after this 50-foot monster to try to figure out,

and it's like clawing and tearing apart all the environments,

and I've got the headsets on where I can't see anything,

but I'm supposedly walking around in the safe space.

What I didn't realize is the dog was in the middle of the safe space.

My dog had laid down.

Yeah.

And so it was literally right by my feet as this rancor is what it's called.

The rancor is like tearing apart the thing.

Yeah.

And right when the rancor trashes like right where I am with these big, long, thick nails,

the dog stands up and jabs its nails into my feet.

Yeah.

Exact timing.

Scared the garbage out of me.

My arms go flailing.

Yeah.

What I didn't realize is I was six inches away from the Christmas tree when my arms went flailing.

And ornaments are like scattered all over the place.

And I haven't told my wife yet who's not listening to this, but I broke a couple.

She doesn't know about that.

It was so funny.

It's like, man, that's, that's VR, man.

It just sucks you in.

Everybody has some kind of story like that.

Luckily you like spared your, your TV or whatever.

Cause most people it's like, you know, I forgot that my TV was in the space and like, yeah,

for me, I was, I was, you know, using the, I was playing some, I think I was playing like

a pong game or something and, uh, those straps that it came with were like, not that great.

And like, I let go of it and it like snapped the strap and it like, it like bounced, like

hit a wall and then it like smashed into a, uh, a lamp and it just like shattered the bulb

and there's like glass everywhere.

And I was just like, there's like a, my roommate's like, what the heck?

Ah, so I actually got to meet the guys that like made the, the vibe.

This is the one I have.

Yeah.

And I was like, what the heck happened with the little strap?

Like this thing sucks.

It was, it was like way broken.

And, and he was like, here, come with me.

And then he like took me to a guy and he was like, this is the guy whose fault it is.

You tell him.

So it was good time.

So what I did, I went to Best Buy or I know I went to GameStop and I just bought, uh, or,

um, actually just gave them to me.

I just got Wii remote straps and they work.

They're like way better.

Much better.

Yeah.

So that's what happened.

It's good to know.

Thank you.

Nintendo for solving problems years ago that we didn't even know we had.

So, well, we, they knew they had it because the Wii remote, everybody was smack throwing

Wii remotes into their TV and they got so fed up with it that they like came up with a better

strap and they sent them out.

So I remember having the very first Wii, they sent me like a thing that was an email that

said, if you give us your address, we'll send you free of charge four straps that are like

newly improved.

So please, please replace your current straps.

So, yeah.

Man, you are, I want to hear, and the reason I wanted to get with you is really to dig into

this, um, what you're doing with Love Clan and, and, and, uh, the hopes and desires doing

church planting program through, through your church.

And, and I honestly, I just really wanted to catch up and learn more about what you're doing

kind of as you're trying to progress and build a, a digital church here.

So as, as we're backing up and some listeners may not remember, Jake was way back in the

day, uh, has already been on here early on, uh, talking through, um, what Love Clan

is, but maybe just give a quick synopsis minute, minute or two.

What is Love Clan?

What are you guys doing?

Uh, yeah, so Love Clan is essentially, um, an online place for, for people to chat.

Uh, and we have a discord.

That's where we do most of our ministry type stuff.

It's grown into, into like starting to look into other stuff, but the basics of it is there's

people, um, out there that are looking for just something other than the cultural norm,

which is, uh, I'm just trying to win in this game or I want to, I don't, I don't know.

I'm trying to think of what the exact is.

I don't know if I could put my finger on, um, what's out there, but I just wanted something

else, uh, then, then, then that, then kind of toxic or whatever.

That's kind of the, that's kind of the front face of it.

I guess the front door into it, the lobby into the church is kind of something we've talked

about at one point.

And then obviously the, the backend, uh, the, the real goal is discipleship.

So in the core team, that's the, our focus is in discipleship.

And, uh, we have a prayer channel, um, that's really active and we think about next steps.

What does it mean for people to join for the first time, just looking for something else?

And then what does that mean?

If that person is willing to have a conversation with somebody, um, who's a Christian, and if

they're willing to have that conversation, then maybe they'd add something to the prayer

channel.

And if they'd add it for the prayer channel, would they be willing to have somebody reach

out to them and, and ask them if, um, if they're okay.

And if so, would they talk about maybe more in depth things like spirituality and then even

into gospel.

And if so, then, and we just kind of think through that, that mindset.

Um, from both directions, you know, both people that are in our core team, um, who are Christians

learning how to be disciples.

And then also, how do we, how do we meet people where they're at, um, already on the internet?

And then what is, what does that look like to kind of join those two things?

And that's the love clan.

It's like in there somewhere, you know, it was like, uh, a gaming chat, internet, you know,

whatever.

Yeah.

So how, how long have you been doing love clan?

Oh, I should just know this off the top of my head.

Um, but it really feels more fluid because it was, it, it, there's the, there's a whole

story, you know, where you start with, and we, we said this other one, but starting with,

uh, another organization called game church, um, and then breaking off, uh, and doing our

own separate thing.

And then from there, I think it's been, um, man, seven, eight, nine, two, maybe like three

years, three years.

I think, I think three years as the name love clan, um, it may actually be way less than

that.

I don't, I don't, I have no idea.

I honestly don't, I, it's eight, 85 years, I think.

And, and running strong, you know?

Wow.

They had the internet 85 years ago.

That's impressive.

Yeah.

