Jesus Wanted Both.We Keep Picking One.

Jeff Reed: All right, hey everybody, welcome to episode 382, 382 of the Church Digital Podcast. I got Chill Hop playing in the background. I like my lo-fi. I don't know that I like my lo-fi with saxophone. This is not the environment I necessarily was going into. Walking into the stream.

Jeff Reed: So I'm just going to go ahead and fade out the music because that took the turn that I was not expecting. So apologize for that. But so thankful to be on the stream here with you guys and talking. I had a show scheduled for today. And to be honest. what I had planned, I dropped the ball on.

Jeff Reed: And so looking forward to bringing the guest on next week and definitely excited about what's in store for that as we're getting back to the listening tour and really just starting to explore what God is doing digitally through digital missionaries on a global, literally a global scale. I was in a meeting this morning, once again, talking with some of our friends in India and in Europe and Africa and planning on how to draw attention to that with the Church Digital. It's so important, I think, for us to recognize. I heard a story even last week about a Muslim. We're going to share the story with the Church Digital soon, but it was a Muslim convert from Yemen. And when I was watching this story, I was like, I can't actually think of the last time I said the word Yemen.

Jeff Reed: Like, as a country, it's just not in my vocabulary. It's not in my mindset. But even though it's scattered, it's dispersed, it's away, it's disconnected, God's doing things digitally in that space. And so important, I think, for us to celebrate that and start to show what God is doing digitally, not only here in the U.S., but around the world. And it's interesting. You know, I'm kind of...

Jeff Reed: I was actually talking on Discord a minute ago. By the way, if you ever DM me on Discord... I apologize. Same thing on WhatsApp. I'm horrible. I am horrible with DMing back on people.

Jeff Reed: I need to get better. It's a confession. It's an issue of mine. I need to pay more attention to those inboxes. In the community, I'm great, but just the inboxes, they just pile up. Not an excuse, but an excuse.

Jeff Reed: There was a person, I believe from overseas, Europe, who had DMed me four or five months ago. And they were very upset about God, ministry, life, relationships. We've all gotten to that point, right? Where we just, we feel like we need to explode. We need somebody that's gonna listen and just vent and do it.

Jeff Reed: And this person, they went ahead and they had that moment. It was funny in the moment, I saw them having the moment in the community. I told them to DM me and I didn't see every DM to me. Actually, they got connected to Leighton and had the conversation I know and things ended well, but that was the situation four or five months ago. And I'm reading this now recollecting, oh crap, this really did happen four or five months ago and I dropped the ball. Thank you Leighton for covering by the way.

Jeff Reed: That's why you always wanna be in a team. Never go alone digitally. Never go alone digitally. But I told this person, I was like, I'm going to be honest. And you're going to hear it today. I'm in a little bit of a questioning period myself.

Jeff Reed: And it's not I'm questioning the existence of God. God exists. God is real. I have gone down that road. Is God real? Check me out maybe 2023.

Jeff Reed: We can have some of those conversations. You know, I've had the conversations of, is God worthy of listening to? Is God worthy of our work, our worship, and our praise? I've gone down that. And what I'm wrestling with today, and I'm happy, I see God, you know, like that's not my problem. The thing that I've been struggling with, and if you've been keeping up with the Scattered Bible Studies, you've seen this, you've heard this, you've heard me talk about it.

Jeff Reed: By the way, Scattered's incredible. You should totally check that out, thechurch.digital.com, but this is not about Scattered. I'll be honest, I'm struggling with the church. coming from an organization that's called The Church Digital, it's kind of bad when the guy who founded it's like, hey, two of the three words I'm struggling with right now, but I am, I'm struggling with the church. And I've been trying to figure out, honestly, for years, how to put words behind the issues that I have.

Jeff Reed: Here in America, it's funny, there's many reasons why I don't go to conferences anymore. I used to be, a lot of you have known me and met me from the work with Leadership Network and Exponential and New Thing Network and Stadia. I was constantly on the go. There's days in my life where I was on the road two or three days out of seven. Being a digital guy, it's ironic that I was on the road that much, but I was constantly traveling and connecting. with people globally, and there's value in that.

Jeff Reed: But it's interesting for me, the more that I got into those one-on-one conversations, the more that it really just turned, not where I was getting encouragement, but where I was battling, I was fighting, I was trying to show, I was bucking the system, I was disrupting what was there, and never once was it good job, never once was it comforting. It was like everywhere I went, it was, I'm overstating here, but it was a fight, fight, fight, fight, fight. And I never knew peace when I would travel. I never knew comfort. Anywhere I go, I was expecting, like we would talk about it.

Jeff Reed: You may have heard me say this. Anytime I'd have a conversation, there were 30%. When I walk into a room, these stats are true. When I walk into a room and start talking, 30% of the room is gonna love everything I'm gonna say. 30% of the room is going to think I'm a nut job and is going to hate everything, is going to question the standards. And so really there's 40%.

Jeff Reed: The 40% is what I'm in the room for is to try to sway them one way or another. And it was so frustrating in ministry. Well, then we were invited to go to Korea to meet with this missions organization, Lausanne. And you know the story. I said, no. They came back and said, no, really, you are coming.

Jeff Reed: What do you need? Let's figure it out and get here. Because we couldn't afford it. And so we figured it out. We got there. And it was maybe the best experience I've ever had at a conference.

Jeff Reed: Because people were supportive. They were encouraging. The global people. Like even the US for the most part, US global people were supportive. It seems like when I have a conversation or when I'm at the US conferences, to be honest, church conferences, you know the conferences I go to, I'm not gonna drop names, but like 30, 40% of the conversations I would have would be negative. Remember three out of 10 think I'm a nut job.

Jeff Reed: So 30% of the people I'm talking to are like, you're crazy, it doesn't work that way. In Lausanne, I had maybe 500 conversations. And honest to God, of those 500 conversations, maybe one or two. One that was aggressive, and another guy was like, look, I appreciate what you're doing. I'm thankful you're doing it. It's just not for me.

Jeff Reed: I'm not that guy. And so it was a very strong affirmation for me that we were on the right trail. And for a second, I thought that it was because it was a global audience and global is more open. And I do believe global is more open to digital because in many ways it's post-Christian. Europe, more people go to a pub. than a cathedral or a temple on Christmas Eve.

Jeff Reed: And so in many ways, what they're experiencing in Europe, up where Simon is, is post-Christian. Same thing with a lot of our friends, obviously, India, South Asia right now is in the midst of persecution, where even sharing Jesus is illegal. There's lots of challenges in Africa, up and down. And so, you know, in many ways, the mission field is more ripe and more open for more missional thinking. in these areas than they are here in America. America, you know, we like our buildings.

Jeff Reed: We like our structure. We like our tradition. And it's been a struggle for me as a guy who evidently has been called to be one of the disruptors in that church space to constantly be battling against that. And, well, Jeff, how hard can it be? I've been doing this for 25 years, 26 years. It's hard.

Jeff Reed: I mean, the bald and the gray, my kids are great. This is not because of my family. Let me just say it that way. And so, but it's been hard for me. to put words on the struggle, to help define and understand better what it is that I'm fighting against. And so I wanna take some time right here and unpack this a little bit for you.

