Need a break from coronavirus? I hear you. Hopefully this podcast is what you're looking for.
My favorite book so far in 2020 has been Daniel Im's No Silver Bullets. Yes, it was written 5 years ago and I'm late to the party, but the book hit me with the right message at the right time. Discipleship, Disciple-making, Multiplication, On-Mission... whatever the term is... I've been noticing that a lot of our churches, a lot of our church onlines, are missing this. And the more I delved into the book No Silver Bullets, the more it resonated with me.
So, I did what any normal online geek would do... I tweeted the author, thanking him for the book. Next thing I know Daniel Im's on my podcast talking intentional discipleship, flipping the classroom, even discipleship online.
Literally one of my favorite conversations to date, Daniel is a necessary break from the noise of Coronavirus while still providing relevant answers we need in today's Coronavirus season.
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ON THE SHOW
Guest: Daniel Im
Senior Associate Pastor, Beulah Alliance Church
Twitter // Facebook // Instagram // LinkedIn
Host: Jeff Reed
THECHURCH.DIGITAL
Twitter // Facebook // Instagram // LinkedIn
SHOW NOTES
- by Daniel Im
- by Ed Stetzer & Daniel Im
- by Daniel Im
- Episode 51: Ed Stetzer & Defining a Successful Church
- Episode 9: Eric Geiger & The Theology of Church (Ekklesia) Online
- Episode 10: Eric Geiger & Talking to Leadership About Church Online
- Soultsunami by Leonard Sweet
- Leonard Sweet Books
- Flip Your Classroom: Reaching Every Student in Every Class Every Day by Jonathan Bergmann and Aaron Sams
HELP ANOTHER CHURCH. LEAVE A REVIEW.
THECHURCH.DIGITAL
TRANSCRIPT
Jeff Reed (00:00:00):
Episode 56 of The Church Digital Podcast powered by Stadia Church Planting. I gotta tell you, yeah, Stadia's planted over a thousand churches and we are out there right now trying to make sure those 1000 churches are stable, safe, and sound. And we're not really just drawing the border at those 1000 we've, and this is what I love about Stadia, we're creating resources and helping churches beyond trying to figure out how to master this digital church, this church online thing. By the way, check this out there. There's a Facebook group. The easiest way to get there is if you go to thechurch.digital/coronavirus on that, there's a number of resources we've created, but one of the best resources we have out there today is a Facebook group that's managed by us, but also managed by a bunch of Stadia people where they're getting in there. Churches are getting in there. They're talking about what they're experimenting with, whether it's working, whether it's not working and encouraging us together as we're out there trying to figure out how to beat this Corona virus thing and by utilizing digital tools and church online. So if you're not part of that it's, you can look for a church online and coronavirus in Facebook or head over to thechurch.digital/coronavirus and find the link there on that page. Well, I gotta tell you, I have been sitting on this podcast for a couple of weeks. We've recorded this probably the day before the coronavirus. You know, I hate to hesitate to say the word outbreak before everything exploded. Moving off the West coast more towards the the East coast here in America. And I have been itching, itching to share this, this podcast interview with you because this has been, you know, the Ed Stetzer podcast that interview was fun.
Jeff Reed (00:01:44):
This one, was more fun than that Ed because it really I honestly, I felt like I was talking to like a clone copy of me. We were so on this same page with a number of different things. So the interview is with Daniel Im who is in Canada. He works with Lifeway. He does a number of things. He's written a number of books. And honestly, the heart of this is, we really delved into his book called No Silver Bullets. Now this is an older book, we're going back to 2015 but honestly, just recently I read it there was a church I'm working with and they were having some, some discipleship level issues within the church. How do we keep people on mission? What does discipleship look like? We're having issues with kind of taking people to that next deeper level.
Jeff Reed (00:02:37):
And really, I just, I delved into this book, like I said in the podcast, it was stuck on my Kindle. I bought it years ago, just never read it, and as I read it, honestly, my heart just leapt and, and I caught this vision for what a discipleship movement in a church could be if it was done with intentionality. But on top of that, I caught a larger vision of what a discipleship method could be if it was executed digitally to compliment churches that are out there. And so the more that Daniel and his book talked about discipleship, the more that I had this greater understanding of what it could be in a digital environment. And that made me very happy. So we're having this conversation with Daniel Im and it is literally on the eve of the coronavirus explosion that has happened here in America and around the world here with this global pandemic.
Jeff Reed (00:03:33):
So there's definitely application points that we talk about here, about how to get people on mission but it also, it talks to a lots of the heart of what it actually means to be intentional towards making disciples in a physical environment as well as a virtual one. It's been a great podcast, a great conversation here with Daniel ImLifeway as well as a number of other resources and, and connection points. No silver bullets for church online. That's the name of the episode here at the church digital podcast. Here y'all go. Hey Jeff. Hey, how are you doing? I'm doing well. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you too. Hey, I want to thank you for jumping on this, this podcast. It's been a, it's been a hectic couple of days. I'm going to go killing her. So for, for all of us, I'm sure. But man, I just, I wanted to thank you for for sticking with this and, and, and allowing this conversation to happen.
Jeff Reed (00:04:39):
There'll be good, I'm looking forward to it. Yeah. I, I want, I want to sing your praise and I'll do this on the podcast a little bit, but you know, I, I bought your books every year, go and it sat on my Kindle, you know, typically books do. I've got the app. We'll get there eventually later, maybe sorta. And you know, one of the churches I was working at, Christ journey church starting to run into some discipleship issues and some things it's like, yeah, there's, there's, there's gotta be a better way to do this. We haven't figured it out. And there was this no silver bullets book. I just, I want to go back to that. And it really I read it and I was like, Oh, this is so good. This is exactly what they need. And I T I tend to be an extremist kind of alarmist type of guy.
Jeff Reed (00:05:26):
Like we have to do this. And like now, yeah, it and I made key staff read it and they're like, Oh, this is so good. And it really helped kind of pivot the culture or at least bring awareness to that. And I know you're not even, I know it's not even like the thing that you're like pushing it and promoting it may be old school compared to some of the other stuff, but it's like I'm in this moment and I'm, and I'm like, man, I really want to like just explore this and, and talk with Daniel more about it. So thanks for like kind of going old school here, revisiting 2015 a little bit, man
Daniel Im (00:06:04):
Talking about it. And, and even when I wrote it, you know, it was this commitment to say, okay, do I believe enough about this that I'm willing for at least the next 10 years to talk about this topic. So, yeah, and it's, yeah, I love it. So I'm glad. Glad to talk about it.
Jeff Reed (00:06:22):
Well, you picked a really good topic to talk about, at least from a, from a relevancy standpoint because we're seeing culture shift more away from the buildings. But here with the, the church digital podcast, we talk a lot about church online and digital church. I've actually taken a role recently. I honestly, I think this is even since we scheduled the podcast with you, but I'm with stadia church planning where I'm director of digital church planting. We're looking at a digital only expression of the church that doesn't exist in physical. It's, it's more of a digital, virtual, biblical ecclesiology of what is an actual church look like. That would be digital only and which really is a fascinating conversation for me that centered more around a discipleship driven model, a discipleship process, discipleship pathway. A lot of these words that I just keep resonating over and over with.
