EP256 - Johno, eSports, and YOUR 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, everybody. Welcome to Twitch Digital Church Network. I'm Jeff Reed. I'm founder

of Digital Church Network, work with Church Digital and a lot of really awesome organizations.

And ultimately, you're listening to my podcast. We're doing a live podcast recording here for the

Church Digital Podcast. Through the Church Digital, season four here of the podcast, we're doing an

introspective look on gaming churches. And so, different perspectives, different ideas. Mark Lutz,

excuse me, once again, mispronounced that guy's name. I've mispronounced it for years. So I'm going to

try it again here. Mark Lutz, lead pastor of Lux Digital Church has been on the podcast with us and

he's running tech in the background here with the vMix. So we'll bring him on in a second. We've got a

great guest today. We're diving in, talking about esports and maybe some of the ministry opportunities

that exist within esports. And I've said this publicly many times. I don't understand gaming culture. I am not

the expert by any stretch. The last game that I was relative in, that I was actually relevant with,

was probably GoldenEye, N64. Yes, it's coming back. Yes, my wife can still beat me up in the game.

It's a fact. She's incredible. Sniper Rifle. Beautiful, beautiful stuff. But hey, this is like

all this stuff, the Call of Duty, where we are now with gaming, like this is way out of my league. But I have

loved being a student in this season and starting to learn more, A, about the culture, but B, how we,

the church, can engage in that culture. Maybe a little different. It probably doesn't look like

what your typical church and how it engages with the culture in their neighborhood. Some of these

things are done a little different in gaming churches compared to what physical churches are.

I'm being a little facetious. It looks very different. But the fact is, is that we can reach

people in these spaces in different ways. And it is awesome to see God moving, even in amongst gaming

culture and nerd culture, as we learned last week with Bubba talking about a love thy nerds. You go

check out the Church Digital Podcast, the church that digital slash podcast to get caught up into that

and all the awesomeness that's there. But hey, thank you. Those that are watching this live,

by the way, we're doing this stream every Thursday live here on Twitch. So if you're listening to the

podcast, come into it live, come dive in, be part of what's happening here. Get your questions answered

on Twitch. And Pastor, if you don't have a Twitch account, now's the time. Swing over to Twitch TV,

create that account, follow the Digital Church Network, get caught up with what we're doing here and maybe start

to explore some of the other things and start to explore maybe what engaging and impacting in this gaming

culture actually looks like. So, hey, I see we've got some people in the chat. Chino, Mage, Digital Hexicon,

FlatCap. It's great to see you all. And so we'll be engaging in some questions, working through this. But hey,

Wizard, behind the curtain, I guess it's Mark. Push your magic button and let's bring their other

guests on. This is going to be fun. There you go. So before we get into Jono and start to really

unpack this, because Mark, this is a different software than what I had last week. Last week,

Andy Mage, Chino Mage, ran Ecamm, right? That's what he runs and you're running vMix.

Why do you all hate each other so much? Why can't you choose one software? Why does it have to be

different softwares?

Jono, is Ecamm... Do you know if Ecamm's Mac only? I think it's Mac, isn't it? Or is it not?

I have no idea. All this is new to me. I heard there's one called like Vod Ninja or something

like that as well. Vod Ninja. I just want to point out that Jeff did not mispronounce my name once

today. He mispronounced it twice. Yes!

Which is because it's not Lutz or Lutz. It's Lutz. Lutz? Call me here. Let's do it right now. Lutz?

Lutz. You got it. Lutz. Lutz. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I just came out of your neck of the woods, Jeff. I was

just in Orlando for a week and glad to be back on the show. And yes, today we are using a live streaming

software called vMix. It is probably professionally wise. It's like a step above OBS, which is open

broadcasting software, which is free to download. You can use it anytime you want. Cowboy Morgan,

thank you for the follow. I appreciate you being here. And yeah, so it's a really great piece of

software. Once you learn how to use it, it runs entirely off of your GPU. And so we've been using

it since I got problems with OBS in the early stages of Lutz. So that's what we're on today.

Okay. So evidently, Andy, Chino Mage is saying that he uses vMix as well. Last week was just a

throwaway. So who knew? Anyway, this is a new world to me. By the way, it's great to see you,

Cowboy Morgan and Mother Goose. Mother Goose. Awesome. Throwback to last week. Enjoyed it.

Jono! Am I mispronouncing that? No, you're perfectly fine. We don't have to do a countdown

to pronounce it or anything either. You got that right. Okay. All right. So I just want to make

sure I don't offend multiple people within the first five minutes. One person's okay. But if it's two,

that's probably going to be a problem. Hey, Jono, listen, it's great to have you on the podcast here.

And so as a resident expert on esports, man, I'm excited to dig in here and learn a bunch of stuff

that I don't know. What I do know is that my kid is very excited about esports. They've got esports

in his middle school and starting to do some things. They even want him to open a Discord account. And I'm

like, I don't think you're actually old enough to legally have a Discord account. But evidently,

your school says it's okay. That's a whole other conversation, maybe for a different day.

But start to unpack for me a little bit here. Well, you. Let's talk about you, Jono.

Who you are? What are you doing? How'd you get plugged into esports?

Yeah. So my name is Jon Merritt. Everybody calls me Jono. My mom started calling me that whenever I

was a young kid. And even the president of our university calls me Jono. So I go by Jono

online. That's been my gamertag, my username for probably like eight to 10 years now.

Before then, well, they were pretty cringe names. So I'm not actually going to name them.

But I got into gaming at a young age. I got into esports pretty early on. I really just loved watching

Optic as a kid. One of the professional Call of Duty teams just... I would get home from school and

every day I would sit and I'd log on and I'd watch... There was one of their early live streams where I'd

watch one of their old YouTube videos of them competing against another team. And it just created this

desire in me that as someone that was a part of traditional athletics with soccer,

that esports actually had a competitive side to it. Gaming had a competitive side to it where you

could push the margin and you could figure out a way to master your craft. And so I've always been

someone that's taking gaming probably a little bit too seriously. It's been something that I've

channeled all of my emotion and all of my being into for many years and returned to it recently

to start the esports program, Oklahoma Wrestling University, a little over three years ago.

Actually, a little under three years ago, about two and a half now. And it's been interesting.

It's been interesting to work in esports, be on the inside, work with a lot of different

people of all different backgrounds, and just get connected to something that was once a childhood

dream. God ended up opening so many doors to bring it to fruition. So I'm over at Oklahoma

Wrestling University. I'm the director of esports there. Recently, over the last semester,

the last like four months, five months, I owned a LAN center. So I got to have that whole experience.

Since then, I'm not with them anymore. But I'm still working in esports focus primarily.

on the collegiate program. And I'm back to creating content and reaching people in the

digital space with a competitive flair.

