EP005: David Urzi & Defining the Online Pastor

Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Church Digital Podcast. My name is Jeff Reed, and once again,

I am glad that you are joining us today. Here on the Church Digital, we talk a lot about church

online and really focus upon the ministry opportunities, the discipleship, the production,

the different parts of what it takes to make church online happen each week. And so I'm joined

once again here by Ray DeArmas, our guest host here at the Church Digital. Ray's online pastor

from Christ Fellowship. Ray, you want to say hey to everybody? So good to be with you again. I hope

everybody's well. Awesome. And we've got a guest here today, David Erzie, who is with Cape First

Church. And Dave, man, why don't you just tell us a little bit about Cape First and the ministry and

what exactly you do up there? Because I know it's a long, long list. So we are a multi-site church

about halfway in between St. Louis, Missouri and Memphis, Tennessee. So somewhat what you would

call rural. We're a town of about 50,000 or so. We've got four locations, two in that direct city and

then two in outlying areas about 30 miles in each direction. And so multi-site church, few thousand

people on the weekends. And I came on board here really just to help out. My wife works here. And so

I was kind of behind the scenes just helping out here and there. And then decided, hey, I'm going

to come online and help this online thing. And realized there was a whole lot more than just

church online. That's what the leadership wanted me to do is, hey, fix church online. And then I

realized, hey, we've got a whole lot more to fix besides just what happens via computer on a Sunday

morning. The previous guy before me had kind of just launched every different way of church online,

YouTube, Facebook, church online platform. And so it was like, okay, we're doing a ton of stuff

really poorly. Let's do one thing really well. And so for years, I've been involved in church online

through Seacoast Church and other avenues. And so when I came here, I'm really the last few months

having to prove my theories correct or prove them wrong and restart. And so we have completely torn

everything down, like no Facebook Live, no YouTube Live, going straight to chop. Even we were broadcasting

multiple services. Now we're just doing one. Like this is, let's go back to one service. Let's do it

well. Let's get the right volunteers in place. Let's coach them. Let's train them. And then let's go back.

Let's grow a step at a time. And so that's a little bit of what I do. In addition to, I oversee the

construction facilities. We're in a remodel. We're in a $3.2 million expansion. We're doing a lot of

different stuff. I do some stuff with staffing. And so I get to wear a lot of different hats. And so my

title here is communications director. So that's really how we narrow it down is what happens in

the worship center. The auditorium on a Sunday falls under our creative pastor. And then anything

outside of that, basically from the lobby to the end of the earth, falls under me. He is, what are we

saying? And I am, how are we saying it? And so he gets, he's saying, hey, this is what the sermon says.

This is what the worship set list says. And I'm saying, okay, now that we've said it, how are we

saying it to the world? And so that's a little bit about what I get to do. That's great. I've never

met a communications director that's in charge of a $3.2 million construction project. But hey,

we'll go ahead and pretend. Communications directors out there who are listening to this

broadcaster, like, thank God, that's not my responsibility. Yeah, man. And, and what's

interesting is, and we find this so much in church online, right? Like the online pastor is always

online pastor, plus something else. Like it's an online pastor plus worship or online pastor plus

students or because, you know, anybody who deals with students understands technology and but in our

online or plus creative and different things. And so, yeah, there's always different, like I started as a

production guy slash online, and kind of grew from there. Ray was, Ray, like, what are some of the

responsibilities that you've carried in addition to, to be an online pastor? So originally, I launched one

of our physical locations, as I was coming into the role with church online. And Jeff, you were there for

that entire transition help and lead me through it, which was great. And it was a challenge because I was

for sure managing to what felt like two different campuses. But at the same time, it was the entire

church overall, and that I was overseeing one physical location. But at the same time, I was responsible

for, for something that the entire church body interacts with. So in a way, and I'm sure this is

something that we're going to unearth a lot more. As Dave Adamson talked about the Omni Channel,

I became the entire church's campus pastor in kind of a way because everybody started to recognize

me and I and it became something through which I started having to manage and pastor everybody in

that kind of sense. Or, as is the case in so many options, people started complaining to me about a

tool that was just one of the many things that I oversaw, whether it was working for them, or it

wasn't working for them. And it became a heavy responsibility and caring in that kind of way. And so

for those of you out there who are carrying multiple roles, and at the same time, you're carrying church

online, believe me, we hear, we hear you, we understand you. And in many ways, we're still carrying a lot of

that because even though I'm still, I'm primarily focused on church online, I'm also overseeing all

digital tools at our church, which is just a rapidly, rapidly expanding thing. And so we hear

you and we feel you as far as how a lot of that goes. Yeah. And that was my role when I joined at

Seacoast as online pastor. I was, Jeff, we were talking on the phone a few weeks ago and I mentioned

how there's, maybe we should take a poll, but I'm guessing there's maybe 20 churches in America that have

a full-time online pastor that that's all they do. Like, I feel like I'm being generous saying

