Pastor Turned Creator - Here's What He Learned

All right, welcome in everybody. I will good to have all of you here. Turn myself down a little. The church digital and we're going to be chatting with Christian Ninja from Taco Network.

So we're going to bring him in here. Let me—oh, you know what? You're not sharing your camera on my side. I don't see you.

What? Oh, turn camera on. Yep. OBS virtual camera. Okay. Uh confirm. How's about now? There we go. Let me make sure I got the right one.

And I worked really hard, really hard to dial this in so it would actually work when I needed it to work, because—well, because what they did a while back with Twitch is they basically went, "We, here's a feature. You can now call each other," and it's like, "Cool." Uh, just how do I control that? And you can't. Sorry, you can't. Anybody can call you whenever they feel like at the end. And I'm like, "Well, we got—if that's going to happen, I better get my, you know, figure out how to do this. I better get my—" Am I loud enough for you?

Yeah, I was just double checking, because I like to shout.

Hey, no problem, no problem on that. Um, yeah, I say, you know, they open up stuff and well, for some reason I go from one person to another. I'm also streaming from one stream to another. And actually, I found out yesterday my one other channel that has no mic on it all of a sudden opened the mic up so that it was hearing a conversation in the room. Like, why did it—why did the computer—yeah, reboot and then undo the microphone? Uh, it makes no sense to me. It's—yeah, it, my computer this morning I jumped into—uh, jumped into stream, had turned on OBS and OBS, and Stream Elements was like, "Oh, uh, no, I've completely forgotten all your login information. You're going to have to relog in." So I'm like, "Okay, cool. No problem." Uh, and then as soon as I did that, it goes—it goes, "What did you do?" I crashed like full meltdown. I had to like hard reset my computer.

Oh, no. It was—it was bad.

Oh, yeah, it was bad. I'm like, "Come on, man. That's—that's not great. That—that's not cool." But until I was late for stream, then the moral of the story is there's nothing I could have done. It's not my fault.

Oh, well, there's—yeah, often somebody at least, you know, DM'd me and said, "Hey, uh, by the way, your other channel, uh, I can hear you." Uh, it was like it wasn't a big deal. I was just teaching on something and in a group, and so it wasn't—wasn't anything that was uh of any concern, but it was like, "Oh, wow, that's something I was not thinking about, that it would just—yeah, decide to do that on its own."

So, well, this has been really fun. So you are the fourth one that I've done this with. So those that do not know, uh, the church digital—so let me, you know, introduce myself. Everyone over on Christian Ninja, I know a lot of you might know me, Flat Cap Dapper Pastor, and the church digital is a missionary sending organization. And what I'm doing is trying to help be a resource person and create an outpost for missionaries who are specifically focused on doing gaming ministries. So a lot of us are going to be in Twitch, but you can be in other platforms as well.

And so as I'm kicking this off and using the channel that the church digital had been using for podcast, I'm like, "What a great way to just invite my friends in that I've known for a while that are missionaries." Uh, whether you use the title or not, I'm not—I'm not putting it on you, but a missionary is just someone bringing the gospel to a dark place.

And so I just use that term. We use that term for people that are bringing the gospel. And well, we've got a conference coming up that you can check out some info on that later. Uh, missionary.digital. It's free. Um, I think Believe Ninja—we we're getting you set up to be able to do a breakout session there. I got a bunch of friends that going to be helping out with some of that. So I got a lot of stuff going on, and it's like, "What a great way to just bring people in, talk about ministry, and uh promote the kingdom uh and what people are doing."

So that's why I'm hanging out here with my friend. So, uh, Christian Ninja, I know a little bit about your story of being a pastor and having that call, but I really kind of want to just kind of start with how did you end up being in digital spaces? What was the event and/or things that led that led you to that? Not just the, "Oh, I decided one day," but the things that led up to any of those kind of interactions.

Well, it certainly wasn't, "Oh, I decided one day." That that's for sure. Um, I have—okay, so basically, here's the story. I was a full-time pastor for a long time. When I was in—when I was in seminary, it was—that was a surprise. I didn't think I was ever going to be a pastor. I was a nerd when I first started uh school. I was a nerd all the way through high school. I all I wanted to do was to play uh with computers and program. That was back before, you know, everybody kind of knew how to do it and it was a thing. I was an exception there. I was one of the few uh actual like nerds in the school. Probably one of two. And the other one was my cousin. And so the—uh, when I—when I went to—went to school, I originally went for computer technology, right? Like computer system technology and electrical engineering and like trying to do computer stuff, and when I hated that because it was way not what I wanted to do. I—it was accounting and it was, you know, a bunch of programming I didn't want to learn. And so I then I didn't have it. I was completely untethered from what I was supposed to be. Life, I'm like, "That was everything and now I have nothing."

So I, you know, my dad said, "Why don't you go to Bible college and figure yourself out?" So I'm like, "Sure, I'll go to Bible college, figure myself out," and I did. I—it was great. I had a uh um a really transformative experience the first year. I had a lot of really great experiences with people. There was a lot of folks who were really kind. I walked in with a lot of anger, a lot of—a lot of misery, you know what I mean? Just feeling really bad about myself and about people. And so I went in, and by that time, you know, God called me, basically said, "Stay here. Get educated." And I'm like, "All right, cool. I will stay here. I will get educated." And then when I went to the pastor, it—I was there for a long time. Basically a preaching pastor. Uh, it—uh, that's that's what I was. It was—um, sorry, just do let me do one one setting here. I'm losing kind of losing my marbles here. Um, performance, tide, video, view. There we go. Nope. That's you. Why would I want to hide you? That doesn't make any sense at all. All right. Apparently I can't hide myself. Fine. Whatever. I don't want to see me. Every time I see myself talking, I make myself crazy. I could, but my brain's don't work anymore. Ah, so yeah, I just on the tech side there, I found that I capture just you individually and then I use my own source. Uh, works better than capturing it back through. So if you—right, if you go over to the right, you could just capture mine alone and then use your own alone. But I don't know what you got set up and how long that would take. But I got dual PCs, three monitors, and you're on two of them. Okay. So yeah, so yeah. So basically, uh, you know, I went in—I was a preaching pastor for a really long time, 16 years or so. Been through all the, you know, church hurt and and all that kind of stuff. Saw some amazing people. Saw some really, really rough stuff. Uh, at—when COVID—you know, a lot of the beginning of the stories for this ministry is—and then COVID—yeah. And so and then COVID, that was great for all kinds of reasons except for like as far as the church goes, it actually was a benefit. It was a blessing in disguise because it allowed a lot of churches, a lot of Christians, a lot of—whatever—to realize where they were with God, where they were with their relationship with the church, you know, whether they really felt that it was important, you know, like what—what was their—what if they didn't agree with some people that were at church. There was a lot of things that came out of that that were very transformative, you know, a really refining fire.

In the church I was in, uh, we found out that like an elder, some of the—some of the workers, you know, people that were there were very, you know, sort of like antivax, anti—you know, government, anti—you know, there's all sorts of stuff. And so they—when I—when we said we're going to shut down the church for the 13 weeks we're supposed to do that and uh, you know, we'll keep doing virtual stuff. We'll try to be meeting on Zoom. They were having none of that. So they just kind of went, "Forget it. We're leaving." And off they went and they went to go live in the woods and whatever.

It's when that happened, all of a sudden it was, you know, the board came to me and they're like, "Well, you know what? We can't afford to keep you full-time anymore. Uh, the, you know, the church is now cut in half. We we can't afford the full-time pastor thing anymore." I'd been there for seven years. And so, you know, good luck, goodbye. And so I went home and I'm like, "Okay, now what?" Right? I've just done decade and a half plus of pastoral ministry. I'm tired. Been through three different churches, been through a lot of stuff. The whole COVID season of, you know, making your own sermons and writing and recording and releasing and digital and all that stuff. It was actually—it was a lot, right? And so what do I do now? Do I—do I go get a secular job? Do I—do I quit? Do I—do I jump straight into another church? Like, so I talked to a friend, and that friend uh would super wise, super smart, and I'm like, "So I'm praying about this. I'm thinking about this. What do you want me to do?" Or like, "What should I do?" And he's like, "Well, what are you doing? Like, what are you—what are you passionate about right now? What are you—what are you working on?" I'm like, "Well, I have a podcast. I was doing a sermon podcast for a long time, and now I've converted it into um a like a news and events podcast, right? Kind of a thing that I'm I'm I'm—" So it's like, "Well, do that, you know, otherwise you're going to go crazy. You need some kind of project. Lean into that. If that's what you're passionate about, you're trying to serve God with it, and see what happens." And so as I was working with that and trying to make the podcast better, writing and and whatnot, uh, I started to get this impression that what I wanted was not to just to send out information into the world, right? I wanted to receive back, right? I wanted like, "How do I—I want this to be a conversation. I want it to be something that I can actually relate to people and and find out where they're at and hear what they have to say about these things that I'm—that are so I'm passionate about." But you know, so that got me looking into live streaming, which got me looking into immediately into YouTube. I didn't even think Twitch didn't didn't even cross my mind. Okay. And I'm like, because YouTube, you know, go there, and I started looking into YouTube, and and yeah, okay, interesting, live stream. What other ways are there? Okay, this, that—you know, the thing came across Twitch. And as I was kind of doing a study of what are—what is Twitch, who are the Twitch people, what are Twitch people like, you know, why is Twitch exist when there's a YouTube live, and discovered that the subculture that was on—

You know, mental health issues, social disorders, learning disabilities, you know, physical disabilities, people that have a ton of church hurt, community hurt, you know, they just there's a lot of that going on here among the streamers and among the communities who watch them.

And my heart immediately went out and I was like, "These are my people, man. These are my people." And I immediately had an affinity for wanting to serve, love, chat with them, find out what's going on.

And I prayed about it. I'm like, "God, what do you want me to do?" You know, and just was like, "Okay, I'm going to fight. I'm going to start this thing up." I started up and I'm like, you know, learning how to do it. I love tech. It's really easy for me to slide in. Let's do this stuff. All the way along when I was a pastor, I was the guy introducing we should have a website. We should maybe not use the overhead projector. Let's try a digital projector. You know, have you tried having more than, you know, one input on your soundboard? We should maybe have more than that, you know, like things like that.

And so that was me kind of moving that forward. And so now I just allowed to do whatever I want as hard as I could. And I just did. After about, you know, a couple weeks in really thinking about it, I had this assumption that I needed to be bivocational, right? And like my assumption was I need to have a way to pay for this that obviously if I go from I have no income, I have no church, I have no support, I have no connection. The denomination's not connecting with me. I have no big church that I'm working with. I've just it's just me in the basement with no income. It would be insanely stupid for me to just kind of go I'm going to go full-time. Good luck, you know, like. And so as I did that, I went into looking for a job. That job was with a nonprofit. It was actually a parrot rescue and I went through the whole process and they really liked me and I really liked thought it would be cool to kind of work with them. Really excited. And then the third interview I'm sitting down and they said to me, you know, like you are exactly who we want. You're just the right person for us. You're mature enough. You know what you're doing. You're willing to be paid at the level we're willing to pay you. You're just the right guy, but we can't hire you. And I'm like, "Oh, why not?" And this woman, secular woman, non-Christian woman from this place that wanted me and thought I would do a good job looked me dead in the eyes and was like, "This thing that you're doing online that you're so passionate about, it would be wrong for us to take you from it." Yeah. So you should do that. Which I took as kind of a Balaam's donkey moment of just trust me, you know, God just going don't go looking for other jobs. Just do the job and let me take care of you. And so I went, fine, I'll do it. And I just launched into full-time, full bore, as many hours as I could pour into it into this ministry and have now been full-time, coming this Sunday for four years.

I went from I've never streamed before to full-time streamer immediately. Wow. Yeah, I say I didn't do that same, you know, one day one thing and then move to the next day. I should say don't follow in my footsteps. It's a terrible plan if God's not literally telling you to do it. I'm just looking at the chat a little bit out the people are a little intrigued on the parrot rescue here. So let's back up a minute on the parrot rescue. Yeah, the parrot rescue. You made your brain stop for a second. Yeah. Yeah. Rescue.

So parrot rescue. So what is that? It's the only one. So there's only one in Canada. And it is essentially what it sounds like. There are people, you know, how they have places that if you have an abused dog or you have an abused, you know, like pet, whatever, you take them there and they get taken care of or someone, you know, like calls the police and they rescue the dog or whatever. Well, parrots are actually really uniquely a difficult pet. They live for like eighty years. They got the intelligence of like a three-year-old and they get real stressed out real fast.

And so if you don't know what you're doing with a parrot, then you can it'll pluck out all of its feathers. It'll do all kinds of insane stuff.

Did I just one sec. I just got some gift subs. Thank you. Awesome. I love that, dude. I appreciate that very much. Thank you, anonymous gifter. That was super cool. Part of me is like, you should have waited till Sunday during the subathon, but I was like, I'll take it. Absolutely. I'll take it. Thank you. I appreciate that so much. So much. God bless you and much appreciated.

So yes, there is, so they're really smart, they get really stressed out, they need community, they need exercise, they need the proper diet, they you know, they need communication. And if they don't get it, they start self-harming. They will literally rip out all of their feathers and they'll kind of lose their minds and they'll hurt themselves like all kinds of stuff.

And so this parrot rescue, oh, so like this, you should go to the parrot rescue in Carlton Place website and you'll see some of these birds, these parrots that have no feathers because they've ripped out all their feathers, you know? Like they just they look so sad and terrible and they haven't been played with and they haven't been taught and they haven't been like imagine you take a three-year-old and you just lock them in a cage.

Yeah. Right. And just like they're not going to do well. And so these people who kind of like on Easter where people get a bunny and then don't know what to do with it or at Christmas they go get a dog and they don't know what to do with it and then you know they what do we do with this thing and they bring it all back. So the same thing with these parrots except for these parrots live for like forever. They're not fourteen years. They're around for as long as a human life. And so they, these guys, their passion is for taking these parrots and recuperating them and doing therapy with them and bringing them back to some health, finding a good home for them, that kind of thing.

So it part of their deal is they were trying to figure out a way online to kind of like you said like what is a parrot rescue? What's wrong with parrots, you know? Well, the most people don't know either. And so they were trying to build a social media following or something so they could get out there and people could find out that this place exists.

