EP016: Anthony Coppedge & What Exactly is Online Church Membership?

Welcome in everybody. Welcome into the Gaming Outpost podcast. Uh good friend Pastor G going to be on with me today. Pastor GT TV.

Uh welcome in, friend. Love to finally get a chance to sit down with you. We've known each other for a few years. You've been doing digital ministry. Uh I've been doing gaming ministry. And you've migrated over to doing some gaming stuff. And I I I love that. So, why don't you start with why did you shift into doing uh ministry online and then when did you get over to Twitch and what brought you over to Twitch?

Okay, welcome everybody. Glad to see you. Appreciate this flat cap. Glad to be on with you. I know we've tried this a number of times as well. Uh, so we were launching a physical church in the space. Hello, Sleepy. Glad to see you. We were watching a physical church in the space behind me. This is the basement of my home. And we I come out of the Methodist church. I was called out to I felt like to to start a new church, start a new thing. And and the idea with this whole space behind me was tables and chairs and sit around tables and chitchat. You know, I wasn't planning on preaching and all that good stuff. And and we started up and we were really looking forward to the spring of getting out and into and to our neighborhood and and going on the streets and door to door kind of thing, you know, and let people know we were here. We actually did do a cookout pre-launch, quote unquote, out in our park, which is just down the road. And we started doing Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University with a few people. Started having a little small group over here as well. And then COVID hit.

Yeah.

And COVID, we had to stop everything in the middle like we all did. And even though we're a small group, we still stop. And my wife has severe anxiety. She has agoraphobia. So she doesn't really like I'm not say doesn't like to go anywhere. She has difficulty going places. She fears it. Fears having anxiety attacks outside of the home. And our church, our original church, the Methodist church, just it's about three minutes from here. And even going to that one, she'd have hard times where she sometimes she wouldn't be able to go. And so I was really thinking, you know, whenever we started this, it was going to be great because we got people coming over here. It's going to help her, you know, community, not being alone, all that good stuff. And then COVID hit. And so we canceled everything. And it took me a while, you know, it's like for the first few weeks, we didn't know what to do. And I was saying like, you know, I don't want to go online. You know, I was really anti going online. Not just because of church online. I was just like, it's not what I want to do. You know,

I want us to get back into the meeting together and all that.

And so we uh eventually, I can't remember now if I started. I think I started on uh the Friday, Good Friday if I'm not mistaken, and just kind of went on and just did a quick little message. I don't know if it was recorded or live originally. I think it was just with my phone. And then from there, it's like I decided to put out a a message for Easter. And that was a recorded message. And then just from there, it's like I started going on every night and doing a recording myself doing a psalm reading and started doing a psalm every single night. I'd read the psalm and then I'd kind of, you know, expound on it a little bit, share my feelings on it. Most of them are about ten minutes. And so I went through all all the Psalms and and and Psalm 119. I had to break up, of course, because it's so long as we know.

Uh but anyway, and in between all that, we started trying to do some things. Uh again, I would record messages, post them on Facebook. I don't I think I post them on YouTube as well. Uh we started trying to do some gatherings, some some live streaming on Facebook and even doing Bible study. I would take my phone. I got to fix my microphone here. It's not in the usual usual position. I would take my phone and set it up and record the TV because we'd do a video series and I would record the TV and after the little video part would play, I would flip it around and then me and my wife would discuss. Now, she didn't like being on camera either. And so, we would discuss it on Facebook and let people comment and all that. And we've never really had a huge following either, so we didn't have a whole lot of conversation that way, but we had a few. And then as COVID kind of lingered on and my wife's fear of being getting sick and all that with her anxiety and it's a breathing issue as well. So, it's all, you know, stacked on top of each other. I finally realized I'm like and I felt like God was saying, you know, he opened my eyes to understanding that there are a lot of other people out there that could not cannot gather with a physical church.

Yes.

We're doing it. And and that's where you and I met through the church digital and did the little cohort with uh Chesley and all that, you know, and which was real good, real real interesting and all that. And we've just kind of stayed digital ever since. Uh went from recording messages to actually live streaming messages and I think somewhere in there I don't remember how I'd always heard of Twitch but I wasn't you know Twitch was the gamer place you know and I was I'm not a big gamer so I was like I don't really have any business being on Twitch and so I think I had checked it out one time I was like yeah that's not my thing a few months later I think I found out you were on there so I started going on and checking you out and Lux Digital Church as well. And I'm like, okay, there are other things on here. And I saw it as another place. It's kind of like just a for for the church, just an additional place to stream for Innovate Church, which is my church that I lead. We were already live streaming to to Facebook and YouTube. Twitch is just another, you know, we use Restream at that time. Uh is really easy just to add another destination, pop it in Twitch, and I wasn't really on Twitch, you know.

Yeah,

it was last year that I decided I think I saw Pastor Tanner, I think.

Okay.

Someone was doing a sermon prep uh Twitch stream. And I was like, you know what? I got I got to prep my sermons, too. Maybe this will help me get a little bit faster, a little bit more ahead of the game. Because a lot of times I'll wait till the weekend to actually do my sermon prep. I thought maybe it'll help me get in more into the game and also require me to be on Twitch, which is reaching and meeting other people and sharing the word and and finding community and all that. And so I started that last year, I believe it was. And I went for I think two or three months doing that. And I actually got a little bit burned out on it and I kind of stopped doing it. I stopped streaming to Twitch and and and just for a while it's like I would go on I would try to do some gaming again. I'm not a huge PC gamer. I used to be back in the day man when Call of Duty was out the the early Call of Duties like two and three.

I I gamed a lot back then. Return to Wolfenstein which I actually brought back on here. I did stream that. I streamed it until I went through the whole game and finished it. Uh, HalfLife, stuff like that. You know, old school games for me. And it was always first person shooters has always been my thing. And so I streamed that a little bit, but I'm not real good PC gaming because I've lost my little keyboard skills, you know, hitting the buttons and all that. And there you go, Funky. So RTCW is such an awesome game. And then this year here, I like I wanted to be on Twitch. I really want to be here.

And it's just a matter of finding time for me to be on here and and a reason to be on here other than just streaming and trying to reach people because it's hard to fit in another night.

Uh we do church on Sunday night. Uh we do Bible study during the week on Thursday. I have city council meetings because I meet with my I work for my city here. Uh every other Monday basically plus trying to do all the stuff around the house. I'm the one that goes out and gets groceries and everything else and I do the cooking and all that good stuff. So, life is busy, you know, and I want to make sure that I take care of myself, that I have rest time

absolutely

throughout the week and I needed to have a real something to do on Twitch, not just come on here and game because again, I don't do a whole lot of that. And so this year here, a couple guys in in my church through the alpha uh video series, we decide we're going to try to get in better health, which I always have worked out off and on anyway and try to take care of myself halfway decently. And I'm like, okay, that that's going to be good. You know, let's promise we we'll do three days a week. And I was already thinking of doing this anyway. And then I started streaming this year at the beginning of the year, actually a day before the beginning, uh, workout stream Monday, Wednesday, and Friday nights. And during, excuse me, during my workouts, in the middle of sets and all that good stuff, I'm able to share my faith. I'm able to share the gospel. I'm able to share some sort of theme. Every night, I put together some kind of theme with the help of ChatGPT and some things that are on my mind. And I'm like, give me some scriptures for that I can use or theme or whatever. And and if I like it, that's what I go with. And and so I've been doing that mostly uh the first three, four months of this month, this year, excuse me. And then even that, it's like we changed. We started doing another alpha series on a Tuesday night. That took up another night plus springtime, which meant getting out in the yard. Yeah.

So I'm like, I'm going to take a two-week break, figure out my schedule. I ended up being off of here for about six weeks. And in that time, I even tried to do a YouTube channel as well on the same topic. And I missed the the community. I missed the back and forth chitchat on here.

And uh so just about two weeks ago, I finally got back on on a Friday night. And then now I'm back to trying to do the Monday, Wednesday, Friday. But but for the church, it it became again, it was just a stream, a place to stream originally, and now it has become where I'm hoping to help build more of the church community, which is also why I do the Pastor G stuff on here to kind of connect people with me that then I can connect them with the church as well. And we have no no desire, I don't have a desire now to be physical. Uh, I love what we do and even though we haven't grown like I thought we would, all that good stuff, which I always thought we'd be small anyway. We can get into all that. But, uh, I love the community of Twitch, the the the back and forth, the chitchat, the the connection points, uh, involved with Taco, involved with Church Digital, involved with a number of other, uh, Discords as well, and and have met some good friends on here. And so, that's my long-winded story right there.

I I love that. Like I I like I wanted to stop so many times with just questions along the way of

sleepy the bot died.

It's like I get to talking and then I missed the the conversation there in the chat too.

Yeah.

It it's it's funny because my first time going on here to stream and knowing I was going to do the sermon prep. I hear you.

Oh, am I there now?

Uh yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay. My first time going on here to stream and going to do the sermon prep. I told my wife, I was like, I don't know that I can talk for an hour or two hours without knowing anybody's watching me because I I'd watch all the YouTube videos, you know, say talk as though somebody's there,

which I preach, so that's not that difficult, you know.

But, uh, I found out that first night, oh, I can talk for a couple hours.

Yeah. Well, I'm not surprised, you know. I mean, I could I can do the same. I think pretty much any pastor has that skill set of I can just talk even if nobody responds. It's part of the training of going in that direction.

But I with new people, I try to just say like dead air kills radio. If you're flipping through channels and there's dead air, you flip to the next channel. So you do need to constantly have something that you're engaging with because people will come in. They might watch you for 30 seconds. You've said nothing. You've acknowledged no one. And so they leave. They're just not going to be engaged at all.

If G is good at something, talking is definitely one of them. Yeah. Exactly. Funky stick man.

Right. Right. Right. Yeah.

Um but I I don't think that maybe uh you knew this. Uh that's how I got started with Twitch as well was streaming pulpit or uh sermon prep.

So I had had people, you know, telling me that I needed to stream. I'm like, what am I going to stream? I I'm I'm not a PC gamer. I'm on Xbox. I don't have the setup to do it. I I'm watching all of you do this. And and then I started seeing a few people that were doing devotionals or other stuff and it's like, well, that's not my thing. I'm not opposed to it, but it's not my thing. And it was like, "Oh, wait. I Okay, I've been now working at a church. I guess I can do sermon prep." So, that's what I started just one day a week uh going live. Did that for about 3 4 months before it was uh moving on to stepping into the next thing.

So, I love the the I don't have to do what everybody else is doing. I can come and bring my own thing. I can come up and and do uh whatever is needed or whatever I can give and uh and try some new things.

Right. Right. And that's like with the workout thing. It's like I've got to work out anyway.

Yeah.

I need to be doing that. And I was like I can turn the camera on.

Yeah.

I can I can wear a little wireless mic. No big deal.

Whether somebody wants to watch it or nothing that or not, that's a different story. But I try to have fun with it.

Yeah. and try to make it useful, you know.