Jeff Reed (00:07:16):
And honestly, like in the back of my mind, I just going back to Nosto bullets, I'm like, I have to write this book. I'm going to have to write this book. I haven't found anybody to really say what I want to say, but then I read no silver bullets and I'm like, yes, I don't have to write the book. I don't have to go through all this struggle because my man's here, Daniel M's already said it is starting to roll through it. So I love how what you're talking about with this intentional discipleship. I think it's, it's a, it's a wake up call for churches towards getting more on board with that today, being intentional with it as opposed to being lackadaisical and, and, and some of those things. But even in context of online, using a church online to create some of those intentional points to foster that development and growth is, is so good. And so man, just, just thanks for jumping on here. I just, I have to know this. Yeah. And we'll, we'll, we'll dig in, right? This'll be good. How, where did, where did this, the idea of have no silver bullets and, and just even the, the four quadrants, if you want to highlight that, like where did this come from? Yeah. Okay. So the
Daniel Im (00:08:31):
Or the old school original where the whole thing was birthed. It was when I was doing my master's at fuller and it was a man global leadership. And basically my final project was, it was, and it's all contextual to your church. The, the way they did their things. So for me then I was trying to figure out, Hey, how do I create a discipleship pathway that's scalable within a multisite context, thinking also post-Christian to being in Canada, but just a sense of a, of a, of a scalable multi-site discipleship pathway that, yeah, that can actually, that that works in different sizes of churches, right? Where you have maybe 2000 people gathered in one location, a hundred and another four or 500 in another. So what would that look like? And that's really the origin of it around the ongoing steps, the first steps, the next steps.
Daniel Im (00:09:27):
But man that Harkins all the way back to like 2013 and it's just kinda, it, it, it was great. Put it to the side, ended up moving down to Nashville, moving to Lifeway co-writing, planting missional churches with ed. And basically a, a, an acquisitions editor was like, Hey Jeff, do you have like a solo book in you? And I was like, well, there's this thing I've worked on that I worked on, but I just kinda, I never finished it because I didn't think anyone would want to read it. So I sent her, well what it was and they're like, okay, well here's a contract. So that, that's basically what got it kicked started again. And multiple years later it was a reassessment of, okay, does this still work? Is this timeless? And then how do you actually communicate it? How do you communicate it?
Daniel Im (00:10:16):
Well? So it was just further research that then got me into doing some research around the quadrants and had a conversation with Dr. Robert Coleman around that too. I mean, the guy, right? Master plan of evangelism, discipleship. And I was like, okay, if he can get on board with this, then I'm okay. So he was my, he was my gut check. He was my am I out to lunch. And he he, I mean he endorsed the books. Right. So, I mean, it was cool, cool to have that conversation with them. That's awesome. I could try to explain that. I'm going to be honest. I could try to explain the quadrants. It would take me eight minutes and I'm willing to bet you've got a 45 second version of the quadrants that you can just nail real quick and enroll through this seriously though. Just give, give us a breeze of brief synopsis, cause I'm sure you're more succinct than I would be.
Daniel Im (00:11:03):
Okay. Okay. So imagine a, and maybe we'll put in the show notes, right? But imagine the a square with four quadrants and you have a copycat church is silver bullet church and intentional church and a hippie church, right? So if we're looking at all four, you know, the, these four quadrants, what is the difference between each and every one of them? You have the copycat church that views discipleship is all about getting to a destination. And that's actually what, what the copycat and this silver bullet church shares there. It's all about getting to a destination. So discipleship is about knocking those check off and, and doing this program, doing that program. And, and the, the difference between the copycat church and the silver bullet church is the copycat church. It's literally, you know, go to that conference, we're going to copy this model. Oh it didn't work four months later, go copy another models.
Daniel Im (00:11:59):
So there's a low sense of accountability there. Okay. the, the silver bullet church is like the copycat church where they still see view discipleship as checking that off. These external markers. But the difference is accountability wise, systems wise, it flows and everything looks good. But the metrics for maturity are different. It's actually incorrect the way that they're viewing the metrics for maturity. And then you have move it up, right? You then have the intentional church and you have the hippie church. Both actually the biggest difference between those ones and the bottom ones is that those ones actually view maturity from a directional standpoint, right? So it's not necessarily the destination you get to, it's more the direction you're pointing in. So there's a key difference, a fundamental difference as to what maturity looks like and what the discipleship process looks like. Is it destination oriented, check the boxes, or is it the direction you're pointing in?
Daniel Im (00:13:03):
And the difference between the hippie church and the intentional church, the hippie church, it's kind of like the copycat church, low culture of accountability going from one to another. So these are the churches that essentially are like, Oh, Oh you want to like, you don't want to, you don't want to meet together. You just want to listen to worship music and go hike on the mountain and, and instead of gathering together for worship, Oh yeah, that's fine. That's, that's fine. Right? Or, or you don't have to read the Bible, just read a devotional about the Bible. That's the same thing, right? So it's very lackadaisical. As long as you're pointing in that direction toward Christ, you're fine. Whereas the intentional church, yes it is directionally focused, but there's a clear pathway to getting to discipling people and getting people along, moving in the right direction. So that's, that's, those are kind of the, the four quadrants summarized.
Jeff Reed (00:13:54):
Yeah, it's, it's, it's really interesting this, this idea of destination and, and for, for, for me with the, the, the church that that I'm regularly working with, like that was, that was the radical connection for us. Previous to that, it was, you know, it was, it was the Rick, Rick Warren baseball diamond and the far be it for me to be overly critical of that cause I think that was revolutionary at the time and really helped a lot of churches move forward. Churches that I've been on staff with and worked with. But the reality is, is that that four Oh one that home plate that people being on mission, like nobody ever makes it to that class. It's amazing. Everybody did this. The one Oh one, you lose 20% for the two Oh one, you lose 20% for the three Oh one. And, and by the time you get down to to the four Oh one, you know, it's, it's like, Oh, this is the, for people who are going specific on the global missions trip, let's just make that to four.
Jeff Reed (00:14:50):
Oh. And it's, it's a far minimal audience percentage of people that are attending. But as a result of that, we're really missing this opportunity to have people be on mission where, you know, on mission may be defined as something like you know, and once again, I don't want to be overcritical, but Hey, let, let me serve coffee here, or let me be you know, guest services or something. And all of these are important. But when it comes to personal evangelism, when it comes to disciple-making w with, with the things where we look at today's culture, we realize, wow, like the best way for our church to be impactful is not our physical building and doing these events in our buildings. But it's all about empowering people to have spiritual conversations. They go and share their faith and then to disciple others.
