EP017: Stories from Church Anywhere

Let me welcome everybody. So we'll start the podcast from here. I cut off all of the shenanigans that are tech problems at the beginning.

I should probably put that into a bloopers reel sometime, which would be really hilarious. But all right, welcome everybody into the Gaming Outpost podcast for the Church Digital.

We're going to be hanging out with Jonno today. Jonno has been in digital spaces for quite some time doing gaming, doing esports, doing all kinds of things.

I am super excited to be chatting with you, Jonno, and learn the new things you've been doing over the last year. Learn about what's going on.

But I like to start by backing all the way up to when did you first come across Twitch and decide to be involved in the gaming sphere by being a streamer?

And then we can go into other stuff that you do as well later.

Man, like when did I first get into it?

Yeah.

Yeah. So before I got into it as a believer, as a kid, I was in a pretty big trickshotting team for Call of Duty.

So this is like 2011, I want to say. And that was back when like FaZe Clan had, like they were the biggest team at the time.

They had about 400,000 subscribers on YouTube. And it kind of started out with like the early YouTube gaming days was like you had your FaZe, your Soar, your Obey, your Dare.

These were like your big trickshotting or big Call of Duty teams that people knew, Optic obviously. And so I just as a kid, gaming was my escape and I joined a pretty decent sized trickshotting team that had 100,000 subscribers and it was something that kind of just took over my life and was an escape and it was an outlet.

So yeah.

Yeah. So was that just playing games or were you in Twitch spaces? I don't know when Twitch actually started, to know if it was something that came along later on that you jumped on right away to watch others or to stream yourself.

No. So this would have been like 2016. I tore my ACL for the second time and I couldn't really do anything.

So I was graduating from high school and I tore my ACL for the second time. I had just signed to go to Oklahoma Wesleyan University in Oklahoma to play soccer.

And I remember being in my room and I had my old Xbox that was just like in my closet. Like I hadn't touched that thing in forever.

And I was looking for stuff to do. Sorry, my foot's itching. And what ended up happening was I got my old Xbox 360 out and I was playing Borderlands 2 and I think I'd had a PS4 at the time and some of my buddies were excited.

I want to say Destiny 2 is getting ready to come out. And so just playing some old games like Mass Effect and Destiny and Borderlands, just having some nostalgia and being a new baby believer, I was just like, man, this is awesome.

This is great. And kind of over the next year going into 2017, just this vision for gaming and sharing the gospel started to be seeded in my heart.

And I had a friend named Luke Sour. Luke moved all the way out from San Diego, California to go to school at Oklahoma Wesleyan.

And we were live streaming on this app called YouNow, which is this mobile app. It was like this green logo.

Yeah.

And we were just talking to people online. And he had, I want to say he was at like 11,000 subscribers on YouTube. His early days of content creation, he was in a group.

It was like Scooter Squad or Scooter Gang or something to that tune. And him and a really big YouTuber named Tanner Fox both started out doing YouTube together out in California.

And so I was just really inspired by Luke. I'd had this passion for gaming in the past, but there was quite a big gap in my high school career.

I stopped gaming and so there was about a four or five year gap between my trickshotting and my Call of Duty time and when it was just an escape for me.

And we were live streaming on YouNow together and we were just talking about Jesus. We were talking about mental health. Just how God had brought me through, to be blunt, like God had brought me through a suicide attempt.

I survived that car wreck miraculously and you know, just seeing God work in my own life and the supernatural transformation that he did in my heart.

I wanted to share that with people and so people were responding in those live streams and then it grew into merging that with gaming. So it was pretty cool to see just the culmination of something that was an escape for me turn into the platform that God was developing and building out for his kingdom.

So yeah, I love that. That's why I love to go back is to kind of get the heart of how did God lead you into it?

What was the thing that was already a love for you? And then have God be able to use that because for myself there, you know, I haven't really told all my story on this channel, but part of it was as a kid, I thought I was going to be a pastor.

And then as life went on, my parents got divorced. We, my mom got kicked out of the church that we were at and I thought, "Oh, that's gone.

I'll never be able to do that." But then I got into drama. I did a lot of that in college and then our church needed someone to do drama ministry and the revelation was what do you mean God, you can use something I love for ministry.

And so to hear people with stories of something that was valuable in their life that now they can reach other people through that thing that they love is just it's just an awesome thing.

Yeah. Yeah. No, and it's cool to see just God's sovereignty and the way that he weaves our stories. Rarely does, rarely if ever does anything that we go through go to waste for his glory.

And so looking back at all those nights locking myself in my room to get away from the things that our family was going through as a young kid, God was preparing me even then for the calling that he was going to send me into even before I served him.

And it's pretty awesome to just see him in his power take something that was darkness and just shine his light through it.

Yeah. And then there's also the fact that those people who are doing the same thing now that you were doing then, you understand where they are and where they're going and the journey that they're on and you can bring to them the light that you had experience with, that now you know the truth and you can relate to them.

It's just such a fantastic thing that God is doing right now and has been doing.

Yeah. For a decade or more that we just haven't been aware of.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. It's and obviously so much has changed just since then and since really focusing on streaming and content creation.

I want to say that's kind of a branch of what I do and only in seasons am I still streaming and creating content.

But now I'm kind of just a pathway opener for people and obviously we'll dive more into that as we keep talking.

But yeah. So what has been part of that journey for you from being a hey, I want to reach people online to how did you go move into it into spaces and then Twitch and then being a full-time streamer?

Talk about that piece of deciding to do that moving forward. How did that turn out for you? Some obstacles, some things you overcame.

Yeah, so after I got into the live streaming there for a bit, there was four, if not five years of kind of just grinding, trying to figure things out.

There was no TikTok, no YouTube Shorts, no way to like get your content out in front of people other than just sheer hours that you were putting into it.

And if you weren't a big YouTuber and you didn't like video editing like me, you were really just trying to find a category that you could grow in that was a game that was enjoyable.

So I kind of jumped around, literally like every month I jumped to a new game. I was still kind of bad about it to a certain degree, but I found a home in Star Wars Republic and Borderlands and a game called The Forest for a little bit.

And then also Fallout. Those were kind of some of my major games that I found a pretty decent sized audience and community.

And that would end up eventually boosting me up to partner numbers. And so I streamed for four years just grinding and over 4,000 hours live on camera during my college years.

So I spent, I'm not even kidding, there was just this supernatural, what's the verse? So we run the race well with a superhuman strength.

It's I want to say it's in 1 Corinthians, if someone could look that up, but there was just this superhuman strength that God gave to me that I would wake up at 5 in the morning some days and I would pump audiobooks for my classes and I would do my homework, like get my reading in on the road.

I would get my reading in during my morning routine. I would play the Bible app and undergrads and apologetics and ministry.

And I would figure out how to minmax my life around going live for 5 to 6 hours every single day and still getting my hopefully 8 hours of sleep.

And once I started doing my junior and senior year, I was actually able to make the Dean's List with my grades. They weren't super hot the first two years because I had to move a couple of times while I was in school just due to the family stuff and living at home.

And my wife, or my mother was going through a divorce at the time and we were just moving around a lot and that was really tough.

I lived on campus for a semester. So between all that complexity, just saw people in stream coming to know Jesus. They were getting plugged into local churches.

It was amazing getting to pray with people and build a community of people from all different backgrounds and a lot of them would come to know God and all the tough conversations that we would have.

People coming into chat challenging my faith. And obviously when you're bold about something, when you're bold and sharing the light, if you're so comfortable in the darkness, sometimes the darkness tries to reach back out.

And there was definitely a lot of spiritual warfare and things that would go on even just in the chat. But there were so many people that like, man, I was doing this drug.

I was living this life. We're going to get an abortion. We're going to do all these different things that are like really hard conversations and topics and they're happening in chat.

And God is producing fruit in the lives of people that I've never even met in person. And I'm just blessed to know. And so I'm just doing everything that I can to love people where they're at and hear their stories and get to know them.

And honestly, through streaming, like God really taught me how to just love other people and not be so focused on myself.

Oh, so true. The biggest thing that I think I have learned from streaming is that people are so fascinating and they're interesting and if you can just get outside of your own mind and ask someone a question and develop a genuine interest in that person in their life, like it's such a beautiful thing.

And there's nothing like it. So streaming has really taught me to be a better speaker. It's taught me to have more confidence.

It's taught me to love people better. And it's just been this whole process of learning. And it's a journey that I think you have to go through as a creator.

As a believer, I think that you're equipped very well to take on everything that you're going to deal with as a streamer. It's not easy mentally or financially.

So like if you're getting into it for financial stability, it's like the worst thing you could do. I think there's a reason that Paul was a tent maker.

Um and Jesus was a carpenter. It's because you have to have something that is going to financially give you the foundation that you need or something on the side um that you're doing that enables you to be bold with your faith and share it.

And we just we my I say we cuz my wife has really been the the other half of this the unseen half of uh the success that that we've had.

Um and she's taken just such an awesome role. Um, and she's we we're looking through um I sent her a post that was just talking about, you know, how God uses the word helper.

And it's not like a subservient or secondary role, but it's a it's a necessary when you don't have enough strength. It's a foundational type of word that's used for helper.

And she's really been uh the the foundation of success and the the fertile soil that's enabled everything that I've done on the public on the more public side of it to to grow.

So, um, she committed to that with me and she spent so much time with me. Yeah, I say just that just that word is a fantastic word.

If you dig into the the Ezer, which is which is the Hebrew there, uh, it is a corresponding equal that completes.

It's it's like you can't just use helper. English does not convey it. You know, it's like no, it doesn't. I I this isn't going to really convey it either but the missing puzzle piece you know like it's half of the puzzle that is there together that without the two you are not one without the two you are incomplete not that there's anything uh inherent in an individual being incomplete but that you multiply each other as a corresponding part of it totally totally grasp all of that not just uh yeah cuz without my wife I wouldn't be here in front of the camera either uh

I would not be able to, you know, without her half of I shouldn't say half. Hers is well more than half of of what pays for for everything that that that I'm able to do.

But God blessed us in a way. And I think he does that in some ways that all we need to do is spend time reflecting on what we each together when we when you have a partner that is a corresponding equal, the blessing that God has given us.