Jeff Reed: I'm asking your patience. This is the first time I've said a lot of this stuff. And so, you know, I've talked about I'm going to be unfiltered on these streams. This is a perfect example of being unfiltered because I've never really said this before, but it's going to be some strong stuff in the process of that. So once again, if you've got hate email you want to send my way, go ahead and send it to Leighton, L-E-I-G-H-T-O-N, leighton at thechurch.digital.

Jeff Reed: Leighton would love to have a conversation with you about that, and that'll be great. Look, the heart of this is we keep picking one. And this is me, I'm guilty of it. And so like, I'm not, this is me trying to figure it out. Jesus wanted both. Jesus modeled both.

Jeff Reed: And we, for some reason, I'm saying Americans, I'm suggesting maybe even at a larger level globally, we keep picking one. We're either mission or we're the church. Very rarely in digital space do I see us being both. So let's work through this together and kind of see where we end up here. there's go and there's gather. There's missiology, which is go.

Jeff Reed: It's the scattering. It's the dispersion. It's go out and be the light of Christ in these dark areas. And then there's the gather. which is the ecclesiology, the coming together, often on Sunday mornings in today's culture, but it's the study of the church, what it is, how it gathers, who it belongs to, who it leads to. And it feels like there's a tension.

Jeff Reed: I almost want to call up Ed Stetzer and sit down and have a convo with Ed Stetzer on this and probably get beat up because Ed's aggressive on some of the digital stuff. But figuring out this, because the relationship... between the go, the missiology, the sending, the missionary, and the gathering, the ecclesiology, is very strong. It's funny, New Thing actually uses the phrase, Exponential now uses the term, missional imagination. Like, they talk about this, understanding the gospel well enough to imagine how to display it in other areas, and they're far more aggressive, missionaries are, in experimenting, in learning new tips and techniques, and going into new areas and new structures and new environments.

Jeff Reed: Like, you know, Craig Groeschel, ironically, a pastor, but he says, you know, we'll do anything for the cause of Christ, anything short of sin for the cause of Christ. And that's a perfect example of what a missionary, a digital missionary is doing. I mean, we've got people streaming in different Discord, streaming in Twitch channels, WhatsApp, YouTube, creating communities through apps and Facebook and Instagram. And like they're utilizing these digital tools, not as a communications tool, but as a community tool to establish relationships, to build relationships, to establish trust. and to eventually share Christ, evangelism, and discipleship in these spaces. And by the way, it's working.

Jeff Reed: The methods are working, and this is not an experiment anymore. So the missiology of digital is working, but when we start to get into the ecclesiology of a digital church, you can't do that. You can't, you can't. If we look at Jesus, This is hard for me because I put on my blinders. This is confession hour for Jeff here.

Jeff Reed: I put on my blinders to the church. I'm done. It's one of the reasons I confess. It's one of the reasons why I don't go to the conferences anymore. It's a bunch of church people that are doing church things, and I love what they're doing, but they don't understand me and what I'm trying to do. They're not supporting, and I just, I'm not, in my heart, I'm trying to be humble in this, but I'm just, I'm tired of the fight.

Jeff Reed: I'm tired of the fight. Jesus does talk about both. He does talk about the mission of things here. Again, Jesus said to them, peace be with you, as the Father has sent me, so I am sending you. He constantly was sending people out. And it was funny, you know, of course, any digital missionaries go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Jeff Reed: It's funny, there's a story that I constantly tell about this, about the demon-possessed man who had the legion. You know, the guy who had like 100 or so, whatever it was, I don't know what the number was, demons in him. And Jesus came upon him and cast the demon out to the swine. The swine run over the cliff and dive into the water and die. Poor pigs. And then the disguise left without the demons healed.

Jeff Reed: And the guy's like, dude, you saved my life. That's incredible. Thank you. What can I do? He wanted to stay with Jesus. He wanted to be the community.

Jeff Reed: He wanted to follow Jesus and go wherever Jesus went. And Jesus said, no, no, no, no, you're not with us. You go over here to Decapolis. There's 10 cities that are up here in this nearby region. They know you, they've seen you. You go tell them what I did for you.

Jeff Reed: And he went, he was the first missionary in this town, in this area, in this region called Decapolis. and got to do that. He didn't get communion with Jesus. He was the missionary who was sent to go be the light in the dark places. And so there is that option. There is that understanding, that missiology, that being sent goes into different places.

Jeff Reed: Now... In fact, there is an option as well, and I'd love comments on this as we go through it, about building the church, about having a home base, a structure, a place. But, you know, if you look at Scripture, I think it looks differently from what we're seeing here. Like, let's look at Jesus here. And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail. Jesus also said, where to?

Jeff Reed: It's funny. Okay, I'm going to build something in you, Peter, that the gates of hell, the gates of Hades will not prevail. But where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am with them. That right there doesn't paint the picture of a multimillion-dollar building taking shots at our U.S. friends. Instead, it paints the picture of a much more organic, a much more dispersed world. not limited by structure and place, but being able to spread among the people.

Jeff Reed: It's interesting. I didn't plan it this way. I'm wearing a shirt right now. It's I Am Second. It's with a missions organization. Man, I really didn't plan it this way.

Jeff Reed: It was kind of ironic, just looking at myself on the screen. No Place Left, E3 organization. E3 plants churches, very organic style, and under like... you know, three people under a palm tree. You know, No Place Left would look at Matthew 18, 20 here and say, oh, three people under a palm tree, that's a church. Let's go, let's get them going.

Jeff Reed: And so they take that church structure, but they make it very missional-minded. John 13 here, a new commandment, I give you, love one another. And as I have loved you, you must also love one another. By this, everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another. The church, we should love one another. That's interesting.

Jeff Reed: That all of us may be one. as you, Father, are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me, John 17, there. And so you're starting to see a picture of that the church was important to Jesus, and the missions, the spreading, the light and the darkness, was both important to Jesus. And so it's interesting, you know, and when we look at digital missions, we're all for that. And it was funny, when I was, when I first started with Stadia, I was the director of digital church planting.

Jeff Reed: This was pre-COVID. And, you know, a lot of these pastors were very, pre-COVID, were very open to the idea of digital missions. You know, being a light in the darkness is great. Get them into our church buildings. And so a digital missionary utilizing digital media to connect with people and invite them into a church building, which is not a bad strategy. By the way, I'm running it right now very effectively for several churches here in Miami.

Jeff Reed: Like using digital with connecting to people, inviting them into a physical relationship is not a bad thing, but it's a limiter. you are limited by the amount of people that you can reach. I have to intentionally gate ad campaigns and intentionally structure SEO and Google and utilize Ai to, I'm gonna be honest here and I'm not mincing words, I have to limit the spread of the gospel because the church I'm feeding it into is not capable yet to where they can support remote discipleship. And so I actually have to intentionally squelch it back a little bit, realizing that, hey, I need just a smaller area now. I'm working with my churches to help them expand beyond their limitations digitally. But let's recognize that to be effective, it is a limitation unless the church is ready to disciple people in digital space, which most churches say they are, but in practice are not.

Jeff Reed: If we're looking at digital missions, we are very comfortable with digital missions. Let's go on the dark places, Facebook, whatever, and do that. Hey, you know what? I've got to. I tell the story. I tear up on this one because this one, this cuts deep for me.

Jeff Reed: I had a digital missionary friend. He literally had shared. He did some work with me in the past. He literally had shared Jesus over 2,000 times in virtual reality. documented, would walk up to people in VR chat and just start talking about Jesus. He's a freaking John the Baptist of VR chat, walking around proclaiming, you know, the good news of Christ.

