PlatformsArePlaces

Jeff Reed: All right. Hey, everybody. Welcome to episode 347, 347 of the Church Digital Podcast. Jeff Reed here, founder of the Church Digital and bivocational friend to all. Man, I am, I'm tired today. It's been a busy week.

Jeff Reed: It's been a fun week listening to this music in the background. I My normal go-to guy on the lo-fi for the streams, his music isn't available anymore on iTunes.

Jeff Reed: And I just, right before the show, I went searching, trying to find it, Stream Beats by Harris Heller. And so I found it, but I got to pay for it. I got to pay for the royalty-free, which I'm not sure. And it just seemed weird. So I was like, let me actually look into it. So I'm playing this, and...

Jeff Reed: I'm not feeling it. It says this is stream beats, but this is like stream beats from 2020. And lo-fi, lo-fi has aged. How do I say this? Matured. Lo-fi has matured quickly.

Jeff Reed: Lo-fi from 2020 is not lo-fi from 2026. And so, yeah, you just, you sometimes just want the real stuff. And so, hey, if you're like, what the garbage is he talking about? Welcome to episode 347 of The Church Digital. I'm excited about the road that's coming up. We're gonna have some great shows coming up.

Jeff Reed: We are launching right now, episode 347, we're launching the listening tour. For the rest of the year in the Church of Digital, I, Jeff, am not the host. Well, I guess I am the host. But really, after this episode, I want to hear from you. I was even sitting down trying to figure out when we're going to do the next town hall meeting. But the goal of this, of the rest of the year...

Jeff Reed: is I want to hear stories from people that are in the front lines. In the time that I've been back and doing some of these open offices and some of the streams, I've heard some incredible stories of how God is moving in digital and virtual space, literally around the world. Some of the stuff that's coming out of Africa, some of the stuff that's coming out of Pakistan, India, Southern Asia has been incredible. Some of the stuff here in the U.S. as well. I've been also hearing stories of just heartache and pain as people are going through difficult situations and involving finances, involving persecution from non-Christians, involving persecution. from christians and uh really like it's it it it it breaks my heart to see god's innovators here um and struggle and so i want to i want to do a season here at the church digital About the listening tour, because I want to listen to and I want to learn from these stories that are out there.

Jeff Reed: You know, if you know, okay, so in about five seconds, I'm going to get everybody who's familiar with The Church Digital to roll their eyes. So we're in a little bit of a rebuilding stage here at The Church Digital. Q, I roll. Yes, thank you. And part of that is us trying to figure out how we can best help people in the field. how we can best help the missionaries that are in the field.

Jeff Reed: I have a sticky right here. I think I've quoted this sticky in the past on the stream. It is green.

Jeff Reed: Green stickies, if you're curious, mean this goes back to my stadia days, which I would say is 2020, 2021. maybe 22, but I think this is a sticky I've had since 2021. I was in a meeting with Brian Johnson, who is one of the people with KC Underground, Kansas City Underground, a microchurch movement here in America, a network of multi-church, microchurch movements here in America. And Brian in the meeting says, don't create anything until you really need it. What happens, I've got five or six stickies right there that are these... Mic drop quotes, right?

Jeff Reed: You hear it and it's like, dang, that's good. I got to remember that. And so he said that and I wrote that down on a sticky and put it up on the wall. By the way, if you heard the Coke pop, it's Coke Zero, Zero Caffeine. And so I am, I guess the camera shows it right there. All right.

Jeff Reed: The following episode is brought to you in part by Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola, the stuff they use to clean battery acid off your car battery when it's corroded over. And that's now in my gut, Coca-Cola. But Brian Johnson's don't create it until you actually need it.

Jeff Reed: Money's tight with the church digital. And I don't want to, listen, I'm kind of tiptoeing here. I don't want to create something unless people actually need it. And rather than us going down the road trying to figure out how to create a bunch of stuff that nobody's ever using, let's actually create stuff that is helpful for people. So that, my friends, is the goal. We want to start to create stuff that is helpful to people.

Jeff Reed: And that's where we're going with... the church digital with this listening tour. We want to listen as people are telling us stories, and we can figure out how best to equip and mobilize people at a global level. It's interesting. I was actually having lunch today. Miami, it was called, it's Wing, what's the place I was called?

Jeff Reed: It's at Palmetto Bay Golf Course here in Miami. It's in the golf shop. It's a wing place, Sports Grill. So we were at Sports Grill. It's a famous Miami Wings place down here in Miami. And I was meeting with a guy who is very active in E3, No Place Left.

Jeff Reed: If you're familiar with this, this is a global movement, a multi-million dollar global movement around the world. And they are equipping and mobilizing missionaries and... every continent, all regions, countries. They're a very well-known discipleship network. And one of their regional guy, I was very active with him maybe 15, 20 years ago, and now probably three or four times a year we get together for wings, and I tell him my horror stories, and he'd tell me his war stories, and mentorship applied. And so...

