EP002: Rey DeArmas and Six Things You Wish Pastors Knew About Church Online

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

us today. It's episode two. We've made it through episode one. Now we're on number two.

We made it.

Yes, we have made it. Life is good. Hey, so in the future, we will have guests and different

people from across Church Online, across the country, kind of jumping on the podcast and

sharing and dialoguing through this. But really with this episode, once again, we wanted to

bring in. Ray is our co-host. Ray D'Armas is in here from Christ Fellowship Miami. He's

the online pastor there. And we really just wanted to dialogue a little bit more about us,

let you get to know who we are and what we're about here doing this Church Digital Podcast.

And so, hey, Ray, man, you just want to tell them a little bit about yourself?

It's so great to be back with you guys. I'm very excited just about what God is doing both

with what we're doing here at Church Online over at Christ Fellowship. God has really opened

doors and expanded in a lot of ways, just not just the type of people that we're able to

reach, but really even just the kind of community that we're able to create and the people that

we're able to engage. It's just fascinating how we're helping just bridge the gap between

the physical and the digital space. And God has given us a lot of great things here. But

on the personal side, I'm thrilled to tell you guys about my wife, my kids, got a wonderful

wife, Lauren, got two beautiful girls. And God has just blessed us with an overflowing

ministry. And we're glad to share our heart and whatever we can with you guys. And so

glad to be here with Jeff. And we have a lot of fun things to share with you today.

That's awesome. Way to totally call me out for not talking about my kids. But you, you go

ahead and doing that and bragging about how awesome they are.

I had to take my shot out there, man. I got to get my romance points where I can.

Very good. I talked about my kids in episode one. So we'll just ignore that and just keep moving

for what's next. And I'm sure knowing my kids, they're going to come up down the road. Hey,

well, I'm excited about this episode today. It says we're going to unpack some things. And so

Ray and I were dialoguing, trying to figure out, hey, what do we want to talk about in the space?

How best can we can encourage people out there that are, that are considering doing church online,

that are, that are maybe starting to do church online, maybe just trying to kick the tires and

figure out what to go, where to go, how to do this thing. And so here's the topic that we wanted to

come up with. And so Ray and I sat down and we figured out six things that we wish pastors knew

about church online. And so the, the goal here is we're talking through these, or maybe these are

things that these are conversation starters that you can have with, with your, with your pastors,

that your church, your leadership teams, you know, whoever's kind of over that, or, or maybe you are

one of these guys and you're trying to figure out how to connect with an online audience that you're

a pastor. You're trying to figure out how to engage more in that, in that field. And so collectively

between Ray and I, we've got a lot of years of experience and in church ministry, as well as

on the digital side. And our takeaway from that are these six items, six points that we wish pastors

would know about church online. And so I'll go ahead and read them. And then Ray, we can just dialogue

and kind of work through it. Go for it. Number one, the people online are part of your church.

The people online are part of your church. Hey Ray, you want to, you want to tackle that?

Yeah, they are. First of all, yes, they are. They are very much part of your church. You know,

in episode one, Jeff talked about three different door environments through which people engage. He

talked about the front door, which is kind of like your first time guests and your outsiders and people

who are just looking in. He talked about the side door, which are your folks who attend on a regular

basis, or maybe they consider your home, your church, their home church. And for whatever reason,

the digital space is where they engage when they can't be there physically in the room. And then

there's the people that this is their only means of connecting. Now in all, in all three cases,

okay, they are your responsibility as a shepherd. And, you know, just like the person who comes in as a

first time guest in a physical environment, well, they may never come back. They're just an Easter

or Christmas only person. Okay. But they're your responsibility. Okay. They are your responsibility,

both in that moment. And even over the hall, you got to do everything you can to engage you to engage

them and to get them engaged in your discipleship process. And so whether they're engaging your

church purely online, whether they're attending once in a while and engaging the rest of the time

online, or whether they're on the outside looking in, I'm telling you, they are under your care.

