EP017: Stories from Church Anywhere

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Hey, welcome to The Church Digital Podcast. My name is Jeff. We've got a great episode coming up. Well,

actually, truthfully, we're going to have a great series of episodes coming up because we're going

to spend three weeks in a row doing a deep dive into First Capital Christian Church of Cordon, Indiana.

Chances are you probably never heard of Cordon, Indiana, maybe First Capital Christian Church.

If you remember, we talked with Tyler Sampson back in episode four of The Church Digital Podcast. It's

actually one of the first episodes that we launched with. He's a church that he's doing, a small church,

but he's doing this great ministry of doing church online, online discipleship, but utilizing the online

services to birth physical locations. And so what I wanted to do here with this and what we got with

with the last episode is, hey, we learned about how Church Anywhere works and what it's like to birth

these locations, but I want to hear the stories. I want to actually talk to the people who are at these

micro locations who's doing this ministry. And so we've got Brad Reed coming on the podcast who's

no relation, although it's a great last name. His dad's actually Jeff Reed, and so there's some

off-air jokes like, I'm your daddy, but we just cut that out of the broadcast.

So we got Brad Reed, and we got Cindy Timmons, who are both volunteers who coordinate the ministry at

these micro locations. They're essentially campus pastors at these respective micro locations, and they

are going to tell some phenomenal stories about how God is moving in the small, how God is doing some

awesome things through a small church, creating small locations. And it's funny, there's these really

powerful moments, especially at the end where we, well, you know what? I don't want to get there.

I'm going to let them get there. So here you go. Here are some phenomenal stories from Church Anywhere.

All right. Hey, so we're at the Church Digital Podcast, and I'm excited about this interview because

I've got real live people that are doing ministry through Church Online here, and we're going to tell

some stories, which by far is the favorite thing that I get to do here at the podcast. And so

I've got Cindy Timmons, Tyler Sampson, and Brad Reed, all from First Capital Christian Church in Indiana,

Church Anywhere. We've talked about them before. Tyler, by the way, has been on the podcast before. It

was one of the first podcasts we've had. By the way, Tyler, you don't know this, but you are the most,

at the time of this recording, you are the most listened podcast through the Church Digital Podcast.

All my wife. She's done it like that. Just basically reload, reload, reload, reload. Every device you have

has listened to this podcast at one time or another. That's awesome. Hey, so before we get into the

others, Tyler, man, just take a moment. Tell me a little bit about, let's say somebody hasn't listened

to episode four where they talked all about First Capital Christian. 30 seconds, man. Tell me the story

the church. Yeah, so the church is about 800 people in a town of roughly 3,000 or so. We are on the

outskirts of Louisville, Kentucky, about 30 minutes from Louisville, real small town. And so that's a

unique situation in itself. About three years ago, we started doing an online campus. And from there,

we decided to do an online to an offline model. So we take the same kind of technology we use for an

online campus, and we go and use that as a worship experience within a physical location. So that

could be a home, it could be a nursing home, a jail, schools. Really, it's endless possibilities where

that could be. That's awesome. And we're going to want to dive a lot into that online to offline and

kind of the micro location. But I just want to make something clear because you glossed it over.

So you've got about 800 people physically involved in the ministry of the church. That's including

what I would call the broadcast center, the main campus, as well as the micro locations,

the multi-site campuses that are... No, that's 800 on the broadcast location.

Oh, that's 800 just at broadcast. Yeah. Somewhere around like 450-ish a week everywhere else.

Okay. So straight up, you're not playing online. That's just physical bodies.

So just clarity. You're in a town of 3,000, and you've got over 1,000 actively involved physically,

either at the main campus or in the physical locations, the micro locations that are around.

Yeah.

That's a phenomenal ratio.

What do you attribute to... I mean, okay, Holy Spirit, God. I understand that. And I'm not... I don't want to downplay the Spirit of God moving among these people at the church. But like, what are some things that you've done to maybe bring some attention to that? Or how has that happened kind of up there at First Capital Christian?

Oh, man. You guys can chime in.

Loaded question.

Yeah. They've all been here as long as I have.

Cindy, Brad, what do you all think?

I think a large part of it is because Harrison and Crawford counties are both very underprivileged counties. They're low-income areas that have a lot of poverty and outreach needs. And it was a niche that when we started filling it, word spread quickly. And everybody wanted to get involved and help. And the community just embraced the...

They did. They just opened their arms to us and let us in. It wasn't a battle.

Yeah. I'll just say a quick story about that. About four, five years ago, there's a really, really impoverished school system called Heath, Washington, where it's like 87% of the families are on free lunch, free breakfast, that kind of thing.

And we found out that they had no shoes, no Christmas gifts, nothing. But we found this out on like a Sunday morning. And so our senior pastor basically just got up without asking all of us and said,

Hey, why don't we take up an extra offering and see if we can get enough to get these kids some Christmas presents?

And our people, like that's the where we live. Like a lot of our people are under the poverty line, but we gave our normal offering plus enough that Sunday to get them, every kid, a new pair of shoes, a new sweatshirt, pair of pants, and a Christmas present.

Every kid in the entire school. So that's just the, that's the type of, I don't know, it's different than any church I've ever been to.

Like every church says they're really loving. We truly are. We're a super loving church. You can't walk in here and not feel loved.

And we care about our community.

Yeah.

Okay. So, so that, that loving culture, that, that environment, that DNA you create, like that, that not only exists within the physical campus there, your broadcast campus there with First Capital, but I mean, it's, it's the way that it sounds like with, with Church Anywhere.

It's literally overflowing out of the online campus, creating some of these, these new environments, right? These, these new campus locations.

And so with Cindy and with Brad, the reason I wanted to bring them on the podcast to, to be part of this story is because they're leading some of these physical locations, these, you know, micro locations, these micro campuses, whatever the label your church wants to call them or what the church calls them today.

