EP100: Kranda, Atkinson, Nils: The Joys & Difficulties of Online Ministry

Episode 100 of the Church Digital Podcast. No, you did not hear that wrong. It is episode 100. We have hit three figures, and we're excited about that. We made it to 100. I honestly didn't think we'd get here, but we are. And so up front, I just want to tell you, listening audience, thanks for tapping in. Thanks for being the reason that we do this. And we honestly, we here at the Church Digital, we at Stadia Church Planet, we hope this has been a helpful resource and will continue to be a helpful resource. We've got some incredible things coming down the line. Don't want to get into it now, but stay tuned. The Church Digital Podcast is not going anywhere. Well, over the 100 episodes that we've done, just up front, it's been interesting to see which ones that have been popular, that have been well-received, that are listened to, and which ones haven't been.

And so, you know, I would think right up the top that the popular people, like the nationally recognized names that we've had connect here on the podcast, that those would be some of our top episodes. And they are. They're good episodes. I don't want to speak ill will of Ed Stetzer or Daniel M. or Dave Ferguson or, you know, Jim Tolberlin, some of these guys that have that national known recognition name. Like, they've been good episodes. But honestly, I just want to tell you, the top three episodes right now for us, the Church Digital Podcast, in context of listenership, Daniel Aaron and the Robloxian Christians. The top episode of the Church Digital Podcast is when we interviewed a digital-only church planter.

Now, and that's been, it shot up recently out of nowhere, just even within the past couple weeks. Daniel Aaron and I were actually featured, or at least we were interviewed in context of a Bloomberg.com article together. Not together, but we were in the same article. And so, that may be part of the reason that it shot up. I really don't know why it shot up. But within the past week, it just came out of nowhere and has gotten a lot of traction. Daniel Aaron, great job that he's been doing over there with the Robloxian Christians. Number two popular article for us, popular blog, popular podcast. I can get the right format. Doug Parks, talking about church's platform. So, the number two popular podcast for us is where we're talking about multiplication and disciple-making in context of a church moving outside of its building and becoming the church in communities.

And charging its people to go out, to mobilize its people to go out and be the disciple-makers within their circle of influence. That's the number two episode. You know, I would talk about how church's platform is like a radical concept. You guys are showing me just by listening. I don't know that it's really that radical. It's interesting context. For me, number three here, this was another surprise. Evan Conley, talking about chat and how to use chat to be more effective with your ministry. Now, in this COVID season, as 50, 60, 70% of churches are now onboarding, trying to figure out how to develop the chat rooms, create that culture of chat in broadcasting services. Obviously, there's been a lot of churches that have been wrestling with this, and so that would make sense why Evan's episode, and Evan's a great guy with what he's doing up at Lighthouse Church.

So, it's starting to stand out why these three episodes maybe are the three that they are that have been the most listened. But whether you love these three or maybe you've never heard these three before and you want to dig into some others, thank you for listening and allowing us to help your church do this whole online ministry thing better. There are other parts that we want to help you with, of course, and we've talked about this before on the show. We're launching a new broadcast. We're calling it Beta Show. And so, we literally want to answer your questions. We're getting questions texted in to us, and so we're answering them live on Facebook on Wednesdays, Wednesdays, 1230 Eastern. And then we're putting it here in this podcast feed on Thursdays for you guys to listen to as well.

Text us your questions, 484-324-8724. In the whole telephone alphabet, it's number four, the church. That's right. Yeah, I literally have the phone number, number four, the church. Who would have thought? 484-324-8724. Whatever questions you have in context of digital, fidgetal, digital only, anything having to do with online ministry. We'd love to get your questions, 484-324-8724. Well, let's segue here and head over into episode 100. I have been waiting to get these group of people together to have this conversation for a long time. And what better time to do this here than with episode 100? If you're a regular listener here with the podcast, you've probably heard me tell the story about Starbucks Disneyland, where I was at a conference, and I was sitting at a Starbucks at downtown Disney in Southern California, at a table outside, drinking my iced chai latte, as I am prone to do.

And sitting around the table, we had geniuses, I'll just say, geniuses of online church. So we had Ray D'Armas was there. Let's call him first and foremost. Ray, thanks. You are awesome. Ray D'Armas was with me at the conference here from Christ Fellowship Miami. We had Jay Cranda, who was the online pastor, is the online pastor at Saddleback Church. Neil Smith, one of the OGs of online church, church online, currently with Dunham and company. And we had Greg Atkinson, another OG here with online church. And he was, is one of the gurus, if not the guru, when it comes to first impressions and a lot of that. And so there's so much history and knowledge in context of online with these guys. And somehow I found myself sitting at a Starbucks table, drinking a chai latte, talking with these guys.

And we're celebrating victories. We're talking about challenges. We're talking about issues. We are, as communities, as well as developing friends, we're really just kind of commiserating where we are in ministry. And helping each other figure out what some of these next steps are, maybe with our individual situation. But we're also talking big picture, how the church needs to change and grow for online church to really be effective. Now, I'll tell you, when we're sitting at this table, I don't know, February 2018, nobody saw a global pandemic coming. Nobody was thinking, oh, hey, there's going to be this massive disease and it's going to be the ticket to everything. And all of a sudden now, you know, church online is going to be credibility.

We weren't talking about that. Now, obviously now, all this has become painfully clear and churches are now moving online and developing digital strategies where maybe pre-COVID, they didn't even know what a digital strategy was. So what better time than our 100th episode here to bring these guys back together, stick them in a Zoom room. Maybe we commiserate that day back in the past, February 2020, how great that day was for all of us to process through. But also, man, let's talk about where we are as a church and where we're going a little bit, how we're transitioning and how we, the church, need to be effective into getting into what the church needs to be and how we need to be effective tomorrow.

Great conversation. I'm looking forward to you guys listening to it. So once again, bring it into the conversation. Ray DeArmas, co-host as usual, digital pastor, Christ Fellowship Miami, Jay Cranda, online pastor, Saddleback, Nils Smith of Dunham and Company, Greg Atkinson, one of the top gurus of first impression, myself, Jeff with the Church Digital and Stadia Church Planting in a conversation that I'm simply calling the joy and difficulties of online ministry. Episode 100, ELGO. So even to start off, I would love for maybe just a quick 30-second introduction, who you are, what do you, I could ask what your ministry story is, and each of you could go for like an hour, tell me the story, and I just want to get to other things.

But maybe, what are you doing right now in ministry? What does your ministry life look like here today? So let's start with Greg, who just had his, what, third podcast with Newhoff? Yeah. Man, you got a special gift for that, man. So tell us, Greg, walking in, man, no stranger to the podcast, just tell us a little bit about yourself. Yeah, my name is Greg Atkinson. I started on my first church staff in 1994, so 26 years ago. Started speaking at conferences in 2000, 20 years ago. Started consulting in 2005. Started keeping up with churches online about 2006, 2007. And then blogged about it for the first time in 2008. 12 years ago, I was secret shopping and evaluating internet campuses and churches that were doing online church.

And Jeff posted that on his blog recently, where I was looking at Life Church and Seacoast and Crosspoint and Central Christian. And just checking out all these churches, Flamingo Road down in Jeff's area. There's a throwback. Yeah, before they became Potential Church. And I was just looking at all these internet campuses and writing about it because I could see the writing on the wall. But more importantly, I've been on Neil's social media church podcast twice. Shout out to that. And looking forward to coming back on again and was honored to be on this podcast with Jeff and Ray. But yeah, so I've been keeping an eye on church online for a long time. I never, ever, I'm not a prophet. I never anticipated a pandemic happening like COVID that would push people to have to start an online ministry and streaming.

However, we have been calling, all of us have been calling for it for years for people to go in that direction. But I never could anticipate that we would be walking around wearing masks. I just didn't see that happening. And so what has happened over the last six months is mind-blowing. And so we're all along for the ride. And that was a magical night over coffee at Disneyland two years ago when we were talking. And just hearing Jeff's heart and frustration and issues that he was dealing with. And we all could, we're late and we were all understanding. But just being able to share together as brothers and support one another and to hear Jay and things that he was going through and just everybody getting to share.

But I'm so glad that God did something in your life, Jeff, and that something moved in your heart. And I remember when you announced your new position with Stadia. And this is pre-COVID, I said, oh my gosh, they are blazing a trail. These guys, to be able to staff a position like this is so, so ahead of the curve that they would have a position on staff like this for digital church planning. I just thought, this is amazing. So my hat's off to Stadia. Well done. You guys were prepared and ready and have just blown up. And now here we are with the 100th episode of the podcast. I don't know how you crank out that many episodes so quickly, but congratulations. Awesome. Hey, that was a lot more than 30 seconds, but loved every second of that.

Greg is awesome. And he's got the, you know, is with the Facebook groups and things. We'll get into some of that later. But Greg has been a great follow. And just because I'm also, I'm playing a game in my head. Greg, you got started around 2006, 2007, right? In online ministry, you would say probably around there. I'm actually curious among the three of you, who's the most OG of the OGs? So we'll play that exercise. And let's go to Nils. We're not sure if Nils has actually ever been on the Carry You Off podcast. Maybe I'm giving somebody else credit. But, you know, Greg, you know, or Nils, hey, just like, tell me a little bit of what your ministry, what it looks like today. Yeah. So today I work for a company called Dunham & Company, which is a full service marketing fundraising agency that helps Christian ministries all over the world.