They are part of your church. It's a big deal.

Yeah, that that's so good. You know, it was funny. I was talking about this with a pastor recently,

and I was like, church online isn't fake news. And he looked at me and he's like, what? And I was like,

hey, like, we don't sit around and make this up. Like, and so, you know, right. So if somebody,

let's, let's, let's hone in here and let's, let's break it down specifically. Somebody out there right

now has a person, has a, has a pastor who doesn't know this. How can that person out there really

convey, hey, we're still part of the church online as part of the church? What steps do they need to

do? How do they approach that conversation? From, from what I've seen over time and, and, you know,

we've grown through this process here at Christ Fellowship. And Jeff, you're a part of that because

we asked a lot of these questions early on and we didn't know necessarily, we stumbled through a lot

of these spaces. And so, you know, if you're a lead pastor and you're listening to this, you're like,

well, you guys, you know, I don't even know how you arrived at this thing. Just know that we

struggled with all the same theological questions and with all the struggles and with all the love

and heartache that you did as well. And what worked for us was just gathering stories, just pure

stories of not just people coming to know Christ, but people growing in Christ over time. People

engaging in serving, people engaging in giving, people engaging in a lot of the same spiritual

disciplines that we would ask them to engage in a physical space happening online. These are

phenomenal things that we're doing. And it's not just tools. These aren't just tools that we're

developing. The tools are part of it, but really it's a means of a growing community and a growing

spiritual community in which people are taking real, tangible, physical, spiritual steps. Now,

they may not be in the room with you, but they are growing spiritually. And so you have to keep this

in mind. And pastor, if you're out there and you're struggling with this, I just want to encourage you.

Okay. It's okay to struggle with it, but you must ask some hard questions about what you're going to do

for that individual that comes to know Christ by either listening to your podcast, by consuming your

content in some kind of way, by listening to your podcast, by watching your message. You got to ask

what's their next step. And if you already come up with step one, you're already giving them a

discipleship pathway. Yeah, that's awesome. Hey, and it's important here to remember that

analytics lie. And so we're going to talk about this a lot, but you know, I'm a pastor at a small

church. I got 250 people that come and I got 2000 views on Facebook live. Reality of this guys,

those Facebook live views are based on three seconds. A person's literally scrolling through the phone,

watching the pop up in their newsfeed and they pause to sneeze and keep scrolling. That person is through

here. I'm not saying that the person who sneezes while scrolling through Facebook live is part of

your church, but it's, it's important to really hone in who the important people are, who the people

who are connected to your church are. And so, and by Ray, what Ray's saying with the stories is so

important, but the numbers like lie. They give the appearance that things are much grander and much

bigger when really embrace the smallness of it, embrace the individualism of these people that are

and, and solve their problems to getting them plugged in, getting them connected, getting them

discipled, like solve it on the small level, create those systems so that it will grow with you as,

as your ministry in the physical space, as well as in the digital and the virtual space, as they both

grow together. That's right. And that interestingly segues very well into number two, what works in

physical locations does not always work online. And so I'll dig into this one a little bit. And I've,

I have produced, I've been, I've produced thousands of church services. I have been production director

for, for, for churches for years. I've been weekend experience director, creative director.

And so like, I've been danced all around this environment and have seen it from, from many

different angles. And what's important is, is that you have someone who stops and pauses and says,

is this going to work in context of online? Yeah. So like, I'm going to give you a, um, uh, just

several examples of, Hey, you know what? If, um, if the announcements that you're doing

in the service are all aimed towards serving locally in your community, that doesn't mean much

for the guy who's watching your service on the other side of the country. Does not take it even a

step further? If you've, and Ray was talking about the front door, side door, uh, digital door. If

you've got somebody who is, um, maybe sick at home with a sick kid and not in the service they're

watching, but the only way to sign up for your local service project this, the, in the coming week

