WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:06.900 One issue that the normal church model has is we listen to the pastor and we need to be listening 00:00:06.900 --> 00:00:11.700 to the Holy Spirit and find out what He has for us personally, along with listening to the pastor 00:00:11.700 --> 00:00:16.000 and listening to somebody that's, you know, studied and spent the week really digging into 00:00:16.000 --> 00:00:22.280 the Word of God, but we need to integrate that into our own lives. And really, that's all I've 00:00:22.280 --> 00:00:27.220 been doing. Welcome to the Church Digital Podcast. Through this podcast, we'll talk about the 00:00:27.220 --> 00:00:32.540 technological innovations within the church. But more than tech for tech itself, we'll address 00:00:32.540 --> 00:00:38.920 deeper questions. Is disciple making possible digitally? How should we approach the digital 00:00:38.920 --> 00:00:44.860 mission field? Can a biblically grounded church operate in digital space? Oh, and where does 00:00:44.860 --> 00:00:49.880 the metaverse fit into all this? Whether you're a big or small church, an established church 00:00:49.880 --> 00:00:55.160 or a startup church plant, the Church Digital's goal is to help churches like yours learn to 00:00:55.160 --> 00:01:01.940 be a multiplying church, digitally and physically. Our heart? That churches like yours will discover 00:01:01.940 --> 00:01:08.360 a newfound focus on disciple making that will revolutionize your church. And now, here's your 00:01:08.360 --> 00:01:09.760 host, Jeff Reed. 00:01:10.100 --> 00:01:14.780 All right. Hey, everybody. Welcome to episode 227 of the Church Digital Podcast. I have been 00:01:14.780 --> 00:01:21.540 looking forward to this conversation, this conversation right here for a very long time. It was, you know, 00:01:21.540 --> 00:01:26.520 I feel like I should like maybe draw it out longer, tease it, but we're just going to get right into it 00:01:26.520 --> 00:01:32.460 right here. So I was interviewing, we got Lucas Pulley, executive director from Underground Network 00:01:32.460 --> 00:01:39.320 here in Florida, specifically the Tampa area and others. So I was interviewing Lucas Pulley, 00:01:39.320 --> 00:01:50.140 talking about that verse in micro. Yeah. We were talking about DAOs. Yeah. We were talking about DAOs and 00:01:50.140 --> 00:01:56.040 blockchain. Yeah. It was the most all over the place conversation through Leadership Network, maybe 00:01:56.040 --> 00:02:01.980 maybe three or four months ago. And he mentioned the words dungeon and dragon church. And just right then, 00:02:01.980 --> 00:02:06.960 I was like, okay, I cannot have this conversation today because we don't have enough time for it. But dang it, 00:02:07.100 --> 00:02:13.260 we're going to come back because I want to explore what the idea of Dungeons and Dragon Church could 00:02:13.260 --> 00:02:19.920 look like. And so we were emailing kind of after the fact and Lucas was nice enough to connect me with 00:02:19.920 --> 00:02:26.140 Andy Corson. And so Andy, welcome to the show as well. And we're going to get into Dungeons and 00:02:26.140 --> 00:02:33.860 Dragons Church. But then I discover Andy's also run a Bible at the bar, like church at a bar. And all of a sudden, 00:02:34.100 --> 00:02:41.220 I'm just, my mind is getting blown by all these different expressions of church and how church can 00:02:41.220 --> 00:02:48.620 look different in a physical building, in digital space, in a bar, in a Dungeons and Dragons game. 00:02:48.760 --> 00:02:54.260 Like this is just, once again, this is a conversation that I really, really wanted to 00:02:54.260 --> 00:02:59.440 have. So gentlemen, Lucas, Andy, thank you all for jumping on the show here. It's going to be great. 00:02:59.760 --> 00:03:06.020 Our pleasure. Thanks for having us. Awesome. So Lucas, why don't you just a big picture up front 00:03:06.020 --> 00:03:12.000 here? Underground, you know, I mean, obviously we do a lot with Rob Wagner, Casey Underground. You guys 00:03:12.000 --> 00:03:17.960 were ahead of them on this, maybe the impetus a little bit for some of their mindset. So talk to 00:03:17.960 --> 00:03:21.480 us a little bit about Underground, Tampa Underground, what you guys are about. 00:03:21.480 --> 00:03:29.480 Yeah, Network of Microchurches, we want to empower the priesthood of all believers, just everyday 00:03:29.480 --> 00:03:38.940 disciples to discern their calling from the Lord, their destiny to be a witness to the unreached, 00:03:39.180 --> 00:03:46.300 to the lost and the poor. And when they have some clarity about that from the Lord to actually go and 00:03:46.300 --> 00:03:53.520 plant and develop an expression of the church in a simple way among those people that can be 00:03:53.520 --> 00:03:59.740 contextualized and meaningful and fully empowered in an intentional community among those people. 00:03:59.980 --> 00:04:05.700 So we just have a little network here in Tampa of around 100 of those microchurches in like a 00:04:05.700 --> 00:04:11.660 decentralized network. And I have the grace of a vantage point of being able to serve a lot of those 00:04:11.660 --> 00:04:19.200 leaders and help them get off the ground or remove barriers along the way. And as the as the director 00:04:19.200 --> 00:04:25.800 of the network and and being able to see some of them plant develop and progress. But gosh, I don't I 00:04:25.800 --> 00:04:30.320 honestly don't remember how long it was ago, Andy, that we we connected. But but Andy was in the 00:04:30.320 --> 00:04:37.600 Tampa Bay area, he and his wife have been kind of missional experimenters for a long time and 00:04:37.600 --> 00:04:44.860 and connected with the underground many, many years ago. And, and they've been, you know, you say Bible 00:04:44.860 --> 00:04:50.020 at the bar, and I'll let Andy talk about it. But that his his formal microchurch was Bible at the bar. But 00:04:50.020 --> 00:04:58.420 they were doing all kinds of experiments, expressions of the church underneath that, that like general 00:04:58.420 --> 00:05:09.280 label, general moniker, and, and, and reaching a lot of people in a lot of pockets of places that, again, the 00:05:09.280 --> 00:05:15.300 church would never be reaching, we would often never see or know. But because that's not the point, you're 00:05:15.300 --> 00:05:20.600 just empowering the priest of all believers to be the church among the people, and let them go, let them be 00:05:20.600 --> 00:05:27.860 free. And, and, and do their thing. And, sadly, it was about maybe a few months ago that that their 00:05:27.860 --> 00:05:33.780 the Corson family moved to the Tampa area and went up to Ohio. And we've been weeping ever since. But 00:05:33.780 --> 00:05:37.660 I'm happy for him to be on the podcast, be able to tell some of their story. 00:05:38.000 --> 00:05:41.740 Well, that's what I was, there's this thing called digital. I don't know if you've ever heard of this 00:05:41.740 --> 00:05:48.600 before. Digital is the capacity of connecting people across long distances together. Like you're 00:05:48.600 --> 00:05:53.520 literally talking right now to Andy. It's it's like, we're not on the Oregon Trail anymore. We can still 00:05:53.520 --> 00:06:03.500 stay in connection. We can still be friends. Oh, so good. I Andy, like I would love so as a former 00:06:03.500 --> 00:06:11.340 tamper underground the end or whatever the phrase is, and I really want to get into the, like the heart of 00:06:11.340 --> 00:06:17.120 some of these unique expressions. Let's just back up to you. Like, what's your heart? What what what 00:06:17.120 --> 00:06:24.040 brought you to do things like Bible at the bar and Dungeons and Dragon Church and all these other 00:06:24.040 --> 00:06:28.020 what what makes you want to explore some of that space? 