Bringing Hope to a Fearful World - What Actually Works

: All right. All right. Welcome in everybody to the Church Digital podcast for Gaming Outpost. Uh, bringing in uh a man I am getting to know. Uh, I love what he's doing. I love his heart for God. So please everybody welcome in Big Uncle KB. You could say hello too. You don't have to just wave.

: Good morning. Good. Well, good afternoon at this point over here on the East Coast. Good afternoon everybody. How's everybody doing?

: Hey. And let me, let me, let me first say uh off the start. I want to thank you for this opportunity um here. Um, good friend of mine, of course, you know him as well as I do, Pastor North Hill. Known him a good time here on this platform. And uh, when I saw he was, I think he was your first one. Uh, if I'm not mistaken, he was close to it, one of the first ones.

: Okay. Okay. Well, I saw he had the opportunity to sit in with you and I was like really enwrapped into that conversation. I was like, "Wow, this is amazing." Like I, I, I've been longing for somebody to step up. My community's been on my back about doing stuff like this, but I keep telling everybody I got enough on my plate. But I'm glad that God is using other people to really glorify people that's really building platforms the correct way here on Twitch and other places. So, thank you for this opportunity.

: Oh, absolutely. Well, like you say, I'm, I'm the one doing it. I never thought I'd be the one doing it. I, I listen to a lot of podcasts and I'm like, "Oh, man, these are so good. Uh, I love them. I love binging them." And I'm like, "Well, what would I have to say?" I, I've got nothing. Uh, but I've been, I've been streaming for four years and as I've been doing stuff and I don't want this to be about me, but just to kind of lead into why I'm here. I've been working with the Church Digital for about three years, uh, two years as senior leadership and I kept pushing for, which which is fun. I kept pushing that we need to be doing more stuff in gaming space and we need to be reaching out in those spaces. There's other people doing stuff and I'm connected with them. But I just felt like from the very beginning when I jumped on Twitch, there were Christian streamers, some pastors like Pastor North who I just started collecting as connections and connecting them in community together and saying we need to do something to help them.

: Well, now as the Church Digital has decided that on a new framework last year that we are a digital missionary sending agency, that oh my goodness, this totally applies one hundred percent to streamers who are digital missionaries. I don't care about your title. You don't have to take the title. It's it's my way of identifying what I see God in you doing. And so I, I just am like, okay, so what do I do in the gaming space? And we already had a channel because Jeff, who's at the Church Digital, went over here and we did a season of interviewing and doing podcasts with some gamers we knew. We did about ten episodes or maybe more and then went back over to where we were doing them. And now we've progressed our regular ones over to YouTube. But I'm like, there's still gamers. We still need to be reaching gamers. And they're like, "Well, you're going to be our gaming outpost guy. How about you uh do something on that channel?" And then I don't know why the first thing I thought of is well let's do a podcast but let's change it up because a normal podcast if you're watching on other channels and you're doing it live it's a half hour to one hour is all people will tune in for and I'm like that's not how Twitch rolls. Uh, if I'm going to do a podcast on Twitch we're doing two, three hours of podcast. Now that might not be great. I don't know. I mean they're getting posted over to YouTube. They'll get posted other other places. People be listening to the audio someplace down the road. I'm like, I don't know how good these will be. But I'll tell you what, I, I usually have when you have one person come in and you're learning about them. I want to know more and more and more. So, frankly, the what I know about you, we don't have a time to talk for just an hour. What I don't know about you, we we need more time than an hour.

: So, gotcha. Gotcha. Okay. So, so that's a little bit of of why I stepped in, but I really, I really just want this to be about me bringing in people, highlighting what you're doing, exposing your community to others who are doing this as well. So, if they feel like they're ready to step up, no matter who it is, you pastor North, someone else, you might say, "I don't have this capacity right now to mentor you in doing some of these things, but I got friends over here that are doing that." That's that's part of why I want to do this. I also want to platform you and just there are people who need to hear the story of what God has done in and through you and where God is leading you. And it's just amazing and beautiful.

: Yeah. So, I think Pastor North is how we got connected. I remember it might have been three years ago already. He was saying, "Hey, I got, I got invited into this GMBB and it wasn't what GMBB is now uh as far as name meaning." I'm not going to spill that beans. You can share that or not share that. But it was like, "Oh, that sounds like a blast." Um, because we, you know, a few of us pastors were just starting to build our communities and connections wherever we could. And uh, you you play some games and we'll talk about that later. Um, but I want to start with when and how did you get introduced to Twitch and and decide to be a streamer? Not not the changes you've made in the last couple years. So, so just give us the whole back, what was the original thinking of being led into this space.

: Okay. Um, that's a great question. Um, Twitch has been around probably longer than most of the streamers um that's on the platform now. Twitch has been around a long, long time. And I've always been, I grew up on video games. I'm I'm more seasoned in the gaming world because, you know, I am older. So, uh, but I've always grew up on video games. Loved it. Started like most people my age, the Atari 2600 with Pong and Defender, Centipede, those types of games, but I've always found time to still find entertainment through gaming.

: And um, it was, I want to say before COVID, it was well before COVID hit. I've always told my wife, um, I would love to get into content creation. Like, I love gaming. I'm not bad at it. I don't think I'm bad at it. And she was like, "Well, baby, just just see what happens. You know, we can try." And then, you know, as time went on, I was like, "I want to try this." Um, I, I have a background with working with autistic individuals. That's kind of the back. I did that for like almost twenty years of my life. Um, but I still gamed in my my days off.

: So, me and my wife up and left North Carolina and moved to Georgia. Uh, coming here it was like a completely fresh start for both of us. She had more of a career. I was more in a niche of trying to find myself um and what I wanted to do here. Uh, didn't really want to get back into that field no more because it it it ran me thin. I'm not going to lie. I have a lot of patience, but that type of work, it requires another level of patience and I wanted to step into something else.

: So, um, humble beginnings. I had a little Xbox and, uh, we had decent internet. So, I was like, I'mma try this. And at the time, I was always on Twitch watching streamers, but I never got on Twitch to go live. So, at that time, Mixer was a thing. Oh, yeah. And I was spending more of my time on Mixer. And I really like, I loved how they was maneuvering. Uh, Mixer had a thing where they would take communities and just fall into small streamers community and go crazy with them. If you was about to get a win in Apex or Fortnite, they'll bring in some people just to celebrate you for that moment. And I was like, this is amazing. And it happened to me once playing 2K, I think it was. And uh, I was like, yo, I love this. I love this energy, this love, support caught my eye. Ooh, I want to do this now. And um, at the time um, I was on Mixer for like a year. Mixer had some legal issues the um that they fell into. And Mixer folded. And when Mixer folded, I got into the same thing a lot of these younger kids do now where even older I was comparing myself and what I did to everybody else that was already here.

: Yep. So, I had to separate what is it that I do different from the Tim the Tatmans, the Shrouds. I'm not on their level, but for some reason, I found it accessible to compare myself to them. I was like, well, I may go to YouTube. I may go to Twitch. And my wife said, look, just do something, baby. Figure out where you want to go. Take a shot in the dark. Step out on faith. And I did it. Came to Twitch. Uh, I think next month will be five years for me. In August, it'd be like five years as an affiliated streamer here on the platform. But fell in love with it and I love my, everybody always told me I'm, I'm, I'm a funny guy. Two, I'm very engaging. Um, and those was like my two key points of life. Like I could really have a conversation with an eight-year-old or eighty year old um on that level and just fell into it and and found the love for it and this is where I've been since.

: So, that's awesome. That's awesome. I, I don't, I don't think it automatically matters where or how you ended up finding Twitch and and being on on the space, but when you talk about that aspect of it was on Mixer, but then that's also Twitch community, too, of doing the raid and going over and celebrating. I, I don't think any other platform has figured that out yet. Uh, because if I, if you're watching my YouTube channel, I don't want you to leave and go somewhere else. I want you to stay on my channel, watch the rest of my videos that I already have live or already recorded. Go watch those, find my library, find more of my stuff, not go to somebody else. And I think it's, it's one of the things that I also like, this is just amazing of hanging out with other people and getting to know more people. And there are people, you know, I think we share a bunch of community because of Pastor North and because of you and because of me. We we like, I run in weird circles like that where it's like, oh, I can look through the chat and go, are they on my side or are they on your side? Because I know they're hanging in both of our channels. Uh, and they're probably in both, honestly.

: Yeah. I love that though. I, I definitely love that. Like-minded people, you know, wanting the same thing, the encouragement, the word, uh, family atmosphere. So that's that's the win for me with this whole being on this platform, that family atmosphere. So yeah.

: Well, so you started out with with Going to Play Games and it didn't sound like it took you too long to to make it to affiliate. What was the goal for you as you were building that to to start with? Cuz I, I know you're talking about community, but did you have any thoughts of what you wanted to do? Was this the thought of, "Oh, I want to make this full-time. I want to make a lot of money. There are people doing that." Was it more about I'm just enjoying this? Was it more about, I don't put words in your mouth. I'm just trying to give you like, hey, it could have been a lot of different reasons. Uh, to start with, what were what were you thinking about?

: That's a great question. Um, and one thing I, I, I've I've proned myself on is being very honest. When I got here, um, I probably had the same mindset as everybody else did. Oh, I'm the next it. I'm that guy. I'm gonna blow up. Every all eyes are going to be on me. This is going to be it. Everybody going to know by now. This is going to be crazy. And then I realized it's like anything else in life. It just takes a a consistency, a passion, patience, and and just conviction to do it every single day.

: And those are some of the hardest things for a lot of people to really wrap their minds around when it comes to anything in life, especially the consistent part of it and knowing your value as a content creator.

: Um, those were some of the hardest days that I had. But, um, I had the dream of being the it guy. Um, but as I changed, the platform changed, my mindset changed, my walk changed, as all that began to change, everything I thought I wanted became so minute every season of life that I was in. So, I don't know if that directly answers your question, but as I grew, the things my appetite for the things that I wanted more than anything became less important.

: And that's kind of where I'm at now. So, are there a couple of key moments that helped your mindset to shift from the "I'm going to be the next, uh, whatever"?

: Uh, you know, being a pastor, I went to Dallas Theological Seminary and what they tell you the first chapel you go to, you are not the next Chuck Swindoll.

: Um, so just stop it. Uh, we don't need the next Chuck Swindoll. We need the next you. Uh, so when you started to go, "Who am I?" What were some of those key interactions or key moments of reflection or something on stream that helped propel you in the direction you've been led to?

: Conversation when people came in and really started sharing their lives, their struggles, their testimonies, their walks, their weak points, their fears. And I found myself stopping games and completely engulfed and engaging in conversation.

: Yeah, that changed it. Um, to where, um, saying that we've assisted others with not taking their own lives when we helped assist people build relationships with God, find churches, start reading Bibles, things like that. But it just started off as general conversations, you know, like, "Hey, you know, um, I would be in being funny like I always am. Like I always can make light of anything, uh, respectfully. Um, but it could be me joking about, yeah, let me tell you, growing up with my grandmother and I was, you know, sitting in church all day, the church door open, we was there. We was there." Yeah. I remember my grandmother. She's not here no more. I remember next thing you know I'm crying and I would just tell them about the amazing moments that me and my grandmother shared and they can take that moment of grievance and laugh with me and release something and next thing you know they came back the next day and we was talking more and maybe I miss them a day or two and they come back another day and it built a safe place where people could come and really just let their hair down and enjoy not only content but life.

: So, and that's the balance. I think a lot of... And but I get it too, that appetite. When your appetite discerns something more than what your true walk is, like some people don't want to... I've been in communities, streamers that I love and they like top tier gamers. And to hear them people come in and be like, "Hey, what do you think about God?" Well, we don't do that. We don't talk about religion. We don't talk about politics. You're here to enjoy the games. Let's keep it game related. Nothing else. And I'm like, I don't have a problem with it. Bring that to me. We can sit down and we can talk about it. So, I think that's the... but I can understand because certain topics will bring friction against people, you know, and I have to be mindful and I always tell people we respect your opinion, but you have to respect ours as well. So, but outside of that, but it's just general simple conversations and having an open heart and open mind to other people. And that kind of as time went on, it became... and I, and this the one thing as a content creator that people say that's crazy to say. I have a fear of growing this platform. Yeah. Because I miss the intimacy of one-on-one conversation. Some of the people that come in my community that I've met over the last four or five years. I remember when they had their first child. Some of the people in my community, I was there in their virtual wedding. I've seen them come to me the day their mother passed away and they reached out to me.

: So, it's moments like that because chat is moving at a rapid pace. I can't have no more. And even my wife said, "Baby, you can't chime into everything no more. You can't." And I'm like, I want to, but she's like, you can't, you know, and I have to understand that. So, it's... Yeah. I say what you're talking about there is one of the things that the church digital we talk about content needs to lead to community. If all it is is content, then it's a swipe. It's a swipe. It's a swipe. There's no relationship. If all it is is I give you a thumbs up or a thumbs down. If I argue in the chat, you know, messages about some social media post there's no relationship. I have engaged with you on a content level, but once you move past which which I'm hearing you describe that you love is the connection that leads to community that you don't know if someone comes back again. You don't know if they come back regularly. You don't know if they disappear for a while and they come back. But for a given spot and moment, you get to be a connection point in their life and and that's just uh in a lot of ways super super rewarding to be a part of that and that God can use you to do that.

: Uh, as you've been doing this for a while, what were some moments that you had some struggles? Either it could have been streaming struggles. It could have been life struggles. It could have been some of those that it was just like I don't know if what I'm doing is worth it. I don't know if what I'm doing is what I'm supposed to be doing. What are some moments maybe you've had with things like... Oh, I love the face. Oh. Oh, I got stories to tell. I see. This is what I want to do. I want to hear all the stories, man. Come on. Bring it. Oh, we stepping on dangerous grounds, chat. Hold on. Hold on now. Oh, man. There. Like I said, being here for five years, there's a lot of them. There's a lot of them and and I'm very respectful uh with everything that I do. So, um, man, uh, one... um, the battle within myself overthinking. I think that's the biggest thing especially the younger generation of content creators have uh comparison, you know, um, wanting to do... I feel there's a lack of creativity on this platform um as well. Once one person finds one thing... Let me just let me pull on that thread a minute there. The lack of creativity. So that's just making me think of uh church planting models of where all of a sudden there was Saddleback Church. So we got to go do a Saddleback Church kind of kind of a thing. So... Oh, cuz I was going to comment on this at some point. The shoes, man, the shoes behind you and and you know like don't copy be you. I... Okay, I did... I have this set up. Okay. I didn't know what I was going to ask. I'm going to ask your opinion here on my shoe. Okay. Talk to me what we got. Okay. So, it's kind of a dressy sneaker. I think I could pull off white laces. My wife doesn't think I could put white laces on this shoe and have it be nice. Do you think I could pull off white laces with the midsole? The bottom midsole. You could pull off white laces with that. I wouldn't have a problem. I actually have shoes similar to that. Yeah. Look, I'm 50 years old. It's the comfort for me. You know, I got all the sneakers, but I have those days when my feet and my community always on me about my shoes, but it's about being comfortable.

