Can the Holy Spirit Work Online? Here's What Happened

: Okay, everyone should be able to hear you now on my side. I'm just not hearing you through my headphones, which I do not know why this is. Plus frustrating. Plus, I had to go and do new updates on everything today, of course. Yeah. Okay. We're just going to ditch that. I hope. Let's just uh everyone put a number in chat if you can hear us on both sides.

: That. There we go. If you got a number, one, two, three. One, two, three. Testing. One, two, three. If it's working. Hi. Number as well that I hear my feedback a little bit coming through your speakers.

: I. Right. That's that's going to be the problem here. Um, like I had everything running through UniFi and now all of a sudden once I brought you in, it killed UniFi. Nothing is running through UniFi. So, let me. That's not going to change anything. Okay. But I think it would be. Well, at least on mine, I think it would be okay cuz it's only just a little bit. And I don't think. Yeah, for me it's not coming through OBS. But I can hear it though. It's not coming through to stream. Okay.

: No. All right. Well, then we will just do what we can do and and we'll have fun. You're going to have mute on Zero U because it's really far behind for you.

: I thought you were refreshing. Yeah. Papio. Okay. I'm I'm not having any delay between us, so I don't know. I don't know where that is. He's the issue. It was fine. He's the problem. Yeah. Yeah. You. I know you did refresh. You said that earlier and it wasn't any better.

: Um I I don't have an answer. I'm I'm not the all powerful Oz that knows everything. Uh I am just the the minimalist streamer that is constantly having tech problems. Every time I try to upgrade it gets it it runs into issues. So, so uh I I was thinking about this and I should have done it between Tuesday and today of doing just a little video of the setup so that anybody that's coming in who has not done this the shared streaming together can go, "Oh, here's the different things. Here's how to because a couple people haven't done the virtual cam before and that's taken them a while to figure out virtual cam but it's not about having to tech all right uh our communities are going to hang out with us uh and enjoy it.

: There we go. I was just trying to see who's chatting um to the gallows. Nico, um I think we're okay. I think we're okay. We don't need any gallows. Uh, but thank you for coming in. I appreciate it, friend. All right, let's go ahead and and get started.

: So, welcome in everyone to the church digital gaming outpost podcast. That's a lot of words. It means very little other than you have stumbled into an area where maybe the church hasn't paid any attention is those people who are in gaming who are lost and need the love of Jesus. And I'm highlighting friends of mine and I'm starting with those that I've known for several years online streaming and so Z Sarahu uh is going to be with us today on the podcast.

: Go ahead and say hello, introduce yourself, whatever you'd like to introduce about yourself. Hello. Hello. I am Zero. I am from Puerto Rico and I've been streaming on Twitch for about seven years. So yes, but most importantly, I just love sharing about God's love and God's hope and everything that I do. Seven years. I didn't realize it was that long.

: I knew I knew you were several years before I had had jumped in. And I actually love when you you say Puerto Rico a little bit. I can't do it, but you know, roll your Rs in there. And uh I I just love your accent. It's it's so much fun to listen to.

: Well, I appreciate it. Yeah, there's several people that have mentioned it and I think that's why I just continue to put emphasis on the Puerto Rico.

: There it is. There it is. Oh, just it's just well, you know, and I I tried to take Spanish back in school and I struggled with it. Uh, back then it wasn't uh an emphasized thing and unless you were planning on or you had friends and relatives who spoke Spanish. We were learning Spain Spanish and the people around us were from Mexico and Guatemala.

: So, it wasn't even that helpful. I learned more in the playground of how to swear to w at people uh than I was really learning in class. So, u you know that kind of frustration, but I really wish I would have hung on to it and and learned more. It really seems like a wonderful skill to be able to communicate with people in more languages than just one.

: Uh there's just so much that helps you understand cultures when you understand different languages. So I appreciate that about you very much. Yeah, there's been uh several people that have told me that they used to study Spanish at school, but they just stopped. But it kind of makes sense because again it depends really on who you're around. So you get to like practice the language more uh if you're around people that actually speak the language.

: So it definitely helps. But um I personally I feel very blessed and thankful that my parents taught me since I was little and at school as well uh because of what you mentioned. I'm able to like you know be able to communicate with even more people, be able to enjoy more music, be able to see more, you know, more movies, more shows, just everything.

: So, it's a huge blessing and I just love it so much. Yeah, I've started to this is like this is what I love. It's like the the conversation can go wherever wherever it's going to go. We're just talking language, which is an interesting thing. U I've started to I want to say probably five years ago, watching Netflix shows that are in a foreign language and putting the subtitles on.

: I I I I'll tell you this is silly. I started this accidentally because there was a Turkish show on with crusaders and stuff and I wanted to watch it. So I'm like I'm going to watch this and then and I'm just going to read what's happening. I didn't realize essentially it's a Turkish no uh to tel nolla.

: So it's a Turkish soap opera that I I like but I think I like I think season this is like I I figured it out. I think I got around a hundred episodes in and I'm like nothing ever happens. It's always progressing. They always do those looks and uh um it was like, "Oh, wait a minute. 100 episodes in, we're still in season 1. How many episodes are in a season?" That's when I figured out, "Wait a minute. I think I'm watching a Turkish soap opera or Tel Nolla." And uh but but since then, I've really like shows that do bilingual.

: I really really like the bilingual because I I feel like I can follow the conversation. I don't have to rely on subtitles as much. Doesn't mean I know enough yet to speak, but but comprehension of others comes before your ability to speak with other people. Yeah. For me personally, I love to listen to shows in their original language, whatever that may be, and just read the subtitles because I love listening to other people speak different languages.

: And especially be able to cuz there there's been moments where I've found like different like worship music as well in different languages and and seeing people in other cultures, just different parts of the world worshiping God. Uh I just love that so much. There's something so special about it. Yeah. I think when you're talking about worship, there's your heart language, too, of how you worship, the words you use, even even style comes from heart language.

: Actual language is going to be part of that because if it doesn't move you in a certain way, it doesn't matter what the words are. I mean, I I have friends who love love love gospel music, it doesn't move me. I I can get moved by the words and go, "All right, that sounds really theologically good or that's really praising God, but my my spirit doesn't move, my soul doesn't move." Uh, in that same way, but everyone's language of the heart, which I think David really does a good example of of showing us that. Yeah. Yeah. He is very I love that he's very open and uh vulnerable just being able to to speak what he feels with God.

: Um and that's usually what I tell people like whatever you may be going through you can tell him cuz he already knows. He already understands. And I just love that that I can just be very honest and open with God and he won't like just suddenly turn his back because I'm telling him something that he's surprised by because he already knows.

: Um, and he's just there to to comfort and to listen and, you know, to to show like, you know, no matter what, I'm here and I'm going to love you. You know, even through this, we're going to face this together. And I Yeah, it's amazing. Yeah. I think also just along those lines of how you're talking about being transparent to God and and not trying to present yourself in a way that is dishonest or or making yourself better than someone else.

: I think that's also what I've really appreciated about several streamers, including yourself, that hey, I I I I watched you online, then I met you in person, and wow, you're the same in person as as you are online. You're you're not trying to pretend to to be something else to get people to come in and and follow you uh and say and hang out and then if they ran into you, you know, in person, they would go, "Well, boy, that's that's nothing like I thought Zero was going to be." I mean, totally different. Yeah. Plus, I feel like that's very exhausting to to try and like be someone else uh half the time, especially since I think it's so hard to do through streaming if one's doing it for several hours to like have this mask.

: Uh yeah, it's I can't imagine doing that. Plus, I wouldn't want to. Um that's why I I really try to like be open and honest uh with you know with how I'm feeling and everything and I communicate that with people so that hopefully they feel like you know in a in a place that is safe that they're able to also be be able to be vulnerable as well. And there's definitely been moments where I've like uh cuz I try to like start um I try to start the stream by praying first.

: And there's definitely been moments where I'm like, "Guys, this is maybe like a short prayer because this is how I I feel or this, you know, this is what I'm going through." And sometimes it's just saying, "God, thank you for this day." And, you know, amen.

: Um, and I just love that. I I love that I'm able to to be honest and and open with people and and hopefully they feel safe enough again to to be vulnerable as well.

: Yeah. Well, like I say, people don't often think that prayers can can be super short. I don't think we always do a good job of modeling that in church. We usually have a lengthy prayer or we we have to talk for a while. But if you read through the book of Nehemiah, my my favorite prayer is I answer or I prayed to God and answered the king.

: Okay, wait a minute. Like the qu king just asked you a question and you're answering the question and in between the ask and the answer there's a prayer. It is no 5 10 minute prayer. The king is waiting for your answer. U Nehemiah is prepared for it. So I I think it's just something like let's do it God.

: You know like like I'm ready to go God. Like give me the st. It's got to be like a short little thought in the moment. Let's go. I'm ready to roll. So yeah even a prayer that just says hey God take the stream. That's that's enough prayer to acknowledge and honor why you're doing it.

: Uh who whose glory you want within it. Uh all of those kinds of things. It doesn't have to be 500word essay on on we're praying for healing for someone specific. Now there are times those are amazing, but it's it's not just a lot of babbling to to hear yourself or to make sure that you're heard by God.

: Yeah. Yeah. And and again, I think what's most important is just being honest. Like God already again, God God already knows what it doesn't really um I guess like it doesn't really move God in a way whether you're making it again like you said like a certain amount of words or this or

: That. Um, it's just being open with him, being honest, being vulnerable. Yeah. Um, so we're starting in a different place than normal that because I usually, you know, want to go back and talk about, well, hey, how did you decide to be a Twitch streamer? What was it? Uh, what was your experience? Cuz some people I know they all of a sudden felt a call and they went on and they did it right away and they were just streaming.

: Some people they hung around for years watching other people and then finally decided or felt the pull to start streaming. So, what was that journey for uh you like? Where did you start? And then why did you decide to get started uh with being a Twitch streamer? I think it all started way before I even knew what Twitch was.

: Um, since I was I don't know, since I was little or even like a teenager. I just loved sharing about God however I could. Uh, as a teenager, I was pretty very just pretty shy. Um, so I didn't feel like comfortable just going up to someone and just like talking to them.

: So, the way that I would communicate with them about God, I would mostly use Post-it notes and just write something, give it to like a friend, uh, just these short messages. Uh, later on uh I started writing letters and I started giving those letters to just like random people that I would like find like at the grocery store or something.

: Um, and then later on um as I discovered like live streaming and and I think this was even before Twitch I don't really remember the exact site uh but I remember downloading it on my phone and just wanted to like share and I just loved talking with people online.

: And I feel I felt very comfortable just in front of a camera. Um, especially growing up, I loved just recording uh moments, making memories, and it felt like I was just freezing time, and I was able to like go back and relive those moments, and I love that.

: Oh, can can you say more about that? That's really interesting. Like the sharing and spending time you can like relive and go back to those. So, what would be some of like your earliest memories? I know you talk about putting sticky notes. Can you tell a story about one of those impactful moments as a kid?

: So, I remember um I remember one time I was at church and I didn't even have a post-it note with me and I felt like God wanted me to talk with someone and tell them a specific message. And again, at this time, I was still very shy and everything. So I wrote in the notes on my phone the message and I just like like hey like this is from God.

: I just showed them the phone. I was like this is what he wants you to know. Um and just like moments like that and and little by little God also started building up that courage. So there were several moments here and there in which I was able to go to someone's like hey you know I just want you to know that God loves you or that he's with you uh no matter what you may be going through.

: And like they would say thank you. Um or or just respond in like a very like obviously like shocked but very grateful way. And then I would just like keep going or I would give someone again like a piece of paper and then I would just keep walking because I didn't want to see like their response to see how they were going to react like who's this weird little girl passing out sticky notes. Like here you go.

: But I was also like a teenager at that time. So, I'm just like, "Okay, here you go." And then just walk away. It's like I don't want to see their response to it. Because again, I felt like, God, like that's between you and them. Like, if they don't accept it like in a like kind way for whatever reason, like I know it's not me.

