EP258: Jate the Gaming Digital Missionary

Welcome to the Church Digital Podcast. Through this podcast we'll talk about the technological innovations within the church, but more than that, protect itself. We'll address deeper questions. Is disciple making possible digitally? How should we approach the digital mission field? Can a biblically grounded church operate in digital space? Oh, and where does the metaverse fit into all this? Whether you're a big or small church, an established church or a startup church, plan the Church Digital's goal is to help churches like yours learn to be a multiplying church digitally and physically. Our heart is that churches like yours will discover a newfound focus on disciple making that will revolutionize your church. And now here's your host, Jeff Reed.

All right, hey, welcome to Twitch. Welcome to the Church Digital Podcast. Welcome to wherever we are today. Hey, my name is Jeff Reed. I'm founder of the Church Digital, Digital Church Network, and we're streaming live on Twitch right now. We're doing season four here of Jesus Gamers and Church Digital. Excuse me, I think that's yeah, Jesus Gamers. Listen, no matter how many times I say that, I will always screw up the order of those three words. I'm pretty sure it's Jesus Gamers in Church, but there could be Jesus Church and Gamers. Pretty sure we said Jesus that's first, and if this wasn't live, I would totally be like, let's just start this whole thing all over again. But it's live, so we're listen, we're just gonna have to roll with it and make it all work.

And so I am not a gamer. I've confessed that many times here in season four. It's been a couple decades since I was relevant with N64's GoldenEye. But I am loving talking with gamers, talking with nerds, talking with esports people, and even digging into this episode, this interview today, trying to learn more about gaming culture. And so we are streaming these interviews live on Twitch, where I am right now. And so if you're listening on the podcast, feel free to swing over Thursdays at 3 P.M. Eastern to Twitch.tv slash Digital Church Network.

And so we had, I don't know, twenty some last week, and we've got some people in the chat right now. Flat cap, Jate live, DCN is in here with Saint Bear, some others will probably pop in. Chino Mages is here as well. Probably some of us will be popping in and out, but excited, excited to get into this conversation right now. And so let's go ahead and bring the others in. Mysterious magician behind the screen, whoever's running the video switcher, let's bring them in.

Awesome, how's everybody doing today? In this week's episode, we're gonna dig in with Jade Live. We're gonna be talking with Jade Earhart about maybe some of how he uses Twitch and Discord and what's going on with Jake. Jake's probably the first person that I ever interviewed that was utilizing Twitch for ministry. Like, I'm and I apologize because Mark is on this interview as well. Mark, I'm not even going to waste my time trying to say his last name wrong. Yeah, we're rocking back and moving on. But Mark was probably close in there, but I think Jay was early on.

Now listen, before we get into the interview, um, now realize for me I'm not big into Twitch culture, and a lot of people listening to the podcast, we're not big Twitchers if that's how we say this. Um, what is up with all the emojis? Like, the excessive use of emojis on screen, and how you can't just type it once, you have to put like three, four, five of them on? Like, I don't understand. You know, I don't want to be like once again the grandpa, get off my lawn, but you know, Mark, can you give me some insight? Jake, can you give me some insight? Twitch culture, all these emojis, what the crap?

Foreign. Jade's much better at explaining things like this, but I do want to say hi to our Lux Digital Church family because I am accidentally multi-streaming on both the DCN channel and the Lux Digital Church channel, which I didn't mean to do, and I also don't know which is which, so I can't end it in fear then I'll end the wrong one. It's like the blue or the red wire right now, and I'm not sure which one to cut to diffuse the bomb. So we're just gonna let it run and hopefully Twitch doesn't explode.

So what you're saying, telling me is I just said what the crap to your entire church audience? Yeah, that's fine. Everything that we're saying is also being told to Lux Digital Church, and we didn't mean to go live there. So if you're tuning in for Lux, we love you so much. Thank you for being here for the Digital Church Network Podcast. I guess it's the Church Digital Podcast, but you know what, you get more of Jade in your life by coming to our stream right now, which is a beautiful thing.

So well, hey, maybe we need to get somebody else to run tech, or maybe we just doubled our audience, which is awesome as well. Either way, it's a win. So we love it. Um, James, emojis, what the crap?

Yeah, I feel like I found my people because I like emojis and I use them all the time. Like, before I was using Twitch, and then I got on Discord, and it's the same thing, just like emotes everywhere. I actually remember reading something that kind of like, I don't know, it was one of those posts where like a female influencer was like, oh, like guys who use emotes, that's like a huge turn off for me. And then I just kind of like shriveled up because I was like, I use emotes. Like, I like to express myself through smiley faces. And then I came on Twitch and it's just walls of emotes. But I don't know, I think it's kind of like Pokemon cards, you know, where sometimes even though everybody has Pikachu, it's still fun to see. But then every once in a while somebody has like a rare emote and you're like, whoa, what's that emote? Like, how, where'd you get that one from? And then you can kind of like go down the wire and see, you know, you find other people. There's lots of streamers I found because I saw their emotes and I was like, that's a cool emote. That probably is a cool person. And then I'm either right or wrong. So it's not like your iPhone where you're given hundreds of emojis. Like, you have the ability to earn them. There's gamification a little bit. So when you subscribe to somebody, you get their emotes and you can use them anywhere on Twitch. So that's why Twisted Shot right now is doing the flat cap because Twisted Shot TV is following Black Happened, so he gets that. And okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, he's doing. I can see right now that's Dustin Houston dancing right now. So okay, yeah, so like, Jade, are all your emotes are they all cat related?

Not all of them. Some of them are my cat Phoenix. Yes, some of them are also our created mascot, Jade Fox. Yeah, it just depends.

Is a fox well, we've got very different speed. This is a weird species question there. Foxes are dogs running on cat software.

Oh my gosh, what is happening? Buy that. That's where we are for this interview. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. Thanks for joining us today. Have a great week.

Hey, listen, I actually I love the fact that both of you guys are on this interview, this call together, um, because I love the fact that you use both of you, Mark, through Lux Digital Church, Jade, through, are you branding Jade Live now? Is it still Love Clan? Like, I've kind of seen you do both.

Okay, so like, you do these different things utilizing the same tool sets, but to be honest, your ministries could not be more different. Like, just the guy looking at the outside, Mark is doing a very close to a traditional model of church reinterpreted in a new way. He's doing, you know, Mark, I've heard you say actually it kind of leans more towards student ministry type stuff. If you're comfortable student ministry, you may be comfortable in some of the spaces they're doing. Where are some of the stuff that Jade's doing, it seems to me it's like completely different than what the typical church environment would be.

