CEP 06: SHAILA VISSER - DOES DIGITAL EVANGELISM WORK?

May 31

By Dave Mckeown and Nathan Benger

Welcome to Episode: 06 of the Church Explained Podcast. A conversation to help grow your leadership, develop your team and build your church. Your hosts will be Dave Mckeown and Nathan Benger. We will talk about all things leadership with key team players from IKON Church and other guests during each show.

In this episode, we chat with Shaila Visser, the National Director of Alpha Canada and Global Senior Vice-President for Alpha International, on Digital Evangelism. We explore if it really works and does it have a place in the church post-pandemic.

Shaila shares why she thinks digital evangelism works and why every church leader should make sure they don’t miss an amazing opportunity to equip the church. We also explore how genz is open and ready to share the good news with their friends and how we can help them do this.

Listen and access the full show notes below or search for The Church Explained Podcast on Apple Podcast or where you get your podcasts and listen for free.

FULL TRANSCRIPT

David Mckeown 0:00

Hey, welcome to the Church explained podcast a conversation to grow your leadership and build your Church. We're excited today we've got an amazing guest, Shaila Visser from Vancouver in Canada. And today on this show, we're going to be talking about digital evangelism. And we want to explore a little bit about Is there a future for it? Post lockdown.

David Mckeown 0:27

Hey, my name is Dave. And I'm Nathan. And we're the hosts of the Church explained podcast and today we've got a very special guest with us. Shaila Visser, what a great name that is. So Hey, welcome, Shaila. Great to have you here. So you're the national director of alpha Canada, global Senior Vice President of alpha International. And you've been involved in youth alpha, the alpha series. And you're involved on a few different boards as well. So you got some important things that you're doing. And we want to find out about you, we're going to be talking on the subject of digital evangelism and around sort of those areas. So before we kick into the sort of formal questions, let's find out a little bit about you. Shaila, tell us a little bit about yourself, your role on that little bit, maybe even about your family.

Shaila Visser 1:17

Thanks, David. I'll just say that I'm based in Vancouver, Canada. So if you have to think about where you want to be during a pandemic, it really is Vancouver. It's one of the most beautiful cities in the world, mountains ocean, it's fabulous. I live here with my husband. We've been married 22 years, we have two dogs, we got one of those pandemic puppies. I don't know if you had that thing in the UK. We got it here. Everybody seems to have a puppy. And I have been out on the west coast of Canada for over 25 years now. But I grew up in central Canada, which is about Toronto area. And I grew up in an immigrant family. So both my mom and my dad were born in India, and immigrated here before I was born. So that brings all sorts of interesting backgrounds that my mom is actually English, but born in India. So home for her was Hampshire, just outside of Winchester. So my family is global. And we love the world. Wow.

Nathan Benger 2:14

My my brother who is behind the camera, he got a pandemic puppy as well. That's right, he did. So it was definitely

David Mckeown 2:24

it's a real thing. Yes. Well, I have to say my wife's been asking for one for the last six months. And I keep saying, hey, let's wait to the summer. And we'll see what happens after the summer. It may or you're like pushing it off further and further. Yeah, because that's the type of dog she wants. You know, she's wanting like a grey hound type dog. Or, or, yeah, one of those types. So we'll see. We'll see what happens here. But listen, great to have you on the podcast. And great to have you sharing a little bit about yourself, as you say Vancouver, really beautiful place to live as part of BC is that right. Right. That's right. That's the mountains and the places to be. So yeah, exciting. So we want to talk a little bit about digital evangelism. And one of the things we've been thinking about really does it really work. I suppose a lot of people are asking, does digital evangelism really work? What's your thoughts?

