God Called Me to Start Over - Here's What Happened

Welcome in everybody to the Gaming Outpost podcast. I love hanging out with friends online talking about what God is doing in digital ministry, what people are doing and learning and what God's been up to.

Our guest today is going to be Bashidto of Christ. And so let's uh let's welcome him in everybody. Hey, how you doing you guys?

Hope you guys are having a blessed day. All right. I'm waiting to hear I'm I'm checking the volume levels between us.

Same. Same.

Sounds like our levels are pretty good on my side.

Yep. And when you're chatting, it's not too loud for me. Let me turn you up all the way there.

I got an idea.

How you doing, Banana? Anyway, hope you're doing well, friend. I love having a little bit of tech stuff here at the beginning. It's not too bad if we're just checking balances. We had a little bit figuring some microphones out, but hey, all good. All good.

Just made some ramen.

Ooh, that should I just downloaded Chrome extension to where his audio is boosted up, so that should be great.

All right. Is isn't this fun learning all this new stuff, trying new things? I mean, you're a seasoned veteran now, right?

I mean, I'm always learning something. Of course, you're always learning something with streaming. And what I say to my friends, you want to start streaming, you got to know how to be a tech wiz, especially with audio, especially with random camera issues or internet, you know, drops and dips. So, um, I always, it actually in the beginning, I actually had a checklist of, okay, if this happened, then I would go to my own troubleshooting thing based on issues that I've come across.

Yeah.

That's that's really a nice thing. I have tried to to learn all of the things and then it's like, okay, that didn't work. What can we try? That didn't work. What what do we do next? And I've even put a couple of uh short little videos together of hey, if you've never done this before, here's a little short tutorial. Now, you can jump to YouTube and do that, too. But if I'm inviting you in and you've never done a virtual cam before, it's kind of like here's the steps. It's not hard. It's not so hard.

Yeah. And I did the virtual cam actually when I first did the virtual camera with my friends. Um, we're going to talk more about the uh the Discord that I made called Spiritual Speakers. But, uh, when I did the virtual cam the first time, that actually took like an hour for all of us to set up. And then I'm thinking, okay, I'm good here now. But then it's like, oh, nope. Chrome settings. So, but everything is all great now. I'm excited.

Oh, man. That's awesome. I'm ready. I'm super excited to talk to you. We we first met at uh NerdCulture Ministry Summit. Uh, so why don't you just kind of talk about what led up to you being at NerdCulture Ministry Summit? Uh, how you heard about it, how that got started. I know normally I start the conversation with Twitch and where that was, but I want to start with Nerd Culture Ministry Summit and and how you got connected there and the stuff that happened there and because I think it's fascinating.

Nerd Culture Ministry Summit, if I could just say in one sentence, was a beautiful and inspiring event. Um, as somebody who was I was previously making content just for myself. It wasn't anything ungodly, but it wasn't glorifying God, if that makes sense. Um I was making content. It was called the minor details. You can see the content. Whoever wants to look at it still out there. It was called the minor details. And I would help people physically, mentally, and psychologically with basically issues that they had. So that was the slogan. So here's the slogan. I said, "Uh, what's YouTube? Welcome to the Minor Details. We talk about everything physical, mental, and psychological." In this video, we're going to talk about elephant in the room, which is blas blas.

I decided to leave that content. Not that it was bad, but the answers that I was giving, whether that going to the gym or whether that be I feel alone. I wasn't I was closer getting closer to God, but my platform was far away from it. You know, I I feel like I was giving them secondary answers to what the true truth was.

So, I decided to leave my content. Um, what's up Kada? How you doing? Hope you're having a blessed day. I decided to leave my content and at that time, you know, one of my videos actually started blowing up. I got an Instagram following of almost 5,000. People was getting traction up. I got 2,000 on my YouTube. And I decided to leave it all because I knew that first of all, I'm not going to limit God's growth to just this one video. Um, and number two, I just felt more I felt happier speaking of God in my own life. So after leaving all my content, even leaving uh again when you have to when you decide to follow Christ, it's not just leaving your content you guys. It's also leaving relationships, friendships, and things of that nature. So I was very true. I was very I got an alert here a second.

Thank you for the follow. Appreciate that.

Of course, let me know you're ready.

Yeah, I'm good. Good. Good. Kada just gave me a follow, so I appreciate that.

W Kada W Kada. Thank you so much, bro. Hope you're having a blessed day again. But uh I also wanted to leave. So at the time I was very naked to my content. I was very naked to my relationships because again I had to I had to cut off things that I didn't want to. And that's what it means to follow Christ. And I I saw my Instagram. It was like Nerd Culture Ministry Summit. I I said, "Oh, it's this cool ad." And um I was like, "Okay, well let me look at it." And I looked at the ad. I said, "Oh, well I ain't got the money. I can't go." Then I find my credit card, this is the truth, that that had two $3,000 in it. Credit card under my bed. I said, "Oh my goodness." Okay, God. Well, let me see if I can use a room. This is, you know, if this is your will, let thine be done. Um, I go I said, "Oh, well, all the rooms are booked. Can't do anything." Then I, as you guys know, inside the community, he's an amazing person. Uh, Saint Bear, I told him, "Hey, I can't go to the event." Cuz, you know, I was inside the Discord. He said, "You know what? Let me see what I can do for you." So, he got me paired up with the quiz king. Quiz King is an amazing dude.

You guys, thank you so much for following.

Amen. Thank you guys again so much you guys following. So again, um I got paired up with the quiz king. I got to stay in a room with him. And then I still was making excuses with God. I felt like Moses, you know how Moses says, you know, four times over and over, I can't do this. I can't do this. I said, well, God, you know, I I I can't call up for work. I looked, you know, cuz I work in cyber security is at that time I just started, so it's very hard to adjust days. And then there it goes. It aligned it up with my off days. I said, "Okay, well then I'll go." So, but that was a buildup to it. And talking about the event itself, man, first of all, Colorado inside those castles.

Let's just pause there. Let's not run past that cuz cuz to me that alignment of you're supposed to be there is just it's just fantastic. I love those stories. That's why I wanted to start with this cuz I knew about that cuz we had conversations while you were there of hey, I saw this and there's no way I can go and oh wait, the money's already been provided and wait the rooms are booked. Oh wait, God took the excuse away. Someone said you can stay with me and then Amen.

Oh, I can't get the time off. Wait, I can't uh the time's already off.

Don't downplay that, man. That is Yeah, you're right. So so cool. I mean, if it if there if people doubt, this is why I want to spend time on it. If people doubt that you're called to do what you're doing, all you need to know is to tell that story of God opening the door because that door was completely shut and it just opened and the next door opened and the next door opened and then you're there and I don't know, I don't know. I think it was the first day you were there. You were excited. You were talking about stuff and I'm like I'm like, "Dude, we need to have lunch. I need to sit down with you. Uh, let's sit down. Let's have lunch together." I'm like, "You just showed up at all of this on a whim." Like, "Yeah, you you're exactly where you're supposed to be, and I need to know who you are."

Amen. Thank you. And yeah, you're absolutely right. See, we all have our own different plans, but then there's God's ordainment all the time. Things are going to line up accordingly to God's will. So if you find yourself always fighting, always fighting, always fighting. Yes, following Christ is not going to be easy. But we also have to see, am I making this resistance extra um a lot of times we give our faith to God and say, well, you know, even if you say, even in your desires, sometimes God listens to me and I just kind of prayed that like, oh well, I wish I had because I used to work in cyber security at the Air Force base in Ohio. You know, I'm pushing carts in the hospital. Of course, I'm blessed where I'm at. I get to speak to people. I said, "Man, I wish you know what I'm saying just in my mind, man. If I only had that job in Ohio, but then God heard my prayers and he got me fired from the hospital, you know, and I he prays and I just The great thing about God is that he's going to set it in motion whether you wanted to or not."

Oh, yeah.

And often not the way you want it, too. Like, it gets you fired first before you know where you're going to land. Yeah.

Exactly, man. So, yeah, it wasn't even anything on me. It was just like a a patient made an issue that wasn't even me. I was on the floor, but you know, they said it was me, so I got fired for it. And then I got this job in cyber security. So, yes, ordain it from God. You will be able to see like things just line up. And it's just, it's not going to be easy, but God is going to make a way for you to either follow his word to be around friends and family while that is going on. So, he's always going to make a way.

Oh, man.

Amen. Amen.

Oh, so so so fun. I didn't know that part about the the job previously, but I and you know, just in case somebody's like, "That's never happened for me."

It doesn't always work the same way for everybody. So, if you're a person that that's never been been that way for, that's okay. But celebrate those of us who have those moments. And I've had those. It's not the normal way, but there's those times where I need God to fully tell me this is the right thing and make it undeniable uh that I'm going to move in that direction and make it so clear that I can't say, "Well, God, I got another plan cuz then I know I'm running away from his plan when he makes it that clear."

Amen. Amen.

So, so go ahead. Go jump back to I know I interrupted you. I'm gonna do that from time to time just because like I don't want to run past something I think is really cool.

Of course.

Of course. So go back to to what Nerd Culture Ministry Summit was for you.

Oh man. So Nerd Culture Ministry Summit for me was just a beautiful experience. I mean first of all dropping off inside of the the air uh the airport and seeing the mountains from the the the airport was just beautiful. I was stunned. I was sending videos and again this is somebody who's from Ohio and I was in the military for 8 years and then I went to Texas so I I really haven't been traveling like that. Um you know with me being younger and getting out the military I was kind of subjected to my area a little bit. Um I got to see the beauty of Colorado Springs, Colorado.

And man, it made me question, oh listen, it doesn't exist. Uh it it really it really doesn't. Uh it it really got me to again see how beautiful God is through his creation.

Number one, we get up to the event. I'm driving with Quiz King. He's a really cool guy. He immediately helped me to feel uncomfortable.

Like all throughout this trip, I did not come across one person that made me uncomfortable for loving God, anime, gaming, board games, whatever that is.

And that was the experience for everybody I spoke to that day. We get up to the castle. I go in I think to the dining area at the bottom and immediately I'm just meeting amazing wonderful people.

