EP001: Rey DeArmas and the Strength of Church Online

Hey, everybody, welcome to the Church Digital Podcast.

My name is Jeff Reed, and I am glad that you are here.

There's a lot of different options, a lot of different voices out there with church

podcasts and technology podcasts, and I just counted it an honor that you took the time

to download this, our first episode, diving into the Church Digital or the Church Online.

So I'm joined today by guest host Ray D'Armas, who's the online pastor over at Christ Fellowship

in Miami.

Hey, Ray, man, let's just take a moment, introduce yourself, and just a little bit about what

you do over there at Christ Fellowship.

Hey, everyone.

This is Ray D'Armas, and you're going to catch me a lot here on this podcast.

We love Church Online.

In fact, Jeff and I worked together here at Church Online here.

Jeff was the pioneer a lot for our church and did a lot to help establish a lot of the systems

that we still utilize to this day.

And funny enough, Jeff, my story with Church Online actually dates back to when Lauren and

I got married, married with two kids.

And here's kind of where it all comes back to for me.

So back in 2009, May of 2009, we're coming up on our 10-year anniversary now.

It's hard to believe that.

But back in May of 2009, my wife had family in Brazil, and she had family in Kansas City

that couldn't make it over to Miami where we were getting married.

And so she was wrecked in tears because a lot of this happened like two days before we were

getting married.

And she was freaking out.

And man, my grandmother is going to miss it.

My aunts and uncles are going to miss it.

And this is just kind of horrid for me.

And so me wanting to have a big win for my upcoming bride said, I think I have a solution.

At the time, I was a specialist at the Apple store, and I'd seen technology just kind of coming

together, and I said, we can make something happen for this.

And so I got out my trusty MacBook.

The church where we were getting married in had Wi-Fi.

And so I got my camcorder, and I connected it to my MacBook.

And I kind of duct taped and wired my way to broadcasting our wedding onto the internet,

posted it on our wedding page, and sent it to all of them so that they could see us get married.

That's awesome.

Live and in the moment.

So what year was that?

This was 2009.

2009, 10 years ago, live streaming his own wedding.

Now, the real question is, was it FireWire 400 or USB?

It was FireWire 400.

I am proud to say it was FireWire 400.

Wow.

Yeah, a track enthusiast here, you know.

Yeah, and that's about as techie as I want to get with these broadcasts.

There will be time with the podcast where we'll talk more on the technology side.

But, you know, really the core of what we're doing here with Church Online is not just in the broadcast,

but it's in the discipleship piece.

Right.

And so, Ray, utilizing that technology, and this is a poor man's example,

but utilizing the technology to broadcast the wedding, it wasn't the technology piece.

It was to allow family members from long distance away to be part of the community.

Exactly.

That aspect of what was happening in that.

And so, and that's just a small picture, a little bit of how Church Online breaks down those barriers

and hopefully not just engages or allows for one-way communication,

but two-way communication where it's coming back and people are able to be part of the community

of what's happening at the church.

So, yeah, I've got a long, fun record myself with Church Online and digital technology.

I had this idea, and this is crazy, and when I tell this story, people are like, you're nuts,

but I had this idea like 20 years ago.

What would it look like if Church worked online?

But back when I graduated college in 99 and 2000, it was like real networks,

which you don't even hear of anymore, and Microsoft front page, and a lot of this,

the technology and the pieces really just weren't in play.

And it's been fun to see over the years how the church has grown and how technology has expanded.

And the church has adopted somewhat to it.

There have always been forerunners and people who lead the way, like Life.Church, obviously,

and Grunewald and what has been able to do, not only defining church online,

but the YouVersion with the Bible.

And that's really true.

When you look at Christian innovators, what he's been able to produce and do things through Life.Church

has been phenomenal.

But there have been others along the way.

And so we'll be talking in a podcast relatively soon with Jay Cranda, who's the online pastor over at Saddleback.

And one of the things that I love about Saddleback, and Jay is being the online pastor,

he'll tell you, he's like, yeah, I operate more like a small groups pastor than anything else.

It's not so much what we're doing with our services, but it's how we're connecting people in community.

Jay actually is the first guy who told me that people connect online,

they connect to community before they connect to Christ.

And it's backwards in the physical environments.

We usually see people connect to Christ before they'll join a small group.

