WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.840 Welcome to the Church Digital Podcast. Through this podcast, we'll talk about the technological 00:00:04.840 --> 00:00:10.920 innovations within the church. But more than tech for tech itself, we'll address deeper questions. 00:00:11.760 --> 00:00:16.640 Is disciple making possible digitally? How should we approach the digital mission field? 00:00:17.380 --> 00:00:22.440 Can a biblically grounded church operate in digital space? Oh, and where does the metaverse 00:00:22.440 --> 00:00:27.920 fit into all this? Whether you're a big or small church, an established church, or a startup church 00:00:27.920 --> 00:00:33.840 plant. The Church Digital's goal is to help churches like yours learn to be a multiplying church, 00:00:34.480 --> 00:00:40.460 digitally and physically. Our heart? That churches like yours will discover a newfound focus on 00:00:40.460 --> 00:00:46.820 disciple making that will revolutionize your church. And now, here's your host, Jeff Reed. 00:00:46.960 --> 00:00:53.080 Hey, everybody, and welcome to this episode of the Church Digital Podcast. I am your replacement host, 00:00:53.080 --> 00:01:00.360 Mark, because we are still sitting at Exponential here in Orlando. And Jeff, the normal host of the 00:01:00.360 --> 00:01:05.020 Church Digital Podcast, which is the first episode that you're listening to, go back and listen to some 00:01:05.020 --> 00:01:09.780 of the awesome episodes that Jeff has. There's so many of them that are right here on the feed. But 00:01:09.780 --> 00:01:17.180 Jeff is off doing lots of things with metaverse and cryptocurrency and blockchain something. I don't 00:01:17.180 --> 00:01:21.980 understand what that is. I just picture cement blocks connected with chains, and evidently I'm wrong. 00:01:22.700 --> 00:01:28.780 And so he's doing all of that amazing stuff. So I'm subbing in for him here in season four, 00:01:28.780 --> 00:01:33.100 where we're talking about gamers and the church and Jesus, how those things are coming together, 00:01:33.100 --> 00:01:37.340 and what God is doing in magnificently beautiful ways inside of digital space. Specifically, 00:01:37.340 --> 00:01:42.000 we're looking in Twitch and Discord. We've interviewed some amazing digital missionaries, 00:01:42.000 --> 00:01:47.360 digital church leaders, and we've already seen kind of like, what is God doing in these spaces, 00:01:47.360 --> 00:01:51.840 and how is God at work? And, you know, we've talked to Aki, we've talked to Jay, we've talked to 00:01:51.840 --> 00:02:00.320 eSports with Jono. And today, the guest that you have with us is Flat Cap Dapper Pastor. I call him 00:02:00.320 --> 00:02:11.840 Flat Cap. And Flat is a physical church pastor. But you very uniquely have found your way into the Twitch 00:02:11.840 --> 00:02:19.360 ecosystem, not because you're a gamer, necessarily, not because you're like a heavy techie or an early 00:02:19.360 --> 00:02:26.080 adopter tech, necessarily, but instead, through an interesting journey on invitation through a friend 00:02:26.080 --> 00:02:30.720 that kind of got you exploring it. So, Flat, I would, what I'm so excited about in this interview 00:02:30.720 --> 00:02:35.120 for the Church Digital is that there are a lot of pastors who are listening to the Church Digital 00:02:35.120 --> 00:02:42.080 who are in your shoes, or at least where your shoes were two years ago. So, tell us a little 00:02:42.080 --> 00:02:48.320 about the journey and, like, why you're on this and why you, like, took this journey or now in the 00:02:48.320 --> 00:02:55.200 the world of Twitch.tv. Yeah, that's a long story. We've got an hour, so let me get into it. No, 00:02:55.200 --> 00:03:03.360 I'm just kidding. So, I have done pastor networks for some time, because, you know, go to John 17, 00:03:03.360 --> 00:03:08.240 read the whole thing. We're supposed to be in unity. And if we can't be in unity as pastors, 00:03:08.240 --> 00:03:12.960 how would we expect our people in our congregations to ever do that? How would we expect the church to 00:03:12.960 --> 00:03:19.280 ever do that? So, I've been doing that for years. And a guy that I know has been on the podcast a few 00:03:19.280 --> 00:03:25.760 times, and he's in a life transition right now, but was Pastor Brock VR. And Pastor Brock was in my 00:03:25.760 --> 00:03:30.880 group. We would get together every other week. We're talking about what's going on in our lives. 00:03:30.880 --> 00:03:33.200 We're talking about all that. I can get into that later if you want to. 00:03:33.200 --> 00:03:37.040 And to be clear, Pastor Brock is a, he was a physical church pastor. 00:03:37.040 --> 00:03:37.680 Yes, physical church pastor. 00:03:37.680 --> 00:03:40.300 That was doing virtual reality ministry on top of that. 00:03:40.340 --> 00:03:44.960 Right, right. So, he would come in and he'd say, hey, I just did this thing on Sunday night in VR, 00:03:45.120 --> 00:03:49.840 and I bought this Oculus, and I put this on, and I'm sitting there and having conversations. And I walk 00:03:49.840 --> 00:03:54.560 up to someone and say, hey, what's going on in your life? What's important to you? What do you think's 00:03:54.560 --> 00:03:59.920 important in life? And they just go, I don't know. And he'd say, well, I got to evangelize. Got to do 00:03:59.920 --> 00:04:04.540 all this stuff. And I'm like, yeah, it's great, man. You're young. You got kids that are in elementary 00:04:04.540 --> 00:04:10.140 school. I remember what it was like to be there. My kids are older. Great. You go have fun. And he 00:04:10.140 --> 00:04:14.380 just kept talking about it and talking about it for like two years. And then he just kept talking 00:04:14.380 --> 00:04:20.040 more things he was doing. And I'm like, that's great. I'm a senior pastor. I have no time to do any 00:04:20.040 --> 00:04:26.100 of this stuff. I am not going to go jump in and do this. I mean, at the time, I was probably only 00:04:26.100 --> 00:04:30.540 playing Assassin's Creed, probably the only game I was playing. And I actually... It's a good game. 00:04:30.680 --> 00:04:35.520 Yeah, it is. I actually had a group of pastors in a previous place that I lived where the six of us 00:04:35.520 --> 00:04:40.060 got together and all of us were Assassin's Creed guys. So we would just get excited about that. 00:04:40.120 --> 00:04:45.260 But that's like the only game I played for years and then hadn't been playing for a while. And so I'm 00:04:45.260 --> 00:04:50.600 like, man, I'm not doing anything. Yeah. Twitch. My kids have talked about that a few times. And I 00:04:50.600 --> 00:04:54.000 watched them and I'm like, why are you watching someone play a video game? I don't get it. Why 00:04:54.000 --> 00:04:57.960 don't you play? And I just had no clue what was going on. I kept hearing him talk about it, talk 00:04:57.960 --> 00:05:02.860 about it. In the middle of COVID, a lot of transition, a lot of things happening. And I found myself 00:05:02.860 --> 00:05:08.200 resigning from the church I was at, sitting at home, kind of depressed, kind of feeling sorry for 00:05:08.200 --> 00:05:12.960 myself going, God, what do you have? What am I supposed to do next? And I'd go and meet with 00:05:12.960 --> 00:05:17.760 Pastor Brock in our group. And he talked about, man, Sunday was so amazing. We just did this and 00:05:17.760 --> 00:05:20.640 this and this. And yeah, I'm not meeting as a church, but I'm still meeting with these people. 