is in the lobby. That doesn't do anything for them either. And so it's, it's, it's making sure

that you've got systems where people that want to engage with your church to be part of your

discipleship process, to be, uh, serving, to be part of a small group, to be part of, of giving,

making sure that you've got systems and you're communicating to those people's how, how to do

that. You know, just even in my experience, like, um, as, as online pastors, sometimes the application

point would make a lot of sense in the, in the room of, of a message. Like, you know,

the pastors landing the plane has done this really creative thing where you write down the name of

people that you're praying for, that you want to witness to, and you come up and you nail it on the

cross and, and all this, this elaborate, you know, all it gives chills in the room and everybody's

excited and you can just feel the Holy spirit, um, you know, coming down. But as a viewer online,

there, there's a level of, of disconnect to that. Absolutely. And so trying to figure out,

make sure not that you can't do the creative stuff for the room because you don't want online to

hold back the room, but don't forget them or turn them into the redheaded stepchild,

uh, start to kind of create some of those environments, um, or figure out how they can be

part of it, what they need to do to get those same application and touch points with that.

Yeah. And I think the big deal there, Jeff is, is just representation, right? Like, like acknowledgement

of, of, of the fact that they exist, you know? So if you are going to do those big creative

elements, maybe designing something that's unique to them or for them, um, you know, we're going to

talk to Jay Cranda eventually. I love what Jay does for communion, you know, um, before Saddleback

does communion online, you know, he lets them know in advance, he tells them the materials to buy. He,

he, you know, gives them a list of, of instructions to kind of take part in so that they can be part of

the experience as well. That's so crucial and so important. And, you know, many people would look at

communion and say, well, that that's unique to a physical space. Well, no, no, no. Yeah. If,

if you make it that way, or if you design it that way, but if you design it in such a way that it can

be inclusive of your people online, you can have something special.

Yeah. And so, and I want to really hone in on this in a later episode, but like the power

of online, this is what this was, this got cut off, off my list. This would be my number seven. I'll

just go and tease it and we'll, we'll do it later. The power of online isn't in our pastors. The power

of church online is in the people, you know, and using church line to empower the people with that.

But that is a much richer conversation. So that's a tease for something that'll be coming up here very

soon. Okay. Hey, let's, let's get into number three. Just because this scales well, doesn't mean we

should do church online cheap, right? You want to, you want to tackle, tackle that one?

Yeah. And, and mind you, none of it's funny is Jeff and I were putting this list, you know,

together. We wanted to make sure that everybody just did none of this are, none of these are like

shots at like, uh, at any organization we ever worked with or anything like this. Really, this is just what

we've, what we've encountered as we talk to different people who engage these spaces and

have to do this. And so church online does scale. Well, listen, you can reach the masses with church

online and you can do it for pennies on the dollar. You know, you can either go and rent out a huge

amphitheater and, and have like a bunch of people come to your amphitheater and spend, you know,

hundreds of thousands of dollars on, on a big event, or you can leverage church online to hit people

consistently every week and do and hit a lot of the same numbers of people over time and really engage them

in a lot of different meaningful spaces. Now, keeping that in mind, um, my heart breaks sometimes when I've seen

massive churches, I mean, churches with unlimited resources and then the, the content that they're putting

out there online, the, uh, the way that they're showcasing their services, uh, and mind you, that's on the

content side, but then even on the community side, the fact that they're not resourcing it well, the fact that

they're not staffing it with volunteers or even putting any kind of effort or emphasis towards

this, uh, it shows very little value for what's going on there. Now I can't speak into what all

those churches do and what's their aim, but I can tell you that those people, uh, whether you value

them or not, uh, it's still being communicated across the board. And so, you know, if you've got a

church online experience and in the room is just a phenomenal mix, but online, I mean, your audio is

terrible. Uh, you're getting bad camera shots. Uh, the camera falls over and hits the floor and

nobody picks it up for half the service. There's all sorts of things going on there. And so, yes,

this scales very well. It doesn't take much to get up and running, but if you keep it bad, or if you

continue to just do it on the cheap, uh, over time, you're going to get called out on it. And that's

not necessarily something that's good. Yeah. And so it's, it's doing it, you know,

not on the cheap, making the investments, you know, built going with what works on the small

and expanding. And we'll, we talked with David Erzie, uh, with Cape first in a future episode.

