Pouring From an Empty Cup? | introducing TCD Care

Control-Alt-Redeem is for anyone called to ministry in the digital frontier. Gamers, streamers, and everyday believers navigating life online. Each episode equips you to live on mission and the real stories of lives being changed. Reset your expectations, reframe your mission, and redeem the space you're already in. This is where digital ministry gets practical, creative, grounded, and hopeful. One episode at a time.

control alt redeem where we are seeking to reset the culture and redeem the space we're trying to do all of those things and one of the things that takes place in the digital sphere whether you are in twitch or you're in another place is that there's a lot of things that are addictive there are a lot of things that are unhealthy and we need to talk about and think about care for ourselves and so i did put this in there because i know your your your twitch handle is sumi beat so

Sumi Beats is with us.

Stacey Knapp, it is so good to have you. It is great to call you a friend and to spend time with you. And so Stacey is going to be coming on. So I normally on my podcast spend two to three hours with a guest. We don't have that much time because we're participating in Blessing Boat. So if you do have questions, Stacey will do those at the end. So we're gonna try to cover what we are unveiling and all of you who are on stream, you're gonna be able to have a possibility of participating with this as well. So if you have some need for that, those kinds of things. So first Stacey, why don't you just introduce yourself to people?

hey okay so maybe i should clarify so sumi beats back to the day years back um i was a dj um mixing this old school i did not start out with a laptop i started out with vinyl records a mixer and turntables and took some classes And I loved it. I loved the community of it. Learned a lot about hip hop history and the roots of hip hop. And then just really gained a sense of community with people there. And to this day, so that was, I don't know, 15 years ago. And to this day, people are, I would consider, still consider each other friends and family, like forever family. um and uh yeah yeah and i'm noticing maybe or sue me to them but i don't even not even sure some of them know my legal name or government name legal name stacy um and that's because that's how we don't know each other is through our and it reminds me of the handles or you know in the digital space how you know may not know people's real names right you know their display name or what's presented on the screen. So, um, but yeah, I served with, uh, TCV, the church digital. That's how I met, uh, flat cap. How many, gosh, it feels like what, four years ago.

I think it's closer to five years ago.

Was it closer to five?

Yeah.

And we were under a different name back then. And I just got to know one another and have yet to meet in person. We've not met in person. I live in the West or Southwest of the United States. So we're not. close by and just had a connection because we both had a calling into the digital space and what that could be like. And at that point, it was not established like it is today. And for me, it was more of I was involved with a church that was strictly digital and got connected that way. And as time went on, I really had this calling and spark to connect fellow ministers or people who want to be missionaries or ministers within the digital space and um and i knew that we needed to have a community of care within that because i'd say some some parts even in person spaces that's missing as well and so um and when we talk about the ministering in that space i just to me it just whoever wants to be present in the digital space and whatever platform that is, whatever you choose. And I work full-time in human resources during the day, Monday through Friday, and then serve in TCD. However I can. Serving as a chaplain, but just being present to people. What are they facing? Life transitions. I may not be in the same life stages you or anyone else, but to be present, that is the calling. And I believe that's the calling of every Christ follower is to be present to others because I believe that's a way to love someone well.

Yeah, and one of the things, so I want to get into the why of what we're going to do. There is a reason, there is a problem, there is an ongoing thing, and one of the things that a lot of people talk about, and those of us who are on Twitch certainly have seen this, there is a dark side to the internet. and we don't always talk about it but it often leads to being burnt out i mean as streamers we talk about the grind of doing things it's a very common thing and people do get burned out and if you're doing ministry you get burned out and so when you're online there is this you know danger of being dragged into the nebulous of the darkness of it and so

how did those kinds of things that are out there lead to the decision that tcd was going to be launching tcd care now that decision really comes from within ourselves you know that yes we like to almost like demonize right the digital space and while there is the need the dark side of it the reality is like we have some things that we carry that are dark and so i sometimes i don't like saying it's fun to say it here is that sometimes we're bringing that with us the un the the not honoring sabbath whatever that is for you okay i'm not saying it has been sunday or saturday or whatever but you know or rest when um know come to me all your burden and i will give you rest some of us kind of forget that we kind of just pretend that doesn't exist for us and so we don't want to ignore that we have to care for ourselves as well because whatever we unattended hurt pain we carry that with us into space to wherever whoever we're serving and sometimes in chaplain school in my chocolate training we talk about this like that the wounds the wounds you carry the wounds you have uh prevents you from being fully present for someone else and um and that has to be a pause for you to make that decision listen yield to holy spirit who dwells within you and say Is this an opportunity to serve or do I need to stand down and ask one of my colleagues to step in?