: All right. It's about being comfortable. All right. Trust me. So, I respect it. Yeah. I'm just as much about being comfortable as they gotta look good.

: Um, see, now you're talking my talk. Yeah, you're talking my talk. But I say I don't... I didn't really... It wasn't really about going into the shoe library and all that. We could go there if you want later, but it was you did your thing and it's behind you. I've got my thing over here as well. Now, most of it's off camera, but I got I got all my hats on shelf. So, I love it. I love it. It's like where... like where else in the world would I have done that except if I'm online and I want to show you what I have. I ain't copying. Well, then I got fish too. You know, there's a few people doing like... I didn't try and I I don't think you tried to just copy because copying will work if it doesn't... if it's not who you are.

: Um, I don't need to go and and copy uh Steph Curry and shoot three points when I can't make free throws. Okay. If if I'm Shaq, I need to be dunking the ball. That is all I need to do. I should not be trying to do three-pointers. I don't need to get better at making free throws. I need to get better at dunking when you when you follow me. That's what I need to get better at. Let the way I look at it too, uh where I'm at my spiritual journey. God allows us to use what he's given us, allowed us to be blessed with, whether it's your hats, my shoes, as an attraction to draw people in. The Bible said he makes us fishermen of men. Correct? So, this is our... this is our bait. You don't... You have no idea how many people come into my stream on a weekly basis to talk about Oh, my shoe collection. Oh, I bet. My my shoe collection. But let me tell you what I see it as. I see as a... I see it as an opportunity to spread the gospel. As soon as they come in here and be like, "Wait, can I get a pair of them shoes? What's your favorite shoes?" And I run down this whole spew about this is my favorite shoe. But let me tell you something. I need you to see a bigger picture. Yeah. Right now, you are marvelled by what you see in the physical form. But this is a blessing through obedience. I'm showing you that God provides for my every want and my every need. I steward my money. I tithe. I do exactly what God tells me. So, he's provided me with an abundance of things. May you may not deem it necessary and it can be a little bit out of hand, but God is still showing himself relevant even in the shoe collection.

: So, you came in here because you wanted to talk about my shoes, which I... they really don't always tell my community too. If it can burn up in a fire, you shouldn't put value on it. Oh, yeah. You should. Oh, yeah. If if my house would go up in a blaze right now, I lose all this. I never get it. Some of these shoes I can never get back. Right. Right. So my thing is let's talk about the true essence behind what you're looking at. There's a story behind it. So and that's how I kind of use it now and which I love. At first I told my wife this probably was a bad idea. You know they coming in here and I could be talking about the word or God and here we are now I got to redirect and be distracted about sneakers. But God showed me how to use that to his benefit. So it it worked out. God worked it out for for his glory. So I don't complain about it no more.

: Yeah. It's a strategic plan. So yeah. Do do you have a number? I just since we're talking about how many do you have? Not on display total. I have no idea. This ain't it. Okay. Cuz I have shoes in boxes. Oh, I've heard. Yeah, I've heard on stream. I have shoes in this closet. I have shoes upstairs in two more bedrooms and in my wife closet that she ain't got room for. So, and I got shoes in my garage in boxes. So, I I don't... I couldn't even guess. I couldn't even guess to be honest. I couldn't even guess. Crazy. Well, well, people... But I have I have as many hats as you have, too. I have probably 300 hats as well. I keep I don't keep them in here no more because I ran out of room. I started doing virtual VR gaming and I had a metal rack here of nothing but hats. Yeah. Yeah. So, I had to I had to take it out and now it's in my hallway in front of my office. So, hats are a bad thing, too.

: So I can respect your love for hats, trust me. Well, I, I, you know, it's like what is a thing that puts you on a path to loving something?

: I don't know what the answer always is, but for me, this is the weird story. I remember going to a funeral of my uncle when I was, I don't know, five years old, six years old, something like that. And he was buried with a polka dot painters hat in the casket. He has a polka dotted painters hat on and I'm just like, that is cool.

: Um, and so it was like at that moment it was like hats are going to be in my life. And it's really only been in the last decade that the internet has allowed me to have access to, I think, the best hats. So I got a whole bunch of other hats in boxes that I don't even know how many I have. Uh, and then I've gone through different styles at different ages.

: In middle school, it was the little biker hats. I don't know if you know the biker hats with the little stupid bill that flips up. I, everybody was doing this. I, I never know what I'm going to talk about that's just going to be spurred. I don't think anyone in my chat knows this, uh, that's been on any of my streams.

: So, uh, I did those little with the bill flipped up hats and I had bangs that came down to my nose and I curled those bangs. So every, you know, big hair in the eighties. I have almost a shaved head with bangs, okay. And then they just, the bangs just show when I have the hat.

: So, wow. There's there's a few. My love for hats came from going bald at an early age. I was losing my hair in the tenth grade in high school. My corner started thinning out and uh, I bought my first, uh, it was a Chicago White Sox hat and uh, been buying them ever since.

: You know, I could afford hats quicker than I could shoes growing up. So I just started buying hats when I was younger, but then as I got older, it shifted over to sneakers.

: Oh yeah. Well, I've got, I'm trying to think. My most expensive hat, a flat cap, uh, is sixty bucks, I think, is my most expensive one. So, you know, it's relative to shoes. I've got uh, four hundred dollar pair of shoes upstairs. My nice double, my leather, okay, Oxfords with the double, the double buckle on it. I think those are four hundred dollar shoes.

: Um, wow. Uh, but I like, I like some nice dress shoes. That's that's my range. I look, ain't no hate over here. Trust me. 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: What you do? You turn the channel, right? It's like, I'm not really feeling this. That's how Twitch is. But because there are so many emotions involved in this, it's not a high-end production show.

: You're dealing with personalities and emotions. Now you got to deal with how they really gonna feel about me because the way I look, your follow—this is how I value your follow. Not your follow to me but my follow to you. Is this going to be a place I can be invested in? Is this a place I know I'm going to come back?

: Is this a place where I can grow? I can really enjoy them or sometimes it's not. I got people that I support. Your content is a little bit too much for me, but I love you as an individual.

: And I and my walk now is I take light with me wherever I go. So even if it's not a big type of vibe, look, I can get in there and you be like, "Yo, what up? Man, let me tell you, God's been good." Next thing I know, two or three people in chat like, "Yeah, man. God's been good to me." And I'm like, "Wait, ain't we twerking and turning the—oh, wait. We didn't change the conversation in chat." Okay, cool. Cool. You know, God, look, let me tell you. He favored me another day, man. Why would I complain?

: Here's somebody else. I'm that light in that dark spot. So I'm cool with being where I'm at in some places. But when I know too much of anything is always bad for you. So I got to make sure that again, too much of anything is always bad for you. So I have to be mindful of when it become, when I become too much engaged in somewhere that God hasn't really directed me to be in.

: It's okay to say, "All right, y'all. Enjoy the rest of your stream. I got to go." Or, "I have you tabbed. I'mma fall back in the background when it becomes a little bit too spicy or too much." I'm cool with that.

: But a lot of us now, again, these kids full invested and me and my wife always have these one-on-one conversations. When your spirit is weak and you don't have no identity for yourself, you need to really be tiptoeing around. You shouldn't fall into nothing because you're going to fall so deep, you're not going to be able to get yourself out, if that makes sense to you.

: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Okay. Okay. Just I was going to go another direction, but then you just you just mentioned uh spouses uh your wife. What role because uh along the way has your wife played uh as you've been a streamer as you're doing things in the interaction and the conversations you talked about well where you moved was related to her occupation and those kinds of things.

: How has she played a role along the way of you being a streamer? And what aspects uh do you need her for in that space to keep you from not going down some of those negative things that we've been talking about?

: Everything. Period. Everything. She is my tech support. She is my uh editor. She is my designer. She is my best friend. She is my strong woman of God. She is my encouragement. She is my motivation. She is everything that I could ever dream of in a woman being the way a woman needs to be to build a man of God that I am today.

: She is everything. She supports me. She loves on me. She knows me better than I know myself. It's times I sit in my living room knowing I need to go live and she could just look on my face and see that I'm feeling defeated in the day and she will come and place her hands on me. She will pray over me and said, "Baby, go down there and do everything that God's called you to do on the day." I don't hesitate. I don't pause. I move because I know God spoke through my wife to encourage me to move forward. She is everything. None of this would be possible if it wasn't for her. None of this. None of it. That's it. I wish I had more, but I pray that was enough. I'm telling you. It's beautiful. It's beautiful.

: Uh yeah, there was no oh this has got to be it or that. No, it's just um yeah and some of what you were you were uh speaking about there too of yeah without my wife none of what I'm doing would be possible. Uh the the encouragement, the the mental health support, the spiritual support, the oh man, I'm not feeling it today. Uh you know the hey, you're allowed to not be okay. You're allowed to not be good today. You're allowed to. But also, when you need a kick in the butt, you know, the the kick in the butt is is pretty pretty quick coming when you need it.

: Oh, yeah. My chat reminds me every single day uh that they will take her over me when it comes to this community. I can't lie about that. If my wife accidentally or have to come down here and fix anything that I didn't put my hands on and got it acting crazy, uh she got her own emote, they go crazy with it.

: And uh yeah, auntie auntie this that and the other. So I love it though uh because it gives her uh an environment where she can feel love outside of our marriage. So and our ministry is a co-ministry. So it's been times where we have encouraged and spoken life into community members where she's had time to tap in.

: And when I tell you where I I was stuck in the moment, she could pick up on and just smoothly articulate it in a way that's that shifts the room. So, oh, yeah. She is truly my better half. Is truly my better half. Yeah. I don't I don't think I have caught her that often on stream.

: So usually usually it's it's been you. Um, but I totally I totally understand that. Like I wish I wish I could get my wife uh on streaming and and hanging out or and doing that and it's like no my wife the same way. She she'll peep in, hey everybody. And gone in a second. She's not a camera person. My wife would my wife would text me, you talking, are you streaming? You in a you in a minute eating? What are you doing? Can I come in the door? Uh is it okay? Uh what's funny though is when I when I first uh started I was uh her office was in one room and I was through the wall in the other room.

: So I'd be streaming and she could hear me through the wall and she'd be texting me laughing at what was said or what I screwed up or whatever else. She'd be and I moved to the basement and uh she said uh I miss hearing you. I go, I can set you up on the other computer in the room and you can listen. No, I'm supposed to be working. You complain cuz you can't hear me, then you complain cuz I'm going to solve the problem. I mean, wow.

: Come on. That that show that shows she love you. But my wife wife my wife is the same way. But she don't have a problem with being separated from me because the fact that I play horror games and I get loud. She be in meetings on her job and she has to explain to the her co-workers that, hey, my husband is a content creator. He's playing a horror game. The community is giving it to them right now. So I do apologize. So if you hear grown man yell or scream, that's my husband downstairs.

: And uh they find it funny now. And they even ask about me from time to time. So yeah, her job kind of got to know me on a weird type of way, but oh, yeah. It's all good. Yeah. I don't I don't think I was too loud at that point when I was upstairs. She was often traveling at that time more than uh being uh uh as many digital meetings. Now it's now it's changed but uh going back a little bit uh you you are you the one that fully started this is my understanding maybe I'm wrong on GMBB.

: Are you the the founder of GMBB? What was and I I don't care whether you you tell us all the story or not. I'm just asking the questions. You share what you want. Uh what was the original idea of bringing people together in community to be a part of GMBB and then how has God brought that to what you're doing now?

: I'm glad you asked that. GMBB is close to my heart. Um it it was it was a thing that was started um I want to say six, seven years ago. It wasn't even I wasn't even a content creator then. It was um literally me and I want to say six guys, give or take, six, six of my homeboys at the time.

: We was always playing sports games, Madden, 2K, things like that. So we got together and we was always talking and each one of we was all growing, getting older. Um I think at the no, I wasn't the only one married at the time, but we was all in different seasons of our life.

: One was going to school. I was um we was I I forgot what we was doing but we was all doing different things. So we would always get together play. 2K was kind of our main game and we would get together play and something clicked one day. I was like yo we just talking about life and the things we was trying to accomplish between starting a business and marriage and having kids.

: I was like yo we out here handling grown man business right now. And one of my other homeboy said, "No doubt GMBB." What? GMBB, grown man business.

: And me because I'm always been business savvy and things like that clicked to me. I was like, "Oh, I like that." And next thing I know, we was playing 2K. I was making jerseys for us for the ProAm and making courts and putting a logo. I was making up logos for us, but it was a in-house thing.

: It wasn't me creating content. Right. Right. So one of one of my good brothers, I told him, I'm thinking about taking streaming serious. He was like, "Yeah, um, how you want to do it?" I said, "I don't really know. I'm just going to take a shot in the dark. Step out on faith." And kind of that's what I stepped into. That's the only thing I knew at the time. GMBB. That's the name of the community. Grown man business. Um, as time went on and the platform started growing and being a little more successful, um, I always speak on hearing the voice of God.

: Yep. Uh, spending that quiet time alone with him and allowing him to point you and guide you in the right direction. And, uh, I think I had this conversation with someone in the community, in my community, uh, not too long ago about why is it that God always seem like he speaks as loud as when you in the shower? Cuz I was like, "Ooh, that's that's me." When I'm in the shower, like things just hit me. Ideas, revelations, confirmations, everything like in the shower. And um one morning I got in the shower. Um and and at that time we was GMBB over here.

: I had the crown made and all that. Um and we were still still a small community, but an impactful community. Um, I had a few a few people at the time like five people I really entrusted in believed in small communities as well. I was like, well, let's start this. I know Twitch you have to have be partnered, but let's define the means of what's being done and do it a different way.

: We're not partnered, but we impactful. So here's the crown. Let's represent this community and everybody cool, cool, cool. That got set a fire early. So it was like two of us left. Me. I'm one of the true homeboys that I started with. Um, but as I was taking a shower one morning, God just something hit me.

: God says, "That's not the name of the community no more." And I'm saying to myself as I'm standing there in the shower, I was like, "God, what are you telling me? God's many blessings. God's many God's many blessings." And I'm like, "God's many blessings." And the more I say, "God, what are you trying to get me to see here? Your community. Everybody that has came through your community, everybody has that sits in your community is a blessing to somebody in some way, shape, form or fashion.

: They are the reason that somebody is moving and growing towards better. Whether it was a simple hello, good morning. Hey, how you doing? You look nice. Hey, is life going all right? Can I talk? Whatever it is, you have blessed somebody in some kind of way. When God put that on me, I got out of my shower and I was crying.

: I told my wife, I said, "It gotta change. I gotta change." Mama said, "What's going on with you?" She looking at me all crazy. I was like, "We no more grown man business. We God's many blessings." And that morning, I came down and told everybody, "It's a change.

