The LoneliestJob inMinistry

Jeff Reed: All right. Hey, everybody. Welcome to Becoming the Church Digital. Jeff Reed here, founder of The Church Digital. And, okay, I picked a great time to do a stream. I'm like, hey, 2 o'clock Wednesday sounds like a great time.

Jeff Reed: Let me book it all around. It's going to be great. Then Apple, out of nowhere, this was not on my radar until like yesterday. Apple's making an announcement right now about a whole bunch of stuff. And I quickly just went to check to see if my stream was working on YouTube on my phone. And right when I did, I saw the foldable iPhone right now being announced.

Jeff Reed: I just let the cat out of the bag. Really, it's, come on, they're just going to hype up the video. Nobody cares about that stuff. What you care about is the website when it's launching in like an hour. So just hang it with me. Hang out some here.

Jeff Reed: It'll be great. If you're watching on demand, you know what? I literally, I've wanted this iPhone.

Jeff Reed: I mean, for a long time. I genuinely have wanted to get the foldable iPhone. I use my iPhone all the time, and my device of choice is still an iPad. I rarely ever use my laptop. And to be honest, I use my iPad to remote in now to my computer when I'm on the road. And so like the idea of a, I don't know what it actually looks like and how big it is, but a phone that attaches to a keyboard, like that's...

Jeff Reed: $2,000. Somebody was like, $2,000 isn't a lot of money. And I'm like, dude, $2,000 is a lot of money. But the thing is, I've got to wait for my iPad and my phone to crap out at the same time. My laptop's almost dead anyway. Like if I can budget together two or three devices to go buy that foldable iPhone, I have been waiting for that for a long time.

Jeff Reed: I've got Rambo here telling me, Rambo, I'm not sure what's going to happen when I hit this. Oh, yeah, it still comes up. Okay, I'm still an Android user. Man, I tell you what, I have had mixed experiences with Android. I mean, I don't. I've invested in the Apple ecosystem for 30 years.

Jeff Reed: I mean, I'm not going to go whole hog on Android, sorry. But I've heard good things. Ironically, AT&T is now calling me right now. We'll get into that later. But I had no internet at the house for three days. Three days I was offline.

Jeff Reed: That's like... It's bad. But Android, I am Melanie's Android as well. Good for y'all. Happy for y'all. Yeah, just couldn't do it.

Jeff Reed: I mean, the foldable phone's been nothing new to them. They've had it four or five years, I want to say, a long time. And that crease, though, it's not quite small enough. I'm hoping Apple's got it figured out. AT&T is calling me again. Seriously.

Jeff Reed: I had no internet for three days. I've got fiber here at the house. And we had a guy that was fixing our sprinkler system.

Jeff Reed: My dad's like, oh, you've got to have a sprinkler system. And my dad could be watching right now, so I want to be careful how much sarcasm I put on that voice. But, oh, you've got to have a sprinkler system. So we had him fix the sprinkler system. And the guy, when he fixed the sprinkler system, I think he, well, evidently not think, he did. He took the shovel right where the fiber is and cut the fiber.

Jeff Reed: And so that was Sunday or Monday, and today's Wednesday. So, yeah, it's been three days. kind of hard to work for a digital non-profit and do consulting with artificial intelligence for digital for churches when you can't even get to the internet and uh hotspots weren't working for me man i don't know i don't know why i don't know why i could get my apple tv to work on hotspots everybody else is working on hotspots no problem somebody's probably like well if you had an android hotspot it could have maybe maybe maybe i mean i'll I'll be willing to say there are some things that Apple doesn't do well. There are a lot of things that Apple doesn't do well now that all the pressure's on them. Hopefully, the new CEOs got it figured out.

Jeff Reed: Hey, look, the dude's been in office, what, two weeks, and he's already delivered the foldable iPhone. Like, I've been waiting for this thing forever, so. Cool. Hey, yeah, so welcome to Becoming the Church Digital. I constantly have to remind myself of what the new show title is, but we are really excited. I'm really excited to jump on here with you.

Jeff Reed: It's been a fascinating season for me with the Church Digital and some other things. Talked about it a lot last week. And so if you want to go back and watch, AT&T freaking calling a third time. I want to stop this stream, but my gosh, can they not?

Jeff Reed: They probably want to bury the line, but they've got like 10 days to do that. And so I'm not going to tell you when they call a fourth time because right now it's been three. So it was an interesting stream last week. You know, the phone doesn't ring. Ever. Never.

Jeff Reed: Never. The phone never rings. Nobody ever calls me. And the second I jump on a stream where it's like I literally cannot talk to anyone right now is when the freaking AT&T calls three times in a row.

