WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.840 Welcome to the Church Digital Podcast. Through this podcast, we'll talk about the technological 00:00:04.840 --> 00:00:10.200 innovations within the church. But more than tech for tech itself, we'll address deeper 00:00:10.200 --> 00:00:16.640 questions. Is disciple making possible digitally? How should we approach the digital mission field? 00:00:17.360 --> 00:00:22.440 Can a biblically grounded church operate in digital space? Oh, and where does the metaverse 00:00:22.440 --> 00:00:27.920 fit into all this? Whether you're a big or small church, an established church, or a startup church 00:00:27.920 --> 00:00:33.840 plant. The Church Digital's goal is to help churches like yours learn to be a multiplying church, 00:00:34.280 --> 00:00:40.460 digitally and physically. Our heart, that churches like yours will discover a newfound focus on 00:00:40.460 --> 00:00:46.820 disciple making that will revolutionize your church. And now, here's your host, Jeff Reed. 00:00:47.420 --> 00:00:53.080 All right. Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Church Digital Podcast, Twitch edition. Hey, we're in 00:00:53.080 --> 00:00:59.620 Season 4 here of the Church Digital Podcast, diving into Jesus, gamers in church. And so we're doing 00:00:59.620 --> 00:01:05.180 this podcast, but with Season 4 here, we've been doing the podcast live on Twitch. It's Thursday. I 00:01:05.180 --> 00:01:10.600 don't even know what today is. The 23rd, 3 p.m. Eastern. And so we're hanging out on Twitch. We've 00:01:10.600 --> 00:01:14.880 got some people kind of hanging out on Twitch. And so we've been doing this season, I don't know, 00:01:14.940 --> 00:01:20.580 for a month or so, digging in, different conversations. And we've had some Twitch streamers, 00:01:20.660 --> 00:01:25.040 we've talked esports, we've talked digital missionaries, some really interesting topics, 00:01:25.180 --> 00:01:30.040 family streaming, like some really interesting topics and talking about how God is moving 00:01:30.040 --> 00:01:36.620 in gaming and what it looks like to be a church in these gaming communities. So you can go back and 00:01:36.620 --> 00:01:42.920 check out the rest of Season 4. If you're watching online or on YouTube, thechurch.digital 00:01:42.920 --> 00:01:47.600 slash podcast, we'll get you to that. You can subscribe to the podcast or youtube.com, 00:01:47.660 --> 00:01:53.220 thechurch.digital, of course. But then we are streaming this Thursdays at 3 p.m. Eastern. 00:01:54.080 --> 00:01:59.440 And so if you're hanging out on Monday, listening to this on demand, it's like, oh, I like Twitch or, 00:01:59.860 --> 00:02:04.280 oh, I don't even know how to spell Twitch. Create an account, get a feel for what Twitch and some of the 00:02:04.280 --> 00:02:10.080 culture and community looks like here, because it's a lot of fun. And what you'll discover is that we, 00:02:10.900 --> 00:02:15.400 I'll call out the U.S. church specifically on this one, but probably the church in general, 00:02:15.540 --> 00:02:21.120 we're not doing a really good job connecting with gamers and nerds in this crowd. And maybe we need 00:02:21.120 --> 00:02:25.000 to start to think outside the box and what ministry looks like and take some notes here. 00:02:26.460 --> 00:02:34.180 Phantom Methods. Twitch, I think I've heard of that before. That's awesome. Hey, so listen, I am really excited 00:02:34.180 --> 00:02:39.640 about today's conversation. I typically, I'm a bleeding edge guy. I like thinking outside of 00:02:39.640 --> 00:02:46.400 the box. I like doing something different. I love change. I'm the guy that's going to wash up on a 00:02:46.400 --> 00:02:50.940 deserted island with the machete and just start hacking away at palm trees, paving the way. 00:02:51.740 --> 00:02:56.900 But when I find somebody that's even more aggressive and more bleeding edge than I am, 00:02:57.360 --> 00:03:01.960 oh man, that's when it gets really fun. And so we're going to bring into the conversation 00:03:01.960 --> 00:03:10.200 DJ Soto from VRMMO Church and Pastor Coco as well. And so magic magician behind the wall, 00:03:10.300 --> 00:03:15.780 bring him in. Hey, there you go. Coco, DJ, hey, thanks for jumping on the podcast here into this 00:03:15.780 --> 00:03:21.580 conversation. Hey, thanks for having us. It's good to be here. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks for the invite. 00:03:21.580 --> 00:03:29.160 So here's, oh, listen, I'm so looking forward to this. I was talking off air. DJ, I don't think 00:03:29.160 --> 00:03:35.500 we've had a conversation in 22, in 23. It's been probably six months or so. You and I are running 00:03:35.500 --> 00:03:41.420 in different directions all the time. Keep me busy. And Coco, I don't think we've touched base maybe 00:03:41.420 --> 00:03:46.220 in a year. I remember doing something with you with Leadership Network a while back, a panel, 00:03:46.340 --> 00:03:51.820 but I'm really looking forward to digging in here. Yeah. So here's what we're going to talk about. 00:03:51.980 --> 00:03:58.840 And I'm explaining this to the audience as well as to the guests here. I really want to focus on the 00:03:58.840 --> 00:04:06.720 idea of church in some of these games. We've talked about doing church in Twitch, being a digital 00:04:06.720 --> 00:04:15.040 missionary, using Twitch. We've brought Jay Earhart in. We've brought Aki. We've had conversations with 00:04:15.040 --> 00:04:23.040 Mark about Lux Digital Church and Bubba from Love Thy Nerd. And so we've talked very peripherally, 00:04:23.240 --> 00:04:29.520 if that's the right way to say that, about engaging within gaming culture. But what you guys are doing 00:04:29.520 --> 00:04:35.460 through VR, MMO Church is more specifically doing church in these video games. Like Pastor Coco, 00:04:35.660 --> 00:04:42.940 you are for, I started to say Black Desert Online. No, it's Final Fantasy. And so you're literally doing 00:04:42.940 --> 00:04:50.220 church inside Final Fantasy. This is crazy. Could you just maybe open up here a little bit and tell us 00:04:50.220 --> 00:04:54.200 a little bit about what church looks like in the video game, Final Fantasy? 00:04:54.920 --> 00:04:59.760 Yeah. So it differs depending on what game you're in, because you don't want to just lift and shift, 00:04:59.900 --> 00:05:05.760 of course, physical into digital space. You want to take advantage of what's going on in the space. So 00:05:05.760 --> 00:05:17.420 Final Fantasy 14 is the one that I'm in. It's an MMO. And we have every other Saturday a gathering at 00:05:17.420 --> 00:05:24.280 our FC house, our free company house, which is like your guild. And we will just have a discussion. 00:05:24.280 --> 00:05:31.580 It's more of a discussion than it is like a sermon. We can't do music in there. So there's no music, 00:05:31.720 --> 00:05:41.480 but we just have a discussion and go through the Bible really in depth, very in depth. We're going more 00:05:41.480 --> 00:05:47.140 so than what you would normally expect on a Sunday. And we're just digging into scripture, clicking 00:05:47.140 --> 00:05:54.260 hyperlinks to other, you know, hyperlinks is a term from Bible Project, if you haven't heard of them. 00:05:54.280 --> 00:05:55.280 Sure. 00:05:55.280 --> 00:06:01.020 But, and just digging into scripture and having discussions about it and asking challenging 00:06:01.020 --> 00:06:08.220 questions is like, how do we apply this to our lives and stuff? And we'll hang out as far as the 00:06:08.220 --> 00:06:15.660 community goes. We'll, we play together every Friday night and throughout the week, whenever any one of 00:06:15.660 --> 00:06:20.640 us is online, if we want to do content together, we play together. So it's kind of like doing our life 00:06:20.640 --> 00:06:28.160 together inside the game and on voice through discord. Cause we can't, there's no like in game voice. 00:06:28.400 --> 00:06:34.940 So we meet in discord through voice while we're playing in the game. So it depends on the game, 00:06:35.000 --> 00:06:35.980 how you can do that. But 00:06:35.980 --> 00:06:43.040 Sure. DJ, like what other, you know, so obviously we're, we're in final fantasy. What other games are 00:06:43.040 --> 00:06:47.500 you, are you actively in? What games were you experimenting with? Like, give me some backstory 00:06:47.500 --> 00:06:50.940 and history here on, on actually doing church inside these video games. 00:06:51.800 --> 00:06:56.300 Yeah. So, um, you know, what we're known for mainly is churches in virtual reality. And then, 00:06:56.300 --> 00:07:01.320 uh, we've been church planning in MMOs as of recent, that's part of a new part of VR church. 