WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.820 Welcome to the Church Digital Podcast. 00:00:02.320 --> 00:00:06.340 Through this podcast, learn about how God is using technology and innovation 00:00:06.340 --> 00:00:09.400 in digital and digital environments around the world. 00:00:09.880 --> 00:00:13.820 Our goal? To help churches like yours learn to be the church digitally. 00:00:14.480 --> 00:00:19.420 Our heart? That churches like yours will discover a newfound focus on disciple-making 00:00:19.420 --> 00:00:21.440 that will revolutionize your church. 00:00:21.840 --> 00:00:24.480 And now, your host, here's Jeff Reed. 00:00:24.900 --> 00:00:27.500 All right, hey, welcome to episode 205 here. 00:00:27.500 --> 00:00:30.140 This is Jeff with the Church Digital Podcast once again. 00:00:30.300 --> 00:00:32.680 It is my pleasure to be here with you today. 00:00:32.760 --> 00:00:38.160 We are in the middle of the Church Digital Podcast Network takeover. 00:00:38.720 --> 00:00:41.940 We have, for the past couple of weeks, we have been letting different people 00:00:41.940 --> 00:00:44.080 take over the Church Digital Podcast. 00:00:44.340 --> 00:00:48.380 And we're going to get to Andy Mage a little bit, excited about his takeover 00:00:48.380 --> 00:00:50.860 and what's been going on in his neck of the world. 00:00:50.960 --> 00:00:52.180 We're going to get there in a little bit. 00:00:52.260 --> 00:00:54.760 But before we do, let me tell you a little bit about some of the things 00:00:54.760 --> 00:00:56.780 that's happening over here with Digital Church Network. 00:00:56.780 --> 00:01:00.480 As you know, Left Stadia, awesome experience. 00:01:00.640 --> 00:01:01.000 Love them. 00:01:01.360 --> 00:01:06.600 Really set out for this challenge of launching a digital church network. 00:01:06.820 --> 00:01:10.260 Over the hundreds of conversations that I've had with digital pastors, 00:01:10.800 --> 00:01:14.620 with digital church planters, people interested in exploring the metaverse, 00:01:15.120 --> 00:01:20.140 physical and digital house church, what a microchurch network looks like, 00:01:20.500 --> 00:01:21.500 complemented with digital. 00:01:21.500 --> 00:01:27.200 Man, there's just so many opportunities to champion a different type of church, 00:01:27.260 --> 00:01:32.600 a different model of church, still grounded in Christ, but just operates differently. 00:01:32.700 --> 00:01:35.300 And that's the heart of what we're trying to do with Digital Church Network. 00:01:35.480 --> 00:01:40.480 And the one thing that I know after having hundreds of conversations with people just like you, 00:01:40.940 --> 00:01:44.020 literally just like you, I have come to this conclusion. 00:01:44.680 --> 00:01:50.100 Doing things in digital ministry or planting a digital church is often a lonely experience. 00:01:50.100 --> 00:01:52.980 For whatever reason, we don't have those connection points. 00:01:52.980 --> 00:02:02.380 Oftentimes, we don't even have the support among coworkers, among staff, among the pastors and leaders of churches or denominations. 00:02:02.540 --> 00:02:05.760 And so really, that's the heart of what we're trying to do with Digital Church Network. 00:02:05.920 --> 00:02:07.640 We're trying to create a family. 00:02:08.200 --> 00:02:15.280 And as a result of that, we've already got an online family with probably 250, 300 people already included in that family. 00:02:15.360 --> 00:02:17.240 Okay, look, it's a big family and we're just getting started. 00:02:17.660 --> 00:02:18.600 Here's what I want you to do. 00:02:18.680 --> 00:02:22.020 I would love for you to connect here with this online community that we have. 00:02:22.180 --> 00:02:26.640 It's at fam.digitalchurch.network. 00:02:26.860 --> 00:02:27.860 Go swing over there. 00:02:27.920 --> 00:02:29.880 We're running Mighty Networks, if you know what that is. 00:02:30.300 --> 00:02:35.980 But it's the first three letters of family, fam.digitalchurch.network. 00:02:36.320 --> 00:02:37.160 Join the community. 00:02:37.380 --> 00:02:38.460 Jump in some roundtables. 00:02:38.760 --> 00:02:40.820 We're actually going to move the church digital podcast. 00:02:40.920 --> 00:02:43.480 We're going to move it live here in a couple of weeks. 00:02:43.480 --> 00:02:49.300 We're going to start broadcasting the show live before we air it on podcast and YouTube and those things. 00:02:49.520 --> 00:02:50.480 So look for that. 00:02:50.540 --> 00:02:51.060 But you know what? 00:02:51.100 --> 00:02:54.480 All that stuff, if you want to keep up with what's going on, you're joining the family. 00:02:54.640 --> 00:02:57.540 Go to fam.digitalchurch.network. 00:02:57.700 --> 00:02:59.220 And commercial over. 00:02:59.660 --> 00:03:00.120 That's awesome. 00:03:00.240 --> 00:03:01.200 Thank you very much for that. 00:03:01.220 --> 00:03:01.760 I appreciate it. 00:03:01.780 --> 00:03:05.300 Let's shift over and let's start talking about Andy Major. 00:03:05.500 --> 00:03:08.720 Andy, man, it's great to have you on the podcast, man. 00:03:08.780 --> 00:03:10.360 I love the stuff that you're doing. 00:03:10.960 --> 00:03:13.500 It's always a pleasure to connect with you. 00:03:13.640 --> 00:03:18.660 But maybe for some of the people that don't know you out there, tell a little bit about yourself to the audience there, Andy. 00:03:19.260 --> 00:03:19.660 Absolutely. 00:03:19.780 --> 00:03:21.360 Yeah, I'm part of the fam, Jeff. 00:03:21.400 --> 00:03:22.480 Thanks for having me. 00:03:23.600 --> 00:03:26.900 Yeah, I'm a digital pastor down in Tampa, Florida, actually. 00:03:27.020 --> 00:03:27.560 I say down. 00:03:27.720 --> 00:03:29.100 I don't know where you are in the world. 00:03:29.240 --> 00:03:30.500 But yeah, a digital pastor in Florida. 00:03:30.600 --> 00:03:33.820 I've been doing this for around about almost three years now. 00:03:34.040 --> 00:03:41.060 So before the pandemic, I was one of those kind of bleeding edgers that was helping other churches kind of get on board during the pandemic. 00:03:41.060 --> 00:03:49.060 And just been super interested in church content for such a long time and how we can actually do church in different expressions. 00:03:49.220 --> 00:03:51.320 I think that's the hot term that everyone's using right now. 00:03:51.480 --> 00:03:54.140 I was a worship pastor for about 10 years prior. 00:03:54.400 --> 00:03:59.280 I lived all over the country up in New Jersey and Atlanta and now most recently down in Tampa. 00:04:00.040 --> 00:04:09.340 And I'm super excited, A, to be with just kind of being able to do podcasts and talk to people on the Internet and this crazy thing we call the Internet. 00:04:09.340 --> 00:04:17.660 But more than that, I'm super excited to actually get to the heart of what it looks like to do church around the world. 00:04:18.200 --> 00:04:25.380 We have just technology springing out of every pore, it seems like, and Jesus tells us to go and do. 00:04:25.540 --> 00:04:31.140 And so I'm stoked to be able to get to go and do and really to bring the message of Christ all over. 00:04:31.800 --> 00:04:32.760 That's awesome. 00:04:33.020 --> 00:04:33.600 Well said. 00:04:33.880 --> 00:04:37.260 And so, Andy, by the way, you are up for me. 00:04:37.380 --> 00:04:41.680 I may actually want to be the few people in the country listening to you that Tampa is up. 00:04:42.020 --> 00:04:45.420 I think everywhere else Tampa is probably down, but down here in Miami, it's up. 00:04:45.500 --> 00:04:46.020 So there you go. 00:04:46.540 --> 00:04:49.320 But, you know, Andy, I mean, I first connected with you. 00:04:49.760 --> 00:04:53.860 Man, we were doing like an online Bible study or maybe it was something that I was doing pre-COVID. 00:04:54.300 --> 00:04:54.440 Right. 00:04:54.500 --> 00:04:55.500 Was that the first? 00:04:55.660 --> 00:04:56.080 It was online. 00:04:56.340 --> 00:05:01.140 Maybe we crossed over at a conference or something, but was really kind of new in the relationship. 00:05:01.140 --> 00:05:02.480 And it's been so much fun. 00:05:02.480 --> 00:05:16.280 The thing that I love about Andy is the way, and this is going to sound weird, but the quality of content that the guy produces, like his just understanding and mastery of the technical aspects in producing is really beautiful. 00:05:16.540 --> 00:05:21.020 But even beyond that, it's understanding that the content is not the end game. 00:05:21.020 --> 00:05:28.820 The content is a core component of the disciple making of the relationship and a lot of the health that's centered around there. 00:05:29.420 --> 00:05:31.840 And so it's not content for content's sake. 00:05:31.980 --> 00:05:35.460 And sometimes when you talk with content guys, you know, content's the end game. 00:05:35.460 --> 00:05:42.040 But really, my love for this conversation and this situation is that it doesn't stop with that content. 00:05:42.160 --> 00:05:44.740 It really moves beyond that. 00:05:45.140 --> 00:05:49.180 So and Andy also, he works with, and maybe I should say this, I can say this, right? 00:05:49.220 --> 00:05:50.780 Like he works with Alter Live. 00:05:50.880 --> 00:05:55.040 A lot of you know the Alter Live platform. 00:05:55.520 --> 00:06:03.860 And he's been doing some great work there helping to create content to bring awareness to that and training and resources and live shows. 00:06:04.200 --> 00:06:08.440 And definitely, we'll put a link to Alter Live in the show. 00:06:08.500 --> 00:06:18.080 We're moving, in the show notes, we're moving a lot of digital church network over to Alter Live as well, doing a lot of shows and things like that in the space. 00:06:18.180 --> 00:06:20.040 Matter of fact, I never use Zoom anymore. 00:06:20.040 --> 00:06:24.960 Like I'm about 95% Alter Live right now, and it's a good thing, yeah. 00:06:25.820 --> 00:06:26.780 But cool. 00:06:27.000 --> 00:06:28.980 So Andy, tell us here a little bit. 00:06:29.060 --> 00:06:32.280 You're starting a new show called Breaking the Fifth Wall. 00:06:32.420 --> 00:06:33.400 Set it up for me a little bit. 00:06:33.760 --> 00:06:37.600 Yeah, we are getting a couple of episodes of Breaking the Fifth Wall under our belt. 00:06:37.800 --> 00:06:42.560 And I've actually had a couple of conversations with people going, what is Breaking the Fifth Wall? 00:06:43.100 --> 00:06:51.860 You always think about when you look at, particularly you're watching, let's say, a two-camera sitcom show, like Friends or Seinfeld or something like that. 00:06:51.880 --> 00:06:53.380 You've got the three walls of the set. 00:06:53.860 --> 00:06:57.160 And then the fourth wall, you always hear this term, Breaking the Fourth Wall. 00:06:57.160 --> 00:07:03.900 And that is when a character will look at the camera and knowingly glance at the camera because they know that the audience is right there. 00:07:04.000 --> 00:07:09.580 And so they're, you know, they're using you as the narrative voice to kind of break that thing down. 00:07:09.640 --> 00:07:12.500 And so the fourth wall, ideally, is the camera. 00:07:12.700 --> 00:07:14.680 And so you're breaking the fourth wall. 00:07:14.900 --> 00:07:19.800 But there's a fifth wall as well that has kind of been theorized and philosophized about. 00:07:19.900 --> 00:07:23.840 And that fifth wall is the why behind what we're receiving. 00:07:23.840 --> 00:07:28.400 And it's kind of the wall that is our own intuition and our own intellect. 