So hey, Jay, maybe you know, some people, especially with the podcast, they may not know who you are. Um, man, take a minute or two, introduce yourself, talk a little bit about who you are and what your ministry actually looks like in this space.

Um, yeah, I would say I would say hey, I really really being there. Yeah, I would say they could be different. Um, there's lots of ministries that are definitely further that are definitely further apart, but I would say there's um, there are obviously differences and I think that's good because that means we reach different different people. Um, and there's a lot of people to reach. So yeah, my for the most part, I would um, I kind of just stream just in it, just like maybe like a normal what a normal streamer would be. I play video games most of the um, like most days and just get to know people. Um, the majority for me in my mind, my goal is to have authentic relationships with people over the internet. And by doing that, hopefully have the opportunity to um, to be able to spread the love of Jesus. You know, I hope that I'll be able to actually speak truth into people's lives. Um, but I a lot of times people are used to shouting at them from across the street or from a pulpit and saying come to me, come to my thing, come listen to what I'm saying. And um, you know, I try to spend as much time as I can just listening and like hearing what other people are saying and and just responding to that. Um, it's all it's a lot more uh, communication like back and forth with chat and less of just me talking. Um, so that's what I like. I like that. I'm having a hard time not just reading chat right now. It's normally what I'm doing.

So now you've told me in the past like at one point you said your goal was to reach uh, to disciple a million video gamers. And it that's been been a year or two since since you've said that. We've had a couple conversations since then. What's um, where are you in in that path, in that journey? Is is it working? Do you still have that same uh vision? Like, what's what's your what's your ministry looking like?

Yeah, so that was kind of that's like not that I would reach a million disciples, but that like there would be a million um, discipled gamers who were discipling others. And that would never happen through me. Like, there's no way that I by myself could ever do that. And that was never the like, that would never be the goal. And um, but that was my prayer, you know, is that we have a gaming, especially in the gaming world, which is where I I mostly gravitate towards, to see that there is such a big disconnect. That there's a lot of people that are Christians who are like, I don't feel like I can talk about that with my gaming friends. Um, I feel like that's a huge, that's a problem that shows that there's a disconnect between the two things that are the loves for me. And so um, I just wanted to see, I wanted to see that be more normative, you know? And so I think um, yes, for sure that is it is moving forward. I can't give like numbers on that, and I think that's good. Um, because it's not, I could give my numbers, but um, you know, they're one of the joys of especially this year. Um, this year especially is that I've seen so many other streamers, other people doing similar things to me. Um, some that I've been able to help grow into like doing and flourishing and whatever, and others that I uh, didn't know that I just found through the internet that are like, oh, now they're doing similar stuff. And I can um, I can come alongside them and help them with the you know, get over the first year of hurdles that I didn't need to have to get over. There's some stuff you will have to do, but some things you could just, you know, learn yourself.

Out of a ditch basically, but yeah, there's been a lot of that. Um, and I think the, um, specifically about discipleship is that the place where I evangelize is the same place I disciple. And I think that's really huge. There's not a lot of places maybe for that, or maybe just there is and I'm just thinking in my context. But because I get to talk to people at the same time that I'm trying to, the people I'm trying to reach, um, if somebody wants discipleship they can come alongside and see how I'm doing it. And they're learning to find and follow Jesus at the same time that I'm helping other people find and follow Jesus. And that shows them a path forward for how they can then do that for other people. And, um, that's to me very similar to the Jesus model. And we've kind of talked about that before, but I'm just more and more seeing how that's really how things are. It's like come alongside me as I help other people, you know, go forward. And then you go off and do your own thing. I don't need to be in control of like whatever you're doing. And, uh, the send—it's not like sending release, but like send and keep contact, which is very, again, very, it all just sounds very biblical. And so, um, I've really been, I don't know, just like very, very aware of, um, how much this feels like even very like the beginning of Acts, um, just as I'm seeing other people come alongside and move and grow up and start churches in different areas. And, um, I'm just happy to be a part of it, you know? It feels like, uh, yeah.

Well, Saint Bear in chat, uh, I love Jade's stream. I love that Jade stream is so consistent and relational. It feels like a chill living room with a very comfy couch where big conversations feel much less daunting than they would in other environments. Like, I want to, I want to get into the discipleship. I want to get into some of that, uh, in a platform, in a, in a, in a system where you're talking to sometimes hundreds of people. Um, how do you get relational? Like, it seems to me that almost the technology scales the actual relationship out of it by trying to give you mass. Like, how do you keep it? How do you keep it chill?

Yeah, um, for the last, for the, for the last probably like two years, there was a point in my first year where I had a video that went like semi-viral, like not viral, but within the gaming community that I was in. Um, I'd like a Final Fantasy 14 video that hit like a, um, 100,000 views. And I was like overnight, and all these people came over because the video was showing how to do something very specific for a class that I was playing, um, which is all very, you know. And, uh, and so people started coming over for that, and I was growing really fast. But I recognized that I wasn't like, the numbers were going to grow really quickly, um, but it wasn't, there wasn't the base yet. And so until the base was built, it would be like, um, I don't know, it's like fuel for the wrong fire almost. And so I had to, um, I had to really pull back and focus more on the people than the numbers for a while, um, and just focus on the people that are there already and make sure that we're growing in the right direction. So I really, I really went, um, I went small for like a while and just tried to keep it within certain numbers that I knew where I could read every chat message. And, um, I'm not sure if that will always be the case. Um, I, I don't know if that's like where God has me for the long term or not. I, um, there's like a whole thing we could go into about like people that are life streamers versus, um, people who are, uh, uh, entertainers, you know? And so I didn't want to just be the entertaining streamer that was trying to like keep the masses entertained. Um, and that's kind of what happens when you get to the bigger numbers. So yeah, mostly focusing on small, like focusing on the people that are there. Um, if somebody gave me their name, I would, I would make a note of it. Um, I have like a whole list of people's real names to make sure that I'm like remembering those. Um, yeah, I, I have honestly, I think it's kind of a God thing. I'm ADHD, but, uh, that ADHD lets me read chat and play a game at the same time. And for whatever reason, I, I won't remember where my car keys are, but I'll remember a whole lot of like random information that people had said, like I really like this game, I really enjoy this anime, you know, um, I work at such and such place. And, and I can, I can do that somehow for like thousands of people and, um, and be able to remember not everything, but like a good, more than I expected that I could. And, um, but yeah, most of it is just being available is already way more than what most people get, you know? You think about how many people you interact with on a daily basis, um, who are there beyond just work. And you're already looking at a pretty limited number of people that, um, that actually want to give anything, you know? Uh, how many, some of you, it's like some of my best friends I've been to coffee with twice, you know? Like it's just not a, um, I don't know. I think we're kind of drained in that regard, which is why maybe we're so starved for, um, a, a spouse, I think, uh, you know? It's just like, well, there's, I, I need somebody I can tell my, uh, my, my day to and the things that are going on in my life. And, um, and that's the first time is maybe when you're in like that kind of a relationship because you know other people don't care about that stuff. But I do. I want to know what's going on in your day and vice versa, I guess.

