EP025: Ryan Sharp & The Value of an Individual @ Life.Church

Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Church Digital Podcast. My name is Jeff. Thanks for jumping on

this one. By the way, this is our 25th episode, the two five. This is our silver anniversary of

podcasts. And so what did you bring, listening audience? I'm expecting silver from you in honor

of our 25th. I can't even finish it. But I am excited you're here. We've got a great guest in

on this podcast. Ryan Sharp is the online small groups pastor with Life.Church. We're doing a

deep dive here on small groups on biblical community, what that looks like, and how it

can be utilized. Why has Life.Church been so successful with this? How do they overcome some

of the negativity that's centered around doing biblical community online, how they've been

able to create that culture from leadership down and what it's like to pass that on to

volunteers and getting volunteers to buy in to this idea of a biblical community of small groups of life

existing online. By far, the greatest line that I've ever heard in context of online small groups happens

in this interview. And I'm not even going to tell you what it is. It's so powerful. You're going to

know it when you hear it, and you're going to want to write it down like I did, and you're going to

want to share it with others. It's that good. So listen to the podcast here. Myself, Jeff, with the

Church Digital Podcast, interviewing Ryan Sharp, online life groups pastor through Life.Church, doing a deep

dive here on online small groups. Hey, everybody. Here you go. Yeah. The point is that our heart has

always been community around the Word of God. And so we have, just like at physical locations, you try to

foster community around the teaching of the Word of God, of like people coming together and meeting up

locally and things. And so whatever you might do at a physical location, we wanted to do that online as

well. There's an incredible community of people that reaches globally that our heart is to help them

take their next step in their faith journeys. So it's really, it's a way for people to get to know

each other, because they go to the same church, and then to really pursue Jesus together as well.

That's the why. We want people to be fully devoted followers of Jesus.

And yeah. I'm curious, just because I'm leading an online Bible study, and I've got this guy from

South Africa. We use Zoom, just kind of jump on. So like when you're doing international, are most of

the Bible studies, like the small groups that, or you guys call them life groups, right? I don't

want to use your language. Yeah, life groups. Yeah. So life groups, the online, is that through

Zoom? Or do you have like people clustering and gathering together internationally and UK in

different places? What does it look like? The short answer is all of the above. We structure our life

groups in two different ways right now. The two different categories are in person or entirely online.

And so within these two ways, we leave it completely open to the leader to decide how they can connect.

Why they connect stays the same, but we really leave the how and the what up to that leader. So some use

Zoom, some use Facebook groups, some use talkie.io. So I mean, it's a free version of what you might have

on Zoom. It's pretty cool. It's an up and coming. I love, love that, love that tool. But, but really,

they, they get to, they get to connect with however they, they best can connect with their communities.

Talkie.io. That's something, that's something I've not heard of. So that, that's, that's interesting.

I'll have to look that up. Is that mobile app or is that, is it web-based?

It's a web-based app. They're trying to do a mobile thing, uh, as well. Um, it's not as good as the web-based

app. Okay. Interesting. I will dive into that. Thanks for the tip. How'd you get started into

this? So like last, and just to put it in context, you were, you were in United Kingdom,

like last week, two weeks ago, by the time this, this airs, investing into volunteers over there,

casting vision into church online. Did you like go to school for church online? Did you wake up one

morning and like, Hey, I'm going to do church online. And everybody looks at you like you're

crazy. Cause that's, that's what happened to me. But like, what's your story?

No, that's really good, man. So I, I grew up, um, I grew up in multiple places of the world. My dad

was a geophysicist. And so we traveled to multiple areas throughout my, my early childhood. Um, so I

was exposed to a lot of different cultures around the world. I've always been interested in technology,

but more than that, my worldview has always been this global worldview that

people need to know Jesus wherever they are. And so when, uh, in, through my college years, I was

thinking to myself, well, Paul used the most advanced piece of technology to spread the gospel

of Jesus Christ. And at the time it was the written word, right? And however they would deliver that

written word, those letters to the churches, he would spread the good news, the gospel, the direction

using the most powerful piece of technology, the most advanced piece of technology that he had.

