EP263: Flatcap, Physical Pastors, & Twitch

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, and welcome to this episode of the Church Digital Podcast. I am your replacement host,

Mark, because we are still sitting at Exponential here in Orlando. And Jeff, the normal host of the

Church Digital Podcast, which is the first episode that you're listening to, go back and listen to some

of the awesome episodes that Jeff has. There's so many of them that are right here on the feed. But

Jeff is off doing lots of things with metaverse and cryptocurrency and blockchain something. I don't

understand what that is. I just picture cement blocks connected with chains, and evidently I'm wrong.

And so he's doing all of that amazing stuff. So I'm subbing in for him here in season four,

where we're talking about gamers and the church and Jesus, how those things are coming together,

and what God is doing in magnificently beautiful ways inside of digital space. Specifically,

we're looking in Twitch and Discord. We've interviewed some amazing digital missionaries,

digital church leaders, and we've already seen kind of like, what is God doing in these spaces,

and how is God at work? And, you know, we've talked to Aki, we've talked to Jay, we've talked to

eSports with Jono. And today, the guest that you have with us is Flat Cap Dapper Pastor. I call him

Flat Cap. And Flat is a physical church pastor. But you very uniquely have found your way into the Twitch

ecosystem, not because you're a gamer, necessarily, not because you're like a heavy techie or an early

adopter tech, necessarily, but instead, through an interesting journey on invitation through a friend

that kind of got you exploring it. So, Flat, I would, what I'm so excited about in this interview

for the Church Digital is that there are a lot of pastors who are listening to the Church Digital

who are in your shoes, or at least where your shoes were two years ago. So, tell us a little

about the journey and, like, why you're on this and why you, like, took this journey or now in the

the world of Twitch.tv. Yeah, that's a long story. We've got an hour, so let me get into it. No,

I'm just kidding. So, I have done pastor networks for some time, because, you know, go to John 17,

read the whole thing. We're supposed to be in unity. And if we can't be in unity as pastors,

how would we expect our people in our congregations to ever do that? How would we expect the church to

ever do that? So, I've been doing that for years. And a guy that I know has been on the podcast a few

times, and he's in a life transition right now, but was Pastor Brock VR. And Pastor Brock was in my

group. We would get together every other week. We're talking about what's going on in our lives.

We're talking about all that. I can get into that later if you want to.

And to be clear, Pastor Brock is a, he was a physical church pastor.

Yes, physical church pastor.

That was doing virtual reality ministry on top of that.

Right, right. So, he would come in and he'd say, hey, I just did this thing on Sunday night in VR,

and I bought this Oculus, and I put this on, and I'm sitting there and having conversations. And I walk

up to someone and say, hey, what's going on in your life? What's important to you? What do you think's

important in life? And they just go, I don't know. And he'd say, well, I got to evangelize. Got to do

all this stuff. And I'm like, yeah, it's great, man. You're young. You got kids that are in elementary

school. I remember what it was like to be there. My kids are older. Great. You go have fun. And he

just kept talking about it and talking about it for like two years. And then he just kept talking

more things he was doing. And I'm like, that's great. I'm a senior pastor. I have no time to do any

of this stuff. I am not going to go jump in and do this. I mean, at the time, I was probably only

playing Assassin's Creed, probably the only game I was playing. And I actually... It's a good game.

Yeah, it is. I actually had a group of pastors in a previous place that I lived where the six of us

got together and all of us were Assassin's Creed guys. So we would just get excited about that.

But that's like the only game I played for years and then hadn't been playing for a while. And so I'm

like, man, I'm not doing anything. Yeah. Twitch. My kids have talked about that a few times. And I

watched them and I'm like, why are you watching someone play a video game? I don't get it. Why

don't you play? And I just had no clue what was going on. I kept hearing him talk about it, talk

about it. In the middle of COVID, a lot of transition, a lot of things happening. And I found myself

resigning from the church I was at, sitting at home, kind of depressed, kind of feeling sorry for

myself going, God, what do you have? What am I supposed to do next? And I'd go and meet with

Pastor Brock in our group. And he talked about, man, Sunday was so amazing. We just did this and

this and this. And yeah, I'm not meeting as a church, but I'm still meeting with these people.

And I go, I'm gonna go check you out. I got nothing else to do. So I made a Twitch account

just to watch him. And I'm sitting there in that. And I could not believe how people in the chat

were engaged in embracing everyone that showed up. I'm like, I don't get welcome like this at church.

