Jay Kranda - Why Will The Next 100 Years Change The Church?

Show Notes

Jay Kranda - Why Will The Next 100 Years Change The Church? by Browncroft Community Church

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Peter Englert:
Hello, welcome to the “Why God Why” podcast. My name is Peter Englert. I am one of the hosts of this show. We are here with Aaron Mercer, the illustrious co-host, and Nathan Yoder, our fantastic producer. We exist to respond to the questions you don't feel comfortable asking in church. Today's question you might not have asked in this way, you might have asked, "Why can't I just go to VR church or digital church or something like that?" We have a really great guest today. His name's Jay Kranda. And part of this episode is because we're turning a 100 years old as a church, and we wanted to respond to it. So Jay is going to be introducing himself. The question is, why will the next a 100 years change the church? Aaron, what do you think?

Aaron Mercer:
No, this is great. I'm real excited to talk to Jay. First of all, Jay, thanks for being on here. Jay from Saddleback Church and Peter, you always say illustrious to me and have a great word for Nathan. So I just want to say, you're pretty fantastic yourself.

Peter Englert:
Thank you.

Aaron Mercer:
All right. So we got all compliments out of the way. Jay, I haven't met you yet, but I think you're awesome too. So yeah, no, I'm excited about this conversation. Browncroft Community Church is, this is our Centennial year, which is, it's exciting for the church. It's a fun time to reflect on where we've been and where we're going. What does the Lord have in mind for the church? And I think this conversation in particular is going to be really fun and interesting.

Aaron Mercer:
The digital transition we've had over the last couple decades has been pretty amazing. And actually not just the last couple decades. When you think about it, even those last couple years it's been pretty impressive. So I'm excited to talk to Jay. So, Jay, I know that you and Peter have talked before, but you and I have not, and I'm sure many of our listeners have not. And so I'd love to just hear some of your background. How did you get to Saddleback? Are you a California native, and yeah, what's your story?

Jay Kranda:
Yeah. Well, first off, congratulations to your church. That's crazy. Here in California we don't have a lot of things that are a 100 years old it feels like typically. People haven't been living out here that long really outside of you kind of go from not that long to tens of thousands of years or something with native American history. So it's kind of like this gap of history. I've always experienced that. If you grow up here in California, you go to the missions all throughout the coast and you kind of see that. And then everything after that, it's so, I was actually with my family last night at Disneyland and there's a famous story of there's the oldest thing in Disneyland and at Anaheim is a petrified rock.

Jay Kranda:
And it's something that somebody gave it to Walt and they actually had it at their house and his wife didn't want it. And so they put it into frontier and it's the oldest thing in Disneyland. But you see a petrified rock. And you can't really relate to it because it's so old. But I love that it's so this only a little bit of Disney history on the pod today. But yeah, so I love that. I love that you guys are celebrating this as a church, that's such a cool accomplishment.

Jay Kranda:
As for me, born and raised in Southern California. Both sides of my family kind of came out to Cal, my grandparents on both sides came out, one from, all kind of the Midwest like Iowa and Minnesota, in the '60s to California, which a lot of people came out around that time.

Jay Kranda:
And so I've been raised here in Southern California, kind of haven't really moved outside of like a 40 mile radius in where I'm at. I'm now in Orange County, I was in the greater Los Angeles County early on and did kind of want to be a high school pastor early on in my life, because that's when God kind of transferred my life. That's when I accepted Jesus and was at a smaller church, a church about 500, and then had an opportunity to intern my last year of college at Saddleback Church. And through that time I got an opportunity to work on our communications team. And I actually said no to a couple youth jobs, both at Saddleback and a couple other places, because I had no experience coming out of college. And it led me to an opportunity to work on the comms team and learn a lot about marketing and communication.

Jay Kranda:
And in that course of time they had an online, they actually called it the internet campus at the time. So this was about 12, 13 years ago. And I really grew to love the reach. As somebody who had only known a church prior of a church about 500, I just remember I was blown away that they had hundreds of people watching every week online and nobody was doing anything with it. And just as somebody who kind of knew how hard it was to get people to come to church, I just couldn't believe this. And I had had an experience in college where the first computer I owned was this Toshiba thing. And I just remember, I would watch on a midweek program. I think it was North Point did a midweek stream, I think it was 720 or something. I forget what it was named.

Jay Kranda:
But Louie Giglio would do this thing, and I would watch this live stream. And I remember that was the first time I could attend a church from afar. And I was like, "This is kind of crazy that I can engage in this midweek program through this live stream." And that just started unlock all this stuff. I didn't know what it meant, but I started to just, my church gave me time to invest in our internet campus. And I just grew to love it. I love the reach and I was able to talk with people all around the country and all around the world. I wasn't somebody that had traveled a lot at that time. And I just remember talking to people from New York, from the Philippines, from Hong Kong. And I remember early on one of the things that really got me excited was I got this email from ... And again, this was 12 years ago, 11 years ago or so. I got this email from this group of people in Hong Kong that were college students gathering together to watch our services every week.

Jay Kranda:
And I was like, I couldn't even grab, I didn't really know where Hong Kong was. I didn't know what that meant, but I was just, they sent me a photo and it was just so cool to think about that we had these people somehow engaging with us and felt connected to our church and were literally on another side of an ocean. And I remember really cool thing that happened. I started unlock a lot of other possibilities, because a lot of this digital stuff is kind of a multiverse. You kind of can go in a lot of different directions and you're like, "I could go here. I could go there." And when we launched, about four or five years later we launched a Hong Kong campus and they actually, I heard they got connected to that campus. And to think that they started with us online and then years later they now attend a physical campus in Hong Kong. It's just really cool.