So why wouldn't we do the same in this day and age? And it just clicked like, why can't we just use

the internet? And so, uh, I have been a huge, um, follower of, of Life.Church and I'm just admirer

for, for years throughout my teenage years and through, um, my early twenties and, um, have always

just dreamed about like, God, if you could provide a way that I could work for that organization and be

a part of what God is doing. Um, I feel like my heartbeat would be the same, uh, as, as that

organization. And really the credit goes to, to, uh, Bobby Grunewald who back in 2006, they were,

the story goes like this, that people, they were moving, uh, we're planning physical locations

and they were moving these, uh, these heavy equipment, you know, as you might set up in a,

in a, uh, a portable church environment and everything like that. And one person said to,

said to Bobby, you know, Hey, can you get that speaker? And, and, you know, as he was lifted up

the speaker, he said, I could do this so much easier online. And the person said, what do you,

what do you mean by that? He goes, well, I could, I could put a church service together and I could

have a community online and I could, I could do this. But back in 2006, Bobby Grunewald,

the creator of the YouVersion Bible app had the idea for church online. Of course, he's our

innovations pastor. And so he, uh, he started this website called church online, life church online.

And so we, uh, uh, that's really where it started. And since then I, uh, I actually was an early

adopter of life church online through my college years in 2007. I, this was my church.

I was away from my physical home church and looking for a church and found stumbled on church

online. And since then, man, I was hooked.

That's a phenomenal story. Yeah. I've, I've, I too have lifted way too many speakers in a portable

environment even recently and said, yeah, there's gotta be a better way to do this. Go, go church

online. Um, just the, the, the heart behind using church online to reach people. And so you guys are

doing with, with life church, obviously you're reaching tons. Like I don't even know numbers.

And at some level numbers at some point they, they stop meaning things because you lose the stories

in the heart behind it, but you're, you're reaching these phenomenal numbers of people, uh, through the

physical campuses. Uh, you're reaching phenomenal numbers online, literally internationally, evidently,

because you're going over to meet with volunteers in the United Kingdom even, but you have the difficult

deal of, of not reaching people in rows, but reaching them in circles. Uh, I'll, uh, and the

Stanley. So how do you, what's, what's the tension that you wrestle with? Let me say it this way.

I know lots of churches that are broadcasting the services online, but when it comes to,

Hey, let's do small groups. Hey, let's do discipleship. Hey, let's do biblical community

virtually. Oh no, you can't do that. You got to, got to do that physically.

What tensions, or how would you answer a church that maybe has some of that tension that

you can't do biblical community online?

Yeah, I, I'm, uh, um, I w I would just say, you know, follow what, what God specifically

is calling you and your church to what he's called us to is to embrace the technology, the

opportunity to reach people on deeper and deeper levels. And so, um, I, I would maybe share

specific stories like the opportunity to reach a guy named Muhammad in, um, in a, in a Muslim

country. He was in a, this is a story that, that came out. And I love that you mentioned

that you lose the power of the one story is I'm all about that too. So Muhammad was in, um, a Muslim

country and he was in a world religions course and his Muslim professor, uh, gave a assignment on,

um, on Christianity. And that's when, um, that, that's when, uh, Muhammad received the instruction

to download the YouVersion Bible app so he could complete his Christianity paper. Um, he downloaded

the YouVersion Bible app, started reading the word of God and was completely transformed by it.

And then he came to church online because he somehow found church online, life church online and, uh, and he

ended up giving his life to Christ at the end of the service. And so he emailed us this story because

he said, pray for me because it can be very dangerous for me knowing this. Now, even more than that, fast

forward. Now he serves on our team, uh, from his country, leading people around the world to Christ

at life church online. And he's not only found Jesus and found a new life in him, but he's found a

community that he gets to serve with. And through a medium of technology, he gets to connect with our

team. He gets to connect with others and, uh, and lead people to Christ. That's the opportunity that's

ahead of us, uh, uh, at, uh, in front of us at church online. And so what I might say to a church is

embrace that opportunity is that the, the Holy spirit, God, it can work through incredible ways

through life, life church online, through church online, uh, ministry. And, uh, and so just see

what God might have, have for you. I love that by the way, Muhammad awesome, awesome story of, of just

a guy whose, whose life was changed in a, you know, in a Muslim country, a place that we can't,

you know, as a church, as physical American church, we can't reach into without like embracing the

online technology component of this. We, when you talk with volunteers, like even, cause I know you

were international United Kingdom, 71 volunteers, when you talk to American volunteers, you know,

whatever, whatever the scope is like, do you have a hard time casting vision, getting people to

understand, um, the why, or even, even the how, or, or do, does life church volunteers, do they,

do they embrace this strongly? Yeah, they, they embrace it. I mean, the, the, the opportunity is,

is that they, they get to come weekly and really be, uh, be a part of our church. So we, we have

multiple layers of leadership with volunteers. When you ask, how do we communicate and cast vision

to volunteers? We, uh, uh, uh, everyone has a leader and no one leads more than 10 people.

