EP365: Jeff & Simon Diercks Celebrate the 2025 European Digital Missionary Summit

Jeff Reed: all right oh man that was a mood shift right there for that song kicking in hey jeff uh with the church digital podcast oh you know what my mic is low so let me crank it up jeff with the church digital podcast that should be better my settings reset automatically for some reason i gotta look into that but hey episode 300 kick in here in a second episode 365 oh man it's been a it's been a crazy 48 hours uh so good we just wrapped up our european digital missionary conference we've got simon dirk's gonna bring him on in a minute but just want to highlight 365 podcast episodes today so today is the day that you can actually listen to an hour of jeff every day for a full year and uh be miserable because who wants to listen to a year of jeff reed not too many people But we're excited about what's happening in Europe and what we got to highlight yesterday with the conference. And we've got some keynotes we're going to share on this as well. And so instead of just talking about it, let's go ahead and bring Simon Dirks into the conversation. Let me push my magic button. Hopefully this works. Hey, and here's Simon. Hey, Simon.

Simon Diercks: Hi, hi, good to see you.

Jeff Reed: Yeah, so Simon is broadcasting from his car. This may be the first, just saw somebody walk by the car, but yeah, this may be the first time I've done a conversation with somebody in a car. Where are you at, Simon?

Simon Diercks: Well, I'm in a little city called Marburg in Germany. It's really beautiful if you step over sometime.

Jeff Reed: Oh, yeah, just I'll be over there in a couple minutes. I tell you, like, I will say this. Every time I see Simon, he is in an area, if he's outside, it is green. Like, is all of Germany green and lush and beautiful like this? Like, it's incredible.

Simon Diercks: I would say a lot of Germany is like that. Yeah.

Jeff Reed: Oh, man, that's... I live in Miami. It's like oceans everywhere and clear, but man, just the trees, like it's just in the mountains. That's awesome. Hey, when's the last time Simon's been on here and shared in the past that he's an ultra marathoner? So when's the last time you did any sort of major run?

Simon Diercks: It was last year, but end of this month, I will actually do my first running marathon. because normally I love ultra hiking, like hiking for more than 100 kilometers. By the end of this month will be my first marathon running in Frankfurt.

Jeff Reed: Okay. So that's 20, what is it? 26.2, right? Marathon?

Simon Diercks: It's 42 kilometers. I don't know metric system. Okay. You know, it's always the same with us.

Jeff Reed: No, it's 20. No, it's 13 miles. Yeah, I don't know. What's the, how many kilometers is it? 42 42 42 yeah um yeah that's right the numbers are in my head aren't making sense right now but i'm gonna trust you because you're you're in the middle of it so very cool um well good luck actually running instead of hiking i'm guessing that's a different pair of shoes Yeah. Yes. All right. So, hey, let's... So, Simon was the host yesterday for the European Digital Missionary Conference, which was like 8.30 to 12.30 his time, or my time here in America. 2 to 3 to 7 a.m., something like that, like way early. And it was a lot of fun. I actually ran tech support in the background. And so we didn't have that much trouble. This stream actually went really smooth across the board. But Simon, like 24 hours later, we did a lot of work to put that conference together. And you and your team showed up incredibly across Europe. Like, man, share some highlights for you. What did it feel like through the conference?

Simon Diercks: Yeah, I loved it. Especially I loved spreading a wide view across digital ways of ministry in Europe. We had 11 speakers up on the stage, 11 speakers showing us about the general situation regarding Christianity in Europe. um about topics like ai or topics like how to empower content creators and gen z for digital missions but also those practical guys looking into their specific ministry with their community like hip-hop communities in finland like gamers community in germany or like many others so look into these um wide wide view of different speakers and topics has really been so encouraging with me and also seeing how the conference is just the day after already making an impact i'm seeing discussions in our outpost europe and in our french group we're already discussing about rolling out the creedal model we heard about for France and discussing how to facilitate a French-speaking EDM beginning of next year. So we're seeing this conference already making an impact. So great.

Jeff Reed: Yeah, it was funny. A confession hour. um i i slept through an open office this morning i was staying up all night for the european conference it really beat me up and but it was it was interesting i had uh steve reed was in there and uh cindy who lives in hong kong but but speaks french and um evidently i don't know who it was but somebody showed up that was french only spoke French. And Steve was telling me, yeah, Cindy and this person had some conversation about EDM and French. And so I don't know how it went, but it was cool that people handled the situation without me. One, that's awesome. But two, I love the energy that we're starting to hear about with digital missionaries and extending into French in this new country. So very interesting. What's ahead?

Simon Diercks: Yeah, definitely. Go for it. Yeah, I'm very, very happy about that. We already got that person connected to our French group and they are planning further. Awesome. Just go ahead.

Jeff Reed: Just, you know, just another day at the business. You know, maybe I should be at the open offices. Let's let other people do it. Another conversation for a different day. But very, very, very cool. What was... What was your maybe favorite talk? I know it was a different format. It was like 11 speakers, more of like a Ted talk, 10, 11, 15 minutes, somewhere in there, more shorter talks. But what was, for you, what was like the aha moment or the one that you really want people to hear?

Simon Diercks: I think what I really loved is Jim Emery, leader of Lausanne Europe, reframing the situation for Europe, thinking away from the lost continent more to a continent that is pre-revival and showing up where that is already happening within church planting movements, within youth discipleship movements. and within migrant churches across Europe. We've seen revival already and it's a question how we can leverage digital to empower and to accelerate that. What I also loved was for many speakers also to focus back on the work of the Spirit in our digital ministries. For example, like I think it was Dima Lavrov from Cyprus. He said, before touching a keyword, let your knees hit the ground. So really prepare your ministry with good prayers. And then to see how many good frameworks are already available, like dealing from Poland for 50 years around the road or Credo building an ecosystem for Christian ministry. not only in Germany but plan to fold out worldwide and to hear Toby pointing out that Jesus wants to be found but we have to learn that people are searching differently in digital spaces. So these have been really defining moments for me and I really encourage all of you to take the time to look into many of the talks we had. Really, really a big view.

