EP107: Jate Earhart, Twitch, & Reaching a Different Type of Person

All right. Hey, you got episode 107 of the Church Digital Podcast, powered by Stadia Church Planting.

Man, I love saying that, powered by Stadia Church Planting.

It's been an awesome, wrapping up our first year here with the Church Digital, with me, Jeff Reed, working at Stadia as their director of digital church planting.

And I love what I get to do where we're helping Stadia and myself, we are helping plant digital-only expressions of church.

We're working with a cohort, four planters right now, who are out there getting ready to plant, to launch, to start these digital communities, to reach physical people.

It's awesome. Love it. So much is coming out of this.

If you're interested in more about what digital planting looks like or how Stadia can help you plant your digital church, do me a favor.

Go to this website, thechurch.digital slash planting, thechurch.digital slash planting.

On there, there's tons of blogs, podcasts, interviews, videos, resources, streams, even an e-book you can read that teaches you about what a digital church plant,

a digital-only expression of church could be, and how you can plant it.

Phenomenal, phenomenal stuff, even though it gives you access to get connected with Stadia so that you can be part of the cohort and so that Stadia can help you launch this digital-only expression of church.

So somebody out there, you're wrestling with this.

Take an opportunity and let Stadia come along and help you plant that digital-only church.

By the way, we're going to be talking a lot in this podcast about digital-only church planting.

As a matter of fact, we're bringing in Jade Earhart.

Jade's probably one of my favorite guests that we've ever had here on the podcast.

Super chill guy, really knows his stuff, has a church staff background.

He's really in history as a video editor, but really has had this passion to utilize digital methods to connect with video gamers.

And it's a whole, I mean, I hesitate to call it, but I'll go and say it, an unreached people group of video gamers in America.

There's an opportunity to really tap in and to reach this generation, this group, this demographic of people that really have never set foot into the building,

nor will they ever set foot into the building.

And so Jade stepped up and launched a church, a digital-only expression of church, called Love Clan.

Now, you can actually go back through past episodes.

We have pretty much documented from day one the launch of his church.

I think the first podcast we ever did with him, he was debating whether or not to actually do this.

Like he had not actually committed towards launching this church.

And we've just, through three, four, five, six different podcast episodes probably, really documented his growth process of how he went from not sure if he was going to launch a church,

to launching a church, to creating disciples, to now shifting and evolving that ministry as he's learned more about what a digital-only church needs to be.

And maybe overcoming some of the challenges that he was facing.

And so phenomenal conversation, super chill.

At the beginning, the guy's like eating lunch, and we're literally sitting down just talking, just so relaxed in this.

And it's one of the reasons I love Jade and love the ministry that he's doing.

So, hey, for this conversation, we are bringing in, like I said, Jade Earhart, I guess lead pastor.

Let's just call him the guy that's running Love Clan.

And myself, Jeff with the Church Digital and Stadia Church Planting.

In a conversation that I'm simply calling the different type of person that you reach running a digital church.

Okay, everybody.

Here y'all go.

Catch me up a little bit then here.

Like, what's going on in life?

What's ministry looking like?

What's the story here behind Love Clan?

Well, yeah, like Love Clan's doing well.

And a good portion of Love Clan was the Discord.

And I think right now I'm in a, like a trial period, or not even a trial period at this point.

But I would say that that was the goal, was when I moved, I was just going to try streaming and see what happened with that.

And I set everything up.

Like, I have a really nice setup now, but I kind of started to set this up.

I set up the TV and some basic stuff.

And then that, the day that I was going to go live on Mixer, which was my main live streaming platform, it, like, it died.

The day I set it up.

And I said it was actually awkward because if I had found out that Mixer had died a day earlier, I wouldn't have set things up for live stream.

I would have set up this whole room differently.

And if it had been a day afterwards, I would have already been streaming on Mixer.

And I might have just been like, what's the point then?

And just quit.

But because I had already set it all up and hadn't had the chance to, like, go through the process of setting a Mixer, I said, well, I'm going to use it.

Like, I'm not going to just have that time be wasted.

So I might as well go back to Twitch.

And so I, like, tried Twitch.

And it's been, I mean, it's been great since then.

And that, I didn't expect for it to be my, like, full-time thing at the time that I started doing it.

But just found other people that I could connect with who were in the same mindset.

And that's continued from then.

And so Love Clan as a Discord is somewhat in a, like, self-sustaining mode.

And if it was really declining without me, I think I would be more like, I need to do a whole lot there.

But as a community, it's still, like, what it is.

And it's really been a community for a long time.

So, like, there's a lot of people in there that are able to help keep that going.

But I've needed this time to really, like, explore a new avenue, which was streaming on Twitch.

And that's where I'm seeing a lot of growth.

So, you know, that's kind of where I'm at with it.

So, you, I mean, you had, Love Clan previously was, like, last time we talked, you were doing the disciple-making.

You were doing the four, you know, the four fields, the three-thirds.

You were doing that kind of E3 disciple-making process.

And you're doing that in digital space.

Are you telling me, you know, even before we get to the streaming,

are you telling me you got to the place where, like, that disciple-making process digitally is now replicating itself to the point that you've let it go and it's kind of operating on its own?

I'd say for a while it was.

I wish I could say that it was just, like, spiraling out of control and I don't even need to be there anymore and, you know, so on and so forth.

That'd be the dream.

I can't say that's true in good faith.

But it's more like this whole thing is very experimental as is.

And so our, more where it's at is I realized that it's actually not that hard to get gamers, Christian gamers, into a Christian Bible study.

Christian gamers into a Christian gaming Bible study is not even that, it's not even that difficult.

And, like, if you message a couple of Christians and say, like, hey, would you like to study the Bible together?

Then, like, they might join.

They might not keep going, though, and it may not really be life transformational.

And I say that with as much, like, grit as I can because it's, like, that sort of was the thought is, like, how can I get as many Christian gamers into a Discord as possible so that we could have these, like, Bible studies and that would be really meaningful because we'll have these Bible studies and we can do them online and across borders.

I still believe that.

I still think that's important.

And I think even more important was the discipleship factor of that, which was the idea that they would then start groups and that they would tell their friends and that they would grow and so on.

And we tried that for a while and we had, I think we had, like, four groups at one point in time.

But once I started streaming, I just saw ways that we could start to reach people.

From the beginning, I had in the step cuts, which is something we talked about earlier, but, like, a long time ago.

But the very first step in our step cuts, which are taking a next step for the thing is, like, each step leads up to another step.

And so if you can't tell what the next step somebody should take is, then they probably won't know what it is.

And that first step was always live streaming.

Like, an atheist would watch my live stream and would be interested in that community.

And so then they would get plugged into the Discord.

That's, like, always been there, even before we did live streaming as a thing.

It just was the natural process isn't that somebody would first join your Discord.

