EP268: Gen Z, Gen A, and the Benefits of Gamer 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.

All right. Hey, Twitch friends, Digital Church Network, The Church Digital. Jeff here, founder of

The Church Digital, Digital Church Network, so much other fun stuff. And we're doing yet another

podcast episode of The Church Digital Podcast here on Twitch. We've been in season four here,

talking about Jesus, gamers, and church. What does church look like in gaming culture? How can we

utilize the church? How can the church reach into gaming culture, engage in gaming culture,

and really be effective to reach the 3.02 billion gamers across the planet? Now, I'm not in my studio.

I'm kind of whispering because there's a conference happening like 30 feet that way. I'm kind of

expecting the door to open and then to tell me, shh, keep it down. I'm actually in Dallas, Texas right

now. I'm going to pick up my laptop. I want to show you. I'm at the practice facility for the Texas,

for the Dallas Cowboys. Evidently, it's a football team. Maybe some of you heard of the Dallas Cowboys.

Most of you watching this live, you're gamers. What do you know about football? Maybe you play Madden,

so maybe you'll get something out of it. But literally, look at the practice facility. It's

inside that building. They've got the LED screens running. There's actually a football field that's

built into the front area. It's this really nice hotel. I'm actually in Dallas, Texas, obviously,

with the Cowboys. But there's a conference happening right now that's aimed towards digital

revival. And they're actually working with some of the top Christian. And these are influencers more

like, you know, not to twitch the field, like we've been talking about with the Gamer Church,

but a lot of TikTokers. As a matter of fact, there's estimated that within the 40 TikTokers and like

that, the people that are here, 40 of them, they have an estimated reach of 800 million people

internationally. And so huge opportunities for the gospel. And it's been fun. I'm actually right after

this podcast, I'm going to be sitting down with them talking about, hey, what does church look like

in this space? Like we're really good. You're really good at creating this content. But if it

doesn't feed into community, it's meaningless. It's pointless. And if that community is not driving

towards discipleship with purpose of multiplication and physical and digital space, oh my gosh, like

you've got this huge reach, but you haven't realized how to really engage these people and

disciple them in digital forms. And that is something that I believe the Gamer Church is. The people that

we're talking about here with season four have realized so well.

So, hey, we're going to wrap up season four. This is it. This is where we're going. This is the

finale. Maybe. Stay tuned. We're going to talk about that in a little bit. Let's go ahead and bring

me in, Mark. Okay. So, Mark, every episode that I brought you on, there's a running joke on the

show. Am I going to pronounce your last name correctly?

No, you're not.

And so we did not rehearse this. We did not practice this. And so I'm going to do it. You tell me if I'm

right, because I have, once again, no idea. Lutz.

Nope, that's wrong.

So, but so close. I feel like we've really come full circle here. Lutz.

Lutz.

Lutz.

Lutz.

Lutz.

Lutz.

You got it. Pretty close.

My tongue does it.

Yeah. It's like some people have the ability to curl their tongue and some people biologically

can't. And for you, you just biologically cannot pronounce my name. It's not your fault. You

were born that way. It's a good excuse for everything else in the world right now. So.

I'm not sure if there was like a, a passive aggressive insult that was tied to that comment,

but I'm going to assume it was the best because you're my friend, even though I can't pronounce

your name correctly.

I feel like we've come full circle here, Jeff. I mean, we started a season four with the two

of us and we're ending season four with the two of us somewhere along there. I got COVID

and, uh, and couldn't talk for like four episodes or something, but, uh, we were back in, you're

in an airport or something. Um, so all, all, all good. Hey, this has been, it has been so

much fun for me diving into, you know, and once again, I said from day one, I don't, I don't

get gamer culture. Like, you know, I am 44 years old. It's been a couple of decades since

I really consider myself a gamer beyond me playing Pokemon go on my phone. And that's

not hardcore. Um, and so being able to, to better understand the culture, start to dive

into, you know, even some of the nuances of, of video games, of board game culture, of nerd

culture and everything. I'm literally, I'll go ahead and do it. I'm wearing a love thy nerd

shirt as I didn't plan that to let's go. Um, and so like, um, um, um, this is where we

are. And so now starting to, um, figure out how to be the church, how to reach the, into

these mission fields, uh, in, in, in, in, you know, Twitch and discord and into these digital

tools, even in video games, some of the stuff that the DJ's doing through VR MMO, like this

is for me, this has been a mind altering conversation. I have learned so much in the

past two or three months. Um, cause this has just been blue ocean. It's stuff that I have

never explored before at this detail. And so, man, I want to thank you right up, right up

at the top. Thank you for joining me on this journey for maybe even challenging me to walk

into the space because I, to be honest, I didn't know what I was getting myself into. And it's

been a lot of fun, uh, going on this road with you.

