The Church Digital Podcast

As churches start to head back into their buildings, Pastor, we have the opportunity to continue to blur the lines of Phygital. We have an incredible resource available to us. Creatively, what if we embraced the idea of creative services online, even as we went physical. What if we grabbed hold of these digital resources and really thought digital first... how can physical and digital services ben...

Pre-COVID I don’t think I heard much about the idea of a church becoming the “Christian Netflix”… but thank you very much Coronavirus for once again providing Your Church opportunities that it didn’t have before? So is there merit to the content-heavy “Church as Christian Netflix?” model? How does it complement your church’s mission and vision? Does it assist in your disciple-making strategies? In...

COVID is teaching us, the church, many lessons. Obviously, there are many lessons about the value of Church Online or Discipleship Online. But why stop there? Church Communications Directors have been working overtime in this COVID season, managing the chaos that has been 2020. While we don’t talk about Communications much here at THECHURCH.DIGITAL, let’s pause and ask some questions. To that end,...

This is not going to be your typical The Church Digital Podcast. What does church discipline look like at your church? I want to be clear with the question. I’m not necessarily talking about spiritual disciplines here. Not digging into discipleship. Wikipedia defines Church Discipline as: “the practice of censuring church members when they are perceived to have sinned in hope that the offender wil...

The idea of Church as Platform has been resonating for a while here at The Church Digital. Through recent blogs & podcasts we’ve been unpacking this idea of the church (not providing a service, but instead finding success in empowering others to do ministry). It’s not about our organizations reaching people, but about our organizations training disciple-makers to reach people. Today on the pod...

Most churches shut down for the summer… global pandemic and all. Weekend services are “essential” operations, but the majority of churches have struggled to anything otherwise. This is what makes the story of SOFLO camp so interesting to me. While other churches are pausing ministry, or struggling to put the pieces together, two or three churches from the Church United Network started a movement....

To do digital ministry you need to think outside the box. What works in the building won’t necessarily work online. We know this. But oftentimes our ministry digitally looks a lot like our physical ministry. But, what if we did think outside the box. Enter Tyler Sansom into the conversation. Tyler is Lead Digital Pastor of Church Anywhere, a Digital-Only Church, who is taking a unique approach to...

Hey, it’s my birthday podcast! And for the second year in a row, we’re bringing in a special guest to celebrate my birthday. Last year it was my mom, talking about how she leads her two online small groups. Mom wasn’t available this year, so instead we got Greg Nettle, President of Stadia Church Planting to jump on the podcast. What I love about Greg Nettle is the man is passionate about Digital C...

As we get further and further into this COVID season, how are we finding new people? It’s so easy to default back to our 99s and to forget about our ones. In the push to get back to whatever we think normalcy is, words like evangelism or sharing faith seem to be lost from our vernacular. On the show we talk a lot about the church helping others find their individual ones. But how can we, in this s...

Thank you very much, COVID. That long-term vision? That playbook? Your church’s strategy? It’s all trash. Every church is in startup mode, and we’re reimagining the idea of church moving forward. Reimagining is going to require some experimentation. Is your church capable of experimenting? Do they have the vision? The resources? The ability to experiment. Often churches staff for the needs of toda...

Thanks to COVID, lots of churches are operating digitally. They’re broadcasting their services online. Trying to start up Online Small Groups. As a general rule, they’re moving their physical ministry digital, or even learning how to do ministry phygitally (combining physical + digital). I’m suggesting there’s a whole other category… digital-only churches. What would it be like to do church, to be...

I’ve talked with hundreds of Pastors in this COVID season. Easily. Not an exaggeration. If I count emails, texts, social media, direct messages, pings… geez, may be over a thousand. Never, never, NEVER have I heard a Pastor tell me this: “Our Church is healthier because of COVID.” Enter Ali Roohi, Pastor of CenterSet Church in California. In this COVID season, he’s seen online attendance drop. Mos...