Jeff Reed: So, I mean, I've got some work to do later on. Oh, it wasn't what I was talking about. What was I talking about? I was talking about this stream last week. I got released from one of my contracts. So I am unemployed as much as anyone is unemployed in 2026.

Jeff Reed: Actually, there's a lot of people who are unemployed in 2026. Thankfully, I've got three or four meetings. A lot of people wanted to talk. And so I'm optimistic about the road ahead. Mostly the work I do is church, but there's a Christ-centered nonprofit that is really interesting. There's another couple of jobs that are like, yeah, but we want you to move to Georgia.

Jeff Reed: We want you to move to North Florida. We want you to move anywhere. And I actually, I would, I, Jeff Reed, would love to move. My family would not.

Jeff Reed: My daughter is fixing to be valedictorian or salutatorian. Can I say fixing on the internet? Fixing to be valedictorian. Maybe I should move to Georgia, fixing. Valedictorian or salutatorian at her school. And she's like, you are not moving me.

Jeff Reed: And she's a senior this year. She's like, you're not moving me my senior year. Wife loves her job. My son's doing great in school. Everybody's got great friends. It's kind of like Jeff, just suck it up for a couple more years.

Jeff Reed: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm excited. I have no idea how to pay for what's coming up next. I think I've told this story before. She wants to go to school in Europe. Literally, it's England and Scotland.

Jeff Reed: They do this... What's it called? Production design. It's the guy, I can't think of the guy's name now, but the guy that's the CEO, the founder of Dyson, you know, the really fancy vacuums. He has this engineering process that he's developing in Europe. I think it's called product design or production design.

Jeff Reed: that it's half engineering, maybe it's production engineering, product engineering, that's what it is. It's half like engineering and then it's half like design. Picture Apple designing their foldable phone. That's basically what my daughter wants to go do. And so she's like half artistic brain, half calculus engineering brain. She's all brain.

Jeff Reed: they told her, I don't know that I'm allowed to say what they told her. I'm actually thinking, I will say this, one of the teachers was like, that's actually one of the highest GPAs I think I've ever seen at this school. And I'm just going to say up front, not me.

Jeff Reed: I was a C student. I was the dumbest of the smart kids and the smartest of the dumb kids. And so this is all my wife, thankfully. She's got my wife's brains and my work ethic, which means that, and I tell her all the time, it's like, you will do great in life as long as you don't burn yourself out because she sticks to it and she fights really hard, which I'm proud of her, love her for it. All right, hey, it's been a great stream so far. We're just kicking off.

Jeff Reed: We got Holy Rambo coming on here. Melanie as well. Melanie is Team Android.

Jeff Reed: Yeah, yeah. Okay, we'll be nice. Green bubble, people. Green bubbles! I'm wearing blue today. Actually, I wasn't planning on wearing blue today, but blue today in honor of the blue bubble people with the phones.

Jeff Reed: Yeah. I tell you what. My wife was like, you know, I'm trying to figure out, like, how...

Jeff Reed: how crass is the word that comes to mind. It's nothing offensive, but like how blunt I want to be with some of these conversations. One of the jobs that we're looking for, you know, jobs, and for the first time, really, I've been looking for employment. This is not like I'm leaving the church, but outside of church, I've been looking for jobs or contract jobs that are, you know, in the marketplace as well as in the church. Love the church. Love working for churches.

Jeff Reed: Consulting I will always do with the churches. And I've got one church that I'm working with. I've got three or four more that are. But the stability, I'm a jerk for churches. And, you know, some churches are okay with that, but few and far between, unfortunately. And so...

Jeff Reed: Anyway, my wife found this job she was really excited about. It was like AI development. Cool, right? It's a Miami job. I can work here in Miami. Cool.

Jeff Reed: Six figure plus. Cool. But it was for Meta. Meta is literally hiring, Facebook is literally hiring in Miami an AI development, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, somebody. And I just, I looked at that and I'm like, no, not going to do it. Loved everything up until meta.

Jeff Reed: And that's not even really knocking their AI. It's knocking some other things with meta. But I've said too much. Man, it's great. It's great to be back on the stream here in Miami. I need some help.

Jeff Reed: Maybe there's some gamer friends that are out there that can help me understand this because I'm starting to get into some things that I just don't understand. And so if you're watching on YouTube, hit this up as well. Put it in the chat. We're going to talk about this in FAM on Discord and WhatsApp as well. So Miami, that was actually in the news. The stadium, I'm blanking on the stadium where the Miami Heat play.

Jeff Reed: They're actually renaming it to Vice Stadium. And they're renaming Miami to Vice City. And they're actually major bus campaigns and billboard campaigns. And they're changing in the city of Miami, downtown Miami. They're changing a number of the potholes to say Vice City. All in celebration of GTA.

Jeff Reed: Grand Theft Auto 6. GTA 6. I am not a player.