Jeff Reed: His church threatened to excommunicate him. because they were not comfortable with the idea of what they were doing. They very much—I'm sorry if there was an internet outage there, but my friend here was excommunicated or threatened to be excommunicated out of a church for sharing Jesus in virtual reality. Not because he was incapable, but because that wasn't what the church would do.

Jeff Reed: You know, at the heart of it, I guess, the gospel doesn't belong in the church. I'm sorry, the gospel doesn't belong in virtual reality. And that's frustrating because as a general rule, churches like the missional aspect when it benefits them. But to be honest, they're not yet comfortable with the idea of representing the church or being the church in digital space. And so our desire to disciple, to grow people in a digital-only environment or even a hybrid environment, a physical and digital, still in 2026 has questions. Now, why?

Jeff Reed: You know, we did it in COVID. Well, you know, 300,000 churches in America and... couple billion churches around the world. Yeah, they did it during COVID with a gun to their head, and it wasn't a great experience. They did it kicking and screaming, and right now they're kind of overcorrecting and saying, yeah, I never want to go back to that again. What's interesting is I would say there is a percentage of churches that learned something in that season and do want to embrace it.

Jeff Reed: But I'll tell you, in my life right now, I've got a 40-year-old pastor who is... very friendly to digital discipleship and utilizing digital here in America. And I've got an early 40-year-old pastor who, to be honest, would do phenomenal in digital spaces, but wants nothing to do with it. He's digital allergic, agnostic. And that's not a bad thing necessarily. It hurts me because I know there's so much potential that's there that we can't yet tap into.

Jeff Reed: But he's not comfortable with the idea of digital church. And as digital missionaries and as people that are wanting to plant and start digital churches, welcome to our world. This is a Tuesday. This is just a normal day for us. We are constantly living in this tension. And for me, I'll confess, it's funny, I tell people on a regular basis, our operating budget with the Church Digital right now is under $1,000 a month.

Jeff Reed: Nobody's getting paid anything. 100% volunteer-led, driven, funded. The reason it's under $1,000 a month, because I'll just open up the checkbook, we get $950 a month in recurring donation.

Jeff Reed: givers, donors, people like you that are involved in the ministry of the Church Digital, give $5, $10, $20, $50, $100, different varying levels all the way through, and that money hits the Church Digital. And that's why we're able to do the things that we're doing right now. We're all bivocational. We all have jobs. And I say that to say... a lot of the support that we're looking for in the church space, to be honest, it's not there.

Jeff Reed: And for us in America, I think we're looking in the wrong place. I think we need to be looking more in the missional space for that support and encouragement. But to really connect the two together... It really isn't about digital, about one side versus the other. It's not about missional, and it's not about ecclesiology. It's not about the church, and it's not about the mission.

Jeff Reed: It's about finding ways for us to work together, about finding ways to combine that together. Well, hey, let's dig in here. I want to get through some things here. Point one, be humble. The word comes before our ways. Listen before you defend.

Jeff Reed: I suck at this. A gentle answer turneth away wrath. Mean words stir up anger. Slow is the tongue. A fool speaks quickly.

Jeff Reed: Like that, I'm the biggest idiot on the planet. I do not know when to shut up. That's the streamer at heart for me. When there's silence, I just fill the room, and it's hard for me to listen. And so in this situation, which is one of the reasons why I don't wanna go fight at these conferences anymore. But those of you that are on that front line, I wanna challenge you, okay?

Jeff Reed: This is me, the guy that has been fighting the fight for a long time, passing it down to the next generation. Be humble when you fight. Do not go in disrupting, tearing down other systems, other processes, other methods to make yours look better. The physical church is necessary. The U.S. church is necessary. The churches that God has established are ordained and established by God.

Jeff Reed: And we are not in place to cast judgment or rule upon them one way or the other. What I wanna talk about is the missed opportunities and the people that the physical brick and mortar buildings are not connecting with. Those that are so burned by the idea of church, they will never, ever set foot in a building, but hey, may have a conversation with somebody on Twitch or Discord. Or somebody in a dark place overseas that is not even able to connect with a Christian in physical space because of persecution is able to connect with someone in a WhatsApp app or connect with somebody via Facebook Messenger. Like, there is so much other opportunities. beyond the established ecclesia that we need to explore.

Jeff Reed: And for us to really have the conversation, I want to challenge you. Listen, oh, listen before you defend on here. Tradition is not the enemy. This is hard for me because I've spent a lot of years thinking that it was.

Jeff Reed: Putting it above the word is. Tradition is not the thing that we're fighting against. Old mindset is not the thing that we're fighting against.

Jeff Reed: Extra-biblical opinion that's limiting what the Bible is saying, that's what we're fighting against. It's not that tradition is bad. Actually, it's funny. I actually know a couple very traditional churches that are doing very well. but they've adapted more of a digital mindset with connecting and spreading across the board. And so there's possibility to do that.

Jeff Reed: I mean, let's look at what Jesus said here. I'm gonna love some of this. You set aside, oh, that's a long one here. Let's skip that one. You can come back, we'll give this to you later. Matthew 5, 17 and 18, do not think that I've come to abolish the law or the prophets.

Jeff Reed: I did not come to abolish them, but fulfill them. We're going to talk more about this later, the Pharisees and the Sadducees. I'm excited about that. I had an aha moment a couple days ago, and I'm excited to see that come into play. For I tell you, until heaven and earth passes away, not a single jot nor a stroke of a pen will disappear from the law until everything is accomplished. Jesus didn't throw the law books away.

Jeff Reed: He embraced the law. He completed the law for what it was. The problem was that the Pharisees and Sadducees, I'll give a sneak peek, even though it was in front of them, they didn't realize what they had, and they persecuted him and challenged him because they were stuck in the mindset that there's no way this guy can be him because he is still to come. It's sad for my friends. Actually, this was a point of mourning for me. I was in Israel a couple years ago.

Jeff Reed: And I mourned because all of these people, literally, I'm at the Wailing Wall seeing all of these people who are mourning for their Jesus to come. And going back in the archives where all of these people are studying and getting into the Word in these libraries, reading over scrolls and pondering and praying with all their heart. for God to come. And it's like, I just, I broke inside because I'm like, dude, you missed him. I almost, I didn't want to go on the trip because I just felt so bad that there's thousands of millions of people who have devouted themselves so passionately to something and have totally 100% missed the boat.

Jeff Reed: Jesus didn't come to abolish the law or throw it away. He came to complete it. Now watch what he says here. Take my yoke upon you, digital missionaries, pay attention to this, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. Gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. I used to work with a guy, and when he'd go into some of these conversations, I'll be honest, he used to intentionally find the fight, and he would poke it with a stick, like poke the bear with the stick.

Jeff Reed: He knew there was going to be a problem. It was funny. Actually, I walked into one of these situations at the last conference I was at. I'm not going to say what conference. But literally, a guy knew how fired up I was, pro-digital. And there was another guy who was very anti-digital.

Jeff Reed: And the guy put the two of us together in a conversation. We started this huge fight between me and this other individual. I apologize for it later.

Jeff Reed: gentle and humble or not, I can't say, yeah, there was this huge fight. And then look at the scripture where it says gentle and humble and think, oh, yeah, I represented Christ in that moment. Yeah, I represented the Holy Spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. That's totally what I was doing when I was yelling at this guy for wasting millions of digital connections by not leading them into some sort of a discipleship pathway.