Yeah, I'm really glad you brought that up. I wanted to make sure we touched on that because if you're not dealing with your own stuff, you can be spreading harm to other people. Can you give an example of how that can happen where we're not dealing with our own stuff? And so as we're trying to help other people, we actually could be causing harm for them.

yeah absolutely i'll give you an example for for me so um some people know me as a grief companion and a great companion to someone who's present to someone else's pain um loss whatever regardless if it could be someone that died but also be a friendship that died it could be something your pet dies um lose your job anyway um i've had situations or experiences where i have ex i've experienced loss Uh, I say it was, gosh, it was in 2020 when my grandma died. Now she died at 101. Okay. So I, we knew she was, she lived a full life. But sooner after, you know, some friends, not friends, but colleagues did not know that my grandma had just died. And I was asked, Hey, Stacy, can you talk to someone? Someone needs care. are you able to uh can i get them your number things like that you know and i i said you know what i'm gonna say no and this is why and i said like my grandma literally just died two days ago i am not in a space to be present for someone else so and they appreciated that and said great going on to the next resource you know kind of thing and so now there's a time in my life years and years ago where i said yes to every opportunity and i didn't pause i didn't know i didn't know what boundaries were i didn't know what margin was i didn't know any of that and so if they were at that time i represent christ And if I couldn't be present for someone, if I'm crying because I'm grieving or mourning outwardly expressing my grief while I'm trying to listen to someone else and say, whoa, that Stacey, whoever this person is who says she can help me, she's not helping me. And that is, I would say that is maybe a kind of entry level to the potential of pain that we could impose or put on other people but it could be even as great as what if you're going through just a burden that you're carrying and you and you feel like you want to help but you're trying to push your issues down. So, oh, I'm gonna push that down by helping others. And that never works, really.

Oh, no, it definitely does not.

Yeah, if you're not dealing with your stuff, you're not at your best. Like, you know, there's, and I don't wanna make this, you know, about you or me, but we have both been in ministry and we've seen people operating and we know they're not at their best. And we want them. to pause and step back. But there is that, if I can't help, if I don't step in, it won't happen. And there's that, like, I don't wanna say it's a hero syndrome, but there's a little bit of, we like to be needed and we know that we can help people. But you're right, we have to have boundaries. We have to be able to say, I can only do this. And learning to say no is a really, really good thing to learn to do.

it is it is hard but what was the life changer for me was that connecting with others who have gone through that and helping one another support one another and being able to say no you know there are there and i learned there are more responses and replies than just yes and no there could be can i get back to you in a couple days depending on the situation can i think about this you know this is this may not be the best time you know, there's a bunch of answers. And I think that's really important for us to think about. Like there is not, there's, it's not just yes or no. Well, exactly.

And some of it is also timing because I really wanted to jump in and be a part of TCD care and, and do that. And I was like, I can't, I don't have bandwidth. I'm doing, I'm doing the podcast and God is calling me to go in a different direction with some new ministry. And I was like, Okay. That would, that would be too much for me. I have to, and then I do love the level of, of where it is going with, this is not a superficial, hopefully this helps. It is, if you are ready for it, it's going to be intense. So can we just shift and talk about the, and, and, you know, bring in the, the program names and all of that stuff here on the, how it's designed to be. Cause I don't want people to step in and say, oh, I'm ready to do this when they're not.

you're ready to do what though right so we're going to share that here so tcd care is the is the arm of within tcd and then we have what we call the restore groups restore meaning restore us to this if you think about the bible restores the joy restoring to me the joy of your salvation, you know, God's salvation for us or restore us to the identity in Christ that we were meant to have. Restore us to the relationship. Restore us back to first love. And if you hear that scripture, restore us to, in recovery circles, they call it, restore us to sanity because we were continuing with the same habits, the same cycles. making no progress and so the restore groups that's what we're calling restore groups are groups where you specifically are working through issues now i say issues i'm not talking about alcohol and drugs yeah those are things definitely but we're talking about maybe maybe the habit of a coping mechanism maybe it's something maybe maybe you are putting in too much time into into doom scrolling like for me right now personally speaking i i kind of do the joy scrolling not doom so i look at you know cats and dogs getting along you know i love that right but sometimes that is a distraction for me to ignore the things that need to be attended to in my life so So people say, oh, you do scrolling. I said, well, I think it's just joy scrolling so that I just don't have to deal with the issues I need to work through. So Restore Groups, yeah, Restore Groups are, it's a weekly group that meets on, in a digital platform. And the first one actually that we're starting will be on Discord. That's where it's going to start. Now there will be, there might be others in the future because This is not just about Discord users for TCD. It's for different platforms.

Yeah, we've got a lot of internationals that Discord is too bulky of a platform.

Right, right, right.

With our leadership and who's going to be doing the groups, it's a convenient place for them to gather. So those of us on Twitch are going to be familiar. We're going to know that. Others who are listening to this and watching it later might go, what is Discord to begin with? So it's just a platform where people can gather and be able to be in community together.

thank you yeah thank you so much i'm glad we kind of make that clear and so for the restore groups we've partnered with a ministry called project exodus project exodus and they're based out of south africa and they had different different types of groups but the first one we're rolling out is thrive it's called thrive thrive curriculum and that is more of a mental health and life development course so leaders by the way the leaders in in thrive that are facilitating these groups we're not professionals meaning we're not we're not We're not even professional mental health professionals. But we've gone through extensive training through Project Exodus in order to be certified by them to be facilitators.

Yeah. All of the facilitators are going to be certified. So they have the trainings. It's pretty intensive.