Jeff Reed: Yeah, I mean, Josh, you just mentioned like half the lineup, you know, when I will say it was a kind of cool moment. I just happen to have these right here. But when when who is Jim was the first talk right from from Lausanne. So when he opens up his talk and, you know, he's got his sunglasses on and talking and tying it in was was was so good. The idea of. of pre-revival instead of post-church, instead of post-Christian, and the expectation of doing Christ. I'll confess, that's something I struggle with. I live in the... I don't mean that, but I live in the doom and gloom of the moment. It's bad, and we need to do something. And his perspective, Jim Emery's perspective of in Europe, we are doing something. And we're seeing God take steps of this. It's not that it's bad, but it's new. It's not a barren wasteland. We're actually seeing kind of like the beginning of the plants showing up and the growth showing up. It was so interesting. This is on a completely different topic, but I actually watched, oh my gosh, what's the name of the Eva? Oh my gosh. This is totally a bad scenario movie, but not a bad movie, just stupid. The Disney movie with the two robots from space. Eva. And I can't think, it has nothing. Somebody, I'm wearing the Disney shirt right now. Somebody's going to be like, Jeff, you're so stupid. I cannot think of the name of this robot who's like the main character's name from the movie. shifting off another thing that i did also love was was the man from cyprus talking about you know always being on the knees in prayer so often in digital ministry we we and i once again i live this where it's you know we're just executing a playbook we're executing a strategy living in that in that strategic mindset content creating just go go go And not beginning in prayer. And he must have said that phrase. And because of his accent, it took me a couple rounds to kind of understand. But the hitting the knees before you hit the keyboard, hit your knees in prayer. Like that was such a beautiful visual that he just kept reinforcing through his talk. That was great.

Simon Diercks: Yeah, I'm all with you.

Jeff Reed: I know we did translation for the first time. We had Interprefy. It's a company that we offered live simultaneous translation. Audio, AI audio, as well as... subtitles for all the keynotes and sponsors basically all the sessions um you know i've heard some feedback uh most of it was good did you have you heard any response or anything on your side about how that interpreter product was handled received uh only the uh only the fascinated uh thing of hearing me giving english talks and being a i translated to german which is my native language that must have been quite funny for people to listen to that Yeah, I know. It's interesting. Some of your French friends gave some feedback and they were like it was like, oh, it's probably 80 percent accurate. And we do had a Portuguese, someone who was Portuguese was like, yeah, the Portuguese was awful. And so but her is interesting, like. The standard, I think, the person who was like 80% saw it as a positive. AI, it's not gonna be perfect. It was funny, like internally, I was hoping if we could get it, literally, I was like, if we get it nine out of 10, if we get 90% accurate, um that's that's really good and uh when the person literally was like yeah it's like 80. i was like dang it we're not quite there uh but the person making the comment was like oh no it's incredible even 80 is better than than nothing and um yeah and but the perspective of the person from portuguese you know 80 was like oh this is awful it's not it's not perfect and uh and so you know ai on some of that stuff you know i don't think we can expect perfection yet but you know i i know 80 percent is better better than most um better than nothing i was looking at the registrations you know we had uh we had 500 people register from uh 70 550 maybe it was 76 countries last last report i ran and so well received globally excited about uh some of the some of the footprint of maybe what we're starting and what we can build on built with that with the 76 countries it was it was interesting to me even through the conference the people that were attending um i walking in i was actually expecting it to be like european people watching the european conference But it really was a global bag of people, different perspectives, looking at what Europe was doing. And it was more highlighting the ministry of Europe. And it was interesting, even your perspective of setting up the keynotes to highlight, well, this is what we're doing in Germany with Credo. And this is what we're doing over here with digital ministry in Cyprus and some of the work in Russia. Yeah. like you you coach the people to highlight what they were doing in those in those areas and i just thought that was so cool to have them present themselves as this is just a taste of what's happening in those areas yeah yeah what i really love is to see um um when we're together in the outpost europe um what i'm seeing is that so many people from

Simon Diercks: outside europe are thinking about engaging in digital physical or digital ministry um in europe and they're attending um to to learn about culture to um to create networks to discover opportunities so for the last european edm we did we're going to start another one october 22nd you can sign up if you want But the last European EDM, actually, there were more people attending that are not from Europe, but that are from Europe. People like Cindy from Hong Kong, of course. People like Etta from Nigeria. We are talking to him as Alliance Mission about sending missionaries to Germany from Nigeria. How cool is that? and that is really what i'm thinking is fascinating to get what um the current missiology is calling the global church the time of the global church where the global church connects and finds a way to do ministry in every direction and digital is just perfect for facilitating that

Jeff Reed: Awesome. That's so cool to hear how, you know, A, people are coming to Europe, B, Europe is highlighting and inspiring others because of the pre-revival tendencies that are happening in that space. So, so good. Maybe talk a little bit, you know, because I know a couple of things. One, we'll talk, yeah, you know what, let's talk about the conference first, but we're going to be having, let's talk about the Outpost as well. With the conference, like I said, we're going to show, I know we're going to show Jim's session here in a little bit. Who else was, Jim from Lausanne, who else was in that first session yesterday? Do you remember?

Simon Diercks: Yeah, of course. I'll put you on the spot.

SPEAKER_04: Do you remember?

Simon Diercks: Yeah, of course, we're going to hear Jim Memory, who is, as I already said, regional director, one of the regional directors of Lausanne Movement Europe. The second talk was focusing on the question of the opportunities of AI for Christian missions, was held by Tito Stadelmann from Switzerland, who is professor and such a highly intelligent. um guy uh regarding um the opportunities of ai and the search talk which i really loved was from andy fronius working um and serving from romania and really having a mindset of multiplication that for my for my feelings matched so good what we are doing with edm like encouraging and empowering young people through through a multi-day um onboarding camp to start their digital ministry so encouraging so good what he has thought through and what he's starting with uh pulse I really love that. So these have been the first three talks and really will be a great opportunity to listen to them as well as to some of our sponsors. And I'm so thankful for the effort you put into this, Jeff, to make all these sponsors available. Also, the sponsors had people from Europe telling us how they're using the products presented, how they're pursuing digital ministry. That was so encouraging and really an enrichment to the talks as well.

Jeff Reed: Yeah. We've got one of the other sessions that we've included. It was Chloe Hanan, who is in... I want to say she's in... I want to think it was Ireland. I don't remember, but it was somewhere over in the Great Britain side of the pond. I was Ireland, okay, with Jesus Film Project talking about Next Steps and that and how she's using Next Steps in Europe. It was really cool to see that perspective of how these tools are shaping Europe and using Europe as the context of that. And so we'll watch some of the keynotes with the first session here, but all of the keynotes are going to be available on demand. I think we're going to do an audio podcast through Simon's but the audio and video will be available through our base, which is where all of our digital missionary conference data and all the videos end up. And so we'll put information in FAM about how to get access to that. So you can just check out WhatsApp or Discord to get connected. Or if you've registered for any of the conferences, you already have access to all of that. And so we'll have that available for you.

