EP257 - Metaverse Church Takeover

All right. Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Church Digital Podcast. Jeff Reed here, founder of the

Church Digital, Digital Church Network. Oh, so much other fun stuff. We're doing a bonus episode

this week. That's right. Even though we're in the middle of season four here of the Church Digital

Podcast, talking about Jesus, Gamers, and Church, we are going to do a bonus episode with a takeover.

We've been featuring over the past couple of weeks the Church Digital Podcast Network. We have

a network of podcasts, a network of other content creators that are actively creating shows and

content that's out there. And we're wanting to highlight them here through the podcast, bring

awareness, maybe get you connected to another podcast that's talking about something you might

be interested in. And so this week, we're going to get cool. We're going to get virtual. We're going

to really get into the metaverse here. We're featuring Stunami and Goose. Now, if you're not

in the cool, we're featuring Stuart McPherson and Michael Ustabenis. These are two, get this,

these are two virtual reality pastors. Yes, there is such a thing as a virtual reality pastor. We've

featured both of these guys on the TCD podcast over the years. But Stunami, Stuart, is the virtual

reality pastor for Lakeland Church. And Goose, Michael Ustabenis, is at Cornerstone Yuba City in

Cornerstone Yuba. Actually, he lives in Fort Lauderdale, Cornerstones in California. But that's

a whole other conversation. These two experts in virtual reality ministry got together and said,

hey, why don't we do a show together? And let me tell you, it's really good stuff. And so, hey,

you know, here's what I want you to do as we're getting started. I'm going to put the link in the

show notes to subscribe to their show. And so those of you that are really interested in virtual reality,

ministry and virtual reality, I want you to go ahead and do this. I want you to click and I want you

to subscribe to the podcast Metaverse Church, the Metaverse Church podcast. Subscribe right now.

It's okay. We're going to get into their show here in about five seconds. We're going to pause

long enough to let you click the link and subscribe to it. By the way, for more information on the

podcast network overall, go to thechurch.digital slash podcast. You can get information on Metaverse

Church as well as all the other shows that we're doing. But right now, I'm going to shut up and I'm

going to go ahead and let Stunami and I'm going to let Goose take over here as they're doing the

Metaverse Church podcast. Okay, everybody, here you go. Hey, what's going on, everybody? Welcome

back to another episode of the Metaverse Church podcast. I am Stuart and with me as always is my

co-host Goose. And I say that again, Stunami is what I go by in the Metaverse world. And Goose,

I may have said this already on another episode. We're starting to batch these episodes, which are

awesome. But I hopped into some of the other platforms the other day, creating my accounts and

just wanting to like solidify like, okay, eventually Lakeland is going to get into here. Lakeland VR is

going to get into here. So let me start playing around and a little bit more. And I tried to

change some of my names and some of those platforms that I was testing in because my go-to, like

whenever I signed up for accounts, I was like SMCPherson88 because there's a whole bunch of

Stuart McPherson's in the world apparently. Yeah. But dude, I got super bummed out because somebody

straight up jacked my name in Horizon. Yeah. I tried to choose Stunami and I had to do

Stunami.VR. I was like, there's somebody out there rolling with my name right now. And

I've seen Highlander and there can only be one. So we're going to have to fight to the death,

the virtual death, the Metaverse death. My goodness. I did think, however, that was... Go ahead.

No, I mean, I guess if somebody other than you shows up to this podcast, I'll know that you

didn't make it. Yeah. True story. Although I did have somebody else mentioned as they were

watching one of our episodes. So if you listen to the podcast, you don't know this at all. But those

of you who are watching on YouTube, I had somebody reach out and say, Hey, I love how you're blending

into the map right now because the hoodie that I'm wearing currently is the same tone and color

to the map of the world that I have behind me. And I was just like, dude, the world's just got my back.

What can I say? I didn't even notice that. But yeah, there you go. He's right.

Where am I? Where's Stu?

