EP 23 - What If a Faith Crisis Leads You to Seek God & Share Him More?

All right, welcome in. Welcome in everybody to the Gaming Outpost podcast with the Church Digital. Uh we've got a busy busy day because this is the second podcast of the day.

So those of you who are here for the second time, so appreciate you. Thank you for being here. Thank you for hanging out. Sunshine Games, good to see you.

Um, Ooze. Is it Ooze the 3507 Autobron? Uh, love to see you over there on the other side with Webbby. Let's, uh, go ahead and welcome in.

Webbby Pumpkin's going to be on the podcast today.

Oh, I got a follow.

Thank you for the follow.

All right, go ahead. Uh, Webbby, say hi to everybody.

Hello, everybody. How are you guys doing? I uh I want to go ahead and bring attention you in the chat. Let me know who's has the better hat. You guys, I gotta know because what I didn't expect so I knew this whole time that I was going to wear a flat bill today just because I was like I have to. What I didn't expect was for us to be so color coordinated with it.

Oh yes.

That I didn't expect at all.

Well, okay. I don't know. I don't know if you could see cuz I was I I was sporting the orange for the pumpkin.

Yeah.

And and there's there's a little bit of a a yellowish orange. It's gonna pixelate on screen, but uh there's there is a little bit of that flavor in there, too.

So,

that's why I went with this hat because it's like kind of brown khaki, but it has a little bit of orange here as well.

Yep. And it works with everything from like greens and pastels all the way to browns. I don't think it works too well with like blacks and grays. So, I really need another flat cap, but I'll get there.

I could I could recommend some. I I think

I know you can. I'd be down to hear it, too.

Oh, well, um, yeah, I there are several places online that I usually purchase from, and uh, I'm always on the lookout for a good store that might have a brand I do not know. And I I get told by a bunch of friends I know from across the pond that I should just go there cuz they're a dime a dozen at garage sales and easy to find. And I'm like, you could just buy a whole bunch of them and mail them to me. I wouldn't I wouldn't refuse them. I would I would wear them. I'll do an unboxing. We'll do all this exciting stuff. So, uh I'm I'm always down for that. Um but I did do a flat cap of the month club for a while with Village Hat Company. I don't know if they still do it. It was before COVID that I did that. So, twenty bucks a month. They send you a hat. You open the hat up. I do unboxings and and do all of that. And it's it's kind of fun. You don't know what you're getting that way.

So that's where a lot of them came from. And then I have a bunch of Boston Scullies. And Boston Scullies are always um coming out with really cool designs in in what they're doing.

So you get you get a you getting a little hot with the hat or

No, I just realized I don't know what this is. So I was like I need to be able to tell him what hat this is. Okay.

It's Marks and Spencer is what it says.

Okay. Okay.

I don't know if that rings a bell at all, but Marks and Spencer is what this one is.

Okay. There's there's a lot of pretty good hats out there. So, I think Boston Scully is a company all itself and they just sell direct. So, that's that's fun. Others, you go to a store like uh Village Hat, which is the other coast. It's out in San Diego, I believe. So, I've never been there to buy them, but they have like every style of hat that's out there. So, that's pretty cool. But I

I didn't realize what a world there like flat caps were because I got into like flat bills and like fun hats just as far as like streaming goes. Like I keep the Mario hat nearby. Also, I have my pirate hat and then I got into flat bills because um I noticed one thing I like about flat caps and flat bills is any other type of hat cast a shadow on my face when I'm streaming and then the focus likes to wag weird. So it has to be kind of up here and kind of flat.

Yeah. That's why I don't even have much of a bend in my flat cap. I just keep it kind of straight across so it doesn't distort my face on camera.

Yeah. Yeah. That's well, I don't know. I got it into, you know, long time ago because I thought it was a cool style and it was really hard to find them until internet shopping and now I can find them. So,

yeah.

So, it I would have one, it would take me years to find a second one. By the time I found another one, I'd wear out the one I had and it wouldn't be nice anymore. And but so along the way I've worn all kinds of other hats, too. So I've got a bunch of those, but I don't show them off on stream. They're in a they're in a box. I I bring them out on April Fool's Day and and we we uh we we we go through hats that are not uh flat caps for April Fool's Day. So anyone shows up, they're like, "What's going on?" Um that's what's going on. It's April Fool's Day. I didn't I didn't abandon them. Um that's that's just, you know, we're having fun with that.

So

yeah, I've been a big fan of them because I feel like I love hats in general and this is like the dressier hat. This is the one I don't feel weird about wearing with like the suit or the button down or like to more uh like I wore this uh we went to New York for the first time in June.

Yeah.

Or July, one of those two months. And uh we went to see a Broadway show. We got kind of nice. I wore this hat. So like it just it felt right instead of like a flat cap, you know?

Yeah. It's it's a hat that's working ass, pretty neutral. Uh it can it can dress you up if you're dressed down it and you know but it doesn't overdress you if if you have a suit. I haven't found yeah

really that it goes well with a tuxedo though. It it really doesn't quite match the tuxedo look. But uh you know uh I did I didn't have a tuxedo but I I did have a three-piece suit at my daughter's wedding. And then after the wedding was over at the reception and all that. Yeah. I had the flat cap on for the whole rest of the night. We were we were having a good time there. So, it looked fine. Um,

yeah,

maybe maybe if I got one that was a silk hat, it would look okay with the with the tuxedo, but

I haven't found one of those yet.

That would look good. Not really ready to jump into the whole like top hat, right, for the full tuxedo, though.

Well, I I did have a top hat when I got married. So,

that's amazing.

So, I I got married in a top hat. Uh I wore it down the aisle. I had long tails on, walked down the aisle, had the top hat on. Uh my grandfather, I actually was telling him I wanted a top hat for the wedding. He's like, "Here's a hundred dollars. Go buy one."

Yeah.

And And I tried to find one to buy. I couldn't buy one, so I just had to rent it and then return it. I was I was really upset having to return the hat afterwards. I didn't get to keep it, but

you know,

I would like to have one because I like hats. If I'd known that was an option, I one hundred percent would have wore a top hat at my wedding.

Yeah.

But I didn't. I just did the whole no hat thing.

Yeah.

Yeah. Like most people, no hats for the wedding is is is pretty common. Uh for a long time, I felt like I was living in the wrong era with all the cool hats because by the time I was born, hats were going out. Maybe had trucker hats and and you know, baseball caps were frowned upon unless you were doing sports or you're, you know, at the beach or or recreational like you just didn't wear one normally, but hey, now now we're coming back into the heyday, I think, of hats. I think Peaky Blinders helped with that, too. Love that show. Uh, if people don't know it, that's okay. Yes, it's a very violent show. It's Irish mobsters. I like mobster shows for some reason. I don't know why that is. I I really like watching the genuineness of people who their life is horrible and they're trying to figure out a way and they don't have a legitimate way that they see as a possibility to go forward. So, they just end up finding a pathway to help their family survive and they end up doing crime. And I don't know, I find that fascinating.

Yeah. I um this is not necessarily crime, but I got thinking about like hats and what's bringing them back. I'm very excited about it because I'm kind of grew up in the idea that like hats were disrespectful especially like being around churches and everything and I just don't agree.

So, right. Uh now I understand like

just like you I would wear certain attire to a funeral out like I probably wouldn't wear my jersey shorts like there are different hats for different occasions but uh but like I don't think there's anything inherently disrespectful about a hat. I think they're awesome. So yeah, I hope they come back. I want full swing hat approval. So

yeah. Well, it's it's where there's a level of respecting the space too where people are at. So yeah, you won't see me you won't see me in a pulpit preaching with a hat on because there's a level that feels like people will think it's disrespectful. So I won't do that. But

if we're doing a conference in a church setting and I'm on stage and I'm not I mean I might still be teaching from the Bible but I'm not preaching

and we're not doing a worship service.

I feel okay to have a hat on. Some people might still question it, but I don't feel I'm crossing that line that everybody's going, "Oh my goodness, how were disrespectful." I also like to point out they wore turbans in the Old Testament, and there's plenty of passages that talk about put a new turban on, and that the priests of Aaron were wearing turbans while they were serving in the presence of God. So, to me, it really feels like, no, they're part of it uh of of being able to serve God. No, we don't have to follow all of that. and and culture kind of dictates sometimes what's acceptable and what's not. And and so I I like to say I don't want to unintentionally offend you, but if I'm intending to offend you because I want to challenge your thinking around things, I'm okay with it. It's the accidental ones that I like to stay away from. Oh, I didn't know this would offend you. Let me let me let me change that. But if I'm intentionally going, no, I'm going to I'm going to do this because I know you're going to

take offense in some way, then then we have a conversation starter. We have something to be able to talk about of how do we grow, what is what is causing that for you, those kinds of a things.

So,

Mhm.

but uh I I do have to say I I'll dig in the hat. So, I appreciate you uh coming in and and doing that.

Of course,

I've I've had a few people that have them and they're like, I'm I'm going to be on a podcast with the flat cap, so I'm going to I'm going to be bringing bringing my a game today.

I look for excuses to wear it. Even like when I bought it, like part of my excuse to go ahead and like put the money down and buy it was that I knew I could make a post and tag you in it, be like, "What do you think about my hat?"

So I did. I did exactly that.

Yep. And I saw it. I'm like, "That's a nice hat. Like it."

Yeah.

I've been thinking um for Reach Conference coming up since the whole theme is like cosplay and stuff like that. That flat cap dapper pumpkin sounds like a really nice cosplay, but I don't know if it's I don't know if it's fully going forward.

Well, I I do have um at least the two of the outfits that I'm planning for Reach Conference will have a flat cap on. So, one of them the one of them the character doesn't actually have a flat cap, but uh the way that I made the costume together, I needed to have a like black hoodie that went over that. Then I've got horns that go on top of it. I didn't have that yet. So, I just put one of my black hats on.

Put the horns on. The horns look like they're coming out of the hat. I like that looks awesome. So it's just my modification on that one.

And the other is going to be a Scottish dressed in a kilt. And so, well, you got to have a flat cap with that.

So those are two of them I've got figured out. I'm still debating on the third costume. And I don't know if I'm thinking about doing a person and they don't wear a flat cap, so it'll be different.

Hey, Pre-Pony. Welcome in.

Pre-Pony. Love that. I appreciate what I'm about to share with you since you just shared with me some of your cosplay plans.

It's a pretty known fact around my channel that I love Spyro the Dragon. He's my absolute favorite game of all time. Last year Reach Conference actually happened on Spyro Community Day, which is the anniversary of the game.

So my wife actually cosplayed as Spyro while we were there. Well, this all got out and everything, and a viewer probably inspired by Pri, he actually bought for me for Christmas a Spyro onesie.

But the thing is Pri has the same onesie and it's very much like, "I want a Spyro onesie. We have Spyro at home." Like it's a little bit of that, but this is on the possible list of things I'm bringing to Reach Conference. So do with that as you will, Brie.

I know you have one, but I think you definitely should bring it. And maybe it's not the one you wear at one o'clock for the photo picture and all of that, but you should bring it out as well.

So, you know, maybe this is just like the hotel, like maybe these are my pajamas, you know?