Yeah. Well, it's pretty cool. I think their question was what kind of parrots went through the stream as well. So all of them. Yeah. Like there were, I'm trying the like you know the classic sort of red and green one. There's like the big cockatiel looking one. Like just like if it's a parrot they have it. And at the time they had like an aviary and like a little workout room. It was very cool. You walk in there and like these parrots are talking. They're like playing soccer. They're climbing up things like a monkey. It's really cool. One of them was obsessed with the broom and just wanted to be with that broom forever. And so they have this aviary and whatnot. Very, very cool. And at the time when I went, this would have been, you know, like I said, about four years ago, they probably had eight, nine, ten, okay, birds that they were caring for, which is a lot, you know what I mean? Like if they had volunteers and they needed food, they needed all this stuff and they're the only one. So if anybody's going to have a problem, they're going to be the one that gets the phone call.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm just thinking what an interesting parallel there can be there between parrot rescue where there are parrots that are neglected, abused or unwanted. And when we go into digital spaces, there are people that often feel those exact same things of neglected, abused, unwanted, they don't belong, whatever those things are that we're in misunderstood.

Yep. Misunderstood. We're in the space of trying promised something and left behind, you know. Well, that's the thing a lot of them, the I think one of the issues with digital ministry and people that really embrace it and it's for them is because they've tried traditional spaces.

Yeah. Right. They've tried traditional church or community centers, you know, they've tried to do sports groups or they've tried to do community, you know, like teams and whatnot, and they because of their difference, because of their interest, because of their whatever disability, because of their language issues, were rejected, were treated poorly, and they ended up having to essentially like, well, I can't be out there. Every time I try to go out there, it doesn't work.

And so they retreat inward. They still long for community. They still long for authority. They still long for people to be around them and support them. They still long for fun and conversation and just to be around each other. But for them, going out is really painful.

And that's what I meant, right? Like these parrots were basically promised, you know, you come to my house, we'll take care of you, we'll feed you, you'll be part of the family. And they were essentially not only neglected, but the promise was broken. I think there's a lot of people that are in digital ministry in digital that are creators and that are people who watch Twitch that are in a similar situation which is why we work so hard on as Christian content creators to be able to create environments that are active. One of the most difficult things I think personally and maybe you can agree or not is creating an offline non-stream environment that has life, right?

Because I know a lot of Christian streamers, a lot of places that they have a Discord, they have a you know, come visit my Patreon, come whatever, and you go there, it's just toast. It's dead. There's nobody there. Like, not even the person who runs the stream is there. And so because it's so much effort, but everybody's in fifty of them.

And how do you create an environment that people want to be in? They feel valued. They feel like when they contribute, somebody actually sees it. That when they ask for prayer, somebody's praying. When they contribute a meme, somebody likes it. Like, how do you create that if everybody's in fifty different ones and half of them are dead and everybody's so busy?

It is a lot of work. You know, that's one of the reasons Tacos works really hard to try to give authority to volunteers to be able to take on those kind of roles, right? Because otherwise people get left behind and they don't and they if they feel like I'll invest, fine. I'll invest. I'll go. I'll join your Discord thing. The promise is that I'll maybe make a friend. I'll maybe be able to connect some folks. Oh, look, it's one more place that made a promise and broke it.

Yeah. Yeah. I totally hear what you're saying. And I think just backing up when you were talking about you know live streaming on YouTube and exploring that and then coming to Twitch the culture of Twitch is very different from other social media platforms.

You know, if I mean I'm one of those weird people that way before COVID I was live streaming worship services. So like, you know, I was putting sermons online before YouTube would allow you because YouTube when I started putting sermons online allowed three minute videos that was max that you could put online and that's not a sermon and they weren't doing clips. I guess I hadn't thought about it.

I could have been the creator of shorts and reels if I'd have done that back then but that's not that's not even the opening prayer.

Yeah. Exactly. You know, but I started, you know, to do that. As soon as YouTube said we can do live, I went, we're doing it because I had people in four different directions an hour away from the church that were shutins and I'm like, I can't go to you every week. I know you want me to and we've got a DVD that we can bring to you. And when I started, they were doing a VHS tape and they actually went to one person on Monday, then picked it up from that person on Tuesday, took it to the next person, and each day of the week, you had a scheduled slot to get your VHS tape because it had to be back on Sunday so we could record over it again.

I'm like, we're because you only had the one tape, right? We're not doing that. Yeah, exactly. I'm like, how long has this tape been used?

Well, we don't know. We haven't bought a new one and we don't know how long. I'm like, "Oh my goodness, we need we need to." That's so funny. So my experience with tech has usually been a response to the need of the people, but always self-trained. So I'm never the expert in the room. I'm just the one that can make it run. And if we paid somebody, it'd be ten times better, but we can't pay anybody. So I'm going to be the best you got.

But right when COVID hit, I was, you know, starting to realize, okay, we had been broadcasting online. The only people that were ever showing up to watch it was our shutins and our sick, you know, and that's what we designed it for. But then when COVID happened, I'm looking at our stream, which by the way, at times when we put words on the screen up in front, we just moved the camera to aim at the words on the screen because we didn't have people with tech skills high enough to be able to do multi-pushing and all of this. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, we got to change. We got to target the person at home. And you know, while we were doing what we needed to, we were shut down for, I don't know, ours, I think, was initially seven weeks to stop the spread or something. And we were responding in that and trying to have everyone in the tech booth was all in one family. So nobody was cross, you know, getting anyone else sick. The tech booth came in, I was there, that was it, nobody else. And we were trying to make it work.

So I realized really quick, we need to greet people. So I had my son-in-law sitting at home or if he came with me sitting in the front row with YouTube and he was the mod. I didn't even know what a mod was, but I knew we needed it. We need some a greeter because that's what a church does. We need a greeter coming in asking people what's going on, how are you doing? And then what was really funny and I was like this is why I really like you know coming over to Twitch because YouTube doesn't do this well still of engaging the chat while it while things are happening but I would like pre-record stuff so I'm there to make sure everything happens. I'm commenting in the chat while the service is happening and I'm in the pew. Nobody can see me but it's like pastor that's weird. Why do you why are you doing that? Um you need to be focused on what's going on.

I'm like, that's how I'm focused on what's going on is, you know, vibing in community. And it's funny because you are you're not only an early adopter, but you're someone who thinks about it in an exceptional way. Most churches, I would say like ninety-nine point nine percent of churches. What they try to do is they try to replicate the Sunday morning experience on their service or on online. And their assumption is that everybody wants to have the exact same thing that they would get on a Sunday but virtually, right? So they they want to sit there and they want to be in their pew and they want to they want to just kind of observe what everybody else is doing, sing along, listen to the sermon and then and then leave. And what they don't recognize is that number one they they aren't actually replicating that because the the people, the greeting, the before, the after, the coffee, the conversation, the all that stuff isn't happening. They're it's on and then it's off. And second is that people who are engaging in online ministry, people who are actually the target audience, not necessarily the shutins, but the people who who like we just talked about, they uh they consume that kind of media differently.

Yes. Right. Like they they don't just sit there and and cross armed kind of watching and and doing this. What they do is they engage and they react and they they want to participate at the same time. Which is why there are most people would rather watch a reaction video to a thing than watch the original video. That's interesting. And the reason is because they want to have a it's a pseudo relationship, right? It is a parasocial relationship that they're having with the person who they can at least experience the thing with so that when they laugh we they have someone laughing with them.

So when churches do that kind of thing it shouldn't be a replication and everybody sit there quietly. What it should be is a recognition that this is a different culture and that they engage with this differently. So therefore, during sermon, like you said, during the sermon, they they chat. They they do emotes, they they answer questions, they, you know, when the announcements are happening, they they instead of just sitting there tuning in, they actually can look at the camera and say, "This one's for you," kind of thing or or beforehand. I'm thinking about I'm literally, this is all in my mind right now because I'm talking to my pastor and I'm talking to the tech guy at my church. Literally, we're making a meeting right now. Cool. So I can do this at the church. I want to go, "Listen, man. I want to come in and I want to start at nine, like nine a.m. and I want to be able to have a, you know, we'll get in, set up, and then we will have a pre-show where we we hang out, play some games, do something do something fun, maybe do a little bit of community thing. Then we jump into the into the church service and then we comment our way through and we do reaction stuff the same way we do it on Twitch. And then we afterwards we maybe have some fun, do some do some breakout, that kind of stuff, right?

The if if in your mind and this is the thing I'm trying to do across Canada. I'm part of a virtual neighborhoods group which has been which is a group that's put together on through the alliance denomination that is the mission is to try to figure out how we can help traditional churches across Canada be able to to make the conversion and to understand digital missions and it's it's been slow been doing it for a couple you know a while now been slow but we've made some big strides right we make so being able to get some people involved being able to get head office involved I just heard that the president of the denomination finally knows who I am and has finally seen some of my stuff and is excited about it. And the the presentation that I gave recently uh that I wrote recently was given to a group of pastors in Thailand who were there having a big meeting and some of them were excited about it. And so I'm like, "Okay, it's starting to happen, but now I get I can maybe come in and kind of go, okay, I'm doing it at my church, right? Come come see what we're doing, right?" you know, instead of instead of being here's a theory that I have, I want to actually be able to be doing it in such a way that it ministers to the people we're trying to minister to.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And uh you know, just just pre-show, baby. Yeah. Pre-show. The pre-show. Uh well, even just think about that. Just three pastors talking about like just like a sports desk. Like, why do you think it's going to go today? It's like, well, I think you really try hard. Am I gonna be able to engage some folks? A couple of sports announcers and then and then you go to the sermon and you have you know segments of the sermon with pauses and you go back to the announcers. Well, how do you think he did? You got a little like drawing the pencil with the lines like if you notice here diagram of the sentence there in Greek and Hebrew for us and I really understood what he. Let's break that down.

Yeah. Now the cultural reference there I think he missed a little bit on that one. I think it was an over the head of everybody in the audience there.

Oh man, that would be so much fun. But I think what I noticed meanwhile everybody's drinking Gatorade. Oh yeah. Yeah. When when when COVID happened, this is really I think what what part partially opened my eyes to to realizing some things was I needed feedback in the middle of my sermon. It was so hard to preach to an empty room because the sound people and everybody that was was there to produce so to speak what was happening to everyone at home could not react in the way that they would necessarily want to because they're doing a job. So they're focused on the job they're doing and it's like practice session like I like I'm going just preaching to a dead room it and then having a theme.

Dude, at least you had people there. Well, I just had me in the phone. Yeah, that was it. It wasn't necessarily much better, but it was it was like, oh, it was so hard. So, when when I got invited over to Twitch and it was, oh my goodness, in the middle of anything that I'm I'm talking about, we can stop and engage and interact and I don't have to keep going forward. If you're not getting what we're talking about, we just stop and it's it's amazing. Uh, yeah. All right. Now, or someone comes in and they're like, "I'm having a crisis right now. Help me." Oh, yeah. Yeah. And I think that's one of the one of the most wild things about about Twitch ministry or online streaming ministry anyway, is that there really are people who who are going through some pretty crazy stuff.

Yeah. Pretty difficult stuff. Really mind-meltingly difficult. Mental health issues, relational health issues, abuse issues, and and they will come to Twitch, type in the word Christian or pastor or help or something and just go find somebody and just be like, "Hey, this is my situation. Help." Yeah. You know, and it's happened to me like many times. And you would think that because one of the accusations against the internet is that they are because of the anonymity, people can say whatever they want and they're all that lets them be mean. But I see it this way. Because of the anonymity, they can say whatever they want, which allows some of them to be themselves for the first time, which allows them to share things they never would have before with anybody else.

Yeah. There there are some barriers that come down with with having a little anonymity of being able to feel safe to share things and it's not going to ruin my life if it goes bad. Right. I actually actually have um because I I I have uh friends in mental health who are counselors and I asked them and you know as we were in COVID how was this going for you and a couple of them said this is fantastic.

The reason is that person that sits there for a half an hour of our 40, 45 minute scheduled thing and says nothing and won't deal with the problems because they're uncomfortable. Finally looks at the clock and we spend 10 minutes dealing with something and say okay, next week they come in in their home. They come in in their home environment. They are relaxed and within five minutes we are talking about what we need to be and we get to spend 40 minutes talking about the things in their life to deal with them instead of wasting 40 minutes of our time together.

Here's another take, right? There's some people that come to your church that they can't hear, right? They can't hear because so they can go home and they can listen to it at whatever volume they want, right? There's some people that have a hard time seeing, but they don't want to come sit at the front. For them, they can put, make it as big as they want, right? There are some people who don't understand and they, you know, they're not quite there. They second language. They can put on, you know, they can sit there and pause and wait and listen. They, there's software that will translate for them in real time. The barriers that we have, that people have to coming into church and sitting and listening, people, you don't really, people don't grasp that there are autistic people who, for them, church, the worst. Oh yeah, right? Like everything they hate is the first thing churches do. Come into the parking lot and we're going to greet the snot out of you. And then we're going to reach out and we're going to shake your hand and we're going to bring you into a room you've never been into. Go ahead and find the chair you want to sit in next to a stranger. Then we're going to make you stand up, sit down, stand up, sit down to be able to figure that out, to sing songs you don't know. And then we're going to have you stand up and shake a stranger's hand. Like everything about that is just the worst for them. Oh yeah, right. And so how are they going to be able to engage properly spiritually with the what the pastor's saying and with what the people are doing? They can do that on their own speed and their own level and at their own comfort digitally. Yeah, yeah. Oh yeah. I said we could keep going on that, but I do want to get more of the whole story of things.

So you had an, like, what do I do now? I have to do something, God. And God say, you know, a good friend giving you advice saying, hey, pour into the thing that you're already doing. And then confirmation from an outside source that says, no, we're not going to give you a job because that'll take away from what you're supposed to be doing. And then you just decide, I'm going live. How long did you go live for when you started? Were you doing four hour streams, six hour streams, eight hour streams? How was that first day and first month for you of going live?