So now I'm hearing a lot of like Twitch language. Are, are you, are you using, because you know my knee jerk was going to be, oh, he's using Discord for relationships. But that's, I don't, I'm not feeling that right here in the moment. Are you, are you hanging out more in Twitch world and Discord these days?

Oh, for sure. Yeah, 100 percent. So whereas the average, you know, I'm thinking virtual reality pastor, you know, even a lot of streamers, they're looking at discipleship and ongoing and Discord, you're utilizing Twitch. Like when you say you're evangelizing and discipling in the same space, it's been two, that was coming. It's Twitch, right? Like, how does that work?

Um, I mean, just by having relationships with people. I, I don't, I don't see, so I don't see their like the need for a camera for us to have relationship. I don't see the need for the microphone for us to have like an actual relationship. Um, I, I read like hundreds, hundreds of thousands of messages, uh, a year. So I, I have a, I can't remember how many. It's like 500,000 messages a year or something. So I, I get a, even in Discord you can do, uh, video chat and you can do, um, calling and stuff like that. But most of the time it's a, it's a text chat. Like even in Discord you're mostly doing text, text. So yeah, some, I mean, a lot of these people I've probably done video with. Um, I've done talking with, like, like, uh, some of them I shouldn't say most, some of them, some of them are streamers. So I've been in their chats and I've seen them and interacted with them as, as texts and then they come into my chat and I've interacted with them that way. So there's that element for sure as well. But, um, yeah, when you're, when you're in the, so when you, I would say 35, I'm just going to put a number on it, when you get over 35 people in a room, it's very, very difficult to talk to all of them. So imagine 35 people in a room. Um, you either have to be like, let me stand on this soapbox or let me like stand on stage and talk to you all, and then I will go down and like individually one-on-one talk. Um, or yeah, you need some way to sort through that. And so it's like submit your thing. And so yeah, this is, I think there, it would be very difficult to do what we're doing right now with this, the three of us, even now, like Mark hasn't gotten to say a whole lot of things. Um, you know, but there's like three of us. So imagine 35 of us. Like, how often would any of us actually get to talk? So getting to have the text allows for us to have a, a, a, a community discussion that happens beyond just, you know, like there has to be somebody like mediating. But I feel like mostly I'm a community, uh, like presenter more than I am like the community. And when people come to the stream, I'm not saying, oh yeah, just come for my thing. It's like, hi, like, let's all hang out together. And, uh, I'll present you know something on the screen. But for the most part, it's just sort of an introduction to let's talk about this, um, which I, which I like because you can't do that for like very many other things. You can do that for movies if you don't go to the movies to be like, hey, let's talk about the movie while we're going on, you know? It's like, please stop talking. I'm trying to watch the movie. Um, so it's, it's a weird, like, at first I was kind of, why would somebody want to watch somebody play video games? I, I get that kind of thought and notion. But I realize that it's really less about the video games and more about the people and the community and the, which is, which is what's the most important thing to me. Like, I could go for hours without ever actually playing the game. And sometimes I do. And people are like, hey, you haven't played the game yet. And it's like, oh, yeah, sorry. I just was chatting.

So I've enjoyed watching from afar recently. You've been doing through a live playthrough of like every, uh, Zelda game. And so, yeah, back, that was, that was actually the second video game I ever owned was, it was the 8-bit Zelda. Uh, and so that, that warms the heart a little bit. Um, you know, we've been, we've been trying to figure out classifications, you know? We've, we talked earlier with like Mark opened up the season with his, uh, church, uh, that he's doing through through Lux. Um, you know, we talked with, uh, Bubba, who's, who's the nerd nerd guy. Uh, we talked with, uh, Jono, who's esports. Is there a classification to you? Like, are you, what do you consider yourself in, in how you're doing streaming?

Yeah, that nerd guy. Yeah, that could be one. Uh, um, yeah, I would say what I'm doing is variety streaming. Um, I, I often say I have to say true variety streaming, uh, because there's some people that say like, oh, I'm a variety streamer, but that just means that they play Fortnite and League of Legends. Um, so like true variety is I play lots of different games. And I get to, um, I get to work with indie developers and they send me their games to try and give feedback on. Um, because I've, I've played about, I think, I think about 10, uh, probably about 10,000 games now. We're getting on, we're getting the list together. Um, I have, I've already listed like 5,000. I haven't even started on PC yet. So I think we're close to like maybe 10,000 games. Blade and I play about 250 a year. So like, I'm trying a lot of games. Doesn't mean I'm completing them all, but that's giving me a good understanding of gaming as a whole. And I like that I can pretty much with any gamer that I'm talking to, there's a good chance I've played their favorite game, you know? I already have an in for that conversation. Like, you, you tell me, well, I really like this game, or you know, um, even to a degree like this anime, um, there's a good chance that I can relate with you, uh, to some degree on that. And that's pretty, that's pretty rare. Like usually you're like, I like this person. I just wish they didn't play Fortnite because I don't enjoy it, you know? Um, but like, I could talk about Fortnite because I've played it, you know? Even though, even though it's not for sure far from my favorite game. Um, it's a lot of other people's. And so I can at least have that, that in for that conversation. Um, and I think that for, is, is a, it's a separate, a separate area then like kind of esports. If you, if you haven't, even if you're not in the same esport, you understand the grind. You understand the, the effort, the time that it takes, the communication that's necessary. Like it's a different, it's a different beast than just playing for fun. And so I think it's the same with variety gaming where if you've played everything, like you can at least talk to games on.

a higher level than you would if you were just, you know, one one game. Totally we just got raided. Is everyone safe? Do I need to like hide? Are we are we protected in this environment? What's actually happening right now on Twitch? Yeah, like Mother Goose is trying to DDOS us.

Uh, no, I'm just joking. Mother Goose just dropped off her community here with us. Uh, what's up Zacchaeus 12-2, Bobcat, good to see you. Infested Fox, welcome in, and V-Wink24, thanks for stopping by. Appreciate you guys being here and being part of the community. You are at the Digital Church Network podcast channel. Uh, all of those words probably didn't come out exactly right, but thanks for stopping by. We appreciate you being here. Awesome. And uh, V-Wink has, I believe that's a Skeletor emote that I'm looking at right now. And so yeah, well done. Much, much respect right now for that. So welcome, glad you guys are here.