Well, I'd have to go do some research, but you know, earlier this year with the Reach Conference, uh there was a commitment to so many of us are going to do 90 days. We're going to work out every day. And I'm like, well, if I'm working out, I'm going to go ahead and stream working out. I didn't stream on the weekends, but Monday through Friday when I could, I was I was streaming that.

Now, I we were doing Discord, but I was putting it uh myself on. I wasn't putting everybody else on, so you could watch me. And boy, there was levels of which this is fun. There's levels of which this was miserable. And there's levels of I hope this is entertaining because this is really, really silly.

Uh, and that's gotten me back to what I really really wanted to do like three years ago when I first was getting started. Uh, I saw another streamer who's on who he got his start uh doing hitchhiking. So, he would hitchhike and then stream what he was doing. I don't know if he started out live or if they were videos. I don't know exactly all of that, but he he was doing live streaming of that.

And then during COVID, he was riding his bike across Canada. And I'm like, I was riding my bike so much at that time, too. I'm like, boy, I'd love to stream. So, before I even did any streaming, I was thinking, I'd love to stream riding on my bike. I I tested it out. My camera or my phone doesn't work to do that. Data problems just isn't designed for moving, driving down the road, and streaming and all of that stuff to to work.

And I'm, you know, in a national forest. So, I finally figured out how to do it. And so, I'm you'll I'll already have done it by the time people see this. If you're not here live. Uh I'm planning on Fourth of July getting up early and doing a stream and just riding my bike. And if people give me subs and bits and tips, I'm going to keep riding until they stop giving those to me and I'm going to head home.

So good. Um um I've been working on figuring that out and experimenting with that because yeah uh I may not like lifting weights, but I love riding my bike out in creation and and being able to share that with other people.

So yeah, Phantom Ethos. Yeah, sermon prep can be interesting. Absolutely. Phantom. Uh I loved when Pastor Koko was doing it. I I watched her a few times doing uh sermon prep. Uh she she has a whole different process of like mind mapping things out that's just really fascinating that I loved watching her do that. It's like that's not how my brain works, but I appreciate what you're doing and I know the I know the work you're putting in.

I think part of my part of my thing was I wasn't getting much of the prep part done as much as it was becoming more of a it's where I got the name the whole you know I couldn't get Pastor G to begin with. So if you know, you know, I was let's see with Pastor G because the idea was let's see what's in the word. Let's see what's what we can find in it. And so that's kind of why I started out that way and uh found I wasn't taking keeping notes. All that good stuff was difficult. It was just all having to stay up in your head, you know. But, uh, yeah. And I had actually been I think I was scrolling through Twitch, uh, yesterday or the other day, and I think you were trying to to do your your bike your bike test out their stream. It looked pretty good.

Yeah. Yeah. I guess I Well, I I tried one platform, did a couple of test runs, and someone else said there's a better platform for doing it to to to do that connection. Uh, so I I think I've got most of it worked out. I still got a few more things before Friday to figure out with putting together uh adding uh you know the streamversary thing where how many minutes I've got left. I got to figure out that piece. That's I think the last thing I've got and then whatever is going to go wrong I'm going to be out on the road. So if it goes wrong stream's over. I mean I'm not going to be able to change that. So

So are you going to be able to read chat?

Yes. Yes. Actually, the uh while you're on your bike, the Let me uh

That's dangerous.

Oh, well, yes, but also uh I can go slow so that uh it's not that big of a problem. Uh let me tell you what app I'm using in case anyone's interested. Oh, so I'm using IRL Pro is the app that I'm using and then I I'm subscribed to a service which I don't remember the name of it that takes that and then I upload that into OBS for being able to broadcast. Now, anybody that's listened to that probably knows a lot more details and knows what I'm talking about. And if this is new for you, that's where I've been this whole time trying to figure out the the the level of of tech is always the I feel like I'm going to sink underneath the waves. Uh but I've got lots of friends around who are always encouraging and helping things.

Phantom, now you just need some AHOR glasses.

Well, actually, Phantom, uh I was thinking about this. So, I do have like I'm sorry we're out of sidetrack, but I just love the conversation to go wherever it goes. So, I do have my road mic so that uh the wind noise will be all blocked off. Uh but I was thinking if I get the Ray-B bands with the uh the meta glasses in there, uh I could put the camera right here instead of on my phone because ideally what I would love down the road is whatever I'm looking at is what you're seeing. That's that's what I want instead of a fixed position. I got you know, you're just seeing the road in front of me. Uh I'd love to be able to do that. So, you know, dreams of if I continue to do this and people say, "Yeah, we'll throw money and watch you ride your bike." And I actually had someone who said, "Oh, the like when I was riding part of it, this is really lovely. I'd love to watch this while I'm riding uh on my um uh stationary bike" and it's like, oh yeah, that's a great thought. I can cut these down and edit them down to here's just a nice, beautiful ride that you could ride along with me. Cut out some of the other stuff." And uh so there might be some of that in the future too of nice long uh cycles that you could do. Uh cyclist. Yes. Bicycle, not motorcycle. Thanks Funky Stick Man for clarification there. So uh but we were when you were talking about the the start, your heart was first for your wife and then and then with others. Where does your wife participate? Is it just in person? Is she in all the online communities? I mean in person with you only. Um or does she have her own username and does she get on all the channels? What is what is her involvement that you've been able to bring her uh through digital?

So for her now she's on Zoom with us. Uh she doesn't always have her camera on and that's just depends on how she's feeling and if she's fixed up or whatever. You know how that goes.

Yeah. Uh, and then digitally she's on Discord with us, but she's not real frequent with it, which I will tell you, most of my true connected church, and we have a text group, and there's only like 16, 14 of us that are in the text group, very few of them are actually on Discord and so, and they won't go to it. You know, it's like, I tried that. I've tried Mighty Networks way back when, right? Uh we have an app now as well for the church and I've gotten a few of them on there because I try to tell them and we've got some older folks as well. I'm like, you know, hey, chill. It's like it's not safe for us to really bring other people into a text group because then we're giving our number out, right?

And I'm afraid sometime or later that's going to cause an issue.

And so I've been wanting them to go to Discord because, you know, you can do so many different things in Discord. And I see it as being our offline, always online church, right?

I mean, my dream is for Discord to be the place that people can go whenever they're struggling or whatever any time of the day or night and they can post and somebody's going to respond other than just me.

Yeah.

And so, and so it's slowly picking up here and there. You know, a few of us have gotten on it recently. Uh but some of them just they're just not going to like even I think a couple Sundays ago uh we're looking at Acts 2:42 and the being devoted and being devoted to the the church and being devoted to the word and the fellowship together and all that and and so I talk about being devoted to the community, being devoted to the church and I I after church I continued to stream and I was like let me walk y'all through Discord.

Yeah.

And so I did that on stream and a couple of them actually three or four of them actually go went ahead and joined Discord from that and so that was good and I've got a little a little more activity there. Uh but like I said some of them's just not some of them's not going to go to the app and all that. So I'm just trying to be I always tell everyone whenever we when we're live streaming or when we're on Zoom whatever you know you come and show up how you feel comfortable. You connect with us how you feel comfortable. If you're not comfortable turning your mic on and your camera on, that's no problem. If you just want to just lurk, that's no problem. I just want you to be there and be part of the community and understand, you know, we provide a safe place and a place that others will love and care for and pray for you and all that.

So, it's really understanding that there are people out there that are not going to be comfortable in many spaces at all.

Yeah. And so whatever it takes for them to connect and that's what, you know, Twitch is known for.

You know, the more kind of sit in the back or outcast kind of people, you know, I'm introverted myself and I know I don't sound like it. I don't put that forth very often, but I'm always thinking of what other people are thinking of me or what am I saying or whatever, you know, constantly the mind's constantly working there.

And so I know what it's like to go into a new space. It's like even coming on here with you, I have anxiety. I have anxiety every time I turn the camera on and the mic on and start a stream and just like you know in church and getting up and preaching, you have anxiety every time just about for most of us.

Yeah. And so I can understand having to go through that and I want to lower the barrier for people as much as possible in that way.

Yeah. There definitely is. Yeah. Kill that impostor syndrome, man. Well, it's not funky funky stickman. It's not entirely impostor syndrome. What it is is a level of appreciation for what we're doing for like this is how I viewed it as a pastor before I was a pastor when I was doing drama ministry. It was I get nervous because I care about what I'm doing.

Right. Right.

And if I didn't care then I well whatever it doesn't matter. I would have I would have a now there's a level of comfortability and I'm doing it regularly. The anxiety level is lower. But every time there's that new thing there's a little level of it creeps in of it's not necessarily impostor syndrome but it's just a level of I really know what I'm doing makes a difference for people and I don't want to do it poorly. I want to do my very best. I like right now we've got some tech issues going on. They're driving me nuts and I just like it's I want to play I want to mess with things like mess with things. I want to make it better. I've I want to fix it all and I I've done the best I can and we're moving forward and I'll keep trying and I'll keep working on it and get one percent better every day.

Right. Right. And that's one thing, you know, even with streaming on here and it's funny. I was listening to Taco the other day at Christian Ninja and he was talking about style and how you know many of us have our panels and everything up look our overlays looking absolutely wonderful and we're small creators but then some of the big creators have everything just kind of like just plain nothing big you know it's like and some people wonder about that sometimes it's like I even wonder like have I made it too pretty have I have I dress things up too much kind of stuff you know and again always thinking about what everybody else's is concerned with whenever I really don't need to be concerned with they're they're more interested in the content and the things that we're bringing and us being real and open with them.

And I'm not everybody's cup of tea and that's fine. I know that.

No. Well, I think I think that's one of the beautiful things that Twitch has is that there are so or there is so much variety. Like you have gamers that are just gaming. Then you have all the genres within gaming that are gamers and and then you have art stream, you have crafting streams, you have just talking streams, you have podcast streams, you there is no end and if if there's enough people doing it, they'll create a new category for it. So yeah, there's fitness stream, you know, we both were talking about that earlier. So there's whole levels and you've talked about being in multiple different places in YouTube and in Facebook.

So you didn't have any connections with your community in Facebook because Facebook is a better job of connecting there and YouTube I know is more of a I go there to watch things and maybe I respond but I'm not looking for community in YouTube.

So did you have any luck in Facebook? I didn't have much luck with people connecting with us outside of the stream.

Yeah. And and that's that's kind of the thing. It's like with our text group, we're all very well connected. It's just I would like to move them to a safer platform, you know. And for some reason, and I never know, and I can wrestle with this, you know, like I said, and whenever I stepped out and was going to start our church, I always said we were never going to be a big church. I figured twenty people max, you know, and I mean I'm talking about trying to do it here, number one. And then number two, I was looking at trying not to be a preaching all the time kind of pastor. You know, I really wanted us to sit around tables and talk and chitchat and all that good stuff. And you know, I looked at like Tampa Underground and people like them and and knew they had conversation time and all that good stuff. And Imagine Church is another one. They have a conversation break. And so I was looking into that kind of idea. And whenever we went digital for some reason, I realized, you know, you had the reach and so then you should be able to grow larger. And I started getting somewhat and I still wrestle with numbers sometimes. We've been going, we've been at this for five years. Like I say, since COVID pretty much we've been a somewhat some form of digital church and I can wrestle with, you know, I mean like our YouTube videos, sermons, all that good stuff. I mean, I might get twenty or thirty views on them. You know, our services, I might we might have twelve people, we might have twenty people. It just depends. And that's between Twitch and YouTube and Facebook. And so you you can I can look in to myself personally and say, "Is there something I'm doing wrong? Is there some reason why, you know, I'm not growing? Is there some reason why the church isn't gathering other people or connecting with other people?" And God has always told me, excuse me, he's always told me from the beginning, and I've heard this word time and time again, that he will build his church.