It's a, you beat Al Gore to that.

Well done.

Sure.

Yeah.

We all, well, we had the whole tin can with the string thing going for a while, but we've

upgraded.

So the thing I love about what you're doing is, is that you, you've taken a discipleship kind

of process towards this of training others to go as opposed to, you know, creating a walled

off community, virtual community in this context where everybody comes in.

And so the, the platform, a lot of, it's funny as I, as I talk about you and I say the word

discord, actually a lot of people don't know discord.

Like if you're not a millennial and you don't play video games, I think discord's not on,

on the radar.

So just kind of like get some basics.

What do you, what does discord look like?

And what is the digital context of what you're doing actually look like in context of discord?

Yeah, that's a, that's a good point.

Yeah.

Discord is, I'd say most people probably that don't know discord, no slack, which is kind

of funny.

But discord looks a lot like slack.

If you, if you open the two side by side, but discord has a much more, that there's a lot

more you can do with bots and with channels and setting it up so that it can run.

If you don't know slack, you probably know Skype.

So there's a, there's a Skype element to it.

There's video chat, voice chat, text channels.

A lot of it is grouping people together into a space where they can chat and then separating

those chats into different chat channels and having some of those chat channels be voice

chat, only channels, text chat, only channels, or the ability to do video.

And then you can add bots, which the bots help sort through.

Like if I, if I was to say, yeah, I'm looking for this, that might trigger a keyword and then

it'll, it'll give a command that like lets people know, oh, you're, it looks like you're

looking for this.

Here's, here's where the channel you'd want to go to is for that.

And, uh, so we can separate people into different games and so on and so forth.

So to kind of help, help people find other people, uh, for what they're looking for.

Yeah.

So over the past two or three years, you've been utilizing, uh, discord as a platform to

create a discipleship movement called love clan.

Why are you going through a church planting training cohort?

Like what's, what's going on in your head right now?

This for me, uh, is a calling.

I don't know exactly where, where that stops or like where that line is.

I'm trying to understand what God's calling is.

Uh, I, I know that it's to reach, to, to, to reach gamers.

That's like first and foremost, my, my, my calling first and foremost for everybody, um,

for a Christian should be to, to make disciples and, and be a disciple.

But my personal calling is, is doing that for, for gamers.

I, I had a moment where I felt like God really opened it up for me and, and said that this

is it.

And I'd been praying for it for like six months, uh, with a group and it was very short.

I don't know if it was just a thought in my head.

To me, it sounded like a different voice than what I was used to.

So, but it was just, what about a game church?

Uh, that, that, that for me was just like, oh gosh, that, that's so in line with, with

passions, but even knowing who to reach and, and so on.

And ever since then, it's been trying to figure out what does that, what does that mean?

And, and, and it's, it's fluctuated over the years.

So I, I would say, honestly, it's sort of like this, if it was something that was really

already being done, um, or something that I could just point at and say, see how that

person's doing it.

I want to, I want to do it just like that.

I would go and I would, I would go to that person and I would ask them what they're doing

and I would follow that person.

And, and then after, you know, six months, then I would kind of start to do some of the

same things.

And, um, but like we've said, that's just not, it's just not there.

Like we're, we're kind of, um, I don't want to say we're, we're writing that, but you

know, we're, we're figuring out what that looks like now.

You, you, you don't, when you're, when you're doing something new, you don't just throw out

what, what already exists, right?

You want to, you want to take that and, and use it.

And I think it'd be really foolish, um, at 27, uh, years old for me to think that I'm

going to somehow be, you know, I'm so smart because the internet.

And so I can just, I can just forget anything else that's been, that's already been done

ahead of, of whatever work we're trying to do.

Uh, and instead it's the same, the same idea you would do with any culture where you would

take what's working, um, somewhere else.

And you just, you apply it to a different context.

That doesn't mean that the truth is different or that the, um, even the methods aren't, aren't,

aren't necessarily applicable, but that there's a different spin to things.

Um, or in some cases, a different language or a different, you know, whatever.

And, and that's how it feels with gamers.

Like that, they have kind of a different language.

Sometimes they have kind of a different spin to how they see things.

And so how, how do we, how do we bring things to where people are, um, and, and change the

context?

You know, we're reading through acts.

Um, we see that where, when they're in front of one group of people, maybe the way things

are presented is, is one way.

And then if they're in this other context, a different culture that doesn't understand

when there's the, uh, they, he walks through, um, and he sees all the idols in the town and

stuff.

And then he goes to the Sanhedrin or whatever, but he's like, he, he, he, he goes in front

of them and he's like, Hey, there's, uh, here's how your town is, you know?

And like, let's talk about it.

Do you want, do you want to know about the, the, uh, unknown God, you know, and, and, and

applying things that make sense in their context has been, has been really big for, for me,

especially thinking towards gamers.

So that's kind of just to lay the groundworks of where my mind's at with, with all of this.

You're, you're breaking a lot of paradigms and norms here.

Like, let's, let's just spell this out.

So first off, um, you're not in the physical space, you're in a digital space.

So when you say gamer church, just out of clarity, you're not going to go rent a building

over here and invite gamers in and do something.

You're talking about doing this as, uh, on a virtual platform.

True.

Not yet.

Not yet.

Anyway.

I mean, potentially maybe, but yeah, starting out in the digital realm first, maybe physical.

So already, you know, the, the, the average pastor or the average church member in America

defines Ecclesia as the gathering in physical space.