I just saw, you know, I had kind of like an emoji kind of like reaction. I was like, man, there's a lot that's happening right there during that raid. And then the podcast audience listening is like, what is going on? So um, Mark, man, any questions as you're listening to this? I I'm totally just kind of took over.

No, that's okay. Uh, you know, I love obviously we love Jade, love what he's doing, and uh, love Chase Heart. And you're right, there is some substantial structural differences between what we do at Lux and what Jade is doing. But the heart is very similar, right? We've recognized the deep relational pull that can be found inside of digital space. We're actively building relationships with people in order for them to come to know Jesus and grow up to become like Jesus. Um, Jade's methodology looks, I would say, more like, and I don't know how you know if he identifies in this way, but a lot more like a digital missionary than what we're doing. Um, but that is one of the reasons that like our church at Lux partners with Jade is because we believe in what he's doing and love what he's doing, and because he's able to uniquely reach a group of people that we as a church stream like oftentimes can't connect with and can't meet with and can't, you know, build relationship with. And so uh, we love seeing what Jade's doing on Twitch. And uh, you know, there's something comforting about the fact that no matter when I wake up or when I go to the internet, you know, Jade and a Fox are there, and they're and they're there to comfort and greet me. Uh, he was there last night at midnight while I was playing Destiny. He was playing Destiny, and he probably was still there when I woke up this morning. So uh, yeah, there's there's a lot that's comforting, and love, love Jade's heart mission for the space. Beautiful.

Jade, how how scalable is what you're doing? Like, you are you have a calling to what you're doing. You have a desire. How many, how many, I'm just real quick, how many hours do you stream a day at this point? Because at one point it was it was like fifteen or so. What are you doing now?

Yeah, yeah, first year is seventeen on average. Um, but I think um, yeah, you definitely don't need to stream that much. Like there's there's not like an amount that you need to. Um, so I would say I don't, I wouldn't worry about the hours that I I do it because I'm addicted to it. Like I'm really into the people. And um, this is, I'm also single, so this is like where I get most of my relation from. Um, which is different for people that are that are married, where it's like time away from your spouse. This is like time with my family uh of online friends. And uh, you know, so um, my question really is, is how easy is this to to cast that vision to duplicate it into somebody else, to get them to operate for them to manage um, you know, this tool uh in a relational way? Like, have you been successful with that?

Yes. And uh, so the the thing is, like it's it's easy in that anybody could do it. Like photography is easy. Like take out your phone and and take a photo, and like wow, like you go, like you know how to take photos now? You're a photographer. But the the difficulty is doing it well, right? Like if there's if there's millions of people that are doing it, then that's that's who you're, again, you're not going against like million. You're not going against the uh hundreds or thousands of Christians doing it. It's like the millions of people that do this. Um, that's that's who you have to be, you know, against or whatever I say against, but like there's enough. There's then way more like hundreds of millions of people that are uh watching Twitch. So that's not that's not to say that you're against uh, you're against people. I think that's the where it's um, where it's difficult is getting people who can who can go past all the hurdles and and uh be okay with it not going fast, like being okay with it not blowing up, being okay with like, oh, there's five people in my chat. Um, for a while I streamed for zero people. You know, I had like a skull on my desk that I talked to because the delay was so bad that if I wasn't talking already when somebody joined, there would just be silence. And then they'd say hi, and then I'd say hi back, but there was a fifteen second delay. So they left by the time they saw that. Um, you have to get, that's like the old days. Now it's pretty fast. So then it's making sure somebody's reading chat and not just getting stuck in their game. Like everybody has their stuff. They all have something that they have to grow in. And um, some people will get that faster than others. Like I have a friend who just recently started streaming two months ago, and her stream is like got way more people in it than mine. And and I think that's great because um, her style is very tailored to that. Like I think it works better than it would for me. And so I'm glad that mine's at like, I was saying thirty five is about where I feel like that's that's good for me. And it has been for about a year. And maybe that'll change. Maybe there's things that we're doing that'll get further past that. But um, that's the the duplicating is not even just um, the the reproducing. It's literally like some people will reproduce it better than I can. They'll reproduce it and have a bigger harvest than I can. And um, and and I think that's actually the joy is then that feeds back in. And then you you have more people uh that are are seeing how the growth is over there. And then you get to help those people. Uh, so yeah, it's kind of just there's so much room for more people that we're not at. We're not even close to the stage of churches where it's like, oh, there's a church on every corner. And sometimes too, and they like have to eat each other. And then you know, who's gonna take whose audience or whatever? There's just really none of that. And um, the even the, well, we we all got together for like Megazord. There's it was a whole nother thing. I don't know how much people know about that, but that's like getting getting to have unity with each other and recognizing that um, it's just a much bigger kingdom win if we all work together and not try to be uh against each other. And so I I am actually taking uh, I take to, I took today off, and I took two days ago off, and I plan to take for for a while. I don't know if I'll do this forever, but I I haven't really been doing this lately. I've always taken Sundays off, well, after an hour of stream, but like most of Sunday is off for rest. But I'm taking two days off for just watching other streams and like trying to interact with other streamers and help help them. Um, if I can give them, if I can do graphics, if I can, whatever I can do to kind of support other people that are doing this. Um, because my my win is going to be seeing like the kingdom win and not just me. And so that's been sort of the the thought is like, how can how can we do more together? Um, and I won't be able to do that if I if I'm just always focused on my stuff. So yeah.

Yeah, was Zacchaeus uh throwing in in the chat here, which really cool, is the cross community. I see same people across multiple channels in the Christian community. Um, it's it's interesting that that harkens back, and I wanted to ask you this, this um, because you guys as a gamer, I I have, as you're a gamer, you have a much more insight on this than I do, Mark. I don't remember if it was you or if it was Bubba, but early on in one of the earlier conversations, we were talking about um, providing a safe space for for Christians who are gamers to to connect in. Um, now you guys, Jade, from I mean, for the most part, you are outward facing. You're trying to connect with the lost audience. Mark, you're dancing, I believe recall you're saying you're kind of in between that. Is it really that um tough? Is is it really that aggressive in the gamer community against Christians where they're looking for solitude? Like, is is that really a problem in today's gaming culture?

