This is HIS Story Podcast

Episode 30 - Interview with Jeff Reed

August 09, 2022 Todd Turner and Jeff Reed Season 1 Episode 30
This is HIS Story Podcast
Episode 30 - Interview with Jeff Reed
Show Notes Transcript

Let's talk about the Meta Verse and how the church can or will or might spread the gospel and even make disciples in the virtual world. Jeff is already deep down the rabbit hole of a world many Americans and church leaders have not even considered. If you are a pastor or church leader, you need to listen in.

Listen in to hear what makes Jeff tick and how God has wired him... then we will jump into the new virtual world. 

About Jeff: Founding THECHURCH.DIGITAL in 2018, Jeff’s passions have evolved into helping churches (and individuals too!) find their calling through digital discipleship, releasing people on digital mission, and planting multiplying digital churches. This pursuit is realized through DigitalChurch.Network, an organic, decentralized network for digital expressions of church. The DCN vision is achieved by working with the team NewThing Network. Jeff also champions Meta Church development as the Director of META for Leadership Network, and works closely Exponential and other globally facing, multiplication friendly, gospel-centric organizations.

Jeff married his high-school sweetheart, Amy, and has two kids, and a dog, They live in Miami, Florida.

Welcome to this is his story podcast today. We're with Jeff Reed, founder of the digital church nest work and the church digital and welcome Jeff. I am so excited. Today's conversation. There's not too many people in the world like you, with the knowledge that you have about our topic. Awesome. Yeah, listen, it's, it's great to be here, Todd.

Thanks for the invite. I, I mean it, when I say. I'm ex I'm gonna have to force myself to get to know you first, because I wanna jump right into all this metaverse stuff. I, I I've written about it. I've thought about it. I, but I've never got to bounce something off, somebody who knows way more than I do about it.

And so I'm gonna pick your brain crazy, but let's start with you. I, I want to get to know you first. I don't know you, some of my guests. I know some of, I don't, I don't, I know nothing about you and on purpose. I don't research because I wanna figure it out. Like we're just sitting across the table for the first time.

Totally good. So tell me a little bit, where did you grow up? Tell me a little bit about your childhood experience and, you know, sort of what, besides God's, uh, character stuff he put in you, like what, what did your environment do for you? Awesome. Yeah, so I, I currently live in Miami, Florida. Um, and actually the house that I grew up in is about two miles away from where I sit right now.

Uh, and so I grew up in Miami, uh, married my high school sweetheart, who was also from Miami, all four of our, all, you know, my parents and my wife's parents were from Miami, their grandparents, their parents, like we're, we're like third or fourth generation Miami, which is super rare. I was gonna say, that's unheard of, yeah, people usually don't stick in Miami that long.

And it's, it's a very transient city. Uh, but for, and we've, we've lived in other areas, we've done a lot of ministry in, in Texas, in different cities, but, uh, for some reason, God just keeps bringing us back here to Miami. Uh, and so it's a lot of fun. Um, we are comfortable with multicultural. Uh, we, my Spanish, uh, I've been told, offends people, so I try not to speak  Espanol that much, but, um, it is, we do try to, uh, to engage in the culture and, and support.

You know, a lot of the ministry happens in Miami. Um, my it's funny. Um, I, I can tell you a very long story, um, that probably isn't as helpful, but, uh, I'm adopted, um, my, my, I was adopted into a, uh, Christian family basically at birth. They, they brought me home from the hospital, um, backstory on the adoption side.

Um, my father was a Russian nuclear physicist who defected from Moscow in the seventies. Uh, he cuz he didn't want communism to get the nuclear bomb. Uh, he shacked up with a psychologist from Iowa who was having an affair on her husband. Uh, she got pregnant from Russian daddy, uh, Russian and daddy ran away.

Um, when, um, when he found out that she was pregnant, she went back to her husband, confessed, the affair, the husband said, I'll take you back. I don't want anything to do with the baby, me. Uh, and, uh, she went to what she thought was an abortion clinic come to find out it was a pro-life center. And, uh, I was actually, they, the, uh, adoption clinic, uh, the pro-life center, I should say, convinced her not to have the abortion me, uh, and to carry me full term and to put me up for adoption.

And that's how I ended up in this seat, um, was centered around that story. And that's nuts. That's crazy. Like we could spend all day talking. Yeah, I was gonna say, I could unpack that for a long time. I can ask this. How old were you? Did you have to go find that out through research or did they tell your adopted parents and they sort of knew and waited for you to hear it?

This is a crazy story. Uh, so I knew I was adopted early on, um, maybe eight or 10, uh, but they didn't, they didn't, my parents didn't tell me the backstory. Uh, they just said you're adopted. That's great. Um, I played baseball, uh, with, with a friend of mine. His name was Mike and, and Mike's dad was a lawyer.

And, and at some point I'm over at Mike's house, hanging out with Mike and his family. And, and I said something about, you know, my last name Reed or my parents and, and, and the lawyer, dad, I was 16 at the time, the lawyer dad looks at me and he says,  your parents are, are John and Linda. And I was like, yes.

And, and he says, do you know who you are? This is honest to God. He says, do you know who you are? Wow. And I was like, um, maybe this dude was the lawyer that negotiated the, the, the adoption, what? And he had no clue. I had no clue. My parents had no clue. So this, this lawyer guy's telling me all this stuff, and it's surreal, like, yeah, your dad used to create weapons of mass destruction.

Like just hang out on that for a while. Right. And so I'm hearing this and my head is exploding at the potential of this. And, and so I go home, Hey, so this guy over here is telling me this story, is this is this true? And mom's like, That's that's pretty much true. Right. Uh, and, and you know what that means, and, and you, you know, it was funny.

I've had friends that, uh, that were adopted that actually tried to find the birth parents and, and open up just op open confession. That's that's never been my desire. Like my, my parents are John and Linda. Yeah. Um, those nice people that didn't kill me. Uh, that's nice of you. I appreciate that. But I've seen the turmoil that it, that it does in, in families.

And so like, I've, I've never really wanted to expose that. Um, you know, if God wants to orchestrate something, maybe I'll see 'em the other side of, of, of this life and into the next, but, uh, for whatever purpose, you know, my parents are my parents and, and they've been awesome. God fearing people. Well, yeah, I was gonna say you, you were, you were put at the doorstep of faith that you might not have ever got to.

Any other path, right? Yeah. And, and the reality is, is that, you know, and we'll get into this, I'm sure I talk crazy stuff. And, and, and then I cannot think of more par of any other parents that have been more supportive wow. Of their kids in, in what's going on, like this path, uh, of, of how digital church and metaverse church and how church com uh, digital communi can I.

Churches and can be church. Um, like I've been having this conversation for 25 years. Yeah. And, and they're both of their, I mean, my father at one point said to me, Hey Jeff, are you, when are you gonna actually get a real job? But once we kind of work through that conversation, why that's really not a good thing to say.

Yeah. Like they, they both have been very supportive in, in their unique ways. And, and so I'm. If, if you've been doing this for two and a half decades, I know I've been doing digital, um, and nonprofit church stuff for that long. Definitely not anything close to metaverse ish and, and, you know, church online.

But I get sick of just because you're in computers and you did it back in the nineties and the two thousands, everybody S you know how to fix, you know, Hey, my computer's acting a little funny, you know, you're like, I don't do that. Like, I don't, I can't do your TV. I don't know how VCRs plug in the back, the whole thing.

Yeah, I, so my, my, uh, my blessing, my spiritual gift is any broken technology will fix magically as soon as I enter the room. Okay. Like it's, it's a, it's a proven fact. All right. Um, my, my mom will call me up and say, Jeff, come over. My printer's not working. All I have to do is enter breathable space, the square foot room that that printer is in and magically, everything works.

The remote control, the iPhone, right air, you know, uh, air, air, share, whatever they call it, where you can share stuff remotely. Um, anything it's just magically works when Jeff enters the room. And, and so, like, I I've been called a technological genius as a result. I'm really not. Okay. Uh, I, I just evidently uh, radiate apple.

Goodness. Well, its uh, and so that's the hook. It's a blessing and a curse because now you get called every time something breaks. I just like telling people right up front. I'm not sure. I'm not sure huckleberry on this one. I can't do it. It's like the guy who owns a truck that always gets called to help with moving that's exactly.

