EP002: Rey DeArmas and Six Things You Wish Pastors Knew About Church Online

Hello and welcome to episode two of From Text to Testimony, the podcast show that allows you to see how your messages can turn into ministry. I'm Andy, I'm one of the co-hosts here, and I'm going to be joined by my friend John in just a few minutes. But hey, we have a rip-roaring episode for you, heavy on the tip section later on. The show is designed to really help you in your journey, not only with Glue, but in all walks of digital life. And today, specifically, well, this episode specifically, we're going to be talking about building digital relationships.

Now, this is part one because I think this is something that, knowing how John and I work and knowing how Megan works when we bring her into the fold and onto the team as well, this is something that's going to be continually evolving. You know, building digital relationships is not just a checklist of things. It's often times a process. And John and I are going to talk about that. We're going to talk about some of the practical examples of how we have seen relationships being formed, and in John's case, maybe some relationships not being formed. We're also going to talk about how God has been working through those messages, kind of through our digital relationships. And then we're going to get to kind of a lengthy section where we are actually diving into some real broad strokes things and then niching down. Kind of thrown in there, there's a conversation about Gen Z, which is going to lead into another conversation that we have later on on the podcast. And really, it's all in service of building that digital relationship with somebody that you've never met, that has never met you, that has no clue who you are when they first are reaching out via an ad or via some sort of campaign in Glue.

Now, one of the other things that we're going to talk about is building digital relationships effectively, and specifically the course that we have in our Explorer Responder Hub. That course is all about the acronym BLESS. We're going to talk about that a little bit. It's a course that is available for you right now as soon as you are listening and watching this episode, listening to this episode and watching this episode. So without further ado, let's get to From Text to Testimony.

Hey, everybody, welcome to a show that's already in progress here on From Text to Testimony. John and I were so, here's the thing: I'm in the same studio that I was at last time, but I changed the background. And we were shooting a whole lot here this week. We had some stuff that we're doing for like a bumper and a thing, and I realized that I don't, I'm not sitting in a chair. I've got like big standing energy today, you know? Like, you know, like when you stand up and you're doing like a, because I used to do podcasts just standing up. Yeah, and then I started doing shows from my house in my home studio, and I have like a standing desk, but I also have kind of like the video gamery setup. And so standing when you're doing something like that, it's tough. Like sitting there playing video games on stream for two or three hours, like you just lose it. And so I've been sitting, but anytime I have been standing lately to record, I get this like, yeah, like this, you know, that power stance. Power stance. And so I'm like, I've got a foot up on the table and I'm like, yes, we're ready to tackle this topic day. You're cooking. Let my man cook. Let me cook. Yes, let Andy cook. Let let Andy cook. Absolutely. John, it's a pleasure to be here with you on episode two of From Text to Testimony. We got rave reviews from the last episode, so that's in large part to you. I just kind of feel like I brought that out of you. We're a team. We're a tag team. That's how it works. Yeah, back again, check it, direct it, let's begin. I could do the whole song probably if we needed to. Did you have, um, this is a small aside, so you played football in high school, right? I did not play in high school. No, okay, all right. Um, did you have, so this is even better then. Did you have that thing called Fifth Quarter, which was after the high school football games? Oh, no, we did not have that. Oh, okay. So here's what Fifth Quarter was, and it was maybe it was a Florida phenomenon. So you'd go to the game. I was in the marching band. I was band nerd. Uh, so we'd go to the game and we'd march and we'd do the thing, and then after the game, our church and local other churches, we had a fairly large church. Our church would hold this thing called Fifth Quarter. And what it was supposed to be was the safe alternative to all of the things. And so it would be in the youth room. In the youth room, we'd like black out the youth room and put like, you know, black lights, and we'd be playing a whole lot of things. But the problem was is that you get a bunch of teenagers in a room, and it's dark, and it's a church. Doesn't matter if it's a church, and you put on things. No, you put on things like, uh, like DC Back Again. Yeah, there it is. Check it, direct, and let's begin. And let's just say there were some dance moves on the floor of the youth room that Jesus was probably not too happy with. Not not for me. Well, maybe for me. But from other people. And I, Fifth Quarter didn't last too long. I think it only lasted like one year. I, okay, here's the thing, Andy. I would have been one of those people doing the inappropriate dance moves because I was not a follower of Jesus. And I started going to youth group for the pizza and the girls. If you remember correctly from last week, and so I was the person who messed up your Fifth Quarter. I was the person that's like, what do you mean I can't do that? What do you like, hey, what's going on over here, pops? Like, what are we doing? No, leaving room for the Holy Spirit. So I messed up your Fifth Quarter. I'm very sorry. Thanks, man. I, uh, I'm unhappy about that. Uh, I'll tell I'll tell our youth director from 2001 that. Oh, that's not why we're here today. We're here to talk about some awesome things that have happened with Glue. And From Text to Testimony, as we talked about last episode, is really a show that's designed to talk to you about everything that we've experienced in Glue. The text section and then the testimony section. We talk about how God has been moving through those, and then we kind of have some tips later on. And uh, I've got a number of things. I know John has a number of things. So without further ado, let's dive in to our text section.

