Your Gaming Style Isn't a Problem—It's Your Calling

: All right, welcome in everybody to the Gaming Outpost podcast. We are going to have a great conversation today. With me is Charles Q. Banks. Great to have you here. So Charles is going to welcome in all of his people and all of those who are joining. Bootstraps Boots, good to see you. Johnny Darko, good to see you.

: All righty, friends. Hold please. Hold please. Johnny, two of your favorite streamers. Yeah, we're together in one place.

: Seems to almost be working. We had it working until live.

: Excellent. Greetings and salutations, friends. Charles has returned and we shall be a guest on the Church Digital podcast with flat cap dapper pastor. How you doing ladies and gentlemen?

: Johnny Darko. Just I hope you're doing very well. We do have a limited time, so I do want to get into it. But thank you so much for tuning in this fine terrific Tuesday. For those who are unaware, my name is of course Charles Quazar Banks, Chancellor of Chill, some call me, champion of chivalry, Christian content creator, and gaming gentleman of Twitch. How do you do? Mind repair time. You are the first chatter in the chat. You get claps. And thank you everyone for tuning in whether on Church Digital or on my stream. Welcome. All right, let us get into the call.

: Well, I lost your camera now. I don't have your camera on my stream, Johnny. Every stream collab is mandatory to start with a tech issue. Is it really collab without a tech issue? Yeah, sometimes we have that.

: And Supersonic, thank you for the alert. Okay, start camera. Oh, there we huzzah.

: Huzzah.

: We're back.

: There we are. There we are.

: Why am I so low poly?

: That's crazy.

: All right.

: But yes, we are live.

: We are live. We're professionals here. We do this.

: Sure.

: We do this for a living almost.

: Sure, we are.

: We're paid very, very well for our skill level. And no, it's just not really neither of these things are true.

: I know. I know. That's why they match, right? So yes.

: And I appreciate you wearing the flat cap. I know.

: Yes. I had to do that for you, dapper fellow. And I love your hat collection. Um, it's very nice. I have I've always been a hat person. I have dawned many hats in my life, more than I would remember.

: So yes, your hat collection is most venerable.

: Yeah, I would like I still think I missed the time period I would have loved to live in, you know, 100, 150 years ago. I mean, the heyday of hats, all kinds of styles, all kinds of, you know, procurers of foreign hats that I could I could dabble in. So that would have been a fantastic thing. And I did put a vest on. I thought about putting a jacket on today and I decided to go with the vest instead because it was more of a color than just wearing black. So that's what I did. So it's a it goes very well together.

: Yeah, I do like to do vests and jackets. I just usually don't have an occasion to I'm not the biggest fan of the tie, but that's because I have a big neck and I always feel like I'm choking when I wear a tie.

: That makes sense. Yes, there are reasons for not being, you know, fully kitted out at all times, but I do appreciate the intent. It's the thought that counts.

: Exactly. Yeah. And I And you look good.

: Yeah. Thank you. I appreciate your attire and your style. It's quite different to see that on Twitch from most people. And I don't know on some level I always remember hearing the phrase dress for the job that you want and then always we would have a dress one degree higher than you think everybody else is going to be dressed.

: So if people are in cut off jeans, you need to have really nice ones. You know, don't go the same route that everybody else is. Just go a little bit higher quality, a little bit dressier than everyone else. Now, that's really hard when you're going to a wedding because you don't want to upstage the bride and groom. So true. Very true. Um, that I have I have found that not to be too much of an issue because most brides and grooms do get, you know, rentals of full tuxedos. I've never actually worn a tuxedo outside of a wedding.

: Oh.

: Um, okay.

: So that's not what I do, but I do like to keep a kind of at least 1950s level of casual dress, which this is kind of what that is. It's like there are many different levels of what what did I say? The um uh not what's the word of elegance of there we go.

: There we go.

: Uh and this is very basic, right?

: Yes.

: Basically one step above just pajamas compared to 1950s levels of dress.

: Oh yeah. Yeah. Uh we didn't talk about this when we were talking earlier. Feel free to engage chat uh if you normally are doing that. I see someone asking for a shout out there and then a little concerned that uh they haven't got a shout out yet. So I don't know. You don't want to just abandon your chat because I think chat is why we are here is to engage and be in conversations with them. So as much as we are having a conversation together, we'll try to keep up with chat. Sometimes we'll get behind and you know how that happens. So uh no worries friends, we will engage at times and we will ignore at times but all along you are part of this.

: Indeed. However, I myself am rather socially awkward and I can only pay attention to one thing at a time.

: Okay. So when it comes to collaborations, I just ignore chat because otherwise I get totally overwhelmed with social anxiety.

: Well, that is perfect. I can either do chat or I can talk to you.

: Okay.

: One or the other basically. So I do apologize in advance my dear chatters.

: We've got up front. I did have one person who told me he was ADHD, so he did not want to do stream together because he was gonna not be able to hold a conversation if he was reading chat. So yeah, I do understand that. So well, I like stream together because it does give each stream a higher viewer count. So that's something I want to do for you. If I can get my, you know, streaming family into your channel, then all the better.

: Oh, absolutely. And I know from my other channel there's some overlap of people that uh do watch both of us as they were all commenting as they were coming in of the dapper level of uh this stream has just gone up with two of the most dapper well-dressed uh individuals on Twitch. So to have us both in the same place uh you're all in for a treat.

: Yes. Either that or a nuclear explosion.

: Yeah. Yeah. One or the other. Well, I do like to start out with uh just the generic question of how did you find yourself on Twitch and and it doesn't mean that oh your decision to decide to stream and be a Christian, you know, influencer streamer in the space but just your initial exposure to Twitch and then if that journey is altogether one great if it's two separate ones then later on when and how did you uh get started as being a Christian streamer on Twitch?

: Yeah. Well, they are two different things for me. Uh which is I guess part of the testimony. Uh because I started out um being aware of Twitch pretty late. I think I don't know when Twitch began. It was pretty early as far as I'm aware. And uh my brother-in-law uh Mefa for those who know, he used to stream League of Legends. And so that was my first okay um you know thing I saw on Twitch was him playing. He said he streams on Twitch. So I started watching him and then I started watching his friends also stream other games like PUBG and League of Legends. They were mostly League of Legends and competitive gamers back then and all the big games were those and Fortnite and still are kind of to a degree. Um, and so I enjoyed that. I enjoyed watching and chatting and the whole stream culture was fascinating on Twitch and people giving bits and subscribing and competitively being giving to the streamer and one another. It was very cool. Um, now none of those streams were Christian necessarily, although Mefa is a Christian. Most of his friends are. Um uh but you know so I tried I tried getting into streaming just to be like you know what I can do that too maybe once a week I can start streaming people make money on this that's amazing now I had been doing YouTube for a while because I if anybody knows is another part of my testimony is that I've been sick with uh chronic fatigue and chronic pain and illnesses for about 20 years at this point and so at that time I had just like dropped out of high school uh because I just could not keep up anymore. So uh at that time I was like trying to find ways to keep myself busy and to do some form of upwardly mobile you know civilian duties and um so I started streaming a bit started with Banjo Kazooie emulation. Uh, I did only like Nintendo 64 streams for months and months. My earliest videos on YouTube are from well partially from that and then uh I found uh I actually got some good responses to uh that on Twitch. My first the first person who came in was like why is your voice so stupid? I was the first person who said anything in that chat and I was like ban uh I I I cannot with that.

: No.

: And but I kept with it and uh eventually you know grew quite a community and it was all types of people. Uh I I my idea at that time was I want to get big. I want to make money because if I can't have a job, if I can't go to school, I have to make money somehow. So I'm just going to try and get myself out there and make money through streaming and YouTube. And uh that was not happening very quickly, but I got a lot more views on Twitch than I did on YouTube. That's for sure. No matter what I did on YouTube, it never garnered as much uh attention as on Twitch for whatever reason. I still don't know. I have I have theories, but that's a whole other conversation. So anyway, my philosophy was I'm a Christian. I'm, you know, I love God. I love his word. Go to church, but I'm not going to speak out about it because that could send my channel under. You know, that could mean that everyone that has come to my channel so far who is not a Christian may be pushed away by my preaching the gospel or my talking about my faith. So, I was quite afraid of that actually. If it came out that I was a Christian, then maybe Twitch would ban me or something. Very aware of the Twitch culture is very accepting of all kinds of perversion and uh not very accepting of if you speak out. There was a I can't remember who he is. I think Gaming Missionary or something. The Gaming Missionary.

: Yeah.

: On YouTube. Yeah, you know him. Excellent. Yes. He got banned just recently when I got onto Twitch from Twitch because he said he spoke to like a 12-year-old. Uh he was saying, "So, I'm a Muslim and I'm 12 years old. Do you think I'm going to hell?" And he said basically, "Yes, if you do not believe in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior and get born again, which you can be, anybody can be."

: Mhm.

: You are going to hell. And it immediately got banned for that. You know, he had a big outreach on Twitch at that time.

: Yeah.

: So, lots of people were watching, lots of Muslims, lots of atheists debating him while he's playing Fortnite. It was rather impressive. So, so he switched over completely to YouTube at that time. Um, but uh so I was like, "Oh, I don't want to I don't want that to happen to me. I don't have a YouTube uh presence really." So I kept kept doing that just kind of keeping my faith to a minimum. If anyone would ask about it then I would tell them you know that's how I thought until uh I think it was maybe 2019, 2020 I started to see more

: Christian streamers because if you look up Christian streamer on Twitch you won't get much. Uh, especially back then there was no Christian tag and so finding Christian, there weren't any religious tags so you couldn't have those.

: Yeah.

: So I was trying to find them but because I wanted to watch them but it just seemed like there were no real Christians on Twitch.

: Every once in a while you'd find me. He's a Christian and he's kind of outspoken but mostly just about the gaming right, his friends. Generally just people doing secular streams who are Christian. If you found any Christians. But then I found Pastor Dust and uh, he's a pastor and he's a Don and he would play, he would play Doom and he would play Pokemon and he would teach people about the Bible and field the hard questions and teach and preach. And I was like, whoa, I don't have any reason to not be speaking out about my faith if this guy has like 6,000 followers at the time. Um, somewhere around there, and he is that big, you know, and so I thought I need to, I need to do that. I need to make a change. I'm going to change my chat rules. Keep the cussing to a minimum, you know, because I thought just you must allow everyone to say anything otherwise you'll lose followers, you know.

: And so I changed my chat rules to be keep the cussing to a minimum, be respectful of everyone's religious beliefs and you can enter my community. Um, so and then in 2021, uh, I noticed more Christian streamers because of Pastor Don. Yeah, speaking out about other people and yourself included. Uh, epitome found Canadian pastor.

: Yep.

: And all doing basically the same things, reading the Bible. And so that's what I started to do. I was like, you know, and he I think someone said this, it was maybe a Pastor Dustin, but he just referenced the scripture um, do not be ashamed of the gospel of Christ. That's biblical. And I was like, "Ouch." You know, that hurts because that's basically what I've been doing. I've been afraid to speak out and I've just been a closeted Christian. And uh, that's not really being a true Christian now, is it? Um, and that's the thing. It's just a matter of maturity. It's not that you're not a Christian. It's just what is the Lord calling you to? Do you think that it is right or wrong to speak your faith biblically? It is the right thing to do. No matter who you are, and this is something, this is my little soap box here. No matter who you are, you are called to speak about your faith, to speak about Jesus, to speak of the hope you have within you. Right? Always be prepared for those who ask for the reason for the hope you have within you. And you don't have to be an evangelist. You don't have to be a pastor or a preacher. You can always and should always be prepared to give your testimony. So anyway, um, so I started doing that, started Bible reading and uh, more and more every single month, every single year, I've been reading through the Bible once. So change from one Bible edition to another translation each year. Um, and that's been much more um, effective for gaining followers than what I was doing before, which was just playing retro games and Dark Souls and I still do those things, you know. I still love retro games and Dark Souls and Elder Ring. Still play those in the evenings, Bible reading in the afternoon, gaming streams in the evenings. Um, so that's basically my my Twitch testimony really.

: Yeah, to uh, to answer the question.

: Yeah. Well, with that journey along the way, it's it's not so unlike a lot of Christians when they go to a job. You know, they at times are going to work at jobs where being outspoken about your faith is going to be frowned on. There, there's going to be a culture within the place that they work. Uh, depending on what they worked, I've worked in restaurants and bars. There's a culture there. I've worked in factories. There's a culture there. Uh, there I've worked construction, there's a culture there. So if you are concerned about your job, sometimes you keep your mouth shut, keep my head down, don't cause any waves, don't cause any problems. There's lots of people that that's where they are on a daily basis. So I can see that, hey, I'm on here and I'm trying to do some things, but I don't want to get slapped down or attacked. It also I do think that there's some value in in part of the way you were saying is, hey, I will answer if people ask me, but there's a part of which if you're not displaying hope, then people aren't going to ask you. So you have to be shining uh, a hope that you have that other people don't or there's no reason for them to ask you. If you just act the same way, do all the same things,

: then there is not going to be anyone asking you questions. Sorry, I'm just laughing at the chat. Caps for Christ just got uh, thank you. Thank you for, I I'm glad I was not taking a drink. I would have, I would have probably spit that out. Um, that caps for Christ. Somebody needs to hashtag that. That is that is hilarious.

