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 Welcome to the Church Digital Podcast. Through this podcast, we'll talk about the technological

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 innovations within the church. But more than tech for tech itself, we'll address deeper questions.

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 Is disciple making possible digitally? How should we approach the digital mission field?

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 Can a biblically grounded church operate in digital space? Oh, and where does the metaverse

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 fit into all this? Whether you're a big or small church, an established church, or a startup church

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 plant. The Church Digital's goal is to help churches like yours learn to be a multiplying church,

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 digitally and physically. Our heart? That churches like yours will discover a newfound focus on

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 disciple making that will revolutionize your church. And now, here's your host, Jeff Reed.

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 All right. Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Church Digital Podcast, broadcasting live on Twitch.

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 My name is Jeff Reed, founder of the Church Digital, Digital Church Network. And it's

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 awesome to hang out with you here on Digital Church Network's Twitch channel. So we are doing this

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 broadcast live. If you're in the Twitch audience, you can hear me in real time. It's Thursday afternoon,

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 and it's great to hang out with you. I'm excited about today's guest. We also are doing this as a

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 podcast recording on Monday. And so if you're listening to it on the podcast, what's wrong with

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 you? Come hang out with us on Twitch. We broadcast this every Thursday afternoon here in season four of the

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 Church Digital Podcasts, where we're hanging out talking about gamers, Jesus, and church. So

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 through this season, we've been highlighting, well, different things within gaming culture, within

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 nude culture. That would be incredibly inappropriate. And the Twitch filters are probably going off

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 somewhere. Within nerd, nerd culture. I'm sure somebody out there is laughing right now. And then also

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 getting into esports, digital missionaries, Twitch, Discord, everything that's centered around this

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 gaming culture. And so I'm excited. Literally, I'm excited about today's guest because I have been

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 trying to have an interview, a podcast interview, really a conversation with this guy for, well,

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 shoot, at least a year, at least if not multiple. And I'll be honest, very few people have ever said

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 no to me. But this is the one guy who he didn't say no. He said, let's reschedule. And then it was

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 a year. And then, hey, we finally came back around to it, including him. No, I'm kidding. I love

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 Aki. And so, hey, let's go and bring Aki into the conversation. And looking forward to digging into

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 this conversation. I don't know what will hit. Actually, I probably wouldn't ask him what are we

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 going to hit. But let's do this, Aki. But before we get into this a little bit, you know, I love your

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 room. Set up Destiny 2. I'm sure we'll get into Destiny 2 in the conversation. What is Aki?

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 What is Aki?

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 You're on your, like, birth certificate. So what are we doing here? Aki, A-K-I. What does

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 that mean?

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 That's right. Aki is actually short for a character name. It's short for Akihiko Sonata, which

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 is from a Japanese RPG called Persona 3. And I love the Persona series very much. And it

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 was just kind of a name that I took on and I shortened it because it's Akihiko Sonata is

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 a mouthful and it's kind of long. And it wasn't completely representative of who I wanted

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 to be on Twitch. And so who I am personally is part of Akihiko and Fam. And that is, you

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 can actually see that right over there. But I stream with my family. I'm the father of a

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 household, father to two amazing kids, husband to an awesome wife named Mama Peach. And we

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 stream with our whole family. I game with all my kids and the dogs that go running by occasionally

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 when packages come to the front door. And I was absolutely laughing at you behind the scenes

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 as you made your verbal missteps and other things there. But it was a good time. Actually,

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 it was funny. We delayed this so long. We had a chance to meet IRL back in October, which

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 was awesome and had a lot of good times there at Megazord. I'm so grateful for the conversations

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 we've had since then. I'm really excited about today.

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 So yeah, I stream on Twitch. I set about... We just celebrated our third year streamversary.

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 So we just started our third year on Twitch. And I decided I want to create a space that could

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 feel like home for either those that didn't have one or maybe had a toxic relationship with

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 theirs. And so yeah, that's what we've set about to do.

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 Awesome. And so I am really looking forward... Yeah, I'm really looking forward to getting

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 into this family streaming and learning more about this. I've watched some of your streams

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 and just the family environment is... Man, it just gives me the warmth. It's like, man,

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 this is nice. This is home. And the idea that you've created that environment for the people

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 that have not been able to receive that is just so telling. I was actually... I mean,

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 people are like, yeah, that's not real. Actually, I read this article. I'm going to show my nerd

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 culture here for a minute and just open, honest conversation. We're going to dig into this.

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 I was reading an article where Jamie Foxx was talking with Peter... I believe his name's Peter

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 Cullen. Does that name sound familiar?

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 It does sound familiar, yeah.

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 He's the voice actor for Optimus Prime.

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 Okay, okay.

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 Like the guy who has been Optimus Prime, Peter Cullen, since like the cartoon in the 80s. He did

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 the cartoons, the movies in the 80s. He did the... Was it the Michael Bay stuff or the

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 Bruckheimer, whichever one of those... Yeah, yeah. It was Michael Bay because he had a lot of

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 explosions. And like Peter Cullen died just maybe... Pretty recent.

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 Yeah. Yeah. And it's funny. They were in the middle of like a Netflix...

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 Transformers shoot and they had to find another voice actor. And I'm sorry, whoever that guy is,

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 he's nothing compared to Peter Cullen. And so...

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 It was iconic, really.

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 But there was this interview where Jamie Foxx was talking about his relationship with Peter Cullen.

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 And what Jamie Foxx said was, Peter Cullen was the only stable male father figure that was in my

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 house growing up. He was that person. Not because he showed up in the house, but because he was on a

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 cartoon. And it's incredible to think of the power and potential that even we can have utilizing this

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 technology to engage with people. And so the fact that you're wanting to do this right up at the top,

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 hey, I want to create a family environment online for people that don't have that.

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 Like, dude, that's incredible.

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 Let me just ask, Aki, as we're opening up this conversation, where did that vision come from?

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 So I think for me personally, it just kind of came from the fact that growing up, I was just going to be

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 really vulnerable here. I didn't always have the best relationship with my parents. There was a lot

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 of... We weren't necessarily always encouraged to talk openly about our feelings and emotions and the

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 things that we were struggling with and going through. And it's not... I don't think that my

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 parents intentionally did anything wrong. I think it's just they were doing their best based on how

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 they were raised. But as I've gotten older and as I've had kids of my own, I've realized that it's

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 important for us to be open and honest and vulnerable about the things that we struggle

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 with. Because so often you'll find that other people are struggling with similar things. And when

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 we bear one another's burdens in a way that can really honor Christ, I think it's so important

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 because authenticity brings vulnerability. And when we are authentic about the things that we're going

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 through and struggling with and struggling with about how life is not always sunshine and rainbows

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 and roses and parenting's hard. Kids go through things. We go through stuff. Life throws things

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 at us constantly. That you're surprised about what you learn about how not isolated we are and how

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 community can really happen online. And you can really feel, I think, Christ's love in a healthy

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 environment, even just here on Twitch. Yeah. Authenticity breeds vulnerability.

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 They don't teach you that in seminary. Or maybe they do at this point. But that has been something

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 culturally that we've seen change night and day. And it's so hard for some of the, forgive the term,

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 the old dogs, some of the old school, to adapt and to understand that in weakness and showing weakness,

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 there's strength because you're able to connect with people at a far greater level at your weakness

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 than by pushing and posing with your strengths.

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 Yeah. Absolutely.

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 So talk to me a little bit because you're creating a family environment. We'll put links in the show notes

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 and allow others maybe to get a feel for that. But describe for me a little bit. Because I've seen,

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 you know, there's already a joke in chat where Chino Mage is like, are you playing D2 right now?

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 Because evidently you're addicted to that game. That's all I ever see you play.

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 No, no, no. He's talking about the wizard behind the curtain. That's who he's talking about.

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 Oh, okay. All right. So I missed right into that. The wizard behind the curtain. Mark Lutz was supposed to be.

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 That's a Twitch stream. We're still right there because I'm keeping up with chat while we're having a separate conversation, right?

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 So there is that. I was actually, well, I'm formally diagnosed with ADHD and I always talk about how it's a superpower,

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 but it's a blessing and a curse, right? So it enables me to keep up with chat while engaging in the conversation.

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 And that is definitely something that is detrimental to gameplay.

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 So I will say that our Twitch stream is, we're not all about like professional gameplay,

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 but we are all about entertaining people, making them feel loved and valued.

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 How Christ does at the end of the day. And so I open up every stream.

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 Usually my wife is with me or my kids and we spend some time in devotions and prayer,

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 just trying to set the tone for the stream.

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 But, you know, usually baby Aki, my son is sitting on my lap or Peach, my daughter is sitting beside me

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 and we hang out and we game together.

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 And one of the rules that I created actually, when I really wanted to be intentional about,

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 I always want our stream to be safe and fun for the whole family, no matter who's there, no matter who's tuning in, no matter what we're doing.

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 And so one of the rules I set really early on, and this is not popular on Twitch, as I said, we would never play an M-rated game on stream.

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 And that's kind of a hard and fast line because you think about some of the biggest titles in gaming,

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 including Halo, Call of Duty, are technically M-rated.

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 So over time, we ended up, we made some caveats to that rule.

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 It was, if the M-rated elements can be toned down or turned off, like in Call of Duty,

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 you can turn off all voice lines, which is where, you know, your heavy language comes in.

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 In Halo, you can be selective about who you play multiplayer with,

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 because that's really where the M-rated elements come into play there.

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 Games with open mics, even Fortnite, you have to be cautious about,

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 because if you hop into an open voice chat in a public match, you matchmake with somebody,

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 you never know what you're going to hear coming across that mic.

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 So we're always really protective and defensive about how things come through the stream

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 to make sure that we keep that filtered and safe for the whole family.

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 And for my kids, too, because my kids are always present.

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 And the wonderful thing about when you have your kids on stream with you is it generally lets chat know,

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 hey, by the way, there's kids present.

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 Let's keep things toned down, kind of be mindful about the things that we're discussing

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 and the conversations that we're having.

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 But that doesn't prevent us from grappling with some of the tougher issues.

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 So, yeah.

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 Love that.

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 Now, you're, I mean, openly, ADHD, hey, like, I'm not that good at gaming.

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 Yet you're doing a ministry where all you do is play games.

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 Forgive me.

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 You're using games to connect with people to minister to them.

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 Like, I don't want to be this demissive with that.

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 Sure.

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 But you're not good at games or you're not the best.

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 Like, you know, I feel tension.

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 You know, I've thought about it.

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 Maybe I should stream.

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 And I joke that, you know, I'm not relevant going all the way back to, like,

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 GoldenEye on N64.

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 It's still relevant.

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 They just released a remake.

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 Did you know that?

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 They just released GoldenEye.

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 Well, my wife still kicks my butt.