All right. What a way to kick off an episode. Yeah. So, hey, we always ask like a question right off

the bat just to kind of set a tone, set a mood, kind of help people get to know us a little bit

better, all that kind of good stuff. But we're going to make a pivot on that. And it's still just

like an opening question. But in our staff meetings at Lakeland, we love to ask a question

just to really kick things off by saying, Hey, where, where do you see God working? What are some

wins from this past week? So Goose in the metaverse world, where are you seeing God working? What wins

are you seeing? Yeah, man, we had, we had an awesome, I'm like, yeah, I mean, definitely a win

uh, this past week, uh, in VR chat, uh, pastor Jason was doing a, uh, his message, um, and had to do

with mental health. Uh, and, um, and you know, it's, it's been pretty packed, uh, you know, recently

just even, even more of an uptick. So, you know, we're just, and it's been pretty, um, it's been

pretty organized. Like we haven't had a lot of issues, but, um, but this past week we had

a guy in there and initially couldn't really tell he was new. Um, he was there with another

guy. Couldn't really tell what his deal was, was up near the front for a minute. And anyway,

we kind of had his eye on our item, but then he just kind of sat there and listened. Well,

goes through the whole sermon. We go to Q and a, and you know, I, I asked, you know, anybody

got any questions, any comments? And this guy raised his hand and he said, I got to tell you,

you know, I, I came in here to troll you guys when I knew that I found out there was

a church in here. That's like a legitimate church. I came in here to just mess with you

guys. But then when I heard what the guy was talking about, it actually resonated with me.

And I was wondering if I could ask you guys some questions and he proceeded to ask these

really amazing questions about why he was the way he was. He was dealing with a lot of anger

and negativity. And I mean, just really genuine questions. And, um, you know, we talked with

him, explained it to him. You know, he did, you know, it wasn't like he had this like massive

revelation and dedicated life to Christ on the spot, but, um, but seeds were planted. And that's,

that's, that's kind of our mantra. It's that, you know, it's kind of our focus is just planting

seeds. Um, and man, like a seed was planted. And I, I really just, uh, you know, you never know,

but it just, it just seems like it was planted in some fertile soil. At least it was, God was

definitely tilling it a little bit. So those moments are awesome. Uh, very rarely do we get

somebody to admit that you were coming into troll and right there, you know, we know what happens,

but, um, most of the time they just leave this guy just stuck around. And so, so we'll see. I mean,

I hope he comes back. I hope we get to talk with him some more. Cause he, he, uh, he really sounded

like a guy who was looking for answers. And so anyway, that, that to me, it's just one of those

moments where it's like, man, that's why we're here. I mean, one of many reasons, but why we're

here is that we've got people who are antagonistic towards the church. And then all of a sudden when

they see that, like, Oh, it's not what I thought it was, their heart changes. And so it was beautiful.

Uh, yeah, definitely one of those markers in the road where it's like with all the difficulties and

the opposition that we may face, it's like, yeah, keep going. We're, you know, Lord's working.

So that was a, that was a major win for us. Yeah. How about you? That's awesome. Uh, yeah. So I would

probably say, actually, I've had a couple of those moments within just the past week. So, um, you know,

we do these, uh, Thursday night midweek replays is what we call them. So we, we take our, uh, Sunday

morning message and then I chop them down into bite-sized pieces, uh, in order to have like,

here's who Lakeland is. And now here's some questions that we can ask in relation to what

our senior pastor is talking about. And so it opens up the room for conversation. Um, and so,

you know, in alt space where we're doing this, all of a sudden this guy comes in, um, and he's like,

Hey, I know that you have this question up on the board. Um, and I don't really know that I have an

answer for it, but I do have questions about faith in general. Um, and this is what I love. Like this

is a dude that, um, I kicked off the night just saying, Hey, we got a lot of people in the event

tonight, more so than usual. I'm assuming that's because of alt space shutting down. Um, but I said,

I just, I just want to know where everybody's at. And so homeboy's coming from Scotland and now he's

interacting with me in Wisconsin. Um, and I was just like, yeah, man, ask your question. Like we

don't even have to focus on what's happening over here up on the screen. Like, let's, let's just go

ahead and go, uh, where you want to go. And he was just like, you know, I, I, I'm not really religious

per se. Um, but I find myself in a very dark spot. Like I would say like a bottom of a pit face,

face, face bottom, face down on the bottom. Um, and, uh, he's like, all I know is like,