Very cool. So let's... Okay, so here's the deal. The Twitch audience, probably... Not probably.

I guarantee the Twitch audience is smarter than me in this space.

But I need to ask a couple really stupid questions up front because, well, I've got this podcast

audience and they're not as educated as on this gaming stuff as maybe some of the others here

in the room. So give me some grace, people in the room. I'm going to appreciate this.

Hey, define for me what actually esports is.

Like, you're doing this out of Oklahoma Wesleyan University. That's awesome. What is it?

Yeah. So you have your gaming, which there's about 3.2 billion gamers in the world is what

the stats are showing us. And a fraction of that is the competitive side of gaming. So esports,

think of it as the competitive branch to the casual just enjoyment of gaming. It's where players are

going to come together and they're going to be competing, whether that's in 3v3 in Rocket

League, 1v1 in Super Smash Brothers, or 5v5 in Valorant. There's a lot of different titles

that we're seeing pop up just over the last 15 to 20 years. A lot of people are probably

familiar with Halo. So think games like Halo or games like Call of Duty, where a lot of players

from all over are logging in and they're playing online and then they're eventually coming to

locations and they're competing in stadiums to play against each other in front of tens of

thousands of people. So you're literally running a, like, is this certified? Like what level of

recognition is this? NCAA? Like what is this at Oklahoma Wesleyan?

The NCAA hasn't actually gotten into the space. It's an interesting market right now,

the collegiate esports market. And so what's taking place right now is there's a lot of grassroots

movements that are starting, that are starting to get official support from the developers for the

games. And they're actually backing these leagues and putting in like an actual system where these

different colleges are coming together and they're competing. But the NCAA hasn't gotten into it.

We're seeing the NAIA get into it with the Kansas Collegiate Athletic Conference, KCAC.

And then we're also seeing the ECAC get into it. So there are some traditional governing bodies

from traditional sports that are getting into esports, but the NCAA hasn't taken a crack at it yet.

From what I understand and what I've heard, they would have to buy out the developers and they would

have to spend probably billions of dollars to actually get the rights to be able to broadcast

and live stream these matches because there's going to be a ton of sponsorship dollars and a lot of

eyeballs on it. So...

Fascinating. Okay. So you're running leagues, you know, a step above intramural, unofficial

NCAA, but you're running these grassroots leagues through Oklahoma Wesleyan. So you're working with

college students.

Yeah.

Like, are they, oh, this is cool. Let's go, you know, try out for this. Are these, like, ringers that you're

recruiting? Like, what is this actually?

So in the last year, we had over 200 students try out for us. And basically, it takes on what soccer

would look like. So we'll have these online tryouts where students will reach out to me through

Discord. They're going to want to try out for one of our different teams, one of our esports that we

offer, whether it's Rocket League, whether it's Halo, whether it's Valorant. And then we'll put them in

scrimmages. They'll play against each other. And the best players that we want to pick up will

actually offer scholarship. It's on par with our traditional athletics. So we have students that

are getting a huge portion of their college paid for, just as if they came to our school for

basketball. And so then on the weekends, and even on the weeknights, we'll have anywhere from four to

eight matches against other colleges and universities in the various esports that we offer.

I love this. You're actually, like, scholarship-ing kids to play video

games. When did this happen? Forgive me. I don't want to be the old guy. I'm literally

the old guy right now. Like, get off my lawn. But no, like, what point did college become

scholarship-ing to play video games? Like, how old is this? Or how new is this concept?

It's super new. So 2016 was the first year. There was about seven varsity programs.

I believe it was 2018. And double-check me on this. 2018, we saw close to 70 varsity programs.

And now we're getting close to 100 to 150-plus varsity programs across the nation. That's not

even accounting for the clubs that are there. They're trying to get official collegiate support

from their institution. Wow. This is amazing. So at the college level, we're seeing a lot of

this activity. But like I said, my kids' school, in middle school, they're even starting to recruit

and play on. And he's playing... What's the soccer rocket game with the cars? What's it called? Rocket

League? Yeah. Like, I see him doing that. And I am horrible. Like, my coordination, I cannot

get the car fast hitting the ball. And like, it's ugly when I play that game. But... And so we're even

seeing esports drip down to the high school and the middle school level. Like, outside of my son doing

this, are there other... Outside of my doing it through school, I should say, are there other places

where they can connect? Does esports... Are there places where that connects with middle and high

school kids? Not very many. So during my time at Rewind Esports and Broken Arrow, that was actually

what we started to seek out to build was youth esports. And so bringing in different college

students, I would hire out some of our college students and they would be on staff and they

would be coaching one to two teams per week. And so the youth would come in and we'd have teams

of different ages competing in different esports. And so there's very few places outside of the

traditional school institution that's doing it. So there's about 100 schools, like high schools

in Oklahoma that do have esports programs. Middle schools are starting to get into it. I know I was

talking with Pastor Savage and his kid's middle school is looking at doing it. I think it's a

middle school. And so we're seeing a huge rise at the high school level because what are kids doing

nowadays? They're like you said, they're playing video games. They're going home. They're playing

Fortnite for six hours. And the beautiful thing is that we can meet them right there where they're

at. And we can create these awesome systems, these awesome boundaries, and awesome opportunities

that help streamline their path to success. And so no longer is your kid going to be playing Fortnite

for eight hours and not doing anything with his life. No, he's going to get picked up by a college

team and he's probably going to get close to 30% to 100% off his college.

So, I mean, that's such an interesting... So really, I should let my son play eight to 12 hours a day

on Fortnite. But by the way, it's funny. I actually... If you look up deerfedge on Fortnite,

my son's actually created a pretty decent account for me because I created the account because I used

to play it once or twice a year and was very passive. And he wanted to play, so I just gave him my

account. And at least I'm told he's done good. You guys can look me up and tell me I suck. That's

okay. By the way, hey, Ninja in the room. Great to see you. Pastor Des, good to see you as well. If

there's questions, feel free to throw them in the chat as we're hanging out here. Is the in-game

of esports, is it to get the professional scholarship? Is that why I want my kid playing

these video games? Is there other connection points that are helpful? As we're just really,

once again, I'm trying to get the basics of esports here. Yeah. Talk to me a little bit

where we're going. I would say that's the most stable in-game right now. We're actually seeing

a lot of layoffs and a lot of hiring freezes in the pro scene. They're trying to figure out their

model as to what's going to be effective for the business side of things. Right now, they're running

the traditional sponsorship model that you see like football and a lot of the different sports

running where you're slapping the logo on the billboard and just advertising as people are watching

the matches. And that hasn't driven enough revenue to sustain paying for these expensive

esports teams yet. And so what you're saying is you're seeing companies like 100 Thieves start

to build out companies that are sub companies of the actual entertainment organization, like

they're building out a keyboard company right now. And that's what's going to be funding the future

of esports. And so I would say the collegiate scene, if there's a... There needs to be a massive

connection point between traditional boards of administration at universities and healthy leaders

in the esports industry that are able to meet halfway to create successful programs.