Yeah. Yeah. Just told you, you have a bicycle only and in the one falls anymore.  all right. So you're you, you are into a Christian family. You, uh, I'm assuming became a believer when you were a child or. Teenager. Yeah, it was, it was early on for me where I understood, you know, the, the sin in my life, uh, how, how God Jesus, through his sacrifice completed that.

Um, and, and it was probably later on in, in, you know, middle school or high school that I really felt a calling. Uh, in, in my life there, there, and you, you know, I was born in 77. I graduated college 99. Uh, and, and so, you know, maybe mid nineties, early nineties, I, I started to read the word multimedia in an apple plus magazine and, and started to get a picture of what technology could do for the church, you know, in, in the early nineties and so much.

So when I graduated from college in 99, I actually tried to get a job as a digital pastor in the year 2000 Y2K was not a thing. It was all a bunch of, uh, you know, snuff, bluff, whatever, uh, fluff. And, um, and, and so, Hey, church is out there. They surely, they now have to recognize the need of digital ministry, the potential to reach people in those digital spaces.

Surely some church somewhere's gonna hire me and, uh, yeah, nobody hired. Uh, so that was, that was interesting. That was kind of eye opening. Uh, we're gonna talk about hold that thought with churches, because I wanna talk about the barrier of churches and how they see church versus how. You see church. I love that.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I want to get to that. Um, go ahead. Okay. So did you get a degree take ahead of that direction too? You know, I, my, my degrees in radio TV film. Okay. Um, I, the, the aspects that I wanted to focus on was more on the, on the video production, the radio, the audio, um, you know, and so I did a lot with live venue in, in high school.

Okay. Um, and, and in college. And so, like, it was more of that, but, but even at, at the time, like when I would talk about what the internet was, blending the audio and, or blending the video and the internet and the computers like this was, this was mind blowing people weren't there yet. When I, when I was in college, you know, this was the aura era of AOL.

Um, we had like, you know, we hadn't even really. Uh, Netscape and, and the pure, uh, www yet it was, it was much more of comper and prodigy mm-hmm . And, and so like, you know, your search engine was Alta Vista, uh, or asked Jeeps, uh, Alta Vista. Oh man. It was so good. They crush my soul when they went under. And, and so like, it was, it was very before its time.

Yeah. Um, and so it, that being said, the, it was funny. I was just having a conversation this morning and, and somebody was like, well, how, how much coding? And I was like, well, I, I can code. It takes me five times what it takes a normal person to. I haven't, over the years, I've not kept up my coding skills. I I've, I've kind of gone in other directions.

Um, so you and I you're you're this is interesting, cuz yeah, I was early. Early nineties where, uh, at a bleeding edge boss in secular, but he saw the internet way before its time. Mm-hmm  and you know, I, I was open notepad and code and notepad, cuz there was no other software. What you see what you get back then?

And uh, people didn't get it and it took visionary. And I think you're, we're sort of going circle around the conversation. Churches and pastors may have the, the gift of teaching and the spiritual gift of teaching. No one says they're supposed to be smart tech savvy CEOs and they're and guess what?

They're not right. I mean, and that the problem is they're not necessarily visionary when it comes to where quote the church can go. And so you can, I, I, so I'm, I'm I'm I'm saying this all out loud and resay what you said. So what do you do about it? Like how can you want to push a rope uphill? No, one's hiring, you have a vision and you have a skill set.

So where did, where did, where did God take you? Or where did you, what door did you go kick down? Yeah, it's, it's interesting. I, I graduated from college 99 and, and so went, I was in Fort worth, Texas, uh, at the time, graduated from Texas Christian university go frogs if yeah, right there. Me. Yeah. Yeah, no kidding.

Are you, are you you're in Fort worth? I'm in Dallas and uh, oh, no kidding. I'd seen the ticket for TCU when, uh, they were ranked what. Them and Baylor that year, they didn't get to the playoff crushed my soul too. Yeah, I was, I was there with, uh, LaDainian Tomlinson actually had a couple classes with LT. Oh nice.

When he, you know, put TC on TCU on, on the map. Uh, but so what I graduated and, and the, the theory was, was that Jeff was gonna go to get his master's, uh, from Southwestern seminary, the Southern Baptist school that's right there, right there. And, uh, and that was, that was a great theory, except the more that I looked at, what, you know, what Southwestern was, and this is a knock on Southwestern.

This is a knock on seminaries like that. None of it was anything that I, I was interested in doing in context of, of technology, um, in ministry through it, they were like, it was, it was not even on their, their roadmap mm-hmm . And there were, you know, people that were in my life and mentors that were telling.

Jeff don't waste your time on seminary. Go do the thing that God's put on your heart. Right. They'll catch up with you. You don't you're don't go to them for information. Yeah. And there's, there's interesting conversations even centered around, you know, they'll, they'll come to you, but the, the heart of this was, it was, Hey, we're, we're gonna, we're gonna do this digital ministry thing.

And, and so God's not opening the, God's not leading me to do a seminary. God's not opening a door for me to, to work at an established church cuz I'm, you know, 22 years before the, the head of the curve here. Um, but so the heart of this was, was, Hey, we're gonna do our own thing. And, and so I started a.com called believer.com where it was an, it was an online community.

Um, that was a Hodge pod. Different technologies, uh, that we, we launched and we, we built a community over the span of maybe two or three years had about 40,000 people part of this community. Now this is back in, in the era, you know, it's, it's, uh, more community than Christianity today. There was a, there was a techno, there was a, uh, a.com similar, uh, back in the era.

I, I believe that I think I bought by family Christian or somebody, but the, the heart of it was we were doing, uh, movie reviews, music reviews, um, uh, sermons online. We were doing online Bible studies. Okay. Uh, in the year, 2000 summer, I let an online Bible study with 75 people around the planet. I don't even know our United Arab Emirates is today.

I couldn't find it on a map, but I had two guys from UAE, uh, that were part of that Bible study, you know, 20 plus years ago. Can, can I, can I pause and, and I need to poke to ask a question and that is, did you see that as kingdom mind. Marrying technology and kingdom mind and looking for opportunities.

Cause I hear a little bit of community. I hear a little bit of, you know, preaching, uh, teaching and like, were you just trying to find the legs and find what worked because no one else, like everybody else was still doing print. And so was this you just trying to. Stay in the kingdom world and use technology, but it wasn't church.

Am I right? Yeah. Well, I I'll say this when I, um, uh, I am a 21 year old kid at this point. I don't know that I understood the ecclesiology of what was and wasn't church. I, I mean, I would love to romanticize that 20 years ago, but I, I wasn't there. Okay. What, what I was trying to do at the time was to take what was existing within church and meld that into a digital.

World, uh, there, there, so sermons, we can do sermons and, you know, Greg mot, who's now over at first Houston. Um, you know, we were piping in his sermons when he was teaching from Texas a and M breakaway. And, and we had several other teachers that we were working with and partnering with different organizations and partnering was, Hey, I'm a college graduate.

I'm just trying this thing. Or would you be interested in, in being a part of it and, and learning something because we didn't, I mean, nobody was doing this stuff and, and I love the fact, like, I, I, I love the fact that I live a life that well nobody's ever done this before, so let's, let's figure it out.

Let's experiment with it. You know, I think that it's interesting what I'm actually doing now when we get more in, we'll get into it. But digital church network is not that dissimilar from what I was trying to do 20 years ago. Yeah. Yeah. I think there's a lot more lessons that we've learned and observed with others that are maybe starting to explore this space where we're more educated and, and more aware of what can be more focused.

I think, than what I was trying to do as a lonely college student launching is.com, you know, 20 some years ago. Okay. Love it. Let, let let's, let's push the story forward. So. Have you, I'm assuming you have partnerships, but did you ever get a job with a church or did you just stay in this move with the technology and grow?

How did that what's next for you? Yeah. So about the year 2003, after working three straight years without a vacation, I decided to take a vacation with my parents and my wife. And, uh, go up to North Carolina up in the mountains where cell phones don't work. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, this is the first vacation in about three years and, uh, we, we go Thanksgiving weekend.

Uh, and so we're up there Thursday, Friday, Saturday of 2003. And, uh, we, we get on a plane and fly back Sunday and I, I hit the Atlanta airport, uh, were, were transitioning flights, uh, and, and, and flying back to, I guess at that point I was flying back to Texas. Um, and, and, and I turned on my, my phone, my apple rocker phone.