They would first watch Twitch.

That's just how, like, how it just normally happens.

And I would add a step in there before that now that somebody would, I would play a game with somebody.

And they liked the way I communicated or they liked the way I played or they liked the way that I interacted with them in some way that led them that they were like,

Oh, I'd be willing to watch that guy's stream.

And if your name is JateLive on the game, then they assume you're a streamer and they go watch your live stream.

And that person would then say, Oh, like, I really like the community here.

I like this atmosphere.

I like the vibes that are going on.

And then they might go to the Discord.

So it's kind of like there's still that progression.

And we just, I think we needed a solid community in Discord first before that would make sense to be that ramp on.

And so all that to say, where I'm at now with Twitch, I'm seeing the fruition of what we had discussed before, of how we're doing the small groups, how we're even had the wording, how we're piecing these things together.

A lot of that's turned into the same thing, but now let's live stream it and let's make sure that the focus is on people that have never read the Bible before.

And I can't say that that was the case with Discord.

We had some people that were there that had never read the Bible before.

But if you message somebody randomly on Discord and say, Do you want to have a Bible study with me?

The answer will probably be no, unless they're a Christian.

But for me, we don't even call, I don't call it Bible study anymore.

I call it Bible discussion.

And I'm very clear that like, this is a chance for you to study the Bible with somebody who, I shouldn't even say, again, I'm having a hard time saying it, not study, but discuss.

Discuss the Bible with somebody that you trust, that you know cares for you, and not at a church, because chances are that you're not going to go to a church.

You know, that's partially the reason that I ended up leaving the church that I was at, is I just realized I was going to have such a hard time, not that it's impossible, but I was going to have a really hard time reaching the people that I needed to reach just being at my church.

I needed to be where gamers were.

And so that meant like, I was going to quit my job and go stream full time.

And I didn't even think streaming full time.

I just thought I was going to be active, like in the gaming community full time.

And now it's streaming and I, we have, we have crazy stories.

We should probably talk about some of the stories.

Like some of them are just, are just, are just nuts.

But I'm getting to have like really awesome conversations on a daily basis with non-Christians.

And some of those conversations are about God.

And especially on Saturdays when we do our Bible discussions, they're all always about God.

But just letting people know that you love them in a community where people don't usually feel loved.

And if they do, it's because of their skill.

And just to let them know, regardless of your skill, I just, you know, you're a person and you, you deserve love.

I, you know, I'm going to love you.

And, and that goes, that goes a long ways for people.

And then to be able to turn that around and say, by the way, I don't, I don't expect anything from you.

I don't expect you to love me in return.

I get my love from God.

And because of that overwhelming love, of course, I'm going to love you in return.

And that like, it gives you an end for like, why, why they should love God.

Rather than it being like, we talked about this, I think last time too, is the why is so much more important than the what.

And with, with streaming, especially if you don't have your why set on the right thing.

You're what will just be determined by whatever metrics Twitch decides are important.

And they'll say average view count is what's important or because they like revenue.

They like their ad revenue.

And if you're, I've disabled that, you know, I want to just, you know, we're skipping into a lot of different things.

I get that.

So I'm sorry that I'm kind of, I'm kind of ping pong.

And, but it's just a lot of thoughts, like all at once of why, why are we streaming?

And the reality is because in, in discord, we had a lot of people who were, we did a poll and it was 95% Christian at one point in time.

And we, we focused to get away from that.

We didn't want to just be Christian because we, we weren't reaching people at that point.

And we might as well be the revolving door of churches at that.

We're just another revolving door church where people come into our church because they didn't like their local church and they said gaming's bad.

And so now they join our local, our, our discord church.

And it's like, it's not the point, you know, we want to reach people.

So it's, it sounds like, you know, I'm, I'm even just trying to reconcile this because, you know, I'm, you're at a different level when it comes to the digital and I love, love what you're doing.

Even Twitch to me is, I'm not as comfortable in that platform.

I've, I've loved watching you and some other friends that have now been in, been in this space.

I don't know that I even totally understand what I'm watching, although my kids are enthralled by it.

But when it sounds like is that you, you had a community in context of discord and now it was, it was a Christian strong community.

You weren't getting a lot of outsiders, a lot of people who were called to Christ really coming in.

It's easy to do a, a Christian Bible study for Christian gamers, but to include lost people, the evangelism, you were really missing the front door for the community to allow people who were called to Christ in.

And so now you're utilizing Twitch really as that front door to bring people into the community.

And it sounds like that, that's a, is that working?

Like are lost people coming in?

What does that relationship look like?

Cause you got, you got a community full of, um, you know, 99s, a lot of people that, that are, you know, Christian gamers.

And now you're bringing in atheists and lost people.

And I was watching the other day and one of them, one of the people was like, Satan loves me or something like that.

And it was like, okay, that's interesting.

Now everything was, was above board healthy, but how is that community now looking now that you've attached like the Twitch front door to it?

Right. Yeah. And that's, I've actually, um, because, you know, I think people, it's hard.

I, I should, I should say that maybe the way that I do things is not always the best way to do things, but I realized that I'm in the experimental zone.

And like, as somebody who's trying new things, um, I'm going to have to do it a little differently because I don't know what's going to be successful.

And so I, I, I, I a hundred percent am just trying things and I'm willing to like switch on a dime if something doesn't work.

So my, um, maybe learn from my experience and don't do it exactly how I do it.

Um, I think that's, I'm open to be that.

And so my, my thing with, um, the discord is that I didn't use it to promote the Twitch.

And when I, I decided that whenever we, uh, whenever I started streaming on Twitch, I didn't name the name for our channel, uh, Love Clan.

It's Jate Live.

It's a, it's a separate, in my mind, it's, it's almost a separate, it should be, it is a separate entity.

Now, that being said, I, I am, I'm doing it almost as if, how would I, the reason I did that originally is I have tried in the past in other organizations I was in doing it as the organization.

But the problem is, I think what you do outside of your channel is almost as important, if not more important than what you do during your channel.

So like your, for sure in Twitch, Twitch is not discoverable.

So your YouTube channel is going to be more important for people finding your channel.

Your TikTok, more important.

Your Twitter, more important.

Like what you do on those platforms, lead people to your Twitch.

So Twitch by itself, just, there's a lot of people that think if I just live stream for seven hours, then people find me and I'll grind it out.

And you're better off spending more time on these other platforms, finding people and having them come to your, same thing with gaming, like gaming and then bringing people into the games, like saying, hey guys, I'm streaming.

Like if you want to find me, I'm on this channel and then they'll find you that way.

A lot of this is kind of like above board Twitch stuff and maybe not as important for our, the discussion about like using Twitch as a platform.

But, but that, but that is true.

And so I, I didn't want to pull people from just the discord and just say, come on into my, to my Twitch and like, we'll make this thing happen.

