The Powerful Impact of Online Ministry

[Tom Pounder] If you want to be encouraged with online ministry, this episode is the episode you need to listen to today. Are you ready? Because it's time. Hey heroes, my name is Tom Pounder and this is the Church Digital Sidekick Podcast. This is a podcast where I bring on ministry leaders and we talk about how you can do digital and online ministry more effectively in today's world. Actually, you can do any ministry more effectively in today's world because of digital and online tools. And to help illustrate that, I got my friend Brooks Talbot on. Brooks is a guy, he's an online campus pastor at Compass Church in Dallas-Fort Worth area. It's a massive area. I thought DC, where I live, is a massive area. Dallas-Fort Worth is even bigger than that. And as he shares in the interview, it's going to get even bigger. But they're doing online ministry, and he's been doing it for over a year and a half now. And what they've been doing, actually, they've been doing it for since longer than he has been around but what they're doing is awesome and I was really encouraged talking to him so today we hear about his story what they're doing and the future of online ministry we hit a little bit about Apple vision Pro and what that looks like so I'm really excited for you to hear this conversation but before we do I want to highlight The Church Digital. At thechurch.digital, the website, we've got tons of blogs, podcasts. We've got cohorts. We've got coaches. We've got tons of resources for you in your online ministry, no matter what it is, whether it's metaverse, digital, online only, or digital. We've got great resources for you. So if you've never checked out The Church Digital, go to it today. It's thechurch.digital on the webpage. Check it out right now. All right, so let's get into an interview with Brooks Talbot right now. Brooks, how are you? [Brooks Talbott] I'm doing great, Tom. How are you? [Tom Pounder] I'm doing great. I know you just said that you're in the DFW and I'm a Dallas Cowboy. Hey, look at that. The audio people can't see it, but the video people can. Yeah. How close are you guys to Texas or the Dallas Stadium, AT&T? [Brooks Talbott] Well, we're probably about 25 minutes. I mean, where we are located right here, we're about 20 minutes to Fort Worth, anywhere to 25, 30 minutes to downtown Dallas. uh and so that's also very traffic dependent so uh you know you can get we have a great uh transportation network here so there's a train that can take you either direction you can get to downtown fort worth and you know 20 minutes as well on a train take a straight downtown and they've got stations all over so you can drive and hopefully there's not an accident or you can take a train you know get there as well but yeah man there's a lot of cowboy cowboy fanatics here are you originally from dallas or are you not from no no i'm actually an ohio boy by way of kentucky got deep deep kentucky roots i mean generations and uh but i was raised i was born and raised in ohio but lots of family kentucky still and in washington state and so uh so i grew up like i was never into college or i was never into professional sports i was always into college sports because of Ohio state. Right. I mean, I mean, we breed their, I can't talk to, we, we bleed scarlet and gray as everything we bleed that stuff, man. And so, uh, but my wife's Purdue, like her whole family is West Lafayette. So there's, there's kind of like a, you know, rivalry in our house between those two, uh, teams. So, but no raised, raised in Ohio. Most of my life. [Tom Pounder] That's cool. I might have to stop the podcast. I'm sorry, because I'm a Penn state guy. My, my family, my parents were both Pennsylvanians and I, although I live in Virginia, we were taught very young. [Brooks Talbott] It's Steelers state, Penn state, Penn state, Penn state. Yeah. [Tom Pounder] I mean, yeah. So big town, there's good. [Brooks Talbott] I have family in Zealian. You know where Zealian Opal is by chance or Harmony. Okay. Well, I got family there. And they're Penn State and Steelers and everything. So lots of rivalries all around in that neck of the woods. [Tom Pounder] That's good. Okay. Well, we could talk about sports forever, but I don't have anyone to talk about sports. I want to talk about online ministry. And so talk to me about what you do, what your job is at your church, and talk to me about how that you guys got started with online ministry. [Brooks Talbott] yeah so uh i've been with compass for five years that's where we're at right now is compass church um we've been in online since i think 2015. okay so you were early you were early yeah we were early and primarily because the vision and direction of our elders you know in our lead pastor and chairman of our elders his name is doug and he's just incredible visionary and back in i think 2014 2015 he was like yeah it's kind of an interesting you know uh field that we need to look into you know uh and he saw other churches kind of doing this online thing and and most people kind of like rolled their eyes i think and we're like okay like maybe is this a gimmicky thing like what is this and eventually they all got bought into it and we we took out a an old like book store that was in the lobby and made that brought a table in and an iPad that had like a switcher on it. And then we had a slide loop. And so, you know, you'd show the slide loop and then once the worship started, you'd turn up the little, you know, the little, you know, slide on the, on the iPad and it would transition you into the actual live worship experience. And we had like the little church online platform too. and Facebook. And