Let's go back to like the, the old school, the, the first iTunes phone I turned on my rocker, uh, so that I, I can check my. And, uh, my server, my email server is down. Uh, I open up, uh, quickly. I grab my laptop, jump on, try to access the website and, and my, my website's down. Uh, and I start to, I've run some I'm literally, you know, I'm breaking out my Palm pilot at this point, tele netting in to try to, you know, access some of the server here and, and, and my, my server's down.

So I, I call the 800 number of the, for the company that I've paid tens of thousands of dollars for, to, to run my server. And, uh, and, and the company tells me, uh, oh, Hey, yeah, your server crashed, uh, uh, on, looks like it's been down since, since Thursday. And, and I was like, um, well, just like run the backups, reinstall, get everything back up.

Why is, is it, is it down like, is this should have just been on automated? I, my, my, my website's been down for, for like three or four days. Well, what's interesting about this time was when the voicemail. Started firing up on the phone of other websites that were down at the same time, the server that had fully crashed that had a full hard drive crash, lost data.

I had over 69 websites that were lost the church digital I'm sorry. Oh, believer.com as well as I was doing a number of, of website design for other churches and parachurch organizations. You ever been F bombed by a pastor. You ever literally cat cussed you out? Yeah, that happened to me as, as a 25 year old.

Yeah. That's awesome because you, I mean, you gotta remember back in the day. Um, this, there was Google wasn't part of the picture. Yeah. Yeah. Like pastors, they lost their websites. They lost their emails. Mm-hmm  blogs, photo albums. Like I was, I, I was a, a curse word for, for many of these people and, um, you know, I call this the Luddite part of my career.

Okay. Uh, where I'm like, Hey, I'm done with technology. I, I, I don't, I don't like, that was such a stressful and even trying to the way it. Yeah. You know, and, and, and I built, I literally, I built the company back up. I ended up selling it to somebody else and they're still believer is still a thing it's out there and they're doing, um, you know, web construction and stuff with it, for, for churches and para church organizations.

Um, but, but the heart of it was, was I went into, uh, I went into this Luddite phrase phase. Um, I bought a Christian bookstore. Uh, I, I, I started getting more relational. It was, I bought a Christian bookstore in, in as the advent of Amazon and iTunes started to come in. So probably not the wisest business decision.

I actually had an opportunity to sell it. And, uh, even my family, like we were, should I, should I exit? Or should we stay in? And, um, but even in some of this, like there, there were seasons where, and I'm the type of guy. I had three different jobs. Uh, I, I was, uh, I was running believer. I. Uh, owning a Christian bookstore.

I was owning a different retail store called C two eight, which was a heavily evangelical model, like a hot topic or a pack sun meets Christian, uh, type things. And we were training students to the employees to evangelize. We literally saw a hundred people come to Christ in a brick and mortar mall in, uh, west Palm beach, Florida.

And, and so like, I've, I've, I'm just always the guy that's experimenting. Mm-hmm . And, and, and, and just transparently. That was some of the, some of the difficulty that I had in, in my church staff career. I mean, part of what I've done is I I've, I've, I've worked off and on for, for churches for 15 years, uh, production director, creative director, communications, director, weened, experience, director, digital pastor, um, you know, and, and, and the, the tension of Sunday is always 167 hours away.

Um, it never allows for experimentation for, for expansion, for dreaming budgets, won't allow for any, any of that to happen. And so churches, they get in this, in this rhythm that is, is successful in the short term, but it's incredibly limiting in the long term. Oh no, no. And. That was, that was the frustration for me.

Yeah. Um, as I I've launched a dozen multi-site churches in, in my life mm-hmm , um, I, I run a production company on the side. I was just emailing my friend Garrett on that today, as he's really managing a lot of the details doing, uh, production installs and, and, and sales for churches. Uh, so like there's, there's opportunities for the church to, to grow and expand, but often they're so busy with the thing that's right in front of them.

I, I used to, I used to talk about my crew. Um, I was like, we can, we can reinvent the world in less than a week, but if you give us three months to plan something, we have no idea how to do it because we're so used to in the moment tension. Yeah. That, and, and the exhaustion that comes from that, that trying to think big picture.

We, we literally don't know. Do it, and, and that's really this trap that we live in as, as, as the physical church, at least here in America. Uh, no, a hundred percent. Um, I wanna hold off cause I wanna, I wanna talk about that though. Sunday's always coming and the culture of ministries of the women's ministry, the men's ministry counseling, and between Sundays coming, sabbaticals curve, ball meetings, or whatever churches are in a, you, you use the word rhythm.

I use the word rut. Like it's a, it, they, they don't, they can't see out of it. And it's really tough. Um, you might find a couple of churches that are, are big enough that you might have some people within 'em who can focus somewhere else. But small churches, I it's feels impossible unless you just run into that one unicorn small church pastor.

Right. Am I right? Or. I mean, that's what I've discovered. Yeah. I, I think there's, there's, there's a challenge where the, the method has become the goal. Um, mm-hmm, , you know, we we've defined success of, of church based on butts and seats on nickels and, and noses and, and, and that's, those are interesting metrics and, and maybe that's a measure of success.

Uh I'll I'll be honest for me. Like, I, I, my midlife crisis hit maybe four years ago, somewhere around 2018. Um, I, I have literally produced tens of thousands of church services in my life. Mm-hmm  as overseeing multiple churches with many campuses and being responsible for that tens of thousands of services across.

And, and I, I started to ask the question, ha, have I like actually created a discipl.  have any of these people that, that are going through these church services, have they become disciple makers? Are they capable of multiplication? Uh, or have I at least worked in churches where the church service was a front door to what could be a disciple making process.

And, and, and this is, and sadly, and you. Look at the churches that I've worked at and I don't wanna call them out publicly, but the reality was your answer was no. And, and they, they weren't doing that. And, and it was for me, this was a, this was an eye-opening moment where it was okay. If, if we are called to make disciples, if we're called to move beyond just, not just in an informational approach of disciple making, but, but an accountability and execution part of this where we're helping activate people on mission.

The church service is a con a product to be consumed, not one that is getting people on action. And, and this is what I have to, I have to change my life. I have to quit my job. I have to go and do something different because the thing that I was doing was not helping. The kingdom, um, and to the, to that end, and, and this really started to open up this completely different mindset and worldview where it's not that church services.

Um, and, and really the, the larger church overall, you're, you're maybe missing a point you're, you're missing the goal of what the church needs to be. Now. What's interesting. All this was pre COVID and, and, and a lot of my friends, my friends who really knew me, uh, who saw my journey, who understood, you know, the, um, controversial nature of some of the words that I just said.

Um, I, I, my friends called me Noah. When COVID hit because it was complete validation. Um, the storm had come, everybody was trying to run into the boat. They're recognizing their models, weren't working and they were trying to do something different. And so it was, it was a beautiful season as we tried to help churches, not just get your services online, who cares about your church services online, but actually try to do something towards disciple making multiplication and empowering people.

Um, I mean, shoot, we could talk about the, the, uh, decentralized church at some point, but there's a radical shift that. That was started. Maybe it was even happening before COVID it was understood as a result of COVID. And as this is leaning into what the metaverse and some of these cultural shifts are coming, uh, there's an opportunity to do something much different yeah.

Than what the church is currently doing. So, so let's, uh, there's so many things to tackle here. Okay. So let's start with this, just for people that are listening. And I feel like there's plenty of people who are listening, who don't quite get it yet. And, and so I'm gonna reword what you said there is this imbalance.

I think it's a fair way to say it. There's an imbalance between us in America, churches who really push theology in teaching. They push. Pulpit rose. And we're gonna just, we're gonna talk to you. You listen, and then go behave as a Christian. And we have bookstores full of books that telling you how to do it.

And what you are saying is that forget technology. There's already this problem of what, how we built the church. The, we build the building. We tell you, we have a service time and yes, we have other ministries, but there's something fundamentally broken with how we do it. And then COVID hit. So now people are trying to put church the, the way they're doing church online.

And they, it forced them to ask some really tough questions. Who are we? What are we doing? If we just put the church online? Is that, is that even church? And then, and it should make you scratch your head, right? It should make you think, wait a minute, we don't have to have that building. We don't have to do it the way we were doing it.

And if we're gonna start over, what can we do? And then you're bringing in. The knowledge of technology and we had this new technology of the metaverse of. Putting something over your head is changing cell phones, it's changing computer screens. It's literally hopping into a whole digital world. And then that creates a whole new opportunity.