: Um, yeah, it disrupted my train of thought there. But

: we all have something that people need. And if we go into dark places, we don't need to hide from the darkness. We should be light in that space. And yeah, if you are trying to do things, I don't think you need to be aggressive with the way that you treat things or you do things. It's just being, well, I think I'm trying to remember what passage it is talking about having a good reputation with outsiders. Christians are supposed to have a good reputation with outsiders. I need a good reputation on Twitch so that I can be a trusted source for outsiders who aren't Christian to come into my channel and feel loved and respected even if I disagree with them. Even if I would say, you know, you ask me a direct question about your status and relationship to Jesus and you say you have none and then ask me, do I think you're going to hell? Well, you answered the question already. So I'm just in agreement with you in regards to that. So,

: uh,

: yeah, that's a great point is that um, for me on Twitch, I was afraid because I thought Twitch was like strictly anti-religious, you know, and that's really not the case. And so in any marketplace or any job, uh, find out what the rules are, you know, what is the culture? Find out, you know, because it doesn't do you any good to just live in fear and not know what you're allowed to say or what you're allowed not to say, not allowed to say. So that's that is true. You need to be aware and because like I think Johnny Darko was saying for sure my wife can get fired discussing her faith at work and it's like yeah, need to be aware of that, you know, need to still be able to work, need to be in the world, you know, do not be a burden upon anyone but work with your hands as I have instructed you as Paul says to Timothy.

: And uh, that's a good thing so it's like keep yourself alive, keep yourself working and if indeed it will get you into trouble. There is a time and place for speaking out anyway. Right. But um,

: Right. Right. We, when you're asked to do something contrary to your beliefs, there is time to speak out. Paul or, yeah, no, Peter and John get thrown in prison and get told, "Hey, you know, just stop preaching Jesus." And they're like, "Should we listen to you or God? We're going to listen to God." So they go and they do it again and they're like, "Hey, we told you not to."

: And you know, like I'm gonna or we've got Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, you know, bow down. Like, so there are times where it does call for, yeah, you know what? If I lose my job, if I get banned from a platform, that that's okay. That's okay. Because if Twitch suddenly said, you can't talk about Jesus, you can't read the Bible on the platform. Well, either I respect that rule and I leave and go to another platform or I'm going to keep doing if God calls me to to preach Jesus and and read the Bible. Well, I'm kind of what I do on the platform. So it'd be hard for me to start over with playing games and uh, get a crowd. It's not what I'm going to do.

: Yeah. Yeah. Well, and and that's the thing is that if they reach out to you, which is generally not what they do, they tend to ban first and ask questions later. Um,

: so I wish they would do that, but you know, if they ask you to, it's like, okay, no, ban me, please, and then I'll look for another platform, you know, obviously. Now, I I have an account on, what is it? Rumble. I think an account on Rumble. I have Twitter, of course, and YouTube. So I'm I'm kind of hedging my bets just in case anything ever happens. So and those those places generally, well, I don't know about Twitter, but Rumble, of course, is very open to anything. So there is a place for me to go if that does happen. Um, and I can tell people that in my Discord and uh, bring them over there if possible, if need be. But Twitch is definitely a missions field in of itself.

: Yeah. And I, and I've never been, I've never thought of myself as a missionary or being a pastor, but the more I've, you know, been talking about my faith, the more people treat me like a pastor and like a preacher, it's like, okay, well, I guess this is what I'm doing now, explaining what I know about the Bible and theology to everyone.

: Well, that's what I'm doing.

: We are all called to be missionaries. But we and and I think we also have other roles within within the body of Christ that we're called to to serve into because there are some equipped as apostles, some as prophets, some evangelists, some shepherds, and some teachers.

: So,

: you're you're going to be filling those roles if you're following after Christ, if you're a disciple. So I think we've, well, I've said this on a few streams some point. I need to to write a blog post about this or something that the Reformation happened and it took the Bible out of the hands of clergy and it put it in the hands of the people. And what we need is another reformation that takes ministry out of the hands of clergy and it puts it in the hands of people because they're going to be much more effective. They're going to reach more people. Uh, the the harvest is plentiful and the workers are few. So why are we only letting a few people do the work when we should all be carrying the work? It if the one of the the thoughts is if you're going to plant churches, would you rather have one church of 10,000 people

: or a uh, a thousand churches of 10 people?

: Well, I think a thousand churches of 10 people are going to make a bigger impact because those 10 people are going to be shining light to the people around them because they're going to be intermingled with the people around them. One church of 10,000 people can be totally isolated and cause no light to shine anywhere.

: And I am not picking on, I am not picking on megachurches when I say this. I'm just thinking through logically and effectively. What is the new trend towards the future? Is people who, whether you call yourself a a missionary or not, Charles, I would say you are because you are openly sharing faith. That's all I think a missionary is. Someone who openly shares faith. Now, whether you're a pastor or not, well, then you got to get into uh, do you have a title? Have you been uh, you know, ordained by or identified by a body of believers to serve in that role, which I've gone through all of that. I know how that goes. And it's it's not an easy thing depending on how you you go about it. But no matter which way you go about it, there's a recognition of the body that says you're in that role now to serve on Twitch where there are very few pastors uh, in this in the space and I'm trying to learn every single one of them. So yeah, Pastor Duen was one of the first ones that that I knew uh, on here as well.

: Pastor Susie, uh, Pastor Mark, the, uh, actually the the person that got me on, Pastor Brock VR, he's no longer on Twitch, but he was on here.

: And, and, uh, you mentioned, um, EP Epitome, he he's on here. It's like, but if I sit down and think about it, I think my number of pastors I know is capped at somewhere around two two dozen, maybe a little bit more than that.

: That's it. But the number of people that are shepherding a flock of believers, uh, you're serving in a role of shepherding over people, you're you're serving in a role of teaching of of of doing those things.

: So I I think if you are in that space, I'm not worried about title. I just want to see people stepping up, stepping into the role, and saying, "God's put me in this place, and I'm going to use what he's given me to oversee the people that come into my stream and into my Discord or wherever we meet for community."

: Amen. Now, that that is such such a good word because yeah. Well, it's like the what is the you know, what is a missionary? You know, well, you have to explain the mission. You know, what is the mission? And uh it's to make Christ known. You know, who is to make Christ known? Well, not some Christians. It's like, no, it's like no, it's all Christians. If you are a Christian, you know, you're a little Christ. That's a term that the world came up with to belittle the followers of the way.

: But, uh, it is what we are. What we're trying to be is little Christians, is little Christs, little Jesuses, you know, put on Christ, you know, and have this mind within you that was in Christ Jesus.

: So, if we're doing that and we're not saying the things he said, then what's what's what's wrong? You know, something's wrong. And a lot of what is wrong is kind of an apathy of uh don't get involved in politics. If you're a Christian, don't get involved in secular entertainment. Don't get involved in art.

: The arts. And if you do get involved in the arts, only Christian arts, because then you'll be safe. You know, it's like see no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil type deal. And I've always been kind of against that, just as a person, not having anything to do with theology or my or the knowledge of the Bible.

: I've always just been like, "But I like games though, but I like things in this world." And I know, you know, God says, "Be not of this world and do not love the things in this world." And uh that's that there's a very clear difference.

: And it's very hard that balance because it it's not you're not allowed to enjoy anything which that is what many legalistic people and churches would have you believe. Um but it's also not oh just do whatever you want that's fine is it just believe in Jesus and do whatever you want. It's not that either.

: It's do not love the things in this world. Right? It's like do not set your heart on them. It's like money. You need money. But you know, money is the root of all kinds of evil. Uh so thank you for quoting that correctly because you're welcome.

: Not that I thought you would do otherwise. However, often the world quotes that and leaves out all kinds of not they just say money's the root of all evil. Well then I just I have to have it so it's all evil so I can just do what I want. It's kind of like the excuse or the throw it in your face when when you're like, well, I have to have money to have the lights on.

: I have to have money to pay for internet to stream. I have to have money. That's the economy that we have developed, which is different from ancient economies.

: So, but no matter what it is, it's what am I pursuing in the thing that I'm doing? If if I am willing to step on other people to get what I want, I'm pursuing money. I'm pursuing fame. I'm pursuing power. Whatever it is that is my thing that I love more than God and others. So yeah, money is something that we need.

: Even Jesus needed money to pay the temple tax. He he did that. He paid the temple tax. And I need money to pay the government when they tell me I got to pay the pay the taxes on this beautiful place that God has provided for me to dwell in.

: It's like, yep, I gotta do that. That's true. I wish I wish I had a few uh fishes with coins in their mouths to pay the full tax of me and everyone else.

: If I had a nickel for every fish that I have uh so are those fish in your background that like how many fish are in there?

: Oh, okay. So, there is one tank here. There are three koi in there. There's an algae an algae eater and a miniature plecostomus. And then there are a bunch of guppies in there. I can't count the guppies. Then the the tank next to it in the far back is all guppies.

: Uh there are probably, if I count the the ones that have been born in the last month, there are probably 50 to 60 baby guppies in that one. And then over here off camera is my albino plecostomus called Twist. The stream knows him very well because he likes to rearrange furniture and he's knocked over Spongebob's house many many a time and Squidward's house.

: Uh there are two koi in there and then probably about 50 or 60 uh guppies in there and then outside in the pond there are probably 60 koi out there.

: Wow. Wow. So, so when I say if I had a nickel, I'm like, "Yeah, let's go." Yeah. You know, keep asking God for that creative miracle space.

: One fish with a coin would be great. But if all of them had Woo, please. Um, yeah, that's I've been so distracted by those fish. Like, "Oh, oh, you know, the kind of well, you can watch my other channel. I have them live all the time." Yeah, you have another channel just like Pastor Dustin does.

: Um, yeah, fisher of men and fish. Yes, both. There we go. Um, plecostomus. I did not I forgot that that was the the word for it. What did we used to call them? Sucker fish. You know, bottom feeding sucker fish. Uh but yeah, we had one um way back when I was a child and it ate it ate the other fish.

: We don't did not know that it could do that. Okay. I don't think they generally do, but this one ate all of the other fish and we had to release it into the wild. Um that was wild. Don't don't don't release into the wild. That is that they can wreck havoc on an ecosystem. That's true.

: There there is there are I'm trying to think where it's at. There are a couple of places throughout I want to say Mexico and the Southwest where people have released plecosamuses and they have no natural predators and they have overtaken rivers.

: So yes, if you have anything that you buy at a pet store, do not release it into the wild. Uh get it to someone else to care for it. Uh, well, that's also why there's a bunch of, you know, boa constrictors in the Everglades, too, and pythons because it came too big and people released it.

: Don't release animals. This is this unrelated to what we're talking about. But hey, who be releasing pythons into the wild? Let's just throw them into the forest. They're better to be fine. Yeah. I don't they won't kill anyone. What do you oh, no. No. But no, I've seen those uh Florida man clips.

: Uh what's his I can't remember his name, but you know, yoink and boop boop the snoot of every single dangerous creature I come across. And uh still looking for that 30 footer. Um yeah. Anyway. Yeah. Well, anyway, well, why don't we just just shift off of that idea of of things that people do that that can get in the way of what should be a natural ecosystem.

: What have been some obstacles you have had to overcome with being a Twitch streamer? So, it could either be personal obstacles, some onstream obstacles, uh life in general obstacles, or even if it's been uh spiritual attacks of any kind. What have been some things that you've had to overcome as a streamer?

: Well, I think the first thing is there are like three things. The first thing is uh kind of the discouragement that can set in of not growing fast enough, what you think is fast enough. Oh, yeah.

: And uh not being able to support yourself off of solely what you're doing, attempting to do eight hours a day, 6 days a week, 5 days a week, 7 days a week, whatever it is. Cuz I've done all of those things, you know, 8 hours a day, 7 days a week back in the day before I was doing Bible streams and um switched to 8 hours a day, six and then five and then four hours a day, but seven days a week and you know, trying to find my way there. I mean that's an obstacle but um so that's the first thing is where should I be compared to where I'm going and where am I going what am I doing in my life is doing Twitch enough uh and if it isn't what else can I do you know in my case and that's the second uh thing is my health uh already not being able to go to school or go to work doing Twitch it's something I can do, but not all the time.

: You know, if like I can't be super consistent with it. Like I tell everyone in my about section, I have chronic fatigue. And so I can only do that which I I can do. My schedule is this. That is the goal, not what is actually going to happen. You know, if I can stream eight eight hours a day, six days a week, I'm happy.

: But it's probably going to be more like four. and it's probably going to be six hours instead of eight, you know. So, that's that's the second thing is like uh just just health concerns. My uh my body is is like I tell my mother sometimes, my body was not made for this planet. This is a different planet than my own.

: And uh I was made for a very one with less gravity, one with uh a lot more oxygen, one with less humidity, etc., etc., etc. So, I'm a very weak individual physically, but um at least in certain ways. I can lift, bro. But I I I'm very very uh how would you say just just ill. I have lots of illnesses. So, that's the second thing. Third thing is um what is another I guess yeah I should always bring this up but uh and it's not I don't even see it as an obstacle very much but there are definitely people who persecute you like try to get you taken down and not always for what you think. Um there is a this is just a an anecdote of something else, but uh I was playing Holo Cure, a game based on VTubers um lore, like background stories of VTuber, streamers, like um anime backstories for their character, right?

: And someone made a whole video game based on that and it's pretty fun. Uh, but anyway, it's free to play on stream a steam and on stream you can play for free. But someone came into my stream and said, "Hi, I hate holo live," which is what holocure is based on. Uh, just letting you know, lol.

: And then I got a bot spam of about 750 bots. Oh, what the heck? Oh, and so so um so then I had to figure out how to get rid of bots. That was a teaching moment, you know, how to do that. But um so that's one thing, but that's like pretty rare that people try to take you down for things other than the Bible or the gospel.

: Um it's like three people came in like a roving band of bandits just came in and started saying, "Oh, did you know Jesus was black and African? Did you know that, you know, all the wars in the world were started by Christians? Did you know that, you know, religion is like the worst thing ever in any society?"

