Episode 6: Building A Digital Discipleship Community (The Digital Pavement Podcast)

Welcome to the Digital Pavement Podcast, where digital ministry and the urban church collide. Each episode features pioneers and ministry leaders from black and brown communities who use technology to shape the future of faith. From streaming worship to online outreach, discover stories, insights, and impact from those redefining digital ministry in our cities. Welcome to the Digital Pavement Podcast.

What's going on, family? Welcome to the Digital Pavement Podcast, where digital ministry and the urban church collide. I am your host, Demarcus Battle, and we have a fantastic show lined up for you on tonight. Our guest is none other than Pastor Dominique Young. Listen, we're so excited to have her and I'm going to read her bio in full. So y'all just bear with me for a moment. I believe it's important to share all of the accomplishments and all of what God is doing in and through her life. So Pastor Dominique Young is a wife, mom of four amazing kiddos and a caregiver to her wonderful godson. with over 16 years of ministry experience alongside her husband, Steve Young. She is passionate about helping people know Jesus, live the word and share the gospel in their everyday lives. She holds a Master of Arts in Theology from Fuller Theological Seminary. and is the founder of Faith Family Worldwide, which is committed to biblical literacy, discipleship, and authentic community. She teaches biblical literacy and Bible application through daily teachings like Mornings with Jesus. I don't know about y'all, but I want to start my morning with Jesus. Is that right? She also provides resources to support people on their faith journey, such as her two YouVersion Bible app devotionals. I said two of them, y'all. I don't know too many people that have a YouVersion devotional, but Pastor Dominique does. And they include Look Again, Learning to See God in the Midst, and God, Where Are You? which is also the title of her brand new book, God, Where Are You? Unmasking Your Pain, Uncovering His Presence. TDPP family, welcome to the podcast, Pastor Dominique Young. What's going on, Pastor Dominique?

Oh, I am so excited to be here. I have been looking forward to this like all weekend long. I couldn't wait. So I am excited to be here. Thank you so much for having me.

Absolutely. I am excited as well. And listen, we're going to get into this thing. We have so much that we're going to discuss. And I just want to share with the audience that today we are going to be talking about... building a digital discipleship community. I don't know if people really understand that there are different methodologies and different expressions of ministry and discipleship, but one that is really on the rise is digital discipleship. So hold that thought. We're going to get to it in a moment. But before we do that, I just want to check in with you. What's been going on in your world? Just talk to me for a moment.

Yeah, I mean, a lot has been going on. I feel like I have a household full of children and we are having fun over here. I just published my first book. And so I'm really excited about everything that's going on and having the opportunity to connect with people digitally. And it's just been a great time. I'm having a great time. I will say that.

You know, that's beautiful. Like, you know, where I am, I'm in the state of Michigan. I don't know if I shared that with you pre-show, but yes, it is cold. The coldest, it was probably negative 20 with the wind chill. And they shut down school, you know, the last few days, Friday. And then today, my kids did not have school. But we've been paying attention because we have some friends that are down south and on the East Coast. And, you know, of course, they shut down because, you know, they're not totally prepared for that. And, you know, we always get a kick out of that as Michiganders. Because, you know, most of the time what they experience down there is what we call a Tuesday, right? It's just regular for us, but it's really hit everybody and it's been cold. Oh my goodness. But but we're just so grateful to have you on the show and just kind of watching from afar and admiring what God has been doing in and through your life. It has been such a joy to see from a distance. And we're going to talk about that on on tonight. But before we get into our main theme for the podcast, I want to get what we call your trailblazer story. And this is an opportunity to, you know, kind of share your story in ministry. Like, how did you get started? And specifically, you know, your role as a pastor in the digital space. I mean, you've been fostering a vibrant discipleship community on YouTube. So feel free just to pick up wherever you think we should know or where we should start. And we'd love to hear about that.

Yeah, so I was not raised in the church. I got saved when I was 18 years old, about to go to college and college changed my life. I got connected with the pastor near my campus and my life changed and I fell in love with Jesus. And after college, I came back to Maryland after getting married in 2009 and my husband and I. jumped right into ministry leadership. He was a deacon and I was serving as the lead, praise and worship lead. And so we did that and it was amazing. And I was like, okay, great, Lord, I just want to serve you. And then I felt like the Lord was calling me to do some small groups and study the Bible with friends. At that point, I had studied through the Bible multiple times. I just fell in love with the scriptures. And so I started different little groups with friends and family members, anybody that really wanted to study the Bible. And fast forward a little bit, I got pregnant with my third son. And when I got pregnant with my third son, I couldn't go out and do the things that I used to do. Like I couldn't go to different places. I was pregnant. I had two little kids and I'm like, where am I going? I can't go anywhere. And so after having him, which he was just a miracle baby for a variety of reasons. But after having him, I said, you know what? I still want to connect with people and study the Bible. Maybe I can start a Facebook group. Yeah. And I just felt like, let's start a Facebook group and connect. And that was in 2017. seven, 16, 2016. I had to remember my years. So that was in 2016. And I just started the Facebook group. And what we did, what I did was I just posted every day. It was like, today we're reading this chapter and we would just comment under the post. And sometimes we put little videos under the post to share our takeaways and things. And it started out with about 10 women and then women kept coming. I don't know where these women were coming from. They just kept coming. Somebody was inviting somebody and somebody was inviting somebody. And the next thing I know, there were thousands of women in this group. And I remember my mom saying, how do you know all these people? And I'm like, I don't. I don't know where they're coming from. But all I was doing at that point was posting these little posts in the group. And then at the beginning of 2020, My Facebook got hacked.