And so there's challenges in the right word.

Uh, there's a reinterpreted, a rereading of, of what that, that could be.

Even the fact that, that you are targeting an audience of, of gamers, as opposed to what

the average person would do is target a physical location or something like that.

I'm going to open a church in my community and I'm going to call it community Christian

church.

And I'm going to invite everybody within five or 10 miles to that.

You're more targeted towards a niche or an audience.

Is it niche or niche?

I, I never, whenever I say it, I feel awkward.

I want to say niche.

I believe it's, but I think honestly, both, both pronunciations.

Yeah.

So we're going to go with this.

We're going to go with niche today.

Well, very good.

So niche, niche, no T niche.

Um, so you're targeting the niche of video.

That's just sounds so awkward.

Now it sounds weird.

I don't know.

That's not weird, isn't it?

You're going to target that.

You're going to target the very tiny group of video gamers compared to the grand scheme

of things.

So you're getting people who are, um, similar in characteristics.

Their shared value isn't, they know where the closest Burger King is within the community

and they know how to time the stoplights.

Their, their shared community, their shared value is, um, centered around video games or

VR or, you know, the new thing that's come out.

It's that, that type of person that, that you're kind of reaching out to.

What are the strengths and weaknesses?

What are some things that you think that, that that's better?

And what do you think some things that you're trying, that you've struggled to kind of

overcome with maybe as you're reaching out with this different reading of how to do church?

This is something that I'm learning, um, as we're going, that's, that's difficult.

I, I struggle, uh, calling something a church or not.

Um, I, even with, with love clan, I don't want to, I don't, I don't want words to get in

the way.

I don't want it to with, with anybody, with, um, with the big C church.

I'm, I don't want to, uh, I'm not, I'm not purposely trying to start fights or anything

like that.

You know, it's not like, oh, I'll, I'll call this a church, um, because I know it'll just

really, uh, hit a chord with somebody.

And then, you know, that whatever.

And on the flip side, even in the group, the people that I'm discipling or, um, or that

I'm ministering to even there, like a lot of them are turned off by the idea of church.

Like they, they feel like it hasn't listened to some of the things they're trying to say

or that it didn't answer the questions that they had.

And so they don't want it to, to be a church, even the people in the core group, some of them

are not, they're, they're not really, they're like, well, show me what that means.

Um, because where I came from, I, that wasn't, that wasn't something that was, that was good.

I wasn't in a good, healthy church and I have to kind of look at it from both angles.

And, and so that, that for us has been figuring out how do we define, how do we define church?

And I'm realizing that's not as easy as I thought it was.

And, and I, I don't want to, I don't want to flippantly call something a church if it's,

if it's not be for the same reason that we talk about, um, well, we, we just say the word

like, well, the church says this, and obviously there's a bunch of churches, you know, but

it, when we say the church thinks this way, um, what we're saying is, you know, things that

have called themselves churches have said this, this way.

And I, I don't want to do the same thing for ours.

If, if it's not, if it's not what an actual church is, because who decides what a church

is, it should be, it should be God.

You know, he decides if something is, is his church, he's going to build it.

Jesus builds the church rather than looking to what already exists and saying, are we that?

And then we can call ourselves a church.

It's let's look to the Bible and what does the Bible say a church is?

And if it fits the criteria of, of what I, you know, of, is this what Jesus is building?

And is, does it fit in these things?

Is it doing these things?

Then, then we can call it a church.

But if I talk to one person and they ask me, you know, oh, this is a church, you know,

I'm not really interested in church.

I'm going to have no problems telling that person like, uh, well, I mean, what is your,

what is your view of a church?

And it's, you know, well, it does this and this and that and okay, well then maybe it

is, or it isn't based on the definition you've just given.

Um, but, but here's what it is.

You know, like this is a place where we're going to, we're going to love you and, um, we're

going to respect you.

And there's a, uh, a place that we would like you to get to where you can have a loving,

respectful relationship with God.

And, and how do we, how do we work there?

We can do that together as a group.

Um, these are things that like I would expect from a church, but maybe that's not the word,

you know, the wording he wants to use.

So there's just, there's power, there's power in the words that we use.

Um, and I, the, the, the best, the best list I've, I've seen so far, um, for what a healthy

church is, um, speaking specifically about minimal ecclesiology, um, all of that.

It's, there's a book, um, Todd Wilson and exponential, I think it's called activating the flywheel

and it's a free, free online PDF thing that you can download.

Um, and I, I want to make sure I'm right.

I think it's chapter six is where is all on minimal ecclesiology of like, this is the very

basics of what a church is.

They go through, uh, Larry Wackemeyer worked for, well, when I first heard it, he had been

working on it for a year, but I think he's worked on it longer since then.

And since the publishing of that, but there's, I think seven, I think there's seven things that

of, uh, of this is what the, the, the minimum of church is, um, and the, and what a healthy

church is.

And so I, I read through that, you take everything at face value at face value, because one person

might say one thing or one person might say another thing, but you should still, there's

always some truth in, in criticism, right?

So I, you look through those seven things, not meant as a criticism, but just as somebody

that's trying to prayerfully consider what it means to be a church and an effective church.

And, um, I don't want to just be the minimum a church can be, but what does it mean to be

a really effective church and, and looking through those, how do I apply those into my context?

And even if I don't call myself a church, I would still want to make sure I'm doing these,

these things.

