Why do we do Church Online? I’m willing to bet that you’ve asked this question of yourself, and of your church’s leadership… maybe even asking some of your high-level volunteers. I’m also willing to bet that there’s some discrepancy among the three groups.
Ten years ago, Church Online was defined as the broadcasting of our church services on online platforms. Arguably, that is no longer a holistic definition of “church” than the person that just attends that one-hour church service on Sunday in your buildings. There’s more to Church than that one-hour on Sunday, both in physical buildings and in digital environments. The strength of Church Online isn’t broadcasting our services around the world… the strength is engaging people to the point they become disciple-makers.
So how do you redefine your why of Church Online? How do you talk with leadership? How do you embrace the perceived weaknesses? How do you develop a strategy? This episode is for you.
Recorded live from the Church IT Network at Church of the Resurrection in Kansas City, Kansas, “Redefining the Why of Church Online” is a panel of Online Pastors from around the country who have wrestled with reshaping the “why” for their church. This is a great opportunity to learn from their experience, and heed their advice.
For more information on the Church IT Network, check them out here.
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ON THE SHOW
Guest: Tyler Sansom
First Capital Christian Church / Church Anywhere
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Guest: Jason Morris, Global Innovations Pastor
Westside Family Church
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Guest: Jan Touchberry
Christ Fellowship McKinney
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Guest: Randy Greene
Church of the Resurrection
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Host: Jeff Reed
THECHURCH.DIGITAL
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SHOW NOTES
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TRANSCRIPT
Jeff Reed: 00:00:00 All right. We've got Episode 32 of The Church Digital Podcast and this is going to be a fun one. This one was recorded live from the CITN (Church IT Network) Conference, we've just recently had in Kansas City, Kansas. Yes, we were on the Kansas side of Kansas, not the Missouri side. I checked my phone several times to make sure I didn't work between states throughout the conference, but we were in the Kansas city and it was a great conference by the way, through the Church IT Network. We had 25-27 breakout sessions strictly designed towards Church Online and online ministry. It is a phenomenal conference if you've never done it before. If you haven't checked out the Church IT Network as a church tech crew, as a online ministry, as church online people. You should definitely check that out. I led a panel of four at the Church IT Conference specifically discussing how to redefine the why of church online.
Jeff Reed: 00:00:48 Joining me on the panel was Tyler Sansom from Church Anywhere, First Capitol Christian, no stranger to the podcast. Jason Morris from Westside Family. Once again, no stranger to the podcast or either Randy Green who is actually from Church of the Resurrection, the church where the conference was at by the way, who has a Master's in divinity. And his thesis was specifically written on church online, which I found awesome. And then finally, Jan Touchberry from Christ Fellowship. Now it's not the Christ Fellowship in Miami or the one in West Palm Beach. This is the Christ Fellowship in Dallas. Yes, there are a lot of Christ Fellowships here in the church online realm. Anyway, the four of us got together and we have a phenomenal conversation. We had some great questions from the audience to respond to and it really was just a great panel as together we discussed how to redefine the why of church online. Now audio here isn't the best quality we've ever done and we please ask you to forgive us on that. But the quality of this content, maybe not the audio quality, the fidelity, but the quality of the content. I personally definitely wanted you all to experience this. So here you go.
Tyler Samson: 00:02:02 My name is Tyler Samson. I'm from a church in Corydon, Indiana, which I don't expect any of you guys to know where it's at, but it's right outside of Louisville, Kentucky. And the church is called First Capital Christian Church, I'm the lead of a ministry called Church Anywhere.
Jan Touchberry: 00:02:17 My name's Jan Touchberry. I am the online campus pastor at Christ Fellowship in McKinney, Texas. Not to be confused with any of the Christ Fellowship's all over the other places, although it's confused all the time, and I have been doing church online for about the last 10 years.
Jason Morris: 00:02:34 Hey, I'm Randy Green. I'm actually on staff here at Church of the Resurrection. So welcome to church, the resurrection. Glad you all can be here. My role here is like kind of the lead of all of our digital marketing and engagement. So this is my first time at church it network because I'm in our communications department, not our it department. And so, um, I'm like expanding the worldview of what I do, uh, to be with you all today. But I'm excited.
Jason Morris: 00:03:00 I have a master of arts in theological studies, a degree from a center right here in town. And so what we're talking about today is something that's very close on my heart. This like integration of what it is between like the digital world and the church world and how those aren't necessarily separate spheres. So, yeah, thanks for being here.
Jason Morris: 00:03:18 I'm Jason Morris. I'm global innovation pastor at Westside family church. Just about 30 minutes away from here. Um, I oversee the digital expression of Westside family church and use it to catalyze global church planning movements around the world.
Jeff Reed: 00:03:37 Awesome. So let's, uh, let's just dive into this thing. So we're going to redefine the why of church online. First question, we're gonna ask and uh, and see where we go. Why does your church do church online? Subnote it's more than just so some lazy guy can watch church in his underwear, right? I wrote it because that's the conversation I've had with, I've had pastors, Hey, can we not broadcast within like 50 miles of our church because we don't want people to stay at home in their underwear, but there's more to church online than just to let this guy stay at home in his underwear. Right. So open for the room. Why do you guys do church online?
Jason Morris: 00:04:28 for me, church online is so important and so primal to what we do because Jesus said go into all the world and that's what we get to do. So it basically, that's it. Cliff notes. That's it. Um, I believe that Jesus gave us technology as a force multiplier for the gospel and we need to use it and we will be held account for not using it if we don't. That includes the internet includes social media, includes everything of technology that Jesus has given us to extend his kingdom. So I would feel really scared for not using it. I'm seriously standing before Jesus one day and he's like, dude, I gave you the internet. You know, what'd you do with it? So it's like for me, that's why we do what we do. Um, to answer the other part of this question is another conversation, but I'll let these guys speak into that.
Jan Touchberry: 00:05:32 Oh, I will address the lazy guy in please. Because I think anybody who's been in the online church sphere has heard that come out of somebody's mouth in your leadership at your church. And um, what we pretty quickly found in our church is that our, some people gonna say, well, we just felt like being lazy and watching church online and our pajamas. Yes. But that's not the majority. And um, and what we found is for people who cannot get there, whether it's because they have sick kids or they're traveling or whatever the life circumstances that prevents them from walking into the brick and mortar, it allows them to stay connected.