00:05:20.680 --> 00:05:24.680 And I go, I'm gonna go check you out. I got nothing else to do. So I made a Twitch account 00:05:24.680 --> 00:05:32.420 just to watch him. And I'm sitting there in that. And I could not believe how people in the chat 00:05:32.420 --> 00:05:38.800 were engaged in embracing everyone that showed up. I'm like, I don't get welcome like this at church. 00:05:39.700 --> 00:05:44.500 And I come back the next day. And they don't know a thing about me. And they're just like, 00:05:44.660 --> 00:05:50.660 hey, you're back. Great to see you again. Like, what do you mean see me again? I just took, 00:05:50.740 --> 00:05:56.900 it took months of sitting there, of watching and watching and watching. And as I shared, 00:05:57.000 --> 00:06:00.800 I don't know which order this is going, if this one's first or the one we did yesterday, 00:06:00.800 --> 00:06:06.680 I'll be first. But I shared that he just kept saying, hey, go follow him. He's gonna do this. 00:06:06.680 --> 00:06:10.960 And I'm like, man, there ain't no way I'm doing this. I don't know what's, I don't know how to do 00:06:10.960 --> 00:06:16.080 this. Every time that the tech thing jumps and stuff, I kept finding myself in ministry going, 00:06:16.420 --> 00:06:19.800 I don't know how to do this. I don't know what to do. I need to find a shortcut. I need to make it 00:06:19.800 --> 00:06:26.440 happen. We don't have anybody. So I've created, you know, web streams. I was doing YouTube streaming 00:06:26.440 --> 00:06:33.580 like 10 years before the pandemic. But that was because I just wanted to reach our people that were sick. 00:06:33.580 --> 00:06:38.320 I just wanted to reach our people that went to Florida for the winter. I was only thinking of 00:06:38.320 --> 00:06:43.100 digital space as reaching the people I already knew. Yeah. Well, and you know what? Those of us who 00:06:43.100 --> 00:06:48.820 live in snowbird states have known that pain before everyone who lives somewhere warm, right? Because 00:06:48.820 --> 00:06:54.560 snowbird states, you just exit a portion of your population of your congregation every winter. 00:06:54.740 --> 00:06:59.280 And usually all of those people were the biggest givers, right? And so you're like, 00:06:59.280 --> 00:07:03.620 let's find a way to keep, let's make sure they can still come to church in the summertime, right? 00:07:03.620 --> 00:07:09.760 Yeah. So a lot of us in snowbird states, we actually were on, we were online, right? We were live 00:07:09.760 --> 00:07:14.680 streaming to be able to connect our snowbirds during the winter months. Yeah. Yeah. Not all, 00:07:14.860 --> 00:07:20.060 not everyone was doing live. We just happened to already be live, but it was just, yeah, we had it 00:07:20.060 --> 00:07:25.200 set up. We had our stuff. Actually, I might've been actually using Streamlabs OBS to do our, 00:07:25.200 --> 00:07:29.700 our service stuff. But what's interesting is what you're saying is as a physical church pastor, 00:07:29.700 --> 00:07:35.100 not only did I have a lot going on, I didn't really want to learn this space. Oh yeah. I really 00:07:35.100 --> 00:07:40.840 had a desire to. No, I had. And every time the tech jumped, I felt overwhelmed by it and felt like, 00:07:40.840 --> 00:07:46.080 I don't want to go to wherever you're going. Let's just get what we need and ship it. Right. And I 00:07:46.080 --> 00:07:54.120 think the cool, what, what's exciting to me about that is that is that resonates throughout the church 00:07:54.120 --> 00:07:59.340 world, right? Like you're not, it's not like you're the only one with those feelings. Yeah. Every, 00:07:59.420 --> 00:08:02.980 every physical church pastor, one time or another got to have that feeling. Yeah. You know, like I 00:08:02.980 --> 00:08:08.480 wouldn't have been the pioneer that said, Hey, uh, let's go out West and let's see if there's gold. 00:08:08.580 --> 00:08:14.320 I would have said, Oh, there's something going on at Sutter's mill and people are going. And I know 00:08:14.320 --> 00:08:19.880 people going, all right, I might check it out. I'm, I am not going out, rushing into brand new 00:08:19.880 --> 00:08:25.560 things and getting there before people. If I'm there before people was by accident. I mean, not 00:08:25.560 --> 00:08:29.920 that, not that I don't like to innovate, not that I don't like to think outside the box, but the more 00:08:29.920 --> 00:08:35.880 and more I'm learning is what I think is outside the box is still leaning on the box. I'm not way 00:08:35.880 --> 00:08:41.440 outside kicking and screaming that you can't even identify where I'm at. You know, I just stepped out of 00:08:41.440 --> 00:08:50.020 the box. So, uh, so I'm watching him and I start having people follow me. And then I started working 00:08:50.020 --> 00:08:55.680 temporary with churches that are struggling. I got invited into that from a friend who knew me and 00:08:55.680 --> 00:08:59.300 said, Hey, I have a church that's struggling. Can you come alongside of them? And, and, and this is 00:08:59.300 --> 00:09:03.600 just a temporary thing. And, and will that work for you? And I was, okay, I think I can do that. 00:09:03.640 --> 00:09:07.260 It's just part-time. It's just temporary. I'm still healing. My family's still healing. We need to do 00:09:07.260 --> 00:09:13.900 something and I need to get off the couch. But what I didn't realize is in that six months of time 00:09:13.900 --> 00:09:23.020 where I'd been sitting there, um, I was watching six to eight hours of Twitch a day and I had built 00:09:23.020 --> 00:09:27.920 relationships with people. I had engagement with people. Uh, they cared about what was going on in 00:09:27.920 --> 00:09:34.500 my life. And I never met any of them except for pastor Brock. And so as I, I started doing things, 00:09:34.580 --> 00:09:36.680 they kept saying, well, when are you going to stream? When are you going to stream? I'm like, 00:09:36.740 --> 00:09:41.100 man, I'm not playing video games. I don't have the setup to do this. I'm not a PC based guy. 00:09:41.480 --> 00:09:46.080 I'm an Xbox based guy and I'm waiting for the next game to come out and I know what it takes to set 00:09:46.080 --> 00:09:53.160 it up. I don't want to make that investment. So finally they said, why don't you just stream what 00:09:53.160 --> 00:09:58.060 you do for preparing for your sermons? We'd like to know what you're doing. Uh, pastor Brock does 00:09:58.060 --> 00:10:02.720 some stuff like that. Why don't you do that? So Friday, as I just started streaming, here's my sermon 00:10:02.720 --> 00:10:07.500 prep. Here's the passage I'm looking at. Here's what I'm thinking of like all the behind the scenes 00:10:07.500 --> 00:10:13.120 of what I was doing to prepare for Sunday morning. I was streaming that and, and talking through my 00:10:13.120 --> 00:10:16.840 process, talking through what I think I'm going to talk about on Sunday. And then it asked me the next 00:10:16.840 --> 00:10:20.800 week, well, how did it go? Or what were you, what did you talk about? Did it actually go in the 00:10:20.800 --> 00:10:27.460 direction? What were things that came up? And as I got to the end of that year in December, 