And a lot of my role is chief strategist of social media and innovation. And so I help ministries run ahead of technology. And so a lot of that is in live streaming and online church and things like that. And then a lot of it's even further with virtual reality, cryptocurrency. Prior to Dunham & Company, though, I started OnlineChurch.com about 10 years ago. But I would say that my online ministry started in 1999 when I signed up for my AOL Instant Messenger account when I was 19-year-old youth pastor and had my first online ministry interaction in the summer of 1999. La-di-da-da. Way to play like that, AOL. Trying to throw it as far back as I can. Way to go. Jay was seven years old then. I was about to say, like, I was like 19 or 20 graduating from college.

So Jay, can you be 1999? I don't, I'd love to see you try. No, in 1999, I was just watching TRL. That's all I did. TRL and skateboarding. So no, so I've been doing online ministry. Oh man, I don't know, 2010, I think. And so, but, you know, I really love how Greg said internet campus. That was like the first thing I did when I moved into the role and I had some control. I remember just like, can we not call it the internet? Okay. Not everything has to have an eye in front of it. Okay. And so, but yeah, so I'm the online pastor at Saddleback Church. Really, what that means for us is trying to figure out what does digital look like for our local campuses since we're multi-site and we have those in Southern California and around the world.

So what does it look like to have a strong digital strategy locally that assimilates to the campus, the local kind of flagship, you know, flagship kind of experiences in person, then also stewarding and connecting people around the world. And how do you build communities far away and also connect them to maybe a church as well. And then I usually try to share what I'm learning, both good and bad on my own blog. If people even read blogs anymore, I don't know. People might only read Kerry Newhoff's blog, actually, to be honest. And then everybody else is just a credit. So, yeah, it's funny. Like even, you know, Ray and I, we were talking about that, like blogs, the engagement, the readership. I don't know that it's as effective as maybe it was once then.

And so we're even organizationally moving to more video and things like that. And really, it's funny, the heart, I've got a team of maybe two or three contractors and volunteers and people that I just work really closely with. And honestly, like the heart of all of this, I would give credit to Ray DeArmas, where Ray was actually the guy a couple months before we started episode one with the podcast before. Jay, I think you were like the second interview we ever did on the podcast with episode three or four. But Ray's really been the heart behind a lot of this. And, hey, Jeff, stop talking about it. Just do it. Hey, Jeff, let's just get started. Hey, Jeff, experiment. Kind of kicking me out of the shell, out of trying to get to that perfection and instead just kind of execute it.

And there's plenty of quotes and things towards that. Version one's better than version none, to quote Gary Vee and some others that have been, like even outside the Christian world, that have been kind of influential in this area. But I love the fact that we can get all of us together. And I'm looking forward to just, you know, having a conversation. Maybe it's reliving outside of a Starbucks two years ago. Maybe it's just, holy crap. Can you think of all this stuff that has happened in the past two years? I mean, I can barely get past COVID. But even in the COVID season, 2018 to 2020, the adoption rate of church online services, 10% were probably broadcasting before COVID. At this point now, mid-COVID, maybe post-COVID, 60%, 70%.

Plus, now they're wrestling. I mean, the biggest question I feel like I get in a given day is, how do I do both? Because churches have never wrestled with this idea of doing both. It's either been one or the other. And so, Greg, you know, early on was like, we never saw this coming. I don't know that anybody saw a global pandemic coming or the amount of credibility that it gives to online people. Thank you very much, global pandemic, for it. But was there any point where you thought anybody, like in the room, 50%, 60%, 70% adoption rate online? Did you think you would see that in the 20s? Like, how surprised were you at how the church pivoted during the season? You know, Jeff, as I think back to it, I moved when I was at Community Bible Church or on OnlineChurch.com.

I moved to New York six years ago to still be the online campus pastor from New York. And I remember going, thinking, I'm going to fully experience what it's like for my family to be an online church family in another city, in another state. And honestly, about four or five months in, my wife is like, I need to go to church. Like, and we're an internet people, you know? And so I would say my pessimism had even grown in, is this really fully church or can this really be fully church? And so, I mean, I think I resonate with, definitely didn't see a pandemic coming. I always expected that online would become more significant and more integrated into the life of every church. But the dependence that it immediately, that was immediately created is, I think, the big surge.

I think, in some ways, it's the unknown of what happens now. Because everyone is forced onto the internet. And now, as we ease back into face-to-face community, how much goes back face-to-face and how much stays online. And I think that's the bridge that it will never go back to the way it was. And I just don't, I think we don't know how much, it's almost backwards now as to how much is going to go back to face-to-face rather than the past. It was how much was going to go online. Yeah, I was interviewing Bobby Grunewald from Life.Church a couple weeks ago for the First Impressions Conference. And he was saying that I think it's 27,000 churches are using the CHOP church online platform. I think maybe 44,000 have signed up, but 27,000 using it weekly.

And a lot of that is post-COVID that just signed up, just got on board. And my hat is off to all the pastors, church planners, comm directors, tech people, video people, everybody that got their church up and running in a week. When that March 15th, they came around and they were like, oh my gosh, we can't meet anymore. And before you know it, they were grabbing at anything they could to get up and go on with streaming. And Jeff, you guys were cranking out resources on your blog. And I remember contacting you because I have a large Facebook group. I remember reaching out to you and saying, I'm going to make you an admin, post whatever you want in our Facebook group and help these people out. And you were showing them ways to get online and to stream.

But congratulations to everybody for how quickly they got up and running. You know, I mentioned, I wrote a book, it's back here behind me in orange, 10 years ago called Strange Leadership. And I talked about innovation happening when you are limited and when you are restricted and when crazy things happen, strange things happen. When you have no budget, no resources, no land, can't build a bigger building. You know, what drove the multi-site movement? You know, I've talked about the example of Seacoast Church that got denied being able to build a larger auditorium. And so they went multi-site and so restrictions and limitations can, you know, they say necessity is the mother of invention and innovation.

And so what happened in mid-March when COVID hit and nobody could meet, got people where they needed to go. And my prayer, like I've been saying on so many podcasts recently, quoting Jeff, with your famous coined term of physical and digital, what I've been telling everybody is may we never, ever go back to physical only. I pray that we are always physical from here on out. Not even that, you know, if when I think about the future of the church, I think of an old word I used to hear over a decade ago of glocal. That we are a global church and we are ministering to people around the world and around the country. And we are a local church and we're ministering to people across the street and people in our community and in our neighborhood.

I hope that we're local from here on out. We should be we should be reaching people in the Philippines. We should be reaching people in Jamaica. We should be reaching people in Taiwan and people across the street and our same zip code. And so my prayer is that we are more missional than ever, more mission driven, purpose driven, to quote Saddleback, to be to be all out on the great commission, great commandment as we can possibly be. Now that you have taken these strides and you've gotten up and going online, don't stop there. Keep broadcasting, keep streaming. And if you need to invest in some better equipment, maybe you get together on a shoestring budget and just held it together via your iPhone and Facebook Live just to stay online for a season.

Let's invest in some gear and some cameras and look at Jeff's setup, his suite setup with that mic and camera he's got going on. He's just blowing us all away with that professional setup. But invest in your technology, invest in the future of your church and stay physical, physical and digital. Keep both going. Do not go back to physical only. That would be a travesty. And then God would have to bring another pandemic. Do not go back to physical only. Yeah, I will kind of continue that where I am shocked at the, I'm not going to do online to like, we want to be a global church. Like the, I've talked to so many churches that are, and some of that, and some of that I do think, and I might challenge it just a bit with what Greg's saying.

And we come from different perspectives, but like, there is something to these small churches wanting to become global churches that can become unhealthy real quick, because it's figuring out the local strategy of like, you know, most likely the way you can make digital make sense, at least financial sense, is figure out how does the local person you're reaching in the Bay or St. Louis or whatever, how do you lead them into your local experience? And how do you make that seamless, both as a first contact to like a companion, you know, because that's the thing. We know that, you know, people are going to be coming to church less in person, but we also can engage them much more than just a stream ongoing now.

And what are those tools? Now, I do also agree that you can reach all sorts of people without even doing any extra work. And so, but I find it funny that there was this total anti, it's going to hurt our church. And when the barrier, well, it doesn't, it's not going to hurt our church. Then, of course, pastors who have vision and excited and, you know, to be a senior pastor, you have to be a little crazy. And it makes, it's, I've talked to like five churches where I'm like, I'm cracking up over like they're all under a thousand and they want to be a global church. And I'm like, I'm like, this is so hilarious. And then you always talk to like the executive pastor and then there's a gap and you're like, oh, this is why.

And I'm like, well, this is good. I go, they are seeing something that is true. So I am, that part is, I don't know if you guys have experienced that, that does make me laugh how like that changeover happened so quickly. Yeah, for me, it was, Jay, just kind of pick it up off of that. It was how the theology and the practical aspects of that shifted so quickly, right? Because beforehand it was, here are all these Bible verses about why we should not do church online. Right. And oh boy, did that shift super fast the minute that March hit and it was, oh man, we've, we've all got to lock the doors and we can't open up on Sundays. That shifted super, super quick. And so that was kind of the biggest aspect for me, just because I remember churches being hypercritical of, for instance, president of the Southern Baptist convention, J.D.

