NewBreed Welcomes Chestly Lunday to the Team

With a name like Chestly, he has to be cool.

And he is. Chestly Lunday is a practitioner and pioneer in the digital church space.

Now, before you start to roll your eyes, understand that Chestly was speaking about digital church before COVID happened. As an apostolically-wired pastor, he was experiencing high engagement with Gen-Z when many churches hadn’t even discovered streaming their services online.

When Chestly hit the scene, it was almost prophetic. It was like he was preparing the church leaders for what was coming. Of course, they didn’t listen. They rarely listen to apostolics, leaving them to simply chart a course and forge the future of mission ahead of where the church is stuck.

I once sat with Chestly at a lunch, pushing back on the whole digital church thing in general, telling him that incarnation and face-to-face was where it was at. He agreed, and began talking about hybrid models, where the church utilizes both. He asked me if I thought that Paul might utilize that technology...and I got it. Yes. Yes he would. He would have harnessed anything that would have helped him to reach the next generation.

As far as digital goes, it’s the apostolic playground. And by that, I don’t just mean streaming church services. That’s not what we’re talking about at all. Nobody outside the church cares about your church service. There are better ways to reach the next generation right where they’re at if we get creative with the gospel and technology.

Chestly once remarked to me, “the internet has moved on to its 3.0 version, while the church is only just discovering internet 1.0.” Engagement is where it's at when it comes to engaging people with the gospel.

Technology and the gospel have always been friends. From the rise of modern missions spurred on by the invention of the steam engine, to the ability to reach the unreached through radio, film, and the internet. Countries that were once closed are now open due to technology.

I believe the ghost is in the machine; the Spirit is in our tech, working through it and harnessing our tools in the same way he guided David’s smooth stone as it sailed through the air towards the head of Goliath.

We are proud to welcome Chestly to the NewBreed team as a contributor and trainer in all things digital.

Chestly will soon be starting a podcast and will also be regularly writing blogs on the subject to help you reach the unreached in ways you never thought possible. He will also be offering courses through NewBreed to take you to the next level. In addition, he will be running our Mighty Network group; the way that NewBreed Training stays connected with the people we train outside of our training. You may not know this, but Chestly was the very first non-profit to harness Mighty Networks. It’s largely because of his influence that ministries and networks are now using that as the go-to platform.

We are excited about the unique perspective that Chestly will bring to NewBreed going forward.

Stay tuned.