EP227: Lucas Pulley & Unique Expressions of Church

One issue that the normal church model has is we listen to the pastor and we need to be listening

to the Holy Spirit and find out what He has for us personally, along with listening to the pastor

and listening to somebody that's, you know, studied and spent the week really digging into

the Word of God, but we need to integrate that into our own lives. And really, that's all I've

been doing. 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 episode 227 of the Church Digital Podcast. I have been

looking forward to this conversation, this conversation right here for a very long time. It was, you know,

I feel like I should like maybe draw it out longer, tease it, but we're just going to get right into it

right here. So I was interviewing, we got Lucas Pulley, executive director from Underground Network

here in Florida, specifically the Tampa area and others. So I was interviewing Lucas Pulley,

talking about that verse in micro. Yeah. We were talking about DAOs. Yeah. We were talking about DAOs and

blockchain. Yeah. It was the most all over the place conversation through Leadership Network, maybe

maybe three or four months ago. And he mentioned the words dungeon and dragon church. And just right then,

I was like, okay, I cannot have this conversation today because we don't have enough time for it. But dang it,

we're going to come back because I want to explore what the idea of Dungeons and Dragon Church could

look like. And so we were emailing kind of after the fact and Lucas was nice enough to connect me with

Andy Corson. And so Andy, welcome to the show as well. And we're going to get into Dungeons and

Dragons Church. But then I discover Andy's also run a Bible at the bar, like church at a bar. And all of a sudden,

I'm just, my mind is getting blown by all these different expressions of church and how church can

look different in a physical building, in digital space, in a bar, in a Dungeons and Dragons game.

Like this is just, once again, this is a conversation that I really, really wanted to

have. So gentlemen, Lucas, Andy, thank you all for jumping on the show here. It's going to be great.

Our pleasure. Thanks for having us. Awesome. So Lucas, why don't you just a big picture up front

here? Underground, you know, I mean, obviously we do a lot with Rob Wagner, Casey Underground. You guys

were ahead of them on this, maybe the impetus a little bit for some of their mindset. So talk to

us a little bit about Underground, Tampa Underground, what you guys are about.

Yeah, Network of Microchurches, we want to empower the priesthood of all believers, just everyday

disciples to discern their calling from the Lord, their destiny to be a witness to the unreached,

to the lost and the poor. And when they have some clarity about that from the Lord to actually go and

plant and develop an expression of the church in a simple way among those people that can be

contextualized and meaningful and fully empowered in an intentional community among those people.

So we just have a little network here in Tampa of around 100 of those microchurches in like a

decentralized network. And I have the grace of a vantage point of being able to serve a lot of those

leaders and help them get off the ground or remove barriers along the way. And as the as the director

of the network and and being able to see some of them plant develop and progress. But gosh, I don't I

honestly don't remember how long it was ago, Andy, that we we connected. But but Andy was in the

Tampa Bay area, he and his wife have been kind of missional experimenters for a long time and

and connected with the underground many, many years ago. And, and they've been, you know, you say Bible

at the bar, and I'll let Andy talk about it. But that his his formal microchurch was Bible at the bar. But

they were doing all kinds of experiments, expressions of the church underneath that, that like general

label, general moniker, and, and, and reaching a lot of people in a lot of pockets of places that, again, the

church would never be reaching, we would often never see or know. But because that's not the point, you're

just empowering the priest of all believers to be the church among the people, and let them go, let them be

free. And, and, and do their thing. And, sadly, it was about maybe a few months ago that that their

the Corson family moved to the Tampa area and went up to Ohio. And we've been weeping ever since. But

I'm happy for him to be on the podcast, be able to tell some of their story.

Well, that's what I was, there's this thing called digital. I don't know if you've ever heard of this

before. Digital is the capacity of connecting people across long distances together. Like you're

literally talking right now to Andy. It's it's like, we're not on the Oregon Trail anymore. We can still

stay in connection. We can still be friends. Oh, so good. I Andy, like I would love so as a former

tamper underground the end or whatever the phrase is, and I really want to get into the, like the heart of

some of these unique expressions. Let's just back up to you. Like, what's your heart? What what what

brought you to do things like Bible at the bar and Dungeons and Dragon Church and all these other

what what makes you want to explore some of that space?

Yeah, I used to be in bridge and road construction for like 17 years. And a lot of the times when I was

growing in my faith, you know, kind of wondering, was I supposed to be doing more? And God's like,

no, they need Jesus in construction. And so I stayed there and did my thing and just,

you know, sought him and grew. And it came to a point where he told me, OK, it's time to step out

of the boat. I mean, it was we'd gone on a mission trip. I led some students down there and that was

kind of the word for them. And then about a month later, he goes, that was for you, too.

And it was like I had a good, solid career with a good, bright future. And he's he's like, no, it's it's

follow me and wouldn't say to what it was just follow me. And plenty of reassurance, plenty of

reassurance that it was his voice and that he was telling me that and that that it was biblical. It made

sense. That's what he was calling me to. And so I did. I gave my notice and and he still didn't tell me

what it was for. And about a month or two later before I left, he started showing me some of the

groups I'd be reaching out to. And having been in construction and I loved motorcycles my whole life.