00:10:27.460 --> 00:10:32.280 someone was talking in my stream. I had people in my church talking about reading through the Bible 00:10:32.280 --> 00:10:38.200 in a year. And then the conversation turned to, I've never done that. I don't know how to do that. 00:10:38.260 --> 00:10:43.520 It would be great if somebody would guide us to do that. And I went, well, I've been thinking about 00:10:43.520 --> 00:10:50.120 how do I go from one day a week to more than one day a week at streaming? So a year ago I committed to, 00:10:50.300 --> 00:10:53.540 I'm going to read through the Bible in a year on stream. I have no idea how this is going to work. 00:10:54.000 --> 00:10:58.060 Uh, I had to go through the whole transition of a live audience to talking to a camera, 00:10:58.060 --> 00:11:02.480 but I'd already made that transition before I got into streaming because we were doing that live. 00:11:02.560 --> 00:11:05.860 If you're doing that, we're doing that in the COVID. So I also already learning how to connect 00:11:05.860 --> 00:11:09.880 digitally and build relationships just through chat without, you're not even the one on the camera. 00:11:09.960 --> 00:11:12.380 They're not on the one on the camera and you're beginning to build relationships with people 00:11:12.380 --> 00:11:18.080 anyway. Yeah. So I start doing that and I want to say, I don't know, month, two months into just 00:11:18.080 --> 00:11:24.000 doing that alone, which if you're not on Twitch, go in there and saying, Hey, I'm going to go and 00:11:24.000 --> 00:11:28.260 read the Bible on Twitch is not what people are lining up to do. They're, they're, they're wanting 00:11:28.260 --> 00:11:35.860 to play video games and yeah. Or watch YouTube or watch, or watch talks. Yeah. The, the, it is very, um, it, it, 00:11:35.860 --> 00:11:40.400 I wouldn't say that it's opposite of the culture because what you were doing in stepping into was 00:11:40.400 --> 00:11:47.320 deeply relational, personal and close. Right. And what is anti Twitch culture is, is, uh, is when 00:11:47.320 --> 00:11:50.240 you're not paying attention to the people that are actually watching, like they're not just there to 00:11:50.240 --> 00:11:55.500 spectate or dare to engage. So it was very cult. It was very culturally sensitive towards why people 00:11:55.500 --> 00:12:00.540 are there, but it was very different than why people, it was a very different type of content 00:12:00.540 --> 00:12:04.940 than what people usually come to see. Well, yeah, I'll just say this. When, when I was going to do 00:12:04.940 --> 00:12:09.860 things on YouTube or wherever we were streaming live with whatever church I was at, we were only 00:12:09.860 --> 00:12:15.320 looking to engage people that were already watching our stuff from our church. So goods and services. 00:12:15.460 --> 00:12:21.980 Right. So, so had I jumped into Twitch thinking I was going to go do that, it would have never been 00:12:21.980 --> 00:12:27.560 anybody watching what I was doing. I'd have been wasting my time, energy, uh, what I was doing. So I 00:12:27.560 --> 00:12:32.700 didn't know it, but that six months where I just sat there watching was really what Paul does at the 00:12:32.700 --> 00:12:38.600 Areopagus. He goes in, he's observing the culture, he's learning what they're doing. And when he's understood 00:12:38.600 --> 00:12:45.360 what that culture is, he then says, I've made these observations about you are a very religious 00:12:45.360 --> 00:12:51.700 people. You want to know who God is. You have this statue overhead here that says to the unknown God, 00:12:51.820 --> 00:12:56.860 I want to engage you in a conversation about who I believe is the real God that you have inadvertently 00:12:56.860 --> 00:13:07.740 found. So I stumbled into that observation and was embraced by people in the culture so that I knew the culture 00:13:07.740 --> 00:13:15.160 before I started doing anything in the Twitch atmosphere. So I brought all of that to what I was doing with 00:13:15.160 --> 00:13:22.120 reading the Bible. I, I, I interrupt where we're at to engage people in chat. I interrupt what I'm doing. If someone 00:13:22.120 --> 00:13:27.800 says, Hey, I, I, I had this happen and I need prayer. I mean, what I'm doing is not important. The people 00:13:27.800 --> 00:13:34.520 are what's important. So that's a whole different mentality than, Hey, our service started and it's 00:13:34.520 --> 00:13:39.580 going live. And when we get done with the service, we'll have questions afterwards. Yeah. So what we 00:13:39.580 --> 00:13:45.900 stumbled into here in this conversation, which I think is, is really powerful is a lot of, uh, people 00:13:45.900 --> 00:13:49.560 who are thinking about live streaming and now they're considering Twitch because you're listening to this 00:13:49.560 --> 00:13:53.920 podcast. The question has become like, how do we stream on Twitch? And that isn't, that isn't really 00:13:53.920 --> 00:13:59.260 the question that should be asked. And what we stumbled on is an hour ago, uh, I was sitting with 00:13:59.260 --> 00:14:05.120 a guy and he said, how long do I need to spend on Twitch before I can understand the culture enough 00:14:05.120 --> 00:14:10.480 to come and plant and be part of it? And that was the right question to ask. Right. And I totally, 00:14:10.720 --> 00:14:15.100 I don't know. I was part of Twitch culture every day for seven years, pretty much before we started 00:14:15.100 --> 00:14:22.080 our church. But what I love is that Layton's like, I was just, I was here for like the last, I just used 00:14:22.080 --> 00:14:26.560 your name. You just doxed me, man. Oh, that's yeah. Well, and those that don't know, that's when you give 00:14:26.560 --> 00:14:33.460 information about somebody that they haven't revealed themselves. So, so since you've done that in case 00:14:33.460 --> 00:14:37.320 people do actually want to know. We can blip you out. We can blip it out. Nah, it's all right. It's all right. 00:14:37.880 --> 00:14:42.180 Uh, if you do want to know, since my wife hates this, so the fact I'm going to do this will be 00:14:42.180 --> 00:14:47.860 fun. So when I introduce myself and my name and this, I do this every time I've ever gone to a 00:14:47.860 --> 00:14:52.560 church and I get up and I'm going to introduce myself. And my name is Layton size and it rhymes 00:14:52.560 --> 00:15:02.100 with Satan lies. So she hates that I do that. But when I was a kid, I got teased because he was, 00:15:02.180 --> 00:15:07.380 hey, Layton size, Satan lies. And I'd go, he absolutely does. I'm glad you acknowledge that. 00:15:07.380 --> 00:15:15.260 So, well, what I love is, is flat that you were spent, you spent six months. Oh yeah. Sitting in, 00:15:15.260 --> 00:15:21.640 in Twitch culture, learning it. And when people ask me that question, I don't know, I spent seven years 00:15:21.640 --> 00:15:25.640 and what you're saying is no, I spent six months, six months and you weren't, I don't know that you 00:15:25.640 --> 00:15:29.380 would say that you were intentionally being a student of the culture going out. No, I wasn't. I wasn't 00:15:29.380 --> 00:15:34.480 intentionally there to learn the culture. I was there spending six months. And like I said, 00:15:34.500 --> 00:15:40.640 about six hours a day being ministered to in many ways, not only by