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 My wife gets the sniper rifle and, like, hides out in the rooms where,

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 the one spot where you can't see her, but she can get the perfect shot.

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 My wife and I almost broke up over Mario Kart back in the day.

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 Mario Kart 64 or something ago.

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 Oh, no, no, no.

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 I'm still the best at Mario Kart.

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 Like, and even to the fact that, like, I school my kids.

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 And that's the point of tension.

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 Oh, I will say this.

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 This is for the parents in the house.

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 I've never let my kids beat me at a video game.

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 Because a lot of times you let your kids win.

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 I've never let my kids win because I'm like,

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 if you beat me, I want it to feel authentic and earned.

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 And that's just, I think that's an important lesson.

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 And my daughter has gotten to the point where she can legitimately beat me in Mario Kart.

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 And she celebrates that and rubs it in my face,

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 which is exactly what she should do.

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 So, yeah.

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 Do you feel tension?

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 Like, hey, like, I can't keep up with the big kids.

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 Even stuff like, you know, you're not playing some of these games that are very popular.

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 It seems like you're sticking with Destiny 2, which is a great game.

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 But it's a game that's been around a minute.

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 Like, do you, how do you balance that?

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 Man, I'm not the cool, edgy guy.

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 I'm the family guy.

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 So, and I think something that's important about that is, so, D2, a community member of ours put it in a really good way.

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 D2 is what is called our anchor game.

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 But we still are kind of variety streamers.

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 The very first game we ever played on stream was the original Final Fantasy for the NES,

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 which was a game released all the way back in 1985.

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 But with my son, I'm playing through Horizon Zero Dawn, for example.

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 That's on Monday evenings.

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 And then with my daughter, we play a lot of Destiny 2.

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 Generally speaking, that's Tuesdays and Thursdays.

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 But a new expansion just released.

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 So we're playing a lot of Destiny right now.

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 And then Friday nights are kind of community nights.

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 And Sunday nights, we're playing Final Fantasy XIV.

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 So we actually, we do play a variety of games.

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 But Destiny is definitely our anchor game.

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 And I will say that when it comes to Twitch and strategies and things for growth,

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 variety is really, really difficult to really build a large community on.

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 Because generally speaking, when people come to Twitch, they're coming to watch a specific game.

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 They're wanting to consume a certain kind of content.

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 But for the first two years of our stream, Destiny was always kind of around,

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 but it wasn't really a focus.

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 We actually made Twitch Partner doing mostly variety, playing a lot of different things,

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 making a lot of different friends and people and folks who would come into stream

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 and be like, I like this.

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 I want to be a part of it.

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 And so, yeah.

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 And for those of you who are watching the podcast to get Twitch Partner,

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 you have to average at least 75 or more people for a 30-day time period.

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 And for us, we had to carry it for almost three months because we had to apply twice.

00:14:47.760 --> 00:14:48.120
 Interesting.

00:14:48.800 --> 00:14:50.780
 What are the benefits?

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 I've heard Twitch Partner before, but do you get a free t-shirt?

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 Do you get priority in the algorithms?

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 What does that mean?

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 So no real priority.

00:15:01.180 --> 00:15:03.100
 There aren't a ton of tangible benefits.

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 The number one thing you get over someone who is an affiliate or just a non,

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 not at all connected with Twitch, is you get what's called encoding.

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 Every single stream that I have, I get encoding.

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 What that means is people can watch at the high quality 1080p stream,

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 or they can go scale all the way down to 160p,

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 which is really low quality, easy for like mobile cell phone kind of consumption.

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 That was actually the reason why I wanted to go for Twitch Partner,

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 because we have a wide variety of people and situations and internet connections,

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 stability that can watch and consume our content.

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 And so having that flexibility that anybody can tune in and plug in and be connected

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 was really important.

00:15:45.000 --> 00:15:47.680
 So you're a family streamer.

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 You intentionally wanted a wide variety because you've got high-end,

00:15:52.900 --> 00:15:56.160
 you've got some minimal devices that I'm sure that are streaming.

00:15:56.680 --> 00:16:01.160
 Although, whatever, 180, 160p, that's pretty low.

00:16:01.240 --> 00:16:01.600
 It's pretty low.

00:16:02.640 --> 00:16:04.140
 Talk to me about your audience.

00:16:04.800 --> 00:16:06.820
 Like, who are you engaging with?

00:16:07.060 --> 00:16:07.780
 What's your...

00:16:07.780 --> 00:16:08.640
 Is there a target?

00:16:09.120 --> 00:16:10.260
 Like, who are you seeing?

00:16:10.800 --> 00:16:12.100
 What types of people?

00:16:12.100 --> 00:16:16.240
 Like, who's engaging with you in Twitch?

00:16:16.900 --> 00:16:17.300
 Sure.

00:16:17.500 --> 00:16:21.960
 And I'll say that the Megazord conference really helped me kind of hone in on my content.

00:16:23.900 --> 00:16:24.980
 I really kind of...

00:16:24.980 --> 00:16:29.120
 That was when I decided that I really wanted to minister and reach to the Destiny 2 community.

00:16:29.640 --> 00:16:32.920
 And that's when I really decided to make it kind of our focus, our anchor game.

00:16:33.400 --> 00:16:36.360
 So I really want to reach people who are playing Destiny 2.

00:16:36.460 --> 00:16:37.780
 Maybe they play a few other things.

00:16:38.520 --> 00:16:43.120
 But generally speaking, I'm looking for young adults, for the most part.

00:16:43.340 --> 00:16:46.140
 People who maybe have struggled with addictions in the past.

00:16:46.440 --> 00:16:50.340
 Because for myself, how transparent do you get on this podcast?

00:16:51.740 --> 00:16:53.520
 Like, I get pretty transparent on my streams.

00:16:53.780 --> 00:16:55.380
 Like, I'm a former porn addict.

00:16:55.660 --> 00:16:56.780
 I've broken free of that.

00:16:57.360 --> 00:16:59.080
 I am a suicide attempt survivor.

00:16:59.280 --> 00:17:01.180
 I'm pretty open and honest about that on stream.

00:17:01.280 --> 00:17:03.860
 We talk a lot about depression and anxiety and mental health.

00:17:04.000 --> 00:17:07.520
 And so all of those things are things that we talk about openly on stream.

00:17:07.980 --> 00:17:10.980
 And we let people know that they're not struggling and suffering alone in the dark.

00:17:11.200 --> 00:17:12.060
 And that there is hope.

00:17:12.600 --> 00:17:15.480
 And there are solutions and ways to move forward.

00:17:15.720 --> 00:17:22.340
 Whether that's, you know, in Christ, in church, there are so many options and ways to plug in and do community here on Twitch and in IRL too.

00:17:22.340 --> 00:17:29.340
 So, yeah, those are kind of some of the things that we really dove into and wanted to minister to those people, especially neurodivergent.

00:17:30.260 --> 00:17:32.020
 You know, the first thing I talked about was ADHD.

00:17:32.660 --> 00:17:36.320
 And obviously, you know, it was my wife as well, also a suicide attempt survivor.

00:17:36.960 --> 00:17:41.580
 So, you know, we've been really open and honest about our struggles and things that we've dealt with.

00:17:41.640 --> 00:17:44.940
 And that we have some amazing stories about people who have come into our community.

00:17:45.540 --> 00:17:47.000
 Many of them struggle with anxiety.

00:17:47.360 --> 00:17:50.060
 A lot of people are neurodivergent in some ways.

00:17:51.000 --> 00:17:52.760
 I remember one specific story.

00:17:52.880 --> 00:17:56.260
 We had a young girl from Canada who came into our stream.

00:17:57.000 --> 00:18:00.820
 And she told us that she was there ready to end her life.

00:18:01.600 --> 00:18:03.700
 And, you know, we stopped everything that we were doing.

00:18:04.160 --> 00:18:05.720
 We took a beat to pray over her.

00:18:06.060 --> 00:18:08.240
 And she didn't know the Lord at the time.

00:18:09.340 --> 00:18:14.760
 She still doesn't know the Lord, but she is open to the conversations and is receiving the things that were pouring into her life.

00:18:14.820 --> 00:18:23.240
 And she's been still around two years later after that night and still plugged in and still listening to the things that we're saying and is open to receiving prayer.

00:18:23.520 --> 00:18:30.440
 And so we've been taking steps with her over time and building that relational equity with the people who are in our community.

00:18:30.440 --> 00:18:39.700
 That may be the greatest two minutes of recording and broadcasting we've ever done here with the Church Digital Podcast.

00:18:39.920 --> 00:18:43.560
 Like the courage it took to say that publicly.

00:18:44.280 --> 00:18:46.780
 But the number of points that you hit on.

00:18:46.880 --> 00:18:50.800
 I mean, we're talking about operating out of your weakness and making your weakness your strength.

00:18:51.020 --> 00:18:54.700
 Like that was a beautiful moment.

00:18:55.040 --> 00:18:57.760
 And there's maybe a dozen questions that I have off of that.

00:18:59.020 --> 00:18:59.880
 Let's start with this.

00:18:59.980 --> 00:19:02.860
 I want to get into what it is to be transparent in that space.

00:19:03.260 --> 00:19:04.420
 But you're a family show.

00:19:05.000 --> 00:19:19.080
 And so you've got your kid on your lap and you're doing ministry where you're talking about, you know, your porn addiction in the past or you and your wife's suicide and your neurodivergent issues.

00:19:19.080 --> 00:19:24.940
 Like these are a lot of very poignant, very hard conversations to have.

00:19:25.160 --> 00:19:28.420
 And you're doing them while playing video games while you got your kid on your lap.

00:19:28.680 --> 00:19:37.460
 Like, how do you manage that tension with your kids with being serious while playing a video game?

00:19:37.640 --> 00:19:38.780
 Like, give me some insight here.

00:19:39.600 --> 00:19:48.920
 So the interesting, for a lot of the heavier conversations, they generally happen later in the evening when the young, young kid is off to bed or off, you know, getting ready for bed and things like that.

00:19:48.920 --> 00:19:51.020
 But my older daughter has engaged with us.

00:19:51.020 --> 00:19:51.220
 You said, like, what's the term?

00:19:51.300 --> 00:19:52.300
 It's like after show?

00:19:53.060 --> 00:19:54.820
 Yeah, Aki After Dark is what we call it.

00:19:54.900 --> 00:19:55.080
 Yeah.

00:19:55.560 --> 00:19:56.060
 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:19:56.380 --> 00:19:57.240
 Aki After Dark.

00:19:57.320 --> 00:20:01.120
 So when the sun goes down, you know, things get a little heavier, a little bit more intense conversations.

00:20:02.280 --> 00:20:07.540
 But, you know, my daughter is openly struggling with anxiety right now.

