EP 327 - Questions - Pastor SouZy - Is Influencer a Bad Word?

Welcome to the Church Digital Podcast. Through this podcast we'll talk about the technological innovations within the church, but more than tech for tech's sake, we'll address deeper questions. Is discipleship making possible digitally? How should we approach the digital mission field? Can a biblically grounded church operate in digital space? And where does the metaverse and artificial intelligence fit into all of this? Whether you're a big or small church, the Church Digital's goal is to help churches like yours learn to be a multiplatform church digitally and physically. And now here's your host, Jeff Reed.

All right, ladies and gentlemen, we are set up and ready to rock and roll. On the screen now, bringing the man, the myth, the legend himself, Jeffrey. Let's go, let's go. Jeff, thank you so much, man, for wanting to connect today, talk a little bit about online church influence, all the good stuff. And I know that this is going to get recorded, slapped on you guys' YouTube channel and content. And so we'll let you do the host and we're going to play a little hot potato with the host. I'm going to talk right now as host for the live stream, get you guys all plugged in, then we'll kick it to Jeff. He's going to do the podcast interview and we'll go from there. But a lot of people are watching right now and they're like, "Yo, who's this legend with the crazy epic nerdy background?" So Jeff, let the people know, my man. Who are you? What's Church Digital all about? Talk for a little bit, man.

Oh man, yeah, excited about this. Thanks for letting me take over your show here. I reached out to Susie. I was like, "Hey, let's do an interview," and for some reason, instead of doing this on my stuff, we decided to do it on his, and it's more fun. I'm taking over. Let's go over Susie's show here. Love it. Yeah, so my name is Jeff Reed. Maybe seven or eight years ago, back in 2018, I founded the Church Digital. Long story on me. I was probably called to be a digital pastor back in 1992 as an eighth grader. I read the word, Susie. Were you even alive in '92?

I was born '91, so barely alive.

Barely alive. You were in diapers when I read the word "multimedia." You know, it's this merger of graphics, of text, and video. Yeah, and it was good. Back in '92, they were talking about it being distributed over this mysterious network called the internet. And immediately I just had this vision, this dream of how the church could utilize that. And no kidding aside, I've spent every moment since 1992 driven to help the church better understand that technology. Online Bible study I led was in the year 2000. I started a company called eBibleVerse.com when no church would hire me when I graduated from college in '99. Yeah, nobody would hire me. Surprise, surprise, to be a digital pastor. So I said, "Screw it, I'll do it myself," and started eBibleVerse.com. Forty thousand people. We were doing Facebook-like discussion walls and online sermons, video teaching files on like Windows Media. And I don't know if any of you were alive for like Real Networks. This is not back when they were like cutting video with like razor blades, although I did actually learn how to do that, but that's a whole other story.

But so yeah, man, I've been doing this a long time. We spun off the Church Digital recently to become a digital missionary sending agency, basically. You know, I look at guys like what Susie's doing, and it's like, "How can I help the next generation of digital church planters, of digital missionaries?" Yeah, connect with people, engage in community better. What does it look like to even do discipleship, evangelism, discipleship relationally in digital spaces? How do we equip and mobilize missionaries to go out? And so we're really working hard on a few things. This class, this generation of digital pastors and missionaries to succeed, and then also to help the next generation kind of come along. And so you know, when I look at Susie, Susie, you've been doing this twelve years at this point.

Ten. Just celebrated ten in December.

Ten in December, man. Like, you're one of the OGs, man. There's not that many who have been doing it that long, especially that are still around. Like, there were a lot that kind of tried early on and petered out and lost energy. But man, you've managed to keep it going. And so it's so exciting. But what I tell people is like, as this generation succeeds, so will the next generation. Like, if Susie doesn't succeed with XP Church, it's going to be so much harder to get another planter to come in and replace him. And so man, we're like all in on helping digital churches, streamers, gamers, you know, top to bottom. We can talk about virtual reality. We can talk about MMO games. We can talk about Facebook. You know, TikTok may be going away here in America, but it is still hugely popular globally. And man, it's a beautiful time to be alive doing ministry. And so yeah, if you're interested in becoming—I don't want to be like—if you're interested in becoming the next Susie, because I don't know if there can be another Susie, but we love working with people who have a vision of doing something different digitally to reach different people. Like, the buildings are going to reach the people the buildings are going to reach, but there are so many other people that are not going to go anywhere near a church building. You know, especially in this gamer space. We all know that. And so to be able to do ministry to reach people in that space, that's why we're here with the Church Digital. Love it, man.

And Jeff, I just love how long you've been at this, man. Like, a lot of people, they, I get that title a lot, which I'm very humbled by, like, "Like, the OG dude's been around forever," but the reality is like, as crazy as people thought I was when I started, I can't even imagine how crazy they thought you were when you started. Like, yeah, '92. Like, even people couldn't even imagine that had been possible.

Yeah, and I just, I love it. It was AOL 1.0, you know? Honestly, back then, '92, right? And you know, I'm looking at you, I'm a listen, I'll be honest here. This is the unfiltered version. I was a middle schooler. I'm not saying I did everything I should have done with the internet back then. Sure, AOL chat rooms were the cesspool. IMs were a thing. Spicy, yeah. But I saw that technology as a possibility. And you know, I could see through the cesspool, could see through the literal crap, yeah, to see potential for engaging. And there were friends who had tried. There were churches who were boycotting and angry because of the darkness. You know, and to be honest, like, we need the XP Churches. We need the virtual reality churches to shine a light in the darkness. We need this. But at the same time, to shine the light in the darkness, we've got to shine the light in ourselves, right? And we've got to recognize that, you know, this, the areas that we're doing ministry, this is a whole other conversation, Susie, but the ministry we're doing ministry in are by nature addictive. And so what is the what do the armor of God look like as a digital pastor in gaming space? What is the breastplate of righteousness? What is the shield of faith? You know, whatever the foot thing is that I can't remember, like, what is that? And how do we claim that? How do we utilize that in this space? Digital is so different. And Susie is a walking example of this. You are so different than, you know, the typical physical church pastor. And thank God, you know, twenty-five percent of Americans right now are engaging in physical church. One out of four. I don't know that's a bad stat. It was two out of four twenty-five years ago. So it's heading down and to the left here. But the heart of this is, is once again, Susie is gonna reach people through World of Warcraft. You know, most Christians are boycotting that because of satanic whatever. But Susie's going to reach people through that space that aren't going to go anywhere near those buildings. And same said of the other people that are here in this streamer in the Twitch space. And so everybody's got their ones that they need to reach that they're called to reach. You know, let's just help you get there and recognize the potential of it. That's all I'm saying.

Yeah, man, well, I appreciate your heart. I can do spiels all day long.

Yeah, we both, we could just go back and forth about all that stuff all day long.