Yeah. Did I word that right? Yeah. I mean, what, what you're really seeing is that, uh, Barna digital evangelism report December 20, 20, 70 9% of people called to Christ 80%, four outta five people that don't know Jesus. They're not interested in a, in a church service, whether in, in a, in a building or online, if they have spiritual questions here, here's where they're gonna go.

One, they're gonna go to their friends who they think may have spiritual answers to the questions. So if, if we, as Christians are, are living lights lives represent a representative of Christ. Uh, then the hope is the people who don't know Jesus, who are our friends are going to come to us. And that's assuming we're not living in a, in a echo chamber.

We actually know people and we're active with people who don't know Jesus. The, the second part. If they have spiritual questions, they're gonna go to digital sources. They're gonna go to Google search engine. Um, they're going to, to start to, uh, you know, ask digitally some of these questions. And so how, you know, we start to get into SEO.

We start to get into digital strategy. The, the weekly service, um, is very ineffective when trying to reach people that, that are cold to Christ because ultimately people that don't know Jesus, aren't interested in the weekly event, the 40 minute sermon, the 20 minute worship set. Like if we're trying to connect with people that are familiar with Christian culture or a dechurched person, I mean maybe, but even then what we're finding is we're really looking at what digital and metaverse churches are, are doing.

They're reaching a different type of person by being relational by being community in, in those spaces. I can tell you like a, a, a virtual reality church that's reaching 80%. Agnostic and atheists 80% of the people that come into a virtual reality church service with this particular church are, are skeptics that people wanna come in and, and, and almost ask questions, maybe even troll.

And Deone the situation. Uh, there's another church. That's 70%. Uh, dechurched 70% of the people have been burned by the physical church. And the first step back to the bride of Christ is through virtual reality. Go. I can tell you stories of a literal Satanist, a Satanist who lives in England, who comes into a virtual reality church.

The church is based in California for the sole purpose of dethroning what's happening in that church service she wanted to, and this is her telling the story. She wanted to troll the crap outta what was happening at that church. And instead, what, what she found was a community of people that were open and welcoming even of a Satanist coming into a virtual reality church service.

So she came back the next week. She started to build friendships and relationships with the people in this church and, and what happened nine to 12 months later, she accepted Christ and she's actually now helping the church launch a virtual reality church in another campus. She's actually multiplying herself into another virtual reality world.

This is gonna be called rec room. And, and so like, we're seeing. Where we're capable with the metaverse with digital churches. What I'm talking about. It's heavily relational. Yeah. It's, it's not sermon based. It's conversation based. And, and we're reaching people with these methods that our physical buildings are not reaching.

It's not competition it's completion. Yeah. It's helping us complete the great commission that we've been called to free to do. I love, I love it. I'm gonna back. I'm gonna backtrack a little bit, cause I wanna, I wanna say something. I think some Christians and certainly church leaders would, would sort of scoff at the idea of like, oh, well, people don't come to church anymore and they would criticize the culture versus ever questioning their what they're doing.

Meaning. I don't see anywhere in the Bible where anybody witnessed and said, oh, well, come to my church on Sunday and they'll tell you about Jesus. Like it it's nowhere in the Bible. Matter of fact, it's actually opposite in the Bible. It said that people looked at the church and sort of scared to go look over there because they're different.

Our church services are for us, not for other people. They're literally for us to pray fellowship sacraments and teaching it's for us. It's not for anybody else. And we invite people to it and it was a broken model anyway. And so now the culture's really raising their hand. Like we're not walking in that building.

We're not doing that little karaoke, three songs in a 45 minute minutes beach. We're not doing it. And then what you're saying is you're taking the opportunity, um, to if those people are online, why can't we people be online and create networks, avenues, and opportunities to rub shoulders, build relat. Win 'em over to Christ and maybe they'll join you in the building later.

Maybe. I don't know, I don't, they can all go away. We still have a great church. Yeah. We don't even need the buildings. Right. I mean, and that, that really gets to the challenge. Do you need the building? It does. Do you need a building to do an Eccles geologically stable church? Um, the, the idea of the metaverse as a mission field, uh, the, the people that need to be reached in virtual reality, uh, the percentage of people that, that are lost that have, I mean, right now there are 2.8, um, billion Facebook.

Uh, there are 2 billion YouTube users. There's 1 billion Instagram users globally, and this is the average stat, but right now, 59% of people on the planet. And this is a very conservative number, 59% of, of, of the earth people, Terrence do not know Jesus. So right now, I don't know what, 58% of two point 59% of 2.9 billion people are, but there's a large percentage of Facebook users that, that don't know Jesus.

And, and, and what if, what if we didn't try to drive them into a physical building? What if we actually utilized the, the tools of Facebook, uh, the tools of the metaverse to engage with these people, build relationships and share Christ with. Now beyond the acceptance of, of Christ. And by the way, I can, I can connect you with people that have literally shared Jesus over 2000 times with people in virtual reality that have gone up in, in the equivalent of the red light district, that's called VR chat and have witnessed with people with avatars in virtual reality and have had, uh, successful conversations, leading people to Jesus.

Now what's interesting. What do we do with them after that? What do we do after we bring someone to Christ in virtual reality? There's this need, but beyond that, What, what, what does a church look like? How, how can we create an Eccles logically stable? I mean, look at acts two. What does God call us to do in acts two?

And how can we reimagine what that ecclesiology looks like? Utilizing Facebook, utilizing, uh, WhatsApp, utilizing discord, utilizing, uh, virtual reality headsets in Altspace or rec room or VR chat. Um, you know, these may be foreign words. To you, uh, or, or to some of your listeners, but the reality is is that this is the lifeblood.

This is the community for many of the people that are out there. Mm-hmm . And just because you don't agree that virtual reality is reality doesn't mean that the people that are in virtual reality are, and so now, yeah, we've got an opportunity to engage in community. Listen, you may not think it's community, Facebook's dropping billions of dollars.

Uh, and they're not the only ones dropping billions of dollars into making this technology a community. And so why. Why would we not? I mean, here's, here's the reality. This is right now, there's 145 or 154 million metaverse users. That's actually a small percentage. Let's let's make this relative. There are 45, uh, million people that live in Tokyo.

So right now there are four Tokyos that are actively utilizing headsets. Um, I think new York's like 20 million. So seven New York cities that, that are currently actively using headsets. Apple has already came out and said, when they announce their I'm, I'm taking my classes off. I'm realizing this is a podcast, but when, when they release their augmented reality technology,  apple is apple believes.

They've told our board of directors this or stockholders, this, that this technology will replace the iPhone in a decade mm-hmm . So by this time in 2032, this technology's coming out in the past year, in the next year. Um, their, the, the, the plan is in place for apple to have currently 10 billion of these augmented reality glasses in place.

Yeah, because right now there are 10 billion iPads, um, iPhones, uh, I, I try to tell people this all the time. Like I, I, because of what I do for a living, right. I went out and bought the little, the metaverse, um, the, the Facebook one Oculus, I guess. Right. Sure. And, um, I put it on just because I was like, I, this is just research.

And as soon as I got in there, I was like, oh, okay. I get it. I get it. Like, I feel like there's so many people who just, that feels like a kid's game to them or whatever. They don't really understand. Every house was going to have either that or something like it, right? Smart glasses, something that mixes real with, um, the virtual world.

And it's gonna be part of our lives. It's gonna our, our cars, our glasses, our homes, the whole deal. And it's not just gonna be entertainment. It's gonna bleed into life and it's coming. It's not a, maybe it's a hundred percent coming. And if churches don't know how to operate in this and people don't know how to operate this, we're going to lose out big time on opportunities.

And you're basically just saying, I'm thinking about it. I'm helping people navigate it. And you're looking for opportunities to spread the gospel disciple. And then what I'm trying to pull out of you is.  and what does church look like in there? And what, what the word church and where do you hand them off?

Right. Cause you can't get baptized in the metaverse right. I mean, there's some real offline, real world stuff like communion, right? There's things like that. So can you talk about that a little bit? Talk, talk more about the handoff. Yeah. I mean, the, the ordinances are interesting. Um, I would actually argue that there are people that have been baptized in virtual reality and I can tell their stories.

Okay. Um, you know, if, if you look at the, uh, what is baptism it's its symbolic act done in front of others that are testifying, uh, uh, a transition and new belief. Uh, and so there are churches that are baptizing in virtual reality. Uh, what's interesting is sometimes the people that are baptized virtually also wanna get baptized physically.