Jeff Reed (00:15:44):
Lifeway, like the place where you work, and this is an older stat, but I quoted all the time, by the way, if you guys could update this stat, I would really appreciate it. 2000, a 2016 Lifeway 63% of people are no longer interested in going to the buildings to, to learn about their faith. And at the same way that, that I myself, I'm not interested in going to a mosque. I, I think I figured out what I know at the spiritual level, and I'm not really open to more conversations. 79% of people are open to talking about faith with their friends if they see that faith is important to their friends. And so, you know, for me, when I look at the opportunity of, of church online, it's let's utilize this online technology. Let's utilize it to create a discipleship pathway, a direction that creates in people this desire to be a disciple maker, to be a multiplier of others. It's not a consumer level thing as much as it is, is a multiplier aspect of that. Now just hearing some of that like, wow, what do you, what do you think of that? What are, what are some challenges? What are some wins? What, what about utilizing technology in this way to create, to multiply disciples?
Daniel Im (00:17:03):
Yeah. Yeah. In, in my book, no silver bullets, I talk about this idea of a, of a high tech kind of high touch approach to leadership development. And in the book I really focus it in and around leadership development. But when it comes to discipleship right there, there has to be that touch component to it, right? I mean, we're there, there has to be the interaction focused to it. Now I think that doesn't mean it has to be in person. I think there's a sense of are you on, is this active or are you, is it a, is it a passive approach? Right. So as it relates to a high tech and a high touch approach especially with church online, there is a sense of, okay, am I a consumer of this or is there active interaction like you and I, this is very active for you and I for the listeners, it's passive, right?
Daniel Im (00:18:00):
And so that's, that's the big diff biggest difference. So as it relates to discipleship and the sense of, okay, what does a high tech and a high touch approach look like? It can very much be, Hey, as a small group we are going to gather together on zoom. Right? And we are going to, yes, it's high tech and yeah, we're not in person, but it's active. Right? So I think there's this whole sense of we need to have a, an a proactive approach rather than this passive approach, especially as it relates when we're leveraging technology, but especially, especially as it relates to discipleship.
Jeff Reed (00:18:33):
So yeah, I love the fact that that you referenced high tech, high touch. I actually read a book 20 years ago, I think I was in college called high tech high touch by Larry Nesbitt. I guarantee you've never been in a podcast that referenced Larry Nesbitt. He was a business guy. It was, it was early on. It was like before Y two K but it was, it was this general principle that technology is an I, I forgive me, like I'm old. I don't know how old you are, but I'm not so old to be like the grumpy old guy. Get off my lawn, AKA ed Stetzer. We'll talk about him later. He's fun. I love it. Yeah, we did a podcast with him recently and it was awesome. But this high tech high touch with with Larry Nesbitt, you know, the principle was, is that technology by itself left to itself is cold.
Jeff Reed (00:19:23):
It's isolated. And so it's, it's very easy when you don't pay attention to the high touch level. I think you are guilty. We as a church are guilty of utilizing church online to create consumers. Yeah. And that, so if we leave it isolated, if we leave it unto itself, we are people who are creating content for consuming as opposed to building relationships. It's, it's funny, I actually do, they get off my lawn. That's literally a quote from ed Stetzer when he was on my podcast. We'll link to it in the show notes. It was, yeah, it was episode 49. And I'll tell you this, Daniel, it was, I don't know that I've said this publicly, but it's cool. Ed at, I love you if you're listening at, at we, I'm friends with ed. We used to worry at Miami and and so ed told me, Oh yeah, yeah, he told me, he's like, don't ask me questions on church online.
Jeff Reed (00:20:22):
And I'm like, why not? And he's like, you're not gonna like my questions if you ask me on church online. And I'm like, come on ed, can I get like constructive criticism? Can I say challenges and allow you to give me some feedback or, and he's like, just, you know, you can ask me if you want, but just you're going to get what you're gonna get. And I told ed this, I gave him this pitch of online to offline that the gospel we hear in the online world in tasks to affect our offline relationships. And it's, and it's a multiplication tool. And it's funny, ed Stetzer, as soon as I was done, literally, he's like, if you're a pastor, hearing what Jeff Reed said, you should do this. You know? And it's like he's never heard this idea, but it's, it's like let's not be consumers and creating this consumers where we're, we're being negative towards this, but let's be intentional. It's why I love your book so much. Let's be intentional towards disciple-making and I would just would add a little, you know, wrinkle to it. Let's figure out how to use the online tools to get there. And you know, another thing that I love, I love for your book and, and I want you to kind of start to speak in this and set this up. You use the term social space for me and for the listening audience, what social space is and how it kind of relates to this discipleship process.
Daniel Im (00:21:43):
Definitely. Definitely. So let's go back to the 50s, 1950s, Edward T. Hall, anthropologically he was doing research called proxemics and he was trying to identify how to animals. He started with animals realized, okay, how do do animals gather together and does this then relate to humans? So fast forward quite a bit. He basically identified four spaces that humans naturally connected and you got your public space, you got your public space. Like all the public spaces that are now being closed down cause the coronavirus so a hundred plus people, right? So there's that side. You got the social space, which is that 20 to 50 person sized space. So think stand up reception before wedding. So these kind of fluid spaces and then you've got these you've got these personal spaces, which is the third one. That's like eight to 12 people, like a small group. And you have the fourth space, which is the intimate space.
Daniel Im (00:22:41):
One or two people. The research basically stated that Hey, in all four spaces and all four spaces, we experience community, but one space, it's not necessarily that one space is more important than the others. They all have their unique benefits, advantages and disadvantages and a different ROI for each and every one of them. But the important thing to understand is we actually experience community differently in all four spaces. So if this is naturally how humans connect how are we leveraging these four spaces? So Joseph Myers and his book to search to belong, I think it was like early two thousands, he was one of the first ones I believe, to introduce this concept into the church conversation. And you know, many people have written on it thus far since then. So when you think about that social space, it's that idea. Like how I, I think as churches we do this small, the personal space, well, right?
Daniel Im (00:23:40):
Small groups, we do that well. And some churches, especially with D groups and accountability groups or LTDs or however you own, do it now more and more churches are doing this one to three person size space. Well, because those are the spaces where you can open up. Those are the spaces where you can create trust and build those relationships. And a lot of churches do the large public spaces. Well, I mean that's, that's kind of a corporate worship gathering, that 20 to 50 person size space, that's the space that's often under utilized. And here's the interesting fact, post writing the book if you're a church of under 200 people, I don't think there's as much of a need for a formalized 20 to 50 person sized space program or an approach to programming this cause naturally a lot of these spaces will just be there. You'll naturally have them if you're over 200, though, that's when you actually need to intentionalize these 20 to 50 person size gatherings.
Jeff Reed (00:24:42):
Oh, totally. Like, you know, and we, we've talked about, I think you may know the exact stat, but something like 80% of churches at this point are under 200. The average church is what? Probably 72 73. It seems like in the States it's a, it's about a hundred. The average candidates under 80. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So but for, for the, the Megan, the giga church, it's easy to get to get lost in that. And if you're not connected into that that, that smaller group though, the one that's down at the personal space area you're, you're, you're lost in, in accountability almost and then the church has lost that. And so I love this idea of that social space that the 20 to 50 number, you know, if I'm putting all my online pastor hat and you know, digital strategist, I'm looking at that 20 to 50 number thinking, man, what would it look like if we, if that was like house churches or micro locations?