So John, today we are talking real kind of broadly about this thing that we call digital. And you know, the digital kind of text thing that happens with Glue is really sort of a, I don't know, it's something that's different, you know? You, you last week, or last episode, excuse me, you referenced the fact that texting is very, very personal. And today we kind of wanted to talk about building relationships, getting a little bit more personal. Now, this is going to be a multi-part kind of series, you know? Relationships are huge. There's a lot of things going on in terms of relationships with Glue, with all, you know, things all over the place, right? Especially in texting. And so you and I both kind of have some examples of some people that we were able to relate to using Glue. So do you want to go first, or you want me to go? Why don't you go first? Talk to me. Talk, talk to me about like, you know, the digital relationship building side of things. I'll go first because I usually do it very wrong. And so when I first started, when I first started, oh, this is a what not to do. Yeah, this is a what not to do. When I, when I first started getting these Glue messages, I was coming from a context of, because in my local congregation, as part of the pastoral care piece, texting isn't uncommon with people who are calling into our pastoral care line. And so we have a line dedicated to pastoral care. It's a Google Voice number, so you can call, text people anonymously from that line. Not anonymously, but without sharing your own phone number. And so it's a pretty common thing to do that. And I was in that mindset of context. Because when somebody calls into our church and I text them back, hey, it's Pastor John, I can say like anything. There's already a relationship there. There's already context. They already have seen me. They've heard from me. They know that I'm around. They see me on the plaza, et cetera. I was in that mindset. And so when people started texting in from Glue, I approached it the same way, not realizing that to them, I am a complete stranger. And I am closer to the person texting them about their local politician than I am a pastor. And like, I'm just a rando. I'm like cold. It's even though they have sent the message, I'm still like cold calling back because what I didn't, the connection I didn't make is wherever they're submitting something to these campaigns for He Gets Us in Glue, they're submitting it not to a person but to like a larger organizational piece. Yes. And they're going, hey, I need help with this to this organization that has a commercial or whatever. And they're getting an individual to respond back. But I'm just going off of this like pastoral context that I had before. And so they would text something, and I mean something like a legitimate problem of like, hey, I broke up with my boyfriend and I'm feeling really sad. And I would come in hot of just like, hey, let's talk about your breakup and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And they're like, who is this? Is this the, is this the right number? Like, what gives you, yeah, like, what is this? And so what I had to start remembering is that when it comes to relationship building via text, it's not that dissimilar from relationship building in person in that you really have to earn the right to have a conversation. And so it started, it had to start with some context of, you know, I, you can, I look back through some of my cringy early, like, diving in to people that are really in pain, and I wanted to address the problem before I made a connection. And so I needed to take the time to make a connection. Just do something basic as simple as, right, hi, you texted about this thing to this. I'm responding to that. And just that change can change the framework of the conversation so that you're not on the defensive to start. Save, save that, because that's a, I just wrote down a whole lot of what you were just saying there because I do want to talk about that in the tip section. Um, yeah, because that right there, that's invaluable. Yeah, let me give you an example. I'll read the message that I get. The message that I get. Um, I've been separated for about a year and a half, but I fell in love with another person that is taken. I'm not sure why I'm single, and I can talk, yeah, I mean, like, we're in, but I cannot leave this person. I want to know what the right thing to do is. I just, I need advice on how I can move on to be in a relationship with someone that's available and someone that that, uh, someone that I deserve. Thank you. And my response is, hello, I'm Pastor Jos. Would you be available to talk later today? And the response is, the response is, yes. How did you get my number? How did you get my number? No context. Just a text from a rando that says, hey, would you be available to talk later today? How did you get my number? That is so good, John. That is so freaking good. I did she respond back after that? Um, no. Did you, I responded, I, and then I had to kind of do the context like, hey, I received a text message from you at 10:26 yesterday night. I think it's through that He Gets Us campaign. I'm a pastor in San Antonio, and I get messages from folks in our area. If you'd like to talk more, please let me know. Um, and then silence. That's so good. That is so good. Uh, I can just imagine her like looking at her phone going like, new phone, who dis? Yeah, exactly. New number, who random out of nowhere. So let me tell you, I want to...