Jay Kranda:
And I think we're going to see a lot more of that. We are seeing a lot of that, but yeah, so that's kind of my journey. Went to Biola and Talbot, a local seminary here in kind of the Los Angeles area. Got three kids, been married for, I don't know, 13, 14 years, but yeah.

Peter Englert:
You know, what I love about that is it just sparked, I'm going to take a gander that we're, I think the same age and I think people asked me this, they're like, "Why are you into digital so much?" And I go, "I feel I was just born in the right year." And so you talked about 10 to 12 years ago. I went to college in 2005 and graduated in 2008 and we started live streaming our chapel five days a week. And little did I know at the time, you just, I don't think anybody seeks to be innovative. You just do what's in front of you.

Peter Englert:
But I mean, did you 11 or 12 years ago realize how much this was going to change the church, or did you think with digital ... I mean, what were your expectations? Did you think we'd be here now, or did you ever feel like, is this the Gutenberg with Bible? I mean, I just be curious, as you think about, Jay 11 to 12 years ago and how quickly things have changed, where are you at? What do you think you would have thought if you knew where we are now?

Jay Kranda:
I would probably say no, I didn't really understand how it was going to change for sure. I'm a very, I'm definitely an early adopter with technology. But I'm very pragmatic with it. And for example, virtual reality, I think I get why virtual reality's going to change us. But I don't use it daily. So I'm not really investing a lot into it. I'm philosophically processing it and I have my fingers in it and I'm aware of it. But it's a side project because I'm very much aware that there are problems in people hurting in the spaces that I know are actually thriving and people are meeting. As much as I understand how we're shifting and virtual reality will be an experience that will be, I probably believe in the next five, six years will be very important.

Jay Kranda:
But I'm not motivated about where they're going, I'm motivated where people are right now. And so I think I have this, I focus 95% of my time on the spaces where people are. And then five, 10% I'm kind of aware of, "Okay, this is where we're going." So I need to be aware of it, and we have limited time. So I definitely didn't understand it. My youth pastor had to force me to get a Facebook account in college I remember. He was like, "You need one." And I was like, "Do I? I don't understand why I would need that." And he literally created the account for me. He sat down and he did that. And it's so funny to think about that years later.

Jay Kranda:
It's the same thing when I was watching that stream of that ministry in college, which was around 2006, 2007. I just remember going like, "This is really cool." But not thinking it's going to change churches and how they can minister and do things. And so I get it now more, because I've obviously, I've been steeping in it for about 10 plus years. And so I see it and I've seen how churches ... The story that I always reflect on was, I had a good friend that, very respected leader within Saddleback, who I really respect how he thinks and leads. And he told me, he was about 10 years older than me. He said, "Hey Jay, I would really consider not taking this online pastor job, because I don't think the role will exist in a year."

Aaron Mercer:
Wow.

Peter Englert:
Wow.

Jay Kranda:
"So if you take it, it might not be a good career decision for you," was his thought. And that was hard to process because he is one of our premier leaders and I was just like, that's crazy to think about. And I just was so excited about it that even if it got killed in a year, I needed to say, yes. It wasn't like I was brilliant in my decision. It was just, this is just way more fun than doing any of the other stuff that I can see that I would have to do. And so, it's just to see that shift. And then obviously the last two years has been, as an online pastor has been very exciting. But there's been many years where it was like, is this really going to work? Are churches really going to embrace this?

Jay Kranda:
And it just happens to be the last two years has been very exciting, but it hasn't been that. I mean, I've been excited, but I will say there's been a lot of bumpy roads through it just trying to navigate, because I think we as leaders, especially Christian leaders tend to be like, "We're all in or all out." And I think a lot of people see the fears of online. And which I get, I think there's some legitimate things and you got to process and lean into, but yeah.

Peter Englert:
Well actually I just want to jump in.

Jay Kranda:
Of course.

Peter Englert:
So you mentioned the last two years, I think that's helpful for our listeners for you to kind of give a context. You wouldn't call yourself this, I'll call you this. I feel like you're an expert in digital church. And so, as we think about how the next 100 years will change the church, and we have a lot of skeptics, dechurch, unchurched, tell us what happened just from your personal vantage point at Saddleback as an online pastor in the last two years, that you kind of feel really turn the tide or just kind of digital church isn't to that leader that said, "Hey, I don't think you should do this." Give us a vantage point from your perspective of the last two years?

Jay Kranda:
Yeah, I think we tend to as humans generally, I feel don't adopt something until we have to. And I think what the last two years did was it forced people to have to lean into some of this digital technology. And I just, for example, I can think of multiple teams and churches and spaces where they, I remember having this conversation years ago with somebody on our pastoral care team and going, "Hey, I think we should really explore Zoom counseling." And the thought was, it's like, "Well, that's not really healthy," from this leader. "And that's not good." And I'm exaggerating what they were saying. But they didn't need to think about it because in-person was working and they had enough people going through it. And I just was like, "I started to see and hear ads on podcasts where a lot of these crisis teen lines were doing text counseling. And they were doing all this creative stuff that I'm not saying text counseling is the same as sitting in a room across a couch. But for somebody is the same thing, but they're meeting a need."