so there was a way to chat with people. Of course, there was not a lot of people doing that. But when I got here in 2017, my friend Kayla was still overseeing that since 2015 or 16, I think. And I was just helping out. So I was helping chat. We had a well then kayla went on to become a lead pastor out in new england and my friend chris kind of you know pushed it to the next level uh beyond that so in in 2018 he became kind of like the online pastor and he had got a dslr set that up and then he asked me to to co-host with him a lot so i'd be sitting there coasting i was community groups pastor when i first got here but on the weekends if i wasn't meeting with a leader i'd just hang out with chris and in the online room because i was super interested for my background and we We would do that, and eventually when COVID hit, that really propelled us. It just shot us forward. We had a foundation. We had systems and processes already in place. So when that happened, it was just an easy kind of transition into this into this new kind of world uh it was like an all hands on deck moment we had everything set and ready to go and not too not too long after uh covid chris uh was chosen to become an owner operator of a chick-fil-a north dallas and so yeah so he's he's doing that and he he passed the baton to me just said hey is this something you want to do i said yeah for sure and i was overseeing a 10-week discipleship experience called rooted and community groups for all campuses at the time and so uh but it felt right you know and so when i took over and it's been a year and a half now um you know it was uh there was still a lot of opportunity for growth and things that we wanted to see happen and of course the question for everybody was what is what's really going to happen online like it's going to stay around yeah like are people going to go back in person are they now there's just so many questions and so part of what i really wanted to do was create an experience for people that they could connect that they could take a next step that they could they they felt like they were a part of what was happening and um through covid we we decided that this was going to be a campus experience okay and i wanted to make this as physical of a campus as a non-physical campus could actually be so whatever our physical guys were doing like at their campuses like i wanted to do the same thing for for online um and make it as personal and authentic as possible so that's awesome [Tom Pounder] yeah so how how do you operate within that campus thing like especially like do you align yourself more closely with maybe the main campus or how how does that work yeah you know it's so there's [Brooks Talbott] it's kind of interesting we're connected to our what he would call broadcast campus or main campus right like that term is used interchangeably but we're we're connected to this room this studio i'm in right now is our online campus and it is our in our studio on the other side we got a control room that's connected to our. Colleyville campus control room right, we have a little like we called the hobbit door it's a tiny little door you like squeeze through, and you know you see what's going on in the room and collieville, but then we have our own control room here. So, but we do a really good job at kind of like. creating that barrier between collieville and online so we always use you know uh words like online campus we're always saying that we're we have our own uh micro sites you know we have our our microsites for the online campus we have community groups for the online campus we have we're always using that that way of speaking about what we are to differentiate us from this physical experience now the reality is that our culture that we built here and i'm very intentional about this is that it is a both and experience right yeah i mean there's i think when you are trying to figure out online ministry like you have to decide what kind of culture you want to build right i mean there's you have to you have to decide what you're going to be and you got to be it so whether you're like an introductory model right like you're just a front door that's that's all you're going to be right your objective is just to create just kind of like online environment that invites people to see what your experience is like like kind of like try before you buy you know or there's like the supplementation model right your objective really is just create an online environment that allows for ongoing connection when people people are unable to attend physically yeah there's the integration model right which is where you want to create an environment that people easily kind of move back and forth from physical to online where they can engage and they can take a next step seamlessly and then there's like that destination model where it's designed for people to attend exclusively know offering clear growth and next steps but not requiring physical attendance and i would say that we're i've been very intentional about creating you know that that integration model it's a very both and experience so my my goal is to get people in person but i know i will still have people that won't do that But giving them every opportunity to come here in person and to get them back in person, but also still pastoring them online for when they're not here. I'm not trying to keep people online. I'm trying to say, hey, we have an event coming up that we would love for you to be a part of. Why don't you swing by the online studio? Say hi. It's a marriage event. And if you come here in person, that's awesome. And if not, that's awesome too. If you want to be part of a, you know, come to Discover