No.

Yeah. Well, it was towards the middle. So my Facebook got hacked and this group had grown to thousands. And at that point, I couldn't connect with them at all. I couldn't even log in. I tried to. And I was so... sad like I was so sad and I was like Lord I feel like I've been doing this for a while now it has been years by this point and there have been a lot of relationships and connections and I hadn't built an email list or anything so there was really no way to connect with people other than this group and I just felt like the Lord was like you build your own I'm like, build my own what? Build my own what? Build your own Facebook. I'm like, I don't understand. I am not a tech person. I don't even really barely know how I started this Facebook group, let alone building my own. But I felt it so strongly. And so I began to look for different resources and things that I came across. a app building platform that allowed you to build your own social media style app. And at that same time, I had started a challenge within the Facebook group and it was where we were actually going live in the Facebook group before it had gotten packed. We were going live every day. I was studying with people and it was only supposed to be for one month. It was like a one month challenge. And afterwards, people were like, can we keep going? And I'm like, okay, let's keep going. Why not? And so we kept going, but then it got hacked. So then I jumped over to YouTube. And I kept going over there and it became Mornings with Jesus. And that was towards the end of 2020 when Mornings with Jesus started, the beginning of 2021 when the app was launched. And we continued community that way. The app gave us a lot more freedom and ability to do things. And I was still continuing to serve in local ministry as well. And then in 2024, my husband and I were ordained as pastors from that same pastor from college. He changed my life. He was ordained both my husband and I in 2024. And we continued to serve locally and online. And then what started happening? It started out as a woman's ministry. It really did. My focus was women. And on YouTube, I had my mornings with Jesus and everything was like hot pink. It was like bright, hot pink. And men started coming. And I was just like, I don't understand. It said Faith Mamas at the time. And men were coming. And I was like, husband? I was like, these men are coming. And I feel like the Lord's like, we got to do something for them too. And so we started a separate app at the time. And it was called Faith Brothers. So we had a Faith Sisters and a Faith Brothers app. Eventually, we combined them to Faith Family, where there are still separate spaces for men and separate spaces for women. But there are also other groups that people can join where there is like a group for couples, a group for wives, a group for moms and things like that. So it began to grow and kind of fit the needs of the community that God was sending. But that's really how it all began. I always say it was simple. To me, it felt like an accidental ministry. It was not like something that I was going after. But God continued to just open doors and send people. And even the doors, I felt like they were closing when my Facebook got hacked. It actually ended up being quite the blessing. And now we are able. Um, to have a community that exists outside of Facebook, even though I do think Facebook groups are amazing, but we are able to have a community where we have a little bit more control. We can put different groups in there and then, um, connect them all. So it's like a one-stop shop. You don't have to jump out of the app to find different things. And so it's just been an amazing journey. And now that I think about it, it's been like 10 year journey of online ministry. Yeah.

Oh my goodness. That is such an amazing story. And, you know, I think that, you know, what the enemy means for evil, right? God can turn that thing around for our good. And the fact that you were hacked, sometimes the Lord allows a little bit of friction, a little bit of adversity to shift us and to move us into our next. And it sounds like you were able to move right into that. In fact, you said the Lord basically said, why don't you start your own? And I think that it's important for digital ministry. And we talk about that with the organization, The Church Digital. We talk about decentralization a lot. And that is to kind of decentralize from some of these main hubs, although they are, you know, important. They serve a purpose, a function as you're still on YouTube. And I'm sure you're able to to feature that content in your app. But that's just an amazing story. And seeing how your. your initial salvation experience through college and having that relationship with that pastor and it all coming full circle and him ordaining you and your husband. And I mean, it's just a beautiful picture. And I love. the, uh, the, the tentacles for a lack of better word that you're able to reach the men and the women in the marriage and, you know, shameless, not plug, but like, I see quite a bit of that in what, um, my, and my wife's ministry is with Bible with the battles. It kind of has a similar family context. So I'm just, I'm excited. Look and shameless plug again. I have the app. I just ain't really got in there yet to kind of get plugged in.

Come on in the room.

But I'm coming on over there in a minute now. So what a fantastic story. And I think that that kind of sets us up again to like jump right into kind of like our main topic, which is building a digital discipleship community. And I love what you also said. You said study the Bible. Now. Scripture admonishes us to study to show thyself approved. Right. And and, you know, I don't know if people can find or have found that comfortability in the concept of studying the word. They might get kind of familiarized with reading a chapter here or there and and maybe doing kind of like a devotional. Right. But the fact that and I've seen it firsthand, how you are reading it once.