Jason Morris: 00:06:13 The question, I feel like equates dress code with laziness. Yeah. And we shouldn't, I don't care if you're in your underwear or not. Are you a soul that needs Jesus? Yes. So I don't care what you're wearing. I think the question underlying question is the laziness part of it and for whatever reason there is this weird stigma that I don't think is as true today as it could have been five or 10 years ago. Yeah. Because today, literally there are people that are intentionally gathering their families and their neighbors maybe in or not in their underwear. I don't know. But their intentions are there, but there they are. They are intentionally being missional right where they live. And to say that that's lazy, I think it was an insult to the vision that some people have in using church online. That's true.
Tyler Samson: 00:07:12 To say that to say that it's lazy is taking the vision of what God had for the church period. Way out of context.
Jason Morris: 00:07:17 Right. It's actually more lazy in some cases to show up
Tyler Samson: 00:07:21 and do not think and do nothing. Um, for us, we are an exceptionally small church to be, um, did do online ministry. You don't, you don't think of a church our size doing that. Um, Jason's actually been there. This is the worst possible location for a church. I'm not exaggerating. We are on a dead end street on a ne like in a neighborhood where everything's been built around us. Um, but we're like way away from the expansion of the town and the town is only 3000 anyways, so like a super small town. So for us, we started doing online ministry because that's where people were. We were in a town where, um, fortunately we're drawing a lot of people from our area, but um, we figured that a lot of other people needed the gospel as well. And so we are doing everything we can to one day look at Jesus and him say, well done.
Tyler Samson: 00:08:04 Good and faithful servant. Yeah. So in the process of, of redefining and reshaping what church online is, we're really find ourselves maybe reshaping what the word church is, which will get us to question two. Um, how do we define church? How much time are we going to go for it? So, uh, this is, this has been something that's a, this reshaped for us at first capital over the last two years. Um, a lot of people for, for a long time, a lot of people have looked at church from the acts two 42 perspective of the gathering and eating together and bring together. Um, and that's 100% what church can be, but I think church started back in acts one eight, um, which is you get the Holy spirit and it gives you power and then you go out and be witness. And I think for a long time we've, we've turned into something that's very consumeristic because, um, when you meet together and you pray together and eat together, that's great, but it's filling you. And, um, I think the church was meant to go out and be a witness. And the byproduct of that is this community side of acts two 42. So for me, churches, um, followers of Christ being the witness and spreading the good news. And then the byproduct of that is you have other followers that are doing the same thing. So you have this community and this network of people. And I think that's what church is, at least for us, is
Tyler Samson: 00:09:24 I think there's really powerful with what you were describing a minute ago of like, people come together in their homes, um, and just being in community in that sense, whether they're in their underwear or not. Uh, that's, that can, that is a very much a sense of community to me. And when I think of church and what it means to be the church, I think of, you know, we come to a church building for like an hour or two hours a week or something like that, but I think of the other six days and 22 hours. Um, and to me that's the real like embodiment of the church. What we do when we're not in the building, what we do when we're out in the community and outliving the rest of our lives. That is how we'd be the church. Um, and so, so when I think of what it means to be the church, I think of the ways that we're taking what happens in that hour or two or the ways that were filled in that time. And the ways we're pouring that back out into the rest of our lives.
Jason Morris: 00:10:15 So the, when you say the word church, um, there are so many diff, it's a complex word because when Jesus said that was what he was going to build, you find so many different metaphors of that because it's much bigger than just one thing. Sure. You find the church being described as the bride as a flop, as a family, as a body. There's so many different metaphors because not one size fits all. Not one word fits all. How expansive the church actually is. And so when we talk about what is church immediately, most of us think about what is a church service. And I think we need to discern the difference between the two because if we're talking about how to do a church service online, well we would answer that question very differently. And you know, to use your point X too, a lot of times the church service tries to do all of those things in one event, which I don't know that the passage really says that they did all of those things in one event.
Jason Morris: 00:11:21 It could be, you could do it in using different events, different things at different times. It also says they met every day. So maybe there's another way of describing that. But what is true definitely is that there is a sense of belonging, there is a sense of family, there is a sense of unity and belonging that can't be denied. Whatever metaphor you happen to use and the church service is just an outpouring of that community. So if we're talking about what is church, I think first of all, we needed to decide what we're talking about. Are we talking about your service? Are we talking about the church? And if we're talking about the church, then we can talk about the church online or we can talk about the church service online and I'm not really clear as to what, which one you're going in for.
Tyler Samson: 00:12:09 I'm just stirring the pot like that. Um, the, the end game is that I would suggest that a lot of, uh, a lot of churches today define that church by the one hour on Sunday. Right? as we talk with, you know, with sties at least as I've talked to a staffs about, you know, pouring some energy into other things or going away and doing something else with that because there's more to a church than just that one hour on Sunday, uh, and the physical space. But in our virtual spaces, there are five to 10,000 churches each week that broadcast their services in some context, whether it's a Facebook live, whether it's chop platform, uh, YouTube, whatever we're broadcasting to service. But when it comes to, you know, that next piece, uh, doing some sort of a, of a, a small group, a biblical community, uh, disciple-making process in that, uh, Oh no, no. Discipleship can only exist in physical space. It can't, it can't exist virtually, which, which kind of gets us to a Pinto. Um, which really segways nicely into this next question of, uh, of what are the perceived weaknesses of, of church online. Uh, how do we answer these is how can we enter these weaknesses and how has your church kinda over overcome?
Jan Touchberry: 00:13:28 Yeah. I think that a lot of the perceived weaknesses are from people who don't understand church online chiefly because they've never attended a church online service. I. E. a lot of the leadership who have, they're so focused on what happens in the hour on Sunday that um, church online is church light, right? It's um, it may or may not count for, uh, doing church that week or, or being part of the church. Um, I think that education is a huge piece of helping people understand that there can be very dynamic, um, discipleship and relationships and um, deep connection with biblical truth and all of the things that we desire for people to experience when they are a part of our church. All that can happen in the online space if your mind is not stuck in the box mortar brick and mortar box
Jason Morris: 00:14:39 with the, what you're describing is a lot of the things that when people talk to me about it, about some of the real weaknesses when you're dealing with just textual communication. But this is not a new problem for church online. We have the same problem that you can find in the Bible when they criticized the apostle Paul for his letters being harsh. But when he shows up in person, he's a real nice, you know, and so that this particular problem of uh, losing information when you used pen and ink or when you use words or a text is not a new phenomenon. It's as old as the Bible. In fact, you know, the other criticism is, well, people can be anonymous and they can just write whatever. Well, again, this is not a new phenomenon only related to church online. Even in the new Testament, you find the apostle Paul, look, I'm writing in my own handwriting all of a sudden, the kind of stuff, because there were other people writing in his name that really weren't him.