Simon Diercks: in a matter of days takes a little bit for the team you know to to get all that together so we'll see that that very soon well before we like to take that i like that take that opportunity just to give a great shout out to the team so great what you did with the advertising with the home pages signing up setting up the platform such a big thank you to any mage to all the others of the team of course also to you it's just great working with you it's great to see what you're putting up for digital ministry thanks a lot to all of them

Jeff Reed: yeah we will be doing more we've got the gaming conference gaming summit uh digital missionary gaming summit coming up uh in a week wednesday october 8th and so we've been doing all the conferences so far in hubelo gamers will be gamers and so that entire conference is going to be in discord and so uh i've got a kind of well thankfully andy and leighton are really running out of that conference but um i will say uh Andy, the Word Revolution team, Barbara and her team have done an awesome job with all of the conferences. I think collectively we're all tired. And so looking forward to it being done. I was funny. Actually, I had a meeting this morning about. the comp are the next series of conferences and uh the project manager we're bringing on and he's like okay walk me through how this works and the 40 000 foot level and so we're already gearing up for what's next uh coming up in in 26 but really excited before we go because i got i know i got to let you go uh but talk briefly if somebody wants to get connected into your european outpost

Simon Diercks: what's the best way for them to get connected to you or to really connect with this group that you're developing in europe yeah definitely we love to get people connected and the easiest way for you to get connected is just to join the tcd fam you get two opportunities to do so you can go to discord.thechurch.digital or you can join whatsapp.thechurch.digital When you are joining WhatsApp, you've got the opportunity to join the Outpost Europe channel. And there you'll meet other people doing ministry in Europe or from Europe, getting connected to them. And we also have the opportunity to meet up in our open offices. um focusing on topics that are important to you or you got the opportunity to get connected and to sign up for the next uh european edm so looking forward i suppose that within this year we'll have an english-speaking european white edm we'll have another german speaking edm and beginning next year we have a french speaking edm And that is what is defining for European culture. You get a variety of cultures. You get a variety of languages. And that is what is really on my heart to get the opportunity for people to attend in their context in a way that they can understand best. So if you want to join in and say, for example, well, there needs to be an EDM in Albanian. Okay, let's go for it. I love to see an EDM starting up in Iceland because I visited that a couple of years ago. But... You know, just get connected. We're happy to meet you over there at the TCD fam.

Jeff Reed: Yeah, I want an excuse to go to the other side of the pond. So Iceland would be great. You know, something I need to go see Simon. He wants me to go to a conference next year. And so there'll be some opportunities on that side. But, you know, if I can do a European world tour over there and check out some sites with the Church Digital, I would love that. And so I do love... I love what Simon's doing and challenging us to start to think through different languages and different cultures and the process of that. So I'm excited to see what 26 as we work more towards mobilization in 26. what we're actually really doing here is just the beginning, I think, of what the future is going to hold in that. So Simon, thank you very much for what's happening right now through what you're doing. I'm going to go ahead and let Simon go because he's got to get back to work. But man, thanks for stopping in your day and having this conversation with us. All right.

Simon Diercks: Thanks a lot. See you.

Jeff Reed: All right. Bye, Simon. All right. And so he's going to disconnect. And it's always great to see Simon doing what he's doing. Appreciate him taking time out today to do that. But we're going to set up and we're going to swing over into this first session where we've got three or four keynotes that we're going to stream up together. What on earth is God doing in Europe? Today's context for church and missions in Europe. Jim, Jim, memory. regional director of Lausanne in Europe. Filio Stadelman is doing a talk on AI, the unexpected opportunity for missions. Andy Fronius from, oh, Filio is actually from, or maybe it's Thilo, sorry, Thilo, is from Switzerland. Andy Fronius is from Romania and Germany, equipping content creators in Gen Z for digital missions. His talk was good. And then Chloe Hanan, which is talking about creating a digital spiritual journey. Excited about all of these talks. So we're going to go one, two, three, four, all in a row here in sequence. And you're going to see Simon talk here a little bit about Mission Alliance. And so we're going to head and set up here. You got all the talks from session one of the European Digital Missionary Conference. If you're interested in the gaming, We'll do a preview on that on Tuesday, and it's missionary.digital.com. Okay, everybody, let me go and push the magic button and check out all of session one from the European Conference. Here you go.