I would say we're probably five to 10 years out from proper staffing and proper structure being

put into the collegiate space before it really starts to see some traction and where things start to just

get to the level of football and basketball and the other sports that you see.

And the major disconnection point right now, I think, is just a lack of understanding. But there's

a lot of people that are bridging that gap right now. We're seeing a lot of awesome business owners and

obviously at my university, we're seeing boards that are starting to see the value in it. And so

over the next couple of years, as more and more students get to it, and then I think as more of

the kids and grandkids, that's their primary thing that grandparents and parents are seeing their kids

interested in. The world that we create is the backyard that our kids are going to play in. It's the backyard

that our kids are going to grow up in. And so now we're creating these boundaries and these institutions,

and we're supporting these. And I think we're about five to 10 years out from a healthy industry.

Wow. So Christian Ninja, XGN Ninja, forgive me, I have no idea how to pronounce that. But hey,

it's good to see. I'm used to seeing you on Twitch or Twitter. E-sports in chat right now. E-sports

is far more popular to watch than NFL, NHL, NBA among young men and women, 17 to 25.

Is there Christian Ninja? Hey, we're all good with that. Thanks for that. I didn't want to be like,

"Hey, I got Ninja," because that would be a completely different guy. So talk to me. Are

we seeing that? Is there legitimacy in that stat? I don't want to call out Christian Ninja here

publicly, but that's some big,

big, big shoes, topping the NFL, NBA, NHL. Who cares about NHL? But the other two are kind of

big, right? And so e-sports is bigger than that? Yeah, e-sports is bigger than that. I mean,

it's global and football is only here in North America where it's super duper popular. And so

the amount of eyes that are getting on these tournaments is insane. And I think it's because

of the low cost to entry, whether it's like monetarily or even physically. And so you're

going to see so many more people playing video games and engaging with the content there because

they're closer to being able to enjoy that lifestyle as opposed to being in the NFL and

maybe not meeting the physical requirements to be in the NFL. And so it's a lot easier to get

into the pro scene, to get into gaming. And it's kind of like a gold rush that we're seeing right

now. And so I think a lot of what drives the popularity of e-sports is one, it's an escape that

a lot of people will go to on the casual gaming side. And so they want to learn how to do stuff.

But two, it's also something that's not far off. It's something that's

potentially possible for anybody to blow up. As you see on social media, it's

anybody can really just win the luck of the draw just because they're entertaining and they're funny.

I see a lot of like TikTok channels of there. This is one that keeps popping up and it's like

this like Call of Duty grandma and she just logs on and has a couple hundred people that are watching

her and she's playing Call of Duty. She's a grandma. She's doing it full time. So anybody can get into this

space with gaming and it's not too far off from e-sports. And so people want to see what the

top of the cream of the crop is doing and what they're competing in. And it's nowhere near as

popular over here in the West as it is in the East. It's blowing up over there in the East.

I mean, it's been insanely popular. It's not even blowing up. It's crazy.

Mark, Jeff, I just did a really super quick search just to get an idea and how legitimate

this is or not. But one of the first statistics that came up doing a quick search is that in the

end of 2021, they projected that e-sports was the second most popular sport in the country,

second only to the NFL at about 84 million fans versus the NFL at 1.41 million and the MLB being

at 79 million. And that is just here in the United States. That's not counting your global audience.

One of the sort of claim to fame of e-sports in general for quite a while was that it was actually

substantially larger in viewership and fans than several of the largest professional sports

organizations and tournaments or whatever combined them. And they weren't equaling what e-sports was

doing. So this isn't something that's brand new or a flash in the pan. It's not just growing,

but it's growing steadily. It's expanding steadily. And it's gaining the traction for the church's world

to look at this. It's gaining the attention and the traction with the next generation in a way that

professional sports, traditional professional sports is not. Where you're seeing younger and

younger people who are consistently less and less interested not only with playing, but also with

viewing professional sports, traditional professional sports. And we're seeing an increase in the desire

for watching professional e-sports. And not only that, but you're seeing them want to do both.

I was literally sitting with a man in Florida this past week. I think his stepson is going into high

school right now and he's kind of deciding what sports he wants to play. And his dad said,

yeah, but he also really loves gaming. And so it's not just either or, there's a lot of people who are

sort of into both because they have the competitive edge and e-sports and competing digitally in video

games is scratching the same part of the brain in many ways as the competitive aspect of the physical

sports that they're playing as well. And my question really for John that I'd love to dive into a

a little bit as we're in a series right now, Jesus, Gamers and Church. All of the other aspects of

what we're going to talk about, ministering to nerd culture, digital church expressions,

digital missionaries, we can see the immediate alignment between what the church wants to do

and what we're seeing happening in this gaming space. But e-sports, sure, I understand. Maybe your

church buys some Xboxes. That's what we did before. And yeah, churches really don't have anything to do with

the NBA, but we have upwards basketball in my community and kids can sign up to go play intramural

basketball. So I sort of get that. But how does this intersect with faith, spirituality, and the

church? You're working for a Christian school and running an e-sports program. So how does the

the spiritual aspect, the lives of your players and what you're doing intersect with, you know,

professionally and competitively, the e-sports stuff that you're doing?

Yeah, 100%. So that's actually something that I've been trying to figure out is how directly,

at least at the pro level, can you intersect Christianity into it? And do we build a professional

Christian e-sports organization? I don't know. We don't really have a professional football team

that's only for Christians to join. And so I've been trying to think through that

over the last couple of years. At the collegiate level, it's great because it's easy to get people

across the country from all sorts of different walks of life and gathered in one place because

they're on scholarship, they're traveling here. Normally, you can't just move a whole bunch of

people to come together and play video games together every single day for a cheap dollar sign.

And not that college is cheap, but it's probably the most societally accepted way to do that.

And so, I mean, we had every single Monday, 6:30 in the morning at a coffee shop, all of my captains,

we have a Bible study, we'd spend time in the Word, we'd read through a Psalm, and then we'd read

through a proverb, or sorry, we'd read through a proverb, and then we'd read through a parable.