They'll get saved in a service.

And then you try to get them into a small group.

What Jay's experienced over at Saddleback is the exact opposite.

And so there's really some interesting parallels.

But the end game for a lot of it has been, at least in my lifespan,

has been trying to create discipleship opportunities, create community,

give an opportunity for people to grow deeper in their faith.

And even to equip them to evangelize or to share.

And all of a sudden now I'm using really big churchy words.

But the heart of Church Online, and Ray, you and I have talked about this a lot,

the heart of Church Online is not broadcasting a single message out for millions of people to hear.

Billy Graham did that back in the 90s.

And talk about another Christian innovator.

Billy did some phenomenal stuff.

And literally one of his messages that was on the mission of the gospel was broadcast across the U.S.,

was bounced off of satellites, was translated into different languages across the globe.

One message literally hit a billion people.

Experts can show it, mark it off that one man's message was heard simultaneously by a billion different people across the globe.

That's amazing.

I mean, think about that.

Think about that impact.

And we have more power.

I mean, at this point, because it's different, we're not just broadcasting a single message back.

But now we have the opportunity to hear and listen to, I don't want to say billions,

but tons of people and tons of information coming back in where we can dialogue different than what Billy ever could.

Go ahead.

Speak into that because a reoccurring theme, as we talk to some of these Church Online guys from around the United States,

pastors and different stuff, stewardship keeps coming up in terms of God gifted us this technology.

We get to grow up in the information era.

We get to bring the gospel to this, and we're accountable.

Can you give some insight as to your thoughts and views on what you think about that?

Listening to people is paramount to us being able to share with them.

Actually, I ran across an old stat just recently, and if you go on to thechurch.digit, we'll put it in the show notes.

There's a blog that was blogged on this.

But it's basically to the crux of two-thirds of people will not come to your church service.

They just don't want to come.

They don't believe.

They're not interested.

You invite them to church.

They're not going to.

So the coffee is not going to change their mind?

No.

The coffee, more haze, less haze, more light, less light, more dynamic sermon series, more marketing.

They're just not coming.

And what's interesting is, like I said, LifeWay 2016 ran this study.

66% of people, I believe it was somewhere around that number, aren't coming.

But if you can get people to live the life, if the people that you need to go to church, they need to accept Christ, if they see it in their friends, if they see that their faith is important to them, they'll go.

They'll have that conversation.

And so, you know, for the church, it really comes down to not trying to create the best product and the best service to get people there, but to create disciples who are creating disciples.

And all of a sudden, it's getting our followers, our attenders, our members, use whatever language you want to use, but get them not just to talk the talk, but to walk the walk.

And so if the people who need Christ see that it's important to their friends that faith is important, that Jesus is important, if they see that lived out in their life, they will have the conversation.

But they have to see that lived out in a practical way.

And so by doing that, all of a sudden, like 80% of people will have a conversation about faith.

They won't go to a church service, LifeWay Research.

They won't go to a church service, but they will talk about it if they see in their friend's life that their faith is important to them.

That's quite literally the phrasing on that.

And so now, you know, as a church, we have a huge accountability to train our people on how to get the gospel right, on how to explain who Jesus is, to encourage them to be that front line of evangelism.

Francis Chan, evangelism doesn't happen in our cathedrals or temples anymore.

Evangelism in the future is going to happen in our homes and in our living rooms as it becomes more practical and real.

And so, you know, the accountability for the soul has changed.

In American church in the past, you know, it's been the, bring them in, let me share the gospel.

You know, the pastor standing up and the pastor being the hero of the story.

And for many years, that needed to happen.

Training wasn't in place and education wasn't in place and resources weren't in place to empower people really with the gospel.

But at the end of the day, 2019, we have access to all this stuff.

And more important than any research or any app, we've got the Holy Spirit living in us.

And so the role of the church, I would suggest to be relevant for the future, shifts a little bit here, right?

Where we need to now move away from getting this massive message out there as much as, hey, let's figure out how to empower people with the message of Christ so that they can share their friends.

The hero isn't the pastor anymore.

The hero is the people.

And so through church and swinging back the pendulum, through church online, we now have the opportunity to research, to disciple, to train, to equip people with the gospel so that they can empower others, so that they can share with others, so that they can reach others for Christ.