00:20:07.620 --> 00:20:08.960
 And we don't hide that.

00:20:09.040 --> 00:20:11.000
 We don't, you know, shy away from that.

00:20:11.060 --> 00:20:13.400
 And we openly wrestle with these things on stream.

00:20:13.400 --> 00:20:20.400
 You'll often see me parenting live in action on stream, having conversations with my daughter about different heavy things in life.

00:20:20.600 --> 00:20:27.120
 And, you know, just kind of going through those and encouraging her to be honest about how she's feeling, about, you know, what she's wanting to do.

00:20:27.340 --> 00:20:31.920
 And she obviously, she listens to me talk about some of those heavier things.

00:20:32.860 --> 00:20:36.140
 And so far, it's gone really well.

00:20:36.240 --> 00:20:37.980
 There definitely is some tension to manage there.

00:20:38.120 --> 00:20:41.400
 And we have some off-stream conversations with her about things that we go through.

00:20:41.520 --> 00:20:45.820
 But we also, I don't know, we don't try to sugarcoat or hide the harder things in life with her.

00:20:46.160 --> 00:20:49.660
 As they come, we want her to be, to go into life with eyes wide open.

00:20:50.220 --> 00:20:52.500
 So, yeah, yeah.

00:20:53.280 --> 00:21:09.520
 So, you're, you're, you're, I mean, you're literally actively parenting your kid on, in front of people, talking about tough subjects, being very transparent about yourself and your wife in this season with Aki After Dark.

00:21:11.780 --> 00:21:13.700
 How has the audience received this?

00:21:14.020 --> 00:21:15.320
 Like, do they engage?

00:21:15.500 --> 00:21:16.960
 Do they, do they comment?

00:21:17.160 --> 00:21:18.040
 Do they laugh?

00:21:18.140 --> 00:21:20.080
 Are they, wow, that's a great point.

00:21:20.080 --> 00:21:21.480
 I wish somebody had told me that.

00:21:21.560 --> 00:21:25.140
 Like, what, how are they literally responding when, when they're seeing some of this stuff?

00:21:25.880 --> 00:21:26.560
 You know, it's funny too.

00:21:26.620 --> 00:21:30.680
 I think about, so last night we were playing the, the new Destiny 2 campaign that came out.

00:21:31.000 --> 00:21:34.500
 And, you know, I'm, I'm playing with my daughter who just turned 12.

00:21:34.680 --> 00:21:36.160
 So she's very young.

00:21:36.740 --> 00:21:41.100
 And legendary is something that even like grown up gamers struggle with.

00:21:41.100 --> 00:21:41.820
 It's, it's hard.

00:21:41.900 --> 00:21:43.100
 It's not an easy difficulty.

00:21:43.100 --> 00:21:49.940
 And we're, we're working through this campaign and it's, it's so often easy to get frustrated and, and

00:21:49.940 --> 00:21:51.220
 and get upset.

00:21:51.620 --> 00:21:55.380
 And we, we fought for, I think it was about six hours on this one boss.

00:21:55.500 --> 00:21:58.200
 We, we, we went again and again and again and again.

00:21:58.200 --> 00:21:59.520
 And we finally beat this boss.

00:21:59.520 --> 00:22:06.920
 And as we beat the boss, her PC blue screened, which those of you who are in computers, you

00:22:06.920 --> 00:22:09.480
 know that that means it's locked up and it's rebooting.

00:22:09.980 --> 00:22:12.900
 And so I go through and I, I watched the final cut scene.

00:22:13.000 --> 00:22:14.560
 She watches the final cut scene with me.

00:22:14.680 --> 00:22:18.560
 And then she gets back into the game and finds out that everything we had just done, every,

00:22:18.640 --> 00:22:22.220
 all those hours we had just fought for, none of it counted.

00:22:22.480 --> 00:22:23.480
 We have to do it again.

00:22:25.540 --> 00:22:29.380
 And instead of being upset or frustrated, she's excited.

00:22:29.520 --> 00:22:30.120
 She's positive.

00:22:30.120 --> 00:22:32.640
 She's like, I just want to play more with my dad.

00:22:32.760 --> 00:22:34.520
 I want to, I want to do this more.

00:22:34.580 --> 00:22:36.580
 And like chat was just free is freaking out.

00:22:36.640 --> 00:22:37.760
 Like I could learn from peach.

00:22:37.900 --> 00:22:39.700
 Like I would be so angry in this moment.

00:22:39.740 --> 00:22:40.580
 I would be so upset.

00:22:40.760 --> 00:22:42.860
 And so I think, I think those authentic moments.

00:22:42.860 --> 00:22:46.160
 And when we're doing the parenting on stream, I think it all just kind of builds towards

00:22:46.160 --> 00:22:46.400
 that.

00:22:46.400 --> 00:22:47.380
 Hey, this is effective.

00:22:47.940 --> 00:22:48.640
 What we're doing.

00:22:48.740 --> 00:22:49.180
 You're seeing it.

00:22:49.220 --> 00:22:55.420
 You're seeing it play out in a way that is positive and encouraging and really, I, my

00:22:55.420 --> 00:22:58.240
 hope, I'm like getting emotional thinking about it because I was so proud of her last night.

00:22:58.260 --> 00:23:00.580
 It was just, it was crazy seeing how she reacted to that.

00:23:02.160 --> 00:23:06.200
 But yeah, my, my hope is that again, that authenticity breeds vulnerability.

00:23:06.200 --> 00:23:10.680
 I want people to understand that you're not alone in your struggles, that life can be frustrating

00:23:10.680 --> 00:23:16.600
 sometimes, but there are ways to exhibit that in positive and encouraging ways rather than

00:23:16.600 --> 00:23:20.860
 just getting angry or toxic because so many online communities are very toxic and we never

00:23:20.860 --> 00:23:21.580
 want to be that way.

00:23:22.000 --> 00:23:29.300
 So you rattled off earlier, um, like a Sunday night, a Tuesday night, Thursday, like you,

00:23:29.300 --> 00:23:31.800
 you just, you rattled off your schedule very quickly.

00:23:32.540 --> 00:23:35.460
 Um, how many hours a week are you, are you spending into this?

00:23:36.300 --> 00:23:41.480
 Uh, so Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and Sunday, we start at six, five days a week

00:23:41.480 --> 00:23:42.180
 time every day.

00:23:42.320 --> 00:23:42.760
 Yeah.

00:23:42.880 --> 00:23:43.640
 Five days a week.

00:23:43.940 --> 00:23:44.220
 Okay.

00:23:44.220 --> 00:23:46.200
 So about four to four and a half hours.

00:23:46.600 --> 00:23:51.520
 Depending on this stream, sometimes we go up to five to six, um, totally depends on what's

00:23:51.520 --> 00:23:52.300
 going on, what we're doing.

00:23:52.880 --> 00:23:57.400
 Um, so yeah, I would say it's another part-time to full-time job, depending on the week.

00:23:57.460 --> 00:24:02.340
 That's not counting the hours I spend off stream working on short form content, uh, ministering

00:24:02.340 --> 00:24:06.040
 to people in our discord, having other offline conversations with folks.

00:24:06.720 --> 00:24:07.820
 Um, async.

00:24:07.960 --> 00:24:09.980
 We're going to, we're going to get into discord in a minute.

00:24:10.160 --> 00:24:13.580
 So, but you're, you're 25 to 30 hours.

00:24:14.360 --> 00:24:14.680
 Minimum.

00:24:14.800 --> 00:24:18.980
 So, so talk to me about that tension because you've, what, what's your, what's your nine

00:24:18.980 --> 00:24:19.320
 to five?

00:24:19.680 --> 00:24:20.160
 What, what do you do?

00:24:20.180 --> 00:24:23.680
 My nine to five, I'm a network engineer for a medium-sized cable ISP.

00:24:23.760 --> 00:24:25.320
 I'm on my lunch break technically right now.

00:24:25.520 --> 00:24:26.080
 So, yeah.

00:24:27.260 --> 00:24:27.620
 Awesome.

00:24:27.740 --> 00:24:28.140
 Well, thanks.

00:24:28.200 --> 00:24:29.340
 Thanks for giving us the time here.

00:24:29.400 --> 00:24:32.560
 So, but you're, so you're, you're a, you're a, you're a IT guy.

00:24:32.760 --> 00:24:33.280
 Sounds like.

00:24:33.320 --> 00:24:33.500
 Yep.

00:24:34.380 --> 00:24:35.220
 Nine to five.

00:24:35.340 --> 00:24:36.700
 And then you, and then you do.

00:24:36.780 --> 00:24:39.280
 I work from home full time, which is a family streaming guy.

00:24:40.020 --> 00:24:40.380
 Yeah.

00:24:41.440 --> 00:24:44.500
 Um, how do you manage the relational tension?

00:24:44.720 --> 00:24:47.840
 How do you manage some of the, the financial strains?

00:24:47.840 --> 00:24:52.020
 Like, cause that's, I mean, you're, you're putting in, I'm 40 plus 25 to 30.

00:24:52.100 --> 00:24:56.440
 That's 65 to 70 hours between ministry and, and work.

00:24:56.600 --> 00:24:58.580
 So how do you keep a healthy balance?

00:24:59.160 --> 00:25:01.600
 We're plugged into a local church here that we serve at too.

00:25:01.700 --> 00:25:05.460
 My wife, uh, uh, does cleaning of the church and children's ministry.

00:25:05.460 --> 00:25:07.620
 And I run the sound and tech at church.

00:25:08.280 --> 00:25:11.220
 Um, so yeah, we, we, we do a lot.

00:25:11.260 --> 00:25:15.440
 And I think the thing about it is, is the whole family is plugged in to everything that we do.

00:25:15.760 --> 00:25:18.060
 We don't, we don't go separate directions.

00:25:18.540 --> 00:25:20.300
 The whole family is plugged into the stream.

00:25:20.780 --> 00:25:21.540
 I'm here.

00:25:21.720 --> 00:25:23.180
 My daughter is homeschooled.

00:25:23.480 --> 00:25:24.680
 My son is in pre-K right now.

00:25:24.740 --> 00:25:26.260
 He'll be full-time kindergarten next year.

00:25:26.740 --> 00:25:29.180
 Um, but we're, we're all plugged in together.

00:25:29.180 --> 00:25:30.480
 We're all doing life together.

00:25:30.480 --> 00:25:32.740
 We're all running in the same direction.

00:25:32.740 --> 00:25:35.620
 We're not going different places, doing different things.

00:25:35.620 --> 00:25:38.180
 So like, even like sometimes I'll go clean the church for my wife.

00:25:38.800 --> 00:25:41.280
 Um, we make time on Saturdays.

00:25:41.280 --> 00:25:44.600
 That's intentionally like a family day where we go and we do an activity together.