00:06:28.440 --> 00:06:35.080 Yeah, I used to be in bridge and road construction for like 17 years. And a lot of the times when I was 00:06:35.080 --> 00:06:39.580 growing in my faith, you know, kind of wondering, was I supposed to be doing more? And God's like, 00:06:39.740 --> 00:06:44.820 no, they need Jesus in construction. And so I stayed there and did my thing and just, 00:06:44.940 --> 00:06:51.460 you know, sought him and grew. And it came to a point where he told me, OK, it's time to step out 00:06:51.460 --> 00:06:57.120 of the boat. I mean, it was we'd gone on a mission trip. I led some students down there and that was 00:06:57.120 --> 00:07:01.900 kind of the word for them. And then about a month later, he goes, that was for you, too. 00:07:02.920 --> 00:07:12.260 And it was like I had a good, solid career with a good, bright future. And he's he's like, no, it's it's 00:07:12.260 --> 00:07:20.940 follow me and wouldn't say to what it was just follow me. And plenty of reassurance, plenty of 00:07:20.940 --> 00:07:25.620 reassurance that it was his voice and that he was telling me that and that that it was biblical. It made 00:07:25.620 --> 00:07:31.720 sense. That's what he was calling me to. And so I did. I gave my notice and and he still didn't tell me 00:07:31.720 --> 00:07:38.900 what it was for. And about a month or two later before I left, he started showing me some of the 00:07:38.900 --> 00:07:47.280 groups I'd be reaching out to. And having been in construction and I loved motorcycles my whole life. 00:07:47.700 --> 00:07:54.500 I'm a big nerd. It's a I'm a I'm a weird guy. I'm very strangely wired because the groups I fit into 00:07:54.500 --> 00:07:59.080 you don't usually hang out together or at least you don't realize that they do. 00:08:00.000 --> 00:08:07.260 And so the bar community, the biker community and the gaming community were kind of where God was 00:08:07.260 --> 00:08:14.000 leading me to reach out to. And so I just started looking at ways to plug in and reach out to those 00:08:14.000 --> 00:08:23.040 people and and just listening for his leading, which some days you wonder and ended up getting a job at 00:08:23.040 --> 00:08:29.920 the local Harley shop, which shouldn't have happened. I'm not a mechanic by any means. I'm really not a 00:08:29.920 --> 00:08:35.180 sales guy. So I ended up working there as a sales guy for a year, which again, I mean, every one of 00:08:35.180 --> 00:08:40.640 these are God's stories of I mean, I had to put on the application and explain in the interview why I 00:08:40.640 --> 00:08:48.920 left my job, which is because God told me to. So a lot of fun and they hired me anyway. So again, 00:08:49.540 --> 00:08:52.860 total God thing, no sales experience, nothing like that. 00:08:53.200 --> 00:08:59.200 You left your previous good job because God told you to. This sounds like a durable employee. Let's hire 00:08:59.200 --> 00:09:06.280 them. They may have thought you had really good access to the drugs, man, like that. So that's 00:09:06.280 --> 00:09:13.180 some high quality stuff you must have. And so it kind of grew from working at the Harley shop. We 00:09:13.180 --> 00:09:18.520 worked every weekend. And so me and one of the other guys started doing a Bible study on Sunday 00:09:18.520 --> 00:09:24.320 mornings for work. And it just kind of grew from there. That's where Bible at the bar, we would meet 00:09:24.320 --> 00:09:31.600 at the outside bar behind the Harley shop and do Bible study. And, uh, it just kind of started there 00:09:31.600 --> 00:09:38.300 before to turn. Wait, wait, wait. You, you, you did, you did church at the bar behind the Harley shop 00:09:38.300 --> 00:09:44.560 behind the Harley shop. It's so awesome. I love this story. That's incredible. It started with me and 00:09:44.560 --> 00:09:51.020 one other sales guy. And when I left, we had about a dozen people there and I was more preaching than 00:09:51.020 --> 00:09:57.580 Bible study, but yeah, it was awesome. I was able to go and, uh, talk to, they had a writer's edge 00:09:57.580 --> 00:10:04.260 class every weekend for new writers to get their certification. And we'd show up early and give 00:10:04.260 --> 00:10:09.380 them donuts and they let me share what we were doing. And yeah, it was awesome. I literally sit 00:10:09.380 --> 00:10:16.840 at the bar and preach there. So like what I would imagine being in such a public space right behind 00:10:16.840 --> 00:10:22.340 the Harley shop, lots of exposure, lots of people seeing what was going on, like walk in, 00:10:22.600 --> 00:10:28.900 walk in traffic. Like maybe tell me some of the stories of what was happening as a result of, of, uh, 00:10:29.140 --> 00:10:29.960 Bible in the bar. 00:10:30.500 --> 00:10:37.160 Yeah. Uh, a lot of the outreach was to that, uh, group of bikers. I got to know, uh, people in 00:10:37.160 --> 00:10:40.900 different clubs and people at the Harley shop. Cause again, I worked there for a year 00:10:40.900 --> 00:10:49.300 and, um, had, had one girl, um, that was taking the class, come over and use the restroom at the 00:10:49.300 --> 00:10:53.540 restaurant there. Cause it's connected to a restaurant. And as she's walking back, she just, 00:10:53.540 --> 00:10:54.860 uh, 00:10:55.260 --> 00:11:00.180 just stopped and started saying, 00:11:00.900 --> 00:11:08.460 just started singing for us. Just praise God, you know? 00:11:11.340 --> 00:11:19.740 Yeah. So just, yeah, just awesome opportunities for people to, uh, just experience Christ, 00:11:19.740 --> 00:11:27.940 even just in walking by and in hearing that, uh, uh, that a fellow biker that speaks their language, 00:11:27.940 --> 00:11:35.720 uh, is following him is one of the things, one of the reasons I'm called to the biker community 00:11:35.720 --> 00:11:41.760 is in the bar community is because you can't offend me with your language. I worked in construction 00:11:41.760 --> 00:11:48.060 for 17 years. I've heard it. I've, I've told the jokes before, you know, for God kind of clean my, 00:11:48.280 --> 00:11:54.200 clean my mouth a little bit, but you're not going to offend me. You're not going to offend me by 00:11:54.200 --> 00:11:57.920 drinking in front of me. God's, you know, clean, cleanse me from all of that stuff. 00:11:57.940 --> 00:12:05.020 To where I'm able to kind of in a nonjudgmental way, meet people where their walls are down 00:12:05.020 --> 00:12:12.360 because a lot of people won't come to church. They're fine. Christ like, uh, perfect example 00:12:12.360 --> 00:12:21.200 was, uh, my sales manager at the Harley shop. He was tough, big beard, X army, big truck, 00:12:21.720 --> 00:12:27.960 Harley with the big ape hangers, the whole, you know, the whole picture, uh, just, uh, just the cool 00:12:27.960 --> 00:12:33.960 guy. And he told me that one day he came in and he goes, Andy, you'd be proud of me. I went to church 00:12:33.960 --> 00:12:40.120 last, uh, week for Easter. It's like, awesome, man. That's great. He goes, I didn't go in. I'm like, 00:12:40.760 --> 00:12:47.120 okay. He says, yeah, I sat in the parking lot for 15 minutes and then I went home. 00:12:47.840 --> 00:12:53.820 He, he could not bring himself to walk in the door. Wow. But we could have a conversation on 00:12:53.820 --> 00:12:59.480 that sales floor. We could talk surrounded by motorcycles that we could talk about Christ. 00:12:59.560 --> 00:13:04.260 We could talk about the fact that I told him in an interview that I left my job 00:13:04.260 --> 00:13:09.580 because God told me to, you know, you're, you're drawn to attention here. We talk about how doing 00:13:09.580 --> 00:13:13.860 these unique expressions of church, we reach different types of people than the types of 00:13:13.860 --> 00:13:18.660 people that are in the buildings and in your, in your story of your friend in the parking lots, 00:13:18.700 --> 00:13:24.860 a prime example of that, where, um, they're not, they literally, for some reason, cannot go 00:13:24.860 --> 00:13:29.920 into the building. Did, did he actually give like, and I don't want to get like deep into trauma or 00:13:29.920 --> 00:13:34.680 anything, but like, was he just a, a D church guy hurt? Like, what was the thing that was keeping 00:13:34.680 --> 00:13:41.220 him from going in? Yeah. He, uh, I don't remember anything specific. Uh, he actually, it was funny 00:13:41.220 --> 00:13:47.480 because he, um, he ended up coming to this thing called, uh, alpha. I don't know if you've ever heard 00:13:47.480 --> 00:13:54.200 of that. Okay. So we had that at our church, uh, Baylife church there in Brandon. And so I was telling 00:13:54.200 --> 00:14:01.960 him about it and him and his girlfriend actually came and we met in the student center. And so I 00:14:01.960 --> 00:14:05.960 joked that you had to go through the student center first before you go into the big church 00:14:05.960 --> 00:14:13.700 because I got him that far. It was kind of those baby steps. And then he actually, yeah, he actually 00:14:13.700 --> 00:14:20.280 attended, uh, uh, the wedding of my wife and I, which was in the, the main sanctuary. So I joked 00:14:20.280 --> 00:14:26.800 that I got him into that, got him into church. So I got him in, it took you getting married to get 00:14:26.800 --> 00:14:34.020 him into church, but we had just tons of really cool conversation, especially during the alpha 00:14:34.020 --> 00:14:40.480 things. It was, you know, he brought stuff up again. Like, what did you mean when you said God 00:14:40.480 --> 00:14:46.120 spoke to you and you're never going to have that conversation until you've built a little 00:14:46.120 --> 00:14:51.600 relationship and they feel comfortable to be able to ask you that. And it was awesome to 00:14:51.600 --> 00:14:58.420 be able to share and just have a conversation with them without him feeling like he's walking 00:14:58.420 --> 00:15:03.780 into somebody else's house. He's walking into a place where they're probably going to judge 00:15:03.780 --> 00:15:10.000 him and look down on him. And he's uncomfortable. Like anytime you go into a new place, you don't, 00:15:10.120 --> 00:15:14.880 even from church people, when you walk into a new church, you don't know where anything 00:15:14.880 --> 00:15:20.100 is, you don't know what time things, you know, where, if there's childcare, what's the process. 00:15:20.320 --> 00:15:25.740 So it can be nerve wracking. And for somebody that doesn't attend church, they have no idea. 00:15:26.260 --> 00:15:33.020 That's beautiful. Tell me, Lucas, let me ask this. Like, okay, so you've got Bible in a bar, 00:15:34.220 --> 00:15:39.600 Tampa underground. Like what's the percentage of, let's, let's use the phrase maybe over the top. 00:15:39.900 --> 00:15:45.460 What's the percentage of, of unique expressions like this compared to the guy that wants to reach 00:15:45.460 --> 00:15:52.000 his gated community or his, his neighborhood or, you know, his workplace? Like, is there a, 00:15:52.000 --> 00:15:58.280 is there a strong percentage towards really these very creative driven ideas or is it more, 00:15:59.120 --> 00:16:03.120 I want to use the word safe, but it's not, you know, more typical, which you would see in a micro 00:16:03.120 --> 00:16:03.580 expression. 00:16:03.980 --> 00:16:10.320 Yeah. I think in our, in our network and again, um, not by design and we have plenty of, uh, 00:16:10.320 --> 00:16:15.840 friends, like, uh, a city network friends that don't look this way. Um, but it just so happens 00:16:15.840 --> 00:16:24.980 that in ours, um, the majority of micro churches are very unique out of the box. 00:16:25.320 --> 00:16:34.820 Really? Um, experimental and they look a little bit more, um, risky or, uh, unsafe. Like it would be 00:16:34.820 --> 00:16:43.000 over half. Um, and it would be under half that just look like, um, very accessible, you know, 00:16:43.000 --> 00:16:49.540 like house church in a living room or, um, or something, or something similar like that, you know? Um, 00:16:50.000 --> 00:16:55.560 so, uh, again, that's not necessarily that that's, I don't think there's necessarily anything like 00:16:55.560 --> 00:17:01.180 good or bad, wrong or right. Just descriptively. That's just how our community has come to look. 00:17:01.300 --> 00:17:08.020 And, um, I do think we sort of see ourselves in a, as a, as a broad community, we sort of see ourselves 00:17:08.020 --> 00:17:17.120 as experimenting on the edge of the future and, and trying to like solicit learning to, to feedback 00:17:17.120 --> 00:17:23.160 into the church at large. Um, like we're just experimenting both for the sake of the kingdom 00:17:23.160 --> 00:17:31.360 in our own city, but also to learn things to maybe that the broader church would, um, uh, 00:17:31.360 --> 00:17:38.840 would find a gift, you know, um, certainly true of, true of Andy too. And, um, and I think, 00:17:38.920 --> 00:17:43.580 I think a big part, like even him, just hearing him talk a second ago about Bible at the bar 00:17:43.580 --> 00:17:54.460 and him talking about language, like he could speak their language. And, um, um, you know, 00:17:54.540 --> 00:18:00.000 I think that's part of what has fueled a lot of our really unique expressions is our value for 00:18:00.000 --> 00:18:07.680 contextualization. And, and therefore we don't really necessarily have like a broad, we don't really 00:18:07.680 --> 00:18:14.420 have like a, uh, a default or broad vision for microchurch that everybody is sort of trying to 00:18:14.420 --> 00:18:21.560 fit into at first and then maybe divert from, but the base here is nothing. 00:18:22.560 --> 00:18:28.860 Every, all the microchurches look totally different and we've intentionally not tried to give kind of 00:18:28.860 --> 00:18:34.620 like a foundation or a starting point and given people like total, which can be paralyzing. It 00:18:34.620 --> 00:18:39.260 has its pros and cons. It can be kind of paralyzing, but given people sort of like total freedom to let 00:18:39.260 --> 00:18:46.580 the church that exists in their midst kind of be formed around their own calling and gifting and 00:18:46.580 --> 00:18:51.780 what, and their own language. And that's our value for contextualization. And it's similar to the, 00:18:51.960 --> 00:18:57.440 you know, I can't wait for Andy to, you know, mention some about the little Dungeons and Dragons 00:18:57.440 --> 00:19:03.040 ministry experiment that, that he was doing here. But again, I just feel like so much of that's 00:19:03.040 --> 00:19:12.140 contextualization. Like the way that he, he's able to reach a group of people because he knows he's 00:19:12.140 --> 00:19:16.680 wired similarly to them. He knows how to speak their language. He knows how to kind of like fit into the 00:19:16.680 --> 00:19:25.500 culture. And more than that, he actually knows how to go about ministry, like community, talking about 00:19:25.500 --> 00:19:33.740 spiritual topics, go like creating some kind of discipleship strategy that makes sense in that 00:19:33.740 --> 00:19:42.120 culture. And just even hearing like, yeah, we sit at a bar and there's some preaching there. There, 00:19:42.120 --> 00:19:47.320 there might be people who on, who are listening to the podcast, hear him say, for a while, we stopped 00:19:47.320 --> 00:19:51.140 doing Bible study. And instead, like I was preaching every week and they might think in their head, 00:19:51.240 --> 00:19:55.600 well, that was a bad idea. Like they, they, they should just be doing discovery Bible or something, 00:19:55.800 --> 00:20:00.880 discovery Bible study or something like that forever. But the thing is for that community of people, 00:20:00.880 --> 00:20:08.320 like sitting at a bar together, like Andy's making choices, discerning with the spirit about what 00:20:08.320 --> 00:20:14.440 these people want and in what way and in what language and probably what he's saying in a sermon 00:20:14.440 --> 00:20:19.480 would never be said in a traditional church or something, you know, like the, just the, the 00:20:19.480 --> 00:20:24.140 stories, the illustrations, like it's just stuff that's going to make sense for that group of people. 