Yeah.

I, I, I'm, I'm sitting here on Google while you're talking the mobilization flywheel by

Todd Wilson.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Is that what you're talking about?

Yeah.

Yeah.

There's a, so we'll, we'll put a link to it in the PDF or in the show notes.

I believe it's chapter six, but it, it may not be.

And then, you know, it's just like misquoting some, anything else you'll find it.

Minimal ecclesiology.

It's a really good chapter.

The whole book's good, but yeah.

You're right.

The church today, when people say that the church, it means so many different things, but

really it's, it's different organizations, interpretation of, of scripture.

And even that changes in context of, um, locations within the country, locations within other

countries, other continents.

The church operates in Africa different than it does here in America based on their interpretation

of scripture.

Cause ultimately, and this is the one thing that I, that I think is very easy to forget.

We're all operating on different models of what we think church is.

Right.

Like, um, the, the most popular model at this point is the more energy goes into the one

hour on Sunday service than anything else.

Sure.

And honestly, whether you're a traditional service, a traditional church or a, or a modern

church, um, contemporary, modern, uh, Hispanic, there's large Hispanic culture down

here where I'm at in Miami, different cultures within that one hour on Sunday, it's pretty

much, you know, musical worship, some form of announcements and some form of long form

teaching followed by more worship possibly.

And at the end of the day, everybody goes home like that.

That's what the average person in America would define church as, which is, I would say

as an event, you know, as an event.

Yeah, sure.

I would say, yeah, the, as far as an hour on Sunday, um, that, you know, we need to have

a bumper after this thing and that this is where we give communion.

And like, right after we pray, then that's where people's hearts are the most tender.

And that's when we want to do the offering, you know, like that, the thought, the, those

kinds of thoughts.

Um, one thing I really appreciated about, about that book was that it didn't, it didn't say

like, well, you know, one of the seven isn't a, um, you, you have a band with a three piece

band, uh, with, with at least a one drummer on rotation.

And, uh, you know, it's not, it's nothing like that that they're, they're, they're looking

at the wise before the what, and what we're really describing is a, is a what that might

come from a good place.

In the same way, when we think about discipleship strategies, people could just copy what you're

doing and have it be the what if they're not focused on the why first of why am I doing

this?

Why am I discipling people?

Then, then the what's pretty useless.

And I think that's kind of one of the problems that's happened with, with churches, local

churches have a tendency, yes, to kind of copy what's already happening and, and, and hoping

out of doing the what really well, that they'll, they'll find the why that it kind of comes

out of that.

That's not a, a catch all for sure.

Um, but if you, if you don't know, um, why we sing, uh, you know, and thinking about worship

in that context and what does it look like?

What, what does it look like to, for, for why am I worshiping or, or why is this?

To their spiritual, uh, authority in the church, like, like thinking through some of those

things.

And if you get to the, to the core of it, that's what most of the new Testament is, is here

is, here is what old Testament was.

And now I want you to think about the why of, of why did I say these things are, are key?

Why are these things laws?

Why did I say not to do this?

And, and people get, got so stuck on the what of it that I'm going to just follow these rules.

I'm going to follow it the right way.

And I'm going to do all these things that they, um, I think of the example of, um, well, we,

you know, we're, we're, we're doing sacrifice and he's like, it's become a stench to my, you

know, like I, it's a stench to me now because you're just doing it.

You're doing the what, but you've completely lost the why of why I told you to do it in

the first place.

And, and I, I'm not going to say that local churches can have a tendency to become a stench.

I think a lot of them have the right mindset, but if we're ever doing things just because

it's, it's the norm or just because it's what we think is, is right, rather than prayerfully

thinking about what our context is and, and is there something else that God would want

us to do, then yeah, that's, that's a problem.

That's, that's not, that's not expecting Jesus to build a church.

That's just us following what other people have built.

And we're just doing a 2.0, you know, and that's not, that's not, that's not good.

That's not, yeah, I don't know.

Uh, well, I didn't really answer, I didn't really answer one of your questions earlier.

So I'll just, I'll pop on it real quick, but yeah, thinking in context of specific people

rather than in a local, like a localization of people is, um, well, I made the joke earlier,

but that I could, if I wanted to find a group of people that were, uh, Christian emos, uh,

to go figure out what worship looks like with, that would be kind of difficult without the

internet and now at the internet, you can't, you can be more a niche with the person that

you're, that you're targeting.

Um, and I would say that while the, what we, we kind of do that anyway, cause like you said,

Hispanic is really big in Florida.

So how do we tailor the church service experience in that area?

We're, we're going to make sure that we're having some type of Hispanic influence, you know,

maybe the worship, one of the songs is in, or most of the songs are in Spanish, you know,

and the, how do our events look like and what are our small group communities and what are

the things we think through?

Like we do that just because it was local.

We think about those things in the local context, but let's not forget that like the church is

not the local physical location, but the body of believers.

And so we're already always doing this.

Like it's just rather than you being, I'm going to go to this location where this group of people

are now it's, I'm going to find these people from all over.

They're already online.

And I'm, I'm, this is, this is my context, you know?

Um, and so it doesn't, it doesn't really feel too different.

Uh, it's just people, but you, uh, I have things that I can relate that make, that are maybe

more specific, uh, than something.

If you, if you, rather than giving a sports team analogy to a local sports team in the

area or about a specific event that happened locally, then you'd give an event that happened

in the game, or you'd give it about a specific game, you know, something like that.