00:25:45.300 --> 00:25:48.280
 Um, the work from home flexibility is, is huge.

00:25:48.320 --> 00:25:49.660
 Being able to be here and be plugged in.

00:25:49.740 --> 00:25:53.880
 If I, if I had to go into an office, I don't think I'd be able to put as many hours into the streaming as I do.

00:25:54.280 --> 00:25:56.020
 So, okay.

00:25:56.420 --> 00:26:03.480
 I know, um, we had Jade on last week who was, uh, you know, obviously, you know, Jade, digital missionary.

00:26:03.480 --> 00:26:03.620
 I love Jade.

00:26:03.920 --> 00:26:11.320
 Actually, so last night after, after everything crashed, Jade actually hopped in with us and we, we finished, we did, we did the redo because we had done it by ourselves.

00:26:11.320 --> 00:26:14.040
 We're like, okay, Jade, come on in and we'll, we'll finish it all together.

00:26:14.040 --> 00:26:14.920
 Cause he hadn't finished it yet.

00:26:14.980 --> 00:26:15.480
 That's awesome.

00:26:16.240 --> 00:26:18.280
 Well, and he just had a system crash too, didn't he?

00:26:18.500 --> 00:26:18.820
 Recently?

00:26:19.160 --> 00:26:19.880
 Is that what I saw?

00:26:19.960 --> 00:26:20.900
 His whole PC.

00:26:21.160 --> 00:26:21.280
 Yeah.

00:26:21.940 --> 00:26:22.260
 Yeah.

00:26:23.360 --> 00:26:24.200
 God bless him.

00:26:24.900 --> 00:26:28.980
 But, you know, I know he was, he was talking, you know, he's, he's wanting to do his full time.

00:26:29.080 --> 00:26:29.280
 I don't know.

00:26:29.300 --> 00:26:31.720
 He's, he's streaming like 50, 60, 70.

00:26:32.040 --> 00:26:39.960
 Like I wake up at 2am and he's going, I feel like in the middle of the day, I see him on like the guys, the guys just really, you know, heavy into this stuff.

00:26:39.960 --> 00:26:57.080
 But we, we talked about some of the financial struggles of being a full time in this and living literally off of streaming tips and, and things like this where, you know, I think he's got an account that basically is like keep, keep Jade alive.com or something set up.

00:26:57.080 --> 00:27:00.300
 Like it's, it's just, it's, it's, it's, it's a hard, it's a hard life.

00:27:00.660 --> 00:27:12.340
 Um, how is it bivocationally where, where you're, you're working IT, you're receiving a check from the IT, you're, you're doing ministry on the side with, with your family involved.

00:27:12.340 --> 00:27:13.980
 You're all rowing in the same direction.

00:27:14.400 --> 00:27:16.840
 Like, is that, is that rewarding?

00:27:16.900 --> 00:27:17.520
 Is that healthy?

00:27:17.580 --> 00:27:18.420
 Are there challenges?

00:27:18.840 --> 00:27:20.360
 Are there obstacles that you're facing?

00:27:20.560 --> 00:27:24.180
 I'd love some insight financially, maybe even otherwise relationally.

00:27:24.640 --> 00:27:27.480
 I feel like, you know, there's the old adage, right?

00:27:27.620 --> 00:27:30.220
 That God doesn't, uh, call the equip, the equip's the called.

00:27:30.560 --> 00:27:35.280
 And, uh, you know, when we first started, we started in a very bare empty room.

00:27:35.560 --> 00:27:37.100
 All I had was a little blue Yeti mic.

00:27:37.460 --> 00:27:39.400
 And, uh, that was, that was basically it.

00:27:39.700 --> 00:27:47.920
 And, uh, my daughter and I sat down in this room, we started streaming together and we very gratefully, we had folks come alongside of us that there's subscriptions on Twitch, which is cool.

00:27:48.300 --> 00:27:50.160
 Um, but 50% of that goes back to the platform.

00:27:50.260 --> 00:27:51.780
 There's also a way to donate directly.

00:27:51.780 --> 00:27:58.560
 Um, if you, if you go to any Twitch page, most streamers, if you scroll down, you'll see a link to donate.

00:27:58.820 --> 00:28:02.160
 And fortunately, we had some very generous people early on that helped us.

00:28:02.320 --> 00:28:04.300
 For example, I have a Shure SM7B.

00:28:04.400 --> 00:28:06.700
 I have a decent, uh, XLR interface.

00:28:06.700 --> 00:28:08.220
 I have a decent camera.

00:28:08.340 --> 00:28:14.160
 All of this was, was funded by, uh, the community that we built really early on.

00:28:14.160 --> 00:28:20.880
 And we have, we have kept the streaming funds separate from the personal funds, um, and the personal funds separate from the streaming funds.

00:28:20.940 --> 00:28:30.960
 But we did obviously invest a significant amount of our own money early on because, you know, when I first went to my wife almost four years ago and said, Hey, I think, I think this, this could be a thing.

00:28:30.960 --> 00:28:33.880
 I think, I think, I think I feel this is what the Lord wants me to do next.

00:28:34.520 --> 00:28:48.380
 Um, she didn't initially catch the vision, but once, once I started walking it out and she saw the people coming in the chat and she saw the stories that were being shared and the vulnerability and the authenticity that was, that was growing this community.

00:28:48.380 --> 00:28:57.020
 She really, she really, she really bought in and, uh, it's been, it's been wonderful to see what I, again, the importance.

00:28:57.020 --> 00:28:57.840
 I stress this.

00:28:57.900 --> 00:29:00.820
 I feel the Lord has called me to do this without that.

00:29:00.820 --> 00:29:07.740
 If I wasn't walking in obedience, I think there would be a lot more struggle, but I feel like because this is something I feel the Lord has called me to do.

00:29:07.740 --> 00:29:18.260
 And I'm walking in obedience to that with my family that, uh, makes everything, you know, when you're walking in the Lord's will, life flows.

00:29:18.260 --> 00:29:22.060
 It's a lot easier than if you're, if you're doing something in rebellion or fighting against that.

00:29:22.120 --> 00:29:23.880
 And so I think, I think that's the key there.

00:29:24.880 --> 00:29:28.320
 Um, because yeah, there's a lot of struggle because I have a lot of work responsibilities.

00:29:28.320 --> 00:29:34.640
 We have kids, we have the whole family dynamic thing, but because we're all working together, we're trying to honor the Lord.

00:29:34.640 --> 00:29:37.480
 We're trying to be obedient to the things that he's calling us to do.

00:29:37.560 --> 00:29:39.940
 It does make that easier in a sense.

00:29:40.060 --> 00:29:40.580
 It's stressful.

00:29:41.660 --> 00:29:42.060
 Absolutely.

00:29:43.140 --> 00:29:44.440
 And, uh, but we love each other.

00:29:44.620 --> 00:29:49.340
 We have really hard conversations on the regular about how things are going and how we're doing.

00:29:49.340 --> 00:29:52.840
 And we make sure that, Hey, we, uh, I will postpone or cancel streams.

00:29:52.840 --> 00:30:02.940
 If we have to, if we have to deal with family stuff, because at the end of the day for a family stream, if the family isn't first and yeah, it's not, it's not good for anybody.

00:30:04.860 --> 00:30:06.640
 Next is, um, how old's your daughter?

00:30:07.780 --> 00:30:08.060
 12.

00:30:08.460 --> 00:30:09.380
 She just turned 12.

00:30:09.840 --> 00:30:10.720
 Uh, the beginning of February.

00:30:10.720 --> 00:30:11.540
 She just turned 12.

00:30:11.680 --> 00:30:13.020
 So what is that?

00:30:13.100 --> 00:30:14.500
 Sixth grade, fifth grade, somewhere in there?

00:30:15.320 --> 00:30:15.840
 Sixth grade.

00:30:16.740 --> 00:30:17.340
 Sixth grade.

00:30:18.000 --> 00:30:22.820
 Um, is she, is she comfortable like being on camera?

00:30:23.060 --> 00:30:27.760
 Like, you know, is, is that, is that native to her where she's, she's an extrovert?

00:30:27.980 --> 00:30:30.720
 Is she, uh, less to have an extroverted daughter?

00:30:31.380 --> 00:30:33.380
 Yeah, she's no, she's a hundred percent extroverted.

00:30:33.760 --> 00:30:34.860
 My wife is very introverted.

00:30:35.080 --> 00:30:36.640
 Uh, she very rarely gets on camera.

00:30:36.880 --> 00:30:41.440
 So I was about to say, I don't think I've, I've seen your wife on.

00:30:41.660 --> 00:30:46.820
 No, I've seen both kids interact at some level at the microphone, but yeah, she doesn't, she doesn't.

00:30:47.020 --> 00:30:49.920
 It's funny because I'm pretty sure both my kids are extroverts, which takes after me.

00:30:49.980 --> 00:30:51.920
 I'm an extrovert, but my wife is very introverted.

00:30:54.420 --> 00:30:54.780
 Yeah.

00:30:55.400 --> 00:31:01.660
 So like your, your daughter just, you know, you introduced her to video games and she clung and ran with it.

00:31:02.280 --> 00:31:09.220
 Um, like what was, was that when you talk about the, let's do this instead of the ministry, let's talk about the ministry potential.

00:31:10.120 --> 00:31:15.660
 Um, how old was she when she understood the ministry impact of what the streamings were?

00:31:16.000 --> 00:31:16.680
 What did that look like?

00:31:16.680 --> 00:31:17.800
 I'm not a hundred percent positive.

00:31:17.920 --> 00:31:20.040
 She understands the ministry impact fully yet.

00:31:20.040 --> 00:31:27.860
 I think she's beginning to understand, especially over these past three to four months, you're starting to see her really understand, Hey, there's a chat here.

00:31:27.940 --> 00:31:29.580
 People are talking, they're talking about me.

00:31:29.660 --> 00:31:31.140
 They're talking about the things that we're doing.

00:31:31.260 --> 00:31:35.480
 And that's really starting to become something that she is cognizant of.

00:31:35.980 --> 00:31:41.400
 Or also, I'm also having conversations with her about that on the side because it's, it's easy to be influenced by chat.

00:31:41.400 --> 00:31:51.540
 And I'm like, we have to be authentic to ourselves and not necessarily always be concerned about making everybody else happy because that's, you know, obviously an important distinction there.

00:31:52.260 --> 00:31:53.480
 Yeah, that's so good.

00:31:53.640 --> 00:31:56.100
 I was, I, the reason I asked, and I'll just be transparent here.

00:31:56.440 --> 00:31:57.260
 My daughter's 14.

00:31:57.880 --> 00:32:13.180
 And, um, and, and so even as, because of what I do with the church digital and the conversations and the streams, not in Twitch, but in other environments and platforms, like, you know, she's hearing at least one half of the conversation because the other half's in my head.