00:20:24.520 --> 00:20:29.300 And the dungeons and dragons thing is going to be going to be like a similar thing. It's like, 00:20:29.360 --> 00:20:35.740 even if we could convince these pockets of people to come back to a prevailing model form of the 00:20:35.740 --> 00:20:42.360 church, bikers, Harley Davidson guys, dungeons and dragons crew, even if we could convince these 00:20:42.360 --> 00:20:46.900 pockets of people to come back to the prevailing model of the church, which by the way, we won't, 00:20:47.180 --> 00:20:53.740 but even if we could, even if we could, we still have the problem of not being able to communicate 00:20:53.740 --> 00:21:00.900 in a way that makes sense to them and is meaningful to their story. We don't know the illustrations or the 00:21:00.900 --> 00:21:07.020 metaphors that make sense for them. And that's why like empowerment of missionaries, like Andy, 00:21:07.120 --> 00:21:11.760 like he's, he's like, Hey, I'm wired to kind of be in the lives of these kinds of three groups of 00:21:11.760 --> 00:21:18.620 people. That's exactly right. And I just love hearing Andy and missionaries like him talk about 00:21:18.620 --> 00:21:25.540 their own stories because you can kind of see how they're making decisions or like communicating about 00:21:25.540 --> 00:21:32.640 things that nobody else would because it's not intuitive to them. It's the, it's the, it's the 00:21:32.640 --> 00:21:37.920 activated indigenous missionaries. So, um, I just love it. It's like, Andy, you don't even like mean 00:21:37.920 --> 00:21:41.420 to be highlighting some of that stuff, but it's like stuff that I'm, that I'm catching and I really 00:21:41.420 --> 00:21:47.060 appreciate it. How does this, how does this multiply contextualization? Like Andy, so you, 00:21:47.200 --> 00:21:53.300 you understand, uh, the, you know, the, the biker you're literally working at, at a Harley Davidson 00:21:53.300 --> 00:21:59.780 bike shop. Like, are you, and you're, you're pouring into individual people, the, the boss and 00:21:59.780 --> 00:22:05.920 whoever, some of the stories you've talked to, um, like, are you gaining insight? Are you developing 00:22:05.920 --> 00:22:13.380 leaders to, to take over and to multiply into other areas? Are you focused on your one bar and really 00:22:13.380 --> 00:22:20.320 just developing that? Like what, what's the, the bigger scope of, of where, um, Bible in a bar is 00:22:20.320 --> 00:22:27.680 going or would go? Yeah. Um, funny thing is not that clever. I didn't come up with like an amazing, 00:22:27.680 --> 00:22:34.980 uh, a way to go about this and, you know, four point scheme and all this. And in fact, I think we 00:22:34.980 --> 00:22:41.560 need to be careful being too clever and just be contrite and listen to God. And that needs to be our 00:22:41.560 --> 00:22:48.060 message to the people as well. You know, one, one issue that the normal church model has is we listen 00:22:48.060 --> 00:22:53.960 to the pastor and we need to be listening to the Holy spirit and find out what he has for us 00:22:53.960 --> 00:22:58.960 personally, along with listening to the pastor and listening to somebody that's, you know, studied and 00:22:58.960 --> 00:23:04.180 spent the week really digging into the word of God, but we need to, uh, integrate that into our own 00:23:04.180 --> 00:23:12.780 lives. And really that's all I've been doing is, uh, just, again, I was working at the Harley shop and we 00:23:12.780 --> 00:23:18.520 worked every Sunday. So, Hey, you know, we really, we need Jesus before we go into this place. It was 00:23:18.520 --> 00:23:24.680 not an easy place to work and not necessarily the culture, but just as an employee in sales 00:23:24.680 --> 00:23:32.780 doesn't jive with me. So it was, it was frustrating. It was tense. So it was important that we spent some 00:23:32.780 --> 00:23:42.320 time in God's word before we went into work. Um, the, the D and D study came about because a buddy of 00:23:42.320 --> 00:23:47.280 mine went to a game shop quite a bit. We played magic, the gathering, which is a nerdy card game. 00:23:47.280 --> 00:23:54.720 Um, we played D and D again, that's just part of who I am and what I enjoy. And those are the people 00:23:54.720 --> 00:23:59.520 that we were around. And when I started getting back into magic, the gathering, my daughter had 00:23:59.520 --> 00:24:05.240 asked me to show her how to play. She was in high school. I found a shop near work. I walked in, 00:24:05.240 --> 00:24:12.060 asked the guy to show me how to play, catch me up. And while I was standing there, I look over 00:24:12.060 --> 00:24:20.760 and there's all these tables set up and people just come in and they hang out and play and just wait 00:24:20.760 --> 00:24:28.620 for somebody to hang out with. And God's like, nobody's reaching them. It's like, Oh, okay. And 00:24:28.620 --> 00:24:33.720 from that moment, again, I was part of the, okay, these are some of the people you'll be reaching. 00:24:34.560 --> 00:24:41.540 So it wasn't like, okay, I need to find a way to, to really come up with a great ministry model. 00:24:41.540 --> 00:24:46.400 It was, I hang out at a game shop. My buddy hangs out at a game shop. I played, 00:24:46.880 --> 00:24:53.260 taught him to play magic. Hey, we should do a Bible study in the shop. And so number one, 00:24:53.320 --> 00:24:58.040 I asked the owner, I think that's important. Part of kind of the model of Bible at the bar 00:24:58.040 --> 00:25:03.400 at this point is talk to the owner, get permission before you just start meeting somewhere. 00:25:04.760 --> 00:25:10.180 For several reasons. Number one, it's respectful and you're going to be taking up their space. 00:25:11.020 --> 00:25:18.340 They know what you're doing. Your first line of outreach is the owner and employees. And now 00:25:18.340 --> 00:25:23.780 when people ask or have questions, they'll be able to talk about it, which means they may ask you more 00:25:23.780 --> 00:25:28.940 questions and it's, it just opens doors there. But we just started doing a Bible study there, 00:25:28.940 --> 00:25:34.820 met up about once a week. And then after we finished the, I think that we started with Ephesians. 00:25:35.380 --> 00:25:39.380 And after that, I was like, okay, what do you want to do? And he's like, let's do first Kings. I'm like, 00:25:39.620 --> 00:25:52.980 okay, sounds great. This is different. This is different. He's younger. He was like 18 or I think he was 20 at the time. 00:25:53.220 --> 00:26:00.540 And like, that's not your normal, Hey, let's study this book, this book, you know? And so I was like, okay. Cause you know, 00:26:00.540 --> 00:26:07.600 encourage them. Heck yeah. So then I started thinking about, okay, first thing we need to do is kind of backstory, 00:26:07.940 --> 00:26:14.900 you know, set the stage. Cause the first verse is King David's dying. Like, okay, there's a lot going on here. 00:26:14.960 --> 00:26:22.220 He's only the second King of Israel and he's on his deathbed. Like this is the transition of authority. 00:26:22.220 --> 00:26:29.440 There's a lot going on, not just to mention all the spiritual, but just, and in doing a backstory, 00:26:29.440 --> 00:26:38.640 it made me think of D and D and just building that world building. And so we started doing it as a D and D style Bible study. 00:26:38.780 --> 00:26:45.940 We, we pulled character sheets and every character that came up, any name that came up, we're like, okay, 00:26:45.940 --> 00:26:52.000 we need to do a character sheet for this person. So we need to find basically like every place in the Bible 00:26:52.000 --> 00:26:58.440 that mentions them or their family line and what decisions they're making and why. Like one of my favorites is, 00:26:58.440 --> 00:27:05.620 is alignment. You have basically nine different choices for, for people's alignment for your character. 00:27:06.320 --> 00:27:12.100 And it's largely based on why you make decisions. What's your motivation? What is your drive? 00:27:12.640 --> 00:27:19.940 And in studying the Bible this way, like I went deeper and got to know characters in a way that I never had before. 00:27:20.140 --> 00:27:27.800 Even in studying the Bible deeply, I never compiled all that and really wanted to know like, 00:27:28.000 --> 00:27:31.540 why is this person doing this? What's their drive? What is their reasoning? 00:27:32.260 --> 00:27:39.340 And in doing that as well, I can talk to somebody that plays D and D and say, yeah, this character, 00:27:39.340 --> 00:27:45.440 I think, you know, they're, they're probably a lawful neutral and start talking about why. 00:27:45.800 --> 00:27:49.240 And they're going to understand that character better than most people that go to church, 00:27:49.240 --> 00:27:54.160 just because of that concept and that understanding of the D and D world. 