Christians, but one of the things 00:15:40.640 --> 00:15:45.400 is you leave and you go somewhere else and you bring your group, your tribe with you, whoever you want 00:15:45.400 --> 00:15:49.860 to refer to the people in your stream, you bring them somewhere else to someone else that you are 00:15:49.860 --> 00:15:53.980 saying, Hey, I trust. I know this person. They're going to respect you. They're going to treat you the 00:15:53.980 --> 00:15:58.460 same way that I do. They might not be the same as me, but I have a relationship enough with them. 00:15:58.460 --> 00:16:06.340 I would trust them with you. Great. So I got handed off to other people. And I, so I didn't set out 00:16:06.340 --> 00:16:13.960 to observe the culture. I just got embraced in the culture. And as that happened, I wanted to spend 00:16:13.960 --> 00:16:19.660 more time in it. Yeah. And that is, it's, that is such a powerful thing for folks who are listening 00:16:19.660 --> 00:16:23.580 and are saying, I've been listening to the church digital podcast for a while. We're in this season 00:16:23.580 --> 00:16:28.900 on gamers. And like, I know it's important. I, you know, my, my son, my grandson, my daughter, 00:16:28.960 --> 00:16:34.180 my granddaughter, whomever plays, I play whatever. And you're like, I know it's important. I just don't 00:16:34.180 --> 00:16:39.420 know how to pair the ministry side. I went on Twitch. I have like no idea what's going on. You know, 00:16:39.760 --> 00:16:43.360 Jeff told me an episode one of this season, I need to go start a Twitch account. I started a Twitch 00:16:43.460 --> 00:16:47.140 account and I got on there and like, I don't know, I don't know what's happening on Twitch, 00:16:47.140 --> 00:16:51.160 but it seems like debauchery because the stuff that got posted, like, I was like, oh my gosh, 00:16:51.160 --> 00:16:58.620 I'm out of this place. And like, what I love from this is, is flat saying like, embrace it 00:16:58.620 --> 00:17:05.260 and envelop yourself in it for a season and learn it. Yeah. And I think even if you're a student of 00:17:05.260 --> 00:17:09.840 it, like if you're going there with intentionality to be a student of it and you're engaging in the 00:17:09.840 --> 00:17:14.720 community, it might take you less than six months to really learn the culture. Um, it certainly won't 00:17:14.720 --> 00:17:21.100 take you seven years of it sort of like, you know, learning it over time, but it is an entirely 00:17:21.100 --> 00:17:26.560 different place. And when you're not of Twitch, like when you're not of that people and not of that 00:17:26.560 --> 00:17:34.360 drive, they sniff it out instantaneously and, um, flat, you do a really great job of in your live 00:17:34.360 --> 00:17:39.000 streams, which I'm lurking in all in mornings pretty frequently. I'm grabbing my coffee. I sit 00:17:39.000 --> 00:17:43.720 down with my planner, look at my day, pull up Twitch, see who's online. And it's always flat. He's online. 00:17:43.720 --> 00:17:49.900 Right. And so I'll, I'll swing in and to watch how you are engaging with both believers and non-believers 00:17:49.900 --> 00:17:54.480 who are coming into your chat and people who are directly opposed to what you're talking about and people 00:17:54.480 --> 00:17:57.600 who are there every day. Cause they also want to read through the Bible in a year. And they're on 00:17:57.600 --> 00:18:04.620 that journey with you. Tell us a few, um, stories about how, like, you know, I think pretty typical 00:18:04.620 --> 00:18:11.200 for you to see anywhere from 10 to 25 people who are popping into your stream on a, every single day, 00:18:11.200 --> 00:18:16.040 every morning basis, you're seeing recurring names and you're seeing new people on a very regular 00:18:16.040 --> 00:18:22.680 basis. Um, so just tell us, and we've all heard the story of Alice. I love the story of Alice. Um, 00:18:22.680 --> 00:18:27.240 but I also love the fact that your unique approach and each of our unique approaches 00:18:27.240 --> 00:18:32.920 is touching lives that aren't Alice's as well. So tell us a story or two about people that you've 00:18:32.920 --> 00:18:37.880 just encountered and how you've seen God change your life just cause you're willing to flip open the 00:18:37.880 --> 00:18:44.420 laptop, turn on the camera and hit go live. Yeah. There's well, when I first was like, Hey, 00:18:44.440 --> 00:18:48.260 I'm going to do this. I had people that lined up and said, Hey, I want to, I want to be in your 00:18:48.260 --> 00:18:52.360 stream. I want to commit to your stream. I want to moderate for you. And for those that don't know, 00:18:52.420 --> 00:18:56.500 that's a person who's there to help make sure that the decorum that you set up and establish for 00:18:56.500 --> 00:19:01.140 your stream is managed. They're there to welcome people when they show up. So if I'm in the middle 00:19:01.140 --> 00:19:05.560 of reading and I didn't see the chat, they're doing all those things. So immediately I had a couple of 00:19:05.560 --> 00:19:11.780 people that, that do that. That's what their call in ministry is, is to, I'm going to go and mod for 00:19:11.780 --> 00:19:18.120 people. I'm going to go do that. I'm going to be there. And I was like, wow. So you get, you care 00:19:18.120 --> 00:19:24.460 enough about me. Um, miss jelly beans is one of those, uh, sunshine S games is another one. And, 00:19:24.460 --> 00:19:30.420 and they mod for a number of people. Uh, sunshine also streams herself, uh, stay at home mom, 00:19:30.420 --> 00:19:35.760 uh, jelly beans is retiree. Uh, so both opposite ends of the spectrum. And they're like, Hey, 00:19:35.760 --> 00:19:41.120 I want to invest in you. I want to invest in your community and help it succeed. And I've been around 00:19:41.120 --> 00:19:45.580 here in the culture enough to help and guide you. So that was, that was a really cool thing that 00:19:45.580 --> 00:19:52.940 happened right away. Uh, there's also, um, yeah, just think of those who are non-Christian and my 00:19:52.940 --> 00:19:59.840 target is not necessarily trying to just be evangelism. I'm not, I am, I, I, my name has 00:19:59.840 --> 00:20:04.520 pastor in it. I, I, I put the tag on there. It says, I'm Christian. I put in there that we're 00:20:04.520 --> 00:20:11.640 reading the Bible that attracts people that come in to say, Hey, are you real? Are you genuine or who 00:20:11.640 --> 00:20:16.740 you are? And, uh, I had someone came in, I can't remember their name. They they've only come a few 00:20:16.740 --> 00:20:24.680 times. And right away, I could tell they weren't buying what the Bible was saying. They, they were, 00:20:24.800 --> 00:20:29.460 they were questioning things. They were pointing finger at things. And then I accidentally said 00:20:29.480 --> 00:20:33.740 something that I knew instantly offended them. Uh, I said, well, that's a bias, 00:20:33.960 --> 00:20:40.780 which honestly it was, but they felt like I attacked them as an atheist. They hadn't identified 00:20:40.780 --> 00:20:44.940 themselves as an atheist yet. I said something about, well, even if you're an atheist, you're 00:20:44.940 --> 00:20:49.100 coming at it from a bias. When you read the scriptures, you can't come to anything without 00:20:49.100 --> 00:20:56.480 a bias. Sure. I have a bias as a white male. I can't get outside of