And so, so the way that structure works is I would lead up to 10 individuals and those 10 individuals

would lead up to 10. We want all of our volunteers to feel like they're a part of our church and that

they're pastorally cared for. And so we have volunteers, not just in life groups, we have, um,

volunteers in social media, in what we call our host team, which are the people that welcome and pray

for people, uh, at our services and multiple other areas as well that people can serve in.

And so, so we want our volunteers to feel that they're pastorally cared for as well as individuals

that come online. And there's many different ways that we're able to care for those, those as well.

What percentage of people that are watching the services, uh, align with groups?

Well, what we find is obviously, and I work with other churches and online, the people that we're

talking to with the podcast, like it's, it's a huge number, um, that, that are, that are watching

the services tens, hundreds, thousands, even. Um, but some, some churches, they have that,

that vision towards, okay, groups, we're going to hit it and run. Um, some it's, it's more kind

of pulling teeth where, where it's not necessarily there. So like, I'm, I'm just curious kind of what

your percentage is or what advice that you would give, uh, to somebody that maybe is trying to get

started in this and trying to, trying to establish that small group culture online.

Well, everyone that comes online, maybe not everyone, but what we, what we've found at Life

Church Online is that everyone that comes is looking for a place to belong. And so, so when they,

when they come to a service and that's, that becomes their community, we find that there are people

that come to the same service every single week, uh, no matter where they are, we've never met them

in person, but we know them and they're more apt to share, uh, even, even quicker, deeper things

because they feel like there's, there's a, uh, there, there's a level of, of an anemone there where

they can kind of share what's on their heart. So community starts from step four rather than step

one and a lot of ways online. So I feel like they embrace community. That's why they're there. That's

why they're chatting. That's why they're, they're, they're involved. Um, and so, so they're looking

for a place to belong. And just like in, in any in-person connection, every single individual alive

in any conversation, their brain is automatically searching for, am I safe? Am I, is this a safe

environment? And so even when we started this conversation, my brain and your brain quickly

processed, is this a safe conversation? Do I need to fight this or flight this? You know, that's,

that's the response that physically happens in our brain. And so, uh, that's, that's what,

what we can help people understand that, man, you're in a safe place. We're excited that you're

here. And God has, has, God loves you very deeply and has, wants the best for you. And so those walls

start to come down and people start to embrace community, but it's not automatic, Jeff. It's

really not, man. It's, it's a constant, it's building that culture of community in an online space,

just like you would build the culture in a physical space as well.

Yeah. Jay, it was Jay Crand over at Saddleback. We had him on, uh, I think it was like episode three,

way back when we were starting the podcast and, uh, and, and I, he and I have had the conversation

several times. I just would love, love your take on it. Uh, in virtual environments and online

environments, people connect to community before they connect to Christ. Have you guys experienced

that? What, what, what is life church feeling? Uh, when it comes to that people connect to community

before they connect to Christ. Uh, I think just like what, what maybe I said before,

people are always searching for a place to belong, no matter what they believe. And at life church,

we, we feel like we, you want, we want you to feel like you belong here before you even believe.

And so, so when, when people come, absolutely let's engage them in community because we truly do care

off authentically, uh, about them as people they're created by God for a purpose. And so, um,

absolutely, I would say that, but I don't, I, I would also say not always people, people can come

to know Christ and then seek out community out of that. And so it works, it works both ways. You

know, the, the whole thing of, there's always a next step, a best next step for some individual,

and that looks different for different times and different people. A quick story of a specific

life group. This is an in-person life group out in Beaumont, Texas. Shout out to my life group

leader there, Jessica. She, uh, she leads a life group and I was able to visit that life group.

Um, and, uh, and while I was there, there, Pastor Craig at our services, uh, Pastor Craig Groeschel,

he always at the end of his message invites people to give their life to Christ. And at, uh, he says,

raise your hand if you want to commit your life to Christ. It's a private moment. And I happen to be

looking at the room at the time. There's a group of people around sitting and watching the service

together, this church online, this life church online service. And I see this guy in the back

raise his hand. And I'm like, man, this is such a powerful moment where someone in a life group

at church online gives their life to Christ. So I had to catch up with this guy at the end.