It is intense. And honestly, even as I'm working through it now with the leaders, there's four of us leaders and we are in a group right now going through Thrive Curriculum. And we all, we rotate who's facilitating every week. And I've had to go back and study because it's been seven months since I finished the certification. So I'm revisiting it, looking at, okay, these are ways to, methods on how to facilitate. Yeah. And so the Thrive Curriculum is, it's not just focused on certain issues because the reality is the issues are coping mechanisms. going to go deep we're going underneath that and so some people might say okay that may that's maybe a bit much that's okay like i i i invite everyone to be part of it but if you're not ready man there's no judgment for me because there was a time where i was not ready and i said no not yet

Yeah, absolutely.

Go ahead.

Just to reframe that. Because I want to jump ahead to who it's for yet until we fully.

Oh, yeah, sure.

I know. Before we fully lay out. So you said you're meeting once a week. So how long are these groups ongoing for? And what's the level of things that you do during the group? How long do you meet for during that time? And what is the homework you need to do in between?

good all good questions so the whole so so thrive it's the thrive curriculum because we don't know how many people are going to be in each group it can be very i mean it could go from six to eight months and that sounds so long okay but we're gonna we go through there's a booklet and or not a book there's multiple booklets but each booklet will take a break you know in between maybe a week off or you know so so that we have time to even continue learning on our on our own but this is And I want to say this, too, is that though we say it's six to eight months, I gather it might be a little under that. And that's because we meet digitally, right? And so we're going to versus if you're in person, that can be a little longer. You're just more engaging and need to, you know, all this. But because I'm a big fan of starting at one time and ending at an hour and a half later. by the way that's how long that's the max hour and a half and i want to respect the time and i want to respect um each other you know in that because that's that's a big thing for for these groups is that we respect one another and respect that the stories that people share it's confidential there's agreements specific agreements that you say yes to within the group and the group structure and the integrity of the group Yeah, it is. We do our best, right? We do our best to keep things confidential. I can't control others to stick to the confidentiality, but that is what we will.

It is an absolute key. And those of us who are in digital ministry, it's not like it's new to digital ministry. It's always been a thing with groups. If people are breaking confidentiality, you break trust, the group breaks down, and you don't have any benefit or anything coming out of it. So it's just one of those things that we do want to say up front, because if you don't have that trust factor built in of confidentiality, how do I know I can actually trust this group with the things that I like? Sure, I can address my symptoms because you can see my symptoms. So if I have drinking, I have compulsive, I have whatever coping mechanism I'm using. Yeah, you can see that. But I don't know if I want to expose why I do that and the hurt I'm covering up unless I trust you. So confidentiality is the key to making sure that everyone can actually believe that they're going to be safe when they share what's really underneath.

absolutely yeah and it's an agreement you know we don't we don't we don't if you if you can't agree to those things then this group is not for you right i mean that's kind of how it is and that's part of like the onboarding to know okay this is it this is the agreement you read it you signed it it is for you to hold on to but it's a reminder and you know we have to to be honest with ourselves too like can i can i be part of this can i commit to this you know and we understand life happens right life happens situations if you can't make it kind of thing then you will the agreement is you will tell the facilitator in advance you know those kind of things you agree agree to for those groups but that it's really important for us to stick to and agree to that confidentiality and maintain a safe environment for for all of us yeah yeah yeah we i can't remember now that's how long it is and it's oh one and a half hours weekly yeah yeah i was asking like if there's something going on if there's events or something that you know like

Oh, yeah.

Your life is a holiday.

It's it's not this rigidness of things just just like any group is going to have some flexibility in their understanding. But but lack of communication and disappearing is not an effective way to be a part of a group.

that's right that's right that's right and remember too this is this is community right so we're going to nurture that and be part of the growth and transformation with each other this isn't just oh a group that we we're doing this by ourselves but within this group no we're we are supporting one another and together you know we're not going to tell their stories we're not going to tell other people each other's stories so that we can really provide a healthy culture.

Yeah. And providing a healthy culture is what's going to allow you to be able to get healthy of yourself. If you don't set up the environment and the culture to have those guidelines of safety and vulnerability at the same time, how can you be getting healthy if the environment you're trying to do in it is not healthy itself?

That's right. That's right. That's right. I mean, we're, we, we want to be present for others. We want to bring our most healthy self.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Exactly. We want to bring our healthy self and we want to get healthier ourselves.

Right. I know we kind of laugh about it, kind of chuckle about it, but that's true. You know, I, I, you know, I. I even tell, sometimes I even tell people, look, I have my own chaplains too, you know? Yes. I have a chaplain, but I have my own chaplain too.

Absolutely. Well, even if we just think about medicine, a doctor doesn't treat themselves. They go to a doctor. you know, a doctor with a, you know, a broken arm, how are they going to set their own arm? You know?

No, no.

Yeah. They need someone else. And so if you are a person who is doing ministry and you don't have to be a pastor, but you're doing ministry and you're trying to get better, like you need other people with you to help you be able to do that.

Amen.