Jeff Reed (00:25:40):
Around in, I'm looking at like, you know, elevation church with their watch parties. The home gatherings that Saddleback does, we even talk about, you've probably never heard of this, but a church called first Capitol Christian and coordinate Indiana. It's a small, I'm going to tell you this story. Daniel's awesome. It's, this right here is, is exactly why churches need to understand discipleship at a deeper level. This one, it's, it's in coordinate Indiana. You've never heard of coordinate Indiana, have you? No. No. So here's the deal. It's a small town of about 3000 people. And first Capitol Christian, and this is their words. I've had the lead pastor, we've done a couple podcasts with them on, it's on the wrong side of town, on the outskirts of town, on the, of like the, no one's around, no residential area like that. They bought the property decades ago and instead of the town going towards the church and went away from the church.
Jeff Reed (00:26:33):
Oh, okay. And so this church has every excuse to just dry up and die. Yeah. For some reason this church has over a thousand regularly attending. Nope. No. Yeah. Do the math, bro. So I'm like, wait a second, you're telling me you've got 30% attendance in a small town in Indiana right at the Kentucky border. This does it. Honest to God, I'm flying out there in June, in June, I'm going to speak at a conference and I'm like, I love you guys. I want to see it for real. And I trust him. And so like the people on Tyler Samson's a good friend. He's, he's the engagement pastor over there, but here's where sacred space fits in. Mm. The, the story and we talked about this in a podcast a lot where there was a nurse who worked at a Hodgkin's Huntington's rehab center.
Jeff Reed (00:27:30):
Basically it's a terminal disease with that. And so she was working on Sundays and she was really annoyed that she couldn't get off Sundays cause she wanted to go to church. She doesn't want to work Sundays but what you would do, she would grab her iPad, go sit in the community center with the iPad on her lap and just engage watching the church service online. And then one Sunday, like two people gathered around her and started watching the church service a couple of weeks later, four people a couple of weeks later, eight people, 12, 16. There's a photo. I've seen it with like 20 people gathered around this woman holding an iPad at a all in like the robes of Austin Little gowns experiencing this church and she takes this photo text that the church leadership and says, can you help me do ministry here? This small church, they've, they've literally discipled 18 volunteers, intentionally grown 18 people to be volunteer campus pastors at 18 micro locations around credible.
Jeff Reed (00:28:37):
It's, it's things like prisons. It's things like orphanages. They're literally adopting people, children, and to be part of the family solving within this small town, they, they're getting a 500 to 600 people engaging in these micro locations. So I'm bad at math, but the roughly a thousand, roughly 500, maybe 1500. Okay. Maybe they're getting some crossover, but in a small town of 3000, that's incredible. Did the mission of our church is to reach 1% of Edmonton, just 1% and we're running a few thousand on a weekend. Right? So it's just 1% that is incredible. And what you get from this is this is the power of, of empowering someone with the gospel and saying, you go, the thing that I love is the people that are the campus pastors. The volunteer campus pastors, the unpaid people, they're out there doing the ministry. The locations they often go to, they had a personal heart for.
Jeff Reed (00:29:42):
It's not like the the pastor is running around trying to find all these locations and manage this stuff. It's like what are you passionate about? Go disciple, make disciples and grow in that area and let, let us the church, first Capitol Christian, let us help you with that man. So awesome. A phenomenal story and in a challenge for I think a lot of churches out there that if we could kind of release the priesthood to the believers, let them run, equip them with the power to do this, man, we'd see some phenomenal things happen with multiplication and growth in our city. Amen. Are you a preacher?
Jeff Reed (00:30:24):
Ha, that's a funny story. It depends on who you ask. I'll come up. I'm a technology guy who had a midlife crisis and realized we are so we need to, we need to do some awesome things for the world and technology. High tech, high touch is a part of it, so Hey, I want to keep, I want to keep rolling with this because once again in the book there were like, I'm like, this is incredible. This is incredible. You introduced a new term to make and and you got me in trouble with my marriage. I'm going to, I'm going to call you out because I asked my wife about this, who has a master's of education and her response was not warm back. And so you guys talked about flip the classroom. Why don't, why don't you just give me a little insight, talk to me, you know about flip the classroom. Okay. So apologies if you've got trouble with your wife. Okay. We'll get into it in a second. Marriage and parenting podcast. So give that to her.
Daniel Im (00:31:26):
All that to say, the flipping the classroom idea is long story short, right? It's just super long story short. It's basically the idea of, okay, instead of, and this is within a church setting instead of saying, Hey, everyone's going to gather here and listen to this talking head. And then, and it's primarily, let's think about a leadership development. So you're training volunteers, K training volunteers, everyone's in a room, you are speaking, here's the lesson. And then everyone goes away and you know, maybe you pray together or whatever, but then you're on your training. So that's it. The problem with that though, right, is that it's hard to get 100% of your volunteers to that training environment. It's just with scheduling and all that stuff, it's just, it's just super hard. So the idea of flipping the classroom is, Hey, instead, why don't we give the lesson at home or via video? And then when you get together, right, you're flipping it, you then do the work together. So within the school setting, this is, I mean, think back to a world before YouTube.
Jeff Reed (00:32:34):
I lived that world. I know it.
Daniel Im (00:32:40):
Like 2005 if you shot a video, how did you share it with a friend? Like how do you share it with anyone else before Facebook, YouTube, or anything? Right. It was just so hard. Whereas now it's like, Oh, of course it's easy to share stuff. So the whole idea was basically in a, in a school classroom, these teachers who got sick and tired of trying to catch up sick, you know, kids who are sick, who missed the class and having to redo the electrode over and over again. They basically did a voice over, over their PowerPoint lecture, PowerPoint slides, voiceover, and they put it up on this new fandangled thing called YouTube. And they said, Hey, instead of me reviewing and recapping everything, Hey, just watch it. And then more kids watched it and more kids watched it and more. And then it started, you know, people who aren't even in that class or that school started watching it. So they're like, Oh, maybe we're onto something. So within the school environment, it was basically this idea of, Hey, when you're gathered together in a classroom instead of the teacher teaching, let's flip it so that the lesson is done at home and the homework is done at class rather than the lesson in class and homework at home. So that's that large. That's the concept in a nutshell. Yeah.
Jeff Reed (00:33:54):
My wife, let me finish the story on my side. My wife has a master's of education. She's a she's the smart one in the marriage by far. I'm the, I'm the dummy and my kids are brilliant. All because of her DNA, nothing to do with mine. And so like I, I'm, I'm on a plane in, I read your book and I'm like, this is awesome. I actually, I bought the book, flipped the classroom that you referenced. There's lots of different ones out there, but I actually read the specific one, the two chemistry teachers and their, their story and it was phenomenal. Super short read, definitely impactful. Great things just for me even processing, you know, what this looks like. And of course I'm thinking digital discipleship, what it means or even church online like processing outside of it. You know, I've had conversations with you know, high level organizations working through how to do discipleship online.