Jeff Reed: You know, it's funny, afterwards, when I apologized, he apologized as well. He's like, Jeff, I had no idea who you were. I thought, literally, he's like, I had no idea who you were. I just thought you were some pastor talking about this. I didn't know you. I know the Church Digital.

Jeff Reed: I know what you're doing. And I apologized. I was like, yeah, I explained the situation where, you know, both of us got set up for the fight, so to speak. But, you know, and he said, he said, well, let's follow up and let's talk. We didn't.

Jeff Reed: the damage was done, I came at it too strong and aggressive rather than listening, rather than being humble and gentle. You know, it's interesting here. Let's look at the Philippines. Who exists in the form of God, did not consider equality, emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being humble, being made in human likeness, and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself. and became obedient to death, even death on the cross. We've been talking about this scattered Bible study.

Jeff Reed: You know, it talks about Jesus. I don't want to say it's Acts. Maybe it's the end of Acts 1. I'm sorry, end of 1 Peter 1. Maybe it's the first part of 1 Peter 2. But we're talking about the cornerstone.

Jeff Reed: You know, Jesus is the cornerstone. The builders built the cornerstone. They rejected the cornerstone. This is the process it goes through in about three or four verses. The builders built the cornerstone, Jesus. Jesus is the cornerstone.

Jeff Reed: We, like Jesus, need to be cornerstones. The builders rejected Jesus, destroyed the cornerstone. We will be rejected like Jesus. It literally talks about that. Now, the context of the scripture is talking to displaced Christians in first century who have left Jerusalem and are now the light in other areas that are being house churches, that are being the light in hostile lands.

Jeff Reed: And so there's an opportunity. When he says here, he humbled himself and became obedient to death, I mean, that's what Jesus did for us. And it's interesting, that's the challenge for us. Now, you know, I'm sitting in Miami, Florida on a camera. I'm not being obedient to death.

Jeff Reed: I'll be doing this until I die, but that's not what they're talking about here. I've got some friends that we're working with in some hostile, unfriendly-to-Christianity lands that would speak differently. where, to be honest, constantly I'm praying for them that they're not going to get the knock on the door from the police, that we are being safe and secure in communications, and that they are able to continue to be the light in the dark ways, and that God would allow ministry to continue on behind some of these, in some of these dark areas. And so the idea of a digital missionary being obedient to death is...

Jeff Reed: is a reality. And some of us, we are facing persecution. You know, I've constantly been having conversations about what's happening in the metaverse, VR church, Oasis church, and others that are facing persecution, not from outside the church with people being stupid, but from Christians inside the church who are being stupid. People that are coming in, Christians that are coming in, just this troll. And being, you know, I'll be honest, as a volunteer who doesn't get paid anything, who's trying to be the light of the world in the darkness, you know, dark arrows being shot at me, Satan shots at me personally, eh, okay, they hurt. It's the friendly fire that kills.

Jeff Reed: It's the friendly fire that wipes me out. And so, I mean, I could tell you some fun stories. I'm not going to. But the reality is that that's some of that support that I would love to see the church. There was somebody who hit up on Discord. It was funny.

Jeff Reed: It was right after they were part of one of the scattered thing. We were talking about, you know, being that support system. And somebody said on Discord recently, forgive me if you're watching, I just, I can't pull the name real quick. But somebody said, I don't understand what digital missionaries do who don't have the church digital. Like, what support system do you have to help you in the ministry, to encourage you, to uplift you, to pray for you? Who is supporting you?

Jeff Reed: Because there's so little support that's out there in these spaces. Let's look at what the church does. This is Acts here. It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not cause trouble for the Gentiles that are turning to God. Okay, let's talk about context here. This is Peter, I believe, coming in in one of the fights that Peter had with, this is the Jerusalem Council, yeah.

Jeff Reed: And they were trying to figure out what to do with these Gentiles. So, you know, a bunch of Jews finding Jesus is great. Well, Jews are God's chosen people, right? And so let them do it. You know, whatever you need to do. And they're circumcised.

Jeff Reed: They're okay. God's ordained it. We're good. Around Acts 15, they started questioning and saying, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. That guy's uncircumcised over there. That guy's a Gentile.

Jeff Reed: We got another couple of Gentiles over here. Who told that guy? That guy's not allowed to know. Organically, the gospel spread outside of the Jewish circles. And now Gentiles who weren't supposed to know about Jesus started finding out about Jesus. So they brought together a Jerusalem council.

Jeff Reed: to figure out what are we going to do and what did they say. We should not cause trouble for the Gentiles who are turning to God. I'm gonna be honest, I don't see much different parallel here to what's happening in digital spaces. Digital missionaries, we know this. The people that we're reaching in Twitch, in virtual reality, in Discord, the people that we're engaging with digitally in the ways that we are in closed countries, overseas, in post-Christian environments across the planet,

Jeff Reed: The people that we're reaching are not the people that are going to Sunday morning service in any church. And rather than the church being afraid of what you're doing, the church, to be honest, should be embracing. The church shouldn't be questioning. The church needs to arms open, hug and support and start saying, how can we help you find and connect with more Gentiles? I mean, more digital people.

Jeff Reed: How can we help? When's the last time you've heard that? It's been a while, right? You know, I may hear it occasionally from one or two people, but nothing really comes about it. A lot of people, I think, are interested in the story, but to be honest, they don't know how to quantify it and turn the trigger and figure out how to help. We're going to get more into that in a little bit.

Jeff Reed: But realize, as humble missionaries in this space, You know, I don't want to get into that. We know this. We're guests on the phones of the people that we're connecting with. We need to use their platform. We need to embrace and be part in their church and adapt their culture.

Jeff Reed: We need to work on their timing, not ours. The work of a digital missionary is very, very sacrificial, very time-consuming. I know that. I live that. I mean, shoot, I'm using Ai in incredible freaking ways. And even with that, and even how Ai is multiplying all this stuff and using it well, it still is a huge, I started to say time suck, that's too negative, but it is a time expenditure.

Jeff Reed: But as we're sacrificing as digital missionaries, I think it's important that we stay not only humble, as we just talked about in that environment, But number two, we need to be comfortable with the disruption. You know, I will say this. I actually, I got some negative attention to Church Digital did. Several years ago, one of our associates, Chesley Lundy, wrote an article through the Church Digital about, I don't know, the intentionality of disrupting the virtual church, I think was what it was about. And...

Jeff Reed: It was an aggressive article. It was an aggressive article. I was fine with it. I read it in advance. I knew who was writing it. It was in a public publication, from what I recall, and the words were fine.

Jeff Reed: It wasn't negative or anything bad, necessarily, but... Some of our friends that weren't digital-friendly found the fence at it. And, you know, God rest his soul, John MacArthur was one of these that objected very strongly, and his organization actually wrote an open letter in response to what we did, our article, about how the church does not need disruption. and cited a number of reasons why, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's funny, I've got on the bookshelf behind me, I actually have a John MacArthur study Bible. I love John MacArthur.

Jeff Reed: John MacArthur's, okay, John MacArthur went a little weird at the end of his life. I'm not gonna defend that. I'm not a John MacArthur apologist, but John MacArthur as a pastor, John MacArthur as some of the work that he did in biblical counseling, like I'm gonna be honest, John MacArthur was a very strong part of my life with his works in my 20s and 30s, which made it very uncomfortable and very infuriating when John MacArthur, rest his soul, is throwing shots at me and Chesley by name and naming my organization, The Church Digital, personally in his response, driving all sorts of negative traffic and noise around The Church Digital. It was interesting. I actually had a very poignant, angry response that I had drafted and not sent.