Shaila Visser 3:24

Yeah, absolutely. It really works. I think during this pandemic, everybody has realised Oh, my goodness, like I can reach different people than I've ever reached before. And it's because we all have relationships that don't live near us. So David, you said, you know, earlier before we started recording that you're from Belfast, well, that's not where you live now. But you have relationships there, your family, your friends, etc. Same with me. I do not live where I grew up, I do not live where I went to university, I do not live where I got my first job. And so I have these relationships where they've built into me, I built into them for 20 plus years, and I've never been able to invite them to Church, to alpha to whatever I'd like to invite them to to investigate Christianity un till the pandemic, because now, I don't have to be really local with people I invite, I can be global, they could live in the US, they can live in other parts of Canada. In fact, I ran an alpha online starting in February. And we had three different time zones on our alpha just because I had deep relationships with people I wanted to invite. And the pandemic allowed us to think differently about how we would do digital evangelism. So I'm a practitioner, like I've actually seen it in my own life and with my own relationships, but then I've seen it as I've helped both alpha Canada and then globally, we've seen how effective it's been during the season. I think it was a trick we were missing, that there was a lot of people that we already had relationship with, that we could evangelise by being online and thinking through digital evangelism. I think the problem, David that I've seen is people think digital evangelism means I've posted something on social media that says, I love Jesus. I'm a follower of Jesus come to my event like, and they think that's digital evangelism. That's not digital evangelism. That's kind of like the megaphone screaming at someone. Yeah. Where we need to think through engagement and relationship online for digital evangelism.

Nathan Benger 5:24

So you mentioned about alpha there, Shaila. And obviously, going online, were there any before you went online? Were there any like scepticism, or Will this work? Will it would not work? Like beforehand, was there like, you know, I'm not sure alpha will work. But then you've got success stories from it.

Shaila Visser 5:45

Oh, all of us thought it wouldn't work like honestly. It'll never work. It's terrible. We really believe in an embodied experience. Yeah, we want to be together around a table. We love food together. We love the chatting and getting to know one. I mean, we are full embodiment ministry, and all of a sudden, it's like that was ripped out of our hands. And I think it was done lovingly by the Holy Spirit to say to us, you know, there's an opportunity here you've missed. And in in pivoting so quickly, in March of 2020 to alpha online, we were shocked. I think we were sceptical. Some courses finished online that it started in person. And we were like, Okay, well, they already had relationship, maybe that's why it worked. But then when we started to see alpha start having never met in person, and those take off. Well, we were really surprised. But we got worried when it came to the alpha weekend, which as you know, is when we talk about the Holy Spirit, we do prayer ministry, and we have this amazing opportunity to minister to people who want to be prayed for, and we thought, well, this is gonna be interesting. And you know, God just reminded us, the Holy Spirit's not limited by zoom, regardless of what you humans may think. And we just watched as people got filled with the Holy Spirit came to know Jesus, and it was just unbelievable. And when I did my alpha weekend in March, which of this year which ended up being like, you know, an extended few hours together. I mean, I just watched as people wept people who weren't Christians who just said, Who is this Holy Spirit? Like, who is this guy that would show up in my living room, or at my kitchen table on a Sunday evening, when I least expected has to be God? Who else would it be? You can't have done anything? You didn't come to my house? But God did. So it's amazing.

Nathan Benger 7:37

Wow. Yeah, we've got a great story of a girl, one of our campus pastors actually used to work with her. And she just joined our online alpha made a decision. Now she's in a online Connect group at the moment, but in a Connect group connecting to a campus, like, you know, amazing. And, you know, I'm just, you know, just thinking, maybe that wouldn't have happened because of her geography. Maybe that wouldn't have happened if we weren't online. And so it's an incredible opportunity for people. Yeah, I

Shaila Visser 8:13

think we forget that. In the world we live in today. Not only is there a global urbanisation, people are moving into the major cities of the world. But we forget that people don't live in the community that they were born into. And therefore they have all these this relational equity. And when you think about digital evangelism, it's both super local, it's your neighbourhood, and it's the people you're getting to know on your street or around you. And then you've got this global opportunity. So it's like, God said to us, hey, you've talked about neighbouring those of you in Church world and evangelism work. You've talked about neighbouring loving your neighbour, what does that look like caring about the needs of your community? All excellent. But I think we just missed the fact that so many of us have relationships that are all over the world that we've never been able to invite them to something yet we have relational equity. So I think that's happening everywhere. All the stories we hear is, people are inviting others that they've known for a long time just never had a chance to before.