So it really isn't too different.

I think it's just possible now, whereas maybe it wasn't fully possible before the internet.

Hmm.

Yeah.

I mean, the internet definitely brought about more, uh, I keep saying the word niche, niche

more of that.

Uh, it's, it's one of the reasons like, I honestly, and side note, you'll never have a band like

the Beatles again.

There will never be a single musical band to have that much influence.

Uh, you kind of saw a little bit of it with you too, Coldplay maybe, but the, the musical

genres are so sub-genred at this point, thanks to the internet that it's, you'll, you're never

going to be able to get that, that influence and that power.

And so instead of reaching the world, we're reaching these individual, uh, these, these

smaller groups of, of people, uh, that we're able to have a much stronger influence because

you can fine tune, uh, your, your message to that.

The, excuse me, message is the same Christ, the method of communicating them to that.

Right.

Like you guys are doing with, uh, with love clan.

So, well, well, and not, not, not fast.

I mean, or just really fast on that, but like, yeah, you, you do tune things to the message.

Like that's, you know, why don't we copy and paste sermons from, from everybody else?

Why aren't there just like the same one person writes the same sermon and we do it at every

church?

Because the sermon is specific to the heart of the people that you're speaking to the same

way that, um, you know, when he goes and he says to the, the unknown God, well, that sermon

wouldn't have really flown in Jerusalem, you know, because they would have been like unknown

God.

Like we're, we're Jews.

Like we, we, we know who God is so that your sermons do, they, they should change, you know,

the message doesn't change, but like you're saying there, there is a context of the people

that you're speaking to and in your, in your sermons should reflect that.

So yeah, we're, that's one of the things that's been really difficult for us lately is okay.

What does it look like for, for a love clan in the future?

Because we currently don't have sermons.

Um, that's not our like primary thing, but there are some people that that's the thing

that they're going to want.

And I do see a biblical precedent for some, um, for, for biblical teaching, at least a, um,

rather than right now we have a lot of biblical discussion and we have, um, small groups,

things like that where people can discuss.

But I think as far as the specific spiritual authority, teaching the word, presenting the

message in a way that, um, makes sense of their context, the same way Jesus did the same way,

um, Paul does, I think that's something that's going to be a next step for us that we, we need

to move more into and, um, get, getting the why right first, you know, it's not just doing

a sermon because that's what local churches do and we got to be the local, you know, we got

to be just like every other church, but if there is a, a need for biblical teaching and I,

and I believe there is, then how do we present biblical teaching in the context of four gamers?

And when, when I say it that way, that's, that is what a sermon is, is, is presenting biblical

context and in the context of your congregation.

My small group was the, was the first one to start, um, we call it, you know, alpha one

and it was the, uh, just went through acts.

So we Bible based scripture base.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Um, well, yeah, we, so we use the, the three thirds, there's a thing called three thirds method.

You can Google it and it'll come up three thirds.

Um, it's, I, I use, it's from a book called T4T, um, training for, yeah.

And I think it's training for teachers, something like that, but it's the, it's training for

trainers, but we'll, um, for trainers.

There you go.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Link on this.

This is all very good.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's a very, that's a really good resource.

Um, the whole thing, Ying Kai, uh, Ying and Grace Kai, both awesome people and I've got

to meet them in person.

They're, I just, I'll, I'll just say T4T is an awesome resource, but, um, three thirds

of that, the, the first half is kind of looking, looking back, um, at what God has done in the

last week.

So we'll use like pastoral care, um, worship.

Um, yeah, like, like thinking back, worshiping God for what he's done, worshiping, um, praying.

So, so worship, right.

In our context, usually for the small group, um, rather than singing, because it got difficult.

I have done this once where I plus play on a YouTube video and we just listened through

it.

Um, and this is so funny because I'm realizing the last time I was on this, this podcast was

like, oh man, a long time ago before we did our first small group.

And I think I was saying we were going to do a small group or that we were thinking about

doing one.

Maybe you were, you were just kicking the idea around.

Right.

Okay.

So cool.

So this is kind of, you know, I'll look forward or whatever, but we, we ended up going with

this, this model.

And so we, we look back at, um, worship.

Um, I will generally pull through a Psalm or a verse.

That's just a praise, uh, of God will read through that Psalm and then pray through that

Psalm.

So like in, um, if you haven't ever done this, it's actually a really cool, uh, extra thing

I can throw in for another way for you to pray, but just read through a Psalm and then

pray in the context of, of that Psalm.

Like, yeah, God, like you, you are my rod and my staff and you protect me and you, you

want to, you make a way, um, for me to move forward.

Even when I feel like I'm in the presence of enemies and you lead me by still waters, you

know, and, and thinking, thinking through the verses the same way, um, that David would have

when he's writing them, it's like, I, I feel this way, God, I feel exactly how he feels at

the first half of this, but I believe the second half, you know, I, I believe that, that you

can work through these things and that you do protect me.

So anyway, we're worship in the first, the first half of that.

And the second half is, um, in, in most of them, it will say lesson.

Um, and, and I think that's, I think that's good.

Um, if you can write a lesson, we're actually figuring out right now how to maybe do smaller

groups because, um, um, smaller meaning shorter periods of time because we have tried the extended

long period of time groups, uh, currently where it's just, there's no end date.

It's, you just are in a small group and that has worked for some of the people that started

small groups in our, in our group.