Simon Diercks: The first session of keynotes, we are going to be focusing a little bit on the big picture, the question of what is happening across Europe. For that, we got one of the regional directors of the Lausanne Movement Europe, Jim Memory with us and he will give us a big picture on what we can see, what is happening in missions in Europe. We're also going to have a big picture on the question of how is the digital space shaping, changing and what new opportunities grew up that we're seeing. Thilo Stadelmann is one of the... most elaborate persons i know on the topic of ai he is teaching as professor in switzerland and we'll be talking on ai and the opportunity for evangelism and mission and we also be hearing from andy fronius he's living in romania and is uh focusing a lot of equipping content creators and investing into the gen z you'll be teaching a little bit um talking a little bit about his ministry and giving examples of how that is happening so i'm really really thrilled and very thankful for our speakers to be with us and before we start with our speakers i'm going to give a short um short view on um One of the sponsors that is quite close to me and that is Alliance Mission. That's a German mission agency I'm working with. And what we did as a mission agency here located in Germany but part of a global mission movement is what I want to share with you is we started a region digital one or two years ago. Why did we do that? We did that because we recognized that digitalism or connectivity as a global mega trend is changing the way global missions are taking place and we need to learn how to do so Now, not in 10 years when the time has gone farther. So I want to take you just a short dip into why we did that and how we did that to give you an opportunity with the organizations you are with to think into that direction and to shape your mindset. So one great part of resource for you to dive in to get an overview on how the global mission, the global church is developing is the State of the Great Commission report. that has been released before the fourth Lausanne Congress of the Lausanne Movement last September 2024. So that's really an overview of mission experts from all over the world who asked the church which are the big gaps you see in fulfilling the Great Commission until 2025. And there's a lot to learn in this report. One thing that is really astounding is that um asking this question to the global church they found out 25 gaps these 25 gaps are the the are the the most concentrated view on what the global church sees as a big challenges for mission until 2025 and if you walk through these gaps it's great to read through that and to dive deeper if you walk through that you see that at least at least 10 of these global gaps of the global church to reach the Great Commission until 2050 is... connected to digital life to digitalism to connectivity and that is why we said okay we want to learn how to start a region digital we are thinking not only about geographical regions like like africa or asia we are thinking of the digital spaces as as of a region and a region with digital cultures with digital countries so to say places and spaces and digital ways to engage people so we started with working for a couple of years among gamers. We started with digital evangelists on social media, with learning how to do digital church planting, with learning how to leverage AI for automated evangelism, and thinking about so much more future topics. How did we do that? We asked on the one hand side where our development feels that we need to go along as a mission agency. We need to think about what is digital church about? What does a digital ecclesiology look like? We have to learn how the new work changes people of life. We have to think about new ways of a digital me. We have to think about how to do covered operations. in countries with creative access or how to leverage business funding in digital spaces. And we also have to think on different levels, like what do we need to think about digital theology? What structures do we need to be on site of digital missionaries? What culture do we need to build up? Where do we need to do experiments and which new skills do we need to learn? That would be... much more to say. I just want to shape your mindset for you and your organization or the organization you're with to start thinking on how to do digital missions in your context for our continent and beyond. And the question, the one question I'd love to pass forward to you is what digital stories of hope will God tell through you? That might be a question guiding us throughout this day. So much said. So much that from Alliance Mission as one of the sponsors of this great conference. And if you're thinking about becoming a digital missionary and are from Germany or from the neighboring countries, then you're invited to join a weekend of asking about your digital calling here in Eversbach. You're invited to join up there if you're interested. And what we are doing as lines mission, and it can just find some more information on the websites I post here in the chat. I also posted chat to dive a little deeper into the state of the great commission report, gain deep insight on what, what is happening with the global church. You can do that by reading it online, downloading a PDF in one of six languages or chatting with a Lausanne chat bot. I love that opportunity. Of course. All right. So much said, let's just straight dive over to our first speaker and to our first talk. And that will be Jim Memory, Regional Director of Lausanne Movement Europe. Jim, over to you.

SPEAKER_02: Well, good morning, good evening, whatever time in the world it is for you. It's a pleasure to be with you. Yes, my name is Jim Memory. I'm British by birth, but I've spent most of my life as a missionary in Spain with ECM, European Christian Mission. Today, I have the privilege of co-leading the Lausanne movement in Europe. If I put my sunglasses on, everything gets dark. And frankly, that's how most people see Europe as spiritually dark, godless, secular, post-Christian. And it's not even not just politicians or journalists or academics over and over again, even in Christian conferences like the one that you'll be shown on your screen in a second, say that Europe is post-Christian. And when we repeat something, we start believing that it's true, even when it's a lie. Sadly, I think most European Christians, many if not most European Christian leaders, and maybe even some of you on this call, have internalized the myth of the inevitable decline of European Christianity. Rather than holding on to the hope of the Lord's return demonstrated in the resurrection, we've internalized an eschatology of despair. So brothers and sisters, this morning I want to encourage you to take off your sunglasses because as I've been saying for the last five years, Europe is not post-Christian. It is pre-revival and out of the spotlight, an extraordinary re-evangelization of Europe. is taking place. The first area in which we see that is what's happening with church planting movements. In short, almost every European country today, there is an acceleration in the number of new churches that are being planted, whether that's through denominational initiatives, mission agencies like Alliance Mission or ECM or many others, individuals, platforms or ministries that are facilitating church planting, new models of church in traditional form and some in more radical form, new Christian communities are sprouting up almost everywhere we look. Perhaps the most exciting thing of all has been to see the proliferation of national church planting movements, national networks of planters from across the denominations that are connecting and collaborating in reaching their countries. Now, as I said at the beginning, I spent 15 years as a church planter in Spain. Church planters tend to be entrepreneurial mavericks. They're focused more on their own church and their own locality. So collaboration between church planters is a new thing. And I think it's a sign of revival happening in Europe. Secondly, what we see with diaspora churches, God is using people on the move to sow the seed of the gospel across the continent of Europe. Some of these diaspora churches are European. The photo in the bottom right of your screen is Betania Church in Dublin. It's the largest church in Ireland, and it is a Romanian diaspora church. Over the last 30 years, Latin American migrants have planted hundreds, thousands of churches in Spain, Portugal, and beyond. It's difficult to find a major European city that does not have a large Spanish speaking or Brazilian church. African initiated Pentecostal churches number in the thousands in Europe, tens of thousands probably. Just one of those, the Redeemed Christian Church of God has planted nearly a thousand congregations in the UK over the last 25 years. If you live in a European city, If it has a significant African population, there will almost certainly be an African diaspora church, even if you are not aware of it. And Asian Christians have also planted churches wherever they've migrated to. There are twice as many Chinese evangelical churches in Italy as the total of all of the evangelical churches of any kind in the neighboring country of Slovenia. This new reality is a huge opportunity for the gospel, but it's also a huge challenge because the presence of thousands of diaspora churches isn't having anything like the impact it should because so many of the church leaders are not able or willing to adapt their churches to the culture and to the context. I spoke to a Chinese church leader recently. He said this, the Chinese diaspora churches are like beautiful flowers that have been planted in European soil, but they've forgotten to remove the pot. We need to encourage diaspora and native church leaders to work together. And maybe digital media can be one of the ways to break those flower pots, to see these churches reach this next generation of Europeans. Thirdly, what's happening with the next generation? Amazing things are happening amongst Europe's youth. We regularly hear about new revival movements in different countries of Europe. This one really caught my eye. It's Skrokret Fest in Croatia, a Christian festival for young people from across the Balkans. It was the first event of this scale that's brought together a young generation from across the whole region. since the war that there was in that part of Europe a generation ago. But I also want to highlight another sociological reality in Europe. Europe's birth rates over the last 25 years have collapsed. Some Mediterranean countries now have rates that are amongst the lowest in the world. This chart shows Europe's old age dependency ratio. The number of people aged 65 plus per 100 people of working age is expected to rise from around 30 in 2015 to between 50 and 60, and in some cases, in the case of Italy and Spain, to between 70 and 80 by 2025. In other words, for every five people of working age, there will be four pensioners. All these older people also use digital media. So as you innovate, I would plead with you to think about people like me as well. Those who are entering into this older generation because they are also using those tools and we need to think about them. There's going to be so many more older people in Europe in the years to come. God has not given up on Europe. It may be out of the spotlight, but whether that's through church planting, which is accelerating, whether it's through diaspora churches, which are multiplying everywhere, or whether that's through revival amongst the next generation, God is at work in Europe. I would love to say, when I do this presentation again, that there's a fourth thing happening in Europe, what is happening in the digital space. So I'm here today as much to speak as to learn from you. And so I would, as I say, I would love to have a fourth thing that I always say when I travel around what God is doing. So I'm really excited about that. Europe is not post-Christian. It's pre-revival. And I say that not only because of what I see, but also because of what I believe. Europe is not post-Christian because Jesus Christ is risen from the dead. The resurrection of Jesus has transformed the vision of the disciples and it should do the same for us how can europe be post-christian if jesus is still alive secondly europe is not post-christian because the church is still here the church is here the spirit of god is here through history whether through persecution or corruption there have been many times when it seemed like the church was destined to disappear and yet here we are how can europe be post-christian if the church is still here and thirdly europe is not post-christian because we know how the story ends and it ends like this with people from every tribe and tongue and nation standing before the throne and before the lamb every nation of europe will be represented there too so i want to encourage you to look at europe in a new way not through dark glasses let's Let's change the story about what we're saying about Europe. Let's stop talking about Europe as post-Christian. Let's start to believe that it is pre-revival because that is what God is doing right now everywhere we look. So again, I want to challenge you this morning and this evening, wherever you are, to look at Europe through new eyes, to pray for Europe. but also to consider how digital media might be impacting in each of those three areas and how it could impact into the future. I'm thankful for this gathering, thankful for this time together. And as I said already, I'm here to learn. So thanks so much for the opportunity to speak into this morning and pray a blessing on this day for you. God bless you.

