Authenticity and Faith - What Does That Actually Look Like?

The Church Digital podcast, or I should say the Church Digital. We're having a live podcast with a friend of mine, Wordy Girl, who streams on Twitch.

So let's welcome her in everybody. Uh, you know what I just did? I did not unmute myself before I did that. So let's try that again.

All righty. So let's try that again. Okay. And I also do this to double check I can hear myself uh on my phone so that I know what the volume going out is.

I wish I had a better system. Why don't you say something? I'll just check you a second. All right. Hello. Hello. Hello. It's me.

Where'd it go? Tip of the cap. All right. Hello. Okay. I think those volumes are pretty close on my side. So if anyone thinks I need up or Wordy Girl needs uh volume up or down, just let us know as we're in the chat.

I don't think we've got the shared chat started. I think I did something wrong there. Not see a shared chat. Ah, there it is.

Got to go under the management. And now I'm clicking start sharing chat. So there we go. There we go. All right. I'll start over with the welcome, but I'll just leave you here.

So welcome in everybody to the Church Digital podcast. Uh, this is the gaming network. So I bring in friends I have met in gaming who, whether they call themselves this or not, I think of them as a digital missionary.

Somebody who is in a digital space uh and friends that are gamers doing ministry in gaming sphere. And so we just have a great conversation about what they're doing, how they got started, what God is doing in this space, because God is up to some really, really cool things.

So glad to have all of you in here. Wordy Girl, welcome in. Glad to be here. Thank you so much for inviting me, by the way.

Well, yeah, and I love that you wore a flat cap for the occasion. You have many hats and uh I'm a little jealous of the bright red.

Uh there are some colors on my to-get list. So there's hats I'll look at all day and I'll go, "Yeah, that's nice. I might get one eventually." And then there are a couple of them that are top tier priority. So when I find a bright yellow one, I have full permission to buy it because it's going to be mine.

I've been looking for that one for like thirty years since I had my first one that was a really light yellow. I can never find one.

Uh so that's always I can buy it. No questions asked. Yep. And uh red is on second tier. So it's a is it a good deal?

Is it exactly the one I want? Then then I get to I get to say yes. Otherwise, like, you know, this is a dark blue.

It's kind of nice. It goes with my outfit. If it matches an outfit, well, that's a third tier one. And then a novelty one might be somewhere in between.

Who knows what's going to happen. So I appreciate you coming in and hanging with us here with the Church Digital. I don't know. Are you over uh in the Church Digital community or not?

Um, I have peeked in a bit. I am not as active as I should be. Uh it is a very interesting thing. Now we, there was a convention or something.

I do know you were part of it, the VR um side. Yeah. We just had a a conference uh a couple of weeks ago, April 2nd.

Uh not April 1st because digital ministry is no joke. It's not an April Fool's joke. It was on April 2nd because digital ministry is no joke.

It's a real thing and friends of mine like you uh are doing it. And so yeah, it was oh my goodness, was fantastic. We stretched the limitations of what a digital conference can do.

We did out of the box thinking. We're still processing through all that. By the time people will watch this uh in YouTube, hopefully all of the videos from the conference will be available, but but only for those who signed up.

It's exclusive for those who signed up. So even those who signed up and missed it, you'll be able to get access to it uh later on if you signed up.

Those exclusive 1,400 people globally. So a lot more people could have signed up and we had a thousand uh that we could verify different IP addresses attended the conference.

So I I think that's pretty fantastic. Yes, that was amazing. I was actually part of that and uh it was so much going on.

I I briefly popped into the VR chat side. Uh and you, I was talking to you. I don't know if you knew it was me, but I didn't have an account on VR chat.

So I was like, "Oh, no. How do I get back to the other thing?" Um but yeah, they, it it was so great because even though there were a few technical difficulties, it just showed how much was going on and how many people actually wanted to like join in to this amazing ministry.

And there were so many speakers and it was like an actual big conference, like an in-person conference where there's so much going on that you can't see everything.

You can't be everywhere. But that's why I will be very grateful when the videos come out because uh there was so much I wanted to see you on the other side as well, but I didn't get a chance.

Um I know. And yeah, and being on the VR side, I didn't get to see all the speakers in the other side. And yeah, that we had our our technical hiccups and and learning curve there and boy, we adjusted and we're going to learn a lot and and be able to just do

even more impact uh going uh forward with that. Uh so let's let's kind of back up and and not talk about so much the Church Digital.

I just wondered, you know, for those people who know the Church Digital already, whether they would know you or not, or whether just Twitch people are going to know you, but I I know you and I don't remember how long ago we met.

I don't know. I'd have to go look and do a search in the follow and see how long it is, but I I think it's been about a year, it seems like, to me.

Uh time goes by so quickly. So how about what was it for you that caused you to decide to get started uh in being in a place like Twitch?

How did you get started and then how has that changed over time? Um, yeah. I can't even remember when I when I first met you on Twitch here.

Um, but it feels like it's been such a long time, but yet a short time at the same time. And I feel like if I figure out, I'll be like, "What?

Really?" Um, but yeah, I feel like um the story of me starting on Twitch is very uh unique as in uh I did not originally start out necessarily to be a Christian content creator.

Uh I am a Christian and I do, you know, proclaim Christ in everything I do, but I wasn't specifically going to be like, I'm going to be a church online.

I'm going to be a minister online. I'm just going to be myself online. Um and so and share uh you know Christ with everyone.

So uh what happened was I I am part of a writing community. Um it is called World Anvil. I'm part of a lot of writing communities but World Anvil was hosting their summer camp one year and I was a judge of one of their categories.

So if you're unfamiliar with World Anvil, uh you can like write articles in your fictional worlds and then it's just like a lot of world building.

So uh if you have characters, if you have places and things and stuff like that, you can just like make a whole wiki page about your fiction.

Um and in summer camp it's inspiring people different prompts to go ahead and you know uh share their work around the community. Um so the category that I was judging was uh a character category.

Um so I said how about I you know stream and read people's articles on my stream. Uh yeah. So actually I like that. Yeah.

The year before actually when they did summer camp the first time I tried to stream one time on Twitch. I did not really know about Twitch very much.

I did not watch Twitch very much. So I started and I had it where uh my beloved bot, handsome co-host, was making it so that people could not chat until they were like uh following my channel for like thirty minutes and then like I ended my stream before that happened and I was

just on my uh work break and I was like, "Okay." And I don't even remember what I was doing and then I just like, "Okay, bye." and I just turned it off and then like people in the Discord were saying I was I was watching but I couldn't say anything and I was

like oh my goodness I had no idea what I was doing. So the next year I improved from that but I was looking at me now uh still not as improved as I could have been.

Um but I said okay I'm going to try to get back into it. I had actually just got laid off from uh my job, my weekday job.

So I work too much, but uh I yeah, I got laid off. So I was like, "Okay, it's summer. I'm going to try to lean into my entrepreneur stuff, try to make some more money." Um anyways, and maybe I can start the streaming thing.

So since I didn't have to be in that work schedule, I could stream at all times of day, I was like messaging everybody who had entered the article uh contest thing and say, "Do you want me to read your stuff on stream?" There are so many people from all around the world, different

um you know time zones, different countries and stuff like that. And so I was able to stream at different hours of the day for everybody and um I ended up just like uh yeah becoming affiliate so fast because everybody was coming to see me read their articles and then they were also you

know saying hey guys she's going to read my article. Um so everybody was following me and everybody was, you know, chatting in the chat and I was able to stream a lot of hours and a lot of consecutive days and all that stuff to become affiliate really, really fast.

Um so that's kind of how I got my start. And like I said, um, yeah, like I said, it's not necessarily that I was coming on in to be a minister on the stream, but in everything I do as as myself, I always do, you know, say God bless and all that stuff.

And when we're talking about stuff, conversations will come up, different things like that. So um yeah, but that's kind of how I kind of got into it, actually.

Oh, that's really cool. Uh I a couple of times uh have thought that I was I was going to write a book or two.

Actually when I went to seminary I took a track you know in addition to trying to be a pastor of the creative writing track.

So I spent a ton of time uh for some reason uh the bot that I just added is modding you out from uh in the shared chat from showing everything.

So you're talking about bots messing things. I just added it so we have one. And I guess I have the settings all off. So you're you're getting uh modded from from me.

Sorry about that. Oh man. Well, at least it's showing on my side. I see. Yeah. But I I was going to say so I thought you know I took creative writing classes in seminary which was really a different place to have it because part of what my intent of thinking through it was

not to be C.S. Lewis or or to be Tolkien but to write things with an intentional uh you know hidden meaning in there for people to be able to find was was part of what I was going to to plan to do.

And then I got busy in ministry and I was like I don't have any time to write. Uh but I'll tell you what, I haven't told a lot of people this.

I you have inspired me on that level of things. So part of the reason why I started I don't know if it's been a month, two months now, but I knew it was going to happen this year.

Uh so over on the my fish channel because why settle for two channels when you can have three? So over on my fish channel on Mondays and Fridays I have co-working stream so that I will now I don't do it both Monday and Friday but one of those two days I will pick

and write. So I didn't write on on Monday. So I guess that means Friday I will be spending at least two hours writing on one of the three four books that I have in my head to write.

So I appreciate the encouragement and the thought because going live to write seems like a weird thing to do, but yet I've developed uh over the couple of years and then watching you the hey, I can uh share my journey with other people while I'm doing it, which is really really fun.

Think. Wow. I'm so glad you got inspired by that. Yes, your fish channel. We have rated it a couple of times and it's just pretty, pretty nice to just chill out and watch those fish and I love the different views you have of like the sun, the set and sunrise and stuff as well. Oh yeah. But I didn't realize until, uh, I mean I've known for some time now, but you're like co-working with the fish. I'm like, "Wow, that's cool." Um, and uh, yeah, you actually appear on the screen and you're writing together. So that's amazing. That's great. And I'm glad that you find that helpful. Yeah. And I've started trying to watch a few other co-working streamers to get some tips. And one of them, uh, I got to figure out this bot, but a bot that you can have that people will type in what they're working on. It'll put a list on the screen for people. Here's what I'm working on. It's like, oh, that's really cool. Uh, but yeah, it's it's it's just a thing in development.

