We're borrowing an important interview from the MyCom Podcast. Host Ryan Dunn talked with Rev. J.J. Warren about what defines a church and how J.J. is putting the definition into practice through the Church of the Young Prophets. Drawing from his theological background and experiences with the Young Prophets Collective, J.J. discusses the evolution of virtual worship spaces, the significance of platforms like Discord and Instagram, and the challenges of maintaining boundaries in digital ministry.
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Episode Notes:
Rev. J.J. Warren (he/him) is the author of two books: Reclaiming Church: A Call to Action for Religious Rejects and Where Two or Three are Connected: Being the Church in This New Era. After making an impassioned plea for the inclusion of LGBTQ+ persons at The United Methodist Church’s (UMC) top law-making assembly in 2019, Rev. J.J.’s speech went viral, and his advocacy has been covered by HuffPost, NBC, Brut Media, and WXXI Radio. He currently resides in Vienna where he is a lecturer at the University of Vienna and guest faculty online for the Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School.
Some links to check out:
- Church of the Young Prophets
- The platform they use for digital gathering is Gather.town
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This episode posted on September 4, 2024
Episode Transcript:
Ryan Dunn [00:00:01]:
Hi. This is the Compass Podcast, finding the spiritual in the everyday. We're doing something a little bit different in this episode. I've just come back from a trip to Virginia. I'm very excited about because we were exploring some really innovative expressions of church out there. And I'm looking forward to sharing the stories of those ministries with you as well as kind of bringing an answer to the question of, like, what are we talking about when we're talking about
Ryan Dunn [00:00:28]:
church, with some great stories.
Ryan Dunn [00:00:30]:
I also brought back a case of COVID. So not a 100%, and then my voice sounds weird. That's the case. And with that, I've I've not been able to work up a and with that, I've
Ryan Dunn [00:00:44]:
I've not been able to work up a episode for this edition of Compass.
Ryan Dunn [00:00:44]:
So here's what we're gonna do. I'm actually gonna borrow a topic from my other podcast that I produce called the Micon podcast. And this is, actually we're borrowing a full interview. It's with Reverend JJ Warren and it gets into that question of what are we talking about when we're talking about church? What makes something church? And in this episode specifically, we get into talking about online expressions of church and how we can live into the call and practice of church, the fully online community. AJ is somebody that I think a lot of people should get to know. Very exciting person, a young leader in the church, the founder of the Young Prophets Collective. And of course, you can check out more about JJ Warren at jjwarren.org or find out more about the Young Prophets community at young prophets collective.org. So we're gonna get into where the church is present in digital spaces on this interview borrowed from the Mycom podcast, which I encourage you to check out sometime as well here now on the Compass podcast.
Ryan Dunn [00:01:58]:
How it goes with your soul today?
JJ Warren [00:02:01]:
Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. It is well with my soul. It is always good to talk to another United Methodist and, especially good to do so from here in Vienna.
Ryan Dunn [00:02:13]:
Yeah. Well, I appreciate you making the commitment to, bridge the gap of space and time to be with us as we're recording in Nashville, Tennessee. You may actually be the 1st Gen z voice that we've had on this podcast. I I realized that's a little bit of an an indictment. So and maybe maybe a little more responsibility than you wanted to take on, but we're gonna ask you to, with a bit of a wink and a nod, be a voice of a generation. Is there something that you wish that the older generations, say my generation, Gen X, understood about your generation's online presence?
JJ Warren [00:02:52]:
That's a great question. And emphasizing the wink and the nod
Ryan Dunn [00:02:56]:
on this.
JJ Warren [00:02:58]:
A lot of times when I'm visiting churches around the connection, they say, what is the answer to get young people? Right. And I always have to caveat that, well, in my experience, and this is not speaking for all young people, is I I wish that older generations, and I think this has changed since the pandemic to a certain degree.
Ryan Dunn [00:03:20]:
But I wish certain older generations that
JJ Warren [00:03:20]:
didn't grow up with social media as an ingrained part of our lives understood that online spaces, like social media and virtual churches are real and authentic communities for many of us. And so sometimes I think there's this, not a grudge per se, but this sense that an online space can't be real and you young people need to get off your phones, and get outside because that's where the real world is.
