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, 00:00:34.460 --> 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. 00:00:47.400 --> 00:00:52.180 Hey, everybody. Welcome to Church Digital Podcast. This is going to be a fun podcast. We are in the 00:00:52.180 --> 00:00:57.080 middle of season five, how to take your digital ministry, how to take your metaverse ministry, 00:00:57.080 --> 00:01:03.400 to the next level. And we've got a great guest coming in in the podcast here today. Now, remember, 00:01:03.500 --> 00:01:08.180 this season, we're talking a lot about leadership network and their learning communities that are 00:01:08.180 --> 00:01:13.940 coming up. We're doing a digital ministry, learning community, and we're doing a metaverse ministry, 00:01:14.320 --> 00:01:19.180 learning community. We're talking about how to level up digital churches, how to take digital 00:01:19.180 --> 00:01:23.840 churches to the next level, how to do the same thing with metaverse ministry. And really, 00:01:23.840 --> 00:01:28.340 the metaverse is what we want to focus on today. By the way, before I get into that, I forgot to give 00:01:28.340 --> 00:01:32.940 you the URLs. If you're interested in checking out more information on the learning communities, 00:01:33.100 --> 00:01:42.520 check out leadnet.org slash DLC for the digital learning community or leadnet.org slash MLC for the 00:01:42.520 --> 00:01:48.560 metaverse learning community. Hopefully, you see how that works. Leadnet, L-E-A-D-N-E-D.org slash DLC or MLC. 00:01:48.560 --> 00:01:55.120 And I am honored today. I've teased this guy two times and I'm watching him off screen cracking up as 00:01:55.120 --> 00:02:01.440 I'm having this conversation right now. I'm happy to bring in Stunami into the conversation. Stunami. 00:02:02.300 --> 00:02:04.620 It's great to have you here. Stunami. 00:02:06.580 --> 00:02:06.980 Stunami. 00:02:07.860 --> 00:02:13.320 Stunami. That's not how it's said, right? You're like Mark Lutz. I don't know how to pronounce your 00:02:13.320 --> 00:02:14.880 name. Stunami. Stunami, right? 00:02:15.840 --> 00:02:22.540 Stunami. Yeah, Stunami. But I thought the short version was Stun. Is it not Stun? I'm confused at 00:02:22.540 --> 00:02:31.960 this moment. So Mark and Jay have both called me Stun from the chat because they just see the short, 00:02:32.060 --> 00:02:38.460 they see the full name, my full metaverse name, Stunami. So my name's Stuart, for anybody who's not 00:02:38.460 --> 00:02:43.840 aware. It says Stuart, and I turned that into Stunami. And so in the chat, when I've been into 00:02:43.840 --> 00:02:48.740 like their Twitch streams, they just see Stunami pop up. And for whatever reason, both of their brains 00:02:48.740 --> 00:02:55.640 went to just reading the first four letters. And so I went from Stuart to Stunami to now I'm just a 00:02:55.640 --> 00:02:57.000 stunning, good looking individual. 00:02:57.800 --> 00:03:03.720 Yeah, that was a nice play right there. You're a stunning, good looking individual on a podcast. 00:03:04.280 --> 00:03:10.260 You've never looked greater on this podcast. Maybe our YouTube audience can just soak in the greatness 00:03:10.260 --> 00:03:17.200 that is your, by the way, you do ministry in virtual reality. Once again, probably not the best place for a 00:03:17.200 --> 00:03:21.980 stunning, stunning individual like you. Stunami. Stunning, good looking individual. 00:03:22.220 --> 00:03:27.780 Very, very good. Man, we're not even five minutes into this thing and we are off the rails. So 00:03:27.780 --> 00:03:35.580 listen, Stuart has been a friend for a while now. And we just have seen his church, Lakeland Church, 00:03:35.620 --> 00:03:41.820 do some incredible things in virtual reality. And it's funny, we were even just talking offline today 00:03:41.820 --> 00:03:47.180 where, hey, Stuart, you may not consider yourself this, but I think he's growing into the 00:03:47.180 --> 00:03:57.140 idea of being the metaverse ministry expert. Like Stu, still to this day, I don't know of anybody else 00:03:57.140 --> 00:04:05.480 in the country that is full time, whose only priority is metaverse. Now, I know you've picked 00:04:05.480 --> 00:04:10.680 up some digital responsibilities here in a little bit, but that wasn't at a discredit of what's 00:04:10.680 --> 00:04:17.160 happening in the metaverse. There was a need in digital space. And so you are still pioneering 00:04:17.160 --> 00:04:24.320 in this space, really championing this idea of a full-time physical church doing metaverse 00:04:24.320 --> 00:04:30.380 ministry in ways that very few, if any churches are really doing before. How does that feel? How's it 00:04:30.380 --> 00:04:39.500 feel to be that guy? I tell you, Jeff, it's still super awkward, I guess would be the right word to use 00:04:39.500 --> 00:04:45.580 for that. Just like, you know, my wife, anytime she has to tell somebody what it is that I do for a living, 00:04:45.740 --> 00:04:50.720 she's like, I really don't know how to explain what it is that you do to somebody else. And I say, 00:04:50.860 --> 00:04:54.160 I tell her, I'm like, it's okay, because I don't know how to explain what I do to anybody else either. 00:04:54.460 --> 00:05:00.780 But I get paid full time to do it. And I'm having a lot of fun. I would say this, if there's any real 00:05:00.780 --> 00:05:08.940 way of like, surmising how I feel about it. It's, you know, we talked about this before on my discord, 00:05:09.340 --> 00:05:15.720 my bio on there, it just simply says, attacking the gates of hell, all around the world through 00:05:15.720 --> 00:05:20.880 like through a headset through the metaverse, right. And I think that really surmises how I feel about 00:05:20.880 --> 00:05:27.120 this. I'm just excited because that's how I'm wired and I'm getting to do it. So it's fun. It's a lot 00:05:27.120 --> 00:05:32.360 of fun. That's awesome. And that's the right answer to have. I was just, I was just a guest on 00:05:32.360 --> 00:05:39.140 Stunami's podcast, which is called metaverse church podcast. Yeah. Metaverse church podcast is part of 00:05:39.140 --> 00:05:44.920 the TCD podcast network. I was a guest on that. I mean, probably by the time this airs, maybe a month 00:05:44.920 --> 00:05:50.060 ago, but had a chance to talk about metaverse mission trips. And that's one of the things that, 00:05:50.120 --> 00:05:54.960 that we'll get into a little bit with this conversation, but Stunami Stuart's going to be 00:05:54.960 --> 00:06:01.180 helping me lead this leadership network learning community that, that we are putting together and 00:06:01.180 --> 00:06:09.080 doing. It's going to be two physical meetups and three online meetups this fall. And so if your 00:06:09.080 --> 00:06:15.480 church is interested in doing metaverse ministry, man, come hang out with Stu and I, we're going to be 00:06:15.480 --> 00:06:22.040 at, uh, at, uh, core at, uh, community Christian church, uh, Dave Ferguson's church, uh, up in, uh, 00:06:22.040 --> 00:06:27.140 in Illinois. And we're going to be hanging out at Northwood, uh, church in Keller, Texas in, in, 00:06:27.140 --> 00:06:33.320 in December. So, uh, we'll get, we'll get Chicago in September before it freezes over. And then we'll 00:06:33.320 --> 00:06:39.280 be down in Texas in December, which may be a little cold, but not as bad as, as what, uh, 00:06:39.280 --> 00:06:44.340 as what Stunami Stu, I'm glad you're in virtual reality ministry. Cause you know, where you are, 00:06:44.400 --> 00:06:50.380 are Minnesota or Wisconsin? I can never remember Wisconsin, like Wisconsin. At what point does 00:06:50.380 --> 00:06:55.580 like the world freeze over and you just turn into like the, the, the frozen, let it go like world 00:06:55.580 --> 00:07:01.780 man on a good year in the two, three years that I've been here about the end of October, 00:07:01.780 --> 00:07:07.580 we can maybe start like predicting the first snow come in, but here we are at like at the time of 00:07:07.580 --> 00:07:14.300 this recording, most people in the U S right now are experiencing spring and kind of gearing up for 00:07:14.300 --> 00:07:20.760 summertime. And, uh, I still have all my winter clothing out. Yeah. I mean, you'd look, if you're 00:07:20.760 --> 00:07:25.240 watching on YouTube, you'd look quite warm right now. You got, you got the long sleeve jacket on and 00:07:25.240 --> 00:07:31.500 yeah, man. Awesome. That's good for you. That's a good time. Yeah. I mean, just stay warm and enjoy 00:07:31.500 --> 00:07:38.500 that virtual reality ministry. So that's kind of the best part is like doing VR ministry. Like I have 00:07:38.500 --> 00:07:46.160 the ultimate control over the weather and our VR campus and we can have service outside every single 00:07:46.160 --> 00:07:52.640 weekend under the stars if I want. And it's like a nice 75 degrees. Cause that's what my thermostat 00:07:52.640 --> 00:08:00.360 says. So I tell you what, why don't we just transition right off that 70,000 degrees church under the 00:08:00.360 --> 00:08:06.080 stars. Talk to us a little bit here. You know, I don't think I, you know, I've done a lot of 00:08:06.080 --> 00:08:10.440 interviews with you and like leadership network podcasts and different things, but I'm actually 00:08:10.440 --> 00:08:14.800 trying to think when it's been a minute since you've been on this, the church digital podcast. 00:08:14.800 --> 00:08:20.680 So tell my audience a little bit here, like what metaverse ministry looks like for, for you, 00:08:20.740 --> 00:08:26.160 what, what actually doing ministry, doing church looks like, um, and, and where you're at now that, 00:08:26.160 --> 00:08:30.080 you know, all spaces is gone. What, what have you evolved into in recent months? 