The Church [Office] has left the building as well. But how do we office, how do we as a church staff function digitally? This is the heart of today's conversation. And we brought in experts: Janie Mehaffey and Heidy Tandy. Janie and Heidy work with Stadia Church Planting, a 100% virtual office company with 50+ employees scattered across 20+ states. How do you lead people when they're not gathered physically? How do you keep vision aligned? In this Coronavirus season, how do you put boundaries in...
Mar 23, 2020•1 hr•Season 1Ep. 55
Well, church, we survived. Coronavirus took its shot at us, and we made it. We survived. We figured out how to stream the service. How awesome. We did it! Wait, so it's not just one week? We have to do this again? Two weeks? Three? August? Are you kidding me?!?! Church, we survived. Church Appreciation Sunday is a fact. Church Online Platform reports over 10,000 new accounts created. Countless more of you streamed on Facebook and other social media. Congratulations. Remember there's more to chur...
Mar 20, 2020•45 min•Season 1Ep. 54
"Reducing large gatherings." - President Trump said it in his broadcast Wednesday night. Whether Coronavirus gets to a full-fledge pandemic here in America, we are seeing the effects culturally. Virtually, all of us are on lockdown at this point. What's next? Here's our reality. Our world, our culture is being impacted by Coronavirus. How is your church responding? Church Online is part of the solution for your Coronavirus problem. Let’s discover how. Joining Jeff is Greg Nettle, President of St...
Mar 14, 2020•1 hr 19 min•Ep. 53
Whether coronavirus is a legitimate fear or not is not the topic of conversation here. Fact is, we face all sorts of city-wide emergencies on a regular basis. Hurricanes, Tornadoes, Earthquakes, Bitter Cold... Institutional churches face challenges like this on a regular basis in situations that prevent them from gathering. So what's the plan? How would your church respond in a situation where you weren't able to gather? It's 2020. You should probably have a plan. That's where we are with this p...
Mar 09, 2020•1 hr 3 min•Season 1Ep. 52
What makes a successful Digital Church? Church Online? Church overall? What is it? I'll tell you what it's not: our Sunday morning attendance numbers... yet this is where many of our analytics (and attention, for that matter) stop. A quote from Ed Stetzer years ago has always haunted this line of thought for me: "When you build your churches like theaters, don't be surprised when your parishioners act like show-goers." I don't believe I'm overstating here. We, the Church, we know this is bad. We...
Mar 02, 2020•55 min•Season 1Ep. 51
Can a digital-only expression of church hold up to the Biblical standard of a church? This is the question that we, here at The Church Digital and Stadia Church Planting, are wrestling with. Can you create community online? Sure! Can you worship? Of course! Can you pray digitally? We do all the time... can you operate as a church exclusively in digital space? Therein lies the topic of the podcast, as we're bringing in a panel of guests from around the country to ask the rather complicated questi...
Feb 24, 2020•1 hr 16 min•Season 1Ep. 50
The hardest lesson I've learned in my technology-based ministry life can be boiled down into five simple words: it's not about the tech. What is it about, you ask? Enter Aaron McClung, President & CEO of AM, a Creative Agency that works with churches, non-profits, and corporations doing, well, creative things. The company pivoted several years ago because it discovered something: its clients didn't understand their why. Through a process of discovering AM's own why, it's developed a process ...
Feb 17, 2020•48 min•Season 1Ep. 49
What if we ran Church Online not like a Pastor would run a church, but like a missionary would run a missional movement. Crazy idea, I know. But that's really what we set out to do through Christ Fellowship Miami years ago. To that end, we're introducing Mike Christian to The Church Digital Podcast today. Mike worked with Jeff over at Christ Fellowship Miami as the Online Small Groups director. Mike was a vital part of Christ Fellowship's Online Strategy of Groups and Microchurch movement. The e...
Feb 10, 2020•1 hr 12 min•Ep. 48
It’s 2020. Do churches really need a mobile app? Isn’t my website good enough on mobile devices? The answer for many churches today is, unfortunately, yes. Many churches don’t have an effective strategy for how to utilize mobile app, as well as, mobile web, more effectively. Enter Jon Crabtree into the conversation. Jon works with Subsplash, a company who has helped thousands of churches move their ministry to mobile app and beyond. In episode 047 here, Jon drops some solid strategy for how your...
Feb 05, 2020•54 min•Season 1Ep. 47
Can a mobile app create community? Most people would accuse the mobile app of tearing down community, at least physical community. But can the mobile app create community? Maybe the better question is how can the Church of 2020 leverage mobile to complement their already existing strategy? Enter Matt Welty, Pastor of Technology at Crossroads Church based in Cincinnati. A large multi-state multisite church, Crossroads, spends a lot of energy is utilizing the mobile app to not just communicate to ...
