What If Your Hobby Was Your Calling?

All right. So, welcome in everybody. This is the church digital and we're hanging out in digital spaces. We're hanging out in the gaming sphere. We're hanging out with friends who are on mission. And so, I've brought in to the podcast today, Pastor Dust. I think we've known each other at least three, it's probably longer than that. But time seems to just evaporate nowadays into oblivion and I have no idea how long time is anymore. I know it's anytime like I see a you know, oh been following for so many years I'm like, what, how, there's no way.

Yeah. Time just disappears, especially doing this kind of stuff. It's wild. So yeah, I don't know when we met, but it's been a while.

Yeah, yeah. You certainly have been our Icy Whitebeard punk monk has come into the chat. Good to see you, friend. I've known him for not as long as you, but we met in person already. We met last year in person and then he invited me to help out this year with the 24/7 prayer group for Exponential Conference and it, he may well, I don't know if this is spilling beans or anything out there. He may be coming up to Reach Conference and helping out with 24/7 prayer for the Reach Conference. I don't know if that's official. I don't know if it's going to happen or not, but I made a connection with him in pre-pony to hopefully see if we can have a prayer connection there for Reach Conference, which I think would be fantastic. So it's fun. That'd be real cool. It's so much fun to be global with people all over the place and just be able to sit down.

And so, how about we just back up because I know you, we've known each other for a while. What was it for you that led you into being on Twitch? And what were you doing before that? And what are you still doing that's related to that in physical churches? So just a start and go wherever you want with that.

Yeah, okay. Well, that's, yeah. I mean, quite the launching pad. I can talk about a lot of stuff here. So, um, let's see. I've been streaming on Twitch for a little over six years now. February 16th of 2019 was my first stream ever. Um, I've been in pastoral ministry here at my local church for, we're in our 17th year. So 17 years at my local church and then a little over six doing this on Twitch and YouTube and whatever. Um, but I've always been a gamer, like grew up, you know, with my NES and Genesis and whatever, like, you know, back in the day playing Super Mario Brothers with a controller upside down because I couldn't even read yet. Playing at three years old and playing that game. Um, always been a gamer, always loved this. You know, this old, feel old here. You're playing with an NES and you're upside down at three years old. I'm like, great. Yep. Sorry about that.

No, no. At least, you know, NES. Okay. So, yeah, yeah. Oh, it's one of my favorites. I'm very familiar with the NES. In fact, a lot of what I stream is retro stuff, so yeah, I play a lot of NES and whatever. Um, but yeah, no, I was just a wee little lad back in the day whenever I started playing and watching my mom play The Legend of Zelda on NES, which I still like, this is the only game she's ever played, but she has forever earned her gamer card because she beat First and Second Quest Zelda NES with no manual before the internet, nothing. Just straight up played the game. So she was like, "All right, I retire and I'm officially a gamer." I said, "You earned it." Did I've still never beat Second Quest.

Did she have Nintendo Power? No, no Nintendo Power, nothing. Just her. Okay, yeah. Okay, cuz I, so she loves that game, but that's it. Uh, actually, of all the games, I remember purchasing that game. Like, I don't remember purchasing a lot of games. Oh, really? I went to my local 24-hour, seven, multi-purpose store before there were Walmarts. Uh, it was a regional store, so unless you're in the Midwest, you're not going to know Meijer. Uh, but I went to Meijer. It was under lock and key and they were going to open it up at midnight to be able to purchase it. It's in a gold case and it was sixty dollars. Yeah, sixty dollars when that came out new. And I don't tell you how, like, I spent my, I mean, I saved my money to get that game. I was standing first in line. The person was looking at me like, "Why are you here at midnight to buy this game?" Because that's when I can.

And so I got the game and I went home immediately and played it. And I do remember playing all the way through and finding a whole bunch of stuff and then I think I played it through twice from beginning to end and then I probably never played it again. But yeah, on to the next game. So of all the games, like that's one I have vivid memories of purchasing and being there at midnight.

That's pretty cool. Yeah, wow. Well, so I mean, that just shows you I've been doing this as long as I can remember as far as the gaming side. Um, and then, you know, grew up in a Christian family, true believers for parents who raised us in church and taught us the word and introduced us to Christ at a young age. And so I've been walking with the Lord as long as I can remember. I've been a gamer as long as I can remember and then I've been in pastoral ministry for 17 years.

But about a little over six years ago, my wife, uh, said it, it's wild that she was the one who brought this up. I never made this connection, but my wife, you have to understand, I'm from Houston and, you know, big city and like video games and tech and whatever. My wife is from a little East Texas town about a thousand people there. Didn't have the internet till she was a junior in college and it was a dialup modem and she thought that was wild. Didn't know how to text until we were dating in college and I forced her to get it so we could text each other. Um, like just no, you know, no technology in her life. Grew up playing on hay bales for fun and making mud pies and running in the field, like just like straight out of, you know, the 1800s or something is how she grows up, right?

And, uh, but so we're very polar opposites on that. But a little over six years ago, she of all people said, "Is there some way to combine your love of, you know, the Lord and ministry and preaching and the Bible and whatever with your love of games and technology and all that?" I was like, "No, probably not, but that would be awesome." So I, I just, I at first I was like, "No, there's no way." But then started thinking about it and I was like, hmm, you know, maybe there's something to that.

Uh, I was aware of Twitch. Um, but I was not a Twitch person. I had never, you know, watched Twitch or anything. I didn't know the culture, the lingo, the anything. And, uh, but I knew it's a live streaming platform primarily aimed at gamers. And I was like, well, I mean, those are my people. Um, and I know a lot of my people are very lost and there's a lot of darkness in that world. And man, if I could bring a little bit of light to it, um, that would be awesome. You know, who knows what the Lord could do through that. So, um, yeah, I started that first stream, uh, February 16th, 2019 on my laptop with a built-in webcam and mic. I played Doom 2 for two hours. I had six total people that came by. Two of them chatted and both were trolls. And I was like, "Wow, let's go. This is Twitch. Okay." It was, you know, before there was like this Christian community on here where everyone started finding other Christians and Christian tag and all that. Like none of that existed then. It was just, you know, some people that came by said, "Oh, this guy's name is a pastor. What? I'm going to mess with this guy." And so, uh, yeah, that was my introduction to it. And then, um, been doing it, man, ever since.

And now, like you're saying, time just evaporates. Like whenever I see someone who's been subbed or following or whatever for like, oh, they've been following for five and a half years, like there's no way I've been doing that this long. But, uh, whenever I see old pictures or videos of my stream or clips or setups or something, I got like no beard, just a little baby face, I'm like, "Okay, yeah, maybe it has been a while because I look like a child." Well, I do like the beard.

So, well, thank you. Thank you. I'll never go back. The last time I shaved was September 30th, 2019, because on August 1st, I decided to see if I could grow a beard. And I asked my wife, I was like, "Hey, I'm just curious if I can grow a beard. What do you think? You care?" She said, "I think you'd look good with one. Go for it. Try it." So I've never clean shaved since September 30th, 2019. Didn't realize it was that long. But nice. Yeah, I say my wife does not like the beard. And when you get to a point where it starts to go into the gray and it's patchy, it doesn't look good. But I think six months is the longest I've ever made it with a beard. Uh, goatee maybe nine months, but at some point it just gets itchy for me and I bail on it. I don't stick with it.

Oh yeah, that's fast. I learned that I can't go long though cuz I used to have a real long beard but it gets like super straggly and stringy and stuff at the bottom. Just doesn't look good. Oh yeah, started cutting it back. Yeah. Well, it's so your wife was the one that encouraged you and you did you look for other places first or how did you decide that Twitch was the place to look into?

I really, nothing else even crossed my mind. Um, the only thing I would have maybe also considered and I don't remember considering would have been YouTube, uh, cuz, you know, I've always watched YouTube. I enjoy YouTube, but, um, I guess just whenever I thought live interaction, that was my main thing. I didn't even consider, oh yeah.

So that was it. It was live interaction. I never even considered like, uh, I could make content, post it, that people will find later. Now I'm doing that kind of stuff, but back then I was just like, I want to be able to interact in real time with gamers while I'm playing a game, talk, hang out. So that was it.

Okay, yeah. So I was looking for that live interaction. Okay, that's fascinating because I hadn't even before I ended up on Twitch thought about that aspect of things. Uh, and what's funny is my kids would play Twitch or would be on Twitch watching people and I'm like, why are you watching someone else play? Why aren't you playing? And I did not understand. Uh, and I think that when I got here, uh, I don't think you were one of the first ones I found, but you were one of the first Christian people that I found and followed along with, uh, Pastor Brock VR. He's the one that actually is the reason I came over to Twitch because he kept telling me, I was in a pastor group with him across town. And he kept telling me about, I'm in VR and I'm asking people questions and we're sharing, I'm sharing the gospel and all this stuff is going on. And I'm like, "Okay, I need to check you out sometime." And then during COVID I finally said, "All right, I'm going to go check you out." And so I don't know if he read it over to you or what it was, but I just started searching for pastors because there, like you said, when I started too, there weren't any of the different things that you can click on a tab or I mean a, uh, what do they call them? The little tags. Yeah, the little tags. Yeah, there weren't any tags at all to say, oh, Christian streamer. Let me go find Christian streamers. So I just thought, well, I know a couple of pastors are on here. It doesn't mean I'm going to find all of them, but I just started looking for pastors who were online and it was like, "Wow, there's more than I thought that were in the space." And I think you

And Pastor Susie are some of the veterans around here, the real pioneers. Before anybody could find you, you were in the space doing things, and some of us saw you doing it and we're like, "Well, how do I do this or what do I bring into it?"

So what has been your—so you decide to go live. What was your plan when you started? Was it to do weekly, monthly? How did you figure out to incorporate that with what you're doing in your church? Was it, "Oh, let me tell the youth group about it. They'll all come and watch me." What was your thinking about that?