00:07:01.320 --> 00:07:06.820 And our name has kind of evolved unofficially, uh, to VR MMO church. So we're planning churches in 00:07:06.820 --> 00:07:11.660 virtual reality experiences, uh, the metaverse. And we're also planning churches in massively 00:07:11.660 --> 00:07:17.780 multiplayer online experiences. And we're, I'm particularly drawn to MMOs and Coco is the team 00:07:17.780 --> 00:07:23.840 is because there's some unique particularities when it comes to MMOs. So it's not that you 00:07:23.840 --> 00:07:28.020 couldn't maybe create a community around like Fortnite, but let's say, uh, you're playing a 00:07:28.020 --> 00:07:32.440 quick Fortnite game. You jump in there with a hundred players or so. And then, but that's just 00:07:32.440 --> 00:07:37.720 for 10 minutes and then you're out. Um, so there is a massively multiplayer element to that, 00:07:37.780 --> 00:07:42.920 but it's only for a very limited time. A lot of these MMOs for people who don't know, 00:07:42.920 --> 00:07:48.160 because I get the question a lot, what is an MMO? Um, are these, um, experiences that are 00:07:48.160 --> 00:07:53.400 persistent? Like the sun rises and sets, there's an economy, there's communities, there's clans, 00:07:53.500 --> 00:07:56.720 there's guilds, there's all these different characteristics. Um, and there's, you know, 00:07:56.780 --> 00:08:02.620 maybe debate about what is an MMO, what, what is not, but ultimately one of the elements is that it 00:08:02.620 --> 00:08:07.740 always exists. It always is there. So, uh, pastor Coco was talking about the guild house, 00:08:07.780 --> 00:08:13.620 so that's currently active online. It didn't go away like a Fortnite experience would. Um, that 00:08:13.620 --> 00:08:18.360 is currently there. Players could go actually walk up to the house, look at the, um, the guest book, 00:08:18.740 --> 00:08:23.340 uh, read about what church is like or, or, or sign it at least. Um, I'm not sure if there's a 00:08:23.340 --> 00:08:27.420 descriptor there. I can't remember Coco. You can, uh, maybe, uh, remind me about that, but 00:08:27.420 --> 00:08:32.280 there's a short description. Yeah. Short description. And you can walk through the 00:08:32.280 --> 00:08:36.720 house and kind of check things out. And, um, that's where they gather for church and it's 00:08:36.720 --> 00:08:42.980 really beautiful there. So, um, really VR, the metaverses and MMOs have a lot of similarities. 00:08:43.300 --> 00:08:48.720 A lot of these MMOs, if they adopted VR would be considered a metaverse, um, to some degree. So 00:08:48.720 --> 00:08:56.600 there's a lot of similarities. And oftentimes these MMOs are more robust in community building than say 00:08:56.600 --> 00:09:03.140 the VR metaverses are. So anyways, that whole vibe or that whole realm of virtual reality, 00:09:03.280 --> 00:09:08.660 metaverse, persistent universes, that all is attractional to us as church planners. Um, 00:09:08.660 --> 00:09:13.700 that what we do. So, um, yeah, we're, we would love to be everywhere because we just have such a 00:09:13.700 --> 00:09:18.160 passion for it. It's just, you know, human power, you know, time, energy, and money to get into these 00:09:18.160 --> 00:09:24.660 spaces. But right now, uh, we have churches in, uh, the VR side rec room and VR chat, and those could be 00:09:24.660 --> 00:09:30.140 considered, um, gamer churches, if you will. Uh, there's definitely game gamer elements to that, 00:09:30.340 --> 00:09:36.260 to those things. Those on the VR side. Um, and in the MMO side, we have churches in Final Fantasy 14 00:09:36.260 --> 00:09:42.880 online, which Pastor Coco leads and as well as Rust, which is a very unique experience, survival, um, 00:09:42.920 --> 00:09:49.040 MMO type of, uh, uh, of world where we build a church. It's a persistent sunrises, sunsets, 00:09:49.080 --> 00:09:54.240 there's an economy. It's kind of more of a, you're gritty, maybe post-apocalyptic experience. But, 00:09:54.380 --> 00:09:58.180 um, ultimately, like when you boil all this down, cause I know I'm talking about all the, 00:09:58.260 --> 00:10:04.540 the, you know, the platforms, but when you boil it down is there's communities that exist online and 00:10:04.540 --> 00:10:10.140 very compelling, robust communities and with deep relationships and deep connections. 00:10:10.600 --> 00:10:15.720 And those platforms that for lack of better words, like are screaming, we build community here 00:10:15.720 --> 00:10:22.300 really well. We're attracted to go plant a church there. So Final Fantasy, um, I was a Warcraft 00:10:22.300 --> 00:10:25.600 player back in the day, by the way, I would love to do a church of Warcraft if we had time, energy, 00:10:25.700 --> 00:10:30.200 money, you know, all that type of stuff. Uh, there's so many places we could go. You mentioned Black 00:10:30.200 --> 00:10:34.420 does it online. So you, you know about that. That's a big one as well. But I remember reading 00:10:34.420 --> 00:10:41.840 about an in-game wake for a, uh, uh, a player that had passed away. And I saw this community just 00:10:41.840 --> 00:10:47.940 kind of like get together and come around this like tragic event, um, very symbolically in game 00:10:47.940 --> 00:10:53.440 with umbrellas walking, um, in a line. And I was so captivated by the community elements of that. 00:10:53.480 --> 00:10:58.200 And I was like, Oh, I think that that'd be a perfect place to plant a church. Um, and, 00:10:58.200 --> 00:11:03.420 and things with rust were attractional to us as well. So, uh, those are our, anyways, to 00:11:03.420 --> 00:11:07.920 boil it down, those are our four main experiences. We would love to be everywhere. The opportunity is 00:11:07.920 --> 00:11:13.060 ripe to go other places. So people are listening and, um, you know, you, you got communities in 00:11:13.060 --> 00:11:20.080 Warcraft or, uh, Black Desert Online, man, it is just ripe for opportunities. So anyways, I could go 00:11:20.080 --> 00:11:23.680 all day. I better stop, uh, and let you ask questions because I could just keep going. 00:11:24.400 --> 00:11:31.980 So good. I, I do want to parallel. I want to talk about VR and gaming and, and how the similarities 00:11:31.980 --> 00:11:36.360 and differences, because I'm, I'm in the middle of some of those conversations even now trying to 00:11:36.360 --> 00:11:40.040 wrestle with that, but we'll, we'll get there. Hold off on the VR stuff for, for, for a little bit. 00:11:40.420 --> 00:11:45.240 Uh, Coco, talk to me a little bit. I mean, you're so you're, you're, you're trying to launch these 00:11:45.240 --> 00:11:50.740 games where we're in games that are, that are community centric. Um, my, my 14 year old daughter 00:11:50.740 --> 00:11:55.880 is obsessed with Final Fantasy. And so I understand the community that, that, that's surrounding that 00:11:55.880 --> 00:12:00.900 space. What does, you know, and so you're talking about a, a Bible studies or, or, or, you know, 00:12:01.000 --> 00:12:06.800 studying the word and going, going deep into that. Like how is, how is the church really taking 00:12:06.800 --> 00:12:12.300 advantage of maybe some of the community features, uh, within the, within the game? Like, are you, 00:12:12.580 --> 00:12:16.960 I love the idea. I forget. What did you say? What was the phrase? Cause it was, it wasn't like 00:12:16.960 --> 00:12:20.060 copy and paste when you were like, you don't want to just do the physical thing. You can't lift and 00:12:20.060 --> 00:12:24.420 shift. Lift and shift. I've never heard that before. That's a good one. That's a good one. 00:12:24.420 --> 00:12:31.040 That is, that's a good one. You never want to lift and shift. Yeah. Um, yeah. But, uh, so like 00:12:31.040 --> 00:12:35.180 drill in a little bit, let's, let's get dirty here. Maybe some practical stuff. Like how, 00:12:35.260 --> 00:12:37.200 how are you the church in Final Fantasy? 