Yeah. And so I just want to shine a light on her and give her credit. Uh she's at home with the kids right now taking care of both of our little ones and um she's just an absolute beast.

I mean, she's going through school right now, full-time student, um taking care of the home front and is really just the perfect person and uh and I love her so much.

So, um she sat with me through those 4,000 hours and it's probably closer to like 5,000 6,000 hours now. You know, we're getting almost 10 years out from this journey.

So, that's a lot of hours. Yeah, that's just on the streaming side. Um, like live on the camera. I mean, there's so much more that goes into like the mental weight that you carry whenever you're being bold when you're in ministry.

Uh, like those hard conversations, they weigh a lot on you when someone comes into your chat and they start attacking you for stuff. Like you feel that like you feel that to a certain degree.

Um, I mean obviously like we have faith in the Lord and he's our strength and we we get that supernatural um ability through the Holy Spirit to speak to people.

So, but I do think that you you carry the financial stress of it. I know tons of streamers, tons of other brothers that feel called to the space, that are called to the space that they struggle with like, man, how do I still be a good dad?

How do I still be a good husband and not abandon my family, but do this thing that I'm passionate about, but then also, how do I finance this?

Um, and you have to time your you have to time things super well. You have to be in step with the Holy Spirit and with God.

And we were really raised through this. I mean, I quit my work study job in college because stream was growing so much that I was able to do that, which was awesome.

Uh the first after the first year year and a half and that really grew but unfortunately like it unfortunately but fortunately it grew to a point to where we became dependent on the hours that I was live and if I wasn't streaming in certain categories then I wasn't getting like 300 to 500 subs which we needed that income uh with like the part-time income that I had from the university at the time and so it's it's a tough battle that you walk as a believer and as a creator to not do something other than lift Jesus's name up it becomes a temptation to get the highs from the numbers um versus just preaching the gospel and loving your neighbor. It becomes a temptation to try to work every single weekend and be live nonstop rather than take a Sabbath and take a day of rest because your finances are dependent on it.

And that was something after the first two years, maybe first year that I was really convicted on was like, man, I'm I'm just streaming seven days a week and I'm not taking a break at all.

I'm not taking a healthy amount of rest that the scriptures call us to do. Whether you believe in a literal Sabbath or a Sabbath on a Monday or what you know the committing to Saturday.

Yeah. So we implemented that and saw a lot of fruit from that early on and I think that's honestly been one of the rhythms that's carried us the long run.

Yeah. I think one of the things that a lot of people don't think about with Sabbath is and this is in the Jewish mindset is evening and morning are the first day.

Evening starts the day you go to bed. You start the day by resting. Resting is the first thing that you do. And then you start from a place of rest to go and accomplish things for your whole week.

And then at the end of the week, then you are devoting a whole time to another rest to prepare you for a new week.

And in our mindsets, day starts at sunup. That's when day starts. So we start with exhaustion. We exhaust ourself and we have to rest at the end.

It's a whole mentality shift that that I think is is so much better when you think of I need to have rest to prepare for things.

I don't work until I'm exhausted. When I'm exhausted, I'll finally rest. Uh that if you can make that you can make that mental shift.

You will less frequently let yourself be exhausted. Uh like I I will tell my my stream of oh, I haven't done that. It's on my to-do list.

I won't exhaust myself to get things done. I mean, I could stay up late at night doing things that I know I could work on and and spend the effort to do these things.

What I also have learned over the years and any church that I was at, you know, you usually have your own structure, your own time that you would be control of.

So, if I would hit 1:00 in the afternoon and know I was exhausted, I would just be done for the day. I would give myself permission to be done for the day because I could work for the next four hours and probably actually get a half an hour's worth of work done.

But if I went and rested and I sabbathed and I came back the next day, it would take me a half an hour and I would get four hours worth of work done.

So it would totally reverse. I could have worked for four hours and done nothing. I could come back the next day and do four hours of work in a half an hour.

That coming from a place of rest is just so much more productive of your time. So yeah, just resonating. Don't neglect that. Build it into the rhythm of what you do.

And there can be seasons where I've got to burn the candle at both ends for a month, for three months because of of uh necessity.

You know, when the harvest is plentiful and you go out and you do the harvest and harvest season, that's for a season. It's not for life.

It's not a pattern of of what you do day in and day out.

Wow. Yeah. I know that's pretty revelatory to me just because I've often talked with my wife and I talk with my students about how like you need to know yourself so well to know what your hours of like peak efficiency are and uh that makes so much more sense and seeing that the day starts with the evening. And I actually didn't even think about why um why Israel, why the Jewish people did that and why that's how the Sabbath is set up.

But that makes a lot of sense because my most productive hours are always in that early morning. Uh it's it's that 8 to noon window is whenever I'm the most effective, the most efficient, the most present mentally.

I'm ready to go. And uh yeah, I I I think I can get more done during that time period than in the afternoons after I guess I'm not operating from a state of rest.

Probably because I think I think spiritually there's obviously like the implications of the Sabbath where we're supposed to operate out of an overflow. Like we're not supposed to operate out of a deficit.

And I had a guy that came in pretty early and uh his name is Andy Remma. He actually makes music now, but he came in and he was speaking and uh he ended up creating this group that eventually turned into this Bible study of a bunch of us guys on campus for a couple years. And what happened was was he he pulled a five of us aside, the first five that were interested and we were sitting in this room there in the mansion at Oklahoma West's campus and he was giving us the cup analogy and he's like, "Okay, you got to figure out like what fills your cup in your walk with Jesus." this and I'm sure a lot of you guys have heard of this, but it's like all right prayer that fills the cup this much.

You know, your time in the word, oh man, today you really needed to like dump a whole gallon in there to just even get to the point where it's overflowing.

And so operating out of that Sabbath and that rest really allows you to overflow into the lives of the people that are around you, but not drain yourself um past the point of where you're operating on your own strength.

There has to be some amount of of of the spirit or God's presence and it's all that overflow has to be all him. It can't be anything that's from your well that's like not even full of anything.

So yeah, I say there is and and that's a conversation that that streamers we have all the time with each other is the how do I devote myself to doing this?

How do I have my sources of revenue? How do I have my real life relationships fostering and thriving? How do I do all of those things and not neglect anything?

And boy, it's there is no one-size-fits-all answer. It is all about what what does fill you? What does do you need for refreshing? Where are you at your best?

I mean, there's so like there are so many people I know that that they stream all night long. I'm I'm not in that place anymore where I'm planning on staying up till 2 and 3 in the morning.

Uh you know, back in college talking about that like somebody was just saying that they stayed up for 24 hours for the first time on my stream and they were talking about that and I'm going yeah back in college I remember doing a 72 hours uh straight where I didn't go to bed. Uh I am not advising anybody do that. That is that is poor judgment on my part. Uh but it was kind of one of those things where as soon as I got to a certain point it was like hey how long can I go and uh you know and then of course I had to drive home after being away for 72 hours which was also a really really poor decision.

Oh that's a risk.

Oh yeah. It was horrible.

Yeah. Yeah. That's that's yes. Do not that's relatable. I mean I yeah. Yeah. I've I've seen people like make fun of the like 24-hour stream or like the non-stop stream culture and I think there's a certain level to where it's actually fruitful like if we were to live our lives as believers in such a way as if we were always on camera. I mean there's a certain congruency to that and living with an accountability of God um you know watching your actions and holding you accountable.

But I do think that that's that's why we have the church too is to hold each other accountable. So, uh, we've actually played with a thought, what if we just set up a camera that's running non-stop in the esports arena?

Now, obviously, we're not always going to be in there all the time, and we probably have him muted, but just so that way people can kind of observe how we do things, observe the way that we live our life.

And so, I do think there's a healthy amount of sanctification that comes with honestly the camera being on as a believer. And so, I think that's one thing that's really helped me to be more disciplined in my language, um, and the way that I present myself.

Um, and that also has the reverse effect, too. Obviously, like with the cancel culture, that's super loud and out there. But we can't always be on.

We were created to have rest. And I think uh you can have rest and then talk about that. And I do think that we're meant to go into that secret place and have that time alone with God where he's building us and refining us for those moments when we do um interact in public or with others. So, um yeah, I I completely agree with you. Uh, I did like a 38 hour stream non-stop and then like slept on an air mattress once and that was for a season.

That was for, you know, two days uh so that we could get like a really good camera at the time. But yeah, it's a it's an interesting culture that's out there.

It's funny that we bring this up um because what I'll share this kind of the last thought on like the Sabbath stuff, but I'm driving to the office this morning and I was actually going to make like a TikTok talking about this, but I felt the Holy Spirit speak to me so clearly in this that I'm sitting back traffic, there's three lanes in front of me and you got the fast lane. Okay, I'll do you got the fast lane that's like over here and then you got the middle lane which is kind of where a lot of semis I notice like to hang out and then you have the slow lane. Um, ideally, uh, in most places, the slow lane has a lot of the semis and the bigger trucks that are slower to accelerate out of a stoplight.

And so, I often find myself shifting to whatever lane has the less heavy cars so that after the stoplight, we can accelerate the fastest and then I can get over to where the semis are at.

So, I switch over to the fast lane. Um, on my way in, it's like 20 minutes up the road, probably. And it's funny because uh I'm sitting in the fast lane and I find there's so many cars in the fast lane that it's so much longer than even the two semis that are in the middle lane and then there's nobody in the slow lane. Actually, there's two people but they end up turning off, right? And it's so weird that like the little circumstances that we go through in life um can often like point us back to to God.

And uh what what happened what I felt like God was speaking to me was like man so many of us in leadership need to hear this.

But the world's frequency that it operates at is just like it's so loud. Like the notifications are so loud. Everybody wants to live their life on the fast lane.

They want the highs. They want the constant non-stop. They want the caffeine. But that's not the pace that Jesus walked at. And I know we've all heard that part at least in a sermon.

But if we're sitting there, especially in a position of leadership and we're always going and going and going and going and we're not taking that rest, what ends up happening is when one of your people reaches out to touch your robe, to touch that that cloak, she's not going to get healing that's going to come out of that. You're going to actually step on her hand and you're not going to take care of the people that you were called to serve, even be it unintentionally.