When I first started, I was just trying to replicate what everybody else was doing, right? So I'm like, I put my overlays together and when do people go live? When do people do stuff? Well, probably after 7:00 p.m., right? So 7:00 p.m. till 9:00 p.m., till 10:00 p.m. And then I'm on there. It's, you don't, I don't know if anybody isn't a streamer, but it actually takes a lot of juice out of the system when you're on and live and whatnot. And it's, and people have pointed this out before. I said out loud one time, yeah, I'm a pretty chill guy. I consider myself to be pretty low energy and like I'm not really like hype and like all of a sudden everybody, what is wrong with you? Do you not, are you crazy? Like, do you know how much energy you expend just in, you know, a normal stream? And I'm like, okay, that does make sense why I'm fried at the end of it. But it was, you know, you're learning in your, you're on and all that stuff. So I did about, I did about three hours, two and a half, three hours. Okay. And it was just gaming. My first game I ever played was Mario Lost Levels, which in my mind, the way that it thought would like, this will be fun. It'll be funny to watch me try to do this. It'll be neat to be able to, you know, get there. All it did was make me mad. And I was just upset the whole time. Like, this is stupid and I hate this game. Why is this unfair? And everybody's watching me and then I'm embarrassed? Like, it was just terrible. It was just terrible. So I, it took probably three, four months for me to really come around to the fact that, you know, I can play something I enjoy, is, you know, somewhat not just trying to chase some kind of trend and to go, I can't stream after supper. I don't, I don't have the juice. I have a family. I have kids. I have a wife. I have things. And when is the time where I'm most able to be on and connect and engage and be free and have the energy to carry? Well, it's that, is at, um, it's at noon. Yeah. When I come in and that's so I'm like, I'm going to work. I'm going to do this during my high energy time and let's see what happens there. And it's been going good so far. Yeah. Um, with figuring those things out, how long did it take you to reach, you know, different levels like being an affiliate and saying, oh, I've got viable income on some level or I made it through the month? Because if you're going from a salary to no salary, how did that struggle work out for you?

So I'm a super nerd. So I want to know everything about everything, okay? Right. So before I do it, like, how does this work and what's gonna happen? And it made no sense to me why anybody would stream at zero, uh, for zero followers. Like, so I, but here's the thing. I have kids. I have a family. I have friends. I have established stuff, right? And so I basically made my kids and asked some folks. I'm like, listen, I need you to be on there for the next two, three weeks. Just show up, listen, contribute. You know, I'm like, children, you have to do this or I'll send you to your room. Everybody else, please, right? And so they were on. I never streamed to zero. I only ever streamed to two, three, four, right? And then what ended up happening, because I had two or three or four, I was like way higher in the rank because I wasn't at zero. And so therefore, people would be able to kind of stumble across and I would try and do my best to do tags and titles and all that stuff. And so it didn't take me long. I think like I got affiliate within six, eight weeks maybe, right? Because it was, uh, I needed, well, no. Too bad. Not my dad. Too bad. You're going to sit there and you're going to be interesting and you're going to make me look good. Go. And it's, uh, you want food, you know. So. And then exactly. And then as you know, as people came in and they started to really, you know, kind of connect, the kids dropped out and then I was able to carry that momentum.

Uh, when was I able to actually, I'm still, I still don't, I still haven't met my funding goal that to this day I haven't met my funding goal. It's, it's, it, God has been working miracles like crazy, um, for me. And well, do you have, you know, two or three stories of where a surprise blessing came from God through your time of ministry, whether it's financial or otherwise, just something that unexpected happened because you're a digital streamer?

Okay. So I'm not going to, I won't out anybody because, you know, because you know they, when they give, they generally give you quietly, right? Yeah. But like, say for example, two years ago, uh, taxes hit. It's tax time. I'm not a nonprofit. I'm just a self-employed person. And so therefore, all the money that comes in gets taxed. At the end of the year, it comes and the government, the accountant wants thou, 1,500 bucks. The government wants, I think it was 3,500 bucks, you know, like it was kooky, man. And I'm like, I don't know where I'm going to get that. That's wild. And so I just kind of, I shared it and some guy texted me and he's like, I'll pay your taxes. Uh, no problem. Here you go. Done. Uh, during the first year or so, my computer was, it just couldn't anymore. Like I streamed from the computer and I was trying to do my best to play whatever and it like I got to the place I couldn't even play Minecraft, man. Oh, you know, couldn't even play Minecraft. And I'm like, how can you stream if you can't play Minecraft, man? It's just all because it at the time was like 13 years old or something. 12, 13 years old. And so I'm like, guys, my computer's melting down. I don't know what I'm doing, going to do. I don't know how to do this. I need a new computer. I go on to Ko-fi and I just said to people, hey, I need, I need help because if I'm going to keep doing this and you believe what I'm doing and help out, I put it on Ko-fi. Goal was, was 2,000. They gave, I think it was 2,240 within two days. Uh, I went to the, I went to the Canada Computers, walked in there and I'm like, uh, that one, that one, that one, that one, that one. Somebody gave me a case. And so I'm like, that piece, that piece, that piece. This is what I'm going to need to do the video, to do all the rest of that stuff. This is what I need. And like I put it all together and see what it comes to. And we'll start chopping the, uh, you know, pieces out depending on what I, you know, and, uh, um, it came to like, uh, 2,238, right? Like it wasn't just that God had given quickly, right? And that God had worked through his people in that kind of way, but it was exactly what I needed, like almost to the penny. And it was, it was that, that was such an affirmation, not only from the community to kind of go, we believe in you and we're willing to help you out, but with, uh, with God working through his people. Another one, like when my son died a few years ago, it was in the winter and I don't know if you know this, maybe you don't. I didn't. Uh, burying people in the winter costs way more money because frozen ground, et cetera. I didn't know that. And so he, yeah, well, it's a whole thing, right? So like, fair, but so we were like, I don't know how we're going to pay for a funeral. Like, I don't have that extra money. And so I sent it out there. Hey, can, uh, just need some help, right? I sent it out to Ko-fi, send it out to my people, send it out to another site called Not the Bee, which is like an online sort of conservative social media site. And people just rallied, man. Like, just in no time, I had enough money to pay for the funeral, the funeral director, the plot and the stone to be able to, you know, bury my kid. It was miraculous. And God's been doing that all the way along. All the way along. Um, it wasn't until three months ago, maybe, that I was able to move money from savings in or from checking into savings. Oh, okay. Yeah. To be able to kind of go, I had, I have more than I need this month. I could save that for later, right? Because for a long time I was living on savings. I was living on there and it would go down, it would go up and, you know, it'd be like, you know, battening the hatches and make sure nothing breaks and, but go, you know, I haven't, I've never gone without food. I've in 20 some years of ministry, I've never missed a bill. You know, I've been in a lot of different places, lost my job a few times, been in between, had this crazy thing. Never missed a bill. Not once. God has always been providing for me. And, uh, I, I don't, you, I don't hear any credit for me in that.

It's just that you know God's been very gracious, very kind. Oh yeah. No, I I I totally understand where you're coming from. Like because when someone just calls you and and and you says, "Hey, I'll pay your taxes for you." There there is a humbleness of accepting that.

Uh but there's also an acknowledgement the only reason uh that they're doing that is because God placed it on their heart to do that.

You know, they're not going to get credits. They're not going to get accolades. I'm not going to go broadcasting who paid my taxes. Uh, you know, they probably don't want to be known that they're paying taxes either.

A few other hands will go. That was explicit. Yes. Yes. Do not tell people it was me. Yeah. All right. Yeah. I say if anyone's looking to pay taxes, you know, just let me know.

I've got a few friends that could use I'm just kidding. Uh, not this year, Supersonic. It was it was covered two years ago and the year before.

This year's taxes have yet to be done. We'll see what God does. Well, it is and I I think that um maybe maybe people in the secular world that have friends that have done GoFundMe uh with tragedies do realize and understand that people are caring and generous at heart and that those things can happen. But I I I'll just say it this way. I think places like Twitch or small community uh microchurches are where we really see the body of Christ be able to come alive and be more similar to the book of Acts where they had everything in common and they gave to those who had need. And when people are seeing your need and they're going, "Well, I can give to that because you have need and you're you are doing the work." That's the secret.

Yeah. But it's the they can see y that the a lot of times in the big churches, a lot of times in other and not in always big, but people don't share their need.

They don't they don't tell people anything. They come in, they leave, they come in, they leave, they join, they go to class or whatever.

But when it comes to them having a a bad time or they need something, they generally withdraw, right? Oh, I don't want anybody to know.

I don't want to be embarrassed. You know, I lost my job. I don't want people to ask questions. Uh whereas in a small church, you know, and and or or online for that matter, it's actually quite tight-knit.

And so therefore all of a sudden what happened to so- and so you know what why are they not here or or hey man what's going on and he just looks like crap because he came like he's seen I can see you look terrible what's what's going on and then you you get to see because someone has had to share because they were caught in a need you get to see the body of Christ kind of come alive and go you know what go let's help that's why h half the half the uh advice that I give is go talk to somebody go tell somebody Open your mouth. Stop hiding. Being in the dark is bad, you know. That's that's what I say non-stop, you know. Yeah. Yeah. That's it's definitely something I've I've seen.

And uh you know, you can't give to everybody that that has something. You can't give to everybody that has a need, but God will place it on your heart when you're the one supposed to be giving.

Uh when you have But you don't need to. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's the beauty of the body of Christ is that you know the people God God has a big big family.

God has a a lot of people. Some people and you know there are some people who really disparage the wealthy or disparage the talented or you know whatever.

But the truth is God sets aside some people that they're just really good at making money or they're just really good at at whatever that skill is.

And that's that's a good thing. And when it's their time they do it. You don't have to. there are other people that can uh unless you know like usually it it's because you have an affinity you know you feel that sense of grief you're weeping with the one who weeps you're you're having some kind of connection to it and you go you know what I feel like if I was in that situation I'd want someone to show me grace so I I will Yeah right yeah it's it's it's just amazing to to hear that I've experienced it myself I know other people that I've I've been in their streams and seen it happen in theirs as well And and just thinking about that, I say uh as you were getting getting started, did you spend a lot of time going around and watching other people or uh before you started or when you were first, you know, getting rolling and and trying to create community across with other people, dude. I was I was that guy. So the I I I worked 14 to 16 hours a day for like nine months in a row, seven days a week.

I hit it as hard as I could. And a lot of that was cuz I wanted to learn what I was doing. I don't know what I'm doing.

I want to learn. And so I was the guy who would jump into Eagle Garrett and be like, "Hey, uh, you got a second?

I want to ask you a question about, you know, OBS or how do what what are overlays and how do you get those, you know, like I was totally that guy, you know, Eagle Garrett and and Pastor Dustin and Dr.

Heels and Miss Positivity and uh who else? Like just that was I was like and they were all super nice, super kind, super helpful.

Not once did I be like it's not time for that, man. You know, it was always I'm happy to help and I'm happy to listen.

And then as I, you know, as I kind of learned and watched every video under the sun and every possible, you know, tutorial, they started to get a little bit of a handle on it.

Although, I mean, I still don't know what I'm doing. Like, it's so funny. Someone asked me like, "My computer melt completely melted down before stream today." And uh, someone said, "Are you in portable mode?" And I I I didn't answer their question because I don't know what portable mode is.

Like, I have no idea. I'm not sure what portable mode is either. So, okay. You mean it's a laptop and I can take it with me?

It's portable. Um, yeah, exactly. So, it moves. What's happen? Yeah. No, I bolted it to the floor. It's not portable. Yeah, it's a it's a PC.

I can't take it anywhere. Uh, yeah. I say I I I love that because I think on on some level we often go into it think we have all the expertise we need on something and there is no nothing that I need to learn.

And I want to say within the church, whether you're a missionary that gets trained and goes overseas or whether you're a pastor that gets trained and goes into a church, we kind of view the church that way.

Like, oh, they've been trained. They know everything. Uh they know it all. They're they're the one in charge. I or God will take it from here.

Yeah. That they're the ones here. We can just hand it all over and they can they can do what's needed. And instead of uh you know, realizing No, no, I I'm on a learning curve.

Uh boy, I guess say if I would have people will ask a question like what would you tell yourself you know if you could talk to your younger self I never really can come up with an answer but the one thing I would I would probably say something along the lines is is

you will never stop learning you will be a lifelong learner and the need to learn something at a bigger and faster pace is just going to get bigger the older you get because you're going to you're going to you're going to naturally fall behind as the pace of life changes.

Whereas when you're a kid, you are in the middle of the flow of of life and culture and you're absorbing everything and it's meed out to you.

Right. Right. Yep. Shadow of tune just follow. So that which transitions into the into taco, right? Oh yeah. Because one of one of the things that one of the things missing is is what about digital missionaries?

Yeah. Right. What about what about these people that are? And so as I was streaming and I did this for I don't know 6 months or so.

All of a sudden more and more of these these I'm a Christian streamer. Hey, I just found you. I'm a Christian streamer. Hey, I just found you.

I didn't realize there were anybody other Christian streamers that were online. You know, all of a sudden that was happening more and more and more and more.

And you're a pastor and you what what's h okay cool. And the thirst wasn't okay cool a pastor. It was I need affirmation, man.

I need someone to tell me that that what I'm doing is okay. that the people that I love and I'm trying to serve are worth loving and serving.

Cuz when I went to my pastor, he was like, "That's dumb and stop that." And I went to my parents and I went to my community and I went to to, you know, so I do this underground, man.

I like nobody's telling me what to do and I'm making it up as I go. All the all the all the advice out there is completely secular.

I, you know, and so I I don't what am I doing, right? So, as I as I hear this more and more and more and more, I start bouncing back and forth with the people that are in chat and going, "Hey, listen.

This is a serious thing." Uh before that, I done you talk about God's provision, right? So, we I got about 6 months in. I think it was about 6 months in and I started going, I need help.

I can't do this myself, God. I need a team and like I don't have any money and I don't have any anything I can give you to be on my team.

So, I just went, "God, okay, here's here's nine things I need, man. I just need these like I need someone to help with editing and someone to help with like trends and someone to help with with like praying for me and and other, you know, just here's the list of things I need, God." Uh, and I sent it out to the to the group and I said, "This is this is what I need. These are some people I need help." Within a day, I had nine people.

Boom. On the on what I called the stream dream team. And that stream dream team as we they were helping me out and I could just ask them for stuff instead of like hey could you please maybe think about possibly helping me out possibly it was like hey guys I need this right and they were cool with it cuz they weren't on the team. So I started talking to them. I'm like guys we're seeing more and more of these creators coming into chat and talking about how they don't have support.

We should do something. What would it be like if we created a Christian creator network? What would that look like? So we we back we bantered that around for months and months and months and we until we came up with Taco the Alliance for Creative Outreach which started really the the real solidification was when I went I'm going to teach these people uh God was God went you know what like and I mean like almost literally verbally it felt so clear he it was you know what you've been doing all along and the pastor I called you to be I want want you to do that. Yeah. But here, right? I didn't change your call and I didn't change your purpose and I didn't change your gifts and I didn't, you know, all the stuff you're doing with video games and having fun and all the rest of that stuff.

That was just a little bit of a a trial kind of error. Go back. Do the thing I called you to do. Leadership development, community development, biblical um teaching.

Do that. And so I'm like, okay. So I I decided I was going to put together a a course based on John Maxwell's Equip Leadership, which is a a biblical leadership course.

And so I'm like, let's do it. And so I Who wants to be part of it? Full class is full. I'm like, okay, I can do eight, you know, or nine.

