EP361: Jeff & JMO Celebrate the 2025 Digital Neighborhoods Summit

Jeff Reed: All right. Just as I cough, you know, what is the worst thing is I look over at as the seconds are counting down five, four, three, two, one. And I go to pick up my cup of coffee and I got no coffee. Just it's miserable. Like I need I need more coffee in my life. Hey. Jeff here, episode 361 of The Church Digital. Excited about this. Excited about yesterday. Excited is not even the beginning of the conversation. I designed the conference, and the conference I designed to blow other people's minds. I, in fact, got my mind blown as... And so, hey, today we are celebrating the Digital Missionary Conference. The first one we did here in the fall, it was the Digital Neighborhoods. Digital Neighborhoods Summit that happened yesterday, almost to the day, people are like, what are we talking about with Digital Neighborhoods? And I'm telling you, anybody who showed up to this thing, I've heard nothing but positive feedback about it. Huge, huge organizational win. And we're going to get more into the weeds here in a little bit. We got Simon Dirks. who's putting together the European Summit here in a couple weeks. So excited to hear on the outcome and feedbacks on the conference. We'll get there. We'll get there very shortly, I'm sure. Flat cap, just back from a bike stream now to relax and to learn. I'm actually curious. Does that mean like you... Like, you watch streams while you're biking? Are you streaming on Twitch while you're biking? Like, I knew you were biking. I know you're streaming. I just didn't know you were, like, doing both at the same time. And then he responds, volcano, lava, green, orange. I don't... sure man cool hey listen and it's not just me coming on today to celebrate the conference we've got uh our own uh jmo uh coming in to join the conversation uh jason uh was our first speaker yesterday talking platforms as places and then also he works works with me to kind of design the whole thing overall and to be honest jmo is a guy that's constantly blowing my mind anyway so why not involve him in the process where we blow everybody else's mind so man jmo First off, what are you drinking?

Jason Morris: One of the things that I'm constantly marvel at, and I shouldn't at this stage in the game, but just how Jesus had something to share with us yesterday. A lot of our talks, we had strung together together, but I had no idea of the content of any of the other talks. when all I knew was what Jesus told me. And so I throw it out there, kind of in faith, throw it out there. And then as the conference went on, saw how Jesus was tying together each thread from one thing to the next, and it all came together as one cohesive package that we did not plan. That was just... Jesus Spirit doing his thing. And it was so fun to see that. And on top of it, just to see other like-minded digital missionaries in other spaces, like the sponsors. The breakouts were amazing. I was popping in on some of those and it, in my mind, it was just another confirmation, not only of the way that Jesus wove the conference together, but also how many different people from the different parts of the body of Christ who before maybe never even talked to each other have been listening to the same spirit and instantly like. less than 30 seconds, we are totally in sync because what we've been hearing from the spirit and our quiet moments with scripture and at, you know, the soul wrestling that we do, instantly we knew, oh, this is my tribe. You're talking the same way that I've been thinking. This is so great. And that vibe, you just can't, you can't, There's no recipe for that. There's just something that God brings together. And that's what I felt yesterday. It was just so fun. I'm still just marveling at that.

Jeff Reed: Totally. Was it Henry Blackaby? There's like five or seven different ways that you hear God. And one of them is through scripture, the Holy spirit through, but one of them is others. And yesterday was a, a beautiful confirmation in many ways of that. Others that there, uh, other people are hearing the same thing. We're hearing that they're moving in the same direction we're doing. Like I'm watching, um, global church movements. do digital training in Africa, empowering people and they're seeing life change happen through digital and they're doing a physical interaction. Like some of the video testimonies and things, it's like, hey, you know, if we are nutjobs, there's thousands of other nutjobs that we haven't even met across this planet that are doing it, that are paving the way. And that to me was just a beautiful moment across the entire day.

Jason Morris: Right. And even those who like, for example, the other speakers, they're from, they're not like old guard per se, but they're digital is kind of new for them.

Jeff Reed: Yeah. They were not from who they were representing. Correct. Yeah.

Jason Morris: Right. Exactly. However, every single one of them. have been awakened to the opportunity that's in front of us digitally that we've been seeing for decades, right? They're waking up to that and are now acknowledging it and putting those ideas together. I feel like we are in a pivotal catalytic moment that Jesus is orchestrating. of um people who are all around the world doing amazing work in small and reproducing ways and now are thinking of that through a digital lens for the first time what could possibly happen with all of that that is so fun to think about that was you know it was a if if there was one thing coming in like i i

Jeff Reed: I knew I wanted you to talk about Platforms as Places. And initially, like early on, the conference was called Platforms as Places. And I can remember having a conversation with you, it's like, What else are we doing? Like, you know, what is beyond this? This was the... I think this was the last conference to actually take shape of the four that we were doing. Like, it was obvious we were doing gaming. Recovery was something that just was coming natural out of the progression of where we're going. Simon's jumping up and down over in Europe saying, my turn, my turn. And so it was like, yes, let's go, let's do that. But this one, it really, it didn't have... it didn't have shape. It didn't have focus. We knew we wanted to platforms as a place, but beyond that, like it was, and that's where I think some of the gospel fluency, the gospel conversations, what does that mean? We're going to show Jeff Vanderstelt's talk here in a little bit, but you know, it's, it's where it was. Okay. What, what are, what are we doing? But then it was, it was true. It's 100% true. I had no idea he would set that up almost perfectly into audience mapping. And I knew one of the biggest problems was apprenticing and multiplication. I didn't know that that, like, there was, in the hindsight, I was like, holy cow, that came out incredible, almost as one fell narrative, like one fell swoop. And it was like, I didn't do that. Like, listen, I would love to take credit for that, but... That's not me. And so it was beautiful to see that.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we are not that good. This is just Jesus.

Jeff Reed: Awesome. What was, just maybe three minutes for you, talk a little bit about your talk, Platforms as Places. What was some of the themes that you kind of hit on with that?

