RX 24 - Digital Cohort - Why Should We Even Do Digital Ministry - Tim Lemons

Transcribed Content

Presenting digital cohort, why should we even do digital ministry? Please join me in welcoming to the stage, Tim Lemons. Hello. There we go. Alright. My name is Tim Lemmons. I'm from Highlands Fellowship in Abingdon, Virginia. A lot of people have no idea where Abingdon, Virginia is. Maybe you know Bristol, Tennessee. Bristol, Virginia. That's where we're from, so right on the Tennessee Virginia border. We're a church of about 2,000 people, average weekend attendance, four campuses, and been on staff for about twelve, thirteen years, something like that. My title is digital pastor, and that means a whole lot of things. I do rock, I do communications, I do website, a little bit of social media strategy, a few other things too. But my a big heart of mine is digital discipleship. And so the question I want to propose to you everybody's talking about digital, and I just want to help you reframe maybe how we think about digital ministry. And really the big question is, should we do digital ministry? Spoiler alert, yes, we should. Anybody know this guy? Jay Cranda, he's from Saddleback. He has a quote that I love, and it's basically I didn't write it out verbatim, but it's basically, Any relationship is better if you're doing it in person and digital. Right? So if you think about your spouse, what if your relationship only existed, like if you only talked to your spouse when you were face to face? It'd be a good relationship, but it could probably be better, Like you send each other little love notes during the day and how you doing today, can't wait to see you tonight, you know, those type of things. So it's not just an in person relationship, it's a digital relationship. Right? And so my heart, I'm a people person to the core, and I love I'm a connector if you do like Strength Finders. So I love connecting people. I love community. I love relationships. And I think that is what the Christ following life is all about. Right? Like we're we cannot do life alone. We're supposed to do life together with other people, and we just can't do it alone. So I think it's super important that everything we talk about, everything we do in church is really relationships. So start with the why. And a question I ask all the time is, can somebody be a disciple of Jesus if they go to church for one hour a week? Well we know the answer to that is no. Right? You cannot have a relationship, you cannot be like Jesus if you just go to church for one hour a week. That's not what being a Christ follower is about. Another why, another thing that I have seen happen to me personally, and I have seen it happen to many close friends and I've seen it happen to kids, my kids, other kids, is be transformed by the scrolling of your phones. Romans tells us we're supposed to be transformed by the renewing of our minds, but I have seen so, so many people be transformed by the scrolling of their phones. They're consuming horrible content, junk food like John Edmondson said in one of his sessions. And so I've seen marriages fall apart, I've seen teenagers, young adults leave the faith, people isolated and lonely by us being more connected than ever. Right? Like I love iPhone, I'm an Apple fanboy, I love technology, but this thing does a lot of damage if we don't treat it right, right? If we don't take care of it and take care of ourselves. The Surgeon General, I don't know if you guys have known, but kind of recently, the Surgeon General released a statement saying, We have an epidemic of loneliness. And you can Google Surgeon General epidemic of loneliness, and there's a whole lot of stats, a whole lot of information. And one of the things that the Surgeon General recommends is creating an online community. Imagine that. So I have wrestled with loneliness. I have wrestled with last like, two years ago, I went through a bunch of stuff, with my adult children who are kinda running from God a little bit. Went through some other things. COVID, you know, we like, we all I I know, like, everybody I talk to has experienced loneliness in the last couple of years. So it's super important that we get connected, we build relationships, we get to know people, and in this current culture that we're in, I don't know about you guys, but it's hard to get people together. I've got a group of amazing guys that we hang out, we do life together, but it's very hard for us to get a time where all of us can be together and hang out and do things together. So average American spends one hundred and fifty one minutes a day on social media. That's the average. So there's going to be some that are triple that, I'm sure. Maybe young kids. I can't believe how much my grandma is on Facebook. Like every time I open Facebook, she's on Facebook. She's commenting on everything and sharing everything. The world is on social media, they're on their phone all the time. I just talked about it, I've had many seasons in my life where I have struggled with loneliness, but I've also had many seasons where I've struggled with phone addiction, mindlessly scrolling. Like one thing for me, one of my dreams in life has always been to have a boat. I love the lake, I love water, and it used to drive me crazy. I'd be scrolling through social media and my friends that have boats would be out on the lake, on the boat. I'm