00:27:54.720 --> 00:28:00.320 And, uh, I, I, I can't tell you how many people came up while we're sitting there with the player's 00:28:00.320 --> 00:28:04.680 handbook and the Bible and they go, that's a combination I've never seen before. 00:28:04.920 --> 00:28:09.180 Yeah. What was the, was the business owner? I mean, I'm guessing he was open to it. Was, 00:28:09.340 --> 00:28:13.880 was it good for business? Was it bad for business? Like what, was he concerned about the win? 00:28:13.880 --> 00:28:19.820 I'm just, I'm curious the business perspective of what he gained or he or she gained by doing this. 00:28:20.180 --> 00:28:26.060 So the game shops are largely about people hanging out. So it really didn't detract from any of his 00:28:26.060 --> 00:28:30.820 business unless they had an event or something. We always, uh, were conscientious of where we sat 00:28:30.820 --> 00:28:38.040 and, uh, kept that in mind. Um, but he came up to us the one week and he's like, you guys are doing 00:28:38.040 --> 00:28:42.540 a Bible study, right? I was like, yeah. He goes, you can put a flyer up on the wall if you want on 00:28:42.540 --> 00:28:46.540 their little bulletin board. So we were able to do that. And then after a couple of weeks, 00:28:46.540 --> 00:28:53.120 he's, he came back over and he's like, uh, um, he's like, Hey, somebody was in here the other day 00:28:53.120 --> 00:28:59.260 asking if, um, we had, we do a Bible study here. Do you have a flyer or something? Like who does 00:28:59.260 --> 00:29:05.600 that? Who goes into a game shop asking about a Bible study? Like somebody heard something and it's 00:29:05.600 --> 00:29:11.920 amazing again, that somebody walked into his shop and is asking his employees about a Bible study. 00:29:12.200 --> 00:29:18.820 Usually they're not going to be thinking about that in the least. And now it's kind of right there in 00:29:18.820 --> 00:29:24.420 front of them. And we, we frequent that shop. People know us. People would walk up while we're 00:29:24.420 --> 00:29:28.480 doing the Bible study and be like, Hey, what are you guys doing? Or they'll just come up and start 00:29:28.480 --> 00:29:35.920 talking and we'd stop what we're doing and have conversation. And, but those relationships are what 00:29:35.920 --> 00:29:39.820 give us the opportunity to share in ways that we wouldn't be able to otherwise. 00:29:40.200 --> 00:29:45.220 That's, that's beautiful. How, what Lucas, what, what percentage I'm curious here? Um, 00:29:45.480 --> 00:29:49.340 cause it's funny, I've done some, let me back up maybe a little bit and I'm going to go all the 00:29:49.340 --> 00:29:55.380 way back to like 2006 here because I actually, I don't, you guys are probably familiar with like 00:29:55.380 --> 00:30:01.060 a hot topic or a PacSun kind of like the head shop that was around back in the day. And so the, 00:30:01.140 --> 00:30:06.200 the Christian version of that was called C2A. It was based out of California. Um, 00:30:06.200 --> 00:30:11.240 and there were dozens of them in California and actually I bought an owned one. We ran it out of 00:30:11.240 --> 00:30:16.280 West Palm beach, Florida. And, uh, so it was, uh, it was literally at the mall at Wellington green, 00:30:16.280 --> 00:30:22.320 uh, which was a popular mall out on the West side of West Palm. And, uh, it's back when malls were a 00:30:22.320 --> 00:30:29.340 good thing. Unlike maybe today, back in the day when the economy was stable. Um, but I, I, we literally, 00:30:29.340 --> 00:30:33.860 we saw a hundred kids, a hundred students give their life to Christ in, in a brick and mortar 00:30:33.860 --> 00:30:40.520 mall where, um, we, we, we sold. And when I say Christian shirts, you're probably picturing like 00:30:40.520 --> 00:30:45.020 the Budweiser thing that was like really popular in the nineties and two thousands. These were like 00:30:45.020 --> 00:30:50.420 cool designs. Like, and it was more like, you're more likely to see skulls and, and, um, you know, 00:30:50.420 --> 00:30:56.760 just a much more graphic, uh, image. Uh, but we trained our kids how to like share Jesus, 00:30:56.760 --> 00:31:02.980 the employees on how to share Jesus while they're sharing, selling the shirt. And, uh, and so through 00:31:02.980 --> 00:31:08.020 that, uh, we just, we literally saw over a hundred kids come to Christ and maybe the three years that 00:31:08.020 --> 00:31:13.080 that business ran somewhere along the way, Obama said the word recession and the economy crashed. 00:31:13.080 --> 00:31:20.120 And so we never, but it was funny. We actually, we had, um, we actually had like investors on the hook, 00:31:20.120 --> 00:31:26.540 uh, to open more C2 eights in, uh, Miami in Tampa, in Orlando, 00:31:26.540 --> 00:31:32.420 um, in, in, in a number of areas scattered across the state of Florida and just the economy, 00:31:32.420 --> 00:31:38.380 everything kind of crashed after the fact. The reason I bring all this up is, is my story. 00:31:38.860 --> 00:31:44.860 I actually like bought the property, uh, at least the property. I was the business owner, 00:31:44.860 --> 00:31:50.340 um, in Andy story, which is intriguing. He doesn't have near the overhead because he does not 00:31:50.340 --> 00:31:55.540 running either of these businesses. He's working with people in, in that space. 00:31:56.220 --> 00:32:02.480 What's maybe describe some of the, the tensions, uh, pros and cons of, of both, uh, is it, are you 00:32:02.480 --> 00:32:08.040 working with anyone currently that's owning the business as opposed to working with others that 00:32:08.040 --> 00:32:11.020 are already owning the business? Like what does that relationship look like in 22? 00:32:11.220 --> 00:32:18.120 Yeah. For Bible at the bar, for what we do, again, it's, it's not a complicated model. It is, 00:32:18.720 --> 00:32:25.260 this is something that anybody can do. I do it in, uh, like at an outside bar at the Harley shop, 00:32:25.260 --> 00:32:32.420 or, uh, my wife did it at a coffee shop. Um, I did it at a cigar shop, uh, the game shop, 00:32:32.420 --> 00:32:39.200 because those are places where we go. I was actually reaching out to, uh, trying to reach out 00:32:39.200 --> 00:32:43.860 to some of the guys at the Harley shop that smoked cigars and ended up at the cigar shop and met some 00:32:43.860 --> 00:32:50.220 Christian guys. And we started a Bible study there. Um, but a lot of it is again, just asking permission, 00:32:50.220 --> 00:33:01.880 um, just to make sure that you're not invading their space. You want to come in with, yeah, 00:33:01.880 --> 00:33:07.040 you want that permission because again, so they know what's going on. It's, it piques their interest, 00:33:07.040 --> 00:33:14.680 but you also want to respect that it's their building. It's not ours. And, you know, Christians 00:33:14.680 --> 00:33:21.800 can, you know, the after church crowd, the worst tippers and the worst customers we want to, we need 00:33:21.800 --> 00:33:28.160 to change that to where everywhere that we frequent, like when we did the coffee shop one, like we're 00:33:28.160 --> 00:33:31.160 going to, we're going to buy the product. We're going to be the best tippers. We're going to be 00:33:31.340 --> 00:33:36.160 respectful. We're going to be loving. And like, if you can't live it out while you're studying the 00:33:36.160 --> 00:33:43.000 Bible, go back home into your Bible study till you're ready to, to, to talk about it out in the 00:33:43.000 --> 00:33:50.500 open, which that that's a big part of Bible at the bar is, uh, doing it out in the open. Cause another, 00:33:50.500 --> 00:33:59.040 uh, heart of Bible at the bar is uniting the body of Christ because we tend to get, uh, art in our 00:33:59.040 --> 00:34:05.380 church and focused in our church. And Sunday mornings, we had people from four or five different 00:34:05.380 --> 00:34:11.040 churches coming and we do our Bible study and then we'd all go to our home churches. 00:34:12.040 --> 00:34:20.200 So being able to have these discussions out in public so that people can hear, because we agree 00:34:20.200 --> 00:34:25.900 on like 90% and we need to be able to talk about that and grow in that. And we need to be able to 00:34:25.900 --> 00:34:32.880 talk about the 10% that we don't, and we need to be able to do all of that out in the open, not kind 00:34:32.880 --> 00:34:40.460 of behind church doors till we all agree. And then we go out and we're right. And we need to tell them 00:34:40.460 --> 00:34:46.760 that they're wrong. Instead, we need to have these actual discussions within earshot of, of people. 