Yeah, um, so a few things. My thought was, first of all, I was working full-time at the church and I still am to this day. That's my full-time job. I actually stream from my church office, like what you see here. This is at my church. And but I was working at the church. I had a wife, and at the time, let's see, when I started, I think we only had two kids, two, maybe three. We have four now. Um, but or no, then we actually would have already had four because we were fostering to adopt one of the last ones that we got. Okay, anyway, um, so working full-time, got a wife, got four kids, lots of things going on. And so I didn't have, you know, an extra time slot to do this. So I was like, "Well, I got to sacrifice something. Guess I'll sacrifice sleep." And that's when gamers are on anyway. So I'll be up late at night. So once I would have everyone to bed and the day was done, then I would start my stream at home. I had a setup there, and um, I started off going, if I remember right, I think I went live every weeknight. I either did every weeknight or every weeknight except Wednesdays because Wednesday, you know, we have midweek service and get home late and whatever. Um, but I was doing it at night, like 10 to, you know, 1:00 a.m. or something, and then we wake up at 6, and it's just not sustainable long term. But I did that for probably about a year. Um, and was just, I mean, dying, like loving it, but dying, you know, just not enough sleep. And so that was, you know, how I got started with that. But as far as like, you know, trying to bring the church into it or my youth group or something, no, not at all. Like it's funny. Um, people assume like people who are outside of our space here think, "Okay, it's all teenagers. You got—oh well, you're at a church, your youth group's watching." No, no, no one in my youth has ever watched. They don't. Like, they'll pop in sometimes, just very rarely. Like one of them will pop in and just troll me and leave, and that's it. Um, they're not engaged. No one in my church is watching or engaged or anything. But my church loves what I do. Um, so it's funny that they love it. They support it. They're behind it 100%. But it's not their thing. So if they were here, it would just be giving, you know, lip service. They would just be like, "Well, I was there. I had it pulled up." Well, did you enjoy the content? You know, what were we talking? I have no idea. But they're not watching. They're not engaged. So I've never really had any like support from the church in that sense. I've just had them behind me, them in my corner, them cheering me on and rooting me on and asking questions, "How's that going?" And I focus on sharing wins with my church. So that's what I do often is I don't try to explain, you know, Twitch or gaming or any of that. This is all just way over their head. Um, but everyone understands people and ministry and love and sharing the gospel and those kind of things. Uh, so that's what I focus on. I focus on the people, the people that we're interacting with and sharing stories and wins and those kind of things. And people love it. People love to hear that. And so they're behind me 100%. Uh, which is a huge thing because I know many other Christians in this space don't have that same kind of support. In fact, they get a lot of pushback, and "You shouldn't be doing that. That's worldly. That's a waste of time." Like, there's a million different, you know, pushbacks that we hear as Christians. But I've been very blessed to have my church behind me, my family behind me, my friends behind me. I've never really had—I should say that someone whose voice I honor and respect and prioritize, someone who has weight in my life, who has pushed back against me. Um, so that's a huge blessing.

Oh, totally. And well, so you have your wife on board. She's the one suggesting it. Your church is on board and supporting it. Uh, to begin with, you're burning the candle at both ends doing that.

Yeah. So what have been some of the obstacles that you have faced? Because you've had good support, what were some of those challenges that you faced as you started, particularly, and then some that have come up throughout the years that you run into?

Yeah. So at first it was just the real practical side of things, you know, when do I do this? Am I getting enough sleep? Uh, those kind of things, and that, you know, that's obviously not sustainable to do what I was doing, and that's why I couldn't do it that way anymore. Um, but all the while making sure that my priorities stayed where they were because if I had pushed through, I would have had to put other things aside, you know, my relationship with the Lord or my wife or my kids or something would have to give. And so that schedule is what gave, and I had to adjust. But um, like I said, people whose voices I truly honor and respect, they've always been in my corner. But ones that don't hold weight to me, there have been, you know, pushbacks and whatever. Um, so there's people, you know, in stream, there's people in comments, there's those kind of things where there's that pushback. There's whether it's on a specific thing that was said or, you know, "You're a heretic because you believe this," or "This is a worldly thing," or "You shouldn't play that game," or like it could be anything. Those kind of things, they're very, very common for Christians in this space. And um, so I've had to, on one hand, learn how to deal with them. On the other, I feel like a lot of my upbringing helped prepare me for it because my family, while they are believers and they're wonderful and the most loving people ever, they are also super sarcastic, thick-skinned. Like, we are going to mess with you every moment we can. That's how my family operates. Um, so I grew up with that. Like, the dinner table was just roast session of everyone at the table all night, and it was fun and hilarious and we loved it. Uh, but so I developed thick skin real early. Um, and the struggle of doing this kind of thing is developing thick skin but keeping a soft heart. If you can manage that and balance that well, that makes all the difference. Uh, because people are going to try and get to that heart. And if you don't have the thick skin, you're going to develop a thick heart, a hard heart. And if you do that, you can't truly love people. You can't truly minister to people. Uh, you're just going to guard your heart so you don't get hurt. Um, so I'm very grateful for that. Maybe not so much at the time as a kid, like when I was learning to develop the thick skin, learning to develop that sense of humor. Uh, but you know, it's really prepared me for this kind of thing because, you know, you're the one on camera. It's your voice. It's your name on all these things, and people behind a keyboard, they can say and do anything, and we all know they do. Um, so that's an obstacle for sure that I've had to deal with is learning how to roll with the punches and how, like, in the moment—because again, everything is live, in the moment—to respond appropriately. You don't just want to, you know, troll back and rip someone apart in front of the internet. You could, and it'd be funny, doesn't do the best at, you know, that ministry piece. And so you don't want to do that. Um, but man, what else? Uh, a lot of practical things. Um, like when I was still streaming from home and adjusting my schedule and stuff, I actually built a stream room at my house out of nothing, and I loved it. It was in the attic. Whenever we bought that house several years ago, there was this unused attic space above our bedroom. And I mean, it was like the size of a room, but there was nothing in there. There was no floor, no walls, no nothing. No floor. It wasn't—yeah, no floor, just, you know, rafters, but I mean, you know, 10 feet above it of just nothing. Just a big empty space. And I'd look in there, and the only way to get in there is through this little crawl door thing. And I just poked my head in there, and I was like, "One day I'm going to do something with this." Well, that one day came, and because I wanted to be able to stream at other times, not be loud, keep the family up, whatever, so I built that stream room, and I loved it. I learned a lot about how to build—built a room, built a floor, walls, the whole deal—and started streaming in there. And I love that setup. And anytime I see old clips from it, I just miss it so much. I love that room. But um, I also live in Texas, and I bought the most expensive insulation I could and all that kind of stuff, but it just doesn't matter when it's Texas summer. It's very hot in there. And I had a portable AC unit that was right behind me, full blast, 60 degrees on me when I was streaming, and it was great. It was fine, and I was good and comfortable. But one day it died. And yeah, so I went in there just to see how hot it was. I took a meat thermometer, and it was 137 degrees in that room, and I was like, "Nope, can't stream in here. I will die." So yeah, had to find another solution. And so I talked to my pastor because that was another thing I should have mentioned. Uh, whenever I was first, you know, discovering, you know, if I should do this and taking those steps and stuff, I obviously had the support of my wife, but I talked to my pastor too, who—we had been—because I'm associate pastor and I've served in kids ministry and youth ministry and anywhere that we need—but um, associate pastor, so we've worked together for 17 years and we have a very good relationship. I shared the vision, the heart, the mission behind what I was wanting to do. And he said, "I don't understand all of it, but I think you have the gifts, the talent, the abilities, the skill set for it. I'm behind you. Go for it." So I had been doing it for a couple of years when that AC went out, and I had another conversation with him. I said, "Okay, this is a crazy idea. I understand if you say no, but what about this? What if I turned my office here at the church into a stream room? Uh, because I can't stream at home anymore. That's not an option. Um, but I don't want to stop doing this ministry. It's working. People are hearing the gospel, lives are being changed and affected, and it's making a difference. I don't want to stop." Um, and I mean, he like cut me off midway. He was like, "You don't have to say anymore. You go for it. Do whatever you want. Go for it." And so that was another big change, and started streaming from my office and adjusted my schedule and that kind of stuff. So I'm, you know, ministry, as you know, is never the same. Every day is different. Every day is a new adventure. It's what I love about it. It's never the same schedule. Yeah, you know, it's what is today going to bring? I don't know. Let's find out. So I know I've got this, but what's going to be in between this and the next thing that I do? I don't know what's on my Twitch, right? Or I mean, my Discord. I don't know what's in my WhatsApp. I don't know what's in my email.

I've got all kinds of places that, hey, there's something that's going to change what I do today. So I think that's a lot of fun.

Yeah, yeah. And yeah, me too. That's the thing. You got to be able to be flexible and roll with it. So for pastoral ministry, for streaming, both of those require those things. So they could clash, but I find that they just go together very well. It's just every day is one big adventure with all sorts of new things and interactions and people that need you for this and whatever.

And cool. Um, so yeah, I've been doing it from here at the church about four years now, and my office has moved from the front of the church to this room here in the back and all that. But um, man, it's created such a nice, like work-life, ministry, home balance because I do all this stuff here and then when I leave, I'm out. I can be with my wife. I can be with my kids. I can be with my family. Now I still, you know, I've got Discord. I check in and whatever. And uh, even uh, something I started doing a couple months ago is uh, on the drive home, I put my AirPods in and I jump in Discord and I point people at the end of the stream. I say, "Hey, I'm about to leave, shut down here, and I'm going to be in my car in a few minutes. If you want to hang out more, come jump in Discord." And we just talk and chat about anything and everything and just hang out.

Um, but when I get home, I say, "Hey y'all, I'm home. I got to go. Y'all have a great evening. I'll see you tomorrow. Love you," and I get to be home when I'm home, which is really nice.

Oh, that is cool. Well, you're talking about changes and shifts and adjusting things. So you've been doing this for six years. What did the first several months look like? What was your schedule? What were the things you were doing? What did you learn along the way that you decided to adapt or where did you experiment? How did you? I'm just kind of like talk through you've had a six-year journey. What did it look like six years ago if I were to show up in a Pastor Dustin podcast or I mean a Twitch stream? What were you doing on stream? How are you engaging? And then how has that shifted and changed?

Yeah, a lot. In fact, I just last week I posted a video uh on Twitter of several different clips of my stream over the year, but all where I'm saying the same sentence.

Oh.

Uh, because yeah, before my first stream, I had the like vision, the mission statement that I wrote down on a post-it note, put on the monitor so I would remember it because now I've said it millions of times, but at first it took me a while first stream.

That's awesome, dude. The very first stream.