like, you didn't invite me? Come on. And I'm sitting at home, the kids are in bed, the wife's asleep, and I'm like, I could be out on the lake. So the FOMO, the fear of missing out, had really did a lot of damage to me for a little while. But I finally learned how to turn on screen time, be aware of what I'm doing, pay attention to the things I'm consuming. So how do we disciple ourselves? How do we disciple others in this world of loneliness? I've got a question that I want you to think about. Discipling is basically kind of mentoring. Right? Like you're pouring into people, you're teaching them how to follow Jesus. So I have a question for you. Who has mentored you in your life? So just take a second, think of two or three names of people that have mentored you in your life. So everybody got somebody. Did anybody name Craig Rochelle or Rick Warren or John Maxwell or some other big church person or author or video person? Did anybody name them? I am curious. Did any of those names come to your mind? Okay. A couple of you. Cool. Did anybody name the apostle Paul or King David or James? Anybody think of that? When we read the Bible, we are reading things that people have written, right, that Paul wrote. And Paul has transformed my life by me reading the Bible. I know it's God's word. I'm not saying, you know, but by me reading God's word, things that Paul wrote a long, long time ago, he has transformed my life. He has mentored me. And so we we think about technology, but do we ever think about the technology that Paul used? Paul used the technology of his day to reach people. So he's sitting in prison and he's writing letters. And those letters have lived on for thousands of years, impacted millions of people, and he did it using the technology of his day. Just scrolls. Right? Like sitting in prison, writing out things. What do you think Paul would think if he walked into this room today? Like, let's say he just appeared back on Earth for whatever reason, and the first place he decides to come is this conference and walks in here to this room, and he sees all this technology that we have. Like, what do you think he would think? I know his mind would be blown. And I guarantee you, the first question he would ask is, Wow, like, you can talk to people all over the world with a push of a button? Like, are you doing with that to reach people for Jesus? I had to hop on boats and travel all over the place, and I got stranded. Like, think about all the things that they had to do to reach people. And we had the ability to share about Jesus with just the push of a button. When I first started thinking about that, it really convicted me. So Jesus, if Jesus was here, if now was his time where he's walking around on earth and doing ministry, where do you think Jesus would be today? There's 7,800,000,000 people, 2,800,000,000 people on Facebook. Oh by the way, this is a presentation I did to our lead team and so these stats might be a little bit older, but I did it later or earlier in the year. 2,800,000,000 people on Facebook, 2,300,000,000 people use YouTube and 6,600,000,000 have a smartphone. That stat blew me away. 6,600,000,000 people have a smartphone. There's a guy named Dave Adamson. He used to be an online pastor at Northpoint and has a book out called Meta Church. I would challenge you to read it. There'll be a slide about that at the end. But one of the quotes that he says, as people walk around with a pastor, a worship team, a bible, a concordance, an offering plate and more right in their pocket. And I've heard the stat before and somebody quoted it here today saying something like, I don't remember the exact numbers but it was 90% of people are within three feet of their phone like 90% of the time. Always has their phone on them. It's always around them. So we can use our phones to be pastors for people, worship team, Bible, concordance, offering plate, all sorts of things. So today's technology. We've got social media. We talked about Paul using his technology. So talking about technology today, we've got social media, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, X. It's hard to say X. TikTok, online communities, Discord, Slack, Rocket Chat, Facebook groups, etcetera. Think about like I'm trying to look around and see faces I know. Like I have talked to so many people in this community, and you guys are my friends. Right? Like I talk to you all the time. We help each other on Rocket Chat. Two years ago, Jonathan was coming to the conference he gave me a hug and he was like, It's so nice to finally meet you in person. I was like, What? I had been talking to Jonathan on Rocket Chat and had Zoom calls and all sorts of meetings for years. But it was his first time that he was at the conference and I was at the conference and it was like, oh yeah, we've never met in person. But we're friends, we hang out, we have community, I've encouraged him, he's encouraged me, we've challenged one another. I have a friend right now who's going through something horrible, like just his wife has left and he's experiencing just horrible things. And I created a Discord server that I've got like 30 guys on. And that Discord server, he told me earlier this year, has saved his life. Like, I don't take that lightly. Saved his life. Like he means that. Because at 10PM, eleven pm, he can hop on Discord and one of us is there. We can talk