I think there's also an easier end for some people to say, this is a seven week series,

like a seven week small group.

And at the end of seven weeks, we'll disband.

There's no, you know, beyond that, if, if you don't want to, um, but then at that same

time, right after that, we will start another group.

Uh, and, and we'll go, we'll go from there.

What I like, especially about that is that it gives us an opportunity for, for, well, for

one to ask people very seriously to make this a priority and that they have this many days.

I want you to give me this day, this day, this day, this day, this day.

Yeah.

And, and make that a priority for me.

And at the same time, it gives us an opportunity at the end of that group to ask people that

we feel like could lead a group.

Hey, you've been in this group.

Would you, you know, how are you feeling about this?

Do you think you could lead one?

And even if they say, no, you've started that conversation.

And maybe the, in the next group, they can be thinking about that.

And, and then now you're, you know, in 14 weeks, that person feels ready.

Maybe even before that, maybe even halfway through that group.

They're like, I feel like I could start leading this now, you know, and it should never just

be, um, so we were talking about starting a group, I think in the last one.

And then I, I started one.

Um, we then had, if, if you, Ralph Moore, I'm just going to, you're just going to point

point at everybody this time.

It's great.

Ralph, Ralph Moore, man, I don't know which organization even to look up, but if you just

look up Ralph Moore, you'll probably find him.

Started tons of churches.

He started, he's the only five, level five church planner we could find when looking through

exponential.

It's something it, I'm not even going to try to, I'll just misquote how many hundreds of

thousands of people.

Um, but it's a lot and how many tens of thousands, or if not a hundred, if it's probably hundreds

of thousands of churches at this point.

But I went to one of his churches, um, one of the churches that was like a,

a church of a church of a church of his in Japan when I went because they, they knew him

because they knew this guy who knew this guy.

And they were like, Oh yeah, like, like Ralph, like we, yeah, we know Ralph.

So it's crazy his, the impact there, but his, his method for even thinking about small groups

and, um, in church planning and so on, it, it, a lot of it starts with this awesome method

of one, one person starts a group.

And then from that, um, that person identifies three people that are like the key, the key

leaders of that group, usually that happens where you get some people that are just maybe

a little bit more, they'll, they tend to do more of the work or they just study more.

They have a tendency to memorize more verses or, or so on.

And from looking at that, then saying, okay, I'm going to take, I'm going to take myself and

maybe the third, if you think about like your one and then two, three, and four, yeah, like

the one in the three will go together, stay together in the, in the group that you're at

now and continue leading this group.

Whereas like the two and the four will break off and start a group.

And, and thinking through that, then it, it ends up becoming like the, the three is now

the second in the group and the two becomes the one in the group.

And the four becomes the, the two in that group and the second group.

Yeah.

And so everybody is, is moving in a direction that's, that's thinking higher up and like,

oh, I'm now in a higher level of leadership.

And so I need to, I need to think about that moving forward and I need to make sure other

people are doing the same.

So when now there's another group that starts.

So, yeah.

So that's, that, that's a similar model of what you're trying to do through, through

love clan to, yeah, that's our model to find the two, three, fours.

Yeah.

And then when they, when they break off, that's either a separate channel and discord, or is

that where it gets into physical space?

So for, for these, for this model right now, that this is kind of what I'm, I'm using for

our small groups.

So for our community, we call them community groups, but, um, or life groups is probably

a better, you know, term and church churchy term.

But we, we do, um, that, that happened in my group where I had a 10 people and identified

some people from there and we've, we split, you know, we, um, not even split.

We had a couple of people who were like leaders in the group and, and said, okay, you, you two

go and start a group.

Um, and, and we'll, we'll stay here and we're going to, we're going to rebuild some stuff.

And, um, and so they did, they start, they started a group and there was still somebody

in our group who is now second, you know, and, uh, everything kind of shifted again.

And so when we started the right, right after that, not too long after, um, they, that person

who is second then started his, his group.

So we, we have currently three, three community groups now.

Um, and they've all gone up and down, depends on the week and whatever, but they're all sitting

at like basically max.

There's 30 people in small groups now online.

Um, and, and we're all going, we were all going through acts.

So I'm like in week 23, I think we do one chapter a week and the, they're, they're in

like week 13 or something like that of, of acts.

Cause it's offset.

Sounds like you're due for one more, uh, for another split here in the next little bit.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And, and we're going to need, that's, that's actually why we're trying to get to the end of

acts in, in, in my group and the alpha group so that we can, um, so that we can start trying

the like seven week thing.

So our group will technically disband because we're going to, and if anybody wants to rejoin,

they can, otherwise we're going to then look for another group, um, of people.

And that gives people an off ramp.

If they're like acts was, you know, too much, 20, 28 weeks or whatever is like, I, you know,

that's too many, too many weeks.

So that that's, that's what that is.

And that's the, the middle half I was saying like lesson rather than right now, we're not

creating a lesson.

It's a discussion.

We're discussing through, if, if we're looking at three thirds, this is the second, the second

side, but the, we're doing discussion instead of lesson and they're discussing through acts.

And then the last half being practice and prayer and goal setting, thinking, thinking the first

half is looking back at what God's done.

The middle half is looking up.

What does God want to say through these verses?

And then the last half looking forward, what does God want to do goal setting for our group

practice for the future, making sure that, um, people are, are trained so that like last

week we did, um, what's your story.

