WEBVTT

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 I have very deep and meaningful connections with the physical church that I ministered

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 in for years, but I will say that the ones that I have here at Lux are just as deep and

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 meaningful for me.

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 I mean, I love the people just as deeply, and many of them I will never meet in person.

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 So exactly why is it that we can find these connections and that they seem to work maybe

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 even faster or I'm not going to say better, but as good in terms of like the depth of

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 relationship as we do in the physical church.

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 I think there's a lot of things that have to go into that.

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 But ultimately, I think most people in the physical church just really underestimate digital

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 space.

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 Welcome to the Church Digital Podcast.

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 Through this podcast, we'll talk about the technological innovations within the church, but more than

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 tech for tech itself, we'll address deeper questions.

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 Is disciple making possible digitally?

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 How should we approach the digital mission field?

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 Can a biblically grounded church operate in digital space?

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 Oh, and where does the metaverse fit into all this?

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 Whether you're a big or small church, an established church, or a startup church plant, the Church

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 Digital's goal is to help churches like yours learn to be a multiplying church, digitally

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 and physically.

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 Our heart?

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 That churches like yours will discover a newfound focus on disciple making that will revolutionize

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 your church.

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 And now, here's your host, Jeff Reed.

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 All right, hey, episode 252 of the Church Digital Podcast.

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 Super excited about this conversation.

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 As a matter of fact, I'm so excited about this conversation.

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 We went ahead and made a season out of it.

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 We're launching season four effective today because we want to explore more of this idea of church,

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 in gaming culture.

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 That's right.

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 I just, I'm going to be honest right now.

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 I've been so humbled within the past three or four months, really getting more exposure,

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 deeper exposure to the gaming culture.

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 And I'm realizing a lot's changed since, oh, I don't know, James Bond, GoldenEye on Nintendo

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 64.

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 That's actually probably the last video game I was relevant on.

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 And let's be honest, I'm very happy it came back out on Switch Online.

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 But you can find me online at Steerfetch.

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 But that's a whole other conversation.

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 What I really want to dig into is of how the church can operate and how the church can reach

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 a different type of person in this gaming culture and in this nerd culture.

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 And so over the coming weeks and even in the months, we're going to start to bring in people

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 that will be able to unpack and start to help us realize the opportunities and how we physical

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 churches, how we digital expressions of church, we individual digital missionaries, we people that

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 play games, how we can start to connect with people and be the light of Jesus in gaming space.

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 This is one of many conversations coming today.

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 By the way, part of this whole thing, before we get to the guest, part of this whole thing

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 is even starting to get exposure to some of these gaming communities.

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 And so to that end, we, the Church Digital, we, Digital Church Network, we are launching a

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 Twitch account.

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 That's right.

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 If you go to twitch.tv slash digitalchurchnetwork, twitch.tv slash digitalchurchnetwork, put the

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 link in the show notes as well.

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 You will see our new channel.

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 I don't know that I'm going to be playing, you know, my 8-bit Nintendo all the time.

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 I've literally got the controller right here at my desk, though.

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 Probably not going to be doing that 24-7, I wish.

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 But what we will be doing instead is we're actually going to stream these podcast interviews

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 live on air.

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 That's right.

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 We will be interviewing the podcast guests early.

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 And so if you want the sneak peek of what we're reviewing, reviewing on the podcast, revealing

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 on the podcast Monday, come the previous Thursday.

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 Every Thursday, 3 p.m.

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 Eastern.

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 Thursday, 3 p.m.

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 Eastern.

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 We will be interviewing people on the Church, on Digital Church Network's Twitch channel.

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 And so next week, coming up, we're going to be interviewing, we're going to be interviewing

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 a guy named Bubba.

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 It's going to be a great interview.

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 Bubba Gaming?

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 That sounds weird.

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 When I look at Bubba, I don't think of it as a Bubba.

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 You have to jump on Twitch with us next week and discover it.

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 But we'll get more into what Bubba's going to do with the show later.

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 But create that Twitch account.

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 Jump on board with us and start to get exposed to some of these gaming ideas and how our churches

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 can be effective in really starting to understand and reach this gaming culture.

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 And I'm going to be honest here, the first person that I have really ever seen do that

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 effectively is Mark Lutz.

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 Excuse me.

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 I butchered his name.

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 I've never said it correctly.

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 I'm going to say it correct right here on air for the first time is Mark Lutz.

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 So Mark, thanks for jumping on the show with us here today.

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 Yeah, so glad to be here.

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 Really excited about the new season.

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 Super excited to see the Church Digital.

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 I mean, it's always talked to gamers, right?

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 From the very beginning when I first met Jeff and I started listening to episodes, you know,

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 we would be talking to Jade and you would be, you know, talking to other people who were

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 in either gaming space or adjacent.

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 And so super pumped that we're really sort of focusing in on that world because that's

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 the one that I live and breathe every day of my life now.

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 Awesome.

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 And so really going to get into this and excited about some of the stuff and even doing a check-in

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 with Lutz Digital Church, church that operates entirely on Twitch and Discord.

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 So we're going to have that conversation.

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 And then we're also bringing as well in Andy Mage.

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 Andy is the on-demand director for Lutz Digital Church.

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 He's a digital pastor at Bay Hope in Tampa.

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 He works with Digital Church Network as the resourcing director.

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 The guy's got as many jobs as I do, and that makes him awesome.

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 And so really excited to have Andy in the conversation and excited to dig in here a little bit with

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 what's going on with Lutz, but it may be even start to open the conversation and introduce

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 this idea of what's going on in gaming.

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 So cool.

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 Well, hey, Mark, it's been it's been a minute since I've had you on the podcast.

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 Actually, I'm flashing back.

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 Andy, you were on four years ago, like very early on, weren't you?

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 Yeah, so it was probably about four years ago.

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 We had myself and Tom Pounder and you.

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 We were doing a cohort and a lot of faces on there that have just kind of been in the scene for a while now.

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 Mark, I haven't had you on in a while.

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 Give me an update.

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 Like, talk to me a little bit.

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 What's going on with Lutz Digital Church?

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 Yeah, Jeff, honestly, I think the time that I was on the show where we launched, I think we were launched, but we were very close to launch.

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 Maybe a couple months in.

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 Yeah, so I mean, it's been it has been a wild year, a wild two years now.

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 So we are approaching our second birthday as Lutz Digital Church, working towards financial stability.

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 Our church has really grown in actually really substantial ways.

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 We've crested over 500 people in our Discord server, which is kind of like our community in a place that we plug in and check in with people.

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 We're pushing almost 40 people on our dream team now who are serving across our church in various capacities.

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 We ran Megazord, which I'm sure we can talk about on the show at one point or another, even if it's not this episode.

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 Just released the Megazord documentary a couple of days ago, which was really cool.

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 We've had this really great ability to partner with a lot of really fantastic Christian content creators.

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 Many of them are people who are going to be with us.

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 Our mission partners are actually going to be part of this season who are going to be on the show, which is really cool and exciting for me because I know them really well.

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 And I can't wait to dive into a little bit more about what they do.

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 And yeah, man, we've seen salvations, our first batch of baptisms in year two, seeing people baptized in a river in Oregon, in a bathtub in Missouri.

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 And just honestly, really incredible, radical life change.

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 I mean, people who were about to be divorced, saving their marriages, people dealing with addiction, finding freedom, like really radical life change of people across.

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 And so there has been a lot of really cool, really great things that have gone on at Lux.

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 I can't even begin to detail it in a couple of minutes.

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 Well, that was a pretty good attempt at trying to cram it all in a couple of minutes.

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 But I got you a couple of pieces, right?

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 I paint a pretty awesome picture.

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 Just wait.

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 As we talk throughout this season, you'll get into the weeds with us, right?

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 So you started this thing.

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 We met probably fall, summer, fall 2020.

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 You were part of the first digital church cohort that Stadia Church Planning launched that I ran through Stadia.

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 And so you and a couple of us went through that.

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 But you've had this passion, at least going back then, towards this idea of launching a church aimed at gamers or reaching discipling gamers.

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 And tell a story here a little bit.

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 Like, where did that passion come from?

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 Like, you were a physical church.

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 You were doing physical church ministry.

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 You were a discipleship guy.

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 You were a student guy.

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 And now, all of a sudden, you're on Twitch doing church.

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 So, like, how did you get to this point?

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 Sure.

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 That's a great question, Jeff.

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 You know, and I was.

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 I was a pastor outside of Pittsburgh for 11 years, right before this recording.

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 Just met with their youth pastor and their family life pastor, actually.

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 So still connected there.

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 Still love the folks of that church.

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 But God really moved in our hearts towards reaching people in this space.

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 And there's a lot of things that added up to me, really, my wife and I, taking the step and launching Lux.

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 But honestly, a lot of that was just my heartbreak for the loss that I saw in the gaming world.

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 And knowing that the church at large, sometimes intentionally, sometimes unintentionally, just because of church subculture, had alienated itself from the growing gaming world.

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 And I was actually running some statistics the other day.

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 We know that Facebook brags about having, maybe brag is a strong word, has claimed they have more Facebook users than are Christians on the planet.

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 But I don't know if you know this or not.

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 There's, I don't know, somewhere around like a billion, half a billion more Facebook users than Christians currently.

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 And modest estimates, there's a billion more gamers than there are Facebook users.

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 So there's a little over 3 billion gamers.

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 Like, they reach the status where we would say these people consider themselves a gamer.

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 Over 3 billion video gamers on the planet, which is roughly twice the number of Christians on the planet.

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 Which is really crazy that we as a church have not really thought about like, hey, what do we think about reaching these people?

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 Or why is it that there's no element of what we do as a church that even caters towards or tailors us towards this group of people?

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 And my heart really breaks for them because I am them.

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 I am a gamer.

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 I've been a gamer my whole life.