David Mckeown 9:16

Yeah, and as like Nathan said, we've had some success stories here at IKON Church where, you know, not only have people become Christians, but a little bit like yourself when it came to the away day, which was really an away day. In the sense it was like maybe a Saturday morning I think our guys ran it. Yeah, but again people, same experience, people were touched by the Holy Spirit, people experienced God in a fresh way, you know, that I remember the guys posting Yeah, and letting us know, actually, that the Holy Spirit was working in people's lives. And so it is pretty amazing stuff. And maybe just picking up on what you were saying there Shaila was the fact that maybe we had been missing an opportunity, all this time which was in front of us and actually this current season we've been in has forced us to think differently and do things differently. So I think it's pretty amazing. I know there was a big study done wasn't with the Barna group in America. And I've been thinking about that a little bit. To try and work out well, those guys do an amazing job with some of the stats they bring out. And some of the research those guys do is amazing. I was trying to think Well, how does some of that how does it work in let's say, the UK or Europe? What would be your thoughts on some of the findings? Do you think there is a an overlap there?

Shaila Visser 10:34

Well, I think you guys are gonna find this really interesting because I was interviewed by an American podcast, who looked at the same research and found it, because it's really about millennials and primarily Gen Z, or those that are sort of 22. And under and what do they think about digital evangelism, Christian and non Christian, and there's some really interesting stats. But here's what differentiates perhaps Canadians and Brits, or Europeans from the Americans, is, they said, you know, the vast majority people are open to digital evangelism that would consider themselves non Christian. And they said, it's only 14% that are high openness. And so when I was being interviewed by an American, they're like, you know, that's really not very good. And I'm like, Are you kidding? Any Church leader in Canada knew there was a fishing pond of people that were highly open to the gospel 14%. I said, honestly, it's such a different perspective in my country, which is likely the same as the UK, we would be like running to that fishing hole, we'd be like, what there's 14% of our population. And so we've just taken that in Canada and said, Look at Church, this is a huge opportunity, where the Americans are like, you know, it's a little disappointing. we're much more secular. So I thought that was super interesting that Gen Z 14% have a high openness. So it really behoves us to think about what does digital evangelism look like for that generation? So that was one of the really interesting stats.

David Mckeown 12:01

Yeah, well, yeah, I find that interesting as well. And the same idea came to my mind. You know I said to Nathan, before we started on the podcast today, we're 14%. He said that we're interested, we'd be jumping for joy, im sure there is people out there, but like the stats in the UK are much, much lower than what we're used to. So I think definitely, there's scope there.

Shaila Visser 12:25

Yeah, go ahead. Sorry, Nathan. Go ahead. No, go for it. Well, I was gonna say the other interesting stat is that 60% of millennials and 67% of Gen Z, we're looking for coaching and training on how to do evangelism online. And for for so many people, we think, okay, Millennials not interested Gen Z, really not interested in in North America. We call them the nuns and Dones. They've left the Church, they're not interested. But what we have seen in this research with Barna, is that actually, the Christians that are committed are saying, Hey, we need coaching and equipping. We don't know how to do this help us. And I wonder how many of us in the Church are really thinking about what does it mean to equip that generation? To do evangelism, we just are about to release some research in Canada that we've done with Barna in Canada is a lot more like the UK in terms of secularism than it is the US. And what we saw here is Gen Z, Christian Gen Z, what is the number one emotion that they have when they think about evangelism and sharing their faith with their friends? Calm? That is not you think of boomers think? Not their first word. But with Gen Z, they feel calm about it. So can you imagine you've got a generation of Christians that feel calm, because they feel like it's a dialogue? They they're very relational. They just need coaching and equipping This is a massive opportunity. So I think the research is very helpful for the Church, we just have to come about it a bit differently.