: I know it's it's something that's, you know, between you and them and what they're going through in their life. Um, so I also kind of wanted to have for them to have that personal moment and for me to not really be like in the middle of it.

: Um, but yeah, but in terms of like recording and using like the camera, I remember uh cuz I know people growing up, they would have like diaries or journals and for me it was just video. For me it was just putting up the camera. This is what my day looked like. This is what I went through and all those videos were just for me.

: I didn't think of like posting on YouTube at the time. I remember just making these fun edits with like friends or family. Um, and yeah, just growing up, I just felt very comfortable to being in front of a camera.

: So, when I found Twitch, I found Twitch uh because of a friend of mine because she started playing League of Legends and then I started playing League of Legends and I started looking up uh YouTubers that would play the game as well.

: And I ran into uh I ran into Pokemon uh Pokemon, which she was playing League of Legends at the time. And I'm like, man, like she's so funny. Like, that's so cool. And then through her, I found Twitch that she would live stream on Twitch. And once I saw the site and everything, I'm just gonna try this out and see how it goes.

: Um, but I didn't I don't think at the time I didn't really plan to like, oh, I'm going to stream for now seven years, be here. Um, I think I just started for the fun of it because I thought it was fun to like meet people online and I felt more comfortable that way than talking to them in person and it was also another way in which I was going to be able to like talk about God.

: Um, and I remember starting out I felt very very nervous. Um, I would only play one game because I think that's what the my laptop at the time could like almost handle, which was Bloons TD Battles, and that was like my main game.

: Sorry, what what game was that? Bloons TD Battles. Okay. My brain is going to Blues Clues, and I'm like thinking that's probably not it.

: Oh, I don't know how to explain the game. It's basically these um I don't know if if it's if one could call like a tower defense type of thing, but basically like these uh balloons pop like start rolling into the screen and you have to set up these turrets which in the game are uh monkeys I believe and they have to pop the balloons before they reach the end. If they reach the end you lose um that makes sense.

: Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. Um, so with that game specifically, you could play against other people. Uh, so it was like more so like a multiplayer type game.

: And I remember starting out, um, I had like a good amount of people going to the stream and I remember feeling scared to even mention God. I'm like, God, like, you know, like if I mention you, will this will these people leave? We'll just like, you know, just head on out because they wouldn't want to be like around that or something.

: Um, and I remember being just very fearful of that at first. And then little by little, God started showing me like you are here because of me. Like you are here because I want you to share about me. So I don't want you to hold back. Plus that's a huge part of my life.

: That's basically my whole life. Like God is my entire life. Yeah. So holding that part like back, I'm basically holding back who I am as well in front of people.

: Um, and so then I started little by little just sharing about him and sharing about God and I got to the point in which I just didn't have that fear anymore.

: Um, and I know that the people that arrive on stream are people that God brings whether they believe or don't believe uh in that moment. Like there is a reason why they're there and I know that it's because of God. Um, and I remember there was actually this one experience in which I was praying to God before stream and I was having those doubts because I know like me and other streamers have those like those doubts at times of like the amount of people that we may want for them to arrive. And oh yeah, the the the whole trying to fit in with what the platform is designed to do and follow the pattern that it says is the pattern for success.

: Oh yeah, there is that struggle constantly. Yeah. Yep. And then I remember just praying to you guys like, "God, like, okay, like the people that come to my stream, they're from you. I got to like remember that like this is like because of you." And I remember that specific stream, I was praying for someone else that was struggling and someone else in the chat after I finished the prayer, I had never like met them before and they said the words like, "God brought me here." And I'm like, wow. Like that's like that's a confirmation of what I was praying earlier. So like those type of experiences have been just extraordinary.

: But yeah, but uh like starting out I didn't really like have a certain plan. I just like went for it and I've been here I guess ever since I started.

: So at what point? So, with without having a a plan that said, "I'm going to go be big super streamer or I'm going to go share Jesus online streamer." Uh, without those, when did you get to the point of saying, "Hey, this might be what I want to devote most of my time to uh rather than it's something I do on the side with everything else." When did it become something like this is a priority for me to spend time online sharing Jesus?

: So, I don't think there was like a specific moment. Uh, but I do know that at the time when I started streaming, I did have another job. Um, because I was working at my parents school at the time as a teacher's assistant. And I remember having a conversation with my dad um, and telling him, in other words, that I want to quit to just stream to just just go to stream full-time.

: And I remember him basically saying no. Like I remember him disagreeing, which definitely makes sense, but most parents are going to. Okay, so instead of working, you're going to quit, live in the basement, and and and you're not going to make any income, and I'm going to, you know, this doesn't sound like a good financial plan. No. Yeah. So, he said no, but I gave him basically like I explained to him the reason why. I told him like in other words, like I want to share by God. Like this is what I really want to do. And after we had like a whole conversation about it, um you know, he he agreed to it and both of my parents thankfully they've both been very very supportive with what I do.

: Even though I've had people in my life that don't really like understand or get it. Um and it's kind of difficult to explain, especially if someone doesn't know what Twitch is or what live streaming is.

: Oh, it if you don't understand what Twitch is, it's really hard to explain because there are not other social media platforms that operate the same way. They'll think, "Oh, you mean like Facebook Live, like YouTube Live?" No. No. It's it's it's not like that. It's it's its own unique thing.

: The same way that Facebook is not Tik Tok. It's its own unique things. Twitch is a totally different place with its own culture. And even within that, there's all the subcultures depending on what game you're playing or like me hanging out in the podcast section or hanging out in uh just chatting uh or animals cuz I've got my fish online, you know? I'm like I don't hang out in the normal gaming section of things. So, I I do have to learn that.

: But if you've never been in Twitch, I mean, before I got on, my kids watched it. I'm like, why are you watching people play video games? Why don't you play yourself? Like it it just isn't something that just seems natural if you don't grow up understanding and experiencing it. Yeah.

: Yeah. Which is interesting because we technically already do that with sports, but it's not the same, I guess, with we you know what I think sports is really the good analogy of of it, but I would say the US hasn't figured that out yet.

: Globally they're starting to figure that out because there are bigger events with watching people play games who are at a professional level because of their skills. Uh, that, that I, boy, I'm like in a battle royale, I'm the first one taken out. That's just what's going to happen. It's not going to be me at the end, uh, unless somebody took everyone else and was, you know, protecting me so they could kill me last. Way I'm going to make it to the end. But you know what? Do professional athletes, athletes look like compared to college athletes, compared to high school athletes, compared to elementary? It. We don't see that in gaming. We don't think that in gaming because it's not on television for us to watch. We just, oh, my kid plays games. Oh, his friend's better than him. That's about our understanding of it.

: Yeah, yeah. So when, yeah, there's been people in my life in which you don't really like understand or get it. Um, but after that conversation with my dad and everything, I just went just full on with with streaming, with Twitch, with with everything. Um, and there's been several moments in which I've prayed to God. I think it was I don't know if it was like three or four years ago in which I had prayed to God as well like, "God, like is this something like do you want me to do something different?" Because there's been like so many moments of doubts and one's own feelings like, "Should I keep streaming?" Um, and everything. And would you would you mind just kind of unpacking that a little bit if you're comfortable with doing that of the coming and facing doubt and then wrestling through that and then finding assurance that this isn't my own notion, my own idea? That I mean, God, you brought me here to begin with. You keep giving confirmation, but yet again, I still have to keep constantly evaluating as as things are going forward. Could you kind of process us through that because I don't know if everyone, um, if you're not a streamer, fully understands that kind of a thing?

: Yeah. So when you stream on Twitch, the way that Twitch works is that they don't really have an algorithm. So it's really based on how many viewers you have and from there uh you get to have more people on stream. So one goal usually, not always depending obviously on the purpose of what you stream, but one's goal is that you want to have more people on stream to be able to reach even more people. Um, and as one streams on Twitch, there's moments in which you will have ten people. There's moments where you will have twenty. There's moments where I've seen people reach one hundred and then go back to fifty. Um, so it's really just a roller coaster of up and down. So there's not always like a straight up just going up the whole time.

: Um, and that's where for me personally at times the doubt kind of like creeps in in those moments in which the viewership maybe like goes down or I have less subs one month than the one beforehand. Especially doing this full-time, like you depend on the income that you get through it as well. Um, so there's definitely moments in which you know, whether viewership is low or there's not a lot of, not that many people talking, um, in which one questions like, "God, like should I just keep doing this then? Like I feel like I'm stuck. Like I'm not really growing. Like again, viewership wise, like I'm not really growing. Um, I'm not getting like better income. I know for sure that if I were to do a different job, I would get way more than what I'm getting on Twitch right now."

: Um, but even in those moments, like I've asked God like over and over again, like, "God, like is this it?" And I just keep feeling like like what I'm sharing is way more important than the income is way more important than if I want to get five hundred people because God is still reaching someone. God is still reaching that person that he's trying to reach. Um, so that's why I just keep going and again at times I still pray. I still ask like, "God, like if at any point, at any point you want me to do something else or go for something else, like make it clear."

: Oh yes, make it clear.

: Yeah. Like open my eyes to that. Um, because I also enjoy streaming. I love it. I love being able to talk to people in the chat. I love being able to get to know people uh to then build those friendships to go at times on Discord and play games together and just build on that. Um, I love what I do. There are moments again in which it may be a struggle. It may, you know, one would get tired. Uh, one would face people in the chat that are trolling, that that are, you know, just trying to get you to react a certain way. Um, but in the middle of that when one knows the why, when one knows the purpose behind it, which for me is to share about God with others, I think that's what you know just keeps, keeps me going.

: And one experience that I've shared before is that when I uh worked at my parents' school, I was always just surrounded by students and some of them were even like my friends. And I remember finding, hang out, uh, one day that one of the students, one of my friends, they thought about taking their life. They they struggled with having suicidal thoughts. And I remember going up to my dad and talking to him um about that. I I was just very surprised and I told him like, "Dad, like, you know, this friend of mine um has been having, you know, like suicidal thoughts and everything." And the way that my, do my dad reacted to that, um, he basically did this. He was a teacher as well in that specific classroom. There were about like, cuz we were a very small school, so there were about like thirty something students and these are students from like seventh grade up to twelfth grade. In total there were like about thirty.

: Um, and I remember him asking them like, "If anyone here has ever thought about taking their life or has had suicidal thoughts, raise your hand." And about like more than half of them raised their hands. And thinking about it now makes me emotional, but I didn't know that. Um, I didn't know that the people that I spent hours with um almost every single day that they had those thoughts, that they thought about taking their life. And I'm like, "Man, like one just doesn't know. One just doesn't know what people are actually going through."

: Yeah. Um, and that has um in the same way pushed me to like uh reach out to people online because especially online one definitely doesn't know unless the person mentions it because it's so easy to like write something that you're feeling a different way. Um, but yeah, that has definitely just encouraged me like even more to to keep sharing because I don't want, you know, someone to to be able to make that decision that there's no way to to come back from that.

: Basically, I have myself muted from the other stream, not from you or from my stream. Sorry. Uh, so one of the things, uh, yeah, very early on as I was streaming, there is that barrier that your friend probably, unless it was asked by adults, everybody, "Hey, raise your hand, who's feeling this?" Probably half of those people probably hadn't shared that they had those thoughts and feelings because it wasn't necessarily a safe place or a safe thing to do. But online, that barrier is is a little bit lower to feel safe, or there's enough anonymity, somebody to, I don't want to say hide behind a name because I don't believe people are hiding behind a name, but you are using a name as a protection of some kind because you don't really know me. You don't really know where I am. I can test the waters of sharing information and and I can see that you you are going to be trustworthy with this and then I can share more. And so yeah, I totally have had that and I like right away I'm like, "Wow, I I need to have this ready to share if anyone is in that moment." And I've had lots of friends online talk about that. Uh, I even had, I won't, I won't share which family member, but I had a family member who was online. I I don't think it was Twitch, but it was they were playing a video game online with friends, with a friend somewhere else. And the friend said, "Hey, are you okay?" And they called the suicide prevention hotline for my family member and got them help. And the family member had overdosed on medication. Uh, they had take, I don't know what, I don't know specifically what it was. They overdosed. They were intending to go to sleep and never wake up again. U, so because somebody online was a friend to them and saw the person struggling and asked questions, they stayed on online with them, got them help.