Compass or to Starting Point. You want to do starting point. You can come to that in person, you know, but still be part of our online campus community. But you get to meet people in the process. I'm not trying to keep people exclusively online. I want people to be both and both and in that integration model. [Tom Pounder] yeah that's how i view it too as well it's a it's a both and for me because um i feel like there are people who are gonna really need to connect online but again it's great to see them in person i i see so much joy when i get to meet an online person in person like yeah they come into the physical campus and i celebrate that i think that's great but i also know that people want to stay online and experience church online and i'm good with that too because we all experience it differently and so i i like the both and we promote in-person stuff on our online campus and you know that kind of stuff when you just don't realize like where people are coming from yeah i mean [Brooks Talbott] the most important thing that you can do is kind of have a visual on the other side of that camera of who is watching right now. And I could go on forever about some of this stuff, but you know, the people that watch our experience that are part of our campus, they're people with, you know, illness, they're dealing with cancer and can't make it into a church building. They're people that have serious church abuse. They're people that live way out in the country that don't have a church that either shares their values or the you know um or they just don't have a church that they can align with got lots of that um you have people that just have moved to DFW and are looking for a church and it's kind of it is kind of the front door to our church the online campuses so um and they're like try you know kind of like is with the both and experience like hey let's check this out before we actually go in so you have you have to kind of i have to always kind of visually go okay who's watching and why are they watching because if i just if i don't think about that and i'm just staring at this camera talking to the camera like i'm not i'm not being pastoral and that is at my heart why i do what i do and it's because and that's why we go live every single service uh we do we do a 10-minute pre-service experience then we come back for generosity and announcements then we come back for post show during the entire uh service and so it gives me an opportunity to be pastoral and authentic and share what god's put on my heart and to speak to them and to respond to them in the chat And that has created for many people very authentic experience. [Tom Pounder] No, I think that's really important. You said a few different things that I want to hit on a few real quick is that I think when we when we when we try to force people to come into the building, we're making a big mistake. They're online for a reason. And we need to celebrate that they're experiencing church and they're experiencing worship together in a community because we enable that. And the second thing that you mentioned about is your ministry heart. And I think of all the online ministers, I think we make a mistake to think that the online ministers are not real ministers. Like I went to school for ministry. Like I didn't go to school for technology. I just know how to use tech for ministry purposes. So at the heart of my stuff is ministry. I want to disciple people, and I can do that online. I want to reach out to them and pray for them, and I can do that online. And so I love to hear your heart on this about how you just want to minister to people. You want to love and care about them. [Brooks Talbott] I had always felt called. to be uh a preacher like at a young age i knew i was like i i think this and i have no pastors in my family which sounds like it's kind of an anomaly anymore like when i talk to people about why they got into the church they have like a family member like a dad or grandpa or something i had none of that like it was all big business and military that was my family so when i had this calling young in my life It was just kind of weird. [Tom Pounder] Yeah. [Brooks Talbott] And I would see my lead pastor at the church. I grew up in Jeff stone. If anybody knows who he is, he's in Indiana. He's fantastic. And just an incredibly wise leader. Uh, but I would watch him growing up, like, that's what I need to do. I want to do that, which is just weird for a kid to think, but I did for some reason, but like, you know, I went to school for, for Bible, uh, at Cincinnati Christian university, but ended up not doing that. You know, I, I did an internship after college for a year at Southeast. I did internships all throughout college. last one for a year at southeast and then um met my met my wife in college and then she was at ohio state at the time getting her doctorate and knew that you know we were going to get married and the throws of 2008 churches weren't hiring so it was kind of like what am i going to do but ended up in the you know working in the retail space uh you know before we were married and then ended up working my way into the corporate space and partnering with retail and corporate kind of in both worlds for the next eight years and there were lots of moments for me where i i had to put into practice being pastoral with people and um kind of being a missionary in that field And so when I came to Compass, I was able to do that in an incredible way. But then when I come to online, it was like, well, now I'm a huge extrovert. Like I am not, I'm not an introverted, stay behind the scenes person. Like I'm in the crowd. I'm talking with people. I love that. And You know