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A Digital Theologian - DK Hammonds
What happens when faith meets technology? Join us as we explore this question with DK Hammonds, a digital theologian who bridges two seemin…
Oct. 28, 2024
A Digital Theologian - DK Hammonds
What happens when faith meets technology? Join us as we explore this question with DK Hammonds, a digital theologian who bridges two seemingly disparate worlds. From feeling a call to ministry as a young child at Mercy Seed Baptist Church to embracing this calling much later in 2021, DK’s journey is a fascinating blend of persistence, faith, and innovation. Our conversation covers his experiences as a Sunday school teacher, youth pastor, and church planter, offering a fresh perspective on how IT and ministry can enrich one's understanding of theology and church operations.
Ever wondered how spiritual callings can affect personal life dynamics? I reflect on my own journey, sharing the pivotal nightclub moment that set me on the path of ministry and how it impacted my first marriage. Discover the challenges of balancing personal relationships and unexpected ministerial demands. From navigating marriage and divorce to tackling the complexities of blended families, we discuss the importance of honest communication and growth through life’s transitions. My experiences underline how profound personal changes can pave the way for new beginnings and a deeper understanding of oneself.
In a world where technology is ever-present, how do we scale the gospel while keeping that crucial human touch? DK provides valuable insights into harnessing technology for church operations, from digital engagements to leadership development within small groups. Learn how technological advancements like AI and learning management systems can support spiritual growth and discipleship, without losing the essence of personal connection. We also explore the significance of seeking divine guidance and forming meaningful partnerships, ensuring both spiritual and personal journeys are fulfilling.
(00:00) Faith Journey
(05:10) Navigating Marriage and Ministry Callings
(13:45) Blended Families and New Beginnings
(25:15) Scaling the Gospel With Human Touch
(31:38) Digital Discipleship and Leadership Development
(44:15) Seeking God's Direction and Partnerships
Website - https://faithly.co
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/faithly.co
DK Hammonds
https://faithly.co/profiles/dkhammonds
Website
https://dkconsults.org
Chapters
00:00 - Faith Journey
05:10:00 - Navigating Marriage and Ministry Callings
13:45:00 - Blended Families and New Beginnings
25:15:00 - Scaling the Gospel With Human Touch
31:38:00 - Digital Discipleship and Leadership Development
44:15:00 - Seeking God's Direction and Partnerships
Transcript
00:00 - Speaker 1
I couldn't quite put the words to explanation of it. I could just feel like God is kind of pulling me out of this thing that I thought was a part of my life, into what I feel like is my life, and so it was almost like this alignment of calling and purpose converging on one another, and now the timing had to be right, the acknowledgement had to be right, the place had to be right. The acknowledgement had to be right, the place had to be right. All those things had to be right so that God could use me further. What's up everybody? I'm DK Hammonds, and a little bit about me. I am a digital theologian that has been coined, given to me by a good friend of mine, and what that person does is I get to bridge technology and theology into one place and into one conversation, and this is the Faithly Story.
00:48 - Speaker 2
Welcome to Faithly Stories, the podcast that brings you inspiring tales from conversations with church leaders as they navigate the peaks and valleys of their faith journeys through their ministry work and everyday life. Join us as we delve into their challenges, moments of encouragement and answered prayers. The Faithly Stories podcast is brought to you by Faithly, an online community committed to empowering church leaders, pastors, staff and volunteers. Learn more at faithlyco. Get ready to be uplifted and inspired as we unveil the heart of faith through stories from the front lines of ministry. On the Faithly Stories podcast.
01:29 - Speaker 3
Could you tell me a little about the beginnings of your faith journey? How did you come to faith in Christ?
01:35 - Speaker 1
Yeah, man, my faith journey started at a small church called Mercy Seed Baptist Church in Little Rock, arkansas, under the leadership of James S Thoreau, and I was seven years old and there's pictures around of me and my story, me walking into the pulpit of the actual journey and the day that I accepted Christ into my life. My mom actually captured a picture of that which I'm really stoked about, and so from there it had been seven years old and I even felt like I was called to the ministry at a very early age. So I have a lot of in-depth, intuitive knowledge because I've been around these things since I was a kid and one thing that stood out to me was my pastor at the time, james Estoril, who has gone on to be with the Lord. I went to him and said, hey, I feel called to minister, and his response was no. So imagine being trying to reconcile at seven years old. You feel God, this impression that God has on your heart at seven years old, and he said no. And the reason he said no and I didn't find out until my 20s why he said no it was because he felt like there was more living for me to do than preaching for me and he felt like it would make my preaching better if I would have lived outside of that context.
03:02
Now, when people get that kind of news, they instantly go down this journey line of not deconstruction but almost rejection right, and you feel like, hey, I'm being, I'm rejected from this, I can't preach, they won't let me do it, this, that and the other, and it becomes a big to-do.
03:20
And so I went away from church for a period of time after seven. So we're in my twenties, went away from church, and you know how God works If you attempt to go away, he'll come back to you and pull you all back in. And he pulled me back in and I have been a part of ministry at church and I'm grateful for this journey since then. And so accepting my calling officially in like 2021, went from 2021 accepting my calling to Sunday school teacher, from Sunday school teacher to youth pastor for four years, from youth pastor to helping people to plant churches, from helping people plan churches to training leaders all of that in my faithly journey. And so now I'm at a place where I'm in IT and systems as well as being a preacher. So it gives me a very deeper understanding of how things work from a godly perspective, a seminary perspective, a theological perspective as well as a church one, and so that's kind of how my story unfolds. I hope I told it under five minutes, because I've been training myself to do that all my life.
04:37 - Speaker 3
Yeah. So let's backtrack to. You said you were seven. Yeah, man, what was the pull? To go to the pulpit?
04:44 - Speaker 1
Yeah man, what was the pull? To go to the pulpit yeah, kind of hard to say at seven what was the pull, but it was one of those things that I couldn't shake it and it was very clear to me that this is what I felt like I was called to do. And I'm trying not to be just super deep about it, because to me it's not a super deep story. It was one of those stories where, you know, I got hit with an anvil like Tom and Jerry. No, no, no, no.
05:13
This is one of those stories where I got baptized and I instantly fell over time that this is the way that God would have me to go. And there were certain promptings, like somebody speaking over my life and saying you're going to teach people and teach the nations at 12. Okay, well, I remember I didn't fully go into it because he told me no, but there was those promptings just kind of slowly nudging me back, and so that's kind of how my story kind of unfolds. Man, nothing traumatic happened. It was all a God type of thing that I'm super grateful for.
05:47 - Speaker 3
What was the progression that led you to finally admit the call I felt at 7 is actually the call at 20, whatever.
05:55 - Speaker 1
Yeah, man, my testimony is in my adult years. Now I had gotten married, had kids and that calling thing came back. I was fighting it. I was really out there in the streets having the best time of my life. I was out there having a great time drinking. Whatever the case may be, I was out there doing it.
06:22
One day I was sitting in one of those little small clubs that I probably shouldn't have been in at that time of night and God spoke and he said leave here or I'm going to do something for you to leave here. It is your choice. And I had to sit with that in this kind of inebriated state, with that in this kind of inebriated state. So I told my best friend, kelly Shorter it's his name hey brother, it's time for me to go home. So I went home, sat in the parking lot, sat in my driveway Young family remember and I'm just out here doing my thing, kind of almost running from this thing. And I sat in the parking lot and I felt this tension on my chest. It wasn't heartburn, it wasn't gas, it was this tension that I was wrestling with Went into the house, couldn't sleep, days on end, just couldn't sleep, kept feeling this tension, asking God, okay, what is it that I need to be doing?
07:22
And one day I went into church and I was just like I'm so tired, I cannot do this this way anymore. I got to find me a different way and I went up for prayer to my pastor and I said I just feel like this is the time, this is the time to accept my calling into ministry. And the pastor at the time is Robert Coates and he was like OK, cool. And from that moment forward I've been in the preaching, teaching, leading ministry since that moment. How old were you At that moment? I was about 20 when that happened.
08:05 - Speaker 3
Okay, so you met your wife before this call right and you got married.
08:11 - Speaker 1
I did. Yeah, I have a different wife. Y'all don't edit that out, that's fine. No, it's okay.