Can you speak into the fact that a lot of Christians are already using technology like this for forms of discipleship, for growth, for things like this?

I'm thinking of my own father.

My own father is looking on YouTube, you know, for Tim Keller studies or, you know, R.C. Sproul, but then he's sharing that with other people.

Like he's taking these resources and spreading them out, you know, not just for his own benefit, but for the benefit of others.

Can you speak into some of the stuff that you've seen with that too, Jeff?

Like what, how would that work for, how would that work for your dad, Ray?

Like what, what's his motivation when he's kind of sharing some of that and pushing some of those resources out?

You know, the pure motivation comes from, he sees something that's benefited him.

And then he's saying, how can this benefit others?

You know, at this point, my dad's, you know, he's towards like the legacy end.

And so a lot of things that he's looking at aren't just for his, for himself.

So, you know, when he disciples guys, he's constantly on the lookout for resources for them and then following up with them.

So it's like you said, it's not just about the content, but it's about the community aspect of the content after the fact.

It's, hey, watch, watch this, but then let's engage.

Let's, let's converse.

Let's go deeper.

What do you disagree with?

What did you agree with?

What, what worked off of that?

And, and it adds to the conversation.

And this is, you know, uh, an awesome gentleman in his sixties.

We're not talking about like, you know, folks who are in a bleeding edge tech.

We're talking about, uh, you know, older folks who are saying, Hey, I've got this in my pocket.

I've never had a resource through which I can learn from on the fly.

And now I can willingly and easily and for free distribute this with others and, and engage in conversations and spaces that aren't even limited by time.

Because, you know, he can send a guy in a small group, a text message, Hey, did you watch the video?

And that guy will get back to him like three hours later.

Yeah, I caught it.

It was awesome.

No, not yet.

I'm going to, yeah, this is what I thought.

Oh, I thought it was garbage.

Oh, here's what I liked.

And so it's not even limited by, Hey, we have to be in the same space in the same time.

It's like, no, they're growing together over, over a period.

It's a longer journey.

And that I think is, is what's key, uh, because it's discipleship, whether through church line or physical church, like there's, it's a relationship.

It's a two-way conversation where, um, there, there's dialogue.

You're, you're, you're coaching, you're, you're directing, you're helping, you're praying with a specific person or persons.

And so it's, it's not a, um, a one-way conversation where I'm, I'm throwing, um, you know, the, the, the parable, just throwing seeds out there and it's bouncing wherever it's bouncing.

And some of them may, they bounce on, on soft soil, but some of them may be on, on rocky path.

And so the, the, the picture here with the two-way conversation is, is your dialoguing with someone and taking the steps through that.

Your, your dad's example of, of sharing that video and, and going through, you know, WhatsApp or texting or Facebook messenger or whatever, dialoguing through that.

You know, that's, that's a, that's a pure picture of what discipleship looks like in 2007, 2019, right?

Because it's, um, time is difficult.

And so sometimes even sitting down the schedule, Hey, let's have a 30 minute conversation.

Let's have a coffee.

Like it's, it's go, go, go.

And stuff gets lost.

But utilizing the, the, the, the, the, the easeability of technology to have those conversations, to share those resources, to dialogue, to, to, to pray for, uh, to, to encourage through, uh, hard seasons.

That's what the technology does, you know, outside of the church world.

Corporates understand that and has figured out, Hey, let's, let's change our branding and be available through Twitter or through, you know, different things to Facebook, uh, messenger, uh, to, to communicate with, with brands and, and through the church.

Like we need to wrestle with those same things too.

You know, right now, when I look at church online, let me spend the corner here a little bit, but when I look at church online, um, I see a lot of churches that are pushing their services out on Facebook live.

You know, I'm picking on that platform, church online platform, um, is, is awesome as well.

Um, you know, there's, there's YouTube, there's, uh, pair, uh, Periscope, Twitter, whatever.

They're all trying to get their, their videos out there.

And what's interesting is probably guesstimate, probably five to 10,000 churches right now who are broadcasting their church services online.

Earlier, the early last year, late last year, I did some research and this is unscientific, just starting to ask around who's doing this now.

Now, as near as I could tell of those five to 10,000 churches, only 100 churches had some sort of online, small group, online discipleship group, digital group culture in place.