00:12:39.260 --> 00:12:45.000 So we have, we're using the tools that Final Fantasy provides. They provide a cross world link shell 00:12:45.000 --> 00:12:52.960 is what is their in-game chat that lets you, um, that's like set up specifically for a group. So 00:12:52.960 --> 00:13:01.320 you can invite people to that chat channel and it goes across different world servers. Um, so I'm in 00:13:01.320 --> 00:13:07.460 one on North America called Siren. And then I can talk to someone else on another server that is 00:13:07.460 --> 00:13:15.180 also in North America. But, um, so we use that and there's also the concept of the guild, the free 00:13:15.180 --> 00:13:20.740 company. So we have a few members who are active in our free company, but we're not limited to just 00:13:20.740 --> 00:13:27.420 our servers. So we have people that attend and hang out across multiple servers that, that we can hang 00:13:27.420 --> 00:13:33.640 out together regardless of what server we're on. That's the way Final Fantasy is set up. Um, and so we 00:13:33.640 --> 00:13:39.980 will use that cross. Let me ask, let me ask this. Go ahead. Do people come to your guild, like looking 00:13:39.980 --> 00:13:47.580 for MMO church? Are you missional in, in inviting people in, into the guild or into the church? Maybe, 00:13:47.660 --> 00:13:51.860 maybe what is, what is evangelism or some of that front door? What does that look like, uh, through 00:13:51.860 --> 00:13:53.620 what you're doing in Final Fantasy? 00:13:54.300 --> 00:14:01.560 We have to be careful with the games rules, terms of service. Cause we, cause think about it. Like 00:14:01.560 --> 00:14:06.720 if you were going to be a missionary in another country, you would want to respect that country's 00:14:06.720 --> 00:14:12.620 rules and laws, uh, so that you don't get kicked out or arrested or anything. Cause you can't do 00:14:12.620 --> 00:14:19.400 anything if you're kicked out. So we respect those terms of service. And so we have to be careful in how 00:14:19.400 --> 00:14:30.440 we communicate stuff. So we use outside means, um, to communicate, Hey, we're in Final Fantasy, like 00:14:30.440 --> 00:14:39.560 social media. We use YouTube. We, um, use TikTok. We, um, promote that way because in game, they don't 00:14:39.560 --> 00:14:46.360 want you, um, there are certain laws or rules around like religious activity and stuff. So we want to respect 00:14:46.360 --> 00:14:55.020 that. Um, cause they're trying to like keep the griefers out. Right. So, um, as far as like the, 00:14:55.280 --> 00:14:57.400 you have to be careful because 00:14:57.400 --> 00:15:07.000 there's this risk of people coming into Final Fantasy just to, and this is what they're afraid of 00:15:07.000 --> 00:15:11.720 yelling out to everyone, you're going to hell repent, right? We don't want that. And so they've got the 00:15:11.720 --> 00:15:21.180 terms of service in place to protect the community from that. And we want to, you know, uh, abide by 00:15:21.180 --> 00:15:27.840 that. And so we've got discord, we've got TikTok, YouTube, and then we have our free company and our, 00:15:27.940 --> 00:15:34.260 um, that you can find through the community website web, the Final Fantasy has a community website, 00:15:34.260 --> 00:15:41.380 so you can go looking for free companies to join. And we've got our info in there. Um, 00:15:41.640 --> 00:15:46.100 so it's outside to bring in, um, mostly. 00:15:46.100 --> 00:15:46.820 Very cool. 00:15:49.860 --> 00:15:52.780 So tell me a little bit, talk, talk to me about the, like the, 00:15:53.260 --> 00:15:57.960 one of the things that I've learned digitally is different platforms, different communities have a 00:15:57.960 --> 00:16:02.460 different target audience. Um, there are people outside of that audience, but as a general role, 00:16:02.460 --> 00:16:08.400 there's a, there's a type of person that that's within that, that space. Um, what's the, what's 00:16:08.400 --> 00:16:13.900 the target audience? Who's the persona that the average person that, that you're connecting with, 00:16:13.900 --> 00:16:17.260 uh, in the Final Fantasy world slash church? 00:16:18.600 --> 00:16:22.860 So there's different types of people that play Final Fantasy. There are the people that are just 00:16:22.860 --> 00:16:27.860 checking it out to see, you know, if, if they like it and they'll play very casually. 00:16:28.300 --> 00:16:33.000 The people that we usually get are the ones who are like in it. They are, 00:16:33.180 --> 00:16:39.660 that is, they see Final Fantasy as their community. They're coming there for friendships. They're coming 00:16:39.660 --> 00:16:45.700 there for that relationship because it's, uh, something that they can't get out in the real 00:16:45.700 --> 00:16:51.500 world or it's different in the real world. Um, and so that is their community. Like for example, 00:16:51.500 --> 00:17:01.660 um, there's a certain streamer who is on Twitch that, um, she's from the Ukraine and she strange, 00:17:01.660 --> 00:17:09.580 she had to leave Ukraine. Um, and so the community, the Final Fantasy community watched her life, 00:17:09.580 --> 00:17:16.300 watched her evacuating. They watched her have to move to another country and get back set up again. 00:17:16.300 --> 00:17:21.260 And they were with her throughout that whole thing. And there have been like the community 00:17:21.980 --> 00:17:28.140 hangs out with people cause there's like been gamers in Ukraine who have been, um, hanging out with 00:17:28.140 --> 00:17:33.740 their friends online while they're being bombed in their bomb shelter. So this is the type of community 00:17:33.740 --> 00:17:38.940 that Final Fantasy is. And these are the types of people that we want to be a part, the ones that are 00:17:38.940 --> 00:17:44.620 there to live, right. To be a part of that relationship. 00:17:44.620 --> 00:17:54.780 Sure. Very cool. Is, um, and maybe DJ on your side, like how much of lift and shift are you even 00:17:54.780 --> 00:18:02.620 doing among like Final Fantasy and, and Rust is, are there different rules in, in, you know, 00:18:02.620 --> 00:18:07.980 you were mentioning terms of services, terms of conditions like that. Does it, does it change greatly 00:18:07.980 --> 00:18:12.700 between the two video games as you're looking even at like World of Warcraft? Are you having to 00:18:13.260 --> 00:18:18.860 reinvent more than replicate? Like what, what is, what is the idea of multiplying this out among 00:18:18.860 --> 00:18:23.260 different worlds? What does that look like? Yeah, that's a great, uh, point that Coco made 00:18:23.260 --> 00:18:28.300 about lift and shift. So for Rust, they, they are, uh, it's, it's known to be more of a toxic 00:18:28.300 --> 00:18:33.260 environment just because it's a brutal, like, you know, uh, kill or be killed type of, uh, 00:18:33.260 --> 00:18:38.220 experience a video game. And so, uh, the, the rules don't really apply like they would in Final 00:18:38.220 --> 00:18:43.180 Fantasy because I think it's just kind of everything goes for the most part. There are some basic things 00:18:43.180 --> 00:18:48.460 about, um, hate. Um, and I'm sure that probably could be connected to religious hate depending on 00:18:48.460 --> 00:18:54.700 on how it's expressed, but, um, we find, we find it to be a lot more relaxed on, on the Rust side of things. 00:18:54.700 --> 00:19:00.140 And so, um, fundamentally, like when we look at these different communities and I know this sounds kind 00:19:00.140 --> 00:19:05.420 of like weird and it's not meant to, but the platform tells us what it wants it to be. Like, 00:19:05.420 --> 00:19:10.380 this is how church should be in here. So for us to, and what we did in early VR church days, 00:19:10.380 --> 00:19:16.460 is try to replicate the church. And really that created a lot of pain points, um, when we realized 00:19:16.460 --> 00:19:21.980 that we were supposed to reimagine and not replicate. And so as we learned that lesson 00:19:21.980 --> 00:19:27.260 through VR church and really grown by leaps and bounds as a ministry, that trends, that mindset was 00:19:27.260 --> 00:19:31.980 already in place when we came to Final Fantasy, when we came into Rust, where we weren't trying to 00:19:31.980 --> 00:19:36.940 replicate, we were going to reimagine. And so as we church planted, uh, the, we took, uh, 00:19:36.940 --> 00:19:42.460 we looked at it through the eyes of the strengths of the platform. Like, uh, Coco was talking about 00:19:42.460 --> 00:19:49.500 the link shell, uh, the, uh, I forgot the guild's name, the fellowships and, um, you know, the free 00:19:49.500 --> 00:19:55.180 companies. And so, uh, for Rust, it has its own version of things that are attractional to those 00:19:55.180 --> 00:19:59.900 types of players. And we'll get a lot of like reaction online, like TikTok, people are like, 00:19:59.900 --> 00:20:04.060 you have a church in Rust, that's crazy. And we've had a lot of people come and visit. 