Ryan Dunn [00:03:51]:
Yeah. Yeah. Fair enough. I had kind of a watershed moment with my son, who is now 16 years old, and, and he was this was a number of years ago. He was playing Minecraft, and we were asking him to to turn it off. We had some place to go. And so finally, in frustration, I just ran into his room, and I shut the Xbox off. And it it it elicited an emotional meltdown, not because I took something away from him, but because as he put it, I didn't get a chance to say goodbye to my friends.
Ryan Dunn [00:04:24]:
And at that point, I realized that, oh, in the same way, like, he wants me to leave the church building right after service is done. And and I wanna hang on and socialize. Like, this is what he was doing. And in his mind, there was no difference between that narthex time and this time saying goodbye in that digital space. This is
JJ Warren [00:04:44]:
That is a beautiful parallel. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.
Ryan Dunn [00:04:48]:
Well, I I have particularly enjoyed some of the ways that you have platform discussions around the online expressions of church that that you've looked at. So, I wanna borrow a question that you ask of of your readers in in your book where 2 or 3 are are connected. And that question is what needs to occur in order for a church to be a church?
JJ Warren [00:05:14]:
That is I can't say that's a great question since I asked.
Ryan Dunn [00:05:18]:
You asked. Yes. But it is a great question. That's why we're trying it back out. It's a convicting question in many ways.
JJ Warren [00:05:25]:
Yeah. And, you know, some of this, it's always been my fascination ever since I was a child with the church and, playing communion, which, you know, maybe isn't okay, but I enjoyed it in the backyard and I'd set up with my younger brother. We would set up little plastic chairs, in the weeds and that would be our congregation. And, we would have our mom sit there. She was great. And she sat through our little services and he would process with a little stick and twine cross and I would go behind him. And we had our own little church services together because we just loved creating church. Right? What? Of course.
Ryan Dunn [00:06:07]:
That's the most fun game for you.
JJ Warren [00:06:08]:
Right? Left lane. Sure.
Ryan Dunn [00:06:11]:
Yeah. I mean, I didn't maybe necessarily do that. But
JJ Warren [00:06:15]:
And so it this idea of what is the church has has always been something that's fascinated me. And so I think as I think about what does it require to be a church? The pandemic threw us into asking that question in ways that we should have been asking all along, but had the privilege of not having to ask in a lot of communities. Now, of course, there are great churches out there and Umcom was doing a great job of this, of saying, well, what what does it mean to be the church? And let's have articles, about how we do certain parts of our church life online. What are the best ways that we can facilitate, that? But I think for me, being the church online requires and I talk about this in the book in where 2 or 3 are connected. They say researchers of digital religions, specifically Meredith Gould and Tim Hutchings, say that to for an online community to be a real community for participants, it requires time, energy, and emotional investment on the part of the participants. And I think we see that in real life, not real. I try to get away from that language in physical life as well. That in our physical lives, our communities for them to be real to us, they require us to put time into these relationships, to invest our emotions and, to put our energy into this community that it's something that matters to us.
JJ Warren [00:07:46]:
And so those those parallel online that we need time, energy, and emotions so that, you know, layperson 367 isn't just a random person I'm commenting or chatting with, but that's John in Australia, you know, whose life story I have come to know and whose daughter is my, you know, Instagram friend who goes to this coffee shop that we both happen to know the owner of. And it's those connections and that time and that energy and those emotions that make a community real online. Now for a church, then I'd have to say you have to read where 2 or 3 are connected because I believe that the four marks of the church, from our creeds, right, that the church is 1 holy Catholic and apostolic, that these four marks are important for us, and not just for me as a nerd, as a theologian here at the University of Vienna, but for all of us to understand that when we say we are the church, we are inheriting 100 of years of tradition that inform the way in which we understand it, whether we are continuing certain traditions and even in our protest of certain traditions, but everything, our embodiment and our protest, our continuation and protest rather, is all playing back with and against tradition, And so understanding those four marks in a digital age is essential for us to say, yeah. What does it mean for us to be one online? What technology is the most conducive to oneness? What does it mean to be apostolic, to be sent in new ways? What does it mean to be sent on Instagram? How do we do that well? How do we do that ethically? And questions such as that.
Ryan Dunn [00:09:33]:
Yeah. Well, I wanna tune in a little bit to what you mentioned about emotional connection that that's one of the aspects of what creates, I guess, a a relationship or a community, and as you put it as a church community more specifically. So for many of us, we are attracted to online spaces because they offer a sense of anonymity. And that can be awful sometimes. Right? Because people will hide behind that anonymity to say some of the worst inclinations of their hearts. And that in itself can put up a bit of a barrier to building emotional connections in digital spaces. So are there some ways or some platforms that you have found it helpful in creating an emotional bond or connection with people in digital spaces?