So after the service ends, I was like, introduce myself. His name is Bruce. And Bruce, uh, said that

this is his first time actually coming into the life group and watching the service. And he would drop

his daughter and his wife off every single week and he would sit in the truck and he wouldn't come in

because he, he, he feels like he's not ready to commit or not ready to be in community or even to

devote his relationship to Christ or his life to Christ, anything like that. And he said, today was

just different. I felt like I needed to be there. And then in that moment, I felt compelled to give my

life to Christ. I don't know what that means yet, but I'm, I, I did it. And so then we connected him

with the life group leader and, and, uh, he's a part of community and he gave his life to Christ.

And so that's, that's just what gets me so excited. And this is someone who has never walked into a

life church location, but yet they're finding community and they found Christ in the context

of an in-person church, a life church, online life group.

Sounds like what you're describing is really this, this melding of, of, of physical and online,

um, type, type of thing, right. Where, where they're, they're meeting in the physical space, but utilizing

some of the online technology to kind of, to kind of see that in. So it's, it's like your, your online

campus is birthing more physical communities around or some of these gatherings is, is that, that's kind

of what you're describing, right?

Yeah. Yeah. Precisely. People gather together, attend the service together and then talk about it.

That's really the lowest bar of like, I love what, uh, another life group leader said. Uh,

he's an in-person life group leader out in South Carolina. Shout out to Steven. He, uh, he leads

an in-person life group there. And he said, life church online makes it so easy to run my life

group. All I did was make some coffee, turn on the service, invite my friends and God did the rest.

That's funny. That's cool. So like, how do you, how do you train? How do you equip? How do you

empower the, the leaders? So Steven, South Carolina, um, turn it on a computer, you know, whatever to

TV, Apple TV, whatever it is, some sort of vehicle to, to get it up on, on a screen that's to experience

service. And then it's leading, I'm guessing some sort of discussion conversation afterwards,

like Steven's in South Carolina. What, what does that training look like? How, how are you guys

helping him do this?

Yeah. So he's connected. He has his own leader. It's like we said before, there's multiple,

uh, layers of leaders. So his leader trains him and connects with them every three months,

at least they're having a, what we call a significant conversation. That's really what

we train our leaders of leaders to have every three months, have a significant one-on-one

conversation with the people that you lead. And so there he's getting that connection to a life

church, uh, uh, team member, volunteer. And, and then also there's initial training that he goes

through, um, after we, we do background checks and everything, get them through our, our process

of applications. We have different videos that we've shot of how to practically lead a in-person

life group. And so it even talks about having the music on, having it smell good in the room,

having enough for parking, um, having it easily accessible. So really practical training in that

area. And then on the entirely online side, we have practical training for that as well. How to lead an

effective Facebook group, how to increase engagement in your Facebook group, how to do a

Zoom call, things like that. And so it's very practical training on the front end to set the

life group leader up for success. That's incredible. And so that's just part of your life church team

is doing, is developing the content. Your leaders, though, for accountability, you're 1 to 10 to 10

underneath. Like that's all volunteer driven or mostly volunteer driven, right? Yeah, it's entirely

volunteer. Yeah. The entire life groups ministry at church online is all volunteer. Wow. So when it

comes to like, you know, expanding your circle of influence, like there's no place life, I mean,

you're telling me a story about Muhammad in, you know, undefined Middle Eastern country. There's no

place you don't want to go. You'll, you'll go anywhere. Yeah, absolutely. I think that Jesus

will go anywhere. That's really the, the, the power behind the gospel and the hope of what Jesus, you

know, I believe in Matthew 28, when he said, go into all the world and make disciples, teaching them to

obey all the commands I've given you. And remember this, I'm with you to the end of the age. When he

gave us that, that command, that commission, I believe he had the internet in mind. As he stood

right then and there, he knew that there would be something called the internet that will allow us to

do this on a broader scale and a quicker scale. And then I think he, he knows what's coming next.

And he's, he says, man, let's utilize that. Let's leverage that to go everywhere to help people find

Christ. Amen. I love this conversation and I'm going to love this next question because yeah, I want to

see how you respond to this. So you are effectively in life church, God, Holy spirit, like, forgive me.

