Coronavirus: Virtual church planting

Lee Stephenson: 00:00:07

Welcome to the unfiltered podcast. My name is Lee Stevenson and I have the joy of being a church planter in Orlando and then also oversee church planting for Converge.

And then my partner here, I'm Danny.

Danny Parmelee: 00:00:19

Parmelee, and I oversee church planting for Converge Mid America.

Lee Stephenson: 00:00:24

And we are in our Covid series of podcasts.

This is podcast number four of our series and we're just going to talk a little bit frankly about the new age of church planting in this Covid and even post Covid world.

I think there have been some very traditional methods that have taken place over the years when it comes to thinking through church planting that, you know, you create a launch team, you meet in somebody's home and then eventually expand maybe to a couple home groups and then we look at a Sunday morning gathering. And I just want to pose a question as we begin this conversation.

Danny, I think that'll still take place, but do you think that there will be a new strategy in launching churches and just saying we're just going to be a virtual church versus being a physical, you know, in building mortar type of building?

Danny Parmelee: 00:01:22

No. The Apostle Paul didn't plant online churches, therefore I will not plant virtual churches either.

So let me preface this by saying, man, if you were to ask me even 4 months ago what I thought of online campuses, so churches that, you know, they were multi site and then they had one that was the online campus, I definitely gave the proverbial kind of eye roll and I thought, man, what you're doing is you're just creating an opportun for people to stay at home. They're not, they're not going to come. That's not a real church. It can't happen.

Well, of course, now that everyone was forced into it, I'm going, man, and I'm seeing even how many non believers are being reached during this time, I've, I've had a bit of a change of tune, if you will. I do think that some, you know, important questions still need to be answered.

I think that there's some dangers and some pitfalls to being exclusively virtual. However, there is such opportunity. I do think that it needs to be explored.

And where I'm at, my, my role and my job is to recruit, train and deploy church planters. And if someone came to me now and said, hey, I want to try to do this exclusively virtually, would you, would you talk with me?

My answer now is yes, let's talk about it. Let's try to wrestle through what this can look like.

Lee Stephenson: 00:02:54

So let's break that down because I think you gave three kind of interesting thoughts. One, pitfalls. Number two, what are the opportunities?

And number three, who actually would make a good virtual church planter and how does it differ from our traditional church planter if it does differ? So let's talk about number one. What do we see as potential pitfalls when it comes to just operating virtual church?

Danny Parmelee: 00:03:22

Yes. So the first thing that comes to mind is a lack of true discipleship.

So if the virtual church becomes a feeder to the consumer who goes, I just need a 1 hour, 45 minute, 1 hour motivational speech to kind of get me through the week and the consumer believes that that means that they are part of a virtual church and then that's also what's being offered. Then I think that that's a major pitfall because it's almost like this false sense of discipleship.

Lee Stephenson: 00:03:59

I've checked my box and they may never actually interact with another Christian in the rest of the week. It's just literally the screen time that they have.

Danny Parmelee: 00:04:09

Yeah, absolutely. So how about you? And obviously there's other ones, but that's my big one.

Lee Stephenson: 00:04:16

Yeah. I think the relational disconnection is always, it's just a troublesome spot.

It's how do we get people to take that next step relationally with people that are going to spur them on in the faith, you know, to use those, those words from the Book of Hebrews. So how are, how are we doing that on a regular basis?

How are, you know, providing opportunities where people want to engage in relationship, where it's ironing, sharpening iron. And can you do that virtually? Yes.

I'm not going to say you can't, but I think that it's much more difficult to get people to engage in a deeper personal level when you're just looking at somebody on the screen.

Meaning, like when I sit down in a coffee shop across the table from somebody and they're sharing about heartache that's happened that week, I have a totally different engagement and empathy because I feel it than I would if I'm just sitting and looking at them in a screen.

Danny Parmelee: 00:05:24

Yeah, yeah.

Lee Stephenson: 00:05:25

So I think that's a, that's a troublesome spot that we would have to figure out. I think, second of all, and this is just practical, what does church discipline look like in a virtual church world?

I don't know, you know, but I do think like that is something that will have to be explored and thought through. I think too, you know, just again, what, how do we do worship, how do we do communion and the other big pitfall is children's ministry.

Danny Parmelee: 00:05:51

Yes.

Lee Stephenson: 00:05:52

How do you do children's ministry that is engaging in a virtual church experience that even comes close to what you would get in person? I just don't know how that's doable.

Danny Parmelee: 00:06:05

Right. Yeah, absolutely.

Lee Stephenson: 00:06:08

Now, let's switch gears. Let's talk about opportunities that exist when it comes to virtual church plan. I think for me, the most obvious opportunity is just your reach.

You have the ability to reach into communities far beyond just your immediate 15 miles, maybe, surrounding where your local gathering takes place.

Danny Parmelee: 00:06:30

Yeah, absolutely. I think the other part of it is that it can be a shift of focus and even resources to the Sunday gathering.