All right, why don't you go first? Okay, do you have anything? Uh, are our gamers looking for solitude in in other places? Is that that are the questions looking for for safe space to come in? Um, so like for Christians looking for space, safe space, yeah, Christian specifically. Uh, I mean, yes, I I make sure my goal is to make sure that my stream is at least fifty percent non-Christian. Like that's a number I have to hit. If my stream is more than fifty percent Christian, I I feel like I'm failing. So I I take that very seriously. Um, so maybe um, some of that's, I I think maybe that's a maybe that's a um, this for me is like like uh, like Mark was saying, it's a it's a missionary field more than it is a uh like the church side. So that that premise, the question is coming from like, are they being uh left out of the church so much that they have to go to Twitch to get that? Is that kind of the thought? Because because I I don't think that's maybe necessarily true. Um, there's lots of places people could go. Um, you know, I don't I don't necessarily get that feel. Uh, maybe at one point in time that was true, but that's kind of uh, that's like that's maybe more in the past. And maybe it's not as outward facing. Like you're not going to be, I mean, you could play video games in church, but most of the time you're going to church, and people don't really know if you are playing games after that unless you're wearing like a nerdy shirt or something. So I don't really feel like, I don't feel like that's probably the thing. But um, I do feel like it is more, it, what what where people aren't needing it, um, are gamers who never went to church. Gamers who never thought to go to church, never had a relationship with God, never had anybody who told them that there's a God who loves them and cares about them and wants the best for them. That those people, they definitely are not going to your church. They didn't need two reasons you told them that they were, you know, sinners for playing video games, and they were like, okay, well, that's enough for me. Um, like if if Christians feel at all like they're pushed away from church, for for sure, non-Christians are not planning to go to your church. So that's I think I think that's maybe more where um, where I feel like Twitch is so cool because I get to just be a little weird in that I'm I'm playing video games all the time. Um, and then yeah, we're talking about God, and like we're playing, we're playing games, and maybe I'm better at it than they are, and and yet also I'm talking about God at the same time, and I'm reading the Bible. Um, just that there's a there's a like wow, this guy really cares about the game that I care about. This guy actually cares about the things that I care about. Um, he he relates to me. He knows me. Um, any, and he's about the same things that I'm about, but there's this like one thing that we don't fully agree on. Um, and like maybe because of that relationship, I'd be willing to at least listen. Maybe I'd be at least willing to like hear that conversation, even if it's not the conversation that I expected to have. Um, you know, we also have talked about lots of games I didn't expect to talk about, and I feel like we had a

Decent conversation and, you know, we disagreed on this game and it wasn't like he banned me from his chat because we disagreed on it and we didn't like the same game. So maybe it's fair and safe for me to talk about this other thing we don't agree on and we can just talk about it and it's fine. It's not like it's the end of the world if we don't agree on everything. I feel like that's more in line with what's happening there. There's a lot we know this, but the world doesn't know this. There is a lot of darkness in the world and most people are chasing happiness. Their goal is I want to be happy and I'm going to go find it through whatever means necessary. And the reality is if you want happiness, well, you said you should be seeking joy. But joy's going to come from doing something that matters. It's going to come from doing something with meaning. And that's where people are seeking that. They don't, they maybe don't even know it, but they're looking for meaning. They're looking for something that's beyond themselves. And so that's the huge draw of where people are like, oh, let's try this, you know, let's try that. Let's go to this streamer, let's go to that streamer. And if they land on one that feels like the person actually understands meaning and feels like that their calling is this, you know, anyway.

So Jeff, good support. Mark, one of the questions was like, do you feel like gamers or Christians are so under attack in this culture? I think that gaming culture in general is dismissive of or openly hostile towards faith or religion. It's not something that is embraced here. But I think people naturally, when you see the same names and the same chats, people gravitate naturally towards the people who think like them, right? Like that's, we want to be around people that make us feel comfortable. It's just human nature. So people who find, I was talking to someone else just last night and they said, I didn't even realize there was this Christian underbelly on Twitch, right? And they're a member of our church. They're currently the furthest away member. They're in Guam and they're currently the furthest away member of our community in small groups, plugged in, living on a military base in Guam. And they're like, I just didn't even realize that this existed.

Bootstraps boot said for me, it's getting away from and having a safe space from the sexualization of gaming culture. So it's more about safe content than it is about the safety and numbers. Safety in community. And I think a lot of people come and they are looking for people of connection and they've lived a very dualistic life where they've had their friends and their community that are gamers and then they've had their church and their friends that are Christians. And those two things very, very rarely meet. And so when people find the Christian community on Twitch, they gravitate towards all of these communities and all of these streamers. They jump from one to the next because it is this beautiful blending of two realities in their life that typically were forced to be separate. And now they come together sometimes in a really beautiful way.

There's a really, there's some very dark sections of gaming culture and there's some very dark corners of the internet. And so I think when they find this opportunity to find the hope of Jesus also mixed in with something that they've loved and now they're embraced by, and instead of saying I play D&D and they get exiled from their church, um, they are actually embraced amongst a community for the things that they love, the things that make them unique, and the things that they're passionate about. They find a great deal of comfort in it. And that's what I have found at least in leading Lux, which is missional in its emphasis. But you know, we're not looking to, I don't think I've ever even thought about like the fifty-fifty rule that Jade sort of holds as a standard for his community. And I love that he does. It's not one that's like in the back of my mind very frequently. But in my experience, when talking with Christians who are gamers who are in the space, who are frequenting a lot of the communities and streams, it has more to do with the fact that man, they finally found a place that they've never found inside the church where they can be embraced and accepted for the things that they genuinely love to do. And now they're finding a place where the things that they love to do and the faith that has impacted and the man Jesus who's impacted their life dramatically can come together in a beautiful way. And that's been quite cool. It's been quite cool to watch. And then it's been cool to see people come along who aren't Christians who could care less, but man, if the online world isn't toxic and they're just looking for a place that's welcoming and friendly and loving, and what they're finding is that's true inside of a lot of these Christian communities, which is really cool to see as well.

I mean, there's folks in the Lux chat right now who don't believe what I believe, but they're part of our community and they're part of our church because they've found, I think they found that they've been embraced, welcomed, and cared for amongst our community despite not believing what we believe. Sure, but they found a home there.

Let me ask this, and this may be a loaded question and would love perspectives from both of you. Both of you are independent of the church. Jade, at some point I want to ask how you actually make money, but that'll be another question in a second. But for first, I don't, I know neither do I. It's okay, it works out. Lord willing. But how does the physical church get into this space? Like, so you know, Mark and Jay, you both described eloquently how the physical church is not in there and you are working hard to create a culture, to create an environment to allow people that have been misaligned by the church to find comfort and to represent God to these people that have been absent from it because the church doesn't understand. Does the church need to understand? Can the church understand? What does the church need to do? Or does it need just to lean against pioneers that are planting in this space and we duplicate more of you? Like, do we bring the established church into this culture or do we just plant like crazy and then start to empower new wineskins to work in this new environment? I'm just curious what y'all's gut is. Jay, why don't you go first?