to him, we can pray with him, we can encourage him, we can hang out with him. Creating online communities like this community of Rock has changed my life. It's been incredible thing. We hang out, we communicate and help each other and encourage one another, pray for one another. So think about online communities that you can build. Facebook groups, another technology course, YouTube videos. Instead of going and reading your scripture, right, like hopefully you're doing quiet time, you read a bible verse, you're praying, God tells you something, like just record a video. It doesn't have to be polished in today's world, in this culture. Don't need polished. Pull your phone out and say, hey guys, I was reading today James and it really challenged me when you're having tough times to consider it pure joy and I didn't think of this before but now I do and have you ever thought of that? It will reach people. Like I pulled into the church parking lot one day and it had been raining and there was puddles in the sidewalk and there were all these birds like sitting there drinking the water. And immediately when I saw that, the scripture popped into my head like, He takes care of the birds, He takes care of the sparrows and how much more is He going to take care of us? And I just thought, man, God like made it rain right there so that these birds can have a pool party. Like that's awesome. And so I just whipped out my phone and recorded a little video, and I shared it on Facebook, and I got like hundreds of comments. Just, oh, Tim, that was so good. Thank you for sharing that. We're so blessed. I mean, just created a quick little video that made a big difference to so many people. Blogs, articles, devos. Again, Paul was writing blogs of his day. Right? Like, he was in prison, alone, isolated, and he's writing blog posts that has changed the world. VR? Anybody messed around with VR church stuff? Yeah, it's pretty cool. If you haven't, you should. It's a whole new frontier and it's going to take off I think. It's going to take a little while maybe, but it already is actually. It's a cool experience. People are way more open, way more honest, and will talk more about their problems on VR than they would face to face. So talking about social media, I love this quote from Chris Abbott. He says, Not learning how to use social media effectively is like a missionary moving to a country and refusing to learn the language. Social media is a language in our world that people use to communicate. Another one, maybe. Social media is a ministry. Not just a vehicle to promote ministry. I mean, I'm sure we're a smart crowd here. The Rock community is awesome and doing amazing things. And so I know some of this is not new to you guys, but promoting events on social media is not what social media should be about. It should be about sharing Jesus and encouraging people and loving people and caring for people. Another quote is from Brady Shearer again, use social media more like a pulpit. Use social media less like a bulletin. Any any one of us have the ability to pull out our phones and share an encouraging word with thousands of people every day. And don't we wanna do that? Don't we wanna share Jesus with a thousand people? And like I said at the beginning, it's all about relationships. I can reach people that I can reach on my platforms. You can reach people that you can reach on your platforms. You are an influencer. Like if you were here for the pre night event, that's what John was talking about, you are a leader. Don't wait to be a leader, you are an influencer. You have people in your life that you can influence. And you can be a digital mentor just like Craig Groeschel or Paul, but it has to be by you sharing your life. I'm guilty. I get on Instagram and I just ate some great tacos. So I take a picture of that, I share how amazing these tacos were. But am I sharing about how amazing Jesus is? People want to know the real you, and part of that is that you have real struggles. You have highs and lows. You have problems. I think we're so, so guilty in the Christian world of walking around with smiles on our faces. You come into church, how you doing? Good. Good. How you doing? Good. Good to see you. Yeah. You too. Alright. Take it easy. But you guys, like you were fighting in the car on the way to church and cussing each other out and just having a bad day, but everything's good. We're good. That's alright. So be real. Share your hurts. Share your pains. Share your good times. Share your bad times. Highlights, and my friend Nathan says lowlights. So share your highlights on social media and share your lowlights too. Another important thing with social media, you don't have to wait until Sunday to share something important. You can share it right away anytime, twenty four seven. The value of interacting with social media or on social media with others. Engaging with followers on their personal social media posts deepens personal connections and strengthens the church community. When the church acknowledges individual milestones or offers support during challenges, it can phase a powerful message. We see you, and we care about your your life. This fosters trust and a sense of belonging, but also helps us stay relevant to the current issues and discussions that people are having. The scriptures say we're supposed to carry each other's burdens. We're