And he really pours into this idea of start small, create systems that work on the small

and then build off of that, build off of the success of, of the small, rather than going

huge and trying to, um, you know, maintain off of that. And so allow your, um, and honestly,

and I've had this conversation before where it's like, you allow the staff to grow your leadership

to grow with you. Confession in my life. And I've talked about this actually on Jay's, uh,

Cranda's YouTube channel, uh, in an interview with him about a year ago where I, I, I ran,

you know, and quickly I found myself literally at the end of the dock, uh, the metaphysical dock

getting ready to jump in the water and nobody's behind me because I hadn't brought the leadership

team and other staff behind me. I carried the weight of everything on my shoulders and then turned around

and nobody understood the basics. And so allowing it to scale effectively is, is very important in

context of, of online. And so man, Ray, Hey, thanks for, for sharing that one. Let's get into number four.

Number four, church online does not replace meeting in physical locations.

Shocker. This is the shocker. Church online does not replace meeting in, in physical locations. And

so let me breathe on this a little bit and then, and then I'll hand it over. Now there are, listen,

and, and somebody is going to be like, but what about that, that virtual church, uh, VR church that

I saw on Wired Magazine. Okay, look, here's, and, and, and we're going to hopefully get DJ Soto

on this podcast. Uh, I've, you know, had lots of conversations with him. And so there are exceptions

to this. And I know people who are trying to create digital church in, in context of, uh,

exclusively online. I'm not going to lie. Um, I've thought about it myself. Uh, but at, at the end of

the day, and we see this a lot, like, and this has been, uh, it was actually in a USA Today article. Uh,

you can check out the church.digital. We'll link to it in the show notes, but I've, I've blogged on

this, that students are lonelier today than five years ago. That's right. Something like, uh, I think

it was seniors, high school seniors reported 13% more high school students, seniors reported being

lonely now than even like five years ago. Yeah. And a lot of it equated down to this idea of social

media. They're, they're engaging people, but they're not relationally connecting with them.

And so the one thing that I really want to hone in on, and while the point of point of my blog was

like, Hey, church online, um, this is why we shouldn't do church on. This is what people have

said. People are lonely. Technology isn't physical community. Like, and I would actually say, no,

that's why you do church online. That's right. Engage with people and pull them into physical

community. The end game of church online is not to be a self-contained ecosystem. Uh, and, and VR

church and what I know of DJ Soto, he believes the same thing, you know, and we'll talk about this idea

of online to offline, where the message that we hear online impacts our offline world. If the only place

where I wear my Christian hat, okay, I don't have a Christian hat, but if I did have a Christian hat,

if the only place that I wore that was in virtual environments, if my friends who knew me in real

life, didn't know me as a Christian, that doesn't make me a very good Christian, does it? And so it's,

and so it's, it's living it not only in the, in the virtual world, because the same thing is said

virtually as it is in the physical. And so church online does not replace the physical world. It's,

it's not that what, what I believe it is. It's meant to compliment it and to help it help the physical

and the virtual. And so we're going to be talking a lot. Hey, and Ray, you want to just like give like

a 30 second overview omni channel? Cause you're so good. I know you're passionate about that.

You know, when folks talk to me about this, I always give the personal story of the fact that

my wife and I were long distance in our relationship for about a year, year and a half while we were

dating. And you know, this is like the introduction of FaceTime, right? And so we had the benefit of

that. We didn't have to do letters. We didn't have to just, you know, be there on the phone.