00:07:28.740 --> 00:07:32.020 And so breaking the fifth wall is really doing that. 00:07:32.180 --> 00:07:34.780 It's breaking down the why of creation. 00:07:35.160 --> 00:07:37.440 It's breaking down the why of what we're creating. 00:07:37.620 --> 00:07:39.620 And Jeff, you kind of set it up there in the intro. 00:07:40.340 --> 00:07:42.280 I love the production aspect. 00:07:42.500 --> 00:07:43.920 I'm a production nerd at heart. 00:07:43.980 --> 00:07:45.160 I'm a tech guy at heart. 00:07:45.300 --> 00:07:47.560 I'm, again, a worship pastor for a long time. 00:07:47.560 --> 00:07:55.100 And I was always about stage production and live production and started turning that more into digital production around about 10 or 15 years ago. 00:07:55.900 --> 00:08:02.060 And a lot of people will just create because they feel the urge to create. 00:08:02.060 --> 00:08:03.260 And there's never a why. 00:08:03.380 --> 00:08:04.160 And there's never anything. 00:08:04.340 --> 00:08:08.740 It's just the end is, well, I did that thing and I'm going to move on to the next thing. 00:08:08.960 --> 00:08:16.340 But God, at the very beginning of all things, set humanity up to be creative people. 00:08:16.460 --> 00:08:22.960 He set Adam and Eve up to create, to create names for animals and to go and be fruitful and multiply. 00:08:23.100 --> 00:08:28.240 And even after they got kicked out of the garden, they were told to go and create farms and create civilizations. 00:08:28.240 --> 00:08:32.280 And Jesus tells us to go and create disciples and on and on and on. 00:08:32.800 --> 00:08:41.540 And there needs to be a why behind that creation, not just because, oh, the Bible says so, but to really connect with people and really to help people grow. 00:08:41.800 --> 00:08:49.440 And so my task and my job in this podcast is to try to get to the bottom of the why of content creation. 00:08:49.440 --> 00:09:04.040 And we're going to talk to worship pastors, we're going to talk to digital ministers, we're going to talk to bloggers, and we're going to talk to all manner of content creators, YouTube creators, on down to Instagram and TikTok influencers, things like that, and really get to the why. 00:09:04.300 --> 00:09:13.120 And my passion is really finding the why behind what people are doing, particularly in the church space. 00:09:13.640 --> 00:09:18.700 We're seeing a lot, especially coming out of the pandemic, the why was just, well, I need to connect with my congregation. 00:09:18.700 --> 00:09:22.380 And that's fine, but there needs to be something deeper there. 00:09:22.560 --> 00:09:24.620 How are we connecting people with the gospel? 00:09:24.780 --> 00:09:34.060 And most importantly, why do you continue to get up in the morning and feel that urge deep in the pit of your stomach to go and do things for the Lord? 00:09:34.300 --> 00:09:37.780 So that's what the podcast is all about, and I'm inviting all of you on the journey. 00:09:38.400 --> 00:09:40.720 Links will be obviously in the show notes and all over the place. 00:09:40.780 --> 00:09:42.160 You can hit us up on our socials. 00:09:42.780 --> 00:09:45.600 I'm super stoked to just get this journey going. 00:09:45.820 --> 00:09:48.420 Yeah, those are some great questions to ask. 00:09:48.600 --> 00:09:54.920 And I got to believe that right now there's a lot of people who are listening to this that don't understand their why. 00:09:55.640 --> 00:10:04.200 Or, you know, and I've heard this a lot, like their why doesn't line up with their leaders' why or multiple leaders' why. 00:10:04.280 --> 00:10:10.760 It's funny, somewhere between where I live and you live, there's a church somewhere in Fort Lauderdale. 00:10:10.900 --> 00:10:13.600 And I had the opportunity to do some consulting with them. 00:10:13.600 --> 00:10:21.120 I'm not going to tell you the name of the church, but the digital pastor was the thing that he was really, and he had multiple hats, multiple roles. 00:10:21.340 --> 00:10:30.300 The thing that he was really excited about, and like his why in doing this was, man, I want to like get relational with people. 00:10:30.380 --> 00:10:32.400 I would love to like start creating micro locations. 00:10:32.780 --> 00:10:36.720 And he was really excited about that kind of online to offline philosophy, right? 00:10:37.060 --> 00:10:39.320 And so that's the thing that he was really resonating with. 00:10:39.780 --> 00:10:44.900 The executive pastor, the person that he was answering to, felt that digital is a complete waste. 00:10:45.020 --> 00:10:48.180 We should not do, like literally said this often, digital is a complete waste. 00:10:48.260 --> 00:10:50.200 We should not do anything with digital. 00:10:50.480 --> 00:10:54.640 We should just ignore it and just throw it aside. 00:10:54.800 --> 00:10:57.740 You know, y'all put on pants, come to church in a big building. 00:10:57.900 --> 00:10:58.420 I'm not kidding. 00:10:58.520 --> 00:10:59.480 That's the conversation. 00:10:59.940 --> 00:11:01.620 And so that's completely different. 00:11:01.860 --> 00:11:03.260 By the way, that's the executive pastor. 00:11:03.400 --> 00:11:11.560 The lead pastor, his why was, man, I want to see people in like Ethiopia and Egypt get baptized as a result. 00:11:11.700 --> 00:11:13.600 I want my message heard around the world. 00:11:14.000 --> 00:11:17.400 I want to become a movement globally. 00:11:17.640 --> 00:11:23.660 And it's like, okay, there's three different people in the conversation with three completely different whys. 00:11:24.040 --> 00:11:35.440 And so, I mean, I love what Andy's even starting here by helping us process through what we're seeing in other ways to help us even discover what our why is to help us have these hard conversations as we're moving upstream. 00:11:36.120 --> 00:11:38.840 So, yeah, this is solid stuff. 00:11:38.940 --> 00:11:42.360 Hey, Andy, with this episode, we're taking over here. 00:11:42.500 --> 00:11:43.260 Who are we featuring? 00:11:43.340 --> 00:11:43.860 What's going on? 00:11:43.860 --> 00:11:50.760 Yeah, I actually had the privilege and the opportunity to interview Mark Lux from Lux Digital Church. 00:11:50.920 --> 00:11:53.460 Now, a lot of you haven't heard of Lux Digital Church. 00:11:53.580 --> 00:11:59.760 They were actually a startup back during the pandemic, which is insane to start a church during the pandemic. 00:11:59.760 --> 00:12:03.360 But there's this unique twist on what Lux is doing. 00:12:03.760 --> 00:12:12.080 They are actually solely gathering on two different platforms, Discord, which a lot of you, if you're in the digital space, you already know about Discord. 00:12:12.280 --> 00:12:18.100 It's a kind of a perfect analogy to what Slack is doing in the business world. 00:12:18.240 --> 00:12:21.800 Discord is kind of doing with gamers, but really just a bunch of people all over the place. 00:12:22.100 --> 00:12:28.420 They're gathering on Discord, and then they're leading live online services on Twitch, twitch.tv. 00:12:28.620 --> 00:12:34.140 Now, if you don't know anything about Twitch, Twitch is basically the hub for all things gaming. 00:12:34.380 --> 00:12:44.320 It's full of streamers and people just hanging out, live streaming and kind of sharing videos on demand and really creating a community around gaming. 00:12:44.760 --> 00:12:46.580 And Mark himself is a gamer. 00:12:46.700 --> 00:12:50.140 I am as well, and so I immediately was interested in what Mark was doing. 00:12:50.620 --> 00:12:51.140 He's a gamer. 00:12:51.340 --> 00:12:54.480 He was also a pastor, and you'll hear about his whole story during the interview. 00:12:54.480 --> 00:13:00.900 He was also a pastor for a very long time and felt called to go create this digital church. 00:13:01.540 --> 00:13:04.540 And then the pandemic hit, and they kind of had to accelerate plans. 00:13:04.620 --> 00:13:09.020 And he tells the story much more elegantly and beautifully than I am doing it right now. 00:13:09.600 --> 00:13:16.740 But Mark brings a wealth of knowledge and theological discourse to what somebody is doing with video games. 00:13:17.180 --> 00:13:23.640 And I was blown away by some of the things that he was kind of talking about and some of the things that were resonating with me. 00:13:23.720 --> 00:13:26.200 So I can't wait to let you listen to this. 00:13:26.200 --> 00:13:33.280 And I'm excited to see what the outcome is for all of you as you're kind of processing the things that he has been going through. 00:13:33.780 --> 00:13:33.940 Awesome. 00:13:34.100 --> 00:13:34.680 Yeah, love it. 00:13:34.760 --> 00:13:37.800 Mark is no stranger here to the Church Digital family. 00:13:37.980 --> 00:13:43.180 And I love the fact that we get to let him take over the episode here with Andy. 00:13:43.180 --> 00:13:47.760 So, hey, if Breaking the Fifth Wall, we're going to obviously put links in the show notes. 00:13:47.860 --> 00:13:49.500 Feel free to subscribe to that. 00:13:50.320 --> 00:13:52.900 We'll have socials for Andy on there as well. 00:13:53.340 --> 00:13:57.520 And so you can dig in and start to follow the stuff that he's doing in that space. 00:13:57.620 --> 00:14:00.940 But for this episode, we're featuring Andy with a takeover. 00:14:01.340 --> 00:14:10.080 And good friend, Mark Lutz from Lux Digital Church, really in a conversation centering around gaming culture and in a digital church. 00:14:10.340 --> 00:14:10.840 Okay, everybody. 00:14:11.180 --> 00:14:11.540 Here you go. 00:14:12.120 --> 00:14:16.480 You're listening to Breaking the Fifth Wall, part of the TCD Podcast Network. 00:14:24.540 --> 00:14:25.960 Well, hey, everybody. 00:14:26.220 --> 00:14:36.600 Welcome in to episode two of Breaking the Fifth Wall, the number one podcast for content, because that's more of what you need. 00:14:36.840 --> 00:14:38.840 Content in your life, right? 00:14:38.920 --> 00:14:51.460 You're not overloaded already with content and things that keep flying into your podcast feeds and into your Google readers or whatever you're using for your RSS feeds and your Twitter time. 00:14:51.560 --> 00:14:52.040 I don't know. 00:14:52.160 --> 00:14:56.040 I could keep going on forever because there's a million different types of content. 00:14:56.180 --> 00:14:58.360 Hey, thanks for joining us on this episode. 00:14:58.480 --> 00:15:05.060 Episode two, like I said, it's quite cool to be able to interview people. 00:15:05.060 --> 00:15:12.920 And obviously, if you joined us in episode one, you heard our interview, my interview with Mike from Bay Hope Church talking about worship and content. 00:15:13.120 --> 00:15:17.740 If you missed that, you can actually head back into the podcast feed pretty soon. 00:15:17.840 --> 00:15:22.840 We're actually going to start putting these up on the YouTubes, so stay tuned for that. 00:15:22.960 --> 00:15:29.600 All that information will be in the show notes, and we'll be tweeting and taking care of all that with The Church Digital. 00:15:30.060 --> 00:15:36.940 And speaking of The Church Digital, if you haven't checked out the website and kind of everything that's been going on over there, 00:15:36.940 --> 00:15:42.220 I highly suggest you pop over to thechurch.digital as soon as you can. 00:15:42.740 --> 00:15:46.440 Obviously, keep listening to this podcast if you're on your phone or on your laptop. 00:15:46.640 --> 00:15:49.320 You can multitask because you are so talented. 