I'm hearing godly conversations and this is somebody who was around a lot of how can I say lukewarm Christians. I myself was a lukewarm Christian.

But I look over to the left and I I see a group of men that are just sitting down. They were having lunch and then they are praying together.

They're praying together and I I kid you not. I actually took a photo of this because it was it was so cool to me.

It was something I never really seen like oh my goodness they're actually like a group of men at a table praying together and and it inspired me.

I was like wow this is so cool and I just you know me I was there I was asking questions as to get my business cards and said hey what do you do?

Um I was only there for I think a day and a half or two days. I wasn't there for the full experience. I wasn't there the first day and I had to leave early the last day.

Right. Um but me being there was so great. You had um again amazing conversation in the morning time with the schedule. We had amazing uh meets uh and then afterwards we got to go to lunch have more conversations together.

Um and immediately first of all quiz king and taco they helped me to feel comfortable. Samus I got to meet Samis. Um I got to meet so many beautiful people.

Um, I got to meet uh Lux Digital Church and just do casual conversations, you know, do the daily events that they had. And it was nice hearing all the different topics of how to start streaming and what does it mean to follow God?

And I was I was soaking y'all. I was writing down things like crazy. Because at the time I wasn't streaming. I said, "Wow." Like, I'm learning what Twitch streaming is.

And if I can speak on this experience, uh, SAS, if if I wouldn't say if it wasn't for Sassinator Steph, but I got to sit down at lunch the second day with Sassinator Steph.

Oh, I didn't know that part. Yes, this is a great story. I sat down with her and we were just sitting side by side or either side by side or across.

I think it was side by side though. And I was just asking, she was talking about Twitch. I said, "What is Twitch?" You know what I'm saying?

I was asking her, "What are channel points? What are bits? What are like I didn't know any of it." She's like, "Yeah, I have a pretty nice following and and it's a great resource." And she really inspired me.

She has so much faith. She has she has this very comfortable vibe about her, like a motherly vibe. Oh, she's amazing. Amazing.

Um, you could tell that every everywhere she walks, she doesn't just stream it. You can tell some people who just stream something, they don't mean it.

But the way that she walks and speaks to other people, the way she walks and speaks to other people, her fruit shows that she is walking with God daily.

Not just on stream, but this is a daily challenge. And uh yeah, Steph hype. Amen. Amen. Steph is amazing. Uh but she taught me about streaming and then the we're going to come back into it, but leaving the event, I started Twitch streaming and I had I had my account already.

I didn't know it for 20 followers. Okay, great. We got 20 people who who are just my friends and they don't know me and we'll just stop right there.

Yeah. Yeah. I didn't I didn't I didn't realize that part about stuff. So uh that's funny because I usually do ask like, "Hey, how did you get started in on Twitch and and what got you started?" So it was Steph.

I did not know it was Steph that was was the connection to that. And and I and we should say here just to so we're on Twitch, but Nerd Culture Ministry Summit is not exclusive to Twitch streamers.

It is anybody who is in nerdy activities. You like D&D, you like tabletops, you like anime, you you you like board games. All of those different things are part of Nerd Culture Ministry Summit.

And yeah, there's a bunch of us that are video game and Twitch people who are part of it, but I wouldn't even say we're we're the biggest part of it.

I think board games and tabletops are are probably a bigger portion of it. But it doesn't matter. We all love Jesus. We all are nerdy about something in our lives that we get really excited about and and can vibe with other people and we can bring Jesus into that space.

And uh so you I don't think we've mentioned Love Thy Nerd. So Lux Digital Church and Love Thy Nerd and a few others are the the founders behind what is uh Nerd Culture Ministry Summit.

Okay. And uh and I think I think that the event is again like really beautiful like you said. It's just when I was there and I seen people I don't know what the Star Wars game was but it's like a board game where there playing Star Wars characters and and I seen

D&D going on and I seen I freak out for this one. I seen Magic the Gathering players. I said, "Oh snap, they're selling the booster boxes.

Let me not do it cuz I'm still losing bar buddy." But uh u you know saying it was it was really great. I'm like oh my goodness.

They play Magic. Like it's just how can I say there's always this thing of like will I be accepted in the kingdom of Christ with my interests?

Yes. You know that was one of the things that will I be accepted for loving anime and video games? I don't know if that's godly.

You know what I'm saying? I I wasn't quite in the space yet. So I'm thinking if I love anime then will I get rebuked?

You see that a lot of times with false Christians today. Those who false Christians who are just ignorant to the word of God who are kind of ignorant to how to apply that kind of stuff.

When I say ignorant, I mean not knowing of, you know. Yeah. Well, and it's not who they of course it's easier to judge something you don't know about it.

Uh, for instance, I remember growing up uh C.S. Lewis's book, The Lion, the Witch in the Wardrobe. Well, you can't read that. It has the word witch in the title.

So, automatically it's got witch, it's got magic, it's it's off limits. You can't read it. Well, if you don't study it and you don't look and you don't understand that it's not witchcraft, it's not going to demons.

Uh that's not how they're how Tolkien or C.S. Lewis developed the use of magic in their world. But if you don't spend any time exploring, you don't know that.

You don't know the author is a devout Christian and Aslan is a whole allegory about Jesus. And the whole thing is trying to move people to an understanding of they need Christ and the Christ figure is Aslan who sacrifices himself.

You're staying away from something that could lead people to Christ because it has witch in the title. Interesting. And oh that's so good because we'll see this whole outwards look on life.

we'll see this whole outwards outwards look on our situations and the people in our lives like oh well they they identify with uh being a sin that I don't agree with.

You know, they love doing this sin. But the thing is is just that that's who God is going after. Why are you running after God's project?

He's not here for the people who are completely saved and know what they're doing and in their Bibles. That's great. We love those, you know, that's the objective.

Go and spread the gospel to make more disciples, you know. However, we need to keep on going for those people who I've I had so many friends tell me and it breaks my heart.

I have so many people tell me, "God won't accept me for who I am. God won't accept me because look at how the church does me.

Look at how my friends always rebuke me when I say that I've done this or that I've or that I identify with this." And I want you to know that God says, "Come and follow me." He doesn't say, "Change then come and follow me." He says, "Come as you are and follow me."

But that means come as you are, but don't stay where you're at. You know, and it's it's just very imper and it's not I would have to say it's the body of Christ.

It's not Jesus Christ's fault. He's perfectly made, right? Oh, yeah. He's perfect. He's sinless. We as Christians have to stand out. We have to say we have to take a stand and say no, you should not.

Yes, you should rebuke them, but more importantly, you should have a relationship with them. See that there is sin with them and sin with ourselves as said in the book of Matthew.

see their sin within ourselves and bring them into the community and over time if you see that they curse a little bit more over time if you see that things are a little bit iffy with them build that relationship and then over time your example will make them change. I've never even

told people at times people like oh wow you you don't curse like that I mean I don't I'm sorry that I curse you're fine like you see how you feel that conviction because you're getting closer with the relationship. So uh yeah just going back to that point is just with Nerd Culture

Ministry Summit I never felt felt like I was something that I wasn't supposed to be. And that's really deep. Yeah. I think that's a fantastic thing that I see in digital spaces that we are more open to the hey, how is God using you and how are you growing in your faith?

And maybe it's because we're not in a building. I don't know if that's the reason, but often when and we're we're doing life on life together.

I mean, we might we don't live in the same place, but we're in the same circles. We know of each other. We have conversations with each other from time to time.

Uh if if we were streaming at the same time, uh or schedules worked out, we're watching each other. I know that. But it doesn't always do that.

So, those things don't always happen. But in the church, I don't often know people. Even as the pastor, I don't know people because they show up on Sunday and they're there to listen to me and then they leave and I don't know them.

uh we're not doing life on life. And a lot of people have that mentality of if you're not in the church building, you're not following Christ.

But in the church building, we're not building each other up. We're not sharing one another. We're not transparent. We're not open. Because we expect people to sometimes the church does expect people to have it all together before they come to Jesus instead of allowing people to come to Jesus and follow him and

figure it out while following him. Ah it man that that burns me so much. It even burns me to hear that I know that is conditioned is that I have to change before I come to Jesus.

But here's the thing is that that is what every other religion out there says to do is that you have to change. You have to do this that and the third before you can come to Christ.

But again, I don't believe that true Christianity is a religion. It's a relationship. I always tell that to my friends is that we do not serve a God that serves rules.

We serve a God that has a personal relationship with us. It is a relationship. And you know that confuses even Christians like well no Christianity is a religion.

It's a it's a practice. I said, "Okay, well, you can look at it as a practice, but at the end of the day, why are we practicing?

Not to receive something, not to earn something. We've already received and earned it. Not through ourselves, not through the works, not through the rules and regulations, but through the relationship that we have with Christ.

He is the fulfillment, not us, not our own actions. And that's why I have to explain it to people. And they're like, "Oh, I don't follow religion. That's why I don't follow Christianity." I've said, "Hey, thank you guys so much for the follow."

Followed.

Amen. Amen.

Yeah, absolutely. I got I just got a follow, too. It's uh Strike Fury, thank you for the follow.

Yo, Fury, thank you so much, man.

Uh I just I just want to point out a comment that totally relates to what you're saying. You didn't get into the shower clean.

Like, if you were clean, you don't need a shower. If you're if you're clean, you only like I'm just going to throw some scripture in here. You know, you only need your feet clean if you're already clean.

Oh, wait a minute. Oh, wait a minute. You mean I'm not perfectly clean and remain that way? I keep stepping in it every once in a while and I need to clean myself up because I done stepped in it. You know

That that is so good. That is so yes. You have to constantly wash your feet because we are walking in our own ways at times in the in the world. Sometimes we are tempted by the world whether that be stepping in your own mud puddle or you know just going through life in general. We have to make sure that we are constantly getting that washing. We have to constantly remember to pray, to fast, to get in our word. And this is something that I'm working on day in day out. This is some days people are like, "Oh, well, I fell off. I used I hear this for myself. I used to be in my Bible so much, you know, but now look at me." I said, "It's not something the enemy wants you to see that you are not God's child. He wants you to look at things, the past and what if scenarios." No.

