EP272-Stuart McPherson & Planting a Metaverse Church

Welcome to the Church Digital Podcast. Through this podcast, we'll talk about the technological

innovations within the church. But more than tech for tech itself, we'll address deeper questions.

Is disciple making possible digitally? How should we approach the digital mission field?

Can a biblically grounded church operate in digital space? Oh, and where does the metaverse

fit into all this? Whether you're a big or small church, an established church, or a startup church

plant. The Church Digital's goal is to help churches like yours learn to be a multiplying church,

digitally and physically. Our heart, that churches like yours will discover a newfound focus on

disciple making that will revolutionize your church. And now, here's your host, Jeff Reed.

Hey, everybody. Welcome to Church Digital Podcast. This is going to be a fun podcast. We are in the

middle of season five, how to take your digital ministry, how to take your metaverse ministry,

to the next level. And we've got a great guest coming in in the podcast here today. Now, remember,

this season, we're talking a lot about leadership network and their learning communities that are

coming up. We're doing a digital ministry, learning community, and we're doing a metaverse ministry,

learning community. We're talking about how to level up digital churches, how to take digital

churches to the next level, how to do the same thing with metaverse ministry. And really,

the metaverse is what we want to focus on today. By the way, before I get into that, I forgot to give

you the URLs. If you're interested in checking out more information on the learning communities,

check out leadnet.org slash DLC for the digital learning community or leadnet.org slash MLC for the

metaverse learning community. Hopefully, you see how that works. Leadnet, L-E-A-D-N-E-D.org slash DLC or MLC.

And I am honored today. I've teased this guy two times and I'm watching him off screen cracking up as

I'm having this conversation right now. I'm happy to bring in Stunami into the conversation. Stunami.

It's great to have you here. Stunami.

Stunami.

Stunami. That's not how it's said, right? You're like Mark Lutz. I don't know how to pronounce your

name. Stunami. Stunami, right?

Stunami. Yeah, Stunami. But I thought the short version was Stun. Is it not Stun? I'm confused at

this moment. So Mark and Jay have both called me Stun from the chat because they just see the short,

they see the full name, my full metaverse name, Stunami. So my name's Stuart, for anybody who's not

aware. It says Stuart, and I turned that into Stunami. And so in the chat, when I've been into

like their Twitch streams, they just see Stunami pop up. And for whatever reason, both of their brains

went to just reading the first four letters. And so I went from Stuart to Stunami to now I'm just a

stunning, good looking individual.

Yeah, that was a nice play right there. You're a stunning, good looking individual on a podcast.

You've never looked greater on this podcast. Maybe our YouTube audience can just soak in the greatness

that is your, by the way, you do ministry in virtual reality. Once again, probably not the best place for a

stunning, stunning individual like you. Stunami. Stunning, good looking individual.

Very, very good. Man, we're not even five minutes into this thing and we are off the rails. So

listen, Stuart has been a friend for a while now. And we just have seen his church, Lakeland Church,

do some incredible things in virtual reality. And it's funny, we were even just talking offline today

where, hey, Stuart, you may not consider yourself this, but I think he's growing into the

idea of being the metaverse ministry expert. Like Stu, still to this day, I don't know of anybody else

in the country that is full time, whose only priority is metaverse. Now, I know you've picked

up some digital responsibilities here in a little bit, but that wasn't at a discredit of what's

happening in the metaverse. There was a need in digital space. And so you are still pioneering

in this space, really championing this idea of a full-time physical church doing metaverse

ministry in ways that very few, if any churches are really doing before. How does that feel? How's it

feel to be that guy? I tell you, Jeff, it's still super awkward, I guess would be the right word to use

for that. Just like, you know, my wife, anytime she has to tell somebody what it is that I do for a living,

she's like, I really don't know how to explain what it is that you do to somebody else. And I say,

I tell her, I'm like, it's okay, because I don't know how to explain what I do to anybody else either.

But I get paid full time to do it. And I'm having a lot of fun. I would say this, if there's any real

way of like, surmising how I feel about it. It's, you know, we talked about this before on my discord,

my bio on there, it just simply says, attacking the gates of hell, all around the world through

like through a headset through the metaverse, right. And I think that really surmises how I feel about

this. I'm just excited because that's how I'm wired and I'm getting to do it. So it's fun. It's a lot

of fun. That's awesome. And that's the right answer to have. I was just, I was just a guest on

Stunami's podcast, which is called metaverse church podcast. Yeah. Metaverse church podcast is part of

the TCD podcast network. I was a guest on that. I mean, probably by the time this airs, maybe a month

ago, but had a chance to talk about metaverse mission trips. And that's one of the things that,

that we'll get into a little bit with this conversation, but Stunami Stuart's going to be

helping me lead this leadership network learning community that, that we are putting together and

doing. It's going to be two physical meetups and three online meetups this fall. And so if your

church is interested in doing metaverse ministry, man, come hang out with Stu and I, we're going to be

at, uh, at, uh, core at, uh, community Christian church, uh, Dave Ferguson's church, uh, up in, uh,

in Illinois. And we're going to be hanging out at Northwood, uh, church in Keller, Texas in, in,

in December. So, uh, we'll get, we'll get Chicago in September before it freezes over. And then we'll

be down in Texas in December, which may be a little cold, but not as bad as, as what, uh,

as what Stunami Stu, I'm glad you're in virtual reality ministry. Cause you know, where you are,

are Minnesota or Wisconsin? I can never remember Wisconsin, like Wisconsin. At what point does

like the world freeze over and you just turn into like the, the, the frozen, let it go like world

man on a good year in the two, three years that I've been here about the end of October,

we can maybe start like predicting the first snow come in, but here we are at like at the time of

this recording, most people in the U S right now are experiencing spring and kind of gearing up for

summertime. And, uh, I still have all my winter clothing out. Yeah. I mean, you'd look, if you're

watching on YouTube, you'd look quite warm right now. You got, you got the long sleeve jacket on and

yeah, man. Awesome. That's good for you. That's a good time. Yeah. I mean, just stay warm and enjoy

that virtual reality ministry. So that's kind of the best part is like doing VR ministry. Like I have

the ultimate control over the weather and our VR campus and we can have service outside every single

weekend under the stars if I want. And it's like a nice 75 degrees. Cause that's what my thermostat

says. So I tell you what, why don't we just transition right off that 70,000 degrees church under the

stars. Talk to us a little bit here. You know, I don't think I, you know, I've done a lot of

interviews with you and like leadership network podcasts and different things, but I'm actually

trying to think when it's been a minute since you've been on this, the church digital podcast.