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 Tabletop gamer, RPG player, video gamer.

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 If it's gaming, if it's nerdy, if it's 3D printing, if it's LARPing, I've done it.

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 And so I just, I love nerd culture.

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 And I love nerds.

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 And I love gamers.

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 And so, and I just, I want people to come to know Jesus.

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 And so those things really all lined up to say, I really think this community is worthy of a church.

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 I think they deserve a church.

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 And I think they deserve a good church.

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 Not just a live stream.

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 I think they deserve a robust, full ecclesiology, life-changing, deep relationship, disciple-making church.

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 And that's what we set out to build with Lux.

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 And it's been a really wild adventure to try to figure out how to do that with the tools that are available to us.

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 And how to reach these digital natives that are by the billions in our world.

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 So, Andy, you were, I mean, you were doing digital ministry pre-COVID.

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 And I know you came from a worship background, the transition in, just because I know some of your story.

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 When and why, or why and when, did you pivot over?

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 Because you're still doing the physical church digital ministry through Bayhope.

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 And you're helping out with Lux on the side.

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 Like, what's your motive in double-dipping?

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 It initially started as it was a job offer.

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 Actually, that's not true entirely.

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 It initially started as I have a weird background of worship and all those other things.

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 But also, I have a real passion for tech, for internet, life, for all things digital.

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 And when the job came up at Bayhope, I jumped at the opportunity.

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 We were living in Atlanta at the time.

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 I was a worship pastor.

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 We were, we had owned a gym, of all things.

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 And we kind of gave the gym up and applied at Bayhope and got the job and moved from Atlanta to Tampa.

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 And I initially thought it was going to be just helping with production and soon found out that my passion, actually, for people that were on the internet and passion for digital ministry ran very deep.

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 And that actually took just kind of being in the job for six or seven months, getting my feet under the table.

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 And then this weird little thing called COVID happened.

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 And all of a sudden, the mishmash of everything that I love to do, talking to people on the internet, being in front of a camera, being behind a camera, doing production work, doing tech work, running cables, live television, live broadcasting, grouping people together, digital discipleship.

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 All of those things kind of smacked in together.

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 And we really found our footing at Bayhope.

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 And funny story, actually, I was also kind of working on the side for a product called Alter Live, which we've talked about a couple times.

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 I've talked about a couple times.

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 I was doing a bunch of video work for them.

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 And we were doing a live show called the Alter Live Show.

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 And I got put into contact with Mark to interview Mark.

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 And that was, I had kind of been stalking Lux for a little bit, because I also am a gamer.

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 I also have done digital discipleship through gaming and through, you know, I was doing Bible studies on Halo 2 way back in the day.

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 We were doing, we would sit in a lobby and run a Bible study and then go headshot each other for 45 minutes in a custom room.

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 It was awesome.

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 And the idea that that could actually happen was something that was blowing my mind watching Mark and Lux.

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 This is right after they launched.

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 And I interviewed Mark.

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 And then I kind of reached back out.

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 What, three or four weeks later, it's like, hey, man, if you ever need any help or anything, let me know.

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 And then I interviewed him again for another podcast I was doing.

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 And then I think at that time, Mark and I both had, we had a conversation.

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 Either I reached out or he reached out.

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 And then it was kind of like, okay, just get in the community and do the thing.

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 And we've kind of been running ever since.

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 You know, I always thought all this time I introduced you to it at Expo in 22.

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 Is that not true?

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 Did I not do that?

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 I think, well, so you introduced us face to face.

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 I had never met Mark face to face, but I had interviewed him twice on a podcast.

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 And I was diving into Lux right about that time, actually.

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 Wow, that was over a year ago.

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 So, yeah, it's been interesting.

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 Yeah, you go to Expo, you meet people.

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 That's what we do.

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 By the way, selfish plug, exponential.org.

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 The new conference is coming up.

00:16:01.140 --> 00:16:02.800
 We've got 12 digital metaverse tracks.

00:16:04.660 --> 00:16:05.980
 Mark, are you speaking?

00:16:06.100 --> 00:16:07.300
 Did I ask you to speak at Expo this year?

00:16:07.380 --> 00:16:07.920
 This is awkward.

00:16:08.020 --> 00:16:08.620
 It better be yes.

00:16:09.100 --> 00:16:09.600
 Yeah, yeah.

00:16:09.640 --> 00:16:11.480
 You actually sent me an invite for it yesterday.

00:16:11.920 --> 00:16:12.360
 No pressure.

00:16:12.760 --> 00:16:14.140
 Yeah, just don't screw up.

00:16:14.440 --> 00:16:19.200
 But you can use the coupon code, what is it, digital2023.

00:16:19.600 --> 00:16:20.780
 Let's get 60 bucks off.

00:16:20.900 --> 00:16:21.280
 There you go.

00:16:21.540 --> 00:16:21.940
 Look at me.

00:16:22.060 --> 00:16:23.920
 Look at me helping you save money.

00:16:23.960 --> 00:16:24.820
 You're doing the thing, man.

00:16:24.860 --> 00:16:25.700
 You're a salesman.

00:16:26.000 --> 00:16:28.500
 Man, listen, all about the commercials, man.

00:16:28.900 --> 00:16:29.860
 Real podcaster, yeah.

00:16:30.300 --> 00:16:30.920
 Athletic green.

00:16:31.120 --> 00:16:31.660
 Slow it down.

00:16:32.160 --> 00:16:32.820
 Slow your roll.

00:16:32.820 --> 00:16:33.480
 Yeah, very good.

00:16:33.600 --> 00:16:33.780
 All right.

00:16:34.660 --> 00:16:42.740
 Well, Mark, so listen, my gosh, you started mentioning things about board games and Legends

00:16:42.740 --> 00:16:46.180
 Cast and video games and nerd culture.

00:16:46.740 --> 00:16:48.720
 And Lord knows I understand the nerd culture.

00:16:48.880 --> 00:16:50.060
 I could never do Halo 2.

00:16:50.760 --> 00:16:56.860
 The last viable video game I was any good at was GoldenEye, which is actually making a return

00:16:56.860 --> 00:16:57.820
 on Switch Online.

00:16:57.820 --> 00:16:57.840
 Really?

00:16:58.840 --> 00:17:05.500
 And excited about that, my wife destroys me in that game, which is actually a little scary

00:17:05.500 --> 00:17:06.480
 when you think about it.

00:17:06.480 --> 00:17:07.460
 You let her be odd job.

00:17:07.500 --> 00:17:08.060
 Is that the thing?

00:17:08.140 --> 00:17:09.180
 She's the small little one.

00:17:09.460 --> 00:17:10.260
 No, no, no, no, no.

00:17:10.340 --> 00:17:10.880
 Like she...

00:17:10.880 --> 00:17:12.560
 The one guy with a clear advantage.

00:17:12.940 --> 00:17:13.280
 Yeah.

00:17:13.620 --> 00:17:15.440
 Who cares about balance, right?

00:17:15.980 --> 00:17:21.660
 She's sniper rifle, find the spot, and just stay there and wait for the one moment and just

00:17:21.660 --> 00:17:22.680
 takes the shot, man.

00:17:23.000 --> 00:17:23.520
 It's crazy.

00:17:23.680 --> 00:17:25.700
 She's so good.

00:17:26.160 --> 00:17:31.020
 Anyway, you know, there's a lot of subculture centered around this.

00:17:31.060 --> 00:17:35.540
 And I know we're going to be talking some about the subcultures and the different nuances

00:17:35.540 --> 00:17:41.920
 of these different areas as we bring in some of these people that are really speaking into

00:17:41.920 --> 00:17:49.400
 this genre and are trying to reach the 3 billion gamers on the planet.

00:17:49.520 --> 00:17:50.660
 That number is scary to me.

00:17:51.060 --> 00:17:58.380
 But let's talk a little bit, at least in your implementation, in your context with Lux,

00:17:59.040 --> 00:18:00.620
 what does church actually look like?

00:18:00.700 --> 00:18:02.100
 What are you actually doing in that space?

00:18:02.600 --> 00:18:04.360
 Yeah, that's a really great question.

00:18:04.800 --> 00:18:09.640
 And I think when we ask that question, most of us as pastors immediately think towards

00:18:09.640 --> 00:18:11.060
 what does service look like?

00:18:11.620 --> 00:18:16.840
 But I think we have to ask a bigger question and say, what does all of the embodiment of

00:18:16.840 --> 00:18:19.000
 what it means to be a church look like?

00:18:19.160 --> 00:18:23.160
 Because if you were to ask what my service looked like, I'd say, go to twitch.tv slash

00:18:23.160 --> 00:18:26.360
 Lux Digital Church and watch our VOD from this past week, and you'll get an idea.

00:18:26.580 --> 00:18:28.000
 Do a lot of the things that church does.

00:18:28.440 --> 00:18:31.540
 We do worship and we do prayer and we do preaching and teaching.

00:18:32.180 --> 00:18:37.900
 And on top of that, we have a pre-show and post-show that is a lot more like me and my

00:18:37.900 --> 00:18:40.600
 wife sitting on a couch and talking for 15 minutes.

00:18:40.600 --> 00:18:46.140
 Or like last night, me breaking our fast by eating a ridiculous sloppy amount of pizza live

00:18:46.140 --> 00:18:46.640
 on the internet.

00:18:47.100 --> 00:18:54.140
 And so if you think of like live streaming mixed with youth group, mixed with your church

00:18:54.140 --> 00:18:56.240
 service, you would actually see a lot of things that are similar.

00:18:56.440 --> 00:19:01.540
 We have really reverent moments like we had this week in post-service, really ending our

00:19:01.540 --> 00:19:05.860
 fast with the Lord's Supper and taking the Lord's Supper together as a church family, which

00:19:05.860 --> 00:19:06.720
 we do once a month.