There you go. Imagine it's just your, it's your when you're not at Reach, you know, just walking around in that so everybody knows it's you.

Yeah, yeah. It's Florida. I don't think I'll even get that much attention. Yeah. And Pri had the unicorn onesie onesie last year.

Yep. You know what? I'm just throwing, I also have one of those. It's technically my wife's, but a few years back Pri and I did this Fortnite-like feud between our communities called the Pony Pumpkin Feud.

Oh.

So I got a unicorn onesie, went out in the backyard and filmed a whole video about basically this midlife crisis. Everything went, I was pretending to be Pre and like my whole, like you found me on the streets. My whole life was a wreck and everything. And it all started when she got beat so bad by the pumpkins during the Pony Pumpkin Feud.

Okay.

So I've got that video ready to go.

Well, you know what? You could just bring the unicorn onesie and you could go as Pre-Pony.

I could, technically my wife, it's a little tight, but you know, but it was great. We made merch around it. That's what Pri's talking about there. Her husband bought one of them. It was great.

And I loved that. And I love that her husband bought it.

That's awesome.

It was a whole thing. It was a lot of fun. We didn't really win, but Pre was generous and we called it a tie.

So yeah.

Well, I think everybody wins when you are bringing more communities together. There's just something I find amazing and fantastic about being friends on mission, being able to share what you're doing with other people, lift up the kingdom and all of that stuff as opposed to what could easily happen in some realms is, "Well, I'm striving to be bigger. I'm striving to make it so if I share my community with you, they'll go watch you. I'll lose my community. I need to keep everyone here."

And I just don't think that's how the New Testament did it.

I think they had their gifting and they went different ways. God was leading them and growing them and they ministered where they were. And I just love all of the New Testament stories through the book of Acts are just so fascinating to me of what God did, how he raised up, you know, the twelve and then he raised up the seventy and then there's the one hundred twenty on the day of Pentecost and pretty soon they have, you know, thousands of people coming in and then it's like, "We got such a big problem, we got to have a new role of deacon," and then the deacons are out doing stuff. I mean, it's just pretty cool.

Well, and also it's interesting because that fear or like that lie around, "They'll go watch this other person," maybe happens in like the off cases occasionally, but in practice that I found, that's not even what happens anyway. You just kind of all enveloped together. And if you're two people are live at the same time, it is not very rare for like if Pri and I are live at the same time, a person's got us both tabbed up.

That happens with Pony and I all the time.

Oh yeah, that our community is almost the same community at this point because we, I joke that he and I monopolize each other since we do the podcast every week, right?

And we're, it's just one community. It's really, really cool. So that's what I see. I see that maybe there's a few edge cases, but for the most part, they just end up watching more people sometimes at the same time on Twitch.

Yeah, yeah. And the other blessing is so if you're in an ecosystem within Twitch and all of a sudden you come into a new ecosystem. So like there are other communities out there and I've had a plenty of them here. Like God's Many Blessings, Hopeful Disasters, DC4C, Taco, you know, those are all in addition to Reach Conference.

And there's more I'm not even naming that I'm probably forgetting that there's ecosystems of streamers who collaborate, they work together, they have similar goals.

Well, when any one of those two overlap, it just blesses the kingdom with more people getting exposure to other people that are on because I know at my regular time of schedule when I'm streaming, it's in the morning.

So what are people doing who find me one day but like, yeah, morning's not my regular time. I can't watch all the time. Well, if I can introduce them to you and you're on at six PM, they've got a whole another set of people they can watch and see what's going on and just be blessed by that.

And it goes both ways with that because I've done a few things where I'm accidentally streaming later than I'm used to and someone, we have a person named Emmy who is super sweet. She is somewhere in Australia. So when she's watching my stream, she is like getting up early, getting ready for work, right?

It's one of those kind of things. So you are the perfect fit for her because your morning stream is her afternoon, you know, like it is when she's ready to just like unwind and watch in the evenings.

So yeah, that's, I used to see it as like a challenge because I'm the person that feels like the not super supportive friend that doesn't get to go watch things because so many people stream when I'm at my day job.

But that's the other way that I can do it is like, "Hey, we're kind of a relay. Like we're kind of tagging each other out."

Yeah.

Yeah. And Pri is saying, "Be less worried if people are eating what you're serving and be more worried if people, if they're fed."

Oh, that's just so good.

Hmm.

Well, he has an act for coming into my stream and saying really profound things that I never say nearly as well. And then just, and then she'll just kind of like Batman, like just kind of go back and be like, "Yeah, I said something awesome." And then just back in the shadows and then she comes up, she's like, "Here's a nugget of wisdom. Peace." And she'll just roll back out again. But she's always got like the best things.

Oh yeah, yeah. Well, I know last year as we were preparing for Reach and we were going through and doing Alpha, like I mean I've done Alpha many times but my setting has always been with a physical church with people who are present. I was learning so much from the way that she was adapting things and adding things and had insights. I'm like, I was just like, "Go tell me more." It helped me understand how do I adapt what I've known and what I've understood, what I've been doing to a different culture and a different people that need to be reached differently.

So that was just fantastic. Yeah, she's got plenty of wisdom. So I guess, I guess Pri, I'm going to have to get you here on the podcast at some point down the road. You know, I'm not about begging either. So you know, we can, you know, it's not above me. I'll definitely beg some people to get them on here eventually.

But I like, I did like, like I told you before we got on, I don't know where the conversation's going to go. I have some intentional questions that I want to ask everybody as they come on, but we just started on hats and the conversation just went in a direction.

But I do always like asking because one of my hopes with this podcast is that people who are wondering whether they can do this or not, their church isn't giving them support, they can point people in their church to this podcast and say, "Look, there are a whole bunch of Christians who are following after God. This is what they're doing online. I'm feeling called to it. It's legitimate." So I want to help legitimize people who are feeling called by God to share with their church, their leadership, whatever, and be able to see there's a lot of people, not just one or two people, not just a couple of people that are pretending to game and claim that they're doing it for Jesus. They really are. And the other thing is to be a place of encouragement to say, "Hey, there are people just like you. If you're struggling, if you overcome things, if you're trying to do this, like don't do it alone. Be in community with other people that are doing it.

It's so much easier to be in community, have encouragement, take your prayer request, all those things to other people. So I find that just super fun and encouraging.

So I hope that's what the podcast does for people, those two things.

Yeah, I think sometimes those moments really make a big impact on the streamer themselves, too.

So a piece of my story is I was kind of already doing that. I was working at like a big church, big for my state. I was working at a big church. I was working on the communications team. I was making video and music content. Like that was the whole, my whole shebang, working and managing social medias and then started liking streaming.

I was not doing it on Twitch. I was doing it on this little place nobody's heard of called Mixer. But I was doing that there and making it work.

And we paid a pretty good, I don't even remember the name of the company that put this on. We paid a nice little chunk of change to basically do a communications conference like chatting with people, right?

And it was like one of those like slog kind of days. I hate to say it that way, but you're just in video chats all day long. You're taking notes and like thirty percent of this is good and some of it you're like, "Well, that doesn't really fit what we're doing, right?"

And then the very last guest had everybody in the room look at me, which was really cool. It's this guy that no one's ever heard of called Jait Life.

Oh, yeah. No one's heard of him.

Yeah. And it was incredible because he was there and he was talking about like basically Twitch as a mission field.

Yes.

And I had not thought about it in that way. I was just trying to like promote pumpkin positivity. And what that looked like was being here for each other.

Uh trying to start and make this part of the internet better than we found it. And laughing together, praying together. There's like a prayer redemption and those these little pieces that just felt like what you would do with buddies on the street, you know, like talking doing that.

But I never even thought about how big this would be. Jump forward. Uh, I was following and being followed by Jay like on Twitch and Twitter and everything.

By the end of that night, he and Ay had already connected with Oy a little bit. They actually came on to my podcast. And that's when I realized that this heart is more than just were big because at that time Ay wasn't a partner yet, but he was still significantly bigger than me.

And it was really cool that they both took the time to just come on and talk about pursuing your goals without compromising your convictions was our whole like feel.

Uh where that gets really cool and the reason I bring it all up is that that set a foundation for something I didn't know was going to happen in my life.

Uh and like meeting people like pre uh who I met through someone who suggested one of us to each other that's not a believer at all and just was like you guys would connect and we and we did uh through Twitch all around the time that I went through something that a lot of Christians go through. I didn't know it at the time. I didn't know there was a name for it, but there is a name.

It's called a faith crisis. Uh I stopped working at the church. I started really not deconstructing, I call it remodeling. I really started remodeling what I believe looking into like the early church.

And that's when you got like when I saw you at Reach for the first time, I was like, I know this guy. Like, and I knew you more than you knew me.

That was the story of all of it though. Like I went up to Susie and was like, I know you. We've chatted. You don't know me.

I'd like to introduce myself. Like that kind of thing. And um anyway, re I had never heard of Alpha.

Alpha I agreed to do it kind of on a whim. I was kind of coming back into like the faith and it was just this like culture if you will, not like like culture like bacteria.

Like it I was trying to grow and it just threw me into this spot like this sugar dish where the Twitch community and and reach started being this just upward momentum force for me.

And it like I don't I don't make it up when I make posts about how you should come to Reach Conference next year because it legitimately changed my life.

It legitimately changed my life. It helped uh me to have like a a community of people who get it because nobody else in my IRL life gets this whole talking to people and playing games on the internet thing.

Like yeah, especially like churches, they're like, "What are you doing?" You know, if you get it and you also love Jesus, so like it's it was just really cool.

Sorry. Go ahead. I'm I'm No, no. You're okay. You're okay. It's all good stuff. Um there's there's a level of which it you know this is one of those things like pastors need to be in groups with pastors because only pastors can understand what pastors go through.

Yes. And you go try to tell tell that to your elders and deacons. There are stuff you can't tell them because they won't understand.

They won't grasp it. They're not going through it. And then there's also a level at which hey this jeopardizes my position in the church if I share too much because you won't understand and you'll view it differently.

So it's the same way that if you do not know and understand Twitch culture, it's a whole another culture. I mean, if you were to be a missionary and go to go to pick whatever country you want to uh let's just say Pakistan, are are you going to go into Pakistan and not go and study the culture to know what is proper attire to wear? What are what are hand gestures or other things that might be offensive if I do?

Are you going to just go in there and say, "Well, uh I'm I'm I'm happen to be from the Midwest and you know what?

Sarcasm is a great way to talk to people. So, I'm going to go in and be sarcastic to everybody that I meet. And like, they probably are going to have no idea what that is.

They're going to take you incredibly, especially like where I'm from. You give no hint that you're sarcastic. And it sounds like you're dead serious.

That's how we use sarcasm in such a way like, you know, I one example was my brother and I were doing a a email text message back and forth before texting, but basically we're emailing back and forth.

He had visited a church and he I said, "Oh, so how was it?" And then there was a reply back, "Well, I got really excited when they brought the snakes out." I go, "Oh, I love when they bring the snakes out." And like if you read that chain of thread, you would think,

"You guys go to snake handling churches?" No, we we don't. There was no part of that that was truth except we both knew and understand it because of our relationship and all of those things.