So tell my audience a little bit here, like what metaverse ministry looks like for, for you,

what, what actually doing ministry, doing church looks like, um, and, and where you're at now that,

you know, all spaces is gone. What, what have you evolved into in recent months?

Yeah. So here's the crazy part, Jeff. Uh, you just brought to my realization that I actually don't

know that I've ever been on this podcast before. I don't, I don't want to call myself out publicly,

but I was, I was doing all of my, my virtual reality stuff over on leadership network show.

And I know you were over there and I did leadership network podcasts with you and panels. And, and I,

I, you're new, this is your first time on this show, bro. And so first off, welcome to the show.

Glad you could join us. But, uh, yeah, this is, that's, this is, this is a sudden realization for

me. It's like, man, well, I'm glad we could have you on the flagship, but tell me, tell me a little

bit about ministry. Look, before I get into that, I do have to say this, like you, you sit there and

you start this whole podcast talking about how I'm the expert in this field. And I don't know that

that's necessarily true or if I bought into that yet, but you got to know what it feels like for me to

be the guy that you're calling the expert. And I listened to this podcast on a regular basis and

I've never been invited. I'm like calling me out. Oh my gosh. He doesn't even, he says all these

things just to kind of pump me up. And that never invites me onto the church digital podcast. And I

don't even know how I feel right now. So all that being said, all that being said. Oh my gosh.

Yeah. So metaverse ministry, man. Well, no, no, no, no, no, no. You can't do that to me.

Oh, dang it. All right. All right. Publicly, this podcast is so far off the rails. I love every

second of this. I publicly apologize to Stunami, Stuart McPherson for not having him specifically

on my show until episode embarrassingly. What is this? What did I say? This was 272, 272.

I have managed to have 271 other conversations than Stuart McPherson, who I am suggesting is the

expert in virtual reality ministry in 2023. Now I have certainly brought him into other

conversations. I've empowered him in other ways. But I, for contractual reasons that I am not able

to get into on air, did not have him on my show here. So Stuart, will you humbly forgive me?

Oh man, I forgive you so much, Jeff. I'm just honored that I do get to be here. And look, as we are

talking about metaverse ministry and we're talking about how the show is like already off the rails

right now, I feel like those two things really, they go hand in hand with each other because I

think what a lot of people typically think of when they hear the idea of church in the metaverse or

church, uh, specifically in virtual reality, I think that they think that the church is off the rails

in the process of that. Like, what are we even thinking about bringing church into these spaces?

And to be honest with you, um, uh, podcast that my co-host Goose and I did, we even talked about how

church in the meta, in the metaverse, what it's actually doing is this slaughtering the sacred

cows of the church. And we're starting to realize that there's a lot of things that we, as the church,

uh, felt like were, uh, non-negotiables that you had to have in order to be considered the church,

uh, whether that's certain days or times or however you are doing ministry that also realizing, especially

in the metaverse, those are sacred cows that we're able to bring to the altar and just leave them

there and say, let's just do what God has called us to do, which is to be the hands and feet of Jesus

in these spaces. Um, so it's a lot of fun, you know, us over at Lakeland, uh, we've been in virtual

reality for over two years now. Um, it started off as just what was supposed to be a six month trial,

uh, let's see if we can get a church started in there. If we get nothing more than a small group

that's meeting in VR, we would consider that a win. Um, and two years later, we were still going,

we have a team, we officially call it a campus. So we see it as a multi-site campus. Um, and, uh,

we're just doing it every single week. So like you said, we, we were in alt space. That's originally

where we launched into these days. We are in spatial, uh, dot IO, uh, and really kind of investing

our time in that space right now. And, uh, yeah, man, we're just having a lot of fun and doing this

just because we're, we're getting the opportunity to meet with people that you wouldn't typically

find walking in through the physical doors of the church. And yet they're, uh, finding their way

into our virtual reality campus and bringing solid, solid questions about faith and religion as a whole,

um, to our VR campus. And, and just watching, we're having fun watching the needle move on

people's spiritual journeys on that, on that meter. I, I love your church. Uh, I, you know,

I met, I met, I tell, I tell the story a lot. I met Josh Amstutz, the lead pastor there met him

before COVID and, uh, was, I vividly remember the first time I met him on a zoom call was through

Stadia church planting. And, uh, Greg Nettle, who's the president of C, uh, and of Stadia was on the

call with me. It was the three of us. And, uh, Greg introduced me to Josh and Josh told me that he

was very passionate about seeing Lakeland, uh, launch a VR campus. And, uh, I, I just, I remember,

you know, almost embarrassingly. So I just had this look of awestruck on my face, just was almost

speechless, uh, because it was the first time I had actually heard a lead pastor, you know, say the

words VR. I didn't even know. I, and this is the joke that I told Josh at the moment. I was like,

I didn't even know a lead pastor could spell VR. Like this is, this is a whole new world for me.

