EP224: Taylor McCall & How a Decentralized Microchurch Impacts the City

We were never meant to be under some form of Levitical control. There's a difference between accountability and control. And so you ask, how do they release control? And I would say, well, they either release it or it will be taken from them. Welcome to the Church Digital Podcast. Through this podcast, we'll talk about the technological innovations within the church. But more than tech or tech itself, we'll address deeper questions. Is disciple-making possible digitally? How should we approach the digital mission field? Can a biblically grounded church operate in digital space? Oh, and where does the metaverse fit into all this? Whether you're a big or small church, an established church, or a startup church plant, the Church Digital's goal is to help churches like yours learn to be a multiplying church, digitally and physically.

our heart, that churches like yours will discover a newfound focus on disciple-making that will revolutionize your church. And now, here's your host, Jeff Reed. Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Church Digital Podcast. Looking forward to this conversation here. I got Taylor McCall coming up here in just a second. But before we get there, let me tell you a little bit about FAM. FAM is Digital Church Network. It's our online community. Hey, we've been doing great at creating content. But in digital space, content is nothing without community. And so our heart is to create a community where we're connecting together digital pastors, planters, and practitioners from literally all over the globe at this point, coming together to ask questions, to learn about digital ministry, digital discipleship, maybe some outside-of-the-box thinking.

And we're going to get a lot of outside-of-the-box thinking in this podcast today coming up. But if you're not part of FAM, I want to challenge you right now. Jump in. It's free. It's a great opportunity to connect with some pastors, some planters, people who are thinking and asking the same questions that you are and working through it together. Not to mention the training and the resources that we've got there is incredible. So what are you doing? Okay, finish the podcast. Definitely don't go there. Well, maybe you can use your other device to go there now, but go to famfam.digitalchurch.network and get connected to the family, to your new family over there, part of Digital Church Network. And so, hey, that was it.

By the way, Taylor, the most awkward part of the podcast is right here where I have to transition from the commercial to the actual interview. And so I've done this like six or seven times in the new format, and each one of them is horrible. And so I apologize to you right now for this awkward transition, because I literally don't know how to do it better. And my producer, Garrett Silji, has yet to give me advice. And so here we are. That's what we're doing. No, seriously, looking forward to this conversation, Taylor. Hey, so Taylor, tell us a little bit about your ministry, what you're doing. Hey, first of all, great transition. Transitions can be hard for anybody. So you did it well. That's probably your producers just letting you roll with it.

You're a natural. We'll assume the best for now anyway. So thank you. Yeah. Well, so I'm sitting here in downtown Alton, Illinois, just outside of St. Louis, Missouri. So we're on the Illinois side, just a few miles from downtown St. Louis. And ministry, life's work, dreams all kind of come into one idea of seeing the church manifest and work and function as a city within a city, a better city within our cities. And so everything centers around that, kind of a serial entrepreneur at heart, been starting businesses since I was 12 years old and never been good at making a lot of money, but real good at starting businesses and, um, given a lot of them away and, uh, a lot of them have failed, but, uh, that kind of came into play, uh, later in life in my ministry journey.

Um, after over a decade of, of traditional church planting and pastoring, um, we transitioned out of that world and more into the world of, uh, building what we call kingdom ecosystems, which is the, the core ethic and dream of, of our organization, which is called brave cities. Um, and so that's what we're doing now, trying to train church planters and dreamers and visionaries and pioneers into, uh, building better cities and seeing the church function as that way. Um, uh, uh, not as opposed to the, the prevailing or the traditional model of church, which is more of, uh, a worship experience, a service, uh, a gathering space, but, uh, in addition to, and maybe a more expanded idea than, uh, what we know as church.

Yeah. Love it. By the way, in, in this conversation, um, you know, and, and I want to almost give this as a disclaimer up front, Taylor's not a digital guy per se. Uh, and so we're not, we're not having this conversation trying to get new digital insight, but when he talks about brave cities, when he talks about, uh, these ecosystems, a lot of what, what he's talking about is in the physical space, a lot of what I think. And when we talk with the, the, the leadership, uh, the groups over at digital church network, what we see, uh, the future being. And so, you know, we did a similar conversation, uh, you know, I was telling Taylor, I was telling off air, we did a similar conversation with Jason Shepard from church project in Houston.

I don't know, maybe five, six months ago, maybe it was late 21 and a phenomenal conversation. And Guy didn't understand digital, like we, we talked about it in the podcast, but the, the framework that a lot of the, the micro and the decentralized movements, a lot of what that looks like in physical space, uh, especially as we're looking at blockchain and crypto coming in, I think that's going to open up an immense opportunity, even in digital to try to, um, I don't know if mirror is the right word, but realize some of this kingdom ecosystem. And so I, I, I'm looking forward to, to digging into this, uh, a little bit. So, so help me here right up front. You're talking about kingdom ecosystems.