00:08:30.740 --> 00:08:37.280 Yeah. So here's the crazy part, Jeff. Uh, you just brought to my realization that I actually don't 00:08:37.280 --> 00:08:42.920 know that I've ever been on this podcast before. I don't, I don't want to call myself out publicly, 00:08:42.920 --> 00:08:48.140 but I was, I was doing all of my, my virtual reality stuff over on leadership network show. 00:08:48.140 --> 00:08:52.840 And I know you were over there and I did leadership network podcasts with you and panels. And, and I, 00:08:52.840 --> 00:08:59.200 I, you're new, this is your first time on this show, bro. And so first off, welcome to the show. 00:08:59.200 --> 00:09:04.340 Glad you could join us. But, uh, yeah, this is, that's, this is, this is a sudden realization for 00:09:04.340 --> 00:09:08.700 me. It's like, man, well, I'm glad we could have you on the flagship, but tell me, tell me a little 00:09:08.700 --> 00:09:13.920 bit about ministry. Look, before I get into that, I do have to say this, like you, you sit there and 00:09:13.920 --> 00:09:18.680 you start this whole podcast talking about how I'm the expert in this field. And I don't know that 00:09:18.680 --> 00:09:24.800 that's necessarily true or if I bought into that yet, but you got to know what it feels like for me to 00:09:24.800 --> 00:09:30.340 be the guy that you're calling the expert. And I listened to this podcast on a regular basis and 00:09:30.340 --> 00:09:36.480 I've never been invited. I'm like calling me out. Oh my gosh. He doesn't even, he says all these 00:09:36.480 --> 00:09:42.460 things just to kind of pump me up. And that never invites me onto the church digital podcast. And I 00:09:42.460 --> 00:09:48.200 don't even know how I feel right now. So all that being said, all that being said. Oh my gosh. 00:09:48.800 --> 00:09:53.220 Yeah. So metaverse ministry, man. Well, no, no, no, no, no, no. You can't do that to me. 00:09:54.420 --> 00:10:01.000 Oh, dang it. All right. All right. Publicly, this podcast is so far off the rails. I love every 00:10:01.000 --> 00:10:10.400 second of this. I publicly apologize to Stunami, Stuart McPherson for not having him specifically 00:10:10.400 --> 00:10:20.400 on my show until episode embarrassingly. What is this? What did I say? This was 272, 272. 00:10:20.640 --> 00:10:28.720 I have managed to have 271 other conversations than Stuart McPherson, who I am suggesting is the 00:10:28.720 --> 00:10:35.400 expert in virtual reality ministry in 2023. Now I have certainly brought him into other 00:10:35.400 --> 00:10:42.360 conversations. I've empowered him in other ways. But I, for contractual reasons that I am not able 00:10:42.360 --> 00:10:48.700 to get into on air, did not have him on my show here. So Stuart, will you humbly forgive me? 00:10:49.600 --> 00:10:56.620 Oh man, I forgive you so much, Jeff. I'm just honored that I do get to be here. And look, as we are 00:10:56.620 --> 00:11:00.440 talking about metaverse ministry and we're talking about how the show is like already off the rails 00:11:00.440 --> 00:11:04.820 right now, I feel like those two things really, they go hand in hand with each other because I 00:11:04.820 --> 00:11:09.340 think what a lot of people typically think of when they hear the idea of church in the metaverse or 00:11:09.340 --> 00:11:14.140 church, uh, specifically in virtual reality, I think that they think that the church is off the rails 00:11:14.140 --> 00:11:19.180 in the process of that. Like, what are we even thinking about bringing church into these spaces? 00:11:19.180 --> 00:11:26.360 And to be honest with you, um, uh, podcast that my co-host Goose and I did, we even talked about how 00:11:26.360 --> 00:11:31.120 church in the meta, in the metaverse, what it's actually doing is this slaughtering the sacred 00:11:31.120 --> 00:11:36.380 cows of the church. And we're starting to realize that there's a lot of things that we, as the church, 00:11:36.380 --> 00:11:43.160 uh, felt like were, uh, non-negotiables that you had to have in order to be considered the church, 00:11:43.160 --> 00:11:48.440 uh, whether that's certain days or times or however you are doing ministry that also realizing, especially 00:11:48.440 --> 00:11:53.940 in the metaverse, those are sacred cows that we're able to bring to the altar and just leave them 00:11:53.940 --> 00:11:59.020 there and say, let's just do what God has called us to do, which is to be the hands and feet of Jesus 00:11:59.020 --> 00:12:06.000 in these spaces. Um, so it's a lot of fun, you know, us over at Lakeland, uh, we've been in virtual 00:12:06.000 --> 00:12:11.900 reality for over two years now. Um, it started off as just what was supposed to be a six month trial, 00:12:11.900 --> 00:12:17.820 uh, let's see if we can get a church started in there. If we get nothing more than a small group 00:12:17.820 --> 00:12:25.800 that's meeting in VR, we would consider that a win. Um, and two years later, we were still going, 00:12:25.900 --> 00:12:33.100 we have a team, we officially call it a campus. So we see it as a multi-site campus. Um, and, uh, 00:12:33.100 --> 00:12:37.300 we're just doing it every single week. So like you said, we, we were in alt space. That's originally 00:12:37.300 --> 00:12:43.480 where we launched into these days. We are in spatial, uh, dot IO, uh, and really kind of investing 00:12:43.480 --> 00:12:49.220 our time in that space right now. And, uh, yeah, man, we're just having a lot of fun and doing this 00:12:49.220 --> 00:12:53.960 just because we're, we're getting the opportunity to meet with people that you wouldn't typically 00:12:53.960 --> 00:12:59.620 find walking in through the physical doors of the church. And yet they're, uh, finding their way 00:12:59.620 --> 00:13:08.180 into our virtual reality campus and bringing solid, solid questions about faith and religion as a whole, 00:13:08.180 --> 00:13:14.880 um, to our VR campus. And, and just watching, we're having fun watching the needle move on 00:13:14.880 --> 00:13:21.320 people's spiritual journeys on that, on that meter. I, I love your church. Uh, I, you know, 00:13:21.360 --> 00:13:26.900 I met, I met, I tell, I tell the story a lot. I met Josh Amstutz, the lead pastor there met him 00:13:26.900 --> 00:13:33.420 before COVID and, uh, was, I vividly remember the first time I met him on a zoom call was through 00:13:33.420 --> 00:13:38.940 Stadia church planting. And, uh, Greg Nettle, who's the president of C, uh, and of Stadia was on the 00:13:38.940 --> 00:13:45.240 call with me. It was the three of us. And, uh, Greg introduced me to Josh and Josh told me that he 00:13:45.240 --> 00:13:52.040 was very passionate about seeing Lakeland, uh, launch a VR campus. And, uh, I, I just, I remember, 00:13:52.320 --> 00:13:56.800 you know, almost embarrassingly. So I just had this look of awestruck on my face, just was almost 00:13:56.800 --> 00:14:03.180 speechless, uh, because it was the first time I had actually heard a lead pastor, you know, say the 00:14:03.180 --> 00:14:08.020 words VR. I didn't even know. I, and this is the joke that I told Josh at the moment. I was like, 00:14:08.020 --> 00:14:12.380 I didn't even know a lead pastor could spell VR. Like this is, this is a whole new world for me. 00:14:12.380 --> 00:14:20.260 You know, in, in 2019 COVID brought a bunch of, of, of that around, but to 2019, early 2020 before 00:14:20.260 --> 00:14:25.640 COVID hit, whenever this meeting was, uh, it was, was phenomenal to see, you know, Josh with that 00:14:25.640 --> 00:14:31.000 vision and Stu, this was before you were even at the church. I believe you came during COVID. And so to 00:14:31.000 --> 00:14:37.740 see the church with that vision kind of dive into it so early, uh, and to see ministry happening as a 00:14:37.740 --> 00:14:44.220 result and pioneering. Um, it's interesting to me that you say it's a multi-site campus. I would 00:14:44.220 --> 00:14:48.340 love for you to maybe to unpack because you're, you're, you're aware of physical ministry. You've 00:14:48.340 --> 00:14:54.100 had, you've had traction in physical space. You're, you are now doing virtual reality. You are somewhat 00:14:54.100 --> 00:15:00.720 getting back connected into digital because there's a vacuum at this moment. Um, talk to me a little 00:15:00.720 --> 00:15:05.560 bit. What are some similarities and maybe what are some differences between physical ministry and, 00:15:05.560 --> 00:15:15.680 um, and, uh, virtual reality ministry? Yeah. So, um, I grew up in a multi-site church and, uh, so even from 00:15:15.680 --> 00:15:23.540 the, uh, I wouldn't say it necessarily on the onset of it, but quickly after we launched into even doing 00:15:23.540 --> 00:15:28.880 VR ministry, we just came to the realization that just because of what technology provides us, we were 00:15:28.880 --> 00:15:36.500 able to really live stream our services that were currently going on in real time into the VR platform 00:15:36.500 --> 00:15:42.520 that we're meeting in, which again was all space at the time. Now it's, uh, spatial, but, um, what that 00:15:42.520 --> 00:15:50.800 really kind of freed me up to do is really be the campus pastor for our VR campus in the sense that, 00:15:51.040 --> 00:15:56.700 okay, we'll let our senior pastor do the heavy lifting on the teaching side, um, and really bring 00:15:56.700 --> 00:16:04.000 it in a lot of that DNA aspect in the teaching. Um, well, I'm there for really soul care and helping 00:16:04.000 --> 00:16:12.000 people develop or take a next step on their spiritual journey. Um, and so what we ended up 00:16:12.000 --> 00:16:16.820 really kind of quickly finding out and realizing was this really isn't something that could be done 00:16:16.820 --> 00:16:23.220 with a single person, but it was going to take a team. So I started to look at what does a physical 00:16:23.220 --> 00:16:30.180 church plant, uh, or campus have, and what do we need to bring into VR that a physical campus would 00:16:30.180 --> 00:16:36.420 have? And a lot of it was, well, we have people who are out in the parking lot, waving people in and 00:16:36.420 --> 00:16:41.840 saying hi, like right when they get onto the campus, we have people who are holding open doors, welcoming 00:16:41.840 --> 00:16:47.200 people in. We've got a next step station, uh, greeters, all that kind of stuff, uh, all the, 00:16:47.360 --> 00:16:53.520 all those kinds of people, prayer team and whatnot. And I was like, we need all of this in virtual 00:16:53.520 --> 00:16:59.840 reality because if, if you have one person who's just doing it, then all of a sudden you don't have 00:16:59.840 --> 00:17:04.940 every single person who is popping into the environment who is being greeted. If I'm having a 00:17:04.940 --> 00:17:09.120 conversation with somebody with all their thousands of questions that they're bringing in about 00:17:09.120 --> 00:17:13.800 Christianity or any other religion whatsoever, then we don't have somebody there who can pray for 00:17:13.800 --> 00:17:20.560 somebody who is needing prayer at that moment in time. Um, at the end of the service, I can't, 00:17:20.560 --> 00:17:26.160 as an individual connect with every single person to talk about what their next step might be. I can 00:17:26.160 --> 00:17:30.700 platform what all those next steps might be, but the one-on-one conversation just can't happen. 00:17:30.860 --> 00:17:35.940 So we looked at all that and said, if a, if the physical expression of the church needs all of this 00:17:35.940 --> 00:17:41.400 in order to help shepherd people along their spiritual journey, then the VR campus also needs 00:17:41.400 --> 00:17:48.420 those people to help shepherd our VR attenders along their spiritual journey as well. So, um, 00:17:48.520 --> 00:17:53.900 even in the process of us officially launching the campus in, uh, March, 2020, 00:17:54.620 --> 00:18:03.680 where are we at three? So at 2022, um, we just proposed and we invited people in on this journey 00:18:03.680 --> 00:18:10.760 with us. And I actually went to our current physical teams and said, that person is a great 00:18:10.760 --> 00:18:17.620 greeter. I wonder if they'll put on a headset and do that in virtual reality. That person is a solid 00:18:17.620 --> 00:18:22.200 prayer team member. I wonder if they would do that and put on a headset and do it in virtual reality. 00:18:22.300 --> 00:18:26.800 And so we just gave the invitation and we just built this thing, uh, to go and be the 00:18:26.800 --> 00:18:31.280 real physical expression of Lakeland in virtual reality. 00:18:32.220 --> 00:18:36.460 That's fascinating. I don't, I don't know that I've had this conversation with you ever before. 00:18:36.700 --> 00:18:42.540 Like, so you read, this is my first time on your show, Jeff, who knew like there's so much depth 00:18:42.540 --> 00:18:49.700 to where you're at. So you recruited, like what I'm hearing you is you recruited a physical church 00:18:49.700 --> 00:18:54.860 greeter and said, let me teach you how to put on this headset and do virtual reality. 00:18:55.000 --> 00:18:59.620 Now come do this for, for my, it's like you quite literally, you can give me names of people 00:18:59.620 --> 00:19:05.100 that joined your ministry doing that route. Yep. Yeah, absolutely. That's incredible. 00:19:05.960 --> 00:19:10.960 Like what, what's there, what did those initial conversations, were people excited? Were they 00:19:10.960 --> 00:19:16.120 mortified? Were they know, were they laughing at you? Like what, how, how did like that first 00:19:16.120 --> 00:19:23.820 conversation go? Yeah, sure. Um, so I, above all, I would say that it was just interest. I think there 00:19:23.820 --> 00:19:30.180 was just more of like, I'm interested in what we are doing as a church in virtual reality. Um, 00:19:30.440 --> 00:19:37.000 and then what they needed to hear was just the contextualization of me saying exactly what you 00:19:37.000 --> 00:19:45.420 do right now for the church. I want you to do that in VR. So like we have one guy, he's one of our team 00:19:45.420 --> 00:19:53.780 members, um, love this dude to death. Um, in fact, I believe he is a virtual reality pastor in the 00:19:53.780 --> 00:19:59.460 making. And I've told him this, I've told him that, um, specifically for VR chat of all places. I think 00:19:59.460 --> 00:20:06.380 that's where he would thrive, but anyways, yeah. But he, he's never met anybody that wasn't already 00:20:06.380 --> 00:20:12.420 his best friend. Um, and so like I brought him with me on a trip. Actually, you've met him before. 00:20:12.720 --> 00:20:18.420 Um, I brought him with me to one of the learning communities down in Houston. And it was just one 00:20:18.420 --> 00:20:25.600 of those, like, I knew that he was going to pull me out of my comfort zone just because like who he is, 00:20:25.600 --> 00:20:31.100 he's going to drag you along with them for the most part. Um, but he does this with every single 00:20:31.100 --> 00:20:36.140 person that walks onto the property. He wears this big old foam hand and he's high-fiving kids and 00:20:36.140 --> 00:20:41.980 he's welcoming people onto the site. Uh, and again, he's everybody's best friend. I was like, dude, 00:20:42.020 --> 00:20:47.420 if you would just bring that mentality into virtual reality, like if you're chasing people down and 00:20:47.420 --> 00:20:52.020 saying, Hey, give me knocks, give me a high five, whatever it is. If you just let people know who are 00:20:52.020 --> 00:20:57.860 spawning into our event, that they are seen and you're just trying to get like any kind of 00:20:57.860 --> 00:21:02.160 information from them whatsoever. It's like, dude, that's going to be such a huge win because 00:21:02.160 --> 00:21:07.160 like we know in, in VR and digital ministry as a whole, like if you're streaming your service on 00:21:07.160 --> 00:21:13.460 Facebook, anybody can come and see it for like two seconds and then pop, they're gone. But in virtual 00:21:13.460 --> 00:21:19.280 reality, you can't just scroll through the service on like all the other feeds that are going on. 00:21:19.280 --> 00:21:25.880 Like you have to intentionally decide to enter into that environment. And so for us, it was, we want 00:21:25.880 --> 00:21:31.200 to get you right when you pop in. So just like the parking lot, right when you get in, you're getting 00:21:31.200 --> 00:21:36.960 waved at. We placed team members right at the spawn point. So when you came in, it was like, dude, I see 00:21:36.960 --> 00:21:42.420 you. I'm so glad that you're here. And for us, that was a sticky moment. Like most likely somebody was 00:21:42.420 --> 00:21:47.820 going to at least give us more than just 30 seconds of their time. We were now going to at least get 00:21:47.820 --> 00:21:53.440 two to five minutes, if not the entire length of the service. So it was intriguing for them 00:21:53.440 --> 00:21:58.440 by me just saying, Hey, we have a VR campus, what you're doing. I want you to do it in there. 00:21:59.300 --> 00:22:03.820 Would you be willing to do this? And then it just turned into interest meetings. So just in the same 00:22:03.820 --> 00:22:08.600 way that a physical church or church planner would start hosting interest meetings, we started doing 00:22:08.600 --> 00:22:14.440 it for our VR campus, presented the idea, the information to everybody, vision cast it and 00:22:14.440 --> 00:22:18.700 said, okay, who wants to come with us? And then from there, we invested in more headsets, 00:22:19.280 --> 00:22:26.220 started having team meetings. And then we officially launched Easter 2022 of our VR campus. So that 00:22:26.220 --> 00:22:30.880 would have been like our third version of what we started back in 2021. 00:22:31.220 --> 00:22:35.700 Yeah. Yeah. That's the dates make sense. Cause I was like, no, no, no, you've been doing since 21, 00:22:35.820 --> 00:22:36.840 but that that's good. Yeah. 00:22:36.840 --> 00:22:41.880 Um, you know, it's, it's really, it's fascinating to me and what you're starting to allude to is, 00:22:41.880 --> 00:22:48.320 is the, the similarities between the ecclesiology, between the functions, the operation of a, 00:22:48.660 --> 00:22:53.880 of a physical church and a virtual reality church. You know, it's interesting. Virtual reality is far 00:22:53.880 --> 00:22:58.700 more controversial than, than a digital church. I can, you know, I'll say, I'll say the words virtual 00:22:58.700 --> 00:23:04.480 reality and baptism on a YouTube video, and I'll get slammed on, on, on YouTube as a result of that. 00:23:04.480 --> 00:23:09.680 But, um, but really like the, the actual functions, as long as you recognize you're 00:23:09.680 --> 00:23:15.140 not breathing the same air molecules, the, the functions of the church are very similar. And so 00:23:15.140 --> 00:23:20.400 like you're alluding to, to that really well. And so the controversy of virtual reality church 00:23:20.400 --> 00:23:26.420 of churches in that space are, are huge. Um, and just 10 times more hate for me at a personal level 00:23:26.420 --> 00:23:32.020 centered around virtual reality. And that's been, that's been well documented. Now, what people cannot 00:23:32.020 --> 00:23:39.600 argue with is the idea of, of the mission field of virtual reality, like the missional implications 00:23:39.600 --> 00:23:46.540 of that space where people are literally utilizing this technology to step into virtual worlds, to 00:23:46.540 --> 00:23:54.060 literally talk. Like that's what people go into virtual reality for. There is a world called VR chat 00:23:54.060 --> 00:24:03.100 because of this exact reason people go into virtual reality to chat. It's built around a conversation. 