And we would just sit there and talk about that. We'd have like an hour and a half session,

just an awesome Bible study. And so I think that with traditional sports, what you see,

the it's so weird, because like, it's something that takes place natural, it's not something that

I'm thinking, like, how do I, like, I do think through like, how do I have these healthy conversations

about Christ, because he's my Lord and Savior with my players, but it's not something that I'm like,

all right, I'm evangelizing my players, like, I don't, it just sounds weird for me to like,

I guess, say that out loud. But with my players, it really comes down to the relationship,

and just the conversations that are taking place. And you see that in the traditional sports world. I mean,

you look at, you look at Tim Tebow in football, you look at college football players, there's always

guys in Bible studies, there's FCA, things like that that are going on. And I think that those are

the best ways to intersect Christianity into the space. It's like gaming and sports are the fun

thing that people are coming to college for. But what's like the substance? What's actually going to

make you a better person? What's going to transform your life and help you to develop these skills and

these lifestyle patterns that are actually going to impact other people for the glory of God?

And so that's the beautiful thing is that we are a Christian institution. We do have chapel,

all the professors here are believers. And so for me, I see this as like an awesome opportunity

to bring people here from all sorts of walks of life where they can ask questions, they can actually

build authentic relationships with people, and they can go deep. And then they are presented with

the gospel in a way that's grace-filled and truth-filled that aligns with the scriptures. And then we can

send them out into the world. And so I kind of see this as like a training ground at the collegiate level

or a discipleship place where authentic discipleship can happen. And not all of my players are believers.

And so it's probably 50-50 on campus, I would say here, maybe even like 60-40. But the one thing that

I do love about my university is that we give people a chance to ask questions. And like I said,

it's not fire and brimstone, but it doesn't cheap away at the truth, the hard truths of the gospel.

But it's just about building relationships. And I think that's one thing that we tend to take

for granted when it comes to the Great Commission, is it's not like, it's while you were going,

make disciples. So whatever it is that you're doing, are you living in a way that you're presenting

Christ to other people through your actions, through loving God and loving your neighbor?

And so that's what I see esports as. This is another avenue to do that.

You could do that if you were a chef. You could do that if you were an owner of a restaurant.

I would imagine though, and I don't want to over-speak here, but an esports college student,

like that guy's got, or that girl, they got to be like a rock star.

I mean, they're literally getting money from a university for playing a video game.

Like, this is what everybody else is doing in their dorm rooms at a non-professional level.

And these are people that are actually a step closer than everybody else towards being that.

Like, are there, is this rock star status or am I over-speak here?

Yeah. So I have a player who is, I feel confident. He has some buddies that he teams with. I feel

confident saying that we have the best player in all of Latin America. That's at our university.

Um, his name is Lennon Mateo and he's, I think he'll make it pro before he ends up graduating.

Um, what ended up happening was recently he played in a league for Valor at VCT Latin America and they

beat out. And this is something that like, I'm still trying to grasp. They beat out all of the

other teams in Latin America and they're graduating into this league that's called the Ascension League.

And so if they end up winning this league, then they end up going to the franchise level,

which is the highest level against the highest teams. And so he won player the match for that,

that specific match and got interviewed in front of 1500 people on stream. Uh, this was about two

weeks ago. And so not only is he competing to go pro he's that good while he's in college. Um,

but he's, he's, I would say one of the best players, if not the best player in all of collegiate

esports. So we're really blessed to have him on our Valorant team. Uh, he's an awesome guy.

He's traveled all the way here from the Dominican Republic. And, uh, yeah, so that's the level of

players that are getting into the collegiate space. And so, and this, this may be crass,

so forgive me, but, but that's, that's a huge opportunity. I mean, you've, you've got the,

the Pele of, of, uh, e-sports at your school. And so the, the opportunity, yeah,

I just dated myself Pele rock with it, work with it, make it work. Okay. Uh, but, but the,

the fact of, Hey, if, if we could figure out how to get these people to leverage their influence for

the kingdom, to, to have this guy, the greatest e-sports player in all of Latin America to be able

to, to connect in. And I don't want to put this guy on, on a pedestal that that's unattainable,

but even just within his circle of influence that's happening naturally as a, because of

what he's doing. I'm having the same conversation with, with, with bankers, with soccer moms, with,

with everyday people. Like do that discipleship, do that relationship, do that sharing of who Jesus

is and what he's done in your life, regardless of that position. It just seems to me that

an e-sports personnel, uh, would have a larger circle of influence than maybe the average typical

college student. Like, does that make sense? Or would that resonate with, with some of these kids

that are Christians?

A hundred percent. And I think that, uh, what we see in the pro scene is there's a lot of people

behind the scenes that are Christians that do have big platforms where thousands, 10 thousands,

a hundred thousand people see them, uh, on camera every day. And they aren't open about their faith

on their broadcast or like in the public eye because they, I'll be honest, there's just not enough

connection between the capital C church and the e-sports space yet. And so I think if there were

more institutions that were behind these people, that would help them to know that they can go into

these spaces and be a little bit more bold with the light that God's given them. And it's a learning

experience too, because some of these people do get saved while they're at the top in the e-sports

industry. Um, from my player, Lennon, for example, uh, he gives God credit for the, the opportunity

that he's here. He's very, very, very humble. Um, he's worked incredibly hard. He's just now

graduating from high school. He was the salutatorian for his academy there in the Dominican Republic,

4.0 student and, um, almost a professional Valorant player. I believe he'll hit it here in the next year.

So, uh, there are guys that are in, you know, your TSM's, your phase, uh, that are behind

the scenes, they're believers and they're open. They're, they're in fellowship, uh, but coming together

and meeting these people. And maybe it isn't even like we create a content team that has Christian

professionals on it. Maybe it's just like, they need guys in these spaces that are just pouring

into them behind the scenes. So that way they can go out in the public eye and be that Tim Tebow in

the, in the Christian as a Christian in the e-sports space. So, but what a great parallel with the,

with the Tim Tebow. I mean, cause that that's, I mean, the guy that's that, you know, stands up in

front of the press and is like, I will never do that again. And just in how he was able to,

to leverage that and then leverage his Christian influence towards that. It's beautiful. Horrible

professional football player, but man, could he figure out how to leverage his college influence,

uh, for the kingdom? And he played baseball too, right? That didn't go very well as I recall either.

So, Hey, uh, so there's, there's a bootstrap, uh, by the way, Hey Viola, uh, thanks for,

thanks for the follow. Uh, bootstraps got it, got a question. Uh, do you see the presence of gaming

and campus ministry useful to reach out to more students? Um, and, and what he's talking about

here is actually like, I think cross campuses, um, like the ability to connect from one campus to the

other. I was actually thinking within the one university, but what, what, what are the relationships

that look like within the leagues that you're operating among the multiple universities?