Jason Morris: Well... Basically, what I tried to do was break down a little bit the conference itself. Since I was the opening keynote and the conference is called Digital Neighborhoods, I wanted us to get real clarity around the power that digital presents. and the notion of how that combination, which we're all in agreement with around the power of digital, right? No one's, I don't think, is in disagreement around that. But the interesting marriage of that with neighborhoods is a little bit different. That telegraphs platforms as places, obviously. However, it puts a lot of times when we think of a platform, we think of a public broadcast kind of a vibe. However, neighborhoods is a lot more personal, a lot more relational, more daily. And I love that juxtaposition. And I didn't even see it until I started doing the prep for the talk. The digital one was easy, you know, and I had that down. But what I was surprised by and just, again, it was just as I started digging into neighborhoods with a digital lens. scripture just started looking so different, particularly around the idea of the Good Samaritan, which again, was an interesting juxtaposition because the whole notion of the Jewish and the Gentile expressions of church I had never put in the context of the way that a Samaritan would feel about it in the first century. And I never put it in the context of how Jesus looked at the good Samaritan with, you know, one foot in the Jewish world, another in the Gentile world. Just like all of us feel that tension and feel a little bit of rejection around having one foot in the physical world or the traditional prevailing church model and another in the digital world, the emerging church model, the new, the micro, the relational, and the tension between those two. Not that they're either... is wrong they're both expressions of the same jesus the same spirit much like when jesus talked to the woman at the well who by the way was a samaritan and she was hung up on the same problem she was like you jews say that we need to worship over here but we worship over here it's the same problem it was a samaritan problem of temple thinking location thinking and jesus blows the whole thing up right there before the woman at the well and says look you know i'm looking for people who worship in spirit and truth it doesn't really matter where you guys are going location doesn't matter and he was trying to telegraph that to a people who felt torn between two worlds and i i didn't see that in scripture until i started working on this talk for platforms as places and digital neighborhoods when looking at the good samaritan the ultimate good neighbor and it was just like wow thank you jesus for showing me that because you know i i look at scripture differently now and i feel like jesus 2,000 years ago was throwing us a bone, telling us, look, guys, I understand how you feel, you know? And we can be an example to everybody else at the same time. Wow. It was just so cool.

Jeff Reed: there is i mean there's certainly an intimacy centered around neighborhoods right like it's yes it's listening it's talking your your thing of prayer it was funny like in chat i i was like prayer walking the doom scroll and maybe 10 seconds after i pressed enter on that chat you said you know something about prayer walking the doom scroll and like it just it was like holy crap like we're on the same page it was incredible

Jason Morris: But, you know, it's almost like we're listening to the same person, same person.

Jeff Reed: But it was, you know, just even like I just didn't want to tie this in. I want to come back to this. I was against like I'm just full disclaimer. I was against neighborhoods, digital neighborhoods. That was not what I wanted. Um, I was, uh, we were considering options and I, to be honest, I forget what it was at this point, but it was like, uh, off the grid. It was like, there was a parallel that we were talking about where it tied into like Tron and, you know, Tron Aries is coming out. I'm a huge Tron fan and I'm like, oh, well that vibes in, there's going to be marketing. It's going to be great. Like, yeah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Let's, let's do that. And, uh, you know, this is just funny. Barbara Canero's, Barbara Canero's like, that's stupid, Jeff. Digital Neighborhoods is your conference. I remember Leighton was really big on neighborhoods too, pushing that. When people push against me, I listen. It's like, okay, cool, we'll do neighborhoods. We'll hope for the best. I don't know that it's clear. And to this day, it's funny. I don't think that we communicated what the conference was beforehand, clearly, because I don't think the conference actually shaped itself until it happened. Like, I don't think you and I really had a clue of where that thing was going to go until it happened. Not in its fullness.

Jason Morris: We didn't.

Jeff Reed: And that's what I'm like, this is... I mean, literally, I hung up. I went to bed last night at like... 6.30. Like, it was funny, I ate pizza, I was actually falling asleep at the dinner table. No, p.m., p.m., 6.30 at night. I was so tired from yesterday, but I, that's a good question with me, you never know. So I went to bed at like 6.30 p.m., slept through the night, just exhausted. But I just, it was, I have no idea why I said that, but there was just this fulfillment of understanding That even I, as the guy that was putting together the conference, I didn't anticipate. It was funny, I sent an email to all the speakers already thanking them this morning. But it was like, if you look at each individual one as an intermediary step leading into what's next... I've never seen a conference. I've never been a part of a conference. I've never produced a conference that worked so cleanly together as those four did. And, you know, just to reinforce. We didn't orchestrate that. Jason and I do not have time to put that together and to tell them to do what they were doing, man. It's crazy.

Jason Morris: Like coordinating, because I've tried to do that with some conferences. But doing that across the variety spectrum of speakers that we had from different parts of the planet, how do you do that? Really. Because everybody's going to do what everybody's going to do. Because these were not people that were speaking where this is their first rodeo. They kind of know what they want to talk about, right? And they can do it well. you just kind of have to let them roll with what they do you know because they're all star players um and what i just love is like you said jesus put together this package deal that was just amazing and not just with the keynotes but with the the breakouts and the sponsors too Because I dropped in there with some of these sponsors and I'm like, this totally fit. And even the sponsors were talking about the keynotes and how it fit with their vision of the tools that they're providing. And I was just like, wow. Because I know you didn't orchestrate that either because they came to you. So it's like, how does that happen? Only God.

Jeff Reed: Listen, I'll just be honest. If you can cut me a check, congratulations, you're a sponsor. And they were, but no, it... I don't feel bad using this word. There is a movement towards digital evangelism, digital discipleship, digital missionary work that's happening at a global level. We're at the doorframe. We're at the front door of something incredible. Mm-hmm. And what's happening is that while it's so funny, I wrote the longest WhatsApp post in the history of all time today to a Jamaican lady, a lady in Jamaica who's trying to figure out how to connect with churches better. She wants to be doing digital work. in jamaica and she's having a hard time bridging the gap to churches congratulations it's more than just an american problem it's international but the but that that's just it is is that while the the hesitancy around u.s churches or global churches they're struggling to see this organizations um corporations are are more pliable or more agile are seeing opportunities in that. And working with the breakouts, the sponsors, different organizations that have been encouraging of me at a personal level that are partnering this because they want to see a movement happen in this space. There's a lot of excitement towards this. I didn't even have to really push right now hard to give away those accounts. They were like, yeah, we want everybody to have them. Take it. Take it. Take it to your people. I'm like, dude, Listen, I'm like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Our people don't have money. And they're like, we don't care. We want to see something happen digitally. Take them.