You know, in, in 2019 COVID brought a bunch of, of, of that around, but to 2019, early 2020 before

COVID hit, whenever this meeting was, uh, it was, was phenomenal to see, you know, Josh with that

vision and Stu, this was before you were even at the church. I believe you came during COVID. And so to

see the church with that vision kind of dive into it so early, uh, and to see ministry happening as a

result and pioneering. Um, it's interesting to me that you say it's a multi-site campus. I would

love for you to maybe to unpack because you're, you're, you're aware of physical ministry. You've

had, you've had traction in physical space. You're, you are now doing virtual reality. You are somewhat

getting back connected into digital because there's a vacuum at this moment. Um, talk to me a little

bit. What are some similarities and maybe what are some differences between physical ministry and,

um, and, uh, virtual reality ministry? Yeah. So, um, I grew up in a multi-site church and, uh, so even from

the, uh, I wouldn't say it necessarily on the onset of it, but quickly after we launched into even doing

VR ministry, we just came to the realization that just because of what technology provides us, we were

able to really live stream our services that were currently going on in real time into the VR platform

that we're meeting in, which again was all space at the time. Now it's, uh, spatial, but, um, what that

really kind of freed me up to do is really be the campus pastor for our VR campus in the sense that,

okay, we'll let our senior pastor do the heavy lifting on the teaching side, um, and really bring

it in a lot of that DNA aspect in the teaching. Um, well, I'm there for really soul care and helping

people develop or take a next step on their spiritual journey. Um, and so what we ended up

really kind of quickly finding out and realizing was this really isn't something that could be done

with a single person, but it was going to take a team. So I started to look at what does a physical

church plant, uh, or campus have, and what do we need to bring into VR that a physical campus would

have? And a lot of it was, well, we have people who are out in the parking lot, waving people in and

saying hi, like right when they get onto the campus, we have people who are holding open doors, welcoming

people in. We've got a next step station, uh, greeters, all that kind of stuff, uh, all the,

all those kinds of people, prayer team and whatnot. And I was like, we need all of this in virtual

reality because if, if you have one person who's just doing it, then all of a sudden you don't have

every single person who is popping into the environment who is being greeted. If I'm having a

conversation with somebody with all their thousands of questions that they're bringing in about

Christianity or any other religion whatsoever, then we don't have somebody there who can pray for

somebody who is needing prayer at that moment in time. Um, at the end of the service, I can't,

as an individual connect with every single person to talk about what their next step might be. I can

platform what all those next steps might be, but the one-on-one conversation just can't happen.

So we looked at all that and said, if a, if the physical expression of the church needs all of this

in order to help shepherd people along their spiritual journey, then the VR campus also needs

those people to help shepherd our VR attenders along their spiritual journey as well. So, um,

even in the process of us officially launching the campus in, uh, March, 2020,

where are we at three? So at 2022, um, we just proposed and we invited people in on this journey

with us. And I actually went to our current physical teams and said, that person is a great

greeter. I wonder if they'll put on a headset and do that in virtual reality. That person is a solid

prayer team member. I wonder if they would do that and put on a headset and do it in virtual reality.

And so we just gave the invitation and we just built this thing, uh, to go and be the

real physical expression of Lakeland in virtual reality.

That's fascinating. I don't, I don't know that I've had this conversation with you ever before.

Like, so you read, this is my first time on your show, Jeff, who knew like there's so much depth

to where you're at. So you recruited, like what I'm hearing you is you recruited a physical church

greeter and said, let me teach you how to put on this headset and do virtual reality.

Now come do this for, for my, it's like you quite literally, you can give me names of people

that joined your ministry doing that route. Yep. Yeah, absolutely. That's incredible.

Like what, what's there, what did those initial conversations, were people excited? Were they

mortified? Were they know, were they laughing at you? Like what, how, how did like that first

conversation go? Yeah, sure. Um, so I, above all, I would say that it was just interest. I think there

was just more of like, I'm interested in what we are doing as a church in virtual reality. Um,

and then what they needed to hear was just the contextualization of me saying exactly what you

do right now for the church. I want you to do that in VR. So like we have one guy, he's one of our team

members, um, love this dude to death. Um, in fact, I believe he is a virtual reality pastor in the

making. And I've told him this, I've told him that, um, specifically for VR chat of all places. I think

that's where he would thrive, but anyways, yeah. But he, he's never met anybody that wasn't already

his best friend. Um, and so like I brought him with me on a trip. Actually, you've met him before.

Um, I brought him with me to one of the learning communities down in Houston. And it was just one

of those, like, I knew that he was going to pull me out of my comfort zone just because like who he is,

he's going to drag you along with them for the most part. Um, but he does this with every single

person that walks onto the property. He wears this big old foam hand and he's high-fiving kids and

he's welcoming people onto the site. Uh, and again, he's everybody's best friend. I was like, dude,

if you would just bring that mentality into virtual reality, like if you're chasing people down and

saying, Hey, give me knocks, give me a high five, whatever it is. If you just let people know who are

spawning into our event, that they are seen and you're just trying to get like any kind of

information from them whatsoever. It's like, dude, that's going to be such a huge win because

like we know in, in VR and digital ministry as a whole, like if you're streaming your service on

Facebook, anybody can come and see it for like two seconds and then pop, they're gone. But in virtual

reality, you can't just scroll through the service on like all the other feeds that are going on.

Like you have to intentionally decide to enter into that environment. And so for us, it was, we want

to get you right when you pop in. So just like the parking lot, right when you get in, you're getting

waved at. We placed team members right at the spawn point. So when you came in, it was like, dude, I see

you. I'm so glad that you're here. And for us, that was a sticky moment. Like most likely somebody was

going to at least give us more than just 30 seconds of their time. We were now going to at least get

two to five minutes, if not the entire length of the service. So it was intriguing for them

by me just saying, Hey, we have a VR campus, what you're doing. I want you to do it in there.

Would you be willing to do this? And then it just turned into interest meetings. So just in the same

way that a physical church or church planner would start hosting interest meetings, we started doing

it for our VR campus, presented the idea, the information to everybody, vision cast it and

said, okay, who wants to come with us? And then from there, we invested in more headsets,

started having team meetings. And then we officially launched Easter 2022 of our VR campus. So that

would have been like our third version of what we started back in 2021.

Yeah. Yeah. That's the dates make sense. Cause I was like, no, no, no, you've been doing since 21,

but that that's good. Yeah.

Um, you know, it's, it's really, it's fascinating to me and what you're starting to allude to is,

is the, the similarities between the ecclesiology, between the functions, the operation of a,

of a physical church and a virtual reality church. You know, it's interesting. Virtual reality is far

more controversial than, than a digital church. I can, you know, I'll say, I'll say the words virtual

reality and baptism on a YouTube video, and I'll get slammed on, on, on YouTube as a result of that.