Greer, for shutting down last year, the last weekend of the year and just going fully online. And his mentions were just rancid with just completely terrible comments on why churches need to meet and why people need to gather physically. And that's the only way biblically to gather, et cetera. And then of course, the hard pendulum shift that once this was the only option we had. And so mind you, this isn't meant to be insulting or pointed in any way. It was just kind of the mindset of how can we continue to break some of those barriers that we consider that hinder us in terms of reaching people for Jesus simply because it's not the way we've done it before. And I would hope that kind of moving forward, that we'll have a little bit more of an open heart to considering how we can reach somebody for Christ or how we can disciple somebody through technology, through different tools, through different methods, just understanding that, hey, listen, if it's not explicitly a no, or as, as a life church would say, right?

Like, hey, we'll do anything short of sin to reach somebody for Christ. I agree, and that's my prayer too. You know, J.D. Greer just came out with, they're not even meeting again the rest of 2020. They're not going to meet until 2021. So you can see a huge change of heart and change of philosophy and change of mission. So again, congrats when God is stretching us. It doesn't matter if you're a mega church pastor or a small church pastor, if you're a no name or everybody knows your name, we have all been stretched and challenged. And so the president of the Southern Baptist Convention, J.D. Greer, like you said, has changed in his philosophy, and now they're not meeting in person again until 2021.

So it's been unbelievable to see us all changing our strategy in some aspects. I want to just add, there's a few things that have excited me in the season and a few things that have disappointed me. What has disappointed me is that I saw, and I think it's what RU is happening in the building, is everything was about the weekend. And I think it just became, we've got to get on a church online platform and just get our services online. And I think what has excited me is the technology that I think where churches have made the most advancement in this is Zoom or video conferencing as this is what is transforming the classroom in schools. This is what is transforming even the way families are interacting.

And I think it's also transforming churches as we're learning that this is where churches happen. This is where interaction really happens. This is where community is formed. Getting our sermons out online, that's actually been easy for a long, long time. It's been the technology of interacting with each other that hasn't been as real and authentic. And while there is a layer of Zoom fatigue that people are experiencing today, I do think that we have overcome the threshold of Zoom understanding and comprehension and technology of every home now, essentially, and every person who's going to do it on their phone, that video conferencing, it will be a part of pretty much every church moving forward.

And that's a huge breakthrough that's going to enhance online every church and what they're doing locally and potentially globally. Yeah, I love that. And there were pre-COVID, there were not a lot of churches. I mean, hundreds, but it was not thousands of churches doing online small groups, online discipleship, disciple-making processes, whatever it was. Like, it was reverted to this online service stream. And it was probably the most logical opportunity, you know, initially, that you could be having, you know, like, we have young kids to go get childcare and do all that. Like, we just didn't do small group, you know, like, we, but now we were, we never missed a small group during COVID, you know, as a family, because it just makes it more accessible.

The convenience is definitely on that digital side. I'm sorry, Greg, go ahead. I was just going to say, I'm in a small group that's on Zoom as well. I agree with what Nils is saying about Zoom. And I remember as a campus pastor four or five years ago, I was using video to train my small group leaders, because not everybody can get together in person. And like Nils said, there's always the childcare issue or schedule issue. And so we were using digital means to make sure that these small group leaders still received the training they needed, even though they couldn't make it to an in-person training. But I love, and I was disappointed as well. You know, I think Larry Osborne at North Coast said a while back about people being too building-centric.

I would also echo Nils that we were too focused on Sunday morning. And yes, congratulations to everybody that got the service Sunday morning at 11 a.m. up online and streaming. However, there's a whole lot more, like I said on Carrie's podcast last week, there's a lot more to church than one hour on Sunday. And so we have to keep working out this. It sounds crazy, and I don't want to be called a heretic. We have to keep working out our theology. We have to keep working out our theology of mission and in our philosophy of ministry of how do we reach people, interact with people, grow people in their faith? How do we do assimilation? Can we do a new members class online? Why does it have to be in person?

How can we do stuff to engage with people in 2020 and beyond? And so it's an exciting time to be alive. Yeah. Even small things like communion or streaming a baptism online. It's been surprising to me the number of churches, the number of pastors that disagree, that kind of freak out about the idea of an online baptism or an online communion. I was on a webinar or a podcast. I was doing something with a nationally known speaker, and I just made a passing comment that, yeah, my family, we did communion this past weekend with our church online. And he's like, what elements did you drink? And I was like, well, I think it was a Coca-Cola, and we had cauliflower crackers. No, cauliflower crackers aside, it's weird.

My son's gluten, whatever. But that was the elements. And that was a major pain point with this pastor in this conversation that we were in. I was like, man looks at the outward appearance, Lord looks at the heart. Totally had that conversation. He wasn't buying that and just kind of went down this road. You did that on purpose, though, Jeff, right? You said that on purpose, but okay, okay. Yeah, yeah, a little bit. Yeah, I mean, I'm always the guy that's wanting to, listen, as far as I'm concerned, I'm always going to be the guy that's on the edge. Listen, I'm having conversations right now about planting churches in MMO games, like literally Final Fantasy XIV. There is a specific church planner that we're talking with.

We're trying to figure out how to get her equipped and trained to go off and plant a digital-only expression of church in Final Fantasy XIV. Somebody out there saying that's the craziest thing I've ever heard. I'm going to tell you right now there's 20 million people who still play Final Fantasy XIV on a regular basis. Why would we not put a church in that environment to reach those types of people? And so, listen, I'm always going to be the radical guy, but I do believe this. In this COVID season, the more outward that I go with some of these conversations and I find and celebrate and equip these people to do ministry, I think the pendulum shifts, right? Because now, man, we're doing over here, we're doing Final Fantasy XIV.

Why can't I not do a micro-location? How do I train people to do watch parties? Yeah, let's highlight some of the house church networks that have grown from this. Yeah, sure, my church, we can do a couple of watch parties to test it and kind of grow with it. You always got to be, at least for me, I always want to be that aggressive guy because I think others will follow suit with that. You know, you mentioned 20 million people. That's five times the size of our city, Jeff. That's, you know, Miami is like about four million and change. You know, that's five times the size of Miami-Dade County, in which there are churches all over the place just trying to reach this area. And so I can only imagine what God is going to do through folks to reach that.

Now, specifically for the rest of you guys, can you each give us a story of just whether it's through your church or whether it was through somebody that you impacted, another church that you guys had impacted during this COVID season? And it was like, wow, they did this digitally, and we just saw God at work. One that pops up was there was a couple that reached out to me at the start of COVID. The wife actually really wanted to get baptized, and it was during COVID. And, you know, something that we talk a lot about at our church is this idea of, like, we understand that there's a best expression of something, if you want to hold to the truest form of what Scripture is talking about. But that doesn't mean that these other expressions aren't valid.

It just means if you want to wait to be baptized at our location, you can, or we can train someone to baptize you. Sometimes people want to come to our location and have that type of connection. Both are valid. The same way as Coca-Cola and Cracker or Oreo, whatever Jeff was eating. And so, but she really wanted to make it happen. And what was cool was her husband was a believer, and I sent them training on how to baptize. And they set up a computer outside of, like, on their patio. I think they were in some part of Texas, and they had, like, an inflatable pool in their backyard. And I literally, on a Sunday afternoon, was in their backyard watching him baptize his wife. And it was just such a cool moment of, like, now that's a fusion of online while happening in person.

And it was just kind of a cool moment of me peeking into something. You know, I was there just to validate it, to answer any questions. They knew what to do, but it was so special, especially as she came out of the water and hugged him. It was just so, I could tell, it was like, it was such a special thing. And, you know, it's just so funny how we, you know, obviously there is something special, too, when it happens at our location. But it's so powerful, too, to decentralize these things and empower believers. I mean, a.k.a. priesthood of all believers, the thing Protestants are pretty good at and kind of made us grow so rapidly. It's funny how we're kind of reverting back to Catholic, you know, Catholic type of things that has to happen in location, you know.

And we do training, but that was a moment that was really special. And it was funny, I got to share that with our staff at a staff meeting over Zoom. And I could just see people like, wow, we can do that, you know? And I'm like, yeah. And actually, like, probably three years prior, I wouldn't want to share that because I wouldn't want them to think I was, like, this radical person that was just, you know. And it was funny, now, because of COVID, like, people, it's almost like scales are falling from their eyes. We're like, wow, we can do all this stuff. How cool is this? But that's one story that jumps off that was right at the beginning of COVID. So I, and this might be a long story, and it's not a specific story, but it, and I feel like I'm like a guy in a new relationship that I get, like, flustered maybe a little bit.

So when Jay is my old bestie, isn't willing to hang out with me anymore, I've gotten to know Mike Todd and the team over at Transformation Church. And I just, honestly, I've kind of fallen in love with Mike Todd. I think he's one of the greatest men I've ever met. But I met him, because I was just thinking about it, it was a year ago, October. And I was invited to come spend a day with their team, and it was funny. I mean, I thought they had it all figured out. Like, I was like, I can't wait to learn from them. Mike Todd had a vision seven or six years ago when they planted their church to buy cameras. And his staff never really got it, but he just, like, people left the church, people were angry, but he's like, we've got to focus on this internet thing, I promise, guys.

And they went viral, you know, about two years ago with Relationship Sculls series on YouTube. And it, but, but so they brought me in there, I get to, they invited me to join their team in February, not knowing what was coming. And then their whole, they bought an arena that they moved into in February, a 4,000-seat auditorium. They went from, like, a small storefront that could seat about, I think, 300, 400 to a 4,000-seat auditorium. And then all of a sudden, they can't meet in that room anymore. Simultaneously, when they go online, their church grows 10x. And he was on the Kerry Newhoff podcast, and he shared these numbers, but literally 10x and giving grew 10x during COVID. And they paid off their building cash, this arena that they bought, that they're not even able to meet it.