Jason Morris: Okay. Yeah. And if you put from the perspective of a brand new frustrated digital missionary who doesn't know that they're a digital missionary yet, they drop into this conference. And here you go, you've got your template, you've got your tribe, you've got your tools. And dude, how does that not make a difference? Globally, really. It's unreal. I'm so happy about the ways in which we were able to resource people that are actually getting the job done. And that was another thing even on the survey results or whatever, where digital missionaries are six times more likely to have led at least one person to Jesus than your average Christian. And that should tell us so much right there because here's the thing to consider. the emphasis that people have on church planting is valid because of what the data shows that you generally have more baptisms from new church plants. And that data is solid. And from that data come all of these other efforts toward helping church planting and doing all of these things. We just pulled out another stat that now gives another tool of digital ministry, digital evangelism as an effective tool for the kingdom as well. So I'm not saying church planning isn't a thing. It is a thing. The data shows it, right? maybe digital church planning, digital evangelism. However these things work together, there's a lot of different ways to do that, but it's unmistakable the effect that being a digital missionary makes for the kingdom, because I'm telling you right now, 5% is not gonna cut it. If only 5% of believers are sharing their faith and leading someone to Christ, we won't win. We can't with those percentages. We have to do something. And even the churches who understand how important sharing your faith is and being contagious with what Jesus has done for you, Everyone is convinced of that, but we don't have really good handles on how to make that happen. And I feel like we just unlock that for people's imaginations. And I think we'll also find that the larger organizations that are kingdom minded as well, they don't want to see everything just disappear. Now there is another tool that we can use in the tool belt so that we're just not monocropping everything.

Jeff Reed: mono cropping i feel like you make up words but it makes sense so no it's it's a thing it's it's a thing okay all right i'm just saying like that the level of intelligence you know where they only plant corn yeah yeah and there's no diversity in the ecosystem um that's a problem

Jason Morris: okay all right i'm with you now that that's there you go disease you get all these other problems you need to have different varieties in the ecosystem because they they help each other they're synergistic and we need you know church planting is important yeah like i'm not taking away from that right and that might be our staple crop um but there are these other things that we could be doing as well and we just we need all of the approaches all of the expressions in the greater body of christ if we're going to be successful

Jeff Reed: Yeah, flat cap saying here, Axe is happening online right now. Melanie's coming in, feels like a God thing. And so, yeah, it was beautiful. Simon, a while back, you know, one foot in each world, the physical and the digital. So it sounds like the audience is in agreement there. It was funny. I actually, I saw the conference. like when we were orchestrating it i saw it leaning more towards digital church planting like taking a bend towards that and uh like it just it completely didn't you know we we i mean i had a partnership with stadia i think a little bit okay but go ahead go go guys but but here's here's the thing you cannot have digital church planting if you don't have people

Jason Morris: starting by sharing their faith with somebody.

Jeff Reed: Very good.

Jason Morris: It just doesn't work, right? So basically what we're doing is we're starting, this is like basic digital missionary 101. Figure out your neighborhood, be a good digital neighbor, those types of things. It's not all that different than how a church planter would get trained in church planter training. We just didn't telegraph what the end game is. That's all.

Jeff Reed: All right, so, you know, ego aside, don't talk about your talk, but three takeaways or three favorite moments from the other three talks, Jeff Vanderstelt, Cheryl Boyd, and Bacali, Dr. Schenko.

Jason Morris: Okay, so Jeff. I love Jeff, just almost anything he says. He just, I love his heart as well as his content. And gospel fluency has been helpful for me as a digital ministry, in my digital ministry and as a digital missionary. It has been so helpful for me to gospel myself out of pits on the daily. because I am in desperate need of Jesus every single day. And being able to have Jesus heal my heart and to share that with others in a way that makes sense and is relevant to them, it's not some kind of canned presentation, but rather the real good news. And it's not the gospel if it's not good. And when it's good, you can't keep not sharing it. You know, you can't stop. So that, even the question around that you followed up with Jeff around.

Jeff Reed: The gospel conversation.

Jason Morris: Yeah, gospel conversations, how he gets to the heart of the matter, that if you're having a hard time sharing your faith and your love of Jesus, maybe we need to take a step back and look at our first love to begin with. I felt like that was this big aha moment for all of us from the Jeff Vanderstelt talk. And that's so Jeff. I love him. It's just so great. The second one, the audience mapping. Such an upgrade from the angle scale. The angle scale is super helpful, but it's linear. And helping people understand how different people respond in different ways to the gospel and to understand where they're at and to have some kind of sense of progress and success that's not linear. but is measurable and understandable is nothing but helpful because there's it it's so discouraging sometimes as a digital missionary when you're making progress but you don't know it and so you feel like you're failing when you're not right and that that is so helpful and it's non-linear love all that stuff um and then la the last yeah i'm feeling oh just It made me laugh. When he showed the slide of all the logos, it just made me laugh. It was like, yes, this right here is, this is the body of Christ. This is the way that Jesus sees us working together, right? And I thought, wow, if we could get to that place, John 17 style. I was, right when he put up that slide, instantly John 17 came to mind. And a few minutes later, that was the scripture that he shared. And I thought, wow, this is just... This is just the multi-expression form of the church. It was just so beautiful. That was just so beautiful. And it made me think, okay, we need to partner more. Like, I feel like we partner to a... a pretty decent degree, but we need to partner more as not a response of how people can help us with what we're doing, but rather back it up and form strategic alliances and collaboration from the beginning, not after we've already kind of cooked something. And that was, to me, the highlight of that talk. All of them together.

Jeff Reed: It was great. Simon's mentioning more collaboration. Simon, I don't know. It was late, I'm sure, in Germany. I don't know if you saw the Kingdom Over Castle. Yeah, that's TCD language. I don't know if you saw Bekele's talk. Simon, it was incredible. Bekele Shenko, if you weren't at the conference, is directly responsible for 2.4 million churches planted. uh across the world like a radical number has literally seen like revival happen in continents as a result i'm sorry in countries as a result of his work and um and so we brought him on to talk about multiplication and one of the organizations uh that he's he's founded recently is an organization called gacx global alliance of church I don't know what the X is, but it's a global organization that does a lot with technology. And it started with these. He put the slide up where he got five organizations to kind of pioneer and start GACX. and then he put up the next slide that it was 150 organizations and the thing was like you know logo brand crazy uh it was just and it's just these are all these organizations that are now part of gacx and working together in ga if if you don't know mission space gacx is a big deal it's huge a lot of a lot of influence which really started out of the kelly and a couple others trying to figure out how to you know champion digital uh you know technology and mission space and so but yeah it was interesting like that to me that was like the sledgehammer over the head for me uh was was that five minute block where he was was talking about and i'd heard that spiel i knew i like i i i could have told you that but just when he was presenting to me to that you know it was once again i'm looking at the church digital and i'm like we're we're not we're not doing this right like we as a you know a bivocational volunteer run fractional organization i don't i don't see how we can scale what what we're doing on ourselves to the level of of a global impact but you know and i it was funny i texted jason like right afterwards if we could figure out how to be the digital salt in everybody else's recipe Right.