: Uh, so I'm really thankful for the openness of being able to talk about it and I I try to openly talk about it. I mean, I, that was my stream this morning was talking about mental health. I don't do it every stream intentionally. I intentionally I'm ready to, but yeah, you have never have any idea where someone is at, what crisis is going on in their life that they turn on to be desensitized or find hope. They may go for different reasons. And that's the kind of the two ends I would I would maybe say of, "I just need to get desensitized and and and put behind me everything going on in life," or, "I need to find some hope or else, or else I can't make it to tomorrow."

: Yeah, yeah. That's why as well in my Discord server we have several links uh for people as well so people can easy uh easily access through there. But yeah, one just, one just never knows. But that's why I keep, you know, one of the many reasons I keep uh sharing, you know, hope and and God's love with with others.

: Do you, do you have, I mean, you you're talking about in person. So to go back to that, how did that story end up getting getting followed up after the the meeting and everyone raising their hands? How did that turn out? Was it be better, better for your friend realizing they weren't alone or how did that story end up?

: I honestly don't really remember after that. That was so many like years ago. Um, yeah, I know thankfully uh I know thankfully he's alive today. Um, so yeah, and I remember uh there was a specific retreat as well in which God spoke to him because he was struggling with several things and he was like uh mad at, mad at God at one point. So there were like a lot of things that he was going through, but yeah, thankfully the last time I spoke to him, he was doing a whole lot better. Um, not just like emotionally, but in his relationship with God as well.

: So awesome. Fantastic. I just kind of wanted to not leave that hanging there at the end if there was at least a conclusion of of how it turned out. So yeah, uh, just thinking about some of the different things we talked about, trolls earlier and we talked about a little bit of, "Hey, I don't know if people are going to be open to me sharing about Jesus on on this platform. How is that going to go?" What have been some, and then even financial, what have been barriers and struggles that you have had to overcome with being a streamer and intentionally being a Christian streamer? I mean, my category, I call everybody a digital missionary. You don't have to, you know, call yourself that, but someone who's sharing Jesus online to me is a digital missionary. So as you've been in that journey, what have been some of those struggles that you faced?

: Um, I'm trying to think which one to share. I was going to say you're trying to think of one. What? No. Um, I think I guess this will kind of go back to where we were, but it would, I think the biggest struggle for me is just my my own emotions and my own thought process of of why I do what I do because I feel like especially being a streamer, it's so easy to just not stream. It's so easy to just not hit start. Um, so it's it's the being consistent. It's the still showing up. It's the still being there. Uh, for me, I think that's been like the biggest um struggle at times that for me personally I face.

: But in relating to like other people and their reaction to what I say, um there's definitely been people that just arrive to stream and they just want to like cause issues or problems.

: Thankfully, I don't really face that as often. Um, but even in those moments, my mods know to not just insta ban anyone. Uh, we try to like talk things out like, "Hey, welcome." You know, I appreciate you being here.

: Um, and there's definitely been moments in which I start playing a worship song and it's like, man, like guys, let's let's start it in praise God.

: Um, and then suddenly they just leave. Chase them away with worship. Okay. I haven't tried that. I haven't tried that. That's interesting. And I don't mean chase them away, but um if if they came for the express purpose of causing trouble, then it didn't work and so they're they're leaving.

: But it's just funnier to say the worship song chased them away. So yeah, that's uh that's usually my go-to. That's usually what I do uh whenever they just want to cause trouble or anything.

: It's like, "Guys, let's just listen to this music." cuz even it's a win-win for me cuz even if they stay, they're receiving something even whether they believe or don't like like the seed is still being planted.

: Um so yeah, it's very very rare for us to ban someone unless they're like I don't know like very consistent or saying something very off very wild um or something.

: But, uh, we really try to approach people, um, you know, just not knowing what they're struggling with. Um, I guess that's how I see it because once they arrive on stream, whether they're saying something kind of weird or anything, um, I have in mind like this is an actual person and they may actually just be struggling or hurting and just trying to find a way to vent out, uh, what they're facing. Yeah, I think that's I think that's a key thing.

: I don't think I've we've talked about that in any of my other podcasts, but the way you said that reminded me of when when I was a teenager after my parents got divorced, I was angry and bitter.

: I wasn't angry at God. I was just angry and bitter at the situation in my life and how awful things were. So, you would get my anger.

: It was undeserved because I didn't know how to deal with my anger. So, it would come out. So yeah, someone coming in the into the chat might be coming with stuff that has nothing to do with chat whatsoever.

: They might not even be having, you know, nefarious reasons for coming in. They might not even trying to. But what they really, and I think this is what I did for a while, too.

: I wanted to test people to see, are you going to get past uh this and and and get to know me? If if you can get past the barrier that I put out there, then you're worth me trusting.

: and if you can't get past this, I'm not going to trust you. I'm going to I'm going to use this to screen people from not getting close enough that they could hurt me.

: And and so, um I think that probably Hey, North Hill, welcome in. I think that actually continued on until I met my wife in college that I still had that barrier of up of uh I like I started to, you know, just to go in that direction of how because you can't see this online, but just to give the example following that up, I dressed in almost all black. I wore leather jacket. Uh I I didn't have a flat cap at the time.

: I had it in middle school and they're really hard to find, but but I always wore my hat backwards. I often had a bandana on.

: Um I had I had a mohawk. I had a goatee. Um I wasn't the kind of guy that looked friendly like you were going to go up and say hi and give a hug.

: So yeah. So I I did that exterior-wise in a physical space as a barrier and people can come into a digital space and say things to put up a barrier to see can you get past this uh you know whatever it might be of oh you say you're a Christian.

: Well, I'm going to say something to antagonize you. And then you know what you're going to do? You're going to react the exact same way that I expect you to, which means you're not loving and you're not actually living out what Jesus said to do.

: And so now I can be justified and leaving and going away or being angry and blowing up and and all of those kinds of things.

: Yeah. And I remember one time someone came into the chat and they just wanted to basically just that just just troll. Um Oh, we got a I got a raid coming in.

: I got I got North Hill live coming. Let me let me just pause a minute and welcome everybody. He was peeking in before uh he brought the raid over.

: So, hey, welcome in all you beautiful raiders. I also see MJ. Welcome in. Good to see you. I don't think you came in with the raid.

: You're over on Z Seru and you find me on the other side. Welcome. I'm watching you people. Welcome in. Uh, North Hill Live, Disco Bear, Mr.

: Honito, Crazy Uncle Scott. I don't think I know Crazy Uncle Scott, Sis Pineapple. Happy Thursday. Welcome in everybody. Those that do not know, uh, Alusa's also coming in.

: I think you are already here as well. But those that do not know, I am flat cap Dapper pastor. Uh, I am a part of the church digital.

: And here what we're doing, part of what I'm spending time doing on the church digital channel is interviewing friends who are digital missionaries. That's what I call them.

: They don't have to call themselves that. North Hill was on here a few episodes ago. I bring them in. We talk about what it's like being a streamer, struggles, our journey, all of those fun things.

: And so I'm glad to have you here. So, welcome in. And then uh Z Sarah Uu is here with us all the way from beautiful Puerto Rico.

: I can't say that right. You can say it and introduce yourself. Welcome in guys. I am Zeru. I am from Puerto Rico and I love to share about God's love and God's hope on stream here on Twitch.

: Welcome. Welcome. All right. Um I know you were in the middle of saying something. I got distracted by the raid, but I like to acknowledge raids when they come in.

: Um, especially when I know the person and they have trusted us to come in here and bring their community and to hang out with us for a while.

: Uh, I know I love raiding over to you. I always feel like I could drop my people. I I really wish often I could stay longer.

: Like today, I dropped off and I was listening to you, but I was lurking and getting some other stuff done before before streaming. Uh, but it's just a good feeling when people rage you like, "Oh, well, you you thought enough about me to come and and to bless me with everybody that's over there and and drop them off so we can hang out together." Yeah, definitely. Yes. Yes. Um, I was sharing about um that this one person came into the chat basically just to troll and I remember just speaking life uh into them.

: I remember just just sharing with them about God. Um and then they just calmed down. They just uh started actually acting normally I guess I would say.

: Um so yeah, one just never knows. people just I don't know either wanting attention or or trying to vent or uh feeling hurt. Um how it can change by one just speaking truth and and love um into their life can definitely make a difference instead of just instantly just uh banning them.

: So and I'm not obviously I'm not against if other people instab other people cuz you know only they know what they can actually like uh handle.

: Oh to totally every streamer needs to set their boundaries around where where it is and what's permissible and what's not permissible in your stream.

: So absolutely u I as a trained pastor can probably have a bigger barrier to say no I'm good with all of those things and poking me with questions and all of those things.

: Uh I also as a male won't get the same harassment that female streamers are going to get. So, I understand all of those barriers being set in different places uh by different people uh uh because you need to protect your channel and your community as well there.

: It's not just you as the streamer. There's also everyone else that's here who's come here and and whether they came and were like all excited.

: Hey, a Christian streamer is playing music. I want to go there or or they're playing my favorite game or they came in with a raid and then they decided to stay.

: There are those people who came in who were trying to troll to begin with and then they found a community and they stayed. Those people really need protected so that they don't have that harm brought on them that because they found a safe place to to hang out with.

: Yeah, I agree. I agree with that. I was just trying to read chat there a minute. It looks like just people saying hi and hello and passing some cookies, which is always a fun thing to do.

: Pass cookies around and Papsio with Cookie Monster is eating those. So, those those of you who who are not watching this on Twitch and watching the VOD, these are all of those things that you miss by not being on Twitch.

: So, I'm not going to apologize when I pause and I talk about them because I want you to come over here and experience it.

: I'm not saying you have to stay, okay? But you need to come and experience what it is like. Hey, thank you, Wolf. Looking so dapper.

: Thank you. Okay. Just wanted to make sure you don't feel left out not getting embarrassed the same way as Well, I do I I do get embarrassed the same way because I I don't have it on this channel.

: So, don't ask for it because I'm usually wearing ear earphones. But I do have, and I only started this my last stream ofversary, a redeem to make me remove my hat for five minutes because my mod kept kept every time I would switch hats going, "The good hair, the good hair." And so

: I'm like, "Yeah, but I wear a hat. It's like I get up in the morning, it's the first thing I do is I put a hat on.

: I don't get dressed first. I put a hat on. Uh, you know, it's just it's just been me for most of my life. So uh yes.

: Yes. But it's luscious, healthy. I kne I knew I was going to get her to to to out herself there. Yes. Oh, that's great.

: This is This is also one of the fun things, too. The little inside joke stuff that happens in community the same way it happens in families.

: You have these inside Oh, yeah. things. It is so fun when you begin to become the insider and you know those little twerks, those little quirkiness, those little things.

: Oh. Oh, it's it's super cool. Yeah. Uh it is a fun time. Yeah. So, we were talking a little bit about some uh some barriers, some some struggles.

: Let's just flip that a 180. Uh what have been some really highlight moments that have happened to you either on stream or in your Discord because Discord community is connected to your stream.

: Uh, what have been some really highlight moments that would not have happened if you weren't a Twitch streamer? That one, that's that's a lot of things.

: That's a whole lot of things. Um, I think the first one that I would say would be the friends that I have right now.

: Um, that's a huge one. A huge huge huge part of it. um through Twitch, through streaming is how I was able to meet other streamers.

: Uh for example, with XP Church and through them be able to join one of their small groups and be able to meet people and and become friends with these incredible people.

: And from there uh they started coming into my stream and and we just kept building uh uh into that friendship to the point in which I've been blessed uh with being able to travel uh like one or two times now to be able to to see friends over there.