I'm a big nerd. It's a I'm a I'm a weird guy. I'm very strangely wired because the groups I fit into

you don't usually hang out together or at least you don't realize that they do.

And so the bar community, the biker community and the gaming community were kind of where God was

leading me to reach out to. And so I just started looking at ways to plug in and reach out to those

people and and just listening for his leading, which some days you wonder and ended up getting a job at

the local Harley shop, which shouldn't have happened. I'm not a mechanic by any means. I'm really not a

sales guy. So I ended up working there as a sales guy for a year, which again, I mean, every one of

these are God's stories of I mean, I had to put on the application and explain in the interview why I

left my job, which is because God told me to. So a lot of fun and they hired me anyway. So again,

total God thing, no sales experience, nothing like that.

You left your previous good job because God told you to. This sounds like a durable employee. Let's hire

them. They may have thought you had really good access to the drugs, man, like that. So that's

some high quality stuff you must have. And so it kind of grew from working at the Harley shop. We

worked every weekend. And so me and one of the other guys started doing a Bible study on Sunday

mornings for work. And it just kind of grew from there. That's where Bible at the bar, we would meet

at the outside bar behind the Harley shop and do Bible study. And, uh, it just kind of started there

before to turn. Wait, wait, wait. You, you, you did, you did church at the bar behind the Harley shop

behind the Harley shop. It's so awesome. I love this story. That's incredible. It started with me and

one other sales guy. And when I left, we had about a dozen people there and I was more preaching than

Bible study, but yeah, it was awesome. I was able to go and, uh, talk to, they had a writer's edge

class every weekend for new writers to get their certification. And we'd show up early and give

them donuts and they let me share what we were doing. And yeah, it was awesome. I literally sit

at the bar and preach there. So like what I would imagine being in such a public space right behind

the Harley shop, lots of exposure, lots of people seeing what was going on, like walk in,

walk in traffic. Like maybe tell me some of the stories of what was happening as a result of, of, uh,

Bible in the bar.

Yeah. Uh, a lot of the outreach was to that, uh, group of bikers. I got to know, uh, people in

different clubs and people at the Harley shop. Cause again, I worked there for a year

and, um, had, had one girl, um, that was taking the class, come over and use the restroom at the

restaurant there. Cause it's connected to a restaurant. And as she's walking back, she just,

uh,

just stopped and started saying,

just started singing for us. Just praise God, you know?

Yeah. So just, yeah, just awesome opportunities for people to, uh, just experience Christ,

even just in walking by and in hearing that, uh, uh, that a fellow biker that speaks their language,

uh, is following him is one of the things, one of the reasons I'm called to the biker community

is in the bar community is because you can't offend me with your language. I worked in construction

for 17 years. I've heard it. I've, I've told the jokes before, you know, for God kind of clean my,

clean my mouth a little bit, but you're not going to offend me. You're not going to offend me by

drinking in front of me. God's, you know, clean, cleanse me from all of that stuff.

To where I'm able to kind of in a nonjudgmental way, meet people where their walls are down

because a lot of people won't come to church. They're fine. Christ like, uh, perfect example

was, uh, my sales manager at the Harley shop. He was tough, big beard, X army, big truck,

Harley with the big ape hangers, the whole, you know, the whole picture, uh, just, uh, just the cool

guy. And he told me that one day he came in and he goes, Andy, you'd be proud of me. I went to church

last, uh, week for Easter. It's like, awesome, man. That's great. He goes, I didn't go in. I'm like,

okay. He says, yeah, I sat in the parking lot for 15 minutes and then I went home.

He, he could not bring himself to walk in the door. Wow. But we could have a conversation on

that sales floor. We could talk surrounded by motorcycles that we could talk about Christ.

We could talk about the fact that I told him in an interview that I left my job

because God told me to, you know, you're, you're drawn to attention here. We talk about how doing

these unique expressions of church, we reach different types of people than the types of

people that are in the buildings and in your, in your story of your friend in the parking lots,

a prime example of that, where, um, they're not, they literally, for some reason, cannot go

into the building. Did, did he actually give like, and I don't want to get like deep into trauma or

anything, but like, was he just a, a D church guy hurt? Like, what was the thing that was keeping

him from going in? Yeah. He, uh, I don't remember anything specific. Uh, he actually, it was funny

because he, um, he ended up coming to this thing called, uh, alpha. I don't know if you've ever heard

of that. Okay. So we had that at our church, uh, Baylife church there in Brandon. And so I was telling

him about it and him and his girlfriend actually came and we met in the student center. And so I

joked that you had to go through the student center first before you go into the big church

because I got him that far. It was kind of those baby steps. And then he actually, yeah, he actually

attended, uh, uh, the wedding of my wife and I, which was in the, the main sanctuary. So I joked

that I got him into that, got him into church. So I got him in, it took you getting married to get

him into church, but we had just tons of really cool conversation, especially during the alpha

things. It was, you know, he brought stuff up again. Like, what did you mean when you said God

spoke to you and you're never going to have that conversation until you've built a little

relationship and they feel comfortable to be able to ask you that. And it was awesome to

be able to share and just have a conversation with them without him feeling like he's walking

into somebody else's house. He's walking into a place where they're probably going to judge

him and look down on him. And he's uncomfortable. Like anytime you go into a new place, you don't,

even from church people, when you walk into a new church, you don't know where anything

is, you don't know what time things, you know, where, if there's childcare, what's the process.