: It's a change. And I'm gonna be honest, um, my whole thing for GMBB was hope. My hope that that was that's the true essence of this crown uh that's up in the corner.

: That's it. It was hope. Um and sometimes within trying to give people hope, sometimes you step out ahead of God and God has to teach you and show you to wait on him.

: Because there was times there's people that I had hope in and wanted to give them encouragement through allowing them to be connected to such an amazing and now not all GMBB streamers are Christian faith-based.

: It ain't about that. Ain't about that. It's about I always tell people I ask God to allow me to be the example, right? If God use me in an essence that's going to change the life of those I come in contact with.

: You know it through your addictions, through your sexual perversions, through whatever it is you're dealing with in life. I'm not saying I'm perfect, but use me.

: Allow me to be that example, a healthy marriage. You know what I'm saying? Uh strong in my faith, confident in my walk. You know what I'm saying?

: Everything about me, allow it to be a representation of the kingdom of heaven. So that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to be around people that was lost looking for hope.

: And unfortunately, it cost me in the long run when I tell you flat cap. It cost me. It really cost me because when you put hope in people, and I'm learning that every day, when you put hope in people and you just want the best for them, but they don't want the best in themselves, you got to know when it's time to let people go. Even when you want to hold on more than anything. So I I told a good friend of mine that I felt like the GMBB crown turned out to be almost like a gang related situation on the platform and it never was supposed to be that. It was never supposed to be that. But again, I only could control what God allows me to do. And I'm learning more and more in my walk than not to go without him.

: So I had to learn. But I thank God for the lessons that I've been able to learn. Um, but there was it was costly at times, you know, it was truly costly, but I had to learn.

: So, but GMBB still stands for hope. Um, it stands for the essence of the kingdom of heaven. You know, we we want to show people that you can still gain, laugh, keep your character intact, and still glorify God with a platform.

: So, did everybody take that with it and do the same? No. Did I judge him for it? No. But would I do it different now?

: I would. I would. So, I would. Hey, man. I I I just love your heart. I I I love that you're willing to share that with everybody.

: Um cuz I know God's been working in and through you in in some great ways. And you're reaching people that will never come to my stream.

: One, because I'm different than you. Two, I'm on at a different time. And and three, we're different people that God calls us to meet different people.

: I love the idea of blessing. I mean, that's that's been uh on my my brain for several years now. And so, I love the I asked my or I Oh, I don't Well, you know what?

: I'm going to go ahead and do this. See if it plays. You hear that? I can't. Okay. Yeah, I think I tried it before and it doesn't work on the the sharing stream.

: Anyway, I I just got a little clip from um Molly Music and uh it's I'm blessed. Anybody in here blessed? I'm blessed. Anybody in here blessed?

: I'm blessed. I'm blessed. Yes. Pull up in an Uber. Hallelujah. Any kind of music that'll move you. Oh my goodness. Come on now. Come on.

: Hey, look. So, so I just I just have a little cuz that's what I like I like I would get up and I'd start and I'm like uh you know sitting here and I got a roof over my head and I got food in my belly and my place is pretty warm and

: it's miserable cold outside. I ain't going to worry about a whole bunch of nothing in my life. I mean, yeah, I'm not secure and sound that, oh, if you know, something happened, I'm going to be able to take care of myself for another 20 years.

: I got to do something every day to take care of myself. Oh, so yeah, but I can either think about all the blessings I have and and start counting those every single morning of, hey, you know what?

: All of my kids graduated from college. All of my kids are now employed. Okay. Well, one's only temporary employed, so it's an iffy situation.

: But a month ago, she had no job. Well, she's employed again. So, you know, I I could just sit here and go, how do I look at things and and then try to bring that to other people?

: I just see that in you, too. You're trying to bring the hope of what do you have and and realizing what you have is a lot more than what you think you have.

: And and yeah, that does that does cost you at times because not everyone's the same. Not everyone views things the same. Not everyone does things the same.

: Uh man, I did not know about the the the thought process of it being more like a gang symbol with the GMBB. Man, dude, that hurts.

: That hurts. Um Oh, man. And like I said, I trust God in every season of my life. I really do. So, whatever God God has whatever God has for me in my next season, this is just developing me for something new and something greater.

: Yeah, I know it. I know it. I'm surrounded by good people right now. Great people, God-fearing people, like-minded people, people that will intercede on my behalf or don't want nothing back in return.

: So, I thank God for the season that I'm in. Whether I understand it or not, I really do. So yeah. Well, there's that's that is funny, you know, that there are seasons of life that you can feel God's presence in the middle.

: You don't know when you're getting out of. You don't know why you're there. Uh and you're just thankful for those people that are there with you uh in in that space.

: I man that's another place to just you know see blessing uh around things is people in the community that do things for other people without asking anything and I'm not talking about the monetary gifts and those kinds of things those are blessing all all in themselves but when someone you're talking about oh

: I might I'm thinking about doing an avatar and they're like hey man let me do that for you or you're talking about oh man I'd like to get some music for my stream and they're like hey I created some for you.

: Here you go. It's and you know, or man, somebody's like, "Hey, you ain't got no emotes. Here, let me create a few emotes for you." Well, I can do that for you.

: And I and I'm fine with paying people and all of that. Like, people earn stuff and and they should get paid for what they produce.

: And and and I believe that. But it's also what a way to bless somebody by just doing something unexpected they weren't asking for that just shows appreciation and love by something as simple as you know and I'm not suggesting and I'm not trying to do this but let me just see that oh

: the the GMBB the crown let's let's refresh that let's let's let's put some new colors on it let's do a new logo or a new font let's do something else let's bring it up and I don't I don't ask you to pay me for it I just say hey man was leading me

: and I uh to do something for you and I was trying to figure out what I could do for you and I just thought I want to polish that crown up so it shines and I want to I wanted Jesus to shine through it and this is what God gave me here.

: Use it, don't use it, but I I think I can, you know, contribute something. There's so many people in the community doing those kinds of things.

: 90% of the stuff that I have from the logos and the the little I call it the black Ghostbuster that spins when we playing horror game.

: That stuff has just been people in the community was like, "Hey, check your email. Check the Discord. I sent you something." And and something that I'm I always speak over here that whatever God has given you is to glorify him.

: Yeah. It's for us to take it and to be a blessing to those less fortunate. So if there's a talent, if there's an assignment or a purpose that you have, it's not for you for you to benefit from it.

: It's for the glorification of God. And now so many people in this community like we we always I thank God me and my wife are blessed where we can do a lot of giveaways.

: We're always giving something back to the community and things like that. And I've had people win merch items out of our store and different gift cards and be like, "You know what?

: I want that, but I want to take that and give it to somebody else." And I'm like, "What? You sure?" Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I want something two months ago.

: I want to bless her. Fine. You know, and I'm seeing that more and more just as being an example by others. Like right now, we have been so blessed that we have a couple of people in the community that sends money over every month.

: Yeah. Every month. I I won't reveal names because they ask like, "Nah, it ain't it ain't for me to, you know, and but I just thank God we are able to give Bibles away every Monday on our channel after what we have what we call GMBB church service on.

: So after every sermon that we watch on Mondays, we give away Bibles. That has been one, if not the biggest blessing to be a part of.

: And I'm like, "No, don't send money over to We was me and my wife was only doing it like every 3 to four months, right?" Cuz I tell people all the time, if you ain't never brought a Bible, a Bible is not cheap, you know?

: So, we was like, "Well, we'll budget it out. We'll we'll give her." And now we're able to do it every single week. So, God is good.

: I really mean that. Well, so if if you need a connection to be able to purchase more Bibles in bulk, we can we can message and talk about that offline.

: Uh say less, say less. I I work with an organization. I was on the board for years that So when you get your Sunday school material, so it's called resourcing now.

: Uh you get your Sunday school material and it's only printed for the quarter. What do you do with the leftovers? uh we get them with the promise we're taking them out of country so we're not stealing their business.

: So we take those overseas but then we take the Christian literature overseas. It might be you know VBS material other stuff that's out of print or even used stuff and they go we want Bibles we want Bibles.

: So we started going to Tyndale House and purchasing Bibles direct from Tyndale House. Uh, so I I don't know what deals we might be able to get on smaller level, but I've I've talked with the board previously about it, so I should follow up now.

: Uh, but I've been talking about the idea of doing this for streamers. But for instance, what would happen? Tyndale House prints a 5,000 run Bible, all of a sudden the covers off.

: They have to throw those away or try to recoup their cost because the Bible the cover was printed upside down or it was printed off-kilter and it got, you know, cut wrong.

: And you're giving a Bible away for free overseas. They don't care. So, we could buy those pennies on the dollar for a Bible and take them overseas.

: That's how we started. And then we just we have a constant Bible fund that we buy Bibles and we ship them over overseas. So, I've talked with a few streamers that do this.

: The one problem would be coordination of of all of it. If you if you're handwriting stuff, we'd probably have to send you a case at a time to be able to then take that case and distribute.

: The other thing would be is if you want NIV and the next person wants ESV, we would run into issues.

: However, I'm still open and willing to have this this conversation and pursue it if it could be. Okay. If if we can make something work where one of us is the warehouse and then we distribute from our warehouse to individual streamers, but we probably would only be able to pick one or two

: Versions max, I would think, and not be able to, you know, say, "Oh, it has to be this in order for it to work for everybody." That this, this is, this is truly a blessing beyond the channel because me and my wife have been having one-on-one conversations in the house and we've been, we've been led to start a street ministry, me and her, real soon. Um, being here in Atlanta, the homeless population is really rampant right now, which it is everywhere, you know, disabled veterans and just, you know, people just dealing with life differently right now in this season.

: So we've always, when we come up to a traffic light, they're always out there with the signs and we do this from time to time where we get a five dollar gift card from Subway, McDonald's, something like that, and we, uh, we just give them the gift card because again we don't want to contribute to an addiction or anything like that. So you have to use this card to get money or Walmart to get, you know, personal hygiene products, things like that. So I told my wife now that we started this here in the community with the community giving out the Bibles, how about just taking it out in the public? We out all the time, me and her, and we, all the cars are always getting ran up on or somebody at the stoplight with us. Why not just slot a gift card in a Bible and give them the Bible? We're edifying the spirit and the body at the same time.

: So she was like, "Wow, I love that." So we're trying right now, we're like, this man, you just presented an opportunity right now to just really make this, this is confirmation as we call it. So I love it. I love it. I love it. Yeah, I'll go, I'll go back to the board there. I've talked with a couple other streamers about the idea of it. Um, I do have my own nonprofit as well that I could work to, but I don't have the connection with the purchasing Bibles. That's why even if it has to run through me, if I can use the connection there. I love connecting people. I mean, that's one of the funnest things about being here and in spaces and digitally right now. Like I get to meet with you today, uh, and your whole background and where you are and the people that you're reaching. On Thursday, I'll be talking with Zero. I don't know if you know Z Seru. She's a streamer. You rated her one time before. Yes, she's a streamer from Puerto Rico. Uh, yes. And so she's got a whole different vibe and she's going to reach different people than either of us will ever reach. And I love connecting different people all over the place, or even you like Pastor North, we were talking about him earlier. Like the four of us have never been in a room together. Um, you and I have never been in the room together. Pastor North and I, we were planning on it last year. It didn't work out. Um, but I was with Zeru Zahu last year. I would have thought that was one person that would have been really a remote chance because she's from Puerto Rico, you know, what are the chances that I'll go to a conference that she went to and that happened last year. So I love connecting with people all over the place. I'm constantly going, well, this for a while was my position at the church digital. I was a relationship director and you read whatever through the nice title and all of that stuff is of what I'm supposed to do and all of this and at the end of it to just summarize what my position was. Have you met Ted? Because that's it's from How I Met Your Mother if you don't, if you don't know that. Uh, so anyway, so anyway, Barney's always going up to hit on a girl and he turns around and goes, "Have you met Ted?" So it was just the I'm going to introduce you to somebody else kind of a mentality. Like my whole job is to know what you're doing so I can connect you and introduce you to somebody else you need to meet. And so, wow, so I, my brain has always operated this way of connecting people doing things in ministry. So you mentioned Bibles and you see how quick my brain is firing off of, I know who we need to talk to. Uh, let's let's make this move forward and happen and see what God does out of it. And even if I'll say this without my wife listening, she's not nearby. Even if I have to house the Bibles myself in, yes, gotcha. Say less. I'm with it. Yeah, yeah, I'm with it. I'm with it. Yeah, yeah, say less. Don't, don't speak all that out loud. We don't want the enemy knowing. I'm with it. Okay, yeah, and I wasn't, I wasn't a reference to my wife either. I should have made that clear. I meant in addition you found women. I, I just anybody listen of my community. You got beat up. Yeah, in addition to my wife here and the enemy would hear too. So yeah, got you. Oh my god, this is hilarious. Oh, okay, so I don't know where we left off. We got on a sidetrack there. I'm usually pretty good of coming back there. I know we were talking about just the heartache, the hardships and endeavoring through those. Um, what have been some, just because you talk about God's many blessings. What have been two or three of God's many blessings that have happened because you're a streamer that you never expected to have happen? Um, it could be for you, it can be for someone else. Doesn't matter.

: Well, one of my biggest achievements as a content creator, I've actually had an opportunity to rub elbows with a horror game developer by the name of Buddha Christrist and he makes, his team makes some amazing horror games at Just Saw Studios and he gave me the opportunity, first time ever, to have my logo and the GMBB crown in a horror, an actual horror game. A big time. I'm not talking about no itty bitty little thing. A big thing. And it was so overwhelming to me that I never thought that anything like that would ever took place. And he did it repeatedly. A few more. He took my likeness, a couple of made-up characters that we made over here. Oh man, he actually gave somebody an opportunity through my community a chance to do their first official voiceover work in a horror game. So through that connection, not only I was blessed for it, somebody else connected to me was blessed for it. So that was like a, and they still support the channel. They actually DM me from time to time. They working on the next project horror game and they keep letting me know like it's going to be finished. When it do, I'll be over there to debut it. I want you to play it. So I'm excited for that. Um, what's the name of it? I'm gonna, I'm gonna look it up. Oh my god, why would you do that to me? Um, Fear is it Fear of Joy? I think one of them is called Fear of Joy. All I can say is go to Just Saw Studios and Steam. Just Saw Studios. It was their last two games. Last two gang. I think one of them was called Fear of Joy and the other one was, oh my god, this has been about two, three years ago and I played so many horror games. That's the thing. I, oh, Fear of Joy and Miss Fabulous. Don't do that. I met you and, and, oh, I can't even think of it right now. Um, it may dawn on me later, but I think it was the last two horror games that, no, I think it was the last two they did, but they put my logo in one, my, uh, my name, the community name, even gave me a little, uh, part in the game, my name, like when you read the subtitles, it was about me. So I thought that was the most amazing thing ever. Um, two, um, outside the, out outside of that, uh, many blessings. Those true God-led relationships that me and my wife have able to build off of the relationship, uh, build off of the channel. U, I'm not talking about, hey, you came in, you dropped your sub off, thank you for the twelve months, thank you for the thirty-six months. I'm talking about those that have really trusted um the fruit of me and my wife with their personal life. Those that have reached out and said, "Could you pray for me and my husband? Pray for me and my wife. Pray for my family. I really need somebody. We're not therapists. We're just God-fearing people. But you entrusting us enough to bring your deepest, darkest struggles of life to us." Y, don't that would have to be like next. That's probably number one and then the game itself. Uh, but that, that right there will always be embedded in us. We have some relationships right now with a lot of people through this community that have truly changed our life. I, we didn't realize how much we've impacted so many people through our marriage, through our ministries, and just through our walk that it's, it's overwhelming from time to time when people be like, "Yo, you auntie deserve a day off. Why you out here? Get off, go out." Like I'm like, "Wait, wait, hold on. Time out. Don't push me out of here." Like, "No, y'all deserve, y'all do so much." Like my community know to the point now when I get tired, they can look at me and be like, "Don't come back tomorrow." They like, "What? Take the day off." Like just take, we enjoy what you do, but we need all of you, not part of you.