Jeff Reed (00:34:51):
It's like don't watch the videos when you're on zoom with everybody. Nobody wants to do that. Watch the videos in advance and take the opportunities to dialogue and discuss that's far more effective. And so like organizations are saying, this is awesome and this is even before I read the book, like, everything's going great. I'm like, this is awesome. We're swinging momentum. I actually now have a book, it's called, you know, or that I can have proof, Hey, here are the guys who actually came up with this concept. Daniel Imsaid, it's great. And so I asked my wife when I got home a dinner one night after reading the book on on the plane, Hey Amy, have you ever heard of this? Like flipped classroom thing? And I love my wife. And she was not positive in her response back. No. and, and the response was more centered around, yeah, those are just teachers being lazy.
Jeff Reed (00:35:41):
And now what's interesting and there's a lot of heart. Yeah. I mean, he's an educator. Maybe there's some of and I've told my wife I'm having these conversations. So like, people are like, I can't believe he's saying it's Bob's wife. We're fine, it's good. But there's, there's this place of, you know, she's defining who she is by the performance. But not necessarily having the best mind to, of what's around for the, for the kids and whatever's best for the kids. Maybe we need to break the paradigms of what we're doing so that the students are able to get what they need and there's, and I think there's an opportunity for us, even within the church, you know, I, I mentioned this to in a, in a previous podcast and in a, in a digital pastor who's at a multisite churches. Oh, I've, I've heard that lazy comment before.
Jeff Reed (00:36:31):
People talk about that all the time when they're talking to pastors who do a video teaching to multisite campuses. Oh, the other camp, because the other pastors are just being lazy when in fact a video teaching pastor, the campus pastors that don't have to prep a message. My gosh, they've got so much more time to be pastoral, shepherding involved in people's lives. Disciple-Making there's a reason why that model is effective. It's not the perfect model. And I'm not saying necessarily that it is, but there's a great opportunity for us to do something different. Yeah. How have you seen flipped the classroom be effective? I want to hear this. Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. That's awesome. So
Daniel Im (00:37:15):
How it's very beneficial within a school environment and not, let me just do that and then I'll, I'll go to the church environment. How it's super beneficial within a school environment. And also when you're training leaders in your church, is that an in a, in a group of 20 people, typical classroom, 30 people, what level do you teach to not ever ends at the same level. So you have to generalize it as a teacher in some sense or fashion. And there are going to be people who are on par, listening, engaged. They're going to be some people who are like, this is, I know everything. Why this is such a huge boar. And they're going to be others who just don't really get it. And that's just naturally when you have that many people, it's hard to customize and personalize the lesson. The beauty of flipping the classroom is that if you get the lesson and you, and you're one of those kids who get it and you're like, yeah, I don't need to sit in a lecture, then just fast forward through it.
Daniel Im (00:38:13):
You don't need to watch the video at home, a lesson just fast forward, but you need abs. And this is, this is so key. You need some sort of comprehension oriented assignment. So it is some sort of homework but it, but it needs to be some sort of assignment to to indicate that's the accountability side to indicate that you watched or you got the concept right now, if you didn't get the lesson, you couldn't rewind and watch again. If you do, if you, if you're on par, then you watch it all the way through. So the beauty is when you're actually together cause learning, learning and you look at all the bark, right? Bark as a model of visual, oral, you know, all the different ways that people learn. Not everyone. Listen, not everyone can learn via auditory as well or there. There might not be as much red tension that happens through this passive learning.
Daniel Im (00:39:04):
But a lot of learning happens when we're teaching. A lot of learning happens when we're engaging. So when you flip the classroom and the kids are all together, what do you do with the kids who don't get the lesson? You as a teacher, you don't teach the kids who don't get the lesson. You pair the kids who get the lesson with the kids who don't get the lesson. And the kids who get it are teaching the kids who don't get it. Because what? That is one of the most effective ways to learn when you teach, right? And you're saying, Hey, can you help Joey here you get it. And that kid, the learning goes even deeper there. And then the kids who get it, you know, they're doing interactive projects together. So here's the thing, right? Math Y like I did Kumon, right? And you know, there's a lot of different sure reels, a lot of drills that happen.
Daniel Im (00:39:50):
It's like, okay, why am I doing geometry? Why am I like, it's just drill, drill, drill. You need to learn the formula. What if instead we said, Hey, we're going to build a, we're going to build out of toothpicks or out of something. We're going to build this building, but we're going to map it out architecturally to make sure it works. And that's why geometry matters and we're going to do and you know, so the majority of the classes, they're working on these projects doing the calculations because they're building a building out of toothpicks. It's not just trial and error. No, you got to do the calculations first and then the kids who really don't get it, that's the one. Those are the ones that teachers can personally help. Right. Personally help cause they have the time to do it. So within a church context, it's exactly the same.
Daniel Im (00:40:35):
You have a group of 30 small group leaders. Why do you think it's effective for, why do you think it's an effective use of their time and your time for you to just for 30 minutes, teach them how to connect or, or how to deal with over talkers. Right. How do you know that they're actually going to be competent in their ability to deal with over talkers just by listening to you. You don't, they need to practice it. So give the lesson at home, right via video here. Watch this 10 minute video and that's the other thing, right? You lecture in front of a live audience, it's typically going to be way longer than a video because you need the, you need the stories, you need the inflections, you need all that stuff. It's a, if it's a video, just go straight to the 0.5, 10 minutes, bam.
Daniel Im (00:41:22):
Done. Right? And people are okay with that medium and that and that and that way of communication because if there's too much fluff, people are going to fast forward anyway, right? So having said all that, give the lecture at home, come together, right? That's the flipping the classroom. Give a five minute recap. Invision them, thank them, encourage them what you can do in person and then say, okay, we're going to do, we're going to, we're going to implement, we're going to do this project together, or we're going to have these conversations together. We're going to pair you up here as a case study and you guys work this and you're the over-talk or, and you're the group leader and work it out so that people can actually grow in their proficiency. So that's obviously on the leadership development side, post writing the book. I also have done this on the discipleship side, whereas a small group now we would do book studies and then we would also do video based studies.
Daniel Im (00:42:16):
So I was like, man, this is, this is like, this is dreadful to just sit together, watch this together. And now our discussion is a, we don't have a lot of time for discussion and we don't have a lot of time for prayer. So I was like, Hey guys, let's all watch this at home. Right? And we were using a small group.com from Lifeway and right now media and I mean there's all these platforms, right? So we're using it, watch it at home, come together now instead of 15 minutes for discussion and five minutes for prayer, we now had an hour for everything or an hour and a half for everything. And instead of trying to w, you know, Gulf down our food and 15 minutes, it was more time for food, more time for connection, more more time for everything, way more margin. And there's a lot more connection and yes, you're right, 100% of the people did not watch it.