So it can be nerve wracking. And for somebody that doesn't attend church, they have no idea.

That's beautiful. Tell me, Lucas, let me ask this. Like, okay, so you've got Bible in a bar,

Tampa underground. Like what's the percentage of, let's, let's use the phrase maybe over the top.

What's the percentage of, of unique expressions like this compared to the guy that wants to reach

his gated community or his, his neighborhood or, you know, his workplace? Like, is there a,

is there a strong percentage towards really these very creative driven ideas or is it more,

I want to use the word safe, but it's not, you know, more typical, which you would see in a micro

expression.

Yeah. I think in our, in our network and again, um, not by design and we have plenty of, uh,

friends, like, uh, a city network friends that don't look this way. Um, but it just so happens

that in ours, um, the majority of micro churches are very unique out of the box.

Really? Um, experimental and they look a little bit more, um, risky or, uh, unsafe. Like it would be

over half. Um, and it would be under half that just look like, um, very accessible, you know,

like house church in a living room or, um, or something, or something similar like that, you know? Um,

so, uh, again, that's not necessarily that that's, I don't think there's necessarily anything like

good or bad, wrong or right. Just descriptively. That's just how our community has come to look.

And, um, I do think we sort of see ourselves in a, as a, as a broad community, we sort of see ourselves

as experimenting on the edge of the future and, and trying to like solicit learning to, to feedback

into the church at large. Um, like we're just experimenting both for the sake of the kingdom

in our own city, but also to learn things to maybe that the broader church would, um, uh,

would find a gift, you know, um, certainly true of, true of Andy too. And, um, and I think,

I think a big part, like even him, just hearing him talk a second ago about Bible at the bar

and him talking about language, like he could speak their language. And, um, um, you know,

I think that's part of what has fueled a lot of our really unique expressions is our value for

contextualization. And, and therefore we don't really necessarily have like a broad, we don't really

have like a, uh, a default or broad vision for microchurch that everybody is sort of trying to

fit into at first and then maybe divert from, but the base here is nothing.

Every, all the microchurches look totally different and we've intentionally not tried to give kind of

like a foundation or a starting point and given people like total, which can be paralyzing. It

has its pros and cons. It can be kind of paralyzing, but given people sort of like total freedom to let

the church that exists in their midst kind of be formed around their own calling and gifting and

what, and their own language. And that's our value for contextualization. And it's similar to the,

you know, I can't wait for Andy to, you know, mention some about the little Dungeons and Dragons

ministry experiment that, that he was doing here. But again, I just feel like so much of that's

contextualization. Like the way that he, he's able to reach a group of people because he knows he's

wired similarly to them. He knows how to speak their language. He knows how to kind of like fit into the

culture. And more than that, he actually knows how to go about ministry, like community, talking about

spiritual topics, go like creating some kind of discipleship strategy that makes sense in that

culture. And just even hearing like, yeah, we sit at a bar and there's some preaching there. There,

there might be people who on, who are listening to the podcast, hear him say, for a while, we stopped

doing Bible study. And instead, like I was preaching every week and they might think in their head,

well, that was a bad idea. Like they, they, they should just be doing discovery Bible or something,

discovery Bible study or something like that forever. But the thing is for that community of people,

like sitting at a bar together, like Andy's making choices, discerning with the spirit about what

these people want and in what way and in what language and probably what he's saying in a sermon

would never be said in a traditional church or something, you know, like the, just the, the

stories, the illustrations, like it's just stuff that's going to make sense for that group of people.

And the dungeons and dragons thing is going to be going to be like a similar thing. It's like,

even if we could convince these pockets of people to come back to a prevailing model form of the

church, bikers, Harley Davidson guys, dungeons and dragons crew, even if we could convince these

pockets of people to come back to the prevailing model of the church, which by the way, we won't,

but even if we could, even if we could, we still have the problem of not being able to communicate

in a way that makes sense to them and is meaningful to their story. We don't know the illustrations or the

metaphors that make sense for them. And that's why like empowerment of missionaries, like Andy,

like he's, he's like, Hey, I'm wired to kind of be in the lives of these kinds of three groups of

people. That's exactly right. And I just love hearing Andy and missionaries like him talk about

their own stories because you can kind of see how they're making decisions or like communicating about

things that nobody else would because it's not intuitive to them. It's the, it's the, it's the

activated indigenous missionaries. So, um, I just love it. It's like, Andy, you don't even like mean

to be highlighting some of that stuff, but it's like stuff that I'm, that I'm catching and I really

