Stay-at-Home Dad Reveals Why Gaming Needs More Christian Men

: All right, welcome, welcome, welcome in everybody. Welcome into the Gaming Outpost podcast. I have a special guest on and we're at a special time today.

: We have Redeem Jay on. Welcome in, friend.

: Welcome in for sure. Hi. How are you?

: Doing good. Just going to get a voice check here to see how you sound.

: Sounds good. See if we got levels that are good. Mic check. Mic check. Mic check. Hopefully I do sound good. It's very nice to meet everyone. I am super, um, I'm super appreciative to be here. Um, it's been a, it's been been a long time coming and it's mainly because of dad life.

: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'll tell you what. I love dad life. I don't know if I've talked about this on stream or not, but my wife and I at times took turns being the primary bread winner in the family. So at times we were both breadwinners and then at times one of us had a more prominent role in that. My wife did while I was in seminary, after seminary than I did, and my wife worked part-time, which was fantastic as the kids were growing up. So anytime that something happened at school, she could volunteer and be there. I also, with as a pastor, could arrange my schedule around and do that. So we got to do a lot of chaperoning as parents together, which was super cool.

: That's really awesome. I think we're kind of in the, we're kind of in that range right now. Um, a little bit like, I guess a short synopsis of where we are as a family today. Um, I did nine and a half years, almost ten years in the oil industry as a contract.

: Oh, really?

: And um, and it was, it was, it was hit or miss all the time. Um, when we were good, we were good. When the oil prices, you know, a lot of politics and stuff play into how the oil market is affected. Um, but when oil was good, I was working and I was making substantial income by the Lord's graces for sure. And then whenever, uh, man had its way, had its hand on stuff, it got bad and we had what are called downturns. Um, this up-down process happened quite a bit over the years and, uh, fast forward into just where we are now. We got tired of that constant loop and my wife said it. We're just gonna go step out in faith on this one and here we are. I'm a full-time stay-home dad for two years now.

: Two years. Cool, man.

: It's a learning curve because I realized my wife did a lot when I was young.

: Yes. Yes. Absolutely. And so now, uh, my wife's a bread winner and, um, I sit here and I get to redeem the time that I missed from when I was away and, uh, and try to lead my family as best as I can, uh, in the passenger seat.

: Yeah. Very cool.

: Yeah.

: You don't have to give me ages and everything of kids because I don't want to dox anything. But how many kids do you have?

: We have a total of five kids.

: Okay. Um, our oldest is thirteen and our youngest is, so we in order it's, uh, and it's fine. I'm open about this on my stream.

: Um, oldest to youngest is thirteen, eleven, ten, five, and two and a half.

: Okay. Okay. Well, I don't make any assumptions about what people do or don't share, right, on their stream. I mean, I've been on your stream not all the time because unless my wife is not home, which happens to be today.

: Um, I'm not up this late anymore. Uh, we used to,

: I understand.

: We used to for years and when the kids were home, we were up till midnight and that was our bedtime. And probably, I don't know, five or six years ago, we shifted that to ten o'clock as my wife went back to full-time working. Uh, she's like, "I got to get up in the morning. Bedtime has to change." And I'm like, "When I had to get up in the morning, it didn't matter what time we went to bed. Why does it have to change when you have to get up in the morning?"

: I feel that so deep. There are times where my wife's like, "Hey, I'll just, I'm going to read a book. You play your games." And, you know, she'll sit right off camera in her little nook and be cozy with the heated blanket and everything will be fine. But there are days where she's like, "Yeah, it's time for bed." I'm like, "Cool. I'll see you later." No, no, you're coming, too.

: Oh, yes.

: I'm sorry. Like, I'm sorry. What? Like, I'm not tired.

: Yes, you are.

: Like, why? So you can stick your cold toes on my legs? Like, no thanks.

: You know, there is actually, I think there is actually something blessed about going to bed at the same time as your spouse.

: Yeah.

: And I didn't realize it until when I was in seminary. And I would have easily stayed up till three, four in the morning studying.

: And my wife is like, "We go to bed at the same time. I don't care if you're in bed for an hour. Uh, I need you in bed so I can go to sleep and then you can get up at any time that you want to after I'm asleep and I don't care, but you're coming to bed when I come to bed." Which is really kind of funny because my wife worked third shift for about the first seven years of our marriage and we never slept at the same time. So it's kind of like we got into a pattern of it and once we did, she's like, I'm not sleeping in bed intentionally without you there. We're going to do this together. We're in this together, which is so cool. Uh, my wife is so wise. She sometimes surprises me. I don't mean because I'm surprised by it. She's surprised at me because I don't think about it. And

: Yep.

: And that's why she surprises me because it's so wise and I'm like, well, I didn't think of that because I needed you to be my, uh, other half, my better half, and keep me in line. So

: Absolutely. That's so great though. I think the way it works out is us as men, we're more of like task-oriented. We think objectively, and I tell her we compartmentalize a lot and when something is incomplete in one box,

: Yeah.

: That has to be finished before we can move to another box. But because they're just in every box all the time, they're like, "All right, there's one constant underlying thing and that's husband being in bed with us." And so if I have that,

: Yeah.

: I don't have that box to check. I didn't know that.

: Yeah. Yeah. Well, like, like husbands, hear me out. You are your wife's peace. If she says go to bed with her, go to bed with her. It's fine. It's perfectly fine.

: Exactly.

: Just, it's okay. It's okay to let go of the load and just rest. At least that's what I do. As for getting out of bed, nah, not a chance. I can't. If I move, it's like, why are you out of bed?

: I was that. That see, and that's the difference of your spouse. Like mine was like, that's cool. I just need this and then you can do what you need to. So actually on Tuesdays and Thursdays when I had Greek, I was up at four a.m. so I could study for four hours, then take the kids to school and then go to school myself. So it was like, that's my four-hour window. That's all I get to study is that four hours. And that wasn't study. That wasn't homework. That was studying, okay? So homework is already done. This is, I got to study vocab. I got to cram all this stuff in my brain. I got four hours. And that's where I'm putting it in. And, uh,

: Oh,

: Yeah.

: Those were, those are really tough courses for me. Let me say that.

: Remarkable. I'm fluent in toddler. I mean, that's not the language that I know, but

: Oh, that's cool, man. Well, I,

: Go ahead.

: That's, uh, I was just, the due diligence that you've shown and most of other people that I know that have gone to seminary, I've never been. I've never been.

: Yeah. Well, I feel I feel incredibly privileged to have been able to go.

: Um,

: Yeah.

: We still had college debt before we went to seminary that we had afterwards, but we did not accumulate very much debt at all throughout seminary. We got a number of scholarships while I was there. We did get to pay off as you go. So like the semester started, you just do monthly payments. So we usually were good with that. We might have had a few things that came up, household expenses that we ended up, you know, borrowing to be able to cover with car breaks down, that kind of stuff, but we pretty much came out of seminary without any seminary debt.

: Um,

: Wow.

: But, uh, yeah, which was pretty amazing. Yeah, because it's like we didn't need more debt on top of what we still had from college, which is nowhere near the number that my kids have. Like their numbers are like crazy. I'm like, "Oh my goodness."

: You borrowed in one semester what

: We borrowed in four years. So

: Different, different economy.

: Oh, totally.

: I would say.

: Yes.

: I mean, advances in tech and stuff like that. Um, I luckily, well, my college story isn't anything great. Uh, I tried to go to art school and it was more of a child brain. Um, uh, I don't even know how to wrap it up. Um, I tried to go to art college and I currently live in Texas and I was like, "Oh, I'm going to go to art college online." Not just anywhere online, not anywhere local. I'm going to go to the one in Pittsburgh online. And

: Okay. Okay.

: I, there was no wisdom at the time. And Jay now looking back on Jay then, I'm like, man, if I could just reach through the timeline and just flick you in the forehead just one time, I would have. But, um, I tried, wore my feelings on a sleeve. I wasn't saved at the time and, uh, and I dropped out and luckily all I had was a very, very super small pale grant and it was like fifteen hundred, fifteen hundred dollars. Uh, that was all the school debt that I had and I went into the labor force and I was like, I know how to work. That's all I know. That's all I need to know. And that was as far as my college extension went. And my wife, when she went to, she went to nursing school. Um, we have no debt through her nursing school. Um, there's just, she got her full-on RN license and she currently works as a transitionary nurse that she helps, uh, she helps moms and babies and she is being recommended by the board of nurses to take her, um, her career a step further and be a charge nurse for a nu.

: Oh my goodness. Okay. I did not know this about your wife. Uh, my wife, uh, by profession was a labor and delivery nurse.

: For what?

: Yes.

: So cool.

: I know. So my wife, like, we need to get our wives together. This will be cool. Uh, my wife worked labor and delivery. So she was a, uh, a unit secretary, unit assistant through college. And then she got hired in labor and delivery as a brand new graduate, which had never happened in the hospital before. Uh, because that's not how you do it. You have to go get experience before you could go there. But since she was well known on the floor, they knew her personally, she got to step in and they gave her a chance at doing that. Now, fast forward, uh, like about seven years into our marriage, she develops a latex allergy because, you know, how many gloves, labor and delivery, every time you walk in the room, new pair of gloves. How often do you walk in the room? Well, your every time your patient needs you. Every time you need to check vitals, every night. Like, so, you know, she might put on, I don't know, minimum fifty pairs of gloves in a shift.

: Uh, so that's a lot of gloves going on and off, and I'm probably being really conservative. She probably put way more than that on. So,

: Yeah, it was like she developed a latex allergy and could no longer work in labor and delivery. And this is before hospitals went latex-free. So, right,

: Yeah, I want to say that was two thousand that she might have been diagnosed. Ninety-nine, two thousand, somewhere along there.

: Oh my goodness.

: That she was diagnosed. Um, what's cool is is God did bring that like this is a fun one.

: I never know what we're going to talk about. I mean, I know what I want to talk about, but I never know where we're going to go.

: So, this is cool. Um, so one of the pieces that God worked in her life was taking the, and I don't mean it was an idol from like she was worshiping it, but she was not really going to be open to me moving out of state to go where God was calling me to pursue ministry until God worked in her life. And that was taking away this. This is where I, this is my dream job. This is where I want to work and this is all it is and I don't ever want to leave.

: So God had to work on her and this was part of God doing a humble work in her. He's done that to me many more times in many different ways.

: Right. When we ended up after seminary, so she ended up transitioning to the legal field and then after seminary she was able to do some teaching again in a local hospital when we lived in South Dakota. So she was teaching students in the university setting who, so she just did the clinicals. They got to go do their clinicals. She had students. She didn't do the classroom teaching. She just did the hands-on teaching and she had a blast, had fun doing that. And then, uh, now she's transitioned into working for hospitals and with hospitals for the insurance companies that insure them. So she's helping to make sure that, I love that.

: Yeah. So she's using her knowledge and expertise to be able to look at stuff and help hospitals go, are you actually applying the best practices for your patients and how can you change those things? So she'll go in and do assessments. She's helping along those lines of helping hospitals provide better care and make sure that patients are taken care of the best they can. So she's awesome.

: Thank God. I mean, that means she gets to walk with a different perspective because she's been, she's been on the other side of the care field. Man, that's really cool.

: Yeah, that is really cool. So, so if your wife is ever looking to transition out into something else, we'll have to talk because, you know, my wife's always on the lookout for other people. She's like the only one in the company that really has the labor and delivery perspective that she's bringing to the company. So it'll be good to have someone else with maybe some of those same kind of skills.

: Yeah. And if your wife loves what she's doing, I wouldn't say anything. But when she starts talking about I don't know if I can keep up this grind. Uh, cuz you know medicine is a grind, then there are there a couple other places she could land.

: Awesome. I'll remember that for sure.

: She loves her job. She really does. And it's just like any other workplace.

: Oh, she's moving. If she's got a chance to move up into NICU, I know she's gonna, she's going to do well and be excited there.

: What's up? Always.

: Hey, always, welcome in, man. Um, she, she loves her job and of course with any secular workforce, um, it's the people and her description of the, the reason why her character outshines the others is because what the driving force was. God called her. Her words were God called me to go into nursing. And I said listen to them, do what you're supposed to do and every step of the way I will, I will support you, whatever that looks like. And that's that's kind of where we are here. And um, she saw a situation and she said someone has to be the difference.

: Yes.

: And uh, that was her driving force for being in the field. And there are days like this week she's pulling, um, every pay period she works four night shifts instead of three.

: Okay.

: Uh, not a four, not four night shifts, but um, can't listen. Hey, I pray that you're blessed by the words that are spoken here tonight, brother. You be blessed.

: Yeah. Good to see you, man.

: Um, she said that uh, the scheduling, uh, she works four nights out of one week instead of three weeks or instead of three days during the week. I butchered that just now. That's just great.

: Got that.

: So she's working twelves or she work eights?

: She works twelves.

: Okay. And um, she'll be doing four twelve-hour shifts this week and she does it every pay period because um, she feels like her coworkers don't care enough. And I, and I can honestly see that, you know, someone who's just, who's just there, just to, after hours, I was, he did it, I feel special, he did it for me.