They're leading these small locations that are meeting within the city up there in Indiana. Is that, is that correct? Is that the main gist?

Yeah. Not everyone owns within the city. So Cindy's is, is in our, in our city. It's not super far from the church. Brad's is like a far away in a different time zone.

Oh, that's awesome. So is that still within Indiana or is that even in another state?

Yeah. Yeah. It's in Indiana.

Cool. So Brad, what city are you in?

Uh, we go, it's closest to tell city. It's about a, like you said, about 45 minutes to an hour drive.

And so, yeah, it's a, yeah, it's time travel. We get to different time zone on our way there. We, uh, every Tuesday and it's, uh,

I don't know. It's still small town feel, but it's a good little drive. We, we take the bus and we gather everybody together and we all ride down together.

And so, yeah. So our volunteers for that location literally have to, it's, it's, it'd be a, basically an hour drive there, an hour service and an hour drive back, except you lose an hour on the way back.

So it's like a four hour time commitment every Tuesday. Um, they're willing to do that.

They're busing back and forth every Tuesday to, to lead a service down. That's, that's great. Now tell, tell me about the service.

Tell me about the people you're ministering to. What is, what does that look like there in tail city?

Well, it's, uh, it's the Branchville correctional facility. It's a prison, a level two.

They, um, I mean, it's, it's hard to get in the door. We have to take, take our shoes, our belt off.

It's like, it's like going to the airport and every time we go in and out and it's, um, well, they, uh, a guard has to let us in.

There's a chapel on campus, a small building where we get to go have worship service and a big projector screen comes out of the ceiling and we show our service on the projector.

And on an average, we might get 25 inmates on a regular Tuesday, but we, uh, once a month, we open it up to the whole campus.

And sometimes we can get the 250 to 300 number show up for that particular service.

So we do get to do, uh, two different kinds of things there.

Okay. So why, why is it once a month, it's opened up to everybody? Like what's, what's the difference there? Just operationally.

When it first started, we, uh, cause at, at Branchville, they have, uh, six different dorms and each one is kind of catered to a different type of guy.

You know, like, you know, you got your real rowdy criminals and then you got your good behavior guys and then you got different, uh, working different programs and, you know, educational type things.

So when we first started going, we just got the one dorm or one small good behavior dorm.

And when the guys get out of that dorm and moved to different dorms, they were complaining and telling, you know, the chapel at the facility that, uh, they really missed the church anywhere service that when they got moved out, they were upset that they couldn't keep coming.

So they opened it up once a month to we, it's available to everybody.

They may have to sign up for it and they have to get okayed.

Like they're not just going to let any guy come, you know, they sign up for a reason and they check the list to make sure we're not going to have a problem or anything.

So, but yeah, the, the one, once a month service can get pretty big.

It's a, we get the gymnasium and it's, it's a loud rowdy group.

I mean, it's a big group of guys.

Yeah.

With that, it's, it would be nearly impossible with the current staffing at the prison to do that every week.

Um, like there's been multiple times where we've had to kick out like 30 plus gang members that are trying to have a gang meeting during church or something like that.

So anytime you open up, uh, an entire prison to come into one area, uh, people will take advantage of it to use it for their own agenda.

But like a vast, vast majority of those services have gotten exceptionally smooth.

And, um, uh, if there's 300 guys there, 250 of them are there for, for the reason that you want them to be there for.

That's, that's awesome.

So now Cindy, you, you lead one as well.

And you, you lead it there in Conroy in, in the main city, you know, so, um, Corden, I'm sorry, Corden, apologies.

Uh, so Brad's at Brad's different town doing prison ministry.

Tell me a little bit about what, what your church anywhere looks like.

Um, we are at a local nursing home.

I think we have three or four nursing homes that we do church anywhere.

Three, three, this one's unique though, um, but I am at one that is a Huntington's disease unit.

So there are a lot of different challenges there because, um, Huntington's is, um, something in this country that there are very few nursing homes that can, um, have those individuals as residents and they have different, um, disabilities.

As far as some can't speak, some are bed bound, some are wheelchair bound, some walk it, each person is a different individual that you have to learn how to communicate and work with while you're there.

Wow.

So Tyler, I know Tyler, we talked about this in the, in the last, um, when you were on an episode four and, and just my heart went out even at this idea of.

So you're doing a church service in a, in a, a, a Huntington's, uh, a rehab center, right?

Like this is where they're recovering for it.

So I, I don't, I mean, I know about this much of, of Huntington's, um, like what's the, what's the prognosis for somebody like this?

It is a terminal illness that at some point will take their life.

Um, we have actually, um, had two residents that we led to Christ that passed away shortly thereafter.

And it was amazing getting to know the families along that process because they then became involved with us and got to know us.

Um, one of our individuals actually helped at the funeral, which led our pastor to leading that service.

And just bonding with the families involved when that happens.

So get this, the guy that one of those people that were led to Christ, the guy that led him to Christ had never made that decision himself.

So he was, he loved the idea of going out and helping people and, and, and going out beyond the church walls.

He'd been to church for a while.

He'd never made that decision for himself, but he, he led this guy at a church anywhere location to Christ.

And then through that, after the guy passed away, um, one of our pastors ended up doing the service and, uh, the person's family was like, Hey, have you ever heard about this thing called church anywhere?

That's how the guy got led to Christ.

And Donnie's like, yeah, that's, that's where I work.

And so, yeah, it's bizarre.

Pretty amazing.

Really weird.

But it's, it's what, what I love about, about both y'all stories is, is you've got, you know, Brad, you got Brad reaching into a prison system.

You've got Cindy reaching, reaching into Huntington's, um, I mean, rehab, whatever that, that is where people are looking at.

I mean, this is, this is the downside of society.

They're, they're struggling with a fatal disease.