appreciate it. How does this, how does this multiply contextualization? Like Andy, so you,

you understand, uh, the, you know, the, the biker you're literally working at, at a Harley Davidson

bike shop. Like, are you, and you're, you're pouring into individual people, the, the boss and

whoever, some of the stories you've talked to, um, like, are you gaining insight? Are you developing

leaders to, to take over and to multiply into other areas? Are you focused on your one bar and really

just developing that? Like what, what's the, the bigger scope of, of where, um, Bible in a bar is

going or would go? Yeah. Um, funny thing is not that clever. I didn't come up with like an amazing,

uh, a way to go about this and, you know, four point scheme and all this. And in fact, I think we

need to be careful being too clever and just be contrite and listen to God. And that needs to be our

message to the people as well. You know, one, one issue that the normal church model has is we listen

to the pastor and we need to be listening to the Holy spirit and find out what he has for us

personally, along with listening to the pastor and listening to somebody that's, you know, studied and

spent the week really digging into the word of God, but we need to, uh, integrate that into our own

lives. And really that's all I've been doing is, uh, just, again, I was working at the Harley shop and we

worked every Sunday. So, Hey, you know, we really, we need Jesus before we go into this place. It was

not an easy place to work and not necessarily the culture, but just as an employee in sales

doesn't jive with me. So it was, it was frustrating. It was tense. So it was important that we spent some

time in God's word before we went into work. Um, the, the D and D study came about because a buddy of

mine went to a game shop quite a bit. We played magic, the gathering, which is a nerdy card game.

Um, we played D and D again, that's just part of who I am and what I enjoy. And those are the people

that we were around. And when I started getting back into magic, the gathering, my daughter had

asked me to show her how to play. She was in high school. I found a shop near work. I walked in,

asked the guy to show me how to play, catch me up. And while I was standing there, I look over

and there's all these tables set up and people just come in and they hang out and play and just wait

for somebody to hang out with. And God's like, nobody's reaching them. It's like, Oh, okay. And

from that moment, again, I was part of the, okay, these are some of the people you'll be reaching.

So it wasn't like, okay, I need to find a way to, to really come up with a great ministry model.

It was, I hang out at a game shop. My buddy hangs out at a game shop. I played,

taught him to play magic. Hey, we should do a Bible study in the shop. And so number one,

I asked the owner, I think that's important. Part of kind of the model of Bible at the bar

at this point is talk to the owner, get permission before you just start meeting somewhere.

For several reasons. Number one, it's respectful and you're going to be taking up their space.

They know what you're doing. Your first line of outreach is the owner and employees. And now

when people ask or have questions, they'll be able to talk about it, which means they may ask you more

questions and it's, it just opens doors there. But we just started doing a Bible study there,

met up about once a week. And then after we finished the, I think that we started with Ephesians.

And after that, I was like, okay, what do you want to do? And he's like, let's do first Kings. I'm like,

okay, sounds great. This is different. This is different. He's younger. He was like 18 or I think he was 20 at the time.

And like, that's not your normal, Hey, let's study this book, this book, you know? And so I was like, okay. Cause you know,

encourage them. Heck yeah. So then I started thinking about, okay, first thing we need to do is kind of backstory,

you know, set the stage. Cause the first verse is King David's dying. Like, okay, there's a lot going on here.

He's only the second King of Israel and he's on his deathbed. Like this is the transition of authority.

There's a lot going on, not just to mention all the spiritual, but just, and in doing a backstory,

it made me think of D and D and just building that world building. And so we started doing it as a D and D style Bible study.

We, we pulled character sheets and every character that came up, any name that came up, we're like, okay,

we need to do a character sheet for this person. So we need to find basically like every place in the Bible

that mentions them or their family line and what decisions they're making and why. Like one of my favorites is,

is alignment. You have basically nine different choices for, for people's alignment for your character.

And it's largely based on why you make decisions. What's your motivation? What is your drive?

And in studying the Bible this way, like I went deeper and got to know characters in a way that I never had before.

Even in studying the Bible deeply, I never compiled all that and really wanted to know like,

why is this person doing this? What's their drive? What is their reasoning?

And in doing that as well, I can talk to somebody that plays D and D and say, yeah, this character,

I think, you know, they're, they're probably a lawful neutral and start talking about why.

And they're going to understand that character better than most people that go to church,

just because of that concept and that understanding of the D and D world.

And, uh, I, I, I can't tell you how many people came up while we're sitting there with the player's

handbook and the Bible and they go, that's a combination I've never seen before.

Yeah. What was the, was the business owner? I mean, I'm guessing he was open to it. Was,

was it good for business? Was it bad for business? Like what, was he concerned about the win?

I'm just, I'm curious the business perspective of what he gained or he or she gained by doing this.