Jeff Reed: I guess it's coming out now or it's coming out soon, this fall. I know they've been working on it for a long time, GTA 6. And so it's finally coming out. And so Miami is developing this big campaign to celebrate the launch of GTA 6 because it's not enough that somebody would actually steal your car in real life. They actually want to be associated with stealing the car in video game life too.

Jeff Reed: What is interesting to me was there was actually an article that popped up on IGN last night and I just immediately got sucked into it. There's a feature in GTA 6 now where you can officially date someone in the video game. Like, there is... The hero of the game is either a man or a woman. I don't remember their names, but there's two characters. It's either a dude or the girl.

Jeff Reed: And basically, at the beginning of the game, you decide whether you're just going to be friends or you're going to date the girl or the guy. And then... It becomes like a little Tamagotchi relationship where you've got to text the girl and the guy if you're dating. You've got to hold hands together. You've got to plan dates together. For this video game, you've got to do the thing that you shouldn't be doing unless you're married together in the video game.

Jeff Reed: This is... This is gaming now. Now look, GTA 4, I don't want to splash this all over the place, but there is some really raunchy stuff in GTA, back in GTA 4, the old version. As a matter of fact, when they tried to release it with some of the...

Jeff Reed: sexual permissiveness, it got labeled, not T for teen, it got labeled M for mature, which means it got taken off of the shelves of like Walmart and Best Buy and Target. And a lot of the big box sellers, nobody wanted to sell the thing because it was so much. And so, you know, GTA backed off and said, hey, we wanna make it okay. We want the big places to sell it, so we'll block it. We'll block it so you can't do that. Well, they left the data on the discs.

Jeff Reed: And modders still figured out how to, like, you know, get to the X-rated stuff. I'm not kidding. Like, X-rated minigames on having sex, it just was crazy. Crazy. And now they're doing it, like literally building relationship with an artificial intelligence built into GTA. Now, what's interesting is, oh my gosh, I had wanted to find this.

Jeff Reed: I'm going to put in the show notes a link because I'm pretty sure the couple that was interviewed... was a Christian. The boyfriend and girlfriend was a Christian because of some things that the girlfriend said, I don't want my boyfriend playing this game. If he's going to be holding anybody's hands, he should be mine. If he's going to be texting anybody, it should be me. I don't want to...

Jeff Reed: I don't want my boyfriend playing this. That's what this girl says, high school, college age. And then the boyfriend replied back in the article, saying basically to the point, she says, I don't see anything wrong with playing GTA. Okay, let's set that aside. Oh my gosh, did I just sound like the old guy? Get off my lawn.

Jeff Reed: Come back to that. You know, I don't, I, the guy, the boy says, I don't see anything wrong with GTA. But my girlfriend does. And because my girlfriend does, I'm going to respect her wishes. This is what he said. He says, I'm going to deny myself and die to self and do as my girlfriend wishes.

Jeff Reed: Literally, it's like die to self and deny myself. What a powerful line. Somebody else said that, I think, right? And it was just, it was fascinating, this article, where it was talking about other husbands and wives and spouses and fiancés. They're all upset because you can date somebody, not to mention screw somebody over in G, not screw somebody over, screw somebody in GTA 6.

Jeff Reed: It's funny, DJ Soto, I want to get him on. DJ Soto was trying to do a church in GTA maybe three or four years ago in the online version. I wonder what he, whatever came of that. I want to touch base with him. I got to get him on soon. I haven't talked to him in a while.

Jeff Reed: Maybe get him and Sez on. Sez, Sez, Sez. I don't know why I said that.

Jeff Reed: So you tell me, like literally, I'll bring it up. We're gonna talk about this. Put a clip out there. GTA, is it wrong to date somebody in a video game?

Jeff Reed: Artificial intelligence, like I'll just tell you in my life, not with the AI, but digital relationships can be just as damaging as physical relationships. I carry those scars. I can give you those testimonies. Buy me coffee. I don't get much coffee now that I'm unemployed, but buy me coffee and I will more than happily tell you the story. But there's plenty of opportunities to do damage to relationships digitally.

Jeff Reed: Now, it's always interesting. We're quick to cite that you can do damage, but we don't necessarily believe, or a lot of people don't believe, that digital can be restorative. We really haven't gotten to that place yet. COVID was supposed to be that, and we didn't get the chance.

Jeff Reed: There was just too many naysayers. We couldn't overcome it, in my opinion. But I truly do believe that there's an opportunity to overcome and fight through that. So definitely, definitely excited. I do believe...

Jeff Reed: that there needs to be mission work done in the GTAs of the world. Grand Theft Auto, I mean, just like there needs to be people that are called to inner city Miami to do ministry in those spaces. And some of those people are my friends. What's interesting is there's plenty of opportunities for people that wanna go. I say plenty, you still need more. But there are people that feel called to go to the inner cities in the dark places of inner city Miami to do ministry.