JJ Warren [00:10:31]:
Yeah. And I I think that's a fascinating point that on the one hand, there's this idea of, I think maybe in the, you know, early 2000 nineties, if I can remember way back then when I was even younger than I am now, There's this idea that, communicating online is totally anonymous. Right? I remember when a chat room, was first starting and my sisters would be using chat rooms and messaging with people that I can't remember if they knew or not. And to a certain degree Oh my god. Right. And to a certain degree, I that still happens. But I think with not only the amount of data that all of these websites are tracking, they know who we are, but also for me, social media platforms. And for I would, guess a lot of gen zers social media platforms are intimately personal.
JJ Warren [00:11:24]:
They're necessarily personal because it's, that is an extension, of ourselves. And that is part of the, realm in which we live, that it is not discontinuous with our offline life. And Deanna Thompson talks about this in her book, virtual body of Christ from Abingdon Press that the in many ways, online spaces can be more incarnational, may allow us to encounter each other's humanity more deeply because they allow us to share parts of our stories that, you know, maybe we wouldn't feel as comfortable sharing if you and I were sitting down at a coffee shop surrounded by people right now, that we have some intimacy in this space that allows us, to communicate more deeply. Sometimes that anonymity, in a different sense, sometimes anonymity allows people to go deeper more quickly.
Ryan Dunn [00:12:17]:
So in
JJ Warren [00:12:17]:
a lot of the couple virtual churches that exist out there, they some some of their, testimonies have been that if folks participate without using their real name, or their image, that sometimes they feel more comfortable sharing more about themselves more quickly because they have that safety of being anonymous. That isn't necessarily my experience because I don't use platforms anonymously. And most of the church, that I work with in our virtual church, church of the young prophets, is is using and inviting people's personalities themselves from social media, and to gather us together in a virtual space. And I'm not sure if this is the right time to talk about that or a little bit later on. You let me know.
Ryan Dunn [00:13:04]:
Yeah. Well, you can if you had more to add there, we can complete that thought, and then we'll get into the practicalities of, the Young Prophets collective.
JJ Warren [00:13:13]:
Yeah. So I I think that your your question about platforms that are conducive to fostering relationships, in a way where we often think of being online as being anonymous. I think that question is really key to the question of is online church really church, or can online communities be real church communities? And I think that question that you asked is the better question. Is what about the ways in which we're gathering online are conducive to fostering authentic relationships, not can technology do it. Because during the pandemic, almost all of us were forced online. So we did experience having church online. So I think that that first question is it's out the window for me taken for granted, the answer is yes. So the second and more interesting question is, yeah, which platforms allow us to engage more authentically? And I think that that that requires more two way communication, so platforms like Zoom as opposed to a simple live stream that's only one directional.
JJ Warren [00:14:25]:
If you're using a one directional platform, you know, utilizing the chat and whatnot, but finding platforms that allow for more communication both ways and aren't just, one directional, will be key for us to creating authentic communities and real churches.
Ryan Dunn [00:14:43]:
Well, Church of the Young Prophets, this organization that you've started in in conjunction with the Young Prophets Collective is an online church. As you were founding that, were there certain aspects that or I don't know. Did we can think programmatically, like, programs that you felt like it was necessary for us to identify how we're gonna do this in order for us to be a church?
JJ Warren [00:15:09]:
And you you mentioned 2 two parts of it. So on the one hand, Young Profits Collective is a 501c3 nonprofit that I founded in the aftermath of general conference 2019. For those of you that are watching the visual here, you'll see the pink blazer, and that became my beacon of during that general conference sharing a few words of my story, and that resonating with a lot of young people around the connection. And from that space, realizing that even when our church is making decisions that exclude a lot of people, there are still a lot of people in the church, especially young people who say we're still here. We we still have something to contribute. And so to me, that's the prophetic voice that says we know something's not right here. We're not going to leave though. We still have something to say.
JJ Warren [00:16:01]:
We feel God is calling us to prophesy love into this context, of division. And so that's where Young Prophets Collective started and that was before the pandemic and we were always online simply because we were young United Methodists around the world. So we had no other option. And so we'd meet on Zoom. We met over Slack for notifications for, you know, talking about different topics and education. And slowly that evolved, into a worshiping community, which is now supported by the New England Conference of the United Methodist Church, Church of the Young Prophets.