So the game shops are largely about people hanging out. So it really didn't detract from any of his

business unless they had an event or something. We always, uh, were conscientious of where we sat

and, uh, kept that in mind. Um, but he came up to us the one week and he's like, you guys are doing

a Bible study, right? I was like, yeah. He goes, you can put a flyer up on the wall if you want on

their little bulletin board. So we were able to do that. And then after a couple of weeks,

he's, he came back over and he's like, uh, um, he's like, Hey, somebody was in here the other day

asking if, um, we had, we do a Bible study here. Do you have a flyer or something? Like who does

that? Who goes into a game shop asking about a Bible study? Like somebody heard something and it's

amazing again, that somebody walked into his shop and is asking his employees about a Bible study.

Usually they're not going to be thinking about that in the least. And now it's kind of right there in

front of them. And we, we frequent that shop. People know us. People would walk up while we're

doing the Bible study and be like, Hey, what are you guys doing? Or they'll just come up and start

talking and we'd stop what we're doing and have conversation. And, but those relationships are what

give us the opportunity to share in ways that we wouldn't be able to otherwise.

That's, that's beautiful. How, what Lucas, what, what percentage I'm curious here? Um,

cause it's funny, I've done some, let me back up maybe a little bit and I'm going to go all the

way back to like 2006 here because I actually, I don't, you guys are probably familiar with like

a hot topic or a PacSun kind of like the head shop that was around back in the day. And so the,

the Christian version of that was called C2A. It was based out of California. Um,

and there were dozens of them in California and actually I bought an owned one. We ran it out of

West Palm beach, Florida. And, uh, so it was, uh, it was literally at the mall at Wellington green,

uh, which was a popular mall out on the West side of West Palm. And, uh, it's back when malls were a

good thing. Unlike maybe today, back in the day when the economy was stable. Um, but I, I, we literally,

we saw a hundred kids, a hundred students give their life to Christ in, in a brick and mortar

mall where, um, we, we, we sold. And when I say Christian shirts, you're probably picturing like

the Budweiser thing that was like really popular in the nineties and two thousands. These were like

cool designs. Like, and it was more like, you're more likely to see skulls and, and, um, you know,

just a much more graphic, uh, image. Uh, but we trained our kids how to like share Jesus,

the employees on how to share Jesus while they're sharing, selling the shirt. And, uh, and so through

that, uh, we just, we literally saw over a hundred kids come to Christ and maybe the three years that

that business ran somewhere along the way, Obama said the word recession and the economy crashed.

And so we never, but it was funny. We actually, we had, um, we actually had like investors on the hook,

uh, to open more C2 eights in, uh, Miami in Tampa, in Orlando,

um, in, in, in a number of areas scattered across the state of Florida and just the economy,

everything kind of crashed after the fact. The reason I bring all this up is, is my story.

I actually like bought the property, uh, at least the property. I was the business owner,

um, in Andy story, which is intriguing. He doesn't have near the overhead because he does not

running either of these businesses. He's working with people in, in that space.

What's maybe describe some of the, the tensions, uh, pros and cons of, of both, uh, is it, are you

working with anyone currently that's owning the business as opposed to working with others that

are already owning the business? Like what does that relationship look like in 22?

Yeah. For Bible at the bar, for what we do, again, it's, it's not a complicated model. It is,

this is something that anybody can do. I do it in, uh, like at an outside bar at the Harley shop,

or, uh, my wife did it at a coffee shop. Um, I did it at a cigar shop, uh, the game shop,

because those are places where we go. I was actually reaching out to, uh, trying to reach out

to some of the guys at the Harley shop that smoked cigars and ended up at the cigar shop and met some

Christian guys. And we started a Bible study there. Um, but a lot of it is again, just asking permission,

um, just to make sure that you're not invading their space. You want to come in with, yeah,

you want that permission because again, so they know what's going on. It's, it piques their interest,

but you also want to respect that it's their building. It's not ours. And, you know, Christians

can, you know, the after church crowd, the worst tippers and the worst customers we want to, we need

to change that to where everywhere that we frequent, like when we did the coffee shop one, like we're

going to, we're going to buy the product. We're going to be the best tippers. We're going to be

respectful. We're going to be loving. And like, if you can't live it out while you're studying the

Bible, go back home into your Bible study till you're ready to, to, to talk about it out in the

open, which that that's a big part of Bible at the bar is, uh, doing it out in the open. Cause another,

uh, heart of Bible at the bar is uniting the body of Christ because we tend to get, uh, art in our

church and focused in our church. And Sunday mornings, we had people from four or five different

churches coming and we do our Bible study and then we'd all go to our home churches.

So being able to have these discussions out in public so that people can hear, because we agree

on like 90% and we need to be able to talk about that and grow in that. And we need to be able to

talk about the 10% that we don't, and we need to be able to do all of that out in the open, not kind

of behind church doors till we all agree. And then we go out and we're right. And we need to tell them

that they're wrong. Instead, we need to have these actual discussions within earshot of, of people.