And I come back the next day. And they don't know a thing about me. And they're just like,

hey, you're back. Great to see you again. Like, what do you mean see me again? I just took,

it took months of sitting there, of watching and watching and watching. And as I shared,

I don't know which order this is going, if this one's first or the one we did yesterday,

I'll be first. But I shared that he just kept saying, hey, go follow him. He's gonna do this.

And I'm like, man, there ain't no way I'm doing this. I don't know what's, I don't know how to do

this. Every time that the tech thing jumps and stuff, I kept finding myself in ministry going,

I don't know how to do this. I don't know what to do. I need to find a shortcut. I need to make it

happen. We don't have anybody. So I've created, you know, web streams. I was doing YouTube streaming

like 10 years before the pandemic. But that was because I just wanted to reach our people that were sick.

I just wanted to reach our people that went to Florida for the winter. I was only thinking of

digital space as reaching the people I already knew. Yeah. Well, and you know what? Those of us who

live in snowbird states have known that pain before everyone who lives somewhere warm, right? Because

snowbird states, you just exit a portion of your population of your congregation every winter.

And usually all of those people were the biggest givers, right? And so you're like,

let's find a way to keep, let's make sure they can still come to church in the summertime, right?

Yeah. So a lot of us in snowbird states, we actually were on, we were online, right? We were live

streaming to be able to connect our snowbirds during the winter months. Yeah. Yeah. Not all,

not everyone was doing live. We just happened to already be live, but it was just, yeah, we had it

set up. We had our stuff. Actually, I might've been actually using Streamlabs OBS to do our,

our service stuff. But what's interesting is what you're saying is as a physical church pastor,

not only did I have a lot going on, I didn't really want to learn this space. Oh yeah. I really

had a desire to. No, I had. And every time the tech jumped, I felt overwhelmed by it and felt like,

I don't want to go to wherever you're going. Let's just get what we need and ship it. Right. And I

think the cool, what, what's exciting to me about that is that is that resonates throughout the church

world, right? Like you're not, it's not like you're the only one with those feelings. Yeah. Every,

every physical church pastor, one time or another got to have that feeling. Yeah. You know, like I

wouldn't have been the pioneer that said, Hey, uh, let's go out West and let's see if there's gold.

I would have said, Oh, there's something going on at Sutter's mill and people are going. And I know

people going, all right, I might check it out. I'm, I am not going out, rushing into brand new

things and getting there before people. If I'm there before people was by accident. I mean, not

that, not that I don't like to innovate, not that I don't like to think outside the box, but the more

and more I'm learning is what I think is outside the box is still leaning on the box. I'm not way

outside kicking and screaming that you can't even identify where I'm at. You know, I just stepped out of

the box. So, uh, so I'm watching him and I start having people follow me. And then I started working

temporary with churches that are struggling. I got invited into that from a friend who knew me and

said, Hey, I have a church that's struggling. Can you come alongside of them? And, and, and this is

just a temporary thing. And, and will that work for you? And I was, okay, I think I can do that.

It's just part-time. It's just temporary. I'm still healing. My family's still healing. We need to do

something and I need to get off the couch. But what I didn't realize is in that six months of time

where I'd been sitting there, um, I was watching six to eight hours of Twitch a day and I had built

relationships with people. I had engagement with people. Uh, they cared about what was going on in

my life. And I never met any of them except for pastor Brock. And so as I, I started doing things,

they kept saying, well, when are you going to stream? When are you going to stream? I'm like,

man, I'm not playing video games. I don't have the setup to do this. I'm not a PC based guy.

I'm an Xbox based guy and I'm waiting for the next game to come out and I know what it takes to set

it up. I don't want to make that investment. So finally they said, why don't you just stream what

you do for preparing for your sermons? We'd like to know what you're doing. Uh, pastor Brock does

some stuff like that. Why don't you do that? So Friday, as I just started streaming, here's my sermon

prep. Here's the passage I'm looking at. Here's what I'm thinking of like all the behind the scenes

of what I was doing to prepare for Sunday morning. I was streaming that and, and talking through my

process, talking through what I think I'm going to talk about on Sunday. And then it asked me the next

week, well, how did it go? Or what were you, what did you talk about? Did it actually go in the

direction? What were things that came up? And as I got to the end of that year in December,

someone was talking in my stream. I had people in my church talking about reading through the Bible

in a year. And then the conversation turned to, I've never done that. I don't know how to do that.

It would be great if somebody would guide us to do that. And I went, well, I've been thinking about

how do I go from one day a week to more than one day a week at streaming? So a year ago I committed to,

I'm going to read through the Bible in a year on stream. I have no idea how this is going to work.