If you see that there's an issue in your life, go take that to God. Pray to him about your issues. One of the great things I love about the book of Job is how even though he was a little bit uh uh you know uh wrong with it at times, he did take his emotions to God. Whether that be angry, you know, whether I have questions, he took it to God. And I want everybody to know that if you have questions or you have concerns or even anger with God, pray to God and said, "Why did you let this happen in my life?" Don't talk about him. Talk to him. You see what I'm saying?

Oh, yeah. I I I tend to highlight the parts where it continually says throughout Job in all this Job did not sin. So if Job didn't sin when he challenged God to get an audience with God, then I c I I can go to God, too. I can go to God with anything that's going on. God can handle my emotions. Now, I might not get the answer I want. And Job kind of gets the, "Hey, where were you when I created stuff?" You're you're asking a little bit too much because you won't understand.

But amen.

Your friends were totally wrong and your friends need to ask you to pray for on their behalf. I'm not listening to their prayers. Uh you need to pray for them. Uh Job happens to be one of my my favorite books. This is what I'll say. If your life is falling apart, go read Job.

Go read Job. When your life is falling apart, it will bring you so much comfort because you'll realize you're not alone. That the life of somebody who is righteous can still fall apart. Just because life is falling apart doesn't mean you're doing things that are wrong. You might be absolutely following God and the world comes against you. The evil one comes against you because you're doing what's right. So

That is very deep. Somebody needed to hear that too again because we might feel like oh well I'm doing everything right so therefore I will not have any issues. And people think that that is what Christianity is. Is that when you follow Christ, then you're not going to have any issues. But when you follow Christ, if I could say this much, you're going to have more issues.

You're going to have more issues. You're going to have a lot more conviction. You're going to have a lot more people going against you on a daily basis because this the world is so much absorbed in what it likes right now. But we always we are always as Christians, we have an offensive message. Hey, you need to stop what you're doing. You're sinful and you're not perfect and you never will be perfect. There's nothing you can do about it. You have to accept the the free gift that God has given through Jesus Christ uh life, death, and resurrection. Nobody likes to hear that. Christians don't like to hear that. But however, hearing the fact that listen, if I could say this much, knowing that it is by me having faith in God and doing the best that I can, it's out of my hands. It kind of takes that pressure off of me.

I don't know if you can relate to this, but as a man, we can try to wear this heavy book bag, this heavy rucksack that is unpacked properly. If it's not high and tight, if you don't distribute the weight properly, you see what I'm saying? If you're, and it's the same way with life, is that if you are not distributing that faith to God, of course, you have to do work. You still have to march, right? Carry your cross. But, however, we are doing too much as men at times to where we put all the pressure on us and take it away from God. So, I love the book of Job.

Yeah. I I don't think it's just men that do that. I I think everybody kind of does that. And and what you were alluding to earlier too of when you feel guilty for something you think you should be doing because it's the expectation of the church to do that and then you let the I haven't been doing it get in the way of you starting doing it and or the frequency of you doing it like hey just start today don't worry about you failed at this point the enemy wants you to stop never do it so he'll make you feel guilty about the consistency you have with it so you won't start it and you'll maintain not having any consistency rather than go you know what I can start where I am you know what I will be better a year from now than I am now and look back and say yeah five years ago wow I was this far away from following Jesus now I'm I'm closer I mean I'm not stepping in his footprints but at least I can see them you know instead of like Jesus is around here somewhere I ain't seen him.

Yeah exactly exactly.

So uh let's bring it let's bring it back to so Steph is telling you that about Twitch. You're asking lots of questions. You're curious about it. Why did you decide to jump into Twitch instead of going back to where you had been on other platforms?

That's a good question. Um, that was a really good question. So why not just go back to my established crowd? Why not go back to, you know, my followings and things of that nature? I wanted to see. It was really great because it's not that um necessarily they were unchristian-like, but it's like they were not used to that. I wanted to see from a fresh slate what God can do with me. Um I I I really wanted to move on. Yes, it I'm not saying that it was ungodly what I was doing, but it wasn't for God, if that makes sense. It was for myself.

Yep.

I wanted to go with God. I said, "You know what, God? I would love for I would love to leave everything for you." and I want to start a new and I wanted to see how far that would go and and the difficulties even I again I had people who watch my video just because they they knew my previous no no I want you to watch because you know God and you want to have a relationship with him you know you may come for the video games but nowadays people are also staying in Twitch because of the relationship that is built that's what I love about Twitch and live streaming in general.

So I was able to see how much people number one what it what it meant to even be a Twitch streamer I really wanted experienced that myself. Um I felt as though me making YouTube videos, you're kind of in like a dark room. Edit, put it out. There's no relationship with YouTube like that.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Not like Twitch.

I totally feel that. But but it would have been easy on some level to go back to where it was established to not start over. And if you didn't start over, you wouldn't have known the relationship difference that that a lot of us in Twitch understand. Um

Yeah.

So so that part's cool. Also when you were trying to start over that just got me thinking about what you were doing was for self and now you are seeking to do for Christ. Uh I'm not going to mention names uh but I have two individuals who I have um been uh a mentor to over the years on Twitch. One of them was actually at NerdCulture Ministry Summit with me. So he had a name before uh where he was going to be the biggest, the greatest, the streamer and all of that. He he ended up stepping away from doing that and and then after hanging out with me and several other people, not me alone.

Uh he's like, "God's told me to put this away. He wouldn't let me do it. Now I'm still not supposed to do it, but I'm supposed to change my name because that name represents me, and I need a name that represents what I am doing, which is following Christ." So, he picked a name in in relationship to that. And another person who who I connected with couldn't make my stream very often because of time zones. I mean, I'm early in the morning and he's West Coast. Yeah.

But he would make it when he could and he'd hang out when he could and he'd watch the VODs and he just we we had conversations back and forth for about six months and he's like, "I know I need a new name just like Paul." Uh, amen was Saul and I need a refresh. I need a fresh start. So, I I need you to pick. So, I prayed about that. I worked through it. And I kept coming back to one person in scripture and I'm like, I don't know why this is. I don't know if he's going to understand where I'm coming from. So, I came up with his new name and and I gave it to him and it was just like, yeah, that's exactly who I am. I I uh I'll give you the meaning of the name and if you know, you know, enough otherwise you don't. Uh the formerly you were useless and now you are useful. So, it's Greek for useful and and then along with that, I I put another connection that would that would connect with u nerd culture in there. So, it's a pretty fun name. I'm not dropping them because I haven't had per asked permission to tell these stories, of course.

So, uh if you DM me, I'll I'll tell you who they are, but I don't I don't want to just dox them uh on my channel without permission.

So, yeah. And that's really powerful. And what I could say for this much too is that I mean names and titles were always changed inside the Bible you know with Abraham with you know Peter and we have to understand that I see this as a way not exactly this but however getting baptized it is a physical thing that we do to really show the world and to show ourselves and to show God that I am stepping into you. No longer am I a part of this world. And I see a lot of different ways as us shedding our identity as something very very powerful. Whether that be a name. Um for me it was the the minor details. I did the minor details because I want to talk about the minor details in life. The small things that really impact the bigger things in life. I changed my name to uh Bosch of Christ. I changed to Bashidto of Christ because again I'm trying to learn Japanese because one day I want to spread the gospel in Asia. Um only one percent of people inside Japan are Christians and over sixty percent of them follow different religion and then uh there's agnostics and atheists which which are the last thirty percent. So I did bushidto which is warrior and Japanese of Christ. So for anybody out there who takes too much pride in where they're at. Hey how you doing Louis 616216. Uh for those again who take too much pride in who they are and their name and I want you guys to strip that.

I want you guys to strip that name, to strip that title, to strip that position, and know that there is being humble to God. Even being God's child, uh just just God's child is the most humbling thing and the greatest thing that you could ever be in this world.

Oh yes. So, Amen. I love that. I love that. Yeah. Yeah. Like I said, I I felt really privileged and honored that both of them, you know, through my influence and others, but then one really saying, "Hey, I want you to be the one to rename me was was really cool." And I love the the the shifting and the the name Bashidto of Christ doesn't elevate you. It doesn't point to you. It doesn't personify you. It's a warrior of Christ. You're just out there doing uh being salt and light in in uh what sometimes can be a really dark place.

