EP032: CITN & Redefining the Why of Church Online

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All right, we got episode 32 of The Church Digital podcast, and this is going to be a fun one. This one

was recorded live from the CITN Church IT Network conference that we just recently had in Kansas

City, Kansas. Yes, we were on the Kansas side of Kansas, not the Missouri side. I checked my phone

several times to make sure I didn't warp between states throughout the conference, but we were on

the Kansas City, and it was a great conference. By the way, through The Church IT Network, we had 25,

26, maybe 27 breakout sessions strictly designed towards church online and online ministry. It's

a phenomenal conference. If you've never done it before, if you haven't checked out The Church

IT Network as a church tech crew, as online ministry, as church online people, you should definitely check

that out. I led a panel of four at The Church IT Conference specifically discussing how to redefine

the why of church online. Joining me on the panel was Tyler Sansom from Church Anywhere slash First

Capital Christian, no stranger to the podcast. Jason Morris from Westside Family, once again,

no stranger to the podcast here either. Randy Green, who is actually from Church of the Resurrection,

the church where the conference was at. By the way, who has a master's in divinity, and his thesis

was specifically written on church online, which I found awesome. And then finally, Jan Touchberry

from Christ Fellowship. Now, it's not the Christ Fellowship in Miami or the one in West Palm Beach.

This is the Christ Fellowship in Dallas. Yes, there are a lot of Christ Fellowships here in the

church online realm. Anyway, the four of us get together, and we have a phenomenal conversation.

We had some great questions from the audience to respond to, and it really was just a great panel.

As together, we discussed how to redefine the why of church online. Now, audio here isn't the

best quality we've ever done, and we please ask your forgiveness on that. But the quality of this

content, maybe not the audio quality, the fidelity, but the quality of the content you're hearing is

awesome. And I personally definitely wanted you all to experience this. So here you go.

My name is Tyler Sansom. I am from a church in Corridan, Indiana, which I don't expect any of you

guys to know where it's at. But it's right outside of Louisville, Kentucky. And the church is called

First Capital Christian Church, but I'm the lead of a ministry called Church Anywhere.

My name is Jan Tetchberry. I am the online campus pastor at Christ Fellowship in McKinney, Texas,

not to be confused with any of the Christ Fellowships all over the other places. And although it's

confused all the time. And I have been doing church online for about the last 10 years.

Hey, I'm Randy Green. I'm actually on staff here at Church of the Resurrection. So welcome to

Church of the Resurrection. Glad you all can be here. My role here is like kind of the lead of all of our

digital marketing and engagement. So this is my first time at Church IT Network because I'm in our

communications department, not our IT department. And so I'm like expanding the worldview of what I do

to be with you all today. But I'm excited. I mean, I also have a Master of Arts and Theological Studies

degree from a seminary here in town. And so what we're talking about today is something that's very

close on my heart, this like integration of what it is between like the digital world and the church

world and how those aren't necessarily separate spheres. So yeah, thanks for being here.

I'm Jason Morris. I'm Global Innovation Pastor at Westside Family Church, just about 30 minutes away from

here. I oversee the digital expression of Westside Family Church and use it to catalyze global church

planning movements around the world. Awesome. So let's just dive into this thing. So we're going to

redefine the why of church online. First question we're going to ask and see where we go. Why does

your church do church online? Sub note, it's more than just so some lazy guy can watch church in his

underwear, right? I'm hoping. I did not write this. Okay, I wrote it. I wrote it because that's the

conversation I've had with, I've had pastors. Hey, can we not broadcast within like 15 miles of our

church? Because we don't want people to stay at home in their underwear. But there's more to church

online than just to let this guy stay at home in his underwear, right? So open for the room.

So for me, church online is so important and so primal to what we do, because Jesus said, go into all the

world. And that's what we get to do. So basically, that's it. Cliff Notes, that's it.

I believe that Jesus gave us technology as a force multiplier for the gospel. And we need to use it.

And we will be held account for not using it if we don't. That includes the internet, includes social

media, includes everything of technology that Jesus has given us to extend his kingdom. So

I would feel really scared for not using it. I'm seriously standing before Jesus one day, and he's

like, dude, I gave you the internet. You know, what'd you do with it? So it's like, for me, that's why

we do what we do. To answer the other part of this question is another conversation. But I'll let these

guys speak into that. I will address the lazy guy. Okay, please. Because I think anybody who's been

in the online church sphere has heard that come out of somebody's mouth in your leadership at your

church. And what we pretty quickly found at our church is that are some people going to say, well,

we just felt like being lazy and watching church online in our pajamas? Yes. But that's not the majority.

And, um, and what we found is for people who cannot get there, whether it's because they have sick kids

or they're traveling or whatever the life circumstances that prevents them from walking

into the brick and mortar, it allows them to stay connected. The question I feel like equates dress

code with laziness. Yeah. And we shouldn't, I don't care if you're in your underwear or not.

Are you a soul that needs Jesus? Yes. So I don't care what you're wearing. I think the question,

the underlying question is the laziness part of it. And for whatever reason, there is this weird

stigma that I don't think is as true today as it could have been five or 10 years ago. Because today,

literally there are people that are intentionally gathering their families and their neighbors

maybe in or not in their underwear. I don't know, but they're intentionally being missional right

where they live. And to say that that's lazy, I think is an insult to the vision that some people

have in using church online. That's true. To say that's, to say that's lazy is taking the vision

of what God had for the church, period, way out of context. Right. It's actually more lazy in some

cases to come to church and do nothing. To church and do nothing. For us, we are an exceptionally small

church to be, to do online ministry. You don't, you don't think of a church our size doing that.

Jason's actually been there. It's the worst possible location for a church. I'm not exaggerating.

We are in a dead end street on a, like in a neighborhood where everything's been built around

us. But we're like way away from the expansion of the town. And the town's only 3,000 anyways.

So like a super small town. So for us, we started doing online ministry because that's where people

were. We were in a town where fortunately we're drawing a lot of people from our area, but we figured a

lot of other people needed the gospel as well. And so we're doing everything we can to one day look at

Jesus and him saying, well done, good and faithful servant. Yeah. So in the process of, of redefining and

reshaping what church online is, we really find ourselves maybe reshaping what the word

church is, which will get us to question two. Um, how do we define church?