Yeah. So my the thing that everyone has heard me say so many times, I always introduce myself. I say, "Hi, my name's Pastor Don. I'm a real pastor who plays Pokemon, Doom, and everything in between, all with the intention of sharing God's love with the gaming world because I believe God loves gamers and so do I."

So I had that written on there and it helped me whenever people would come in or follow or whatever and I would say that and I still do to this day. But so I took uh old clips which were hard to find because I didn't used to upload much to YouTube or anywhere else but to find old clips where I was saying the sentence and I just cut it from like first setup, second setup, third setup, whatever saying the whole thing. So I was like, you know, the stream has come a long way over the years, but the mission has always stayed the same.

Um, but yeah, those early days, uh, like I was upstairs in our extra room, guest room, whatever. And uh, just in the corner, had my setup, and I mean, it was as crude as it could be. Like, I didn't have proper anything. So like, my lighting was this desk lamp that was balanced on a bunch of cardboard boxes with like, I didn't want it to be a harsh white light. So I had like colorful stickers on it that kind of softened the light. Like it was kind of rough and just like whatever monitors I could find, you know, went to Goodwill and got some and whatever. Just like random stuff and made it work and audio was bad and just everything. But um, I like doing this kind of stuff and so I would always just tweak things.

In fact, something I've uh always said is that I try to uh improve one thing every single stream and I have for six years. So at first most of the time you don't notice but over time makes a big difference. Um, but those early days they were they were fun but they were rough.

But um, in the early days my uh like a typical stream was uh I would usually do a uh a devo like a daily devo pray and then I would play uh play the game. And I at first I tried doing like themed days and that works really well for some people. It I've learned over the years it doesn't work real well for me. Um, so like Monday nights I played Doom and Monday nights were great because I was meeting lots of people specifically in the Doom, right, the Doom community. In fact I always titled my streams "Pastor Killing Demons" and people liked it, they laugh, think it's funny and they'd come in and I got to meet people and build connection and it was cool.

Um, but Tuesday they would want more of that, but I'm not doing that on Tuesdays. On Tuesdays, I'm, you know, playing Super Smash Brothers or something. And uh, so in my mind it made sense, but I learned over time that that's not, that wasn't the most effective strategy for me.

Um, what I've found that works really well for me is doing uh playthroughs. So like I'll start a game and I, you know, play the whole game throughout, you know, it might take a few weeks but I'll play the game and I meet lots of people through it that like that game, that love that game and when I'm done with that game and I'm telling them, you know, here's the next few games that are coming up and I'm also like I'm multistreaming it to YouTube so it's in there for playlist people are finding it through YouTube like I've had to strategize a lot of those kind of things and it's working really well but what I've noticed is that as I'm playing through a certain game. Like right now I'm playing Sekiro and it's kicking my butt and it's I've just retitled all of my Sekiro streams to "Pastor Tries Not to Rage While Playing Sekiro for the First Time."

Um, because it is pushing all my buttons. Um, but it's uh like whenever I'm playing through that game, we're meeting lots of people. Let's say there's uh you know 20 new people who are there every time cuz they they love the game. It's one of their favorites. Whatever. When that game is over, 18 or 19 of them, they'll go with the game. And I understand and that's okay. But I've found that often we'll pick up one or two that stay for me or the mission or the content or the community or something. And so over time I'm making new friends, meeting new people, and the community is growing and it's fun to look back and be like, what, when did you start watching? What game was I playing? Oh yeah, that's right. I was playing that's whenever we were playing Hollow Knight or that's whenever we were playing this or whatever. And I can look back and people from all these different gaming worlds who have stuck for uh for the community or the content or just me or whatever.

Um, and that that's been a really fun and uh effective way for me to do it.

Um, another thing I used to do early on is uh something I called 60-second sermons. Those are fun. That was before shorts and whatever existed. I should bring it back. I just haven't done that. But feel free to use that idea. It's a fun good idea. But I would I would have one prepared and I would like I had an overlay set up for it with a stopwatch and every like the clock on the thing and I'd start the timer and I would do a 60-second sermon and you know try to hit it by the by the alarm and I I'd have to practice that cuz to get the whole thing across the whole point it do it well in 60 seconds was not always easy.

But yeah, that was something that I did a lot uh in the early days too.

Um, another thing uh like as I was getting more comfortable with streaming and ministering and those kind of things uh in this format, I started incorporating a lot more Bible uh like Bible reading and uh I mean I love reading the Bible and something that I've learned over the years is you know nobody likes the sound of their own voice. That's just how we are. Nobody does. But my voice is a very calming, soothing, relaxing type of voice. I've heard that many, many times over the years. And you know, as a guy, just frankly, that's not really the kind of adjectives you want describing your voice. You want to sound manly and tough and whatever. But no, like, oh, you're very soft and calm and soothing and whatever. The way the first time I ever heard it, it's funny. I was um in uh in college.

So uh that's a whole other story, but um I was at college playing on a full ride uh for the number one tennis team in the country, blah blah blah. That's that's what I was doing. That was my secular studies. At the same time, I was called into ministry, started doing biblical studies and whatever. But while I was in secular studies, uh I was a speech comm major, speech communications because I felt like, well, if the Lord's calling me into ministry, I need to learn how to speak. I need to learn how to speak in front of people. And one of the courses that I took was a radio broadcast class and we had this assignment where we all had the same copy and we had to go into the recording studio and record it. Then we listened to them together as a class and critiqued. And after mine played, there was a lady in the class who said, "I know this is going to sound weird, but I think that if my grandma died, I would want you to be the one who told me because your voice is very relaxing and encouraging and those kind of things." And I was like, I've never heard that before, but I'll take it. That'll come into play for ministry.

So throw throw some sarcasm in that calm soothing and

Right. Exactly.

Um, and I decided to lean into that with reading the Bible because I love reading the Bible anyway. And uh in 2020, so this would have been my second year, I uh came up with a challenge to read through the whole Bible on stream. And uh you know so we we were marking it off and I know like you've done that lots of others have done that too and that was uh whenever I first started doing it and I really I loved that it was awesome really fun to finally you know hit the end of Revelation and be done and we read the whole Bible and you know it was awesome.

Um, but uh people really enjoyed that too. Uh, one day uh on it was New Year's Eve of I don't know what year, 2021, 2022, something like that. Uh, on New Year's Eve, I just had the wild hairbrained idea to let's read the New Testament today. Oh, how much the New Testament today, the whole thing. And uh, so we did. And it was a very long but very fun day. It took about 17 hours, but we read the New Testament and my voice was, you know, shot by the end, but I was drinking hot tea the whole time and whatever. And we're just working our way through and it it was a lot of fun. It was a memorable one. People really enjoyed that.

Um, I've even at this point, uh, last year, uh, this was more on the YouTube side, although I streamed a lot of it, too, was, uh, I did a daily Bible reading upload playlist on YouTube where, you know, three to four chapters, and I'd do it every single day. Um, and people enjoyed that. People are still finding that playlist now in 2025. And, hey, this is helping me keep up with daily Bible reading.

Um, something I'm currently doing with that is I'm making super cuts of all of those for like, you know, Genesis 50 chapters, you know, several videos.

I don't remember how many, but a bunch of videos. So I've made super cuts of all of those and uploaded them as their own videos.

But all of that is leading up to the big project, which is a uh I'm hoping to have it done in about a month uh to be up and running.

But I'm going to have a a new a separate 24/7 stream of me reading the Bible from all that content in one video that plays on loop all the time.

Um, so yeah, all all of that to say, I've tried a lot of different things like in in my content or whatever. Um, but uh yeah, the the Bible focus, the the DVOs, the short sermons, those kind of things.

Um, and I still like every stream now, like so if you jumped into a stream today, uh my streams, they're um they're four hours long.

I go 1 to 5 and from 1 to 2 um yeah I'm catching up with the community. We're laughing and joking and memeing whatever but um we're doing either like a Bible study or Bible reading or I'm sharing a devotional or uh something we started last week was uh on Tuesdays testimony Tuesdays.

I started us off by sharing my own testimony and and walking through all that. And uh every week we're going to have a member of the community uh share theirs.

So yesterday we had someone who's been a part of the community since those attic days, year two, um who shared her testimony as very heartwarming and moving and and those kind of things.

And um as long as they're okay with it, I'm taking that and I'm I'm posting that over on YouTube as well so people can find these testimonies and hear these stories of encouragement.

Are you are you bringing them in like this with uh or are you just doing voice? How are you doing those? So, it it depends on how they want to, whatever they're comfortable with.

But, um, yesterday, uh, she pre-recorded a video and then emailed it to me. So, I played it and I just muted myself. I watched and then I responded and we we reacted after.

Um, but there are others who said, "Yeah, I'd love to come in." So, I told them, "Well, if you want to do it live, yeah, we'll use this this guest star feature and we'll just, you know, we can have a conversation or you can just talk and I can listen or however you want to do it. however you want to tell the story. Um, so that's that's something new that we're doing, too. But that first hour or so is is very, you know, faith-based, community based, those kind of things.

Um, and prayer is a huge part of of my content, too. Uh, we like we'll do prayer requests, but I mean, we we pray for a while.

Like we're praying 20 30 minutes something. We're praying for a while for prayer requests. Um, and that's that's been such an encouragement to people, too.

In fact, that was part of uh her testimony yesterday was uh when her husband came in and and prayed for him and how he's walking with the Lord and all this and really cool.

But um then I make that shift into gaming and uh but I say, you know, hey, conversations are still going. We'll still talk about whatever.

And we always pray, you know, God, send the right people who need to be here today uh to hear a message of hope and love and truth and grace.

And inevitably every stream we get people who, hey, I I don't even know why I'm here. I don't know why I clicked on this, but I'm going through this.

I don't know if there's anything to this. Could you pray for me? And starts conversations. And while I'm not there like just playing the game as something to do while I talk to people, um, I'm actually genuinely a gamer and wanting to play the game.

So I'm People can tell, I think, if someone's like, I'm not really here for the game. I I just I want to have a conversation with you.

Um I try to balance that because I do really want to have a conversation with you, but the game is actually something I want to do, too.

So people can tell, okay, this guy, he really enjoys it. He might not be the best at the game, but he really enjoys it and whatever.

Um so I I think people have appreciated that balance. um that while I am actually genuinely enjoying the game that they enjoy too, uh that I'm also genuinely uh uh wanting to build relationship with them and I ask questions and I remember people's names and I ask follow-up questions if they hadn't been there in a couple weeks. Hey, how did this go? I remember we prayed about that. How are you doing? Um I people are the priority.