So I didn't plan to do that initially. I just started because hey, I've got a pond and I want to have a camera for it. Wait, I can put this on stream. So I did it on my own stream and then I started doing the I'm going away for the weekend or the week and I'm not streaming. You can watch the fish while I'm gone and then it became its own channel. So, you know, that's that's been part of that four-year journey is really weird, uh, to think about that of where I started and I couldn't have envisioned that now. So to go back to you when you started it was just a well, I can try this. I can do this. Let's let's see what happens. When did you go from that initial hey, I I can share these to you're going to use the stream for something you're doing yourself?

Yeah. So I was basically inspired by, uh, you know, other writing streamers and stuff like that. Um, as you said you got inspired by me being a writing streamer. A lot of people don't know that there are a lot of writing and co-working streamers that have been on on the platform for a long time. Like a lot of people don't know there are a lot of Christian streamers and the way to find them is through tags, which a lot of people are like, "I found you through the so-and-so tag. I found you through the Christian tag." I'm like, "Oh, nice." Um, so the discoverability on Twitch is really neat. And uh, but you do have to start up with your own community if you're trying to quickly become affiliate. But there is discoverability and new people will struggle in all the time. And it's it's fun to find new people and like try to raid new people and just once you meet a community or a person you're going to find oh it's hell's uh live hell's hive in the chat as well. We raided uh into a person who raided uh them. No, we raided them yesterday. Uh we were suggested to raid. Yes. Um, so yeah, that that that's the thing. When you raid a person, then you will find a whole community of people who are already following them and people who they know and all kinds of stuff like that.

So um, when I was like, okay, I'm reading other people's articles. So now what am I going to do? I'm not necessarily always reading other people's articles. I have my own articles. Um, but I am weirdly aware. I don't usually read my own articles on stream, but I'm trying to do that more. Sometimes I actually have an Erdine now where people can say, "Uh, let me see." Basically, and it makes it where they get to see what I'm working on because a lot of times I am just working on something that they can't see in the background, but I'm typing and I have the little keyboard going. Um, but I I guess to answer the question, I was inspired by other writing streamers who like just do co-working and just I was I was trying to figure out what is kind of my brand, what kind of thing will I do? And since my current project is uh secret agent someone, which is a writing project that I've been writing on, um, I liked how you could get different emotes and different sound effects and stuff like that that happen. I was like, "Okay, I want uh him to talk and laugh and stuff like that." So I kind of did that and then I was like, "Okay, of course, as a Christian, I want people to know that uh I am a Christian." So I always do, you know, mention God, pray on stream sometimes and stuff like that. So I actually have as one of my the cheapest two redeems in my chat are read a scripture card and prayer request. And both of those are uh one only one channel point redeems. Um, so I can yeah, that's really easy to do then. Yeah. So anybody even if they're they just followed can can redeem it.

Yeah. The well, I have prayer probably the cheapest thing on mine, but but I pick the number seven because some seven is the number of totality and completeness. So we're we're going to totally cover you in prayer. Not that the person knows that, but you know, that's that's the fun thing I did. What do you with your prayer cards? How soon did you start doing that? And where did you resource your prayer cards from? Did you make all of those? Uh, did you just pick random scriptures? Did you buy a pack of those? What are those from? All right. So I don't actually remember when I got the prayer cards as a redeem. I do know I had prayer requests as redeem probably from the beginning. Um, now these prayer cards, they were they they sell them at the Dollar Tree. So, uh, they're very inexpensive and I just whenever I had first seen them because I I do work at Dollar Tree as a cashier. Um, but I used to shop there even before working there. And um, when I see these, I'm like, they're so cute. Sometimes I give them away as a box or sometimes I give the individual cards away to people. So I was like, "Hm, that can be a thing on stream." Like a a random scripture. Like I was thinking maybe a random scripture redeem or something. But I said the prayer card is something that you can see and I can take it out of the pack. And now I have this little mailbox. So when I'm done, I just put it in the mailbox. Well, you probably can't see the mailbox because no, the mailbox is just off. There you go. Thank you. So oh, wow. And it's got it's got hearts all over it. That's awesome. Mhm. So I actually just got that mailbox uh in Valentine's Day because uh it was for Valentine's, but I'm like, it's red, which is my color, and it has hearts. So, uh all always love here. So it it belongs all year round. Yeah, definitely. There's there's no reason to ex uh exclusively have love for one day a year or even just one month. I I love the the the kind of trying to recall I don't know exactly it started this way. Well, maybe it was this the the but I think that just goes to the experimentation and adaptability within within streaming that allows you to utilize what your giftedness is. And the other thing I I think is you come across as such a loving and caring person from my the first time that I jumped in. You you pause so well to welcome people in, make them feel like they are special no matter how many people are in your chat. I I think I'm probably not as good at that. Uh, not that I don't make people feel welcome, but sometimes I'm in the middle of something. It's like, "Yeah, I'll get to you in just a minute and I'll say hello when when I when I finish my thought." Uh, but but I' I've always felt whenever I get a chance to to watch you that I'm I am part of your your community and I'm there and you know that I'm there. So when did you like you said so you didn't overtly say hey I'm going to be a Christian streamer and and if you started a while ago tags weren't there uh to be able to put the category or the tag that said Christian that only came later. So what was your process of deciding that okay I've got prayer available I I've got uh you know postcards I've got scripture but I want to share and be overtly intentionally talking about my faith. What was that journey for you like? So I um I just feel like my relationship with God is so heavily ingrained in my personality that it's very hard for me to separate the two. Like if I am existing in any space, be it at work or at a class or just going to the grocery store, it's like that is a part of me that you cannot like have me without that. So if I'm streaming um and anybody comes into the chat, like I believe that I don't even remember if I if I had tags when I first started, but I didn't start too long ago. It was I think 2021. Uh, I feel like the previous year that I did the um the little mishap thing, I didn't know what I was doing. So I don't know if tags are there or not. Um, but when I became affiliate and stuff, I um made sure to put the Christian tag. And I do know some people are like, uh, should I have the Christian tag? Sometimes if I put it, then, you know, it might discourage people from watching. I'm just the kind of person where I'm like it it doesn't if I feel like it might discourage people from watching then I feel like that's something that I was like I should do it anyway because um I am am not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ and that is part of me. So if if you choose and say, "Oh, she has a Christian jack. I don't want that." And you don't watch me, well, I'm still going to pray for you. I pray for everybody who watches my streams, everybody who just lurks, everybody who decides to leave, everybody who sticks around. I I love to just pray for everybody. And I feel that no matter how many people are watching and how many people are uh like it seems like even if you're streaming to nobody, I also post my uh VODs to YouTube so anybody can watch them at any time. And I just feel like I pray that God speaks through me and works through me while I'm live on stream just as would happen in real life because this is just an opportunity with to meet with me. So when different things happen in the chat, if I feel led to pray about something or if somebody asks for prayer, I will stop and pray. Um, if you know somebody has a question about of scripture or different things I am open to chat about things like that as well. So I just want to as as a streamer let everybody know like I even have the bot uh I know you said you have a thing going on but uh I have my bot uh even say God bless and stuff like that to people. So yeah, uh it's just part of me. And like I said before, and let me say before I got the mailbox and before I even got the scripture cards, I had this little thing where people can redeem uh to put uh notes in this box, which obviously see a lot of notes are in there and InX in the uh uh in the chat here um has put a lot of notes in there. Um, but I also did have these little scripture fortune cookies that I would eat on stream and then I would put the scripture in there. So then when there's a redeemed to read a note out of the box, sometimes it was a scripture from the fortune cookie. I've never seen scripture fortune cookies. Not that I'm surprised they exist. I just never thought I don't go buying fortune cookies. So that's yeah, I love them. And I was like scripture fortune cookies. I remember when I was little and they would sell them at a a little Bible bookstore that we went to and I was like, "hm, I can probably just buy them in bulk on Amazon." And I looked them up and I did. I was like, "Okay, cool." Because I love fortune cookies, but uh scriptures makes it even better. Oh, that is kind of I mean that really is kind of cool. Like if you have a fortune cookie and it's like usually superficial and means nothing. But if you open a scripture cookie and it's got scripture in there, that's still something that should bless you uh with what's going on in your life. Maybe not specifically that day and moment depending on the scripture, but they all have value. So that's really cool. Yeah. You were you were talking about your decision to, you know, put the tag on Christian or not Christian.

I think that's a decision that every streamer makes for themself. Yeah. For instance, when I was choosing a name and putting pastor in my name, I thought it was important for me.

And the reason I thought that was important is I didn't like I had this experience when I was out of seminary and I would go golfing every Thursday and I'd play golf on the golf course and I just do pickup games.

So I'm playing with two or three people I don't know, I'll probably never see again. And we're just playing it out, having conversations, talking with them about life.

And usually it was whole nine. I don't know why it was like everybody would wait till nine to finally turn and say, "So, what do you do for a living?"

"I'm a pastor." And if they would just start apologizing to me for, "Oh, I'm sorry for taking God's name in vain on hole two when I went in the water. And I'm sorry about this and I'm sorry." I'm like, I just felt like I'm not trying. I'm here to have fun. And yet now the back nine is changed because you found out I'm a pastor now.

And now you're going to treat me different. Now you're going to... It's like I don't want anybody to come in my stream and then feel like I bait and switched you or I was hiding something from you.

But I also think whether I have pastor in my name or Christian on my tag, you get both sides of the people that will avoid you and both sides of the people that will come in to troll you. You get Christians that will troll you and you get non-Christians who will troll you. So it's like I think it's just a decision that you make about your own stream and your own personality and how you're going to handle things coming in.

The thing is I found that having pastor as a tag or in the name and then Christian as a tag does not stop atheists, does not stop Buddhists, does not stop Muslims from coming and watching me.

Yeah, they are. They have a level of freedom on this platform to not have anyone watching over their shoulder to come in and get exposed to it where they might in their community. If I showed up at a certain place, everyone saw me come and go from there. If I'm on stream watching a streamer and hearing the love of Jesus and I don't know why but I want to hang out longer and I want to stick around, which is what I feel your community does so well, is like I just want to hang out. But I usually have other things to do. So yeah, I totally get that. But like you said, it's a decision for everybody. So like I said, there are Christian streamers who don't have the tag. I'm not going to criticize you. There's a reason why you did it. Now if you personally feel like I don't want to because you're ashamed, that's that's between you and God. But if you feel like, um, I don't want to because it's part of the thing that helps more people come in. They feel less, you know, reserved about coming in because they're scared if they see that tag. Yes, that's understandable because we need people in all of the areas.