20 because I mean, and I mean like literally that's all you do. You wake up on Monday morning and that's

all you do all week till the next Sunday. And so that's what I came on board at Seacoast as, is like

literally this is all you do church online. And even within less than six months, we hired a, we were

able to work the budget out where we hired an online service pastor where it was, his role was

facilitating the services. And it freed me up to also do a physical location, just like Ray, where I provided

pastoral oversight for church online, but the online service pastor, he was the one that pastored those

people during the live broadcast. Wow. That's, that's an interesting concept. I like that. So what we want

to talk about today, and we've used the word online pastor, online campus pastor, throw in online director,

you know, something like that. We want to talk about what exactly do these people do? And actually

like for me, when, when I'm looking at like outside social media, outside emails, I can't tell you how

many emails I've gotten from people saying, Hey, do you have like a job profile for an online pastor?

Actually Ray, God bless you. I've shared your job profile with probably a dozen churches

because yours is like, you know, I helped write it and I'm like, yeah, this is the only one that

I've got. So here, and you know, I've made some notes and I've blogged about it just to throw it

out there. But like, that's the, people are like, what exactly do these online campus pastors? What

exactly does an online pastor do? And so I wanted to kind of unpack that a little bit, which is why I

brought these two online pastors together to, to wrestle in this space. What, what's effective,

what's effective ministry? What, what's not, what are, what are things that, that we actually do in

these spaces to, to pastor people virtually. And so, and David, let's, let's just pick up exactly where

you, you left off of. So you were online pastor, but you had someone that you were an online service

pastor who was more responsible for like the, the weekend stuff, but you were oversight and

responsible during the week. Like, how did you set that up? That, that's something I've never really

heard before. Okay. So first would be how I came into that role is when I was interviewing with

Pastor Josh Luratt and the crew at Seacoast, when they said, Hey, we really want you on the bus.

This is a seat that we have. What, what do you think? And I said, well, I've never done, I've done a

little bit in church online. I kind of get it. Like, what do you think? And I was like, but at the end

of the day, I'm not an IT guy. I was like, I'm not a tech guy at all. Like people think I can fix their

phone and computers, but a lot of it is just like trial and error. Like seeing, like, I don't actually

know how to hook up servers and run IT equipment. That's just not my gift. And Pastor Josh, I'll

never forget it. We were sitting at a restaurant. He looked at me and he goes, that's okay. We have

those people's input, those people in place. We need a pastor. And so I'm a pastor first, IT tech

guy second. And so everything that I've ever done in church online, it comes from a pastor's heart

first. And if you're not a pastor first, that's okay. You might be the church online guy and you're

an IT guy first. That's okay. You just got to find those people that complement your strengths.

And so we had a great IT team at Seacoast that was able to, I would say, hey, I want to do this in

church online. How do we do it? And they would help me with the tech side of it. And so basically,

what do we do all week? The short, because I still get that question, just like you, Jeff,

people ask me all the time, what does an online pastor do? And I always respond with, okay,

if you're a pastor and you're overseeing a campus, what do you do all week? You're talking

to people, you're meeting with people, you're finding out people are in the hospital and you're

seeing how you can pastor them through that. You're finding out someone's daughter just got

admitted to the hospital and you're figuring out how you can get someone there to visit with

them. And you found out someone passed away and how can you pastor their family? I was like,

I'm doing all of that virtually. Like I'm finding out someone 60 miles away, their daughter just went

into the hospital. So now I'm saying, okay, do I need to drive or do we have a member that lives a

little bit closer? That's maybe a life group leader that, or a high capacity volunteer that I can trust

to go minister to them. And so that's the pastor side of it. And then the other side is, hey,

are the notes ready. Uh, we, we actually scaled back from you version. I know a lot of people are

using you version notes, nothing against them at all. Great product. Uh, we just found that we could

do notes through our app. And if people are giving through our app, like let's make the app a one-stop

shop for everything. Um, and so it's, it's updating the notes and, and making sure every tool that people

use, like what Ray said earlier of it becomes this tool that everybody in the church is using. And all

of a sudden you are everyone's pastor. It's making sure those tools are ready for the weekend so that

everybody experiencing them, uh, will experience them at an excellent level. Uh, I tried updating our

app a few days ago, a few weeks ago, and I did it on a Tuesday afternoon into Wednesday afternoon. I knew

it was going to take me a full day or a day and a half. So I was like, well, I'm going to do it like