08:16
But I was married prior to, and so my children's mother at the time. Yes, we were married and she understood it, but she didn't understand the tension that I had to wrestle with because she wasn't called to the ministry to do that. I was called to the ministry to do that. I was trying to explain it to her and I couldn't quite put the words to explanation of it. I could just feel like God is kind of pulling me out of this thing that I thought was a part of my life, into what I feel like is my life. And so it was almost like this alignment of calling and purpose converging on one another. And now the timing had to be right, the acknowledgement had to be right, the place had to be right, all those things had to be right so that God could use me further.
09:14
And yeah, I was like 20 years old, preached my first sermon by 21. Took my first youth pastorate position at New Hope Baptist Church at like 24. Was took my first youth pastorate position at New Hope Baptist Church at like 24. So I was in ordained ministry at that point, helped plant my first church at 27 with another friend of mine, pastor Corey Hughes, in Arlington, texas, and then from there went to another church, disciple Central Community Church here in DeSoto, where I was a youth pastor there for a period of time. Then I went from you pastoring to uh, training leaders uh and campus pastor. So that's kind of like my conversion and now I'm in systems and it. So that's kind of how it went, man.
09:58 - Speaker 3
Yeah, it's always the perfect storm of like all of these things and it's like, it's like creation Absolutely. Do you mind if I ask more questions about your first marriage?
10:10 - Speaker 1
Absolutely Go ahead?
10:11 - Speaker 3
Um, no. So this is a question I asked to all pastors who just never started off being a pastor but then, after they got married, became pastor because, like you said, the wife never signed up because they didn't know you like that, and afterwards it's this whole new life. Did that affect the first marriage or how did she take it?
10:29 - Speaker 1
Good question, I would think at first, because we were both young, we had no idea it wasn't a whole lot of mentorship that we were seeking out. She was going along the ride because I was the husband and so she was kind of. We were both getting training as we went. I'll be honest with you, it wasn't necessarily the best way, but it was the training that we received at the time. And so for her, if I'm honest and transparent, she struggled quite a quite you know a lot because, again, I signed up for the regular guy. I didn't necessarily sign up for this preaching ministry and living in a fishbowl and being scrutinized or giving up your time and talents for someone else. That's not what I signed up for. And so that was a tension that we had to consistently work through as a couple. But I don't think that was the demise of the marriage at that point. That was just something that we had to work through. That we that honestly, I don't think that we did we never, you know, came to a full thing of it because for me I was always trying to sense the voice of God and for her it probably felt like I was pulling her in like five different directions and that could be unsettling.
11:52
I don't know where the next place is going to be this, that and the other. I have two younger kids. I'm trying to establish them and equally try to establish myself. So sometimes calling, accepting the calling, can be a selfish matter. Sometimes accepting a calling can be a selfish matter If we are truthfully honest. This is you and God. And then you include these layers of family, and now family has to put aside their lives so that you can chase after the Spirit of God. So you think, so you have to be sure and ready. So that's kind of how it went wrong.
12:27 - Speaker 3
Is there anything that you understand now, in your older age, looking back, maybe you could have done something different, Not to save the marriage, but just kind of ease a transition for a person who again didn't sign up for it. But maybe these are the things I should have thought about or talked about to help ease the transition.
12:46 - Speaker 1
Yeah, bro, I think for me it is communicating. Communicate what you got going on inside of you, even if you don't have the words quite yet to share. Share what you know. But at the same time, others need to offer space so that you can share, and it's easy to land that stuff down of what God may be doing or couldn't do or it should do, you know. So that would be the lesson. I'm talking to someone now and you're in the tension, of relational tension with your marriage, potentially your old marriage or whatever the case may be, that you sit down and you attempt to communicate, and I wish I would have went to counseling then. I don't think that would have helped, but I could have. I would have been able to better put into words what I had going on inside of me to my significant other at the time.
13:45 - Speaker 3
So my next question is about your kids. If you don't mind, sure man Go ahead significant other at the time. So my next question is about your kids, if you don't mind sure, because a lot of the podcasts, um, like more than half of the people I interview grew up in broken homes where the parents divorced and whatnot. Really okay, yeah, I mean, even my parents got divorced, but I was like older and I've shared, like when you grow up in like a tense household.
14:06
all you want them to do is separate. But when you get older you appreciate it that they stayed longer than they did. But now I have an opportunity for you. How did you break it to your kids? There's family that's going to change and then later you get remarried. How do you introduce that to your kids? It's not their fault. This is just the messiness of this world and there's enough grace to for God to like redeem it all.
14:36 - Speaker 1
Well, you're always trying to find a place to explain to young children what's going on with older adults and, in my finding, you can explain it to them. But if other adults aren't on board with explanation or they have a different viewpoint of explanation, then your explanation is going to kind of get caught up in the murkiness of this relationship tension. So, for me, my kids were young and I sat down and explained to them hey, dad is going to be moving and dad is going to be doing the following I've always tried to have a clear, open communication with my children about me I can't explain for everybody else, but about me and say, hey, this is what's going on with dad and this is what I have to do. And so, for me, I moved to another state. I moved to Texas while they lived in Arkansas and they were young. So it's like, oh OK, dad, are you going to still visit and come see us? Of course, but then time goes by and you're going to visit, maybe a little different, because you're 400 miles away and your money is just not adding up. And so you have to be honest with your kids and they're going to be angry and that's OK. Once they mitigate that at an early age, then they can take, then they have the luxury of having introspection and retrospection and they'll be able to see exactly the point you are trying to make and or do so. My son comes to me now like, hey, dad, I get it At 24,. I understand what you had to do, I understand why you had to do it. I did not understand it. Now I got you Cool. You know you guys were always at the forefront.
16:37
So, in terms of always trying to, in terms of the relationship, always try to consider blended families, to be this crockpot yeah, you could put it on low, but if everything is not seasoned right, it's not going to be well for everybody and you have to find the happy media that is not going to cause arguments, but simply get the, get the ship on the right direction and keep everything going. And so that was like the middle part in the end of my kids. My kids are adults now, smooth sailing, no problem, and so I think the best thing I learned out of that is create your boundaries when you're transitioning. It's going to be tough when you have children, but the other parties need to know what you once had, you didn't have.
17:15
Now you have this. Here is your boundary to operate in. Here's how I'm going to handle you with the utmost respect. I'm not going to treat you wrong on social media or talk about you bad. You wrong on social media or talk about you bad. I'm going to be straight up and upstanding for you, because my children are watching and I don't need them to see another side that they don't see.
17:35 - Speaker 3
No, thank you for that. I appreciate that, I think as I get older, because when you're younger and you grow up really conservative, you think marriage, no divorce whatsoever. I get it like we want that to be the ideal.
17:50
but just because, like my understanding now is just because a marriage ends doesn't mean the family ends that's what I mean, yeah like to have good relationships with people and say I'm thankful that we had this, because we have children now and that's the blessing. Um, but it's not the end of the world, you know, and we have enough grace. And Jesus says marriage is temporary on this earth. You know, it's a problem we need to deal with here. That's right.
18:18 - Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah.
18:20 - Speaker 3
So one last question about marriage, because we have this time. Yeah, man, how did you feel? Meeting your current wife and your past experience kind of made you hesitant to getting remarried. You know, because the statistics outside of at least church and Christian context is like, as you get more married the divorce rate is higher. But like, I feel like if you kind of learned from the past, now you have better prepared for the tools to be more successful at this one.
18:52 - Speaker 1
For sure, my wife Aisha, amazing, she is a quintessential, introverted, powerful storm that I wouldn't say storm, but steady ship that is always moving ahead. And I met her at a friend's house who is a chef friend of ours that we share mutually. Her name is Chef Tam. She's out of Memphis, tennessee, and upon going to our house one day in September she was cooking and of course DK loves some good cooking, brother, please understand that. And of course DK loves some good cooking, brother, please understand that. So she's over there cooking and I walked in and my favorite movie was on, which is coming to America and they're watching coming to America, and I'm like, oh cool. And so I in comes this woman whose hair is all over her head. She's combing her kids hair and I was was like, oh, never seen this lady before. Love her, love her quiet strength, love her approach to her children. I'm interested, let me just see. And so I end up having a conversation with her and Chef Tam after the fact and I inboxed her hey, I would love to take you out on a date and her response was, if you spell my name correctly, you can.
