WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.840 Welcome to the Church Digital Podcast. Through this podcast, we'll talk about the technological 00:00:04.840 --> 00:00:10.200 innovations within the church. But more than tech for tech itself, we'll address deeper 00:00:10.200 --> 00:00:16.640 questions. Is disciple making possible digitally? How should we approach the digital mission field? 00:00:17.380 --> 00:00:22.440 Can a biblically grounded church operate in digital space? Oh, and where does the metaverse 00:00:22.440 --> 00:00:27.920 fit into all this? Whether you're a big or small church, an established church, or a startup church 00:00:27.920 --> 00:00:33.840 plant. The Church Digital's goal is to help churches like yours learn to be a multiplying church, 00:00:34.280 --> 00:00:40.460 digitally and physically. Our heart, that churches like yours will discover a newfound focus on 00:00:40.460 --> 00:00:46.820 disciple making that will revolutionize your church. And now, here's your host, Jeff Reed. 00:00:47.320 --> 00:00:54.340 All right. Hey, welcome to Twitch. Welcome to the Church Digital Podcast. Welcome to wherever we are 00:00:54.340 --> 00:00:57.860 today. Hey, my name is Jeff Reed. I'm founder of the Church Digital, Digital Church Network. 00:00:58.500 --> 00:01:06.320 And we're streaming live on Twitch right now. We're doing season four here of Jesus Gamers and Church 00:01:06.320 --> 00:01:12.160 digging. Excuse me. I think that's, yeah. Jesus Gamers and... Listen, no matter how many times I say 00:01:12.160 --> 00:01:16.920 that, I will always screw up the order of those three words. I'm pretty sure it's Jesus Gamers and 00:01:16.920 --> 00:01:22.480 Church, but it could be Jesus Church and Gamers. Pretty sure we said Jesus that's first. And if this 00:01:22.480 --> 00:01:26.740 wasn't live, I would totally be like, hey, let's just start this whole thing all over again. But it's 00:01:26.740 --> 00:01:33.540 live. So, listen, we're just going to have to roll with it and make it all work. And so, I am not a 00:01:33.540 --> 00:01:38.360 gamer. I've confessed that many times here in season four. It's been a couple decades since I was 00:01:38.360 --> 00:01:46.360 relevant with N64's GoldenEye. But I am loving talking with gamers, talking with nerds, talking 00:01:46.360 --> 00:01:54.200 with esports people, and even digging into this episode, this interview today, trying to learn more 00:01:54.200 --> 00:02:01.020 about gaming culture. And so, we are streaming these interviews live on Twitch, where I am right now. 00:02:01.080 --> 00:02:05.960 And so, if you're listening on the podcast, feel free to swing over Thursdays at 3 p.m. Eastern 00:02:05.960 --> 00:02:13.640 to twitch.tv slash digitalchurchnetwork. And so, we had, I don't know, 20-some last week. And we've 00:02:13.640 --> 00:02:22.300 got some people in the chat right now. Flatcap, JateLive, DCN is in here with us, St. Bear. Some 00:02:22.300 --> 00:02:27.060 others will probably be popping. Chino Mage is here as well. Probably some others will be popping 00:02:27.060 --> 00:02:33.500 in and out. But excited. Excited to get into this conversation right now. And so, let's go ahead and 00:02:33.500 --> 00:02:39.320 bring the others in. Mysterious magician behind the screen. Whoever's running the video switcher, 00:02:39.380 --> 00:02:47.020 let's bring him in. Awesome. How's everybody doing today? So, in this week's episode, we're going to 00:02:47.020 --> 00:02:53.020 dig in with JateLive. We're going to be talking with Jate Earhart about maybe some of how he uses 00:02:53.620 --> 00:03:00.020 Twitch and Discord and what's going on with Jate. Jate's probably the first person that I ever 00:03:00.020 --> 00:03:06.860 interviewed that was utilizing Twitch for ministry. And I apologize because Mark is on this interview 00:03:06.860 --> 00:03:11.240 as well. Mark, I'm not even going to waste my time trying to say his last name wrong. We're rocking 00:03:11.240 --> 00:03:18.500 that and moving on. But Mark was probably close in there, but I think Jate was early on. Now, listen, 00:03:19.060 --> 00:03:24.320 before we get into the interview. Now, realize for me, I'm not big into Twitch culture. And a lot of 00:03:24.320 --> 00:03:29.720 people listening to the podcast, we're not big Twitchers, if that's how we say this. 00:03:31.420 --> 00:03:39.980 What is up with all the emojis? Like the excessive use of emojis on screen and how you can't just type 00:03:39.980 --> 00:03:45.940 it once. You have to put like three, four, five of them on. Like, I don't understand. You know, 00:03:45.940 --> 00:03:49.760 I don't want to be like, once again, the grandpa get off my lawn, but you know, Mark, can you give 00:03:49.760 --> 00:03:55.440 me some insight? Jate, can you give me some insight? Twitch culture, all these emojis. What the crap? 00:03:58.080 --> 00:04:02.460 Jate's much better at explaining things like this, but I do want to say hi to our Lux Digital Church 00:04:02.460 --> 00:04:07.720 family because I am accidentally multi-streaming on both the DCN channel and the Lux Digital Church 00:04:07.720 --> 00:04:12.800 channel, which I didn't mean to do. And I also don't know which is which, so I can't end it in fear 00:04:12.800 --> 00:04:17.340 that I'll end the wrong one. It's like the, the blue or the red wire right now. And I'm not sure 00:04:17.340 --> 00:04:21.840 which one to cut to diffuse the bomb. So we're just going to let it run and hopefully Twitch doesn't 00:04:21.840 --> 00:04:27.420 explode. So what you're saying, telling me is I just said what the crap to your entire church audience. 00:04:27.480 --> 00:04:32.100 Yeah, that's fine. Everything that we're saying is also being told to Lux Digital Church and we 00:04:32.100 --> 00:04:36.900 didn't mean to go live there. So if you're tuning in from Lux, we love you so much. Thank you for being 00:04:36.900 --> 00:04:42.000 here for the Digital Church Network podcast. I guess it's the church digital podcast, but you know what? 00:04:42.000 --> 00:04:45.780 You get more of Jate in your life by coming to our stream right now, which is a beautiful thing. 00:04:48.440 --> 00:04:53.240 Well, hey, maybe we need to get somebody else to run tech or maybe we just doubled our audience, 00:04:53.240 --> 00:04:59.500 which is awesome as well. Either way, it's a win. So I love it. Jate emojis. What the crap? 00:05:00.560 --> 00:05:04.760 Yeah, I feel like I found my people because I like emojis and I use them all the time. 00:05:05.220 --> 00:05:11.320 Like before I was using Twitch. And then I got on Discord and it's the same thing. Just like 00:05:11.320 --> 00:05:15.160 emotes everywhere. I actually remember reading something that kind of like... 00:05:16.300 --> 00:05:23.560 I don't know. It was one of those posts where like a female influencer was like, 00:05:23.560 --> 00:05:28.460 Oh, like guys who use emotes. That's like a huge turnoff for me. 00:05:28.840 --> 00:05:33.040 And then I just kind of like shriveled up because I was like, I use emotes. Like I like to express 00:05:33.040 --> 00:05:40.400 myself through smiley faces. And then I came on Twitch and it's just walls of emotes. But 00:05:40.400 --> 00:05:47.560 I don't know. I think it's kind of like Pokemon cards, you know, where sometimes even though 00:05:47.560 --> 00:05:52.720 everybody has Pikachu, it's still fun to see. But then every once in a while, somebody has like a rare 00:05:52.720 --> 00:05:57.420 emote. And you're like, Whoa, what's that emote? Like, where'd you get that one from? And then you can 00:05:57.420 --> 00:06:02.480 kind of like, go down the wire and see, you know, you find other people. There's lots of streamers I 00:06:02.480 --> 00:06:07.060 found because I saw their emotes. And I was like, that's a cool emote that probably is a cool person. 00:06:07.220 --> 00:06:08.860 And then I'm either right or wrong. 00:06:09.980 --> 00:06:15.140 So it's not like your iPhone where you're given hundreds of emotes, emojis. Like you have the 00:06:15.140 --> 00:06:17.700 ability to earn them. There's it's gamification a little bit. 00:06:18.260 --> 00:06:22.800 So when you subscribe to somebody, you get their emotes and you can use them anywhere on Twitch. 00:06:23.800 --> 00:06:29.520 So that's where, why twisted shot right now is doing the, doing the flat cap because, because 00:06:29.520 --> 00:06:33.080 twisted shot TV is following flat cap. And so he gets that. Okay. 00:06:33.580 --> 00:06:38.260 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And he's doing, I can see right now that's Deustin, Deustin dancing right now. 00:06:38.260 --> 00:06:44.780 So, okay. Yeah. So like Jate, are all your emotes, are they all cat related? 00:06:45.960 --> 00:06:51.960 Not all of them. Some of them are my cat Phoenix. Yes. Some of them are also, uh, are, are created 00:06:51.960 --> 00:06:55.600 mascot, uh, Jate Fox. Yeah. It just depends. 00:06:56.860 --> 00:07:03.520 Is a fox not a cat? Well, we've got a very different species. This is a weird species 00:07:03.520 --> 00:07:11.740 question there. Uh, not a cat. Foxes are dogs running on cat software. Oh my gosh. What is 00:07:11.740 --> 00:07:16.720 happening by that? That's where we are for this interview. Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, 00:07:16.720 --> 00:07:24.500 thanks for joining us today. Have a great week. Hey, listen, I actually, I love the fact that, 00:07:24.500 --> 00:07:31.060 that both of you guys are on this, this, this interview, this call together. Um, because I love 00:07:31.060 --> 00:07:37.620 the, I love the fact that you use both of you, Mark, uh, through Lux digital church, Jate through, 00:07:37.620 --> 00:07:42.840 are you branding Jate live now? Is there, is it still love clan? Like I've kind of seen you do both. 00:07:42.840 --> 00:07:50.020 Okay. So like you, you do these, these different things utilizing the same tool sets, but to be 00:07:50.020 --> 00:07:54.340 honest, your ministries could not be more different. Like just a guy looking at the 00:07:54.340 --> 00:08:02.180 outside. Mark is, is doing a, a very close to a traditional model of church reinterpreted 00:08:02.180 --> 00:08:07.080 in a new way. He's doing, uh, you know, Mark, I've heard you say, actually, it kind of leans 00:08:07.080 --> 00:08:10.300 more towards student ministry type stuff. If you're comfortable with student ministry, 00:08:10.300 --> 00:08:14.740 you may be comfortable in some of the, this, the spaces they're doing. Whereas some of the 00:08:14.740 --> 00:08:19.580 stuff that Jate's doing, it seems to me it's like completely different than, than what the, 00:08:19.580 --> 00:08:24.480 the typical church environment, uh, would be. So, Hey, Jate, maybe, you know, some people, 00:08:24.480 --> 00:08:29.480 especially with the podcast, they may not know who you are. Um, man, take a, take a minute or two, 00:08:29.980 --> 00:08:34.320 introduce yourself, talk a little bit about who you are and, and what your ministry actually looks 00:08:34.320 --> 00:08:45.580 like in this space. Um, yeah, I, I would say, I would say, I read everything there. Yeah. I would say 00:08:45.580 --> 00:08:50.480 they could be different. Um, I, there's lots of industries that are definitely further that are 00:08:50.480 --> 00:08:55.580 definitely further apart, but I would say there's, um, there is, there are obviously differences. 