Nathan Benger 14:00

Yeah, no, definitely. I think, you know, just being a youth Pastor myself in the Church. I think it is one of the areas that we do need to look at in terms of digital evangelism, and how do we equip a generation to reach their friends online, reach people who they're even gaming with, from across the world? How do we do that? So just kind of moving moving on a little bit or, you know, tying that in? What are the benefits of digital evangelism versus kind of like the in person evangelism? And, you know, is it either or, or is it you know, actually its and, and we do both? Yeah,

Shaila Visser 14:41

I think it's both and truthfully, Nathan, because we have to think about where are we going to reach people? Well, we want to reach people where they are and that happens to be online right now. And it's not going to decrease just because the pandemic is, you know, their countries are open up I know the UK is more open the Canada right now as an example. But that doesn't mean that digital is going away. I think we just have to do both, you know, have digital Church, digital evangelism and in person. And the idea is always to bring people into the in person. But to go out to the edges to pull them in, I think is really important in knowing that 14% of Gen Z are highly interested in an online conversation means it's worth staying there and being activated. And

David Mckeown 15:30

yeah, I think that's a great answer. Actually, it's, it's, it's good to realise that people are going to stay online, they're not, they're not going anywhere, they're still going to be involved on online activities and especial especially like young people. They spend most of most of their lives online, don't they? Yeah, so it's good to be thinking of that, rather than as Nathan. Nathan was saying there. One or the other, it's almost the genius of the and, that this has opened up for us, now. I think a lot of churches should be, I would say they should be grateful, really, that organisations like alpha exist. And they produced, I would say, resources that are such high quality here. I think that's one of the things like I love the you know, we use the film series. And and actually the quality of how they're done is so much better. I mean, obviously, we're used to alpha in the UK, we've run it in the sense of in our church buildings, when it used to just have a booklet or you had a videotape of just Nicky Gumbel on his own. And that worked in certain settings, but not in all settings. So the fact that the materials we have now and churches have, that there's such high quality and they're so useful to resource people as well.

Shaila Visser 16:44

Well we're always trying to reimagine because, you know, for us, it's not about alpha, I think you probably know there in the UK that Nicky Gumbel says as soon as alpha stops working, we're done with it. And I feel the exact same because it's about Jesus, right. That's what we're in for. We're in for Jesus, we want people to meet Jesus, we want to be activated in evangelism, and we want to put our best foot forward. So with our partners around the world, with our best thinking staff with creative people that come on and join us, we want to present the gospel in such a way that it reaches this next generation. So Thanks for the compliment. And we're gonna keep doing all we can to produce resources like that.

Nathan Benger 17:21

No, it's amazing. Like, little question, if you were to say, sit with a Church leader, and you were to kind of talk to them about the like, what they needed to do to engage in digital evangelism, what would you advise them to do?

Shaila Visser 17:36

And I take one step back Nathan and say, What would it mean just to be engaged in evangelism? Because I know that it's a real struggle for most Church leaders. And the best definition I've heard is from my friend, Darrell Johnson, he's an author. He's a theologian, teaches at Regent college here in Vancouver, and is also a local Pastor, and he gave me the best definition I've ever heard. It comes primarily out of john 15, and 16. But you can find it in lots of different passages in the Gospels. But his definition is, evangelism is joining a conversation the Holy Spirit is already having with another person. I want to say that again, evangelism, evangelism is joining a conversation the Holy Spirit is already having with another person. So regardless of it being online, like digital, or in person, we are trying to activate ourselves to join what the father's doing through the work of the Spirit. And so I'm really passionately committed to trying to re engage a whole generation of people who are a bit suspicious of evangelism. Like they're like, I don't want to throw thrust my opinions on someone else. I want to do this very relationally. And we say yes, and amen. Because the Trinity is relational. They always come at us relationally. And we want to do the same. But I think we've forgotten that whether you're digital or in person, the first one into the conversation is the Holy Spirit. The last one out of the conversation is the Holy Spirit. You are never alone. You cannot ruin someone's salvation, because the Holy Spirit loves Jesus more than you do. And he's always glorifying Jesus more than you are. Yeah, so in that case, I just wanted to say that first Nathan, because I really think the Church particularly gauge all the laity on what does it mean to participate in evangelism and really understand biblically so that when we go out there, we don't feel like if I wreck this invitation, it's so done. And I'll give you one example. I said to the Lord, when I was gonna start my alpha online. I said, Lord, I have my little list of three people I'm gonna invite but if there's anyone else you want me to invite, would you please tell me Would you please give me a nudge or picture or put their name in my head and he did. And so the first person he named was my friend Christine we went to university with she lives in Toronto so quite far distance from Me, I called her and I invited her and she said yes. And can I bring some friends? And I remembered at that moment, I was like, yep. See, the Holy Spirit's giving me that name? The Holy Spirit saying to me Shaila, here's where I'm at work. Here's who's ready for an invitation. So I, whenever the Holy Spirit prompted me for a two week period, I'd invite them. Well, he gave me one last name. And I was like, Nope, not inviting her Jewish lawyer. Never had a Christian conversation. We've been very close friends for 25 years. That's a no go zone, right. And she lives in a part of the country that there's a lot of Bible Belt, people that are very, you know, would come across not so winsome.