that bias. I can be aware 00:20:56.480 --> 00:21:02.260 of my bias. I can treat people differently based on my understanding of my bias. I can't leave it. 00:21:02.700 --> 00:21:07.340 Sure. So, so I was trying to go in that direction and then I had accidentally offended them. 00:21:07.900 --> 00:21:13.740 And so I immediately apologized for that. I re instantly understood that they misunderstood when I 00:21:13.740 --> 00:21:18.080 was using the word bias to not mean it was judgmental. It was a problem. I was just saying, 00:21:18.140 --> 00:21:25.920 no, it's just a natural part of life. And so they stayed, they engaged two hours later, 00:21:25.920 --> 00:21:31.000 they said, I'm going to put a follow here. I'm going to put a follow here. You have enough 00:21:31.000 --> 00:21:36.260 credibility and enough clout and you are, you are honest in where you're at and what you know, 00:21:36.260 --> 00:21:40.280 and what you don't know and where you're, you're going to put that. And you treated me with respect 00:21:40.280 --> 00:21:44.740 after you accidentally did something you shouldn't have. And so put the follow in, 00:21:44.860 --> 00:21:49.000 been back a few times. I don't have a good relationship yet, but I have proven myself 00:21:49.000 --> 00:21:55.240 credible to that person that they'll come back. Uh, and another one, I just, I love this guy, 00:21:55.240 --> 00:22:03.060 uh, from Denmark who is a Sikh and he is in my stream at least once a month. Uh, I don't remember 00:22:03.060 --> 00:22:08.340 his, his, his, his, uh, actual streamer name, but his name is Nico and I just call him Nico, 00:22:08.340 --> 00:22:14.200 Joe the Dane. And, uh, he comes in my stream, will engage in scripture and he'll say, Hey, 00:22:14.320 --> 00:22:20.140 that reminds me of one of our holy books or one of our holy men and what they said, can I share it? 00:22:20.140 --> 00:22:25.760 So he's respectful of my stream and I'm respectful of, of his stuff. And I'll say, yeah, that, that aligns 00:22:25.760 --> 00:22:31.340 with what scripture says. That was a great thing to bring up. And so he's regularly in there. He's 00:22:31.340 --> 00:22:37.180 engaged in my community. He embraces people that come in my community and he's, his views are 00:22:37.180 --> 00:22:42.940 different than mine, but there's something about it that he's like, I'm drawn to it. I want to be 00:22:42.940 --> 00:22:47.460 there. I can't be there every time there's time differences. There's all those things. But when I 00:22:47.460 --> 00:22:52.000 can fit it in my life, you're valuable enough that I'm going to go hang with you. Yeah. And that's just 00:22:52.000 --> 00:22:57.740 an awesome thing. Yeah. And, and what I love, I love flat. I love those stories because they're 00:22:57.740 --> 00:23:04.280 showing not only did I, I started and I instantly had a team of people who wanted to serve. So if you 00:23:04.280 --> 00:23:09.020 think, who am I going to have, how am I going to get, like, there are people who are in this community 00:23:09.020 --> 00:23:13.200 who are so passionate about it. You don't, I think, uh, much of the church world doesn't realize 00:23:13.200 --> 00:23:18.580 that they're not like heading into an oasis, right. Or a desert, an oasis, the exact opposite of 00:23:18.580 --> 00:23:22.900 what I meant, a desert, right. Um, when they explore in a digital space, it's, I love seeing 00:23:22.900 --> 00:23:27.600 the eyes open and they're like, holy crap. Like I didn't, there's a metropolitan city here, 00:23:27.800 --> 00:23:33.120 right? There's a city here and there's a thriving, growing grouping of believers who are in this 00:23:33.120 --> 00:23:36.780 space who see it as a mission field, who want to serve and sacrifice. And you're also saying, 00:23:36.860 --> 00:23:41.440 I'm finding ways to engage with people that would typically never, ever, ever go through the doors 00:23:41.440 --> 00:23:46.100 of a church. Oh my goodness. St. Peter said this in our last episode where he said, um, you know, 00:23:46.100 --> 00:23:49.240 there's, there's people who'd rather gamble at the gates of hell than darken the doors of a church. 00:23:49.700 --> 00:23:55.140 And you're seeing that. And we're seeing that too, right? Like all of us who've been on this show, 00:23:55.260 --> 00:24:00.680 we could give you story after story, after story, after story of, you know, atheists who are coming 00:24:00.680 --> 00:24:05.640 in and just saying, I just like how I feel when I'm here. Yeah. But I wanted to cycle back to 00:24:05.640 --> 00:24:10.040 something that you said right towards the beginning, which is I, I came into Brock's dream and I felt 00:24:10.040 --> 00:24:16.080 really welcomed because I have a story echoing that, um, a member of our community, uh, Jannie who's in 00:24:16.080 --> 00:24:20.480 her sixties, been a faithful member of our church has never missed a week since we started. Right. 00:24:20.600 --> 00:24:26.480 She wrote a message in our discord the other day saying, I went to a physical church. I sat in the 00:24:26.480 --> 00:24:30.880 front. I waited for somebody to greet me. No one ever greeted me. I wanted to see if someone would 00:24:30.880 --> 00:24:35.820 greet me. I hung out afterwards. I stuck around. No one ever greeted me. I've never felt more greeted 00:24:35.820 --> 00:24:42.620 than I did here. And I've, I, she's very rarely met anybody who's from our community. And so you had 00:24:42.620 --> 00:24:49.620 that experience as well. Why, why do you think that is, or just speak a little bit more about the power 00:24:49.620 --> 00:24:56.180 of that welcome and that digital community for people? I'll speak it from two, two different sides. 00:24:56.720 --> 00:25:05.220 One, as a, as a pastor, uh, I remember, I remember when people would be absent on a Sunday and that was an, 00:25:05.220 --> 00:25:11.060 a non-normal thing to be not that people were once a month and you would know where they were. You would 00:25:11.060 --> 00:25:16.040 know what was going on in their life. And if they were gone, you would welcome them back when, when 00:25:16.040 --> 00:25:21.800 they came back. However, as things have changed, when you try to welcome the person back, they feel 00:25:21.800 --> 00:25:28.620 judged like, Oh, you, you noticed I was gone. I didn't have a good excuse. Are you judging me? And so 00:25:28.620 --> 00:25:33.000 as a pastor, I've gone, maybe I shouldn't say something when I noticed somebody's gone because 00:25:33.000 --> 00:25:36.620 maybe they were sick, maybe something they didn't freely share information with me. 00:25:36.840 --> 00:25:40.880 I'm not going to embarrass them by welcoming them back when they, when they come back. So that's 00:25:40.880 --> 00:25:45.420 not addressing the person who's, who's just a visitor. Uh, that's a separate thing, but I've, 00:25:45.420 --> 00:25:50.600 I've, I've had that in the back of my mind. And even when I go on vacation as a pastor, I don't 00:25:50.600 --> 00:25:54.160 always go, Oh, Hey, well, how was your vacation? What was going on? I don't get welcome back. 00:25:54.260 --> 00:25:58.940 I don't go. I get, Hey, it's great to have you back. What are you doing today? It's just normal 00:25:58.940 --> 00:26:04.400 back to life. Uh, but I'll give a different example too. And like I said, this is Twitch 00:26:04.400 --> 