00:24:03.100 --> 00:24:10.220 And so what better place to, to look at, uh, evangelism, to, to look at, uh, sharing Jesus, 00:24:10.220 --> 00:24:16.080 to, to look at being a, a missionary. And so, you know, it's interesting. I was on Stu's podcast or 00:24:16.080 --> 00:24:20.500 stuns podcast. You know, you so rude to me earlier. I may forget your name, man. I may turn you into 00:24:20.500 --> 00:24:26.540 Mark Lutz or Lutz or whatever that guy's name is. Um, I love, I love Mark, Mark, you're listening to 00:24:26.540 --> 00:24:31.440 this. I love every bit of you. My tongue is not genetically aligned to say your last name correctly. 00:24:31.440 --> 00:24:37.720 I'm sorry. Uh, but I would, uh, I would look at, um, you know, I was on Stu's podcast talking about 00:24:37.720 --> 00:24:44.140 this and there was actually a relevant article written recently where, um, I'm working with a church, 00:24:44.140 --> 00:24:50.500 uh, on doing what we think is the first metaverse mission trip where that, that church, we're doing 00:24:50.500 --> 00:24:56.200 some training in June and July with the church. And they're, they're trying to get people to go 00:24:56.200 --> 00:25:01.800 be the church and to go be on mission, to be on a mission trip in virtual reality. You know, just like 00:25:01.800 --> 00:25:06.300 you would, you know, you go into Bolivia, you need to do a mission trip. You, you buy a thousand 00:25:06.300 --> 00:25:11.140 dollar plane ticket to Bolivia. You have to pay for the visa. You have to make sure your passports 00:25:11.140 --> 00:25:14.880 to lines. You got to pay for a hotel. You're going to have to pay for food. You're going to have to 00:25:14.880 --> 00:25:19.660 miss a week worth of work. You're probably going to pay a couple thousand dollars to go be on mission 00:25:19.660 --> 00:25:23.640 in Bolivia. You got to learn the language. You got to adapt to the culture. You're going to do some, 00:25:23.700 --> 00:25:27.680 some physical activities. You're going to walk around and meet people and share about Jesus, 00:25:27.680 --> 00:25:33.220 uh, on the street or help out the physical ministry that's happening there. But you're going to spend a 00:25:33.220 --> 00:25:38.440 week worth of time and spend a couple of hours, uh, to be on mission in, in, in Bolivia. 00:25:38.840 --> 00:25:43.480 And so we believe, and we're actually doing this through the learning community that we're doing 00:25:43.480 --> 00:25:49.300 through Leadership Network. We believe that you can do, uh, and be, uh, a metaverse missionary. 00:25:49.300 --> 00:25:59.520 And actually our hope is to empower 250 people over, uh, 20, 2023 to be missionaries in, in the 00:25:59.520 --> 00:26:04.160 metaverse, uh, to bless people. You know, somebody wrote a book on bless in, in the metaverse. 00:26:04.360 --> 00:26:09.280 The name's escaping me. Uh, Oh, Dr. Dr. John Harris. That's who I'm thinking. But you know, 00:26:09.280 --> 00:26:13.020 I know him. Yeah. Yeah. That guy, that guy's smart. The other, the other guy, I don't know. 00:26:13.080 --> 00:26:19.180 He's a little flaky that the other guy. Um, but we, we wrote a book on, uh, on, on blessing people, 00:26:19.180 --> 00:26:25.500 on being digital and metaverse missionaries. And so we're inviting to, we're inviting churches, 00:26:25.500 --> 00:26:31.040 just like we, we did this one that's happening this summer. We're in, and we're, uh, we're inviting 00:26:31.040 --> 00:26:39.960 churches to join us on this mission, uh, to be digital and metaverse missionaries, to, to be 00:26:39.960 --> 00:26:47.060 on mission in the metaverse, in, in, in virtual reality. Stu, how do you, when you look at like 00:26:47.060 --> 00:26:53.200 relational evangelism and, and even like, we were having a conversation earlier, even talking about, 00:26:53.200 --> 00:26:59.220 uh, trauma infused evangelism, which is, uh, I think very helpful in, in, in metaverse, like these, 00:26:59.220 --> 00:27:04.340 these different, these different approaches of, of having conversations and being a relational. Do you 00:27:04.340 --> 00:27:09.540 see that? Do you see that working? Like have, have you seen that or experienced something in your 00:27:09.540 --> 00:27:18.220 life that, that speaks to that? Yeah. So, uh, you know, I did an event in Altspace before I shut 00:27:18.220 --> 00:27:26.460 down, um, that was actually really intriguing to me. Uh, I mean, I went to my senior pastor and I just 00:27:26.460 --> 00:27:32.540 said, Hey, I want to run an event that is separate of Lakeland. Um, and I'm just, I want to see what 00:27:32.540 --> 00:27:39.060 conversations sparked from it. Um, and basically the event was, you know, Altspace gave us the ability 00:27:39.060 --> 00:27:45.640 back then to advertise on a main event board. And I just put on the main event board, um, what is wrong 00:27:45.640 --> 00:27:52.580 with the church today? And, uh, just left it wide open. And when people started coming into the event, 00:27:52.580 --> 00:27:59.180 I left the, I, uh, well, I opened up the event and I set, I established the ground rules of, um, 00:27:59.280 --> 00:28:05.020 I'm not muting anybody in this event and I'm not shutting down any conversation in this event 00:28:05.020 --> 00:28:13.380 other than if you are somebody who carries the banner of Jesus and you start trying to defend 00:28:13.380 --> 00:28:21.200 the church, I will shut that one down. This event is just for people to voice their concerns or what 00:28:21.200 --> 00:28:27.720 they think is wrong with the church today, because I knew, uh, that that was going to welcome and invite 00:28:27.720 --> 00:28:33.320 many people in. So like you brought up trauma, um, trauma informed, trauma infused evangelism, 00:28:33.320 --> 00:28:39.480 uh, is a book that you and I are both familiar with. Um, and I think that's what people are looking 00:28:39.480 --> 00:28:48.700 for these days is they're just looking to voice their hurt or their, uh, their disgust, if you will, 00:28:49.240 --> 00:28:57.880 with, uh, about the church. And so that in and of itself is, is missional. It's understanding the 00:28:57.880 --> 00:29:05.840 culture of the people that you're with and letting them inform you as the, as the follower, as the 00:29:05.840 --> 00:29:13.140 missionary, uh, as to what their spiritual temperature is. And then it gives you all the information that 00:29:13.140 --> 00:29:18.320 you really need to be able to meet them where they're at. So you're no longer trying to force 00:29:18.320 --> 00:29:22.660 a conversation or force anything upon the individual, but you're actually getting to know who this person 00:29:22.660 --> 00:29:30.140 is on a relational level. And then they invite you to be able to speak into their life. And so, 00:29:30.400 --> 00:29:36.260 you know, we did that and I saw a lot of great success that came along with it. I also would say 00:29:36.260 --> 00:29:43.160 that for those who were carrying the banner of Jesus into the, uh, event, it was eyeopening for them 00:29:43.160 --> 00:29:47.600 to learn like, Hey, maybe the old traditional ways of how we do things don't necessarily 00:29:47.600 --> 00:29:58.480 work or play well within these environments. Um, but that's separate to what we typically do for a 00:29:58.480 --> 00:30:06.340 service in, in VR as Lakeland, because we live stream. That's not necessarily missional in its 00:30:06.340 --> 00:30:13.160 approach. It's very typical to a physical church Sunday service. Uh, uh, uh, arena is established 00:30:13.160 --> 00:30:19.280 and we're waiting for people to walk in to participate in the service. Whereas doing something 00:30:19.280 --> 00:30:26.480 like that, it was, we're going out onto the mission field to just get to know people first. And if they 00:30:26.480 --> 00:30:33.020 allow us to speak into their lives at that point, then we were awarded that opportunity based off of 00:30:33.020 --> 00:30:41.720 just being there and being known. Um, so yeah. Is it, is it difficult to connect those two? Like, 00:30:41.720 --> 00:30:46.620 do you feel like you built a relationship or are still building a relationship with some of those 00:30:46.620 --> 00:30:51.900 people? All space is dead. So that makes things difficult, but like connecting the dots towards 00:30:51.900 --> 00:30:56.820 getting them into a physical ministry or something towards long-term, what would something like that, 00:30:56.880 --> 00:31:03.360 that look like to turn some of those, um, skeptics that you had a conversation with in, in the, 00:31:03.420 --> 00:31:07.560 in that meeting, uh, and building relationships that could point to Jesus? 00:31:08.160 --> 00:31:13.500 Yeah. So with those people, even some of the people that have popped into our services, 00:31:13.500 --> 00:31:19.340 I've always provided the next step of like, because they do come in with their questions, 00:31:19.340 --> 00:31:26.240 um, or their concerns, I just invite them to follow us on discord. So we made our discord super simple 00:31:26.240 --> 00:31:31.620 to find. We just say, you know, just go to Lakeland discord.com and that's the invite link. So as soon as 00:31:31.620 --> 00:31:37.020 you type that in and drops, you write in. Right. Um, but then I give them the, the invitation to find 00:31:37.020 --> 00:31:43.860 me on there and send me a friend request. So, um, you know, I tried really hard to make sure that 00:31:43.860 --> 00:31:50.540 whatever my name is on in the VR platforms is the same or close to what my discord name is. And I invite 00:31:50.540 --> 00:31:58.340 them to continuing the conversation outside of that environment. Um, and let's walk through scripture 00:31:58.340 --> 00:32:04.400 together. Like if you have questions, like let's let God's words speak for itself. And anytime that 00:32:04.400 --> 00:32:10.580 we come across anything, even if it's like the first word of whatever book that we're reading through, 00:32:10.620 --> 00:32:16.200 if it causes you to have a question or concern, then let's stop and let's explore that together. 