Uh, I had to go through the whole transition of a live audience to talking to a camera,

but I'd already made that transition before I got into streaming because we were doing that live.

If you're doing that, we're doing that in the COVID. So I also already learning how to connect

digitally and build relationships just through chat without, you're not even the one on the camera.

They're not on the one on the camera and you're beginning to build relationships with people

anyway. Yeah. So I start doing that and I want to say, I don't know, month, two months into just

doing that alone, which if you're not on Twitch, go in there and saying, Hey, I'm going to go and

read the Bible on Twitch is not what people are lining up to do. They're, they're, they're wanting

to play video games and yeah. Or watch YouTube or watch, or watch talks. Yeah. The, the, it is very, um, it, it,

I wouldn't say that it's opposite of the culture because what you were doing in stepping into was

deeply relational, personal and close. Right. And what is anti Twitch culture is, is, uh, is when

you're not paying attention to the people that are actually watching, like they're not just there to

spectate or dare to engage. So it was very cult. It was very culturally sensitive towards why people

are there, but it was very different than why people, it was a very different type of content

than what people usually come to see. Well, yeah, I'll just say this. When, when I was going to do

things on YouTube or wherever we were streaming live with whatever church I was at, we were only

looking to engage people that were already watching our stuff from our church. So goods and services.

Right. So, so had I jumped into Twitch thinking I was going to go do that, it would have never been

anybody watching what I was doing. I'd have been wasting my time, energy, uh, what I was doing. So I

didn't know it, but that six months where I just sat there watching was really what Paul does at the

Areopagus. He goes in, he's observing the culture, he's learning what they're doing. And when he's understood

what that culture is, he then says, I've made these observations about you are a very religious

people. You want to know who God is. You have this statue overhead here that says to the unknown God,

I want to engage you in a conversation about who I believe is the real God that you have inadvertently

found. So I stumbled into that observation and was embraced by people in the culture so that I knew the culture

before I started doing anything in the Twitch atmosphere. So I brought all of that to what I was doing with

reading the Bible. I, I, I interrupt where we're at to engage people in chat. I interrupt what I'm doing. If someone

says, Hey, I, I, I had this happen and I need prayer. I mean, what I'm doing is not important. The people

are what's important. So that's a whole different mentality than, Hey, our service started and it's

going live. And when we get done with the service, we'll have questions afterwards. Yeah. So what we

stumbled into here in this conversation, which I think is, is really powerful is a lot of, uh, people

who are thinking about live streaming and now they're considering Twitch because you're listening to this

podcast. The question has become like, how do we stream on Twitch? And that isn't, that isn't really

the question that should be asked. And what we stumbled on is an hour ago, uh, I was sitting with

a guy and he said, how long do I need to spend on Twitch before I can understand the culture enough

to come and plant and be part of it? And that was the right question to ask. Right. And I totally,

I don't know. I was part of Twitch culture every day for seven years, pretty much before we started

our church. But what I love is that Layton's like, I was just, I was here for like the last, I just used

your name. You just doxed me, man. Oh, that's yeah. Well, and those that don't know, that's when you give

information about somebody that they haven't revealed themselves. So, so since you've done that in case

people do actually want to know. We can blip you out. We can blip it out. Nah, it's all right. It's all right.

Uh, if you do want to know, since my wife hates this, so the fact I'm going to do this will be

fun. So when I introduce myself and my name and this, I do this every time I've ever gone to a

church and I get up and I'm going to introduce myself. And my name is Layton size and it rhymes

with Satan lies. So she hates that I do that. But when I was a kid, I got teased because he was,

hey, Layton size, Satan lies. And I'd go, he absolutely does. I'm glad you acknowledge that.

So, well, what I love is, is flat that you were spent, you spent six months. Oh yeah. Sitting in,

in Twitch culture, learning it. And when people ask me that question, I don't know, I spent seven years

and what you're saying is no, I spent six months, six months and you weren't, I don't know that you

would say that you were intentionally being a student of the culture going out. No, I wasn't. I wasn't

intentionally there to learn the culture. I was there spending six months. And like I said,

about six hours a day being ministered to in many ways, not only by Christians, but one of the things

is you leave and you go somewhere else and you bring your group, your tribe with you, whoever you want

to refer to the people in your stream, you bring them somewhere else to someone else that you are

saying, Hey, I trust. I know this person. They're going to respect you. They're going to treat you the

same way that I do. They might not be the same as me, but I have a relationship enough with them.