00:19:07.180 --> 00:19:11.800
 And then we have plenty of goofiness and celebration and things that are part of our services as well,

00:19:12.080 --> 00:19:17.160
 which includes our question of the day and coming on stream with a really nice lightsaber

00:19:17.160 --> 00:19:21.040
 at the beginning of service we did a couple of weeks ago and swinging that around a little

00:19:21.040 --> 00:19:21.240
 bit.

00:19:21.240 --> 00:19:25.500
 And so there's been lots of really things that are very tailored to nerd culture, but

00:19:25.500 --> 00:19:29.980
 there's a lot of things that we do that would be familiar to a church when it comes to thinking

00:19:29.980 --> 00:19:30.740
 about a service.

00:19:31.420 --> 00:19:38.380
 But it's very tailored and positioned towards the gaming culture and specifically not just

00:19:38.380 --> 00:19:42.740
 gaming culture, but Twitch culture, which has a couple hundred million people on it every

00:19:42.740 --> 00:19:43.220
 single month.

00:19:44.080 --> 00:19:46.460
 And so that's what our service looks like.

00:19:46.520 --> 00:19:51.460
 But when we talk about the more encompassing question of what makes up your church, I've

00:19:51.460 --> 00:19:55.320
 been saying this for a long time, and it's actually truer now than it ever was, that 80%

00:19:55.320 --> 00:19:57.740
 of what it means to be a church for us doesn't happen on Twitch.

00:19:57.840 --> 00:19:58.700
 It happens on Discord.

00:19:59.140 --> 00:20:00.640
 We say that Twitch is our sanctuary.

00:20:01.180 --> 00:20:03.860
 Discord is all of the other parts of our building.

00:20:04.720 --> 00:20:08.180
 And so we have small groups that are happening throughout the week.

00:20:08.280 --> 00:20:11.180
 They launch here in about another week, about when this episode will go out.

00:20:11.500 --> 00:20:12.840
 We'll have launched small groups.

00:20:12.980 --> 00:20:16.800
 We have, I think, nine or 10 small groups that are launching this spring.

00:20:16.960 --> 00:20:22.100
 We have year-long Bible studies and monthly Bible studies that are going on all the time

00:20:22.100 --> 00:20:26.320
 every single day in our Discord server where people are coming and engaging.

00:20:26.500 --> 00:20:27.520
 We have Bible study leaders.

00:20:27.920 --> 00:20:31.580
 We have welcome team who are welcoming people into the community and helping direct them.

00:20:31.660 --> 00:20:35.840
 We have an onboarding process which lets people get to know who we are, what our core values

00:20:35.840 --> 00:20:37.340
 are, and what our mission statement is.

00:20:37.400 --> 00:20:40.300
 We have a welcome room, and we have a get-to-know-you section.

00:20:40.300 --> 00:20:45.420
 And so all of the things that you might think of when it comes to the necessary pieces of

00:20:45.420 --> 00:20:51.280
 the puzzle to build disciples, which we think are spiritual disciplines, which we do in community,

00:20:51.480 --> 00:20:56.840
 which is for us, for primary ones, although there's others, is living in community, fasting,

00:20:57.100 --> 00:20:58.200
 prayer, and Bible reading.

00:20:58.400 --> 00:21:02.660
 And those things are happening all throughout the week as we live that out as a family.

00:21:02.920 --> 00:21:06.700
 And we have the equivalent of church potlucks, which is we get together once a month and play

00:21:06.700 --> 00:21:08.680
 games together and hang out for a couple hours.

00:21:09.280 --> 00:21:10.860
 That's our church potluck, right?

00:21:11.460 --> 00:21:18.320
 And so there is all of the things that you might think of as a church if you funnel them

00:21:18.320 --> 00:21:21.020
 through the lens of Twitch and game culture.

00:21:21.420 --> 00:21:25.320
 Those things are all happening, but they're happening between two different platforms just

00:21:25.320 --> 00:21:27.160
 as they'd happen in two different sections of your building.

00:21:27.160 --> 00:21:35.340
 I was actually in a meeting today with a 60-year-old individual and very respectful of digital,

00:21:35.520 --> 00:21:36.980
 but was very clear up front.

00:21:37.100 --> 00:21:38.440
 He didn't understand it.

00:21:39.000 --> 00:21:44.400
 You know, and he's talking to me about like when he was a kid, he would go to church at

00:21:44.400 --> 00:21:46.080
 8.30 in the morning on Sunday.

00:21:46.680 --> 00:21:47.900
 He would do church.

00:21:47.960 --> 00:21:48.960
 He would do Sunday school.

00:21:49.080 --> 00:21:54.500
 So he would be there 8.30 to noon and then he would go back for youth choir and the evening

00:21:54.500 --> 00:21:56.700
 service 6 to 8.30 that night.

00:21:57.040 --> 00:21:59.600
 And so he was telling me the stories of that.

00:22:00.500 --> 00:22:06.440
 And then when I started talking about, well, you know, digitally it's everyday believers and

00:22:06.440 --> 00:22:08.940
 in the lives of people daily we're able to engage.

00:22:08.940 --> 00:22:16.360
 And in some ways, you know, the digital ecclesiology, you know, I can make an argument that it actually

00:22:16.360 --> 00:22:20.220
 is closer to a physical ecclesia, or closer to the biblical ecclesiology than some of the

00:22:20.220 --> 00:22:21.900
 ways that physical is today.

00:22:22.100 --> 00:22:24.260
 And he was, that made him uncomfortable.

00:22:24.860 --> 00:22:30.440
 But one of the things that he really like started to struggle with was short-term versus

00:22:30.440 --> 00:22:31.300
 long-term.

00:22:32.080 --> 00:22:33.420
 Like, and I just, I would love your takes.

00:22:33.560 --> 00:22:35.840
 Actually, I don't know that I've had this conversation with you specifically.

00:22:36.320 --> 00:22:42.240
 Is a digital church, like, is it, are the people that you're doing ministry with in Twitch and

00:22:42.240 --> 00:22:47.060
 Discord, like, is the, is the goal for them to be connected to your church five years, 10

00:22:47.060 --> 00:22:47.680
 years beyond?

00:22:47.980 --> 00:22:51.820
 Is the goal to minister to them and help them get connected physical?

00:22:52.020 --> 00:22:55.660
 Like what, and I know we're going to ask this question a lot because I know there's varying

00:22:55.660 --> 00:23:00.220
 opinion, but I would love, you know, just maybe your take and Andy yours as well.

00:23:00.460 --> 00:23:01.320
 That's a great question.

00:23:01.420 --> 00:23:06.040
 I think when you talk to most people who don't live in a digital world, right, they don't

00:23:06.040 --> 00:23:07.180
 really have any context for it.

00:23:07.220 --> 00:23:08.720
 They don't have a single digital friendship.

00:23:09.620 --> 00:23:11.680
 They don't, they don't really understand it.

00:23:11.920 --> 00:23:12.140
 Right.

00:23:12.980 --> 00:23:15.540
 They're like, oh yeah, the internet is a good thing.

00:23:15.600 --> 00:23:16.960
 And I'm not trying to be condescending.

00:23:17.060 --> 00:23:18.240
 They're like, internet is a good thing.

00:23:18.560 --> 00:23:19.620
 I think that we should do it.

00:23:19.700 --> 00:23:25.920
 I am in support of, I'm in support of it, but it kind of ends with the long-term, short-term

00:23:25.920 --> 00:23:26.880
 question, right?

00:23:26.960 --> 00:23:28.140
 That's where it kind of ends.

00:23:28.140 --> 00:23:32.480
 And that's where the divide comes because most people who live with a physical mindset who

00:23:32.480 --> 00:23:36.760
 don't have really any experience or want to have any experience in the digital world are

00:23:36.760 --> 00:23:42.080
 perfectly okay and supportive of digital ministry as long as the end goal of digital ministry

00:23:42.080 --> 00:23:44.840
 is to funnel people into physical churches.

00:23:45.340 --> 00:23:49.720
 If it's not to funnel people into physical churches, then they're kind of out.

00:23:50.380 --> 00:23:52.460
 And that is not the goal with our church.

00:23:53.120 --> 00:23:59.300
 Our goal is to be the full embodiment and ecclesiology of what it means to be a body of

00:23:59.300 --> 00:24:04.020
 believers devoted to the things that the first century body of believers were devoted to,

00:24:04.360 --> 00:24:10.020
 to be a disciple-making group that makes disciples that make disciples, and to lead people to Jesus

00:24:10.020 --> 00:24:16.640
 and salvation in Him with baptism, Lord's Supper, sacraments, the whole deal, is to do that in

00:24:16.640 --> 00:24:20.460
 digital space in such a way that this is your church experience.

00:24:20.680 --> 00:24:22.480
 This is your spiritual family.

00:24:22.680 --> 00:24:25.180
 More than just church experience, this is your home, right?

00:24:25.220 --> 00:24:26.840
 This becomes your spiritual home.

00:24:27.260 --> 00:24:32.240
 You are sent out on mission from here into both digital and physical relationships.

00:24:32.880 --> 00:24:35.640
 And so you become impacted here.

00:24:35.680 --> 00:24:39.400
 And we see this over and over again in our church where people are impacted dramatically

00:24:39.400 --> 00:24:42.520
 here by their faith and their physical relationships are transformed.

00:24:42.860 --> 00:24:47.880
 It's like one of our guys fasted this week with us and he, last night in our pre-service

00:24:47.880 --> 00:24:51.640
 huddle, he was saying one of the really cool things about fasting this week is he got to

00:24:51.640 --> 00:24:55.620
 have a bunch of spiritual conversations with guys that he works with who aren't believers

00:24:55.620 --> 00:24:58.040
 because they didn't understand why he was fasting.

00:24:58.040 --> 00:25:03.380
 It's a perfect example of the fullness of the body of Christ that is existing and meeting

00:25:03.380 --> 00:25:06.480
 and gathering and sharpening one another in digital space.