Yeah, Jeff, no, it's been a joy and a pleasure to come along and, um, to be able to help open

up, uh, more people's eyes to what God is already doing. Um, I, I literally, we, I, so I do another

show with Andy called the digital church blueprint. I think it's part of the network here. We just

recorded an episode that's going to come out in the next couple of weeks on digital community.

And I said, you know, the church thinks that this is a, uh, like a frontier, right? And,

and they're all acting like we're getting in our Conestoga wagons and we're going to head out to

a couple of shanty towns and, and for the gold rush. Um, and then what you find out is you got

in a Conestoga wagon and you went out West. And what was there was, uh, uh, a cyberpunk city with

millions of people that was 30 years beyond what you knew existed. And, and it's not a ghost town

with, you know, uh, rolling shrubs and, uh, you know, uh, a sheriff, uh, it's, it's a completely

different world. And I feel like in some ways in this season, what we've been able to do is begin

to tap into some of that, to realize that when you come to these, when you come into this environment,

you aren't just coming into like, Hey, there's, there's nobody here and we're going to start

something. You're walking into a culture and a language and a people group. And what's even more

interesting is like any large city, you know, Pittsburgh's known for this, right. Of having,

I live near Pittsburgh, having all of these little subcultures, right. You have the Polish people

that lived in this area, the German people that lived in that area. And in the gaming world,

you have that too. You have this massive city with the FPS players over here, the card gamers over

there and the RPG players over there and the, and it is really diverse and incredibly interesting and

so nuanced. That has been a really fun part of, of the journey for me is exploring, you know, Hey,

God is doing really cool things in so many different ways. And then to close that up last week,

looking at a pest and how that applies here really brought a lot of that stuff full circle.

When we talked to St. Bear and I loved that. Yeah. Um, the APS conversation last week, I mean,

honestly, that is still blowing my brain, you know, and I'm sitting here like talking to these

Tik TOK influencers that are, that are reaching, like, I'm not exaggerating millions. And, uh, and,

and, and one of these guys is like, yeah, it's, it's me by myself. And I'm like, Oh my gosh,

can you not build a team? Like, let's, let's talk about what your team should look like.

And helping them start to recognize the ministry potential. If they move beyond them themselves and

start to structure. Yeah. You know what? I mean, you're really at a stop with, with how you're

building your platform and you're very passionate about your message, but you, you, you need a shepherd

to come alongside you that can start to pastorally build these communities that can work within your

organization and you can push people from the top of the funnel, the content and drive them down into a

community for discipleship purposes. And, and, and so what I love is that the gamer churches, at least

the ones, you know, uh, uh, Lux, uh, uh, uh, God squad, um, they get that. Like they're, they're

already understanding what the community is and that they've evolved. They've been around long enough

to evolve from the Twitch to the discord and, and having that, that rich complimentary of a strong

front door with, through the Twitch engagement, the programming, the services, the platform, but then

driving that into the community aspect. And, and, you know, Mark, I must be honest, man, I quote you

five times a week, at least where you talk about the only person who quotes me. So that's nice.

Well, the funny thing is I put you your last name every time I quote you. So, you know,

many people may actually find you on Google or not, but when you're like, you know what, uh,

the church building is Twitch. What we do Monday through Saturday is, um, that's discord.

And so we spend 85% of our time in discord. It's not about the weekend service, it's about

the relationship. And that's the thing that so many people that makes the idea of what we're doing

with digital church, with, with, with gamer church, with, with influence or virtual reality,

with social media, it's moving beyond just the content and, and, and content that goes into,

you know, automatic where we're, we're, we're taking the relational aspects of discipleship out.

And instead we're featuring the community aspects for discipleship, which is how we as humans in 2023,

that's how we operate. The success, the success of discipleship happens in relationship, happens in

community. And so us engaging in gaming community and building discipleship relationships within the

gaming community. Like if, if the, if the physical church of the American church would understand that

and start to move discipleship out of the church buildings into communities and building relationships

and challenging individuals to do that. Um, there's a lot of stuff to really be excited about,

you know, here when we're talking gaming church.

Yeah. And I think Jeff, one of the things that has been really intriguing and super fun to me

personally has been, um, I think that in many ways, the gaming ministry is kind of the testing grounds

for what digital ministry very likely may look like in the coming years, because, um, in, in many ways,

you know, the digital natives, right. True digital hybrids are people who are pretty much like 25 and

younger, right. A lot of people who grew up in an era where high-speed internet

internet on their phone was just a way of life. I've talked about this a lot in various shows and

in different contexts, how people form their identities digitally at the same time that they

form them physically, how important that is and how the next generation will likely use tech hybridly

in a way that we don't see it being used right now. However, the one place where we do see that

being used in a lot of ways since I, the gaming community, because you have this huge group of

people that are digital natives and early adopters of tech out of necessity to be able to raid

together, to be able to play together, to be able to stay connected with one another. And so they've