00:08:56.420 --> 00:09:00.580 And I think that's good because that means we, we reach different, different people. Um, 00:09:01.320 --> 00:09:06.460 and there's a lot of people to reach. So yeah, my, for the most part, I would, um, 00:09:07.320 --> 00:09:12.280 I kind of just stream just in it, just like maybe like a normal, what, what a normal streamer 00:09:12.280 --> 00:09:20.120 would be. I play video games most of the, um, like most days and just get to know people. 00:09:20.540 --> 00:09:26.120 Um, the majority for me, in my mind, my goal is to have authentic relationships with people 00:09:26.120 --> 00:09:33.520 over the internet. And by doing that, hopefully have the opportunity to, um, 00:09:34.020 --> 00:09:40.980 to be able to spread the love of Jesus. You know, I, I hope that I'll be able to actually 00:09:41.180 --> 00:09:47.260 speak truth into people's lives. Um, but I, a lot of times people are used to 00:09:47.260 --> 00:09:53.220 shouting at them from across the street or from a pulpit and saying, come to me, come to my thing, 00:09:53.440 --> 00:09:59.900 come listen to what I'm saying. And, um, you know, I try to, uh, spend as much time as I can just 00:09:59.900 --> 00:10:05.460 listening and like hearing what other people are saying and, and just responding to that. Um, 00:10:05.940 --> 00:10:15.040 it's, it's, it's a lot more, uh, communication like back and forth with chat and less of just 00:10:15.040 --> 00:10:21.020 me talking. Um, so that's what I like. I like that. I'm having a hard time not just reading 00:10:21.020 --> 00:10:27.160 chat right now. It's normally what I'm doing. So now you've, you've, you've told me in the past, 00:10:27.160 --> 00:10:32.300 like at one point you said your goal was to reach, uh, to disciple a million video gamers. And it, 00:10:32.380 --> 00:10:36.220 that's been, been a year or two since, since you, you've said that we've had a couple of 00:10:36.220 --> 00:10:41.860 conversations since then. What's, um, where are you in, in that path and that journey? Is, is it 00:10:41.860 --> 00:10:46.500 working? Do you still have that same, uh, vision? Like what's, what's your, what's your ministry 00:10:46.500 --> 00:10:53.160 looking like? Yeah. So that was kind of, that's like, not that I would reach a million disciples, 00:10:53.160 --> 00:11:00.320 but that like, there would be a million, um, discipled gamers who were discipling others. 00:11:00.800 --> 00:11:05.740 And that would never happen through me. Like, there's no way that I by myself could ever do that. 00:11:05.740 --> 00:11:12.600 And that was never the, like, that would never be the goal. And, um, but that was my prayer, 00:11:12.600 --> 00:11:17.820 you know, is that we have a, a gaming, especially in the gaming world, which is where I, I mostly 00:11:17.820 --> 00:11:24.500 gravitate towards to see that there's such a big disconnect that there's a lot of people that are 00:11:24.500 --> 00:11:28.320 Christians who are like, I don't feel like I can talk about that with my gaming friends. Um, 00:11:28.580 --> 00:11:34.380 I feel like that's a huge, that's it. That's a problem. That's a, that shows that there's a 00:11:34.380 --> 00:11:41.000 disconnect between the two things that are, are the loves for me. And so, um, I just wanted to see, 00:11:41.000 --> 00:11:47.700 I wanted to see that be more normative, you know? And so I think, um, yes, for sure. That is, 00:11:47.840 --> 00:11:54.340 it is moving forward. I can't give like numbers on that. And I think that's good. Um, because it's 00:11:54.340 --> 00:12:01.440 not, I could give my numbers, but, um, you know, they're one of the, the joys of, especially this 00:12:01.440 --> 00:12:07.920 year, um, this year, especially is that I've seen so many other streamers, other people doing 00:12:07.920 --> 00:12:15.800 similar things to me. Um, some that I've been able to help grow into like doing and flourishing and, 00:12:15.800 --> 00:12:20.900 and whatever, and others that I, uh, didn't know that I just found through the internet that are 00:12:20.900 --> 00:12:26.560 like, Oh, now they're, they're doing similar stuff and I can, um, I can come alongside them and help 00:12:26.560 --> 00:12:32.200 them with the, you know, get over the, the first year of hurdles that I didn't need to have to get 00:12:32.200 --> 00:12:36.800 over. There's some stuff you will have to do, but some things you could just, you know, learn 00:12:36.800 --> 00:12:42.960 yourself out of, uh, a ditch basically. But yeah, there's, there's been a lot of that. Um, 00:12:43.660 --> 00:12:54.880 and I, I, I think the, um, specifically about discipleship is that the place where I evangelize 00:12:54.880 --> 00:12:59.440 is the same place I disciple. Uh, and I think that's really huge. There's not a lot of places 00:12:59.440 --> 00:13:05.460 maybe for that, or maybe just there is, and I'm, I'm just thinking in my context, but because I get to 00:13:05.460 --> 00:13:13.520 talk to people at the same time that I'm trying to, the people I'm trying to reach, um, if somebody 00:13:13.520 --> 00:13:17.960 wants discipleship, they can come alongside and see how I'm doing it. And they're learning to 00:13:17.960 --> 00:13:21.820 find and follow Jesus at the same time that I'm helping other people find and follow Jesus. 00:13:22.240 --> 00:13:26.220 And that shows them a path forward for how they can then do that for other people. 00:13:26.700 --> 00:13:33.680 And, um, that's to me, very similar to the Jesus model. And we've kind of talked about that before, 00:13:33.680 --> 00:13:39.700 but I'm just more and more seeing how that's really how things are is it's like, come alongside me as I 00:13:39.700 --> 00:13:44.900 help other people, you know, go forward. And then you go off and do your own thing. I don't need to be 00:13:44.900 --> 00:13:49.040 in control of like whatever you're doing. And, uh, the send, it's not like send and release, 00:13:49.040 --> 00:13:54.180 but like send and keep contact, which is very, again, very, it all just sounds very biblical. 00:13:54.180 --> 00:14:02.820 And so, um, I've really been, I don't know, just like very, very aware of, um, how much this feels 00:14:02.820 --> 00:14:08.960 like even very like the beginning of acts. Um, just as I'm seeing other people come alongside 00:14:08.960 --> 00:14:14.660 and move and grow up and start churches in different areas. And, um, I'm just happy to be a part of it. 00:14:14.660 --> 00:14:22.800 You know, it feels like, uh, yeah. Well, St. Bear in chat, uh, I love Jade's stream. I love that Jade's 00:14:22.800 --> 00:14:28.340 stream is so consistent and relational. It feels like a chill living room with a very comfy couch 00:14:28.340 --> 00:14:34.260 where big conversations feel much less daunting than they would in other environments. Like I want to 00:14:34.260 --> 00:14:38.880 get, I want to get into the discipleship. I want to get into, into some of that, uh, in a platform, 00:14:38.880 --> 00:14:45.920 in a, in a, in a, in a system where you're talking to sometimes hundreds of people. Um, 00:14:45.920 --> 00:14:51.680 how do you get relational? Like, it seems to me that almost the technology scales the actual 00:14:51.680 --> 00:14:57.260 relationship out of it by trying to give you mass. Like how, how do you keep it? How do you keep it 00:14:57.260 --> 00:15:04.300 chill? Yeah. Um, for the last, for the, for the last probably like two years, there was a, 00:15:04.360 --> 00:15:09.800 there was a point in my first year where I had a video that went like semi viral, like not viral, 00:15:09.800 --> 00:15:15.240 but within the gaming community that, that I was in. Um, I had like a final fantasy 14 video that hit 00:15:15.240 --> 00:15:21.520 like, um, a hundred thousand views. And that was like overnight. And all these people came over 00:15:21.520 --> 00:15:26.920 because the video was showing how to do something very specific for a class that I was playing. 00:15:27.320 --> 00:15:32.520 Um, which is all very, you know, and, uh, and so people started coming over for that and I was 00:15:32.520 --> 00:15:38.320 growing really fast, but I recognized that I wasn't like the, the, the numbers were going to grow really 00:15:38.320 --> 00:15:45.400 quickly. Um, but it wasn't, there wasn't the base yet. And so until the base was built, it would be 00:15:45.400 --> 00:15:54.120 like, um, I don't know, it's like fuel for the wrong fire almost. And so I had to, um, I had to really 00:15:54.120 --> 00:15:59.880 pull back and focus more on the people than the numbers for a while. Um, and just focus on the 00:15:59.880 --> 00:16:04.720 people that are there already and make sure that we're growing in the right direction. So I really, 00:16:04.860 --> 00:16:10.760 I really went, um, I went small for like a while and just tried to keep it within certain numbers 00:16:10.760 --> 00:16:16.540 that I knew where I could read every chat message. And, um, I'm not sure if that will always be the 00:16:16.540 --> 00:16:22.120 case. Um, I, I don't know if that's like where God has me for the longterm or not. I, um, 00:16:22.200 --> 00:16:28.380 there's like a whole thing we could go into about like people that are life streamers versus, um, 00:16:28.960 --> 00:16:35.540 people who are, uh, uh, entertainers, you know? And so I, I didn't want to just be the entertaining 00:16:35.540 --> 00:16:40.880 streamer that was trying to like keep the masses entertained. Um, and that's kind of what happens 00:16:40.880 --> 00:16:47.100 when you get to the bigger numbers. So yeah, mostly focusing on small, like focusing on the people 00:16:47.100 --> 00:16:52.380 that are there. Um, if somebody gave me their name, I would, I would make a note of it. Um, 00:16:52.400 --> 00:16:58.780 I have like a whole list of people's real names to make sure that I'm like remembering those. Um, 00:16:59.080 --> 00:17:07.040 yeah, I, I, I have, honestly, I think it's kind of a God thing. I'm ADHD, but, uh, that ADHD lets me 00:17:07.040 --> 00:17:12.660 read, chat and play a game at the same time. And for whatever reason, I, I won't remember where my car 00:17:12.660 --> 00:17:17.560 keys are, but I'll remember a whole lot of like random information that people had said. Like, 00:17:17.640 --> 00:17:24.100 I really liked this game. I really enjoy this anime. You know, um, I work at such and such place and, 00:17:24.240 --> 00:17:30.280 and I can, I can do that somehow for like thousands of people and, um, and be able to remember not 00:17:30.280 --> 00:17:37.880 everything, but like a good more than I expected that I could. And, um, but yeah, I, most of it is 00:17:37.880 --> 00:17:45.060 just being, being available is already way more than what most people get. You know, you think about 00:17:45.060 --> 00:17:51.040 how many people you interact with on a daily basis, um, who are there beyond just work. And you're, 00:17:51.120 --> 00:17:58.620 you're already looking at a pretty limited number of people that, um, that actually wants to give 00:17:58.620 --> 00:18:03.860 anything, you know, uh, how, how many, some of your, it's like some of my best friends I've been to 00:18:03.860 --> 00:18:10.520 coffee with twice, you know, like, it's just not a, um, I don't know. I think we're, we're kind of 00:18:10.520 --> 00:18:18.020 drained in that regard, which is why maybe we're so starved for, um, a, a spouse. I think, uh, you 00:18:18.020 --> 00:18:23.740 know, it's just like, well, there's, I need somebody I can tell my, uh, my, my day to, and the things 00:18:23.740 --> 00:18:28.520 that are going on in my life. And, um, and that's the first time is maybe when you're in like that 00:18:28.520 --> 00:18:31.940 kind of a relationship because, you know, and other people don't care about that stuff, but I do, 00:18:32.040 --> 00:18:35.820 I want to know what's going on in your day and vice versa, I guess. So. 00:18:37.700 --> 00:18:44.220 Now I'm hearing a lot of like Twitch language. Are you, are you using, cause you know, my, 00:18:44.220 --> 00:18:48.480 my knee jerk was going to be, Oh, he's using discord for relationships, but that's, I don't, 00:18:48.480 --> 00:18:52.940 I don't, I'm not feeling that right here in the moment. Are you, are you hanging out more 00:18:52.940 --> 00:18:57.320 in Twitch world and discord these days? Oh, for sure. Yeah. A hundred percent. 