What can we, the Church, learn from Uber? AirBNB? We’re 100+ days into this COVID thing. Our buildings aren’t getting much usage. In some areas (like where I am in Florida) we’re actually worse now than ever. In that same vein, I had a pastor tell me recently, “Jeff, we really can’t pause the ministry of the Church any longer. We’ve been in slow motion since COVID started, and we’ve got to ramp up...

What does the future hold for Virtual Reality?... for Artificial Intelligence? Talk to the business world and they're chomping at the bit to take advantage of disruptions like these. But what of the church world? As a general rule, we're more skeptical of these innovations. Is the skepticism warranted? Or are we missing an opportunity? This is where Christopher Benek comes in. As Lead Pastor...

YouTube is powerful. Incredibly powerful... if you use it right. In this COVID-19 season, churches have been jumping onboard the YouTube bandwagon. But there's more to YouTube than just storing video. This is the heart of the podcast here. Dave Adamson is passionate about YouTube. An Online Pastor for over a decade now, Dave has been very vocal in recent years, helping churches figure out how to b...

As reports show COVID-19 is spiking, churches are starting to engage more and more with the idea of micro-locations as a short-term solution. It's important to notice that even with the idea of micro-locations, there's different ways these locations can look. The main difference really lies in the expectations of the volunteer leader. The two extremes are basically the "Watch Party" and the "House...

How do you start a church movement? Sure, there's probably different ways we can answer that question. If we looked at Christ's example, well, he started with 12 guys. Not a massive movement. He started with individuals and took three years to groom, grow, and disciple them. (Interestingly, one of them tried to kill Jesus, which just goes to show how difficult disciple-making actually is!) When we...

The idea of a Digital-Only Church was quite controversial pre-COVID. Truthfully, it's still controversial today. What we're discovering, though, is there are pioneers out there who are testing these waters... paving the way for the settlers to come in later. Angela is one of those pioneers. In 2017, she launched a Social Media Church on Facebook... Pursuit Church Live is a digital-only church (wit...

I love the Internet. Dave Ferguson, Leader of the Exponential Conference/Movement and Lead Pastor at Community Christian Church in Chicago... over the years I've been influenced by Dave. Hero Maker had a big impact in my life, and Exponential as a tribe has felt like home in recent years. So, imagine my surprise when Tanys, a faithful Church Digital Podcast listener from Canada, tags Dave Ferguson...

Church, we are content beasts... I actually had a friend of mine tell me once, "The only people that create more content than Churches is the Porn." He wasn't a Christ-follower and I'm going to have to take his word on the porn side... That being said, our weekend services take a massive amount of work to create. That's nice and all, but we need to move beyond creating content to consume and conti...

Church, why do we do this? Why do we do 'church'? I don't mean physical church, or digital church. I don't mean weekend services, or small groups. I simply mean, why is it that we do what we do? Our buildings, our online... Pastor, there are times that pride gets to us and we think that our physical or digital footprint are the endgame. I've been guilty of this, I admit it. Chances are, if you're...

So, who are these people who are watching our Churches Online and what are we supposed to do with them? COVID-19 has brought us tons of traffic, and maybe for the first time we, as a church, are understanding the potential of the reach of Church Online. But here's a hard truth: people are not going to stay at your church because of content. Why do people stay? Because of community, vision, being o...

Depending on your location, gathering restrictions are starting to loosen, and churches are considering meeting together again. Some restrictions remain in place limiting size of gathering, wearing of masks, and appropriate social distancing. And while some churches are rushing to get back to the building, and the perceived normal... what if there's another way. Enter Adrienne Feldmann, Online Pas...

Pastor, if there's one thing you've learned in this COVID-19 season, it's that you want to have influence online. For most churches, that means putting your sermons online. For Scot Mendenhall, though, that means something completely different. Scot, a pastor at Unlock Church in Minnesota, took to YouTube to gain influence on One Wheels... a motorized scooter of sorts. An incredible story, Scot us...

Well, we're going back into the building. Or at least a small percentage of us are. Many, though, are opting to take a slower approach heading back into the space. Is there a different approach? Churches like Saddleback and Elevation have been experimenting with Micro-locations for a while now, and this week we're having a conversation with another church who has been doing micro-church for almost...