But, um, but really like the, the actual functions, as long as you recognize you're

not breathing the same air molecules, the, the functions of the church are very similar. And so

like you're alluding to, to that really well. And so the controversy of virtual reality church

of churches in that space are, are huge. Um, and just 10 times more hate for me at a personal level

centered around virtual reality. And that's been, that's been well documented. Now, what people cannot

argue with is the idea of, of the mission field of virtual reality, like the missional implications

of that space where people are literally utilizing this technology to step into virtual worlds, to

literally talk. Like that's what people go into virtual reality for. There is a world called VR chat

because of this exact reason people go into virtual reality to chat. It's built around a conversation.

And so what better place to, to look at, uh, evangelism, to, to look at, uh, sharing Jesus,

to, to look at being a, a missionary. And so, you know, it's interesting. I was on Stu's podcast or

stuns podcast. You know, you so rude to me earlier. I may forget your name, man. I may turn you into

Mark Lutz or Lutz or whatever that guy's name is. Um, I love, I love Mark, Mark, you're listening to

this. I love every bit of you. My tongue is not genetically aligned to say your last name correctly.

I'm sorry. Uh, but I would, uh, I would look at, um, you know, I was on Stu's podcast talking about

this and there was actually a relevant article written recently where, um, I'm working with a church,

uh, on doing what we think is the first metaverse mission trip where that, that church, we're doing

some training in June and July with the church. And they're, they're trying to get people to go

be the church and to go be on mission, to be on a mission trip in virtual reality. You know, just like

you would, you know, you go into Bolivia, you need to do a mission trip. You, you buy a thousand

dollar plane ticket to Bolivia. You have to pay for the visa. You have to make sure your passports

to lines. You got to pay for a hotel. You're going to have to pay for food. You're going to have to

miss a week worth of work. You're probably going to pay a couple thousand dollars to go be on mission

in Bolivia. You got to learn the language. You got to adapt to the culture. You're going to do some,

some physical activities. You're going to walk around and meet people and share about Jesus,

uh, on the street or help out the physical ministry that's happening there. But you're going to spend a

week worth of time and spend a couple of hours, uh, to be on mission in, in, in Bolivia.

And so we believe, and we're actually doing this through the learning community that we're doing

through Leadership Network. We believe that you can do, uh, and be, uh, a metaverse missionary.

And actually our hope is to empower 250 people over, uh, 20, 2023 to be missionaries in, in the

metaverse, uh, to bless people. You know, somebody wrote a book on bless in, in the metaverse.

The name's escaping me. Uh, Oh, Dr. Dr. John Harris. That's who I'm thinking. But you know,

I know him. Yeah. Yeah. That guy, that guy's smart. The other, the other guy, I don't know.

He's a little flaky that the other guy. Um, but we, we wrote a book on, uh, on, on blessing people,

on being digital and metaverse missionaries. And so we're inviting to, we're inviting churches,

just like we, we did this one that's happening this summer. We're in, and we're, uh, we're inviting

churches to join us on this mission, uh, to be digital and metaverse missionaries, to, to be

on mission in the metaverse, in, in, in virtual reality. Stu, how do you, when you look at like

relational evangelism and, and even like, we were having a conversation earlier, even talking about,

uh, trauma infused evangelism, which is, uh, I think very helpful in, in, in metaverse, like these,

these different, these different approaches of, of having conversations and being a relational. Do you

see that? Do you see that working? Like have, have you seen that or experienced something in your

life that, that speaks to that? Yeah. So, uh, you know, I did an event in Altspace before I shut

down, um, that was actually really intriguing to me. Uh, I mean, I went to my senior pastor and I just

said, Hey, I want to run an event that is separate of Lakeland. Um, and I'm just, I want to see what

conversations sparked from it. Um, and basically the event was, you know, Altspace gave us the ability

back then to advertise on a main event board. And I just put on the main event board, um, what is wrong

with the church today? And, uh, just left it wide open. And when people started coming into the event,

I left the, I, uh, well, I opened up the event and I set, I established the ground rules of, um,

I'm not muting anybody in this event and I'm not shutting down any conversation in this event

other than if you are somebody who carries the banner of Jesus and you start trying to defend

the church, I will shut that one down. This event is just for people to voice their concerns or what

they think is wrong with the church today, because I knew, uh, that that was going to welcome and invite

many people in. So like you brought up trauma, um, trauma informed, trauma infused evangelism,

uh, is a book that you and I are both familiar with. Um, and I think that's what people are looking

for these days is they're just looking to voice their hurt or their, uh, their disgust, if you will,

with, uh, about the church. And so that in and of itself is, is missional. It's understanding the

culture of the people that you're with and letting them inform you as the, as the follower, as the

missionary, uh, as to what their spiritual temperature is. And then it gives you all the information that

you really need to be able to meet them where they're at. So you're no longer trying to force

a conversation or force anything upon the individual, but you're actually getting to know who this person

is on a relational level. And then they invite you to be able to speak into their life. And so,

you know, we did that and I saw a lot of great success that came along with it. I also would say

that for those who were carrying the banner of Jesus into the, uh, event, it was eyeopening for them

to learn like, Hey, maybe the old traditional ways of how we do things don't necessarily

work or play well within these environments. Um, but that's separate to what we typically do for a

service in, in VR as Lakeland, because we live stream. That's not necessarily missional in its

approach. It's very typical to a physical church Sunday service. Uh, uh, uh, arena is established

and we're waiting for people to walk in to participate in the service. Whereas doing something

like that, it was, we're going out onto the mission field to just get to know people first. And if they

allow us to speak into their lives at that point, then we were awarded that opportunity based off of

just being there and being known. Um, so yeah. Is it, is it difficult to connect those two? Like,

do you feel like you built a relationship or are still building a relationship with some of those

people? All space is dead. So that makes things difficult, but like connecting the dots towards

getting them into a physical ministry or something towards long-term, what would something like that,

that look like to turn some of those, um, skeptics that you had a conversation with in, in the,

in that meeting, uh, and building relationships that could point to Jesus?