Jeff Reed: among the crack addicts and the druggies and the alcoholics and the prostitutes and all of that that exists here in my fine hometown. But somebody that wants to like engage and do ministry in the platforms where they hang out to do digital mission work, engaging in those community of reaching people through Christ in GTA 6, no, we can't do that. Who would do that? That doesn't make any sense.

Jeff Reed: I tell you what, I actually, seriously, if you want to have a conversation, if you want to plant, like I'll, listen, I'm broke. I'll put money on the table right now. If you want to plant the church in GTA, I will sign on the dotted line right now. I'll give time. I'll give money. I'll help as anything I can.

Jeff Reed: Like that is what I want to do next, GTA. So hit me up. Oh my gosh, which six coming out right now. Oh, so much opportunity. So much opportunity. Seriously, hit me up.

Jeff Reed: All right, so there you go. Mental note, don't date AI. As a general rule, probably a good idea. Listen, I work with AI all the time.

Jeff Reed: Next to... next to my wife and my kids. I probably interact more with AI than anybody else on a daily basis. Now that my kids are back in school, honestly, I probably interact with AI more than, but it's not creepy. I mean, to be honest, it was a little weird. My internet was out for like three days and I couldn't even access AI and the computer was in my room.

Jeff Reed: My server was in my room, but I couldn't get the network figured anyway. Maybe I do have a problem, maybe. Hey, it's been a lonely stretch. And I'm saying this. It's funny. I was having a conversation with Sam.

Jeff Reed: Sam was one of the keynote speakers that I wanted to bring on for the Digital Missionary Conference. Sam is very connected in here with the Church Digital. I think we're trying to get him on next week to do a stream. Excited about that. He just wrote a book recently on digital theology. I cannot wait for you guys to meet him and talk to him about it.

Jeff Reed: But Sam, I was talking to him and the idea was that we were going to do a digital missionary conference in the fall. And I wanted to do like his book as one of the tracks, bring in some speakers, have some breakouts and try to create like a really neat experience set up for Sam's group. For Sam, it was some of the work that he's doing to highlight it. And so I had a conversation with him yesterday and I told him, I was like, hey man, I can do the stream. Like I want you to do a stream with me next week or sometime in September. But the conference, I'm just not there.

Jeff Reed: I said half of it, like mentally I'm still kind of fried and getting used to things. Software wise, I'm still trying to figure out what's going on and reconnect some systems that have been DOA for a year or so. I said, but the other part of this, if I'm honest, right now, if I was going to do a conference, if I was going to get a bunch of people together, if I was going to invest major time in something, honestly, I don't feel like it would be a conference.

Jeff Reed: I feel like this is a moment of pastoral care. I feel like this is a moment of... And maybe I'm projecting. Maybe I'm bringing my problems and projecting them on you and others. And I'm willing to be told, Jeff, you're crazy. Go do a conference. But it really feels like there's a...

Jeff Reed: that a lot of our digital missionaries, a lot of our friends, are in a season of strife, of difficulties, of frustration, whether it's financial, whether it's, spiritual may not be the right word, organizational, whether it's persecution from inside the church, persecution from outside of the church. Like, there's turmoil afoot all over the place. And so I sat down with my AI here at my desk maybe 30 minutes ago, and I was like, all right, I need to write out some descriptions and whatever title for this stream just to kind of get some graphics and stuff going, get it out there. And so I had like a brief outline, maybe 10 lines. It's like, hey, this is what I'm going to talk about. What do you think you should call it?

Jeff Reed: and it came up with GTA 6, makes sense, and the loneliest job in ministry. And I just really... Y'all, we sign up, we volunteered for this. Okay, some of you were voluntold by God, but we volunteered for the idea of being a digital missionary, which when AI actually evaluates what we're doing, comes to the place of the realization that we are probably the loneliest job in church ministry. Okay, the security guard that locks up the building on Saturday nights at like midnight.

Jeff Reed: But even that guy goes to a bar afterwards, and no, I'm kidding. But seriously, y'all, this is a hard, this is a stressful environment. Just even this week, using the thumbs to pray for pastors of Discord churches and virtual reality churches, people that are streaming on Twitch, on YouTube, US-based as well as global. um even even uh spiritual turmoil obviously in india i know we've got a lot of our indian friends on here and there's a lot of spiritual uh persecution in india where you know even something as as basic as as sharing jesus gets people like in jail separated And the missionaries in India, the Indian missionaries who are literally facing jail if they share Jesus, are like, I have to be faithful to what God is saying, even if it means jail time and being for months or years and being separated from my family. By the way, the persecution that's happening as a result of them being faithful is...