to now be online or I don't have that it's just different, but I have to remember like, so I have to be very intentional about. You know if this person were here right now with me in this moment, what would I say to them what do they need to hear what does somebody that that I do know like. man i baptized up in missouri about six months ago you know who watches online every week i flew up there and baptized her and got to hear her story she had a whole history of church abuse physical mental emotion like everything and would not step back into the church uh and so she found us online had been watching faithfully every weekend and filled out a decision card you know i have to remember people like that uh and realize man this is this is really effective this is effective ministry and it and people feel the holy spirit speaking to them and ministering to them, even through a screen, which to me still sounds very strange, but it's consistently time and again, I hear, man, I feel the Holy Spirit. Like when I listen, you know, to the pre-service experience, I hear Pastor Drew talk on stage, like God is doing something in my life. [Tom Pounder] Yeah. No, dude, it's 100% true. There are countless stories about this, about people who are watching online and have been changed. And so let's get into some of that. But before we do that real quick, I do want to say, this is interesting. You went to Cincinnati and then you were at Southeast. Our senior pastor, the founder of our church, he went to Cincinnati and his first kind of internship out of that was at Southeast. So that's really, it's fascinating. Okay, so one of the things I really wanted you to come on and talk about was about baptism, because you had talked to us, I think it was about a few weeks ago on the church digital Facebook group page that you had baptized, I think it was two people over one weekend. [Brooks Talbott] Yeah, we ended up doing five. So we've done 27 baptisms in 24 months with just people from our online campus. [Tom Pounder] that is awesome yeah that is awesome okay so what does that look like for you guys how do you orchestrate that i you just said that you flew out to missouri to baptize somebody yeah i'm crazy i do anything like i'm nuts i i do whatever it takes i've had i'll wait so uh you know we've got [Brooks Talbott] And don't quote, nobody quote me on this. Okay. I've heard this over and over again through conversation. I've guessed we've got like 8 million people in the DFW Metroplex or something. I've never looked this up. This is what people say. [Tom Pounder] Okay. [Brooks Talbott] And it's supposed to be like 12 million in like five to 10 years. Like it's just, everybody's moving here. we have a lot of people from dfw watching but we have a lot of people as well in different states we have people in different countries watching but anytime i i give the opportunity to get baptized i'm here late waiting for people to see if people will show up and it's happened where I've had people just decide, you know what, I'm going to do this. I'm up in like Irving. It's an hour away. Can we drive to you? And I'm like, yeah, let's do it. Let's get, let's get you baptized, you know, so we'll wait after service. I've had, I've baptized people from other states, whether I fly to them or they got, we fly them down here, baptized a lady from Rhode Island as an example, you know, she flew down here. She had some friends and family that happened to live here too. So it was like, well, I'll just do both. And so stayed with her friends and family. And then we baptized her with all of them here. So, you know, we do anything to get people baptized. And I make that very clear with them when I'm streaming. I'm like, listen, we'll do whatever it takes to get you here. We'll wait for you. We'll fly to you. We'll fly you here. Or if I can't make it there, we'll find a partner church to baptize you. [Tom Pounder] Okay, so that's what I was going to ask you. Have you ever partnered with another church to have someone from, so you have done that? [Brooks Talbott] Yeah, except, so the difference was I didn't have them, I baptized them. So, like, Shantice, again, from Missouri, like, there was a church, they're incredible, Forum Christian Church in Missouri, and so I had to... um i contacted actually ozark first and i said hey listen i got this lady in missouri do we have any partner churches uh you know in missouri uh that would be able to help us out and they got me connected to a guy and we talked and we were able to set all of that up but we've had situations even from our other campuses where you know we've had other people get baptized and none of us were there for it [Tom Pounder] That's cool. That's very cool. All right. So let me ask you this. You know, when COVID initially hit, everybody went all in on digital and online and you saw a spike of attendance. One is, did you ever shut down your live services like your in-person services? And then two, where are you seeing your trends now for online? Are they slipping a little bit or have they plateaued or are you increasing? [Brooks Talbott] Okay, so we we close our doors that are physical at the call all of our campuses for. I feel like it was like seven or eight months that's that's the only amount of time we closed our doors before we started like introducing people we did a couple messages where we were like let's do another big and gathering with people right in that time, which we did. And in that time, you know, we stayed streaming. We stayed live the entire time. And even in that time period, we did what was called Compass Daily. And Compass Daily was every day was worship. And then we had somebody giving a devotional. It