It's just a studio now. And just watching Mike Todd's faithfulness and watching their team lean in, they literally have never had a full-time person. And they just now, they're transitioning somebody from a part-time online role into a full-time online role. And just watching their, his leadership and passion and vision and their teams, the way they've adapted and adjusted and just stewarded what God's doing there. It just is, it's a getting to look under the hood and watch what's developing. It's a, it's a God story of what's happening and the life transformation that, that just story after story. You know, I'll tell you one crazy story. They, they have a texted phone number, a 10-digit phone number.

There is a lady, and when you get saved, they're like, text Jesus to this 10-digit number. There's a lady who has a phone number that's one digit off, who gets about 300 text messages a week saying, you guys have to change your number. Because, but, but, but here's the crazy thing. More than 300 people a week are getting the phone number wrong to get saved. They're having that many more getting saved on a weekly basis that this lady is telling them that she's going to sue them or something. If they don't change their phone number because it's too close to hers, because every time somebody gets saved, they're texting her. It just is, it's, I've never seen a movement about like it. And I think it's faithfulness and I think it's stewardship and, and it's leadership.

It's just, it, it has been so moving for me to, to get to be on the inside and part of that team and transformation during this season. I, I just got off the call, a Zoom call earlier today with the church that I'm helping in. I do, I think I mentioned it on the Cary podcast, but I do these online secret shoppers and online presence evaluations. And so a lot of churches have been reaching out since hearing that podcast and just being able to help churches go to the next level. But it's been interesting. And Neil's talked about frustration and seeing my own home church, which is a small church plant of 50 people to, to watch some of the, the limitations, not only in technology, but in mindset.

And I've tried to push our senior pastor as far as I can, but there's definitely differences in philosophies. And so that's really come to light in this COVID season when I still haven't gone back in person, but they are, some weeks they film on Facebook live and some weeks they don't. And I tune in and there's nothing there. And so it's been an interesting season, but an old story that made me think of hearing Jay talk about baptism. In 2009, so 11 years ago, 2009, I was interviewing with Life Church to go on their online church team. And this was with Tony Stewart and Brandon Donaldson way back in the day, and they were going to hire an online groups pastor. And they did a nationwide search, you know, narrowed it down like they do to five people.

Then they bring you all in on the same weekend. And the five of you all go through all the testing and interview process together for a weekend with your spouse. And it ended up not being God's will for me to go there, and it didn't work out for a lot of different reasons. But I was open to it because even back in 2009, I was interested. I was going to go on staff in an online church role where all I did was be an online groups pastor. But I had to, and, you know, Life Church puts you through kind of, it's like a gauntlet interview process. And they had to do some crazy stuff and a lot of testing and presentations. And so I had to prepare a presentation before Bobby Greenwald and Terry Storch and all these people to present.

And Jerry, who's over HR, I had to present this presentation on something, an idea that I had came up with for the future. So in 2009, I did a presentation called The Phillip Project, which was about baptizing people anywhere that they are located, watching the service online, whether it be at their house, their pool, their bathtub, a neighbor's house, or a local church that's in that city. So I said, and this was back when Life Church maybe had 10 campuses, you know, and I said, if you have a campus in Oklahoma City and somebody's watching in Miami, Florida, can we get them in touch with a church in Miami and say, we will baptize you? And so I did this whole project and presentation called The Phillip Project.

You remember Phillip in the Bible said, here's water, why can't I be baptized? And so that was my presentation in 2009. So this is something that we've been looking at for years and years and years of how do we mix the physical, the physical and the digital? How can we take real communion? How can we baptize with real water in a world where we've been watching a service online and the digital aspect? And so it is all coming to fruition right now. And it's happening exponentially quicker. Things are picking up quicker here in this COVID season. I have never seen so many online summits and online conferences and online training and all these resources that are being offered. And podcasts are hugely popular now because of the way that people are learning and taking in information.

And so this is a cool season. Yeah, definitely. I'm just curious with your Phillip Project. Did you and Grunwald figure out how to do like the whole teleporting thing? Like get the person to go from one to another and then back? No, you didn't. I gave them the idea. They had to run with it. Oh, so it's probably on their list of projects to get post-COVID. That definitely sounds like something that would do. Hey, so like obviously COVID has been crazy. We're seeing stories. We're seeing life change. I think we're all internalizing maybe this fear of, hey, for the love of all that is good in the world, don't church. Don't go back to the way that it was February 2020. Don't let that be the goal to get back to whatever that normal is because that normal is gone.

By the way, that normal wasn't that great in the grand scheme of church anywhere. You know, we're seeing Barna talk about eight-year trends down at February 2020. We're seeing church attendance. We're seeing giving. We're seeing engagement. We're seeing attendance. All of these things are heading down. And so there's an opportunity here, church, to pivot in this season. So love how we're learning lessons here and aiming more towards the future. And so I've got a bunch of really smart people in the room and me. So I would love to maybe even just pivot a little bit here. Let's not look at where we came from or even where we are today, but start to look at maybe where we're going. What does the future hold?

And maybe I would even just, what are the lessons that we're learning? What are the trends that we're seeing? What's like this pivot of today that's going to affect tomorrow? Where do you think tomorrow, the future holds? How are, is it, is it 100% digital church? It's interesting, Nils. You talked about how that was difficult for your family. Just knowing Jay and the conversations that he has, he likes that physical engagement as well. So paint a picture for me. What does the future hold? Just to kind of kick it off, I definitely think there needs to be, and I've already seen this, there needs to be churches of all sizes appointing or hiring an online person that is just overseeing. And this is the hard part, right?

It's, it's digital is, is everything, you know, it's, it's, your whole strategy needs to be somehow digitized in some experience, both for the local member and also for people from anywhere and, and, and everybody in between. And so, um, but I think it's not just your streaming. It's also your, your website. It's your YouTube strategy. It's your social media strategy. It's your email strategy. It's, um, you know, your, your LMS is to your zoom strategy. All these things are very important and speak to who you are as a church and who you're reaching to. Um, you know, there's a reason why, you know, when I, when I, when I, when I, a couple like months ago, I wanted to buy some stock in Pinterest.

I used Robinhood because Robinhood is nailing it with my demo. Like they, they get me. Um, and so, and, and it's an app I load most days, you know, unfortunately, unfortunately by like between you version and my Robinhood, they might be similar. Um, but I just like how the app feels, but ultimately Robinhood had to invest in that technology. They had to build something. And this is the hard part. Churches so much want to monetize things in a good way. They want to make, they want to be a good steward, but a lot of times technology is investing something for the small features. I was watching, uh, the basketball game that was game one was last night of the finals and YouTube TV did this really small thing where they had a little buy basketball icon as, as the play button that was going along.

This was a small little feature. It's, it's like the hidden gem in like an old video game. Uh, but what they're doing is they're trying to speak the language, the love language of their audience. And I actually think digital is like this new love language that needs to be added. It's when you do digital right, it says something, it means you're valued. And so I think churches both volunteer or a, uh, a full-time person that they are representing the digital, they're the digital concierge. They represent the audience. Cause a lot of times, even as we go back to in person, uh, people are going to be putting on in-person events and not thinking through the digital experience, but have somebody at the table that is an advocate for the online experience.

And speaking up, there was a, there's a, there's a small church, a friend of mine, a pastor's here in Southern California. And he asked me to look at his stream. And I noticed that pre, when they weren't meeting in person, their stream was really good and audio mix, all this was really good. Well, I had noticed when they started to do in-person services, cause they were small enough, they could do it there. Uh, the keyboard and some of the mix of the audio was off. And all it was is because it's focus. Now they're in person and some, they're just worrying about what's happening in the house in the building and they need somebody listening. No one's listening because all their staff and other core people are, have showed up.

So now the audio is a little off. And so this just shows that you just need to have a point person, the person that's listening, watching, they're validating. They're going, Hey, you have this handout. How do people get that online? Hey, should, Hey, should we do this this way? Should it be a podcast instead of an event? You know? So I think coming out of this, I'm really excited. I just think you need to have, um, you need to have a point person who is your digital again, it doesn't have to be a pastor. It doesn't have to be full-time. Uh, there's a lot of savvy business owners in churches of all sizes that could do this well. Um, but I think just having somebody who it's in, it's a new ministry and it's the same thing with like forever churches.

Well, we can't do social media, right? Well, you could, why, why is your greeters ministry rocking it? But you have nobody rolling, like take care of Facebook was because, you know, greeters you've been taught by people like Greg, that's important for somebody. I think moving forward, it's, it's making a lot of these digital experiences have beef them up volunteer wise and spend more time and vision in it. And it's not a side thing anymore. It's, it's, it's really important. I'll, I'll second that Jay. I, I, I hear, I mean, right now, if you're looking for a job, I've, I've, there's three churches that I can immediately tell you that are looking for an online pastor or multiple online full-time dedicated roles.