Jason Morris: And collaboration can't be an afterthought. Right. Yeah.

Jeff Reed: And so, you know, once again, to pick up my friend Ronald Reagan, there's no limit to the amount of good one can do as long as he doesn't care who gets credit. And that's the that's to me, I think that's the charge for 26 is, yes, we want to continue to EDM, equip and mobilize missionaries into that space because we want to be pioneers and innovators in that space. But there's there's an equal push, I would suggest, to maybe figure out how to better partner and come alongside organizations and champion the digital space through them. I never wanted to be the lone nut job. It's always been about bringing others along with me. JMO is an example of a nut job that we brought along and that's awesome. I think it's time to find some other nut job organizations and start to move beyond building You know, you didn't mean it this way, Simon, but I don't want to build the Church Digital's castle. We need to start helping some others and start to think more of a kingdom reach outside. And so that was some of the takeaway for me listening to Dr. Shanko yesterday. I don't know. What else you got? What do we do? What's a follow-up after this?

Jason Morris: Oh, yeah, that was one thing I feel like the lack of clarity on the front end would have been helpful, what the follow-up is. I feel like we have a really great tie-in to our community here at TCD that you can find your tribe. and not feel like you're going crazy because you're not we all happen to be listening to the same spirit yeah um and god's calling us together to work together um so that's one thing the tcd community one thing The other is, you know, we have our EDM, which I kind of feel like we should probably change the name on to like, we can still call it EDM if you want, but like exploring digital mission.

Jeff Reed: I agree with exploring. I was kind of waiting for next year to do it, but yeah, that might be a pivot.

Jason Morris: And the reason why is because of what you had just mentioned. where maybe we could just give a little primer that's lightweight and then point them to all of the other wonderful digital resources from places that already exist rather than reinventing the wheel.

Jeff Reed: Yeah.

Jason Morris: And then, you know, do collaboration that way. That's what I'm thinking would be next steps for us as an organization. I mean, I'm unpacking this right now in public. That's probably not the right way to do it. But that's just what I'm feeling right now.

Jeff Reed: Yeah, I don't know. I do... I do agree that it's a primer and that I don't know how deep we want to go. I don't... We need to figure out what it looks like to partner effectively with others. And I don't... I don't, I mean this graciously, not egotistically, like that's, I haven't cracked that nut yet. I don't have that recipe. We've tried some things and we've got friends. We've got some people that I would say. Like Simon, for example. Oh yeah, Simon.

Jason Morris: When he's doing it, we're like translating it into German. You know, Simon's going to be the first, you know, beta test of that. I feel like the global reach is, we're on the verge of it. and we just got to keep leaning into that yeah and um even like for example hearing some of the sponsors and the breakouts kind of pushes me towards some of the things we were already moving towards in the translation space anyway in the ways in which they're uh approaching the translation I was thinking, wow, we're all thinking the same thing. Because globally, that's a problem. And now with AI, we've got ourselves a Pentecost 2.0 moment where we can actually speak to others in their own language. They can hear it in their own language. And those moments don't happen all the time. They don't. And so we're on the edge of it and we're leaning into that, pushing into it and doing that together with partners. Because we can spin up an AI translation. That's not the issue. The issue is for us, we don't know if it's any good. And we probably need better spokesmen and better leadership around how that gets communicated in the video that is not ethnocentric, but rather more reflective of the people that we're trying to reach with that piece of content.

Jeff Reed: Yes.

Jason Morris: That's one of the reasons why I feel like Etope is doing so well in Africa and why Simon is doing so well in Europe. Because, you know, duh, we should have... figured that one out a little bit sooner probably because missionaries have figured that out that when you're working with the indigenous population or the native population, it just works so much better when you've got nationals doing it. Now we just haven't thought through the digital nations in that same way as developed. And so I feel like we need to begin empowering and collaborating with more voices in more languages yeah to at least vet the translation if not you know create more content

Jeff Reed: Yeah. So if you know anybody from the TikTok nation, send them our way. That'd be great. The nation of TikTok, we would love to connect with. It's a nation.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, totally.

Jeff Reed: And evidently the nation of Facebook because Facebook's like one of our more popular platforms. And I don't, I mean, I'm barely on Facebook. I don't know. A lot of our leadership is moved on from that. So if you got any Facebookers, we would like the Facebook nation as well. um awesome well hey listen uh we've got one of the things that i wanted to do here um by the way I'm questioning my own logic. We said that we were not going to, let me say it this way. Initially, we had said that we were not going to release the conferences except for people that had registered. The success of the conference yesterday went so well, I'm really second guessing that and thinking we need to release it in such a way so that people can see the keynotes beyond.

Jason Morris: I've got a question around that. Yeah, yeah. And I know this is actually too late. We should have thought of this ahead of time. Did the breakouts get recorded?

Jeff Reed: Some of them did. And so I've got some of the breakouts recorded in the others. I'm asking. It's funny. I'm actually asking for like the notes to make it available for people as well in the slide decks to make it available. Moving forward, we'll have all of them recorded. But that was kind of like a last minute pivot. And some of them got the instructions and some of them didn't.

Jason Morris: But those were amazing.

Jeff Reed: Yeah.

Jason Morris: The ones I was at were just unreal.