00:25:06.720 --> 00:25:08.720
 This is a guy who was pretty, pretty done.

00:25:08.900 --> 00:25:12.540
 Like he was pretty done with church before Lux and his faith was pretty idle.

00:25:12.760 --> 00:25:18.160
 And now it's awakened to the point that he's going a week without food and he's using a

00:25:18.160 --> 00:25:24.860
 week without food as a chance to engage with his physical life, friends and coworkers in

00:25:24.860 --> 00:25:27.180
 a conversation about Jesus and spiritual context.

00:25:27.180 --> 00:25:30.900
 And so no, our goal is not to channel people into physical churches.

00:25:31.320 --> 00:25:35.980
 That does happen with some people because I'm not, I think that people see a divide and they

00:25:35.980 --> 00:25:38.500
 say there's a war between the digital and physical in some capacity.

00:25:38.500 --> 00:25:40.080
 And I don't see that that way at all.

00:25:40.260 --> 00:25:44.400
 I see that there are people in life who are going to be able to engage and really embrace

00:25:44.400 --> 00:25:47.500
 a digital expression of church in a way that's transformative to their lives.

00:25:47.620 --> 00:25:51.440
 And there are people who will come back to faith through a digital expression because it's

00:25:51.440 --> 00:25:54.300
 newer, it's a little bit fresher and it's a little less threatening.

00:25:54.620 --> 00:25:56.860
 And then they're going to connect to a physical church.

00:25:56.960 --> 00:25:59.160
 And we've seen that with several of our people.

00:25:59.280 --> 00:26:03.220
 And some of those people I've literally released just said, Hey, go right.

00:26:03.340 --> 00:26:06.940
 One of our key members, Josh, who was a member for quite a long time.

00:26:07.160 --> 00:26:08.620
 He's a key member in one of our teams.

00:26:08.840 --> 00:26:13.180
 He got into a physical church that physical church had him starting to help with tech and

00:26:13.180 --> 00:26:14.180
 he departed.

00:26:14.300 --> 00:26:15.240
 He hasn't really been back.

00:26:15.280 --> 00:26:16.180
 And it's like, good, go.

00:26:16.360 --> 00:26:17.980
 Like you needed that.

00:26:17.980 --> 00:26:22.740
 It was actually unhealthy for him to stay in our space for a long time, but that is not

00:26:22.740 --> 00:26:23.480
 the case with Doc.

00:26:23.560 --> 00:26:24.720
 It's not the case with Boots.

00:26:24.780 --> 00:26:26.080
 It's not the case with Hood.

00:26:26.140 --> 00:26:27.820
 It's not the case with Holden.

00:26:27.880 --> 00:26:29.080
 It's not the case with JT.

00:26:29.340 --> 00:26:35.280
 Like these, these are people who are growing vibrantly inside of the space and it's transforming

00:26:35.280 --> 00:26:36.480
 their physical lives as well.

00:26:36.820 --> 00:26:39.660
 So the answer to that question is really a yes and no, but there's not an intentional

00:26:39.660 --> 00:26:43.660
 like strategy for channeling people into physical churches.

00:26:43.660 --> 00:26:46.900
 It's just, if that's what's right for them and that's where they need to go, we bless

00:26:46.900 --> 00:26:47.520
 them on their way.

00:26:47.520 --> 00:26:52.020
 You know, I know Andy, you, you'd live in a, I mean, you don't live in a physical, well,

00:26:52.100 --> 00:26:57.880
 actually you may, but you're, you're very involved with the physical church and this, and you're

00:26:57.880 --> 00:27:00.540
 working in the physical environment doing digital ministry.

00:27:00.860 --> 00:27:06.180
 You're working in a, in a, in a digital environment, um, with working, helping Mark and even some

00:27:06.180 --> 00:27:08.700
 of the stuff you're doing with, with us through digital church network.

00:27:09.180 --> 00:27:14.060
 Um, talk to me a little bit, maybe some of, some of the other differences between physical

00:27:14.060 --> 00:27:18.380
 and digital, maybe some of the tensions between the two, because you're, you're in a unique

00:27:18.380 --> 00:27:21.980
 spot where you are actually seeing both sides of the coin closely.

00:27:22.280 --> 00:27:23.760
 So, uh, what insights do you have?

00:27:24.420 --> 00:27:29.680
 Unfortunately, the conversation you were having with the 60 year old gentleman is a little bit

00:27:29.680 --> 00:27:30.360
 more than norm.

00:27:30.640 --> 00:27:36.860
 I did a podcast, um, actually with my brother yesterday that we do for Bayhope and we were

00:27:36.860 --> 00:27:41.220
 discussing globalization and we were discussing, you know, some of the things that are happening

00:27:41.220 --> 00:27:44.880
 politically around the world and it got kind of heady and all that.

00:27:44.940 --> 00:27:48.620
 But the one thing that I kept coming back to was we have these different generations of

00:27:48.620 --> 00:27:52.540
 people that it used to be your generations were long.

00:27:52.540 --> 00:27:55.380
 So you had your baby boomers, your Gen X, all those other things.

00:27:55.380 --> 00:27:57.020
 They were fairly large chunks.

00:27:57.280 --> 00:27:59.920
 You had your golden generation that kind of came out of world war two.

00:28:00.020 --> 00:28:02.000
 They were very, they're, they're still around with us.

00:28:02.000 --> 00:28:07.300
 They're getting older and older and older, very stoic, very set in their ways, very resilient,

00:28:07.300 --> 00:28:11.060
 which led into the baby boomers again, very resilient, very stoic.

00:28:11.220 --> 00:28:16.780
 The baby boomers are the ones that are still kind of in control of mainstream church right

00:28:16.780 --> 00:28:18.600
 now, physical church.

00:28:19.020 --> 00:28:22.920
 And they have been doing church their way for 30, 40 years.

00:28:23.140 --> 00:28:24.140
 That's how church is done.

00:28:24.260 --> 00:28:25.920
 You can never have a relationship online.

00:28:26.080 --> 00:28:27.220
 That person doesn't exist.

00:28:27.540 --> 00:28:29.780
 Digital wasn't around when I was younger.

00:28:30.120 --> 00:28:32.360
 So if I can't hug you, then you don't exist to me.

00:28:33.100 --> 00:28:40.800
 And what we're now seeing is the push against that, almost like an anti-globalization, almost

00:28:40.800 --> 00:28:47.380
 like a normalization of the fact that, no, I can do everything I need to do from my phone.

00:28:47.520 --> 00:28:50.340
 I can do everything I need to do from my computer.

00:28:50.340 --> 00:28:54.420
 I can have all of these relationships with people all across the world.

00:28:54.420 --> 00:28:59.540
 And so there's these, it feels a little bit like the worship wars, except it's a little

00:28:59.540 --> 00:29:01.660
 more volatile than that.

00:29:02.040 --> 00:29:05.080
 Because now it's not just generational differences.

00:29:05.080 --> 00:29:08.120
 It's not just get your gosh darn guitars off of my stage.

00:29:08.760 --> 00:29:16.080
 Now it's, well, you need to, you can't do church on the internet, but hey, I need to call you

00:29:16.080 --> 00:29:18.940
 on my phone that I could theoretically be connecting with people.

00:29:19.060 --> 00:29:23.300
 And so there's a, there's a weird, there's a weird shift that's happening there.

00:29:23.940 --> 00:29:27.520
 And the interesting thing about churches like Bay Hope or, or even some of the, some of

00:29:27.520 --> 00:29:31.740
 the other churches that are exploring, I was talking with Tyler Sansom, he and I are going

00:29:31.740 --> 00:29:33.380
 to be kind of doing some stuff as well.

00:29:33.980 --> 00:29:39.160
 And one of the things both he and I were kind of commiserating about was that 95% of the

00:29:39.160 --> 00:29:42.080
 people in your church are ready to go digital.

00:29:42.360 --> 00:29:43.440
 They're, yes, let's go.

00:29:43.580 --> 00:29:44.280
 Come on, let's do it.

00:29:44.760 --> 00:29:50.880
 But that 5% of your traditionalists, the 5% of the, the, the ones that want to kind of

00:29:50.880 --> 00:29:56.120
 stay with the status quo are usually the vocal minority that are, that are really showing

00:29:56.120 --> 00:29:58.820
 up poorly for the physical church.

00:29:58.820 --> 00:30:03.020
 And so when you experience something like Lux, and I have to say, like I've experienced in

00:30:03.020 --> 00:30:08.680
 the last year being with Lux, obviously I've been on staff for six or seven months now,

00:30:08.680 --> 00:30:18.080
 um, ish, I've experienced more in that last year through Lux in terms of, um, actual connection

00:30:18.080 --> 00:30:18.800
 with people.

00:30:18.800 --> 00:30:23.660
 And that's been through my camera in my studio than I have in almost a year at Bay Hope church.

00:30:23.660 --> 00:30:24.820
 And that's saying something.

00:30:25.160 --> 00:30:29.660
 Uh, so I, I think there's, there's varied differences there.

00:30:30.000 --> 00:30:36.420
 I think there's going to come a point when the traditionalists are just going to be retiring

00:30:36.420 --> 00:30:41.900
 and we're going to have the new norm be this kind of hybrid digital and physical.

00:30:41.900 --> 00:30:46.160
 You know, let's, let's, let's, I want to, I want to get into some nuts and bolts because

00:30:46.160 --> 00:30:50.300
 that's a, that's a really, I mean, I didn't want to put words in your mouth, but I was curious

00:30:50.300 --> 00:30:51.400
 if you were going to go there.

00:30:51.920 --> 00:30:59.280
 Um, you're getting more relational equity out of a digital only expression of a church.

00:30:59.840 --> 00:31:04.260
 Compared to a physical expression of a church that's doing digital ministry.