And a lot of times we struggle with that uh that western mindset, the uh the the hustle culture grindset that the church has been talking about in a in a good amount for the last, you know, five to six years probably.

But uh yeah, it was just a good conviction that like sometimes if you're going in the slow lane, like slow is fast. And because you're operating at the pace of Jesus, God can do more like we were talking about in that slow lane in one day than we could do in the fast lane in six years.

Oh yeah. I think sometimes when we are in the fast lane, we're doing it under our own power. Uh, you know, that's, you know, like right now it's not advisable for me to do a 24-hour stream planning to not do things.

Um, but there would be a circumstance where, yeah, if I was fundraising for a specific need, and I was I would do that.

Sure. Uh, I wouldn't do sleeping on stream. I I I talk in my sleep. I walk in my sleep. I do all kinds of stuff in my sleep.

I'm not streaming that. I've got to protect myself and my family from anything that would get clipped that would be totally uh you know banworthy because you know I don't know what I do in my sleep.

I get told what I do. So uh but there's a a reason to do it. It's not my own. Uh I would do it for someone else.

I wouldn't do it for myself. But there's more than one way to do those kinds of things. Like hey here's the cap. We'll go live this long.

We'll continue tomorrow and we'll keep live uh you know eight hours a day, 12 hours a day. We'll do this chunk and we'll keep going.

If you keep supporting, we'll keep going. You know, you don't have to be the one that's there 24 hours that's there all the time.

So, um yeah, I know there was something else I was going to add there. Hey, thanks for the follow.

I just followed.

Thank you.

Oh, that's cool. I heard that notification. That's probably where the the double going through is is ending up is whatever's wrong on that is is going both ways.

Uh let's see. We got a count.

No, it's like through your speaker. I heard it through the mic.

Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah.

I don't know where my mic is picking it up because I've got the earbuds on. So, that's where that's going. But, let me look here.

Alice, what's up?

Uh I'm just checking something.

A blurry flat cap. He He is blurry. It's the the Twitch thing though for some reason.

She's talking on my stream. I just have like you blurry on my screen.

Yeah, you're a little blurry on mine as well. So, I'm thinking it's a Twitch problem today on that.

And Alice, welcome in. Good to see you.

Uh Lena, like Jenna says, I know this might be off topic, but you'd like to ask you for a favor if you may.

Yeah, Lena. Absolutely. Let us know. So, uh, just to let you know, uh, Jonno Lennena is a friend, um, of Samarella and she's been on here updating us about Samarella's ongoing medical condition.

So, she pops in every once in a while and gives us an update. So, I don't know if it's about that or if she's got something else she she's going to ask.

So, yeah, I'm not sure. I don't know. Samarella. I'm not familiar with Samarella.

Yeah, Samarella's been around in some of the the communities uh earlier in the early day streamers. Uh I believe she's somewhere in Europe. So, okay.

Not to out anybody, but uh well, I don't like to say where people are. Like I'll say a continent. I don't feel like I'm outing someone by saying a continent.

Um no, a continent's fine. I think a state's fine, too. Depends on the person. It totally depends.

Not like address.

Yeah. Well, you know, it's it's difference to saying you live in Alaska and saying you live in Vermont. You know, there's a little bit difference of how close you can get to that person, right?

Uh Lena, doctors are planning to do something called an audio therapy, meaning allowing her to hear or listen to something positive from people she cares and those who care about her.

Uh they feel like this might help her getting over her locked-in syndrome situation. Lena, I hope that that goes well. Uh we will continue to pray for that.

Do you know how soon they're going to start that? Is it a one-time thing? Is it an ongoing therapy that will be a daily thing?

I'm just I've not heard of that one, so I'm just curious.

Oh, from Estonia. Okay, thank you.

Interesting. Uh what does she mean by locked in syndrome?

Uh she is recovering from uh having surgery and then they had to put her in a coma and then they were testing to see if she had brain activity or not.

So I don't fully know the fullness of what that syndrome is or if we use the same name in the US or not but it's like she's I think locked into herself from external uh stimuli and response.

Interesting. I've I've experienced a family member that had something similar and um I know it's going to sound like really weird maybe. Um but after sitting and praying with this family member for 45 minutes straight um she was able to speak freely again.

She was but there was definitely and it might not be a spiritual thing um but yeah that uh prolonged prayer um it might be might be something to to consider sitting next to her and praying for a long period of time out loud.

Okay. So, they're checking on a few things. They're planning to start on Monday. Okay. Thank Thanks, Lena. Appreciate that.

Nice.

Um, yeah, you say, uh, Samarella's and as has been mentioned on several of the podcasts, which is fine.

So, it's updates for people who are listening to the podcast. So, she's had like several rounds of cancer. This was the most recent one.

And then she had surgery and then she was doing well. Then she had some complications. They had to put her in a coma. And so it's just it's ongoing and we have we have spent time on my stream or other people's streams praying and she's had uh good outcomes for a short time and then it and it you know goes back and you're right the power of prayer sitting next to someone and praying for her.

Uh Lena, if if you happen to be able to be with her and have the stream present u let us know because we'll stop and pray if that's something that's able to happen that she can listen to us.

Yeah, just hearing you mention like the audio therapy thing. Body is numb losing all the motor and muscle functions. Person has locked in syndrome and they all they can have is uh very few brain activities and eye functions and that's about it.

Yeah, it sounds really similar to what happened with my family members. Um yeah, I'll be interested to see what happens. Keep us updated on the audio therapy side of stuff.

Um, I don't know what all they're going to be playing consistently for, but uh, I've seen that like different frequencies from like dolphins can like help with certain syndromes that like kids have.

Um, but yeah, because like the pitches and the tones and stuff, so I don't know if they're trying something to that logic, but um, interesting.

Yeah. Yeah. I know. Like music is one of those things that's therapeutic. Uh, and they do they've done those testing on plants and otherwise and things like that.

So that would be another avenue to maybe uh and I think also I've know not with this therapy but often the doctors will tell you that uh you know the person can hear you go ahead and talk to them uh so that they hear the soothing words and comfort uh of the person.

I've I've I've been with people who were it was end of life situation and as a pastor encouraging the pe the family saying hey give them permission to go you know tell them you're here tell everybody is here everybody's seen you you can go freely we're don't hold on to anything and and they can respond uh maybe not you know physically anymore but but they can respond uh to hearing all of those things and and go more peacefully than sometimes they might go prolonging and hanging on uh for days and days and days.

So yeah, there is something fascinating about how God has created us and wired us that, uh, I don't even think I mean doctors know it works, but they may not know why it works.

Yeah. Well, I'm not recalling where we were in our conversation before that, but that's okay. I think we were talking a little bit about rest and moving in that direction.

So you were talking about in college and grinding it out. What level did you get to and where did you have to wrestle with, is this the direction I'm going or is God's plan for me in a different direction than just being a lifelong content creator streamer?

It's kind of dropped in my lap. I mean, I still would love to at some point just be able to like focus on making content, but I think it'd be more kind of peripheral.

Um, let's see. So this was 2020. Started the program at Oklahoma Wesleyan. Um, so those of you guys that are, that I don't know, that I haven't connected with, um, that have never heard me before, I'm a college esports coach. So I'm a head coach or director for an esports program out here in Florida. Um, but this is my second college program that I've had the blessing and opportunity to start and found at the collegiate level.

But back in Oklahoma when I was first getting into esports, uh, I was doing my ministry capstone class. So this was 2020. This was about a week before COVID, actually.

So this is a week before COVID, which funny enough, uh, was like a week before my wife and I got married. And I'm finishing my ministry capstone class and our president, Dr. Dunn, ends up coming in to speak at our class. And I had known that the university was interested in starting an esports program because several of my ministry professors that, um, had read all of my papers about digital missions and were huge supporters and advocates for everything that God was calling me to do and was doing in the live streaming space for my college years. They had let me know like, hey, we're looking at potentially starting a new program. Uh, they're talking about maybe football, but that's going to cost us like ten million dollars to build a stadium. What if we started an esports program instead? That's going to be a fraction of the cost. Um, so, uh, I'm talking with Dr. Dunn outside of the business school there at Oklahoma Wesleyan, and he's like, "I'd love for you to come by my office. Let me, uh, my assistant's going to reach out to you via email, and uh, we'd love to have a conversation with you about what this would look like." And so just blindly going into starting an esports program, uh, right after my wife and I got married, uh, started part-time, uh, like really part-time, part-time, uh, for that first year there and was just learning like, okay, I'm literally just going based off of my connections in the space to offer scholarships to guys and, uh, ended up having a couple of guys. My very first player, um, I don't know if you're familiar with, uh, Samuel Faid, uh, Samuel Edwards, but he goes by Fade USA. Sam was the very first player that I offered a scholarship to. He moved out to Oklahoma. And, uh, then I was able to find a local Rocket League guy named Coleman. Uh, love all three of my very first esports guys that first summer. Uh, Coleman ended up, uh, making it all. He's a GC3 Rocket League player. Loves the Lord. Samuel loves the Lord. Sammy works for Berger for Romans, uh, right now, um, in Orlando. And then, uh, Connor Kennedy. Connor is his name. And Connor was a, he's a GM, like top one hundred Overwatch player. He's a sport player. And, uh, he had just gotten baptized that summer, but I met him through another one of my students that was already on campus. So very first year we have an Overwatch team, uh, trying to find other guys for Rocket League, kind of piece something together barely for Rocket League and working part-time streaming like full-time, like still like the five to six hours, and we're living in my mom's living room so that we can afford to make this dream happen.

Um, so come to the university and just like, man, like I want to keep doing this, but, uh, I'm going to need like a little bit more money. So you're able to give me a little bit more money, but not quite like full-time salary, where was like the only thing that I could do. So it's kind of torn between like I'm learning and I'm trying to build this program out and, uh, needs a lot of time. Um, but there's not really any recruitment paths or like methods for anything that's out there to like build anything and like connect with students that want to go to college and play esports. Now, obviously, there's a ton of gamers out there, but you look at the cost of college and scholarships for it and stuff at the time, it's just like, man, it was tough.