I think we did nine nine or 10, you know, cuz we're going to do an evaluation every single time. One person gets evaluated and that's as much as time as it takes.

And so that's how many we're doing. And so they came in and of course it was mostly stream green team and mostly people that were on the inside.

And so we did the class and it was all me just kind of mentally converting the equipment stuff into what I'd learned about streaming and then did it again and then did it again.

And I'm like, wow, this is—every time I do this there are people who want this. And so that became, what do we do with the people that go through the class?

Well, they need continued care. They need network. They need to have a place to ask questions. They need to have a place to support one another as Christian content creators.

And then we started talking about a team. What would it look like? And my vision, my original vision, and I still keep this in the back of my mind, but you know, we haven't really talked about it as a group for a while, but that is basically I want to take over the calendar on Twitch. So I want there to be a Taco streamer that is available 24/7, right? I want someone to be able to tune in 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, whatever time, and find someone that's on that is doing something relevant to them—relevant to the time, relevant to whatever they're doing, whether it be the morning devotional or the gamer or the competitive team that you're cheering for or the people who talk about the news or the late night DJ who's just doing chill stream stuff, like a talk show Bible guy. Like just have that across the board 24/7. So there's always an excellent, qualified, checked out, knows what they're doing, actually has good audio person 24/7, right?

And so I'm like, let's do that. So we started with the team. And so we're like, what are we going to do? Let's go. I, you know, we need some qualifications for the team and that team is going to be people who get it.

That's the qualifications. You have to get it. You have to figure out what we're doing here, you know, and get it and want and care.

And that was like three or four people. And so we're like, let you be the team, but here's my vision, and this was a tough sell, guy. I want you to bring your community over to one Taco Discord. Yeah. I want you to shut down your Discord live. Tell them all to come to one Taco Discord.

So there are multiple streamers, multiple communities all taking care of each other at once. And the response was no. I will not be doing that.

And so I'm like, well, all right, find a compromise or whatever. But they did come over, and now the Taco Discord has a representative of multiple different communities, multiple different streamers with multiple different interests.

And these communities are all kind of intertwining, taking care of themselves, and different, you know, because like I said, it's so hard to find an active Discord.

Well, how do you make an active Discord? Oh, yeah. Well, have multiple leaders in there. Have multiple communities in there, multiple people who care about stuff, right?

Ukulele tried, but her community mutiny. They said no, right? So that's where that came from, because it was like we can't just do stream stuff. We have to have an offline active community too.

Oh yeah. Yeah. I think if just to step off of that for a minute, this is what I keep trying to tell my friends who are pastors, and I'm trying to tell them all the—and I just actually had this conversation in a group of pastors yesterday—talking about what you need to realize is when you go online, you're not going online just to create content.

You're going online to connect with people. And when you connect with people, you need to have community. So if you are not connecting the content to them and they're not having a place to connect and have community, then they're just a consumer and then you're competing against everybody.

The thing the local church can do differently than the church that's on television is they can—and it doesn't have to be in Discord. I happen to think Discord is one of the best places to be able to do it, but not everybody's on Discord. You're not going to bring everyone over in a physical church, but if you're in gaming, they're there.

But you're right, you need to have multiple people. I mean, just imagine one of the churches that you were at—you're the only one that could call anybody in the congregation and nobody was allowed to call and talk to each other and you had to just, you know, if you got busy, brother, you know how that is. That is how it is, right? You're the pastor. You're supposed to call. You're the pastor. You're supposed to visit. You're the pastor. They're sick. You should go. Like that's, and half the time it's such a weird conversation because you look at them like, no, that isn't my job, and then they look at you like, but that's what we pay you to do, and you're like, no, it's not. You pay me to help equip you to do the ministry. That's really—I equip the saints for ministry. My job is to equip you. My job is not to do your job for you. My job is to equip you.

And you're right, you're absolutely right. I am in some dead, you know, Discord servers. There's some that probably are not dead, but I never got active in them myself. And I just don't—I like, I probably have ten that I check regularly and I'm active in. And some of those are not active, but I need to stay connected with a couple of them, including my own. My own is not as active as other ones that I'm basically a mod in another one instead of my own.

I'm investing in the other because it's in some ways easier for me to invest in things that are ongoing than to come up with, hey, you know, question of the day kind of thing. I'm not a question of the day kind of thing.

My advice for small streamers is, why do you even have a Discord if you're not going to be in there? Go find an active Discord, you know, whether it be Taco or Church Digital or some one of your favorite big streamers that has a ton. Just everybody go join that one. Like, no, you're not taking it over, but now you're all sort of have a similar place. You can have conversations just chatting. You can do private stuff. It's more interesting, more active. You can, you know, like this. Why sit there with a dead Discord when there's a dozen out there that you can join that do it better?

Oh yeah. I think I actually resisted starting a Discord channel. Well, for two reasons. One, I signed up for Discord and I was totally overwhelmed and I had nobody teaching me like how to navigate myself around. I'm like, okay, withdrawal. I don't know. This is too steep a learning curve. I'll back away. And then my channel just kept saying, "Well, where's your Discord?" I don't have one. Well, you need to get one. Okay, I'll get one. But I didn't think through I could have joined somebody else's, and I've had conversations with other places of should I migrate mine over or not migrate mine over.

And some of it is I've become a curator of things like, "Hey, you want to know where there's a Christian streamer? You want to know a podcast? I got a list here. We got an ongoing, you know, announcements kind of channel, but it's not like you're missing something if you're not in there daily. No, you got to join a different Discord than mine for that piece of things."

Yeah, but you know what? Sorry, Donnie's like, if you move Discords, you lose someone.

Yeah, you lose people who aren't contributing. So you're not losing anybody, right? If they're not active and they're not paying attention, they don't even know you moved, then you're not missing anybody. You go with the goers.

And yeah, if you're part of dead Discords, I totally get it. And you know, one of the things that bugs me is when you're in a dead Discord and you leave—like there has been zero activity in that thing for a year. You leave, but they have that feature where it alerts them when someone leaves, and so you leave and then five minutes later it's like, "Hey, I noticed you left my Discord. What's going on?" You know, and the last thing I'm going to do is like, your Discord is dead. You have absolutely no content and I don't want to be there anymore, right?

Right. You know, just I'm just cleaning the house, you know, just don't have time to be online much.

Yeah. Yeah. Like I say, I've got a few of those emails too when I left, but part of my problem at one point was my phone was an issue and I was trying to leave. Like I couldn't load anything. I was like, I got to clean up half my Discords and get rid of them because my phone's not operating.

So I essentially went and I got rid of Discords that were only for single people. So if you're a community, you're a church, you're a network, I'm in there with a few exceptions. I kept my pastor friends and a couple others that I interacted with all the time, but it was mostly like, yeah, I came to your stream. I joined your channel when I was getting Discord up and going, and it was like, but I don't engage there. I got a thousand messages I haven't read or you've got no messages. So either way, it was like I don't get to watch you often enough on stream to be active in your Discord. And if I was active in your stream, I might not need to be active in your Discord either.

So yeah, that's actually one of the things I wish I could change just by virtue of the fact of life and busy and age and having all the organization and stuff that I deal with. And that is I'm not in enough streams for any period of time. I'll join in, I'll say hello, and then I'll try to stick around for a minute or two and I'll lurk on three or four and, you know, kind of keep it to the side if I'm working and whatnot. But I feel this perpetual sense of guilt that I'm not meeting new streamers or if I come across a new one, spending time in there, kind of getting to know them, because it's just there's this ever-present non-stop grind of my own stuff and it's just—

Yeah. I'm so glad that people have been so gracious to me that when I join into their stream, they're excited to see me rather than, you know, where have you been, you know? Well, to talk about that because I think that's a beautiful thing that the church may not realize. So where I live, I don't know if this is true where you are, if you have snowbirds up in Canada that just go south for the winter, you know, from within your congregation, but people will disappear starting around Thanksgiving going into Christmas—American Thanksgiving, not the Canadian Thanksgiving for any of those Canadians out there. They'll start going south and some will be gone for a month and some will be gone for two months and some will be gone for three months and it's like you never know unless you know them personally how long you're gone, are you back? And then when they come back like, oh, it's great to see you again. Well yeah, I just went south for the winter. What did you think? I wasn't—I didn't leave the church.

So then you get a like, you're gunshy to talk to anybody. Or the opposite happens—you're not a snowbird, your kid was sick and so you stay home a week and you come back the next week. We missed you last week. Where were you? And it's like, what? Like I have life that happens. I, you know, but I had this awesome experience with Amber Lights. I don't know if you know Amber Lights, a band in Australia. I've never met her. It's a band. It's a band. It's not a person.

Oh. So, all right. Uh, it's a great username though. Yeah. So they're abandoned Australia and I would watch them and I was going into the time change going into November.

So the US goes one direction and Australia goes the opposite direction. Now they're two hours apart from when I was watching them. I'm not getting up at three o'clock in the morning to watch them. It's not happening. Now if I wake up maybe I'll, you know, can't sleep, I'll pull my phone out, but I'm not getting up to watch you anymore.

So I like disappeared from their channel until the stream, you know, or the time change happened again in the spring and then I'm back in their channel. I didn't, I had the chat, not the streamers, you know, not the band, but the chat was like, "Oh, hey, Flat Cap. It's so great to see you. How have you been?" And it wasn't like I felt like they were guilting me for being gone. It was genuine excitement that I was there and I went, "Oh my goodness. You mean even in my absence I have community with these people and so when I come in I have relationship and community like I feel with my best friend from high school. We pick up our relationship whenever we get together." A DJ just followed and I see and that's yeah. Go ahead. That's the digital golden rule.

Yeah. Right. Is that the people that you're you're part of the group with and the people that are in that don't want to feel that either because a lot of them are and this is what I've noticed online when it comes to creators or internet people or creatives. They are very gracious, very kind, very open, very willing to to to to be sensitive to your to your needs. It's it's almost across the board because they also they recognize what it's like to slip into a depressive funk and not be able to get out of bed for a while. They recognize what it's like to have to go to work to a job you don't really want to do and you you know like it's all of a sudden you taking way more hours. They know what it's like to to not be able to put two thoughts together because you've been adding all over the place or you know whatever. It's just you you they get it. And so when you show up into that community, it's a group of people who are like, I'm not going to jump down this guy's throat. Why would I do that? I'm just excited that they're here as a, you know, as opposed to some group. And I'm not going to just slag the church. I don't think I think one of the habits that Christian uh streamers get into is slagging the traditional church. We shouldn't do that. There are so they're they're also Jesus um kids. But like so other groups where it is like you said it's uh it's a negative experience coming back. It's not it's not it's not good. It's it's not a nice a nice thing. Whereas I think online it it always always seems to be I don't know. They're just really nice people and and as somebody who grew up bullied yeah. with with like like for my whole youth not very many friends. uh socially not not really great. Um and and who has, you know, a natural sort of fear of of of people and parties. Like I don't I don't do that stuff. I'm an introverted. Right. For me, like my my usual connection to a group is discomfort, right? I was like I said, I was I was a pastor for a long time. The only way I could be comfortable in the room is if I had a job. Yeah. You know, if I was MC or if I was teaching, I was preaching, I was cooking, I was whatever, then I could kind of hang something on that. But if I was just attending, I felt so self-conscious and and nervous, like I just I didn't like like being that. And so it's but when I come online and I show up in my own way in my own comfort zone at the to to content and someone that I that I know already kind of thing and I show up and I say hello. It's always a positive experience. I don't think I've had a negative online experience jumping into a digital community like even on my stream.

Yeah. Right. I I think my mods would accuse me of being naive, but the truth is is that, you know, when it comes to to trolls and people coming in and being horrible. I very very rarely have any of that kind of stuff. Usually because if they come in and they ask a dumb question, I'll just straight up answer it because it's an AMA. Let's go. Uh but it's, you know, I have it's been such a positive experience online. Oh, overwhelmingly so. And remember, I'm a guy who dealt with who who pastored an abusive church and who dealt with a lot of church hurt. So therefore, the the my natural inclination towards groups of people isn't that they're going to be very nice to me. Yeah. Right. I I have a a basic in all my relationships, all of them to this day, is the assumption that you're going to leave and that you're not actually being my friend. You are pretending and that the uh at some point you're going to finally show your true colors, finally get tired of me, finally, you know, uh you'll finally get tired of pretending and you'll just leave. Uh because that's what always happens, right? Right. You'll and so because that's sort of my baseline when I enter into a community and it's hey, good to see you. Welcome. That's so cool. You know, you know how how much it it like the borderline tears I'm at right now because I'll enter into some people's chat and it'll be like, "Hey," and it's like, "Christian Ninja's here." You know, like I I that feels so good because it's not something that I I experienced for most of my life. Right. Right. I totally understand. Uh, and I think a lot of the people in our streams also don't experience a lot of that in real life either. They don't they don't have so even if they're not streamers, that welcoming environment uh which you know I there's a part at which I I I've created culture before by creating a cross country team from zero and and small groups and creating culture within there. So, I don't know how much I observed what was happening on Twitch and picked up what I wanted to within my culture or I just had some really good mods that were coming in and helping to begin with, but but I I love to do when someone shares something that's hard and and you know, like if this was sitting with a bunch of of uh Christians that I might know in public and we're at coffee, they're all going to turn and look at me like, "Did they just say what I think they said?" You know, they're going to have those looks on their face. Uh and the and so I know that from experience some people in the chat are going to feel that. I I've just gone to going thank you for sharing that. I know how difficult that must be for you and how much and I I appreciate and want you to know how valued I feel that you think this is a safe enough place to put that out there for all of us to know that you you have just honored all of us because you've identified we are safe. We're not trolls. We're not going to attack you. We're We are here to to love and have you be part of our community, and you couldn't do anything more honoring to us than to share those. I may not say it all that way, but that's the the thrust of of what yeah. No, totally. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'll tell a little story like, so a while back, uh, so let me start with this. I have been given baby mode when it comes to to mods. I've only ever had amazing, consistent, very helpful, super engaged mods. I never had to go get them. They just were awesome to me and and like so I' I've had easy mode for a lot of the stuff that I've done in stream. So, let's just give credit to where mods credit where credit's due. So, but in this case, so this uh this guy came in and he came in swinging like I'm just I don't know what I was doing, but he comes in and he's like, you know, like why can't you believe Bible is true and how can you how do you trust pastors if they're all corrupt and and why do why should anybody go to church? You know, what's the difference between Catholic and Protestant? Just like just like hammering and I'm like, "Slow down. Let me get to one of these before I get you give me the next one." And so I I just kind of went through and I was answering the the the mod chat was like, "Should we ban this guy? Is this guy trolling? Like is what a jerk coming in, you know, then he's listening to the next to the answer before he jumps in and has another one. Should we ban this guy?" And I'm like, "Don't, you know, he hasn't technically done anything wrong. Like he's just coming in hot." You know what I mean? Cool. I know. Go through and answer answer. Get to the end of I don't know, question six, seven, eight. and uh and he goes, "Thank you. Uh I'm autistic and I'm been thinking about going to church for the first time, but I had so many things in my head that I wanted to ask about before I went. Uh and you're the only one who actually took time to answer my questions. So now I think I'll go to church on Sunday." Right. Yeah. That is that's an exceptional moment on stream from somebody who imagine they tried to do that in real life. Or imagine they did that to somebody who who had been trolled a whole bunch and was just like, you know what, how many people did he ask before he bumped into somebody who was willing to go, "Yeah, all right. Let's let's do this thing and see what we can go." It's it's a it the digital environment is so such a powerful place.