Yeah. I don't know the specific, um, scenario in the specific university bootstraps. I'll be,

I'll be a hundred percent honest. There's, I saw a tweet and it was talking about, uh, just,

it was, it was over a hundred coaches and directors that are in the same position that I'm in, um,

that they're working 90 hours a week, um, even at some of these Christian institutions and they're,

they're burnt out. They're quitting after two years. And a

a lot of it's because the lack of understanding of the space. Um, I think that there's a lot of,

like I said, a lot of connection points that need to happen between not even just Christian

university boards, um, but also boards, uh, on, you know, on, I hate these words, secular,

but just, just regular campuses. And so if we can come in and maybe create some e-sports chaplains,

um, and then also properly staff out these programs, um, and that's, that's really what

it's going to take. So I would say that, uh, any decline that you're seeing is probably due to a

lack of understanding between just the generational gap, um, that the people that are being hired out

to build these programs out or build these clubs out aren't properly supported by the institution

yet. And I say yet, because I am hopeful for it. Um, you know, I've, I've been very blessed

to have my live stream into if ran this e-sports company for a season. And so I'm not in the

collegiate e-sports space to make money. I'm in it because I believe God's called me to be here.

Now I would love to financially do this full-time. Uh, and there's a lot of people that do want to

see this happen and see the threat because it is perfect for the, for the next generation.

And that's really what it's got to be about is how can we meet the next generation where they're at.

And I think if we continue to push that conversation, then people are going to be much more open to

innovating and investing in this space because it isn't a cheap thing to start a brand new collegiate

e-sports program. I mean, if you want to build a program that's like top level, um, or like

medium to top level, it's going to cost you between 50 and 150,000 to start that

that, get that going. But that's not going to cost you 10 million like it would to start a

football program to build this field. Um, and, uh, and to, you know, dig all these different things

and put all these different things in place that need to happen for any other sort of traditional,

uh, sports program. So I'd be interested to connect with you and maybe we can figure out

how to, how to help that campus. Uh, but I would say the, the number of gamers is on the incline

and, uh, there, there's constantly more people that are getting into gaming and it's, it's designed

to get people into it from the way that they code the games, the way that they reward you inside the

game. And so people need to have a healthy leadership, um, and healthy time management

skills and in order to succeed in this space, it's not an easy space to succeed in. So.

I totally can appreciate that. Um, let me ask this. What, what's the job profile for a gamer,

um, chaplain, uh, in e-sports chaplain, what do you need? What are you looking for? What are some

character traits? Like, like, tell me, uh, tell me how to solve this problem.

Yeah, a hundred percent. Um, I think someone that's able to be bivocational and move to the area of the

campus, if they're not already there, uh, would be awesome. Someone that can just be around the guys

in the afternoons during practice, um, and be a positive influence for them. Uh, thankfully,

I've been blessed. I've had probably four guys that have just volunteered their time, uh, to help

be with my players. So that way I'm not there living in the, in the e-sports arena all the time,

but they're also there helping be a positive Christlike influence in my guys' life. And so

some, there, there needs to be connection there. I think with the local church, uh, to, to create

chaplains as I guarantee all the youth pastors, all the different pastors are probably gaming and

they have youth kids that are gaming. So I actually just had a denomination reach out to me and their

entire district in this area of the United States wants to host an e-sports tournament, like here in

my city. And so I have a call with them next week about that. So I don't, maybe we can figure it out.

I don't know what it looks like what's on the traditional sports side. Um, but as a chaplain,

look like, and then maybe I can help. Yeah. What do you know in terms of traditional sports,

Jeff? Yeah. Like, uh, I'll, I'll just be honest. Like my, my lead pastor growing up was actually the,

the chaplain for the Miami dolphins. And so like, he did have a nine to five job. He was a pastor

somewhere else. Uh, but he, you know, and, and what it did for him was it got him, you know,

really good seats. Uh, he would leave church and go straight to the orange bowl, you know,

decades ago where the dolphins were playing at the time. Uh, and, and, but he was, was very involved

in the community around that, knew the players, knew the team. Um, and so was able to, to step in

from, from a bivocational standpoint. And, you know, Andy's asking or Chino's asking how, how does,

how does existing churches get on board with this? And, and, and I'm like, well, there's,

there's no shortage of pastors that are around. Uh, and, and some of them might be looking for that,

that extra thing. And you're not, you probably don't have the budget to pay full-time, but you,

you know, probably would have a budget to pay something. And then, and then you're, you're

modifying the relationship, the coaching, the discipleship. You're part as the, as the leader,

you're part of that, but you're not the, the end all to that. You've got someone that's walking

alongside. Um, it's, it's funny, like even just being the guy that works with a lot of digital

pastors, I can think of a lot of digital pastors that would be interested in an opportunity like

that. They may need to get more equipped in, in the, in the gaming space and in the vernacular and

understanding. But I mean, that's being humble and understanding you got something to learn.

So that, that's not even a big deal. Hey Mark, let me, let me ask you, did, do you have, uh,

like anybody in your church that's active in, in e-sports? Have you wrestled with, you know,

anything like e-sports and how to minister and reach into that? Like what, as a, as a gamer church,

I'm just wondering how much e-sports is on your radar. Yeah. I mean, gaming is such a wide swath,

right? It, and I think that a lot of times people who are not part of gaming culture don't think of it

that way. Um, I'm, I'm John, I'm sure you've had that experience, right? Where there's, there's just

like a very, um, uh, singular definition and understanding of what a gamer is. And, uh,

and people don't understand the nuances between genres of games and type of gamers and what people

are into. And it is, it is so ridiculously vast. Um, John shared a statistic right here in the

beginning of 3.2 billion gamers in the world. I think you probably shared that, uh, I think in

the pilot episode or episode one of this show, you know, roughly double the number of Christians on

the planet. Um, and that is as a staggering statistic. So to answer your question, Jeff,

we're not thinking really heavily about e-sports. I know that there are organizations that are on

Twitch who are Christians who are. Um, and, but when we think about this, we think when I think,

I think about like a spiritual guidance, right? In general, as a church, like how are we coming

alongside of a tremendous number of people who've been hurt by the church, pushed out by the church,

been told that their hobby and their interests are stupid and wastes of time and really don't have any

desire at all to step through the doors of the church. And that's kind of one of our hearts is like,

how do we reach that individual, right? The disillusioned, um, and the de-churched.

And then the other side of that for us is really content because video games isn't,

you know, it is e-sports and there is competition, but content creators, authors, writers, um,

you know, bloggers, uh, streamers, YouTubers, how do we come alongside of people like that?

And that is a little bit more, my Ben is someone who enjoys making content and podcasting and

streaming, um, to come alongside of people like that. So we don't do a tremendous amount with

e-sports. We don't, I, to my knowledge, I don't think we have anybody in our community who's like

a competitive e-sports player. The one person who is in my community is a professional soccer player.