I all of that I don't want that to sound like people aren't because they are. But I'm just saying the game is real too.

Well, I think on some level what you're getting at is don't just come on and play games as an attractional model to bring people so you can talk to them about the gospel.

If you're playing a game, love the game. Or if you're playing a game because it's going to frustrate you and you're going to get upset with it.

And that's the whole catch. Yeah. I'm going to like that's part of what I'm trying to do with these too is hey friends who are gamers, introduce me to a game you love.

I've never played it. How bad am I going to be at this? Uh it's it's probably going to be awful. Uh I have a very narrow niche of games that I play, but most of them I don't stream.

So I've got to figure that out down the road. But yeah, just listening. I've got so many different follow-up questions on stuff that you're doing.

I'm going to take a sip and hit me with it. Yep. So two different directions here. One, you were talking about the testimony Tuesday.

That leads me to the question. You can answer these in whichever order you want of sharing two or three impact stories that you've had over the years in people's life.

The other one was you were talking about the new thing of having a ongoing continuous stream that's reading through the Bible. How are you going to engage people in community on that stream?

And how are you going to get them from that stream to be engaged? Because if it's just an ongoing playlist, it's not necessarily going to be live interaction.

So, what is your plans with that to create community and draw them in once they make a connection to you? So, what is your plans with that to create community and draw them in once they make a connection to you? So, what is your plans with that to create community and draw them in once they make a connection to you? So, two different directions.

You can pick whichever one you want and and go that way first. Okay. Yeah, great questions. Okay. So, I'll answer them in the order you asked.

Uh so, stories and and wins that have happened. Um one I can share a bit of just from yesterday. Uh there's a couple that's been a part of my community for four to five years.

Uh their names are Devastator and Harley Quinn as we know them online. I know them in person. They've even they live a couple hours away.

They've traveled here to my church, been with us on a Sunday with their kids. And so I've got to meet them in person and pretty cool.

But um the night that I met them, uh he was um really in a a dark place. Didn't know the Lord. Uh world felt like it was crumbling.

uh is losing his job. Um didn't know where to turn, where to go, very depressed and um in her words, you know, that that could have been his final night.

Just leave it at that. But uh so he uh was also he's he's a gamer and you know, likes this kind of stuff and uh is one of those I don't know why I'm here.

Stumbled in to the stream, but um I'm desperate. I need prayer. I don't know if I believe any of this. My wife's a believer, but I don't I don't know about any of this.

but if if you wouldn't mind, I need some help. And kind of shared a little bit with us, asked some questions, what's going on and and whatever.

And we took time, we paused whatever we were doing at the moment. And we prayed um we prayed, you know, for him and his, you know, mental state and emotional and and all those kind of things.

But also a very practical need was a job. Said, "I'm I'm losing my job. I don't know what we're going to do." and uh so you know I just doing what I do and pause and well let's let's pray let's pray with simple faith and and whatever and we did and um you know he really appreciated it encouraged him all that that was great but it was the it was either man it's been so many years now um it was either like within the couple hours that I was still on stream or it was the next day no I think it was a couple hours I think it was the same stream if I remember, right? But, uh, he comes back in very excited saying, "I just got a call.

I have a new job. We're going to be moving. Uh, this is a way better situation." Whatever. Like, yeah. Boom. Um, and that was that was an awesome moment.

Obviously, we're all celebrating, but I tried to remind him and others who are listening, um, you know, that's that's not because of me or us or whatever.

We said the right magic words. It's just, hey, we prayed with faith and God cares. God hears. And so that was a very, you know, eye-opening, uh, faith-building moment for him.

And, um, over the years, uh, he's, you know, had many other questions and hardships and whatever, but he has truly given his life to the Lord.

Uh, he's reading through his Bible voraciously. Like, he is funny. He's he's the kind of guy who uh, whenever he starts something, he is a 1,000% all in.

And so he's asking me all sorts of questions and he's got his own thoughts and he's like, "Well, I've always thought this. What about that?

The Bible says this. I don't understand this." Okay, well, let's look at it and we'll kind of walk through things and it's it's just really fun to see.

And uh couple weeks ago, um it didn't end up working out because of just other things. But a couple weeks ago, he was asking if they could come to this church on a Sunday and I could baptize him.

Oh wow. And I was like, "Dude, that'd be my honor. I would love to do that." Um I'm hoping that still happens here soon.

Uh but um yeah, that that's a really really cool thing and and a story of life change and um so that's that's one. Another one um was uh I think it was also it was in like year two, three, something like that, early office days or attic days.

Um but there was a man who was and I hate to say this but I don't remember his username now but you'll understand why in a minute.

Um but he was he was watching a lot and uh he was from Turkey and um his his family you know 100% Muslim and you know it's it's very much you better believe how we believe.

Um and uh but as we just did what we do and we were reading the Bible and sharing the gospel and being a light and letting you know it not just be words but not just talking the talk but walking the walk and you can see there's something different to these people.

Um, one night he sends me a DM on Instagram and um, he was like, it was real late for me. I I don't remember, it was, you know, like 11, 12, something like that.

And I'm trying to fall asleep and uh, I don't know what time it is for him. It's the day time there. And he says, uh, hey, okay, I'm I'm in a bad situation.

Um, but I got to know I got to know that I know that I know. Is this stuff real? Is this legit? Because I'm becoming more and more convinced.

I'm having dreams. I'm having visions. I'm reading things and it's it's really like, you know, kind of opening my eyes and scaring me. I got to know, is this real?

Is this legit? Because I'm starting to think it is. And if it is, I got to know. If it's not, I need to know also so I can like protect myself because I'm about to take that step and give my life to the Lord.

And if I do, I probably won't be here much longer. my my family, my community, these people, this might be the end of my story.

Again, using safe language. And um so I told my wife, I'm like, "Hey, I got a very serious conversation with this man. I I got to talk to him." So I'd spend the next couple hours and I'm, you know, just talking to this guy and um you know, sharing and and and whatever

and sharing the gospel and letting them know, yeah, it's it's real. It's legit. It's worth everything. And um he's telling me all these things like that'll happen and you know they'll uh like taxes and all all this like weird stuff that I never thought of because like on their citizenship stuff you have to like say your religion and and whatever. And so he's telling me all this and um he was around a little bit more but he just stopped uh showing up one day and I don't know what happened and I could make a guess but I don't know for sure.

That's why I don't remember uh his name. It's just been so many years now. But those those very real conversations because sometimes we take that for granted, you know, just a freedom of religion kind of thing. Um and not everyone has that. Well, even even just with that, the access that Twitch gives Christians to reach into countries and build relationships with people that they are drawn by the Holy Spirit towards Jesus.

And you don't have to like be advertising that you are a Christian necessarily, but maybe he found you because well, pastor, I want to want to learn. But Twitch is one of those platforms that the the countries aren't banning because it's not a Christian platform. It's not something that they're going, "Oh, there might be Christians on there. We got to make sure that that's not accessible to people." It's a gaming platform. And so, exactly. So, the like I like last week uh in one of my streams that this this sounds like I'm telling the the beginning of a joke here. Um, I had a Buddhist, a Sikh, and a deist in my chat. So, like I said, it sounds like I'm telling a joke here, you know.

So, the the Sikh has been around my channel for 18 months to two years and shows up about once a month and we have really good conversations and he is open to conversations around Jesus. Uh, and the Buddhist was new, been around just a little bit, and then the deist showed up one day, and I was like, all three of them were there in in the same day. And it's just like, where could I go in person in where I live? Now, I know there's places other people live. Like, you could go New York City, you could go in London, you could go I don't live in that place.

So in order to encounter a Sikh uh a Muslim uh well I didn't have Muslim but uh you know a Sikh a Buddhist uh and an a deist I mean who goes around necessarily telling everybody that they are a deist we had a really good conversation around that uh they also came in and I had to go are you trolling me or are you genuinely inquiring of me if I'm safe or not safe you know how they come in with the questions of here's here's the question it's like I don't know you and I don't know if you're tripping me up. I don't know if you are ready to pounce on me. I don't know if you're genuinely curious. I like what do I what do I do with that question when it when it shows up?

But yeah, I love that that aspect of the gospel can penetrate through a platform has no intention for it to be a gospel platform and yet the gospel is here. There are there is light in this place as you begin to see it and people can find it like you you keep saying is I don't know why I ended up in this stream. I don't know why I ended up watching you. You came up in the feed. Uh somebody raided over to you. Uh I was just looking for a game you came. Whatever it might be. Uh it's just fascinating how the gospel can penetrate a place where nobody is thinking that it can. Bingo. Yeah. Because like you said, there's so many places in the world we cannot go publicly as a Christian. You it's illegal to, you know, evangelize and share your faith and whatever. Like we I'm sure all been on on those type of trips.

I was on one last year and had to be very, you know, secretive and all that kind of stuff, but trying to be a light in a dark place. Um, but through something like Twitch, hey, I I am a gamer. Like this, these are my people. I'm just doing my thing. But I also am a Christian and I'm letting that light shine through. And uh so yeah, that that is really cool. The all the walls, all the boundaries, all the territories, whatever, all that kind of stuff, it just fades away and and we get to have those real conversations with people we never would have had the opportunity to meet. It's it's such a cool experience. Um okay, the second question. Yeah, I already forgot. Oh, on on your um new planned uh stream, what is your intent with connection of community?

Um if it's it, you know, cuz it's content, but how do you move them from content to being connection to being to community? What just what's your overall thought strategy there?

Right. So, uh, this will probably be a, um, a an experiment, uh, because I I've never done something exactly like this. Uh, I've done something similar, which I'll mention in a second. But, um, like I said at the beginning, the the whole reason I started on Twitch specifically was because of that live engagement in mind that I'll be able to engage in the moment. But this this 24/7 Bible thing, yeah, it's me. Yeah, it's content. Some of it I made it while I was live, but in the moment that people are watching it, it is not live uh in that I mean it's a live stream, but it's I'm not engaging in that in that moment.