00:15:49.900 --> 00:15:59.280 Head over to thechurch.digital and check out everything that's going on, especially with Sprout Digital's 67-page research report on digital churches. 00:15:59.380 --> 00:16:03.880 I'm actually clicking on it as we speak, and it is fantastic. 00:16:04.040 --> 00:16:11.160 It's got a ton of stuff from a ton of digital pastors out there, a ton of church leaders that it's 67 pages, of course. 00:16:11.700 --> 00:16:16.860 And it's really kind of a state of the union of what the digital church looks like. 00:16:16.940 --> 00:16:23.540 And not only the digital church, but the Metaverse Church, the Figital Church, FIGITAL, FIGITAL Church, 00:16:24.140 --> 00:16:31.100 and kind of the state of digital church planting, something that we're sort of really passionate about at The Church Digital. 00:16:31.280 --> 00:16:32.740 And we're here to help you. 00:16:32.960 --> 00:16:34.100 We're here to help your church. 00:16:34.220 --> 00:16:38.160 We're here to obviously bring content into your life, again, because that's more of what you need. 00:16:38.160 --> 00:16:47.340 But we're also offering courses and really some one-to-one coaching and some consulting work that is really going to help you with establishing your digital ministry, 00:16:48.000 --> 00:16:57.180 keeping it afloat, really creating engagement with your people, and most importantly, fulfilling the Great Commission, because that's what we exist for. 00:16:57.180 --> 00:17:07.600 And as part of The Church Digital, we are now starting the Digital Church Network, which is this idea that was birthed by Jeff Reed a couple of years ago 00:17:07.600 --> 00:17:10.600 and has really started to pick up the pace. 00:17:11.360 --> 00:17:13.160 And I'm clicking on it right now. 00:17:13.980 --> 00:17:20.780 You can actually head over to digitalchurch.network or just click the link on thechurch.digital and join the network. 00:17:21.020 --> 00:17:21.960 We've got a lot going on. 00:17:21.960 --> 00:17:29.740 And actually, we were in our Slack a little bit earlier today talking about some live shows that are going to be rolling out on one of our platforms called Alter Live. 00:17:30.000 --> 00:17:31.200 And it's going to be a lot of fun. 00:17:31.300 --> 00:17:35.080 And I'm looking forward to getting you in community with us. 00:17:35.140 --> 00:17:35.940 But enough about that. 00:17:36.200 --> 00:17:37.980 You're tired of hearing me yak. 00:17:37.980 --> 00:17:49.260 Actually, I want to introduce you in this episode to an incredible pastor that I had the chance to meet a couple of months ago for an interview I was doing with another podcast that I was doing. 00:17:49.960 --> 00:17:58.800 And this guy and his wife and his team around him started a church solely for gamers, really, on Twitch. 00:17:58.800 --> 00:18:02.260 His name is Mark, and he formed Lux Digital Church. 00:18:02.500 --> 00:18:06.580 And I'm excited to get you in the fold with him and his team and to see what they're doing. 00:18:06.660 --> 00:18:15.920 It's something that I'm super passionate about, kind of allowing gamers and the gamer subculture, of which I am a part of because I am a gamer nerd. 00:18:16.380 --> 00:18:20.760 I'm really super excited to see ministry happening in that field. 00:18:20.940 --> 00:18:22.680 And Mark and his team are doing an incredible job. 00:18:22.920 --> 00:18:35.620 And I really wanted to bring you this episode and kind of bring you on the journey a little bit of how they got started, what they're doing in terms of preparation and content, and most importantly, the why behind what they're doing and who they're really trying to reach. 00:18:35.780 --> 00:18:39.460 So with all of that being said, here is my interview with Mark. 00:18:47.560 --> 00:18:52.700 Well, Mark from Lux, it is so good to have you here on Breaking the Fifth Wall, man. 00:18:52.760 --> 00:18:54.560 Thanks so much for joining us here on the show today. 00:18:55.520 --> 00:18:56.380 Andy, it's good to be here. 00:18:56.500 --> 00:18:58.100 Thanks for having me on the show. 00:18:58.260 --> 00:18:59.140 I appreciate it. 00:18:59.220 --> 00:19:03.060 And it's always great to have an opportunity to talk about what I'm passionate about. 00:19:03.420 --> 00:19:04.600 So it's good to be here. 00:19:04.600 --> 00:19:09.340 So before we get to what you're doing with Lux, back us up, back the entire audience up. 00:19:09.400 --> 00:19:11.940 Who are you, kind of family, origin, structure? 00:19:12.100 --> 00:19:14.080 Give me your origin story as I like to tell everybody. 00:19:15.600 --> 00:19:16.000 Sure. 00:19:16.760 --> 00:19:26.180 I mean, the origin story of, like, me and ministry or the origins, like, pre-Lux or, like, the origin story of how we came to do kind of like what we're doing right now? 00:19:26.220 --> 00:19:27.180 All of the above. 00:19:28.020 --> 00:19:29.040 All of the above. 00:19:29.200 --> 00:19:29.420 Okay. 00:19:30.180 --> 00:19:35.440 Well, so I'm born and raised in Western PA, just north of Pittsburgh. 00:19:35.620 --> 00:19:37.280 I've been part of the church pretty much my whole life. 00:19:37.680 --> 00:19:45.360 Went to a Reformed Presbyterian school, studied youth ministry, took a gig working part-time as a youth and children's director. 00:19:46.160 --> 00:19:51.220 For a non-denominational church in a small town of about 1,200 people north of Pittsburgh. 00:19:51.640 --> 00:20:03.040 I worked there as the youth pastor and then for six years and then in the same church as the head of discipleship, assimilation and care for adult ministry for an additional five years. 00:20:03.560 --> 00:20:07.400 So my ministry, I'm, like, denominationally, I'm a mutt. 00:20:07.500 --> 00:20:12.760 But in terms of full-time ministry, I've only, like, post-college, I've only ever had one job before Lux. 00:20:12.800 --> 00:20:15.080 I worked for the same church for 11 years. 00:20:15.120 --> 00:20:20.620 It's kind of rare for a millennial, but I just landed in a really, really good church. 00:20:20.720 --> 00:20:25.220 Like, I just happened to land in a really supportive, really awesome church that gave me room to grow and expand and stuff. 00:20:25.880 --> 00:20:30.420 And it was literally – I was just sharing this with another online church today, actually. 00:20:30.920 --> 00:20:35.760 And I was just saying, you know, I came into that place as a 22-year-old, you know, with a lip ring and tattoos. 00:20:36.420 --> 00:20:51.060 And I, you know, I walked out, you know, theologically more sound and I, you know, with a wife and two kids and a house and, you know, a decade of ministry experience under my belt in a wide variety of circumstances. 00:20:51.480 --> 00:20:55.660 You know, when I started, we met in a school and we were packing up every day. 00:20:55.780 --> 00:20:58.280 We rented a little house on Main Street of our town to do youth ministry. 00:20:58.480 --> 00:21:00.060 And we had eight kids. 00:21:00.140 --> 00:21:03.420 And when we left, you know, we had 120-plus kids in youth ministry. 00:21:03.420 --> 00:21:13.780 We had grown from a couple hundred people to almost 1,000 in our small town and built two beautiful, you know, million-plus, two-million-plus dollar church buildings. 00:21:13.780 --> 00:21:24.500 So got the honor to be part of several building projects, hired, you know, three of my close friends as the youth pastor, executive pastor, and children's pastor to come work for us there. 00:21:25.420 --> 00:21:34.480 And just – and my wife and I still attend that church on the weekends, the lead pastor of that church is mainly like our theological covering for what we're doing now. 00:21:34.480 --> 00:21:38.540 And then in 2019, through a podcast, God began to work on our hearts. 00:21:38.580 --> 00:21:39.720 And I can get into more detail. 00:21:39.900 --> 00:21:41.160 I don't really need to get into all of it. 00:21:41.240 --> 00:21:52.560 But realistically, pre-COVID, God began to move us in the direction of breaking our heart for people in the gaming community, a group that I love and I've always – you know, I've been a part of throughout pretty much my whole life in varying degrees. 00:21:53.140 --> 00:22:04.900 And just really broke my heart for people who are looking for truth, searching for hope, and there really wasn't anybody out there offering them a whole lot more than sort of this – I don't know. 00:22:04.960 --> 00:22:19.180 I don't even know what to call it, but there's this real strong mentality inside of that culture to sort of pick and choose what you want from all various religions and beliefs and ideologies and piece them together and become – you just kind of become master of your own universe, right? 00:22:19.200 --> 00:22:20.560 In many ways, you become a god. 00:22:21.180 --> 00:22:23.980 And we're just like, wow, these people really need a church. 00:22:24.500 --> 00:22:26.460 And they're never showing up to church, right? 00:22:26.500 --> 00:22:28.280 So if we don't bring the church to them, they're never coming. 00:22:29.460 --> 00:22:33.700 And we can get into sort of some of the theology or ecclesiology of that. 00:22:33.760 --> 00:22:36.800 But basically in 2020, we decided to start a church. 00:22:37.200 --> 00:22:40.320 And that was right before the pandemic and then the pandemic hit. 00:22:40.680 --> 00:22:47.560 And we went from trying to launch in 2023 or 2024 to being like, well, maybe we change what – I was in seminary. 00:22:47.660 --> 00:22:50.920 Like maybe we change what my seminary degree is, finish – wrap this sucker up quick. 00:22:51.580 --> 00:22:55.420 And let's – like if there's someone who's going to write a check to support an online church, it's right now. 00:22:56.060 --> 00:22:58.680 So it's one of those strike when the iron's hot type of things. 00:22:58.760 --> 00:22:59.900 But God has really blessed it. 00:22:59.960 --> 00:23:05.780 So we launched Lux after working with Stadia Church Planting and our Sending Church and a bunch of other organizations. 00:23:06.060 --> 00:23:08.080 We launched Lux in March of 2021. 00:23:08.540 --> 00:23:10.380 So we're celebrating as of this recording. 00:23:10.580 --> 00:23:11.920 I don't know when this will go live. 00:23:12.600 --> 00:23:19.900 But we're about a month out, about maybe five weeks out from our one-year anniversary as an online – entirely online church, you know. 00:23:20.400 --> 00:23:23.940 Your Sending Church was okay with you guys starting Lux? 00:23:24.000 --> 00:23:25.900 They were supportive and everything behind the scenes? 00:23:26.900 --> 00:23:27.300 Yeah. 00:23:27.300 --> 00:23:31.360 So there was a lot of conversations there with our Sending Church at first. 00:23:33.200 --> 00:23:36.220 You know, I recently met with a pastor, well, a year ago. 00:23:36.420 --> 00:23:39.360 And he said there's something that happens when you turn 30. 00:23:40.020 --> 00:23:44.980 Between 30 and 33, where God – if you look in the Bible, it's pretty true. 00:23:45.760 --> 00:23:48.200 God did something in Jesus' life in his early 30s. 00:23:48.520 --> 00:23:50.900 He did something in Joseph's life in his early 30s. 00:23:51.120 --> 00:23:53.180 There's something that happens where God moves you. 00:23:53.300 --> 00:24:00.060 And so I think with my Sending Church, it was one of those things where it was like I was ready to lead. 00:24:01.620 --> 00:24:04.980 And the space wasn't there at the time. 00:24:06.540 --> 00:24:13.040 And so I was just – you know, and I think if I had maybe listened to God earlier, maybe we would have done something sooner. 