20:17
And 10 years later, I have been with the same woman since that time. Now let's back it up and talk about how much time was spent on a healing journey, to ensure that I didn't take trauma, drama or additional stuff into the next, what it takes to love yourself, because the only way God can send you better love is if you already love yourself. And so now you have a person who loves themselves, a person with the drama behind them, a good understanding of their life, a pretty good career going for themselves, a pretty good career going for themselves, and he's a preacher. Now, quick story here I never told her I was a preacher until after we were dating, because I knew exactly what that would do, because I've been through that and she has been helpful and along for the journey and I was like, where were you at 10 years prior to? Because I could have been out of here prior to that, and so that's kind of how that went, brother.
21:37
And so I've been married to Aisha. We share four kids among us. All of our kids are adults in their respective careers, doing amazing things. I have one daughter who's married now, and so I would not trade this journey and doing life with her. She is my confidant, my friend, she is my idea wall where I can just throw those stuff off. She's the safe place for me and she doesn't make it hard for me to actually explain what I feel like God is doing within me. And she is an excellent collaborator and partner, so that, when it comes to doing the things of God, it does help that my wife is also a praise and worship leader. She sings, she's in the church, she's involved, she understands the dynamics, and so we've been rocking strong ever since. Brother.
22:29 - Speaker 3
Dude, you're making me jealous. You need to stop. Does she have a sister? I'm very single bro.
22:36 - Speaker 1
She has a couple of sisters. As a matter of fact, yo Bring it on, bring it on, I don't want to get anyone in trouble. Please clip this out. Keep this. Oh, I'm kidding. I'm definitely keeping this in. I'm not ashamed. Yes, man, she has two sisters.
22:53 - Speaker 3
I'm glad you said love yourself, because I am beginning to understand that's so important. Yes, because I think the world is confused, that loving yourself doesn't mean you're full of yourself. There's a difference. Loving yourself means oh God created me this way. He's given me this life. I'm so thankful I actually love my life and who I am and my strengths and weaknesses, because I thank God for making me the way I am. And it's just you genuinely, authentically, finally accepting yourself as you are, and when I live out that way, I'm just more confident of like yeah, I like this.
23:37 - Speaker 1
My wife says something like this. So important. How can you this is from her perspective how can you expect for me to love you? And I can see visibly that you don't love yourself? So you need to make sure that you love you, because I can love you the way that you love you, because you're going to emulate that, and so I think that's so important when it comes to somebody loving you where you are, but they have to see that in demonstration. You feel me.
24:04 - Speaker 3
She's a wise woman. You're lucky. You feel me, she's a wise woman.
24:07 - Speaker 1
You're lucky man, no doubt.
24:10 - Speaker 3
So let's pivot and talk about how did you start getting into technology stuff and like merging that with theology?
24:17 - Speaker 1
Well, good question, let's see One second. Well, technology came about because, man, I made a transition in my career when I moved here. I was doing a lot of customer service work and I wanted something a little bit more stable, something that I could grow with. And so a friend of mine called me and was like hey, man, because I'm working at another place in insurance, hey man, how do you feel about learning SQL? I was like, first of all, what is SQL? I have no idea. And what is SAP? I have no idea. He said, if I train you and I pay you this amount of money, would you come? And the money was astronomical and I went and I've been on the trajectory of IT in terms of any support roles all the way to director for the span of 15 years, and so a lot of my work is done in the startup world.
25:15
I used to have a company that was bought by Angel's List called Fixed Repair that I worked with as a director of IT Rebel Support or Rebel POS, if you ever heard, if you ever went to Cinnabon and you scroll their POS system down. That was our team working with that. And so I worked with those companies, helping building their support structures and God kind of made it to where I transitioned out of there, was working for some churches and collaborating, and what ended up happening was and it was so surreal my wife called me one day and was like, hey, this church is hiring. Would you consider taking your talents to a church? I said now, look, I'm a rebel. I think, outside the box this may not work. So to do it, and I've been with this particular church, working in this particular position for the last three years, helping support structurally support technologically support the organization as a whole with over 17 employees plus, and just really structuring it from a system standpoint and making sure that processes and systems are correct and well and able to help us.
26:36
Here's my word scale. You'll love that word scale. Every church needs to be thinking how can we multiply ourselves? That's the Bible, that's the gospel. When the gospels say he sent them out two by two, it wasn't so they could have dinner at the STK or Perry's or Capitol Grill. No, it was to multiply themselves, it was to scale the gospel, and that's a conversation we don't really have in terms of scaling, how do we scale the gospel to get it to the highways and byways of compelment to come. So that is how, in a short form, I got involved in tech.
27:17 - Speaker 3
So let's have that conversation. What is your understanding and approach to scaling the gospel? Sure, a part of scaling is that I see a lot of people trying to scale their organizational identity, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're like scaling disciples, you know.
27:35 - Speaker 1
Yeah, man. So okay, I will give you my brain thought, brain trust and anybody who may be listening. You can have this If you're thinking digitally and I'm going to go through a process and you're going to be able to kind of follow, probably if you're thinking digitally, by me just speaking to someone in the chat. It's scalable to point blank period Hello, how you doing, where are you from? This becomes a repetition. Repetition becomes a thing that people expect. They interact. That becomes scalable.
28:13
And from that chat digitally, I'm then going to invite them to a physical location or a small group and you can follow this in the Bible. I promise you I'm not off the scriptures, I'm pretty much on it, but I'm just using tech to layer it. I'm going to invite them to a small group. I'm going to invite them to a meeting or a church or a church service or whatever the case may be. And then from that invite, I'm going to potentially get them plugged into anything adult ministry like, like a small group or serve team or a membership team or whatever the case may be. And then from there I'm going to ask them hey, I see that you're here, so glad you're here, would you mind serving? They're going to say, absolutely, I'm excited, let's go. They've been baptized, membership Now they're serving. Now it's time for them to go and disciple someone else. I have just talked through in less than three minutes how to scale the ministry so that people can experience God in his truest form.
29:18
Now, in that scaling, add your technological pieces that do not remove the human touch. The human touch can never be replaced. I'm sorry, you can get all the chat, gpts all you want to, but it's something about the human touch that goes for what the Bible calls heart to heart, breast to breast, correct. And when you build that and you have the human trust and you have the IT piece and you have an understanding of how the process and system works, then now you can baptize 50, 100, 150, 250, 700. And you can go back and have membership class for 2,000, 3,000, 4,000, 5,000. Then you can go back and you can say now go serve and deploy them to their various service areas and opportunities. Well, go find a small group and deploy them to those various small groups and now you've scaled all because you said hello in the chat. And that's how you merge the two worlds together.
30:24 - Speaker 3
I'm so glad you said that and I completely agree. And this is why people freaking out by AI they don't understand, like what it means to be human right, Like humans need other humans, Like even Jesus said. The Bible says man is not good alone. So technology, if it isolates you, you're screwed because you're being like unhumanized or dehumanized.
30:48 - Speaker 1
I love that yes.
30:50 - Speaker 3
So that's really good. In a more macro sense. So coming down to practical things like what do you do with your church, that kind of like make sure you have those human touch points.
31:03 - Speaker 1
Sure man. So human touch point number one. Let's go back to that same process. Human touch point number one is I spoke to you in a chat but I offered you prayer. Human touch point I spoke to you in a chat but I invited you to church and I followed up with the invite. Okay, this is where you can insert plan your visits and follow up calls, or text messages and follow up calls. Then, from there, that person wants to join. Okay, solid.
31:38
Now they fill out the QR code, provide the information and receive one or two emails saying we're so glad you're here, this, that and the other. Then they get a text message directly from the leader Meeting is going to be here. This's that and the other. I'm going through and I'm showing you step by step on what you need to do. Okay, then, from there, now they say they come up to you at church, or they come up to you in a chat, or they email you. Hey, man, is there anything else I could be doing? Yeah, have you considered joining a small group? No, I haven't considered that. What are those?