Well, we will. Go ahead, hey, you, we'll kick it to you, bro. You can go ahead and start the video podcast. I just want to shout out to just a few people in chat. Do you have the chat open too, by the way?

I do not. Let me download up right now. I thinking I was gonna ask the people are waiting to be seen. Notice me, Senpai, they say. Yeah, man, my fault. I am not a Twitch guy. Like, I openly confess this to the crowd. I'm not a streamer. I just fake one. I just play one on TV. And so I'm honored and humbled here to be looking at this. So let me dial Twitch right now and we'll get there. Let's go. Go for it.

Yo, Bouie, welcome, brother. Good to see you, my man. Yo, Bad Guy, the dude, there is actually some people doing some stuff with metaverse, man. I know that Life Church also tried something for a little while. I don't know if they're continuing with that, but I know they were trying for a little while. Tall Skinny, welcome from New Zealand. JS Garding, good to see you. And Captain Jack in Photoshop, welcome, welcome, welcome, friends. You're coming in just in time. We are officially about to begin as soon as Jeff gets that chat open. The podcast episode, I'm going to go ahead and take a hat, a host hat off, pass it over to my man. He's going to start. I got everything recording on my end, so you're good. We'll go ahead and start the official episode the way he would normally do on his platform. Reason we're doing it this way is when he reached out, the time he gave that worked for him. I was like, "Well, that's during my normal stream schedule," so I was like, "Why don't we just do it on the stream, bro?" And friends, here we are. Jeff, over to you, my man.

Yeah, he literally said "brah" on Discord, and I was like, "Dude, really?" But it's okay. We're good. All right, hey, welcome to the Church Digital Podcast. I actually have no idea what number this is. Maybe 320? Okay, let's call it 327. If you are watching us right now on Twitch, we're hanging out on Susie Pastor Su's live stream. I was supposed to be, I'm gonna be traveling next week when I'm doing my usual stream. And so long story short, we're doing the stream early. And we've got some people hanging out with us right now on Pastor Su's Twitch. I am watching the Twitch stream now. You guys know, at least those that are familiar with me, I am kind of a putz around Twitch. And so thankfully I've got Susie running the reins here as we're doing this on his show. And I'm excited to dig in a little bit into XP Church and to get into the heart of Susie and to really talk a little bit about what influence and what an influencer or what that role is in digital ministry. And so Susie, Pastor Susie, one of the OGs of digital church, man, thanks for jumping on the podcast with us here.

Yeah, it's an honor, man. Jeff, always love getting to connect with you. I know we've connected multiple times in the past, and it's always good to connect with someone who also has like a shared passion for online space. You know, I'm used to people trying to convince me that I'm actually insane, which they might, maybe be a little bit accurate.

But really delegitimizing the idea of online ministry. So when you find someone with a kindred spirit, I just, it's always a great conversation. Hopefully it'll be valuable to those who are listening at home. I love it. What, one of one of your guys here, CPT Jack, just called me. Uh, hello there, Mr. Reed. Um, I don't know whether it'd be grateful for that or insulted, but uh, thank, I'm going to assume the best of you. Absolutely. Uh, with that comment, yes, exactly. And so if anybody else has got some comments or or or shaded insults, feel free to throw on my way uh right there.

I do try to keep an eye on on the chat, so excited to see uh what comes of that. And it is, it is really excited to be here uh here on Pastor Susie's stream. So let's open this up like, you know, I know you, um, we uh, you've been on on the podcast a couple times. We did a Giving Tuesday stream uh, you know, I've done I don't know, 300 plus of these episodes now. And so a lot of times it gets lost. Pastor Susie, you know, give us, give us a little, give us a two-minute version of your story.

Sure, yeah. So a TLDR, too long didn't read, version of me. My real name is Matt Susza. My wife and I uh grew up Massachusetts, attended North Point Bible College where we got our you know bachelor's degrees and had a vision of doing normal church. And to be honest, when we graduated, that was what we did. We worked at the typical church suit and tie, and for us, you know, I was suit and tie Sunday morning, gamer headset Sunday night. And God began to give me like a burden and a vision to reach gamers around the world. But I didn't really know what that meant. This was back in 2014, so live streaming was not very popular or normal back then. And I stumbled across a website, Twitch, that we're literally live streaming on now. And I just started playing games and literally while I was playing the games live, people would come in the stream and talk to me. And I would just be playing the game and sharing about the love of Jesus. And people started making decisions left and right. Like, hey, you know what, I've been, I'm hearing the gospel, I'm hearing the story of God's love, I want to be a follower of Jesus.

The issue was the only way for them to get plugged into a church would be literally for them to go on Google and just find the closest one to their house. And Jeff, I'm saying that, you can imagine already the horror stories. And unfortunately, as people were doing that and really, I mean, like taking a risk to go visit church, it still hurts me to this day that a lot of them, you know, they were walking in a church with like a Dungeons and Dragons shirt on. And as much as I hate admitting it, they were churches that were literally telling people like, you have to change a shirt before we'll let you come in here. And unfortunately, there were some people that had some good experiences, but we had, the way I put it, we had more horror stories than testimonies.

And so really, Jeff, kind of like what you said about like you and church digital, it just reached a point where my wife and I were like, if these gamers can't find a church they can be a part of, I'll make one for them. And so then in 2016, after about a year and a half of just streaming, we started a fully digital expression of online church. And for almost nine years, nine years now, we'll celebrate nine years next month, March 23rd, we have been sharing God's love and making disciples of gamers online. It's been a wild journey. We love it. Lives have been transformed. We've had a ton of fun along the way. And it, we're definitely still learning as we go. But that was really the why behind why we started our church. It was just a need we found, a solution we created it, and now nine years later, here we are.

Yeah, that's that's beautiful. By the way, I'm doing um a podcast with Amanda stream with Amanda here. I think in a month or so talking about why there are not more women in in digital ministry. I've got I've got her, I've got um one of our one of our children's ministry catalyst and uh a digital pastor um that that runs like a a thousand person church on uh on uh WhatsApp. And so it's uh all all female. Really really excited to see that. I I've had some of those conversations with Amanda in the past. And and anyway, more information on that over on uh the church digital and our Discord. By the way, uh if you're interested in connecting on on any of anything on us uh discord.thechurch.digital, that'll get you to our our Discord channel.

But Susie, let me let me ask you, you know, right, we're gonna get into some meat here in a minute. So I'm gonna throw you a softball here. Um, what advice you've been doing this nine, ten years, ten years, nine years as a church streaming kind of in there, totally get the story. Physical churches weren't reacting to gamers, so screw it, I'll do it myself. Um, what advice would you give to somebody starting out right now? What is the thing that you learned nine years the hard way that you can you know help somebody you know get quickly?