Jeff Reed: I'm having this conversation with him today and I was telling him about our process, connect, community, equip, mobilize. And I'll be honest, my leadership heard this. I don't know if the global teams heard this yet. It'll be fun for them. I'm telling Connect Community Equip Mobilize. And to be honest, I stole a little bit of Connect Community Equip Mobilize from four fields because it's the four cycles through.

Jeff Reed: They do something a little different in the order. And I kind of liked how we had modified what we were doing, Connect Community Equip Mobilize away. It had Mobilize be the last thing. And then, but he challenged me to rethink on how we're talking about mobilization. And he's like, you're intentional. You're making mobilization too hard to mobilize people.

Jeff Reed: And I was like, well, you're right. It is really hard for us to mobilize people. He says, yeah, because that's what your design is. And he started correcting me.

Jeff Reed: And so my head is exploding here as this guy's talking about global movements around and structuring and all of that and leadership development. And so, once again, part of me is like, man, I really want to hear what our missionaries, what the people in the field are going through, what they're experiencing. I know what I'm feeling. I know what I'm seeing is acceptable. I know I'm seeing what the trends are, at least here in America. But I am curious because I think there's a difference.

Jeff Reed: I think there's a difference. Like right now, I've got, I'm working, praise God, I'm working with a couple churches and conversations over the past couple weeks have been really good. I am, picked up a video directing role for a brick and mortar church that is, it's interesting, the churches I'm getting with are ones that are being, trying to figure out the nice way to say this, they're being rebirthed They have smaller churches that have a lot of potential. They have beautiful facilities.

Jeff Reed: Maybe they're looking to do a little bit of a philosophical shift. Maybe there's some tension in growing and changing. And so Christ Church Miami was one of those churches that I was actually part of a year worth of development. We took them from 30 to about 300 over the course of 12 months. And 30 boomer, aged, dying off church to now 300 healthy, vibrant, multi-generational. Didn't chase off the old people, invited the old people to stick around as much as they could.

Jeff Reed: And so happy to see how that came out. and still active. We just launched their app, by the way. ChristChurchMiami.org app will take you there. I love it.

Jeff Reed: We developed a daily devotional that's tied off the sermon into that. I'm actually working on a system right now for... pastoral care for the elders that breaks up all the people of the church and assigns them to an elder for pastoral care and that, and so that there's a person responsible for follow-up. It's got a really beautiful governance structure. Not much on the Presbyterian denomination, to be honest. I probably shouldn't have said that because another church I'm working with right now is a Presbyterian church.

Jeff Reed: But right now, they just seemed interested in using that structure. And they're theologically so strong. But now they're interested in taking that knowledge and applying it down to people. And so that's heartwarming when we take the head knowledge and move it to the heart. Sorry. But the idea of brick-and-mortar churches, or as Jason Mortar, Jason Morris called them today in a meeting, click-and-mortar churches, the idea of hybrid, click-and-mortar, I love that, the idea that digital can make physical better.

Jeff Reed: In 2026, look, you can say that's a misnomer, but most people would say it's possible. They've just never seen it work. They don't have time. They don't have money. They don't have the knowledge. Like, there is a lot of churches.

Jeff Reed: I would suggest the majority of churches are open to the idea of of digital playing a part, whether it's anything as simple as email to communicate things out, texting, communication channels, or if it gets into social media, those types of things. Using digital to drive people physical is not... In 2026, I don't think that's a new idea. That's not a radical concept. What is radical, what is new is not that.

Jeff Reed: It's much more of platforms as places. It's the community aspect. It's interesting. J-Mo is actually talking. He's speaking at a missions conference, repping the church digital next week, talking about platforms as places. The idea that we want to treat Facebook just like we treat, just like a normal missions agency would treat India or China or Brazil.

Jeff Reed: We should be treating Twitch like Argentina. We should be nothing against Argentina, nothing against Twitch. We should be looking at Discord like it's Paraguay. I don't know. The point being is that how a normal agency would equip and mobilize and send people into global regions we should look at equipping and sending people into platforms.

Jeff Reed: Platforms have culture. Platforms have target audiences, have a community base, uniqueness. And especially now with more and more platforms developing, more and more uniqueness comes from that. Platforms like YouTube and Facebook, They're the catch-all. Okay, you're not gonna find many Gen A or Gen Z in Facebook, I get that.

Jeff Reed: But YouTube especially, because it's so, the platform is so neutral in feature sets, it's so simple, it's so video-based that pretty much anybody and everybody, my father's 80, my son's 16, and both of them are on Facebook on their iPads or Surfaces or iPhones on a regular basis. Now, that's great, but that's the exception. That's the exception to the rule. The rule, more and more, are going to be that specific target audiences, specific generations are being reached by specific platforms. As a result of that, there's an opportunity for us to equip people to be missionaries in that space and mobilize them, specialize to connect with people. in Twitch, in TikTok.