00:32:13.180 --> 00:32:22.220
 And so, you know, even her starting to engage with that and dialogue, I wrote a book on churches and virtual reality and, uh, and she, she grabbed it.

00:32:22.240 --> 00:32:23.480
 She started reading it.

00:32:23.480 --> 00:32:24.540
 It was funny.

00:32:24.540 --> 00:32:27.260
 Like one day she wanted me to pick her up from school.

00:32:27.560 --> 00:32:39.200
 And so she logged onto my website, went to my scheduled Jeff page and, uh, and actually scheduled time with me so that I could pick her up early from school and, uh, and take her out to lunch.

00:32:39.200 --> 00:32:41.940
 And so like, I didn't realize it until the day before I looked at my calendar.

00:32:41.940 --> 00:32:44.460
 I'm like, what's this Caitlin meeting?

00:32:44.600 --> 00:32:46.160
 And she's like, oh, you're picking me up from school.

00:32:46.200 --> 00:32:47.920
 I was like, oh, okay.

00:32:48.320 --> 00:32:51.140
 And, but it's, it's been so, it's been so much fun.

00:32:51.140 --> 00:32:59.940
 Like we're, we're not doing to the full streaming level, but having like my, my daughter, um, seeing that and starting to converse with her.

00:33:00.240 --> 00:33:01.240
 Like, it's so funny.

00:33:01.280 --> 00:33:02.940
 I actually had this conversation with her.

00:33:02.980 --> 00:33:06.600
 We were helping, um, plant the physical church.

00:33:06.600 --> 00:33:09.120
 I was running, you're a physical church tech guy.

00:33:09.420 --> 00:33:12.040
 I was doing that maybe five or six years ago.

00:33:12.300 --> 00:33:16.060
 And, uh, we were going to help plant a physical multi-site campus.

00:33:16.140 --> 00:33:17.500
 We were talking about planting churches.

00:33:18.120 --> 00:33:23.720
 And, um, and, and I said to my daughter who was probably 12, maybe, maybe it was 10 at the time.

00:33:24.020 --> 00:33:26.600
 Hey, so how, how do you think you would plant the physical church?

00:33:27.180 --> 00:33:32.360
 And she just starts rattling through like her mental process of what planting a church was.

00:33:32.880 --> 00:33:38.120
 Um, and the funny thing was she, I was expecting her to do like the, if you build it, they will come.

00:33:38.820 --> 00:33:47.560
 Um, but what she actually started to do was build the team, recruit volunteers, literally just like disciple them, grow them, train them, and then release them.

00:33:47.900 --> 00:33:48.380
 Start with the foundation.

00:33:48.500 --> 00:33:54.220
 And, and, and I'm like, my daughter's 10 and she just knows more than like, you know, and I'm not going to, I'm not going to finish that sentence.

00:33:54.360 --> 00:33:58.840
 But it was incredible, you know, some of what was, what was coming out of her on that.

00:33:59.060 --> 00:34:01.180
 So, uh, man, this is, this is so good.

00:34:01.640 --> 00:34:02.860
 Let's talk a little bit.

00:34:02.920 --> 00:34:06.680
 I want to dance around because, you know, you're, you're, you're discord as well.

00:34:07.400 --> 00:34:16.140
 Um, you know, when I've asked, I have asked people in the know, cause I do not know, but I've asked people in the know, Hey, who's really good at, at discord.

00:34:16.820 --> 00:34:18.740
 Your name comes up more often than not.

00:34:19.300 --> 00:34:24.300
 And, uh, and so you're, you're an interesting balance between Twitch and discord.

00:34:24.300 --> 00:34:29.660
 I don't know how common that is, but typically I see people who are really strong on one side than the other.

00:34:29.880 --> 00:34:38.900
 And you're like this, this, um, I don't know, purple dinosaur that, that equal pink, uh, unicorn, I guess makes more sense that puts it together.

00:34:39.820 --> 00:34:43.660
 We've let me say nude again, cause this thing's just going crazy here.

00:34:43.720 --> 00:34:47.600
 This question, off the rails, we're done.

00:34:47.700 --> 00:34:49.520
 What's the role of, of, of discord?

00:34:49.640 --> 00:34:50.940
 How do you balance it into what you're doing?

00:34:52.680 --> 00:35:00.060
 Uh, you know, I, I, I kind of see it as you talked about discipleship just kind of briefly, but I feel like it's just that, that part of community building.

00:35:00.180 --> 00:35:03.380
 You know, you can only learn so much about somebody in a, in a Twitch chat.

00:35:03.500 --> 00:35:10.280
 Um, learn a lot more when you have a chance to watch them conversate on discord or hang out in a voice chat with them.

00:35:10.280 --> 00:35:20.400
 And so we're kind of intentional about events in our discord, uh, whether that's movie or game nights and, and hanging out and, and watching things and kind of doing life together and talking about things.

00:35:20.400 --> 00:35:28.060
 Cause I always, I'll, I'll, I'll actually sit in there usually after whatever event we're doing is over and just hang out and chat with people and ask about their day.

00:35:28.060 --> 00:35:34.920
 And just, you know, you, you, you, you, you find out so much more about people when you get a chance to sit and, and chat with them.

00:35:35.340 --> 00:35:36.360
 So, yeah.

00:35:37.440 --> 00:35:40.380
 But I think, I think it's just intentional about those relationships.

00:35:41.540 --> 00:35:48.720
 So you're like, you're like, you're 40 hours, nine to five, you're 25 to 30 on, on Twitch.

00:35:48.840 --> 00:35:50.400
 How much time are you putting into discord?

00:35:51.680 --> 00:35:55.940
 Um, I get a notification every time there's a message sent in my discord on my phone.

00:35:56.020 --> 00:36:01.940
 So probably a lot of passive time staring at this, um, you know, chat with people, interacting with folks.

00:36:01.940 --> 00:36:07.940
 And yeah, do you, you know, it's, it's funny.

00:36:08.040 --> 00:36:13.400
 There used to be like the saying for what happens in Facebook stays in Facebook where, you know, it just like, that was like separate.

00:36:13.760 --> 00:36:17.380
 Do you talk about discord in, in those conversations on Twitch?

00:36:17.420 --> 00:36:18.960
 Do you reference Twitch and discord?

00:36:18.960 --> 00:36:19.940
 Like where it's unified?

00:36:19.940 --> 00:36:20.200
 Absolutely.

00:36:20.640 --> 00:36:22.380
 They're very, they're very intermingled.

00:36:22.540 --> 00:36:22.940
 Absolutely.

00:36:23.260 --> 00:36:23.420
 Yeah.

00:36:23.520 --> 00:36:26.960
 And there's, there's some folks that are in our discord that actually don't watch our streams.

00:36:27.500 --> 00:36:29.420
 Um, there's some folks in our streams that aren't in our discord.

00:36:29.940 --> 00:36:32.780
 Um, but we still reference each other and kind of mesh together.

00:36:32.780 --> 00:36:44.100
 And I regularly, when I'm, when I'm playing with the community, if we're doing raids or whatever in destiny or games in Fortnite, so on and so forth, um, we'll hop into discord with people and be in voice chat and hang out and game together.

00:36:44.100 --> 00:36:44.900
 So, yeah.

00:36:45.920 --> 00:36:49.980
 I want to ask a follow-up on the discipleship piece.

00:36:50.420 --> 00:36:51.880
 Um, it's, it's, it's funny.

00:36:51.980 --> 00:36:54.600
 You line up 10 pastors and you ask them what discipleship means.

00:36:54.660 --> 00:36:59.760
 You get 15 different answers because a couple, everybody thinks something different and a couple of them think multiple things.

00:36:59.820 --> 00:37:00.500
 They don't realize it.

00:37:00.800 --> 00:37:09.420
 Um, what does, in the idea of digital discipleship, discipling in digital space, like through the podcast, we're friends of that.

00:37:09.420 --> 00:37:15.900
 But even within the podcast and the audience, there's different ideas of what discipleship or disciple making or whatever it is.

00:37:16.980 --> 00:37:23.500
 With your church, with your stream, whatever, you know, that would actually be the, probably the intro.

00:37:23.640 --> 00:37:24.880
 First question, what are you?

00:37:24.940 --> 00:37:26.100
 What do you consider yourself?

00:37:26.420 --> 00:37:30.540
 And then what is your role in discipleship?

00:37:30.660 --> 00:37:36.420
 What are, what's the goal, the expectation, the hope, the prayer for discipleship within your, your org?

00:37:37.140 --> 00:37:40.320
 Yeah, I think for me, the, I consider myself a digital missionary.

00:37:40.660 --> 00:37:43.080
 Um, that's, that's, that's what we attempt to do.

00:37:43.160 --> 00:37:45.040
 We're big on evangelizing.

00:37:45.160 --> 00:37:51.440
 We talk a lot about how you don't have to believe the same ways we do to belong in our community, but I love Jesus and it colors everything I do.

00:37:51.540 --> 00:37:54.640
 All the conversations that we have, we're very open and transparent about that.

00:37:55.020 --> 00:38:11.180
 Um, but really open and honest in, in Twitch chat about, um, maybe, maybe, maybe keeping some of those difficult, like nuanced theological conversations to like, I will, I've had some difficult, nuanced theological conversations in voice chat over discord.

00:38:11.820 --> 00:38:17.220
 Because so often stuff gets misconstrued over text and those, those conversations are more difficult to have.

00:38:17.380 --> 00:38:27.020
 It's a lot easier when you can hear the vocal timbre of what someone is saying when you're, when you're speaking, uh, in a discord, in a voice call, or even if you're on camera, a lot of times I'll, I'll be in discord.

00:38:27.020 --> 00:38:35.940
 I'll have my camera on so people can see, you know, my posture and the way that I'm communicating and the way that I'm trying to be empathetic and understand and listen to the things that they're trying to say.

00:38:36.540 --> 00:38:39.320
 Um, but it, it, it totally depends.

00:38:39.440 --> 00:39:03.440
 I mean, obviously I've, I've had gospel conversations with folks we've had, I've, I've prayed with a few folks, um, but I've also encouraged them to either get plugged into a local church or, uh, there's wonderful online church resources such as Lux Digital Church or God Squad Church that we, we generally point them towards, uh, if they're looking for more in-depth, intentional discipleship in small groups, because I'm one person, my wife is one person.

00:39:03.680 --> 00:39:26.740
 And when it comes to, um, and when it comes to, um, being able to really grow a community outside of what we're attempting to do when it comes to the family and being more intentional about deeper faith and theological discussions, you know, Lux and God Squad Church, I would say we really align when it comes to the principles of the gospel and doing that intentional discipleship, building that really solid foundational relationship with Christ.