Yeah. So with those people, even some of the people that have popped into our services,

I've always provided the next step of like, because they do come in with their questions,

um, or their concerns, I just invite them to follow us on discord. So we made our discord super simple

to find. We just say, you know, just go to Lakeland discord.com and that's the invite link. So as soon as

you type that in and drops, you write in. Right. Um, but then I give them the, the invitation to find

me on there and send me a friend request. So, um, you know, I tried really hard to make sure that

whatever my name is on in the VR platforms is the same or close to what my discord name is. And I invite

them to continuing the conversation outside of that environment. Um, and let's walk through scripture

together. Like if you have questions, like let's let God's words speak for itself. And anytime that

we come across anything, even if it's like the first word of whatever book that we're reading through,

if it causes you to have a question or concern, then let's stop and let's explore that together.

Um, so it's just, I didn't know like, Hey, I, I actually want to be with you on this journey.

I don't want to just present something to you and, and assume that you are now going to be a

car carrying member of Lakeland or, you know, the movement of Jesus. It's like, dude, I know that

this is a process. I'm still on the journey myself. Like it's a continual learning, uh, process.

And so I just invite them to take it outside of just that one conversation and actually turning

it into a relational thing. And we've had some people that have taken me up on that.

I think like the coolest one is like, we've had some, um, uh, Muslim missionaries, if you will,

pop into some of our services in order to kind of spark debate, I guess. Um, and we even had one

guy that he came in and, you know, he was just like, look, I don't believe what you guys believe

in. And he goes, in fact, I'm actually, uh, I I'm a Muslim. Um, he says, but I've always had

questions. And I was like, dude, great. And so he started asking his questions. And as one point,

I was like, can we, can we pause for a second? I was like, dude, what I would really love for you

to do is tell me what you know about Christianity or what you think, you know, about Christianity.

Let's start there. And then let's kind of see where that goes. And by the time it was all said

and done, I was able to tell him, and this ended up becoming a conversation off VR and into discord,

but I was able to, I was like, so what, what you just told me is that you believe Christianity is a

little bit of Jehovah witness, a little bit of Mormonism, a little bit of whatever. And you think

that is the Christian faith because all of these people are proclaiming Jesus. I said, you have a

very muddy picture of the Christian faith and of who Jesus is. It was like, let's try to clear up the

mud a little bit. Let's try to get to clean water and then walk from there to answer the questions.

I said, because I believe the misconceptions that you have of Jesus right now are what's making it

difficult for you to fully understand the text of what God's word is saying. And it's muffing,

it's muffling your ears to hearing God's truth right now. Um, and so that ended up becoming a

conversation offline online, try to cope with that one, um, of us walking together through just God's

word and just being able to answer some questions.

That's interesting. And so at no point did the Muslim F-bomb you or get really mad and offended

at the conversations you were having?

No, I've had those, but not him.

What percentage of people are, are, are, are, you know, get offended in, in virtual reality? Like,

cause I, I'll just be honest, I've not had, I've had maybe one or two out of all the conversations

I've had. Like it's a very small percentage. Is that the same for you?

Yeah. It's, I would say that it's small. I would say that that small percentage is obviously also

the loudest voice in the room. Um, and I think that it changes per platform as well. I think

because a lot of churches were hopping into all space at one point, like when we got into it two

years ago, pretty much every event that we put on, we were inviting the trolls in like bugs to a bug

zapper. Um, but as more churches were hopping into the platform, the less trolls we were seeing.

And I kind of feel like it was just the mentality of, well, they're not going away. In fact, more

of them are coming in. So there's just no point of even trying to fight this anymore. Um, now that

all space is shut down, you go to a platform, like let's say big screen, anytime that I run something

at a big screen, I'm guaranteed at least for every three people in the room, one of them is a troll

for sure. Uh, so you're talking about like a good third of the people in the room. Uh, definitely.

Uh, I mean, big screen is 15 people max. So probably about five will be trolls. Um, but they also have

the same mentality. Like if they, if they're, they're trying to disrupt, if, as long as you keep going

with the conversation or whatever your event is, they eventually just see themselves out. And we've

used that as an opportunity before of like, Hey, what? So you popped into this event, you know what

it's about because you know, we're not shy of church or Jesus or anything like that. Like

why do you feel the need to pop into this and start cussing us out or saying some of the vulgar

stuff that you do or whatever. And what has been interesting is there are some trolls that they

come back and they're like, well, the church is just blah, blah, blah. Are you Christians or just

blah, blah, blah, blah. I was like, and at any point in time in this conversation, have you heard me,

you know, put you down of your lifestyle or anything like that? Like you're on the attack of me right now.

And I'm just over here to like taking it full on and saying it like, Hey, I'm glad that you're

here. Like there kind of seems to be like, there's a weird thing going on with like, you feel like I'm

very judgmental and yet I haven't judged you once, but yeah, you're judging me hardcore for just the

title of the event that's in here. Um, and then it turns into a really sweet conversation of like,

well, you know, just all of you Christians. And I'm just like, yeah, well, we're pretty jacked up too.

That's what I'm trying to point out to you.

So yeah, it's just, uh, embracing, embracing the trolls. I have, I don't have a lot of big screen, uh,

experience like, like you do, but I have had multiple people tell me that that's probably more troll heavy.

Uh, so that's, it's interesting to see the trends there. Hey, through the, through the learning

community, um, we're wanting to help churches better understand virtual reality and, and, uh, the nuances

of ministry, how to, how to deal with trolls, how to have these conversations with people, how to

marry together the idea of the church service with, uh, uh, a metaverse virtual reality, um, missionary

team that that's out there that, that can be aggressive having these conversations and, and

building relationships, how to balance, um, evangelism centered, relational evangelism with

it. Uh, even, even the mission trip, Ryan sit home with, uh, with river, river city church. I just

blanked on the name river city church is, is that, that pioneer that said, Hey, he came up to me.