How much time do we have? Go for it. So I, this is, this has been something that's, uh, that's reshaped

for us at First Capitol over the last two years. Um, a lot of people, for, for a long time, a lot of

people have looked at church from the Acts 2 42 perspective of the gathering and eating together and

praying together. Um, and that's a hundred percent what church can be. But I think church started back in

Acts one eight, um, which is you get the Holy spirit and it gives you power and then you go out and be

witness. Um, and I think for a long time, we've, we've turned church into something that's very

consumeristic because, um, when you meet together and you pray together and you eat together, that's

great, but it's filling you. And, um, I think the church was meant to go out and be a witness.

And the by-product of that is this community side of Acts 2 42. So for me, churches, um, followers of

Christ being the witness and spreading the good news. And then the by-product of that is you have

other followers that are doing the same thing. So you have this community and this network of

people. And I think that's what church, at least for us is. I think there's really powerful, um,

with what you were describing a minute ago of like people coming together in their homes,

um, and just being in community in that sense, whether they're in their underwear or not.

Uh, that's, that can, that is a very much a sense of community to me. And when I think of church

and what it means to be the church, I think of, you know, we come to a church building for like

an hour or two hours a week or something like that. But I think of the other six days and 22 hours.

Um, and to me, that's the real like embodiment of the church. What we do when we're not in the

building, what we do when we're out in the community and out living the rest of our lives,

that is how we'd be the church. Um, and so, so when I think of what it means to be the church,

I think of the ways that we're taking what happens in that hour or two,

or the ways that we're filled in that time and the ways we're pouring that back out into

the rest of our lives. So the, when you say the word church, um, there are so many different,

it's a complex word because when Jesus said that was what he was going to build,

you find so many different metaphors of that because it's much bigger than just one thing.

You find the church being described as the bride, as a flock, as a family, as a body.

There's so many different metaphors because not one size fits all, not one word fits all,

how expansive the church actually is. And so when we talk about what is church, immediately most of

us think about what is a church service. And I think we need to discern the difference between the

two, because if we're talking about how to do a church service online, well, we would answer that

question very differently. And you know, to use your point, Acts 2, a lot of times the church service

tries to do all of those things in one event, which I don't know that the passage really says that they

did all of those things in one event, which it could be, you could do it in using different events,

different things at different times. It also says they met every day. So maybe there's another way

of describing that. But what is true definitely is that there is a sense of belonging. There is a sense

of family. There is a sense of unity and belonging that can't be denied. Whatever metaphor you happen to

use. And the church service is just an outpouring of that community. So if we're talking about what is

church, I think first of all, we need to decide what we're talking about. Are we talking about

church service? Are we talking about the church? And if we're talking about the church, then we can

talk about the church online and we can talk about the church service online. And I'm not really clear

as to what, which one you're gunning for. I'm just stirring the pot like that. Okay.

Um, the, the end game is that I would suggest that a lot of, uh, a lot of churches today define

that church by the one hour on Sunday. Right. Yeah. And that's where the confusion is. And as we, we talk

with, you know, with staff, at least as I've talked with staffs about, you know, pouring some energy into

other things or, or, or going away and doing something else with that, because there's more

to a church than just that one hour on Sunday, uh, in the physical space, but in our virtual spaces,

there are five to 10,000 churches each week that broadcast their services in some context,

whether it's, uh, Facebook live, whether it's job platform, uh, YouTube, whatever we're broadcasting

the service. But when it comes to, you know, that next piece, uh, doing some sort of, uh, of,

uh, a small group, a biblical community, uh, a disciple making process in that, uh, oh no,

no, discipleship can only exist in physical space. It can't, it can't, uh, exist virtually,

which, which kind of gets us to,

which really segues nicely into this next question of, uh, what are the perceived weaknesses

of, of church online? Uh, how do we answer these weaknesses? How can we answer these weaknesses?

And how has your church kind of over overcome that?

I think that a lot of the perceived weaknesses are from people who don't understand church online,

chiefly because they've never attended a church online service, i.e. a lot of the leadership who

have, they're so focused on what happens in the hour on Sunday that, um, church online is church light,

right? It's, um, it may or may not count for, uh, doing church that week or, or being part of the

church. Um, I think that education is a huge piece of helping people understand that there can be

very dynamic, um, discipleship and relationships and, um, deep connection with biblical truth

and all of the things that we desire for people to experience when they are a part of our church.

All that can happen in the online space. If your mind is not stuck in the box, mortar, brick and mortar box.

But the, what you're describing is a lot of the things that when people talk to me about it,

about some of the real weaknesses when you're dealing with just textual communication.

But this is not a new problem for church online. We have the same problem that you can find in the

Bible when they criticize the apostle Paul for his letters being harsh. But when he shows up in person,

he's real nice, you know? And so that this particular problem of, uh, losing information

when you use pen and ink or when you use words or text is not a new phenomenon. It's as old as the Bible.

In fact, you know, the other criticism is, well, people can be anonymous and they can just write

whatever. Well, again, this is not a new phenomenon only related to church online.

Even in the new Testament, you find the apostle Paul, look, I'm writing in my own handwriting,

all this other kind of stuff, because there were other people writing in his name that really weren't

him. This is not anything new. So the whole idea of using anonymity as a problem for church online,

well, that's a problem for the church. If you're talking about, um, people missing through textual

communication, that's a problem for the church. It's not really a problem for church online. And what

I think many times happens with church online is that it surfaces the inherent weaknesses, not of

church online, but our predominant model of doing church in general. So many times, um, people say,

well, they're just numbers that are anonymous. Well, how many names, how do you, how many people do you

know by name who show up, you know, in your onsite campus? Do you really know? You know, there's,

there's so many other aspects of this that really root down into actually surfacing

really wonderful conversations because church online is a force multiplier and it magnifies the good

and the bad of whatever you're doing. So if your discipleship process on site isn't great,

online is going to make that worse. If, if your service isn't that great, online is going to make

it worse. You know, if, if your preaching is not that great, online is going to make it worse.