32:12
Now I'm explaining to small groups what they are, how they work, how they're going to increase and fortify your faith. Then I'm going to walk you over to the small group domain where you can sign up for a small group. Then you're going to see the leader's name. You're going to email that leader. That leader is going to email you back so glad you're here, so glad that you chose. Then you move on so forth and so on. Right, every process that I create because I am a relationship guy has the human element in it. It's unavoidable, you cannot avoid it. There has to be some interactions, some conversations, some talks from throughput so that people can understand and know. Here's the whole reason for it. I understand and know that you care. That's it. Showing the human experience in church is showing that we care and we're demonstrating the love of God to people who need to experience Christ.
33:14 - Speaker 3
And you can do that technologically and you can do that spiritually. So after they go through the whole process a lot of churches, they have a problem of like, oh, our job is done, they're in a small group.
33:23 - Speaker 1
Exactly.
33:24 - Speaker 3
We're on the same page, brother, so could you unpack? Okay, they're in the group they're serving. Now how do you get them to repeat for? Another person that they just experienced.
33:36 - Speaker 1
So now we're talking about discipleship. If you guys do not know, I do have a book about the seven steps of digital discipleship. Please go to my website. I'm only selling it for $7. It's worth the pickup so you can kind of get a process of what I'm saying.
33:52
So when we're talking about discipleship of a small group, we have several different ways in which you can be discipled Right, and I don't think people are using one of these ways a lot, but I think we should. The first way is, yes, you need to create a tunnel from your small group into something that because, because you could, okay, let's back it up. So if I'm in a group and I'm the group leader, my job in the group is to assemble the power rangers and to know strengths and weaknesses. Once I've assembled them and I understand their strengths and weaknesses, now it's my time to fortify them. Why am I fortifying them? Because I'm trying to see, as a leader, who can lead, who can be the white power range or the red one and lead the troops to battle, if I'm present or not. Once I've identified that, then I think here's a free one. Then now you can create pipelines. You can create your pipeline for leadership, discipleship, and you can create your pipeline just for people who just want to kind of stay there and be steady. There's three layers in between. You're going to determine OK, you probably need to be a leader. So here are the steps I want you, I identify for you. That I think would be dope, and you identify those steps and you here's the thing you walk with them through it.
35:15
Discipleship is about doing life together. It is the relationship equity that you build with another person to walk beside them and graciously show them the way. That is discipleship in its purest form. Now, how do we flip that and make it digital? Well, some churches can create learning management system that could replicate a part of this journey. Hey, I want to go deeper into the word. Well, we created our church was called Foundations of Faith. I built the interface that is created for the Foundations of Faith. I built the interface that is created for the Foundations of Faith and ultimately, our pastor is walking through the journey of discipleship to give them foundational tools that it's going to take for them to stick in the church ministry.
36:07
Now you've done that. You've shown me that you can follow a process. Now let's see if you're ready to lead. So I've discipled you here. Now I'm a disciple, you in leadership, and from discipleship of leadership, now you're ready to be deployed. That is the process in terms of adult assimilation and how they're interwoven into discipleship and how we can replicate the people along the way.
36:35
There has to be something within that process that teaches people that they shouldn't be afraid to replicate themselves so many times in church. Man, we just want to have these superstars, these rock stars. I am only as good as the team that I build, only as good as the team that I build. And if I build a good quality team and they show up to bat every time we do it, they're going to be excellent, they're going to get after it, it's going to be powerful and they're going to be consistent. Why? Because they've seen the demonstration of that in real time. So that is a way.
37:11
There are other technological ways that you can do it. You can do this through text. You can send people short, short form codes that they can go somewhere else and get more discipleship. You have right now media, who also can offer a level of discipleship. You have now chat GBT that can create discipleship plans for you, or pulpit AI that can create discipleship plans for you, or pulpit AI that can take the pastor sermon and then take his sermon and then reroute it into discipleship plans. So we have a plethora of tools that we can use to disciple. We need to determine the process of discipleship and then add the tools later.
37:51 - Speaker 3
Yeah, your church is so lucky to have you. You got all the tools and knowledge, man, because I'm just like everything. You're so like this. Past easter they were reading, uh, the road to emmaus, and those guys were like, like, wasn't our hearts burning when he was talking? And I feel the same way. Every word is like burning up my heart of like yes, because the problem with superstars is, one, they don't scale and two, they get old and die. So what are you going to do?
38:21 - Speaker 1
And you have to always be thinking as a leader. I've been training leaders for a long time, as you can see, and I'm always thinking and I'm never fearful of this one question who can replace me? I'm always thinking and I'm never fearful of this one question who can replace me? I'm not afraid of that. I'm not afraid of that at all. If you feel like you have it, come get it. I want you to have it and I want you to go as far as you can go and I want to give you the tools that I can give you so that you can be a better version of who I am. I'm absolutely not afraid of that, and so I have people around me who are stronger, who can build databases, who work in corporate America, and they work for me and I'm just simply building their lives up. So when it's time for me to go do something different or I need to be over here for five minutes, you don't panic. So the best thing about leadership for me, that I've trained people not to do is not to panic. There's nothing you can do to break this. We can fix it. It may take some time, but we can fix it. So, yeah, man, I get a chance to do this. I get a chance to to help churches and my consultancy build this kind of stuff so that they can see OK, here's where you need to go.
39:38
That is, one, biblical, two, theologically supporting the Bible, and three, able to scale the results. We've just had this conversation in multi layers, so you have to catch all of this and you'll see exactly what I mean. And this is how you do it. And so, yeah, I'm one of those superstars. Man, I don't care. I am Scottie Pippen. You can be Jordan, you can go for 40. But who's going to lock the team down? That player that's getting it, who's going to do that? Who's going to shoot the three ball when you can't, when you're sick, who's going to? That is me. I don't mind coming behind and being as supportive as I need to. Why? Because it is building the kingdom of God and that is the ultimate success measure for me.
40:27 - Speaker 3
Yeah, I feel the same way. I always said I work really hard so I don't have to work anymore. Yeah, and.
40:33
I want to like be irrelevant because people don't understand. When you're up on top, there's a million things going on and you are responsible for so many people and I'm like why does people want this? I don't understand. I don't literally. If God did not call me to do the certain things that I feel like I'm called to do, I would just be in bed like Netflix and chilling and I'd be like I'm good, I'm just waiting for Jesus to come back.
41:03 - Speaker 1
I actually like the idea. I mean because now I'm at a place where I can support my church and support other churches to do this, and I would love to continue to support the other churches who are just kind of on the cusp of thinking about how do I create this digital discipleship model, what think, like I'm surprised About the tools that the churches aren't using, like their customer relationship management systems, and how that system alone can support and help you call people or help you text people, or help you keep in contact with people, or help you track milestones, like there may be a person that, for instance, has failed through cracks. Well, your milestones will determine where they fail and who needs to contact them. So having these types of measurables help you see your job at an easier rate and pick that person up faster so that we can run and walk together along the way.
42:03 - Speaker 3
I mean, it's just human nature to be comfortable with the status quo and until something drastic happens or you realize an impending doom, then you'll be proactive. But a lot of people are just reactive.
42:15
So, but you know, the beauty of the kingdom is that, like bad churches, they failed and all those people go to good churches. So, as long as you are building a good church, you don't have to like really market. You just wait until the flood starts coming. But, like you said, you need that system and process because how are you gonna do this thing when everyone's running to your church?
42:40 - Speaker 1
absolutely no doubt, no doubt, absolutely correct, absolutely. What are you hoping for at faithly, oh man, number one, that faithfully will get an app soon. I don't know if it's coming, but it needs to come on down the pipeline.
42:55 - Speaker 3
It's going to be a while before we get mobile, but it'll be there.
42:59 - Speaker 1
I love that. That Faithfully would build genuine community for people to find faith, hope and work. I think you guys have something very unique that most people aren't even considering. Most of these places don't have an ethic that is closely connected to Christ in any form. It is more atheistic in terms of their build-up. You guys are centering Christ, and that part I can totally get behind. So my hope is that more people will be exposed to Faithfully. I hope this conversation does that and I hope that Faithfully would collaborate more with other brands like Social Media, church and myself, so that we can really promote and get you guys out.
43:46 - Speaker 3
How can we be praying for you and your family?