already learned how to build relationships and deepen those relationships and, and have their

life changed both positively and negatively in digital space and using digital tools. And so in many ways,

what the church can learn in gaming, like if a church was to say, Hey, we're going to get into the

gaming ministry thing. We're going to launch a discord. We're going to figure out how to connect

with gamers and digital space. What you're really doing is you're training yourself on with a group

of people on how the next generation is likely going to want to connect with the church. Not always,

not exclusively, but certainly hybridly. And I think that is one of the really interesting things

is the next generation. I truly believe is going to have a hybrid approach to relationship development

in which they will walk seamlessly between digital and physical. Um, and you can actually learn as a

church, what that looks like by exploring and experiencing the gaming community because they

are the digital natives right now. And they range in age, which what something else that we learned,

they range in age from those Gen Z, um, the whole way up through, you know, boomers and everywhere in

between. And the average age is actually millennials right now. It's, you have this huge grouping of

millions of millennial church or tech adopters, um, who are digital natives who are in the space.

And we're seeing really, really cool stuff come out as a product of that, of what we're able to learn

as a church from it. And I think there's been some really valuable lessons that may not even

really come fully into light until a handful of years from now, when our churches are no longer

talking about reaching my generation, they won't care about reaching millennials. They're going to be

asking how in the heck are we supposed to be reaching Gen Alpha?

Yeah, that's, I mean, that's really the question, um, at, at hand. And it's interesting. My friends

over at New Thing, they actually, you know, sat down and challenged me on, on the Gen Alpha

question, just even within the past couple of weeks, you know, Jeff, how can we get out? And, and to be

honest, I pulled the, you know, out of my back pocket, the line that I always throw whenever somebody

asks me about Gen Alpha. Hey, you know what? The terms of service of a lot of these software, they prevent

creating accounts. Like, like my son's 12. He's, he's not on discord. He's not old enough for that

discord account. And, and, and, you know, and it's, it's interesting. I, I, and I really respect this

about my new thing friends. Um, new thing tells me, Jeff, that answer is not good enough. Like you

got to come up with something better than that. Start to, to work with your teams. And so like,

it's even, you know, starting to challenge and I've already had some conversations with some of them.

Hey, we got to come up with something better than, sorry, we can't help you. You know,

and there, there's lots of things that, that challenge against the Gen Alpha, like, or work

against that a little bit. Is it, is it, is it weird? Is it creepy? How do we not be that? How do we,

how do we equip Gen Alpha to reach Gen Alpha? How do we equip parents to reach Gen Alpha? And so like,

there's, there's some, some different angles towards that. Um, how would, how do you, let me ask that

question. Mark, do you have any Gen Alpha in, like, how, how is that working for you right now?

Yeah. Alarmingly enough, we have, I mean, Gen Alpha is very young, right? My kids are Gen Alpha

and alarmingly enough, we actually have a lot of Gen Alpha who are in our church because we have a lot

of millennials, which means we have a lot of kids who are Gen Alpha right now. Um, who are part of

our church. We just announced infinite child dedication. And if you want to get into a

conversation about baptism, you can go have that with Jeff and not me. Um, but, uh, we're,

we're doing infinite child dedication next month for the first time. Cause we do have so many young

kids and my honest opinion about reaching Gen Alpha for a lot of years now, for whatever reason,

the church flipped something. And it was a really weird thing to flip, right? I remember specifically

talking about how youth ministry should grow your church over time, right? Cause if you reach kids,

you'll reach their parents. And my honest opinion of that is like, that's backwards. Like that should

never be the way that should have, I understand why it became our goal, but it should never have become

the goal, right? It should never have even been in the conversation. You want to reach Gen Alpha,

learn how to reach millennials really well. Um, and if you, and, and if you want to reach Gen Alpha,

when they can really be reached and it won't be creepy for you, then learn how to do digital ministry

today and learn how to do that digital ministry effectively and tactfully, um, in a way that you

can actually engage in digital space powerfully and impactfully with people. I think if you can learn

how to do that now, you'll be far more equipped when, when Gen Alpha is, I'm not saying they're

unreachable now, but the best tool to reach Gen Alpha right now is through their parents. Just like

the best tool to reach any child is always going to be through their parents, right? Cause the parent

has the most influence over their life and there, but there'll come a time when that's not the case,

right? And we'll need to be able to reach Gen Alpha in new ways. So get used to digital ministry.

Now get used to gaming ministry. Now it's not going anywhere, right? It's not going anywhere.

Yeah. Yeah. So, Hey, you know what? And, and Mark, I love what you just said. I'm going to quote it

again. I'm going to misrepresent your last name, but it's just, it's the, it's the circle of life in

our relationship. But if you want to reach Gen Alpha, you got to reach it. It's really, it's reached

the millennials and, and empower them to reach Gen Alpha. Like that, that's, that's, that's a really

interesting approach and it's definitely effective if it's, if it's the only way or the best way, I don't know.