What talk to me a little bit about that. What, what, what does that mean? What do you mean when you say that? Can I just say, uh, I wasn't a digital guy until I met Jeffrey. And we, we spent hours in an Airbnb with some other fellas, uh, talking kingdom ecosystems and talking, uh, church in the digital space. And, uh, and there's a couple other guys that I've crossed paths with, uh, that I mentioned to Jeff, uh, last time we connected and, uh, my, my, you know, I'm a visionary, uh, at least a wannabe and, uh, I want to be pioneer. And so anywhere I can see the kingdom growing and manifesting itself in any space, the digital space is just another city. Now it's just another place where people live.

And the beautiful thing, if I can kind of, I'll, I'll, I'll show you how to transition. Well, I've transitioned into kingdom ecosystems. Uh, one of the, one of the elements that's become so clear to us is there's no contextualization contextualization of the kingdom ecosystem philosophy. There is certainly contextualization of what we call tables. And we could talk about that later, but, but we were created in an ecosystem. We've lived in an ecosystem for all of our, uh, existence and we will spend our eternity. Most of us believe in an ecosystem called the holy city, New Jerusalem. And so, uh, the, the city within a city has always been the idea, uh, behind, uh, mankind, humanity existing and coexisting and interconnecting together.

And so, uh, I've seen the beauty of the digital space and how it can kind of inject itself and intersect in that space and not just form another, you know, centralized church planting model within that space, but also build a city within a city. So to, I don't know, to summarize, you asked me, what is a kingdom ecosystem? Uh, I would say, uh, for starters, it's a collective of people, uh, who have a vision, uh, who have a, a dream for a certain location, a certain geography or space. And they come together to form, uh, what would look like in my space, in my physical space, intentional, uh, living, intentional houses, intentional neighboring to form, uh, intentional market spaces, um, that have a very specific framework and ethic that reigns over it, specifically, uh, the ethic of Jesus and intentional justice works, um, that care and leverage.

And, um, and, um, and create access and space for the poor, the orphan, the widow within their context, and then creating, uh, innovative ways of connecting the hope of the kingdom in those spaces. Nothing new, nothing that's mind blowing, but I think the, I think what's fresh about it is it's the idea of integrating life and ministry and, uh, and. In gospel, good news within your everyday rhythms, instead of a separate space, a fourth space outside of that. Is this a, is this a, is this a church? Is this a network of churches? Like what's the, because I, we, we understand the word church. I don't think there's a lot of understanding maybe about what happens outside or above. And I know that's a lot of where, where you're spending time.

So is this a, is this a, should we call this a network? What, what is this thing actually? No, I wouldn't call it a network. And, you know, we're obviously still dreaming and working and listening of what terminology and articulation is going to be like. But for me, I want to call it a city. Our organization is called Brave Cities. And one of our we're also writing a book right now. And one of our chapters is called Church as City. And so the church is the people. Obviously, we all know that our kind of theological framework of church within us, even though we see a building and we call a building a church, the theological framework within most of us is the church is the people. But the people are building the city.

And so the city functions as this ministry space, if you will, this organic, incarnational, interconnected ministry space. So network is fine. It's a helpful term, but it's limiting because network suggests, in my opinion, that everyone is working together for the same end. But that's not always the case within this ecosystem. Sometimes there are people that are coming in and out of it. Sometimes there are people that are working in it that don't necessarily believe in the end goal of the ecosystem, but they're slowly being introduced to the love of Jesus, to the hope of Jesus, to the purpose of the kingdom. And so, yeah, we call it Church as City. The church is the people that are building and they're trying to build a better city within their city.

You're going to hear me say that a lot. I mean, we could talk for 10 years and you're going to hear the word city over and over and over, because I love the manifestation and the functioning work of an ecosystem. And I think if I could just get kind of get into scriptures for just a second, I think we live in a world that is ruled by a power that is not God. And we have been given the authority and the power to build a city that is ruled by God within that world. That's some pretty high expectations. I want to get to that in a little bit, because a city that's ruled by God, I don't know that I've seen that in modern history anywhere. You know, and especially in digital space, you know, we talk about how digital is more like a post-Christian, almost, environment.

And definitely we see post-Christian and Western. And so that's a that's a very radical thought. But let's let's unpack this first. Go ahead. Go talk to me. OK, well, just just to be clear. We're not you have seen what you haven't seen. What you have seen in what no one has ever seen is an empirical city, a Babylonian city that's ruled by God. They never can be. They're not supposed to be. They have been given authority by God to be ruled by powers that aren't God. What you have seen are little shadows of the kingdom. These little pockets of cities that are ruled by God. They're built by God's people to be submitted to the reign of God. Now, this could be 20 people, you know, a little coffee shop in a gym and living in a two square block radius that are building an ecosystem that functions separately from the ecosystem of the greatest greater city that they're in.