Yeah. Uh, and I, I can tell you an interesting story, uh, and this, this may be, um, uh, not the norm, but there was somebody who was baptized in virtual reality and then went to a physical church in their neighborhood and, and asked, uh, Hey, can I get baptized? And once the church actually heard what had happened to this individual, the physical church said, you know what?

We actually think virtual baptism counts. So no, you don't need, don't even need baptized again. Wow. And that's like I said, that that's not the norm, but, but that, that is a situation. And, and so when you're looking at the ordinances. A virtual baptism. You know, it may not be that. Bad, um, understanding, you know, what it is.

Uh, you're also looking at an opportunity for, for communion, you know, you mentioned well, there's, there's, um, you know, um, all of us in COVID shoot. I can remember. I honestly, I think the first communion my son ever took was during the COVID season, my son was, uh, pro I think nine at the time. And, and I'm pretty sure the elements were Coca-Cola and cauliflower wafers.

Right.  because that was what we had in the house.  and so look, you know, I can quote scripture, like man, looks on outed, appear the Lord, looks on the heart. Um, we're there, we're there instructions. Yes. Um, is there, is there value into that? Yes. Do we need to be so legalistic as to miss the opportunity? Uh, that's available to start to expose people to some of these new ideas, man, look, this is where I'm, I'm doing as I feel like the Lord's leading and, and, uh, you know, God, and I will have a conversation one day and, and I, I will throw this on the table and say, I did what I thought, what was best?

What do you think? Sure. Um, you know, I, I don't, I, I don't know, like we, we can be, so does God speak of metaverse? No, of course not. This technology was 2000 years away, but when, when I look at what Paul did, um, Paul utilized his influence, utilized the Roman roads, the technology at the time to reach a different type of person.

His message was not for the, for the, uh, for, it was opening up the doors for the, for the Gentiles and, and starting to, to really start to move Christianity, um, beyond what the, what the assumption part was at the time. And, and so like, it's. Can we think differently? Can we innovate? I, I do think scripture points towards a lot of innovation towards a lot of cultural change towards adopting a different strategy.

Mm-hmm  towards it. And, and that's where I think and falling back on your word, Todd we're we're in a rut, we're stuck the rhythm of what we've done over and over again has locked us into place. Mm-hmm  and, and now coming out of COVID, we wanna get back to February 20, 20 as best as possible. Well guess what?

February, 2020, we were in the middle of a 25% decline of the church over 25 years. I don't know that 20, 20 February is the golden age of the church. No. And there were very good old days for the church. The church was already broken. Right. I totally agree. And so why not? Try something different. Why not experiment?

Why not explore? Because where we were was horrible. Let's go back to that. Please take an opportunity to do something. And I don't even care about the technology aspect, but realize that the model of church is not as important as the product that disciple making the multiplication that's happening. And I think that we, as a church, we have a, we have a, we have a.

A responsibility yeah. To pivot, to change and to realize that our voice, I say this and I get pastors mad at me. And so I say this, not on my podcast, but another podcast. So, you know, if you got hate mail to this, send hate mail to Todd. Yeah. Okay. Uh, look, the, the fact is pastor, your voice means less now, uh, than it ever has before.

Yeah. And your voice will only mean less and less moving forward. And so rather than trying to position where you are exuding your spiritual gift in front of thousands, what if we instead positioned ourselves the church as a training opportunity to release, mobilize and release. The thousands, the hundreds, the tens that are in your church to reach their circle of influence.

If we would not put ourselves in the center as the hero, but instead put them as the hero and equip them and help them understand that. Yeah. Equip the saints priesthood of all believers. Like if we let go of that and we stop trying to control this, we stop operating from an hierarchical standpoint and instead start to operate like Paul did as a network.

Yeah. Where he's, he's equipping others to go and do my gosh, the power that we could have as a church, if we would just get out of the way of ourselves. Yeah. Like I said, hate mail, Todd. No, no, no. I'm gonna, I'm gonna double down. I'm gonna double down. I love everything you just said. And I'm gonna say, I'm gonna go back to the COVID illustration and let me love to preface.

I'm not trying to soften it. I just wanna preface. I never heard fully what. John MacArthur said fully, I read some articles. So if I'm misquoting him, I'm gonna apologize now, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna say this as a hypothetical, he threatened to Sue the state of California because he said their laws were causing him to sin against his God, which I disagree.

I would say. That I'm glad as an American, he pushed back on the government tolling church. They can't meet, but as a Christian, there's no sin that no one's sitting in your pews at 9:00 AM on a Sunday, that was never the commandment. And we were, he was defending the rut. He was defending the rut. Like you're making us not be able to do church.

And the answer is no, no, no, John you're wrong. He was not letting us, you do trick the way you wanted to do it. And that you've been doing it for decades. You, they said you could get in cars and get in a field. They said you could come under certain circumstance. You didn't like, and all really that you are doing here, Jeff, cuz you're just basically saying that, no, we don't need the building.

Not only do we not need it the way it was. And not only are we not just trying to stream it onto people's iPhones and their TVs, this idea of making disciples, the great commission. Works outside of that building online and offline. Yeah. And your heart is to figure out how to do things online, which make disciples, um, replicate making disciples and creating community all in a virtual world.

And I'm assuming even in this. 3.0, virtual hybrid. Am, am I correct? Yeah. To totally and completely. And to be honest, like, even if you start to unpack what this metaverse is 3.0 reality, understand that blockchain and crypto, like some of these technologies exist because we do not trust large organizations.

Uh, we're using phrases like trustless, like permissionless with, within these technologies, um, organizations like Facebook, like meta, obviously like, uh, Google they've got targets on their back because we don't trust big. And as we look at, you know, even within church culture, as we look at a lot of these large churches recently that have had the, the mega giga pastors that are failing.

For personal reasons and, and, and letting their organizations down and honestly being it's so public letting the big sea church down, at least here in Western Civ, the people outside of the church are beginning not to trust the church. And, and so for us to be effective, we've gotta continue this conversation.

We've gotta position ourselves as the church, not as the product, but instead the platform that is now starting to equip and empower people to be Jesus. It's not enough for your sermon to point to Jesus. Our people have to point to Jesus for us to have any. Yeah, that's the new strategy. It's, it's not so much about building the bigger building, the better creating a, a better product.

Instead. It's now it's much more about how do I get others to do that. And, and I would even just throw into, as an example, here, we talk about, uh, Airbnb, uh, a little bit. Now my stats are a little out of date. I haven't kept up during COVID, but pre COVID Airbnb made more than the top five hotel chains combined.

Um, they were not creating a better product. They weren't, um, you know, creating a better concierge crew. They didn't have more luxurious property. Uh, they, they did it not by not by doing something better. They did it by allowing others to do they platformed the idea of leasing out homes, renting out homes or properties, whatever.

And as a result of it, Airbnb blew. The competition the top five, not because they position themselves as the best product, but by releasing that to others. And, and I would suggest we, the church we've got that same responsibility. It's time for us to release this instead of controlling it. Okay. I, I love it.

Let, I wanna, I don't wanna move on. I want to just tackle this and touch it at a different place. And that is, have you thought through.  looking at this at the lens of a mission field, meaning the metaverse is a mission field. Have you thought through the differences between churches and para churches?

Because I get frustrated with this con, let me tell you my concept, then I want you to apply it to the metaverse. I get frustrated when I see individual churches, reinvent wheels that the, the church, the big sea churches already solved, meaning there's organizations that feed the homeless in your neighborhood or go to Africa and dig Wells, but then churches like, oh, we're gonna send a missionary in, oh, we're gonna send a missionary.

Well, we'll send a missionary. Well, this one's starving. This one's coming back burnout in two years or whatever. Like, why don't you just give to the organization that already sends missionaries? And they do it really well. And they've got a 401k in dental and they, they know what they're doing. Yeah. And churches sometimes.

Do it's bad cause they, and they don't trust. And since we don't, as, as, um, as Protestants really have the pyramid of the Catholics, we are all these autonomous decision makers and we're going out there and we're doing things wrong. And sometimes it takes parachurch to fix something because individuals can't do it.

And so I, I say all that when I think of the metaverse, I get a little head scratch on me, was like, do we really expect every church to go online? Or can churches. Network and community and give to something that they're not gonna manage, have a staff member or anything, but they get the idea and they wanna fund it as mission.

Yeah. How do you see it plan out? I mean, there's some great questions there. Uh, I, I would say that the, the, the goal is collaboration. Thiss point, the goal is exploration, but where, where you're going down the road. Yeah, I, I, I think collaboration is necessary. I mean, what you're asking me does every church need to be in the metaverse.