Jason Morris: 00:15:43 This is not anything new. So the whole idea of using anonymity as a problem for church online, well that's a problem for the church. If you're talking about, um, people missing through textual communication, that's a problem for the church. It's not really a problem for terms online. And what I think many times happens with church online is that it surfaces the inherent weaknesses, not of church online, but our predominant model of doing church in general. So many times, um, people say, well, they're just numbers. They're anonymous. Well, how many names? How did he, how many people do you know by name who show up? You know, in your onsite campus? Do you really know? You know, there's, there's so many other aspects of this that really brute down into actually surfacing really wonderful conversations because church online is a force multiplier and it magnifies the good and the bad of whatever you're doing.
Jason Morris: 00:16:45 So if your discipleship process onsite isn't great online, it's going to make that worse. If, if your service isn't that great, online is going to make it worse. You know, if, if your preaching is not that great, online is gonna make it worse. But if you do have systems and processes and pipelines that do work well, online is going to make it better. So that for me is, um, yes, church online has weaknesses, but I don't know that there are any more that weaknesses than what church on site has. Here's the, here's the weakness that I think needs to be overcome. A couple of them actually, one is a proper scorecard that all of us struggle with, with church online. Um, because break that down. What's the scorecard? Well, the metrics of trying to compare what happens online with what happens on site, is it apples to oranges comparison?
Jason Morris: 00:17:44 Because what happens online, you can measure attention way better than you can measure attendance, but on site you measure attendance but you can't measure attention. And so what happens is, is that you have like thousands and thousands of people who show up for 15 seconds, right? That doesn't count yet for the person who shows up, puts his butt in the seat, totally ignores everything and it's like looking all the cute girls and checking out his fantasy football and then maybe tunes in for the one time when the pastor says, if you don't hear anything else, hear this, you know, says it for 30 seconds, that 30 seconds of attention, that does count when all the rest of it is inattention, does it. So you're measuring different things to begin with. And to get those two scoreboards to jive together, I think is a weakness and a challenge for all of us online because of the different types of scoreboards that we're working with.
Jason Morris: 00:18:40 That's one thing. The other thing that I think is a weakness that I see on most of what happens with church online as it relates to comparing to church on site is the lack or the the weakness of kids ministry. Now that's not to say that, um, that's a really a problem because 300 years ago, nobody had kids ministry either, right. And somehow the church survived, right? And so for the family who's in their underwear with their PJ's, with other kids that's trying to do church as a family, integrated as a family and doing that church online. That says more to me for the parents in their intentionality of what they're trying to do with their kids and taking ownership as the spiritual leader of their household. That says more to me for that family. And if we don't have kids' ministry and the way that we have kids' ministry on site, I don't know if that's a weakness or not, but it is an apples to oranges.
Tyler Samson: 00:19:39 Well, I mean at the minimum it's an opportunity right now. We as a, as a church, expressing ourselves online, have our responsibility to empower that parent. I've got two kids, nine and 11. I would love for a church to empower me with resources to allow me to better disciple my kids. Right. Um, rather than, you know, shuffling them off to, to children's church to enable me to be the spiritual father, you know, in that, in that environment would be awesome. So if you're writing that down, take, take a note. Jeffrey wants help discipling. Thank you, sir. I appreciate that. That note. Hey, uh, so let's, let's segue into this, uh, with that, what is your physical churches vision and how does church online help meet that vision? And this is hard, uh, and some of these may be a work in progress, but we get a little bit here into the strategy part of this, right? So church, a physical church has a vision. Your church has a vision. What role does church online? Like our church has. Vision is a say. I help people find and follow Jesus. Super, not original. Had a lot of people have that. Um, but the thing that we've done is that onsite and online. And then at our micro sites we have this linear, um,
Tyler Samson: 00:20:48 discipleship pathway. So one side of this is the fine side. So that's how, uh, strategies to help people find Jesus. And we want to take someone who's just looking to like getting to know us and there's a conversion line in the middle. So at some point we hope to have, um, like pop the question and they decide to make Jesus Lord of their life. Um, and then are you on one knee for that? Like, yeah, yeah. It's, we do this and there's like the Jesus petting the land picture. So you've got conversion, conversion line and then you have, uh, someone who's digging deeper and then all, and so we have to follow aside. Um, but we've been very intentional of having a strategy that, um, like one, if this is church here and this is church anywhere, which is what we call our church online, um, they can intersect at any point. So through this, the schedule will breakout on this by the way. Yeah. Jason and I will be talking about this a little bit later today, but, um, this pathway has really focused us on helping people meet the vision of, of finding and following Jesus. Um, no matter where they enter that timeline and, and no matter if they're in person or if we have a virtual relationship with them.
Jason Morris: 00:21:51 By the way, to give you guys context, he's, he's in a town of 3000, but how many do you have a church? About 1200. Wow. And how many are in church anywhere? Um, physical bodies in church, anywhere. So these are micro sites, uh, somewhere around 800. Okay. So put that in perspective with a town of 3000. So, and then the church online is a different category for us, right? Yeah. Okay. It's amazing what happens when you take church to the people instead of making the people come to church. All right. So anybody else want to chime in here? A church lines? We just tightly align our online vision to the physical church vision. I think it should be that way. So for us at West side, it's a loving Jesus becoming like Jesus and sharing Jesus. And what we do online is helping people love Jesus, but kind of like Jesus and share Jesus online. We kind of use that as a qualifier, but I don't even think it's necessary. That's what we do. Sure.
Tyler Samson: 00:22:49 For us at church of the resurrection are our big kind of purpose is to build a Christian community where nonreligious and nominally religious people are becoming deeply committed Christians. Uh, and so, you know, there, there's a lot you can unpack with that. Um, but for me, the real, like the real power behind online church is the idea that we can develop that, that community of deeply committed Christians. We can ask people to go deeper and deeper within their Christian faith at any point throughout the day, like throughout the week. So it's this thing like it permeates their lives. So instead of asking them to come to a service for an hour, once a week, we can throughout the week be a presence in their lives, you know, asking, um, you know, how can we be praying for you? Um, what, what you have going on that we can be in ministry with you. Um, and just those kinds of things. So it's just the perpetual access that we have, um, to, to continually work with, to become more deeply
Tyler Samson: 00:23:46 committed Christians. I love that. Which segues excellently into the next question. I'm broadcasting my services online. Isn't that enough? Well, yeah, no, I'm just kidding.