: Oh, so that has been a blessing. And three, I can't even put a number on them because, oh, don't worry about the numbers. Yeah. The last one I would say is seeing so many people that I met through other communities that was unlike ours that's now a part of this community that's turned their life around. Yeah, through their relationship with God or not having the relationship with God to telling me now, hey, I was in Ezekiel last night. Hey, I was in the book of Revelation. Uncle, what do you think about this passage? Hey, Uncle, look, bro, I went to church for the first time in years. I had a conversation with my mother and I ain't talked to her in years. Like that right there, that's what it's all for. Yeah, that's it. That's it. That's it. Those are the three biggest impacts that I've had off this platform out of everything.

: Well, I was, I wasn't expecting you getting in a horror game. That that one's kind of cool. The others are life-changing impact uh on yourself and on other people. And I really think that's one of the things that I really would love and it doesn't mean you have to do this on Twitch, but Twitch lets you do this. I really wish the whole of those who are followers of Jesus would see is you need connection and community with people outside of one hour on Sunday. And if you're only connecting on one hour a Sunday, you're not in community. Uh, you're just in person consuming content. You're not in community. You are just scrolling one Sunday at a time through the feed. That's all you're doing. And I'm not picking on anybody. I was there for years, okay? You're just scrolling through one, one hour at a time, one, one week at a time. You're just slow rolling it. And you think that that's something, but if if you're not rubbing off on the people sitting next to you, if they're not rubbing off, and I don't mean the pastor sermon, I mean the other people sitting in the pew, the other people you having coffee with, the like I as a pastor, I couldn't have but a dozen conversations before and after the service and I got hundreds of people sitting there. Where did those people go and who wasn't having a conversation and and what was I supposed to do Monday through Friday? Get ready for the next service. Get ready for the next program. Go visit somebody that wasn't there. I didn't get to build relationships all the time. Um, oh, that just to just to throw, hey, Luces, welcome in. Uh, part of an idea we were talking about earlier of not wanting to get bigger. Um, I've heard this expression said, "What would be better? Uh, a thousand churches of ten people or one thou, ten thousand member church? Which would make a bigger impact on the kingdom? How about let's let's turn this a different way. Uh, what would have a bigger impact on Twitch? A hundred streamers that have ten people in their chat every time they go live or one streamer with a hundred thousand people in their chat.

: Which would make a bigger impact on Twitch? That's easy for me. 100 with 10. The 100 with 10. Yeah. Because if you impact the 10 that you have the right way, it's going to set off like a wildfire.

: If you impact it the right way, it's going to take off. That word, the good news will travel. Unfortunately, toxicity, negativity, foolishness, it's going to travel just as fast.

: But outside of that, you get the right people. You don't need many. You just need the right. And that's what this platform lacks.

: Numbers drive everything on Twitch. Yes. People don't understand the life. If you can change one life to me, that was a W stream, as these kids would call it today.

: W stream. Oh yeah. You know the W stream. Like the day we had a whole conversation about somebody was in the midst of getting ready to take their life and we stopped everything we did to allow the Holy Spirit to guide us in prayer and through conversation and our life was changed.

: I don't care if it was nobody but one-on-one with me and that individual. That life was changed. That was a W stream. That's right.

: But if it, because it wasn't a hundred people, a thousand people watching, it's just like, well, you know, maybe tomorrow. No, it was that day that was more than enough.

: It was more than enough. So I got my own sayings about this platform and always say, "You need to write all this stuff down." No, I don't.

: No, I don't. Well, you were talking about you need to write a book. Oh, I was going to. I was going to suggest if you seriously want to work on that, this is what I'm trying to do because I've got like four book ideas that are, I'm—

: I don't need to be talking to you right now. I see right now you going to get me in trouble. You going to keep me busy, but in the right way.

: In the right way. Exactly. In the right way. Um, so and those are the ones that it's like I don't know if they're going to get published or not.

: It doesn't matter. God has said I'm supposed to write certain things. You're talking about God speaking to you. It's like, "Oh, I need to I need to write this out.

: I need to. It might not be for anybody, but maybe my grandkids. Who knows? Maybe it's for me to write it out and to process with God through it.

: Maybe it's to share with people. I don't know. But I kept like, it's on my list to do. It's on my list to do.

: It's on my list to do. I don't get to doing it." So I, uh, I don't know if you know, I you probably do, but I have another channel besides this one and my Flat Cap Dapper Pastor.

: I have my one Dapper Koi Pond. So uh, I started doing co-working streams over there on Mondays and Fridays. And one of those two days I have to write.

: That's one of the things I need to do is work on one of those books. Doesn't matter how many pages, it's got to be at least an hour of my time.

: I need to at least one hour a week, right? And how am I accountable? Because my stream is there watching me. Uh, I do raid from my own channel over there so that you know my regular followers who are like, "Oh, I'm going to go hang out with you over there." I raid from my own channel over to that.

: And then I hang out and some days I got to work on videos and other stuff, but it's like, "No, no, no.

: I didn't work on writing on Monday. Friday I have to. I have to write. Uh, and then Monday I can decide what's a priority for the week.

: Oh, I'm gonna write today. Uh, last week I didn't write because I didn't end up doing my extra stream. But uh, I I like the fact of accountability though.

: I think that's where we lack so much right now. Um, just in life in general, not just on the platform, but accountability, you know.

: Uh, but the fact that you hold yourself accountable, you started a channel where you say, you know what, I'm going to write. I'm going to make sure this is what I do.

: And a lot of people won't do that. Uh, the cycle of excuses that we live in to stay complacent. Um, and wonder why we never reach our full potential or our uh, our destiny and what God's called us to do.

: We get complacent. We don't move. We get stuck. And then we quick to point the finger. It's no one finger. That's yourself. The man in the mirror.

: So I respect that though. Yeah. Well, definitely what what kept happening, and I'm sure you understand this, like here's my to-do list and everything else seems more urgent because it's not like I'm on the last chapter and I just got to finish it and do a final edit and that urgent now.

: No, I got to start it. That's not urgent. I got to I got to write the second chapter. That's not urgent. Uh, everything else is always going to be more urgent than than the writing is.

: So but I like I said earlier, I I value my word and if I plan to do this, then I'm going to show up to to do this thing and then everything else has to wait because this is the scheduled time.

: No, it's not the main. Just like everything we were talking earlier. No, life happens and things get in the way. Uh, you know, you need to to shut down and take care of family that's immediately around you or something else.

: Those are those are all realities of life, which would be the same as if I'm in a in-person pastor at a church, too. Uh, my mom dies, I'm not preaching on Sunday.

: I'm just saying, you know. Uh, it I love you all, but I'm not preaching on Sunday when my mom dies. It's it's not happening.

: Uh, it might not be for a couple of weeks that I could bring myself to do that. You know, that one's that one's going to crush.

: You know, if it was an unexpected family member, same thing. Same thing. And you know, the the sad part of we saying is just base conversation right now.

: Yeah. But it's sad that we have to explain these things now in this world that we live in. You have to explain this like, hey, I can't be here.

: You know, I have a a beautiful wife upstairs that I I'm trying to one year one year bring that husband of the year trophy home.

: You know, just one year. Just one. You know, I only need it one time and that's all I need. But that I got family, I got friends.

: Like this, as much as I want to make this number one on my list, it can't be. But we have to explain it now.

: I remember when it was time where people would just disappear and if you knew them personally, you would reach out, hey, you good? Everything's all right?

: Now it's like the perception of our mind start tapping in on our souls. What did I do to them? What made them shift?

: Why they change it up? Something in, who said something to make them dis. We can't just do life plain no more. It's always the extra that come with it.

: Explaining ourselves. Hey, we got a raid coming in. I don't know if you can see that or not. We got Christian Ninja coming in with the raid.

: Look. Uh, did I set, I'm trying to think. Did I set up another, no, I don't think I did. I was trying to think if I set up alerts.

: Welcome in. I'll just welcome everybody as they come in the chat. Ukulele for Worship. Glad to have you here. Christian Ninja, love you, buddy.

: He's been on the podcast already, so now he's bringing his community over here. Sunshine Faith, glad to have you here. Welcome in, Raiders. Uh, I'll welcome everybody and then I'll give you a chance to introduce yourself.

: Big. Uh, see anyone else coming in? Yeah, that the chat is not shared. I thought I had, let me go to it. I thought I was sharing the chat earlier.

: Let me look at the, you man, I want to be in cahoots. You may not want to be in cahoots with these folk over here.

: Oh my god. I'm joking. I'm joking. I love my community, bro. Okay. Okay. Now I'm sharing chat. I apologize. I thought we were sharing chat from the beginning.

: So my mistake there. No, you're good. I I don't know nothing about it. So I thought it was all too. So, okay. Okay. It's all good.

: Supersonic Save by Grace. Here we go again from the top. Exact. Conroy 1776. Shoes and hats. Does someone collect pants and shirts? Uh, there's team no pants, so I'm guessing they they don't.

: I like the way you put that. Okay. Uh, everybody, welcome in. So those coming over that may not know, I appreciate you, Christian Ninja, bringing your community over here to the Church Digital.

: Uh, I am a streamer. Uh, I have my own channel, Flat Cap Dapper Pastor. I've been a streamer over there and connected with Christian Ninja for four plus years.

: We've been friends hanging out. I love what he's doing. I love his heart for ministry and I thank you for bringing all your friends over here.

: The Church Digital. We are a digital missionary sending agency. Uh, we help train, equip people to think about how are you intentionally a missionary with wherever God's placed you on Twitch, on TikTok, on Facebook, wherever it is.

: How are you intentionally being a missionary of what you're doing? So you can check that out more. And so that's why on the podcast I bring friends in who I label as a digital missionary.

: I don't care what their label is, but I just see them as being salt and light in dark places. And to me, that is what a missionary does.

: So uh, Big Unk is who I'm hanging out with and chatting with today. So Big Unk, if you want to introduce yourself. Good afternoon, everybody.

: Happy Tuesday. Um, again, as Flat Cap said, I go by the name of Big Unk. Um, all that stands for is Big Unk is Kingdom Builder.

: We on our own mission over here in the GMBB family. Uh, which is the community that we started over here years ago on this platform to uh, literally just assist people with connecting to God and growing relationships, healthy God relationships.

: Um, like I said, I've been doing this now for almost five years fulltime, which I thank God for. Um, built an amazing community over these years and uh, over here we preach, teach, laugh, and do life with other amazing people.

: We have church on this platform over here. I am not a pastor. Again, I learned a long time ago that you don't need a label to do what God's called you to do.

: So with that being said, we watch amazing sermon series by the incomparable Pastor Jerry Flowers out of Houston, Texas every Monday morning. Uh, we pray as a community, as a family every day at 11:00 a.m.

: Eastern Standard Time. And uh, we worship and we just talk about life, man. Um, one thing uh, I I would say too, I also consider myself the black Ghostbuster of Twitch.

: I'm known for my indie horror games, but um, my biggest accomplishment in life is the connection that I allow you, that I work towards with allowing people to grab a connection and be closer to God.

: That's my biggest feat in life. It all don't none of it makes sense or is worth anything if we assisting people with building a relationship with God and that's where we at right now just striving to do and walk in our purpose and our assignment.

: So welcome in everybody again. So yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Uh, well I think that just kind of leads into a little bit. I was I was going to ask you about this at at some point. Um, horror games.

: Uh, what is it that attracts you in that direction? And I mean in order to play them and uh, I'm sure people ask you, can a Christian play horror games and why why are you doing that?

: Because I I hear that in some realm with a lot of things that that I'm around. And so I'm sure that you hear those kinds of questions.

: But I also know people who are far away from God and who are in those spaces still need someone to minister to them. So I'm setting you up the the whole picture.

: Just wherever you want to go with that. Um, I'm not coming with the judgment on it. I'm coming to help others understand where God's placed you.

: Gotcha. Um, basically, like you said, uh, we meet people on their ground sometimes. Um, you know, we're quick, I think, as Christians, one, we're too quick to judge others, right?

: I always tell people, imagine if God treated us like we treat treated other men and women, right? So sometimes you got nobody wants that.

: So sometimes you have to get on the same playing field. Now, I do say this, just because you get on their level don't mean don't mean for you to stay on their level.

: You have to go and reach and get them so you could bring them up out of what they're currently in. So with that being said, we chose horror games.

: What place to be to where there's more demonic, Satanism, just so much nonsense behind it. Right. Right. So what it was, it started, it started as a joke in the community years ago.

: Um, it was something about seeing a middle-aged black man being petrified. I am not comfortable with this. I've been doing, I've been doing it a very long time.

: I have. And every game I play, there's a level of anxiety and fear that's in me. As you can see, if you ever followed anything I ever done, the looks on my face, the, uh, the hollering, the screaming, the get up and walking out the room, all that is real.

: That is not for play. That's real life. I'm uncomfortable with it. But it makes for great content. Now, I will say this. I don't jeopardize my relationship with God.

: I don't play with my walk and my Christianity journey. I don't do none of that. There's some things I will not do when, if it comes to a game, when they physically want me to play with a Ouija board or chant out demonic things.

: I will not do that. I know the connection that that has to your spirit. I know how that can shift the atmosphere. Like there's levels to this.

: And I always tell people, if your spirit is weak enough to be influenced by others around you, you don't need to be around it.

: If my spirit is weak enough where these games really take a choke hold and stronghold on my life, I don't need to be playing with it.

: There's been times where I pray before we jump into any content. I ask God for protection over my mind, spirit, and my body and the community that nobody leaves here, uh, connected to something they don't need to be.