Shaila Visser 20:42

And, and I'm like, I'm not inviting her. Like, it's just too difficult. But I kept feeling the nudge of the Holy Spirit. And finally, I had my community group praying for me to be courageous. I mean, I run alpha for Canada, and I'm praying to my for my community group to pray, please, that I would invite this woman and I finally did, but it was because she texted me on a Monday morning, my alpha started Tuesday night, Monday, I gave the worst text invitation you've ever heard, I would like to invite you to join alpha, I know that you're Jewish, I know that you find Christians very offensive, mostly, I'm sure that you don't want to come you're so busy. You're moving. Like it was basically like, let me give you all the reasons in my head, you should say no. And, and you know what, she texted me back and said, I can't believe that you were scared to invite me I'd like to come. And it just reminded me, the more we're tuned to the Holy Spirit, the more we engage in evangelism. So the Holy Spirit leads us into digital evangelism, the Holy Spirit leads us to in person evangelism. It is at the end of the day, a sensitivity to the spirit, and to be opportunistic for the sake of the gospel. So I don't think that quite got at the heart of it, Nathan, so feel free to ask me again, like if you need want something else out of it, but I didn't want to start at that position. And come in to understand evangelism a little bit more clearly and help reengage a laity. That's not as convinced as we'd like them to be.

Nathan Benger 22:06

No, I think, I think definitely, I think, you know, it's just good. You know, if that that was the thing you'd say, to a Church leader, I think, you know, even just now, like, it's inspired me to think of people that, you know, even I've been praying for, but to keep praying for and to keep believing the Holy Spirit's at work. And doing that and to join with the Holy Spirit and what the Holy Spirit is doing in a person's life rather than, you know, I you say this to young people, that I'm not the Saviour, but I might be the invitation to the Saviour. And taking that pressure off that it's all on me. It's all on me. And it's very similar that, you know, like, wanna join with what the Holy Spirit's doing. I think that's really powerful.

David Mckeown 22:48

Yeah, I agree with that. And I think it's just a great idea, and quite liberating, I think, for a lot of people, not just Church leaders, but whoever's listening to this podcast, like this idea that, that we can't really wreck someone's salvation moment, you know what I mean? All we need to do is be open and, and even if you do a really bad job at it, like, as you said, that text, I'm not saying that was a really bad job by any means. But it wasn't as you say, your best moment. But God still uses it. And I think I think once we have that in our mind and get away from this idea, I need to have the perfect words, the perfect sentence, the perfect way to invite someone because I don't think there is one, I think it's just have an as you say, Shaila that ready for those opportunities, because opportunities are all around us all the time. And I think if we are open to the opportunities, then actually we can see some amazing stories happening really in people's lives. So I think he did answer very well, just looking for being open to the Holy Spirit. And looking for those opportunities. And I think if most not just church leaders, but most people were to do that to your followers of Jesus. Actually, they probably see a lot more miracles taking place, I think, even in their lives and through their lives. Yeah.

Shaila Visser 24:04

That's right. And, and that's why most days, when I remember, I think the simplest prayer, we can pray, of course, has come Holy Spirit, but I say Holy Spirit, let me join you in what you're doing around you today. And it just gives me a different set of eyes, a different set of ears to actually be attuned. And I say the work of evangelism as is often listening in two directions. One is to the Holy Spirit, what the Holy Spirit saying and the second is to the people around you. But it takes time we as leaders, we have to slow our own lives down a little bit, so that we can have ears in two directions.