00:18:58.000 --> 00:19:02.460 So whereas the average, you know, I'm thinking virtual reality pastor, you know, even a lot 00:19:02.460 --> 00:19:05.940 of streamers, they're, they're looking at discipleship and ongoing and discord. 00:19:06.560 --> 00:19:11.100 You're utilizing Twitch. Like when you say you're, you're evangelizing and discipling in the same 00:19:11.100 --> 00:19:16.960 space, it's, I knew that was coming. It's Twitch, right? Like how's that work? 00:19:18.480 --> 00:19:26.060 Um, I mean, just by having relationships with people, I, I don't, I don't see, so I don't 00:19:26.060 --> 00:19:30.940 see there like the need for a camera for us to have relationship. I don't see the need for 00:19:30.940 --> 00:19:40.320 the microphone for us to have like an actual relationship. Um, I, I read like hundreds of 00:19:40.320 --> 00:19:46.240 hundreds of thousands of messages, uh, a year. So I, I have a, I can't remember how many, 00:19:46.240 --> 00:19:54.680 it's like 500,000 messages a year or something. So I, I get a, uh, even in discord, you can 00:19:54.680 --> 00:20:01.420 do a video chat and you can do, um, calling and stuff like that. But most of the time it's 00:20:01.420 --> 00:20:09.400 a, it's a text chat. Like even in discord, you're mostly doing text text. So yeah. So, I 00:20:09.400 --> 00:20:14.800 mean, a lot of these people I've probably done video with, um, I've done talking with like, 00:20:14.800 --> 00:20:18.700 like, uh, some of them, I shouldn't say most, some of them, some of them are streamers. 00:20:19.160 --> 00:20:23.720 So I've been in their chats and I've seen them and interacted with them as, as texts. 00:20:23.920 --> 00:20:28.360 And then they come into my chat and I've interacted with them that way. So there's that element 00:20:28.360 --> 00:20:37.900 for sure as well. But, um, yeah, when you're, when you're in the, so when you, I would say 35, 00:20:38.140 --> 00:20:42.540 I'm just going to put a number on it. When you get over 35 people in a room, it's very, 00:20:42.600 --> 00:20:48.220 very difficult to talk to all of them. So imagine 35 people in a room. Um, you either have to be like, 00:20:48.220 --> 00:20:55.260 let me stand on this soapbox or let me like stand on stage and talk to you all. And then I will go 00:20:55.260 --> 00:21:00.700 down and like individually one-on-one talk. Um, or yeah, you need some way to sort through that. 00:21:01.040 --> 00:21:07.840 And so it's like, submit your thing. And so, yeah, this is, I think there, it would be very 00:21:07.840 --> 00:21:15.760 difficult to do what we're doing right now with the three of us. Even now, like Mark hasn't gotten 00:21:15.760 --> 00:21:20.120 to say a whole lot of things. Um, you know, but there's like, there's three of us. So imagine 35 00:21:20.120 --> 00:21:25.780 of us, like how often would any of us actually get to talk. So getting to have the, the text 00:21:25.780 --> 00:21:36.040 allows for us to have a, a, a community discussion that happens beyond just, you know, like there 00:21:36.040 --> 00:21:42.040 has to be somebody like mediating, but I feel like mostly I'm a community, uh, like presenter 00:21:42.040 --> 00:21:46.340 more than I am like the community. And when people come to the stream, I'm not saying, 00:21:46.340 --> 00:21:49.200 Oh yeah, just come for my thing. It's like, hi, like, 00:21:50.120 --> 00:21:54.540 let's all hang out together and, uh, I'll present, you know, something on the screen, 00:21:54.540 --> 00:22:00.100 but for the most part, it's just sort of an introduction to let's talk about this. Um, 00:22:00.100 --> 00:22:04.420 which I, which I like because you can't do that for like very many other things. You can't 00:22:04.420 --> 00:22:07.660 do that for movies. Like you don't go to the movies to be like, Hey, let's talk about the 00:22:07.660 --> 00:22:10.900 movie while we're going on. You know, it's like, please stop talking. I'm trying to watch 00:22:10.900 --> 00:22:16.060 the movie. Um, so it's, it's a weird, like at first I was kind of, why would somebody want 00:22:16.060 --> 00:22:20.080 to watch somebody play video games? I get that kind of thought and notion, but 00:22:20.080 --> 00:22:25.100 I realized that it's really less about the video games and more about the people and the 00:22:25.100 --> 00:22:28.960 community and the, which is, which is what's the most important thing to me. Like I could 00:22:28.960 --> 00:22:32.700 go for hours without ever actually playing the game. And sometimes I do. And people are 00:22:32.700 --> 00:22:36.840 like, Hey, you haven't played the game yet. And it's like, Oh yeah, sorry. I just was chatting. 00:22:39.420 --> 00:22:43.920 I've enjoyed watching from afar. Recently you've been doing through a live playthrough of like 00:22:43.920 --> 00:22:50.260 every, uh, Zelda game. And so back that was, that was actually the second video game I ever 00:22:50.260 --> 00:22:55.080 owned was that was the eight bit Zelda. Uh, and so that, that warms the heart a little 00:22:55.080 --> 00:22:59.420 bit. Um, you know, we've been, we've been trying to figure out classifications. You know, we've, 00:22:59.420 --> 00:23:05.780 we've, we talked earlier with like Mark opened up the season with his, uh, church, uh, that 00:23:05.780 --> 00:23:11.260 he's doing through, through Lux. Um, you know, we talked with, uh, Bubba who's, who's the nerd 00:23:11.260 --> 00:23:20.340 nerd guy. Uh, we talked with, uh, Jono who's e-sports. Is there a classification to you? Like, 00:23:20.380 --> 00:23:25.340 are you, what do you consider yourself in, in, in how you're, you're doing streaming? 00:23:26.780 --> 00:23:32.160 Yeah. That nerd guy. Yeah. That could be one. Uh, um, I've, yeah, I, I would say what I'm 00:23:32.160 --> 00:23:38.420 doing is variety streaming. Um, I, I often say I have to say true variety streaming, uh, because 00:23:38.420 --> 00:23:41.160 there's some people that say like, Oh, I'm a variety streamer, but that just means that 00:23:41.160 --> 00:23:48.380 they play Fortnite and League of Legends. Um, so like true variety is, I play lots of different 00:23:48.380 --> 00:23:55.780 games and I get to, um, I get to work with indie developers and they send me their games to try 00:23:55.780 --> 00:24:02.920 and give feedback on. Um, cause I've, I've played about, I think, I think about 10, uh, probably 00:24:02.920 --> 00:24:07.920 about 10,000 games now we're getting on, we're getting the list together. Um, I have, I've 00:24:07.920 --> 00:24:12.100 already listed like 5,000. I haven't even started on PC yet. So I think we're close to like maybe 00:24:12.100 --> 00:24:18.360 10,000 games played and I play about 250 a year. So like, I'm trying a lot of 00:24:18.360 --> 00:24:24.200 games. I mean, I'm completing them all, but that's giving me a good understanding of gaming 00:24:24.200 --> 00:24:30.100 as a whole. And I like that I can pretty much with any gamer that I'm talking to, there's 00:24:30.100 --> 00:24:34.680 a good chance I've played their favorite game. You know, I already have an end for that conversation. 00:24:34.760 --> 00:24:39.640 Like you, you tell me, well, I really like this game or, you know, um, even to a degree 00:24:39.640 --> 00:24:44.760 like this anime, um, there's a good chance that I can relate with you, uh, to some degree 00:24:44.760 --> 00:24:49.800 on that. And that's pretty, that's pretty rare. Like usually you're like, I like this person. 00:24:49.800 --> 00:24:54.140 I just wish they didn't play Fortnite cause I don't enjoy it, you know? Um, but like I 00:24:54.140 --> 00:24:57.300 could talk about Fortnite cause I've played it, you know, even though I, even though it's 00:24:57.300 --> 00:25:01.920 not for sure far from my favorite game, um, it's a lot of other people's. And so I can 00:25:01.920 --> 00:25:10.420 at least have that, that in for that conversation. Um, and I think that for, is, is a, it's a 00:25:10.420 --> 00:25:16.640 separate, a separate area than like kind of e-sports. If you, if you haven't, even if you're 00:25:16.640 --> 00:25:22.100 not in the same e-sport, you understand the grind, you understand the effort, the time that 00:25:22.100 --> 00:25:26.840 it takes, the communication that's necessary. Like it's a different, it's a different beast 00:25:26.840 --> 00:25:31.580 than just playing for fun. And so I think it's the same with variety gaming where if 00:25:31.580 --> 00:25:36.440 you've played everything, like you can at least talk to games on a higher level than you would 00:25:36.440 --> 00:25:40.160 if you were just, you know, one, one game. 00:25:41.760 --> 00:25:47.820 Totally. We just got raided. Is, is everyone safe? Do I need to like hide? Are we, are we 00:25:47.820 --> 00:25:51.020 protected in this environment? What's actually happening right now in Twitch? 00:25:51.220 --> 00:25:55.740 Yeah. Mother, like Mother Goose is trying to DDoS us is, uh, no, I'm just joking. Mother, 00:25:55.820 --> 00:26:00.700 Mother Goose just dropped off her community here with us. Uh, what's up Zach Kias 12, two Bobcat. 00:26:00.820 --> 00:26:07.700 Good to see you infested Fox. Welcome in and VWink 24. Thanks for stopping by. Appreciate you guys 00:26:07.700 --> 00:26:13.880 being here and being part of the community. You are at the digital church network, uh, podcast channel. 00:26:13.880 --> 00:26:18.360 Uh, I, all of those words probably didn't come out exactly right, but thanks for stopping by 00:26:18.360 --> 00:26:23.520 and we appreciate you being here. Awesome. And, uh, VWink has, I believe that's a Skeletor 00:26:23.520 --> 00:26:28.820 emote that I'm looking at right now. And so if that is in fact Skeletor, well done. Much, 00:26:28.960 --> 00:26:34.420 much respect right now for that. So welcome. Glad you guys are here. I just saw, you know, 00:26:34.440 --> 00:26:38.240 I had kind of like an emoji kind of like reaction. I was like, man, there's a lot that's happening 00:26:38.240 --> 00:26:42.200 right there during, during that raid. And then the podcast audience listening is like, what 00:26:42.200 --> 00:26:48.740 is going on. So, um, Mark, I, man, any questions as you're listening to this? I, I'm totally just 00:26:48.740 --> 00:26:54.160 kind of took over. No, that's okay. Uh, you know, uh, I love, obviously we love Jade, love 00:26:54.160 --> 00:27:00.180 what he's doing and, uh, love Jade's heart. And you're right. There is some substantial structural 00:27:00.180 --> 00:27:04.240 differences between what we do at Lux and what Jade is doing, but the heart is very similar, 00:27:04.240 --> 00:27:10.080 right? We've recognized the deep relational pull that can be found inside of digital space. 