: That's right. I absolutely did. You're the first podcast that that started after my bedtime. I've had one that has run past that. We started at eight o'clock and made it past ten, but like we're a whole hour past my bedtime. So I appreciate it, man. I really do. It's an honor. Um, she, uh, yeah, she's about the same thing. She has a mindset of things that she can see that she feels like her coworkers don't see or they refuse to see.

: Hmm.

: Um, she's always, um, she's always cleaning and prepping O rooms when no one asks her to. Um, she's getting, like, if something is messed up, if a warmer is not turned on, she goes and makes sure that the warmer is turned on and even on quiet nights.

: Yeah. Exactly. And talk to another husband.

: Um, there are times where she'll tell me things and I just, hmm, hmm, don't know what that means, but hmm. And I have big giant listening ears on because, you know, she's still human and she needs to lean on, lean on her husband and I, I try to do my best to be there for her. And last summer it felt like she was just, uh, a dirt bike term, just grip it and rip it type deal and just send it.

: And uh, this year it seemed like it's mellowed out when it comes to how many.

: Right? Um, a term that I'm certain maybe you'll understand, uh, there the hospital that she works at, the patient influx has been in the black almost eighty-nine percent of the time.

: Okay.

: So there's too many patients, not enough staff. For the people listening that don't understand, um, eighty-nine percent of the time that she's been there. And I mean she's there three nights a week or four nights a week.

: Well, every week.

: Most healthcare has been in that circumstance since COVID happened. So exactly. It is just a systemwide problem that is not going to get solved anytime soon. So right. But I love that she feels called to be a nurse because we don't usually think about people can be called to secular stuff. Except we forget about Daniel is called to be an adviser to a king and that's secular. And so Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, they are placed there and so they are working for the foreign king. So there are absolutely times and places where people are called to do ministry and bring the love of Christ to places that are not, uh, ministry work. Uh, you're just called to be where you are, be salt and light there, which kind of brings us back to what we're doing here on Twitch, being called to be salt and light in this space. Some of us do it one approach, many do it a different approach. And there's so many different ways that we can do it. Um, so let's just start with where and how did you get started on Twitch as watching it, come across it as a streamer, and then if that was different from you being called to do ministry and be intentionally salt and light. So just go ahead and share wherever you want to start that story.

: Um, where it started was, uh, COVID. Um, I've always been a gamer and I've always been playing games for who knows how long because it was just, it was my way of decompressing. Yep. Um, I had a stressful day. Come home, do what I need to as dad and husband. Hey, is it okay if I have like thirty minutes, forty-five minutes to just, you know, throw a flashbang in a room and hope for the best? Is that okay? Yeah. Go, go, go, do your thing. And um, I'm not anywhere close to like the pro level or anything, but um, during COVID, um, a lot of people, including myself, um, started diving really hard into video games. And it was, uh, it was a moment of like, Lord, I'm giving too much to this. Like, uh, it was a self-reflection type moment. And I looked at my wife, I was like, if I'm going through this, how many other men, how many other fathers are doing the exact same thing, looking for an escape from reality because it's really hard. I was going to unemployment offices. I was going to temporary agencies to try to find just some sort of influx of finances, right? Because oil stopped, but the bills never did. And so I was just like, you know what? The Lord's got something figured out for me. For sure he has to. And um, what originally started as like just a little bit of a hobby, um, I started working at a cultured marble place, um, making artificial showers and tub drains. Um, definitely not qualified, but I was trained within six months. And then I was like, oh, from that job, um, because of somebody who didn't want to hear the gospel anymore. Um, and it wasn't because it was anything that I was saying. It was simply because of the music I was listening to. He allowed us to listen to the radio, oh, okay, and listen to Bluetooth speaker. Um, the person who was above me who pulled me on, he left that place to go start his own business. And after that, the target was like more or less on my back. Um, because the person who was there was there for fifteen years and then I came in. I was only there for nine months and then after that guy was there. They were like, hey, you need to turn that off. I'm like, what's what's the big deal? Like you guys were fine with it like two weeks ago. Why, why is it a problem now? We don't want to hear it. Okay. Uh, what what's the solution here? You can wear one earbud. Okay. Cool. One earbud. Make sure I can hear everything else and it's noisy in there. So earplugs are fine. So it didn't compromise any violations or anything like that. And I was still producing product and stuff like that. And everything was going great. And then one day, I was just singing praise. It just hit me one day. I was just, it wasn't even, it wasn't even loud.

: You're just singing off.

: No, more like attempting to rap. But if you ever see a T-Rex try to wrap a Christmas present, that's about the same delivery that was happening. Okay. And I was just like, yeah, yeah, you know, Jesus. And he was like, you need to stop that. I was like, I stopped with the speaker because you're my boss. I put in the earbuds, earbuds because you're my boss. I will not, I will not allow you to tell me I can't sing praises to my king. Sorry, you're not my king. You're my boss, but you're not my king. And then a week later it was, hey, it's not going to work out. And it was fire for religious beliefs. And I was like, man, this is right in the midst of COVID. And I was like, do I really want to fight this? And I was like, actually, yeah. I just, I made a, I made a flesh decision like all right, I'm going to come at you guys for unemployment and I had no intentions of collecting the money. I, I fleshly, and I'll admit this and I'll be honest, I was wrong to want to see that man squirm. He needed to see the light of Christ and I failed in that moment. And um, and I stopped pursuing everything. They started sending me papers in the mail. Cease and desist letter is like you're not going to get your unemployment. I was like, I was going to get unemployment anyways. I just wanted some pseudo sense of revenge and that wasn't right of me and I was wrong. And to this day, if I see that person again, I'm still waiting to apologize to him and ask for his forgiveness. But that person blocked me and I understand why.

: Um. Yep. But that's been somewhere five or so. It's been yeah, five years. Five years. It's like it was ten years ago. It's been so long.

: Um, but during the time I had just started my channel. I had never been on Twitch. Um, I had never watched a stream. Uh, people said they were like, "Oh, I've been on Mixer." I have no idea what that is still to this day. I never even YouTubed it.

: And I was like, well, I just wanted I just wanted to be an encouragement because if I was going through something, I wanted to be uh if I were to look somewhere, I was like, I wanted to be that voice that I was yearning for. Like, man, it's okay. It's okay to not have it all together. I wanted to be that voice of reasoning, that voice of logic because I quite honestly thought the Lord called me to do it.

: Yeah. And I was like, but I don't know how to go about it. And I was like, I don't know where I'm going to get the money because I'm unemployed. My wife was a full-time stay-at-home mom studying to become a nurse. And like, where am I going to get a PC? Where am I going to get this?

: And so I was like, you know what? I'm going to check with the Lord. Let's see what the Lord has to say. And the Lord said, start with what you have and start where you're at. And I was like, okay, cool. I had a PS4 and a cell phone.

: That's really. You had PS4 and a cell. I think you're the first person I've heard say PS4. Almost everyone else I hear says Xbox. So you yeah, PS4. Yeah, I started with a PlayStation 4 and um it took me one whole year to get a PlayStation camera which was only forty-five bucks. But at that time I know, I know how that is. It's like, is that the thing I want to invest in because I don't know that this is still going to pay off. How much do I invest in a poor? Like, God, is it still you? I mean, I'm like, like you're this many years in and you're still like, "Okay, I know I put the fleece out and it was wet and I put the fleece out and it was dry. Can we do that one more time?"

: Can we do that one more time? I'm still not sure that just one more drop of dew. Yeah. Was it really wet or did I remember that wrong? Cuz yeah, I know. I went through I know. Yeah. I went through all the emotions. Cuz I was like, man, I was like, babe, I really God called me to this, but groceries, your kids need to eat. I was like, you're right. You're right. You're right. Kids need to eat. And I was like, you know what? If it's for free, it's for me. And that was the motto. That's still the motto to this day. If it's for free, it's for me. If it comes to something investing into the stream. And I know I got the lights and everything. These lights were twelve dollars. They were on sale. Don't be impressed. I'll make it work. Well, don't be impressed with my lights either because I already had those. So I would buy every time there was prime days strings of LED lights. And yeah, and originally my plan was to wrap my entire house with LED lights so that I'd never have to hang Christmas lights up outside. I could just put people in the neighborhood to have that. Yep. They're so smart. I was working on that and then it was like, "Oh, wait. I accidentally bought some that weren't for outdoors. What do I do with them?" Oh, here they are lighting up my hat. So um I'm not all that clever, people. I'm not.

: It definitely works. Um I mean, I struggled for a long time because I knew what God had called. I just never knew I couldn't see how he was going to provide. And I think we all go through that. I mean, at some sort of level or I want to say dynamic um mhm like God's called me, but how is he going to get this done? It's like Joseph, God gave me this vision. How's it going to happen? Joseph, you ain't going to figure it out yet. Like you got some things to figure out. Yeah. And then boy, I mean, picking Joseph that I I don't know that I've had someone pick Joseph as the model, but man, Joseph feels like he goes backwards and then goes backwards again. Like, how can it get any worse? Like, God, you called me to do you gave me this vision. Why are we going backwards?

: And it honestly, the Twitch journey has felt for me like a Joseph story. And not to say that I'm exhausting myself or anything of that sort. That's not the intention. If someone's up there like Joseph, he's next to the Pharaoh. That's not the point. Um the point I'm trying to make is I did have those setbacks where I felt like I was I tried to take control and it went backwards and I was like, "Fine, Lord. I'm sorry. I won't do it again. Do it again." And that's just that's a Joseph quality. Like I'm for some reason I won't I just totally resonate with that. Like, you know, I knew that was wrong before I did it, but just make sure it's still wrong. Let me try it one more time. Oh, yeah. I got that. I'm trying to grow out of it. I really am.

: It's in my it's in my gameplay style, too. It's I notice it. And people are like, "Why did you make that decision?" "Oh, no. I thought it would work." And then like a game like Valorant where it's very technical and all that stuff, I'm like, "You guys are playing boring though. That's not exciting." You know what would be exciting is if I use all my ammo right now and it's like it never works. Um but when it came to streaming um I was doing fine. I was tracking. And I got affiliate and it was more of word of mouth and I learned how to network and stuff like that and my faith was solid and then my faith got shaky because God called me to do this but then I had to go out in the oil field which means this got put on the back burner and um not even on the back burner it just got stuck in the storage room and not even messed with.

: Oh yeah. And uh I was like I don't I don't know like Lord how and you know stressing out about it and then also the anxieties of being away from my family. Um my family is everything to me. Jesus comes first and he will always come first, but uh my wife is second and my kids are third. Everything else comes afterwards in that order and they're very close. Um, so dealing with being away from them for at first it was just two weeks at a time and then it evolved into okay well the fear factor kicked in uh for finances like do I want to do two weeks of work and be home for two weeks or do I want to go work for four just in case that two weeks off turns into a month off, right?

: Um cuz it happened. It was never consistent. And this went on for nine years. And anytime I was away, I was like, man, I got to figure out a way to get back on the ball. And I did. I got very, very, very wise and very inventive. Hooked up a thousand watt power converter inside of my two thousand six Sierra pickup that I was driving. Drive. And I mean, I had to buy three hundred fifty pound bags of sand to put in the back of the bed of my truck. And I was driving around in North Dakota during blizzards in a two wheel drive pickup with studded tires. But in that pickup, um, I got the thousand watt power inverter and, uh, the monitor that I still have that I use to watch my, uh, my stream software, um, I bought it fifteen dollars at a garage sale and I bought that five years ago and it was sitting on the center console.

: Uh now I can chat. I love the openness. A dude, appreciate it. Welcome and welcome in Gaming and Grubbin. Welcome in. So welcome in. So you're talking about North Dakota and blizzards. Dude, I know what you're talking about. I lived in South Dakota and uh North Dakota. Sorry, North Dakota. Yeah, I was in South Dakota, so I know what the blizzards are like out in the prairies there. Um, one year, one year that I was there, we had the entire interstate that ran north and south from South Dakota was closed and east to west, the other one that ran across. So one is ninety east to west, twenty-nine is north and south, closed from border to border across the entire state. And we went to Wall uh after Christmas. So if you know Wall Drug, anybody knows Wall Drug, big shout out there because if you are anywhere within a thousand miles, you'll see a billboard for it. Um, but uh we went there, they had seventeen feet of snow. Yeah. Not seventeen inches, seventeen feet. That's not the drifts, that's the snowfall. And uh we drove through downtown and there's like seventeen feet. You're driving your car through seventeen feet of snow. It was a blast uh to do that. Now, when it's happening and you're stuck on a farm homestead and the wind's howling, you're going, I know how prairie sickness happened when you were stuck out in the middle of the prairie and the wind's howling in the middle of winter and you think that you're going to die. I know what that's like. So we didn't stay long. So well, I never I never experienced seventeen feet, but um during the time uh I was uh Watford City, North Dakota, and I'll never forget it. Was the coldest day that I ever worked and um how cold was that? Uh it was negative seventy. Oh, okay. That's colder than I than I experienced. I think about negative thirty uh is what we hit a couple of times but oh man I couldn't imagine being outside working in negative seventy like how invested you invest in thermals I mean the oil industry never stops and um I know people say like semis and trains are the backbone of our nation but I quite honestly want to say I disagree um because I got to see how oil operates Um, outside of the Fortune Five Hundred business, you know, suits and ties, I got to see it. Um, I had on the perspective-wise, guys, I am a super incredibly cheap person. I will not spend money if I don't have to. Okay? And I understand this. My wife laughs at me at times. She's like, "Why are you so cheap?" Because I want to be. And then and then she's like, "Do you need another hat?" Well, I would like one. Why not get another hat? Cuz I can. It's like, "Ben, why are you so cheap?"