I would trust them with you. Great. So I got handed off to other people. And I, so I didn't set out

to observe the culture. I just got embraced in the culture. And as that happened, I wanted to spend

more time in it. Yeah. And that is, it's, that is such a powerful thing for folks who are listening

and are saying, I've been listening to the church digital podcast for a while. We're in this season

on gamers. And like, I know it's important. I, you know, my, my son, my grandson, my daughter,

my granddaughter, whomever plays, I play whatever. And you're like, I know it's important. I just don't

know how to pair the ministry side. I went on Twitch. I have like no idea what's going on. You know,

Jeff told me an episode one of this season, I need to go start a Twitch account. I started a Twitch

account and I got on there and like, I don't know, I don't know what's happening on Twitch,

but it seems like debauchery because the stuff that got posted, like, I was like, oh my gosh,

I'm out of this place. And like, what I love from this is, is flat saying like, embrace it

and envelop yourself in it for a season and learn it. Yeah. And I think even if you're a student of

it, like if you're going there with intentionality to be a student of it and you're engaging in the

community, it might take you less than six months to really learn the culture. Um, it certainly won't

take you seven years of it sort of like, you know, learning it over time, but it is an entirely

different place. And when you're not of Twitch, like when you're not of that people and not of that

drive, they sniff it out instantaneously and, um, flat, you do a really great job of in your live

streams, which I'm lurking in all in mornings pretty frequently. I'm grabbing my coffee. I sit

down with my planner, look at my day, pull up Twitch, see who's online. And it's always flat. He's online.

Right. And so I'll, I'll swing in and to watch how you are engaging with both believers and non-believers

who are coming into your chat and people who are directly opposed to what you're talking about and people

who are there every day. Cause they also want to read through the Bible in a year. And they're on

that journey with you. Tell us a few, um, stories about how, like, you know, I think pretty typical

for you to see anywhere from 10 to 25 people who are popping into your stream on a, every single day,

every morning basis, you're seeing recurring names and you're seeing new people on a very regular

basis. Um, so just tell us, and we've all heard the story of Alice. I love the story of Alice. Um,

but I also love the fact that your unique approach and each of our unique approaches

is touching lives that aren't Alice's as well. So tell us a story or two about people that you've

just encountered and how you've seen God change your life just cause you're willing to flip open the

laptop, turn on the camera and hit go live. Yeah. There's well, when I first was like, Hey,

I'm going to do this. I had people that lined up and said, Hey, I want to, I want to be in your

stream. I want to commit to your stream. I want to moderate for you. And for those that don't know,

that's a person who's there to help make sure that the decorum that you set up and establish for

your stream is managed. They're there to welcome people when they show up. So if I'm in the middle

of reading and I didn't see the chat, they're doing all those things. So immediately I had a couple of

people that, that do that. That's what their call in ministry is, is to, I'm going to go and mod for

people. I'm going to go do that. I'm going to be there. And I was like, wow. So you get, you care

enough about me. Um, miss jelly beans is one of those, uh, sunshine S games is another one. And,

and they mod for a number of people. Uh, sunshine also streams herself, uh, stay at home mom,

uh, jelly beans is retiree. Uh, so both opposite ends of the spectrum. And they're like, Hey,

I want to invest in you. I want to invest in your community and help it succeed. And I've been around

here in the culture enough to help and guide you. So that was, that was a really cool thing that

happened right away. Uh, there's also, um, yeah, just think of those who are non-Christian and my

target is not necessarily trying to just be evangelism. I'm not, I am, I, I, my name has

pastor in it. I, I, I put the tag on there. It says, I'm Christian. I put in there that we're

reading the Bible that attracts people that come in to say, Hey, are you real? Are you genuine or who

you are? And, uh, I had someone came in, I can't remember their name. They they've only come a few

times. And right away, I could tell they weren't buying what the Bible was saying. They, they were,

they were questioning things. They were pointing finger at things. And then I accidentally said

something that I knew instantly offended them. Uh, I said, well, that's a bias,

which honestly it was, but they felt like I attacked them as an atheist. They hadn't identified

themselves as an atheist yet. I said something about, well, even if you're an atheist, you're

coming at it from a bias. When you read the scriptures, you can't come to anything without

a bias. Sure. I have a bias as a white male. I can't get outside of that bias. I can be aware

of my bias. I can treat people differently based on my understanding of my bias. I can't leave it.

Sure. So, so I was trying to go in that direction and then I had accidentally offended them.