00:27:10.080 --> 00:27:14.340 We're actively building relationships with people in order for them to come to know Jesus 00:27:14.340 --> 00:27:20.240 and grow up to become like Jesus. Um, Jade's methodology looks, I would say more like, 00:27:20.320 --> 00:27:23.740 and I don't know how, you know, if he identifies in this way, but a lot more like a digital missionary 00:27:23.740 --> 00:27:28.500 than what we're doing. Um, but that is one of the reasons that like our church at Lux 00:27:28.500 --> 00:27:33.540 partners with Jade is because we believe in what he's doing and love what he's doing. And because 00:27:33.540 --> 00:27:39.940 he's able to uniquely reach a group of people that we as a church stream, like oftentimes 00:27:39.940 --> 00:27:44.500 can't connect with and can't meet with and can't, you know, build relationship with. 00:27:44.500 --> 00:27:50.460 And so, uh, we love seeing what Jade's doing on Twitch and, uh, you know, there's something 00:27:50.460 --> 00:27:55.060 comforting about the fact that no matter when I wake up or when I go to the internet, you 00:27:55.060 --> 00:27:59.800 know, Jade and a Fox are there. Um, and they're, and they're there to comfort and greet me. 00:28:00.100 --> 00:28:04.680 Uh, he was there last night at midnight while I was playing destiny. He was playing destiny 00:28:04.680 --> 00:28:10.160 and he probably was still there when I woke up this morning. So, uh, yeah, there's, there's 00:28:10.160 --> 00:28:13.960 a lot that's comforting and love, love Jade's heart and mission for the space. 00:28:14.780 --> 00:28:23.040 Beautiful. Jade, how, how scalable is what you're doing? Like you are, you have a calling 00:28:23.040 --> 00:28:27.920 to what you're doing. You have a desire. How many, how many, I'm just real quick. How many 00:28:27.920 --> 00:28:33.080 hours do you stream a day at this point? Cause at one point it was, it was like 15 or so. 00:28:33.240 --> 00:28:40.560 What are you doing now? Yeah. Yeah. First year is 17 on average. Um, but I think, um, 00:28:40.820 --> 00:28:45.820 yeah, you definitely don't need to stream that much. Like there's, there's not like an amount 00:28:45.820 --> 00:28:53.240 that you need to. Um, so I would say like, don't, I want to worry about the hours that I do it cause 00:28:53.240 --> 00:29:00.940 I'm addicted to it. Like I'm really into the people and, um, this is, I'm also single. So this is like 00:29:00.940 --> 00:29:07.580 where I get most of my relation from, um, which is different for people that are, that are married, 00:29:07.580 --> 00:29:12.980 where it's like time away from your spouse. This is like time with my family, uh, of online 00:29:12.980 --> 00:29:21.900 friends. And, uh, you know, so, um, my question really is, is how easy is this to, to cast that 00:29:21.900 --> 00:29:28.540 vision to duplicate it into somebody else to get them to operate for them to manage, um, you know, 00:29:28.540 --> 00:29:33.600 this tool, uh, in a, in a relational way? Like, have you been successful with that? 00:29:34.400 --> 00:29:42.040 Yes. And so the, the thing is like, it's, it's easy in that anybody could do it. Like photography 00:29:42.040 --> 00:29:47.460 is easy. Like take out your phone and, and take a photo and like, wow, like there you go. Like, 00:29:47.500 --> 00:29:53.220 you know how to take photos now you're a photographer, but the, the difficulty is doing it well. Right? 00:29:53.260 --> 00:30:00.960 Like if there's, if there's millions of people that are doing it, then that's, that's who you're 00:30:00.960 --> 00:30:06.360 against. You're not going against like million. You're not going against the, uh, hundreds or 00:30:06.360 --> 00:30:12.500 thousands of Christians doing it. It's like the millions of people that do this. Um, that's your, 00:30:13.080 --> 00:30:18.480 that's who you have to be, you know, against or whatever. I say against, but like, there's enough, 00:30:18.860 --> 00:30:25.580 there's then way more like hundreds of millions of people that are, uh, watching Twitch. So that's 00:30:25.580 --> 00:30:31.020 not, that's not to say that you're against, uh, you're against people. I think that's the, 00:30:31.960 --> 00:30:40.180 where it's, um, where it's difficult is getting people who can, who can go past all the hurdles 00:30:40.180 --> 00:30:48.420 and, and, uh, be okay with it, not going fast, like being okay with it, not blowing up, being okay 00:30:48.420 --> 00:30:54.480 with like, Oh, there's five people in my chat. Um, for a while I streamed for zero people. 00:30:54.660 --> 00:30:59.500 You know, I had like a skull on my desk that I talked to because the delay was so bad that 00:30:59.500 --> 00:31:03.720 if I wasn't talking already, when somebody joined, there would just be silence and then 00:31:03.720 --> 00:31:07.660 they'd say hi. And then I'd say hi back, but there was a 15 second delay. So they left 00:31:07.660 --> 00:31:13.680 by the time they saw that. Um, you have to get, that's like the old days. Now it's pretty 00:31:13.680 --> 00:31:17.980 fast. So then it's making sure somebody's reading chat and not just getting stuck in their 00:31:17.980 --> 00:31:22.700 game. Like everybody has their stuff. They all have something that they have to grow 00:31:22.700 --> 00:31:28.240 in. And, um, some people will get that faster than others. Like I have a friend who just 00:31:28.240 --> 00:31:34.260 recently started streaming two months ago and her stream is like got way more people 00:31:34.260 --> 00:31:40.500 in it than mine. And, and I think that's great because, um, her style is very tailored 00:31:40.500 --> 00:31:44.920 to that. Like, I think it works better than it would for me. And so I'm glad that mine's 00:31:44.920 --> 00:31:48.940 at, like I was saying 35 is about where I feel like that's, that's good for me. And it, and 00:31:48.940 --> 00:31:52.560 it has been for about a year and maybe that'll change. Maybe there's things that we're doing 00:31:52.560 --> 00:32:00.100 that'll get further past that. But, um, that's the, the duplicating is not even just, um, the, 00:32:00.100 --> 00:32:05.480 the reproducing. It's literally like some people will reproduce it better than I can. They'll 00:32:05.480 --> 00:32:10.660 reproduce it and have a bigger harvest than I can. And, um, and, and I think that's actually 00:32:10.660 --> 00:32:17.840 the joy is then that feeds back in and then you, you have more people, uh, that are, are 00:32:17.840 --> 00:32:23.320 seeing how the growth is over there and then you get to help those people. Uh, so yeah, it's 00:32:23.320 --> 00:32:30.660 kind of just, there's so much room for more people that we're not at, we're not even close 00:32:30.660 --> 00:32:35.480 to the stage of churches where it's like, Oh, there's a church on every corner and sometimes 00:32:35.480 --> 00:32:39.840 too. And they like have to eat each other and then, you know, who's going to take whose 00:32:39.840 --> 00:32:47.380 audience or whatever. There's just really none of that. And, um, the, even the, well, 00:32:47.480 --> 00:32:51.680 we, we all got together for like Megazord. There's, there's a whole nother thing. I don't 00:32:51.680 --> 00:32:56.140 know how much people know about that, but that's like getting, getting to have unity with each 00:32:56.140 --> 00:33:03.700 other and recognizing that, um, it's just a much bigger kingdom win if we all work together 00:33:03.700 --> 00:33:12.980 and not try to be, uh, against each other. And so I, I am actually taking, uh, I take to, 00:33:13.080 --> 00:33:19.400 I took today off and I took two days ago off and I plan to take for, for a while. I don't 00:33:19.400 --> 00:33:22.900 know if I'll do this forever, but I haven't really been doing this lately. I've always taken 00:33:22.900 --> 00:33:29.400 Sundays off. Well, after an hour of stream, but like most of Sunday is off for rest, but 00:33:29.400 --> 00:33:35.060 I'm taking two days off for just watching other streams and like trying to interact with other 00:33:35.060 --> 00:33:40.060 streamers and help them. Um, if I can give them, if I can do graphics, if I can, whatever 00:33:40.060 --> 00:33:45.040 I can do to kind of support other people that are doing this. Um, cause my, my wind is going 00:33:45.040 --> 00:33:50.420 to be seeing like the kingdom win and not just me. And so that's been sort of the, the thought 00:33:50.420 --> 00:33:56.460 is like, how can, how can we do more together? Um, and I, I won't be able to do that if I, 00:33:56.920 --> 00:34:01.200 if I'm just always focused on my stuff. So yeah. 00:34:01.540 --> 00:34:06.340 Yeah. It was Zacchaeus, uh, throwing in, in the chat here, which really cool is the cross 00:34:06.340 --> 00:34:13.080 community. I see same people across multiple channels in the Christian community. Um, it's, 00:34:13.080 --> 00:34:17.700 it's interesting that, that harkens back. And I wanted to ask you this, this, um, cause you, 00:34:17.700 --> 00:34:22.760 as, as a gamer, I have, as you're a gamer, you have a much more insight on this than I do. 00:34:24.240 --> 00:34:29.220 Mark, I don't remember if it was you or if it was Bubba, but early on in, in one of the earlier 00:34:29.220 --> 00:34:37.900 conversations, we were talking about, um, providing a safe space for, for Christians who are gamers 00:34:37.900 --> 00:34:44.280 to, to connect in. Um, now you guys, Jade, for, I mean, for the most part, you are outward facing, 00:34:44.280 --> 00:34:48.660 you're trying to connect with the lost audience, Mark, you're dancing. I believe recall you're 00:34:48.660 --> 00:34:58.080 saying you're kind of in between that. Is it really that, um, tough? Is, is it really that 00:34:58.080 --> 00:35:03.500 aggressive in the gamer community against Christians where they're looking for solitude? Like, is, 00:35:03.560 --> 00:35:08.080 is that really a problem in today's gaming culture? Why don't you go first? 00:35:08.080 --> 00:35:17.860 Okay. Do you have an opinion? Uh, are, are gamers looking for solitude in, in other places? Is that 00:35:17.860 --> 00:35:24.520 the, is that the question? Are Christians looking for, for safe space to come in? Um, so like for 00:35:24.520 --> 00:35:33.180 Christians looking for space, safe space. Yeah. Christian specifically. Uh, I mean, yes, I, I make sure, 00:35:33.180 --> 00:35:38.860 my goal is to make sure that my stream is at least 50% non-Christian. Like that's a number I have to hit. 00:35:39.220 --> 00:35:45.440 If my stream is more than 50% Christian, I, I feel like I'm failing. So I, I take that very seriously. 