And we need to be discussing and wrestling with things and so that they can hear and go, they don't

think that they know everything. They're struggling to follow the Lord. And, and that's what it looks

like. That's, that's not what I thought. I thought they have it all together and they hate me because

I'm wrong because I think differently. Just, just from the Tampa underground, like bird's eye. I know

you were asking like, do, do we have others in the network that don't just engage a space that they

don't own, but do we actually have some folks that actually own the, that stand on the other side of

that relationship? And we do, Jeff, I know, I know, you know, John Dangler, you know, they've got

well-built bikes. Um, and so they, they don't own the property that, but they, the, but they own the

business and they're, you know, leasing the property and all that kind of stuff. And then we,

there's a guy named Derek, um, that, um, owns a, a chain of coffee shops in, in Tampa. That's a part

of the underground. And he does it very much from the motivation of being incarnationally engaged

with the, the people who frequent the coffee shops. And, um, and, uh, so, yeah, I mean, I think there

are pros and cons to those doing it one way or the other. And, uh, you know, we're kind of talking

about third places. It's not entirely like the shirt, the t-shirt, um, store, the C28, that's not

totally a third place, but maybe some of those kids were treating it like a third place. You know,

they were going and hanging out there, not just grabbing a shirt and buying it and leaving. Um,

but yeah, I mean, from, from Andy's point of view, if you don't own it and you're just jumping in and

you're trying to build a relationship with management and, um, and then you're just trying to like pop up

and do ministry as a, um, you know, as a, as a, as a client, as a customer, it's faster. Um,

and you don't have, I do think there are, there's sometimes there's some weird kind of power dynamics

might not be the right word, but like there's, you're not on the same tier of relationship when

you're, um, relating with somebody as a business owner or business manager and they're the customer.

Sometimes there's like, oh, there's some weird power dynamics or transactional relational dynamics

there. And it's easier as just like the, a customer with other customers kind of convening in a space,

in a bar, in a coffee shop, um, at a gym, at a CrossFit gym or something like that. Uh,

so there's some pros there to like being, being on the same kind of tier. So there's less barriers

relationally and it, maybe it's a little faster, but on the other side, like being the, we have a lot

of people who are going about it from the perspective of not, uh, of, uh, building third

spaces, owning, managing, generating businesses in third places. Um, it really comes down to calling,

like people just feel called to do different things. And, um, and, but the people who are on

that side, they're making trade-offs. There are, there's real pros and cons to that other side.

Um, the pros are, you kind of have that proverb stuff. Like when, when the, when the righteous

prosper, the whole city rejoices, you know, that's, that's, um, I think that's proper Proverbs 10,

10. Like they, they, as business owners, they actually get to contribute at a city level with

other civic leaders and like chamber of converse and business, and they get to steward their resources

and their network of business relationships in a way that's alternative to the way of the world.

Um, and so there's a huge benefit there. Um, the way that they use their profits can be really

prophetic. The way that they design their space and their policies for their space can be really

prophetic to the watching world. So they can have a much bigger impact on a city than somebody who's

just popping up in a third place for six months and, uh, trying to build some relationships. Um,

but again, uh, the, the, the overlap between re, um, religious affiliation and kind of evangelism

stuff and also like a business place and some of the politics that can get involved there. Like

that'll probably get dicey, increasingly dicey over the next five or 10 years. Um, and you know,

people just embracing that diciness and complexity, it comes, it comes at a cost, you know,

and it's something that people have to consider.

I was curious, Lucas, like what's the, if you may not even know this, but what's the

percentage of conversations that where people are like, no, I don't want you to do a Bible study

in my business. Like I, I would imagine that's been increasingly so, but I'm just curious what

your take would, we haven't heard that many examples of that. It certainly happened. It certainly

happened, but, um, there's not a lot of examples. We have many, we have much more examples of business

owners being open to it and friendly to it. Um, uh, a counterpart to Andy's, um, Bible at

the bar. We also have a beer and Bible, uh, and they're in, they're in all the bars that

they've kind of, uh, uh, um, propped up in the management has been very happy to have them

and, um, and, um, and coffee shops where stuff has happened. Schools. I mean, it's a different

thing. It's not for profit, but when we, there, when there's little, um, microchurch discovery

Bible studies or prayer groups or stuff that pop up in schools, again, that's a thing where

you kind of imagine there's going to be some resistance. Um, there has been in a couple

places, but a lot of openness. Uh, um, so I don't know if that's just a grace of the area

thing, like maybe, uh, or a geographic thing or a political thing. I don't know what that

is, but that's just our experience. Maybe if you're in a, in a, a much more post-Christian

city, maybe you're in somewhere up in the Northeast or something like that. Um, you might have a

little bit more difficulty around that, but, um, we haven't seen it too much. I don't know

about you, Andy, if you've had some, some experience, cause I know your wife was doing coffee shop

stuff too, coffee shop, shop ministry. So I don't know if either one of you have run into

any situations where an owner was like, please don't do this. I'm uncomfortable with it.