And so I immediately apologized for that. I re instantly understood that they misunderstood when I

was using the word bias to not mean it was judgmental. It was a problem. I was just saying,

no, it's just a natural part of life. And so they stayed, they engaged two hours later,

they said, I'm going to put a follow here. I'm going to put a follow here. You have enough

credibility and enough clout and you are, you are honest in where you're at and what you know,

and what you don't know and where you're, you're going to put that. And you treated me with respect

after you accidentally did something you shouldn't have. And so put the follow in,

been back a few times. I don't have a good relationship yet, but I have proven myself

credible to that person that they'll come back. Uh, and another one, I just, I love this guy,

uh, from Denmark who is a Sikh and he is in my stream at least once a month. Uh, I don't remember

his, his, his, his, uh, actual streamer name, but his name is Nico and I just call him Nico,

Joe the Dane. And, uh, he comes in my stream, will engage in scripture and he'll say, Hey,

that reminds me of one of our holy books or one of our holy men and what they said, can I share it?

So he's respectful of my stream and I'm respectful of, of his stuff. And I'll say, yeah, that, that aligns

with what scripture says. That was a great thing to bring up. And so he's regularly in there. He's

engaged in my community. He embraces people that come in my community and he's, his views are

different than mine, but there's something about it that he's like, I'm drawn to it. I want to be

there. I can't be there every time there's time differences. There's all those things. But when I

can fit it in my life, you're valuable enough that I'm going to go hang with you. Yeah. And that's just

an awesome thing. Yeah. And, and what I love, I love flat. I love those stories because they're

showing not only did I, I started and I instantly had a team of people who wanted to serve. So if you

think, who am I going to have, how am I going to get, like, there are people who are in this community

who are so passionate about it. You don't, I think, uh, much of the church world doesn't realize

that they're not like heading into an oasis, right. Or a desert, an oasis, the exact opposite of

what I meant, a desert, right. Um, when they explore in a digital space, it's, I love seeing

the eyes open and they're like, holy crap. Like I didn't, there's a metropolitan city here,

right? There's a city here and there's a thriving, growing grouping of believers who are in this

space who see it as a mission field, who want to serve and sacrifice. And you're also saying,

I'm finding ways to engage with people that would typically never, ever, ever go through the doors

of a church. Oh my goodness. St. Peter said this in our last episode where he said, um, you know,

there's, there's people who'd rather gamble at the gates of hell than darken the doors of a church.

And you're seeing that. And we're seeing that too, right? Like all of us who've been on this show,

we could give you story after story, after story, after story of, you know, atheists who are coming

in and just saying, I just like how I feel when I'm here. Yeah. But I wanted to cycle back to

something that you said right towards the beginning, which is I, I came into Brock's dream and I felt

really welcomed because I have a story echoing that, um, a member of our community, uh, Jannie who's in

her sixties, been a faithful member of our church has never missed a week since we started. Right.

She wrote a message in our discord the other day saying, I went to a physical church. I sat in the

front. I waited for somebody to greet me. No one ever greeted me. I wanted to see if someone would

greet me. I hung out afterwards. I stuck around. No one ever greeted me. I've never felt more greeted

than I did here. And I've, I, she's very rarely met anybody who's from our community. And so you had

that experience as well. Why, why do you think that is, or just speak a little bit more about the power

of that welcome and that digital community for people? I'll speak it from two, two different sides.

One, as a, as a pastor, uh, I remember, I remember when people would be absent on a Sunday and that was an,

a non-normal thing to be not that people were once a month and you would know where they were. You would

know what was going on in their life. And if they were gone, you would welcome them back when, when

they came back. However, as things have changed, when you try to welcome the person back, they feel

judged like, Oh, you, you noticed I was gone. I didn't have a good excuse. Are you judging me? And so

as a pastor, I've gone, maybe I shouldn't say something when I noticed somebody's gone because

maybe they were sick, maybe something they didn't freely share information with me.

I'm not going to embarrass them by welcoming them back when they, when they come back. So that's

not addressing the person who's, who's just a visitor. Uh, that's a separate thing, but I've,

I've, I've had that in the back of my mind. And even when I go on vacation as a pastor, I don't

always go, Oh, Hey, well, how was your vacation? What was going on? I don't get welcome back.