00:35:46.160 --> 00:35:54.460 Um, so maybe, um, some of that's, I, I think maybe that's a, maybe that's a, um, let me, 00:35:54.740 --> 00:36:01.300 this for me is like, like, uh, like Marco saying, it's a, it's a missionary field more than it is a, 00:36:01.300 --> 00:36:07.800 uh, like the church side. So that, that premise, the question is coming from like, are they being, 00:36:07.800 --> 00:36:14.060 uh, left out of the church so much that they have to go to Twitch to get that? Is that kind of the 00:36:14.060 --> 00:36:19.980 thought? Because, because I, I don't think that's maybe necessarily true. Um, there's lots of places 00:36:19.980 --> 00:36:26.800 people could go. Um, you know, I don't, I don't necessarily get that feel. Uh, maybe at one point 00:36:26.800 --> 00:36:33.060 in time that was true, but that's kind of, uh, that's like, that's maybe more in the past and maybe 00:36:33.060 --> 00:36:38.720 it's not as outward facing. Like you're not going to be, I mean, you could play video games in church, 00:36:38.720 --> 00:36:42.460 but most of the time you're going to church and people don't really know if you are playing games 00:36:42.460 --> 00:36:47.700 after that, unless you're wearing like a nerdy shirt or something. So I don't really feel like, 00:36:47.700 --> 00:36:56.120 I don't feel like that's probably the thing, but, um, I do feel like it is more, it, what, 00:36:56.120 --> 00:37:04.380 what, where people are needing it, um, are gamers who never went to church. Gamers who never thought 00:37:04.380 --> 00:37:09.360 to go to church, never had a relationship with God, never had anybody who told them that there's a 00:37:09.360 --> 00:37:13.560 God who loves them and cares about them and wants the best for them. That those people, 00:37:13.780 --> 00:37:18.880 they definitely are not going to your church. They didn't need two reasons. You told them that 00:37:18.880 --> 00:37:23.860 they were, you know, sinners for playing video games and they were like, okay, well, that's enough for 00:37:23.860 --> 00:37:30.020 me. Um, like if, if Christians feel at all, like they're pushed away from church for sure, 00:37:30.020 --> 00:37:38.080 non-Christians are not planning to go to your church. Um, so that's, I think, I think that's maybe more 00:37:38.080 --> 00:37:46.360 where, um, where I feel like Twitch is so cool because I get to just be a little weird in that 00:37:46.360 --> 00:37:52.780 I'm, I'm playing video games all the time. Um, and then, yeah, we're talking about God and like, 00:37:52.780 --> 00:37:57.560 we're, we're playing, we're playing games and maybe I'm better at it than they are. 00:37:58.180 --> 00:38:03.380 And, and yet also I'm talking about God at the same time and I'm reading the Bible. Um, 00:38:03.640 --> 00:38:08.980 just that there's a, there's a like, wow, this guy really cares about the game that I care about. 00:38:09.060 --> 00:38:15.600 This guy actually cares about the things that I care about. Um, he, he relates to me. He knows me. 00:38:16.040 --> 00:38:21.560 Um, and he, and he's about the same things that I'm about, but there's this like one thing that we 00:38:21.560 --> 00:38:28.860 don't fully agree on. Um, and like maybe because of that relationship, I'd be willing to at least 00:38:28.860 --> 00:38:34.920 listen. Maybe I'd be at least willing to like hear that conversation, even if it's not the 00:38:34.920 --> 00:38:41.660 conversation that I expected to have. Um, you know, we also have talked about lots of games I didn't 00:38:41.660 --> 00:38:49.200 expect to talk about and I feel like we had a decent conversation and, um, you know, we disagreed 00:38:49.200 --> 00:38:54.300 on this game and it wasn't like he banned me from his chat because we disagreed on it and we didn't 00:38:54.300 --> 00:38:59.500 like the same game. So maybe it's fair and safe for me to talk about this other thing we don't 00:38:59.500 --> 00:39:05.280 agree on and, and we can just talk about it and it's fine. It's not like it's the end of the world 00:39:05.280 --> 00:39:10.620 if we don't agree on everything. Um, I feel like that's more, that's more in line with what's 00:39:10.620 --> 00:39:18.040 happening. There's a lot of, we, we know this, but the world doesn't know this. Um, there is a lot 00:39:18.040 --> 00:39:24.600 of darkness in the world and most people are chasing, are chasing happiness. Their goal is 00:39:24.600 --> 00:39:30.680 I want to be happy and I'm going to go find it through whatever means necessary. And the reality 00:39:30.680 --> 00:39:37.360 is if you want happiness, um, well, you said you should be seeking joy, but joy is going to come 00:39:37.360 --> 00:39:41.160 from doing something that matters. It's going to come from doing something with meaning. 00:39:41.880 --> 00:39:46.920 And, uh, and, and that's, that's where people are seeking that they don't, they maybe don't 00:39:46.920 --> 00:39:50.660 even know it, but they're looking for meaning. They're looking for something that's beyond 00:39:50.660 --> 00:39:57.780 themselves. And so that's the, I think that's the huge draw of where people are like, oh, 00:39:57.780 --> 00:40:03.500 let's try this, you know, let's try that. Let's go to this streamer. Let's go to that streamer. 00:40:03.700 --> 00:40:07.580 And if they land on one that feels like the person actually understands meaning and feels like 00:40:07.580 --> 00:40:14.980 that they're calling is this, you know, um, anyway. So Jeff, go for it, Mark. I would, 00:40:15.340 --> 00:40:20.200 one of the questions you asked was like, do you feel like gamers or Christians are so under attack 00:40:20.200 --> 00:40:28.260 in this culture? I think that gaming culture in general is, is, um, demissive of, or, or openly 00:40:28.260 --> 00:40:32.440 hostile towards faith or, or religion. It's not something that is embraced here, but I think people 00:40:32.440 --> 00:40:36.820 naturally, when you see the same names in the same chats, people gravitate naturally towards the 00:40:36.820 --> 00:40:40.980 people who think like them, right? Like that's, we want to be around people that make us feel 00:40:40.980 --> 00:40:46.100 comfortable. It's just human nature. So people who find what I was talking to someone else just last 00:40:46.100 --> 00:40:49.980 night and they said, I didn't even realize there was this Christian underbelly on Twitch. Right. And 00:40:49.980 --> 00:40:53.780 they're a member of our church. They're currently the furthest away member. They're in Guam. Um, 00:40:53.780 --> 00:40:57.680 they're currently the furthest away member of our community in small groups, plugged in living on 00:40:57.680 --> 00:41:01.600 a military base in Guam. And they're like, I just didn't even realize that this existed. Bootstraps 00:41:01.600 --> 00:41:06.400 boot said for me, um, it's getting away from, uh, and having a safe space from the sexualization 00:41:06.400 --> 00:41:11.340 of gaming culture. So it's more about safe content than it is about the safety and numbers or safety 00:41:11.340 --> 00:41:16.080 in community. And I think a lot of people come and they are looking for people 00:41:16.100 --> 00:41:21.160 of connection and they've lived a very dualistic life where they've had their friends and their 00:41:21.160 --> 00:41:24.380 community that are gamers. And then they've had their church and their friends that are 00:41:24.380 --> 00:41:29.660 Christians. And those two things very, very rarely meet. And so when people find the Christian 00:41:29.660 --> 00:41:33.300 community on Twitch, they gravitate towards all of these communities and all of these streamers, 00:41:33.380 --> 00:41:38.740 they jump from one to the next because it is this beautiful blending of two realities in their 00:41:38.740 --> 00:41:42.820 life that typically were forced to be separate. And now they come together sometimes in a really 00:41:42.820 --> 00:41:47.520 beautiful way. There's a really, there's some very dark sections of gaming culture and there's some 00:41:47.520 --> 00:41:53.580 very dark corners of the internet. And so I think when they find this opportunity to find the hope 00:41:53.580 --> 00:41:57.760 of Jesus also mixed in with something that they've loved and now they're embraced by, and instead of 00:41:57.760 --> 00:42:03.520 saying, I play D&D and they get exiled from their church, um, they are actually embraced amongst a 00:42:03.520 --> 00:42:06.900 community for the things that they love, the things that make them unique and the things that 00:42:06.900 --> 00:42:11.640 they're passionate about. They find a great deal of comfort in it. And that's what I have found, 00:42:11.880 --> 00:42:17.540 at least in leading Lux, which is missional in its emphasis, but we don't, we're not looking to, 00:42:17.640 --> 00:42:22.400 I don't, I don't think I've ever even thought about like the 50, 50 role that Jade sort of holds 00:42:22.400 --> 00:42:27.280 as a standard for his community. And I love that he does. Um, it's not one that's like in the back 00:42:27.280 --> 00:42:32.880 of my mind very frequently, but in my experience, when talking with Christians who are gamers, 00:42:32.880 --> 00:42:36.920 who are in this space, who are frequenting a lot of the communities and streams, it has more to do 00:42:36.920 --> 00:42:42.280 with the fact that man, they finally found a place that they've never found inside the church where 00:42:42.280 --> 00:42:48.600 they can be embraced and accepted for the things that they genuinely love to do. And now they're 00:42:48.600 --> 00:42:53.380 finding a place where things that they love to do and the faith that is impacted in the man, Jesus, 00:42:53.520 --> 00:42:56.320 whose impact of their life dramatically can come together in a beautiful way. 00:42:56.860 --> 00:43:00.820 And, uh, that's been quite cool. It's been quite cool to watch. And then it's been cool to see 00:43:00.820 --> 00:43:06.940 people come along who aren't Christians who could care less, but man, if the online world isn't toxic 00:43:06.940 --> 00:43:11.380 and they're just looking for a place that's welcoming and friendly and loving. And what 00:43:11.380 --> 00:43:14.820 they're finding is that's true inside of a lot of these Christian communities, which 00:43:14.820 --> 00:43:19.100 is really cool to see as well. I mean, there's folks in the Lux chat right now. 00:43:19.300 --> 00:43:22.380 Don't believe what I believe, but they're part of our community and they're part of our church 00:43:22.380 --> 00:43:26.760 because they've found, I think, I think they found that they've been embraced, welcomed and cared 00:43:26.760 --> 00:43:30.200 for amongst our community, despite not believing what we believe. Sure. 00:43:30.480 --> 00:43:35.120 But they found a home there. Let me, let me ask this. And this, this may be a loaded question 00:43:35.120 --> 00:43:40.140 and would love perspectives from both of you. Um, both of you are independent of the church. 