00:32:16.200 --> 00:32:20.660 Um, so it's just, I didn't know like, Hey, I, I actually want to be with you on this journey. 00:32:20.660 --> 00:32:26.340 I don't want to just present something to you and, and assume that you are now going to be a 00:32:26.340 --> 00:32:31.020 car carrying member of Lakeland or, you know, the movement of Jesus. It's like, dude, I know that 00:32:31.020 --> 00:32:36.220 this is a process. I'm still on the journey myself. Like it's a continual learning, uh, process. 00:32:36.500 --> 00:32:41.520 And so I just invite them to take it outside of just that one conversation and actually turning 00:32:41.520 --> 00:32:45.720 it into a relational thing. And we've had some people that have taken me up on that. 00:32:46.200 --> 00:32:51.940 I think like the coolest one is like, we've had some, um, uh, Muslim missionaries, if you will, 00:32:52.060 --> 00:32:59.720 pop into some of our services in order to kind of spark debate, I guess. Um, and we even had one 00:32:59.720 --> 00:33:04.000 guy that he came in and, you know, he was just like, look, I don't believe what you guys believe 00:33:04.000 --> 00:33:09.520 in. And he goes, in fact, I'm actually, uh, I I'm a Muslim. Um, he says, but I've always had 00:33:09.520 --> 00:33:14.680 questions. And I was like, dude, great. And so he started asking his questions. And as one point, 00:33:14.680 --> 00:33:18.840 I was like, can we, can we pause for a second? I was like, dude, what I would really love for you 00:33:18.840 --> 00:33:24.360 to do is tell me what you know about Christianity or what you think, you know, about Christianity. 00:33:24.360 --> 00:33:29.180 Let's start there. And then let's kind of see where that goes. And by the time it was all said 00:33:29.180 --> 00:33:34.380 and done, I was able to tell him, and this ended up becoming a conversation off VR and into discord, 00:33:34.380 --> 00:33:40.400 but I was able to, I was like, so what, what you just told me is that you believe Christianity is a 00:33:40.400 --> 00:33:45.780 little bit of Jehovah witness, a little bit of Mormonism, a little bit of whatever. And you think 00:33:45.780 --> 00:33:51.420 that is the Christian faith because all of these people are proclaiming Jesus. I said, you have a 00:33:51.420 --> 00:33:57.480 very muddy picture of the Christian faith and of who Jesus is. It was like, let's try to clear up the 00:33:57.480 --> 00:34:02.260 mud a little bit. Let's try to get to clean water and then walk from there to answer the questions. 00:34:02.340 --> 00:34:06.640 I said, because I believe the misconceptions that you have of Jesus right now are what's making it 00:34:06.640 --> 00:34:13.940 difficult for you to fully understand the text of what God's word is saying. And it's muffing, 00:34:14.140 --> 00:34:19.480 it's muffling your ears to hearing God's truth right now. Um, and so that ended up becoming a 00:34:19.480 --> 00:34:26.580 conversation offline online, try to cope with that one, um, of us walking together through just God's 00:34:26.580 --> 00:34:28.660 word and just being able to answer some questions. 00:34:29.160 --> 00:34:35.600 That's interesting. And so at no point did the Muslim F-bomb you or get really mad and offended 00:34:35.600 --> 00:34:37.340 at the conversations you were having? 00:34:37.920 --> 00:34:39.420 No, I've had those, but not him. 00:34:39.940 --> 00:34:45.780 What percentage of people are, are, are, are, you know, get offended in, in virtual reality? Like, 00:34:45.820 --> 00:34:50.860 cause I, I'll just be honest, I've not had, I've had maybe one or two out of all the conversations 00:34:50.860 --> 00:34:53.720 I've had. Like it's a very small percentage. Is that the same for you? 00:34:54.280 --> 00:34:59.640 Yeah. It's, I would say that it's small. I would say that that small percentage is obviously also 00:34:59.640 --> 00:35:06.500 the loudest voice in the room. Um, and I think that it changes per platform as well. I think 00:35:06.500 --> 00:35:11.300 because a lot of churches were hopping into all space at one point, like when we got into it two 00:35:11.300 --> 00:35:17.160 years ago, pretty much every event that we put on, we were inviting the trolls in like bugs to a bug 00:35:17.160 --> 00:35:23.540 zapper. Um, but as more churches were hopping into the platform, the less trolls we were seeing. 00:35:23.540 --> 00:35:27.240 And I kind of feel like it was just the mentality of, well, they're not going away. In fact, more 00:35:27.240 --> 00:35:32.440 of them are coming in. So there's just no point of even trying to fight this anymore. Um, now that 00:35:32.440 --> 00:35:37.720 all space is shut down, you go to a platform, like let's say big screen, anytime that I run something 00:35:37.720 --> 00:35:44.020 at a big screen, I'm guaranteed at least for every three people in the room, one of them is a troll 00:35:44.020 --> 00:35:49.880 for sure. Uh, so you're talking about like a good third of the people in the room. Uh, definitely. 00:35:50.160 --> 00:35:57.100 Uh, I mean, big screen is 15 people max. So probably about five will be trolls. Um, but they also have 00:35:57.100 --> 00:36:02.240 the same mentality. Like if they, if they're, they're trying to disrupt, if, as long as you keep going 00:36:02.240 --> 00:36:08.720 with the conversation or whatever your event is, they eventually just see themselves out. And we've 00:36:08.720 --> 00:36:13.840 used that as an opportunity before of like, Hey, what? So you popped into this event, you know what 00:36:13.840 --> 00:36:18.320 it's about because you know, we're not shy of church or Jesus or anything like that. Like 00:36:18.320 --> 00:36:24.500 why do you feel the need to pop into this and start cussing us out or saying some of the vulgar 00:36:24.500 --> 00:36:30.300 stuff that you do or whatever. And what has been interesting is there are some trolls that they 00:36:30.300 --> 00:36:33.260 come back and they're like, well, the church is just blah, blah, blah. Are you Christians or just 00:36:33.260 --> 00:36:37.560 blah, blah, blah, blah. I was like, and at any point in time in this conversation, have you heard me, 00:36:37.880 --> 00:36:43.420 you know, put you down of your lifestyle or anything like that? Like you're on the attack of me right now. 00:36:43.420 --> 00:36:47.900 And I'm just over here to like taking it full on and saying it like, Hey, I'm glad that you're 00:36:47.900 --> 00:36:52.900 here. Like there kind of seems to be like, there's a weird thing going on with like, you feel like I'm 00:36:52.900 --> 00:36:58.560 very judgmental and yet I haven't judged you once, but yeah, you're judging me hardcore for just the 00:36:58.560 --> 00:37:03.980 title of the event that's in here. Um, and then it turns into a really sweet conversation of like, 00:37:04.540 --> 00:37:12.020 well, you know, just all of you Christians. And I'm just like, yeah, well, we're pretty jacked up too. 00:37:12.100 --> 00:37:13.500 That's what I'm trying to point out to you. 00:37:15.580 --> 00:37:20.700 So yeah, it's just, uh, embracing, embracing the trolls. I have, I don't have a lot of big screen, uh, 00:37:20.700 --> 00:37:26.320 experience like, like you do, but I have had multiple people tell me that that's probably more troll heavy. 00:37:26.920 --> 00:37:31.960 Uh, so that's, it's interesting to see the trends there. Hey, through the, through the learning 00:37:31.960 --> 00:37:38.220 community, um, we're wanting to help churches better understand virtual reality and, and, uh, the nuances 00:37:38.220 --> 00:37:44.160 of ministry, how to, how to deal with trolls, how to have these conversations with people, how to 00:37:44.160 --> 00:37:51.960 marry together the idea of the church service with, uh, uh, a metaverse virtual reality, um, missionary 00:37:51.960 --> 00:37:56.860 team that that's out there that, that can be aggressive having these conversations and, and 00:37:56.860 --> 00:38:02.800 building relationships, how to balance, um, evangelism centered, relational evangelism with 00:38:02.800 --> 00:38:08.900 it. Uh, even, even the mission trip, Ryan sit home with, uh, with river, river city church. I just 00:38:08.900 --> 00:38:13.880 blanked on the name river city church is, is that, that pioneer that said, Hey, he came up to me. 00:38:13.880 --> 00:38:18.180 He's like, Hey, let's, let's do a metaverse mission trip. Uh, he had read both my books and 00:38:18.180 --> 00:38:22.280 said, and I'll say, Hey, that's a great idea. And he says, you, I'm surprised you're not already 00:38:22.280 --> 00:38:25.760 doing it because you talked about it in your book. And I was like, Oh yeah. So that's, that's a thing 00:38:25.760 --> 00:38:31.240 too. So, um, but yeah, that's, that's what we want to do here. And, and, and honestly, like through 00:38:31.240 --> 00:38:35.500 these learning communities, we're doing with leadership network with river city church. And we're 00:38:35.500 --> 00:38:41.320 actually also working with GACX internationally, like the digital church network, TCD, the church 00:38:41.320 --> 00:38:49.060 digital, we want to see 250 people, um, go on a metaverse mission trip in 23. And, and we would 00:38:49.060 --> 00:38:57.720 love to see 10 churches