Um, it is the greatest need that I've heard it where I feel like maybe two or three years ago, it was communications directors. That was the role that every church is hiring. I do agree that I think of the next five years, every church. And it's funny, people are coming to me with like, we need somebody with like online ministry experience. I'm like, there's like 10 of us, you know, like there's not, uh, there's not a, the whole lot of people with experience in this space. Cause it's so new in the church is so slow to adopt it. Um, where historically people would come to me like, where do I get a job in this? And I'm like, well, there's 10 churches who are actually willing to invest in it. So, uh, you just need to wait.

And, and now the waiting game is over. Now it's, uh, just, you know, jump in and go. I think the other two, two things that I think churches are going to do coming out of this is one, I think churches are becoming better content creators, and you're going to see more and more focus on content development and the opportunity that comes with creating content beyond the sermon. And I'm a believer that the pulpit drives the church. As much as I'm focused on like, don't focus so much on the weekend message, the weekend message is, is critical. And I think learning how to distribute that effectively online is important, but I think also creating discipleship content or even evangelistic content to reach out to your community and just learning it.

And I think pastors are learning, oh, this like phone in my pocket really isn't that hard to record a message or to use social media or, uh, to create a new version reading plan or whatever it might be. So I think you're going to see more and more content development focus. And then I think the other is, is just leaning into the tools of it of, I think so many people saw it as a place and not necessarily a tool. And so you either do go online or you go to your building, uh, and the reality is it's like, no, just use email, use text messages, use a website, use social media, um, and use these, use zoom, use these various tools that the internet provides us to accomplish our goals. Uh, and it's just, it's just another tool in our tool belt and it's not an enemy.

It's just a resource. Um, and that's, that, that conversation has been progressing already. And I think now that church has been forced to adopt it, it's just now integrated. And so I think it's going to continue to be integrated and, uh, just be a part of the future ongoing. Good. Yeah. And it was, you know, so much of that just kind of picking it up is I think strategy digitally, right? Because like you said, like there's been this big shift in terms of content creation. I'll never forget. Jay was the first person who introduced me to click funnels, right? And, and just kind of thinking strategically that way. And Greg, I know, you know, I know you do a lot of stuff with text and church and, and how all that works out, but really just kind of thinking about that next step in terms of follow-up that bridges from content to community, right?

And how a lot of that can be automated and how the church could be, and should be really the most efficient place on the planet, right? But if we don't think in those terms, if we don't start strategizing that direction, then we'll kind of miss out. And so I'm pretty stoked to see how churches kind of take that aspect of it and start thinking through, okay, how can I take these tools that are already been used in the marketplace and leverage them for the sake of moving people down a discipleship pathway? Yeah, I think what I would add goes with a 26 year career of mixing pastoring with a love for first impressions and hospitality and welcoming people. And to pick up off of what Jay and, and, and Nils were saying, and Nils talking about all of the jobs available for online pastors, you know, from a first impression standpoint, when I've done online evaluations and things like that, I've talked about hosts before I've talked about MCs, but when it goes back to the root of my pastoral calling and ministry, I want a pastor, I want an online pastor.

And that's why I love people like Jay and Alan George and Life.Church. And I think back to Brandon Donaldson in the early days, pastoring the congregation at Life.Church, people who their heart comes through the camera and you see that with Alan week after week after week at Life.Church, you see that with Jay. I used to see that with Brandon, somebody that's pastoral. You know, Brandon had a background in worship ministry and youth ministry, people that have ministry background backgrounds. It's one thing to be good on camera. It's one thing to be a good MC, a good host, a good news anchor, whatever. But I want to see people as we go forward in this digital ministry, be truly online pastors, online pastors, people that pastor the thousands of people that are tuning in and watching online.

And you only, you know, we talk about this. This was written about in The Comeback Effect with Jonathan Maugham and Jason Young. People make up their mind in a millisecond, a millisecond, like the flapping of a hummingbird's wings. They make up their mind about you. And so when that camera comes on you in churches, when you go to hire somebody for an online pastor position, when that camera comes on them, people are making up their minds of, no, I'm going to go fix a Pop-Tart. No, I'm going to get up and go to the bathroom. No, I'm going to get up and go drink coffee. No, I'm going to change the channel. No, I'm going to go back to ESPN. They can make up their minds. You have such a short attention span online, and we need people that know the gospel, know the good news, love Jesus, love people, are hospitable, care about welcoming and first impressions and hospitality, care about ministry and connection, and pastor people through a lens, through a lens in this digital world.

We need true pastors. They're not the lead pastor driving the message like Niels was talking about. They're not a teaching pastor. They're not delivering the sermon. But in that segment that they get, where they get to help people take their next step, we need true pastors. And so what this is coming of, I'm one of those people that is late to the game. People have been talking about this for weeks, but I finally watched The Social Dilemma on Netflix, and I looked at the data and the research, and we all knew what was happening, but then they exposed even more. And I thought, man, we don't want to manipulate people. We don't want to twist people. We want to care for people and love people and pastor people and minister to people.

And so in this digital world, in this digital world where there is so much going on, claiming for your attention, let's love people and pastor them well and serve them well with a humble, genuine heart that wants nothing but God's best for them. No manipulation, no tricking. Let's truly offer people God's best for their life. And that comes from a pastoral heart. I just want to add, I just texted Greg that he can speak for himself on that. And so he wasn't laughing about the manipulating people, just to clarify a mid-chuckle. Sorry for the distraction there. I'm pretty sure every mid-chuckle that Greg's had in this is somehow related to the Zoom chat room. And that is a new function of dual conversations that have now been introduced in this world of Zoom.

Jeff, I think to get into future stuff, I do want to just highlight some future technologies that I love to talk about, and I think all of us here love to talk about. I'm a huge fan of virtual reality. I think that's a big part of our future. I think, I just watched a video yesterday. You've been saying that for a long time. And it's been slower than I thought. And I think it's going to be different than I initially thought. Hey, hold on, Nils. I want to put something on your radar. We recorded a podcast. It's actually episode 99. It just launched. Have you heard of this church, Cornerstone? I want to say it's up in the Seattle area. Jason Holy is the lead pastor. Okay. I'll get you. It's obviously, it hasn't published yet.

It will by the time, whatever. I'll send you the link when it's out. It's a 300-person church, small church, relatively speaking, small. They broadcast their services online. They also have a virtual reality campus. They've launched virtual reality at the beginning of COVID, volunteer-based, church-supported. They've got one, an executive pastor of this 300-person church that manages physical, broadcast, online, all the digital components together. But then avatar, VR, completely separate. And I told them when I was doing the podcast, I'm pretty sure the only person I know of that's actually doing all three of those environments simultaneously. So even small churches, you know, DJ Soto, love the guy.

But even small churches at this point are starting to experiment and get into this idea of VR, even in 2020. And I think the thing about VR is there's so many layers, too. And I bought, and I've got this camera here, and I show it off a lot. It's four years old. You know, this is a 360 camera. There's 360 video. There's avatar VR. There's so many layers of VR. And what I saw on YouTube yesterday was Bloomberg just did a, like the news network did a survey on half of the Fortune 500 companies that are now using VR for meetings. And the opportunity around small groups in VR. I was meeting with Pete Scazzaro just before this, and he's talking about doing some devotional curriculum in VR of basically it's an immersive prayer experience opportunity.

There are so many opportunities when you think about that medium of what we do for the church and how that medium can translate to what we do. And so I'm bullish still that that's going to be a big part of the future of the church. I, though, am becoming more and more realistic that it just is going to move slower than I anticipated. And a lot of that has to do with the hardware accessibility. But I do think that those churches that make an upfront, you know, look at Life.Church, how nuts did everybody think they were 14 years ago or whenever it was that they started this internet campus. But sometimes you've got to jump into some things and to let them fizzle. And it's not that expensive of an investment to jump into VR.

You don't have to be a megachurch to jump into VR. So I think that's a space that if you want to get ahead, that's a space to get ahead of. But the other thing that I'm playing with a lot and I talk about a lot is cryptocurrency. And I think it's the future of money. I think that also is probably even further behind virtual reality. But but so in so much of how much does the Bible talk about money? And as we think about global exchange and global congregations and cryptocurrency is really, I think, from a monetary standpoint, going to bring together the world and going to allow transactions to become more efficient and more global. And so I think it's going to be a big part of the future of the church from a digital perspective.

Those are two very separate things. But those are the two technologies that have the majority of my attention as to what I think are going to be most transformative moving into the future. I feel like I need to, like, hang out with you one day, Nils, and just better understand, like, the cryptocurrency. I don't I don't I don't I don't grasp that. I just I don't understand. Like, I'm not I'm not sarcastic. I'm not mocking. I just don't understand. And I'll give you 30 seconds of at the end of the day. Money in America is paper. There's no gold at the bottom of it. It's paper. We exchange paper and we agree with what paper is built on. Everything else in our life is being digitized. Should money not be digitized?

We're actually digitizing. We transact our credit cards and other things digitally. But at the bottom of it is paper. Well, paper can be burned. Paper could disappear. Paper can be re-replicated. And cryptocurrency is essentially a secure form of monitoring transactions that can't be hacked as easily or stolen like paper out of a bank, which is crazy that people literally go steal paper out of a bank and then they have $10,000. Well, cryptocurrency, now you're seeing hacks and things like that that are happening. But all that to say, our money should be digital and represented digitally. And it just conceptually makes so much sense. And it's almost ludicrous to think that our money is literally just paper.