00:31:04.480 --> 00:31:07.340
 Now I'm not, I'm not looking for a gotcha journalism.

00:31:07.600 --> 00:31:09.120
 I'm not, you know, that's smoking gun.

00:31:09.200 --> 00:31:12.980
 That's not, that's not where I'm going, but, but, you know, I've always talked about how

00:31:12.980 --> 00:31:18.080
 churches that lean into digital community and take advantage of that have far more relationship

00:31:18.080 --> 00:31:22.900
 potential compared to broadcasting church services in small groups.

00:31:23.280 --> 00:31:27.640
 Like, do you think that's the reason why you're able to be more relational?

00:31:27.640 --> 00:31:30.420
 I know, Mark, you've, you've played both sides of the coin as well.

00:31:30.680 --> 00:31:35.040
 What are your guys takes, um, as, as you're really looking in here?

00:31:35.080 --> 00:31:37.360
 I know you both have talked about how you've been so relational.

00:31:37.660 --> 00:31:39.280
 What are, what are the wins that you're seeing?

00:31:39.740 --> 00:31:41.820
 Like, well, how, what, what's the why behind that?

00:31:41.860 --> 00:31:42.660
 Do you think I should say?

00:31:43.040 --> 00:31:45.380
 I mean, I can answer, I can answer almost immediately.

00:31:45.380 --> 00:31:48.840
 And I, and I'll, I'm going to answer kind of in the form of an illustration, um, every

00:31:48.840 --> 00:31:52.780
 week or every, every, every month we do what's called the dream team meetup at Lux.

00:31:52.900 --> 00:31:55.140
 The dream team is kind of the leadership team of Lux.

00:31:55.480 --> 00:31:59.040
 It's really, they're the heartbeat of the volunteers.

00:31:59.320 --> 00:32:05.640
 Uh, they're, they're the leaders and Mark kind of has been pouring into them for over a year,

00:32:05.640 --> 00:32:11.760
 almost two years now, and, uh, is really developing this leadership curriculum for them this year.

00:32:11.760 --> 00:32:16.860
 Not, not to be draconic or anything, but just to kind of help them up their game in terms of

00:32:16.860 --> 00:32:19.180
 being volunteers into the space.

00:32:19.660 --> 00:32:21.960
 Every month we do a dream team meetup.

00:32:22.060 --> 00:32:23.220
 It's on a Thursday evening.

00:32:23.780 --> 00:32:26.080
 Um, Thursdays I'm usually drained.

00:32:26.220 --> 00:32:27.540
 It's been a long week.

00:32:27.640 --> 00:32:29.440
 I'm working a million different ways.

00:32:29.620 --> 00:32:34.300
 Uh, I've got a wife and three kids, you know, I'm doing lacrosse and we're doing track and

00:32:34.300 --> 00:32:38.920
 we're doing soccer and then there's work and Bible studies and, you know, leading all these other

00:32:38.920 --> 00:32:46.080
 things, but that time, the last, and especially the last time we spent about what, half an hour

00:32:46.080 --> 00:32:49.200
 in our own separate rooms praying with one another.

00:32:49.420 --> 00:32:52.500
 And we just had groups of five and six of us just praying.

00:32:53.060 --> 00:33:00.160
 And I, I, I felt a deeper connection with those other four dudes in that room than I have had

00:33:00.160 --> 00:33:07.740
 in any room, in any prayer team, in any prayer thing that I have in a year and a half, maybe

00:33:07.740 --> 00:33:10.480
 even since COVID at, at my physical church.

00:33:10.680 --> 00:33:12.640
 And I think there's two reasons for that.

00:33:12.640 --> 00:33:19.240
 Number one is that there is no pretense when you're on a camera in front of people, you're

00:33:19.240 --> 00:33:20.560
 going to hear kids running around the background.

00:33:20.640 --> 00:33:21.440
 You're going to hear dogs.

00:33:21.520 --> 00:33:24.660
 You're going to, it's just, there's just sloppy life happening all around you.

00:33:24.920 --> 00:33:28.200
 You don't get that when you're at a, in a church building, you don't get the real life

00:33:28.200 --> 00:33:29.100
 happening around you.

00:33:29.180 --> 00:33:35.340
 Number one, number two, especially in the gamer world, gamers are so used to immediately

00:33:35.340 --> 00:33:38.280
 getting to the heart of who you are as a person.

00:33:38.560 --> 00:33:43.540
 Normally that's a 13 year old yelling at you a call of duty, like really just getting to the

00:33:43.540 --> 00:33:48.680
 heart of why you're a terrible person and exposing your biggest and deepest regrets and fears with

00:33:48.680 --> 00:33:50.680
 one comment, because that happens.

00:33:51.380 --> 00:33:58.020
 But, but the core of it is we are so used to just getting right to the deepest part of who we are.

00:33:58.500 --> 00:34:00.460
 And, and I think that's very unique.

00:34:00.460 --> 00:34:03.740
 And I think that's something that the physical church can learn from.

00:34:04.260 --> 00:34:05.800
 You know, I, I love that answer.

00:34:06.060 --> 00:34:07.060
 I love that answer, Andy.

00:34:07.200 --> 00:34:08.220
 And I think it's true.

00:34:08.400 --> 00:34:11.920
 Um, people are generally less guarded online than they are in person.

00:34:12.180 --> 00:34:18.240
 There is so much that is in that question, Jeff, because there is the difference between

00:34:18.240 --> 00:34:21.500
 physical and digital, but that's not the only difference, right?

00:34:21.560 --> 00:34:26.180
 Some of that difference is that Lux is intentionally not programmatic.

00:34:26.480 --> 00:34:32.360
 And so we devote ourselves to a handful of rhythms and we just keep doing those things,

00:34:32.360 --> 00:34:32.800
 right?

00:34:33.320 --> 00:34:38.020
 And so because of that, we don't have a ton of programs that we're running and things that

00:34:38.020 --> 00:34:42.180
 we're doing, which allows us to be really intentional about relationships that we develop

00:34:42.180 --> 00:34:44.460
 and the spiritual disciplines that we participate in.

00:34:44.460 --> 00:34:48.540
 And that doesn't really have as much to do with online to offline as it much as it does to

00:34:48.540 --> 00:34:52.560
 do with the fact that physical church has largely been program driven for a lot of years and

00:34:52.560 --> 00:34:56.060
 it's not working and it's working less and less.

00:34:56.340 --> 00:34:59.320
 Like I know it's working for some churches and you're probably going to say it works for

00:34:59.320 --> 00:35:04.960
 my church and that's fine, but nationally it's working less and less and it, and it's exhausting.

00:35:05.260 --> 00:35:06.800
 And so that's not what we wanted to do.

00:35:06.940 --> 00:35:10.700
 So there's some of it that has to do with church structure that creates the space and the

00:35:10.700 --> 00:35:11.900
 room for those relationships.

00:35:12.120 --> 00:35:16.720
 There also is something because of how young our church is, not just how new it is, but how

00:35:16.720 --> 00:35:21.280
 physically young many of our members are, most of us are in our twenties and thirties.

00:35:21.280 --> 00:35:25.980
 There's a generational thing there because twenties and thirties, 30 and 30 year olds are a lot more

00:35:25.980 --> 00:35:30.400
 comfortable with approaching difficult subjects and being open about mental health issues.

00:35:31.240 --> 00:35:35.360
 There's less stigmas around that than there are with older generations.

00:35:35.460 --> 00:35:40.440
 So we don't have some of that stuff to overcome that perhaps another, a physical church might

00:35:40.440 --> 00:35:41.160
 have to overcome.

00:35:41.660 --> 00:35:45.400
 I have very deep and meaningful connections with the physical church that I ministered in for

00:35:45.400 --> 00:35:51.720
 years, but I will say that the ones that I have here at Lux are just as deep and meaningful

00:35:51.720 --> 00:35:52.220
 for me.

00:35:52.220 --> 00:35:56.820
 I mean, I love the people just as deeply and many of them I will never meet in person.

00:35:57.320 --> 00:36:04.320
 So exactly why is it that we can find these connections and that they seem to work maybe

00:36:04.320 --> 00:36:11.800
 even faster or, um, I'm not going to say better, but as good in terms of like the depth of relationship

00:36:11.800 --> 00:36:12.920
 as we do in the physical church.

00:36:13.040 --> 00:36:16.280
 I think there's a lot of things that have to go into that.

00:36:16.760 --> 00:36:21.440
 Um, but ultimately I think most people in the physical church just really underestimate digital

00:36:21.440 --> 00:36:21.860
 space.

00:36:21.860 --> 00:36:25.880
 They just have no comprehension of it because they've never built a relationship there.

00:36:25.960 --> 00:36:31.720
 And so their understanding is just like Facebook posts and Facebook arguments and, you know,

00:36:31.860 --> 00:36:32.660
 keyboard warriors.

00:36:32.780 --> 00:36:38.140
 And at best, you know, at worst, it's just, Hey, yeah, we use Instagram to promote our church.

00:36:38.140 --> 00:36:40.800
 And there's somebody on my staff that does these things called reels.

00:36:41.100 --> 00:36:45.920
 Um, and that's like, your understanding is just shipping your story out to everybody and

00:36:45.920 --> 00:36:47.560
 never giving an opportunity to hear people's.

00:36:47.620 --> 00:36:51.160
 There's not a person on our dream team who I haven't heard their story, who I haven't sat

00:36:51.160 --> 00:36:52.540
 in a one-on-one call with them.

00:36:52.540 --> 00:36:55.660
 I haven't had them share their hurt and their spiritual journey with me.

00:36:56.020 --> 00:36:58.080
 I know their stories intimately.

00:36:58.340 --> 00:37:00.480
 At this point, I baptized myself.

00:37:00.640 --> 00:37:05.680
 I physically baptized one of the members of our team, um, because she was in the area and

00:37:05.680 --> 00:37:07.320
 came to a service and I baptized her.