We need some people who have the tag. We need some Christians who don't have the tag. We need some Christians who have it in their name. We need some Christians who don't have it in their name because that just helps to reach all people. And the best thing about this is just reaching all the people.

And like you said, there are some people who you would never see them walking into a church. Even if they wanted to, if they were curious about it, they may feel condemned. They may feel ashamed or they may not be allowed to. They may not feel like, um, it's something that's acceptable or they may actually get in trouble for doing it.

But if it's online, that's the beauty of it, which online comes with all of its flaws as well. But it also comes with some good things about you can meet so many people all around the world who you never would have met if it wasn't for the online space.

Well, you can also meet people across state you would never meet too because you're in the online space. Yeah. So it's so funny because we are from the same state and we did not know at first until we met on Twitch, which is funny.

Yep. Yep. It is. It is. Well, and we've tried to see if we could meet up. It hasn't worked out yet, but it'll happen. It'll happen. We're not too far away. Not at all. But the I think the funniest one was so the pastor that was across town from me is the one that got me into VR. He now lives over by you. He moved to the other side of the state. And then I had his replacement suddenly show up and start chatting in my stream.

And he didn't know who I was. I didn't know that, you know, so we didn't know that we had this mutual connection and that he was at the church.

So we I actually said, "Hey, I'm going to come to your church on Sunday." And I went over and checked it out and got a cup of coffee with him one day.

But it's like that's weird to meet somebody in your Twitch stream first that lives five minutes from your house. The half an hour or sorry, the three-hour drive that makes more sense. The three-hour flight that makes sense, but the three-minute surprise to me. Wow. But that's amazing. But it's fun because people can literally be from anywhere, including down the street. They could be from across the world or down the street. Um, and they can just tune in to your channel. So, um, that's just part of the reason why I'm like I am always trying to be my authentic self when I am streaming and be kind to all and also... Oh, wow. You're getting a raid. Oh, I'm getting a raid. I was like, what? What alerts go? Oh, uh, oh. Oh, I'm watching you people coming in here. Let me announce everybody coming in. Uh, no, I did set up a different cam for that. All right, Northill Live is raiding with a party of nine. I'm watching you people. Behold, thou has been raided by North Hill Live. By the way, Northill Live, good friend of mine. He was on the podcast last week or so, I want to say. But anyway, he is a pastor, has a church and disco bear, good to see you. North Hill, blessings, family. Starcasted, good. Oh, you're over on the other side. You didn't come with the raid. I'm just shouting everybody out. Welcome in. Thank you. You're saying I'm a little echoey. Is it me or is it Wordy Girl that's echoing?

I'm watching. If it's echoing because you're loud in my headphones, maybe that's happening. Oh, you're not. Okay. Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. We'll just carry on. We'll carry on. So anyway, thank you all for the raid. Appreciate it so much. Uh, one of those things like this will happen in the podcast. If you're in a different realm watching this and you don't understand what raids are and this is your first time watching. So what a raid is is that people come in from their community and they bring all of the people watching them to the next place that they are going to watch.

So North Hill Live was doing a stream. He finished his stream. He brought all his community over here to the church digital so that they could hang out with the church digital for a while.

I love this concept. This is really one of my favorite things that Twitch does because it really creates community. It helps you find other people that you wouldn't find because I know Northill Live, he trusts me. He brings people over here to leave them with me. If you're on when I leave, Wordy Girl, I'm over and ready to raid you and trust my people with you.

Now, there's also the other side of let's go explore someone new. This might be a bust, but we're going to go check it out. And sometimes it's great and sometimes it's not so great. Yeah, but that has happened before. Also, as we were talking about Hail's Hive in the chat, somebody suggested we raid Hail's Hive, and it was a lovely time when we went over there, and I was glad to have finally even caught a stream as I realized I was following, but I didn't ever actually watch the stream before, but that was a very lovely stream. So it's good to meet new people, like you said, but it's also good to raid friends that we know.

Uh, Mr. Hanito says, "Love the cat." Thank you. Tip of the cap to you. Um, so yeah, it's just a lovely platform altogether and I do love the support of the community and like we were talking about, when you raid new people, there's some people who are raiding streamers or Christian streamers or any kind of streamer who thinks I must be the only one doing this on the platform. Not like in an arrogant way, but more of a like I'm all alone and I don't really have anybody and they will find there is a community. It's just you have to find the people first and then you're like okay now we have a network of people and then we might raid into each other. We might help find other people and stuff like that. So it's always great to network with people and find different people who do different things and, um, you know, everyone's unique and we all have our similarities and our differences, but that's what makes it very special.

Yeah. I love the differences that we have. And the similarities we have is a love for God, a love for gamers, whether we are a gamer or not. We love the gamers who are here. I don't really consider myself a gamer. I'm gamer adjacent. I like certain games, but I'm very niche in what I play.

And I'm usually a one-player game, so I don't play with other people. I just want to beat the game on easy mode, and that's it. I'm not trying to be anybody that's bragging. I just want to enjoy some time doing that. So the thing you're talking about community there is I think one of the things that I love about the church digital is we are trying to give encouragement to people who are doing this. We are trying to draw people together in the same place who are doing things so that you didn't know I existed and I didn't know you existed until something brought us together and I can't remember who it was or what community connection it was.

Sometimes I remember specifically. I don't remember if it was one of those times and this happens to me where I wake up early and I have nothing going on and I don't want to start anything and wake my wife up so I turn on Twitch and see who's around. I feel like it could have been that and I found you in the middle of the night streaming and I'm like this is really cool and so followed you.

Uh, I don't know if it was that because I do that occasionally or if it was in someone else's stream, but I think it was the middle of the night thing, but I have a feeling, but I don't know.

Yeah, I can't remember either. I really want to figure out. I do know that I found Christian Ninja and I found Taco and you were familiar with them already, but then I do remember seeing NCMS, I believe, is it? And oh, a nerd culture ministry summit. Yes. Were you part of that as well, I believe. Yes. So I remember seeing about it and like joining their Discord or something.

And then I was like, I don't know if I'm just following them, but I'm not necessarily branded as an official streamer of theirs because I think they have like an application process or something like that.

Um, so I don't remember, but I do remember it was sometime around there that I found out about you. I don't know if it was just that you joined into my stream or if it was from a Taco raid or something because I do know sometimes Ukulele would raid as well because she streams right before you sometimes in the morning. Yeah. Yeah. But yes, I loved the whole uh tip of the cap and all that stuff and just watching your streams and your streams are so chill and like you said, you you felt like you don't really uh do the welcoming thing as much, but

You do. I feel very welcome in your stream and uh reading just like the Bible and just like sometimes I was like, "Okay, I think we're just going to rate and run." But then I end up actually staying for a long time.

Um because it's very entertaining. It's just um community as well. Just like reading through the Bible is wonderful. Um it sounds like a big Yeah, I'm going to that's what it sounds like to me.

But they're saying echo. Let me just double check some settings here a minute before we go on. Still coming through my webcam mic because I didn't think so.

I'm not hearing an echo from you. So that's where if you want to keep talking to make sure I change settings. Let's see. Have you do you guys still hear an echo right now?

Also, those of you in my stream, can you hear an echo? I That sounds better on my side. Is she still coming through? Okay.

I hope so. I'm just going to keep talking. I do see that. Uh let's see. Uh welcome in disco. Great. Awesome. Um I'm glad it's good now.

Yours is saying yours is fine. This is one of those This is one of those fun things. If one of us ends up with a bad um copy of it, we can share with each other the finished copy so we can share wherever we need to share it.

So, uh I think that's fantastic of the the dual streaming is fun that way. So, we both have our own copies to be able to share with our communities and invite other people to be a part of it.

So, those who came in uh with Northill Live, I don't know if you know Wordy Girl or not. I just made the assumption you did and I didn't make the assumption that everyone knew me from North Hill.

I should just say so the church digital uh like this is this is what I was saying. I sometimes just don't think those things through.

I just get focused on what we're having a great conversation about. So the church digital is a ministry of like-minded people that are helping to support missionaries or people to become digital missionaries.

So we we see ourselves as a dig digital missionary sending agency. I am focused in the gaming world for digital missionaries. Others are focused on other platforms.

So, if you go over to YouTube, you will see that all of my videos will show up in the outpost for gaming for the church digital.

And if you join us in Discord, that also will be where those things are at. So, that's who I am or said that's who I'm representing.

I am Flatcap Dapper Pastor and I stream on Twitch as well. And I also have a fish pond stream and I've been a pastor, yes, a real life pastor for many, many years.

And I'm actually going to over Mother's Day weekend 20th anniversary of graduating from seminary. So I'm kind of excited about that and to see what God has done in those 20 years.

Could not picture myself sitting right here right now doing any of those things. So I I am seeing that uh North Hill tried to give me or Lucas tried to give me a shout out and my bot command is incorrect.

Go figure. Go figure. And wordy girl, just quick introductions to everybody that came in for you. Oh, yes. Uh I I did give you a shout out in my side as well.

I don't know if they're going to allow me to do it again, but I can do a share chat, but I don't think it's going to work because the the bot keeps hitting it post.

Yeah. Uh but anyway, uh I am Wordy Girl and Wordy Girl uh I am a streamer, a variety streamer I like to say. So I do stream games sometimes, but I also do stream uh writing, co-working streams sometimes.

I do interviews and podcasts like this and I just do all kinds of different things. Um, I am a Christian, of course, and that comes through in all of the things I do.

And today I'm wearing a flat cap because the honorable flat cap dapper pastor has invited me today.

All right. Thank you. Thank you.

Like I said, I That's what mods are amazing for. Mods help us focus. Mods correct the stuff in the chat that we get wrong and get us back on track.

So, yeah, you're you're back. You weren't ignoring. Yeah, no problem. Northill, we we we understand the deal when you raid and Well, I need to figure out how to plan a raid where I can stick around for an hour instead of staying live until my meeting starts in 5 minutes.

That's what I do. I stay live for until like, oh, I have a meeting at 5. Okay, everybody, we got a raid and uh I I I trust this person.