00:24:13.160 --> 00:24:13.800 I'm not sure. 00:24:15.160 --> 00:24:22.760 But, you know, there was a point in which, like, it was sad and we love our church and we're so glad. 00:24:23.060 --> 00:24:37.060 There was a mutual blessing, I think, in both the Sending and in the Releasing there that, you know, I was – it was just clear through a wide variety of circumstances that God was leading us to do something. 00:24:37.200 --> 00:24:39.140 We just didn't know what that thing was. 00:24:39.420 --> 00:24:43.740 And when there's a Sending and a Pulling, it makes that transition a lot easier. 00:24:44.060 --> 00:24:48.340 Our church, the church I came from, has always been, you know, pretty open to innovative ideas. 00:24:48.340 --> 00:24:52.580 So they liked the idea and they were actually open to being sort of part of them. 00:24:53.700 --> 00:25:02.420 But it became clear to me that I wasn't really interested in leading an online venue or an online campus for an established church. 00:25:02.760 --> 00:25:08.920 We were called to a gaming community and this – our church wasn't, right? 00:25:09.340 --> 00:25:11.620 And so it was going to be very difficult. 00:25:11.820 --> 00:25:16.940 So we ended up, like, we are part of their network but we're not under their umbrella. 00:25:17.100 --> 00:25:18.540 So we are our own separate entity. 00:25:18.640 --> 00:25:19.540 But it was a big blessing. 00:25:20.000 --> 00:25:22.360 They sent us out, you know, commissioned us, prayed over us. 00:25:22.420 --> 00:25:23.460 We're still a part of that church. 00:25:23.940 --> 00:25:28.180 You know, we're still friends with many of the staff members and the members of that church. 00:25:28.340 --> 00:25:36.660 You know, they're major parts of our lives because unlike every other church planner that typically moves towns and changes all their relationships, I didn't go anywhere. 00:25:36.760 --> 00:25:40.540 I still live three miles from the church I worked at for 11 years. 00:25:41.020 --> 00:25:42.920 So I'm in the community. 00:25:43.100 --> 00:25:49.620 My next-door neighbor was my accountability partner and a youth leader at the church and he's still my next-door neighbor and my accountability partner. 00:25:50.060 --> 00:25:53.260 So, you know, some of those things, you know, just didn't change. 00:25:53.700 --> 00:25:59.560 So it was just easier for us to stay at the same church on Sunday mornings even though we're leading a completely different church throughout the week. 00:26:00.220 --> 00:26:04.960 So you started talking very briefly about, you said, a podcast. 00:26:05.100 --> 00:26:08.040 Through a podcast, God started changing your heart and your mind. 00:26:08.560 --> 00:26:09.500 Talk me through that process. 00:26:09.720 --> 00:26:17.120 And I guess the bigger question then is how was your wife with this entire kind of start into what you're doing right now? 00:26:18.480 --> 00:26:29.460 Oh, man, you know, there's so many parts of this last year that have been so beautiful and so awesome. 00:26:29.660 --> 00:26:32.180 And there are so many parts that have been so painful. 00:26:34.240 --> 00:26:34.920 Like what? 00:26:35.040 --> 00:26:35.280 Name them. 00:26:35.380 --> 00:26:35.840 Let's list them. 00:26:35.920 --> 00:26:36.240 Let's go. 00:26:36.820 --> 00:26:44.740 You know, I think that we had really believed that we wanted to be part of the team that we were on for 30 years. 00:26:46.020 --> 00:26:54.000 And, you know, the church that I came from, the senior pastor who's on our board is retiring in the next couple of years. 00:26:54.320 --> 00:26:55.880 They just made that public announcement. 00:26:56.540 --> 00:27:00.740 One of my best friends who I hired there is lined up to be the next lead pastor. 00:27:01.340 --> 00:27:05.040 And that probably should have been me like at one point or it could have been me. 00:27:05.660 --> 00:27:16.940 And so for us to go through this transition as that church is going through that transition has been hard on my wife and me because it's a lot of like, well, God, why didn't you let us do that? 00:27:17.020 --> 00:27:18.700 Like that's what we wanted to do. 00:27:19.960 --> 00:27:23.640 But when you decide that Jesus is Lord of your life, you don't get to have preferences anymore. 00:27:24.160 --> 00:27:28.160 So the podcast started in 2019. 00:27:28.560 --> 00:27:30.180 I just picked up a microphone and started. 00:27:30.180 --> 00:27:34.280 I had done some podcasting for leadership and covering video games before. 00:27:34.440 --> 00:27:35.200 So I enjoyed it. 00:27:35.260 --> 00:27:39.160 It was like a – it was like my discipleship pastor position wasn't very creative. 00:27:39.460 --> 00:27:43.500 It was a lot of managing people and it was like tedious and boring and frustrating for me. 00:27:44.200 --> 00:27:54.040 And so as someone who has this bent to build things but also has a creative bent to him, I just wasn't able to exert that in any way. 00:27:54.120 --> 00:27:55.540 So I started with podcasting. 00:27:56.280 --> 00:27:56.900 Simple prayer. 00:27:56.980 --> 00:27:59.600 God, take my love for gaming and use it. 00:27:59.980 --> 00:28:01.120 Redeem it in some capacity. 00:28:01.120 --> 00:28:08.440 And so I just started asking people who came on the show and I was covering like an obscure digital card game, video game at the time. 00:28:08.800 --> 00:28:14.860 And I just started asking if I could pray for these streamers and podcasters and YouTubers and they let me. 00:28:15.020 --> 00:28:16.960 And then God started answering those prayers. 00:28:17.360 --> 00:28:24.860 And I started offering at the end of the show closing thoughts and I was just dispensing biblical wisdom from the book of Proverbs without people knowing it. 00:28:25.300 --> 00:28:30.860 And we started getting reviews and people joining our community saying the best part of this show is closing thoughts. 00:28:31.660 --> 00:28:36.000 And then – so we started saying, hey, at the end of the show, I'm a pastor in addition to doing this podcast. 00:28:36.160 --> 00:28:38.620 If you need someone to listen to you, I'm willing to listen to you. 00:28:39.000 --> 00:28:43.260 And then we started having people from all over the globe come out and say, I'm in a really dark place. 00:28:43.300 --> 00:28:44.180 I'm going through a divorce. 00:28:44.460 --> 00:28:45.500 I'm having a kid. 00:28:46.000 --> 00:28:47.420 I am going through a breakup. 00:28:47.820 --> 00:28:48.840 I'm depressed, whatever. 00:28:49.400 --> 00:28:51.440 And I would meet with them and pray with them. 00:28:51.560 --> 00:28:53.420 And then God started answering those prayers. 00:28:53.860 --> 00:28:56.680 And we were reading a book by Henry Blackaby at the time. 00:28:56.860 --> 00:29:03.520 And I love doing that, by the way, because it gives all the people who listen to the podcast and they're like, I don't like digital church. 00:29:03.520 --> 00:29:07.900 And then like this guy is a new age liberal or something, right? 00:29:08.160 --> 00:29:12.100 And then you're like – and then you mention Henry Blackaby and they're like, hold the phone. 00:29:12.180 --> 00:29:13.320 I like Henry Blackaby. 00:29:14.860 --> 00:29:15.700 By Joe. 00:29:16.280 --> 00:29:18.480 This young man is reading Henry Blackaby. 00:29:18.880 --> 00:29:22.260 And so I don't want to mock anybody, but seriously, that's the reaction I get. 00:29:23.000 --> 00:29:30.280 And in Experiencing God by Blackaby, he says, don't just do things and ask God to bless them, but look and see what God is doing and partner with him. 00:29:31.280 --> 00:29:38.880 And it was – God was answering more of my prayers for this online community full of atheists than he was the prayers that I was praying for my church. 00:29:39.440 --> 00:29:42.040 And so I was like, he's at work here. 00:29:42.400 --> 00:29:44.880 I'm – okay, I'll – like this seems cool. 00:29:44.920 --> 00:29:45.460 I'll do this. 00:29:46.780 --> 00:29:49.320 And keeping in mind at the time, I wasn't online. 00:29:49.480 --> 00:29:53.220 Like I played video games to escape people, not to make friends. 00:29:54.180 --> 00:30:01.040 And so like I would go to work and just be emotionally exhausted as a pastor, you know, going into hospital rooms and stuff. 00:30:01.120 --> 00:30:05.440 And then I would come home and, you know, I'd kill people on the internet just so that I didn't have to talk to people. 00:30:05.600 --> 00:30:05.860 Yeah. 00:30:06.500 --> 00:30:09.500 And so – and I didn't have – I was off the grid. 00:30:09.580 --> 00:30:12.420 I didn't have social media for five years before I started Lux. 00:30:12.940 --> 00:30:15.100 So it really wasn't my bag. 00:30:15.180 --> 00:30:16.960 I was always the house church person. 00:30:17.060 --> 00:30:17.760 I didn't stream. 00:30:18.020 --> 00:30:19.580 It wasn't really my thing. 00:30:20.300 --> 00:30:23.300 But God had just sort of moved my heart in that direction with this community. 00:30:24.200 --> 00:30:26.480 We experienced Discord for the first time. 00:30:27.000 --> 00:30:30.920 An atheist reached out to me and asked if they could create a Discord server for our community. 00:30:31.440 --> 00:30:35.540 I began to realize that there are more people who live – they don't just use the internet as a tool. 00:30:35.640 --> 00:30:37.560 They live part of their lives there than I knew. 00:30:38.140 --> 00:30:46.360 And I started building these deep, deep transformative relationships with people that I truthfully thought wasn't possible. 00:30:47.300 --> 00:30:52.640 Like I was the type of person who would come in and say God's plan A is the local church and God doesn't make plan Bs. 00:30:53.560 --> 00:30:57.420 And I said that many times throughout my ministry. 00:30:58.200 --> 00:31:05.000 And then I ate those words because my local church was suddenly spread all across the globe. 00:31:05.840 --> 00:31:12.860 And I was like – I would meet with people and I would pray and I'd watch the Holy Spirit hit them 3,000 miles away from me. 00:31:13.260 --> 00:31:22.960 And I was like, well, if God is omnipresent and his spirit is omnipresent, the internet is the closest thing that I get to experiencing that, to know what omnipresence feels like. 00:31:23.860 --> 00:31:26.440 And so I was like, well, I can be present with these people. 00:31:26.560 --> 00:31:32.640 If the Holy Spirit is willing to fall in Turkey while I'm sitting in Pennsylvania and praying for somebody, then I can do this. 00:31:32.880 --> 00:31:34.200 Like we can disciple people. 00:31:34.280 --> 00:31:35.420 The Holy Spirit is at work. 00:31:35.680 --> 00:31:36.480 We can build community. 00:31:36.600 --> 00:31:37.540 Lives can be transformed. 00:31:37.760 --> 00:31:40.020 These are all the – like, okay, we can do church. 00:31:40.840 --> 00:31:46.820 And so then the dream really broke out to start a church, which I thought was heretical at first. 00:31:47.580 --> 00:31:58.760 And God really dealt with me over the course of about six weeks walking me through scriptures as I took our dog for a walk and helped me to realize that maybe it wasn't as heretical as I thought it was. 00:31:59.380 --> 00:32:06.760 And maybe my view of the church had a lot more to do with what made me comfortable than what the church actually was. 00:32:07.340 --> 00:32:07.440 Yeah. 00:32:08.620 --> 00:32:15.180 There is – there's an interesting thing you said there, and I kind of want to back up real quick as we lead into the next question, sort of a weird paradoxical thing. 