00:43:40.140 --> 00:43:43.540 Jade, at some point I want to ask how you actually make money, but that's, that'll be 00:43:43.540 --> 00:43:49.100 another question in a second. But for first, I don't, does the physical church, you don't, 00:43:49.140 --> 00:43:54.720 I know, neither do I. It's okay. It works out. Um, Lord willing. Uh, but how does the physical 00:43:54.720 --> 00:44:00.940 church, does the, how does the physical church get into this space? Like, so, you know, Mark 00:44:00.940 --> 00:44:06.460 and Jade, you both described eloquently how the physical church is not in there and, and you 00:44:06.460 --> 00:44:11.920 are working hard to create a culture, to create environment, to allow people that have been 00:44:11.920 --> 00:44:18.300 misaligned by the church to, to find comfort and to represent God to these people that, that 00:44:18.300 --> 00:44:23.780 have been absent from it because the church doesn't understand. Does the church need to 00:44:23.780 --> 00:44:28.980 understand? Can the church understand? What does the church need to do? Or does it need just 00:44:28.980 --> 00:44:34.540 to lean against pioneers that are planting in this space? And, and we, we duplicate more 00:44:34.540 --> 00:44:39.740 of you. Like, do we bring the established church into this culture or do we just plant 00:44:39.740 --> 00:44:46.680 like crazy and start to empower new, uh, wineskins to work in this new environment? I'm just curious 00:44:46.680 --> 00:44:56.000 what y'all's gut is. Jay, why don't you go first? Okay. Um, you know, we're the church, 00:44:56.440 --> 00:45:02.120 you know, I mean, if we say, does the church need to do this? Yeah, we are like, that's why 00:45:02.120 --> 00:45:12.840 I'm here. Um, so I, what would be, yes, it would be nice if, if established churches that 00:45:12.840 --> 00:45:22.060 were, um, the thing is like, especially maybe as a, as a missionary, it is very, very difficult to 00:45:22.060 --> 00:45:29.240 get funding. Yes. That's very hard. It's not something that I, whatever, you know, um, that's 00:45:29.240 --> 00:45:35.840 going to be hard because the Christians that I talk to don't feel like you're, you're talking enough 00:45:35.840 --> 00:45:41.140 about God on your streams. You know, I went on your stream like for five minutes and I didn't hear 00:45:41.140 --> 00:45:48.640 you mentioned God and like, um, and then on the other hand, of course, the, the atheist is like, 00:45:48.940 --> 00:45:53.020 dude, like you, you just talk about God all the time. Like it's really hard to watch your streams 00:45:53.020 --> 00:45:57.720 because you're just praying like all the time. And I feel like I can't just like have it in the 00:45:57.720 --> 00:46:02.380 background while I'm doing other things because like, man, like I can't go, can't go five minutes 00:46:02.380 --> 00:46:06.860 without you talking about God. And it's like, I, I, I hear that from both sides, which is why I think 00:46:06.860 --> 00:46:14.200 the 50% thing is important and also like so difficult. Um, so yes, I would say maybe if 00:46:14.200 --> 00:46:22.300 there's people that are already doing it, then just go ahead. Um, just go ahead and support those 00:46:22.300 --> 00:46:28.260 people that are doing it because it will multiply naturally. You're going to find like, I'm, I don't 00:46:28.260 --> 00:46:32.580 think the church multiplying people doing it is probably going to be very effective. Me finding 00:46:32.580 --> 00:46:37.260 people that are in the space where I already am multiplying and doing it. That's of course, 00:46:37.260 --> 00:46:40.420 we're going to find those people because they're already there. They're already aware of it. It's 00:46:40.420 --> 00:46:48.360 already an important part of their, um, their thing. Uh, so yeah, if we want to multiply, it's 00:46:48.360 --> 00:46:52.400 just going to kind of happen naturally from the support of, uh, those that are doing it. And then 00:46:52.400 --> 00:46:58.140 being able to, uh, I, I'm, but the little that I have, I'm already trying to support other people, 00:46:58.140 --> 00:47:08.020 but yes, I do think that as far as like church goes, like that's, that's why I had to, maybe I 00:47:08.020 --> 00:47:14.400 didn't get sent as much as I wish I had been sent, you know, by my church, but, uh, I, why I quit 00:47:14.400 --> 00:47:22.100 my, my job at a church and moved to what I'm doing now because I needed to, um, like as the church, 00:47:22.100 --> 00:47:30.320 like I, I, I saw the need and, uh, it's where God sent me. And so, um, you know, that as a church, 00:47:30.320 --> 00:47:35.140 like we're, we're, we're doing it. And, um, I, I don't feel like we're super separated from the 00:47:35.140 --> 00:47:41.040 church or that I'm like hurt necessarily by the church. It's just like, I wish they understood 00:47:41.040 --> 00:47:48.260 sometimes, but, um, you know, it wouldn't feel as much like acts if it, if they did. So, uh, it's just 00:47:48.260 --> 00:47:53.100 sort of, uh, just keep moving forward. That's how I feel about it. I want to ask a follow-up 00:47:53.100 --> 00:47:57.900 question on that, but I want to give Mark, uh, did you have an opinion on, uh, on the earlier? 00:47:58.540 --> 00:48:03.400 I would just say that I wish that the church would, would recognize the validity of the space 00:48:03.400 --> 00:48:08.960 and see the impact. I mean, a lot of what we're doing at Lux is because we love the people, 00:48:08.960 --> 00:48:14.620 but it's also to build a case study to show the physical church. Like this is for real, 00:48:15.260 --> 00:48:21.800 like real, like last night I, I, in post-service, I counseled a woman battling cancer and prayed with 00:48:21.800 --> 00:48:25.580 her. I ministered to a woman battling mental illness and prayed with her. I ministered to 00:48:25.580 --> 00:48:30.820 a young guy whose church is splitting and prayed with him and met someone from Guam and a new couple 00:48:30.820 --> 00:48:35.000 who's dealing with church hurt who found our church, right? Like those were real relationships. 00:48:35.000 --> 00:48:39.740 Those were real things that's happening. And I wish the church would see that. And instead of saying, 00:48:39.740 --> 00:48:45.540 Oh, something's happening on Twitch. We can post our service there this Sunday. We can multi-stream. 00:48:45.780 --> 00:48:49.900 I wish they would find people like Jade and say every bit of funding that we would have put into 00:48:49.900 --> 00:48:54.100 multi-streaming, we're going to put into this guy because he's a person who actually understands the 00:48:54.100 --> 00:49:00.280 culture and understands the people and understands the language and can connect with them. And we can't. 00:49:00.280 --> 00:49:07.640 I wish the church would hear that. And they would begin seeing people like Jade, very similar to how 00:49:07.640 --> 00:49:14.220 they would see the missionary that they're supporting in Zambia. And we have people that 00:49:14.220 --> 00:49:20.600 we support in Africa and we support Jade because we believe that both of them are equally valid 00:49:20.600 --> 00:49:26.460 ministries and equally valid missions. And if I had, if I had, could write a letter to the church, 00:49:26.460 --> 00:49:33.420 I would say you're missing out on the biggest nation on the planet. And one of the least reached nations 00:49:33.420 --> 00:49:39.080 on the planet. And there are there, the harvest is plentiful and the workers are starving. 00:49:39.220 --> 00:49:43.980 So would you come and feed some workers with me? Like, would you come in and help feed some workers? 00:49:44.300 --> 00:49:49.700 Because if you would put even a fraction of the financial resources that you put into performing 00:49:49.700 --> 00:49:55.380 the Sunday morning service into a handful of streamers, you could make them production wise 00:49:55.380 --> 00:50:00.820 in the top 1% of people on Twitch and allow them to gain traction and really begin to interact with 00:50:00.820 --> 00:50:05.380 people live. You could help them to train people. And there's so many resources that the church has 00:50:05.380 --> 00:50:12.260 that this space in particular needs and guys like Jade need. And I wish that the church would recognize it 00:50:12.260 --> 00:50:16.400 and would quit arguing about the validity of digital space and start helping. Honestly, 00:50:16.400 --> 00:50:19.300 that's what I want the church to hear and what I want the church to do. 00:50:20.060 --> 00:50:24.260 Yeah, that's so good. And that actually really set up well, the follow-up that I wanted to ask. And, 00:50:24.500 --> 00:50:29.300 you know, in St. Bear, in chat, he's been talking about, he's been saying the word digital 00:50:29.300 --> 00:50:35.500 missionary a lot, kind of walking through that. And, you know, if the church would support 00:50:35.500 --> 00:50:39.260 digital missionaries in the same way that they would support missionaries in Uganda, 00:50:39.500 --> 00:50:45.760 I think Mark, you said Zambia. It's interesting. You both are at least on the same... Zambia is in 00:50:45.760 --> 00:50:51.780 Africa, right? And your conversation is a different day. Yeah, I failed geography, but that's another 00:50:51.780 --> 00:50:59.380 conversation. Hey, Jade, and every time I ask you this question, I've known you for four years, 00:50:59.480 --> 00:51:03.420 five years, maybe. We've been talking a long time. Every time I ask this question, I get a different 00:51:03.420 --> 00:51:11.040 answer. So I'm really curious, like, how you stand on this now. Are you a church? Are you a digital 00:51:11.040 --> 00:51:19.640 missionary? Are you a discipleship group? What are you? Yeah. I mean, I think I'm probably the same 00:51:19.640 --> 00:51:25.780 place that I was last time and it's probably where I'll land. I let people use whatever words they want 00:51:25.780 --> 00:51:33.260 because words are only helpful for defining things. And the reality is the people that I really feel 00:51:33.260 --> 00:51:41.340 called to, like the 50% non-Christian that's the majority of my stream, those are the people who 00:51:41.340 --> 00:51:46.260 are not interested in a church. The people I'm trying to reach don't want to go to a church. 00:51:46.680 --> 00:51:53.560 So why would I label it something that they don't want to go to? If I'm talking in church world and 00:51:53.560 --> 00:51:58.980 it's like helpful for them to think of it that way, then sure. I want to do all the things that make 00:51:58.980 --> 00:52:06.780 a church effective and successful. Like what does that look like? What does that mean? Those are the 00:52:06.780 --> 00:52:15.720 things I want to do. So rather than focusing on the... I mean, really, pretty much what I just said 00:52:15.720 --> 00:52:23.360 was that I don't want to focus on the method as much as the mission. I don't want to focus on 00:52:23.360 --> 00:52:31.020 the method as much as the message. And that's what I focus on is like, how can I make sure that people 00:52:31.020 --> 00:52:36.040 who have never had a chance to read the Bible before don't plan to ever step foot in a church? 