Ryan Dunn [00:16:38]:
Yeah. When you were starting that Young Prophets collective, did you envision that you were gonna move into it being a worshiping community, or did you have any initial alright. There was no vision for that. Okay.
JJ Warren [00:16:51]:
Not at all. At first, we were just a hodgepodge group of young people from around the world, who said we how how do we help churches in this time? How do we show that young people have a voice in the church? How do we help shape, the future of the denomination? Because we're not only the church of tomorrow, we are the church of today. And even, you know, as a young person who was at general conference, a lot of the conversations about the future of the denomination didn't include young people. And so it was important for me for that to happen. But then in the process of writing this book, and to do that, I interviewed United Methodist pastors around the world. So United Methodist pastors in Kenya, in, the Philippines, in Singapore, in, across Europe and the United States to ask them how how their understanding of church had changed because of the pandemic. And through those interviews, through the wisdom that they shared, and that I got to collect for this book, that gave me the feeling of, ah, okay. Something something feels right here.
JJ Warren [00:17:59]:
This this feels like the groundwork of perhaps a next ministry for Young Prophets Collective is to say, yeah. How can we use these insights that everyone has shared with us, to create a space where folks feel welcome, feel affirmed, and feel like they have a church that's accessible to them.
Ryan Dunn [00:18:17]:
In conducting those interviews, what were some discoveries you made that were really surprising to you? Or was there one in particular that stuck out that you were like, I did not anticipate that being the reality?
JJ Warren [00:18:33]:
Yeah. If I think I was most most fascinated by, the district superintendent I spoke with in the Philippines, because she was telling me about how a lot of the cultural practices, like blessing of a house or a car, were moving online. And so if someone was, getting a new house during the pandemic or, a new car, they would still they made sure to have an online service so that they could bless that car, or that house. And that in her experience, she said, and I share this in one of the chapters, that it it made the church more contextual and more personal for the members. That they felt like it wasn't just a place and a community that existed at one time in one place. But now the church, you know, it's happening in their homes as they're watching the live stream or in the Zoom meeting. And it's it's not only being in worship, but it's also blessing the car together with more people, in their home and involved, so many different ways that brought them deeper into the community to provide meals in ways that they weren't doing before, to provide for their neighbors who weren't part of their worshiping community. So I think that was really interesting to me.
Ryan Dunn [00:19:57]:
Okay. We're talking with JJ Warren, author of Where 2 or 3 are Connected on the Mycom podcast. JJ, again, going back to this, collective that that you've helped give life to, the the Young Prophets Collective and specifically the the Church of Young Prophets. What inspired you to make the turn or make the addition of a worshiping community to this group that sounded like it was it was pulled together just as a, like a meeting place for people who shared a common interest and common passion. How did that give rise then to this need of wanting to or this need of becoming a a worshiping community, something that we might identify as church?
JJ Warren [00:20:46]:
Yeah. And as I as I was thinking about this, really, it and I I hate to be self promotional, but it comes back to the title of my first book, Reclaiming Church with the United Methodist Publishing House. I've been impressed. And seeing you know, I had no idea that that really was, as we've already talked about, the idea of church has fascinated me, ever since I was a child. And so reclaiming church and what it means to be church, has been the path, that's brought me to where I am and the way in which I understand my ministry now as a provisional elder in the United Methodist Church is we are reclaiming, meaning to take the power away. This is the prophetic edge here, to take the power away from folks who use the church to harm. So, you know, Methodists reclaim the term Methodist. Methodist was a slur.
JJ Warren [00:21:40]:
Right? It was something that was used against us, as well as bible moths. I'm glad bible moths isn't the one that we reclaimed. Right? That doesn't go so well on a t shirt
Ryan Dunn [00:21:50]:
or a logo.
JJ Warren [00:21:51]:
Yeah. So to reclaim, to take the power away from those who use the church to harm and then to find something inherently affirming and liberating in the idea of church itself. That, hey. Wait a second. Church ought to be a community that as Jesus said is defined by our radical love for one another. And so Church of the Young Prophets grew as I recognize that a lot of young people, are turned off by the church, you know, don't are not religious because of so much harm, that has been done in the name of the church. And so even entering a physical church is a barrier, not only physically for persons with physical disabilities, but also emotionally and spiritually for folks who have had those bad experiences with the church. So creating a space that sort of eased and lowered that tension as much as possible to say, okay.