Yeah, probably the biggest piece of advice that I've learned that I wish I had done early on, Jeff, and I think you mentioned it, forgive me, I forget if it was after we started the recording or not, but you had mentioned it like everyone's got to find their one. And and today I kind of describe it as like really like identifying like who is the target audience that like you're trying to reach. Early on, a lot of people, and I think we do this in the church because obviously like the truth of God's love, the gospel, is I believe for everybody. And so we try to throw these really really really wide nets. But then you realize like, especially when it comes to content and online ministry, when you're trying to just reach everyone, you actually end up really reaching just like a very few. And so you got to really kind of get like, you got to fine-tune like your niche. Who is the type of person you're reaching? What are their interests? What pain points and frustrations do they have that you can create valuable solutions to them?

So for example, a big thing that I do in my stream on the Unity gaming side, which we can get into if you'd like, is like I'm a huge World of Warcraft player. So I get what it's like to be a World of Warcraft player. I get their frustrations. I get their pain points. I get the things they wish that they had but they don't have. And so because I understand their language and their feelings, I can then be like, okay, well, can I build something that every World of Warcraft player wishes they had? And so that I did. And a Discord called Unity Gaming now has almost three thousand people because we just found out what they wanted and now we just continuously add valuable solutions that are helpful to them. And that has relationally opened up so many doors for me to just connect with those people because what I'm doing is valuable to them.

And to be honest, for years I I think the only thing that was valuable that I was sharing was the gospel. And the gospel is obviously the spiritual side of things. But the reality is like Jesus didn't just do spiritual ministry. Like he did physical ministry. Meaning when people were hungry, he gave them something to eat. And I think the real niche side is, okay, I'm a Christian, I want to create some content online. Sure, you're gonna, everyone's going to do the spiritual side, but what is the food that you're trying to feed to the hungry people? Who are those hungry people? What kind of food do they even like to eat? Because if you try to feed someone something they don't want to eat, like you're not going to, why won't they eat this food? It's like, well, that's the last thing that they ever want to eat.

So like identifying who your audience is, like what are pain points they have, and then adding some valuable solutions to them. It took me probably eight years to figure that out. And uh and I wish I had figured it out sooner. But you know, we're a learning journey. But this, no point, that's why I love what you're doing, Jeff. How can we make all the mistakes for you and then how can you just learn the best? They say best way to learn from your mistakes is to let someone else make them for you, make somebody else make it.

Yeah, so like that's probably the biggest takeaway that I would have. I mean, there's a lot else in there we could talk, but if you're asking what's the one, that's probably it.

Yeah, I mean, that we we we say the the saying a lot. Pioneers get shot, settlers get rich. And so you know, you have been the guy who's uh you know, paying the early adopter tax. You're you're washing up on on the beach uh the island is filled with uh palm trees and you have a machete. And so you're out there, you know, Lewis and Clarking the situation, carving the road. Somebody else is going to follow behind you. And uh we we'll benefit from your lessons. So thank you for your sacrifice.

Want to kind of just say that up front. Um, innovation, it's it's, we, innovation's very hard uh especially in the church space because the church by default is uh is the antithesis of of innovation. It's interesting that, that was it's one of the lessons that that I've learned here um after about twenty five years that I didn't know like and that's that was why we shifted towards more of a of a missionary model than than trying to be a digital church planting model which we had been for a significant amount of time because missiology is is very aggressive.

Yeah, missiology, you know, uh, everything short of sin, let's do it for the kingdom, you know, they will always lean towards uh experimenting, trying new things, exploring new areas. Um, you know, and empowering others to do ministry. There's multiple occasions built in the missiology absolutely. It's the it's the the ecclesiology, the church, in my opinion, that that has really struggled uh over, and this is not even like a a a two thousands thing or even a nineteen hundreds thing. Like you you go back to the the the printing press. And and he was he was actually considered a heretic because when the printing press was was designed and they were like printing Bibles, well, that put priests, scribes out of a job uh and and they were homeless. And so the inventor of the printing press, arguably one of the greatest inventions in in a millennia, sure, um, was was considered a sinner because his device had affected the church in a negative way.

Wow. And so that's a lot of the perception that that we are still maybe operating in today. That being said, Jesus still loves his bride. And and there's there's purpose and roles for even in that, which kind of segways into this. I I didn't realize that, but the next question I ask actually fit really well with that question. Um, let's let's let's get into this. So you planted the church, XP Church, instead of doing it by yourself. No, I get it. You're like, hey, you know, we're trying to get kids connected to churches, people connected to churches. I don't assume they're underage because yeah, thirty seven, yeah, it's thirty three. Yeah, actually, they're not there. There's a lot of, even even Captain Jack, who you were like, called me us to read. Captain Jack is actually around your age. He actually might be older than you. Captain Jack, I I'll call myself out right now. I am forty seven years old sitting in this chair. If you're older than me, he's older than me. Captain Jack, I'm ninety nine percent sure he is. Yeah, yeah, he's fifty. Yeah, yeah, he's fifty. He just said all right, all right, cap, sir, it is a pleasure to meet you, Captain Jack. That's awesome.

But this this gets down to the, yeah, I mean, this is the the the heart of this is is that you tried to get people connected to churches and they were not receptive. So you built a church on your own. Sure, why even go through the effort of doing a church? Like, for you, what was what was the win? What was the reason? What were you, what did you see in a church that you felt like needed to be replicated for for?

The people you were connecting with, you're asking me to clarify the question for me. Like, why do a church versus doing another model of ministry? Not doing a church, just building relationships, you know, streaming only. Like, you would go an extra mile by creating a church. Yeah, yeah. So was there something that just streaming under Pastor Susie wasn't doing? Why even bother doing the XP?

Yeah, well, I, the reason I really felt called to do the church. When, that's I guess the number one answer, like I felt called of God to do it. But number two, like, why do a church rather than just like stream and just keep sharing the gospel and teach what about the Bible? And I'll be honest, that would have been significantly easier to just turn on my camera, do my thing, and then that's it. But I really feel called to like start an online church for gamers because, one, first of all, I believe that online gaming is a massive community, and I think that's one of the things that a lot of gamers lack. There is this almost illusion that gaming, because they call it the Gaming Community, just automatically is a community because you're surrounded by thousands of other people. Like, for example, when I play World of Warcraft, running around in this world and I see hundreds of other people, and we might call ourselves a community, but if I don't talk to them, don't know them, don't like, we're not, we're just strangers who all happen to be in the same place.