Jeff Reed: It's interesting. One of the things that I really beat in... with one of my clients the other day is why do we do what we do?

Jeff Reed: When things are difficult for me in ministry perspective, and to be honest, like I've asked this question of myself every day for the past couple of weeks, Some days my answers, by the way, are good. Some days my answers are bad. Some days I love what I'm doing. Some days I suck at life. I could do this forever.

Jeff Reed: I want to get out right now. What do they call it? The innovator sine wave? It's not. It's the creator sine wave.

Jeff Reed: But the larger purpose is why do you do what you do? You know, for many years, and I have to put myself in check on this, is that for many years, I thought that I was doing what I was doing out of some self-employed loyalty to God, self-applied. Now, I do, I mean, I did it for God.

Jeff Reed: But we've talked about this where, you know, sometimes in the pursuit of trying to do something for God, we actually outrun the coverage. I'm guilty of that. It's a football reference, by the way, not the soccer kind, the other kind. But you outrun the defense. That could be, or you outrun the offense. And you don't have any teammates around you to help.

Jeff Reed: It's a football term. It's, you know, you're out punting the coverage. You kick the ball so far and then the guy runs it back before the coverage can get there to tackle.

Jeff Reed: The point being is that sometimes I feel like we, as digital missionaries, we're aggressively trying to do things for God without involving him in the process, without inviting him. into the scheduling, into the calendar, without bringing along others that can join in the ministry from a tactical standpoint as well as a prayer standpoint. And it's very easy.

Jeff Reed: I'm in my guest bedroom right now. It's a 10 by 10 room. I think my daughter got home about 10 minutes ago. She's got a college course she's got to take, but online. But I mean, listen, it's just me. I'm actually trying to think, did I actually talk with anyone today?

Jeff Reed: The AT&T guy came this morning, fixed my internet in about an hour. Other than that, it's the first time I've used my voice. Literally, not even a phone call. Except for AT&T three times, evidently. I've texted some people and I've WhatsAppped and things like that. But once again, I probably worked a lot with AI this morning.

Jeff Reed: So it's very easy to isolate yourself. I'm guilty. It's very easy to become self-reliant, self-dependent. AI even makes it even easier. And as a result of that, you find yourself alone.

Jeff Reed: And when the hard times come... when somebody's frustrated because of some activity, or you're feeling persecution by a physical church who doesn't agree with what you're doing digitally, or even individual Christians are slamming you directly because of something that your church did in virtual reality or in digital space. So many true stories, guys. Look,

Jeff Reed: It's times like that that make you wanna stop and ask, why am I doing this? Am I doing this for my own pride and ego, because I think I'm right? Am I doing this for selfish gain? Am I doing this for financial gain? Am I doing this because I don't think there's anything else I can do?

Jeff Reed: Or am I given this even a little, what is it, the widow's mite? Given every little bit I can to the kingdom in hopes that he's going to use it for his purposes. It's an interesting challenge. When everything goes right, it's very easy to give God the glory. But when things go to crap, you got to give God the failures as well. God cannot, but you got to give God the glory to give God the failures.

Jeff Reed: Because ultimately, the glory wasn't yours and the failure's not yours. To be honest, I've had days this week where I'm very optimistic. Tuesday, is today Wednesday? Past couple days have been very good. Monday, Barely wanted to get out of bed.

Jeff Reed: Just overwhelmed. Depression's not the right word. Maybe light depression. Don't shoelace check me. I'm fine. That's not what I'm talking about.

Jeff Reed: But just very... My slippers literally don't have shoelaces. But very wanting to isolate. And it's funny, like my wife, Sunday, oh, that's actually even a better example. Sunday, woke up, I don't want to go to church. And Amy's like, come on, you're going to church. My wife's like, you're going.

Jeff Reed: I was like, Amy, I just, I don't want to go. And she looked at me and she's like, you're going to take your children to church now. Let's go.

Jeff Reed: And I had a great time. And it was a powerful message. It was good to see. It was good to be connected with some community. Had a couple conversations with some really good friends over the years that I had disconnected with. I got a chance to worship God in a collective body.

Jeff Reed: And it's actually been a long time since then I've been able to freely worship like I've been able to at that church. And so I'm glad I went. But that was because my wife called my crap and told me to get over myself and get up there.

Jeff Reed: Which I hated at the moment, but was thankful when it was done. As we aim to be fully reliant on God, are you living your life that you are fully reliant on God? So often I feel like things like that are just an easy punchline. It's a bracelet people are wearing around their frog fully relying on God. I have no idea what that popped in my head. 1980s.

Jeff Reed: I see all the 1980s chat GPT graphics right now. Somebody might as well be wearing a rainbow bracelet or a... Fully rely on God. Oh my gosh, it said rainbow bracelet. Is that? No, I'm kidding.

