The Other 6 Days
As the church, we spend most of our thought, time and effort working towards our weekend gatherings; with the majority of our lives being lived outside of Sundays. The Other 6 Days Podcast is designed to help us be more intentional about the ways we can "show up" for the gospel the other 6 days of the week.
The Other 6 Days
Digital Church?! | The Other 6 Days | Episode 58
In this episode, we are joined by special guest, Jay Kranda, husband, father, author & Innovative Tech pastor from Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California. Jay is a wealth of knowledge in the digital space & considered by many to be one of the online O'G's, a pioneer who has been paving the way for many in the Church Online world since 2010. Jay brings some helpful insights when it comes to conversations surrounding the past, present & future of Church in the digital space.
INFORMATION & RESOURCES:
- Jay Kranda's Website: https://www.jaykranda.com/
- Jay Kranda's Book: Online Church Is Not The Answer: Beyond Just Streaming Church to Hybrid Disciple Making (https://a.co/d/9HqPRV2)
- The Pro Church Tools Show on YouTube - / @prochurchtoolsshow
- The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness - (https://a.co/d/0wbbRzC)
For more information or to join the conversation, head over to https://southwestchurch.com/theother6days or email us at theother6days@southwestchurch.com
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Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Other Six Days podcast, where we chat about life outside of Sundays and what it means to live from our gatherings, and not just for them. I'm your host, CJ McFadden, here again, but this time with our special guest, Jay Kranda. Jay currently serves as the Innovative Tech Pastor at Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California, and I consider him to be one of the pioneering godfathers in the church online world. He's served online in communities in various capacities since 2010, and I've invited him here today on this episode to navigate some of the biggest opinions, ideas, questions, concerns and all the other stuff when it comes to church's roles in the digital space. Welcome to the podcast, Jay.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having me on. I always like kicking off podcasts here in a little bit of a bio. It feels like you're at your own, like eulogy.
Speaker 1:I was wondering how that makes you guys feel a little bit, especially when you hype it up. You know the God father of church online.
Speaker 2:I want you to read that to my kids.
Speaker 1:Hey, kids, gather around, listen to this. Yeah, you know it's.
Speaker 2:It's funny. I was, I was doing a podcast recently and it was led by one of my like good friends and right before like I could tell he was he had just put it into chat gdp and so I was like, are you? I? Literally, at the end of it I said, are you just reading chat gdp to me, like, are you like real time? Like I think he just pulled it up right before oh wow, that's, brave he's like yeah, that's what I did.
Speaker 1:I go okay, yeah, I guess that works you're like yeah, hopefully it's not a hallucination and gives you some really bad information. Yeah, jay works for nasa and he's uh.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, early chats would like give me credit to a couple friends books. Like they would say, oh, jay wrote this and I'm like, no, that's my friend Neil Smith, that's not me. It'd be funny things like that. Sorry sorry, I totally went off there, but let's jump back in.
Speaker 1:No, this is perfect. Actually, this is a great way to start it, so we're trying out a new. We're actually using our Riverside platform today, which is so this is a brand new style of podcast for us, but it allows us to connect with elevated guests like Jay and also reduce travel and overhead expense. Good stewardship stuff, right, yeah, and leveraging technology. So very cool. We're excited to have you here today. So we always like to kick our podcast off. We usually do like a fun game or something funny, just to kind of icebreaker it. But today we're just going to ask you what's one of your most favorite praiseworthy church online stories or moments that you've experienced so far?
Speaker 2:Oh man, I know you've got a million, but so many stories, I will say one of the cooler stories of just how God blends online to offline meaning a lot of people think of like church, online is just online and obviously we'll kind of unpack that throughout this conversation. But one of the cooler ones that really gets me excited about the possibilities, really unleashing what's possible is we had somebody start to engage in an online group. They started to find our services on YouTube and they started to attend regularly. Then they got into an online group that met on Zoom and they started to really get just deeper into community. And through the process of this we found out they lived in Ireland and they were, you know, kind of in this really problematic relationship and but she started to really change her. She committed her life to Jesus. She was in community through an online group because it was one of the only options really for her in that season and in the process of this she wanted to get baptized and she's in Ireland and it was just like how do you facilitate this? Yeah Well, we had kind of made a connection that we had another member who was actually traveling to Ireland for vacation and we made the connection.