And so where I'm getting at is I really believe that gamers like really longing for community, and I didn't think that by just me creating content, putting out some YouTube videos, even live streaming, would create the level of community and growth that they needed with each other. Like, live streaming, even though people call it a community, and depending on the individual stream, it can feel like a community, but it's mostly just a community between the people interacting with the face on screen right there. There's little interaction with each other, and sometimes there can be, but it's normally on a not on a deep level. It's normally not hard to do. Yeah, they're not really getting to know each other. They're not sharing life struggles together. They're just talking to the streamer, and nothing wrong with that. But I had identified that there's a deeper need. People need more than just an encouraging guy on the camera. They need each other.

And I really felt that the church model would not just bring people to me, but it would bring them together to grow in their faith, to talk about their life struggles. Like, I just believe life and gaming are better together. And so the church model for me, I really wanted to give people like everything that the body of Christ, the church experience, when it's done in the right, healthy way, has to offer. And I didn't think that just watching my stream would give them the same level of spiritual community and like human interaction. And I really, I just, I felt driven to give them more than just me on screen. And hopefully I've been able to accomplish that in some way.

That's beautiful. That I mean, that echoes a lot of what we see and what we do as well. It's interesting like I've talked to with streamers, and you're a better streamer than I am, so I have a hard time saying this like quantifiably, but next time I say this I'll say, well, Susie said this, and he's been doing it for a decade. You know, it's streaming is really, it's more of a connection level. Social media is really more of a connection level where it's one person who, yes, is talking to a large amount of people, but it really is, it's a one-way communication. Like, I mean, I can make fun of Captain Jack over here for being older than me and calling me sir, but it's really, you know, Captain Jack, what motivated you to get out of bed this morning? Captain Jack, what's the last Bible verse you read? Captain, like, it's hard. You can do it. Yes, I'm not going to say it can't be done, but it is hard to get into a disciplemaking type of relationship utilizing some of these connection tools.

Yeah, now, you know, there are community tools like Discord, like WhatsApp, like I mean, even Facebook group is capable of with asynchronous community to really dive in and to start to develop deeper relationships in digital space. And so you, you know, quantifying that as a church and taking advantage of Discord and some of these things that we've seen, like it's really interesting how you're starting to move beyond an influencer and starting to be more of a person who's not just at connection level but community. Not just gathering followers, but using the followers to build relationships.

Yeah, but by the way, arguably, you know, Jesus had this model as well. You could look at Luke 6, where it's one of the feeding of the thousands, and, uh, five loaves, two fish. You know, one of those stories, and Jesus was doing signs and wonders, had a throng of people following him. Yeah, and it was time for dinner, so Jesus does the magic, you know, does the miracle with the food and the fish and the bread, and all of a sudden everybody's full and they go to bed. Well, the next morning, Jesus wakes up early, takes the twelve, and goes off somewhere. And you know, later on that morning, the crowd wakes up and says, hey, where's brunch? Let's go get that Jesus guy to go do the thing again. So they go after Jesus. There's thousands of people at this point going to find Jesus so that they can get food. And what does Jesus do? He starts saying things like, eat my flesh and drink my blood. I mean, he's literally using conversation. He's engaging with people for the purpose of building relationships. But the relationship idea is scaring away people. And when people actually start to listen to what Jesus is saying, was it Luke 6:66, I believe, literally it says that even some disciples walked away from Jesus that day.

And so the idea is not to amass these large followings. Susie, I just, I respect you so much because you came from this organically when nobody was saying this. It's not amassing this mass amount of people. It's getting those people into a community and building a relationship with them, and through that relationship, evangelism, discipleship, building trust. Like, that's the meat of this idea of digital ministry and digital church. And you were like, I don't think you can really appreciate how much of a pioneer you were. But this, you know, if I look at the landscape nine, ten years ago, ain't nobody thinking this way, man. But you were one of the pioneers in that space.

Well, and I'll be honest, Jeff, I had to learn that through experience too. When I first started, especially seeing the mass number of results you can get by live streaming and making clips and stuff, like so many people would watch the live stream that it was hard for me to justify doing anything else like because of the sheer volume of numbers. And then over the years I learned like I'm really reaching a lot of people, but I'm having a shallow impact on a huge amount of people. Yeah, and what I had to learn is like I have to shift the ratio which I spend live on stream creating content so that I'm not just having a shallow reach to a large group of people, but I'm having a deeper impact to a smaller group of people.

So to be honest, even like these days, it's actually counterintuitive to like what are the best tips and tricks to grow as a content creator. Where like, instead of certain nights of the week where I'm streaming and creating content that would draw a crowd, I'm actually offline in the Discord, like spending time with people. It is not a tip and trick you want to follow if you want to like, if you want to grow and reach masses and get more subscribers. But it will allow you to have a much deeper impact with a smaller group of people. Yeah, and that's what Jesus did. Like, Jesus invested. Sure, he did. He had moments where he reached the huge crowds, but a majority of his life was spent with small group of people, really impacting them. And I even, over the years, have adjusted the way I do things to match that model that you're talking about now.

Yeah, is Seth Godin on your radar? Do you know who that is?

Uh, I don't believe so. But then call me out live on stream. No, sorry, that was embarrassing. I apologize.

Hey, let me rewind thirty seconds. Hey, there's this guy named Seth Godin. He is a New York Times bestseller, has written forty some books. Arguably, he's one of the thought leaders. He is a thought leader, but arguably one of the loudest thought leaders on marketing in America.

Oh, cool.

And, yeah, so somebody went on Seth Godin's podcast, uh, right before COVID, 2019, December. This podcast is called Akimbo. Okay, and somebody asked Seth, hey, Seth, how do I get my message heard around the world? So the top marketing brain on the planet, arguably, replies to this request by saying, a billion people don't care about anything you have to say. Absolutely. You'll appreciate this because you've actually been living this, Susie. A billion people don't care about anything you have to say. If you want to get your message heard around the world, you've got to think smaller. Okay, so we're supposed to think a hundred million, ten million, one million, a hundred thousand, ten thousand. How small are we supposed to think? And Seth Godin, the top marketing brain, says, if you want to get your message heard around the world, you craft a message specifically for someone, get that person to hear it, understand it, and get that person to tell someone else.

Like, this is not some church guy. This is not some, by the way, he's not even Christian. I'm pretty sure Seth Godin's Jewish. But what he's encapsulated here is how Jesus built the church two thousand some years ago. Hey, you know what? I'm gonna pour into my twelve, and then I've got these seventy-two that are, by the way, Luke 6, the ones who didn't run away from eat my flesh, drink my blood. That was the core group of seventy-two, the twelve and the seventy-two are the reason why we have the church today. Absolutely. Jesus didn't build off of the thousands. He didn't build off of the mega. He built off of twelve and seventy-two. He figured out how to craft a message for individuals and then trained them on how to craft that message for others, which got us to where we are today.