: And I'm like, "Oh, no." I didn't say a word yet. And they were just slamming the chat with these things. I was like, "Okay, let me, you know, I try always to bring the truth to people gently and to teach them." And it's like, "Do you do you know history?

: You know, every war that has ever existed has happened for the purposes of land, pride, power, you know, uh, control, uh, survival, and even the ones that have religious reasoning behind them generally boil down to those anyway. It's just that people use religion to justify what they are doing." Yeah. And what they would want to do anyway. Um because I guarantee you the Crusades would not have happened if it was based solely on the Bible.

: Right. Right. They didn't plunder along the way at all.

: No. No. Or going, you know, getting there and coming back.

: And anyway, that's a whole another conversation. But that was the point. And they're like, "I know history. I'm a professor." Where are you a professor?

: California. California. Okay, I see. But you know, it's like eventually I just had to cut off that conversation. It got so violent. They were so hateful and mean. And I had to ban them. And at that point I was not banning people for quote unquote hate speech, because I didn't believe in it, you know, which I don't still really. That when people are showing themselves to be, what's the word? Disrespectful.

: Yep.

: And hateful to begin with, you don't need to accept that shade. You know?

: You don't need to allow it in your channel.

: Yeah. When they're disrespectful of chat, I will step in. I'm not worried if you're disrespectful of me because you need to get to know me. But you're disrespecting my chat. I'm here. I'm the one that needs to protect you from anyone causing harm to you.

: Also, with that, they came in with an agenda.

: So they probably had no intention of being there to learn or to grow.

: Listening.

: Or listening. So had they come alone, maybe one of them would have been impacted by anything you did. But since you've got someone who comes with two other people, they're going to continue to feed off each other in what they do and it's going to be really difficult for one of them to not go along with what everybody's doing. So yeah, I—

: I don't know. I certainly would have tried to not ban. I am slow to ban. That's for sure. Unless you are attacking and triggering my chat, then I step in to protect.

: So right. So there's that and then there was this other guy. There's like three examples, right? There's three examples of—

: This other guy who came in and he came in on a beer ride screen. I'm pretty sure he came in to watch the game I was playing. And so I came back and he says in the chat, he says, "This streamer better be worth it when he comes back." Okay, that's quite a thing to say. I hope I am. And so I came back and hello, how's it going? I do hope I'm worthy of your time, but if not, that's okay.

: And he said, "Ah, you're a Jew." I lost my head over that. He's like, "I'm not Jewish." And he says, "Yes, you are. I can tell." I was wearing a black fedora, black clothing.

: Oh.

: So I could see where he's coming with that. And he says, "Your people, your kind, you support this, you support that." And I'm not even going to say what he was saying, but he was definitely lots and lots of death threats, lots and lots of "I'm going to fire bomb your house and I'm going to find you and I'm going to—" and so definitely had to ban him. He wasn't listening to a word I said. And you know, when that happens, you report them. You don't just ban them.

: Right? Right. They're actually—

: Yeah.

: Wishing harm and threatening harm on people. And that's against Twitch terms of service, not just my chat rules, right?

: So that was a special moment. But so that's an obstacle, but like that's the least of the two of the three, right? The first being just the general difficulty of growth on Twitch on any platform really. And then the second one is health issues and the third I guess is actual real persecution because I would call that real persecution. Even if it's not, you know, I got beaten physically. It's like they're trying to take you down. They're trying to get you banned off of Twitch, your livelihood.

: Yeah. They're trying—

: Like that guy.

: Yeah.

: And to literally take you out.

: Right? They are attacking you as a streamer. They are attacking your chat. They are trying to get you off of the platform. You know, there are many ways in which you're attacking. Yeah, it might not be physical, but it doesn't mean that their attack is less real because we're in digital spaces. There aren't going to be physical attacks in digital spaces. There's going to be—

: Digital attacks with words or bots or otherwise.

: The bot one surprised me the first time that happened.

: Oh my goodness. It's like, "What is going on here?" And you can't get a word in edgewise in chat because everything is just a bot and oh my goodness. And then the alerts are going off and you got to turn them off and it's like that one surprised me. I don't think I had seen a bot attack before I had one.

: So yeah, I didn't know they did that. I mean, I knew that bots existed and that it was against Twitch terms of service, but I didn't know it was like a targeted offensive strategy to try and get people banned off of Twitch.

: Yeah.

: At first I was like, "Oh, thank you. Thank you." Oh, thank you. Welcome. Thank you. Yeah.

: Then yeah. Then all of a sudden, this isn't what—no, this isn't good.

: Yeah. This is not right. This is not true. This is not real. Welcome in, Warrior. So—

: There's yeah. Oh, that's what I want to go back to. You had said to begin with, just like discouragement. Like I know there's a part of growing, but there's also discouragement that can set in in lots of other ways. When you're streaming, when you're going live, you just start assessing everything that's going on and then it just—well, it's not where I want it to be or it's not as good as it could be or you know, I don't have as many, you know, followers as Pastor Dustin. I don't have as many followers as—or the last time I was in somebody else's channel, they had two raids that came in and a hundred, you know, subs and it's like man, I don't remember the last time I had a sub, you know.

: So there's so many ways in which we can as an individual streamer feel pressure around what we're doing.

: And then yeah, if your health gets in the way, that can be discouraging too. That I can't be there for my community.

: Right.

: I want to—I'm unable to. So yeah, there's a lot of different ways in which discouragement gets in the way of being able to be faithful and consistent.

: And so let's flip that around and then because here's what I try to dwell on when I'm discouraged is what are some really positive moments that I've had and experienced in stream. What are some things that really people came in and did something to bless me in an overwhelming way? Or when did I have a conversation with someone that just was an impact in their life? Maybe it was a series of those. So do you have some stories of just blessing and impact that you've been able to experience being a Twitch streamer?

: A blessing and impact that I've had on others or others have had on me?

: Both. Both.

: Yeah. Well, there are many, you know, too difficult to count. Because—

: Yeah. I mean, sometimes people will just drop in with like 450 people in a raid and it's like, woohoo, you know, lots of people coming in and following and that's always great. But you know, and then there's always the people. Whenever anybody says any single time anyone says something like, "Thank you so much for what you're doing. It has really impacted my life and I'm now going to church when I wasn't before or I'm getting baptized because of what you've said or because, you know, I'm now reading my Bible and praying more," and you know, all that—that is that is peak, you know, that is the good stuff.

: That is a big encouragement because that's probably the biggest thing you can do for somebody is to make them aware of the good that you are having on their life, the good impression, the good that they're doing. Because on Twitch, it's like, you know, I watch pastors too. They don't always inspire me to greater heights of love and, you know, Christian devotion, but there are some that do. And so making sure to say that to people, it will definitely impact them to an inordinate degree, you know, just—that's a huge—

: Johnny Darko's raising his hand and saying, "You all had an impact on me in a big way. I got licensed to minister because of the education and encouragement of the two of you. Couldn't have done it without both of you." So I know Johnny hung out in my stream for a lot. I know he hung out in your stream for a lot of time and then he's been in a hiatus of hanging out in stream, but that's because he's moving into ministry in his local church. And he actually—I don't know if you had seen that he had done this before he started to take a hiatus. He decided to start reading the Bible on stream as well. And—

: Nice.

: He set up his really nice camera straight down at the Bible so that he could have it as a physical Bible showing it on stream instead of, you know, what I do with just electronic. And I scroll. He's like, "I'm turning the pages. I want you to see the physical Bible." So it's like I love the inspiration that you can have. So you were inspired by Pastor Don and now you're inspiring someone else to step in and not only on stream but also in his local church. So those are some really cool things, man.

: Truly. And the other thing is like the butterfly effect is that you may not be doing much yourself, actually. Like you're not doing much. You just do a short Bible stream or just do a prayer stream, just chatting stream, and you're a Christian and the way that you are putting your faith out there, putting yourself on the line just to be encouraging, can have a massive impact that you don't even know about. So like with Johnny Darko, he gets licensed, he becomes a minister, he ends up preaching to thousands more people than I would ever have access to.

: Yes. And it's because of that one influence that some random guy had on Twitch, you know. So that's a big encouragement right there. The money and the numbers do not indicate the amount of impact you are having. And that's a hard thing to remember because that's all we ever look at sometimes as streamers. It's like, okay, am I reaching the goal? You know, people want to see you accomplishing your goals. So it's like, okay, I want to be aware of what my goals are and I want people to be aware of it. So I'm going to tell them and so we're going to reach for that. We're going to do this. We're going to, you know, go out there and do this challenge and do all this. And that's really not that important, especially in the kingdom of God and in light of eternity. How many people you have coming to your stream is not actually the most important thing, but what impact you're having on any one person in the stream.

: Yeah.

: Is even more important. Well, and you don't always get to get the stories of impact because they may stay there for a season and then you were planting seeds that got watered later. And so you planted all of the seeds and you didn't see anything grow in that person. But then when they moved on from where you had influence of them, suddenly they got watered and they just grew immensely in a way that you can't ever know. I'll tell you this story because I had the opportunity to share the impact that someone had on me and I didn't know I would ever have that chance.

: So when I was, you know, seven or eight years old, I got kicked out of Sunday school for changing the lyrics to songs. And my stream knows—my stream knows I do that occasionally to ruin songs because my brain just always changes words. And I find it hilarious and fun.

: But the Sunday school teachers did not. So, no. Uh, I had to sit upstairs with the adults and our kids weren't in the service.

: The church I grew up in, kids are downstairs, adults are upstairs. So I had to sit there and listen to the pastor preach.

: Oh, it's amazing. I'm like, "This guy knows Jesus." Downstairs, they're telling me stories of this guy who knows Jesus. And so, you know, seven, eight years old, I am enamored by him.

: I'm telling everybody, I'm going to be a pastor when I grow up. And I happened to, so I moved out of state. We moved away from where he lived.

: I mean, after that inspiration that he given to me, and nobody at that time would have judged me as, you know, "Okay, yeah, this is really going to happen."

: It's like, "Yeah, guy, you're going to fall on your face and you're going to face some hard times," and if you knew me in high school, you're like, "Yeah, you're never going to be a pastor. That's not what God's calling you to do."

: But after seminary, uh, I came back to visit and my mom said, "Hey, the church that we used to go to when we, you know, lived two hours away, they're doing a celebration to honor uh the pastor, Pastor Oliver."

: And, uh, it happens to be right this week while I'm here. So I hop in the car and I head down there and I go to the celebration thing and then I know I'm going to get to say hi to him.

: So I know I'm going to say hi to him or whatever, but what ends up happening is like we're downstairs in the basement of the old church with all of the tables set up and we're having the meal afterwards.

: I end up sitting down and he and his wife sit across from me and I get to tell him because otherwise you're just going through a line. You can't spend the time and say, "Hey, thank you so much and hey, I'm a pastor now and I'm all this."

: And it was like I got to sit across from him, tell him the impact he had on me for the kingdom. Tell him I'm an ordained minister now. He passed away two days later.

: It's like, whoa. Yeah. Like the intersection of him being able to hear that, not that he was waiting on me, like he wasn't on his deathbed, you know, he was ill and then he just had an episode and he didn't make it two days later.

: But it was like I had no plans to go seek him out. The opportunity presented itself and I said, "I'll go and I'll see him because I just want to see him."

: Then he sat across from me. So I wasn't even going to tell him that entirely unless it came up in conversation. But then when he sat across from me, he's like, I got to tell you, man, you know, you like that whole butterfly that you're talking about, that impact you like, he would have had no idea.

: He would have had no clue that this seven-year-old that got kicked out of Sunday school is now like, imagine him finding out a Twitch streamer. That would be a really eye-opening thing.

: But no, that is amazing. Oh, talk about God's timing, you know. Yeah, that's a kind of empathy thing to say, but when you actually have experiences like that, it's like, oh, yeah, you know, God, that's a God thing right there.

: Um, I thought while you were talking about one thing that really impacted me because, you know, it showed that I had an impact. I was just playing Pal World one day.

: I really like Pal World and um I don't know if you know another Christian streamer I really love and her husband, uh, Zelda the Hobbit.

: Oh yeah, Zelda the Hobbit came in with like a massive rate of at least I don't know how many it was. It was like fifty something people, maybe sixty.

: And I was like, "Oh boy, you know, I haven't had one of these in a while. How's everyone doing?" You know, welcome in.

: My name is Charles Quazar Hanks, Chancellor of Chill, blah blah blah. And um and someone in there kind of stood out as being hyper offensive, you know, uh making sexual innuendos and making tons of jokes at my expense and other people in the chat.

: And someone after that was saying, you know, I asked you how are you doing? You know, so and so I always like to try and comment on every chat when I'm streaming to be like hello to you and what are you doing? How are you feeling?

: And um and so one of the people said, "I'm not doing well. I had, I'm having a really hard time with depression." I said, "I'm so sorry to hear that.

: You're always free to talk to me either in chat or in Discord DMs if you would like. You know, I'd like to reach out to you.

: There's always a reason to live. There's always something you can do. There's always something someone else can do for you. We love you. God loves you. Keep it up."

: And that guy, that other guy came and said, "Look at this weakling. This idiot, this stupid person thinks he needs to take his own life.

: What a weak-willed individual." You know, he said way worse things than that. Yeah, yeah, I'm sure. Charles, uh, speech, um, censorship, and I was like, "You do not get to say that in my chat.

: I don't care who you are. We do not make fun of anyone. We do not attack anyone. And if anyone needs encouragement in this world, it's people like this.

: And this shows that you are not in the right, you're in the wrong. Goodbye." You know, so I banned the person immediately. And that was really the whole thing.

: That was the whole situation. I think it was a year and three months afterward that person who said that they were depressed came in uh just on a random day.