No, we've never had any issues. And honestly, I think, I think with, you know, the media and

all of even Christian media, uh, talking about the, the, the issues that we have and, and, uh,

persecution that we experience, I think we're afraid. I think we're way more afraid than we

should be. And, you know, really just, uh, when I was in construction at one point, I was

like, you know, I should take my Bible to work and just have it on my desk. Cause, and I would

go in early and read my Bible while I ate my breakfast before work and just having it on

the desk, you know, was an opportunity for discussion. And there was a point where there

was a difficult discussion, but there was an opportunity for it. And, you know, we were,

we, I have a relationship with all those guys because we work together all the time. And

again, it gave an opportunity there. And when you're going into somebody's business, again,

if we can go in respectfully and we can add to their business, because if I'm doing a Bible study in

your business, that means me and several people are going to come and give you business. And number

one thing, I want to be a good tipper and be respectful and caring. I'm going to clean up.

My area is going to look better at when I leave than when I got there. We need, you know, I want

to show the love of Christ while I'm there. If, if I'm not doing that while I'm studying the Bible,

I'm sending an opposite message. So that's super important. And so again, I've never had any issues.

In fact, the, the cigar shop that we met at, and they're still meeting at, uh, the, one of the

managers that was working there has started coming to our group after he left. And the, my last week,

um, his girlfriend gave her life twice. Like it's awesome.

Very, very cool. Listen, this is, this has been phenomenal. I'm, I'm really intrigued. Um, Andy,

your goal of, of, of trying, trying to reach, what'd you say it was? It was, it was gamers. It was

bikers. And what was the third group? Uh, the bar community, the bar bakers, uh, bakers,

not bakers, bikers, bars, and, and, and gamers. Like what, what, uh, um, what a unreached people

group. Uh, and it's just an incredible upper opportunities there and love, love your, your

heart. Um, going after all of this, Hey, uh, I have an ulterior motive in bringing you all together

for, for this podcast. And so let's see where this is going. I, I would love some advice. And so,

uh, and actually Andy, I'm going to connect you to this person because he's in your neck of the woods.

Uh, Joey Santos is, um, uh, global integration pastor or something like that for Christ church

up, up right outside of Cincinnati, I believe. And, uh, and so Joey's a friend, uh, Joey reached out

to me and he said, Hey, um, you know, cause I evidently I do a lot of work in the metaverse,

or at least that's what I'm told. And so Joey asks me, he says, Hey, um, I'm thinking about doing,

I'm thinking about opening a, a metaverse, a virtual reality bar, um, in, in the world called

VR chat, which is like the, the red light district of virtual reality. Essentially he's opening up,

uh, or wants to open up a virtual reality bar in the, the red light district, the wild, wild west,

where, where pretty much anything goes, there's no parental controls. Um, and for him, he's wanting

to do, um, not church services out of the bar, uh, but relationally connect in this virtual reality

bar. Now, you know, virtual reality bar actually is a thing. It's a million dollar business,

um, in this space because it runs off of memberships. Uh, they have licensed to ship

alcohol across state lines. Uh, so there's some legitimacy to this business and they also run

back rooms in virtual reality where things don't, or things happen that maybe, you know, shouldn't

happen, uh, things that may or may not be illegal and are illegal. And so as a result of this,

there's some stuff here with the, the virtual reality bar, of course, we don't want to get

into. Uh, but what I'm really intrigued at is his desire to create a community space that's not called

church and to draw people into it. And, um, long story short, we're looking for partners to, to kind

of come in and to be part of this as we've, it's funny, as I've talked with churches, some churches

love the idea. Some churches are incredibly offended at the idea of opening a bar and instead want us to

open a coffee shop, which ironically, uh, difference between a beer with a foam top and a latte, it's

probably just a little different colorization. So I think maybe we can build both. Uh, we could

get into it maybe, but, but the idea is, man, what if, what would it be like to, to start to create

some, some of these expressions, some of these experiences, some of these locations, um, in this

space, not for church services, but for relationally connecting. Um, and so I've got two

out of the box thinkers on this podcast. Uh, I would love some insight. Like what are y'all

thinking? Is this a good idea? Is this a bad idea of your virtual reality or not? What, what advice

would you give for someone like Joey and I who are interested in exploring this space?

Um, I do not know a whole lot about virtual reality. I, uh, fairly low tech over here. I still

even use, uh, paper character sheets half the time. I do like that. I can still, uh, play with

my friends on down in Florida on D and D, but I think if your desire is to, to take Christ's

places and that's where he's leading you. Absolutely. I think, uh, some of the difficulties or traps

is to feel like you have to figure out how to fit in and be a part of them. And it, that's

not what we're called to do. We're not called to, um, basically sin so that we can get close

to sinners. You know, Christ had no problem getting close to sinners and he didn't water down

the truth. He didn't change the message for it to be comfortable. He, he just loved them. He,

he went where they were and, and loved them there and made himself available. Uh, he went where his

father told him to go. I think that's key because, uh, you know, if I was writing Jesus's mission,

it would have looked way different. Uh, one of my favorite stories is the woman at the well,

because it says that Jesus had to go through Samaria to get to Jerusalem, but no good Jewish

boy goes through Samaria to get to Jerusalem. You go around Samaria, but Jesus had to go through

Samaria because his father told him to go through Samaria and it wasn't for an awesome, huge revival

where he was going to talk to tens of thousands of people. It was to meet a woman that was an outcast

in her own town that was, it was the last place and he should not have been talking to a woman in public.