00:32:15.180 --> 00:32:28.420 But you talked about older kind of the conservative, quote-unquote, church leaders looking at you reading the Black Ivy book and saying, well, you know, experiencing God's not for you, you liberal, whatever, young person, yada, yada, yada. 00:32:29.500 --> 00:32:34.180 I actually – I went through the same thing, and then I was a worship pastor for about 10 years. 00:32:34.460 --> 00:32:43.340 And then right in the midst of that was reading, experiencing God, and felt God pushed me to go start a gym, a nonprofit faith-based gym, like a CrossFit gym in my community. 00:32:43.340 --> 00:32:51.060 And we started it, and we ran it for, like, two years, and it was still going up until I passed it off to somebody and got back into worship leading. 00:32:51.460 --> 00:33:00.580 And, you know, it was – COVID killed the gym because COVID killed lots of gyms, but it would have still been running today because we were simply partnering with what God was doing. 00:33:00.620 --> 00:33:18.180 So the question I want to ask is, in terms of what you're doing now on the internet, it's not three songs and a message that you're streaming via YouTube or via Facebook or whatever because whenever we think online church, now we think, okay, well, it's just a window into what people are doing in the building. 00:33:18.320 --> 00:33:25.820 Talk me through what you guys are actually doing in terms of content creation, in terms of, quote-unquote, service structure, fellowship, everything around your church. 00:33:27.560 --> 00:33:30.400 So I think the difference is intentionality and focus. 00:33:30.760 --> 00:33:37.120 So a lot of what we're doing looks similar to a church, but our intentionality and our focus is different. 00:33:37.200 --> 00:33:44.600 So I don't have an in-person people, so the online audience are not second class to me. 00:33:45.020 --> 00:33:45.220 Yep. 00:33:45.480 --> 00:33:46.560 They are my church. 00:33:46.780 --> 00:33:47.180 Let's go. 00:33:47.280 --> 00:33:48.780 And I treat them as such. 00:33:49.440 --> 00:34:02.800 We have this really unhealthy view of the internet inside the church where we view someone's number and screen name and we devalue them and dehumanize them and refuse to recognize them as a person with a spiritual journey and a story. 00:34:03.300 --> 00:34:03.660 100%. 00:34:03.660 --> 00:34:17.900 And I refuse to stop at screen names and profile pictures because every screen name and profile picture represents somebody who has a genuine story who's growing in some capacity spiritually or dying spiritually and they have needs. 00:34:18.120 --> 00:34:19.900 Like, they're real people. 00:34:20.540 --> 00:34:23.000 And I was just like, no, I'm going to figure out who these people are. 00:34:23.120 --> 00:34:25.300 I'm going to get to know their stories and I'm going to figure out who they are. 00:34:25.360 --> 00:34:28.020 I'm not going to stop at Keyboard Warrior. 00:34:28.540 --> 00:34:34.220 You know, I'm not going to stop at just, you know, throwing tweets back and forth at people and service isn't just going to be a broadcast. 00:34:34.640 --> 00:34:36.720 So our church looks different in that capacity. 00:34:36.860 --> 00:34:44.600 A lot of the typical things that you would see part of a church, prayer, preaching, worship, the Lord's Supper, the sacraments, right? 00:34:45.200 --> 00:34:45.600 Giving. 00:34:46.260 --> 00:34:48.700 Those things are part of our experience as a church. 00:34:48.920 --> 00:34:50.540 By the way, our church is on Wednesday nights. 00:34:50.540 --> 00:34:58.800 So if you want to come and experience it, we're live every Wednesday night at Twitch, T-W-I-T-C-H.TV slash Lux Digital Church, 8.30 PM EST. 00:34:59.260 --> 00:35:01.440 So if you want to come and actually experience it for yourself, you can. 00:35:01.740 --> 00:35:10.220 But like in the beginning, the first 15 minutes, 20 minutes of our live service, it's just me and my wife sitting on the couch talking to our church. 00:35:10.220 --> 00:35:12.460 And they're typing to us and we're talking to them. 00:35:12.480 --> 00:35:13.180 We have a question of the day. 00:35:13.240 --> 00:35:14.280 We're going over announcements. 00:35:14.580 --> 00:35:18.940 But it's a lot more laid back and we're just sort of hanging out with people, right? 00:35:19.820 --> 00:35:21.760 And it's usually pretty humorous. 00:35:21.860 --> 00:35:22.760 Like we're cracking jokes. 00:35:22.880 --> 00:35:23.800 There's a lot of laughing. 00:35:23.960 --> 00:35:30.900 And it was kind of like, yeah, if I knew that there was going to be a pretty good comedy sketch at the beginning of every church service I went to, I'd probably be more prone to go to church as well. 00:35:32.460 --> 00:35:35.440 But we just have fun with them and we're very transparent. 00:35:35.620 --> 00:35:39.240 You know, one of our cultural values is authenticity is greater than image. 00:35:39.320 --> 00:35:41.660 And so we're just very transparent. 00:35:42.400 --> 00:35:44.800 And then we kick things over and we have a worship song. 00:35:45.140 --> 00:35:46.460 Worship looks different for us. 00:35:46.500 --> 00:35:46.960 It does. 00:35:47.560 --> 00:35:54.200 But we believe that worship is the opportunity to prepare our hearts to receive the most from the word of God and the preaching that we can. 00:35:54.940 --> 00:36:02.120 So it doesn't look like an upbeat song, a kind of upbeat song, and then a somber song that brings about reverence. 00:36:02.520 --> 00:36:04.660 A lot of that is just they're reflective. 00:36:05.120 --> 00:36:06.980 And we ask people to bring up prayer concerns during it. 00:36:07.240 --> 00:36:11.200 Then we go through a time of prayer where we have someone who prays for every prayer concern that comes into our church. 00:36:11.500 --> 00:36:14.540 So we believe one of the most important things that we could be doing as a church is praying for one another. 00:36:14.840 --> 00:36:15.640 And then I teach. 00:36:15.920 --> 00:36:20.660 And then teaching usually lasts, you know, 20 to 40 minutes, usually 35. 00:36:22.180 --> 00:36:25.820 And it's going to look a lot like teaching, except I'm interacting with the church. 00:36:26.000 --> 00:36:27.360 There are people who are asking questions. 00:36:27.480 --> 00:36:28.900 I'm literally answering those questions. 00:36:28.960 --> 00:36:34.820 Like if someone raised their hand during your service and you took questions, I can do that. 00:36:34.820 --> 00:36:40.520 And then afterwards, we do a post-service experience where I'm back on the couch by myself. 00:36:40.620 --> 00:36:42.060 We do AMA, ask me anything. 00:36:42.620 --> 00:36:43.860 And I just answer questions. 00:36:43.960 --> 00:36:47.500 So last night, you know, I preached on one of our core values last night. 00:36:48.240 --> 00:36:49.500 Rhythm is greater than religion. 00:36:50.160 --> 00:36:58.720 And afterwards, I spent 15 minutes answering questions about gap theory and creation because the church was just asking questions about it. 00:36:58.780 --> 00:36:59.680 And I used to answer questions. 00:37:00.260 --> 00:37:02.820 So that's what our normal service looks like. 00:37:03.060 --> 00:37:08.780 I think a lot of people who come from physical church mindset have a hard time grasping that because they've never seen it, right? 00:37:08.880 --> 00:37:11.780 But if you're part of Twitch culture, you see it every single day. 00:37:12.180 --> 00:37:12.280 Yep. 00:37:12.280 --> 00:37:20.040 And at any given time, the most popular category on Twitch, just as a heads up, Twitch is a website owned by Amazon, owns about 70% of the live streaming on the internet. 00:37:21.140 --> 00:37:27.180 There's about 100 million unique viewers on Twitch every month, about 3.5 million unique broadcasters every month. 00:37:27.240 --> 00:37:27.940 It's a big thing. 00:37:28.000 --> 00:37:28.840 It's not a small thing. 00:37:30.000 --> 00:37:35.260 You know, there's a lot of streamers who stream 40 hours a week to 20,000, 30,000 people a day. 00:37:36.140 --> 00:37:36.960 This is their living. 00:37:37.480 --> 00:37:39.840 Lots of people who stream to smaller numbers, this is their living. 00:37:40.500 --> 00:37:42.960 And there's many people who go there looking for truth. 00:37:43.440 --> 00:37:46.620 And the biggest category on Twitch is not video games. 00:37:46.720 --> 00:37:47.540 It's just chatting. 00:37:47.640 --> 00:37:53.860 So just chatting sees anywhere from 300,000 to 600,000 active viewers at any given moment 24-7. 00:37:54.620 --> 00:37:56.220 And that's the category we're in. 00:37:56.260 --> 00:38:00.000 That's almost always the biggest category unless there's a big eSports event going on. 00:38:00.480 --> 00:38:01.840 So that's where people are. 00:38:01.920 --> 00:38:04.080 They're actually not even going to watch video game content. 00:38:04.220 --> 00:38:07.500 A lot of them are going just to connect with people. 00:38:07.820 --> 00:38:08.900 So we're doing the same thing. 00:38:09.300 --> 00:38:13.380 We always say that Twitch is our sanctuary and Discord is everything else. 00:38:13.520 --> 00:38:16.220 So if you think of your worship center, that's Twitch for us. 00:38:16.720 --> 00:38:18.180 Discord is our Sunday school rooms. 00:38:18.260 --> 00:38:19.120 It's our bulleted board. 00:38:19.200 --> 00:38:20.080 It's our welcome center. 00:38:20.180 --> 00:38:21.120 It's our prayer rooms. 00:38:21.580 --> 00:38:22.980 It's our small group rooms. 00:38:23.080 --> 00:38:24.040 It's our team meetings. 00:38:24.520 --> 00:38:26.200 Everything else happens over in Discord. 00:38:26.340 --> 00:38:27.080 That's where we're hanging out. 00:38:27.160 --> 00:38:28.700 We're posting devotionals over there. 00:38:28.700 --> 00:38:30.640 Our Bible studies are going through there. 00:38:30.860 --> 00:38:37.620 All of that stuff, the typical rhythms of the church and the spiritual disciplines are happening a lot in communities happening through Discord. 00:38:38.580 --> 00:38:47.760 Do you feel that the ground is more fertile because you are speaking the lingua franca, the language of the culture at that point? 00:38:49.400 --> 00:38:58.460 You and I have talked about this before, but you're using an SM7B and you've got board games in the background and you come from gaming culture and you look like a streamer. 00:38:58.460 --> 00:39:02.020 Or do you feel – I mean you are a streamer, but you've got the look. 00:39:02.100 --> 00:39:02.860 You've got the camera angle. 00:39:02.940 --> 00:39:03.640 You've got the everything. 00:39:04.400 --> 00:39:13.060 Do you feel like the ground is more fertile to have conversations about faith or are you finding a lot of pushback from internet trolls for lack of a better term? 00:39:14.160 --> 00:39:15.660 We don't get a lot of trolls. 00:39:15.840 --> 00:39:16.820 We're not big enough for that. 00:39:17.460 --> 00:39:21.240 If you ask somebody else, maybe, but I don't get a tremendous amount of that. 00:39:23.860 --> 00:39:26.920 You know, is the ground fertile? 00:39:27.300 --> 00:39:27.660 Yes. 00:39:28.120 --> 00:39:29.720 But is it hard to till? 00:39:30.560 --> 00:39:31.080 Yes. 00:39:31.480 --> 00:39:42.440 It's like – it's like here is a really dry patch of ground that hasn't been worked like ever and there is enormous fertility. 