00:52:36.420 --> 00:52:41.000 How do I reach that person? How do I help that person understand that there's a God who loves 00:52:41.000 --> 00:52:46.540 them, cares about them, wants the best for them? And they're never going to get there by me starting 00:52:46.540 --> 00:52:50.060 a church. I wanted to start a church for gamers, a physical church. That was the plan. 00:52:50.280 --> 00:52:55.900 And it was like, through the process of realizing that, no, I don't want to just reach Christian 00:52:55.900 --> 00:53:06.360 gamers. I really want to reach gamers who have the capability of love and have the capability 00:53:06.360 --> 00:53:10.280 of understanding that there's a God who loves them, but just have never been even introduced 00:53:10.280 --> 00:53:16.860 to that topic. And so that's really... I don't know. That's more... So I would say missionary 00:53:16.860 --> 00:53:23.480 fits better probably for what I'm doing. If I was going to put a bow on it, I feel better 00:53:23.480 --> 00:53:33.540 saying now missionary. But there's a lot of people that would say, I don't go to church 00:53:33.540 --> 00:53:39.600 and I don't plan to, but I'll hang out with you on a Saturday for three hours and discuss 00:53:40.160 --> 00:53:45.740 after the Bible while we play video games for games in God. That's the time they do that. 00:53:46.500 --> 00:53:51.440 Okay. So let's focus on that person right there because I'm legitimately curious about this. 00:53:52.040 --> 00:53:59.840 You're hanging out with that person. You build a relationship. You share Christ. They come to 00:53:59.840 --> 00:54:07.620 Jesus a better understanding of the grace that he provides. Now, what does that person do like 00:54:07.620 --> 00:54:12.800 three years from now? Are you trying to get them connected into a physical church? Are you trying 00:54:12.800 --> 00:54:21.040 to multiply them to become the next jate in another community to reach a different type of person via 00:54:21.040 --> 00:54:31.340 to Twitch and that's self-sustaining? What is a mature version of your disciple? Where are they going to be? 00:54:32.700 --> 00:54:41.420 Yeah. I think it's a per person base. There are some who are definitely called into 00:54:41.420 --> 00:54:52.580 doing something else. Maybe versus whatever. I mean, I really like, we could talk forever about 00:54:52.580 --> 00:55:00.960 calling because I have a whole thing on that, but I believe that Ephesians 2.10, where your workmanship 00:55:00.960 --> 00:55:04.820 created in Christ Jesus to do good work, so you're prepared in advance for us to walk in. I believe 00:55:04.820 --> 00:55:09.760 that there is a calling for each person that God's prepared you in advance to walk in. And so it's not 00:55:09.760 --> 00:55:16.180 necessarily as much of like, you know, how can I, let me, let me just make sure that I'm going through 00:55:16.180 --> 00:55:20.880 all the steps to like put them into the thing that I think that they should fit in. It's more like, 00:55:20.880 --> 00:55:27.900 I think God has prepared and is continuing to prepare people for something. And sometimes, yes, 00:55:28.020 --> 00:55:33.940 maybe it's similar to what I'm doing. And other times, maybe it's something very different 00:55:33.940 --> 00:55:44.860 from what I'm doing. And my, what I get, um, like my, like when you say like, what, what is a 00:55:44.860 --> 00:55:51.540 successful thing? I feel like three years from now, for some people, like the success is that they are 00:55:51.540 --> 00:55:55.820 reading their Bible every day. Like that, that's, that's already, you know, the success might be that 00:55:55.820 --> 00:56:01.400 they're no longer addicted to drugs. Like the success might be that they're no longer, um, thinking about 00:56:01.400 --> 00:56:06.200 alcohol every second, you know, like that, that's going to look very different for different people. 00:56:06.460 --> 00:56:11.940 There's some people that were very far from the church growing up and then they quickly came into 00:56:11.940 --> 00:56:16.080 it. And it's like, they're growing and moving and they're helping other people as they're growing. 00:56:16.300 --> 00:56:22.260 Like it, it just is going to look very different for each person. And I think also it's being okay 00:56:22.260 --> 00:56:26.860 with the fact that you're planting seeds and that you won't always get to be the one to water it, 00:56:26.920 --> 00:56:31.360 that you won't always be the one that's there getting to see it grow. And that's been very 00:56:31.360 --> 00:56:37.140 difficult for me because I know that for many people, I'm the first step. I'm like the first, 00:56:37.460 --> 00:56:43.020 the first time maybe that that person has seen that. And I think that's also very difficult for, 00:56:43.020 --> 00:56:50.460 um, just on a very real note, uh, like a church is very lucky in that a church usually gets people 00:56:50.460 --> 00:56:56.220 who are already, if they're already willing to go to a church, that's kind of like, oh, if I could 00:56:56.220 --> 00:57:03.840 connect it, like people don't just walk into an Apple store, you know, like they already have seen 00:57:03.840 --> 00:57:08.060 Apple, they've seen their friends use it. Maybe they've had a friend who had one and then they 00:57:08.060 --> 00:57:15.180 use their Apple phone. And through the process of seeing Apple used in a daily life, they were like, 00:57:15.260 --> 00:57:21.200 okay, maybe I'll consider one. And so then they like walk into an Apple store and the Apple employees 00:57:21.200 --> 00:57:25.680 selling them on this thing. And maybe the Apple employee feels really good about themselves. 00:57:25.680 --> 00:57:30.760 Like, wow, this person's really in for what I'm talking about. Like I'm such a good salesperson, 00:57:30.760 --> 00:57:36.040 but like they don't see all the things that it took for them to get into that Apple store. 00:57:36.260 --> 00:57:41.040 Like if there hadn't been that friend that was there talking with them and showing them how it 00:57:41.040 --> 00:57:46.100 was used and kind of convincing them that it's even worth using, especially when they were telling 00:57:46.100 --> 00:57:50.740 them over and over again, how it's not worth using and how it's not worth their time. And they're 00:57:50.740 --> 00:57:54.700 saying, no, it really is. Let me just show you, let me just give me like five minutes and I'll just 00:57:54.700 --> 00:58:00.880 show you that it is actually worth using. Like it, there's all of that. And a lot of times I'm more 00:58:00.880 --> 00:58:07.040 that friend who's just there. Like, no, it really is true. Like I, I tell people on stream all the 00:58:07.040 --> 00:58:11.760 time. I'm a, I'm a truth seeker before I'm a Christian. Like my goal is not to just be a good 00:58:11.760 --> 00:58:17.540 Christian. It's to know what's true. And continuously over and over again in my life, I've recognized 00:58:17.540 --> 00:58:23.320 that the Bible is true. And so if that's true, then I, then this is true. And we need to continue 00:58:23.320 --> 00:58:32.060 down that line of thinking. But for somebody who has never, never, never experienced it before, 00:58:32.340 --> 00:58:37.040 that's going to be very difficult. And three years time is not very much time at all for somebody 00:58:37.040 --> 00:58:42.560 that's come from an entire life that's very different from that. And so I've been doing this 00:58:42.560 --> 00:58:48.800 three years and I have some friends who, when I met them, you know, maybe some even in chat right now, 00:58:48.800 --> 00:58:54.740 when I met them, uh, they were, they were not thinking about those things and it's kind of 00:58:54.740 --> 00:58:59.980 normalized for me now, but yeah, like that's a, that's a pretty short timeline, but I think it's 00:58:59.980 --> 00:59:07.560 also the amount of time that you get to spend with somebody through online is, is quite a bit more 00:59:07.560 --> 00:59:12.360 than you would in person anyway. You know, you just don't get a lot of time with people in person 00:59:12.360 --> 00:59:19.280 and I can spend hours and hours talking and it's, it's like, you know, that's just okay because we 00:59:19.280 --> 00:59:24.360 don't have to drive somewhere. We don't have to set up a time. You know, I, I can just do this and 00:59:24.360 --> 00:59:28.140 you can come and hang out and we can have this conversation any, any, any point of the day, you 00:59:28.140 --> 00:59:34.860 know? So what's the percentage of people that you stream, or let me ask it this way. Maybe not 00:59:34.860 --> 00:59:39.980 percentage, not the right answer. How many people have you met physically over the three years? 00:59:41.360 --> 00:59:48.720 Um, yeah, I don't know. I don't know exactly how many I've, um, a lot of it's like through 00:59:48.720 --> 00:59:52.900 specific events. I would like to do more, but again, like that kind of just costs money. 00:59:53.240 --> 00:59:58.000 Like, honestly, if I just had, if I had more money, I would probably go meet more. Like 00:59:58.000 --> 01:00:03.680 if money wasn't an object, I could be much more like, Hey, if you want, if you want to 01:00:03.680 --> 01:00:08.600 get baptized, I'll fly to where you are and baptize you personally. Like I, I'm sure that 01:00:08.600 --> 01:00:15.960 would be a cool thing to do, but like that just costs money. Um, so I think it's more of 01:00:15.960 --> 01:00:24.600 a, um, yeah, and time and yeah, it's a, it's, it's a thing, but my, I, I've met, uh, everybody 01:00:24.600 --> 01:00:30.840 at Megazord. So that was a bunch of other streamers. I'd already met Aki and Peach in person. Um, he 01:00:30.840 --> 01:00:36.380 happened to be driving through going towards, uh, it's just random events like, Oh, I'm 01:00:36.380 --> 01:00:42.860 going to be in your near about, he was about two hours away in, uh, and he was like, I'll 01:00:42.860 --> 01:00:47.540 be driving through cause we're going to be driving for vacation. If you want to meet up, we'll 01:00:47.540 --> 01:00:54.220 have breakfast. So we went at a cracker barrel, cracker barrel, and we all hung out. Um, people 01:00:54.220 --> 01:00:59.120 like that, uh, I went to Japan with 10 friends, uh, five of which I'd never met in person before. 01:00:59.800 --> 01:01:06.380 And, um, and I actually spoke at a church in Japan and, uh, cause I, I knew a preacher 01:01:06.380 --> 01:01:11.140 that started a church out there. And so I spoke at his church and we had a translator and they 01:01:11.140 --> 01:01:16.680 came, um, all my friends are the five that I'd never met in person. Um, all of them were 01:01:16.680 --> 01:01:24.160 atheist, uh, or, or at least agnostic. And they, um, all but one, because he was sick 01:01:24.160 --> 01:01:30.360 came to the church and it was just like, that was cool. Um, got to, got to do that. So there's 01:01:30.360 --> 01:01:35.060 lots of, there's lots of people that I've, I've gotten to meet, but a lot of them are, um, 01:01:35.840 --> 01:01:39.860 there's not like a planned, it's not like a planned thing. It just, if it happens, it happens. 