Can you give a two minute testimony, you know?

And as a, as leading the group, you know, people kind of give me blank stares of like,

I have to give it to, I have to like, think about a two minute testimony.

And so I, I have to lead by example, you know, if I don't have a two minute testimony, then

I can't expect them to.

So that that's, it's just a thing that you, um, well, and that's all tied into T for T or

T for T for T is the two minute.

And, you know, I think they even have a 32nd version as well that that's tied into that.

So, but that's where, from a, from a, from a biblical standpoint, you're going through

acts from a discipleship standpoint, you're going through the T for T simultaneously that

gives you a foundation to allow for a discipleship system to be trained in and taught.

Yeah.

Which is also biblical, you know, like it's, it's all biblical, but it's, it's the bit

biblical is where I'm getting my, my wife from, you know?

And then how, you know, like, how do you do that?

These things, um, in the current context is where a lot of that stuff like T for T, um,

and even like the, uh, activating the flywheel thinking through and looking like, okay, what,

what does it, what does this actually look like?

Yeah.

The current, the current existence of church today in America is a model.

Right.

Um, it's grounded on biblical truth, but it's a model.

Right.

Uh, 500 years ago, it looked different.

1500 years ago, it looked different.

At the time of acts, it looked different.

And so a lot of times, uh, today we're, we're making adjustments to the model to do things

in a church online component or with what you're doing, a digital church, holistically digital

model.

And, and it's been, it's received negatively because, oh no, that's not what church is.

When, when, in fact, even the way that we do church today, isn't really like the, it's a

model.

It's an interpretation of what they see scripturally.

The biggest challenges with, with church online, uh, is, Hey, what are you going to do with

the kids ministry?

How are you going to do kids ministry online?

And my response is, where do I see kids ministry in the Bible?

Like that's, that's not a, that's not a Bible mandate that we have a separate children's

church over here.

You can make a very good argument for, Hey, it's our job as a church to disciple the parents,

to disciple the kids.

You know, what, why do people feel like there needs to be a children's ministry?

Um, and, and if it's, if it's grounded biblically, if it's because we're looking at stuff that

says, you know, that you bring them up in the way they should walk.

And when they grow up, then they won't turn from it.

And so therefore, how do I bring my kids up into this?

And like you're saying, that could be, that can mean a lot of things.

That could mean that the church is helping doing that thing.

Um, that they're helping raise the child, you know, and we, that's usually in a church,

what we'd say is we're going to help you raise your child.

Um, and, and, and so those are, those are good why questions.

But if it's not from a, if it's not from that perspective, if people aren't thinking that

way, if they're just thinking, I want the same thing I had, um, they should think a little

deeper.

I think is all like, think, think about why, why you want those things.

That's all.

Yeah.

So let me ask this and, and, and we'll probably wrap with this, but where, um, at what point

are you done?

At what point will you look out?

Have you thought of this and say, love clan is, is the existence of a digital church when

we, what is that?

Oh, right.

Well, the, okay.

Actually, this is, this is an unintentionally a great answer to a lot of the questions because,

um, you know, you're asking even from the very beginning, why would I go through a church

planning training thing?

And I don't know if we ever actually hit on that totally.

We're, we're bouncing around.

It's okay.

It's great.

Um, it, if I want to look at what currently exists, I'm not trying to, um, go in blind

that I see so many dangers when you do things alone.

So we want to look at what already has, has worked in the past with local fully understand

the context of what's out there.

You know, if you're going to write a good book, you should probably read some really good

books first.

Uh, so that, that's what is, and, and this is one of the things that, um, they, they point

through all of this, uh, going through that.

They, they, they'll talk about right now, we're talking about budget.

I don't want to talk about budget in my personal.

I'm probably not thinking about budget, but they said, Hey, I'm in church.

This is what you need to think about.

You need to think about a budget.

You need to think about your value statements.

You need to think about mission statements.

You need to, you know, and I, if it wasn't for, if it wasn't for them basically telling me

to think through those things, then I probably wouldn't.

Um, so I will, uh, stall and try to find my vision statement, uh, from, you know, that I

wrote up in the cohort that I otherwise wouldn't have, uh, have written up.

So basically they made you write a vision statement.

They make you write all that stuff.

Yeah.

And, um, you don't have a vision statement.

Well, I do because I am in the cohort one.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

So what's the vision statement?

I want to hear it.

So they also told about the difference between a mission, a mission statement and a vision

statement.

So our, our mission statement is that, yeah, as it, right.

There's a difference.

So our mission statement is to help gamers find and follow Jesus.

Okay.

You know, and our, our vision, um, the, the big long-term only possible with God, right.

Would be to have 1 million disciple making gamers.

So disciple making, disciple making gamers.

Yeah.

That's good.

It's work.

Yeah.

Right.

So, so, so you've got this mission vision.

You've sat through the budget talk, although for pennies compared to what another church

can do, you're doing, you know, that is, that's free.

That's a whole nother, that's a whole nother conversation, but we, we're trying, we're not

that we're, I don't want to even say that out loud.

We're, we're having a difficulty, uh, finding places to spend money.

I mean, outside of like, uh, you know, some salary or something, uh, that I would have

more time for, especially as I'm moving into freelance, some stability to be able to write

sermons would be nice, but yes, it, it is significantly cheaper and, and large scale.

International church planning movements.

They'll tell you money kills a movement.

Right.

Well, we're 800 members and we haven't spent anything yet.