Jason Morris: 00:24:06 It would be enough if church were just a church service. Yeah. And some churches are like that and if that's all it is, then fine. But most people I talked to, most pastors I talk to while that one hour can, tends to consume a lot of their time. All of them would say that the church is much bigger than that. It's not just a church service because if it is just a church service, we should all be in our underwear and watch TV on Sunday morning. If that's all it is.
Tyler Samson: 00:24:35 Which, which goes back to the why. Um, I mean if, if your church's vision is not being fulfilled, um, then you're not, you're doing something wrong with the church online. Like for example, who ha you got everybody have a cell phone in your pocket right now. Okay. I'm assuming you don't only have that cell phone in your pocket at 10 45 on a Sunday morning for an hour. Correct. And so like if we, if we can't help people find and follow Jesus in our case, um, for the rest of the hours of that week, um, with things that you literally have in your pocket, um, then we're not fulfilling the vision of our church. That's not, that's not the church. We're just simply doing something cause other churches are doing it on Facebook. I love this.
Tyler Samson: 00:25:14 My pastor says that church online is wrong because church is only in physical space. Help exclamation Mark, exclamation market to mention more. By the way, I hear this a lot. Hebrews 10, 25 do not abandon meeting together, blah, blah, blah. So, um, how somebody out there is thinking this, I guarantee somebody had this conversation with leadership. How do we respond in a situation like that? Can I give you a personal story? So last week, um,
Tyler Samson: 00:25:42 two, two weeks ago, two Saturdays ago, I preached a funeral of a lady named Betty. And the first time I ever saw her in person was in the casket. Um, so if you, if, if you can tell me that I was not meeting with her, um, because I was only talking to her online, um, that would discredit the fact that like she had said, I was her pastor and had requested knowing she was sick, had requested me to do that funeral. And so there's a real argument to be made that our culture has already moved past the point of, uh, community only being face to face. Uh, Jeff, I would consider you a friend and we've only seen each other in person twice ever. But, um, all I know, but because the two hours sleep because of because of FaceTime, because constant communication I believe. Absolutely. Then we've met before, um, besides the two times in physical space. Um, and so I don't think there's a whole huge argument for that one. I think that's just passengers being a little behind the culture. That's so true.
Jan Touchberry: 00:26:44 I also think that we have to consider, um, even church online has morphed so much over the last 10. I don't know how long has left church been doing church. I feel like they were like the beginning, but I feel like over the last 10 years, even what, what a lot of us who've been in that space has, has morphed as culture has changed and technology is moving so fast right now and people who are not even willing to try to keep up are going to miss the boat. We are, we are raising digital natives right now. That's all they know. They don't, they don't know a world without it. And so if we are not figuring out and I think what you are doing, we need to go have lunch or something because I really want to talk about what you're doing. Um, but what you're doing in, it's not church online, it's the church online. And that's the key right there. That's awesome.
Participant: 00:27:49 I was just gonna ask the question. It's been said that generation alpha and the millennials are the first generation that may never enter physical church doors and being purely digital. I'm curious how, um, churches tend to react to this new reality
Tyler Samson: 00:28:08 ostrich. They're already saying. Yeah, there's a, there's a movement. There's a really interesting conversation. I don't want to have it here. Um, but what would it look like if a church lived only in digital space? How can a church, um, move away from a, um, a weekend service oriented ministry plan to a discipleship oriented, empower the people to be the pastor plan and become a much more multiplication, duplication process of enabling not the pastor to be the hero of the story but the people to be the hero of the story. Um, and like I said, if you're interested in that conversation, uh, tomorrow, I think there's like a, a micro location conversation panel on leading. We're going to get into that over there. Um, cause that is a completely separate conversation. But at the end of the day, you're right. The millennials, uh, millennials are, I do think that, uh, the generations underneath that, I think there's an opportunity to engage a little more. Millennials have been damaged by us. Uh, yeah, man, you're a lot more honest when your lack of sleep. But, uh, I do think there's an opportunity for the church to, to turn it around. And what's interesting is I think you need different models to reach different people. And I think the existing model, the physical church will continue to exist and will continue to be successful. I do think we need another model. Um, and I'm looking forward to seeing that model develop because
Tyler Samson: 00:29:42 we need to do something else to reach other people. You can't cram everybody into this physical battle really fast to address that question. Um, and Randy said something about it earlier about how, um, online we have a unique opportunity to engage people more within the service. Um, so that's really, really made, um, my church to rethink the way that we do physical church as well, along with with, uh, the micro sites that we have and things like that. But, uh, three weeks ago we launched our very first, I'm going to loosely call it a millennial service, but we would never tell our people that. But, um, we tried to take what we've learned through micro sites and, um, the fact that we can engage people throughout the service online and see what that would look like to build a service around that type of community in person.
Tyler Samson: 00:30:25 Um, and it's been unreal how quickly the growth has happened. So this week alone, we, uh, we almost matched the amount that is in the regular auditorium within this new type of service. Um, it's, it's literally like table groups. Um, we do worship together, but like there's a break every 10 minutes and the sermon, Rhea four minutes of discussion about what you're talking about. A lot of other elements I'm not going to go into, but people were always going to create or crave community period. We are designed to have community regardless of your generation. Um, our job as, as leaders in this field though is to figure out ways that we can implement, um, strategies to, to reach different generations with community.
Jan Touchberry: 00:31:05 I will say, I think going back to the question about the strengths of church online. Sure. Um, we live in a society that has no margins anymore. There are, yes, we are planned to the Hill. You've, you've got most families who both parents work, they are without their children for nine 10 plus hours a day. They pick them up from wherever they are, soccer, school, daycare, whatever. They come home, they feed them, they maybe have an hour of time and then they're putting their kids to bed and traditional church is saying, Oh by the way, come to a life group or Oh by the way, come to this class at the church or Oh by the way, fill in the blank. And people are voting with their lack of presence. And so is it not our job as the church to give them the opportunity to still engage in biblical community, get the teaching and the discipleship and the knowledge that they need to live out Christian lives wherever they are for all of those hours a day. And should we not be looking at the digital space to do that because otherwise people are going to be missing it because they literally do not have the time.