00:20:04.060 --> 00:20:09.260 And what you're, you're hearing about kind of like the, the bird's eye view of the experience, 00:20:09.260 --> 00:20:13.500 but really when you get down to the nitty gritty, like, uh, and, you know, I just keep it generic 00:20:13.500 --> 00:20:17.660 because, you know, some of these are like pastoral conversations, but I've seen Coco, you know, 00:20:17.660 --> 00:20:24.140 one-on-one with people who are part of her community and shepherding them and joining a VC late at night 00:20:24.140 --> 00:20:30.540 to be with them, uh, with whatever they're going through. So that avenue of ministry, you know, 00:20:30.540 --> 00:20:34.860 perhaps there was people that would eye roll at it, but it's opened up unique opportunities for 00:20:34.860 --> 00:20:40.620 people who might not otherwise have been ministered to, or who otherwise might not have attended a 00:20:40.620 --> 00:20:46.220 church. And we've seen that in Rust. A guy came in, uh, to our experience in Rust and wanted prayer 00:20:46.220 --> 00:20:52.620 because of, um, uh, his wife was gonna lose his, uh, lose her baby or something was going on with, uh, 00:20:52.620 --> 00:20:57.020 pregnancy complications. Uh, we didn't see him for like eight, nine months. And then he popped 00:20:57.020 --> 00:21:01.260 in our discord and he said, guys, baby's doing well. Thank you so much for praying. I remember 00:21:01.260 --> 00:21:06.460 going into the, the, the church in Rust and praying. So those examples of like Pastor Coco 00:21:06.460 --> 00:21:13.020 ministering the, the gentleman who came into our Rust church and many more are, I think if people are 00:21:13.020 --> 00:21:19.100 adverse to gamer church, if you will, they're really missing out on unique opportunities to connect, 00:21:19.100 --> 00:21:25.100 to minister, to encourage where many of these individuals would not have stepped foot, um, 00:21:25.100 --> 00:21:31.740 into a physical church on at 9am on a Sunday morning. And that's not anti, anti physical 00:21:31.740 --> 00:21:35.740 church Sunday, 9am. I think that's, that's great. And that can be great for who it is for, 00:21:36.300 --> 00:21:40.940 but for millions, uh, they're going to be in Final Fantasy. They're going to be in Rust and there is 00:21:40.940 --> 00:21:46.220 power there in creating these experiences in churches and they are churches there. It that's 00:21:46.220 --> 00:21:52.300 one also, uh, that's one value that we've learned early on is that church and Rust church and Final 00:21:52.300 --> 00:21:57.260 Fantasy is no different than, you know, the church in the corner here in town. Um, and that mindset 00:21:57.260 --> 00:22:03.820 really has empowered us to minister where otherwise I think we would have been limited and not have had 00:22:03.820 --> 00:22:09.420 the impact, uh, and the outreach if we had a limited mindset, but to approach it as this is real, 00:22:09.420 --> 00:22:15.420 just like anything else has set the foundation for us as a church here into the future. 00:22:16.780 --> 00:22:22.700 Yeah. And so because it's a real church, because there's, you know, expectations, uh, for, for the 00:22:22.700 --> 00:22:28.140 spirit to move because you're, because you're trying to create an ecclesiologically stable church, 00:22:28.140 --> 00:22:33.340 you're following after what the Bible calls us to, um, you're, you're, and especially in gaming 00:22:33.340 --> 00:22:37.820 environments, you're, you're dealing with a lot of messy situations. I would imagine, Coco, 00:22:37.820 --> 00:22:44.460 you've got, you know, I'm just even thinking, uh, pastoral care, um, you know, mental health issues, 00:22:45.180 --> 00:22:49.980 counseling issues, um, and even beyond, Hey, my, my baby's sick, just like, you know, 00:22:49.980 --> 00:22:56.700 even personal issues that people, people are going through you're forgive me. I'm, I'm not, 00:22:56.700 --> 00:23:00.620 I don't spend much time in Final Fantasy at a personal level, but like I said, my, my daughter does 00:23:00.620 --> 00:23:04.780 it's, it's, it's text-based communication in Final Fantasy, right? Or is it voice? 00:23:04.780 --> 00:23:06.300 Yeah. It's text. 00:23:06.780 --> 00:23:15.740 It's text. So how is it pastorally counseling people, diving into deep issues, getting into the, 00:23:15.740 --> 00:23:22.140 the mud and the dirt of, of people's lives all with a keyboard? Like, what does that look like? Is 00:23:22.140 --> 00:23:25.980 that difficult? Is that frustrating? What does that experience look like? 00:23:27.260 --> 00:23:35.100 Um, the, those times of conversations do happen in the chat, but that's more rare. More often, 00:23:35.660 --> 00:23:36.460 it's in discord. 00:23:37.740 --> 00:23:38.140 Okay. 00:23:38.140 --> 00:23:43.580 So discord voice, discord chat, DMs, uh, direct messages. 00:23:44.060 --> 00:23:49.100 Talk, um, talk to me a little bit here. Unpack the relationship between, uh, the Final Fantasy and 00:23:49.100 --> 00:23:52.700 discord. Like what do you do in Final Fantasy? At what point do you try to connect them to discord? 00:23:52.700 --> 00:23:55.180 What do you do in discord? What does that, that process look like? 00:23:56.860 --> 00:24:03.580 So lately our new people that have been coming in have been coming in through discord and then 00:24:03.580 --> 00:24:10.620 we'll meet in game. Um, that's because they're coming in through discord, through social media, 00:24:10.620 --> 00:24:15.580 like we're, they're finding out about it some way. Somebody's telling them or they're seeing 00:24:15.580 --> 00:24:21.180 something. And, um, um, I'm terrible at marketing. So I need to do a better job of asking people how 00:24:21.180 --> 00:24:29.340 they found out about us that I'm not. But, um, that, so that's mostly how it happens lately is 00:24:29.340 --> 00:24:35.820 they're coming in through discord and then we're meeting in game. Um, and then word of mouth in game, 00:24:36.380 --> 00:24:44.220 uh, uh, we'll bring more people like, like other, cause it's not just our FC. We've actually started, 00:24:44.220 --> 00:24:52.140 um, align with other FCs to free company guild, um, to like do stuff together. So then 00:24:52.140 --> 00:24:59.660 their FC will come check out the church, um, service sometime. So, and we'll do stuff together. So 00:24:59.660 --> 00:25:08.780 the discord is where we do our, um, like deep conversations. Most of the time we get in voice, 00:25:08.780 --> 00:25:15.980 we, our church service is we'll meet in the game with our avatars. And then I'll have discord 00:25:15.980 --> 00:25:21.020 voice going where people will just come into the discord voice and listen, and then they can either 00:25:21.020 --> 00:25:26.620 speak or they can type. So that it's their option of, cause some people don't want to be on voice and 00:25:26.620 --> 00:25:32.700 they'll type. Um, but listen, uh, with, uh, voice and we just give them the freedom of 00:25:32.700 --> 00:25:36.940 whatever they're comfortable with and don't try to force them to do something they're not. So. 00:25:36.940 --> 00:25:45.020 Yeah. And then I'll be honest. I had no idea you would. Okay. I'm sorry. I had no idea you flipped the, 00:25:45.020 --> 00:25:50.140 the, the book, the flip, the script where, where you were recruiting people from discord. Like what, 00:25:50.140 --> 00:25:55.740 what are you like if people search for final fantasy on discord, you're one of the servers that pop 00:25:55.740 --> 00:26:02.620 up and people get connected to you that way. Um, no, it's through social media really through 00:26:03.420 --> 00:26:10.940 like, because we can't, we want to avoid. So we want to avoid like promoting ourselves loudly 00:26:10.940 --> 00:26:18.380 inside the game cause we don't want to get banned. So it's outside social media, um, word of mouth. 00:26:19.580 --> 00:26:25.820 And, um, um, and then sometimes there will be people in discord joining for VR church and then 00:26:25.820 --> 00:26:29.500 they'll look at the channels and they'll say, Oh, I didn't know you played final fantasy. 00:26:29.980 --> 00:26:35.820 And then they'll come join final fantasy if it's something they play. So, um, it's 00:26:35.820 --> 00:26:44.940 Go ahead, DJ. Uh, uh, I was about to say there is kind of a network effect there. Like as people come 00:26:44.940 --> 00:26:50.060 into the VR MMO church experience, they like, Oh, these are different ways that you can experience 00:26:50.060 --> 00:26:55.580 church, whether it's rust, you know, FF 14, you know, VR. So there's kind of like a network effect. 