Yep.

But yet, I've still wrestled with how much do I reach out? And I've tried ads, everything. In the early days, I was trying ads and all that good stuff. And now it's like I realize if you've ever led church, I know you've been a pastor. I'm kind of speaking to some of those other ones out there. The demands that the church people can put on you. And we've got such a small group that they're not huge right now, but sometimes they flare up, you know.

Yeah. I can't imagine right now with my career and everything else in my my life having fifty, one hundred or whatever, you know, size.

And so I kind of feel like now, you know, it's just realizing that it's God's blessing in a sense, keeping us small and trusting him and his growth. And I've definitely matured throughout the years as well where I might have done some things wrong prior if I would have had, you know, the quote unquote fame, whatever.

Yeah. Yeah. And so it's like now I'm just I've always looked at just trying to be what he wants where he wants me to be and I branch out from time to time trying other things. It's like whenever I first started the Twitch stream for my personal for Pastor G channel and I did VR as well. You know I told my church people I was like I'm going fishing like I'm just trying to see if there's people out there that we can reach or that we need to be there for. And so that's been kind of what I've been doing for the last number of years, you know.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, on some level it's success is a weird measurement because who determines what success is?

And I and I think on some level we we read through Acts and oh five thousand were added to their number that day. That day five thousand like I'm never like I'm going to say this. I'm never going to see five thousand added to the number in a day. Just I don't picture it. I can't picture it. Um like that would be over half my town, you know, all add it there, you know, like it's just a crazy number.

But then the other side of it is, yeah, I pull up and I watch a streamer who has two thousand people watching them at once, but you can't have a connection with each one of those people personally.

Right. You so, so I do think there's a level, yeah, you do want to multiply, but we talk about at times thinking of it this way. Would you rather have one church of ten thousand people or a thousand churches of ten people? Which are going to make a bigger impact uh in the world?

And a thousand churches of ten people are going to make a bigger impact than one church of a thousand people or ten thousand people. It's just it's just going to be what that is.

Yeah. Absolutely. And and I've I've seen those streams too, watching thousand even hundreds of people and and the the chat runs by so fast.

Yes. Oh, yeah.

I don't think at that point you have a connection. I think they're just watching you because they like you.

Yeah.

And and you can't really have a conversation.

Oh yeah. The streamer when you have well, I say when you have a hundred, you probably can keep up with chat because not everybody's chatting. And you could put it in slow mode. Uh yeah, but you you when you get past a certain level, you can no longer participate in it and you rely on other people to do the work. It's not that different from a church of ten thousand people. The pastor doesn't have a relationship with the average person in the pew. They have a relationship with leaders and those leaders have relationships between one hundred and two hundred people uh who are in there.

So, uh I think we can think through some of those things, but what I like more is connectedness with other streamers who are doing similar things and building a cross community aspect that doesn't really happen in a lot of churches that you have people who are doing things in two or three churches and all churches think, "Yeah, that's fine. Go do that over there and yeah, that's wonderful. Come over here for this and yeah, don't forget to go over there." Uh most churches don't have those relationships. Are always like, "Well, you're us or you're them." Uh kind of thing. Uh I did see a few uh chat uh messages coming in. Why don't we just kind of touch on that a second? So, uh Phantom was saying uh heard that uh from many people the smaller was probably a blessing so it doesn't become overwhelming.

So, I I think there's a level of that, too.

Uh yeah, Funky Stick Me, I can't imagine a channel blowing up like that overnight. Phantom, what do you do with the the five thousand on day two? Uh, I don't know.

Um, gather together in the temple courts and uh pass out food, I guess.

Um, Zach, uh, I see streamers with a one hundred plus or a thousand people on streams and they ignore the chat most time. Yeah, part of it is, Zach, they they can't uh fully get to it. I know for instance uh Lux Digital Church when the chat's blowing up and they're in the middle of the service, they have someone who is pointing out different things to recognize or pastor G, I see you pulling up on screen certain things and and hitting them. I haven't figured that one out yet. So, I love to like watch other people who are uh newer than me figure out stuff like I didn't know how to do that. I need to figure that out.

Yeah, you can't physically follow chat with thousands of people in it. No, you just can't.

That's one of the things eCam offers.

Ah, okay. So, eCam offers the click on it and it goes up. Okay.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And I don't have that. So, oh well.

I'm learning. I'm learning, man. I'm playing around.

So, the learning is so much fun. Um, well, let's talk a little bit. Let's shift because we're we're talking about the overcoming of things and that. What has been uh an obstacle that you've been able to overcome as you've been learning and growing in the space?

The technology, I mean, really, it's, you know, figuring things out. And I am one that I will figure out something well enough to make it work.

Right.

And sadly, once I get it working and it's good enough, then I leave it alone. And in many ways, I need to learn to dig in a little deeper so I can get some of those more advanced kind of things done. You know, that's why I talk about with Twitch and having the emotes, and I was like, I don't have none of that stuff set up yet, you know, custom this, that. No, I don't have any. I did an overlay originally, and that was pretty much it, you know. Other than that, it's just trying to, again, I wrestle with how to connect with others, how to be where they are.

I understand taking time out of my normal routine, so to speak. I'm trying to get better at being on other Twitch streams, watching other streamers as well, and being there in their chat and all that.

Again, it's difficult. And I wrestled with this just Friday night because Taco was having their two-year anniversary stream, and I had just gotten back into doing my faith and fitness stream. And I'm like, supposed to be on Friday night. I'd like to be over there, but I also told my people I would be on. And so you kind of wrestle with, you know, where you're supposed to be. And I still kind of battle that some.

And then the whole getting into raiding other channels as well, that's new for me. And a lot of times it's like, I'm like, I only have two or three people with me. I don't want to raid somewhere, you know, whatever. And so, but I'm trying to get better with those kind of things. Again, trying to get into learning more of the Twitch culture. Making great friends out there. Got some really supportive friends. Funky sitting here watching us, you know. Chill's on here. Chill actually attends our church as well. Funky does a little bit sometimes too. And I want to be, and I think that's kind of what it was like, I was pulled in so many different directions. And maybe that's part of overcoming, again, trying to gain an audience, trying to gain others, again, looking at the YouTube numbers and saying, well, gee, why hasn't this video taken off or whatever. And I even with my faith and fitness, I tried to start a faith and fitness channel on YouTube, and I realized then I like the community here.

Yeah.

I love the community here. And once I started plugging in and catching up with some of those others, again, and I think when Ukulele was on and she just popped in. Hello, Ukulele.

Hey, Ukulele.

When she, when you interviewed her the other day, and I watched the entire stream, and that was kind of like one of the things like, I've got to get back on Twitch, and I've got to be here because this is really where my heart is. If I could move my entire church off of YouTube to Twitch, I would do it.

Well, you know, you say that, but what we've, what we're addressing and talking about in some degree is it is really hard if people are on one platform to get them to go to another platform. So if you are on YouTube, you don't understand and know the culture of Twitch, and you don't know what you're missing. So I'm going to just go watch you over there. Why would I leave where I am and go over there? Because they don't understand the engagement that happens in the chat. You're on Facebook. You're probably there because you've been on there and you haven't adapted and you haven't gone to other platforms, and you probably get upset every time Facebook does updates. You know, that's most of it. Like, I'm on Facebook because that's where I've been for a long time, and most of the people at the churches I've been at over the last twenty years are at. So that's where I can stay connected with them. But I don't have community over there. You know, the Twitch is a fantastic place for community. So I totally understand what you're talking about with the desire to get there, to be in the space, to go and hang out with other people more often. That's the thing I miss the most is, you know, three years ago, I was probably, before I was streaming, you know, consuming five hours a day or more of other people that were streaming. Once I start streaming, now I can't consume that much. And I don't mean consuming by I'm just taking, because but being involved in the communities that were, that are there, and being a part of it. It's like that's the thing I miss most is, if I go over and I join in this community for a while, I need to be fully present. I mean, I'm nothing against lurkers and all that. I'm saying if I'm taking my time and I'm there, I want to be fully present, and doing those things, not focused on something else. Well, then that means this, this, or this, or other things to get, make my stream better, don't happen. This, you know, like you're talking about emotes, and that, you know, yeah, I just went and did a whole section of emotes. I love doing the emotes. I've got to the point where it's fun to be creative and figure out things and then adapt them, and then I'll find one or modify one, and it's like, it's too big. I feel like I'm learning all the time, but it's like, oh, I feel comfortable with what my skills are at emotes. They're not where you'd pay me for it, but hey, you need some help with it. I'll help you get better, you know, that kind of a skill. And then there's somebody out there that's even better. But yeah, it's the time involved, right?

Yes.

You got to choose where you're going to spend your time.

And when we're streaming, we've got to have our stream going. Outside of that, I don't have a whole lot of time to connect with others. Again, I'm looking at doing, you do five days of streaming, right?

Yeah.

I'm basically doing five days of streaming myself, although they're not back to back to back because I've got Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Sunday, but then I'm also on Zoom on Thursday.

Oh, yeah.

That's a minimum. That's a minimum for me right now. We actually do a Friday hangout once a month as well. So that's another night that I'm also busy. And so it's hard to sit down and work on these things. Thankfully, I've got a place of employment where sometimes I can squeeze in a little extra time here to knock out a little something here or there, but to dress up things and to play around some technology, kind of part of my hope this week is like, I took this week off from work, and I'm like, you know, I just switched to eCam, you know, since I'm on the Mac side, and I'm looking at trying to get more set up on here like I had on OBS. And I didn't even have a profile for Twitch on here for my Pastor G Twitch until I just set it up for you, and I went on.

Oh, okay.

And so I was still playing around trying to make sure I had mic and everything else whenever you were me and you were messaging back and forth in Discord. I'll be there. I'll get it all set up. Just give me a minute. Trying to figure out the virtual camera and all that. And then I went to OBS because I was going, I'm like, okay, I'm going to go back to OBS. I know it, you know. And even it's like you have to go into another setting and in the Mac to allow it to have the virtual camera. It's not just in OBS or not just in eCam. I had to allow the Mac to use that camera. Ah, once I found it, I was good to go. But it took me a minute to figure it out. I'm like, "Oh no, what am I going to do?" I told him I know OBS and I do, but I don't have a PC anymore. My laptop died on me. Just about two weeks ago, three weeks ago, whatever.

Okay.

And so I was like, I don't have none of my PC stuff, and I've been using PC forever, and switching to this one's all new.

I didn't realize OBS was just PC. I didn't know they you couldn't use OBS on Mac.