Amen. Amen. And and and what does it really mean to also be a warrior of Christ? You know, because you're going to get into battles. When you think of a warrior, you think about battles. You think about warriors. You think about victories. You think about failures. You think about planning. And that's just the biggest thing also that I see with the name as well is that it's not just me. We are all warriors of Christ. That's what I also love about my name too is that yes I do identify as bushidto of Christ but bushidto is not necessarily just a warrior. It is a is the warrior code. It is about following a way a certain way a life of living. That's what really what bushidto is and that's what we all are is that we all have to follow the way of Christ. That's really what it means too. So I I always love to just explain that to people and help other people to see like you know oh my name isn't as cool as yours. It's not about the name. It's about the the pride that I take from the name. You see what I'm saying? So, right. It's Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. I totally see that. And uh yeah, my my name, you know, flat cap dapper pastor. I mean, I've been associated with flat caps forever. So, when when I was coming up with a streamer name was like, well, that just seems obvious. I need to put that in there. And yeah, and I and I also chose to put pastor in there because as a pastor, this is what I've run into most of my ministry. I like I would do pickup games for golf uh when I was in Texas and I'd be playing golf and get around the ninth hole and then somebody finally decides to ask what do you do for a living and oh I'm a pastor and then they start apologizing for all the swearing that they've done all throughout the game and I'm like dude if it bothered me I I would have said something. Hey thanks for the followers 626 just followed. I'm I'm not here to, you know, to to, you know, down on anybody. I'm here to play golf and I'm here to have a great conversation and if I can influence you in any way, great. If not, that's okay. But it was that, okay, I don't want to go into Twitch space and then somebody comes into my stream and then they later find out I'm a pastor and they feel like I bait and switched them. So, so I'm like, okay. So I I do feel like I need to be forward with pastor in my name. So nobody can hide from that. I'm not hiding it. I'm not going to bring it out later. But I also I want to show I don't take myself seriously. So that's why like the the the dapper is tongue and cheek. You know, it's like that. And I always say that I'm not dapper. The hats are dapper. So the hat is h the hat is bringing all the dapperness. Uh I'm I'm just here displaying the dapper for everybody else to see it. And if and if I could ask you a couple questions, too. Um yeah, go ahead. With all the the flat caps that you have uh inside of your collection right there. Beautiful. Beautifully displayed. That's one of the things that kind of drew me is that number one, this is somebody who loves to who identifies with Christ but isn't afraid to be themselves. Yeah. Um with your with your flat caps, do are they like for different reasons or for any of them that are kind of special to you or you just kind of pick and choose which one to wear? Oh. Uh, some of them I pick and choose based on outfits and how they match and that and other times it's there are some that have special meaning. I don't want to give that away uh because I'm going to I'm going to I'm going to talk about at reach conference my hats there. So I I don't know if who knows this and I'm not spilling anything I don't think out there. If you're in I I will be doing one of the talks at reach conference and I'm going to bring up my hats and talk about my hats. So I'm not going to give you the insight on but she gave us a scoop of what's going on but but but uh I will say that some of the hats there uh I was in flat cap of the month club and that that you pay a fee and they just send you a random hat. You don't know what you're going to get. So it's this fun unboxing. What did I get this this week? Uh, some of them are more meaningful to me. Like my daughter gave me one or I got one that was my dad's hat or one of them I tried for 3 years to purchase it because it went on sale and my size sold out within a day or two of it going available and it's a limited run. You got to wait till the next year. And so it took me three years to get that hat. And then there's one that I put up options for. My stream knows this. I put up options for my stream and said, "Hey, pick one of these hats. You're voting on it as I'm doing streamversary." I let the vote go for a full week. It was last place at the beginning of the week. By the end of the week, there were so many different associations with Christ given to that hat that it it was a clear runaway winner. And it's probably my most expensive hat. So, wow, that is incredible. And the other thing I want to ask too when it comes to being a pastor um I always thought about it but I'm like a little bit hesitant on there are people inside the body of Christ uh even such as myself at times who might feel intimidated by being the title of pastor who feel like oh I have to be perfect if I make a mistake then I'm going to get cancelled. For those out there who are more hesitant to be a pastor to you, what is a pastor and do you what really makes it to where people know if they should be a pastor or not?

Okay, it's a great question and the answer is not going to be the same for everybody. So, uh I'm one of those weird people out there that when I was six, seven years old, I went around telling everybody I wanted to be a pastor. So, I I knew early on that that's what God was calling me to. There were some detours along the way. I'm not going to go over those right now on stream, but there were detours along the way. And then later, God finally said, "Okay, it's time to go and be a pastor. You can go do that." U I I didn't give you that dream to take it away from you. I gave you that dream because you're going to go do that. So, I'm one of those weird people in that realm. But I think if you go with apest and if you're not familiar where that is apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherd, and teacher, u if you're in one of those categories, you're going to approach being a pastor differently. You're going to be called to being a pastor differently. So if you're the apostle, you're the one that's speaking truth to people. You're going to be one who's not shy. You're going to be one who speaks the truth to people. You're going to be one that is calling out sin. And you're going to be doing that. It's going to be natural on some level for you to step into it. But those those are also some pioneers out there. Prophets are along those same lines. You're going to be out there a cutting edge doing things. I'm more of the shepherd teacher. And so for me it was always wanting to care for people, walk alongside of them and help them take their next step in faith. So so my approach is always different. I also am a teacher. I love to ask the question why and because is not an answer. I'm sorry it's not. Um yeah I I always had to understand the reason behind things in order to actually pursue it in order to un you know to to put it into practice. So there's there's those levels. So if you're afraid of the title don't worry about the title. God can still call you and use you. I was actually having a conversation with someone else who really does feel intimidated to be even the title of leader. Well, if you think about this, you have influence. If you're a streamer, you have a level of influence. If you're a mod, you still have influence. If you're someone who's just in the chat, you still have influence. The person in the chat has influence over people who will never watch my stream. So, so you are going to be someone that people will look to. My younger brother and sister look to me because I'm older brother. I did nothing to earn it. I did nothing to deserve it. They watched me. When I made mistakes, they made a lot of the same mistakes I did because they watched me. They didn't learn from me, but they made the same mistakes because they were under my influence. Not in a bad way, but just an influence that was there. Sometimes for good, sometimes for bad. So if you have influence, that's I think what we want. We want influence with people. We want to influence them for Christ. If we do that with a title, if we do that in leadership, if we do that as a friend, it's all good. So if God calls you to be a pastor, don't shy away from it. If he just calls you to be a leader or a teacher, don't shy away from it. Uh but those who are called to a higher level, we have higher responsibility and we need to absolutely take it seriously. So I understand the apprehension of taking in and stepping into it. Uh a lot of us who are stepping into digital, we are stepping into the unknown on some level and we are walking along saying God are you definitely directing me. I I don't want to lead people behind me into something that you're not in. And I see God in there all over the place. And so that's why I've been stepping in more and more into digital and trying to help lead other people. So Amen. Uh, I did see you had a couple of uh prayer requests there. I don't know if you want to address those. Uh, yes, I did address it. It said, uh, 216626 says, "My back is horrible pain right now. I tripped and hurt my back and into a metal pole leg for a desk and then someone bumped into me in the hall and hit my back into a locker. Can you pray for me?" Um, yes. Uh, 6 uh 2166266, I will pray for you. I will add that also into your prayer journal as well. What I like to do um in the morning time we always start off with we try to start off with a prayer and starting off with a devotional word of God and uh for those again who have a lot of prayers I said you know would you like me to add it to your tab so so for 216 I'll go ahead and add that to your tab thank you so much we're gonna add that for back pain.

Oh that's cool I've I've never thought of of wording it that way. I just love the imagery there of I'll add that to your tab. Like it sounds like a negative thing, but Jesus is paying the bill, you know? So, so I'm going to add it to the tab so Jesus knows, so he's going to cover it. Ah, what a great image. Amen. Amen. It's just, it's just I love to pray for my friends. I love to look at not their their issues to plot on them, but I love to see number one, their prayers being answered. We've have uh people who had prayers of like, "Oh, I'm nervous about getting into this class. I'm nervous about this test that's going on." I said, "Let's pray. Add it to the journal." If you want to if you want to share one or two like really powerful examples of unexpected things, go ahead.

For myself or others on stream. Oh, on stream, of course, we've had oh my goodness. I without saying any names, we had an individual who was very, very intimidated about a surgery. It was a very, very important surgery and it was leading up to it. Um it happened last month and we were praying for them, praying for them.

It happened. I said, "Oh my goodness, what happened?" Um and they come into the stream and said, "You know what? The surgery was successful. I'm able to go to college and everything is great." So this is a great one. This is a great one. Uh so this is more physical one.

But then we can see prayers of anger, prayers of anxiety. I don't know why I'm so angry. I don't know why I'm so anxious every day.

And we see the transforming heart. I said, you know what? I was able to address this anger in my heart and this is where it was coming from.

And I love to hear these prayers being answered. I love whenever we read devotionals. We have our daily devotional book that we try to read from or watch a video.

And when the comment shares their testimonies, that is when things really start to transform because we can watch a video, but let's look at the testimonies. Let's see all the people who have something going on currently in their life. You'll see a domino effect that says, "Yeah, I also was feeling this type of way. I was also having desires of lust in my heart. I was also trying to um fill in this emptiness, empty feeling of being alone.

And one of the things that I love to do, hopefully everybody does this as being like you said a representative in their own way, whether that be in the comment section, a pastor or a streamer. We need to out ourselves more. We need to say, "Hey, this is what I'm struggling with." Because that's what I feel like the body of Christ is really missing from the world.

Everybody wants to act like this perfect Christian. And no, we've all been through things. I've done lies. I've hurt a lot of different people. I've disconnected groups. I have also, you know, struggled with this type of sin. But my biggest thing is it's not about what you've done, but where God is going to have you. Where's the position of your heart when this does happen. The greatest figures in the Bible are not judged based on what they did, but where they decide to do afterwards.

You know, I mean, look at that's a great, that's a great way to put it. What what they did after like I mean after.

Yeah. After. Yeah. Yeah. And that's the biggest thing is that we see some of the most horrible things inside of the Bible. And we see some of the most greatest things inside of the Bible, but it's not about what they did. It's about their heart position with God during those times and what they did afterwards. So again, for those out there who feel like they're being hurt by their past or they're holding on to something because there's a lot of people who are holding on to hurt and pain and anger. Somebody hurt me or I hurt them. We need to forgive because again, that is the love that God shows us. Love is not a feeling. Love is a decision. Again, love is not a feeling. It is a decision. Even though I feel like you hurt me, I still decide to forgive you and move on.

Yeah. You know, go ahead. Oh, I'm just I'm just agreeing with you. Just totally agreeing with you. Yeah. And and that's just the biggest thing is that we are in this society where we're holding on to this pain or we're holding somebody to their past and we should not do that. If anything, it takes more energy to remember your past than to look at where you're at right now.

Oh, absolutely. It takes more energy. Amen. It takes more energy to hold on to things. The other thing I found um is often when I've been most offended by someone, they have the least amount of knowledge that they've offended me.

So, so if I knew I was offending you, it was obvious and then I saw the response and and we can reconcile that. But when I stew on it, usually that person did not know they offended me and I'm waiting for them to acknowledge they offended me and they won't even acknowledge it. And then what do we usually say? Well, the fact that you don't know what you did wrong is also a problem. And the reality is if we don't ever bring it to somebody that we have offended them because most of the time and and the Jews actually had this as a practice, we pray for the sins that we didn't even know that we did. We're not always aware when we sin. I mean, the unintentional sins are bad, but we still need to ask for forgiveness for the unintentional sins. I didn't know I was cutting you off. I didn't see you there. You know, I didn't know I cut in line. I didn't know you were in line. I mean, I'm picking on some small things here, but like whatever we do isn't always intentional. And sometimes when you offend me unintentionally, I feel more offended than when you did something intentional.