43:49 - Speaker 1
Man currently my wife is. My wife, aisha, is doing her doctorate, so be in prayer for her. She finishes next year, so she's a gun hole for that. One of my daughters is in nursing school right now. She finishes end of this year and my son drives trucks, so keep him safe while he's on that road. And my other daughter, my baby, she's in school and she works full time. But as for me, I'm praying for next steps. What is God doing? Next Kind of sensing you know what he's doing in the earth realm as well as in the spirit, and who I need to partner with and that they bring me. That in partnering with them brings joy, peace, financial success, and so those things is what I need pretty much.
44:38 - Speaker 3
All right, man. Thanks for coming on the podcast Indeed my brother Anytime. All right, that's it, guys, bye.
44:44 - Speaker 2
Thank you for tuning in to the Faithly Stories podcast. We pray this episode gave you the encouragement you needed to continue on your journey. The Faithly Stories podcast is brought to you by Faithly, an online community committed to empowering church leaders, pastors, staff and volunteers. The Faithly digital platform offers innovative and practical tools and resources to enhance connection, foster collaboration and promote growth within the church and ministry space. Remember to subscribe, rate and review our podcast to help reach more listeners like you. Stay tuned for more uplifting tales from the front lines of ministry on the Faithly Podcast. Stay bold, stay faithful and never underestimate the power of your own story.
I couldn't quite put the words to explanation of it. I could just feel like God is kind of pulling me out of this thing that I thought was a part of my life, into what I feel like is my life, and so it was almost like this alignment of calling and purpose converging on one another, and now the timing had to be right, the acknowledgement had to be right, the place had to be right. The acknowledgement had to be right, the place had to be right. All those things had to be right so that God could use me further. What's up everybody? I'm DK Hammonds, and a little bit about me. I am a digital theologian that has been coined, given to me by a good friend of mine, and what that person does is I get to bridge technology and theology into one place and into one conversation, and this is the Faithly Story.
00:48 - Speaker 2
Welcome to Faithly Stories, the podcast that brings you inspiring tales from conversations with church leaders as they navigate the peaks and valleys of their faith journeys through their ministry work and everyday life. Join us as we delve into their challenges, moments of encouragement and answered prayers. The Faithly Stories podcast is brought to you by Faithly, an online community committed to empowering church leaders, pastors, staff and volunteers. Learn more at faithlyco. Get ready to be uplifted and inspired as we unveil the heart of faith through stories from the front lines of ministry. On the Faithly Stories podcast.
01:29 - Speaker 3
Could you tell me a little about the beginnings of your faith journey? How did you come to faith in Christ?
01:35 - Speaker 1
Yeah, man, my faith journey started at a small church called Mercy Seed Baptist Church in Little Rock, arkansas, under the leadership of James S Thoreau, and I was seven years old and there's pictures around of me and my story, me walking into the pulpit of the actual journey and the day that I accepted Christ into my life. My mom actually captured a picture of that which I'm really stoked about, and so from there it had been seven years old and I even felt like I was called to the ministry at a very early age. So I have a lot of in-depth, intuitive knowledge because I've been around these things since I was a kid and one thing that stood out to me was my pastor at the time, james Estoril, who has gone on to be with the Lord. I went to him and said, hey, I feel called to minister, and his response was no. So imagine being trying to reconcile at seven years old. You feel God, this impression that God has on your heart at seven years old, and he said no. And the reason he said no and I didn't find out until my 20s why he said no it was because he felt like there was more living for me to do than preaching for me and he felt like it would make my preaching better if I would have lived outside of that context.
03:02
Now, when people get that kind of news, they instantly go down this journey line of not deconstruction but almost rejection right, and you feel like, hey, I'm being, I'm rejected from this, I can't preach, they won't let me do it, this, that and the other, and it becomes a big to-do.
03:20
And so I went away from church for a period of time after seven. So we're in my twenties, went away from church, and you know how God works If you attempt to go away, he'll come back to you and pull you all back in. And he pulled me back in and I have been a part of ministry at church and I'm grateful for this journey since then. And so accepting my calling officially in like 2021, went from 2021 accepting my calling to Sunday school teacher, from Sunday school teacher to youth pastor for four years, from youth pastor to helping people to plant churches, from helping people plan churches to training leaders all of that in my faithly journey. And so now I'm at a place where I'm in IT and systems as well as being a preacher. So it gives me a very deeper understanding of how things work from a godly perspective, a seminary perspective, a theological perspective as well as a church one, and so that's kind of how my story unfolds. I hope I told it under five minutes, because I've been training myself to do that all my life.
04:37 - Speaker 3
Yeah. So let's backtrack to. You said you were seven. Yeah, man, what was the pull? To go to the pulpit?
04:44 - Speaker 1
Yeah man, what was the pull? To go to the pulpit yeah, kind of hard to say at seven what was the pull, but it was one of those things that I couldn't shake it and it was very clear to me that this is what I felt like I was called to do. And I'm trying not to be just super deep about it, because to me it's not a super deep story. It was one of those stories where, you know, I got hit with an anvil like Tom and Jerry. No, no, no, no.
05:13
This is one of those stories where I got baptized and I instantly fell over time that this is the way that God would have me to go. And there were certain promptings, like somebody speaking over my life and saying you're going to teach people and teach the nations at 12. Okay, well, I remember I didn't fully go into it because he told me no, but there was those promptings just kind of slowly nudging me back, and so that's kind of how my story kind of unfolds. Man, nothing traumatic happened. It was all a God type of thing that I'm super grateful for.
05:47 - Speaker 3
What was the progression that led you to finally admit the call I felt at 7 is actually the call at 20, whatever.
05:55 - Speaker 1
Yeah, man, my testimony is in my adult years. Now I had gotten married, had kids and that calling thing came back. I was fighting it. I was really out there in the streets having the best time of my life. I was out there having a great time drinking. Whatever the case may be, I was out there doing it.
06:22
One day I was sitting in one of those little small clubs that I probably shouldn't have been in at that time of night and God spoke and he said leave here or I'm going to do something for you to leave here. It is your choice. And I had to sit with that in this kind of inebriated state, with that in this kind of inebriated state. So I told my best friend, kelly Shorter it's his name hey brother, it's time for me to go home. So I went home, sat in the parking lot, sat in my driveway Young family remember and I'm just out here doing my thing, kind of almost running from this thing. And I sat in the parking lot and I felt this tension on my chest. It wasn't heartburn, it wasn't gas, it was this tension that I was wrestling with Went into the house, couldn't sleep, days on end, just couldn't sleep, kept feeling this tension, asking God, okay, what is it that I need to be doing?
07:22
And one day I went into church and I was just like I'm so tired, I cannot do this this way anymore. I got to find me a different way and I went up for prayer to my pastor and I said I just feel like this is the time, this is the time to accept my calling into ministry. And the pastor at the time is Robert Coates and he was like OK, cool. And from that moment forward I've been in the preaching, teaching, leading ministry since that moment. How old were you At that moment? I was about 20 when that happened.
08:05 - Speaker 3
Okay, so you met your wife before this call right and you got married.
08:11 - Speaker 1
I did. Yeah, I have a different wife. Y'all don't edit that out, that's fine. No, it's okay.
08:16
But I was married prior to, and so my children's mother at the time. Yes, we were married and she understood it, but she didn't understand the tension that I had to wrestle with because she wasn't called to the ministry to do that. I was called to the ministry to do that. I was trying to explain it to her and I couldn't quite put the words to explanation of it. I could just feel like God is kind of pulling me out of this thing that I thought was a part of my life, into what I feel like is my life. And so it was almost like this alignment of calling and purpose converging on one another. And now the timing had to be right, the acknowledgement had to be right, the place had to be right, all those things had to be right so that God could use me further.
09:14
And yeah, I was like 20 years old, preached my first sermon by 21. Took my first youth pastorate position at New Hope Baptist Church at like 24. Was took my first youth pastorate position at New Hope Baptist Church at like 24. So I was in ordained ministry at that point, helped plant my first church at 27 with another friend of mine, pastor Corey Hughes, in Arlington, texas, and then from there went to another church, disciple Central Community Church here in DeSoto, where I was a youth pastor there for a period of time. Then I went from you pastoring to uh, training leaders uh and campus pastor. So that's kind of like my conversion and now I'm in systems and it. So that's kind of how it went, man.