To tell you a quick story here, I had somebody text in. Her name was Barbara. And this was back at the beginning of January, or no, the end of January in 2023. And I'm not going to release any other names or phone numbers or anything, but Barbara texted in and this is the only thing that she said. There was no ad topic. It was from the church's care campaign. And she said, "I've had the worst three years ever!" Exclamation point. "I almost moved—I almost lost my home. I think she meant lost my home, but I almost lost my home. Had to file bankruptcy. My children no longer speak with me, and my roommate moved out in the middle of the night last night." Okay, so you get something like that, right? That's rough.

And I texted her back, "Hey Barbara! Exclamation point. This is Andy from Belay Hope Church. I'm so, so sorry to hear about the intense struggles you've had these past years. I know that the weight of loss is heavy to carry, and God may seem distant. I want you to know that God sees you, loves you, and cares about the pain you are feeling. I'd love to get you connected into a community that can pray for you more regularly." And then I sent her a couple of follow-up links.

So you were the knucklehead and just walked in, just like swinging, like, "Yo, I'm Pastor guy. Like, listen, join my community. And you already know all about me. You've seen me on Instagram. You've listened to my podcast." And I unknowingly—like, I didn't, I wasn't trained to do this—just unknowingly went, "Okay, hey, I'm Andy," and like, there's this whole thing. Is there a right or wrong way to do it? I guess we're going to find out. But there is more to this story with Barbara here, and we will get to that in just a second.

So we heard about these practical examples. John, maybe trying to talk somebody with a phone number that he got off of some random website, and somebody else texting in to me—well, to Belay, but really to my Glue account back in the beginning of January of 2023. So John, I guess the follow-up here is, have you seen God working in building digital relationships with people? Have you seen actual fruit coming from some of these conversations?

Yeah, and part of, you know, as I learn to like calm down and set context and things like that, you really can have a meaningful exchange. And so, you know, there's a bunch of great different examples, but a lot of them come from finding community. So there was somebody who texted in on behalf of their brother, and they were like, "Hey, my brother just lost somebody. He's hesitant to reach out. He lost his wife. He's hesitant to reach out. He's having to live at this hotel. Is there anything that he can do?" And so I'm like, "Oh, well, tell me more." And then, you know, we kind of get to talk in, and we build some trust so that she knows I'm not like a rando, right? We're actually like, "Hey, I'm a pastor at a church. We have stuff that can help with this. Like, how can I help your brother?" And I get him connected with a guy from our men's group who goes and picks him up from the hotel and takes him to the men's group.