No, you can use it on Mac. That's what I'm saying. I've got OBS on here, but the virtual camera I had not used.

Oh, okay.

On the Mac.

Okay.

And there's an additional setting as there is on so many things that I had to go in and find and give it permissions. And so, yeah, a lot of people when they've not done this before, the figuring out the OBS virtual cam permissions and how to do that, it takes a minute.

Takes a minute.

Funky Stickman, you use OBS on Linux. Yeah, you know, I know of, like, I should say it this way. I run into more people on Twitch that are using Linux. I have never run into anybody in person that uses Linux. It might just be that they do and we don't ever have a conversation about tech stuff. So I don't know enough to go, I should switch. And what would that learning curve be? You know, there's sometimes it's like I could tackle what I can tackle and keep learning slowly. A whole shift in something new sometimes is just completely overwhelming. So, absolutely. Absolutely. But we're always learning, and that's the thing, right?

Yes.

Oh, totally.

Always, never content with not trying to figure something out yet. I'll say that.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, we talked about some obstacles that we overcome and we keep working on. What are two or three stories of just unexpected something happened, and it was either someone else blessing you or you being able to bless somebody else?

I, so I know that for me, the blessing that I have received often is the community, is the conversations that I've had. And just like we talked about with having too many people in chat sometimes and not having some deep conversations, a number of months ago now, I was doing my workout stream and had a gentleman come in, and he was just talking about working out to begin with. And then he kind of went on, you know, he mentioned wanting to know God. It's like, how do I know God? How do you know God? And so you had the opportunity, I had the opportunity to have a very good gospel-oriented conversation with him that if I had had ten, fifteen people on there, we wouldn't have had.

Yeah.

And even just the other night, I had a very similar conversation again with somebody that, and we're talking about, you know, the numbers and all that good stuff. A lot of times you want more people, but when you don't have them, it gives you the opportunity to speak directly to somebody. And I've seen the same thing in our church gatherings too. It's well, if so and so is on, then, you know, this person didn't get to share everything that they got to share, because sometimes we, everybody's got some talkers, right? Sometimes I am the talker. And one of them would come on and then the other one wouldn't be on, but the one that came on had stuff just to spill out that they really needed to get out that they're wrestling with. And so for me, it is that blessing of having and being able to play a part and helping people with their faith life, with their wrestling, and having that. And we talk, you know, there's all kind of talk in digital space about, you know, people are more open to sharing a lot of times than they would be in person. And so that's the thing that's been great is people are willing to open up a lot of times in ways that they wouldn't in person and share. And I've been able to play a part in that. And I, it's never about me. It's always about God. I always point to him. But I'm just thankful that he has given me those opportunities here on Twitch or wherever, just to have those kind of deeper conversations. And I feel like I'm never ready for it. You know, it's funny. We're talking about gospel sharing and all that. No matter how much I've preached, whatever.

I can preach and I can preach a gospel message, no problem. One-on-one evangelism is different.

Totally.

But in doing this, I've also gotten more comfortable with that.

Yeah. And because whenever again whenever I start up streams like I may have a theme, I may have some discussion points, but that stream's liable to go anywhere.

That conversation is liable to go anywhere when there somebody comes in.

And so my 30 minute workout sometimes takes me two hours because you have the conversations, you know, you get going and and I get to talking between the sets and it's like, oh yeah, I got to work out. I forgot what I'm on here for, you know. So, that's been a true that's probably the biggest blessing to me here in streaming and doing digital church the way that we have been is to to reach people where they're at and to be a resource for them.

Uh, one of our people, he he's out in Arizona, I think it is, Arkansas. Yeah, somewhere. And and him too, it's like he doesn't have a local church. He he's out in an area that's away from everyone and we're able to be his family. I mean, he loves us just as if he were and he wishes he was here where I'm at in North Carolina, but that's not likely to happen. But but again, we're we're there and I have the opportunity to play a part in somebody's life like that.

Yeah. Well, even even you were you were alluding to something that I don't know if everyone else picked up on is sometimes in person there is a level that you just can't get past to say is this safe for me to share here? I don't know if I can I can talk about this online. There is this barrier uh that is just gone on some level that's like yeah there's there's nobody around. Let me show this to let me share this with you. Let me just tell you because you know what if you say yeah nice you know good blessings on you goodbye you know that's not what we're here to do I just leave I don't have to stick around but if you fully engage me I was safe in that whole process I can stay I can be uh in the space so I think there's a a more of an openness that there's a barrier that like you know if I go down to the local coffee shop or or the local brewery which by the way, I I like going down there and hanging out with people and having conversations. So, I'm pretty good at that.

But there's a lot of people that are going to look and go, I'd love to do that, but I don't know who will overhear me. I don't know who will see me with the pastor. I don't know who will who will say why what was going on and it gets around town or somebody else finds out about it that online. I mean, it's kind of funny is I I I I do know a couple of people on in Twitch who were across town from me, but it was after knowing hundreds and hundreds of people uh on Twitch before somebody was finally across town from me. So, yeah, I don't I don't expect most of the people in town to be watching me unless they already knew me. You know, they're they're not piling on. They're not looking for me. They're they're not doing those things. There's a a safety that you can provide for people and when they sense it, uh it's just like a a welcome space. I think a good way of talking about it is like the woman at the well, uh Jesus encounters her. You don't know what's going to happen, but he set the environment for her to feel safe to engage him in a conversation. And that that that sounds to me pretty much like what you're talking about.

Absolutely. Absolutely. And you know, another thing I I will say has been a blessing because I'm again, you know, I mentioned earlier about being introverted and so I'm not out and about and of course with her situation and all that stuff, my wife's anxiety, I'm we're not out in the community a lot. We're not out in gatherings. We're not going out hanging out with other married couples or whatever, you know. And so it's also being online has introduced me to other creators, other people that are of the faith, other people that are not anti-digital as we know there are many out there.

Uh finding the the church.digital digital years ago and listened to Jeff and all that and been a part of that community and and now again, you know, I've moved over to not moved, I'm still still there, too, but uh quite involved with Taco Network as well and and a few others. And so, it it's it's been a blessing to get to know these people that are out there around the world, as you know, that have a heart for doing and reaching using whatever method we can. And be it digital, be it WhatsApp, be it Twitch, Tik Tok, whatever, you know, it's nothing is sort of off limits, so to speak.

And Twitch is kind of, you know, Twitch was kind of scary when I first got on it. Uh because there are areas in there we don't need to be at, right?

Yeah. And I've learned how to block a lot of that off of my own uh feed and all that good stuff. But it doesn't mean that the light doesn't need to be here.

Yep.

And I have seen so many other Christian streamers on here using whatever it is they do. Uh one of my favorite people is Jamie Ro Romoser I think is his name. He is a BMX bike freestylist on here. I found him one night and the dude just has a heart to share the gospel and he's using a be he's the only one on here that I know of doing freestyle bike in his garage.

Yeah, I know who you're talking about. I've watched him once or twice.

Yeah. And he's such a great guy. Uh I know there there's other ladies on here that do the needle point stuff and they're talking while doing that. You know, Armor of Faith being one of those ukulele playing the ukulele, you know, and so so much variety here of Christian people being on here trying to use what we already do, what we already love, what our passion is, but also weave into it the gospel or weave into it Christ or weave into it loving others and being safe places for others. And and so the Lord has definitely used this whole experience for me to to bless me and to to open me up to knowing others, being in community, even if I can't be in the same neighborhood or whatever. We can't go hang out, have a beer or whatever, you know, and so it's it's been an interesting journey to to get me here on Twitch for sure. Uh but I wouldn't have it any other way. I I love love what he's done for us and

well on on some level what you were just describing and the number of people you were you were identifying. It's like to me that really describes what the church is supposed to be doing is while I'm going about my life, I am to be the light wherever I go. And if I'm going into digital spaces, I bring the light there. What's interesting though is I when and it's probably biased, but I see more people intentionally living out their faith in digital spaces than I have ever really seen people uh in the church world because it would be uh I like I lived in a place where they had a Christian phone book because you needed your name in the Christian phone book or I should say yellow pages. There were no white pages. It was just the yellow pages. So if you were a Christian business, you needed to be in the yellow pages of the Christian book so that everybody knew that you were a Christian and we could go and and support you.

Uh and then maybe knowing a few of those people in that book and knowing that they are some of the scummiest people I've ever known and they're in the book and attending church because it's beneficial to their lifestyle and it's beneficial to their pocketbook. But if somebody needed help uh without the tax write off, they're not helping, you know. So the the person that says, "Hey, um I'm on a fixed income, but I like what you're doing and I'm going to be a subscriber to your channel at this amount, that's a fixed thing from my fixed income, and oh, every once in a while, uh I just really feel generous and I want to bless you and I give you more." It's like, wow. That's like the widow who's giving out of out of her her, you know, widow's might and giving out of abundance of what she gives, not abundance of what she has. Versus the person with abundance of what they have that I check the box, I went to church on Sunday, I can go live the rest of my week the way I want to and run past people and ignore people and never, you know, help somebody I see would need. I just say be warm and be filled and go on with life.

So what you're talking about there is I think what the whole church is supposed to do.

I just think some of us who are in the digital space have figured out this place needs light and I'm here so I'll shine what light I have.

Right. Yeah. It's interesting because you talk about, you know, you know, I come from a youth pastor background and it was all about, you know, a lot of common teaching was, you know, hey, hang out with kids, take them and do what you're already doing in a lot of cases.

Yeah.

And you had to be careful in that, of course, we know, but it's I kind of can see that and it's kind of clicked with this as you you're talking there. You know, I'm sort of doing that here.

Yeah. While it may not be teenagers or whatever that's watching, whatever, I'm already doing again with my workout stream. I'm going to do it anyway. And I'm just bringing others along or putting myself out there, whatever, so others can join along and using my life, what I'm doing in my life to share Christ and to share his love and and so yeah, that's a good thought.

Yeah, I finally did it. Well, you're talking about, you know, doing things like and and workout streams. Some of it is just the consistency of being there is the most important thing.

It's not always what you're doing. It's that you're consistently there so that those people can show up when G is going to be on. Oh, did I lose my microphone? No, it looks like I got my microphone. I lost yours. Avatars. It's wild.

Okay, I lost your audio. I got you.

That whole VTuber thing, man, has been kind of uh crazy to me on here as well to see how that works, and I haven't figured that part out.

Yeah, there's a couple of different levels of how do you I don't know if you're hearing me or not, but I'm not I'm not hearing you right now. Uh flat cap, that's weird. It's showing that I am the technical difficulties again. The only thing I wish I could figure out is why you're coming in on mine blurry, but that's all right. I'm not going to mess with it.

Sometimes you just have to let things go, right? It's not it's not perfection. Okay, there you are.

So, I all I did was disconnect the mic and reconnect it. So, it was showing me on my stream it was coming, but apparently it wasn't connecting to you uh on your side. So, yeah, more more scuff just Satan trying to mess things up. Yeah, I'm feeling that a lot lately.

But sometimes I've I've just I've got the the thing ready to keep reconnecting whenever it gets disconnected, so we'll be good.