00:26:09.440 culture. It's not just Christian on Twitch culture. Absolutely. Just, I just want to say 00:26:09.440 --> 00:26:16.120 that. So I, I watch a streamer in Australia and time change happens. We go an hour one way 00:26:16.120 --> 00:26:21.100 time change happens. They go an hour the other way. They just went to streaming at three in 00:26:21.100 --> 00:26:26.780 the morning. I'm not getting up at three in the morning to watch them. And then I wait 00:26:26.780 --> 00:26:32.140 until the time change happens. We switch back in the spring, which we're coming up on. And 00:26:32.140 --> 00:26:36.060 I'm actually looking forward to it because I haven't seen them since November because they're 00:26:36.060 --> 00:26:40.740 at three in the morning. And when that happened the first time I showed up in the stream and 00:26:40.740 --> 00:26:45.560 it wasn't them saying, Hey, where have you been? It was this person in the chat, this person 00:26:45.560 --> 00:26:49.800 in the chat, this person in the chat said, Hey, it's great to see you flat cap. It is so 00:26:49.800 --> 00:26:57.100 great to have you here. We've missed you. And I just felt, wow, they cared about me. They're 00:26:57.100 --> 00:27:02.120 not judging me for what was happening or why wasn't I here or I was gone or anything like 00:27:02.120 --> 00:27:09.640 that. It was just totally embracing and engaging me. And I went, that is totally different than 00:27:09.640 --> 00:27:15.180 what the church is doing. And I'm wondering if this is, is part of it too. At church for the 00:27:15.180 --> 00:27:20.640 most part, for most of us, it's one day a week for, for one hour. Now, some of you might be more. I 00:27:20.640 --> 00:27:25.200 remember when I was a kid, it was three to thrive. It was Sunday morning. It was Sunday night. And it 00:27:25.200 --> 00:27:31.180 was Wednesday night. And if the doors were open, my family was there that those days are gone. So if 00:27:31.180 --> 00:27:36.360 you are only there one day a week, a week, and you miss 1.2 times a month, right? Right. Right. I'm 00:27:36.360 --> 00:27:42.040 saying even if, even if you're the person that's there once a week, you're only engaging with people. 00:27:42.260 --> 00:27:50.640 You're only the gathering together of us like for four hours a month. And I'm spending four hours a 00:27:50.640 --> 00:27:57.300 day with people. When I'm gone, they know it. When they're gone, I know it. I know those who are 00:27:57.300 --> 00:28:02.740 regulars that if they're not there every day, I need to check in with them. If, if they're a, 00:28:02.740 --> 00:28:09.360 hey, I'm a monthly person. I know that. Uh, and so I've, I check in with them. Uh, it's, 00:28:09.460 --> 00:28:15.520 it's relational on a different level. So I've been, I've been spending time. Cause, cause one of the 00:28:15.520 --> 00:28:20.280 things I kept hearing throughout COVID was don't forget, forsake the gathering together yourselves 00:28:20.280 --> 00:28:24.880 like some are like, so that would be the attack on churches that said, we're going to, we're going 00:28:24.880 --> 00:28:28.200 to shut down. We're going to do things. It was like, no, don't forsake the assembly of yourself 00:28:28.200 --> 00:28:32.720 together. And as I went back and I looked at that, I I'm like, wait a minute in the 00:28:32.720 --> 00:28:38.220 text. It says they gathered in the temple gates daily. They gathered in the temple gates daily. 00:28:38.580 --> 00:28:43.920 I've never been in a church that did that in my life. I have a stream that does that Monday through 00:28:43.920 --> 00:28:48.860 Friday, unless I'm on vacation, unless I'm here at the conference and unable to do it. And my stream 00:28:48.860 --> 00:28:55.140 is like going, we miss you. We don't want you to be gone. What are you getting back? Because we need 00:28:55.140 --> 00:29:00.260 you here. We need you part of our lives. We need you engaged. And I'm like, you know what? What if 00:29:00.260 --> 00:29:06.440 the assembling of yourselves together was intended to be a daily thing, not a one hour on Sunday thing? 00:29:06.620 --> 00:29:12.180 And we've totally misunderstood what scripture was saying. And Twitch has it. And I can go over there 00:29:12.180 --> 00:29:18.620 and have it. And I can be a part of that and be embraced and be part of people's lives. And if I'm 00:29:18.620 --> 00:29:24.400 there long enough, then depending on their situation, they start to give me more and more information and 00:29:24.400 --> 00:29:29.660 allow me more and more into their life. And I've never had that in any physical church I've ever had. 00:29:30.160 --> 00:29:36.180 And to keep in mind, if you're listening right now, right? You got your ears in or you're driving in 00:29:36.180 --> 00:29:40.100 your car. Or you're listening on two times speed in a podcast while you're riding your bike, which is 00:29:40.100 --> 00:29:43.120 what I do. Yeah. But you're sitting here and you're listening and you're saying, oh yeah, 00:29:43.200 --> 00:29:46.420 this is not gathering together. Oh, it's fine. Whatever. They want to talk about whatever they want. 00:29:46.500 --> 00:29:52.840 It's not gathering together. Just keep in mind that that is very likely what Flatcap would have said 00:29:52.840 --> 00:30:00.580 two years ago. I might've been a little bit too. I guess that was COVID, right? So, okay. Let's say 00:30:00.580 --> 00:30:06.720 pre-COVID, right? 2019, 2018, something like that. And you would have said like, ah, I get it. You're 00:30:06.720 --> 00:30:11.040 me, right? Yeah. You're engaging with people online every day. That's engagement. That's not gathering. 00:30:11.940 --> 00:30:17.660 Because that's honestly, 2018, that's what I would have said. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Like in many of us, 00:30:17.800 --> 00:30:25.500 or I might've said, that's okay, but it's not enough. Sure. Yeah. I might've been willing to 00:30:25.500 --> 00:30:30.700 go with that's okay. It's not enough. You have to do the physical too, which frankly, I have been 00:30:30.700 --> 00:30:36.100 having a blast this week, seeing a bunch of people I've never actually physically been in the same 00:30:36.100 --> 00:30:40.600 space with. It's been great. But you know what? Our relationship isn't built on we're in the physical 00:30:40.600 --> 00:30:46.880 space together. No, we got to come here and pick up. Our relationships are built on sharing our lives 00:30:46.880 --> 00:30:51.900 together of getting to know each other, of being at, well, some of us it's being in mission and 00:30:51.900 --> 00:30:56.260 ministry together of what we're doing for others. It's just being in relationship and helping people 00:30:56.260 --> 00:31:01.820 to be into the, for me being in the, in the word together, uh, which is just amazing, which, 00:31:02.100 --> 00:31:11.360 which can I share something else? Yeah. So, uh, I think this was, was I even stream? I'm trying to 00:31:11.360 --> 00:31:15.300 think of how much I was streaming. Yeah, I was, I had started streaming. So one of the things I started to 00:31:15.300 --> 00:31:21.720 notice as I was on Twitch was a bunch of Christian streamers out there who might feel isolated from 00:31:21.720 --> 00:31:25.020 their church. They didn't feel support. They didn't feel all of that. And I'm like, I don't 00:31:25.020 --> 00:31:29.660 know how to help that. And then I started to notice a bunch of pastors. Now some have pastor in their 00:31:29.660 --> 00:31:34.160 name. Not every Twitch streamer does. Uh, you make your own decisions about how you're trying to 00:31:34.160 --> 00:31:38.280 approach things, who you're going to reach. You make all of those with, I'm, I'm sure a lot of people 00:31:38.280 --> 00:31:42.540 spend time in prayer figuring out, I know I did, what am I going to make my name? And how am I going to do 00:31:42.540 --> 00:31:46.980 that? So I started noticing, I started having conversations with pastors saying, I don't have 00:31:46.980 --> 00:31:51.080 support for my denomination. I don't have support for my church. Hey, I'm a youth pastor. So they'll 00:31:51.080 --> 00:31:55.460 let me go do this thing. But as soon as this thing interferes with what they expect me to do, 00:31:55.560 --> 00:32:00.280 I still got to go do all of that. And I just started going, Hey, that thing I was doing with 00:32:00.280 --> 00:32:05.120 pastor Brock in real life. And that actually had come to an end because he moved away. Um, another 00:32:05.120 --> 00:32:08.940 pastor in the middle of COVID was going towards retirement. And he's just like, I'm just too busy. 00:32:08.940 --> 00:32:15.100 I can't do all this. I can't. So the group I'd had for like four years came to a natural end. 00:32:15.860 --> 00:32:21.400 And then I was, I don't know if everyone does this. I have these conversations with God when I'm like 00:32:21.400 --> 00:32:27.960 driving or I'm riding my bike and sometimes they're just one-sided. And then sometimes I shut my mouth 00:32:27.960 --> 00:32:34.000 and then I hear God talk to me. So I know exactly where it was. I had been having this thought of like, 00:32:34.000 --> 00:32:39.280 man, it's been a month or so. I'm missing the group. I don't have this pastor connection. I'm 00:32:39.280 --> 00:32:43.060 not in ministry. I wonder what they're doing. I wonder what's going on, but I'm over here on 00:32:43.060 --> 00:32:47.540 Twitch. I'm doing this stuff. And then I shut my mouth and then I heard, not an audible voice, 00:32:47.980 --> 00:32:52.520 but I heard, Hey, that thing you've been doing in real life, why don't you do that in digital space? 00:32:52.980 --> 00:32:57.200 Why don't you do that in digital space? Because you saw this pastor over here, you had a conversation 00:32:57.200 --> 00:33:00.960 about how they were hurt. And you had a conversation with that pastor over there, how they didn't have 00:33:00.960 --> 00:33:06.020 support. And you had a conversation with this pastor about how they were getting attacked by trolls. 00:33:06.020 --> 00:33:09.740 And that's people that come in to cause problems in your stream and do all these things. And they're 00:33:09.740 --> 00:33:15.720 just feeling isolated and alone. Why don't you gather them together? Why don't you network them 00:33:15.720 --> 00:33:20.240 together? Bring them together. They're all digital. They understand that experience, that environment. 00:33:20.840 --> 00:33:24.440 And so, so Mark and I have been in a group almost a year now. Yeah. I've been in one of those groups. 00:33:24.520 --> 00:33:28.640 Yep. He's one, he's one of the groups. I gather people together. I got to figure out time zone stuff. 00:33:28.720 --> 00:33:32.000 Boy, that was a new thing. Figure out time zone. There's no travel. So that makes it easier. 00:33:32.240 --> 00:33:38.380 Don't have to worry about who's hosting. But we get together and we share our stories, 00:33:38.680 --> 00:33:44.140 our whole story. Now, the first time we do that, we spend about 45 minutes, an hour, 00:33:44.300 --> 00:33:49.160 somebody sharing their story. We pray with and for one another. We get to understand what you're doing. 00:33:49.620 --> 00:33:54.040 And then we, every time we get together, we check in what's going on in your life. I love hearing 00:33:54.040 --> 00:33:56.740 about what's going on in your church. I love hearing about what's going on in your family. 00:33:57.900 --> 00:34:03.180 I'm engaged with you outside of here. If I never stream again, you and I are going to stay connected. 00:34:03.560 --> 00:34:03.660 Sure. 00:34:03.880 --> 00:34:09.980 That's just how that's going to happen. So we do prayer for one another. We read the Bible, 00:34:10.120 --> 00:34:14.000 but not from, hey, I'm a pastor and I need to tell you what the Bible says. It's more of a, 00:34:14.540 --> 00:34:19.020 hey, I was just reading this week and this stood out to me. And I'd like to share it with you 00:34:19.020 --> 00:34:23.480 because it was pretty cool. So we share scripture. That's what we do. We get together, 00:34:23.540 --> 00:34:28.000 we do those things. So started doing that, got a couple of groups going. I'm hoping to get some 00:34:28.000 --> 00:34:35.200 more going. So if any of you are in Twitch, I'm right on Twitch now. I haven't gone and branched 00:34:35.200 --> 00:34:40.820 out to other platforms to look for digital pastors. So if you're digital in a different space, you can 00:34:40.820 --> 00:34:45.800 reach out to me. I'm cool with that. I just might not have a network ready or a group of guys ready 00:34:45.800 --> 00:34:50.300 to go. But if you're in Twitch at all and you say, hey, I need to, I need to get connected with a group 00:34:50.300 --> 00:34:56.220 of pastors that we can, we can carry burdens together. I'm there. Let me know. I'll get you 00:34:56.220 --> 00:35:01.380 connected. If I can't do it, I'll get connected with somebody that can. And then just along those 00:35:01.380 --> 00:35:05.920 lines, I thought this was pretty cool last fall. I was sitting at the exponential conference 00:35:05.920 --> 00:35:14.120 in Chicago. So I was sitting there and I'm thinking about all the pastors that are in my network 00:35:14.120 --> 00:35:21.260 and praying for them. And then like an hour later, I just had this thought of, you need to pray for 00:35:21.260 --> 00:35:27.300 Pastor Mark. You need to pray for him. So I do. And I just shoot him a text that praying for you. 00:35:27.680 --> 00:35:31.860 Don't know what's going on. God's got it. And then, I don't know, it was a couple of days later, 00:35:31.880 --> 00:35:36.200 you said, hey, I was sitting in the hospital. Yeah. I was with my daughter. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm like, 00:35:36.740 --> 00:35:42.700 I would have never done that before I was thinking digitally. I started doing that after that, 00:35:42.700 --> 00:35:47.320 where when I was praying for a pastor, I shoot him a text message, shoot him an email, 00:35:47.500 --> 00:35:51.240 or I'm on Discord. And I say, hey, praying for you today, just prayed for you. I don't have to say 00:35:51.240 --> 00:35:57.080 anything else. But I hope at that time, it was a comfort in the middle of what was going on. 00:35:57.100 --> 00:36:01.020 Sure. It was letting me know that God was touching other people's hearts. Think about me and my family 00:36:01.020 --> 00:36:04.620 at that moment. Right. Right. And I just stopped in the middle of what I was doing because I felt the 00:36:04.620 --> 00:36:10.680 need to pray for you. So that's why it's just the power of those groups that, yeah, this is the first 00:36:10.680 --> 00:36:18.100 time we've been together in a physical space. Yeah. But we've had a relationship over a year and it's 00:36:18.100 --> 00:36:23.680 growing. It's great. Yeah. And I know, I know Flat's story. Flat knows my story, right? Like we've been 00:36:23.680 --> 00:36:27.300 through that together and we know the stories of four or five other people who are in the group and we 00:36:27.300 --> 00:36:32.820 know their ministries and their Bible, Kovo, full-time missionaries, pastors, and online 00:36:32.820 --> 00:36:38.760 influencers, right? Like we know their stories and their approaches are very different than mine is, 00:36:38.780 --> 00:36:42.160 which is different than Flat's is, which is different than the next person's. And that hasn't 00:36:42.160 --> 00:36:49.020 stopped us from connecting with one another. And it's very good to see those things that we may even 00:36:49.020 --> 00:36:53.660 think are kind of normal in church world, right? Like things that we see, yeah, we're part of networks, 00:36:53.740 --> 00:36:57.240 we're part of the ministerium, we're part of the pastor group, whatever. But to see those 00:36:57.240 --> 00:37:01.380 things come to bear because God is speaking to the hearts of people in this space as well, 00:37:01.380 --> 00:37:07.700 that we're getting some of those support systems that we maybe would have had in physical space, 00:37:07.820 --> 00:37:11.660 we're now beginning to see those come out in digital space because God's speaking hearts and people are 00:37:11.660 --> 00:37:16.460 responding, which is really powerful. We're going to be wrapping up this episode of the Church 00:37:16.460 --> 00:37:21.760 Digital Podcast. If you guys want to get connected with Flatcap, come over to the Digital Church 00:37:21.760 --> 00:37:27.140 Network. He helps people get plugged into that digital community. If you're not like, I don't really want to 00:37:27.180 --> 00:37:33.360 do the Twitch and Discord thing yet. Just come lurk in Flat's stream in the morning. It's twitch.tv 00:37:33.360 --> 00:37:39.640 slash FlatcapDapperPastor. I think we can probably put a link to that in the episode for this. You can 00:37:39.640 --> 00:37:44.700 come by and just sort of hang out in his stream and begin learning a little bit about Twitch culture 00:37:44.700 --> 00:37:51.200 and see how those relationships are developed and understand why this is such a deeply relational 00:37:51.200 --> 00:37:57.120 experience. And there isn't a ton of tech that you suddenly have to understand. There's nothing that's... And this 00:37:57.120 --> 00:38:02.300 isn't a slight to what you're doing at all, but there's... There isn't anything that's particularly 00:38:02.300 --> 00:38:07.840 like a tech marvelous thing, right? No, you're not insulting me at all. There's nothing tech 00:38:07.840 --> 00:38:14.720 marvelous on my stream. Yeah, it's a very... It's very simple, but it's wildly authentic. And it is 00:38:14.720 --> 00:38:19.600 enabling you to build deep relationships with believers and non-believers all across the globe 00:38:19.600 --> 00:38:26.220 in the same space in a way that a physical church can't do. I'm not criticizing. I'm not trying to say 00:38:26.220 --> 00:38:30.100 your church isn't... It's impossible for you to do this, but it is truly and genuinely a unique 00:38:30.100 --> 00:38:37.520 experience of how the gospel is manifesting. It's... In some ways, I couldn't reach people in Africa 00:38:37.520 --> 00:38:44.440 before the digital age without going to Africa. So if there are people there and I felt compelled to 00:38:44.440 --> 00:38:48.200 reach out to them, I had to go do something. I couldn't just sit in my church and do it. 00:38:48.580 --> 00:38:53.880 So nobody would expect that to happen. So in the same way, there's a digital space where people are. 00:38:54.020 --> 00:38:59.280 If you want to reach people in digital space, you got to do that. Yeah. But not everyone was going 00:38:59.280 --> 00:39:03.640 to Africa. Some people had to go to India. Some people had to go to China. Some people had to go 00:39:03.640 --> 00:39:09.820 to wherever were people that needed to be reached. Not everyone should be on Twitch. I wouldn't have 00:39:09.820 --> 00:39:14.060 picked Twitch. I came over there by accident. And now that I'm there, God said, yeah, this is where 00:39:14.060 --> 00:39:17.600 you're supposed to hang out for now. This is what you're supposed to do. I've got more things for you 00:39:17.600 --> 00:39:21.860 to do. But right now, this is where you're at. This is what you're doing. And when God says it's time 00:39:21.860 --> 00:39:28.360 to go to the next place, I'll say, okay. And if God's not calling you to Twitch, well, I'll just say 00:39:28.360 --> 00:39:31.880 this. I didn't go to Facebook because I thought Facebook was a great thing. I went to Facebook 00:39:31.880 --> 00:39:38.920 because I had college students at the time that would not answer an email. And they said, Facebook me. 00:39:39.120 --> 00:39:45.500 And I went, what are you talking about Facebook you? I thought Facebook was an online website. 00:39:45.840 --> 00:39:49.220 How am I? I mean, they were already tearing things into verbs at that time. And I didn't understand it. 00:39:49.700 --> 00:39:56.800 So do what you can, where you can. Allow the Holy Spirit to lead you into the things. 00:39:57.360 --> 00:40:03.420 The other thing is, is if someone in your church comes up to you and says, hey, I'm wondering if 00:40:03.420 --> 00:40:10.540 God is calling me to do that. Pray with them, unleash them, try to equip them, or say, I don't have any 00:40:10.540 --> 00:40:16.060 idea what that is. But I know someone who might. And that's one of the things I love too, is I don't 00:40:16.060 --> 00:40:21.320 know everything, but I want to introduce you to somebody who will. I want to connect you with 00:40:21.320 --> 00:40:25.660 somebody who's able to do that. So if you reach out and you say, hey, I'm thinking this, and this is 00:40:25.660 --> 00:40:30.720 crazy, I'm going to say, you might be right. But so was leading, you know, slaves out of Egypt. That 00:40:30.720 --> 00:40:35.380 was pretty crazy. You know, starting with 12 people and saying, hey, I'm going to bring the gospel to the 00:40:35.380 --> 00:40:43.440 whole world. That sounds pretty crazy. But we serve God that uses people to do some things that I would 00:40:43.440 --> 00:40:49.940 never say, that's what I want to do. But when God says, I want you to do that, you might argue with 00:40:49.940 --> 00:40:54.240 them or wrestle around, but you kind of know that Jonah went to Nineveh no matter what happened. 00:40:55.000 --> 00:40:59.500 Amen. Amen. Well, guys, on that note, which is an awesome note, we want to thank you for listening 00:40:59.500 --> 00:41:03.620 to this episode of The Church Digital from me, Mark, from Lux Digital Church, from The Church 00:41:03.620 --> 00:41:08.420 Digital and from Flatcap Dapper Pastor, from twitch.tv slash flatcapdapperpastor, and from the 00:41:08.420 --> 00:41:12.780 Church Digital Network. Thank you for listening to this episode. Be sure to come back and listen to the 00:41:12.780 --> 00:41:17.940 next one as we continue this journey about gamers, the church, and Jesus, and what God is doing in 00:41:17.940 --> 00:41:22.120 this beautifully wonderful digital space. Have a great day, everybody, and thanks for listening.