I don't go. I get, Hey, it's great to have you back. What are you doing today? It's just normal

back to life. Uh, but I'll give a different example too. And like I said, this is Twitch

culture. It's not just Christian on Twitch culture. Absolutely. Just, I just want to say

that. So I, I watch a streamer in Australia and time change happens. We go an hour one way

time change happens. They go an hour the other way. They just went to streaming at three in

the morning. I'm not getting up at three in the morning to watch them. And then I wait

until the time change happens. We switch back in the spring, which we're coming up on. And

I'm actually looking forward to it because I haven't seen them since November because they're

at three in the morning. And when that happened the first time I showed up in the stream and

it wasn't them saying, Hey, where have you been? It was this person in the chat, this person

in the chat, this person in the chat said, Hey, it's great to see you flat cap. It is so

great to have you here. We've missed you. And I just felt, wow, they cared about me. They're

not judging me for what was happening or why wasn't I here or I was gone or anything like

that. It was just totally embracing and engaging me. And I went, that is totally different than

what the church is doing. And I'm wondering if this is, is part of it too. At church for the

most part, for most of us, it's one day a week for, for one hour. Now, some of you might be more. I

remember when I was a kid, it was three to thrive. It was Sunday morning. It was Sunday night. And it

was Wednesday night. And if the doors were open, my family was there that those days are gone. So if

you are only there one day a week, a week, and you miss 1.2 times a month, right? Right. Right. I'm

saying even if, even if you're the person that's there once a week, you're only engaging with people.

You're only the gathering together of us like for four hours a month. And I'm spending four hours a

day with people. When I'm gone, they know it. When they're gone, I know it. I know those who are

regulars that if they're not there every day, I need to check in with them. If, if they're a,

hey, I'm a monthly person. I know that. Uh, and so I've, I check in with them. Uh, it's,

it's relational on a different level. So I've been, I've been spending time. Cause, cause one of the

things I kept hearing throughout COVID was don't forget, forsake the gathering together yourselves

like some are like, so that would be the attack on churches that said, we're going to, we're going

to shut down. We're going to do things. It was like, no, don't forsake the assembly of yourself

together. And as I went back and I looked at that, I I'm like, wait a minute in the

text. It says they gathered in the temple gates daily. They gathered in the temple gates daily.

I've never been in a church that did that in my life. I have a stream that does that Monday through

Friday, unless I'm on vacation, unless I'm here at the conference and unable to do it. And my stream

is like going, we miss you. We don't want you to be gone. What are you getting back? Because we need

you here. We need you part of our lives. We need you engaged. And I'm like, you know what? What if

the assembling of yourselves together was intended to be a daily thing, not a one hour on Sunday thing?

And we've totally misunderstood what scripture was saying. And Twitch has it. And I can go over there

and have it. And I can be a part of that and be embraced and be part of people's lives. And if I'm

there long enough, then depending on their situation, they start to give me more and more information and

allow me more and more into their life. And I've never had that in any physical church I've ever had.

And to keep in mind, if you're listening right now, right? You got your ears in or you're driving in

your car. Or you're listening on two times speed in a podcast while you're riding your bike, which is

what I do. Yeah. But you're sitting here and you're listening and you're saying, oh yeah,

this is not gathering together. Oh, it's fine. Whatever. They want to talk about whatever they want.

It's not gathering together. Just keep in mind that that is very likely what Flatcap would have said

two years ago. I might've been a little bit too. I guess that was COVID, right? So, okay. Let's say

pre-COVID, right? 2019, 2018, something like that. And you would have said like, ah, I get it. You're

me, right? Yeah. You're engaging with people online every day. That's engagement. That's not gathering.

Because that's honestly, 2018, that's what I would have said. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Like in many of us,

or I might've said, that's okay, but it's not enough. Sure. Yeah. I might've been willing to

go with that's okay. It's not enough. You have to do the physical too, which frankly, I have been

having a blast this week, seeing a bunch of people I've never actually physically been in the same

space with. It's been great. But you know what? Our relationship isn't built on we're in the physical

space together. No, we got to come here and pick up. Our relationships are built on sharing our lives

together of getting to know each other, of being at, well, some of us it's being in mission and

ministry together of what we're doing for others. It's just being in relationship and helping people

to be into the, for me being in the, in the word together, uh, which is just amazing, which,

which can I share something else? Yeah. So, uh, I think this was, was I even stream? I'm trying to

think of how much I was streaming. Yeah, I was, I had started streaming. So one of the things I started to

notice as I was on Twitch was a bunch of Christian streamers out there who might feel isolated from

their church. They didn't feel support. They didn't feel all of that. And I'm like, I don't

know how to help that. And then I started to notice a bunch of pastors. Now some have pastor in their

name. Not every Twitch streamer does. Uh, you make your own decisions about how you're trying to

approach things, who you're going to reach. You make all of those with, I'm, I'm sure a lot of people

spend time in prayer figuring out, I know I did, what am I going to make my name? And how am I going to do

that? So I started noticing, I started having conversations with pastors saying, I don't have

support for my denomination. I don't have support for my church. Hey, I'm a youth pastor. So they'll

let me go do this thing. But as soon as this thing interferes with what they expect me to do,