Amen. And that is so critical. Like, let's keep on praying, you guys. Let's pray for forgiveness. People like, "Oh, I don't have anything to pray for forgiveness about. I have I was good all day today." You may have offended somebody who saw your previous content from ten years ago. You may have offended somebody who you had that interaction with at the you know, at the kindergarten playground and they said, "Oh, that person bullied me." You know, you never know. You never always ask for forgiveness because also when you're always seeking forgiveness, when you're always asking for forgiveness, God is going to give it to you. You may not get it from the world, but hey, God, I got it from God with my repentant heart. Number one. Number two, when you know how to forgive, when you seek forgiveness, you know how to forgive for yourself. There's a lot of people out here who do not know how to forgive others because they themselves cannot take their deepest, darkest things to God. They keep it in a pit. You know, there's things that everybody does every single day. There's people that, oh well, maybe if I do this and God won't accept me or love me. So now, somebody may have done that exact same sin that they can't forgive themselves for. So they hold it to the other person, keep them accountable for their own sins. So no, that is very powerful uh forgiveness. And then anybody out there who is still looking to forgive somebody, try to see how God can forgive you and you'll find it easier to forgive other people. So Amen. That is so deep.

Yeah. Yeah. I say on the the the father and and I I just preached on this on Sunday. One of my favorite passages. We usually call it the prodigal son. I do not like that title. It focuses on the son. And when Jesus introduces the story, he says, "There was a man with two sons. The story is about the father, not about either son." And and and if you if you watch walk all the way through it, you walk all the way through it, the father is taking the shame of both sons all the time. The father goes the when the son says, I'm not going to go through the whole thing, but it starts out when the son says, "Father, I wish you were dead." That's what he said. He said, "Oh yeah, give me my inheritance." in that culture. He should have been slapped down and his dad should have said, "No way." But he oh.

Oh, I got a I got a raid coming in. Hey, welcome in, Raiders. I'll I'll back up the story once you get here. I'll I'll I'll start over with that. But like I said, this is this is one of those passages I've been studying on my own for like ten years and and diving into. So, it it really means a lot. And the first few seconds of your message, you literally said, "It's not about the son." I said, "It's not." So, I'm learning myself as welcome in. I'm watching. Thank you for the raid. Appreciate you, friend.

Welcome in, DJ Stacy. Bless. Appreciate you. Amen. Amen. Amen. All right. I don't know who else is coming in. You got a good raid there. Appreciate that so much.

Amen. Thank you so much. I'm watching you people. Yeah. Those those that do not know, Bashidto of Christ is here with me. We've been hanging out. We've been chatting a little bit and we just got on the topic of forgiveness. And so I was bringing up the story of the man with two sons, which is how I I think Jesus introduces it. It's how I want to talk about it. It's not about the prodigal son.

U so anyway, when when son says to dad, I want the inheritance, he had just said, I wish you were dead. And dad doesn't argue with him. Dad doesn't put him in his place. Dad says, "Okay." And then here's another thing we overlook. Dad distributed among both sons the inheritance.

Go back and read it. He had distributed the inheritance among both sons. The son doesn't immediately leave. I think the son, and it doesn't put it in the story, so I'm speculating here. I think the son sticks around for a while. I don't know how long. And then he begins to feel guilt over the decision that he's done. Or it took him a while to get all of his plans together and he went. So, you got a couple of options there. Or older brother was giving him a hassle so he left because of older brother. I don't know what it is. I got three things I can think about that maybe is why he left.

U but then just continue the rest of the story. All the actions of the father when the son returns are taking the shame away from him and the father is looking for the son and then the accusations that we usually think about of oh he went and spent his money on prostitutes. The story never says that. The older brother says that.

Wow. The older brother won't come into the house. The father could have demanded he came in the house. He could have sent a servant to send the f to send the son in and say, "Your presence is here." He goes out to the older brother and takes the shame of the older brother away. So there's a whole bunch of the father goes to the younger son, the father goes to the older son, the father is always giving, the father is always reaching out. The father wants the relationship even when both sons don't understand what they have. Wow. So, so there's my there's my short little like two-minute sermon on it.

And do you remember where the scripture is at exactly for those again who may want to also review the story side? It's Luke fifteen. And also, if you're going to do it, read all of Luke fifteen because it starts with the lost sheep. It goes to the lost coin and then it goes to the lost sons.

Oh, nice. Good. Good context. Very, very good context. That's amazing. And actually I want to ask you more of a personal question as well because again I actually sat with you. We actually got done eating at Chick-fil-A. We was in the in the car and you are very very knowledgeable on scriptures. It seems that as a pastor, you know, you need to know your word. And for those out there who are trying to know a little bit more of the Bible and a little bit intimidated by the book, what are some best practices that you did in order for you to be able to memorize more scriptures? Is it more so you just remember them in certain times or do you have a certain methodology for it?

I think that one thing is God gave me a gift for memorizing scripture and a love for scripture since I was a kid. So I had a lot of opportunities as a kid to memorize scripture. I I would compete in contest of memorizing scripture. I would do awards for memorizing scripture. So I had a lot of that. But rather than memorizing scripture, I think it's more important to dialogue around scripture. So, okay, I'm more interested in you and I sitting together and reading scripture together than in you just going and reading it on your own and then going throughout your day because

And I know you can apply it to yourself, but that's not the original intent of it.

It also was meant to be heard aloud. I have found the most—this is—I did not do this before I started streaming. So I, for those that don't know, on my other channel, on my channel Flat Cap Dapper Pastor, I have read through the Bible fully twice on stream, and then I'm also reading a different schedule. So every other year I read through the Bible, every other year I just focus on longer—let's go in depth on some scripture and we bounce around.

But the reading out loud together, because the Bible was originally meant to be listened to, and your brain when you listen to it read out loud makes connections you do not do otherwise. It helps you to—so if you want to think of like hyperlinks, there are hyperlinks in the text. Words that get repeated, phrases that get repeated, there the style of how it was written was meant to be listened to. It was also—if you go read it—when you have the celebrations you're supposed to read it together. You're supposed to recite it together.

So it's not about—well, if you go to the Jewish practice of the first century, they would have read for a half an hour and then given a five minute, "Here's what I think it says." We read scripture usually in a sermon. We do five minutes of what the Bible says and a half an hour of explaining it. We've totally flipped it around.

Man. And so, so I would say get a group of people and read it together. If it's two or three, read it together. If it's with someone who's doing it live, don't—I mean, if you can't do it live, I understand that. But it just is so much more powerful when you're engaged with it live. When you can ask questions, when you can—you can say not "What does it mean to me?" but "What did the Holy Spirit say in the middle of this? What did I hear? What did you hear? What are your questions about it? What have you never seen?" I learn so much by people asking me questions about it.

And then the other side of that is I am constantly diving into podcasts in areas that I don't know about and exploring new things where I have questions. I'm always opening that up and finding more. So I binge tons of podcasts that are talking about the Bible. So that's why I have such a knowledge is because I'm hungry for it. But I don't want knowledge to puff me up. I want to put all of that into practice and what I'm doing, and that's why I get excited when somebody discovers something new for the first time and that they can go do something with it. That's that's the exciting piece.

So some of it has just been, you know, twenty-five years of being a pastor, reading through the Bible over and over and over again. But I'll admit too, when we get to passages on in scripture, I go, "Yeah, I got no clue what this passage means. I don't know. I don't understand. I keep racking my brain when I run into this passage. God hasn't revealed it to me. I know the explanations, but I don't understand. You know, if like for instance, I know electricity. I know conceptually what it does. I don't know how to really understand electricity though. I'm not an electrician. I know positive and negative and neutral and all of that, but I don't understand. So I can conceptually grasp it and I can run some wires, but if you want me to go down and run a power plant, like I got the wrong guy here. I don't have enough knowledge or comprehension to actually do something with it."

Exactly. And I feel as though it takes a—you have to remember that you're humble. To be humble is that when you don't understand the scripture and you're reading it out loud—I mean, you're reading the scripture out loud on stream, you know, you're going through your devotional and always ask and engage with the comment section—is that what do you guys think about the scripture? What do you think, you know, how are you guys feeling about the scripture? And then also see what, like you said, what the Holy Spirit is guiding you. What is the Holy Spirit trying to convey with this as well? So I feel as though a lot of times people might be afraid to read scripture on their streams. I hear that sometimes from my friends is that, "Oh well, you know, I'm not as knowledgeable at the Bible as you or I can't portray my thoughts as much."

Well, well, I constantly say I don't know. People ask me—I don't know. I'm not afraid to not know. I mean, I'm sorry, I'm limited. I'm a limited person. I can't know everything. I can't understand everything. I can't comprehend. I'll tell you exactly where I struggle the most. Isaiah and Jeremiah. I struggle in Isaiah and Jeremiah. I like—one is it's overwhelmingly depressive and the other it's overwhelmingly heavenly and it's like I don't grasp either ends of those things, you know. So so I'm limited. But you get me in the book of Leviticus or Job and I'm like all over the place. Let me see the thing that you didn't see there. Let me tell you about this. Let me hit all the hyperlinks for you. Let me get you excited about Leviticus. I mean, I, you know what? We just finished Deuteronomy on stream today, and I need to pick what book we're doing next in the Torah. It might be Leviticus. I might have just made up my mind. We're going to Leviticus. Amen. Because I love it.

The Holy Spirit moving. Uh yeah. So, like I, I've always had a fast—like I'm not a reader, which might people might be surprised by. I like my stream knows this. I have this book. It's an Arc Arc Arc book of riddles. Okay, I need that. Um, it's but if you give me fiction to read, I'm bored. I don't care. I mean, Tolkien is great. CS Lewis is great, but you know how I did book reports back in the day? I went to the library and I got the Chronicles of Narnia on cassette tape and I listened to them. That's that's how I got through it because otherwise I'm bored reading fiction. I can't do it. But the Bible is the most fascinating book. I could read it for hours upon hours and go back again and again.

I've never read another book twice. Like I made it through part of it. Like if I pulled out all the books on my shelf back here, either they're a reference book or you can see the crease where I stopped. I got some information out of it and I put the book down and I moved on to another book. That's that's just like it's not my thing. But podcasts, people sharing information, sermons, all of that stuff—it's about Christ. I'm I'm just nerdy about it. I'm diving in. I want to know more.