09:58 - Speaker 3
Yeah, it's always the perfect storm of like all of these things and it's like, it's like creation Absolutely. Do you mind if I ask more questions about your first marriage?
10:10 - Speaker 1
Absolutely Go ahead?
10:11 - Speaker 3
Um, no. So this is a question I asked to all pastors who just never started off being a pastor but then, after they got married, became pastor because, like you said, the wife never signed up because they didn't know you like that, and afterwards it's this whole new life. Did that affect the first marriage or how did she take it?
10:29 - Speaker 1
Good question, I would think at first, because we were both young, we had no idea it wasn't a whole lot of mentorship that we were seeking out. She was going along the ride because I was the husband and so she was kind of. We were both getting training as we went. I'll be honest with you, it wasn't necessarily the best way, but it was the training that we received at the time. And so for her, if I'm honest and transparent, she struggled quite a quite you know a lot because, again, I signed up for the regular guy. I didn't necessarily sign up for this preaching ministry and living in a fishbowl and being scrutinized or giving up your time and talents for someone else. That's not what I signed up for. And so that was a tension that we had to consistently work through as a couple. But I don't think that was the demise of the marriage at that point. That was just something that we had to work through. That we that honestly, I don't think that we did we never, you know, came to a full thing of it because for me I was always trying to sense the voice of God and for her it probably felt like I was pulling her in like five different directions and that could be unsettling.
11:52
I don't know where the next place is going to be this, that and the other. I have two younger kids. I'm trying to establish them and equally try to establish myself. So sometimes calling, accepting the calling, can be a selfish matter. Sometimes accepting a calling can be a selfish matter If we are truthfully honest. This is you and God. And then you include these layers of family, and now family has to put aside their lives so that you can chase after the Spirit of God. So you think, so you have to be sure and ready. So that's kind of how it went wrong.
12:27 - Speaker 3
Is there anything that you understand now, in your older age, looking back, maybe you could have done something different, Not to save the marriage, but just kind of ease a transition for a person who again didn't sign up for it. But maybe these are the things I should have thought about or talked about to help ease the transition.
12:46 - Speaker 1
Yeah, bro, I think for me it is communicating. Communicate what you got going on inside of you, even if you don't have the words quite yet to share. Share what you know. But at the same time, others need to offer space so that you can share, and it's easy to land that stuff down of what God may be doing or couldn't do or it should do, you know. So that would be the lesson. I'm talking to someone now and you're in the tension, of relational tension with your marriage, potentially your old marriage or whatever the case may be, that you sit down and you attempt to communicate, and I wish I would have went to counseling then. I don't think that would have helped, but I could have. I would have been able to better put into words what I had going on inside of me to my significant other at the time.
13:45 - Speaker 3
So my next question is about your kids. If you don't mind, sure man Go ahead significant other at the time. So my next question is about your kids, if you don't mind sure, because a lot of the podcasts, um, like more than half of the people I interview grew up in broken homes where the parents divorced and whatnot. Really okay, yeah, I mean, even my parents got divorced, but I was like older and I've shared, like when you grow up in like a tense household.
14:06
all you want them to do is separate. But when you get older you appreciate it that they stayed longer than they did. But now I have an opportunity for you. How did you break it to your kids? There's family that's going to change and then later you get remarried. How do you introduce that to your kids? It's not their fault. This is just the messiness of this world and there's enough grace to for God to like redeem it all.
14:36 - Speaker 1
Well, you're always trying to find a place to explain to young children what's going on with older adults and, in my finding, you can explain it to them. But if other adults aren't on board with explanation or they have a different viewpoint of explanation, then your explanation is going to kind of get caught up in the murkiness of this relationship tension. So, for me, my kids were young and I sat down and explained to them hey, dad is going to be moving and dad is going to be doing the following I've always tried to have a clear, open communication with my children about me I can't explain for everybody else, but about me and say, hey, this is what's going on with dad and this is what I have to do. And so, for me, I moved to another state. I moved to Texas while they lived in Arkansas and they were young. So it's like, oh OK, dad, are you going to still visit and come see us? Of course, but then time goes by and you're going to visit, maybe a little different, because you're 400 miles away and your money is just not adding up. And so you have to be honest with your kids and they're going to be angry and that's OK. Once they mitigate that at an early age, then they can take, then they have the luxury of having introspection and retrospection and they'll be able to see exactly the point you are trying to make and or do so. My son comes to me now like, hey, dad, I get it At 24,. I understand what you had to do, I understand why you had to do it. I did not understand it. Now I got you Cool. You know you guys were always at the forefront.
16:37
So, in terms of always trying to, in terms of the relationship, always try to consider blended families, to be this crockpot yeah, you could put it on low, but if everything is not seasoned right, it's not going to be well for everybody and you have to find the happy media that is not going to cause arguments, but simply get the, get the ship on the right direction and keep everything going. And so that was like the middle part in the end of my kids. My kids are adults now, smooth sailing, no problem, and so I think the best thing I learned out of that is create your boundaries when you're transitioning. It's going to be tough when you have children, but the other parties need to know what you once had, you didn't have.
17:15
Now you have this. Here is your boundary to operate in. Here's how I'm going to handle you with the utmost respect. I'm not going to treat you wrong on social media or talk about you bad. You wrong on social media or talk about you bad. I'm going to be straight up and upstanding for you, because my children are watching and I don't need them to see another side that they don't see.
17:35 - Speaker 3
No, thank you for that. I appreciate that, I think as I get older, because when you're younger and you grow up really conservative, you think marriage, no divorce whatsoever. I get it like we want that to be the ideal.
17:50
but just because, like my understanding now is just because a marriage ends doesn't mean the family ends that's what I mean, yeah like to have good relationships with people and say I'm thankful that we had this, because we have children now and that's the blessing. Um, but it's not the end of the world, you know, and we have enough grace. And Jesus says marriage is temporary on this earth. You know, it's a problem we need to deal with here. That's right.
18:18 - Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah.
18:20 - Speaker 3
So one last question about marriage, because we have this time. Yeah, man, how did you feel? Meeting your current wife and your past experience kind of made you hesitant to getting remarried. You know, because the statistics outside of at least church and Christian context is like, as you get more married the divorce rate is higher. But like, I feel like if you kind of learned from the past, now you have better prepared for the tools to be more successful at this one.
18:52 - Speaker 1
For sure, my wife Aisha, amazing, she is a quintessential, introverted, powerful storm that I wouldn't say storm, but steady ship that is always moving ahead. And I met her at a friend's house who is a chef friend of ours that we share mutually. Her name is Chef Tam. She's out of Memphis, tennessee, and upon going to our house one day in September she was cooking and of course DK loves some good cooking, brother, please understand that. And of course DK loves some good cooking, brother, please understand that. So she's over there cooking and I walked in and my favorite movie was on, which is coming to America and they're watching coming to America, and I'm like, oh cool. And so I in comes this woman whose hair is all over her head. She's combing her kids hair and I was was like, oh, never seen this lady before. Love her, love her quiet strength, love her approach to her children. I'm interested, let me just see. And so I end up having a conversation with her and Chef Tam after the fact and I inboxed her hey, I would love to take you out on a date and her response was, if you spell my name correctly, you can.
20:17
And 10 years later, I have been with the same woman since that time. Now let's back it up and talk about how much time was spent on a healing journey, to ensure that I didn't take trauma, drama or additional stuff into the next, what it takes to love yourself, because the only way God can send you better love is if you already love yourself. And so now you have a person who loves themselves, a person with the drama behind them, a good understanding of their life, a pretty good career going for themselves, a pretty good career going for themselves, and he's a preacher. Now, quick story here I never told her I was a preacher until after we were dating, because I knew exactly what that would do, because I've been through that and she has been helpful and along for the journey and I was like, where were you at 10 years prior to? Because I could have been out of here prior to that, and so that's kind of how that went, brother.
21:37
And so I've been married to Aisha. We share four kids among us. All of our kids are adults in their respective careers, doing amazing things. I have one daughter who's married now, and so I would not trade this journey and doing life with her. She is my confidant, my friend, she is my idea wall where I can just throw those stuff off. She's the safe place for me and she doesn't make it hard for me to actually explain what I feel like God is doing within me. And she is an excellent collaborator and partner, so that, when it comes to doing the things of God, it does help that my wife is also a praise and worship leader. She sings, she's in the church, she's involved, she understands the dynamics, and so we've been rocking strong ever since. Brother.