Jeff Reed: I've told this story a couple times, and I was on The Verge's ending it. My wife called me and said, don't press send. I needed to hear that.

Jeff Reed: I never hear from her at school. She called me because she saw how frustrated I was, and she called me from school, and she's like, don't press send. She says, think about it. John MacArthur knows who you are. And so, you know, with some badge of honor, he is the highest ranking old white male who knew of the church digital at that time. There are some others probably in that vein as well.

Jeff Reed: But the reality was, was that we disrupted. we got under the skin of somebody. And I hated the negative connotation that it had come about with. To be honest, we do try to be very relational. I did, instead of the angry response, it was funny, it was right when this happened within a week of my book on virtual reality, VR in the Metaverse Church, published. And so I invited John to come on my stream, to be on this stream, to talk about it, to have an open forum about the pros and cons of digital ministry.

Jeff Reed: If not John, maybe somebody from his organization would love to have a talk. I was very gentle in the response. And I even had trusted people kind of read it to make sure that I wasn't being overly intentional. Never responded, never engaged. People are going to be disrupted by what we're doing. You know, even pastors that are very close to me, I'll be honest, have no idea how to support me.

Jeff Reed: To be honest, like one of my best friends, I was telling this story the other day, one of my best friends, maybe a decade ago, he used to live here in Miami. He moved away. He's not in Miami anymore. And he calls maybe once a month or so just to check in. I don't talk about work with him, to be honest, because when I do, he's like, yeah, Jeff, I don't understand the word you're saying. Because it's different.

Jeff Reed: And we, as digital missionaries, we have to be okay with it being different. Now, we need to find support to help us that can help us be okay when we're different. We need to find a team that can walk alongside us when it's different. But we need to be okay with understanding that your pastor's not going to get it. Your denomination's probably afraid it's going to spend too much money. Your spouse and your friends aren't going to know how to support it because they've never seen it before.

Jeff Reed: They don't even know if it's okay. That's the reality of where we are. We've got to be comfortable with that. Now, this is really interesting to me because I've started going down this road of the Pharisees and the Sadducees, looking at them together. Once again, okay, I'm grounding Pharisees and Sadducees. I think I said this in the Bible study.

Jeff Reed: I've said this privately. It's the first time I've talked about this publicly. The Pharisees and the Sadducees, to me, it's this idea of...

Jeff Reed: Okay, I'm just going to be unfiltered here, and bear with me as I say this, because this has been my mind thought. The Pharisees and the Sadducees, they're not that much different from today's Church. because they're grounded in traditionalism. This is wrong. I want to preface this, but this was my train of thought. The Pharisees and the Sadducees are not that different from today's modern church.

Jeff Reed: They're grounded in traditionalism, and with that traditionalism, they're actually looking Jesus in the face and not even able to see what he is saying because they're so stuck on the traditions that they have. Okay? Now, there is some merit to what I'm saying with that. However, I don't think it holds up. I do think the Pharisees and the Sadducees, they have got their issues, but they are, if we dig into Scripture, there is some separate issues that speak to that.

Jeff Reed: But they miss, but they miss on different points. And so let's drill into this and see if we see some parallels. The Pharisees, let's look at Mark 7 here, 1 to 13. This is a long one. The heart of what we're going to see here is that they have tradition layered over Scripture. So Scripture is the foundation, and tradition is what is...

Jeff Reed: a priority. Let's see if we find that in the scripture here. Mark 7. The Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come to Jerusalem gathered around Jesus and saw some of the disciples eating with hands that were defiled, that is, unwashed. Now, in holding to the tradition of the elders, the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat until they wash their hands ceremonially. And on the returning of the market, they do not eat unless they wash.

Jeff Reed: And there are many other traditions for them to observe, including the washing of cups, blah, blah, blah. So the Pharisees and scribes questioned Jesus, why do your disciples not walk in according to the tradition of the elders? Instead, they eat with devout hands. Jesus answered them, Isaiah prophesied correctly about you hypocrites. As it is written, these people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.

Jeff Reed: These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain. They teach as doctrine the precepts of men. You have disregarded the commandment of God to keep the tradition of men. He went on to say, you neatly set aside the commands of God to maintain your own tradition. For Moses said, honor your father and your mother.

Jeff Reed: Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death. But you say a man must say to his father or mother, what good, blah, blah, blah. Thus you nullify the word of God by the tradition you have handed down. You nullify. You void it. by the traditions that you put on top, by the extra biblical, the outside of Bible traditions that are in place.

Jeff Reed: I've always said with digital churches, the first thing that we've got to do is go back to Acts. What is the church called to be? What is the biblical functions of today's church? Worship, teaching, giving, like you can rile it off. Look at Acts. Oh crap, what is it?

Jeff Reed: Is it Acts 1, Acts 2, where it lists it out? Like go back to that. And it's funny, in no place left circles, it's called the church circle. And there's 14 things. I used to build it into my talks. There's 14 things the church is called to do.

Jeff Reed: And to be honest, digitally, we can do all of them, 12 of them easy. Where it gets weird is baptism and communion. And we can have that conversation. The first time my kid had communion was digitally at home with us during COVID, my son. And, you know, he came out okay.

Jeff Reed: And so I know there's different traditions and different feelings about what that would look like within different denominational circles, but the reality is that you can execute a biblical function of church very well digitally. It's the stuff that gets added on top of, really, that nullifies what God's trying to do or can do digitally. And as hard as it is for us to look for approval from today's church, to be honest, I feel like a lot of what we're battling against is, I can't highlight that, sorry, I thought I could, is nullifying the Word of God.

Jeff Reed: is that we digital churches, we digital missionaries, are following after scripture, and the people that are fighting against us may be nullifying the word of God by putting their traditions on top of it. It's hard words, right? I'm saying this publicly.

Jeff Reed: The one thing I ask is, If you are a digital missionary and you are a digital church planter and you're thinking about going down this road and exploring and wanting to go down what's next, make sure you're grounded in the Word of God. Please, make sure you're grounded in the Word of God. All right, so that is the Pharisees' problem. The Pharisees' problem put tradition over the Word. Let's look at where the Sadducees were.

Jeff Reed: Let's look at what their problems were biblically. All right, so Mark, where are we here? Mark 12, that is the right one, right? 18 to 27, yeah. Mark 12, 18 to 27. We'll fix that later.

Jeff Reed: Then the Sadducees, who said there is no resurrection, came to Jesus and questioned him. Teacher, Moses wrote us that if a man's brother dies and leaves a wife but no children, that man is to marry his brother and raise up the offspring for him. Now there were seven brothers. The first one married and died. You know, it's the typical trap they would do back then. Then the second one marries and also died.

Jeff Reed: And in this way, none of the seven left any children. At last, all of the women died. In the resurrection then, whose wife will she be? For she was married to all seven. There was a movie about this, right? No, I'm kidding.

Jeff Reed: Yeah, there was, but not really. Jesus said to them, aren't you mistaken because you do not know the scripture or the power of God? When the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage. Instead, they will be like angels in heaven. But concerning the dead rising, have you not read about the burning bush in the book of Moses? how God told him, I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.