So who would be ideal for this? And then I know there's going to be two groups that are starting. So there's going to be one men's group and one women's group. And we could talk about that in a minute. But ideally, who would be the ideal person to join one of our first two groups?

yeah these are people who are have a desire to be a minister minister when i say minister too i need to kind of clarify minister okay that's not let's say who someone has a title a pastor or doctor or you know all those titles but someone who wants who wants to make an impact in the digital space and when i say impact that that could mean that you're mentoring a few people or there's or you're a streamer you know that where you have how many followers like layton how many followers do you have on twitch i don't know uh 1500. there you go so it could be as big as that maybe even more maybe you are and maybe that you're just you're not just but you're ministering on zoom even that that that is your space that's your place that's where you have people well who are you connecting with well it could be it could be people that you're connecting with in person but then you have a weekly i don't know bible study or connecting group or affinity group something that you all do together can't remember who it was but like knitting groups someone does a new yeah they literally knit once a week on zoom and they just bring the projects and they're just chit chat and stuff like that it could be anything like that but anyone who wants to be to be light and in people's lives in digital spaces yeah

So really it's almost anybody who is going to have an impact or an influence and they are intentionally, and I know you said they're ministering to other people, but like you're just impacting other people. You are- who are trying to bring salt and light to them which is basically what jesus called all of us to be doing if we're followers of him right is to love our neighbor as ourself and so and you don't have to be the biggest person right now like you might just be getting started and thinking well i don't i don't have anybody i'm influencing yet could i go ahead and start maybe this is the thing that is what you need to be prepared for in order to launch the thing god is preparing in preparation absolutely and

hey, this place too, we really want to invite you and encourage you to be part of the TCD community. I'm not saying you have to be in there every day and posting in our TCD WhatsApp and Discord, but it's to say that's where you start with community. That's where you're going to start with people who... where you can really develop relationships with who are also in that space. Maybe you're just, cause a lot of people, it's just, just discovery at this point. It's discovery. What, who are, who are my people or who are the people I'm reaching or serving or where do I find, or where am I most comfortable sometimes like those are your people, you know? And so, but yeah, that that's the first encouragement. Yes. These restore groups are great, but the, First invitation is to join us in TCD, the Church Digital Spaces. So, and those of you who follow Flat Cap know. How do you not know?

Well, the lawyer was asking a question that's similar to what I wanted to address. He says, can we just add another 24 hours to my schedule?

Right.

It really goes to the how do you, if you're a busy person, commit to or explore, hey, okay, can I spend 90 minutes a week on taking care of my own soul?

I mean, 90 minutes. I know.

I know what I say. And it sounds like, are you kidding me? But it's a real concern that people are going to have.

It is. And I don't want to minimize that for sure. Boyd, is that who person's name? Boyer said that. Boyer. So it's like, I guess I do. I understand that for sure. I mean, I was a queen of saying yes to everything. I was involved with everything. This is 25, 30 years ago for me. But I think, not think, I know. So my invitation is discern that. Discern it. Pray. Think about, examine yourself. Take a look in the mirror and say, ask yourself, what's my sacrifice? Or is it moving some things to delay some things? So to do some inner work to bring your health, most healthy self. to serve others.

Yeah. Right. There's also the, everything costs us or requires us to give up something else. You know, if I wanna get healthier, I need to exercise. And if I'm gonna exercise, I need to find the time to do that. If I'm going to eat healthier and make better choices, I need to read labels. Oh my goodness, I gotta read what I'm gonna put inside my body? I mean, why would I wanna do that? Like I started doing that several years ago, totally surprised by things I had no expectation of. Like I grab a package of shredded cheese. What do I think's inside? Shredded cheese. No, there's a whole bunch of other stuff in there as well.

And I'm like, why are you putting other stuff in my shredded cheese? Like, why are you doing this?

Like, if you don't start to do something, everything ends up being a choice. So if you choose to do nothing different, you end up the same place you are.

or down the road where those choices are leading to and so if you want to end up someplace different you do need to make a choice to do something different that's right yeah and i i don't want to minimize that stress level like that's another thing i recognize that i i want to be sure that you know everyone that we're not saying well too bad then so sad oh well you know but it's just yeah we see that because I've had to make that decision and I am making and am now making that decision. just because of life stage right now and what I'm facing and experiencing. So yeah, there's some adjustments that need to be made. And please know this, when I said six to eight months, when life happens for you, if you need to pause, then you need to pause. There's no judgment from me. When you know your situation, you know your life better than I know your life. So if you need some... coaching to make that decision hey let's talk about that let's have that conversation so when when are the groups going to be started they're starting in april what what week of april yeah the week of the 13th um and so we haven't nailed down really that the day uh in time um i know one one will be on thursday the ladies by the way right there's a men's group and ladies group um uh the ladies will be on thursday evening i i because of the time zones uh pastor coco and i are gonna be cementing that uh nailing that down uh because that we're you know we're not in the same time zone so uh you know and we understand we understand if Someone that wants to be part of it, but it's not in the time zone, you know, preferred time zone. I get that. But that's the great thing. We are, our vision is to see multiple groups, right? That people will step up and say, I want to go through the training to be a facilitator of a group. And that could be on weekends. That could be. you know on the other side of the world right so that's how it is right now we have to start somewhere and that's us we're starting and then time zones that are working for it yeah and we only have yeah we only have two groups we're not going to be able to meet globally everybody's needs as we launch but but we're we're starting with these

solidifying the pattern and the rhythm and and making sure that it's a firm foundation for for TCD cares and for these restore groups instead of let's just do a whole bunch of them at once and hope it works out. You know, we're going to go slow and then multiply them as as we go forward. Can you speak to the reasons for having women's and men group men's group

Yeah, that's really a great question. Both in my own experience as being a participant of a group, but also as a facilitator of groups over the years, is that having mixed groups, gender groups, prevents people from being their most vulnerable self and honest self. And just to be open and honest, there's... people that have bad experiences and abused um by someone of the opposite gender both genders have had to happen and they just it's been really hard to be open and honest and so yes i think that In my experience, it is different. But for us in these groups, it's really important for us to provide a safe environment. And one of those values is for gender specific.