So, Amen. Um, just really quickly also, we have Kel Drex, uh new first time chatter. They just followed. Thank you again for the follow. They said, "This is a Christian stream, right?" Yes, it is. We are Christians. We are followers of Christ. But again, if you are not a Christian yourself, that's okay. You can belong before you believe. We are currently talking about what does it really mean to be a Christian. We're talking about forgiveness. And also, we love to play video games. We love pop culture. We love to again spread the gospel online. So again, if you feel like that this is your place, please again, we would love to have you. It says, "It's so good to see brothers and sisters." Amen. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, there there are several uh communities here on Twitch of Christian streamers and we were talking about some of them earlier. So, at the Church Digital, we are a digital missionary sending agency. I do a podcast here. I bring friends on and we talk about that. Uh Nerd Culture Ministry Summit, they're not all streamers. Uh Taco Network, Digital Creators for Christ, DC4C, Reach Conference. So JPNLVR just followed. Thank you. Thank you for the follow. JPNLVR. Wow. Amen. That's a lot of—lot of just no vowels in there. Um, so I don't know how to pronounce that. Uh, so yeah, if you know, hang out, get to learn. There's plenty of different communities that are growing and Christians in the space and we're trying to be salt and light and that's what we're talking about is how do we do that in the space?

It, yeah, go—you can go ask your question. Okay. Okay. I was going to say, so uh we were talking about how you got started and jumping into there. What have been some obstacles that you've had to overcome uh in the stream? Oh, wait. I'm getting an explanation. Uh, so the JPN—Japan lover. Oh, okay. Thank you. Appreciate that. Hey man, thank you so much JPM for being in, appreciate you. Thank you. So, uh yeah. So, what are some obstacles you've had to overcome as a streamer?

Oh my goodness. I'd say this is the biggest obstacle. Here we go. It has nothing to do with streaming itself. It doesn't always—is. Yeah. It's for me when you are on stream and you're talking about Christ. When you're on streaming, you have to be positive. When you're on stream and you have to again, there is sort of a showy nature to being a streamer. Of course, it's not being fake, but it's again, you are an entertainer in such ways. At times, you have to be consistent no matter how you're feeling. You feel the conviction in your own actions in the background. If you're talking about God, you know, and you know that you're doing something that is unfruitful, you will feel that conviction every single time you step into the camera.

Um, you have to make sure that when you are a streamer that you are ready to change because when you're a streamer, you have to take responsibility for other people. You know, "Oh, I need prayer," you can pray for yourself. No, no, no. We're not going to do that over here. I will also pray for you. Right. We have to make sure that again that even when we're feeling low, 'cause I felt low for a good season of my life when I first started streaming, you know, middle me streaming. You have to know how to set your emotions aside and to really pick up your cross and to represent God. But also with being a streamer, you got to be real. We have to remember that again is that there's a lot of streamers out there who just, "Oh, video game, this video game," there's no connection. If you want to really build people, you really really want to get those crowds to stay around. It's not even about you. It's about your experience that you've been through and giving glory to God every single time.

So for me, the difficulty with being a streamer besides the tech, besides figure out what game to play, besides dealing with comment sections and whatever that might be, for me the biggest struggle at times is just being raw with my people. Um, with being honest about my own walk. You know, okay, I can't say all these different things, but however, I would like to again allow somebody to see my pain. Maybe when I share my testimony, which is very hard, um, to share my testimony, will they take it the right way? Can I trust them with this? I can't ask about that. I have to know that God gives me the conviction to share my testimony, to share how I'm feeling, and they will—God will allow them to take it how he wants them to take them. So that's my biggest struggle when it comes to streaming is the rawness. You have to be real. I'm trying to convert my friend to Christianity. Oh wow. I'll be praying for you for that. Amen.

And um, I would I would also just kind of to go to that comment. It is the role of the Holy Spirit to convict people. It is our role to be salt and light to them. And I'm I'm not saying that's what you were saying something different, but just on that that level is I'm going to be salt and light, but the work of anyone coming to Christ is the work of the Holy Spirit. And it's not me alone. It's it's all of my other friends online, too. Which here's one of the beautiful things about Twitch.

Anyone watching the podcast later who doesn't know anything about Twitch is uh I can get done like we had. I'm watching you people come over here and bring her community here.

Uh, I know her, she knows me, she knows I'm trustworthy, she she's also one of my mods, and you've probably seen her around. But we do that with each other.

We take them to safe places, especially when we know someone in our community needs another safe Christian community to hang out in. Sometimes I don't go to Christian communities because all of my friends here that day might be Christians and we're going to go bless a non-Christian with a community.

So, we can do it both ways. We can go both ways with that, but it's I want you to be safe or I want to bring safe people to you.

Those are the two ways that we're doing it. And I want to have people aren't projects. Yes, I would love every one of my friends to come to Christ.

But I'm not going to make friendship around whether or not they're Christian or not. I'm going to make friendship around whether or not they're worthy.

Oh, and they're created by God. So, they are worthy. So, everyone is worthy of my time and my investment and my friendship. So there's no for me there are no uh sorry I can't be friends with you red flags.

Amen. Now now along the way I will protect myself and my family from relationships that are harmful. So I'm not saying you can't step away from toxic relationships and harmful things.

You absolutely do need to do that to protect yourself. But from that standpoint, I hope that making sense there. Uh no. And and if I can add to that as well.

Um first of all, I love what you said. Me and my friend Kada, we were playing this new game called Thrown in Liberty last night.

Uh it's like this MMO game. It's really, really fun. And we were talking about how so many people would dismiss others because of the position that they're at or that they're not Christians.

And that's not who we're called to go for. We're not here to call for those who again who are healed. Just like how we said, we're call for those again who are seek relationship with God.

And again, I want to say again, uh Cali Star, thank you for the follow. But Kell, I also want to say is that we have to understand like like um like um as you may know, we have to make sure that we are looking for connections with these people not just to bring them to Christianity. Just like how you said, we have to make sure that we are having connections with these people because they are created in the image of God and we love them.

First have a relationship with you. That way when they have a relationship with you, you see what I'm saying? You they can see our relationship with Christ.

It's not about trying to convert. And again, I know you want them to come to Christ, but first it's all about what is it?

What is the premise of it? Have a relationship. We have a relationship with Christ. They need to have a relationship with us. So, you can't hop on to somebody and be like, "Oh, you need to stop what you're doing.

That's sinful. Blasy blas. There's no relation. How can I grow love for God and you're being so um in a way hateful in your actions.

You know, we should not be first to point fingers. We first should try to understand why it is they're doing that and say not to not to confine to it but to say okay well I don't agree with that but however this is why I don't agree with it because of my connection with God my relationship I love him so much and he says not to do this and also there's always repercussions to me doing the things that he says not to do you know.

So that's the biggest thing amen. Yeah I say I I think on uh some level what you're what you're talking about there is something that we talk about in the church digital all the time connection needs to lead to community and and one of those places for me when we were asking me earlier about hey you know being a pastor and and I was saying well for a while I wasn't and I thought that I wasn't going to be even though as a kid I thought God was calling me to do that and the reason it came back around was because of the church that I was at we had a youth pastor and we or a junior junior high pastor and a senior high pastor or a large enough church they were both seminary students so they part-time jobs doing that. And there was something about them that I did not know.

I mean, I'd been a Christian for a long time, but I did not understand what they had. And I wanted to spend time with them.

They kept asking me to volunteer. I didn't care what it was. They had something that about Christ in their life that I didn't know and I hadn't experienced.

So, I wanted to spend time with them. So, if they asked, I said yes. I didn't care what it was. Oh, you mean it's it's Wednesday night?

Yeah. I was going to No. Yes. Wednesday night. Great. Oh, you're going to start a new Bible study for young couples on Tuesday? Great.

I'll be there. What do you need me to do? Uh, you know, so it's this constant, I know you have something that I need that's not in my walk with Christ.

How do I get what you have? I'm going to find out by hanging around with you. So, that connection led to me being in community with them, led to deeper relationship.

And I know you were talking about some Discord that you've created, which I think is is a piece of that taking connection and leading to community.

So, why don't we transition over to that because you said you wanted to talk about your Discord.

Yes, sir. So, I have my own personal Discord and I love it.

But what I love even more than that one is the one that created we created recently. It's called Spiritual Speakers. It is a discord that we decided to come up with that only the me all the members inside of this discord are Twitch streamers streamers in general um who talk about Christ.

Right now we have over a hundred people inside of that discord but you can imagine there are over a hundred people and if you if you ourselves and you're hearing this and you would like it that's not the link.

If you would like um a link, it is a little bit more private, but if you would like a link for you to receive the Discord link for you to join the spiritual speakers, again, it is a link for all the different Christian streamers.

And as you can imagine, right, you have over a hundred people where you can collaborate with. We have tabs where you can say, "Hey, this is collaboration.

If you would like to collab, we have um somebody, her name is uh Simply Britney. She's a Christian streamer. She does a lot of uh co-study and things that nature which we all need productivity in our lives to put the word of God into work.

Um but she's hosting a girls night. We have men's night. We also have Marvel Rivals. We have another one. His name is he's a great person, a verbal prophet.

He's going through the whole Bible in a year right now currently. And he's hosting a lockdown protocol. I mean uh Among Us night. So it's all Christian streamers.

You can imagine. Uh, one of the biggest ones I was a part of, we had 20 different Christian streamers collaborating together, you know.

Uh, yeah, a stream collab. You can only have six. So, we had group one, group two, group three. You know what I'm saying?

Who needs somebody in their group? It was so amazing, so beautiful. We all huddled together around inside of Among Us. We pray as in the circle and then we still act like ourselves, you know?

But this is what the great part is. People get to see how they act around other people. A lot of times you can act differently when you're playing the video game or when you're being very competitive.

I have to check myself because I listen, I'm competitive when it comes to Among Us and other games and I have to make sure that I'm speaking softly.

We're letting people talk. We're putting these practices into use real lifetime. We're sharing our communities. I've seen so much growth from other people. I've gotten their follows.

So again, it doesn't matter who it is. I don't care if you have one follower. I don't care if you're just trying to get started into Twitch.

Once you make your account, you know, this also allows me to network. Hey, by the way, I know uh Lux Lux Church. I know the digital church.