But if you do have systems and processes and pipelines that do work well, online is going to make it

better. So that for me is, um, yes, church online has weaknesses, but I don't know that there are any

more of the weaknesses than what church on site has. Here's, here's a weakness that I think needs to be

overcome. Uh, a couple of them actually. One is a proper scorecard that all of us struggle with,

with church online. Um, because break that down. What's the scorecard? Well, the metrics of trying

to compare what happens online with what happens on site is an apples to oranges comparison. Because

what happens online, you can measure attention way better than you can measure attendance. But on site,

you measure attendance, but you can't measure attention. And so what happens is, is that you, you

have like thousands and thousands of people who show up for 15 seconds, right? That doesn't count.

Yet for the person who shows up, puts his butt in the seat, totally ignores everything. And it's like

looking at all the cute girls and checking out his fantasy football. And then maybe tunes in for the

one time when the pastor says, if you don't hear anything else, hear this, you know, says it for 30

seconds, that 30 seconds of attention, that does count when all the rest of his inattention doesn't.

So you're measuring different things to begin with. And to get those two scoreboards to jive together,

I think is a weakness and a challenge for all of us online because of the different types of scoreboards

that we're working with. That's one thing. The other thing that I think is a weakness that I see

on most of what happens with church online as it relates to comparing to church on site is the lack

or the weakness of kids ministry. Now, that's not to say that that's really a problem because 300 years

ago, nobody had kids ministry either, right? And somehow the church survived, right? And so for the

family who's in their underwear with their PJs, with all their kids, that's trying to do church as a

family, integrated as a family and doing that church online, that says more to me for the parents and

their intentionality of what they're trying to do with their kids and taking ownership as the spiritual

leader of their household. That says more to me for that family. And if we don't have kids ministry in the

way that we have kids ministry on site, I don't know if that's a weakness or not, but it is an

apples to oranges comparison. Well, I mean, at minimum, it's an opportunity, right? Right.

Now, we as a church expressing ourselves online have a responsibility to empower that parent. I got

two kids 9 and 11. I would love for a church to empower me with resources to allow me to better

disciple my kids, rather than, you know, shuffling them off to children's church to enable me to be

the spiritual father, you know, in that in that environment would be awesome. So if you're writing

that down, take a note. Jeffrey wants help discipling. Thank you, sir. I appreciate that,

that note. Hey, so let's let's segue into this with that. What is your physical church's vision,

and how does Church Online help meet that vision? And this is hard, and some of these may be a work

in progress, but we get a little bit here into the strategy part of this, right? So church, a physical

church has a vision. Your church has a vision. What role does Church Online play? Our church's vision

is to help people find and follow Jesus. Super not original, and a lot of people have that. But the thing

that we've done is on site and online, and then at our micro sites, we have this linear discipleship

pathway. So one side of this is the find side. So it's how strategies to help people find Jesus. And we

want to take someone who's just looking to like getting to know us, and there's a conversion line

in the middle. So at some point, we hope to have like popped the question, and they decide to make

Jesus lower their life. Are you on one knee for that? Yeah, yeah. We do this, and there's like

the Jesus petting the lamb picture. So you've got a conversion line, and then you have someone who's

digging deeper, and then all in. So we have to follow the side. But we've been very intentional

of having a strategy that, like one, if this is church here, and this is church anywhere, which is

what we call our church online, they can intersect at any point. So through this-

He doesn't even break out on this, by the way. Yeah, Jason and I will be talking about this a little

bit later today. But this pathway has really focused us on helping people meet the vision of

finding and following Jesus, no matter where they enter that timeline, and no matter if they're in

person or if we have a virtual relationship with them. By the way, to give you guys context,

he's in a town of 3,000, but how many do you have at church? About 1,200. Wow.

And how many are in church anywhere? Physical bodies in church anywhere. So these are microsites,

somewhere around 800. Okay, so put that in perspective with a town of 3,000.

So and then the church online is a different category for us. Right. Yeah. Okay.

It's amazing what happens when you take church

to the people instead of making the people come to church. All right. So anybody else want to chime in

here? Uh, church online physical vision? For me, we just tightly align our online vision to the

physical church vision. I think it should be that way. So for us at Westside, it's loving Jesus,

becoming like Jesus, and sharing Jesus. And what we do online is helping people love Jesus,

become like Jesus, and share Jesus. Online, we kind of use that as a qualifier, but I don't even think

it's necessary. That's what we do. Sure. For us at Church of the Resurrection, our big kind of purpose

is to build a Christian community where non-religious and nominally religious people are becoming deeply

committed Christians. And so, you know, there's a lot you can unpack with that. But for me, the real, like,

the real power behind online church is the idea that we can develop that community of deeply committed

Christians. We can ask people to go deeper and deeper within their Christian faith at any point

throughout the day, like, throughout the week. So it's this thing, like, it permeates their lives.

So instead of asking them to come to a service for an hour once a week, we can, throughout the week,

be a presence in their lives. You know, asking, you know, how can we be praying for you? What do you have

going on that we can be in ministry with you? And just those kind of things. So it's just the

perpetual access that we have to, to continually work with people to become more deeply committed

Christians. I love that, which segues excellently into the next question. I'm broadcasting my services

online. Isn't that enough? Well, yeah.

It's enough if church were just a church service. Yeah. And some churches are like that.

And if that's all it is, then fine. But most people I talk to, most pastors I talk to,

while that one hour tends to consume a lot of their time, all of them would say that the church is much

bigger than that. It's not just a church service. Because if it is just a church service, we should all

be in our underwear and watch TV on Sunday morning. If that's all it is.

Which goes back to the why. Um, I mean, if, if your church's vision is not being fulfilled,

um, then you're not, you're doing something wrong with the church online. Like for example,

who, you know, everybody have a cell phone like in your pocket right now. Okay. I'm assuming you don't

only have that cell phone in your pocket at 1045 on a Sunday morning for an hour, correct?