Jeff Reed: Yeah, I mean, the heart of where we're going is we want to ingest all that into an AI that Topos is running. And we're going to have a Missionary Conference AI that'll have all of the keynotes, hopefully all the breakouts, whether it's notes, slides, video, as the source, but can speak to anything that's happening through the history of the conference. And so we're excited about that. But what, you know, it's interesting, you know, a paywall to view the conference is what, you know, flat caps, flat caps always trying to monetize. I respect that. But, you know, I was, this is what I'm going to say. At this point, we're not going to release all of the conference keynotes, one. Two, if you're watching this and you're like, well, I didn't register. How do I get to see this? Go register for one of the upcoming conferences right now. Put your name, sign up for something, and we'll get you access. If you register for the Recovery One, if you register for Europe, if you register, go to that conference too. I'm not just saying use it as a register, but if you register for that, we'll get you access to all of the keynotes from all of these summits. But what I want to do with the time we've got left today is I actually want to share Jeff Vanderstelt's talk on gospel fluency. He shared this yesterday, ironically, about this time 24 hours ago. And so I'm going to press play. We're going to play that, and then I'll close it out at the end. J-Mo, I'm sure you're busy. You've got to get back to work. Yeah. I want to thank you for this time hanging out. I appreciate it. You went a little extra on time today, but it's always a pleasure. You and I can sit around and talk all day, but thank you for doing that today, for hanging out and helping us do the Digital Neighborhoods Conference yesterday. All right. See you, sir. All right, and so it's just me. J-Mo is heading out the door. So this is what we're going to do. We are going to play right now Jeff Vanderstelt's talk from yesterday on gospel fluency. This is from the Digital Neighborhoods Conference. Once again, this talk is the only time it's going to be showed publicly, and it's streamed here to YouTube and beyond. The other talks will be available to anybody who registers through the conference, through our base, the Pastor Protected website attached to the conference. If you want access to the base, all you got to do is register for one of our conferences, www.missionary.digital, and that'll get you into that. We didn't talk much about what's coming up. We've got Control-Alt-Recover conference next week, Recovery and Soul Care in Digital Space. That's coming up on Wednesday, September 24th. October 1st is Simon's turn, the European Digital Missionary Summit. And then on the 8th is Leighton's turn with the Gaming Missionary Summit. And so we are excited about all of those opportunities that are coming up. But for today, I want to go ahead and play Jeff Vanderstelt's talk on gospel fluency. I'll probably come back at the end to close this thing off. So let me go and press this button and here I'll go.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's good to be with all of you. And I, yeah, like Jeff said, we tried to figure out our schedules. I was actually going to have to do a prerecorded thing and then we were able to work it out that I could just do it live. So, so glad to be here. So excited about what you're all doing and your heart for people coming to know Jesus. I'm just going to kind of introduce that idea. First of all, gospel fluency, you see the subtitle speaking Jesus into everyday life. And the idea there is that we need to learn how to be fluent with the gospel as much as we would learn to be fluent with any other language. And I don't know if you've ever learned a language, but... I learned Spanish years ago. I'm certainly not fluent in it now because I haven't used it. If you don't use it, you lose it, which is probably true of the gospel as well, frankly. But I got to a place where I remember dreaming in Spanish. And when you become fluent in something, you think it, you dream it, you filter the world through it. It's like the language you use to interpret things. It's also the language you use to solve problems. And so This idea of gospel fluency comes from starting, first of all, with Ephesians 4. I want to get there in a sec, but I want to ask you to do something before I look at the passage. I just want you to take a moment first, before we even go into the concepts, to identify a situation you're presently in. Maybe it's a difficult issue, challenging situation. Maybe in your digital space, it's a relationship you're working on or a person you're caring for. someone you're trying to help them address something that they're facing. And maybe you personally, like it's something you're working on or facing right now. And I want you to identify it because I want you to keep it in mind as we do the training. Because I found that when you can take a real life situation and apply what I'm about to teach, it actually gets more traction than if it's just a theoretical idea. So take a moment to do that, even if you have to write it down. type it in, whatever it may be. You don't have to share it with everybody. That's not what I'm asking for. You're welcome to, but that's not what I'm asking for. But get it locked in so you know what it is. Just give me a moment to do that. Okay, hopefully you've got one in mind, a person in mind, a situation in mind, a challenge in mind, a problem you're facing, something you're working on in yourself maybe. And then the second thing I want you to do with that is I want you just to ask, how have you been addressing it? So let me give you an example. So one of the things in my life was an unreconciled relationship where I had hurt somebody, they had hurt me. I wanted to seek reconciliation. We went through even a mediation process to be able to extend forgiveness. I extended forgiveness. This particular friend of mine refused to. And so... that was a problem or situation. Now it's been resolved, but it took actually, sadly, several years for it to be resolved. Well, if I were in your shoes right now, listening to this conversation, that might've been one that I came up with. And the way that I'd been addressing it was a variety of things. Sometimes it was trying to control the situation, trying to convince him to forgive. Sometimes it was, yeah, I was praying for him. I was getting outside counsel. I mean, I was doing all kinds of stuff. So I want you to think through The situation you're facing, the issue you're in, how have you been addressing it? What have you been doing? What have you been thinking? How have you been responding? What are you doing to address it right now? So get that in mind. So the issue and the pattern or way in which you've been trying to address it. So keep that in mind as we move forward. Now back to the idea of gospel fluency. I'm going to take you to Ephesians 4. And this is just, I want to make sure there's context for this. We see Paul saying he gave some to be apostles, some prophets, evangelists, shepherds and teachers to equip the saints. That's you. That's the people of God for the work of ministry. That word ministry can also be translated serving in the name of Jesus. So we tend to think ministry, sadly, is what people do, quote unquote, in paid jobs in churches. But that's not what Paul was