And, uh, and Susie, your idea of, hey, you know what, we got to narrow this down. It took me eight years to figure this out. Find my persona. Find the person that I'm reaching. You try to reach everyone, you reach no one. If you try to reach someone, oh my gosh, you're gonna find you're gonna reach so many of that person more than you even think are out there. And these, man, these are those hard lessons of digital, you know? Digital, you want to, than big, that iPhone that you've got in your pocket, I can press a couple buttons and I'll be able to reach a billion people. They don't give a crap. Oh yeah, it's not. They are not interested in you. You've got to think smaller and reproducible, you know? Things like, is it better to be a million person church or a hundred thousand churches of ten?

Yeah, we wrestle with that all the time over here. And in my opinion, actually, Susie, what's yours? Million person church or a hundred thousand of ten? Where do you land on that?

There's so many variables that would, there's no wrong answer by the way. I feel like I'm setting you up. What's your take?

There's so many variables that go into that question, but I would lean more towards the hundred thousand of ten.

I would, yeah. I think there's, now, the million does have a lot more power, a hundred thousand, and influence. A hundred thousand is more agile. It's easier to contextualize and adapt. You're a name, you're not a number. But it's that contextualization piece is what really makes us excited because I mean, you can.

You can do a U, a, a, wow church. You can do, um, I mean I don't know what else. I know like Jack on video games, you can do a rival church, you can do black, uh, Black Desert Online, you can do Rush, you can do Final Fantasy, uh, you can do, um, uh, GTA. Man, listen, I would love to see somebody. I know VRMMO Church did some experiments with GTA. I would love to see somebody take a serious stab at a GTA church because there's community there, and a GTA church is, listen, I am crazy, you're right, a GTA church is gonna look different than it would in normal spaces, but that doesn't make it bad. I would argue you could actually have a pretty decent ecclesiology in a GTA online community. I think it's worth giving it a shot. I mean, what's, listen, one day I will stand before God and say, okay, Jesus, tell me where did I screw it up? I mean, I'm thinking so radical, I'm doing so much stuff outside the box. I'm looking at scripture and I'm reimagining what that means and how to do it in different contexts. I guarantee I've effed it up somewhere, but the heart of this is that by doing what we're doing, Susie, by doing what you're doing, by rebelling against this, my gosh, how many people over the past nine or ten years have taken steps of faith? Yeah, have gone deeper in their relationship with Jesus? Like the footprint that you're leaving behind in this world through XP and all the ministry over the years is huge, huge. Like we've got to acknowledge, by doing something different, by doing this, we're reaching people that the buildings are not reaching. I don't remember who said it, but a quote that I love is, if we do what we've always done, we'll get what we've always gotten. And yeah, the reality is it's insanity, right? The church today, like the results we're getting, we don't want to stay on that trajectory. So if we just keep doing what we've always been doing, we're just going to keep getting what we've always been getting. So we either do something or die trying. Yeah, we're, um, it's interesting. I'm seeing some comments in here about, um, somebody said they're gonna rock up to church with my AK-47, a private plane. Okay, maybe not that radical with the GTA, but at least in the video game it's okay. Don't do that in real life, please. It does not. Jeff is not advocating for doing that in physical space. Um, but the idea of a metaverse church like that is an untapped reality. Yeah, for sure. Uh, and I say reality in a very true word. Like, uh, it is arguably one of the largest unreached people groups right now, and to be honest, it is ripe. It is literally, I mean, they don't call it VR Chat for no reason. People want to talk in VR Chat. I actually had a friend of mine. He shared Jesus over two thousand times in virtual reality. Would go up to people in VR Chat and just start a random conversation and start talking about Jesus. And I asked him, I was like, how many times did you get up bombed over the span of the years when you did this? How many times? And he's like, I didn't keep count, but not as many as I would have thought. And it's like, how many relationships? And he was still talking to people and still doing ministry and connecting. Like there's, it's a relationship platform. And what you're doing in World of Warcraft and streaming and Twitch and all of this digital ministry effectively is building relationships. Yeah, which is to your point, it's a little countercultural to the idea of an influencer because an influencer does not necessarily build relationships. An influencer is, um, driving influence. An influencer is trying to, and forgive me, Susie, like help me here. This is why I'm here. Sure. I'm wrestling with this idea of an influencer is trying to bring fluence unto themselves, but a relationship, I'm seeing, is more of somebody who is trying to give, somebody who's trying to contribute, somebody who's not collecting but somebody who's releasing. Do you have any words or any ideas or thoughts on this? Maybe the tension between influencer and what we're talking about? Like, what do you think?

Absolutely. So I think, I think one, I think sometimes the word influencer gets a lot of hate because I think people have a one-sided view of what an influencer is. And a fortune that is because I think it's been misused a lot. People definitely do use social media for the sole purpose of building their own platform, for the sole purpose of, I've seen what happens. People can get rich, I can get a lot of fame. People build it for themselves. That absolutely does happen. But I think it's an improper use of the word because the reality, like to truly influence, I mean it can be done in a negative way, but to influence is like the goal of the consumer in mind. Like to influence is to be giving. Now, if you are giving something negative or positive is up to you, but the influence, like the art of influencing, like shouldn't actually even have anything to do with the person who's influencing. It should all be with the end goal of like the person in mind. So absolutely, do people use social media for selfish reasons? Absolutely. But like when I think of the role of an influencer, it is to step into the lives of the people who are watching your content and to give, to add value into their lives. Whether you have a keenly defined message that you're trying to share, a way of thinking that you're trying to get into other people, a message you're trying to spread, it should be all about like what does the consumer, what does the audience, what does the community get out of it? And uh, I think sometimes we hate on the idea of influence because we've seen it misused. But the reality is if we hate on anything we've seen misused, we would just hate everything. We would just write off. We would write off church because church is, I've met some of those people by the way. They do exist. And I think they're haters. I think the platform of an influencer can be incredibly powerful if it's used well. But again, I think churches, we do this. We see one thing not being done well and we write off the whole thing. And uh, I think we can really redeem what it means to be an influencer if people would step into that role. And that's why I'm so passionate about what you're doing. So I'm like, we can help equip people to not keep doing it the wrong way so many others have done it, but how do we use it the right way to make a positive difference and influence the world in a positive way?