01:01:39.980 --> 01:01:44.580 Maybe I'll go to like conventions and I'll get to meet people that way. But yeah. 01:01:44.580 --> 01:01:48.820 So what is, we're wrapping up here, maybe one or two questions as, as we're landing the 01:01:48.820 --> 01:01:52.900 plane, what's the biggest obstacle or hurdle you're trying to overcome right now? 01:01:55.060 --> 01:02:01.180 Um, I mean, honestly financial right now, uh, I probably won't be able to live where I'm 01:02:01.180 --> 01:02:07.720 living right now for very much longer. So that's a, like, that's definitely a thing. Um, I've 01:02:07.720 --> 01:02:13.220 been, I live in my, uh, my dad's basement because this church, the church that he preaches 01:02:13.220 --> 01:02:21.300 at, this is a parsonage. So this building is like, uh, allowed space for him. And this 01:02:21.300 --> 01:02:26.120 was an unfinished basement, like basically a garage. And I just like made it work and made 01:02:26.120 --> 01:02:30.900 it, you know, homey or whatever. So I'd say financial is, is realistically, that's probably 01:02:30.900 --> 01:02:39.460 the most difficult as far as hurdles go. Um, as far as like relationally, um, yeah, I would 01:02:39.460 --> 01:02:46.760 say the, how to can, how to keep it relational as it scales up bigger, uh, because you can't 01:02:46.760 --> 01:02:50.780 necessarily make it smaller. And that's always been a thing for us. I think we're getting better 01:02:50.780 --> 01:02:57.240 at it. Um, because we focus so much on the community and the, and the set people that are 01:02:57.240 --> 01:03:02.340 there, that it's not just coming for me, but you're coming for all the other people that 01:03:02.340 --> 01:03:07.940 are there. And so if I'm busy because there's a huge raid, you know, we've had hundreds of people 01:03:07.940 --> 01:03:14.340 in there at a time when there's multiple hundreds of people talking at the same time, I can't read 01:03:14.340 --> 01:03:18.700 everything, but people are able to talk with each other. They recognize each other in chat. 01:03:19.100 --> 01:03:22.840 And I think that's a huge benefit. And that's why I'm glad that there's lots of other streamers 01:03:22.840 --> 01:03:27.020 doing this too, because I recognize lots of the people in this chat. You know, I've never been in 01:03:27.020 --> 01:03:31.680 this channel before and I know a good number of the people that are talking right now. And so it's, um, 01:03:32.020 --> 01:03:37.820 I think that's, I think that's almost like, I don't know. It's almost like the church is, uh, 01:03:38.520 --> 01:03:44.380 is not in the one thing, but in all of the stuff, you know, there's lots of people in here that I can 01:03:44.380 --> 01:03:48.200 recognize. I mean, I could just point down the whole, I don't, I'm not going to point people out, 01:03:48.260 --> 01:03:53.200 but we got flat cap. I guess I will flat cap, you know, Chino mage. We, we, I can, I think about 01:03:53.200 --> 01:03:59.720 like Chino mage that I've seen on, uh, you know, YouTube or Facebook and like, and, and the ministries 01:03:59.720 --> 01:04:03.940 that are happening there and how he's helping in other, in other regards. And I think about like 01:04:03.940 --> 01:04:08.880 ukulele for worship is in chat. I think about her streams and she does morning streams before she 01:04:08.880 --> 01:04:14.900 goes, it's Maria. She goes before, uh, she goes to work. She does her, does music and worship on, 01:04:14.940 --> 01:04:19.080 on stream. And she does a Bible study. Like, I mean, I think about all of these things and I don't 01:04:19.080 --> 01:04:24.700 think of them as like separate from even necessarily my thing. It's like, we all get to do this together 01:04:24.700 --> 01:04:29.040 and I'm just kind of adding to the bucket of what everybody's doing. And so the, when I think 01:04:29.040 --> 01:04:33.300 about the church, I'm not even thinking about just me. It's like all of us, like we're all doing it. 01:04:33.480 --> 01:04:38.440 And it's a benefit for the, all of us to see this happen, you know? So, yeah. 01:04:38.540 --> 01:04:43.700 You know, and I think for me, that's the thing that's been, um, brought me the most joy is, 01:04:43.700 --> 01:04:50.260 is seeing the collaboration, seeing the unity in, in a lot of the gaming, um, in the, you know, 01:04:50.260 --> 01:04:56.120 the VR, Alice in the Palace is, is in chat too. And I know she's involved in the VR space as well. 01:04:56.120 --> 01:05:01.480 And, and so it's not mutually exclusive. There's some overlap in both. Dude, are you thirsty? 01:05:01.980 --> 01:05:06.680 That was a lot of water you just chugged, man. Like, are you, are your kidneys okay? Everything? 01:05:07.300 --> 01:05:10.180 Yeah. That was, yeah. Always go drink water. Yeah. 01:05:10.300 --> 01:05:15.020 Okay. Um, hey, listen, Jade, if somebody wanted to support you, somebody wanted to, 01:05:15.020 --> 01:05:20.320 to, to send you money, like how, how do people actually donate support? How do people give 01:05:20.320 --> 01:05:32.440 Jade to Jade Earhart? Um, hi, Mark. The, uh, yeah. Uh, I mean, there's a, there's a donation, 01:05:32.440 --> 01:05:39.420 there's a donation link on my stream in the about section. Is there like a URL? Cause I'm doing this 01:05:39.420 --> 01:05:44.120 on podcast. I'm giving this publicly. Like I'll put it in the, in the show notes. Do you have 01:05:44.120 --> 01:05:52.260 something like that? If, if you want to support me? Um, I don't know. I don't know if I have a thing 01:05:52.260 --> 01:06:00.560 like that. I guess I could, I should think about it. Okay. So I mean, there's a, there's a PayPal. 01:06:00.560 --> 01:06:07.220 Yeah. I don't know. We can talk. Can you give me a PayPal URL? Is, is that like a safe thing to do 01:06:07.220 --> 01:06:14.740 online? I, I think it is. My, my PayPal is guy of God at gmail.com, but I think you have to 01:06:14.740 --> 01:06:20.000 do something else before you can, I don't know if you can give it that way or not, but anyway, 01:06:20.360 --> 01:06:25.560 maybe there's like a tag. Here's, here's what I want to do. If somebody wants to support Jade, 01:06:25.560 --> 01:06:35.940 text me directly. 484-324-8724. I'll put that, uh, put that in the show notes. 484-324-8724. 01:06:35.940 --> 01:06:40.980 You can text me at that number. Um, and I'm going to work with Jade cause we got, we got it. We got 01:06:40.980 --> 01:06:46.720 to figure out how to, how to get Jade some help. And, um, and like I said, financial is the most, 01:06:46.720 --> 01:06:52.820 the hardest part for me. And I, maybe I, maybe that's the reason. Maybe I'm not good at this 01:06:52.820 --> 01:06:58.520 part. I will. I, Jeff, I want to, and hopefully this is okay to take it a step further. Jeff knows 01:06:58.520 --> 01:07:03.240 a lot of people in this space who are doing what Jade's doing are similar. We know Jade. I know a 01:07:03.240 --> 01:07:07.740 lot of people in this space were doing what Jade's doing. So let's just put it out there. If you are a 01:07:07.740 --> 01:07:12.160 church right now and you're listening to this and you're like, I could see our mission board getting 01:07:12.160 --> 01:07:18.380 on board with this, supporting something like this on a regular monthly basis that goes beyond 01:07:18.380 --> 01:07:23.140 stream elements or PayPal's or dropping by and leaving a couple of hundred bucks as a one-time 01:07:23.140 --> 01:07:29.800 tip. But we actually want to have a high level of buy-in into what is happening here because we see 01:07:29.800 --> 01:07:33.940 that God is at work in it and we may not understand it, but we do want to be part of the narrative and 01:07:33.940 --> 01:07:39.620 the story that's being told. Would you just reach out to Jeff or to me through the church digital 01:07:39.620 --> 01:07:44.620 network, through the podcast, whomever? I'm sure there's an email and we'll help connect you to 01:07:44.620 --> 01:07:50.420 somebody like Jade or Jade himself who genuinely this is their obstacle, right? It's a financial 01:07:50.420 --> 01:07:55.840 obstacle. They need to find support because the church digital and Jeff, you have so many connections 01:07:55.840 --> 01:08:01.580 within the church world that a lot of these people who are just saying, I feel called to this 01:08:01.580 --> 01:08:06.400 community. I feel called to hit the go live button. I feel called to love on people to tell them about 01:08:06.400 --> 01:08:10.320 Jesus and disciple them. They don't have their foot in this world. They don't have connection 01:08:10.320 --> 01:08:14.260 to the church. And I've talked to streamer after streamer who's like, yeah, my church doesn't get 01:08:14.260 --> 01:08:19.100 it. Or yeah, my, my pastor doesn't, doesn't want to support it. But that's not the case for every 01:08:19.100 --> 01:08:23.260 church that out there. And there's lots of churches who listen to this podcast on a regular basis who 01:08:23.260 --> 01:08:29.520 have enough interest in it that like, take it to your mission board, take it to your leadership team 01:08:29.520 --> 01:08:33.600 and say, we want to actually genuinely support, not just what the church digital is doing, 01:08:33.640 --> 01:08:38.660 because you should be supporting that by the way, but you should also be supporting some of these guys 01:08:38.660 --> 01:08:44.340 who are giving their lives to this community, to love these people, a mission field that most churches 01:08:44.340 --> 01:08:49.400 don't even know that exists. So if you're out there, this is my plea, my vision cast, my, you know, 01:08:49.420 --> 01:08:54.180 my plug for it. We'll help you get connected to the right people. Just reach out to us if you don't 01:08:54.180 --> 01:09:01.340 know what to do next. 100% love that. Hey, Jay, this has been a great conversation. And, you know, 01:09:01.360 --> 01:09:06.440 I even know Digital Church Network, we've, we've done some support with you and, and historically, 01:09:06.440 --> 01:09:13.240 and man, I just, I love what you're doing. I want to see it continue on. And, and we do need to figure 01:09:13.240 --> 01:09:20.760 out, we do need to find churches that, that can, can help financially sponsor the ministry that you're 01:09:20.760 --> 01:09:26.800 doing towards that. And, and I want to see what you're doing, continue to multiply, continue to, 01:09:26.800 --> 01:09:33.680 uh, to reach the people that you're reaching that, that honestly, you are only the people that only 01:09:33.680 --> 01:09:39.260 you can reach through that. And so, man, thanks for being faithful and diligent, uh, in, in this season 01:09:39.260 --> 01:09:44.540 and, and pressing forward when, when really, um, so few aren't, we're actually going to be hanging 01:09:44.540 --> 01:09:49.460 out in an expo in a couple of weeks. So I'll get to give you a hug and, and that's going to be 01:09:49.460 --> 01:09:52.880 great. I, I mean, I probably see you like maybe once or twice a year. And so looking forward to 01:09:52.880 --> 01:09:58.640 my J, my J fix here in, in, in a little bit. So, uh, but for that, we're going to, we're going to 01:09:58.640 --> 01:10:05.360 wrap up. We're going to land a plane. Uh, so I've, I've been watching, we've had 15 or so here in DCN 01:10:05.360 --> 01:10:11.160 and, and Mark, we've had 15 or so, it looks like in, in Lux Digital Church as well. Like we, 01:10:11.220 --> 01:10:15.860 we ended up accidentally streaming this entire thing into your church for the entire broadcast. 01:10:15.860 --> 01:10:19.360 Yeah. Yeah. We're, we're live over there. I'm, I'm interacting with people. We're sending Samus 01:10:19.360 --> 01:10:23.440 over right now who wants to support Jade. Send, sending Samus over right now from the church, 01:10:23.560 --> 01:10:27.960 from, uh, from Lux Digital Church over to the church digital podcast, uh, channel right now. 01:10:28.060 --> 01:10:30.820 There he is. There's Samus. There we go. 01:10:31.620 --> 01:10:35.940 Cool. So, so love it, Samus. Uh, thanks. Thanks for coming over. Uh, but Hey, we're going to wrap 01:10:35.940 --> 01:10:42.100 up next week. It's funny. The chat was talking earlier about Aki, um, at being a family guy, 01:10:42.100 --> 01:10:46.740 who's doing a similar approach to streaming as Jake. And so we're having a family guy was not a 01:10:46.740 --> 01:10:52.060 reference to the TV show, a guy with family. Uh, and so we're actually having Aki on the stream and on 01:10:52.060 --> 01:10:58.120 the podcast next week. Uh, probably dig in a little bit into some discord and some mod as well. Cause 01:10:58.120 --> 01:11:05.460 he's, he's strong in that space, but look forward to the conversation next week. But for now we're going 01:11:05.460 --> 01:11:09.780 to wrap up. We're going to land the plane. So for Jade, for Mark, this is Jeff with the church, 01:11:09.900 --> 01:11:15.000 digital and digital church network and evidently, uh, Twitch something or other. So thanks for 01:11:15.000 --> 01:11:19.280 jumping here on the podcast and the stream and we'll see you on the next show. Y'all have a good day.