supposed to encourage one another. There's no better way to say, hey, I'm praying for you. I'm carrying this with you by commenting on a post. I mean, course, a text is better or going and seeing them can be a better thing, but we don't have time. We can't do that for thousands of people. But we can influence people every single day by just a simple message, simple celebrating a milestone. And then Rock has provided us with amazing tools. Just to highlight some of those tools, website app. Again, you got sermons, you got blogs, you got stories. The prayer wall, as John said, is so underused, I think, in the community and in our church. Imagine praying for everybody in your church every single morning and being able to comment on prayer requests and send those to each other. Daily content. There's so many churches doing great stuff with daily devotions and daily Bible reading. Email is still an effective tool. We forget about and we think about it more as a promoting thing, but email can still be very helpful to reach and disciple people and care for people. The prayer wall, as I talked about. Sermons, here's an example of just a tweak. We used to have the sermons page, it was by series. And all of our sermon titles were, you know, I can't even think of one off the top of my head, but Fight the Habit Week One. So on YouTube, the title would be Fight the Habit Week One. Well who's searching for Fight the Habit Week One on YouTube? Or who's searching our website for Fight the Habit Week One? So we started putting the transcripts into AI and asking AI, hey, what would be a great we'd say, hey, you're a YouTube expert. We want you to write an SEO friendly title that would pique the interest of a person who doesn't believe in Jesus. How would you title this message? And we've been doing that now for months with all of our sermon titles, and so now they're more searchable on YouTube, on our website, changing the images of those sermons to be a little bit more friendly. The Rock content library was announced last year at Rock. NewSpring, one and all, and I'm sure by now other churches have donated thousands of written content library. Use those, like ideas such as a simple way to begin to pray, three ways to grow in prayer, five practical ways to love your wife, what happens when my kids discover porn. Like, those are the questions that people in our churches are asking. And now we have access to all of this written content that we can share and disciple our people, just like Paul was doing when he was in prison writing letters. And there's a picture of our blog page. We've got to work on a little bit of design stuff, but it's always a work in progress, right? Blogs and articles. I kind of skipped ahead, I already talked about the value of blog posts. These blog posts live on forever. They can reach people. You can write a blog post once on Tuesday at 9AM, put it on the blog post, and somebody who's struggling with whatever you wrote about is up at 3AM and maybe having a horrible night can find that, and it can speak to them and impact their life. Again, Paul was basically writing blogs of his day from prison, bridge the gap between Sundays. Again, we can't be a Christian just by going to church on Sundays. We can teach people, encourage people all week long, deeper dives for spiritual growth and discipleship, reach people that are searching for help. So my marriage is struggling, what do I do? If we have a blog post called that and somebody searches it that's close to our church, then Google will most likely show them that because they're closer to us. And if it has a good rank, SEO rank, then they might stumble upon that. And then we can encourage them to reach out to us for help, or we can offer counseling, or whatever the case may be. That may be their first touch with your church. Of course, can increase web traffic, consistently update content, target various and specific audiences. Again, of this stuff is basic to some and maybe not to others. A chance to hear from other staff and key volunteers, like the people on the teaching team get to get up in front of the church and teach all the time. But we have amazing staff, right, who have amazing stories, who have amazing sorry to say testimonies, the same thing. It's an opportunity for other staff to be heard and to share and encourage our church. Here's an example of prayer wall that we have on our website. So people submit a prayer and we can pray for it, and it's on our app as well. Prayer achievements. Like, this is kind of cool. With steps and achievements. You know, mentioned celebrating milestones earlier. If Rachel Hogg, who's there at the top of the list, has reached that achievement of 100 attempts of prayer praying, you can reach out to Rachel and be like, hey, Rachel, I see you're an awesome prayer warrior. Thank you for praying for our people. And that's going to make a difference and matter to her. The digital discipleship, want to learn more, these are two books that I definitely recommend. I mentioned Dave Adamson, Meta Church. Go check that one out. Also, From Social Media to Social Ministry is written by Nona Jones. She was working at Facebook at the time she wrote this book, and so she very much focuses on Facebook, but the principles are the same and can be carried out for other ways to do ministry on social media, not just on Facebook. All right. So questions.