Beautiful. Making a positive difference and leaving the world in a positive way. So you're using your influence in a positive scope. Uh, it's interesting. I've got Pastor, literally his name's Pastor Influence. That's interesting. Well, time, sir. That's our community pastor. Yeah, he's got a quote. Leadership is influence, nothing more, nothing less. John Maxwell. Very good. Uh, yeah, love me some John Maxwell. That's really good. So let me have this as a followup, Susie. Um, and you know, I know you, we've had a lot, we've had lots of conversations. Um, you're using the platform, you're trying to do what you're doing for positive. I also know as a guy who's trying to make money in doing ministry in the space, it doesn't, it's very hard. Let's just say it that way. I'm gonna have the conversation. I don't know if you have publicly, but ain't nobody doing digital ministry and digital church to get rich right now. It is, it is. Pioneers get shot, settlers get rich. And you know, guys like guys like Susie and me in digital virtual space, it's not happening right now. And so you know, there's a little birdie on Susie's shoulder that's saying, you know, sign the big contract. There's a little birdie that's saying, you know, uh, get as many followers as possible, not share that influence with others, don't platform others, do it for yourself because you know, building your castle is how you make money. But what Susie is suggesting is actually not about castle, it's more driven towards kingdom. Yeah, the treasures are not in this world but are in the next. How do you balance the tension as a guy who's, I'll put words in your mouth, that's struggling? You're trying to figure out how to make ends meet, not only for you but for a whole organization. I feel that pain. Yeah, like how do you follow the tension? What will you do and what will you not do? Like I've seen some, I'm watching on Twitch, I've seen ads pop up. I think that's great. You know, no problem with that. So obviously there are things that you can do trying to monetize from a practical standpoint. I'm just from a, I guess from philosophical and a practical, how do you dance that line around influence and or building your kingdom, God's kingdom, and at the same time trying to build a castle?

Yeah, it's probably one of the hardest tensions back and forth over the years, especially as a pioneer, which is why I really hope to build something that other people can benefit off of without having to go through some of the things I've been through. So a little bit about my journey that was really difficult. Like I was one of, if not the first, like openly Christian gaming content creator on Twitch. There were other Christians at the time for sure, but you know, it wasn't something they talked about publicly and they weren't using their stream as like, I want to help more people know about Jesus. Like that's the purpose of me streaming here. And so when I was first starting, like I had a lot of growth because I was a unicorn. Like here's the only guy that exists on the planet doing this thing. And so all the people that believed in that mission, they all flocked to one place. So I'll be honest, like after a few years of getting my name out there, like I had a pretty decent amount of financial support because for all these Christians who wanted to invest their money into this mission, there was only one place to put it: me. Yeah. So early on, not at the very beginning, but once you know, especially after I was in the Washington Post, word got out. Yeah, uh, I be honest, I started doing pretty well for myself. And that was great. After all these years. And then I had a wrestle with like, am I going to hoard all this to myself and build my own life, or am I going to build the kingdom of God? And so as more and more people started becoming Christians who were also doing something similar, I really had to like sit down and like have an honest conversation with God and like, God, help me to not be selfish because I feel this tension of like, if I start telling other people that there's more options out there, they might actually go there. And I, they might actually go there because I'm not naive enough to think that I'm the funniest, the best, the anything. At one point it's like, you're just the only option we got, brother. You know, like so we're here. And I had to reach a point where I've just, I've not come to build my kingdom. Like I've come to build the kingdom of God and to share and disperse amongst other people. So I'll be honest, when more Christians started doing it and I would promote them, I would watch my subscriber count go down because I would watch people like, hey, Susie seems to be taken care of. Let me take my ten, twenty, fifteen dollars a month. Let me give it to this guy instead. And as more and more and more and more and more that happened, I just, I just had to get along with God and be like, Lord, what's the level of sacrifice that you're calling me to do to share what I've built with others? And I think honestly, I think that's one of the reasons why God has allowed me to

Last this long because I've been in it for His kingdom. If I had been in it for myself, I probably actually would have been shut down a long time ago. But because I've continued to share, given it'll be given unto you. So because I've continued to share my influence, my platform, my viewers, and my income with other people and entities, I think God has blessed and honored that. But it comes at massive sacrifice. Like, we don't have to go into details, but my wife and I have sacrificed a lot to continue to do this for this long.

Yeah, a lot of people have this illusion that I'm just rich and Suzie does really well for himself. I make like a third of the income today that I did like five years ago because all I did was stream all day. But again, I was having like small impact on a huge group of people. Today I'm having a bigger impact on a smaller group of people, but at massive financial decrease to my own life. But I've just decided, "Lord, I'll serve you in the way you've wanted me to serve you at whatever cost." It's up to everyone else what level of sacrifice that they can give. I get it if you got children or families, whatever. But if you want to have a kingdom mindset, you have to have a sharing mindset. And a lot of people don't want to share. They just want to build for themselves.

Yeah, there's, um, I'm gonna go non-biblical here with this. Ronald Reagan once said, uh, there actually funny, I've got a Ronald Reagan Funko Pop right here, literally on my desk, so I can grab it because I use this analogy a lot. Uh, Ronald Reagan, nice suit, uh, once said, "There's no limit to the amount of good one can do as long as he doesn't care who gets credit." And that, that really, you know, resonated with me early on when I was building out the church digital. Like, it was funny. I can remember I had digital pastors, well-known, globally recognized digital pastors, tell me when I bought the church digital, they said, "Jeff, that's a mistake. Don't buy the church digital. You should be building this under Jeff Reed dot com," and, uh, and building it, you know, under my name. And I always felt like to create, and my dream of what we're doing is a global digital movement. Like, I had an open office this morning, and uh, so I jumped in Google Meet and put in Discord and WhatsApp. "Hey, I'm here if anybody wants to come in and talk. I'm here." And uh, and I had four people come in. One was from the West Coast of Florida, probably an hour and a half away from me. Sure. One was in Nigeria. One was from the southern Sudan, and one was from Czechoslovakia. And they're all talking about digital discipleship. And I'm, you know, talking to them, and they're in, you know, different processes of going through the church digital's, you know, equipping systems. Yeah. And so like, it's crazy exciting. But I always had this vision that the church digital is going to be bigger than me. Absolutely. As a matter of fact, I wanted it to be bigger than me. And in seasons where I probably, you know, should have paid myself more, I was like, "Hey, let's bring on some more people. Oh my gosh, this guy's incredible. Let's get him on for this and this and this and this." And you know, I look around and there's, and not that I was, majority of it's, uh, by it's all bivocational, most of it's volunteer. But it's, and everybody's making pennies in the grand scheme of things. But there's like fifteen, twenty people that are involved in this thing. Yeah, at a high leadership level. Like, you've got responsibilities, and if you don't do it, this all crashes and burns. Yeah. Uh, and so it's really fun, you know, in the background to see all the different pieces interacting as we're getting more and more out globally.

Does, and I hesitate, it's funny, Suzie. When I sent you this question, I was like, "I don't know if this is too personal." You said it was okay. Like, it's weird for me to ask this question because it's like I don't, I really want to know but don't mean anything by this, like rudely. So the audience, don't send hate mail. Don't at me. Um, is Suzie, does XP go on without Suzie? Can Suzie exist without XP? Like, what is the tension, maybe, between the two orgs that you've got at this point?