Speaker 2:I found a way to like rent a pool, like an open pool, for like an hour and that member and that person that member baptized that person in a pool in Ireland. Wow, and it's this, it's. It's an extreme story. We've actually had a couple of those and it's just so cool to think about. This person starts to watch in another country and all of a sudden we have a member traveling and there's this baptism and I get a photo of this baptism in ireland. I'm like this is crazy. Let alone, we had to like figure out how to pay for something in ireland and like it was, like it was, and this was pre-covid too. So, um, it was. It's just there's stories like that. That just goes. Man, there's so much possible when you figure out how to leverage the tools of our day, like in creative ways. It's just really cool what God does.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, well, that seems like you'd think okay, church online we can have we'll have that conversation today but yeah, a physical baptism, like what a hurdle, and then here you go, like being able to facilitate that and empowering a volunteer. I mean all the things that are wrapped up in that is just such a cool story, man. I thought that ours was a similar. We just did ours over in Rancho Cucamonga and I got our online. Volunteers actually came down. We have one who lives solely in Big Bear and she came down and we baptized this young girl over in Rancho Cucamonga in her bathtub and so the volunteers got to be there. So it was the first time that we met in person and it was just such a cool moment. We got to record it and then share the story. So, yeah, kind of similar, but not Ireland, but very cool yeah, but hey, Big Bear might as well yeah.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. So we've asked you the praiseworthy story. We got to ask you what's the cringeworthy one. You know that, that one that you're like oh man, I bummed that to happen, oh man.
Speaker 2:Cringe story. You know, I think you know we the. The heart, the big thing about online generally is people tend to be pretty, they're overly confident in their comments to people and I will say as like in their comments to people. And I will say as like I would say, as aggressive as social media can be, in comments, people can be pretty troll about you on camera.
Speaker 2:So I've had a lot of I think everything I think about myself internally people have probably said to me in a message and so, like I always joke, like people joke, like we'll say like you know, they'll like say like you know the camera will add 10 pounds, yeah, and I will say like whatever social anxiety you have about yourself, like there's like a 10 percent, like that gets amplified. And people would just say like like I have this thing, like I'm pretty, I'm a pretty antsy person, usually because I'm I'm already an antsy person. I have too much caffeine in my body and people like I'll move my hands a lot when I speak and a lot of like the cringe ones are like why, why is this dude ever always bouncing his hands?
Speaker 2:you know, and you're just like man, like with the internet man like and it's just like I think there's this, like it's so funny, like sometimes I have to remind people like you know you're like talking to like a pastor, yeah, and like I know you're like in your room firing something, but can we just have a little like social awareness of this moment? And usually you just have to have to just remind people like, even even if it's true, like you act like you're talking across from someone face to face, when you post something online, trust me it, there's a filter that's probably just needs to be awareness. So there's probably a lot of those type of comments, usually something around me moving my hands too much.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, you just made my day. That's like the one thing we talk about. I watch it back and my son's like man, that's out there for everybody to see forever. And I'm like I know, and I'm like for everybody to see forever. And I'm like I know and I'm like why am I moving my?
Speaker 2:hands so much. Like, I guess One of the things I always coach people and like remind people is, if you are like on stage or on camera, all you need to do is watch yourself with somebody that is close to you, and that person will give you honest feedback. So, like, one of the things is, if I'm like on camera or host our services, I usually watch it that night or that evening with my wife. Yeah, it will just, will be like in our bedroom when I'll be watching it on youtube and my wife will be candid with me. Yeah, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Or my kids if my kids walk in, they'll say something and it's hard because, like, if you watch with peers, sometimes, depending on the relationship, they won't say something. But this is just like I mean in seminary and college, they would force me to record myself and watch myself. You learn so much about your like, your unconscious, like, tics and things you do, and we all have them. And the same way as and this is why I say the same way as you judge other people, everybody else is judging you and I'm not saying that that's right or wrong.
Speaker 2:I'm just telling you record yourself, watch yourself. There's such a great learning in watching yourself and trust me not that I'm some pro at it, but I feel like I'm pretty good at it because I've watched myself for like 15 years?
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, you definitely, you definitely will. You'll see, like you said, those little ticks and little things that you can change, you know, put where you place your hands, all that stuff. So that's great, I love it. Oh man, I feel that all the way. And, uh, people being brave as keyboard warriors too that's the other one, like in the comments and chat. So, yeah, there's so much. It's part of it and you have to take it for what it is.
Speaker 2:And even sometimes feedback. You take it. You're like, yeah, I got you, but you know, maybe not the best way to say it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a little gentleness behind that one. Well, before we jump in too far.
Speaker 2:why don't you help orient our audience as to maybe why we're having this conversation today? A little bit of your background, passions and calling. Yeah, I was somebody who came to know Jesus when I was in high school. I was 13 years old, grew up around faith in Southern California. I've mainly been in the Huntington Beach Long Beach area is where I kind of grew up mainly and I came to know Jesus and my life was changed. You know, jesus saved me. But I say that the church really kind of really became my family early on, because I was kind of came from a broken family and my dad was kind of out of my life at that season, actually had moved up to Big Bear.
Speaker 1:Oh wow, Full circle yeah.