All good. All good. That's it. Got to have a plan.

Yeah. Uh I lost where I was. Oh, I was going to that's what I was I was going into the uh the regular schedule and being available uh is a really really important thing for people uh to know when you are. Now there's nothing wrong with the spontaneous ones and hey just show up and and go because those are great but you reach to different people uh or you're you're trying other things but like for instance the podcast is not a regular schedule. The podcast is when it happens. So, I've added a a gaming on Monday to try to do, hey, here's the regular for the church digitals uh channel. You can always come on Monday. Well, most Mondays, you can come on Monday and you'll find out what's going on for the week. Uh and then sometimes there's two podcasts in a week and sometimes there's none.

Um that's that's just the the nature of trying to schedule around and what works for everybody to to be able to make it. So, I know that's not the best for the audience to be here, but part of it too is the opportunity to share audience together with one another.

And I know you've um started working with the Taco team. Why don't you just kind of share about uh your involvement there? How and why did you decide to get involved and and then uh what that is uh doing for both you and them.

Okay. So, Taco, the Alliance for Creative Outreach, uh, is all for Christian content creators and encouraging them. For those that don't know, uh, ukulele is on here from them as well.

Uh, Christian Ninja, I don't know how I got connected with them initially. I want to say somewhere or another I saw Christian Ninja and probably through Twitch, of course.

And then I've been on their Discord now for couple years, I do believe. Uh, and of course, you know, I mean, I went through their training course as well, which I think there was talk of y'all trying to work out something together with that, too.

Uh, went through their training course, which was very, very good. Uh and kind of like so many other courses, I probably didn't apply everything I'm supposed to, but and then in that, you know, uh being there, that's probably my whenever I go on Discord, that is that is outside of my own church. Discord and Taco are my two that I'm on all the time. Uh church.digitals in there, too. Don't worry. And so I I serve as their team chaplain uh which is just connecting with them throughout the week and if they're through I try should do every week.

I'm not not so good at that. Again trying to as busy as I am. Uh but they all know that I'm there for them.

Uh see how they're going, talk to them about some of their life things. I share things with me. All that good stuff. But but really I mean it's just again for me it's another family and and I've gotten to know some of them more than than others and they've shared things with me and let me again talk about that blessing of people sharing their life with you that that's part of part of what I get to see there.

Uh always encouraging you know that if you don't know them go check them out for sure please especially if you're a content creator. Uh, but it's another it's another group that I wouldn't have known if I hadn't been on Twitch, if I hadn't been on Discord and all that, you know.

And so, again, it's people that God has brought into my life to to help me out because I was just telling somebody last night, I think, uh, I can't remember who it was. Wasn't you, Funky? I can't remember who it was, but I was talking about ukulele and I'm like, she's so wise. And I'm not saying it's just because she's on here, but I was truly telling someone last night during my workout stream that is it's like when I talk to her, she always has some kind of wisdom to share. And if you follow their Discord, she's all the time offering wisdom. And you see it here. I think she shared some things here as well.

And same thing on reach.

Yeah.

And it's like I wouldn't know that. I wouldn't know her. I wouldn't wouldn't receive that wisdom if I wasn't open up or what if Taco didn't come into my life. Let me say that way. And so each one of them had their things, you know. And so uh yeah, so that that's Taco. That's that's my my relationship with Taco.

Something I was going to mention a minute ago. U Oh man, it escapes me though. Gosh, I hate when I hate when people say that. There's something I was gonna mention, but it's gone. And because then it gets you hanging that hopefully it'll come back.

When I was a kid, when I would say, "Oh, I was gonna say something, but I forgot." My mom would say, "Must have been a lie."

What? Like, how is that like like I don't know where she picked that up from. I've never heard anybody else in my life say that, but it's like must have been a lie. She didn't say it that way. That's how I say it to my kids now, you know, because like grandma picked it up, you know? I picked it up for grandma. So I say that in in just must have been a lie. So I'm just, you know, if anybody wants to pick that up, make it go viral, you know, go for it.

I think the older I get, the more I forget. Anyway,

Oh yes, yes. Hey, last Amy, welcome in.

Glad to see you, Miss Amy.

Must not have been important. That's what I've always heard, too.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Most people say, "Oh, it must not have been important." No, my mom went f further. It must have been a lie because I I couldn't remember what I was going to say. Like, "No, I I think I'd been okay if it would have been a lie. I probably would have remembered then."

This was for

Oh, now I remember because you're talking about showing up.

Oh, yes.

Yes. So, as I had mentioned, you know, I took a little break from from Twitch and from streaming uh just because of my schedule change and all that good stuff.

And it's interesting because it's like even with the the YouTube thing that I was trying, when I don't show up or when I don't continuously put out content, quote unquote, I think of the people that may be looking for me. I think of the people that I did have conversation with or that did talk to me.

Uh my wife walking around outside, come to my door here.

Uh, and so, you know, it it's it's that important to make sure that I am showing up because I wonder it's like I did have a connection or two on on uh the YouTube channel. I'm like I wonder how they feel if I'm not and maybe it's I don't it's not a prideful thing like I'm they're thinking about me, but it's I'm thinking about them because if they come back looking for me.

Yeah.

Where'd I go? You know, the the the conversation I was sharing earlier about the gentleman I had had with uh months ago. I haven't seen him back yet since being back on stream. And I've only been back on stream for a couple weeks now, but I'm hoping he comes back because I want to know what's going on in his life.

I want to know where he's been. I want to know how things are going for him and his in his search for Christ and his search. And cuz he was talking about getting married and and going to church and everything else, you know, and his life was really on the verge of some real change.

And and then whenever we drop out of sight for them and if we were the only ones they were connecting with

Yeah.

And then my heart breaks for them, you know, it's like, come back, come back, you know, I want to know. I want you to know I'm still here, you know, kind of thing. Because he didn't connect. I don't think he connected in Discord. I don't know that he followed me or not.

Yeah.

But he did f he did come on a number of nights in a row.

Uh

Well that's

And so again it's that idea showing up. You know people get used to you being on

They start looking for you hopefully.

Yeah.

There's that difference between the connection you're making and community. He so they're they're on the periphery. They've made some connections but they haven't fully joined into the community. And that can happen in in different ways of being part of the community.

But it it it does go both ways, too, because I've had people that were mods of mine and then life changed and now they can't be a mod. They can't even lurk in my stream. They're they're just like disappeared and it's like heartache to have lost that friendship that was so deep because it was Monday through Friday always there always talking always chatting and then suddenly it's it's gone uh for those that have made it over to Discord which I think is a little bit more intimate community it doesn't mean I would not do this if people don't make it there because I know some people are like I don't know it I don't have one more thing to add I'm not going There there are those limitations.

But every once in a while, I just pull out and I go through my list and I go, who haven't I seen in a long time? Who who do I need to reach out to? Uh so I did that um last month with, you know, was my time I went through and I sitting on an airplane or something like that's usually when I do like I got nothing else to do. I've only got my phone. Who can I reach out to and and connect with? I'll I'll scroll back through old things. And it was like, oh wow, uh I had two years, no, three years ago some IRL meetups in Orlando when I was at a conference for uh church planting. I was at Exponential Conference. And then I was like, wow. Within six months, all of those people I met in Orlando were no longer watching me on Twitch.

They they and so it's like I'd reached out in between then on several of them and some of them like racking my brain who who was their streamer name. I remember their face because I met them in person because I got the photo, but now I can't put their face and their streamer name together anymore.

Um so it was like I reached out and one of them got back and said, "Yeah, life's been really good. I changed jobs, had some other stuff going on." It was just like super cool to to have that reconnection.

And so I just want to encourage you that it's not always you. And as a streamer, you need to be intentional of taking breaks when you need to. Just like somebody who's not a streamer, you don't work eighty hours a week for five years and think that your health is not and your family and your relationships aren't going to struggle.

Like when you do too much of one thing, something struggles. So just an encouragement there to you of you got to do what's good for your family, got to do what's good for you.

And then there's the the well, you also will have, you know, we've got New Zealand in the house and time zones and all of that stuff makes it difficult at different parts of the year to actually be together.

Uh yeah, last Amy saying streaming is an act of faith. Showing up and expecting God to move. Yeah, that's just it. We show up and then let God do what's going to happen in the space.

And that's that's the thing, you know, I was s thinking as well and I mean, what do we teach in church? Whether you're in a physical church, it's notice who isn't there. You know, who who who have you not seen in the past few weeks? And as the pastor or somebody in the church, do you have time to reach out to them to see where they're at?

And so I think that same thing on the streams. You know who your regulars are. You know who usually shows up. You know who your mods are. All that good stuff. And if they all of a sudden stop showing up, then you know maybe that is the encouragement for us to to remember them to reach out to them if we if we have the ability to do and I know a lot of us do.

Uh but yeah, that that whole act of show act of faith and showing up and and I take that responsibility, you know, again, I took the I didn't mean to be off as long as I was.

And then my my path kind of started going a different way and I started thinking of of another thing I could do just because of my time. That was really the issue. It's real easy to sit down and record something with a a camera or whatever versus streaming for two hours because I can record something, you know, ten, fifteen minutes, no big deal.

But then I have to go and edit it, whatever. And I was trying some things and I still want to try some of those things as well. You talk about IRL streaming, you know, I've thought about that many times because I've I when I take my dog for a walk. Yeah, you know, the same thing.

It's like I was during my break from Twitch, I bought a little DJI Osmo Action five little, you know, action camera because I was like, well, I can but my phone is too bouncy.

Uh, I did try that one time. Yeah. But with it, it's like the stabilization, everything's great. And so I was like, you know, I can record what's on my mind, what God is either showing me, revealing to me, or some kind of encouragement, and then I can post that up as a vlog or whatever. But a while back, I had considered the whole streaming IRL. I'm like, how could I do that? Because the comments on there are very small if you're trying to watch yourself or see the stream.

Uh, maybe you can help me out with that one day. Well, here I'm going to go ahead and put this in the chat. Um, so Bella Box is what I'm using. So, um, Bella Box will put—so once you need to subscribe in order to be able to do it. So it's $10 a month is the subscription. So I went ahead and signed up for that. So it does cloud is what it's doing, and then it will link you to your Twitch. So my Twitch will then link to it. So it's a one-way broadcast that then I'm capturing and sending out.

So the problem that I don't like is like I was trying to do text to speech. That's what I was setting up on Video Ninja. I'd set it up so I could do text to speech and I could listen to the chat while I was riding and all I'd had to do is ride and listen and then I could talk. Uh, well, this doesn't have two-way communication. It's less bandwidth that way. It sends it all one direction. Uh, there's some videos on how to set it up and I can help you with that. Or, uh, RedeemJ is the one who—it's funny. So, uh, I was just going through, uh, some people and going, "Hey, who do I need to invite to the church digital that I haven't?" And I invited Redeem Jay. And then we started a conversation. He said, "How's it going?" I go, "Man, I'm so excited. I just did." He goes, "Oh, what are you using?" Oh, you need to do this. I'm like, so the community, the circle of inclusion, of help is so vast out there. So I am enjoying it. It'll put the chat on the screen for me.