00:26:55.580 --> 00:26:58.940 And some people have crossed over, you know what I mean? Like I was doing VR, but let me go 00:26:58.940 --> 00:27:03.420 do the, let me commit to the MMO church experience and, you know, vice versa. And so there's kind of 00:27:03.420 --> 00:27:08.460 like this, uh, community that's being cultivated. Um, you know, Coco mentioned social media and I 00:27:08.460 --> 00:27:13.340 think there's a powerful kind of, uh, network network effect there too, because of tick tock, 00:27:13.340 --> 00:27:18.380 YouTube people are like, what there's a church in final fantasy. Like, and so I said, I noticed at 00:27:18.380 --> 00:27:23.740 least in rust and I'm not sure if FF 14 feels has the same network effect, but, um, you know, 00:27:23.740 --> 00:27:28.700 that seed planted early in social media experience will, will bear fruit later. Like you'll see 00:27:28.700 --> 00:27:32.700 people come like, I heard about this like two months ago, I'm here now. Like, so there's like 00:27:32.700 --> 00:27:37.020 some time, uh, between that first interaction to when they start to experience or visit. 00:27:37.020 --> 00:27:43.020 Um, I know people like to watch, um, the final fantasy 14 sermons and discussions, um, if you 00:27:43.020 --> 00:27:47.580 will. And, uh, I just think they find it very unique and it's a really, uh, a very unique service. 00:27:47.900 --> 00:27:52.620 Like all of them are rec room, VR chat. Now we know we used to be in all space. Uh, rust is 00:27:52.620 --> 00:27:57.180 just super unique and final fantasy 14 is, it's a very beautiful service. You go in, 00:27:57.180 --> 00:28:03.100 the decorations are just, you know, immaculate. Um, you know, uh, Coco says no, like worship music 00:28:03.100 --> 00:28:09.180 per se, but there's like an ambiance of music. And so the whole, um, the whole vibe or the, uh, 00:28:09.180 --> 00:28:15.660 the aesthetics are so just calming and inviting. And then just to go in there with, uh, other avatars 00:28:15.660 --> 00:28:21.100 that, you know, we're all dressed up and who, cause final fantasy is known for its, its wardrobe. 00:28:21.100 --> 00:28:25.580 That's like one of the major elements of final fantasy 14. And so going in there is saving 00:28:25.580 --> 00:28:29.820 everyone dressed up. We grabs, we grab a seat. There's creatures because we have pets. They're 00:28:29.820 --> 00:28:34.540 all running around and Coco's delivering the message. We're doing discussion. People are doing emojis, 00:28:34.540 --> 00:28:39.020 like, you know, pumping their fists, giving thumbs up, you know? Um, and so, yeah, it's, 00:28:39.020 --> 00:28:42.300 it's very unique and special and it's something that should definitely be experienced. 00:28:42.300 --> 00:28:50.940 Yes. Very cool. Is our, is the spiritual temperature or are they spiritually seeking? Are they cold to 00:28:50.940 --> 00:28:57.980 Christ and, and, and coming in to, to make a joke? Are they, uh, already Christian and just wanting to 00:28:57.980 --> 00:29:04.940 check out this unique thing? Like who will spiritually, how are people when they first come in to, uh, 00:29:04.940 --> 00:29:13.900 to final fantasy church? So I have a mix. Um, some of them already Christian and they're just coming 00:29:13.900 --> 00:29:21.420 in because they're already, they have a life in final fantasy. And so why not join a community of, uh, 00:29:21.420 --> 00:29:27.820 Christians in there? So there, we do have that. And then we also have Christians who can't find a local 00:29:27.820 --> 00:29:31.580 church because they're having a really hard time finding a good local church that they can get involved 00:29:31.580 --> 00:29:39.340 in. And so I actually have people from that, um, group. And then there are people who were in a long 00:29:39.340 --> 00:29:46.620 time ago in church, but left, and then they'll come and just listen and hang out and, um, not say 00:29:46.620 --> 00:29:58.460 anything, um, but they'll listen. And, and then we have, um, it's mostly right now Christians. We do have, 00:29:58.460 --> 00:30:04.460 but they're like Christians who have kind of not been involved in local church. Um, um, 00:30:04.460 --> 00:30:09.100 interesting. So we're able to reach people that haven't been able to find a good local churches 00:30:09.100 --> 00:30:17.740 or that they've kind of like stepped away from those local churches or, um, uh, walked away a long 00:30:17.740 --> 00:30:27.340 time ago and are coming to like maybe rediscover. Um, so I'm not really setting a true target audience, 00:30:27.340 --> 00:30:32.380 except I want to reach the people that think that this is their, they come to final fantasy for 00:30:32.380 --> 00:30:38.220 community. They come to final fantasy to have relationship. Those are the people regardless 00:30:38.220 --> 00:30:42.220 of whether they're Christian or not. Um, cause that's what I'm looking for. 00:30:43.260 --> 00:30:51.260 Now, as I remember, um, y'all have been around 12 months, 18 months. How long has final fantasy 00:30:51.260 --> 00:30:59.740 been open? Um, the church we've unofficially since 2020, but, um, Oh, wow. We officially launched. 00:31:00.780 --> 00:31:04.300 What did we officially launched last year or the year before I've lost track? 00:31:04.300 --> 00:31:12.380 Oh man. My timeframes are awful. Um, I don't remember. It's, it's been a cup. It's almost 00:31:12.380 --> 00:31:16.540 two years. I think maybe officially launched in January of last year. 00:31:17.740 --> 00:31:24.300 Okay. So, I mean, you may not have the answer to this. Yes. Figured out. When I asked this 00:31:24.300 --> 00:31:30.380 question, most people don't have it figured out. Like, is, is the end game to keep them in, uh, 00:31:30.380 --> 00:31:36.700 final fantasy church is, is the end game to help them get connected into a physical church or to, 00:31:36.700 --> 00:31:43.900 to grow them to VR church, like in, in rec room or something like what's the, the long-term 00:31:43.900 --> 00:31:48.620 spiritual development. I get that question all the time. And so that's the biggest question people ask. 00:31:49.660 --> 00:31:53.180 I don't care about whether or not they go to a physical church. What I care about is whether or 00:31:53.180 --> 00:31:58.860 not they're growing in Christ. So that's my goal is to get them in a relationship with Christ and get 00:31:58.860 --> 00:32:03.420 them to know the real Christ and the real God, not the one that they've been shown by hateful 00:32:03.420 --> 00:32:09.420 Christians that push them away from church in the physical world. But, and I could go on about that, 00:32:09.420 --> 00:32:16.300 but, um, my goal is to help them grow. That's my goal. 00:32:17.420 --> 00:32:19.100 Yeah. We all can go on about that. 00:32:21.500 --> 00:32:25.980 Yeah. Yeah. I love that. Yeah. It was interesting because, uh, we think of, 00:32:25.980 --> 00:32:28.780 we've kind of had, we're having conversations because there's a lot of evolution happening 00:32:28.780 --> 00:32:34.940 with here at MMO church. And one of them is being more shot genre based. So, um, and this is like 00:32:34.940 --> 00:32:39.100 early conversations we haven't like, you know, declared or been definitive with this, but like 00:32:39.100 --> 00:32:42.940 with rust, you know, uh, there's going to be a shelf life to that at some point, whether it's five 00:32:42.940 --> 00:32:48.540 years or so it's going to, it's going to come. Rust two is going to come out. Arc two is coming out. 00:32:48.540 --> 00:32:53.180 So these, these different survival experiences. So we're thinking about re I don't know, for lack of 00:32:53.180 --> 00:32:58.220 better words, rebranding rust church into survival church, because it's a part of the survival genre 00:32:58.220 --> 00:33:03.740 and final fantasy church into MMOs, you know, so it's more like the broader terms. So we can 00:33:03.740 --> 00:33:09.740 shift into whatever is new, whatever comes to, you know, down the line. Um, so there's a kind of an 00:33:09.740 --> 00:33:16.140 evolving branding or, you know, terminology that we're kind of experimenting with. And then also like, 00:33:16.140 --> 00:33:20.380 what do we do? What's our end goal? Do we, are we, cause yeah, it's a great question. Do we, 00:33:20.380 --> 00:33:23.420 are we trying to get them into a physical church? Are we trying to get them into a VR church? 00:33:23.420 --> 00:33:27.740 I think what Coco's answer has said, uh, just, you know, hits it on the nail. That's our focus. 