Jeff Reed: You wanna talk about a target audience? Look at who the target audience is on TikTok and the effectiveness of TikTok at this point to reach the people that it's reaching. What's interesting is that the TikTok was, what would I call it, the thermometer. has actually probably aged a little bit over the past three or five years. As more people who look like me and less people that look like my son are moving off of TikTok. TikTok's getting a little older.

Jeff Reed: And as a result of that, the real question is, well, where's Gen A and where's Gen Z going next? Are they gonna fold up and leave digital all the way? I'll believe it when I see it. However, is there a move towards a new platform, a new engagement for them to look at? And I would say time will tell very, very soon on that. But the idea of treating TikTok like Thailand, you see what I did there, TikTok Thailand?

Jeff Reed: That was completely on the fly. The idea of doing TikTok in Thailand and treating them the same, that's a controversial, it's a controversial idea among mission leaders and church leaders. It's interesting, church leaders, pastors think we're crazy on a regular basis. I know, because I'm the ones talking to those pastors, asking for money. to further the movement. And the reality is that they will often say, that's a great idea, that's the way the future thinks, but we're not going to support it.

Jeff Reed: Because usually there's someone within the organization, whether it's an executive pastor, lead pastor, board, elder board, deacon board, somebody is going to like, no, we're not doing that. That's not a believable idea in context of churches. Because a lot of people... Believe it or not, the idea of digital is still early. You're not wrong. You're just early.

Jeff Reed: Even within missions organizations, global missions organizations, I can rattle off names. People that I've met through the Lausanne organization have Billy Graham's missions organization. But these global mission leaders have talked about how this is the right idea. What we're doing, recognizing these platforms as places is the right idea. It's just too soon. And so what you are...

Jeff Reed: What you are literally, ladies and gentlemen, if you're listening to the stream right now, you are a digital missionary who is paving the way where there is no way. I'm suddenly, I'm channeling, God will make a way where there seems to be no way. He works in ways we cannot see. He will make a way for me. Truth. He will be my guide.

Jeff Reed: Hold me closer to his side. Another strength for each new day. He will make a way. I cannot believe I just pulled that out of the air. That was truth. That was crap.

Jeff Reed: That is probably going to be on Christian CD from like 1990. It's called 92. They were the pop band, vocal band out of Liberty University, I want to say, back in the 90s. I'm pretty sure on that. And so he will make a way. That was completely irrelevant to what I was talking about.

Jeff Reed: But where was I? Oh, my gosh. Hey, I used to tell pastors, if you feel like you're going to sing, don't. And I needed to take that dose of medicine myself there. I'm glad you could enjoy that for me. Thanks for sticking around.

Jeff Reed: And I'm sure I was offbeat. Seriously, I'm trying to remember where I was in the conversation. The fact is, is that we are not, we're early in this. Missions organizations, even missions organizations are saying we're early. And so when, what you're seeing in culture today around you, as a digital missionary, because this is what I'm seeing. I'm seeing churches leaning into digital in ways that they never have before.

Jeff Reed: I'm seeing people, maybe thanks to AI, starting to understand the value of SEO, starting to understand the value of building strong, healthy websites. It's interesting, there's also a move away from web entirely to go and pour everything into Instagram, and that is so short-sighted, don't even get me started. But the idea of creating a digital strategy, everybody's got a digital strategy. The majority of churches have a digital strategy. They may be stupid, but at least they think they have one. And so digital does play a role in the physical-digital relationship, in the physical-digital relationship.

Jeff Reed: A fidgetal church, a hybrid church, really is not of question. The thing that I would challenge a hybrid church, a physical digital, a fidgetal church, is your standard edge. Are you utilizing digital for evangelism? Are you utilizing digital for discipleship? Are you utilizing digital for generosity? Are you utilizing digital for engagement?

Jeff Reed: I'm sorry, empowerment. Are you doing those four? Evangelism, discipleship, generosity, empowerment.

Jeff Reed: And if you are, that's a healthy digital strategy. If you're not, then you're not taking advantage of all that digital can do. Get back in there, figure it out. By the way, side pitch, hybrid.church, www.hybrid.church, new website, the church digital is launched. That's helping churches do just what I described, evangelism, discipleship, generosity, empowerment. helping the church itself evangelize and training people to evangelize via digital spaces.

Jeff Reed: Discipleship, discipling people in digital space just because we have them in brick and mortar. Well, it can be click and mortar and we can be discipling even digital. Generosity, if you're not utilizing digital in your generosity strategy, Wow. I'm just saying, 2026, think about it. And fourth, empowerment.

Jeff Reed: What does multiplication look like in a digital environment? That's where conversations here with the Church Digital get fun. But for churches, you've got to solve the problems where they are before they'll trust you with the problems you want to address. I've learned this the hard way. I wanna talk about online discipleship and they wanna talk about email. And so I've gotta solve the email problem, have a success with the email problem and then move that from email to social media and solve the social media problem and then move that to a website and solve that problem.