They're, uh, locked up and they're, they're separated from, and there, there's a lot of, uh, of darkness and bleakness in there.

And, and what I love about first capital is their desire here to, to take the gospel, to take church to these people, not making them come in, but being very missional in going out.

And, and so, yeah, Cindy, you, you talked about, um, you know, leading some to Christ and a couple like right before they died, uh, being, being part of that, uh, man, I'd love to hear another story.

Like, like what, tell me somebody that that's gone through something like that, a life change, uh, type of scenario.

Well, we see that almost weekly, but I think the thing that moves us the most, we invited Tyler to one of our services and I think he was even stunned because you have to remember that some of these individuals can't talk.

A lot of them can't walk, but in the middle of a service, when we're doing praise and worship, we have individuals standing up, hands in the air, praising the Lord and thanking him and singing to him.

So the impact, you know, they're not the ones being blessed by this.

We are.

It just.

Tell them how they stand up though.

That's the powerful part of this.

They really don't.

They stand up and one of us are always behind them or next to him, holding them up and holding onto them and praising the Lord with them because they don't have the ability to stand up on their own because they're wobbling with their hands in the air, singing his name.

Yeah.

It made me super emotional when I saw it for the first time because this, this idea of I'm watching these people who have taken this medium of, of technology, which who would have thought 15 years ago?

And then we would be able to lead someone to Christ through a video.

And I'm watching this person who's going to eventually have a new body through Christ.

But it's like, this, this is only temporary.

I'm going to have to hold you up for a little bit, but one day we get to stand beside each other and we get to worship him face to face.

So powerful.

Just unbelievably powerful.

Wow.

And so, but it's a completely different serving experience, right?

So, you know, over here at, at Hodgkin's rehab, I mean, they're, they're uplifting and physically connecting with the people, you know, over in Brad's side, over in the prison, you're probably not getting touchy feely over, over on that side.

Right.

So like, like what, what does serving look like over at, at, at the prisons?

Well, for the, for the guys coming for the very first time, they are a little standoffish.

They, they do want to sit in the back row with their arms crossed and just sort of, sort of feel us out, you know, and see, you know, what they're, they're not opening up right away.

But, but that being said, you come two or three times and you'll see these guys crying.

I mean, they're, they're ready to share.

After the service, we break into small groups and just maybe three, four or five guys and a volunteer sit in a circle and just discuss the service or discuss, you know, their life or what they're going through.

And some of these guys really do get to open up.

And I've, I've heard them say, uh, you know, a handful of guys say they really enjoy our church service the most because we do that because we're there to sit beside them and talk with them.

And we're not just coming in, shaking the Bible at them, tell them they need to straighten up or go to hell.

You know, we're there to every service.

I tell them you're now a member of first capital church.

We want you to come to our church and we, we don't ask them what they're in there for.

That's, that's not why we're there.

We're there to talk about Jesus.

We're there to show them a new way, you know, give them that new hope.

And, uh, these guys, there's, I have several, uh, relationships through Facebook with guys who have gotten out of jail, gotten out of prison and still contact us.

So they're going through their own transition into a new life and they, uh, we continue contact.

We have a couple of them now that come every week to, uh, to our, our main location, um, that have gotten out of Branchville that we're at church anywhere and they got out of prison.

Now they come physically to first capital.

Absolutely.

One Tuesday, one Tuesday night we were there and a guy came and, uh, asked me about Corden and he, uh, actually moved to a halfway house in town.

And the very next week I seen him at church, here he was.

And I, I, I didn't recognize him cause he was wearing, you know, regular clothes and he had all gone up and I was like, didn't we, don't I know you?

And it was like church anywhere, you know, and it's really an amazing thing to, he, he served communion a couple of weeks ago here at our church.

I mean, it's to see a guy walk out of prison and be a member of what we got going on here.

It's pretty cool.

You know, what, what I love about this is, is these are just two different expressions of, uh, of, of physical, I'll be really three different expressions where you've got a, a, a, a physical church building traditional in, in its, in its ministry model, people gathering together, coming to a service on Sunday, but they've done something, um, non-traditional, something abstract of broadcasting their services online.

And, and, and everybody's doing that or more and more people are doing that probably said a little more accurate, but what First Capital has done is they've taken the next step to, uh, to start to create physical communities out of that.

And, you know, what we learned last week, uh, Cindy, or the last time we talked episode four about this, where there was actually a nurse who was the one who started the, the, the, the, that, and kind of like capitalized that.

And, and, uh, Tyler said, like, tell me, tell me a little bit.

I just, I love that story so much.

I want to hear it again.

Like how, how did it actually start there in the Hodgkin's rehab?

I was monitoring the, um, the, the, I think Facebook live feed or it might've been CHOP, one of the two.

Um, and, um, our online care team member was like, Hey, check out this, this message we just got sent to us.

And it was a picture of the, the rehab center.

And there was like 17 people gathered around the iPad watching the service.

And I was like, what's going on here?

And so I messaged the person back and, uh, it turns out that she had, um, I mean, I personally know her like from church, um, but she hadn't been to church in a long time.

And it turns out she had been scheduled to work like every Sunday.

So she started on her lunch break, um, requesting that time for a lunch break.

So she could tune in and more and more people were like, Hey, I'd like to watch that with you.

And so, um, I approached Cindy, um, because she, uh, recently became retired.

So, and, um, yeah, so at the time she was going through, um, a program to become a chaplain.

Um, and so I was like, this would be the perfect person to get on board with meeting one of these church anywhere spots.

And so I approached her and I thought it was a nursing home.

We had no idea it was a place for Huntington's disease.

Um, and so, uh, she was on board to start a nursing home site.

And then we found out it was Huntington's disease and, um, we just kind of went from there.

They had me from the first day.

Oh my gosh.

You talk about love, like our congregation shows love, but those are the people at that place.

Love you like nobody else, man.