And so like, if we, if we can't help people find and follow Jesus in our case, um, for the rest of the

hours of that week, um, with things that you literally have in your pocket, um, then we're not

fulfilling the vision of our church. That's not, that's not being the church. Um, we're just simply

doing something because other churches are doing it on Facebook. I love this. My pastor says that

church online is wrong because church is only in physical space. Help! Exclamation mark,

exclamation mark, exclamation mark. By the way, I hear this a lot. Hebrews 10, 25,

do not abandon meeting together, blah, blah, blah. So, um, how somebody out there is thinking this,

I guarantee somebody's had this conversation with leadership. How do we respond in a situation

like that? Can I give a personal story? Please. Yeah. So last week, um, two weeks ago,

two Saturdays ago, I, uh, preached a funeral of a lady named Betty. Um, and the first time I ever

saw her in person was in the casket. Um, so if you, if, if you can tell me that I was not meeting with

her, um, because I was only talking to her online, um, that would discredit the fact that, like,

she had said I was her pastor and had requested, knowing she was sick, had requested me to do that

funeral. Um, and so there's a real argument to be made that our culture has already moved past the

point of, uh, community only being face to face. Uh, Jeff, I would consider you a friend and we've only seen each

other versus twice ever, but, um, I know, right? But, but because of two hours sleep, thank you.

Because of Zoom, because of FaceTime, because of constant communication, I believe absolutely that

we've met before, um, besides the two times in physical space. Um, and so I don't think there's

a whole huge argument for that one. I think that's just pastors being a little behind the culture.

Hmm. That's so true. I, and I think, well, I, I also think that we have to consider, um,

even Church Online has morphed so much over the last 10, I don't know, how long has Life Church

been doing Church Online? I feel like they were like the beginning.

This is 31 years.

Right. But I feel like, uh, over the last 10 years, even what, what a lot of us who've been

in that space has, has morphed as culture has changed and technology is moving so fast right now.

And people who are not even willing to try to keep up are going to miss the boat. We are,

we are raising digital natives right now. That's all they know. They don't, they don't know a world

without it. And so if we are not figuring out, and I think what you are doing, we need to go have

lunch or something because I really want to talk about what you're doing. Um, but what you're doing

and it's not Church Online, it's the Church Online. And that's the key right there. That's awesome.

I was just going to ask the question. It's been said that Generation 3, Alpha, and the Millennials,

are the first generation that may never enter physical church doors and may be purely digital.

I'm curious how, um, churches tend to react to this new reality.

Uh, ostrich and sand. Depends on the church, I think.

Yeah. There's a, there's a movement, there's a really interesting conversation. I don't want to have

it here. Um, but what would it look like if a church lived only in digital space?

How can a church, um, move away from a, um, a weekend service-oriented ministry plan

to a discipleship-oriented, empower the people to be the pastor plan and become a much more

multiplication, duplication process of enabling, not the pastor to be the hero of the story, but the

people to be the hero of the story. Um, and like I said, if you're interested in that conversation,

uh, tomorrow I think there's like a micro-location conversation panel I'm leading. We're going to get

into that over there, um, because that is a completely separate conversation. But at the end of the day,

you're right, the millennials, uh, millennials are. I do think that, uh, the generations underneath that,

uh, I think there's an opportunity to engage a little more. Millennials have been damaged by

us. We're the worst. Uh, yeah. Man, you're a lot more honest when you're lack of sleep.

But, uh, I do think there's an opportunity for the church to turn it around. And what's interesting

is I think you need different models to reach different people. And I think the existing model,

the physical church will continue to exist and will continue to be successful. I do think we need

another model. Um, and I'm looking forward to seeing that model develop because we need to do

something else to reach other people. You can't cram everybody into this physical model.

Really fast to address that question. Um, and Randy said something about it earlier about how,

um, online we have a unique opportunity to engage people more within the service.

Um, so that's really, really made, um, my church rethink the way that we do physical church as well,

along with, with, uh, the microsites that we have and things like that. But, uh, three weeks ago,

we launched our very first, um, I'm going to loosely call it a millennial service, but, uh,

we would never tell our people that, um, but, uh, we tried to take what we've learned through micro

sites and, um, the fact that we can engage people throughout the service online and see what that

would look like to build a service around that type of community in person. Um, and it's been unreal how,

um, quickly the growth has happened. So this week alone, we, um, we almost matched the amount that is

in the, the regular auditorium, um, within this new type of service. Um, it's, it's literally like

table groups, um, you do worship together, but like, there's a break every 10 minutes in the sermon

where you have four minutes of discussion about what you're talking about. Um, a lot of other elements

I'm not going to go into, but people are always going to create or crave community, period. We are

designed to, to have community, regardless of your generation. Um, our job as, as leaders in this field,

though, is to figure out ways that we can implement, um, strategies to, to reach different generations

with community. I will say, I think going back to the question about the strengths of church online.

Sure. Um, we live in a society that has no margins anymore. Yes, we, we are planned to the hill. You've,

you've got most families who both parents work. They are without their children for nine, 10 plus hours

a day. They pick them up from wherever they are, soccer, school, daycare, whatever. They come home,

they feed them. They maybe have an hour of time and then they're putting their kids to bed. And traditional

church is saying, oh, by the way, come to a life group or, oh, by the way, come to this class at the

church or, oh, by the way, fill in the blank. And people are voting with their lack of presence.

And so is it not our job as the church to give them the opportunity to still engage in biblical

community, get the teaching and the discipleship and the knowledge that they need to live out

Christian lives, wherever they are for all of those hours a day. And should we not be looking

at the digital space to do that? Because otherwise people are going to be missing it because they

literally do not have the time. When I look at this question, when you're talking about leadership,

pretty much the way that I would engage the leadership in a conversation like this is to pick

whatever century they happen to be familiar with. So, no, no, it is.

So what did they cut this part out? Wow. I don't mean that in a bad way. I mean it like, honestly,

it's like, okay, if then, then I asked them the question, um, you know, did you call your mom

on mother's day? And then most of the time they'll say yes. And I'm like, did your mom feel slighted

that you didn't show up in person? You know, because that's his, that's his century of technology.

He's probably familiar with, right? Well, she might be, she might be like, you didn't show up now is

showing up better. Absolutely. But does that keep you from calling her? No. And so it's no different

than what we see in, in second John, where he says, I'm writing you with pen and ink now,

but I'm not going to write you everything because I want to come and visit you face to face so that

our joy may be full. Well, that didn't stop him from writing the letter. So he's not saying that,

you know, everybody knows that face to face is better, right? I'm not saying that it's not,

but that can't stop us from doing something, right? And that's, if we're going to be so purist about it,

then we're not going to do a lot of things. So if again, you know, the guy that's like, if only

your physical meeting works, ask him if he's ever prayed with someone over the phone.