Jeff Reed: Chances are website's actually first if you're playing that game, but you're trickling down. And so like you may work with a church for six months or so before you actually get to the stuff you wanna talk about. You're just, and you're paving the road to have the conversation that you really want to get to. I totally get that. I totally understand that. And you're right, that is frustrating.

Jeff Reed: And it is a long tail. But the reality is, is when you work it, it pays off. Now, a physical church doing digital ministry is not, listen, I mean, we were, some of these guys, Jay Cranda and so, some of the OGs that were in the church space, you know, they started 05, 06, 07. I think Life Church was actually 06. And so, as some of the first churches broadcasting online, there was a lot of animosity towards that back then. Today, 26, I don't think there's animosity towards streaming.

Jeff Reed: I think there's a percentage of churches that say, well, you know, PushPay would actually say back in 24, 25, that 70, 80, 90-some percent of churches stream their services online. 90-some percent have a digital ministry. They don't understand why. They're doing something without, it's just because. That was actually a conversation I had recently with one of the churches I'm talking to. Yeah, we broadcast our services every Sunday, but we really just do it for people that are traveling.

Jeff Reed: There's no purpose. Because, Jeff, we're not interested in reaching people around the world. It's like, okay, I hear you, and that's great, but you can broadcast a service and utilize that for tools that can reach people across your street. Like, you don't have to thank global. You can thank local and still broadcast services. Like, there's still a purpose in that digital sermon.

Jeff Reed: And so it's fun kind of having those conversations and moving forward. But once again, you gotta earn trust. Where we are the oddballs, where we still are the island of misfit toys, thank you very much, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, is digital missionaries in platforms as places. we are called to a digital platform.

Jeff Reed: The difficulties that I've seen more than any other space at this point are the people that are using platforms like virtual reality, like video games, like even some Twitch, TikTok, But they're using, they're not using TikTok to reach, this is what's interesting. They're not using TikTok to reach a physical space. They're using TikTok to reach the TikTok community. They're using Twitch to reach the Twitch community, not a physical space. They're using, I mean, video games, Final Fantasy.

Jeff Reed: You can't reuse Final Fantasy to reach a physical space. I remember at a conversation, this is with a US-based missions organization. their executive suites in the room, their C crowd.

Jeff Reed: It's during COVID. And we're talking about virtual reality church. And they said, well, so Jeff, how do you map? How do you restrict? Literally, it wasn't about connecting. It was about restricting the ministry, virtual reality ministry to a specific area.

Jeff Reed: And I was like, why would I wanna do that? Well, you know, discipleship and relationships. Well, why don't you do that online? Why can't you do that through virtual reality? Well, you can't disciple people digitally. And I was like, well, that's right.

Jeff Reed: You can't with that attitude. It's funny. I'm kind of going off. There's a reason why I don't get a lot of money from churches. Let's just say it that way. I make a horrible church employee.

Jeff Reed: I speak my mind. I challenge authority. I question process. I'm respectful, respectful to God, I'm respectful to elders, respectful for position, but I ask a lot of questions. And some people can hack that, and some people can't. And that's why I love now doing consulting work, because...

Jeff Reed: I don't feel the burden to have to question everything as much as help that person realize what they're trying to achieve instead of me feeling like I gotta own the ministry that's happening there because I work there. It's me thing, it's bright thing. We can get it and move on.

Jeff Reed: Digital missionaries, platforms as places. We struggle, we struggle, we struggle, we struggle because of the platforms as places issue. the virtual reality, but what's fun is the virtual reality pastor is not struggling because of persecution from the outside, from the people that are getting, that are lost, that are coming in and ridiculing the church for believing God in a virtual reality environment. That's not where the persecution comes. Persecution comes from the Christians who come in saying the church doesn't belong in virtual reality.

Jeff Reed: So I was having lunch with Scuba Steve is his name, Steve Carswell. So if you're in Miami, you know who Scuba Steve is. He says hi. And so I'm having lunch with Scuba, digging in with him. And Steve's with E3, no place left. And we were at this wing place.

Jeff Reed: And I was like, oh, you ready to go? After about a two-hour lunch. And he's like, let's stick around. I want to pray for the waitress. And so stuck around for a while, and Steve breaks out the three circles. If you know three circles, E3, no place left, you know the deal.

Jeff Reed: These are the people that did the gospel glove like 20 years ago. So they create a lot of visuals to go with their... gospel presentations. And so he breaks out the sticker with the three circles, and he goes through the whole deal. You know, this is a broken world, and the lines are us trying to find things that'll heal the world. And one of these is drug and alcohol, and one of these is sex, and one of these is relationships, and even some people do religion.

Jeff Reed: And he's sharing all this with the waitress leading into the prayer. And what was fascinating, the waitress who grew up religious Catholic, Latin South America, I'm guessing.