I know Taco who they're also doing an amazing class on what it means to be a streamer for Christ or to follow Christ. So, this gives me an avenue to direct all these different people who said, "Hey, I want to represent God on my streams." Great.

Now, here goes a connection link inside of the Discord where you guys can click on this link to all these different people. So, it's just a great way of collaborating.

And a lot of times we could be focused on those who have bigger followings and there's nothing wrong with that and bigger views, right?

Like, oh, I'm gonna this is an example. No, no, no. We need to get the there's so many more smaller creators than there are larger creators.

We have to give them attention.

Yeah, absolutely. There are. And and as you well, I say as you grow, if you have a thousand people watching you, you can't have a conversation in stream with a thousand people.

It just can't happen. There's too many people, too much to happen. Uh the same way as I was just have talking with a a friend whose church is maybe 30 40 people.

They can do things and interrupt the service in a way that a church of 10,000 people can't. No, a a church of 10,000 has a regimented schedule that you have to stick with.

You have to be on time. You have you have all the people that need to come in, all the people that need to leave out, all the volunteers who are doing all the work.

There's nothing wrong with that. It's just a different ability to adapt and change and grow with size and what you are capable of doing.

I love the small streams where you know most of the people who are in the chat. You hang out with them on a regular basis.

You're excited when they're there. You're having conversations. And small's relative, too. One person small might be 15 people. Another person small might be 50.

But when we're talking 3,000, that's big, no matter who you are, I think. Amen. Amen. It's and one of the greatest things also, this is why I find it so important.

We need to collaborate amongst other streamers. We need to collaborate because we need to again when my crowd, let's just say I have a hundred viewers and you have five viewers.

This gives another opportunity just like again I love blessing boat. Blessing is so amazing when it comes to this where their monthly uh raid trains and going out to other Christian streamers and it inspired me to create this discord.

But if we have a collaboration and I have a hundred and I'm with other people that have three or five, which doesn't matter to me, they also have a hundred views.

They have an opportunity to build up their crowd and to uh grow their discord with other like-minded Christians. I'm not saying our our end goal should be just Christians, but it's nice to have a nice solid foundation of trust of uh other faithful believers as we go out there into the world, you know, people to confine in. I didn't have the friend group that I had back then. I didn't have the connections that I have right now.

And now that I do, I feel like I can take on so much more. And we all feel that way with each other. So, it's such a beautiful thing.

Yeah. Yeah. And and uh Japan lover uh had a question in there that I think just goes along with this. Uh so, if I'm a Twitch streamer who is Christian, but I don't usually talk about Christianity in my stream, like trying to show the love of Christ.

If someone asks me if I'm Christian, of course, I affirm, etc. So, uh for instance, you know, I have pastor in my name, you have Christ in your name.

It's hard to avoid us as Christ. Oh, wait. It's easy to avoid us because we're following Christ. So, so we will not reach people who are trying to avoid Christ and try to avoid conversations about Jesus.

So, Japan lover, you are going to reach people who we will not reach because they won't come into our streams because they know we're Christian.

You will have an opportunity to build a friendship with a person. And when they ask you for the hope that you have then you get to share it.

So I don't know about if he I think the question might have actually been towards the Discord whether you can participate in the Discord or not.

But I just want to take a bigger piece of the whole. What I'm doing is to reach a certain group of people, Christian and non-Christian in the space.

What you're doing is also to reach a certain group of Christian and non-Christian in the space.

Amen. And if you're going in without Christ or pastor in your name, you might be reaching and doing more evangelism.

I might be doing more discipleship than evangelism. So, we all are needed in the body and we all get to bring salt and light into it.

Amen. And yes, um, you I love that angle is that we will reach people who see Christ and pastor and be like, "Oh, there's another Christian out there." But there's others who will try to stray away.

So JPN, this is where you come in is that that's where you build that connection. It's not that you're hiding that you're being a Christian, but however, some people may not see that for face value, right?

And the biggest thing that I also want to say too, it's not about having a title. No, it's not about having a title at all.

It's not about having pastor or having Christ or you not having anything really at all inside your descriptions or in your name. It's about the relationship that we all have.

Because just because I have Christ, you know, just because we see pastor or nothing, that doesn't say anything. But however the world sees that.

So what I would say is that yes, this is more bluntly. Yes, you are welcome. If you are somebody who, who again I love to say this one too.

Somebody said this to me. If you're somebody who streams for the world, you had some cursing vibes or things of that nature and you said, "Hey, I would like to start streaming for God, but I have all this different content on there still."

That doesn't matter to me. I see about again you're trying to change your past. Let's see if we want to take that take down that content because it doesn't glorify God.

But however, I see that you are trying to move forward with Christ. And that's what we're concerned about. It doesn't matter to me what happened in the past because I love a God who forgives, who has forgiven me.

And therefore, we need to extend that kind of love as well. What's up, Fluffy? How you doing?

Hey, Fluffy, welcome.

So, again, Amen. Amen. So, again, um, that that is so incredible. That is so incredible. And I would like to also ask you, do you have any type of, because I know you're a very, very busy person, but also you have a heart for God.

Um, do you have any type of bigger projects for maybe my crowd or anybody watching out there who could be excited about? I know that we have Reach coming up, but do you have anything else maybe within your streams or anything that you're excited about to possibly celebrate?

Uh, with the Church Digital, uh, we have four conferences that are coming up. So, they're not all for Christian content creators or streamers or gamers even.

So, if you go to missionary and I'm going to type it in the chat, missionary.digital, which is a, you know, a really easy title to remember or to pass along to anyone you know in ministry, whether they're in person or or they're online.

But our first conference and uh I, by the way, got got a little bit of uh say in the title of this as as we were massaging the title.

Uh I kind of was going with the the Mr. Rogers Neighborhood and Reaching Your Neighbors. Uh so it's, you know, it's reaching your digital neighborhood is is the first. I like that. The first conference.

Uh and that is on September 17. And with all of these conferences, sign up if you want the content, even if you can't make it because you will not get the content if you don't sign up.

Now, we really want you to show up, okay? Because we believe the best part of it is the conversations you have with other people at the conference, not the speakers.

Uh that's not the biggest part. Now, the speakers are going to help, they're going to inspire, they're going to instruct, they're they're going to share things, they're going to answer questions, but the best part is having conversations with other people.

Like we were talking about Reach Conference or no, we were talking about uh NCMS. The best part is the conversations with other people that are happening before and after the talk.

So, uh, missionary.digital, the first conference, reaching your digital neighborhood. If so, especially share this with your physical church if you have one. Share this with your pastor.

Get the word out about this. We're only a what, two weeks away from that conference, less than that. Uh, and it's also totally free.

All of our conferences are totally free, but you do need to sign up. You do need to register to to participate in there. I don't know all the speakers at that conference.

Uh that's not the one that my focus has been on. Our second one is Control Alt Recover. So we're talking recovery ministry. You know, a lot of the the world and especially online has addictions to things.

Uh addictions are one of the biggest problems. Addictions keep tearing down Christians when their their addictions get known. Why? Because we hide them. Why?

Because we attack people that share their addictions. We don't want to wait. We don't want you to hide your addiction. We want you to recover.

All of us have something that is a sin in our life and some of them get to the point of their addictions. We can't control them.

They control us. So, wow. Um, so that conference, that is so good. Yep. Control Alt Recover. I love that. I didn't come up with that one.

I wish I did. Um, so, so that's the second one. Uh, that's going to be the following the 24th of September. The the next one is for our friends in Europe.

Uh so it's a European conference. It's going to be if you're in the US way early in the morning. So if you can't make it, sign up anyway.

You'll be able to watch later. Uh that's going to be like a whole bunch of like 15-minute TED talks from uh our friends over in Europe.

Uh our friend Simon's putting that one together. I I am probably going to get up and attend because I want to be there in person.

It's it's it's that exciting to me. And the so that'll be October 1st. So these are all four consecutive Wednesdays in a row. And the I guess unless you are, you know, the other side of the date line.

So the Philippines and the and uh New Zealand, Oceania, it'll be Thursdays early morning for some of you. Uh but the the final one is going to be uh the gaming summit.

So, it's on Thursday, Octo or Wednesday, October 8th is when that one is going to be. We're going to be have that one in Discord.

And what we want you to do with that one is, so I'm not going to tell you all of the all of the speakers, but we do have speakers from Lux Digital Church.

We do have speakers from um Taco. We do have speakers from um North Hill Live. So, we've got those. And then another really well-known Christian streamer that if I mention their name, people will know.

Uh so we've got speakers that are there uh going to be going through and helping you like we we've been talking about how did you get started on Twitch?

Well, who are you reaching on Twitch, Bashidito? We want you to know exactly who you're reaching and then how you're going to evaluate if you're reaching them.

And then three, how do you set the table for everybody to come in and feel welcomed in the space, whether that's on your stream or in your Discord community?

And then how do you experiment and and grow as a streamer? So, we're going to have a whole system based around not just listening to speakers, but you actually working on a process, putting it on paper or digital of this is who I'm reaching, refining it if you already have it, defining it

if you've never done it, and then thinking through and you won't finish this in the conference. You'll get it started. You'll start the process.

You'll continue to refine it. You'll lift it up in prayer and and then afterwards, you know, hopefully we can walk alongside of you figuring that out.

So, uh, so that's the four things I am really excited about that God is doing. I'm also excited about Reach Conference coming up.

I'm also, if people don't know, Nerd Culture Ministry Summit, it will be in April, but it has been in the fall the last couple of years.

So, Exponential Conference is, so Exponential is usually in March. I usually go to that. Then they have a couple of regional ones. So Exponential West will be out in San Francisco and I'm I can't I don't know the date.

You'll have to look it up, but it'll be out in San Francisco and Nerd Culture Ministry Summit is going to be doing a track or a pre-conference there of Nerd Culture and focused on that.

So, I am planning to go and attend uh the that conference out there and hang out with Nerd Culture Ministry Summit and some friends from Exponential, which is Church Planting, which I I just love making connections with people.

Amen. And that's it's so important because as as the body of Christ, we need to keep on making connection with each other. I tell my fellow streamers is that you guys, we are not the world.