You're going to have fun. Goodbye. Goodbye now. And and and leave. But but that's the other thing too is there are difficulties along the way with streaming.

What are some of the difficulties that you have faced in your time as a streamer? What has gotten uh as barriers you had to overcome or obstacles to to you know rail against?

What what have been some of those experiences for you? Yeah. So, I think as they were saying in the chat, Northel was timed out uh by the bot accidentally because of the raid message.

Yeah. Uh so, one of the the obviously uh I think every streamer has uh issues with technical difficulties. Um as I was saying when I had first gone live that years ago and the bot was like timing everybody out and making it where nobody could chat.

Um clearly technology is one of the uh obstacles that I do have to face. Um but I am just a person who is like just do stuff.

So I just try to keep going, keep praying, keep going, keep doing stuff. Um if I get set back or if I find something out, I'm like use that as a lesson and now I know let's try again.

Um so I think the main thing I feel like I don't know technology is a lot of um what happened but a lot of times when technology goes wrong uh it ends up leading to something bigger and better.

Um because I was at first using a software that soon became outdated and soon got discontinued. Um, and the only reason why I transferred out of there was because it crashed one day and all my scenes were gone and I was like, I do not want to set all this up um, again.

And somebody told me about OBS. So, I was like, okay, let's use OBS. Um, and then I did that and I think something happened again with OBS update and then it reset all my scenes.

I was like, oh my goodness. And and then I decided to move to Streamlabs desktop. So, that's what I'm using now. And uh I feel like it's the best for me at this moment.

Um but I do feel like technology is is always um fluctuating and in this space, especially online, you're going to have to uh go with the flow and and update and move and and there's going to be some things like, "Oh man, I wanted it to stay like it was at first." Like, nope, we're changing now. Um, so I feel like um a lot of streamers just have, you know, technical issues, but the the main thing is you just have to push past and of course get get advice from your community and and like um googling stuff and all that stuff because um it is helpful to learn and when I learn I also like to share what I learned with others especially if if they are going through something similar and I'm like, "Oh man, I went through that, so I can help you out." So, it's good.

Just like with anything in life, uh any setbacks and experiences can be used as a testimony and to help others. Oh, absolutely. I I I hope on some level I encourage people when I have all of these problems and my my mods are helping me and oh, wait, the bot's too strict.

Well, at least I got the bot up yesterday. So, I thought I we would at least have a bot today. And the bot is now causing problems.

It's This is This is something that we have grace for one another that we can, you know, show the world that we don't have to have the image that a lot of people think of Christians are just a spoil sport.

Christians are just going to stop everybody from having fun. Christians take themselves far too seriously. I mean, come on. I call myself flat cap dapper pastor.

I'm not taking myself very seriously at all. I I want to have fun. U I poke fun of myself probably as much as anyone else is going to.

And I I think that that's one of those things that like you're talking about. It helps you overcome obstacles when they happen. It overcomes the difficulties that happen.

If you're not just Debbie Downer about everything and think that the world is falling apart, Chicken Little, whatever your analogy is, you know, it's it's doom and gloom every time you you look out there.

Well, who would want to be with you? That that would be really difficult. Yeah. So, it it's a good balance to try to, you know, not be always like you said, Debbie Downer.

Um, and and to embrace the, you know, obstacles and challenges, to learn from them, and to learn to laugh about it because sometimes laughing about it is is a big help because you're just like, h, you know what?

that happened and guess what? I can't rewind time. It happened. So, let's just try to do better next time. Um, and it's even with me, like you said, you have great mods.

Uh, much love to the great mods. I personally don't even have mods. So, usually, uh, besides my own bots, uh, I don't really have mods.

So, I'm either trying to mod at the same time while streaming and you know, if somebody's in the chat and then I try to address them, I'm like, "Okay, I think this person might be trolling or it might be a bot." So, then I just keep an eye on them and then I'm like, "Okay, uh, time out." So yeah, it's it's it's a challenge also in that way that a lot of times I'm kind of just like a one woman show where I'm like always doing all the stuff.

Um which I do know it is important to have help. It's important to have a community. It's important to have somebody to lean on, you know, but sometimes um I'm just like, "All right, let's do this." And um I just try to do it.

Well, I I've been fortunate for the for the most part. I think when I started streaming, a couple of people just immediately said, "Can I mod for you?" And I'm like, "Sure.

I don't know what that is." And what I mean, I know what it is, but I don't even know what to tell you to do.

Uh you already know how to do it. Great, cuz I don't know how to train you to to do it. The other thing I've I've done a couple of times, I I did this with ukulele for for worship.

We I think this was 2 years ago, 3 years ago, whatever it was during Christmas season. Like there were no mods around at that time of day.

You know, everybody was gone at her normal time. And I'm like, "Yeah, my mods are gone, too. How about we mod each other?" I don't I'm not asking you to be there as I know you're at work, but hey, if if I mod for you and you mod for me and we support each other, then then we're going to be helpful if those problems come up. Otherwise, yeah, if you don't have any problems, you can be a one person show for the most time.

But if you all of a sudden have a bunch of trolls happening and you got bots coming in that are attacking your stream, and thankfully, like, you know, SurveyBot does a great job of banning those kinds of things.

Uh, I'm glad I have that now. I didn't have it before. I think I ended up with one stream where I had a thousand followers because a bot came in and kept spamming me with followers and then, okay, that was fun.

Uh but those are the those are the the quirks of this kind of uh platform that you can go into and bring the light of Christ to in uh in Go ahead respond if you wanted.

I was going to ask another question but Oh no. I was saying I was I was there for a a chaotic time last year when a lot of bots and old accounts and hacked accounts were spamming the chats and uh I was thankful also to some people in the community who were like okay there's things you can do like download Siribot which I didn't do though because I didn't want to ban real people. Uh, so there's like a there's a balance between um bot and real mods, but I do know it it's necessary for those, especially if your chat is going so fast and you're like, I can't do all that. I can't keep up. Um, uh, it's good to have a bot to just take care of it.

Better safe than sorry. Um, but I also did like change settings in my channel to make it where you cannot, you know, chat unless your account is this old or you have a verified uh phone number and stuff like that.

So, that's another thing to do as well. But I am grateful for those who share tips and stuff like that. Um, because that is that that is very important especially when chaotic things like that happen.

Oh yeah. And and like like both of us I think really rely on community with other streamers and it's interesting how much I see in the Christian space in digital space that we are open and we are inviting and we are sharing and we are encouraging one another whereas at times when I was in a physical church and I would make suggestions about going down the road and talking with another church who's doing something it would be oh wait they're our competition now and I'm like they're following Jesus How are they our competition?

Well, what if somebody goes down the road to them, then they go down the road to them and they're still following Jesus? What's what's the problem?

I'm But in in the digital space, it feels like we are much more open to helping and supporting others. By the way, with with the Siri bot, uh it does show me when those happen.

And almost I should say without question, the ones that I've seen at bans are the people posting here's how to get viewers. That's that's who it's banning is is it's just the people that come in.

Here's how to get viewers is to do this ban their their I haven't seen it ban I don't think anyone else except for for that type of a a person.

The other thing is is I I took the thought of well if someone is a real person they can apply to be unbanned and I can unban them.

So nice. But yeah there's there's all those things that you learn and you do for yourself. What works for you? You learn from others.

Uh as far as doing this, what is your uh plan as far as Okay, so you are a streamer. How often are you streaming?

How does that work with your your job that you have? What is your long-term hopes within the space? Are you a I know you're affiliate.

Are you hoping to be partner? You hoping to do more ministry? Are you hoping to be more of a writer? And then you just happen to stream that you're writing.

Uh, I'm guessing that being a dollar store cashier isn't the long-term goal, but you know, if it puts food on the table, you do what you need to.

So, what what is kind of your thoughts as far as being in the Twitch space and being a digital missionary? And overall, what are you doing?

Yeah. So, my story is kind of long. I'm not going to I'm not going to turn this into that. We've we've got plenty of time.

You can share as much as you feel comfortable with. Okay. Well, some of you guys probably do know, um, like I was saying, when I first started in Twitch, I had just I mean, well, technically my first dream was on break at my job.

Um, which was probably 3 years ago now. I don't know. Uh, probably about four three or four years ago. Um, and I was working from home though.

Um, but then the very next year I got laid off from that job. So, I had an office job during the week and then being a cashier on the weekends in the mornings.

Um, which is already a lot. And then once I got laid off though, um, for that summer, I was like, "Okay, let's try to do this content creation thing." Because I was already doing some stuff, but not like streaming on Twitch.

I was doing a lot of, you know, um, freelancing and a lot of entrepreneur stuff. who was already a writer and creative, but I wasn't streaming on Twitch.

So, I um did that during that summer. After I I got hired at another job, I said, "Okay, we're going to still keep streaming." So, I was still working seven days and then trying to stream when I could.

Sometimes it was up to three days out of the week. Sometimes it was just like two or one day out of the week. But I try to stream at least uh every month like have a new schedule because sometime like this month I have been trying to stream every week weekday at 2 p.m. Eastern time. Um and then some some you know months I'll be like okay Christmas falls on this day. I don't think I I want to stream at 8 a.m.

Uh let's let's you know change the schedule up. So, I just try to stream when I can fit it in. Um, but I have been also laid off from that job, which, uh, is a thing, uh, for about a year now.

So, um, I've still being a cashier on the weekends and the mornings, which I've been since 2015. Uh but uh beside that I've just been trying to pour myself into my entrepreneur endeavors into my things like this content creating streaming writing all that stuff.

So I'm very grateful to those who uh donate and support and and follow my projects and you know show support to me. Uh it is greatly appreciated but it is very challenging to navigate.

Um whether I have a job, it's challenging because it's busy. Or if I don't have a job, it's challenging because it's busy still because I'm trying to do all the hustling and and and you know, continue to um provide.

But I do know ultimately God is the one who provides. Um but it still can be stressful when things are are happening like this.

But like I say, I always just try to keep praying and keep going. Um, mainly uh when I got laid off the first time, I was like, "God, do you want me to like try to go in all in on my entrepreneur stuff or like what?" Because I was applying to jobs and not getting hired or it's not the pay that I needed. It's like, okay, so am I just going to like do my own thing?