Jeff Reed: I have never seen one of these conversations with Scuba go, and he's done dozens in front of me, and I've done dozens as well with him. I've never seen one of these go hostile. I always assume they will. They never do.

Jeff Reed: And ultimately, my reason for saying this is that people are open to the conversation. Now, they may reject us, but that's not rejecting us. That's rejecting God. We're not accountable for whether or not they reject God. We're accountable for the conversation. And so often I think that as missionaries, we give up that, the ability to have that conversation because of the, and this is me, I'll put my name on next to this statement.

Jeff Reed: I have, I mean, I've been like borderline depressed because of the frustration for the difficulties, maybe I should say persecution, that I've been faced from the physical church. for me, and that's put me into a place of depression. Now, I've said this also before on the stream. I think a lot of my depression, did I tell the story? I'm having lunch, it's interesting. The guy I'm about to talk about, Brian's on the text.

Jeff Reed: He's been texting me here a little bit. He's trying to secure up an IG account for his youth group. And so I'm at this Starbucks with a youth pastor at one of the churches that I'm doing consulting work with. We're talking through the app and some things that I want to develop for him. And so I'm talking to him. We're wrapping up the conversation.

Jeff Reed: It's been like two hours, hour and a half. And I say something that, honestly, I have no idea where the statement came from. I look him square in the eyes and it's like, you know what? Sometimes I feel like my depression is related to the fact that I'm not doing what God wants me to do and my physical body is revolting away because it knows that I should be doing what God is doing and I'm not.

Jeff Reed: And in the moment I said that, I literally, I stopped and just kind of stared at Brian quietly and to myself said, I have to remember that because I didn't, those aren't my words. I didn't come up with that. That wasn't me talking right there. I've never had that thought in my life. I'm not even smart enough.

Jeff Reed: I don't understand the whole depression aspect, which I do admit I have been depressed over the past year for health and a number of reasons. But that statement, sometimes I feel like my depression is grounded in the fact that I am not doing what God wants me to do, and my physical body is revolting as a result of it. Not doing what God wants me to do.

Jeff Reed: And in many ways, I... I think that the persecution of what I'm feeling from the church and how that limited me of how the mandate that I had to have a paycheck and walk away from what I felt like God was calling me to do because it didn't pay well. Like, I'll be honest, I backed off a lot of things that I was doing as a result of that. Is that wise? Is that healthy? Is that what I should have been doing?

Jeff Reed: Not advocating for that. Is it wrong to want to try to pay bills? Given to Caesar what Caesar. My daughter is going away to college next year. And she's not going to stay in Miami. She's not living here.

Jeff Reed: And so, you know, as a result of that, I got to figure out how to pay for my daughter, you know, to go to college. My son's a couple years behind. And oh, by the way, Miami is now the second most expensive city in America. Just learned that stat a couple weeks ago. It came out of a news report, and it's grounded in the fact of the average cost of...

Jeff Reed: what was this what was what they call the stat um like food water um necessities you know i often joke that we'll spend 60 70 bucks at taco bell um to feed four people And it's not like we're crazy eaters. It's that it's so freaking expensive to eat down here in Miami. Taco Bell was 65 bucks. I'm sorry, Chick-fil-A was 65 bucks the other night for a family of four. And so Miami, and I'm sure it's expensive where you guys are.

Jeff Reed: The fact is that trying to pay bills, trying to go after these things is not bad. But I do think it's interesting that God is there saying, come. God is saying, trust me.

Jeff Reed: If he counted the hairs on your head, we should trust him in this. I don't know. It just seems to me that as pioneers,

Jeff Reed: there's an interesting principle where, because I was actually, I was thinking about this too today when I was at lunch with Steve. And, you know, talking through, well, you know, some guys, some guys get it. Some guys are just angry. And I don't mean to like separate the men and the women here because men and women have both been successful.

Jeff Reed: Um, you know, some of them are, are, are just driven. I met Mark, uh, Lutz at Lux Digital Church. And, and I mean this sincerely. The first time I met Mark, I knew he was going to be successful. Uh, cause Mark literally looked like a heller high water. I'm going to launch this church.

Jeff Reed: I'm going to, I'm going to find the money. I'm going to do it. He knew the vision that he wanted to do. It was strong. It was clear. Um,

Jeff Reed: He didn't know what it was gonna, he didn't know the process to get it done, but he knew what he was gonna do. And he knew the people he needed to talk to to make that reality happen. And hell or high water, like I said, he pulled it off. That's the beauty of, in the Apest, that's the apostolic, just the drive to get it done. And Mark is, I would, very strong, I would gauge apostolic. you know, prophetic evangelist shepherd teacher.

Jeff Reed: Shepherd teacher is on the backside. We go over APEST and we spend a lot of time on APEST on the backside. And what's interesting today is that as I look at some of the people that are struggling today, And I'm not equating anything from this yet. This is just me in the past 24 hours, literally having conversations with people and thinking, where do I see people struggling and what are the consistencies?