And if he has, well, did that count? You know, because you work physically together.

And then there's this other passage in scripture where the apostle Paul says,

I can't be with you, but I'm with you in spirit. Well, what does that mean? We say that word all

the time. And I honestly believe that the spiritual realm, the Holy Spirit transcends time and space

in ways that we don't understand. That's right. And if you've ever been online and prayed to someone

online and ministered to someone online, that's across the world, you know exactly what I'm talking

about. Because it transcends all of that when you're connecting at that spiritual level. And

you know, if you haven't experienced it, it's hard to, it's hard to explain, but sometimes if you pick

the right generation or the right century of technology, then they start to get it a little bit.

I am going to shift a bunch of stuff because I really want to have this question. I may come back.

The year is 2029. No. What does church online look like?

I think one of the things that we don't think about a lot is that we are very young in what the digital

world looks like. Like, like the shift of like that has been brought about through like social media

and things like that is like this like seismic shift in our culture. Like I've heard a lot of people

compare the internet to like the printing press and how it revolutionized the distribution of information,

but I don't think that's big enough to describe what we're actually seeing. What we're actually seeing

is like the cultural change that happened when written language was created. Like when we go from an oral

culture to a literate culture, that transforms the way that we think about time because we can record

events that don't have to be communicated interpersonally. They can be recorded and they can last for

centuries. It shifts the way that we think about relationships because we can communicate with

people who don't live near us by writing them letters and things like that. So like the transformation

that happened when we went from an oral culture to a literate culture is I think very similar to the

culture change that's happening that we see right now and we are participants in in the very,

very young infancy of this change. And so when we look at 2029, that sounds like it's so far away. That's 10 years

away. But that is nothing in the amount of time it's going to take to really live into what this new culture

looks like. And so I'm not really answering the question here, but I think that it's important for us to

recognize the scale of this that it's going to take multiple, multiple decades. You know, I'm thinking

a hundred years from now we might have a good grasp of what it means for us to exist within a physical

and digital context simultaneously. And so until then there's tick tock until then.

Who else? I don't know what it's going to look like. I didn't know what it would look like three years ago,

but I believe that it'll be more important than we can imagine. So looking back at Acts like five-ish,

so this is after Pentecost and like after everything's kind of going well, the first believers they would

meet in Solomon's Colonnade. And I think the verse says something along the lines of they would meet

there and even though they were well-regarded, no one would dare meet with them. So what that tells me is

that they used to meet someplace and even though they were well-regarded, once they started to grow,

people resented them. But then the Bible says right after that that their numbers grew every single day.

So people didn't want to come join them, but still their numbers grew. And I feel like we live in a

culture where we're consistently growing into this resentment phase. Nothing that you see culturally would

say, "Hey, let's lift the church up." Anything you see that let's resent them even more and eventually we're

going to reach the state of persecution to where people would not dare join us in person.

But because of our online avenues that are in the baby stages, that's going to be so much more

important to help fulfill the part of being added to daily. We see it, Jason, I'm sure you see it

a lot more than I do, but overseas. That is how the gospel is being fulfilled overseas is through the internet.

And I think that's coming here. What we're doing is so important because of that.

I would be surprised if, first off, you know, what does church online look like in 2029? I think

it just looks like the church because it will just take over the church. Because I don't think there

will be having these discussions in 2029 about church online because it will be the primary expression

of church. And the secondary expression is, "Oh, when do you guys get together every now and then?

When's your meetup?" That will be the question. Whereas that's what I think is going to be happening,

where we will be living in the online space that we already do anyway. We'll be living in the online

space and our sense of identity, belonging and family will be technologically leveraged that we will

occasionally get together for meetups to have fun and parties and stuff like that. That won't be happening every Sunday.

They'll be happening once a quarter, once a year, kind of like how we're doing this gathering right now.

And this is a lot of fun and I really enjoy it. And this is kind of, we are beta testing what I

think the church will become because we're all in the Facebook group together.

We all message each other on Slack and we all, you know, text each other and all that kind of stuff

all throughout the year. And then we get together and give each other a hug. That's what church will be.

Yeah. And here's the tension though, is we have to be okay with that.

Yeah. We can't push back like we currently do. There's so much resistance to church online.

That's why there's like three questions about it in this panel. But until we get to the point

where we're okay with it, we will not be able to effectively do ministry moving forward.

Well, I think they will become okay with it once it just dies.

Yeah. It's going to be a hard process or it gets regulated out of existence.

Yeah. I mean, like, let's, let's put some numbers on this just, just for kicks.

325,000 evangelical churches in America today. That's rough. Maybe it's more than that.

Arguably five to 10, maybe 12,000 are broadcasting each week. Like that's a massive transitionary shift

because the majority are saying it's not acceptable. I agree with you, Jason. I just think it's going to be

an ugly transition from 2019 to 2029, where that's not the standard. I'm working with a pastor in a,

and this is a true story, a pastor up in New England area. And he is in the process of a thousand person

church, New England. He sees maybe 120 people a week. He's got this massive campus. Nobody comes

there. Nine of his numbers. He tells me 97, 98% of the people in his area don't want to come to church.

They don't even like church. There's a very strong biases against Christianity. He's in the process of

wanting to sell off his buildings, wanting to go down to a completely digital micro site model,

set up a broadcast center somewhere to broadcast the message out and empower people not to come

sit in the pew, but to go out and to do church in the homes. Like that's the model this guy's come up

with entirely on his own, basically out of survival, because if that doesn't happen, he can't afford the

mortgage and the maintenance on this facility and he's going to have to shut down. And it's going to be a

scary, and I always hate to be the prophetic guy because I'm really not, but it's going to be a

scary transition in the next five to 10 years as we start to feel some of that persecution. As we

start to, oh my gosh, church no longer has a tax exempt status. Oh man, we got to pay property tax and

all these massive buildings and campuses. Like it's, there's going to be a world of pinch and the church

is going to feel itself transitioning more and more to a digital expression of worship for that.