No. Does every church need to have a plan to reach Africa? Uh, does every church need to have a plan to reach, um, Australia? I started to say Antarctica, actually. I don't think there are people in Antarctica, but I mean, no, no, but we need to, we need, we need some churches that are, that are passionate about these, these communities in these areas.

And, and so my hope is that, you know, churches and, and networks and movements will start to form, um, through some of these metaverse and, and, and digital spaces. And, and yes, we wanna be part of it. Uh, but we wanna work alongside and that's where I, I think finding friends on mission collaborating mm-hmm

Being part of, you know, it's interesting in the business world, we're starting to see ecosystems develop where, where corporations are, are, are networking together to become, because they're realizing that that we're stronger together than a part. Right. Uh, you know, I, I often, when I, when I talk with digital metaverse people and pastors, um, you know, even what I say to them, when I, I meet somebody new for the first time that's doing something, I invite them to be part of what we're doing through digital church network.

Because I, I, I truly do believe this. I, I think a crazy person, isolated is crazy. A crazy person. Who's connected with other crazy people becomes a force. Yeah. And, and the more that we connect these different ideologies together, the, the, and tell the stories and encourage each other and hold each other accountable and pray for one another.

We're starting to see movements that are happening, cuz it's reinfused by, we're not the guy whose isolated and burned out or, or like you're saying the girl missionary who is frustrated at what she's doing because she's been doing something all on her own. And so I think there is an opportunity for collaboration and it's E and I'll even pull this thread thread.

Todd, you were talking about parachurch. Um, you know, I I'm, I'm not gonna say the name of the organization, but I was blessed to have a conversation with one of the senior leaders of a, a globally known parachurch organization. Okay. And, and they were talking about launching digital church movements, um, launching digital churches globally, uh, to reach people, uh, without buildings.

And, uh, and actually he kept saying the word church, he kept saying the word church. And, and, and I said to him, at some point I was like, you're, you're a para church organization. Are you comfortable? Are you sure using the church? And, uh, and this is, this is the honest God truth. He said to me, he said, Jeff, um, yeah, we're, we're a church.

We may not say that publicly. Uh, but the fact that the big sea church is not exploring this space and we're the only ones that are going in. We're gonna fill in the gaps until somebody else steps up and, and, and does this, and then we'll work with them. And so in many ways, the, you know, the, the global church, uh, let's, let's just say this, all the craziness that I've been talking about in the us is controversial in the global.

Oh, it's about time. Oh, let's go. How, how can we help? How can we be a part of this? I'm far more receptive globally than what's happening here in the us. Yeah. Yeah. We think we're cutting edge or so not. Um, okay. So. Wow. I have, I have a question about church discipline, um, you know, like exactly what, what is a church and what online would be, and, and that, that hybrid account accountability, if you will, um, with, with, um, a person, a pastor, you know, the discipline, I get the sacraments.

I can get the, the argument of whether, what can, what can happen online and what can happen offline. I think I get all that, I guess, where, where this, all this, this thought process begs to me is denominations. Meaning, meaning. Out here, we fight all the time over whether you're seventh day admins versus a Methodist or whatever.

Like, do you feel like that's what people are gonna go kicking and screaming as denominations and then maybe the denominations figure out how to do church online or do you feel like. This is, this is gonna stay raw and organic, and you're just going to have kingdom minded, evangelical, opportu, you know, opportunistic people who are just gonna go in here and try to preach the gospel homogenize a little bit without the denominational bent.

I don't know. That's a very big, long question, but I'm throwing it your way. Yeah. That's that's, that's interesting. I'll I'll, I'll tell you right up front. Um, I've I've not had a good career with the nominations. Uh, and so I don't, I don't necessarily come with a, a bend that we've gotta figure out how to get the nominations to.

Um, and, and, and honestly, I, I feel like that almost gets back to that decentralized approach where we don't trust large organizations and, and, and these, this organization and this entity, that's trying to tell me what to do and, and, and giving, you know, in instructions instead of collaboration. Um, I, I, it'll be interesting to see what the, I mean, I'm even forgive me.

I, I'm not only like read tea leaves or anything here, but shoot, look at some of the stuff that's happening within the Southern Baptist convention over the past couple years. Like it's, it's very hard in 2020 plus to do what we're trying to do with these organizations. Mm-hmm  and, and instead I lean more towards networks where it's, you know, friends on mission.

Uh, let's get people together where we can collaborate where we can work together. Where we can introduce to others where we can, can coach where we can be part where we can pray for one another. Mm-hmm . Um, I, I, I think that that is, is positioning in such a way, um, that that allows for more opportunity. Um, and, but by doing that, you, you don't control and, and, and really, I think if we wanna be successful and I don't wanna make this about digital and meta, if you really wanna be successful in disciple making and multiplication, You've gotta figure out what you really need to control and what you're okay.

Releasing control of. Yeah. You know, as, as I've talked with, uh, people, uh, that are multiplication specialists, even in the corporate sector, um, it's Hey, Jeff, as, as a leader of a network, you wanna make as few decisions as possible. You want.  everything down, unless you care so much about this, you have to mandate it.

Mm-hmm . And because the more that you mandate, the less influence that you have. Yeah. Because if you're really wanting to network, you've gotta let the everyone else feel like they have control mm-hmm  and that you're able to move people. You're able to coach people. You're able to guide people much better when they feel they are in control.

And, and so this is really, I think what the, the purpose of the, of the church is, is, is not the scripture mandates. I'm not saying fall away from the scripture, but I'm saying, let them work through the problem rather than preaching at them what they should do. It's preaching versus teaching, you know, in this, I, I think there's, there's a different even.

Getting them to the place where, where they are, are taking the steps instead of you mandating it. Okay. So this is not a wrap up question that I, but it it'll sound like it. So when figuring out what you do and your networks do, do I get it right? Your, you have your own ministry in web three. Oh. And the metaverse.

And you are working forward with that, hoping that you find ministry partners and people want to join it. And at the same time, if you find the right church who says, we want to be involved in the right organization, they can come to you and you coach them through that, but you're taking both approaches of, let me help you do it.

And we're gonna do it jump on for the ride. Am I understanding that correctly? Yeah. So my life's complicated. Uh, I've got a lot of jobs, uh, but the heart of this is, is I, I started talking pre COVID 2018. I started this business, the church digital, where I was trying to help the church. Literally I quit my job.

I had 30 employees underneath me. I was, uh, high level leader at a, at a, a giga church down here in Miami. And, uh, God told me literally, uh, you need to help the big sea church understand digital and disciple making cool. All right. Hey guys, I'm, I'm gonna quit my job, sorry. Uh, I have no idea where I'm making money and, and, and I, and I honestly, I tried to get churches to hire me.

Once again, 2018, not a lot of churches were hiring me. Uh, I was speaking, you know, I was helping, I was blogging. I was podcasting. Um, but, uh, I, I met some people called, uh, that worked for an organization called stadia, stadia, church planting, uh, and met 'em 2019, uh, October. Uh, they said, Hey, Jeff, we're really excited about digital church planting and planting churches in digital space.

I had talked about it a lot through, uh, the church digital and, and so ended up, uh, taking a job with them where my job was pre COVID was to hire was to help plant digital expressions of churches, churches, and Twitch churches on Facebook churches, uh, in, in the metaverse. And, and so, and we were, we were successful.

We had churches that were planted through what happened as a result with stadia, but then COVID hit and, and, and all of a sudden all of the validation that I needed. Was happening. Like, you know, you could say in 2019, Jeff, I'm not sure this stuff really worked April, 2020. Everybody was doing it. This wasn't questionable.

Yeah. It was burned. The ships let's figure out how to do it. Uh, but what, what happened through the, um, and I've had you gotta realize, thank you, Google. I've had. Hundreds of conversations with people. Like if I said four to 500, at this point, it's not exaggeration. Okay. Four to 500 people have found me via Google that are interested in planting a digital expression or a metaverse expression of a church mm-hmm  and, and how the conversation has gone for years has been this, Hey, Jeff, I don't know that this is actually a thing.

Um, I talk to my pastor about it. He doesn't understand my denomination doesn't want anything to do with this. My spouse, uh, really doesn't comprehend the capacity because they've never seen it before. Even my friends wanna be supportive, but they don't know if I'm throwing my life away. Or if this is a real thing, can can, but then I find you on Google and you're the only guy on the planet.