Wow, and that's like, that is translating from digital to in person, right? That's the transition. And it was about earning trust with that initial person and then over time earning trust with the person—the object of the original text. Was there any hesitancy from that person going to pick him up? Like, "Oh man, I might get stuffed in the back of a pickup truck or something?"

What I can say is the culture that we've built with our men's group is that they're the guys that when we have needs, they want to be called. They want to be able to come and do something cool and do the odd thing, do the thing that doesn't fit into the boundaries of normal ministry. It's like, "Hey, we got to pick a guy up at a hotel and bring him to the men's group." They're like, "Yeah, that's cool!" Like, they get excited about that. And so my conversation with that person, though, was—I had to fill that person in, right? It wasn't just calling somebody and going, "Go pick this person up at a hotel," and you don't tell them why, right? It's context. And context, I guess, has been my theme of the whole thing. It's filling them in on the text exchange, and it's calling somebody that I have a relationship with that's a leader of the men's group, and it's like, "Okay, I know what we're going to do with that," and having the exchange of what was going on and kind of—it's really relationally based, right? To be able to do that and pass somebody—not in a like, pass you off, but in a—I'm transitioning to where you can grow. That's cool.

Um, so I want to follow up on the story actually told in the tips or the text section. So this was Barbara. She had the worst three years of her life. She moved out of her home, had to file bankruptcy, children no longer speak with her, and her roommate moved out in the middle of the night. So I had texted her back. Obviously, now the second part of that was I had said, "Um, I want you to know God sees you, loves you, and cares about the pain that you are feeling. I'd love to get you connected into a community." You talk about community—into a community that can pray for you more regularly. A great place to do that is our digital community Facebook group. Here's the link to join. And then I send the link to join. And then I said, "How can I be praying for you more specifically?" We've done that before, and right under that at the end of those texts, it says, "Sent by whatever your church is." So in this case, "Sent by Belay Hope Church. Text stop to opt out." And a lot of times I'll just get "STOP" in capital letters back.

It's well, I mean, I tried, but this time Barbara—um, she said, "Just please pray I don't lose my house and that maybe my sons will talk to me again. Thank you so much." And I said, "Cool, thanks for submitting your—we'll pass this on to our prayer team." A couple of days later, I followed up with her, and I just said—and this was just kind of sitting in my queue—and I said, "I'm personally praying right now, Barbara, and if you'd like to get connected, here's again that link." And then about a half hour later after I sent that, I popped on over to Facebook, and there was her name sitting in the Facebook community request page. That's so cool! And I added her. It gets cooler. And I added her, and she immediately jumped in.

Now, she's one of those people that likes to bleed all over you. Um, and so there's a little bit of that with her personality, but also there was a lot of actual need, and there was spiritual questions. And our group is maybe 800 people. It's nothing like mega, mega huge. It's not super small. And she was getting a lot of engagement with a lot of her questions. She was having spiritual questions: "Why would God allow this? Why would all these other things? Why would God allow my sons to hate me and not want to talk to me? Why would God allow me to lose my house?" And all these other things. You know, we're trying to be very pastoral, so that goes through about the first three or four months. So that's January, February, March, and April. We open up our digital small groups, and we've got run from April to June, and then kind of just like a—it was like a three-month sort of thing, or end of June, sorry. She signs up for a small group and is in one of our. She's currently still in a small group with us. And she is—she's not like a super over-the-top, you know, she doesn't want to lead the group or anything like that. And again, she likes to dominate the conversation and bleed all over her one, and we—and I have to train that leader of that group to take care of that. But that all came from her texting at the end of January. She now—and we're going to date stamp this—she now at the end of September of 2023 is still in a group with us. How stinking amazing! It's incredible! It's incredible! And that's—and that's only because she took that step. But that's only because my kind of training in all of this, and your training in all of this, you know, once you move past being the knucklehead in the original, allowed you to kind of say, "Okay, I need to think critically. I need to contextualize exactly what I'm doing here." So yeah, Barbara, thanks. Thanks for being part of the group, Barbara. Yay!