Mostly because I didn't want it to just be a Christian hangout.

Yeah.

And so.

Is there intentionality there towards, like, that's almost a good idea when it comes towards multiplication.

Because now Susie wants to go do something on Twitch.

Joe wants to go drive stuff from TikTok.

So now you've got three, four, five, 10 different front doors that are all feeding into your engagement pathway, discipleship, whatever community where you're, you're doing disciple making.

That, that's, that's actually smart, Jade.

Yeah.

Oh, thanks.

No, no, no, you got it because what, what we did in the last one is I did that same thing, but I used it as a, as a multiplication.

And in my mind, it was more multiplication because we'll just do, we'll call it the, the, like, I won't name the name of the organization that I worked with when we did this, but like, say I named it Love Clan.

And I, I let other people stream on Love Clan.

Okay.

Well, now they're growing because they're streaming and our platform is growing and we're, you know, that's not a bad way to do that.

And I know the organizations that currently do that.

I actually think that can be effective.

But you do hit a certain point where like, not everybody can stream at the same time then, you know, like you will hit a, you will hit a certain point where you're like, well, there's only so many hours in a day.

And like this person can stream till this point, as opposed to like, let's say you want a thousand people streaming, you know, sorry, like one channel is not going to cut it.

And you have the, to deal with, and this is important.

You do have to deal with, um, how do you distribute funds that come in through that?

And I'll, I'll even go further to say, how do you distribute when somebody really puts in the time and the effort to grow something and somebody else doesn't?

And you have to like, say, well, this person put in more time and effort.

So blah, blah, blah.

Or is it just pure street stream hours?

Or what if this person puts in $200 to get a good camera, but that person doesn't?

And, and it just starts to be this, like that kind of a thing.

The other side of that is, let's say that that person, um, what if you want to go and you should do this?

What if you want to go watch somebody else's stream and see what they're doing and encourage them?

Now you're encouraging them, but you're encouraging them as like, as a, as a commute, as a, you'd have to make your own account to like be your persona so that you're not doing it as love clan, you know?

And it just gets kind of, it just gets more messy than I think it needs to, rather than just being like, hey, we will partner with you.

We're going to give you funds or whatever you need to like get your stream going.

But, you know, it's, it's interesting.

I just, I just got a stat yesterday in the email.

It's kind of parallel to this.

Spotify is claiming that they broadcast, that they're responsible, the anchor platform that's attached to Spotify.

80% of podcasts, 80% of the podcasts, Spotify is claiming, claiming ownership of, and what's, what's interesting is the podcast.

They're not, they're not these giant podcasts.

They're, they're tiny.

They're small.

It's like, it's like, like the, the, the 10 listeners, the 20 listeners.

And so they've, they've, they're Spotify's claiming this title, not because of, of creating like the, the major broadcasts.

It's the bunch of the smaller broadcasts, by the way, the church digital grew 450% in 2020.

Thank you for all the listeners out there.

That aside, moving on.

It's, it's this phenomenal idea of, of in digital, for me, when I look at digital churches, and I think we've had this conversation.

I don't envision like a, a virtual giga sized building where it's tens of thousands of people.

For me, the win of a digital church is getting small people to reach their small circles and multiplying out that way.

It's, it's more of a multiplication approach as opposed to like a huge gathering of people digitally.

How, how have you seen, because I know you believe that.

I know you, you feel that.

How have you seen that, like reconcile out through Love Clan, through the Twitch, and the things that you're doing here recently?

Yeah.

So that's, I want to lead by example.

I've always, I've always done that.

And so I'm like, I want to show that something is possible first.

And maybe I go a little too far in a direction first before, like, rather than doing like, come with me and we'll do kind of a thing.

But there are already that I can think of at least two, I think maybe three people from Love Clan who have started streaming, like after I started streaming, that I, that are in the same mindset.

One of those is already doing the same way we're doing Bible discussions.

So that's, that's already happening.

That's why I say it's like a lot of, that, that was somebody that also did the, was a part of our, our Love Clan Discord when we did that.

And, and also ran a group there.

And so now he's seeing how it, how it's working in Twitch and like, we're moving in that direction.

And I'll, I'll add the reason that we did it on Twitch is interesting.

Like the, the original reason that I even decided to do Twitch actually.

It, or to do live streaming, I guess is maybe a better way to put it.

I, I had a friend, we went to Japan together with a group of nine, nine people.

We all went to Japan and I've never met him in person.

I met him on online and we hung out, played games together all the time online.

And then when I went to Japan, I was like, do you want to come?

And he came with us.

That, that relationship has been like, I've been working on that guy for a very long time.

He's always on my heart.

He's always on my mind, praying for him all the time.

And, and he's, he's an atheist.

I mean, he's, he's been an atheist for a long time.

I think he grew up in the church, but then he like, he was like, no, no.

And I invited him.

He, he's actually a huge fan of Love Clan and a huge fan of what we're doing because he's like,

it's really cool that you're reaching gamers and that you're actually thinking this way.

And he likes the heart behind it.

He just, it's just not, he's not there.

You know, it's not his thing.

And, um, I invited him to our small group in Discord and he said, no.

And the only reason he said no is because he said, I can't dedicate that much time to something

that I don't believe in.

And like that changed, that honestly changed my whole thinking.

Cause I was like, it kind of makes sense.

That's why they're not coming to church either.

Like, why would you go to church if you, it'd be the same thing.

I'm thinking that they're going to come to church as being like, well, when was the last

time that you stepped in a mosque?

Like, and how would you feel if you went to a mosque?

Like, it would be awkward.

Like we, we it's, we've just normalized it because we grew up in it that it's just normal to go

to church, but like, it's not, it's not normal.

And especially if you've never grown up in it.

And so for him, he's like, I am awkward around people.

I won't know the subject and that would be difficult.

And I don't want to spend that much time on something I don't believe in.

So it's, which, which is just, I, we have that kind of relationship.

It's been, you know, seven, nine years that we've known each other and we decided we're

going to just be very upfront about everything.

And, and so like, thank goodness he said that because then I was like, that's a good point.

So like, let me make something that is already established where I'm live streaming games.

I'll just keep playing video games and we'll, we'll discuss the Bible.

And if you want to, you can have that as another, it can be on your second monitor.

It can be in the corner.

You can minimize it.

You can just hear what's going on, but it will give you a chance to hear what I believe in,

um, in a place that you're already at anyway.

He's a moderator in my channel.

He watches all the time.

You can just watch me play video games and talk about the Bible.

And if you have questions, if something does come up that you're like, I actually,

I have heard that before, but I don't, I don't get what they're talking about.

Then you can type that in chat.

But if you want, you can just be completely in the background and that's okay.

And I, I think I've said this every time that we've been on here, the best thing about online,

and this has become more and more true.