SPEAKER_04: Wonderful. Good morning from my side. My name is Thiele Stadelmann. I'm speaking to you from Germany this morning, and we're talking about the unexpected opportunity for missions because of AI. And we are not going to talk about the opportunity of AI as a tool that can help us in our work as missionaries, as Christians, but for the opportunity that arises because of the way we can talk about our worldview, about spirituality, because everybody has questions about the future because of AI. I am a computer scientist, not a missionary, not a theologian. I'm a computer scientist leading a research center of 40 employees developing AI systems at a public university in Switzerland, in Zurich. And let's dive directly into our topic to use our time well. So how can AI be an opportunity for missions? Think about it like follows. Maybe let's do together an experiment. Think about the following for a couple of seconds. Given AI, how do you envision the future of our human societies? Try to envision it. What picture comes up of the future given that we now have AI systems? Does it look anything like this maybe? You can bet on it that for most people you're going to talk about this question, our future societies with AI being with us now evokes pictures like this, like in The Matrix where we humans are like Morpheus who's tortured by AI systems, Agent Smith in the background. Very dystopian pictures, lots of fear because of the technology being bad for us and maybe eradicating humanity or killing our jobs or at least making our life somehow miserable. taking away what we love this is what people very often have in mind and i conducted a lot of research into what are the reasons for this and what struck me is that these dystopian narratives that are around everywhere these narratives that you read in the books by professor harari the homo deus and so on that you see in movies like the matrix that you see in open letters by the future of life institute that you see basically in every major news outlet These narratives, these fear-instilling narratives, are all based not on the technology we have or certain scientific facts. They are based on the worldview of those interpreting these facts. So let us quickly dive into these worldviews that give rise to dystopian narratives. Ethicists Timnit Gebru and Emil Torres, two researchers, have recently analyzed these philosophies or worldviews and came up with an acronym to talk about it. I give you the reference there on the slide. And they talk about the so-called TESKWHEEL bundle of philosophies or worldviews. TESKWHEEL being an acronym standing for things like transhumanism, estropianism, singularitarism, and so forth. So what do these worldviews encompass? And let me tell you first, these worldviews are very predominant in Silicon Valley, amongst people who are building AI technology, amongst very people with high reach on social media like Mr. Musk, Mr. Altman from OpenAI and so on. All these people you hear about every week, they basically subscribe to these philosophies. What do these philosophies say? Well, let's do a quick tour through this. By rationalism, they are saying, well, we as humans are nothing but... information processors. We are basically a machine. We are a computer that takes input, processes it and output something, some information. So basically we are the same as computers. And then by virtue of the next philosophy, Singularityism, they go forth assuming that when we are the same as technology, technology can basically do everything that we can. So they don't need to prove for their assertion that AI can become conscious, can become basically on eye level with humanity. or even more can become superintelligent just by self-improvement. There's no scientific proof for that, or even an argument. Well, it's a belief system that this could happen because, well, we are conscious and we are the same. And then it goes on to the last philosophy I want to touch upon here, the transhumanism that basically says, well, if we are the same as technology, that doesn't make us equal to AI. We are actually lower. Why? Well, because we are running on biological hardware, so to say, and biological hardware is somehow rotting. We need to digest. We need to sleep. We age. At some point, we will die. That's somehow inferior. We should all become less human and more like machines. That's a transhumanism. And so if this is the worldview shaping our most powerful narratives we have in the public sphere, It's actually no surprise that people get fearful listening to them. Why? Because these philosophies show little regard for human worth and dignity. Now, well, if this is all based on worldviews, and that's good news. We don't have to subscribe to that worldview. And actually, we don't. As Christians, we have a completely different worldview of what is the human and what the future is just to give you a couple of quotes i believe you're totally familiar with them the bible says we are not anything like just information processors it says we are fearfully and wonderfully made we are marvelous we are made in the image of god we have dignity just because of that and god so much loved us that predominantly he gave actually his only son um and we have hope In Colossians 1, it says, Christ in you, the hope of glory. We have hope of glory. That is our worldview that is distinctly different than the view of people shaping a lot of the public discourse on AI. So we can, because everybody is spreading their view of the future with AI based on their worldview, can utter a distinctly different and much more hopeful and so much better worldview. by talking about our view of the world given also technology. We need to be quick to talk about a Christian perspective on technology because I have the feeling that many Christians somehow have inherited from, I don't know where, a predominantly critical view of technology. Let me try to challenge that quickly. What could be a positive Christian perspective on tech? Well, the dictionary says, the Encyclopedia Britannica, technology is The Application of Scientific Knowledge to the Practical Aims of Human Life. So I'm no Greek scholar. I'm a computer scientist, but my theologian friends told me the original words in Greek for technology are techne, meaning arts, craft, and skill, and logos, that we know very well from the Bible. It means word, reason, and especially in the biblical context, the word of God. So here's the not so... literal translation, but I think not so a translation that has a lot of value of the word technology for us. A free translation could be technology is the art of applying God's word to make life better. And here's some evidence for it. In the first 10 chapters of the Bible, every time humans create some mess, God gives them some sort of technology to deal with the consequences of their mess, to deal with the consequences of the fall. For example, here the first one in Genesis 3, we see that God gave Adam and Eve coats of skin to clothe them. And well, you can find scholarly articles on the internet in scientific journals explaining in detail how producing clothes from animal skins has been high tech. couple of centuries before. So God gives humans technology. So we can, I think, say with a certain confidence that technology is a God-given tool in a fallen world. And yes, it's also our temptation and things can also go bad with technology. But let's put a focus on technology is a God-given tool in a fallen world. And so AI is a tool in a fallen world. It's not in its safe in itself. good or bad. It's a tool that we can use. Others will use it for their purposes. We can use. And for us, it's predominantly also an opportunity to speak about what we believe. So let me conclude. The scarcest resource today, as I sense it, is hope. The thing we most need in our world today is hope. People are so hopeless. And we have a tremendous opportunity here to spread hope because of our worldview, because our worldview is originally rich in hope. It's a hopeful outlook on the future. And it's now the time to sow this hope. It might be the biggest opportunity to speak about our view of the world since maybe C.S. Lewis' time. Because, well, if you listen to Elon Musk, if you listen to Max Tegmark, president of the Future of Life Institute, they all speak... from their worldview. They make it explicit. They say, I believe this about the world. That's why I think we're going this way or that. So that's an opportunity to make our invitation to make our worldview explicit as well and talk about it boldly and say, we believe this. And because of that, we see the following opportunities. So A.I. 's most welcome side effect is that now worldviews are everywhere, everywhere in the public debate, everywhere in the public discourse. It's not anymore like 30 years ago, art only science and facts and what we cannot see and cannot prove. We will not talk about. No, it's the opposite. Worldviews are everywhere and everybody needs to is asking, OK, who is the human in the light of this powerful technology? Who are we? What is our place in this world? And we have so much to say about that as Christians from the Bible. from a biblical worldview. So I encourage you to use this opportunity and talk boldly about your faith because everybody now asks us questions because of AI. Thank you very much. Be richly blessed.