Jason Morris: 00:32:31 When I look at this question, when you're talking about leadership, pretty much the way that I would engage leadership in a conversation like this is to pick whatever century they happen to be familiar with. So no I don't mean that in a bad way. Like honestly, it's like, okay, if did, I asked him the question,
Jason Morris: 00:32:57 Um, you know, did you call your mom on mother's day? And then most of the time they'll say yes. And I'm like, did your mom feel slighted that you didn't show up in person? You know, because that's his, that's his century of technology he's probably familiar with. Right. Well she might be, she might be like, you didn't show up. Now it's showing up better. Absolutely. But does that keep me from calling her? No. And so it's no different than what we see in in second John, where he says, I'm writing you with pen and ink now, but I'm not going to write you everything because I want to come and visit you face to face so that our joy may be full. Well that didn't stop him from writing the letter. So he's not saying that, you know, everybody knows that face to face is better.
Jason Morris: 00:33:44 Right? I'm not saying that it's not, but that can't stop us from doing something. Right. And that's if we're going to be so purist about it, then we're not going to do a lot of things. So if again, you know the guy that's like, if only your physical meeting works, ask him if he's ever prayed with someone over the phone. And if he has, well, did that count? You know, because you weren't physically together. And then there's this other passage in scripture where the apostle Paul says, I can't be with you but I'm with you in spirits. But what does that mean? We say that word all the time. And I honestly believe that the spiritual realm, the Holy spirit transcends time and space in ways that we don't understand. That's right. And if you've ever been online and prayed with someone online and ministered to someone online, that's across the world, you know exactly what I'm talking about because it transcends all of that. When you are connecting at that spiritual level and you know if you haven't experienced it it's hard to, it's hard to explain but sometimes if you pick the right generation or the right century of technology then they start to get it.
Tyler Samson: 00:34:56 I am going to shift a bunch of stuff cause I really want to have this question. I may come back the year is 2029 no, what is church online? Look I think one of the things that we don't think about a lot is that we are very young in what the digital world looks like. Like, like the shift of like that has been brought about through like social media and things like that is like this like seismic shift in our culture. Like um, I've heard a lot of people compare the internet to like the printing press and how it revolutionized the distribution of information. But I don't think that's big enough to describe what we're actually seeing. But we're actually seeing is like the cultural change that happened when written language was created. Like when we go from an oral culture to illiterate culture that transforms the way that we think about time, because we can record events that don't have to be communicated interpersonally.
Tyler Samson: 00:35:54 They can be recorded and they can last for centuries. It shifts the way that we think about relationships because we can communicate with people who don't live near us by writing them letters and things like that. So like the transformation that happened when we went from an oral culture to illiterate culture is I think very similar to the culture change that's happening that we see right now. And we are participants in a very, very young infancy of this change. And so when we look at 20, 29, that sounds like it's so far away that's 10 years away. But that is nothing in the amount of time it's gonna take to really live into what this new culture looks like. Um, and so I'm not really answering the question here, but, um, but I think that it's important for us to recognize the scale of this, that it's gonna take multiple, multiple decades. You know, I like, I'm thinking a hundred years from now, we might have a good grasp of what it means for us to exist within a physical and digital contexts simultaneously. And so until then, there's ticked off until,
Jeff Reed: 00:36:55 yep. Who else?
Tyler Samson: 00:37:02 Um, I th I don't know what it's gonna look like. Um, I didn't know what it would look like three years ago, but, uh, I believe that it'll be more important than we can imagine. Um, so looking back at an ax like five ish, um, so this is after Pentecost and like after everything is kind of going well, um, the first believers they would meet and, um, Solomon's Colonnade. And I think the verse says something along the lines of they would meet there and even though they were well-regarded, no one would dare meet with them. So what that tells me is that they used to meet someplace and even though they were well-regarded, once they started to grow, people resented them. Um, but then the Bible says right after that that, um, their numbers grew every single day. And so people didn't want to come join them, but still their numbers grew.
Tyler Samson: 00:37:50 And I feel like we live in a culture where we're consistently growing into this resentment face. Um, nothing that you see culturally would say, Hey, let's lift the church up. Anything you see that let's, let's resent them even more than eventually we're going to reach this state of persecution to where people would not dare join us in person, but because of our online avenues that are in the baby stages, um, that's going to be so much more important to help fulfill that part of, uh, of being added to daily. Um, we see in, uh, Jason, I'm sure you see it a lot more than I do yet go overseas already happened. That is what that is how the gospel is being fulfilled overseas is through the internet. Um, and I think that's coming here. Look what we're doing is so important because of that.
Jason Morris: 00:38:36 I would be surprised if first off, you know, what the church, what does church online look like in 20, 29? I think it just looks like the church because it will just take over the church. Yeah. Because, um, I don't think that we'll be having these discussions in 2029 about church online because it will be the primary expression of church and the secondary expression is, Oh, when do you guys get together every now and then when's your meetup? That will be the question. Um, whereas that's what I think is going to be happening where we will be living in the online space that we already do anyway. We'll be living in the online space and our sense of identity belonging and family will be technologically leveraged that we will occasionally get together for meetups to have fun and parties and stuff like that. That won't be happening every Sunday. There'll be happening once a quarter, once a year. Kinda like how we're doing this gathering right now. And this is a lot of fun and I really enjoy it. And this is kind of, we are beta testing what I think the church will become because you were all in the Facebook group together. We all message each other in Slack and we all, you know, text each other and all that kind of stuff all throughout the year. And then we get together and give each other a hug. That's what church will be.
Tyler Samson: 00:39:51 Yeah. And here, here's the tension though, is we have to be okay with that. Um, yeah, we, we can't push back like we currently do. Um, there's so much resistance to church online. That's why there's like three questions about it in this panel. But, um, until we get to the point where we're okay with it, we will not be able to effectively do ministry moving forward. Well, I think they will become okay with it once it just dies. Yeah. It's gonna to be a hard process or it gets regulated out of existence. I mean like, let's, let's put some numbers on this just for kicks. Um, 325,000 evangelical churches in America today. That's rough. Maybe it's more than that. Um, arguably five to 10, maybe 12,000 are broadcasting each week. Like that's a massive transitionary shift because the majority are saying it's not acceptable. I agree with you, Jason.
Tyler Samson: 00:40:39 I just think it's going to be an ugly transition from 2019 to 2029 where that's not the standard. I've, I'm working with a pastor in a, and this is a true story, a pastor up in new England area and he is in the process. 1,000 person church, new England. He sees maybe 120 people a week. He's got this massive campus. Nobody comes there. Nine his numbers, he tells me 97.8% of the people in his area don't want to come to church. They don't even like church. There's a very strong bias against Christianity. He's in the process of wanting to sell off his buildings, wanting to go down to a completely digital micro-site model, set up a broadcast center somewhere to broadcast a message out and empower people. Not to come sit in a Pew, but to go out and to do church at in the homes.