So, what I'm intending to do is one to uh like have that that stream up all the time and just see that chat room and when I see people interact to interact with them in chat. Um but also uh to have as many signs as I can pointing to Discord. Okay, Discord is where so much of that type of conversation happens and I'm trying to do more and more in there, like I said, with the voice chats. Also, Sunday nights, we're doing Bible studies and gaming together in there. Uh, that's been been fun and people really enjoy that. But I'm going to try and put as many signs in there as I can for people to to point to that uh so that we can have further engagement and and build relationships and and those kind of things. Um, I have done something similar, uh, and am doing something similar for a little over two years now, which really blows my mind.

Um, and that is, uh, Hey, thank you for that gift sub, by the way. Um, yeah. Yeah. That's Jeff Reed. So, he just Oh, that's Jeff. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's Jeff Reed backwards. It's backwards. Yeah. So, he just he just popped in and uh dropped some gift subs. I'm glad you got one. That's awesome. Yeah, I did. Thank you. Thank you very much. Um, so for a little over two years now, I've had a 24/7 live stream going on Twitch separate from my main channel that is my fish tanks.

Um, I made those streams specifically for my kids because again, I stream from my church office and my aquariums are here at my church office, but my kids like watching the fish, but we don't live here. So, I was like, "Well, I'll just set up a a 24/7 stream, put some webcams and music, and we can watch the fish at home, put them on the TV or whatever." And, uh, so I did that. Just kind of told the community, "Hey, I'm doing this if y'all want to watch it." And people started watching, and they love it. And there's always people in there hanging out and watching that while they're working or sleeping or studying or whatever.

And uh a lot of people have found my primary content through the fish tank which again gives an opportunity to build relationship to share the gospel to be a light to make friends all that kind of stuff. Um so I've I've started calling my fish my fisharies because people are finding it because of the fish. And so like I I use all the again pointing as many signs as I can. Uh I'm using all the little tools that Twitch gives us through uh you know the time chat bots, but also even in the title itself now you can tag creators. So I say you know it's 24/7 fish tank video game music, piano music, whatever. But then there's a little hyphen thing and Dustin's main channel and tag at Pastor Don and people click through and they find the main channel because of the fish.

So, I'm hoping to see a similar thing with the the Bible reading one. Um, but aiming them at Discord primarily. So, because that's going to be on my just on my normal YouTube Pastor Dustin channel. It's not going to have its own channel or something. Um but and then whenever I do uh um my live streams on YouTube because remember for the gaming side whenever I I switch from the the uh that first hour and I move into gaming because I'm doing the playthroughs and organizing them and playlists and stuff that's when I start the multistream for YouTube. I don't multistream the first part. I just do it for the gaming part.

And so I'll like reintro soon as I hit live on YouTube like all right what's up? Welcome back to you know pastor tries not to rage while playing second for the first time. if I haven't got to meet you. My name is Pat. And I go through all that like it's the beginning of the YouTube video because it is the beginning of the YouTube video. And um but at the end of those uh live streams, I'll be able to use YouTube's redirect feature to point them to the Bible reading one too. So that that'll be another another little tool that I'm going to utilize. Now, they may click away immediately and hey, cool, whatever. I can't control that. But I'll try to point them to that as well. So, lots of of little, you know, just using the the tools available to us and as these platforms continue to roll out new tools.

Um, you got to learn about them. You got to utilize them as best as you can and sometimes it's overwhelming because there's a lot of them. Well, talking about that's my plan. Yeah, I I love that. I just wanted to kind of see that cuz one of the things I have seen is a bunch of channels that just have something that's 24/7 that's there and it's a pastor's preaching or whatever it is or church service and it's just ongoing and there's no one in the chat and there's nothing redirecting and there's no engagement and if I stay, you know, because I've looked, you know, oh, it says church, great. I go over there and it's like you're not you're not here to engage people. you're not you're not here creating community. You're just broadcasting your content. I didn't come looking for content. So, I quickly turned away from that and I see other people do, too. Uh, and I do, too.

Yeah. So, I I was like, I knew you had to have a bigger plan. I knew you weren't just putting content out there. It was like, okay, so you're bringing them together. You're pointing them somewhere else. That's fantastic. Um, I was, I have to say, a little jealous when you started the fish channel uh before I did because uh I I have my own fish. Uh you cannot see all of them. I've got a tank there, a tank there, a tank there, a tank over here, and a pond outside.

And oh, wait. And and uh uh I don't know what I call it in the back. It's not a tank. It's just uh a pond liner 4 ft by 8 ft that's 18 in high with about three dozen other fish in there that I I need to get rid of or I need to get them in the pond when it gets warmer. So, uh my fish had babies last year, lots of them, but Oh, yeah. But I early on had a fish tank behind me. And as I gradually got more fish, I put a camera out on my pond to to do that. And I would go away for the weekend. I would be doing something. So I just started putting my fish cam up for the weekend when I would be gone for the weekend so I could check in on my fish and make sure everything was okay.

Um, and so when you when you went live with a 24/7, I'm like, "Ah, I got to do that, too." Not just I'm gone for the weekend and do a three-day, you know, 72-hour stream. Uh, I've now got it set up and I still got to figure out all the commands on a second stream because I haven't figured out using the same one.

It wants a different phone number to authorize. So I've got some issues. I'm planning on working on that on Friday. Hopefully I can make some progress over there, get some commands over here with the church digital.

But right, I love the experimentation attitude because you started out with let's do a devotional and then it became let's do more than that and then it became let's have a prayer time. Let's have a and I knew you were talking about this because you and I are in a pastor group together. You were talking about, hey, I want to get invested in Discord and do that so the community can have more engagement.

So I don't think I'd heard the followup that you were now doing a join the Discord for my hour drive home. That's awesome.

Yeah, that's awesome because anyone can just pop in and do those things. So the experimentation of things I hope this turns out being a blessing that oh, I can listen to the content.

Yeah. Or hey, I can go engage the pastor who was sharing this so I can dive deeper. So I can share what's going on in life. So I can say, "Hey, I need help with what's happening." And it's not just content, it's community that can surround and all of those things.

Oh, it's just awesome, man. Right. And so I haven't figured all these little pieces out yet, but like the I'll have overlays designed for that stream that are beyond just the content. It's not just the video, but the video makes up most of it, but there's information on there. There's, you know, things that are pointing. So there's extra, there's just signs everywhere pointing them how to engage, how to get connected, how to get in contact with me. If you need prayer, here's where you go. Like all those kind of little things. Um, so it's just it's another opportunity. Um, but yeah, experimentation, that's huge in this because if you just, you know, put your foot in the sand and this is what I do, this is how I do it. Hey, if that's what's working right now, great. It'll work for a while. But what about whenever things shift and new tools come along and you're not adapting? Like we see that in the church, don't we? People who aren't utilizing all just these tools and whatever. So we've got to be willing to take that.

Yeah. Well, along with that, I think what I've seen through my career and growing up in the church was someone looks like they're successful. I'm not judging whether they are or not, but from a perspective of growth and ministry, they look like they're successful. They tell us all about what they did. We all try to go copy what they did so that we can have the same success that they did. I feel like there's so much more freedom in digital spaces to just say, "Hey, let's try this. I'm going to try it for three months. I don't know if there's going to be any fruit. Let's see what happens. And if it doesn't, we evaluate and we try something new." But I also don't feel the same pressure to go, Pastor D's doing this. I need to copy Pastor Don. We both just independently have fish and we see from each other and we learn from each other and please people don't go copy us on fish. I mean, it's I actually have probably a dozen channels I follow that are all just fish channels, but they're it's a fish. It's up there. They might have different varieties of what you do. I think I probably have the most cameras and my goal is to get commands. So you can say I want to zoom in on that one cam and it goes to a scene with one cam because for instance maybe it's a nice sunset. You don't want everything else on there and you just want to zoom in on the sunset or hey the fish just got fed. I want to zoom in on the fish that just got fed, whatever it is. Right. But I can learn from each other. I can do with what I have and keep learning from other people.

There was a question earlier. I think I answered it, but it was asking about on your channel with fish, do you have music? What do you have? What is that all set up like?

Yeah. Yeah. So I have um just a playlist that go it is just music and fish primarily. Um, I have two tanks and the cameras automatically switch every three minutes between both tanks. Um, there's a lot of like or not a lot, but there's a little bit of chat interaction or chat engagement too where you can like change the colors on the tank like you've got home lights behind.

Yeah. So people can change the color of the lights. In my cichlid tank, I have a big like mossy AT whatever thing from Star Wars that I put a bubbler inside and it's connected to a smart plug. People can turn on the bubbles and stuff. So little things that people can, you know, play around with and interact with the fish tank.

Um, but I have a playlist of it's all the same style of music. It's very calm piano covers of music. It's probably 80% video game music, which makes sense. We're on Twitch, so it's all like video game covers in that peaceful style, but there's also some anime covers in there, and there's Disney movies in there, and like Lord of the Rings, and there's like some different movie ones and TV show stuff, but it's probably 80% is video game themes. And so people will be like, you know, they'll just find the thing, they're like, "Oh, this from, you know, whatever game. Oh, I love that game. Oh, it's Kingdom Hearts soundtrack." So I'll get I get like, "Oh, blessed Final Fantasy 8 soundtrack a lot." I don't know why people love that soundtrack, but like I'll just see those comments from people who a lot of times those kind of comments, they're also their it says first time chat. It was like impactful enough for them to be like, "Oh, I love this song. That was this is one of my favorite songs or whatever." So using something that's not just, you know, just pretty music. It's pretty music that we can relate to. Um, so people seem to enjoy that.

Yeah, that's cool. Well, I got to say I just downloaded DJ Sodto's album that he had produced, AI, and I just have that playing on a loop with a song that someone in my stream created for my fish stream. So it's a song created just for me that's in there. And I was like, I feel like I need to expand because if you hang out for a while, it's like, oh, this song again. Oh, this song again. Uh, but I did try to put it on a mixer so it's not just a loop, but you can get random back and forth and go around. Try to change it up a bit.

Right. Yeah. So like I have it through Spotify and it's on shuffle, but the playlist I just pulled it up. It's 1,636 songs. It's I don't know like 80 hours or something.

Wow. So you're rarely hearing the same songs, you know, back to back. There's a lot of song and I've had people in the community who they'll send me hey here's a whole album of stuff it'd be perfect for the fish tank and I'll listen and oh yeah sure. So there's been community engagement to it also. So that's been pretty fun.

Oh that's really cool. Getting some comments in there about watching fish and what would be awesome and those things. I was thinking too we're talking about fish tanks and ponds and those things. There are also people that are streaming going fishing. I've seen those streams too, where people go fishing and they're out at the pond, they're in their boat. I've seen several different people.