: Um, and yeah, just I mean there there's a lot of details in that, but yeah, being able to have the friends that I that I have now, it's literally because of Twitch, is because of being able to stream.

: Um, I feel like my life would be very very different if I wasn't streaming. Uh, mainly because of that, because of the people in my life, they've helped me.

: Um, it's it's where I got to meet also like one of my best friends. Um, and be able to have people that pray for me, be able to have people that I can go to and talk to, uh, that understand again like the culture of Twitch that get it.

: Uh, because it's so different talking. I can talk with my family, but it's not the same because they're not in it. They're not in the culture.

: Right. Right. There is there is something that if you're not in the culture, it's hard. So, yeah, I I've I've done this with with pastors as well. Set up pastor groups where you're talking about the struggles of pastors with other pastors. You you don't have to fill in all the blanks. You don't have to try to say, "What do you mean? What what is Twitch?" If you're with other Twitch people and they're they're hopefully doing some of the same things, whether they're just streamers or whether they're Christian streamers trying to be missionaries, they at least understand the struggle of, "Oh man, um you know what? I don't have any subs coming in this month. I don't know what's different. Everybody is, you know, didn't renew. They ran out. The person who always gift subs had a, you know, hard month and and they didn't have anything come in." And that's just a commonality that that streamers are going to face.

: But Christian streamers are also going to face other aspects too. So yeah, having other Christian streamer friends so you don't feel like you as a streamer are isolated and alone. You as a Christian streamer aren't isolated and alone. That there are more of us. Um you did mention XP Church. I haven't had them on yet. I need to get connected with them and get them on on the podcast here, but they've been on the church digital before, not on the gaming podcast, but XP Church, I believe. Are they seven years old or are they older than that now? I'm trying to remember. Uh I don't really know. I think they're older.

: Okay. I'm pretty sure they were here before uh way before I got here. Yeah, I know. I know. Uh Pastor Susie was before that, but I thought maybe the church is eight or nine years old. Anyway, they are they are one of the oldest u intentionally Christian efforts uh in the Twitch platform that a lot of us look up to. Uh a lot of us admire. They've they've taken some some hard hits along the way and and they've had faith. They they teach us a lot. Uh I'm I'm so grateful that you're connected with them. I mean that's one of those things is connecting with other people who are on the same journey friends on mission uh as as uh I like to say friends on mission following God and we're encouraging one another we don't get jealous of one another if if you made partner next week I would celebrate so you know like if you were all of a sudden a thousand you know person want you know following you you know whatever whatever accomplishment you make even if it's just low-level affiliate somebody getting started those are all things we celebrate one another the same way the church is going to celebrate baptisms the same way and I don't mean the same way religiously I just mean you're going to get excited about the person who's experiencing it in the same way you get excited about someone who experiences a baptism you're going to experience it cuz you're happy for what's going on in their life and the new thing that they're endeavoring into.

: Yeah. And I remember uh God helping me with that as well because uh especially growing up I would compare myself with uh a lot of people around me whether family, friends um and I feel like online that is so very easy to do if one like lets it uh go that route. It's so very easy to like compare oneself with other people. Uh especially like as a streamer it's like oh like you know like this person has more viewers than I do or they're doing this better than I am. Uh but that's something that thankfully God has like helped me with and like you said be able to like celebrate with other people and be able to uh just encourage one another. Um it's such a beautiful thing and I remember being able to be a part of this uh small group of women that would stream as well and it was basically like you were saying with the pastors we were talk we would talk about streaming. We would talk about, you know, what any struggles that we were facing. And it was very encouraging uh to be around people not just that would stream but that believed in God as well that are Christians as well. And uh that we would understand each other. It's like, oh, like I definitely understand what you're struggling with. I definitely understand what you're going through. Um it's it's just so important to have that community. It's so important to have, you know, uh just people around us that can help us through that. So that's why like for me with streaming, the most important thing, the one of the huge highlights was uh the friendships that I've been able to to have along the way.

: Yeah. Uh Fluffy was just like rephrasing that and and I think this is in a book somewhere, comparison is the thief of joy. That's just a good way like as soon as like rather than thinking of this as oh I'm inviting friends on if everybody that I was inviting on I went oh they have more they have they have more people than me in their stream. Oh they've been streaming longer than I am. Now now I'm intimidated and now I can't just go man you're my friend. I just want to sit and chat with no agenda other than just talk about the weird thing that we do together to help other people understand. And I call it weird because I'm an old guy and I think it's weird that I like I'm living in my basement streaming online playing video games occasionally. I think it's weird. So I I'm just I'm just calling a spade a spade here. I if I think it's weird, it's weird. I've already been weird my whole life, so there's nothing new with that. But um it is it is uh a joy to be connected with other people. That's for sure. And yeah, you talk about the friendships. Um, like I what amazes me is not just that there are friendships, but the growing level of global friendships that I have that I don't know how I would have that any other way than to be online. I can't travel often enough to to go to all of the places I would want to or where I know everybody. Um yeah, I was just uh celebrating uh I don't know if you saw it over in uh Reachcon um the the Discord uh it's crazy and I can't remember crazy. I might be the wrong name. Um from Australia just made partner um Oh wow. So, it's like I don't know if I'll ever get to Australia and get to hang out with the wonderful people I know in Australia now or New Zealand or Singapore. I mean, like that is a part of the world that sure it's on a bucket list to go to Australia. Uh because every place would be eventually, you know. Um but yeah, global friends um are are just amazing to be able to connect with. Um, you know, even even you and I went to to Reach Conference last year. I like I' I'd followed you and watched you for a couple years. Like, boy, I didn't expect to ever be in the same room with you necessarily. And I was like, super cool to to be able to meet and uh hang out a little bit. Of course, there's a whole it's also a level of intimidation, too, to meet in person. Like, okay, do I have to be on my best behavior now? Of can can I be my wacky weird self in person and and not people go oh man I thought this was just an hour on stream this guy doesn't stop you know oh man but it's great the whole the whole reach uh conference and everything that was a beautiful experience for me to be able to meet so many people that I've seen online for for a couple years now like you mentioned mentioned it was yeah it was a very very just beautiful experience like you said like be able to be in the same room as so many people plus I think that the huge benefit as well of having different friends around the world you get to learn their background their culture uh you get to learn like so much um from where they're from as well so one gets to to learn even even more which is just amazing.

: Now, for me, the that's like the pro of it. The con for me is that they're kind of far away. So, so I can't really just get in my car and go and hang out with them. Um, which is something I've been struggling the past few days. Uh, not really having uh in-person community because I have it online, but I don't really have it in person at the moment. So, it's been it's been a struggle. Um, it's been a bit of a struggle being able to find people. I feel like it's so hard to find friends. Um, as one keeps getting older, you're you're you're not the only one that feels that. I I think that I saw a study not too long ago that talks about the number of close friends that people have based on their age. Um I don't know how much it fully you know extends fully globally but certainly yeah um it it is going to be true in Europe and and North America that if you are in the boomer generation I don't remember what the numbers are so I'm just making these up but by comparison you probably had ten really close friends and and if you are Gen X then it drops down to eight and then if you're a millennial it drops down to five and then if you're gen, you know, I can't remember what all the gen alpha, it's it's like every generation it gets smaller. So, whatever the numbers were, it just gradually goes down with each successive generation. And I think some of it, like I'll just speak for my kids and myself, it's been the transient nature of life. Um, I'm I'm living in I'm living in the basement here uh for nine years now. It's the longest I've lived anywhere in my life. Uh before that it was actually it's nine years in August but almost uh six years was the longest before that which was immediately before I lived here before that I lived two years before that I lived two years before that it was five that was the longest before that five I'd never lived in the same house more than three years my entire life so I went all the way until I was in seminary with never living in the same house more than three years we usually lived in the same town and we'd move across town or we'd move within an hour radius. But as soon as I went to seminary, my my my uh middle child's experience was he was five when we left the state to go to seminary. He was ten when we left the state to go to my first call in another state. Around age thirteen, he said, "Hey, Dad, where are we moving in two years? What state are we going to now?" He thought it was a five-year plan. You live in a state for five years and you move. Um, yeah, we moved when he turned fourteen, so we didn't make it the five-year plan. We we messed we moved we moved that up. Then the state we moved to, he was in that state for four years till he graduated from high school. Then he went to another state on his own without mom and dad to go to school. So, uh, he was there for, um, a year and a half and then he moved back to Michigan ahead of mom and dad because he was going to another school. So it's like then he moved to he was at I'm just gonna finish his story. He was at college for four years and then he graduated during COVID lived in my basement for three years. He'd never lived in this house until then and now two years ago he moved out and he lives with his brother down the road. So the total length of time he's lived anywhere in the same house is four years. Like so just the tr like I I pass that on to my kids. My whole life was transient. Um my kids' lives are transient. They they struggle with making friends because how long am I going to be here? When am I going to move again? Yeah. How much do I invest in people? I I think the the plus side that that we have now is social media and online community that we can stay connected with people that I never had uh as I was doing all of those things.

: So I'm missing chat. Was there anything good in chat as you were reading that or let me see. Oh, talking about friends group there in another culture too in Scandinavia.

: Yeah, totally different. Yeah, you're wondering, Mel's wondering if connecting digitally can correct some of the disconnect that happens when we move. That's what I'm hopeful for.

: One of the difficulties within my denomination as a pastor moving is you're supposed to not interfere with the church after you leave. So it's really hard to connect and keep or keep relationships with people in another location and not have someone say, "Oh, that looks like you're interfering because I hear that they're talking to you and they know everything going on in your life." So it's almost like you have to abandon a friendship in a relationship for two to three years and then try to start it over again and hope that you can pick it up, which is not really a fun thing.

: That is interesting. Yeah, like someone mentioned in the chat, like even if one stays in the same place, people will leave. That was basically my experience because I've lived in Puerto Rico almost my whole life, lived in the same area for a long time now, but it's usually the people that either move or different jobs or different places. Um, and so right now like I don't really have almost any, almost any like IRL, in-person friends, which is why for me it's been a little bit difficult.

: Um, and again, thankfully we do have like, you know, the internet and social media and everything, but it's not really the same when you're like in person. Um, that's why like for me it was very special when I went to the Reach Conference last year because I would, the people that I would talk to pretty consistently with, I was able to actually see in person, be able to hug them and be able to laugh with them. Uh, it's such a different experience when you're in person with people. So that's kind of what I'm looking for right now, that in-person community.

: Yeah, I would say I long for the in-person in a different way too, because I'm not currently serving at a church. So that changes my whole perspective on doing things of being connected with all of that. Um, but in another regard too, just it's similar. Uh, before COVID, my wife did go into work where she works at, but she was remote several days a week, so she already was remote, so they just went fully remote.

: Uh, yeah, earlier this year, they closed down the building and said there's no more coming in the office. Uh, that was the local office. So everything is remote now. So there is no, hey, I can go down the road and connect with the people in the company. Her company, there's a part that's in Michigan, there's a part that's in Minnesota, there's a bigger part that's out in North Carolina. They do have company gatherings that she goes to. Uh, but frankly, there is very little chance of us hanging out with coworkers. We've been trying to though. Uh, we went to a wedding last fall. We had someone, a coworker, come over and hang out at our house in February. We need to turn around and figure out going hanging out with them this summer. Uh, it's not going to be on a weekly basis because they're not in town with us. You know, they're a couple hours away. So yeah, we want to get together and build that friendship. It's just going to be slow.

: Although online, boy, it feels like if I can hang out in your stream five days a week, uh, we can build a friendship really quick. If we hang out in Discord and I share some more personal things and I get to know you and ask all those questions uh that you probably answered a hundred times on stream. Um, you know, it's we begin to deepen that friendship where uh it almost feels like in person, like I have to go do something in order to make friends. Like it has to be an event that I'm going to, like I have to go to this event and then I have to invite other people or other people have to be going to an event. If there's no event, where do you go and just sit? And I mean, unless you're a dog person and you go to the dog park and you run into people at the dog park, and I don't even have one in town by me. But I'm just thinking like, what are those places?