Um, but that is obviously not e-sports. And so, uh, we don't really do a lot in the e-sports.

And so as John is talking about this stuff, it was like, man,

really interesting to see because in many ways, you know, you're kind of still on the spear tip of

this, right? Because the, in so many ways, the people who own the keys to the kingdom,

which really are like the vaults, right? The money vaults to pour out the financial resources

consistently and continually pour out those resources on things that they can understand

and wrap their minds around. And those things are often things, the collegiate level,

like football and baseball and basketball and softball and volleyball and things of that nature.

And so there's a lot of people who I think are saying, okay, we're understanding it. There's,

there's students who want to come to our school to play video games. Like, let's wave some money at it.

Like it's going to be almost for you. It's kind of like a joking amount, right? Of money at it. But

you're like, Hey, you're giving me the opportunity to step into this world. I think that's amazing

and super cool and really encouraging. But from everything that we're seeing statistically across

culture that isn't, that isn't becoming less anytime soon, that's only projected to grow and increase.

Yeah. A hundred percent. And, um, so I'll kind of give you an idea of what it looks like to start

a collegiate program, um, in e-sports apart from like a traditional sport. And so one thing that I've

been presenting and I actually had another university that reached out to consult me earlier this week,

because they're interested in getting into e-sports. And so, um, I said, I met with them and shared the

model of how e-sports functions. And my biggest thing that I've been presenting to people is whenever

you launch an e-sports program, kind of like what you were talking about, Pastor Mark, is that

you have your Rocket League. That doesn't play anything like your Halo. You have your Halo. That

doesn't play anything like your Valorant. Um, you have your Call of Duty. That's nothing like League of

Legends. And then also each of those respective e-sports, that's going to take you 10,000 hours to

master each of them. And so whenever you started your athletic department, you didn't just hire

one guy to coach your basketball, your volleyball, your soccer, your baseball, your tennis, and recruit

for those at the same time and be at all the matches and the practices for them. And so with e-sports,

the disconnect is making sure that you're hiring full-time coaches to recruit out maybe four to

five different Valorant teams. Maybe you have your two varsity teams, your academy team, and your club

team. That's under one guy. And then you would do that same thing for Fortnite and maybe Smash

Brothers. You squish those two together since they're not, they don't function the same way.

And so building out a program that's like an entire department, we're not there yet in collegiate

esports. Um, but that's the biggest thing because your Valorant practices, for example, Jeff, one

scrimmage, that's going to be about an hour, but usually my guys will have like two to three scrimmages

per night. That's about three hours for just one of our teams. And we have three other teams.

And so if I'm going to be at every single one of those teams practices, that's going to be probably

like 10 hours total of time invested every single night. And so that's really where the disconnect,

I think, is at the collegiate level. But again, I'm hopeful. I'm hopeful that it'll get the proper

investment that it needs to. I think that's just going to slowly change over time as the people

that were forerunners start to age into the people that are going to be blessing now, the early

adopters and then the late comers and stuff. So. John, I have a, I have a, I have a couple of

questions. It's okay, Jeff, about this on the collegiate level, because I think this does impact

the church as well. But there are some very unique differences between physical sports, traditional

sports and esports. And one of those is the rapid incline and decline of a skillset that you might

need. So for example, a school can invest in a football program because they can figure that

football is still going to be here 20 years from now. But what does a school do when they say we

want to invest in a Valorant team, but there's no guarantee that Valorant will even be on servers

four years from now, let alone a viable thing that people are actually watching. And how does a school

actually track and say, we want to start a program for this particular sport? Because it is a skillset,

right? Your players can't just swap and be like, I was a professional Valorant player.

Now I'm going to go play professional Hearthstone because that's what's hot right now.

It's not the same skillset, a card game and a shooter, a first person shooter are not the same

skillset. How do you even, how do you even manage that type of volatility that the gaming community

often has? So on the financial side, what it looks like is the PC that you're going to play

Hearthstone on? Well, maybe not Hearthstone because that doesn't, you could play it on your

phone from 10 years ago. The PCs and the equipment that you end up buying is still going to be viable

no matter what eSport team you end up having. And if you do have to end up switching. So like,

for example, CS, I wouldn't say CS is anywhere close to dying CS:GO,

but Valorant, it's close. It's in the FPS genre. And so I do have, for example, some of my players

that are here for Halo, they're playing for our Valorant team now. And so there are transferable

skills between the genres of FPS and then MOBA. But I would say that the main thing is from the

financial standpoint. And if the university is going to invest in an eSports program, that gear is going

to be viable no matter how often a game dies and then a new game gets brought on. The thing that you

need to figure out then is if there's a new game that gets started, then as a coach, I would get

into that early on and I would learn how to coach that. But bringing people on as you add more eSports

that are experts in that specific one is going to be really important as well. So I think that would

be where the biggest change in investment would be, would be having to bring on more staff.

Yeah. And how does that look? Let's say, you know, you bring on a player who you're saying,

hey, we want to give you a full ride, or we want to pay for 80% of your schooling to come and play

Smash Brothers for us. But then let's just say in a fluke alternate reality, in a parallel universe,

where whatever that WB Smash Brothers is actually does become popular in Eclipse Smash Brothers,

which didn't happen, will never happen. We understand that. But let's just say that does happen

and this player doesn't want to go. Does schools need to do things like create nuances inside of

players' contracts that say, hey, we can at any point cut your scholarship and cut the program

because the game just isn't profitable for us as a school anymore and we can't support you playing it?

I haven't had to run into that yet. I think the only thing that I've ever had to cut a player's

scholarship for was for bad attitudes or for failing their classes.

Yeah, I would hope that most directors and most coaches and administrations would give a student

at least a year and then would try to help them to move to a different academic institution if they

were going to do away with the scholarship at that point. Yeah, I haven't ran into that problem yet,

though. But it'll be something that I'll think about if that ever comes about. Yeah.

Hey, Bubba's asking a question in chat. Bubba from Love Thy Nerd. And so he was on last week.

In line with Mark's question, how often do you have players on multiple teams,

much like the college guy that's playing for the basketball team and the football team?

Like, do they do they double dip in some of these games or is it is it too hard just from an operations

perspective? It depends on the esports. So Rocket League, it's going to take significantly less for

you to play a series and compete for than it would be if you were to play like League of Legends and

Valorant at the same time, just because of the nature of how long a game takes. Rocket League,

one match is five minutes and then you play a series of five. That's going to be like 30 minutes,

maybe 35 minutes cap. And so I do have a player right now that's playing Rocket League and

playing Valorant for our academy team. I do have some soccer players that also play for

the JV team for soccer and then play for our Valorant team as well. The tough thing with that

is just the scheduling and making sure that everything's aligned. Obviously, if you have

someone that's part of a team, you want them to be able to commit to it. And so I have had students

that have done two esports. I had one that was doing Overwatch and Valorant and he was practicing

for four hours a day while being a college student. That's a lot. That's a lot of

time for a college student. And then also if that student needs to work a job as well.