00:39:27.240 --> 00:39:40.960
 I love how much, um, I love how much the, the gaming community churches, the, the, the, the, the digital missionaries, the discipleship groups, the, like, I love how much unity, how much they're working together.

00:39:41.380 --> 00:39:46.860
 Um, and, and, and so the fact that you just listed God Squad and, and, uh, and, and Lux is, is incredible.

00:39:47.540 --> 00:39:53.360
 Um, is there a, do you, like, I don't, I'm going to say the question this way.

00:39:53.380 --> 00:39:56.680
 I know it's not that rough, but at what point do you kick them out of the nest?

00:39:57.020 --> 00:40:01.460
 Like, is there, is there a characteristic or a trait that you're looking for that's seen developed?

00:40:01.580 --> 00:40:03.380
 Is it case by case basis?

00:40:03.380 --> 00:40:08.760
 Do you let them self-identify when it's time to, to head to the next step, whatever that is?

00:40:08.760 --> 00:40:12.220
 Like, what is, what is the maturation process and what's next?

00:40:12.940 --> 00:40:19.600
 Combination of your last two points, case by case, and kind of letting them decide when, Hey, when, when do you really want more?

00:40:20.000 --> 00:40:26.420
 You know, because obviously we all know as we build a relationship with Christ, we become more hungry and thirsty for more of, of him.

00:40:26.600 --> 00:40:37.080
 And so as, as that naturally develops, again, we, we, we, we continually point and encourage people to plug into those deeper resources where they can find that discipleship.

00:40:37.540 --> 00:40:41.880
 Um, and it's not just limited to GSC and Lux because I love both of those ministries.

00:40:41.880 --> 00:40:42.860
 And I think it's so important.

00:40:42.860 --> 00:40:46.760
 And there's going to be so many people who are on Twitch will never, who will never walk into a physical church.

00:40:46.840 --> 00:40:51.640
 But for those that are capable and willing, I do encourage them to, to find a local church if they can.

00:40:51.960 --> 00:40:55.200
 So there's definitely, we, we kind of take that hybrid approach.

00:40:57.180 --> 00:40:57.580
 Interesting.

00:40:58.420 --> 00:41:05.400
 So I see in chat, somebody said something about a movie event, movie events that you do on your off nights.

00:41:06.440 --> 00:41:07.540
 What's a movie event?

00:41:08.620 --> 00:41:11.960
 Um, well, we all, we all get together in discord and we watch a movie together.

00:41:12.100 --> 00:41:14.440
 Um, in January, we did Jones January.

00:41:14.440 --> 00:41:16.040
 We watched through the Indiana Jones movies.

00:41:16.040 --> 00:41:18.780
 Uh, this past month we did Pirates of the Caribbean.

00:41:19.260 --> 00:41:22.100
 Um, so we do different kinds of movie series and sagas.

00:41:22.100 --> 00:41:26.380
 And, uh, last year we had a big event where we watched all the Lord of the Rings movies together.

00:41:26.500 --> 00:41:28.260
 That was, uh, those were marathons.

00:41:28.400 --> 00:41:29.000
 Those were longs.

00:41:29.080 --> 00:41:35.780
 Um, but I, fortunately, I do have some community members who are generally, uh, willing to run those events for me.

00:41:35.860 --> 00:41:40.440
 I occasionally, the one that I dedicate to doing every week is on Wednesday nights or later in the evenings.

00:41:40.440 --> 00:41:41.760
 We, we watch anime together.

00:41:42.060 --> 00:41:44.760
 So we're an intersection of a lot of different nerd cultures.

00:41:44.760 --> 00:41:46.640
 We don't just do gaming.

00:41:46.640 --> 00:41:47.740
 We do anime.

00:41:47.920 --> 00:41:48.760
 We do Star Wars.

00:41:48.760 --> 00:41:50.620
 We do, we do all of the things really.

00:41:50.620 --> 00:41:56.620
 And actually, it's funny because my daughter who's 12 has never seen Star Wars and we're probably going to do that pretty soon.

00:41:56.980 --> 00:41:57.100
 So.

00:41:58.260 --> 00:41:59.480
 It's interesting.

00:42:00.820 --> 00:42:01.380
 Totally.

00:42:01.680 --> 00:42:10.800
 You just listed off like three or four of the movie series, the trilogies that I've watched in the past two months in 23.

00:42:11.140 --> 00:42:13.080
 Like, I've watched all the Indiana Jones.

00:42:13.320 --> 00:42:16.460
 I've, I've watched, um, I'm watching Star Wars all the time.

00:42:17.100 --> 00:42:19.440
 Um, uh, Pirates of the Caribbean.

00:42:19.440 --> 00:42:21.040
 I just kicked off the other day.

00:42:21.600 --> 00:42:23.840
 Um, like, and it's so that that's fascinating.

00:42:23.920 --> 00:42:25.840
 So, but let me, let me, let me get granular.

00:42:26.620 --> 00:42:37.480
 Someone is, is streaming that into Discord onto your server and then people are coming in and they're doing text chat, voice chat while they're watching.

00:42:37.480 --> 00:42:38.560
 Like, what, what is.

00:42:38.660 --> 00:42:38.800
 Yeah.

00:42:38.900 --> 00:42:48.620
 So, before Discord integrated this, we actually had a voice for the mic list, um, chat, which is for people who come in who don't have mics can, can type in text chat.

00:42:48.620 --> 00:42:52.120
 But now, like an individual voice channels, there's a separate text chat thread.

00:42:52.640 --> 00:43:00.040
 And so, we'll, we'll have the movie up and everybody will be, you know, there'll be a running commentary going as we're watching the movie and we'll sit there.

00:43:00.100 --> 00:43:01.400
 And that's just a wonderful way.

00:43:01.500 --> 00:43:07.860
 It's not going to say like a mystery science theater effect, but you know, you get to sit there and you have conversations about the movie while you're watching the movie together.

00:43:08.580 --> 00:43:08.660
 So.

00:43:09.340 --> 00:43:10.740
 That's, it's incredible.

00:43:10.980 --> 00:43:15.300
 Now, I mean, in my mind, I'm like, is, is, is that licensing?

00:43:15.300 --> 00:43:19.360
 It's like having a bunch of, it's like, it's like having a bunch of friends over sitting on the couch and watching a movie.

00:43:19.740 --> 00:43:19.940
 Yeah.

00:43:20.140 --> 00:43:22.600
 It's, it's, it's like the, you know, the watch party feature.

00:43:22.640 --> 00:43:25.620
 Except you're using voice where most of that is, is text.

00:43:25.720 --> 00:43:28.020
 Like that's, and so you're getting a lot of engagement.

00:43:28.020 --> 00:43:30.820
 People are watching the stuff together and they're, they're laughing.

00:43:30.900 --> 00:43:31.720
 They're having fun with it.

00:43:32.260 --> 00:43:32.620
 Absolutely.

00:43:33.680 --> 00:43:34.080
 Cool.

00:43:34.320 --> 00:43:42.940
 Well, I mean, what another way to just build community and allow people to build community with each other through, through watching that.

00:43:43.080 --> 00:43:44.320
 That's, that's really interesting.

00:43:45.140 --> 00:43:48.420
 Flatcap says his go-to movie would be Monty Python.

00:43:49.080 --> 00:43:51.640
 I'm assuming, of course, that would be the Holy Grail.

00:43:52.140 --> 00:43:54.640
 And I'm, of course, flashing to, I'm not dead yet.

00:43:54.720 --> 00:43:55.200
 Yes, you are.

00:43:55.280 --> 00:43:55.900
 No, I'm not.

00:43:56.080 --> 00:44:00.680
 So thank you, Flatcap, for, you know, letting me enjoy that moment with you.

00:44:01.020 --> 00:44:01.660
 Just a flesh wound.

00:44:02.800 --> 00:44:03.840
 Just a flesh wound.

00:44:04.480 --> 00:44:05.060
 That's right.

00:44:05.760 --> 00:44:06.560
 Oh my gosh.

00:44:06.580 --> 00:44:07.360
 I have not watched that movie.

00:44:07.640 --> 00:44:09.680
 My, my degree in college was radio, TV, film.

00:44:10.320 --> 00:44:14.620
 I have an Among Us t-shirt that is, is, is like that scene.

00:44:14.720 --> 00:44:19.020
 And it says it's just a flesh wound, but it's after the imposter has obviously decapitated another crewmate.

00:44:19.180 --> 00:44:20.980
 So it's funny.

00:44:22.680 --> 00:44:23.420
 So good.

00:44:25.300 --> 00:44:27.960
 The, man, I don't even know like where to go.

00:44:28.020 --> 00:44:28.940
 This has been solid.

00:44:29.040 --> 00:44:33.600
 I've just been, been drilling you with questions and you've been, you've been flowing here, man.

00:44:33.660 --> 00:44:34.520
 This is, this is solid.

00:44:36.520 --> 00:44:37.540
 Where do you want to go?

00:44:37.980 --> 00:44:41.760
 Like, where, what is, what does your ministry look like in, in 2025 and 27?

00:44:42.760 --> 00:44:52.200
 I think, uh, it, it's, as, uh, it, it's fun because I get to sit here and think about, well, as my, as my kids grow up, we're obviously going to have different phases of the stream, right?

00:44:52.720 --> 00:44:54.240
 Peach has become a real gamer.

00:44:54.380 --> 00:44:56.940
 Like she's, she's really coming into her own as a gamer.

00:44:56.940 --> 00:45:03.360
 And I actually, I see skills in her that could present as possibly, uh, becoming an e-sports competitor.

00:45:03.580 --> 00:45:04.060
 Who knows?

00:45:04.120 --> 00:45:05.260
 Who knows what the future holds for her?

00:45:05.360 --> 00:45:05.940
 It's hard to say.

00:45:06.400 --> 00:45:12.740
 Um, baby Aki, the wonderful thing about him is as he grows older, we recently, just this past summer, played through my favorite game of all time.

00:45:12.760 --> 00:45:13.920
 Which was Chrono Trigger.

00:45:14.460 --> 00:45:24.980
 Um, so I'll, I'll be able to share some of those epic, amazing, uh, games that I really, really love with her, with them on stream and age appropriate as they, as they get older.

00:45:25.500 --> 00:45:33.420
 And, uh, yeah, I think, I think that the, the five to 10 year plan, as it were, is just work through those different phases of life together.

00:45:33.420 --> 00:45:39.060
 And the interesting thing about our communities, you literally get to watch our kids grow up as the stream goes on.

00:45:39.400 --> 00:45:42.580
 So, yeah, it's a lot of fun.

00:45:42.760 --> 00:45:54.580
 How do you, because I, and I know like we've had conversations on the side and one of the things that I love, uh, with the Megazord, the meetings that we had in April and there's a documentary out about that.