00:37:07.720 --> 00:37:13.860
 And so like, I have a D even in two years, I have a very deep relationship with these people.

00:37:13.980 --> 00:37:17.540
 And part of it is honestly, because we genuinely do life together every day.

00:37:17.640 --> 00:37:19.800
 It's, and that's very different than a physical church.

00:37:19.800 --> 00:37:23.160
 Like we are conversating every single day.

00:37:23.160 --> 00:37:25.140
 Like someone is always online.

00:37:25.220 --> 00:37:27.600
 Like when I wake up in the morning, I'm in church.

00:37:27.680 --> 00:37:31.320
 When I go to bed at night, I'm turning off because I'm just done being in church, right?

00:37:31.320 --> 00:37:35.340
 We're never not in church, not always in church service, but we're always in the church building

00:37:35.340 --> 00:37:37.960
 because it's right there at our fingertips all the time.

00:37:37.960 --> 00:37:42.980
 And we are living life together all the time there and, uh, and gathering together all the

00:37:42.980 --> 00:37:43.380
 time there.

00:37:43.460 --> 00:37:47.300
 And so I think that does make a difference too, because you do feel closer to these people

00:37:47.300 --> 00:37:50.500
 when it's people that have prayed for you daily, that have talked to you daily, that you're

00:37:50.500 --> 00:37:55.760
 in Bible study with every day, um, that there's this daily connection that helps you break down

00:37:55.760 --> 00:37:57.420
 some walls and feel close to people.

00:37:57.940 --> 00:38:02.200
 What's the, what's the spiritual direction of the average, uh, spiritual temperature, you

00:38:02.200 --> 00:38:05.940
 know, zero nowhere or negative 10, no awareness of Christ.

00:38:05.940 --> 00:38:13.840
 Zero new Christian 10, um, you know, full devoted disciple, like the average gamer, the average

00:38:13.840 --> 00:38:19.060
 person that you're, um, working with that, that you're doing ministry with that you're discipling.

00:38:19.480 --> 00:38:21.540
 Do they, do they know who Jesus is?

00:38:21.640 --> 00:38:26.160
 Is there, is it negative 10 where they're fully agnostic and atheist?

00:38:26.160 --> 00:38:30.020
 Like what's, what, what, what are you seeing and feeling in gaming space?

00:38:30.520 --> 00:38:32.840
 I, I would be curious to hear Andy's response to this.

00:38:32.840 --> 00:38:39.520
 I would say that most of our people went to church at one point and left the church at

00:38:39.520 --> 00:38:39.960
 one point.

00:38:40.420 --> 00:38:43.440
 And most of them have not had an intention of coming back.

00:38:44.080 --> 00:38:51.560
 There are some people which God has richly blessed us with who are strong believers and

00:38:51.560 --> 00:38:53.780
 who came to us because they wanted to help us.

00:38:54.160 --> 00:38:54.900
 And that's amazing.

00:38:54.900 --> 00:38:59.100
 Um, and they make up a decent portion of our core team, like our, our dream team.

00:38:59.700 --> 00:39:02.000
 Um, and then it's kind of a mixed bag from there.

00:39:02.260 --> 00:39:04.900
 Uh, you have really two things in the gaming world.

00:39:05.100 --> 00:39:11.840
 You have Christians who are gamers who are looking for safe haven, right?

00:39:11.880 --> 00:39:17.780
 In a world that is largely volatile and hostile towards them and what they believe, extremely

00:39:17.780 --> 00:39:22.840
 liberal and oftentimes openly, openly vicious to Christians.

00:39:23.080 --> 00:39:24.760
 They're looking for a safe space.

00:39:24.900 --> 00:39:27.780
 So we do have some people who come into our community because they're searching for that,

00:39:27.840 --> 00:39:28.000
 right?

00:39:28.000 --> 00:39:32.420
 They're looking for a space of like-minded people to play games with, to get connected

00:39:32.420 --> 00:39:33.280
 with and to grow with.

00:39:33.420 --> 00:39:38.900
 And then we have people who are genuine explorers, kind of spiritual pilgrims, people who are from

00:39:38.900 --> 00:39:41.200
 the EU or something like, I'm not really sure what I believe.

00:39:41.260 --> 00:39:44.540
 I've never really been to church before, but I'm kind of exploring it.

00:39:44.540 --> 00:39:48.400
 And they have a very strange view of who a God could be.

00:39:48.480 --> 00:39:52.020
 They believe in a God, but it's like a mishmash of a bunch of different gods that they've

00:39:52.020 --> 00:39:54.500
 sort of cut apart and pasted together.

00:39:55.500 --> 00:40:02.520
 But I would say it's not common for us to have openly hostile, militant, atheistic individuals

00:40:02.520 --> 00:40:05.260
 who are coming into our church wanting to engage.

00:40:05.500 --> 00:40:06.960
 That does not happen often.

00:40:06.960 --> 00:40:16.240
 I think maybe the closest to that is Flying Blind, who was a Wiccan church leader who was

00:40:16.240 --> 00:40:16.700
 returning.

00:40:17.040 --> 00:40:19.480
 But even he grew up in the church and left.

00:40:19.860 --> 00:40:23.040
 And so it varies.

00:40:23.240 --> 00:40:24.140
 It definitely varies.

00:40:24.180 --> 00:40:25.600
 Just like a physical church would.

00:40:25.780 --> 00:40:27.960
 I mean, people or people, no matter where they are, it does vary.

00:40:27.960 --> 00:40:34.080
 I mean, VR guys talk to me about trolls all the time, coming in, trying to disrupt, trying

00:40:34.080 --> 00:40:39.340
 to literally crash the VR world just to be a problem.

00:40:40.600 --> 00:40:42.960
 Trolls really isn't an issue in gaming?

00:40:43.220 --> 00:40:43.840
 Oh, no, it is.

00:40:44.960 --> 00:40:45.680
 It is.

00:40:46.240 --> 00:40:49.180
 We routinely have to bring out the band hammer.

00:40:49.500 --> 00:40:51.500
 We routinely have to mod them out of the chat.

00:40:52.120 --> 00:40:56.560
 But it's different because in Discord, and I just jumped all over this, Mark.

00:40:56.620 --> 00:40:57.080
 Sorry about that.

00:40:57.140 --> 00:41:02.160
 But in Discord, you have to go through a series of steps before you can even post or before

00:41:02.160 --> 00:41:04.860
 you can even put links in or anything like that.

00:41:04.960 --> 00:41:08.080
 So it weeds out some of that stuff.

00:41:08.360 --> 00:41:13.360
 And then by the time they actually start posting, you can almost tell immediately there is no long

00:41:13.360 --> 00:41:13.900
 con there.

00:41:15.060 --> 00:41:20.760
 During a live service, we've got anywhere between four and seven moderators in the chat at any

00:41:20.760 --> 00:41:21.020
 time.

00:41:21.020 --> 00:41:24.400
 So they'll just swoop in and excise the demon out of there.

00:41:24.780 --> 00:41:28.140
 I'm not sure if you're being literal or figurative with the word demon, but that's...

00:41:28.140 --> 00:41:28.840
 Take it as you will.

00:41:29.600 --> 00:41:31.300
 Some of them may not even know either.

00:41:31.520 --> 00:41:32.680
 So that's interesting.

00:41:34.300 --> 00:41:38.600
 Would you agree what Mark was saying about the spiritual temperature?

00:41:38.920 --> 00:41:40.480
 Andy, does that resonate with what you're saying?

00:41:40.740 --> 00:41:41.000
 Yeah.

00:41:42.080 --> 00:41:44.280
 A lot of it is...

00:41:44.280 --> 00:41:49.220
 The only thing I would say that would run as kind of an additive to that is that

00:41:49.920 --> 00:41:55.440
 they, most people had been to church, but I don't think it was their own faith.

00:41:55.580 --> 00:41:57.040
 Like they didn't go of their own accord.

00:41:57.440 --> 00:42:00.820
 Most of them were drugged by their parents or grandparents or, you know, some other friend

00:42:00.820 --> 00:42:08.940
 or something and had either rebelled or had just had spiritual apathy and had no care in

00:42:08.940 --> 00:42:10.700
 the world about exploring who Jesus was.

00:42:11.380 --> 00:42:16.820
 I don't think most of them, there was no real curiosity.

00:42:17.320 --> 00:42:24.640
 We have a lot of people too who, for whatever reason, just do not fit in well in sub-church

00:42:24.640 --> 00:42:25.240
 subculture.

00:42:26.220 --> 00:42:29.520
 And whether that's because, you know, they listen to a lot.

00:42:29.580 --> 00:42:31.660
 They really like death metal, right?

00:42:31.720 --> 00:42:33.360
 Or they love Dungeons and Dragons.

00:42:33.920 --> 00:42:37.860
 Or for some of them, we have some people with learning disabilities, right?

00:42:37.920 --> 00:42:38.860
 Or anxiety.

00:42:39.040 --> 00:42:44.420
 A lot of people who struggle with, you know, diagnosable anxiety disorders or, you know,

00:42:44.500 --> 00:42:45.000
 ADHD.

00:42:45.740 --> 00:42:50.300
 And so we do have some people who are sort of like on the spectrum in a variety of different

00:42:50.300 --> 00:42:50.880
 conditions.

00:42:51.400 --> 00:42:53.060
 And so it's hard for them to connect.

00:42:53.140 --> 00:42:54.360
 We have some people with disabilities.

00:42:54.360 --> 00:42:58.640
 They can't go to a physical church because of physical limitations as well.

00:42:59.080 --> 00:43:03.320
 And so there are some people like that, which like the reason they are in our church is

00:43:03.320 --> 00:43:09.200
 sometimes it looks a little bit different than maybe the reason why, you know, which my point

00:43:09.200 --> 00:43:12.040
 is this, Jeff, is that it's everyone.