Barbara! So we've heard about some of the texts, some of the good and bad. We've heard about the testimonies from building digital relationships through what we're doing with Glue, and kind of how digital ministry works outside of ads—people texting in, people not understanding why you want them to be on a phone call. Um, and now we get to the tips section. And some of the tips here are lengthy because building digital relationships is not a one-step process. No, it's very messy. Um, and so John, I want to kind of punt the ball to you real quick. What's one tip that you could give our loyal listeners and watchers in building digital relationships?

Yeah, from my wins and my losses, it's that context. It's that context really matters. And you're responsible for setting the context. And while you may have a certain role or position where you are, it's important to know that these folks that are texting have no context of that. They don't know you from a telemarketer. And so setting the context for them of why you're reaching out, who you are, how you got their information—because texting is intimate. There's an intimacy and a closeness to it. And so setting that context is like, it might not be the most important thing, but what it is is it's a step that if you don't pass this part, you can't get to the ministry part. Yeah, and you just have to do it. That's good.

I actually wrote down from our notes here also: remember that anything that's coming in via Glue, 99 times out of 100, is a response to some sort of advertisement, some sort of paid or unpaid thing that they found on Google or some sort of form or on Facebook or on Instagram or something.

Yeah. Um, you also said you need to earn the right to have a conversation. What do you mean by that?

I mean that, you know, kind of set by setting the context, that's what you're going for. And so earning the right means kind of earning the person's trust because, who I think sometimes as the church, we can come from a pedestal of like, "Well, you should listen to me. I'm a pastor." Um, but the playing field is leveled in the text realm because you're just a rando. And so if anything, you have less trust than the person—like, the cashier at the grocery store. Like, you're actually at a trust deficit. And so you really do have to earn the right. And so what I mean by that is just being someone that like, "Hey, hey, this is why I'm here. This is what I would like to do." You have to be clear. You have to be friendly. And you have to invite the person into a conversation. And the ball is in their court to accept. And so when I say earn the right, I mean you do have to do those things, but then you also have to go, "Do you want to have this conversation?" Um, and it's up to the person. And I'm sure I know that my, you know, my Glue feed is filled with people that never wrote back. Yeah, and I know that there are other people who have that too, and it's hard because you want to just keep pressing, or you want to tell them the right thing, or you want to send them a link, or you want to do these kinds of things. But it, you can push them away doing that. Earning the right is about presenting um your—I mean, it's basically like stating your intention and why you're there and putting the ball in their court to interact with you.

Do you ever feel like, especially as a care pastor, do you ever feel like you're searching for the thing not to say instead of the right thing to say? So like, you're you're getting a response...

And this is online and this is digital but also in person. You're looking to make sure that you don't trigger that one thing. Instead of speaking truth and love and all that other thing, all you know, the things that we're told to do when we preach, instead when you're trying to form a relationship, do you ever find that it's like it's almost like a paralyzing thing?

Yeah, it can be because you're worried about saying the right thing and unfortunately, depending on how you think about it, when you're coming from a care perspective, there isn't a right thing to say. And so once I was able to give up on that, I wasn't worried about the wrong thing. I was just worried about connection, right? Instead of thinking of a right-wrong binary, more of just how can I connect with this person where they are?

And so when somebody tells you my son died, there's not a response. It's not like a video game, right? Where like if you're in an RPG you choose the right response to get to the next thing. There's not that. Her son died. There's literally nothing you can say to take away the pain. There's nothing you can do that's going to make her go, "Oh yeah, I feel good about this," right? Instead, you just have to go, "How can I relate to you and build a connection so that we have a connection where eventually we can move, you know, in the grief process? Eventually we can provide the kind of care. Eventually I could speak into your life with some clarity and some truth and some grace, all of those things. But at first, you're just making the connection."