Excuse me.

Yeah, man. That um that's actually that's really cool.

Yeah, I don't fish or I would think it was cool. I watched for about ten minutes cuz yeah, curious or I know the person and it's like I'm going to move on to something else. But there is that need too of hey take fish, fish fishing for men and then take going fishing and fish for men while fishing that people are out there trying to do.

Yeah. Cuz just imagine like if you or I if we were you know fishermen like literal fishermen that was our thing like we were passionate about it and we set up something like that. A lot of fishing there's a lot of downtime. There's a lot of time to have, you know, the important conversations, whatever. And then people that are there for the fish, they're waiting for that moment when something bites, you know, then it's all action. And so you're talking about whatever. Oh, hold up. I got and then you're coming in and that's a fun exciting moment. And but like you have that time to build relationship and have conversations and that's huge.

So Phantom is telling me I need to try real VR fishing with my new Quest that I got. Uh it's funny you should say that. I actually did go into a room that put me or a I don't know what you call it, a suite or whatever. I still haven't figured out the lingo in VR yet of going in into a place that Quest had set up that had fishing. I couldn't figure out how to get a pole. I couldn't figure out other stuff. I couldn't hear people that were there. They were then when I did, they were talking another language. I went up and tried to take their basket or their pole or whatever and they came at me and I'm like, I don't know what I'm doing. And I just left. So um I think I need a fishing guide if I'm going to go and do that. But I think I would have much more success fishing there than I do in real person in real life.

Yeah, that's pretty funny.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Have a singing bass. Yeah. There we go.

All right. We got off on the fishing tangent here. Um which was which was super fun. Like who else would I get off on the fish tangent but you, which hey is all right. Uh so in your community, how has the community developed? What have been some of the keys? Who have been some of the key um interactions with people that have allowed you to move from content and connection to really creating a community and now I know you're working towards deepening that community. What have been some of those uh key people or key invitations that allowed for some of those things to get opened up?

Yeah. So um you know, as the person on the camera, as the name on the stream, whatever, like you create and define the culture of your stream, of your community, what we are about. And so had to be very intentional about that. What that what that looks like for us, what we do, what we don't do, how we respond to people. Um because I mean, you know, if we're saying all the right words, but our actions and our heart and our motivation is pushing people away, they're never going to hear the words, you know. Um so we've got to we've got to share it, but we've got to live it. So um early on it was a lot of it was on me and saying those kind of things uh repeatedly saying you know how we act how we respond to people we uh you know treat people with kindness gentleness love respect uh I don't care if you believe you don't have to believe to belong a lot of those kind of things um and saying those so often so that the people who are always there they they catch it um they they might you know know okay in Pastor Dustin's dream, this is how we act. I act this way. But in this other Christian stream, we act this way and we do things a little different. And they're all a little bit different. And that's fine and okay. And I think good, we all should, you know, look a little different, do things a little bit differently. Um cuz you know that, hey, variety is the spice of life. And you know, we're all a little unique. Um so there's people that that I can reach that you never could, that you could reach that I never could. And there's so many people, so many believers in this space now who are doing that same kind of thing that we're all able to uniquely reach people.

So, um, I I just I had to say it a lot early on and then whenever people were really like plugged in and a part of the community and always there and super faithful and they have the notifications and they're the first ones in and that kind of stuff, they're they're really the champions of culture and they help uh to to do that. A lot of times I'll be I'll be looking at the camera, not looking at chat and I'll be responding in in depth to someone who asked a very good question or praying with someone or trying to minister or encourage someone and there's chat's just going and I've missed stuff but they are saying what I would have said. They're they're championing championing championing the culture. Um, and without that, man, I I don't I don't know how any of us could do this if we don't have people um who catch it and and try to to share it and live it. Um, so like, yeah, there's there's little tools, too, because again, I'm always trying to use the tools like there's uh, you know, chat rules, uh, for example, that people can see and ask. There's timers and and those kind of things that that, you know, share that, too. But whenever people get it, that really clicks in because if someone comes in, they say something uh that I don't see yet because I'm trying to speak to someone, I know that there are other people there who they did see it, they did respond. Um so very grateful for that. I thank those people a lot. Hey, thank you for catching up. Thank you for saying that.

Oh yeah, man. Just like they said, oh, I got to echo that. Exactly. And whatever. Um but yeah, people people uh catch catch it.

So, as long as it's it's real, it's genuine, it's you, and you've defined what you want uh culture to look like in in your community, um people will will pick up on it and catch it.

Yeah. Culture is is caught, not taught. So, if you're not actually doing it and you're the one that has to model it for everyone, if you're not the one that's upholding the standard of it, then it's not going to be reproduced there.

I love I love that aspect of you're engaged with someone on one level and other people are engaging and it's able you don't have to be there for every aspect of it because they own the culture that you initiated. They know the culture when they come in there and you know respond accordingly to people that don't know it right and then if someone you know acts kind of out of line like a reg I mean not a new person but a regular person who knows how we act but they're maybe they're having a rough day and they responded in a way that we don't respond to people I'll I'll correct it in the moment hey that was that was fine we I I would much rather this or that or whatever it's okay that's not that big of a deal I'm not upset you know I'm smiling laughing about it. It's okay. Um, so I'll try to correct those things real quick, too. Um, like, hey, maybe that's how you do it over there, whatever. But here, hey, this is how we do things. Yeah, like we love all the dolphins. See, Ping. Yeah. No, that is absolutely wrong. I'll correct you right now. All dolphins are stupid. Well, I wasn't going to bring it up, but now that you have, so what what is what is the uh So, this if you do not know, and this isn't this is not picking on you in any way, every streamer creates unique individual things that either are intentional or unintentional about what happens in their chat because they shared a story and everyone gets excited about it and and and dog piles on the funniness of it or something spontaneously happens in stream and then it becomes a part of your community. U so tell us about the dolphin and then other things that are unique if I come to pastor Denon stream what are those unique community insider things that your community has developed alongside of you?

Yeah, one of the the main ones that I'm most known for is Stupid Dolphin. So, uh, it all started with a story. When I was eight years old, uh, on my Sega Genesis, uh, my parents got me a new video game, Ecco the Dolphin. Um, I loved dolphins. That's probably why they got it for me. Um, and I loved my Sega Genesis. Seems the two would go well together. They did not, uh, at all. So, um, if you've ever played the game, you know, uh, but I I was so glad when I started exploring the internet for this to find out that I'm not the only person who was traumatized by a 1992 dolphin video game on the Sega Genesis. It is like there's so many like articles and videos like, "Ecco is the scariest game I've ever played. Ecco is this and that, whatever." Like, from the outside seems totally bizarre and you got to be kidding. No, it legitimately traumatized me as a kid. So, you start the game and you're just swimming around in the ocean with all your little dolphin friends and it's nice and colorful and there's fish and coral and it's beautiful and the music's pretty and all this and the box all it is is just a dolphin with stars on his head on the front that that's it. The scariest thing you see there's like a shark in the corner like okay who cares ocean there's going to be sharks. Um the back says you know you're going to go on this wild adventure or something. Okay, cool. You're going to swim in the ocean. Big deal. Um, no. You start the game and you're swim with your little dolphin friends and you're speaking to them through echolocation and they're all telling you little things, whatever. But one of them says, "How high in the sky can you fly," and that's a hint for how to really start the game. So, it's a challenge for you to jump as high as you can out of the water. Because you're like jumping and doing flips, and it's it's really fun, you know, for about ten seconds. Um, but so you go down down down as far as you can to the bottom and then like zoom up I mean charge charge charge and you jump and if you jump high enough it triggers this cut scene where the the screen starts flashing red and white and this vortex happens that sucks all the life up out of the ocean. All your dolphins, all the fish, all the everything and it's making this like horrible screeching Genesis twang sound, you know, just earpiercing stuff. And then you fall back in an empty ocean all by yourself and it's the creepiest, darkest music with the Genesis, you know, twangy weird mechanical type sound ever. And I'm like, what in the world happened? So eight-year-old Dustin, I'm like diving under the bed scared, you know. Um, start playing the game. I get like a couple levels in and I'm I'm just done because it's you're a dolphin, so you have to breathe oxygen. You got to come up and surface for air every now and then, but every level is an underground or underwater maze. Uh where you only have about a minute and a half of oxygen. Uh the camera is zoomed very close into you. I could talk about this for a while because it it's just I'm passionate. It scared me to death. The camera is zoomed very close into you so you can't see what's coming, but you got to have oxygen. So you're zooming fast and enemies come flying off the screen before you can respond. And if you touch them, because you don't have any attacks except ramming into things with your face, uh, if anything touches you, Ecco makes this loud screeching sound, so you're scared. You're always on edge and just like this. And I never got very far as a kid, but a few years ago, I did a twenty-four-hour stream while I was in the attic and decided to play Ecco the Dolphin and confront my childhood fears. That game, believe it or not, is about aliens, time travel, uh, finding the lost city of Atlantis, uh, and not just any aliens, like creepy xenomorph alien things. Um, going back to the dinosaur days, like all these weird, bizarre, crazy things. Like, I don't know what kind of drugs they were on making this thing, but and it's funny, like the creator of the game, like he and I, we follow each other on Twitter. He knows how I feel about the game and whatever. He trolled me a couple Christmases ago by mailing me postcards with dolphins on them. Oh man, I'm not I think I have them like right right around here. But yeah, mailed me dolphin postcards. Uh just cuz he knows how I feel about the game. But um so anyway, while I was playing through that that game on the twenty-four-hour stream, there's a level in The Lost City of Atlantis with this really annoying jump and I couldn't figure it out and I was getting frustrated and I just yelled, "Stupid dolphin." Someone clipped it and made that two second thing like a sound clip on my my channel that they play all the stinking time and made emotes and everything. So stupid dolphin is a thing. If you go in my fish tank stream and type anything about the word dolphin or use one of my dolphin emotes, the bot will immediately respond, "No dolphins allowed." It's like a little little secret Easter egg in the in the channel. But yeah, no dolphins allowed. So, stupid dolphin is is one that I'm I'm very well known for. Um Oh, man. Okay, I got to like look through my emotes. What What What are some other ones? Because that's the main one that comes to mind immediately. Um, oh my goodness. I don't I don't even know. Uh, we've got little, you know, emotes for everything, but it's just fun. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you do. Oh, I do have a uh I I do have a theme song that someone made for me. Oh, cool. Which is really cool. Yeah. Using the Sunno AI thing for my birthday this year. Uh, I did a like a Subathon thing and they they was they were like, "Hey, I've got a birthday present for you. It's not gifted subs or anything. It's here. Check your email, check your DMs, whatever." And it's a a theme song in like the style of like two thousand two like Blink 182, you know, like that style music, whatever. And it like it covers all these things that like my stream is known for a lot of those kind of things. Um, and uh even mentions Ecco in there. Uh, but um it's awesome. And like so I have it it's for my starting soon screen and people can redeem it to make it play and they like to play it when I'm like in a a difficult boss battle in one of these games or something. It's like it amps you up, you know? And so it's a lot of fun. Oh, the ketchup emote. Yeah, I have like a bottle of ketchup as an emote because I'm always behind in chat and I'm like, "All right, catching up, catching up, catching up." And they'll just start spamming the ketchup emote. Like a bottle of Heinz ketchup, you know? Uh oh, context. Yeah, I have one um uh that's just me or like it's a a book. It's like a Bible with hands and my feet on it or hands and feet and my face on it that says uh context because anytime we're reading the Bible, I always say, "Hey, the most important thing is context, not taking things out of context and having bumper sticker theology. Got to know what it means and blah blah blah. I can do all things through a verse taken out of context." That's exactly right. Hey, there's there they are. And the rabbit. Yeah, because we're always chasing rabbits. So, I had a a community member who made this emote for me. Uh, it's a Pokemon Scorbunny. Uh, who has a Bible and like a question mark like? All right, we're chasing rabbits today. Oh, very cool. Yeah, a lot of little things like that. Yeah, I was gonna say you do uh outfits as well occasionally or do you not do that anymore? Should I not bring it up? I haven't in a while. Okay. No, no, it's it's fine. It's I think it's somewhere around here, but um yeah, I have a dinosaur onesie that I put on sometimes. Yeah, that's fun. Oh. Oh, because I was so traumatized by Ecco. Um, there's another game that chat makes me play sometimes that is far worse than Ecco for me. It's Subnautica, cuz that's actually a popular game that people really enjoy. But everything about that game, it's like it was designed to be a game that I hate.