SPEAKER_03: Good morning from Romania. It's so good to be here with you. My name is Andy Fronius and I have been a missionary as long as I can. Remember, my mom is a missionary and she started a women's shelter in Romania. My wife and I, we adopted four children and we're living in Romania because of that. After seminary, we joined Young Life, a mission organization, and we did youth ministry for seven years. We developed new works for Young Life, worked with international school students and with local students. And that whole package of being passionate for missions but also very interested in technology, has led me to be fascinated with the entire world of YouTube. And halfway through my youth ministry journey, a young person approached me and said, Andy, you need to check out this YouTuber from New York, Casey Neistat. He's a vlogger. Vlogging was very en vogue at the time, and he was inspiring. By video six that I watched of this creator from New York, I knew I had to buy a camera. And I had to become a YouTuber myself. So this kicked off this entire journey of acquiring gear, you know, gas gear acquisition syndrome. I'm sure many of you guys here in the call are familiar with it. And then I learned I had to niche down and I picked a niche, which is Christian parenting and youth ministry and started creating resources there. And God has blessed that over the last seven years to the point where today We are partnering with a Czech youth organization called Josiah Venture. And we're taking everything that we've built over the last seven years with a team and scale it to all of Europe. Here's a little backstory. I started making videos, started doing youth ministry and combined those two things and that has grown. We also had presentations on Gen Z on how to reach them better. So my main focus is actually training adults, training youth workers, parents, and pastors. And we do that with a platform. This platform you can see over here, it's called Mr. Jugendarbeit, Mr. Youth Ministry in German. What makes this platform so special is partnerships. Over the last seven years, we have invited and partnered with 200 individual Christian creators and mission organizations. that let us translate their stuff. So the content mix on our platform is 80% translated, 20% original content, which has allowed us to grow to one of the leading platforms on parenting and youth ministry in the German language sphere. And with a friend of mine, Dave Paddy, you can see him over here. He's the leader of Josiah Venture. We have decided that we'll merge and we will build an entire digital missions track for all of Central and Eastern Europe by taking this platform and scaling it to multiple languages and multiple countries. But on top of that, we see the need to train Christian creators. So we established an in-house event, an invite only event. We called it the Digital Mission Summit. We have done a few of those and you can see our first schedule. Take a screenshot if you want of how we did it. So we invited Christian creators from all around Europe that present the gospel via their avenue for example there's alex alex is a 14 year old was a 14 year old young man from bulgaria and he had an old broken phone and he used an orange i kid you not and a little orange as a tripod so he leaned the phone to the orange and he started doing bible studies because His grandpa, who happens to be the pastor of his church, wouldn't allow him to preach saying he's too young. So he did Bible studies on TikTok. And if you're familiar with Eastern Europe, TikTok has a very high saturation of that market. And today when he uploads a video, does a Bible study, he has usually like 500 people being there with him in the live streams. And many people give their lives to Christ as a result. So we're gathering these people from all across Europe and putting them together train them and i'm sure that we will do more of these in the future to train christian creators and then give them also the platform to grow here's another example of what i'm doing i am part of a creator community by april in altar if you don't know her she's on youtube she's really good i have learned a lot from her and as creators we're hanging out in a creator crew for six months at a time daily we have thumbnail clinics, we have title clinics, we have masterminds. So my time is spent mostly focusing on how can we have a stronger presence as Christian creators on YouTube. And with these things in the background, I would like to focus on the task. How can we encourage small churches with resources And how can we walk alongside them to help them introduce adolescents to Christ and help them grow in their faith? And for me, it is clear that young people are spending a majority of their time on digital platforms. There is this fascinating talk on YouTube by a young man. Let me stop that here real quick. By a young man. And he says, if you look at our entire life and put a dot for every month that is available, And if you subtract the time that you will sleep and work and groom yourself, have hygiene and all those things, you have about a third of your time remaining. And at the current course of action, 92% of that free time will be spent looking at a screen by any person, not just by Gen Alpha or Gen Z, but the majority of people will spend 92% of their free time looking at a screen. And that is why we have to be present. in their world. What I've noticed, in Eastern Europe especially, but also in Switzerland, is that TikTok and other social media avenues are usually the first point of contact for young people to hear about Christ. And specifically, it is worship videos, the entire genre. For example, there was this girl in Winterthur in Switzerland And she showed her mother one of these videos, Yeshua, the worship song that goes for 18 minutes or so. She said, mom, I want to go where they do this. And the mother didn't know what this was. So she took this piece of information to her hairdresser and asked her hairdresser if she knows where they do this worship. And she says, yes, I'm going to a church. You can come with us. And that happened two years ago. And they have been faithful members found a home. in that church. So worship music is very powerful. And then a young police officer in our church, he joined about half a year ago. He saw, again, coming from a non-faith background, a TikTok video on somebody just explaining a Bible verse. So the word of God, there was no hype video, no trending video, no click-baity video. It was just the Bible explained one verse at a time. And that spoke to him. so that he started looking and he joined a digital community and the digital community said you have to find a local church so he googled our church and joined and we baptized him a few months ago all of this shows me two things the holy spirit is already alive and active and working on those digital platforms and the second thing it does not depend on me i just get to uh water to put nutrients there and to disciple as things grow along. But we have to be present in these digital platforms. The way I achieve it personally is I have built this Ghost publication. This is the German version of it. And Ghost is similar to WordPress. It's a free open source project. You can download it and self-host it if you want to, or you can go with their hosting, which is more expensive. But what's so beautiful about Ghost, if I log in in the back end here, I have everything in one place. I can create articles. I can see my database of members. I can see the tracking of visitors and numbers. So I no longer need Google analytics or plausible. I no longer need convert kit or similar email service providers because it's all in here, all in one piece of software. And what we'll do going forward is we'll take this, put it on one German server. and then have clones for each language version and then have an API connection and then have an AI pre-translate content. So let's say the ministry leader in Romania wants a specific series of articles on Easter. He just says pull request. It gets pre-translated article and then can push it out, which is super easy and fascinating and lean and simple. So I'm very, very passionate about this, as you can tell. But the future is not this because I see at the same time a very risky thing going on. If you look at the traffic that Google provides, that has dropped since Easter this year so significantly that we had to correct our calculations. We thought that by the end of this year, we will have a million individual visitors spending about two minutes on the platform, which we won't. We won't even have half a million anymore as we used to in the past. but we'll have less visitors. And I assume that the day will come where we will have probably 10,000 visitors a year as people are moving towards AI solutions and getting the answers directly from their LLM. This leads me to push for email newsletters. We have to own the community and my high recommendation, like if you're in digital ministry, build your newsletter and build it fast and partner. That's it from my side. I hope it was a little inspiring and shown you what's happening around Eastern and Central Europe.