And it's not good enough to be a pastor. It's not good enough to work for a church because it's almost like saying the Bible says people are skeptical of religion in general, and they're even more skeptical of out of nowhere religion that feels like they're trying to. Because when I get a text from someone I don't know, I assume it's a scam. And I think most people feel that way. They're just like, "Okay, how are you trying to steal my credit card information?"

And so that connection piece, like not being paralyzed by saying the wrong thing, and instead just being very human, right? And it caught it. I have found the most success of stepping away from any kind of platform or authority and instead relating on a very human level. If you're going through a breakup, it's like, "Oh man, that really stinks. Like, I'm so sorry that that happened." And maybe asking some follow-up questions, because sometimes the curiosity is good, right? Instead of coming in and being like, "Well, here's the three-point plan into how to change your relationship," right? And you're not selling it that way. And so I think that answers your question of, you know, be a human, not a right-wrong bot.

Yeah, yeah. An NPC. We, uh, John and I also do another podcast, and yesterday we were there—not a plug for that—but we were talking about this movie The Batman. And it's a podcast called Common Religion. And John used an analogy of people in Gotham City being like NPCs, just kind of, uh, stand, you know, passerby, kind of just standing there waiting for action to happen. You don't want to do that in digital relationships.

Yeah. The other thing that I, and this is kind of a plug for some of the other things that we're doing with Glue, but there is a system of building effective digital relationships. It's called BLESS. It's an acronym: B-L-E-S-S. And it was invented by Dave and John Ferguson. You guys have probably heard of them from Leadership Network and New Thing Network and kind of that whole Chicagoland thing. Those guys are pretty good.

Yeah, I mean, they're okay, you know? They've been around the block a couple times. They're doing all right for themselves.

Yeah, I'd say so. Um, they developed this idea where when you're sharing your faith online, when you're building digital relationships, it's kind of a five, quote-unquote, step process. Now we here are also releasing a course alongside of this with our good friend Dr. John Harris, who's going to be walking us through what BLESS actually is. But the just kind of the brief overview: you have B for beginning with prayer. Anytime you're going to talk about Jesus, anytime you're going to try to open a spiritual any sort of relationship, start it with prayer.

Then you have the L, which means that you are listening. You are listening, and then you are following up with good questions. You're not trying to, like John said, impose yourself. You're not trying to click the right or wrong answer or response. Instead, you are listening and you are empathizing and you are actually inserting yourself into that conversation instead of just being like, "Yeah, yeah, whatever. I got you. You're a task on a list."

Yeah. And then you start to get into some of the later stages, and we don't need to necessarily go into these right now. E is enjoying shared experiences, which is awesome and easy online: video games and chat rooms and, uh, you know, messaging and all sorts of stuff, community groups. Community groups, things, yeah, absolutely. Enjoying shared experiences together.

And then you have, uh, you have this S, which is serving. So try to serve together or serve that person, or you know, really try to provide for that person in a way. If it is hooking him into a community group, if it is providing some sort of like counseling, some, you know, like things like that. And then that last S—excuse me—is then and only then can you share your Jesus story. And that goes back to what John Pile right here just said, where you have earned the right to have that conversation with them.

If you follow along these steps, now linked all throughout the Explorer Responder Hub is going to be this digital course provided by Glue. And so I invite you to kind of sit through that. It's really seven sessions, goes very quickly. Dr. John, uh, John Pile and I both know Dr. John. He's one of the coolest guys in the world. Good dude. Good dude. And he knows exactly what he's talking about. Um, so I invite you to kind of do that.

But this kind of feeds into what exactly we're talking about here in today's show. Uh, John, any kind of followup? Any other tips that you can think of here? Anything else that might have sparked a little bit of conversation starter for you, man?