He's like, Hey, let's, let's do a metaverse mission trip. Uh, he had read both my books and

said, and I'll say, Hey, that's a great idea. And he says, you, I'm surprised you're not already

doing it because you talked about it in your book. And I was like, Oh yeah. So that's, that's a thing

too. So, um, but yeah, that's, that's what we want to do here. And, and, and honestly, like through

these learning communities, we're doing with leadership network with river city church. And we're

actually also working with GACX internationally, like the digital church network, TCD, the church

digital, we want to see 250 people, um, go on a metaverse mission trip in 23. And, and we would

love to see 10 churches planted, uh, in virtual reality. Like our hope is to see these churches,

get a taste for what metaverse ministry for a virtual reality ministry looks like, uh, to develop

stories to build up a volunteer core through the mission trip experience that can then help plant

a church in that space. We're hoping that these metaverse mission trips will literally lead people

to the persons of peace that churches will connect with persons of peace in virtual reality, that prayer

walking within these virtual reality space, God will indicate in their hearts, in their spirit,

where to go and that we will see at least 10 churches launched in virtual reality this year. And, and so

an incredible opportunity. Once again, it's a leadership at leadnet.org slash, uh, MLC, uh, for the

metaverse learning community. And, uh, I don't think I said this earlier, you get a hundred dollars

off, uh, we're going to, we're going to make this, uh, friends of Stunami. And so if you, if you type in

coupon code Stunami, S-T-U-N-A-M-I, you, you get a hundred bucks off, uh, off that. And so it's a,

it's a great opportunity to get connected with other churches that are on the journey, um, to, to walk

with some people like Stu, who's already been there, stunned, who's already been there, uh, knows the,

the past, knows where the skeletons are buried, knows where the pit holes are in the road.

Um, and, and, and can walk along that. And we, Stu and I were talking about this offline,

the idea of doing the mission trip first to allow your church to get acclimated to the culture

and to really understand the missional implications centered around relational evangelism. Oh my gosh.

Like the ability to walk in any questions or challenges your leadership has, dude, it's a

freaking mission trip. Why would you, are you, are you really suggesting that we're not able to go on a

mission trip? Um, no, every, everybody wants to go on a mission trip. You'll go on a mission trip

and through that mission trip, you're going to discover what the metaverse really is, what virtual

reality really is and the power that your church can have to reach people in that space. Um, and that's

gonna, I believe that's going to light your people on fire for the idea. Cause I've just, I've seen it

time and time again, where people don't understand it until they get that headset on. And then when they

get their headset on, it is, it's peddled to the metal because they see the power, the potential,

they see how the Holy spirit is, is moving in the pixels. I know that's weird, but it's, it's a

reality. God is moving inside those, those headsets. And so Stu, as, as we're looking at that, the

learning community, like I, and there's a lot of stuff you're teaching. There's a lot of stuff that

I'm teaching and talking through and experimenting and discussing and facilitating. Like what, what are some

things that you're excited about, uh, contextually over with the learning community?

Yeah, I think just what excites me the most is we're making it super practical for anybody to hop

in. Um, I think what I have learned within just the past year alone is that there are really a lot of

churches that are interested in this idea of metaverse ministry. They just don't know what it looks like,

what it means, how to go about it. Um, who is the person that, um, spearheads this for their church?

Um, most likely you probably have somebody in your church right now that would love to spearhead this

for you, even if it was like a 10 hour a week or a high capacity volunteer, because here's the thing,

like there are, I would, I would, I would guess the newest numbers are over 200 million active users

of virtual reality, um, to date over 200 million. Um, 70 million of those are in the United States

alone and probably a good two thirds of those U S users are guys. And if there's anybody that,

uh, if every church knows that the hardest community to reach are the dudes, but yet if

you can reach guys that end up transforming families, being the spiritual leaders that they

were called to be, man, you start changing the spiritual temperature of the world in that sense.

So, but 70 million people who are using VR right now. So you probably have at least one, if not more.

And that's what excites me is like, there are tons of opportunities for your church or you as an

individual to hop in. And we are about to give you the simple, easy, low hanging fruit handles on how to

go about doing that and taking all the guests to work out of it. And what I think that I put the

cherry on top in my opinion is that's actually my heartbeat right now is that we would see more and

more churches hopping into the metaverse. Um, I know that we left exponential as Lakeland. We left

exponential, uh, Orlando with just the dream to plant a hundred churches in 10 years, uh, in the virtual

reality spaces. In fact, we believe that it can happen even faster than that. And more churches that

the way that I even phrase is we want to at least plant a hundred churches and at most 10 years in

those, in those spaces. Um, and I just think that we are living in a day and age right now that this

is what God's calling the church into. So, uh, Jeff, can I get on a soapbox for a second?

You are more than welcome.

I mean, I know that this is your podcast and I'm a first time invitee, so I'm really kind of

place myself on an invite block, like chopping block, but you know, whatever.

Jab, jab. Well done.

Yeah. I would say this, like as church leaders, we know what we've been called to. Like we know that

the, our commissioning is to go into the world and make disciples. We are living in a day and an age

where the world is funneling itself into one specific location, which is the digital spaces

and 200 million of those people being in virtual reality. So if the church is having a hard time

getting out, there's a simple way of being able to do that. And that's by going in through a headset

and interacting with these people in real time that are going to end up going back into their own

homes, their own countries, their own businesses who are being introduced to Jesus for the very first

time, you know, seeds of hope being planted that are going to end up causing the Holy Spirit is going

to do what the Holy Spirit does. And there's going to be this great explosion of life transformation

that's going to take place. Reformation. I love it. Like, I just love what God's wanting to do.