You can't take and transplant all of those things into another culture without studying where you're going first. And so yeah the uh that whole mindset of and you mentioned this earlier which was the shift that I had during co I had been doing a lot of digital ministry but my focus was always on the local church and helping them to have community and if they can't be present how do I build in community using digital during co I saw Twitch and I saw the mission field that was the shift for me was wait a minute here's a whole bunch of people.

And if you just take gamers as a whole and we take Twitch right now, there are a million people probably watching a Twitch stream right now.

If there were a million people in a country and and let's just take the number of gamers, 3.3 billion people. If there were that many people on a continent where we say, "No, they have to come across the sea over to where we are and they have to come into our building and then we can share the gospel with them." You people would look at you like something's wrong with you. But we treat certain groups of people within society in that way at times.

And and Twitch I mean my Twitch opened my eyes to the mission field that is digital and then the gaming that is there that it's like wow there's a bunch of people will never come through the doors of my church for a whole bunch of reasons and I can go right to them and I can be in the palm of their hand. So that that's kind of like a little bit of how I got started. So I know you talked a little bit about some background that you're having.

What was the thing that brought you to Twitch? And then why did you decide to go? Because you said you were in a couple other places.

So, what's the what's the whole story of starting in Twitch? And was it intentionally uh being a missionary in that space? That's my word.

Doesn't have to be yours, but a missionary in that space, bringing light in the dark place, or was it you were there for a while and then God called you to to step into being a missionary there?

Yeah. um trying to share Jesus like just that bluntly was actually not what I would say was like the forefront of what started it all.

Uh though in a lot of ways I think it was. I just didn't really that's not the language I would have used. But no, I started on this little thing called mixer.com.

I did it because I was already toying with it. I had started playing this uh really obscure game called Fortnite. And I was liking it because when I moved to college, I moved away from most of my community.

Like all my friends from high school, all my friends from church or the closest ones were two hours away from me. We rarely talked because I was busy down here.

I was getting well getting married and then was married during the time of playing uh Fortnite. And so my whole life basically was shifted to the center being the city I'm living in now that's away from everybody, away from my parents, away from my siblings, everything.

I never had really played online like games, but found Fortnite. They introduced it to me and I was like, "Yeah, I'll try that." I just bought an Xbox.

Why not? And I started playing it and I was like, "This is fun." I was absolute dog water at it. Uh, and now I'm like like like tap water.

I'm not dog water, but I'm I'm okay. Uh, still we're not dieting or anything, but what I loved about it is I found that I was talking to my friends again.

Like almost every night we were chatting and it was it was great to just catch up and and be doing that. and I I just fell in love with the talking to people aspect.

Well, then I jumped into this game called Sea of Thieves. I was still playing with Mr. Whittier Jones, one of those friends who was my first mod who's been here the whole time.

Shout out to him. Incredible guy. He and I were playing and we ran into a streamer on the seas that uh he doesn't even stream anymore, but he was streaming on Mixer because it was simple and we were on a sloop.

we weren't very good and it was one of the most incredible like we stayed up till like 2:00 in the morning just playing with these people.

One of the most incredible experiences and what I wanted to do was I started looking at Mixer I like trying to figure that out and so much of the stuff was just stuff that I didn't really want to watch.

And so the catalyst for me streaming was that it should be easy. It sounds like it might be fun and I want to make content that is friendly for children.

Yep. So, uh that was kind of the idea. I wanted to make something that like the family could watch. that is that terminology has shifted in me.

I don't want to be blippy. Uh I want to be family uh family safe. Um inspirations for me like a have kind of molded that and Jake where I realized that I I don't want to not talk about hard things because they're hard things and you wouldn't want to talk about that with kids. But I'd also am going to try to be as appropriate as I absolutely can. And if it gets on that line, I'd rather point people to help and more resources than to go too into it here.

But that's how it all started. What brought me to Twitch was uh Duress. Uh Mixer sold. There was a lot of things that were happening and so they didn't they didn't really sell.

They closed operation, but let's be real, they did. We all got messages saying, "Hey, we're here have an opportunity to be fasttracked into Facebook gaming." That didn't work.

No. But I tried Facebook gaming and then I made a Twitch account and I was like, "Let's just have this just in case." But I don't understand how the purple place works.

And uh long story short, now I I like bleed purple. Like I I love Twitch. It's the place. I think it's the place to be.

I love YouTube. I love the other options, but Twitch is just the most the culture around streaming and and and chatting here is the best.

And from there, I had just such a warm welcome. AI, that's how I met him. So, I like I started and uh I think my bio my bio was something like Mixer Migrant or something like that.

Like I was making my way over brand new. So, I gave up on Facebook pretty quick because it Facebook was great to get a lot of views but no retention because people are watching on their lunch break and gone.

So, I never I didn't get to do the thing I wanted to do which is chat with people and then it doxed everybody. People didn't like that because some like my family members would come in and it have their like full legal name there and they're like I don't like that this random dude knows my name now. So, they didn't love that. That put me on purple. Aie raided into me just trying to love on the mixer people.

I thought that was super sweet. Connected me with him. Then I'm, you know, I met Jake through other means. Uh, started streaming, found this dude named Shorty that came over like who was one of the day ones and was very, very blessed to be affiliate at the end of my first week streaming.

Like so many people had just poured into the Mixer migrants. And from that point, I was like, you really can't make any money on this platform. Like I made barely anything on Mixer, too, but I was like, wow, Twitch is literally shavings of pennies. Uh but that wasn't about that.

And I've never been good about the marketing me anyway. I always want to give away this like the service. Give it give it give it.

Yeah. And so uh it just I don't know on wrapped I love then I started feeling really good about it. I like high production value. I liked when people came in and told me about like hard times and being able to chat with them. I loved the people who were coming alongside me and it just kind of naturally like just morphed into that.

And then went through my faith crisis like I was talking about Jesus and I would pray with people but I was still dealing my turmoil to the time that now that I've come on the other side of the like the crisis of faith and feel really really like rooted in faith. I want to talk to people who were like me 10 like four years ago.

Yeah. And that lit me up like I I want people to come in and be like this is why I struggle with God or like God hurts me and and all this. And I'm like let me tell you I agree. This was the argument I heard for why God isn't real because of this and this is what I found and I want to talk to you about it.

And that's what lit me up. I got that's why I enjoy talking with Pony so much because he being a Catholic is all about early church. And so we don't agree on everything but we sure do like to talk a lot. And so it's been great and that's all I want.

I want to encourage people no matter what they did land on denominationally like I have preferences but uh no matter what they land on there I want to encourage people that this Jesus idea that they have just like me might be heavily influenced on what they've heard and not what is and I want them to know what is.

So yeah that's that was a lot of wind so apologies. No, no, no, no. The the the podcast is for me to ask you questions so that people can can learn about what you're doing, where you're at, where you've come from, all of those kinds of things. So, it's it's not for me to talk about myself that I can do that on my own stream. Uh, all right.

I do want to we I there was a bunch of of comments that were were coming in there, but a lot of people in agreement about what Twitch does really well is community. Other platforms have tried to do community. What I think I see a lot of the church, the big C church railing against social media gets put on Twitch, but Twitch is not the same thing because it's not like you go on Twitch and you're just scrolling through things.

You're not. I mean, maybe you could do that, but you got to go from channel to channel. It's not set up like that. It's set up to go and spend time with people.

Yep. And time is the commodity that you are giving and offering people in the space. And then if they want more time then we can transfer over into Discord or other places where you can gather in community and and be there.

It's it's we talk about this at the church digital all the time. Content leads to connection leads to community. And if your content is not connecting with people and it doesn't bring them the community, then all you are is somebody that people will watch for a while and then they'll find the next person and you could be, you know, going viral and a year later nobody's watching you and you're also then at the whim of people who will judge you because they don't know you.

So, if I hang out in your stream hours and hours and hours and I hang out in your community in Discord for hours and hours and hours and I hear something about you, I'm going to ask you. Uh, I'm not going to jump on the bandwagon of of you know, any of the hate that goes on and the trolls that go on that you can have with comments of anything that gets posted, people can take offense at.

We were talking earlier about hats and the church and boy, if that was just a post and it was just a tiny, you know, two-minute little thing, boom, the the the chat blows up with a bunch of people yelling their point of view and there's no relationship.

But relationships get built and you're you're just giving great examples of how people were investing in you uh as you were getting started on Twitch and and that's how I got started, too. People invested in me and I'm always looking also for newer people to invest in them. Uh like I found Northill Live when he was getting started and uh spent some time uh investing in in North Hill.

By the way, North Hill is here. So those that um do not know or or haven't uh watched any of the other podcasts, the Church Digital um has uh four summits that are coming up this fall. The fourth one is October 8th. It is the gaming summit. And so we're going to be talking about who's your one, how are you reaching them?

And uh and North Hill is going to be one of our speakers at uh the summit. So really excited about that. U so he's going to be there. He's going to be helping. He's going to talk about what he his experience as a pastor and planting churches and then how did he adapt that and bring that into uh streaming and and that environment.

And boy, I've got so much stuff to learn from from North Hill. It's like, yeah, if if you're humble enough, you can take and learn from anybody else cuz everybody is excellent at something and there's something to offer everybody else in in what they are bringing to the table and sharing. And um I'll just tie this back in. I did see ooze your question there earlier of how do you get started? There are any number of ways to get started.

Uh, and and as I bring people on the podcast, I'm always asking, "How did you because my how did I get started is different than your how do you get started?" I I went watching Twitch because I was sitting at home during COVID unemployed and so I had a pastor friend online and I started watching him and and then he just kept telling everybody to go follow me uh cuz I'm going to stream and I'm like, "No, I'm not. I'm not going to do that. Why would I do that? I'm I'm going to I'm going to lick my wounds for a while. I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna heal up and I'm going to go find another gig in a church.

And God just said, "No, you're not." Start listening to these people that that that are investing in you and and caring for you in your time of need. And then you can turn around and do the same for other people. I'm just trying to catch up on some chat.

You're good. Um yeah, North Hill Twitch is fellowship. Oh my goodness. it is uh unlike basically all other platforms. I do appreciate that uh YouTube is trying to create a community, you know, group. I don't know if it's going to take off. I mean, it's like Facebook group. It can happen, but I have a feeling it's almost like you have to have the ex pre-existing community to get a Facebook group to actually be successful.

Um otherwise, it's hard for people to find you on Facebook. You know, where do I go to go look and search for somebody if it doesn't show up in my feed? I'm never gonna find it unless it's word of mouth. I'm wondering if YouTube's going to be the same thing with communities there, but I I'm maybe maybe it will change, but communities and Twitch seem to have a way of finding each other, you know, and connecting and building and growing.

I think it's a lot to do with the culture of Twitch already because like if I do even a live stream on YouTube, it's very difficult to raid or host someone else. and I can only do it if that channel has given permission to be hosted into by me. So like it's almost impossible to just organically or accidentally send people over to other places and Twitch that is just the norm, you know, like what do you do at the end of a stream?