I still got to go do all of that. And I just started going, Hey, that thing I was doing with

pastor Brock in real life. And that actually had come to an end because he moved away. Um, another

pastor in the middle of COVID was going towards retirement. And he's just like, I'm just too busy.

I can't do all this. I can't. So the group I'd had for like four years came to a natural end.

And then I was, I don't know if everyone does this. I have these conversations with God when I'm like

driving or I'm riding my bike and sometimes they're just one-sided. And then sometimes I shut my mouth

and then I hear God talk to me. So I know exactly where it was. I had been having this thought of like,

man, it's been a month or so. I'm missing the group. I don't have this pastor connection. I'm

not in ministry. I wonder what they're doing. I wonder what's going on, but I'm over here on

Twitch. I'm doing this stuff. And then I shut my mouth and then I heard, not an audible voice,

but I heard, Hey, that thing you've been doing in real life, why don't you do that in digital space?

Why don't you do that in digital space? Because you saw this pastor over here, you had a conversation

about how they were hurt. And you had a conversation with that pastor over there, how they didn't have

support. And you had a conversation with this pastor about how they were getting attacked by trolls.

And that's people that come in to cause problems in your stream and do all these things. And they're

just feeling isolated and alone. Why don't you gather them together? Why don't you network them

together? Bring them together. They're all digital. They understand that experience, that environment.

And so, so Mark and I have been in a group almost a year now. Yeah. I've been in one of those groups.

Yep. He's one, he's one of the groups. I gather people together. I got to figure out time zone stuff.

Boy, that was a new thing. Figure out time zone. There's no travel. So that makes it easier.

Don't have to worry about who's hosting. But we get together and we share our stories,

our whole story. Now, the first time we do that, we spend about 45 minutes, an hour,

somebody sharing their story. We pray with and for one another. We get to understand what you're doing.

And then we, every time we get together, we check in what's going on in your life. I love hearing

about what's going on in your church. I love hearing about what's going on in your family.

I'm engaged with you outside of here. If I never stream again, you and I are going to stay connected.

Sure.

That's just how that's going to happen. So we do prayer for one another. We read the Bible,

but not from, hey, I'm a pastor and I need to tell you what the Bible says. It's more of a,

hey, I was just reading this week and this stood out to me. And I'd like to share it with you

because it was pretty cool. So we share scripture. That's what we do. We get together,

we do those things. So started doing that, got a couple of groups going. I'm hoping to get some

more going. So if any of you are in Twitch, I'm right on Twitch now. I haven't gone and branched

out to other platforms to look for digital pastors. So if you're digital in a different space, you can

reach out to me. I'm cool with that. I just might not have a network ready or a group of guys ready

to go. But if you're in Twitch at all and you say, hey, I need to, I need to get connected with a group

of pastors that we can, we can carry burdens together. I'm there. Let me know. I'll get you

connected. If I can't do it, I'll get connected with somebody that can. And then just along those

lines, I thought this was pretty cool last fall. I was sitting at the exponential conference

in Chicago. So I was sitting there and I'm thinking about all the pastors that are in my network

and praying for them. And then like an hour later, I just had this thought of, you need to pray for

Pastor Mark. You need to pray for him. So I do. And I just shoot him a text that praying for you.

Don't know what's going on. God's got it. And then, I don't know, it was a couple of days later,

you said, hey, I was sitting in the hospital. Yeah. I was with my daughter. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm like,

I would have never done that before I was thinking digitally. I started doing that after that,

where when I was praying for a pastor, I shoot him a text message, shoot him an email,

or I'm on Discord. And I say, hey, praying for you today, just prayed for you. I don't have to say

anything else. But I hope at that time, it was a comfort in the middle of what was going on.