Speaker 2:And my mom was kind of struggling with some mental health issues and drug issues when I was in high school, and so the church really became my place of safety and because of that I wanted to be a pastor. So I ended up going to Bible college and seminary and in that process I was going to be a youth pastor and very quickly I found myself. My first ministry job was on at a very large church here in Southern California Saddleback Church and I was on the communications team and they had this thing called the internet campus and I just found myself kind of flung into digital ministry. Didn't know what that was. This was around 2009, 2010. And so it wasn't really like thought about and I just started to mess around with this idea of people watching on stream. We had started to experiment with online groups in 2010, 2011. And it was very experimental and I just loved it. I wasn't I was never been this like very, I would say, tech technical person, but I was a very curious person and always a learner and I just saw the impact. I remember the thing that really grabbed me about online ministry early on was I came from a church under 500 people and when I started to work at Saddleback under 500 people, and when I started to work at Saddleback, they had 500 people watching and I was like that's crazy. You have 500 people, like what are you talking about? And so I just was like, how do you figure this out? And I think, as I reverse injured now, I think it was more like really to online ministry.
Speaker 2:In 2010, ish was really undefined. There were no experts, there were only a handful of like churches really doing it well, and I think I got drawn towards like I could go figure this out and yeah, and so, fast forward, in 2013, 12, they hired me full-time as our first online pastors and I was one of the first online pastors to be hired in the country and it just kind of grew and I really love that and that's why a couple years ago a year ago, actually coming up on a year I wrote my book Online Church is Not the Answer, because I really wanted to help churches of all sizes volunteers, pastors, think through online ministry. What does that practically look like? Because I know I've had this, because my church is like a teaching church. I had the luxury of figuring this out, where I know the average pastor, church volunteer, church leader.
Speaker 2:I mean, you guys are just, we're just normally trying to grow our photo ministry, grow our small group and it's like, how do you think about these concepts philosophically, theologically, what are some practical things? And I really wrote it to kind of help the average church leader think about this in a very practical way, to help us do what we need to do. And so, yeah, and so, and then recently I kind of moved to a new title, innovative Tech Pastor, where I'm kind of taking over more of our tech stack at our church and online still reports up through me. But it's been a fun journey and and and obviously COVID was our super bowl and we did a lot and I would say we were ready for it because I was, you know, and so I know everybody you know, depending on how I bring that up, that was a good or bad experience, but generally it was a we kind of we were ready for it because we had invested heavy into it pre.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, we got a same for us. You guys were way ahead of us but we were already set up for COVID and that was kind of when everything shifted and I got pulled back in Same kind of upbringing from calm and all that stuff as well. And then I was just interested in everything that happens. Church Online happens outside the walls of the church is more of the conversation. So you know, I'm like, hey, this is impacting the community. There's people watching Again, curious, and a learner always trying to figure out what can we do with this.
Speaker 1:Like I didn't realize how effective this can be. And especially from the communication world, you go oh, there's so much opportunity here. I mean, let's think about who we're reaching and what we're doing. And you know what is it? What is our digital footprint look like in this online space? And so I had the same kind of interest. So you have one of my favorite sayings. I love that. You just said this is funny. I was looking through your bio before getting prepared for this podcast. It says I like surfing the web on purpose. I was like that's such a clever way to say man, I love using it Like it's not happenstance, but you're actually doing with some intentionality, so I really liked that.
Speaker 2:If you go to my uh, my twitter profile, in a couple places I have an intentional, I have a an image of like it's like early 90s internet people like surfing the web, but it's like that. It's like a surfboard, but they're surfing the digital.
Speaker 2:I love that because it's it's. I mean first off, it's. It's the internet I was introduced to early on as somebody who was born in the late 80s. You know I was, I used AOL and all that and so like I'm very familiar with those images and I do think, yeah, I love using that phrase because it kind of it also dates me, so I think a good thing.
Speaker 1:I do have a question for you, a side question. Do you ever get asked? I get asked this often, so I'm asking you as a fellow online pastor or innovative tech pastor um, what, uh, do you ever get the like? What do you even do Like would you have to explain your job title quite often to people?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, I, I I tell this story in my book like jokingly cause, it's true Like I was in when I was in seminary. I remember I was in, you know I went. You know, for those who are, you know, listening to this I went to Biola. So I think most people are familiar with Biola around here. Maybe you have a kid or a cousin that went to Biola. But I went undergrad there and I also went to Talbot, their school of theology, and I remember their school of theology is a pretty known theology department, like they have some heavy hitters there, and I had a class with a pretty renowned theologian there and I was doing online ministry at the time and I went up to this professor and I was like I'm doing this online ministry thing, what do you think about church online? And they looked at me so confused church online. And they looked at me so confused, like, and I would just remember like I it's like one of those like you're in such a uh, uh, undefined um area that it's just people don't know what to do. And generally I have found this is why it tends to be when you do something new, the natural reflex is fear. Yeah, it's just natural. And so, yeah, like people are like what do you do? And and and you know, I just started to just very natural go like I just shepherd people online and I want to do the same things you want to do. I just start with them online and I try to facilitate it and connect it to physical, but, yeah, it's hard, it's hard when you, when you're in new space, and I think it's just it's it's. You know, I generally have found that, probably, like you, like I like it, I like defining it, I like figuring it out. I do think that there's more pressure, um to it, and it's it's kind of like the difference. It's generally the, the difference.