It's, you know, survival. I don't like survival games. It's crafting. I don't like crafting games. It's big open world. I don't like open world games.

It's in the ocean. I don't like the ocean. But it's you crash land on an alien planet that's 99% ocean and you have to survive and figure out what happened here and craft things and eat and whatever.

And I don't like any of that. But so I'm just on edge the whole time. I'm terrified. I'm scared out of my mind.

And at on that birthday subathon, I had a certain goal that if they met that, I would have to buy a VR headset, which I have. It's right up here. I got a Quest Three that I'm still figuring out because it's very confusing. Um, and I'm going to have to play Subnautica in VR, which oh, just saying that scares me.

I started setting it up with like the stream link and whatever. And I got to the menu of the game and like I could see the title screen, just the word Subnautica over the ocean, and 360 around me everywhere I look, it's just water, like over the water.

I was like, I can't even push start. I'm scared to push start and go down under the water. I'm terrified. So this is going to be horrible.

Well, just remember you can, you know, double click and see through your mask. You know, you can see through the Quest when you double click or you can pull it off. You know, you don't have to get stuck in the game if you know. Yeah, I'm going to have to utilize that a lot because man, I'm scared.

It's going to be rough. Um, we've talked all over the place and if and if we were going longer and I was going to play a game, uh, didn't work out, uh, for you, then I'd have you introduce me to a game.

But just thinking about if anyone is already doing this, some encouragement that you might have for someone doing it or if someone is new, some encouragement that you would have for them of what to think about, what to do, where to join other people, any of those kinds of things.

Just what advice would you give someone who's who's been doing this a while or and someone who's thinking about maybe starting?

Yeah. So, I'll give a few pieces of advice that I think will apply to both parties. If you've been doing it for a while and you're trying to move forward or you're just thinking about it or just getting started.

Um, the first and biggest one is figure out your why. Why are you doing this? Um, remember I mentioned I wrote out the mission statement on the post-it note on my first stream, put it there.

I've said it millions of times over the past six years. I, that is my why. Um, so anytime I'm, you know, feel like I may be veering off course or something, I can go back to that and say, is this in line with what I started out to do?

Am I still doing what I started to do? Now, the way I do it may change and it changes all the time, always adapting and whatever, but it's got to be in line with that mission of sharing the love of God with the gaming world.

That's my why. It's not because I want to play games. I can play games by myself. Um, it's doing that specifically. So, anytime I'm getting off course, I go back to my why.

If you don't have a why, figure it out. Uh, figure out why you're doing this. Um, because you may say, "Well, that's obvious. Everyone knows why." Well, no, not really.

A lot of times people are just like, "Well, I don't know. This might be fun. I'll try this." It is fun. It's a lot of fun, but it's also hard.

And whenever you run into walls and obstacles and push back from people and those kind of things, if you don't have a why, um, it's real easy to just lose motivation to fall off and be like, "Ah, you know, this isn't worth it.

It's too hard. And I'm not seeing the growth that I want. I'm not seeing the results, whatever." Um, but if the why is not results, it's not growth, it's not income, it's not whatever.

If it's something like that, then all those other things that they're just, you know, a bonus. They're a cherry on top. They're just they make it more fun.

Um, but know your why. Um, another thing I would say is, um, is experiment. Experiment. Uh, it's worked wonders for me over the years where I try new things, things that they might sound like stupid ideas and sometimes they are and sometimes I try things and I try them for a while, they don't work and I stop. Um, but you never know unless you try. So um, don't be afraid to try something different, silly, something that maybe really only makes sense for you.

Um, that wouldn't make sense for me or Flatcap or someone else, but it does make sense for you. It's in your wheelhouse. It's using your skill set, your personality. Remember the voice, my voice is something that I wasn't happy about, you know, growing up and whatever.

Um, use your skill set, your gifts, your talents, your abilities. Lean into it. Uh, so part of that is figuring out, you know, who you are, what are those skills, what are those things that make you unique, that set you apart, and then lean into them.

Um, okay. So, yeah, know your why, experiment. Um, uh, build, uh, well no let me say it this way first. Um, build relationships with the people in your community.

Uh, behind every username is a person. We all know this. Um, but sometimes it's easy to forget that and treat usernames like usernames or treat people like usernames.

Um, but if you start to like, uh, learn about people and learn their name and ask questions and listen, like really pay attention whatever people are telling you and opening up about their life and what they're going through, remember those things.

Uh, I don't have the best memory, so I have to be very intentional about holding on to that and remembering those things. Um, like someone came in and they've been a member of the community forever.

They've been walking through cancer and really difficult thing. But he just told me his name for the first time and I said, "Thank you for telling me.

I will remember that because I and I know it right now. I'm thinking about it. I lock it in my brain. I will remember this." Um, so uh, very intentional about that.

But build relationships and be intentional about that. Uh, not just looking at people as you know another person in your community. I had one more average viewer today.

No, like no. Ping was there. No, I don't know your name. You hadn't told me your name. Ping. Ping. What's your name? Um, you know, I'm I'm excited because I'm seeing my friends.

My friends are showing up. Uh, so build relationship with them. Also, uh, build relationship with other people in this community. Now in 2025, there are so many other Christians in these digital spaces who are doing these kind of things, who are live streaming, who are creating stuff on TikTok, who are posting to YouTube. There's people in all these spaces. Uh, branch out, reach out, get to know them. Now, you may not be the most extroverted person.

I'm not. I'm very introverted. I don't do much like in like this kind of setting, like a live collaboration thing. I don't, I haven't done a lot of those kind of things, but that's not necessarily what I mean when I say build relationship.

I just mean be involved, like watch other people, talk to them, be engaged in their community. There's so many Discords now too where you can meet people um who it's not just about like a that person stream like I have my own Discord that's for my stream and my community but um I'm in a ton of other ones too and there are a lot of them that aren't focused on just one person but it's community focused and those are places where you can hear from people where you can talk to people where you can uh just be present in those spaces and the more you're present in those spaces and building relationship. People see you, people know you, people get to know you and uh want to have relationship with you.

So, um yeah, know your why. Uh, I told you I have a bad memory. I already forgot number two. Um, build relationships with people.

Uh, build relationships with other people in the uh, oh experiment. Uh, in the space. I think those apply to anyone whether you've been doing it for a while and you feel kind of stagnant or whatever, you know, mix it up with some experimentation.

Go back to your why. Reach out. Try a collab. Um, or if you're just getting started, um, especially with that on experimentation because at first, you know, if there's just one person watching you and you shift things, it's not going to make that big of a difference.

They're going to be like, "Oh, you did this yesterday. Now you're doing this. Oh, that's kind of cool." But if you've got something established and you make a major shift, it might take a little bit more time.

But especially starting off, lean into who you are. Try things out. Don't be afraid to experiment.

Yeah. Yeah. That that's all good stuff. All good stuff. And I I I totally think that yeah, we are in a unique time where there are lots of people in the space that are feeling a call.

Now maybe that came about with the Christian tag that a lot of us started connecting and seeing each other. Uh, I was intentionally trying to find them before that happened and I was searching out content and trying to make connections with people because I kept running into streamers that were solo that were alone and uh that was one reason that I reached out to you about, you know, starting a pastor group for for those of us that were Twitch streamers and saying, "Hey, uh, do you have support from your church?

Are you alone? Do you even other pastors who know and can talk about what's going on in this space?" Uh, I did hit the uh the max of number of channels I could follow uh on Twitch, but I haven't hit I haven't hit the max number of Discords, but that was because to begin with, if someone followed me, I followed them back cuz Oh, I'll follow you back. Well, they weren't streamers, so I had to go scrub that at some point.

But it's it's it's one of those things where it's like you you can bless somebody else's day by showing up in their stream because they know you and they come to your stream and you can it doesn't mean I have to stay the whole time.

Uh, I might not be able to. Uh, I I love to begin with when I had hours and hours that I was just sitting and watching a bunch of people and hanging out.

I hung out in your stream a lot a couple of years ago. Now I'm busy helping other people do things and it's like I don't I don't get the chance to go hang out in your stream.