Every week I get hugs and told I love you.

And when are you coming back?

And it's funny because we still have, um, employees that work there that will come in and sit down

with us while we're doing the broadcast and doing the praise and worship because they want to be there.

We do communion after the service.

We pray with each individual that needs prayer.

Um, we've prayed with the nurses over there.

Anyone that wants to be a part of it.

We've had a couple of them have family members there that joined in when they came in just

because they could see the Lord in the room.

So they wanted to be a part of it.

Cindy and her husband, Mike have gone like way over the top.

Awesome with this.

Um, so at Christmas last year, um, they did the normal service and then they had one of

the people on our creative arts team.

That's an actor, a super, super talented actor, um, come in and be Santa Claus and got every

single person at the place a Christmas gift.

It was.

And it was like the best Christmas ever.

It was amazing.

It's like, if you can imagine, you know, Huntington's patients, most of them are still pretty sharp.

They understand what's going on and they communicate to the best of their ability.

But when Santa walked in that room, it was like they were five-year-old kids.

They were just thrilled, hugging on him, loving on him, excited.

It, it made their day.

They absolutely loved it.

We heard about it every week for weeks.

I guess what I would say with that is, and Brad, you can absolutely attest to this, that

like the platform we were using is this online model.

Um, the church anywhere sprouted from online services.

We're using technology, but it's not about technology.

Like it's about relationships.

One hundred percent, even, even online.

I can give an example of a guy named Simon, um, from the UK, um, who lives in a town that

just doesn't have a modern style of worship, uh, anywhere in, in his town.

It's very liturgical, um, lots of Catholic churches.

Uh, and so each week we meet on a zoom call, much like this, um, just to hang out and talk

about Jesus because he watches us online each week.

So like for me, the relationship side of that, even with an online person is so much more

powerful than the technology piece.

And I say, Brad, cause you get like a million stories of the relationship part of that.

That's, that's what ours is.

Like I said, the first time we go, they're very standoffish, but the very next Tuesday

we come in and they're hugging us.

They're so happy to see us again.

And it just, they can't wait to see what we're going to do next.

And I have to, before I forget, Cindy was talking about Christmas and we, uh, bringing Santa

and bringing things into a prison on Christmas is a little more difficult, but we, uh, we were

able to bring cookies and milk.

And, uh, we, that's the only time we've got to do communion in the prison to bring, you

know, cause we can't very well bring food and drink in there very easily.

And, uh, that, that service, like you said, weeks and weeks and weeks later there, I still

overhear guys talking to the guys saying, yeah, man, one time they brought in milk and in prison

you get powdered milk.

So we brought in like a cold gallon of milk and those guys were just, you know, weeping

over milk.

That's not an exaggeration.

And, uh, talking about the relationships, the guy I speak to on Facebook very often, I can't

mention church anywhere without him.

Love you guys.

Love you guys.

Can't wait to see you guys.

I mean, he, he's, you know, obviously when you get out of prison, you got a little bit

of obligation and stuff, you know, parole to take care of.

So he can't very well just hop in his car and come down.

I think he's over an hour away.

He can't just come see us anytime he wants, but he's like counting the days to when he can

come to court and to be a part of an actual first capital service.

They, uh, see it on the screen.

They, they can't wait to come see what it looks like in real life.

And that's, uh, I can't wait to watch them walk through the door one time.

Um, yeah, I love that thought.

It just gets me.

Talk to me about how you get the volunteers, like pitching, casting vision to the volunteers,

what your volunteers look like in a given week as you're reproducing these church services

and doing ministry, like what's that process?

Typically by force.

That's actually why I work out.

I intimidate them.

And then they just, they just, uh, they just volunteer.

So we have sign up.

Well done.

He has sign up sheets, but some of the positions are harder than others.

It's something we ran into over here because with them being, having the disease, people are

scared, you know, that's a huge leap to walk in there and try and communicate and take care

of someone that has a disease that you know nothing about, but you still find there are

people that know, they, they know that nudge.

They, they feel it in their hearts.

They know they have no choice.

And we feel fortunate that we had a team of five people that would regularly come over there

and assist us with that because it takes that many when you've got individuals that need help.

I think our volunteers are scared for another reason.

Yeah.

And it's to hear you're going to walk into a prison and spend an hour or so with these guys

because we're in the chapel with no guard.

I mean, the guard lets us in the door and he leaves and we're in there with these 20,

25 guys.

Thank God for the Holy Spirit, you know, that he calms them down and shows them some love

because, you know, you never know.

I mean, we've never had an incident, but you just, you, it's kind of an unpredictable situation.

But, uh, and a lot of, uh, to get into prison, you have to go through a class.

We have to meet and, uh, the lady from the prison comes and walks you through.

I think it's like a two hour thing of all these different rules and, you know, what you're

not to do and what you have to do and all these different things.

And I think some people are put off by that and not, not to mention the travel.

I mean, some getting a volunteer at the prison is a little more difficult than somebody who's

going 20 minutes down the road from the church.

It's, uh, our volunteers are, uh, I'm a young guy, so I can say a little older and, uh, these

fellows, you know, who, uh, who don't have to get up at 5 a.m. in the morning anymore and

they can, they can do the late night on a Tuesday.

And, you know, some of our, we've had some guys fall off because of health issues.

They can't, they can't make the long trip anymore or they, you know, don't, aren't feeling up

to it.

But I have a pretty, uh, roughly 10 guys that are very loyal and pretty much every week

they're right there on top of it.

It's, it's funny.

It started out with, we wanted it to be on a rotation and it's like, it's like we hurt

their feelings when we tell them we can't come, they can't come a week.

So they're like, no, I'm not doing a rotation.

I'm coming every time.

Are you kidding me?

That's exactly how we're there every week.

What do you mean?

We're not going to rotate.

You want to be there.

