everybody welcome to the podcast my name is mingo and we are so deep in this uh pandemic plus uh i would say online church new hybrid versions of church and so i'm back in the rebel fish local studio there's no better place to record if you're in southern california than robert cortez's studio yes so we're sitting here it's after hours uh it's well past the work day uh today our church did a blood drive we distributed food to 200 families wow uh that was dry goods dairy goods uh and produce uh and we also hosted a um a student study hall that was before we got to this moment in this chair right now so there's a lot on my mind and uh it's been a few weeks since we recorded our um kind of like our our country tells all episode right where we go to facebook live go to instagram live we kind of just hear from pastors all around the country about what it is that's keeping them inspired what's keeping them on purpose and what's keeping them motivated we heard some great things from gloria medrano uh just as a little flashback about how she's using some old school technology to do uh current church right she's using the telephone pick up that phone i loved it and she's uh she's ministering to a whole group of people who have no ability to leave their facility it's all senior adults and she's pastoring that community so well we heard from uh courtney pastor courtney um all about how his perspective in this season i love what he said he said uh even if we're six seven months into this quarantine process it's still shorter than a deployment he gave us a great perspective on how we got to set our sights and then rick long always an encourager always a great um just advocate and voice to keep our mind on uh the purpose of church the purpose of gathering and the purpose of why being uh for our communities is so important right now and rick reminded us that we got to keep our senses sharp right that this is the moment where we could be overcome this is a moment where we could be discouraged this moment where we would throw in the towel but it's also the most valuable moment for the church and then i i i feel it in this moment we are one month into what has been our regathering um our regathering plan i remember a few episodes back we talked about the rollout of neighborhood church and we were going to do home church as a way of just being with all the people that you're under the same room with a roof with that neighborhood church would be with maybe a neighbor or two a friend group or two a family or two and then we would go into community church right it would be when we get to re uh reopen our largest venues in each of our respective neighborhoods and um what's been interesting is it hasn't been a um a linear pathway right where in california which is where we do ministry i thought okay we're gonna go into the heaviest version of lockdown we'd all be on online church then we would open up our facilities to a certain degree then we would open up our facilities to age-appropriate programming then we would get back to normal and it hasn't been that way it hasn't been a linear trajectory it's been kind of a popcorn approach seems like nothing in california goes as planned right uh man i could we could spend a whole episode on that but uh for the listeners today here's what i want to bring to the table what are some of these strengths that i'm seeing uh rise to the top what is the cream of the crop when it comes to strengths when it comes to um just those core abilities that are helping us make our way through this season and uh we talked about this as a network staff so we recently had a um the first time our whole network staff has gotten back together it's roughly uh 85 folks representing uh five churches that are meeting currently we didn't see salt lake city they weren't in with us um but we have representation from both tj churches our venice church of course our church in torrey pines chula vista which is about 15 miles from us if you don't if you're not from southern california and then imperial beach church which is a stone throw from chula vista but it's a set up tear down church model so with all of that staff present we were talking about what is it going to take in this moment to get us from where we're at to where we want to be and where do we want to be want to be a church that's vibrant that's serving individuals that's engaging leaders that's reminding people that there's more to their purpose than just accomplishing their regular nine to five right and um it was interesting there were some very key things that we brought to the table that we you know we landed on as a community of leaders that i think are worthy of sharing with the church at large the the global church the capital c church because if you're not thinking this direction i think that it's worth putting some time into in order to make sure that you're prepared for not just q4 not just the the coming winter season of 2020 the remainder of the year but also the beginning of 2021 we're on the brink and as many people as i talk to who are like mingo i'm ready let's close 2020 i'm done with it it's over let me like clap my hands clean the slate there's so much that's going to carry over into 2021 we just got to be ready to deal with it so grab your notebook grab your pen here's where i want to go uh in this episode the the first thing that every church needs to be thinking about right now in this moment is actually a three a three-part factor for how you're going to execute services you ready for them robert you can think about it i'm ready if i was like seven no it's not seven it was seven okay so everybody's been doing online church right it's been the biggest boom in churches across america if you weren't doing online church either you started online church or your church died that's the bottom line and we had a couple episodes back where we said you know there's gonna be some churches that are no longer gonna exist after this season and that's okay god's sovereignty will birth new churches and where certain churches no longer exist there is the beginning nuances of new churches and that's that's part of god's plan but here's the deal if you're if you've recently in the last one year launched a comprehensive online service a lot like we did i'm not saying that we have a pro here but we launched a very robust online service great camera angles great worship set i would say uh visually simulating teaching we've got an editor our worship guy is doing all of our editing thank god he's got some uh some expertise in editing um whereas before it used to just be one camera in the back of the auditorium right i think a majority of churches were like this when they were meeting on a regular basis in their largest venues it was just one camera in the back good luck maybe there's five or six people maybe that didn't come maybe a few folks that were watching online and today the majority of