Jeff Reed: He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. You are badly mistaken. Let's look at the other friend here, John 14, 48. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe him. and then the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation. This is the Pharisees, Sadducees talking in this context.

Jeff Reed: They were scared about losing their place. It's hard for me. I have friends that work in multi-million dollar church buildings. I, as of a couple months ago, was actually employed by a church working in a multi-million dollar church building. I have a career of working in physical churches that are working in multi-million dollar church buildings. And it's hard for me to look at the disdain away from digital ministry, the desire to stay away from digital ministry and digital mission work, the reason they're wanting to, without wondering, is this maybe because they're afraid if digital is successful, they can't pay for their mortgage?

Jeff Reed: That's a damaging accusation. I don't... I cannot tell you a specific instance of a conversation with a pastor or a person that has said that. And so I cannot back that. And I'm not looking to come into a swinging battle with someone in this context. But I cannot help but wonder, you know what?

Jeff Reed: The Church Digital, we're being really effective in digital space on about $12,000 a year. It's funny, when I was working for the multimillion dollar building, I was getting, buying stuff that was just thousands upon thousands of dollars. And we were just, we were writing money, checks left and right. And to be honest, I'm wincing a little bit.

Jeff Reed: Because I know, oh my gosh, could you imagine what a digital missionary could do with this? Could you imagine what the impact would do with this, where we can be a light in darkness instead of trying to keep up with the Joneses? It hurts. And so the Pharisees and the Sadducees recognize they had two different issues. That to be honest, I think today's church, I would say U.S., global, you can wrestle with this in your context and you can tell me, but I would say there's two different things they're wrestling with. One, like the Pharisees, I do think they're putting tradition over the word.

Jeff Reed: in fear of digital because of that. And our call as digital missionaries is that we have to put the Bible as the, not the foundation, but it is the truth of everything that we are doing in digital space. Otherwise, we're guilty of doing the same thing that the Pharisees are doing. Secondly, I swear this is going to be my next book. Like, my head is spinning right now. Secondly, as Sadducees, I do believe that the Church is guilty of, even subconsciously, leaning away from some of these experimental methods, what they would deem experimental, out of fear of losing the traditional footprint that they have.

Jeff Reed: And you can only look at movie theaters. You can only look at seminaries, at schools that are very grounded in, that are losing properties and are leaning much more into long distance or remote learning. It's always funny to me. Who was I talking to the other day? I was talking with somebody about this. It is hilarious to me.

Jeff Reed: When I find a pastor who's gotten his master's and doctorate from a seminary via remote learning, like a seminary that's in another state that he only goes to like once a year. It's hilarious to me when that guy's like, yeah, I don't believe in digital discipleship, but he got his master's and his doctorate via digital methods. Sorry, kind of gone on that. Different conversation for a different day. but start to recognize maybe some of the challenges that today's church is facing. And there may be some biblical tie-ins that we've got to overcome, help them understand.

Jeff Reed: How aggressive do you want to be in the space trying to change the church? Understand that, and this is good too, mission broke out where the structure broke down. Who was it? I've had somebody on the stream here, a missiologist. Oh my gosh, he's an Asian guy. I've heard his name.

Jeff Reed: He's probably one of the smartest men I've ever had on this show. Jason Morris, I'm sorry. Jason Morris learned from this guy when he's on. I've had two or three conversations with him. But God is a mobile God.

Jeff Reed: God does not move when the church does not. I've talked about this in Scattered. If Stephen didn't die, we would not be here. Biblically, Stephen had to die for the church to be persecuted, to be kicked out of Jerusalem. Stephen's job was to be stoned. Saul's job was to hold the coats, feel bad, guilty, have the Holy Spirit move and be the voice.

Jeff Reed: Paul would not be a thing had not Stephen sacrificed. You know, we talk about serving to the point of death, even death on the cross. Stephen did live that in his lifetime. And the result of that in Acts brought about this scattered thing that we're seeing here, where it said, and Saul therefore was given approval to Stephen's death. On that day, a great persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria. A lot of these are who we're studying and talking about in the 1 Peter study of scattered.

Jeff Reed: These are God-fearing men buried Stephen and mourned him deeply, but Saul began to destroy the church. Persecution came. Those that have been scattered, preach the word wherever they went. I've referenced this verse so many times in the Scattered Bible Study. When the persecution came, the Christians ran, but not of cowardice.

Jeff Reed: God used the running to spread. And as they were running, they spread the news of Jesus wherever they went. First off, man, could we be capable of that? That would be incredible. But second, you can see in that persecution, God's doing the light. Let's look at the early church as well.

Jeff Reed: Acts 11.1. And the apostles' brothers through the Judea soon heard that the Gentiles also received the word. So when Peter went up to Jerusalem and the circumcised believers took issue with him and said, you visited uncircumcised men and ate with them. How dare you? They are not approved people. There's a joke about...

Jeff Reed: Genitals, I'm not gonna do. Sorry, I apologize. Don't censor me, YouTube. But Peter began and explained to them the whole sequence of events. I was in the city of Joppa praying. And in a trance, I saw a vision of something like a large sheet being laid down by having the four corners.

Jeff Reed: I looked at it closely and saw a four-footed animal. Well, peace. And then I heard the Lord say, get up, Peter, kill it and eat. No, Lord, for nothing impure or unclean has ever entered my mouth. But the voice spoke. From heaven a second time, do not call anything impure that God has made clean.

Jeff Reed: Three times this happened, and everything was drawn back into heaven. Just then I saw three men sent to me from Caesarea stopped at the house where I was staying. The Spirit told me to accompany them without hesitation. These six brothers also went with me, and we entered the house. He didn't go alone. He took people with him.

Jeff Reed: he told them how he had seen an angel standing in the house saying, send a joppa for Simon, who is called Peter, convey a message. As we began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them, just that he had fallen upon us at the beginning. Then I remember the word of the Lord, John baptized with water, but you'll be baptized with the Holy Spirit. So if God gave them the same gifts he gave us, who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to hinder the work of the Lord?

Jeff Reed: Who was I? to enter the work of the Lord. When they heard this, they had no further objections, and they glorified God, saying, so then God has granted even the Gentiles repentance unto life.

Jeff Reed: Digital missionaries questioning calling. Digital churches questioning structure. Let me affirm you by reading verse 17 here.

Jeff Reed: Who am I to hinder the work of the Lord? Look, I have no authority. I'm in my guest bedroom now talking into a microphone. I've had this set up for seven years. The background's changed a little bit, but not much has changed.

Jeff Reed: I feel the same pain. I have the same struggles and issues. You know, where does money come from? How am I managing all this and a job? How is this affecting my marriage, my skills, this bi-vocational ministry? I'm not doing this full-time.

Jeff Reed: How do I support? How do I balance? Everything that you are, I'm right there. I'm right there with you.

Jeff Reed: Do not give up on the work of the Lord. When people try to hinder you, don't let them. Respond with humility. Number two, also, let's be comfortable in the fact that it's going to be difficult. It's going to be messy. God works in that messiness, in that difficulty of the situation.

Jeff Reed: I'm not going to read Galatians 2 here, Peter at the table, but that's a third option. You can download the deck at the church.digital slash 382 deck. We'll get to that at a later point, but it's available for you all. If a building is the only thing we call church, we're not going to see everybody.