I love the BLESS acronym and being able to have that kind of framework because having a framework means that you have someplace to start and evaluate, yeah? Of just going, "Okay, did I pray?" Like, I just love the idea that it starts with prayer. Because when you—the thought that came into my mind, Andy, when you shared that one, starting with that, that "begin with prayer"—is that when these things are coming in, they can be kind of abstracted. They can become a problem instead of a person. And prayer really anchors us to the humanity of this person.

And that's one of the challenges in the digital world: is that people become abstractions. They're an avatar or a name or a comment or whatever. And prayer just reminds us, "This is a human being, and you don't know their situation. You don't know where they're coming from." And so grounding it in a very human way by starting with prayer is such fantastic advice. I love that. That is that's real good.

Um, and I think we can end right there. Do you want to add anything else? Anything else you want to follow up with?

No, I have—it's funny. When Dr. John was on the podcast, there was somebody who commented on the episode about his impact in their life. Can you read that?

"I'm really thankful that the Lord put John in my life at Liberty Church six years ago, and I continue to follow him for guidance and understanding. I feel the love of Christ from John and family."

That's good. So coming from his physical church to these folks that still follow him into the digital world, it's a great reminder that the relationships we build aren't different. They're still people. And it gets me excited when I see that.

Well, and that's the most important thing I think when you're building a digital relationship is that often time, you know, you talked about avatar, we've talked about NPCs. My my experience growing up, especially, you know, I'm technically a millennial. I just turned forty. Um, you're a millennial as well, and we knew the internet before it really was the ubiquitous thing that it is. Like, we had we lived in a life where you had to dial into things before it was always on, yeah?

And one of the things that happened with that is that, uh, especially right around the end of middle school into high school for me, is that everyone had a screen name because you became, you know, AOL Instant Messenger person. And so I was Merciful Fate, whatever, or Chino Mage, whatever. And you know, a lot of those things I've held on to. And then you became your away message. And so your away message would tell everybody like, "Oh, I just broke up with this girl. I'm going to quote some lyrics from cryptic song lyrics," yeah? About like how I'm drowning in an ocean of sadness. Dashboard Confessional, baby. Oh, let's go.

I quoted more than my fair share of Dashboard by the way.

Oh buddy. Oh buddy. I said I liked one Dashboard Confessional song, and that's the only gift that I got for the next year was every single album they've ever put out.

Yes, yes. And that's fine because they all sound the same. Uh, we're not here to wreck on Dashboard. That dude was—come on the podcast, Chris. Chris, come on the podcast. Come on, we love you. Um, yeah, but we'll just rag on that one song.

Um, no, but so that that then turned into that was an avatar for a person. That was a reflection of that person. And what I'm finding with my kids and what you're going to be finding with your kids as they get older is that that that's been erased. You know, that their relationships, they see through the screen name to the person on the other side because the generation coming up behind us and the generation behind them is extremely tolerant. They're extremely respectful. But they're also extremely aspiritual. It's not that they're antagonistic toward spirituality. It's that they are aspiritual. They have no spirituality whatsoever. And you can see them trying to figure that out because there is that thing that they're missing.

And so their relationships are personal. They are digital. They are across the world. There is no barrier between any of that. And that's fascinating to me, but also it's scary, you know? It's scary for what it implies for the rest of the world right now that is not caught up to that yet.

Yeah, man, you took me back. And my wife and I were actually just talking about this this morning—not this part, but the second part of kids thinking of different things. So like, we were talking about FaceTime this morning, and I was talking with a parent and trying to help a parent because they were like, "My daughter just FaceTimes in the middle of anything, and there's a boy on the other end with a shirt off, and it's blah blah blah blah blah." And for us, FaceTime is an intrusion of privacy, yeah? Because you're getting a window into our lives as it is. But for kids, it is just how you talk on the phone, yeah? It's like it's just you. And a lot of times the camera's facing the ceiling and not even like, they're not even doing that thing, yeah?