Simon Diercks: Thank you so very much. These have been three intense first talks we heard. Having an overview on the situation in a not post-Christian but pre-revival Europe, looking at the opportunities of AI and seeing how digital platforms and gen z should be utilized and brought together working in learning communities together and empowering those going forward so now we want to step forward and hear from one of our sponsors who's making this conference possible and we first gonna see a short video and then hear a little bit about next steps by the jesus film project so let's watch a clip first

SPEAKER_01: Do you remember the last time you watched something that moved you spiritually? Maybe it was a sermon clip or a short film or even the Jesus film. But what happened next? Most of us just scroll onto the next thing and the impact fades. For the last 40 years, Jesus Film Project has been at the forefront of visual storytelling, capturing and translating thousands of hours of media that have touched millions. But pressing play is no longer enough. To truly change lives, we need to help people go beyond just watching content. Everyone everywhere needs a next step to discover and follow Jesus. Let me introduce you to Next Steps, a revolutionary tool that lets viewers seamlessly engage and take action directly from the screen they watched our content. With a further tap, users can hear the gospel, ask for prayer, connect with the local community, and grow their faith through experiences called Journeys. Journeys combine clips from the Jesus Film Project and custom content with interactive elements tailored to each viewer's needs and interests. Across the world, Next Steps is already proving effective. In Ukraine, pastors' wives are using it to guide faith communities and invite people to church. In Malaysia, Campus Crusade for Christ is using it to help students follow Jesus and invite others into prayer groups. And even in Korea, digital missionaries are using culturally relevant journeys to share Christ with their communities. Imagine the ripple effect if every viewer could take a personalized step towards discovering and following Jesus. Well, now they can. Join us in providing next steps because everyone, everywhere deserves a next step to take. Let's give that to them.