planted, uh, in virtual reality. Like our hope is to see these churches, 00:38:57.720 --> 00:39:03.500 get a taste for what metaverse ministry for a virtual reality ministry looks like, uh, to develop 00:39:03.500 --> 00:39:10.920 stories to build up a volunteer core through the mission trip experience that can then help plant 00:39:10.920 --> 00:39:16.000 a church in that space. We're hoping that these metaverse mission trips will literally lead people 00:39:16.000 --> 00:39:21.900 to the persons of peace that churches will connect with persons of peace in virtual reality, that prayer 00:39:21.900 --> 00:39:27.460 walking within these virtual reality space, God will indicate in their hearts, in their spirit, 00:39:27.460 --> 00:39:34.740 where to go and that we will see at least 10 churches launched in virtual reality this year. And, and so 00:39:34.740 --> 00:39:42.680 an incredible opportunity. Once again, it's a leadership at leadnet.org slash, uh, MLC, uh, for the 00:39:42.680 --> 00:39:47.720 metaverse learning community. And, uh, I don't think I said this earlier, you get a hundred dollars 00:39:47.720 --> 00:39:53.300 off, uh, we're going to, we're going to make this, uh, friends of Stunami. And so if you, if you type in 00:39:53.300 --> 00:40:01.180 coupon code Stunami, S-T-U-N-A-M-I, you, you get a hundred bucks off, uh, off that. And so it's a, 00:40:01.180 --> 00:40:06.980 it's a great opportunity to get connected with other churches that are on the journey, um, to, to walk 00:40:06.980 --> 00:40:12.640 with some people like Stu, who's already been there, stunned, who's already been there, uh, knows the, 00:40:12.680 --> 00:40:17.400 the past, knows where the skeletons are buried, knows where the pit holes are in the road. 00:40:17.720 --> 00:40:22.440 Um, and, and, and can walk along that. And we, Stu and I were talking about this offline, 00:40:22.440 --> 00:40:29.020 the idea of doing the mission trip first to allow your church to get acclimated to the culture 00:40:29.020 --> 00:40:35.540 and to really understand the missional implications centered around relational evangelism. Oh my gosh. 00:40:35.540 --> 00:40:40.640 Like the ability to walk in any questions or challenges your leadership has, dude, it's a 00:40:40.640 --> 00:40:44.560 freaking mission trip. Why would you, are you, are you really suggesting that we're not able to go on a 00:40:44.560 --> 00:40:48.580 mission trip? Um, no, every, everybody wants to go on a mission trip. You'll go on a mission trip 00:40:48.580 --> 00:40:52.420 and through that mission trip, you're going to discover what the metaverse really is, what virtual 00:40:52.420 --> 00:41:00.720 reality really is and the power that your church can have to reach people in that space. Um, and that's 00:41:00.720 --> 00:41:05.020 gonna, I believe that's going to light your people on fire for the idea. Cause I've just, I've seen it 00:41:05.020 --> 00:41:10.240 time and time again, where people don't understand it until they get that headset on. And then when they 00:41:10.240 --> 00:41:15.560 get their headset on, it is, it's peddled to the metal because they see the power, the potential, 00:41:15.560 --> 00:41:20.320 they see how the Holy spirit is, is moving in the pixels. I know that's weird, but it's, it's a 00:41:20.320 --> 00:41:27.140 reality. God is moving inside those, those headsets. And so Stu, as, as we're looking at that, the 00:41:27.140 --> 00:41:30.800 learning community, like I, and there's a lot of stuff you're teaching. There's a lot of stuff that 00:41:30.800 --> 00:41:36.840 I'm teaching and talking through and experimenting and discussing and facilitating. Like what, what are some 00:41:36.840 --> 00:41:40.360 things that you're excited about, uh, contextually over with the learning community? 00:41:41.600 --> 00:41:49.480 Yeah, I think just what excites me the most is we're making it super practical for anybody to hop 00:41:49.480 --> 00:41:55.860 in. Um, I think what I have learned within just the past year alone is that there are really a lot of 00:41:55.860 --> 00:42:00.720 churches that are interested in this idea of metaverse ministry. They just don't know what it looks like, 00:42:00.720 --> 00:42:08.280 what it means, how to go about it. Um, who is the person that, um, spearheads this for their church? 00:42:08.800 --> 00:42:15.280 Um, most likely you probably have somebody in your church right now that would love to spearhead this 00:42:15.280 --> 00:42:20.040 for you, even if it was like a 10 hour a week or a high capacity volunteer, because here's the thing, 00:42:20.100 --> 00:42:30.100 like there are, I would, I would, I would guess the newest numbers are over 200 million active users 00:42:30.100 --> 00:42:41.580 of virtual reality, um, to date over 200 million. Um, 70 million of those are in the United States 00:42:41.580 --> 00:42:50.360 alone and probably a good two thirds of those U S users are guys. And if there's anybody that, 00:42:50.360 --> 00:42:57.280 uh, if every church knows that the hardest community to reach are the dudes, but yet if 00:42:57.280 --> 00:43:02.480 you can reach guys that end up transforming families, being the spiritual leaders that they 00:43:02.480 --> 00:43:09.260 were called to be, man, you start changing the spiritual temperature of the world in that sense. 00:43:09.440 --> 00:43:17.120 So, but 70 million people who are using VR right now. So you probably have at least one, if not more. 00:43:17.500 --> 00:43:23.540 And that's what excites me is like, there are tons of opportunities for your church or you as an 00:43:23.540 --> 00:43:31.360 individual to hop in. And we are about to give you the simple, easy, low hanging fruit handles on how to 00:43:31.360 --> 00:43:38.940 go about doing that and taking all the guests to work out of it. And what I think that I put the 00:43:38.940 --> 00:43:45.320 cherry on top in my opinion is that's actually my heartbeat right now is that we would see more and 00:43:45.320 --> 00:43:52.360 more churches hopping into the metaverse. Um, I know that we left exponential as Lakeland. We left 00:43:52.360 --> 00:43:58.820 exponential, uh, Orlando with just the dream to plant a hundred churches in 10 years, uh, in the virtual 00:43:58.820 --> 00:44:03.960 reality spaces. In fact, we believe that it can happen even faster than that. And more churches that 00:44:03.960 --> 00:44:09.400 the way that I even phrase is we want to at least plant a hundred churches and at most 10 years in 00:44:09.400 --> 00:44:16.380 those, in those spaces. Um, and I just think that we are living in a day and age right now that this 00:44:16.380 --> 00:44:22.560 is what God's calling the church into. So, uh, Jeff, can I get on a soapbox for a second? 00:44:23.080 --> 00:44:24.260 You are more than welcome. 00:44:24.760 --> 00:44:28.860 I mean, I know that this is your podcast and I'm a first time invitee, so I'm really kind of 00:44:28.860 --> 00:44:33.320 place myself on an invite block, like chopping block, but you know, whatever. 00:44:33.440 --> 00:44:34.560 Jab, jab. Well done. 00:44:34.700 --> 00:44:43.080 Yeah. I would say this, like as church leaders, we know what we've been called to. Like we know that 00:44:43.080 --> 00:44:49.140 the, our commissioning is to go into the world and make disciples. We are living in a day and an age 00:44:49.140 --> 00:44:55.220 where the world is funneling itself into one specific location, which is the digital spaces 00:44:55.220 --> 00:45:01.380 and 200 million of those people being in virtual reality. So if the church is having a hard time 00:45:01.380 --> 00:45:06.720 getting out, there's a simple way of being able to do that. And that's by going in through a headset 00:45:06.720 --> 00:45:11.840 and interacting with these people in real time that are going to end up going back into their own 00:45:11.840 --> 00:45:16.400 homes, their own countries, their own businesses who are being introduced to Jesus for the very first 00:45:16.400 --> 00:45:21.920 time, you know, seeds of hope being planted that are going to end up causing the Holy Spirit is going 00:45:21.920 --> 00:45:27.120 to do what the Holy Spirit does. And there's going to be this great explosion of life transformation 00:45:27.120 --> 00:45:30.920 that's going to take place. Reformation. I love it. Like, I just love what God's wanting to do. 00:45:31.380 --> 00:45:39.420 In this day and age. But it's just, it's too easy not to do it. And I think that's just really the 00:45:39.420 --> 00:45:44.200 hurdle that a lot of people need to just get over right now is like, man, if this is really that 00:45:44.200 --> 00:45:49.380 simple, why wouldn't we do this? And I just think that through the learning community, that's what 00:45:49.380 --> 00:45:54.520 you're going to see. I got asked right after we launched into VR, one of the guys, he's probably 00:45:54.520 --> 00:46:00.880 one of the biggest evangelist prayer warriors that I've ever met. He asked me, he's like, hey, Stu, what do you 00:46:00.880 --> 00:46:06.640 love most about doing church and virtual reality? And I thought about it for a little bit. And I just 00:46:06.640 --> 00:46:11.840 almost like, I think what I love most is I became an international missionary without ever having to leave 00:46:11.840 --> 00:46:20.180 my basement. I'm able to tell people from Indonesia, from China, from the Middle East, from UK, Canada, Mexico, 00:46:20.180 --> 00:46:25.300 Brazil, all these locations that have come into our environments that in real life, I probably would 00:46:25.300 --> 00:46:31.360 have never met. But I was able to meet these people, introduce them to Jesus, ask questions, 00:46:31.500 --> 00:46:37.800 answer questions. And next thing I know, they're going off and taking that information into their 00:46:37.800 --> 00:46:42.280 own homes. And I just love, like, there's going to be a point in time where I take my final breath on 00:46:42.280 --> 00:46:46.920 this side of heaven and take my first one in heaven. And there's going to be people that I never met face 00:46:46.920 --> 00:46:51.820 to face, but I know them based off of Avatar. And they're just going to tell me about how their life 00:46:51.820 --> 00:46:58.400 was transformed, all due to the fact that we were diligent enough and obedient enough to take 00:46:58.400 --> 00:47:03.400 Lakeland and Jesus into the VR spaces. I'm like, that pumps me up and keeps me going. 