00:43:12.640 --> 00:43:13.800
 It's everyone.

00:43:14.180 --> 00:43:15.640
 Like it runs the gambit.

00:43:15.820 --> 00:43:20.420
 And our church is specifically geared towards reaching de-churched people.

00:43:20.760 --> 00:43:22.340
 That's who we're trying to reach.

00:43:22.860 --> 00:43:26.900
 And so people who left the church 10 years ago and have no intentions of going through

00:43:26.900 --> 00:43:29.240
 the doors for church again, rather roll the dice with hell.

00:43:30.000 --> 00:43:32.600
 And so that's the type of person that we're going after.

00:43:32.760 --> 00:43:34.820
 And largely, that's the type of person that we get.

00:43:35.500 --> 00:43:40.420
 So is there any, you know, in marketing and normally in digital church, I talk about like

00:43:40.420 --> 00:43:42.780
 a persona, have a target audience.

00:43:44.360 --> 00:43:47.260
 Are you like reaching 16-year-old men?

00:43:47.260 --> 00:43:49.720
 Is it 40s?

00:43:50.220 --> 00:43:52.040
 Like what, what, is there a persona?

00:43:52.380 --> 00:43:54.940
 Like what do you, how do you, how do you manage that?

00:43:55.320 --> 00:43:55.500
 Yeah.

00:43:55.520 --> 00:44:01.000
 Our goal is to reach a 27-year-old man who's working a dead-end job.

00:44:01.440 --> 00:44:03.280
 Not really sure what he's supposed to do with his life.

00:44:03.400 --> 00:44:05.240
 Comes home from work each day.

00:44:05.700 --> 00:44:09.000
 Tries to escape from that feeling by playing video games.

00:44:09.260 --> 00:44:10.520
 Gets off too late at night.

00:44:10.860 --> 00:44:12.700
 Tries to fall asleep and struggles too.

00:44:13.120 --> 00:44:18.060
 Isn't really involved in a whole lot in terms of like things that are bigger than himself,

00:44:18.240 --> 00:44:19.780
 than LGBTQ rights.

00:44:19.940 --> 00:44:23.400
 And that's largely not because he believes in it or really cares much for it.

00:44:23.400 --> 00:44:26.080
 It just feels culturally like that's what he's supposed to be in favor of.

00:44:26.620 --> 00:44:30.820
 And so that's kind of the feeling and vibe of the person that we're trying to reach.

00:44:30.900 --> 00:44:34.580
 And you can see that through the equipment that we use, the language that we use, the way

00:44:34.580 --> 00:44:39.920
 that we preach and teach, the way our Discord is designed, everything is funneled through

00:44:39.920 --> 00:44:40.480
 that one.

00:44:41.040 --> 00:44:45.060
 But you've told me, I mean, I remember you telling me there's like a grandma that's part

00:44:45.060 --> 00:44:46.080
 of your church or something.

00:44:46.440 --> 00:44:53.140
 Like, and so you're even stretching beyond the perceived personas as you're doing ministry.

00:44:53.280 --> 00:44:53.400
 Yeah.

00:44:53.440 --> 00:44:55.420
 The smaller you aim, the bigger you hit, right?

00:44:55.480 --> 00:44:57.040
 And I think that that's true, period.

00:44:57.160 --> 00:44:58.860
 And you can see this in marketing all the time.

00:44:59.000 --> 00:45:02.020
 That might even be a marketing thing that I should attribute to someone in a quote that

00:45:02.020 --> 00:45:02.880
 I don't know who quoted it.

00:45:02.880 --> 00:45:05.580
 But yeah, we've seen that, right?

00:45:05.660 --> 00:45:08.020
 Like my wife's aunt, Jannie, is a member of our team.

00:45:08.200 --> 00:45:10.020
 She's a prayer warrior for us.

00:45:10.200 --> 00:45:12.540
 And she prays live on stream from her iPad.

00:45:13.080 --> 00:45:15.000
 And it's a little fuzzy sometimes.

00:45:15.340 --> 00:45:18.120
 But my wife's aunt's like in her 60s.

00:45:18.200 --> 00:45:19.160
 She's not a gamer.

00:45:20.260 --> 00:45:21.940
 But man, does she love our church.

00:45:22.060 --> 00:45:23.920
 I don't think she's missed a week of Lux in two years.

00:45:24.440 --> 00:45:26.000
 And she's awesome.

00:45:26.360 --> 00:45:27.020
 Jannie's awesome.

00:45:27.160 --> 00:45:28.480
 She's in a small group.

00:45:28.560 --> 00:45:29.420
 She's plugged in.

00:45:29.420 --> 00:45:32.400
 She said she has grown more in the last two years at Lux than she did.

00:45:32.660 --> 00:45:35.360
 Spiritually, then in her entire life growing up in a physical church.

00:45:36.480 --> 00:45:37.900
 And we've seen it.

00:45:37.980 --> 00:45:38.400
 We've seen it.

00:45:38.440 --> 00:45:40.380
 We're seeing her life change radically.

00:45:40.640 --> 00:45:44.480
 And this is somebody who's not a gamer, who's not in our age bracket, who isn't even the

00:45:44.480 --> 00:45:46.640
 gender of the individual that we're targeting.

00:45:47.300 --> 00:45:49.920
 And that's the case across the board, right?

00:45:50.000 --> 00:45:51.260
 Yeah, that's our aim.

00:45:51.380 --> 00:45:53.820
 But we have Mika, who's 17.

00:45:54.200 --> 00:45:59.980
 And we have Mika's mom, Lynn, who's older than 17 because Mika's 17.

00:46:00.940 --> 00:46:02.260
 And they're awesome.

00:46:02.760 --> 00:46:03.860
 Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

00:46:03.860 --> 00:46:09.200
 You have a mom and a daughter attending a digital...

00:46:09.200 --> 00:46:09.800
 Are you kidding?

00:46:09.980 --> 00:46:10.500
 A couple of them.

00:46:10.640 --> 00:46:11.500
 Yeah, a couple of them.

00:46:11.880 --> 00:46:13.040
 I've never heard that story.

00:46:13.120 --> 00:46:13.640
 That's awesome.

00:46:14.040 --> 00:46:15.760
 Yeah, we have Zef and Homemade Things.

00:46:16.260 --> 00:46:18.280
 So Zef is awesome.

00:46:18.540 --> 00:46:19.520
 She's in our area.

00:46:19.780 --> 00:46:21.020
 I won't give any personal information out.

00:46:21.100 --> 00:46:23.560
 Zef is pretty private about that.

00:46:23.800 --> 00:46:25.120
 But Zef is the person...

00:46:25.120 --> 00:46:26.180
 Zef came into our community.

00:46:26.800 --> 00:46:32.100
 And Zef had problems in other communities with dishonesty and a lack of transparency, sort

00:46:32.100 --> 00:46:36.760
 of posting images that weren't really her, that sort of thing, kind of creating a fake

00:46:36.760 --> 00:46:37.200
 persona.

00:46:37.480 --> 00:46:41.540
 And I know some of my friends' discords where they had had some conversations as a product

00:46:41.540 --> 00:46:42.220
 of that, right?

00:46:42.560 --> 00:46:44.360
 Zef came into our community very guarded.

00:46:44.640 --> 00:46:46.860
 I've never seen Zef's face.

00:46:46.960 --> 00:46:49.420
 She had never turned on a camera, never shared anything.

00:46:49.760 --> 00:46:51.420
 In time, she shared her real name.

00:46:51.760 --> 00:46:56.000
 She's posted real pictures of herself this year for our costume contest that we did in October.

00:46:56.580 --> 00:46:58.620
 And Homemade Things, her mom is coming to our server.

00:46:58.740 --> 00:47:00.500
 She's dealing with some medical issues right now.

00:47:00.720 --> 00:47:05.560
 We're literally meeting every week with Homemade Things, who's older and not a gamer.

00:47:06.920 --> 00:47:11.000
 And we're praying with her every week as she goes through the medical stuff that she's going

00:47:11.000 --> 00:47:11.700
 through right now.

00:47:11.840 --> 00:47:14.020
 And we're caring for Zef and Homemade Things, mother-daughter.

00:47:14.780 --> 00:47:16.280
 And we're seeing that.

00:47:16.560 --> 00:47:19.660
 We're seeing a couple of specifically mother-daughter combos.

00:47:20.200 --> 00:47:24.640
 But part of it is too, it's just like I think with Meek and Lynn, Lynn is seeing a place

00:47:24.640 --> 00:47:26.840
 where her daughter's faith is being awakened.

00:47:26.840 --> 00:47:30.960
 And she's becoming excited about me maybe being called into ministry.

00:47:31.540 --> 00:47:32.600
 And she's exploring that.

00:47:32.840 --> 00:47:37.500
 And I think it's put some excitement there for Lynn to then come and say, okay, what is...

00:47:37.500 --> 00:47:38.100
 And I know Lynn.

00:47:38.240 --> 00:47:38.960
 I've met with her.

00:47:39.260 --> 00:47:40.200
 I know their physical church.

00:47:40.300 --> 00:47:41.820
 I've preached at their physical church before.

00:47:42.480 --> 00:47:45.040
 So I know that Lynn is still probably very involved there.

00:47:45.380 --> 00:47:47.100
 And Lux is a thing that she does with her daughter.

00:47:47.220 --> 00:47:48.620
 But it's still really cool and powerful.

00:47:49.100 --> 00:47:49.800
 That may be.

00:47:50.020 --> 00:47:55.080
 I mean, one of the criticisms that I get around digital church is the generational gap.

00:47:55.240 --> 00:47:57.520
 Like, are generations able to go together?

00:47:58.360 --> 00:47:59.780
 And I've never...

00:47:59.780 --> 00:48:00.380
 I mean, I've always...