Daniel Im (00:43:08):
Yes. However, however, what was fascinating to me is that there was actually, there's vertical accountability and horizontal accountability, right? Vertical is from the leader downward. What I realized is as the leader, I didn't have to do the vertical accountability. Everyone was keeping each other accountable. And if someone didn't watch it, it wasn't actually me pointing them out. It was someone else in the group horizontal and be like, dude, just put it on your phone while you're driving. Like you have no excuse. And I didn't have to say that other people were doing it cause they're like, come on man, you're like you're wasting our time. And it was just this neat dynamic that built rather than me having to, you know, come down with the ruler.
Jeff Reed (00:43:52):
I love, I love that accountability from a, from the level playing field, not, not above. Hey you, you said something I want to back up cause I, I've there's a difference or I'm interested in your take, because you said that one model was, was more towards the, during the book you were dressed it more from a leadership development side and then you don't delved into more of a discipleship post. The book, I just would love, what's the relationship between discipleship, disciple-making leadership development. I would love as somebody at Lifeway, somebody with, with your, what's
Daniel Im (00:44:32):
Your opinion on that? Just give me a couple minutes. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So vision, strategy, values in a church vision, strategy and values. Vision. So where we're going, and this is great commission, great commandment, right? Regardless of how you word it out, strategy is what you do to get to where you need to be. Strategy and every church has to be, it's like a double helix, like DNA. And this is all in the book too. It's, it's this double helix of your discipleship pathway or your leadership pipeline, right? Those are the two strands in your strategy. Every single thing that a church does, this is the what strategy is the what to get to the, where vision and values are how you do what you do to get to where you need to go. So in every church, everything that a church does, it's either going to leadership pipeline, equip the saints for the work of ministry, or it's going to on the discipleship pathway side, mature them toward Christ.
Daniel Im (00:45:29):
This directional point of view. So when it comes to flipping the classroom, when it comes to everything a church does, if we simplify it down to the sense of, Hey, this activity is it either, is it, is it more focused on the discipleship pathway side or the leadership pipeline side? And a lot, there's going to be, there's going to be an inter linking of a lot. And that's why it's a double helix. That's why it's a w. I mean there's a lot of interrelation. But here's the thing, your leadership pathway and your pipeline and your discipleship pathway are not the same thing. And it's so important that we recognize that they are not the same thing. And I even heard people say, Oh, leadership is just advanced discipleship. And it, it's, I can't, I can't emphasize how important it is to understand that they are not the same thing.
Daniel Im (00:46:17):
There's a lot of interrelatedness. That's why it's a double helix, but they're not the same thing. And here's why. Here's why. And this is post book as well, right? What you believe on one, you will begin to assume on the other. If it's the same thing, what you believe about one, you will actually begin to assume on the other. So here's what I'm talking about. Your leadership pipeline. You can check off the box and actually say, I have displayed proficiency on this competency. I know how to do this. I didn't know how to do this and now I've learned how to do it. Knowledge, experience coaching. That's that transformational sweet spot. I have now demonstrated proficiency and I now know I'm done. I'm good. Great. That is awesome. For your leadership pipeline, discipleship doesn't work like that. You don't go, Oh, I've checked off patients.
Daniel Im (00:47:11):
I've checked off love, I've checked off humility, I've checked off. No, no, no. You are growing the on this side of eternity, right, and never ends. It never ends. And even on the other side of Aternity, it doesn't end either. Right? We were always growing in our knowledge of Christ always maturing and our knowledge of Christ. So if they're the same thing, if they're the same thing, what you believe on one, you'll begin assuming on the other and just like you can check off competencies on leadership pipeline, you'll begin to check off your discipleship pathway and then you'll go down the road of program. It'll go down the road of, yes, I've done this. Look at all the studies on my shelf, see how mature I am. Yeah, no,
Jeff Reed (00:47:57):
It doesn't work like that. We've got such an opportunity to to impact people in different sides. I, I know personally, like in some of the churches that I work with, it's very easy to meld the two together. The, the, the helix is, is, is, is a beautiful picture where it intersects, where there's opportunities for it to work together, but there's urgency on each side for different reasons towards that. It's there from a practical standpoint, just, just gimme gimme a couple of things here, but from a practical standpoint, how do you separate between the two? Like ed says, this is ed. Ed's. Okay. Everybody, we're doing a weekend service. That's awesome. We're doing a we're doing small groups. That's great. We need a third thing. You know, the, the, I'm gonna drop another guy who's been on the podcast to Eric Geiger.
Jeff Reed (00:48:53):
Simple church. Boiling it all down to two things. Probably wasn't a good idea culturally where we are now making fun of Eric. I love Eric too. We need a third thing. So let's go ahead and add let's add a discipleship intentional discipleship thing. That's what, that's what Ed's, it's looking for. He's like Sunday night service, Wednesday night something, but an opportunity for that deep Bible exposure driving people. So now if I, if I'm separating leadership development, is that a fourth thing? Like how many more things am I throwing on this? You know, like what does it, what does it practically look like to create a church that's developing disciples and at the same time growing leaders?
Daniel Im (00:49:37):
Mmm, okay. So last chapter of no silver bullets. We have we have our ongoing steps, our first steps in our next steps, right? So ongoing steps are those things where as a mature follower of Christ, it's the practices that Jesus practice. It's the things, and that's where the research of here are the inputs. Here's 80, 20, here's the inputs that make the biggest output. So that's, that's, that's core. And that's not programmatic, that's just, that's the life of a follower of Christ programmatically. Yeah. You got first steps, you're brand new, do alpha, you're brand new, come to hear your, you know, communication wise. And I mean we can do a whole probably episode on echo chambers and how that affects church life and everything. Cause that was definitely, I've done a huge deep dive on that post this book cause it was just, it's crazy how it's affected discipleship.
Daniel Im (00:50:24):
So that's on another note. And then you got your next steps. So what you were just talking there, deeper life, next steps. You know, I'm, we're going to be doing these things called masterclasses, right? It's just this whole idea of what is that close to Christ Christ centered class to just go super deep. Because there is a sense of yeah, ever it needs to be a self feeder. But as a pastor there is a sense of Hey, we need to really pour into and mature our people. So that's all great leadership. It's not another thing because it has to be just in time type of training. Right? And in churches that program I's leadership, that's, and here's why digital is so important, right? Because inevitably, and sorry, there's a lot of, there's a lot of things going on. My latest book, you are what you do.
Daniel Im (00:51:15):
And six other lies about where Kalev and like it's the gig economy, right? I'm, the premise is the gig economy is here, which is side hustles. So all that to say, people have asked me, so if you've written this book on how the gig economy has affected us lives as Christians and as people, what does this have to do with Sundays? Like does this, does this actually have something to do with the lack of attendance on Sundays now? Because 36%, 35% of the American workforce is a part of the gig economy. That's 57 million people in America, right? And that's the same percentage in a lot of different countries. So the answer is, I don't believe that gig economy affects Sunday morning attendance. But what it does affect is your volunteer hours. What it does effect is midweek, because now with the gig economy, every hour is a billable hour.