We were able to engage face to face, but if you were to ask me, Hey, which is better? My wife next

to me in the room, or at the time, my girlfriend next to me in the room or having her via FaceTime,

I would tell you, I would, I would throw my computer out the window every day of the week.

If you would tell me that I could have her here in the room with me, there's no question about it.

And so the reality is it, because that was our primary means, the only way that we could

meet on a regular basis, face to face, we took advantage of the technology that was given to us

at the time. And so we used it for everything that was worth. Now, in the same way, technology is great.

Technology can, you know, can allow for, you know, community and for relationship to take place.

It's a great platform. However, it, we're still physical beings. We're still tangible beings.

We need to be around in the physical presence of other people. And we can't sacrifice that. We

can't say that church online is going to go ahead and take over for that for folks. No, no, no, no. We

still believe in scripture where it says that we should not forsake the gathering together of the

saints. And sure, church online is a medium for that, but it's not a replacement for physical spaces

for that. And so for folks out there who are expecting us to say the opposite, you know, no,

we don't believe that either. You know, we believe that this is a way to take, to transfer people into

community. And, and we've seen that happen over and over again online.

That's, that's awesome. Well said. So, um, let's roll to number five. Cause we're, we are hammering

these things through and I want to spend some time on this one. Cause this is, this is a go

right here. Um, effective church, number five, if you're keeping score at home, effective church

online is more than just content. Effective church online is more than just content. Let me say this

one thing. And then Ray, I'm going to give it to you. Cause I know Ray is, is like the content

guy. There is a difference, uh, pastor. There is a difference church online person between digital

communications and caught digital mission, caught digital discipleship. Digital communications is

essentially marketing and communicating a message to a group of people. Uh, digital mission, digital

discipleship is utilizing technology to look at the world through a digital mission field lens

to the end of where you want to disciple them. And so if you as a church believe that discipleship

cannot happen virtually, it can only happen within a physical space, uh, your church campus,

an office, a home. If you can only do discipleship there, then what you really want to do is, is

digital communication. But if you're, if you're interested in taking a step further and you want

to impact and change lives virtually, not just within the physical realm, then you need to also not only

look at it as digital communication, but look at ways that you can disciple and help people grow deeper

in their faith in the virtual realm. So Ray, you want to dig into some of that? Yeah. You know,

for so long, um, we've seen, and we've heard great things about pastors and what takes place,

not just on Sunday morning, but in, in spaces like Sunday schools or small groups. And the thing that

we've all struggled with is, um, is there's a difference between content and then community.

And I think that's, that's a hard thing for all church leaders to wrestle with content and community

in terms of what changes lives and how the two are supposed to work in relationship together.

Now listen, uh, church leaders, the worship music and the, the sermon, they are very spiritual items.

Uh, they're very important to our spiritual walk, but that's still content at the end of the day

and content without community doesn't necessarily transform lives. And so I think it was Ed Stetzer.

I think I'm going to be paraphrasing Stetzer when he talked about how, you know, we want our people

to be missional, but we're building our churches like theaters in that even people who are sitting in

the room, you know, we've got one guy on stage and the majority of the people are there watching him

enact his spiritual gift. Meanwhile, everybody else is a consumer. Everybody else in the room is a

consumer of watching one person enact their spiritual gift. And so effective church online and effective

church ministry in general, isn't just, Hey, we're going to watch content. You got to give people

handles. Okay. It's got to be teaching and content that leads somewhere that gives them an action step

that challenges them to take it to that next level. And then you have to provide a discipleship pathway

through which people can experience community, grow in relationship with others, take part in

spiritual disciplines that can happen both in social media and in person. So if you're thinking,

Oh, well, that's just church online where that happens. No, that's not true. Even in our physical

church spaces, we can be great about content distribution, but terrible about effective discipleship

if we're not careful.

So true. That was golden. Thank you for that. That was Ed Stetzer.