JJ Warren [00:22:50]:
You don't have to step foot in that building that is physically and viscerally triggering for you or inaccessible. You can come to a place where you have more agency. So you have the opportunity at Church of the Young Prophets. We meet in a platform called Gather that I'll show you in a bit. But in this space, you have the opportunity to decide, will I turn my camera on or not? And that's totally okay to not. Will I turn my microphone on or not? And it's totally okay to not. Will I chat in the chat? Will I move my avatar close to other people, or will I stay on my own? There's a lot more agency for the individual intentionally to relieve that stress and that pressure and that anxiety that oftentimes comes with, okay. You know, even when I go home to visit my mom in Nashville, am I gonna go to this physical church, where I'm locked in then for that good hour or more, next to folks? And I'm I'm I I feel like I can't leave, and I have less agency in this space, which for me as a gen zer, you know, and as a queer person and a pastor is just not as safe for me.
JJ Warren [00:24:02]:
Whereas here, it says, okay. If I'm uncomfortable, if someone says something harmful, or if I simply need a moment alone, I can close the tab. I can turn off my video. I can leave, and it's okay.
Ryan Dunn [00:24:16]:
Well, let's get into that digital space a little bit because I think one of the barriers that we face in trying to transition our existence of the church community into a digital space is how we facilitate a sense of proximity to one another. And I I think that you've come up with some ways of beginning to to bridge that together. So let's take a look at what that looks like in in your context with, Church of the Young Prophets, if we can.
JJ Warren [00:24:49]:
Yeah. And I I love how you said proximity, and you can see Church of the Young Prophets now. Right?
Ryan Dunn [00:24:54]:
Mhmm. I can't.
JJ Warren [00:24:55]:
Okay. For the folks listening, you are now in my virtual office. It is a cartoon kind of style. Our folks say it's somewhere between Pokemon go and or Pokemon style and sims, that sort of vibe. And this is my virtual office here in Church of the Young Prophets. And what I love about the way that you frame the question is you said proximity. And to me, that's that's essential. This feeling that we are somehow, though we are in different places and this comes back to the church's oneness, that somehow we are in the same place.
JJ Warren [00:25:38]:
Somehow we are next to one another. So this is my little office where folks come in throughout the week, and it offers this privacy. So, I can still have 1 on 1 meetings and pastoral care with folks just like I would in a physical church.
Ryan Dunn [00:25:55]:
And I feel like that's important to note out that you can actually like, one of the the barriers in some, virtual meeting spaces is that they are completely open air. Right? And so within this space, you're able to say, okay. We can pull people aside and have a more intimate, conversation in that space. That's very cool.
JJ Warren [00:26:17]:
Yes. Exactly. And that's that's what I love about Gather Town, over a platform like Zoom, for instance. And I don't get commissions from Gather Town here. I just love the platform. Is that it provides intimacy. So you'll notice when I step into I'm stepping into a little, seating area at our lobby, and so anyone who, joins into our church here, our church campus, and the link is available on our website, young prophets collective.org, You'll find yourself here in our lobby and when you step into an area like the seating area, the rest of the screen gets dark and it highlights only this area. That acts as a private space so that you only see and hear and can communicate with the folks who are also in your private area.
JJ Warren [00:27:06]:
Much like in a physical space, how we can go off into a corner and talk and the folks on the other side of the room, you know, don't hear what we're talking about so that we can have that intimacy that's required for a community, where multiple people are in the same place at the same time. I always hated logging into a Zoom webinar, and seeing just all those faces, you know, maybe 50 folks. And how do you there's no way to do small talk well with 50 people staring at each other.
Ryan Dunn [00:27:35]:
Yeah. Or even to in some cases, I find myself holding back on a question because it's a question that's relevant simply for me and not to the
Ryan Dunn [00:27:44]:
entire group.
Ryan Dunn [00:27:45]:
So this offers the opportunity to to, I guess, in a sense, not involve, invite, or, or waste other people's time getting an answer to a question that may not specifically be relevant to them.
JJ Warren [00:28:00]:
Yeah. Yes. Exactly. And this what I also love is that we've, reclaimed a lot of as I said, I'm a nerd, and so we've reclaimed a lot of historic Christian traditions and repurposed
Ryan Dunn [00:28:13]:
that. Yeah.