I meet people who are religious and they seem to have like a hope that I just don't have. And he

says, or I come across people who I know personally in my life that, um, they've, they were in the same

spot that I find myself now. And then all of a sudden they got religion and hit, that was his way

saying like Christianity. Like he came to faith, they came to faith in Jesus. So he would say they

got religion and all of a sudden, like, I resonate with where they were at because that's where I'm

at now. But then they're like completely different. And he's like, it doesn't make sense to me. And I

just, I have questions like, like they've got something that I don't have. And I would love to

kind of understand that a little bit better. Um, I was like, cool. Like, yeah, let's, let's hang out

here for a little bit and let's just address, uh, what questions you have in that realm. And so

it turned out to be a really sweet conversation, you know, an hour long, uh, event that we host

in all space. I think I ended up being with that dude from like 7 30 PM to 10 PM just talking, um,

which was really, really cool. But, uh, at the same time, um, that then happened again yesterday as

we do alpha in all space. And this guy came in and for him, he was asking a whole bunch of

like a religious space questions. Um, but the way that he, the approach that he was coming from was

that he is religious. Um, but he just kinda, he's like, I'll take this. Cause I like that. I'll take

this from over here. Cause I like that one, all that kind of stuff. And, um, and so he was just

kind of pushing in a nice way, but he was kind of pushing back against what I was saying from the

Christian perspective. And like at one point in time, he asked me, and I loved this question.

He says, um, would you say that your perspective is from a religious perspective or from a historical

perspective? I was like, ah, what a fun question. And I said, I would say that my perspective is coming

from both because my faith is historic. It's not some kind of fictional, you know, some fairy

God or anything like that. And so then he, like, he goes from that question to asking, um, uh,

oh man, what was it? He goes, oh, because his opinion is that there is one God and all roads

lead to that one God. Um, and, uh, I, he says to me,

he's like, so what's your Zodiac sign? I was like, oh, sweet. Okay. Like, I'm glad that you asked me

this question. And I said, so here's, here's the thing. I was like, dude, I don't believe in the

Zodiac like at all. Like, and he's like, well, but your faith, like Christian faith, like you,

like they followed the star in order to find Jesus. So you, like your faith has to have something to do

with the stars and all that kind of stuff. And I was like, see, here's the thing is you're coming

from a perspective that the star, like the created thing, um, is God versus God who is creator. Um,

and so it just like the, the fun questions. And I tell people who, um, are interested in virtual

reality ministry, like what, like, what are some of like the fruits that come of it? And I tell people

all the time, I was like, you're going to come across people who don't believe what you believe

in and they'll fight against you. You're also going to come across people who do believe what you

believe in and they'll rally around you. I said, but you're also going to come across people that,

um, they think they believe what you believe in and you end up finding out that they, or, or that

they don't believe what you believe in, but they do so because they have a miss under or a misconceived

understanding of who Jesus is. And because of that, um, they either think that they're on your team

or they think they're completely against it. And when you start like breaking apart the,

the misconceptions of who Jesus is and the misconceptions of, uh, Christianity, all of a

sudden I almost every single time I've had somebody go, I like that. That makes more sense. I'm like,

yeah, yeah, yeah. So, um, so I, and I'll share this one last story because it segues really well

into, uh, what we're talking about today. But, uh, in big screen again, around the same topic,

doing alpha, I had a couple of guys hop in, into that environment and again, brought in their,

um, their version of Christianity. Yeah. And, uh, it was just, it was such a sweet conversation

just because like, I had to, in a, in a grace and truth filled way. There are just some things where

that what they were saying was, well, I believe this and I believe, you know, X, Y, Z. Like,

again, one of those statements of like, I believe, uh, all paths will lead to heaven. And I believe in

Jesus. And I just told him, I was like, you do understand like your statement of, I believe in