talking about at all. He's just talking about people who love Jesus, who are set apart for his work in any space in the world. That's ministry. And the goal is to then build up the body of Christ till we all reach unity in the faith and the knowledge of God's Son, growing in maturity in the stature measured by Christ's fullness. So we grow up to be Christ-like. The church looks more like Jesus. And he continues, so we won't be tossed like little children back and forth by these waves of every kind of teaching and cunning and cleverness and techniques of deceit. No, we want to be solid and movable, mature. And then he continues, The way we do that, he says, is by speaking the truth in love. Let us grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from who the whole body fit and knit together supports each ligament when it's being equipped. And when each part is working properly, it then makes the body grow up. So the idea here is every member is growing up. Everyone's getting mature. When everybody's doing their role, we help them. we all help each other grow up. But the key phrase here that I don't want you to miss is speak, speaking the truth in love. Now, a lot of us, we might've heard that at one point in our life where we're like, yeah, you know, I remember being in a relationship and it was difficult or a friendship or in a group. And we, we, you know, we finally said, Hey brother or sister or friend, you know, I need to speak the truth in love with you. And what it meant was like, I've got a hard work, direct word, and I'm just going to do it hopefully in a gentle, kind way. And those things do need to happen, but I don't think that's primarily, or exclusively what Paul's talking about here. Because later on in the same chapter, after he talks about the way of the Gentiles and how we don't go in that way, we go in a very different way, he says this, this is not the way that you came to know Christ, assuming you heard about him and were taught by him as the truth is in Jesus. So when Paul says speak the truth in love, he's basically saying speak the truth of Jesus. to every situation. Here's another way to think about it. If we're going to grow up in every way into Christ, we've got to learn how to speak and also, I'd say, demonstrate. So it's not just our words, but also our actions, the very truths of Jesus into everything. And I would make the case that where we are not speaking the truths of Jesus or the gospel of Jesus, the good news about Jesus into areas of our life, those will be the areas that will not look like Jesus. Or when we're trying to serve other people and speak truth into them, we're not bringing the truths of jesus into their life they're probably going to grow up in something else and we see this all over the place we see christians who parts of their life look like jesus and then a whole bunch of other parts of their life look like their political party not trying to get political but it's like they they look more like their peers than they do jesus in that thing or they look more like a philosophy they do like jesus and that thing or the way they manage or handle their finances look nothing like jesus because they got all their training or development from something that doesn't include jesus or doesn't represent the truths of jesus but what paul is saying is if we're going to grow up into the fullness of christ and into maturity in christlikeness we've got to learn how to speak the good news of jesus into absolutely every nook and cranny of our life and that's what i mean by gospel fluency and The thing I want you to do is just stop and ask this question. Maybe even think about the situation or issue that I encourage you to identify and just ask how much has the good news of Jesus saturated your life? I mean, how much does the truth of Jesus apply to everything you're facing? How much does the truth of who he is and what he's done and who you are in Christ get applied to the issues and the struggles and the challenges you're facing? Or do you find yourself moving away from Jesus? In all those other areas, you apply worldly wisdom or maybe just a proven practice or maybe the counsel of others, but you really don't look like Jesus or remember the truths of Jesus for a lot of stuff you're going through. And so that's the question I want you to ask as we keep going, because here's the deal. You and I will talk about what we love most. Like we most talk about what we most love. And you just think about the last 24 hours and think about how many conversations you had, whether it was in digital spaces or using your devices, chatting, texting, whatever it may be, or maybe even physically being with someone and having a conversation. The question is, what have you been talking about? What's been the center of your conversation? What's been oozing out of your heart? Because Christ says it's out of the overflow of the heart that the mouth speaks. And the idea there is, you will be speaking about what you love the most. I remember when I first met my wife, and I was absolutely smitten. And everywhere I went, I was talking about her. And I was a youth pastor at the time, our senior pastor, and I went on a hike. And for two and a half days, that's all I'm talking about. And finally, he says, would you just shut up? Go marry the girl. I'm tired of hearing about this. And the truth is, you just talk about it. Whether it's sports that you love, your kids, your your spouse your friends your grandkids like nobody struggles to talk about what they love most and so if you're thinking about man how do i start becoming more fluent in sharing the gospel to people or even to my own struggles in my life the question is has the gospel has the good news of jesus so captured your affections that you just can't stop talking about it now here's something that i've learned we also sometimes grow cold in our love we we forget what drew us to somebody or to Jesus in the first place. And that happened even in my marriage. I remember there was a season my love was growing cold. I was talking to older gentlemen about my marriage and the struggles. And he said, hey, remind me again why you married Janie. Like, what was it about her that you loved? And I started talking about all the things that I love. And the more that I talked about the things I love, the more that my heart grew warm again. And I found myself going, man, I really do love Janie. This is amazing. This is the woman I want to spend my life with. What happened? Well, we not only talk about what we love most, but oftentimes if we don't talk about it, we lose our love for it. In other words, the more that I talked about all the beauty and all the splendor and all the wisdom and all the joy of being with this amazing woman, the more that my heart grew in affection for her. So I would just offer up as you're thinking about growing in gospel fluency in terms of the process of it, Not only pay attention to what you talk about because it's going to reveal your affections, but start getting around people who talk about Jesus a lot because the more that you talk about why he's so amazing, why his work is so worth giving your life to, why you adore him so much, the more that you talk about him, the more that you'll love him. And so it goes both ways. We talk about what we love most, but we start to love what we talk about most, which is why you want to get yourself in a...