Now, you're going to do a dog walk. You're not going to need to have battery backup and go for long times. But that's actually a great idea. Um, I know someone else who's doing stabilizing camera that might be another thing. But like I said, I think I want to go with the glasses is the direction I think I want to go. But if you want stabilized—um, uh, Subdue the Day has one that's like a remote that he's gotten for doing so. He's not streaming, but he would probably be able to recommend a camera if you're looking for stabilize. The one that ukulele has for her stream that follows, I don't think that one would be portable. I don't know.

Right. Right. Yes. HubSpot, which I have that actually. I was trying to get that to work instead of my Sony tonight or today, whatever. It wasn't working for me.

Oh, you use that to follow you when you're doing workout. I was uh I had issues with it because whenever you do like squats or whatever and it's up and down, up and down, up and down, it would cut my head off.

Okay. You might need to add a command that says just stationary for a minute while I do these things. I've used it very little now. I've actually got the other Opsbot, which is their OBS meet, which is a little tiny 4K camera and it works great. I mean, it's really beautiful picture and all that, and so uh it, I'm happy with it. This one I just like because I can move it around if I need to, you know.

Oh yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, the other thing with uh if you do go the direction of uh you know, doing the Bella Box, you can also like that's on your phone, so that would also be an additional one that could go straight to OBS to be able to use. So I'm actually thinking what I'll probably do, and you know, I've done some cooking streams, is be able to set that up and put it in the cooking stream instead of moving all of my system upstairs, which is what I've done previously. It's like, "Oh, wait. I can just use my phone and stream from my phone and have the chat right there. I'll be all set. That'll be good." Um, unless I'm doing a full-on, you know, I want you to see in the pot and all that. I've done all that. But maybe I don't know. We'll figure that out. But the uh the constantly aspects of growing and learning and learning from the community and the community wants everybody to succeed and wants to share. We don't have secrets here. We're not hiding it. Like, I want to help lift you up because you're bringing you're bringing light to Christ. And I want to see you succeed. I want Innovate Church to succeed. I want to see all of that do well. Uh—

Amen.

And I and I love your heart for why you're doing it, man.

Yeah. It's it's—and that's it. We're not in competition with each other.

Yeah.

Let me say thank you so much for the follow, Sean and Julie. Appreciate that.

Oh, Sean and Julie giving you the follow. Awesome.

Yeah. Thank you. But yeah, uh the IRL thing is pretty neat. And again, my thought with that is just how else can I be on here?

Yeah.

It's another opportunity without putting in a whole lot of other work, you know, and that's—I've always got to be careful adding work onto my plate, but how can I do something else and spend more time on here with other people—other than I can't watch a stream? I can lurk on a stream while walking the dog, but you know, if I want to talk to anybody, it's kind of hard to chat and walk her.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's just a matter of how do you get the rig set up and all of that, but you know, that's where—yeah, I I agree with you earlier. You're like, "Oh, it's chat on there. You're reading while you're writing." Well, yes, but not constantly. You know, I'm not constantly looking at the screen. I would look at it and do all that. You know what I should find out though? We have not text and drive laws um and no touch phone. I don't think those apply to bicycle. I need to I need to probably find that out. But anyway, there's some other streamers I've seen as well, you know, they're like walking around their home or walking around their yard and they're able to stream as well.

I'm like that would be nice, which I know like the continuity camera with the Apple works excellently. I actually set up that for a couple nights for my stream because I've got wires run over there for my cameras and I can do it wirelessly that way. Uh, but again trying to get out from away from my home or you know something, some stream outside biking, whatever, that's a lot, lot more uh difficult to set up I think initially.

Yeah. But well, it's going to be fun. And you're talking about what you're going to do already. You know what you already do.

Well, I already ride my bike, so why not bring people along? Uh, when I get to September, like each September, this will be my sixth year. Uh, I raise money for Kids Cancer and I ride my bike. So my plan this year will be 500 miles in September. That's a lot of hours on my bike. So I would absolutely love to have everyone a ride along for 500 miles. I may not stream everything all summer long, but when I get to September, oh, I absolutely want to stream every minute of that riding that I'm doing for charity. I think it would be super fun to do that. Uh, otherwise, it'll be maybe once a week I'll do that because there's a little bit more extra effort to set it up, get it all ready, get it prepped when I could be on the road in two minutes, you know?

Oh, yes. Yeah. So I think about that even with me and even streaming down here because my computer's over here, my workout area is back there behind me. I have to get everything working over there first and then come over here, get everything also working. And very often, I think it's just because of length of cables and multiple cameras and multiple USBs, a camera doesn't work or the mic doesn't work or whatever, you know. So a lot of times like I got to go on at 6:30, excuse me, and I'll get out here at 6 and still be pressed for time to get the stream up and going.

Yeah. And then you'll plan for that extra time and the next time it starts immediately you're like, "Well, now—yeah, I guess we're going early." Yeah.

Do that too, right? Definitely. Definitely. But uh yeah, so it'll be interesting to watch in your cycling for sure. Like I said, the video was coming through the other night very well. So I was impressed.

Yeah. Yeah. Part of what I've noticed is uh I don't have smooth roads so there's a vibration and the rig that I have set up if you want to think of it like a camera arm boom—uh, so it's not as long but it's at the end—so all the vibration is going to go really strong to the end of that, so it's not as great at uh the higher speeds or the rough roads but hey, it's a work in progress and uh we'll keep upgrading. We'll keep learning. We'll figure it out.

Yeah, you have to apparently get it on video or something so fun can see what you got there.

I did. I did show part of it. So, uh, you're right. I probably do need to get that up uh and posted. I'll post a pic of it. So, uh, it'll get adapted again between now and Friday. So Friday I will probably do a full here's what it all looks like and uh what I've got.

There you go.

Yeah. Yeah. Always interested to see what the streamer sees. I know. I know. Which is so fun. Like what I think we did a while ago uh on the church digital was, "Hey, post your uh your stream setup." Like what is it you're streaming from? And it's like, you know, you can look in the background here. There is the guppy tank. There is a koi tank.

Here is a koi tank. Over there's a koi tank. So if you don't know, I have another channel that's all fish. So the people that know me from my own channel know that. So I've got all of those. I've got a pond outside. I'm like, I got this set up.

And oh, we just lost. You're back.

You're good. You're good. You're good. I was playing around.

You're just playing with me. I got you.

It didn't work like I wanted it to.

Yeah. But this year, I've also been trying to upgrade. So I went from my laptop and one screen to a second computer with a screen and then a third screen for mine and then setting up the Xbox over here. Like, I take a picture of it. It looks pretty sweet. Doesn't all function properly, but it looks good.

But it's it's it's like—yeah. But if you were—if I were to have just started with investing all of this to go live and said, "I'm going to do all of this stuff and then it didn't work," it would have been probably a lot of investment and it would just sit there as a paperweight.

The fact of growing slowly and learning and expanding and upgrading like I I think I've showed earlier on another podcast, but like this was the hand-me-down microphone I had. It's a Jab. That's the one I had for four years as a streamer before I upgraded my microphone. So it's not that you run out and do things. It's a okay, what needs to be improved? What needs to be best? How am I learning? Where am I going?

Yeah, there we go. Stream upgrades are never ending.

Yeah, my $40 or $50 fine fine off of Amazon that I used for the early years. And uh yeah, slowly you upgrade everything. And I'm always one that's got to try something new anyway. And so and I I tell people I over complicate things a lot of times. I had started, it's actually a teaching series and I called it Stripped because it was based on the idea and this is actually going into the season of Lent because it's based on the idea of me over complicating things and how often do we over complicate our faith life and everything else.

Yeah. And because when I started out it was like I said it was just my phone. Yeah. Recording with it.

And then I went with a Bluetooth headphone or uh earbuds. And then I went to a lapel. And then I went to a laptop. Then I bought the fine fine mic, you know, then I bought a real camera. And so on and so on. And now I've got the Roadcaster Duo and this mic and multiple cameras and all that good stuff.

And sometimes you just want to go back to when it was simple. Oh yeah. And and it's difficult now. I was going to do that for that whole series. I'm like, I'm gonna set my just my laptop up, a camera, and and a mic. I'm like, it's more difficult for me to go back to the way it was than it is for me to continue where I'm at.

Yes. Yes. Oh, that's so fun. Yeah. It's it's simple. It's harder to sometimes go back to the simple way when you've learned so much that to go beyond what that is. Yeah. Like never got 10 different USBs hooked up. I I was gonna say I don't know if I have that many, but I I probably do. I I probably have close to that many or or they're wireless if they're not USB connected. Right. Right. Yeah. So, I've got multiple docks and uh so yeah, we were having a conversation.

So just thinking about this too, the people on the other end, we were having a conversation last night of thinking about globally what people use for a device and the majority of the world is just going to be on a phone. So the fact that you can go live on a phone and people can watch you on a phone and they have you in the palm of their hand makes your reach beyond anything that you could uh plan for. You know what what places you might be showing up for. Uh who might be there who's in need of someone to talk to or listen to at that time. It's just amazing what God can do in those moments and spaces of things that are happening. We think we got to have the the latest and greatest.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean the truth. Yeah. The phone phone works great. Yeah. I'm not trying to have the the latest and greatest because I think I need to have it. I'm struggling with what I have. So, Right. Right. I get that, too. So, so I' I've at the point of like I'm still having all the way through this conversation the robot voice in my ear and going, "Okay, what did you say? Is that is that and going, I sure hope I sure hope that the stream quality is better than my quality uh right now." Now, it's telling me the stream bit rate is, you know, uh, 10,000 kilobytes per second, and it's excellent, but that, you know, not everything is telling me that.

Amy, how do streamers not have their their their home powers overloaded? Yeah. And all the power turned off, you know? I I wonder about that too at times. The uh the amount of power that uh uh it takes and I it uses uh to have all well and my wife also works from home so there is not a time of day when we're not connected to the internet honestly.

Hey Luces welcome. Hey Luces. That's right. Yeah. Welcome dear glad to see you. Yeah, I was saying, you know, my wife had she keeps little child during the day, some some days of the week. She had him here and I'm thinking, yeah, we have YouTube going on upstairs, TV, everything, you know, I'm down here, lights on, streaming, everything in the basement's on. It's 90 something degrees outside. Oh, yeah. So, yeah, talk about power. Yeah. Yeah. Well, uh, yeah. Well, there was talking about power. I know someone who has been doing digital ministry and over the last I don't know if it was three years or four years uh the town they were in and they're in another country. The town they were in lost their transmitter or their transformer and there was no power to the town. He had been operating off of a backup generator to do digital ministry for like three or four years.

And I only found out he was running off of a backup generator uh maybe a year ago or something. And I was like, you've been doing this and you've been in digital ministry and you've been called by God to do it. Like the obstacles that we uh have to deal with are only obstacles when we view them as obstacles. When it's just an everyday occurrence that Yeah. Yeah, I got a backup generator. Yeah, I work off a battery. Yeah, I do this. It's just ministry then. It's it's not an obstacle.