And we just agree that that paper is worth a certain amount. I was going to give a shout out to that little pocket camera he showed. I was with Neal's in New York City a few years ago. And we were walking through Times Square. And right in the middle of Times Square, Neal's got to bust out that camera. It was Toby Mac in concert in the middle of Times Square. Luis Palau and Toby Mac were proclaiming the gospel. And I was like, what is going on? Are we in New York City? But it was pretty cool. And that camera came out. I was going to say, you know, just to give us a shameless plug, Jeff. The First Impressions Conference is coming up. Our theme for this year, it's a month away. Our theme for this year is navigating a new season.

And so we're all in a new season. And so we're going to hear from speakers like Neal's, like Jeffrey, like DJ Soto, like Myron Pierce, who is doing Digi Churches and a good friend of mine who I just talked to a little bit ago. And then also Haley at Bayside Church. Neal's was talking about getting content out in unique ways. And they're doing great stuff with YouTube and content. So we're going to hear from these speakers and talk about the future of church and navigating a new season. That's my heart is to help people think through this and to highlight speakers like you guys. Jay, we got to get you in there. We had three people this year from Saddleback. And so we didn't want to load it too heavy from Saddleback.

You're number four. I've got longtime friend Dennis Choi and then obviously Rick Warren speaking and then Rommel from... Rick bumped me. Rick bumped you. But we're going to get you into the future. We have two conferences every year. We're already working on May 2021. Exciting, exciting conference in 2021. But yeah, so we're going to hear from Niels and Jeff and everybody and DJ Soto and Myron Pierce talking about the future of ministry, navigating a new season. And so it's my heart to help people dream and think, how could this be? What you guys have been doing for years. That's why we have these great chats when we get together and we had that coffee at Disneyland. It's dreaming. What could church be like?

I remember asking Jay at Disneyland over coffee, what constitutes a campus? Like, say somebody says, hey, I have a watch party at my house in Phoenix, Arizona. Are they a Saddleback campus? And he was like, well, you have to do this and this and this. And we're in this crazy fast moving time where, and I see this locally here in the Charlotte Metro with Elevation Church, where people are popping up watch parties all over the world and they're flying the banner and they're saying, we're an elevation campus and we're, and I'm sure Jay's driven crazy by it. We're a Saddleback campus. And, and what, how did, how, you know, Niels knows, you know, we've heard this, this thing for years. And I shared this with Jeff Reed over Cuban food in Miami.

You can either have growth or control. You can either have growth or control. And so you can't have both. Were you the guy that said that? I was the one who told you that. Yeah. I, I, I, I did not remember it being you. I tell that quote at least five times a week. We talked about it over Cuban food. Yeah. In Miami. But the thing is. Much, much respect right now. I, I, I did not remember you. Thank you. I'll give you credit now. It's weird, Jeff. You put it as your quote in your ebook. I thought that was weird. I'm just saying. Like, maybe I claimed it. I always thought it was Clay Scroggins. Clay Scroggins. That was another Clay Scroggins classic. No, but, um, but my thought, my thought is we were talking two years ago about, hey, Jay, there's these watch parties springing up.

Does that mean they're a Saddleback campus? And so there's so much happening in this new frontier, this new blazing, navigating the new season of ministry to quote First Impressions Conference. There's so much happening of what constitutes a campus. And how do you tell people they can't meet if they want to open up their home and have a watch party? And, and how do we get them resources? And how do we connect with them? I've watched, uh, Elevation now has watch party pastors and they show up on site and they travel and fly every week to different cities and they show up on site and say, we're here in Philadelphia and we're at a watch party. And I'm thinking, this is outrageous. I mean, this is, you know, when you get back, when you get back to the New Testament, when you get back to Paul, the apostle Paul, he was not there in person.

He sent letters. He was not there in person. And so there has always been the theological, biblical precedent for an online type ministry where you don't have to be there in person. The apostle Paul, who we all quote and read and memorize and, and, and preach from is not there in person talking to us. We're reading his letter. And so there's been this precedent for this type of ministry for a long, long, long time, 2000 years, but, um, it's a crazy time we're living in. I want to add that to the watch party trend. So that that's a huge trend that's happening right now and, and will continue to happen. I hate the name watch party. I think it doesn't represent what it is. It should be like worship party or church party.

Like watch, watch party is almost speaking to the same weekend of just come and watch and do that together. House party, maybe, maybe aligns very pretty better, but I just don't like the term watch. Uh, because I think it's still aligns to what I feel like was the flaw of so many churches. Yeah. Come and see. You guys are what home gathering. Is that, is that what you call it? No. Well, we've had like a thousand names cause we're constantly tinkering with it. So we're actually right now, it's, it's somewhere, it's Saddleback somewhere is, is actually what it is now. Somewhere? Yeah. Somewhere, somewhere, anywhere, somewhere. Do we like somewhere? I'm, I'm, I'm kind of up in the air on somewhere.

Hey, I like the alliterative. I like the alliterative dialogue. Hey Jeff, you know, the good thing is, is that you guys don't get to make that decision. So you can take a vote if you want. I mean, but I, I do think kind of echoing what Greg was saying that I really, I'm excited about, and I've always, I've always been a big believer of this. The larger you get, the harder it is for you to change your ways. And I think just because it's, it's, it's your, at the end of the day, there's things that pay the bills. This is why online is always kind of threatening to a local, to a, to most churches is that it's inherently feels like you're cannibalizing your, your market. And so, I mean, the, the classics that you kind of go over and over again.

And so, I mean, and I, that's why I do think that, you know, for, for Saddleback and a lot of, a lot of big churches, it's really hard to change and embrace, let's say like a somewhere watch party strategy, just inherently because it's anti how you're staffed and structured and goals and everything. And so I'm really personally, I think both, you know, large churches aren't going away, small churches aren't going away. But I do think that there's going to be more and more disruptors that are going to plant things and do things from it. Cause when you do it from the, um, up down, it just, it looks completely different. But I, and, and it influences everything. I was reading the thing yesterday.

They were talking about, uh, Amazon's new palm reader thing. That's going to be for the ID. That's not for your, um, your face, but they were talking about how like the infrastructure has influenced this decision because like Apple, for example, the fingerprint is only, only stored locally. And, and it's because of privacy. The local device is the authenticator where Amazon is changing it because the palm is going to be actually stored in the cloud. It's not being authenticated at the device level. And so there, but I bring this up because this is like a philosophy thing. It's at the core. And so obviously there's some privacy concerns with the Amazon model. Um, and obviously this is how, and so I think there's a lot of churches that are going to have to have hybrid and it will make sense.

But I think there's going to be a lot of cool churches doing things that are probably have way more potential to blow this up in a whole new way. And I'm excited for those that are coming out of this scene that, um, and I think that's going to, we're going to see in five years, just like people who just rethought everything and they didn't have to be constrained to the old way of thinking. It's been fun for me, even in, I'm coming off literally this week, we've been going through, uh, assessment of church planners. And this is our first group of digital only church planners that we're working with. And, and hearing, uh, these guys and gals talking about what their vision is, how they're re-imagining the church.

Um, it's, it's funny that one of them was actually trying to replicate the model of the physical church, not doing a digital, just kind of trying to copy it. And, and within like the three day retreat that we're doing by day two, he's like, yeah, none of this is going to work. I'm going to have to. And so he's literally like throwing away all of his plans, trying to come up with, with, with something new on the fly. And, and we got plenty of time to kind of reshape it and solidify it before, but it's very exciting that for in this season to kind of see some of the newness, some of the people coming in with a fresh perspective, kind of recognizing, okay, like we need to follow the Bible. We need to follow the biblical standards, the ecclesiology, maybe a little more than the traditional mindset and the liturgy that we're seeing more in the modern church or even the traditional church that we've seen here in America.

So I, it's an exciting time. It's a scary time. There are going to be churches that are going to get it. There are churches that, that won't. Um, and, and, you know, let's drop Kerry Newhoff for like the umpteenth time here in, in this podcast. You know, he's been a great one of these guys to, to just continue to, to help churches in the season understand, you know, one of the quotes that he said recently was this idea of, Hey, churches that are going to survive in the future, the ones that are going to be equipping people that are going to be moving beyond just the content. And empowering people with the message as opposed to carrying all the weight. And we, you know, Ray and I, we spent so much time talking about this idea of church as platform where we're reproducing and empowering rather than just creating this, this content idea.

Um, and people are buying it and they're running it and they're implementing it. It's just this crazy season. Here's the question I want to land on. Um, there's newness here, right? So people are learning something new. Churches are learning something new. They're experimenting. They're doing things they haven't done before. Looking at this screen here, I want to say there's probably at least 50, if not 60 years worth of online ministry experience among all of us combined. I think the first online Bible study I taught was in the year 2000. So there's a lot here. What advice? Give me one piece of advice for churches out there. Um, topic, ranging, whatever up to you guys. Uh, one piece of advice or coaching.

Uh, what do y'all have? I'll go, um, let me first work in, cause you said Kerry Newhoff, the magic word. I want to work in shameless plug number two. Kerry Newhoff is delivering a fresh brand new talk at the First Impressions Conference. He's a keynote speaker and you don't want to miss it. I've already seen it. It's very good. Uh, brand new, brand new talk. Hey, if we're doing shameless plugs, uh, there's a link in the show notes to sign up for the conference. So you can go ahead and do that. Click on that link and, um, the Church Digital may or may not get, uh, a piece of that. So please sign up through that link. We'll get your promo code. There you go. We're, we're all good. All right. Go ahead, Greg.