was one of our pastors or an elder or, you know, a longtime volunteer or something like that. And so we were, we did that every day for like, I think over a year, we did compass daily, people still talk about it. And, um, that had major impact because one, we knew that, you know, um, people wanted to stay connected, you know, and they did our, our church would show up on Facebook and on our church online platform and YouTube and watch every day, this thing before work. Um, so yeah we we had closed our doors and and had done all that but as far as trends go uh no we're seeing more people show up like it's it's going up that's great and that's why i keep telling other you know people is uh if you're consistent if you're authentic if you we have we have this i think this thing right now and i was actually talking with jay kranda about this not too long ago we were uh in san diego for a conference and jay was talking about how you know a lot of these you know bigger churches you know crossroads and southeast and even you know jay was looking at it for saddleback i guess but like you know they want to go this pre-recorded you know route and it's wonderful like i think if you if you get to a point i don't think there's anything wrong with it but that's just not me you know to polish and to create you know this um kind of pre-recorded experience that looks really nice it has nice cut-ins like for me personally and i think for our people it's it's the authenticity of the moment it's when i slip up my words it's you know i can respond in real time to people that are chatting You know, and just say, Hey, you know, uh, uh, Sherry in California, love what you said here. Yeah. I love, you know, that you like iced tea. I don't like iced tea and I live in Texas. Ha ha ha ha. You know, it's, you know, it's stuff like that, that people find really endearing and they feel like that they're a part of something. They're part of a community and they start showing up more and more. Cause they know I'm going to say hi to them. And then we have pastor drew on stage, say hi to him as well. And so, you know, there's, there's a lot of. elaboration and cohesiveness about that the online is an actual campus here not just from me but from our lead guy saying hi to them and welcoming them from stage [Tom Pounder] I know a number of online ministers as well that do the prerecorded. And one, I think that's a lot of extra work, you know, to do. But it's like what you just said. It's not me either. Like when I'm on stage, I don't like to have things scripted because then I'm not natural and I'm not me. It's when you're natural and you do mess up and you do slip up or you say something stupid and everyone laughs and it's authentic. And I think people want authenticity. [Brooks Talbott] Yeah. And I think, and not that it's wrong to prerecord, like, you know, I think that, you know, the guys at Crossroads and Southeast and Saddleback and like, they're doing what they feel the Holy Spirit is leading them to. And that's probably the right thing to do, you know, for their context and their situation. Absolutely. But I think for us, you know, we're, we're about 8,000. And so we're kind of in that range where it's like, it's manageable. And we don't, we don't need. we haven't felt it necessary to move forward in that at all and i don't know if i ever would i just love being with my people yeah and the the flock that i get to you know shepherd and and connect with throughout the week and that's the other thing like you know it's not just a weekend thing like we are all weak One of my favorite things to do is to reach out to people throughout the week. That's part of our online community. I text them, calling them. So I'm their pastor. And that makes a big, so you want to talk about baptisms, like, you know, a big part of it is work. it's connecting with people that are part of your online community and being intentional having lunches with them over zoom or if they're local to dfw getting together with them building relationships it's it's all of that that it's it's not normally just chance like someone just filling something on showing up it's because of the relationship that I've developed with them, or it is that they've watched for so long and I've talked to them through our camera, right? And maybe they've never even put in a username. I just baptized a family last weekend that's been watching for over a year. And the reason why they came back to church but didn't attend physically was because six years ago they lost their son. and uh the church was just they'd walked away from god they were not they didn't want any part of that so they started they just looked for churches online and they found us and they've been watching every single week and she just said every time he came on i felt like you were you were my pastor like you were there in the moment with me encouraging me you know uh and now she's in our chat we baptized her now she's she showed up in our chat so you know and is getting involved in a community group here so it's it's really cool to see how god is moving through through our online campus [Tom Pounder] This is so encouraging to hear and to see what you guys are doing. I'm like encouraged. I'm like, man, I can't wait to dig in more into this. But I agree with you 100% that digital and online, it enables us to minister Monday through Saturday. We're not just a Sunday only thing. We're Monday to Saturday. And it's every day. Text groups, online Bible studies, Zoom. You mentioned it. I mean, every single day we have an opportunity to minister and impact lives. [Brooks Talbott] yeah and the you know their churches that i've met that with our pastors