So while five to 10,000 churches were broadcasting their services on a regular base, a very small percentage, I'm doing numbers in my head, maybe it's 2%, actually took the time to create a biblical community in an online context.

Like, so people could grow together and grow deeper in their faith.

Now there's, this opens up lots of different, uh, questions like, well, maybe my church isn't interested in doing, um, uh, like a digital person and trying to reach people who are far away from the location.

Interestingly, North Point, and this was actually just mentioned on a Kerry Newhoff podcast, man, I think late December, 2018, it's like when he was doing his like church trends.

And, and he had on, uh, Brad Lomanek from, um, uh, catalyst and, um, and he had done the, the campus pastor, Clay Scroggins from, uh, or I think he's a lead pastor, Clay Scroggins from, uh, from North Point.

And, and Clay actually dropped the, the, the, the landmine right at the end of the podcast.

It was one of those things that was like Steve Jobs.

Oh, by the way, we're, we're doing this.

And, uh, but it was, it was this line of, yeah, we, we tried, uh, they call it digital groups.

We, we, we did digital groups targeted to our online campus.

The people who only watch online, they launched 10 groups, um, 10 people per group in max capacity filled up in like less than 24 hours.

So the next week they did something different when they marketed the church, the small groups for the physical church, didn't mention it in online context, just aim towards physical.

They launched the, that small group out.

They launched two small groups with 10 people.

Those filled up in a couple hours and they had a 200 person waiting list.

And so the, the moral of the story is that the physical campuses could benefit from doing things digitally.

There were people who could connect better to a, to a digital small group, even though they're involved with the physical church.

And suddenly what we're starting to see through North point is, is these, the, the divider lines between a physical church and an online church are starting to blur.

And it's not so much an online campus as much as it is the online representation of, of church.

What do you think about that, Ray?

You know, so often, um, we try to figure out how online fits into church.

And so, you know, we struggle through, well, there's a campus, there's a ministry, so many different things.

Even within the multi-site movement, part of what I'm looking at and what I'm seeing is that if, if you're really talking about your church as one church in multiple locations, including online, people are viewing it more like Home Depot.

Uh, they don't, they don't see it as I'm going to, you know, in Miami, we've got multiple locations of Home Depot, you know, throughout Miami-Dade County.

And so I always say, I'm going to Home Depot.

I don't say I'm going to the Bird Road location or to the Pinecrest location, or, hey, I'm buying this on HomeDepot.com.

I tell my wife, hey, I got it from Home Depot.

Ray, where did you get that from?

I got it from Home Depot.

And so it doesn't matter which location I visit or, you know, whether I'm buying it through their website or whether I'm showing it up and picking it in person.

The bottom line is that no matter what, I'm filing it under Home Depot.

And in the same way, people are looking at Christ Fellowship the same way.

They consider themselves dedicated to Christ Fellowship, even if they only attend a physical campus, like at a physical brick and mortar location once a month.

But at the same time, they engage in our services and in our online community throughout the month while they're gone or while they're traveling or even while they're just brunching in the city of Miami.

They still consider themselves part of our church.

They still consider themselves bought in.

And I know that may make some church leaders and pastors shudder, oh, once a month, man.

I don't know if I would consider them bought in.

Well, I'm telling you right now, that may or may not be what we consider, but they consider Christ Fellowship being their home church at that point.

They say, man, this is my church.

And they even engage in giving.

They engage in serving.

They engage in community.

That one Sunday a month that they attend might be the week that they serve.

And so they're like, yeah, you know what?

I'm part of a ministry.

And I'm here in person serving.

But the rest of the time, you know what?

I'm engaging in that online community.

But they don't even file it under separate systems.

They're looking at it as Christ Fellowship is my church.

And they don't separate online in physical location.

They're looking at it from one perspective.

And so I think that's a challenge for all of us here in 2019 as we're getting adapted to this new way of being, especially in terms of church.

Yeah, let me let me hit on this.

So there are three different types of people who will watch an online service.

So this there there's this has been dialogued and worked through.

I honestly I forget the first place that I heard it.

It may have been Clay Scroggins a year or so ago.

But the first group of people, you know, let's let's call them the front door.

So these are people that are interested in your physical church service.

But before they actually come, they want to watch a service online.

Maybe they stumble on the website.

Maybe somebody gives them an invite card.