: Yeah. Yeah. It just balances out. Tell her it's girl math. It's just stretched out. It's just stretched out. Okay. Like if I make this purchase now, it'll the investment carries until another one needs to happen. The window is bigger. Oh, yeah. It's way way bigger. Yeah. She pokes fun at me at the things that I will spend thousands of dollars for, but then something at the grocery store will be a couple of bucks. No, that's too expensive. Yeah. It's like watching the checkout like, man, I'm so ready to get all this stuff. Five ninety-nine for shipping. No way. No way. No way. That's crazy. But no, during this during this negative seventy in Watford City, North Dakota, I spent twenty dollars on a single pair of socks. Oh, they were made of wool and they did their job and I had to wear them in some insulated boots and I had you know the hand warmers that you just buy and rip open. Yep. Those are in the toes of my boots. Oh yeah, of course. Then I had yeah, I know what you're doing. I've been there. Great grade three thermals and overalls and my job was to open and close all the wellheads during this job. Oh man. Mhm. And there it's thirty-two and a half turns. If anybody is working on oh, I did not know that. I did not know that. Okay. Um there is a zero pressure policy. So if there is pressure being pumped out anywhere, you are in the red zone. Do not go in there. I still have this knowledge. I am trained. I am no longer a contractor. But things you learn, you don't lose. Um I know how to run and fix accumulators. That's my job resume. We'll toss that out because I don't use it now. Um, those all come in handy as a streamer, right?

: Yes, absolutely. Yes. Um, and it kind of ties into how I ended up in the chair. Um, but during these jobs, um, I would wait.

: I mean, your job is you can't go to sleep on the site. You just absolutely can't. That's the universal rule. Um, not only are you in danger, but you're putting others in danger.

: And since my job was to control the well, they said, "You can stay awake however you need to. We have a radio. We'll call you. Just don't go to sleep." And I said, "Okay." So, I took this monitor, my power inverter, that PS4 I mentioned earlier. Okay. And I had a I had my phone plugged into plugged into the power supply and I turn on a mobile hotspot and I was streaming from my pickup whenever I was away from home because I felt God call me that much. I was like, "Well, I got to stay awake anyways, so let me stream some of my gameplay." And I tried that and I kept going and I kept going.

: And then one year, um, that work stopped and I was like, "Oh, I got to go work at the, you know, the local factory." And at this local factory in the town I was in is a paper factory.

: And um and I was like, "Well, I'll just go to the factory and just I was working third shift 11:00 p.m. till 7 a.m.

: And um I'll just I was doing my due diligence there." And that's when the Lord started really tugging on me and he got after my heart and it's like this is something that you need to take out of your life.

: And it was music and uh I was listening to trash music for the longest time. Okay. And um he finally convicted me and I started cleaning it up and he sent me back out in the oil field.

: I was like, "What's going on here?" And then uh one day um uh one of my viewers uh was like, "Hey, uh I want to see you in person. Can can I meet you?" I was like, "That's weird. Do you know me in person?" They're like, "Yeah, actually um we're family, so I'm going to text you." I was like, "Wait a minute." Cuz I don't know usernames to real people.

: Oh yeah. I'm I'm bad at those. It's like but I also like I just want to stick with their username because I don't want to accidentally dox anybody or forget who you are.

: But that also and I and I know I mentioned this often on the podcast. So anybody that's been on here goes, "Well, you always use the same example, but it's it's like what what's common for me is CB radios and you had CB handles back in the day." So like I still remember those. Like my my mom is Night Owl and my stepdad was, you know, Dutchman. And so, uh, it's like, oh, you ran into people that were CBs. That's what they knew him by. They didn't call them anything else. You didn't change to names. You just use the CB handle name. So, I want to do the same honor. You've got a username. I want to call you by your username. Right. And I was like, well, who is this person? And it was quite literally my nephew.

: And his handle is the nephew. And it just it was just two and two. I never put it together. And when I met him, he's like, "So crazy, so this is yours." And he gave me my starting PC.

: No. And Yeah. And it wasn't anything to write home about. Well, no, but it's still a step up. It was for somebody who is as frugal as I am, who knows that God called, but I don't have the finances to invest.

: If God's gonna provide something for his calling, he's he's going to that he he's he's on he's on the hook for it, like I'll do what I can, but I don't see it. I don't I don't see it. And and this he's like, "Here's a starting PC." And I was like, "Cool. What do I do with it?

: Like I I know a PlayStation is is on and off." Right. Right. Right. Yes. Yes. The the learning curve at times is almost like I'd rather stay with what I have than get something new and have to learn more because that's where I'm at right now.

: Yeah. Yeah. It's like, all right, I got more now. I've learned more. Now I get more problems that can happen because I've learned more and I'm trying to do more to Oh, I I know where you're at.

: Ah I this streaming PC and I I used that streaming PC for uh what was October would be one whole year last October I had that same PC setup it wasn't so from 2020 till 2024 for four years I used that singular PC no capture card because I didn't know capture cards were a thing no one no one told me everything is selftaught.

: Oh dude I wish I knew that. I could have told you, man.

: Here's the weird weird reason why I know. Because I was streaming YouTube at church 10 years before COVID because Yeah, I'm I'm the weird guy that was streaming live services 10 years before COVID.

: How do you do it? You have a capture card. That's how you do it. So, I wasn't using capture card for gaming. I was using capture card to stream live on YouTube.

: As soon as YouTube said you can live stream, I went, "We're doing it. We We're going to have this." And part of it wasn't I was trying to reach new people. It was I had snowbirds. And so when you're gone for the winter and you lose connection with your church, how do you stay connected?

: You come to church service online. That's how you stay connected. So we moved from putting the videos on there to doing it live. And and that's why I made that move.

: So, man, I once again, it was just uneducated. Yep. That that's that's all it was because my world revolves around my kids.

: Yep. That it's just it's just that simple. Um so, anything that that's in regards to me was like if I have free time, I'll look into it.

: And my free time was non-existent. It it almost still is except now we're in a routine. So now I can be a little more consistent.

: But um it was it wasn't until last year when I finally got upgraded um a viewer came in and once again this is God. This is not Jay cuz I was a 10. It was a 1060 Ti graphics card.

: Okay. As a as a Ryzen 5 CPU and I only had 16 gigs of RAM. The face plate, the face plate of my PC was off and I had this purple desk fan facing into my PC to help it stay cooled off because I could not afford any new parts.

: I had on my Amazon wish list kept growing and growing and growing and I was like, Lord, this one and this one and this one and I don't see how.

: And I was like, man, maybe if I get back to oil. And anytime I went back to oil, it was like, we're playing catchup. We're playing catchup. And then last year in October, just randomly, I was like, guys, we're just going to hope that I can do something today entertaining for you.

: And uh a viewer donated 800 bucks to my stream. And he helped me build build my PC right then and there. And that's currently what I have now.

: And it's still there's still limits. There's limits to everything in in the tech world and I've definitely found the limits and um but I'm I'm still grateful and that was another another God story, another God moment of like all right that's it's four years later but God still made it happen.

: And then I I've recently signed on as an ambassador for for GFuel and I've I've only heard negative connotations towards that company that like they they won't work with any Christians. They won't they won't do this, they won't do that. Or four years ago I was making jokes on my stream like check out the new flavor J fuel because my name is Jay and I just it sound playing words.

: Yeah. And four years later God has a funny sense of humor. Oh my goodness. God has such a funny funny sense of humor.

: So, so this is this is one of my favorite jokes that I tell about God. Be careful what you tell God that you do or don't want to do is uh so living in Texas and going to get after seminary trying to find a a job and where where God are you calling me to go and and my wife and I my prayer were God, we really love the South. Can can you just help us find a church in the south?

: And God goes, "Yep, South Dakota." And we learned to be a lot more specific the next couple of times as we as we prayed about things.

: It was a lot more that God I did not say I didn't give you options of South. It was hey, we want to move closer to family. You we want to be closer to family where we are. We want to we want to fit where our kids can go through, you know, all the way from high school and graduate in the same place.

: And that that was a move to Iowa. And then it was my my stepdad got diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's. My youngest was graduating high school.

: And I'm like, God, if you open the door to go back to Michigan, my wife and I both thought, "We're never going back. We're We had moved away. It had changed. We'd visit parents and it never felt like home." And that happened. I'm like, God, I'm willing to go if you open the door because I don't want to go five years down the road and he doesn't know who I am because I see him twice a year and and God opened the door and and so then I've been here since. So yeah, they the how do you pray and what do you ask for?

: Like be really really clear of what what you want and uh don't leave room for margin in there sometimes. Yeah. It's uh what is it? Don't ask the Lord for patience because he'll give you because he'll give you patience. Yes. He'll give you the opportunities to to check it out.

: And um as a dad, man, it's like it's like uh it's like it's Prime Day with early shipping somehow. Lord, I I need patience. Cool. You get it in the next five minutes. Like, no, not yet. Oh, man. Oh, but yeah, that's that's kind of how how we ended up where where we are is just Oh, man.

: I love it. I love it how God weaves stuff together and and all the different like because you can't see all of those steps on the journey, you know, the same way that Joseph can't see all of those steps.

: Just going to keep your your metaphor there. Joseph can't see the steps of getting sold into go throw it in the pit. How's how's this going to help me do what you've called me to do?

: Sold as a slave. Sold into Egypt. Okay. Servant. Okay. I'm working my way into something. It's going good. I've been put over household. I'm on the right path.

: No, you're not. Accusation. Yeah. We're go we're going to put you in prison now. We're going to go the other direction on this.

: Like, God, what am I doing wrong? Nothing. You're not doing nothing wrong. It's just the journey that you're going to go through. And yeah, it's just it is hard at times to be patient through the journey until you get to where God wants you to be.

: Absolutely. Absolutely. It's it's tough, but I wouldn't trade it for anything. Yeah. I'm glad I'm glad in u Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead.

: Oh, I was going to say your your volume seems to have uh dropped just a little bit. Oh. Oh, hold on. Mic mic check. M check. M check. Yeah, that's better.

: Check. Okay, there we go. Okay, so I know you're talking you you did talk through some struggles, but has there been anything as far as the streaming aspects of things that have been some obstacles to overcome?

: Not tech stuff, but just the journey of being a streamer, some things that you faced that you needed to deal with, overcome, or things with family related things that have been uh an obstacle that you've had to work through?

: Um, that's that's it's pretty good one. I want to say it's a uh um just oil filled term here. It's a a manifold type situation where there's many inlets, many outlets, and you have to control which valve opens which and you control the flow of where it's going.

: Um of all of those those situations um with with the family, with the the wife and kids, navigating uh a schedule so I can be more consistent was um was something that I really wanted to get like dialed in.

: Yeah. Um and the only time I could I've tried day streams. I tried. Yeah. I think that's where I found you was when you were doing some day streams and uh they're too far.

: They're far in between. That's that's for sure. And it's a special occasion if I'm able to do it because my wife is, "Hey, go go go be a go be a light if you can." And uh the the issue is is always, "Hey, dad, dad, dad, dad, dad." Um it's I shouldn't say issue, but well, bear with me. Yes. It's like I I want to let me have a moment, please. And that just means I'm a I'm a loved person. I'm a loved dad. And and that's how I take it and I'm like, "Okay, you know what? You guys get me all the all all of all today and when you go to sleep, that's me time." That that's so that was how I I figured out the the uh the solution for for the for the quote unquote family struggle. Um in the streaming world and as Christian content creators um I come across this this pseudo expectation that um and you had mentioned this earlier that we all are when we're called we all have a different approach. Yeah. And um like what I love to do with like am like a solid example one of the first people I found was Pastor Dust. Yep. And and I found from Pastor Dust's suggestions that's I started watching your channel and uh that's I was like man that's really cool like I I look up look up to brothers in the faith because I mean would that be something I would like to do yes but I'm not well spoken and I and quite honestly I don't have the extra time to sit and plan out things because my day is diapers and stop fighting please and that that's just that's just where I'm at.

: So I was like, "Well, I have a different path ahead of me, and the Lord's going to use me to build his kingdom the way that he needs me to do it." The He'll guide his steps. Oh, yeah. And so I need to quit trying to force God into a box and just let go. And I spent so many years learning that. And it's like, okay, if I'm going to stream, Lord, what am I going to do? What am I going to make? How am I going to do this? Stop it. Just stop it. First of all, give it to me and I'll and I'll talk to you. And I was like, "Okay, cool." And so that that's that's kind of where where I ended up being.