So, that's what I tried to do. and I did get some support which was good but it wasn't really what I would consider enough to supply right uh so I was like okay I'm I'm still looking for a job so I was grateful when I got hired that particular job though was literally the only job I've ever had where I felt like I was ready to leave and that's saying something because like like I just said I was I've been at Dollar Tree since 2015 and they're not the best job in the world um but it's not like I feel like I need to get out of here. Um, so when I was laid off from that one, uh, I was just like, well, it's the way that they were doing things and it was just so messy.

So I was like, well, it's time to go. Um, so I tried to focus more and try to do things, but ultimately, as you said, what's my plan?

I my plan is just to pray and continue to keep praying, keep going, ask God, what what do you want me to do? Because I want to do what God wants me to do.

I want to if God wants me in this digital space primarily then I want to be in this digital space primarily and uh you know even though things look tough and it's like what's going to happen uh God is ultimately the provider so I'm doing what I can and doing what I feel that he is leading me to do so that's mainly my um my goal is not an actual plan with a map but God is holding the app.

Yeah. I'm just going to see will it let me post your repost your There it is. I'm sharing your co coffee because uh your your auto message is getting modded.

So Oh, so if anyone does I didn't even do that really. No, it's just I guess I was just talking about Kofi and then it just automatically popped up.

There you go. I mean Yeah. Well, there we go. Thank you. I appreciate you sharing that. Yeah. Um, but yeah, the I think so that that's why I like asking that is because I think a lot of people are like, I don't know yet what it is.

God hasn't fully revealed the vision to me and I'm I am trying to discern between is this something God's calling me to. Is this something that I enjoy enough to to do it for a long time?

Is this a season that God is teaching me something and then I can go use it and apply it elsewhere? Is this the lifelong calling?

And boy, I didn't see myself being a streamer 20 years ago. Like, I didn't go to seminary to be a Twitch streamer. That's a weird thought.

Um, but it's it's that I want to say that genuiness of people seeing a need and just starting to respond to the need in the chat, not even or in the chat, starting to respond to the need in the community.

uh not worrying about where everybody is at, you know, do I have all the training? Do I have all of the things I need?

Is is this the long-term thing? Just saying, well, I'm going to do this for now and see what God does. I'm going to wait for God to lead before I do more.

Uh if I think I'm moving in this direction, is God affirming uh what I'm doing? I I think it was so just to back up and I I don't think I've talked about this on any of the other streams yet, but I think it it was four years ago that I first got introduced to the Church Digital and it was my pastor friend across town that said, "Hey, you should go have a conversation with Jeff at the Church Digital." And I'm like, "Okay." And I did.

And I'm like, "Okay, that's great. I'm going back to what I'm doing. I don't know what I'm doing over there." I didn't I didn't see it uh cuz God hadn't called me yet to it.

And then later another uh pastor friend of mine uh uh Mark uh the lift from Lux Digital Church said, "Hey, you need to go have a conversation with the church digital." And I did.

I was like, "Okay, I starting to see what this might do. Let me let me hang out and and be there." And it's just been a gradual, "Okay, what's the next step?

What's the next thing?" Which has brought me to now I'm doing a podcast. I never planned on doing a podcast. What am I going to do for a podcast?

I'm gonna bring on friends and I'm going to just chat about doing ministry. Oh my goodness. Oh my god. Big is raiding with a party.

Oh. Oh my goodness. Big, I'm going to apologize right now. You're going to get banned for a lot of messages cuz I just set the bot up and I'm I have it set too strict.

So sorry everyone being banned for a few minutes here. My apologies. It's just banning everybody. 7,575 just followed. Welcome in, guys. And thank you to whoever did donate to my Kofi as well.

I appreciate that. Much love. Somebody just donated to me when you put the link. Just followed. I'm getting a bunch of followers. Thank you.

Thank you. Oh my goodness. I think I Let me see. Can I see how many followers we have? Yeah, we might hit 200 followers if we get enough people today.

blessing just followed. Hey, congratulations. I'm going to Well, I I'm thinking we'll get an alert. I know we got to be close, but I don't know the actual number.

Let me see if I can find everybody coming in. 246. I'd like to thank you all. I will probably miss somebody, so I apologize.

Uh 9P Assass I can't pronounce that. Asen nine, welcome in. Uh, my husband's blessing. That's kind of fun name. Uh, Big Unk, you're good and God bless you, dude.

I need to get you on. We'll get it figured out. Big Unk, you're going to be on here someday. Uh, appreciate you, friend. Uh, Altus Revy, living in the light in all you do.

You will do nothing wrong, but waiting for heaven to give you a sign will cause you to miss out on God's will. Dude, that is awesome.

Appreciate that. Shell bell for you just for me. Oh, thank you. And uh welcome in. Too many emotes. Yes, too many emotes is is I I got to change.

I just got the bot. I did it wrong. My apologies. All of you getting banned for the very nice raid uh logo there. Just me, Crystal.

Thank you. Thank you. Many blessings. I don't I'm missing half of this, I'm sure. Uh, big. Yeah, appreciate you. Thank you. Okay, let me see if I can see all the alerts here.

So, I have a bit goal. I just hit 75%. That's awesome. Cool. I don't even know what the goal is. Uh, so, all right.

Anyway, everybody coming in. So, uh, fish tank naturals. I might have to take and follow that one. Not that I wouldn't follow others, but I have my own fish channel.

So, very nice. Let me welcome all of you in who are coming in with the raid from Big Unk. Big Unk uh KB. Uh thank you.

I appreciate you so much, friend. And more Bane's coming in with the Bane. I don't know if I'm saying that right. Oh, ads are coming in.

Sorry. Uh, bummer on the ads. Let me check. Fish tank naturals just followed. Sorry if you guys are in ads. Yeah, I some of them are in ads on my side.

Oh, I think. Okay. On your side. Okay. Bane. All right. I was I was close. I was close. Thank you. B Wayne. There we go.

B Wayne. I was trying to make it one name. Anyway, I am Flat Cap Dapper Pastor and this is the Church Digital where we are trying to help equip people to be digital missionaries in digital spaces.

My focus is in the gaming sphere. That's why I'm having friends on like Wordy Girl who are doing things in the digital space. I'm going to get uh KB on Kingdom Business.

I'm going to get Big Unk on here. We're going to we're going to do a podcast maybe a month. Who knows? We'll get it we'll get it down the road it'll happen and I just bring friends on talk with them about what they're doing in ministry how did they get started when did they make the choice uh to do things how is God leading them what obstacles have you overcome and and just you know other things talking about missionaries in digital spaces being a light in a dark place so thank you welcome all in whether you are Christian or not Christian you are welcome here.

You're welcome to ask questions most of the time on this stream. I'm going to be focused on conversation, but we'll be paying attention to the chat.

Wordy Girl is my guest today. Wordy Girl, would you like to quickly introduce yourself to everyone coming over from Big Unk? Yes. Hello. Some of you guys may know me already.

My name is Wordy Girl and I am a variety Christian streamer. So, I love to share the love of God, the love of Christ with everyone.

And I am known for doing writing streams, co-working streams, and sometimes playing games and community fun as well. So, um, thank you guys for tuning in and thank you for the ride.

And thank you for the people who are cheering Vitz also in my channel as well. I appreciate it. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah, it's kind of hard to tell sometimes with the the the stream rolling who's who's are they, where are they at, but that is that is just uh so much fun.

And uh anybody that's watching this later in the VOD, you're missing out on the fun. I'm not saying you were you are missed and I appreciate you watching the VOD later.

That's super appreciated, but I'm just saying you missed it out on the live action and excitement that was happening and you can't even see the chat that's just blowing up with everything.

So, sorry you missed that. So, if you watch the replay on Twitch, you'll see it. If you're watching the VODs on YouTube, you just you just missed it.

That's all there is to it. Uh, oh, what do we have now? I was I thought we were watching with the Cheers. But yes, that's one of the things I love about Twitch, though.

It's a live experience. Oh, yes. And it's just like so many people together in one room, but they're far apart or they could be across the state, but yeah.

Yeah. And I think I think part of the the fun of the of the live, not that this is diff or it is different than preaching live.

Preaching live has a set order in which I'm supposed to preach and you're supposed to listen. And depending on the culture of the church, there may be response and call, but there is not a, "Hey, I have a question pastor.

Let me ask in the middle of a sermon." There isn't a hey, let's do a Q&A at the end. I get to do all of that on Twitch as a live thing.

And if we don't get to all of the passage we're reading today, there's tomorrow. We dive in whenever we get to it. We go off on a side conversation, whatever it may be.

It's it's just fun in that live capacity to utilize the platform for the way it's designed rather than force my plans on the design of the platform.

And that's where I yeah constantly love the experimenting with new things and trying new things. So the podcast thing has been super fun. I have been loving the way this has been turning out.

The other thing I I'll say for all those who are coming in live is yeah. Q&A after the service. Yeah. Getting laughter at that.

Wouldn't that be fun? Uh I have tried it once or twice. People don't want to stick around is the problem. They don't want to they just I came, I got what I needed, I'm out of here versus Twitch.

Or if they're sticking around. I mean, some cultures of church, they're sticking around, but they're just chatting and chatting. It's like the pastor's not Oh, yeah.

Pastor's not the thing. Answer. Yes. Not to answer questions about the service. If anything, it's just like catching up with people chatting in the parking lot for like two hours and then like go to dinner or something.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. There can be ongoing fellowship, but yeah, people are not wanting wanting more. Hey, thanks for the lurk. Is it NX? Yep.

NX. Uh, fun fact, that's a a Star Trek reference of an Enterprise ship name. Uh, but NX is a uh a member of the stream.

Uh, they got a new account before it was named something else. But, uh, at first when this account came, I was like, is that a bot?

And it's like, no, that was intentional. It's a Star Trek reference. Okay. I I never paid that much attention to the names of the of the ships.

Uh, but that's a cool reference for people that know that's that's getting really into the weeds of being a nerd. Oh, yeah. The uh I actually like doing it th this way instead.

Yeah, it's live long and prosper. Yeah. I don't know what the meaning of this one is, but it's probably a gang sign and I probably shouldn't do that.

Oh, no. Okay. I don't remember where we were at in our conversation, but we're we're just going to pick up and go in a in a new direction.