Tuesday to Wednesday afternoon when nobody's using the app. No joke within a couple hours, I had three

emails of people telling me the app isn't working right. The Bible reading plan is off. The dates

are wrong. And I'm like, I'm trying to fit, like I was trying to make it better. And I thought no one

was using it. I was completely wrong. Tons of people were using it even during the week. And so

you're making sure those it's, it was the same thing they're using on Sundays. I had no idea they

were using it on a Tuesday afternoon at three o'clock. Yeah, that's good. And it's, it's funny

how that works. Isn't it David? Because you know, here it is. It's not that you think that, and a lot

of people I think assume that, you know, first of all, especially for lay people, like overcoming the,

hey, what do you do besides Sunday is kind of a leap. And then amongst pastors is, okay, so what do

you do if you're not preparing a sermon? If you're not, it's almost like the same conversation I had at

first with just even becoming a physical location campus pastor. Okay, so you're not teaching. So what

else are you doing? And I think what a lot of people don't realize is how much ministry and how much

logistical work there is that actually goes into this. Yeah. And we're actually, so a little bit

of background on Cape first of where I am. We have a pastor who's about to celebrate his 30th

anniversary. He's in his early 60s, mid 60s. And we've, when next year will be our 100th year as a

church. And nothing against him, but his staffing has typically been pastor heavy, because that's the way

most people through the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, even maybe early 2000s. It was very pastor heavy, like the

pastor carries the load of the church. You preach every sermon, you're visiting hospitals, you're doing

the, you're doing the funerals, the, the weddings, the baby dedications. And whereas now we're seeing a

trend of you have support staff that can go and visit and you have campus pastors that can minister to

these people too. And so even since, since I've come on board and my wife has come on board, we've hired

two extra facilities, people, three extra front, not extra there, they were needed, uh, three more

front office administration staff, uh, because all of these so much day-to-day logistical duties were

weighing down our pastors. Whereas like, let's free them up to do ministry. Cause there is so much stuff.

And nobody had just sat down and said, Hey, what are our pastors doing every day? And what can we take

off their plate? And so once we were able to look at that on paper, we're able to say, Hey, we need to,

we need to get some more support staff in here.

Mm-hmm. And let me, let me dig into something. Yeah. Let me dig into something here, David. One of the

things that you mentioned was as, as online pastor, like you get a phone call or you get an email or a

Facebook message. I would get Facebook messages like crazy, 60 miles away. Somebody's in the hospital

like walk in. You've, you've never met this person, physical space. It's, it's always been,

you know, through virtual walk me through a scenario like that. Like, like, tell me that story, what it's

like to go be pastor for somebody in a different city that you've really never had like a physical

interaction with. What's it like to be that pastor?

I'll tell you two situations. One, a very serious one, one, a not as serious one, still serious to

that family. Uh, one was a lady about three hours away. Um, I got a message one day. She said,

can't talk right now. Really bummed out. Just lost our child just before birth. Uh, and so

made miscarriages are no fun. My wife and I have had one, but the later it goes, the closer you get to

that nine months, it just, it's, it's harder and harder. Um, and they were, they were right on the

verge of that. And so, um, they're three or so hours away up in the mountains. And I was like, man,

I don't know when I can get to them. Just, I actually had newborn twins at the time. And I was

like, I felt for them. I knew exactly where they were at, uh, emotionally. And I was just like,

gosh, I want to be there, but I just, I can't. So I was able to call one of our campus pastors

that was in a, about a 40 mile driving distance to them. And I was able to continue email conversation.

She didn't want to talk on the phone yet. Cause she was very bummed out. Um, and I said, Hey,

I want to connect you with, uh, with this guy. He's one of our campus pastors at a location closer to

you. I would love for you guys to sit down and talk. And so it was like, boom, we had someone in

our organization right there, uh, ready to go to help them and pastor them. And it was pastoring

them through the grieving process. And then, Hey, we're going to have a little family. We're not

going to have a huge funeral, but Hey, let's do something for the family and, and celebrate the

life of what could have been, um, that was in a womb for eight months. And, um, and let's be there

for them and pastor them. Uh, and they were viewed on online. Um, and then the less dramatic one, um,

would be, we had a volunteer, uh, who was remote. They were about four hours, but they were one of

my remote volunteers that served at church online. Uh, and she called me one day. She said, Hey,

my son out in Denver, we were on the East coast. She's like, my son out in Denver was in a car

accident and my health. I can't get out to him. What do we do? How can I want someone to pray with

him? Um, and so thankfully we're a part of our association of related churches. I got on there

searched. I said to find who was the closest our church to that hospital, made a phone call to that

pastor. And I said, Hey, here's what we've got. Here's, here's what's going on. I said, can you help

me in any way? Can you go to that hospital and pray with him? And he's like, man, I'm out of state

right now. I'm out preaching somewhere, but will you call this guy? And he gave me the name of

another pastor. And that pastor was able to go and pray, take a selfie with him, send it back to

me. I sent it over to the mother and said, Hey, just want to let you know that Jeff, uh, that was

the guy's name. Jeff is there praying with your son. Uh, your son says, Hey, he said he's doing all

right. He's a little bruised up. He'll be there for a couple more days. And they were of course in

communication to the mom and son. Uh, but just reiterating, Hey, he's doing all right.

And, uh, of course she was over the moon. I mean, how, how could you not be in love with that

situation that God orchestrated? Yeah. Uh, and so to answer your question, to be a pastor in that

situation is saying, Hey, what can I do? And if I can't do something, my self will go through these

relationships that God has given me. And so that's why networking is just so important.