00:34:47.160 --> 00:34:54.300 And we need to be discussing and wrestling with things and so that they can hear and go, they don't 00:34:54.300 --> 00:35:00.200 think that they know everything. They're struggling to follow the Lord. And, and that's what it looks 00:35:00.200 --> 00:35:05.740 like. That's, that's not what I thought. I thought they have it all together and they hate me because 00:35:05.740 --> 00:35:11.040 I'm wrong because I think differently. Just, just from the Tampa underground, like bird's eye. I know 00:35:11.040 --> 00:35:16.220 you were asking like, do, do we have others in the network that don't just engage a space that they 00:35:16.220 --> 00:35:20.780 don't own, but do we actually have some folks that actually own the, that stand on the other side of 00:35:20.780 --> 00:35:25.900 that relationship? And we do, Jeff, I know, I know, you know, John Dangler, you know, they've got 00:35:25.900 --> 00:35:31.900 well-built bikes. Um, and so they, they don't own the property that, but they, the, but they own the 00:35:31.900 --> 00:35:35.680 business and they're, you know, leasing the property and all that kind of stuff. And then we, 00:35:35.740 --> 00:35:44.240 there's a guy named Derek, um, that, um, owns a, a chain of coffee shops in, in Tampa. That's a part 00:35:44.240 --> 00:35:49.360 of the underground. And he does it very much from the motivation of being incarnationally engaged 00:35:49.360 --> 00:35:56.700 with the, the people who frequent the coffee shops. And, um, and, uh, so, yeah, I mean, I think there 00:35:56.700 --> 00:36:01.340 are pros and cons to those doing it one way or the other. And, uh, you know, we're kind of talking 00:36:01.340 --> 00:36:06.880 about third places. It's not entirely like the shirt, the t-shirt, um, store, the C28, that's not 00:36:06.880 --> 00:36:10.220 totally a third place, but maybe some of those kids were treating it like a third place. You know, 00:36:10.220 --> 00:36:14.800 they were going and hanging out there, not just grabbing a shirt and buying it and leaving. Um, 00:36:15.040 --> 00:36:20.580 but yeah, I mean, from, from Andy's point of view, if you don't own it and you're just jumping in and 00:36:20.580 --> 00:36:25.840 you're trying to build a relationship with management and, um, and then you're just trying to like pop up 00:36:25.840 --> 00:36:35.880 and do ministry as a, um, you know, as a, as a, as a client, as a customer, it's faster. Um, 00:36:36.140 --> 00:36:41.160 and you don't have, I do think there are, there's sometimes there's some weird kind of power dynamics 00:36:41.160 --> 00:36:45.900 might not be the right word, but like there's, you're not on the same tier of relationship when 00:36:45.900 --> 00:36:51.760 you're, um, relating with somebody as a business owner or business manager and they're the customer. 00:36:51.760 --> 00:36:55.900 Sometimes there's like, oh, there's some weird power dynamics or transactional relational dynamics 00:36:55.900 --> 00:37:01.480 there. And it's easier as just like the, a customer with other customers kind of convening in a space, 00:37:01.480 --> 00:37:08.280 in a bar, in a coffee shop, um, at a gym, at a CrossFit gym or something like that. Uh, 00:37:08.480 --> 00:37:13.680 so there's some pros there to like being, being on the same kind of tier. So there's less barriers 00:37:13.680 --> 00:37:19.080 relationally and it, maybe it's a little faster, but on the other side, like being the, we have a lot 00:37:19.080 --> 00:37:23.940 of people who are going about it from the perspective of not, uh, of, uh, building third 00:37:23.940 --> 00:37:30.860 spaces, owning, managing, generating businesses in third places. Um, it really comes down to calling, 00:37:30.860 --> 00:37:36.060 like people just feel called to do different things. And, um, and, but the people who are on 00:37:36.060 --> 00:37:39.600 that side, they're making trade-offs. There are, there's real pros and cons to that other side. 00:37:39.900 --> 00:37:44.080 Um, the pros are, you kind of have that proverb stuff. Like when, when the, when the righteous 00:37:44.080 --> 00:37:48.840 prosper, the whole city rejoices, you know, that's, that's, um, I think that's proper Proverbs 10, 00:37:48.840 --> 00:37:54.080 10. Like they, they, as business owners, they actually get to contribute at a city level with 00:37:54.080 --> 00:37:59.960 other civic leaders and like chamber of converse and business, and they get to steward their resources 00:37:59.960 --> 00:38:04.580 and their network of business relationships in a way that's alternative to the way of the world. 00:38:05.080 --> 00:38:10.260 Um, and so there's a huge benefit there. Um, the way that they use their profits can be really 00:38:10.260 --> 00:38:15.620 prophetic. The way that they design their space and their policies for their space can be really 00:38:15.620 --> 00:38:21.300 prophetic to the watching world. So they can have a much bigger impact on a city than somebody who's 00:38:21.300 --> 00:38:25.580 just popping up in a third place for six months and, uh, trying to build some relationships. Um, 00:38:25.580 --> 00:38:33.960 but again, uh, the, the, the overlap between re, um, religious affiliation and kind of evangelism 00:38:33.960 --> 00:38:38.420 stuff and also like a business place and some of the politics that can get involved there. Like 00:38:38.420 --> 00:38:45.540 that'll probably get dicey, increasingly dicey over the next five or 10 years. Um, and you know, 00:38:45.600 --> 00:38:50.220 people just embracing that diciness and complexity, it comes, it comes at a cost, you know, 00:38:50.220 --> 00:38:51.840 and it's something that people have to consider. 00:38:52.260 --> 00:38:56.400 I was curious, Lucas, like what's the, if you may not even know this, but what's the 00:38:56.400 --> 00:39:02.640 percentage of conversations that where people are like, no, I don't want you to do a Bible study 00:39:02.640 --> 00:39:09.140 in my business. Like I, I would imagine that's been increasingly so, but I'm just curious what 00:39:09.140 --> 00:39:13.740 your take would, we haven't heard that many examples of that. It certainly happened. It certainly 00:39:13.740 --> 00:39:19.940 happened, but, um, there's not a lot of examples. We have many, we have much more examples of business 00:39:19.940 --> 00:39:27.740 owners being open to it and friendly to it. Um, uh, a counterpart to Andy's, um, Bible at 00:39:27.740 --> 00:39:34.500 the bar. We also have a beer and Bible, uh, and they're in, they're in all the bars that 00:39:34.500 --> 00:39:39.580 they've kind of, uh, uh, um, propped up in the management has been very happy to have them 00:39:39.580 --> 00:39:45.620 and, um, and, um, and coffee shops where stuff has happened. Schools. I mean, it's a different 00:39:45.620 --> 00:39:50.320 thing. It's not for profit, but when we, there, when there's little, um, microchurch discovery 00:39:50.320 --> 00:39:54.660 Bible studies or prayer groups or stuff that pop up in schools, again, that's a thing where 00:39:54.660 --> 00:39:59.320 you kind of imagine there's going to be some resistance. Um, there has been in a couple 00:39:59.320 --> 00:40:05.000 places, but a lot of openness. Uh, um, so I don't know if that's just a grace of the area 00:40:05.000 --> 00:40:10.600 thing, like maybe, uh, or a geographic thing or a political thing. I don't know what that 00:40:10.600 --> 00:40:14.900 is, but that's just our experience. Maybe if you're in a, in a, a much more post-Christian 00:40:14.900 --> 00:40:19.220 city, maybe you're in somewhere up in the Northeast or something like that. Um, you might have a 00:40:19.220 --> 00:40:24.080 little bit more difficulty around that, but, um, we haven't seen it too much. I don't know 00:40:24.080 --> 00:40:27.940 about you, Andy, if you've had some, some experience, cause I know your wife was doing coffee shop 00:40:27.940 --> 00:40:31.800 stuff too, coffee shop, shop ministry. So I don't know if