00:45:54.680 --> 00:45:55.840
 We just published the blog.

00:45:56.500 --> 00:46:06.660
 Mark, uh, the tech guy, the digital pastor for Lux Digital Church, the tech person who almost accidentally just hung up on us and closed the stream.

00:46:07.100 --> 00:46:08.520
 Thank you, Mark, for not doing that.

00:46:08.640 --> 00:46:10.700
 Maybe I need to really find the new tech guy next week.

00:46:11.160 --> 00:46:23.380
 Um, but he, he, um, you know, he, he, he brought, he and some others brought, uh, this group together and there's this huge emphasis and push now within on a multiplication.

00:46:23.880 --> 00:46:26.540
 How, how, how do we train the next level?

00:46:26.540 --> 00:46:32.540
 How, how do we, how do we multiply our, our ideas, our vision, who we are into others?

00:46:33.200 --> 00:46:41.360
 Um, you've shared some really intimate things, you know, suicide, depression, um, uh, pornography addiction.

00:46:41.360 --> 00:46:50.700
 Uh, and those, those are, those are legitimate, those are heartfelt, those, those are major issues that, that, that connect, that peel to the inner, innerness.

00:46:50.840 --> 00:46:53.220
 The man looks on the outward appearance, the Lord looks at the heart.

00:46:53.340 --> 00:46:56.680
 And so you sharing that's allowing many others to connect with you.

00:46:57.500 --> 00:46:58.820
 How does that multiply?

00:47:00.040 --> 00:47:03.040
 How do you get others to be as open and transparent?

00:47:04.040 --> 00:47:06.860
 I think, again, that authenticity breeds vulnerability.

00:47:06.860 --> 00:47:18.740
 And when, when people, when people are able to share those things and see those things be shared in a judgment-free environment, those things have weight, they have consequences.

00:47:18.740 --> 00:47:19.980
 I talk about the consequences.

00:47:19.980 --> 00:47:21.660
 I talk about how my marriage almost ended.

00:47:21.980 --> 00:47:27.180
 And it's, I talk about the things that we went through and the struggles and all of, all of those real things.

00:47:27.280 --> 00:47:34.660
 But seeing the hope on the other side of it, I think, encourages people to, to be vulnerable and to be authentic.

00:47:34.660 --> 00:47:37.540
 And to really, to dive into those things.

00:47:38.040 --> 00:47:46.060
 And as those people continue to share about their struggles and talk with others about the things that are going, that's just a natural multiplication effect.

00:47:47.000 --> 00:47:47.080
 So.

00:47:48.020 --> 00:47:49.480
 Do you have to coach courage?

00:47:50.440 --> 00:47:54.980
 Like, I mean, it's one thing to recognize and to be vulnerable, you know, one-on-one.

00:47:55.980 --> 00:48:05.020
 But to say that in front of a microphone with the camera on with, you said you were authorized, so 75 at the partner in front of 75 people.

00:48:05.380 --> 00:48:07.960
 I mean, that's, that's a legitimate thing.

00:48:09.180 --> 00:48:11.760
 What, what, what is, what is, does that grow naturally?

00:48:11.900 --> 00:48:12.920
 Like, what does that look like?

00:48:13.860 --> 00:48:25.720
 I think, um, I, again, when you are called to someone, I think, called to something, I do believe that the Lord provides you with the strength necessary to complete the task.

00:48:25.720 --> 00:48:29.960
 And so for me, I don't know, like, there's, there's no shame in the truth.

00:48:30.100 --> 00:48:31.200
 There's no shame in Christ.

00:48:31.200 --> 00:48:39.280
 And, and knowing that I am forgiven and the Lord loves me, um, in spite of my many failings and that I am a child of God.

00:48:39.280 --> 00:48:44.120
 And knowing that that's where my identity lies, it's a lot easier to be courageous and open about those things.

00:48:45.120 --> 00:48:54.440
 What, um, do you find, like, would you find those people within the crowd?

00:48:54.980 --> 00:48:58.300
 Are you, would you find people like, yeah.

00:48:59.080 --> 00:48:59.280
 Okay.

00:49:00.220 --> 00:49:00.660
 Yeah.

00:49:00.760 --> 00:49:02.980
 How have those, have you had any of those conversations yet?

00:49:03.280 --> 00:49:08.740
 Um, and I don't, I don't want to like, like push too hard here, but I'm just, just curious because I love what you're doing.

00:49:09.020 --> 00:49:16.040
 And, and I, and I think you can totally multiply because it's out, you're not getting a paycheck or much of a paycheck from it.

00:49:16.300 --> 00:49:19.180
 You're, you're influencing people that are at a huge need.

00:49:19.240 --> 00:49:23.300
 You're creating a family environment for people that don't necessarily have one like this.

00:49:23.500 --> 00:49:26.560
 There's a lot of opportunities in this space.

00:49:27.260 --> 00:49:33.720
 Um, and I could see a lot of people being interested in doing something like this, whether connected to a church or not.

00:49:33.980 --> 00:49:38.200
 So, um, like, have you had any conversations like that?

00:49:38.200 --> 00:49:41.220
 Are people open to the idea or, or what does some of that look like?

00:49:43.200 --> 00:49:47.460
 Um, I haven't necessarily had any of those specific conversations yet.

00:49:47.500 --> 00:49:54.740
 I mean, I've had a lot of one-on-one people coming to me and, and, and wanting to do things and wanting to get into this.

00:49:54.740 --> 00:50:01.140
 And I've, you know, provided advice and encouragement and, uh, I've, I've seen some growth.

00:50:01.420 --> 00:50:04.780
 Um, I think it's still kind of the early stages for a lot of that.

00:50:04.840 --> 00:50:06.880
 And so we'll see, we'll see kind of where the Lord takes it.

00:50:07.380 --> 00:50:08.800
 That's, that's exciting.

00:50:09.020 --> 00:50:09.180
 Yeah.

00:50:09.300 --> 00:50:26.620
 Just the, the potential, uh, and when I look at gaming churches, when I look at digital missionaries, when I look at, at, you know, we have so many conversations along this path between, uh, between Mark and Bubba and, uh, and Jate and Jono with the e-sports, Jate with digital missionary.

00:50:26.620 --> 00:50:30.480
 And now you, there's, it's, there's this huge potential.

00:50:31.040 --> 00:50:34.520
 There's this huge opportunity to reach a different type of person.

00:50:34.620 --> 00:50:38.120
 There's three point something billion gamers on the planet.

00:50:38.120 --> 00:50:42.900
 And, and it's not, Hey, let's create a church for a billion people, or even a church for a million people.

00:50:42.900 --> 00:50:48.880
 Let's create, you know, a million expressions of churches that can reach 30 or 50 or a hundred, whatever the math is there.

00:50:48.940 --> 00:50:51.480
 I know that math is way off, but you at least see where I'm going.

00:50:52.100 --> 00:50:59.500
 And so reproducing, um, some of the ideas here is totally a win.

00:50:59.880 --> 00:51:07.960
 Uh, and so taking, creating a home environment for, for the people that you are is great and to reach 75, a hundred.

00:51:07.960 --> 00:51:20.900
 Let me ask you the question, when do you lose, maybe lose control is the wrong word, but when does the thing get too big for you, uh, in your, uh, you know, ADHD mind, uh, to keep up with like, where is it?

00:51:20.940 --> 00:51:21.640
 I can't do this.

00:51:22.800 --> 00:51:31.920
 I think, I think the biggest thing is that the stream, keeping up with the stream chat where we're at right now, I'm not at my capacity yet.

00:51:32.900 --> 00:51:35.380
 It totally depends on how many people are talking at the same time.

00:51:36.320 --> 00:51:41.920
 So often on Twitch, people aren't even necessarily chatting, but they are listening to what you have to say.

00:51:42.620 --> 00:51:45.860
 Um, and so I think that there is definitely scalability there.

00:51:45.860 --> 00:51:50.500
 I think a lot of it depends on how many people, because we, we have some really good mods.

00:51:50.580 --> 00:51:52.080
 We have some really good people that are running events.

00:51:52.180 --> 00:51:56.620
 We have some really good help right now that is going to have to grow as we grow.

00:51:57.140 --> 00:51:59.840
 Um, we're going to need people that are willing to run events.

00:51:59.940 --> 00:52:04.580
 We're going to need people that are willing to, uh, continue to minister to people in the discord.

00:52:04.740 --> 00:52:07.160
 We're going to need people that are willing to moderate the Twitch chat.

00:52:07.240 --> 00:52:14.360
 We're going to need people that are willing to, I have, I have a guy, thankfully that's in our community right now that has volunteered to do some YouTube editing for me.

00:52:14.360 --> 00:52:16.500
 Uh, on a pro bono basis right now.

00:52:16.500 --> 00:52:18.440
 Because again, like you said, not a lot of money.

00:52:18.960 --> 00:52:21.460
 Um, but media editing is huge.

00:52:21.460 --> 00:52:24.120
 Doing thumbnails, doing shorts, all of those things.

00:52:24.120 --> 00:52:25.920
 There's, there's so much that goes into this.

00:52:25.920 --> 00:52:28.640
 And I'm fortunate to have people that are helping right now.

00:52:28.860 --> 00:52:30.980
 That's going to have to grow as this grows.

00:52:31.360 --> 00:52:34.200
 And, you know, people spin off and continue to do their own ministries.

00:52:34.280 --> 00:52:35.660
 They're going to need people to do that too.

00:52:35.840 --> 00:52:37.580
 So all of that goes into that.

00:52:38.460 --> 00:52:43.720
 So as, as a digital missionary, you know, you're not, you're not alone in this.

00:52:43.720 --> 00:52:50.280
 Like I feel like with Jade, I mean, he's got people that are involved, but Jade's not talking about recruiting teams in some of this.

00:52:50.280 --> 00:53:00.380
 But what I hear from you is like recruiting and developing and, and, and like, you're almost a, like a org chart type of thing between the mods and event leaders and things like that.

00:53:01.060 --> 00:53:03.140
 How many people are active with what you're doing now?

00:53:04.580 --> 00:53:10.860
 I would say we probably between moderators and, uh, other people that are contributing in different ways.

00:53:10.920 --> 00:53:13.200
 I'd say we have about a dozen right now.

00:53:13.340 --> 00:53:13.660
 Oh my gosh.

00:53:14.200 --> 00:53:14.640
 Yeah.

00:53:14.880 --> 00:53:16.840
 So they're, and they're all, all volunteers.

00:53:17.600 --> 00:53:18.580
 All volunteers.

00:53:18.940 --> 00:53:19.380
 Beautiful.

00:53:20.140 --> 00:53:21.620
 All people that believe in what we're doing.