: It was during a Bible study and said, "You remember I was that person who said they were depressed in the Pal World stream?" Well, at that time I was going to, you know, off myself because I had just had trans surgery and I was going to change my gender and I had changed my gender.

: I thought, but even after I did that, I felt no different inside. There was no difference. And I was still depressed.

: I still felt weird. And I felt even weirder because trans surgery, you know, it's not, it's not, yeah, anyway, um, foreign objects in your body, it's not good for you.

: So they realized that and this person said, "I'm going to take my life, but I just was watching Twitch and I came on to your stream and you were super encouraging, super nice, and when that other person was bullying me like many people in my life had previously."

: Yeah, yeah. Uh, I heard what you said to them and you defended me. You did not make fun of me. You did not call me out.

: You did not correct me in any way. You just gave encouraging words. And that has led me to accept Jesus as my Lord and Savior.

: And I'm going to church, getting detransitioned and I'm getting therapy and I'm getting help. And I was like, "What the heck? That's crazy."

: I uh, I never imagined that just that little encouraging word could have that effect on somebody. And every once in a while they give me a DM saying how they're doing like every six months.

: But uh, that was amazing to hear. And uh, that's not why I stream to be honest. That's not what I'm like going for.

: That's not what I think that I'm going to have an effect in that way. I'm thinking I'm going to uh enjoy some fun times playing games and uh maybe you know by osmosis they can just be in my channel and affect them positively and uh maybe bring them toward actually reading the Bible themselves.

: Not uh like stop people from committing suicide in particular and having you know people detransition and uh all that is a crazy story and God bless that person.

: I pray that they're doing well. I mean I know they are but um haven't heard from them in a while so continue to pray for them.

: But uh that was definitely a huge moment uh that I'll always remember cuz that's because you know there aren't that many people who have come and said it's because of you that I've been saved or I've had you know salvation experience.

: That's like the only time I can actually point to um because you know I grew up with missionary parents and I love them. Grimald 5 is in the chat and they taught me everything I know.

: Um and except for that which I've taught myself but uh in all the circles that we have gone through uh we've always been in that kind of missionary mindset and lots of pastors and missionaries and YWAM people, yeah, talking about uh you know you need to reach people for the faith, you need to save souls.

: And so I kind of, everybody kind of does in this sphere, kind of judge yourself based on how many lives you've saved, how many souls you've saved for the gospel.

: It's like, well, I haven't saved any, you know, it's like that's not really, but that's what happens, you know. We all kind of, maybe it's just missionary kids, maybe it's just I don't know.

: But I know I felt kind of lesser than cuz I was never an evangelist, someone who had a teaching heart to go out and tell people what's right and wrong and what they should and shouldn't do.

: I never felt like I was led that way. But um but I still felt like Christians should be preaching the gospel, you know, and I'm not and even though I'm not, I'm okay with not preaching the gospel right now, you know, back when I was a kid.

: Um so what is my worth? Obviously, God loves me and I but that was always a struggle. Um but that kind of, I just want to address that issue is that like it doesn't matter.

: It doesn't matter like you reach people for the sake of Christ Jesus, you know, for the sake of God's glory, not because you get to say that you have saved someone.

: So I just want to address that right now. Um so even what my whole life since then it was like if I save even one person I'll be happy, you know, and it's when after having heard that someone was well impacted and that they got saved.

: Um, got, welcome back to the Federation Mind. Thank you so much for that sub uh to Game and Granny. Thank you and welcome Game and Granny to the Federation.

: You get a spiffing bow tie. But uh anyway, so like what was I on about? Uh, well, yeah, saving souls. Saving souls and and yeah, and one of the things I've heard uh within missionary organizations who are working overseas and then they're trying to get reports back.

: One of the things that becomes inflated are the number of souls that are saved because that's right. Well, your money gets tied to your impact.

: And if it's not souls being saved, how do you show you're doing things? Because the stories like we were talking about Johnny Darko there, you know, moving into going into ministry and doing that, that's a story of impact.

: A person that doesn't take their life, it's a story of impact. Now, they end up saved, too. But I mean, how do those are so many things that don't fit on a sheet like we measure salvation and baptism and offering and attendance.

: Those are the things that we know how to measure. And for me, I like I don't know if you're familiar with any of the different scales of like somebody being opposed to Christ and coming to Christ and those kinds of things.

: Uh but I don't care. Heard it. Yeah. I don't care what scale you use um on those. My only thought is how am I helping someone take one step closer to being Christlike uh or to taking a step towards Christ.

: So if you're opposed to Christ, you're running away from him like Jonah, you're you were you grew up in the church and now you're wandering and you don't know what like how do I help you take one step closer?

: And those impact stories don't always get to the final end thing. And you don't always know the full impact that you have on someone.

: And sometimes they're not even aware that you were the one that planted the seed. Um, they're you had an obvious one of somebody attacking somebody and you defended them and you were love for them and loved them in that time in that space.

: And it was kind of hard to miss that it was you. Now they happen to be able to come back. That's super awesome. And then tell you the story.

: So yeah, I'm I'm so grateful for that cuz that and again it's like will we know that that person really is saved? You know, not really till eternity, but you know, you confess Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. We know, you know, those who can who believe in their heart and confess with their mouth, you know, will be saved. So that's that's a lot of good metrics.

: I mean, there are a lot of good metrics, but you know, obviously in the end, we we only know based on what the Bible says and uh God is the judge. So we do have to take that into consideration. And you know, the church is itself a missions field. Oh, got a hype train. There you go.

: Um, uh, hold on. My cozy jazz just stopped. Okay. Um, ooh, another resub for ten months. Jake Fakes Neck, welcome back to the Federation, my friend. Tip my hat in your honor. Um, but yeah, what was I saying again? I lose my frame of thought train of thought so much you know for the kingdom and the impact that you have.

: Yeah. Salvation of souls and um yeah I think I made my point. Yeah. I think I think you had um bootstraps boots I don't uh saying God works in odd ways. Four years ago, I would have told you I am an anti-missionary holistically. Uh now I have come to find I am pro-missionary when it is done the right way.

: Yes. Now, and that's that's another deal is how do you evangelize if you are going to be an evangelist? Oh, hold on. I need to get my top hat.

: Okay. Yes. It's necessary. The top hat is on. Um, the question is, how am I going to hear myself? Does that work? Oh, sorry about that. There we go. Maybe that will stay. There we go. Maybe it won't. Okay, I think that would work.

: Well, while while you're you're playing with that. So, uh I did not find a flat cap fancy enough for for my wedding, but uh I did have a top hat. So, I I was married in a top hat and I had tuxedo with tails. So is that is the only way to go for a tuxedo in my opinion.

: The tails are nice if if you're the center of it, but I'm not going to wear tails for every occasion. I do own a tuxedo, so I I do love the tails, but yeah, it's a very uh what's the word? What's what's the word that starts with F that has to do with M how you dress up. Uh formality. Oh yeah, formal formal dress.

: You know, formal it is formal. So yes, high formality is the the tails and the top hat. You can't do that for every event. Definitely not. It's not even contionable. It's not even good. You know, you go to a a a black tie ceremony and then you wear a white tie. That's a no no. That is a no no. You go to a white tie ceremony, you can't get higher than that. So, well, you go any lower than that, it's no good either.

: I did just get, so I haven't worn it yet. I did just get a white suit jacket with the black collar and uh little black trim on it. So, and it my wife picked it up in the clearance and nice. That's the way to do it. I think she paid twenty bucks for it.

: Oh snap. Yeah, I need to go and find myself one of those. So in the clearance. So she she like texted me and said, "Hey, this is only this much. Like here's the size I need. So I will I will be wearing that on our next vacation." Cuz we like to dress up for dinner. We when we go like if we go to a resort or if we go on a cruise, we like to dress up and there's usually two really nice formal nights that they will have.

: And so I'm going to be bringing that white jacket the next time we go on vacation. Beautiful. So I'm looking forward to that. That will be excellent. He'll be more formal than I've ever been at that point wearing that. Good heavens. Love it. Love it. But yeah, um no missionary, how you do missions is very important.

: I remember uh back in the day I was getting more into Bible reading and theology and um just in my own time. And one thing that came up was at my church, we were going to a mega church at the time and it was like how do you do missions? Because here in the United States as a Christian with that mindset of the missionary, every Christian is a missionary. Mhm. What do you do?

: You know, and obviously there's the question of, you know, do do Bible studies and people like, h that's not good enough. You got to go on the streets. You got to preach with the bullhorn and you got to do that and you got to pass out the flyers and gospel tracks. I have one of those right here. Gospel tract and and do that. Um, and I I absolutely hated that. I I went I went with my father and a friend of ours out to Manitou Springs. I'll just say that in in Colorado. And uh I I I mean, you know, my thoughts on Manitou Springs are quite complex. It's a pagan like resort place as well as just an old town um American old town.

: And um but a lot of you know sinners go there to uh to enjoy themselves or to set up shop and try to you know bring people in. And so uh that's where you go to Manitou Springs in Colorado to reach out to people. And I absolutely hated it. You have to go and you have to like be prepared for the worst. Be prepared for people to come up and you know yell at you and say all kind of things to malign you and I just hated that.

: So I came to the conclusion that when it comes down to it the Bible does not simply say let's go out on the streets. It does, but it says to preach to all creatures, you know, all creation. And who is all creation? But also the church, you know, the church is not just this is is me. I am not a one-saved only saved person personally. But even so, even if you are, there are definitely people in your church that are not saved, right?

: And so we need to shepherd the people who are saved to keep them in church, to keep them in the word of God, to keep them abiding in the vine, abide in his words, that the his word may abide in us in them. And um so that's something that the missionary mindset kind of neglects is the fact that those who are already reached with the gospel still need to be preached the gospel to.

: Um well, yeah, I mean it's not true of all missionaries. Yeah. Well, you go to the book of Acts, they devoted themselves to the the apostles teaching. Mhm. Mhm. Okay. And the breaking of bread and to fellowship. Uh yep. So yeah, like you still need to be devoted to the uh the apostles teaching.

: But I think one of the places where I usually go with you know being a missionary and we people usually go to the great commission and we've turn like I was mentioning earlier we've turned the work of the church into professional and lay people and we pay people to do those things like preach and we pay people to do those things like be a missionary and the rest of us don't have to do any of that. That's that's the mentality and the idea and it's like no no no no go you go look at the words for go uh in in Matthew twenty or yeah twenty eight nineteen through twenty it is while going you are to do these things.

: So name me name a person that is not while going. I mean you've got to be a hermit to not be while going somewhere. So while I'm going to work, while I'm going to school, while I am playing games with my friends online, while I am going, I need to bring Christ with me and proclaim him where I am when given the opportunity.

: So that's exactly right. So it is a while going activity, not a go overseas. And the foreign mission idea really is only a couple of hundred years old of sending missionaries to foreign countries. U before that it would have been you're going to move there, you bring your faith with you when you go there as opposed to send people over there uh to go do all of the work.

: Yep. And in a lot of the Bible, all of the the apostles, I mean, they only were able to go in what, a thousand two thousand mi radius before they had to. And this is what they did. Paul came back to every major church that he had originally preached in to preach there again. And sometimes he just preached the exact same thing to make sure that they knew what they were on about.

: Um they they dedicated themselves to the apostles teaching. That's exactly right. Yeah, I love your mindset on it, honestly, because that is something our church, churches that we went to in Colorado could have used a long time ago was the knowledge that even if you're not an evangelist, that's okay. And just because you're not an evangelist doesn't mean you can't be used for the kingdom of God. And the ways in which you can be used by by God is through anything, you know, as long as you're willing to speak the gospel.

: Right. Um, right. Well, and that goes to the fact with uh so you read the Bible on stream, but that's not the only thing you do. No. You know, it's it's not the only thing you do. So, others don't read the Bible at all on stream, but they talk about their faith a lot while they're streaming. They'll they'll they'll they will have I know people that do prayer streams like, "Hey, come in. We're going to spend time in prayer. What's your prayer request?" There's people that do worship on stream. So there are so many different ways for God to use you. You don't have to duplicate uh you know reading the Bible if God doesn't call you to do it.

: If you That's right. You you don't feel comfortable doing it. Uh doesn't mean you shy away when people ask you questions. You know, and that's another thing is that I know a lot of people are not in the same boat that I am, which is willing, ready or able to speak the scripture to people even though they do believe, right? Um, this is one uh point of stumbling for me is that I do tend to judge people based on my experience. You know, they don't have my experience, but I tend to judge people based on what I know. So, SE with uh I can't remember who she is with there's a wonderful VTuber who is a Christian but doesn't say anything about that on her stream and she did a did a um a collaboration with Squixy, another VTuber and Christian woman and she um you know Squixie is very very strong on the faith and I love it.

: And it it seemed to make this other person uncomfortable because she was a Christian and she talked about that during that collaboration in a way she generally wouldn't. But she did not feel like she was an evangelist, not called to talk about her faith, not called to, you know, make anyone uncomfortable, not called to do this or do that, do that.

: And I was like, Mhm. So you are a carnal Christian, I see. M you know that was that was my heart at the moment is like I'm judging this person because they're not doing us right and to be honest the reason why she said that is generally because she does not know enough about the scripture to actually say the right thing about it and I can't judge her for that you know so so that therein is the is the rub right I feel called and really convicted that I need to know the Bible more so that if if anyone does ask about it, I can tell it like it is. And there are lots of things that people want to know about, you know, that are just really controversial. That's those are the things people want to know about.

: People don't want to know the the basics of scripture and the gospel and Bible stories. They want to know what does the Bible have to say about abortion? What does the Bible have to say on LGBTQ and trans issues? What does the Bible have to say about politics? You know, if anything, should we even get involved in politics as Christians?