00:47:03.960 --> 00:47:12.440 So crazy. Attacking the gates of hell via virtual reality. So very cool with that. You know, once again, 00:47:12.440 --> 00:47:16.860 the information on the learning community is leadnet.org 00:47:16.860 --> 00:47:24.860 slash MLC for metaverse learning community. There's a session in September physically, September in 00:47:24.860 --> 00:47:31.480 the 20s. And then physical meetups, I'm sorry, Zoom meetups, October, November, a couple times in 00:47:31.480 --> 00:47:37.920 there. Senator on the metaverse mission trip, where we're challenging churches to go to take their people 00:47:37.920 --> 00:47:45.140 on a metaverse mission trip over the weeks of October 15th and November 15th. Spend five to 10 hours a 00:47:45.140 --> 00:47:50.220 week. You decide as a church how long you want to do. We can do the training for you. We can equip you 00:47:50.220 --> 00:47:56.840 to do the training. We'll talk about that either way. But we want to see 250 people in the metaverse 00:47:56.840 --> 00:48:02.420 as missionaries. And that's a drop in the bucket for the potential of what can happen. And we're hoping 00:48:02.420 --> 00:48:09.900 to see that idea multiply, even as we're hoping to plant 10 virtual reality churches in 2023. And so and then we've 00:48:09.900 --> 00:48:16.320 got the metaverse learning community will have a physical meetup as well in December. And so more information 00:48:16.320 --> 00:48:24.700 at leadnet.org slash MLC for that. Coupon code STUNAMI gets you a hundred bucks off because everybody loves 00:48:24.700 --> 00:48:26.860 STUNAMI. This is good. Well, evidently I... 00:48:26.860 --> 00:48:30.380 And everybody loves being... And everybody loves being a stunning individual. 00:48:30.380 --> 00:48:31.320 Stunning individual. 00:48:31.460 --> 00:48:32.440 This is your opportunity. 00:48:32.680 --> 00:48:39.140 Very, very cool. Hey, so publicly, let's get you booked for the next podcast. I'm actually doing 00:48:39.140 --> 00:48:45.420 a conversation with... Let me pull it up here to make sure I get the names right. Peyton Jones. 00:48:46.280 --> 00:48:53.660 So we're talking about... Yeah, we're doing a podcast in season six. We're going to be talking about 00:48:53.660 --> 00:48:59.580 the movement system for Digital Church Network. And we're talking about planting churches as part of 00:48:59.580 --> 00:49:05.860 that. And Stu, for some reason, I think you would have a strong voice centered around planting churches. 00:49:06.060 --> 00:49:10.800 So, hey, let's get you in the podcast conversation with Peyton Jones and I. But then on top of that, 00:49:10.840 --> 00:49:17.320 so I'm your friend. I'm not the guy who's still Jew. That's literally 12 podcasts away, maybe 14 00:49:17.320 --> 00:49:21.400 podcasts away. So in the next three months, you're going to be in another podcast. But talk to me a little 00:49:21.400 --> 00:49:26.360 bit here about your passion for metaverse, for virtual reality church planting. 00:49:27.320 --> 00:49:33.980 Yeah, absolutely. What's interesting is my wife and I, we went through a church planning assessment 00:49:33.980 --> 00:49:38.900 probably about eight years ago now, and we thought that God was calling us into church planning. 00:49:40.000 --> 00:49:45.100 And Peyton Jones was actually a very influential voice for me at the time when I was looking into it. 00:49:45.100 --> 00:49:55.440 So very, very fun. But the assessment, the final project that all the church, potential church 00:49:55.440 --> 00:50:00.880 planners, the assignment that we all had to go through was we had to figure out how to not just 00:50:00.880 --> 00:50:04.980 plant a church, but by the time the assessment was over, we had to figure out how to plant 100 00:50:04.980 --> 00:50:11.280 churches in 10 years. And so it was there at Expo where that phrase theology popped back, 00:50:11.520 --> 00:50:16.380 came out of my mouth again for the first time in over eight years. And when we decided that maybe God 00:50:16.380 --> 00:50:24.200 wasn't calling us to plant a church, the one thing that kind of like it stuck for me was I may not be 00:50:24.200 --> 00:50:32.060 called to plant a church, but I might be called to plant churches. And, and so I think all of that is 00:50:32.060 --> 00:50:39.040 kind of God planted that seed, uh, you know, eight years ago. And I had no idea that I was ever going 00:50:39.040 --> 00:50:44.220 to be doing virtual reality ministry because that's definitely not what I went to school for. Um, 00:50:44.660 --> 00:50:49.560 it's definitely not what I came to Lakeland for, but now I'm doing it. But I think it's what I felt 00:50:49.560 --> 00:50:55.440 God was calling me to do, calling me to do and work. He has me right now. I just feel like this has 00:50:55.440 --> 00:51:00.440 just been God working behind the scenes as he, as he does going, I'm going to take what you're 00:51:00.440 --> 00:51:04.980 passionate about. And I'm going to show you where this is going to be put into play. And it's going 00:51:04.980 --> 00:51:10.100 to come through planting churches and virtual reality. And so that's just the passion right now. 00:51:10.240 --> 00:51:16.020 I just believe that, you know, the ministry was never really intended to, uh, be closed fist, 00:51:16.020 --> 00:51:22.060 but to be open-handed. And I believe that there are people who they have the, the gifting to teach, 00:51:22.060 --> 00:51:27.780 to reach people, to evangelize, um, that they need to get into these spaces. There are people who are 00:51:27.780 --> 00:51:33.940 more on fire for like digital ministry and metaverse ministry as a whole, then probably then even I'm 00:51:33.940 --> 00:51:38.860 on fire for it. And I want to equip these people to get into these spaces. Like I've said it before, 00:51:38.860 --> 00:51:45.120 like I might, by the time that's all said and done, Jeff, I'm probably no longer going to be the 00:51:45.120 --> 00:51:51.100 expert in this field. And I'm okay with that. And I, cause I want somebody who's got the passion for it 00:51:51.100 --> 00:51:57.840 to take that passion in alongside with Jesus and set the metaverse on fire for the kingdom of God. 00:51:58.280 --> 00:52:04.820 Um, and just watch that happen all over the world. So I'm, my passion is let's get the people who God 00:52:04.820 --> 00:52:11.280 is really calling into these spaces, into these spaces, get them trained up, equipped and let them 00:52:11.280 --> 00:52:20.260 run wild in reaching people. Um, and to see it, like I've said it on our, on my podcast with goose, 00:52:20.260 --> 00:52:24.960 uh, the metaverse church podcast. I'm like, if there's 200 million people in the metaverse, 00:52:25.000 --> 00:52:30.020 there needs to be 200 million churches. And I don't see somebody asked me once, like if you start 00:52:30.020 --> 00:52:35.220 putting more and planting more churches in the metaverse, do you kind of see that turning into 00:52:35.220 --> 00:52:41.920 like a competition within the churches for like FaceTime and you know, um, all that kind of stuff. 00:52:41.920 --> 00:52:48.000 I was like, no, in fact, what I see more is I see more collaboration happening within the churches 00:52:48.000 --> 00:52:53.760 and VR than I see in real life. And so I see like the VR is going to be the place where 00:52:53.760 --> 00:52:58.880 the bride of Christ actually gets to be the bride of Christ and gets to be more of a representation 00:52:58.880 --> 00:53:04.940 of the capital C church than the individual expressions of church. But you know, there's, 00:53:05.040 --> 00:53:12.300 there's Oasis VR, there's Lakeland VR, there's Fox river, there's a cornerstone, there's a VR church, 00:53:12.380 --> 00:53:17.780 MMO, and all of us. And there's more than that for sure. But all of us, we all don't reach the same 00:53:17.780 --> 00:53:23.580 person and we don't speak to the same person. And that's why it's so important that we get more and 00:53:23.580 --> 00:53:28.760 more churches in there. Because even for the sake of one, if we're able to reach one more person, 00:53:28.760 --> 00:53:35.120 that's enough reason to plant another church within virtual reality. So it's just my passion. I believe 00:53:35.120 --> 00:53:40.980 that God has just planted that a long time ago. And I'm just now starting to see what he, why he 00:53:40.980 --> 00:53:44.800 planted that. And it's just been a season of cultivating and growth. And that's where we're at 00:53:44.800 --> 00:53:49.880 today. I love it. Just because you're not the long-term expert doesn't mean you're not the expert 00:53:49.880 --> 00:53:55.920 today. And the fact that you know, you're not the long-term expert and that you want to help platform 00:53:55.920 --> 00:54:02.540 the long-term expert. I mean, honestly, that's, that's Jeffrey's playbook. So thank you for, 00:54:02.620 --> 00:54:09.020 for doing what you're doing and helping to start. You know, you didn't, you didn't, I don't remember 00:54:09.020 --> 00:54:13.600 if I heard a number, maybe, maybe you said it, but a hundred