Speaker 2:You know, people are why I was just actually talking to my oldest about this, cause he's 14 and um going into high school. And I was just actually talking to my oldest about this because he's 14 and going into high school, and I was just like I was telling him the pros and cons of different types of jobs. You know, I was telling him, like you have blue collar jobs, white collar jobs, and I was just saying, like everybody's wired different. I go, you know, for example, like some people really like clocking in and clocking out, like there is a healthiness to that, depending on how your brain is. Like you have very clear in and out, your job lingers with you.
Speaker 2:I go, my job lingers with me.
Speaker 2:Like I really don't clock in and clock out and I go and again pros and cons, like it all depends, like I see benefits to it and and so I was telling him cause he was, he was, he started this like cross country uh uh, practice and and I said like, for example, you put in a lot of work and you might like the clock in, clock out, or you might want this and so for.
Speaker 2:For what I like about my job, with it being undefined, is that I all I had to figure it out and I was never clocking out and I kind of like that. And still to this day, I mean you and I could talk about like there's still some really undefined aspects of like doing ministry online that are still figuring out, especially post COVID. I think we're we're figuring out like online that are still figuring out, especially post COVID. I think we're we're figuring out like what's what's forever changed, what's what's different, what needs. Maybe there's some ground that we lost that we need to re get, and so I I enjoyed the pioneering aspects of that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I love that and I think you're totally right. I mean, and as much as text changing and all, and we know you know stuff's changing, most stuff you would see change in like two to three year increments and now you're seeing like two to three months. Things are like completely evolving or changing and so, especially in the online space. So we're always trying to have to stay on top of that and, you know, kind of anticipate what's coming and and help the church navigate. That. I think it actually might be helpful then in this let's. Let's talk about define what we mean when we say church online. We kind of started that, but what is it and what does it facilitate? And the objections, all that stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so like church online is this interesting phrase that if you're in some pockets, in most pockets in church pastor spaces, it really became known as streaming church on a platform like CHOP, which is church online, which most churches that's what they use. It's a platform where you go and you schedule. So if you're listening to this, usually when you say church online it usually means how do you execute your weekend services, like for most people, there was another platform a little bit before and around church online, which is also media social TV. Uh, that was another platform that was very popular and if you look back 10 years ago, it was just like how do you, how do you push out your weekend services? Cause early on, most people don't realize it it costs a lot of money to stream your services.
Speaker 2:Um, and really in 2000, it was at 15 or so around there uh, facebook, uh, made it it free to stream and that was a huge pivot. A lot, a lot more churches onboarded after and so, and then a couple years later, youtube live came up and and it's it's that people can take for granted stuff that's free now, but early on it did cost. This is why when archer started streaming our services, I think in 2004,. And it cost us thousands of dollars every month to stream, because, you know, I mean, this is like the, if you think about it, this is like real player, all these like platforms that were around in the early 2000s. This is. It required a password. You had to get a password to watch it in the early days.
Speaker 2:Now, I was in high school when this was going on. Yeah, you know, to get a password to watch it in the early days. Now I was in high school when this was going on. Yeah, you know what I mean Like and so but, um, but it's because it was just a cost. I was actually talking to one of our teaching pastors about this who was around here at that time and he's like, yeah, we had a password because the bandwidth costs were so expensive and and and so like.
Speaker 2:Church online for most, it's just services, but really, I think everybody who's doing real church online meaning like they want to make it bigger, they want to do more, they want to do online groups, they want to provide ways for people to serve online and then they want a way for that to connect to the physical experience. So, like, if I think about like, to me, church online is a really problematic phrasing of it Like, I like it, uh, I want it to move beyond. This is why this is. This is why my book is titled online church is not the answer yeah, because the subtitle is beyond just streaming to hybrid disciple making.
Speaker 2:What I want is like, I think about somebody who's listening to this. That's part of a. Like a, you know you're, you lead a volunteer ministry. The question is not how to just get people to sign up and serve. The question is how do you do what you need to do? So, like every ministry, area of ministry, person, like you have an objective you're trying to to get. And my, my point that I'm trying to drive is the objective isn't just to fill a room. The objective is to produce spiritual fruit.
Speaker 2:And the question is how can digital and technology aid you in your objective? And so I think, like, for example, a lot of ministries have done this coming out of COVID. Like, have a fourth space WhatsApp group where everybody who signs up to serve you get thrown into a WhatsApp group and you get to talk when you're not meeting, don't just send an email out anymore. Like, have a group where you interact and you can coordinate and you can talk. Like, have a place where you can have courses.