Jeff Reed: It's those that are platforms as places that are diving in specifically to platforms, not doing ministry in physical space. Digital drives the physical. It's doing ministry in digital. Digital discipleship, digital community, metaverse, virtual community, platforms as places.

Jeff Reed: And then I would say at the same time, it's the shepherd teachers. I don't mean that rude. The apes, are stubborn enough to get it done.

Jeff Reed: Now, maturation wise, you really don't wanna be a pain in the butt apostolic person. Like that's not a healthy apostolic. You wanna be balanced where you mature. I had a pastor tell me once, Brando, he said, the leader is not the one who's the strongest at their defaults. The leader is the one that understands and can communicate and work with all defaults. And so you don't want to be the—because I was a pain-in-the-butt apostolic.

Jeff Reed: I still am a pain-in-the-butt apostolic. It's just so high on that side. But I'm working on understanding the prophetic, the evangelical, the shepherd, the teacher. I'm trying to get more balanced and operate it from a balanced strength as opposed to being lopsided. And that's what I'm seeing, really, some of the people that are struggling are more stronger on the shepherd-teacher side, where they're passionate about caring for people or communicating a message in that space, but they don't have the oomph, the flexibility, the drive necessarily.

Jeff Reed: to build out in the space or even to communicate, to recruit a team around them to fill in. And this is why it's so important. It's so important as digital missionaries. And when I say this in EDM classes and other organizations, it's so funny to me that people don't see this and don't understand this. I could tell you dozens of horror stories where I've said this and people just don't get it. I'd say things like, you need a team.

Jeff Reed: You need an organization around you. I'm not saying that you're the leader. I'm not saying that you're the bottom peon. You figure that out. But if you are going into digital ministry alone and you are trying to provide connection, community equipping, and mobilization, if you're trying to find and disciple people in digital spaces all by yourself, you are not going to work. It's not going to.

Jeff Reed: You're going to fry out yourself. because there's so many gifts and skills that are necessary to do that. And even accountability, rather than operating and doing your ministry in isolation, why not inviting and challenging people to come in and support you in the ministry that you're doing? That's the healthy way to do this.

Jeff Reed: And the people that I see struggling are alone. Now, it's funny. I even went to Church Digital. I felt alone. Guys, half the reason I disappeared, I went AWOL for a year, was because I was dealing with a depressive state that I felt alone.

Jeff Reed: I mean, I've had conversations with my board. I've had conversations with the senior leadership team. We've talked about this with the global team. And I'm not saying anything nobody's ever heard. I'm pretty sure I've even said it on the stream. half of my departure was that I was putting on the isolation.

Jeff Reed: Even though I had people around me, I was putting on an isolation state, pushing people away, which was only causing me to feel farther away from God, farther away from my family, farther away from loved ones, farther away from my support community. The isolation... I didn't go into the isolation saying, God, why don't you stay over there? I did not. I did not intend that.

Jeff Reed: In reality, though, by the end of the day, God, you're good over there. This space, this is my space. Let me wallow in my despair. It's not me. Okay, maybe it is me, but just, you just, God, you stay over there.

Jeff Reed: That is such not a good idea. And honestly, as I look at what could I have done differently? How could I have revisited it? How could I have relived the past year or so?

Jeff Reed: The logic of... Being obedient to God even when it didn't make sense. And it's interesting that one of my clients right now is preaching through Genesis. And, you know, so we're talking about Adam and Eve who disobeyed God. Noah, Abraham, Isaac. You know, there are so many people across the old Genesis.

Jeff Reed: It's the same freaking story over and over and over and over again. People who are obedient to God up until a point, excuse me, don't obey God. That's that Coca-Cola just kicked in. I don't know if you heard that on the mic. Nice, well played. Genesis is that people that were obedient to God up to a point and then stopped.

Jeff Reed: And then the stopping point is where they disobeyed God and then there's consequences of disobeying God, of not having the faith to carry it through. Was it Abraham, Isaac, and the other child?

Jeff Reed: I mean, I just, I don't need to get into it. It's not the right place. There are other Old Testament scholars who can do it. I'll send you the sermons. They're on, I tell you what, you can download the app, ChristChurchMiami.org website or ChristChurchMiami.org app. I'm not gonna turn the church digital into a commercial for the Christ Church, but I thought that was funny.

Jeff Reed: The reality is, is that God can do incredible things through us when we let go. I'm reminded of Peter on the boat, walk on the water. I'm also reminded when Peter got overwhelmed and God helped me and he sinks like a lead balloon.

Jeff Reed: Which just reminds you the difficulties of the things that God's asking you to do. Not that it's right, not that it's wrong. I told Scuba today. It was a good meeting. I told Scuba, because I'm like, here's where I think we're stuck. How do I do this?

Jeff Reed: And he didn't tell me how to fix it. I wasn't expecting him to. We had some good conversations.

