My Story

I found myself thrown into online church ministry in 2010. I had recently graduated from Biola University, came to faith at a smaller church in high school on the outskirts of Los Angeles County 10 years before that, and now was working at one of the largest churches in the world in Orange County, California. I thought I would be a youth pastor, but now I was doing something called #churchonline. Flash forward to today, and I've had the blessing to build an Online Community of thousands of viewers weekly, hundreds of online groups, and small to medium-sized in-person gatherings solely connected to us online. I'm always thinking up new ideas and trying to figure out how to integrate digital while holding to in-person ministry. I've documented most of my learnings through the years on my website, with too many spelling errors to count, jumped on podcasts when I could, and gotten to do training worldwide.

Some Highlights

• My Book

  • Online Church Is Not The Answer: Beyond Just Streaming Church to Hybrid Disciple Making

• Wrote 2 eBooks

  • Beyond Online Streaming with Peace Plan

  • State of Online Church with Vanderbloemen and PushPay

• Random cool things

  • Rick Warren saying 10 things he loves about me

  • Sharing about faith and tech on a Meta Panel during COVID

  • Got to preach at one of our in-person gatherings one weekend at my church

  • Working with my friend Will Mancini (Author of “Future Church” & “Church Unique”)

  • My friend Nils Smith says I'm the longest-running online pastor

• Featured on:

  • USA Today article “Online Church: Ministries use VR, apps to deliver digital services and virtual baptisms”

  • Pastors.com “Finding Strengths in the Fears of Church Online”

  • Pastors.com “Ask These 9 Questions Before Starting Online Small Groups”

  • ChurchTechToday.com

  • The Christian Post

  • Duke Divinity article "Learning from Saddleback, Veteran of Online Church"

  • Mentioned in Virtual Reality Church by Darrel Bock & Jonathan Armstrong and MetaChurch by Dave Adamson

  • Got some online hate from Protestia about doing VR church services. I guess all press is good press? :)

• Podcasts you may know:

  • Church Leaders Podcast "This is Why You Should Care about Online Church"

  • Vanderbloemen “Expert Insights: Technology and the Digital Church”

  • Vanderbloemen “How Saddleback Online Started 1,700 Small Groups in 4 Years”

  • Twice on ProChurch Tools Podcast with Brady Shearer

  • UnSeminary “Moving Beyond the Stream of Church Online”

  • The Church Digital “The Constant Evolution of An Online Church”

  • Tithely “The Importance of a Digital Church Strategy”

  • The Digital Ministry Podcast

• Talks at Conferences/Webinars/Courses

  • PushPay Conference "Turning Live Streamers into Disciples"

  • Biola University (Digital Ministry Conference) “The Church has Proprietary ownership on True Community”

  • Resi EQUIP Webinar “Saddleback Church’s Online Strategy for Bridging the Digital Divide”

  • Guest speak at Talbot School of Theology and Liberty University about digital ministry yearly

  • Saddleback Church "How Online Small Groups Work"

  • Small Group Network "How to Start and Sustain Healthy Online Small Groups"

Additionally, I graduated from the Talbot School of Theology. I am married to my wife, Jody. We have three kids. I love coffee, playing some chess, follow the NBA a bit, and always trying something new digitally to see how to integrate it into my church.