: And um in in the Christian space on on Twitch or on any platform, um you can't please everybody. No. And and some of the some of the people that are the hardest to uh to level with, I want to say, are are Christians who who think that they know they know better. They weren't in the mud whenever you got you were you were praying, right? You know, they they didn't develop the bruised knees that you got when you were in prayer. They they weren't there when when God told you to do something the way he told you to do it. And and it's not to to knock other Christians or anything of the sort. We're all brothers and sisters in Christ. We should be edifying and lifting each other up. If God calls you to do something different than me, if I don't understand it, hey, that's between you and the Lord, okay? Like I'm not I'm not here to tell you how to do your job. Exactly. I'm just saying keep your eyes on Jesus so you don't mess up. That that that's that's where it is. He has to be the the captain of the ship. If you're steering a different direction, dude, God's called you into an audience that's way different than than mine. Yeah. And even to go to to uh Peter's question about John, well, what about him? And Jesus is like, well, if I want to keep him alive until I come back, what what's you know, what's that to you? You know, it's like, yeah, you you have your own calling and you need to be true to the calling God gives you. And yeah, I say I I usually when I give advice to people when you're try when you feel called into something and you're not sure how your family, Christians around you are going to going to respond, who are you putting your pearls in front of? Because if they ain't walked oh, that's so good. Yeah. If they have not walked in a ministry pathway, they don't know and understand fully what you're being called to. So go to people who have already done some of the things you feel called to do. Doesn't have to be the same field, you know, as far as, oh, you're doing gaming ministry. Well, I'm not called to gaming ministry. But if I'm going to go into digital ministry, I want to talk to people in digital ministry because they're going to understand it. I don't want to go talk to my, you know, associate pastor who's only ever done youth ministry and doesn't think digital is a real thing. I I'm not going to ask him any advice. I'm going to find somebody else that's actually done digital ministry so I can say, "Hey, I'm thinking about this. God's calling me into it. What do you think?" If I'm going to go be a missionary in a foreign country, I'm not going to go talk to the person who didn't go so they can tell me about all the dangers I'm going to face because that's why they didn't go. So it's exactly it's yeah. So I I just equate that to, you know, like if God's calling you, you know, don't go throw in the pearl that he's given you in front of swine who are you going to stomp on it and you as well and you're going to go, I can't do it, God. You know, yeah, you you convince yourself. And on the same coin, who are the people who go out there just in faith? You know, they they don't have they don't have any oh, hi, sweetheart. Hey, go find him. Go on. Every night wakes up, hugs, bathroom, bed. Love it. All good. But who are who are the who are the ones that step out in faith? You know, like the people that have like you said, you want to go learn from somebody who's done it. Who did they learn from? And if there was no one, it's who will go send me. Yeah. It's it's it's it's that it's that it's that sort of mindset, right? Y and um one of the one of the biggest hurdles I've come across is Jay, you're you're not you're not family friendly. It's because the people I interact with, they don't know Jesus. Yeah. And and I I I and I'm sorry. I'm sorry that it it it like maybe you're just not there yet, but I don't see people online any different than I saw them in the oil industry. Oh, they're they're random. Oh, yeah. Oil field is is close second for military. If you guys know military dialect, it's full of filthy, disgusting, and rotten, dirty language, much like our world. So, I'm not surprised that there's darkness here. There's darkness here. Darkness looks the same. I'm the light that's supposed to interact and change the environment.

: So if no one is willing to go where the dirty are, how how are they going to hear? And absolutely. Absolutely. Who who's willing to go? So I so yes, I enjoy playing first person shooter titles with that. There are other people who are incredibly toxic and who just try to escape life. They try to escape their that's how they decompress. But how much how much can the Lord really do if I just like hey man do you need prayer like you sounded like you sounded obscenely noxious today but what's going on like talk to me I don't want to hear n Jesus stuff I didn't ask that I asked do you need prayer let me let me be let me let me be somebody who goes even if you don't believe in Jesus let me let me ask him about you and and that breaks down walls that breaks down barriers totally totally and and I'm I'm willing to be that person. And so a lot of um a lot of Christians, they'll be like, "Jay, you're not family friendly. I can't watch you." I'm sorry. That's fine because you're not trying to reach the Christians. You're trying to reach the people that need the light. Absolutely. Like go here out. And what's so beautiful about the Twitch space, at least just Twitch, um, is there's so many content creators who are family friendly, that I can point these people to and like, listen, hey, I know I'm not family friendly. I'm so sorry that that doesn't rub rub the cat for the right way, but here, you can go watch this person. This person does only clean content, and it's so awesome. And and like I think you'll be edified if you go like first person I think of when I when someone's like, "Hey, I can't watch you cuz you're not family friendly." Go watch Catch a W. Go watch him. He plays a lot of games from American Truck Simulator to Fortnite. And there there's tons of others that I know now because of connection and networking, but uh just for them to to to grasp that understanding, it's still kind of a hurdle to this day.

: Oh, well, it's it's not any more of a hurdle than ministries that have been in person for for years, too. Um I I don't know if you're familiar with XX Church. Uh XX Church. Yes. It's you're people are going, "What are you talking about? Pornography Church." Well, exactly. Because they minister to the women who are in the industry trying to bring Jesus to them and love them because most of the church is condemning them, pointing fingers at them and saying stay away from them. So that's that's what two twofold. One, go minister to the people in the industry, and two, help people get out of addiction. That's that's what they're all about, right? Well, okay. Don't don't you think, you know, sex workers need Jesus? Yeah. Well, then shouldn't we go to them because they ain't welcome in the church. So, we can't just say we're going to come to the church and you can come cuz they ain't going to. They go believe you. They're going to get all the looks. They're not going to know how to dress. They're not going to know how to act and and you're going to give them stairs and tell them to get their act together.

: So, there are plenty of places that the church won't go in physical space. So, yeah, when you get online, they don't want to go there either. So, and I I think that I think that we can we as the big C church, we can do a lot better. We we can do a lot especially in the in the last uh in the last in the last two weeks. I could definitely see that there there was a definite definite shift in uh in revival and I think it's for the better. Um, but I do think that something something that's been said and it's been echoed and I I won't forget it. Um, salt and light are supposed to do the same exact thing. It's what we are we as Christians are called to do. We are to change and impact the environment that we come in contact with. If the world's getting darker, huzzah, we get to shine. Because when you turn on a flashlight in the darkest room, flashlight, no matter how small, looks pretty stinking bright.

: Well, if you if you've ever been out camping when there when you're away from city lights and all of that and it's super dark, if you can see a light that not and I don't mean in the sky, but out on the horizon, you cannot stop focusing on it because what is it? Why is it there? What's going on? I can see it over there. You can't stop focusing on it and thinking about it because there's a light in the middle of darkness. And it's the same thing that we're supposed to be. And if that light is small, that's okay because the people who need it most are going to be fixated on it. The same way Moses was fixated on the burning bush and couldn't ignore it and had to go over and check it out. Listen, that story um still I'm like I know, I know, I know, I know, but how? Yes. Yes. Yes. Like it it was on fire, but it didn't burn up and it didn't get consumed. What's up with that? Like younger younger Jay was um was uh sarcasm here was very wise. Was very wise. I was like, I bet I'm going to try to figure that out. And it was it was not a good time. Fire department was called oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Yeah. Okay. It was yep. But uh but yeah, man. Um so that that's uh the family thing, the streaming thing, and outside of any other streamers problems with tech issues, and I'm limited by tech.

: I'm perfectly good with where God has me. Um, recently, and this goes hand in hand actually.

: Um, uh, recently I had, um, like I said, uh, pre-stream that uh, I haven't streamed in 12 days and there's a reason for that. Um, I had the last stream I did was 12 hours of uh, of Borderlands 4. And um, the game's fun. It's hilarious. It has a definite niche audience. Um, that's not why I took the break, though. I took the break because I honestly needed a sabbatical from it.

: And uh, for the last couple weeks, me and my family have been going to a new church. And we haven't been to a physical in-person church in two years because of something that happened uh, right before we moved.

: And uh, I've never been to Aldi. I need to go to an Aldi. We have one. We have one now. Um, well, just as we're talking, Aldi, they're building one in my town and I'm super excited about it. So, I hear only good things about Aldi. Fantastic. Well, you want to know good things about Aldi? My mom, when I was younger, when I was in high school, would drive to another state so we could go to Aldi.

: What? Yeah. That's, I mean, I understand that, but I mean, I live in Texas, so my whole state's its own country, so. Oh, I know. Yeah, I live there. Yeah. So it would be. I've never been to a Bies until we moved and now it's 30 minutes away. Yeah. So it was at least a four-hour drive if I remember right to go to Aldi's. Wow. Four hours. Oh, I know. But most people don't drive four hours to go shopping for groceries. I mean, that's true. What if you get rabbit trail? What if you get ice cream? Does it last? Do you have a cooling? They did not have uh, frozen foods at that time really. Um, it was mostly canned goods and dry goods. So you know that we're talking I don't know 35 years ago. So okay. So the selection they have now with everything we were mostly buying canned goods and dry goods. So you bring a cooler. That's smart. I'm going to start doing that. I got a cheap styrofoam one that I can use. Yeah. Anyway. Anyways, I'm 34 as well. Yeah. So I was going to Aldi before you were born. There we go. So, uh, good night, Mama Brick Builds. Thank you for sharing us. Hey, Kayman, welcome in. No, you're okay. Oh, no worries on distracting us. I easily get distracted and go down rabbit trails and come back. It's literally anything that's not monster trucks or Minecraft. I'm all about. Okay, that's what they do all day. Um, but we start, we, so back, back on uh, back on track. Uh, we started going to a church um, in person and we just got over or we are working through um, some spiritual trauma.

: Um, and I say spiritual trauma because the not big C church, but a little C church got it wrong. And um, and when I reference Joseph, it's because I entered two years ago. We hit that accusation portion um, where God had told me, "Get ready to go." I didn't know what that meant. I was like, "Oh, back in the oil field again." Because that's been. Yeah, that's the normal get ready to go. Yeah. Um, but uh, at the time I was already out in the field so I, it just, I'm trying to like, I'm already here. What do you mean? Yeah. And uh, get ready to go and I talked to my wife about it. She's like, what do you think that means? I was like, I don't know. I have no idea what that means. And um, so we just sat on it for a while and then one day I went back out into work and um, the gossip, the gossip wheel was running through the congregation. Yeah. And um, and the thing that had happened was uh, the rumor was that Jay was working in the oil field again because he's serving money.

: And uh, they weren't there when the eviction notice was on my doorstep. They weren't there when the disconnection notice was there for my electric bills. They weren't there when I was crying and praying once again. But they were there to say that I was serving money. And uh, these are things that I've let go, but I, they're noted. I won't forget. I forgive them, but there's no more relationship with uh, with some of these people. And um, we had left, we had left that church.

: Um, and that was kind of the catalyst for like the only reason we never moved out of our city was because serving money. I don't know what that means. Um, in the Bible it references like you can't serve two masters and it's talking about serving mammon or serving God, serving money or serving the Lord.

: And um, this was definitely used out of context to attack my character because they were unhappy. But the decisions that I was making based on what God had told me, they did not accept that God could say anything to anybody else. Somehow all of a sudden, it, I, it didn't, it still doesn't make sense. Nine years of teaching me to cultivate my relationship with Jesus as a relationship and when he tells me to do something I do it and you disagree with it. So now I am, it's, it gets, it gets real, real messy.

: Yes, it does. And yet while condemning someone else and gossiping they forget about the fact that one of the things that is uh, also uh, called, I'm trying to remember, an abomination is sowing discord within the church and u, you know, there's a whole bunch of that that people tend to usually overlook because well, that's not what they're concerned about.

: Yeah. I mean, they said, they threw all kinds of biblical terms out to try to justify it the way they were.

: Yeah. Can I just ask, so this is being shared while you're not around because you're out in the field. Is this coming back to you or to your wife? Who is the one hearing it?

: It was coming back to me. Okay. Um, okay. There was uh, somebody was, I don't know if they were just trying to prove a point, like a make a gotcha and I'm gonna show this to Jay type deal. I don't know the point. But um, regardless, there was an audio recording that I got to listen to of one of my closest friends. Um, say these words and their justification was God doesn't call you to leave your family behind to go make a quick buck.

: And I was like, this is the same person that I prayed with to talk about finances before. It none of it made sense to me.

: And so I was like, all right, I'm just going to tell my wife, find a new church. Find one that that is um, that's not there.

: And I'm getting kind of chuffed up about it because it still hurts. Cuz these are people that might.

: Well, yeah. You're saying it's only been two years. Absolutely. It still hurts.

: And for a decade.