Not that specific one, but yeah, I do have some that double dip in the different esports.

Interesting. It's interesting. Christian Ninja actually said something a little earlier. I just

would love to unpack it because I wasn't thinking this way, but maybe I do need to think this way.

Ministering to gamers in esports ministry aren't really the same focus. Actually,

I would love both of y'all's takes on that. John, I want you to go first.

So for the first four years of my time back in the gaming space, because I left for quite a while,

like I played for a YouTube team, a trickshotting Call of Duty team back when I was in middle school

and we had about 100,000 subs. This was 2009, I believe. I have to go back and look at the time.

And then I stopped playing for many years when I played soccer and came back to it years later.

And my first four years after coming back to it was completely different than these

last two years have been for me within esports. My first four years was completely dedicated

towards being a digital missionary online. And so I got into streaming. I got a scholarship

from my university and was using it as a platform to be able to just reach people

on the Twitch platform and be able to open up about my struggles with depression, my testimony,

and just doing life with people from all sorts of different places all over the world.

And so I started my live stream in 2017. I've reached partner numbers around the exact same

time that I started the program in 2020. And that was completely different than the approach that I

take with my players that are here in person. That's more of like a relational and it's relational,

but in a different way. The temperaments and the methods are different. It's the same Holy Spirit

that I let guide me whenever I'm in those conversations with people, but it's a different

audience. I would say with esports, like I said, it's going to take on more of like a traditional

sports model with like the FCA versus like the casual gamer. There's just a difference in personality.

I would say that's there. And it's tough because with evangelism and discipleship, it varies even more

on like the personal level based on the individual and how the Spirit's guiding you in those conversations.

But yeah, I would say the personality is different between someone that's hyper competitive

and is like constantly pushing themselves to win. And you know, the difference between

not the esports players or jocks, but if you can take the same idea of like how a jock would think

versus someone that is just a super niche, lore nerd, casual gamer, sometimes there's overlap there.

There's just a difference in human temperament and personality.

Yeah. Mark, does that resonate with you?

Oh yeah, absolutely. Like I'm not a competitive gamer. I'm far too fragile for that life.

And so I'm not a competitive gamer and I don't like our church isn't really geared towards reaching

people who are in that space either. Like that's not my heart. It's not what we're leaning into.

And there's other organizations out there, churches.gg right now, that's kind of getting out there.

Like one of their goals is to help churches run tournaments and help churches compete against one

another. And like, that's a really, actually really freaking cool idea. But it's not my bent, right?

Like I would, I have zero desire to get into that. And on top of that, like I would be just genuinely

bad at it because I just don't play competitive games. And in the same way, like, you know,

the people that we're reaching at Lux and like, we don't even, I don't even think about that.

Like we don't, we're using games as a common ground in a similar way that you would use a coffee shop

that people generally, you know, go to and meet at or, or maybe fans of football. And you're like,

hey, yeah, I'm trying to evangelize to people who are also Steeler fans because I am a Steelers fan.

And I'm not like, I'm not trying to go out and meet with,

the Steelers players, but I am trying to create a space where I can engage with people who enjoy

watching the Steelers play. And so I'm evangelizing and connecting with them.

And that is a lot more kind of our heart and direction. It's so, it's so odd for me because

the world is, it's so big and it's so easy when you're outside of it to narrow it down to kind

of like a pinpoint and just group it all together. And the world that Jono is in and the world that I

am in are radically different, like very, very, very different. We share a similar heart. We both

love gaming. We don't love the same games. Although you are like a Star Wars Old Republic

guy. And so you are an MMO guy. So there is at least a portion of you that's not the competitive

bent. You just want to go and do story and be part of the role playing aspect. And that is what I enjoy.

And I think that one of the things that you can learn from this conversation, if you are in church,

is that there is so much more here than what you might actually think that there is here.

That just because someone walks into your church and they're wearing a shirt that says

game on, and it has a picture of a controller on it, doesn't mean that they are the same as the

next person that walks into your church with a similar t-shirt on. That each gamers are vastly,

vastly different. And I've said this before, I don't think on a podcast before, Jeff, but

one of the other churches that are in our space is God Squad Church. And they've been around

a little over twice as long as we have been around. They're probably the longest standing

digital church that's at least in this space. And a lot of their church was birthed out of

Matt Sousa's love for first person shooters. And a lot of the people in their church are reflective of

that. Whereas our church was birthed out of a digital card game. So we have a lot of people who

are a little bit older and lean more heavily into being intellectuals because that's the group that

plays card games. They're not fast reflex people. They're people who want to, they're really

thoughtful about. And so the feel and the vibe even of our faith community is very different because we

came out of a different genre of game. And it is like an entirely different subculture. You're not

just talking about gamers. You're talking about hundreds of subcultures inside of the culture of gaming.

Hmm. So let me build on that because obviously contextualization, especially in digital environments,

you know, I think Mark, you were the one that said you actually have to aim to reach less people to

be more effective to reach more because if you try to reach everybody, you reach nobody. So draw a

smaller audience, i.e. card game digital and then Lux Digital Church is born. So is it safe to say then

it takes e-sports people to reach e-sports? It takes shooter people to reach shooter? It takes

card game people to reach card games? Do we want to take it to that extreme? And so it's really about

empowering e-sports people to reach their own people? Is this where we're going today?

I think there seems to be a common thread of the people group that you were a part of before you

were saved is the same people that God, after he's transformed you, calls you back to. I think

we see that with all specifically reaching the Roman people and then the Jewish people. And there

seems to be a level of God takes the things and the experiences that we go through in our life,

the gifts and the talents of things that we like, things that we're good at. And he molds those into

into a way that we can understand that and go back to that specific group of people and be effective.

And I think that's what Paul's talking about whenever he's talking about being all things to all people.

Whenever he's talking about how to the Jews, I became like a Jew to reach those that were under

the law and to the Gentiles. I became like a Gentile. And so within e-sports, for me growing up being a

super hyper-competitive Call of Duty player, there's always been a desire there to reach that specific

community. And knowing that language and knowing how to compete and knowing how to play games at a

competitive level, I can hang in those conversations and have those conversations with the best of the

best. And there's also a level of respect that's breeded between people that are in these different

subcultures. Whenever you are someone that's part of the in-crowd, whenever you do know how to talk

about the specific card games, whenever you do know how to talk about this specific e-sport,

there's a level of you have credibility. I'm actually going to listen to what you're saying.