Yeah. And topics that might come up are going to be easier to talk about. That's right. You know, based on, well, I don't know if I can bring this up because will they understand? Will they not understand as you go into? Oh, gosh.

Yes. Yeah. I mean, just as we're talking about, my heart just breaks, you know, for people who. didn't feel they could talk to someone. And that's why even sometimes where we prefer, you know, if we're going to talk to a counselor or therapist, we prefer someone of the same gender.

You know, some people have that preference too.

So it's the same idea to be safe as much as possible, to provide a safe environment as much as possible.

Yeah. Warrior was just asking it, you know, married or single, there's no distinction there. Just male men, one men's group, one woman's group are going to be launching here as.

That's right. Yeah. Regardless, uh, married, single engaged living with someone. I mean, I don't please. Yeah. We, we, we can learn a lot from each other and different life phases.

Yeah, absolutely. And there is a time and a place for, you know, co-ed groups. These are designed for something very specific. And this is one of the things that helps people to be able to be vulnerable and to take the care that they need to and the steps within the groups to be able to get to that place.

to get to that place yeah it's the the aim is restoration healing hope restored you know hope restored and healing and we want to make sure we provide an environment for that outcome for those outcomes

yeah absolutely so if there are people interested and they're saying well i'm not sure on the eight months that sounds interesting but maybe i'm ready to so what would they need to do or who would they need to contact what would be next steps for them if they're listening to this live now or they're watching the this clip in the next couple of weeks before it launches and they go yeah i'm ready what steps do i take

to keep keep in touch with us too i don't if you're not already in the tcd discord please please join us in there also if some of you might prefer whatsapp we're in there as well but we're definitely building community there if anything start eat with that so that you can get a feel of what it's like to people to support one another what would that be like you know we we don't this is not oh we're just going to be a group on this one day and that's it and then ignore each other absolutely right we want to continue that that's not something that's um which is different some people in for in-person groups like this they may not be in contact with each other all the time they're just going to say okay see you next tuesday or see you you know whatever the next one and so um but with us and whatsapp and discord we want to continue a conversation it doesn't have to be related right to what you share or what you're going through

in the curriculum or in the uh the group itself but it's just to stay connected during the week yeah absolutely yeah the the asynchronous community those of us on twitch understand that of staying connected throughout the week when you're not in certain streamers you're still staying connected with those streamers when when they're not live and doing those things and really building community in those spaces so yeah and i i did and i I tried the church.digital slash TCD cares, TCD cares, cares or care. None of them work. So we will get, we will, by the time this hopefully goes live, we will, or I should say the recording goes out. We should hopefully have that all fixed and make sure that it's there.

Thank you. Good. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate you checking though. I just realized that when we were talking, I thought, oh. But yeah, no, that's the way. Or I, though I'm not on Twitch, if you're on Discord, I'm in there. Also WhatsApp as well. Or get connected with Black Cap and he'll connect you with me if you want to know more.

Right. Just thinking through that on the Discord side, that Pastor Coco and I were having conversations about getting that established and set up. And so in the next week, those will be there. I'm going to propose this and an interest. I'm interested in joining these groups. So you can just go into a channel and say, I'm interested in joining this group. That part would be open. The rest is going to be private because we want confidentiality. So people will be able to see that and make a request in there. So I'm going to do that. I know here's the form, and we can just share the form once we get the form ready and going.

Perfect.

But that would just be a place for people to go, hey, I'm interested, and I want to get some information. So we'll put a piece in there shortly for those who are interested. So if you're going to join over at the Discord channel, the Discord server, we'll put a place over there so that once you are there and you're looking for it, you'll be able to find it.

Great. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. And, you know, if you have even just questions about, you know, if there's want to know more or you're curious about, you know, maybe there's something that you ring a bell and you thought, oh, I'll ask later. Well, yeah, let me know.

I'll open it up to questions now. But before I before I do so, people can start putting their questions in the chat. And we've got Alexander who's on the Google call with us if he's got questions.

Yeah, Alexander.

But is there anything that we did not cover that you wanted to share, but we haven't brought it up yet?

So the name of the first restore group is Thrive. There will be others in the future. Thrive is a great place to start because it's deep, but it's general in nature, meaning it's not issue specific. There are products or groups with products. with our partnership with Project Exodus, that might be a better fit. There's one for pornography addiction. And that is something else, right? That's something different. So keep connected with us. So just this first restored group is Thrive. That's the name of the curriculum, Thrive.