Well, most of the time you raid someone else and then you have some discretion over who and why you raid them, but like everybody here is pretty much always trying to pour into another person. That's just not something I see on YouTube until like like there's collaborations in videos, but right until there's more of a like a structure for it to be just really easy to stumble into someone else's community like that, it's gonna I think YouTube's going to have a hard time creating that fellowship feel.

Yeah. Um, Crimson was saying a little quiet on Webby's stream. I'm I'm not sure who's a little quiet. Turn that up. Is it Is it me on my side? So, I bet I just don't have my microphone loud enough. Well, I'm just clarifying. Is it me or is it you that's that's too quiet?

So, Oh, that's a great question. Yeah, I don't know. I'm turning me up and if he still is like no, then I'll know to turn you up. Yeah, we may. Yeah, it's like which which way who are we turning up? So, right. I can do both. Oh, both are quiet. Okay, I can fix that. All good.

All right. Uh yeah, pre- pony haven't scrolled for a year. I know uh your people and when they're on occasionally you meet a new friend on X or something and you'll click their post saying uh they're live, but you really only use uh Twitch SEOs. Yeah. or you don't really use Twitch as SEOs. Yep.

Yeah. My pleasure, Crimsonite. No worries. Sorry. Go ahead. Go ahead. Oh, no worries. I I don't usually watch live anywhere else. Um unless I already know them, you know that because the chat just isn't there when I go to watch live and and this is if you're going live on another platform.

I'll watch the VOD later where I could put it on double speed. uh because it's not most other places don't have community and a lot of them aren't good with engaging chat either when they're live. They're live and chat might engage chat. So for me like it is all around the community of what you're doing and sharing with them and and bringing them into the conversation while while we're talking.

Yeah, I think that that is such a good like vein to think about too when it comes to Twitch because I am trying to get more and more comfortable with the idea that it's really not about what I'm doing on Twitch. And some of my best times I've ever had have just been in just chatting streams where I put so much thought, probably too much thought into what I'm going to play or what I'm going to do that's going to be entertaining for people so that they'll stay there and talk to me when honestly most of the time if I just talk, they'd stay there and talk to me.

Yeah. And even right now, like I'm I ran a test tonight because I've been using the podcasting category during my podcasts. as I'm live streaming this with you. Yeah, I chose to keep just chatting as the uh category, right? And I I have a theory and it seems to be right that that just works better and we're still doing the same thing.

We're still recording something and talking, but it's not it doesn't have to be categorized as a podcast because people like just chatting and especially since we're interactive with chat anyway. That's what we're doing, right? I I I use the podcast because I'm intending to make it to be a podcast. Uh, so some people use the category with this is it and it's nothing more.

But if you're doing it and it's recorded and it's shared elsewhere, that's where I've felt I I'll use the podcast and talk show. But I do know I've gone into the category and people engage do not engage chat at all.

They are simply taking their podcast and streaming it on Twitch. And that's not a whole lot different in my opinion than some of the churches who they have someone in their community that convinces them the church service should be on Twitch as well.

So they live stream, but they don't know about community. So they're just live streaming thinking that the gospel will get out and people will watch it.

And it's like that ain't, that is not the culture here. You don't just go live and people will show up. You have to engage the people that do show up.

The church that I currently attend right now, they have the foresight to know that it's a good idea to stream to YouTube. So they always put their messages up on YouTube live. The only two things I don't like about it, and I've shared this grievance, but you know, what do I know? But I've shared this grievance, is that their thumbnail for every video is the logo of the church. The titles are different, but that is what it is.

And this has gotten better, but it broke me. One day I started messaging the music director. I was like, "We got to do better about this." Because no one is monitoring the live chat on the YouTube video.

And there was a person that was literally like, "Okay, I want to know more about this." Crickets. Yeah. You know, I don't know that anyone ever got back with them.

And at some point maybe I don't know if they were even still there for someone to go and try to like private message them later if that's even possible.

So if you're going to do it, like do it as close to like strive for perfection. I know none of us are perfect, but if you strive for doing it just absolute best you can, you'll land among excellence.

Like really try to do it because that's that connection was way more important than the production, like just meeting that one person. And I think that about when it comes to, uh, well when it comes to streaming here, that's why I don't feel like it's about me.

Also, sorry, my dog decided he needed to be on the podcast. Um, when it comes to streaming here, it, that's what it's about. People want to talk about how their day was.

People want to ask questions. Lately for me, a lot of theological questions, and I'm like, y'all do remember I'm a streamer, right? Like, I'll try.

I'm an armchair apologist. Well, that's what it's about. Yeah. And there having conversations about theological things should be honest.

So it doesn't mean you have to have all the answers. So to the point where you can engage with your knowledge and understanding is what you can do for people because for instance I have pastor in my title.

So there's a certain number of people who will not show up in my stream because they might feel intimidated. They might feel that whatever they view pastors are.

So they might never come to my stream, but you not having that in there gives them more freedom to ask questions because they don't feel intimidated to ask a Christian questions about their faith.

So it opens the door to the questions. Don't like, don't feel like you have to have the answer. I don't have all the answers.

There are a lot of things that like if you ever watch my stream or reading through the Bible, I'll just plain up say, you know, there's this theory or this theory or this theory to explain what this passage is saying.

And I don't think I like any of those explanations. They don't sit well with me in light of all these other things. I don't know what to do with it.

And so I will say that now. Most churches I've been in would be like, "You can't do that from the pulpit." Okay, maybe not.

But I'm going to stream and so I'm going to be honest with the people coming in and not pretend like I know all the answers.

I don't know all the answers. Um, Peter, Andrew, James, and John didn't know all the answers before the crucifixion. They didn't know them after the resurrection.

They may have started to get them after the day of Pentecost. And I still think they were growing because we got Acts 15 where they're arguing about what should we do with the Gentiles.

So your faith is an ongoing growing thing that happens in community. It happens with scripture. It happens with the Holy Spirit, and it just continues to grow and evolve.

So yeah, don't feel intimidated because you're, you know, you don't have a title or you're not a theologian or like one of the most beautiful things that was ever said in scripture in my opinion was when Peter and John were arrested and they said these are uneducated men but they were with Jesus so we can't argue with them. It was like that is the most beautiful thing I think that there is, is like if people say you feel like you've been spending time with Jesus, like you really know him and you're uneducated.

I mean that to me, that'd be the greatest compliment I could hear is someone saying well you don't have all the degrees that all those television pastors have.

No I don't. I'm not going to pursue anymore. Um, I don't need them. What I need is just time in the word.

Time with other Christians. Iron sharpens iron. So that to the degree you ask good questions helps me to think through things that maybe I haven't before.

So yeah, I just kind of encourage you with that man.

Thank you. Sorry, Pri. You are Pri, is just like we could just spend all the time just engaging with everything that Pri is saying.

I'm just I'm just going to say this. Pri, I'm not gonna ignore you, but I can't keep up with everything that you're putting in there.

No, no, no. Don't be sorry. Chat, I'm sure can handle that. I can't. I can't take on all of those things at the same time.

I'm going to miss stuff. So I'm just letting all of those people who only tune in and watch this or only listen to it and don't see, cuz I don't put the chat in.

So if you're watching the VOD later, you miss all of the chat conversation that's going on, which is amazing. I love that. Um, I actually figured out this the other day and I had to tell my wife why I really really love um mediums that we finally have of um I can be watching, somebody can be presenting and I can be in the chat and I can be putting emojis and I can be putting gifts in there and I can be putting comments because this is how my brain has always worked.

And I was a kid in the back of class that was always talking when the teacher was talking and processing things out loud, questioning things out loud, goofing off and entertaining my friends next to me.

I can do that and it's socially acceptable in these kinds of spaces to do all of those things and not be disrespectful to the people who are sharing and talking and all that.

So Pri, I'm not saying stop. I'm just saying I would love to keep up, but I'm gonna lose my train of thought in the conversation if I stop every time.

You have great points there to be able to bring it up for everybody. So it's just a plug to say if you're not in Twitch and you don't know what it is, you need to come check it out once or twice.

Yeah, I'll summarize some of her early one, too. Back to the Pony Pumpkin feud. And uh she says that it's one of the messiest collabs ever.

And boy, is she telling you the truth. We couldn't get anything to work right. I didn't have a creator code at the time. We were using hers to try to get everybody into the same matches within Fortnite and then everything wanted to crash and like it was just absolutely the, not maybe not the lowest production value that you can imagine, but we were trying for that honor of getting the lowest that you can imagine.

And uh she said that so many like connections were made in that that stay. There are people who played together that night that still call each other teammate even though like it's not exactly like that was the like the show, you know, it wasn't like we did the best thing.

Uh but it really worked out. And then uh later she talks about how um we spend more time talking about how the things that we wish that we had like that tech or whatever and showing that that's what we're valuing.

Uh and our mission is to build community. We should be more focused on the community than the game or the tech problems or whatever.

Something I think she does really really well. But that I've had to catch myself with that too because I don't want to be the guy who's live and there are so many amazing people who are here that are supporting and are talking and they're having a good time and this is how they're choosing to spend their Tuesday night and here I am like man I just wish things were better.

Yeah. Yeah. That's so dis, so unfair to the people who are here that think that this is so much fun and like are loving it.

There there is a level of of being able to acknowledge that I have limitations in what I'm doing and acknowledging that my technology might have limitations and that those might be interfering with experience.

But yeah, if all I ever talk about is, you know, my mic is bad, my mic is bad, my mic is bad, well then I either need to fix it or I need to stop talking about it, you know, it's one of those kinds of things.

Yeah, definitely kills the vibe when all you're doing is complaining. No, nobody's showing up to listen to someone complain. They will show up to listen to somebody talk about difficulties in life and be honest and open and transparent about real things that are going on, not just anything that's like, h man, I I sure wish that I had uh well, a 37 inch screen, which I do have. Uh I wish I had that and and it would be great if I had that and it'd be wonderful if I had that.

You know what I don't like about my 37 inch screen? It wants to make everything full screen and I got it intentionally. Instead of getting two screens, I got a 37 inch and it's disappointing.

It's disappointing.

That's really good insight though cuz like not all that glimmers is gold kind of is what it made me think about there.

Like so many things that I got like I have a similar disappointing uh statement about this SM7B in front of my face that was like the mic to have.

I saved up for this. I spent money I probably didn't have and I shouldn't have spent on it cuz like this is the mic to have.

And luckily, I do have a little bit of like a music background. So I have found other ways to justify it. But I'm going to be honest with you, the Road Pod mic that's next to it sounds every bit as good for talking, sometimes better, for less than half the price.

Like, it's insane. This was a I look the part. I look so cool. Baby's got that fancy streamer mic, but honestly, no. It wasn't worth it for what it does.

It wasn't.

Well, we were talking a little bit about about tech before we started and some of the tech I got with the intent of doing something and then ended up not actually following through and doing it.

And it's like, well, okay, so what did that really do? I've found a little bit it is better to start doing something with what you have available until you are certain that it's worth doing and then you can improve with the things you're doing.

So I'll just show you my my mic on my, I'm going to have to unplug it. My mic that I had, this is a Jab.

It's nothing great, but my son-in-law was doing Twitch and streaming and he had it and he said, "Uh, hey, you need a better mic than what you have.