That's good. That's really good, David. It's, it's powerful how, how you were able to take a

situation like that with pastoral care and just make it so practical in terms of leveraging your

resources. How often do you find that you've got to think outside of the box in order to help minister

to people? Uh, and, and how different plans may not always look the same. How often really depends

on, I mean, it's like a church of 200 people versus a church of 2000 people. You're going to have way

more care for more people. Um, and so right now in this season where I've scaled down a lot of stuff

is it's maybe once a week where I'll get a message and I have to think through, okay, how are we going

to pastor this person? Uh, whereas other seasons of ministry, it's been, uh, once a day, twice a day,

whereas like, okay, we're constantly thinking on our toes. And luckily with a larger organization,

a lot of those, you can quickly funnel off into other ministries of, oh, Hey, this is a single mom.

Great. We have, we have an entire ministry for single moms. Let's, let's put this straight to them.

Um, cause I don't want to get too deep into a rabbit hole, but, um, that

me is a part of casting vision for church online is not, we are our own ministry center, but Hey,

if we have someone that just got out of prison, uh, and they need pastoring, I'm not going to be

the first person. What I'm going to go to is our outreach pastor that deals with those guys on a

daily basis that actually runs a home that the church owns that four men live in that just graduated

a drug rehabilitation program. I want to say, Hey, we got this guy fresh out of prison, plug him into

the life of these other four guys and let them have their own life group and you lead it. And so it's,

it's not like that works trying to pastor everybody as we funnel them in when that pastor sees, oh my

gosh, this guy came through church online and now he's a part of the physical life of the church. Like

this church online thing really works. Like this is a thing and it helps grow that vision in everyone's

eyes. It's so great that you talk about the handoff because the handoff for us here at Christ

fellowship in terms of if they, if we can get them into a physical campus that's nearby, how much that

just expands and celebrates the winds overall for what church online is. And it doesn't make it seem like

it's an online ministry, which is kind of a term that I fight around here. I'm trying to help people

understand, no, this is a way that people gather and interact. You know, this is a way for people to

experience the body of Christ. It's not just a ministry of the church. This is the church overall.

Yeah.

Yeah. And it goes back to that whole, and we've talked about this previously, but it's, it's the online to

offline relationships, right? So the, the, the lessons that we learned, the gospel that we hear

online, that we experienced through church online, maybe that we experienced listening to a, to a sermon

archive or, or something on social media that, that impacts us in the real world. James 1 22. Don't just

hear, be hearers of the word online, do what it says in the real world. And so as a result,

you know, being able to connect the, the virtual with the physical and blur those lines,

you know, and, and we mentioned earlier, Ray, I think you did like, I just, I want to do a whole

episode on this idea of Omnichannel and, and, and how there is this, this grade, and we'll put it in

the show notes, the link to Dave Amundson. And I talked about it on my blog, but this idea that

it's not just a single message that's done in a single space, whether it's virtual or whether it's

sermon archive or, and it's not this idea that you don't just go and hear it in that one and people

like live in that one environment. It's that it's all holistically involved in that. Well, that also

impacts not just processing of a sermon, but that also impacts the ministry lives that our church has.

And our church now needs to wrestle with, and we're talking about what does pastoral care look like

virtually? And sometimes that's, you know, driving 60 miles up the road, or it's calling friends and

friends of friends and networking to find somebody. Well, I mean, that same conversation can be had,

you know, what is, what does it look like to disciple somebody? What does it look like to,

you know, to, to care for somebody in a different way? And suddenly, like, it's,

it's a much more holistic view of church when church is actually doing the biblical community

that a discipleship angle. And the pastor kind of being the person to, to lead into that, to speak

into that is so important, so important. But there's a lot of vision, like that doesn't, that doesn't

happen overnight, right? Like, I can remember, I'll just tell a horror story. Actually, yeah, I will tell

horror story. Like we were, we were trying to figure out Christ Fellowship, Miami, I'll call them out. It's,

it's fine. But we were trying to figure out, because they have this, this annual, it's quarterly,

it's a movement called Love Miami. And that's where we get out there, serving the neighborhood,

serving the communities, and, and, you know, make a difference for Christ. Do, do things like on

schools, in, in parks, just loving on, loving on the community in the name of Christ. And so,

like, I wanted to get the, the, some of our, our, our church online people involved. I had,

like, groups in, in Key West, groups in New York, kind of scattered around the country. And I was

trying to figure out how to, like, get them to do something. But Love Miami itself was, was dated.