The world tries to go for their own glory and to stream for themselves. But when we are together though, I love when I end stream because I know another one of my friends who represent Christ on stream is also streaming.

So it's like I'm still streaming, you know. So we had to make sure again for all those different events you guys please go ahead and check out the website pinned at the top.

I will be actually going to both Exponential West and I'll be going to Reach Conference. I'm excited. I have.

Oh, I didn't know you're going to Exponential West, dude. Awesome.

Yes. Yes. Yes. 100%. I I took the days off already for work when I heard about it. So, it'll be really it'll be nerve-wracking, of course, to go out there.

Again, I have faith in God, but I'm excited to go out to California. I'm excited to go out to Florida. I think that this is a great way for God gave me this desire to go out in the world, and now I'm able to do it in such a manner that is glorifying

him and just stepping out of my own way into a safe environment, you know.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. So much.

Yeah. There's so many exciting things going on there.

Uh, you know, if we go to April which is when uh Nerd Culture Ministry Summit will go back to Colorado uh the dates well I don't know when this is coming out uh on the podcast channel on YouTube but those you watching live I believe tomorrow is when tickets go available to the

public to register and buy all of your stuff for Nerd Culture Ministry Summit in April. The Church Digital is going to sponsor a table there uh at Nerd Culture Ministry Summit in April.

So, I will be there as well. So, like my travel schedule is around where do I get to go hang out with friends that are nerds and streamers and church planters and and all of that stuff.

It's yes, it's amazing. It's fun. It's it's fantastic. Yeah.

I I went to one of them and I was like, "Oh my goodness, when can I come back?" I was I was upset getting onto that plane.

But didn't you just come from another conference if I'm not mistaken?

Oh, yeah. I did go to the Well, I uh digital game creator.

I can't remember what it is. Um, oh, the tag's in the other room. Um, digital game creators conference, something along those lines.

It was in Grand Rapids. So, actually, uh, I hosted uh, Romans from uh, Reach Conference. I hosted him at my house and I chauffeured him back around and he bought my tickets to go to the conference because he was planning to go to it.

So that was pretty awesome.

Wow, that's amazing. Yeah, I want I definitely want to get out more. I definitely want to go to more of these events and it encourages me as well for those out there who again, oh, I can't step out there.

What I love for this one is that again uh, Missionaries Digital, these are again are if I'm not mistaken, they're all online, right?

Oh, yeah. All all of the the church digitals conferences are online. Uh, and then we we did break the system for our first conference that we were using.

We had to go I remember that. It was oh my goodness.

Yeah. We we had to get a new uh, host and this host that we're using has done conferences of like upward of uh, hundreds of thousands of people.

So we can't break it. We can't break it this time. Um, that's a great issue. We had, 00 people from 85 countries show up to our first conference.

So wow. People who are digital missionaries is a global endeavor and no matter where you are, God can use you in digital spaces.

If you're not in gaming, that's fine. Uh, we're growing the gaming in area. I have lots of friends in the gaming area, but I want to be a I want to I'm the I'm the connector.

I want to know what everybody's doing elsewhere. What are you doing in Tik Tok? What are you doing on on WhatsApp? What are you doing in Zoom?

What like what is God up to? Cuz God's up to some awesome awesome things.

I can't wait to look back in 20 years and see the foundation that has been laid and is being laid over the last three years and the next three years.

It's just so exciting to see what God's up to.

Yes, God is moving. And I've been talking to my friends lately and we had this discussion too.

I feel this way. I said, "Man, I feel as though we've really been growing, you guys, so rapidly. Me and my friends, we've been uh, addressing sins in our life.

We've been addressing all these different pains from the past, and we've been really being consistent with our streams, and we're all growing so rapidly.

Our faith is more important than the numbers, you know, our our connections, our friends. A lot of us are opening up about issues that we never thought we would, you know, and just starting with even that, it's only been a couple months.

I've only been here for a couple months, you know, just with the uh, foundation that is being laid right now, like you said, in 5 years, 10 years, 20 years, it's going to be incredible what's going to happen in the body of Christ.

I'm just so excited. And that's why, again, I work overnight, so I'm supposed to be sleeping up until like 3:00 from 7 to 3.

But, however, at times I wake up at like 1:00. I said, "Oh, I need to I need to get back into it." I'm just sometimes so excited just to get back out there because I love just picking up my phone or going to my computer after my prayer session and just seeing who's streaming and what's going on and how they're being consistent. So yeah.

Amen. Uh, JPN just saying just saying cuz my brother lives in Denver area so I'd have a place to stay if it's closed.

Amen. Expensive enough just to get the plane ticket to attend something like this. Oh wow. That'd be perfect.

It's I think it's an hour away. I want to say it's Colorado Springs. It's by Garden of the Gods. Uh, is where we're actually staying at the Eerie Castle. I think it's Eerie Glenn Eerie Castle in Garden of the Gods is where it is.

Beautiful.

So yeah, it's beautiful. It'll be there. You could stay at a castle if you want to.

Uh, but yeah, you would be able to, you know, fly in there, stay with your brother before, after if you needed to and get a ride there, whatever works.

Um, yeah, but you wouldn't be able to stay there unless you want to do a commute every day. That would that would be tough, but you could do it.

Yeah, you you you definitely could do it if you want to make an hour there, an hour back. I would highly recommend living like living inside the castles for that time because it's really great.

They even have events inside the castle itself. You can walk out of your room, see the amazing views inside of the castle area. It's so it's just indescribable.

You could take a hike up the side and everything like that. So, it's a beautiful beautiful thing.

Yeah. I I'm a little Yeah, I I'll be flying. Uh, but I'm a little disappointed that like I don't get to bring my bicycle. I like I would love to like I I like I ride my bike all over the place and I got like, you know, hills here.

I mean, you know, they're not mountains. I watch a lot of of cycling. I have since I was a kid. I I love watching that.

And it's like I would just one time like to cycle the mountains and then find out how really hard it is and then never do it again, probably.

Yeah.

Um, but uh, it's like I complain about the little hills I go over. I can't imagine hitting these 13 20% grades that go on for hours.

It's like oh and switch backs and all that stuff. It's like oh my goodness that sounds miserable but I want to experience it. So Amen.

And I think you can rent a bike, right? I'm pretty sure you can rent one or well, it was so busy, you know, while we were there, you know, there really wasn't that much time to do it.

But from the morning time up until like night and even into the night you could play games with people.

Oh yeah. There's there's so much so much stuff going on.

So I say I would love to, but that would mean I need to spend another week there, you know.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Get a bike for NCMS and do Pikes Peak. Oh man, I would I would love to do that. It would also kill me to do that.

I'm pretty sure I'm not in I'm not in shape to do Pikes Peak on a bike, but you know, you know, you experience different things that you like, you know, and you go after it.

And, you know, we're talking, we've been talking about being authentic. I think one of the things that I really see, and I think this is why God is using digital is because people are being transparent on digital.

They're not transparent when they walk through the doors of a church always. If I show weakness, I'm vulnerable to people judging me. But when I'm in digital space, I see it time and time again.

When a streamer is sharing vulnerability, the community rallies with love.

They don't attack, which is different from social media at times. Social media will pile on.

Social media will jump on the bandwagon. Social media will point out you're you do you do have to have on a lot of social media platforms you have to have only the polished days and none of the vulnerable days.

But in live streaming it's different. We want to know the person. We want to know behind them. Uh, and maybe it's not in every stream.

And it's not to say you can't get attacked by trolls. It certainly happens and trolls will come into the Discord and and they'll do that.

But you'll have friends on mission who'll be there to help bind your wounds and protect you when those things happen.

Yeah. And I just find it very important as well like like you said with the digital space, people are more comfortable because they see which is which is a little bit sad because the reason why people are afraid to be more uh uh encouraged to be more themselves inside digital spaces because there's that uh disconnect.

You know, it's a screen and then it's me versus face to face. People act differently face to face with people. So they feel like they can be themselves or they can be something that actually honestly them being toxic is them actually showing their true selves if I can be honest.

So we get to see people's true selves in the digital space at times. But then also there's those people out there who try to put on a facade or I need to act like this.

I need to act like this in order to be accepted. A lot of times we can see that where people don't have self-love or self or understanding in God himself that they'll act like something that they're not.

So, what I love again about the digital space and streaming itself is that even myself, I can be goofy. I like to again have my different things going on.

What's that?

What? You goofy? No.

You're You're a military guy. You've got to do everything proper, right?

No. Well, for military Oh, how can I say this on the surface level?

But if I could say this much about the military, we are a bunch of kids in uniforms at times. If I could say that much.

Again, we know how to get into formation.

I like that. A bunch of kids in uniforms. Yeah.

Yeah, definitely. What I could say is that we're in formation.

Of course, we know how to do our dress our dresses and how to do our cadences and how to do, you know, different um more formal things, but you have to know how to be positive, how to have fun when you're in a space that's being 90° outside with your Kevlar on and you're walking in front of a Humvey that's also pushing out another 100°. So, you have to know how to lighten up the mood. Um, again, my last name is Beckley.

I'm not trying to hide that. So, they would be like, Beckley, I'd always be that person. I was a squad leader. I'd always be that person that would cheer people up.

You know, we're going to get our work done, but at the same time, we're going to have fun doing it. Uh, it is the reference is getting smoked.

Uh, for those of who don't who don't who don't know what that is, but a lot of times I would, not that I'm doing anything wrong, but I would kind of exacerbate what was going on and then I would get smoked.

Yes, I would have to do push-ups. Yes, I'd had to run. Yes, I would have to do like a an extra mile ruck if that may be.

But a lot of people would cheer me on. A lot of people would get a lot of laughter like if Beckley is marching three, four miles, maybe I can go that three and a half with him to make sure he gets to the finish line.

If he's doing push-ups, maybe then I can also be next to him and do push-ups. I find myself not trying to mess up the order of things, but I know when it was time to really do the right thing, of course, and also to do the extra thing to encourage other people.

And I saw that God has given me this gift. Again, for those again who are trying to get into the digital space and start streaming, you have to see the gifts that God has already given you.

You know, oh, I just need to talk a little bit more. I need to be more of myself. I need to I need to be more.