Feb 03, 2020•59 min•Season 1Ep. 46
Sometimes innovation is overly complicated and very costly. Sometimes innovation is just looking at what you have differently. What you’ll discover here in this episode of The Church Digital Podcast is two churches that have done some incredibly innovative things with what they had. So much effort goes into creating the musical worship portion of the worship service each week, what if we did musical worship via video? Churches are doing teaching each week via video… why not musical worship? Ente...
Jan 27, 2020•1 hr 1 min•Season 1Ep. 45
This Episode of The Church Digital Podcast may challenge some established norms. If so, that’s cool. They probably need to be challenged. A small, but growing number of physical churches are finally seeing that community can be created in virtual spaces, and now more than ever churches are currently operating small groups online. However, church today views these small groups as complementary to the physical ministry of the church (primarily which happens during that one-hour-on-Sunday service)....
Jan 20, 2020•1 hr 1 min•Season 1Ep. 44
One of the greatest untapped resources in Church Online, I believe, is the Kids Church Online. There’s huge potential here to reach kids in unique ways. Several years ago, while I was Online Pastor, we briefly experimented with the idea of Kids Church Online. Here’s what I know. My kids are digital. I’ve got an 11 year old and a 9 year old. I cut cable almost a decade ago at this point, so any of the content they watch is app based: Disney+, Netflix, Hulu, Pokemon App, iTunes… they live in these...
Jan 13, 2020•58 min•Season 1Ep. 43
One of the things that I (Jeff) love about Church Online is that we are basically learning about all of this, together. Big churches, small churches, traditional churches, charismatic churches… we’re all exploring this same space of being church, digitally. The best part is instead of being territorial, we work together and learn together. Some of the happiest times I’ve had in the past year is sitting at a coffeehouse or restaurant with ministry people, and just learning from each other’s exper...
Jan 06, 2020•1 hr 10 min•Season 1Ep. 42
2019 has come and gone, and with it, 40 podcasts recorded on the many different facets of Church Online. Each podcast offering many lessons and insights into how to utilize Church Online more effectively for your church. With so many lessons, Rey and Jeff figured this was a great chance to review the year and pick out our highlights! Did you miss some of these podcasts? Go back and catch some of these lessons to better prepare you for 2020. COMPLETE SHOW NOTES AVAILABLE AT THECHURCH.DIGITAL...
Dec 30, 2019•36 min•Ep. 41
I (Jeff) used to consider myself innovative. Then I met Daniel. While most kids were running away from church, Daniel at age 11 was trying to figure out how to plant a church in a video game platform known as Roblox, and over eight years later his church has impacted over 24,000 lives. Even today, as a 19 year old college student, Daniel is still making strides with how to grow and stabilize his Robloxian Church. Looking for a fresh perspective on Gen Z? Check out The Church Digital Podcast. COM...
Dec 23, 2019•49 min•Season 1Ep. 40
Hey Church! This is your podcast. Two incredible organizations… Living As One and Leadership Network… got together and created a survey to discover how churches like yours are utilizing Church Online. For churches already doing Church Online, this is a great way to see how churches your size are utilizing the technology. For churches not yet taking advantage of a strategy utilizing Church Online, here’s your chance to see how churches similar to yours are doing it. More than just where we are to...
Dec 16, 2019•54 min•Season 1Ep. 39
One of the pioneers of Church Online jumps on the podcast here, Jay Kranda, from a small little SoCal Church called Saddleback. No stranger to the podcast, Jay goes into detail here talking about Saddleback’s relaunch of their micro-model… Saddleback “Home Gatherings”. As always, there’s a ton of value and insight in any of Jay’s podcast so enjoy this one (and go check out EP004 with Jay Kranda as well!) COMPLETE SHOW NOTES AVAILABLE AT THECHURCH.DIGITAL...
Dec 09, 2019•1 hr 10 min•Season 1Ep. 38
Stat time, are you ready? Here we go. The average church in America has 73 people attending a week. 80% of churches in America today are under 200 in weekly attendance. These are shocking stats for me. As a guy who spends so much time working with multisite churches, megachurches, even gigachurches… I don’t think I had completely realized how small churches are in America. Joe Radosevich understands this. As a Pastor of a Church Plant in Belgium, Wisconsin, he has a clear view of the reality of ...
Dec 02, 2019•1 hr•Season 1Ep. 37
I’m (Jeff) going to be honest here. I’ve never really enjoyed chat hosting. Maybe I never did it right. Recently, I had a conversation with Evan Connelly, where he went into detail about how the systems he was rolling out through his Church Online for Chat Hosts and I realized it was true… I never did do chat hosts right. So, we invited Evan on the podcast for a fresh perspective on how to do Chat, right, online. COMPLETE SHOW NOTES AVAILABLE AT THECHURCH.DIGITAL...