Okay, um, you know, we're the church, you know? I mean, if we say does the church need to do this, yeah, we are. Like, that's why I'm here. Um, so I, what would be, yes, it would be nice if established churches that were, um, the thing is, like, especially maybe as a missionary, it is very, very difficult to get funding. Yes, that's very hard. It's not something that I, yeah, whatever, you know, um, that's gonna be hard because the Christians that I talk to don't feel like you're talking enough about God on your streams. You know, I went on your stream like for five minutes and I didn't hear you mention God. And like, um, and then on the other hand, of course, the atheist is like, dude, like, you just talk about God all the time. Like, it's really hard to watch your streams because you're just praying like all the time. And I feel like I can't just like have it in the background while I'm doing other things because like, man, like, I can't go five minutes without you talking about God. And it's like, I hear that from both sides, which is why I think the fifty-fifty thing is important and also like so difficult.

Um, so yes, I would say maybe if there's people that are already doing it, then just go ahead and support those people that are doing it because it will multiply naturally. You're going to find, like, I'm, I don't think the church multiplying people doing it is probably going to be very effective. Me finding people that are in the space where I already am, multiplying and doing it, that's of course we're going to find those people because they're already there. They're already aware of it. It's already an important part of their, um, they're saying, uh, so yeah, if we want to multiply, it's just going to kind of happen naturally from the support of those that are doing it and then being able to, uh, I, I'm, but the little that I have, I'm already trying to support other people. But yes, I do think that as far as like church goes, like that's why I had to maybe I didn't get sent as much as I wish I had been sent, you know, by my church. But uh, why I quit my job at a church and moved to what I'm doing now because I needed to, um, like as the church, like I saw the need and uh, it's where God sent me. And so, um, you know, that as a church, like we're doing it. And um, I don't feel like we're super separated from the church or that I'm like hurt necessarily by the church. It's just like I wish they understood sometimes. But um, you know, it wouldn't feel as much like Acts if it if they did. So uh, it's just sort of uh, just keep moving forward. That's how I feel about it.

I want to ask a follow-up question on that, but I want to give Mark, did you have an opinion on the earlier? I would just say that I wish that the church would recognize the validity of the space and see the impact. I mean, a lot of what we're doing at Lux is because we love the people, but it's also to build a case study to show the physical church like this is for real. Like real lot. Like last night, I in post-service, I counseled a woman battling cancer and prayed with her. I ministered to a woman battling mental illness and prayed with her. I ministered to a young guy whose church is splitting and prayed with him and met someone from Guam and a new couple who's dealing with church hurt who found our church, right? Like those were real relationships. Those were real things that was happening. And I wish the church would see that. And instead of saying, oh, something's happening on Twitch, we can post our service there this Sunday, we can multi-stream, I wish they would find people like Jade and say, every bit of funding that we would have put into multi-streaming, we're gonna put into this guy because he's a person who actually understands the culture and understands the people and understands the language and can connect with them and we can't. Like, I wish the church would hear that and they would begin seeing people like Jade very similar to how they would see the missionary that they're supporting in Zambia. And we have people that we support in Africa and we support Jade because we believe that both of them are equally valid ministries and equally valid missions.

And if I had, if I could write a letter to the church, I would say you're missing out on the biggest nation on the planet and one of the least reached nations on the planet. And there are, the harvest is plentiful and the workers are starving. So would you come and feed some workers with me? Like, would you come in and help feed some workers? Because if you would put even a fraction of the financial resources that you put into performing the Sunday morning service into a handful of streamers, you could make them production-wise in the top one percent of people on Twitch and allow them to gain traction and really begin to interact with people live. You can help them to train people in a sit, like there's so many resources that the church has that this space in particular needs. And guys like Jade need. And I wish that the church would recognize it and would quit arguing about the validity of digital space and start helping. Honestly, that's what I want the church to hear and what.

I want the church to do. Yeah, that's so good. And that actually really set up well the follow-up that I would have wanted to ask. And you know, in Saint Bear, in chat, Chad, he's been talking about—he's been saying the word "digital missionary" a lot, kind of walking through that. And you know, if the church would support digital missionaries in the same way that they would support missionaries in Uganda, you know, I think Mark you said Zambia. Uh, it's interesting you both are at least on the same. Zambia is in Africa. The other conversation is a different day. Yeah, my uh, I failed geography, but that's another conversation.

Hey Jade, and every time I ask you this question, I've known you for four or five—four years, five years maybe—we've been talking a long time. Every time I ask this question I get a different answer, so I'm really curious like, what, how you stand on this now? Are you a church? Are you a digital missionary? Are you a discipleship group? What are you?

Yeah, I mean, I think I'm probably the same place that I was last time, and it's probably where I'll land. Um, I let people use whatever words they want because, like, words are only helpful for defining things, and the reality is the people that I—the people that I really feel called to, like the fifty non-Christian, that's like the majority of my stream—um, those are the people who are not interested in a church. Like, the people I'm trying to reach don't want to go to a church, so why would I label it something that they don't want to go to? Um, you know, if I'm talking in like church world and it's like helpful for them to think of it that way, then sure, I want to do all the things that make your church effective and successful. Like, what does that look like? Um, what does that mean? Those are the things I want to do. Um, so rather than focusing on the—I mean, really, uh, pretty much what I just said was that I don't want to focus on the method as much as the mission. I don't want to focus on the method as much as the message, and that's what I focus on: is like, how can I make sure that people who have never had a chance to read the Bible before, don't plan to ever step foot in a church—how do I reach that person? How do I help that person understand that there's a God who loves them, cares about them, what's the best for them? And they're never going to get there by me starting a church.

I wanted to start a church for gamers, a physical church. That was the plan. And it was like through the process of realizing that no, I don't want to just reach Christian gamers. I really want to reach gamers who uh have the capability uh of love and have the capability of understanding that there's a God who loves them, but just have never been even introduced to that topic. And so that's really—I don't know, that's that's more so I would say missionary fits better probably for what I'm doing if I was going to put a like a bow on it. Um, I I feel better saying now missionary. Um, but you know, there's a lot of people that would say I don't go to church uh and I don't plan to, but you know, I'll hang out with you on a Saturday for three hours and discuss a chapter of the Bible while we play video games—for Games in God, you know, like that's the that's the time they do that. Okay.

So so let's focus on that person right there, because I I'm legitimately curious about this. Uh, you're hanging out with that person. Um, you uh, you share, you build a relationship, you share Christ, they come to Jesus, um, a better understanding of the grace that he provides. Now what does that person do? Like three years from now, are you trying to get them connected into a physical church? Are you trying to multiply them to do uh, to become the next Jade in another in another community to reach a different type of person via Twitch? And and that's you know, self-sustaining. Like, what what is the what is a mature version of your disciple? Where are they going to be?