SPEAKER_00: Hey everybody. Hey Jeff.

Jeff Reed: Um, we had a screw up. We accidentally muted you on our side. And so I apologize for that. Back up 30 seconds. Yeah. Yeah. Keegan's laughing at me. That's cool. I'm actually, it's so funny. I'm wearing a t-shirt cause I don't want to mess up my nice shirt. I'm having lunch. Um, sorry, Jeff are bad. Back up 30 seconds and unmute yourself. Back up 30 seconds and keep going. Even the pros screw up y'all like that. This is a thing. Jeff, can you hear me now? I can. I apologize. You are on a roll. You are throwing it. Keep going. Back up 30 seconds and roll with it, sir.

SPEAKER_01: Where did you lose me? Was it when I was talking about what you love most with my wife?

Jeff Reed: Back up one slide. Hit the end of it and then roll.

SPEAKER_01: Great, great. So we talk about what we love most, that one. Yeah. I was making the case that what you love most, what's captured your affections, will come out of your heart, that it will be the thing that you can't stop talking about. So stop and just think about what you talk about the most and ask yourself, is that what's most captured your affection? Is it Jesus? Is it the truth of what he's done, who you are in Christ, and how he's changed everything? I was telling the story, and if I repeat myself, I'm sorry, but about my wife when I first met her. I couldn't stop talking about her. But later on in our marriage, my love started to grow cold. And I had an older guy come to me and say, man, tell me all the reasons why you fell in love with her in the first place. And as I shared all these things, I realized my heart began to be warm again towards her. My affections were stirred up. And I just that I couldn't stop not only talking about her, but growing in my affection for her. And I think when it comes to growing a gospel fluency. We want to both pay attention to what we talk about because what we talk about will reveal what's captured our affections. But if our affections aren't stirred up for Jesus, then we've got to be with people who will ask, remind me again, why is it that you first became a Christian? What was it that drew you to Christ? Why do you adore him so much? And the more that we talk about all that he is and all that he's done and all that we have in Christ, the more our affections get stirred up for him. And here's the reality. It's all the overflow of the heart that the mouth speaks. So it's not hard to speak about Jesus in these digital spaces that need to hear about Christ when our affections are stirred up for him on a regular basis, because it will just overflow out of your life. But if it's not coming out of your mouth, it's probably not in your heart. You're not being captured by these affections. So we talk about what we love most, but we also have to keep stirring up our affections. So what comes out of us will be. our affection for Jesus. And then here's the other thing that I know is true. You also talk about what you believe works. Whether it's the newest gadget you've got, the game you're playing, the tool you have, the vehicle you drive, whatever you think works great, you're going to talk about it. And that's why Paul says, I'm not ashamed of the gospel for it's the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. He's saying, the reason why it's not hard for me to talk about it is because it's the thing that transforms everything. And so I would ask the question, are you experiencing the power of the gospel transforming every aspect of your life? Because if you're not, you'll primarily talk about the part that you think it did transform, which is why a lot of people talk about, you know, are you sure about where you're going to go after you die? Because, man, at least it transformed my afterlife. But the gospel is meant to transform every aspect of your life. And so I want you to keep in your mind all the situation that I ask you to identify and the way that you've been addressing it. And I'm just going to walk through what the gospel includes and why it has good news for probably more than the one issue that you identified. And remember, the gospel means good news. The people I teach in my own little church regularly, as I say, if it doesn't sound like good news, it's not the gospel. And of course, there'll be some of you push back like, yeah, but there's bad news in the gospel. Like, you got to talk about sin in order to get the good news. And I would say like, yeah, but sin isn't the gospel. Sin is why we need the gospel. Yes, we'll need to talk about the problem, but the gospel isn't sin. The gospel is that we're saved from our sin. The gospel is that there's good news setting us free from the shackles of sin. And so if it never sounds like good news, it's possible you're not actually proclaiming the gospel. And I know there's some of you listening going, yeah, but didn't Paul say it's foolishness to those who are perishing? And I always say, yeah, it's foolishness, not bad news. The idea of foolishness is it's too good to be true. I can't hardly accept it. How could it be that? I always tell people, if it doesn't sound like good news in your own heart when you're saying it to somebody else, you should back up. And there's probably a few things you should ask. One, have I listened long enough to these people I'm with to know what they actually need and what would sound like good news about Jesus that I could give to them? Because if you listen long enough, you'll go, oh, my goodness, they need to know this about Jesus. They need to hear what he's done or how much he loves them or what he could do for them, you know. when you get to that place you're like gosh i can't wait to tell them so when if you don't sense it's good news then i would have slowed down maybe you need to listen longer so you actually know what they need and how jesus is what they need but the other side of it is maybe we haven't thought through the the breadth and the depth and the length of the gospel that is not just you know limited to justification by faith that's that's real it's not just limited to good news after i die that's real but it's got so much more and so Just want to remind you, it includes the life of Jesus. When we think about his life, we think about a real human who went through everything you and I go through. Hebrews 4 says we have a high priest who's able to sympathize, which means he's able to feel with you what you're feeling, because he was tested in every way just like you and me, and therefore we can go to him in our time of need. And so... The life of Jesus is part of the good news. It's not just his death. It's that he lived our life. Yes, he lived our life, and he lived it as a righteous man without sin and completed the work God gave him to do, which is really good. So he is our hope for being made righteous before God. In him we are righteous, but also don't miss it. He is a human who went through what you went through, who felt what you feel. And so maybe even that's what you need to hear or you need to give to someone else today or in the coming days in these digital spaces you're in. It's like, I want you to know there's a God who mourns. And that's why he says, blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted. Because Jesus was a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. He wept over Israel. He knows what it's like to lose things. He lost his friend and then he raised him from the dead, Lazarus. But If you don't slow down in that passage, Jesus is so present in the sadness of Mary that he weeps with her. And he does that for you and me. He was wounded. He knows what it's like to be hurt. His friends abandoned him. They betrayed him, denied him, rejected him. So he knows what it's like to be in that space. He knows what it's like to be lonely. He cries out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me from the cross? Maybe some of you are like, man, there's these issues I'm going through. Does he know what it's like to feel pain, to feel loss, to feel abandoned? Did he get angry? Yes, he did. And so maybe what you need in terms of the good news of Jesus is just to go, there is somebody who understands what you're going through, feels what you feel, and didn't just feel it. We'll get to the resurrection. He's alive. He's present right now in me. to feel it with you. Jesus doesn't want you to know you don't have to be alone in this. And he wants you to know the human experience is not something he's a foreigner to. Now, there's a lot more we could talk about in the life of Jesus. His obedience in our place is so much, but we'll just move on to the death now. We know in the death, we've got him putting himself in our place, taking on our sin, not only dying for sin, but also putting to death death, putting to death the power of sin, defeating the evil one as he's buried in the tomb. And so the burial of Jesus is really important because what does he do? He takes all that we've done and he buries it there and he comes out in the resurrection without it. So the death is important because he died in our place and he put to death death and sin and its power. But the burial is so important because he left it there. He buried it all there. And we, if we're in Christ, have been raised with Jesus to new life. So our sin, our guilt, our shame, it's in the tomb. It's not our identity. It's not how he sees us. God sees us now in Christ. And that's why we're co-heirs with Christ. And the good news about his resurrection, that he has overcome Satan's sin and death. And Paul says in Romans 8, If we now have the Spirit of God in us that enables us to cry out, Abba, Daddy, Father, we also have the Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead. So all the power of the resurrection is now in us by His Spirit. And Jesus said, those who believe in me are going to do the same works that I do. So maybe your issue is like, I'm facing what seems like an insurmountable situation, or I'm dealing with sin that I just can't get over. And Paul is really clear. You have the same power in you that Jesus had in him, and it's in his resurrection that that power over Satan, sin, and death is now the power for you to overcome anything you're facing. And here's the good news. He ascended to the right hand of the Father, and he says, if I go, then I'll send my spirit. So when he ascended, not only is he there representing you as an advocate before God the Father forever, but he's also giving you all that you need for every situation you'll ever face. So his ascension is now I've sent my spirit. I'm now praying on your behalf. If you wonder if someone's praying for you, Jesus is praying for you right now. And he knows exactly what you need. He knows what you're going to say before you say it, what you think before you think it, and what you need before you even face it. And he wants to give you everything you need to be able to walk the life he's saved you to walk. And the good news is he's going to return and make all things new. And so maybe even the situation you're facing is like, you know, is it ever going to change? I mean, I'll tell you what, some of the times for me, the good news of the gospel is it's not going to stay like it is today. It is going to change. He is going to transform all things. The old will become new. We'll be living in a new heaven and a new earth. Now, I did that really fast. I usually train this stuff in a day. I have a whole book about it. But what I want you to do is I just want you to stop and think about your situation and how you've been addressing it and ask yourself, Have I been addressing with any of these truths, the truth of Jesus' life, his death, his burial, his resurrection, his ascension, his return? And I promise you that all of that contains all that you need for whatever you're facing. And the goal is to say, Holy Spirit, would you help me? And that's the job of the Holy Spirit, is to bring to our mind the things that are true of Jesus to our situations, to our struggles to say holy spirit would you remind me of the good news of jesus for the thing i'm addressing either in my life or in the people that you've surrounded me with so i just want to encourage you to ask that question in light of your situation how would these truths bring how would these truths about jesus bring good news to the thing you're facing right now now a good practice to engage in is to do that in with some other people and just practice sharing like Here's an issue. How does the good news of Jesus apply to that issue? Go. Let's talk about that. Now, here's another exercise I'll give you as I'm coming to a bit of a close. I will regularly go back to this kind of categorical way of describing the different aspects of the gospel, and I'll just take one of them and say, okay, why is the life of Jesus good news to us? This is a good thing to do. You could do this in a chat. You could do this in a group, whatever it may be. But Let's just, what's one thing that's good news about the life of Jesus? Someone might say, he feels what we feel. Great. How is that good news? And then I usually say, someone else's answer might be, well, because he feels what we feel, it means that my feelings matter to Jesus. Great. Why is that good news? Well, if my feelings matter to Jesus, then Jesus is actually going to care for anything I ever go through. Yes. Why is that good news? And I'll just keep asking, why is it good news? Why is it good news? Why is it good news? And what you're doing is you're just drilling down as deep as you possibly can on just one aspect of the gospel. And if you were to practice that over and over and over again, all the different aspects of the gospel, you'll find the breadth and the depth of the good news of Jesus is inexhaustible. And what's great about that is the more you do that and practice that, the more ways you'll have to share the good news of Jesus, not just to your life, but to the lives of those that are surrounding you all the time. I'll end there. I got a few more things I could share, but I think that's probably enough for today. Love for you to practice applying this and see how it goes as you put it to practice in your everyday life.