Now, last we talked, Tyler, you had like 14 of these locations kind of scattered around.

Is that, is that correct?

What am I remembering?

We have 16 now.

And that's because that week was the week we were getting ready to launch two other jail

sites.

So those are the most recent or two jail sites.

So your, your church of, you know, small, 800 person physical location in Cordon, Indiana,

has three prison ministries that it's running, utilizing, I'm sorry, four.

So this one, the two new ones, and then there's a fourth one.

So you're running four prisons.

So we have a separate female and male one at one.

Gotcha.

Only in another, a male only, and then another female only.

So five totals sites, but that's within four prisons.

That was, that was, that was, that was some screwy math, but I'm going to say you're doing

five prison ministries by utilizing your online broadcast to push an online to offline model

of creating biblical community at physical locations, utilizing church online.

Yeah.

I love you.

Like that's, that's freaking phenomenal.

I did just say, I love you on the podcast.

You cut me off.

Enjoy that.

Like that's freaking awesome where you're now you're, you're moving and you're creating

this physical locations, giving people an opportunity to serve like, like Brad and, and his, and

his team driving in at 10 people who don't want to rotate off to drive to another time zone,

to sit in a bunch of room with 25 prisoners without a guard.

And that's, I mean, we, we, we told, we've talked recently about decentralizing ministry

and taking ministry away from the pastors and empowering the people to do it.

And, and what you've done here with Church Anywhere essentially is decentralizing that, that ministry.

And now you're, you're empowering Brad and his people.

Brad, how often does, does somebody from staff go with you?

The once a month, the big service we have at the end of the month.

So a big service, if it's 250, a staff person to go to that, but otherwise like, like Tyler

and his crew trusts you to do the ministry, right?

Right.

I mean, that's, that's awesome.

So where, where else are you in other than, than, uh, than the prison?

So you're in four or five, six, 19 prisons.

The number changes.

That's cool.

What, what else, um, what other areas are you in?

When school is going on, we're in two elementary schools that are afterschool programs.

Um, and that's a little different cause we design, um, curriculum specifically for that age group.

So our youth band does the worship and, um, we have curriculum that me and a couple other

people on staff film for the like service portion of it.

Um, and so all of it's still done via this online offline model.

It's just like modified for them.

Um, we're in a youth shelter that has foster kids that don't have placements.

Um, we're in a homeless camp.

Um, we're in one home, like an actual neighborhood, um, three nursing homes.

Um, I'm going to say any guys, a lot of institutions there.

I think that's good.

Homeless nursing home afterschool for kids.

I've never in my life have I thought, Hey, let's create an afterschool program for kids.

And it involved this.

Like, I know it's not, that's not been on my radar.

And you're, you've done that compared to the, you've done that twice.

And that the youth shelter one is, is awesome.

Uh, well, put it this way.

My wife and I are in the process of adopting a 17 year old because we get sucked into this

church anywhere location, uh, on Wednesday nights, which is awesome.

Praise God.

Yeah.

But, um, it's been incredible to see, uh, we've got, I think around three teams of 10

that rotate on every eight weeks, um, at that location.

And it's literally just like 17 to 20, like 14 to 18 year old kids who don't have parents

don't have a home that are living in an old elementary school.

And we go every Wednesday night to have a meal with them, do small groups and, and worship

together.

But these people like these kids have never even heard of Jesus before.

Um, it was amazing.

We baptized four of them last year.

So I'm going to ask this question and I know what the answer is, but I want you to say

it because I want, I want the audience to hear this.

How many people are on your staff?

Like that, that deal with this exact issue that deal with church anywhere that work with

this?

Like what, I mean, you got all this video content to lead with these leaders.

You got what?

Six, eight people, right?

Right.

We have one.

Tyler.

That's just me.

Tyler.

So it's just you, right?

Yeah.

I mean, we have another guy that helps a lot with the jail, the jail part.

Um, but he doesn't do anything with technology, but he's, he's, he and I have basically launched

the, uh, the jail ministry part of it together.

But other than that, it's pretty much just me.

Our church.

Yeah.

I mean, we only have like 10 staff total, including part-time people.

So.

All right.

Cause, so let, let's, let's unpack this.

Cause that, that's, here's where it's at.

I have this conversation with, I had this conversation with a, probably a 10,000 member

church, um, and church, and it was like, Jeff, we really want to do it, but we want to

get our, our, our content better first.

And I'm like, you've got like 12 people on staff.

Don't, and literally I'm like, don't use that as an excuse go.

And, and, but so to, to your point, you got 10 people in the entire church, churches

roughly, what'd you say it was around 800 or was that in my head for the, for the broadcast

450 around somewhere else?

Like what, what's your secret?

Because most people are going to freak out and their heads are going to explode, um, managing

all this.

You're not.

So what, what are the, this, I don't think it's a secret.

I think that everyone has access to the same thing that we do.

I mean, to, to say that God couldn't start something like this somewhere else is to put

God in a box.

And so I think that you asked at the beginning, what should, what first capital has done to

grow and, uh, to the size that we are, and it's small in the town that we are.

And I think our lead pastor has done a really good job for 15 years of not putting God in

a box.

Um, there's basically nothing that we can dream that we don't think God can do.

And so instead of saying like, ah, that might be too big for us, it's like, God's big enough

to do it.

So let's just go ahead and do it.

Um, yeah, we put our, our, our work into it and we plan and we're very, very intentional

about things.

But, um, I don't think I've never been to a, to a place where we don't limit God at all.

Like there is no dream bigger than what God can make happen.

And you can see it with what's happening with church anywhere.

Like most, most churches our size would kill to have, uh, 39 first time decisions for

Christ by June of a year.

So like in the last six months, um, what we have just through church anywhere right now.

And it's not a competition, but like, praise God for that.

That's, that's a huge thing.