: Right? In the end, when I leave and go back upstairs to my beautiful wife at the end of my day, I pray as well.

: So I'm covered in prayer. I believe that God will cover me from all seen and unseen dangers. I speak that with conviction. All right.

: So as a, as a joke, it started with the horror. Honestly, I saw the reactions from so many people. Um, how people just fell into the community, right?

: Like, wow, the numbers are going crazy. Like, what is this? Y'all really want to see this mess? And I'm like, I don't want to really do this.

: But I kind of grew the attention from the numbers and it was like, ooh, but then again too, I could really make something better out of it. I can glorify God in the midst of this foolishness.

: So there's times where I take a horror game, right? And it's funny. It do be funny, but I can make a spiritual reference to it and somebody will be like, "Oh, well, well, you could, you could, you could preach a word out of anything." I said, "Yeah, you see how this just happened?

: Now imagine if," and they be like, "Wait, I didn't see it that way." And then we jump back in the game. So it's good content.

: It's funny, and I know how to use what God has given me. So now some of the games, I ain't going to lie, it, it's like I'm like, Dez, can we not play with this?

: Why, why we got to go this far with it? But I've been doing it so long. It's, I coin-phrased myself as the Black Ghostbuster, and that's who I'm known as now.

: Right. And I, I tell anybody, don't nobody do it like me. It's, it's a great time. I lose a lot after we pray at 11 and I hit my little thing and we go into our Black Ghostbuster theme song.

: When I tell you sometimes I lose half my community to lurking and be like, I can't sit here for this. I get it. I get it.

: I'm not even mad at him. I'm like, look, cool. I appreciate you being here for prayer, you know, but it's who we are now.

: Yeah. I think that's a good, a good, uh, point as well is when you are on for a long time and you're doing different aspects, you will attract people into those different aspects throughout your stream.

: So the person who's coming for the horror might come for the horror to begin with, but pretty soon they want to be with you more and now they're coming to the prayer time.

: Uh, but if you never did the horror, they would never connect and they wouldn't get the prayer. I mean, woo. There you go. Yeah, there you go.

: And the guy, matter of fact, the, the gentleman I was talking about that put my likeness in his horror game, uh, years ago. Uh, he, even, we DM each other from time to time.

: He said, I'mma be honest, and I get this a lot, and I love to hear this reference. We're not really like Christian-based. We don't really do the whole spiritual thing, but we sit in the back on Mondays and the encouragement, the positivity.

: I said, if that's what you want to call it, come on in. If you don't want to call it God-led, if you don't want to say it's the Holy Spirit, if you just want to say I was encouraged to be better today than I was yesterday, I was motivated to, to start doing something, um, better for myself. Come on in. Come on in. Like you going to hear this God reference now whether you want it or not.

: So you got to plant the seed and a lot of people are not willing to plant the seed, but we're willing to plant the seed.

: So you mean seeds have to grow. Oh. Oh. Oh, flat cap. I was just talking about storms yesterday. I was just talking about storms because something I get so much in my community is I'm going through this.

: I'm going through that. Man, oh, this is so heavy. When will this end? And I'm trying to get my community to understand. I understand, too.

: I'm dealing with a lot of babies. Uh, I'm still learning as I grow in my walk, bro. I tell my community, let's learn together.

: Like you, you got a problem. You trying to find something, maybe I don't know. Let's, let's find it together. Where are you at? Show me where you at.

: Let me see what I get. Let's work it together. This is fellowship. Let's grow together. Right? So that's how I am now. But I tell them all the time, we have to learn how to do for ourself.

: Um, I had a friend that told me the other day, uh, in private conversation, this, this community is almost just like church. It's almost like a hospital.

: Once things are broken, you're hurting and in pain. The temporary support that I get on a constant, I'm, I'm cool with it. I'm cool with it because I'm doing the will of God.

: But the, how sparingly I see people until they hurt again. Unk, I need prayer. Unk, I need you to pray for me. I'm going through this.

: You ever thought sometimes that God needs you to be in that storm? You understand that storms are needed to produce rain to grow whatever it is that's planted inside you?

: Did you ever stop to think that sometimes if you learn the lesson that God is trying to teach you, you can come out of that wilderness season that you've been walking through for years and you ain't found your way out.

: Stop for a second. The problem is we are running and running and running and trying to get a temporary fix on everything when there's something we need to be learning out of this.

: And that's, I think that's the thing that wears me down more than anything. So I'm in a season now where I'm literally trying to teach my community how to go into the presence of God for themselves.

: You don't got to wait till Monday through Friday at 11:00 a.m. Eastern Standard Time to pray. You know, you can go right into your prayer closet, fall to the floor, and pray for yourself.

: You know, you know you can do that now, right? We've been doing this for years. You don't have to. I'm here for you, but I'm still flesh and blood just like you are.

: I'm still dealing with life myself. And when I left here to go on vacation two weeks ago, I was mentally drained because I just didn't know how to just stop for a second.

: And even my wife said, "Why is it when every time you in your stream all I see is this?" And I couldn't understand because I was always stepping in to assist others.

: And even my wife had to tell me, "Baby, you're always on the phone taking care of other people. You're not even taking care of yourself."

: Yep. And when she said that, it allowed me to realize you're going to have to teach a different ministry over here. And it is what it is.

: So yeah. Well, anywhere you go in scripture, there's more than one person that's supposed to be doing the work of ministry. Uh, even, even the couple of times where Jesus, or not Jesus, when God goes to call one person like Abraham or, uh, Moses, and Moses like, yeah, it ain't me.

: Uh, you, you got to be thinking of someone else. He, he finally goes, fine. I'll send your brother to help. Now maybe other people have different relationships with their brothers.

: I mean, my brother's fine and all that, but that would not have instilled confidence in me if my younger brother was going to be coming and helping me do anything.

: I'll be like, "God, no, no, no. I got this. I, I, I know I was doubting you. Don't send my brother to help. I'll, I'll get it.

: I'll get it. I'll be fine." Um, anyway, just, you know, just having a little fun with that. But I think, I think on some level there is that level of which we often don't think we're called and we think we're less than.

: I, I love the example of Elijah after he has the big showdown with the prophets of Baal and destroys them and 400 people killed and then Jezebel says you're going to die and he runs away terrified and not only that he starts to isolate himself.

: I mean, I, I think there's a mental health breakdown here going on. This is one of those passages people say mental health is not in the Bible.

: You go read that and tell me there ain't mental health going on. Um, after God allowed you to do all that amazing things and now you attack.

: He just took a word, one word, one small word said to you. Yep. And you run in fear. Yeah. And then, and then he isolates.

: He leaves his servant behind and he goes and crawls up under a tree and says, "I want to die." Um, I've been there. And that is horrible to have that feeling of, of being in that space of, of wanting to, to isolate, to, to be alone.

: Uh, but I also know what comes before that usually is the Elijah trying to do all the work in his own power and himself.

: Go back and read the passage. Elijah wasn't told to have a showdown with the prophets of Baal and call fire from heaven. He was told to go tell the king it's going to rain.

: So he has a, he has a showdown with all the prophets and kills all the, the other, has all the other prophets killed and then he says hey it's going to rain now.

: Like I'm not saying it wasn't God that led him to do that. I'm just saying go back and read because it just says go tell him it's going to rain now and he does all this other stuff that seems like it, it could be in the power of God but was it God's will?

: Was it his? I'm gonna show Ahab that God's in control and that God's got power and I'm gonna do all this and look what I did and now it's gonna rain and, and then he's terrified.

: Uh, just it just feels so relevant to how we, we work and, uh, you're talking about feeling that way with Twitch. I, I was a teacher when I got out of, uh, college for a couple of years.

: And the biggest problem I had, I had seventh and eighth graders that were in an alternative ed program. I had, I had all of the aggressive girls because they would get kicked out of school and this was their last chance.

: And I got all the passive boys because they didn't know how to stand up for themselves and they didn't know how to speak up and they didn't ask for help.

: So I got all of the passive boys who couldn't pass their grade and all the aggressive girls who wouldn't go to class and put them into class together.

: You think they got problems? You bet they got problems. You know what? What I did when I went home? Tried to solve all their problems so that when I got back to school tomorrow, I had all the answers to all their problems.

: You know what I never did? Work on myself and focus on what I needed to do for myself. I couldn't leave their problems at the school when I went home at night.

: And it was one of the hardest lessons I had to learn after a couple years, which I didn't learn it because I learned it. I learned it because I got fired. Um, now, they didn't tell me I got fired. They gave me the privilege of resigning. That's what they said.

: We're going to give you the privilege to resign because you ain't gonna be back next year. So you can resign and then go look somewhere else for a job.

: And I didn't realize what I was doing to myself until I got out of there. Yeah. I can account the number of sleepless nights when I'm thinking about conversations I had with people, different people through the community and I'm taking they probably slept well, but I'm in there with a spiritual battle in the middle of my bed making sure I cover them in prayer and they probably slept like a newborn baby. Yeah. No, man. People don't understand that there's a level to a true God-led walk.

: There is a level to it. When I tell people I'm exhausted in the spirit, they like, "What do you mean? What do you mean?" Because it's not a game to be played.

: One, two, when you really put yourself in the presence of God and you really not even on your behalf, but on the behalf of others, it's a grueling, it's a battle.

: I can't even really explain it to nobody till you because like I said, there's other people that well beyond my walk that go through even more.

: Oh yeah. But where I'm at, I can say that it will tire you out. It will exhaust you. And mentally before I took vacation, I was tapped out.

: I was tapped out probably a week before I ended my stream. Like I don't even know who was going live that last week I was here for real.

: But it is what it is. So I just pray God continues to give me the strength that's needed to do his will, you know, because you got to know when enough is enough and when you're doing too much, right?

: So okay. I just want to tangent off of that because we've had several different conversations or touch points of talking about the Holy Spirit speaking to you, the Holy Spirit guiding intercessory prayer.

: Can you just kind of lay out a bigger picture of how you approach the Holy Spirit? If that makes sense what I'm asking there, like a bigger picture.

: This is how big Unk understands the Holy Spirit's interaction in his life and his family. Now, it doesn't mean this the same way that I encounter, but how do you encounter it in a daily basis?

: How has that changed throughout your life in your growth and understanding of that? That's kind of what I'm looking for. Okay. Um, when I speak of allowing the Holy Spirit to guide, the Holy Spirit, uh, for those that don't know, it's what was left to us as children of Christ.

: Uh, it helps us, it corrects us in that moment. As my grandmother would say, you ever have that one thing tapping in on you and it's saying, "Uh-uh, don't do that." And you know it's wrong.

: And something in you like, "I want to do it, but you can't." That's nothing but the Holy Spirit. And the thing is depending on where you are in your walk, you more prevalent to address it as it is. I always tell people the Holy Spirit is our point guard on our basketball court.

: It facilitates our life, right? It's going to help you get to places and make baskets in your life, right?

: If you know you're doing something wrong and that Holy Spirit taps in, it'll let you know, I'm not doing this. I know better. This ain't what I'm called to do.

: Right? Two, the Holy Spirit is always present in a moment of intimacy. A moment of intimacy. The Holy Spirit can also work on you in a public place with other people around.

: Uh, but I always found myself more engaged with the Holy Spirit in intimacy and throughout prayer through conversations. I know my community has also heard me say right before we get to talking on deep conversations.

: I'll be like, "Holy Spirit, have your way. Control the room. Speak through me so I can speak to your children." And the reason I say that and it's going to be hard for me to explain.

: There have been things that I'm unknown of. Like it's I don't know it. I don't personally know it. But God has given me the wisdom in the moment to be able to articulate a situation and give me the words that's needed in that moment.

: And when I tell you, I'll be like I sit here and I even tell my community. I don't know where that came from, but I know it's the Holy Spirit.

: I totally, totally know that one. I totally know that. So I always invite the Holy Spirit into any conversation because it's easy to get wisdom from just off somebody's genuine opinion.

: I don't want everything to be opinion based. Like I know our testimonies are our stories, it helps and assists with other people in their walks, but you need substance, right?

: It's like food. You can make a big pot of gumbo and it looks good, but if you ain't got the right seasoning in it, ain't nobody want it.

: Ain't nobody want it. So you got to have some substance that people going to want to gravitate to. That's something. And I use this word all the time.

: God led. Let God lead you to it and he'll never steer you wrong. So I make sure everything that I say is something to me I feel the Holy Spirit has gave me and I can give back in reference to God.

: So that's oh, that's beautiful. Pretty much. That's beautiful. Yeah. And it's not always that you need to articulate it to other people, but I've been having a lot of conversations uh recently, it seems, around the Holy Spirit and just how does the Holy Spirit guide you?

: How, what is your experience? You talked about the Holy Spirit seems to talk to you in the shower. I don't think the Holy Spirit's ever talked to me in the shower ever in my life.

: Okay. So okay. But I can tell you several places the Holy Spirit likes to talk to me. When I'm driving my car.

: Uh, I was working at a church that I had an hour drive and it was like almost at the halfway point from both sides where I would be going along.

: So one of those um was uh I was doing pastor networks in person and I'd done those for years. You get together. It's called a John 17:23 uh network or pastor group.

: And pastor doesn't mean you have to have a title. It just means you're doing the work of a missionary or a pastor shepherding people.

: So you would qualify from our definition of doing the work of pastoring people, shepherding people. Uh, so I had a group of those that was in person and in the midst of COVID, it had just run to an end.

: One person moved out of town, another guy was retiring. Uh, it one guy just could never make it. So it was myself and one other guy and we're like, "Hey, man.

: This is great." You know, and all of that. I love to see you. I love you, brother. But if it's just the two of us, let's just go have a beer.

: Let's not just meet and chat about ministry. Let's go out. So I was like, I was bemoaning to the Holy Spirit that loss of that group that came to a natural end.

: And I at that time had found Pastor North. I'd found Christian Ninja. I'd found a handful of other pastors online who were Twitch streamers and the Holy Spirit just like this is clear as day.

: Now, not an audible voice, but it doesn't matter if it's audible or not. It was clear as day. Hey, that thing that you're bemoaning doing, how about you do that online?

: That was it. End of conversation. End of thought. That was it. That's what happened. Um, and I talked a little bit about that. I had Rob on the podcast a couple episodes or maybe it was the last episode talking about that of hey, you know what?

: The Holy Spirit led me into this. I had no plans to go and start digital groups. Why would I do that? And yet the Holy Spirit just laid it on my heart to go do something I was longing for that other people needed.

: And it definitely needed because COVID definitely changed the world to where people became complacent about getting out fellowshipping doing life with other people.

: So God knew exactly how this world was going to need to be moved in. Oh yeah. So the digital pastoring and all this stuff, this is so needed right now.

: Um, I still I'm old school. I still prefer to go inside the sanctuary and worship. There's nothing like being amongst parishioners and leaving it on the altar like physically falling before the altar and just leaving it there.