: Or if you don't have, like, that's one thing for my wife and I. We moved here after our kids were all out of the house. I don't know anybody in the school system because I don't go to any events because I don't have any kids in the school system. So there's a whole natural way of connecting with people in my community that's taken away because I don't know anyone. I don't know the kids, and then now we're not at a church in a local community in the local town. So that's another place, like all of the, or and we don't work in a building in a local town. Where do I go find somebody?

: So I totally feel what you're talking about of the how do I go and make friends as an adult is a weird thing that you never think of as a kid.

: Yeah, I think something that uh can definitely help is going after or depending on your hobbies as well because if it's like a sport, uh, finding a group of people that plays, or uh, if it's like in my case recently has been like reading books, then I've been um, I got to join like this group on Facebook as well that at times they get together in person and talk about the book or anything, uh, or if you like to dance then you can take like dance classes.

: Um, so that's what that was basically my story in which I would take, I used to take a whole lot of dance classes so I was constantly just surrounded by, what kind of dance, what styles?

: Uh, hip-hop. I would usually, I was going to guess that. Yeah. No, not anything bad. I was just going to guess it was hip-hop.

: No, I'm not saying it has anything bad. Um, I was just thinking from some of your videos that I've seen you make, that's why I was going to guess that.

: So yeah, um, but I used to dance a lot of hip-hop and a lot of the people that I used to take classes with, they would, we would go to the same church. So we would see each other almost literally every single day. Um, but then like some things happened and everyone kind of like split. Uh, the church also like closed. So yeah, a lot of things have changed since then.

: But so I'm just thinking because we've wandered into this area talking about friendship and we, when I asked you about one of the things that was unexpected, you talked about having and finding uh really good and your best friend online. So while we're both saying we both struggle with in-person building and finding relationships and friendships in that way, what are the things that you are doing and that you've learned to do in a digital way to grow relationships and friendships so that they do deepen even when you can't and you might not ever get together in person?

: Uh, through Discord, through hanging out in a voice chat, through having conversations with people, through voice chat. Uh, for me, I definitely grow in that friendship with specific people through talking to them through voice than to just through the chat. Um, because through the chat, I feel like there's some kind of like wall. Uh, it's like not the same. Even if like the person shares with me their entire life in the chat.

: Yeah, yeah, well, first it's hard for me to even remember everything that they mention because there's like other people also involved in the conversation. It's not just like a one-on-one. Um, so that's why there's been several times in which I ask uh one of my mods their time zone, which they're here right now because I keep forgetting, you know, where they're at and stuff. Um, but when we're talking and when we're asking like, "Hey, how's your kids? How's, you know, your spouse doing? How's, you know, all this?" The friendship definitely grows for me. Uh, just having that time to talk through Discord.

: Uh, recently, thankfully, I've been finding these like um, been having these group of friends that we like get together at times throughout the week on Discord and we get to play and we get to catch up. So that's been huge uh for me. So definitely through Discord definitely helps.

: Yeah, and I I think that's one of the things that's really fun in ways with Discord versus other things like uh, if it's just on Facebook, I may not see it because it's not in my feed and I miss it. So it used to be Facebook was you only friended people you actually knew so that you could see what was going on in their life. I've been telling people for probably a decade now, if you want me to see something on Facebook, you have to send it to me. I will not see it. I mean, I have 500 people from this church and 1,000 people from the last place I lived and another thousand people. I don't know or remember half of them because I haven't seen or talked to them. So they're just going to be scrolling by.

: Now you get stuff that's not even anybody you know in your feed uh that they're trying to send to you. So I was like, "Yeah, I can't keep up with your life on Facebook unless I went to your feed once a week to read what was happening in your life. It's just a different environment.

: But in a Discord server where, I mean, they can still be large. I mean, I think we have approaching 700 in the church digital's Discord, uh, which is really cool.

: Wow, really cool. Um, we kind of try to celebrate every time we hit those hundred milestones, um, which are fun, but um yeah, so I don't know all 700 of those people in the same level. Some of them uh joined and probably don't know how to do anything and they haven't come back. Um, and then there are some who were there for a season and they've stepped away. They just stay in there. Um, but there's a dozen or two dozen that boy, every week, uh, we're chatting, we're talking, we know what's going on in each other's lives.

: Now, you're saying you remember people's kids. I have a really hard time remembering people's kids because if I've never actually seen your kid, I know you have kids. I don't remember names. I don't remember faces. I can't, I don't like that. Like, I'm a visual learner. So if I never see your kid's face, yeah, I'm never going to remember your kids' name or that, I mean, I might if you talk about them often enough I'll remember you have two kids. Uh, but you know, that might be it.

: Yeah, for me I would remember that they have a kid but that'd be more so it, yeah.

: Yeah, I, you know, there are other platforms out there besides Discord. So anyone that's listening to this uh that stumbled into listening to a conversation about a couple of gamers talking about how we build Christian community, how we love people in digital spaces, and you're like, I don't know and understand Discord. I'll never be on Twitch. Those are all fine things. Not everyone should be here. Uh, we're praying for more people all the time to come.

: Um, and I'll tell you what, I joined Discord and then I think I did nothing for six months after I joined because it was overwhelming and it was totally different than anything else. So I would just say anyone who's listening and going, I'm not sure, find a friend who's a guide who will take the time, bring you underneath their wing and teach you. Uh, and not just teach you, but walk alongside you.

: I actually have uh two new Discords that I got invited to in the last month from Mr. Pete who does VR ministry uh and he restreams other people who are doing things in big screen from his VR. He's 83 years old and he's gonna give Discord another try.

: He's tried it before and it hasn't worked out. He hasn't understood it. He's just created two new ones and I'm going to try to reach out to him and try to help and figure out what I can do to help him create his Discord so that they can be something that he loves and enjoys and will spend time in. But I had to have somebody do the same thing for me because it wasn't intuitive. It was intimidating. It was a lot of those things. Streaming can have that same thing. Like if you've been here since the beginning of the podcast, we had tech issues with my sound. It's a constant issue that drives me nuts. I tried to upgrade thinking I would help solve the problem that created more problems. So it's always learning and growing and learning from other people.

: Yeah, that is true. Yeah, yeah. Like I feel like I really need a big cup of tea and at least an hour and a half to go through Discord.

: Well, I have a really big cup of tea and I have a backup and I have my water just so I'm prepared to sit here for a long time to put fluids in. I am not prepared to sit here for a long time and hold them though.

: So, oh, um, how much time do you have? Do we have plenty of time or are you? Yeah, I think we're good. Okay. I before we just, I'm just kind of thinking of shifting topics, moving in a different direction. Um, is there? Well, let me go this direction first and I'll come back to something else. Um, where you're at right now, what are you most excited about is on the horizon in streaming, in Twitch, in being a digital missionary, whatever it is? Like I'm feeling God calling me into this or I'm about to accomplish some things. Like, as you look at the next six months to a year, what are some things you're excited about seeing God do or you already feel like God is at work doing?

: Uh, well, recently I decided to have a second Twitch channel. Oh, I didn't know this. To share about books because I've been loving reading just fiction books, getting into different stories, adventures, and being able to build a community around that specific niche or that specific topic. Um, because, uh, well, the people that I have now in my community, uh, they're very used to just going into my stream and watching me play a certain game or just other things, but they're not really used to just me talking about just books. Uh, because a lot of them don't really read. So, um, so yeah, I just kind of wanted to start a different Twitch channel, uh, kind of like a hobby on the side to talk about, uh, those specific things and be able to bring about people that are also interested in that. So I'm pretty excited about that. So I'll be, I don't really have like a schedule for it or I still got to set up like everything behind the scenes, the different scenes. Oh, yeah, yeah. Uh, everything. Uh, but yeah, I'm excited to start that and see how it goes and maybe possibly start making YouTube videos about that as well.

: Oh, yeah, I could see. Yeah, if it streams and you talk about it for a good, let's just say two hours about each book, you could put a little, you know, here's my five minute summary of the book and what's exciting about it and put those out as, you know, the longer end of the shorts. Um, yeah. Or is that reels? I can never remember who's was whose is which. Whose is shorts and who's is reels? But anyway, yeah, you could YouTube shorts. Okay, YouTube is shorts. Okay. Uh, yeah. Well, what's funny, like what's funny is, um, when YouTube got started, I wanted to put sermons online and they only had short form content. I think you had to have a certain level and there was a limitation on what it could be, but I want to say I think ten minutes was the max, but it also wasn't just a minute, it was also the size that you were uploading. Um, so I couldn't do that on YouTube. When COVID started, they didn't have shorts, but I was essentially doing shorts at the beginning of COVID. I was doing two to three of those a week that I was putting out, uh, just kind of giving people encouragement in the middle of COVID and everything that was going on. I was doing those. Uh, what's funny is I did that going forward until I hit episode one hundred and I didn't do another one. I just stopped and now there's shorts over there. It's like I was ahead of the times before I could do things. Now that there's lots of people doing it, I'm like, I always miss, I always miss the open window. I'm too early, I'm too late. Uh, but that's really cool. Uh, do you have a different name that you're going to do for your other? Have you decided on that? If it's not revealed, don't reveal it here.

: I do have a name, but I'm not entirely sure about it. So I'm like still processing, uh, to see, but once I have a confirmed name, I'll be sharing it.

: Okay, okay. Like I said, I don't want to, I want you to spill the beans if it hasn't gotten out yet. Um, yeah. Um, I tell you what is interesting though, when you start to have more than one stream. By the way, I'm liking three streams. So there's this one, which I didn't start. The Church Digital, uh, Jeff had done podcast over here. I want to say it was two years ago where we did a series of inviting in. So that's where XPurch was on, Lux Digital Church was on. We did bring in some, uh, gamers. Um, Love Thy Nerd was also on. We did that on our regular podcast. We did a series, uh, or a season, I guess you'd call it, a season of the podcast where we're talking gamers because myself and Andy Chino Mage over at the Church Digital, we have a lot of friends and we're hanging out in all these digital communities on Twitch. So we did that. So we had this and we shifted. We used it for a while. We were multistreaming, but frankly, Twitch streamers weren't coming and hanging out in our podcast. So as this year has unfolded and I'm now the gaming outpost, I'm like, "All right, we're going to reuse this channel and I'm going to just do it mostly for podcast." Although I'm thinking what I'm going to have to do is game one day a week so there's at least a schedule of this is regular because I'm actually really loving the, I'm going to stream when the person who I'm hosting can make the podcast and so the Tuesday podcast was at eleven thirty. Uh, this one is at one thirty. I've had them at seven at night. Uh, there's like, I don't care what time it is. I'll make it for my Twitch friends because then more people will see it if I do that, but I feel like I need to have a one day a week. So I'm going to ask you at the end of it. I was trying to do this to begin with of we'd chat for a couple hours, you'd introduce me to a game, and then I'd try to play it. I'm finding out running the double stream with you on here and then trying to run a game, my computer bogs down really quick and it doesn't work well. So I'm going to just take your suggestion, put it on the list, and then I'm going to play those games on Monday. I'm going to start streaming on Mondays. It'll be probably next month, but I'm going to start streaming on Mondays and playing a video game for two to three hours. And it's going to be who was on the podcast and what game did they recommend and why? And then I'll stream that. So you'll have to check out how awful and horrible I am at your favorite game that you recommend. Um, but uh, but that's so, like I said, that's also the experimenting and evolving and changing of where you start out. Uh, you keep doing different things. So I'm super excited about your other channel. Now I'm excited for you. I don't know that I'll show up to listen to book talking about books that I haven't read. It probably won't be a thing. I'm not a fiction reader. I, I mean, I don't, boy, I was gonna say I don't know the last fiction I read. Um, it was probably, I'm trying to think of it. Uh, Tracy Wicks and I can't remember the other gal. It was a trilogy. Dragon Lance, I think is what it was that I probably read thirty years ago. So that was the last fiction I read. A bit of time has passed. Yeah, yeah. I don't read fiction. It's never drawn me in for reading. I usually want to learn something, which my wife gets annoyed by when I want to watch all these educational shows and, uh, sit there like that's what I binge on YouTube is learning stuff and she's just like, "Can we watch something entertaining?" I'm like, "But I didn't learn anything if it's just entertaining." But yeah, I'm excited to see how it goes. And I know of course that it, um, I'm not really expecting like a lot of the people that watch me now to go over there because again it's a very specific, uh, topic. But I'm excited to see how it goes.

