EP374 - The Listening Tour Begins: Platforms Are Places
Episode 374 launches the Listening Tour. For the rest of 2026 Jeff Reed wants to stop broadcasting at digital ministry and start hearing from the people doing it, from Africa, Pakistan, India and Southern Asia to churches here in the U.S. theChurch.digital is rebuilding, money is tight, and he takes a line from a Kansas City microchurch leader as the rule for the season: don't create anything until you really need it.
The big idea is platforms as places. Using digital to get people into a building is no longer radical in 2026. What still is: treating Twitch like Argentina and Discord like Paraguay, and equipping and sending missionaries into platforms the way an agency sends them into countries, because platforms have culture. Jeff also lays out a healthy church digital strategy, evangelism, discipleship, generosity and empowerment, and the long road of solving a church's problems before it trusts you with the ones you care about.
Then it gets personal. The digital missionaries struggling most are the ones living inside a platform, facing persecution from Christians who say the church doesn't belong in virtual reality, and doing it alone. Jeff is candid that he was one of them: a year of depression and isolation, a season of pushing God away, and the moment he told a missionary who was praying for him that he didn't need more prayer.
What brought him back was a question from his leadership, is this yours or is it God's, and the conviction that if God gets the successes, God gets the failures too. He closes with a word for anyone in the field who feels alone, and a preview of the Listening Tour guests: authors on digital missiology and theology, success stories, and people who are struggling and willing to say so.
Full episode page — transcript, chapters, and the live chat alongside it:
https://thechurch.digital/shows/becoming-thechurch-digital/ep374-platforms-are-places/
Going deeper:
What is a digital missionary? https://thechurch.digital/guides/what-is-a-digital-missionary/
Caring for online pastors: https://thechurch.digital/guides/online-pastor-care/
Hybrid church: https://thechurch.digital/guides/hybrid-church/
The EDGE framework: https://thechurch.digital/guides/edge-framework/
CHAPTERS
00:00 Old lo-fi and a tired week
06:05 Launching the Listening Tour
08:15 Don't create it until it's needed
10:37 Wings with a global mission leader
13:37 Click-and-mortar churches
16:28 Platforms as places
20:29 You're not wrong, you're early
23:35 A healthy church digital strategy
28:02 Persecution from inside the church
32:53 Depression and doing what God asked
38:05 Apostles, shepherds and teachers
41:29 Nobody should do this alone
43:24 A year of isolation
46:25 Carrying the missionaries
49:52 God gets the failures too
51:15 Is this yours or God's?
53:51 What my family has carried
57:54 Still early: be encouraged
1:00:49 Next on the Listening Tour
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theChurch.digital exists to empower the rest of us to make disciples.
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