But, but the idea of, of empowering parents to disciple their kids and understand how and why

to do that, go for it. Let me give you two examples really quick that I think can tap

into that a little bit. So I'll give you two examples from two sides of the aisle. I have

a really good friend, Joe, um, grew up in the church with me, left the church. I don't think

he'd have any problem with me saying that has been on a weird faith journey. He has a son who's about

the same age as, uh, my youngest daughter, Gen Alpha. Right. And he actually reached out to me

and he said, Hey, as a pastor, what is the best way for me to protect my kid from the church?

Like, I want to know how to protect my son from the church because I don't want a church to come

into his life and mess him up. And I'm nervous about like letting him go to a church or letting him go to

youth group. And so this is, and then the flip side of that is, let me tell you the story of Bougie,

which I may have, or may have not told on this podcast before, but Bougie's in our church reignites

his faith. Um, his real name is Gino. Um, his son's name is Roman begins reading the Bible to his son

every single night. And, uh, so much so that his son is beginning to recognize scriptures because he's

actually gone through pretty much every single page, every chapter, every verse of the Bible with his

son. His son's heard it all now at like age, I don't know, four or five years old. And, and so

we're seeing him change his son's life because his life has been changed. But the, the same is true of

both. There's a unique thing about both, both Joe and Gino is that millennials are fiercely protective

of their children, fiercely protective of the children and have learned that the world is not the place

that you ride your bicycle at any time of the day. It is a ruthless, dangerous place where people take

your kids and hurt your children. And so because of that, they are very defensive of their children

and very protective of their children, especially when it comes to faith and church. And so the only

way to reach shit out right now, I would say in physical church or in a digital context is going

to consistently be through reaching their parents. Wow. That's, that's a, that's a powerful word right

there. Um, definitely, definitely challenged by that. And huge opportunities in, in digital to,

to disciple the parents, to disciple the millennial, to, to, to reach, uh, Gen Z and Gen A with that,

you know, the mobilization, the multiplication of this, the resourcing so that they can multiply it,

that it can be multiplied again. Uh, definitely powerful there. Hey, well, you know, let's do this part.

You know, we're coming on, on season, wrapping up season four here. Uh, let's pay homage a little

bit to, to where we come from, you know, and, and, and you caught a lot of the shows. I know you were,

you were sick for a stretch there and, and some of the shows we're going to, we're going to reschedule

and do later for, cause we just had some scheduling conflicts, but, um, I w I would love to maybe,

maybe hear from you. Uh, and, and like, you're already so enriched in this culture and very little

is, is a surprise to you at this point. Cause you're, you're one of the leading experts in this

space, but what was, uh, what were some takeaways? What were some, some surprises? What were some,

maybe your favorite moments in the couple, uh, coming off of, off of the season here?

Ooh, Jeff is, I mean, he is just puffing me up leading expert. I, uh, uh, the, a lot of words

that have never been used with me. Um, so, uh, uh, uh, okay. So some of the things that I feel like

I've learned or, or taken away from it, I, that would have been a great question to be able, every

time I get a question like that, I'm, it's like the only type of question that I struggle to talk

with just literally off the top of my head. Um, but I honestly think that some of the conversation

with Asia and Amanda was really powerful for me, um, to hear from their perspective as women coming

into the space, because despite the fact that I am doing this with my wife, which is very unique.

Most guys, most people who are getting into gaming ministry are doing this with permission from

their spouse, but without necessarily support from their spouse. Right? So a lot of guys who are

running solo in this space and their wife is like, yeah, you can do it. That's fine. But that's what we

have. I am lucky enough to have a wife is partnering with me in it, despite the fact that she's not

a gamer. And so it was interesting to hear from the female perspective, because my wife isn't a gamer,

um, to hear how they, and just to hear the passion and the fire and the vision that came from Amanda

and Asia both, um, was really cool. And for that show, I wasn't able to be on it, but I was in the

green room listening the whole time. Um, I think some of the other stuff with Jono was some of the stuff

that I knew about as well. Um, but to hear the advancement of e-sports and really hear it from

from the horse's mouth of a person who's like literally in that space every day, working with

people, learning how to shepherd in many ways. Um, and then also not just a shepherd, but also to,

to train and equip people to be better gamers. Right. And how the world is shifting in that.

I had a conversation with my buddy in my, in my kitchen today, um, who's on the school board at

the school district that I'm in. And I just said, listen, man, you guys got to start talking about

spending a couple of grand and getting some decent computers and starting an e-sports program at the

school because more and more students are going to get scholarships to go to college based on their

e-sports experience. And then Chino made set in the chat. Also Jade talking about mission dollars.