Ed Stetzer. We'll find it in the show notes. I'll try to link to it. I know I've heard him say

that several times in messages. I'm willing to bet he's got it in writing somewhere. I don't know

if he pulled it from a book. So, but yeah, we'll, we'll dig into that and we'll link to it in the

show notes. And so it's, it's, you have to be very careful if all we're doing is creating content.

And sometimes honestly, like we may, we may think we're doing more than we are, or maybe we need to

just stop and analyze if what we're doing is, is actually what we mean to do, what we set out to do.

But I would say this, like church online, and we will, we'll talk about this later. So I'll church

online is a mirror for the, for the physical church. And so if you're, if you're angry and you're

frustrated with your church online, that all it's doing is just generating content.

Um, maybe pause and look and see, well, is that happening at the, at our physical church? Is

that happening? And we just haven't, um, or because what happens online drips from the

physical. And so sometimes the, um, the, the actual church online is just mirroring the, the values

that you, that you're showing intentionally, or, or even sometimes unintentionally. So pastor that's

out there, pause, look, evaluate, maybe ask around, get input from other people that are outside.

And because the, the end game of our, of our church biblically is to go and make disciples

and, and, and yes, you know, content is a way to do it. Uh, but if content, you know, is,

is not the end church online is not the end. It's the means to creating a discipleship model in place.

So pastors be, be aware of that. So let's, let's land the plane here. Number six, church online is a

reflection of our church strategy. Well, I kind of let the cat out of the bag there. Uh, church online

is a reflection of our church strategy. A little bit there about talking about the mirror, but, but

that does, that does hone in true that, um, you cannot do something, um, separate from the church.

We've seen this time and time again, we'll bring these guys on the podcast to really unpack it

and break it down. But what, what happens when you do that is, is the, you, uh, you create two

different hemispheres and they don't talk to each other and there's, there's self implosion. It's,

it's inevitable that that'll happen. And so utilizing your church online to create,

a, a unified structure from your campus, from your church is vital. Ray, you want to unpack some of

this? Yeah. It's just so important. You know, um, now, now we're going on over like 20 years since

our former executive pastor released his book, simple church, right? Like it's been, it's been a

good while at this point. Um, maybe, maybe not quite 20 just yet, but, but it's one of those things

where, you know, we need effective and effective church strategy in order to make disciples. And

it has to be clear. It has to be concise and it has to be something that even makes sense doing in

digital spaces as well, because so many people are engaging in your church, not just in a physical

space, but also in a digital space. And so you need to be sure and have flexible options for them

because so many people are living in two environments anyways, uh, here, uh, where I'm at in my context,

Miami is a very transient city. And so people are in and out of town all the time. In fact,

even though they call Miami home, the reality is, is they may do life between two or three different

cities, uh, just in a given week or in a given month. And more and more, because our world is

getting smaller, thanks to advanced travel, uh, thanks to advancements in communication,

and even in energy and every other area that we're seeing in tech. Um, right now, people are able to

live in multiple physical spaces, but they still want to engage in that same spiritual space. They

still want to have their same church home. And so whatever effective strategy you're utilizing,

uh, at your church in a physical space, you need to make sure and have a plan as to how it's going

to reflect in your digital space as well, because church online, it is a reflection of your church

strategy. Uh, you know, we, we talk a lot around here in my, in Christ fellowship about if we reach

Miami, we really have the capability of reaching the world because so many people are from so many

different spaces, but Miami is not the only unique space like this anymore. New York, LA, Chicago,

all these cities are becoming, uh, these great hubs of international communication. And even not far

from us, Orlando, where Mickey mouse calls his home, it's more and more becoming this international

melting pot where people from different countries are coming together and they're calling it their

home community, but they don't just stay in Orlando. They go about and around. And so for churches over

there, it's becoming crucial for them to have a reflective strategy for church online that also

reflects what they do in their physical spaces. That's awesome. By the way, uh, Ray was, when you

referenced executive pastor, he's referencing Eric Geiger, uh, current, uh, was it Mariners, uh,