either one of you have run into 00:40:31.800 --> 00:40:34.760 any situations where an owner was like, please don't do this. I'm uncomfortable with it. 00:40:34.860 --> 00:40:41.580 No, we've never had any issues. And honestly, I think, I think with, you know, the media and 00:40:41.580 --> 00:40:49.780 all of even Christian media, uh, talking about the, the, the issues that we have and, and, uh, 00:40:49.780 --> 00:40:56.180 persecution that we experience, I think we're afraid. I think we're way more afraid than we 00:40:56.180 --> 00:41:02.320 should be. And, you know, really just, uh, when I was in construction at one point, I was 00:41:02.320 --> 00:41:07.240 like, you know, I should take my Bible to work and just have it on my desk. Cause, and I would 00:41:07.240 --> 00:41:13.980 go in early and read my Bible while I ate my breakfast before work and just having it on 00:41:13.980 --> 00:41:20.460 the desk, you know, was an opportunity for discussion. And there was a point where there 00:41:20.460 --> 00:41:27.000 was a difficult discussion, but there was an opportunity for it. And, you know, we were, 00:41:27.240 --> 00:41:31.980 we, I have a relationship with all those guys because we work together all the time. And 00:41:31.980 --> 00:41:39.760 again, it gave an opportunity there. And when you're going into somebody's business, again, 00:41:39.760 --> 00:41:47.480 if we can go in respectfully and we can add to their business, because if I'm doing a Bible study in 00:41:47.480 --> 00:41:54.520 your business, that means me and several people are going to come and give you business. And number 00:41:54.520 --> 00:41:59.240 one thing, I want to be a good tipper and be respectful and caring. I'm going to clean up. 00:41:59.460 --> 00:42:04.960 My area is going to look better at when I leave than when I got there. We need, you know, I want 00:42:04.960 --> 00:42:12.720 to show the love of Christ while I'm there. If, if I'm not doing that while I'm studying the Bible, 00:42:12.720 --> 00:42:19.500 I'm sending an opposite message. So that's super important. And so again, I've never had any issues. 00:42:19.500 --> 00:42:26.300 In fact, the, the cigar shop that we met at, and they're still meeting at, uh, the, one of the 00:42:26.300 --> 00:42:33.120 managers that was working there has started coming to our group after he left. And the, my last week, 00:42:33.680 --> 00:42:38.400 um, his girlfriend gave her life twice. Like it's awesome. 00:42:38.400 --> 00:42:44.960 Very, very cool. Listen, this is, this has been phenomenal. I'm, I'm really intrigued. Um, Andy, 00:42:45.200 --> 00:42:50.820 your goal of, of, of trying, trying to reach, what'd you say it was? It was, it was gamers. It was 00:42:50.820 --> 00:42:56.500 bikers. And what was the third group? Uh, the bar community, the bar bakers, uh, bakers, 00:42:56.500 --> 00:43:03.560 not bakers, bikers, bars, and, and, and gamers. Like what, what, uh, um, what a unreached people 00:43:03.560 --> 00:43:08.680 group. Uh, and it's just an incredible upper opportunities there and love, love your, your 00:43:08.680 --> 00:43:14.000 heart. Um, going after all of this, Hey, uh, I have an ulterior motive in bringing you all together 00:43:14.000 --> 00:43:19.220 for, for this podcast. And so let's see where this is going. I, I would love some advice. And so, 00:43:19.220 --> 00:43:23.100 uh, and actually Andy, I'm going to connect you to this person because he's in your neck of the woods. 00:43:23.260 --> 00:43:30.760 Uh, Joey Santos is, um, uh, global integration pastor or something like that for Christ church 00:43:30.760 --> 00:43:36.780 up, up right outside of Cincinnati, I believe. And, uh, and so Joey's a friend, uh, Joey reached out 00:43:36.780 --> 00:43:40.520 to me and he said, Hey, um, you know, cause I evidently I do a lot of work in the metaverse, 00:43:40.540 --> 00:43:46.400 or at least that's what I'm told. And so Joey asks me, he says, Hey, um, I'm thinking about doing, 00:43:47.020 --> 00:43:52.340 I'm thinking about opening a, a metaverse, a virtual reality bar, um, in, in the world called 00:43:52.340 --> 00:43:59.640 VR chat, which is like the, the red light district of virtual reality. Essentially he's opening up, 00:43:59.640 --> 00:44:07.000 uh, or wants to open up a virtual reality bar in the, the red light district, the wild, wild west, 00:44:07.000 --> 00:44:13.640 where, where pretty much anything goes, there's no parental controls. Um, and for him, he's wanting 00:44:13.640 --> 00:44:21.140 to do, um, not church services out of the bar, uh, but relationally connect in this virtual reality 00:44:21.140 --> 00:44:27.220 bar. Now, you know, virtual reality bar actually is a thing. It's a million dollar business, 00:44:27.220 --> 00:44:32.520 um, in this space because it runs off of memberships. Uh, they have licensed to ship 00:44:32.520 --> 00:44:38.260 alcohol across state lines. Uh, so there's some legitimacy to this business and they also run 00:44:38.260 --> 00:44:43.880 back rooms in virtual reality where things don't, or things happen that maybe, you know, shouldn't 00:44:43.880 --> 00:44:49.760 happen, uh, things that may or may not be illegal and are illegal. And so as a result of this, 00:44:49.860 --> 00:44:53.820 there's some stuff here with the, the virtual reality bar, of course, we don't want to get 00:44:53.820 --> 00:45:04.440 into. Uh, but what I'm really intrigued at is his desire to create a community space that's not called 00:45:04.440 --> 00:45:11.600 church and to draw people into it. And, um, long story short, we're looking for partners to, to kind 00:45:11.600 --> 00:45:17.340 of come in and to be part of this as we've, it's funny, as I've talked with churches, some churches 00:45:17.340 --> 00:45:22.020 love the idea. Some churches are incredibly offended at the idea of opening a bar and instead want us to 00:45:22.020 --> 00:45:27.600 open a coffee shop, which ironically, uh, difference between a beer with a foam top and a latte, it's 00:45:27.600 --> 00:45:32.840 probably just a little different colorization. So I think maybe we can build both. Uh, we could 00:45:32.840 --> 00:45:38.400 get into it maybe, but, but the idea is, man, what if, what would it be like to, to start to create 00:45:38.400 --> 00:45:45.160 some, some of these expressions, some of these experiences, some of these locations, um, in this 00:45:45.160 --> 00:45:51.800 space, not for church services, but for relationally connecting. Um, and so I've got two 00:45:51.800 --> 00:45:58.160 out of the box thinkers on this podcast. Uh, I would love some insight. Like what are y'all 00:45:58.160 --> 00:46:04.100 thinking? Is this a good idea? Is this a bad idea of your virtual reality or not? What, what advice 00:46:04.100 --> 00:46:08.180 would you give for someone like Joey and I who are interested in exploring this space? 00:46:08.460 --> 00:46:15.860 Um, I do not know a whole lot about virtual reality. I, uh, fairly low tech over here. I still 00:46:15.860 --> 00:46:21.300 even use, uh, paper character sheets half the time. I do like that. I can still, uh, play with 00:46:21.300 --> 00:46:28.860 my friends on down in Florida on D and D, but I think if your desire is to, to take Christ's 00:46:28.860 --> 00:46:35.940 places and that's where he's leading you. Absolutely. I think, uh, some of the difficulties or traps 00:46:35.940 --> 00:46:46.320 is to feel like you have to figure out how to fit in and be a part of them. And it, that's 00:46:46.320 --> 00:46:53.200 not what we're called to do. We're not called to, um, basically sin so that we can get close 00:46:53.200 --> 00:47:00.220 to sinners. You know, Christ had no problem getting close to sinners and he didn't water down 00:47:00.220 --> 00:47:07.680 the truth. He didn't change the message for it to be comfortable. He, he just loved them. He, 00:47:07.680 --> 00:47:14.680 he went where they were and, and loved them there and made himself available. Uh, he went where his 00:47:14.680 --> 00:47:22.260 father told him to go. I think that's key because, uh, you know, if I was writing Jesus's mission, 00:47:22.260 --> 00:47:27.780 it would have looked way different. Uh, one of my favorite stories is the woman at the well, 00:47:27.780 --> 00:47:35.220 because it says that Jesus had to go through Samaria to get to Jerusalem, but no good Jewish 00:47:35.220 --> 00:47:41.280 boy goes through Samaria to get to Jerusalem. You go around Samaria, but Jesus had to go through 00:47:41.280 --> 00:47:46.760 Samaria because his father told him to go through Samaria and it wasn't for an awesome, huge revival 00:47:46.760 --> 00:47:53.400 where he was going to talk to tens of thousands of people. It was to meet a woman that was an outcast 00:47:53.400 --> 00:48:00.040 in her own town that was, it was the last place and he should not have been talking to a woman in public. 