I think I said this first on a podcast and I didn't even know what I was saying.

Like I just said it and then I'd like thought about it afterwards, but it's just become more true.

The best and worst thing about online is anonymity, anonymous, being anonymous, having people.

Anonymity is the word.

Anonymity is the word.

Yeah.

There you go.

Like, like being the ability to just disappear is the best and worst thing because people will just be there for a year.

You know them, they're active, whatever, and they just disappear and you have no idea what happened to them.

And the scariest thing is when that happens with people that constantly we're praying for about anxiety and depression.

And that person just disappears and you don't know where they went.

I hate that.

And like, that keeps me up at night.

But the best thing about it is that there are non-Christians who are just like, I don't know what's going on.

I just, I want some information and I'm not going to go to a church to get it.

And I'm not going to talk to my friends about it because I don't want anybody to know that I'm even thinking about it.

But just tell me up front what it is that you believe in, you know, and like, let's talk about that.

And we can do that in like an actual meaningful way.

All right.

I want to back up.

Yeah, we got to skip.

A little bit because, but you're, man, I love talking with you.

So I think like you think.

And so like, I'm totally keeping up with you.

And some listener is probably like, what?

Yeah.

Sorry if I go.

It's beautiful.

We live in a, maybe this is up for debate.

You know, maybe different races treat this differently.

I don't mean to like drop a mic here.

We live in a post-Christian society, at least here in America.

And if we're not.

In Japanese culture, it is not.

I'll just say that it's 2% Christianity, maybe 1%.

And they are, they've never had Christianity.

It's not like they had it, but it was like, it just skipped right over.

And it's so interesting talking about Jesus with them there.

Anyway, so yes, in America.

Yeah.

You made me just take a tangent.

I'll come back to what I was going to say.

I might, my head exploded.

You'll appreciate this comment.

I was doing a think tank with Send Institute.

That's Ed Stetzer, Daniel Yang.

I don't mean to drop names, but I'm in a think tank here.

Yeah, there, there, there was, it was for young, a missiologist and confession.

The definition of young was at the age 40 or below.

I'm actually 43.

So I'm not sure I really belonged in the room with a bunch of young missiologists.

I guess I'm now an old missiologist.

I'm bald with Greg in my beard, but there's a guy, Sam George, my head exploded and we're

going to have him on the podcast.

He was talking about this idea of the problem.

And he's Indian.

I think he's done the majority of his ministry in India.

I actually bought a couple of books while he was talking and we kind of debriefed afterwards

at some point.

But he said this word, he says, the problem with American Christianity is that it's incomplete.

And he went on to say, you really want to understand the book of Acts?

Go live six months in India, then read the book of Acts.

Go spend a year in China, then read the book of Acts.

He's like, the problem with the American church is that it's isolated itself from the rest of

the world in Christianity standpoints.

And instead of trying to influence the nations, maybe we need to listen to the nations and start

to grow from there.

And he went on and started talking about, and I'm going to use terms that you know probably

better than me, you know, the ecclesia being the gathered scattered church, as opposed to

diaspora, which is more of the scattering of the gathered church.

And that, and so he, and I'm immediately hearing like digital implications and it's phenomenal.

Right.

And a little bit, you know, later on in the think tank, somebody talks about me being digital

church planting guy.

And, and it's funny, Sam George messaged me, you know, through, through Zoom, you do digital

churches.

I want to talk to you.

I want to learn from you.

And I'm like, are you kidding me?

I want to learn from you.

You just blew my mind like an hour ago.

This is great.

So we're going to have that, that conversation just from, from a international global perspective,

so much power there.

But let me come back to really what I wanted to, to, to get to.

I, I, I'm, I'm intrigued a little bit and it's going to, all this is going to fit

together.

It's going to be awesome.

I'm intrigued a little bit by, by your point of, you, when you're talking about, you know,

isolation, anonymity, you're dealing with people, you know, sometimes they disappear.

You don't know what's going on.

Let's be honest.

That happens in the physical realm as well.

And so, but you, you've got people, you know, that, that struggle with depression, you

know, some of the, some of those things and that they just disappear.

I want to pull on a thread here.

So you're broadcasting, you're not breathing the same air molecules.

You're dealing with people in text chat, maybe voice chat, maybe, maybe face-to-face via,

you know, a webcam, something like that.

But I imagine that's probably not the majority.

Right.

You authentically know people well enough to know that they're struggling with depression.

Like you are that engaged with people in a digital space that, that you're, you know,

that your soul is struggling when they're going through hard times like, like this.

Listen, I, I've dealt with enough people that, that say that's a crock of bull, that, that

you can't have that, that you can't have that level of relationship digitally.

Now, look, you're, you're 20 something.

You, I don't think you've ever told me your age and I'm not going to hold a gun to your

head and make you do it, but you're, you're of that generation.

Is that like, is that level of, of engagement of relationship?

Is that common at that age?

Do you see it younger?

Do you see it older?

Like, talk to me a little bit here about the authentic level relationships that you're

getting out of Twitch, out of discord.

Right.

Yeah.

And it's, it's, so I'm, I'm millennial, but I've noticed this even more with Gen Z.

I think somebody said this to me.

They said like, Gen Z is the hardest to get, um, attention for like 13 minutes.

Like it's so difficult to get their attention.

But if you can, if you can get the attention of a Gen Z person, which is the generation

before or after mine, if you can get their attention for like 13 minutes, then you'll

have them for longer than any other generation before that.

Wow.

Because, because like they trust you long enough for that short period of time that if you've

lost them in that period, then you'll probably lose them in all of it.

But if you keep them for that, then they assume that like, well, I'll just like, we'll go

all in then, you know, and, uh, what's, what I've noticed is it's, you know, it's funny.

Cause you say like, wow, you've known people long enough that they would be willing to be

open about anxiety and depression.

And I'm like, that's usually the like first or second thing that people might say.

I mean, it's, it's pretty quick.

People are pretty, pretty okay with doing that.

And the reason I think is because it's anonymous.

Um, and, and I don't want to, I don't want to downplay that though, because there are people

that I've known for now, four years who one of our first conversation was I'm dealing with

anxiety, but because of how I responded to that person dealing with anxiety, that person

knew that they could trust our, our conversations.

They knew that we could trust whatever, and that they could be open about a lot of other

stuff.

You know, the anxiety maybe wasn't even that it's not like they're, they're not holding

that, that close to their heart.

They wear it on their sleeves.

Yeah.

I'm anxious.

Everybody's anxious.

I have anxiety.

Yeah.

I mean, like, just like everybody else online, we all have anxiety and it's like, Hey, I'm

having a hard time sleeping.

I actually needed to get to sleep, but I just thought I'd pop in the chat and I'm actually

dealing with depression and it, you know, I just, it just sucks.

Could you pray for me?

You know, that happens like regularly.