: Yeah, well, if you were to preview it on your stream, like once a week preview to point people over there before you launch, uh, that might be an interesting way to think about that. Um, you don't have to. You can do whatever. I'm just throwing the idea because before I spun off my fish stream, I had been doing my fish stuff almost from, uh, the get-go of, uh, yeah, you can like, I have a camera that you just look at my fish back here and you could request it. It was a channel redeem. And then as I got people doing that all the time, I added one on the pond outside. But it took me until I got to the point of having a separate computer that I could just run twenty-four seven. Now I've got another channel over there. And actually, my twenty-four seven fish channel, um, now makes more money than my regular stream that I spend all my time and energy in. But it makes me go, "Oh, I really need to improve a few more things." Which I did do some improvement last year. Uh, you can now, uh, because there's four, five cameras, you can pick which camera you want to watch and change the camera.

: Oh, by the way, I'm going to promo. I don't, I'm not normally going to promo my channel, my fish channel on this one. Um, but if you go over to it, it's one dapper koi pond. I don't think I have it set up for a shout out, so it wouldn't make sense. There is a storm that should be rolling in between eight and nine o'clock, uh, Eastern time tonight and I'm going to turn the camera around and face the storm instead of the fish pond. So I'm going to plan on doing that. So that's not a normal thing. So just a heads up if you want to check that out. Maybe there'll be a storm. I have no idea. Maybe there won't be. It might be too dark to see. We'll see what happens.

: Forget child labor. Pet labor is where it's at. Everyone get a fish tank. Yes, if you need help with fish, I can send you some. No, you have to come pick them up. Um, I'm not shipping them, but I do have some that you are welcome to come and give a good home to.

: Be a long trip to Puerto Rico for those. Yeah, just a little bit. It's a bit of a trip. I did have a few people telling me I should bring some to Reach Conference. I haven't made a decision on that. Um, I'm thinking the answer is no. I don't know that the airline is going to let me if TSA is going to be good with taking fish with me. So that might not happen.

: True. How far away are you from Reach Con? Oh, I'm in Michigan. So, okay. I'm a twenty-four hour drive if I drove. So, yeah, I'm not driving. I did that thirty and forty years ago. I'm not planning on doing that anytime soon. Um, that is understandable. Just thinking about some other stuff. So I was asking you about your name for your other stream. It's not ready to be revealed. You're still working on it. What was the inspiration for your streamer name? I mean, I know a little bit, but I'd like other people to kind of think through that and give you a chance to talk about that.

: Yeah, so my first name on Twitch, I think it was Seru03, I believe. Um, the reason why I chose Seru is because of the book slash the movie The Shack.

: In the Shack, the Holy Spirit is called Seru. And in my relationship with God, because I love to dance and everything, that's one of the ways in which I communicate with him.

: I connect a lot with the Holy Spirit. When I was younger, I don't really know how old I was, but God spoke to me through someone and he basically told me that every time I would feel a breeze that it was him hugging me.

: Oh wow. And that just like stayed with me my entire life. And one of the ways in which the Holy Spirit basically is like I don't know if the right words like manifested or moved is through the wind, through the breeze.

: And so that just stayed with me that just connected with me. So that's why I chose the name Seru. The reason why there is a Z now at the beginning of Seru is because I knew that I wanted to do this like more professionally and I wanted my name to be the same everywhere. Now I think I don't remember which social media platform someone was already using the name Seru because I wanted to take off the numbers at the end, right?

: But someone was already using it. I'm like, I don't want to I don't want to have an underscore or more random numbers.

: So at first I thought about using the letter C at the beginning, but I didn't like how it looked. So I just change it to a Z because they look cooler.

: And the way that people pronounce it, when they actually figure out how to pronounce my name, the way that people pronounce it, when they say Zeru, it's like they're saying Z Seru, like see Seru, see the Holy Spirit, see God, through whatever I may be doing. And yeah, that's how I came up with the name. And thankfully, because I added the Z at the beginning, I can use it like that just everywhere.

: So yeah, I think that's just really cool. I mean I knew about the book. I don't remember hearing about the feeling the wind and having that, but that's not I mean that's really actually a beautiful thing because the word for spirit in Hebrew also means wind also means breath and the word for spirit in Greek also means breath also means wind. That is one of the strangest things ever. That one word means three things in one language and means the exact same three things in another language.

: That is super rare and weird to have a language have three meanings in one language, the exact same three in another. So I love and I don't know if you've ever done this. Whenever you see spirit, breath, or wind, when you're reading through the Bible, see what it sounds like if you switch it up. So when the breath of God is breathed into them, what if we read the spirit of God is breathed into them? What if we hear the wind of God is spirited into them? Like the meaning isn't changing, but our mind is being opened to a bigger picture of what God is in the capacity of he is the wind that you don't know where it comes from.

: The Holy Spirit is the wind. You don't know where it comes from. He is the breath that gives life and he is the spirit which indwells.

: So I that's why I just really resonate and connect with that piece of your name. Because now like you're saying like now you are seeking to be a part of the presence of the spirit in all of these places. So when the people see you, they see the Holy Spirit. So that's that's just super cool. I love that. Yeah, it's absolutely amazing. It reminds me of a video that I saw years ago in which he was talking about the name Yahweh and how it's pronounced as well and something that the guy in the video mentioned. It's like it's so in other words like it's so amazing how the first thing that you do obviously when you're alive, you know, when you're born is that you breathe.

: You're basically saying the name of God. And the last time you know when you pass away, when you die is when you stop saying the name of God. You stop saying Yahweh when you breathe, which is I God is just in everything. So yeah, I don't I don't know if he talked about it on that video, but I have heard other people talking about how you pronounce God, and it really is just breathing.

: Yah. Way. Yah way. I've also heard people referring to it as it's also very similar to how you would describe the sound of a heartbeat.

: You know, we usually, you know, in English you're going lub dub lub dub or something like that. But you can also almost hear it if you listen to the gushing of the heart chambers of the blood going through that it almost does sound like Yahweh Yahweh when you're listening to blood pumping through someone's heart. So those two things are really cool. Now, you might listen and go, "It doesn't sound like that to you." That's okay.

: I'm not trying to convince you that that's why it does or might sound that way. I just think that's really a cool thing to think about that even our breath or our heartbeat has a connection to the creator who created us all.

: That we are in his image and he we have the breath of God within us. And it doesn't matter who you are. Every person who is alive, everyone who has ever been alive, everyone who will be alive contains that breath of God in them.

: Yep. Very very true. That is again just God is in everything. And it's I really like how my relationship with God is right now because I remember years ago I felt very like God is up there and I am down here.

: But as I kept like relating with God and having that relationship with him, he started showing me that he is just everywhere that I am just constantly moving in his presence and that I am just always in him basically.

: So I never I don't ever feel like like we're separated anymore. It's it's just like he's always there. Even in the moments where I may feel like either lonely or whatever that may be, I know in my spirit and I know like in my mind as well like the truth that I am that he is here that I am in him. So that's been just a beautiful thing that he has revealed to me as well.

: That is cool. I would say I didn't grow up necessarily in churches that talked a whole lot about the Holy Spirit. I would say probably as I've been a pastor and moved around and I've brushed up with other people in other denominations and how they talk about it, I've been more open to thinking about and doing those things. But just that whole fascination with the spirit is our indweller. Our spirit is our tutor.

: It is our guide. It's all of those things. Why wouldn't we spend and focus more time on the spirit? Do you have any examples?

: And these don't have to be streamer related, but just examples where, and I know you were talking about the sticky note thing earlier, but it was just like this overwhelming sense of I need to do something or I need to respond to something. Whether it was you agreed and wanted to or whether it was no, I don't think that's what I should do. Do you have any examples of that you could share with us?

: There's been several in which kind of like the example that I mentioned at the beginning on how God wanted me to reach out to this person. Yeah, that was a good example instead. But there's definitely been moments in which whether at church or at a grocery store or just even on stream in which I feel and I don't really know how to explain that, but it's like I know that I have to tell someone something. Yeah. And I don't really know how to explain that feeling. But there's definitely been moments where I'm like, "Okay, God." Like, is this is this me thinking this or is this you?

: Oh, totally. And the ways that at least the way that I've been able to confirm it for myself is like when I like hold back a little bit where I'm like, I'm not entirely sure, I started feeling like this warmth in my chest.

: It's like kind of like this warm fire in my chest like, okay, God, like this is you. Like, this is not me. And that's when I just like go up to the person and it's not even something that God just tells me like, oh, like tell them this.

: It's just something that comes into my head. Again, I don't really know how to explain it unless you've like experienced it, but you just know that you have to tell them what's in your head at that time.

: And you just communicate that. And I remember at a actually this just came to mind. I remember at a retreat my dad asked me because my dad was a pastor at that time as well.

: He asked me like, "Hey, like would you want to speak in front of the students basically like like share with them at this specific retreat that we were going to about God?" And I said yes somehow.

: I don't know how I said yes, but I said yes. The same person that would barely walk up to someone and needed to use a post-it note.

: Yeah. I was like, "Sure, why not?" And I was going to speak on Sunday. I remember a friend of mine was going to speak on Friday.

: My brother was going to speak on Saturday and I was going to speak on Sunday. And up to that up to waiting for that day to arrive.

: I remember thinking like, God, I have no idea what I'm going to talk about. Like, I know the topic of the retreat. I know that this is, but I have no clue what I'm going to say.

: And I felt stressed. I felt like I don't know what I'm going to do. And I remember it got to that point in which I was in front of everyone there and I told them that I didn't know what what I was going to say.

: I was very very honest and then God just started speaking through me to each and every person there. It's like I would just look at someone and just start talking like this is how you've been feeling and this is what God, you know, like wants you to know as well.

: And that just kept going with almost every single person in that room, which was just God. Oh yeah. Because oh yeah. There's like no way for me to make all that up on the spot.

: So that was just one of the one of the ways in which God started speaking through me to other people. And I remember from that experience someone invited me also to speak at this event.

: I think it was like a youth event that they had and there were like a couple adults as well at a different church that I've never been to before.

: And I agreed to it again. I don't know why I agreed to it but I agreed to it. And I remember just getting there and and I remember just giving the message that I had in mind to give.

: And towards the end, I remember seeing an adult woman in the back. And I remember just feeling this like thing that God wanted me to tell her something specific.

: And so I said it like I just said the message to her and she looked at me very serious. And from that experience, I started thinking like, did I mess up?

: Did I did I say something wrong? Was this not for that person at all? And I kind of like lived with that for quite some time.

: And that fear kind of just stayed in the back of my mind. It's like, God, like I don't want to say the wrong thing again.

: Like I don't want to Oh yeah. I don't want to mess up. And I remember I don't know if it was like a few years later or something.

: I don't even know how this topic came about, but I remember my mom suddenly just told me like and I I don't I don't even think I told her that I felt that way because of the experience, but she told me like there's some people that are just not going to like what God is wants to tell them. So it wasn't even you. It was that how that person received it. It was because of whatever they were facing with God at that time.

: And I'm like, "Oh, okay. So, it wasn't it wasn't me. It wasn't my fault." Right. Right. You know, sometimes Jonah has to be told things a couple of times, you know.

: Yeah. Or Balum, you know. So, so after that, um, yeah, I started seeing it very differently and and thankfully the times that God has wanted to like speak through me, I I mean, I hope um, you know, I've been able to to obey and and speak up and not not hold back whatever the person, however they may react um, at the time. Cuz again, it's not it's not even me. It's it's you know them with with God and and what they're facing in their life.