22:29 - Speaker 3
Dude, you're making me jealous. You need to stop. Does she have a sister? I'm very single bro.
22:36 - Speaker 1
She has a couple of sisters. As a matter of fact, yo Bring it on, bring it on, I don't want to get anyone in trouble. Please clip this out. Keep this. Oh, I'm kidding. I'm definitely keeping this in. I'm not ashamed. Yes, man, she has two sisters.
22:53 - Speaker 3
I'm glad you said love yourself, because I am beginning to understand that's so important. Yes, because I think the world is confused, that loving yourself doesn't mean you're full of yourself. There's a difference. Loving yourself means oh God created me this way. He's given me this life. I'm so thankful I actually love my life and who I am and my strengths and weaknesses, because I thank God for making me the way I am. And it's just you genuinely, authentically, finally accepting yourself as you are, and when I live out that way, I'm just more confident of like yeah, I like this.
23:37 - Speaker 1
My wife says something like this. So important. How can you this is from her perspective how can you expect for me to love you? And I can see visibly that you don't love yourself? So you need to make sure that you love you, because I can love you the way that you love you, because you're going to emulate that, and so I think that's so important when it comes to somebody loving you where you are, but they have to see that in demonstration. You feel me.
24:04 - Speaker 3
She's a wise woman. You're lucky. You feel me, she's a wise woman.
24:07 - Speaker 1
You're lucky man, no doubt.
24:10 - Speaker 3
So let's pivot and talk about how did you start getting into technology stuff and like merging that with theology?
24:17 - Speaker 1
Well, good question, let's see One second. Well, technology came about because, man, I made a transition in my career when I moved here. I was doing a lot of customer service work and I wanted something a little bit more stable, something that I could grow with. And so a friend of mine called me and was like hey, man, because I'm working at another place in insurance, hey man, how do you feel about learning SQL? I was like, first of all, what is SQL? I have no idea. And what is SAP? I have no idea. He said, if I train you and I pay you this amount of money, would you come? And the money was astronomical and I went and I've been on the trajectory of IT in terms of any support roles all the way to director for the span of 15 years, and so a lot of my work is done in the startup world.
25:15
I used to have a company that was bought by Angel's List called Fixed Repair that I worked with as a director of IT Rebel Support or Rebel POS, if you ever heard, if you ever went to Cinnabon and you scroll their POS system down. That was our team working with that. And so I worked with those companies, helping building their support structures and God kind of made it to where I transitioned out of there, was working for some churches and collaborating, and what ended up happening was and it was so surreal my wife called me one day and was like, hey, this church is hiring. Would you consider taking your talents to a church? I said now, look, I'm a rebel. I think, outside the box this may not work. So to do it, and I've been with this particular church, working in this particular position for the last three years, helping support structurally support technologically support the organization as a whole with over 17 employees plus, and just really structuring it from a system standpoint and making sure that processes and systems are correct and well and able to help us.
26:36
Here's my word scale. You'll love that word scale. Every church needs to be thinking how can we multiply ourselves? That's the Bible, that's the gospel. When the gospels say he sent them out two by two, it wasn't so they could have dinner at the STK or Perry's or Capitol Grill. No, it was to multiply themselves, it was to scale the gospel, and that's a conversation we don't really have in terms of scaling, how do we scale the gospel to get it to the highways and byways of compelment to come. So that is how, in a short form, I got involved in tech.
27:17 - Speaker 3
So let's have that conversation. What is your understanding and approach to scaling the gospel? Sure, a part of scaling is that I see a lot of people trying to scale their organizational identity, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're like scaling disciples, you know.
27:35 - Speaker 1
Yeah, man. So okay, I will give you my brain thought, brain trust and anybody who may be listening. You can have this If you're thinking digitally and I'm going to go through a process and you're going to be able to kind of follow, probably if you're thinking digitally, by me just speaking to someone in the chat. It's scalable to point blank period Hello, how you doing, where are you from? This becomes a repetition. Repetition becomes a thing that people expect. They interact. That becomes scalable.
28:13
And from that chat digitally, I'm then going to invite them to a physical location or a small group and you can follow this in the Bible. I promise you I'm not off the scriptures, I'm pretty much on it, but I'm just using tech to layer it. I'm going to invite them to a small group. I'm going to invite them to a meeting or a church or a church service or whatever the case may be. And then from that invite, I'm going to potentially get them plugged into anything adult ministry like, like a small group or serve team or a membership team or whatever the case may be. And then from there I'm going to ask them hey, I see that you're here, so glad you're here, would you mind serving? They're going to say, absolutely, I'm excited, let's go. They've been baptized, membership Now they're serving. Now it's time for them to go and disciple someone else. I have just talked through in less than three minutes how to scale the ministry so that people can experience God in his truest form.
29:18
Now, in that scaling, add your technological pieces that do not remove the human touch. The human touch can never be replaced. I'm sorry, you can get all the chat, gpts all you want to, but it's something about the human touch that goes for what the Bible calls heart to heart, breast to breast, correct. And when you build that and you have the human trust and you have the IT piece and you have an understanding of how the process and system works, then now you can baptize 50, 100, 150, 250, 700. And you can go back and have membership class for 2,000, 3,000, 4,000, 5,000. Then you can go back and you can say now go serve and deploy them to their various service areas and opportunities. Well, go find a small group and deploy them to those various small groups and now you've scaled all because you said hello in the chat. And that's how you merge the two worlds together.
30:24 - Speaker 3
I'm so glad you said that and I completely agree. And this is why people freaking out by AI they don't understand, like what it means to be human right, Like humans need other humans, Like even Jesus said. The Bible says man is not good alone. So technology, if it isolates you, you're screwed because you're being like unhumanized or dehumanized.
30:48 - Speaker 1
I love that yes.
30:50 - Speaker 3
So that's really good. In a more macro sense. So coming down to practical things like what do you do with your church, that kind of like make sure you have those human touch points.
31:03 - Speaker 1
Sure man. So human touch point number one. Let's go back to that same process. Human touch point number one is I spoke to you in a chat but I offered you prayer. Human touch point I spoke to you in a chat but I invited you to church and I followed up with the invite. Okay, this is where you can insert plan your visits and follow up calls, or text messages and follow up calls. Then, from there, that person wants to join. Okay, solid.
31:38
Now they fill out the QR code, provide the information and receive one or two emails saying we're so glad you're here, this, that and the other. Then they get a text message directly from the leader Meeting is going to be here. This's that and the other. I'm going through and I'm showing you step by step on what you need to do. Okay, then, from there, now they say they come up to you at church, or they come up to you in a chat, or they email you. Hey, man, is there anything else I could be doing? Yeah, have you considered joining a small group? No, I haven't considered that. What are those?
32:12
Now I'm explaining to small groups what they are, how they work, how they're going to increase and fortify your faith. Then I'm going to walk you over to the small group domain where you can sign up for a small group. Then you're going to see the leader's name. You're going to email that leader. That leader is going to email you back so glad you're here, so glad that you chose. Then you move on so forth and so on. Right, every process that I create because I am a relationship guy has the human element in it. It's unavoidable, you cannot avoid it. There has to be some interactions, some conversations, some talks from throughput so that people can understand and know. Here's the whole reason for it. I understand and know that you care. That's it. Showing the human experience in church is showing that we care and we're demonstrating the love of God to people who need to experience Christ.
33:14 - Speaker 3
And you can do that technologically and you can do that spiritually. So after they go through the whole process a lot of churches, they have a problem of like, oh, our job is done, they're in a small group.
33:23 - Speaker 1
Exactly.
33:24 - Speaker 3
We're on the same page, brother, so could you unpack? Okay, they're in the group they're serving. Now how do you get them to repeat for? Another person that they just experienced.
33:36 - Speaker 1
So now we're talking about discipleship. If you guys do not know, I do have a book about the seven steps of digital discipleship. Please go to my website. I'm only selling it for $7. It's worth the pickup so you can kind of get a process of what I'm saying.