It's it's it's that important to you. You're And that's what I'd say about him. Is that important to him? He's going to do whatever it takes for him to y to continue to minister to others. That's awesome. That's a that's a neat story. And again, we weations and to overcome the limitations to to do what you feel God's called you to is is that's awesome.

Yeah. I I also feel like I don't know if you feel this way, you know, there's a there's a part of me that, you know, before co I wasn't planning on going into digital ministry and now I don't plan on leaving it. But there there was a part at which it was like, okay, I'll retire at some point. I don't know what I'll do after I retire. U I wasn't planning it yet. I was, you know, but it was just start to creep in your mind at times like, oh, what should I plan? What should I think about? What could I do? Now I have like, oh, sure, I might retire. You know what? I'm probably still going to do the exact same thing. I'm going to get up. I'm going to go stream. I'm going to go live. And I'm going to hang out with people. Uh I might change my schedule. I might do other stuff. I might do less. I might do more. Who knows? I'll have complete freedom to continue to do ministry wherever God calls me at that time. I don't know if Twitch will still be around at that time. There might be another platform. But whatever it is, like now that this is in front of me, uh there'll be seasons where it'll be more. There'll be seasons where it's less, but there won't be a season where I go, "All right, I'm done with ministry. Let's just go talk to people in person. Uh let's not let's not hang out online." And there is so much joy in the relationships with people that I would be missing. Uh and I I won't have to be missing them.

Right. And I' I've you know, it's funny. We've talked about that before cuz with her anxiety and stuff, we've talked about doing an RV thing at some point or whatever, you know, so she has her house on wheels, so to speak. And I'm like, "Yeah, we can we can be innovate church anywhere, you know? We can take it with us. We can go anywhere and do anything." And I will have retirement in a number of years as well. And I've always said when I retire, it's just an opportunity to do what I really want to do, which for me has been ministry for a number of years. And allows me to put more focus into that. And yeah, we we'll stream. We'll we'll do this for as long as I can imagine right now and from wherever we can.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, that was one reason I did I did get the PC to be or the uh the laptop to begin with was the ability to go and and do it from any place wherever I'm moving. And it's it's been fantastic that way. Uh the problem is it needs to be stripped down and it doesn't work for doing the, you know, let's let's stream together kind of a thing. It it it it just bogs it down for some reason. Um versus if I'm just doing my own, I'm good. It's the And now I've actually now I feel really spoiled the uh the uh fiber that I have. It's it's fantastic. It's so it's not that excuse anymore unless I go to my mom's house where she has basically dial up. It's not dial up, but you know it's it's not much better than dialup. I can't stream from there. So Right. Right. Yeah. So fiber makes a big difference, doesn't it? Oh yeah. It's It's amazing. I've had people tell me, "You don't need as much as you have." I go, "I don't care." It was the same price. So, I hear you. I hear you. What g what what are you on? Uh I'm on um is it five gigabytes? Five gig. Okay. I can only get one gig here right now. Yeah. Well, when it became a it just became available like two months ago, maybe three. Uh before that, I didn't have access to it. So they were offering, you know, anybody who would sign up as soon as it went in super deals. So I'm paying like a hundred bucks a month for 5 gigabytes. I was paying a hundred bucks a month for 500 megabytes. So I have 10 times as much now for fiber as I had before. So Yeah. Yeah. Right. Funky. I love my fiber. I was there when I was 14 4K. I remember that too, man. Yeah.

Now, now I might I might reduce it, but it was more like I said, like, I'm paying the same price. I'm just going to go with that. Lock in that. And then they had some special deal or whatever. All right, I'll start at that. I can reduce later as I need it. A lot of people are telling me one is plenty. You don't really need more than one, but I also have my wife upstairs who is in business meetings and I can't be taking her bandwidth. So, um I need to reserve a whole, you know, whole, uh gigabyte for her. She won't use half of it, but yeah, I mean, when we were on cable with basic broadband, you know, we were doing fine with her doing whatever she wanted to do. I was doing whatever I wanted to do. Never had an issue. Uh the only issue I ever had was uploading and I wasn't streaming at the time. So I was always uploading my videos and it would take 10 15 minutes for a a sermon video, you know, to get uploaded where now it's just a couple minutes and it's done, you know.

Oh yeah. Well, the upload speed is is amazing on fiber because it's the same up as down, you know. DSL is not, but the fiber fiber is giving that to you. But you say the upload speed. Oh my goodness. That reminds me when I lived in South Dakota and we had satellite internet and you would you would if you were going to upload something, you started it after dinner and you prayed it was done by morning. Did it all like, oh, I certainly hope that this makes it. And then it would have like at 3 in the morning some buffering problem and you'd lose the whole thing and have to start over again and try to upload again. Oh. That was and that was also in the early days where you weren't uploading hours of stuff. I think you had 30 minute limit is what the uploads you could do were 30 minutes and you were only allowed 30 minutes a week kind of a thing. Style, right? I remember playing Cood being one of them, I do believe, or it may have been Return Wolf Sign, whatever. And shooting in front of my target because I knew my ping was so low or so high. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That I had to plan the shot that hilarious. That's how bad internet was, you know. Yeah. You're you're you're leading the, you know. Yeah. Yep. Oh, that's awesome. Um, so you said uh first person shooters are what you play. So part of what I I ask is I talk to people about games. So um are you currently playing uh any FPS or what's what's your favorite?

So I've the only game I've stuck with for the past few years is uh PUBG. And my wife had some some young guys that had they used to live behind us and they were like really really little little guys. Now they're like one of them's 20 and the other one's like 16. Uh and they had come over and wanted to play and so I was okay you know I'll try it out you know and I tried Fortnite. I wasn't a big big Fortnite fan but pub on the tablet on the iPad is how I have played mostly. Okay. And then I did put it on the PC and I did come down here and try to play some. And of course it's almost like learning to play again. where I'm very horrible and take me 10 games to get a single kill. Kind of horrible, you know. And whenever it's like that, you don't really want to continue on, you know. You don't want to put in the effort whenever I know I can go out there, get on the the tablet, and kill, you know, 10, 15 people, whatever, you know.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so, uh, now that I'm on the Mac, I've got to figure out something if I'm going to try to do any gaming on here and see what I can play on it.

And, uh, but I it's it's very much the World War II kind of shooters is what I've pretty much liked most of my time.

Okay. So, yeah. And I've I've not done a lot of FPS and I and I've I've not done MMOs. Uh, no. Those like I've always just wanted to defeat the game. I didn't care about anybody else. I just want to get to the end of the game. I want to enjoy the game. That's that's for me what it is. But I understand the whole genre of other people wanting to play with other people, of being teammates, of being camaraderie. I had all of that when I was doing sports. I wasn't looking for that when I was doing video games. Uh but if you're growing up with video games that have it, I could see the the draw to definitely jump in and and to be a part of it.

So yeah, I got into streaming games. Not streaming on Twitch, but you know, playing multiplayer games uh back in Call of Duty 3, I think it was before Modern Warfare and met community there was really the first real internet community I had I'd gotten into and met some other Christians. Gamers for God was was one of the clans and and uh was very involved with them, too. And and and so that was I used to enjoy it, but it's funny. It's like now I get on pub and I don't want to hear anybody else. I don't want to talk to anybody else because I want to hear what's going on around me.

Yeah. And there gets unless you're on a team and I really don't care to team up either. I like doing one on one on the iPad.

Oh, okay. Okay. Because it it takes you so long to get into a one-on-one or get into a all for one, whatever. It's much easier to get in as a one person versus like a four person team with no no other body, no other people with me, just me versus the other four.

Yeah, it's hard. It's hard and I rarely win, but I get in a game one after the other, one after the other, no problem.

And I'd rather get in and get killed than sit there and watch it try to load for three, four, five minutes, you know?

Oh, yeah. Yeah. If you're sitting there waiting for a game instead of being able to play a game that makes sense. That makes sense.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I would think being a one on four, your skills are going to continually get better instead of relying on teammates.

Interesting. Yeah, it's interesting. You have to have to be and sometimes I'm not as smart as I'd like to be. Sneaky kill. Move somewhere. Sometimes I get a little too stationary, but it's all good.

Ah, yeah. Yeah, that's that sneaky kill. That sounds more like my speed instead of running around, you know, that kind of a thing. I'd I'd rather just be stationary.

Well, I like to if you're evil, like I like to be every now and then, you'll kill one of the teammates and you'll leave let them just they they stay alive in case you don't know PUBG for a while. If you're on teams, your person will whoever gets killed, they'll stay alive for a little while until somebody comes over there and revives them. And so you kill them, knock them down basically, and then you wait for everybody else to come over to try to help them.

Oh, yeah.

And then you just kill them all, you know. Easier said than done, I promise you.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, that that makes that makes sense. That would be what would happen in a real war is you have someone down, people are going to try to rescue them out, and then, you know, you can pick them off when that happens.

So Amy said, "That's so mean."

That's so mean. It's a tactic.

Yes. Yes.

But yeah, so I mean I love gaming. It's just again it's just time, you know.

Oh yeah, and you only have so much time to do things. I look back now and I remember coming in from work and spending hours upon hours playing Call of Duty on the computer and to bedtime basically.

Oh yeah. And the wife wife wife will watch whatever she wanted to on what whatever TV, you know, whatever. Uh and we're not like that anymore, of course, you know, and and let alone that. It's just

Oh, yeah. Well, like I say, not not zoning out for that long.

Yeah. There's there is that level of at times um that consideration of am I spending too much time in in the things that I'm doing that takes me away from other people that I want to spend time with. So, I wanted to say, yeah, it was it was last year. Uh, I was I was going to I'm like, I'm going to take an effort and pick one game that I want to play and see if if I can do this and and and get connected and and and out there. So, I was I was playing uh BG3, Baldur's Gate 3, and I was playing Monday and Tuesday for four hours a day, and and then on top of that, uh my kids wanted to play with me. So, we were playing on Sunday nights uh for a couple of hours. And I felt really guilty on Sundays playing because like I'm My wife is like, "Don't ever feel guilty of spending time with your kids because you're not spending time with me." I was like, "Oh, that was a great revelation." Um that that if my kids want to play video games with me, it's worth the time to play with them, even if the next two days I'm playing for other reasons.

And then, uh my my boys said, uh to my my daughter and I, hey, um we're tired of playing with you two because I I want to explore everything and she wants to accomplish everything and they want to get to the end of the game because they've already beat it. They just want to play through again. So they like they're running ahead and doing stuff and they're like, "Yeah, no, no, no. There's a shovel over there worth at least one silver. I'm not leaving that behind. I'm going to go collect it." And they're like, "This is this is we've had enough." So we we quit playing.

And then a little bit after that, I'm like, you know, this this effort to make a go of me gaming is not going where I hoped it would. Okay, it was a good test run. Let's try something else. And and we're back to that, you know, experimenting thing.

Now, you talk about my wife and being involved in ministry.

Yeah.

She she ministers in her own way.

Yeah.

And so, she plays Roblox. I can't stand Roblox, by the way. Sorry.