: But whatever's going to move the body of Christ in this season, if it got to be digitally, uh, audible book, whatever the case may, Zoom meeting, whatever's necessary, sign me up.

: Sign me up. Period. Yeah. I'm not trying to draw a line between you have to do one, you can't do the other, you have to do both.

: Uh, I don't know where God's going to move you and what you need. But what I am convinced you need, and we were talking about this earlier, is people need Christian community.

: Now, I don't think they know they need Christian community. They know they need community. So if you set the table and have a well organized, set up, loving Christian community, they're not going to leave it.

: If you're truly a loving Christian community, just because you're Christian, as long as you're they're welcome there, oh, they'll hang out with you all day long because they can't get that other places.

: Uh, they just didn't know that's what they needed until they found it and then they're going to be in that space. Uh yeah.

: So yeah, like that's one of the ways I like to talk about it is I was setting up uh Christian community online and people have found it.

: They weren't looking for Christian community because they thought they needed it. They were looking for community, but the only one that was genuine and real was Christian community.

: That was genuinely loving everyone else, encouraging one another, accepting you where you are, and leaving the work of the Holy Spirit to the Holy Spirit to convict people and to change people and to let people grow in their time.

: Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to go to preaching here in a minute. You know, not it needed to be heard. It needed to be heard.

: Um, but on the other side, so there was an example of the Holy Spirit uh speaking to me in a way that I was, "Oh yeah, let me go do that." Um, the Holy Spirit also talks to me on the other side of things when I'm at conferences and things.

: And often I argue with the Holy Spirit because you're talking about the Holy Spirit being that voice that tells you, uh, you shouldn't do that.

: Well, the Holy Spirit will also tell you, "Hey, you ought to go do that." I'm like, "Man, I ain't doing that. Why would I want to do that?

: I have no interest in doing that." You know what? That means a lot of work. That means a lot of effort. There's no glory in that.

: There's oh. Oh. Oh. Yeah. Um, I like to say, um, I have the mentality of Jonah. I'm just not dumb enough to get on the boat going the wrong direction.

: I'll just argue all the way up until I don't buy the ticket and then I'll go to Nineveh. So I'm a little slow sometimes, but I'm not dumb enough to get on the boat going in the wrong direction.

: I feel you on that. I'm in a season where I question everything. Um, me and a good friend, a brother, two brothers in Christ, I call them.

: Two brothers, I really value their opinions and I value their walk. Um, I'm older than both of them, but I tell them, uh, where I'm at now, I don't have no more time to waste.

: So I'm in a season where I question everything. I'm serious. No, I just I just resonate some. I got I say I got no time to waste.

: I'm going to do this. I got no time to waste. Yeah. So yeah. If something pings in on me and I'm I'm God, is this you?

: God, are you really telling me I need to be doing this? God, is you telling me, do I really need to let them go? Do I need to pick up and move? Should I be here? Like everything. Even when I know is God really just locking in on me, I still question.

: I'm like, God, you sure? You is this me? Did you accidentally leave this on me when it was supposed to go to the person beside me? Like, let me can I get another sign? Can I get something else to give me some confirmation on this? So, I'm always asking because I'm in a season where I don't want to waste no more time.

: God, if it's you, let me hear it. If I need to be there, move my feet towards it. Don't let me waste no more of my time.

: Now, I spent half my life trying to find out where I needed to be. I've spent half my life trying to be everywhere that everybody else was trying to get to. I don't have no more time to waste. I don't. Let me maximize everything to glorify you right now. And that's how I move. So, I question and people is it all right to question God?

: That's your father. That's my father. It's all right to ask. Ask him. Ask him. I question him all the time. Is it okay? Go read Moses. Like Moses straight up like going, "You got the wrong guy. I can't do that. It ain't me. It ain't me. It ain't me. It ain't me. It's got to be somebody else."

: Um, just to go back on the discerning of, and this is just kind of like thinking through for everybody, like you know, like and I think that's really good. Like I am questioning because I don't want to step off in my own direction another time when I was deceiving myself because I wanted it to be God and so I just came up with my own idea and I tried to pursue that.

: Uh, I went to seminary and I spent time taking creative writing while in seminary because I wanted to write. I wanted to be a writer. I had worked on a screenplay while I was in seminary. I submitted it and I wanted to be creative writing. I had a whole book analogy of ideas with time travel stuff.

: And what was going to happen in the first book was one person was going to figure out how to time travel of one ethnicity and another person in the second book was going to countermand everything that happened. You had all that broken down. Oh, I had this all like I had this like it was going to be a trilogy. Uh, the thing that just because I'm never writing it anymore. God said no, don't. So that's why I'll share it. But uh, I was going to because I have a history buff. I was going to have first book was going to be North America was going to settle Europe. They were going to be unified different nations throughout, you know, the Americas that went and settled in Europe and then World War II was going to be in Europe and the Nazi concentration camps were going to be in the United States because it was just going to play out one hundred percent all events exactly the same except different locations globally. So, it was just like you could not avoid the fates, so to speak. I get it. I get it. Yeah. So, it was only the location. Only the location and what ethnicity got to do this. So, there'd be like a time remnant of one copy of one book that was an original history that somebody'd find in the future to figure out time had changed and then they'd figure out how to go do it for their time. Uh, but you could only actually share information in the past and nothing could happen sooner than it was supposed to.

: So like if gunpowder is invented in a certain year, you can go tell your ancestor in this year you can invent gunpowder and here it is. They can't do it before then, but you can invent gunpowder and guns and dynamite whenever they were actually invented and move them around the globe and change stuff.

: But it was like why you writing that? Why why you want to be a writer? Why? Why? Because I could make money. Because I could be well known. Is I could be the next Tolkien or or whatever else. And so it was like I got busy in ministry and I was like, "Oh, I can't do that. Uh, I'll put that aside. I'll do it when the kids are out of the house. Then I'll have time to go do it when the kids are out of the house." Then I want to say maybe about ten years ago. So I graduated from seminary twenty years ago, about ten years ago. All of a sudden, all of these friends of mine from seminary start publishing books and I feel this jealousy come over me because I plan to write books and now I got a bunch of friends that wrote books and I want to write a book. So, I thought I need to go write that book out and the Holy Spirit just said, "Why? Why can't you just be happy for other people and what God's called them to do and what they're doing? Why? Why can't you? Why can't you just let that?" So, okay, I'm not writing. So, it's only until last year that the Holy Spirit said, "You need to write." And I'm like, "I don't think I'm supposed to. You told me before I'm not supposed to. They say it's supposed to be my thing." And he said, "I didn't say publish. I said write." So, I don't know if I'm supposed to publish.

: This is just like giving you a long view of stuff which I know we're already kind of were talking about, you know, with streaming like is this the thing? Is this the not thing? Is this a my thing? How do I refine it? How do I make it the Holy Spirit's? How do I lean into it? How do I not copy? Because the last thing I need to do is go copy somebody else's idea or my friend to just put my name on a book.

: And it's the timing of God. It's the time of God. Um, I think I was saying this morning after prayer, excuse me, to my community. Um, was um just because God gives you a vision on something, God will give you a preview of what's to come. Yep. And I think some of us, he gives it to us and then we get excited in the moment and we want it then. Like it got to happen then. Oh, I married God put this the book. I know God told me to write the book. I know he told me to do the album. I know he's told me to start the business. Yeah. He may have told you, but he gave you the vision for it. But now you got to do the work to make sure it's done in the correct way.

: God ain't going to give you nothing, a vision of anything that he ain't prepared you for. So whatever God has given you in your spirit to create, to do, to walk in purpose, he's giving you everything to build that objective to glorify him. Everything. The connections will be made, the financial part will be taken care of. Those are the things we worry about that we shouldn't worry about, but we do because we allow our flesh to take over in the moment.

: And that's why a lot of this stuff be just, yeah, you know, ten years ago, I thought about writing this album. You know, fifteen years ago, I thought about creating this book and we never do because God planted the seed for us to do this. He gave us the vision. We started worrying about everything that came with the vision, the money, the influences, the companies, who can we and that's where we go wrong with a lot of things that God put on our hearts to do to change our generation, change our families.

: So, we got to that overthinking is always going to be what holds us captive as people. We just overthink everything. So, I feel like I got million-dollar ideas right now, and I'm getting older. So, I'm like, "God, if this gonna make me the million dollars, cha-ching, come on now." So, but I'm I'm taking my time with everything because um I just I'm taking my time, but I'm mindful of everything.

: Every lesson learned, every step that's taken. You know, if I got to step back, if I take five steps forward and God needs me to just step back and relook and revisit things, I want to be in a position where I can and don't feel like, hey, I'm taking the loss. This is a setback. Yeah. This is a setback for the comeback. This is me falling back so I could spring forward. Like my perspective on everything now is so different.

: I used to think everything was attacked. It was the devil. Uh, my haters don't want me to have this. Like, nah, God know exactly what he doing. Everything like, "Oh, God, you made okay, I had to lose this so I could gain that. I had to take that out so you could add that in." Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. It's just the mind, man. We get we change our perspective on a lot of things. We can definitely be more joyful in our journey of life. We just we really can. We really can. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, that's all good stuff, man. Yeah. I love I love I mean I I love where I'm at right now.

: Now I I know other other people will ask like hey you know if if uh you're a streamer now what would you go back and tell yourself when you were started streaming and all that? I'm like going I'm not interested in that because you can't go back. So you couldn't tell yourself you couldn't actually give yourself advice then because well I maybe you could but I couldn't because you know what I wouldn't listen to it then.

: I'm not the person I was then, so I wouldn't have I had like I'm the guy that has to learn the hard way all the way through. Like you can't you can't tell me to shortcut something. I won't believe you. I'll go prove it just to make sure you're right. You know, that's that's like I don't know. I maybe it's from growing up being the shortest kid in class and always having the attitude of I'll show you because nobody would ever believe oh, you can't dunk the basketball. Well, I can't, by the way, but I'll show you. I'll get a trampoline. I'll do something. I'll jump off of the tree. I'll dunk the basketball. Oh, don't you worry about it. It won't be in a game, but I'll dunk it. You had the Carlton Banks moment where you just took the ball from Will Smith. Feel like I'm going to win the game. Give it here. It's okay. We all have. Yeah, we all have. Yeah. But there's yeah, there's a beauty in understanding where you are and how God brought you to where you are. And it's it's it's just been well I I talk with my wife about this. I have had the most fun in ministry in the last year since I was in seminary and and when you're in seminary and you're all excited because you're you're learning all this stuff and you're you're God's calling you and you're ready to go. I've had and I I mean I could back that up but I'll just say just the last year has been the most fun because rather than spending twenty plus hours depending on week or twenty hours a week working on a sermon that I deliver for an hour and not seeing life change happen. I spend that same amount of time talking with people and reading the Bible and answering questions and being in conversations and I see lives changing.

: And boy is that fun. Yeah. To to actually be in the trenches and seeing the lives change like it's like um again I get a lot of wisdom from a lot of people that God has surrounded me with in this season. Um, but I I that planting of the seed, you know, um, a good friend of mine always tell me, you planted the seed, that's all you can do. Like sometimes you're not going to have the connection to see harvest season come, but just know the the right seed was planted. You got you're going to have to be okay with it because sometimes I get this sense of attachment with folk and I want to plant the seed. I want to help it water. I want to till it. I want to make sure it's fine. I want to get rid of the weeds and the roots and all that and then when it's harvest season I want to help you pluck it and we gonna celebrate together and not understanding that my season came and went. So I have to learn to detach myself when God said it's time to unplug. Go let you got to and that's been my biggest problem with this platform and in life in general too.

: You know I say this platform a lot because the majority of my time is spent here during the week except on the weekends. You know, well, I was I was uh reflecting not too long ago, and I think I think you can connect with this.

: There's uh instructions on the priesthood. And so, around 20 is when they're supposed to start working in the temple. And when they turn 50, they're supposed to stop doing full-time ministry.

: And they're supposed to be assistants to the young who are the up and coming, who are going to be doing it for the next 30 years.

: And so, okay, so, so since I turned 50, uh, I've just been trying to think through that process around it of who am I apprenticing?

: And maybe I'm not supposed to be the full-time guy up front anymore. In fact, I really right now where where God's got me at, I I can't go uh I shouldn't say God's got me at, where some of my uh recovery from things that happened uh in the beginning of COVID.

: I can't be full-time at a church. I'm not what the church needs to be full-time. I've got my own wounds and scars that I I can't fully do what what would be needed there, but but I can lift up and help other people in the places where I'm not wounded.

: I just don't have 40, 50 hours a week that a church can take. Uh I could give to other people, but a church and the system and what it wants I don't I don't have anymore.

: But I'm glad to let younger people do it and I'm glad to help them. And I'm glad to process through new ways to do things.

: Oh, it's just it's it's like what if we actually started doing what the priests used to do and have our seasoned veterans step aside and do less in the spotlight and elevate more people.

: Now, I still think on the platform like this, I got to show I can do it. You need to show you can do it.

: We ain't got to be the thousands, you know, person watcher, but hey, you reliably know how to do it. You can hold the conversation.

: And you can do what you're doing on your stream. You've owned it. You're you're not megachurch uh streamer. Uh I'm never going to be megachurch streamer.

: Frankly, I don't want to be. Um I I'd love to be partner. That would be an amazing thing that would feel like, hey, God, you're really blessing me and I've done that.

: Whether I do or not, I don't care. But it would it would feel like, you know, down the road of, yeah, this was worth it.

: And look what God showed. And the would be a blessing to the community more than me on some level too to say you guys did this more than more than I did it.

: But there's just that why do we not think that way? Like it's always the well I'm not picking on any generations here, but the the current oldest generation wants to hold on to power as long as they can.

: And it felt like the one before that did the same thing. I think my generation is just going to fade in the background and go forget it.

: We don't care. Let me let me plant this. Let me plant this. It may not even be the fact of the older generation wanting to step aside and hand it down to the the generation after us.

: I think it's a fear of what we see in this world right now. It's almost a lost hope and a dying breed of a generation right now to the streets, to the culture, to life, to the temptations.

: I understand as Christians, we got to give grace the same way God gives us grace. We have to understand we don't pass judgment. I get all that.

: But right now, there's really not a lot to go on to. It's it's this generation demands constant pressure from from the word of God.

: We got to constantly we can't pass nothing along. It's like saying, "Hey, I'm a millionaire. I want to go ahead and bless my kids with all my inheritance, the money.

: Boom, boom, boom. You know, you got one son that's addicted to to this. You got one daughter that's partying and throwing all the You really going to trust everything you work so hard in and just hand it over.

: It's almost like that we don't have time to take a break, unfortunately. And that's why a lot of pastors are being worn thin in this season because I how do I really want to say this?

: These kids are not getting it. They get it for the moment. And and I I get it. We got to plan it. We got to plan it.

: We got to plan it. But God knows how long we going to keep planting and watch them dig up seeds and nah. Get that out of here.