folks are going to stumble onto your church programming via your online offering so if you're not doing online church uh you need to be seriously considering what that looks like and it's not just for a season i think it's for the remainder of days right online church how you present your episodes your series your messages you have to just constantly add that to your laundry list of things that you need to be thinking about from now going on till the end of time that's my opinion it's not going away no i don't think so in your expertise robert online experience though the percentage of people who are going to the internet in order to find a solution find something that is going to help them in their current problem it's higher today more than ever yep yep even carriers right now they're doing internet access or having issues yeah because bandwidth is much lower because there's so many people online right now which is a telling sign that if your church isn't offering something across a few different channels these channels uniquely being youtube video instagram facebook you're not on those four majors uh that's a great place where you can play catch up right now it's a good idea to be where people are right yeah that's great wisdom so online church is where you need to be thinking the second one is outdoor services right and this is where we've been for a month we have the luxury of being in southern california we're on 10 acres of property that has a load of grass we have acreage of grass um and outdoor services has been uh this great space where the church has never really been for it torrey pines church the church that i lead pastor they have rarely ran program outside because they've got great indoor facilities yeah but in a season when so many people are more interested in fresh air uh distance between their fellow church goer right that they can place themselves as far and few between from the other people that are attending the way that you approach outdoor services not just for your worship service and your main teaching but also for your kids ministry your student ministry needs to be something that you are playing hot potato with your team with right what are the best ideas that are out there what are other ministries doing i'll tell you what we've started to do we've done a we move from sunday mornings which get uh particularly warm we don't have a lot of shade on our campus so we moved actually to saturday evenings we have the five o'clock hour it's getting progressively cooler the shade shows up more and um we've taken our entire church which was an 8 a.m service a 9 a.m service an 11 a.m service plus a 9 15 traditional service in another location so that's four services we've boiled into one outdoor service and here's what i can tell you uh the benefit of going outdoors is um one you're an open air space um you get you're only doing one service which for your team and your leaders is great because it's all hands on deck you have tons of coverage um you're only having to preach one time which is great for the amount of time that you're going to spend on a particular weekend preaching it's rough when you're used to having that first um service to kind of like prime the message you're like oh did that work uh i might change the story maybe i'll like cut that analogy out i don't get any more of those it's one and done uh with a weekend service and uh i'm learning to love it i'm also learning to love the rotation of speakers so i have invited in um a former interim pastor kevin mcpeak of ours uh he's an executive pastor at the network uh our traditional pastor uh tim scott he's preaching on a semi-regular basis and so that creates a little bit of a break for me the lead pastor the teaching pastor to actually work on the church not just be in the church right so i do love this uh one service saturday that we're doing while in addition hosting our regular online sunday services so we still do an 8 we still do 9 15 still do an 11 we still do a traditional uh 12 45 it is i'm actually recording uh on in the midweek so i'm recording my sermon on thursday that gives me or friday that gives me a chance to get a one through pass and then i'll modify a little bit because what you do in front of the camera is always gonna have different nuances than what you do in front of a live audience right but it's good because it gets you to kind of rough draft your message early and be able to make tweaks so you know it really well by the time the weekend comes so you gotta think online you gotta think outdoors and here's the deal we're starting to really consider uh in the winter when the weather's not going to be on our side what does indoor services look like i think this is the three kind of paradigms that every church is gonna have to figure out even if you're in a place that the weather is absolutely not on your side to be able to offer something that is uh an offering for people outdoors just gives people more options in a moment in time where options are your friend if your church isn't creating a few different options where somebody can come and be a part of the community according to their own comfort level i think you're missing a major demographic so have you seen more of a more engagement with everybody like in terms of like attendance or engagement online great question so when everybody went online it was like uh it was like a flood right everybody jumped on the website and it was like oh my gosh i've never done facebook services before this is so great we had 100 people per service streaming we actually were doing live services right we were streaming live and direct it was like live tv and there were like errors you know if we messed up it was just like dead air we got smarter as time went by we started doing facebook premiere which was the ability to pre-record but to post it as if it was a live video and i think just like everything else in business everything else in the marketplace everything else in ministry people's attention span and people's interest just goes it's it's not up into the right it's down to the left right it goes because the opposite direction and this is why it's so important to not just make weekend programming your church's main thing but how are you serving your community sunday through saturday right as a way of counterbalancing that ask for people to join you online on the weekend so like i said earlier in the episode we today alone we did food distribution for 200 families we had a study hall for kids from junior high to college uh in some of our largest venues by way of leadership from nick mulchrey our student pastor we had our adult ministries director kelly classen she coordinated our probably i don't know 10th blood drive with the san diego red cross and we're in the works right now with uh our largest um transitional housing and homeless um ministry and service it's a city service the san diego rescue