Daniel Im (00:52:08):
Every hour is a billable hour now, right? So now instead of saying, Oh, I'm work my part time job for this person, I have to put in hours. Now every hour is a billable hour. So for volunteers who would say, Oh yeah, you know, I would've, yeah, whatever. I got lots of free time. Who wants free time? Yeah, I'll go help you do that. I'll do this. And these days it's shrinking more and more and more because every hour is a billable hour, right? It's like I could be doing this or I could be Ubering for a couple hours or doing, you know, this contracting and I could earn a few hundred dollars and then I could do this and go on this vacation. So I don't know if I have as much time anymore pasture. Right? So here's where this all loops together, where it all loops together. Going back to your original question as it relates to leadership, pipeline, leadership classes, all that stuff in your church, for every new volunteer that you have, you need to think onboarding.
Daniel Im (00:53:02):
How do we onboard well and that onboarding is not a class. The onboarding is just in time. Here's how to, you know, apprentice wise or online wise, here's what you need to know and let's get together and I'm going to coach you and we're going to work. It's on the job training but for every church you need onboarding but you also need ongoing, you need ongoing training, onboarding and ongoing. So an onboarding is immediate. Ongoing is you need to develop the core competencies of your people and have so that they can move up your leadership pipeline. So the ongoing training, the only way that ongoing training is going to be effective is if it's delivered online. Because the worst thing that you can do is do an a leadership development one Oh one class on another Sunday evening or after church. And it's one more thing when every hour is a billable hour.
Daniel Im (00:53:57):
One more thing that people don't want to go to. And number one, they don't want to go to it cause they don't have time. And every hour is a billable hour at number two. It's like what does this have to do with my life and me serving as a small group leader because it's so generalized. It's so general. I so, but it's important. Core competency training is critical to move people from volunteers to leaders, to leaders, to coaches, coaches, administrator, directors and other, so the reason online is so important is now flipping the classroom, you can highly specify the training. So it's just in time within relationship to that department and it's very focused and it's not another night out. It's literally on the commute to work and then coming home from work, Hey, let's talk on the phone. Right. It's just, yeah. So
Jeff Reed (00:54:46):
No, this is. I've been thinking a lot about this, right? I love everything about this. Like I, I'm, I'm, I'm so excited by this. What's, what's interesting to me is I see what you're describing. I see churches who do what you're describing and, and, and, and just in my context, yeah, they're church plants. They are church plants, not with staff people, but who are drew were like, there's a pastor who is, who's the paid guy maybe or it's, they're still fundraising and it's a completely volunteer team. They are the ones that are more driven by the all this virtual technology and zooms for the meetings. Like it's like the, the, the larger organizations where no, let's just get everybody together. The multisite church that it's like, yeah, let's try have everybody in to like have these, these conversations cause we just, we need to be in the room for it. But I love the fact that when when I meet and through stadia just meeting more and more of them, a lot of these guys, it's like, well yeah, of course we think we can do discipleship online. We do everything else online. Like it's not that far of a jump. I know our culture.
Daniel Im (00:55:55):
Here's the tipping point in my, in my estimation, because online's been around for a long time. Right. Especially training and all that stuff. I think the tipping point was when LinkedIn bought lynda.com what was it like for $2 billion or something? I thought a few, couple of years ago. Yeah. Honestly, I think that was the tipping point. You're going to have to explain that because that sounds really deep. I tell, tell me why, why is that the tipping point? So online has been around for awhile and there's sense of you know, the educational world is, has definitely lagged behind, but the church world has lagged even more behind any, I mean obviously you got guys like Leonard sweet who are just like living 50 years in the future and half-life and there's all that stuff, right? I mean the guy's brilliant, but he is literally from another century.
Daniel Im (00:56:44):
Like he is so ahead of us. Right. So in light of all that, Scotty's got the dr strange powers where he can like say all the alternative realities. Yeah. 4.7 million. And this is the one, this is the one I love Leonard. Sweet. Keep going. I know, I know. And by the way, I mean CPLF church planting leadership fellowship stadia comes to it, but you should definitely come in July and we can, he's going to be speaking with us. It's all, it's church planning stuff so we can talk some, yeah, love it. But basically the reason I believe LinkedIn buying lynda.com was a tipping point is because you had all of these online training platforms forming lynda.com professional services and you got Skillshare and ministry grid and right now media and yet all these different online kind of platforms out there educationally wise Moodle, Blackboard was way behind, way behind.
Daniel Im (00:57:39):
Right? And then you had canvas kind of start up and it was like, Oh, looks better. But it's kind of just a facelift. And so all this was stirring, right? All this was stirring and then LinkedIn bought lynda.com I could be incorrect, but I think it was $2 billion. But I mean I might be way off, but I know it was a lot of money, a lot of money. When that happened, you began seeing a tipping point where around that time YouTube then invested into YouTube education. Ted did create this platform, right? So then, and then master classes, which was, I mean this is high and online training where there, I mean I did the Malcolm Gladwell writing one, I was gifted that right. And you can learn it. Are you gonna learn, you know, cooking from Gordon Ramsey and it's just like, but literally the amount of money that was poured in the venture capital investment that's now being poured into masterclasses and all that.
Daniel Im (00:58:36):
I mean it was just a Oh right. It was just so fast. But I found it was ticking along very slowly up until that point. And then, you know, zoom is not like who doesn't use zoom? I mean we're using zoom right now, but it was just, it was just, yeah. So I think within the church world, we've gotten to that point now where everyone in like online, you don't development if someone's in a white collar kind of job, even if they're in a blue collar, job development, ongoing development is important. Certification is important and it's more and more and more online. So why are we lagging so behind as a church? I love everything about this, this entire conversation. This has been the highlight of a crazy couple
Jeff Reed (00:59:22):
Of weeks. I want to ask this. Yeah, thank you. I want to ask this one question cause I'm really interested, you've set this question up so perfectly, I don't even need to really, except I want to educate you on, on my terms through stadia, they hired me to be director of digital church planting. We are literally trying to figure out what a digital only expression of church looks like. As part of that, we're wrestling with the biblical ecclesiology of, of what are the biblical functions and not how do we mirror what happens in physical space and do it virtually, but how best can we do virtually what the Bible calls us to do. So example teaching, we're doing a 40 minute sermon on a platform. Well is a 40 minute sermon. The best way to communicate teaching. I actually had had an I, a guy telling me, Hey, you know what Paul wrote when he taught that means that writing's okay.
Jeff Reed (01:00:17):
Why don't we just write? And I'm like, wait, are you telling me that teaching could be blogged format like that? Nobody has. I have never heard that. But somebody just kind of, and this is the guy I trust, Jason Morris from Westside family and just, and so we're, we're having lots of these fun conversations in process to try to figure out how a church can function a hundred percent digitally. There's guys like, and I may throw some things out that you don't know, but DJ Soto's doing VR church, I don't know if you're familiar with Jade Earhart is doing a video game. A church is moving that direction, but he's got a discipleship platform for him through discord, literally discipling video gamers who are going out and witnessing while playing Xbox video games, winning people to Christ while winning destiny too. It's just, it's crazy stuff. So here's my question to you, because the average person had just explodes.