Psychologically, it's common ground. That's what it is. And as humans, we want to open up to people

and things that we're familiar with. And so that's the familiarity that connects the individuals.

So that way, that bridge can eventually be built to share the weight of the gospel.

Fascinating. This has been a great conversation. With all the different

topics we're hitting here within this season, the e-sports is the one that

I just came in. I'm like, I have no clue. And so, Jono, this has been a great conversation digging into

it. Chino Mage asked the question. And so we'll land the plan on this, kind of.

I don't know if Chino really has a 13-year-old, but supposedly, if a 13-year-old wanted to get

involved in this stuff, how would they get started getting into e-sports?

That's a tough question because it depends on location. I would see if you could find

some type of youth e-sports thing that they can get into. Kind of like Jeff was pointing out earlier,

look for like a middle school program, something that's supported by the actual school that they're

going to. And then I would actually start as soon as they get into high school, start looking online.

There's a company called Stay Plugged In. They connect players with coaches and colleges all around the

nation. All around the nation. And so that's what I would do is as soon as possible, I would start

getting your student into... When do you go to high school? Is it 14 or 15? What is that? Freshman year?

I would just pay attention to the pro scene and learn as 15. Okay. Get as good as possible in the

safety of your own home. See if there's some official things that are backed by your school. And then also,

too, I think that we're seeing a rise in like para, not para-church, but like para-institutionalized

stuff too. So look for places like Rewind, look for places that are starting these youth e-sports

programs. Because I do think that in the next probably five years, we're going to see a ton

of people that are starting to build out this model that looks like what traditional sports do. So like

club soccer, club e-sports, start looking for things like that that your student or your child can get

involved in to where they can get coached by people that are a little bit older in their age and their

time in the e-sports industry. And I would just... This is fascinating. I would expand on that and just

say like if you yourself are a gamer and a competitor, like see if you can help start the club at the

school. Because there's kids there that want to do it, but a lot of times the school administration

just doesn't understand it. Like this is happening in my mother-in-law subs at a school and this is

nerd culture stuff. But they started a Dungeons and Dragons club. One of the teachers started a

Dungeons and Dragons club. They had so many kids sign up for it that they rotate every week a different

group of kids because they had dozens of kids who wanted to come play D&D and the teachers connecting

there. I have someone in our church who is, I think that Lord Shadow is... Lord Shadow is not a believer,

but Lord Shadow came to our church to play D&D and he runs a middle school D&D club at the middle

school once a week. And it's been something that's been on my heart. I'm an avid D&D player. If I was

an avid gamer and could kind of help a school get the equipment that they needed and begin coaching a

team of kids to play Rocket League or whatever, there are definitely kids in every school across

the country that want that. But a lot of times schools either A, don't have the funding or B,

just don't have the knowledge base to be able to do it. And most, I think, high schools and middle

schools recognize the validity of it and actually want it to be part of their opportunity for their

students. They see it, they want it, they just don't know how to take steps in that direction.

So maybe you can be the key that begins unlocking that for your school as well.

Yeah, I love that. Cowboy Morgan in the chat. I love this. When I was growing up,

churches paid missionaries to go overseas and witness. Now we're in a day where missionaries

witnessing online in games. And really, that's the heart of Digital Church Network is helping people

discover the influence they have digitally, including in video games, and even training

and equipping them with how to make disciples, how to grow into leaders, how to plant churches and

networks and things like that. And so recognizing the e-sports is a mission field.

And that to reach the mission field, you've got to reach an individual within the mission field and equip

them to reach the mission field. It has to be within. It is a huge opportunity for churches

and individuals and gamers and friends and people that are within this culture. It's a huge opportunity

for us to tackle. And so I've loved this conversation. I've loved where we're going with this. We are

three episodes in and all three of these have been, well, Mark's was a kind of iffy, but everybody else

was good. I probably butchered his name on that podcast too. But who really remembers? Anyway,

at least I don't. So, hey, listen, Jono, it's been great. But yeah, we're going to land the plane.

We're going to wrap up here with the show here talking about e-sports. Let's do Mark first. Mark,

as we're wrapping up here, any closing thoughts?

No, but go check out what is going on locally in e-sports in your area. Go check out Jono's stream

and literally just swing by and hang out with him and ask questions because you get him to listen

here, but you could go ask him questions live and have him respond to it every week for a lot more

hours than what you're listening to this podcast. So, just twitch.tv/Jono, J-O-H-N-O, and go check him out for sure.

Awesome. Yeah, go check that out. And Jono, any closing thoughts on your side as we're wrapping up?

I'm just excited for people to connect more of the Capital C Church with what we're doing here

in the space. It's been awesome to be here for seven years. And now we're just seeing so many

different people really flocked to the space. And usually whenever God lays something like this on

this many people's hearts, you know, he's really trying to reach people. So, I'm just really blessed and

honored to be on this. And thank you for having me today, Jeff. Thank you.

Oh, listen, this was solid. This was great. My mind is racing around the chaplaincy

program for e-sports. How do we start to get residents and send them into those spaces to help

help out? Yeah, send them to me.

There's lots of opportunity here. And so, we're going to keep the conversation going,

definitely. Who is it?

Cowboy Morgan asked, "How can you find the other episodes?"

So, thechurch.digital/podcast, if you want to listen to it on the audio site,

subscribe to the Church Digital Podcast and you can find them in there pretty easy.

And then I'm on YouTube. We're on YouTube. It's youtube.com/thechurchdigital. And there's

playlists there that you can find. Mark's episode and Bubba's episode there as well.

But hey, we're going to land a plane. This was awesome. I'm going to look at my son playing

e-sports in a whole new way. And hopefully, one day, I get the cash to check. No, I'm kidding.

That's not, well, maybe, but that's a conversation probably for the post-party.

But hey, so we're going to land a plane right here. Remember, podcast listeners,

you can find it on us here on Twitch, twitch.tv/digitalchurchnetwork. Every Thursday,

3pm, we're going to be doing Jesus Gamer Church Season interviews live here on the show. I actually

have no idea who's next. And so somebody, Mark nicely transitioned me off and I didn't take the

time to look. So we'll post it in DCN and social media as well. I want to say it's Jate. Is it Jate?

Somebody smarter than me has that information. But let's pretend it's Jate. Mark doesn't know.

He came back just to give me the hands up. So yeah, that's the way it rolls here with Digital

Church Network. It's a little chaotic, but we're going to land a plane. So for Jono, for Mark,

for Jeff with the Church Digital and Digital Church Network, thanks for jumping on the stream here.

And we'll see you next time on the show. Y'all have a good day.