of churches that i've met through different conferences and stuff that i've attended where we've talked about it when they find out i'm an online campus pastor they kind of like. And you know they're like well we're trying to figure the online thing out we don't really understand angles. I've heard two pastors say that recently. We don't understand how to do frame and angles. And I'm like, that's what's stopping you. But like, you know, just it's the return on investment is amazing. I mean, when you think about an online ministry, but the impact that it can have for your community is huge. I baptized a girl named Grace not too long ago, probably four or five months ago. Grace. she's 15 and uh her whole family's catholic roman catholic family that's all they've ever known she wasn't ever connecting with that she couldn't connect she wanted a deeper relationship with god these are her words right she's like i just wanted a deeper relationship with god the catholic church was not providing for me so she looked up just churches online and she found compass and she'd been watching every single week and she this is one of the ones where i didn't know her beforehand she filled out an online decision card i never heard of her before i reached out to her and i was like what grace what hi who are you you know who are you and she told me her story and she had experienced a lot of life in the last couple years uh a loss of life in her you know grandparents and you know family and that sort of thing and she recently lost a dog he was just very emotional for her and she was just looking for a way to connect deeper with god and so her watching online was helping that and i found out she lived in north fort worth and she lived like just miles from our north fort worth campus so i had a north fort worth campus pastor nacrella and his wife amanda who also works there they met us there they met the whole the whole family shows up and so nate got to pray with the family got to meet the family got to meet grace and sisters i went up there i baptized her at our north fort worth campus and it was very impactful for them uh grace still she now attends in person and she's attending our north fort worth campus that's kind of what i mean like when i say that online is a both and experience like it goes beyond just like you know streaming it's like you can have impact if you're a multi-campus context man you can have serious impact when you take your online ministry seriously when you take your online campus seriously you can see that impact happen and now we're and i've done that all of our campuses that's happened where they've watched our online experience and now they're going to the other campuses because we've been able to connect them there and get them plugged into community [Tom Pounder] That's what Jeffrey would say again, that digital, you know, in person, the digital, it's amazing. I love it, man. This is so encouraging. Okay, so let's talk about this. We're talking about the present now. Let's talk about the future. Okay, so we're talking just days after Apple released or announced their new Apple Vision Pro. [Brooks Talbott] Yeah. [Tom Pounder] You have some connections with Apple and all that. So talk to me about that, what you think about that headset, but also what you think about the future of online ministry. [Brooks Talbott] yeah so i i worked at apple for about just about eight years and uh it was an incredible opportunity i got to i started off like i said in retail then kind of then partnered with corporate and before i came to compass they gave me a fork in the road in 2016 and they said either part of part of my experience with apple was i was traveling a lot and i was opening stores training teams all over the country and so when they gave me a fork in the road in 2016 my wife and i were living in washington state because i wanted to live in the mountains and i could kind of live wherever i wanted it was great and we um they said, you know, either you're going to come to corporate and live in Cupertino or, you know, thereabouts, or you're going to go to China and do what you're doing in China. And so we're going to move your family there. And that's what you're going to do. And I, I was very excited about the, the international opportunity because that's something that just sounded really fascinating to me. [Tom Pounder] Yeah. [Brooks Talbott] And, uh, and just, just what an, what an opportunity. And around that same time, I had felt the Lord call me back to vocational ministry and I didn't know what to do with it. And then Apple came to me and my leaders came to me and said, this is what we kind of have planned for you and your pathway. And so, because I only had a handful of stores in China and they were, as they were losing culture, right? I mean, it's just really hard to keep culture. So, uh, we prayed about it. We thought about it. My wife's sister had lived in China for ultimately about 14 years. She lived in Shanghai and we talked to her and she kind of talked us out of it because a number of reasons. And my wife was pregnant or, and we were just about to have our second, it was just a crazy time. [UNKNOWN] Yeah. [Brooks Talbott] Uh, so that was kind of out of the question. We were like, we're, we're not going to China. Like it'll just be too crazy. So maybe we'll go to Cupertino. I had no interest in Cupertino on top of the fact that like, uh, I had felt this call back to ministry and that kept like getting in the way. So as we continue to pray about it, I woke up one morning and heard this, it wasn't very audible, but it was this voice. It was just like, call Luke, call Luke, call Luke. And Luke was one of my best friends