Sure. It was letting me know that God was touching other people's hearts. Think about me and my family

at that moment. Right. Right. And I just stopped in the middle of what I was doing because I felt the

need to pray for you. So that's why it's just the power of those groups that, yeah, this is the first

time we've been together in a physical space. Yeah. But we've had a relationship over a year and it's

growing. It's great. Yeah. And I know, I know Flat's story. Flat knows my story, right? Like we've been

through that together and we know the stories of four or five other people who are in the group and we

know their ministries and their Bible, Kovo, full-time missionaries, pastors, and online

influencers, right? Like we know their stories and their approaches are very different than mine is,

which is different than Flat's is, which is different than the next person's. And that hasn't

stopped us from connecting with one another. And it's very good to see those things that we may even

think are kind of normal in church world, right? Like things that we see, yeah, we're part of networks,

we're part of the ministerium, we're part of the pastor group, whatever. But to see those

things come to bear because God is speaking to the hearts of people in this space as well,

that we're getting some of those support systems that we maybe would have had in physical space,

we're now beginning to see those come out in digital space because God's speaking hearts and people are

responding, which is really powerful. We're going to be wrapping up this episode of the Church

Digital Podcast. If you guys want to get connected with Flatcap, come over to the Digital Church

Network. He helps people get plugged into that digital community. If you're not like, I don't really want to

do the Twitch and Discord thing yet. Just come lurk in Flat's stream in the morning. It's twitch.tv

slash FlatcapDapperPastor. I think we can probably put a link to that in the episode for this. You can

come by and just sort of hang out in his stream and begin learning a little bit about Twitch culture

and see how those relationships are developed and understand why this is such a deeply relational

experience. And there isn't a ton of tech that you suddenly have to understand. There's nothing that's... And this

isn't a slight to what you're doing at all, but there's... There isn't anything that's particularly

like a tech marvelous thing, right? No, you're not insulting me at all. There's nothing tech

marvelous on my stream. Yeah, it's a very... It's very simple, but it's wildly authentic. And it is

enabling you to build deep relationships with believers and non-believers all across the globe

in the same space in a way that a physical church can't do. I'm not criticizing. I'm not trying to say

your church isn't... It's impossible for you to do this, but it is truly and genuinely a unique

experience of how the gospel is manifesting. It's... In some ways, I couldn't reach people in Africa

before the digital age without going to Africa. So if there are people there and I felt compelled to

reach out to them, I had to go do something. I couldn't just sit in my church and do it.

So nobody would expect that to happen. So in the same way, there's a digital space where people are.

If you want to reach people in digital space, you got to do that. Yeah. But not everyone was going

to Africa. Some people had to go to India. Some people had to go to China. Some people had to go

to wherever were people that needed to be reached. Not everyone should be on Twitch. I wouldn't have

picked Twitch. I came over there by accident. And now that I'm there, God said, yeah, this is where

you're supposed to hang out for now. This is what you're supposed to do. I've got more things for you

to do. But right now, this is where you're at. This is what you're doing. And when God says it's time

to go to the next place, I'll say, okay. And if God's not calling you to Twitch, well, I'll just say

this. I didn't go to Facebook because I thought Facebook was a great thing. I went to Facebook

because I had college students at the time that would not answer an email. And they said, Facebook me.

And I went, what are you talking about Facebook you? I thought Facebook was an online website.

How am I? I mean, they were already tearing things into verbs at that time. And I didn't understand it.

So do what you can, where you can. Allow the Holy Spirit to lead you into the things.

The other thing is, is if someone in your church comes up to you and says, hey, I'm wondering if

God is calling me to do that. Pray with them, unleash them, try to equip them, or say, I don't have any

idea what that is. But I know someone who might. And that's one of the things I love too, is I don't

know everything, but I want to introduce you to somebody who will. I want to connect you with

somebody who's able to do that. So if you reach out and you say, hey, I'm thinking this, and this is

crazy, I'm going to say, you might be right. But so was leading, you know, slaves out of Egypt. That

was pretty crazy. You know, starting with 12 people and saying, hey, I'm going to bring the gospel to the

whole world. That sounds pretty crazy. But we serve God that uses people to do some things that I would

never say, that's what I want to do. But when God says, I want you to do that, you might argue with

them or wrestle around, but you kind of know that Jonah went to Nineveh no matter what happened.

Amen. Amen. Well, guys, on that note, which is an awesome note, we want to thank you for listening

to this episode of The Church Digital from me, Mark, from Lux Digital Church, from The Church

Digital and from Flatcap Dapper Pastor, from twitch.tv slash flatcapdapperpastor, and from the

Church Digital Network. Thank you for listening to this episode. Be sure to come back and listen to the

next one as we continue this journey about gamers, the church, and Jesus, and what God is doing in

this beautifully wonderful digital space. Have a great day, everybody, and thanks for listening.