reading it a second time highlighting i don't want to steal what you do you tell us how are y'all studying the word how y'all doing this yeah so exactly what you said we do we read it two times through uh the first time we read it we get a picture in our minds of everything that we're seeing and hearing things the second time we read it we take out our pens our pencils our highlighters we highlight keywords and then we go into personal um reflection time where i turn off the the camera on me so people have a little bit of time um to reflect and then we come into a corporate reflection time and um really it's so interesting because when mornings with jesus started i remember you know just spending time with the lord like i always do and felt uh you know as we were continuing on and when we first started the initial challenge of studying the bible live on this live stream type of situation it was like just do what you do and bring someone along with you And I had learned how to study the Bible through a combination of nobody actually sat and taught me how. But it was a combination of someone encouraging me to read the Bible. That was one. They were like, you need to read the whole Bible. I was struggling in. understanding some sermons in a church that I was part of. And I thought to myself, I'm going to go tell the pastor because this was not my pastor from college is another pastor. I was like, I'm going to go tell her that I have a little bit of hard time and maybe she can make some adjustments. And she said, no, you have a hard time because you ain't read the Bible. And I was like, oh. And so then after that, I was like, okay, well, I'm going to read the Bible. So I read the Bible and then I was a teacher. And so I took a lot of the methods that I learned to teach children how to study. And I'm like, well, I can just use these methods. we teach kids to read it twice. And so I'm like, well, I'm just going to read it twice because we teach kids the first time you read it, you get a picture in your mind of everything that's going on. You kind of try to create a mental movie. And I'm like, okay, I'm going to do that with scripture. And the second time we read it, we highlight, we highlight certain context elements. We highlight some, some reflections and things that we have. We put our little sticky notes in. So I was like, I'm going to do the same thing in scripture. And so we, I began to do that and of course I learned more as I went to seminary. And so I get up every morning and we do that together. I do that together with whomever joins and whoever's on the replay and teach people using the same study methods that I taught elementary school kids how to study. And we take that and we apply it to studying the scriptures. And we do talk and have intros and talk about genre and things. But this is interesting because these are things that I would teach my elementary and middle school children that most adults know, but we don't apply it to scripture. We know how to study. We've learned it in school. But when we get to the Bible, we're like, it's so big. I don't know where to start. I don't want to mess up. And so I use the strategies that many of us know. And then we just do it together. And people have said, hey, thank you for teaching me how to study the Bible. And I always chuckle because to me, I'm like, I don't really teach you anything. We just did it together and activated kind of what some of the things that you already knew. And you saw how you see how that is helping you to learn the scripture. So, yeah.

Yeah, you know, that that is such a key component that it's it's not as though individuals don't know how to study. Right. We get that from our traditional educational journey. Right. But it's when you do it in community. that makes the difference, right? So when you're together in a small group, or if you're together as you're navigating through a book of the Bible on YouTube and people are commenting and giving their thoughts and their reflections, and now it doesn't seem so daunting because we're growing together. We're not in isolation. As a matter of fact, you're there, I'm there, Jesus is there, right? And so, you know, that's what makes it fun. That's what makes it exciting. But nobody likes to, you know, kind of go at it alone. You know, sometimes you feel a little silly, right? You know, and you have your own private time with the Lord in devotion. But there's something to be said on when you can do something like that within a community space. where people can be vulnerable, people can be transparent. You can pause if you need to and minister to someone. I just I love doing this sort of thing from the perspective of community. And so, you know, as you kind of came into like doing this, I imagine. that over time you got better at it, right? You know, give us a snapshot of like those first couple of, you know, and what it looks like now.

Yeah, over time, I did get better at it. I'm still learning and still growing. So first of all, I got better at just live streaming. Because if you saw my first live stream, I was sitting like there was a mustard yellow background with like no lighting. And like, I look like a grainy like image and you can barely make me out like who I was. My audio was horrible. So that was just that was just that part. But also I began to kind of learn how to do this online because building community online, I believe you pull in a lot of the same elements that you would when building community local. But there are a few elements that are slightly different. And so I had to become a lot more intentional about building community online. online virtually like you'll hear me when I start I tend to call out names that is something that I did one time and people are like I just feel like I feel seen when I hear my name called and I'm like okay well we'll keep calling names out and so it didn't start out that way but now we can I continue to call out names also there was a time where the the reflection time was like 10 minutes long which sounds great when you're in a local space and you're in front of each other but it's kind of weird when people are coming in and out of the stream and they're like are these people here like they're gone for 10 whole minutes right So we did shorten that to two minutes, but of course you can pause it and continue your reflection longer if you like. Also, I then began to incorporate intro days. So before, I would point people to the Bible Project, whom I love. I think they do great work. And then it was like, hey, can we do some digging in so you can show us kind of the tools and resources you use when you are pulling out the context to prepare for a study and so we started doing intro days where we would introduce the book that we were going to be in and now like i said it continues to grow like it's been a journey um but now every year We have a focus. So like last year, our focus, and it kind of trickled into this year a little bit, but our focus was the New Testament. So it's like the New Testament in a year. And so that focus allowed us to provide resources because before it was like, Dominique, what book of the Bible are we going to next? I'm like, I don't know. We'll see what the Lord does, right? And this year or this past year, it was like we knew we were going through the New Testament and we were going through the New Testament grouped together by author. or by similarian authors. So for instance, we read all of the Pauline epistles together. We read Acts and Luke together. We read a few of these things together. We read Matthew and Hebrews close together since they were talking to similar audiences to kind of see the patterns and the different things. It became really cool because when you're studying the Pauline epistles and you're like, oh, oh, I can see the themes that Paul is talking about throughout all the letters. And so that is those are some of the changes. And I think we'll continue to change and continue to grow and continue to refine how we do things and organize it because. what I find is that a big component is studying the scriptures, but a big component also is fostering community. And how do we do that in a digital space? So we continue to refine that so that, so that when you come on mornings with Jesus, or when you come to the app, it feels like family.