Uh, I also I love how you pointed out that there are some Discords that are multistreamer connections. So there's multiple streamers in there. Uh, Reach Conference is amazing with the number of streamers that are in there.

It's probably the one I'm most engaged in as far as a streamer uh Discord because there's so many streamers in there and we're all trying to encourage and support one another.

Uh, I'm in the church digital and then I go to some churches as well and some pastors. But if you're not a group of uh streamers together, it's just one, I might be in your Discord, but unless I'm a mod for you or you're a mod for me, I I just don't have the the bandwidth to to be in all of those places just because the way that God's led me in what I'm doing. Um, but if you if you want to get involved too, I'll just say this.

You can get involved without being the streamer. We need so much support outside of that. We need support in our channels. We need support in the community.

We're already mentioning that. We need support in our Discord. We need support by being prayed for. We we need a whole bunch of level of those things.

So, uh yeah, shout out for any mods who are here in the chat that are lurking. If you're my mod, if you're Dustin's mod, and you're here, you are so appreciated because it the times when we are feeling low, and there are plenty of those times, your mods are there, and you're just like, "Ah, I'm glad I'm here because you're here. I'm glad you're here because now I know um that it was worth my time to get up and do this today when I didn't know if it was going to be." Um.

Yep. 100%. 100%. Okay. So, we're not I'm not going to go run out and do this, but one of the things I'm realizing as I'm starting this channel here with the church digital is I'm trying to tailor it to my guest to stream when it works for you, which is not going to be the best necessarily for everybody trying to watch, but if you're bringing your community over, I think that's going to be good. But I'm going I think I need to set up one or two regular schedule times where I'm just going to be streaming.

And what am I going to do? I think I'm going to play games. So, what game would you want to introduce me to if we were going to go another hour?

You would be doing this now. But what game are you going to try to convince me I should go either get a free download or a cheap download and and try it out because either I'm going to be awful at it and you want to laugh at it or you think I would really love it. I don't care which direction you go with that. Well, I'm not going to recommend Ecco the Dolphin. Okay. I'm not going to recommend Subnautica.

Okay. Although you might actually like Subnautica. A lot of people really do. Um, but one that I would recommend it, it's not free, but it is even full price. It's very cheap. It's $15 max price, and it goes on sale a lot. Um, is Hollow Knight. Okay. I don't know if you've ever played Hollow Knight.

Nope. But Hollow Knight is okay. It it is um many people would think it's my favorite game of all time. It's my it's my number three. It's close, but uh that game I have put so many dozens, tens of hours into that game. Maybe hundreds. I I don't really know.

I've bought it on every platform available. So, I've played I've paid, you know, a full 60 bucks for it at this point. Uh have completed everything on like every platform. I've done everything you can in that game. But essentially, um it is a a Metroidvania style 2D game with hand-drawn art. Beautiful uh beautiful music.

In fact, a member of my community sent me uh in in my PO box sent me a vinyl of the soundtrack, which I I didn't even I'd never touched a record in my life. So, I was like, I this is really cool. I got to go find a record player. I don't even know how this thing works.

So, uh my first record I ever listened to was the Hollow Knight soundtrack. It's beautiful. Um, it's a a very um, you know, mysterious world, whatever to to explore, but it's also a notoriously difficult game, like in the combat and stuff.

Um, but if if you put the time in, if you learn the game, you will love it. It starts off, it's so simple. All you can do is jump and hit. You're a little bug looking guy in a bug world fighting a bunch of weird bugs and stuff, but you're just exploring this this underground world that this civilization that has collapsed and you're trying to figure out what's going on and you get a bunch of upgrades that unlock the ability to go to different places. It's one of those big, you know, interconnected worlds and maps and um so it's a thing to explore and and get better and learn and it's just it's such an engaging and hooking game.

I've, like I said, I've played so much of that game. So, highly, highly recommend. Well worth more than the $15, but it goes on sale quite a bit, so you can probably get it even cheaper.

And with uh the very highly anticipated uh sequel finally being confirmed to come out this year, Silksong, if you've ever watched like a Nintendo Direct or anything, like no one in the chat cares about anything that's being shown, they're all just shouting Silksong win.

Silksong win for years at this point because it was announced in 2019 and we're in 2025 and we still don't have it. But that's why it's always Silksong win. Silksong win. Silksong win. Uh yeah. It's the like Shadow said, it's the Soulslike level of difficulty for a 2D platformer. Yeah. So it's it's like a Dark Souls but you're a little bug.

It's really really fun. I I love love love that game. Uh yeah. Yeah, I guess say part part of it is I got niched into RPGs is really where I spend most of my time. So I don't I don't have any difficulty with an 80-hour game. Big deal. No problem. I'm going to spend the the time in there.

I'm also uh put it on easiest difficulty because I want to feel like I'm big and bad. I don't actually want to do all the work to be big and bad. Uh and I'll go on every side quest to make myself stronger before I advance the game. Um, so as I was uh talking about uh you know strategies for when what you stream and what you play and I don't know if this was you or someone else that just had shared it recently.

I just thought was good advice if you're you're a streamer is do all your side quests on your own time. Do do the main quest on stream.

So, if you need to spend six hours offline for every hour you play online to make it entertaining and not boring or to just take your time and engage the chat while you're main, you know, upping the the game, that's that's a like a good strategy to think about doing that.

But like I said, the the idea with this is to get introduced to more games because like I'm doing RPGs, so I know Final Fantasy, my son loved it. We played all of those. Before I went to Xbox, um, I was doing Baldur's Gate One, Baldur's Gate 2, Neverwinter Nights, playing those big multi-disk games that you were putting in and doing all of that and then went to Xbox and uh, still did a bunch of Final Fantasy near and then I went over to Assassin's Creed and then I was almost exclusively Assassin's Creed for about a dozen years. Like I just waited for the next Assassin's Creed and didn't play anything else.

Uh until now I got back into to PC and last year I started Baldur's Gate 3 and I found out I can't really stream well while playing Baldur's Gate because I'm so invested in the story and the side quest and uh it also wasn't necessarily everybody wanted to watch me do Baldur's Gate and then there are people with the expectation because Baldur's Gate does have some explicit content you can open up they're coming in thinking I'm going to do the explicit stuff because that's what they want to come in.

And I'm like, "No, I'm not planning on doing anything explicit online." Uh, and and the other thing I was doing was playing with my kids. So, we were doing multiplayer on Sunday nights until my sons just got frustrated and said, "Well, this was to me and my daughter, you take too long. We're tired of playing with you. We've already beaten the game and we just want to play through and you're trying to do exploration. So, goodbye. We're not playing anymore." So, I haven't played in a year now, so maybe I need to pick up that game as well and play.

So, yeah. Okay. Wow. All right. Well, I want to You said uh we had two hours, so that's the end uh of our time together. It's gone by, I think, pretty well. You you had great insights. You answered all the stuff I was hoping uh to to touch base on.

Um, uh, let me just close. I want to pray for you, friend. Yeah, please. God, I just thank you for, uh, my good friend, Pastor Don, and his heart for gamers, and you gave him that heart. Uh, and he shares it so freely with everybody. So, I just want you to continue to multiply him and his influence in the digital space.

I want you to continue to bless his ministry at his physical church. Uh and continue to bless him as a father and and as a husband and his family. Uh as this new adventure that he's he's exploring, uh allow him to experiment, allow him to see fruit, allow the kingdom uh to be spread, and allow people in the community uh to just have a deeper walk with you.

Give him everything he's in need of and um and bless everyone that comes into contact with him. Just pray this in Jesus mighty name.

Amen. Amen. Awesome. Thank you. All right. Well, I'm going to say goodbye to everybody. This was, I think, a blast. I will be back in 4 hours. So, I have another stream in 4 hours with uh Pastor North from North Hill Live. So, I'll be back in 4 hours and we'll do this all over again.

And he does have a game. I got to let me see what was the game he was just uh I have it listed here. All Will Fall. So, I don't know the game. He's been playing All Will Fall. I got the free demo and we'll see how awful I am at that game.

Um, you can go back and watch the VODs of me fail uh with Christian Ninja. We did that. It's It's not great. Uh, the VODs of these will be out every Thursday. One will get released every Thursday. So, we're about a month behind. And so, those will start coming out. So, I think tomorrow is is VOD number two.

And then we'll have three and four coming up. So that's the plan for right here. If you have suggestions, you have ideas, I'd love to hear those. If you want a place to hang out and learn more about being a digital missionary, of being invested in and encouraged, uh come hang out with the church digital in Discord.

So if you can't find it, it's just the church.digital and you can find me. So thank you everybody and um let's find somebody to raid out. Let me see. Jason, do you have a suggestion? Do you know someone who would be on right now? Um, let me see. I can pull that up and we can find out.

Uh, well, speaking of Baldur's Gate 3, there's a Christian streamer who's playing it right now. Uh, Miss Positivity says Baldur's Gate 3 first playthrough.

Oh, I saw that. Actually, I saw her a little while ago that she was doing it. That sounds great. Let's go over there. I have not hung out in her stream for a while. Uh, if I could spell this would be easier. Plus, you know, streamer names. How do you spell all of those? I know. I have to look it up every time.

It doesn't matter who it is. It could be just super straightforward. I'm like, "All right, they have any weird nuance to the way they spell it." Yeah. Yeah. Which is which is fun, you know, like Dustin. So, yeah. takes people a while to figure out how to spell mine and say it.

Yes. Yes. All right. So, we will we will raid out over there. I don't have any credit stream or screen yet to go to. So, I don't have any commands in here. It was one of those things. You can do all the things that you can do as a streamer or you can start.

So, the decision was I just needed to get started. So, uh yes, I have no commands for raids. So, everybody just put your best raid emote in the chat as we go over there. And uh yeah, I'm trying to see where she's at. Um uh she's in one of the towers or one of the castles. She's inside somewhere.

So, I'm not sure if that's when you first land. Looks like an upper floor I don't recognize. H but I haven't played in a year. I don't know. I've never played it. Uh, well, I love the I love RPGs just from the usually it was turn-based to begin with, so you'd have lots of time to think and decide what you want to do as opposed to smash buttons.

So, oh, there we go. Ukulele's got it. Raid from the church digital. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Boom. There we go. All right, we should be heading over and I think about maybe 10:15 here.

And thanks everybody again for hanging out. Anybody watching the VODs, appreciate you. Love you.