Jesus that like the Jesus of the Bible and all paths lead to heaven. I was like, dude, that,

that contradicts itself. Like they don't play in the same realm. And as long as you call yourself

a Bible believing Christian and you tell people that you're confusing people and you're leading people

further away and closer to hell each time. So I love the opportunity that VR provides for me to

just have conversations that I would never have because homeboy from Scotland's never coming into

Lakeland and Wisconsin and wherever those guys were in, uh, big screen probably will never come

to, uh, Lakeland, but it's a way of making a massive world super small and being able to, again,

like you said, plant seeds. And I told him, I was like, dude, uh, the guy that was in the

alt space alpha, uh, event, I told him, I was like, dude, my goal is not to get you to be from here

all the way over here in this event. I said, but if I can plant something that helps him move the

needle a little bit more to you understanding who Jesus is and choosing Jesus, I was like,

that to me is a win. And if somebody else ends up being the reason why you give your life to Jesus,

so be it. But at least as you guys would say, a seed was planted here. So yeah, that's good.

That's good. You, you bring, you bring up something that we, we, we haven't really touched on because

it's, it's platform agnostic, but it's probably a good caveat to anybody thinking about coming into

the space, uh, which is, um, how frustrating it can be to, um, see how many people fancy themselves

a theologian simply because they, um, watch YouTube or Tik TOK and have a headset.

And, um, it's something that we've actually had to really sort of like, um, work through as a team

because so, so many of us do care about sound doctrine. Um, but you know, especially in, um,

in like places like VR chat, but it's, it's, it's everywhere, but, but it's happened mostly in VR

chat, which is, um, you know, you know, the, you know, the, the guy that you talk to with the all

roads lead to heaven and, you know, yet, yet like, you know, proclaims to be a Christian. I mean,

there's nothing stopping that guy from, you know, putting up a simple world, calling it a church

and calling himself a pastor or bishop or whatever. And nobody, not like the, the, most of the people

that are out there don't know that that guy isn't, isn't actually an ordained pastor, doesn't actually

have education, doesn't actually preach sound doctrine. And, um, and, and so it can be kind of

frustrating. It can be very frustrating. And, but then there's also just like, well, we can't do

anything about that. We like, we can't worry about that. It's they're out there, whether we like it or

not. And to be fair, I mean, there are brick and mortar churches that do the same thing. And so it's

not like we can just go, we don't want, we're not called to be the gatekeeper of that, but it's just

more in your face because, because it's the metaverse, it's like they're opening that building up

literally next door to your church. And like, everybody sees the two crosses and think, you know,

the, the, the thought is like, well, we don't want to be, we don't want to get lumped in with that.

Right. Like, you know, like, like you guys as, as cornerstone is a, it's a church with, with

church hierarchy and a structure and, you know, legitimate pastors who have dedicated their life

to the craft and have an in-person congregation that they, that they shepherd all of that. And,

and then we are also doing it in the metaverse, but you put that, you put Lakeland and cornerstone

next dude, like dude in his basement with a, with a headset and, and a YouTube and, and it was just

like, well, there's no difference in terms of the optics. There's a big difference between the,

what, what is it, what, you know, what is church and what isn't. And so, so that is, I mean,

it's just like sort of a caveat that we're like, if, if someone's coming into this space,

you just kind of be prepared for the frustration of having to sort of wade through a lot of that

or put up with a lot of that. And then a lot of them make their way over. A lot of them will make

their way over and actually claim we're the ones that are wrong. I don't know if you've had that

experience or not. Um, yeah, I'm sure you have. Um, and, and so it's just a weird, you know,

again, again, just as like, that's not typical in a brick and mortar church. It's not typical for

like some pastor of pastor of another quote unquote church. It's like walking your doors

and be like, you guys are preaching heresy. It doesn't generally happen. Um, but here in the

metaverse, like, yeah, that's, that's actually not strange anymore. So yeah, a little caveat about

coming into the meta metaverse ministry, just to get to deal with some weird stuff sometimes.