I was going to mention we're hitting them directly on a 10-year window where by 2029 up to 40% of all

jobs are going to be automated according to Oxford academia. Yep. That means its impact to the

congregants is phenomenal. I mean, I can't get my head around what that looks like. Yeah.

Yes sir. Last year, if you remember, we had David Sutto, VR church. DJ. Yes sir. Yep, DJ. He was a pastor of my

church and he went out on his own doing that. And I think that 2029, the cost effectiveness and

you'll be able to, instead of sitting here like we are right now, you'll be back in our offices all

sitting here like the same thing goes for the people in the church. Great point. I think that to speak into

the regulations and people broadcasting and things like that, it really goes back to what is church.

Because like if, in our definition, if church is really going out and being a witness for the gospel,

it doesn't matter if you can broadcast your service or not. If you can go out and use whatever tools

available to spread the gospel, then like if they can regulate all they want with it, a broadcast. But

you still have the gospel to fall back on. But when we take our church online vision and make it all

about a weekend service, we run the danger of becoming regulated. And I think there's, so the world around

us is already trying, they're working to figure out what it means to create community within an online

context. I mean, that's what Facebook is. That's a Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, even.

Even I don't understand TikTok. Tinder. Like, they're working.

It's Tinder time.

No, I mean, you start online to go on site.

Like, they're trying to figure this out. But like, what, what terrifies me is that we,

the church might say, we don't want to be a part of figuring out what the, what Christian community

looks like. Like, we don't want to be a part of shaping community within an online context.

And that's like the resistance that I feel right now. We're saying, we don't think it can happen.

So we're not going to do it. But the world is going to do it.

Yep. Right.

And so are we going to be voices in that shaping of what community is within an online context?

And I think we have to.

Drop the mic.

Yeah.

Yeah. What questions? I mean, at this point, I'll open it up.

Yeah.

Can I ask this question?

Yeah, please.

So as, and I think it sort of has to do with your question about like-

Define who you are.

Oh, I'm Daniel O'Haron. I lead a totally online youth-led church.

In Roblox.

Yes, in Roblox, which is a virtual video game platform.

So we're totally online and entirely young people.

So to answer your question as well about engaging Gen Z and millennials and what the church might

look like, I think as one of the few Gen Z people here, part of what we do online is focusing on

reaching people where they're at. And I think that's something that you guys have voiced is really important.

But as we, there are so many churches out there that, like in my denomination, I'm a part of the Presbyterian church.

And we, in our denomination, I can't think of a single church that broadcasts those services.

Like in the denomination, we just, there's no pressure or like encouragement to go online.

So I think a lot of the churches that are going online right now are churches that

don't necessarily have a denomination that's supporting them, like financially, or they

are losing members rapidly. And I think a part of this, like in a lot of your churches,

I'm assuming that you're losing members in general or losing young members.

And I think a big portion of this, and you guys said it too, is meeting people where they're at

and not just going on Facebook and live streaming your services there because young people aren't

on Facebook. Some people, some younger people are leaving Instagram. Like the church is so slow to reach

like where people are at. They don't even know where people are. Young people are on Snapchat and they're on,

I don't want to say TikTok, younger people on TikTok. There really are. There's millions and millions.

Things like Fortnite, like I don't know if there's no churches there, but like if a ministry were to like somehow reach out to them and like,

they're just these major platforms that are hubs for young people and finding ways to,

you know, reach people there. And not even like, like necessarily do ministry there. But if you're

trying to market your church or like get people to find out and come out in person or whatever it looks

like, just actually having a presence on different platforms, I think is incredibly important.

Yeah, I think that there's an interesting opportunity if you look at church, not as the one hour on Sunday.

And you can have a existing ministry that exists on platforms like TikTok.

But the goal of being on TikTok isn't to drive them to a church service, virtual or physical.

The platform literally restricts that type of communication. And so because it's designed to keep it within.

So you're on TikTok, you're engaging with young people to build a relational connection with them,

to drive them into a discipleship, disciple making, forming relationship. And this has nothing to do

with a service, but it has everything to do with impacting a life so that it can in turn impact another

life. And that's where, honestly, when I look at the next 10, 15 years, 20 years of what church

and what church online is, the digital expression of this is going to be much more relational.

The strength of online, at least in my opinion, is not the broadcast of the service. Billy Graham

in the 90s broadcasted a service, bounced it off 34 satellites, and literally one message was heard

by a billion people across the world. That was 30 years ago, 20 years ago, whatever the math is, 90s. That's 30,

right? Yeah, 30. We're there. I appreciate the laugh. Thank you so much. I mean, that was 30 years ago,

right? And he managed to do it. Getting a broadcast around the world, that's old news.

Being able to relationally connect with somebody on another continent to the point that he's now

impacting people and are spreading out and doing things and impacting the gospel in different ways.

That's far more attractive, at least to me in context of what the church can be. Well,

I tell you what. Yeah, I just want to open up for questions. So what do you got? Do you think in

2029, the church format will look less like a planned service and a, you know, we're doing this,

I mean, a lot of people are moving parts and doing this, and more like a free form, you know, 10 minute,

20 minute blocks of time throughout the week and around time? I personally, and I'll let others answer in

a sec. I personally think the existing model of church will continue. I think there's going to be

a new model that will come forward. I think you need both models to reach different people. There is

a generation, there is a type, there's a personality that will not connect to a big building as much as

this underlying thing that we're talking about now. Any of you guys have an opinion on that? Well, we've,

you know, for a lot of us OG people who've been doing it for the past 10 years, you know, that's,

that's a 10 year mark. You're saying, what is the next 10 years going on? Yeah. Well, when we started

10 years ago, nobody even knew when we were doing it. And it was just like, you, you do what? 10 years

later, they still don't know what you're doing. No, 10 years later, 10 years later, people are like,

oh yeah, we'll do that. Yeah, no big deal. It's ubiquitous, but it's on the verge of becoming

the preferred method of doing church. That's the difference. And where before it was like, oh, this

is a cool option for like fringe cases 10 years ago. Now it's become very commonplace where it's

like, if you don't have an online presence or something like that, you're a little bit backwards or

maybe blood-eyed. I don't know, but so whatever that is, it's just, it's like, well, why not?