00:48:00.380 --> 00:48:01.000
 Yeah, why not?

00:48:01.120 --> 00:48:03.620
 But this may be the first story that I've ever heard.

00:48:03.760 --> 00:48:05.760
 There probably are others, but I just haven't heard it.

00:48:06.180 --> 00:48:09.860
 My wife's small group runs from 60s to 17.

00:48:10.280 --> 00:48:10.480
 Wow.

00:48:11.800 --> 00:48:12.700
 That's her problem.

00:48:12.880 --> 00:48:15.420
 There is such a generational gap in my wife's small group.

00:48:15.620 --> 00:48:21.100
 It's a handful of moms who have young kids, a teenager, and some people who are older than

00:48:21.100 --> 00:48:24.220
 that, like kids out of the house age, empty nesters.

00:48:24.440 --> 00:48:29.240
 And that's one of the biggest obstacles she has with her small group is how big the age

00:48:29.240 --> 00:48:30.060
 gap is there.

00:48:30.440 --> 00:48:31.680
 And yeah, generational stuff happens.

00:48:31.760 --> 00:48:33.380
 People ask me, how do we do children's ministry?

00:48:33.900 --> 00:48:38.240
 Well, come by and check it out because Bougie read the Bible in one year with us.

00:48:38.380 --> 00:48:41.480
 And now every day he reads in the New Testament one year.

00:48:41.540 --> 00:48:42.400
 He read the Bible in one year.

00:48:42.460 --> 00:48:43.380
 He never read the Bible before.

00:48:43.740 --> 00:48:46.540
 He read the whole Bible with us, asking great questions the whole time.

00:48:46.620 --> 00:48:49.360
 Gets to the New Testament a year, says, this is not enough Bible for me.

00:48:49.440 --> 00:48:52.700
 So every day he reads the chapter before, the chapter of the day, and the chapter after.

00:48:52.800 --> 00:48:55.900
 So he's reading the New Testament three times over the course of this year.

00:48:56.100 --> 00:48:58.260
 And every day he reads it to his son.

00:48:58.840 --> 00:49:01.940
 And now his son is going to him, daddy, we read that last time.

00:49:01.940 --> 00:49:04.420
 Or daddy, I like that part, or this or that.

00:49:04.520 --> 00:49:09.080
 And his son, who Roman is, I don't know, about my daughter's age, a little bit younger.

00:49:09.220 --> 00:49:12.480
 It's like four or five years old, is being discipled by his father.

00:49:12.880 --> 00:49:18.160
 And his children are being discipled by their father because Bougie is experiencing Christ

00:49:18.160 --> 00:49:18.820
 through our church.

00:49:19.200 --> 00:49:24.300
 And this is another couple, wife and husband, who attend our church faithfully, who would

00:49:24.300 --> 00:49:26.740
 not be in church right now.

00:49:27.140 --> 00:49:29.200
 By the way, Bougie wants to be called Bougie.

00:49:29.340 --> 00:49:31.900
 Mark is not insulting Bougie by calling him Bougie.

00:49:31.900 --> 00:49:32.260
 He's not bourgeois.

00:49:32.500 --> 00:49:33.400
 Yeah, no, no, this is good.

00:49:33.620 --> 00:49:35.580
 It's actually somebody wants that name.

00:49:35.800 --> 00:49:37.280
 So that's tolerable.

00:49:37.400 --> 00:49:38.160
 That's his screen name.

00:49:38.200 --> 00:49:39.200
 That's his screen name, Bougie.

00:49:39.500 --> 00:49:44.100
 Hey, listen, we can have this conversation literally all day.

00:49:44.160 --> 00:49:47.220
 And that's why we're doing a season on this through the Church Digital.

00:49:47.800 --> 00:49:53.700
 In the coming weeks, we're really going to start to look at some of the nuances in digital

00:49:53.700 --> 00:50:00.680
 and nerd culture and gaming culture and churches that are operating in Twitch and Discord, churches

00:50:00.680 --> 00:50:08.520
 that are operating in actual video games, churches that are physical churches that are doing things

00:50:08.520 --> 00:50:12.200
 alongside gaming culture and reaching in.

00:50:12.200 --> 00:50:19.040
 I really want to unpack the idea of gaming culture here and how we, whatever expression of church

00:50:19.040 --> 00:50:21.780
 you have, can be involved in reaching into that.

00:50:21.920 --> 00:50:24.040
 So Mark's going to be along for a lot of the ride for me.

00:50:24.580 --> 00:50:28.540
 Andy, I'm sure, will have a presence as we're going through this.

00:50:28.740 --> 00:50:34.080
 So gentlemen, just right up here as we're closing, thanks for taking some time, kicking the season

00:50:34.080 --> 00:50:39.860
 off and excited to hear what's going on with Lux and beyond.

00:50:40.040 --> 00:50:43.300
 But as we're landing the plane here, Andy, let you go first.

00:50:43.360 --> 00:50:44.040
 Any closing thoughts?

00:50:44.300 --> 00:50:45.380
 No, looking forward to the season.

00:50:45.500 --> 00:50:49.880
 I think there's a lot of, especially with the guest list you got coming up, there's a lot of

00:50:49.880 --> 00:50:50.400
 information.

00:50:50.600 --> 00:50:53.820
 There's a wealth of knowledge out there and you've got a lot of different models.

00:50:54.340 --> 00:50:58.120
 But most importantly, you got a lot of hearts for Jesus that are just looking to do things

00:50:58.120 --> 00:50:58.860
 to reach the community.

00:50:58.960 --> 00:51:00.300
 And that is so, so, so cool.

00:51:00.940 --> 00:51:01.220
 Awesome.

00:51:01.440 --> 00:51:02.740
 Yeah, so sounds good with that.

00:51:03.000 --> 00:51:05.440
 Mark, on your side, anything, any closing thoughts?

00:51:05.700 --> 00:51:09.600
 You know, there's this really cool thing over on the Church Digital's website that you can

00:51:09.600 --> 00:51:11.800
 click now called Physical Church Consulting.

00:51:11.800 --> 00:51:16.540
 And it either is launched or it'll be launched shortly after you listen to this episode.

00:51:16.720 --> 00:51:22.560
 And you can hire me or Andy or Jeff to come hang out with your church and talk about how

00:51:22.560 --> 00:51:27.020
 you can move from putting a live stream out there on the internet to building genuine relationships

00:51:27.020 --> 00:51:30.900
 and deepening those with people online and to see stories like some of the ones that you

00:51:30.900 --> 00:51:34.300
 heard about right here because there's people looking for it on the internet.

00:51:34.300 --> 00:51:39.560
 So that's my only plug is go check that out because the Church Digital is doing a ton of

00:51:39.560 --> 00:51:40.280
 really cool stuff.

00:51:40.420 --> 00:51:47.080
 And Jeff has put what seems to be an endless number of thankless hours into this beast and

00:51:47.080 --> 00:51:48.340
 continues to do so.

00:51:48.460 --> 00:51:51.380
 And so you should go click on that link and check it out.

00:51:51.380 --> 00:51:56.000
 Hey, Mark, Andy, thanks for jumping on the podcast with us as we've been kicking off this idea

00:51:56.000 --> 00:51:59.700
 of season four, Jesus, Gamers, and Church.

00:51:59.780 --> 00:52:02.200
 Really looking forward to more of these conversations moving forward.

00:52:02.600 --> 00:52:08.540
 Mark is going to be a regular guest, a regular host, a co-host is probably a better word, a co-host.

00:52:08.660 --> 00:52:09.440
 Let's call it that.

00:52:09.760 --> 00:52:11.420
 Officially, let's just say that right now on air.

00:52:11.660 --> 00:52:16.760
 Mark's going to be a co-host with this season with me as we start to explain and explore

00:52:16.760 --> 00:52:21.380
 this new gaming culture and how we, the church, need to be operating in it.

00:52:21.640 --> 00:52:23.320
 Remember what we had talked about.

00:52:23.380 --> 00:52:27.460
 We're going to be on Twitch, twitch.tv slash digitalchurchnetwork.

00:52:27.460 --> 00:52:32.480
 We're going to be on that platform every Thursday, 3 p.m. Eastern.

00:52:32.720 --> 00:52:38.260
 We've got an interview coming up in just a couple days with Bubba from Love Thy Nerd.

00:52:38.260 --> 00:52:41.160
 I hinted at it earlier, but he is with Love Thy Nerd.

00:52:41.520 --> 00:52:46.800
 They're doing an incredible job reaching the nerd culture for Christ and coming alongside

00:52:46.800 --> 00:52:51.320
 churches that want to help reach the nerd culture.

00:52:51.860 --> 00:52:53.140
 What is the nerd culture?

00:52:53.660 --> 00:52:55.620
 How does a physical church reach that?

00:52:55.760 --> 00:53:02.680
 Well, come listen to the interview Thursday on twitch.tv slash digitalchurchnetwork.

00:53:02.780 --> 00:53:05.840
 Links in the show notes, information in the show notes as well.

00:53:05.840 --> 00:53:09.720
 If you're not going to catch the live stream, it'll be on the podcast as well.

00:53:09.920 --> 00:53:15.840
 We'll take the stream and turn it into a podcast by the usual time, Monday.

00:53:16.080 --> 00:53:16.660
 But hey, you know what?

00:53:16.680 --> 00:53:17.540
 We're going to land the plane.

00:53:17.800 --> 00:53:23.540
 So for Mark, for Andy, for myself, Jeff at the Church Digital, Digital Church Network

00:53:23.540 --> 00:53:26.320
 and lover of Goldeneye for Nintendo 64.

00:53:26.800 --> 00:53:30.920
 Thanks for jumping on the podcast here and we'll see you next time, literally Thursday on the

00:53:30.920 --> 00:53:31.120
 show.

00:53:31.380 --> 00:53:31.900
 Y'all have a good day.