But we were able to put together a really good Overwatch team. Um, I ended up picking up a guy named Gabriel Lopez. Gabe was at one point like top four player in the world, um, in Overwatch. He was one of the best tanks in the game. Um, incredible player. Um, I actually talk with him every single week. Um, he's going to be joining us this fall at Warner University here in Florida and I'm going to be helping him pay for his master's degree. So, uh, which is cool. So he was with me though back in Oklahoma and, uh, he was there for a semester, went through some personal stuff, but had just this handful of guys that, uh, it was really cool to be able to open up a door and an opportunity for him and Coleman and Connor ended up graduating out. They were with me in my four years there in Oklahoma. Uh, was able to help get them through their bachelor's degrees, ended up being able to offer them jobs eventually to help coach some high school players. And, uh, it was cool. So juggling, to answer your question, like juggling the college program and streaming, uh, I had to do it honestly for us financially. Uh, but also because like this is where God called us to be at. But it was tough because like I could have made more money working at McDonald's, like honestly, with the amount of time I was putting into stuff. But, uh, we made it and, uh, and it worked. And what ended up happening was I ended up going to Tulsa, Oklahoma. Um, and I was there for a recruiting event for high school players, this national, or sorry, this, uh, state championship for high school players. And I met a gentleman named Tim. And, uh, Tim was the owner of a land center which was, uh, called Rewind Esports. And so Rewind Esports, um, some you guys are familiar that I was part owner of it for a little bit. And so I met Tim, we became friends, and we just kept in touch. I'd go down there to some of their tournaments over the next like year-ish, year and a half. And, uh, what ended up happening was, um, after knowing him for a couple of years and building the program slowly in Oklahoma, uh, he reached out to me and was like, "Hey, like, um, I'm really focused on running this other company that I'm, you know, one of the top guys for. Uh, he's now the president of this other company that he runs. He's like, I need someone to take the ship for me and run this, um, because we started this during COVID." And so ended up taking that on, um, for him, for a semester and running that, figuring out how to run a land center and all the details of that. And, uh, Kyle, who's actually, um, him and his dad founded it together. He was one of the owners as well. Um, Kyle's awesome. He's a brother in Christ. And, um, he ended up, uh, he's in my chat like all the time so we still talk to this day. But unfortunately, like, um, the end of the year came around and, uh, Tim was making the decision to close down the land center. But, uh, he really blessed us a lot, like financially, with helping us get through the birth of our son. But during that time he had sponsored my stream for that year. And so we were in a first spot honestly, like since diving into this journey where we were like financially stable at like a lower middle class like income and we, uh, made the decision to have my son. But I felt like God was closing the door on streaming then and it was just time to fully send into esports in 2022. And so started running that land center. Tim ends up, we end up separating as business partners and so I'm kind of sitting here and I'm like wrestling, like, man, God, what is happening? Like you called me to do this. Like things are going great. We have the most players that we've ever had in the college program. You're building out pipelines, um, for, um, like players to come into the program locally. Like we had our club esports teams at the land center and we go through this separation. I'm sitting here like, "Oh man, now I don't even have my streaming income." And I'm living off of like not even a full-time salary from just like the college from the university.

And so, um, went to the university and was like, "Hey, like I need, I won't be able to stay. Like I financially can't afford this." And so, um, I started talking with other universities and just looking for other jobs at that period. That was really rough. And, um, my graduate assistant ended up leaving at the time, um, because we were hoping to get him like on salary at some point. And, uh, he just wasn't having a good time with his M's program. So 2022 kind of hits going into 2023 and felt like I was on cloud nine, like we were really blessed, um, doing really well, uh, to like really struggling and we had just had our son. So really questioning my calling in a lot of things during that and really wrestling with a lot of anxiety and, um, a spirit of fear. And so what ended up happening though, over the pause me, interrupt me if you have any questions like during about any of that, but I'm going to just go in.

Yeah. Well, I say there's, um, there's a whole piece of that too, you know, of you're on a journey and it's, and there's the struggle and there's the, like there's like I could talk ministry stuff of where you're at and where you're going and what you thought and what worked out, what didn't work out. There's all of those things, you know. Uh, like I didn't plan on being on stream. I mean, I could go into that whole story. Uh, I'm in Michigan. Uh, after I left Michigan, I never planned on returning. I never thought I would be. Yeah. Uh, part of the reason that I did end up moving back was, uh, the church I was at was lovely. Loved it. I was coaching cross country there. I was coaching wrestling there. I was on the Chamber of Commerce there. I was on six different boards throughout the community. I loved it. There was no reason to leave whatsoever except my stepdad got early onset Alzheimer's and I couldn't stand the thought of in three years from now he won't know who I am if I don't see him often enough that he sees my face. Uh, and my youngest was graduating from high school and I said, "All right, God, if you open the door, I'll go." But it closed the door really hard if I'm never supposed to go back because I don't want to wrestle with, I didn't make the right choice. And the door opened up and so I moved back. And what was really kind of interesting in that whole thing of that journey is that my youngest graduated and he's like, I'm not leaving the state. I'm staying in Iowa. I'm going to Iowa State. This is where I'm going. And his brother had gone to Missouri to go to school and his brother had already made the decision to transfer and he decided to transfer to Central Michigan. So he was already on his way to go live with grandma for six months so he could get residency before I even got a position here. And then, uh, our daughter graduated from undergrad and got accepted at University of Michigan. So in a twelve-month period of time, uh, we all, for different reasons except for the youngest, all migrate back to Michigan.

Although the oldest was seven, the middle was five when so they don't remember anything other than visiting grandma over their life. Uh, the youngest doesn't remember anything at all but grandma.

So, and then he didn't move back until COVID and then he was unemployed uh right before COVID happened, moved into my basement. His brother graduated, living in the basement uh from college.

So, it's like the journey that God takes you on and through can be these winding things where you're moving in one direction.

It is so winding.

Yeah. It's like you think that everything is in the direction that you want it to go and then it's not and then there's a change. There's a shift. There's all of those things.

Yeah. But yeah, there's all of that going on.

So, I totally tracking with you. I just like I'm just shaking my head like I get this. Totally get the you grind here. You think you're out there.

Oh, yeah.

Well, to go to just add to that. So, you remember um yeah. We were both at NerdCulture Ministry Summit what, two years ago.

And yeah, you and I had a lot of conversations about where you were at, what you were doing. I was excited about what you were doing. And I was having conversations with Pastor Scar as well and listened to his talk and I was trying to figure out what am I supposed to be doing and where I'm supposed to be going.

And one of the things that he said that oh it just it just wrecked me was are you willing to trust God again?

And it's like oh I trusted God when I moved away to go to seminary. I trusted God when I went to South Dakota for my first call. I trust it. Like, no, I'm really not ready to I don't want to be in I want to just be receiving right now. I don't want to be in trusting mode. I want to be in the promised land. I don't want to be trusting that, oh, my grandkids will be able to see the land.

U so yeah, all of that.

Uh yeah, I just like I just like yeah, I love the stories of God yeah, being with you that you can't see until afterwards, looking back at how did you get there? How did God carry you through? How did he help you avoid something that would have been uh in your own power and detrimental to what you would eventually become and be a part of?

So, I agree. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. I was listening to Pastor Philip uh Anthony, was it Philip Anthony Mitchell this morning? And um he had this thing and he was just talking about like your calling. He was like sometimes you have these callings and these things that God wants to get done with your life and your calling is so important that like God's not even going to let you screw it up.

And so I think so many times like I can look and see like man my heart really would have gotten hardened if I continued down that path. Like I wouldn't have served God. I wouldn't have been as bold with my my faith. Um, wouldn't have been as bold with my faith as uh sorry, my wife's text me. Got to yeah. Yeah. I wouldn't been as bold with my faith if if God wouldn't have close that door and I continued down that.

And um yeah, it's just it it's amazing to to see in hindsight what God was doing at the time. So, the Land Center closes down. Um, I have players that are frustrated because we're supposed to move into this youth land center for this high school program that I'm helping build now that at first I was just like collaborating in a way that was going to like help bless this nonprofit. I wasn't even going to work for this nonprofit cuz I was my plan was to run the land center and then have someone else like we were going to have someone else run this youth program that I ended up running.

But then the land center separation happens and I'm sitting there like oh my gosh like we're eating our savings. We're literally living off our savings and it's running out right now and my son's here and like I got to I'm trying I'm talking with other places. There's some other universities that have reached out to me and um so what happens is I tell um Ken who is the founder of On the Rock Ministries, this nonprofit. I'm like, Ken, like I'm going to finish this partnership between Oklahoma Wesley and and you and the Rock so that this blesses both you guys, but like we just financially can't afford to be here anymore.

And so like I'm going to make sure that this gets done so that blesses everybody. but like I you know I'll make sure everything's in place but we won't be able I won't be able to be here so I do plan on like leaving movie and he's like well what if I fund raise like the remaining amount of the salary that you need so you guys can at least just have your expenses covered and you have what you need and so I was just like oh my gosh and so you know he he tells me that after three months of being in fight or flight like four months just like being non-stop stressed out like right as our bank account hit zero dollars like my first paycheck comes in unfortunately the paycheck comes in a little bit late because uh there was some technical issues there with I think the numbers were messed up on the the wire transfer and so we went like 500 bucks in the hole. But not only that, then then he turned around and because of the issue of of that happening, um he covered that and got us out of that debt.

And then and so Ken just man, he just blessed me. Like the timing there was some still some unfortunate stuff that happened because there was a construction delay with the youth center. um the gentleman that the ministry was contracting for glass work um he passed away and he was one of Ken's friends. He was an older gentleman and his son ended up inheriting the business and somehow in that I don't know if it was like an ill will thing or the son messed up or something but basically it put the ministry and the whole like 20 grand or something to that tune is what I was told and so um that delayed that construction and some of the construction was messed up with like wiring the internet to the building by we were supposed to move in in January um the college program was and that got delayed and we were told that it was going to be done by March 1st but then they pushed it back again and that got delayed all the way through that whole spring semester.

So, um I'm like heartbroken, like bummed out because we don't have the space that we needed for our guys. The university is kind of honestly dropping the ball in terms of like giving us more space. They really don't have any more space on campus and we're kind of counting on this expansion, which is why I went outside of the school because we're growing so fast.