Jay Kranda:
And what happened was, when we all went on Zoom essentially. And as somebody who had been a paid Zoom user for three years prior to COVID, I knew the power of Zoom. I had logged hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of hours on Zoom before COVID. And I knew that it worked very well. But what happens when everybody is forced to do it? They kind of see how, oh, this is doable, but it tends to be those force adoptions. They say this about, one of the untold stories of the reason why people have computers at home is it wasn't because the market demanded it, the commercial market demanded it. It was because CTOs for workplace, for works, for companies would buy you a personal computer and all these CTOs justified the market.

Jay Kranda:
And so you would get a work computer for work so you could work anywhere. And then you have this device at home. You go, "This would pretty be pretty nice for home too. I want it for a personal computer." So people would, a workplace would buy you a personal computer. And then that justified through the '90s for people to buy their own computer. And so it's usually somebody else has to force you to use the device. So they say the same trajectory's probably going to be with virtual reality where people will have their own virtual reality devices. I have my own, I have a quest too. So I have that. But ultimately what's going to happen is when Microsoft Teams has a virtual reality workplace through Teams, your work is going to buy you a VR device to work, and then you will go, "I want one of these. I want one of these for fun."

Jay Kranda:
And then that will seed the whole market. And so I think sometimes some other factor has to force us to see why it's important. And COVID forced us to see, wow, even though digital and all this stuff isn't the same as in-person, it's pretty close. And I like to use the example with my marriage. I use digital in my marriage to enhance our relationship, and not to replace the physical, but we get to text and interact. If I'm traveling or even if I'm ... Like this morning my wife was at the gym and she had this goal that she met and I was on a Zoom call. And I was meeting and she called me and I couldn't answer. So I text her, say, "I'm on a call." And we're able to ... I'm like, "Oh, congratulations that you met your goal."

Jay Kranda:
We're able to interact, but not be in the same room. And that's a win. But I think what happens is we tend to think either, or. And I think a lot of people pre-COVID, their world wasn't disrupted. They could meet people. They could go to church. And now when they got disrupted, they realized the potential of this. And I think sometimes we're forced to do that unfortunately. And the same thing with me. I don't really get something until I go down the rabbit hole. And I think most people went down that rabbit hole and they learn some things and wins and cons. But I think it's that moment that people saw the potential.

Aaron Mercer:
Mm. So I want to, this has been really interesting. And I want to actually ask you more about your online community that you have and you pastor, because I think that's fascinating. But since Peter brought up the pandemic in the last couple years, let me just follow that a little bit. You said, you got used to it by jumping down the rabbit hole. I guess I started thinking about the matrix and the red pill and the blue pill, and all that stuff. But do you think, so my question is, do you think that as things open up again, hopefully on a sustainable basis here, I mean, do you think there's going to be a backlash? Are there going to be people who think, "Man, I wish I took the blue pill instead of the red one," or whichever one it was that they had. Is there going to be a pushback? What do you think? I'm sure the technology is never going to go away, but what do you think it's going to be used in the same way it is right now?

Jay Kranda:
Yeah. I think that there are obviously the extremes of this, if you talk about this in a political sense. You have the Republicans that generally here in the U.S. think, "Nothing needs to change." And then the Democrats who think, "Everything needs to change." And I think most people live in the middle is the reality. And I think with this you have some people who don't want to change and they want to go back and they've had a taste of technology, but I think it more reminded them of what they're missing. And then there's some people who are so on the fringes that just think everything's going to be virtual reality and we're going to just live in our house and we're not really going to leave.

Jay Kranda:
And I think those people exist and those things will happen over the next a 100 years. But I think the reality is that I think majority of people have realized that there's a balance of this. I like to think of it as body and spirit of how God has designed us. That we're a little bit of both. And I think there are people and churches that are going back hard and I know people have pulled back on their or online in a big way. But I think most people are realizing like, "Hey," for example, in a practical way, if I was talking to church leaders. They realize that over the next couple years, just there's a group of people that aren't going to come back to in-person, because I'm going to make the argument, they were probably not really part of your church. They were sit in the back row. But now the back row isn't your building, the back row is some of your streaming and digital experiences.

Jay Kranda:
And so I think they're realizing that it's going to be more common for people to first try your church, not by walking into your building, but it's to check out a YouTube stream or maybe sign up for a Zoom thing. And so I think there's a backlash for sure that exists. And that's just kind of, I think culturally things that happen in waves. But because I do think that there's some things that don't work online right now. And I think there are some things that will never work fully online. But I also, I tend to see the gains, not the negative personally. So I like to remind people, "Let's focus on the ground that we've gained and not focus on the ground that we lost over the last couple years." And it should be a reminder of, "Hey, some of this doesn't work yet and the technology doesn't exist."

Jay Kranda:
And ultimately our Christian life is both a spatial existence and a non-spatial type of existence. And so I think there's something about there. There's a reason why I sleep under the same roof with my wife and I do life with my family. There's something there that's really important. Now that doesn't mean that I can't do life beyond, but I think that rooted experience is always going to. So for example, I think people ... I've had this happen a couple times over the last couple years. But I had a couple that was part of my ministry. One lived in actually Oregon, the other lived in the Philippines and they met through an online group. And they started dating from a far distance. And they actually, this past month they got married and they're moving to the U.S.

Jay Kranda:
And so the idea is that they started a relationship digitally and they fostered it digitally. But ultimately the end goal was for them to be physically connected, near each other. And I think that experience isn't going anywhere. I know that we'll be able to replicate some of those things, and people will do that. People will marry avatars and they will do that. So, that will exist. Those crazy stories will happen. But I don't think that that's a healthy expression of digital. I do believe that ultimately in a 100 years from now, the goal is for me and my wife to do life physically together and not to be physically separate. Even though you might be able to fully replicate it, I think there's something about that experience that will always be the prime healthiest experience.