: And so it's all these things that I wouldn't know unless I actually looked into it directly. Um, so anyway, that's just my experience and it's hard to quantify because there's nobody who's had the same experience as you.

: There's nobody called exactly the same way you are.

: Right. Right. Well, there are some. There's always something.

: It's not exactly the same. They could be very similar.

: Right? Yes. We're all we're all differently made, uniquely, wondrously made by our creator to be different. Uh, so, but for some people even who do know enough, they still don't want to talk about it. Uh, because it would cause division. It would cause their stream to go awry, might lose followers for saying anything against any specific group of people that they're doing something wrong, they're saying something wrong, living a wrong way.

: And uh, so that's that's kind of a question in my mind really is how do you deal with those people? Well, there's also some truth if we look back at church history when there was persecution that was going on and people did have threats on their life to either denounce Christ or to profess Christ.

: And some denounced Christ because of fear of their life.

: They weren't truly denouncing him. They were just doing what needed to be said in order to save their own skin.

: What does the church do with them afterwards? And I don't have the answer. I mean, we you go back and study church history and they struggled through that and and some places did it differently than other people. Maybe they denounced him and later re, you know, recanted of it and were remorseful. I I don't know all the circumstance because you're reading history.

: Uh yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. Johnny Darko saying Peter denounced Christ three times. Yeah.

: That's a good point.

: That's a very good point.

: So, I kind of just kind of reflect on where people are at. If they're not doing the same thing I would, either they're not called to do the same thing, or they're at a different level of maturity that I am, and that could be in both directions. They could be more mature than I am, uh, and I could be the one immature judging them, or I could be judging them because I've learned what they're doing is immature, uh, and I, and I want to say, "Oh, no, no, you you shouldn't do it that way. Let me help you." But that's not how I probably am thinking about him going, "No, you're making a mistake." Um.

: Yeah.

: But I I think uh we are in one of the most creative times that we are ever going to see of being able to look at God calling a bunch of individuals the same way he was calling individuals in the book of Acts. And and not a lot of people focus on this, but you go look at the book of Acts and they have a problem with feeding uh the widows uh in the church. So they get seven seven Gentiles to feed the gentile or the the sorry the Greek.

: Jew the Greek um the Hellenistic Jews. That's the word I'm trying to think of. They feed the Hellenistic widows. They get Hellenistic uh Jews to be able to do that. And then the next chapters are all about stuff that they're doing that has nothing to do with giving them food.

: Right?

: It's it's all about but their qualifications were full of the Holy Spirit.

: So they're full of the Holy Spirit to be able to pass out bread and instead they're out doing all kinds of other things, preaching the gospel. You know, the Ethiopian eunuch story is in there. uh you you've got like all of these things that have nothing to do with and then the church has to go figure out, wait a minute, we got a bunch of Gentiles coming in. Uh what do we do? U and then they send people to investigate and they're like, yep, and then we're going to bring some more Gentiles in.

: I think we're in that sphere in digital spaces of God calling a bunch of people that a spirit has fallen upon. And I'm not saying it's wild, wild west. I'm saying it's spirited. And the church is going to have to play catch-up for the next 20 years of figuring out what has been happening in Twitch because they just been saying you can't go over there. Uh you can't go to TikTok. You can't go to whatever platform that they think is so dark you just abandon it.

: And I'm just I am just so glad that I am a witness to what God is up to.

: And yeah.

: I hope I can tell a little bit of part of the story to people. Yeah. No, you definitely are a a great example of the way God is using Christians to influence the world. Um because we're so there are some some times and seasons that happen uh such as you know the coronavirus era where you know I mean most people were online but not to any degree of what happened in during coronavirus. Twitch gained 400 new employees just to deal with the difficulty of handling so many people coming on Twitch all at the same time in a way that never had happened before. More people signed up for Twitch than ever before. Um even as guests, you know, coming in, you don't make an account.

: And um and so there's that. And for better or worse, everyone was watching Twitch. Um, and myself included, I got probably what 500 to a thousand followers within one year of of coronavirus happening. Um, so you know, there's so many variables. Where how did I get those thousand? You know, was it because I was streaming Securo and then I switched to Bible reading and then I did this? It's I don't know. But definitely coronavirus had a a massive effect on on the Twitch world, the internet world, every platform. Um, and then recently with the Charlie Kirk assassination, that's brought in more people to churches than any event that I can really remember in my lifetime outside of maybe 9/11.

: You know, 9/11 was a massive call to.

: Yeah, that's what I was going to say. was a big one that definitely had a influx of of people.

: Uh that suddenly were like I need answers and I and I'm searching for answers. Uh I'm not so sure if that's the the same with Charlie Kirk of I I need answers to make sense of the world.

: Right?

: But there is a sense of some people feeling a need like, hey, I need to return to uh a level of stuff that the world has changed on me.

: Mhm. Mhm. Yep. So those things are not I mean so here's the deal the other deal with that is that like with coronavirus and with the internet era and what 3 million people watched the memorial service uh of Charlie Kirk all at once and then like billions after that saw it. Um that's crazy. And that that is I mean whatever you have to say about the Charlie Kirk memorial the gospel was preached in it. It definitely was uh some people didn't do a great job at it but the gospel was preached and so a lot of people are hearing that have heard that more than ever before and they're being called to church. It's like, you know, went to church the week after and uh may just be only one guy, but there was a a baptism and uh 85 year old man said, you know, when I was nine, my my friends got water baptized by sprinkling. Um and I chose not to get baptized by sprinkling. Um, I've been a a pseudo Christian my whole life, you know, cultural Christian, not really going to church, but just kind of living my life thinking, "Oh, everyone else can be a religious zealot, and I don't care about that." But then Charlie Kirk got assassinated and he says, "You know what? This young guy, he's almost a quarter of my age. I can and and he died for for his beliefs, which are basically the same beliefs he had. And yet here I am 85 years of age. I'm not going to church and I'm not even baptized. But this man, young man, can speak openly about it. And got assassinated. Yeah, I can I can get baptized. So he went and got baptized and it's like bravo, you know, for him. Uh and so it's like that that effect is happening a lot now. It's different for every person. Not every person is going to have that. Some people are going to say, "Oh no, this is going to be extremely politicized. I don't want to get involved with it." But a lot of people are going to church who never would have before or getting baptized or getting saved uh more than I've heard in a long long time. And a lot of that is because of the internet. Does that make sense?

: Oh.

: Yeah. Like you're saying, it's it's it's an the internet age and God is like there are more Christian streamers on Twitch than I've ever seen and a lot of them are VTubers, which is an even smaller niche.

: Yes.

: That's blossoming of Christian VTubers. It's wild to see. It's awesome. It's a great encouragement.

: Yeah. And and for anybody listening to the podcast that that doesn't know VTubers, it's it's that you have an avatar that is representing you. You don't have a camera on and the the the degree of which you can spend uh more time in developing an avatar. It can do more things like hands moving and uh moving around, eyes blinking, moving its head, or it can just be generic and the mouth just moves and that's that's about all that you get. So there's lots of right of different levels of that. So just anybody that's going I don't know what a VTuber is. Hey Luces, welcome in.

: U so it is fascinating to to think about those things and it's also to go God must be up to something if if all of the like it's not necessarily the same as you know the day of Pentecost and five 5,000 people are added to the number that day. That's why I take it a little bit further back or further along in Acts and I say it's a calling of seven who then get sent out who now impacted a whole another group who the Ethiopian eunuch there's a whole church in Ethiopia I think because of the Ethiopian eunuch.

: I agree. Well, I think they would say that right. That's what the Ethiopians say is that they they.

: Bring it back that with that history.

: Yeah. Yeah. We we go all we trace ourself all the way back to that one person that one time.

: Exactly.

: That that got impacted and you have Stephen doing that, you have Philip doing that. You I mean it's like.

: All and then all of a sudden you've got Paul coming along and all of that stuff like there's just different waves that are happening with different ways of doing it in different spaces. That's what it looks like to me is happening uh in digital spaces right now. And the church in a lot of places is not what people are thinking is the place to go for answers.

: If you go if you go to Europe, Europe is in a level of being post-Christian where people didn't grow up going to church. They know that there's a building there, but they they don't have a culture that is, well, let's go to church. Mhm. Most people who were born last century probably have some association with they went to church, their family went to church or grandma went to church or their friends went to church. I'm not so sure in the last 25 years what that trend is because I've lived in some places where it might not follow the full trend. But it's like we are at least in a place where culturally people would have gone to church. But even if we are a place where people go to church, they don't see church as the answer to their problems.

: They don't see church as the solution to problems that they have. So people are spiritually hungry and they're looking for answers to life's problems and online God is opening their hearts and minds to ask those questions and a streamer is not threatening. Like I can go I can go into a stream and I can engage a couple of weird guys that wear hats and uh look dress a little bit different than everybody else on stream and I go, I don't know what's up with these guys, but I want to find out. And and then you hang out for a bit and you're like.

: Oh wow. Um I like hanging out here. God's doing something here.

: I knew I was looking for God. Or and it's not for everybody that that's the case. Some might just be, as we were talking earlier, just Christian in culture, but not following Jesus, and you get a little bit of influence, and you're like, "Oh, wow. This is what I've been missing."

: They have something that I have never had, and I want what they have, and so I'm going to pursue Jesus so that I can have what they have. God's doing that in a whole bunch of different places with a whole bunch of people that boy, uh, I probably right now know enough people that my podcast, if I had one every week, can go on for five years.

: So yeah. So I'm all set with my plans for the podcast as long as God, as long as God is going to honor that.

: Thank you Walmart for the subscription. Welcome back to the Federation. I tip my hat in your honor, friend. Thank you very much. Five months. Red bow tie for you. Uh, Johnny Darko, for sure. People are starting to realize that Google won't fill the God-sized hole in their hearts.

: Yeah. Well, and this is a question I have for you, which is do you think that uh online Christian spaces uh can be or should be considered equivalent to church or a supplement to church? Because I waffle on that a little bit, cuz I always try to tell people, I mean, you know, do not forsake the assembling together of yourselves in Hebrews. That's a command of the Bible we should follow it. But does that mean digitally or literally physically? You know, so I mean, that's just the conversation starter. But um, what was I going to say other than that? I mean, I guess that's my question for now.

: Well, to start with, when people usually throw that phrase around, you still have to define what do you mean the assembling together of yourselves? Because in Acts, it says they gathered together daily in Solomon's portico in the temple. So if you're going to throw around the don't forsake gathering together, how often does that mean? Does that mean daily? And I've never been in a church that gathered together daily. And in fact, most of the time we were pretty much happy if people showed up once a week.

: I mean, when I was a kid, we had three to thrive because you had to be there Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday night. But even if I was there, I wasn't assembled from the standpoint of what I would say was happening in the book of Acts of devoted to fellowship, devoted to breaking of bread. And I mean, we were devoted to the apostles' teaching. So we got that part, but the other part where we're living our own lives and we just assemble and go home. We were not a community that was engaged in one another's lives.

: So yeah, I want to take the thought process of also where it says where two or three are gathered together, there I am. So right now we have well more than two or three gathered together. We are in this space. We are not physically present. But the Holy Spirit is not bound by time and space. So the Holy Spirit is absolutely present here with all of us. And we are not forsaking assembling together. We have assembled together and we're assembling together for some fellowship, for some conversation, for some dialogue. Uh, not apostles' teaching at this point. Uh, we're not able to break bread uh together directly. So I would call this absolutely a fixture of Christian community.

: Now I'm not going to define it much more than that because people's theology is going to be different. And so some people are going to feel like in order to do communion we have to be physically present together. Okay, that's your theology around the table. Or to be able to get baptized, you've got to resolve some of those things. Do you label yourself a church or not? I'm inclined to not call myself a church in anything I'm doing, but I'm going to do as many of the things that Christian community has called to do as is possible.

: I'm fine labeling myself a digital missionary, a digital pastor. I am not starting a church because I'm not trying to gather you only to me. I want to be kingdom over castle in all the things that I am doing. So I have no issues with the people that are doing digital only churches. I don't have a problem with it. They are the ones that are answering the questions around the theological things of can you do communion together? How do you do baptisms together? And they're coming up with their own solutions to that, which I believe gatherings of people can do that. I think that's biblical when it says what you bind on earth and what you loose on earth that will be the same way in heaven. I think that is a teaching there that we're able to pass on and I can disagree with them the same way that I can disagree with other people on what happens at communion or not and still say I'm still going to have fellowship with you. Uh, I'm still going to be in relationship with you because you're still pursuing Jesus even if we disagree on some things.

: So that's where I fall on it is I gather together with some people in my stream. Right now, I'm not streaming on Tuesdays because I'm teaching some courses, but basically Monday through Friday for week in and week out, other than when I'm gone, uh, I've been available for four years. There are people that are there seventy-five percent of the time or more. Uh, that is way more time than I've ever spent with people, even if I was a pastor in a church, for double that length of time. So and I have more conversations with them about their faith than I had. So for me, it is ministry is life on life and assembling together is every time you gather, no matter where it is.

: So if this was not online and it was down at the local coffee shop, I would think we'd be getting closer to a gathering together daily. If and what the book of Acts is doing is, you know, so that's my thoughts on it and I don't think anyone, everyone has to agree with me, but that's where I am right now.

: No, I agree with you. I definitely do. I appreciate that uh immensely. Um, yeah, I totally, I feel the same. The apostolic framework, the accumenism if you will of the apostles, yes, in the first century was rock solid because if you're going house to house every day, right? And you are giving to the poor and giving them food. Like every single church service is a soup kitchen and you have to like have pastors and prophets be the ministers of like wait on people's tables. Um, you can't really be too easily assailed by persecution and destroyed in our modern day. You have a building and your denomination is separate from everyone else's.