: Yeah. I've got and my kids have some church hurt that's older than that and we haven't got to the place where we found a church home either. You know, I've got a couple of digital church homes, but my wife doesn't want to go in the direction of digital. She also has lost her pastor because I used to be her pastor. So she's lost her pastor because of circumstances during COVID where ended up leaving the church. And so she, like I, we've tried a couple of times. We'll go visit and she's like, "Nope, I'm not ready." So we're just waiting for those wounds to be healed enough to be able, she still has a relationship with God. She's still, you know, in fellowship with other Christians. There's just not a Christian community that she is comfortable being able to do. So I totally know where you're at and that's why I was asking, were was it coming to you or was it coming to your wife with that stuff?

: Uh, on it, it was coming to me. Um, I think I got the bulk of it and then when she was hearing whispers um, she had already uh, I want to say spiritually had uh, just like she put up a spiritual barrier because of something that the pastor said when uh, my father-in-law had passed away. Um, that you don't have to be, you don't have to be saved to understand that that is a horrible time to say the words that he said.

: Um, I, it was definitely humans that failed. I want to say that um, to anybody who sees this who sees this. I'm going to look directly into the camera when I say this. If you have been hurt by the church at any capacity, please understand people failed. God didn't.

: That is the only way that I myself have been able to navigate the quakes, the ripples of a giant stone being thrown into my faith pond. That's the best way I can describe it to you. Keep God at the center, please.

: Yeah. Um, the other thing that I often hear or will say is hurt people will hurt people.

: Absolutely.

: So often the person that is reaching out and hurting you is probably also hurting inside. So while you might not be able to, because you need to protect yourself and your family, be able to stay engaged in those relationships for a period of time and maybe God will bring healing there and you can pray for healing in those circumstances, is knowing that person is probably hurt and someone else needs to help them. U, and God needs to help them.

: Uh, you know, I still, I still love everyone there. I really do. I mean, ten years of growing up with them, doing life together. My all of my kids' friends, they were there. They're part of a Christian school that they started. Um, they went from Christian school to public school and now homeschool.

: Um, I mean, as a dad, um, you don't necessarily see the ramifications of all your decisions until you see it in the eyes of your children.

: And I try to look at the parallel of how does God father us whenever he has to make a choice and he can see our worry, our stress and our grievances and how much we carry on our shoulders when we don't intend to, but we still, man, mom and dad are going through this, like I feel like it's me, you know, it's not you, I promise. Um, how much more does God the Father, you know, look at us like that?

: But um, but hurt people definitely. I believe that they're hurting. Um, some other scandalous stuff started coming out post us leaving and that had nothing to do with our decision, but they were like, you left because of this situation of like, I thought it was because you said I was serving money. And I was just like, you know what? I'm not going to get petty because my flesh I want to be petty. I.

: I totally get that vibe. I want to be petty about stuff too. It's my, it's like I let myself have that thought. So this is where I'll say with this with it. When you have it, it's a genuine feeling. So just like an imprecatory psalm, which they say, "God, I want my enemies to have all of this." You express all of it to God. You give it to him and then you say, "And I know you love them and you'll take care of them and I've given you my emotion and now I don't want it anymore." So you've got it. I've made my plea. Do what you will, but you know where I'm feeling it. You know.

: And in First Peter 5:7, it and I've been I've been clinging on to this because because of what happened um, we went through so much hurt.

: Yeah. So much um, to where I had to question a lot of my faith, a lot of the doctrine that I knew. I was like, how much of this is actually the Lord and or how much of this is this person's opinion?

: And you know, it, it messed, it messed me up. I'm going to be completely and totally honest here. It straight up messed me up.

: And I was like, I'm not going to let go of my faith. But man, how shallow really is my faith? What does my relationship with the Lord look like?

: Because when this happened, I don't want to get into the word because all I hear is, you know, this pastor's voice. And I'm like, that is, that the Lord's voice?

: And um going through this just this struggle back and forth and on top of that, the busy life of being a dad and then watching watching my wife struggle with her faith and then like trying to be the sticky glue that holds all the pieces together and just like, Lord, I'm fighting for my family here. Oh, sorry. Hold on.

: Yep. No problem. No problem.

: I I like I never know where we're going to go, right?

: With with a podcast um yesterday with with Papa Tsunami and and those watching later, these aren't going to come out day after day. They're going to be a month or a week apart at least. So, um we went in a direction that was pretty heavy. Today, we're going in a direction that's pretty heavy. So when these come out must be for people who aren't here as well who need to hear your story. So uh I just appreciate the vulnerability that you have.

: Yeah. I always tell people this on my stream when they come in. Thank you for believing this is a safe place to be able to share everything that God's opening up to you right now cuz we're here for you. We love you. We support you. And um we know God does too, man. Oh man.

: Not trying to make you cry more.

: No. Okay. Um it it honestly it feels good because I I think real men show emotions.

: Oh, totally.

: Um um I was like, Lord, I'm I'm fighting for my family here. Um I didn't still try my best to make sure that the kids have a somewhat social life and um because they're homeschooled now. Uh we went uh this Father's Day. We got our forever daughter back. Um she's not biologically ours, but we've had her since she was two. And she was away from us uh for a year and a half, almost two years that since we moved, she wanted to stay with her biological mother.

: And then she she decided she wanted to come live with us again and be our family became whole again.

: And um and with that, it's just like there's so much so many pieces of the same puzzle that I'm trying to fit back together. And I knew that, all right, something's got to change and I think it's time for me to start start looking for a church. And since we've been here for two years, I've been looking I've been watching sermons when no one's no one in the house is looking.

: Yep.

: I'll I'll just I'll I can't sleep. And I'm like, "Okay, let me watch this sermon. Okay, I I don't necessarily uh agree with that. That I don't feel like that lines up. Let me let me look for another one." And um I did this over and over and over. Uh I did this over and over and then I came across uh a a pastor that was re recommended to me by someone who live by a streamer friend who lives in in the area. I was like I didn't know we live that close. He lives maybe 20 minutes away in our lot and he's he's been with me on my journey. Even when I was streaming the oil industry, he was one of the few who was like, "Dude, you're doing a great job." and he would speak life into me.

: And I was like, well, me and him have a history of like four or five years of just being online friends. And I have a chance not only to meet him, but he said the words that he spoke to me were a church alive is worth the drive.

: No one no one I I I haven't heard that term before.

: I haven't heard that before either.

: And I was like, okay, you know, like I've I've heard stories and I've seen stories and I'm going to be that story. Let me and let me go and just followed the big Amen. Thank you for the follow.

: Hey, welcome in.

: Um, and so I I went and I went I was like you Oh, well, before I go backtrack like two weeks I watched three sermons from from their from their pastor. I was like, "Okay, okay. I all right." You know, I'm just like and I'll be honest, I was looking for a flaw.

: Oh, I I understand that. Yes.

: And it it wasn't because I was like, "Aha, I got you." It was more of like, "Okay, does this reflect what I just went through?"

: Yeah.

: Does it does it is there even a hint of it? Because I know a big portion of our family like, "Yes, men leave your homes, but wife has a solid influence over a lot in our house." And um she she still fully submitted submitted to me as her husband. She submits to God, but like if she doesn't want to go, it makes it really really bummy if my wife can't go with me. Like I can go by myself, but it's not as cool if my wife doesn't go to. And so I was like, I really want to make sure that I'm trying to save my save my wife's faith.

: Um and it's nothing I can do. It's only something only Jesus can do.

: The two are made one. So you need to be in unity. uh about about where you're going and where God is going to surround you with loving community.

: Absolutely. It's all and to my surprise, I was like, well, hey, I sat down and I was like, hey babe, uh everyone knows your own stream is V. Um, hey V, I'm gonna the big A man. Thank you for joining the group. Um, Tiny House of Worship, I'm so sorry. That's honestly what I felt like we left was was a cult.

: Um, and that's not easy to throw around because I love those people. Um, but to my surprise, my wife was like, "Yeah, I'm going with you." I was like, "What? Who are you?" You know, like, "No, you you've been you've you're the biggest critic that I know. Um, your biggest skeptic." And and she's like, "I'll go with you." And so we went and she's she's she's already anxious person.

: She is social anxiety, but she works she works in a hospital.

: Oh,

: she'd be strangers all day, but like a big group setting. It's kind of a little too much.

: I totally Yeah, there's a different introverted going into big crowds. Totally different.

: Totally different. I totally get that. My wife My wife very similar. Uh, so we've we we met our met our streamer buddy in person and and I I believe that the service was great and um and it wasn't because I was like oh and ah I was like okay doctrinally what what are you what are you about here? Like what is the un what message are you really conveying? Because what what is the actual fruit of what's happening?

: Yeah. What's the fruit?

: I want to I want to I want to see something. Uh, Lord, show me something tangible that that I myself can can lean into. And I still I I can't say it's my home church, but we've been there three services now. And we haven't missed one.

: Um, and not saying you have to go

: Oh, yeah.

: That was the the last the last place that we were a part of. If you weren't at church, you weren't serving the Lord type mentality.

: Yeah.

: Um, it was country club Christianity 101. Um, and I didn't know that until I was outside looking in. Um, you know, and and one one thing that this this pastor said, it's like, if you don't show up on church because you you're your buddy golfing, your buddy invited you to go golfing, go be Jesus while you're golfing. Go represent the Lord wherever you are. And I was like, that that goes against um so much of what I knew.

: I was like, okay, so what else? And then there that that that yearning to learn more and then um and I had been struggling with my prayer life and and with opening the Bible and it's like if you got like we do the Bible like read the Bible once a year and we do all these kinds of plans. If you haven't read the Bible, why don't you try just reading at least one verse a day like be serious with yourself and and quit being lazy. Just just you have a smartphone, open it and it's like you know what we have a tap thing on the back of the chair. Tap it and and actually look at some scripture while you're here. And I was like, "Okay, this guy's is reestablishing that that discipline factor." And then and I was like, "Well, not just me. Let me let me look at how my kids are reacting to this new environment because they went through the church hurt as well."

: Yeah.

: You know, um in their eyes, we ripped them from their friends. Um, we had actually one family member um tell my oldest daughter that I was lying because uh little flag in the flag in the plate um we were trespassed from the property because of whatever we It gets better. We were trespassed on the day of my uh my uncle-in-law's funeral that happened there at the service. It was right after everyone left.

: Yeah. It it was it was pretty whack.

: Um, all I could do was laugh and

: Yeah, that like

: uh Yeah,

: all all I could do is just shake my head because the people, man. People failed.

: Yeah,

: they they fumbled the ball big time. Um, in comics, if anybody knows Batman, um, the Joker is a very popular character. He's very prominent. His backstory is very simple. He was a normal person, day-to-day Joe, average Joe, just like you and me, trying to be a stand-up comic, failing in the cities of Gotham where crime is rampant, yada yada yada. He was one bad day from turning from average Joe to the number one criminal that Batman dealt with. And it was just that one bad day.

: And in that moment where we had already left the church, we dealt with the the rumors. Um realized we were a part of a cult the entire time dealing with the ramifications of my kids reacting the way that they were reacting and also knowing that we had to step back into this this church that now where I felt the presence of the Lord, I now felt cold daggers of stairs. Um, I served as an usher security team and I still felt the most unsafe I ever felt inside of a church building. No one should ever feel that. And uh, we were attending the loss of a family member post the funeral service. The head of the Christian school came to me and said, "The pastor, once you trespass on the property, you're no longer allowed here." I had the that was the one bad day kind of.

: Yeah,

: I understood now.

: But that's that's the side thing. Um let's get let's go back to the the where we are now. Um how the kids are reacting how the kids are reacting to uh the this new church that we go to. Um my oldest daughter is trying to serve trying to serve the church. Um they invited her the like would you like to help with the kids and like yeah I would like to and and this and that and then the other kids one kid didn't want to go back to church but then they loved it. My two-year-old, who has never been in a classroom setting, loves he's never been in a classroom setting.

: And uh he loves going. And when I say, "Hey, you want to go see your friends? You want to go play with dinosaurs and cars?" Cuz that's what they do. He's two. He's two. Um he loves going and he's excited. And my 5-year-old, she's uh she's autistic and um she's more of like Sheldon Cooper from Big Bang Theory. No social cues whatsoever.

: Yeah.

: um can't can't understand sarcasm but is fully ambitious with her words. Um I was worried that because she was different that she would be treated treated uh a little little different little harsher and she said I got in trouble one time and that's cuz I opened the Play-Doh when I was supposed to.

: I was like oh well she's recognizing she did wrong and she won't do it again and that wasn't because of dad or mom that was because of a teacher.

: Yeah.

: So I'm so it's beneficial for the kids. And so now I'm like okay I'm compartmentalized. I I myself am finding it acceptable acceptable environment. My children are finding it acceptable environment.

: What about my wife? Because she's she's a key part of it. She's my other half. We've been married for 15 years this past se this September 1st. 15 years married.

: Nice.

: What does my wife think? And for three services, I watch her.

: No, she's visioning because she's unsure.

: Yeah.

: And we've had we've had a conversation about it and she is honestly hoping and praying that this church that we are attending has nothing to do with that other one.

: Yeah. When I say nothing, it's because that church was a part of some network where they all believed sort of the same thing and they sat under this person and it's a whole it's a whole spiderweb thing and it's it's very weird.