Jeff Reed: But I told him. I said, the persecution that I see from the people that are under my care, man, I carry it personally. The missionaries that are having to walk away from the mission field because they can't afford it and they can't figure out how to structure their work, their missions work while being bivocational.

Jeff Reed: I carry that personally. The missionaries who are giving up on digital because of the pressure they're receiving from outside the church, family, or inside the church, I can tell you some horror stories on both sides. I carry that personally. I shouldn't.

Jeff Reed: I need to not be in pain as much as I am. But just being a little transparent on my side, this is where I feel the most... Man, you're getting the unfiltered. You are getting the unfiltered Jeff Reed on this episode. This is where I feel the most ill-equipped.

Jeff Reed: because I'm trying to figure out how best I can help a digital missionary remotely on the other side of the planet, how I can care for them, how I can support them, when I myself don't have the finances to do it, but give them a situation where they can. And sadly, I don't have the answers. I know I had one of the missionaries...

Jeff Reed: one of the missionaries I'm working with now, or that's part of our network, they said to me, you know, this is somebody who was constantly praying for me when I was going through my health issues of a year or so ago and really just broken. And really, I've told this person, I've talked about this person before. I'm not going to say a name. But my spiritual low point was connected to this person. The lowest I've been at any spiritual moment of my life was connected to this one missionary directly. When they looked at me on a Zoom call, an open office or something, and said, Jeff, I'm praying for you.

Jeff Reed: And the words out of my mouth were, ugh. I don't need that. I don't need more prayer. Prayer isn't helping one bit. I know I've tried. What I need are answers.

Jeff Reed: What I need is direction. What I need is money. I don't need anything else. That's what I need. So if you got that, give it to me. I said that in a public open office.

Jeff Reed: You can probably find the video. somewhere of that. Once again, not my best moment. I actually went back to that person and apologized and thanked them for praying because I was not spiritually healthy. I was not. Guys, I've been messed up for a couple years.

Jeff Reed: And the fact coming out of this conversation, right now that missionary has come to me and said, I'm not feeling much different than you were at that moment because things have gotten so bleak and so hard. And as we're looking at these difficult moments, it's not... I've always felt like if God takes our successes, then God gets our failures. If our ego, our pride, claims successes for us, then we have to claim the failures as ours because we were the ones that did it. But if God is the one that orchestrates the success of the past, then God takes the failures of today and just goes ahead and claims whatever tomorrow is. Today or tomorrow, today has enough trouble of its own.

Jeff Reed: Let's let God worry about tomorrow, Matthew 6:34. And so in the midst of whatever trial, whatever season you're in, go ahead and ask that question. Is God getting the wins and the failures? Is God getting the persecution? Is God getting the difficulties for the position that he's put you in? Or are you carrying it?

Jeff Reed: That's the thought that brought me back. we've talked about it with the Church Digital, and I've said this recently on a stream. We were talking about shutting it down. I was talking about shutting it down.

Jeff Reed: And in the reality, one of the leadership conversations that I had, one of the conversations that I had with leadership brought me to this one point. Jeff, is this yours or is it God's? I am... doing my best to be a wise steward of his ministry here. And we're going to do whatever we can to encourage people to be missional in digital and virtual space, to equip and care for the missionaries on those platforms, just like they were places, and to see a movement multiply in digital and virtual space.

Jeff Reed: And it encourages me very much to see even today God moving in quiet ways behind the scenes. church calls that's interested, you know, looking for X ends up being Y, a missions, global missionary conference, global missions conference, digital missionary conference sponsor. I couldn't remember the acronym for a second. Sorry, DMC. Digital missionary conference sponsor reaches out asking if I'm interested in a leadership position of sorts. Like there's some things that, I can step back, and these are my words, I can step back and see, well, yeah, Jeff, once I get over myself, I can see where God's moving.

Jeff Reed: For me, my pride and my ego gets in the way. My pride and my ego puts me in the place where it's, hey, Jeff's all alone, when, you know, cue footprints, photo, and God's carrying me the entire time. It's a fun reality realizing that when you're alone, you're really not.

Jeff Reed: It's comforting. It's a lesson I have to teach my kids. You know, my daughter's setting up for college applications right now.

Jeff Reed: Actually, she's here right now. She's in another room. She's a high school senior. She's doing Calculus 3 at a local school, Calculus 3. She passed Calculus 1 and Calculus 2 with flying colors, and so she's already taking Calculus 3. The reason I get into all that, she's filling out college applications now.

Jeff Reed: And one of the questions on the college applications, one of the essay questions, is what difficulties have you faced in your senior year? And she says, well, Dad, I already talked about your health and about you almost dying and having to deal with that. I already addressed that in another question, so I can't mention it again. So, Dad, I really want to talk about how you've been unemployed or not making money.