And um so that gets delayed. We're bummed about it. But then what ends up happening is like right after the end of the semester, um Tim, my former business partner, makes the decision to call it and shut down Rewind, which was really hard. And it was like a huge shock and surprise because Rewind's one of the most gorgeous, if you ever seen videos of it or pictures of it, it's one of the most gorgeous land centers in the country. Like I it's a huge blessing to be able to be part of that with him. Um Tim really blessed me and um yeah, he just he it was a blessing to to be a part of Rewind.

And so not only that, but he starts selling the PCs for like a PC plus like a 650 dollar monitor for 750 bucks per bundle. And so we're basically he sells these PCs to the nonprofit Land Center, this youth center that I end up becoming the one that's running.

And so it basically becomes like a Rewind 2.0. So he sells half of the PCs. We get 20 PCs for basically a hundred bucks a piece at this youth center. And it's like perfect timing. So, we end up with like not having enough space. The university is finally able to get us. You have another one for sale. Do you have another one for sale?

Oh, I wish, dude. I wish, man. Um, so the university has people that their offices changed at the end of semester. And so, they're actually able to put us into this space. They were they were telling me that we were going to be in that space by March 1st. Um, and so, of course, I'm bummed and the the players are bummed. Um, but what happens is is like summer rolls around and now instead of us having only enough space for like 10 to 15 PCs or whatever because of the construction delays. We have 40 PCs and we have a a big space on campus and we have the youth land center and my players have part-time jobs coaching our youth high school program.

So, it was it was fantastic and you could really just see God's sovereignty and how like man I thought that like like I was just everything was falling apart and then all of a sudden God comes in and like everything that was at Rewind ends up at this youth center. it becomes a blessing. And we have over 100 kids that come and try out and show interest in the program and we stabilize somewhere between like 65 to like 100 kids um combined between that first and second semester that played for the team.

And uh the the local high school ends up um picking me up officially as the like high school esports coach for my high school that I went to. And uh I created a partnership between the high school, the public high school, and this nonprofit ministry. And so we were able to like share Jesus, talk about Jesus. I taught a high school esports class for the ministry um for students for that that first year. Um while juggling the stuff with the college program, um unfortunately there was just some stuff with the university um cost increase, not enough scholarship, things that were were really frustrating that um just in the long run like I think could have been handled better. Uh, but I think that to be gracious on the other side, I think the university just didn't really know what they had and like the talented players that were there. They also didn't really have the the budget um and the ability to invest what needed to be invested at the right time to scale it.

Let me let me just back up on the whole the whole kind of u system of esports within colleges because I know one of the things that athletics do is they bring in a lot of people to watch and they bring in revenue. uh some sports do like basketball and football do. Most of the rest don't. Most of the rest are you're losing money on. You're just you're just there, you know, because athletes and and you're going to bring in athletes and reputation.

So, which way were they treating it? Were they treating it like, hey, this is a spectator thing and we need to pump this up and we need to get our community excited. We need to have eyes eyes on this. Or was it, oh, we're just doing something to attract some more students to our college?

Yeah, that was that was it didn't have to be that, but that's what it was. U it could have been so much more, especially with like the involvement that we had. We had the state finals uh for the the high school league at the youth center and in Bartlesville um which was awesome. But uh I tried many times to get people from administration to come over and just see what God was doing in that youth program and like the the local pipeline that um by God's grace I was able to build out and a lot of my high school guys are at my program formerly my former program in Oklahoma Wesleyan and so um even with the lack of understanding from the university in a lot of ways and um I think that again like when you're in leadership like if you're doing too much and you're running too fast I think oftentimes unintentionally you just you miss out on some of the the the fruit that God wants to to to produce um in an area um or you you unfortunately just don't yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Well, another way another way I've heard that is is when you are the leader and you are so far out in front of everybody you're leading, you now look like the enemy.

You now look like the enemy because you have gone too far away from the people that you are leading. You are going too fast. They now think you're a scout from the other side. They now see you as not part of us because you're too far away.

It happens in business. It happens in churches. It happens in universities. It just feels like you moved and you saw the vision. They didn't catch the vision. They didn't own the vision.

Yeah. You owned the vision. Your athletes, your esports athletes owned the vision. They caught it. The university just didn't catch it.

Um, yeah, they didn't, unfortunately. And I think sometimes there has to be death for there to be resurrection. And I felt to be honest like transferring out here and moving out here, it was extremely stressful. Um, but I really felt like this is something that like God really pulled me through, but I really was able to see kind of how Jesus felt whenever he died on the cross to a certain degree because I poured my heart and soul into this program for my guys.

And with some of those players, you know, like it really hurt them. Like it hurt them a lot. And um like I feel that weight for them and um to a certain degree I felt kind of like I was the sacrificial lamb that like needed to go through this and like die so that the program would hopefully succeed. And so um I made sure that they had everything that they needed. Um was pretty specific in the person that like I recommended to take over the program knowing his character and knowing who he is. Um and then made sure that uh my high school program got handed over to one of my former players that's always wanted to start the high school program for his high school, but they actually wouldn't let him do it.

And so, uh it was pretty cool to be able to like go through that process and create something that now has like touched hundreds of students lives and families within my hometown uh for my high school and then transition out here. But it wasn't without pain. Like moving out here like this last year has felt very um much like the desert in a lot of ways. It's been great now, but the first part of transitioning out here.

Yeah, transitions can do that. But I just wanted to commend you on the piece of leaving because sometimes leaving can be really really difficult and you don't know the best way to leave and and to transition something that you created to someone else is a tremendous thing to be able to do. Uh you know I was telling you earlier about you know stepping into doing drama ministry. I did not plan to suddenly go to seminary. And then when I did, it was a really short upramp of I'm going to be going. I was the director. I was the producer. I was the writer. I also did acting in the dramas we did in church. I had nobody I was training to take my place. I had nobody to hand it over to. And and six months later there's no drama ministry because I didn't do any of that prep work to prepare people to train people to even have a system that could be handed off. It was relying on me. There was no system. There wasn't anything else. It would have been like somebody new having to come in and start over again. And when they had nobody new it just it just went away. So the uh so that that just resonates with me because after that experience I have intentionally so so much whenever I start something new either you approach it from the standpoint I'm going to train people that can step in and do it so I don't leave it and abandon people but even if they don't step up and do it I did my my due diligence in doing that.

So yeah when I started the uh cross country team uh that was one of the things I was really like I need to make this in such a way that I can hand it off. I'm not going to spend this effort and then have it have it fall apart and have it disappear. So, I just want to commend it. That's that's something people don't always think about.

Thanks, man. Of uh hey, you created something. You created something from nothing. It was a labor of love to do that. But even better than the creation of it is you handed it off and it's still in existence. It's still it's still there. It's still ongoing.

Yeah. No, absolutely. I actually uh just got to connect another high school coach that moved um from a neighboring city into our city with my former player who's more of a friend now um so that he could help with just pouring into the program and building into it. And obviously like there's more details, there's more complexities. Um there's lives honestly though that wouldn't have been changed if it wasn't for all of the stress you know and like there's there's enemies that came to know God like enemies to the faith that came to know God or experience him and see him through this whole process and uh it was worth it. It was absolutely worth it and moving out here um because now I'm in Florida. So uh but but to be uh God had revealed to me and I knew that God was calling me to leave about eight months, eight months to seven months uh in advance. And uh I kept using that language um even with like Ken uh the founder of the ministry that like I know God's calling me to leave here. And so I had I'd been preparing people and letting people know. I didn't know specifically where, but I I will honestly say that like supernaturally like God revealed that to me that it was my time to leave and it was approaching and I needed to start looking for who was going to take over the program after me. Um, and in my in my sin, in my flesh, it was like, man, I want to make sure that the college program like it's it's, you know, like there's there's a justice that needs to happen for my players that were hurt and like burnt through this process. So, that's how my that's how my sin was and that's how some of the frustrations of the players were. We're were like, man, we want this this needs to fail. Like the school didn't do what it needed to do um to a certain level. And um I I it's not as white and black as that. I I don't think that there's enough grace in a take like that when you're leaving an organization. I think that uh everybody loves the Lord and everybody did their best to a certain degree. Um and I don't think there's any ill intentions or ill will. And so my goal really was like how can this become a resurrection moment? How can this sanctify? How can this build? Um how can this be a lesson? Um how can this um ultimately be for not any of the emotions that are humanly in this um and the frustrations, but how can this be something for the kingdom that's going to last for eternity?

And so um it was just very specific in the people that uh wanted to take over the program. And the uh it was good. I mean, ended up uh getting a job opportunity out here in Florida to move out here in Florida. Um, and there was a couple other universities that I was talking with in that process. And I I've been honest, like I was telling some of the staff, like this was the last school out of the list of like four schools that I was talking with that I planned on picking. But during the interview process, just how far they went to make sure that I love the Lord and that I believe in sound teaching scripturally. I mean, I I was interviewed by five different people um to make sure that I was the right person for this position. And from what they were telling me, not to like toot my own horn, but they had thought about starting a program back in 2018, that they just couldn't find the right person for it is what they said. Um, I don't know if that's cuz there there just wasn't a need for esports out here in this spot or or what, but um I think uh I got connected I think I got connected um do you know the video game pastor? Are you familiar with him? Jared uh name sounds familiar. He's here. He was the director for Palm Beach Atlantic for a while, but I met him through an organization called One Hope, who my youth pastor, uh, former youth pastor now works for, and he was like, "Hey, there's a university that's out here. It's a small private school." Um, the athletic director reached out to me to see if there's anybody that would be a good fit for this program. So, connected me with Chrissy, who was the former athletic director here at Warner. And, uh, I was just really impressed with like one, they were investing, you know, significantly more into the program than my former program was. Um, I didn't even know about all the awesome stuff that would end up happening just in the years since I've been here that I'll tell you about, but we just felt at peace about it.