I'm watching you. It's over here with Father Franch. Yes. Yes. May the fourth be with you. I missed that. Uh yes. Vulcan salute. There we go.

Um what are some But yeah, that's coming up. May the fourth. Oh, yeah. I guess it is. Anyways, no, it is. It's it's uh couple of weeks.

Couple of weeks. Yes. Rabbit trails. I do this a lot on my stream. and we get talking on. So I actually I don't have I am not planning on putting this on the Church Digital, but we count how many times I go off on a tangent and it's probably a third of the time we might actually remember to track the rabbit trails that I go down and there's probably thousands that we've missed, but Revenge of the Fifth.

Yeah, we're getting all of the nerdy references here in chat. But that's another thing I love about Twitch because it's like you can just be a nerd here.

Oh, yes. It's fine. Yes. And then and you take your sides on which one of those you're on or you can be on both sides and gauge.

Yes. Oh yes. Earl Grey hot. Earl Grey hot. I did go with the Earl Grey today, by the way. Although I do have a second pot waiting to go when I run out, which is my own blend of flowers.

M. So, I have butterfly I have butterfly pea uh flowers. I have saffron and golden rod. So, yeah, you told me you you grow the leaves in your own garden yourself and and steep them like the oldfashioned way.

Yeah, I'm trying to I'm trying to get into that, but uh I still like my dark black teas. So, but I I limit myself to one pot of dark black tea because I don't need the caffeine.

And and then I I switch to uh flowers for the rest of the day or turmeric, ginger, stuff like that. Yes. Tea. Earl Grey, hot Star Trek Next Generation.

John Luke Picard. Captain Picard favorite tea. Yes, that's what the reference I was making for those who did not get it. Thank you. Also, he on Picard, he still does that.

If you haven't seen Picard, he orders it there. Yes. Take maple out of the trees, too. I I do like you want to just talk a bit about the I I've seen you.

Yes. I've seen your your YouTube videos of sapping the trees. And honestly, when I was young, we would go to like a nature center and they would take us outside in the cold winter.

And it's like, okay, this is how we tap the trees. And I'm like, oh my goodness, you're just doing that. Oh, I've been tapping trees for six, seven years now.

So, I actually started by tapping them and going, "Oh, making maple syrup is going to be a lot of work. I'll tap the trees and use the sap to make my tea." So, I'll have a So, I'll I'll have tree sap for my tea.

And then I was like, "This doesn't give me enough maple flavor, so I better boil it off." And then after the first year, I thought, "Oh, can I make wine out of this?" So, I actually make maple syrup wine, which which uh I'll have to show you some other time.

There'll be a there's actually will be a follow-up. So, if you followed the whole series of what I was doing, it probably 6 months there'll be a followup of the wine being bottled and and all of that, but it's got to age.

It's it's a long way off. Wow. And you're saying that the ma you started off by saying maple syrup was too much. Yes, I started off with maple syrup is too much work and now I'm making wine out of it.

So, you know, well, that's that's what we were talking about earlier. Sometimes the plan just doesn't go what we thought. When we start Twitch, we don't know what where we're going to go and then it becomes something else.

Yeah. Yeah. The Well, the the whole thing I we're coming up on the anniversary has got to be May of my first wine. So during COVID uh when that happened, I have unemployed boys living in my basement.

They graduated from college, moved in my basement because they couldn't get a job. They couldn't live anywhere. And so there they were. And I wanted to have them help me do something.

And I had a friend with a big field that they were going for the yield covered with dandelions. And I'd always wanted to try dandelion wine.

And so I go, "Let's go make dandelion wine." So I dragged them along. We picked two 5-gallon buckets full of dandelions, which you think, oh that's easy.

It was. Then I had to pick all the green off of the flower because if you have the green in there, it will be bitter.

And I picked all of those. I boiled it all. I had 20 gallons of wine that I was making out of it. And then I, you know, following up and people are saying it's 9 months before it's drinkable.

And I'm like, what did I just do? Now I got to wait 9 months. I I need to find something else. And so then co became can I make wine out of it?

I actually thought about doing a channel called Will It Wine and then just trying things with wine. Uh I didn't know we're going to go this direction to talk about it.

So uh ginger wine was one of those I figured out which is amazing. I love that. I've done spruce tips wine. By speaking of I probably need to get out in the next month and see if there's any spruce tips.

I only make a gallon of that for myself and and drink it. I don't I don't really share it cuz it sounds weird and it's kind of citrusy.

So, you think it's going to be, you know, pine. It's more citrus than pine, honestly. But the maple syrup was one, too. Like, can I make wine out of maple syrup?

We'll find out. Either will wine or flat cap dapper wine. I love that app, dude. That is awesome. U Yes. Yes. That's awesome. So anyway, uh that's one of the things that I start well in co I was doing shorts and reels before shorts and reels were a thing.

Didn't know that was going to be a thing or I probably would have stuck with it. Blow up. Yeah. Yeah. Uh but I was also doing short form content has gotten a big boom.

Right. Right. I was doing it before then and now I'm Yeah. I'm on the wrong I don't care if I ever blow up. I want friends to blow up.

That's what I want. I want Wordy Girl to blow up. That's what I'm looking for. I want I want big to blow up. I I want all my friends to get big and I can just point people.

I know them. That's what I'm looking for. Papsio needs to blow up, too. I'm watching you people. I mean, these are all my friends, you know, back in the day. I knew them when, you know, that'll be fun. Yeah. Not literally. Yes. Um, oh no. Yes. Not literally. Blow up. No. No. We're not calling. Like, did we have to say that? I guess on Twitch we do. We have to clarify. I mean, NX is an interesting character.

I'm thinking about like blowing up the Death Star and stuff like that, that kind of thing. Yes. Oh, all good. All fun. Uh, so anyway, yeah, the experimenting, the trying new things, doing all of that. You want to stay a tiny streamer. You want, yeah, yes. And there is some value in that because we can engage a community like this. If we had a thousand people watching us right now, it would be very difficult to engage the chat. We would just have to focus on each other and let our mods do the chat and ignore it.

Uh, but being in a small community, we can be engaged with one another and we can do that in each other and support one another. So I love that. Uh, yeah, what I wanted to ask you about as well is what have been two or three really important impact stories that you've had in someone else's life or that someone had in your life as you've been a streamer?

Well, I like I said, I am the kind of person where I feel like I should, you know, just stream even if it seems like there's nobody watching. Um, sometimes if I feel led to stream, I stream. I've heard some stories about people, you know, saying like, "Oh, yeah, something happened and if I didn't stream that day, you know, this and that." Um, personally I feel like there's not any one set um significant story that I have personally, but it's more just the community as a whole and how starting from like hardly anybody watching, just slowly getting a little bit of a community. But of course, uh, like I told you earlier when I started, I was reading articles. So some of those people still watch, but some of those people, they were like, "Oh, I just watched because you read my article and that's it." Um, so finding more people on Twitch who are your community, finding more Christian dreamers, I feel like made an impact on me as well.

And uh, and I've heard people say that I did make an impact on them as well, be it in the Twitch space in general. Some people have said they were inspired by me to start streaming. Uh, even some people in the writing community were saying, you know, uh, when word did all those reading of articles, now I feel like I wanted to stream and then they started their stream. And even like you, when you said you wanted to do the co-working thing. Um, but as for the Christian side, I mainly just love to show love to everyone and share the love of Christ with everyone. And uh, in some environments, it is a little bit controversial, but uh, sometimes there's a certain image that people have of what Christians do and being judgy and, you know, they don't feel welcome around a Christian because they feel like, right, they are being going to just be criticized and condemned and cast out and nobody's going to, you know, interact with them or love them. And I just like to let people know that yes, I am a Christian and that's what you're going to get. Like I said earlier, is you can't separate me from that. That is me. Um, but I also do love you. I love you as a person. God loves you and I want you to know that. And I have had people say before um that I'm a different, like their experience with Christians is different from what they experience with me and in a good way with me. But I feel that that's sad to me.

Yes, that they had a bad experience elsewhere. And sometimes, you know, different things happening, you know, different people happening in different situations. It's just I feel like Christians should show love and kindness and spread God's word, but with love and kindness. And it's sad to hear when people are discouraged or turned away because of certain things. So I feel like the main impactful stories I have are people who were drawn to me and drawn to Christianity through the love and that they say, "Oh, it gives them a second thought on even Christianity. It gives them a second thought on God because their previous experience may have been traumatic or may have been uh sad, you know." So the main impact for on my side is just that when people feel welcomed and loved and open to hearing from me. Um, and I just feel like that is a blessing. And I just thank God that he allows people to find me and that he speaks through me to reach these people who it seems probably would give up on it if they hadn't had a loving experience.

Yeah. I hear so many stories like that. I've got my own whole list of people that I can share all of those with. I usually do ask permission from someone to be able to share that their name or I will share it without a name uh and try to keep them safe as well depending up where they are. So as, yeah, well, I would say the other side that I always I find is those days when it doesn't, I don't feel like streaming. I remember that I'm not there for myself. I'm there for other people and I don't know who I'm there for today. I do, I don't know. And maybe I'm not there for anybody that's new. Maybe I'm there for the regulars who were there who just need to see a friendly face, who just need to lurk in the background because their day is hard and they just need to hear me be with them.

And I get the feeling that there's a lot of people that probably lurk in your streams that have that same uh feeling of I just want to have the love of Wordy Girl wash over me because I know it's a love of Jesus and I and I need that today. And they may never tell you that. Yeah. Yeah. That that's why I said that the main thing is the fact that here you may never know the impact you make on people. You may never know the people who were, you know, touched by your streams. Uh, but the good thing is that you're doing it for God.

Yeah. And he knows. And that's why I just like I like to be in a constant state of prayer and just following what the Holy Spirit leads at any point in time. And like you said, that's different for everybody. Different people may feel to do something one way and people may feel to do something the other way, but God leads us to do things based on the situation as well and based on the people. And it's just a blessing and an honor I feel to even be a vessel of God in this space. And so much potential can happen and so many people can be reached and I may never know all the people who are affected, but that's why it's important as you said to always show up for God.