Oh, I love that. Like, you know, again, what, what a principle that, that my wife and I have for our ministry is community over content. Um, and if, if we have amazing content, that's cool. But if we're not fostering community and, and this year for us is really trying to like dig our heels into that. And I love that you said when people come to either mornings with Jesus or, uh, you know, faith family worldwide, right. That it feels like family. That's when you know that you, you, you've won, right. God is pleased. when you are doing life together and people feel like a family. And, you know, I want to kind of weave in the element of what we say, urban context or urban ministry. And for us, the black church. Right. You know, how how are you seeing that kind of, you know, intertwining or weaving into what you do? You know, it's not that we don't minister to all people, but we have a unique perspective and a unique experience. And so where have you kind of seen that?

that kind of like show up in in your ministry if it has at all yeah i have seen it show up you know sometimes you you're black church and you don't even realize it until it shows up and somebody says something you're like oh yeah um and so first of all one of the things that i've noticed in one of the things that um has happened just being an online uh ministry is of course you get people that are like not happy with things sometimes you get little hate mail and things like that and i get it a lot because you know i'm a woman that teaches the bible it's like ah Um, but one of the things that stuck out to me, I had a conversation, um, with someone that was within the ministry and we, we reached out to a large number of people from all over the place, but a large number of people look like me, like a lot of them. And there was a woman that didn't quite look like me. And she said, you know, my family won't come to study the Bible with you because you're Black. And so she said, they're just really, they're really against the kind of the demonstrative and the big and the feeling like, you know, and I am pretty demonstrative. I don't do it on purpose. It's just like, hey, like you're going to get the big energy, if you will. You're going to get that big energy. And so I remember thinking, wow, man, that sucks that People won't come because I have this energy, this big energy that I feel like a lot of my people do have. And you do see it in the black church. But then I realized that so many people from so many different places were coming. And we do have a retreat once a year. We have a faith sisters retreat where we do come in person. The women and the men are about to start their stuff. The women have been doing it for a while. and it feels very black church i'll be honest like we are cutting up in that place let me tell you yes how it is and but the amazing thing is that there's room for everyone and someone mentioned to me they were like she's a dear friend of mine now and we i've been doing ministry together online for a while and she's like whenever i come into a space family space like the imprint of black church is there, but there's also room for everybody. So she said, you'll see people sitting and worshiping. You'll see people dancing and cutting the rug over here and worship. You'll see people like sprawled out in the back and worship. You'll see people kneeling. So it's kind of a variety of different worship spaces that people come to or come from that are all in one space. But the imprint is definitely there. I mean, I am who I am.

Look, I love it. I love it. I love it. I love it. You know, I, a couple of things. Um, and I love that, that you speak to the, uh, the, the black church experience and, and the expressions that we, that we provide and worship and, and, and, um, what I love also though about, uh, your ministry is that, um, discipleship quote-unquote discipleship you don't necessarily see that or hear that with with the black church not that it is absent uh but it just shows up differently and for me growing up i never had like formal discipleship what i did have was sunday school Right. And I think that was a huge component of our discipleship experience where the foundation of the word was laid for us growing up in the little the little Daniel room or, you know, the little little David room and, you know, graduating to, you know, the next level and. And learning how to give in our offering in our class was trying to, you know, be the best class and have the best offering on the roll, you know. And so all those things, we didn't have the language for what it was that we were experiencing. Like you might have in some of our brothers and sisters from different cultures, but it certainly was present. I love that you have that educational kind of like structure to Mornings with Jesus that, you know, some of the baddest, some of the best, you know, come from, you know, our cultural background. But you're modeling that component, but you also bring that cultural expression when you have your retreats. And I'm sure they can even feel it through the camera from time to time, right? From time to time. I love that. And I think that being able to highlight yourself and others through the Digital Pavement Podcast is so important to say, listen, we doing it and we're doing it well. We got discipleship, you know, that's banging. You know, we're doing it all as well on the forefront and on the cutting edge of digital ministry. So, I'm going to pause it right there because we can keep going. But I want to end this particular segment and I'm going to bring a commercial up. So Digital Pavement Podcast family, we'll be right back after this commercial. Hey, what's going on family? Demarcus Battle, host of the Digital Pavement Podcast. And this episode is powered by The Church Digital. The Church Digital resources digital missionaries and pioneers to make disciples in digital spaces. So if you sense a calling in your life for being a missionary in digital spaces, or if you want to take your ministry through the digital age, connect with us at thechurch.digital and join our Discord server or our WhatsApp community. We look forward to connecting with you real soon. So that family is the Church Digital. And this podcast is actually powered by the Church Digital Streaming Network. The folks over at TCD are amazing. They have just so many resources to help equip what we call digital missionaries. Listen. They have individuals that are going out in all of these different social media platforms and are ministering the gospel of Jesus Christ in a modern way. And so if you're interested to get more detail, more information about that, you will want to visit thechurch.digital. All right, Pastor. I don't know why I keep wanting to call you Pastor D. Everybody that got a D in their name, they always want to say Pastor D. But Dominique, listen, I want to know your blueprint. That's the next segment. And this is where we discuss strategies for doing digital ministry well. And you've already given us some gold. You've given us some nuggets. But You know, can you think offhand, you know, a couple of things that if somebody was saying, hey, I want to do a mornings with Jesus. I want to do a Bible with the battles online. Like, what are some strategies that that they might want to implement?