I don't want to like boil any of, of the spirituality out of this conversation. So don't, don't allow that

to happen. But effectively life church is, is going out and attempting to reach the world, utilizing church

online. Um, and effectively is, is, well, at least in conversations we've talked about multiple

states, multiple time zones, uh, Europe and, um, multiple continents, uh, middle East, probably more on

the, on the Asia side. So yeah, multiple continents involved in this conversation. Um, yet the average

church in America struggles with church online. Um, and when you really drill into like the, and so the

listeners who are hearing you talk about all this, the listeners are saying, yeah, I have this vision.

I want to do this too. I want to be part of a church that's doing that. But my church is too afraid of

embracing church online because it competes with a physical church. Um, because you can't do this stuff

virtually. It has to be done in physical space. I'm not saying there's like magic power in the bricks,

but often we, we live our lives that way. Like the Holy spirit, um, isn't, isn't an ethereal thing.

It's a virus that gets spread when we breathe the same air together. And yes, when two or more

gathered together, um, God does something phenomenal, but I think God does something phenomenal via zoom

too. And I'm not one to limit God. So my, my, my question is, is, is this, all that was set up for,

for this? Yeah. Like how can you encourage people or, or what would you look at to say, Hey,

life church, we were able to get past this. We were able to get past this issue. And once we saw it

from this angle, once we understood this, we, we just were able to run because we're life church

and you're not the only one, there are others, but as a whole, there's 350,000 evangelical churches in

America. There's probably two to 300 that are doing online small groups. So there, there's something

special that's happening with a select few. My hope is that more can get on board. How can more get on

board? What, what do we need to do? Yeah. Uh, to answer your question, I don't know if there's a

specific like silver bullet that this is what changed our whole mindset. I think it was, it was

really what we felt like God was calling us to and the opportunity ahead of us where, I mean, what,

what I may say to someone who is on the fence about is this, is this online, is an online ministry for

us as a church, consider processing. Um, what if you had the opportunity, you know, to reach

quite literally billions of people within the context of your city, you would do everything you

could do to reach those, those people. If they lived in your city, you would find a way to reach them.

Well, there's billions of people in an online context and online world. And we have the, the,

the greatest message, the greatest news that has ever hit humanity, which is Jesus Christ and,

and the redemptive power of, of what he brings to the world. And so why wouldn't we try to,

to reach those, you know, as many people as possible. And so, um, I think, I think also it's,

um, just because it hasn't been done before doesn't mean it shouldn't be done. And so, um,

that's, that's, that's maybe something that, that we might, you know, look at as a church and see,

you know, why, why can't we do that? And, you know, we've, we've failed a lot through the process.

And, um, and as, as you're starting online ministry, you may try something and it may not work,

or it may not work how you thought it might work. Keep trying because the why matters the most. And the

why is to bring as many people into heaven as possible. The many, many, many people that know

the hope of Jesus Christ, you know, that that's, that's the why. And so when we know that we'll use

anything, we say this all the time at life church, that we'll do anything short of sin to reach people

who don't know Christ, to reach people. No one's reaching. We have to do things. No one's doing.

So maybe God's calling you to that. Maybe God's calling you to, to do things that no one else is

doing. And, and, uh, it may look different than life church and, uh, and God's calling you to that,

to reach your unique community of people in an online context.

Well said. Uh, I think I've, I've quoted both those things and other people on this podcast,

everything short, nothing short of sin, uh, or everything short of sin to, to reach. And if

you want to reach different people, you got to do different things. Um, yeah, that, that's been

the reverberation of, of this podcast and, uh, and other guests on there. So yeah, thank you for,

um, uh, you know, personalizing that and, and, and putting an actual face to, to somebody who is,

who's out there, you know, trying to do something different and, and trying to be effective in creating,

uh, a disciple online and creating biblical community opportunities to, uh, help people

go deeper in their faith. I'll tell you, man, it's a team, it's a team effort. We've got an

amazing team here at life church that we're, we're excited to, to try new things and do different

things and fail quickly and adjust quickly. And also our global team of volunteers, they're just,

they're, they're bought in, they're excited. They're, they're also alongside us willing to do

whatever. Um, and, uh, and so that combination really, uh, really helps us focus what is truly,

what we're truly after. One of the biggest problems that I see with churches that are doing church

online where they're, they're stuck is, okay, we're broadcasting the service. We've got hundreds,

maybe a thousand people watching this. We know it's views. Analytics are telling me that a significant

amount of traffic is local within the city. Analytics are telling me a significant amount

of traffic that's outside of the city. So it's kind of all over, but I don't know who these people

are. So like, I've got people who are doing church in isolation. That's not good. We want people in

community. Um, what are some things that, that you guys, life church has done that you've seen done?