Speaker 2:So, like, if you have a photo ministry, maybe there's a landing page where, when people sign up to serve, like, here's everything you need to know about recording, like shooting photos at our church, like there's so many creative ways to use technology and digital to amplify our objective and it's not just like the top of the funnel, which church online. That's what it got formed early on and my hope is to push it to more and which I know you and I could talk about this Like one of the most compelling things about our church over the last, I think, 10 plus years has been our online groups and Zoom strategy. That's been huge, but a lot of times people just think it's just our streaming stuff and I'm like no, there's so much to church than just watching our service on Sunday.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's so helpful. I think that'll be helpful to a lot of our audience members who are listening and watching, because I think that's where a lot of churches get stuck at is this idea that church online even, like you said, it's problematic with the language, that it is just a weekend streaming service or content delivery and so but there's so much more I love it to what you were talking about. We talk digital discipleship or hybrid discipleship opportunities, and so we're seeing the language change quite a bit. Um, and I don't know what. Uh, you know we're still figuring out which one serves the best, like uh, per or you know, uh, best awareness or is more, most helpful to our um, to our churchgoers and to our audiences out there. Um, but I love that.
Speaker 1:Uh, one of my favorite ones, originally when it first came out is everybody would call it pajama church. That was the one. That was the when it first came out is everybody would call it pajama church. That was the one. Yeah, that was the everyone's like. Well, you just get to sit at home and watch the service in your pajamas, like. That's mostly how people knew it during COVID.
Speaker 2:I know that one, that one. I actually have a one of my first volunteers ever that helped me in online ministry. Uh, james, he is amazing dude. Uh, he was a really cool story about how God led him to this and so forth and he was. He was actually legally blind and online was one of the only ways he could really engage and I found he was one of my key volunteers in the early days. But he would say that a lot like our tagline should be only socks or something like, and I would. James is a friend of mine, but I would be like James. Can we stop branding?
Speaker 2:it like this Like and and and like it's. I understand it because there is a a group of people where like, like online and a lot of the data, too, like. If you look at a lot of the data recently from like. There's guys like Brian Berg that create a lot of data for online church and what's happening. There is a like some of the data recently has been a lot of the core people that use it regularly are core attenders and new like regular people, like meaning like people that who are watching your streams, like the core people that watch your streams every week are people that are deeply engaged and but there is also a segment that are like it is their primary community and there might be being introduced that leads them to come physical.
Speaker 2:But I think it's funny. So I just like that, that laziness branding which I get. I just I had the same feeling. I'm like there's so much more that we can do with this and and so let's, let's move beyond that language. The same way as people used to brand it like I ministry or I church, they would use that. I'm like some of this is just dated, like let's just move to the next, the next stage, please.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, absolutely. I would ask in that, um, in what we're talking about, what would you say and I'm jumping ahead a little bit but, like, what would you say is kind of your? I know just some thoughts and ideas about what we talked a little bit about where we've been and where church online has come from, but as far as and I want to talk more about where we're at, but where it's headed what do you think is kind of the future? When we talk digital discipleship and some opportunities that there is online, like, where are we going towards building communities? Are we is it just better content delivery? Like I don't know? Speak a little bit about some opportunities that you see there, some like movement that you see from where we were to where we're going.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the you know generally, you know we're at the disposal of how easy the tools are and how people are familiar with the tools because there are a lot of cool things happening. The question is, people are familiar with the tools because there are a lot of cool things happening. The question is, is does the average attender member, like use these tools regularly? So a great you know use case of this would be Zoom. You know Zoom was something that was around before COVID. I was a paid user of Zoom for many years before COVID. I was very familiar with Zoom, yeah, and COVID had this forced adoption where a lot of people it was the only thing and we had this huge onboarding of technology experience and then people.
Speaker 2:Regardless of what you feel about Zoom pros and cons, I think a lot of people have understood why video conferencing can be a really good companion tool to in person. It doesn't mean it replaces everything in person, but it could be a great way to kind of gather people and train people and connect. Like even my own church staff. Like we meet every month in person but there's a every two weeks before we meet in person. We have like an all like video conference call because it's really nice, cause we have people all throughout Southern California and sometimes just getting everybody in a room under it. Just it's a huge investment.
Speaker 1:And so what?