Mariners church out Eric, all the way out there at Mariners. They're so lucky to have you as a

senior pastor. Yes, yes, yes, they are. So, and Eric is, uh, I'm working details right now, uh,

with, uh, Eric joining the podcast. So he'll be on at some point. Uh, he wrote up a follow-up on

the Omni channel that was very good. And so I'm looking forward, uh, to having, having Ray and him on to,

to unpack that even more so and to help us apply it, uh, to our churches today. Uh, but it's,

it's a, it's not an either or it's an and. And so I think that's, that's really the, uh, where this

is going to land. Like it's not, uh, online church or physical church. It's a both in the organization

who can interweave themselves, um, to the point where it's the same, whether it's virtual or physical,

man, those organizations are going to win. Uh, and those are the ones that are going to be,

uh, ready for what the future holds as, as God continues to unravel and show this digital mission

field that's open for us in the future. And so be, be ready, be flexible. Remember, it's not just

creating content and having our content available online. It's creating a discipleship system so that

you're utilizing online to impact lives, to help people grow deeper in their faith, regardless of

where they're located, whether that's next door to your church or whether that's on in another

hemisphere. At the end of the day, we are, we are, as the church are called to create disciples

of these people. And, and, and rather than saying, that's not my responsibility church, it's time to pick

it up and to utilize technology in this tool to just reach out. You know, it's, and it's funny,

like I was talking in this conversation, I want to, want to close on this the other day or close on

this today, but I had this conversation the other day with a pastor and he just made the statement,

could you imagine what, what Billy Graham would do with the internet? Oh my gosh. Yeah. And he's

like, could you imagine what Paul would do with the internet? And it's like, and suddenly it's,

it's in my, my joke, you know, in passing was, yeah, but, but we do Fortnite. I mean, come on, come on.

We got, we got gaming. There's always like yelling at each other on Facebook. Like we've got the power

to do so much with it. Absolutely. And instead we're, we're, we're squandering it on things that

aren't, aren't kingdom impacting. So, Hey, pastor chalk that up as number seven. And we're going to close

with that. Um, the power of the internet, uh, for the kingdom is, is ready and ripe and ready to go.

It's just a matter of catching that vision and, and running with it. Hey, um, we're going to close

up the podcast right here. Uh, Hey, church leader, church volunteer, church staff person who's out

there fighting this battle. Um, continue fighting, uh, testimony on my side. There has been seasons of

my life where I felt so isolated and alone because nobody out there saw what I saw. Nobody saw

purpose and vision behind this. And literally I felt like I was alone. I felt like it was weird. I was

weird. And I felt like I was wrong because nobody else saw it. And so I want to take a moment here

and just encourage you. You're not alone. You're not, well, you may be weird, but in this context,

you're not weird. Um, and you're not wrong. It's, it's helping getting leadership, getting people

to see, to understand the vitalness of this. And we here with the church digital, we want to help

create, uh, resources to encourage, to inspire, um, and to, to help you have these conversations. So

check out the website, the church.digital, the church.digital for more of that. Uh, and you can

find this, uh, on social media. Ray is, uh, where are you on social media?

At Ray DeArmas, R-E-Y, uh, for Ray, R-E-Y-D-E-A-R-M-A-S. You can catch me on almost every social

media platform. Come talk with me. Awesome. And I'm Deerfedge, uh, as in like Jeff Reed backwards.

And that's weird. So you may want to check the show notes to get that, but you can find either

one of us, uh, there and man, we would love to dialogue. Uh, we'd love to share with you. And

more than that, like, we just want to hear your story. So hit us up and let's talk it through.

Uh, but for Ray, uh, my name is Jeff and it has been a pleasure to be with you guys here on the

church digital podcast. And we will see you with the next episode, uh, featuring Jay Cranda from

saddleback, which is going to be awesome. So see you guys then.