That's talking about digital expressions of church. Mm-hmm  can, can you help me? Is this a real. And, and what's fascinating is, you know, 20, 20, 20, 21. Yeah. It's a real thing. Let's get you connected. The average person that I'm talking to here is by vocational. They, they, I had a guy tell me, Hey Jeff, I'm a for, I'm a CEO of a fortune 500 company.

He lived in Canada, uh, a CFO, excuse me, CFO of a fortune 500 company lived in Canada. Jeff, no church on the planet is gonna replace my salary. I don't wanna quit my job. I want you to teach me and help me do ministry on top of the job that I'm already doing. And it was that pivot that a lot of organizations, even today don't understand.

It's interesting within stadia, I would report back 75% of the planners I'm talking to are bivocational. We have a problem. Stadia would tell me, well, Jeff, when we're looking at the physical church planners, then it's only like 15 to 20% bivocational so it's really, it's not that big of a deal as, as what you're describing.

I left stadia. We started digital church network where we are today with stadia. Stadia is reporting that shift has now extended. 50% of even the physical church planters are bivocational that stadia is currently working with. Wow. And so this shift towards bivocational getting money outside of ministry so that they can also do ministry.

Is this huge reckoning that's happening with the future of our churches. And, and so I left D. Oh, totally biblical. Yeah. Right. Sort biblical. Let's go grab our tents. Right. Um, I mean, it's, it's, it's crazy. It's, it's nothing new under the sun, but, but the heart of this is, and even getting to the, nothing new under the sun, we started digital church network as a community that provides coaching, uh, provides care and provides community, provides relationship.

Mm-hmm  for people that are going down this road where we help them understand how to make the disciples, how to plant the churches, how to start movements, how to recruit volunteers, how to utilize the technology, whether it's a technical, theological, tactical, like we're bouncing it from, from all sides.

But the, the heart of this is we wanna help these. By vocational co vocational ministers that don't get the, the resourcing or the accountability or the help from the outside, because everybody thinks this is nuts. Yeah. Once again, uh, uh, a crazy person alone is crazy. A crazy person. That's part of a group is a force.

Yeah. And, and that's what we're looking at through digital church network or helping create forces within our digital and metaverse churches. Yeah. I, I, I love it. I love how you worded that. Um, yeah, it's interesting. We almost, we have to go back to the physical to talk about the digital and that is in a perfect world.

A biblical acts modeled world. You have people. Making disciples. No one said come to my church, listen to my pastor preach. And then all of a sudden you're gonna be a great Christian slash disciple. Like it's not even in there, but we got into that model and in a perfectly healthy world, we all would be salt and light and we all would be building relationships and spreading the love and the knowledge of Jesus Christ that everybody we meet.

Well, all you're saying is, as the world goes more and more online, there's more and more opportunities to do that exact biblical model. The only quote unquote question. And I, I, I love the debate of it because I, I haven't landed. You've thought about it way more than I have, but I thought a lot is what does it look like when you witnessed and, and, um, Create a baby Christian.

I can see the discipleship, which is what churches are supposed to do. And I can see the equipping where I scratch my head. Like I, the water baptism, listen, I know half people are rolling their eyes and they're happy to be like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it. Like I get theirs attention there. Right. We can't even decide who's where supposed to be dunked or sprinkled.

Right. We're arguing over that. So I get the virtual and not virtual will have tons of arguments. And I get that communion will have tons of arguments, but it's still that accountability local group that we, I can come to your house and help you. And you come to mind, we can have dinner together. And if somebody is sending, it's so much easier to have church discipline when there's local and when there's somebody in Miami and somebody in New York and somebody in Kenya.

It violates in my mind what I think, how local church should work. And so that's the part, I don't know. Can it literally be online only? I don't know. I don't, I'm just, I'm being honest. Yeah. I, I think everybody, um, this is a common question when we're talking about digital, it's funny. I used to use the phrase digital only expressions of church.

And, and that was a, that I'll just be honest. That was a sticking point. Okay. That was like, people would only hear the only, I do think there's a level. Of physical proximity to this, um, where, where there needs to be physical. And, and we see this where, you know, there are metaverse churches like cornerstone, actually, cornerstone Yuba city is a great example.

Cornerstone Yuba city is a church in Northern California, Yuba city, California. Uh, they launch a virtual reality church maybe 18 months ago at this point, their pastor for the metaverse pastor, his name's Michael used a Venice goose. He lives in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He's maybe an hour north of me. And so he's a pastor of a virtual reality church that operates, you know, three, four time zones over on the other coast of America.

And, and they're reaching people globally. Uh, the, the Satanist story that I told you, that community that was actually through that church and she's in England as an example of even of how globe hopping this thing is, uh, the, the majority of their leaders are in. Atlanta, excuse me, Georgia and North Carolina, several of their key leaders are, uh, and so they're, they're scattered across the globe.

Now. What's interesting is that church, they actually do an annual family reunion where, where they invite everybody to come to California. And, and so there were people, I mean, it's funny to hear one of these girls tell the story, one of their, one of their, uh, leaders, like their friends thought she was joining a cult because she's talking about, she was part of this virtual reality church thing, and now she's flying across the country to meet people she's never met before physically.

Uh, but that's, we'll take your checkbook, right.  right here. Here's the, yeah, exactly. Um, you know, part, part of this really comes down to consistency and, and this is really the question that I don't, I don't have a solid answer for today. Okay. Because we talk about how physical proximity is necessary. Uh, we, we talk about why we, we need this and the church calls us to this and we see this biblically, but here's the.

Like we worship a God who we've never actually seen. We've been saved by a savior who died close to 2000 years ago and, and, and were led by a holy spirit who is not tactile in any way, shape, manner, or form. Like there, there's some level of this where it's like, okay, we talk about how we need to be in physical proximity, but we're influenced by a God.

And, and in the triune form that is not impacting us in physical way. And, and so look, I don't know if that means it's possible. I don't mean, I don't know if it's not possible in, in many ways I've had biblical scholars tell us that the ecclesiology of the metaverse is gonna take a decade or two to figure out.

And, and so the thing that I'm fighting for is one, I, I think we need consistency two. I think we need the opportunity to explore the space, uh, and, and to see, uh, because maybe it is maybe it isn't, but we need to. Try cuz I think there's, I know there's opportunities to reach and impact people, but I also know this, I also know this third is that, you know, Todd, you're older than me and, and even myself, some of the stuff that I talk about I'm like, is this, you know, like there are lines to this that, that I'm not really sure is, is biblical.

I respect the people that are experimenting with it and trying it. But the overall thing is is that especially as where community is. There are some people that are only going to connect into the physical community, right? There are some people that are going to do some sort of a physical and digital.

You can do a sliding scale, more physical, more digital, I don't care, but there are some people that are gonna connect to that. There are some people that fit much better in a digital community that are more comfortable within their own skin in digital community. And the ability to reach, engage disciple, um, and release, uh, is far more effective in those digital communities than physical.

And, and that may be by age, that may be by their geographic region. There may be other influences. And so I'm not, I. Totalling everybody needs to on one scale or the other, but I think you're reaching different types of people by utilizing these different spaces. I, I totally agree. I have two comments on that one.

It's just like us saying in the middle east, we can't go knock on every door, but if you would radio in, it goes through the roof and you're talking, but that's a one way conversation. It's great TV. One way conversation, web can be two way, right? I mean, with emails and chat rooms and things like that, but the metaverse, it, it for people who are listening and aren't getting it yet, just imagine I don't have to go knock on that guy's door.

He's literally putting a mask on and letting me talk down right in his back. I mean it, his living room, like it, it is an opportunity opportunity to, to speak truth and to build relationships.  um, in ways we've never ever thought of before, but that begs my second question. And I think something you said to me ago, I really love, and that it's gonna take 5, 10, 15 years before sort of the dust settles on some stuff.

Well, here's one that I already see as a problem. And it goes, what, what you said about a person sometimes feels better in their own skin. What I worry about is let's say you are five foot two, you weigh 300 pounds. You don't feel good about yourself. You're not an active person and you go create this persona of what you wanna be.

And you're six foot tall, you're 180 pounds, you're a lifeguard or whatever. Are you really behaving? The exact way you would, or you have a different persona, just like we see online people who wouldn't fight get on Facebook and they act like idiots, right? There's something about not being you and not being real, therefore you're not being authentic.