Do you want it?" I go, "Yeah, that'd be great." So I got a hand-me-down so that I could start with that.

And then when it started causing me problems, it's like, "Okay, here's my limitations, but I got to wait.

I don't just like this, this is four years in to upgrade to this. It's and the reason for it is to bless the community with better quality, with more consistency, with all of those things.

And so, yeah, it's and I, if anyone's thinking about how difficult is it to jump in and do this? If there's a church that wants to go do this, like it is not expensive to invest in someone in your community that's in your church that wants to be a streamer.

You could spend a little bit of money as far as a church goes on spending budgets on sound systems and all of that in a church and production value. You only have to spend a fraction of that to be able to do really good things on Twitch and other platforms. You can spend a fraction of that.

What I was really thinking after COVID happened, because I know tons of churches spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to up their quality in the production in the sanctuary and their sound in the sanctuary to go live. Is why aren't we making this available to streamers in your community to take and use the stuff in your church Monday through Friday when you're not using it?

Yeah, so I don't know who wants to hear that, but more I know there's somebody who needs to hear that because they're in a church and they know it's sitting there and they may have influence to be able to say, "Let's try to do something in our church to bless our youth in our community or to bless the elderly in our community because yeah, there's a bunch of shut-ins and we could do something to bring to them Monday through Friday. It doesn't have to be on Twitch, but somebody needs to hear that." And I've had that opinion for a while. I tried to talk to a bunch of churches and move in that direction.

I even had the idea, I'll throw this idea out there because I don't care if someone does it and makes money off it. But you know how there's Airbnb? What do you do? You rent your house out when you're not there. Why isn't there a platform, I don't know what you call it, for churches that rents all of their sanctuary, sound system, video production stuff that you have that you spent hundreds of thousands of dollars that you let people Airbnb it and come and do a stream or a podcast in your church? Doesn't have to be live. Maybe you need to pay the tech guy, but you like pull it up and go, "Hey, there's a church in my area I could go stream from and be able to be live and have good quality way beyond what I could ever afford living in my basement and or in a closet and putting production value to it." But there, I'm off my soap box for a minute, but—

And I get it from like certain logistical sides of things and like there's like a trust factor. Hard if there's someone that you don't know that well or haven't vetted yet to give them that four hundred or five hundred dollar mic, you know, to do something with.

Uh, for many churches in my area, like they've spent the money on these big things and it was like their big swing. They probably shouldn't have done it, but they certainly don't have the money to replace it if it were wrong. Uh, so maybe there's some vetting processes to something like that. But I fully agree. I love the idea of like there are office spaces at uh one of the churches that I used to go to like a conference room and an office space though that they all have like a webcam kind of thing and a little mic in them. Now that's the perfect kind of little cubicle thing to set up and have a podcast and maybe throw some sound dampeners in the room. They that would be beneficial for everybody at the church as well. And now you have an office space but when it's not being used it could also be a podcasting space. That would be fantastic. I do see maybe smaller scale, maybe not the sanctuary, but all this other junk we have.

Oh, yeah. But yeah, opportunities, right? And you're absolutely right. There would have to be a level of that. I mean, well, just like Airbnb has a whole system of here are all of the legal stuff and here's all of the deposit stuff or what, you know, or cleanup fees, all like you can put all of that into there. You certainly could. And maybe you have to have the budget high enough to allow it because you have to have your tech person come in and be available. That might limit stuff. But my bigger thought is simply this. It's sitting there unused for six out of seven days in most churches. And on that seventh day, it's used for less than three hours.

What a—not put a different—I'm trying to think of the right way to say this without—I don't want to offend anybody. Like I said earlier, I'll, I'm fine with offending people, but only if I'm doing it intentionally. I'm not trying to offend anyone with this. It just feels like a poor stewardship thing to me.

Mm-hmm.

That's what bothers me about it, the stewardship kind of aspect of that. So um was uh asking some questions and talking about um you know trying to pursue God. What's what's better? What's more important? Is it reading the Bible? Is it finding a church? And I would say start with reading the Bible because you can do that by yourself, but also more important find a community of people who are following Jesus.

And I say a community of people following Jesus because they might not be a church. Um and maybe they're not a church, but they are people that you see them following after Jesus and you imitate what they're doing and they're willing to invest in you. It can happen in a church. There are some churches who are on Twitch. North Hill Live has church service. I believe it's on Thursday, so it would have been today. Lux Digital Church is Wednesday night. XP Church, I believe, is Saturday if I remember correctly. Um, and there are other pastors and there's other churches that are out there.

So, yeah, get connected with anybody that's here in this stream. Um, get into uh any of our Discords if you want to put your Discord in there, Webbby.

Yep, be happy to. I was going to say the same thing because Pri uh talked about how any of us would love to have you in the community or Chad if you because he shared that he didn't have very many Christian friends. He's not a Christian prominent country. Uh you do now like come on in anytime. Like I'm live most evenings. Uh this is my one of my normal times most evenings. Uh Flap is live in the morning. Do you? It'll be hard to land in one of our chats and not also accidentally end up in a lot of other Christian friends that you could have. Like you'll end up there.

Yeah, and just to piggyback on that um as far as how people in other countries might be in our stream and get connected and be part of the community. Um and we, Samarella has been mentioned on several podcasts. So anybody who's listening to these and hey, we haven't heard an update on Samarella in a while. I do want to give an update on Samarella. She is um in Europe in one of the former Soviet countries. I don't want to dox her, you know, but she had been in the hospital. She had uh surgery. She was then in a medical coma. Um she is home. She came home this week from um being in uh the hospital being in the coma. She's got a long road of recovery. She's got some paralysis that I don't know if it's permanent, not permanent, if there's possibilities. She just got home this week and so she has found community not just with me but with other people that are in community and streams together like Ukulele for Worship who's been on the podcast and Mother Goose who's been on the podcast. So you can also go and check out uh the podcast and you'll find a whole bunch of other Christian streamers that have been on here and be able to connect with them.

So, um, yeah, and or reach, uh, Discord as well, which I don't have a link to that. If somebody has one that they could throw in the chat, you're free to go ahead and do that. I think my links are all open so that people are free to share. Huh, looks like my command isn't working. Maybe I need to do it from specifically my chat because I just did it.

Oh, you yeah, you did it.

Just typed it in yours. You typed it in mine. Yeah, this is the first time you chatted in here.

Oops, which is crazy because there's so many chat messages within the chat. They just all come from my side.

Yep.

Well, that didn't work either. Maybe bots being silly.

Yeah, they do that. Okay, so we've kind of talked about all of that of getting started and moving into that. Um, can you talk about two different things? So you can go in either order or whatever comes up first, but just—

Okay.

Um something that happened that was a barrier, an obstacle that you had to work through and overcome. It could be you personally or someone in your stream or uh the other side of that is something that was a blessing that happened to you or someone in your stream while you've been a streamer.

Okay, I've been streaming. So February for me will be eight years streaming.

Wow.

So there's a lot of time that things have happened that I'm combing over uh in my mind. Uh I mean there's like the easy answers. There have been people who've come in and have just shared with me that they've decided like they're they've got their baptism scheduled or they've decided to like put their faith in Christ that those are really encouraging.

But uh and then you know there's the uh banning together to try to do like charity streams. I've done one for a local for a local nonprofit called Leaps of Faith that uh teaches ballet, but the whole idea is to like—

Yeah, it's especially for like girls and boys. They don't have very many boys in the group, but uh girls and boys who don't can't afford because ballet is expensive. They can't otherwise really do ballet. Uh but the whole thing is like when we have a Bible study, we're talking about like as we uh as we learn to dance uh and use our bodies, we can also use our bodies and use our mind to like genuinely reflect upon and worship God.

And so it's been really cool. It's been awesome to see that. And then also we did like the charity stream for uh Assassinator Steph um during the hurricane that lost like so much. Uh it was really cool. I was on one of the forefront of that like to the point that I was like, "Hey, can I do this?" And she was like, "Yeah." And I was like, "Sweet." And then later that night, uh, Pastor Susie had messaged me and was like, "Hey, if you set this stuff up, uh, Steph said you were doing it. I want to do it, too." And I was like, "Yeah, let's all do it. Let's go." And it was great. Uh, and because his reach is so much bigger than mine, too. So it was great. And that was really edifying for me to just see uh, I guess everybody that came around.

Um, but yeah, the I don't know. I feel like I'm rambling at this point.

Well, that's okay. Let's take those two things and let's just talk about them a little more. So we'll start with Steph. So uh those that don't know Assassinator Steph, she was at Reach Conference and then was impacted by the hurricane that went through last year, washed out the road to her house, did damage to her house. She had to walk out of the house with no power, get rescued, bring her kids with her, and then she is one of those streamers that at the time, single mom, streaming was her income.

So now her income is gone because she can't stream and she needs to replace all the stuff. So those of us in reach community rallied around her. We did what we could. There was a GoFundMe page that was started. Um I shared that on my streams as well. We we contributed to that.

People contributed to that. Other streamers were doing additional things. And so that's where you jumped in there. And then um Gunkk was also uh part of that and he's like I'm gonna get all the stuff she needs together and he is across the country from where she lives and I'm going to drive it to her house and get it set up and make sure she's all set up. Now, those that don't know, by the way, they end up getting married.

Um, so, so it's it's kind of like this this kind of cool thing um and all of that, but it's like that is why we're in community together because if she's just doesn't have community, if all she is is a uh an influencer with a bunch of followers, sure, she could have put it out there and she might have had a whole bunch of people that would have given something and maybe it would have done it, but this was a whole bunch of us praying for her, coming alongside of her, and then making sure that those things got taken care of. And lots of people asking questions, what more can we do, or is there anything more that's needed? And yeah, so if you want to add more to that, I I just think that was super super cool aspect of things.

It was so cool to be a part of being able to do that for her. But the like reward on that other side, too, is when I started to along the time that I started to think that this reach community is more than just like a TwitchCon. Not knocking TwitchCon, but just us coming together and like hanging out. Like literally there's some care for each person. People that we truthfully like the internet's an interesting place where you can be so known and not known at all.

And uh and that's how I feel like I'm I would consider us friends and I would consider many of the reach community and I like genuine friends, but I also recognize that there's most of their daily lives I'm just not privy to. But the care is genuine. Yeah. uh the like the like locking arms and moving forward and trying to do everything we can to just move um that that message I guess or that keep that momentum move the movement forward but also keep this whole message just moving forward was really really cool and impactful for me and uh especially I guess the reason that because that's like oh yeah of course but it's really really special to me because it always ties back to that faith crisis thing for like between that and like alpha like it liter just the whole experience from reach conference to this for uh at assassinator Steph it all just drew like threads to like a real a real community base an actual group of people that care about me for no good reason like because they don't really know me and I don't really know them but they care anyway and it seems to be genuine. I don't know it just it changed it changed like some synapses in my brain like change the way I view people.