Yeah, for sure. So talking about weird stuff, we're doing our final deep dive today. And we are

talking about the platform known as big screen. Uh, and, uh, you and I talked off air on this one,

that this is, you know, we talked about like VR chat and we talked about rec room. And I was like,

we're probably, I'm probably going to lean heavy on goose's answers to this one. And this is the one

where you were saying, we're probably going to lean heavy on what my experience is within big

screen. Cause I've been playing in there, not, not long. Uh, but we've been in there, we've hosted a

couple of different events. Our first go at it was probably, uh, back in August, I guess is when I

started messing on big screen a little bit. So, um, yeah, so I guess let's start here.

Because eventually there's gotta be this shift of like, you're doing the question asking and whatnot.

So I'll do a simple lob to you of a question that you can answer as briefly or quickly or long as you

want. Um, and then we can reverse roles on this. But, uh, so what is, what does goose know about big

screen? I know you, I know it's heavily video based. I mean, it's not, no, not blowing the lid off of

that. It's that's the name. Um, so primarily targeted at people who want to watch videos

together. And so, um, that's, uh, it's one main reason why we haven't really even ever considered

it. Um, because it's, it's not, you know, video for us or screen, the screen for us is, is ancillary

to what we do. So, um, we just haven't, haven't really taken a look at it. So that's it. I mean,

that's the main thing that I know. The only other thing I know is that I think there's a cap of 15 a

room, although I could be totally wrong about that, but those are the two things that I know about it.

And I'm curious about your experience and, and yeah. So, uh, yeah. So let me, I'll kick it back

to you. Uh, what about that? Do I have correct or, or, or not? And if you've been in some August,

what, yeah, what's your impression? I know we do the, what's good and what's bad, but like, um,

you know, what, what's your impression about it and what do you, and how do you feel about it

moving forward, especially in light of what, uh, with, with the all space news?

Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, um, all space news came out and I had, and the only way that I knew

that, uh, all space was closing down. It wasn't because I opened up my email and I saw it, but it

was actually, my phone was blowing up discord related wise, which is other pastors reaching out

and people who have attended Lakeland VR, just asking like, Hey, what are you guys going to do?

What's your next step? What do you think that we should do? And, um, I was like, what I think is

sweet is because I had been investigating the other platforms and whatnot. The reality was, um, I was

able to say it right then and there, like if all space would have decided that they were shutting

down that day, Lakeland VR wouldn't have missed a beat because we would have just launched right

into big screen and started hosting our service. And there, um,

so like, what's good about it is it's super user friendly. Um, they have two different,

uh, they probably have more than this. I just haven't played around with the other ones.

So like you can upload files into big screen if you want to like video files and whatnot.

Um, but then there is, you can stream YouTube right from the room that you're hosting from. So if I

wanted to write into big screen, host a room, opening it up to the public, and then from inside the app,

I can just click the YouTube button, type in Lakeland community church and boom, the live stream

service is right there playing for everybody to see. So that's a sweet feature. If you're streaming your

service, um, or a playback, um, the other way that you do it is they have a remote desktop, uh, app.

So it only works with, uh, windows, which is hard. So like I'm a Mac person all the way through.

So it forced me to go out and buy a, uh, a surface pro. Um, but you just download the big screen

app, uh, onto your computer and you connect it with your headset and, uh, it does all of its

linking up and it acknowledges, Hey, there's this headset that's connected with this name. Here's

this desktop, um, that's now logged in. And then you inside the app, you say, uh, you know,

like host room, um, uh, remote desktop, you click that and then it acknowledges that these

two platforms are now connected with each other. So from within the app itself in the headset,

I can control my desktop so I can show people slides. I can show people, I can go to any website

that I want to, which is really scary when you think about it. And I've heard that's how people

have utilized it, um, or, you know, horrible things, if you will, but it's, it's literally

designed for streaming. It's designed for gather together with your friends and watch a movie.