Does the average person at, at your church that attends the, the, the cordon campus, the

main broadcast center, like is, is church anywhere so much in the DNA and the vernacular that

they understand that they know about all these stories, the, the ministry, the mission opportunities,

you know, so often when you talk with church online these days, it's like, yeah, the physical

church has no idea.

What, what, what is that relationship between church anywhere and first capital?

I think so.

Everybody knows.

Everybody knows.

Randy will get up there and tell us to turn on our phones and say hello or do whatever

so that they know we're online.

They count it down and we go live and everybody's there with their phones.

I think we, I think we talked on this on the last one, but there's four touch points every

service that we mentioned church anywhere, church online within the service.

So either you were asleep and missed it, or, you know, when you're here, it's pretty obvious.

Plus in a room that only seats 500 people that have like four or five cameramen running around,

it's pretty obvious there's something going on.

So.

Very cool.

Well, I'm excited.

In the next episode, we're going to have Randy on because, you know, lead pastors that

have the vision and the understanding, even to go, okay, the best spot for you.

You know, I had this conversation with the, with the pastor once and the conversation didn't

go well, but it was something like this.

It was like, pastor, you got to realize there's somebody in your audience where the best spot

for them to be on a Sunday morning might not be in a pew watching you speak live.

It might be outside of the building, leading a church service like this, or maybe inviting

10, 15 people into their own home and doing church there.

And like, that's, that rattles some cages.

I'm just honest.

It's like the, it's, it's still in that culture of, you have to have people there in the physical

building or at the multi-site campus.

But this idea of church online and getting it outside of the church building and into the

community.

How you guys have created this online, offline, or have utilized the online, offline model is,

is phenomenal.

And I can't wait because that, my, my opening question for, for Randy is like, okay, when,

when Tyler casted this vision to you, what was your first thought?

Because like pastors often get stuck on the first thought and they can't evolve through

it.

And like, I want to know was, did he think you were crazy or did he buy into it?

And you, I want to hear it from him.

Don't answer that question.

But it's so exciting for me to, to be able to, to look into see these stories like this

and how God's utilizing church online, how, uh, first capital is, is utilizing this, this

distribution network to empower, uh, four or five, six prison ministries to, to empower a

Hodgkin's rehab to empower 16 different locations around the, around the multiple cities and areas

around there.

So where you're getting, uh, 1250, I'm doing bad math, but 12, 1300 people attending, not

that it's about the numbers, but you've got engagement out of a small church, relatively

speaking, that shouldn't be doing this, but you guys don't realize you shouldn't be doing

this.

And if God's blessing your ministry, like, I just, I love, I love.

What you're saying about Randy's like, God's bigger than this.

Let's just go and, and God will take care of it.

Like, you don't, you don't ask questions.

You know, you don't doubt it's less birth communities.

Let's go.

Where else can we go?

Like next time we talk, Tyler, I want to know where your next two locations are.

Like, come on, man.

Let's, what are you waiting for?

And this very first started when, I guess when Tyler got the idea, when it all come together

and they sat down and started having a conversation, it wasn't even called church anywhere

yet.

It's like, we're going to take our online service and start spreading it out somewhere.

That was it that day.

Uh, we got an email from a jail.

Would, would y'all be able to bring a church service into our jail?

And that's, that's God making these things happen.

I totally forgot.

Yeah.

That's where it very first started.

A little county jail about a half an hour away.

And, and, uh, gotta, gotta give some praise.

My wife runs that.

That's the very first one that ever started.

You want to talk about relationships.

She is building relationships in that place.

She is.

But that's, that's how it all began was an email from a jail.

Cause we were like, where are we going to do this?

We, we got to come up with somewhere to take church anywhere.

If we're going to, if we're going to make this thing happen, let's, let's hope God's going

to show us what to do.

And yeah, it was 9am when, um, we finally got the okay to pretty much try church anywhere.

And I was in the office with Donnie, our, um, care pastor, and he gets an email from, from

a chaplain at a local jail that says, um, we need some churches to come in and put on

church for our, our, our women.

And I was like, well, that's not a sign.

I don't think, I don't know what is.

I think the thing that keeps this growing because we hear it all the time.

I'm sure you have, we have a lot of churches show up and make promises and they never see

them again.

Every time we walk in that door, someone comes and tells us how grateful they are that we

are there every week as promised.

We wouldn't make that promise if it wasn't important.

And we're there, not just on our Sundays or the days that we are doing our church anywhere.

We're in their lives during the week, you know, making contact one-on-one and making sure

they're taken care of because we know that's what we're supposed to do.

And, and I hope I'm not taking you way far over Jeff, but, um, we, it's not easy.

I mean, like we, we all get super exhausted.

Um, it's, it's a, it's a marathon and you push every single week to do it.

Um, especially with the church, um, especially with the church, our size.

I mean, you, you hit on it before.

We don't have like 10 staff members that are like doing all this.

It's me and a bunch of volunteers who are killing it.

Um, but, but it's also very tiring, but it's so worth it on the other end of that.

Um, but if, if we could cast this vision to other churches that like, Hey, what if we did

empower people to go out and persevere for the gospel?

Like we're told to do, um, because we make it so easy.

So, so much to serve.

Um, we have so many opportunities to serve that are like once every six weeks, once every

eight weeks, and that's great.

But like, what if we did teach our people to persevere through things?

Like imagine the life change that would happen, not just within like local bodies, but entire

communities.

Um, I think that we could really make a big change for the kingdom, uh, with that same perseverance

mindset that Church Anywhere has forced us to have here.

How far is our outreach?

Uh, the furthest one is two hours away and that's physical bodies.

But the furthest person I know of that watches us every week from London.

Wow.

So your physical location is about two hours away.

Are it, and that's, that's down in Kentucky as I recall, right?

Do you have some or are they?

Madison prison is the furthest one away.

Madison.

Okay.

So here, here's what I want to know.