33:52
So when we're talking about discipleship of a small group, we have several different ways in which you can be discipled Right, and I don't think people are using one of these ways a lot, but I think we should. The first way is, yes, you need to create a tunnel from your small group into something that because, because you could, okay, let's back it up. So if I'm in a group and I'm the group leader, my job in the group is to assemble the power rangers and to know strengths and weaknesses. Once I've assembled them and I understand their strengths and weaknesses, now it's my time to fortify them. Why am I fortifying them? Because I'm trying to see, as a leader, who can lead, who can be the white power range or the red one and lead the troops to battle, if I'm present or not. Once I've identified that, then I think here's a free one. Then now you can create pipelines. You can create your pipeline for leadership, discipleship, and you can create your pipeline just for people who just want to kind of stay there and be steady. There's three layers in between. You're going to determine OK, you probably need to be a leader. So here are the steps I want you, I identify for you. That I think would be dope, and you identify those steps and you here's the thing you walk with them through it.
35:15
Discipleship is about doing life together. It is the relationship equity that you build with another person to walk beside them and graciously show them the way. That is discipleship in its purest form. Now, how do we flip that and make it digital? Well, some churches can create learning management system that could replicate a part of this journey. Hey, I want to go deeper into the word. Well, we created our church was called Foundations of Faith. I built the interface that is created for the Foundations of Faith. I built the interface that is created for the Foundations of Faith and ultimately, our pastor is walking through the journey of discipleship to give them foundational tools that it's going to take for them to stick in the church ministry.
36:07
Now you've done that. You've shown me that you can follow a process. Now let's see if you're ready to lead. So I've discipled you here. Now I'm a disciple, you in leadership, and from discipleship of leadership, now you're ready to be deployed. That is the process in terms of adult assimilation and how they're interwoven into discipleship and how we can replicate the people along the way.
36:35
There has to be something within that process that teaches people that they shouldn't be afraid to replicate themselves so many times in church. Man, we just want to have these superstars, these rock stars. I am only as good as the team that I build, only as good as the team that I build. And if I build a good quality team and they show up to bat every time we do it, they're going to be excellent, they're going to get after it, it's going to be powerful and they're going to be consistent. Why? Because they've seen the demonstration of that in real time. So that is a way.
37:11
There are other technological ways that you can do it. You can do this through text. You can send people short, short form codes that they can go somewhere else and get more discipleship. You have right now media, who also can offer a level of discipleship. You have now chat GBT that can create discipleship plans for you, or pulpit AI that can create discipleship plans for you, or pulpit AI that can take the pastor sermon and then take his sermon and then reroute it into discipleship plans. So we have a plethora of tools that we can use to disciple. We need to determine the process of discipleship and then add the tools later.
37:51 - Speaker 3
Yeah, your church is so lucky to have you. You got all the tools and knowledge, man, because I'm just like everything. You're so like this. Past easter they were reading, uh, the road to emmaus, and those guys were like, like, wasn't our hearts burning when he was talking? And I feel the same way. Every word is like burning up my heart of like yes, because the problem with superstars is, one, they don't scale and two, they get old and die. So what are you going to do?
38:21 - Speaker 1
And you have to always be thinking as a leader. I've been training leaders for a long time, as you can see, and I'm always thinking and I'm never fearful of this one question who can replace me? I'm always thinking and I'm never fearful of this one question who can replace me? I'm not afraid of that. I'm not afraid of that at all. If you feel like you have it, come get it. I want you to have it and I want you to go as far as you can go and I want to give you the tools that I can give you so that you can be a better version of who I am. I'm absolutely not afraid of that, and so I have people around me who are stronger, who can build databases, who work in corporate America, and they work for me and I'm just simply building their lives up. So when it's time for me to go do something different or I need to be over here for five minutes, you don't panic. So the best thing about leadership for me, that I've trained people not to do is not to panic. There's nothing you can do to break this. We can fix it. It may take some time, but we can fix it. So, yeah, man, I get a chance to do this. I get a chance to to help churches and my consultancy build this kind of stuff so that they can see OK, here's where you need to go.
39:38
That is, one, biblical, two, theologically supporting the Bible, and three, able to scale the results. We've just had this conversation in multi layers, so you have to catch all of this and you'll see exactly what I mean. And this is how you do it. And so, yeah, I'm one of those superstars. Man, I don't care. I am Scottie Pippen. You can be Jordan, you can go for 40. But who's going to lock the team down? That player that's getting it, who's going to do that? Who's going to shoot the three ball when you can't, when you're sick, who's going to? That is me. I don't mind coming behind and being as supportive as I need to. Why? Because it is building the kingdom of God and that is the ultimate success measure for me.
40:27 - Speaker 3
Yeah, I feel the same way. I always said I work really hard so I don't have to work anymore. Yeah, and.
40:33
I want to like be irrelevant because people don't understand. When you're up on top, there's a million things going on and you are responsible for so many people and I'm like why does people want this? I don't understand. I don't literally. If God did not call me to do the certain things that I feel like I'm called to do, I would just be in bed like Netflix and chilling and I'd be like I'm good, I'm just waiting for Jesus to come back.
41:03 - Speaker 1
I actually like the idea. I mean because now I'm at a place where I can support my church and support other churches to do this, and I would love to continue to support the other churches who are just kind of on the cusp of thinking about how do I create this digital discipleship model, what think, like I'm surprised About the tools that the churches aren't using, like their customer relationship management systems, and how that system alone can support and help you call people or help you text people, or help you keep in contact with people, or help you track milestones, like there may be a person that, for instance, has failed through cracks. Well, your milestones will determine where they fail and who needs to contact them. So having these types of measurables help you see your job at an easier rate and pick that person up faster so that we can run and walk together along the way.
42:03 - Speaker 3
I mean, it's just human nature to be comfortable with the status quo and until something drastic happens or you realize an impending doom, then you'll be proactive. But a lot of people are just reactive.
42:15
So, but you know, the beauty of the kingdom is that, like bad churches, they failed and all those people go to good churches. So, as long as you are building a good church, you don't have to like really market. You just wait until the flood starts coming. But, like you said, you need that system and process because how are you gonna do this thing when everyone's running to your church?
42:40 - Speaker 1
absolutely no doubt, no doubt, absolutely correct, absolutely. What are you hoping for at faithly, oh man, number one, that faithfully will get an app soon. I don't know if it's coming, but it needs to come on down the pipeline.
42:55 - Speaker 3
It's going to be a while before we get mobile, but it'll be there.
42:59 - Speaker 1
I love that. That Faithfully would build genuine community for people to find faith, hope and work. I think you guys have something very unique that most people aren't even considering. Most of these places don't have an ethic that is closely connected to Christ in any form. It is more atheistic in terms of their build-up. You guys are centering Christ, and that part I can totally get behind. So my hope is that more people will be exposed to Faithfully. I hope this conversation does that and I hope that Faithfully would collaborate more with other brands like Social Media, church and myself, so that we can really promote and get you guys out.
43:46 - Speaker 3
How can we be praying for you and your family?
43:49 - Speaker 1
Man currently my wife is. My wife, aisha, is doing her doctorate, so be in prayer for her. She finishes next year, so she's a gun hole for that. One of my daughters is in nursing school right now. She finishes end of this year and my son drives trucks, so keep him safe while he's on that road. And my other daughter, my baby, she's in school and she works full time. But as for me, I'm praying for next steps. What is God doing? Next Kind of sensing you know what he's doing in the earth realm as well as in the spirit, and who I need to partner with and that they bring me. That in partnering with them brings joy, peace, financial success, and so those things is what I need pretty much.
44:38 - Speaker 3
All right, man. Thanks for coming on the podcast Indeed my brother Anytime. All right, that's it, guys, bye.
44:44 - Speaker 2
Thank you for tuning in to the Faithly Stories podcast. We pray this episode gave you the encouragement you needed to continue on your journey. The Faithly Stories podcast is brought to you by Faithly, an online community committed to empowering church leaders, pastors, staff and volunteers. The Faithly digital platform offers innovative and practical tools and resources to enhance connection, foster collaboration and promote growth within the church and ministry space. Remember to subscribe, rate and review our podcast to help reach more listeners like you. Stay tuned for more uplifting tales from the front lines of ministry on the Faithly Podcast. Stay bold, stay faithful and never underestimate the power of your own story.
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