Um, I was under so much stress and was going through a lot and was really just wrestling and not in the best headspace. Um, and my wife honestly became kind of the she just became like the good meter to go off of. And so we came out here and we visited and um she and her sensitivity to the Holy Spirit um and how good she is with knowing people, we came out here and she was just like, "Man, like the people here are amazing. Like they truly love us and like want us to be here and like care about us." And so it was huge moving from Oklahoma all the way to Florida and uh you know, oh definitely my wife for perspective was five months pregnant at the time with our daughter and so um there was so much stress with her. There are some other things that I won't like talk about on the podcast just that uh that kind of prompted that um that were not like my decisions um just in terms of like or my actions that led to me wanting to leave. I'll say that um with grace. Uh but it was just a confirmation that like this door was closing and this is God's door that he's opening and wants us to step through.

And it's so complex we don't know what insurance we're going to be on to give birth to my my daughter. And it wasn't until a month and a half before my daughter was born that we found the hospital, the doctor, and the insurance to cover it. Praise God, we only had to pay two hundred. We only had to pay two hundred dollars because of the insurance that we had uh for my daughter to be born. But like literally, we didn't even get to physically set foot in the house that we're living in right now before we moved here. Um I just like found it.

Yeah, that's that's tons of layers of finding a doctor. Like that is that it's not that you can't find one. It's having a doctor that has availability, having your comfort level, having your confidence in there, and that they want to do things insurance.

Yeah, it takes your insurance. Yeah, there's there's oh, man. That is that is definitely a a blessing to to get all of that out.

So, oh, absolutely. And um so that that ended up happening. Um I went to a tournament here in Florida and uh only was able to find like a handful of guys like to bring in. Thankfully, we had a lot of interested students on campus, which is exactly what happens when you start a new program. You got to find out what your interest is on campus and then try to bring in as many guys as you can. But I really only had like a good three months, like May, June, July, to try to find guys uh for the program here. And uh with all of my guys back in Oklahoma saving room and board for my high school program, I developed that high school program so that the guys would save room and board. It would be a blessing to the city because the guys would be able to get like community college cost degree going to a private Christian school. Um, and it made Oklahoma Wesleyan like extremely affordable for my high school players to just transition into the college program and to really just build like a healthy ecosystem there.

So, um, it was hard for my Oklahoma guys to transfer out here. Uh, that didn't make sense. And so, uh, thankfully though, in God's amazingness, um, picked up two really awesome guys, uh, that play Super Smash Brothers, um, Hector and Lewis, who are here with me in Florida.

And um then ended up picking up another guy named Jay uh Smash player as well, Overwatch player, and then Sabrina. And those were kind of my four players that like came in basically for esports this first year.

I had a ton more guys join the Overwatch team from like the football team and volleyball and all the different sports that joined us for Overwatch and for Smash.

Um and then semester we picked up a really good Apex team of a couple other guys. So this first year was really good. Our teams made it through playoffs.

Um placed really well. Um, we ended up playing in a conference called Sun Conference, which is our NI conference out here. We took second in Overwatch and we took third in Smash Bros.

And then, uh, Hector, one of my Smash guys, he won player of the year for Sun Conference, which was a huge deal for us.

Um, and then, uh, he ended up placing fourth and Lewis placed 15th um, in the national singles, Super Smash Brothers singles tournament. So we did really really good at a national level and at a conference level for the first year with like really not have God kind of fish fished in loaves like our our first year.

Um so it's been uh it's been a journey but uh there for a while struggling with like feeling like I failed because I had to leave and things didn't go how they could have went.

Um and really wrestling with that. I haven't struggled with mental health stuff since my suicide attempts, but I honestly was like really just in a very very dark place.

Um, and I God, you really find God during those seasons though in a way that you just you can't experience without going through a death to a certain degree.

So yeah, there there definitely is that, but the the whole of did I fail? Am I a failure because I had to move or because circumstances did this or or or those kinds of things, which I really wanted to commend you for the the the being able to make sure that the program was was sustained and continuing. But look at Moses. Like Moses is leading the people out of Egypt and they get to Mount Sinai.

Oh, we don't know this Moses. He might be dead. Like did you not just see the ten plagues? Did you just not, you know, we have the idea that they happen, you know, like in a very short period of time.

I tend to think that they are months lengthy ongoing um maybe even up to eighteen months of time before they they they get to get to leave.

So it's not like you just met Moses yesterday and you forgot about him. Uh you've known him, he's been leading you and now a little bit of trial and and you're like, "Oh no." And then they go, "Well, let's go attack the land." Well, the spies said there's giants, so let's not do that. Like the dude, just listen to me. like Moses, why can't you lead these people? Uh like if anybody should have been able to lead, it should have been Moses, but he can't like people can't always be led if they don't want to be led.

Uh you you can't you can't bring people you can't force people to do things they're not ready and willing and prepared to do.

I know that's it's easier to reflect that way. Uh I've certainly had those same like I let me just go back to cross country for a minute.

my my youngest my my oldest is the or my oldest son is the reason why I I started the cross country team uh which is a longer story but I don't need to go into that because he did it in another state and then he was there didn't want to do football so I end up starting the team so that he could run younger brother comes in younger brother is a much better runner better skills uh comes out freshman year and thinks oh I'm second fastest on the team senior's graduating I'm going to be the era apparent I'm going to be the fastest guy on the team. I'm going to be the the star, but another kid comes out the following year that's faster than him.

Well, instead of taking the mindset of I'm going to put the work in and I'm going to get better, he's just like, me, I'm second best.

And it's like I so like I had to I had to be coached not and dad a little bit on both levels. Like I am not going to coach you and put my effort in to making you a state champion if your goal is not to be a state champion.

I'm gonna be wasting my head, my time as a coach, and you're gonna resent me as a dad uh for doing that. So, I I what I like I I knew what he needed to do.

Uh I could encourage him to do things, but there was a mentality and a mindset and a lack of desire to become that.

And so, he didn't. I mean, he qualified uh to go to state and was that was enough. I'm happy. I'm good.

So, I totally get that. You can't you you feel like a failure when people don't live up to the potential they have, but you can't make people live up to the potential they have.

No, I agree with you. I think it's tough whenever like um people only see a specific window of you that you allow them to see.

And uh this is honestly probably the most transparent. There's been like two other podcasts that were like in the last like year that I've been on.

It's probably the most transparent that I've been like with the public about like all the details just as far as like some of the stuff that was outside of my control.

Um because for a long time I felt like I was throwing the university under the bus if I talked about things or I was throwing um like I was so I know some of the players wanted me to make you know like a statement or to talk about things but I really wrestled with like man like the enemy loves to like take snapshots of things that don't show the full picture and then nail us to the crop for it.

And the world operates in perception and it operates in like subjective views. It doesn't operate from seeing the heart of someone and um and not seeing the full picture either because as you were talking about it they gave you the opportunity.

You lived into that opportunity. Without them it doesn't happen. So I mean I hear No, it doesn't. So I'm grateful for that.

Right. And I I totally hear your heart with the gratefulness of the opportunity. It just didn't end up where your your vision was. And I I do not see in any way that anything you've said is throwing them under the bus.

You've just acknowledged that there were difficulty and move on without going into yeah great details or saying here's here are the things. But I think that's an important thing for streamers uh and whoever else is watching this to to just be thinking about those things is yeah there there will be relationship hardship uh in different places. Yeah. If you're on a team of people trying to do the same thing. I mean I'm I'm I'm with the church digital.

uh not everybody that that started out or was with the church digital for a season is still with the church digital and I don't know who might grow into a new phase and and move away and who might come in later and if I end up leaving uh you know I certainly want to keep all those friendships uh that I've been developing and all of those things but that part of that's the nature of life and we can only control the way we respond to things and what we do.

We we can't control what other people do. And I think it like I hope nobody's taking clips of this and taking them out of context like you were saying because yeah, the world loves the little snippets.

I don't think they can. Yeah, it'll but I've also come to a point too where I don't care about uh there there's a verse that like I just kept saying to myself.

There's a couple verses. Um, but the world judges by appearances by outwardly appearances, but God looks at the heart. And it's a like it well, it says man judges by outwardly appearances, but it's just so important to not care about what other people think and uh to do things in silence and to honor God and to honor other people even if you're the one that's going to take the hit for it. And uh I'm at a place now like where I feel like I can in a good way still honor everyone and talk about things while not just allowing myself to be a punching bag or a scapegoat. Um and I've reconciled with some of the people that um were frustrated with the university that were taking it out on me uh through that period.

And so I've seen God come full circle behind the scenes in a lot of people's lives. and it be a blessing in whether it's a a a lesson that was learned u on my part, on their part, something that God was teaching us just during that time through the hardness of it.

Um but we don't grow if we're just comfortable the whole time. Like there has to be a stretching and there has to be um hard conversations and stuff to that nature.

So yeah, it's been it's been a great journey. It's been very equipping is probably the best way to say it.

Yeah. I say to use to use some of the biblical language, you know, either refining like silver and gold and getting the dross off of that uh is is a good way to think about that. There are some dross in there and then going through a refining period. You're going to be purified. Uh and so yes, that's a difficult time.

I don't think anybody signs up for that. Like, oh boy, I just want to go through difficulties so that I can get better. Um but to go back to the like in any sport if you want to be the best there are difficulties you need to to face in order to accomplish that.

I know what those are in order to be in athletics uh excelling and getting better. I have no clue how to get better as a game player.

What What are some drills that that you would do? What are some practice techniques that you would have? Like cuz there's probably streamers who want to get better at the game that they're playing.

And I know grinding is one way, but frankly, if you don't have like you're not getting taught skill sets, you're not getting caught taught principles while you're just grinding.

How do you actually get better at it?

I mean, it definitely depends on the title. Like, there's certain games that I'm pretty good at coaching.

There's certain games that I'm not good at coaching at all, and we're hiring part-time guys to help with that. Um, it's not standard for a college program to have a coach that knows every single title or to have a director that does.

Honestly, like most of the time, it's someone that's really good and has a great general understanding in a lot of areas to manage a program.

Um, so like if it's if it's the shooter, like if it's an FPS game, like understanding like understanding like flanking and positioning, understanding like objective and like what angles to play um, and like putting pressure on specific areas that force teams to spawn in different areas.

um is something to understand, but that's based on genreing like Call of Duty or Halo. Yeah. Um you got to understand like the eb and flow of Overwatch and understanding like what your win conditions are per fight.