Like, it's, it's limited to that Miami 305-786 zip code. And, and I remember, it was in a meeting

with the entire staff. And it was, the idea was thrown out, maybe a little premature. What if,

what if we changed Love Miami to Love Your City? And, and it was, it was, it was a, it was a bad job

of casting vision. And like, the response in that environment wasn't, wasn't really good. It was

kind of bad and awkward. And, and, and flaming bullets started flying all over the place. You

can't change Love Miami, Love Miami. We've been doing this for 20, 30 years, like blah, blah, blah, blah,

blah, blah, blah, all this stuff. And I, as the online pastor, I'm like, I agree with you. Like, I,

I don't, I don't want to, don't want to do this. So like, there's, how do we have that conversation

where we, we cast vision, where we, we, we empower ministry people. We make them aware of what

online does. This is an example of how online is not done well, how it's not cast vision and it

wasn't received well, but how can it be? Yeah. Yeah. What do you guys think? Dave, what have you

experienced? David, David, you go first. Cause I got some thoughts on this. Go ahead. So I have a

similar horror story I'll tell really quick, Jeff. So, uh, where I was, it's, it's a broadcast video

feed to every campus every Sunday. And then about four times a year, the campus pastor it's campus

pastor Sunday where they speak. And so I came to leadership one day. I said, well, if it's campus

pastor Sunday and I'm the online pastor, should I preach for the online stream? And it was like,

well, of course you wouldn't know. Cause the online pastor and like they kind of put everybody in a

pickle where it was like, well, I'm the online pastor. And, and it was because that,

that audit, that audience, that online congregation was so large. It was like,

do we all of a sudden want to trust this newbie with this many people? Um, so similar horror stories,

flaming, firing darts were flying at me. And so that didn't quite go over as well. And so I think

one thing for me of casting vision for church online is something John Maxwell says, or there's been a few

people that said it is great leaders ask great questions and to cast vision for church online.

You have to ask the staff and ask the members of the church questions about where they stand with

church online. Um, and you're not looking for a doctrinal stance on it, but Hey, if they asked me,

Hey, well, how do you pastor someone on? How do you disciple someone online? Well, how do you think we

should, if you were watching online, how would you want to be discipled? And it's beginning,

begin that thought process in people's minds of saying, getting them in the people's shoes that

are watching online and saying, okay, what would I want if I was there? And it's same thing when I'm

trying to get a new volunteer to serve at church online, when they're like, well, what do I write

in the chat? Well, if you were sitting at home and your computer, what would you want someone to say to

you? Well, I would want them to welcome. And, and so, and it's just getting them to, cause they've,

they've never thought of themselves as being in those shoes of just helping them walk a mile in

that person's shoes that's watching online. And so for me, the casting vision, same way with the staff

of, Hey, if you were a shut in and couldn't, couldn't get to church physically, uh, what would

you want someone to do? You would want more than just a stream. You would want a live person

coming on camera, welcoming you. You would want an opportunity to give financially. You would want

an opportunity to sit in a Bible study class other than, uh, just the Sunday morning worship

experience. Yeah, that's good, David. It's so true. And I'm glad that you mentioned all those avenues.

It's funny because you know, that exact instance that you mentioned, you know, we've, we've still

tussling with that kind of thing. And I've even had experience communicating here at CF, but it still

becomes a bit of an issue. And that's just, since we're all given full disclosure here, you know,

and I love my doing a lot of great innovative things, but on top of that, you know, what I found,

which helps out a whole lot is telling stories of all the wins and keeping the stories in front

of leadership. Nowadays, if folks are leading comments on, you know, just things to pray for,

or things that, that they're so grateful for, for church online, I'm constantly taking screenshots

of it and immediately firing it off to leadership just to keep it in their view of this is why we do

what we do. And this is on good days and on bad days, right? Matter if it's on Sundays where church

online is awesome, or if man, we got issues with X, Y, and Z doesn't matter. Just constantly keeping

the vision in front of leadership. And I'm even at the point now where by God's grace, we've got other

leaders in our church, other campus pastors, or other kids directors or different folks that are

starting to tell, they're getting stories and feedback. And so now I'm even like, Hey, listen,

you know, for everyone, I'll buy you a cup of Starbucks for everyone that you pass on the

leadership because it's worth it because it continues to keep the vision forward in everybody's

eyes of one, how important this is. And then two, the fact that this isn't a segmented audience of

the church. This is the church overall. This is that omni channel. This is everybody together

who takes part in this, whether for whatever reason they're sick or they're passing it on to their

loved ones or something else. And then finally, just the practicality of it. It's important to

tell the stories of how people are being affected by this. And so if you're out there, please keep

your stories in front of your leadership. Let them know about these folks because they need to know

that people are being ministered to in this way.

Yeah, straight up. Those two things, just copy and paste that. Asking the right questions,

guiding people, that's almost like it's a coaching one-on-one strategy. People have the answers that

they need. They're already ingrained in that. And so it's coaching to kind of walk them through it.

And it's telling stories and celebrating those things. And the big wins and the small wins,

like there's nothing too big or too small to celebrate. And I think, I'm not sure if we've

talked about it on the podcast, but I can remember we had a microlocation. We had several microlocations

up in New York, but we had a house church. And they sent me a video. They texted it to me of a guy

getting baptized. And Ray knows this video. But it was awesome. And it was literally the guys

getting baptized in a bathtub and in a New York apartment. So the bathroom's already like, I don't

know, three by three. The tub's like half the space. There's like five people crammed in this.