Speaker 2:we do is we meet in person once a month and then the other, the other part of the month, we meet on Google. And I think a lot of volunteer teams and teams and families are realizing, hey, we're not going to not meet in person, but maybe there might be a reason to do it on. And so, like zoom and COVID forced everybody to figure that out. I think when I was actually just reading a book about this, um, it was talking about why things, uh, some things, don't go viral, and they were. They were kind of talking about this idea that uh, and this is more of a philosophical thought for people, the process. But they said one of the things is uh, you know, during COVID, in the last couple of years and a lot of reasons because of politics and I think everybody feels this social media, there's been this like very contentious conversation that can happen if you, if you, if you engage online. And they said what happened was the last five years or so, the public discourse online has kind of been eroded. It's very, it can be very contentious. What happened was a lot of those conversations moved to online, to small groups, onto platforms like WhatsApp and iMessage threads, and so the idea is that and they were kind of talking about like when you are having forming conversations, you need to bring up things that might be disagreeable, and it's really hard to have those conversations on public platforms now because everybody's so like, attacks each other, but like and so. But they said those conversations are still happening in digital ways, but they're happening in smaller groups, like on iMessage threads. So you and your friends might have a thread where you just talk about certain things and so I. It appears, a lot of the best things that are happening online for like forming conversations are actually happening in private message threads and on, like WhatsApp groups, imessage threads. And this is why I bring up like.
Speaker 2:I think there's a case that every volunteer ministry, every leadership team, every whatever, should just have a message thread that you start when you start a journey together. So a very practical example Okay, let's say, five, eight years ago, you might start a small group at your church and maybe you would just meet in person once a month and you would meet after the service and say, hey guys, we're all going to meet at this coffee shop on Tuesday nights at six o'clock, whatever. I think now it's very clear that that group, when you start, you should start a message thread together, and you have and I call it a message thread together and you have and and I I call it, I I I actually talk about I have an online group section of my book where I I call it home base and live meeting space, and so you have a time where you meet. So you might meet in person on Tuesdays at this coffee shop or you might meet at a on a live zoom, but you also have a home-based thread and this would be on iMessage, this might be on WhatsApp, and the idea is that what we find is a lot of communities happening in these like message threads and like I bring up the example of like my brothers, and I have a brother that lives in Missouri and I have a brother that lives in the Tustin area and I think about this a lot Like and if I was born in any other era, my message thread with my brothers would be reduced to maybe an every couple of year trip, but now we get to text throughout the week.
Speaker 2:We have this really, and think about this every ministry, every relationship that you have, like texting in these, like private groups that you feel like, that you trust, like you got to trust them, like these are really forming and I actually think most of the innovation around discipleship is around these home-based threads that are linked to maybe, resources, so like a new ministry, like you have somebody join your ministry.
Speaker 2:Now they join this thread and at the top is pinned like a Google folder with all this training and you get to onboard and build community, and so that's not a fancy execution, but I do think that it's a very like practical way of how you disciple people in community and these message threads are really compelling and that book really amplified how that's really been a very big thing coming out of COVID, because like, and that's where all the growth. I think it's actually one of the reasons why I've felt I don't know if you felt this Facebook groups have really kind of died the last couple of years and you might argue because they're too public and they're not private enough and all that conversation has just moved to WhatsApp or iMessage and I feel that's generally true.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I love what you're saying Because you're just, and you say this in your book, especially even with the title, which I think was so clever. It's such an attention grabber and, like you know, I've been listening to it and so I listened to it as an audible and so it's really easy for me to consume that way. Of course, as an online pastor, I'm listening to all kinds of podcasts and consuming information, but I love you're saying like, definitely. I think there was a huge worry and I get engaged in these conversations a lot with people about their worry that church online is trying to become a substitute for in person gathering, and so really, that's kind of at the heart of all of this and we're talking about no, this is a tool, there's opportunity, you know we'd say more than supplementary um, but definitely not a substitute for in-person gathering at all. Right, Correct.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I do not see it that way and the the analogy I use is around like, how I use digital and technology in with my relationship with my wife. Like her and I like texting, call and interact all throughout the day, but that's never competitive to the idea of me coming home to her. Yeah, um, we use it as a tool to amplify and enhance our relationship and we love it and I'm never like texting her and thinking I'm not going to come home to her. Like, like and we.
Speaker 2:Now, that doesn't mean you're not aware of the potholes, of how digital and technology can get in the way of our relationship. You know, because digital technology does provide new issues. You know, this is the idea like people will complain about social media, how it's causing all these problems, and the irony is we're acting like there weren't problems in the garden, like, like people, wherever people are, there's going to be problems. Technology does amplify those problems, creates new problems for us to solve and maybe it's a little bit easier for those problems to to get big. You know, um, and we have to wrestle with that, but I do not see like I I see it as an opportunity to enhance and and we got to figure out how to lean into. Lean into that and like how do we, how do we use these tools to accomplish what we're trying to do? And really the reality is, like you and I are born into this moment, like we get to use the tools of our day. We're not born in a hundred years ago or a hundred years in the future. This is where God has us, and so I see it as something we get to steward and we get to leverage.
Speaker 2:And, yeah, there might be things we you know, like a classic example there's, there are things we reject, there's things we receive and there's things we redeem in culture, and I think there's parts of the internet and technology we should reject.