So from a, can one exist without the other, there's definitely a lot that goes in that question. I think ultimately the answer is yes, but it requires some explanation. So does my stream exist with that XP church? That one I would say absolutely yes. Uh, first and foremost, it just existed first. Um, it also has significantly more of a larger following, larger reach. And that's not because I think like I'm better than a church or anything. It's just for the sole purpose of, I believe this principle you will find it across all social media. I give all of you a challenge. Go look up the most famous church you could think of, and then go look up its pastor. The pastor always has a larger social media following, unless he just doesn't have one. Why? Because people follow people, not organizations. They just do, right? Many of you, like, they just do. You probably have no interest in following Coca-Cola on social media. But if the CEO was like, "Hey, I'm gonna show like behind the scenes of my life and like what it's like to run Coca-Cola," you'd be like, "Oh, okay, well, that sounds a little interesting. I'll probably follow that." But you're not going to follow Coke. Same principle applies. People follow people, not normally organizations.

From the church, does XP Church exist without Suzie? I think at one point the answer would have been absolutely no. And that was a failure on my own leadership to not understand the principle of reproducing myself enough to be able to sustain something that when I'm not there, it'll do well. A big part of it also was I was so, like, it's tough sometimes to instead of always wanting to utilize your own gifts, to then sometimes be like, "How much do I sacrifice of my own gifts to then reproduce myself in someone else?" It's the age-old question of if a pastor has been preaching for twenty-five years, and after twenty-five years finally gets really good at it, should he then use all of his time preaching, or should he then use most of his time teaching other people and giving them practice to be able to preach and learn what he's learned? It's that dichotomy. And some people would say, "Well, I mean, seems like a waste to finally get good and like hardly ever do it." Well, but then if he doesn't train other people, then he'll be the last one who's good at it. It's like that dichotomy. And early on, I was very much like, "I feel like I've got a lock on this thing. I'm doing well at it. What a missed opportunity for me to not do a ton of it." And again, the extremes, it's not "let me do this all the time" or "not do it." It's like, "Let's find the proper ratio of utilizing my gift but also training others."

And so in today's world, 2025, XP Church today, not even years past, I would say I think that XP Church does survive without me. But it just, like any other organization, it doesn't survive without a leader, right? So if like I just step out and someone can't step in to help with like strong leadership, then it's not even a unique situation. I think it's just across the board. Any organization where there's no leadership, then obviously things are going to crash and burn. But that is currently the work that I am doing right now. How can I find the right ratio of not just me doing what I feel like I've gotten good at, but how can I also make sure that I'm training my own teams, our own systems and structures, that without me, like, they just continue? But with the caveat of, like, but of course, like, there does need to be a leader. If no one has the leader to follow, you know, be leading direction, then everyone's going in different directions. But I do think, I do think today more than ever, XP Church survives without me. But years ago, I think I did a very, very, very poor job of making sure that, "Hey, if I'm not here anymore, like, are the systems, the teams, and their leaders equipped?" And I wouldn't say it would pick up without a hitch. I don't think any organization picks up without a hitch. But can it maintain and do well in the future? Today, I think we're getting closer than ever before. I would say the answer is yes. But I think it's something because I took so long to start that it's not where I would want our church to be. Nine years.

Yeah, you're a little behind the eight ball. Once again, you were pioneering. Nobody was in this space. Nobody was advising you. You're on your own. And majority of people thought you were a nut job.

Yeah, that's true. And there are still a lot of people who think that you're a nut job. But there's probably a little more that are friendly to the idea. Uh, you know, it's interesting. Knights at the nerd tables talking about Mark Lake. I, you know, I've actually talked with Mark Lake a couple times about this and leading in this state. Um, and he actually, Suzie, would be a supporter of you in what you're doing and releasing that control and starting to platform and bringing others. And but there's always that tension. And I hear this anytime with individuals and organizations, digital missionaries, digital planners. "Well, it takes so much time to onboard and so much time to train. It's just easier if I do it myself." And that's, uh, well, let me ask you this, Suzie. Like, what's, just wrapping up here, like, "It's easier if I do it myself." Like, how do you respond in situations like that? What, you know, now nine years later, how do you respond to that question or that statement?

I think two things come to mind with that question. One is, "Is it easier for you to do it now?" I think a lot of times the answer is yes. But I think it's a shortsighted mindset in the terms of one, for example. Even if we just do some simple math, which I'm not great at, by the way, but if there is a twenty-minute task that you have to do every single week, and it would take you three hours, four, let's say five hours to train someone, I did that twenty-minute task at first. That seemed like, "Dude, it's not worth it. I'll just do it." But then if you would add that twenty-minute task up for the next year, you'd be way beyond that five-hour training period. So it's a shortsighted mindset, not only for just the getting the actual job or role that you're done, but it's also a short mindset in terms of like building legacy. And what I have always wanted from day one was to build legacy that would outlive me. God forbid the day that when I'm done, XP Church is no more. Obviously, my personal stream will be no more because it is literally my face. But from a church, kingdom, ministry standpoint, I want to build something that outlives me. And if I'm not willing to do the work to train and equip other people, it will not outlive me. But that was the mistake earlier on. I wanted it to outlive me, but I wasn't doing the things to actually make sure that it would outlive me. And so now there's been a whole shift in the way I live and operate. But I think the mindset of like, "It just be easier to do it myself," it is easier. But easier doesn't mean better, and it doesn't mean last longer.

That is so good, Suzie. You'll be doing this forever, man. A couple months away from, well, a couple months away from AI, like, taking your image and creating a virtual camera. And some spam bot will be talking you. And so, man, you'll be ninety years old. You'll be the old man walking around calling everybody else "sir," and I'm still running the show. But uh, hey, listen, it was a pleasure to hang out with you. Can I invite your audience? I didn't talk about this. Can I invite your audience to do something? Tell them where to find you.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. Hey, listen, I want to invite you all. We're doing something over at the church digital, and I would love for some Suzie peeps to join us in this.