And the guy who was doing the dunking, I'm not saying he wasn't smart, but he was baptizing

towards putting the head towards where the, where the faucet knob is instead of doing it the other

way. And so we're watching this video and it's like this close to this guy's head getting

conked. And in response from the staff on this video, like half the people were like, this is the

coolest thing I've ever seen. We need to do this more. And the other people were like, you can't do

that. You can't baptize somebody in a bathtub. He almost, you know, almost banged his head.

And it's like, well, it already happened. You know, let's, let's, let's celebrate it. Let's not

worry about the naysayers. Let's, let's make it what it is. So throw those stories, throw those

celebrations out there. But what's interesting, and actually I had this conversation with an online

pastor. And what's interesting, this is an online pastor who's an IT guy, you know, dual hat. So I

had this conversation like a month ago. And because I asked him, I was like, how's your ministry going?

And he said, Jeff, I'm at this really interesting state right now where we've gone through the season

of casting vision. And so now the vision is bought in. They've seen the success of it.

Now leadership is expecting stuff from us. It's, it's no longer a philosophical thing. Will it work

for this particular church? It's, it's grounded in the reality of now there's goals. Now there's

expectations and we have to like deliver on these things. As online pastors, you know, Ray, I know

you deal a lot with that. I'm sure David as, as well. Like how do we, how do we wrestle with,

with the goals and the expectations of this? What does that look like?

Go ahead, Ray. You want to go first?

Sure. Expectations. I think we're still kind of wrestling through some of the expectations as

people struggle through what to measure. And, you know, ultimately, and I know this is kind

of pithy, but we measure what matters, um, in all organizations. And so it's very easy

to fall in love with online attendance in terms of what it is and how fast it can grow

and some of that stuff. And so I can understand why everybody right off the bat would look at

this and say, well, look how many people, you know, are watching us. I mean, man, this is

incredible. And not really kind of digging in, in terms of the actual community and what

that can mean as far as expectations. But the reality of this is, and Jeff, you and I have

talked about this is that, you know, um, your online strategy really should be, it should

resemble what's going on in your physical locations at your church. If you're really

trying to see real discipleship and real growth happen in the life of believers, then things

like online groups, if you're a small groups deal, or if even if you're a Sunday school,

host Sunday school, you know, here in a chat room, like we are, you know, like don't be

limited by those things. But really your same discipleship strategy that would be for

somebody who showed up for a physical location should exist for those who show up to your

online campus. And if you're really measuring engagement and what matters, then you have

to keep the community piece up front and your expectations should be really just unlimited

by the potential of that and what that could look like.

Yeah. For me coming into this new role, uh, I walked in and it was like thousands of people

watching every single week and so many people and all this. And I sat down, I looked at all

the numbers and I was like, it's just not there. Like I'm not seeing the data that the previous

guy was seeing. And yeah, there's thousands, but the watch time was minuscule. And I was like,

that's not a viewer at three seconds. They didn't watch service even at a minute and a half. They,

they were not there long enough. And this goes back to what do we count as a viewer and what's

where do we draw the line? And so for me, it has been scaling it all the way back, like reporting the

lowest number possible, um, to, to manage those expectations of, I had to be honest with leadership

where I was like, Hey, the numbers that you're getting are not accurate numbers. Um, I know they

sound really sexy, but they're just, they're just not it. Like there's no hard data to back up other

than one line of text that says this many people clicked on your stream while it was live. That's

literally the only number. I don't have connect cards to back it up. I don't have people in life

groups to back it up. I don't even have people that have given their life to Christ to back it up. It

is literally, that is the only piece of data that I have. And so making sure you have an entire

picture of the ministry, uh, giving that to it because so quickly with a lot of lead pastors and

this isn't a slam on anyone. It's just your natural reaction is, okay, if we have church online,

how many people are watching? Well, that's a great question, but you would never say that in youth

ministry of, Oh, how many teens are showing up? That is important, but Hey, how many teens got

saved this year? How many teens got baptized? How many teens went to camp? How many teens are in

life group? You ask all of those questions. It's the same thing in church online. You've got to say

how many people are doing this? How many people have jumped in the chat? How many people have filled

out a connect card? How many people have contacted us saying, Hey, pray for me. I consider you my church

home. Uh, all of those things, those are all metrics that you've got to put together a whole

package because that's what, that's what you need leadership to weigh an expectation on, not just,

Hey, how many people clicked on the feed? Cause we know with technology that can, you hit the right

Google ad word and all of a sudden you're 10,000 people in the next week you're at two. Well,

that looks terrible on your resume. And so giving an entire holistic picture to leadership, that's,

that's my way of how you would manage an expectation better. That's good. Yeah. We're actually

going to be, that's so good, David, man. We're going to be talking more about this, um, in the

next podcast, we've got, uh, Jason Morris on, uh, and we're going to be talking about the discipleship

pathway of, of, of church online. And now when it, when it really comes down to it, and we've already

recorded the podcast and I don't want to give away his stuff, but I was going to say now that I know

that he's going to be on there completely disregard everything I've said. Jason Morris is the king

of truly looking at people as more than just a viewer. Uh, so if you want to know what it looks

like to have someone as a part of your church that just happens to be digital, just, just ignore what

I said, listen to Jason. Yeah, he is. That's why literally why we had him on. It was, it was so

good. And I want you guys to hear that when we roll it out in a couple of weeks and it's in the

next, it's literally the next episode, but it's the, it's this idea of we measure the wrong thing.