: Nah, not right now. Like we I don't think we can take a break. Oh, but see see I'm I'm on the 100% opposite side of that.

: So, so just think about um your, you know, kids growing up. What I what I would witness a lot of times was never inviting to participate along the side with I'm going to cook dinner or and so if you never got invited by mom to cook dinner, you never learned how to cook dinner because it was never good enough to serve the family because you never got your hands dirty of making a cake and messing it up.

: And like that perspective. Okay. And yeah, and what I made sure with like I do all the cooking in my house, by the way, with with my kids, well, I shouldn't say it's my it's because I'll I'll back up here.

: The reason I do cooking in my house is because when I was seven years old and it was between breakfast and lunch and between lunch and dinner and I said, "Mom, I'm hungry." And she said, "I make three meals a day.

: If you're hungry, you have to make your own." I go, "Great. Can you get me a cookbook?" So, I got a cookbook because my mom got me a cookbook because I saw a problem.

: Not a real problem. Just, you know, imaginary. She could have went a different direction, but she said, "Hey, I'll you cook your own meals if you if you're going to cook more than three." Okay, I got a problem with that.

: Teach me how to cook. So, then I wanted to make sure my my kids all knew how to do it. So, yeah, there's some messy, awful stuff.

: And you start at the level at which they can. You know, my first cookbook had scrambled eggs and pancakes. Okay. You know, you know what?

: I hardly ever make it. I hardly ever make scrambled eggs and pancakes. I believe it. But I'll tell you what, when I take the time to make a nice omelette.

: Oh man, you you're you're going to sit there and enjoy that if I give you the time of all of my I didn't start that way.

: Broken shells in there. uh you know pick them out uh spilling stuff on the counter uh all those things I have seen on the side of in the church more of the and it doesn't matter what generation just in the last five years they could be gen they can be millennials they can be alpha I I've just seen more and more of them that feel a heart and a calling for God and the church isn't letting them have spaces to step into things and when they when they get called and feel called to step out uh to do ministry where they're already at, we say,

: "Well, you got to go learn something first and then come back." We don't give them opportunities to do it. If it's in a physical church, uh you want to learn to play guitar, great.

: Go learn to play guitar. Once you've learned to play guitar, come join the praise team. Wait a minute. Why can't we have them join the praise team while they're learning?

: Oh, because we got to have everything be 100%. It it can't be less than if it's their 100% to look back. If it's their 100% it's their 100 I'm not saying every week.

: I'm saying one song and I'm saying you can but you're not inviting them until they've accomplished to step in and do things. Yeah. And so what I what I'm seeing so I'm not I'm just saying I see different uh different places where I like I like I like your perspective.

: You definitely change your mind with conversation. I get there are Tik Tockers out there that are preaching the word of God and bringing it and people are are are getting changed.

: I'm not saying they have everything they need. I'm saying they've got the gumption and and they've got the obedience and those of us with seasons uh under our belt.

: Um, we need to love on them and mentor them and b and bandage them up when they get hurt and um men mend and bind up their wounds when they get brokenhearted, which we do too.

: And uh just sit in it with them and um boy, hope they do better than we did. I mute their lines. Yo. Oh man.

: No, I I I definitely liked your perspective on that. Yeah, it it's it's just I don't know. I uc Sorry, I'm just reading what ukulele said.

: Uh let them play but mute their line so can hear them. I love that. What a great thought. They could get the practice upstage, the nerves, the running through.

: You could have them quieter. Oh, what a brilliant, brilliant way to do that. Teach them to play chords and just play and embellish or the intro.

: Yeah. Yeah, they're waiting for the opening to serve and and they and and don't move out that way. And that's what I've seen uh a cap on is is some of that and which frankly was the way when we were coming through.

: There weren't openings to to step in. There weren't invitations very often to do those things. I feel fortunate I had a couple of those and and I stepped into them and then God just said one step more, one step more, one step more.

: And now I am in a really weird place I never imagined 5 years ago, let alone 20 years ago. And there wouldn't even have been any way to think about it 20 years ago.

: I mean, really, who who could have imagined streamers on Twitch reading the Bible and praying with people, right? I agree with you there. I agree with you there.

: So, no, not trying to argue with you. I'm just saying is I I see a lot of hope and you're saying you want to bring hope.

: Look look for those one or two people that you see them and just like yeah I I see that I see God's call in them.

: I see I see obedience in them. I I and and just invest where you can. That's what I what I think. can along the way you're planting seeds that you won't ever see the harvest come about on and watering other seeds you won't ever see.

: Uh just give you an encouragement on this level. Uh when I was in uh I don't know se seven or eight years old I went around telling everybody I was going to be a preacher.

: And in second grade, we moved away from the church I was at. And then I like maybe never saw the pastor again in my life.

: Okay. Um he lived we moved away. We didn't live there anymore. I had graduated from seminary and I was pastoring a church and I happened to be back home and my mom mentioned to me, "Hey, I saw Pastor Oliver.

: They're doing a celebration at the old church for him and I didn't know if you wanted to go or not. I'm like, "Oh man, you know what?

: I never got to tell him, "Hey, all that time." Well, by the way, I got kicked out of Sunday school when I was seven or eight years old.

: So, our church was set up with kids in the basement doing everything kids are supposed to do, and I change all the words to the songs.

: And so I get kicked out because I was bored to tears with the Sunday school lessons that they were giving me. I mean like this is just nothing.

: So I go sit up under the pastor at seven, eight years old and I'm like, "Oh my goodness, this guy loves you." This not doesn't just love Jesus.

: He knows Jesus. Oh my goodness. I've never heard anybody that such love for Jesus in my life. I want to be him. I want to love Jesus like he love I want him to.

: I want to know Jesus like he knows Jesus. Not, you know, flannel graph and not picking on veggie tales. They weren't around then. But I want to know Jesus.

: I don't want to know Bob and Larry. Okay. So, so I went to it and I don't know how this ended up happening. Uh, we go to whatever the the thing was and we go to the potluck afterwards and I end up sitting there's like a dozen tables more and they're long tables set up with, you know, 12 people at a table. I end up getting to sit across from him and his wife at the table, have an hour, two hour conversation telling him about what he meant in my life, what it investment he put in me for the kingdom and uh just what I was doing in ministry. He passed away two days later. If if I hadn't gone to that event this side of heaven, he'd have never known.

: He would have never known those seeds that he planted, that got watered, that grew, that are still growing. He He'd have missed all of that.

: Cuz I'll tell you what, at seven, eight years old, you weren't placing bets on me being a pastor. No matter how much I'd walk around telling you I was going to be a pastor, you weren't placing bets on it.

: Um, that that went down in middle school and the odds went really really low in high school. Like I mean nobody from my high school was betting on me being a pastor.

: I mean you're not even laying a parlay on me, you know, because it could absolutely happen. Um wow. Yeah. So it's you don't know what that seed's going to do and how it's going to get watered.

: So I'm just saying it's it's amazing what the life that I'm living right now is and what God has. And I get to know people like you uh who are doing awesome stuff, reaching people that I I I never get to uh even come into contact with at all, man.

: Wow. Feel the same. Definitely feel the same cuz I I thought this was just me stuck somewhere and it wasn't nobody else around like likeminded like myself.

: And as I started to kind of cuz I'm going tell you something too um that I'm trying to you know give grace on. I understand there's different levels to uh Christian Christian walks.

: Um like when I'm trying to find other like-minded communities and I use what's um available for us on the platform, I think as a a whole Twitch can do a better um thing in letting us have better categories to choose from.

: Oh yeah. For communities like this. Because when I tell you you type in Christian community, Christian streamer or Christian, Lord, you better pray before you get in there.

: Cuz sometimes you going to walk into something, you going to be like, "Wait a minute. What is this? And how are we using this?" And I'm like, "What are we doing?" And it takes me two minutes.

: And I'm like, "Let me get out of here. Oh, let me I'm not even speaking. Let me just, you know, let me go." You know?

: So yeah, I just feel like Twitch as a overall right now in this season because now we are showing ourselves relevant in this season.

: Like we're coming out in numbers now speaking the goodness of God. Like we need to have something more concrete for us. Like if you looking for worship, worship.

: If you looking for ministry, ministry. Like it need I just feel like I wish Twitch would do more for us instead of just allowing us to put just chatting and have to put in our title, hey, we're family friendly Christian.

: These little tags sometimes they stay up for a day, you go live the next day and be like, wait, what happened to my tags?

: They gone. You know what I'm saying? So, I I think I wish they would work more. I mean, they get we got podcasting and talk shows and DJ communities.

: Can we have even even at that um the titles aren't always the one I would think of that I would use. So I think I got told early on I think I may have been might have been streaming less than six months and I was just streaming under you know just chatting and

: someone told me well why don't you stream under the holy scriptures or the holy bible and I'm like cuz I never call it that.

: So, if I don't ever call it the Holy Scriptures or the Holy Bible, whichever one it was, I ain't looking for that and nobody else is either.

: And they ain't going to find yourself in a world by yourself, right? I'm like, and then I went and found the category. There's like two people streaming in that category.

: So, I'm going to go stream in a category that nobody's going to find me. That doesn't make sense. Yeah. Also, I do a whole lot just as much chatting as I do reading the Bible.

: So, I'd feel like I was misleading them if they came just to listen to me read the Bible and they're like, "What? This dude ever shut up about himself and whatever things and the squirrel that ran outside and his fish and his hats and making making, you know, old movie and TV show

: references that nobody under fifty knows at all, you know." No. I always tell people when they come in my community, this is Walmart. You got one-stop shopping.

: We got everything. Like we gonna talk, we gonna laugh, we gonna worship, we gonna pray. It's gonna be some weird stuff. Like, wait, what was just said?

: Wait, what? I How do we get on this topic and why? How do we go from food to sports to, you know, the a baby doodoo down my leg and the paper exploding?

: Like, we have like what just happened? Like, I give you some of everything, but you know, you don't know what you're dealing with when you got different people coming into your community.

: So I I I just as you know the conversations change, we change. Oh yeah. Rabbit trails. Boy, we would jump in a rabbit hole so fast over here is it's it's scary.

: It's scary. But it'd be great conversations though cuz one topic leads to another topic that would lead us in a place where somebody eventually can heal uh get revelation or understanding from.

: So I I invite every topic of conversation in respectfully. Yeah. So, yeah. No, I say I have a thing on my channel that uh exclamation point rabbits in the chat will count how many times I've gone down a rabbit trail, but it's probably like three or four times what the actual count is

: cuz we forget to count them. So, Oh, Lord. Yeah, we speak different languages over here, too. Oh, I love I love that, you know.

: Yeah, it's the it's the other channel. It's the other channel, not this one. I don't have it set up here. Uh we do a lot of stuff.

: Uh the the yeah the level of being creative of of of also community created stuff that you have that that gets generated from something that happens one time and all of a sudden it becomes a thing uh is fun.

: Um I don't know how much time you have. I know we were trying I I normally am trying to coordinate a game. I don't think that's going to work because I didn't get that ahead of time to try to to figure out uh doing a game today unless you got one you could

: pull up. But I was going to say, is there anything we haven't talked about that you would like to add to this conversation? Honestly, I I I love the conversation.

: The conversation has been everything to me today. It really has. Um I I'm like you. I love to talk. My community get on me all the time.

: We gaming today. What we doing? What we doing? Like we still talking? So I I love I love engagement with with other people. So um I I man, we covered so much like for real for real.

: Um, I think in the end of when in the end of it all, man, they they see what we're doing with the platform, we're building something to glorify God.

: We're standing on business about our relationship with God and and allowing God to just take a hold of what he's given us and use it purposefully um and our callings.

: So, I mean, honestly, no. I just felt like I was sitting here with a friend in conversation. I'm gonna be honest. That's That's how it is.

: Yeah. And to and to me that that really is what I'm loving about this approach to podcast is not inviting people I don't know in but inviting friends.

: And this this is how I view view my levels of of friends is the same way that Jesus had the inner three and then he had the twelve and then he had the seventy.

: and I'm inviting in my seventy and I'm getting to know them on different levels and so I get to know more about you and about your heart by asking you questions that I don't always think about when when I'm in stream hanging out with you.

: Uh I get to to hear you speak into things about what God has done in your life. And so it's it's just been been really cool, really fun.

: Uh so I want to thank you for that. Don't need to wrap it up real quick. If do you have more time? If you need me, I'm here.

: Okay. I'm here. I I Today was a day that I I devoted for this. Oh, man. That's awesome. Normally, today is our horror day, but like I said, I devoted it for this cuz like I said, this is this is definitely needed.

: Yeah. Uh right now, so I'm I'm here. Well, I know you play horror and so we already talked about that a little bit. Is there a almost free or or free or a trial horror game that you would recommend me going and trying that so that I could experience it uh more myself?

: Oh, flat cap. Oh, there there's some stuff out there. You You asking me? My god. You asking me? You're the one that plays. I don't know anything.

: I would just be picking I would I would just avoid Ouija board in the in the name title. That would be what I would avoid.

: But let me tell you, the Ouija boards that end up in the games, you think that it it there's no way it's going to be in here.

: Uh I like I said, I've literally had to stop content and shift to another game because they wanted me to take my mouse, push the Ouija board around.

: I was like, man, we not doing that. And I had people people already knew the the fruit I bear over here. They was like, "Well, we done with that game.

: End it." I say, "Oh, y'all already know." Next, close it out and we keep it moving. Silent Hill. Silent Hill, too. He said, "Freak.

: I wish I would." Trenches. No, we not trying to get past the cuss. All right. On any level. Look, that's been one of I see Resident Evil.

: I didn't realize Resident Evil was horror. I think I've played Resident Evil before. It It's It's not my type of horror. Okay. My community know I I I've dabble in the indie stuff.

: Um, normally my game consists of an old raggedy house in the middle of the woods with a old dusty lady with some kids laughing in the background.

: Uh, something like that. A few doors, a hallway, going to always be a basement and an attic with the devil somewhere in there. So, it's going that's kind of all I played.

: Some of these games they calling out are some of the bigger games that I normally Trenches was a good one. It was more psychological horror.

: The sounds will Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. I've seen some of those where it's like you can bar like you can barely see the screen.

: It's all black. You can't see any like that doesn't sound like fun to me. I'll tell, you know, like when you're setting up your games and it usually says it should be able to see this.

: This is where your brightness should be. And I go, "Okay, good. Now, I'm going to turn it up cuz I want to see everything.

: Why you hiding stuff from me? I'm going to turn that brightness up. You ain't hiding stuff. I It makes great content. Will you enjoy it?

: No. But the community will. Sometimes I will forfeit my peace in my life for these folk over here that treat me like they do.

: Yeah. Well, part part of me asking is because I don't this isn't something I would normally go to. Now, if you go into um Hold on, let me supernatural stuff.

: I'll go in that direction pretty easily. Supernaturally connected stuff, but not necessarily horror. Um, I'mma um some good there's some good horror games with a um I don't know about free.

