The Church Digital Podcast

Episode 374 launches the Listening Tour. For the rest of 2026 Jeff Reed wants to stop broadcasting at digital ministry and start hearing from the people doing it, from Africa, Pakistan, India and Southern Asia to churches here in the U.S. theChurch.digital is rebuilding, money is tight, and he takes a line from a Kansas City microchurch leader as the rule for the season: don't create anything until you really need it. The big idea is platforms as places. Using digital to get people into a building is no longer radical in 2026. What still is: treating Twitch like Argentina and Discord like Paraguay, and equipping and sending missionaries into platforms the way an agency sends them into countries, because platforms have culture. Jeff also lays out a healthy church digital strategy, evangelism, discipleship, generosity and empowerment, and the long road of solving a church's problems before it trusts you with the ones you care about. Then it gets personal. The digital missionaries struggling most are the ones living inside a platform, facing persecution from Christians who say the church doesn't belong in virtual reality, and doing it alone. Jeff is candid that he was one of them: a year of depression and isolation, a season of pushing God away, and the moment he told a missionary who was praying for him that he didn't need more prayer. What brought him back was a question from his leadership, is this yours or is it God's, and the conviction that if God gets the successes, God gets the failures too. He closes with a word for anyone in the field who feels alone, and a preview of the Listening Tour guests: authors on digital missiology and theology, success stories, and people who are struggling and willing to say so. Full episode page — transcript, chapters, and the live chat alongside it: https://thechurch.digital/shows/becoming-thechurch-digital/ep374-platforms-are-places/ Going deeper: What is a digital missionary? https://thechurch.digital/guides/what-is-a-digital-missionary/ Caring for online pastors: https://thechurch.digital/guides/online-pastor-care/ Hybrid church: https://thechurch.digital/guides/hybrid-church/ The EDGE framework: https://thechurch.digital/guides/edge-framework/ CHAPTERS 00:00 Old lo-fi and a tired week 06:05 Launching the Listening Tour 08:15 Don't create it until it's needed 10:37 Wings with a global mission leader 13:37 Click-and-mortar churches 16:28 Platforms as places 20:29 You're not wrong, you're early 23:35 A healthy church digital strategy 28:02 Persecution from inside the church 32:53 Depression and doing what God asked 38:05 Apostles, shepherds and teachers 41:29 Nobody should do this alone 43:24 A year of isolation 46:25 Carrying the missionaries 49:52 God gets the failures too 51:15 Is this yours or God's? 53:51 What my family has carried 57:54 Still early: be encouraged 1:00:49 Next on the Listening Tour ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ JOIN THE FAM 💬 Discord — https://discord.thechurch.digital/ 📱 WhatsApp — https://whatsapp.thechurch.digital/ MORE FROM THECHURCH.DIGITAL 🌐 Website — https://thechurch.digital 📺 Subscribe — https://www.youtube.com/@bethechurchdigital FOLLOW Instagram — https://www.instagram.com/bethechurchdigital/ Facebook — https://www.facebook.com/bethechurchdigital ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ theChurch.digital exists to empower the rest of us to make disciples. Beyond the building. The great commission, but digital. #DigitalMinistry #DigitalMissionary #ChurchOnline #BecomingTheChurchDigital #DisciplesMaking #ChurchTech Full notes, chat and shorts: https://thechurch.digital/374

Episode 373 opens with bad timing and good humor. Jeff booked a 2pm Wednesday stream and Apple scheduled its foldable iPhone announcement on top of it, on the same week a sprinkler repair cut the fiber to his house and left him offline for three days. It is a solo, unscripted hour from a ten-by-ten guest bedroom in Miami. The first real turn is GTA 6. Miami is renaming itself Vice City for the launch, and the new game lets players date a character powered by AI: texting, holding hands, planning dates. Jeff's line is that digital relationships can be just as damaging as physical ones, and that the church is quick to believe that and slow to believe digital can be restorative. Then the provocation: there needs to be mission work done in the GTAs of the world, the same way people are called to inner-city Miami. If someone wants to plant a church in GTA, he will sign on the dotted line. The title comes from a conversation with Dr. Sam Hayes about a fall conference Jeff has decided not to hold. What he senses instead is a moment for pastoral care: digital missionaries in a season of strife, frustration and persecution from inside and outside the church. He calls it probably the loneliest job in church ministry, and names how easy isolation has become, especially with AI doing more of the work. His answer is to give God the failures as well as the glory. The last third is a case study. A Miami church plant launching its mobile app the night of the stream, whose pastor trusted Jeff only after months of solving the problems he actually had, first production and then the unglamorous digital work. Now people arrive at the guest center because ChatGPT, Instagram or a blog sent them. His conviction for 2026: the number one thing you can do for a physical church is help it get people into the building using digital, with AI making work possible that no church that size could otherwise afford. Full episode page — transcript, chapters, and the live chat alongside it: https://thechurch.digital/shows/becoming-thechurch-digital/ep373-the-loneliest-job-in-ministry/ Going deeper: What is a digital missionary? https://thechurch.digital/guides/what-is-a-digital-missionary/ Caring for online pastors: https://thechurch.digital/guides/online-pastor-care/ Hybrid church: https://thechurch.digital/guides/hybrid-church/ AI for churches: https://thechurch.digital/guides/ai-for-churches/ CHAPTERS 00:00 A foldable iPhone and three days offline 09:55 Released, and what comes next 15:58 Miami becomes Vice City 17:06 Dating an AI in GTA 6 22:53 Mission work in the GTAs of the world 25:06 The loneliest job in ministry 29:51 Giving God the failures too 37:51 A year of earning one church's trust 48:55 Digital gets people in the building 51:46 Why AI makes it possible ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ JOIN THE FAM 💬 Discord — https://discord.thechurch.digital/ 📱 WhatsApp — https://whatsapp.thechurch.digital/ MORE FROM THECHURCH.DIGITAL 🌐 Website — https://thechurch.digital 📺 Subscribe — https://www.youtube.com/@bethechurchdigital FOLLOW Instagram — https://www.instagram.com/bethechurchdigital/ Facebook — https://www.facebook.com/bethechurchdigital ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ theChurch.digital exists to empower the rest of us to make disciples. Beyond the building. The great commission, but digital. #DigitalMinistry #DigitalMissionary #ChurchOnline #BecomingTheChurchDigital #DisciplesMaking #ChurchTech Full notes, chat and shorts: https://thechurch.digital/373