Yeah. So first, I want to shout out a book that really helped me. And it's called The Disciple Shift by Jim Putman, I believe. But in The Disciple Shift, there is this wheel that he talks about kind of the disciple, the progression of a disciple. And on this wheel, he talks about like how sharing comes first. And then you get to this point where you need to connect with community. And then you get to this point where you're trained in ministry. And then you get to this point where you're now going out and you're making disciples. Right. And so. I studied this book and I was like, oh, and he would pull it and he would show how Jesus did it. And I was like, I believe we could do this online. I believe that it's possible to do this online. And I know that people think I'm crazy. That's why I think the church digital, when I was looking at the website, I was like, these are my people. Like, I didn't know there was people that were just out here doing this thing. But I was like, I believe we can do this online. And the reason that I say that is because as I started online ministry, people would come to me and say, hey, I stopped going to church because of whatever church hurt or what have you. And God would use this ministry, the faith family ministry, as a bridge to help people heal. And also people would go back or attend local ministries or stay connected here or however the Lord led them.

Yeah.

and so i'm like okay well if people are coming here lord and um they're looking for you i want to make sure that we are doing this well and so we created in a sense uh a a map of what does the discipleship journey look like for faith families where are they coming in from typically what are the purposes of those things and how do we get them to the next step And so that was a big thing that I often talk about. It's not just like Mornings with Jesus can't stand alone, right? It has to be somewhere they go next. And so one of the things about Mornings with Jesus is Mornings with Jesus for a lot of people is that first step for some. And for others, it is kind of like... you know reiterating some things that they already know but it really is a sharing model right so we're at that first stage of like the sharing model of like let's share um the scriptures let's share our testimonies let's share these things so we're studying and we're sharing it's come it's a connection for both and so on that first tier if you will mornings with jesus tends to be the place for other social media platforms tend to be the place that people come to know faith family and we want them to come in and feel like oh there's there's a share there's a testimony there's a there is there is this back and forth here and then they go into the next layer which would be the connection layer and on that connection layer we have our faith groups so we did establish a Groups, small groups that were virtual that meet on Zoom. And so they can come from here where we're sharing. And as you can see, the only face you really see is mine. It's a low barrier of entry. Like if I'm nervous, if I want to sit in the back of the room and not say nothing, I can. If I want to say something and type in, I can. But now when we go into the groups, then it's like, okay, I can share. I can connect and things like that. And then we have our online ministry training group. for those that are like, Oh, I want to lead a group or I'm interested in doing this. And so then it's like, okay, now we have another layer for where they go. And then we have opportunities for people to start groups and different things like that. So I say all that to say, um, mornings with Jesus has its own model and how we do things that I'll talk through that. But the entire ministry, we, we look at it and I say we, because it really is a team. Uh, it started out with just me not knowing what I'm doing. Um, but we now have a team of about 35 volunteers that are committed and amazing and so very awesome and and more are coming in through the training process which we are just so very grateful for um and the model really walks people through without like forcing them through but it's like natural next steps For anybody that's interested in those natural next steps. We also have natural next steps for new believers. And I think all of that is really important to think through when you're in an online space. It can really be so easy to focus on content and not focusing on discipleship. It can be easy to focus on. And I've worked with some amazing YouTubers as like their community members. um their community online community manager and i've worked with some amazing christian youtubers but a lot of times those that i work with they're focused with content which is fine that's what they were called to do but if if god is calling you to pastor online or disciple online you really have to think through the model of once they consume this content then what happens then where do they go next? What are the natural next steps and allowing people to come through those next steps and having kind of having the foundation of those next steps in place. And you'll be amazed. One of the things that I'm amazed at is that. People want to, to serve and volunteer in online ministry too. They want to be a part. Yes. They want to be a part of what's going on. They want to be a part of what God's doing. And so having the infrastructure there to help them is amazing. And then just going into mornings with Jesus. The one thing that I want to say is that. a lot of change has happened with how we do mornings with jesus over the years but one of the things that i have found that people have resonated with is it's very consistent they know when we're going to show up like yeah we show up every morning it's exam like if you if you drop off for three months and you come back we right there we still easy to find you know and so it makes it easy for people to connect it makes it it's like a lower barrier of entry um but also an in-depth study and i think that that consistency forming something where there's something consistent where people can kind of like embed into their their life Because a large portion of discipleship really is learning how to live life and follow in the teachings of Jesus every single day. And if we do something consistently, it helps people develop consistent patterns in their own life. And I've seen it even as people have come to Mornings with Jesus and then maybe they stop coming and they'll say, but I'm still doing Mornings with Jesus where I am. I know how to do it on my own now. Or I know how to do it with my children. I know how to do it with my spouse. And so you're giving them a consistent pattern to follow. And that's really helpful as they go through their discipleship journey, whether it's continuing with this community or another.