It's designed for gather with your friends and play video games with each other all in one

room streaming on this big screen that you guys are, you know, experiencing together. Um,

so I've used it both ways. Um, I've used it for just streaming in our live stream

service into a big screen and I've used it for, uh, alpha where I use the remote desktop and I was

going through my slide deck of our spliced videos, spliced questions. Um, so there's some

really neat features in that, uh, that gives you a lot of leeway and a lot of play. Um, I will say

the 15 person cap, uh, is a real thing and that makes it hard. Now that also is dependent on who

you are and your experience within virtual reality. So I say that, and I don't know that

we as Lakeland, we've barely, I'll say it this way. We very rarely, rarely at Lakeland VR have had

more than 15 people in an event at a time. Now we've had way more people attend an event, but peak

user, somebody who like the amount of people in at one time, um, we've, we've very rarely have gotten

that we have, but very rarely. Um, so I'm not too concerned about that cap limit right now. Um,

what I have asked of my team moving forward is as we go into big screen, if we hit the cap for a room,

then I send out two team members to host a room and then they just stream the service themselves,

um, in their environment. So then you'll see a Lakeland VR and then another Lakeland VR on their

event board. Um, there's that, that in itself is a good and bad. They have an event board is not like

alt space event board. So, uh, on that, but there is an event board in the say in the, and just in,

in the fact that I host a room, I make it public and anybody who's on the app, they can scroll through

all the public events that are currently going on, um, and see Lakeland VR description of what

and then they can enter into it. So no world building, uh, for it. It's, they have their

host rooms and they've got a pretty sweet list of host rooms. So you could be like around a campfire.

You could be at a drive-in movie theater. You could be in your living room. You could be in an

apartment. You could be on a balcony. You could be in like a sci-fi movie theater. You could be in a

traditional movie theater. Oh, wow. That's a lot. There's a, there's, there's a list of opportunities

for it. So, um, how's the traffic? Yeah. So traffic wise, uh, it's about 10 times the amount

of what alt space had for peak users. Um, I mean, at any given time I would probably say I see

10 rows of events going on at a time. And I think each row is three. So you're talking

about 30 different events usually going on at a time. And I would probably say out of those 30

different events, just in the events, I'd probably say are 70 to 80 people, but that doesn't include,

they do have a lobby space. And so there's a lobby space that people hang out into.

So that's good. So I know, again, I know you're, you've been in it a little while, not maybe not,

you know, neither of us as long as it's all space or anything like that. So, but I'll ask you at least

for your impressions right now in terms of the way that people consume it. Um, it sounds like mostly

it's at least designed for people to, uh, kind of have a pre set meeting to go and do something.

You know, if, if me and my buddies are going to go play games, we're going to coordinate that ahead

of time and then go in. If me and my friends want to watch a movie together, I assume sports are a

thing on there. You know, these are scheduled things that we would probably coordinate ahead

of time and then head in, as opposed to something like alt space or a VR chat, where it's like,

I'm going in, I don't necessarily know what I'm going to do or who I'm going to talk to.

I'm going to world hop a little bit. I'm going to go in and then see what's going on

and make a determination as to what I want to do based on what's what I find when I get in there.

Um, is that accurate? Is that how people consume this or are there people, uh, or, and I say,

is there a significant amount of people who are just saying, you know what, tonight I'm going to

go in big screen. I don't know what I'm going to watch. I'm going to just find something interesting.

I'm going to world hop. And, and then, you know, what's your, what's your impression of that?

Yeah, I'd probably say the latter. I'd probably say that somebody who's saying, I'm just going to

throw on the headset, go into big screen and whatever there is, is what there is. Um, and

I'm just going to partake and find whatever is streaming. So like I did it for the, uh, uh,

the college, the national college football championship. I threw on the headset and I was just

like, well, let me go to a big screen. I can almost guarantee somebody is streaming the national

championship. And there were probably four or five rooms that people were streaming it. And what was

cool was like, I could tell based off of the event board, uh, who was going for who per room. It was

like, Georgia dogs, TCU frogs, you know, hypno toad or, you know, dog down or whatever. I was like,

okay, I know that I'm about to walk into an environment where these people are going for

whichever team. Um, so I would say that it's more like I'm going to throw on a headset and

I'm just going to bounce around and see whatever there is. See if there's something that catches

your attention. That's great. Okay. Um, so then with that said, um, would you say that

big screen is now the best candidate for a church to start out in?

If a new church is coming in, um, I mean, the ease of live stream, uh, you know, sort of,

I mean, it sounds actually easier than even all space. I mean, all space was relatively easy,

but it wasn't, you know, it wasn't perfect and it wasn't like necessarily out of the box. Easy.