And there, and so it's a different conception of the digital world. And so there's something good potentially about having a whole integrated identity. But there's also something very scary about that. Um, because I do remember picking screen names. You would try to pick the coolest, like you tried to pick a cool screen name. And I'm going to embarrass myself. I'll just go for it. And so I was really into seventies blaxploitation movies when I was in high school, okay? And still am. They're great.

Movies, um, not really, but yes, like great, great, with like air quotes around it. Yeah, they are very specific to the genre in the era. So I was super into '70s Black exploitation movies, and so when I'm picking my AOL screen name, I'm like, "I'm going to be Dolomite," like that's going to be the—yeah. And then you add the numbers behind it, and like that's my persona. And like everybody else is trying to pick like, "Oh, what band do I love?" and so I'm going to pick the bassist for the coolest band and I'm going to put their name with whatever. And so you're trying to create this like persona, and especially for like a lot of us that were kind of nerdy, right? Like, especially starting out in high school for me. And I told the story last episode about how that was a transition through that. But when you're starting out nerdy, it's like it's almost like you get to go to college. Like a lot of people reinvent themselves when they go to college. And so I—oh, I cannot tell the story. No, I can't tell the story. Okay, okay. But you reinvent yourself. Like, there was a guy who went to college that I, you know, that is my year, I think. And he, when he showed up, he's like, "Hey, I'm Trip." And he drove a red Miata convertible and was just like, "I'm Trip. I'm Trip." And he was just like this super preppy kind of dude. And then his parents show up and they're like, "John, John, John." And they're like, "Who's John?" Like, "Who's John?" And he's like, "Mom, I'm Trip here." And like, he's like, "John William something the Third" or something. "John Williams something the Third." He's like, "No, I'm Trip." But I'm Trip Hollister. Yeah. But to see him as John, you're like, "Oh, you're John." And you were like nerdy in high school, like, and now you're like this cool preppy guy with the red Miata here. And so that kind of reinvention of self is kind of how our generation viewed digital and using the screen names, right? You just—I wasn't just this like kid that had a flat top way too long, like into the '90s when flat tops were no longer cool. Like, that was like chubby and pining after girls. Like, I was Dolomite when I was online, and I was channeling that Dolomite energy. Um, and kid, like you said, kids these days, it's not like that. They're not like—I don't know, I'm sure there are some kids that are—but they're not like "Ariana Grande 4." Like, like, they love Ariana Grande, but it's just like it's part of their personality. And maybe they run accounts that are dedicated to Ariana Grande stand account or whatever. But they're not hiding. Like, I think, or reinventing. It's just kind of it's an aligned and integrated presence and person. In a couple of episodes, we're going to go into communicating with Gen Z and then possibly Gen Alpha, although Gen Alpha's not really using Glue yet. Gen Z definitely is. And I've gotten multiple Gen Z conversations. I've got a couple of really long ones that have been going for probably two or three months now. And you're spot on where you're talking about the fact that they are who they are now. And that to me is the clear divide in building a digital relationship. You talk about contextualizing. You need to know how old that person is, and you can—you know, there's tells. There's definitely tells if a person is not using, you know, punctuation or using some linguistic skills that may or may not have been from our age, a little bit older or our age, a little bit younger. Like, you can kind of get in the ballpark. Um, especially, you know, talking about socioeconomic status, you know, problems there. But I think that helps in terms of context. If I'm talking to you as a sixty-year-old, I'm not going to be talking about—like, I'm not going to understand, or you're going to, you know, we're going to have this untold thing of like, "Well, you're just a person and I'm just a person." But if I'm talking to a twenty-year-old, well, that person now, their entire persona is wrapped up in this message. Their entire persona is wrapped up in that phone number. And really, they don't see it as a phone number. It's that—that is their WhatsApp handle, or that is their iMessage number. That's it. And that's their Square Cash. That's where you send like, that's where you send and receive money and everything else.