Jeff Reed (01:01:14):
Why talk about a lot on the podcast. So if they listen regularly, they've already exploded and it's old news. But for you, I want to ask this question, what are the challenges? What, what, what's the direction? What advice, because we are pioneering towards this digital church thing. You, obviously through the past hour I had very good understanding of discipleship and digital, which are two of the things that I am building this foundation of digital church on. I would love to know your knee jerk reaction and would you be willing to think about it and come back and have another conversation later. We can get the number to you later, but number one, what's your knee jerk reaction? When I talk about a digital only expression of worship. Yeah. Okay. So I've, I've done a lot of thinking around this too. Obviously not as much as you. Yeah. So, but when it comes to this,
Daniel Im (01:02:06):
Here's the thing, the role of the preach, right? The role of the preach, the role of that community. I still honestly do believe that that's a very important thing for the formation of people. So yes, we need to be self feeders. Yes, we need to, from the research, really be focusing on reading the Bible and being in community and all that stuff. But that gathered expression, that gathered expression is such an important piece of formation that honestly, I don't, you're right. I don't think it has to be in person, but there is an praise the Lord. We're Protestants and we, you know, when it comes to communion, it's just get your own juice and crackers and you know, let's do communion together. I think that's fine. In fact, our church, my church here, Beulah, it's 99 years old used to do radio preaching back in like the 30s, forties where it would be printed in the newspaper. Hey, get your bread and your crackers are your bread and your juice ready because we're going to be committing this Sunday over the radio.
Jeff Reed (01:03:12):
Yeah, they were. So, and bring your own communion in like the 30s.
Daniel Im (01:03:15):
Exactly. Yeah. That is a phenomenal story. I love that. That's great. So, and my church here, I mean over 60 church plants. It's since origin. So it's, I mean, I love multiplication. I love being back here in Canada. But having said all that yes, the gathered experience is so important. We can do it online. I believe it can be, I don't know. I haven't heard a lot of expressions of it being done well, really well online. And I think the technology is still growing. It's still advancing and there's that, it's that tipping. I don't think the tipping point has been met yet on this piece, on this piece. Who knows what the coronavirus is going to do. Like literally I, I just, I really do wonder what the coronavirus is going to do to church online and how it's going to be moving, how it's going to advance a lot of that too. But all that to say, I think the jury is still out in terms of what's the most effective way to do it. But let's experiment.
Jeff Reed (01:04:11):
So I'm not taking that as a roaring endorsement, but I am taking that of Hey, little be interesting to see how far you get. Oh, here, here's the reality is, and I love stadio for doing this. Is there, Hey, we want to throw some research and development behind this and even the posture of when I work with, when I talk specifically with churches that we're looking at to plant these, it's, it's, Hey, we're experimenting. Come be part of the experiment with us. Actually, I, one of the, one of the pastors shot me an email and this, this may be a bad thing, but he, he's like, whether or not we're actually successful in this, we feel like God's calling us to because where we full fail and where we succeed, someone else will come behind. And so the, the, the posture of stadia, which I love is we're going to experiment and we're going to learn through this process.
Jeff Reed (01:05:04):
And if we're successful, awesome. The people behind us are going to have a better shot. And somebody, you know, hate to say somebody's gotta be first. But I feel like, honestly, like I've, I've been wanting to do this, and I don't mean to overstate here, but it's literally been 20 years. I graduated from college in 1999 started a.com right there in the.com boom towards helping churches work through this stuff, like in 2000 right after why? To amen here. OGM man. And it's like I'm trying to find somebody and a man just put the band downs, dance back and forth between gigs and stadiums. Like, Hey, come over here. Let's, let's, let's talk and seeing how they've, they've run with this has been exciting. I hate to, I hate to say it, like I'm going to call you out. Like I'm building some of this stuff around the principles of what you're doing and you're not showing me enough love back.
Jeff Reed (01:05:54):
That's cool. I love you. I still want to have these conversations. I still want to come to the conference in July. I'll have you speak at the conference in July. This will be good. That's awesome, isn't it? Is it in Canada? Is that what? Wheaton. Oh, that's awesome. Very, very cool. Yeah. Well for a lot of trouble. Who knows. I was about to say, Googled a bunch of things happening, but hopefully, hopefully we can get it figured out then. I, yes. So listen, seriously. And I'll turn the corner. Thank you for this podcast. This has been in a world of Corona virus that is just inundating the ability to laugh a little bit here to talk about things that aren't Coronas sensitive. I hope, I hope my audience who hopefully has a similar sense of humor as I do, they seem to enjoy these things. I hope they are enjoying this and in a lot of the conversations. So thank you for this. Just as we're landing the plane, Daniel, any any closing thoughts in anything that, that you want to, to say or,
Daniel Im (01:06:55):
Or a reference or hit? On my church, we live stream. The number one, how I'm using, how we're using the live stream and leveraging the live stream. I really don't care if people watch it around the world. The one thing I really care about is those in Edmonton and using this as a front door and moving people from that to a gathered location. So I do believe that church online can be leveraged and should be leveraged, especially when the front door is your Instagram or for, I don't even think the front doors, your website anymore, depending on the age is front doors. It's your Instagram account depending on the age or it's your livestream or you know, for certain generations it's your websites. So leverage, how do you leverage that as the new lobby to get people into community and saved and pointed toward Christ and discipled. So yeah, I love it. I love the work that you're doing and the thinking that you're doing toward this. So thank you for doing that, man.
Jeff Reed (01:07:52):
Awesome. And as long as that front door leads into an intentional discipleship process that's utilizing online to make disciples, I love everything that you just said. And, and so, and, and you're literally the guy that wrote the book. So who am I to question that? We're, we're all about you know, the, the no silver bullets you mentioned briefly and not, let's just let you tag on it. What was the, you've got a more recent book that you publish. What gives us
Daniel Im (01:08:16):
Decent details on that. Yeah. So it's called you are what you do. And six other lies about work, life and love. So it's a book basically on the fact that the gig economy is here. Side hustling is, it's not the questions move from, have you heard of side hustles to what is your side hustles? So it's just an increase. It's a fast growing phenomenon. And I addressed seven lies that have risen to the surface because of this gig economy. And it's, it's a fascinating take, I believe on here's our world is changing. This is the gig economy is affecting work. It's affecting life, it's affecting relationships. And here are seven ways that it's doing that. So it is a discipleship tool, but first and foremost, it really is a tool that I'm hoping that people would use toward evangelistic evangelistic means because it is that sense. Hey, here's the, you've heard it was said, but now I say to you as it says, you know, Matthew five with Jesus. So yeah, that's kind of the premise of the book. Your listeners can definitely look it up if they want.
Jeff Reed (01:09:22):
Awesome. We'll throw some links on the show notes to both books. Of course. No silver bullets is as well as the six lies is what stuck with me, boy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anywhere what you do. Yeah. You are what you do, which by the way, why not going to, yeah. It's a lie. And I'm not going to show it to my wife cause I don't want to have to relive that conversation. So we're, we are doing very, very well. So Daniel, thank you very much for your time. We're going to wrap here for the church digital podcast audience out there. Thanks for listening and hope you see you next time here at the podcast. Y'all have a good day.
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