: Well, when when you've gone through trauma, no matter what it is or or how it happened, and you now are exposing yourself to a situation that's similar to the venue where trauma happened, it doesn't have to be the actual place of the trauma, but you your brain is prepared for it to happen again.

: And it takes it takes a while.

: Defensive thing.

: Yeah, it's it's a natural defensive thing. For instance, I I'll just pick a an unrelated thing. If you've been bitten by a dog, it's going to take a long time before you feel comfortable petting a dog. Doesn't matter how sweet the dog is, it's a dog and it still looks like yeah. I have to be prepared. I have to have to be on alert.

: Don't trust chickens.

: Yeah. No, no trust in chickens. Okay. So unless unless they're grilled or crispy. Nope. There's something happened in my childhood. I don't remember. All I know is sketchy bird.

: Okay. Okay. Welcome in. But uh but I I totally I totally get what you're saying and and thank you for explaining and and I'm I'm seeing I'm waiting for that day. My wife's like, "Yeah, this is it." And it's not because I need confirmation from her because I

: No, no, no. You you want to restore that for her.

: Absolutely. Absolutely. And uh and I'm just waiting for the Lord to just just talk to her. And um this recent uh this last Sunday um when we went uh they're having a women's a women's event that's that's going to be happening uh this coming Saturday, my wife for the first time, I saw her looking on her phone cuz I'm nosy. I'm like, "What are you doing?" She goes, "I'm looking at the women's event." I'm like, "Nice."

: Serious? Are you like I was like, "Wait, hold up."

: I don't want to put pressure on you.

: Yeah.

: I was gonna ask her, "Are you gonna go? You gonna do this?" You know, I'm excited for her, but I'm like, "No, no, no, Lord. She's in your hands. She's your daughter."

: Yeah.

: You know her better than I do, and I've known her for 15 years, and I've annoyed her for 15 years, and she's still here. So, if anybody can get through to her, you can, you know, and uh and that's that's currently where we are. And and and I will say that um in comparison I feel I feel seen again and uh thank you for the for thank you for the follow Illforgotten 10.

: I'm getting I'm getting a little choked up again, but I feel seen.

: That's so good. I'm I'm just going to give a a little sneak uh preview here. One of the things that we're going to be doing at the uh the conferences that we've got coming up and especially the uh uh digital missionary conference is um I'm going to be talking about what are the needs that people have and if you're a digital missionary how are you meeting their needs.

: I can't hear you. Hold on.

: Oh, something happened.

: So check one, two, test.

: There it goes.

: It was something I did.

: Okay. I I clicked I clicked the link and and I went to mute the tab and

: I muted the wrong tab.

: Yep. I got you. I got you.

: You're not a streamer if you don't mess up.

: But yeah. Yeah. And I I mess up often. So I'm I guess I'm a streamer. Um

: Pro streamer.

: Yeah. I'm I am far from pro. I am I am a very adequate. That's that's my that's what I I just want to be adequate as a streamer. I'm not a novice. I'm not a pro. I'm adequate. And I every day I will get a little more adequate.

: I'll tell people my resume is stacked. Not only not only am I a producer, but I'm a uh production engineer and I'm also a graphics designer and I'm also a uh a coordination planner. So

: and a sound technician and uh

: Sound tech.

: Yeah. People say that streaming is easy. No,

: I would love to have a I would love to have a tech person doing all of this for me and I just

: Same.

: Sit here and and chat.

: Uh, same. I would love that.

: But but anyway, what I was I was going to say is is part of what I I want to bring when I'm and I'm still working on my um my keynote. I wasn't supposed to originally give a keynote and that's changed, but so I'm giving the keynote at the the the gaming conference. Uh the first one but talking about what is the need the tangible need that you are reaching people for what is it that they have that they need some people it's a place to belong some people it is hope that they need some people it's joy that they need what is the need that you're meeting and uh there's I think 12 different needs that people might have and I'll be talking about that a little bit at the conference but that's what it sounds like your wife has a need and it's trying to figure out what that need is for her and does this church you're going to going to provide that for her and if it does it'll become a place where she can uh you know be able to stay and get engaged and move. But you can't rush that. You can't you can't rush it. It's it's got to happen naturally. And if it doesn't happen naturally, it's going to be a flight or fight, you know, kind of a situation.

: So we're we're we're we're on we're on the mend.

: Yeah.

: You know, it's the ripples the ripples of what happened, they're starting to get a lot smaller. And and I'm I'm I'm good. We're good as a as a family as a whole. Um, when I say FLC, I took that took the last the last 12 days 11 11 12 days off of streaming because I wanted to make sure.

: What other things did you do to help you? Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. We just got a a hype train started here. Uh, how many how many gift subs was that? Let me see.

: Uh, 25. Oh my goodness. 20 ill forgotten.

: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. 25 gift subs. Oh my god. 50 gifted subs. Are you kidding?

: Oh, let's go. Glory to God, dude. Let's go.

: Oh my goodness. Oh.

: Oh my goodness. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You are so kind. Oh, and now we have a we have a raid coming in.

: Verbal profit, welcome in. Welcome, welcome. Join the excitement. Um, Zeno, welcome in. Thank you for coming in with the raid. Nova Strike, welcome in. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

: Carla, welcome in.

: Rolling.

: I know. This is so this is so fun. Uh, like a dub for real. Ooh, what a name. Love it. Love it. Love it.

: Solid name. I love it.

: Yeah.

: Pro Virgo prophet.

: Yeah. I need to get a shout out here.

: How cool.

: This I guess this is the kind of stuff that happens when you stay up past your bedtime. So the I tell everyone this, the Lord the Lord doesn't sleep.

: Yeah.

: He has no need.

: So oh my goodness. So, those coming in, we just had uh 50 gifted subs right before you came in with the raid. So, we are just excited. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Level 9 hype train here. Uh yes, 50 50 subs just just happened here on the stream. Um so, I'm not usually on at this time. I I do not know you, Verbal Prophet. I don't know if somebody suggested you come over here. Uh but thank you. Appreciate that so much. Let me just give you a quick intro myself. And then I don't know if you know Redeem Jay, but that's who uh we're on the podcast with. So I am flat cap dapper pastor. Um this is what I usually say on my stream. I have hats. I have fish and we read the Bible. But here I do podcasts. I bring on friends who are I call them digital missionaries. They don't have to call themselves that, but they are people who are salt and light in the Twitch space, bringing the love of Jesus wherever they go. And so, oh, what do we have? Thank you for the follow like a dove for real. Appreciate it. So, we've just been chatting about how did RedeemJ get started on Twitch, what have been some of the obstacles that he's dealt with, and then life stuff that's been going on. And we've been getting really serious and talking about stuff that's really painful and it it just it's life and it's what happens. And so that's what we've been doing here. And uh thank you. Thank you. Thank you for for coming in. Appreciate you. Luces recommended. Oh, Luces. Yep.

: Luces is uh one of my mods. So Luces, I'm going to have to give her a big hug. So

: Oh, so precious. I love it. So, uh, Jay, you want to just quick, uh, say a few things about yourself?

: Uh, yeah, sure. Um, hi, my name is Redeem Jay. I am a Christian content creator. Um, I play a lot of variety FPS games. Um, with all the intention of reaching lost uh, the lost with the gospel. U, before any of that, uh, I'm I'm a dad and I'm a stay at home dad of five kids and I homeschool all of them. So prayers are welcomed and um any interaction with adults is definitely cherished. But yeah, that's that that's that's me in a nutshell.

: Awesome. Well, I' I'm just on a high here from from all of that stuff going on. And uh

: I'm glad to see it, man.

: Oh, man. It's it so cool.

: Yeah, now I'm awake. I could stay awake for another hour off of that. That was that was cool. Fun and excitement. Yeah,

: that's how it happens. Now, imagine getting a raid from 95 people at 2 a.m.

: Oh my goodness.

: Yeah. Uh a reach buddy named Katr who's over in Australia.

: Yeah. Yeah, I know Katr.

: Yeah, Katr did that to me. And that was X just followed.

: Zeno, welcome in. Thank you for the follow. Yeah. So that's why you stayed on for 12 hours was because you got the raid.

: That's not the why.

: Okay. Okay.

: It's just that just happened to happen at the end.

: Oh, okay. Okay.

: My community is able to acquire channel points and at the very bottom of the list of redeems, mind you, I have some some stellar redeems, sounds and trolls and all of the bits. Um they can choose to make me stream for 12 hours. Oh, it has been redeemed twice. And I also have to plan a 12-hour stream of Minecraft. And I don't want to play that game.

: I years of technological advancement and we're still playing with squares. It doesn't make sense to me.

: Yes. Yes. I totally agree.

: Sorry. I have nothing against the game. Nothing against the game. I've never played it. I just look at it and it's like I'm sorry. I grew up with Pong and 8bit. Okay, I don't want to look at it.

: So, Papio, I'm currently playing Minecraft. You're welcome to it. You are. I have nothing against it. I just do not want to.

: That's all for you, not for me. And

: it it was part of a secret community goal and the community reached it and uh now I have to do 12 hours of Minecraft without complaining.

: Oh. Oh, no. No.

: That can't

: Oh, I have to.

: Why are you torturing yourself?

: Uh because it's it's more it's more of just a lesson. There's part most of my audience. They they want to see me fail. That's the troll factor.

: Yes. Yes.

: Uh but secondly, they're really trying to convince me that I'm gonna have a great time.

: Can I make it happen? Sure. Because I'm the hypest dad on Twitch. Sure. Go for it. But I also consider Minecraft to be a sleep stream. So be prepared for that. They they they don't believe it. But it's it's I'm probably gonna fall asleep. And if I'm rage baiting, I'm I'm so sorry. I just do not find Minecraft entertaining. My kids play it. They're like, "Dad, look at this." Mhm. I wear glasses cuz I want to see right. I don't want to see wrong. So I'm not looking anymore. We we we just need to change the subject because, you know, we're just going to, you know, be bashing this.

: Yeah. Yeah.

: Um, anybody that plays it, good for you. Hope you love it. Not every game's for everybody.

: Uh, back back on course for where we are. Um, the the church that we go to, my wife is looking for a need was the last thing that was.

: Yeah. Yeah, that's where we were at.

: Um, yeah. Um I'm I'm praying that the Lord's going to reveal that one day to her. And uh and when when he does, and this is the specifics of of our prayer, um I've in the in the last 11 days, I've taken some time away from streaming to um to really get my faith back on track to to say the least because like I said, my faith had felt incredibly shallow. I mean, 10 miles wide and a couple centimeters deep. That's how it felt for the last two years. And I didn't know how to approach it. And it was like come come to the place to get clean, but I have to get clean first type feeling.

: Um is the best the best analogy that I had. I was like, Lord, I I I don't know anything. I feel like I don't know anything.

: Um but that's not the case. Um uh the story of Peter stepping out of the boat in faith. Um, what what gets me about the story is he was he steps out of the boat off of one word of power from the Lord, walks all the way almost up to him and then he looks at the situation and he sinks and the Lord reaches down. That part is is what's what's got me.

: The Lord reaches down like, "Peter, you were you were an arms length away from the Lord. You were that close." And so I've I've taken some I've taken some solace in in that knowing Lord, you've you've always been an arm just your arm is just right there. I just got to reach out and grab it again. And that that's where I've been for the last 11 days. Um quite honestly and I'm I'm not ashamed of it because it's it's human condition and my track record is I'm stubborn and I have to learn lessons twice.

: Um, and this is one lesson that I don't want to go through twice. So, I'm being very cautious and very careful. Um, and I I've I've I've started I have like four devotionals going and just grip it and rip it type scenario where God, I'm all in for you because you you were always there for me and you were there through this and I know it wasn't people. I know it wasn't you, it was people.

: Yeah. And uh and I just I just want to I just want to be used the way that you see see me to be used and it's not for my glory. It's for his kingdom and it will always be that way. And um he's taking care of us there. I have no reason to doubt it. It's more of just a self-evaluation that I was going through for the last two years. And then the last 11 days I I've I've found that connection.

: And uh this was the first stream that I that I turned on in the last two weeks. Oh man. And I feel privileged to to have you. Um because this took this took some planning. I like I I think we started the conversation a couple of times. Hey, when when when does it work for you?

: 10:00 p.m. at my time. Wait a minute. That's 11 m. What are you talking? I can't like Okay. So then I got to go when's my wife out of town because the bedroom is right up above and there ain't no way I'm quiet. Okay. So, oh yeah, she ain't going to bed with with me down here yap japping my jaw constantly. She ain't going to bed.

: So I had to My kids are sleeping. Their room is maybe 10 feet from me. Yeah. Yeah. Kids are probably used to you you in there, you know, every night making noise. My wife ain't used to that. So they it would be like every once in a while I'd probably be hearing her get up out of bed, you know, oh no, she's still awake.

: And uh so no, she's she's she's out of town. And so it had to be one of those times. So yeah, I think we had this on the schedule like four or five weeks ago finally. And I think I talked about it a a month and a half, two months ago, and you said, "Okay, well get back to me when it's closer." I'm like, "Okay, I like it's it's a month out. Are we still are we good to go? Let's lock it in. Yeah, we can lock that in. All right, good. It's going to happen.