Oh, to totally agree. And uh I think I I think I'm on the same side that that you are too. And I think that might be having served as a pastor and run into occasions where yeah, we know people are going to bombard us and they're testing us and and that's not really, you know, always what they're coming up. They they need to push at us to see if we're going to respond. And if we do, well, they can be justified in walking away. So we need to absorb the punches, so to speak. let them let them swing or let them throw all their questions at once and then just let it happen. I feel I feel capable of handling that just like like you do. Uh not everyone on Twitch has that ability and I and I think it's you you make your own decisions. It's the shepherd's heart, right? Oh, it totally that's thing. Have you Have you done the Apes test? The apostle, prophet, evangelist, shepherd, teacher. Okay. Uh oh, yeah. They called it something different though. Okay. But yeah. Yeah. So you you I'm going to guess you follow Shepherd Teacher. No profit. Your profit percent ten ten million percent profit. Okay. I probably I might test different now. Yeah. Uh but but the uh the you know for me it was very much okay the Bible says the Bible says the Bible says the Bible says and having people come up and go so when you were talking I think God told me uh you know well you should probably do that or I'm mad at you cuz you said and I'm like well I didn't say the Bible said you know what I mean like so that was that was a lot of my ministry so yeah I was very much prophet uh okay okay yeah I could I could see that too I think there's sometimes a crossover over with teacher and prophet depending on how you're approaching things. So, but I've I've had to learn like I mean that's the thing about being part of this. I've had more I've I've been healed more in the last four years than I think I've ever I' I've been helped and healed more than I've ever helped and healed anybody here. Like it's been a lot for me. I see this as a as a a God given me a gift. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like sixteen years of really really difficult ministry. And he's like, "Congrats, you made it." you know, almost that well done, my good and faithful servant moment on earth. And he's like, "How about this? Why don't you uh go do the thing you love the most in an environment that you're comfortable to be a and let me give you like the the easy mode success go, you know, and it was, you know, it's been it's been an incredible experience for me."

Yeah. Well, why don't you um if you can like expand on that and just thinking about what I mean, you already shared a few, but just key moments that you just saw God show up in in a stream because for me, some of those are like, you know, when I've got the oh, I don't feel like getting up today and doing it or I'm struggling and and or oh, life is just overwhelming. I don't I don't know if I have enough to get on stream today or nobody's been showing up for the last week and my numbers are going down and no no bits, tips or subs are coming in. I try to hold on to the what I just call those God divine appointments. Uh when either something happened to bless me or something happened to bless someone else.

Do you do you have two or three of those in the last couple years you could share? Sure. Uh how many how many in chat know uh Miss Duck Jada? Y'all, if you know, put a put an emote in chat. Give give find a duck and put it in chat. The uh so a while back, uh Miss Duck, who is from New Zealand, young young woman from New Zealand, still in in high school age kind of thing. And she we're just doing my normal stream kind of thing. And all of a sudden, she comes in and she's like, I'm in the I'm in the hospital.

So for me, it would have been like maybe noon, like real close one:00 kind of thing. She's like, "It's 6:00 a.m. here. Um, my family's not around. I'm in the hospital. I got hit by a car and they're telling me they're going to take my leg. They're going to come and and and and I don't know what's happening there." And so she comes in, of course, it's 6:00 a.m. Her family's sleeping, right? They're not going to come at 6:00 a.m. They'll probably come later. And so she But I she needs comfort. I need someone right now. I need to talk talk to somebody. And so she comes into her digital community, you know, on here. drops that and we're able to pray for her, talk with her, give her encouragement.

All the way through that week, she's, you know, like like, "Oh, the doctor's going to come on Thursday. Doctor's going to come talk to me and I'm really nervous." And he said, "I hope he doesn't, you know, I really want, you know, all that stuff. How young woman who might lose her leg, you know, just because she was on her bike and some, you know, Yahoo hit her." Yeah. With a car. And so, like, she's going through some crazy stuff. And so, we're able to celebrate with her when she's like doctor's like, "We're not taking your leg." and we're able to kind of, you know, weep with her and and go with be concerned with her and she's like, "It really really hurts and and now I gota, you know, at one point she she gets back and she's doing really well and then founds it then gets an infection and come like all the we've been on this journey with her as she comes in and she chooses to share and she chooses to ask for prayer and she chooses to tell us these updates and it's been that was a big moment I think for me in that stream was was her realizing the power of being able to come in and Oh, I'm alone and this is a big moment and I'm freaking out and help me out. Right. Yeah. So, there's that. I remember we had a uh Well, can I can I just ask followup on on that? So, did she Yeah, she did end up losing her because I've I've seen her around, but I've not had any conversation with So, she did end up losing her leg.

How is she doing now? She she never lost her leg. Uh they they were able to sell they they did some surgery, they did, etc., etc. And in that surgery, they they were able to, you know, reconstruct stuff, but she's been in a cast for a really long time. Various forms of cast and whatnot. She's still wheeling around, still in healing. She ended up uh she got a spider bite that went bad, which is such a bummer, you know, and they had like it went it went. So, yeah. So, she's had a had it rough. She's very, you know, she's always chipper. She's always seems to be, you know, encouraging and fun, but the uh but yeah, she's so she's still healing, but it's definitely not as bad as it could have been.

Yeah. Yes. Yeah. That definitely uh rings true to me of she's reaching out, she finds you, you are able to and your community is able to meet her in the moment. Uh that definitely is is a God appointment that that took place to get her the comfort that she needed in that moment to be with her. and and then the you know you have those and you don't know if you're always going to see that person again but the fact that she has now come back around in community and and building that relationship those those are fantastic the uh we've had I remember someone came in and this is this is a bit of a rough story but the uh someone came in and they were talking about how you know as a police officer they had to to take lives and what do I do with that guilt and whatnot right we were able to talk about that and and We spent some time, like real hours talking about talking about this stuff and really spending time about the gospel and about, you know, forgiveness and bringing it to God. God's the only one who could do that. Uh, and so we we, you know, it they came they came back in. What the bummer of the story and what sucks about it is that we found out about two weeks later that they had been lying the whole time.

Oh. and that they were they were using my stream to share horrible things about them being you know whatever and it was all it was all a bunch of lies. I don't know why they I don't know why you want Christian compassion as entertainment but but regardless it was a moment I in our chat I still remember it. It breaks my heart now. Still makes me sad and angry. But it was a time where you know the you could see the coalesce of of the chat of the people of of everybody. You know it it sometimes in some chats and some environments when somebody comes in and you know it's a gospel moment in time to talk to them about the grace of God. Sometimes the chat, you know, lights up, you know, it's like here, you know, here's all the apologetics I know and here's the gospel and here's 55 different, you know, uh, scriptures. And I didn't, they didn't do that, right? Like there's been times where I've had to say, "Chill out, man." You know, like, "Let's let's not try to bombard the whole thing, but but it was it was more concern. It was kindness. It was sharing their own stories." And this is what this is where, you know, how I felt for it was really really powerful. It sucks that it ended up being Well, yeah. a fib, but the way that the community responded and and things that have come from that have been been pretty pretty exciting, right?

Yeah. I say I don't I don't know. I I could guess why they would maybe want to do that, but I've I've wondered at times a couple of times when I've had conversation with someone that just feels like, are you recording me? Are you going to clip this? this feels like you're baiting me into a conversation or to say something and and then you're you're looking for a reaction and and am I going to give you the reaction you want? And I'm just thinking, you know what, God, I'm going to do what what I feel I should do anyway. And if they use it uh to to try to do harm, you can make it for good. But uh so yeah, go nuts. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So, okay, they came in, but so God used it for good in your community anyway. He he he helped your community uh to properly respond whether the person was lying or not lying. You know, they they did well it sounds like had one guy come in um again autistic like almost certainly on on the spectrum somewhere and he 47 years old living with his mom. Uh he didn't you know she's up his nose about you know he wanted to go play basketball. He wanted to go with his friends. She wants to keep him safe. She's doing all, you know, she she doesn't know to give him freedom because, you know, he's got, you know, disability disorder, whatever. And uh comes in just like I I I'm losing my mind on my mom and she's like controlling my life and I'm starting to hate her and and how do I process all this? How do I deal with this? You know, I want to do this and I want to go to basketball and I want to meet my friends and they seem safe. She doesn't want me to go and I don't know how to tell her. I don't know how to communicate it. And so we were able to kind of go through kind of piece by piece, part by part kind of like well what if you said this, what if you tried this, what if you you know what she does have concern you know that comes from a real place if you know it's like it is out of love and so let's see if we can do this and over a few days right actually you know over a course of you know month or so you know you could come back in I had a conversation with my mom I was able to go to basketball I was able to do some do you know was able to do stuff you know I'm working through I want a job the guy won't tell me oh I'm losing my mind why was the guy talk to me so we're able to work you and just to kind of be there for for people that that need somewhere to to process like you said over a period of time because so much of it especially is when that happens is like I got to be somewhere man I got you know I got to get home I got to do do a do a a thing I got a meeting in so long or or you're at a coffee shop and there's only so long you can sit in a coffee shop but if I'm on here and it's like and I'm here for four hours man you know it's and and I don't have anything afterwards sure let's Oh, let's do I got nowhere to be. Let's talk Let's talk about you.

I love I love those situations. My mods could probably come those are fairly recent ones. My mods could probably come up with a dozen more that that happened before. And I'm sure but they happen so often. So often, right? you know, but but I I love those and and you only need to have like two that you can hold on to for a long time and go, "Yeah, if I never have another person and another moment like that and I never see anybody respond in chat again, but I God's still calling me to be here." Um, the bods are going to reach somebody in the same way. I don't know who it is. you know, there's some evergreen comment com uh content here that's still going to be the gospel that's still going to reach people that somebody I don't know still could be impacted. Th those are moments like like I just like to dwell like, oh, okay, I I can go do this again even if it takes me another month before having one of those. Uh because I've got to go in the in between so that I can I'm ready when that next moment comes. Um, I I love the shifting back and forth between you and your stuff and Taco and and where Taco is. So, you talked about the the founding and the organizing of Taco. Where is Taco at right now? How has it evolved to where it is right now? And and what are the exciting things around what you've been able to do after that first course in Taco? It's it's almost been an annual push, you know what I like starts with I don't know what we're doing to hey I think we might know what we're doing to who's the leadership and do we need paperwork and things like that uh to all of a sudden God is um you know sending more volunteers people you know like hey how can I help that kind of thing I I have skills and abilities I want to help and so we're we have volunteer kind of a core of volunteers that are doing all kinds of stuff that that was a big deal we have a a board we have um a a leadership team people that are you know actual like projects and whatnot. We're talking about right now talking about getting our second I guess you'd say employee that's coming that would be you like a paid person actually doing doing some some work work work work for for the the team.

We've served dozens. I think we're not quite a hundred yet, but we're definitely well, I think we're around, got to be around 60 or more than that people that we have taken through the class, right?

We have the book now. So that is available. We're going to be launching another class. We started a virtual class. So one that instead of me having to be there and teach it, we have it on video and there's, it's as you want to watch instead of you have to be there on Saturday at noon kind of thing. So here's, you know, this is the way it's going to go and you can help.

We have been invited down to reach to go and not only bring a table but we've got a room and they're like, "Here, a room, go do a room with stuff," and so we're, you know, like what are we going to do there? What's the plan? And I think the plan right now is we're going to be creating like a crash room.

I talked to a bunch of people that had gone to Reach and kind of asked the question, what wasn't there that we could do to serve the content creators and make Reach better? Because it's not about us. It's about how can we serve people and how can we serve people, right? And they're like, and we're like, "Here's an idea we had: crash for people who get kind of overwhelmed or they need somewhere to go chill out." And so we're like, that wasn't there. We can do that. So we're going to try to figure out how that would work.

That's been exciting. I personally have been able to speak at more places kind of publicly. I'll be on main stage apparently at Reach, which is very exciting, with Taco. We have, what other good stuff is happening? Give me some other good things that are happening.

We got a podcast now. Yeah, we got a podcast now that has been, this is the second year it'll be out that we're doing content creator training through and just kind of interesting stuff. We've got, the thing is like there's so much kind of in the works and there's so much that we've come, I feel like this year has been really exciting when it comes to a push of connection because my prayer was like, you know, I'm really bad at this, the networking and talking to the other organizations and things like that, and I'm like, "God, I don't know how to do that. You have to do that for me." And you know, now it's been more and more of that kind of connecting, connecting, connecting, connecting, and people going, "Would you want to talk? You want to chat?" Like, for example, your thing kind of came out of nowhere. Like, "Do you want to do a breakout session at the digital church thing?" I'm sure, you know, I'll do that. Like, I didn't ask for that. It just kind of came out of nowhere. These are little things that are happening all the time that allow us not just to quote unquote grow or get more popular or whatever. It's more about, you know, once we can get exposure and people can actually see what we're doing, they are going to be able to go, "Oh, there is a place out there I can get training and get affirmation and connect with other content creators that are Christian and they get it. I didn't know that there's a community. There are pastors out there that someone who is able to, you know, like that."

Well, you know, it's more about the exposure and trying to help out these content creators so that they know we're there. That's, and I think going back because I remember when you were talking about the idea of Taco. It wasn't called Taco yet, but just the idea of doing that and some of all of us that were having those conversations, I mean, Pastor Du, I think might have been in there as well, a couple other guys that didn't end up being in Taco, but just, you know, sounding, talking through, we were having similar ideas around we need to help in some way bring awareness to what's going on so that people being called to it and the church sees them, they say, "Oh, this is viable. This isn't you just wanting to sit in your basement," which I happen to be, and play video games all day and call it ministry. You know, it was, yeah, no, this is real and it is ministry and it is a calling and there is a mission field and how do we help the church see it?