: Yeah. And if that building, if the government says, "We're taking away your tax exemption and we're going to," which the government can do, by the way, is we're going to use this building for something else. We're going to kick you out of it. Uh, that can happen. And so what do you do then? You don't have a framework of house churches. But of course, what do you do? You start house churches. Everyone who's gone to that church is going to have to reach out to another and say, "Okay, we're going to find another place to worship."

: And so it's like, yeah, it's not bad to have a singular building that is the church. You have the overhead. You have the pastor. It's not bad, per se. It's just not the apostles' way of doing church. And it's like why are we doing it any different today? Because we can. Because there are different needs and different conveniences that that affords. But man, I uh, I totally agree. We need we need daily communion, which is just, like I said too, yeah, it's I'm not opposed to being in person. I don't have any issues with that. But there are a bunch of people who won't and some people who can't. And and we put limitations on gathering together and there's some comments in the chat talking about, you know, when is it a church, how is a church? Like that's what I'm saying is we already disagree uh in our denominations on what constitutes a church or not a church.

: And when I went to seminary, the seminary made this really hard line and said, "We are not a church. You need to go be in a local church. However, we require you to be in chapel uh on the daily basis while you're here with like five absences that are excused." So it's like we're going to go through all of the steps of the activities of a church, but one of the things that uh, at least in my denomination talks about is there needs to be church discipline within a church. So if you're not going to go in the direction of instituting church discipline and in some ways you have to have authority over people uh in that and I'm not saying you don't confront people. I'm saying discipline. There's there's different things like if you and I have a relationship Charles and I say hey man I think I think you're you know doing the Matthew model of I think you're stepping out of line. I want to help correct you in this and you don't understand. Well, I'm going to bring you together and like you were saying, the church would have been in a house. It would have been in the community. We're going to address it as a community of believers, but I don't know. I've figured out, you know, where everyone's at on the label of a church.

: I think sometimes if you put the label of a church, people think the building. So if you say you're digital, they get hung up on the building and now you've broken down. That's why I just say Christian community. But you can call it a church. I don't have a problem with that. Um, you put the label on me you want to put on me. I'm fine with that. I'm not gonna shove it down. I'm just conscious of what I choose to call what I'm doing.

: Um, and there was also the question of um a digital uh missionary versus a digital church. Well, I think every Christian is called to be a missionary. So some people might be missionaries by having the gift of hospitality and being fantastic mods who are supportive of the ministry because oh wait a minute, weren't the deacons there to serve the community? And that's what mods do and that's what other people who maybe can't serve as a mod because of whatever limitations they get to still do in the chat or in Discord. So there are so many ways you can be serving a Christian community even if you are not the primary streamer. You still are in the community as a digital missionary.

: So I don't want to have oh only streamers can be missionaries. No, no, no. Mods are also missionaries. Uh, people in the Discord are also missionaries. People that pray are also uh going to be doing that. So uh and we're getting a whole bunch of questions that, oh man, we'll be here forever if we start trying to answer uh all of those things. So um, no, I would love to answer all of them, but yeah. How long we got?

: Well, exactly. Yeah. Uh, so I hope that kind of like, I also don't think I'm the one that's going to answer that question for everybody. Um, yeah. You know, it's it's one of those things where there's a regrowth of um microchurch movement. I really love that resurgence of the idea of microchurch. Fresh expressions uh is some language we use within my denomination because it's a fresh expression of how we can do ministry together. And so it doesn't have to be bound or limited to anything that anyone has ever done before. It can be something that God has just given us to be able to do. He calls us into a new space uh to do something different.

: And that's true. And it and if it reaches someone, I'm not going to say, "Oh, sorry. You didn't do it my way. You chose the wrong hat."

: Right. And this is the truth. Hi, Jade Live. Thank you so much for the fabulous Baptist follow.

: Good to see you finally in the channel. Uh God bless you, friend. Uh, shout outs for Jake Live by the way. Um, and thank you Drewzy for the fabulous follow as well.

: Welcome. Um, we we we How do I say this? I had it for a moment there, but the church is easy to define. We know what church is, but it's harder to say what church isn't, right?

: So like if we have a community, which is the original word is ecclesia, right? Gathering community, that is basically what the word was used for in the original context for what a church is.

: It's a gathering. It's a community of believers. It does have to be of believers and it does have to be preaching the gospel, does have to be taking communion, does have to be outreaching.

: I I think those are big deals. People have to be gathering together and doing those things. So, what we're doing, it is a community.

: We're not eating together in a physical space. We're not, you know, maybe you're not preaching. Does that mean it's not a church? Does it, you know, maybe.

: But so there are lots of different ways to of to define that. I would just say and this is my big point on this is that if you can if you can physically get yourself to a physical gathering of believers that is where you find local uh fellowship according to the word of God. That's where you find it. That is what the church is. The Bible does not define it as everyone who is praying the same thing at the same time.

: You know, maybe, you know, in in another world there could be some weird idea that that would actually be true. Not in this world, but where everyone is psychologically linked.

: You know, everyone who's a Christian spiritually is all able to interface with one another like the boys. Um like like the boys.

: It's a very specific uh reference, but yes, we don't we don't have that. We do have the internet and the Bible does not say that that is the gathering place.

: That is is not what the Bible says the church is. However, the Bible also says that the church is any gathering of believers. So, all of that is there.

: But what I would say is my streams are not like you. My streams are not uh to be considered church. Um they are supplemental.

: I sometimes do more things in my stream than some churches do ever that is like church. Um like you can't nobody can just go up and ask the pastor of a large church, hey what do you think about this particular thing?

: Some can, but you're not going to get the same situation where anyone can ask anything and I can just answer it and look it up in the Bible with you like Pastor Don does.

: So, that's just something the church, physical church, you can't always do. If it's small enough, then you can. And if you provide for that in the church, then you can.

: But yeah, I I'll never say that online is is a replacement for a physical church. It can be if you physically cannot get to one.

: And that is what I would say. God knows the heart. If you are intending to get to a physical place and you just can't, then God knows and that's fine.

: And you can attend however you can the fellowship of believers. And I think fellowshipping online is a good way to do that. Um, and you know, like reading your Bible and praying every day is not a replacement for the church either, is it?

: But you can be growing in your Christianity. So go to church if you can and watch good Christian streams if you can. If you can't go to church, watch good Christian streams if you can.

: It doesn't have to be a question of, "Well, I'm watching this so I don't have to go to church." It should never be that.

: It should never be that in my opinion. So, Bootstraps is asking what if what if it is a fully integrated digital only church where they're not just a streamer, they are intentionally trying to put together all of the the things that happen in a physical church so that those happen in digital spaces. Where where are you at with th that?

: Yeah, I I I'm not sure how I feel about that because And that's fine to be undefined.

: I I think that's okay. I because I I do believe that anyone who is trying I I get like you say I think that's an outreach.

: I think that it's a good model for what a church could be in your area if you decide to make one. Right. I don't think we should ever discourage anyone from trying to build a local physical church.

: Yeah. Or a local house church. You know, have bring people to your house, do Bible studies. that can become more church than going to a mega church.

: That's for sure. So yeah, I it's a it's a difficult thing because there is there are lots of things to steward in the human heart as to how you think of church.

: A lot of people have been burned by going to physical churches. So they're more willing to go to digital places to seek edification and fellowship like Twitch.

: And that is totally valid. totally valid, but you know, you kind of throw out the baby baby with a bath bath water if you choose yourself to quit going to church because the church burned you go just go to a different church, you know.

: Um, so that's that's my encouragement, I guess.

: Yeah. Well, on on some level, um, people that do for however long length of time, whether they intend to leave and abandon the church entirely because of church hurt or if they are still wounded and unable to bring themselves to go because they don't want to uh be triggered or you know experience it hurt once again. there there the there there are times where yeah they they can't readily go to the next church no matter whether it's in person or online.

: So um but I think one of the things is I'm not trying to solve the answer for everybody the same way I'm not trying to solve the answer of what worship music can you do, what praise instruments can you do, can you uh because there are churches that think oh everything has to be a psalm or you can't actually sing it in church. church. I mean, I know that's an extreme, but there's some people that have that.

: Or, well, we have to have organ because well, the guitar that's in the that's that's coming from the secular world and the bar hall.

: Uh, let me give you a heads up here. The piano was also in the bar hall and so was the organ. Um, they've just been in the church for a lot longer and they were in the church when you grew up, but the same arguments were made when those things uh were in the bar hall. We can't have that in the church.

: So, yeah. So, it's funny now to flip this and say rather than we can't have that in the church.

: We can't have church in here. Uh, and I have friends that that have some interesting ministries outside of online where there's church in the bar.

: They they meet in the bar. There's there's there's church in various different places where you go to where the people are and and you gather in those spaces.

: And I think I just see a move of God that's that's on its way. And so it's really cool to see that.

: It is. It is. God is moving. Ashland is on the move.

: Yes, Ashland is on the move online and in real life because it's it's not just an online thing.

: Plenty of people are seeing what's going on online and saying, "Okay, where can I get plugged in to church?" Not because people are telling them that they have to, but because the Lord is moving on them to seek it out and they just want to.

: They know it's the right thing to do. And I that's that's a wonderful thing to see a new in resurgence of going to physical church.

: I love to see that.

: Well, I don't think we're going to answer everyone's questions. And uh I just want to add one more thing.

: Jate said, uh best to start with what what a good church is and what the goal of a church should be. Most of those can be done better online, but we all know there are some things that can only be done in person.

: And exactly. So that's where I I think even with those of us who are in digital ministry, we look forward to opportunities to get together in person.

: Sometimes we can't uh for but sometimes when an opportunity allows it, we we we step into that opportunity for sure. So, uh, I'll be going to, uh, Hope Con this week.

: Um, I'm going to go hang out. Like, I have not met I don't think I'll be surprised if there's anyone at Hope Con that I haven't met in or that I have met in person.

: However, Jate Live, I've I've been I've been with Jate several times at several different events. Uh, neat over the last three years. So, Jate and I have been in the same place.

: We've gathered together, but we probably, and I it probably hasn't been recently, uh, but we've probably spent just as much time, probably more, hanging out in stream, uh, with me watching whatever Jate's doing than we have spent time when we were physically in the same space because there were a lot of other people. There were a lot of things going on. You were you were at events and those kinds of things, but we wouldn't say, "Oh, no, no, well, I don't I don't want to get together in person." We're exactly No, no one is saying that.

: But I also have people that are around the globe that I probably have no realistic expectations that my friends from Australia, my friends from the Philippines and Singapore, and my uh my uh Scandinavian friends, which is the growing group that I seem to have over the summer as a bunch of Scandinavians hanging out in my stream. Like I don't know that I'm ever going to be gathered together with all of those people.

: Right. Yeah.

: And it's it's a God thing that we're able to even talk to one another. And the the question is, you know, well, a question is if you could gather together physically with the people you meet online for the same thing you do online but in person, would you rather do that or not and just continue online? Obviously nine times out of 10 you would rather do it physically. That's that's how I feel at least.

: Well, and that and that might not be for everybody that the answer would be yes.

: And then there's also some of those like here's another thing that I think like I stepped out of full-time ministry uh during COVID.

: So, knowing what I've learned online, if I were leading a physical church, what I would be advocating for is some kind of daily gathering so that the parents who have kids who have to put them to bed in order to show up to do anything could show up two or three nights a week for an hour, a half an hour and have fellowship with one another. not just a Bible study once a week, but they could have fellowship uh and gathering because I think that's what we're called to do is to gather daily.

: So, I would be supplementing because, oh, I can't come to church. It takes me an hour to get the kids ready and travel there and then we're there for an hour and then I got to get home and I got to do all these other things.

: like take the obstacles out of people's way and and utilize a tool to be able to to allow people to meet more often than simply setting the the bar so low of we want you here at least on Sunday and and that's all all we're doing and oh we we would be great if it was every other week and then take the shame away from people that can't make it for whatever reason work health kids sick uh who knows what it is and and say, "Oh, but you have to be in person." And hey, we haven't seen you for a month.

: Why Why aren't you here?

: Right. Right. Yeah, that's a good point. And I I do the same. I you know, whenever I can, I go to church.

: But I can't more often than not. So, what do I do? I watch the church online. So, yeah. And I can and I can see where your heart having a health issue has a longing uh to be able to to reach out and and to be in person.

: I could totally see that.

: Yeah. And and I do agree that the the supplemental value of Twitch and internet does not belittle its value.

: You know, just because it doesn't like count as church according to the biblical needs or a list that you make, you know, certain metrics doesn't mean that you can't do most of the most important things the church does.

: Right. So, and I would say I think some of the most important things that the church does is building up of the body.

: Exactly. Adding and absolutely I would say like all of my my Christian streamer friends are working towards that goal building up the body of Christ. Some who see themselves more as digital missionaries are working to share the gospel and to bring that in front of people who and you know that's that's part of what uh the church digital we're we're trying to do.

: I'm trying to do is highlight my friends who are doing this, but we're also trying to equip, empower, and train people to to be able to to go out and do that.

: So, if if anyone has been enjoying this conversation and wondering, uh, how do I do this? What can I do? Or I don't know where to start. Uh, I wasn't planning on plugging it, but it just makes sense right now to to do that. So, plug it. Next Wednesday, uh, we're going to have a digital conference because we know everybody can't meet in person and we're also trying to help train you to be digital missionaries.

: So, Jate Live is going to actually be one of the speakers at uh, the uh, DMC Con, the gaming summit, and he's going to be talking about experimenting and uh, evaluation and and some things. I'm not going to give away everything. Jate, if you if you want to drop any nuggets of what you're going to be doing in there.