JJ Warren [00:28:15]:
Yes. For an online space and which for folks with physical disabilities for whom a labyrinth maybe isn't accessible, now you can do prayer labyrinths here at Church of the Own Prophets. So we have different, quotes and links and scriptures linked into each candle, and you can walk the labyrinth and you press x here, and it's an interactive platform. And so things will pop up all throughout the platform, and it's it is meant to be a church. It is meant to be a spiritual space where you can come and be renewed and meditate and do a prayer labyrinth and anything that you would ever want to do at a church, but wherever you are in the world, which I just absolutely love.
Ryan Dunn [00:29:02]:
Do you hold consistent office hours within this space? So somebody popping on, say, at 11 o'clock would, you know, count on seeing pastor JJ at that time.
JJ Warren [00:29:13]:
Yes. So, normally, I do office hours, and it's interesting with all of our time zones since I'm here in Vienna, and a lot of our folks are in the US, but also Kenya and Europe, and Australia. That's most difficult time zone for us right now. Is I'm here on Mondays, for 2 hours and Thursdays, and then we have, different services to try and accommodate different time zones. So our weekly worship, and I'll walk you up to our sanctuary here. We're in the sanctuary now sitting by a fireplace that's glowing yellow because if you press x, it will give you the link to watch our last week service while you're sitting here at a cute digital fireplace. Right? And, there are virtual dogs that will come with you wherever you like. And this is where our worship happens here in the sanctuary, every Saturday at 12 PM EST, 11 PM CST, and 9 AM Pacific time.
JJ Warren [00:30:11]:
And so we gather here in this virtual sanctuary, and we've repurposed the Methodist small group model. So during our worship, we are about 40 minutes because online research shows that 40 minutes is about the attention span of folks online. And so our worship services are about 40 minutes. And during the service, I only share I say, a 5 minute mini sermon. It's usually 7 ish minutes of a mini sermon to introduce Faster time.
Ryan Dunn [00:30:42]:
That's 5 minutes. Right?
JJ Warren [00:30:43]:
Exactly. Right? Yes. And so I just introduced the topic. And then most of the service is spent around these virtual couches, which is our way of repurposing the Methodist small group model. So you can talk to the folks who are also around your couch. And so keep in mind when you're here, you're talking with folks from around the world. So you're talking with, folks from Uganda and Kenya and California, during worship, and we reflect on 3 questions, as part of our worship and that's the majority of our time is talking together, sharing the wisdom from each person's experiences, and discussing how the theme of the day. And, normally, we use the lectionary.
JJ Warren [00:31:29]:
United Methodist, Discipleship Ministries offers us great resources, which we often use, and to talk about how that theme is not only applicable to our spiritual lives, but in real Methodist Wesleyan fashion, how it calls us deeper into our communities wherever we are around the world.
Ryan Dunn [00:31:47]:
One of the things I know you've thought through is how you involve people once they kinda enter into the space. Can you take us through that journey a little bit? So say for example, I decided that I'm gonna come and, fishbowl in a sense to the, the next worship gathering. What would that look like for me?
JJ Warren [00:32:10]:
Thank you. That is a really great comment. So we we try to be along with our call to be as accessible as possible and to give more agency to each person who worships with us, that means creating intentional space because I know for me, at least, when I enter a church, whether it's physical or digital, I feel like there's the expectation that I need to be present, meaning I need to participate. And so I would feel the burden of, yeah, I need to turn my camera on. I need to unmute. And so if you're like me at all in that way, then we also have created spaces. Is is that a yes? I see some
Ryan Dunn [00:32:52]:
Yes. Yes.
JJ Warren [00:32:53]:
Yeah. Slightly.
Ryan Dunn [00:32:54]:
Yeah. Even past the the fishbowl, I guess, experience. That was the wrong term for it. But if I'm looking to if it's my first time, I'm a first time visitor in your worship space. Yeah. What does that journey look like?
JJ Warren [00:33:06]:
Yeah. So once you get in here and you choose so you click the link on our website, youngprofitscollective.org. It says click here to access our Gather, campus. Once you click that, you enter your name, your pronouns, you can edit your avatar to reflect any features that you would like it to have, including mobility devices like a wheelchair. And once you've done that, it'll say welcome, who would you like to see, and you click on anyone who has greeter in their name. This is only for your first time in. If it's your first time visiting, that's how we keep the space safe from zoom bombing, for instance, something like that. And so you click on someone who has greeter in their name, you're admitted, and you're welcomed into the space.