Let's, let's, we'll, we'll land the plane.

By the way, thank you.

This has been phenomenal.

Awesome.

Um, couple, couple of questions to wrap up.

Let's, let's just build a model here.

1,000, 1,500 person church.

Kind of, kind of similar in context to you.

Um, they're, they're wanting to do this, uh, online to offline model.

They want to start creating physical locations, um, house church, micro locations, what have

you.

What are their next steps?

Give them some advice on how to move from, Hey, leadership might not understand.

I've got this broadcast.

I've got this service.

How do I take that next step?

Yeah.

Loyal volunteers.

You need members of your church that want to get out there and love on people.

Yeah.

That's, I mean, I think that's the fuel for church anywhere is the people in the church

that cannot wait to do church Monday through Saturday.

We don't show up Sunday morning and then go back to our lives where, uh, the great commission

is every other day of the week.

And you need people in your church that want to do that.

So to expand on that, I think before the lead pastor conversation happens, I feel like there

has to be some kind of DNA in your church already, where you have people who are ready to love

on the community in a different way.

Um, so before, before you ever start thinking about church anywhere, you have to have a culture

of, of wanting to be able to go love on people that maybe you, uh, wouldn't normally

love on.

And then that would definitely make it a whole lot easier.

So action.

Yeah.

But for someone who is maybe has that already, and they're talking to their lead pastor.

Um, I mean, I think the first thing has to be, um, you have to have a quality product.

Um, nothing that we put on the screens, if it's going to be based on technology, it can't

suck.

So, um, I don't know how else to say that.

Like it just, it can't have like distortion all over the place.

And, um, like 1993 cameras that you're shooting your, your stuff with, like it has to look

good.

And, and we've done that within a super reasonable budget.

Um, and I, I don't think that we're like producing Steven Spielberg kind of product, but it's,

it's not something that I would be ashamed to put on a large screen in front of 300 prisoners.

Um, so start with the product, uh, and then cast the vision.

You have to cast the vision before we started this, we did an entire sermon series called

Church Anywhere.

Um, and so you have to cast the vision to your, to your people.

So lead pastor or teaching team, whatever, what have you taught a whole sermon series, basically

saying church, get out of the building, go do church outside of the building.

Oh, by the way, here's a vehicle church anywhere utilizing church online, which gives you the,

the resources to go do church outside the building.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I mean, it helps.

I'm on the teaching team that like, I have a bug in the ear of, of the guy who's making

the stuff, which helps.

Um, but I think that he, Randy, I think preached two of those.

I preached one and then our other teaching guy preached one as well.

So it was a four week series from different perspectives of how this can not only change

people's lives, but change the lives of, of the people who are serving as well.

Well, God bless you.

I feel like we're, we're seeing it in, in, in, in hearing some of those stories, by the

way, you know, just talking about seeing that culture kind of tied within, um, of, of

the people, even before you get to the, to have that conversation with the lead pastor.

Um, that actually echoes something that we have heard, uh, Eric Geiger, who's lead pastor

over at Mariner's church out in California.

It's like a 10,000 person mega church.

Um, and, but we had a conversation with him talking about, um, like how to, how to talk

to your leadership about church online.

Uh, and, and honestly, he struggles with this and he's, you know, wrestling with some of

the things too.

So it was a really good conversation.

But where he landed on some of his stuff was that if, if he saw that his volunteers in

his church was passionate about it, I was passionate about serving in that area, he would give it

more weight and more, more credibility towards it.

And so you can listen to it on, um, episode 10, uh, but going, going back to, to y'all, just

how you've been able to leverage that love within the community.

And, and, and within, uh, what you're doing there in, in, in, in Cordon and, um, and being

able to use it to create these, these, uh, micro locations is, is awesome.

Like I have forwarded your podcast to, to more people as I just cast this vision of, hey,

church online needs to grow up.

Church online needs to start birthing physical, you know, locations.

I, I, I truly believe that the model that you guys are doing for church is the model of where

we're going to be in, in five to 10 years.

I think broadcast campuses will get bigger, but I also think that they're going to get

smaller in the process.

And, and, and so, you know, I look at some of the mega churches, um, uh, saddleback out

in California, elevation out in, uh, the Carolinas, you know, they're utilizing the same model where

they're having hundreds of, of micro locations, watch parties, house churches, digital groups,

you know, like of this, where they're utilizing church online to birth, um, physical locations

around.

And so, uh, well done.

The thing that I love is that you're a small church and you figured out how to do it.

Uh, and when everybody told, you know, you just kept doing it and got leadership to buy

in and, uh, like just, um, I, I love, and it's the reason why I want to talk to you lead

pastor.

I love your church so much.

I want to learn more.

I want to learn everything I can about it.

So that that's coming up soon, but I want to land the plane on this.

I want, I want one more story.

I want one story that's like, this is the greatest thing that's ever happened at your

specific camp, uh, specific campus load location.

Uh, no pressure though, but I'm sure you got something that's like awesome.

So awesome.

Way to jump up, Brad.

Give him a chance first.

Well, the first thing comes to mind and it's probably, yeah, for both of us, there was a

guy that, uh, just a face in the crowd came up to me after the service and said, uh, I really

need your church's address.

And I'm thinking, what?

Why would you, he's like, I need to start tithing.

And to me that immediately said, he's a member of our church.

He's taken it so seriously that he, he needs to, and he still does that.

Dude, 10 bucks a month and he makes like 10 cents an hour and he, wait, so there's a

prisoner.

Just to put this in contact, there's literally a convict right now who tithes 10 bucks a month

to first capital Christian.

That's right.

And he, he was super excited, super enthusiastic about doing it.

We didn't, we did not pitch that idea.

We've never talked about tithing.

We do not go there and ask them for money whatsoever.

This guy approached me at the end of the service and wanted to know how he could do that.

And I was blown back by it.