Jeff Reed: This is the hesitation. It's funny. We had a... The church I worked at here in Miami, there was a season where we wanted everyone in Miami to be a fully devoted follower of Christ.

Jeff Reed: Miami, I don't know how many hundreds of thousands of people live in Miami, South Florida, Dade area, but... That was literally the mantra. We want everyone to be a fully devoted follower of Christ in Miami. And I love the heart of the calling, but we had five campuses, six campuses, seven campuses at the time. You know, the largest campus, I think, housed 1,000 people, and we were doing like four or five services in there. So that campus was seeing 4,000 people.

Jeff Reed: The other campuses, the other six campuses, I mean, let's say they were housing 3,000, you know, 300 people apiece. I mean, let's just throw a radical number. We were seeing 10,000, 11,000 people per service. That's a drop in the bucket. because of property. Now, we can keep spending a bunch of money buying property in Miami, building these massive buildings, which there are churches that do, and there's nothing wrong with that strategy.

Jeff Reed: It's a good strategy. I don't wanna demean the physical method. But it does have its limitations. It does have its benefits. It's a whole lot easier to engage with people physically than it is digitally. You reach a different type of person physically than it does digitally.

Jeff Reed: Discipleship can look very different physically than digitally. A lot more differences in digital. Digital, it can be a lot more relational. Digital, you can get a lot of people talking, you know, very honest, very quickly. Digital is anytime, anywhere. You're not having to worry about, oh my gosh, it's 2 a.m., I don't have anybody to talk to.

Jeff Reed: You can find somebody on a 2 a.m. stream to talk to in a Discord. You can connect with people in a WhatsApp group, scattered Bible studies, launching again. Like, there are things that you can do digitally, and you are doing digitally. Be comfortable with the fact of what you're doing, even though the world around you, the church world around you, disagrees.

Jeff Reed: I want to challenge you thirdly here. I want you to be bold in what God is calling you to do. Don't back off that. This is something that I've been honest about. I mean, a couple months ago, I was questioning whether or not to shut down the church digital overall. I was tired.

Jeff Reed: I was frustrated. What I... What I had in my mind, what it was, wasn't. But what it needed to be for the community, it could be. And instead of me trying to push my agenda, thanks to leadership, I was able to pivot and understand more of what the church digital has become and the direction it needs to go for the future. near future.

Jeff Reed: And so be bold with what you're doing. I lost some of my boldness. I still, I think there's a difference between humility and timidity.

Jeff Reed: This is really one of the first things I've done in a while that I think is bold. We'll have to see what comes out of this. But through your ministries, be bold with what you're doing. But I do want to challenge you Look at both the missiology and the ecclesiology and the Church aspects of that. Look, we need the missiology aspects.

Jeff Reed: Look at Luke 5 here. I love this scripture. He also told the parable, no one tears a piece of cloth from a new garment and sews it onto an old one. If he does, he will tear the new garment as well, and the patch from the new will not match the old. And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins, the wine will spill, and the wineskins will be ruined.

Jeff Reed: Instead, new wine is poured into new wineskins. And no one, after drinking the old wine, wants new, for he says the old is better. And so it's interesting that we can have a whole conversation on 39. But the idea is that we do need some new wine. We do need some new methods. All about the new wine.

Jeff Reed: We do need some new methods. And the methodology that we're doing in a missional mindset is great. Run. Do it. I'm telling you right now. Listen, I'm in Miami-Dade, which is now, I'm in Miami, you know, right here, which is now Vice City.

Jeff Reed: There's like a multi-million dollar ad campaign. They're literally turning Miami into GTA 6 Vice City. You know, signs and billboards and LED walls and even like the man covers, the whole manhole covers on the roads are now labeled Vice City in downtown Miami. GTA is thriving.

Jeff Reed: I would put money on a GTA church right now. I don't have money. I'll find the money. If you wanna do a GTA church, I will help you get started. I wanna do that because we need new wine skins. And there's a huge potential for us to reach people that would never grace the door of a physical church through crazy ideas like GTA.

Jeff Reed: Platforms, formats, schedules, languages, all of this changes. It's interesting that we gave up on Facebook. Give up on it. And God bless whoever the people are that keep saying, use Facebook, use Facebook, use Facebook. Okay, I'm using Facebook. What is it?

Jeff Reed: Facebook.com slash thechurchdigital. Daily devotionals are there. We're updating it all the time. Please interact with it and use it. We'll go back to it. The fact is, is that Facebook actually does carry a lot of weight internationally.

Jeff Reed: U.S., it's kind of died off, but globally it carries more weight, and so we're going back into the platform with that understanding, and so I apologize for that. So, like, we can lose some of these systems that are around us and just recognize that we do have abilities to adapt and to mobilize, but there's some things that we cannot lose. There's some things that we cannot lose, and that's the gospel. Beloved, although I made every effort to write you about the salvation we share, I felt it necessary to write and urge you to contend earnestly for the faith entrusted once for all to the saints. Hold true to that. That's Jude 3 there.

Jeff Reed: Here's 2 Thessalonians. Therefore, brothers, stand firm and cling to the traditions we taught you, whether by speech or by letter. I mean, what they're talking about there, traditions is an interesting word there, but it's the gospel of what we're reading in Scripture. Hold true to that scripture and recognize what is scripture and what is extra-biblical traditions. Disruption in method, never in message.

Jeff Reed: I really do cling to this idea. You know, I mentioned Ed Stetzer earlier. I don't know that I've told this story too many times. A lot of people in America know Ed Stetzer. He's a very outspoken, famous missiologist and biblical researcher and does a lot of things, well-spoken publicly. I worked with Ed at a church.

Jeff Reed: down here in Miami. And I was invited right when COVID started in 2020. I was actually invited to speak at one of Ed's conferences, a conference that Ed was very close to called...

Jeff Reed: I have no idea what it was called. It's four-letter abbreviation. It's like NCLF, New Church Leadership Foundation or something like that. Well-known, it's kind of like ultra, honestly, it's like ultra-secret. It's like not, and nobody, it's not one that everybody goes to. It's like the top 300 global missions organizations in their C-suite crowd, the top people of each come into this thing.

Jeff Reed: And this is very, it's 2020 COVID. To be honest, I was not a good speaker. 2020, not very comfortable communicating publicly. And I was invited to speak at this conference. And so I'm sharing my stuff. And the gentleman who was my facilitator, it's like, okay, Jeff, you're gonna have about 40 minutes.

Jeff Reed: Here's what I want you to do. I want you to do your talk for about 20, 25 minutes. And then at some point, I'm just gonna cut you off just towards the end. It's okay, just trust me. You keep talking until I cut you off. And when I cut you off, I'm gonna go ahead and start to ask you some questions.

Jeff Reed: And so we're gonna dig into it. Here's the questions you can prepare in advance. And so it was great. I was prepared and everything was good. Well, I'm in the talk and Ed's in the room. And Ed's like this, Ed was my facilitator's boss.

Jeff Reed: Ed knew me. We had sat down in offices and had digital conversations. And to be honest, like the distributed church ideas, the micro churches, the digital community churches, communities and digital churches, platforms and places, I had gone down all this with Ed.

Jeff Reed: Like a lot of the stuff we're doing right now, it's not new under the sun. It's just hypothetical stuff that I was trying to get the church to do in 2016. And when they wouldn't, I sped it off and did my own thing in 2018 and beyond. And so I knew Ed was hesitant to bring me on. I was actually surprised I was allowed to speak on this, but COVID just opened a lot of doors back then towards some of these ideas. And so my talk went okay, and it got to the place where the questions.