00:39:42.740 --> 00:39:45.760 Like there's so much there that can be nourished and grow. 00:39:45.760 --> 00:39:51.580 There's so many people so hungry, but it's also wildly hard work, right? 00:39:51.980 --> 00:39:59.900 And so you don't walk in – there's no – like there's nobody in our church that comes to faith and they're like, oh, yeah, I know what the church believes. 00:40:00.620 --> 00:40:03.580 Like, you know, I come from a reformed background, right? 00:40:03.580 --> 00:40:10.380 So I'm – theologically, I'm like, you know, 80%, 70% reformed in my theology. 00:40:11.460 --> 00:40:13.300 I'm conservative in my theology. 00:40:13.560 --> 00:40:18.620 And so, you know, everything in terms of interacting with LGBTQ community, how we do all of these things. 00:40:18.620 --> 00:40:25.020 Like we're going to hold to a lot of very typical – what you would see as conservative Christian principles and values. 00:40:26.060 --> 00:40:31.900 And so – but I don't have anybody who comes to my church who doesn't know about church and comes to faith who assumes those things. 00:40:33.060 --> 00:40:39.660 So, like, you have people who come to faith and their beliefs are wild, just crazy. 00:40:40.360 --> 00:40:43.680 And you have to work through that with them, right? 00:40:43.740 --> 00:40:44.600 And it's a process. 00:40:44.860 --> 00:40:49.820 It's like people don't come to you with a preconceived understanding of what the church is. 00:40:49.900 --> 00:40:53.920 Where in the physical church, a lot of times, the people who came to us, they were just coming from another church. 00:40:54.400 --> 00:40:54.500 Yeah. 00:40:55.080 --> 00:40:59.080 So, I mean, they were partially discipled since kids for us. 00:40:59.260 --> 00:41:00.520 And so you're like, oh, yeah, you're here. 00:41:00.600 --> 00:41:00.860 Welcome. 00:41:01.060 --> 00:41:02.140 Come to our new members class. 00:41:02.140 --> 00:41:03.180 Let's get you plugged in. 00:41:03.740 --> 00:41:06.240 And it's like, nah, like you can't do that here. 00:41:06.660 --> 00:41:11.240 Like the people that we're encountering haven't been to church in 10 years at best a lot of times, you know. 00:41:12.500 --> 00:41:13.700 And so it's just different. 00:41:14.680 --> 00:41:22.780 When you're – when you are creating sermons, post-show, wrap-up, pre-service type stuff, what's the – this is a question I always ask everybody, but what's the why behind it? 00:41:22.840 --> 00:41:28.800 Like do you have an ideal person in mind or ideal three people that you're looking at the camera or talking to? 00:41:28.800 --> 00:41:35.080 Or is it just kind of take what the Lord is giving you on that – on your heart for that week and let's expound upon it? 00:41:36.080 --> 00:41:36.600 Yeah, sure. 00:41:36.680 --> 00:41:39.220 So, I mean, we have – you know, we have a Saddleback Sam. 00:41:39.680 --> 00:41:41.300 Everyone likes having a Saddleback Sam. 00:41:41.900 --> 00:41:43.620 We don't – ours doesn't have a name. 00:41:44.020 --> 00:41:47.200 Ours is a 27-year-old male gamer working a dead-end job. 00:41:47.300 --> 00:41:49.140 He doesn't necessarily believe in a whole lot of anything. 00:41:49.300 --> 00:41:50.340 He's not happy with his life. 00:41:50.640 --> 00:41:51.260 But he comes home. 00:41:51.320 --> 00:41:52.180 He jumps on Discord. 00:41:52.280 --> 00:41:54.000 He plays games with his friends every night. 00:41:54.300 --> 00:42:01.540 He goes to bed at night feeling like he's wasted another evening, but he can't really drum up the energy or the ambition to change anything about who he is or what he's doing. 00:42:02.580 --> 00:42:10.120 That doesn't – like – but what he always say is like we have a one, but we try to – we do everything in our power to be faithful with every person that God sends us. 00:42:10.340 --> 00:42:14.540 So we have that, but we also have Jannie who's in her 60s and doesn't play any games. 00:42:14.800 --> 00:42:17.140 We also have John who plays games. 00:42:17.220 --> 00:42:20.340 He's a 63-year-old retired police officer from Australia. 00:42:20.820 --> 00:42:31.080 Like we also have Mackenzie whose husband is a gamer, but she's one of our team leaders, and she doesn't game at all, and she's just finishing up her doctoral work right now. 00:42:31.520 --> 00:42:34.820 So you have a one, but you're faithful with whoever God sends you. 00:42:35.640 --> 00:42:42.900 So yeah, we have people in mind, and we funnel it through both of our values, but we also realize that our one is a multifaceted person. 00:42:43.020 --> 00:42:45.500 And I think people think of gamers and that's all they do. 00:42:45.860 --> 00:42:46.580 Like, oh, you game. 00:42:46.680 --> 00:42:47.360 That's all that you do. 00:42:47.400 --> 00:42:48.300 Your whole life is gaming. 00:42:49.000 --> 00:42:50.120 And that's not true. 00:42:50.120 --> 00:42:52.060 Like gamers have a spiritual life as well. 00:42:52.200 --> 00:42:53.300 Gamers have jobs as well. 00:42:53.480 --> 00:42:54.820 Gamers have relationships as well. 00:42:54.960 --> 00:42:57.520 The average hardcore gamer is in their 30s right now. 00:42:58.380 --> 00:43:01.060 So we have kids for goodness sakes. 00:43:01.180 --> 00:43:03.880 Like we're a hardcore gamer, but we also have kids. 00:43:04.080 --> 00:43:06.240 People think that all that you're reaching is 15-year-olds. 00:43:06.520 --> 00:43:11.100 The vast majority of our churches is probably 27 to 32. 00:43:12.340 --> 00:43:15.980 And so, you know, that's not the type of person that we're reaching. 00:43:16.100 --> 00:43:18.600 We're reaching the millennials that left your church 10 years ago. 00:43:19.420 --> 00:43:22.580 And the Gen Z that never showed up. 00:43:22.580 --> 00:43:22.800 Right. 00:43:23.020 --> 00:43:24.440 And so – and are never showing up. 00:43:24.520 --> 00:43:25.100 Literally never. 00:43:26.100 --> 00:43:32.460 And I think one of the confusing things, like the physical church becomes threatened by the digital church's presence sometimes. 00:43:32.940 --> 00:43:37.740 But the thing is, is that, like, the digital church can reach a person that the physical church can't. 00:43:38.540 --> 00:43:42.800 And it doesn't mean that, like, we should compete with one another. 00:43:42.940 --> 00:43:55.880 It means that there are people within driving distance of amazing, faithful, beautiful churches who are passionately following Jesus and preaching the truth all across the globe that will never show up at the church. 00:43:56.880 --> 00:43:57.820 Just never coming. 00:43:57.900 --> 00:43:59.620 It doesn't matter how comfy the seats or anything. 00:44:00.040 --> 00:44:02.580 And you're never going to meet them, right? 00:44:02.660 --> 00:44:03.860 You're probably never going to meet them. 00:44:04.500 --> 00:44:08.920 But we can through the screen that's in front of their faces, you know, some of them six, eight hours a day. 00:44:09.240 --> 00:44:10.300 Yeah, 100%. 00:44:10.300 --> 00:44:16.200 And so, you know, it's not that we're reaching – pulling people from the bride of Christ. 00:44:16.360 --> 00:44:20.900 It's no – we're bringing people into the bride of Christ that never would have stepped foot through a brick-and-mortar building. 00:44:21.420 --> 00:44:26.560 Have you gotten pushback from, quote-unquote, brick-and-mortar churches or even online churches? 00:44:26.720 --> 00:44:32.140 Any pushback saying you guys are taking butts and seats and nickels and noses from us? 00:44:33.040 --> 00:44:36.200 It's not so much nickels and noses and butts and seats. 00:44:37.140 --> 00:44:42.780 They are – like the physical church is like reeling from the fact that, you know, 40% of their people have come back post-COVID anyway. 00:44:42.780 --> 00:44:43.580 Oh, yeah, yeah. 00:44:43.620 --> 00:44:45.720 They're too focused on that right now, which I get. 00:44:46.080 --> 00:44:50.740 It's more pushback of like during COVID I had to live stream and I hated it. 00:44:50.800 --> 00:44:52.380 So it sucks and no one should do it. 00:44:52.600 --> 00:45:01.960 It's not so much like – it's just like, you know, I literally had – so one of my main team members is a youth pastor at a Southern Baptist church in Tennessee. 00:45:01.960 --> 00:45:05.800 And he serves with us as a small group leader and he got into an argument on Twitter. 00:45:06.120 --> 00:45:11.640 A guy said, if you want young adult males to quit playing video games, go pick them up and go on an adventure. 00:45:12.240 --> 00:45:15.220 And he responded by saying – which isn't a bad idea. 00:45:15.300 --> 00:45:15.800 It was like fine. 00:45:16.440 --> 00:45:18.780 I mean most of them don't want to go on an adventure, but that's fine. 00:45:19.260 --> 00:45:24.460 And he responded by saying like, well, what if you started a ministry that actually reached them through the games that they're playing? 00:45:25.400 --> 00:45:28.520 And the guy just responded by saying, nope, we'll never work. 00:45:28.520 --> 00:45:30.080 And it's just like – right? 00:45:30.340 --> 00:45:38.320 It's just like it's a very – it's a very thoughtless mentality and it's very dismissive because it's foreign and it's threatening, right? 00:45:38.360 --> 00:45:44.400 I don't understand it and there's this fear that if I acknowledge it, then I have to do it and I don't want to do it. 00:45:44.960 --> 00:45:59.260 And I don't think it has as much to do with feeling like my people are being taken and going to your digital church as much as it has to do with – I don't personally like it and it personally makes me uncomfortable. 00:45:59.620 --> 00:46:04.220 And I don't want to go through the process of thinking critically about whether or not it's legitimate. 00:46:04.520 --> 00:46:05.860 So I just dismiss it. 00:46:06.380 --> 00:46:09.460 I mean it's just like the church has dismissed people who play video games for years. 00:46:09.540 --> 00:46:10.060 It's nothing new. 00:46:10.100 --> 00:46:12.460 I've been dismissed by the church forever for that reason. 00:46:13.500 --> 00:46:15.760 So it's not new territory. 00:46:16.300 --> 00:46:23.360 But I think the churches that are smart, like a lot of pastors who are smart and are willing to be open-minded a little bit are exploring that. 00:46:23.440 --> 00:46:26.420 It's like Elevation Church, Life Church just launched their first VR campus. 00:46:26.880 --> 00:46:28.800 Elevation now has a big streaming network. 00:46:29.140 --> 00:46:32.260 A lot of other churches are coming and saying, what are you doing? 00:46:32.320 --> 00:46:34.300 So for us, it's like we move with the movers. 00:46:35.120 --> 00:46:37.380 It's like there's always going to be naysayers out there. 00:46:37.380 --> 00:46:43.040 When you're on the Spears tip, like there's always going to be more voices who dismiss you than voices who encourage you. 00:46:43.040 --> 00:46:45.300 And we've just said, well, we're going to listen to Jesus. 00:46:45.540 --> 00:46:46.580 We're going to listen to God. 00:46:46.640 --> 00:46:47.880 We're going to be in conversation with him. 00:46:48.100 --> 00:46:50.860 And then after that, we're going to listen to the people who are behind us. 00:46:51.080 --> 00:46:56.860 And the rest of you, like, you know, if you don't want to have a realistic conversation, it's like, I don't know. 00:46:57.060 --> 00:46:57.880 I probably shouldn't say it. 00:46:57.900 --> 00:46:58.600 It's like go pound salt. 00:46:58.680 --> 00:46:59.080 That's fine. 00:46:59.140 --> 00:47:02.940 Like I just don't come in and tell me to stop. 00:47:03.080 --> 00:47:05.160 You know, we're reaching people and I'm happy. 