David Mckeown 24:38

All right, good. So Shaila, we're talking a little bit right there about this idea that as alpha as the team, whether in Canada or globally, you're always doing new things, or trying to think of new ideas. So I wonder if you could just share with the listeners today or people watching on YouTube or wherever they find the content, a little bit about your process, cuz I've heard you talk a little bit about The hypothesis model, and I find it really interesting. And I think our listeners will find it interesting. So when you come to do a new idea, can you just share a little bit about that? Because I think it'll help people.

Shaila Visser 25:12

Yeah, I got this concept from the Lean Startup by Eric Reis. And it's really a hypotheses testing. And really, in this season, I'm so glad we started doing it prior to COVID. So that when COVID hit, we were like, okay, let's just dig deeper into this, which is build, measure, learn, rebuild, measure, learn, and you have this cycle going. And in the season, where we don't know what the Church is gonna look like, when we come out, and we open up more. We don't know who's coming back, who's not I mean, Church leaders have so many questions right about their, what their Church will look like. And as you're doing it, you've just got to continue this innovation cycle of we built something we measured, we knew what we were measuring, we've evaluated learned from it, and then we're either going to stop it entirely because it was a failure, or we're going to keep going. But I think we just have to have so many hypotheses test going. And for alpha, we have them at the highest, you know, levels of around thinking through product. But then we also choose much higher risk, obviously, and much more costly. But then we have lots of little ones on how we can best digitally support churches, how can we best pray, what's the best Church engagement to help churches realise we're here to serve them. And so that build measure learn cycle is absolutely the most significant thing I've done in my leadership at Alpha Canada to help the team realise you, we've got to try new things, we've got to be attentive to the spirit, and he's teaching us new things. So build, measure, learn really has worked for us, and I think is going to be super fruitful going forward. great

David Mckeown 26:49

concept of build measure learn. And let's try and draw it a little bit. Because I'm just thinking of Church leaders. Some people may be thinking, well, I need to hear the voice of God before I do anything. And I think that's the danger. I think that's the problem that many churches then don't grow. They don't develop because they're sitting waiting for God to say something. And I think by and large, God's already said, Do you mean, so think of this idea of build, measure, learn at allows, churches or leaders to be a bit more innovative, and a bit more creative with what they can do and have the courage if something doesn't work, you've done your build, measure, learn, and you've learned this isn't working? Let's stop it. And let's do something else. I suppose that's a great model. To begin to use. Can you give me an example of how you've used that then in alpha. And, you know, alpha, Canada or global?

Shaila Visser 27:42

Well, you know, I'll give you an example, actually, from a few different churches in Canada that have used this in their context when the pandemic hit, and they couldn't run alpha, like centrally right big meal, big group gathering couple 100 people or 50. People, they had to think through what does this mean now for us in our context, and so they decided to do pilots of, okay, out of a community group, home group Bible, study, whatever you want to call it, we're gonna make those people an alpha, small group, and they're gonna invite their friends. And one of our churches that we work with coastal Church has hypothesised that tried it out early on in the pandemic, it's been so successful that even today, they're still running out through their small groups. And they said, more people are coming to faith. Because alpha is not run centrally, it's run through small groups in their Church. They have 15 alphas running right now. And they said, the number of people they baptised or will be baptised soon, is incredible, and much more fruitful than running alpha centrally. And so they said, they love it, because the lay people got engaged with evangelism. And it wasn't just the same people inviting their friend to a central alpha. So I think that's one example of they tried it small, they tried in a couple, it worked, they learned some things, and then they rolled it out bigger and bigger. And so it's like you always try to do a smaller hypotheses, learn from it and go forward. There's no such thing as a failed hypotheses. Because you learn something, even if you're not going to go forward without strategy, however large or small, you've learned something that's teaching and equipping you on how to move forward. And you might try a completely different hypotheses because that one didn't work. But you've learned something. And that's really important, particularly now.

David Mckeown 29:31

So just to help listeners again, tell us the name of the book.

Shaila Visser 29:36

It's called the Lean Startup by Eric Reis, and I think it's spelled Reis.