churches, a hundred churches in virtual 00:54:13.600 --> 00:54:18.940 reality come wanting to be planted and wanting to come out of Lakeland church. Like this is a huge 00:54:18.940 --> 00:54:23.020 undertaking to get there. Yeah. And to be honest with you, Jeff, like, 00:54:23.140 --> 00:54:28.640 I think somebody is going to hear that and they're going to think like the single individual church 00:54:28.640 --> 00:54:34.340 planner, like we have at Lakeland right now, we have a system that is set up in place. Like we're 00:54:34.340 --> 00:54:40.100 ready to launch this thing. We're ready to start the first cohort of people who want to plant a church 00:54:40.100 --> 00:54:45.640 in virtual reality. But we have really two different arms for this in the sense of like, if you're like, 00:54:45.640 --> 00:54:49.840 like, if somebody is listening to this and they want to plant their own virtual reality church, 00:54:49.840 --> 00:54:55.300 like reach out, uh, we'll put you in a cohort with other people that are wanting to plant churches 00:54:55.300 --> 00:54:59.980 and we will help you in three months, launch your virtual reality church. At least you'll be ready 00:54:59.980 --> 00:55:03.820 in three months. And whenever you feel like the timeline that God's calling you to plant happens, 00:55:03.840 --> 00:55:07.800 that that's up to you. But in three months, you'll be ready. But at the same time, we also know that 00:55:07.800 --> 00:55:12.140 there are churches that are interested in getting into metaverse ministry, into virtual reality. 00:55:12.840 --> 00:55:17.200 Again, the question is like, how do you do this? And that's what I really love about this learning 00:55:17.200 --> 00:55:21.860 community is I see the learning community and what we're doing with Lakeland right now, really going 00:55:21.860 --> 00:55:28.480 hand in hand, because if you are a church leader, senior leadership, or, you know, an associate pastor, 00:55:28.480 --> 00:55:34.200 and you want to get into the metaverse, come do this with us. We'll put you in a cohort in three 00:55:34.200 --> 00:55:39.640 months. You guys will be ready to launch your church in the metaverse. And the best part is at that 00:55:39.640 --> 00:55:44.400 point, you're not just sent off to go do this by yourself, but you will now be a part of a network 00:55:44.400 --> 00:55:49.340 with a rallying of churches around you saying, dude, we're all in this together. Let's continue 00:55:49.340 --> 00:55:54.600 learning. Because if there's anything that I've learned about doing church in VR so far is what 00:55:54.600 --> 00:56:00.720 I know today is irrelevant tomorrow. In fact, the first podcast that or the second podcast that 00:56:00.720 --> 00:56:05.420 Goose and I ever launched with the metaverse church podcast was a deep dive on, on alt space. 00:56:05.540 --> 00:56:10.300 And like the day after we launched that episode, alt space shut down. We're like, all right, well, 00:56:10.300 --> 00:56:16.040 episode two of our brand new podcast just became irrelevant. Um, but there's so many more 00:56:16.040 --> 00:56:21.820 opportunities out there that, uh, we just need more. Um, and we're always going to be learning. 00:56:21.820 --> 00:56:26.560 So you, you learn to plan a church in three months and you get a network by the time it's all done. 00:56:27.020 --> 00:56:31.220 Yeah. Love it. It's, and that's, that's what I personally, that's what I love about this, 00:56:31.220 --> 00:56:35.320 where the learning community gives you the opportunity to birth this thing. 00:56:35.480 --> 00:56:40.780 And then working with Stu's network and coming alongside DCN where it's, it's underneath gives 00:56:40.780 --> 00:56:47.900 that the legs, the long-term stability to, uh, to, to have this thing flourish and, and even multiply 00:56:47.900 --> 00:56:52.680 again. And so, so often, you know, you go to the conference and you're left alone 00:56:52.680 --> 00:56:59.080 and nothing ever happens. The learning community is designed to get action through the, uh, through 00:56:59.080 --> 00:57:04.440 the mission trips and to empower your people to understand the implications and the contextualizations 00:57:04.440 --> 00:57:09.260 of the gospel in that space. It's designed to help you plant that church and to see that church 00:57:09.260 --> 00:57:13.660 flourish even after the learning community is over because we've got the relationship with Stuart 00:57:13.660 --> 00:57:18.280 and his virtual reality church network. What is there, is there an actual branded name for the 00:57:18.280 --> 00:57:24.140 network yet? I haven't, I, I, yeah, I just been, yeah, I just been calling it the VR church planning 00:57:24.140 --> 00:57:29.320 network, VR church planning network. Awesome. It sounds right to me. Simple, minimal, that's great. So 00:57:29.320 --> 00:57:33.380 we'll call with that. But I mean, this is, this is, this is the opportunity before us. Like if we're 00:57:33.380 --> 00:57:38.740 really interested in getting into the metaverse and doing ministry in that space, uh, we're better 00:57:38.740 --> 00:57:44.640 together, go with somebody who's been there, get, get vision cast to your people, plant something, 00:57:44.640 --> 00:57:49.340 and then walk the journey with somebody who's, who's been on that road before, who's especially 00:57:49.340 --> 00:57:53.620 smart enough to realize that there's somebody smarter than him out there or her out there that 00:57:53.620 --> 00:58:01.860 needs to step into it. And so love it. Stu, 272 episodes was too long, my friend. And so thank you 00:58:01.860 --> 00:58:08.940 for, uh, for, for jumping on this one. And we'll, we'll, we'll see you again in 286, uh, with, uh, 00:58:08.940 --> 00:58:14.100 as we're talking church planting over there, but as we're wrapping up the plane here in any closing thoughts? 00:58:14.640 --> 00:58:21.720 Yeah. I've been thinking about this the entire episode, Jeff, and I'm going to do my research 00:58:21.720 --> 00:58:26.140 on this. I'm an Enneagram five. So I'm a person that I love research. I love doing studies. 00:58:27.400 --> 00:58:31.920 I think I'm going to have to apologize to you on episode 286 because there may have been an 00:58:31.920 --> 00:58:37.620 episode where I was on before, but I'm just going to leave it at that. Okay. I'm not officially 00:58:37.620 --> 00:58:44.380 apologizing yet. I should know this, right? Like I should know whether you were on my own podcast, 00:58:44.380 --> 00:58:50.500 but I, for the love, I, I don't, I really don't think you were like, I will own the guilt of this 00:58:50.500 --> 00:58:56.080 scenario. If you have to apologize, I will accept it publicly. I will take it. I will apologize to 00:58:56.080 --> 00:59:01.320 you in front of Peyton Jones and all of your other listeners. But on top of that, that being said, I, 00:59:01.320 --> 00:59:07.020 I, I, I just reiterate, like for anybody who's listening to this, you really do want to hop into 00:59:07.020 --> 00:59:12.460 the learning community. Uh, I've done a couple of these with you as a participant and I've left 00:59:12.460 --> 00:59:17.700 every single time with something new to chew on. And that's usually enough of a good reason to be a 00:59:17.700 --> 00:59:21.820 part of this. So this is definitely something you want to be a part of and not miss out on. 00:59:22.080 --> 00:59:29.740 Yeah. Uh, and so you can go to leadnet.org slash MLC for metaverse learning community coupon code 00:59:29.740 --> 00:59:34.940 tsunami S T U N A M I. We'll put all that info in the show notes. Of course you can click over there. 00:59:35.340 --> 00:59:40.040 Um, uh, physical meetups in September and December online, October, November, 00:59:40.040 --> 00:59:47.560 take your church on a mission trip and plant a, uh, metaverse campus and some metaverse church. 00:59:47.560 --> 00:59:53.960 And so excited to see this happen. Um, and I'm going to start scratching my, my, uh, 00:59:53.960 --> 00:59:58.520 my podcast listing too, and see where it's at. Hey, Sue, thanks for jumping on here. By the way, 00:59:58.620 --> 01:00:03.980 we should say that we're doing this. If you're not interested in virtual reality, but the idea of, 01:00:03.980 --> 01:00:12.740 of mission trips and the idea of, um, uh, taking your digital ministry to that next level, uh, 01:00:12.740 --> 01:00:17.520 in the next podcast, we're going to have Tyler Sansom, uh, lead pastor of first capital Christian 01:00:17.520 --> 01:00:23.340 church and, and, uh, church anywhere. It's going to be on with us. He is going to be leading a digital 01:00:23.340 --> 01:00:28.780 learning community, similar to what Stuart's doing. And so it's a similar template with the mission 01:00:28.780 --> 01:00:33.880 trips where we're challenging people to, to utilize and to step into digital community and utilize these 01:00:33.880 --> 01:00:39.880 digital tools to, and, and games to connect with people in, in digital space and to be on that 01:00:39.880 --> 01:00:45.480 mission trip. And so you want to check out the episode 273, uh, for that and, and feel free to 01:00:45.480 --> 01:00:51.120 come back for 286 and watch Stuart grovel and apologize for ripping me publicly. No, I'm kidding. 01:00:51.200 --> 01:00:55.500 We'll figure it out. But Hey, so we're, we're going to land a plane, uh, for Stu. This is Jeff with 01:00:55.500 --> 01:01:00.900 the church, digital digital church network, leadership networks, director of metaverse and digital church 01:01:00.900 --> 01:01:06.340 next. Thanks for jumping on the podcast here and we'll see you again next week in season six, 01:01:06.340 --> 01:01:09.120 when we're taking your digital ministry to the next level. 01:01:09.420 --> 01:01:09.940 Y'all have a good day.