JJ Warren [00:33:52]:
And at that point, you can either turn on your camera and mic or not and just put in the chat, hi. Thank you for admitting me or whatnot. Glad to be here. And we have lots of tours of the space on our Instagram to try and give folks an understanding, but normally the greeter will put you right here in the sanctuary. And if at that point you'd still just like to be present but not participate, you can come to this couch in the middle that says quiet area. And so if you step here with your avatar, no one will bug you and you can no social expectations to participate whatsoever. We're just happy you're here, that you're present with us for worship.
Ryan Dunn [00:34:31]:
There was another cool feature that I I saw lifted up on your website that once your avatar comes in close proximity with somebody else's, then an additional window appears. Can you tell us about that a little bit?
JJ Warren [00:34:44]:
This is the other thing I love about this, and it come it comes back to that proximity and intimacy that you talked about. So if someone else is in the space, you'll see my r two d two bot here. I'm a Star Wars nerd, so, we had to name it r two d two. Once r two d two comes close to me, right now, I'm in a private space. So r 2d2 can't see or hear me, and I can't see or hear r 2d2. But if r 2d2 steps in here, now we can see and hear the camera's off, but you see the face of the avatar here. And so you would see and hear and would be able to talk to one another in a private space much like in a physical church if you wanted to chat after coffee hour. Now if you're not in a private space, for instance, if r two d two and I were walking outside here just in the sanctuary, when we get close to each other, his image gets bigger, and, more colorful.
JJ Warren [00:35:44]:
When I walk away like a physical space, it starts to fade out and then you'll notice it disappears so that it mimics the, spatial aspect of a physical gathering in a way that Zoom or Facebook live just can't. And I love that about this space.
Ryan Dunn [00:36:01]:
Yes. That is very Do you get a sense of how people are discovering the young prophets collective in in the church of the young prophets?
JJ Warren [00:36:12]:
You know, it's a lot of word-of-mouth right now for our the folks who have gone through our young prophets cohort program, and have been part of our community for a while. Instagram is our main area. You know, we say we have several campuses at Church of the Young Prophets. One of them is gather, and for me, this is this is a bias that I have that I also had to check that for me when I think of my virtual church, this virtual church, I think of it as gather. I think of that as the the main campus. But church is beyond a space, whether that be a physical or a digital space, and I had to check that for a digital space as well. So, most of our another one of our campuses is our Instagram account with Young Prophets Collective, and we try to post resources and links, and just content that's specifically designed to engage people's spirituality on Instagram. So that's another way that folks are finding us, and how we are trying to navigate that.
JJ Warren [00:37:15]:
And we've used a couple other chat platforms as well, specifically Discord. Have yeah. Which was new to me.
Ryan Dunn [00:37:22]:
Yeah. Okay. And it Discord can be cool because it's, it's kind of the ever present space. So it seems that the the gather is kind of been marked by, well, you know, we have certain hours in which that space is occupied by other people, but the discord is the always present. Is, is that kind of how you're using that that discord space now to kind of maintain some asynchronous conversations?
JJ Warren [00:37:50]:
Yes. And I love how you said ever present. That that was my my difficulty with Zoom worship was that you join it, and then it's it disappears. It's gone. There's no sense of space that I can come back to. And that's one of the reasons I love gather is and a lot of our folks will use physical language of, yeah, I'm going to church. I I'm entering the sanctuary. I and it it is a space that is always there.
JJ Warren [00:38:16]:
So even if we don't have a worship service happening or office hours, everyone, once you're admitted the first time, you become a member and you're able to come back whenever you'd like so that you can, you know, go to the labyrinth. You can play games on our rooftop lounge with a friend who happens to also be there, to give that sense of ever present, space to go to. But then for the asynchronous conversation, like you said, Discord has really become our 2nd primary campus. And I did not know Discord. So if you have not heard of it, folks, that is a okay. I am new to it. People in the community said, yeah. We have to have Discord because we have a lot of gamers.