: And the reason being is cuz like uh they they wouldn't give my wife her schedule. Yeah, I know you said to make Yeah.

: And then she But it's like my wife knew her schedule, so it's like I had to lock it in, you know? So, yeah, man. I'm I'm glad I'm glad it worked out, though. Oh, yeah. I I am so glad this has been such a meaningful conversation and and like I said, I I have just been having the most fun from the standpoint of getting to learn more about some of my friends I know online cuz you don't always get into this deep stuff, whether it's happy stuff or sad stuff. You don't always get into the depth of of everything going on in someone's life or what they've gone through.

: But somebody needed to hear it today and somebody's going to need to hear it when the VOD goes out and it could be somebody three years from now that needs to hear it too and and we just don't know. Um so I appre appreciate you man for for being able to share all that and then all the excitement we just had. So why don't we just unless you had anything else to add.

: I guess the only other thing I was going to ask is were there any particular things that you planned specifically to do during the last uh uh 11 days to provide rest or to do reflection or any of that stuff.

: Um uh I'm going to give them in in in practical practical things. Okay? Because um it's in James 1:22 it says be doers of the word and not hearers only deceiving yourselves. Right? And so the big the big part of it is um is being a doer, right? I was like, well, how do you do something? And maybe it's just the way my brain is wired, you know, how do I a actually apply this scripture to my life? You know, how do I act actively pursue the Lord?

: And how do I bring how do I lay something at his altar when his altar is in heaven? Like I can't physically reach in there. That that's just how my my brain is wired. And I'm I'm sorry that's a little little bit of a little bit raval, but I'm gonna give it in practical things.

: Um things that I did in the last last two weeks. Um we had an event that that really shook shook the culture of our nation. Yep. That happened 12 days ago. And I wouldn't say that this was the catalyst for it, but it definitely is a huge proponent because of um because of of who Charlie Kirk was as a person.

: Um he wore his faith boldly and he was a solid example for Christians to to be. Um and quite honestly uh because of Charlie is the reason why I'm so uh so open with going into um video games and in the toxic environment um is because he was he was a living example that the Lord had used and he had impacted me to pursue my faith in the same in the same fashion. Um not to be afraid of the environment but to go change it.

: Um though that was kind of the callous but um in practicality um I looked at the things I was wasting my time on and as a content creator as streamers brother you have so many hats on your wall but we wear so many hats y as as streamers as Christian content creators we we wear we do so much and and above all the other hats we we wear we wear Jesus y and I was like Well, if I'm going to represent you, Jesus, I need to make sure that I'm putting off the the hats I don't use, right?

: And um I had found myself like, well, I'm going to look at I'm going to look at content here. I'm going to look at content here. And I was myself as a as a viewer consuming content on uh short form. I was like, well, okay, well, this person has a nice 3se secondond hook. I'm very analytical of how people are structuring whatever they're making. And I'm like, okay, well, they produce this. The the camera quality is outstanding and they have a little snippet. It cuts away and it works to the attention of the uh you know, it's there's so many little nuances that go into it. Why am I consuming content?

: I I started looking at myself like it was more still self-reflection in the last 11 days. I was like, what is it about me that the Lord is is using? What is it about the Lord? What does he see in me? What do what do I see? And when people hear me speak, do they hear Jesus or do they hear just J being J?

: You know, um, you know, it it was more of just using the word as a mirror. Once again, I knew the steps, but I put them to the side because I didn't know that those were steps from the Lord, and I thought they were just steps from the opinion of the man. I've been two years of trying to differentiate, and it finally got to tip a point where I was like, I want my faith to be real. I want it to be whole. I want it to be on fire. And to get that, I need to look at myself because I know who Jesus is. I know what he did for me. I know how much he's still doing in my life. I can look at my kids. They're still a living testament on on who he is and how much he loves me.

: And for him to still be reaching for me in the midst of all of what we're facing. I know that he cares. So, what is it about me that he sees? What is it about Jay? And I can't do that if every night at 10:00 p.m. go live and I don't have time to sit and reflect. And I say I don't have time. Everybody has time. Everyone has time. We all have the same 24 hours. How much of that am am am am am am am am am am am am am am am am am am am am am am am am am am am am am am am am am am am am am I willing to sacrifice to give to the Lord was where I got to in this self-reflection. I was like, "Well, anytime I'm cooking dinner, tick tock. Anytime I'm sitting down on the couch with my wife like, "Huh, look at this funny Facebook reel." And I'm like, "Like like like, "Babe, this is what I want to do with my content." Like, I would show her my ambitions and show her this and I'm like, "You know what I could be doing? You know what I could be doing is I could look up a devotional for imperfect fathers and realize I can give myself some some some grace and actually get back into the word and read that one scripture like that pastor had recommended and maybe maybe I can I can be as open and loving as the father to the prodical son because that's what I read today."

: Oh, don't get me started. That's my favorite. That's my favorite. Don't get me started on that. We'll be I'll be I'll be going to preaching if you if you can start on that.

: No, I I understand. And there's, you know, you hear the story a million times. And I was like, well, maybe I could love my kids this in the same fashion at the same degree and I can use I can I can learn this stuff in my free time and maybe the Lord will reveal something about my content that he needs me to do that will shift it for it to be successful. Because this entire time I've been trying to make it work when that's not how it was supposed to be in the first place.

: Yeah.

: He told me, "Be me. Go where I need to go. He handles the rest." I was like, "Cool. Hands off approach. Love it." Didn't love it for the last two and a half years.

: No. But now Yeah. Yeah.

: But I I understand. And this is back to the I got to learn lessons the hard way for some reason.

: Oh, yeah. And um so practicality I started started uh if if I felt like I was Tik Tok. No, no, no, no, no. Let me open a devotional. Let me let me open it. It was more of putting down garbage and picking up the word. And it's it's still on a smart device, but I God's word, it's it's still going to work.

: Um if I can't carry around my three and a half pound Bible, I can carry around my cell phone. You know, I got I have five kids. It's it's a little little more a little more practical to carry around my smart device.

: Um well, it's it's about discipline at that point. It's about discipline.

: Yeah.

: And that's that's currently what what I'm working on is is my discipline and um putting putting the short form down. I've stop I I've stopped worrying about editing, finding a window of time to edit my content. Um if community makes clips, they make clips. If they don't make clips, they don't make clips. Um, if I don't have any viral moments, not worried about it because notoriety means nothing to me.

: Yeah. I always have this mantra, I guess. Is I'm the Twitch view counter can say a hundred, it can say a thousand, it means nothing because there is a whole host of heaven that is watching.

: Oh, that audience, that audience is what I have. I have not heard that approach to things of the whole host of heaven is watching me stream on. Man, that's an interesting thought. See, because numbers, numbers can move you if you focus on them. I think numbers are good for the analytics so you can track your progress, but should they determine where you go or how you move? No. And that's where we get, that's one of those things that a lot of people get hung up on. I'm like, "Dude, listen. It doesn't have to be that serious. The whole host of heaven is cheering us on, and it's not my job to save people, it's Jesus. I'm just bringing Jesus to." Totally, totally. You were, yeah, it's not your job. It, yeah, your job is to be faithful. Um, absolutely.

: The thing that when I did drama ministry before I went to seminary, and the thing I would, you know, talk to whoever my cast was, because I did everything there, you know, act, write, direct, all of that, it would be technical theater. Yeah, just yeah, I just yeah, I did. I couldn't run the sound at the same time, you know, or lighting, so you know, I couldn't do everything, but I would say we might be here for one person today. So do not worry about if everyone here claps or applauds or gets it because there's one person that needs it today. That's why we're going to do this. That's who we're here for. And we may never hear from them that we were here for them because if God uses us to hit them, they may be dealing with this for hours or days or weeks of the impact that could happen. So we may never know. So don't worry about. I love it. Yeah, don't worry about the crowd. We're here for the one. And so that was always my mantra. So when you're going, we're here for the host of heaven. It's like that's like the flip of that. Like yeah, we're, I'm not even here because I don't know who the one is. So I'm doing it for the king and his host and he'll take care of the one hearing it. He'll take care of it. And on the same, the same end of that one, and uh, for people who hear this podcast, this recording, this VOD, and uh, for content creators who are aspiring to be a Christian streamer or just a content creator in general, content creator world, you just want to make a difference in the world. Um, be okay with not knowing. Just be okay with not knowing. Yeah. Um, we are finite beings trying to understand an infinite God, and um, we can't understand the capacity for it. In my case, my case, I can't understand. No, I can't either. I was just going to say not only can I not understand God, I can't understand my wife at times. So if I have been with her more than fifty percent of my life and spent more hours with her than anyone else on the planet and she still does stuff that surprises me and that I do not understand, how in the world am I going to understand God? I just don't think I'm going to.

: Now, there's a capacity in which I understand, and then there's a capacity which, here's what I know I should believe, but then there's that, really, how I, I just fall short. I have a limited capacity, and it's like some stuff is just outside of my ability to fully grasp an infinite creator who loves me. Uh, absolutely. As kind of like why I would have given up on me a long time ago. Uh, long, like I, no, I wouldn't have stuck it out. I'd have, you know, we could start over again. You know, we wiped everything out with Noah. We found one person. Yeah, that guy with the hats. Like, we don't need him. He's been wearing hats since he was in seventh grade, like going against the grain, wearing a yellow hat when everyone wants to fit in. And he's like, "Really? This is the guy we're going to bring into ministry? Are you sure?" Like, I mean, the host of heaven was probably, well, I'm just, you know, teasing on here. The host of heaven's going, "God, are you sure?" Uh, that guy, I'm not seeing it.

: There's a quote in the Tarzan movie that my wife used on me yesterday. She's like, "Even if you don't understand," she goes, "Okay, it's your baby." Like, "It could be different, but okay." Yeah, it's your baby. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, just be okay with not knowing. It's knowing everything that you're trying to know to be successful. It doesn't, it doesn't, it's not going to do anything for you. Yeah. Like everyone's definition of success is a moving field goal. It'll always stay that way. My definition of success is I can pay half the utilities with Twitch. I love that. I love that. Yeah. Not because of, not because of numbers, just like this is a real life issue that me and my household face, and it's not the same as somebody else. Someone's like, I want to go viral. Viruses are gross. No thanks. Like, I don't want to be viral. I just want to pay the water bill, please. Like, calm down. It's not the service.

: I was just actually, you know, having a conversation with a couple of people going, are you prepared to go viral if it happened? Would you be prepared to deal with it? And I'm like, no, I'm not. I am not prepared. If all of a sudden the podcast went viral, I am not prepared for it. I like, so God, I'm not ready. I know I'm not ready. So unless it went viral so that the conference that I'm going to be at is going to lead more people to what you want them to do, and the church digital, we are praying for workers for the harvest. Like, you know, Luke 10:2 says pray for the workers of the harvest. Um, because the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. So I pray that every day at 10:2. So unless it's an answer to that prayer right now, don't make me viral. I don't want to be. I'm not ready for it. I mean, my bank account would be happy, potentially. My wife would be happy. But I am too busy right now with too many things that you have for me to do. What would I give up to allow that to happen? So like I said, unless God's plan is for this to blow up the week of the conference in two weeks and that to bring people into the conference, I'm like, "No, man. I'm not ready, God. I know I'm not ready."

: Man, what would you like? That's a good, that's a good. Once again, I'm all about self-reflection right now. What would you, what would you sacrifice for being viral? Yeah. What are you going to sacrifice? In my case, that would most likely look like privacy. And I'm not willing to give that up. Yeah. It's like I'm not going to set up a camera in, like, what's his, Kaisen? He's huge. He's huge. He has cameras in every part of his house. The production part of me is like, dude, how much wire do you have? Like, what? Like, you know, you have the money for it, sure, but how does it work? You know, uh, that's where my brain is. But then when you look at it from a viewer perspective, this man has all angles covered, even when he sleeps. I'm not willing to give that up. There's no way. There's no way. I don't let my kids have an online presence for a reason. I don't, I like to keep my family close, protected at all times because I'm called to defend them from everything. And we're called to be what? Wise as serpents and harmless as doves. Like, I've watched the devil work for a while. He's got the same boring, played out playbook since the garden. Not willing, willing to let that happen.