Thank you. Thank you for that. Supersonic is asking, wait, is Thrive an acronym? Is Warrior of Light is asking?

It is not. It's not. Thrive just represents the, really the aim to live. know to thrive in life just like the scripture says so to calls to abundant life or to the full right and so we believe that's right they project x is that that's thrive is a good word that encapsulates yeah yeah yeah so just trying to play on what a what a person who is thriving would be and so if you want to be a person who's thriving uh you know and i was just thinking my wife

you know, worked in labor and delivery. And you would often talk about, you know, infants that passed away with failure to thrive. You know, they were not thriving. They had conditions and other things that caused them to not have an abundant and a full life. So, so thrive is just, it's just doing that play on the idea. So. Right. Supersonic.

And by the way, there's no, I want to make it clear too. We'd say thrive. That's not, it's not my stan stacy standard or project exodus standard of thrive right this is your path yes within this curriculum right so everyone is going to be the decider of what it looks like for them to be thriving yeah yeah yeah you would say you would evaluate yourself i didn't react as quickly this time than I did in the past. That's progress, movement, ride. So it varies. The big one I always talk about is my friend who said her victory. She shared in her victory in our group. She shared that she did not eat the whole pack of M&Ms that week.

Yeah. You celebrate the things that you are able to celebrate.

yeah for yourself because honestly those of us in those kind of care groups that probably is the last thing we tend to to talk about is the victories so it's it's our intention and project back to this intention that we keep things clear it's not just these coping mechanisms things that have hurt me hurt others no what did you do well And did you serve someone else well?

Yeah, it's very easy to not focus on the things you do well and to celebrate those and those moments and or to not do that with others as well.

Ooh, good one. Black cap, yes. Thank you.

Got some more questions. So Supersonic is asking, is this like an online celebrate recovery?

It's similar, I would say. It's similar. So full disclosure, I've been through Celebrate Recovery. I started Celebrate Recovery in 2009. a participant and have led groups since then step study groups it's very similar uh it i would say it is it is more a little more evidence-based scientific work in there um it's it and yes it's biblical biblical centric values but it is there are more technical things we talk through how our brains work how our behaviors how are they hurting us what where do we think those things came from all those things so it's very similar in that but we do not say we don't introduce ourselves as oh i struggle with fill in the blank right it is we share those as we go along but it's not part of our introductions that we do like in celebrate recovery right um so yeah that's very similar uh to be honest and we talk in and having support systems in place that's similar um so yeah there's a lot of similarities but difference that definitely there's some differences in there thanks um great great question thank you yeah and i knew that one would come up so thank you supersonic for for asking that yeah super slack thanks and uh warrior is asking what about cost what is the cost for participation great great question what is what is the overall cost Yeah, so there's going to be a monthly cost. We have not truly nailed down that amount, but I do not want cost to prevent anyone from joining. So what that means, though, is that we'll have to really come to the... We're almost there. We've had the conversations, but we haven't really nailed that down.

Yeah, we haven't nailed it down exactly what that's going to be. And some of it is... Going to be, but...

the overhead you know it's not it's not going to cost you know it might be a cost of a therapy session you know a month you know so i don't like i said i do not want that to prohibit anyone prevent anyone from joining a group but it does need to cost their and if you you know the reality is like if you don't have not paying for it you you may feel like you can come and go as you please but that's not how this works And we also, too, want this part of our ministry here to be self-sustaining and multiply, not for money's sake. Okay, it's transformed lives. It is thriving lives. And in order to do that, there is a cost, too. Yeah, when we talk about curriculum, by the way, that's going to be circulated digitally. So, you know, you can use it. you know, on your iPad, your, your mobile device.

Right. Which is, which is really important as we are going to be going global potentially. Yes. How do you ship things to other countries? How do you get, is it electronic? It's right in your inbox. You're able to access it through whatever links and be able to get it. So the barriers of access are really going to be minimal to, to having the access to the materials.

Yeah, it is literally the system for facilitator is that we release the books or the booklets. We release them when they're ready for the next one. You know, they get sent to your inbox. And so, and some people like me, old... All right, I'm going to let's say Google, but here it is. This is mine.

You printed it out.

I did. I totally printed it out.

You put it in a three-ring binder. I totally understand that. I get that.

Yeah, hole-punched it, the whole thing. And that's just the way I'm doing it and writing actual pen. Now, others in my group aren't. I think the other three are not. I think it's all digital for the other three in my group. They're using their stylus, you know? So I don't, I do prefer actual paper. Yes, yes, killing trees. I know people or someone say that to me.

Well, you know, trees are the most recycled resource that we have.

Thank you.

I mean, we do. We recycle. People do recycle paper more than anything else that they recycle.

So what's really cool, I know we're on a sidetrack, but I always have a sidetrack somewhere.

So there's this really cool ministry around where I live. It's just like I can't bring it to the town I'm in. I'm too far away. Called Paper Gator. So they put a recycling bin at your church or other school or whatever nonprofit entity and people dump their paper in there. And then you get a payment for all of the paper that gets recycled through that waste bin that's set in there for people to dump their paper. So I load mine up and I drive to my in-laws house and I go to their church and I dump it in theirs. But I couldn't get it to come to my town. So a little too far away.