Jeff Reed: And so the facilitator came on, interrupted my talk, and was like, hey, all right, I'd love to ask some questions. And he asked me the first question, and before I could even respond, this was on a Zoom call, and Ed opens up. He's got the microphone, and he's like, well, actually, you know, Jeff and I go way back. I know Jeff. I would love to, like... have a conversation.

Jeff Reed: Jeff, are you okay if I lead this? I know you and I have had a lot of these conversations. I used to work with Jeff, but I really feel like there's a lot of things that we still need to discuss here, and I want to help us get to that.

Jeff Reed: And I was like, you know, sure, what am I going to do? Ed Stetzer. And God is my witness. God is my witness. Dude starts throwing haymakers at me. I love Ed.

Jeff Reed: I've got his number. But he was on the attack against digital. And I'm in front of 200 people.

Jeff Reed: you know, C-suite crowd, COVID season. I'm doing the only thing I know how to. I started first to defend and deflect, thinking he's not gonna keep doing this, but he kept firing, you know, bullets, just being very aggressive on the questions, spinning them, trying to dismiss the idea of digital. And to be honest, I'm like, I really wish I had this video because it was hilarious.

Jeff Reed: I'm swaying. I decided, shoot, I'm not going to sit here in front of these people and take shots. I'm going to fire back. And so I went on the attack. You know, Ed actually works in, used to work for Lifeway in books. And so I actually started throwing out some like, you know, bookstore comparisons and books and digital and that and dying and Amazon and Netflix and missing the opportunity blockbuster, trying to parallel the idea, not that physical is bad, but that it's missing.

Jeff Reed: And it was so funny while this is happening. You know, I really had the same setup I did now, like seven years ago, where the camera's here. And right beneath, I always keep my phone when I'm streaming. And so if text or anything pops up, I see it pop up on the phone when I'm looking at the camera. And it's like not that disruptive. My phone is blowing up.

Jeff Reed: from people in the audience that know me, that are encouraging me. The facilitator is apologizing to me for Ed taking over the stream. My boss, it was when I was with Stadia, is fielding, like, what is going on? How is this guy? It was massive pandemonium. It was hilarious.

Jeff Reed: It was awesome. I actually got texts back from people saying, man, you kicked Ed's butt. The funniest thing, the reason I say that story is that five minutes after I hung up, the conference was still going on. I was just like, I'm not going to stick around for the rest of the conference. So I hung up on the Zoom call. I get a text message from Ed.

Jeff Reed: Hey, Jeff, that was great. Thank you for letting me do that. Would you mind jumping on my new church leadership podcast? And let's have that conversation for my podcast listeners.

Jeff Reed: Hey, Ed, I'd love to do it. You're going to have to be okay with me talking about whatever I want to talk about. Yeah, Jeff, that's great. Whatever you want to talk about, my associate will follow up with you the details. You can actually find that podcast. We got stuck on virtual reality baptism.

Jeff Reed: We got stuck on that for like 20 minutes, just blowing his mind and fighting about that. That is an example of disruption in the message. we fought for the purpose of fighting. And it became a show. I mean, honestly, it wasn't that different from a WWF cage match. Jeff Reed versus Ed Stetzer.

Jeff Reed: Who's going to win? Ding, ding. That's not going to change the church.

Jeff Reed: This is why I'm hesitant. Leighton loves the conferences. I love Leighton for loving the conferences. I support Leighton for loving the conferences. And you're more likely to see him at a conference than me these days.

Jeff Reed: I love the conferences. I love the conversations. I love the relationships. Jason, same thing with J-Mo. I love the investment in that space. I truly believe disruption is not in the message.

Jeff Reed: True disruption that's gonna change the church is in the mission field. It's in the methods of what we're doing. It's the dirt underneath our fingernails and getting into that. That's the challenge. That's the space. That's the win.

Jeff Reed: It's not in the academia world. It's in the real world to show the examples, to tell the stories, and then push that upstream. And so digital missionary that's fighting that fight right now, make sure that you are focused on the right fight.

Jeff Reed: The arguments can be fun. It can be fun. It can be frustrating. And at least in my experience, it's unfulfilling.

Jeff Reed: Do not leave the people you reach churchless. It was interesting, the conversation with the man that I was sharing with you, 2,000 people who knew Jesus. I did ask him at one point, I was like, hey, who do you know, who do you know, like, once you save people to Jesus, once you bring someone to Christ in virtual reality, what do you do with them?

Jeff Reed: And he looked at me weird, and he's like, what do you mean? Like, well, do you follow up with him? Do you meet with him on a regular basis? Do you get him connected to another church? And he's like, no, I just give him Jesus.

Jeff Reed: I want to challenge you as digital missionaries, that's not the answer. If you are not running a digital church or are connected with a digital church or physical church, you need to help people get connected in ministry. Look at this, like Paul went back. As he preached the gospel in the city, made many disciples, they returned to Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch, strengthening the souls of the disciples and encouraging them to continue in strength. We must endure the hardships. Paul didn't let people go.

Jeff Reed: He stayed with them. Titus stayed to set things in order. The reason I left you in Crete, Titus 1.5, was that you would set in order what was unfinished and appoint elders in every town as I directed. Titus helped the church build a structure. Hebrews and Acts and, you know, even 1 Peter, we've been talking about these Christians that were scattered, and Peter writes this letter and sends it. I can never remember the name of the missionary who took it across the letters.

Jeff Reed: But you can see a trend here of where people were being dispersed through, and where people were being continually encouraged, even though they were dispersed. as you're reaching people, make sure that they're connected in a community. Maybe it's a church, maybe it's a community, maybe it's the church digital. Whatever it looks like, that's what I'm encouraging you to do. To wrap up... It's been a long one.

Jeff Reed: It's been fun. I've enjoyed getting this off and kind of working this out. Thank you for letting me kind of vent and process with y'all on this stream and looking forward to seeing where this goes in the days to come. I want to challenge us to be humble enough to listen, but bold enough to disrupt.

Jeff Reed: I believe that Jesus sent us and that Jesus is sending us to build his church. It does not look like the church is today. The missiology side of me says, that's okay. We're okay doing something different. The ecclesiology side of me says, but we can't discredit what the church community provides. We need to provide it.

Jeff Reed: And so to the beauty, this is where working together, partnering, comes so good. Find churches, get connected with people that don't have your skillset, that don't have your strengths, and work to become that. Become that connection point. Find the people, find the organizations that can help you do that. If you've got any questions, reach out and connect. Remember here, I love this.

Jeff Reed: He asked us to hold... both. Boldness without humility is noise.

Jeff Reed: Humility without boldness is comfort. I do think that we are called to be bold, but we do need to be humble with that. We don't just need to be noise, and you know we're being stepped out of our comfort zone. So let's do that. Hit me up, hit me up in Discord or in Fam, Discord or WhatsApp. Happy to connect there or find me wherever you can.

Jeff Reed: Hey, we're gonna re-gear starting next week. I'm not sure what the schedule is gonna look like, but we've got 382 wrapping up here today, 383 coming up soon. So for Jeff and Jeff, cause it's been all me for almost 90 minutes. This is Jeff with The Church Digital. Thanks for hanging out with me. today as we're going through these ideas.

Jeff Reed: We'll talk to you soon.