Tyler Samson: 00:41:30 Like that's the model this guy has come up with entirely on his basically out of survival because if that doesn't happen he can't afford the mortgage and the maintenance on this facility and he's going to have to shut down and it's going to be a scary and I always hate to be the prophetic guy cause I'm really not, but it's going to be a scary transition in the next five to 10 years as we start to feel some of that persecution as we start to, Oh my gosh, church no longer has a tax exempt status. Oh man, we got to pay property tax and all these massive buildings and campuses like it's, there's going to be a world of pinch and the church is going to feel itself transitioning more and more to a digital expression of worship for that guy.
Participant: 00:42:10 You mentioned you're hitting directly on a 10 year window where by 2029 up to 40% of all jobs are going to be automated according to Oxford academia. Yep. That means the impact to the congregants is phenomenal. I mean, I can't get my head around what that looks like yet. Yes sir. Uh, last year, if you remember, we had David setup VR, our church DJ. Yes. Yup. DJ, he's uh, he was running, he was the pastor of my church and he went out on his own doing that. And I think that 20.9 the cost effectiveness and everything you're going to see, you'll be able to, instead of sitting here like we are right now, you'd be back in our offices all sitting your LinkedIn, same thing goes for great point.
Tyler Samson: 00:42:57 I think that to just speak into the regulations of the end people broadcasting and things like that, it really goes back to what is church. Um, because uh, like if, if, if in our definition of churches is really going out and being a witness for the gospel, doesn't matter if you can broadcast your service or not. If you can go out and use whatever tools available to spread the gospel, then like if they can regulate all they want with it, a broadcast, but you still have the gospel to fall back on. Um, but when we take our church online vision and make it all about a weekend service, we run the danger of being covered, becoming regulated.
Tyler Samson: 00:43:37 I think there's, so the world around us is already trying. They're working to figure out what it means to create community within an online context. I mean, that's what Facebook is on. So Twitter is Instagram. Snapchat ticked up even, even though I don't understand, tick-tock, Tinder's like, they're working, you start online to go onto like there, they're trying to figure this out. But like what, what terrifies me is that we, the church might say, we don't want to be a part of figuring out what the, what Christian community looks like. Like we don't want to be a part of shaping community within an online context. And that's like the resistance that I feel right now we're saying we don't think it can happen. So we're not going to do it, but the world is going to do it. Right. And so are we going to be voices in that shaping of what community is within an online context? And I think we have to drop the mic. Yeah, yeah. We're questions. I mean at this point, open it up. Yeah, you can please.
Jeff Reed: 00:44:38 define who you are.
Daniel Merida: 00:44:39 Oh, um, I'm Daniel Merida. I lead a totally online, a youth led church, um, in robotics, yes. In roadblocks, which is a virtual video game platform. So we're totally online and entirely young people. So to answer your question about engaging and gen Z and millennials and what the church might look like, I think as one of the few gen Z people here, um, part of what we do online is focusing on reaching people where they're at. And I think that's something that you guys have voice, um, is really important. Uh, but as we, uh, there's so many churches out with that. Like in my denomination, I'm a part of the Presbyterian church and we are the nomination. I can't think of a single church that broadcasts those services like, um, and the denomination. We just, there's no, uh, no pressure or like encouragement to go online.
Daniel Merida: 00:45:43 So I think a lot of the churches that are going online right now are churches that, um, don't necessarily have as a nomination as supporting them like financially or a, uh, are losing members rapidly. And I think a part of this, like in a lot of your churches, I'm assuming that you're losing members in general or losing the young members. Um, and I think a big portion of this and you guys said too was meeting people where they're at. Um, and not just going on Facebook and live streaming your services there because young people aren't on Facebook, right? Um, some people, some younger people are leaving Instagram, um, like the church is so slow to reach like where people are at. They don't even know where people are. You have people on Snapchat and they're on Hamas. They take doc, younger people talk. There really are millions and millions. Yeah. Um, things like fortnight, like I don't know if there's no churches there, but like they've, I mean history were to like somehow reach out to them and like there's just these major platforms that are high was for young people and finding ways to uh, you know, rich people there and not even like, like necessarily do ministry there. But if you're trying to market your church or like get people to find out and come out in person or whatever it looks like, just actually having a presence on different platforms I think is incredibly important.
Tyler Samson: 00:47:11 Yeah, I think that there is an interesting opportunity if you look at church not as the one hour on Sunday and you can have a, a existing ministry that it exists on platforms like tick tock, but the goal of being on tick tock isn't to drive them to a church service, virtual or physical. That platform literally restricts that type of communication. And so because it's designed to keep it within, so you're on tic talk, you're engaging with young people to build a relational connection with them, to drive them into a discipleship disciple-making forming relationship. And this has nothing to do with a service, but it has everything to do with impacting a life so that it can in turn impact another life. And that's where, honestly, when I look at the next 10 15 years, 20 years of what church and what church online is, the digital expression of this is going to be much more relational.
Tyler Samson: 00:48:08 The strength of online, at least in my opinion, is not the broadcast of the service. Billy Graham in the nineties broadcasts at a service, bounced it off 34 satellites, and literally one message was heard by a billion people across the world. That was 30 years ago, 20 years ago, whatever the math is, 90 cents 30 right? Yeah. 30 we're there. I appreciate the lap. Thank you. So I mean, I was 30 years ago, right? And he managed to, to do it, getting a, a broadcast around the world. That's old news. Uh, being able to relationally connect with somebody on another continent to the point that he's now impacting people in, are spreading out and doing things and impacting the gospel in different ways. That's far more attractive. And at least to me and context of what the church can be. Well I'll tell you what. Yeah, so like I just want to open up for questions.
Tyler Samson: 00:48:58 So what do you got, do you think in 2029 the church format will look less like a plan service and a, you know, we're doing this and we a lot of people moving parts and doing this and more like a free form, you know, 10 minute, 20 minute yeah. Locks the time throughout the weekend and around. I, I personally an outlet. Others answer in a sec. I personally think the existing model of church will continue. I think there's going to be a new model that will come forward. I think you need both models to reach different people. There is a generation, there is a type, there's a personality that will not connect to a big building as much as this underlying thing that we're talking about now. Any it guys have an opinion on that?