I think that was a really eyeopening moment for all of us as well, as we just saw the need,

like the very real need and not the need, but for Jade, at least how little that was. I mean,

my needs are greater than Jade's. I'm not going to be, I'm not going to lie about that.

It's because of family and situation and mortgage, but, um, to see the needs and to see how easily

some of those can be met to really equip release and remove a lot of the stress and burden off of

the heart and minds of digital missionaries, I thought was really powerful and cool.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean so much, uh, Chino's blowing up chat, talking about Jade talking about hockey as

well. Um, you know, it's, it's funny, like the girl, uh, the, the, the, the girl streamers that we

did a couple of weeks ago, I guess, uh, here at the conference, I started talking about gamer church.

As a matter of fact, Mark, I literally, while I was talking about gamer church, I looked at my phone

and I got the Twitch notification that your service was happening. And so I swiped and I'm like,

like, this is literally what a Twitch service looks like. And, and it was, um, I want, I want to say,

it was you and your wife sitting on, sitting on the couch together, or maybe it, maybe it wasn't,

but it definitely was, was the part of the service where you were on talking. And, um, and so it was,

there was some, several women that were asking me questions, you know, and they're, they're women

influencers and they feel some of the, some of the stress, uh, that, that, uh, that the Twitchers,

the lady Twitchers were talking about is Twitchers a thing. I never really understood if I could say

it that way. It is, it is absolutely not a thing. They are a streamer, not a Twitcher streamers,

not a Twitcher streamer. Sorry. No, it's okay. We're still clarifying language here. It's, it's fine.

Yeah. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's all good. Yeah. Uh, but it was, it was funny just even starting

to tell some of some of the stories that I've heard from, from the ladies and, and from, you know,

you even talking about some of the experiences you and your wife have had, uh, within, uh,

lucks and the challenges of, of women, uh, stepping into this male dominated, uh, society yet 48% of,

of women of gamers are women. And so it's, it's really interesting how male ego and male chauvinism

and whatever is so strong in that space yet percentage wise, it's not that much more than,

than what, uh, than what the ladies are, are present in. And so Twitcher sounds like a truckies,

stuffy. That's, that's awesome. Thank you for that, Chino. Um, you know, he references

Aki and, uh, Aki for me, that's just close to home. Um, you know, cause you know, I watch,

it's funny. I watch, um, I watch Aki stream now, um, probably two nights a week, maybe three nights a

week, uh, stop in for it for a little bit. And, uh, and my kids are starting to get engaged in it.

Um, my kids actually made me subscribe and I was kind of, I guess my subscription had,

had not kept, but they made me subscribe to Jake's, um, feed. Uh, cause they wanted the cat

that, that, you know, Jake has like running around the screen, the little, little, like the little cat

icons. Um, and I hate cats. So they thought it was really funny that I'm now paying five bucks a

month to have a cat in Jake's world. So now they want to go watch Jake cause they want to, they want to

check in the cat, see all the cats. This is a conversation with, with my, uh, my teenage kids.

And, uh, but how Aki is doing the family streaming and, and incorporating the wife and incorporating

the kids. How Aki, you know, and I see it, the family stuff where, you know, he's talking about

like the, the after hours, I forget what he, what the specific language he calls in that, but after

dark is, is what it is. And, and, uh, how he's creating that family environment, um, with, with

people on the stream, like it is so good. And, and I see the, the people that are watching the stream

engage in it so well. And, and like Aki and Jake are great examples of what digital missionaries

need to be. They're finding a culture, a subculture, a contextualized culture that they wanted to get into.

Jake is very much into Japanese culture. Aki is very much into reaching that, the, the,

the, the, the, the kid that does not have a family because he wants to create a healthy family

environment on Twitch that, that those that aren't. And so creating those environments to reach those

types of people as a digital missionary, to, to bring them to relationally to Christ and then to get

them connected into, to, you know, Lux for a church or to, uh, you know, God squad or something else along

those lines, the discipleship community. Oh my gosh, such a good idea. Work with what you can

and then what you don't want to do or what you can't do, partner with someone else to do that

stretch. It's interesting here with the tick tockers. That's actually what I'm saying. It's like, Hey,

do what you can in, in what you can't. Let's get you connected to digital churches. Let's get you

connected into, into a discipleship community where you can feed into that. You know, we're Kingstide is,

is a, is a, is a, is a new, uh, digital church that that's spinning off that came off of, uh, of, uh,

Seacoast church. And, uh, it's another example of a discipleship community that's utilizing discord,

that's taking an opportunity for influencers to feed into it and then utilizing that, that real,

the community to boil the frog slowly, to nurture the relationship, to take it at a deeper level,

relationally, to build the relational equity, the trust, to be able to have those.