Jay Kranda:
But here's the deal. The crazy stories on the fringe are the ones everybody loves talking about, because it does challenge us. It puts the argument to the table of like, "What do you actually believe here?" And so it's usually not the same logical stories. This is why in politics it's never the same person that gets elected. It always has to be the extremist, because here's the ... If I was the president and you had asked me a lot of these things that happen every day, I feel, not to be political here, but half the time the CDC, I wish they would have just said, "We're not sure yet, but this is what I think is the best approach." That's not what a sane person can do with power. You know what I mean? And I think that a lot of this stuff it's like, should somebody VR baptism, do a VR baptism? I would say probably not. But I also see why like DJ Soto with virtual reality church does it. Because he's an evangelist and he's working in a new paradigm, in a new existence. It's a whole nother, he's not reaching the average church goer. So he's doing things that's very different.

Jay Kranda:
Now, I wouldn't do it, but he's a modern day missionary to me. And he might as well be out in the jungle doing peace trial and it's a whole nother thing. And so I think we look at that and go, "Oh, it's going to scare us." The same way as U.S. looks at Europe and gets scared. And so I think there are things and challenges there to process, but yeah.

Aaron Mercer:
So I'm really curious just jumping off of that, you mentioned a modern day missionary. So there's a certain context you're going into there. I'm really curious, in the many years you've been doing this now, have you found that there is ... So you're dealing with people you mentioned from around the world, so there's all sorts of different contexts there. People are logging in or they're watching, they're streaming, they're entering whatever group you have that's on Facebook or whatever it is, some platform. They're coming from all these different contexts. I'm curious how you interact with them in that, as they come from different contexts, even within your own city, I'm sure in LA and Orange County, there's a lot of different contexts. But then on the flip side, I'm curious, are there unique elements or are there unique ways of interacting with people in the online community versus in-person? Is there some sort of uniqueness there that they have, and maybe people that are interacting all the time in an online community have their own language.

Aaron Mercer:
Even if they're from Hong Kong versus New York, versus Los Angeles, is there something unique to that? I'm just really curious about how you've seen your community gel over the years you've been doing this.

Peter Englert:
And why don't you throw in how many groups and how many people you work with, because I think that that's a huge context also to Aaron's question too.

Aaron Mercer:
Yeah, and if people think that if you're a real person versus like a [inaudible 00:25:53] type person or something to that.

Jay Kranda:
I like that. Yeah, for sure. I think one big thing that I notice about our community just generally is, and we have tens of thousands of people watching across a website, YouTube, a bunch of different things. What's hard with numbers is there's all such ways to measure it. But I really get excited about, so for example, we have a Facebook group with over 9,000 people in it, and those are people that are part of our community. And I see that as our digital patio, backroom where people interact throughout the week. And then we have about at this moment, a little over 1,400 small groups that are associated with the online community. Some of those are virtual that meet on Zoom, some of them meet in-person. And so, I would practically say that we have a community about 10,000 people that interact with us. We have more that watch every week. But when I think about our actual, if you want to think of it as a location or a campus, I think of 10,000 people, because those are the people in groups engaging.

Jay Kranda:
But the main thing is that's really interesting. That's very different as a typical pastor is I think it's just the 24/7 accessibility of people. Practically most churches are really only open a couple hours a week. They have a building, they have a presence and it's always there and you see it. You might have a steeple in, it's visible, but there's something about people just interacting and asking and just constantly. And then if you mix in time zones there, it can feel overwhelming. Like it's just, I get asked questions and give feedback from email to Facebook Messengers, to Instagram, to WhatsApp, to text, to calls, all sorts of places and all sorts of time zones. And it's kind of crazy or reminds you, you learn things. You're just like, "Oh, I was interacting with a couple people in Pakistan a couple weeks ago. And I learned Pacific Standard Time is the same as Pakistan Standard Time." So if I'm trying to set up a time zone, that's confusing, because they're actually 13 hours ahead of us right now. And most times in time changes they're actually 12, but you learn these things and it's just weird. And it's also cool because it reminds you how small your time zone is really in the scale of things.

Jay Kranda:
So I think that there is this, it's the classic overstatement. It is a global type of community. You're also reminded this Ukraine thing that's going on and the Russia stuff. We have six people, part of our community that live in the Ukraine. And what does that mean? And I'm constantly having to run reports and I'm usually terrible at this. When there's some kind of issue in a country or in a region in the world I'm usually like late, "Oh man, I need to check if I have any people that live there."

Jay Kranda:
Like there's a tsunami in the Indonesia, I go, "I probably need to find out, because I probably have." Or there's, the power goes out, or there's a storm in Texas. I just forget that there's always something going on in the world, and it might be, yesterday in California was 80 degrees and it was beautiful, but that doesn't mean it was that way. I was on a Zoom call yesterday was somebody in St. Louis, and there was 35 degrees and you just forget those things. So I think the global citizen thing is very global citizen and also just accessibility and is just so crazy.

Jay Kranda:
Now, what's hard is you also get a lot of people that are not digital natives trying to come on board and they don't always understand stuff. And I'm always impressed where there is a whole generation, baby boomers and above that are trying to catch up and trying to survive in this space. I think it's like you said, I think if you're a millennial, specifically an old millennial, which is what I am, what my wife and I are. Like there's a famous, not famous, I'm exaggerating that. There's an article that the ringer did years ago, that was about the difference between millennials, you have an old millennial like Drake and a young millennial like Chance the Rapper and how different their music styles are. And I think that's true. And if you're an older millennial, you tend to bridge the generation and you're aware of, like I'm aware of the world without internet.