It's like everything about it was a, was a screaming sign of no, don't do this. But his father said,

go here and talk to this woman. And because he spoke to that woman and cared her for her, where she was

in the mess that she was in and didn't pull any punches. Like he gets, just lays it out for,

but in a loving way because he can speak in the way that she needs and she goes and brings the whole

city back. So just again, following God's lead and just, uh, being available and, and presenting the word

of God. Yeah. You know, we don't have to apologize for it and we don't have to change it or, or dress

it up. We just have to present it. And those that he's called will come. Great reminder. Lucas,

what, what about you? Yeah. I mean, I think it's, uh, I think anybody who has like an incarnational

missionary mind, like we, we don't invite the people where we are. We go to where people are.

And when, when we go there, we're trying to find proximity and presence and trying to earn a hearing

so that we can proclaim the gospel in, in relationship with people. Anybody who has that

mindset would be like, yeah, a hundred percent. If there's a bunch of people living their lives

majority digitally, and they start deciding socially that they like to hang out in these like VR bars,

then yeah, let's go there and let's connect with a hundred percent. So I, I, I liked in general,

the theory and the philosophy of the idea, like as a, as a missionary missiologically. Um, I think my

one, because I don't know that world, I think my one catch point would be like, do third places in

physical space mirror third places in digital space? Like, is that like, because we wouldn't

necessarily Christians shouldn't, um, we shouldn't decide how people should gather and then try to

convince them how they should gather and then incarnate. We actually try to observe how they are socially

already gathering. And then we kind of embed because it's, it's easier that way instead of trying to

like design our own sociology to invite them into. So there's a part of me that wonders like, man,

the way third places work in the, and I hope your audience understands that language, like just

social spaces work in the, in, in the physical world, we're always thinking like coffee shops,

bars, gamer clubs, um, CrossFit gyms. Like these are, these are decent third place options to

incarnationally engage. I don't think it will long-term be a one-to-one in the virtual world. That's an,

that's just a gut thing. Like that's intuitive of me. Like, I'm not sure if it's just going to overlay to,

like how people want to spend their social connective time in the virtual world will be

coffee shops, bars, CrossFit gyms, or whatever. Like, I think if we just sit back and observe

how, how people spend their time in virtual world, they might actually enjoy socially connecting in

virtual space differently than how they connect in physical space. But it sounds like you've already

said it's like a million dollar industry. So that there's already some traction there and people

are starting to gather that way. So I think like, great, a hundred percent. I'm just curious,

like long-term, the 10 year metaverse future, how do people actually connect, convene and connect

socially in digital space? I think it'll be different. Um, I wonder if it's a little bit more

like, if you think, um, um, uh, my Minecraft and Roblox, like it feels like people, like people are

actually convening around missions or building things. And like, like they go to the same place

to build something together or to tear something apart together. And, but they're talking to each

other the whole time. There's, they're socially connecting. They're not sitting their characters

down at a bar, but they're doing something together. So I wonder how that'll look in the future.

I, I think it's mixed, uh, to be honest, and it may be too soon to tell, which is one of the reasons

why we're wanting to experiment with it. And let's, let's be real. It's this pennies compared to

actually building an actual bar or building an actual, a hundred, a hundred percent. But the truth,

yeah, but you're, you're not wrong. I mean, like I've, I've got friends that are doing pop one,

which is like a fortnight and virtual reality, uh, pop population one video game, and they're doing

Bible studies in pop one. Uh, I've got friends and so it's all around. We were going to use this term

a lot, engaging in digital metaverses, engaging around shared experiences. And so a lot of it is

being on mission. And, and some of those experiences do seem to be in a virtual reality bar. Uh, and so

who's going to win? What does it look like long-term? I don't know, but, uh, it's, it's going to be fun

figuring it out. Um, well, gentlemen, thank you for this podcast, Andy. It's been a pleasure

meeting you. I'm going to get you connected to Joey. You'll get an email with this here in a little

bit. And he will, he'll love, uh, some of the stuff that you're talking about. That's right up his

alley. And, uh, and Lucas, sir, it's, it's always great to hear from you and excited. Uh, it's,

it's funny. Like I, and we're considering moving out of Miami and, uh, Tampa and Orlando with my

family have been kind of going back and forth about the, the future locations. And there's,

there's some churches in the Tampa area. Don't tempt me like this, Jeff.

Don't. It's, it's, it's been talked about summer 2023. We're relocating somewhere. I really think

so. So we'll, uh, we'll, we'll, we'll stay in touch, but definitely excited. Yeah. I'm going to

start fasting. I'm going to start fasting. Well, cool. Hey, but we're, we're going to land the plane.

So, uh, gentlemen, thank you for this for Andy, for Lucas. This is Jeff with the church, digital

digital church network. Thanks for jumping on the podcast and we'll see you next time. Y'all good day.