And if I pray for somebody like three times, that person will usually join a Bible discussion.

That, that, that just tends to be the case.

Like I will pray for somebody three times before they join our Bible discussions.

And, uh, they will say, I have this thing that I'm, I'm dealing with.

I have that as a thing in my channel, by the way, it's the, like, you can spend points

and it's this whole, this whole deal, but I just make it very obvious that like, I want

to pray for you.

And that's my most important thing.

Um, as like when I'm just streaming in a normal day on Saturdays, we have our, like,

we're, we're doing it about the Bible, but during the week, my goal is to pray for

people.

So, um, I, at one point in time, this is kind of important because at one point in time,

when I, when I talk about metrics, I, at the very beginning, somebody asked for me to pray

for them.

And I said, yes, let me, I will pray for you.

Um, let, let me, let me, let me pause real quick.

And I'm going to, I'm going to pause so that I can, I can get real serious and I can pray

about that because that's actually really important what you asked me to pray for.

And it was about anxiety and a whole bunch of stuff.

And I remember doing that and I had it up where I could see the number of viewers and I watched

the number of viewers drop.

I think it dropped to like five people, something like that.

And I remember thinking my first thought was, well, first it was like, that sucks.

These guys just left because they like, they didn't want to hear me pray for somebody.

But then I was like, maybe I should word it differently next time.

And when I had that thought, I had to take a, a sudden switch because it was, I realized

that I was not basing what I was doing, or I was about to not base what I was doing off

of a metric that wasn't even a part of my success.

Like what I considered success.

What I considered success, if I, if there was no viewers and I got to pray for somebody

about something that was very important and I made a connection with that person in a way

that they hadn't made a connection before, that was a success for me.

That was a successful stream.

And if I had a hundred viewers, but I didn't get to do that, would that really even be a

successful stream?

Like it's kind of my, my mindset just, that's why I say it's really, really important that

you have to say what's important because once I realized that I, I removed it.

I can't even see how many viewers are live whenever I'm streaming now, because I don't

want to change what I'm saying based off of the number of people that are watching.

And I don't want to know if a bunch of people leave because of something I say.

I would much rather just be like, yeah, like the, the chat is more important.

I, I go, I do look at those metrics after the fact.

I'll look and say like, wow, that's interesting.

Like we had this many people and maybe I need to play a different game or like, there are

some things that you can do to, to mitigate some of that.

But I, I specifically don't want to not pray for somebody because I, I'm afraid that it'll

affect my numbers or I don't want to not say something that needs to be said.

That's like, this is what the Bible says on what you just said, because I'm afraid it'll

affect numbers.

And, um, when, when those discussions happen, uh, that's usually where I would say the growth,

you like what you're talking about, where I'm really getting to know somebody.

Yeah.

Like that happens pretty regularly.

People are ready for me to pray for them.

Um, I've given people outs, I would say with prayer where I'll even say, Hey, I pray for

everybody at the end of every stream, but I'm saying during streams, I'll say, Hey, you

know, I see what you're dealing with.

Um, you know, you, you say you've been telling us that you're dealing with anxiety and all

this, um, as a Christian, the way that I best know to love you is to pray for you.

Uh, I believe in a loving God who loves you more than even I can.

And that cares about you, that knows the things that you're not sharing, that knows the things

that I can never know.

And that maybe I shouldn't even know, um, but that, you know, and that God knows.

And so I want to pray for you.

Uh, and if you don't believe in the power of prayer, that's fine.

I, that if I would love to chat about that sometime or on Sunday, uh, Saturdays, we have

a Bible discussion for people that have never studied the Bible.

And, um, you might be interested in joining that, but, uh, even if not, if you just read

this as good vibes, that's totally fine with me.

Um, you know, the Bible tells me to love God and to love people and I love you.

And so I want to do whatever it is that, you know, is a loving thing for you.

Uh, but know that I do believe in the power of prayer.

So I'm going to pray for you.

And, um, and that, that just kind of like, it just quickly tells people that like, I'm

not trying to, I'm not trying to convert you.

I'm not trying to, uh, trick you into like saying some word that like, you know, that

Jesus like sneaks into your heart or something.

Like I, I'm just, I'm just telling you up front, here's what I believe.

Here's why I'm doing it.

It's because I love you.

And I'm going to show that by, I'm going to stop everything I'm doing during my stream

and I'm going to take the time to just pray for you.

And that speaks, I mean, it speaks volumes.

Um, and I, that's, that kind of, um, doing that for somebody will start a relationship

pretty fast.

Uh, and it, it's, it's just possible online.

Like, I don't know.

Maybe that, maybe that hopped around your question.

I, I would, I would say you just have more like, I'll, I'll, I'll brushstroke some of what

you just said with like, why is online.

I think it's stuff we talked about before, but there's just more time is the biggest part

of it.

You know, like actually count the minutes if you want to, you can count the number of minutes

of time, the last time that you chatted with your best friend and like how long you actually

hung out together, even if in person.

And, and we have an easy out cause it's COVID, but even, you know, after COVID, even when we're

just hanging out with people, you just don't get a whole lot of time with people.

And I get hours every day.

I streamed for like 10 hours a day and I see a lot of the same people.

So even if it's just with text chat, I just have more communication with them than you do.

You know, like it, it just, it just natural.

Of course I do.

Like I'm, I'm here doing this and it will, it does hit a certain point where there's so

many people in chat that it's difficult for me to, to focus on one person.

And I'm noticing that.

And that's why I'm trying to get other streamers so that we can have, they can go and they're

active too.

If I'm not being active or engaging enough, we do game nights outside of maybe when I'm

streaming.

I go watch other streamers so that I'm like, I'm having that relationship.

That's more face to face.

It's not face to face, but like I can chat with them here and they chat with me here.

And it's like, okay, I can put a face with it.

Um, yeah, I, I, I find a lot of that does happen in private messages, but also building

the community so that they focus on each other is big.

Like one person in chat, chatting with another person in chat and having that happen more

than I'm just the medium.

You guys need to chat with each other.

And there's ways you can build that, but it's, uh, you know, I've told the story a lot about

somebody asked Seth Godin, uh, one of the top marketing guys in the planet, probably right

now, definitely America, but somebody asked him, how do I get my message?

Heard around the world.

Um, the guy was trying to figure out what social media networks were valid to get a single message

broadcasted around the planet.

Um, Seth didn't answer that question instead.

He said, a billion people don't care about what you have to say.

Uh, if you really want to be effective, tell the smallest number of people possible and

then get them to multiply that message, get them to tell somebody else and then get them

to tell somebody else.

And so a million person, I don't know that the world, maybe the world will see them.

I'm sure, you know what?

I take it back.

The world will see a million person church.

Um, you know, the life churches or that, like that's, that's going to happen.

I don't know that that's replicatable.