00:48:00.040 --> 00:48:07.860 It's like everything about it was a, was a screaming sign of no, don't do this. But his father said, 00:48:07.940 --> 00:48:15.360 go here and talk to this woman. And because he spoke to that woman and cared her for her, where she was 00:48:15.360 --> 00:48:23.200 in the mess that she was in and didn't pull any punches. Like he gets, just lays it out for, 00:48:23.200 --> 00:48:30.800 but in a loving way because he can speak in the way that she needs and she goes and brings the whole 00:48:30.800 --> 00:48:40.720 city back. So just again, following God's lead and just, uh, being available and, and presenting the word 00:48:40.720 --> 00:48:46.320 of God. Yeah. You know, we don't have to apologize for it and we don't have to change it or, or dress 00:48:46.320 --> 00:48:52.000 it up. We just have to present it. And those that he's called will come. Great reminder. Lucas, 00:48:52.100 --> 00:48:57.700 what, what about you? Yeah. I mean, I think it's, uh, I think anybody who has like an incarnational 00:48:57.700 --> 00:49:03.880 missionary mind, like we, we don't invite the people where we are. We go to where people are. 00:49:04.440 --> 00:49:11.160 And when, when we go there, we're trying to find proximity and presence and trying to earn a hearing 00:49:11.160 --> 00:49:15.920 so that we can proclaim the gospel in, in relationship with people. Anybody who has that 00:49:15.920 --> 00:49:19.300 mindset would be like, yeah, a hundred percent. If there's a bunch of people living their lives 00:49:19.300 --> 00:49:26.200 majority digitally, and they start deciding socially that they like to hang out in these like VR bars, 00:49:26.320 --> 00:49:32.340 then yeah, let's go there and let's connect with a hundred percent. So I, I, I liked in general, 00:49:32.340 --> 00:49:39.100 the theory and the philosophy of the idea, like as a, as a missionary missiologically. Um, I think my 00:49:39.100 --> 00:49:46.240 one, because I don't know that world, I think my one catch point would be like, do third places in 00:49:46.240 --> 00:49:55.440 physical space mirror third places in digital space? Like, is that like, because we wouldn't 00:49:55.440 --> 00:50:02.240 necessarily Christians shouldn't, um, we shouldn't decide how people should gather and then try to 00:50:02.240 --> 00:50:07.280 convince them how they should gather and then incarnate. We actually try to observe how they are socially 00:50:07.280 --> 00:50:12.500 already gathering. And then we kind of embed because it's, it's easier that way instead of trying to 00:50:12.500 --> 00:50:18.740 like design our own sociology to invite them into. So there's a part of me that wonders like, man, 00:50:18.780 --> 00:50:23.000 the way third places work in the, and I hope your audience understands that language, like just 00:50:23.000 --> 00:50:29.700 social spaces work in the, in, in the physical world, we're always thinking like coffee shops, 00:50:29.960 --> 00:50:37.100 bars, gamer clubs, um, CrossFit gyms. Like these are, these are decent third place options to 00:50:37.100 --> 00:50:45.120 incarnationally engage. I don't think it will long-term be a one-to-one in the virtual world. That's an, 00:50:45.220 --> 00:50:50.560 that's just a gut thing. Like that's intuitive of me. Like, I'm not sure if it's just going to overlay to, 00:50:50.560 --> 00:50:55.020 like how people want to spend their social connective time in the virtual world will be 00:50:55.020 --> 00:51:00.640 coffee shops, bars, CrossFit gyms, or whatever. Like, I think if we just sit back and observe 00:51:00.640 --> 00:51:07.240 how, how people spend their time in virtual world, they might actually enjoy socially connecting in 00:51:07.240 --> 00:51:14.480 virtual space differently than how they connect in physical space. But it sounds like you've already 00:51:14.480 --> 00:51:19.340 said it's like a million dollar industry. So that there's already some traction there and people 00:51:19.340 --> 00:51:23.800 are starting to gather that way. So I think like, great, a hundred percent. I'm just curious, 00:51:23.800 --> 00:51:30.060 like long-term, the 10 year metaverse future, how do people actually connect, convene and connect 00:51:30.060 --> 00:51:35.680 socially in digital space? I think it'll be different. Um, I wonder if it's a little bit more 00:51:35.680 --> 00:51:41.360 like, if you think, um, um, uh, my Minecraft and Roblox, like it feels like people, like people are 00:51:41.360 --> 00:51:47.840 actually convening around missions or building things. And like, like they go to the same place 00:51:47.840 --> 00:51:53.260 to build something together or to tear something apart together. And, but they're talking to each 00:51:53.260 --> 00:51:57.100 other the whole time. There's, they're socially connecting. They're not sitting their characters 00:51:57.100 --> 00:52:01.980 down at a bar, but they're doing something together. So I wonder how that'll look in the future. 00:52:02.140 --> 00:52:07.100 I, I think it's mixed, uh, to be honest, and it may be too soon to tell, which is one of the reasons 00:52:07.100 --> 00:52:13.280 why we're wanting to experiment with it. And let's, let's be real. It's this pennies compared to 00:52:13.280 --> 00:52:18.300 actually building an actual bar or building an actual, a hundred, a hundred percent. But the truth, 00:52:18.380 --> 00:52:23.080 yeah, but you're, you're not wrong. I mean, like I've, I've got friends that are doing pop one, 00:52:23.080 --> 00:52:28.240 which is like a fortnight and virtual reality, uh, pop population one video game, and they're doing 00:52:28.240 --> 00:52:34.560 Bible studies in pop one. Uh, I've got friends and so it's all around. We were going to use this term 00:52:34.560 --> 00:52:40.140 a lot, engaging in digital metaverses, engaging around shared experiences. And so a lot of it is 00:52:40.140 --> 00:52:46.800 being on mission. And, and some of those experiences do seem to be in a virtual reality bar. Uh, and so 00:52:46.800 --> 00:52:51.980 who's going to win? What does it look like long-term? I don't know, but, uh, it's, it's going to be fun 00:52:51.980 --> 00:52:57.400 figuring it out. Um, well, gentlemen, thank you for this podcast, Andy. It's been a pleasure 00:52:57.400 --> 00:53:01.420 meeting you. I'm going to get you connected to Joey. You'll get an email with this here in a little 00:53:01.420 --> 00:53:06.140 bit. And he will, he'll love, uh, some of the stuff that you're talking about. That's right up his 00:53:06.140 --> 00:53:12.340 alley. And, uh, and Lucas, sir, it's, it's always great to hear from you and excited. Uh, it's, 00:53:12.340 --> 00:53:20.060 it's funny. Like I, and we're considering moving out of Miami and, uh, Tampa and Orlando with my 00:53:20.060 --> 00:53:24.320 family have been kind of going back and forth about the, the future locations. And there's, 00:53:24.320 --> 00:53:28.060 there's some churches in the Tampa area. Don't tempt me like this, Jeff. 00:53:28.300 --> 00:53:34.320 Don't. It's, it's, it's been talked about summer 2023. We're relocating somewhere. I really think 00:53:34.320 --> 00:53:39.140 so. So we'll, uh, we'll, we'll, we'll stay in touch, but definitely excited. Yeah. I'm going to 00:53:39.140 --> 00:53:47.620 start fasting. I'm going to start fasting. Well, cool. Hey, but we're, we're going to land the plane. 00:53:47.620 --> 00:53:52.220 So, uh, gentlemen, thank you for this for Andy, for Lucas. This is Jeff with the church, digital 00:53:52.220 --> 00:53:56.300 digital church network. Thanks for jumping on the podcast and we'll see you next time. Y'all good day.