Jay Kranda:
I remember when my dad had a computer and I could use the internet. I remember, I was in high school or something when AOL came out and if my grandma was talking, I couldn't use the internet. I'm aware of the disconnection. And that disconnection, I think gives people that are in their '30s a lot of ability to relate to that older generation. And I'm also reminded that it's also the baby boomer generation that really created the internet. Now, they didn't have to live on the internet where I actually have, or I've gone through a transition over the last 10 and years of living on the internet in a whole nother way. I work for a church and I don't even have an office at my church, I work primarily from home.

Jay Kranda:
And it's like, that shift is very hard. A lot of people, when people went working from home, I was already there. I have a team of four. We meet for coffee once a week. We work remote the rest of the time. You know what I mean? And that's a whole nother, that's going to become, that's already normal and it will become more normal. But so, but yeah, so I think it's, I think the global citizen and the access is one of the big things. Because as you talk to different people and have different experiences and get asked different things, it's really, it's exciting. I love it. I also will say, I think if you're at a certain age, and I don't think it's really an age, I think it's a personality type. I think most of us are leaning into the fog that we're not sure what this really will look like in a 100 years or a 100 years I'll be dead. But I even think in the next 10 years. I don't know what that's going to look like, but I get excited about that.

Jay Kranda:
And I think most young, I think people, I think that there is a sense if you're in your 35 or younger, generally it kind of like with privacy, I think there is a generation that is older that kind of goes, "I want to hold all my information and I'm not really going to put a lot of this online because I'm afraid it's going to get hacked," where like-

Peter Englert:
Aaron, Aaron.

Jay Kranda:
Most people-

Aaron Mercer:
I'm the old guy here. Yeah, he's [crosstalk 00:32:52]-

Jay Kranda:
Which is fair. But I will say, my social security number is already on the dark web. I've been hacked. My world hasn't crumbled. I'm not as worried about it. And so I think that shows there's this optimism of like, I get there's this accessibility, but I'm also very excited about the future. I kind of rambled there. So, but yeah.

Peter Englert:
Well, no, I think that that's good. Why don't we jump into this? Because you're right. We can't guess what the next 10 years looks like. But I think for our listeners, those that are dechurched and unchurched, and we're specifically focusing on kind of these digital and technological changes. As you look at the next 100 years, what will change and what won't change. And again, there's a Bible verse, "Jesus is the same yesterday, today." So we're going to take Jesus off the table, he's not changing. The Bible, we're going to take that off the table. It's not changing. There's no third Peter out there, I'd get fired for that. But as you kind of just forecast and what you're even seeing right now, what are the things that maybe we're going to be more rooted in? What are the things that are probably going to transform?

Jay Kranda:
Yeah, for sure. I think we're going to have a lot, most people in a 100 years, if not everybody will have deep, meaningful connections with people who live all around the world. And you will feel just as close to them as if they live down the street. I live next to my closest friends. They literally live a house next to us and they have kids, we do life together. Literally I wake up, when my friend leaves for work, I hear his Tesla every morning, because I'm working, live right next door to him. That experience I think will be normal, will be decentralized. I think in a 100 years I'll be like, I have a brother that live in the St Louis area and we connect for sure, we text and we interact, but I think it will just be normal where I'll be able to be in a VR or some kind of augmented reality experience.

Jay Kranda:
And it will be like, he's not far away from me. I just think relationships will be, that will be normative. People can live anywhere in any time zone. And I don't think the relationship will feel that much different for our casual friend group. I do think though what's not going away is the marriage type of deep connect, like that the relationship will always be rooted in physical. I don't think that will, even though you might be able to replicate some of those feelings and experiences digitally over the next 100 years, and people will do that and will challenge that and they will offer that. I just think we will always be under the same roof. I think those were, but I'm excited for, like I've done VR meetings and it's pretty compelling even though it's a little cartoonish right now.

Jay Kranda:
It's crazy. I've sat around the table with four other people and we did a meeting and it felt like we were hanging out and it was better than a Zoom. So I think that's going to be the biggest challenge for people. And you see this in already happening with gaming. I've seen this, I missed that wave. I remember when I played Xbox online and I also remember LAN parties before and I never really had friends where we gamed together online. I more gamed by myself, but I see it with my kids, how they get on a phone call or they game in community. And I think you see it, they feel close to each other and I think that's going to be the biggest challenge for a lot of people because you're going to be able to ... Like you and I, we could literally work together in the same space virtually and hang out every day and we will feel super close, but that will just be normal for everything.

Jay Kranda:
I think that will actually, and it will challenge people. So I think that's going to be the, I'm going to have real friends, even though I have real friends, I have friends all around the world that I feel close with, but I will say I'm more of a digital adopter. But even there's still gaps. There is something about having someone near us, but I think a lot of the technology will make that so different. And I think our grandparents will just be able to hang out with people in a way that will be different. But I don't think the marriage type of connections are going to go away. I think those are kind of the two things that leap off the page to me because of virtual reality and augmented reality stuff.

Peter Englert:
What about the church? Because it sounds like what you're saying too in the next 100 years to society, there's actually this huge local focus, but then there's a global focus. How do you see that all working together?