And so that distinction is really important is we we as Jesus people have not been called to change our cities. I believe I believe we've been called to build better cities within our cities. And those could be very small. They could be networked. Like you said, they could be interconnected. But the church in our cities, in Miami, in St. Louis, in Birmingham, wherever we are, the church was really meant to function as an interconnected family, supporting, loving, finding all things in common, not as a group of people that were competing with each other's organizations, you see. And so that's the city that we're talking about. We are not talking about a city like Chicago being ruled by God. Not only do I not think that that's possible, I actually don't think that's what we've been called to do.

I think we've been called to build shadows of the holy city, New Jerusalem, within those cities. Those will be ruled by God. This sounds a little organic, right? So, I mean, you're talking coffeehouses, you're talking gyms, 20 people. When you talk about these new cities, are you leaning towards more of an organic, decentralized approach? Like what do you see these small cities, these new cities, these new Jerusalems, what does this look like? Yeah, they're organic, but don't ever confuse organic or dichotomize organic with organization. The body, the human body is extremely organic. It moves naturally. It reacts. It, you know, thinks in an organic and moves in an organic type of fashion. But we know that it's also perhaps the most organized organism on the face of the earth.

And so anything that's truly organic has to have an extreme amount of organization within it. I think that's where the city builders come in, is they carry the weight of that ownership of how is the city going to function? And look, here's the thing. I don't want to, I'm not an idealist. I sound like it sometimes, but I'm really not. No city we build this side of the final city is ever going to be fully ruled by God, is ever going to be perfect. Because we're humans, we're imperfect. We're, we're, we, we mess up everything that we put our hands to at some point in time. But this, this movement that we're talking about, uh, has the potential to create an ethic again, that submits itself to the ethic of Jesus, to the teaching of Jesus, to the lifestyle of Jesus.

And so anyway, yeah, backtracking, it is very organic. It's awakening dreams in the people within what we call the church, right? Like the body of Christ. And those dreams are to build and create and innovate spaces that connect the love and the hope of God to a seeking world. So you mentioned gyms and you mentioned coffee shops. Those are third, those are what we call third spaces, right? Uh, we're, we're all about building third spaces, but also second spaces, uh, where we work. You know, the average person in the industrialized world and the Western world is spending what 75, 80% of their life in the market space. Um, so we've gone from bivocational to co-vocational to we're just all in it's everything.

It's not work and ministry. It's not work, uh, you know, infused with ministry. It's work is ministry. It's business is church. It's not business as mission. It's not necessarily business is mission that is in there, but it's the business. You're, you don't leave your coffee shop. You don't have to, you certainly can, but that's your table. You don't leave that to then go to some sacred space to connect with Jesus or connect others to Jesus. This is the sacred space where you are building a rhythm within it to where people are connecting to the story of God in everyday life. Disciples are being made in this space in everyday life. It looked, man, it looks a lot like parenting, right? For anyone who's raised kids, we're not taking our, I mean, a lot of people do, but we wouldn't teach people to take their kids somewhere to try to connect them to God or to the hope of God or to the love of God.

We're connecting them in everyday life. We're connecting them in everyday life. I was cutting grass with my boys yesterday and my daughter, and we were just talking about, you know, the, the provision of, they want to buy an Oculus, you know, this whole world. They want to buy an Oculus quest and they want to like do the whole VR thing. And I was like, yeah, y'all can do it. The only thing is, is you have to earn the money to do it. And so they started a lawn company and they are cutting grass this summer. And we were sitting down after cutting a big yard yesterday. I helped them. And we're just talking about the, man, isn't God so good to provide this? Look at how work, you know, you're able to work and you're able to get a wage from it.

And this is just making disciples in everyday life and transfusing that or transferring that into what the church, how the church can function is a very organic and organized work. Now, these are not like, um, these businesses are these church run businesses where there's a organization of the church that's running it as a ministry or what you're describing is more of like individuals that are running a small business. That are running it for, for kingdom purposes, like how the idea of this business is organic, but how really organic are you seeing through, uh, brave cities? Yes. So part of our model is incubating good works within a city. Um, we created a, or we kind of helped, uh, 10, 12 years ago, we started designing like a 501c3 holding company model, uh, that was separate from kind of the traditional.

Uh, uh, religious organization to where we would incubate businesses within this org, very similar to like a Palo Alto style incubator, but we're incubating with very particular, uh, goals in mind with very particular strategies in mind. And, uh, uh, let's just, uh, the Christian thing is easy to understand, but let's say it's someone who's not necessarily, uh, following Jesus yet, or wanting to submit to the way of Jesus yet. So part of the incubating process is teaching and, and, and, and conveying and investing the, the good news of the kingdom into those people. Because what we've found Jeff is no one by and large in their right mind is averse to the good news of the kingdom. No one is averse to the great story of a God who loves his people.