How do we break down those walls of isolation and start to discover, you know, who is actually watching

in church online? So once we know who they are, we can pull them in. What's worked for you guys?

Yeah. I mean, we see, we see life church online as just another location where we have church. And so

in the same way that we would attack problems, we would attack them the same way at physical

locations. And so we think to ourselves, how would we handle it if we had some people coming in and

sitting in the back row, which we do a lot, and then leaving right away? We don't know who they are.

We might see their face for a brief moment, or actually we might not. And so, uh, so they come in,

they sit down, they leave. How might we help them engage now for a time that might be the best

next step for them. It'd be amazing if they came back and then they came back again, then they came

back again and just had a great experience every time they came and maybe they introduced themselves.

Maybe we engage them. Uh, maybe we lead them to engage. You know, we say, we say all the time,

we will not say our people won't. We've committed as a church to say, we won't say our people won't.

We'll actually instead say we've not led them to yet. And so, so really if we, if we have people

coming online, we want to lead them to take that next step, to have a conversation. And so that's

in maybe a transition video from worship to pastor Craig, we may say, Hey, here's a question.

Why don't you answer that in the chat and express genuine concern for them and to see them where

they're at. And so really engaging that online audience as if they are in the room, which they

are, they are in the room. And so you may say in a physical location, we'd love to meet you in the

lobby, connect with our team in the lobby. We might do the, we do the exact same thing online. We say,

connect with us in that chat area, join a life group. Life is better together. And we're so glad

you're here. Those are the, those, that's the language. That's the culture. That's how we're

leading people towards deeper connection and not just a coming and going.

Great. And I know one of the movements that I've seen with groups lately has been, you know,

and Clay Scroggins has talked a lot about this, where they've started marketing the digital groups,

not just to the online campus, but actually to the, to the physical campus as well. Your guys group

approach is, is it, is it unified like that where somebody can attend a physical campus and then a

virtual small group? Is that encouraged? Is that discouraged? Like how do you handle nuances like

that? Yeah, absolutely. Specifically, it goes both ways. We've had many opportunities in our, in our

campuses where I find someone that's near a campus that wants to join a life group. And so I'll connect

them with that local life groups pastor and they'll start it at a physical location, but yet they found

that physical location through life church online. So, and then the opposite happens. There are people

at physical campuses that approach the, the, the, the life groups team at that campus and says, Hey,

I'd, I'd like to start an online group. And so they'll both list them for their, their local

volunteers, but then that life group leader would like to open it up globally and say like, Hey, I want

to start a homeschool moms group and I want to open it up to more than just this city. And so that life

groups team will send us that information and we'll, we'll help them connect globally as well. So it can

go both ways. It's, it's interesting. The, the relationship you're describing cause it's, it's

irregular and you've had a regular results and I'm not saying the two are actually, I am saying the two

are related, but like how do, and this gets back to this idea of, of culture, right? Cause so you guys

have this culture where it's a healthy balance between what you're describing, a healthy balance

between physical and virtual between the, the brick and mortar and online where they're cohabitating

very well, very efficiently and helping each other, not viewed as, as, as opposites or almost enemies.

Like, and, and I have, I have, I have clients, I have, um, churches that, that I've, I've worked with

that, that would paint the picture of, yeah, I'm literally a larger church in the Midwest, five,

6,000 people literally having conversations about shutting down their online campus or online campus

reaches multiple thousands of people, um, uh, a week, uh, because the church saw that the online

attendance was growing physical campus was declining and therefore we want to shut down the online campus

and force everybody to come to the building. I may be overstating on some things, but that's the general

principle of a lot of the churches out there. And yet somehow you've created this healthy balance culture

between the physical, as well as, as online, where you're working together towards a common goal

and people are interweaving between physical and online healthy as they should.

How do you create that culture?

Well, the first thing I would say is I, I, I never want to doubt anything that God may be calling a

specific church or leadership to do. And so, so, uh, I, I, I really want, uh, whatever the lead pastor,

senior pastor at any physical location to hear is that I'm, uh, uh, we, we never want to say that

there's, this is the only way, um, uh, we, to answer the second part of your question,

I, I would say that we, we truly do believe both at Life.Church Online and at all of our physical

locations, which they're one in the same, we feel like, are, um, that the church is truly not a

building, but it's the people. And so that is, that is really the culmination of how we've led our

people to believe that it is the people. It is in deeper levels of community that it is a people.