00:47:05.500 --> 00:47:07.380 I say we start a Twitter war right here. 00:47:07.840 --> 00:47:12.100 Hashtag pound salt or hashtag down with the organization. 00:47:13.180 --> 00:47:16.020 I want to switch gears real quick as we get to kind of our final couple of questions. 00:47:16.140 --> 00:47:18.380 Give me like a blue sky, two to three year. 00:47:18.940 --> 00:47:21.520 What does Lux look like in two to three years for you guys? 00:47:23.000 --> 00:47:24.760 Two to three years we're self-sustaining. 00:47:25.080 --> 00:47:26.520 I think that's the goal of any church plant. 00:47:26.680 --> 00:47:29.600 Our church plant doesn't look any different than what any other church plant does. 00:47:30.200 --> 00:47:40.400 If in after our one year and two more years, if at three years, like we have grown up and our church has like put on their big boy pants and said, we believe in this thing. 00:47:40.460 --> 00:47:42.020 We're going to financially support this thing. 00:47:42.800 --> 00:47:44.300 That would be a huge win for us. 00:47:45.520 --> 00:47:52.340 I think if you asked me, where am I at in 10 years, right? 00:47:53.280 --> 00:47:58.220 Our long-term goal is to plant everything digital goes physical and everything physical goes digital. 00:47:58.500 --> 00:48:00.700 There's no person who's exclusively a physical being. 00:48:00.780 --> 00:48:02.420 If you're listening to this podcast, guess what? 00:48:02.440 --> 00:48:03.300 You're partially digital. 00:48:03.680 --> 00:48:06.600 I just happen to be more digital than the average person, right? 00:48:07.500 --> 00:48:13.860 And so for us though, we also recognize that exclusively digital lives are wildly unhealthy. 00:48:14.680 --> 00:48:19.460 And so our goal, like the, like a pastor who gets on stage and preaches a sermon, right? 00:48:19.600 --> 00:48:27.040 You hope that your people will apply that to their lives and they won't go home and act like a complete tool on Facebook, right? 00:48:27.200 --> 00:48:33.620 That's your hope because you hope that the physical transformation also transforms the way they interact digitally. 00:48:34.160 --> 00:48:35.700 We hope the exact same thing. 00:48:35.720 --> 00:48:36.320 It's just flipped. 00:48:36.560 --> 00:48:41.060 We interact with people digitally and we hope that that transforms the way they live physically. 00:48:41.120 --> 00:48:51.080 Because if you come to faith in Jesus, but then you're not compelled that your neighbor and your coworker and your friend and your family who don't know Jesus won't go to hell, then have you really decided to follow Jesus? 00:48:51.180 --> 00:48:52.040 Like probably not. 00:48:52.760 --> 00:48:56.780 And so we want to equip people to live out their life as missionaries actively. 00:48:56.900 --> 00:49:01.200 So our long-term goal is to plant a dispersed network globally of house churches. 00:49:01.820 --> 00:49:05.520 So like the ultimate end of our engagement pathway is a church planner. 00:49:05.680 --> 00:49:07.060 So you come into our church as a lurker. 00:49:07.260 --> 00:49:15.040 You leave our church trained as a missionary, equipped to reach the people in your context, to bring 10 to 12 people into your house for a Bible study. 00:49:15.260 --> 00:49:23.580 We equip you with a web of people all across the globe with digital resources that prepare you to disciple and pastor the people inside your church. 00:49:23.960 --> 00:49:31.560 And then you raise up church planners from within, train them as missionaries, and then you release them. 00:49:32.440 --> 00:49:37.740 And we build a web that's connected digitally, but that has physical footprints. 00:49:37.740 --> 00:49:43.600 So hopefully in 10 years when we gather to worship, there's a couple hundred nerds behind their computer screens. 00:49:43.760 --> 00:49:44.240 Absolutely. 00:49:44.860 --> 00:49:46.120 Leverage the power of the nerd. 00:49:46.800 --> 00:49:58.840 But hopefully there's also a church in Moscow and three churches in South Africa and five churches in Missouri and three house churches in Delaware and one in Pittsburgh and one in LA. 00:49:59.360 --> 00:50:04.380 Hopefully we also have house churches that are building all over the place. 00:50:04.580 --> 00:50:06.140 That's our long-term vision. 00:50:06.780 --> 00:50:07.060 I love it. 00:50:07.060 --> 00:50:07.540 That's awesome. 00:50:07.740 --> 00:50:08.440 Big and expansive. 00:50:08.640 --> 00:50:16.980 I'm going to go, last question for me, top five games of all time, whether they board, video, whatever it is, mobile, top five. 00:50:17.080 --> 00:50:18.280 Go five to one for me. 00:50:18.880 --> 00:50:26.480 I know it's a Sophie's choice because even as I was writing the question to you in the email, I was going like, I don't know that I can narrow just five down. 00:50:26.480 --> 00:50:31.840 So if you want to give me a top two or three, then you and the rest of the army here will be forgiven. 00:50:33.460 --> 00:50:39.160 You know, Andy, the hard part about that question is the sheer amount of games that I've played. 00:50:39.260 --> 00:50:39.660 I know, dude. 00:50:39.760 --> 00:50:40.280 I know. 00:50:41.140 --> 00:50:42.060 It's not an easy question to answer. 00:50:42.060 --> 00:50:43.140 It's not an easy question to answer. 00:50:43.240 --> 00:50:48.680 So let me just – we'll do at least four, maybe five, and let's go with genre. 00:50:49.180 --> 00:50:51.340 Let's do it by genre because it's just too hard. 00:50:51.980 --> 00:50:55.700 So I'm actually more of a tabletop gamer than I am a video gamer. 00:50:55.900 --> 00:50:57.280 I prefer tabletop gaming. 00:50:58.020 --> 00:51:14.540 So my favorite tabletop game, board game for a long time has been a game called Blood Rage, which is about Ragnarok during the end of time in a Viking mythology. 00:51:14.840 --> 00:51:15.960 It's a phenomenal game. 00:51:16.300 --> 00:51:18.880 No one will play it with me anymore because everybody had it. 00:51:19.660 --> 00:51:28.400 A close second is a game by Ryan Lockett and Red Raven Games called Near and Far, which is one of my wife and I's all-time top favorite games to play. 00:51:29.040 --> 00:51:36.780 If we went to tabletop RPGs, I've been playing Dungeons & Dragons and other RPGs for, you know, 20 years. 00:51:36.840 --> 00:51:37.780 I've been playing with the same group. 00:51:37.880 --> 00:51:40.660 I'm playing with a guy tonight that I've been playing with since sixth grade actually. 00:51:40.900 --> 00:51:41.000 Dang. 00:51:41.320 --> 00:51:42.560 Did you guys switch over to fifth? 00:51:43.400 --> 00:51:43.760 Yeah. 00:51:43.860 --> 00:51:45.200 So we're playing fifth right now. 00:51:45.320 --> 00:51:45.520 Okay. 00:51:45.640 --> 00:51:47.600 But we went during fourth edition. 00:51:47.740 --> 00:51:50.420 We went wide in different RPGs. 00:51:50.740 --> 00:51:54.880 So one of my all-time favorite RPGs is a really brutal system called Burning Wheel. 00:51:55.320 --> 00:51:55.460 Yeah. 00:51:56.200 --> 00:52:04.360 A close second is a more collaborative storytelling model by Forged in the Dark, which is called Blades in the Dark. 00:52:04.640 --> 00:52:06.400 And it is really phenomenal. 00:52:06.400 --> 00:52:06.560 That was Adventure Zone. 00:52:06.880 --> 00:52:10.160 If you guys ever listened to Adventure Zone, they did Blades in the Dark for a little bit as well. 00:52:10.680 --> 00:52:13.640 Yeah, it's this post-apocalyptic Victorian England setting. 00:52:13.780 --> 00:52:15.020 It's a really, really fun game. 00:52:15.400 --> 00:52:17.520 I actually have my characters that I played. 00:52:18.680 --> 00:52:19.980 I had artwork done. 00:52:20.060 --> 00:52:23.820 I commissioned artwork done of my characters that I played because I loved that game so much. 00:52:24.500 --> 00:52:33.140 If I had to choose a top video game of all time, and there are some really, really good games out there, 00:52:34.580 --> 00:52:36.620 I think that I would have to choose. 00:52:37.760 --> 00:52:38.440 Oh, man. 00:52:38.820 --> 00:52:39.560 You know what? 00:52:39.680 --> 00:52:46.980 Like, it's hard for me not to choose Skyrim, only because of the obscene amount of hours I put into that game in college. 00:52:47.320 --> 00:52:47.940 And longevity. 00:52:48.100 --> 00:52:51.360 I mean, it's on every platform since the PS2, it feels like. 00:52:51.780 --> 00:52:53.660 It's been on every platform three times. 00:52:54.800 --> 00:52:56.640 Yeah, re-release after re-release. 00:52:56.640 --> 00:52:57.840 Yeah, yeah. 00:52:57.840 --> 00:52:59.380 So, there's that. 00:53:00.020 --> 00:53:06.560 And, you know, if I had to pick a favorite card game, and this sort of bridges into video games. 00:53:06.640 --> 00:53:13.900 I played a lot of digital and physical tabletop card games, I'm currently really enjoying a game by Fantasy Flight called Marvel Champions. 00:53:13.900 --> 00:53:23.820 But I also podcasted and played Elder Scrolls Legends competitively for a while, and not real competitively, but slightly. 00:53:24.320 --> 00:53:26.080 And that was where my podcast started. 00:53:26.240 --> 00:53:29.180 It covered Tessel when I first got started. 00:53:29.300 --> 00:53:31.600 So, that was one of my all-time favorite card games. 00:53:32.240 --> 00:53:33.920 I'm a big Elder Scrolls fanboy. 00:53:34.000 --> 00:53:35.400 I still play Elder Scrolls online. 00:53:36.020 --> 00:53:39.320 How do you feel about all this stuff about Six coming out right now? 00:53:40.940 --> 00:53:42.240 I guess I'm clueless. 00:53:42.320 --> 00:53:45.080 Did they release some new information about Six as of late that I missed? 00:53:45.500 --> 00:53:51.780 Well, all of the Reddit scuttlebutt says that some of the Microsoft takeover is actually pushing Six back. 00:53:51.780 --> 00:54:01.120 And so, the thing I've always – my brother and I were both – well, not my brother so much anymore, but I'm also – I was an ESO guy for a while. 00:54:02.100 --> 00:54:10.260 And I started reading Reddit just for the lulls on Six, and then all of a sudden I went, oh, crap, Microsoft. 00:54:10.420 --> 00:54:11.600 But, oh, my gosh, that's right. 00:54:11.640 --> 00:54:12.560 This thing is going to get ruined. 00:54:12.700 --> 00:54:14.780 So, I don't know if you had any thoughts about that. 00:54:15.400 --> 00:54:22.700 You know, I think that the acquisitions of Microsoft and Sony – because Sony just bought Bungie, and I'm a Destiny 2 player as well. 00:54:23.480 --> 00:54:26.880 I think that, you know, it's a power game. 00:54:26.940 --> 00:54:27.420 It's a movement. 00:54:27.840 --> 00:54:31.040 Nobody wants Elder Scrolls 6 to fail, including Microsoft. 00:54:31.800 --> 00:54:38.000 And so, if they're wise, they'll let the people with the greatest passion about the game and the biggest devotion to it continue to develop it. 00:54:38.000 --> 00:54:47.460 And so, I don't have any reason to – my hope is that Elder Scrolls 6 gets delayed only because before with Bethesda, they were running out of resources. 