What we've become so entangled with is this dogmatic religious shaming. And you know what I'm saying? I don't have to get too deep into it. So we want to bring people in that are not connected to the life and the love of Jesus and say, Hey, what's your, what's your dream for our city? How can we incubate this work? And so then practically, yes, our, our organization, which is non-religious, uh, our 501c3 holding company will help incubate and even hold that business, uh, training, coaching, entrepreneurial startup development, uh, bookkeeping, payroll, uh, branding, marketing, um, importing, exporting, uh, architecture, whatever, whatever it may be to incubate. But in order to kind of remain within the ecosystem, there are, uh, tenants that we hold to that are, you know, enjoyable, that are things like, uh, loving our employees and caring about people over profit and, you know, things like that.

So yes, uh, it's not just saying, Hey, guy down the street that runs an accounting firm, be a light in your accounting firm. It's a little more complex than that. It's, it's potentially launching or transitioning an accounting firm with a very specific, what we would think of traditionally as like a ministerial concept. How are we going to, uh, create a space that is inclusive, that like loves and welcomes and offers hope to any who come in it? How are we going to create access to the poor? How are we going to, uh, create what we would call convergence spaces where people are connecting and knowing each other? And the, the idea of, I'll end with this, the idea of, you know, dog eat dog, we got to get that money.

We got to make like loads and loads of profits. That's, that's just not a priority in these market spaces. You know, it's interesting. We, we talk a lot through the church digital, how there's, um, there's a lot of philosophical shifts that are happening as a result of, of the metaverse. And, uh, and, and one of those, the overall theme is that it's the, as a result of some of the metaverse technologies, blockchain, crypto specifically, there's going to be this move towards decentralization. And, and one of these philosophical shifts we see is that organizations and institutions need to move from a, uh, a profit mindset to a purpose, move away from trying to do everything we can to make the buck and instead to give purpose or to find purpose or to help people find their purpose.

And it, and it almost sounds like what you're doing right here with, um, uh, with Brave City is that you're, you're, you've already moved away from that. It's funny. You're kind of tongue in cheek. Uh, you've launched all these businesses. You've never really been able to make a buck off it. And, and, and honestly, like that's my history too, with some of the businesses that I, that I've run. Um, but the heart really comes into this place of what I'm hearing is moving to help people find their, their spiritual purpose. And then releasing them to build a city or releasing them with, within the city. Where are you guys through Brave City? Are you like seeing this in, is this a theory or is this reality?

Like what, what are some stories that could be centered around this? No, it's real. Um, if we were to, in the book, we talk about, um, five or six kingdom ecosystems that exist, uh, primarily around our country. There are others that we could reference, but they're a little harder to visit. Um, but Birmingham, Alabama, Alton, Illinois, Chicago, Illinois, uh, San Antonio, Texas, Tampa, Florida. These are places where people are, are kind of embracing and building this, uh, this decentralized model of kingdom ecosystem, um, where the church is functioning within it. And, and, and, you know, it's hard, it's a little difficult talking about this without a kind of a clear framework. And, uh, I guess if I could just cover it, you know, really briefly, I sent you, uh, an image, um, that takes this, this theory of how communities gathered.

That was developed in the 80s called social set theory. And it kind of breaks society into three groups called, uh, called the, um, the, uh, bounded set, the centered set in the fuzzy set. And we renamed those three groups, owners, workers, and seekers. And so if our listeners could just imagine three concentric circles, I talk about this a lot because I want there to be an image in our, in our minds of this is how the church could look. And the owners at, at, at, at, at the beginning, uh, at the, you know, the first concentric circle, uh, the owners are the, the pioneers. They're what we would call in the church planting world, the apostolic, uh, team that's kind of, uh, founding something. And they're, they're the culture builders of the city.

Uh, we can talk about that more. The workers, um, are the, the, the missionaries. They're the, they're the ones, by the way, we use the word a lot for the owners, the covenant people, the ones who kind of hold to this covenant. The workers, yes, they hold to a covenant, but they're kind of like, we can come and go. We're, we're, we're all in with the idea of building the kingdom in our city, but we're not necessarily covenant into this work or to this place, but we're in, we're building. And the owners and the workers build what we call tables. What we call not a new word, but in this framework, we call them tables. The tables are, uh, our creative way of trying to break down the sacred secular divide.

If you remember, Newbigin was known, Leslie Newbigin, a famous kind of missionary philosopher, missional thinker. He was known for trying to break down the clergy laity divide. And he was accused of wanting to tear down the clergy. And he said, no, you're wrong. You've got that backwards. I want to tear down the laity because he believed in the priesthood, right? Well, take that same idea and apply it to sacred secular. We look at a building. I'm looking at one right out of our window right now. We look at a building with a steeple and a cross on top and maybe a name like first something or another. And we, in our minds, we think of that as sacred, right? We say, don't curse in church. Don't wear your hat in church, whatever it may be, because it's a sacred space to us.