Yeah, I think it's a per-person basis, you know, like there there are some who are definitely called into doing something else, maybe. Um, yeah, I I I I there's verses uh, whatever. I mean, I really like we could talk forever about calling because I I have a whole thing on that, but there I believe that um, like Ephesians 2:10, where your workmanship created in Christ Jesus do good work so you prepared in advance for us to walk in. I believe that there is a calling for each person that God's prepared you in advance to walk in. And so it's not necessarily as much of like, you know, how can I—let me let me just make sure that I'm going through all the steps to like put them into the thing that I think that they should fit in. It's more like I think God has prepared and is continuing to prepare people for something. And sometimes yes, maybe it's similar to what I'm doing, and other times maybe it's something very different from what I'm doing. And my—what I get—um, like my—when you say like, what what is a successful thing, I feel like three years from now for some people, like the successes that they are reading their Bible every day, like that that's that's already you know, the success might be that they're no longer addicted to drugs. Like the success might be that they're no longer um thinking about alcohol every second, you know, like that that's gonna look very different for different people. There's some people that were very far from the church growing up and then they quickly came into it and it's like they're growing and moving and they're helping other people as they're growing. Like it it just is going to look very different for each person.

And I think also it's being okay with the fact that you're planting seeds and that you won't always get to be the one to water it, that you won't always be the one that's there getting to see it grow. And that's been very difficult for me because I know that for many people I'm the first step. I'm like the first—the first time maybe that that person has seen that. And I think that's also very difficult for um just on a very real note uh, like a church is very lucky in that a church usually gets people who are already—if they're already willing to go to a church, that's kind of like, oh, if I could connect it—like people don't just walk into an Apple store, you know, like they already have seen Apple. They've seen their friends use it, maybe they've had a friend who had one and then they use their Apple phone, and through the process of seeing Apple used in a daily life, they were like, okay, maybe I'll consider one. And so then they like walk into an Apple store and the Apple employees selling them on this thing, and maybe the Apple employee feels really good about themselves like, wow, this person's really in for what I'm talking about. Like I'm such a good salesperson. But like they don't see all the things that it took for them to get into that Apple store. Like if there hadn't been that friend that was there talking with them and showing them how it was used and kind of convincing them that it's even worth using, especially when they were telling them over and over again how it's not worth using and how it's not worth their time, and they're saying no, it really is. Let me just show you. Let me just give me like five minutes and I'll just show you that it is actually worth using. Like it, there there's all of that. And a lot of times I'm more that friend who's just there like, no, it really is true. Like I I tell people on stream all the time, I'm a I'm a truth seeker before I'm a Christian. Like my goal is not to just be a good Christian, it's to know what's true and continuously over and over and again in my life I've recognized that the Bible is true. And so if that's true, then I then this is true, and we need to continue down that line of thinking. But for somebody who um has never um never never experienced it before, that's going to be very difficult.

In three years time is not very much time at all for somebody that's come from an entire life that's very different from that. And so I've been doing this three years and I have some friends who, when I met them, you know, maybe some even in chat right now, when I met them uh, they were they were not thinking about those things. And it's kind of normalized for me now. But yeah, like that's a that's a pretty short timeline. But I think it's also the amount of time that you get to spend with somebody through online is is quite a bit more than you would in person anyway, you know? You just don't get a lot of time with people in person, and I can spend hours and hours talking, and it's it's like, you know, that's just okay because we don't have to drive somewhere. We don't have to set up a time, you know? I I can just do this and you can come and hang out and we can have this conversation any any any point of the day, you know?

So what's the percentage of people that you stream, or let me ask you it this way—maybe not percentage, not the right answer. How many people have you met physically uh over the three years?

Um, yeah, I don't know. I don't know exactly how many I've um, a lot of it's like three specific events. I would like to do more, but again, like that kind of just costs money. Like honestly, if I just had—if I had more money, I would probably go meet more. Like if money wasn't an object, I could be much more like, hey, if you want—if you want to get baptized, I'll fly to where you are and baptize you personally. I I'm sure that would be a a cool thing to do, but like that just costs money. Um, so I think it's more of a um, yeah, and time. And yeah, it's a it's a thing. But my—I I've met uh everybody at Megazord, so that was a bunch of other streamers. I'd already met Aki and Peach in person. Um, he happened to be driving through, going towards—it's just random events like, oh, I'm gonna be in your area about—he was about two hours away, and uh and he was like, I'll be driving through because we're going to be driving for vacation. If you want to meet up, we'll have breakfast. So we went at a Cracker Barrel. Cracker Barrel and we all hung out. Um, people like that. I went to Japan with ten friends, uh five of which I'd never met in person before. And um and I actually spoke at a church in Japan and uh because I knew a preacher that started a church out there. And so I spoke at his church and we had a translator and they came. Um, all my friends, they're uh the five that I'd never met in person, um all of them were atheist uh or or at least agnostic. And they um all but one, because he was sick, came to the church. And it was just like that was cool. Um, got to got to do that. So there's lots of—there's lots of people that I've gotten to meet, but a lot of them are um, it's not like a planned—it's not like a planned thing. It just, if it happens, it happens. Maybe I'll go to like conventions and it'll get to meet people that way. But yeah.

So what is—we're wrapping up here, maybe one or two questions as we land in the plane. What's the biggest obstacle or hurdle you're trying to overcome right now?

Um, I mean, honestly, financial right now. Uh, I probably won't be able to be able to live where I'm living right now for very much longer. So that's uh, like that's definitely a thing. Um, I've been—I live in my uh my dad's basement because this church, the church that he preaches at, this is a parsonage. So this building is like uh allowed space for him, and this was an unfinished basement, like basically a garage, and I just like made it work and made it, you know, homey or whatever. So I'd say financial is realistically that's probably the most difficult as far as hurdles go. Um, as far as like relationally, um, yeah, I would say the how to—can how to keep it relational as it scales up bigger. Uh, because you can't necessarily make it smaller, and that's always been a thing for us. I think we're getting better at it um because we focus so much on the community and the and the set people that are