For me, it really looks to me like it's the church in Acts because they gave to each other as there was need. Steph had need. We were the church. We were acting as the friends in the church together to meet the need. And some of us sacrificed a lot and some of us sacrificed a little and we gave whatever we could. And that that's where the blessing comes from is is the collaborative community that are uh giving to each other as they have need which like not to say that you couldn't go to your local church and share that and they might give a donation but they might kind of go yeah but you're a streamer. Why don't you go get a real job? You know they there would be strings attached at times. I mean I've worked in churches and I know there's strings attached at times and there's the limit of what we can do.

Um, yeah, Pre-Pony saying, "Yeah, she has like 70 viewers, which is big. She's amazing." She truly is. Um, uh, it's diverse, but a YouTube content creator getting 70 views. You doubt yeah. that they would rally around the sport. Yeah. If you got 70 views, you're not going to have that same rally point. You have 70 viewers on Twitch. There's a rally point uh with that. So, yeah, her stream rallied. our streams, you know, collectively within reach uh also rallied uh because the relationship is there. You're not just a viewer, you're not just a follower, you're actually on some level of relationship. And you're right, the amount of time you spend in someone's stream builds that both ways.

You know, the more that I get to and I'm not usually on at the time of night you are. So, when I see you on in the mornings, whenever those happen, I do like to go over and and try to lurk in the channel and and get to know you better. Uh, but I also, this is one of the things I feel like selfish that I get to bring people on and ask all these questions cuz it helps me to get to know you better and build that relationship so that hey, I got your back too when something goes uh wrong and you need it, you know, so that I can be a rallying friend for you uh in a time of need if that does happen to happen.

Um, yeah, there we go. Somebody was asking, yeah, assassinator Steph, thank you pre-pony for putting that in there. Yeah, that's the cool thing though, like Prep Pony does bring up a good point about her having 70 viewers and that's a good rally point, but the thing that just amazes me. So, when I went to Reach Conference, I didn't even have a thousand followers. I do now, but like when I stepped foot on in Orlando, I didn't. And I was maybe averaging eight, like eight to 10 people. And I think that if it happened to me, which it could have, I'm in Mississippi, so like it skirted me to go get to her. the hurricane did. Hurricanes are something we're used to like uh and so well she's she's in the mountains so they're not used to hurricanes in the mountains.

Yeah. That's why it was so like detrimental. But if something if I had been displaced as severely as uh Steph had been, I have absolutely no doubt that the rallying would have been similar if not the same around the person who's averaging eight, you know.

Oh yes. Absolutely incredible that there was a level of care and love that had nothing to do with your status. It was just that you we want to be there for you.

Right. I think I think part of Pre's point was Twitch community is different than YouTube community, you know, and and then within that the Christian the Christian community within Twitch is really I think humble and unselfish u for the most part. Certainly no matter where you are, there are people that are always selfish. it's about me. Um, and and or well, I'd have nothing to give. You know, all of the the fear of uh, you know, being a fraud, those kinds of things. Imposttor syndrome. You know, there's people that are always in that level.

And it's like social media and internet. It's so easy to compare yourself to other people. And it's like, yes, yeah, my numbers don't matter if I'm being faithful. Your numbers don't matter if you're being faithful. uh if it's what God's called you to, which you know is fine when you say that, but when you're staring at your number and your number is smaller and it's getting smaller and it's not growing and you're going, am I am I doing all those things? So, you know, we we'll get to this back to that the idea of struggle there in a minute. But that's one of those wares where you go, we have that in the physical church right now. Lots of physical churches are struggling and they're going before the pandemic, we had this many people and afterwards we've never recovered. But there's the level of do you focus inward when that happens or do you focus outward?

And I think when you rally when people are in need to someone outside yourself, it helps you to be more vibrant and you do um get more blessed from that and you're going to grow when you're blessing other people more than when you're focused on yourself. I got that's just my opinion on what I've seen happen in my life.

Yeah, I agree. pre um she's absolutely right about this. She said way disappeared for a bit uh during amidst the like all the worst parts of the crisis. I actually did I I took a entire year off from all content creation. Just was like, "Hey, sorry guys. I got to go and I don't know if when I'll be back." I was gone an entire year, give or take.

And she was like maybe disappeared for a bit. I was looking for him. We had never met at that point. We hadn't. But he mattered, prayed for him, cared about him, worried about him. I had people that were messaging me like, "You good, dude?" Like just checking in and everything. And I was just in my own island trying to figure everything out cuz the unseen parts of like a faith struggle like that, which is so cool. There are people who I don't know in person like a pre that are praying as intently as they are, is yeah, there's the okay, well, Webbby has to figure things out. Uh, but no, like Webby's marriage is like in knots right now because Webb'sby's wife is scared to death that like my salvation is in question and all these things.

And then like there's the regular normal like family struggles. All this stuff is going on while I'm literally sequestered and there are still people from this community that are that are like pre or like no good gamer uh that are reaching out that care that just care because that's not like something I've experienced outside of a local church. Of course, sometimes not there. Like it's just something that you wouldn't expect. Well, okay. I've only experienced it in a local church from people that I'm pretty well known by. I've never experienced it by people who don't really know me that well anywhere other than these digital spaces. It's it's unlike anything else.

Oh, I I I totally agree with that. And and one of the things that I think I've started doing and it I really have to say it's since I started being a streamer is I haven't seen someone for a while. They come to mind. Boom. I'm sending a DM to them like, "Hey, what's going on? Where are you at?" Uh so I had one of those not too long ago. Um Mountain 101 who is a firefighter in New York City and I hadn't seen him in a while. And I know his schedule is that way and it's up and it's down. But I also know in the two years I've known him, excuse me, I got a cough. Um, in the two years that I've known him, he's been in and out of the hospital probably four or five times. So, I'm going, "Are you in the hospital? Is something going on?" So, I reach out to him, you know, a couple of times and then he got back. Oh, my life was going on. This was this. And then he just recently popped back up again and he just had surgery. So, it's like, yeah, some people need you in the middle of that. And if God brings them to mind, reach out to them and um connect with them. Sorry, I'm going to grab a cough drop. I don't think I'm going to get rid of this.

You're great. I think that's such good practice. Uh and something that I've tried to do more of lately. Like for me, the most recent one was Land uh Lberto actually, who has stopped streaming. He's decided to not do it, but I just hadn't seen him and chatted with him in a little while. So, I just reached out. I was like, "Hey, just checking in to make sure you're okay. I remember what it's like to go, you know, just to disappear. And then Mr. Whittier, you know, has had things that he's been uh battling. And I not to say like out of sight, out of mind, but I'm the world's worst of that. So, the two things that I make myself do right now uh to the best of my ability is if I think about someone, I try to message them on Discord like you just said. Yeah. The other thing is if uh like you remember when like someone's asked you to pray for them or that you just need to pray for someone.

If I ever allow myself to be like, "Okay, I'll pray for them in a little while or I'll pray for them later," there's a 90% chance it's not going to happen.

Yeah. And so I do it. I do it when I think about them because it's the only way that I can confidently feel like I'm actually going to do it.

Yeah. So good practice. Yeah, absolutely. And like I said, I started doing that and some people, if I have your phone number, I'll even do that too. I'll text message you in the moment, and I've had a couple of times where it's been, "Hey, I got that message. Here's the middle of what was going on in my life. It was so good to know that somebody was praying for me or thinking about me at that moment, you know?"

So, um, just one of those things that it feels in digital space like that is a customary thing to practice. Nobody has to tell you to do that. It just feels like what you should do. If I'm in the local church and I'm like, "Well, I haven't seen somebody," well, if I call them, they're going to feel like I'm accusing them of just being absent for no reason. So I'm not going to call them and say, "Hey, I noticed you haven't been in church for a month. What's why is that?" It feels accusatory.

Um, but online, it's just like, "Hey, man, I haven't seen you." Doesn't feel the same because there isn't that expectation of every time I go live that you're in my stream. I have no expectations of that.

I mean, I don't even have that expectation of my mods. I mean, I would be really asking a lot of them to show up every time I'm able to stream. I mean, yeah, they're not able to. So we don't have that expectation. It feels different. It feels more of I'm coming from a place of caring, not a place of, well, we need your butt in the seat and we need your money in the plate. So that's why I'm calling, because we haven't got either of those two things. And I'm not saying that's the intent that people have. That's my hangup on why I don't call people when I'm in a local church is because I'm worried that's what they feel, because I don't want to make them feel that way.

Yeah. Oh, that's so that hits so strong. I just had a conversation with chat the other day because there's a certain level of like subs which are like the only real income I get at all from Twitch. Um, but I never talk about it. I never like remind people to sub. I'm not even good about asking people to spend Bezos bucks like the free one that you get. But there are people who have talked to me about like wanting to subscribe and like support and they just don't know that their sub has run out or things like that.

And so I was asking like, well, should I put something on the screen so you can see how many active subs we have at a time? Because to me that feels like the like that plate mentality of like, here you are, pay your dues, and I don't want anyone to ever feel that way. It's why if I ever accept like a sponsorship or anything like that, I want there to be some kind of value. Like I would maybe do like a factor thing because, well, maybe I can get at least 50% off of your meal and then you get food and you saved money and yeah, it supported me, but I was able to do something for you. And I struggle hard with that like I because I I want people to feel so welcomed and especially since I started doing this with kids in mind.

Yes. Like they don't have any money. I don't want them to feel ostracized or like they can't be a part of this community because they're 14 years old and they don't have allowance or not enough allowance and they can't legally work.

Like, right, you're like, come on in. Twitch is 13. If you're 14, come on. Like, yeah, I'm down.

So, yeah. Well, and and I think that's one of the things that a lot of streamers might struggle with that aren't, you know, intending and planning to be full-time streamers. I love the people that are planning and doing that and they don't come across as begging when they're talking about it. Having worked for churches, you know, I've always like I know people hate when you preach the sermon on money and all of that. And so so I'm maybe more sensitive than other people of not wanting to be the person asking to, hey, come and support me and what I'm doing.

Yeah. But also the way that I approached it to start with was not that, hey, God's calling me to do this to make a living. It's God's calling me to do this to serve people. And and I have, you know, as I look at what Paul does in places, he goes to one place and he serves them and he doesn't ask them for any money, but he's served somebody else over here and afterwards he asks them or they volunteer to support him for what he's doing over here. And that always felt that that feels better for who I am and where I am.

But I'm not trying to be a full-time partner and make my living off of streaming. Um, so it really makes a difference on your approach and why you're doing it and all of those pieces of things.

Uh, I also, I don't know, I wear a lot of hats literally and I wear a lot of hats by being involved in lots of things. Like, uh, one of the things that that my wife will always say is if you're not busy, you don't, you're just not you. You are always going to be busy. So if you don't give me something to fill my time with, I will fill my time with something. I mean, I I love raising money for charities and and doing mission trips and and doing those things. Uh, to me that's exciting. Asking you to pay my light bill and my internet bill doesn't feel exciting to me, you know.

Yeah. Yeah. I totally get that. I I'm the same way. I busy myself too much and I'm trying to do better. I uh got a new job that should allow and it does allow me to have more time. But as of as of yet, I haven't really taken advantage of it because I you know have I mean there's money make you funny, but it's still one of those things that you have to do and deal with.