This sounds like it's out of the box. Easy. Um, how are the moderation controls? And, um,

um, and then, uh, Oh, and, and if someone wanted to do live teaching, could they do it? So, sorry,

I threw, I threw a bunch at you. So you take any and all of those and yeah.

Yeah, no, that's great. So, um, if somebody wanted to do live teaching in there, a hundred percent

could do it. Uh, in fact, I've even seen some events that are set up that are just called,

um, religious talk and chill.

So like they're not planning on streaming anything. They're just gathering in there to

have a conversation with people. And again, I think of it like a small group, like, like it's a great

small group environment of like, Hey, we're in a living room. Like it's super cozy. You can actually

control, control the lights in the room. So if you want it light brighter or dimmer, like you have full

control of that kind of stuff within the room. Um, I would say it is now the, if a church is wanting

to get into this and they're wanting to do it, how we do it at Lakeland VR was streaming a service.

This is without a doubt, the easiest platform to get into and run at this point. Anybody could do it.

Um, now, um, now interesting. And, and you asked the question about how the moderation controls.

What was nice about alt space for us to launch into it is it provided us the opportunity to do

how we felt led to run service, which we went through many different iterations of how we ran service.

We started with live teaching. We did like a clubhouse, like we're bringing in a topic. We'll

open up the floor for conversation. And then eventually we got into the streaming style that

we're doing now. Um, but what was nice about all spaces, you had all control. You could kick

whoever you want. You can mute whoever you want. Uh, you had a raise hand feature. So like you can

amplify voices, you can lower voices, all that kind of stuff. Fantastic. When it came to moderation,

probably the best platform for moderation control, all space. My opinion, uh, you're more than welcome

to disagree. No, agreed. Agreed. Big screen is horrible. Oh boy. Horrible. So while it is easy for,

it would be the great first step for any church to get into my, uh, uh, word of caution for anybody

going into big screen would be your trolls are through the roof. Really through the roof. There

are, uh, I just had a conversation with somebody the other day that, uh, the way that they described

it is big screen is going to be the platform for trolls. Like people who literally just throw on the

has said, just to hop into an environment, just to Jack. Oh, it's so again, like as we started off the,

the, the podcast talking about the wins and the conversations that came out of it, like I would

say, um, what was neat about that experience, uh, running alpha this past week was we had so many

trolls that popped into that event. And so what, what moderation control you do have is you,

as the individual, you can lower somebody's volume for you personally, it doesn't do it for the room,

but if, you know, if a 12 year old snot boy comes running in and he's just like throwing words out

that, you know, acts like he's been sailing for 11 of his 12 years of existence. Um, and, uh, you know,

whatever else trying to just really Jack with everybody, you, as an individual, you can lower their volume

so they don't bother you. Um, and so I was able to do that with a couple of the trolls that came in and I

could tell that the people who are really, uh, into the conversation, they did the same thing because

as we were talking, you have like this group of people, these trolls that were just jacking around

over here while this circle of people were having real conversation with each other and not bothered

by these people at all. Hey, you know, they get in your face and whatnot. Um, they have some

interactables and big screen. So you can have like this marker. So it's designed for like, if you had

like a meeting with like coworkers, right? So you can have this marker and you can write in the air.

And so sometimes what I'll do is I'll write Lakeland discord.com as like a next step for

people in our event. But you as the individual, you can turn off distractions or environment

distraction. I forget how they label it. So anytime somebody does do something like that, you won't see

it. So they can do it as much as they want. So I, my recommendation would be for any church that's

getting into big screen. Um, you would have to communicate to people who are coming in like,

Hey, we understand that this is a very heavy troll platform. So make sure that if somebody is bugging

you lower their volume. Um, if somebody is writing stuff or throwing popcorn or tomatoes or sodas or

whatever at you turn off, you know, or turn on distraction, free environment. That way you can

focus on the conversation at hand and not the trolls. Um, there was one more thing. Oh, as the host of the

room, you do have the option to boot a person or kick or sorry, not boot block or kick. And so what

those two options do is if you kick a person, they can't reenter into that event, but any other event

that you host later on, they can come back into. If you hit boot or block moment, you hit, sorry,

block. The moment you hit block, that person will never be able to come into any event that you as a

host ever start up. So that's, that's about as far as the moderation controls go for big screen.