There that it's not just coming for me but you're coming for all the other people that are there and so if I'm busy because there's a huge raid, you know, we've had hundreds of people in there at a time when there's multiple hundreds of people talking at the same time, I can't read everything but people are able to talk with each other. They recognize each other in chat and I think that's a huge benefit and that's why I'm glad that there's lots of other streamers doing this too because I recognize lots of the people in this chat. You know, I've never been in this channel before and I know a good number of the people that are talking right now and so it's, I think that's, I think that's almost like I don't know, it's almost like the church is, uh, is not in the one thing but in all of the stuff, you know? There's lots of people in here that I can recognize. I mean, I could just point down the whole, I don't, I'm not going to point people out but we got Flack. I guess I will. Flat cap, you know, Genome Age. We, we, I can, I think about like Genome Age that I've seen on, uh, you know, YouTube or Facebook and like, and the ministries that are happening there and how he's helping another in other regards and I think about like Ukulele for Worship is in chat. I think about her streams and she does morning streams before she goes. Is Maria, she goes before, uh, she goes to work. She does her, does music and worship on stream and she does a Bible study. Like I mean, I think about all of these things and I don't think of them as like separate from even necessarily my thing. It's like we all get to do this together and I'm just kind of adding to the bucket of what everybody's doing and so that when I think about the church, I'm not even thinking about just me. It's like all of us. Like we're all doing it and it's a benefit for all of us to see this happen, you know? So yeah, you know, and I think for me that's the thing that's been, um, brought me the most joy is is seeing the collaboration, seeing the unity in, in a lot of the gaming, um, and you know, the VR Alice in the Palace is is in chat too and I know she's involved in the VR space as well and, and so it's not mutually exclusive. There's some overlap in both. Dude, are you thirsty? That was a lot of water you just chugged, man. Like, are you, are your kidneys okay? Everything? Yeah, that was, yeah, I always go drink water. Yeah, okay. Uh, hey, listen, Jake, if somebody wanted to support you, somebody wanted to send you money, like how, how do people actually donate, support, how do people give to Jade Earhart? Um, hi, Mark. The, uh, yeah, uh, I mean there's like there's a donation, there's a donation link on my stream in the about section. Is there like a URL because I'm doing this on podcasts? I'm giving this publicly. Like I'll put it in the show notes. Do you have something like that? If if you want to support me, uh, um, I don't know. I don't know if I have a thing like that. I guess yeah, I could, I should think about it. Okay, so I mean, is it PayPal? Yeah, I don't know. We can talk. Can you give me a PayPal URL? Is that like the same thing to do online? I, I think it is. My, my PayPal is Guy of God gmail.com but I think you have to do something else before you can, I don't know if you can give it that way or not, but anyway, maybe there's like a tag. Here's here's what I want to do. Uh, if somebody wants to support Jay, a text me directly. 484-324-8724. I'll put that, uh, put that in the show notes. 484-324-8724. You can text me at that number. Um, and I'm, I'm gonna work with Jake because we got, we got it, we got to figure out how to, how to dictate some help and, um, and like I said, financial is the most, the hardest part for me and I, maybe I, maybe that's the reason, well, maybe I'm not good at this part. I will, Jeff, I wanna, and hopefully this is okay to take it a step further. Look, Jeff knows a lot of people in the space who are doing what Jade's doing, are similar. We know Jade. I know a lot of people in the space are doing what Jade's doing. It's really, so let's just put it out there. If you are a church right now and you're listening to this and you're like, I could see our mission board getting on board with this, supporting something like this on a regular, regular monthly basis that goes beyond Stream Elements or PayPals or dropping by and leaving a couple hundred bucks. Is a one-time tip, but we actually want to have a high level of buy-in into what is happening here because we see that God is at work in it and we may not understand it, but we do want to be part of the narrative and the story that's being told, would you just reach out to Jeff or to me through the Church Digital Network, through the podcast, whomever? I'm sure there's an email and we'll help connect you to somebody like Jade or Jade himself who genuinely, this is their obstacle, right? It's a financial obstacle. They need to find support because the Church Digital and Jeff, like you, you have so many connections within the church world that a lot of these people who are just saying, I feel called to this community, I feel called to hit the go live button, I feel called to love on people, to tell them about Jesus and disciple them, they don't have their foot in this world. They don't have connection to the church and I've talked to streamer after streamer who's like, yeah, my church doesn't get it or yeah, my pastor doesn't, doesn't want to support it, but that's not the case for every church that out there and there's lots of churches who listen to this podcast on a regular basis who have enough interest in it that like, take it to your mission board, take it to your leadership team and say, we want to actually genuinely support, not just with the Church Digital's do because you should be supporting that by the way, but you should also be supporting some of these guys who are giving their lives to this community to love these people, a mission field that most churches don't even know that exists. So if you're out there, this is my plea, my vision cast, my, my, you know, my plug for it. Will help you get connected to the right people. Just reach out to us if you don't know what to do next.

100. Uh, love that. Hey, Jane, this has been a great conversation. You know, I even know Digital Church Network. We've, we've done some support with you and, and, uh, historically and, uh, man, I just, I love what you're doing. Uh, I want to see it continue on and, and we do need to figure out, we do need to find churches that, that can, can help financially sponsor, uh, the, the ministry that, that you're doing towards that and, and I want to see what you're doing continue to multiply, continue to, uh, to reach the people that you're reaching that, that honestly, you are only the, the people that only you can reach through that and so man, thanks for being faithful and diligent, uh, in, in this season and, and pressing forward when, when really, um, so few aren't. We're actually going to be hanging out in, in Expo in a couple weeks so I'll get to give you a hug and, and that's it's gonna be great. I mean, I probably see you like maybe once or twice a year and so looking forward to, yeah, like Jay, my Jade fix here in, in a little bit. So, uh, but for that, we're gonna, we're gonna wrap up. We're gonna land the plane. Uh, so I've been watching, we've had 15 or so here in DCN and, and Mark, we've had 15 or so. It looks like in, in Lux Digital Church as well. Like we, we ended up accidentally streaming this entire thing into your church for the entire broadcast. Yeah, oh yeah, we're live over there. I'm interacting with people. We're sending Samus over right now who wants to support Jade, sending Samus over right now from the Church Ditch, from, uh, from Lux Digital Church over to the Church Digital Podcast, uh, channel. All right, now there he is. There, there's Samus. There we go. Cool. So, so love it, Samus. Uh, thanks, thanks for coming over. Uh, but hey, we're gonna wrap up. Next week it's funny what Chad was talking earlier about Aki, um, at being a family guy who's doing a similar approach to streaming as Jake and so we're having a family guy, was not a reference to the TV show, a guy with family, uh, and so we're actually having Aki on the stream and on the podcast next week. Uh, we'll probably dig in a little bit into some Discord, into some mod as well because he's, he's strong in that space but look forward to the conversation next week. But for now we're gonna wrap up. We're gonna land the plane. So for Jade or Mark, this is Jeff with the Church Digital and Digital Church Network and evidently, uh, Twitch something or other. So thanks for jumping here on the podcast on the stream and we'll see on the next show. You all have a good day.