00:53:21.620 --> 00:53:30.100
 And so you're just sharing vision with them, getting them excited and, and, and encouraging them and celebrating what's happening in the part that they played.

00:53:31.440 --> 00:53:31.880
 Absolutely.

00:53:32.300 --> 00:53:32.800
 So good.

00:53:32.800 --> 00:53:33.080
 Absolutely.

00:53:33.320 --> 00:53:36.180
 Hey, let's, let's pivot real quick.

00:53:36.280 --> 00:53:36.940
 Last question.

00:53:37.300 --> 00:53:39.600
 Um, physical church.

00:53:41.500 --> 00:53:43.700
 How do they get into this?

00:53:44.260 --> 00:53:46.020
 Like opinions, thoughts.

00:53:46.560 --> 00:53:47.220
 What do you think?

00:53:47.540 --> 00:53:51.540
 So what's really cool about our, so I'll share the story of our physical church.

00:53:51.620 --> 00:53:55.360
 What's really cool about what our physical church has done is my, I actually shared with my pastor.

00:53:55.480 --> 00:53:59.500
 I said, Hey, I feel called to do this thing on Twitch.

00:53:59.840 --> 00:54:02.780
 So I'm going to do this thing on Twitch and I'll let you guys know how it goes.

00:54:02.780 --> 00:54:03.920
 If you could be praying for me.

00:54:04.280 --> 00:54:05.380
 And, uh, that's what they've done.

00:54:05.380 --> 00:54:14.700
 He actually has come into a few of our Twitch streams and, uh, they actually on Sunday mornings, they, they have a slide in the announcements, uh, that, that talks about our Twitch stream.

00:54:14.700 --> 00:54:25.280
 And it's just letting nerds know we have a few people that go to our church that are nerds, um, destiny gamers, other people that, that come into our Twitch stream and come by and hang out and game with us.

00:54:25.460 --> 00:54:39.160
 And so I think that for the physical church, it's a pretty easy ask, you know, you could even just, I don't know, like whether it's through small groups or even just an announcement on a Sunday morning and say, Hey, we're curious about Twitch.

00:54:39.660 --> 00:54:46.460
 Do any of you stream and have conversations with the people in your congregation that are streamers?

00:54:46.460 --> 00:54:55.720
 Because I guarantee you most churches, there's probably one person that either knows what Twitch is or maybe does a little bit of streaming and ask them about if they take it from a ministry perspective.

00:54:55.720 --> 00:54:56.540
 Is it just a hobby?

00:54:56.640 --> 00:54:57.240
 Is it for fun?

00:54:57.280 --> 00:54:58.160
 Are they being intentional?

00:54:58.340 --> 00:55:00.980
 Like there are definitely ways to pour into those folks.

00:55:01.420 --> 00:55:02.780
 You have to have the conversation first.

00:55:02.860 --> 00:55:04.740
 There's a little bit of discovery that has to happen there.

00:55:05.120 --> 00:55:14.560
 And for the physical church, if you want to treat Twitch as a mission field, which I absolutely believe it is, there's a lot of opportunity to get plugged in and you don't have to stream yourself.

00:55:14.960 --> 00:55:19.440
 But I'm telling you that the people who are streaming could definitely use your help and your support.

00:55:19.980 --> 00:55:21.020
 So, yeah.

00:55:22.280 --> 00:55:23.680
 How hard is it to get started?

00:55:24.100 --> 00:55:28.120
 Like if you could give coaching or advice to somebody who's wanting to get started, what would you tell them to do?

00:55:28.720 --> 00:55:32.280
 I would tell them to get a decent microphone and hit the go live button.

00:55:34.200 --> 00:55:39.980
 But a microphone is huge because like I said, most times people are listening to you more than they're actually watching what you're doing.

00:55:42.380 --> 00:55:45.060
 And is it important to play the video game?

00:55:45.240 --> 00:55:46.400
 Is it just chatting?

00:55:46.900 --> 00:55:50.220
 Like what part does the content play in streaming?

00:55:51.080 --> 00:55:52.840
 Totally depends on what you feel called to do.

00:55:53.020 --> 00:55:53.460
 I'm a nerd.

00:55:53.540 --> 00:55:53.900
 I'm a gamer.

00:55:54.000 --> 00:55:55.500
 I've been a gamer most of my life.

00:55:56.040 --> 00:55:57.260
 So that's what I wanted to do.

00:55:57.320 --> 00:55:58.600
 I wanted to use games to reach people.

00:55:59.100 --> 00:56:02.060
 But I know people that do leatherworking on stream.

00:56:02.180 --> 00:56:03.500
 I know people that do 3D printing.

00:56:03.500 --> 00:56:05.700
 I know all sorts of people that do different things.

00:56:05.860 --> 00:56:07.820
 There's lots of different ways to get involved and plugged in.

00:56:08.380 --> 00:56:09.960
 But the most important thing is just to start.

00:56:11.660 --> 00:56:11.780
 Yeah.

00:56:13.800 --> 00:56:19.180
 Okay, so Chino Mage is like, oh yeah, I'm straight up stealing from Aki for our streams.

00:56:19.400 --> 00:56:20.140
 That's kind of funny.

00:56:21.380 --> 00:56:25.620
 Zach is saying, I see God moving across the spectrum through movies, music, streaming, art.

00:56:26.120 --> 00:56:27.540
 I believe Revival is coming.

00:56:28.740 --> 00:56:29.220
 Thank you.

00:56:29.260 --> 00:56:30.380
 And your interview is Trailblazers.

00:56:30.480 --> 00:56:31.700
 I wasn't looking for Frazier.

00:56:31.700 --> 00:56:32.300
 But thank you.

00:56:32.800 --> 00:56:34.300
 I appreciate that.

00:56:35.780 --> 00:56:42.020
 Man, Aki, I just want to come over there and give you a hug because I love you.

00:56:42.140 --> 00:56:52.440
 But on top of that, man, you're just so transparent, vulnerable, authentic, real, genuine.

00:56:53.140 --> 00:56:58.080
 You know, it's interesting, being digital, like a lot of the words that I just said,

00:56:58.140 --> 00:57:02.040
 the average church does not think can happen in digital space.

00:57:03.860 --> 00:57:05.060
 I think we hung out.

00:57:05.340 --> 00:57:09.280
 And even from a distance, we didn't hang out as much as I would have liked to just because we were...

00:57:09.280 --> 00:57:12.960
 Even when we were there, I felt like we were scattered in different directions and leading in different ways.

00:57:13.560 --> 00:57:15.100
 And so I didn't get much Aki time.

00:57:15.200 --> 00:57:23.080
 But even in this, man, like your heart for what you're doing, the genuineness of who you're reaching and how you're doing it,

00:57:23.720 --> 00:57:27.300
 and recognizing, hey, the role that I'm playing is a digital missionary.

00:57:27.920 --> 00:57:32.860
 I can fill this role well, but I'm not able to do the full picture.

00:57:33.180 --> 00:57:34.980
 And I'm okay recognizing that.

00:57:34.980 --> 00:57:40.300
 So let me hand it off to somebody who can do the deep discipleship at the church level.

00:57:40.940 --> 00:57:47.340
 Like, the fact that you're even okay with that and partnering and working with others is so good.

00:57:48.000 --> 00:57:49.600
 And so, man, I want to thank you.

00:57:50.600 --> 00:57:51.640
 I want to thank...

00:57:51.640 --> 00:57:56.080
 Listen, the thing that I was not expecting to come out of this was the movie thing.

00:57:56.440 --> 00:58:01.060
 Where it's like, yeah, we create community playing movies on Discord.

00:58:01.720 --> 00:58:03.760
 And like, Discord doesn't shut that crap down.

00:58:03.820 --> 00:58:06.060
 Because I'm like, there's got to be some legal issue why that won't work.

00:58:06.160 --> 00:58:07.820
 But evidently, Aki's doing it.

00:58:07.900 --> 00:58:09.760
 So we're going to say that's legal.

00:58:09.760 --> 00:58:13.640
 And just any hate or any lawsuit, send it Aki's way.

00:58:13.800 --> 00:58:15.420
 Jeff didn't tell you to do it, but Aki did.

00:58:17.240 --> 00:58:17.600
 Yeah.

00:58:19.180 --> 00:58:20.580
 So it's so good.

00:58:20.780 --> 00:58:24.260
 And understanding what you want to do, who you want to reach.

00:58:24.360 --> 00:58:26.960
 You know, St. Baird just threw some comments in chat about that.

00:58:27.040 --> 00:58:30.920
 I know that was a source, a topic, a target audience and personas.

00:58:31.700 --> 00:58:31.980
 Yeah.

00:58:32.080 --> 00:58:33.700
 Well, and I talked a little bit about that, right?

00:58:33.800 --> 00:58:34.340
 At Begazord.

00:58:34.620 --> 00:58:35.820
 That's where I honed in on my one.

00:58:35.820 --> 00:58:40.780
 And figure out what you're wanting to do, find your niche, hone in on your one.

00:58:41.280 --> 00:58:42.360
 That is definitely important.

00:58:43.360 --> 00:58:43.440
 Yeah.

00:58:44.160 --> 00:58:47.160
 And so, Melorus, I can't even read.

00:58:47.460 --> 00:58:49.240
 Melinius, I have no idea if I said that correct.

00:58:49.380 --> 00:58:51.500
 Mel, at least I can read that much because I'm blind.

00:58:51.860 --> 00:58:54.440
 If you find out legal on that, feel free to let me know.

00:58:54.500 --> 00:58:56.100
 Dear Fedge on social and Discord.

00:58:56.820 --> 00:58:58.660
 But hey, guys, we're going to wrap the plane.

00:58:58.760 --> 00:58:59.880
 We're going to wrap the plane.

00:58:59.980 --> 00:59:04.560
 Let me say nude again because, like, my words have not been coming out of my mouth well today.

00:59:04.620 --> 00:59:06.260
 But we're going to land the plane here.

00:59:07.200 --> 00:59:11.680
 So, for Aki, who's engaging in chat, this has been a lot of fun.

00:59:11.740 --> 00:59:14.620
 But this is Jeff with the Church Digital, Digital Church Network.

00:59:14.740 --> 00:59:17.960
 Thanks for jumping on the live stream here.

00:59:18.080 --> 00:59:19.420
 Thanks for watching the podcast.

00:59:19.740 --> 00:59:20.760
 Thanks for being part of the show.

00:59:21.220 --> 00:59:21.480
 All right.

00:59:21.580 --> 00:59:22.260
 Y'all have a good day.

00:59:22.440 --> 00:59:22.600
 Bye.

00:59:22.600 --> 00:59:22.620
 Bye.

00:59:22.620 --> 00:59:22.660
 Bye.