Yeah. I thinking about those people in your stream. Uh, do you have mostly people that you would think profess to be a Christ follower, people who have been church hurt, people or people that are far away from God, or is it just a whole mixture of things? What is the vibe that uh people find and are drawn into you from? So I personally do know there are some Christians who hang out in my chat that are openly profess Christianity and some people I didn't know were Christians at first and they profess Christianity in my chat. And I also have a Discord server as well. Um, so there are some people there as well. But there are some people who I know that they may be looking, they may be, they're still not certain about their faith, but they enjoy hanging out with the community and they enjoy, you know, feeling, you know, comfort and love and learning with us. So I always welcome people even if you are not a Christian, you can still hang out with us. That's totally fine. Um, but I do appreciate also the Christians that are part of the chat as well. Um, but I do know there are also some people who are atheists who hang out and they just hang out and they still enjoy, you know, hanging out in the community, but they are respectful. They're respectful. They say, "Well, I'm not a Christian, but I know you're a Christian and it's cool to hang out here, you know." Um, so I get all kinds of different people, even people who, you know, are in a different religion or people who are agnostic and they don't know if there's something and they just, you know, so I don't even know what the main demographic of my audience is. I just love everyone and welcome everyone and if anybody has questions I answer them and I just want to be that community for them. And I pray for everyone as I said uh no matter if they're lurking or if they're chatting in the chat or whatever, I always keep them in my prayers.

Yeah. And oh well, I think that's another thing too that some people may not feel comfortable praying out loud and they may not pray on stream, but you have a Discord community and you might have people that share their prayer requests either in the stream or they share them over in the Discord community. And you know, I here's one of the things I've thought of for years and I've tried to do better at it, but it's still really hard is when someone is struggling, we pray and pray and pray and pray when they struggle. I'm trying to figure out how to more frequently pray in celebration when the answer comes instead of praying once, hey God, thank you for the answer and then we never pray about it again.

I actually have done this a couple of times at churches and say we're going to pray for the next month because this was a really big prayer that we've been praying and we're going to pray thank you for the next four weeks. And I know that might be not the way you're used to it, but we're going to do it because this prayer was big enough. We need to keep thanking God and remembering it. Now, after that, people start to get a little tone deaf and dude, we already prayed thank you. Why do we got to keep saying thank you? But if we're really appreciative of what God does and moves, I don't think that there's any stopping point that we can't stop God and stop praising him and stop thanking him for it. In fact, the people of Israel were supposed to remember every year God bringing them out of slavery. So, you know, they had a week-long party because God did something amazing. Every year, let's have a week-long party, you know, because God did something amazing. And I think that's just a fun thing to be able to think about.

Yeah. Because it is very important honestly. Uh, as a lot of people do say, you usually people pray when something's going wrong, when they pray, you know, when they need help, but then once they're okay, they're like, ah, they forget or they just don't think it's necessary. Like I said, they get tone deaf like we already thanked him, but it's like, well, it's good to be in a constant state of thanksgiving. Um, because that's one of the things I like to do. I'm very weird, but I'm a person who like prays like almost twenty-four seven because prayer is just talking to God. So I'm just like telling God about my day or just saying anything. But I like to thank God for every little thing. Just it will seem funny to some, but you know, like all the nature and stuff like all that stuff you talk about you doing like all your fish and all your uh sap and all the nature stuff you do. I can tell you really love nature a lot and I do as well. I don't do all that. You are very uh more into it than me. Uh, but I do appreciate nature and something I like to just do is just thank God for everything.

Um as Jim Bim in the chat says, "Pray without ceasing." Exactly. Um, so there's there's exercises I've seen where uh they're like, "If you only had what you were thankful for, uh what you've said thankful you were thankful for today, what would you have?" And that's an exercise that uh I've seen before.

Like I whether it's the in the Christian light or as in if you only had what you thank God for this morning when you woke up, what would you have?

Or um even in the secular or agnostic point, just if you felt a gratitude, what would you have um if you only had what you last said you were grateful for?

Um, and that's one of the things that even before I even ever saw that, I uh am just the kind of person who I'm like always thanking God for everything, every little thing.

Uh, which I try to make it just a heart posture of always being thankful because there's so much even the little things just like even on Twitch just being able to hang out with you and have this conversation is just such a blessing.

And a lot of people take this kind of thing for granted. And even having internet to even connect to you and everybody in the chat, all these little emojis and stuff that they just seem so little, but they're fun.

And I just I just feel like it's good to be thankful. And it shouldn't be a silly thing to be thankful to God for any anything that you've been blessed with, no matter how big or small it is.

So, yeah, I totally love that. Um, what you said about thanking God for a big thing that has been done. Yeah. Well, I've I I've done this from time to time on my stream and I I kind of go through seasons where I'll do something and then it'll fade away and I'll do something. So, I I know that I that's where I I had to pull up my phone and throw the emoji in there from my other account because I have one that it's I'm blessed and and I Yes, that's so cute.

And oh, I got one other I'm going to show too. Um, let me find it. I love emojis. Like, I don't know. Like, I did not Where have they been my whole life?

I'm missing them. Uh, this this is the thing that should have should have been part of my life for a long time. Uh, there we go.

Oh, did I get banned? Uh oh, you got banned. I got banned. I put too many. I put too many on my Okay. Oh, no.

Anyway, anyway, it's it's yay, God. So, that's the two of the things. So, I had a friend that was a pastor that rather than, you know, praise the Lord and that like you would just talk about what's going on in life and he just go, "Yay, God." Like, that was awesome.

God did that. I adapted that. I I stole it. I straight up stole it from him. He's not. Anybody that wants to go tell Jim Coupeman I stole that from him.

He knows I stole it from him. I have I have done that at every church that I have been at. We have a Yay God Sunday which is which is in the spring at the end of the year and we praise God for everything that God did.

I have postcards that I make up. I write one to every single one of my elders and deacons of what I am thankful for them having done in the last year.

What I've seen God do in and through them. And then I say, "For every one you get, you need to write one to someone else." I actually challenged my elders to write six of them and and send them out.

So, uh, I took that yay God and I turned it into So, I've done that at what see one, two, three, four, five, like six churches that I've done that with.

And it's like if you get a God seeing something in my life and it doesn't have like just something you appreciate about somebody. Hey, I've seen you do this.

Yay God, something great happened for you. Yay God, God did this for you. Yay God, you've overcome this. Yay God, I see you using your gifts and talents.

Uh it just became like there we go. I'm watching. Put it in there. The uh the excitement and the yay God uh emoji there.

Uh but then there there's also the attitude of I'm blessed. And so I would start in my stream saying, "I just feel so blessed today." Uh I I did that for a while.

I haven't been doing it lately, but it's just like I am blessed. Look at all the fish I have. Like and and I have the power and the space.

Like one aquarium, two aquarium, one you can't see, second one you can't see. pond outside. Another bin in the back room that's four foot by eight foot by 18 inches high that I I built because I have too many fish and I need to get rid of them.

But I am caring for them. They the almost all of them that you see here were born in my pond last year, which I'll go back to.

Wow. You know, another moment in time, which my stream knows the story of. I started with five goldfish and now I have all of these.

So, um wow. But I am blessed. I have the capacity to do that. I have all of these hats. I have I have fiber now.

So I have and I know I don't need I don't need this much. But they had a deal and it was the same I was paying.

I've got 5 gigabytes upload and download speed. Nobody needs 5 gigabytes. But they gave me a deal for a year with a locked in price and a $200 gift card back.

And it was the same price I was paying for 300 megabytes. So I'm like, "Wow." I'm going to pay it for a year and decide what I needed.

Yeah, I I'm totally feel blessed by that. I uh I was listening to a podcast earlier where someone was talking about having a VR headset that someone gifted them.

I have a VR headset that someone gifted me. Now I've upgraded and now I'm going to gift that to somebody else. I I've got a monitor sitting to the right of me that's on the fish stream that I got from my wife's work cuz they're cleaning an office out.

Anybody wants stuff? Come and get it. Uh yeah, I have so many things to be thankful for to be to to know I'm blessed.

I just like that process of start your day with appreciating things. And you were talking about how I I do love creation and and love to be in it, which is which is why I set up the camera at my mom's house to watch sunrise and sunsets is cuz that's when I feel closest to God is when I appreciate creation. Because no matter the chaos, anxiety, the stress of my life and my day, if I'm sitting in creation, I feel present with God.

And sunsets are the time I feel closest. I know a lot of people like sunrises. They're beautiful. I like the sunset. And I'm biased.

Me too. Because I live next to Lake Michigan and I don't know if you've been over on this side of the the state often, wordy girl.

But we get a half an hour of sunlight after sunset because the lake reflects the sunlight for a half an hour. The sun is gone, but the light is not gone.

And that's just how I think about God that that you know, he can be something you can't see, but by him you see everything.

I think CS Lewis or Tolkien said that. I can't remember who it was. Yeah. But yeah, that's a blessing and it is so beautiful.

I personally do like sunsets as well. I never lived so close to the water like that. Um but I would in my childhood home the the room that we were in had, you know, just the window was toward the backyard and that's where the sun would set and I just loved how it set through the trees. I just watch it sometimes until it was completely dark. Um, and it's something about the sunset that's just so beautiful.

And I, um, I've been like on the riverfront, the Detroit River front, and when the sun sets, it it's quite lovely. I'm sure it's not as as majestic as it is over on the lake, but um, you'll have to come over sometime.

I'm two minutes two minutes from the lake. I would love to come over there and see because it sounds like you have a whole nature oasis over there.

Oh, I definitely do. I've got uh I got all my fish. There are deer that are in my yard almost daily. The turkeys come through my yard.

So, I've got a garden. Well, I've got a flower garden. Uh well, I've actually this is this is a long-term plan. So, I don't know if you do prayer labyrinths at all or not? Are you familiar with prayer labyrinths?

Labyrinth. Yes. Are you familiar with this? Um I think is it the one where it's like you pray for five immediate people or something?

No, no, no. A labyrinth is an ancient uh thing. So if you go to some really old cathedrals like from the fourth, fifth, sixth century, they will have a mosaic on the floor and usually the pattern if you think of a maze.

So a labyrinth is going to you weave your way in. So the idea behind a prayer labyrinth is you are exiting the world and you are entering into space with God.

When you reach the center you are spending time with God. Now the whole journey is spending time but you are exiting the world entering into the space with God.

You're spending time with God and then you exit back out into the world having been filled and centered in God. And so I don't know when I got introduced to that concept maybe 10 10 years ago somewhere around there 10 12 years ago.