I'm okay with that on some level. The problem is, is then we go to the bar or the coffee shop or the gym or the digital space. And we think of that, well, that's a secular space. We can act differently there. What we want to do is we want to help the missional, pioneering, innovative world understand that every space is sacred. Every space, church, ecclesia, can be manifested and built within that space. So our tables, this is kind of what brings it all home here, Jeff, is our tables are gyms, coffee shops. City parks, neighborhood cookouts. Our tables could be a barbershop or a pizza restaurant. But also, another table is a worship experience, because a lot of people do still connect to God in that Sunday or Thursday night, whatever we think of, of coming together, singing some songs, hearing a profound word about the love of God or the heart of God and connecting to Him in that space.

But all of us who have our finger on the pulse of the missional world or of the world as we know it, we know that that demographic is shrinking by the day that connect to God in that space. And so we want to inspire and empower and release and give permission for missionaries to build tables that are sacred all throughout the city. All right. So here's the here I'm landing the plane. We got owners. We got workers. And then our third set, the fuzzy set, we call them seekers. Seekers are anyone that we want to connect to the love and the hope of God through those tables at our gyms, at our barbershops, at our coffee shops, at our bars, at our worship experiences. So then we're connecting that network of tables as a movement, which ends up becoming a city within a city.

So why have multiple tables? What's the end game? I mean, you're describing, you know, coffee houses, restaurants, gyms, you're describing existing churches. Is it, is what's the logic in kind of diversifying and spreading out across the city? It's easy. Two reasons. One, because you have diverse people within the work. Not everybody wants to run a coffee shop. Not everyone has that vision or wants to be connected at it or be a part of it. So you have diverse, you have, we don't want homogeneity. That doesn't display the kingdom and that doesn't create space for others to connect. So you have diversity within the work and you have diversity outside of the work. If you were to, I'm sitting in an, our office exists within the original post office in Alton, Illinois.

We turned it into a coffee shop, restaurant, event center, and co-working space. So it's a 17,000 square foot space that has been converted into this beautiful kind of central living room of downtown Alton. However, if you were to walk in right now, you would see a fairly homogenous group of people. Not completely, but there's a lot of people being missed at this table. And if you were to go to the city park where me and my sons play basketball and where we go often to try to create kind of a sacred rhythm there, You would see a very different group of people there than we have here. Similarly, in Birmingham, if you were to go to our barbershop or our gym or our landscaping company or our, let's say, our property management company.

In all of those spaces, you would find very different groups of people that are directors or leaders or pastors over those spaces are connecting the love of God in that. You've got to think this isn't a Babylonian understanding of entrepreneurialism. You're starting the business with the priority of infusing the hope of the kingdom into the culture where the business is functioning. I assume that you don't wake up every day fantasizing about starting a home building company where you can be a contractor and go get your home builder's license and start doing plumbing and electrical and project management and things like that. But there are guys that have that dream and love it and want to do it and are good at it, skilled at it, but they want to be missionaries in their everyday life.

The problem is, is they're functioning within a cultural framework that binds them to kind of living that dream adequately. You have a vision of digital, of metaverse, of connecting the hope and the love and the work of the kingdom into that space. And so that's a diverse table that we would want. And then finally, that table can become a city for other tables. So that's where movement starts to happen, is when a table becomes basically a launching, pioneering point for more kingdom ecosystems to flow out of it. So you might start a table within the metaverse that ultimately becomes a city within that space. And that's just church planning 101. Movement creates movement. I love it. Let's unpack your construction.

By the way, that sounds like a nightmare to me, running a construction. Like there's 0% chance that's going to happen on my side. But let's unpack maybe the ecclesiology of this. Is the endgame for, you know, let's say the guy that is running that construction business, you know, develops a following or a church or a gathering. Like, is that meant to be self-contained? Is that meant to be a front door to a worship experience? But you're talking about the worship experience being a table at the same level as the construction guy. So, like, what is this, what is, like, two years of this thing, what's it going to look like? Yeah, we actually discourage the idea of funneling people into some sacred space.

So, the tables within the ecosystem, the tables within the community, they're all accessible. They're all available. I might, you know, I would say for me personally, let me just kind of testify. I worship. I'm actually, in my past life of ministry, I was a worship leader. I was a musician, singer, songwriter, worship leader. And I enjoy that space. But I worship most when I'm working with my hands. So, one of our tables here in Alton is a custom woodworking company, high-end, pro custom woodworking company called SoulCraft Makers. SoulCraftMakers.com is the website. One of my favorite things to do when I have a little space in my life is to go out there and just to work, just to serve in that space, build something, work on something, you know, music in the background.