Okay. Okay. So, I mean, that's not worse than VR chat. Um, and so that, in fact, actually that's

pretty much VR chats moderation controls as well. You can, you can lower individuals volume, but

natively you can't do it. Um, you know, through, through code, you can set your world up that way,

but anyway, that's neither here nor there. So it doesn't sound like it's worse than VR chat.

It sounds like it's pretty much on par with VR chat. Okay.

So interesting that that's where all the trolls are.

I, I kid, like I said, somebody said that to me and I, as soon as I said, I was like a hundred

percent, this is where trolls come just to simply troll. Like they put on a headset to say,

I'm going to go troll today. And so they hop into big screen.

Oh, weird. Yeah. All right.

But there's religious conversations are going on there. There are, uh, uh, you know,

there's some environments that when you log in, you just see, uh, man, what, what was one that I

saw? It was called like bedroom talk 18 plus or something like that. So like this one is wide open

on the kind of stuff that you can stream. If you can stream it, you can bring it into big screen.

So like the, the opportunities are really high and reaching people. And, um, you know, the same

way that you had that conversation with that guy in all space, same way that I had a conversation with

the guy in all space. Like there are people who like, we had two, one of those guys that I was talking

to him big screen earlier this week in alpha, he came into our environment because he got booted from

another one because he didn't have the same, uh, religious view as the person who was hosting the

room. And he was just like, I don't understand why I get booted for this. And that's actually what

started the conversation. Um, which was really sweet of being able to say like, dude, I think you're

on a spiritual journey. I just think that you're probably not as far as you're thinking. So let's

talk about it. So you can't friend, here's the other, I know we've got to wrap up this episode,

but I would say this, the other bad part of it is you can't build a friends list on big screen,

like you can in all space, like you can in VR chat. So any church that hops into it,

your next step would be to heavily, heavily rely on discord and do anything and everything that you can

to get those people to be willing to take that next step to hop over there. So any kind of follow

up, it's gonna be super hard unless they join your discord or whatever platform you use to build

community. So that's where it's super weak in my opinion is follow up wise. Yeah. Okay. So yeah,

you got to, yeah, uh, third party somehow discord is the best way. Yeah. Okay. That's good,

man. That's pretty exciting. A lot of opportunity there. It sounds like, yeah, but that's big screen,

uh, from what I know of it, from what I've heard from others, that's pretty much what you're getting

in a nutshell. So we're going to need, we'll need a follow up probably three, four months, uh,

a recheck in on big screen to see what, you know, what else has been revealed. Yeah. Yeah. And,

you know, as we, uh, I mean, we can, we can talk about this later with, uh, in other episodes,

but it'll be fun just to do a follow up on all the platforms besides for all space again, rip,

but we'll do a follow up on all of those and just kind of see, uh, what we're learning in the process.

And, and, uh, yeah, uh, what is going to be the first platform for people to hop into and

all that kind of good stuff. So for sure. For sure. Yeah. Cool. Good. Good deal. Yeah,

man. Well done. Uh, pressure was off for me this week. That's I, I, I like that. We got to do more

of those. Yeah, for sure. Well, let me close this out. Well, everybody, once again, thank you for

listening to the metaverse church podcast. Um, if this is beneficial to you, please be sure to

subscribe to the channel. So you never miss out on an episode and it would be, uh, really beneficial

and helpful for us that you would leave a rating on this podcast, um, and a review and share it with

others. So again, as goose just said, we're continuing to explore other platforms and what all they have to

offer, especially for the church diving into the metaverse. So there's still a lot more to learn,

and we would love to even connect with you and what you're learning and what you know,

um, it'd be really beneficial for all of us for the capital C church as we move forward. So,

uh, but that being said on behalf of goose and myself, thank you again for listening and we will

see you next week for another episode of the metaverse church podcast. Be blessed.