So there's a huh, that's the first Susie Peeps. I never Susie Peeps. Yeah, that's first. Okay, you know, is that bad? No, the bad thing out of all the things my community has been called, I think that's the last one. Okay, all right, so here's what I want you to do. Um, we here's what we're doing. We are stopping at 10:02 a.m. every day to stop and pray for the digital mission field and digital missionaries. Here's why: you go to Luke into the harvest is plentiful and the workers are few. Stop and pray for the harvest and those that are working in the field. And so we are literally adopting that into real lives. And so like I've got on my smartphone here, I've got an alarm that goes off at 10:02 a.m. You can send me hate mail for this. It's literally MC Hammer's "Pray" the ringtone comes on at 10:02, and whatever I'm doing, any meeting, any conversation, any writing, I'm not streaming at that time, but whatever I'm doing, I'm stopping and I'm inviting whoever I'm with to join me and pray for the missionaries, for Susie and the others that are doing work in digital and in virtual space. And so I want to invite you to do that. There's more information. There's some resources and stuff over at the church.digital/pray. I don't know if any of my friends are on Chino. Mage, I think, was on Stall. Skinny Ke is on. If one you guys can type that in chat, the church.digital/pray. Thank you for that. I appreciate that. I forgot to log in, and so like I just I don't want to take the time to do that now, but it is really an opportunity. Even if you're working in the mission field and you want to share a prayer request that people can pray for you specifically, there's an opportunity to do that on that page as well. And so the church.digital/pray, check that out and join the prayer team as we're praying for God to do things beyond what we can do in digital and virtual space. Amen, amen. Love it, Jeff. All right, so I guess I'm gonna land the plane. Looking at me and I'm like, okay, I'm done, and then he's like, but he didn't say this, but he's giving me the look like, are you done? And I was like, oh, that's right. I actually have to like land a plane on this podcast because this is my podcast. This is not his podcast. So for this podcast on somebody else's Twitch stream, we're going to wrap. We're going to land the plane. This has been for Susie. Susie, any closing thoughts as we're leaving your stream for me to end, for you to come back to your stream? Any closing thoughts?

Yeah, if you guys want to ever be able to come hang out with me, I do a live stream Tuesday through Friday over at twitch.tv/PastorSuOzy. Come hang out with me. But also come check out our church for gamers. You can check everything out at Saturday both at 1:30 and 7:30 p.m. Eastern, and would love to have you stop by if you're interested at all in growing in your faith, playing games with other gamers, or tell your friends. I know that everyone listening to this probably knows at least one gamer and would love to have them come be a part of our church community for sure.

Yeah, use your influence for good. Use your influence to pass on. That was wise words, my friends. Thank you for that. And so for Susie and the rest of the crew here on Twitch, this is Jeff at the church digital. Thanks for hanging out here on the stream, and we'll see you next time on the show. You all have a good one.

All right, all right, back at you. Small silence, dude. Thank you for the video, brother. That a lot of fun. That was a blast, man, and I can see a ton of people in the chat. People loved it. I know even a bad guy from was just saying I loved this interview. And Jeff, it's always a pleasure to get together and connect, man. I really love talking with you, man.

It is a pleasure. Love you. Anything I can do to help you, my friend, all you got to do is ask.

All right, absolutely. Well, before you go, Jeff, give the people a chance to know. Hey, where can they follow you? Where can they find you and your content? Give yourself all the shout outs before you get off of the day.

Yeah, so I hang out a lot on Discord and WhatsApp. If you're a Discord user, our Discord is discord.church.digital. That'll redirect you over discord.thechurch.digital. WhatsApp, the same thing: whatsapp.thechurch.digital. And so you can join us in Discord or WhatsApp there. Uh, to be honest, like it's embarrassingly so for a guy who's active in digital ministry, I really don't do much in social media these days. I kind of just paused and was like, you know, people are finding me, and those that are finding me, I'm gonna connect with them in the community. And so really the place that I pour myself into, if you're interested in what we're doing, I'd say go follow the church digital social channels, which is whatever your platform is on: be the church digital. And maybe the one platform that I really track is YouTube. We do stream there every Tuesday and all sorts of other things happen there at youtube.com/thechurchdigital. We are spinning up. There is a Twitch channel for the church digital. The team's going to be relaunching that. Hey, now you know, we're not. I mean, this may be a leak. This may be the first time we're saying it outside digital channels.

Yeah, here you go, here you go, man. This is it. We are not gamers like I am not. I, my kid, my kid is much more of a gamer than me, by the way. If you're looking, like the my gamer tags are all dear fedge, my name backwards: D-R-F-F-E-J. And so you know, feel free to like find me on Xbox or PS5, but you'll be interacting with my kid, not me, because he uses my gamertag to play with people. Um, because I just, I'm not a gamer anymore. The controllers are way too complicated. I can't do it. I'm like, you know, when it was up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, start for Contra, that was how I succeeded, right? It was just button mash and whatever cheat code you can find. But it's a we're long past those days. And my 50-year-old friend can back me up on that. Thanks, Captain Jack. Um, but we are leaning back into the gaming community here a little bit. Go and really what we want to do is come alongside the XPS and some of the others out there. We want to see the churches in gaming space succeed. And more than that, we want to help equip this next generation of gaming churches, of digital pastors, of gaming pastors, of streamers, help them understand what we talked about on this: that it's not about influence, it's about giving instead of taking. And how to use community to evangelize, to discipleship, and start to equip people with their individual calling.

I'm being preaching again. I'm sorry, man. But there's a, um, I was in an interview today earlier where we were talking about how, you know, a church 1.0 mentality, like Web 1.0, yeah, it's all about getting your information on the web page and pushing people to go to the physical building to get disciples discipled. And so Web 1.0 mentality was getting church organizations to have their own .com to drive people to buildings. Yeah. Web Two was, okay, let's start to equip other people with social media, yeah, okay, you can talk about God, but we'd rather you talk about the church to drive people into the church building. So Web One is organizationally us talking about God, the organization driving into the building. Web Two was individuals, the church equipping others with social media and graphics to invite others to go to the building. But Web Three is where it all goes to crap because Web Three is now about digital community. Yeah, we don't need the church buildings to do discipleship. No, I don't. And so the mentality where we're going with Web Three, it's much more decentralized. It's not what can you do for the church by getting people into the church building? What it needs to be is what can the church do to help you in the ministry that God's called you to be? And that's where we want to come alongside and help you. People that are hanging out with Susie, you gamers, you Christians, try to figure out what God is calling you to do. And I believe there are, I mean, Susie's not in just where, okay, there's been a lot more gamer churches now and gaming ministries now than there were a decade ago. Absolutely. But what's the percentage of gamers right now that are active in those? Oh, minuscule. We got over three billion. Fraction of a fraction. Not one percent. One of the largest untapped, you know, we talked about how digital was an unreached people group, and, um, you know, gaming is even a very high sub-subcategory of that. So like, you know, literally Luke 10:2, the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. And so be on the lookout for us in Twitch. Be on the lookout in Discord. If you know who Flat Cap is, he's working with us and kind of heading up that charge. So you know, look for him or hang out, ask Chino, some of the stuff, and let's get you connected as we're moving forward. We're not replacing Susie. We are not a church. We are an organization that wants to see Susie succeed so the next generation can succeed as well. Come on. And so if you're interested in doing something different to reach someone different, come hang out. But don't leave Susie. Send Susie your five and ten so he can keep doing what he's doing.

Jeff, it's been a pleasure, my friend. I love you. And of course, if you ever need anything, you feel free to reach out. We'll talk soon.

Awesome.