And so I wonder when it comes to conversions and conversations, is it real, like, I'm not saying it can't be, I a hundred percent hear you. Oh, I know it can be. And I'm all for everything you just said and a bag of chips, I'm just being practical of what this is a fake world full of make believe. And is everybody authentic?

And the answer is no, but what do we do about it? Well, I mean, I would challenge, is it a fake world? It's a real world. It's an alternate world. And I would even, I would even, it's fair. And I don't wanna pick on you, but I, I would, I would even throw if it's a fake world, then the, then the avatar that's attending the, uh, the strip club.

there's no sin there because it's fake. That's fake. Gotcha. Yeah. And, and so like, there, there's a reality to that. Um, the, the heart of this is you reach people where they. Um, and, and, and, and whether that avatar has, has changed and it, and it's a, I'm about to get weird here, but, you know, if, if that avatar has changed who that person is, or that person has had an operation and their physical skin is not how God intended them, mm-hmm , um, whether it's an augmentation or a, you know, trans whatever, like we can go down that road.

Mm-hmm . But the heart of this is, is I, I think biblically God calls us to meet people where they are mm-hmm  and, and to, and through the introduction to the holy spirit work through that person's life. Uh, and, and so, you know, transhumanism, whether that person is, is, is a man as a woman, is Bob the tomato.

Or is a banana, uh, which I've had conversations with all four of those within the past week. Um, the, the heart of this is, is that by meeting people where they are sharing with them, the, the love of Jesus and valuing them as individuals, um, that God and the holy spirit do incredible things in the lives of people within the metaverses.

Yeah, love it. You're asking some really interesting questions. What happens when PHY, when virtual reality comes better than the physical reality? What happens when we do wanna just hook up a feeding tube and stay in virtual reality and not actually engage with people physically? Yeah. There's some better, there's some dark implications.

Mm-hmm, , uh, there's some things mental health that we need to address and even equipping our missionaries that are heading into the space and also treat. Uh, you know, a lot of the addictive behaviors that, that are in the metaverse mm-hmm  you're right. We gotta figure it out. I don't know that we have the answers for that today.

Uh, fortunately I'm working with people that are trying to find out yeah, those answers. I was actually in, in, uh, Boulder, Colorado last week, starting some of those conversations and, and look for more on that. Uh, the opportunity is too strong for us to run from it. We've gotta figure it out and, and, and walk with God, run with God in the situation, uh, towards reaching people in, in these spaces.

I love it. I love it. And I love what you're doing. So let let's, let's, we're gonna wrap up with this. So let's say somebody's listening to this episode and they're like, okay, I'm getting this. Okay. I get the opportunity. I'm not sure whether our church, how we would even do it, but I'm interested. Like if you could snap your fingers, what would you want people to do besides get it, like understand, okay, this has worthy and worthwhile.

What do you want your average church to do. Like, how could they Wade into the pool or should they dive in or jump in? Like, what do you, what's the next step for somebody who says, okay, I get. Now what? Yeah, so I, I would, I would challenge two things right here. One's easy. One's a little more difficult. The easy would be, uh, go to, uh, famm.digital church.network, FM like family, the first few letters.digital church.network.

We've got an online community over there, maybe 550, 600, uh, digital metaverse pastors, uh, missionaries, uh, people who think outside the box. Uh, maybe some people that are thinking the same stuff you're thinking. And, and so create an account. Go jump in there, hang out with us, ask some questions, check out some of the trainings in the workshops that we're running through there.

Um, whether you're an established church, that's doing digital ministry or you're interested in planting and doing something on your own either way, the, the community we've got over at fam, uh, is a great thing. So fam.digital church.network, number one, uh, number. I wanna challenge you to do this, uh, go get, go get your Oculus headset.

Or if, if you don't wanna buy a headset, that's fine. Uh, go to Altspace vr.com. Alt Altspace is a virtual reality world. That's owned by Microsoft. Uh, it, I, we call it the, um, the, the training wheels, uh, of the, of the virtual reality world of the metaverse. It's the safe space, uh, go in there. Uh, you can download if you don't have a headset, it's cool.

You can download a Mac software or a PC software, and you can walk around these worlds and you can talk to people, um, in, through your Mac or your PC computer. And, and, and I would challenge you, download the software, put on your headset, whatever you gotta do. iSpace VR log in with your Microsoft account.

Go walk up to five people in different, in different worlds within Altspace VR, start a conversation. Mm-hmm , don't even talk about Jesus. Just talk about them, learn from them and listen to them. You know, when you look at planting a church, you talk about finding the person of peace. If you were to plant a church, Todd, if you were to plant a church in, uh, I don't know what San Francisco just came to my head, but let's pretend if you're gonna plant a church in San Francisco.

Um, you're gonna drive around you're you're gonna sit in some restaurants. You're gonna drink some coffee. You're gonna talk to the people on the street. Mm-hmm  um, and, and I would challenge you to start to do that and, and virtual reality, uh, using the alt space. Hear their stories, hear who they're about start to, you know, let the spirit lead you on, on how they're struggling and, and maybe the Spirit's gonna lead you to a conversation.

Maybe it's just enough for you to listen for, for another day. But if you're gonna do something in this space, it needs to be spirit infused. So give the spirit an opportunity to inform you one way or the other, what your approach should be. Yeah. I, I would say like me, I, I forced myself to buy the headset.

Glad I did. And then I put it on three friends because I, my pastor friends and I said, you've gotta do this. And they put it on and they guess what, they went home and bought because they get it. And so what you're saying is go try, get your feet wet because you have to almost experience it to understand it.

Yeah. Very, very true. And, and really it's the, it's the, um, experience aspect of it when it starts to click. When, when you're recognizing that these, these avatars, these people are real people, mm-hmm , um, and these are these, these avatars represent people who need Jesus. Okay. Um, yeah. And so we can, and, and through fam we can start to connect you and coach you through some other opportunities and some other worlds.

Um, you know, there are worlds VR chat where it's like 50% of the people in the space are having virtual or sex virtual sex in private rooms. Like I said, strip clubs and some really, um, I, I can tell you stories of people who have been raped, uh, in virtual reality, um, that, that have still caused major emotional damage.

Wow. Uh, and, and this is, it's funny, this, this one girl who got saved outside of that, after some of these experiences she's told me, she says, Jeff, what happened to me in ver in, uh, uh, VR chat? This is why the church has no business in virtual reality. And I was like, I hate to differ with you because of what happened to you is exactly why you tell you why has to be in virtual reality.

Right. And, and so this is, this is the challenge. Yeah. To, to find people that will look at virtual reality, the same way that we wanna plan a church in San Francisco or South Africa or Europe or whatever. Yeah. These are communities where that need Jesus and, and we need to, uh, run with reckless abandon into them.

Okay. Um, if you got five more minutes, do you, are, do you have another meeting? Uh, I, I've got a hard stop at two. I'm sorry. You, you do. Okay. So I'm gonna hit you later with the financing, cuz right now the model is. Real world money funds online ministry. I want to talk to you at a later date, maybe a different podcast of how it can fund itself and dig I'm into digital fundraising.

And so I'm still trying to figure out how that works because that world's not mature yet. And, and one day the funding from the outside to the inside is gonna not work. Yeah. And so I guess you could talk that out with me at a later date. Yeah. Total I would love to, and to be honest, we don't have the answers right now.

Of course. I think that's, uh, that's a really interesting question to dive into. Yeah. Okay brother. Thank you. But do you mind if I pray real quick, do it. God, you are awesome. Lord, we are, um, thankful for your grace and that you and only you are in control of our world, all world. So even this virtual world, heavenly father, Lord, I thank you for Jeff and the way you've wired him and uniquely made him, um, interested and qualified to journey down this road that a lot of the churches just not doing.

Lord, we just, um, I thank you for the wisdom you've given him. And it sounds like healthy theology as he navigates his way through. And I just pray for blessing and discernment and wisdom and wise counsel for him as he helps navigate and journeys through this, um, world that are full of people that you love heavenly father.

So, so yourself mindly as you use him and his team to expose your truths and places and cultures, where they are lost in hurting people, wherever that may be. Lord, we love you. And we thank you for first, loving us. Mention your precious son's name. We pray. Amen. Amen. All right, brother. Thank you so much.

Thanks for taking the time and you and I are not done talking about this, obviously. Yeah. Feel free. Todd. Feel free to reach out whenever would, would love to continue the conversation. See your brother. Thank you.