People are there. We're connecting and we're working with our hands. Another thing I love to do is actually what you said you hate. I love to go into a home and just work, hammer, work with my hands, something like that. So, these tables are all accessible to me. I've been in coffee now for 10 years. I've started a coffee shop and I ran one for a while. I'm in a coffee shop right now in Alton that I helped start and I love to work here and worship in this space. And I don't think to myself, I need some money for working here. I just want to go and connect. We also have a once a month Thursday night gathering at a space that we call Anchor Co., where we sing songs, Christian worship songs. We take kind of a traditional sacrament of communion.

I enjoy that space. I like connecting with God and with others in that space. I hope this makes, like this is to me, it's just groundbreaking in our idea of what church is. Church is not. It's so reductionistic to think of church as this space that we go to that's very regimented. It's been the same for 500 years. You walk in, you sit in rows, you know, we'll change it up a little bit, but it's four songs and a message. And that's, again, I'm here to tell everybody, I believe wholeheartedly that is fine. But that's just one table of how people connect to and worship God. And we have no business funneling, thinking that that's the graduation. We graduate from elementary school into that space.

And now, no, we, our pastors, our leaders, our workers have to know how to make disciples in every space. How to develop mature future workers in every space, not just in that traditional worship experience space. So that's our ecclesiology, is that the church has, not only has the ability, but was meant to function and exist in every space. That's a very radical shift, probably from what a lot of today's churches are doing. Like just trying to compare the average church with that, you know, some of the radical stuff I talk about in digital, that's up there with what you're looking at. How do you, and the tension that I feel when I talk to churches about doing what you just said digitally, but you're doing this physically.

How do you see them releasing control? Because it would seem to me like that's the, that's the biggest tension with an existing church doing this. Because like you're, what you're saying is that the table is an opportunity and the workplace ministry and the prison ministry and the coffee house and everything else is equal to what's happening at that worship experience level. What, what is that, well, let me ask, let me just apply it to you. How do you, how do you release that? There's a level of control you've got to release, but at the same point, there's accountability. There's, you know, growth and development because you want to see them continue to. So what level of control do you have? What level of control are you releasing?

How are you managing that? Yeah, I mean, you're asking, we might need to have a session two for some of these questions. Because the, I mean, these are great questions and they're, they're layered. I'll try to give little, you know, sprinkles of ideas. One, we were never meant to be under some form of Levitical control. There's a difference between accountability and control. And so you asked, how do they release control? And I would say, well, they either release it or it will be taken from them. It's, it's one or the other at some point. And what we're trying to do is we're trying to experiment and innovate ideas of these, of these brave cities. So that as the, as the current structures that exist right now begin to decrease and decrease and really crumble as we're seeing it pre-COVID, much more so.

COVID definitely exacerbated it. But pre-COVID, we were seeing it decline at a historical rate. That those Jesus seekers or those kingdom seekers that exist will have cities to go into. I want to use one little analogy that I think for the first time ever will hit home with the host that I'm talking to more than it ever has. Brave cities is really, can be like blockchain. The cities that we're building are like Bitcoin or Cardano or Polkadot or, so take cryptocurrency, just that idea. I know blockchain covers a myriad of, but that's one that's familiar with some of the people that are tapped in. And you said this is a radical shift, and I would say it's no more radical than the crypto idea. The reason that blockchain has just mesmerized me as a thinker is because I'm saying they're doing what we're trying to do.

They're taking control from the all-powerful financial networks, and they're trying to disperse it to the people. And, of course, there's going to be massive backlash. Am I saying this right? I mean, you're tied into this world more than I am, but this is accurate, right? So what blockchain has done is blockchain has created the technology to basically inspire, empower, and release these groups to do the Cardanos and the Ethereums and the Bitcoins and whatever else. So if Lantern here in Alton is Cardano and well-built city in Tampa, Florida is Ethereum, Brave Cities is the blockchain. We're trying to create a technology and an idea and an understanding and a releasing and an empowerment to say, go, you have authority.

Build the city, release control, empower the priesthood. You don't have to reign over people. We were tricked into thinking that. The Holy Spirit is our guide. And, look, let's just be honest, bro, for a second. Who in their right mind still thinks that unless we're under some type of religious system that we're not going to be held accountable? That system certainly has not held us accountable. I don't have to go into detail of all of the scandals that are happening what seems to be weakly. So my point is not to disparage that system. My point is to say, no matter what economy or framework we exist in, we are accountable to our God, to his spirit, and to the people that we walk with. And we have to submit to that and say, look, you've got to watch my life.