from college. who interned with me at Southeast and his deep ties to, you know, um, a lot of the churches in Kentucky, his dad was a pastor and, um, but I had lost a lot of the connections. So called Luke and I just told him my situation and he happened to be down at compass and that's how I, that's how I got connected here. [Tom Pounder] Wow. [Brooks Talbott] when i told my leadership i was leaving apple they thought i was nuts you know they were like what do you mean you're gonna go work in the are you crazy and luckily i had some christian colleagues that were like man that's awesome what god is doing in your life like god bless you but a lot of it was like are you sure that's what you want to do this is and i'm very thankful for it now um part part of what i think when we talk about apple and we talk about you know digital ministry when i got to online and you know i bought a quest headset you know and i got excited about the digital church thing and i have i was an alt space of er and those places just checking it out yeah And I felt like such a nerd. I'll be on. I was like, oh my gosh, like, what am I doing? Is this really what I'm doing right now? But it was fun. I actually built community with people there. I had a friend from Ireland and from like, you know, New York and like all these places I'd meet up with them. It was incredible. And then like life church had like a campus there. It was really neat. Uh, and I, I was like, okay, well, I guess this is what we're going to do. We're going to do, maybe this is the future of things. But the thing with Apple is that Apple is. They are all about the here and now. what you're doing presently and they've always been that way um and how it affects your life and your day-to-day in the moment um when when the goggles were announced when vision pro was announced you know a few days ago i i always every announcement i get with my friends who work at corporate you know and some of them are on the vision pro team some of them work um on the cameras and that sort of thing but but the ones i was with they one in particular was on the vision pro team and had been with them really since and he'd been with him for a long time and he said that when the metaverse went down like when that all got cut out alt space and you know microsoft all that stuff happened he told me that their leadership got everybody into a room and they said This is why Apple will never do this. He goes, because Apple is not about taking people away from what they're experiencing. It's about putting them into the moment of what they're experiencing in that time and place. So what I think is going to happen is, and I don't think, I don't think that, you know, alt space, like the VR thing, I don't think that's going anywhere. I think that's here to stay. I think that building digital churches is cool. And I think that's great. I don't think it's... people say it's gimmicky i don't think it's gimmicky i think it's really smart i think it's a great missional opportunity for the church jesus tells us to go into all the world right and and spread the gospel to all nations uh and i i consider the metaverse that place i think that what apple's interested in is is different than that and i think that where i'm interested in more so is augmented reality and i think that getting people like enhancing the experience people have already because what we're doing is working like this online stream is working we're seeing baptisms people are taking next steps i think that if we can enhance that experience and get people to a place or a subgroup of people that are into that kind of thing that will that because i'm telling you those those the vision pro will sell like hotcakes i know there's a lot of opinions on if it's going to do it will do well people will buy it it will sell out and then there's going to be a newer you know cheaper version in two or three years that's going to look way cooler and will be more affordable and there will be more things you can do with it yeah but uh i think that being able to get people into the auditorium or into our lobby or even into our studio when i'm live with an augmented reality, you know, an AI camera or an AR camera, I think would be so cool. And we'll just enhance what already exists. [Tom Pounder] Yeah, I'm with you. I think I'm really interested in the AR stuff and how that does it. And that's what I was most fascinated with the Vision Pro goggles is that you really were in that moment. How do you describe that? It was really great. The Apple wants you in the here and now. They don't want to take you out of it. They want to immerse you in it. And I think that's what I saw in that. It's like you got your computer screen here. You can watch a movie here. Listen, I don't think I'm going to be wearing goggles all the time. I think that'd be weird, but I think there's a, there's a space for it. [Brooks Talbott] Yeah, there absolutely is. And there's a space for, you know, the quest and the do digital church in that way. I just think that, I think we just have to, you know, go after all fronts, you know? So, you know, and we may do a digital church with compass. We're probably going to do that eventually. But I think I'm more, I'm more interested right now and just getting ahead of augmented reality. And I heard Jeff say there's a church here in Dallas that actually does is like messing around with that so I'm looking forward to connecting with them but I just think that. i'm i want people to feel like that they are here from their home that they can be part of something bigger than themselves you know what i mean in their living room and sit and think i'm connected in a new way and i think