Jason Morris: 00:49:43 Well we've, you know, for a lot of us O G people who've been doing it for the past 10 years, you know, that's a 10 year Mark. You saying, what does the next 10 years ago when we started 10 years ago, nobody even knew when we were doing it. And it was just like, you do what, 10 years later, they still don't know what you're doing. 10 years later, 10 years later, people are like, Oh yeah, we'll do that. Yeah, no big deal. It's ubiquitous, but it's on the verge of becoming the preferred method of doing church. That's the difference. And where before it was like, Oh, this is a cool option for like fringe cases 10 years ago. Now it's become very commonplace where it's like if you don't have an online presence or something like that, you're a little bit backwards. Or maybe Luddite, I don't know. But some whatever that is. Yeah. It's like, well why not? You know? But because now it's shifting into the preferred method and what, and that's why I feel like it will in 10 years become the primary expression of church. Any other questions?
Daniel Merida: 00:50:48 Just pick one more comment quick. Um, I just wanted to encourage everyone, I'm sure we'll talk about it more, but doing ministry online when you're reaching people is so much cheaper, so much cheaper. Um, for example, in my church we reach 24,000 young people, 70 countries I've been doing for eight years. For in the first six years, our annual budget was less than $350 a year. I mean, there was no personnel, but like the total operating costs was so little. So I just wanna encourage you guys with that. It's a big, like it's a, it's a lot of work but it can be done and it's,
Tyler Samson: 00:51:28 yeah. Don't, don't let your, uh, your financial person talk you out and say it's too expensive. Push back on that. Yes, ma'am.
Jason Morris: 00:51:35 Curious what you guys think the role of privacy insecurity will play into the 2029 church and you all want to take a crack? Well, I think, okay, like let's say future future. It wouldn't surprise me if we all just end up with some kind of blockchain identity so that, um, it becomes less of a, of a factor altogether because everybody is going to be known and they want to be. Um, the problem is today people are creeped out by all of the weird marketing and the ugly side of identity when in all reality, if you're going to advertise to me, I would rather have a targeted advertisement anyway to advertise to me about something I care about. Not all this stuff that I don't like, don't give me a Victoria's secret. It's like, I don't care about that, you know, or at least I showed it.
Jason Morris: 00:52:34 so the, the point, the point I'm making is, is that I believe that we will have this ubiquitous identity that will translate across the social fabric of which we live. And by that everyone will be known all the time and everyone will be okay with it. The point where the digital natives of gen Z, they're on all these platforms and they understand how to manage their privacy much better than their parents do. And so, um, the awareness of the digital native toward their own personal privacy is much more acute than what we're used to and where the shot comes for us, I don't think it's gonna be the case in the generation to come because it'll just be a part of life.
Tyler Samson: 00:53:23 I've never seen a gen Z or millennial person posts like copy and paste this because Facebook's changing their privacy. It'll be 1399 tomorrow. That doesn't happen real. One sec. The a, the power is not in a broadcast out. The power is in individual and so a lot of times the privacy issue in the future, I don't think it's going to be a problem because I think it's, I'm having a conversation with a friend. Lifeway research tells us this right now, 63% of people are not interested in coming to your building. Just in the same way, honestly, that I'm probably not interested in going to a mosque. I already have my spiritual identity formated I know what I think I know and I'm living my life that way. The majority of people already feel that way. 80% of people will have a conversation about their faith with their friends, if they see that their faith is important to their friends. And so the empowering of others to have those conversations is where we are going. We are already transitioning today and I think that's just going to continue on in the future. Yes sir. Yeah, go ahead Daniel.
Participant: 00:54:26 So kind of talking about what you were talking about, like the privacy laws and just technology in general. It's advancing so fast. How do you keep up with it? Cause I'm, I'm sitting here 25 years old. I don't even know what tic talk is. Like I'm still trying to figure out what it is. How do you the
Tyler Samson: 00:54:42 Kesha song for like 2007 it's kind of catchy, but yeah, don't like say you like it, but it's super fast. To be honest. Sometimes some of this stuff is a distraction and so I don't think, and I'm all about, and I encouraged churches to be innovative, but I don't think that the goal is not to be innovative, to be on every platform to do that. Um, the goal is to find where your ministry are, where your people are, where your audience is and reach that. Now in the context of of your physical church, if the goal is to get people who are already connected to your church, engaged in the physical building and a church growth model, you're going to hit the Facebooks and a and that because that's where they are and and the other Daniel behind you situation, he knows where his platform is.
Tyler Samson: 00:55:34 It's roadblocks and he and he's building within in that context, maybe you're a church that actually has a vision towards reaching a YouTube Andy community of YouTubers that's exists. Well then I want to engage in dive in and own that, that area we were talking earlier about a VR church DJ Soto's a question in the back there is five or six VR platforms and in DJ's mission he treats every one of those VR platforms like a multisite campus. And so he has an, I don't even know what the names are cause I don't do VR, but he's in like this primary one and then he's over here and then he's over here and then somebody else spins up another VR platform and he's recruiting and building up teams to like expand into that other area, almost like a multisite campus expressing the church differently. Um, I, you hone in with what your audience is and you figure out where they are and then you empower them to reach people from a discipleship standpoint in those areas. Once again, it's less important what you, and we live in this social media age. This is truth. It's less important with what your organization says about itself. And it's far more important about what others say about you. The power is in others going out rather than you broadcasting your single message
Jan Touchberry: 00:56:50 Al to others. Can I speak to that? So I think that, um, it's a, it's a hard lesson to learn. Um, though if we're at this conference, we like technology, we like new things where usually, um, you know, first adopters of most new things, technological. Um, I find in my space that I'm one of the only ones on my staff that is like that. And so trying to figure out what is a distraction versus what is and should be part of our church growth strategy is that delicate balance that we play. And so I think that, um, what I've learned over the last 10 years is that your, we have to look at your unique church DNA and you have to learn how to work within that to become the digital expression of your place, where you are and what you're saying about finding out where your people are super important.
Jan Touchberry: 00:58:01 I do think that it's, it's important to also bring new, innovative things to your church leadership and say, Hey, here's what our strategy is right now. Here's what I would like to add to it. But because technology moves so fast, I think the dangerous, and let's add this and let's add this and let's add this. And you're diversifying so much that you can't do anything really well. Right? And so I think focusing on, okay, here's what we need to do now and now we've got this under our belt and now let's add this thing and then let's add this thing and do those things really well. Um, at at least that's what I'm hoping starts working for us.