00:54:47.620 --> 00:54:49.700 They were going to have to push the game out partially made. 00:54:50.460 --> 00:54:56.980 And with Microsoft, they can push the release date back and actually polish the game because they have the financial resources to do so now. 00:54:58.360 --> 00:54:59.320 That's my hope. 00:54:59.560 --> 00:55:03.700 And, you know, I've been waiting 11 years or whatever for that game. 00:55:04.500 --> 00:55:07.060 You know, at this point, I'll just take Breath of the Wild 2. 00:55:07.060 --> 00:55:09.120 I'll just take Breath of the Wild 2 for now. 00:55:09.120 --> 00:55:09.820 And what's the other one they're doing? 00:55:10.740 --> 00:55:11.060 Starfield? 00:55:11.140 --> 00:55:11.920 Is that the other one they're doing? 00:55:12.300 --> 00:55:12.620 Starfield? 00:55:12.740 --> 00:55:12.900 Yeah. 00:55:12.940 --> 00:55:14.460 I'm not a huge sci-fi guy. 00:55:15.060 --> 00:55:18.720 I've always just had a bigger attraction to fantasy games. 00:55:19.240 --> 00:55:24.740 So, you know, I don't know how much I'll play Starfield, but supposedly that's going to come out this year. 00:55:25.100 --> 00:55:25.480 We'll see. 00:55:25.560 --> 00:55:28.620 Hopefully, the NPCs actually have faces and stuff once it does come out. 00:55:28.680 --> 00:55:34.460 Yeah, I hope you can't – you just, you know, put books down and then they just launch into outer space after that. 00:55:34.540 --> 00:55:34.660 Yeah. 00:55:34.940 --> 00:55:35.120 Yeah. 00:55:35.120 --> 00:55:35.440 Absolutely. 00:55:36.440 --> 00:55:36.660 Cool. 00:55:36.660 --> 00:55:38.460 So, Mark, thanks so much for this conversation, man. 00:55:38.520 --> 00:55:45.900 I appreciate – we are going to have all of Mark's contact information – all of his social information, excuse me, all of Lux's socials, everything. 00:55:46.220 --> 00:55:49.900 All the links are going to be in the show notes for this and in the description below. 00:55:50.460 --> 00:55:51.620 Super stoked for what you guys are doing. 00:55:51.720 --> 00:55:53.940 Love to have a – love being able to catch up with you, man. 00:55:53.980 --> 00:55:54.480 Thanks so much. 00:55:55.140 --> 00:55:55.340 Yeah. 00:55:55.420 --> 00:55:55.680 Awesome. 00:55:55.760 --> 00:55:56.620 Thanks for having me on the show, Andy. 00:55:57.100 --> 00:55:57.380 Absolutely. 00:55:57.380 --> 00:55:57.460 Absolutely. 00:55:57.460 --> 00:56:08.260 Well, thanks again to Mark and Lux Digital Church and everything that they're doing. 00:56:08.740 --> 00:56:14.740 I – after that, I jumped right into their Discord and was hanging out with everybody and have been hanging out with everybody. 00:56:15.000 --> 00:56:17.240 I am a huge proponent of what they do on Wednesday nights. 00:56:17.240 --> 00:56:24.420 But not only that, of what they're doing with their small groups, with their entire model of how they're doing discipleship. 00:56:24.560 --> 00:56:43.260 And it's interesting to see, you know, some of what the conversation unraveled around and really rolled back up on was how digital churches and how digital church ministry is so much different and yet almost the same as in-person physical ministry. 00:56:43.620 --> 00:56:47.440 And I'm just excited to see how they're going about ministry. 00:56:47.580 --> 00:56:49.060 I'm excited to see what they're going to be doing. 00:56:49.160 --> 00:56:53.700 And most importantly, I'm excited to see the content that they're putting out because it is good content. 00:56:53.700 --> 00:56:58.120 It's not your standard, typical run-of-the-mill, look at a camera for 45 minutes and preach. 00:56:58.240 --> 00:57:05.480 There is worship and it is introspective and there are announcements and there is a live prayer time and there's interaction happening between the camera and the Discord. 00:57:05.740 --> 00:57:14.720 And there's, you know, what I like to call chucklehead time at the very beginning with him and his wife or him and a partner or him and a brother-in-law or whoever's in town as they just sit on the couch and talk. 00:57:14.860 --> 00:57:18.520 And I love the laid-back, relaxed atmosphere of everything happening there. 00:57:18.600 --> 00:57:20.000 So, Mark, thanks, man. 00:57:20.140 --> 00:57:21.160 Thanks for joining us here. 00:57:21.160 --> 00:57:26.640 And to you listening, thanks for joining me here on Breaking the Fifth Wall. 00:57:27.020 --> 00:57:28.220 It's like I said, episode two. 00:57:28.320 --> 00:57:29.260 We've got a lot more coming. 00:57:29.660 --> 00:57:30.680 We've got live shows coming. 00:57:30.840 --> 00:57:33.760 We've got YouTube shows coming, a whole bunch of stuff. 00:57:33.900 --> 00:57:35.080 So stay tuned to this channel. 00:57:35.520 --> 00:57:36.640 Stay tuned to our socials. 00:57:36.920 --> 00:57:38.040 Until then, love you. 00:57:38.200 --> 00:57:38.660 Talk soon. 00:57:49.160 --> 00:57:51.060 All right, and we're back. 00:57:51.140 --> 00:57:55.600 Hey, Jeff here, and I've got Andy Mage here, part of the Breaking the Fifth Wall takeover. 00:57:56.040 --> 00:57:59.520 So, Andy, you probably heard this episode, you know, multiple times at this point. 00:58:00.340 --> 00:58:04.080 Man, are there any lessons or are there any takeaways that are still sticking out for you here? 00:58:04.080 --> 00:58:12.840 It's interesting the way that Mark and his wife were able to form a church coming from another church. 00:58:12.980 --> 00:58:25.160 And obviously, they worked with Stadia Planting, and they were able to kind of get some backing from different donors and different kind of givers. 00:58:25.360 --> 00:58:37.740 But their sending church, his home church, the church he had worked for for umpteen years, were not only excited, but were supportive of him and helped kind of lift him up. 00:58:37.860 --> 00:58:48.640 I don't know how many times I've heard church planters come and in my own travels say, yeah, we had to go plant because X, Y, and Z was falling down around us in the church. 00:58:49.340 --> 00:58:55.840 And that's interesting to me, because Mark, what they're doing, obviously, is such a huge thing. 00:58:56.460 --> 00:59:02.620 And yet, at the same time, that church didn't want to really rein it in as one of their quote-unquote ministries. 00:59:02.620 --> 00:59:04.880 They actually wanted to send and plant a church. 00:59:05.320 --> 00:59:08.420 So, the rarity of that is astounding to me. 00:59:08.500 --> 00:59:15.720 Also, the fact that Mark really kind of started this from a podcast, just proving that podcasts really are changing the world. 00:59:16.880 --> 00:59:32.380 And the idea that the passion and the drive and the desire to connect with people that were like him, that were lost, coming from starting a video game podcast, from streaming on Twitch, and most importantly, just being in and of the culture. 00:59:32.760 --> 00:59:42.140 I think that speaks to me a lot in that I'm a pastor, I'm a musician, but I'm also a techie, but I'm also kind of a digital guy, but I'm also a fitness guy and all these other things. 00:59:42.140 --> 00:59:49.720 And it made me sit back and reflect on how I could, in my own circles, start to reach people more for Jesus. 00:59:49.880 --> 00:59:54.060 So, just some of the things that are being pulled out, I think it's a fantastic interview. 00:59:54.400 --> 01:00:05.140 And I just love the way that he was able to communicate so efficiently and so clearly, even through what some people might find theological dross, as we kind of talk through, you know, Reformation and all sorts of stuff. 01:00:05.320 --> 01:00:09.340 He just kind of picked that up, set it to the side and said, no, we're just going to talk about Jesus for a little bit. 01:00:09.420 --> 01:00:10.560 So, good on you, Mark. 01:00:10.780 --> 01:00:13.900 He definitely knows the audience and how to contextualize for that. 01:00:13.940 --> 01:00:21.920 And really, the contextualization, the aiming, you know, okay, I'm speaking to this type of audience, so I need to speak in languages, language that they'll understand. 01:00:22.080 --> 01:00:26.700 I'm not talking English, I'm talking like theological depths and guidance. 01:00:26.880 --> 01:00:27.700 There's places for that. 01:00:27.820 --> 01:00:35.080 But sometimes in digital-only churches, when you're dealing with a bunch of new or non-Christians, that's really not the place to go deep. 01:00:35.180 --> 01:00:37.200 And Mark understands that really well. 01:00:37.280 --> 01:00:40.080 And I do love my Stadia family. 01:00:40.200 --> 01:00:45.360 I was involved in the planning process with Mark and have loved seeing him succeed. 01:00:45.840 --> 01:00:54.620 My gosh, that was maybe a year, a year plus at this point now, and seeing how he's been successful with Lux Digital Churches is a great thing. 01:00:54.820 --> 01:00:59.620 And so, well, hey, Andy, as we're landing the plane here, man, any closing thoughts? 01:01:00.120 --> 01:01:04.300 No, I'm, like I said, stoked to be just getting this podcast up off the ground. 01:01:04.300 --> 01:01:22.820 It's been sort of a passion project and something that, you know, I've got a million different things running, and it's good to be able to sit and focus my why through this podcast and hopefully, you know, niching down as the term is that we're kind of thrown around in the content circles now. 01:01:22.900 --> 01:01:30.720 Hopefully getting into this niche of helping other content creators really blossom in their whys is something I'm super passionate about. 01:01:30.720 --> 01:01:35.420 So I'm just thankful for the opportunity to be able to be with you guys and on this podcast. 01:01:36.000 --> 01:01:37.040 And we're going to land the plane. 01:01:37.140 --> 01:01:39.220 Be sure to check out Breaking the Fifth Wall. 01:01:39.340 --> 01:01:40.400 Links are in the show notes. 01:01:41.020 --> 01:01:42.460 Hey, who are you bringing up next? 01:01:42.540 --> 01:01:45.600 What's the next guest we've got coming up here in the next week or so? 01:01:45.640 --> 01:01:46.420 What can we look forward to? 01:01:46.740 --> 01:01:49.320 Yeah, we have two main guests, actually. 01:01:49.380 --> 01:01:55.140 But one of them I can't really talk about because he's kind of a big-time streamer, and we're going to kind of keep that on. 01:01:55.220 --> 01:01:56.760 I know, that's a tease right there. 01:01:57.180 --> 01:02:01.680 We've got to kind of keep that on hold, so we kind of go through some channels and things like that. 01:02:01.740 --> 01:02:04.140 But we do have somebody young in the ministry. 01:02:04.300 --> 01:02:08.280 His name is Austin, and I've had a privilege of working with him. 01:02:08.360 --> 01:02:09.920 He's kind of across the country right now. 01:02:10.520 --> 01:02:16.160 And he is starting out streaming, and he's been streaming card games. 01:02:16.640 --> 01:02:21.920 And I'm interested to see how the streaming of card games has led him to share the gospel a little bit. 01:02:21.980 --> 01:02:27.000 Kind of in the vein of Mark, but different in that these card games aren't actual games. 01:02:27.060 --> 01:02:29.380 And you'll see more of what I'm talking about in the next couple of weeks. 01:02:29.820 --> 01:02:30.080 Awesome. 01:02:30.200 --> 01:02:31.140 I can't wait to see it. 01:02:31.180 --> 01:02:32.880 So check out Breaking the Fifth Wall. 01:02:33.340 --> 01:02:38.060 Links are in the show notes for Andy, for Mark, somewhere out there. 01:02:38.160 --> 01:02:41.120 This is Jeff with the Church Digital and Digital Church Network. 01:02:41.520 --> 01:02:43.240 Man, thanks for jumping on the podcast here. 01:02:43.300 --> 01:02:44.860 And we'll see you next time here at the show. 01:02:44.980 --> 01:02:45.480 Y'all have a good day.