Go ahead. So God has done something very interesting over the last couple years here and he's, I think he started with raising up individuals, right? As in like people who are passionate about this, people who are insiders. I think the next phase was he tried, he's got some people who were within the traditional church, people who you know had some longer teeth, more maturity, actual pastoral trainers, bringing those in and to kind of go, "Okay, we're going to try to build that bridge to a new thing," which is developing organizations that are going to actually help this. Because if you take the class, you'll, I have one section that's like, "Why is this so hard?" And one of the reasons it's so hard is because we don't have heroes, right? We don't have, I want to be Billy Graham. I want to be D.L. Moody. I want to be Hudson Taylor. I want to be, you know, like whatever the, the bill that. So like we don't have that, but we're building them, right? There are people that are doing that now.

Second, we have these organizations are starting to come together, but with very different purpose. Similar, but different. We're not competing. No, I'm doing, I'm helping Christian content creators to be able to flourish, unite, take care of each other. You know, Church Digital is about digital missions, similar but different, right? You've got, um, Love Thy Nerd, who's been obviously been around for a while, who's doing, you know, live stuff and meeting people more in a more general way when it comes to nerd culture.

Yeah, doing a lot of cons, doing cons and outside stuff. Yeah. I'm trying to remember some organizations that I'm going to screw this up, but like you've got, you know, each different one that's raising up. What's, uh, man, what's Brandon's DC4C? I can't remember. DC4C. Yeah. So he, you know, we, he's doing a different thing than we are.

Like, it's God has raised up leaders. He's raised up ministers. He's raised up people with pastoral backgrounds to be able to create organizations that not only support the ministry, because you got to start somewhere, but now we're starting to kind of like seeing these, you know, quote unquote like not seminaries, but like organizations. Oh, well, training. Training. There's training places within, you know, and that's exactly how the church worked, right? It was send a missionary, the guy just standing around going, "Hi, I like Jesus. Anybody else want to hear about that?" Yeah. And then as that starts to grow, God sends in more mature people who can teach better, who can plant something that allows other pastors to grow and to push them out.

And that's we're in that phase right now. Very within the next couple years here, probably within the next five, we're going to start seeing a massive transition between this division of traditional and digital church to finally them coming around and going, "Oh, how do we get involved in this?" Yeah. Because it's, we've now, we don't just have people who know what they're doing, but they've known what they're doing for a decade at that point. We don't just have, you know, people who are doing it well because they're individuals. We now have representative groups that have long, have much longer teeth, who have served for a long time, who haven't screwed it all up, who, you know, haven't, have demonstrated not only faithfulness but biblical integrity, you know, done that for a little while now. And so they go, because that's what they need to see, right? It's because at this point it's really hard to sell because it's like, "Oh, how long you been around? Five minutes. Yes. Yes. Give me money and your pulpit, please."

And I don't know everybody that, you know, isn't a pastor who's gone to their church and tried to say, "Hey, support me in what I'm doing and God's calling me." But as a pastor, I've tried to go to my denomination and say, "Hey, I see a mission field. I want to work into this and I want to do these things." And the question is, "Well, prove us viability. Prove you viability. God's calling me. I'm not proving you viability. I'm proving you calling. Okay? I don't know if it's viable. I don't care if it's viable. I can be bivocational for all I care. I thought you might want to join in this."

I had the same experience when I first started and everybody's just saying no. I was able to meet a group called New Ventures within the Alliance denomination who was able to bring me on board as an actual minister. I'm a licensed pastor, the whole nine yards. Real ministry that is all traditional and everything. Yes. And so I consider part of my job, I feel, is to not only be a great streamer, to do my best to be a good streamer, to bring people in and to let them see what it's like if you try to do it right there as a Christian streamer and whatever. Um, but to be the one who kind of gets to bash their head against the traditional church until I'm the one that's bleeding and the wall finally fell down and they and other people who come after me can go, "Well, you know, Christian Ninja did it and you know, he's got a couple churches that are with him and he's been doing it for a little while. Well, I'm just doing what he's doing. Why don't you go, you know, and they can go, oh yeah, it's got other churches. Oh, there he's actually knows what he's. Oh, there's a training thing."

Oh, like working with Dordt. I'll be speaking at Dordt University as for their one-year gaming ministry certificate program, right? That's that. Oh, yeah. There's a program you can go take it so you can know how to do this. It's got legitimacy, but it's going to require people like you and me who to be that bridge to be able to figure out a way that others can point to us and go, "Yeah, I know. It works because they did it." Yeah, they did it. Yeah. Dordt. Okay. Excuse me. Sorry. Dordt. Yeah. Um, but yeah, so and it's like pulling teeth. It's awful. It's awful. I was part of a virtual neighborhood group for a year before we even did anything. Finally, I just said, because I came in after they started it and they're like, "You should be on that thing." And finally, I went, "Guys, can I say something?" And so I just laid down a vision, laid down a structure, laid down a plan, got together an annual thing, threw it at them, job descriptions, the whole nine yards, and they all went, "This is amazing. We should think about doing this." And then nobody got back to me. Nobody got back to me. So I'm like, "Okay, here's another pitch and what do you guys think?" And eventually, you know, they're all like, "Yeah, we should put together a document that we can bring to other pastors." And I'm like, "Cool." So I went and put together a document, sent it to them and like, "Why don't you put some things in here?" One person got back to me and actually submitted a couple things. And it's like, so it's trying to drag these people is like it's just like turning the Titanic around, man. It's rough. But at the same time, we're seeing progress. I'm seeing good things happen. I get to be in contact with head office, the head office of the entire thing.

So therefore, I get to kind of push this forward so that their missionary page, right, is no longer from like the '90s so that they can have a blog on there and some pictures, you know what I mean? Instead of just having like a link, it's like, "Okay, let's go." Oh, you know, like so we can talk to so I can be the one who goes to the denominational meetings and stands there and goes, "Hi, I am old man like you." So therefore, I can also speak that old man language. Let me explain to you how this kind of works. And then hopefully by God's grace, all these content creators that we're that I'm training and that we're that are coming up behind can go, it's easier for me now. There's a path than trodden through the jungle that I can walk.

Yeah, yeah. And I, yeah, I love how you were describing that of the wave of it. There were some pioneers who were first in without seminary training on some level that were just called by God and sharing the gospel and then some of us started coming in who have some seminary training and lifting up and encouraging those. And now we have organizations that are coming alongside of, and the church digital, uh, we've gone, we're I think it's I don't know, we joke around what version we're at, version 3 or version 4.0, I know whatever it is, but we've gone through some stages of change.

So for a while we were trying to be a discipleship organization and helping to focus with church planting and we were doing that and it was like, but we're running into people and we have people hanging out that are never going to plant a church and their ministry is not what we're doing, but they're hanging out and it's like, okay, God, but we just kept like bumping up. Well, you can't plant a church in digital space. Language of title was causing problems. Oh, you can't do discipleship online. And then we suddenly saw there's lots of people trying to figure out discipleship online. It's like, should we still be doing that or not? We've got a bunch of people that are doing ministry online and they're pioneering stuff. How do we hit that? So we've unlicensed, untrained, unsupported. Exactly, exactly. No idea what they're doing, all the heart in the world and sometimes doing more damage than they are helping but with the best heart.

Yeah, you know, and those are the people we got, we got to, we got to grab on to and we got to help.

Yeah, yeah. So yeah, so we made the shift. I want to say those conversations probably started a year ago after Exponential and they took three, four months for us to process through and say no, no, we're not going to be a church planting organization. We're going to be a digital missionary sending agency. Nobody is doing that. Wherever you are going. So we're, so I'm our catalyst focus outpost leader for gaming. So I'm focused on gaming. That's where I'm, that's what I'm not laughing at. That is not you. Sorry, I'm not laughing at you. I'm like you are so not a gamer. What are you doing? Not that I am the one that is going to be the person. I'm the one who is helping equip and empower people.

No, no. Well, we'll do a game here in a moment. That's what I love. That's what making me laugh. I know is that like you are not gaming. Like you're not the game, but it's like God's like, "Okay, okay. There here's a bunch of people that can, but here's what they can't do." And so like here's your, that's your part.

I think it's so funny. I laugh at myself, dude. I don't know why I'm doing what I'm doing either. Like, well, part of it is culturally I grew up in the era of one player games, two-player max, you know, not online, multi, massive multi, and I'm like, I never understood why would I want to play video games with people I don't know? I just didn't understand that when it came out. Better me, yeah, yeah. Like no, I want to beat the game. I don't want to beat somebody else, you know? That was always my thing, right? But well, I don't know if I've shared this with you before. I was in a pastor group when I lived in Iowa and I think there were eight pastors in the group and six of us were Assassin's Creed players.

Uh oh, far out. Really? Oh, that's so funny. Oh man. So when a new Assassin's Creed would come out, we would just like hijack the conversation for an hour talking Assassin's Creed and the other two people in the group are like, "Okay, should I go home now? Are we going to talk about anything else? Are you guys just going to talk for an hour?" That's it. So please leave. Yeah, you're in the way.

But yeah, but my journey into the space is about the people in the space, not about me being the expert gamer. Uh, it's being the person that is going to elevate and is going to connect and is going to platform and raise up and help out. Uh, but we also have people that are in Germany that are doing church plants in Germany, digital churches. And we've got connections in uh, India and Pakistan where there are physical missionaries who are there trying to figure out, okay, we're being persecuted. How do we use digital tools to make a kingdom impact and to keep ourselves safe and all of those things? So it's like God's placed us in a different place. So we want to come alongside. We don't want to copy what you're doing. We want to help people know what you're doing. We want to help, you know, say, "Hey, check out what our friends over here are doing. You can do something similar and adapt it to your space. You can do amazing." That's what I'm saying. There's no competition. There's no, we're, it's just people trying to help each other.

Yeah, totally. Which isn't true. Like, and not, and again, I'm not going to bash traditional church, but you and I have been there and you and I have sat in ministerials, right? Where there's always this undercurrent of competition, there's always this undercurrent of sort of like, like what do I get out of it or, you know, if I give you then you're going to, what do you know? There's always that, it always seems to be on the surface, you know, how can we help each other? We should all be together talking, but then underneath there's always this, you know, like, well, yeah, but you can't take my people and no, you can't have my, why should we go to your church? You know, things like that. I don't sense that in here.

There are individual uh, immature Christian content creators that that look at and they see people like me or you or Den or whatever and they see competition. Uh, and I keep going, listen, man, there's like three billion people on gamers in the world. There are hundreds of millions of people that are watching live streams and my thirty are not in your way. You know what I mean? It's we're all in this together. Uh, man, there, if if you're seeing competition, that is that is a demonic temptation. So quit it.

Yeah, yeah. Well, and then even just think about, I've thought about this too with uh, with raid trains. Uh, you know, how cool would that be in a physical setting? And this is my vision one day. I'd love to see this happen of Easter, Holy Week. You get done with a service and everybody from one church leaves and goes to the next church and you have your service and then you leave and you go to the next church and or like a progressive supper but like with worship, right? But with worship, like just like a raid train. We go from one streamer to another streamer, shifting. I see no way that could be complicated. That would be smooth as butter. Yes, totally, totally. Oh, it's just like, it's just a fantastic idea on some, it will never happen.

I know. Uh, but it sounds like a fun idea for me, you know, like not everyone's going to hang out the whole time. Nobody hangs out the, well, I shouldn't say no one. Not everyone hangs out the whole time. When you do a raid train, you move from one to the next. You might start in one, move to the next one, and then you don't go on because you have something else to be. So I'm not, you know, thinking that, well, if we have ten churches and they're all a hundred people, we need to have a venue of a thousand for them all to sit there. No, you might show up in the one before your church and you'll go to yours and you'll go to the one afterwards and then when you move on, you split.

But the premise of us being the body and coming in with, "Hey, we just finished worship and we are full of the spirit and we're showing up as you start worship to bless you." I just think is a, it I would, I would love to see somebody try it. Let me put it that way. I raid train, the raid system on Twitch is ingenious and especially like you said for the Christian content creator because we take our community really seriously.

Yeah, like we, there's some fragile people in there. There's some people that we really love and respect. There's some folks that are, are we know that we've been kind of courting for a while and and we finally been able to to show some love to and they finally trust us. And that raid, you know, into another stream is a way of saying I'm willing to a, I want to bless you with this because I, you know, I believe in what you're doing, but also b uh, I'm bringing my people over. You know, I'm taking the risk, yeah, to to introduce them to you. And that's why anybody, anytime I get raided, regardless of of size or whatever, it's always an honor because it means so much that somebody would go, I trust you enough and I believe in you enough and I'm willing to invest in this enough. Uh, it bugs me to no end when I find, go to go to a stream and they haven't raided it out. I'm like, because there are so many people out there that would love to be encouraged and that your people need to know.

Yep, right. Yep, yeah. Just just looking. Yeah. Uh, pulpit swap was something that was, yeah, a pastor switching, but uh, I've seen that where you'll do a pulpit swap between, you know, a couple of churches or those kinds of things, but never uh, we'll bring everybody together at one service, leave and go to another service and we'll all do that. Uh, that just sounds like a cool thing. Uh, but oh, I know, I was going to say, so when you were talking about that, I've had those experiences too where it is the joint collective witness of the body. So one streamer alone wasn't enough for the person because, okay, you're different. Uh, you maybe you're not really Christian. You're saying you are, but I've never experienced grace and mercy in this way or God's love, whatever they're feeling, and going, "I'm not sure I trust it." And you go to the next Christian streamer who who has very similar things. Maybe they're more in grace, maybe you're more in love, whatever it is, doesn't matter. But they're feeling the community and the spirit. And then it's like, okay, at that point many, they're maybe they're going, I don't know what this is. I don't know how to identify it. I feel better after being here. I don't want to leave. You're going to take me somewhere else. I'll go where you take me.

Um, I've said lot, I've seen in chat lots of times, hey, you're not like anybody else. Like, yeah, you know what? That's, thank you for saying that, cuz I I take that as a a compliment. Oh, yeah, because it's, you know, and I know I'm a unicorn. I embrace the fact I'm a unicorn. I, it's there, there is no one like me. And I'm not saying that to be arrogant, but there isn't. Oh, yeah, the education I have, the experience that I have, the time that I put in, the gifts that I have, the stuff, the stuff that I get to do, the like, it's I know I'm I'm a unicorn. Like how many people get to sit on the national board of whatever, but also get to do fart jokes and show, you know, the funniest urinal, you know, like, like they, you find that other guy and I will, I will say.