Service has always been a big part. And so like, it's so interesting that the digital strategies

for gamer church, for influencer church, the content leads to community. If can be, if there's no

community, if it's just content, it's hollow. If the community doesn't have a purpose, then the

community is pointless. And so if the purpose is discipleship, then we need to see it physically and

digitally. We're discipling people digitally to the point that we are seeing the fruits of the spirit

in physical and digital space. So the content has to go to community that has to be out of disciple

making, which has to have results physically and digitally. And if that's the standard that we're

holding our churches to, man, by the way, the biblical standard that we're holding churches to,

God is going to do great things through his churches in digital space. And I am, I'm excited to see more

churches like yours, Mark, spin up on here. I was encouraged, you know, I, and just even as I've

hung out more with the, uh, the don't call it Megazord guys, the Nerd Culture Ministry Collective,

uh, you know, went to the summit, met some of those people, saw the collaboration, saw the

friendships that developed from that, see the desire now to multiply these ideas out and to start to

connect with others and create new expressions of church that are holding to that biblical standard.

Like to me, that's very exciting for the future. Cause it's people that are wanting to do something

different to reach a different type of person. And I believe that for the great commission to be

accomplished or at least to give it a fair shake, we have to do something different. And, uh, and guys

and gals like you through Nerd Culture Ministry Collective and, and, and all of this, it is so good to

see you expanding, trying to multiply, train up that next generation to reach future generations.

Um, well, let me tell you what, Mark, since, since I'm just rambling on here about Nerd Culture,

uh, Ministry Collective, um, I am saying the acronym, right? Like that is, that's the,

that's in the right order. Yeah. Nerd Culture Ministry Collective is, uh, is the, uh,

network and Nerd Culture Ministry Summit is the event. Is the event. Talk to us a couple of minutes.

I, you know, we've, I, I feel like we've talked about it. I don't know that we've actually like

talked about it. I think we referenced it, maybe gave it a quick nod, but are you, are you comfortable

talking a little bit here about, about what it is, a Nerd Culture Ministry Collective?

Yeah. I would actually love to talk a little bit about what both, what both are. Cause I think,

I think both are important. So first off, Nerd Culture Ministry Collective is a network that

we're forming underneath the DCN and inside of the style of new thing. We're gathering nerd culture,

missionaries, digital church leaders, and org leaders together, um, for support, connection,

coaching, uh, and accountability. And so what you would experience a typical network to be, uh,

it's that it's to encourage and strengthen new people. Uh, the, the reality is the space is super,

super isolating. And so it's very easy to kind of just get in your own lane and do your own thing and

compete with people that you should be working together with. And so a big part of the goal

of the Nerd Culture Ministry Collective is to help people establish and build relationships so that we

can compliment instead of compete. Um, and, uh, and that's, that's going well. We launched some of our

first networks, which we, of course we would have loved to launch those back in December, but, um,

you know, it's April and the first one met literally last night. We had the girls, uh, group met.

And so Amanda that was in Asia were on the show a couple of weeks ago. Um, they met up and, and they

had a great showing for one of their first ones, which is awesome. And we have a couple of more

that are in the works. We'll be launching, uh, over the course of April and into May likely. Um,

and then on top of that, we've also had NCMS, which is the Nerd Culture Ministry Summit. This is

the event side of that network, uh, or that is, uh, that movement really, it's a collection of networks,

so movement. Um, and it's coming up in November. So November 8th to the 10th, uh, this year in

Marble Falls, Texas, you can find it by going to ncmsummit.com. You can register today. It's

inexpensive. And if you come as a senior pastor and lead pastor, whatever you get to bring somebody

along with you, they get a free ticket to come in. There's a plus one feature so that you can bring

the gamer from your church, the tech guy from your church, the youth pastor from your church,

whomever to come and learn. And we're gathering together, um, ministry leaders that are in this

space to help you understand, uh, really what it means to get into and, um, minister to, um,

people in nerd culture. And, uh, which it really is, I mean, it's just like your neighbor at this

point, right? It's not even like just all, all, all of our neighbors, certain extent are nerds in one

way or another now, um, or all of us have nerdy neighbors. And so it's about how to reach them.

So it's coming up in November. Like I said, it's in marble falls, Texas. Uh, you can go get

registered. Uh, I think, I don't know, I guess we have to like finalize the speakers, but we do have

one pretty big speaker, um, that has agreed to come. They just has to finalize stuff. So like the

announcement of who's going to be the speaker, which is a combination of people who are in church world,

who, you know, lead churches and, um, and the one individual right has written several books.

Um, and is really has a podcast that's absolutely popped off recently. Um, he's going to be coming

and speaking at it as our key, one of our keynotes and it's combination of that. And then people are

actually in this space. And so, um, people like, uh, you know, Susie, um, from, uh, GSC and his own

stream, Susie live and, um, some panels and breakout sessions from people that you've heard from on the

show who are going to be there at it. We'd love to have you come out and join us for that. So you can

get connected once again at ncmsummit.com. Um, and you should really buy your tickets now and

come and hang out with us in marble falls. I think it'll be, uh, I think it'll really open your eyes

to really what God is doing when you meet some of these people in person.