And so that's been the struggle and my natural condition like I'm inclined to want to just hit that go live button and make that video all the time. And where Webbby will really mess up, especially like take off the mantra of Webbby and just put on like the Jonathan that is behind him, is he will stop spending enough time or investing in his wife or he will stop doing like being with family or reaching out to people and because he's so locked into making the content and and loving it and loving the people who come here that I'll I'll not do well in other areas.

And then there's also like the work side of it. The more I work or the like the more I work the more I make is how my job works. Yeah. The more I work the better I can do. Like I just canceled like all my subscriptions because I didn't have time to play the Game Pass games. I was like this is dumb. And so now I'll just buy the games.

But I feel this pressure to try to make sure even if it's not just chatting. I've learned from you to maybe embrace that just chatting a little bit more. That's hard for me just because you like you said you've got to start with what you have. But I have this pressure to want to buy doesn't have to be the next AAA game. Uh but with them being 70 sometimes $80 or like I got the Switch too because I feel this pressure to try to stay relevant in a space so that people can come and then talk with me and we can talk about important things because you accidentally ended up here because you want to see what Donkey Kong looks like on the new Switch and you didn't want to spend the 450 or I totally get that.

Yeah. So, like I'm constantly that's that's a piece of my spiritual warfare is like I'm constantly battling where like if I don't do this then I'm not accomplishing this calling this thing that I'm supposed to be doing. But like it's uh I'm sure you it's yeah there's there's constantly and and Paul talks about that too in his letters about the struggle of like I could ask you for this but I didn't but but now I'm asking you to bless them over there and I know you'll do that. So so Paul wrestles through all of that too.

Um, Nico, uh, good to see you friend. So Nico is a seek friend of mine from um Denmark who is here in the chat. So, uh, great to see you. And then IB Fatbeard was asking, "What is what is the sending agency?" I'm I'm just using that as a a generic term because a sending agency could be a church that sends you out on a mission. It could be a uh a missionary organization. It's just whoever is the one where your funding goes through sends you to go do the thing.

So, that's just a a generic term. So, if that that that you're partnered with people where your funding comes from, but you're going somewhere else to do the ministry that you're doing.

So, and uh Nico, your your answer there was really really good and concise, but I just wanted to share that with anybody that was, oh, hey, what was that term? I've not heard that term before um and thought about it. So, it's kind of like missionaries will go overseas, but they'll raise their funds in another country and be supported there, but the ministry they do is not to the people that are are paying for them to be able to make a living.

Yeah. We have uh something that's getting really popular in my area called support raising. Yeah. Where it's similar, but you don't necessarily have a sending agency. You have like just pockets because you are going out and and gaining support from I mean tons of different streams just a little bit everywhere.

Sorry, I completely slapped the mic for you. Uh but the uh like I think Campus Crusade for Christ is like an organization that does that where almost all of their staff on campuses are all support raised and they just try to make a pot and they live a little bit off of that.

Yeah. Yeah. Support raising would be a similar title for for that same kind of thing. Depends on if you're going through one agency to do all of your funding or if you're going through a bunch of of uh individuals and it can be you can use an agency to pull all of the money that's a 501c3 so people can give to that where you as an individual if I just have a whole bunch of friends that are supporting me they don't get a tax benefit so that would be the reason to have an agency you know campus crusade would be one of those um kind of things and yeah you do raise support I'm I'm working on that myself so that I can continue to do this to to raise support.

U and that feels like I was saying earlier a whole lot different than asking my stream to raise all of my support.

Yeah. I don't possess any of the skills or knowledge to do that well and it makes me feel yucky. So, it's not something I do well.

Yeah. I'll I'll just give a a plug here and you can learn more about this if you come to any of our um four conferences that are coming up. We with the church digital have a partnership with Reliant. And Reliant is one of those uh agencies that they don't oversee the ministry they do, but they help you learn how to do the funding for what you're doing and oversee what um you're in, you know, what you need, train you on on doing all of that stuff. So, for instance, I'm working with Reliant on my funding side of things, but I'm working underneath the church digital with all the things that I'm doing.

So, so that's one of those kinds of things.

Gotcha. Yeah. So, you So, you're an agency that helps streamers. I'm not trolling. Just uh trying to Oh, yeah. Totally understand. You're not trolling. I'd be fat beard. Um yeah. So, The Church Digital is a missionary sending agency. We're not doing funding. We're doing the training side and the the networking um and um resourcing of people but funding side we're not doing that's why we partnered with um Reliant to do funding side of things.

So it depends on what your needs are. So you might go to different sources for different things, uh, that kind of thing. So I appreciate your question.

Those are good questions. I don't talk about those usually on stream. Um, they haven't come up. So if the question comes up, we'll address it.

Uh, to back up. So you talked about two different things. You also talked about the, uh, the ballet. Um, one of the coolest things that I had when I was in seminary, and this is going to surprise a bunch of people, I had a friend who was going to seminary so that she could do liturgical dance. Wow. She wanted to be able to study scripture so that she could take scripture and inspire liturgical dance, because she was a professional dancer and she wanted to be able to do it in a biblical approach to be able to bring that. And I think at least twice, and this is at Dallas Theological Seminary. Okay. So this isn't a radical group of people that think that we can do anything we want to.

Um, she did liturgical dance in our chapel service, and I was in tears on one of them. I know I was in tears just crying because I felt God moving through her, the telling. And I believe it was Esther. The telling of Esther through dance was so powerful. So don't, if you're an artist and thinking arts in any way and don't know if God can use it, he absolutely can. In fact, David danced before God on several occasions. You can go, you know, read through all of that stuff. So, um, that's powerful.

So I was just thinking with the connection with ballet, how did you get connected with ballet? Was there something that you had a friend or a family member or your wife or kids that was like, "Here's the reason to get involved with ballet?"

Yeah. So I know the director, um, and found her and we got connected because, well, we're friends. We already knew each other. She's really like good friends with my wife, but she and I are on our own right also good friends. She started this and wanted to do it, and I wanted to do digital stuff, and those two, um, well, I may have benefited her a little bit more, but she'll buy me snacks, but she needed assistance with that, especially as we would get closer to like COVID.

So where we really like joined hands is I sat on their board when they got their, um, like I was a vice president of their board whenever they, uh, got their, um, what is it called? Uh, when they became a nonprofit, but I can't remember the stream.

501c3.

That's the one. When they got that, and then I was very happy to go ahead and let that transition out of that, and so I don't do that anymore. I just hold a role as media director. But where I came in and where we tried to do ministry together is we did a Christmas performance. We called it Christmas in Quarantine because we couldn't do anything normally. So I went up and I filmed each girl that would come in. I filmed her entire dance, each one, and then with, and then within Adobe Premiere, I took the music and I put them all together and moved them around in their own little cubicle like a Zoom. I can give you a link to if you'd like to see it.

Yeah, I would absolutely love to see that.

It's early, early work from me, and I was doing it on my like old buddy computer. I didn't have the graphics card I really needed for this project. It was a whole thing. But that started us, and then from that point I've like helped her live stream the performances. And now, uh, like our last one, as the show, like we usually cut music and talk about the show together and plan a little bit. And as the shows have gotten just more and more incredible, like our last spring show was the parable of the lost sheep. And there was a shepherd, like there was Jesus and like the Pharisees and this whole thing that happened. And then Jesus starts to tell the story and the curtains come open and the girls like perform. There's a shepherd and there's a bunch of little sheep and they're all like, like the oldest one is like twelve years old and they're all young and they're telling this story. And the shepherd's going everywhere looking for this one sheep and it's like chill inspiring. It's so good.

I know.

So I've still have to edit it. I've got it like hard, like she's got the steel shot I've given to her, but I've got three camera angles in a handy cam that I need to put together that I'll, uh, I'll do. We unfortunately can't post that one because we used some music. We got permission to use it from Disney of all sources. Disney and Lord of the Rings, they gave us permission to use some of their score music. The only catch is it can't be streamed. So we can't like put it on YouTube or stream it. It's just for us to have and like we can show it if like we invite people to the room. We can play it there. We just can't put it on the internet. So unfortunately, that one won't ever go out so that I can share it with all the fine people on Twitch.

But, well, maybe that's how we connected.

Maybe you could, and you'd have to check. So I'm not saying go do this to violate things because somebody could, you know, if you put it on their screen, they could capture it. Um, but maybe you could do a Discord event with a watch party.

But I would still be cautious if you chose to do that because if somebody video captures it, then you're in trouble.

So, yeah, we could potentially do that. And we have the option to like potentially do it. We would just need to renegotiate our license.

Yeah. Um, but this was crazy and totally a God thing because, you know, that Disney company, they, um, they know how to make their money. Uh, they allowed, like they gave us the license and everything to use it in our production. They didn't charge us anything for it.

So now we can't stream it. We'd probably have to pay for that. But just for like our little production of like a hundred people or so, like mostly parents that came to see it, uh, we don't, we didn't have to pay for it, which was really cool. But we still were able to. We really wanted to do everything above board. I don't like, like there's conversations in the Christian creation space around copyrighted content a lot, and I, uh, stream, I stray away from it because I don't, I want to live above reproach.

Yep.

And I'm not knocking anybody that uses like copyrighted music or whatnot on their streams. I'm not trying to like cast shade on them. But I also feel better about what I'm doing because I feel if I don't do that, if I have permission to use everything that I use.

So, well, that's my spiel.

Yeah. And, and, well, honestly, this is a conversation I'm having with a digital church right now, um, a VR church, which is, well, other people do it and nobody's getting caught, so why can't we do this too? In regards to different things going on within streaming, within community, within other things, it's like it's common practice. So why can't we do it? What's the reason? So they're struggling with some, you know, some teaching and trying to find a, uh, a teaching series if there's one out there on trying to, hey, bring and teach this whole kind of thing of why do you need to be above reproach and why do you need to honor the systems even if nobody's honoring, uh, the systems or the terms of service. It's really where the conversation has been around is why do I have to honor terms of service if I won't get caught?

Well, frankly, if the, like, this is not teaching for them, but this is just my thought on it is boy, there's a lot of things I could do that I'm pretty confident I won't get caught. But if the only reason I'm doing it is to not get caught, that's the wrong reason to, um, you know, think that it's okay to do something.

Um, I tend to try to use the rationale of is something wise to do or not do. And if I destroy a ministry because I decided to try to do something I could get away with and then I don't, that wasn't a wise choice. Um, if I do something believing that this is beneficial to the community and if I get caught, I'm okay with the consequences because of the reason why I don't, I don't agree with it or otherwise, and I'll face the consequences. That might be a wise decision. It still might not be, but it might be a wise decision in regards to those. But if you're a church and you're online and you don't follow terms of service and they shut you down and you lose community and you lose face and it's a black mark on the church, I don't think that's the same. You know, that needs to be taken into a high level of we need to honor the things that we've agreed to.

Yeah, I fully agree. Fully agree with that.

So cool. I didn't know we're going to talk dancing today. I mean, yeah, you know, you show up with a hat and we end up talking dancing. How cool is that?

It definitely is off the beaten path of what I thought we'd discuss. So glad we didn't script it, though, because this has been fun.