Um, but a hundred thousand churches of 10, uh, that's, that's on the verge of, of an explosion.

And so, you know, I love this, you know, I, I even, I love the transparency, Jay, of, you

know, it's sometimes the chat room gets too big and it's hard for us to really give individual

attention.

And so that's why we're, we're multiplying out.

That's why we're trying to get other people to stream so that we can just continually be

keeping it at the level that, that we can, we can handle in there.

And so we can give people, you know, adequate attention to that.

I even love your heart.

One of my questions was going to be evangelism.

You just, you know, went straight into that where you were, you know, what I heard was

almost a, a boil the frog slowly approach.

You know, you really can't do this quickly.

Um, maybe, maybe it's not like, like the building, but the good news is online, you got time you're

streaming at all hours and you can build that relationship slowly.

And instead of doing an event-based evangelism where you've got X number of minutes to get

somebody to raise their hand, to accept Christ, you've got time because you're building that

relationship and through that relationship, funneling over stuff like that's beautiful.

Yeah.

And I don't even know what we consider slow is the other thing because, um, I'll tell this

story.

I think it's, I think it's fine.

I'm afraid to use like specific stories just because these are all things that are still

happening.

Um, so yeah, I mean, you know, take this with a don't, whatever.

Anyway, um, there, there are, um, well, she's, she's told me this is fine and we've talked

about this.

Um, there's a Satanist that comes to our Bible discussions.

Um, I just met her by, we were chatting on online.

Um, like you said, there's somebody that you mentioned her, like Satan, Satan, whatever.

She has lots of different accounts because they keep getting banned for having different

things.

And, um, but yeah, she, she's awesome.

Um, she has a, we, we had a big, like two hour discussion kind of, as I said, what, what

can I call your name?

And like, can I call you a different, different thing?

Cause like, that's just kind of hard, weird for me to be like, Hey, Satan, how's it going?

And, you know, so, uh, we, we, we had that whole conversation, but it turned into like,

yeah, why, why, why is that your name?

Oh, I'm a Satanist.

Oh, okay.

Well, I guess that makes sense then, doesn't it?

And, um, but through that, through the, like, just, I, I'm going into like, understand,

seek first to understand and then to be understood.

Um, I was like, yeah, tell me, tell me about that.

Like, what does that actually mean?

Um, cause I've heard that before, like, do you worship Satan?

Like, what is the, what does that mean?

And for her, she said, well, yeah, I know that some people do, but for me, um, I don't

actually believe Satan exists.

Um, Satan's actually just a, an image.

Uh, it's a, it's a symbol.

And it's a symbol for like anti-Judeo-Christianity.

It's the idea of like, uh, it's a symbol for, um, anarchy.

It's a symbol for being against society.

And, um, I was like, oh, that's interesting.

So then what, what do you actually believe then as your, as your thing?

Well, we believe in that, um, your will and my will, we can have different wills, but as

long as like, we're all living our own truth, then it's okay.

And compassion for everything.

It's like, what?

Like, yeah, yeah.

That's a, that's a part of our thing.

The guy that started it, you know, he said, uh, you know, you don't want to just go into

anarchy, but then not love each other.

And so we're going to have two rules.

One is that you do whatever you want, but also you have to have compassion for everybody.

So compassion for everybody comes above even your own will.

So if you want to hurt people, you can't do it unless, because you need to have compassion

for everybody.

And that just like blew my mind.

Cause I was just like, okay, that's not at all what I thought whenever I went down this

hole of like, you're a Satanist.

Um, you just told me you're, I was like, so are you a vegetarian then?

Because you don't want to hurt.

Yeah.

Oh, cool.

Well, I'm a vegetarian too.

So, you know, maybe for a different reason, but like, dang, like that's actually kind of

interesting.

So you have compassion for everybody.

And as we started to talk, I was able to relate and say, Hey, you know, honestly, I kind

of relate with that because my faith is, uh, really boils down to all the laws and down

to love God and love people.

So we actually have probably, we both have the same law as like one of our main things

is to love people.

That's like a huge part of our faith.

And the only thing is that I believe, I also have love God and you don't, you don't believe

that God exists.

And that makes sense that the path that you've taken is my, my will and your will.

We all have our own will.

If God doesn't exist, um, that actually makes sense to me.

I just believe that God does exist.

And so I'm going to follow God's will.

And then we had that big, long discussion where we were actually able to come to an

agreement rather than saying, you're a Satanist.

I'm a Christian.

Therefore we have nothing in common into, I just believe God exists and you don't.

So like that's, we have a ground that we can talk about in the future going forward.

And she said, that's interesting.

Then what, what, then what, um, what, if God exists, what kind of God is he, you know?

And okay, let's talk about the Bible.

So now she's in our Bible discussion group and we're going through Luke and she didn't have

the game that we were playing.

So somebody in the channel bought her the game and then she was in the voice chat.

And so we were voice chatting while I'm reading through Luke six and talking about, you know,

the law and like, I was able to relate, relate some stuff.

We have, we've had some interesting discussions during that.

Um, we, when we got to the part with, uh, in I think seven where there's the, uh, demon

possessed man and, uh, he's like, you know, thrashing in the graveyards or whatever.

And I was kind of going into like, I know this kind of sounds crazy.

And she's like, no, like that actually makes a lot of sense.

I feel like I've had family members that have gone through something similar.

Like that part actually made sense.

It's more the like, I don't necessarily believe that Jesus actually cast them out.

You know, like it's just a totally different like conversation, but these are things I get

to actually have conversations about because we're focusing on non-Christians, not just

Christians.

And so my conversations are going to be based off of, let's not go.

I try not to, I, I, I don't want to even like read too far ahead into things.

I would rather it just be, here's what it is.

And do you have questions?

You know, I'm assuming, you know, and you, you never mentioned the name.

I don't want you to mention her name.

I don't even know if that I got the handle right or whatever.

I'm assuming this person's probably not going to walk into a physical church building anytime

soon.

No, no, she's told, she's told me it's funny.

Cause she's actually one of the biggest.

So she's one of the biggest people for saying that it's a church, like that saying that

our Twitch is a, is a church because everybody in chat will be like, well, I don't go to

church or whatever.

And she says, no, no, no.

Like she'll jump in and be like, I don't, no, no, I don't go to church.

You don't understand.

Like I'm not a church goer or anything.

I, I, but, but like this can be your church family because it's got a community and it's

got where you're, they're learning and they're loving and like, it's actually caring.

And so I wouldn't go to a church, but like this, this is actually a good place for

you to be if you don't want to go to church.

Like this is a good church.

So she, she calls it a church before I did.

Like I, I'm still like over here in Christian world.

Like, I don't know if this is a church, but she's, she's convinced as a Satanist that it's

a church and it's the only one that she's willing to go to.