But, um, Michael Todd, the man, Mike Todd. But, um, uh, here's, here's the thing. Um, I mentioned this book back here behind me, this orange, uh, it's 101,000 words, 388 pages I wrote 10 years ago called Strange Leadership. It is a, um, it is a deep, deep, uh, study on the, the subject of innovation, 40 ways to lead an innovation, uh, innovative organization. And there's 40 chapters. That's why it's 388 pages, 40 ways to lead an innovative organization. And when I interviewed, uh, Life.Church and Larry Osborne and all these people that, that I've quoted in the book and, and that's the second edition. And this has been updated since 10 years ago. It's got, I talked about, um, Colin Kaepernick in this book and, and taking a knee and starting, there's a chapter called Revolution.

And so, um, it's been, it's been updated. And so it's, it's current. However, um, one of the things that I, uh, you know, um, I think Ray mentioned Life.Church earlier, they'll do anything short of sin to reach people with the gospel. There's a mentality. Uh, I mentioned, I interviewed Bobby Greenwald for the First Impressions conference and I was asking him to kind of, um, um, what Jay was getting at earlier about the speed at which large churches move. And it's so hard when you're a large church to take a quick turn. And I was asking Bobby, because he's on that directional leadership team of five, how do you, a church, the size of Life.Church, how do you have the ability to turn on a dime and to be so nimble and quick with your decisions?

And, and, um, and so there was a cool discussion there, but in the book, when I talk about this concept, there was a lot that I learned from studying Life.Church years ago, and that is basically, it's okay to fail. And so when you talk about, you know, leading up with this last question, we're going to fail. Uh, like Neil said in passing, second, second life was a bust, but still Life.Church had a whole campus there and you can walk in and worship. You're going to fail. You're going to fail, but, but keep, keep going, keep plowing ahead. Um, if your heart is right, we're going to take the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ through the nations, and we're going to reach people at any cost, whatever it takes, just keep going, keep going.

You're going to mess up. You're going to make mistakes. You're going to fall. You're going to fail. But all innovative companies, and that's what I reference in the book, all innovative businesses and organizations in the world have failed and have a culture. I talk, I have a chapter on this in the book that have a culture that encourages the freedom to fail and celebrates failure. I talk about a company that sends an employee on a vacation to Hawaii at the end of the year who had the biggest failure of the company. And so, um, you're going to fail. You're going to mess up, but keep pushing forward. I want a free trip to Hawaii. I can fail big, man. Like, let's, let's make that happen. Um, who, who am I going to talk to at Stadia?

I wonder that we'll have to dig in. Google doesn't do that. Google does that. Yeah. They're one of those. Oh, that was such a, just niche joke that only for Nils, like it was like the Stadia gaming, nevermind. Oh, okay. I'll continue on. No, it's okay. I deserve it. Um, so, so I deserve that. Um, the, uh, clear, well, I honestly, it's on my mind because during the Laker game, they constantly show Stadia, uh, gaming commercial. Um, and so, uh, but I, so the thing I would kind of say is, and this is probably the boring thing to say, um, is I do think that for most churches, if you continue to figure out how to make online make sense for your local community, leadership will give you more to, to experiment for beyond.

And, uh, and I, I have, I have found that I work at a church that is amazing and, and, and out there, but at the end of the day, we have to figure out how to make it work. And the more I've proven that I can be a good steward of those resources and make it make sense for our, our vision and our mission, the more freedom I've been given to go do things digital and different. Um, you know, I remember, I was, I remember doing for the first time, this was years ago, like jumping on a plane and doing a meetup, you know, thousands of miles away and meeting people in person. I remember other people on staff were asking me like, Jay, how are you going and doing this? And, and, and the, the short answer is, is that I, I, along with like leadership and a bunch of people, we had figured out how to make this work.

And so it wasn't that I just day one said, give me a budget so I can get on a plane and go somewhere. It was, I kind of faithfully like figured this out. And so I think if you show, um, you know, I, I, the other thing is I think most churches should be running like a Facebook Instagram ad every week, even if it's like $10, I think like, that's not radical. This is stuff that's simple, like just do it. But at the end of the day, your leadership isn't going to say yes to that if they don't understand that online can lead back to your goals. So I think do the hard work of showing that online works for the local and beyond and your goals and the more you're going to have resources and people will do it.

You know, not everybody is gifted to be like an Elon Musk or whatever. And they're just, and they, and they can get all the funding and do it. Most of us have to like prove ourselves. And so I think I do that and trust me, if, if, if, if you are faithful in that, people will see like, oh, wow. Um, I, this is why I tend to, I tend to lean heavy into local, uh, because I don't I'm already online and people know that. And so I have to over-communicate that just to show that I'm both like, I see the wins. Um, so I, I think for most churches, that's, that's somewhere I would start and figure out how online makes for local. And then trust me, if you do that well, the other doors will start opening and then you can kind of go do all the stuff that Niels is so great at doing.

I, I'll, I'll just, uh, piggyback on what Jay was saying. And, and I think it's, and what I feel like I've said for years is just start. Um, and, and I think that it is, it is beyond that now though. And it's, it's keep leaning in. And so wherever you are from where you started, just keep leaning in. And I think you've got to lean into your mission first and, and you don't want to do virtual reality just for the sake of doing virtual reality. You want to do virtual reality because it aligns to your mission. You don't want to do Facebook for the sake of doing Facebook. You want to do Facebook for the sake of it aligning to your mission and you don't want to have a building for the sake of having a building.

You want to have a building because it aligns to your mission. And so I think you lean into your mission, what God called you to do, uh, and you use the tools, uh, that he's given you and made available to us, uh, and, and to accomplish that mission. And, and I think it's pretty simple. And the great thing is I think I pay $12 a month for zoom and I can have unlimited zoom calls with up to 50 people. I think I pay zero for Facebook and I can reach unlimited people, you know, and I think you could pay $10 a month, which is cheaper than an old yellow pages ad. And you can reach a lot of people. Um, and so it, it really just seems like technology aligns to the mission of the church very significantly and keep leaning in.

And, and I think what we're seeing in the season is, is there are churches that were trying to wait it out and those churches are probably either dead now, or they're going to be dead by the end of the year. Um, and, and those churches that leaned in like transformation church, when the physical gatherings come back, their physical gatherings are going to be 10 times as large and their online gatherings are going to be 20 times as large because they leaned in. And, uh, and I think just keep leaning in and the opportunities are only going to become more significant. Uh, and the technology is only going to get better. And I think as we are intentional about aligning it to our mission, we're going to, we're going to be good.

Uh, but it's not technology for the sake of technology, just technology for the sake of the gospel. Uh, and when we lean into that, uh, I think we're going to see incredible fruits on that investment. Ray, what do you got? What are you thinking? Um, man, I love so much of what was said because Jeff, you know, there's so much we talked about, you know, kind of like what Jay and Niels and Greg were talking about in terms of starting and just kind of getting something going. But really, if I had to give somebody advice right now, I would tell them, Hey, your people are already online. I would just tell them like that. Uh, you know, you, you are, the world is already there. And so it's waiting for you to go out there and reach them for Christ.

That's, that's what it is. And so, you know, you don't have to worry about innovating. You don't have to worry about breaking the bank. Like what Jay talked about, you don't have to worry about any of that stuff. You have to think about where your people are at right now. And your people are on Facebook. Your people are on YouTube. Your people are already on these channels. And so why not equip them? Why not go to where they're at and leverage these things for the sake of discipleship, for the sake of evangelism, for all these reasons. And then the other thing is, is don't worry about growing your church's influence. Worry about growing that community side of it. You know, I love how Jay was talking about how so many churches want to be a global church right now.

And that's true, you know, and some for good and some for bad reasons for obvious things. But the big thing is, is that as church, we're supposed to be a community. We're supposed to be a big family. Part of my big fear in terms of where we're headed next is that there are so many little divisive things, especially online that are like kind of cracking us up, right? Like between politics and, you know, all sorts of other little arguments and squabbles and things that are going on. But what if digital was a way to keep the family together? What if it was that way? Even as we struggle with, well, you're reopening, but you're not reopening the way that I want you to. What if digital could be that way that we kind of kept the family together and said, okay, well, listen, I know it's not the way that you would prefer, but in the least, let's stay connected, let's stay in communication, let's stay in conversation, and let's continue to grow as a family down the road.

Because that's what's important is that Jesus died for his church. And there's so much of that that needs to take place in the digital space. You know, I love, very beautiful. Love that. I love this group. And what I think intrigues me about this is all of us are intrinsically looking, and we all have expertise and experience in this idea of online ministry, digital church, whatever you want to call it. But we all have different kind of spins and takes on it. Nils is very futuristic, kind of in mindset, falls on the technology, and has experience kind of in those worlds. I still don't understand the whole money thing, but we'll get there one day, maybe. You know, Jay is grounded through Saddleback in the physical to digital online, excuse me, digital to physical, online to offline kind of theories.

And so that doesn't hold him back necessarily. I don't mean to say that, but it's very much implemented where physical has a part in that. So let digital drive to some of those physical interactions. Greg, one of my favorite parts of this podcast was Greg talking about the idea of pastoring and having that hospitality piece and caring for people as an individual. And that's shown through his life and ministry and a lot of the things that he's doing. And so we're all specialists in this one area, but there's little niches. I said niches within and don't get mad at me, but niches that we're kind of working in. Like some of the things that I'm working on, on the digital side with this, that, you know, two years ago, five years ago, people thought I was crazy.