Jeff Reed: Rainbow bracelet, but not from that. Who was it? Bob Simon Jewelry? Yeah, anyway. You still own a Christian bookstore, okay? You know, I can tell you.

Jeff Reed: You know, that and the testament mints. The testament mints. Lots of jokes on that.

Jeff Reed: I... So Apple has just announced their iPhone and a bunch of other stuff that they've been working on. One of the things that I've actually been working on right now is launching tonight. And so when I'm done with this stream, I've got to build out a slide deck and hit the road because I'm actually speaking tonight at the church that I'm working with, one of the churches I'm working with. And we're releasing the mobile app. The church has been open a year.

Jeff Reed: And has been doing really good digitally. YouTube, like a church of 200, is getting over 100 views a week on YouTube. Over a couple hundred views of their sermon every week in total. a church of 200 that's been open less than a year, is getting better organic SEO traffic than mega and giga churches here in Miami. As far as I know, it's the Top Church website, organic SEO-wise in Miami. And we're launching a mobile app today that...

Jeff Reed: is not just about sermons. Sermons are on there, but daily devotionals, small group leadership material, conversations to read the Bible together, do daily devotionals together as a family, text walls, prayer walls, share prayer requests digitally. Like, some phenomenal resource went into this. Now, the reason I'm telling you this is, like, I really, I got to have fun. I found the guy. His name's James.

Jeff Reed: I'm actually going to have James on the podcast in a couple weeks. My mom texted me. She's like, Jeff, you need to have James on the podcast. I was like, thanks, Mom. I was already going to, but since you told me, I'll let you think that that's why I'm doing it, because you said so.

Jeff Reed: But James is, I mean, at this point, he's like, I trust you, Jeff, do whatever you want. That trust literally took 12 months. I did not know James 12 months ago, 13 months ago. I had no relationship with James.

Jeff Reed: And the thing that was really fascinating with James was he knew about the stuff that I'm doing now. But when I first met him, he wasn't interested in the digital stuff. The problems that he had as a, literally was trying to launch a church. The one year anniversary is this weekend for the first church service. And so when I met him probably 54 weeks ago, he says, hey, you know, my biggest problem, I was like, what's your problem? He's like, my biggest problem right now is production.

Jeff Reed: And so I got some of my production friends together, took the production company over there and ended up doing a moderate size, not big, not small, but a decent size AVL install for the church and really helped them turn it around. And that season came to a close and I trained a bunch of their volunteers and solved that problem. And then I said to James, hey, production's done, I'm out. I'm heading over to do this work with this other church as well, but I'd love to still hang around here. How can I help? And he's like, well, you're good at digital.

Jeff Reed: Can you do some of this stuff? And not the fun stuff like the loading sermons and YouTube and social media coaching. And yeah, sure, I can do that. And did that for three or four months. And the reason I say that is that For me to get the church to the point that I could actually really have fun doing the stuff that I like to do with the churches, it took me six months.

Jeff Reed: I almost died in there as well. But five to six months, seven months of really investing in solving the problems of the church. And we finally got to the place after doing all that work where I could cast vision and say, hey, you know what? One of the biggest ways that we can even capitalize on organic is investing into and getting your content set up so that it's easier to process via AI. They've had, I don't know, already this month, 20 or 30 hits from ChatGPT. with an 83% engagement rate in like 40 to 50 page.

Jeff Reed: Like some of these stats that are coming off are ridiculous. And so like it's exciting. And they're seeing, these are not like miscellaneous disconnected people. These are people that are wanting to come into the building. These are people that are coming into the building. They had somebody sign up for or stop by the guest center last week who said ChatGPT told them to come.

Jeff Reed: Another couple came on because of Instagram. Another couple came on. Two or three people, I think, in the past month because of something they read in a blog online. Like, the stuff we really talk about works, y'all. If somebody buys into it and lets it go. Now, here's where I'm guilty.

Jeff Reed: Jeff Reed of the past. I was so quick to give up the earning trust game. Man, this guy's a dinosaur. He's never going to get there. I'm going to go somewhere else. And there comes a time when you do have to cut straws.

Jeff Reed: That's not my call. Probably not your call. It's our God's call. And so I would say when people ask me, how long should I stay? Pray, because that's above my pay grade 100%. I'm either guilty of staying way too long or getting out of Dodge way too quick.

Jeff Reed: But the reality is, is like with me, The longest job I've ever had outside of the church digital has been four, four and a half years. It's funny, every church that I've worked at has sabbatical at five years.

Jeff Reed: And I've never worked long enough to have a sabbatical as a pastor. Because I just get the systems built, move on, go to find the other problem, move on, give up, don't think I can push too far. And I do, I give up too quickly.