Speaker 2:And then I think there are elements that we get to receive and we even get to redeem, and I see so many opportunities for our members and our attenders to use creative things and we got to figure out what, what those lines are. But it's definitely generally like I have. I feel my life is more enhanced because it because of digital and technology. But I'm also, I will say, like one of the things is I've generally felt digital technology is less of an age thing and more of just an approach of how you, like I was born. I I'm like an older millennial, so I'm kind of born, I remember the world kind of before dial up, but I also grew up in it and so, like I see both pros and cons and so I feel like I generally have a healthy relationship with it, and so it's. It's one of those things we all have to navigate, but I think it's a tremendous opportunity that we get to use these amazing tools to accomplish a kingdom objectives.
Speaker 1:Wow, I love that you say that, because I think we fall into the same uh like category. You know, uh, I'm like borderline, gen X, millennial, I guess Right, is that the yeah, um, but I, uh, I, um. I look at embracing, I love to immerse myself in technology, but I also remember life before it and without it, and now I remember life with it, and so I look at it the same way as a tool and an opportunity, just the same, as you know, you look at Paul back in the day, like he used to. He used Roman roads, he used papyrus, he leveraged all these things of their time. I mean, he was in cities, like you know, corinth that were central to distribution of the message and the gospel and what he was trying to do, and so he was very thoughtful and innovative with what was available to him at the time. And I look at what we use it appropriately right For the things I love, reject, redeem and receive. That's some great words for how we engage with a digital space, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's funny we just went through. There's a book that just came out a couple years ago from Darren I think it's Whitehead, the Digital Fast, and we actually had him at our church recently and it was funny because I made a joke with my pastor that I is something that is part of our lives. Some people are going to struggle with it.
Speaker 2:And they do need to figure out. Like, for example, like I have plenty of people that I don't struggle with them using digital. They're actually anti-everything and so like they have no issue with digital because, like they're very analog in their life and so. But then I have other people that really struggle with what's on social media and they're constantly comparing. I don't post on social media. I never see like I am like probably too confident that I like who I am. I'm never like looking at someone's life, going I want to be them. Yeah, that's not a I don't have that type of social pressure on myself, but I know some people do and I also know when you're younger and you're constantly looking like and so like it's funny, I think depend, like it is a discipline.
Speaker 2:We should help people with digital fast because people it just the same way as we help people with struggling with drinking or with overeating, like we have these areas and digital is one of those things, and so I also don't think it's something you will just like without even thinking about it. It is one of those new things that, yeah, we should. So like I understand why we do need to do digital fasts and if you struggle in that area. It's something you need to be aware of. I just generally don't.
Speaker 2:That's not, and it's probably one of the reasons why I'm I lead one of these areas at my church, because it's not a struggle of mine and so like, but I also understand the impact and I'm very aware on how it's forming with my kids.
Speaker 2:We have whole days at our house where they're not allowed to use devices and we put time limits on stuff and I want them to be bored, like. I pay attention to all this but I also don't take the phone away. You know, I did wait till my son was in high school till he got a phone, you know, but I'm not going to wait till he's 18 to give him a phone and so, like these, you have to figure out like cause there are lines here and again, this is the hardest part about a lot of this stuff is it is a moving and changing thing. As we get data, we have to adapt, and I think this is why I did write the book, because I wanted to help church leaders and church attenders think about digital in a way that can be maybe challenging and also help maybe provide some a little bit of an outline to help you think about how to embrace this in a very practical way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, wow, that's really good. Once we get ready to wrap it up, jay, would you say? Last question, would you say so? You've kind of mentioned this digital discipleship is a possibility. Would you say that there is an opportunity there for people like, well, no, that can't be done or I don't know. Talk about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think the same way as I think I could have a relationship with a friend or a family member somewhere else in the country, I think the same way as you can have discipleship online Like I don't and then I also bring up the very challenging, but I think it's true Like I do find it ironic that we are very we put in I make a bigger argument about this, but like I think it's interesting that the core argument that church can only be done in person. I think it's really interesting that our primary relationship with our God is non-spatial.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And like I find it interesting that, like we're trying to argue that somehow, like I'm not close to Jesus even though he's not right in the room Now, some might argue like the spirit is non-spatial and is always everywhere.
Speaker 1:I don't know, that's another like bigger argument, you can?
Speaker 2:argue with. But again, like I'm not arguing that in-person isn't the best expression, I do think there's again there's a. This is why everybody says digital, like there's these VR relationships online and all this crazy stuff. People are marrying AI bots. Here's the deal. People are always going to do weird stuff. Like, if you read the old Testament, there's a bunch of weird stuff happening in the old Testament and there's a bunch of weird stuff happening in the new Testament. People are people. There's always going to be weird.