You know, but because now it's shifting into the preferred method and what, and that's why I feel

like it will in 10 years become the primary expression of church. Any other questions?

I just want to encourage everyone, I'm sure we'll talk about it more, but doing ministry

online when you're reaching people is so much cheaper, so much cheaper. For example, in my church,

we reach 24,000 young people, 70 countries. We've been doing it for eight years. In the first six

years, our annual budget was less than $350 a year. I mean, there was no personnel, but like the total

operating cost was so little. So I just want to encourage you guys with that. It's a big,

like it's a, it's a lot of work, but it can be done and it's... Yeah. Don't, don't let your, uh,

your financial person talk you out and say it's too expensive. Push back on that. Yes, ma'am.

I'm just curious what you guys think the role of privacy and security will play into the 2029 church.

Any of y'all want to take a crack?

Well, I think, okay, like let's say future future. It wouldn't surprise me if we all just end up with

some kind of blockchain identity so that, um, it becomes less of a, of a factor altogether because

everybody is going to be known and they want to be. Um, the problem is today people are creeped out by

all of the weird marketing and the ugly side of identity when in all reality, if you're going to

advertise to me, I would rather have a targeted advertisement anyway. Advertise to me about something

I care about, not all this stuff that I don't, right? Don't give me a Victoria's secret. It's like,

I don't care about that, you know, or at least I shouldn't, you know, so the point, the point I'm

making is, is that I, I believe that we will have this ubiquitous identity that will translate across

the social fabric of which we live and by that everyone will be known all the time and everyone

will be okay with it. The, the point where the digital natives of Gen Z, they're on all these platforms

and they understand how to manage their privacy much better than their parents do. And so, um,

the awareness of the, the digital native toward their own personal privacy is much more acute than

what we're used to and where the shock comes for us. I don't think it's going to be the case in the

generation to come because it'll just be a part of life. I've never seen a Gen Z or millennial person

post like copy and paste this because Facebook's changing their privacy size. It'll be $13.99

tomorrow. That doesn't happen. So real one second. The, the, uh, the power is not in a broadcast

out. The power is an individual. And so a lot of times the privacy issue in the future, I don't

think it's going to be a problem because I think it's, I'm having a conversation with a friend.

Lifeway research tells us this right now, 63% of people are not interested in coming to your building

just in the same way, honestly, that I'm probably not interested in going to a mosque. I already have

my spiritual identity formated. I know what I think I know and I'm living my life that way.

The majority of people already feel that way. 80% of people will have a conversation about their

faith with their friends if they see that their faith is important to their friends. And so the

empowering of others to have those conversations is where we are going. We are already transitioning

today. And I think that's just going to continue on in the future. Yes, sir. Yeah. Go ahead,

Daniel. So kind of talking about what you were talking about, like the privacy laws and just

technology in general. It's advancing so fast. How do you keep up with it? I'm sitting here 25 years

old. I don't even know what TikTok is. Like I'm still trying to figure out what it is.

How do you keep up with it? It's a Kesha song from like 2007.

It's kind of catchy, but don't say it. Yeah, don't say you like it, but it's super catchy.

To be honest, sometimes some of this stuff is a distraction. And so I don't think, and I'm all

about, and I encourage churches to be innovative, but I don't think that the goal is not to be

innovative, to be on every platform to do that. The goal is to find where your ministry are, where

your people are, where your audience is, and reach that. Now, in the context of your physical church,

if the goal is to get people who are already connected to your church engaged in the physical

building in a church growth model, you're going to hit the Facebooks and that because that's where

they are. And in the other Daniel behind you situation, he knows where his platform is. It's

Roblox, and he's building within in that context. Maybe you're a church that actually has a vision

towards reaching YouTube and the community of YouTubers that exists. Well, then I want to engage

and dive in and own that that area. We were talking earlier about VR church. DJ Soto is a question in the

back. There's five or six VR platforms, and DJ's mission, he treats every one of those VR platforms

like a multi-site campus. And so he has, and I don't even know what the names are because I don't do VR,

but he's in like this primary one, and then he's over here, and then he's over here. And then somebody

else spins up another VR platform, and he's recruiting and building up teams to like expand into that other

area, almost like a multi-site campus, expressing the church differently. I think you hone in with what

your audience is, and you figure out where they are, and then you empower them to reach people from a

discipleship standpoint in those areas. Once again, it's less important what you, and we live in the

social media age. This is true. It's less important of what your organization says about itself, and it's far

more important about what others say about you. The power is in others going out rather than you

broadcasting your single message out to others. Can I speak to that for a second? Please. So I think that

it's a hard lesson to learn. If we're at this conference, we like technology. We like new things. We're

usually first adopters of most new things technological. I find in my space that I'm one of the only ones on my

staff that is like that. And so trying to figure out what is a distraction versus what is and should be

part of our church growth strategy is that delicate balance that we play. And so I think that what I've

learned over the last 10 years is that you have to look at your unique church DNA, and you have to

learn how to work within that to become the digital expression of your place, where you are. And what

you're saying about finding out where your people are, super important. I do think that it's important

to also bring new innovative things to your church leadership and say, "Hey, here's what our strategy

is right now. Here's what I would like to add to it." But because technology moves so fast, I think the

danger is, and let's add this, and let's add this, and let's add this, and let's add this. And you're

diversifying so much that you can't do anything really well. And so I think focusing on, "Okay,

here's what we need to do now, and now we've got this under our belt, and now let's add this thing,

and then let's add this thing." And do those things really well. At least that's what I'm hoping

starts working for us. One second, I got a question here. Yes, sir. I think there's an interesting

connection between those two questions, because you're both saying, like, where is technology going,

right? What is society going to decide about privacy? And what are people using? And I think in all of

these, the church is going to be the church, right? The church's mission is to preach the gospel and make

disciples. We're going to be using whatever technology the world around us is using, right? In the same way

that we're using electricity to further the sake of this church's building, right? We're going to be

using whatever technology society is using, because that's where people are, right? And so the church

in 10 years and the church in 50 years, we can't predict the future. We don't know what the technology

is going to be then, but we know what the church is going to be doing, hopefully preaching and making

disciples, right? And so we'll use whatever tool people are using, wherever they are. If they go back

to YouTube more than Facebook or TikTok or whatever, great, whatever. Any of those, pick your audience,

be in church. I think that's true for, for, I hope that's true for most churches, but I think most

people would agree that the church in what, and Christianity in a lot, whatever, I mean,

you think about Christian movies and Christian creativity, we are so far behind the norm of society in

creativity. And, um, it's sad to say that we are that far behind. And so even when we're talking

about the church of 2029, I think you look at, at technological leaders now, the church is just

going to be getting there in 10 years, you know, and that's unfortunate. I think it, it's sad.