: Yeah, yeah. Which, depending on how you view it, um, it is how about we circumvent the plan of God and move faster than his plan. That's how I view it. That's to me. Yeah. Like, let's circumvent, let's move faster. Let's get you to the end without waiting for the process. Yeah. Which is so tempting for me all the time. I mean, it's, it's the same thing he did with Jesus. Yeah. You're angry right now, right? How about some bread? Yeah. Who doesn't like, it is written? Yeah. Yeah. It is written, and then boom. Yep. It is written, dude. And that's, that's how, that's how we're, I'm, that's how I'm going to operate. It's like, what is, what does God's word say about this? And something quick, fast, and uncontrollable growth that sounds like viral to me. And our wives are nurses. And uh, you know, quickly, the medical field can change when it comes to just a single virus. I mean, recently our entire world was shut down because of a virus, regardless of political views. Yeah. The world felt the effects of this one singular thing. I'm not willing to let virality change who I am. Yeah. Not willing. Yeah. I'll let God work on changing me, you know, because, you know, I don't usually do a good job myself. Uh, I usually wait for, you know, the reality to sink in of, you've done it wrong again, so maybe you shouldn't do that the same way next time. But um, I totally, totally get it, man. Yeah. How about we shift a little bit and uh, talk a bit about what have been some wins, some blessings that have happened for you and or that you have been able to be a part of for somebody that's uh been in your stream. Uh, wins, blessings. Yep. Um, however you want to label it. So, okay, okay, okay. Uh, wins, blessings, things that have been, okay, okay. Um, a place where dads, a place where dads can feel seen. Um, like I started my channel with that goal and it's still the same. I want to see other dads get a feel like they have a W for themselves. Feel like they have a win. Yeah. Um, uh, more often than not, a lot of dads, at least in the blue collar field, they feel defeated, downtrodden, they're carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders when they one don't mean to, or two, um, it's just by accident, by circumstance. Um, there's been a couple of times where um, where I've had, I've had these moments of where I'm vulnerable, um, because the Lord tells me to be vulnerable, and um, I'm able to just share and be open and that encourages. Uh, there's one guy and he hasn't been on my chat in a very long time. Um, and his name is Zany, or his user handle, his CB radio handle was uh, was Zany42. Um, love this guy. Yeah. Um, he seemed young. He didn't have a family and he's very financially, he was, he was ahead. It was one of those, uh, he understood the stock market and was able to invest in the right places at the right time and he's very successful. Um, I still pray for him. But um, he was somebody who didn't know Jesus before he came to be a part of my community and his views got changed. Um, and that, and I was like, I didn't do it. He goes, no, but you know, being around you, just seeing how you carry yourself, something different. And I was just a living difference for him. Um, I was just the Bible that he got to read that day. Yeah. And um, uh, another, another, another testimony that God gets the glory. It's nothing that I've done. A childhood friend of mine, he uh, lost his daughter. Uh, I say three years ago to a, um, to an incurable disease uh, called DIPG. And um, it rocked his world. Yeah. Um, he wasn't, he wasn't a believer in Christ. Um, and there was no, there was no words or comfort that I can give that, you know, his closest family could give, um, that was any different. And uh, he just knew that at some point in time I became some sort of Jesus freak, um, somebody who believed in a higher, a higher power than myself.

: That was shallow faith. A lot of his family is from the Philippines, so his faith was all over the place.

: Recently, on September 14th—I have it in my calendar—he gave his life to Christ recently, but he made a public declaration and got baptized on September 14th. And he had texted me and said, "I just want to tell you thank you for being that voice of the Lord and not giving up on me." And that was a win for me.

: Yeah, definitely. He hasn't really chatted in my community on Twitch, but he's like, "Dude, I want to be there. Like, if you ever do a Bible study..." I'm like, "I don't know, I don't know how to do that." But what I do know is how to be here. I'll be an open space for someone to share. Like, if you're going through something, tell me. Like, I may not have the answer, but I know some people who can help.

: Yeah. You know, at the very least, I can be a liaison of information. And if I don't know anybody, I know somebody who does who knows the answer, and I can point you to it. And it's pretty simple. And so that was pretty good—pretty good win, I would say, for the community, is just having the open door policy for men to come and talk.

: Yeah, there's definitely a couple of cool wins. We just did some surveying information recently, and one of the things that we were discovering from that information was that people that are online share their faith 30% more often than people do who are in person. So there is more of a tendency to share your faith if you are doing ministry online than in person for the average person. And the average person online has had one or two people who've come to faith. So not only are they—you know, they've had one or two—I don't know how people quantify the time on all of this. I just have some recent stats. So it's like that's just what's lining up with what you're talking about: being there, being salt and light, having a couple of people that have had one person that's been baptized.

: Some of the questions that we were asking people, and that was what we were learning from what people were saying, is the more often that people are online, the more free they are to share their faith honestly, and the more people are responding with those people that are hungry for it compared to the average person that just shows up in a physical church on Sunday and then goes about their life the rest of the week. They're less likely to share their faith. I think a lot of it is they have—I don't want to say hide, but they're more comfortable sharing because it's not their actual name that's being displayed.

: Well, this wasn't just among gamers. So this was anybody online. So a lot of some platforms you have your real name out there.

: Oh yeah.

: So it wasn't just gamers. This was people that are online doing ministry.

: Man, that's cool. Yeah, that's—I do think that I mean, we're technology advanced so far, and I don't understand why some people in the big C church still to this day do not see that Twitch or video games are a ministry because it is.

: Well, from a parent perspective, historically the church is behind when it comes to the movement of the Spirit moving people to do things. I mean, just back it up. When radio became a thing, the church was opposed to using radio to spread the gospel. When television became a thing, the church was opposed to using television to spread the gospel. So it just makes sense that we have a new medium. Every time there's a new medium, the church is not like, "Let's jump on board and use it to spread the gospel." They're like, "Oh no, no. Radio is all filled with this kind of material. We can't bring the gospel over there. That is secular space. We need to stay in the sacred space. No, no, we can't go to television. That's secular space. We need to stay in the holy space over here. No, no, we can't go online. That is the darkest place ever created. We have to stay over here in the light of the sanctuary and have all of our lights in one place. So the doors are all shut and we keep the light in." And I'm not picking on anybody, okay? I'm just talking about a perspective that I look from of studying historically what we've done.

: And sometimes because we don't know any better, you know, we think we're doing good things, but we often don't have enough information to realize that we're not doing good things. I mean, even talk about the book of Acts. It starts there really with, "Wait, we hear you're going to Gentiles. Are we cool with you going to Gentiles? I'm not sure about you going to Gentiles. We need to have a meeting about going to Gentiles."

: The second-guessing just—

: Yep.

: Like, how are we going to just limit God because of our own understandings?

: His ways are higher.

: His methods are higher. And even if they're the same level, he's better. Like, the Lord created us to have lungs, and we're always one heartbeat away from meeting him. So let's stop playing like semantics and just let God do his thing. Just be a willing vessel.

: And I get it that the church is behind, and I don't think that there's a minute wasted when it comes to people serving the Lord the way that he's called them to serve.

: Yeah. And I don't fault anybody that doesn't get it yet. They haven't experienced it. That's okay. I just want to go with the people that do get it. Go with the people God's already leading. You know, help them be able to do what they're doing and express what God's up to. And you know, like we were talking earlier about going into the dark places and how sometimes that's the place and the people that will not feel safe coming into the four walls of a church building. And Jesus didn't say, "Build it and they will come." He said, "Go." And so you know, we're just in the process of going. That's all I see us doing.

: And I love it.

: Yeah. Awesome, man. This has been so good. Anything that we didn't cover that you wanted, that you were thinking that you wanted to make sure you shared tonight?

: Yeah, yeah, I got something. I got something.

: It's hopefully an analogy you haven't heard, but it still conveys the message that we hang in and hope on. For anybody watching this, anybody listening at a later date, whenever, wherever you are, know that you are loved by a God who loves you. And we love you too. Thank you for watching and consuming our content. That's huge, huge. Be sure to like the Digital Church and drop a follow and show your support whenever, however possible.

: But back to the point at hand, there's a God that—he's real. He's more real than the air that you breathe. He's so real that he created you before your mother even knew who you were and what you look like, before she heard your heartbeat on an ultrasound or felt your fingers in the palm of her hand. He created you. He designed you for a purpose on purpose. You are born right now at this time in history because he has a plan for you. And it's a good plan. It's a plan that's so great, even if you mess it up, he's still going to try to help you fill it out. That's how much he loves you. He loves you so much he sent his only son, Jesus Christ, to die for you. And you didn't ask for it. But that's the beauty of a hero dying for the villain. No one asks the hero for his sacrifice. He does it because that's who he is.

: When Jesus did that, he died and he was buried, but he rose three days later. The greatest comeback story in all of history. Nothing ever beats it, including the Avengers defeating Thanos. That's not even close. It's not even close to paint the picture of how this really works. You racked up a whole bunch of spiritual fines. Let's just say you were speeding down a road in a public school district. It's 30 miles per hour. You know you shouldn't be driving that fast, but you're doing 80 for some crazy reason. The cop pulls you over. You know you're going to jail. You know you got to stand in front of a judge. You just know it. You know you're going to get hit with a hefty fine, if not prison time, because let's be honest, that's a felony crime. You shouldn't be driving that fast.

: The day that the Lord comes, you're going to realize he's an ultimate judge. But the judge of this courtroom is going to look at you with these speeding fines and tell you, "You know that I'm going to have to hit you with this book and it's going to hurt. You're going to go away for a long time for what you did, because that was pretty foolish." And right as the gavel is about to connect to the wood on the desk, someone raises their hand and says, "Hold on, judge, I'll take his place." He takes all of your fines like a dirty, filthy, disgusting t-shirt that you were just crawling through a mud pit, and he puts it on himself and gives you his clean white one that has no stains. It's pressed. It looks nice. It's brand new. He gives it to you and says, "I'll take his place." And the judge says, "Okay, you're free to go." You know for sure, for certain, you deserve everything that you deserve for the crimes that you committed, but someone took your place. That person was Jesus. And the beauty of that is that the gospel is he traded everything for you. He loves you that much. So please don't underestimate it. And if you don't know who he is, accept it. He loves you. His name is Jesus Christ.

: Not yet.

: And that's it.

: All right. Well, thank you, thank you, thank you.

: Welcome.

: Yeah, like I said, this has been a joy. I was concerned about doing this podcast so late, and not just because I was doing this so late, but because of how busy my day was today. I had to be up this morning at 8:00 teaching a class, followed by another class, followed by attending a Zoom or a Discord meeting, followed by a podcast, followed by a whole bunch of running around and other stuff. I was hoping to get a nap, and it's like, "All right, am I going to be able to last this whole time?" And the stream has been amazing, and God has been faithful, and I am still fully awake. And now I'm like, "All right, now I need to go to sleep so I can get up and do what I need to do tomorrow." But I so appreciate your time. I'm so glad we worked this out. The timing of God is amazing.

: Absolutely. This was a perfect way to end my day. So thank you, thank you, thank you. And Aranga telling us, "Good afternoon. Good to be here."

: Good afternoon.

: World.

: Yes, other side of the world. Yeah.

: Australia, Netherlands, whatever.

: Yeah. So usually, unless you're—are you going to stay on? Are you still staying up and streaming the rest of the night, or are you done for the night?

: I'm honestly done. I usually cut it off in the next 30 minutes.

: Okay.

: And seeing as I had nothing else planned, okay.

: I'm good. I appreciate it though.

: Because well, that's—I could raid you if you were staying live. I've done that before. Or, um, who would you recommend to raid?

: Who would I recommend to raid? Yeah, we can both go do a double raid and just bless somebody.

: Let me see who's live. I know a handful of people. Usually every Tuesday night, I do a Marvel Rivals practice with a group of Christian content creators.

: Okay.

: But Sassinator Steph, she is always a good pick. Yeah, we can go Sass. I'm trying to get her on the podcast too.

: So, you know, this this this might be a help to go raid her. And she she's she's a busy she's busy, mama, man.

: Oh, I know. I know. She's got she's got baby on the way, too. And I love her.

: Yeah, she's fantastic. All right, let me pull that up.

: Steph sounds like a good good option.

: All right. Awesome. Awesome. All right. So, let me know.

: Probably make her cry. Just let so you know.

: Well, I hope so. All right. Let me know when you're ready and I'll start the raid and we can double raid at the same time.

: Yes, sir. Typing it out now.

: Okay. Um, thank you everyone for being here. You guys have been outstanding. You've been amazing. Uh, the flag up, thank you for having me. Yeah.

: Um, I know that you sacrificed sleep to to make this happen and underscore of the underscore sand just followed.

: Thank you for the follow. That's the He's part of my late night owls. Um, another follow. Malice, you were just followed.

: Malice, thank you for the follow. Warden, thank you for the follow. Yep. Uh, my my raid has started.

: Okay, I'm starting mine.

: Uh, thank you. Thank you guys for being here. Uh, Flat Cap, thank you for sacrificing the sleep. I know that it's it's not easy um to to squeeze in a schedule, but you still made it happen.

: Thank you for having a space where I can myself be vulnerable. Um it's it's an honor to know that a brother in Christ is is doing have the same mission, same mission, same heart, same mindset.

: I mean, I felt like iron sharpened iron and and I pray that what was shared here tonight will help somebody.

: Passion saint just follows.

: Thank you everybody for the follows. Even even if I never see what happens, I'm okay with not knowing. And I believe that everything here is for the edification of the body.

: So, absolutely, 100%. We want to build up the body of Christ.

: Amen. All right, I'm gonna roll some credits. They really don't say anything other than thank you, so I can do the same.

: Oh.