00:33:27.740 --> 00:33:32.140 That's our goal. Um, someone asked me recently about, are you trying to get them into a physical 00:33:32.140 --> 00:33:36.780 church? And I was like, well, cause I, and I told him earlier, early on in the interview that we view 00:33:36.780 --> 00:33:41.180 ourselves as a church. I said, well, we view ourselves as a church and if they want to get connected 00:33:41.180 --> 00:33:44.940 physically, certainly, yeah, let's let me, let me help you do that. But that's not necessarily our goal 00:33:44.940 --> 00:33:51.740 because that's what we are. Yeah. As long as they're growing, if they are not growing in a 00:33:51.740 --> 00:33:59.980 physical church, which many don't, um, I'd rather than see them grow. And we have met each other in 00:33:59.980 --> 00:34:06.380 real life. It's like, I've met just recently one of my final fantasy people in real life because they 00:34:06.380 --> 00:34:11.900 were driving through, um, on their way somewhere else. And so it's, we're still able to connect in 00:34:11.900 --> 00:34:19.340 the real life when we can, but it's that relationship. Unpack that for me. That's, that's interesting. 00:34:19.340 --> 00:34:25.660 So video game, digital goes physical, uh, video game. Somebody's driving through stops by coffee, 00:34:25.660 --> 00:34:31.740 lunch, whatever house. Um, what was it weird? Was it awkward? Was it like, you've known each other 00:34:31.740 --> 00:34:36.060 forever? Was it different than, than a digital? Like I just, I would like to know what that interaction 00:34:36.060 --> 00:34:41.580 was like. It was weird, but good. It's like, I enjoyed meeting them in person, getting to know 00:34:41.580 --> 00:34:45.340 them better. Cause there are things that you talk about in game that you're not going to talk about 00:34:45.340 --> 00:34:52.220 in real life and vice versa. So just getting to know, um, it was actually two people that came 00:34:52.220 --> 00:34:59.500 through and, um, we met for lunch and it's like, I've always associated them with their avatar. 00:35:00.140 --> 00:35:08.300 So what you mean? You're not a dragon girl in real life. What? So you look completely different. 00:35:10.140 --> 00:35:16.700 That's right. So it's just that weird, your, your brain associating your, cause you, we identify 00:35:16.700 --> 00:35:23.980 people by how they look. Right. Um, I know DJ bike cause it's face that's DJ. Um, and you by your face, 00:35:23.980 --> 00:35:29.740 you're Jeff. Um, so whenever, but whenever you're all digital and only ever see people's avatars, 00:35:29.740 --> 00:35:35.900 that's how you identify them. And then, so making that mental connection is weird in real life. 00:35:38.300 --> 00:35:42.940 It's so good. It's, it's interesting. You know, there, there's been several digital ministries, 00:35:42.940 --> 00:35:48.620 you know, I'm, I'm even thinking Jason polling up at a cornerstone, he's cornerstone Yuba city, 00:35:48.620 --> 00:35:53.260 but they do VR. Like they've, they've had a physical meetup for the digital church where they, 00:35:53.260 --> 00:35:57.420 where they're a virtual reality church, where all people fly over from all over the country, 00:35:57.420 --> 00:36:03.100 all over the world. They fly into, uh, uh, with San Francisco, I guess, and to, to Jason's physical 00:36:03.100 --> 00:36:09.180 church to, to meet up. And so I do, I love stories when, when that goes, when that happens, but, 00:36:09.180 --> 00:36:15.340 but it's interesting there's because you're so comfortable in digital space. Oftentimes there's 00:36:15.340 --> 00:36:20.780 some awkward entity. I don't know if that's a word, but some awkwardness, uh, in that first physical, 00:36:20.780 --> 00:36:26.940 uh, interaction. I've heard that, uh, quite a, quite a bit. So very, very cool. Um, DJ, 00:36:26.940 --> 00:36:31.340 tell me a hundred percent, not a word. Thank you, Mark. I appreciate that. You know, 00:36:31.340 --> 00:36:35.500 also it's not a word, how I pronounce your last name, Mark, your name is not pronounced the way 00:36:35.500 --> 00:36:41.020 that I say it. And we're going to just say, call that out right now. Um, I also, also true. I have no 00:36:41.020 --> 00:36:44.780 idea how to pronounce a four letter word that I should be able to say easily. Okay. Hey, 00:36:44.780 --> 00:36:51.180 so here's the question I wanted to ask. Um, DJ, like, so you've been in these two worlds and I'm not 00:36:51.180 --> 00:36:55.340 calling you out. You're a very aggressive guy. Um, but you've been in these two worlds for a while. 00:36:56.060 --> 00:37:02.780 Uh, have you experimented with, with other games? Uh, why are you just in these two? Is it resourcing? 00:37:02.780 --> 00:37:07.180 Is, is it people? Is it like, what's, what's been the bottleneck for you to get past the two? 00:37:08.460 --> 00:37:13.820 Yeah. So, uh, you know, short answer is we're always experimenting. Um, since at the, you know, 00:37:13.820 --> 00:37:17.980 a lot of us are gamers, we're in and out of all different types of experiences, even if we're just 00:37:17.980 --> 00:37:23.980 checking it out, we had a very strong, uh, you know, movement towards black desert online early 00:37:23.980 --> 00:37:29.580 on when we were thinking about MMO church. Um, and it really, it, I think one of the answers is it 00:37:29.580 --> 00:37:34.700 does come down to resources and, you know, manpower. Do we have the, the hours during the week to, 00:37:34.700 --> 00:37:39.340 you know, maintain a ministry? Well, um, do we have, you know, at least some fundamental finances to, 00:37:39.340 --> 00:37:44.780 you know, uh, establish at least a central experience so that we could support these 00:37:44.780 --> 00:37:50.700 ministries in VRMMO churches. So, um, unofficially it goes through like a little bit of a curation 00:37:50.700 --> 00:37:56.620 process. Like, is the platform good? Uh, does it cultivate community? Um, do we have people 00:37:56.620 --> 00:38:03.020 for it? And so ideally when it came down to us for us at VRMMO church, our community's passion for 00:38:03.020 --> 00:38:08.540 rust and then our community's passion for FF14 really was the kind of like deciding factor, 00:38:08.540 --> 00:38:13.900 even though we would love to be in Warcraft. Um, I think there could be an amazing arc experience 00:38:13.900 --> 00:38:19.660 with the dinosaurs, um, that you could do on a PVE server. I would love to do that. Uh, we were also 00:38:19.660 --> 00:38:25.340 experimenting with a GT, uh, GTA online Grand Theft Auto would, would have loved to plan a church in, 00:38:25.340 --> 00:38:32.540 uh, Los Santos. Um, and, but at the end of the day, we were limited, so to speak, 00:38:32.540 --> 00:38:37.260 and not necessarily in a bad way, but just, and what's good for us to plant the churches where we 00:38:37.260 --> 00:38:42.620 did. Um, always keeping an eye on what's new, what's coming when new worlds came out or eyeing 00:38:42.620 --> 00:38:48.220 that up. Um, you know, just as in a, uh, just a generic evaluation, like what does this have to 00:38:48.220 --> 00:38:54.540 offer? Is this any good? Um, and so I think at our, at our core, at the heart of our leadership 00:38:54.540 --> 00:39:00.380 for the elders of your MMO church, we're experimenters, we're gamers, and we like to explore. So we're always 00:39:00.380 --> 00:39:04.940 looking at stuff. And I think there's a lot of wisdom with the team to know what, what, what our 00:39:04.940 --> 00:39:10.220 limits are at. And Coco does a good job of kind of counting the, you know, the, how many energy 00:39:10.220 --> 00:39:16.780 points we have to do something. And so, um, yeah, I think if we had, uh, unlimited, you know, 00:39:17.340 --> 00:39:23.580 resources, manpower, we would be in three to four, three to five experiences by next month. Um, but, uh, 00:39:23.580 --> 00:39:28.060 we're just taking it one step at a time. No, I totally get that. 00:39:29.780 --> 00:39:35.260 It's good to focus on one and build the community in there too, because you could spread yourself too 00:39:35.260 --> 00:39:40.380 thin and then also not do a good job of building the community and the ones that you do have. 00:39:41.020 --> 00:39:47.020 And something DJ said a very long time ago when I first started meeting with him was if we can't 00:39:47.020 --> 00:39:53.340 serve two people well, how are we going to serve 20 to 200 people well? Right. Um, we need to be able 00:39:53.340 --> 00:39:58.700 to serve the few that we do have before we start expanding anywhere else. 00:39:58.700 --> 00:40:06.300 Good call. If this may be too personal a question to ask, um, what, what's the operating budget? 00:40:06.300 --> 00:40:12.620 Like how much money does it, how much does it cost to run Final Fantasy Church? I mean, 00:40:12.620 --> 00:40:16.380 you can set aside salaries or I don't know how any of that works, but would love some insight. 