Yeah. Well, if I script it, we'll never get to conversations like that because I don't know to ask you about ballet. I mean, I don't see anything behind you with, uh, you know, no slippers hanging there or, yeah, I guess it'd be ballet slippers. Yeah, there's none of those hanging there. You don't have a pink tutu on. So, you know, I didn't know to ask.

I think there, I don't know if you can even see it in this picture because my background is not real, but somewhere on this shelf there is a sticker. I never actually took off because I wanted to save it. That is the Leaps of Faith logo.

Okay.

Um, so it's somewhere here amongst the pumpkins, but I'm not entirely sure where. I could probably go and find the actual one to show you. But yeah, it's, uh, there's little elements of things all back there. But yeah, it's, uh, it's been a really, it's one of those things that every just about every time a performance comes up and it's time to put in the work, I want to drag my feet. And I'm like, oh, why do I agree to do this? This is so much work that I don't get paid for. And I have so many other projects. I've got my own stream. I've got real work, like not real work, you know what I mean? I've got the job that pays me.

You have income work.

I have my income job. Yeah. And, uh, just all these things and I'm I just need to rest. I'm not as young as I once was. Not that old, but thirty feels different than twenty-five. Those five years made a difference. And so all I feel those things every time. And there has not been a single performance yet that I haven't left and been like, I'm so glad I'm a part of this. Like this is just changing the lives, even if it wasn't just a great performance because there's been some that are like, you know, we're learning, but absolutely changing the lives of these girls. I got invited to the first one. There's only been so one so far, of course, the program is only like four years old, but, uh, the first girl that, there's a couple that have given their life to Christ, but I got invited to the first girl's that like went public with that through baptism, and that was just so cool. And the whole front row was all like Leaps of Faith people and we are there and it was just, it's just these moments that you don't get in other ways.

Um, and Twitch, I mean, this is bringing it back. Twitch is like that. Like people come in and they share their baptism. There's one friend, uh, or community member that's about to get married and is literally like seriously throwing out the idea of like if I invite you to our like wedding, will you fly here? And I was like I don't know if I could do that, but I'm honored by the idea that you like, well, the first thing she asked was like, could you get ordained and officiate?

And I was like, "No." But not against the ordination, but I don't want to do it for different reasons. Right. Right. But I I'm so happy for you guys. Like that's crazy that that level of connection happens and these experiences happen that you just don't get anywhere else. It's crazy. Yeah. I It's If you're in the in the realm and you see it and you experience it, it's not unusual. But the first time it happens, when you aren't used to it, when you don't expect it, when you don't believe it's possible. I mean, I remember thinking about when dating apps first came out and it's like, why would you go on a dating app? That that makes no sense to me. I mean, I'm already married at the time, so it didn't make any sense to me at all. Uh, yeah. Now, I have tons of people I know that met on dating apps. It doesn't seem strange to me anymore. It's like, oh, okay, that's how you met. It's another way to meet. It's a real relationship. It started online, it grew from there. And wow, that's awesome. I'm glad you found someone. I'm glad God brought you together. So, yeah, it's just a a a learning curve, an exposure to things that you didn't expect, you didn't know about, and then suddenly, wow, this is this is really cool. Why why didn't I know about this sooner is is one of the things that I I kind of think about. Yeah. I know two people. Well, one, it's weird for me cuz I grew up like when the internet was freshish and then I remember being like late middle school, early high school when the internet was full of bad evil people that want to hurt you, you know? Oh, yeah. And that may have not actually truly been true, but that was that was the narrative is that there are creeps and bad things on the internet and don't talk to anyone there because they just want you to like they want to do it bad things and be evil. And that's not really true, but that has stuck with me when it comes to like even with reach when like Romans rolls in and he's like, "Hey, I want to meet with you." And I'm like, "I'm about to get into a call with this person. I have no idea who they are. They're not a normal member of the community." And then it got wilder because it was like, "Am I actually about to drive to Orlando and stay next to people that I don't know what?" Um, but it's just that's always ridden with me. But I actually know two people that uh they are married with two children. One of them is about to graduate high school and they met on an old PS2 game called EverQuest Adventures Online and that's their story and it's like was one of the first pieces of encouragement where I was like people really do get to be known through digital spaces like get really known. Yeah. The thing that that I equate it to is we've had other ways of doing this in the past. We just forgot about them because that used to have pen pals was a big thing when I was a kid would would it and people that are my age and older that had pen pals, none of us would say, "Oh, no, it wasn't a real friendship" cuz we wrote things to each other. We shared with each other and and and we got to know each other. Or there also were mail orderer brides. I mean, I don't I don't mean to disparage that, but yeah, you would write back and forth with people and and then they would move to where you are to be your wife. It wasn't just a, you know, like the TV show, you know, married at first sight kind of thing and you hope it works out. No, these were relationships that got developed and if it turned out that you both were were were genuinely connected and this was going to work. You would then go that that's like the precursor to online dating in some way. You you just did it through uh old school, you know, mails back mail back and forth, you know, uh snail mail instead of email, you know, or messaging and all of it's just like it just keeps moving up the speed at which you can do those long distance connections. Like we're we're not even in the the same state and neither are we don't even have people all in the same country who are watching this and we're all together simultaneously joined having a great conversation interested in what's going on and talking about the speed at which relationships can get built is actually increasing online but it feels like it's slowing down in person. Yeah. It's interesting like I'm so glad you drew the parallel to like snail mail like in pen pals too because you're right we really don't change our technology just changes. I think about that with like the Bible too. Like I like to say that you don't like just read the Bible the Bible reads you. Um because like oh yes so much of what's there is so applicable. How can it be so applicable when it's thousands of years old? Like but it's we really haven't we don't change much as people. Like we really we have es and flows. There's a pendulum and that's it. And you're right that online dating is is pen palsing and finding mail order partner. Yeah. Yeah. It feels so weird saying mail order br. I know. I know. I like I don't I like I feel weird saying that too cuz I'm not advocating for it. I mean it was a different time and era and there was a value and a need for it um that society found a way to address things. So that's that's how they did that. So that's fascinating. I know. But well, it's also one of those things too when when people will talk about you have to be in person in order to build relationships. And I'll often bring up the book of Romans. Paul wrote the to the church in Rome having not been to Rome. Yeah. So there probably were people in that church that maybe he had met face to face. Yeah, but he wrote to a church he had not been to that he had not been to. He didn't have any problem relationships and connecting with them and building off of that or even when he wasn't physically present. All of his letters are because he wasn't physically present with the church and couldn't be. So if we want to make the argument that you have to be physically present for ministry to happen, then you need to get rid of everything in the New Testament after the book of Acts. Yeah. It's just not how it worked. Yeah, it's not it's not uh to answer a question here though. Hey, different time, different place. No, wait, sorry. Also really interested in hearing what that perspective, Webbby, because I'm around your age, but the tone in terms of the internet here in Denmark was quite different in the mid 90s and early 2000s. I grew up being encouraged to take friendships on the internet, though. Dad did uh prop uh the PC with a bunch of programs. Uh he was in tech generally here. So, I grew up in the Bible belt. So, like southeast United States. Yeah, that would be different. Two things. Yeah. The two things that were big there is like everyone's like wary of new things here. For better or for worse, change is just real weird here. Uh it's a slowmoving process and so internet is fast change and everything about the internet is fast. And uh the second part is you know I grew up in a time where our parents of course my parents were much older but like the age of parents that would normally have birthed someone like me remembers the times that like the Amber Alert system had to be created like things like that because kids were just being taken and like we didn't have any kind of like it I guess it was just becoming more and more common uh to think about things like kids aren't always safe with every adult and like not every adult is your friend and stranger danger, stranger danger was the term that I heard all the time and stranger danger is taken to the extreme when you consider it's the internet and like yeah we're on camera but that really wasn't a thing like this whole camera thing wasn't a thing so you're chatting with someone that you don't even know if they really are you know uh John from Cincinnati they may be someone entirely different and that's an alias and I get the concern I do so so Webbby Pumpkin is your birth name. It's not an alias. Oh, yes. You know, Webbby, first name, Pumpkin, last name, middle name, handsome. No, no. Webbby Pumpkin. Uh, so my name is Jonathan, but uh I got the name Webbby Pumpkin in a really cool way. I'm making that up. It was my I got an Xbox late in life. It was my Xbox gamertag. It was actually Webbby Pumpkin 262. And that's what I was on Mixer. When I came to Twitch, I rebranded and dropped the numbers because that was better for SEO. And then uh I or for those the uninitiated search engine optimization and so uh I did that kept the colors and I kept it because I'm the baby of all my so my brother is 17 years older than me just him. Uh all of he being so much older than me and then all of the cousins that were born at the normal time they're all much older than me. So my pet nickname growing up in the south was pumpkin. Uh, I just kept it as pumpkin and then I kept Webbby because my favorite superhero is now and has always been Spider-Man. So, I was like, "Webbby Pumpkin's kind of cool. I'll keep it." And it's just And then I I got the branding around it like uh which was just super cool. I'm very proud of my logo. Oh, yeah. This is like the Webbby pumpkin spice logo, but very proud of like the branding and I just it sticks and it's clean and it's minimalistic and I just don't I'm so happy with everything about it. Even though I'm not pumpkins aren't even a part of my like thing and I don't like spiders that much. If anything, I should be like a dragon Spyro streamer. But see, I was just thinking when you you go to clean out the pumpkin to make a jacko'lantern, you have all of the the mush in there and it was just Webbby all over in there. That That's what my brain went. I didn't go to spiders with Webbby, but Yeah. Well, the first year I tried to do a Webbby pumpkin jacko'lantern, I tried to carve a web into a jacko'lantern. Oh, yeah. And I messed up. and hit the side and the whole web fell out. So, that was a flop. I did my first pumpkin carving on stream uh last year because the joke up between like up until that point is pumpkin pie and carving pumpkins and stuff like that. That's cannibalism and is in fact frowned upon in the pumpkin patch. We don't eat other pumpkins. And so, uh but that joke is it's just way more fun to enjoy things like pumpkin spice. And like really I've got a whole season that is me. Like October is my month. Even though September is my birthday month, October is my month and fall is when the pumpkin spice girlies and boys come out. And I'm about it. That's why I'm wearing the pumpkin spice uh outfit tonight. So yeah. Well, you say that. Um next next door to my uh prayer booth down at the artisan market is Agape Coffee. And so she just put an ad out this week that said pumpkin spice will be out this week. So, um I will I will probably I will probably be getting some pumpkin pumpkin spice coffee uh this weekend. Uh I'm not the biggest fan of it, but I I like supporting people. So, uh I'm going to get that. I that'll be all I need for the whole season is just one. That's That's enough. It'll be good. I mean, I enjoy it, but it's like uh I I I I prefer chai latte over a pumpkin spice latte. But yeah, and that's totally fine. I hope you sip on it. Think about how good it was that you supported that person and think of me fondly. That's what I hope. I will I will I will definitely definitely be thinking about that. Uh I wasn't fishing for for you to tell the story behind your name either on that. I was just thinking you were talking about people online. You don't know who they are and and we're in a streamer realm. This is one of the things I I bring up.

You know, we're talking about how do like this is where I feel like I can bridge the gap to people older than me because I am old enough to remember things that to me look like they're the same thing.