: Yeah. Um that that just reminded me of something. So I'm going to grab a prop a minute cuz I do this on stream. Like this is how God gifts me. Like oh there's a story that connects to that. Oh, I've got a prop. So let me grab something. Nice. Okay. So So this water bottle I I have a water bottle collection by the way. Like because water is what sustains life. So no matter where I go and I visit a foreign country, I need to have pure water so that I can sustain life.

: Just an aside here. So I collect things that are worthless but contain the thing that's valuable for life. So I have a water bottle collection of like every place I've been. Anyway, this is from a retreat. On here it says um have a having a thirst for living water. And then it has then Jesus declared I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry and he who believes will never be thirsty. But what happened at this retreat, the the part that um just is seared in my mind is at the retreat um they after we're doing some teaching, some learning, they they have what's called mail time and you go to your bunk and there's a bunch of letters that are written there and the person who invited you would write a letter to you, but also other people that are hosting the conference are writing letters to you.

: So, I mean, if you're getting a letter from somebody that doesn't know you, you open it up and you're expecting them to be like platitudes or a scripture verse like that that just says, "Hey, yeah, you know, thirst for living water. That's a good thing." Okay, I agree, but it can't be really personal to me. The first piece of mail that I open up says, "Just praying about the decision you're struggling with. I think that God has good plans for you." I'm like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa. Who who is in the room?" Like my wife and I had not told anyone. Like we didn't tell our kids. There was no one else. Like we were right in the middle of a struggle of what do we do in ministry? Do we leave? Do we stay? And it was really difficult. And it was like by the time I finished reading the mail, like there were at least three of those that were so personal that there was only one way. And that was the Holy Spirit told the person what to write and they wrote it to me, not knowing me. And I read those and I was balling and I was crying and I'm like, amazing. Okay, God's got me. He's in the middle of this. I don't know what's next, but I have the confidence to this. This is a This is another one of those phrases. I heard this from Pastor Scar at NerdCulture Ministry Summit. Uh he he phrased it this way. And so I'll I'll phrase this question and then the positive uh are you willing to trust God again? And it was like I felt like I was willing to trust God again in that moment. Okay, we're going to go through this whole process again of moving, of finding a church, of pursuing that. And if it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out, but we're going to trust you again. Um, Pastor Scar said that a few years ago at NerdCulture Ministry Summit, the first one, and he said that and I was just like, but I don't want to trust God again. I want the proof now. I like I How many times do I have to trust you, God? Can't you give me the results first? Like, give me the results and then I'll be confident to trust you. like cuz that was really really for me it was okay am I going to stay streaming or was this a thing that God was helping me to do some healing from ministry and now he's going to bring me back into a full-time church position and it was no God hasn't said I can go into full-time ministry uh in a physical church you're going to stay doing what you're doing and you're going to help other people do what you're doing because other people need need help. Other people need to know and I boy like uh the other thing was at that conference too my stream will know this not the church digital but my my stream um God had been leading me to start a prayer booth in my local marketplace which I'll be there on Saturday. uh they were going to be open the first year on Saturday and Sunday, which meant if I was trusting God to take care of me, I couldn't work as a pastor on Sunday because I would be sitting in a prayer booth paying to be in the prayer booth to pray with people instead of being paid to work. So, you know, it was really hard to go get a job as a pastor, even a temporary one, that says, "Yeah, I can help out, but I can't work on Sundays." You got an opening for that?

: So, so yeah. Um, God somehow got me through the year last year with without a without a full-time income. Um, honestly with almost no income. Uh, but thankfully my wife has a decent income. Uh, it's her income isn't enough for us to get by on a loan, but I made it. We're okay. No one took anything away. So, it's kind of like that almost every year now. Okay. Am I gonna trust you again for the next year? Can I can I move into this? Um, and like we were talking earlier, it's easy to look at the discouragement of things of of is is is this really truly what I'm supposed to do when Yeah. the number of chatters, you know, in my stream has dropped in half. the number, and I'm just using exaggerations here because it's just easier to do. The number of new follows has dried up to nothing. Uh, the number of people that stay for the whole stream, uh, you know, those numbers are dropping. So, am I am I losing what I'm doing? Do I need to change what I'm doing? Do I am I did I hear you wrong? Is this all me doing it? And I'm just trying to live out whatever in my mind is what I'm supposed to do and you're not blessing it. That's so hard, isn't it? Yeah. Like that's relatable. Yep. It is. It is very tough. And that's why like again like I guess going back to how we even started the conversation is knowing the why, knowing the purpose, knowing why why we're there because things will be a bit of a roller coaster and trusting God in that. Oh yeah. Yeah. Trusting God in the why. Yeah. Um Oh, okay. Sorry, I was just reading something on the on the prop was a top hat. Okay. I was confused. Anyway, you were hoping that the the prop I was getting a set of water bottle was a top hat. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Uh I I I make comments and then read chat like twenty minutes later and forget what I was talking about and how that even relates to making any sense. Um you you've never gotten behind on chat. I'm sure you're right on top of it. I'm a pro. What do you mean? Oh, this is this has been really fun. Um, oh, I know what one other thing I was thinking. I think we were talking about this the first time I was thinking about too that Jesus uses the metaphor of seeds and and growing. Um, I just planted I got a greenhouse, so I planted all my vegetables in there. I was gone for a week. I came back. I went out there yesterday and I looked. Nothing sprouted. Well, why didn't it sprout? It's been in the ground for a week. It should be sprouting. If I go to the greenhouse down the road, they already got them sprouted. Um, I'm I'm in that waiting for everything to show evidence that I did everything right in planting it and preparing the soil and in watering it and doing all of those things. It needs to wait for the sunlight and the warmth to do what it's supposed to do. I can't do anything more right now except go make sure that I don't let it dry out. That's all I can do. I can I can only protect what's been planted. I can water what's been planted. It's already there. And I just have to have patience in order to see what becomes unveiled from the effort that was already made and already put in uh ahead of time. And I think that's one of those things that's really difficult as a streamer. Uh because you want the immediate gratification of people putting emotes in the chat of of you saying a comment and people going, "Amen. That was so amazing." Um it's it's a whole lot more than as a pastor up front because you usually don't hear the amens and hallelujah in my denomination. So you have to wait, you know, till people leave the church and then go, "Boy, you really don't have it today, pastor." And I'm like, what about you? You know, but um I'm I'm just I'm just teasing here. Um but but there's that level of what you get used to of immediate response in the world around us and we forget when we're sewing seeds. We're in the long game here. So if God's called us to be a streamer in the long game, you know what? As long as I have the ability, frankly, I can be doing this until I'm eighty-three like Mr. Pete, I could still be hanging out here at eighty-three streaming in my wife's basement, you know? Yeah. And I think even with uh I guess for me like with other social media platforms uh like TikTok, Instagram, and all that, they are pretty instant as well. uh like if you're gonna get likes, like you're probably gonna get immediate likes. Uh but with Twitch, there is definitely like a long game uh perspective of it, which is why I've had like different feelings towards um I don't even think I celebrated when I was when I got to like seven years of streaming this year. uh cuz I started in March because I have different feelings about it because I guess one could look at it two different ways. is like, "Wow, like you've been streaming for seven years. That's amazing." Or, "Wow, like you've been streaming for seven years and you're still, you know, you still only have this amount of viewers. Like, what's or something? Are you doing something wrong?" So, I have different emotions towards It's not It's not different than the comparison game that churches do, too. you know, well, oh, that new church down the road is growing and they have this many people and we've been here for this long and we don't have anyone. Or suddenly you you don't have any youth in your church and now you're like, "Oh, everybody is over a age fifty in the church and uh you know, we're dying and what do we need to do?" Yeah. There's it's there is no place that you can escape comparison if you want to find it, you know. Yeah. Yep. you. We could compare what's on our bookshelves behind us. We could compare our microphones to each other. We can compare our headphones. We we can compare Yoshi to, you know, All My Hats and uh Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Anything else you want to want to bring up as a topic to talk about that we haven't touched on yet? I don't I don't believe so. Um I think if I were to say something, it would be more so to other people in general, if that makes sense. Yeah. Go ahead. Uh, I guess to the people listening, it's more so to to take some time when you can to know who you are in God. Um, especially like nowadays what we're seeing just everywhere basically is it's people that don't really know their identity, people that don't really know who they are, uh, who God is to definitely take some time to get to know who you are and who God is in your life. Cuz once you know that, your whole life will change. How you see people will change. How you treat others will change. And it all stems the whole root of it is knowing your own uh identity and again who God is. Um that will make an entire just difference. So no matter if you stream, if you don't stream, uh if you're gaming or if you're not gaming, um you won't be easily moved by other people's comments, other people's opinions about you because you will know who you are.

: And again, whether at your job or at school or if you're a parent or, you know, however your life may look like, know that who you are is found in Christ. Who you are is found in God. It's not based on what you do or what you don't do. Because I feel like nowadays in the world, specifically, that is very based on what people do. They're based on how they feel. They're based on their actions. And that goes all over the place. Our emotions are going to go all over the place. But knowing truly who you are will just change everything for you. So that's why, like, even for me with streaming, whether my viewership goes down or goes up, knowing who I am in God is the thing that keeps me going in whatever I may be doing. That I am a child of God, that I am loved, that I am, you know, valued. Because again, I can't just go by what other people will say or not say because people's opinions will go all over the place, especially on social media. So don't just go by that. Go by what God is saying, you know, what he is saying about who you are, what he is saying about you.

: That's beautiful. That's beautiful. Yeah, and I think that's knowing who you are. I'm one of those weird people that never wanted to be someone else. I never understood why everyone didn't want to be me. So I'm that reverse person that thought I was the best. I never was, but you know, I was dumb enough to think I was. But yeah, I also I've told my stream this before, too. Yeah, hats is my thing. Go find something else. Don't go copy me because then this won't be my thing anymore. I have to keep this. Don't take it from me. Do something else. But it's so true. If I were like, I love you coming to your stream and listening to music. I would say a couple of years ago when I first found your stream, that was one of the highlights of my day because I needed to just be in praise and music and listening and hanging out while you were playing. And your just your excitement and your joy when you're listening to praise and music, it's like, man, this is just, I just need to carry this because I'm in a dark place and I needed that. And so I appreciate that you were who you were. Now I'm in a really weird place on Twitch. I'm reading the Bible on Twitch, you know, like really? Yeah, that's what God said I should do. You know, read the Bible on Twitch because there's not enough of it. What do you mean there's not enough? There's got to be at least a whole channel for it, right? But I just joke around about myself that way. But seriously though, yeah, I'm if I copy you, unless I genuinely feel called to copy those things that you do because I love what you're doing. If I love worship music the same way and dance the same way that you do, or I'll pick on Papsio if he's still here. If I love DDR the way that Papsio does, I could set it up right there. I got the space to set up DDR and I could go to town on DDR. I'm not doing DDR anytime soon. Yeah, me neither. Good. Like, I'm sorry. I can't watch the screen that tells me where my feet are supposed to be, tell my brain that's where they're supposed to be, and then have my brain tell my feet to move in that position. No. Now, if you want to just go put on some funky seventies music and watch me, you know, try to do a little disco, we can have a good time. You all laugh at me, but, you know, it'll be okay. I can pull some John Travolta moves out, or if I'm really feeling it and there's a wedding, I might pull the worm out and do the worm, you know, and a moonwalk. But I usually reserve that for special occasions only. You know, it's got to be like a wedding. I actually busted my chin open at my best friend's wedding doing the worm. So it was a brick floor and they weren't even, so when I came down, one of them was higher and busted my chin open. And it was a really good move. I wish it was on camera. It was pretty cool. Pretty sweet.

: Oh yeah, Papsio is a legend at DDR. Absolutely. That's just it too. Papsio, we need Papsio doing DDR to reach people that want to watch DDR and they get excited about that. We've got everybody where God has called you doing what God's called you to do. And also, by the way, not everyone's called to be a streamer. We've both been referencing mods that we have who are here. Mods are amazing. They bless us. There's even other people who can't even be a mod because their anxiety and all of those things. You know what? They create stuff for us, too. You know what they all do? They come in and they throw hugs our way. They say hellos.