So, so I'm not, I don't, I'm not going to like one way or the other, but just, you know,

she thinks it's a church.

Love, Love Clan, the, the digital church where, you know, Satanists are excited to attend

and, and, and, and, and engage in, in, in biblical conversations, biblical discussions.

Discussions.

Yeah, yeah.

Man, that, that, listen, I think that's beautiful.

I think you're, and, and whether, whether the Holy Spirit leads her to a place of understanding

or whether you're planting seeds for, for a future, I mean, God knows we don't, but, but

the fact that you're, you're engaging in digital community, that you're reaching a demographic,

a type of person, an age of, that's not engaging in the, in the physical buildings.

I love what's happening here.

You know, and I, and I know your heart from this where you're not, you know, you're a

former staff guy at a physical church.

You're, you're not doing this to demean or downcast the idea of a physical church, but

more towards you trying to reach a different person, which obviously from this story, my

gosh, that, that's, that person, shoot.

If that person walked into a physical building, how quick is the guest services people going

to walk them out of the building?

Sure.

So I just, I, I love, I love that story.

Pulled the thread a little bit on something here.

You know, and I know you've gone back and forth in, in this.

Are you, are you, do you consider yourself?

I don't, I don't want to paint the picture of finality here because fluid and nobody knows.

Are you a digital church?

Ecclesiologically, do you feel like you're, you're lining up to that next number of months

into this?

Is it more of a digital missionary?

Like what, what's your current vibe?

I, I would go with that.

This feels as close as I've ever felt to Axe.

Like you were saying.

Wow.

Like go to another, go to another country.

Like, you know, I feel like I'm in a, I'm in a totally different culture.

Like they speak a different language.

They, the way that they say, talk about games and the way that they relate with people.

And it's just a totally different place.

And it just feels more like Axe because I'm actually engaging on a daily basis.

That's the hardest part I think for church, for church, for local church is, um, and you

know, we've said it till our faces blew, but like the one hour on Sunday, not that like

all churches do that and it's, they can do small groups and whatever.

But I am just like, so in these people's lives at this point.

Like I'm, I mean, you've seen how often I stream.

I stream like all the time.

I'm going to, I'm literally going, you know, off this stream or off of this and I get to

go stream and I'll be streaming till, till I can't, till I pass out, you know?

And, um, it's a podcast.

I want to drill in a little bit here.

Let's, let's, let's put numbers on this.

It's three o'clock in the afternoon Eastern.

Yeah.

You're good.

You're, I've seen you normally broadcast like around four or five in the afternoon.

For my time.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Four.

And, and, and, and I feel like I've seen you, you know, cause I don't sleep at night

two, three in the mornings.

Not, not that unusual to go that late.

Oh no, I, I almost always go two, two, three.

I, I set it as like 10 is my end, but then I consider it after hours after that.

And that's where we can just do whatever.

And so the goal is like that way people have an out where they can go to sleep.

I think what I'll probably start doing is I mean, well, I don't know.

We'll decide.

Anyway, I need to decide when I'm going to pray for people because I don't, I have a hard

time because I'll, I'll very regularly go 4 PM to 8 AM.

Like I won't, I won't go to sleep till 8 AM so that I, I sleep long enough that then

I wake up and that's time to stream again.

So for, for the last six months, I would say I really, it hasn't been hard for me, especially

cause COVID has been happening.

We're supposed to be quarantined anyway, but I've pretty much just like lived my life online

of like, let's just live stream all the time and whatever I'm doing.

And, um, like it, it makes it, I know that's not possible for a lot of people cause they

have families like, and I've just been like, Hey, you guys are my family.

Like we're, we're going to hang out.

We're going to chat.

And, um, I have a local family that I will sometimes say like, Hey stream, I'm going to

be late because I'm going to go hang out with my local family or I'm going to go get coffee

with my sisters or whatever, you know?

But for the most part, yeah.

Like I see these guys so often that I, I mean, it's, I did, I accidentally did a 24 hour

live stream one time cause I didn't realize what the time was.

And then I looked at it and was like, I've been live for 20, 20 hours.

I might as well do 24 at this point.

Just to like say that I did it, you know, like I'm live way, way a lot.

But I mean, that, that's amazing.

Just even the practicalness of it.

I mean, let's call it, call it eight hours a day.

You're spending eight hours a day, not working towards producing an event or a weekend service.

You're eight hours a day.

You're engaging in conversations with people, broadcasting, building relationships with people,

being involved in their lives in a community where they're wanting to be open and engaging

in those conversations.

And they're open to this idea of connecting to a, to a digital church, even to the point

that a Satanist is arguing and validating the fact that that just sounds weird.

Satanists is validating the church.

But at the end of the day, they, they, they, they're looking for something like that.

The idea of being part of a, a digital church community, the people you're reaching, that's

not a foreign concept.

They, they want that.

They're, they're, they're hungry for that.

That, that's encouraging to me.

Like whether or not physical churches today, lead pastors, old missiologists will validate

whether or not that's an expression or church or not.

I, you know, it's funny.

I'm, I'm caring less and less about trying to prove the existence as much as celebrating the

stories of what you just told me of a Satanist who's reconciling and trying to figure out

what she believes in as wanting to get involved with a digital expression of church to seek

to find some of those answers.

Like, like that's, you're the poster child, bro.

That, that's incredible.

Well, it just reminds me of like, when you say that, like, I'm trying less and less to,

to validate or to whatever, you know, I, I think the same way with like, you know, with

Jesus, they're like, yeah, it's like with the drunkards and like the tax collectors and

stuff.

And like, you know, I, I remember even like his, the people that are around him, apostles

being like, yo, that's not the right way to do that.

Like, if you do that, that's not going to be popular.

And like, don't, don't go, you know, pulling them aside.

Hey, you shouldn't say it that way.

Because if you say, you know, and it's like, get behind me, Satan, like, that's not, you

do not get what, you know, the goal is.

And, and so I feel the same way with this kind of now where like you're saying, I, whatever,

like if somebody wants to call it a, a, a mission, that's fine.

I would say, let's stop worrying about the like words and say, cause the words are what

was to worry about the why and like, why do churches exist?

Churches exist for the purpose of leading people, for discipleship, for growing, for hearing

from the word, for moving towards.

And if you think about like why churches exist, um, then look at those and go like, am I being

successful doing those things?

Because then I don't, you can call it whatever you want.

You could call it a Denny's.

I don't, I don't really care because if I'm doing it successfully, then you put whatever

name you want on it.

Like, um, and so that, that's like, there's the people, the people that I am trying to

reach, um, don't want to go to church anyway, was something that we talked about, I think

earlier is, so it's actually funny.

It might hurt me.

You might think that you're being like snide and like, it's not calling it a church and

it's not a church because your church needs to blah, blah, blah, or whatever.

I'm like, you don't realize that most of the people that I'm trying to reach, if I

called it a church, they wouldn't come.