Jeff Reed: Are you okay if I talk about that on the college application? And I was like, my wife stepped in and kind of championed the conversation and helped her find the angle and it worked. Well, at least she was able to write it. And I sat there while my wife, Amy, was talking to Caitlin. I literally just sat there thinking to myself, what have I done here? that my my my ministry has brought my daughter to a point of recognizing difficulty like have i scarred my kids in the process what have i and i start literally i just start unraveling everything guys this was this weekend this is not even something a year ago this is like it's like a couple days ago And I've started talking more to both kids about the ministry, what's going on, the opportunities, the benefits, who I'm reaching, what I'm working with.

Jeff Reed: You know, I've even apologized. Guys, I'm sorry that, you know. we don't own the boat in miami that we're not going out on on the ocean water that we're not going on parties that we're not going on ski trips that we can barely afford the things that that your friends can that you know we we only have two cars and the other day i was talking about selling one of the two cars we'd be down to one car

Jeff Reed: By the way, I totally wanna do the Tesla RoboCab, but that's another conversation. Seriously though, I'm like, I live a digital missionary lifestyle. I'm broke in the second most expensive city in America, Miami. What am I supposed to do with that?

Jeff Reed: I don't know. Do not know. And so if you're in those spaces, what I know I can't do, Actually, I think there is something to, I don't know what to do, but I'm going to give it to God and put faith in Him to handle that. And I don't mean to be the Sunday school cop-out guy. I don't mean to be the, you know, the, yeah, Jeff, it's easy for you to say.

Jeff Reed: I live that pain every day at this point. I mean, there are homeless on the street that are making probably more a year than I'm pulling in at this point. I saw homeless, like homeless guys down here with Cash App on their, you know, swipes on their phones.

Jeff Reed: ingenious idea. Seriously. Whoever gave the homeless guys Cash App, smart move.

Jeff Reed: It'd be funny if Cash App did that to get a cut. They wouldn't do that. Maybe they would do that. I don't know. Anyway, to bring it home, there's a challenge today. We are still early.

Jeff Reed: for platforms as places. We are still early in doing missions work in digital context. Digital communication is fine. Digital community is still not sure about that. God only does community in the building. Don't abandon, don't forsake the gathering of believers, Hebrews.

Jeff Reed: There's still gonna be that pushback. And if anything, it's gotten louder and more vicious in the time that I was away and are now coming back. And so those of you that are out there in the midst of these difficulties, be encouraged, seriously. And that's hard to say. I understand that.

Jeff Reed: You are literally doing what God has asked you to do. And as a result of that, knowing that God is on your side, who are you to say no? I mean, you can say no. That's up to you and God. I said no and, well, God swallowed me by a whale with a whale by getting me fired.

Jeff Reed: 100%. 100%. You know what? I feel like it's time to go. God is calling me to go. I really like having this paycheck.

Jeff Reed: I'm going to go ahead and stay here because I don't want to lose my paycheck. If anything, I want to lean further in because I want stability. My family deserves stability. I should give them stability.

Jeff Reed: I'm ignoring God. Three months later. Hey, Jeff, you're out.

Jeff Reed: Thank you, God. Clarity. Bringing me back.

Jeff Reed: By the way, I would challenge you, find your clarity without getting canned or without... Needing God to intervene at the level that he did. Getting swallowed by a whale is not a fun thing, I would imagine. And neither is getting canned. But I'll tell you, I'm doing much better now. What was that?

Jeff Reed: There was a, oh my gosh, there was an actor in the 70s. But I feel much better now. Can't think of his name. He's kind of a creepy guy. Anyway, that doesn't matter. I'm flashing something from Adam's family, but I don't think it was Adam's family.

Jeff Reed: Anyway, too old for that. Anyway, we're going to wrap up. This has been fun. I hope it's fun. It's been fun for me.

Jeff Reed: It's funny. I didn't do much interaction with the audience today. People were just flying in and out on a regular basis. Always thankful for the audience that comes in. I knew when I changed times, it was going to be difficult because a lot of people consistently see me at two. And so always thankful for the people that are coming and watching live.

Jeff Reed: Next week, we're starting. I'll publish the schedule soon, but next week we're starting the listening tour. We've got a couple book authors coming out. We've got on digital missional theology, digital missiology, digital theology. We've got a couple success stories. We've got a couple people that are struggling coming in that are just being transparent in this season.

Jeff Reed: and know they've done what God's called them to do either way. Just because God called you to do it doesn't mean that it's successful. God called you to do it, and we need to be obedient, not look for success in that.

Jeff Reed: But that's... That's part of the deal of being a missionary. So we're going to land the plane. Hey, I want to thank you guys for hanging out with me today on episode 347. Hit me up in Discord and WhatsApp. It took me a minute to remember the word WhatsApp.

Jeff Reed: It's been a while since I've done this. Hit me up Discord and WhatsApp, The Church Digital on both of those, or like and subscribe, of course, on YouTube at BeTheChurchDigital. For The Church Digital, this is Jeff signing off. Thanks, everybody. Have a great one, and we'll see you next time here on the show. Bye.