Well, you know, well, first of all, wow. You know, let's just start there. But but you're you're right at the heart of discipleship. Discipleship is about you haven't been a disciple maker unless you have discipled someone to disciple someone. Right. And so, you know, that's really the key to the third and the fourth generation. Right. So so, you know, the fact that someone can take what they what they've received from, you know, faith family worldwide. Right. Through mornings with Jesus, they can now reproduce after after their own kind. Right. They can reproduce after what you have shown them and taught them. Um, and I love, you know, you, you, you shared so much right there, but it, you know, um, your ministry, I can see as you were describing it, the ecosystem, like I could see, you know, there's a problem with, with church in the front door. We call it the front door, that, that issue of the front door, right? People come in and they come in. Okay. Now, where do I go? What do I do now? Like I've come in. I'm kind of intrigued about the ministry, but there's no on wrap on ramp to the next. Right. And so I think you you highlighted the importance of on ramps and off ramps is what we what we would call that. Right. How do I own a ramp into a deeper level? of engagement and commitment and you know we see this in jesus life with with his relational uh spheres you know you have you know uh the most outer ring which would be the crowd right and you bring it in a little bit closer Right. You will have, you know, you know, your community and you will have your your your core. Right. Then you will have the three, you know. And so you see these varying levels of engagement. And what I heard you share is that there's places to get plugged in. There's ways to get plugged in. whether you want to come and just listen to mornings with Jesus, whether you want to come and get engaged into one of the small groups. Right. If you want to even be trained up to to kind of lead in a particular way with the ministry. I love that you have that. And I think, again, we we we talk quite a bit about the difference of. uh online church and digital ministry okay two entirely separate things and i'm not saying that online ministry or online church like broadcasting a service is bad no that's that's beautiful but what you're talking about is more in-depth digital ministry like you said if you wanna if you wanna pastor online, be a digital pastor or do digital discipleship, then you have to be thinking about this ecosystem of how you're going to not only minister to people, but equip them to be disciple makers. And, you know, you started off that part of the segment by talking about those who might have experienced church hurt. It might just be slightly detached or disconnected for a season. And what I love about digital ministry, and you can you can speak to this, is that it really is a net thing. to catch those who have experienced church hurt or some forms of trauma or or some pain points where you can be with them for a season to rehabilitate resuscitate to heal brokenness So that they can either stay connected with you and grow with your ministry or getting them back plugged in with a local body. What an amazing ministry, right? So I don't know if you've had some particular experiences with that, but if you want to touch on that, please do.

I have had so many experiences. with this my husband and i we talk about it we call we call uh what we do we don't say it out loud but we call we do the bridge um because a lot of times people are standing here and they're like oh i've been really hurt i'm really nervous i don't want to go into a local church i don't even want i don't even know if i I don't know what my relationship with Jesus is, but they're still searching. And what do we do when we search in this generation? We go online. When we're searching for something and we're trying to find something, we typically go online. And what we have found is that a lot of people, God has brought a lot of people to the ministry and they're studying the Bible. Many of them will say, I've been in church my whole life. I've never studied the Bible, which I think is very interesting. They're like, I've been in church my whole life. I've never studied the Bible. This is the first time. And they're hearing different things. And we're not intentionally like preaching or teaching about church hurt. It's just that God is healing them in the process through community and through their interactions with scripture. And God is healing them in the process. And we've had so many experiences of people. Literally, I remember the first person that said, in the chat, typed in big letters, I'm going back there. to the local church for the first time in five years. This has encouraged me. Please pray for me as I go. And so I remember she was so excited. She went and then she came back and she told us about it and we celebrated and she kept going. And so, you know, we have seen that over and over and over and over again. And it's absolutely beautiful. And many of them continue to stay connected with us and they go to a local church or some of them, once they're in the local church, they feel like, okay, You know, hey, I'm here. I feel like I want to focus here. And we're like, yes, go do that. Like whatever the Lord is leading you to. But it's just a great opportunity to be a place where people can heal. And sometimes that space like that, the digital environment provides like you can you can build community in the digital environment. But you also don't feel like they write up in your face like you can. You can kind of go at your own pace. with building relationship with people. And I have seen it do, God use it to do some healing work in the body. And I'm just so grateful to be a part of it.

See that, you know, I could just cry, you know, about that because Digital ministry gets a bad rap. And we know that there are some bad apples, right? There's always going to be. You'll find bad apples in in-person experiences, right? But what I think... is a misnomer is the effectiveness of digital ministry and how it's really addressing some issues for folks. You know, people just don't want to leave church to leave church, right? Like that's not altogether how that works. And, you know, sometimes, you know, uh, through the hustle and bustle of the in-person experience, we don't always kind of have the, um, uh the capacity or the format to be able to catch some of these that slip through the cracks well you know it just so happens that everybody has a cell phone and so you know god you know he knows what he's doing the fact that technology is what it is at this particular moment in time that it can be used for the glorifying of God's kingdom when we're able to reach some of these folks that otherwise would just be sitting up watching Martin or Living Single on a Sunday instead of going to anybody's church, right? And so I just, I'm so thankful that we have the opportunity to be able to, you know, minister to our brothers and sisters who might be just in a challenging time. Maybe they're, you know, they're questioning some things. Maybe, maybe they had a life occurrence that really broke them down. And this is a, I like what you said. This is, this is not a barrier to bringing them into greater community, right? You're, you're eliminating those barriers and you're allowing for the free flowing into a level of engagement that they feel comfortable with.

So we could keep going forever, but we got to go to a commercial break.