Like you, the way that, the way that all the rules that you put on what church is actually

means they don't even want to be there.

It, it's more like, I'm just here to like reach people.

And if you want to call that a church, that's fine.

But if you don't want to call it a church, they probably didn't either.

And that's also okay because I'm still reaching them.

So it is, it is a, um, yeah, it can get, it can get hard because obviously, like you

mentioned, we've had a lot of people that have been kind of against in the past, um, some

of the things that we were doing, not even against it.

I think they were just against like calling it a church.

And I realized I didn't care.

Like I, like, I don't even need to call it a church.

It doesn't matter to me anymore.

So yeah, I, I don't, um, I'm fine calling it a church.

I think it is a church in that I think it's very, very close to what Acts is, um, describing

of a, of a group of people, koinonia, the idea of having people in close proximity who

are, um, engaging in all ways, giving as each other has need.

Um, that I'm getting, I'm on the receiving end of that for the first time where like

normally I would, I would give it to others as a need.

I'm now in need.

Like I live in a basement.

I don't have funds.

This is my only job.

And, um, there are people that are supporting me financially.

And, and that's like amazing.

It's the first time that that's happened.

We've mentioned before that I don't have a donation step for the first time I'm having

donations because I don't have a job and I'm doing this full time.

And I, I finally five years later, feel called to do that.

And, um, it's been cool to see people that are in the ministry, like people that are seeing

what's happening, seeing how I'm praying for Pings, seeing that people are coming to our

Bible study who, Bible discussion, eesh, Bible discussion, who would, um, who never would

have normally.

And they're like, I want to be a part of that.

And so they, um, are helping me financially.

Um, I, so far I'd say Twitch is paying for my, my meals.

It's like enough to kind of pay for like food and stuff like that.

And I still feel like I need to get another, um, like side hustle or something like that,

that can help if I want to ever move out of, uh, the basement that I'm living in, uh, as

cool as it is, you know?

So, um, that might be the case, but I'm, for now I'm, I just praise God that I'm able

to do what I'm doing and we'll do it for as long as we can.

So awesome.

Yes.

So, so much good here, by the way, in the show notes, we'll put links to, to Jade's website

information, things like this, you know, I'll, I'll, it's maybe a weird plug.

I don't know that I've ever done this on the podcast, but it's, it's into the year 2020.

If somebody out there is listening, it's like, Hey, I want to make an end of the year gift.

We'll, we'll, we'll put links to it in the show.

Give money to Jade, man.

Uh, he's, he's, he's living in his basement is, is, uh, you know, at, at the house and,

and he's got a really nice setup, but, uh, yeah, I mean, help, help, help a guy out.

Maybe there's an option to do something there.

So, uh, Hey, listen, this has been a great conversation.

Every time I talk with, like, it's, I love having the, you're probably one of my favorite

guests that we've had on just super relaxed.

Oh my gosh.

Oh, you know, I just, I'm feeling the love, man.

Just like deep down inside, or maybe that's the COVID cough I have.

I'm kidding.

I don't want COVID.

That was inappropriate.

I'm sorry.

Hey, um, let's, let's, let's do this to wrap up, man.

Like this is, this is just so golden in the show notes.

We'll go back and we'll include all the links to the previous conversations.

Like this is just such a, a rich ongoing conversation, seeing this digital expression of church.

I mean, I, I, I think literally get born on and through these conversations as you've, you

know, I think we were having conversations before you're even getting started and different

steps along the way.

So that's how I reached out to you originally is because I saw one of your blog posts.

I Googled, I think, online small groups.

Oh, my Google's activating when I said that.

Um, I Googled like online small groups and your thing popped up as like a, it wasn't a

podcast.

It was like a, just a post of that you had done with somebody and somebody was trying it

or something, this was before COVID for sure.

And I was like, Hey, I'm just curious, like, have, have they tried it again?

Is it working?

Is it whatever?

And then we, and then we started doing it and trying it.

And like, yeah, it's been, it's been a long, long time going since that.

So, yeah.

Love, love seeing it grow.

Love the fact that now you're multiplying and starting to challenge some others to, to

step up and, and grow into it.

And you've definitely have been a resource for others, even as I'm working with current

church planners that are getting started in this and having, telling some of your stories

and, and getting you connected, uh, with some of those, it's, it's, the future is, is

bright.

Uh, and so we're, we're literally paving the path right now, uh, for this stuff.

And so it's golden.

Hey man, just as we're, we're landing the plane here and any closing thoughts?

You have said it all.

You are, you are good.

There's always, there's always something else, but.

You leave everything on the table, bro.

You're like, you're like on the field.

You're done.

You've given it your all and you're ready to wrap.

So.

I'm open, I'm open to questions.

If anybody has questions.

Um, we'll, we'll put his contact info in as well.

And I will find, uh, I tell you what, send, send me, I'm sure I can find it.

But, uh, uh, if you've never watched the Twitch stream, um, watch him on Twitch.

Like we'll, we'll put the links in there.

Honestly, like I'm, once again, it's not my generation.

I don't know that I really understand what's going on.

Like I see, I think I see the game.

I see the chat.

I really don't understand why there's like 50 different Pokemon running around at the bottom

of the screen.

And one of them has my name on it.

I don't know what I'm supposed to do.

Uh, but it's, it's, it's intriguing to me.

And, and on top of that, just even the, the interface, but on top of that, it's intriguing.

Like, this is how that generation or those generations connect, engage.

That's how they have, like to use that as a front door.

As, as a 43 year old dad of two, I'm not like, there's no way I would, I would as a person

connect with this.

That being said, I can totally, whenever my kids see it running, daddy, what's that?

And they're enthralled with it.

Like they just, they're, they're watching it.

They want to watch it with me.

And, and one of, like one of them was funny.

My son was like, can I, can I chat with him?

And I didn't have it hooked up on the Apple TV.

And I was like, no, you can't right now.

He's like, he wants to get back into it.

So, um, you know, uh, my, my son may become your biggest, uh, biggest fan out there in,

uh, in, in Twitch.

So we'll include that information, but, you know, super, super excited about the road that

you're on.

Um, the lessons that you're learning.

And, and, uh, the, uh, you know, your opportunities, uh, that God has in store for you.

Love, love your heart, love your passion for following the spirit.

And, um, honestly, I've been praying for you.

We'll continue to pray for you specifically that God's got, uh, that God will keep driving

you and directing you as you're figuring out how to have these paths and connect with Satanists

and get them plugged into your, that's just so much.

Hey, so we're, we're going to wrap here.

Jay, man, thanks for jumping on this.

Love you, bro.

Uh, for Jade, this is Jeff with the church, digital and stadia church planning.

Thanks for joining us here for the pod.

And, uh, we'll see you next time on the show.

Y'all have a good day.