Tyler Samson: 00:58:36 One second. I've got a question here. Yes sir. It's an interesting connection between those two questions because you're both saying like where is technology going? Right? What is society going to decide about privacy and what are people using? And I think in all of these, the church is going to be the church, right? The church is mission is to preach the gospel and make disciples. We're going to be using whatever technology the world around us is using, right? And the same way that we're using electricity to further the sake of this church's building, right? We're going to be using whatever technology society is using because that's where people are, right? And so the church in 10 years and the church in 50 years, we can't predict the future. We don't know what the technology is going to be then, but we know what the churches can be doing. Hopefully preaching and making disciples. Right? And so we'll use whatever tool people are using, wherever they are. If they go back to YouTube more than Facebook or take doc or whatever. Great. Whatever any of those, pick your audience.
Jan Touchberry: 00:59:30 You have truth. I think that's true for four. I hope that's true for most churches, but I think most people would agree that the church in what an Christianity in a lot of whatever, I mean you think about Christian movies and Christian creativity, we are so far behind the norm of society in creativity
Jan Touchberry: 00:59:59 It's sad to say that we are that far behind. And so even when we're talking about the church of 2029 I think you look at at technological leaders now, the church is just gonna be getting there in 10 years. You know? And that's unfortunate. I think it's that
Tyler Samson: 01:00:17 I'm not even going to comment. Yes, yes. So
Participant: 01:00:20 the church of 2020 not 2029 I think what my prayer would be is that the 60 the 63% of people that don't want to come to your building, they would actually be redefine and understand what.
Tyler Samson: 01:00:32 That's true for sure.
Participant: 01:00:34 Yeah. And it would look like there's a reason why that 63% don't want to come. And that's because every person in this room possibly has a different definition of what they think the Bible is or what the gospel is, or how they shared it, and they're the distortion that's happened over the years because of lack of information or lack of truth or whatever it is. And why not use the platform to tear away all the things that have been built up and reach the people who actually need to be arranged very, very quickly. Guys, just through, it's like we're in the transitional stages as well. And what role does finances play in the threat towards the traditional model, which is when you've got buildings, people's paychecks, you know, it's very, very threatening. And I wonder if that plays into this logos no, just
Tyler Samson: 01:01:27 that's, that's a great question. I think Daniel hit that really well. Um, so we've, we've got 18 micro sites ranging from 15 people that 300 plus people. Um, and like if you can start with, we started at 300 person micro site for $600. Um, granted that's not including like my position. It's technically that's a prison.
Tyler Samson: 01:01:48 So the tax payers money paid for the building. Okay fine, let's go non frozen. Let's start a 50 person church in a neighborhood neighborhood
Tyler Samson: 01:01:59 and for 600 bucks. Like I though that church planting model is so inexpensive. I think that we just are so intimidated by the technology that we, we see this upfront costs as being like outrageous but great that where's one, where's your faith that in to like what's your goal? Like if your goal is really to just go out and make of all nations,
Tyler Samson: 01:02:20 you can do that pretty inexpensively. Well let me, let me unpack a little bit because there's this other level of our people at a 50 person micro location. Are they tightening? Are they giving, which I think is more of where you're wanting to go. Um, here's the challenge that I would say is if you didn't have to pay for the 5,000 person campus, could you imagine what you could do with the money to invest that back into the community to make a difference where people are? I was, I was in, I was in Colorado. I'll tell the story. I was in Colorado over the, over a couple of days ago and with an Uber driver and I'm having a conversation with this guy and this guy's not a Christian. I know this cause he F-bomb like twice on the drive and maybe, I'm assuming that would be wrong, but he was, he was, he was showing me an example of a church, I'm not going to drop the name of the church, but in Colorado there was, there's a giga campus over here to the left.
Tyler Samson: 01:03:12 And, uh, and I said something about I was working with churches and he started talking about churches and he's like, well, like this church over here that's got all the money, like look at just how much money they have talking about the movies. Like yeah, talking about this building. It's like all they have is money and put the perception is he, the church was using the money for themselves to build this giant building and not pouring it into the community where this guy lives. And it's a mess where we have an opportunity to do something with, with our giving selflessly, not selfishly to build a better building but selflessly. And I say that this is a glorious building. I don't want to talk to this place, but there's an opportunity for us to do things with it in the community as well. Yes sir.
Jason Morris: 01:03:52 What did you say to the church that's pretty established? Been around for a long time but are slow to change and you know, resistant to even online ministry. We're 10 years in. If they finally get on board, they're going to miss, you know, Oh, then the next thing comes and it's, you know, it's hard to get them to commit. And when there's a new thing on the horizon, I would take it missiologically first not this is the next new tool. Because if you look at the, the history of the church in the past 50 years, you've got, you know, church growth movement, you've got willows, seeker sensitive kind of deal, you got multisite ING, you've got micro sighting, you've got church online. All of these things are tools to do the great commission and to figure out, okay, for a lot of people doing online ministry is an extension of a lot of these other tools that they're standing on the shoulders of giants.
Jason Morris: 01:04:54 So that, but that's not to say that should be that way, but that's how it commonly is. So a lot of multisite churches that have decent production and are more attractional in nature tend to open up an online campus more easily and readily than once that don't have that infrastructure and that history. So I can't really properly answer the question. But what I can say is that if you're trying to do online ministry of an online service, you don't necessarily have to do with that attractional model. And with that particular ministry stack in place, you can have a different online church model that is different in the way that it expresses what you do have. But let it express what you do have. And instead of trying to make it your, because your, what you're asking sometimes for some churches is to not only start an online church, but to accept the entire ministry stack that went with it. And that is, I don't think wise because God calls us, God calls different churches to be different things for different people. Let your online expression be of what Jesus has called you to do first and then just magnify whatever Jesus is doing there.
Jeff Reed: 01:06:16 Hey, okay, so we're gonna break the podcast right there. I love this. And this idea that church online is more than just a broadcast, just like a church should be more than its service. It's one hour service on Sunday. There's a challenge to live by. For us to look at our church beyond what our building is, to look at what the future is gonna hold and how we as a church body can do Christ proud by seeking after and expanding this idea of discipleship by helping people grow deeper in their faith so that they can in turn help others. Church, here's the challenge for you. I would love for you to look at your church online as who's the hero of this story. I mentioned that briefly in the broadcast they hear of your story oftentimes is the pastor. What if and just what if we shifted gears where the hero of your story wasn't someone who's paid to do the job, but what if they hero trained others to be the hero? What if a pastor shifted a little bit and made others the hero of the story? What if we empowered others with evangelism, with discipleship, with generosity so they could go out empowered to go out and be the person that God called them to be? What if the church wasn't about us as pastors and staff? What if the church, what if the church online was about them? We'll see you next week here at The Church Digital Podcast? Y'all have a good day.
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