Jeff Reed: No, I love this. By the way, Jeff does have the book. He mentioned it in the talk. I'll go and put here Gospel Fluency by Jeff Vanderstelt. Thank you, Jeff, for speaking on this. I'm going to ask a follow-up question that I really want to tie this together. Um, but grab that book on, on Amazon, Kindle, uh, paperback, whatever. I've used the Amazon link. I know a lot of us are international, global. All of us are international, but you know, even overseas, Amazon can get to everywhere. So grab that book, um, and, and dig into this. But Jeff, the question that I want to ask kind of following up on this. So the context of, of the conversation with Jason Morris and I was centered around, um, what a gospel conversation is. And so I would love maybe just a thought from you as we're talking about gospel fluency. It's a different language reporting this into digital, you know, if you want to go digital or not. But like what in your mind, what is it as digital missionaries, as missionaries, what is a gospel conversation?

SPEAKER_01: Well, for me, a gospel conversation is when you listen well enough to know what the need of the gospel is in their life. So I listen long enough that I know what their real need is. And then I'm able to bring the good news of Jesus in such a way that it actually meets the present need that they're facing. And Jesus is the hero or the answer or the solution, right? To me, that's how I would sum it up. But here's what's really important. There's a proverb that says, the person of understanding is able to draw out the deep waters of another man's heart. And I think One of the things that we're doing is we're trying to draw out the waters of someone's heart so that once their heart is drawn out, we know how to apply the good news to the aspects of their heart that need healing, hope, restoration, you know, fulfillment, satisfaction. And so I didn't even have time to talk about, like, how do you even apply this to all the emotions, right? Like every emotion people are going through, we can bring the good news of the gospel to. But it really requires listening long enough. to discern the longing of the heart, and then bringing an aspect of who Jesus is to bear on that in such a way that sounds like good news to the hearer.

Jeff Reed: Yeah, listening, driving the longing, which points to Jesus. And what's interesting is Jason and I really started to unpack this. So I came into the conversation, like I'm just going to be very blunt in this moment. I came in with the mindset of a gospel is when you practically share Jesus. literally take out your track. You walk somebody through it. Like it was very conversion related and, and, and confession hour. Like that's from 25 years of Southern Baptist. Okay. Like, you know, that's, that's how I was raised and that I'm no knock Southern Baptist. I'm sorry. But that's, that's what I brought into the conversation. And, and, and, and, and it was so funny. And, and JMO, I think he's on here still. He, he was, he was like, well, Jeff, how hard is it to get an atheist to acknowledge there's a God? Like just, moving an atheist to an agnostic, like working through that. Is that not a gospel conversation? Somebody who accepted Christ, that you're moving more towards a deeper relationship with Jesus, which is leading them towards multiplying and discipling other people. Is that not a gospel conversation? And the ability to move what we're doing into that... to shift how we're utilizing digital, not specifically towards evangelism, which is important, but moving everybody closer to whatever that next step is. Yeah, incrementally. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'll often say the problem with most of our quote-unquote evangelism strategies is that we're trying to get them an entire meal and they're not even hungry yet. So let's stop stuffing food down their throats. They've got to develop some form of hunger. And when you're dealing with a starving person, you put a little honey on their tongue just to create a hunger again. So it's like it might only be a drop of honey, which could be one small gospel truth. Like the friends that we were reaching out to for a long time, I started with at one point just going like, I don't know if you know this, but you are made in the image of God. And let me tell you how you display God to me. It's amazing how you look like, and you may not even believe in God. I'm just going to tell you, you were created to be a picture of what God is like to the world, whether you believe it or not. Let me tell you some of the ways you display what he's like. Well, that was good news, right? Well, then when we talk about falling short of the glory of God, which is sin, we can go like, well, you don't look like God all the time. That's what sin is. Well, I could frame it up in a way that made sense to her, and she saw people that way. She was just, I was using her language because she would always say, I think people are amazing. Like I just think about the beauty of people. And I'm like, so I just stepped into her language, her worldview and brought good news into that. And that's a lot of what we're doing is we're not trying to get them to buy into our worldview, step into their worldview and bring some bit of truth into that worldview. And that's eventually going to lead them to more and more. And they're going to hunger for more when you just give them that little honey, that little taste, taste and see that the Lord is good. That's what we're doing.

Jeff Reed: You just set up the next talk so good. We're going to have Cheryl Boyd talking about audience mapping and some of the stuff that crew is working on. And so that's the next conversation, the next keynote that we have. But Jeff, this is exactly what I was looking for. And you brought it. Jeff Vander, spelled Gospel Fluency. I'll leave the link up there for a little more. But Jeff, thank you for joining us. today in sharing from your heart here.

SPEAKER_01: Okay. So good to be with you. Thanks. Thank you.

Jeff Reed: All right. I think that was it. And I think I'm back. And I'm done. And so thank you guys for watching. Thank you, Jeff, for sharing that message on gospel fluency. The idea of gospel conversations and what that looks like as missionaries, understanding that piece of the puzzle. Oh my gosh, that set up the audience map so well. Seriously, y'all, subscribe to some of the other conferences. Access the base. We're going to announce when we get it, all these videos online. And it's going to be incredible. It's a very impactful conference. But I'm going to land the plane. Thank you, JMO, for stopping by. For JMO, for Jeff Vanderstelt, this is Jeff Reed with The Church Digital. Thanks for hanging out with us today on the show. We'll see you Tuesday for what's coming up next. Don't forget to sign up for Control Alt Recover, www.missionary.digital. See y'all later.