So whether they come online or come in person to us, it's the same. And we we've had to make that,

that call. And it, it, not that I've, I've not heard anything to where that was an even difficult

call. That was a call that we understood that the church truly is the people. Um, and, uh, we say this

all the time at, at Life.Church Online within our thing, we actually just, just right near me, we have

a saying on the wall. It says, every number has a name. Every name has a story and every story matters

to God. And so we may be seeing, we may be seeing people coming to our services and we consider them

just a number, the X amount of people came and then X amount of people left. When really, we have to

understand that because the church is the people and not a building, that that number has a name

and that name has a story and that story matters to God. And so it's that understanding, it's that

culture that we've been able to, to, um, to fall into that, uh, that's led us to, to really have this,

this, um, this outcome.

Yeah. I'm going to steal that. Every number has a name. Um, every name has a story and every story

matters to God. That's it. Who actually, who actually said that? That's Pastor Craig. Craig.

Pastor Craig Rochelle. Yes. Awesome. Awesome. Hey, Craig, uh, if you're not listening, but if you

were, thank you. I appreciate the, uh, the quote. That's awesome. Um, man, there, there, this has been

great. It's been really good. I love, I love your heart to create community. I love your heart to,

to work alongside the campuses. Um, I love how God is, is, is rewarding your, your faithfulness and

humbleness, um, in, in mighty ways to make a difference in, in the kingdom. Like this has been,

been really exciting and encouraging for the listeners and those that are out there. Um,

what's the, you said, there's no silver bullets. I totally get that. What's the first step.

So, uh, I'm doing a broadcast. Uh, I, I need to, I want to take that first step. I want to create

groups. I have no idea how to start. Where do I start? Yeah. I would say if, if you're, if you're

doing a broadcast and you're not cultivating online community, your first step would be to either

yourself or develop a team to, to stimulate online community around that broadcast. So stimulate that

online community, um, create that community around that content is really what we, we would say. And so

then, so once, once you're there, um, and you've got two or three on your team that show up at every

service or they're parceled out of different services and they're answering every comment that

comes in, like welcoming them personally, getting to know their stories, engaging with them with the

content. Then I, um, step two would be to find people to, to lead groups that you could lead them

into deeper levels. And so, um, step two would be, um, John Smith wants to lead a life group.

It's going to be on Tuesday nights at this time, or it's going to be an ongoing Facebook group.

And, uh, then I can lead them to that. Something that we've, we've tried that has, has, um, has

it had, it had a decent result of it will actually gather people together and create a Facebook group

for them and then, and then connect them to it. Um, it's, it's gotten okay results. I wouldn't say

that's a silver bullet, just like what, what, you know, you said, there's no silver bullet, but, uh,

um, then I, then I would say, I would say also something that has really been a game changer for us

has been having a, uh, a Facebook group that we can filter everyone to. So every person, so we call it

our global, global Facebook group, you know, so, so, um, we have a certain amount of people that,

that are in there that are part of our services that either find that group or find it as a result

of our service. And so they go to and from that group from a service or to a service. Um, but really

it's a way that every day, um, uh, members of our team and volunteers are engaging people, uh, with

different questions of the day and different, um, updates about what different events at church

online, um, really about your next steps and different, different things we want to lead people

towards. Okay. So you're create, creating community around the event, chat room, stuff like that,

meeting people, getting names, cataloging their information in some sort of database, and then

inviting them into like, uh, a mega group for your entire online environment. And so that online group

could involve hundreds, if not thousands of people. Uh, it could involve, uh, physical campus people

that are just attending, um, online occasionally as well. Like you're going to get a lot of crossover,

but, and then once you have all those people, once you have their contact info, once you have them

on, on, on Facebook, funneling all of them and trying to get those people connected into some sort

of an online group where they can be part of a biblical community and somebody can, can spiritually

be, be caring for them. That's awesome. Exactly. I mean, I think like, uh, I would say the audience

here that's listening is, you know, pastors and church leaders and, and different individuals. And so

I would say it's the same way you might, uh, if you're starting a new, a new location or even

planting a church, what would be your first step to do what it would probably be to try to foster

community around, you know, the message of what, what you're doing. So how much you do that? Well,

first you'd have people greeting at the front door to make sure that this is, you know, help people

see that. So you would do the same online. You would have people greeting and, uh, and stimulating that

community in like a lobby of sorts and in your chat area. And then you might say, man, take your next

step to join a group. So.