You've got to, you know, all that stuff. So that's not a hard understanding for me. I think it is for a lot of people. A lot of people think, oh, well, if you do this, people are just going to run free and do whatever they want. And I'm like, good. They need to. We need to release people and we need to let them struggle and grow and trip and fall and get back up. And so they start these beautiful, innovative tables and they pastor them. And then, yes, I want to say ecclesiologically, if you look at the pastoral epistles, every city had elders or eventually had covenant people, had overseers. I consider those people to be the ones who hold the culture. They know, Jeff and his team know the culture that they're trying to build within this certain context of the metaverse.

And they're fighting every day to hold the culture. What do me and my wife do on a daily basis in our family? We hold the culture. When our kids act a certain way or think or start doing something that's kind of averse to our culture, we bring them back in and we say, look, this is the culture of our and that's all the family is. A family is really just an ecosystem functioning, interconnecting, working together every day. We're just talking about an expanded version of that. My kids work and make money and help out with things. They buy things. There's financial, economical transfer that's happening in our family all the time. It's just a really small version of that. And as a father, yes, I want control.

Don't be mistaken that we're just kind of flippant and mushy. No, I want control to hold my culture. But the greatest effort or job or goal of a parent is to be able to release their children, right? To let them go and say, you're good now. You don't need to be. So it's just a kind of a microcosm of that idea. What does multiplication look like? So, I mean, your example of the children releasing them, like the construction guy, is he trying to create, I don't mean this to be sarcastic, like is he trying to create another construction business? Is he trying to multiply and to do something in a neighboring town? Is he just trying to pass on his culture and his legacy so that that ministry leads on?

Like, what is multiplication? Is it spinning up a completely separate business and starting a completely different table to reach a different person? Like, what's the goal of multiplication in this kingdom ecosystem mindset? That's a really simple answer. So I want to say first, it's way easier. It's much easier said than done. I mean, the reality of any market space, social space, neighboring spaces, you got life. Life is just happening and it's hard and you got to pay your bills. But that's the case anywhere, man. That was the case when I was in full-time ministry. Life is just tough. You're worried about numbers and are people going to give and is this vision good? And so it's all the same.

But what multiplication looks like is very similar to parenting. You're raising up men and women to be disciples of Jesus that want to reach other people and bring other people into those tables. And then the kind of the ultimate win is to see more tables started out of that, that it just grows and grows and grows and multiplies. Yeah. If you want to go to another city. I mean, there's a lot of theological language that exists within this that we don't have to get into. But just knowing like your skill set, your temperament. Ephesians 4, Jesus says, I gave to the church, the apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, and teachers. Typically, teachers aren't necessarily pioneers, like high teachers aren't necessarily pioneers.

Typically, apostle prophets are more of the pioneer type. So you want to have like a culture within your movement to where you're recognizing those dispositions, those temperaments. And you're seeing like this person could be a city builder, not just a table builder. I mean, that's a, that's a really deep understanding of how to multiply and expand this, but it multiplies naturally, Jeff. It's, it's happening already. I mean, people hear this, they understand it, they connect with it. Um, you're, you're, I will say this, this is a really, uh, fun way to think about it too. Your, uh, gosh, I'm, I'm missing the word, your, uh, your wins, your, um, metrics, your metrics change significantly. It's no longer about how many people are sitting in your service or how much money is being given.

It's about how many people you're connecting hope and love, uh, and yeah, sure. Inviting into that work, but that that's really the work of the father. If you believe the Bible Corinthians three, Paul says, I planted Apollos water, but it was always an only God who gave the growth. So we're really trying to free our leaders from trying to grow their thing. Stop, just planting water with all your heart and let the one who grows grow. I pulled up to our office this morning or our coffee shop restaurant. And I saw one of our guys standing outside at a table, talking to a group of people out on our patio. And I took a picture. I just stopped in the road and took a picture for no reason, but I just wanted to document.

Cause I knew, and I parked my truck, I got out and I walked up and sure enough, he was listening to, cause I know this person and I know his, his, what he brings every day into this space. And he was listening to their story and he was basically pastoring. He was encouraging, um, you know, hearing one of them had just, uh, been diagnosed or, uh, determined cancer free after a four year battle. And another one was doing, and he's just, just breathing life over this one little table. That's the work of a pastor. That's a shepherd. And he's, he's, they want to come back. And then you start hearing testimonies of people saying like that place, you know, at the corner of Albie and whatever third Avenue, that's like a church for me.

That's like family for me. And then it expands. Somebody says, well, I want to start, how are y'all doing this? What's going on? You know? And we say, oh, well, we'd like to incubate good works in our city. And then next step is, well, why, why are you doing this? Oh, because we believe the good news of Jesus was more than just a spiritual platitude, uh, for, you know, for piety sake. We believe that Jesus redeems families. We believe he redeems city blocks and yeah, we believe he redeems souls too, of course, but it's, it's far greater good news than we thought. So multiplication is pretty natural and pretty easy. It was never meant to be like this. Let's meet on Wednesdays at 6 30 PM to discuss how we can multiply.