there's a huge win there i think when people can sit in their living rooms put on these things and and be in the auditorium or like right in front of the stage where drew's at and he can look at them and say Hey, I want to welcome this person joining us today. We're so glad you're here. I want to welcome this person. We're so glad you're here. And I think there's a lot of power to that to people that are having a life experience that makes it difficult for them to come to a physical location. [Tom Pounder] 100 dude this was an awesome conversation i'm definitely going to have to have you back on to talk more and as technology continues to develop too and see what you guys are doing and how you guys are using technology yeah it is encouraging again i've shared this with a number of people online ministers i think are the most humble uh encouraging supportive ministers i've ever been around there's no egos there there are people that really want to help people discover god and experience him and come to know him as their lord and savior and that every conversation i have with an online minister is just exactly that and you're you're exactly that so thank you i think that i think we're where a lot of online pastors are right now is [Brooks Talbott] I think for many of them, if they came from a place where they didn't think that this is what they would be doing, I think that it can be kind of difficult. It was for me for a while where I was like, this is really what I'm being called to right now. And I think just if that's you, I just want to encourage you that, yes, this is where the Lord is calling you and to be faithful. be faithful work hard pray a lot and god's going to do amazing stuff through your online ministry and he's going to resource you he's going to equip you he's you know if you're struggling with your leadership right now if your leadership is not on board with it because they want they want people in seats in the auditorium and they're giving you a lot of pushback And I just want to encourage you that it's going to be okay and it's going to work out and connect with me because I can help you through all of that stuff. Like I can, I can help you figure out how to make, you know, wins for your eldership and your leadership so that you can see the benefit of, of online. as can other online pastors like Jay and, you know, you know, Jay Crand is an incredible, incredible resource and has been very helpful for me. He's the online pastor at Saddleback. So. I just want to encourage you out there that God's working, and I think that online, really, it's here to stay. It's an important piece of the church, and God's going to use it mightily. [Tom Pounder] Yeah, 100%. I agree with you 100%. And since you said get in touch with you, how would someone get in touch with you if they want to reach out to you and have questions or thoughts? [Brooks Talbott] Yeah, I, you know, I'm on LinkedIn. I'm on Instagram. You know, you can look up, um, Brooks W Talbot on Instagram or my compass online. Uh, you can also email me, um, Brooks Talbot at my compass church.com. So reach out. I'd love to, I'd love to help anybody that is feeling stuck or wants ideas, uh, feedback, all that, all that different stuff. So it's fun. [Tom Pounder] You're not on Twitter. [Brooks Talbott] uh okay so i am on twitter i just twitter is a that place drives me crazy so i actually took it off my phone i had to take a sabbatical on twitter because uh it just got real kind of a dark i actually okay so so uh because of apple because of the vision pro i downloaded it back on my phone so it's it's back but it was off my phone for like months okay we can still be friends because [Tom Pounder] Twitter's my jam. [Brooks Talbott] It's great. It's great. [Tom Pounder] I just was going to an unhealthy place with it. Oh, no, you definitely can. Well, Brooks, dude, it was awesome getting you on the podcast. I will definitely have you back on the rotation to talk about online ministry. And many blessings to you and what you guys are doing. [Brooks Talbott] Yeah, God bless you. Thank you for the time. Appreciate it. Always an honor to talk about stuff God's doing. [Tom Pounder] Okay, so I told him after we hit stop that I would have talked to him for way longer about online ministry. And we're going to talk about some things coming up. I've already talked about what we can talk about for next time he's on the podcast. But it was a fascinating conversation. I left encouraged. I was challenged and encouraged by what they're doing at Compass Church. I would love to hear your thoughts on it. How were you challenged? How were you encouraged? You can put in the comment section below or you can hit me up on Twitter at TAPounder. I would love to connect with you a little bit more and talk about online ministry and how we can be encouraging each other every single day. As Brooke said, online ministry is here to stay. What are you doing to invest in that online ministry? I would love to hear your thoughts on it. So again, hit me up on Twitter or put it in the comment section below. All right, heroes, well, that wraps it up for another episode of the Church Digital Sidekick Podcast. As always, if you enjoyed the podcast, subscribe to it. You can do it on YouTube. You can go to the Facebook groups and subscribe to it. You can also check it out on Apple and Google and Amazon. It's on all those podcasting platforms. I would love for you to check that out today. Subscribe to it. I've got a lot of great new episodes coming up, so I'd love for you to check that out. All right, heroes, well, I hope you have a great rest of your day, a great rest of your week, and until next time, have a great one.