Love it. Love it. Let me, one more question before we go. Um, what do you guys study curriculum content

wise? Like what with online, is it the same thing as a physical groups? What does that look like content

wise? Yes, it is the same thing as physical locations and all of those groups as well. So we

have every week, we have questions that are created by our team that, and this is the life church team

that all of the campuses get and church on life church online gets as well. Um, and these are deeper

questions, what you might see at, at most churches that do a small group ministry, uh, model where

they're diving down deeper into the message. So we get that. And then also there's specific content

that we record out of series. Pastor Craig will record extra kind of bonus content videos. And so

at physical locations, they'll have those, those life group, um, Pastor Craig has these,

these things with like help let me lead your life group. And so it's really effective whenever,

you know, Pastor Craig is on the screen and then you get to have a conversation about that,

that content of what he just said. And so it's not just deeper, it's deeper, deeper, even so,

you know, and so, um, so that's, that's been really effective too. And as far as curriculum,

we hold it really open-ended. We, they're not required to bring up the, what we call our talk

it over notes. Those are the questions out of that, that, uh, that week sermon. They're not required

to follow any sort of specific curriculum. Um, we really have a high degree of, of trust of like

lead your community, help your community, you know, grow. And, uh, and we're excited that you're doing

it within, within Life.Church and around our services. Awesome. Awesome. It's really exciting.

It's, it's, it's funny. Like when I've talked to churches about their online and the church

that are doing a small group, um, some of them tend to create systems that are very complex,

but yours is very simple, you know, very, uh, reproducible, very, uh, you know, yes,

there's technology behind it, but you know, it's, it's, it's questions from the sermon. So people

watch the sermon, the easiest thing for them to do is, is to follow up on that. And, and so

to use that as the vehicle to grow into reproduce groups, maybe some easier groups to help people

get started. Like that's, that's an encouraging thing to consider. Don't, don't overcomplicate

it. Um, maybe try to keep it simple to allow people to connect to the community and then let

God move within the community and grow it as, as he does. So that's that to me, that's a huge

takeaway right there. Just keep it. I mean, I hate to be like the kiss, keep it simple, stupid

guy, but wrap it up with a podcast, keep it simple. Right. You know, and then just allow

God to, to move as he does. So that that's really encouraging.

Yeah. Yeah. There's, there's, uh, there's resources at your, at your disposal. You know,

this is doable. This is, this is, uh, this is biblical. This is, uh, and so, um, that's, uh,

that we're just really excited about what God has allowed us the opportunity to do. And, um, and if,

if you have any questions at all, I would love the opportunity to just have a, have a conversation

with you about, about what God might be doing in your, your unique situation and, uh, and, and see

what God might, might have for you. That's awesome. Hey, uh, so where, where can they find you

online? Yeah. You can reach out on Instagram. Uh, my, my tag is, uh, or my handle is at Ryan

M sharp, R Y N M S H A R P. Cool. And so you can go on there and I'm sure he's got some, uh,

Europe posts still somewhere from, from United Kingdom on there just recently and, and others.

Um, and you know, and I appreciate it. Like I, I've, I've engaged with you several times

online and, and, you know, I'll listen to honest. I'll tell you, like he was, was very receptive and

open quickly, uh, to, to jump back. So that, that was, it's always good to know, like when

people are like open and receptive, um, and so the heartbeat, yeah, man, the heartbeat of

our church, the heartbeat of our leadership is we're all about the capital C church. And

so we really, um, we believe in what God is doing here at life church, but we, we, we also

believe in what God is doing in the global capital C church. And so for you listening, um,

we're, um, God, God's called you for a specific purpose. He's, uh, um, and, uh, and you can

do this. And if you feel a level of discouragement, just, uh, turn to Jesus and refocus on what

truly is important and lead well. Amen. I was going to ask you if there's any thoughts to

wrap up, but honestly, that was the most eloquent thing I think we could wrap up on. So we're

just going to call it done for Ryan. Uh, this is Jeff with the church digital. Thanks for

joining us and we'll see you next time. Have a good day.