They see something on social media where somebody shares it.

There's an interest that's peaked.

They're brand new, brand new.

Don't know anything about you.

They want to figure out who you are.

If they like your music style, if what clothes do they need to wear?

Like they're going to check you out in an online environment.

Now, the discipleship, that's all of us.

Like if you were moving to a new city, no matter if you're a Christian for 10, 15 years, whatever else, at some point, we're all front door folks.

Like I completely agree with you, Jeff.

Yeah, like I'm trying to find a restaurant.

I was just talking with Ray before he came on the podcast.

I'm trying to find a Cuban restaurant in South Beach because I want to go have a lunch with a guy tomorrow.

And so I'm on I'm on Google.

I'm on Apple Maps.

I'm digging around and there's two different restaurants.

And I'm looking at reviews to see what people thought of that.

This is me trying to find a restaurant to eat at tomorrow with with a guy from out of town.

And so having that web presence, having your online service so that it's reaching that front door person is vital.

But those aren't the only people who are watching.

You know, the second group of people, let's call them side door people.

They are the people who are regularly engaged in the mission and vision of your church.

They're regular attenders.

For whatever reason, they didn't show up for your church service on Sunday, but they're still aware and plugged into what's going on in context of your church.

That's right.

Maybe they got a sick kid at home.

I mean, I've got two kids, eight and 10.

Once a month, my wife's not making a church service on a weekend because sick kids.

I mean, one on one fever happens all the time.

It's just life.

And so as as an example, if maybe it's that, maybe if it's traveling for work, traveling on vacation, working, having to work on a weekend.

You know, and once again, like, I'm not saying this is right.

I'm not saying this is wrong.

I'm just saying it's the reality.

Maybe they just don't want to get their clothes on.

I want to stay at home on the couch for whatever reason.

Rather than looking at this in a negative light church, let's look at a positive light.

There are people who are not engaging with your church physically.

They could have just checked out and said, hey, you know what?

I just I'm not interested.

It's the same thing every week.

I'll just catch up next week.

That's not what these people are.

Coming in online, whether they're watching service, maybe they're watching a sermon on demand during the week, whatever the content is, they're engaging with your church, even though they're not in the in the physical building.

And so those are two, you know, really good options that are that are helping the physical church.

And so even though they're they're engaging with content online, a lot of the ministry often happens in physical spaces.

Yeah.

Now, the third group of people is it's a little different.

And so the third group, let's call them the digital door people.

These are the people that the only door they're ever going to walk through is digitally.

Yeah, that's right.

You know, you know, maybe this is somebody who lives outside of your 20 mile circle of influence.

Maybe they're on the other side of town or city or, you know, somewhere nearby.

Maybe they're on the other side of the state country or maybe they're in another like on the other continent.

Right.

Whatever the reason is, they're not interested in coming into your physical space.

They are looking to your church for spiritual guidance or spiritual direction.

And so this is a completely separate mission field that's open to many churches, but they haven't yet figured out how to to realize it and how to how to grab it and how to move with it.

So you've got these people are going to be talking a lot about this in the in the coming podcasts and episodes and on my blog at the church that digitally you can read a lot on this.

But church, we've got people that are actively involved and actively engaging and are actively looking for spiritual guidance from you.

It's just a matter of whether you want to listen to them and dialogue with them in that.

And that's that right there is a fascinating concept because many churches might look at this and consider this kind of outside of their quote unquote jurisdiction.

And the sad thing about that is, you know, we're all held accountable for what God brings us, whether that's inside our city limits or whether that's inside our digital limits, however they may they may occur.

And what we've come to find both Jeff and I and doing, you know, church online is that there are a lot of folks who for whatever reason cannot access, even though they live within your vicinity, your front door.

They can't. And so digital spaces are their primary spaces.

And so you need to engage them. You need to engage them as much as possible because they need you.

They need you to disciple them. They need you to help take them to that next level.

You are the person that God provided in their life to take that next step with them.

And so the question then becomes, will you answer the calling and engage?

Yeah. Here's a test that I want you to play. It's a game.

And I do this a lot of time when I talk with churches about digitally in context of line online.

If what happens at the online campus in your online service, what happens if somebody gets saved online?

If the answer is, I don't know.

You mean somebody can get saved online, Jeff? That's possible?