00:40:17.020 --> 00:40:23.020 Um, so there's a couple of ways to look at it and cause it's an evolving conversation about 00:40:23.020 --> 00:40:27.900 finances and VR church. Cause at, at one point we were there, we, we had a fairly funding element 00:40:27.900 --> 00:40:33.020 where we could stipend to a certain degree, like teachers and stuff like that, as things have dived 00:40:33.020 --> 00:40:37.660 off the cliff, you know, uh, economically, uh, you know, for tech companies, they're cutting back. 00:40:37.660 --> 00:40:42.940 You can imagine if they're having trouble, the metaverse gamer churches is, is certainly having 00:40:42.940 --> 00:40:46.860 trouble as well, uh, economically. And I'm speaking very generically. So for us, 00:40:46.860 --> 00:40:55.020 us, um, we're really running on, uh, like 99% of volunteer driven ministry. Um, so there are no 00:40:55.020 --> 00:41:01.580 costs associated to it, except, um, actually people are putting money into it, into it. So, 00:41:01.580 --> 00:41:06.060 you know, like Coco, I'm assuming you're, you're paying for your, obviously you're paying for your 00:41:06.060 --> 00:41:09.900 subscription too. You know, that's something that, you know, one day the church hopes to, 00:41:09.900 --> 00:41:16.620 you know, cover as she's the pastor of, of, of the experience. So, um, well, as it looks, I probably 00:41:16.620 --> 00:41:21.820 had a different answer for you last year. This year, uh, VRMMO church is going to be a volunteer 00:41:21.820 --> 00:41:26.860 driven ministry. Um, so when it comes to how much is it going to, if a leader was going to ask me, 00:41:26.860 --> 00:41:30.860 how much is it going to cost to plant a church in this gaming thing we're going to do? Our answer 00:41:30.860 --> 00:41:36.700 would be nothing. Just go do it. Um, but I know maybe sometimes churches want a line item behind 00:41:36.700 --> 00:41:43.020 that. So, but that's not something that I think we would get because we're, we've even kind of dialed 00:41:43.020 --> 00:41:48.700 in our ministry to be volunteer driven, which I think is very unique. Uh, could be better. It could 00:41:48.700 --> 00:41:55.340 be for worse. It's just what it is at the moment. Yeah. There's, there's certainly opportunities to go, 00:41:55.340 --> 00:41:59.500 you know, we, we talk a lot about bivocational ministry, uh, where you've got somebody who's got 00:41:59.500 --> 00:42:04.540 a nine to five job and, and ministries on the side, they're not, they're not getting a salary from it. 00:42:04.540 --> 00:42:11.340 That, that actually is, is a growing trend, uh, that we're seeing, especially among new churches 00:42:11.340 --> 00:42:16.540 and new church planters where the idea, I mean, listen, we're at a borderline recession. There, 00:42:16.540 --> 00:42:21.900 there's economies about the crash, artificial intelligence is everybody wigging out. Um, 00:42:21.900 --> 00:42:28.380 you know, what the, the, the economy, the, the business models of tomorrow, um, you know, 00:42:28.380 --> 00:42:33.180 donor-based churches are, are, are going to struggle. Uh, and so even there's even conversations 00:42:33.180 --> 00:42:39.100 among church leaders on how to become multi-stream. And so the more of that multi-stream of, of incomes, 00:42:39.100 --> 00:42:46.060 and so the more that churches can, can start to move towards a bivocational, towards a volunteer 00:42:46.060 --> 00:42:53.020 driven model, um, that is going to be so much more effective and so much more. I mean, money's not 00:42:53.020 --> 00:42:58.700 the lid. Um, in, in, in many ways, money becomes the lid, but if, as you're able to cast vision and 00:42:58.700 --> 00:43:03.340 recruit more leaders to expand more, like, I love what you're doing to me. That's the most encouraging 00:43:03.340 --> 00:43:08.220 thing that I've heard is, yeah, we can do this. And we're doing this with, with volunteers. We're 00:43:08.220 --> 00:43:13.500 casting vision and getting them to, to buy into it. And so that's, I would rather if you said that, 00:43:13.500 --> 00:43:18.300 then yeah, we've got like a $2 million budget. That would be discouraging. Uh, so yeah, I know that's 00:43:18.300 --> 00:43:23.820 hard, but we're doing it. Yeah, no, it is, it is hard. And we've had, we've had a lot of tough 00:43:23.820 --> 00:43:29.020 conversations, um, all around that. And, um, I think we're really proud of the team for where 00:43:29.020 --> 00:43:34.060 we're at right now, because we've created a sustainable rhythm for, uh, for the foreseeable 00:43:34.060 --> 00:43:40.780 future. Uh, whereas before it was really reliant on a particular like outcomes and monetary giving, 00:43:40.780 --> 00:43:46.060 but now that it's dialed in, in a certain way, it, if you are MMO church will never go away. Uh, 00:43:46.060 --> 00:43:50.940 you know, it won't close down because of funding, it would always exist. Um, and so I think that's super 00:43:50.940 --> 00:43:56.540 unique. I don't, I don't, I think there's a part of it that's uncomfortable because you, you do want 00:43:56.540 --> 00:44:02.140 like some good funding, but like you said, the, the recession giving is down. Um, if a tech companies 00:44:02.140 --> 00:44:06.140 are having a problem and they're for profit, can you imagine what nonprofits are going through? Can 00:44:06.140 --> 00:44:10.060 you imagine what non nonprofits are going through? I'm talking about us over here at the bottom 00:44:10.060 --> 00:44:14.060 end of the pool, you know, we're a gamer church, metaverse church. It's not like people are lining up 00:44:14.060 --> 00:44:20.060 to, you know, you know, the nominations aren't lining up to give. Right. So, um, no, I think it's 00:44:20.060 --> 00:44:24.380 hard and, but I also think it's beautiful. So it's built. It's a bittersweet. 00:44:26.140 --> 00:44:32.380 And we've had to make that acknowledgement that we're going to have to get our income somehow, 00:44:32.380 --> 00:44:37.980 some other way. Like, yeah, I saw your stream on co-vocation versus bi-vocational with, 00:44:37.980 --> 00:44:43.740 I don't remember who it was you were talking to Jeff, but, um, I saw that one and it's like, 00:44:43.740 --> 00:44:47.420 got me thinking about this. Yeah. We're going to have to accept that. This is, this is not a 00:44:48.620 --> 00:44:54.220 staff driven thing. We're going to have to work outside of the church to get our money. 00:44:54.700 --> 00:45:01.500 Yeah. There's, and that's, that's a cold reality that even like successful large churches are 00:45:01.500 --> 00:45:09.660 wrestling with at this point. Um, the, the, the ministry model for funding is changing right 00:45:09.660 --> 00:45:15.420 right before our eyes and the ones that, that can adapt towards it. Um, and, and, and how that works. 00:45:15.420 --> 00:45:20.380 And, and, but the other, the other aspect of bi-vocational is how to be really in the, in DCN, 00:45:20.380 --> 00:45:26.940 like my nonprofit, uh, the, the church planting organization is, is, I mean, we gotta, I'll just 00:45:26.940 --> 00:45:33.420 be blunt right here. We got a $20,000 grant last year. Um, and then we had donor giving, which was, 00:45:33.420 --> 00:45:38.780 uh, helpful, but it was minimal in the grand scheme of things. And so like, we're not, 00:45:38.780 --> 00:45:43.020 we're not rolling in cash by any stretch. As a matter of fact, I probably have five jobs 00:45:43.500 --> 00:45:48.220 that pay for the ministry of the church, digital, digital church network and my house and everything. 00:45:48.220 --> 00:45:52.940 Like I'm paying a lot out of my, my pocket, but how to be successful in bi-vocational, 00:45:52.940 --> 00:45:58.140 as I talked with planters and pastors who, who are successful in bi-vocational, it's, it's not slowed 00:45:58.140 --> 00:46:05.420 down. It's recruit more leaders and disperse more and break out more and release more responsibility. 00:46:05.420 --> 00:46:10.620 Uh, and so that, that's really has been the challenge for us as we're running DCN is not, 00:46:10.620 --> 00:46:14.940 you know, there's not, there are seasons where I feel like, oh, Jeff just needs to work harder. 00:46:14.940 --> 00:46:19.500 Uh, yeah, let me go ahead and put in that 80 hour week. Um, but that's not, that's not sustainable. 00:46:19.500 --> 00:46:25.420 That's not helpful. Um, and, and, and instead it's been, okay, maybe we need to slow down, but maybe I 00:46:25.420 --> 00:46:31.660 need to recruit some people, cast vision, train them and release them. And so for me, uh, I just, 00:46:31.660 --> 00:46:36.860 cause I, I just, I love being aggressive. Um, it's, it's been how, how can I recruit and train and 00:46:36.860 --> 00:46:42.620 develop, uh, apprentice people to release them? Uh, man, this has been a great conversation. 