: I would say reasonable prices. Two or three dollars. Oh, that's reasonable. I will always recommend anything by Ama Games Studios. Uh I think it's ema or something.

: I'm I'm not I'm not the best speller in the world. Uh but they have some good horror games. Classic. I'm always on the edge of my seat for their content.

: Okay. Okay. Um, uh, Mika Games, uh, there's been so many little indie games that have there was a game that came out, um, called The Maid that was crazy.

: I don't like puzzles. There's some things that I just don't enjoy. Like, I don't want to have to get out here and and play Scooby-Doo and solve no problems.

: Okay. Okay. So, you mean puzzles like escape room kind of thing? I don't I don't like to be chased. Uh but I will take a good chase from time to time.

: I like stuff that pretty much we open up the door and something crazy shoot at me out of nowhere. Just out of nowhere type thing.

: That's kind of more I don't want to have to go up and figure this whole design out and slide this over there. Go back across the hallway and find like see that.

: No, Poppy Playtime is not my thing cuz I have played them. Bixsburg number one scarier. I can't. Yeah, we use Dixert too over here.

: That makes it worse. Uh, when it comes to horror, because it allows the community to buy these things to let creatures and sound effects go off and stuff be thrown at the screen and it just intensifies the horror.

: But Ama games is a good uh company. Oh, I didn't even think that through. Uh, my anybody from my community got anything that I've played that trenches y'all?

: No. No. Bid it. Why would you do that? No. Trenches is not it. Trenches is good. It's a cheap game. Uh, but you're literally in like this World War One trenches and some people had died and they got all these people talking to you behind you and they tell you don't turn around and I'm behind you. It's crazy. No, man, that that don't sound like fun at all. Look, Doc, Doc, Doc, say Little Nightmare. That's probably more of what we need to do.

: Little Nightmares type stuff. Okay. What was the Christmas game? We did so many holiday horror games. Uh, Born of the Fear and Pack of Those was the games uh that my likeness was in or my logo at the time.

: Oh, Born Fear and Pack of Joy. And matter of fact, Bearded Baritone, the gentleman that's in the chat right now, he did his first major voiceover work for Beard.

: What game was that? Or was it both of them? Was it Pack of Joy? You did the voice over work for for uh Just Saw Studios.

: That's what I love about this community. There's opport, there's doors that open up on behalf of other people because of, you know, who we are and that's been a blessing.

: So Pack of Joy. Okay. Yeah. So it Baritone, he's known for his distinct baritone voice. Uh, very cool. He got his first. Yeah. Yeah.

: So that was dope to hear his voice in the game. I was like, man, come on, man. GMBB is winning right now. Uh, there was some whole series in the same house.

: The who? Wait a minute. Anything with a killer snowman unkn. That's why we shouldn't have linked chats up because I knew this is where we was going to go.

: Evil Within. That's all good is a good. Yeah. Fasmophobia. There's a lot of. It just depends on what you looking for. But my community gets so many.

: They say I'm the uh the legend of stalling. I never want to keep moving. Once I feel, once they feel like my anxiety has built up, they be like, "Oh, go in the door. While we still here, it gets rough." Not the game gets rough. The community gets rough on me. Yeah. So that's a whole world within itself.

: But it's always a good time. I honestly, Flat Cat, I wouldn't recommend nothing. Not nothing I played. I'mma be honest because I know they throwing stuff out here, but Five Nights at. I've never played Five Nights at Freddy's.

: I've never. Little Nightmares is is watered down. I don't even. I couldn't consider that a horror game. It's cute. It's a cute horror game.

: Uh, but the stuff I play in for the week and people say that all the time. Uncle, I don't know how we raiding to people.

: They be like, I be lurking you. I have to close you out. I hear you hollering. I get scared at my desk and I'll be like, "Oh, my bad. My bad. Don't lose your job over me now." Oh, yeah. Yeah, but uh. Oh, no. That's that's all good. Like I say, uh, if we're able to just set it up ahead of time, then I like to pull it up.

: But I've also had just as many problems with my system. I I think the last one I tried was a beta version, and the beta version crashed my whole system.

: It cuz I was doing too many things trying to stream, play a beta version of a game that wasn't fully fixed all the way through and I get it.

: We have those issues over here too. So without having the game ahead of time, I'm not going to try to do one. But I will go look into the two that that you have a likeness in cuz that would be worth me trying to find it in the game.

: Yeah. My old logo, my old logo of my old name that before we changed to Big KB is on the wall in one of the rooms.

: Then there's a computer that you go to a few computers in the last game that Biddy Baritone and Packa Joy where there's stories about me in the game uh that he's doing the voice voiceover work for.

: So it it was like I said it was truly a blessing. Um, I was it was it was an honor too because I'm I feel like this little community like but you I always tell people too never get fixated on what you see because your biggest blessing can always be behind the scenes.

: That's food for thought for somebody in here that really need to hear that because these are developers that sit in my community and I think like I only got 30, 50 people in here but you never know who's sitting.

: I've probably had more horror game developers speak through my chat in the last three years and I'd have never imagined that. And they were like, "Oh, I've had some pull up to help me with the game. Some blessed us with key codes at the for giveaways. Some act some reach out to me now and ask me for my opinion on games that they're working on and I'm like what?" Oh, man, that's awesome.

: Me. So, it's like I said, it's been a blessing. And I I never can complain about it. Uh, it's our identity now. Not the biggest identity we hold.

: Me being a man of God is the biggest identity I want to have. Yeah. Uh, but the black Ghostbuster got his own uh smoke out here.

: So. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, that's, you know, it's even when you're thinking about like, you know, Big Unk or other names that you've had or like, you know, I didn't I didn't pick my name because I thought it was going to be the greatest name that everybody ever heard of.

: It was one, I don't want people coming in and then later find out I'm a pastor, so I'm going to start up front with that and then I got to pick something that, you know, kind of rolls with it.

: Well, I don't take myself too seriously. So, you know, I I I I'm calling I'm starting out by identifying I have a hat on my head.

: Oh, that's a great way to talk about yourself. But, yeah, whatever it I' I've had people I've had people stay at an Airbnb with me that I didn't know get up for coffee at 6 a.m. and I'm standing in the kitchen and I already got a hat. I'm like, "Dude, did you sleep with that?" I go, "Well, I have one for sleeping." Yeah.

: But, no, I don't. I'm just kidding. I don't have one for sleeping. I get the same thing. My community got dibs over here. When would they ever see what the top of my head look like?

: I was like, "Y'all weird for that." But it was like, "What do is that hat attached to your skin?" I be like, "No, knowing that I have people that actually come and visit me and see that I walk around my own house with a hat on." They like, "Bro, you don't never y'all take my hat off. What? Why are y'all fixated with the hat? Why? These are my superpowers." I'm like, "Samson, I lose my hat, I lose my powers." Respect that.

: Yeah. Respect it. It's crazy. But whatever may it's great content, great conversational pieces, and like I said, if it draws the right people in for the right things that. Well, yeah.

: The the the people you're planting seeds that you never will know, uh because they might just lurk and they might just listen and the seeds are being planted.

: And yeah, don't don't count out lurkers that are in there. Don't count out people that are just getting started that they they're not fully doing what you would do.

: Uh, I wouldn't do what you would do because I'm not supposed to. You are. So, yep. I respect that. Vice versa. I respect that.

: Hey, uh, wrapping up here, what can I pray for you, man? It's a great question. Um, that God continues to use me. Oh, yeah, absolutely.

: That he continues to use me, that I remain humble in this season. I remain obedient. Um, but yet he increases my territory. Allow me to be faithful in my journey.

: Uh, allow me to continue to be a blessing to those people that I come in contact with, those that I've already reached, and those that he's bringing down the road that I will come in contact with.

: Those are the prayers that I me need more than anything to allow my mind not to be fixated on the culture and what the world is doing but what God needs me to do and to stay focused in it.

: Dude, that's beautiful, man. I think I think that's that's a level of prayer we we would all like as we're we're in this space is that knowing it's God that I'm following, not my own ambition and the humility and the grace and the tenacity and and all that.

: So, let me pray for you, man. God, I just thank you for this chat that we've been able to have. I thank you that we overcame all the tech stuff at the beginning.

: Uh, my sound issues and big being able to get the video and I couldn't even talk so I could tell him how to do it.

: But we worked it through and it's been so fruitful to have this conversation on this side of it. Thank you for everyone who's been in either one of the chat communities and for the raid that came over whether they got part of it for all those that will be listening to this uh in a VOD later or on a podcast. God, may you just pour out and continue to use Big Ankh. May this conversation have opened up minds and hearts uh to hear about the possibilities that someone's being called by you to step forward and follow in the footsteps, not because of Big Ankh, but because of your guiding the walk that Big Ank has taken, of where you have him. Continue to to allow him to have all the discernment he needs as to what is next in the community, how to grow, how to stay engaged with the community and to not uh be consumed with he is the one that has to do it all. To to trust and rely on the community as a whole to be able to step in and love one another and to be the body of Christ to those who need it.

: To give himself times where he withdraws the same way that you Jesus withdrew to the quiet place to be with the father alone. We can't carry all the burdens alone and and our burden or your burden is light.

: So let us take your burden and and and trade that off with the burdens we carry that are heavy. I just pray for his community, the blessing that it is that they have surrounded him with to lift him up, to love on him and his wife, and just to to help them do what you've called them to do where you place them to be for the season that they are in until you lead them to the next thing.

: Keep him humble and hungry to serve you and continue to have your spirit speak in and through him because I know it does. God, we just pray this and ask your blessing in Jesus mighty name.

: Amen. Amen. Thank you for that. Amen. Absolutely. Amen. Family. Amen. Amen. All right. So, as as we end, I usually have you recommend somebody we could raid out to so that we can bless one community with a double raid.

: Okay. Uh. Uh. Ah. Ooh. Imagine that. E. Oh my god. This you put this on me. Okay. Well, part of it is as I'm I'm growing uh the Church Digital channel, I'm not following everybody I'm following on my other uh channel.

: So, if I pulled up my other I could find a ton of people probably right now. But if I pull up the church digital, it's not going to give me all those.

: Plus, like if it's someone your channel usually would go over, raid, and bless, unless you're going to stream for longer, I can just raid you if you stay longer.

: No, no, no. Well, look, when this end, I end. Yeah, it's over. Okay. I just ended a seven-day fast. I I got food on my mind.

: Yeah. Uh, we need to talk about fasting sometime, man. You gonna have to have me on another time because I'm telling you I man look I feel like we covered a lot of things but there was a lot of things that we did not cover.

: I promise you. Oh, I know that. I'm just thinking I I might need to have a panel on fasting sometime. That might be the the first multi-panel uh a panel on fasting.

: And how does that help and prep you not only spiritually but your community and your digital uh presence? I mean, I think that's an aspect I haven't spent a lot of time talking on.

: I like that. Yeah. I, a lot of the fasting I've been doing lately has been for my community, the strength of my community, the things that my community are going through.

: Um, I do fast for myself, my family, and those around me, but I also fast for my community. So we've been doing a lot of it over the last two years.

: Um, but yeah. Um, one second. I think I know where I want to go. I see y'all recommendations, but hold up. Um, I want Flat Cap to see on his own.

: Uh, I recommended you somebody. Okay. Um, the other day we was talking. Um, for this one day, if you, you know, you ever be open to it.

: Um, she is a family-friendly Christian streamer that really uses a platform for worship and to glorify God. So, uh, she's on COD, so she's choosing violence today.

: But I would love to go and show her love. Absolutely. Cuz like I said, I did recommend her to you for one of your podcasts.

: So I think this will be a great opportunity for you to get to see who she is. Uh, she's active in her church. Uh, I love her to death.

: Her spirit is infectious. Um, everything about her is amazing. So I think this will be an opportunity to show some love to her.

: So, um, the young lady's name is Lexi Levels. Okay. Lexi Levels. So she's been streaming full-time here lately. Um, she works in the church and she's teaching you.

: Oh, okay. That's good. So I try not to go too many places at the same time cuz I want to get to know new people, but it's been difficult to, you know, it's hard to. I think she used to have, um, like Miss Lexi or something.

: She changed the name. Yeah. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. She changed her name. I would say probably two years ago I watched her quite a bit.

: Um, my stream channel and schedule changed, but that's all right because it's a good opportunity to come back around and refresh that relationship.

: So, okay. Okay, cool. Um, real quick, for those in the chat seeing all these links pop up, uh, that's all my stuff. Um, I have a lot of different channels, TikTok, YouTube, all this stuff.

: If y'all want to follow outside of here as ways you can support for free. Uh, we drop YouTube videos, horror playthroughs, story-based games. Uh, our shorts on YouTube have been doing amazing here lately.

: We have an eBay store where I sell a lot of the shoes out of my collection and my wife is selling shoes out of her collection.

: Now I didn't know about the eBay store. I didn't know about the eBay store. You got to wear 11 or 11 and a half.

: That's the only thing. That's the only requirement. You know, my, you know, I know. I know. I wear 10, 10 and a half, but it needs to be wide.

: So I might pull an 11 off if they're the right pair. I got wide feet. The, no. You know what? I appreciate you.

: Don't do it to yourself. I don't want you around with sneakers on. They flip-flopping off the back. Don't do. No, no, no, no.

: They would probably just sit right here. That I would probably just display them, you know. Oh. Oh, like, hey, ain't nothing wrong with it.

: Ain't nothing wrong with it. So, but yeah, support that. Whatever y'all want would be greatly appreciated. Um, it's funny content. If you need a good laugh on your day, I promise you it's something in there.

: I do get ready with me. I love fashion. I love pairing my sneakers with different fits. Sometimes it be me and my wife. Mostly, mostly me by myself.

: So just support it. It's free. If you got Instagram, TikTok, whatever, there it is. All right. And I appreciate y'all. So, yeah, Miss Lexi, copy if you in this community, copy the raid messages from here.

: And, uh, yeah, Lexi Levels is. Let me lock it in too. I'm going lock mine in as well. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you everyone.

: Thank you, Big Ank. This has been a privilege and a pleasure. Uh, exactly what I was hoping for. Everything was amazing and all of you here made that happen.

: And thank you for bearing with the first half hour of stuff that we will delete very quickly. Yes. Yes. Yes. And Flat Cap, let me say this. Uh, because I'm never a part of nothing without speaking life on it.

: Thank you for this opportunity. Again, my prayer for you and everyone connected to you that God continues to increase your territory, that he continues to use you in what you're doing in this season of your life.

: That every encounter is a God-led encounter. That he blesses your platform, your life, your marriage, whatever it is he has for you, that he continues to show himself evident and present in your walk and your journey of life and everything is God and blessed.

: I pray that over your life. I can't let nobody have me on theirs and not speak light into theirs. So, thank you again, man.

: Thank you. I appreciate you for real. All right, let's go raid everybody.