Jeff Reed: You know, some of my friends actually now are working. One of my friends is working in the role that I had at the church. Now, this is like seven or eight years ago. But he's working in the exact role that I had when I was there. And because he waited as long as he did, he was able to streamline through a lot of those issues that I was facing.

Jeff Reed: I'm not saying I should have stayed at that church eight years. I don't think I could have. It wasn't God's call out of that situation was direct. But there was something to sticking through and fighting for it. And that's really where I, the biggest, I believe people and pastors in 2026 are open to digital more than they were pre-COVID. Now, maybe they're into Grand Theft Auto Church.

Jeff Reed: That's still pretty radical. But churches that would utilize digital to get people in physical buildings, there's a desire to do that. And I can at least tell you from Christchurch with James Drake, this is a guy who saw that digital could get people in a building. And as I was able to get digital to bring people to the building and then tell him it's working, but you haven't seen anything yet, can you trust me for this next stretch? Dude says yes.

Jeff Reed: James also, he's the type of guy that he's like, fail forward. It's okay to fail, but learn something, move forward with it, and let's just keep pushing. I love guys like that. I love working for guys like that. James is probably the fastest. get-it-done guy as a lead pastor I've ever worked with in my life, I've ever met in my life.

Jeff Reed: But that's just his wiring. And we've got a great relationship, but he would not have given me the leash I have today had I not invested in it previously, had I not taken the time and solved the problems to earn it. So maybe do this. Maybe take some time this week. Pray for clarity.

Jeff Reed: Clarity is kind. It was funny that when I was released from the job a couple weeks ago, I can't believe it was already a couple weeks ago. Yeah, a couple weeks ago. When I was released from the job a couple weeks ago, it was funny. The first words out of my mouth, I mean, just I was in shock. Literally did not see it coming.

Jeff Reed: But I said to the executive pastor, I said, clarity is kind, thank you. Because it was clear that where I was was not what I was thinking it was. And the culture, the environment that they were looking for is not something that I could be a part of.

Jeff Reed: And that clarity is beautiful. Some of you may need to have a hard conversation with yourself and figure out, are you giving your leadership an opportunity to, are you trying to earn their trust? Are you, this is what I do. I just get angry and like yell. Once again, I make a horrible church employee. I make a great contractor, but a horrible employee.

Jeff Reed: But that's the goal is to... Help them understand where you are. Lead from the second chair. Figure out what they want and give it to them. And through that process, show them that you want, that you're capable of winning on both sides, giving them what they want and you succeeding with what you're doing. Listen, we can talk through so many different ways and I don't need to get into it.

Jeff Reed: But at the end of it, there is a way for churches today, physical churches, to get a win using digital. Get people into the building. and disciple them. And if you could even figure out how to... Well, something just... Not actually sure. I hope I'm still broadcasting. Kind of hicked up for a second.

Jeff Reed: That's the point. It's... I forget where I was, sorry. When your physical churches are looking for a way to get people in the building, digital is a very successful way of getting people into the building. And if, by the way, that's where I was, and if, by the way, you can figure out how to disciple people digitally through the church, man, that's icing on the cake. And maybe that's the first battlefield.

Jeff Reed: is trying to figure out the icing on the cake to try to figure out what digital discipleship is. I'll tell you, typically that's the hardest conversation to have, is trying to figure out how to disciple someone digitally with the church. If you've got doubters, that's where it is. But that could also be the easiest way to experiment, to try some different things.

Jeff Reed: What's the worst that can happen? I told, that's what I told... the church over here.

Jeff Reed: It was funny, the youth pastor was like, have you ever done this before? Not like rude. I was having coffee with him a couple of weeks ago. He's like, all this consulting stuff you're doing with us, have you ever done this before? And I was like, because I'm doing some radical stuff. And I'm like, well...

Jeff Reed: Yes. I mean, like I've done bits and parts of it for different clients in different places. I was like, but you guys really are the first client that I've like really leaned in and said, this is the system. This is what I'm doing. I'll custom create it for you. But you're really the first church in a very long time that I've worked with at the level that I'm working with now just to give the complete package.

Jeff Reed: And he loved it. And he's doing great. We're actually launching youth in the mobile here in a couple of weeks. Look, there's an incredible chance for y'all to dig into hybrid. In the Church Digital, we wanna help through churches like this, churches like yours, and some of you that are out there, try to figure out how to do the physical digital relationship. It's very easy to be overwhelmed by it.

Jeff Reed: It's very easy to look at things and say, what's the verse in Genesis? You want more bricks, but you're not giving me more wheat. It's back in the Moses era. I'll have to look up the reference. Jason Morris is great at that. He throws that one out every once in a while.