We got to pay the bills, y'all. So bear with us, TDPP family, and check out this commercial. Hey, what's going on family? Dr. Demarcus Battle, co-founder of Bible with the Battles. And this episode of the Digital Pavement Podcast is sponsored by Bible with the Battles. Listen, Bible with the Battles is an online preaching and teaching ministry whose mission is to help you to hear the word, believe the word, and apply the word of God to your life. And our vision is simple yet profound. Revival begins at home. That's your physical house and all the inhabitants, husbands, wives, mothers, fathers, children's brothers, sisters, the whole family. And it is your spiritual house. Revival begins there. And so we just want to share with you that Bible with the battles is here for the sole reason to help you go to the next level in your faith. Visit our website at Bible with the battles dot com. or follow us on all of our social media platforms under the handle Bible with the Battles. I'll leave you again with our vision, which is simple yet profound. Revival begins at home.

Revival begins at home, y'all.

Yes. So my wife and I started Bible with the Battles back in 2020, where we said, listen, we've been doing ministry together for almost... my goodness at that particular time 15 years we're approaching now 20 and serving and just every i was deacon just like your husband i was a minister associate pastor youth pastor equipment pastor and just the lord took us through a number of seasons of growth and we said listen I've served as an associate pastor and you've been on, you know, hospitality or women's ministry, but we never got the opportunity to do something together. And so we said, why don't we just sit at the kitchen table and, you know, study the word of God and share it with, you know, the online audience. And that's how Bible with the battles was, was birthed. And then from there, we just, you know, continue to allow God to build it and grow it and, develop it and now we're in 2026 y'all and we're looking forward to doing some amazing things this year so check out biblewiththebattles.com all right pastor dominique young um i got a couple rapid fire questions for you all right let's go you ready yeah all right here we go apple or android apple hands down all right now no no green dots no no green green dots man yes gotta look i'm i got the whole apple apple setup okay all right uh your favorite social media platform

youtube youtube all right i wouldn't i don't know if you would consider that social media more of a search engine so if we're social media i i would say facebook because i'm a millennial yeah you know we uh a guest prior a couple episodes ago we had the same sort of conversation i'm a millennial as well i i might be a zennial

i don't know if you've heard that term yeah well i feel like i might be one too those are the those are the millennials at the top end of the train yeah at the top end we're a little bit older yeah yeah closer to you know i just think that we we grew up with how gen xers probably grew up we probably had a different experience um we were on the older end of it but but yeah Um, I'm a Facebook. I remember when Facebook came out, you actually had to have your, uh, your college university's email address.

Yes. And I remember when my mama joined Facebook for the first time, I was like, what is happening?

What's going on here?

Like a college spot. What is happening? Hold on now.

Yes. Okay. So yeah, I'm a Facebooker. Yes. Okay. Um, music. What, what are you listening to right now?

am i listening to right now i i mean i am a maverick city music fan i do like their music um i like i mean so many lecrae i mean he'll always kind of be in my rotation typically uh yeah i i have such a broad range of music i mean i'll listen to a little bit of some christian rock

that i'll yeah down with like i'm just kind of like right now nice little nice little discography or whatever you got a nice little you know some variety in in that uh that that thing yeah you can't you can't go wrong so you can't go wrong nope nope i am um i'm i'm an eddie james thing

Come right now.

Yeah. If I ever got to, you know, really go there, then I'm probably going to throw, you know, one of his on. And then I like some of those. uh those inch like those instrumentals that um like gappy keys yes yes nappy t yeah look that's what i put my three-year-old yeah turn on dappy tp yep yep go to bed right yes let that play yes okay um netflix or hulu netflix OK, I'm a huge I like K-dramas. Those are really interesting, good storylines. And I feel like I understand what they're saying now because I got the captions on and I've got so many that now as it's going, they're speaking obviously Korean. But I feel like I understand what they're talking about. Right. Don't turn the sound off. Don't turn it off. Exactly.

I know what they're saying.

oh my goodness okay um your favorite bible translation my favorite bible translation would have to be so i'll say the csb translation but it's probably only because i read it the most often um because whenever i'm in front of people i use that translation because kind of a middle of the road translation but i also like the nasb um for sure

Wow. So that's back to back. The podcast we just did, the guest was an NASV. Really enjoyed that. Is there one that you study from and is there one that you preach from?

Yeah, so I tend to study from the NASB and I tend to preach and teach from the CSB. And the reason is because the NASB leans more word for word translation. And I kind of like to study from those types of translations as close as I can get without it being hard to understand. But the CSB like sits in the middle. It uses both word for word and thought for thought conventions. So it's easier for people to access when I'm preaching or teaching or studying with groups.

Gotcha.

okay all right now and then last question your favorite book of the bible james james down okay all right james is like one of those like practical let's go we're gonna dig in i'm gonna encourage you to not give up and i'm also gonna give you some practical living things i don't know the book of james ever since i started studying the bible i'm like

This is good. I mean, the whole Bible is good, but James is really... That's good.

That's a good word. That's a good word. I would say Mark. I like the fast-pacedness of the book. Let's go. And probably Colossians because when you do it and if you preach from it, you sound deep.

It's true. Oh, I love it though. I love it. I love it.