In this day and age. But it's just, it's too easy not to do it. And I think that's just really the

hurdle that a lot of people need to just get over right now is like, man, if this is really that

simple, why wouldn't we do this? And I just think that through the learning community, that's what

you're going to see. I got asked right after we launched into VR, one of the guys, he's probably

one of the biggest evangelist prayer warriors that I've ever met. He asked me, he's like, hey, Stu, what do you

love most about doing church and virtual reality? And I thought about it for a little bit. And I just

almost like, I think what I love most is I became an international missionary without ever having to leave

my basement. I'm able to tell people from Indonesia, from China, from the Middle East, from UK, Canada, Mexico,

Brazil, all these locations that have come into our environments that in real life, I probably would

have never met. But I was able to meet these people, introduce them to Jesus, ask questions,

answer questions. And next thing I know, they're going off and taking that information into their

own homes. And I just love, like, there's going to be a point in time where I take my final breath on

this side of heaven and take my first one in heaven. And there's going to be people that I never met face

to face, but I know them based off of Avatar. And they're just going to tell me about how their life

was transformed, all due to the fact that we were diligent enough and obedient enough to take

Lakeland and Jesus into the VR spaces. I'm like, that pumps me up and keeps me going.

So crazy. Attacking the gates of hell via virtual reality. So very cool with that. You know, once again,

the information on the learning community is leadnet.org

slash MLC for metaverse learning community. There's a session in September physically, September in

the 20s. And then physical meetups, I'm sorry, Zoom meetups, October, November, a couple times in

there. Senator on the metaverse mission trip, where we're challenging churches to go to take their people

on a metaverse mission trip over the weeks of October 15th and November 15th. Spend five to 10 hours a

week. You decide as a church how long you want to do. We can do the training for you. We can equip you

to do the training. We'll talk about that either way. But we want to see 250 people in the metaverse

as missionaries. And that's a drop in the bucket for the potential of what can happen. And we're hoping

to see that idea multiply, even as we're hoping to plant 10 virtual reality churches in 2023. And so and then we've

got the metaverse learning community will have a physical meetup as well in December. And so more information

at leadnet.org slash MLC for that. Coupon code STUNAMI gets you a hundred bucks off because everybody loves

STUNAMI. This is good. Well, evidently I...

And everybody loves being... And everybody loves being a stunning individual.

Stunning individual.

This is your opportunity.

Very, very cool. Hey, so publicly, let's get you booked for the next podcast. I'm actually doing

a conversation with... Let me pull it up here to make sure I get the names right. Peyton Jones.

So we're talking about... Yeah, we're doing a podcast in season six. We're going to be talking about

the movement system for Digital Church Network. And we're talking about planting churches as part of

that. And Stu, for some reason, I think you would have a strong voice centered around planting churches.

So, hey, let's get you in the podcast conversation with Peyton Jones and I. But then on top of that,

so I'm your friend. I'm not the guy who's still Jew. That's literally 12 podcasts away, maybe 14

podcasts away. So in the next three months, you're going to be in another podcast. But talk to me a little

bit here about your passion for metaverse, for virtual reality church planting.

Yeah, absolutely. What's interesting is my wife and I, we went through a church planning assessment

probably about eight years ago now, and we thought that God was calling us into church planning.

And Peyton Jones was actually a very influential voice for me at the time when I was looking into it.

So very, very fun. But the assessment, the final project that all the church, potential church

planners, the assignment that we all had to go through was we had to figure out how to not just

plant a church, but by the time the assessment was over, we had to figure out how to plant 100

churches in 10 years. And so it was there at Expo where that phrase theology popped back,

came out of my mouth again for the first time in over eight years. And when we decided that maybe God

wasn't calling us to plant a church, the one thing that kind of like it stuck for me was I may not be

called to plant a church, but I might be called to plant churches. And, and so I think all of that is

kind of God planted that seed, uh, you know, eight years ago. And I had no idea that I was ever going

to be doing virtual reality ministry because that's definitely not what I went to school for. Um,

it's definitely not what I came to Lakeland for, but now I'm doing it. But I think it's what I felt

God was calling me to do, calling me to do and work. He has me right now. I just feel like this has

just been God working behind the scenes as he, as he does going, I'm going to take what you're

passionate about. And I'm going to show you where this is going to be put into play. And it's going

to come through planting churches and virtual reality. And so that's just the passion right now.

I just believe that, you know, the ministry was never really intended to, uh, be closed fist,

but to be open-handed. And I believe that there are people who they have the, the gifting to teach,

to reach people, to evangelize, um, that they need to get into these spaces. There are people who are

more on fire for like digital ministry and metaverse ministry as a whole, then probably then even I'm

on fire for it. And I want to equip these people to get into these spaces. Like I've said it before,

like I might, by the time that's all said and done, Jeff, I'm probably no longer going to be the

expert in this field. And I'm okay with that. And I, cause I want somebody who's got the passion for it

to take that passion in alongside with Jesus and set the metaverse on fire for the kingdom of God.

Um, and just watch that happen all over the world. So I'm, my passion is let's get the people who God

is really calling into these spaces, into these spaces, get them trained up, equipped and let them

run wild in reaching people. Um, and to see it, like I've said it on our, on my podcast with goose,

uh, the metaverse church podcast. I'm like, if there's 200 million people in the metaverse,

there needs to be 200 million churches. And I don't see somebody asked me once, like if you start

putting more and planting more churches in the metaverse, do you kind of see that turning into

like a competition within the churches for like FaceTime and you know, um, all that kind of stuff.

I was like, no, in fact, what I see more is I see more collaboration happening within the churches

and VR than I see in real life. And so I see like the VR is going to be the place where

the bride of Christ actually gets to be the bride of Christ and gets to be more of a representation

of the capital C church than the individual expressions of church. But you know, there's,

there's Oasis VR, there's Lakeland VR, there's Fox river, there's a cornerstone, there's a VR church,