Jeff Reed: But it's like, you know, we're not increasing staff. How can you get more assets? You're not increasing budget in this area. How am I supposed to do this without finances?

Jeff Reed: Look, I understand. Volunteers buying division. Volunteers, in my experience, are actually more excited about digital than the pastors are. And so recruiting volunteers and casting vision for them for me has never been a problem for online. I've had a harder time with production than online just because productions often just get speed up. But the flip side of that as well is that there's this thing, I don't know if you've heard of it, it's called AI.

Jeff Reed: And man, just, I don't wanna like give the secret away, the secret sauce away. But the stuff that you can do with artificial intelligence now, Look, you got to have somebody read it. You want to validate it. You want to make sure that it's theologically sound and it's not flying off into nowhere. But oh my gosh, the systems that I was able to set up for this church, AI-based.

Jeff Reed: There's no way. There is no way without AI I could be serving this church. I wouldn't have time. I don't have capacity. And even as a full-time employee, as an unemployed employee, I wouldn't have capacity. No time, no capacity, and they wouldn't be able to afford it.

Jeff Reed: And so I'll be honest, like I could look at AI and say, all right, you know, this is probably really a four person job. And, you know, they should be they should be paying me 10 times more than I'm actually probably making right now to do this job. or I can use artificial intelligence, teach it well, coach it, double-check some things as we're distributing it, making sure they're aware of it, and help a church in ways that they would never be able to do, and get the gospel in front of people utilizing AI that would never get the gospel had I not done this.

Jeff Reed: Somebody somewhere is probably upset at me that I'm leaning too heavily into AI. Nobody at that church is. Everybody from the, you know, the youngest pastor to the millennial gen Zs that we're connecting with to the, well, okay, some of the boomers, there are some boomers. Some of the boomers might not be happy that their devotional they read this morning was artificial intelligence.

Jeff Reed: but it was based off of a sermon that was preached, and it was developed in the spoken word by the voice of the pastor who wrote it. And so, actually, I've had less and less theological concerns with AI as of late. It takes a long time to get there, but you can get there.

Jeff Reed: I'm suddenly flashing now to the copper top reference in Matrix. I have no idea why that just came in my head, but there you go. Look, the goal I would suggest for 2026, especially if you're in a physical church environment, physical church, I would suggest there's an opportunity for digital to make physical church better.

Jeff Reed: And if you're in a position to ask those questions and to answer those questions, that is the, what's the phrase called? Olive branch. That's the olive branch. That's the peace branch.

Jeff Reed: Digital just helps your physical church get better. Now, let's see what digital can do on its own. Look at what we've been able to do. Look at these connections we were able to get. Could you just imagine if we were able to open this up a little more, what we could do as a result? There'd be an incredible opportunity there if we could just look beyond what we were doing at this point and start to really explore at a different level.

Jeff Reed: Move beyond getting people into the building. You got to start where you are. And I'm convinced, I'm convinced the number one thing you can do right now for any physical church is help them understand how to get people in the building using digital.

Jeff Reed: If you're interested in some of the tips and what I'm doing and how it's working in my systems and some of that, we'd love to talk you through it. I mean, A, I probably wouldn't mind helping you develop your own systems. B, I wouldn't mind selling some of the systems I am off. I'm convinced. I told my wife this. I've told a lot of people this.

Jeff Reed: I went seven clients. Like, it's funny, I've gone through stretches in my life where it's like, I wanna take over the world and massive stuff and all this. I'm just, I want seven clients. I want simple. And so at some level, mi casa, su casa. But would love to help you on that journey, whatever it looks like.

Jeff Reed: I'm trying to think, is there anything else I wanna talk about? It's just secretly, I just wanna like, you know, open up that browser here, upload this, some of the metadata on YouTube to get this stream up. And then I wanna start to check out what Apple released today. I saw there was like a production level camera that works with the iPhone. I know Black Magic was working on something, but yeah, anyway.

Jeff Reed: I'm going to go. Hey, next week we're going to have, we'll put the information in chat. We'll have Sam on. Also, AI, remind me. Thank you. Thank you, Aaron.

Jeff Reed: We will. My AI is Aaron. I'll put the link on for IGN here in a second. But we'll have some information on the guest coming up, Sam, his book. Look at it in advance. Really, really fascinating stuff.

Jeff Reed: And he's been working with academia. He's from the academia field, and he's been working with the challenge of digital ministry and academia seminaries. And so what a fun conversation to kick off next week. We're going to do Wednesday 9-16 at 2 p.m. Eastern. And if you haven't checked out the new website, thechurch.digital, go check it out. All right, everybody, thanks.

Jeff Reed: Have a good one. Yeah, where's the button? There's the button. All right, thanks everybody. Have a good one. Bye.