And you're right. Those view stats, Facebook live lies. You still need to, I still believe you need

to do it. Uh, because exposure and getting people connected is, is awesome. They, they see it,

but are those people viable? Um, are those people connected into ministry is Facebook's a great front

door to something else, but we shouldn't be measuring, we shouldn't be basing our success

on Facebook. If you'd be basing our success on whatever that next step in the discipleship pathway

is. And if you're like, what's a discipleship pathway, just like finish this episode, go to

the next one. It's going to roll out in two weeks and it's going to be awesome. Uh, but so, but that,

that's the challenge, right? Is, is that, you know, I can remember like every time I would turn in my

report, uh, and I, and that the leadership would be like, this is awesome. You got so many people.

I was like, Hey, don't be excited because of this number. Don't be excited because of views.

Be excited that we got hundreds of people in, in online small groups, be excited that we're,

we're launching physical, like micro locations and those things. And like, that's where, um,

that's where true ministry, true discipleship like comes into play. Right.

Yeah. I, a few weeks ago, go ahead. A few weeks ago in staff meeting. So when I first got here,

it was all viewers, no connection of just click on to watch. I couldn't get it. I couldn't get

anybody in live prayer. I couldn't get anybody to email me back. It was literally like, I want to

watch and no one talked to me. And on, I mean, it was weeks and months of just stoking the fire,

trying to get something going on one Sunday, two people clicked live prayer. And so I walked into

staff meeting Tuesday morning and I was like, two people clicked live prayer. And I was like,

what? And I was like, you don't understand. It has been a nightmare trying to get people to connect

online. And it's not a nightmare. It was, I was, it's a joy to try and get people to connect, but

it was just like pulling. And I was like, two people clicked it. Like that's, they took a next

step. Whether, whether, whether you think it's the next step or not, it is. They literally took a next

step with the church saying, I trust you to know who I am and know what I'm going through. Pray with

me. And that was, that was my win. I wrote on that. I'm still riding on it. You know, I, and David,

it's, it's so good. I was super appreciative of, and we took down a video of this, Jeff,

you saw, um, when we went through this where, um, and you talked about one baptism where I took

somebody through our one-on-one that, and we discovered that she wasn't baptized, but she was

a police officer, but she lived close to a campus, but because of her schedule, she couldn't do it.

Man, when I baptized her and when we recorded that, and when we were able to celebrate that,

just to celebrate, once again, to celebrate what matters and to push that out there,

um, what that does for the rest of your church. And then our leadership actually took that and used it

for an offering moment. And all of a sudden it illuminated even a lot of people in our

congregation. Celebrate it, celebrate it, celebrate it. Man, look at what can happen. Look at what's

possible. Two people clicking on for live prayer, people engaging in online experiences, taking those

next steps in faith. That is powerful stuff. That's great. I love it.

So like, what's, what's the next step? So like you've, and let's, let's unpack. So I want to go

back, David, to your, like, you're in, you're in a season of drought. That may be overstating, but

like, you don't have engagement. By the way, side note, like even, even the live prayer and the chat

stuff, you do this in circles. It's, it's huge, but it's a small percentage of people that engage.

Like, traditionally speaking, as near as I can tell, 10 to 15% of people, when I ask this question,

more often than not, it's 10 to 15% of people will engage in those chats. And so it's, it's very

discouraging, even if we're trying to base our success on that, because people don't, don't readily,

don't openly connect to that. And sometimes it's weeks or months. I had a guy tell me once, he's like,

yeah, I did it for 18 months. He did a year and a half of chat before he really saw any, any engagement

click on. And so like, what are some things pastorally that, that we can do? Uh, what type

of environments can we create to, to drive people? Cause the, the biggest challenge in church online

isn't getting your service. Um, and it's not even creating the, the ministry, like the, the small

groups and the pastoral piece. It's discovering who the people are that are watching in isolation

and getting them connected to it. It's that, it's that virtual gap in between service and

viable ministry. So like, you know, David, I'm just curious, like you were in a season

of, of drought. You've maybe made up, maybe a little turn. You've had some experience in

the past. Like what have you done to kind of connect those, connect the bridge there?