Wow. Paper Gator.

Yep. Paper Gator.

Paper Gator.

Yeah.

Oh, my goodness. Where is this again? In Michigan?

It's in Michigan. Yeah. Yeah.

Michigan.

We did have, so we're just about time to wrap up, but PrePony, who we're going to raid to, came in and said, she's still setting up. She's got some last minute things. So we've got time to take. We don't have to wrap it up quite yet. So I did want to see if Alexander had any questions. He's been diligently listening in the Google meeting. And those who are here, if you do want to... hang out and ask stacy more questions you can go to thechurch.digital office if you have a few questions when we're done and want to go over there and then come back to the raid train you can do that so i'll just put that in the chat but alexander did you have any questions i am still ruminating on all that was shared and i am still coming up with possible questions Okay. Sure.

Sounds good.

Thanks, Alex. I just didn't want to ignore you sitting there because you weren't in the Twitch call with us. I appreciate it. Thanks, friend. And my buddy Supersonic is getting me to hydrate. He always loves to do that. My other channel.

That's good. I'm glad. I got to remind myself.

I do spa of tea. So this one's not one I have very often on stream. I am doing very berry tea today. Very berry. So it's a berry medley of different berries together. And it's very nice.

Oh, nice. So tea, is that loose leaf?

Always loose leaf. Yeah, you put it in a bag, it's just tea dust. I mean, come on. Yeah, I'm a tea snob.

That's fine. Oh, I figured. That's why I asked. No, that's good. I grew up with green tea in Japanese, and so we drank a lot of green tea growing up, and it was always loose leaf.

Oh, yeah, always, always loose leaf.

Always. I don't do green as often. I'll do green. Well, this is my second pot of the day, so I do the berry or I do blueberry, but I sometimes will do green as a second pot, never my first pot of the day. And usually once or twice a month on the weekends, I do matcha tea.

Oh.

so nice yeah i like matcha too i do too but i i get a little too rich with it because i i add a lot of cream or milk and oh oh gosh okay yeah yeah like i go a little bit like you know i'll do a matcha latte and so

Hey, no shame. Okay. Everyone has their preferences, but yeah, no, I like the straight up tea. That's it.

Oh yeah. Alexander Earl gray and English breakfast are my standard everyday tea. Like I, I drink a lot of that.

I love it. I love it. Hey, I mean, like I drink whatever it's like, I drink green tea. That's just in the bag, the dust, as you say. And then coffee, I drink Folgers, whatever.

No, how could you? Hey, that's the working man's coffee.

Thank you. Thank you. Alexander, my brother.

We'll try to come back to why we're here now.

Okay, fine.

I ran off the rails, and now I disagree with you, so I'm going to bring it back to.

In that case, forget it.

A warrior of light who is in Honduras is talking Honduran coffee, and I'm like, absolutely, that's what we need to be talking about.

All right. Supersonic. Great to see you and have you here.

So does anyone else have have other questions? And I like one of the things that I don't know if people have this question, but it alludes to or it connects with what Supersonic was talking about. Is this like another program? Well, the Church Digital. knows and has known for years that there have been issues. And we've tried to have conversations with other programs who are within the recovery world, the care world, wherever they are. And most of them did not even want to have a conversation with us. They were like, sure, we can tell you to get together in person. and that we already have groups so go find one that was the extent of most of those conversations and how they went so that was nervous yeah so i am so excited that we finally got to the point where we are ready to be able to start something and to move forward with that and to provide like i did not know we were going to be able to have this podcast and bring stacy on and talk about it and say hey streamers are you ready and i think some of the streamers are going to be ready Even though we have a lot of people in our community, I think we probably have 800 people in our Discord server already. And I don't know how many we have on WhatsApp, but there are more opportunities for people to join in.

got it yeah and it's not where you know it's not to say they they don't care or they don't but they have their format exactly and how they do things and they they're staying in their own lane right so that's good but we understand that digital space you know where some people say well it's not the same you know it's not the same as in person well no and it's not supposed to be the same

Right. Well, and on the other side of it, let me just share this because I have friends who are therapists. And one of the things that they discovered during COVID was that people were much more inclined to actually address what was going on in their life. earlier in their gathering instead of being uncomfortable in the office sitting there wasting time and then finally looking at the clock and said we've got 15 minutes left let me tell you what's really going on they start with a place of being comfortable and within five minutes they are actually addressing what's going on in life and it becomes more effective of them engaging with what's going on so Yeah, there is always a place for being in person and the next coming week I get to be in person with a whole bunch of people and my extrovert is going to be on high alert and excited and it's going to be ready to go. But I love being on here weekly with the podcast. I get exactly as excited about that as I do of being in person. It's just a different thing that I get to experience.

Right. Yeah, different. Thanks for sharing that, Leighton or Black Calf. I think that that is really important to establish from professionals.

Yes.