There's there's different game philosophies that exist for combat like within themselves. Um Valorant is obviously very militaristic in like understanding like cutting off lines of sight with smokes, pushing and throwing your flashes at the right time as you're peaking angles and peaking them with not just you but peeking with two people at the same time. Um, and just understanding like timing is really important, but a lot of that stuff is taught just it's ingrained into you the more that you play it.

So, as much as you you can have the information like it has to take place fast and at a subconscious level to where like you know, okay, in these guys mind we're playing mental chess.

They think I'm going this way, but based on the amount of time, there's a short window that if I flank and go to a site, I'm going to be able to get bomb plant down before they're able to take an advantageous angle on me.

And then even whenever I do that, taking that guess or that percentage gamble of like, okay, they're going to guess that I'm going to this angle because of the rank that we're playing within and this is a popular angle to take, but I'm actually going to take this off angle here instead of taking the angle that they thought I was going to take to outsmart them. And so there's that back and forth mental game of chess you have to play.

And there's different layers that it kind of goes out from for each engagement in each fight. And also understanding and recognizing patterns and habits of like, okay, this team has taken a site twice based on the economy right now. They're probably either going to force this spot and they're going to try and hit it again and just hit it fast. Or they're going to not and they're going to slow play and they're going to play from a more neutral perspective and see if they can get first pick.

So each game is different. Honestly, the two, if not three that I'm best at is Call of Duty, Halo, and Overwatch. So yeah, it's there's so much that you can coach. There's only so much that you can coach and then it becomes more about just reminding them of the fundamentals and pointing out inconsistencies in their play styles and their habits.

And then honestly like the mental side of it is really important too. And that's not talked about enough.

Yeah. You say I think we would often talk about, you know, people would talk and throw percentages around like, oh wrestling, and I coached wrestling, you know, oh wrestling is, you know, 90% physical and 10% mental or something like that. And boy, most of the people that I would, you know, was coaching with, our thought was no, it's 100% mental. It is 100% mental. Like, you have to have the mental aspect to do the physical part that you need to. You have to have the mental to be able to train your body to do the things. You have to have the mental because otherwise you quit in practice. If you don't have 100% mental, you're quitting in practice. You're not putting the effort in. You're getting by. And if you want to just get by, that's fine. We can have you on the team and fill spots, but you might not go anywhere. You know, you might be detrimental to us. And I think I don't know what you're able to do as far as camaraderie of the team and celebrating wins within the team, but I love the aspect of being able to hype and celebrate afterwards the accomplishments that, you know, what the spectators did not notice and were not aware of. So when I was doing cross country, I would like, they allowed us to do this because it's high school, so you could put, you know, pieces of paper up on the lockers throughout the school. So every time somebody got a personal record, boom, it's up on your locker. You got a personal record. You got first, second, third place, boom, it's up on your locker. I mean, there's no like, I had like ten different categories. You could get ten different things if you did all ten of them on any given time. You know, your best record on the track, your best record overall. You improved by a minute over something like, I'd put all of these on there too because you're starting from zero. They feel like nobody knows them. They don't feel like anybody's celebrating them. And then like you get the buy-in from the community that what you're doing is a fantastic thing to do.

I think one of the things that I am loving in the Christian space on Twitch and in gaming is there is a camaraderie of don't do it alone. Don't just be a solo grinder out there hoping you make it. Embrace the community of others who are doing it. Celebrate their wins. And even the Twitch culture just adds some of that with the raiding out and some of that stuff just adds to that mentality of it's not about me. I can support someone else, you know? You're done, so go just wait till I'm back. Don't watch anybody in between.

Yeah. No, I agree. It's been cool to see everybody just kind of like over the last ten years now come together and like really know that this is a space that needs to be reached, that needs to be impacted. It's definitely grown and I do think that the world in the last just even two years has become extremely receptive to the hope and the light of the gospel. That in previous years, because of, I think it's just world events honestly, like I think it's just like the time that we live in, that people are very susceptible and open to timeless truth. That has given us a solid foundation with how many things are shifting and changing in the world. People are longing for a solid foundation that they can build their life on. And Jesus, you know, he tells us to build our house on the rock. And I think there's so many people that are open to that now. I think that now is a really good time. I was just having a call yesterday with a guy and we were just, he was at NCMS. We were just talking about like this would be a perfect time to come together and do a collaborative effort. Just whether it's organizationally or event-wise, just it's a great time for that. Like one of the guys, so I don't do, you know, Seven Admirals. Are you familiar with them?

No, I'm not.

So they travel around and they have like a whole setup and they do events. They do like gaming tournaments. Events pop up like little tournaments and things. They did stuff at Reach Conference and they travel around and do that for a lot of the year. But Adam, the guy that's over that, he's actually going to help us move into our house, our new house that we're moving to here in two weeks because he's like right here. And so he's someone that I met online and he's someone that like is now an IRL friend. I don't know if you know Shadeless, but I helped Shadeless with a bunch of my players move into his new house because he lives really close to us now. This was like two months ago and he's someone I've known for like seven years online. He's become a great brother in Christ and it's just cool to see that like guys from all over the world that are passionate about gaming, that love gaming, are doing life together virtually. But there's been so many now that are in person, people that are lifetime friends at this point. So yeah, it's a great time. It's been wonderful. The program is growing very fast here in Florida. I will do this kind of as like a shout out to your guys' network that we're offering scholarships for students that want to be creators and join our college program. But we're not just doing that for in-person students. We're doing that for online students. And so we're one of the few universities that offer scholarships for online students. So if someone's wanting to get their master's degree, just like Elie is doing with us, he's getting his master's degree as a part of the program. We're helping him pay for that. Or their bachelor's degree. They can join as a creator or a player or even an editor or graphic designer. Like we're looking for people that want to help us with our social medias and we're offering on-par scholarships with our athletics program. But we are also one of the most competitively priced online programs. We have some of the most competitively priced online programs in the country compared to top online universities. So we're like community college cheap for our online degrees even before scholarship is offered on the esports side.

Where if anybody wants to get all that info?

Yeah, just go to warner.edu. Like Warner as in Warner Brothers, but without the brothers, just warner.edu. Or you could DM me on Twitter, Jonno Streams. Just message me on any social media platform if you want to connect. If you love and fear God, or if you want your kid to be in a Christian environment with a bunch of gamers and go to college in an affordable way and you want them to stay home too, they're able to do that. Work a full-time job if they're an online student with us. Or if they want to move to Florida and rural, we're in rural Florida, so we're like country country Florida. We're about an hour and a half from Tampa, hour and a half from Orlando. Disney's like right up the road, so it's a pretty cool, slower area.

Yeah, that's really cool. Yeah, we've been all over the place on different things. And you've touched on a couple of things of some impact that's happened, some when you were a streamer, some when you've been, you know, a coach. Can you share one or two like just impact stories? Something that happened that was just totally unexpected, that was something that ended up you being able to be part of blessing someone else? And then maybe one where unexpected blessing you received that you did not know this was going to be an outcome of what you were doing in ministry?

Man, so something that was like where I was able to bless one that was unexpected, there's been a handful of those. I'll brag on one student that I talked about him at NCMS, but I had a student that was homeless for a period of time. And he actually lived with one of our friends who's a streamer that's a believer and he connected me with a student. The student found me and was in my stream for a couple years and I ended up offering him a scholarship and he moved out to Oklahoma for a couple years, went to my church here locally. Came to know Jesus when he was here and the guy that was discipling me actually discipled him for a year. And he's on his feet now. He's got his own place in Texas. I know he was looking for a job, but he found a new one. But he's on his feet and he's doing great and he's come to know God and it's been cool to just follow his journey and pour into him and he's blessed me in so many ways. Like I see myself in him in so many ways and God's really sanctified me and blessed me just as much, probably if not more, through our relationship. On terrible days I think about him. And so that's one way. That's kind of twofold answer to your question. He's just one of the many students or people that I've met through Twitch. A way that's blessed me that's been unexpected. I mean, obviously like with that land center thing, like I was just helping out with this nonprofit with On the Rock because I just wanted them to be able to have a program and he ended up turning around and fundraising the financial need that we needed to be able to just survive for that year as well. Obviously be forever grateful for him. So it's a pretty, yeah, it's a straight and narrow path like we were talking about earlier. I saw someone comment, but it's windy in that. Like it's the straight and narrow path isn't always, you don't always get to see like the path, you know, more than five steps in front of you at a time.

Yeah. Yeah, that's definitely the, I love those unexpected things. Yeah, we did kind of talk about them a little bit, but just kind of trying to highlight those of yeah, I didn't plan on this being a part of it.

I didn't know this was going to be an aspect of it and or yeah, someone who's homeless being able to be impacted. Like if I'm thinking esports, I'm not thinking of somebody who's homeless uh going going to be connected and and and have a blessing upon them uh because of that.

So that's that's just really cool, man.

Yeah. So, so looking ahead, what are you looking forward to this year still for for yourself as a streamer, for you as a coach, for you as as a dad? Anything anything you want to cover? Um, what what do you have planned for this year that you're excited about?

Yeah. Well, we're about to move um into a house that we're looking forward to living in. Um, we live up closer to Orlando and it's just it's a drive all the way down to where I'm at every day. Like I don't get home until midnight on some nights, but not no more will that be the case.

Um, going into this next year, um, we are building some really top teams in a couple of different esports that I'm really excited about.

And God's just been he's been teaching me that like like we were talking about earlier, he can do more in like a week than I can do just stressing over things in six months. And um I'm looking forward to the Bible study that we'll be starting with our program and just going deeper with my students.

I'm looking forward to seeing the program expand. Obviously, like physically with like space um as as our players come in. Those would probably be the top things that I'm excited about.

Uh my health is in a lot better space than it was for a long time. I'm I'm working out consistently. I can do 43 push-ups, like real man push-ups for the first time since high school.

So, that's good without stopping. No, I'm not going to do them right now for you. Um, but my my daughter turns one year here in about a month.

My son turns three and just just looking forward to enjoying life and not being in fight or flight anymore to be honest with you.

Yeah, that's that is a great place to be and when you are not waking up and wondering what the stress of the day is going to be, but you wake up and you're looking for the what opportunities uh will I have?

Can I bless someone else?

Can I bless someone else? Exactly. Oh, that's so so cool. Uh anything else that we haven't talked about that you would you you would like to share uh either about streaming, about esports, uh about you know setting up your sound system properly so it always functions cuz mine doesn't.