Totally. Yeah. You know, and that, and so marble falls is maybe 10 minutes from where I am right now.

And so deep in the heart of Texas, looking forward to spending some time and getting to meet you all.

I was joking that they have not, at least my agent has not told me the way that I'm speaking. No,

I'm kidding. I don't have an agent, but, uh, it's not, not me speaking. It's somebody else that

has read a couple of books and, and, and has a very successful podcast. And so, um, Hey, listen,

um, there has been, there's been so many lessons that have been learned through this, this podcast and,

and, and we've been able through doing the season four here, you know, we took the experiment, uh,

with trying to do this on discord and we actually, or excuse me on, on Twitch. And, and we actually

built a decent channel just organically. We've got, I don't know, I had to look at the number,

but I think it's something like 75 followers, um, 68 followers right now on, on digital church networks,

uh, Twitch channel. And so really excited to see that happen. You know, we were doing,

um, um, gamer church, but really the church digital podcast and the audience of, of that are really

established churches. And so like we, we, we took the posture once again, of, of a curious learner,

having these conversations and trying to expose ideas and expose people, uh, to, to some of these,

these gamer, uh, podcasts. Now I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna let you behind the veil here a little bit.

And, and, uh, there's, there's some good and there's some bad here. Um, the church digital

podcast, the, um, the, the typical audience and the metrics that are looking at the audience,

as we focused on gamer churches, we've actually seen the numbers drop. Like the, the average

subscriber, the, the, the average plays that we get on, on the podcast here in season four has declined.

Now, you know, I say that because we've actually seen the YouTube numbers skyrocket. We've actually

seen the, the, the, the, the engagers and the people on Twitch increase. We've seen conversations

come up in other places. We've had conversations with global mission organizations that are like,

what are you doing with gamer church? We need to, we need to talk. Let's get together and start the

dialogue. See how we can collaborate here. So the interest in gamer church is at a very high level.

What I would suggest is that right now in 2023, just me reading the, the, the situation at hand,

the physical church is not interested, uh, as a general rule. But what I've been so impressed with

is the interest within the, the gamer community and the passion to see that multiply off. And so as a

result of this, the, the, the desire not to, well, and, and so I'll let Mark speak to this in a little

bit, but maybe it's not so much about helping the church, the physical church, the U S based church,

understand this as much as it is maybe trying to create a new movement of churches that are operating

in this, this gamer space. But I tell you what, Mark, you want, you want to, you want to make the

announcement? You want to say this? You want me to, you want to put the cat out of the bag? Like,

how should we like, you say a word and then I say a word and then we bounce back and forth. Like,

we didn't actually talk about this. How, how do you want to communicate this right now?

Well, considering you're in an echoey, uh, airport lobby right now, I will say it and then you can

comment on it. So we're really excited here at the church digital and also myself personally,

um, to announce that we're going to be launching a new podcast inside of the church digital network

network and, uh, the church digital, uh, podcast network. I, I, I don't know. There's so many

networks at this point. It's hard to keep track all the time. Um, but if you would go visit the

church digital, you can look and see this network of podcasts and there's going to be a new one

that's going to spin off from this. Um, in addition to that, we're working on writing a book in the

background right now, uh, that goes off of this material that we're talking about. Um, that's going

to give some of the ideology, the theology and the ecclesiology for churches in digital space,

specifically inside of the gaming community at the front half of that book. And so it's all about

deconstructing our view of digital relationship and digital space, and then reconstructing a more

accurate view of what digital space really is and how the next generation is using it and how current

digital natives are using it. From there, we're going to dive really heavily into some of the stories of

the very people that you actually heard here as we look at a pest and we're going to be breaking that

down through looking at the five, five fold, the five fold ministry of the spirit of God inside the

church and how that's being lived out inside a digital space and wrap that up with helping you

understand exactly how it is that you as a church leader can dive into that. But between here and

the actual launch and production and all of that of the book that's coming, um, we're going to be

continuing this conversation that we're doing through season four on an entirely new feed that's due to

come out either somewhere around the end of April or the beginning of May in which I'm going to be

taking the lead on that show. Jeff's going to continue to do the church digital podcast and move on into

season five and what's next for this show. And I'm going to be spinning off a new show that's going to be

directly connecting to gamers, game culture, nerd culture, what God is doing in that space. So we don't

know formally everything. I'm not ready to announce like who co-hosts are and exactly what the format is

going to be. Um, we're ironing out all of those details, but we're really excited to start recording

and launch that new show. So stay tuned to this feed in season five, because we'll let you know how

you can get plugged in to the new show that's going to be dealing with gamers and how you can get plugged

into the Twitch and all of that stuff, following what God's already at work doing inside of the