And I got inspired evidently by a Clay Scroggins, Kerry Newhoff podcast towards the idea of digital church planning. I got to get Clay on the show now because he evidently was a guy who was instrumental in my life. Sorry, Nils. I no longer give you credit for that. But there's opportunities and there's things that we, the church, we haven't thought of yet. And I think so much we've lived, I've lived in this fear of, okay, I got to fit in this box. I don't want to rock the boat. I can't ask these questions too hard. There's no one around me that agrees with me. So therefore I must be wrong. And honestly, I lived in that box, in that cell, in that prison cell virtually for a long time thinking, okay, I just can't find the church that agrees with me.

I'm just going to give up and come to find out there are people who thought that way. There are opportunities. God is doing ministry through some of these unique ways. And so let's continue on and explore. The churches that don't agree with me, it's just a different model. It's not good. It's not bad. They just don't agree. And so for the churches out there, I'd say experiment, learn, try something different. Fire BBs before bullets before cannonballs. Test some of this stuff out. Just as we're landing the plane here, there's been all sorts of self-promotion, I think, coming out of Greg, which has been awesome. Love that. Love helping you guys get connected and moving forward with things. That's why I'm here.

But maybe how can people get connected with you? I know all of you are doing intricate things. So Jay, how can people get connected to you? What's going on? Like how, what are all the resources you're helping for the church today? Yeah, I mean, I, first off, Greg is promoting resources, free resources. I mean, come on, most of them, you know, and some of them paid or worth it. So that's a good thing. I, I don't know, Instagram for me, Jay Cranda. I, I, I'm very much, you know, I just like to share what I'm learning. And so I don't get to spend as much time on it as I like to, but I definitely check out my Instagram account or jaycranda.com. And I would love to point you in the right direction.

There's so many cool, there's so many amazing people creating amazing resources out there. And so, and I think what's important is finding something, uh, you can learn something from just about everybody. Um, but you know, go out there, you know, I think about when I started in this role, there weren't that many people I could go to. It was Niels. It was, I remember, I, I remember I couldn't even get ahold of Brandon at Life Church. I remember I tried to reach out to him, um, because they were growing like crazy at that time. And I just think now, like there's so many cool things. So go research. There's no reason why you should start to expand your digital experience and not be informed. There's so many things you can just, you know, I, I, I've, I've been experiencing this the last couple of weeks.

I just started to, I just started to, after like 10 years skateboard again. And, um, one of my kids wanted to do it. So I bought him a skateboard. Well, I was thinking back when I started skateboarding, you know, YouTube wasn't around. I had to just learn it from my friends. And I was like, there was a trick I never learned was a, uh, a tray flip or a 360 flip. Um, and I'm like, I think I can learn this thing now because I could go watch a YouTube video and figure out how to do it all. And so I, my goal is over the next couple of weeks is to learn it. And I was like, how cool is that? Like 10 years of not touching a skateboard. I think I could figure this out. Well, it's because I could go to this amazing resource.

And I think in the community, you go to the conferences that Greg puts on, check out Neil stuff, listen to this podcast, check out stuff I'm going on and take what makes sense. And I, you just, you have such a cool way to launch from a better space that most of us got to launch from. Now watch that video of the skateboarding with your son. That was cool. Thanks. That was cool. I was impressed. And let's, let's give credit to Jay's YouTube. I'll, I'll just be honest. The, the NFL, NL, NBA video, what church is your, um, like Nils, I'm pretty sure I even heard you talk about that on your podcast. I think recently, like it was, it was a phenomenal episode. So legend, legend. Yeah. He's, he's, he's, he's underselling himself.

Well, Hey, Hey, I'm glad the 180 people that saw it, enjoyed it. 179. I watched it twice to be fair, but, but still. Jeff, uh, the first impression, when I talk about the first impressions conference, that's just because I believe it's relative and it can help, but I'm not a speaker. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I try to stay behind the scenes, kind of always look at like, uh, Brad Lamanick or how he used to be with catalyst. I'm just behind the scenes, pulling the levers, making it happen, but I'm not, I don't, uh, I don't speak at it myself, but, but the, um, the way you can find me and get in touch with me would be through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. And then, um, I have two, uh, Facebook groups that total about 22,000 people.

And so connect with me there because I can put more of myself into a Facebook group where I interact with tens of thousands at once, as opposed to one-on-one emails or one-on-one zoom calls or one-on-one phone calls. And so find me at the weekend worship and guest services, Facebook group. I know Jeff is active there and I've had Jeff do a Facebook live in the group before, and it's still in the group that you can go back and, and watch, but that's the best way to interact with me where you will see me type back and respond because I comment and interact in the Facebook group. And so weekend worship and guest services. That's awesome. And incredible resources. I've loved the, the weekend worship guest services.

Your assimilation one, I forget the language of that one. That kind of, the new one. Yeah. And so it, that's, it's, uh, incredible community centered around that and the ability to engage with people who are asking questions and safe spaces for them to dig in. That's, that's awesome. So, um, Nils, what, what you're all over the place too. So, so how can people keep up with you? So you could probably just Google my name. Uh, and I, because it's Nilsmith and there's only not like three of us in the world, it's a little easier. Uh, so N-I-L-S, S-M-I-T-H or Nilsmith.com. Oh, there's not a Z. I always thought there was a Z at the end. It would, it would help. You know, actually if I had two L's, I get Niles a ton.

Uh, cause if you see like my mom's like, it's Pills, Hills, Thrills, Nils, and I'm like, do you see something in common with the other ills? Uh, but they didn't give me two L's. It's a Swedish name. Um, and, um, it's, I've just dealt with it my whole life and that's obnoxious. So Nilsmith.com, I'm Nilsmith on Twitter, Instagram, all of those things. And, uh, social media church podcast is the other thing that you can go social media.church. Um, yeah. Awesome. Hey, Nils, thank you for, for jumping on this. Glad, no, I'm kidding. Sorry. That was, that was a very bad joke there. Awesome. And so Ray, Ray's at the church digital social media. Ray, you want to talk about anything there? No, I enjoy writing for, for the blog and doing a lot of experimenting here with Jeff and, and just all sorts of things that we've got going on.

And really the big thing that's kind of coming up is, uh, is kind of the short style of show that we're going to think Jeff and I are going to be doing. That's pretty cool. It's called beta. And so we're going to be basically, basically we're going to be taking things like this and we're going to be doing short 15 minute episodes, answering people's questions, uh, taking them by text, by social media, any, which way that's the big thing. So if you're listening to this show and if you're like, man, how can I get a little more practical beta is coming out soon and make sure to text us, reach out to us and let us know how we can help you. Awesome. Love that. And while we're having this conversation, Jay Cranda is tweeting out about Roblox going public.

And I totally want to have that conversation because my kids are addicted to Roblox, but we've been going too long, so I don't want to touch it, but we're going to come back to that because Roblox and those, I mean, that's when I look at this MMO stuff and these, these communities that are digital communities that are existing as communities. This is where I see the next movement. And maybe that's a radical concept. And some traditionalists out there is now freaking out on me right now. It's just the concept. But I mean, I'm looking at things like the Robloxian Christians where a 12 year old kid is creating a church and reaching tens of thousands of people. And I'm saying, why can't we do something like this?

By the way, that kid is now 20 and is doing a phenomenal job, even still with it and trying to transition on. And it's just some phenomenal stories, even in context of Roblox. But that's a whole other podcast and we need to land a plane here on episode 100. So gentlemen, thank you for jumping on this and spending time with me. I remember walking into that Starbucks and I'm like, I knew Jay kind of a little bit. I don't even think I had met you much, Jay, physically at that point. It was just emails and phone and Zoom. But to be able to engage and kind of dialogue in that season and even beyond that, all four of you have been instrumental. So thank you. This has been an awesome podcast and looking forward to many more.

I'll bring you back at, you know, a thousand when we're all episode 1000. We're all retired out of the game. And well, except, you know, Jay, because Jay will still look like he's like, you know, 30. This kind of feels like a John Gruber episode, like how like their podcasts are like crazy long, you know, like, and it's just, it's like hanging out or I guess a Joe Rogan podcast. Yeah. Hey, can I go for our one? Nobody listens to, I know probably we listen to the Gruber, but like the Joe Rogan podcast, Joe Rogan's more hip. But before Jeff ends it, I want to give a shout out to Pushpay for that conference that we all kind of attended together. And, and also just a small plead. If you ever want to take us all back to California to reunite, you know, over, over coffee and Disneyland, please do.

Do a panel. I think that's a great idea, man. We should, we should figure out how to make that happen. Have Stadia sponsor it. We'll do a live panel Q&A. Yeah. I'm having that conversation. Of course, you know, I got to get all the way through to Google and that may take some time, but we'll, we'll figure out how to navigate that. So, all right. Hey, I am going to land the plane. Cause I'm actually supposed to be at an appointment in nine minutes in the places like 30 minutes away. So I'm going to, I'm going to, unless you want me to like leave my own podcast and you guys can keep talking. Actually, that might be interesting, but no, I'm not going to do that. We're going to wrap right here for, oh my gosh, there's a lot of names here on the screen for, for Jay, for Nils, for Greg, for Ray.

This is Jeff at the Church Digital wrapping up episode 100. Here's to the next hundred. Thanks for jumping on, on the pod here and we'll see you next time here at the show. Y'all have a good day.