We spent $5 to buy a color on a fake website.

So that's, I'll cut you the check.

I'll, I'll, I'll reimburse you there.

Great.

I took it out of my personal, uh, you know, so.

That's awesome.

I love your heart, Jate, of how you're utilizing discord to connect, meet, help create these disciples

and then unleash them in their local or virtual communities.

That's, that's, that's a huge thing.

So, man, thanks for, uh, thanks for jumping on the podcast with us and, and, and hanging

out today.

I mean, any, any closing thoughts as we're landing the plane?

I'll just, if I can real quick, I'll try to do this as fast as possible.

I'll just tell you a story of just something that just recently happened.

Um, do it.

So in our group, we had our core meeting on Saturday and we were talking, I was explaining

something that we do called step cuts.

And it's the idea of like, everybody has a next step, but that you cut that step in half.

And how do you make it an easier step for somebody?

And then what does it look like to make it basically a ramp?

It was just, this is the logical step for somebody to take.

And, um, there's a guy in our group named Zilly.

And so I wanted to, um, I asked his permission if I could share this, but he, he shared his,

his story basically.

And, um, for him, he was moving towards being reclusive towards never hanging out with anybody.

He was inside his, his room.

And so it was, um, yeah.

And, and, but he bought this game called Gary's mod and it was like $10 and it was a multiplayer.

He didn't realize.

And so they was like, well, I guess I wasted $10.

But we did game nights.

And so he joined a game night.

Um, a friend invited him to the group and then he did the game night.

And then he started coming to the, all the other game nights and buying the games we were

playing.

And so it was like consistently playing.

Then that friend invited him to, um, to do D and D in his house.

And he was like, I never would have done that if it wasn't for having some relationship

with people.

So he went and did D and D at his house.

Then his friend invited him to church.

And he was like, okay, you know, like that's, that's sure.

Why not?

So he went to church.

Um, at the same time, he kind of started, he started coming to our community groups.

Um, fast forward, you know, fast forward.

It's been a while.

He's at church and, uh, he was in our community groups for a while.

And, um, all of this stuff, um, is, is going on.

And so he's chatting active in our group.

Um, love the guy to death.

And he's in our core group explaining like, this is, this is kind of my progression.

You know, this is, these are the next steps I've taken.

Um, and here's where I am today.

And then he quickly had to go, he did like jet out of our group and, um, we were like,

okay, cool.

You know, some, uh, somebody I'll shared and we moved on that night at like nine 30, he

sent us a photo and it was, um, of him being baptized.

And, and he was like, I have wanted to make this decision for the last, you know, the last

like two, three years, but it just never was the time.

Um, I was at my local church today when I had to leave, I had to go to my local church

where I have like, uh, another group and they were, it was talking about baptism.

They said, if anybody wants to make this decision now, let's not wait.

And I just said, it's time, you know?

And so he got baptized, um, that, that night.

And he has, he has a fear of, of water and he, it always, he always has where he's like

wading in water is, is actually really cool, but head underwater.

He, he said, being baptized might have doubled the number of times his head's been underwater.

Oh my gosh.

So like, like actually, you know, like actual, very legitimate fear of, of that.

So, um, so he's really taking, he's taking lordship and very seriously in his life.

Um, like that, that is, I, that's what we, what we want to figure out.

Like, how, how do we, how do we have this where somebody who's in reclusive people aren't

going to be able to get to them?

Where do we meet that person?

And when we look in the Bible and we say, where are the people at?

Jesus goes to where the people are.

If those people are online, then we go online.

I'm not going to be able to find that person.

If they're in a house, they never leave.

I got to go online to where that person is.

And, um, so, so that, that's why, you know, that's what we're doing is really just meeting

people where they're at, which everybody says that.

And so we're, that's the reality is that they're online.

So I, I appreciate Zilla letting me share that.

And, uh, I didn't want to leave without throwing it in there because it's just such a cool story.

Um, Oh yeah.

Yeah.

Well, and, and I love your passion for, you know, for people like that.

Uh, I, I love your passion for that, that millennial, that, that Gen Z crowd, the, and you're,

you're kind of stuck in, in the middle right there of, of, of, of that group.

And these are, these are your, your people and the idea of using, I still, whenever I

tell people about the video games, they're like, wait, you can, you can disciple people

through video games.

What's that look like?

Uh, and usually people, usually people say like, wait, we're still talking about online,

right?

That's, that's, I get that a lot.

Yeah.

And I've always been enthralled with, uh, with love clan and what you guys are doing and

am very much excited to see how God's going to continue to, uh, to do things, uh, there

through discord with it.

So if, if anybody's interested in getting touch with you, um, we'll include, we'll include

the links in the show notes, but I remember there, there was like, um, it was a URL to

get connected with love clan.

It was it, what was it?

Yeah.

Loveclan.net.

That's, that's the easy, easy join.

Yep.

Cool.

So check that out.

Loveclan.net.

Check out and see what, what Jake's doing, how he's doing, um, unconventional ministry,

definitely unconventional, but at the core of it, discipleship, uh, in growing, uh, even

to the point of, um, you know, researching and, and, and training and growing into, into

a fully functioning church.

So, Hey, Jake, uh, thanks for, for jumping on this with me.

Uh, for Jake, oh man, love it for Jake.

Uh, my name's Jeff and, uh, we'll see you next time.

Thanks for coming.

Bye.

See ya.