All right. So let's, let's go ahead to our last segment here and then I will honor your time. But this one is the pavement ahead and And I'd like to get a sense from our guests, an outlook of digital ministry over like the next five to 10 years. What in your experience and just kind of what maybe the Lord has been speaking to you, what do you see happening for specifically digital ministry?

Well, I believe that digital ministry is going to become a necessity for the church and not just, you know, something that we do sometimes. I really believe it'll be a necessity. And I believe that authenticity within digital ministry is going to be super important. As AI rises and gives us lots of tools and resources and things that we can use, it also makes it more difficult for us to have authentic relationships. And so when we can develop those authentic relationships online, I think those are going to be really important. I noticed that the YouTube algorithm is beginning to favor live streams a little bit more than it ever has before, because in those live streams, you're getting the like there's no it's not polished. You don't have to guess. Is that is that AI or is that a person like you? Like you're going to see me like bump into my mic. Like you'll know that I'm a human, a person, and you'll see that. And I think that that is going to be something that people are going to desire from digital ministries is less of the polish. We see that with TikTok. Like the more polished you are, the worse those videos do. The raw, the real, the less polished, but thoughtful, not like rambling, but like where I can see that you are authentic and then having spaces for community. I think that that's going to continue to rise. Online communities are going to continue to rise. community where people can engage with one another in deep and meaningful ways. I think that that's going to be a really big necessity for digital ministry moving forward.

Wow. No, I agree. I 100 percent agree there. There's going to be a continued need for community and digital spaces. You know, the church digital is such an amazing and I want to keep plugging that an amazing organization. We have persons that are literally all over the world. who, you know, are doing community. We have what we call outposts, which are kind of like communities within certain geographical areas. And so we have sub-Saharan Africa where we have group leaders there. We have group leaders in Germany and the Europe outpost. We have some folks over in New Zealand. We have a dear sister over in Hong Kong. And so sometimes when we're together meeting for, you know, something that we're doing with TCD, you know, she's willing to stay up at two o'clock in the morning, you know, to be a part. And so some of what's happening in other parts of the world is. is the necessity of digital tools for discipleship because of the persecution that they're experiencing. They cannot meet in in-person context. They have to be in a WhatsApp group. Um, and maybe it's not even under the guise of a discipleship community. Maybe it is, which is a huge portion of TCD. Maybe it's in gaming. Um, maybe it's through video games that they're coming in, you know, bringing community and they're able, yes, yes. They're able to minister. And I, and I, and I try to expose a lot of the guests for, um, the digital pavement podcast. Go over to Twitch and just kind of like type in, you know, Christian or, you know, pull up some keywords and go and see what people are doing over on Twitch. It's not just video games. The largest category over on Twitch is what they call just chatting. which is what we're doing right now. And there are tons of people that are on that particular platform that you would have never guessed are over there doing ministry. I'll give you one example before we leave tonight. There is a dear sister. Her username is Ukulele for Worship. And every morning at 6 a.m., she gets on Twitch and plays the ukulele and is worshiping Jesus.

Now, I ain't never played a ukulele.

I ain't seen it done before until she was doing it. But there are folks that are there all the time. There is a Star Trek and Jesus communities. Stuff like that, right? That have special interest groups and they're able to talk about Jesus within their interest. So that's just a little shout out and a little plug to say, hey, God is getting the glory. He's going to get the glory in the places that we don't even expect.

Come on.

And so, yeah, y'all check that out. But anywho, Pastor Dominique Young, listen, it has been an absolute blast. I am so grateful that you were with us on tonight. And before we go ahead and end the podcast, let the audience know, how can they connect with you?

Sure. Well, you can connect with me a variety of ways. I'll give you three. Number one, if you go over to YouTube, you can find me at Faith Family Worldwide all the time. I'm always live streaming over there. Number two, if you're on Instagram, you go to at Dominique N. Young. You can find me there. And then the third place is if you join the Faith Family Worldwide app. You can join that from any of your devices and you can join it and you can join a group. You'll see me in there. You can message me directly in there. And I respond quicker in that group than I would respond on like an Instagram. So if you're on the app, you can send me a message, join some groups, see the resources and things that we have. And either of those places, you'll catch me there at some point throughout the week.

Amen. And where can folks get your brand new book? Tell us about that.

Yes, I am so excited about this. So I just published a book. It's released January 13th and you can get this book anywhere books are sold. So Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books A Million Christian Books. um anywhere books are sold shout outs to my publisher nav press they're amazing they're also the publishers of the message bible so if you utilize that text they are an amazing group of people that put out some great content and i'm just grateful to have partnered with them so yeah check out the book it's called god where are you unmasking your pain uncovering his presence and i pray that it'll be a blessing to you

Amen. Amen. Well, Pastor Dominique, I am so again, grateful and thankful for you to be on the podcast. And we look forward to seeing all of what God is going to do with Faith Family Worldwide and with your book and just all of what the Lord has planned for you on this year. And so thank you again. And the Digital Pavement Podcast family, y'all be on the lookout. You know, we coming back. with more content for you, more podcasts, where digital ministry and the urban church collide. God bless you. We'll see everybody real soon.

Thank you for joining us today. You've just experienced another episode of the digital pavement podcast. We are your source for the powerful stories of black and brown leaders at the intersection of faith and technology. This podcast is where digital ministry and the urban church collide. If this episode inspired you, please subscribe and share it with a fellow leader in your faith community.