From a professional who said, well, you know what? We're not just sitting there in the awkward silence and trying to get to know each other and, you know. when they're bring when you have in in the virtual space or in digital space you're like okay i'm ready i'm ready i have my own drink in my hand my coffee my tea i'm in my own room office space know i'm not just i'm the type person that gets distracted by things they have on the walls so i get distracted by you know artwork or things like that yeah right right well see and that's not because i see you all the time there but but i think that that's can be you know on the first visit in-person visit so thanks that is that's a statement though that really is a statement yeah so i appreciate that

yeah and and it's like i said i mean i love being a person but not everybody can be and sometimes being a person is a barrier i mean if you're if you're trying to rush or rush to this group because you're meeting in person and the the dog vomited and the kids are beating each other up and your spouse didn't do something they said they were going to do and now you're going to show up like you're not being present probably either when you show up in person yes correct correct All right. I don't know how quickly pre-pony is going to be ready, but warrior, if we also, cause a blessing boat is giving away some stuff and there is a link to join that. I don't know if that's been in the chat for a while. I just want to plug that again and thank everybody who's been hanging out here. I mean, you've been hanging out here, listening to this. I know it's a little bit different from the norm of what happens on a blessing boat, but This is what I do on my channel. I bring on friends and we talk about what's going on in ministry. And so this is a little taste of how the podcast goes. Although usually it's another streamer that I have on the podcast. And Supersonic, thank you for telling me that TCD on Blessing Boat is cool. I appreciate that, friend.

love that that's so great oh man this is fun i'm learning so i'm excited about the blessing bow because i've only heard of it right i've heard it and all the advertisement for it you know in discord so but it's really exciting

Yeah, Blessing Boat is often open experimentation, and I usually push the experimentation for Blessing Boat. I've done this multiple times as I've done Blessing Boat. I did a preview of a movie that was going to be released. and they were trying to crowdfund it so i showed it on blessing boat to try to promote that for people to help crowdfund it i've done that with a video game that they were crowdfunding so it's like i'm i'm like all about hey boyer can i come and do this and so I was so thankful. And I really think this was a God moment that we had the conversation last week and said, hey, we could do this on the podcast. And I'm like, well, let's do it as soon as we can. And wait, Blessing Boat is happening. Could we be on Blessing Boat? So, Warrior, I appreciate you very much, friend. And thank you for giving us the time and the space to be able to be on here. And the one and only Creepy Pro is in the house. Thank you, friend. I love when you just come in. It's just so fun to say that.

That name.

Creepy Pro? The one and only Creepy Pro. Oh, sorry. Yeah, it's a full name. Yeah, it's like you took all that time to put that together.

I love it.

I know, I know. Warrior, let me know when Pre Pony is ready and we can rate out. I'm going to go ahead and get that queued up here. But if she's not ready, we can keep chatting.

Sure, sure, sure, sure.

Looks like she's doing repo. Your check with Pre. Thanks, Roman. Yeah, like I don't want her waiting if she's ready. But I do want to answer any more questions if people do have them. And also, everyone encourage Stacey at some point. She needs to get on Twitch as a DJ and get her equipment out. And it'd be an excuse for me to come to your house and help you get set up with it so you could do it.

come on it's not happening it's like long gone and sure i can i can beat match and like in my head i'll listen to songs i'm like oh i would you know mix this into that and oh that's you know word play and all that kind of fun stuff in the dj world but no that's not happening thanks though yeah

Warriors, do you want us to just raid out to Blessing Boat then? Romans, are you ready if we raid out to Blessing Boat? Omega is saying ukulele for worship needs to be the opening act for the DJ collab.

she and i have had the conversations about different things and we kind of laughed about oh yeah that would be fun and not so much my djing but with with her i just do i love it i love what she does and just it's it's inventive but it really is i mean the ukulele is how old you know as an instrument right it's an old but i love how using it a classic historical instrument can be utilized in a digital space it just i love that yeah i think it's beautiful i know it is it is really cool and and ukulele is also you know throwing me under the bus because for months and months and months i kept saying i'm not streaming

Quit telling me that I need to go stream. I'm not streaming. And now, like, okay, I have hours and hours and hours of streaming a week. So, you know, you never know what God's going to say yes to, you know.

That is true. You are right. So good. I love that. Thank you. That's fine. You know what? Yeah. It's because she's, it's too early. She, her life seems too early for me.

Well, for you. Yeah. You are Pacific time and she's East coast early.

Yeah. She's ready. Romans. Okay.

Then I will rate out. I don't want to keep pre rating, waiting and. I know we've done it both ways of going back and forth to Blessing Boat in between. Yeah. And we're going to Pre. But, Romans, I know you were asking for breaks earlier today. So we'll just go straight over to Pre so she's not waiting. And another stop in between.

You call it Pre? Well, it's Pre Pony. Pre-pony.

Pre-pony, yeah.

Pre-pony.

Oh, that's cute. So we're going to go right over to pre-pony. And if you want to hang out and ask more questions of Stacey, you can jump in with the church.digital slash office. I put that in earlier. Supersonic's over there along with Alexander. And you can ask any more questions off screen so you don't have to be heard or seen or anything. But otherwise, we're going to go over and we're going to bless. Thank you. Thank you, everyone, for hanging out with the podcast today and BlessingVote. And make sure you all give Warrior of Light a shout out and watch him when he's not running the BlessingVote. Same with Romans 10, 14 XP.