SPEAKER_00: Good morning, everybody. My name is Chloe Hannan and I'm coming to you from Dublin in Ireland. And it's a pleasure to be with you here this morning in this innovative event. Kudos to the organisers. I'm loving engaging with conference content from the comfort of my office where I get to have no awkward small chat while my coffee break, which is always the most awkward part about a conference. So my name is Chloe, as I said, and I serve as the regional strategy director for Jesus Film Project in Europe. I have been with CRU for over 16 years, and I just joined Jesus Film Project as a digital strategist about three years ago, where prior to that, I had 13 years in campus ministry with a specific focus on digital ministry. So for me, digital is not just a strategy. We have lived through a revolution in our time. We can call this the digital revolution, sure, But really what has changed is how people send and receive information. Something that is fundamental to our existence has shifted on its axis, thanks to that revolution of the digital worldwide web. In a short period of time, the power of digital has changed how politicians are elected, how corporations sell, and most importantly, how individuals see themselves in this world. Europe is somewhere where we have Bibles in every language, we have churches in every city, So according to popular Christian metrics, we're a reached continent. But I live in the reality that is very different to that, where churches plus Bibles does not equal believers. And as missionaries in a digital space, we are competing in a saturated market with opportunities and challenges that are fast paced and ever evolving. As a continent, we are technically more connected than ever, but spiritually, maybe just still as disconnected as ever. Jesus Film Project is a media and technology agency for mission. And we are working to develop resources that our partners are using in real time on the field. We are very passionate about the power of media. As you saw Raya in that video tell you, Jesus Film has a history of standing over 50 years, over 50 years of impact from the original Jesus Film that has brought the gospel into over 2000 language and cultures. But the digitalization of information is at the heart of our strategy now. Moving into 2026, while we are developing media that reaches the unbeliever, we are also looking at the missional digital strategy, leading me to introduce you to why I'm here, Next Steps. Next Steps is a platform where you can create customizable, tappable journeys that can be deployed within your digital ecosystem. It offers a practical bridging solution in the gaps that naturally exist between channels, creating digital journeys that can be tailored to your audience. Within the platform, you can access the full library of Jesusfilm Media, sure, but you can also upload your own media. The user experience is modeled after that social media modality of tap, tap, tap, with options within the journey. And then the overall design allows you to facilitate online to offline connection with direct integration. to text apps like WhatsApp or Telegram. The design behind Next Steps is reflective of the overall digital revolution that I'm talking about, the individualization of the world, how the individual has seen themselves has shifted. So we see this emerging of agency and choice being paramount. The days of that corporate mentality are dwindling and anything that has centralized control has been railroaded by that transformational principle of radical trust. which is what the communication theorists termed when they looked at that release of control from the centralized linear and singular sources to the empowerment of the user, the individual in the grand scheme that I would like to call the multiplication of choose your own adventure books, which if you know, you know. Next Steps allows you to facilitate a self-directed journey while also holding onto your core convictions of mission, destiny, and ultimately introducing them to Jesus. When someone encounters Next Steps, they are invited to choose their own path forward. They might decide to watch a short video that sparks curiosity about life and faith. They might want to ask a big question that's been on their mind for a while, or they might take the bold step of chatting directly with someone who's ready to listen. We know that faith journeys don't look the same everywhere. In fact, they rarely look the same from one city to the next, nevermind across the 40 plus countries in Europe. We are a patchwork of languages, histories, and cultures. What resonates in Warsaw might not resonate in Lisbon. What feels natural in Helsinki may feel foreign in Athens. But Next Steps allows us to do two things at once. First, to share content and pathways that can cross borders and languages. And secondly, to adapt so that churches and ministries can shape it to fit their own voice, their own culture, and their own way of connecting with seekers. It's flexible enough to carry the breadth of Europe's diversity, but structured enough to give teams a clear pathway for engagement. A friend of mine who was involved in the development of Next Steps is from New Zealand, and one of his home teams began experimenting with Next Steps to connect with students online. And before that, they were using mostly cold contact evangelism, which I'm a big fan of and spent 13 years doing on campus. And sometimes it can just feel super weird. You're walking up to students and starting an awkward conversation. And at times also, you can feel like you spent a lot of time approaching people without getting much traction. So the New Zealand team introduced Next Steps and something shifted for them because instead of randomly approaching students, they were able to connect with those who had already engaged online and those who were already spiritually curious. So Next Steps became the bridge. It gave those students an easy no pressure point and it gave the team a way into real life conversations about faith. In Slovakia, one ministry leader told me that students often avoid public religious events, but they are very open to engaging privately through digital platforms. So a tool like Next Steps have given their team an ability to create a safe space for students to talk about faith. In Western Europe, in places like the UK, France, or the Netherlands, we often encounter what I would call a polite indifference to faith. People aren't hostile to it, but it's really just not on their radar. And Next Steps allows us to gently put it back on their radar in a way that isn't confrontational. Different cultures, different challenges, but one digital tool that is adapting to them all. The next generation is not waiting outside church doors, hoping for someone to invite them in. They're online, they're searching, and they're asking questions, scrolling late at night when no one else sees their doubts or fears. And if we don't meet them there, someone else will. Next Steps empowers teams to do just exactly that, to engage their seekers in ways that make sense in their cultural context. It allows us to bridge the online world and the offline world. crucially it gives us a way to move people from digital curiosity into real relationship with local believers let me give you a couple of practical examples of how this can work and how we're seeing partners adapted so we have some churches that are integrating next steps into their websites or their social media giving visitors a way to engage with their culture and their experience of church before they even show up in person we have campus teams like i said the new zealand one who are using it to filter through hundreds of digital contacts and finding those who are ready for deeper conversations. We have regional ministries that are adapting content in different languages, ensuring seekers don't just get information in English, but can hear it in their heart language. In particular, one of my favorite stories comes from Serbia. A team there has developed a next steps journey with a poster that they put in a bus stop and a QR code. And it's just got a smiley face, and a sad face, and it just says, are you good or bad? And so where people are waiting for public transport, which is notoriously slow in their city, and they can scan this QR code and take a quiz, and it ends up with them encountering options for spiritual content. And that has resulted in them having contacts that have gone from offline to online, other way around, online to offline. So as you think about your ministry, your own context, I would encourage you to ask, what would it look like if seekers in my city and my nation could take that one small next step towards Jesus? That's the power of Next Steps. It doesn't do the work for us, but it gives us the bridge, the starting point, and the connection we need to walk with people as they explore. And in a Europe that is digitally connected but spiritually searching, that could make a difference. Please go to nextsteps.is, make your own account, and start making some journeys today. Thank you for having me.

Simon Diercks: The first session of keynotes, we are going to be focusing a little bit on the big picture, the question of what is happening across Europe. For that, we got one of the regional directors of the Lausanne Movement Europe, Jim Memory with us, and he will give us a big picture on what we can see, what is happening in... Oops, it looped.

Jeff Reed: I thought it was going to fade to black, and all of a sudden he just kept talking and doing the same thing all over again. Hey, listen, so it was so cool to listen to that. I love the idea of the choose your own adventure. I did get the reference there at the end. Thank you, Chloe. Man, I want to thank Simon and his team for all the work to put together the European Digital Missionary Conference. We at The Church Digital, we handed a lot of the background details, but actually creating the conference was Simon and his team and a lot of the European crowd, especially out of Mission Alliance. And so thank you. Simon and crowd with that. And so we are going to land the plane here. It was so much fun doing the conference. It was so much fun seeing the translation. 76 countries represented accessing the content live and on demand. It's going to be a pleasure starting this and more in the days to come. But at this point, we're going to land the plane. For Simon, this is Jeff with The Church Digital. Thanks for jumping on this stream. Tuesday, we're going to be teasing the gaming conference. More information coming up at missionary.www.missionary.digital slash gaming. That'll be the last of our four summits this season. Thanks, y'all. Have a good one.