To me, when you build an irresistible city, people come in and they say, I want to be a part of this city. Anywhere, everywhere, all the time. Oh, I tell you what, this has been a beautiful conversation, um, centered around your view of city and, and, and what that, that can look like in a decentralized approach for, for me on the digital side. Like I, I, I, I wrestle with a lot of maybe some of the ideology of, of, of you, what you're describing as these tables. Uh, and I, I look at social media platforms. I look at metaverse. I see opportunities to reach different types of people, um, within that, that city, uh, and, and even creating and multiplying different approaches. There's, I don't know, 2.7, uh, billion Facebook users.

There's 2 billion YouTube users. There's 1 million Instagram users. And I can keep throwing out stats on that. Like there's, there's just, there's a lot of active users out there in digital space. And that can be overwhelming, but for us to, to narrow that down, uh, and to start to, to your approach of tables and start to apply that, uh, into digital and, and, and metaverse and start to create shared experiences to, to build relationships and to serve. Um, I mean, that's, that's beautiful. And when I hear you talking about the, the social space diagram and, and, or the social set, and by the way, we'll put that in the show notes for y'all to see. Um, and you know, for me, that's, that's resonated with me ever since the first time I heard you talk about, I was like, that's what we need the digital church to be.

And there's opportunities to compliment working with the physical church, but there's opportunities to even do things digitally and start to create, um, these digital cities, uh, these digital expressions, these digital footprints that are going after people for the kingdom. And so, man, Taylor, thank you. Thank you for doing this. Thank you for, uh, being a part of this and, and, and really kind of championing this idea. This podcast has been a year in the coming almost. I feel like the first time I met you was about this time last year. And, uh, I, I love hearing what you're doing and, um, the, um, the way that you're going after the kingdom, uh, with such a, a unique approach that's gaining more and more insight.

And so definitely, and plus you said the word it's blockchain and crypto. So therefore you're automatically my friend because there's not that many out there that, that know that I'm in the club. Yeah, you are. You referenced, uh, well-built, which is John, John Dingle. John's, uh, a good friend. And he, we actually did a pod, a round table conversation a couple of weeks ago, uh, talking blockchain and crypto. And, uh, he's, it's, it's, we'll put the link in the show notes to that he's a, he's a radical guy as, as well. And so kind of love, love his take on, uh, on a lot of this decentralized stuff, but Hey man, let's, we're going to rant land a plane. This has been an awesome conversation just as we're wrapping up here.

Any, any closing thoughts? Yeah. I mean, so what, the reason I do this and what I'm thinking the whole time that we're talking is in hopes that, that one or two people will hear this language. And, and something will awaken inside of them. I think that, uh, all the data, all the numbers show us that the kind of church as we know it is wrapping up its time and maybe humanity's wrapping up its time. I don't know, but we know that one way or another in cities all over the country and all over the world, the prevailing model of church is, is not cutting it, uh, like it was years ago. And so we need cities, we need communities that function as a spiritual ethic on this earth, as a spiritual landing place where, where seekers can find the hope and the love of God.

Uh, and so that's, that's our effort is brave cities is trying to, uh, very, by the way, just feeling around in the dark too. Like we don't consider ourselves experts by any stretch of the imagination. We're just, we're just willing to experiment as much as we can and experiment publicly to work on the technology, if you will, and to work on the, um, the architecture of building these kingdom ecosystems. Love it. I love every second of it. Well, man, thanks for feeling around in the dark. Thanks for experimenting, for trying, um, you know, post COVID anybody who's got these two things. They have this figured out. It's crazy. Uh, but thanks for being one of these voices out there trying to do something different.

It, it, do you have like a, is there a website for brave cities or any place that if somebody's looking for more information they can head to? Yeah, brave cities.com is kind of, uh, in the works. Uh, there's probably a little bit there, but, uh, expect something like a, kind of a public launch with, within the next month or so. Awesome. So, uh, yeah. And also, also we're working on a book. I co-founded, uh, brave cities with Hugh Halter and, uh, we're working on a book by the same title that, uh, we've, we've essentially finished. But it's in the editing process and we hope to release within the next year. So. Awesome. Yeah. Hopefully there'll be more good stuff there. Very, very cool. Looking forward to that.

Well, we got you, we got you on before you were famous, I guess. So before things blew up, uh, with, uh, with the book, but, uh, excited for that. And Hughes, Hughes, uh, a great resources as well. So, Hey, Taylor, man, thanks for jumping, uh, on this conversation and looking forward to seeing how. Uh, brave, uh, cities continues to develop, but, uh, we're going to land the plane, uh, for Taylor. This is, uh, oh, just certainly, uh, for Taylor. This is Jeff with the church digital and digital church network. Thanks for jumping on the podcast. We'll see you next time on the show. Y'all have a good day.