Oh man. Uh you'll always have tech issues and you'll always have trials and tribulations. Um that's the beautiful part of the process because it gives us the flavor of life that we wouldn't have otherwise.

Um, that's something that God's taught me in the last two years. Something that I know, but it's like you don't really know something until you experience it.

You don't know something until you tasted it. Someone can have, you know, heart surgery and you hear about every grandparent has heart surgery or everyone gets sick in some degree, but once you go through that, then you really start to like see like the weight of life.

Um, and it's it's beautiful in all of its tragedy, but it's it's beautiful in all of the ways that God shows up in those moments.

So, um, it probably be the biggest thing wisdom-wise that I would have to say, um, is just enjoy the experience and learn to live in the moment on the advice for like streaming, content creation, gaming, esports.

Um, allow your dreams to be big and don't be surprised when God blows your mind when you fully trust in him and depend on him.

It will be exceedingly abundantly more than you can think or imagine. And uh it's all for his glory. And so know that you're a broken vessel at the end of the day.

You're going to screw up. You're going to make mistakes. Um and when you do uh allow God to love you through that and to to hone you into who he wants you to be through that.

But uh we're all just the the perfect spot to be in is broken and contrite and uh in submission to him.

Yeah. Oh yeah. So true. Um yeah, just thinking about how that applies all of life. It's not just esports. It's not just gaming. That that applies to life of how you approach things.

Uh how do you view things? How do you understand things? Yeah, that's that's really some good stuff, man.

Yeah. Techwise, just there's so many YouTube videos. Just watch watch the YouTube videos. Watch Flatcast new YouTube video on audio.

Well, yes, I I will be actually doing one, which I keep I've said this probably a couple of uh of of streamers that I've had on the on the podcast.

They have not done the collab stream together uh with someone. And so, there's a little bit of learning curve there. I got to I need to make a video of that.

I need to get that video out that says, "Hey, you're going to be on my podcast. Watch this video to make sure you can get the video part set up.

I'm good with the video aspect of things. It's my audio that's just having super struggles with and like I was telling you before we came on online, it's like the struggle I had two days ago is a different struggle than it's giving me today.

And earlier today, it was working when I was on my other channel. So why I I have no idea. Um I know some people want to give well Satan's attacking and all of that.

I'm like, well, is he that smart that he knows that this is going to impact somebody and he knows that is only God knows that.

So, so yeah, I don't want to give him that much credit. I I think it's more my lack of skills and I need to trust God that it'll it'll happen and take me 45 minutes to get my sound good to go from whatever.

And and not that I want to spend that time, but uh until until somebody else is running it for me, uh that's just what's going to happen.

And um I I consider it a privilege to to be doing this podcast right now. I had no plans on ever doing a podcast.

I I say probably I didn't start listening to podcasts until about three three years ago. And now I binge podcast like crazy. I just started a new one uh this week that I'm listening to uh the Kansas City Underground podcast.

Uh I was I was chatting with a friend of mine last night who's uh in uh New Zealand, tall skinny Kiwi uh who was posting it on on Facebook asking a question.

I go, "So you're looking for actual podcast to answer this question about the Nephilim here? Let me let me slap down uh some podcast."

Is that connected with Remnant Radio?

Uh I've not heard of them.

Yeah, Remnant Radio. Okay. I listen to them for honestly a lot of that time period that I was in there.

You'll like them because they dive into some of that stuff, I think.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I say I'll just throw a bunch of shout outs in case he's watching this later, but there is the the Naked Bible podcast, which is the one I shared with him.

Dr. Michael S. Heiser, who who's passed away.

Oh, I love his stuff.

It's fantastic. There's uh the two trees podcast. There's answers to giant questions in Genesis, which is an Australian podcast.

I wish there were more episodes. I I haven't seen episodes in about two years on that one.

Yeah.

Uh Genesis marks the spot. This is all people talking about the weird, the wacky places within the Bible that are all hidden there that like we the church isn't, you know, you're not preaching from the pulpit on, hey, the Nephilim, what are the Nephilim?

In fact, like when I was in seminary, it's the first question every single person asked when we're going to do Genesis. Hey, when are we getting to Genesis 6?

Tell me about what the Nephilim are. And the professor goes, we don't know. We just move on. And I'm like, that's so unsatisfying. Like,

Yeah, you're gonna open a can of worms. I don't care. Let's open the

Let's watch House of David.

Yeah, I haven't started that yet, but I I do want to.

I do.

It'll go into it.

Yeah,

It'll go into it for you.

They they do take the supernatural view of Genesis 6, so it's pretty good. You'll like it. It's been hard for me to put it down. I actually just started watching them last week.

Okay, that's awesome.

Well, I' I've got to decide if that's something I'm watching alone or if my wife will jump in and watch that. She's

Watch your wife.

Okay. Well, I'll at least we usually do at least one episode with each other if one of us wants to watch a show before we decide, nope, not watching that with you.

Um, we have a little bit different taste. We do have some overlap, but uh I don't know. It's it's fun sharing uh exciting things like that.

So, I was like, I never thought I'd be doing a podcast. Why why would I be doing a podcast? But

I also love that I'm not doing it like other people. Uh other people are trying trying to get this really polished half an hour. Here's the things. Here's the hour. Here's what we're doing. Let's get it all out there for people to and I'm going, "No, man.

I'm on Twitch." You know what Twitch is about? Being authentic. Yeah. Twitch is about hanging out for a long period of time. TW like so yeah they're going to get published on on YouTube and and hopefully down the road on other audio platforms but yeah who who sits out to say yeah let's

listen to a two or three hour podcast for for you know engagement.

Yeah but Twitch is all about that.

So I'm like I'm going to make it what I want it to be. I want it to be like hey you're here in the know. You you see what's going on in the chat. North Hill live coming in here.

Yeah. Uh,

I think it's cool.

Yeah,

Julius K420, you know, uh, thanking us for for the stream. Uh, we didn't and sometimes I focus awful awesome on the chat that's blowing up.

Sometimes I don't.

Um, totally not. Uh, Castiana, I'm not sure if I got that right. Talking about just the skill levels.

Yeah, that's Hayden.

That's Hayden. Okay. the skill levels there of uh you know disabilities to be able to be in esports, disabilities that you can you can do things uh in gaming that you can't do uh if you have physical limitations.

And that's such a beautiful thing to think about. Uh you can still have limitations uh doing gaming, but it's getting better and better with technology to make it easier uh for to be a level playing field for everybody entering the game.

Yeah, 100%.

Well, it's been great talking with you, bro.

Yeah. Hey, it's good to see you.

Hey, how can we be praying for you before we go?

Yeah. Um, if you guys could just be praying that God would bring the right players to the program. Um, I just really want this place to be a light on a hill.

Um, and that he would just bring the right players. Um, the vision that God's given me is to build the best Christian esports program in the country.

and uh he's bringing the right players right now and I'm praying that he continues to bring more and uh so be praying for that.

Um be praying that uh yeah we would just have a spirit of boldness um amongst attacks from the enemy. Uh he's he loves to try to mess things up and he fails pretty often at it.

So just keep praying that the enemy fails and that God's kingdom keeps going forth and uh yeah that's that's everything I'd say. Oh and also actually I would I would ask this too.

I usually don't ask this, but um for my player sake and just like scaling and growing this um if you guys could be praying that there would be some investors like people that would just come alongside us in this vision of building a top Christian esports program um and would seed support uh

for my players and for the sake of ministry in the esports space for the kingdom.

Yeah, man. Absolutely. And uh I'll tell I'll tell you if anybody does listen to this podcast and this is what brings them to you, I want I want to know about that.

I want to know that they listen to the podcast. I'm not expecting it to, but you're making a pitch there and I'm like going, "Yeah, somebody who's on Twitch who didn't even know about that they could they could do this, that they could go out, they could do esports.

I would just love to know uh if that if that happens, whether it's this year or whether it's three years from now because somebody finally comes across the podcast and is binging it and goes, "Hey, I didn't know that. I'll tell my son about that. I'll tell my daughter about that. I'll tell my niece about that. And uh they end up there. That'd be super super cool to find out.

They will. They will.

Hey, uh I'll tell you. Yeah. Go. Yeah. Yeah. You better tell me. I'll be upset if you don't.

Um so uh I usually ask whoever the guest is if they have someone that we can raid out together to. So we'll bring both of our streams over to bless whoever that is.

Okay. So, if you got somebody who's live, let me know and we'll we'll schedule that raid.

Okay, let me see. Just pulled up Twitch.

Oh, let's go raid uh Mr. Master Wong.

Do you know who he is?

He's a Fortnite streamer. He's a believer.

Okay. How does he spell that?

He went through a lot of health stuff. Um it is just here. Let me copy this. I'll post it in our chat.

Oh, I found him. Okay. Like this.

Yeah. Yeah. I don't know him super well, but he's bold with his faith and he's very good at what he does and uh he went through a lot of health stuff that I saw on Twitter um within the last year and God's like really brought him through that some like really serious I'm going to say it was hard stuff.

Oh wow.

But he's a grinder and um he he streams to provide for his family and he's very very good at what he does and uh he's very disciplined.

So yeah, looks like he's having a birthday AON on the 6. If anyone doesn't make it today, they can they can show up then.

So, uh just thinking about any any end uh to share. I do not have any podcasts at this point scheduled for next week. Uh I may I've got one or two that I'm checking on if it works. I may only do one next week, but I will be gaming on this platform on Monday. That'll be the plan. And if I get a podcast lined up before then, I'll share it. And if not, I'll share it then. And uh just thanks everybody who uh hung out. Appreciate you. Appreciate your comments. Appreciate your being diligent and uh learning and growing and sharing and being on this space. So uh totally love that. Hey, thanks for the follow. Totally not.

All right, so I'm ready to go ahead and start. Yeah, I know. I just left it that way. Totally not. Oh. Oh, what do you have? Looked like uh oh the number we hit 2 280 280 on the number reached for there. So that's cool.

All right, I'm starting the raid. If you want to start yours and we'll out.

Thank you everybody. Appreciate it.

Good to see you, brother. Good to see you too, man.