mission we're in talks right now about how to partner in the fall so engagement is interesting because when we opened our lawn services our outdoor services instantly we saw 100 150 just about to break the 200 person mark in attendance which is good for us prior to breaking up we were seeing about 770 ish people um on a weekend when i see 200 at a lawn service when i see roughly between three and 400 on the weekend service and i know there are plenty of people that are coming together midweek to help their neighbor out i'm still deeply satisfied as a pastor and the network churches well totally the neighborhood churches which are also these pockets of people who uh sometimes they're rogue sometimes you don't know that they're gathering but they are they come and tell you wow i've been meeting with four of my neighbors it's been awesome the bottom line is that the more you create by way of avenues for people to digest and consume your content the better you're going to be positioned come 2021 when it comes to uh coming back and here's what i've been telling my team this is what i'll leave this conversation with is um you'll save yourself a lot of grief if you determine and if you lead your teams to let go of the statistics in numeric um norms that you were counting before we broke up in february so i know that number right i know that number really well 775 before we broke up in february and as we see a combination of online viewers lawn service viewers neighborhood churches and midweek ministry opportunities i told my team we are rebuilding our church from the zero mark so every weekend that we see another family every every study hall that we open up for students to come and somebody brings their friend we are going to celebrate i've said this before in episodes past every stepping stone like it's a milestone right we're going to cheer on every small win because those piled up make big differences in the local church and it's just been a good mental i think shift for me is not to be anticipating when we quote unquote go back or see once again we said this as a network uh that what we will do in january 2021 is a whole new beast it's not a it's not the old animal it's a whole new animal and you're going to need to deploy some innovators you're going to bring some ideators to the table you're going to bring some builders you're going to bring some makers to the table these people who can imagine something out of nothing this is not the season for managers and this is not the season for um directors right there's very little to manage in this season everything is new right the way that we do kids ministry the way that we do student ministry the way that we do our worship services the way we do outreach right now is not anything like the way that we once did it and so you As the leader, you have to really compel your existing team because if you're like me, you're not getting rid of your team, right? If the Lord has given you enough grace, you're able to hold your team through the season, but you're compelling them to think beyond their normal expressions. And I've been so proud of our team because they get this. And I celebrate every stepping stone like a milestone.
And I'm not afraid to fail fast, right? If it doesn't work, thanks for trying. Let's pivot and let's try to figure out something that might. And we're one month into regathering outdoors.
We've yet to open our indoor spaces up. We've got some gorgeous indoor spaces. And they need some TLC. But here's my encouragement to you as a ministry leader.
When we talk about online, outdoor, and indoor, this is not just for big church. I think every kidsman needs to think about this. What does your online offering look like? What's your outdoor expression of kids ministry look like?
What's your indoor eventual expression of kids ministry look like? This is the same for student ministries. Man, this is such a pivotal moment for student ministries. Online is where most of those students are anyway.
So can you find a unique entry point where you can actually become a regular cycling voice inside of that which they are constantly engaging with anyways? Whether that's a YouTube channel, whether that's a TikTok account, whether you're on Instagram, you're making stories on the weekly or regular. But then what does your outdoor offerings look like? Are you meeting at the beach?
Or are you going to your community's biggest parks? Are you going to places where other students would feel safe? And more importantly, what does your indoor strategy look like? So here's what I want to compel you to do as you make your way to 2021.
Be thinking not just about where you're at and how you can get back maybe to where you once were. Think about how you do what you do across these three playing fields. The online space, the outdoor space, and the indoor space. They're not all going to fire all at once, but you need to be, if you're going to be a smart leader, if you're going to be a purposeful and strategic leader, you need to be putting stock into each of these expressions moving into January.
That's where I'm at. That's where some of the best leaders that I know are at right now. And here's what they're not doing. They're not holding their breath, waiting to get back to where they were in February and March.
So true. So that's my encouragement to you. That rounds us out on the 22-minute. I hope this gave you something to think about.
If anything, if you're not the guy in your church, let's say you're not the lead pastor, maybe you're the student ministry pastor, adult ministry pastor, or you're an outreach person, just be thinking about how you can start this conversation, right? These are the three major pillars I hear over and over and over from leaders from every stretch of the church landscape right now. What does online look like? What does outdoor look like?
And what does indoor look like? And who are the people who are going to help us pioneer those spaces for the season to come? I hope this encourages you. I'll tell you, I'm out there and I'm fighting every single day and every single week trying to figure out what works for our community.
I'm happy to share it. If you ever want to connect with me personally, you can always connect with me at mingo at torypines.church. That's my email address. Or you can just message us here through the podcast, whether you're listening on Spotify or anywhere that podcasts are found.
Another great resource is always the purpose-driven ecosystem. So pd.church gets you connected to pastors all over the country, all over the world. Some of the best practice is being shared through those channels right now. So if you haven't paid them a visit, go to pd.church and see what's brewing at the local church level.
Robert, thanks for letting us use your studio. Once again, we appreciate you. It was awesome. Yeah, guys, I love you.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.