: Oh no, it froze for me. Oh no. Is it only on my side or is it on the other side as well? Froze entirely. Still alive. Interesting. Interesting. Well, I should follow on the podcast by myself then. Guys, remember to follow me at twitch.tv/neeru, you know, if you haven't yet. Welcome, welcome in. You can support through my Patreon as well. We started doing that recently. So through that is a blessing. Yeah, it froze. But I question, let me see, because he's frozen on his side as well, like on his stream. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Stream together froze.

: Time. Free. Secret power revealed. Frozen camera and mic. Well, there's only one thing left to do here. Yeah, still frozen. There's only one thing left to do. Wait. Oh no, because this is going to come through here. Pap, how did you know? What in the world? How do you know? Hey, wait. Wait. Check one, two. I can hear you. I got to change this now. Okay. It's raining tacos. Tacos. Elsa. Yeah, believe so. Went bananas. Yeah, he's trying to fix it. Phantom, yeah, you can hear his audio on my side, but not on his side yet. I think I've got it now. There we go. Am I back? Thumbs up. Fives. Fives in the chat. Yay. Okay, we're back. It must have been getting to really good stuff, you know, the devil had to interfere. That's what people would say, right? It's just tech stuff. It's just tech stuff. We deal with it. Got a five. Got a yay. Okay. I totally distracted of where I was going or what it was. All of a sudden, everything froze, but the computer didn't shut down. So, thankfully, that's good. Otherwise, we'd just be done and over with. So if I think about it, I'll come back to it. In the meantime, you are a game streamer on a gaming platform. So what game would you recommend for me to check out and to play?

: I play so many different games. Oh no, the question. I obviously ask myself this question every day when I stream. What am I going to play today? You're not asking for yourself. You're asking for me. So I'm like, what game am I going to be awful at? And you're either going to be excited to see that I learn it in a really long time or I'm going to be so miserable I'll give up. Like, you know, just like something that would be fun because I, you know, I'm asking this question not expecting to fall in love with anybody's game that they recommend, but to enjoy the process of embarrassing myself learning something new. I'm thinking of three different games. I'm thinking World of Warcraft. Okay. I'm also thinking Genshin Impact. Okay. Which is what I was playing today on stream. Oh, that's one you were playing today. Okay. Yeah. And I'm also thinking Paleia. Okay. I know you also, yeah, free. And they have a new expansion that came out. Paleia is free. What's Paleia like? Yeah, Paleia is free and Genshin Impact is free. Paleia is kind of, is Pab, how would you describe Paleia? It's a, would one call it an MMORPG? I mean, one is playing with other people, but it's a very like cozy game. Like you can fish, you can craft, you can do certain quests, which is like talking with NPCs. You can build up your own house and decorate your house in it. So it's just very, very just a cozy game. Okay. So Paleia is more of a cozy game than Genshin. Yeah, Genshin is more like combat, fighting. Okay. Big into the story part of it. Okay. I like big story. So I'll probably try Genshin then. I was watching a little bit of it while I was lurking. What I don't usually do or like is the here are a thousand different things that you can collect and if you mix them together, you can make ten thousand different things and you can upgrade all your stuff. Like just give me a sword and let me go kill somebody. You know, I don't need all this other stuff. I mean, on the other side, the reason I don't is because I'm a D&D player and we will leave no stone unturned that there might be something hidden there of value and I will carry a suit of armor even though it's heavy that's worth two copper because it's two copper. So until I become encumbered, I will drag everything with me. So this is why I don't like, I'm just, you know, okay, I'm going to find Genshin. I'll probably fit along with the, I'll love some of it and then that it'll get me into the flaws of my gameplay persona of you can't leave a coin behind. You can't leave a mushroom that could be valuable. You can't, like, I'm so bad at main story because I spend all my time doing collecting and other side stuff. So but that's great though. Especially because in Genshin Impact, I don't think there's a limit to the things you can carry. Like, oh, so it's like a bag of holding then. Yes. My favorite magic item. Bag of holding. Yeah. There's no actual encumbrance at all. No, no, no, there isn't. Oh. Struzy, I've had that trouble. I did try last January, not this year, but previously to stream two days a week for four hours doing Baldur's Gate 3. To try to see if I could make a go at being a full-time gaming game streamer. And it was really, really difficult for me to game the game and stay connected in chat. Plus, I'm not great and I'm doing all the side things that nobody cares about. Somebody suggested to me later that just do the main quest on stream, do all of your side building up off of stream so that they don't have to watch all of that. And I'm like, oh yeah, that makes sense because I, you know, all that boring stuff. So actually part of it too, and I felt really guilty about this was like streaming that, but then every Sunday night I was playing Baldur's Gate 3 with my kids in a together session. We did that for about the same length of time. And then my son who had already finished the game was like, you guys got to quit doing this. Like, we're bored because you're finding like I've got to go down every side quest and my daughter's got to do everything else over. Like we're the perfect, we're going to go together in the party. We don't care what each other's doing. We're doing our thing. But everybody else is like, okay, I just want to move to the next thing. I've already done the, I've already finished the game. I'm just playing it through with a new character. I want to get to the next, oh, we haven't finished this yet. There's still another hundred chests that need to be opened. So, oh man, I haven't tried Baldur's Gate 3 yet, but it sounds like a really good game.

: Well, I had actually played Baldur's Gate 1 and Baldur's Gate 2 on PC. That's got to be like twenty years ago, around there. Maybe closer to seventeen, but somewhere in there. I played Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights. I played all those PC games on a, you know, yeah, when there really wasn't good PC computers yet or gaming computers yet.

: And then Xbox started coming out with those, so I switched over to Xbox. So it's only been since the last few years that I've been online streaming that it's like, "Okay, I'm going to go back to PC gaming. Um, I got a laptop. I should have just built one, but I got it to be portable because I'm gone and I like to stream when I'm gone." So, all right.

: Good suggestion there. I'm going to check out Genshin Impact. It'll be on my list. Um, I'll tag you at some point when I play and uh let you know how I enjoy that or if I'm miserable or if I make it through the setup.

: Um, I do have to say for Genshin Impact, you don't have to like uh use any real money for it. Uh, cuz I know some people do to try and get like better characters, but oh, yeah.

: I'm not into spend money in the game to upgrade stuff. No. Yeah. I'm yeah. All old school Pong. Yeah. Yeah. I do remember Pong and I do remember Commodore 64 and Atari and uh TRS80.

: Um uh yeah. And and I also remember uh when NES came out. That was super fun. And I shouldn't have got rid of it in college.

: I should have kept it. You got rid of it? Yeah. Poor college kid. And I needed money. It wasn't worth anything, but it was what I had to sell.

: Oh, Genshin is uh co-op, not MMO. Uh and you can't group with others until after level 16. Oh, good. Um because I I don't like playing games with other people for the most part.

: I'm defeat the computer, not defeat people kind of a streamer or gamer. So Nico, your dad had Commodore 64. Uh your twin is going to inherit it as a heirloom.

: Oh, we've we've gone off the rails since uh since this stream just died and had to come be resurrected. But thank you everyone for for hanging in here with us.

: Um yeah, I'm solo player. Exactly. Solo player. I'm uh I'm going to say a game just because I don't think anyone here is going to know it.

: Uh because I I go back to arcades before you could play at home. Yer Kung Fu. Yer Kung Fu. Um for one quarter, you get one life.

: That's it. You die. Game over. You don't get to continue from where you left off. You start over again. Now, if you defeat the first three guys without getting hit once, you can earn a second life.

: If you defeat the next three guys without getting hit, you can earn another life. I never earned more than three free lives in the game.

: And I don't think I ever made it past level 12. You looking it up? You're trying to find Yer Kung Fu? Yeah, I think I found it.

: Yeah, I've never played this game. Oh, we we played it one summer. uh busted the the uh the hit button and the kick button.

: So, I had to play left-handed because yes, because they had the right-handed and the left-handed buttons with the controller. So, I had to use controller over here and punch left-handed on this side to be able to do things, but I wasn't coordinated enough to do upright, left, jump, kick, up, light, you know,

: all of the key moves that you needed to do to jump over the fans that were coming at you or to jump over the the uh the genie who was flying at you.

: Atari 2600. I think it might have came out there, but it was Atari uh in the arcade. Like if if I could find it, I I would put that back there and stream it.

: Like somebody want to buy that for me, put it right there. I will stream playing that game. Just send it to me. You know, I'll I'll gladly stream that game there.

: That I will feel like an expert in no time. The weird stuff you'll talk about with friends, right? The things, the conversations. I do really like as well that because um I was able to have friends on Twitch as well.

: Uh all of them are gamers. So, also play games together and everything, which is a huge plus. Wolf is saying, "The impressive part of that story isn't that you did it left-handed, but that you busted the machine and they still let you use it." Um, oh my goodness.

: I um I wasn't me alone, okay? It was it it was at a it was at a campground and so I wasn't the only one playing it.

: There was probably about eight different video games is all that there were and that one became the most popular. So everybody would put their quarters on there to uh uh be able to play it.

: You know a fellow Twitch streamer that might have it. He's a retro gamer with 300 plus games. Yeah. But see, I really want it on the console.

: You know, I I want the the whole feel of it, not just, you know, put it on my Xbox controller. I I mean, I could do it that way, but but I want to punch the buttons.

: Yeah. Burrows game. Yes. Any last thoughts? Otherwise, I'm going to ask you about uh if you have anything to pray about. Uh no, I don't think so.

: Okay. How can we be praying for you and your community? Um, well, I guess for me specifically, for God to bring people into my life to be able to have community in person.

: Um, and for basically like me and my community, for for God to keep revealing himself into our lives and keep showing us more and more of who he is.

: and um for for us to like just depend on him and everything and trust him. Awesome. Well, let me pray for you. God, I just thank you for Z Seru and her being willing to be led by the spirit to follow those promptings even from being a young age as a kid doing

: things that other kids just would not do. and you have been faithfully leading her and you've brought her into this space uh to be able to be salt and light uh in a place and we're just praying for her to continue to do that in her community in uh Twitch and in Discord

: to just help raise people up to help equip people to help change hearts and minds and and bring them to greater greater knowledge and understanding and love for you and for one another.

: No, also we're just praying in in person uh where she lives. Uh it's become a difficult thing to to find and make friends when when people move away constantly and and there aren't people that are there to be able to spend time with in person.

: And so God, we just pray that you will provide for her. Uh someone that is going to be able to just take that and care and love and build and grow a relationship with her.

: We know that you can do it. We know that there's probably someone looking for exactly the same thing that she is. So God, we pray blessing upon blessing on her and her community and her family.

: May you just watch over her. Make your face shine upon her and give her all your blessings. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.

: All right. Uh do you have a suggestion of someone we can raid out to? I like to raid out to someone from your community so that uh we bring all the party over there.

: Let me see. Let me see. Unless you were going to stay on and and and stream longer. I shouldn't assume you were ready to get off, but if you were.

: No, I'm ready to leave as well. Uh yes, I do have someone even though I think she is going to be ending soon, but let me see.

: I'll put the name in the chat. Maddie Rose. Okay, she is one of my mods and she actually started streaming I think a few weeks ago for the first time.

: Okay. Uh she is a believer as well and she's playing Genshin Impact. All right. She is a good friend. One month ago pop. So yeah, one month time be flying.

: Yeah. Okay. All right, I've got it pulled up. I will start the raid. You can start yours. We'll get all of our our emotes and all of that ready to roll.

: Uh appreciate having you on. Appreciate your community. Um I had a great time. Love chatting with friends. This was super fun. And um it will probably be a month down the road before it's on YouTube.

: I release one every Thursday. No matter how many I I I get scheduled in a week. That way, like last week when I had none, I still had one to release.

: So, goodbye. Thank you everyone. Appreciate it. Love you. Have a blessed day. Bye.