: Saw Drewzy was in here earlier uh in the chat. Don't know if he's still here. He and Chino Mage um from Lux Digital Church are going to be talking about setting the table. How do you make and we were talking so much about this earlier. How do you make your table welcoming and inviting for anybody to come into your stream? How do you make your Discord or other places you gather that same way? How do you intentionally think through how to be welcoming and inviting and uh setting the standard for what your community is?

: U then um Pastor North from North Hill Live, he's going to be talking about how do you evaluate if what you are doing is effective and in reaching the person that you're called to reach.

: And so so I' I've given you the conference backwards here and I'll I'll be opening up. It wasn't supposed to be me originally, but I've stepped in and I'm going to be talking about uh one quest. What is your one quest? You know, cuz you are called to one quest that you are to accomplish. So, how are you going to reach the one person that God has uniquely gifted you to reach?

: So, like we were talking earlier, what if you only ever reach one person with the gospel? Great. Yeah. Just do it. Just do it.

: So, there we go. There's the conference. It's all free. It will be in Discord community. You can sign up for that. You can go to digital or missionary.digital and and sign up.

: I would love to have you hang out and learn and ask lots of questions. Yes. And with that, I must go to the restroom.

: So, I'll be right back. Yeah, absolutely. Don't go away. Charles shall return. I love you, Jate. Uh, making a point there.

: Uh, love love what you said there. I think it's important that it's not just watching a service. Your good online churches focus heavily on fellowship than your than your good local church does.

: Yep. I like that you can hop in Discord and get to know people more. Yeah, absolutely. They are truly uh the good digital churches are truly living into community and fellowship and relationship where often what uh some physical churches may be doing is simply inviting you in to attend and leave your money and maybe serve and and then go about life. Warmaha. Uh there has been religious groups in many games online for like 25 plus years.

: Yeah. Oh. Uh recording the conference warrior. Yes. The plan will be to record the conference. I will have to have conversations with um Chino Mage about how we're doing that.

: So uh I'm gonna go ahead and give you another promo here while we're gone for the conference. um so that I'm not just uh carrying on my conversation by myself.

: Okay. So, let's help you figure out who you know what it means to do ministry. You also know what it means to be a gamer and you know what it means to try to share Jesus in that space.

: I mean, you're doing it. You're in the lobbies. You're on Discord. You're in game chats. You're trying to be encouraging in your live stream chat. You're trying to bring hope into that stream. You're praying for the person behind the handle. Gaming might be the medium, but discipleship is the true mission.

: And you feel like you're doing this by yourself. But imagine you weren't doing it alone. You've got backup. Imagine you were equipped and resourced and linked with others who know that discipleship can happen where you're at, where other players are gathering.

: Imagine that your passion is coordinated. You can have fun and be intentional on your streams. What if there was a summit built just for you, for digital missionaries in the gaming world?

: What if you were not just playing together, but you were actually building the kingdom together? That is DMCON, a digital space for gamers who disciple and disciples who game.

: If you've ever questioned whether games could be sacred ground, this is your confirmation. The digital spaces you inhabit can become communities of belonging, healing, and gospel transformation.

: Jesus is already in the game. Let's discover where together. You're not alone. Come and see who else is with you right now. Register for DMC Con today.

: All right. So, just playing that promo just to to fill some time there. Uh not sure if it fully shared uh over on uh Charles side or not. Apologies if it didn't. So, one a question asked about feeling guilty about gaming and having anxiety about playing video games. I think that the church at times has caused us to have that uh and and even society at times is the when are you going to grow up and stop playing games?

: So, before there were video games, it still would have had the same thing. Uh but then some of those games developed into professional sports.

: But we all know that that's only a few people and you need to grow up and quit thinking that you're going to be in the NFL, in the NBA, whatever it is.

: So there was there's been that mentality and certainly video games have been part of it. The church telling us we should feel guilty about it.

: Uh a friend is uh from Nerd Culture Ministry Summit is going to be having a a book coming out I believe soon. uh theology of fun and she goes through Jacqueline Parish. She goes through and and I've seen her talk at NCMS of the fact that God created us to enjoy things. And if we find enjoyment from spending time in gaming, then there is a level at which it is a blessing to spend time in gaming and be able to enjoy that and enjoy the creativeness of it and all of those things. So there's there's not necessarily uh a a one way to to view things. Now the other side, Charles, I'm just answering a question of of anxiety around playing video games um and and and enjoying video games and those kinds of things.

: But there so if video games are something you enjoy, I think God has created us to enjoy things. The other side is there's things that are addictive.

: So, I can enjoy a lot of things. I occasionally enjoy a nice cigar. I have never felt an urge to go have one. I am not addicted to nicotine in any way. I can always say no. I've never felt, oh, I have to have one. So, I I have no addiction to it. Now, you could talk to me about, well, is that a healthy choice or not a healthy choice?

: And I don't smoke all the time because it's not a healthy choice, but I can still enjoy that. Uh, I can become very addicted to eating meat. I can make sure that I have meat and potatoes at every meal. And I can become addicted to that so much that I am grouchy. I am angry. I yell at whoever made the food for not including enough meat in there. What did you mean that you got a veggie lovers pizza?

: Why didn't you get meat lovers? I can be a jerk and be addicted to something that has totally other other things as well. So, the other thing is I could just enjoy bacon. And I could say, "Oh, I would love bacon on it." You have bacon? That would be great. That's going to make my day if I have bacon, but I don't have to have bacon every day.

: U so we do know that there is a way at which things in gaming are designed to be addictive. So you do want to have some things around yourself and be prepared to put it aside if it becomes consuming of your life and your heart's desire is for only it.

: But to be guilty for enjoying something, um, I don't I don't think that's how God created us to be. Right? No, I totally agree.

: And and I do think sorry, just laughing at Jake picking on me for giving meat lovers as an example. Like, oh, yeah, Jade's a vegetarian, so yes, I'll take all your meat.

: Now, I'm I'm happy with the veggie pizza, too, by the way. So, I see there's a weaker brother amongst us. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. But uh um but yes, uh what I was going to say is the thing about video games is there's nothing in the Bible that tells us not to enjoy games because games always have existed in one way or another.

: Um in fact, there are very few things that the Bible tells us not to enjoy. Um it even you know even alcohol which itself I would say is generally very unhealthy. The more people have looked into alcohol, the more we realize scientifically the fewer positive effects they're wrong with alcohol. People used to take it medically and it's like well it's it's not that great even for that.

: Um now Paul even however did prescribe to Timothy to take a little wine with his meals for his stomach. And I I think that makes sense because you know it's pretty pretty acidic. Can help with digestion if you're going with uh constipation. So, there is that. So, anyway, there there's always going to be that struggle of can I enjoy this or not?

: And you've got to decide in your own heart based on what you know of the Bible and what you know of God and what God is telling you, what you should or should not be imbibing in.

: Because, and this is something that C.S. Lewis talked about, I believe in uh in in in what's it called? The demon book. Uh screw tape.

: Oh, I forget. Screw. Yes. Screwtape letters. Um, even a consistent tea and toast for a for a grandmother who enjoyed that can become a sin for her because she to puts too much of her peace upon having that thing.

: It's not even that it has any negative health issues. There's nothing negative health-wise for most people uh for tea and toast. But the way she was treating it in her mind was the problem.

: Now I would I definitely would uh describe cigars as as only unhealthy. But uh you know that's the deal is that each and every one of us as Paul said with a pretty extreme example by the way of eating food sacrificed to idols uh even that does not have to be a sin to you if it does not prick your conscience. And that's between you and God. What is pricking your conscience? I can't feel your feelings and I do not know what you know.

: And so we we treat each other uh fairly. We treat each other as morally independent people. And when we see people in actual sin in in extreme sin of like adultery and drunkenness and fornication, we call that out.

: We do not allow our Christian brethren to continue in that. And I could definitely debate about the, you know, the good the goodness, the moral good of of uh smoking cigars, uh because I don't think there is any.

: But I did I didn't say there was any good. I enjoyed it. You enjoy it. Enjoy it. So that's the deal is that there are definitely things we can enjoy.

: Even food sacrificed to idols, which even the Jerusalem council said, which is a very fair thing, um, that is not allowed for Gentiles. And Paul said you can eat that without conscience.

: Yes.

: So isn't that interesting? So anyway, whenever I play Diablo, this comes up because people are like, "How dare you play something with the word devil in it? That's anti-Christian." And it's like, well, that, that, that's another thing is like, what is demonic? What is, what can we, demons, demons, ah, you know, people get all up in a huff about it.

: Should we fear demons or the demonic?

: Well, no, we, we should not, and we have no need to fear. Um, and, and to go just in, in that vein of what are things that people within the church have said you can't do, and then the world views you if you're a Christian of doing those. I thought you weren't supposed to do those at times. Halloween's another one of those that falls in there. But if you actually go and, and study some of what Halloween was, it was All Hallows' Eve, and it was actually poking fun of and making fun of the demonic forces and dressing up as, as, as them in a way of mockery of them because they had no power. Um, and then the next day celebrating all of the saints who are with Christ because Christ conquered death.

: Like if you go study the, the origins of it and, and no, most of the pagan stuff that's been attributed to it comes later than the early Christian practice of stuff. Uh, and, and it's not truly that, but you know, people will, uh, try to, try to associate that and say stay away from it and all of those things.

: And yeah, the way that it's modernly celebrated, yeah, there's all kinds of things I might say stay away from, but as a Christian to say stay away from it because it's pagan. M, you, why would you let pagans co-opt something that was poking fun of the powers that have no power because Jesus triumphed? Uh, let's, let's celebrate Jesus triumphed.

: And also a great point.

: Martin Luther intentionally picked that day to put the 95 Theses on the Wittenberg Chapel because it was the day that you would poke fun of and you would attack the forces of darkness.

: H, that's, that's I don't know why I didn't know that. It was on All Hallows' Eve.

: Yes. Yeah. It's Reformation Day is, is what people refer to it as.

: Mhm. Oh, no. That makes sense. That makes so much sense. Um, huh. I never put two and two together. Anyway, uh, but yeah, and I, it's, it's true. Like, warfare, fighting evil in a sort of black and white way is a biblical idea. It's like Lord of the Rings, you know, why do so many Christians accept Lord of the Rings, but then you know throw away other things? And it's, it's because we do know that there is a, um, a good and evil. There is a devil. There is Satan and his minions. And to properly put into perspective the good versus the evil is biblical.

: And so that's, that's good. But then sometimes there can be this kind of hypocrisy of accepting Lord of the Rings while not accepting and totally throwing out something like Harry Potter.

: Yeah.

: Which I totally understand why it's a bit more direct with the, the witchcraft and sorcery elements and alchemy and, and all those things. Again, it's just how you look at it. How you, do you know the elements that are unbiblical? Do you even know? Have you looked into it? Do you know the positives? How do you reconcile Christianity with Lord of the Rings? Do you not think you can reconcile other things the same way?

: Uh, so I'm a big fan of C.S. Lewis and what he did, which is he took the absolutely terrifically horrible, uh, Greco-Roman myths and he quote unquote redeemed them.

: Right.

: Uh, so anyway, that's a recurring theme in my streams as well. Was like bringing that up, realizing we can as Christians, and maybe there's even a moral prerogative to go into these generally secular regions that generally do dislike Christians, or you know, even the secular world thinks now that Halloween is non-Christian because we've said it so much. It's not, that's not Christian. And, uh, and like try to push back against Christianity with it. And we can go in there and say, "You know what? We can, we, we actually enjoy the same things. We're, we're both humans here, and Jesus was a human being. Uh, he didn't just separate himself completely. Um, and we can't either separate ourselves from this world. If we tried to avoid every non-Christian and not eat with any non-Christians, like Paul said, we would have to go outside of this world." Um, and that's not what you like to hear if you are a, a, you know, kind of populist Christian in the West today because there's so much Christianity, especially in big megachurch, um, localities where it's just like I can go about my day. I can spend all day on the church campus and go to coffee. It's just right across the street. Can eat at the restaurant right across the street from the church. Only ever talk to church people. And you think you can or should enforce your lifestyle on someone, on everyone else, and say never go to the movies, never play video games, never do this, never do that.

: Now we can debate, you know, the each element, you know, how much violence do you allow? How much cursing, you know, is there sexual content? How do you know? But, um, and that's what we do as Christians. We discern those things, um, and hopefully do not offend a brother, you know, do not cause another brother to stumble with what you yourself enjoy.

: And that's, that's kind of a harder deal than just being like, you know what, this doesn't give me conscience, so I'm just going to do it.

: But it's like that's not the only thing that we are called to do. We are in fact as Christians our brother's keeper. Uh, that, that's something we need to accept is that Cain didn't think he was.

: But he was.

: But he was. So, and that, that can mean not playing a certain game in front of someone else, you know, not doing the thing that you want to do, or like drinking alcohol, you know, we, we can drink alcohol as Christians for sure, but if someone is a drunkard given to drinking, you don't, don't drink in front of him. Or like someone with gluttony, don't tempt them with tons of sweets and food that you're eating and you're okay with eating. Just don't, don't do that in front of them.

: You know, it's things like that. And on, in a digital space, it's a little harder 'cause it's like, I'm playing Diablo tonight for four hours. And, uh, some people are like, "Oh," and I, I do remember someone saying this, that, um, they were into witchcraft and paganism and the things in Diablo are referencing those things. You know, it's like the Satanism is right.

: Kind of not realistic, but it's Satanism in the game that you are fighting.

: And so there's pentagrams and, de, demonic imagery intentionally in the game. And it causes them to kind of have PTSD.

: Mhm. Mhm.