Speaker 2:I think the normative expression of all of humanity, at least this existence, is going to be in person. But let's not void what's possible with digital, cause there's a lot of cool stuff that we can leverage and I think it's a space we can actually redeem and we can use this stuff. The same way as Paul used the Roman roads roads I think we can do the same stuff with this Cause. And guess what? It's already happening, cause we all who are listening to this use digital technology throughout our day. We're not in some cabin with you know, uh, with fire, you know what I mean. Like, like, we are using electricity and and, and it's just we. We don't know how to do it. A lot of us just don't know what that means. And so and I I find just practicing it and learning and it's kind of like fog. The more you lean into it, the more it makes sense and the fog starts to disappear and you get clarity on how to leverage the tools.
Speaker 1:Yeah, wow, that's great. Well, man, this has been really fruitful. Um, and we always want to, uh, we always hope that our conversations are engaging, but we want to make sure that they're also helpful and provide resources for people. So, um, obviously you're, you have a ton of experience and expertise in this field, and you've written a book called called, which I love the title, but it's Online. Church is Not the Answer, and so tell us a little bit. You kind of talked about it, but go ahead, tell us a little bit about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's Online. Church is Not the Answer, it's just. I wrote it really for the average church leader, pastor, anybody, If you do ministry at your church. I wrote it in a way to kind of help you think about these concepts and give some practical guides. And so, again, Amazon, it is also an audible, but I, I really it's a, it's a mind meld of everything I've learned in the last 15 years and so. I hope it's. It's helpful and I'm very grateful that you're checking it out.
Speaker 1:Oh, absolutely no. It's extremely helpful to me and so, um, yeah, I love uh, just you kind of where your mind's been at. You've been in this for a long time and so I always look ahead to people who have gone before us and kind of pioneered the way. So thanks for doing that, and also visit jcorandacom. You've got a bunch of good stuff on your website Tons of great content, ideas and resources, as well as links to all this kind of stuff. Any other resources books, podcasts, anything you want to recommend or throw out there.
Speaker 2:No, I'm always sharing some random idea on my website, so I've been that's where you go.
Speaker 2:One of the big convictions that I had early on is when I started to do online ministry, there weren't really that many resources that existed, um, and so I started a blog very early on. It was on blogger, uh, on Google's blog site, and then, well, I guess they bought it, but and then, um, you know, it's come, come quite a way. So I try to share, at least every couple of times a week, some stuff I'm learning, and so if you, if you're a little bit of a nerd on this stuff, uh, I normally only get the, the fellow online pastors in the world, but I, I get some other people, but, uh, you can go there for more resources.
Speaker 1:You'll get some of our people. Hey, if you're curious and you're a learner, he's got some great stuff on there for you. It also has tons of links to other stuff. I mean there's Pro Church Tools, which we've talked about on YouTube. Those guys are great. If you're into that, yeah, and kind of fun, listen. And then there's also a book I wanted to mention the Anxious Generation by Jonathan Hayden. It's called the Great Rewiring of Childhood, is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness and so, yeah, it's a great one. Speaking to, as we talked about appropriate boundaries, I think it swings the pendulum to the other side, but I think in a healthy fashion, to give us a good guardrails.
Speaker 2:The thing that's great about that is he provides some really great ages about how to think about when to give them a phone, when to give them social media, and I think that was uh, it's very uh. I think that I again, I think this is like there's the philosophical, like cool ideas, and then like what are the guidelines? And I think most of us here, if you're listening to this, you have a small group or you have a ministry and you just how do you provide guidelines? And I think guidelines, I mean that's what my book does. It provides some guidelines. I think that's what Jonathan's book does. It provides some guidelines, cause, yeah, I mean this is, I mean it's, it's hard, it's, you know, we all love new. I love new like I love innovating, I love doing all this stuff, but I also know in the new you don't know the impact yet stuff, and I think that's the heart and his book kind of gives some impact data early on.
Speaker 1:Yep, well, we'll definitely include all this in the show notes so that'll be available for you guys there. And we always want your questions, comments and feedback as well. So if you guys feel free to leave a comment on YouTube, or if you're just listening, you can email us at the other six days at southwestchurchcom or feel free to reach out to Jay if you got questions. But anyway, any last comments or thoughts before we wrap this up Jay.
Speaker 2:No, I just am grateful that your church is doing stuff like this, because I think this is the whole idea is that there are more than just one day in our week of how we express our faith, and it's fun to kind of be part of conversations like this, because this is where life kind of meets the road, and so it's fun to kind of dive deep. So I hope this encourages your church and there's some kind of cool idea that comes out. If this sparks something, please let me know about it. I would love for you to message me on Instagram or somewhere and let me know maybe some cool idea you implement after reading my book.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Well, there you have it, guys. Thanks for joining us on another episode of the Other Six Days podcast. Be sure to hit that subscribe, follow, share and like and, as always, spread the word and take what you've heard and do it. And take what you've heard and do it into something that you can do to further the gospel in the world around you. Until next time, peace.