gaming and online gaming communities. And so we hope that you'll come along the road along that journey

with us. Um, and, uh, and you know, follow along with what we see God is doing. And we're really

excited to bring you the inside scoop. Really. Let's give you an eye inside of it. If you don't

know the culture and you don't know how to get into it, let's just give you a chance, you know,

a little, a little peek behind the curtain and a look behind the door to see what God is already

doing in this space and see how you can get involved. Yeah. Mark, like I said, Mark's one of the

forefront leaders right now in the gaming church movement because of everything to do. Just said

like so good. So on point, uh, remember in digital church context, gamer churches is, is the fastest

growing model right now. And so we are seeing so much improvement, so much gain, uh, so much traction

is probably the better word in that space. And so we're excited to release this show. You can check

out the church.digital slash podcast. And so you'll have more, uh, we'll have more on that.

We'll be sure to get the word out via email and through all the communities. Uh, once that,

that spins up and goes public, I'm so excited about the book, uh, and, and, and, and working

with Mark on that and seeing it, you said, you said three words real quick that I was like,

Oh, that's good. Um, what were they? It was, uh, ideology, ideology, theology, ideology,

theology, and ecclesiology, all of theologies. So, so good. And so looking forward to, to seeing

that even currently develop or aiming for that to release sometime, hopefully late 23 and get that

out there, uh, publicly very soon and definitely excited to see what's happening with the nerd culture

ministry collective and our culture ministry summit. Um, love that I nerd and anything else that that's

happening here in that space. It's a little weird. I just lifted my shirt up publicly and people around

are like, what's that guy doing? So I just don't worry about, I'm not going to do that again. I don't

think I can pull that off a third time. Okay. Um, anyway, this is so good, right? But we're going to land

a plane. Like this has been a fun conversation. Uh, I'm not in an airport, but I might as well be.

And this has been a great time. It's been a great season. Mark was, Mark was tipping off season five

with the church digital podcast. We're going to roll that out in May. We're going to take a couple

of weeks. I'll tell you next week is going to be a great podcast. Uh, we're bringing in Neil Cole.

Neil is one of the forefathers of the modern, um, micro church movement, the organic church movement.

He wrote a book a decade ago, ironically for leadership network, one of the organizations I

work for now that I write books for now, but he wrote a book called church 3.0 that when I read it

blew my mind. And as I read this book on micro church movement, Neil Cole was actually the guy

that, that created in me this desire to do micro church strategies, to look at digital through a

micro church lens, um, contextualization, scalability, reproduction. A lot of these things that we talk

about in church context, digital church context, guess what came from this guy, Neil Cole, uh,

who's one of these well-spoken leaders in, in, in the micro church movement. And he honestly,

he talks a lot in context about how he was, he was the guy really before his time. Uh, he was pushing

ideas as an innovator before micro church was even accepted in the United States. And so some of the

challenges of being ahead of the curve that far ahead, you know, we talk about how, um,

what, what, what, what is it we say? We say that, that, um, oh my gosh, what's, what's the line that

where, uh, um, settlers get rich, pioneers get shot. You know, we talk in that in greater detail.

That's the line. Mark was coming in to save the day. I was, I was going to jump back in. Yeah.

I appreciate you having my back, my friend. That was good. I'll, I'll get your name for that.

Yeah. I mean, yeah, it just sounds like you have a mouthful of slime right now. And you're

trying to say an L is all that sounded like, but I am so excited about the conversation next week with

Neil Cole, Jay, uh, Jason Morris, JMO coming in for the conversation as well, because Neil Cole was

hugely influential in JMO's life and digital strategy with that. So it's going to be a podcast. You are not

going to want to miss great stuff. Digging into it. We're going to land a plane here on season

four right now. Thank you, Mark. Thank you, Andy. Thank you. All the guests. I could try to rattle

them off. I would probably miss some, but there've been so many that have come and have had conversations

around this. We had to reschedule a couple of shows. We're going to get them probably this summer.

Really interesting ones centered around, um, mental health and gamer space and, and how do we handle some

of these difficult situations? Um, we can, we'll get into that in a little bit. We'll tease it later.

But so much and definitely excited about what Mark is doing as we're extending Jesus gamers in church

into a new show and even developing this as, as a book to help future churches, future gamer churches

get started and understand the, whatever the three words he said that was so good, but I just, I need

to write them down and have them in front of me. And I can't because I'm where I am. Do it, Mark.

Ideology, theology, and ecclesiology. Okay. They're very good. Like I said, that's why he's the expert.

And that's why I'm, I'm just the pretty face of this thing, but Hey, we're going to land the plane.

So for Mark, for Andy, for everybody else who was a part of this, I'm Jeff with the church,

digital digital church network. Thanks for jumping on the podcast here.

Neal Cole next week. See y'all then. Y'all have a good day.

Thank you.