David Mckeown 29:42

yeah, well put it in that we'll put it in the show notes. So find that so we've got a few more questions for you. I hope you're okay. It's great just to chat with you. We do want to say it is early for you 8:30 in the morning, or maybe just slightly after and later in the day for us. So if you're looking fresh, you are It's not too early. I've already been to the gym. Yay, we're pleased,. But listen, if you're looking fresher than us, that is why we're trying to explain the people at the end of the day and we've worked hard you know what it is. Okay, so listen, post lockdown. What I mean, we're, I think churches and Church leaders worry at the stage now where we're almost at the other side of, I suppose the pandemic, we're on the move of beginning to do services were involved in services. I think we had a question around like, Well, what does digital evangelism look like? Post lockdown? Let's say we're back to normal. If there is such a thing we're back to I suppose running our services. What does digital evangelism fit in then? Do you think? Do you think alpha will continue with the online stuff as well?

Shaila Visser 30:50

Absolutely, absolutely. We'll continue with online, I think, I'll just say coming out of pandemic, I think, if we think about the analogy of being fishers of men and women, right, young and old, you go to the fishing holes, and you find the right fishing holes. And I think as we come out of the pandemic, and whatever the different types of coming out look like, I think we have to ask ourselves, how do we first of all, engage our laity again, in the work of evangelism if they weren't already? But then secondly, where where's the fishing hole for that person, that small group, your congregation? Is it really super local, because you've done so much local support during the pandemic of feeding the hungry, really taking care of widows and orphans in your community meeting so many practical needs that you feel like actually a local embodied alpha? Is the right way? Or is it online? And then if it's online, then how, how will that? Look? I think both will exist. I think it's because we're always thinking about where are we fishing? And for me, I just know I have relationships all over the world and all over the country, why would I just stick to my neighbours, I will try and evangelise my neighbours and do everything I can. But I'm also going to want my friends to meet Jesus, who live far away. So I think both. I also think, you know, as we come out of this, we have to be thinking about what role does engagement look like online. And we have to be so careful in digital evangelism, that we don't leave spiritual orphans out there. It's not just run alpha online. Thank you for coming. Glad you met Jesus hope you come to our Church on Sunday on the online service, or in person. But it has to be thought through what is the follow up, because digital evangelism requires a longer tail of involvement digitally before they're willing to get into a local community. So just be careful when you're in digital evangelism that you think through discipleship, the early stages of it, so that people can really engage and understand what it means to be a follower of Jesus. We do not want spiritual orphans running around post alpha, no.

David Mckeown 33:08

Great answer that

Nathan Benger 33:09

is really, really great, and really practical for Church leaders to begin to think about and to begin to think about what does that future look like going forward? for us as a Church? How does that look for us going forward? One thing I want to kind of think about in terms of the future as well, is you mentioned, obviously, you know, people wanting coaching, you know, training on digital evangelism. Do you think that's something in the future that actually, or even not in the future like now that we need to be thinking, Okay, what does this look like? And how do we help our people to do this? And is there anything out there that, you know, might help people to get involved in that?

Shaila Visser 33:57

Yeah, I think coaching and equipping and training has always been so important for every part of the Christian life, right? It's not just evangelism, it's every part. But I do think there's a particular opportunity coming out of COVID, during COVID that we haven't seen in a number of decades, which is a culture that's really hurting a culture that's really asking very profoundly meaningful questions. And so we need to have a Church that's ready to engage those questions. So the coaching and equipping and training is so important of the laity, because it's not just the Pastor that's going to have these have these conversations. It's not the person at the front, who's going to try and address it. Actually, when you think about it, it's going to happen at the workplace. It's going to happen on your zoom call. When people are waiting for the zoom call to start. It's gonna happen when you're walking your dog and you run into your neighbour. Those are the places where these conversations are going to happen, because there's relational equity. There's conversation, there's relationship happening. And so I just think when we are thinking about the future, we really have to be thinking about how do we equip them to open up those conversations, because likely most people have gone through some sort of trauma, depression, mental struggles, disappointments, losses over the last year and a half. And they need a safe place to talk. And so how are we equipping our people to be first of all great listeners? And then how do we teach them how to love well, and love includes an invitation? It always will, it always does.