Jay Kranda:
Yeah. It's going to be interesting. Because I think you're going to have this fundamentalist and kind of liberal movements that will happen within the church where some will fully embrace the technology and the decentralized stuff. And obviously you kind of look at what's happening in the monetary stuff with crypto and stuff and DeFi and all this stuff. You see it where like, "Hey, we're not going to have internet hosted in one place or in a couple regions, it's actually going to be hosted decentralized in all your devices across the world." And that's what DeFi or decentralized stuff is, what 3.0 is. And I think the thought is churches, I think we will have a lot of people planting churches that aren't really hosted in one place, but they're really hosted in multiple places. And I think it's going to take, I was talking with a guy yesterday who lives in the New Jersey area that he's a fairly younger leader and he doesn't have this huge movement, but he's thinking about this and I think you're going to have people.

Jay Kranda:
I think it's going to become very normal for people to have church networks that are hundreds and thousands of locations and they don't have a mothership, they're literally everywhere. Because they can connect in a way and do this. But you're also going to have churches that are primarily, you know what, we just reached the New York area and we have one big building and we do this well. And I thought, I think you're going to see both, but I think you're going to see global churches in a way. And really, this isn't new, but I think what's new about it is the way all those locations can stay connected to each other. And a lot of the technology's can allow you to ... We've seen this, the decentralized churches thrived in places where there's been a lot of suppression, like in China and Iran and a lot of these places, and Saudi Arabia.

Jay Kranda:
But that experience, they're going to able to have that experience, the individual kind of house church type of experience. But they're also going to be able to have the global connective experience for worship services. Because we will, I was talking to a guy, I was talking to two church leaders yesterday. And they launched something in Verizon, not Verizon, in Facebook Horizon's experience in VR. And they were saying how they host this church experience. But one of the things is there's only so many avatars that can be in a room at once in Horizons. So every time they hit 20 people in a room, there's another instant created. So actually when you're watching a service right now in VR, you only have 20 people in it, but there might be 500 people watching it because there's multiple rooms.

Jay Kranda:
And the thought is, in the next couple years you're going to be able to actually have a 1,000 people in a room together. And that will feel compelling. And I think that's really going to change the church on what a worship service look like. Doesn't mean at the end of it they're not going to meet in-person. I just think that's going to be very ... Like I go back to the Disneyland example. I think I will always want to go to Disneyland. But does that mean that, what if I could put on my goggles or whatever and I could walk around, I think that will just become in-person, will become more premium. And the digital will become a larger introductory experience. So I think both will be important, but you're just going to be able to reach people and engage people.

Jay Kranda:
Because that's the thing that I think I would tell a lot of Christians at a base level. You think that there's a great church around the corner everywhere. In the U.S. that's usually true. But it's hard to find that everywhere. And there's something about what your church, your church is doing something unique and you will reach unique people because of what you're doing that Saddleback can't reach. And I think as you kind of expand your digital opportunities, those people exist everywhere in the world. And to think that you can launch something and engage people, it's pretty exciting. It is challenging, but I think we'll figure it out.

Aaron Mercer:
Well, there was so much there. I feel like there's so many different trails I'd love to follow on there. You hit on, I mean even the international element, you started getting into decentralized things and we could start, we should talking about overseas church and persecuted church and things like that. That could get really interesting. But I am actually, I don't think we have time to go down that rabbit hole right now. We'll have to have bring you one another time, but I think it's important. And what you said was really fascinating. I am curious, I want to ask you as a secondary question here. Where do you think, where are we seeing this being led? What churches, what organizations are kind of leading the way right now into the next decade on some of these areas that we talked about?

Aaron Mercer:
But more immediately. I just wanted to ask you too, I love that you brought up even gaming too. That's something I've been kind of fascinated. I'm not a gamer myself. I mean, I'm going to show my age here. I enjoyed playing with the PlayStation 2 back in the day. I still have a [inaudible 00:43:00], I have a Genesis, it still works. Did you know that?

Peter Englert:
Oh man.

Aaron Mercer:
I got my kids playing Sonic the Hedgehog. I thought it was pretty cool.

Jay Kranda:
That's awesome.

Aaron Mercer:
But I am fascinated by the gaming environment and I've seen people really bond there, it's almost like small groups in some ways. I'm really curious, what do you think? Do you think that the VR virtual reality is going to have more of an impact on the next five to 10 years? Do you think the gaming environment and maybe they're actually linked, I don't know, but are they going to have more of an impact in the next five to 10 years? And I guess right now I'm asking about churches in particular. Or is there something else that we haven't talked about yet, a technology that you see up and coming, that's going to have more of an impact on the online church environment?

Jay Kranda:
Yeah, I mean, I would probably say this isn't an original thought. A lot of people are speculating this, the struggle with virtual reality is that it's a fully immersive experience. It's not passive. You have to kind of shut off the world. And so I think most people rightly so understand that virtual reality is going to be very important for focus things. If I'm going to go see a movie, I'm going to focus on the movie. And I think there are experiences that require a 100% of your focus. But if I look at the reason why phones are so powerful is that they're passive experiences that I could be anywhere and I can kind of not leave this world, but also kind of portal into whatever world is on my phone. And I think that's why augmented reality is probably, as that becomes more normal and you see for example, to be able to have a meeting and for there to be a hologram or something in my room and they're hanging out.

Jay Kranda:
And I don't have to enter another room. And then I think the augmented experiences are very compelling because here's the deal. Our current world is a very compelling space. And I don't think most people want to leave it. But they want to leverage technology to enhance this world. And I think that's why the merging of those world's augmented virtuality. For example, Verizon's, Facebook's big social VR experience. The idea I could be in VR, but I could FaceTime somebody into the VR experience around a table. I think that's the merging of these worlds are very important. And so, I get more excited about augmented stuff because is it allows me to do what I need to do.