So if you were to say, hey, I'm a church planter. And by virtual church, what I mean by that is the physical weekly gathering on Sunday, if.

What if those resources and the time and the energy and the staffing and everything shifted towards, okay, what is the midweek gathering in homes?

You know, because I would have said, man, the house church movement, yes, it works in China or it works in some of these other countries, just doesn't work in our culture, where now that actually may be the bread and butter.

It's like, people are like, man, what I really want is, yes, some good teaching on Sunday, but I really want to engage with my friends and neighbors on an intimate, real level. And that happens, you know. You know, in this. In a. In a house setting or coffee shop setting. Oh, my goodness.

Well, right now we're positioned to be able to experience that and for it to be an acceptable kind of norm.

Lee Stephenson: 00:07:37

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And there'll probably be. In my book, there'll probably be a both and that we'll see kind of play out when it. When it comes to that.

And honestly, that excites me.

Anytime you can see groups of smaller groups of people coming together, wanting to dive deeper, wanting to challenge each other, wanting to encourage one another in the faith, that's a win. I don't know how that can be a discouraging thing at all. And so I agree.

And the challenge of the opportunity is you brought it up, is how do we focus resources accordingly in a way that garnishes good stewardship?

Because the last thing you want to do is say, yeah, we're going to give you massive funding for you to just start a virtual church so that you can create a really cool room in your house that you can shoot quality videos in, you know, all soundproofed and everything like that. And the reality is that that's not necessarily the best allocation of those funds.

But I know that there are going to be planners that are going to think that way. So that's why I brought it up.

Danny Parmelee: 00:08:48

When it first happened. I said, man, right now to be a church planner is. It's the easiest time to plant a church.

It's the hardest time to plant a church at the same time, I guess, depending on what the outcome is.

But you know, it's like, oh man, people are just flicking on a, you know, their, their iPhone, FaceTime video live and also, and they've got a sermon and they've got viewers, they've got followers, take an offering, call it a day, you know, but we know that it's. The church is, is, is a lot more. But I think there's going to be huge opportunity. What was the third thing? So there was opportunities, pitfalls.

Lee Stephenson: 00:09:21

The third thing is just what is a virtual church planter? What would they look like? How would they differentiate? How would they be different than kind of the standard more traditional church planter?

Because the reality is, if you're just doing a virtual church plant, why wouldn't I just tune into an Andy Stanley? Why wouldn't I just tune into a Craig Groeschel? Why would I tune into your church?

And so I think that's a difficult question that a virtual church planner would have to answer.

Danny Parmelee: 00:09:49

Well, virtual church planner is still going to need to wear skinny jeans. That's just kind of a given, right? Good church planners have to have skinny.

Lee Stephenson: 00:09:58

Jeans or have a good beard or have a good beard or something to talk about.

Danny Parmelee: 00:10:01

Yeah, no, I do think that the leadership necessity for, you know, the new church, any church, however it actually looks like, is going to have to be off the charts. I mean, navigating all of the different things that are going on now. The amount of leadership that is needed will actually be more than less.

And so maybe even where before if you could communicate that was like the top thing you needed to be able to communicate and preach and draw a crowd. The amount of leadership that is going to be needed to again mobilize and empower the church is going to be pretty high.

Lee Stephenson: 00:10:48

It is. And I think the benefit though I see of it is a virtual church planner could maintain an entire full time job and still potentially plan a church.

Absolutely. And so it can maximize time.

At the same time, if you're smart in the way that you think about that, it can allow you to continue to reach and build without having the same type of demands of necessarily in person gathering requirements.

Danny Parmelee: 00:11:18

Right. And I'm glad You said that. It's actually something that I missed saying in our previous segment about post Covid.

I do think that we're going to see a lot more co vocational pastors and I don't mean that even for just the lead pastor or the planter, which is actually a cool thing that people could be like, hey, I am a high school teacher and I do that full time, but I also part time.

I, you know, work for the church and I run all their social media or you know, I'm, I'm part time, I do the videography or I'm part time and I run all of our virtual small groups and coordinate, you know, mapping out where people live and try to create the meetups or whatever the stuff is that way.

Lee Stephenson: 00:12:05

Yeah, totally. And I think that'll be fun to see and navigate.

And my encouragement to you is if you're thinking of virtual church planting and you have ideas on how some of these things would work, we would love to hear from you.

And so just reach out to us at Converge or at Converge Mid America and we'd love to hear your ideas and even talk to you personally about maybe planting a Converge virtual church as well. So any last comments that you would have, Danny?

Danny Parmelee: 00:12:34

No, I think it's just going to be fun and exciting times to kind of see, see what the church looks like.

Lee Stephenson: 00:12:40

I totally agree and I think together we just need to be prayerful about that. God would give us wisdom and discernment about this next season of ministry. It's been fun, everyone.

Thanks for tuning in to our unfiltered podcast, real conversations about church planning. Again, my name is Lee. My partner in crime, Danny. Until next time, keep it real.