I'm not even going to comment. Yes. Yes. So the church of 2029, 2029, I think what my prayer would

be is that the, the 63% of people that don't want to come to your building, they would actually be

redefined and understand what the truth of Christianity would look like. There's a reason why that 63% don't

want to come. And that's because every person in this room possibly has a different definition of what

they think the Bible is or what the gospel is or how they shared it. And there's a distortion that's

happened over the years because of lack of information or lack of truth or whatever it is.

And why not use the platform to tear away all the things that have been built up

and reach the people who actually need to be reached? Very true. Yes, sir.

Very quickly, I was just curious, like we're in the transitional stage as well. And what role does

finances play in the, you know, threat towards the traditional model, which is when you've got

buildings and, and, and, and people's paychecks and, you know, it's very, it's very threatening and that,

and I wonder if that plays into the slowness with leadership, you know, just, it's a big, silly model.

That's, that's a great question. I think Daniel hit that really well. Um, so we, we've got 18 micro

sites ranging from 15 people to 300 plus people. Um, and like, if you can start, we started a 300

person micro site for $600. Um, granted that's not including like my position. Technically that's

a prison. So, I mean, the taxpayer's money paid for the building. Okay, fine. Let's go non-prison.

Let's start a 50 person church, um, in a neighborhood and, um, for 600 bucks. Like,

that church planting model is so inexpensive. I think that we just are so intimidated by technology

that we, we see this upfront cost, um, as being like outrageous, but, um, yeah, where's your,

one, where's your faith at? And two, like, what's your goal? Like, if your goal is really to just

go out and make disciples of all nations, you can do that pretty inexpensively, I guess.

Well, and let me, let me unpack a little bit because there's this other level of,

are people at a 50 person micro location. Are they tithing? Are they giving? Which I think is more

of where you're wanting to go. Um, here's the challenge that I would say is if you didn't have

to pay for the 5,000 person campus, could you imagine what you could do with the money to invest

that back into the community to make a difference where people are? I was, I was in, I was in Colorado.

I'll tell the story. I was in Colorado over the, over a couple of days ago and I'm with an Uber

driver and I'm, I'm having a conversation with this guy and this guy's not a Christian. I know this

because he F-bombed like twice on the drive and maybe I'm assuming that could be wrong, but he was,

he was, he was showing me an example of a church. I'm not going to drop the name of the church,

but in Colorado, there's, there's a giga campus over here to the left. And, um, and I said something

about, I was working with churches and he started talking about churches and he's like, well,

boy, like this church over here, that's got all the money. Like, look at just how much money they

have talking about the movie. It's like, yeah, all the talking about this building. It's like,

all they have is money. And, but the perception is he, the church was using the money for themselves

to build this giant building and not pouring it into the community where this guy lives.

And it's a mess where we have an opportunity to do something with, with our giving selflessly,

not selfishly to build a better building, but selflessly. And I say that this is a glorious

building. I don't want to knock this place, but there's an opportunity for us to do things

within, in the community as well. Yes, sir.

What would you say to the church that's pretty established, been around for a long time,

but are slow to change and, you know, resistant to even online ministry, we're 10 years in,

if they finally get on board, they're going to miss, you know, oh, then the next thing comes and it's,

you know, it's hard to get them to commit when there's a new thing on the horizon.

I would take it missiologically first, not, this is the next new tool, because if you look at the,

the history of the church in the past 50 years, you've got, you know, church growth movement,

you've got willows, seeker sensitive kind of deal, you've got multi-siting, you've got micro-siting,

you've got church online, all of these things are tools to do the great commission

and to figure out, okay, for a lot of people doing online ministry is an extension of a lot of these

other tools that they're standing on the shoulders of giants, so that, but that's not to say that it

should be that way, but that's how it commonly is, so a lot of multi-site churches that have

decent production and are more attractional in nature tend to open up an online campus more easily

and readily than ones that don't have that infrastructure and that history, so I can't really properly answer the question,

but what I can say is that if you're trying to do online ministry of an online service,

you don't necessarily have to do it with that attractional model and with that particular

ministry stack in place, you can have a different online church model that is different in the way

that it expresses what you do have, but let it express what you do have, and instead of trying to make

it your, because you're, what you're asking sometimes for some churches is to not only start an online

church, but to accept the entire ministry stack that went with it, and that is, I don't think wise,

because God calls us, God calls different churches to be different things for different people. Let your online

expression be of what Jesus has called you to do first, and then just magnify whatever Jesus is doing there.

Hey, okay, so we're going to break the podcast right there. I love this and this idea that church online is

more than just a broadcast, just like a church should be more than its service. It's one hour service on Sunday.

There's a challenge to live by for us to look at our church beyond what our building is, to look at what the future is going to hold,

and how we as a church body can do Christ proud by seeking after and expanding this idea of discipleship,

by helping people grow deeper in their faith so that they can in turn help others. Church, here's the challenge for you.

I would love for you to look at your church online as who's the hero of this story. I mentioned it

briefly in the broadcast. The hero of your story oftentimes is the pastor. What if, and just what if,

we shifted gears where the hero of your story wasn't someone who's paid to do the job, but what if the

hero trained others to be the hero? What if a pastor shifted a little bit and made others the hero of the story?

What if we empowered others with evangelism, with discipleship, with generosity so that they could go

out empowered to go out and be the person that God called them to be? What if the church wasn't about

us as pastors and staff? What if the church online was about them? We'll see you next week here at the

The Church Digital Podcast.

Y'all have a good day.