But we had the the two little little guys again, they were they lived on the road behind us. She used to babysit them and whenever she babysat them, they got her into playing Roblox. And so even today, she will spend time on Roblox with them and their friends.

Awesome.

And they know her faith and she's been trying to share her faith with them. In fact, those two little guys, we've been trying to get them to come over here on Saturdays and we've been doing Alpha with them.

Yeah.

And they're very young. They're not the most interested in it, but they will give us thirty, forty-five minutes to do that. As long as we feed them while they're here, they're good.

Uh huh. But she is constantly trying to be the witness and the example to those young guys and their friends and and so again, she ministers to to them as well as we've got a lady in our church as well. They talk all the time as well who is also homebound. She's got some other uh invisible illness issues. And so that's God brought that lady into my wife's life and brought my wife into her life, whatever, in our church life. And uh so she she does help minister in some ways. And sometimes I forget to say, you know, what else she what she actually does and she's extreme help because she's not in the streams with me or she's not doing things on church, you know, stuff like that. But she's still doing her own thing and and even on the game side, you know, playing a game that and we had all we used to play PUBG all four of us together at one point. That was kind of fun. She won't play with me very much now. Uh she tried to get back into it, but but anyway, so even in Roblox, you know.

Yeah.

That was that was her her connection with those guys and she was going to do it.

Yeah.

Even if even if she wasn't into the game, she was going to be on there with them there.

Yeah. That's very cool. And you bring up a good thing uh point there, too, that I don't know if we've made it in any of the podcasts I've done so far. Uh which is why you need to stay to the end to get the goodies, you know, is is uh we're talking or I'm talking to people who are on Twitch who are Twitch streamers and gamers or they're on Twitch, whatever, whatever it is, and they're doing ministry in in a digital space reaching gamers. You don't have to be a Twitch streamer to do that. You can just go into the games where you can play with other people and you can be salt and light playing with other people with nobody else watching. You can just go into a game, play the game, be Christ in the game to other people, come alongside and love them, and do exactly what we're talking about, but you don't have to do it in front of everybody else. You don't have to do it on Twitch. You just do it inside the game. You can do all of these exact same things we've been talking about, but just in a a closed environment where nobody's watching it. That's that's wonderful to hear. That's what your wife's doing, right?

And then I would also include, hey, if you are on Twitch and you're, you don't always have to be the person doing the streaming.

True.

You can be a huge val invaluable resource being in in the comment section with people, being in the chat with people.

Oh, yeah.

And supporting the streamer as well as those in that that that stream community as well.

Yeah. Yeah. We've we we've talked about those aspects uh a few times I think about the value of what you bring to the body of Christ isn't just for the streamer. Uh the same way it's not just for the pastor up front. Uh you you need all the other parts of the body and in Twitch we need all the parts of the body to show up in the community too. That's something that, you know, even with our church, it's like I try to teach and preach and encourage. No matter what your situation is, even if you can't leave your home, you can still minister. You can still be the body of Christ and use your talents, gifts, and abilities for his purpose and his kingdom. Whether it's in chat, whether it's being the person on stream or or writing notes or poems or whatever, you know, whatever creative thing, whatever whatever your passion is, you can still use it for the Lord. And I think a lot of times we think and we limit it to certain areas.

Yeah.

Like even in church, you can only pastor, you can take care of kids, kids church, right?

We forget all the other things that are available to us as well as the things outside the walls of the church.

Yeah.

And when I was starting Innovate, that's one of the things like I wanted to be one that gifts and abilities and if they need help, I'll help them. You know, I want I want to help you use your your your whatever God has given you to use, I want to help you do that. And so I kind of keep trying to preach that.

Yeah.

Some of some of them still kind of think they're too limited.

Well, we're working on them.

Yeah. There's a there's a lot of I think the church has maybe not done the best of in in regards to that. And some of that would be things along the lines of okay you're this now we'll elevate you to something bigger more important and you move past that initial thing which makes that initial thing then less than. So if the first thing we let you do is is be a greeter. Oh and now we'll let you be an usher. Oh now we'll let you you uh you know make coffee. Now we'll let you do announcements. Everything looks like a hierarchy of moving up the ladder when really what it should be is you're an introvert.

Okay, let's not have you be a greeter. Um, you're very studious and you're very compassionate. Maybe you're not outgoing, but you're going to sense people who are having an off day when they come in.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. We need you as a greeter or we need you doing coffee so when they come over you can take them aside more privately and have that conversation.

Like, you know, we kind of like say, "No, here's the top and everything leads up to the top, so you need to get more involved. You need to be doing these things."

And I don't think we did it intentionally. I think it's just happened because we haven't intentionally done it differently.

Right. Right. Which was my motto whenever we started out with Innovate Church was doing church differently.

Yeah. That was the goal anyway, which we are never doing what we're doing differently.

And I tell my wife very often, I'm like, I wrestle with what we do because I kind of feel like we're somewhat traditional in some things we do as well with the music and all that good stuff, you know, and but she's like, but we're other churches aren't. We're doing things and reaching people in ways that other churches aren't. I'm like, yeah, you're right. You know, sometimes I have to have the Holy Spirit speak to me through her, too.

Oh, yeah. Well, yes. You definitely need to listen there.

I say often he speaks to her more than he does or more clearly through her.

Yeah. More clearly. Yes.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Less Amy, whenever we get a compliment, there's an opportunity to bring God's goodness into the conversation. Jesus made us what we were not.

Oh yeah, absolutely.

Hello, it's me, Bale.

I think I said that right.

Hello, trainer. I don't know what trainer means, but Wednesday church two, please. And thanks, Pastor G.

Yeah.

All right. Well, anything we haven't talked about that you would like to bring up or think about? I've talked a whole lot. Let's get you ukulele's comment there. As a creator, wrestling with what you are and find and are not is good. Not to try to change, but to know what God would will use your unique balance of traits and gifts to reach certain people. Right?

And that's the whole idea of being yourself as well. And I love that's a big part about Twitch is most of us are on here being authentic, being our real selves, not trying to put up a front.

Yeah.

It's like even with my workout streams, it's like I'm not trying to be a bodybuilder, anything. I'm an old man working out. Come join me if you want to hear what I want to talk about or work out with me, whatever. You know, this is what you get.

Well, I'll tell you what, that may not be what works the best on every platform, but that is exactly what Twitch is is being authentic about who you are and drawing in and know there's lots of different ways to be authentic.

Um, but it's not I've got to create this stage presence and go in front of the camera kind of a thing like you would think of a TV show or a movie, but instead it is coming as your authentic self and bringing that to people. I think it really resonates.

Right. Right.

Uh well then, uh are is there anything? So you've talked about a few things you're innovating and looking at. Is there anything that you are anticipating doing this year that you're looking forward to that we haven't talked about?

I don't really have anything in mind. Uh we are going to have a little physical gathering with my church this week, but that's just we've got a number of us that are local, but other than that, uh as far as on Twitch and all that, I mean, I'm just trying to be who I am, reach who I can and be an encourager. I mean, and that's my heart there for sure is always trying to be an encourager of others.

Uh I see a lot of people wrestling with a lot of things today.

Yeah.

And even in those that are in the faith and wrestling with acceptance by God and being pleased with them and so many other things and I just try to be an encourager for those folks for sure.

And uh again, I mean, who knows? I might be, and that's why I changed my name to Pastor GTV because you never know what I might end up putting on here at some point. I don't want to be locked in locked into anything. Uh, it won't always be workouts, although I will continue to work out, but uh, I'll come on here and do some other things in the future for sure.

Like we talked about some IRL stuff at some point or another I would love to try and do, but those would always be short streams as well, like we talked about, you know, maybe twenty, thirty minute walk, something of that nature.

But my heart is just to be here as beyond here as much as I can to share my life and share Christ with others.

And so,

Yeah. Well, I really appreciate that. Uh, you know, the church digital, we're we have a thing. Uh, at 10:02, we're praying for workers for the harvest because, uh, that's what Jesus told us in Luke 10:02. I know we usually say two, but we're we like saying Luke 10:02. Uh, the harvest is plentiful and the workers are few. So, pray for God of the harvest to send out workers.

Well, the mission field, the harvest is plentiful in Twitch and in digital spaces. And so we're we are praying for more people. So I am so appreciative of friends that I've made in this space that are trying to do that. Uh because you're going to reach people I'm not ever going to reach. You're on at different times than I'm on. Uh we encourage each other. We're together.

Oh, we're getting a few more people popping in here. Samus, welcome in.

And uh we just had uh a new follow uh the born again uh coming in. So, like I have three channels. People don't follow all of them. You know, they all of a sudden go, "Wait, I haven't followed that one." That's all right. It's all good.

But uh we'll do I'll just ask you one more thing and then and then we'll raid out. Uh if you've got someone in mind to raid that if you want to look at who your channel has, if there's someone to raid there. If not, uh I'll make a suggestion. Uh but I do like to do the raid. And I know you're saying it, well, what if I only have a small number?

Well, I can look at somebody who's a smaller number relative to that or somebody who's just gonna I already know them appreciate uh have on the raid or somebody new that nobody's seen. So, that's why I like asking the guest if they've got someone.

Um, but while you're thinking about that, is there anything that the Church Digital can be praying for you or for Innovate Church?

Um my number one prayer outside of you know me doing whatever God wants me to do is always for my wife and for her healing and and we're going through some medicine changes things of that nature right now or possibly coming off of medicine and maybe God's going to heal her that way. Uh but even in that you know uh again we just want to be used however he wants to use us. And same thing goes for the church.

I mean again it's his church. He'll build his church. Uh we just want to reach those that are out there that are disconnected from the church be it from a physical or mental illness aspect or whether I always say even for those that are by choice or been hurt by the church whatever for whatever reason they're disconnected. We want to help them connect back to the church so they can connect back to Christ and not be a lone sheep as I say all the time.

Uh they're meant for a flock. They're part of the body and we want to play their part in the body.

Yeah, absolutely. All right, let's uh let's just pray real quick.

God, we're just lifting up uh Pastor G uh his wife and Innovate Church. Thank you for the ministry that they have, uh the community that they are growing, uh the faithfulness. We pray for healing for his wife, continued progress there. Uh there's some potential uh going off medication. What a blessing that can be to be able to have relief from that and and to move uh and have change, but we also know that that may take time.

So, we're just praying for your wisdom for the doctors, for discernment, for Pastor G and his wife to just watch over them. And wherever you are leading them, uh may you just go before them as a church to let their light shine and to continue to bless others through their church and through Pastor G. Just pray this and ask this in Jesus name. Amen.

Amen. Thank you, brother.

Um, Chillwell, both of you may not realize the impact you have either as someone working on getting into digital ministry. Many people said it couldn't happen and now I know you can build a body of believers that way. Chill will so appreciate you, friend. So appreciate you. And uh hey, by the way, we we've talked about an IRL uh in-person gathering. Um I'll let me hit you up with an idea on something.

I don't know if you can you can make it on a Monday night or not, but I've got a gathering of brew pastors uh coming up in a week and a half that I'm putting together. So those that don't know, it's just why would I be involved in only three things when I can be involved in more? Uh uh so brew pastors started out in Ohio.