David Mckeown 35:34

I like that phrase, that's a great phrase love, including an invitation. And it has to be there doesnt it that invitation into people's lives? And I think just picking up a little bit about what you said Shaila was the fact that it's not only the Church leader who has those global relationships, but actually people who are in the Church have lots of different relationships. So I just in my mind, I'm thinking if churches miss out on the opportunity of digital evangelism, if we want to call it that, then they're missing out in so many relationships that they've already built over the years where they can connect them to God. So I think it's important for us to keep that in mind and for Church leaders to keep that in mind as well, that actually, hey, you know, not it's not just about them, but it's actually about people in the Church as well. They've got all those relationships are ready, we got to help people, connect those people towards God, don't we?

Shaila Visser 36:30

Yeah, it's so important. And I just think the coaching and equipping, you know, I think people are going to be reluctant to do a course on it. No one wants to do a course.

David Mckeown 36:40

Yeah, gotta call it something else don't we.

Shaila Visser 36:43

Yeah, exactly. But we did create a resource out of Canada that alpha has made available globally, not just through our national office here called lifeshare. And it really is trying to get at the heart of this. It features john Tyson from New York City, Daniel Strickland, from here in Toronto, and Jay Pathik. From the US. And they they're all talking about how do we live this neighbouring loving lifestyle, and we just need to supplement it with what does that mean online, but that could be a resource that Church leaders say, hey, life shared would be great for our small groups to talk about particularly coming out of the pandemic, when we need to really lean in to listen in love. Fantastic.

David Mckeown 37:25

So just thinking of, we're down to our final question here. What what else is alpha developing? What What have you got in the pipeline? We're a little bit nosy if we're honest, because we want to be ahead of the curve. Yeah. So is there anything in particular you guys are developing? I know you've said this particular courses as Well, that you know, with john Tyson, I think people will pick up on that anything else?

Shaila Visser 37:48

Yeah, I'll just say that we are already activated in creating our new resources, the next alpha film series, the next alpha youth series. I mean, we are really, really motivated to how can we engage, equip and help serve churches as they reach the next generation? Now, that always takes a while to come out. So don't be asking me like when it's not this year, it takes a couple years for the product to come together. But I'm particularly passionate about teenagers. And probably like you, Nathan, like just want to see that generation raised up to love the Lord and to reach their friends because they're actually relationally, terrific at evangelism. They know how to do it. In a, perhaps even better way than most of us, they just need to be coached and equipped. So I would say that our next alpha youth series and some other resources that we're looking to put out by September, will be really great to serve and equip the Church to reach the next generation.

David Mckeown 38:46

Fantastic. Well, listen, it's been so good to chat with you today. On the Church explained podcast, Nathan's gonna wrap up for us in a moment. But is there anything else you want to just share with people anything that's in your mind? You think I just want to say that, did you like to share with the Church leaders?

Shaila Visser 39:03

Yeah, I just want to remind you that the good news is still great. It's still powerful. It's still so impactful. And I know, it sounds funny to say that to Church leaders, but somehow in the weariness of leading, we forget that there's power in the name of Jesus and that when we get an opportunity to share him with others, it awakened something in us and in them. I think evangelism is both the the gift for us as Christians as well as the gift for those that don't know Jesus. So join him join the Holy Spirit what he's doing in the world. It is an exciting time to be leading in the Church.

Nathan Benger 39:42

That's amazing. Shaila, how would people who want to connect with you How would they be able to connect with you, you're on Instagram, social media, all of that? Yep,

Shaila Visser 39:51

I am. It's pretty easy to find me on Instagram. I'm at Shaila Visser. I'm on Twitter, but I don't post very often and linkedin seems to be a place where lots of Church leaders, at least in North America go, but I'm easy to find on social media and happy to hear from any Church leaders that want to start a dialogue. That's amazing.

Nathan Benger 40:11

Well, it's been great to be together on the Church explained podcast want to thank Shaila, for being with us, and please do connect with her wherever you can. And we look forward to seeing you next time on the Church explained podcast. But before you go, you can rate review, subscribe, do all of that, wherever you're consuming this content, and please check out ikon.church/open the show notes will be on there. You'll be able to see all past episodes of the Church explained podcast plus also all the free resources that you can get for your Church for your teams in that but we look forward to seeing you next time on the Church explained podcast. That's a wrap

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