Lives can change in context. You know, it's funny.

It's like, if we don't think that lives can change online, then why are we broadcasting our services online?

It doesn't make any sense to.

So we're expecting God to do something with it.

But now we need to say what happens in the physical environments if somebody gets saved.

We need to represent that and do that online.

So whatever your process is for your church, do it online.

Create online so that it's a mirror image of what's happening at your physical church.

It's not an afterthought. It's not a thing that kind of gets swept under the rug.

It's not something that's forgotten. It's not icing on the cake.

It's the virtual execution of what's happening at your church.

And hold your online to your same standard.

You know, if you're meeting with somebody, you're getting plugged into a Next Steps class, you're getting plugged into a discipleship group, do that online.

You know, utilize the technology in place to engage in a conversation and to disciple that person.

And we're going to be talking a lot about that as we talk about we've got a podcast coming up that's going to be awesome where we're talking about a discipleship pathway and what it means to take, you know, an entire church, but at the same time an individual and help that person grow deeper in their faith.

And to help somebody who is far away from God suddenly become close to him utilizing online technology and personal investing in that.

So, listen, I am really excited about this podcast.

And we're going to be rolling these things out, Raymond, for every other week.

And we've already recorded a bunch of them and have a great schedule lined up.

And so I'm looking forward to rolling out this conversation more, not only between Ray, but also with you, the audience, engaging on social media and some different things.

So, hey, Ray, where can people find you on social media?

I'm almost on all platforms, at Ray DeArmas, R-E-Y-D-E-A-R-M-A-S.

You can catch that in the show notes as well.

We'll go ahead and link up to that.

I'm on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, et cetera.

And so please go ahead and engage us in conversation.

Agree, disagree.

Go ahead and let's talk.

And then especially if you love basketball or Marvel stuff, go ahead and follow me, engage, and let's have some fun, man.

Let's go.

Yeah, he's not kidding about the basketball and the Marvel stuff.

And he left out LinkedIn, which, you know, we're going to just let that go.

It's okay.

LinkedIn, somewhere out there.

Somewhere, somewhere.

I use it.

I am, I'm deerfedge, which is weird.

It's actually Jeff Reed backwards.

So imagine like a deer with antlers, deer, F-F-E-J, Jeff Reed backwards.

It's in the show notes.

It's a lot, show notes is a lot of fun, a lot of good resources in there each and every week.

But approach us and let's dialogue through this.

Through the church online, we create a lot of content and we help churches wrestle with these things of online church, online ministry, online discipleship.

Trying to figure out how to utilize this space better to not create a separate ecosystem separate from your existing church,

but really to holistically create one ministry of your church that exists in online spaces.

And so I'm going to be traveling around speaking at some things, but hit up the website, thechurch.digital, for more information on the ministry and the organization that's there,

as well as a ton of blogs and resources that are there that we're creating that really just will help, hopefully inspire, hopefully educate, hopefully encourage,

and then hopefully give you some ammunition that doesn't match with all the, well, it's all vows.

So hopefully, you know, give you some inspiration or ammunition as you go out there and have these conversations with your leaders and your leadership teams and your lead pastors,

fleshing through what church online can and should be.

So, well, hey, Ray, any closing thoughts while we land this plane?

Yeah, absolutely.

Just want to encourage those of you who are catching us for the first time, stay with us on the journey.

And I want to also encourage you, we're all trying.

We're all new at this.

And so if you're sitting here, you know, asking yourself, well, I'm brand new and I don't know what I'm doing,

we want to continue to encourage you.

Keep trying new things.

Keep testing the waters.

Continue to create community online.

We're going to wrestle with this relationship between content and community and talk about what it's all about.

Keep trying to create community online with your people and engage them spiritually.

You're going to have a great time doing it.

Amen.

Remember, people will connect in online spaces, and I've seen this and I've heard multiple people say it.

People will connect to community before they connect to Christ online.

So utilize those opportunities to create opportunity.

Ray, hey, man, thanks for joining in for the show.

My name is Jeff Reed, and it's been a pleasure to be with you and looking forward to seeing you next, again, here, hopefully soon, on the Church Digital Podcast.

Y'all have a good day.

I've needed to cough for the past 30 minutes.

Oh, my God.

You're a champion.

You're a champion.