Jay Kranda:
I remember seeing this a couple years ago, there was a device that you can buy that you would lay this device on top of your dashboard. And what it would do is it would project up directions. So the idea, it wasn't a screen blocking your view, but it was a device that project directions in a way that it would interlace, kind of like blade runner style. And I think that type of technology and experiences are what most people should be excited about. Because it will make your day-to-day world better. And it won't force you to put on glasses and leave this world because I think that's the struggle. And so I think it's going to make a lot of our stuff more seamless.

Jay Kranda:
The same way is the joke that we're already are kind of already cyborgs with our phones and our watches. We already kind of have this robot type of experience. I just think those connections will make a lot more sense. It will be more seamless. I wore glasses forever and a couple years, about eight months ago I got LASIK and I'll probably just be putting on glasses anyways to interact. Or I was watching an interview from somebody who was talking about stuff and they were talking about how a lot of this technology will be kind of like a LASIK procedure where I'll put stuff into my eye and it will be just expensive enough to kind of, "Maybe I should do it," but it will make my experience better.

Jay Kranda:
And I think a lot of this stuff is coming, but I know that gets people scared, which I understand. But the reminder, I always tell them about the future. Not that I know what's going to happen, but just look back at the last 15 years, how much technology has changed in our own lives. And just think, "We're going to have another type of technology change in the next 15 years." And the argument to be made is it's probably going to be a lot quicker. And so, I think this is why it's hard to grasp. If you would have told me 15 years ago I would be streaming stuff on Netflix. I'd be like, "That doesn't even make sense. It's terrible to watch videos."

Aaron Mercer:
We use to get DVDs in the mail, remember that?

Jay Kranda:
Yeah, yeah, DVDs. And it's crazy to think about that. So I think we're going to have ... So it's not about thinking about this, it's like putting something in your eye, for example. You don't think about it with now. In 10 years from now, what is that going to be like? The same way as when I got LASIK, my experience with LASIK was very different from what the experience for people getting LASIK 15, 20 years ago. And there were a lot of bad stories because early adoption people were scared of it. But guess what, when I did it, they had learned a lot over 20 whatever years. So I think augmented reality for me is what I get very excited personally about, but I also get excited about VR.

Aaron Mercer:
So, besides Saddleback church. So I don't, you can, obviously you have to say that you guys are leading the way because you are leading the way, but is there someplace else too? Where do you see within the church world, especially, or the ministry world, who's leading the way on this stuff?

Jay Kranda:
Man, there's so many churches doing small things that I think are going to play a big part in what the future will look like for the church. Just to bring up one, I was talking to Sun Valley Community Church in the Arizona area. And they're a fairly big church doing stuff in Facebook Horizons or meta horizons. And it's so cool to think, they're a good size church, but they literally just asked Facebook, "Could we host something on one of these venues?" And Facebook said yes. And it's so crazy to think this church, that's a good size, but they get, thousands of people that watch their church in VR. And it's just because of this virtual, they're one of the early on people. But yeah, so I see a lot of churches doing stuff.

Jay Kranda:
It's hard to nail one because there's a lot of small things. But I just come off the Sun Valley Church because I just talked to him yesterday and I was just so encouraged how ... I honestly think it's going to take people in their 20s to really push this. LUX Church is another one. They're doing stuff on Twitch. And I remember hanging out with him and just going, I'm not going to do what he's doing. But I see what he's doing and who he's reaching. And I go, I just remember I left it. I actually, when I got done with it I donated some money towards it, because I was just encouraged by him. Because I could see all the stuff he has to fight because it's just hard to do some of this stuff. And I think some of this stuff is just going to look so different.

Jay Kranda:
So I think it's actually not about ... There's not a bunch of major people doing stuff, but I think there are thousands of individual decisions being made that it's just, it's cool to kind of think, how the church is going to thrive over the next 100 years.

Peter Englert:
Jay, just two more questions. So we have these four spiritual habits, spend time with God, spend time on with others, know, use your gifts and share your faith. So reading the Bible, praying, being in small groups, serving, giving. I want to throw just kind of a theory out there to you just kind of as we think about the future. It seems as though the last, we'll start with Gutenberg in the Bible. So Gutenberg was the first person to print out the Bible. You no longer had to go to church to just hear about the Bible, but it was enhanced because when you went to church on Sunday, you could read the Bible. There was a time that you couldn't do a small group outside of church. They were all Sunday school classes in church. And there's always been these practices that are decentralized where the church is really a community, but there's certain individual practices that you do in community, but they're decentralized, whether it's small group.

Peter Englert:
Like when I read my Bible, I'm part of a U version plan with a 100 other brown crafters. And I guess what I'm just kind of curious with spiritual habits or spiritual discipline, what do you see kind of in the future of things being decentralized of how much that changes the church and maybe even clarifies in-person ministry? I mean, I'm kind of wrestling with that, but I'm throwing that theory out there. Because we've talked a lot. I feel we have a very ... The fact that Saddleback was the leader in small group ministry and we're a church of small groups, that's a decentralized. I can't see every week, everybody that's going to small groups. So I don't know. I'd just be curious with the disciplines and practices, what your thoughts are?