Nov 25, 2019•48 min
I’ve been hearing whispers of this new concept in church. Jeff, you got to talk to these guys. They’re doing Pop-Up Church. Honestly, I had no idea what Pop-Up Church was? My best imagination was something involving Ego Waffles. So, I called a friend of a friend of a friend, and eventually got in touch with Brandon Catoe, Pop-Up Pastor at Christ Fellowship West Palm Beach. To my disappointment, Ego Waffles were not involved. What I did discover, though, is a new way to effectively launch and mat...
Nov 18, 2019•54 min•Season 1Ep. 35
The idea of the multisite church was born in the 1990s as church attendance was growing faster than the church buildings could sustain. Even in those early days, there were questions about the validity of the Multisite Church Model, Time has worked in multisite’s favor, though, as a “radical” idea 20 years ago has turned into a “cool” idea 10 years ago, transitioning into a widely accepted “mainstream” idea today. Church Online is on a similar path. Early pioneers started making Church Online a ...
Nov 11, 2019•58 min•Season 1Ep. 34
I (Jeff) believe this to be true: In the future, bigger churches will continue to get bigger; but smaller churches will continue to get smaller. And that may not be a bad thing. The mega churches will find a way to succeed. Despite recent attendance trends, the church-growth formulas will continue to succeed. There are people who will continue to connect with these larger, physical expressions of church. To reach different people, however, maybe we should be thinking about a different model. Thi...
Nov 04, 2019•1 hr 13 min•Season 1Ep. 33
Why do we do Church Online? I’m willing to bet that you’ve asked this question of yourself, and of your church’s leadership… maybe even asking some of your high-level volunteers. I’m also willing to bet that there’s some discrepancy among the three groups. Ten years ago, Church Online was defined as the broadcasting of our church services on online platforms. Arguably, that is no longer a holistic definition of “church” than the person that just attends that one-hour church service on Sunday in ...
Oct 28, 2019•1 hr 9 min•Season 1Ep. 32
How do you market Church Online? I used to think SEO, SEM, SMM. Gotta love acronyms! All of these are valid, and helpful in ministry, but at the end of the day I could never shake the idea that God’s called us to something other than writing a check to Google or Facebook! So how do you market Church Online? Or even Church? What are ways to draw attention to this? Let’s dig in with Communications Specialist Jennifer Miles as we discover “how to market Church Online.” COMPLETE SHOW NOTES AVAILABLE...
Oct 21, 2019•50 min•Season 1Ep. 31
I love a church that takes a risk. That’s what Bay Hope Church has done. Evidently, there’s this thing called TikTok. It’s currently the #1 app downloaded from the iOS App Store, and with over 80% of teens currently owning an iPhone, it’s quite obvious there’s a digital mission field in front of us. Enter Andy Mage and Jessica Spivey from Bay Hope Church in Tampa, Florida. They’ve been experimenting with TikTok with some good success thus far. How’d they get started? What does the content look l...
Oct 14, 2019•48 min•Season 1Ep. 30
One of my favorite podcasts to date, Mark Venti from Churchome lays it out. “We’re experimenting…” “We’re following the Holy Spirit, but learning from Silicon Valley…” Mark and Churchome are on a mission to impact people in their homes as much as in their church buildings. After all, churches didn’t have buildings for the first 300 years they existed. Churchome has received some notoriety, and my blog posts I’ve written on them have become some of the most-read blogs on my site thanks to Google....
Oct 07, 2019•1 hr 1 min•Season 1Ep. 29
Engagement is one of those words that no longer has meaning. It’s been used and misused so often in recent years that the heart of the word has been lost. However, engagement is the heart of Church Online… it should be the heart of anyone who does ministry online. Enter Seth Muse into the conversation. Seth is Communications Director at Hope Fellowship Church and created a social media post a couple weeks ago that blew me away because in a very simple way Seth drew attention a problem that I thi...
Sep 30, 2019•54 min•Season 1Ep. 28
Working on a Church Staff has been one of the greatest joys and greatest burdens in my life. Confession: I spent many years on staff feeling alone and frustrated. While I was friends with the people I worked with, my ideas in ministry really separated me from those around me. I just thought differently. I’m not saying I’m right or they’re wrong. Fact here is, it’s a lonely place to think different than everyone else around you. Then, I met guys like Matt, Jason and Jason from the Church IT Netwo...
Sep 23, 2019•39 min•Season 1Ep. 27
Remember when Apple was an innovative company? Steve Jobs would be speaking at a keynote, flash that sly grin, and then say to the audience: “Oh, one more thing…” Those days are sadly behind us it would seem. For the entirety of my life, I’ve been Apple Fanboy #1, but after the presentation this September, I am willingly relinquishing my Fanboy status. I will no longer claim to be an Apple Apologist. In search to become the most cash-rich corporation in the world, they’ve lost some of the princi...
Sep 16, 2019•32 min•Season 1Ep. 26