And well, and I I love too is is uh when you're when you're in a physical church. Narwhal, what? My feelings just got hurt in your chat.

Narwhal narwhal. Ow. My feelings. I don't want to be a narwhal. I don't know. Narwhals are pretty cool. Don't, you know, just saying. That's their teeth, man.

Nah, no, no. Anybody who grows their teeth out of their forehead in a pointy direction. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, what I was going to say before we go, the Jedi of the sea narwhals.

Yes. I'm sorry. No, that was that was close to the heart. That's what that was. The Jedi of the sea. There you go. All right.

Sure. Wow. I'll I'll take that. There's your t-shirt of the day, by the way. The t-shirt of the day. Oh, okay. Narwhals of the Jedi of the sea.

Yeah. If y'all start calling me a narwhal, I'm going to cry. Stop it. Unicorn is very majestic, beautiful, sparkly, you know, running through the forest all rainbowy.

Narwhal, they don't do that. They just kind of fat also fictitious. Unicorns are also fictitious. So, you ever seen a narwhal? Uh, I've seen video of a narwhal.

I've seen videos of unicorns. Uh, what's your point? Mine Mine was a living creature, not animation or CGI. You ever seen one? Prove it.

I'm not going normal. You tell me there's You tell me there's a fish that te their teeth grow out of their forehead. That's what you're trying to tell me that they're let Yeah.

Okay, sure. I'll tell you that there's a horse that has a horn. That makes way more sense than what you're describing. Okay. Anyway, I I don't do the same things you do uh as a Twitch pastor, as a Twitch missionary of doing those things.

But if we go to the the physical church, sometimes I felt this pressure to do the same things that the previous pastor did, that the pastor down the road did that we had to compete with all of those people instead of uniquely looking at our group of people, our congregation, saying, "What's God called us to do? Has he called us to the homeless? Has he called us to the single mothers? Has he who has he gifted us?

What gifts do we have? And who do we reach? And how do we do that?" Uh there was always this competition of down the road or the previous pastor, the nostalgia of of when they were in the heyday of things.

Uh I feel no pressure whatsoever to do weird Wednesday. Um maybe maybe I would maybe I would do a redeem, but it would have to be the person provides me with all the stuff.

I'm not going to go do all the searching for weird stuff. You would have to give me the list and and and put it in front of me and I'd do weird Wednesday.

But you do it and you're great at it. I I well I have like you were talking I haven't got to hang out in your stream hours on end like I did three years ago.

Uh and and be able to just you know uh enjoy the community there. We you know we're in other places trying to do that too.

So there's there is such a need for you to be you and me to be me and our communities to love and know one another.

But but frankly, when I'm on is a different time than you, so different people will hang out with me because of time, but also I'm doing different things than you.

I mean, I'm You want to talk about being a unicorn? I decided, let's go on Twitch and read the Bible in a year. That's that's Yeah.

Yeah. That's That's not what everyone should do. Actually, I struggle with with even the idea of doing a I struggle with even the idea of doing my uh DVO.

Yeah. One sec. Yep. You got some gifts coming in, man. Thank you, sir. I appreciate it very much. So, thank you. I appreciate that a lot.

So, the but I I do I struggle sometimes with the idea of the DVO because a lot of Christian streamers start with a DVO.

You know what I mean? And just like you're like, we're I'm Christian. I must need a D.V. I'm Christian. We must do a prayer time.

I'm Christian. You know, and and part of the class is discovering who you are, what you're, you know, who God created you to be, the audience that you are supposed to be giving, what message you're supposed to be giving them, and where you're supposed to be taking them.

And that doesn't always need a Bible study, right? That actually the Bible study might be against work against you, right? If the for a certain group you're trying to serve, trying to help, trying to communicate with, you may not need the Bible study.

That might be bad. And there uh but for me like again I have to realize I am I'm a Bible teacher. Yes. And it is and it is part of what God called me to do and it's and it's good which means I struggle with the game side of it.

Okay. Well if I'm you know it so it's like and at some point I just I kind of have to go you know what I'm just going to be me and then that should be okay.

That's actually what what we're going to be talking about at at Reach. The when we when Mother Goose and I are on stage is that idea of of it's okay to be you.

And it's okay to have your own message and your own audience. And you don't have to try to be other people. And God really can use that.

And you can really see success and and feel used by God just by being you and the message that you want to give. You don't have to copy people.

Oh yeah. Well, what's what's I think too and I think you said it earlier is in digital space people can sus out whether you're authentic or whether you're not authentic.

You know, like whether you are really who you're or are you putting on a show? Are you putting on a front? Uh I want to say I think it was two years ago that uh I went to Exponential Conference, which I'll be there in Orlando next week uh again for the third year in a row. Some of it's connecting with people I know uh because I want to see them. Uh I'm also going to be serving uh with 247 prayer chapel there, but I did an Airbnb with several people that I knew.

So LTN was there, Lux Digital Church uh guys were there, people from the church digital were there, Jive was there, and I paid for an Airbnb.

I'm like, I want to hang out with you guys. I'll pay for an Airbnb and we can all hang out together. I had a job at the time.

I don't anymore, but it was like, "Okay, I'm I'm going to be here." And like some of them did not know me from watching my stream at all.

They they connected with the other places. So, I'm out getting a cup of coffee, getting a getting tea, getting a morning going. 6:00 a.m.

Somebody else walks out in the kitchen. I'm wearing a flat cap. They're like, "Do you sleep in those?" Like like they they must have just thought like this is some like okay they knew I was flat cap dapper pastor but they're just like d like dude I don't ever see you without a hat. I go no I reserve that for preaching. I wouldn't recognize you. Yeah. No I if you took it off I I wouldn't know who you were.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'll I'll take you up on the Airbnb you know. Uh yeah. Supersonic and I are talking about uh maybe getting an Airbnb together for Reach Conference, but I'm going to wait till I get back from Orlando.

I'll start working on that and figuring out what I can do and then just fill the spots up uh with whoever wants to join.

So, I Mhm. Yeah. I like I said I could keep going in lots of different directions of digital ministry and digital missionaries and and and I appreciate how you keep saying we're not we're not bashing the church and I don't I certainly don't want to bash church.

I love the church. The church is how I got here. Now I might have been a lot of places misunderstood by the church and and not fit in with their ideal or fit in their mold.

I've never fit in the mold of anybody anywhere in my life. I never felt the pressure to. I've always I've always had a unique perspective.

Well, I'll I'll give it this example. Uh in seventh grade when everybody wanted to put on the Jess uh you know guest watch and guest jeans and dress exactly like everyone else, I want I want to do the opposite of that.

I want everyone to know that I am different than them. So, it's actually when I got my first flat cap, I got a yellow banana color flat cap.

Seven. Seven. Seven. Seventh grade. Wow. Seventh grade. Not seventh. Seventh grade. I love that story. Yeah. And then bec I I was at uh uh a secondhand store and I found a yellow jacket.

I'm like, "Oh, that goes great with my hat." And I had yellow Converse. And so then began the progression of I'm going to be yellow from head to toe.

And like everybody's trying to fit in and I'm going, "Not me, baby. I'm over here and I'm different and uh I identify as a banana.

Yeah. Yes. Well, my I ran for I ran for student council. I didn't win. I ran for student council and my slogan I didn't put my name.

I didn't put anything. They just said be mellow. Vote yellow. That was it. That was my whole campaign. I didn't win. I I should have had a campaign manager.

Maybe I should have tipped off the flat cap back then, but you know. Nah. Nah. Own it. Own it and roll with it, man.

Oh, yeah. Well, what's funny you talk about that you you wouldn't recognize me. I would have people uh in town that I would see at school.

I'd be in the Chamber of Commerce with them, but Sunday I'd put contacts in because of earpieces of preaching and I wouldn't have a hat on.

And I'd run to the grocery store or to a restaurant in town afterwards and I'd wave at them and they would not know who I was because I It's like it's a Superman disguise.

Like they wouldn't know who I was. Well, yeah. You're literally if you had a mustache, like a twirly mustache, you would literally be incognito, man.

Like that would literally be what you'd look like. Right. Right. And then and then uh the opposite would be true. Like the people that would see me on Sunday, oh, I run into them, you know, at the grocery store on Wednesday and and wave at somebody from church and they're like, "Who who's that guy? Who's that guy waving at me?" It's like I'm like, it's so funny. My wife just cracks up over it that people can't recognize you with or without a hat.

Whichever one they know, it's stuck and they can't identify you. So, uh, okay. I'm just trying to think if there's anything else. So, okay.

So, we we're talk we mentioned Reachcon, but we haven't talked about it much. Uh, we've mentioned uh the digital conference. So, let me just quick highlight what those things are in case anybody's watching and wants to know.

So, the first one coming up is our conference for the church digital. It is missionary.digital. Uh, our sponsorships, by the way, I just got an update today.

We are, I want to say 75% up of of having our full sponsorship for the conference. Uh, all our expenses and all that taken care of.

We're excited about that. We're our goal is to have a thousand people signed up for the conference and it is totally free because we are having our sponsors cover that.

Hey, welcome in. I'm watching you people. Uh so what will happen is it's uh April 2nd at 11:00 a.m. Eastern Standard Eastern time, Eastern Daylight then I guess Eastern.

And it's about an eight hour conference and we keep adjusting it and and massaging it. So it's free. You'll be able to either watch on your computer, on your tablet, on your phone, or you can choose to be in VR space.

I will be the host over in VR space. We've got people doing uh sessions that are going to be teaching. I you need to go to the website and check out the list.

It's it's amazing, but it's exclusive. If you don't sign up, you can't get the content later. It's free. And if you say, "Oh, I can't make it." Sign up anyway.

If you're like, "I don't know if I'll be able to make it." Sign up anyway. You can watch it later. What you'll miss is the breakouts and we're and I'm inviting a lot of friends in and connections to do breakouts and talk about what you're what they're doing in ministry.

Uh some VR people, some gamers, uh and then we've got people that are the church at large doing all of that. So that's April 2nd.

Please check it out. Uh and then Reach Conference is all the way into November and it'll be the second one that of Reach and we started last year by doing um what was it?

Um alpha course together was each streamer did some alpha courses. We got together and we started celebrating or we celebrated what God had done through that.

We celebrated all our streamers trying to prove on some level that this is viable and the church needs to pay attention to the call.

I just saw I don't know if you've seen the uh podcast from Lucan movement that just came out. 94% of uh Gen Z identifies as a gamer.

That's huge. 94% identify as a gamer. So, gamer ministry isn't going anywhere. Uh esports isn't going anywhere. It's only going to get bigger. And yeah, God's going to do some amazing things.

Uh and we're trying to help streamers, content creators, Christians level up their game in spaces. That's that's really the the theme of Reach this year is leveling up what you're doing and being better at it.

Yep. Yep. Thousand%. Anything to add there? No, nothing. Okay. You did perfectly. Awesome. Well, you had shared a game with me or or a a connection of games.

X0_0. Are you sure? Cuz I'm pretty sure what I said was I don't know. Uh what did I say when we were chatting? You sent me a link for Pokey.

So, uh Level Devil as Alepporn just followed. Hey. Oh, watching you play watching you play Level Devil. Yeah. Yeah, that sounds fun. Okay, that sounds fun.

Tell Tell me about I'll pull up your stream and I get to I I'll commentate. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, it's it's it's uh it's a game that that is designed to it's it's very simple.

It's just it's just the arrow keys, right? Okay. And your job is just to get to the end of the level. Really really not that that hard.

Okay. But that that really wasn't uh I don't know what the level is. So uh let me I gotta take and copy this and get it in there.

So just give me a second. Did they break? Are we broken? Oh, hey. Thank you. Evasive answers. Yes. Thank you. Thank you for the the subs coming in.

All right. I've got Am I still on his stream? Did he go offline? Oh no. His computer exploded. Oh, you know what? But I had that I had that problem the other day too when we did this.

So for some reason if it's already open it doesn't seem to want to um to show it to you. Let me let me try this again.

Okay. So let me try Sharon. Oh I think that might have been I needed to do entire screen. I think is what I might have needed to do.

You're not online. You're not streaming. Uh, it's still showing me uh that I'm streaming. Oh, I'm on It says excellent 30,000 kilobytes a second is what it's telling me.

And uh I'm on flat cap dapper pastor and there's no stream. Oh, I'm not on flat cap dapper pastor. I'm on the church. Oh, that Okay, that would explain it.

Okay, that explain it. You're you're you're confusing me a minute here. Sorry. My bad. No, I did. I am confused. I live confused. No, I I thought when I tried to share it to uh the browser source for us to share on stream that it went dead cuz I had that problem when

I tried to do a game the on Tuesday. So, well, this poor guy. Okay, let me I can I can I can maybe watch his uh stream.

Oh, he's got ads. Oh, the poor guy. Okay, let me see. You know what? While he figures this out, you guys, I need to use the washroom.

So, I'm going to take a little break. Give me Give me a minute. I'm going to come back once he once he gets all this figured out.

I'm sure it'll be a lot better. I'll see you guys uh very very very soon. Sounds good. Okay. Why is this one not showing?

All right, that is not working for some reason. I'll do it a different way. Ah, well, maybe it will not show on screen.

2% bonkers. Okay. Well, it started here. I don't know if the game started yet. Uh but it is not letting me copy it and paste it for some reason.

Yeah, it's just ending up blank there. Okay, let me do this. There we go. Oops. All right, I'm just about done adjusting that, I think.

So, I'll wait for him to get back. Mix the pick. Oh my goodness, that is random and adorable. Oh, I must have missed something that came in.

Oh. Um, should I check the name here? Uh, see if I can change level devil. Is that going to show up? Oh, there it is.

Level devil. Okay. So, I can change what we're doing. Anybody coming in, we'll know what we're doing then. We get caught up on chat here.

You have a gift sub here, but you're still getting ads. Is the setting on? No, I don't. I thought I had ads set to off.

The only thing that I think would be showing would be the compress uh you know, ads. No ads running the rest of it. Uh, supersonic.

So, I'm not sure what's going on. No, there's no setting to allow ads for subscribers. I I do not know what's going on there.

All right. What did I miss further back? Oh, love that shines brighter. We're a boundless connection ac uh just have a really good randomizer for this channel.

A Bible trivia command. Uh you've seen trivia in people's channels. You wonder if it's available. I'll ask around. Oh, interesting. Actually, you know what?

I have an idea. Yeah, I have an idea. If If y'all want to watch Flat Cap do this, I'm gonna I'm gonna shut down my stream.

We're gonna we're gonna raid over to uh to Flat Cap and you can all watch him do this thing on his and I'll shut down and then when he's done, I'm done.