I just started to find prayer labyrinths where I could and I love walking through them. I do them usually once a year at a church and do that around Holy Week and then you can spend time just praying with God.

I set up stations. You don't need to set up stations. You can just have the point wherever it turns is a time time where you stop and pray.

So you'll walk and then it turns, you stop and pray. You walk and then it turns, you stop and pray. The center you stop and pray and then you exit back out.

Some will be a different exit path. Some will be the same exit path as enter depending on if you're supposed to do it alone or with other people.

So Oh wow. Right out my window right now. That's an interesting concept. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think I've heard of it. Okay. I did, like I said, I'm not surprised I didn't run into it until like a dozen years ago and start practicing it.

Uh, I have, if you go back and watch some old videos three years ago, I think when I was in North Carolina, I came across one.

When I was in Iowa, I had a few before I was streaming that that I did. So, anyway, my garden used to be out my window right here.

Last year, I turned it into a flower garden, and the long-term goal is to turn it into a prayer labyrinth. So, right out my window will be a prayer labyrinth.

That will be a flower uh prayer labyrinth. So, as you're walking through, you'll just be surrounded by flowers and butterflies and bees and whatever else.

So, if you're allergic, sorry. Um but um and you could just sit and watch. I'm I'm trying to figure out what I want to do.

If I want a bench in the center that I can just sit in the middle of the space and you'll be able to hear the waterfall up on the top of the hill cascading down.

Um, it's it's a long term. Wait, there's a waterfall over there. Yes. Yeah, I got a waterfall. Oh my goodness. But, you know, that does remind me of like the old Victorian gardens and stuff like that.

They would have labyrinths mazes in their garden. And making it a prayer garden labyrinth would be very lovely. Um, but yeah, I can just imagine that now.

That just sounds like such a peaceful oasis. And yeah, I am allergic to nature as well, but I still like it. Um, now when I'm outside, if the somebody's cutting grass, I'm just gonna be like, "Oh, yeah." Yeah.

And then the pollen counts sometimes. But I still love nature and I love like photography. So I take a lot of lovely pictures in nature so much to the point where I can take a picture in the city and it looks like it's out in the wild somewhere.

Um, but you sound like you live somewhere that is like very undisturbed, nice nature scape. Yeah. I am on the edge of the national forest.

I'm on I'm in the Manistee National Forest. Oh my goodness. That's lovely. I would love to even go over there just to take pictures.

Oh my goodness. I Yes, we need to plan a trip for you to come over here and and I can show you all over the place.

And if you like riding bikes, bring your bike. We have I love bike riding. I do. Okay. Bring your bike because we have the first rail trail that is a state park.

So they made a rail trail from where I live all the way up to Hart, which is 25 miles, 30 miles, whatever it is. So you can ride up there, ride all the way back. There's stops along the way. You can go down into Muskegon, further south. You can ride for a long way along the lake shore and through the trees. It's beautiful.

That sounds so lovely, and that's just amazing that you're surrounded by the nature. And I can tell that you really love like, when I first met you digitally and saw that you had fish tanks and stuff, I'm like, okay, you love nature. I'm like, okay, you're tapping trees. Okay, you're out in the sunset and on the beach and stuff. So I'm like, okay, you're an actual nature guy.

Well, I'm a city nature guy, you know. I don't want to live fully in the woods. I'm in the city right on the edge of all the woods, you know, so I'm still in the civilization.

Yes. I need to have my high-speed internet, and I need to have my store and my bar close by. I don't want to, and my church. I can walk to all of those places or ride my bike.

Um, cool. But I do love like thinking of nature. This is, I've shared this with several people. Like, this is long-term. When I get, I'm in the national forest, so I don't have cell signal half the time. So although I have internet, if I leave my house and go very far, cell signal dies. So I would love to be able to live stream riding my bicycle and have the chat tell me to turn right or turn left or go straight.

Like, oh yeah. I think I heard you talking about that before. That would be very cool. I love that. Like, that is, that is like a long-term. I've wanted to do that since I started streaming. Like, I actually, I want to say three, four years ago, I did try to go do this when I went to North Carolina because they had better internet, and it was just choppy and blurry and cutting out, and it was bad. And I was like, okay, that was a nice experiment, but I need better setup to do that. But like, that's, that's a streamversary thing, I think, is what it might be. Streamversary.

You're, I'm gonna drive. I'm gonna like, you know, people do the 24-hour, you know, subathon or whatever. I'm gonna do a cycleathon. You keep giving. I keep riding. You get to choose which direction I turn. It would be super, super fun.

Yeah, that sounds lovely too. That's a great stream idea, guys. Guys, you guys get ready for it.

Yeah, yeah. Like, it will happen someday. I'm just waiting for a reasonable tech to be able to ride to because I don't want to just ride in the city, you know. I could, I could, that would be more boring.

Yeah, I could probably go to Muskegon and Grand Rapids and ride my bike around there on trails and stream that. Whoop-de-doo. There's a building on the right. I want a deer on the left. I want to stop and you get to see that.

I really got back into riding my bike a few years ago, and it was let me hop on and let me explore. My wife likes to take the rail trail and stay on that. She doesn't like cars. She doesn't want any risk. She wants to, she's also does risk management, so I understand her risk thinking. Um, there we go.

But I'm like, I'm out on country roads and there is nobody around. So I want to see what's down this road. And I see heron, uh, who are out just out in the field. They just flock together. Uh, occasionally a stray dog will chase me down, you know. But if I stay on the regular path, you miss all of those things.

And I think that's true too. I feel like in streaming, those of us who are out there, I love all my gamer friends. So I'm not picking on gamers. You're playing the game. That's awesome. You're reaching people I won't reach. But tomorrow I'm doing a sewing stream. I don't think if I told you that I'm doing a sewing stream tomorrow. I'm super excited about that. Uh, it's going to be fun.

I have a fish stream. I mean, I didn't know people were doing fish streams until I started doing it, and then I found out, oh, there's animal zoos and aquariums. Yes. Let me join that channel. Uh, I do cooking streams. So the, I've seen those too, and I'm like, and I saw people in your Discord was like, I, they need to make smellvision and taste division so I can taste it because it's good.

Well, you know what? If you come over, we could do a stream together, and I'll do a cooking stream, and you can just hang out in the chat with me.

Sounds good. All right. We're making plans for the summer. I'm just saying it's got to happen. So let me know. I really want it to happen.

Yes. In the summer is great because I don't like when it's too cold, like me. I get, I love nature and I love the snow too. I would like to go out there and take pictures in snow too, but I am going to want to go in the house immediately. It's so cold. Um, but yeah, in the summer I'm good. So yeah, that sounds like a good plan.

Yeah. Now, are you the kind of person who gets like too hot where you want it to be like fall or something?

Okay, good. Nope. No, no, no, no, no. I lived in Texas for a while, and so actually, I think one of the things that living in Texas did was get me to decide that, unlike if you grew up in the north, people usually say you can always put layers on if it's cold, but you can't take layers off if it's too hot. Like it's some bragging thing for us to say. I'm sorry. It's too cold and I have to put layers on. It's too cold.

Oh, when I lived in South Dakota, the thing they would say in South Dakota was, "Well, the good thing about being below 32 degrees freezing is it's too cold to snow." That is not a good thing. That is telling you you are too far north, my friend. That is what that is telling you.

Um, but anyway, yeah, I lived in Texas, and I came to really love 90 degrees. That's where my love is right there. 85 to 90 degrees. I love that temperature range, that really narrow right there. You go over it, humidity can ruin it and make that difficult. But yeah, love hanging out in the 90-degree temperature. Go for a bike ride. Actually, in the summer when we hit the 80s and 90s at like 2 o'clock in the afternoon, the bike trail empties out. That's when I want to go biking is when it's the hot of the day because nobody's around. Everybody's hiding, and it's like I get to be here by myself and explore creation. So yeah, that sounds great.

And summer plans sounds good. All right. We really need to talk in Discord.

Yes, we do. We'll make it happen.

Um, so just thinking about that, like, I'm throwing all kinds of things that I didn't plan on. We're talking because we're friends and what we're doing.

Yeah, you can hang out. Uh, you need 60 to 70. Okay. So you just come in May, June, or you come end of September. By the way, September, best, most beautiful month of the year.

Oh, it's just gorgeous. All the colors. All the colors. Exactly. All the activities. The brisk and still hot. That's what you get. You get brisk morning and evening.

Yeah. Love the fall. Uh, but I was going to say, so think about all kinds of experimentation, all kinds. What are you most excited about for yourself and what you see happening in streaming and digital ministry in the next year for you or in the next two years?

Yeah. So like how you were saying you're going to do a sewing stream, I actually knit on stream before. I put Legos together before. Um, I made jewelry on stream before.

Oh.

Um, so I am a real variety streamer, but lately I've been just mainly doing the writing thing. So I feel like in the next year, uh, I want to do more of the things that would show that I'm a variety streamer. So, uh, though I have done things in the past, a lot of people do know me as that writing co-working kind of stream. Uh, which is great. Um, but I did try a VR game. I think it was last year. Um, and it was quite an interesting thing. I want to get back into it. We had a few tech issues, but uh, and plus I was kind of bad at the game, but uh, we ended up uh, winning the whole game. And it was a spy game called I Expect You To Die, which is very interesting. But have you heard of that?

No. No. But I'm not surprised that you like spy games. So, of course.

Um, but yeah, it's basically like kind of like an escape room style game where it was like puzzles, and then you had to like find stuff, and it was like you are in the body of the spy, so you're looking around in drawers and you're finding little things. But then you also had telekinesis, and you could like grab things from the other room. Like it was trying to make it like this makes sense that you're sitting down in one spot, but you're still interacting with the environment. Uh, so it was very interesting, and there's a couple of other, um, uh, games in that series. We played the first one, I know, and finished that one. Uh, so maybe in the future we're going to play another of that series, but I also want to do more in the VR space.

I know that you are in the like the VR chat space, and I've known some other Christian streamers who do that. Uh, I learned of some through the blessing build, some, uh, who like seeing you in the VR space and stuff like that. Um, so I think that the most I'm looking forward to is like more collaboration as well because I've done some collaboration streams, and um, this is really cool, and I feel like this is the smoothest collaboration stream I've done.