Jay Kranda:
Yeah. I think it gets out of the root of the collective group experiences, that have thrived online like a Reddit that you can ask a question and anybody kind of can answer it and engage. Doesn't mean it's always good, but I think the internet in digital, what it does well, is it aggregates thoughts and allows you to get direct access? It's like the idea of maybe 15 years ago if I wanted to buy stock in Ample, I would have to go to a broker, but now I could just ... Robinhood's built to allow me just buy directly. Even though it might not be super direct, they're still using a third party, but the interface has made it a lot more seamless. I think churches are going to understand that you as the pastor, the leader, don't have to aggregate everything. That you can create these spaces online for people to interact with each other 24/7 and really walk and do life with people in a deep way.

Jay Kranda:
And I think it really does. Again, am a hosting church, I get done. And if I'm in a building, I sit up front and people come up and just ask me questions. Because they see me as the leader. "I'm going to ask Jay, I'm going to ask Jay, I'm going to ask Jay this." The same thing happens at conferences. Ask Jay, ask Jay, if I've led a session, Jay, and I think online what happens is now you have a space where people can just ask each other those things. And it really is like a Reddit type of experience. And I think those are the type of experiences that are really good and it gets you ... Because here's the deal. You may be further along have some perspective, but groups, the whole idea is that you ask people in the group.

Jay Kranda:
Kind of a small group is like a little internet thread. And I think that those are the spaces that we need more of as the church. Because too much of ministry is still dependent on the pastor. And so I'm excited for those. I think that's the key of kind of why the internet thrives, and I think the church can thrive in that type of environments.

Peter Englert:
Wow. This went way too fast. We're going to have you back on again. You've given us a lot to think about, so the question we always close with, what does Jesus have to say about this topic? And like we always say, Aaron and I, we answer the question first and then you just clean up, whatever heresy we threw out there. Sound good? So Aaron, you want to get us started?

Aaron Mercer:
Sure. Yeah, no, first of all, Jay thank you so much. This really has been fascinating and I would love to talk more about so many issues. You had the ideas firing in my head while you were talking, even about the augmented reality and whatnot, and I think there's, nevermind the next 100 years and the next 10 years is going to be potentially a lot of fascinating things happening. So, we didn't even get into what happens if we go back to the moon or things like that. I mean, there's going to be augmented church service on a moon or something. I mean, I don't know, who knows?

Aaron Mercer:
There's a lot of good things to dream about, but I do think that, obviously the next 100 years for the church is going to be important. The last 100 years was important. Jesus cares about the church, period. And all through since the beginning of time and certainly since he has been here, he has wanted his people to spread the gospel and take care of one another, love each other, "Love God, love one another," and we're going to use the means that we have, whatever technologies those are. And I think that, as long as we're making sure we're doing it with that in mind, that's what he wants us to do. So I think it's a important question and it's going to be exciting.

Peter Englert:
Yeah, Aaron, I appreciate that. Jay, I'm actually going to stand up for you. Maybe you can post this somewhere, but you posted this guide about online ministry. And when I think about online ministry, I think about Jesus being incarnational. So part of that is, the way people responded to Jesus was he's always with tax collectors and sinners. He seemingly found himself in the places where religious people didn't think he was. Where would that be today? VR.

Peter Englert:
So I just, I kind of sit back here and I look at the theology of what Jesus did. Jesus showed up to places that people didn't expect him to show up. And what a call for us as a church to show up to the places that we're uncomfortable with, that maybe we don't quite know what the future holds, but I just feel, as someone that kind of lives in two different worlds, the digital and physical that, I've seen my in-person life enhanced because I've been trying to practice incarnational ministry online and vice versa. So as I think about how the church change in the next 100 years, what would Jesus say? "It's be incarnational, be in the places that Jesus would be."

Jay Kranda:
Yeah. I mean, I definitely agree. I think the only thing I would add to it would be just, I always go back to this parable, the talents kind of illustration that in Matthew 24 of, one is given one talent, one's given five, one given 10. And I think I always go back to, it's really interesting that the one given the least amount is judged the most harshly. And I say that because I think you as a individual or as a church leader, don't focus on what we don't have. We don't have all the money. We don't have all the technology. The idea is, what is in your hands and what can you do at this moment? We do live in a unique time in history that we can do all sorts of types of ministry.

Jay Kranda:
It doesn't mean you got to do it all, but you don't go, "Oh God, I couldn't do digital because I didn't have this and that." The question is, "What can you do?" And if we just take it one bite at a time, it's like move a mountain one shovel at a time. I think if you see it, I just heard somebody say this, that if you wrote two pages a week, you would write a whole book over two years. And a lot of times it's procrastinating or coming up with excuses that drive us not to do that. And so I think with digital and as a believer, I think just figure out what you can do, what's in front of you.

Jay Kranda:
And so I think Jesus, we don't have to know exactly what this is going to look like in a 100 years. But I think if we just tread forward, I think it will make sense as we move through the fog. At least I feel that way. If you nail me to a wall and say, "I got to." I don't know exactly what it's going to look like, but I do trust in the steps I'm making. And I think every time I make that step, it makes a little bit more sense. It's one of the reasons why I've never written a book is because I feel I'm still figuring out what I believe on some of this stuff, so yeah.

Peter Englert:
Jay, thank you so much. Where's the best place that people can follow you and find you?

Jay Kranda:
Yeah, you can go to jaykranda.com and follow me on Instagram and all that stuff, but share a lot of my thoughts there, and yeah. But thanks for having me on, guys.

Peter Englert:
This was great. We appreciate you being on “Why God Why” the best place to get a hold of us is whygodwhypodcast.com. You can subscribe there to the email. Thank you so much for joining us. We hope you have a wonderful day.