So, let's raid over there. Sounds good. Uh you can still Hold on. Let me let me figure this out. Yeah, you can still heckle me then.

Raid the church digital. There's an oso setting for those sub, but that usually off. I did not know there was one. I will I will have to investigate that.

I don't know why I would want go everybody to have that. So, woohoo. Welcome in, Raiders. Welcome in. I'm going to go ahead and switch that off.

So, which one is it? There we go. So, I can make the game bigger now. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Welcome in. Hype train incoming.

God is as real as a leprechaun. Oh, okay. God is as real as a leprechaun with the gift subs. Okay, that took me a second to read that.

I think it was the spacing wrapped around that took a second. Um, thank you for that. Appreciate that. I'm watching. It is so meta uh to be raid raided by someone who was sharing a channel with you.

That means even if you're only having one screen, I'm literally with the raid. Yes, Lexis's levels just followed. Oh, thank you for the follow.

So, it sounds like an appropriate one for that. Makes sense. Yeah, for for March. So, I think I can stop streaming together. Ninja has left that end and stream together.

I should still be good on screen because none of that is in there. Okay, so let me move the game around. And so part of what the hype train still going.

I got nothing on this channel yet for hype, everybody. So I apologize. I'm just going to be the most hype I can, but that's all I can.

I can't do anymore. All right, let me just Move this a little bit so I can There we go. Oh, okay. So, we got emotes.

They're not showing me for some reason. Lexis levels. I thought I followed you before, but better late than never. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Appreciate you. Uh, you were coming back. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I'm I'm going to be playing um Level Devil here. The plan was for me to raid in and then stay on the stream together.

Uh but the stream together Oh, sorry. Sorry. You Yeah, it must have when you stopped streaming it went dead. I can send you an invite and we can chat that way if you want.

But uh that's up to you. If you want me to be able to hear you, I should be able to still put that on screen.

Knock. You can knock. Yeah. Yeah. Just do a knock then. You're going to stop because the alert is loud. Oh, okay. Sorry. Goof Bill just followed.

Hey, thank you. I can turn those down so they're not as loud. Sorry about that. I'm watching. I'm hearing them, but they're not loud for me.

But I don't have my voice regulated with that. So, okay. I'm not seeing your knock. So, if you're knocking, I don't hear you. I didn't hear the door.

You're still exhausted from yesterday. You think you're just hyper sensitive. Everything. Knock louder. Kick the door down. Exactly. Well, if not, I can uh send it back your way, too.

Oh, there we go. I clicked accept, but I don't see you. That was weird. It showed me the alert. I said accept and then nothing happened.

Oh, maybe not. Uh, so much exhaust but tired. Uh, yeah, it's an upgrade. All right. I don't know what happened there. I said yes and then it did nothing.

Yeah, I know. You knocked and I clicked on it and then nothing happened when I when I when I clicked yes. So maybe it didn't do the popup like it should have.

I'll send you an invite again. Hey, tall skinny Kiwi. Somebody knocking on the door. Somebody ringing the bell. Action already taken. Okay. Weird. It won't let me send you an invite again because apparently I'm still on the same same occurrence of hype chest.

Oh, we got a hype chest. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you everybody. You got a badge. You're in. I'm not seeing you. That's This is so weird.

Let me try something else here. Okay, maybe I needed to open up You're in. I don't see you in, but I opened up the uh There we go.

Let me try that. Okay. I think I might have I don't know if I got it now. It just took me to your channel.

That's what it took me to. I knew we'd have some problems. This must be what it is. So weird. Weird. Weird. You haven't invited you haven't been invited to the stream together sessions.

I don't know. It's weird. Oh, I will just try to invite you. Well, we'll see what happens. I was trying to just open up the uh viewers in the chat.

I know. I clicked on the invite. It just takes me to your stream. It doesn't take me to behind scenes. I clicked on it and it says open up the uh channel and it goes to your channel.

Sorry, Donnie. I didn't catch all of the uh chat you're going on there. Try the top of TCD. Use the call-in button. I don't know where the call-in button is.

I went over to the stream together and turned on the turn call-ins on. Your dad owns Microsoft. He can fix this. Team no pants.

Hey, welcome in. You were flooding the chat. Yeah, there we go. Now I see you. Now it's showing preview, but then you disappeared. That's weird.

You popped in and then disappeared. Don't know what's going on there. This is This is not what we're This is not what I signed up for.

Sorry about the confusion. Uh, we're on it and he figured it out. We just keep it going. Yeah. Well, you disappeared when you when you stopped your stream.

It cut you out. When you raided, you disappeared from the stream together. So, I did open it up for anybody to be able to join in.

And then I tried to do the request that you sent me, which didn't work. I just sent you another invite. Let's see how that works.

I don't know. So, you've shop shopped in show up in the preview. Not saying push users. I don't know what that means to push you.

How do I push you? Well, it's not telling me how to push you. Anyone know how to push? Oh, there we go. I found the right thing.

There we go. You should be back now. Hello. Hey. Did that work? Yep. I just got to get you back on. Sorry about that.

I What an unbelievable amount of of pain in the butt that was. Yeah. I'm not sure why. What it did is like when you raid it over to me, you disappeared from the uh streaming together.

And so then I'm like, "Oh, I just shut that down then." If you're we're not streaming together, then there's no sense in having that open.

Yeah. Well, yeah. The plan was like I was just going to leave Stream Together open and then shut down my stream and just keep going.

Yeah. And it just I don't know what happened. I mean, obviously it's it technically still beta. Maybe. I think it's supposed to technically be still beta.

Oh, maybe. So, I guess we can we can explain that. Good enough by me. We got it. We got it back. It took some work.

I've got you on stream. I'm on stream. All right. The game's on stream. Now I'm ready to play. Okay. So, what am I? So, I got arrows.

Let's do this thing. Okay. I got arrows. Just arrows. It's all you need is arrows, man. I'm not good with arrows. All you're trying to do is get to the door.

That's what you got to do. Get to the door. Okay. Yeah. Go ahead. I'm trying. It's not doing anything. Oh, there we go.

Okay. No, that wasn't right. You got to you got to jump over that. I don't know how to jump. Oh, okay. Good job. Oh, I get five five lives.

That easy, man. Two lives. It's it's that easy. You get all the lives, man. Not 33 lives. Exactly. No, not 33. Yeah. You're going to yeah.

There you go. Jump over there. There you go. Jump over that one, too. Beautiful. You're natural. Oh, right. Yeah. You're natural. Yeah. I'm so natural.

See, that wasn't right. That wasn't quite right there. This is fun to watch someone else. Oh, yeah. I bet. I bet. Not as fun when I was playing.

See? See? See? This is the this is my problem. Like I'm fine with chatting with you. I cannot watch chat at all right now.

So if something comes up, you'll have to tell me of of anything. You're completely locked in. Yeah, you're 100% right. I tried doing this last year for for three months.

I was doing Baldur's Gate 3 hours a day or not three hours a day, three hours on Monday, three hours on Tuesday and and trying to do that.

And I was like I I are you kidding me? It's like I took a step and died. Uh, I can't play the game. And easy run.

Ah. Yo, there's a hole there right before the door. Yeah, this is oh, wait. Press spacebar. I moved on to the next level. Wow.

We we believe in him while we laughed at your demise. Yeah, that's exactly it. We we completely support you, but you'll you'll know our support because of all the laughter.

I I would rather have a controller in my hand. That's all I have to say. Oh, it's the it's the keyboard. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Those controller people, they're always blaming the keyboard, man. Hey, what's up with that? I've had a controller since Commodore 64. So, you know, see now you're starting to pick it up.

Look at you go. See, there you go. You're thinking it through. Ah, that see that was the same as last one. You finished demon with 125 to 150 deaths.

Is that all? Wow. That's like a speedrun. Supersonic. All right. Big big brain. We got a big brain moment coming here. No, that wasn't it.

Nice. They got to jump that one, man. I I was trying. I just couldn't make it. I like commentating this. It's fun. Yeah. Yeah.

Spikes are coming. Spikes are coming. I I think it would be more fun to commentate. Oh. Whoa. Whoa. Yeah, that's good. Uh sermons. Sermons would be more fun to commentate.

Yeah, I think I think I think it's a winner idea. Yeah, I really do. You and I we can get the uh the white the white pencil, you know, that and we can write down what we think.

Well, you know, I've you know, you're talking about reaction videos and there there is some validity in watching people react to something I hadn't thought about that you were talking into the tapping into the audience because if you're just watching it, there is no audience that you're engaged with.

Um, so for a while I was watching a channel. Kids react to uh metal songs. So yeah. So they'd play like, you know, SL uh well they would play Slayer.

I don't think they do. They play Megadeth. They they play Ozzy Osbourne. They play Black Sabbath. And then it was always there was always these two kids like, "Oh yeah, this is cool.

I know this one. My dad listens to this." And then there'd be these other kids like just appalled like, "What is he saying?" And he's screaming.

And it's like those those were fun to watch. Yep. It's the the parasocial relationship that people have with celebrities, with with streamers, with, you know, the the YouTubers and whatnot.

The it's it some people, you know, disparage it. That idea that, you know, it's not a real relationship, blah blah blah. But the truth is that people who are uh feeling an affinity with that person.

Yeah. are it it's really it's meaningful to them, right? It's meaningful to them, which is why, you know, a lot of people would rather watch Jack Septic Eye or watch uh you know, like whoever pick a pick a pick a player, do pick a, you know, do something, play the game, watch the video, react to the content, you know, what do they think than they would rather do the thing themselves. And and it's because it's their friend and if they're at home by themselves, I'd rather be there with a with a friend even though that friend is is virtual.

Uh this is my problem with the keyboard. It keeps scrolling down while I'm trying to play. It's it's not staying. Make sure well, you got to make sure you're clicked on the go full screen on the on the bottom right there.

The oh, then it'll change. It'll change everything that's showing. I'm I'll have to reset everything on plus full screen. But I think I think it would solve your problem.

Well, I didn't have a problem till I got to this this create a new problem. Yeah, it'll create another problem. There you go.

Oh, no. You want to jump to the left there. You got to cross. You got to cross then cross right back. Uh, yeah.

I can't get the co back. It just doesn't work. There's no left. There is a left. But by the time I switch buttons from my finger that's pushing right to pushing left, the the thing is already pushing me.

How are you holding? Why do you are you using two hands? Yes. I can't do it with one hand. Just use these three fingers.

Just flip right up. No. No. I have to look at the keys I'm pushing. Oh, no. Yeah, I told you. I don't use a keyboard.

You you really don't use a keyboard? Wow. Okay. No, I I've got a really nice mouse that would probably work for gaming, too.

No, I use a controller. Is is there a you know what? Maybe maybe there's a controller version. I'm I'm going to just try to plug my controller in and see if it'll work.

Yeah, let's see. Maybe maybe it'll work. I'll I'll search it up. We'll find out. See see if that's a thing. Okay. Uh, let me put it on here.

Will it work? No, not unless there's something in the settings. Apparently, if it's if it's on uh you can do it if you use Level Devil on Steam, cuz it's actually on Steam, but it costs uh no, I don't think it costs.

It's a demo. You could theoretically play it on Steam. Sorry. I I would never have thought that you would have you'd have had a a keyboard issue.

I'm sorry. No, don't worry about it. The point of this is not for me to be good at anything. It's for you to introduce me to something.

So, yeah. Okay. Yeah. This is so, this is a uh when I, like I said, when I first started streaming, I was all about the the trying to do this exact kind of game, but for fun, right?

And just kind of being like, "Oh, it'll be hilarious." me struggling with all this, but it but it gets progressively less less hilarious. I I think you should let go of that other hand and just use the one I just think you'd have more more I I I tried that.

That's what just happened. Yeah. Well, you're not you're not worse. Put it. So there you I I I use the keyboard now. So I'm I got two different there you go.

Apparently space bar. Yeah. Space bar also lets you jump. Yeah, thank you. Space bar. Then you only got to think about two buttons on the one hand.

Right. Right. Right. So, how was Baldur's Gate? Good. Oh, well, I played well, I guess when Baldur's Gate 1 was out, I don't know, back in whatever that was, 2008 maybe.

Um, I did play Baldur's Gate and then the next one came out. I played Baldur's Gate 2 and I played Neverwinter Nights and several other RPGs and then uh like N and Final Fantasy was coming out on Xbox.

So I switched over to Xbox and so I hadn't been back to, you know, playing on a on a PC until, you know, just in the last couple years as I've been streaming.

It's like, oh, do I get the Xbox out, put it on a screen over here, I got to get a capture card or do other stuff.

So, I'm like, yeah, I'm not doing that. But, see, I'm exactly the opposite. I didn't any consoles. Sorry, I just I just made that and I'm super excited.

Gamer moment. Look at that. Somebody clipped that. Gamer moment. Need to clip that. I just I just hit the space bar to jump and it worked and I was like, "Yay!" Okay, see gamer moving, man.

No. Play a game called Dude Stop. No. Let me see. Let me see. I I'm I'm willing I'm willing to try. Whoa, that was gorgeous.

You're in the zone, man. You're officially in the zone. Lion Warrior 79. Oh, I totally want to play this game. Okay, dude. Stop. I'm going to put it on my wish list.

Yeah, there it is. That looks that looks kind of fun. I will totally I'll it's called Dude Stop. It's on Steam. Okay. It's it's looks like it's equally weird.

Oh, that's on my wish list officially. Black Fish Ninja at the start of each level. It says a title for the theme of each level.

Oh, it does. Hold on. We can let's let's figure that out. What's the title? All I see is escape. I don't I don't see any title.

Where's the title? Probably at the beginning. Oh, okay. So, yeah. Okay. I see what I'm doing wrong. That's my favorite. Oh, I get it.

Oh, you do something else wrong. Then you go, oh, I see. Yeah, there you go. Oh, hail and well met. It's feric. I will have to say though.

Okay. So, genius. Genius. Where's the name? I don't see the name. Uh, maybe it's at the very very very beginning of each level. It only says it once.

Okay. Well, I thought this one might have been the next level, but mouse over. I think what do you coins? Uh mouse over like so that's coins.

The other was push. Here's oh, there you go. Pits. Thank you. Okay. So, we're at coins. Far out. Okay. So, I must I must need to jump.

Thank you. I didn't understand what you meant. Okay. There's two player. Oh, wow. Interesting. Two-player local probably, which if it's on Steam, two player local.

Uh, you could do that over. Oh, you don't need to get all the coins. No. Uh, um, okay. You die if you run into the wall.

I didn't know that. Learn something new. No going left. That's I thought you run on the A. Yeah, that's funny. That's so mean. There we go.