00:46:43.740 --> 00:46:49.340 But by what I'm seeing, DJ, I want to, I want to ask one question and this is, this is weird. 00:46:49.340 --> 00:46:56.620 So let me, let me set it up. Um, it's in my, in my re and actually this isn't even me. This came out 00:46:56.620 --> 00:47:02.860 of sprout digital. I think you talked with them, uh, Jared, uh, Jared and, and Roth, their research 00:47:02.860 --> 00:47:08.220 company talking to digital churches, uh, and, and virtual reality churches. One of the, one of the few, 00:47:08.220 --> 00:47:14.380 although it's increasing really research reports coming out on what's happening in, in digital only 00:47:14.380 --> 00:47:21.020 church and, and metaverse church. Uh, and according to them, they came up with five different categories 00:47:21.020 --> 00:47:27.820 of, of digital churches, um, social media churches, influencer churches, virtual reality 00:47:27.820 --> 00:47:35.020 churches, metaverse churches, uh, combined kind of there. Um, they did, um, gamer church is a new 00:47:35.020 --> 00:47:39.740 category that just came in. And then the fifth would be a physical church doing digital ministry. 00:47:39.740 --> 00:47:46.540 So what I'm saying is that they separated VR and gamer church into two separate categories. 00:47:47.340 --> 00:47:52.060 It's interesting. Like this has been actually a source of contention, um, recently as we've 00:47:52.060 --> 00:47:58.540 delved more into gamer churches and working more with virtual reality churches where there's a lot of 00:47:58.540 --> 00:48:03.900 similarities. There's a lot of differences. Um, and, and I just, I just wanted to ask the guy that 00:48:03.900 --> 00:48:12.700 literally is doing a church that is across these two categories. Like, do you see them more as 00:48:12.700 --> 00:48:19.020 similar? Do you see them? Oh, yeah, 100%. Like, talk to me a little bit, um, actually all four, 00:48:19.020 --> 00:48:24.300 four of the categories are all the same. It's about influencer, social media, VR gaming. You could 00:48:24.300 --> 00:48:29.100 put all that into one. Cause that's essentially what we do for, uh, I don't want to use the word if we're 00:48:29.100 --> 00:48:36.220 doing it well, but that's a great model. If we're, let's just use that language, not despair, not being 00:48:36.220 --> 00:48:42.620 disrespectful to anybody else, but to do it well with, to be an influencer, um, on social media, who's 00:48:42.620 --> 00:48:47.740 doing the, and then you can combine those gamer and VR because those are essentially the same. Like when 00:48:47.740 --> 00:48:52.300 you look at all space or VR chats, basically a game, it's like, uh, let's take VR chat. That's on 00:48:52.300 --> 00:48:59.660 steam that that's considered a game you download, but we it's a VR social experience that you could 00:48:59.660 --> 00:49:05.580 call it metaverse. So those two categories I think are, are one. And then as a ministry, 00:49:05.580 --> 00:49:10.700 we're doing the social media and the influencing, and that's a powerful kind of effect. So to me, 00:49:10.700 --> 00:49:15.900 it's all one in the same, at least for us and how we express it. It's all one in the same. Um, 00:49:15.900 --> 00:49:22.220 I wouldn't have separated those, but that's just me by perspective. Yeah. I was, I was having a 00:49:22.220 --> 00:49:27.900 conversations with a global missions organization. We were talking about this and, um, he, he was, 00:49:27.900 --> 00:49:32.460 he was very, no, no, no, it's one. I was like, no, no, no, it's two. And, and so it was interesting. 00:49:32.460 --> 00:49:37.900 And it's all, it's all new. It was funny. They just came out with a report. Well, it was like November 00:49:37.900 --> 00:49:45.420 of last year, like gaming, gaming or gamer church was not on the radar of, of, of anybody of this 00:49:45.420 --> 00:49:50.620 research in 21. Like it didn't, it didn't even make the report. And, and they, they released an 00:49:50.620 --> 00:49:55.500 updated on, on, it was more discipleship in 22, what avenues talking discipleship. And that's when 00:49:55.500 --> 00:50:00.460 they're like, Hey, we've discovered this fourth category that's gamers. And, uh, which really kind 00:50:00.460 --> 00:50:06.380 of brought this opportunity of explosion of, of awareness of what's going on in gamer churches and 00:50:06.380 --> 00:50:12.620 what, what Mark and Bubba and, and Jate and, and all these guys are, are, are working on and 00:50:12.620 --> 00:50:17.900 you and what you're championing, even in your worlds, even in these, these specific games, 00:50:17.900 --> 00:50:24.300 like it's, it's encouraging to me because as a general rule, we've reached different people 00:50:24.300 --> 00:50:29.980 by doing these different things. And so seeing the success and, um, I keep wanting to say Black 00:50:29.980 --> 00:50:35.260 Desert, you guys need to launch into Black Desert. I just, I'm like, get into Black Desert. 00:50:35.260 --> 00:50:38.380 That's your sixth job, Jeff, is Black Desert. 00:50:39.740 --> 00:50:44.620 Actually, now that you describe it that way, like, like, so let's say for us in the metaverse, 00:50:44.620 --> 00:50:48.780 deep in deep, let's just say we're deep in web three, deep in the metaverse. Those are all the 00:50:48.780 --> 00:50:53.740 same. But I think now you, when I hear you talking about it, it makes a really good point 00:50:53.740 --> 00:50:59.100 when you're communicating, let's say to the older generation, to the older church leadership. I think 00:50:59.100 --> 00:51:05.980 perhaps using the term gamer church as a distinctive could be helpful. And yeah, maybe like you said, 00:51:05.980 --> 00:51:10.380 bringing awareness, connecting them with the vision that there is people in their church are 00:51:10.380 --> 00:51:15.580 ripe to, to start these ministries and Minecraft, Roblox, Rec Room, all those types of things. 00:51:15.580 --> 00:51:19.980 So at first I was like, no, they're all the same. That doesn't make sense to me. But now I go, okay, 00:51:19.980 --> 00:51:27.500 I can see how at a communicative level for those that were not birthed in this, like you think of our, 00:51:27.500 --> 00:51:32.700 our current church leaders, and with all respect, they were birthed from seminaries who were void 00:51:32.700 --> 00:51:37.020 of any of this, any of this topic. Like Jesus Gamers in the church, I look at this title here, 00:51:37.020 --> 00:51:43.180 that was not a class that they took in seminary, right? It might be in the near future. So they've 00:51:43.180 --> 00:51:48.060 either had to evolve or grow into it. So I think that that language could be helpful, 00:51:48.060 --> 00:51:51.580 even though at first I was like, oh, I don't know about that. So yeah. 00:51:51.580 --> 00:51:59.900 Yeah. I long for the day when church can just be church and we don't have to call out physical, 00:51:59.900 --> 00:52:08.700 digital, micro, metaverse, gaming. When we're all accepted and we're all working towards a great 00:52:08.700 --> 00:52:14.540 commission, that will be a great day. Until then, we have to have these labels to educate. 00:52:14.540 --> 00:52:21.500 And so that's, that's my, my hope through it. And so, hey, listen, this has been a great podcast. 00:52:21.500 --> 00:52:29.500 Pastor Coco, Pastor DJ Soto, the Bishop of the Metaverse. Thanks for jumping on this podcast. 00:52:29.500 --> 00:52:34.060 And this, this live stream and joining in, uh, we're going to be doing this next week, 00:52:34.060 --> 00:52:38.940 Thursday, 3:00 PM Eastern for the love of all that's within me. I cannot remember who's going 00:52:38.940 --> 00:52:44.460 to be on next week. Um, I, you know what I think, I think we're digging into mental health and gaming 00:52:44.460 --> 00:52:49.660 and church. Uh, we're, we're bringing in, um, the American association of Christian counselors 00:52:49.660 --> 00:52:55.020 coming in and we're, we're talking about how to deal with neurodivergent issues in, in gaming and in, 00:52:55.020 --> 00:52:58.860 in, in, in, in this coordinate and digital communities. And so really we're, listen, we're, 00:52:58.860 --> 00:53:03.100 we're digging into the deep end next week. It's going to be a great podcast, great stream. 00:53:03.100 --> 00:53:06.620 We're looking forward to being a part of it, but we're going to land a plane, uh, for Pastor Coco, 00:53:06.620 --> 00:53:11.260 for Pastor DJ. Uh, my name is Jeff at the church digital, digital church network. Thanks for jumping 00:53:11.260 --> 00:53:16.620 on the stream here. Appreciate y'all. Y'all have a good day. Bye.