MMO, and all of us. And there's more than that for sure. But all of us, we all don't reach the same

person and we don't speak to the same person. And that's why it's so important that we get more and

more churches in there. Because even for the sake of one, if we're able to reach one more person,

that's enough reason to plant another church within virtual reality. So it's just my passion. I believe

that God has just planted that a long time ago. And I'm just now starting to see what he, why he

planted that. And it's just been a season of cultivating and growth. And that's where we're at

today. I love it. Just because you're not the long-term expert doesn't mean you're not the expert

today. And the fact that you know, you're not the long-term expert and that you want to help platform

the long-term expert. I mean, honestly, that's, that's Jeffrey's playbook. So thank you for,

for doing what you're doing and helping to start. You know, you didn't, you didn't, I don't remember

if I heard a number, maybe, maybe you said it, but a hundred churches, a hundred churches in virtual

reality come wanting to be planted and wanting to come out of Lakeland church. Like this is a huge

undertaking to get there. Yeah. And to be honest with you, Jeff, like,

I think somebody is going to hear that and they're going to think like the single individual church

planner, like we have at Lakeland right now, we have a system that is set up in place. Like we're

ready to launch this thing. We're ready to start the first cohort of people who want to plant a church

in virtual reality. But we have really two different arms for this in the sense of like, if you're like,

like, if somebody is listening to this and they want to plant their own virtual reality church,

like reach out, uh, we'll put you in a cohort with other people that are wanting to plant churches

and we will help you in three months, launch your virtual reality church. At least you'll be ready

in three months. And whenever you feel like the timeline that God's calling you to plant happens,

that that's up to you. But in three months, you'll be ready. But at the same time, we also know that

there are churches that are interested in getting into metaverse ministry, into virtual reality.

Again, the question is like, how do you do this? And that's what I really love about this learning

community is I see the learning community and what we're doing with Lakeland right now, really going

hand in hand, because if you are a church leader, senior leadership, or, you know, an associate pastor,

and you want to get into the metaverse, come do this with us. We'll put you in a cohort in three

months. You guys will be ready to launch your church in the metaverse. And the best part is at that

point, you're not just sent off to go do this by yourself, but you will now be a part of a network

with a rallying of churches around you saying, dude, we're all in this together. Let's continue

learning. Because if there's anything that I've learned about doing church in VR so far is what

I know today is irrelevant tomorrow. In fact, the first podcast that or the second podcast that

Goose and I ever launched with the metaverse church podcast was a deep dive on, on alt space.

And like the day after we launched that episode, alt space shut down. We're like, all right, well,

episode two of our brand new podcast just became irrelevant. Um, but there's so many more

opportunities out there that, uh, we just need more. Um, and we're always going to be learning.

So you, you learn to plan a church in three months and you get a network by the time it's all done.

Yeah. Love it. It's, and that's, that's what I personally, that's what I love about this,

where the learning community gives you the opportunity to birth this thing.

And then working with Stu's network and coming alongside DCN where it's, it's underneath gives

that the legs, the long-term stability to, uh, to, to have this thing flourish and, and even multiply

again. And so, so often, you know, you go to the conference and you're left alone

and nothing ever happens. The learning community is designed to get action through the, uh, through

the mission trips and to empower your people to understand the implications and the contextualizations

of the gospel in that space. It's designed to help you plant that church and to see that church

flourish even after the learning community is over because we've got the relationship with Stuart

and his virtual reality church network. What is there, is there an actual branded name for the

network yet? I haven't, I, I, yeah, I just been, yeah, I just been calling it the VR church planning

network, VR church planning network. Awesome. It sounds right to me. Simple, minimal, that's great. So

we'll call with that. But I mean, this is, this is, this is the opportunity before us. Like if we're

really interested in getting into the metaverse and doing ministry in that space, uh, we're better

together, go with somebody who's been there, get, get vision cast to your people, plant something,

and then walk the journey with somebody who's, who's been on that road before, who's especially

smart enough to realize that there's somebody smarter than him out there or her out there that

needs to step into it. And so love it. Stu, 272 episodes was too long, my friend. And so thank you

for, uh, for, for jumping on this one. And we'll, we'll, we'll see you again in 286, uh, with, uh,

as we're talking church planting over there, but as we're wrapping up the plane here in any closing thoughts?

Yeah. I've been thinking about this the entire episode, Jeff, and I'm going to do my research

on this. I'm an Enneagram five. So I'm a person that I love research. I love doing studies.

I think I'm going to have to apologize to you on episode 286 because there may have been an

episode where I was on before, but I'm just going to leave it at that. Okay. I'm not officially

apologizing yet. I should know this, right? Like I should know whether you were on my own podcast,

but I, for the love, I, I don't, I really don't think you were like, I will own the guilt of this

scenario. If you have to apologize, I will accept it publicly. I will take it. I will apologize to

you in front of Peyton Jones and all of your other listeners. But on top of that, that being said, I,

I, I, I just reiterate, like for anybody who's listening to this, you really do want to hop into

the learning community. Uh, I've done a couple of these with you as a participant and I've left

every single time with something new to chew on. And that's usually enough of a good reason to be a

part of this. So this is definitely something you want to be a part of and not miss out on.

Yeah. Uh, and so you can go to leadnet.org slash MLC for metaverse learning community coupon code

tsunami S T U N A M I. We'll put all that info in the show notes. Of course you can click over there.

Um, uh, physical meetups in September and December online, October, November,

take your church on a mission trip and plant a, uh, metaverse campus and some metaverse church.

And so excited to see this happen. Um, and I'm going to start scratching my, my, uh,

my podcast listing too, and see where it's at. Hey, Sue, thanks for jumping on here. By the way,

we should say that we're doing this. If you're not interested in virtual reality, but the idea of,

of mission trips and the idea of, um, uh, taking your digital ministry to that next level, uh,

in the next podcast, we're going to have Tyler Sansom, uh, lead pastor of first capital Christian

church and, and, uh, church anywhere. It's going to be on with us. He is going to be leading a digital

learning community, similar to what Stuart's doing. And so it's a similar template with the mission

trips where we're challenging people to, to utilize and to step into digital community and utilize these

digital tools to, and, and games to connect with people in, in digital space and to be on that

mission trip. And so you want to check out the episode 273, uh, for that and, and feel free to

come back for 286 and watch Stuart grovel and apologize for ripping me publicly. No, I'm kidding.

We'll figure it out. But Hey, so we're, we're going to land a plane, uh, for Stu. This is Jeff with

the church, digital digital church network, leadership networks, director of metaverse and digital church

next. Thanks for jumping on the podcast here and we'll see you again next week in season six,

when we're taking your digital ministry to the next level.

Y'all have a good day.