: Because they themselves were in that. And so it's like, "Oh, well, I'm sorry." But again, it's up to them what they watch. But, uh.

: Is that judgment again?

: Yeah. Yeah. Well, and, and like you were talking about, if, if somebody has had a struggle with something in the past, then being around it is not a helpful thing for them. So, why would you do it in front of them?

: Um, I actually do know someone who had been a recovered alcoholic for ten years and then started being around people that were drinking. Then they started drinking non-alcoholic to, to be around them, and now drinks quite often. So, you know, they, they, they, they opened it back up, and they, and people were like, "Oh, well that's fine. You, you can have one," instead of people being considerate around them. They just started being around that influence again, and they went back in the direction of, of where things had been in the past.

: And so it, it's a, it's a really kind of interesting thing of how do we give up our rights and freedoms for the sake of someone else. I think we're the only people that are called to do that.

: And welcome Christopher. It's good to see you, friend.

: Greetings and salutations.

: Uh, so many good things in the chat, man. Oh, man.

: No, we can't even keep up with chat. It's, it's been fantastic conversations going on there. I love all of you having conversations there. It's great, all of you who are chiming in. This has been super cool. But we're going to be wrapping up here shortly, and then I'll be handing over to Charles so you can still hang out with him for a while.

: Um, so just thinking of, of what do you have that you're looking forward to still this year, uh, of streaming? Anything you have going on? Anything exciting that you're going to be doing, um, or new that you're going to be trying?

: Uh, I, okay, so little, little thing about me. I, because of my sickness, I have kind of learned, not to plan ahead basically, because my body could get in the way. So, uh, this is probably the most exciting thing I've done in quite a while. This was a big deal for me, collaboration with the Flat Cap Pastor and, and the Church Digital. I really, I don't know why I have trouble saying that. The Church Digital. Um, but, uh, so that, this is probably the most exciting thing I've had on the docket.

: Um, oh, so no, just, just the general, um, six days a week, uh, Bible reading, evening gaming streams, and, uh, yeah, we'll be playing lots of different games. Dark Souls II, Dark Souls 2, Dark Souls 1 in that order. Actually, we're currently playing Dark Souls 3. Uh, and then we have Gears of War, which is a game from my childhood that I found on, on discount. Quite a discount.

: Okay.

: Be playing that in future. Um, so, you know, lots of dark games, and I don't know, there's just something about me. I enjoy these things. But, uh, it also allows me to reach out to people who are generally, uh, not Christian because of those things, if that makes sense.

: And it kind of gets at the whole like pentagram discussion, that it means different things to different people, right? It's like to, to a Christian it means evil, Satan, demons, stay away from that. And to the Satanist and pagans it's like this is a, a symbol of protection, you know. And so it's like well, well you deal with it as is, um, not as you think it should be.

: Right. Um, so anyway, in, in that situation, we converse about it, we talk about it, we go into it, we don't ignore it. I don't ignore it. I don't shy away from it. You know, it's like horror games. Huge mission field of people who enjoy horror games. And I do believe you can be Christian and enjoy those.

: I got a raid coming.

: North Hill live raid.

: North Hill live coming in. Woo! Crazy Uncle Scott, welcome in. Welcome in. Disco Bear, good to see you, friend. Good to see you. Sis Pineapple, welcome in. North Hill Live. Was talking about you earlier, buddy. I hope your ears were burning.

: We love you, North Hill Live.

: Zombie Place02 just followed. Zombie Plays02. Thank you for the follow. Yes. Hello. Welcome. Where is my hello emote?

: Hey, it's Charles. Oh, and I guess Flat Cap is there, too. North. Come on, man.

: My goodness.

: You gonna, h? Seriously, man. Come on. Uh, I will say also, since, since you're here, I did send you a message earlier, North Hill. Uh, I, I'm still in need of getting your outline for your talk next week on the, uh, gaming conference. I, I know you said you sent it to me. I don't know if it went into the trash or spam. I did not see it.

: So, if you can, can kind of, yeah, you send it out again. Okay. Thanks, man. Thank you so much for that fabulous raptor follow, Zombie Plays.

: Welcome to the channel of Charles.

: Wow. So I think, I think now that, that, that North Hill is here and I'm here and J Live is here and Drewzy, if Drew is still here. We have, four out of the five, and Drewzy and Chino Mage are, are tag teaming together. Four out of the five people that will be, uh, the speakers at the, the conference next week are in the chat and in the, yeah, Julie is still here.

: So you're going to have to give Andy a hard time there, Drewzy, and tell him he missed out on the preun because a reunion happens afterwards. This the preun of uh the uh conference there. So, gave you a follow. It's Drewzy. Pleasure to make your acquaintance. Husband, dad, gamer, pastor.

: Yeah. Wonderful. Wonderful. Love to see it. You love to see it. And I'll give Jade Live a follow if I'm not already. I thought I was.

: Where are you, Jade Live? Christopher's asking, I wish we could all talk on Discord about it. Um, that might be a possibility some point. Uh uh DM and or or set uh a time if you'd like to initiate it and then invite us to it. That might be a better way to do it. If you wanted to initiate a conversation and invite some people to it, Christopher, I think that would probably be a good way to approach that.

: So, um okay. So, since since you have a difficulty of uh planning and being able to say, I'm going to do this. I loved how you said though, we're going to play three and then we're going to go two and then we're going to go one. It's it's the countdown like you're counting backwards in in all of that. That's going to happen at the end.

: Yeah. Yeah. Like you're going back to the future uh or something like that.

: Yeah. Back to the past. Miss Doug Jada, welcome in. Is there anything else that we we haven't covered? You haven't we haven't touched on because we touched on a lot of digital ministry that you would think that anybody listening to this podcast would want to know or think about as maybe they're considering trying to be a Twitch streamer or trying to help their church understand what is really happening and what is God up to.

: Oh, that's a that's a do you know who you are talking to? I could see I know you could any one of these gun things for hours.

: Um so two minutes go. First of all, I would like every church if you can if you have any inroad into your church to your pastor who does not know that there are so many Christians and people looking for Christians online to talk to looking for Bible readings. There are so many people wanting to read the Bible or hear the Bible but don't know where else to go and have come to Twitch for it and are finding it on Twitch.

: Get your pastor to somehow get his his own Twitch channel or YouTube channel to have the live service available for anyone with a camera. Set up the camera. Get talk to him first. Obviously, don't just camera, you know, live recording to my channel. Um, but yeah, work with your pastor, local pastor to get that done because there are so many churches that I want to know more about, but I but they're local and they don't have a website. They don't have a channel. Get it set up. Make sure that there is an online presence for your church, for your pastor, even for your local Bible study. You can have that be a live stream. And you don't necessarily have to always be chatting and having all the bells and whistles of a Twitch stream, but just stream it.

: And um about getting into streaming, well, just a comment in chat and I would I would agree with but if you're when you step into doing that, make sure there is someone online to answer chat. Don't just put it up live for and none unattended. You you're not you're not promoting this just to make content online because there's plenty of content online. It's to make connection so that people can be in community.

: So that's that would be the goal there is putting it up to connect with people so you can get them in community with you locally if they're local and online community if they're farther away.

: Yeah. Banana, welcome in. Hello Banana Hannah and says Pineapple. Good to see you as well. Um, what is Oh, sorry. Sis Pineapple, a person in your church mentioned they were looking into digital ministry last week, so you gave the link to the European conference.

: Oh, awesome. Thank you so much, Sis Pineapple. Um, we are technically just hour we are 12 hours away from that conference. So, I didn't promo that, but if you go to missionary.digital and you are from Europe, that conference is in 12 hours. Uh essentially if my time is right about 12 hours from now. So that means I will be back up streaming it here. So if you come in here, I may not be really awake and attentive to the chat, but uh I'll I plan on trying to stream it here.

: Yeah. So yeah, that's a good thing. Get like like you did, get uh your anyone you know who would like to get interested in Twitch streaming, get them to just Google uh a good uh example of a good Twitch streamer and see how they do it and take from them how to do it because it's a lot more simple than you would expect. Like you do need a camera, you do need a computer or even just a console. You can just stream games directly from your console these days. Um, you have to have a microphone. Uh, but if you feel called, if you feel like you could have a good outreach online, on console, through gaming, through chatting, through prayer, through Bible reading, anything you want to do in those ways and you want, you think God could use you, do not hesitate. It is both. It is easier than you would ever expect. It is harder to get a large following than you would expect, but there are ways to grow even so.

: And the best way for anyone to grow on Twitch or on any platform is to network with other streamers. Mhm. That's just that's the way it is. It's like with with what we're doing right now, there is a lot of cross-pollination going on. Yes. Where my followers are following flat capactor and his are following mine and new people are coming in and seeing both of us and people are willing to follow dozens if not hundreds of of streams and you can you can reach the follower ma follow Max I I actually have hit that where what yes there is a max that you can follow um I I what is that by the way I'd have to go back and look but it's it's I don't know if it's 1,000 or 2,000 and whatever it is. But I I was following people like people would come into my stream, I'd follow them back when I first started. And I'd go over to another Christian streamer and I would follow people who were Christians in the chat because there weren't a lot to begin with. So I was like, "Oh, I want to follow you so I can find you later if you ever stream." And and then at some point it was like, "Oh, wait a minute. I followed a bunch of people that aren't streaming. I have to eliminate them." And and went through and did. So you can max out the number of followers that you people are following.

: Yes, I never even thought about that, but yeah. So anyway, so that's a lot of people is uh one view counts for a lot more than you would expect. You know, it's like one person can be watching five people at once. Uh anyway, so there's a lot more I could say. There's there's a whole list of things. Um but you know the main thing is to have not the main thing but one one good thing is to have people in your life who are able to watch you or follow you. Just word of mouth locally, friends, family. Uh but even even if you don't have that, do not allow the follower number or uh those discouragements to get in your head because how you feel at the moment does not matter when it comes to actually doing the thing.

: If you're doing the thing and you are consistent in your time, that's a massive that is probably the mo number one thing is stay consistent with the time that you go live so that people when they come to your stream, they know when you're streaming. Even if you don't have a schedule, if you do have a schedule, that helps too. But having the the schedule be consistent of when you are there.

: Yeah. Uh really and just being consistent with that. If it's one day a week, two days a week, three days a week, doesn't matter. Stay consistent with that. And obviously do not immediately go 24/7. Do not immediately go 12 hours a day, seven days a week. That's what I tried to do and it it worked for a few weeks. I burned myself out quite badly.

: But um that will not work. Even there there is a a ratio thing where if you stream 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, you are not actually doing much better than if you streamed 3 days a week for 2 hours each day. Something like that. There's this weird thing where there's a cut off of increase the numbers, increase the hours and you will grow. And then it just caps off, you know, uh the law of diminishing returns happens and it happens pretty at a pretty low threshold.

: Um so there are some people who have way more followers than I do, like in the millions who only stream like twice a week. It's just how they do it. And you know, there's also people call it luck. I don't know if it's luck. I think there's a lot of different things. Are you willing to follow the algorithm? I'm not specific. But if you do follow the algorithm, do what you should be doing. You can just Google this, you know, how to get bigger on Twitch. How to make the algorithm bump you up. You know, you you follow those, you will be golden. So, do not be discouraged. Um, God can use you. That's that's that's what I would say.

: All right. Well, I I think along those lines, too, the the encouraging uh within your local community, if you're going to do something, yeah, let people know what you're doing. I've had I've had some people, they go to their pastor, and their pastor's like, "Yeah, uh, okay. We need somebody in the sound booth, so you can do that because you just told me you know tech. Um, but we're not going to help support what you're doing." So, don't get discouraged by that. Um, stay worked because you were talking about being worked. So whatever you are doing, don't just be an alone streamer. Surround yourself with other Christian streamers and other supporters who you can share what's going on, who you can talk to, who you can do prayer concerns with um with so that you're not carrying the burden and the discouragement alone.

: You can talk with other people and they can go, "Oh man, yeah, I remember when I had all those bot raids. That was a woo, that was a doozy." So, I'm you're going through that. Okay. Well, uh if you have any problems, I can help you. Otherwise, I just here to listen and and encourage you because oh, that'll be okay.

: Um you know, is have that group of of people together. And there are growing groups of people who intentionally are streaming together as collaborative groups. Uh and there are some that are just like we're just friends on mission wherever we are. I know Charles, Charles knows me. We're we hang in the same similar circles and we're going to just elevate and support one another. So I think that's a good thing. That's a good word to end on.

: It is. Yep. Stay stay worked. Stay in. It's the body of Christ, you know. It is it is the church. Like we are the church. Each individual is part of the what the apostles creed calls the holy Catholic church with a little C. It is the universal but diverse and separate people around the world who believe in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior and born again. And anyone who is is uh part of the church and um we can if anyone any Christian exists we can support one another even if we differ in our views on secondary things.

: So, absolutely. Well, hey, it is it has been a pleasure having you on here. Fun conversation. Wishing you all the best, friend. And uh the guy who said your voice was was awful. And why like you I don't know what he's talking about. I love listening to your voice. I mean, I think you're fantastic. I I appreciate that. I I think it's great.

: Well, I appreciate that, too, because uh my voice has definitely changed over the the years. Uh, I had a very bad microphone as well. Uh, so I'm sure I sounded like a robot at the time. So maybe that was what he was saying.

: It was a rude but still. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. All right. Well, I'm going to raid over. Thank you. Thank you.

: Thank you everyone for hanging out with us. You have made this a great conversation. I am so sorry we missed half of the chat. It was going by so fast. She had such great thoughts, but we were deep in conversation and uh I just pray you have a blessed day.

: Thank you so much for having me. Going to rate over to you. God bless you. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Goodbye. Goodbye. Thank you. Goodbye. Goodbye.