After a year away, Jeff Reed is back behind the desk. Episode 372 is the first Becoming theChurch.digital in ten months — and Ecamm told him exactly how long it had been when he opened it: the last time he went live was December 2nd, for the Giving Tuesday stream. This one is less a teaching session than a homecoming, and it is unscripted in the way only a first stream back can be. He does not skip the hard part. Jeff talks openly about being released from a church role the week before, what that cost, and the conversation with a youth pastor in a Starbucks that happened to fall on the same afternoon. He calls it the unfiltered version, and it is — but it is not the point of the hour so much as the ground the rest of it stands on. The line the episode turns on is this: "You're not wrong. You're not weird. You're still early." Jeff's argument is that the people doing ministry in digital spaces are pioneers rather than oddities, paving a road where there isn't one — and that after years of being dismissed, a wave of early-adopting physical churches is finally willing to lean in. The room agreed in real time; you can read the chat alongside the transcript below. He gets concrete about what digital actually did. People who found a church through search, read a blog, walked in the front door, connected, served and gave — all inside twelve months. And what AI is doing now: seventeen SEO-oriented pages off every English sermon, a 250-person church carrying a thousand-page website, roughly 2.5 million words this year, with Jeff reading, proofing and editing behind all of it. Then the part he refuses to hand off. Jeff has sat in rooms with digital missionaries the wider church has never pastored — people who told him plainly that nobody else cares about what they are doing as much as he does. His conclusion is that where no one else is providing pastoral care and support, theChurch.digital has to. Bivocational, not slowing down, and openly looking for people to jump in. Full episode page — transcript, chapters, and the live chat alongside it: https://thechurch.digital/shows/becoming-thechurch-digital/ep372-jeff-is-not-dead-yet/ CHAPTERS 00:00 Back on the air 12:17 I'm not dead yet 19:37 What happened last week 24:02 You're not wrong, you're early 29:55 Sunday faith into a Monday-through-Saturday life 33:00 What the AI actually does for a 250-person church 45:00 EDGE, and why it takes time 45:51 Pastoral care for the pioneering crew 55:01 One family of sites, theChurch.digital first 1:04:22 Bivocational, and not slowing down ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ JOIN THE FAM 💬 Discord — https://discord.thechurch.digital/ 📱 WhatsApp — https://whatsapp.thechurch.digital/ MORE FROM THECHURCH.DIGITAL 🌐 Website — https://thechurch.digital 📺 Subscribe — https://www.youtube.com/@bethechurchdigital FOLLOW Instagram — https://www.instagram.com/bethechurchdigital/ Facebook — https://www.facebook.com/bethechurchdigital ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ theChurch.digital exists to empower the rest of us to make disciples. Beyond the building. The great commission, but digital. #DigitalMinistry #DigitalMissionary #ChurchOnline #BecomingTheChurchDigital #DisciplesMaking #ChurchTech Full notes, chat and shorts: https://thechurch.digital/372

Jeff Reed is heading into surgery, and in true theChurch.digital fashion, he's not slowing down—he’s going live. In this unfiltered conversation, Jeff and Leighton talk about what’s really happening behind the scenes: the weight, the vision, and the spiritual war zone that comes with pioneering digital ministry. This isn't just about health. It’s about what’s next. Jeff drops the curtain on the upcoming TCD Streaming Network, a platform built to elevate digital missionaries and stream the future of church—no buildings required. If you've ever felt like you're building something no one understands, this conversation is for you. They’re calling out the status quo, amplifying the call to digital missions, and showing what it means to walk through pain with purpose. If you’ve been waiting for a sign to go all-in on digital discipleship—consider this it. Full notes, chat and shorts: https://thechurch.digital/371

What if church wasn’t about a building at all? What if digital spaces—Discord, YouTube, the metaverse—were more than outreach tools? Becoming theChurch.digital isn’t just a rebrand. It’s a rally cry. A fresh wave in the movement that’s been disrupting the norms since before most churches ever hit “go live.” This podcast is for the pioneers: the digital missionaries, the misunderstood leaders, the ones done waiting for permission. Every episode uncovers the stories, tensions, breakthroughs and blueprints of those becoming church where church “isn’t supposed to be.” We’re spotlighting movement leaders who refuse to play it safe, and we’re giving voice to the misfits called to more. If you’ve ever asked, can this be church?, welcome home. This is the place where your crazy ideas make sense, your digital callings are validated, and the isolation ends. It’s not a studio show. It’s a digital pulpit for a new kind of church. Let’s build what’s next. Full notes, chat and shorts: https://thechurch.digital/370