I thought that's the, that's the craziest thing from, you know, in the location we're in to

hear that was completely unexpected.

It was, it was amazing.

It was amazing.

I think the biggest thing for me was, um, we've had some residents that were transferred

to other facilities and those residents have reached out to us to come to the facilities

where they are moved to.

And even the director over at the nursing home where I am talked to us yesterday about writing

us a letter of recommendation to send to some other homes that she knows would need us in

their facilities.

And it's going to put something together and help us with outreach.

That's awesome.

What does that say?

We're touching.

That's all you can do.

And the best part about that, Jeff, is that I had no idea that happened.

So like that's Cindy creating more reach for church anywhere.

And she's a volunteer and it has nothing at all to do with the staff member.

Wow.

That's what I was going to say.

You're going to tell that story?

Yeah, so this is, this is the best, the best story out of church anywhere that I'm aware

of, but I had, there is a, a, uh, a guy who was in prison that, um, first of all, every

time I see him, it's like a family reunion.

Like I, I truly, like he was my friend.

Like I, I, I found myself praying for people by name that I met in prison the other day and

he was one of them.

Um, and he came up to us probably like a month ago, maybe a little longer and said, Hey,

I've noticed that a lot of the gang members don't come to the church anywhere service.

And here's why I think that they don't like that type of music.

And I don't think that they think that they should be in church.

And so what if we did like a hardcore version of church anywhere?

And I was like, okay, what do you have in mind?

And he's like, all right, well, I already got it approved from the chaplain.

Like we're going to make it happen.

I've already got people who are going to volunteer.

Um, and, uh, I've already, I'm just, I just need you to help me with the video.

So all he found, um, former gang members, testimonies on YouTube and through the chaplain,

those were sent to me.

And then, uh, he found specific songs that he wants to, uh, to use.

And those were sent to me.

In the meantime, a guy that watches us online named Mark is in a hardcore Christian rock band.

So August 3rd, he is driving all the way from Missouri with his band for free to record

songs for hardcore Christian church anywhere, um, at first capital.

We're going to produce this, put it all together, and we're going to have a gang specific church

anywhere led by inmates at this prison.

Praise God.

Yeah.

Awesome.

Yeah.

So it's that idea of empowering volunteers who then empower the people at the locations

to become leaders and then creating leaders and leaders and leaders.

Well, that's what happens.

Like when it is funny, like there, there are, there are churches that I've talked with that

and they'll be like, whoa, like, can you do that?

Like we should, we know we need to worry about quality control.

You need to like, maybe we don't want the hardcore, but instead, you know, what, what

you've done is get out of the way.

Hey, you know, let, let the people own this, let the people own the ministry of this and

see what happens.

And all of a sudden you're starting to get these, these pieces together.

Like, and, and the, we didn't really touch on this in the broadcast, but to do church

anywhere well, like it's a collaboration, right?

You can't be at the broadcast, you Tyler, you can't be at the broadcast campus as well

as 16 other micro locations.

You've got to trust and empower the, the Brad's and the Cindy's to, to get out there and to

do this.

And, and, and Brad and Cindy, you know, you've got to, to, to empower your other volunteers

and, and listen to the, to the people that are there.

And all of a sudden you run into a great story like that, where some guy's taken upon him

heart, his own heart for, Hey, like the gang, the people that need Jesus aren't here.

And the thing that's holding them back is the music that's coming out of the broadcast

campus.

No offense, but it just isn't working.

And okay, no offense.

Cause at the end, it's not brand it's gospel.

It's what do we need to do to get them the gospel?

Anything short of sin, you know, quote, um, uh, life church.

Uh, why am I blanking on life church's lead pastor's name?

That's embarrassing.

Thank you.

Quote and crow shell.

Anything short of sin.

Like let's, let's do it.

That's awesome.

What are the chances that a guy that watches us each week online though, is, is a part of

the like good Christian hard rock band that he's like, man, I'll, I would love to help

with that.

So like we've already set a date.

They're going to come in and record 10 songs that we're going to be able to use throughout

all of the next year for hardcore church.

That that's, that's just so awesome.

And then, well, you know, who knows what God's going to do with that?

Because it's amazing when you get to get the one resource and you allow, when you step

back and allow God to move instead of you moving God, um, all of a sudden you see things

moving, uh, a lot quicker and in a lot of ways that you never anticipated.

Tyler, last question.

How long have you been doing church anywhere?

Uh, like physical locations.

When did the first one get promoted?

Two years?

March last year.

Oh yeah.

Just a little over a year.

15.

Okay.

So in 15 months, 16 months from recording, this is, this is June.

So 16, 17 months, you've got 16 locations.

You've literally launched one location per month.

Uh, yeah.

I mean, a lot of them happen quicker on average, on average, it'd be one a month.

And our goal is 20 by 20.

So 20 by the end of 2020.

Well done.

Awesome.

I love this.

I, I just, man, I don't even, I didn't even know what to say.

This has been a great interview.

By the way, seriously, if you have questions on, um, First Capital and like their model and

how it works, just knowing Tyler, I'm sure he'd be more than happy to have some of those

conversations online so you can hit him up.

Uh, Tyler, what's your, what's your Facebook right now?

Just, I think it's just Tyler saying some, I think.

Tyler saying he doesn't even know.

We'll include it in the show notes.

Just click there.

It'll be great.

You can, you can hit me up online as well.

And, and I'll, uh, I'll point you his way, but this has been great.

Uh, Cindy, Brad, Tyler, man, thanks for joining us.

And next episode, uh, we're going to have Tyler back and talking with Randy Kirk, lead pastor

there at First Capital.

It's going to be awesome.

Uh, from, from, uh, Tyler and the crowd.

Uh, my name is Jeff.

Thank you very much for joining us today.

And we'll see you next time here at the Church Digital Podcast.

Y'all have a good day.