So one of them has been being just very intentional with the chat of every time I post on Facebook

of, Hey, we're about to go live. I tell people, Hey, jump in the chat, say, hi, tell me where

you're watching from. Just continually telling them every time, Hey, tell me who it is. So

now I'm starting to see every Sunday, I'm seeing those same names in the chat. I'm seeing those

people that have created a profile and they're coming back, logging in as the same person, not

just typing in a nickname, but they're coming in. And of course, a lot of this references church

online platform. Uh, for those of you that use it, you'll probably know what we're talking about. For

those of you that don't, you probably have something similar. Um, but they're actually,

they're, they're logging in. And so the last few weeks is I've been starting direct messages with

them or private messages where I'm saying, Hey, Amanda, I'm so glad that you're here. Uh, would love

to, would love to talk some more. Here's my email, shoot me an email where I'm, I'm beginning those

steps of, okay. Cause my goal, honestly, uh, between you, all of us, my goal is that they're

going to serve on at church online. They they're watching every week. Hey, you be a host. Like

this is your next step. And so, but I know I can't come out the gate with that because six

weeks ago, they weren't even willing to get on the chat. And now they're willing to get

on and say, hi, it's Amanda again. And, and I'm able to say, Hey, so glad to see you again.

And you got anybody watching with you. Um, and so it's those, it's those small incremental

steps where, Hey, just because somebody chat as chatting for the first time, Hey, that might

not be the time to throw out a connect card. Like I know you want it. I do. I want their

information. I want to know who they are, but it's like knowing that, Hey, they've been here

three weeks in a row. I can see, I can see they're there. They're now sending six messages

per service instead of just one when they first get on or, Hey, we had a whole conversation

then. And it, it's, it's taking those wins and remembering them, but not necessarily trying

to hit a home run right off the bat. Um, and so that's, what's been a key for me is just

taking slow methodical steps of like, Hey, I know we're going to be back next Wednesday.

I mean, should the Lord Terry, I know, I know she's probably going to be back and, and yeah,

there's some risk. Maybe she finds a new church and I never see her again. Of course

that can happen, but it's saying, you know what? This person has been faithful. We would

do it the same way in a physical campus. Like when someone shows up for the first time, Hey,

welcome. My name is David. You want to be a life group leader? Like we wouldn't do that

to a guest. It's Hey, we're so glad you're here. How long have you been coming here? Hey,

have you come over to our blue room? Let's, let's get you some, let's get you a Bible. Do

you have a Bible at home? We want, we want you to have one of those. Um, or Hey,

we're reading through the Bible together. Uh, if you've never read the Bible, here's

a great place to start. And the same slow process that we would take with a physical

person, Hey, we're taking out with physical with digital. Hey, we're so glad you're in

the chat today. Would, would you fill out a connect card and taking those slow steps?

It's good. Yeah. It's important to walk before you run in a lot of those senses. I mean,

absolutely. And especially since David, I imagine, you know, you guys are, are utilizing that same

way that you would for the person who attended for the first time, you're bringing that same

strategy. They're online, right? I mean, Hey, we have the Bible reading plan right on the app,

go in and click on it. That's, that's the biggest thing we do together as a church. Other than life

groups is we read through the Bible together. And then our Sunday morning services, the message

comes out of the reading that you would have read the previous week. Um, and so I get to tell people

that of, Hey, Hey, read the Bible with us this week. Cause next Sunday, we're going to preach

about something that you're going to read this week. And then they realize, Oh wait, it's like

this every week, which is awesome. I love that we get, we do it that way. Um, and so it's, it's fun.

Yeah. We get to do the same thing digitally as physically. We went longer than I wanted, but this

has been a really good conversation. It seems to be a common phrase right now.

Podcast has gone longer than it was supposed to, but, uh, it's, it's good material. So man,

David, thanks for sharing with us. Um, any, any closing thoughts, 20 seconds. Mike is yours.

David, what do you got? I say this to every online pastor. I'll say it to all of you guys.

Don't be afraid to start small. If you feel like you have, if you feel like everything is

overwhelming, go back to what has God called us to do. Who can change the world? Everybody,

everybody in Church Online can change the world, but who can change your community? You can. Don't be

afraid to draw back and say, okay, God, what can we do in this community through online medium to change

our city, to then change our County, to then change our state, to then change the world. Don't feel like

you have to change the world. Change your community through Church Online. Amen. That's good stuff, man.

Jesus changed the world with, uh, and I'm going to overstate here, but three disciples,

three people that he was close to and 12 followers. And so like I too, I've always said, I'd rather have

15 people that were sold out in love with a cause than something larger than that. So man, thank you

very much, David. That was, that was phenomenal. Ray, 20 seconds in closing, anything on your end?

Love learning from you, David. It's a phenomenal thing to all of you guys wearing two hats. Keep

hope alive. This is a season in time. Keep, keep checking on. It's good stuff.

Hey, yeah. So it's been the Church Digital Podcast. Like I mentioned, next up is going to be Jason

Morris and it's literally, it's just going to run right off where we left off and go into the next

one. So definitely catch that podcast. But for David, for, for Ray, for myself, Jeff, check out the

show notes. We'll have more information on there. We'll see you next time here on the Church

Digital Podcast. Thanks everybody.