JJ Warren [00:39:00]:
And so I had to learn very quickly how to use it, but it it really is that is one of the spaces, where we experience church the most, where we have conversations throughout the week, where the worship questions are shared and people can chat in a thread, where we have a prayer channel. We have spiritual resources so folks can find, different activities online and, can just chat and share what's going on in their lives with one another in a way that is intentional so that it's not random online strangers, but we intentionally have an introductions channel where once you're added to our Discord server, you're invited to share a little bit about yourself in a designated channel for introductions so that if a new person comes in, they can look through this channel and say, yeah. I, you know, I know Ryan. He's that guy that works at Umcomm, that really cool pastor that's in Nashville. And questions can become more personal and more intimate of, oh, you know, how's the weather in Nashville instead of, oh, you know, hey, Discord user 76.
Ryan Dunn [00:40:08]:
That was about you. Mhmm. Yeah. Yes.
JJ Warren [00:40:11]:
Yes.
Ryan Dunn [00:40:12]:
Well, I appreciate you leading us through the the whole experience. I do have one more question for you, JJ. If if, JJ of 2024 were to send a message back to JJ of of 2019 or 2020, the JJ who was kind of lifting off the ground, the Young Prophets collective, what is one piece of advice that you might give yourself? You know, maybe, avoid doing this. It's not fruitful or, you know, definitely get to doing this as soon as possible.
JJ Warren [00:40:45]:
Yeah. I think I think I would tell myself to rest, that it is okay and that things things will evolve and that communities will take shape naturally. It takes intentionality, but it doesn't take all of my energy. And I think that that has been a really powerful lesson for me in this virtual church experience is to say creating these communities or extending your physical church online in a in a real, multidirectional way. It takes energy and intentionality, but it it doesn't have to be exhausting that I I can just bring myself and we can just bring the relationships we have to this space. And if they are healing and if they are filled with love, they will resonate with others, and that is enough.
Ryan Dunn [00:41:44]:
Okay. So I'm making a liar out of myself because this leads to another question that I have for you. And it's one that I think a lot of people can relate to because, first of all, ministry in and of itself can be exhaustive. It can be hard to set up boundaries. Digital ministry can be a little tougher to set up some of those boundaries because of the always on aspect of it. Right? What are some ways that that you kinda set those boundaries around yourself so you do have purposeful time of rest?
JJ Warren [00:42:18]:
That's fantastic. And now you sound like my board of ordained ministry.
Ryan Dunn [00:42:24]:
Wonderful that they are asking that question, though. Right? Yes. Yes. As we talked about How are you gonna do more? It's how are you gonna rest more? Yeah.
JJ Warren [00:42:33]:
Yes. Yes. And right. The the potential pitfall of, okay, as a gen z or most of my life is online and now church is online. Where's the separation here? Is there any separation? How do I, how do I still set boundaries? Whereas before maybe it was, you know, I I'm not gonna go to the church office on these days, but maybe you'd still get phone calls and emails. But in this way, what I've tried to do is to identify platforms that are mostly for ministry for me, and platforms that are more private. So for example, most people in the church community don't have my phone number, so that is not an option for texting. The way that they can contact me for church related or ministry related things is email or Discord.
JJ Warren [00:43:26]:
And for Discord, I also try to keep certain hours. So I will not be on Discord, most times, you know, at 11 PM. I will be offline, and they know that that's okay, that they I will get back to them in the morning my time. And so that's that's been a boundary. And another is just maintaining a Sabbath. So they you know, the community knows that on Sundays, I am totally offline since we meet on Saturdays so as to not interfere with in person churches folks might attend. And so on Sundays, I'm totally offline. I try to get away from a screen, get outside.
JJ Warren [00:44:02]:
And, that's that's a way that I've been setting boundaries for myself.
Ryan Dunn [00:44:06]:
Cool. Alright. And if you wanna see the video for that, it's available on YouTube. It has all the, well, cool displays that JJ took us through so you can peer at that stuff there. More episodes of compass are
Ryan Dunn [00:44:19]:
on the way again. We're gonna
Ryan Dunn [00:44:20]:
be talking about the excursion that I had to Virginia. Also gonna be sharing about rage prayers, some exciting things of flood. So stay tuned for that. We'll be back in 2 weeks time. Hey, if you're interested, check out the Mycom podcast. If you're a church leader who wants to know more about how we're developing tools for the digital age and building our digital ministry toolkits, that's the place to go. My name is Reverend Ryan Dunn. Look forward to talking to you again soon.
Ryan Dunn [00:44:45]:
Peace.
